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  <row Id="1" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5376" CreationDate="2011-12-13T20:56:16.350" Score="22" ViewCount="2766" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I get better at reading handwriting? Are there fonts that look like it, or web sites with examples for practice? Are there some common shortcuts that people take when writing by hand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T06:40:17.993" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T06:40:17.993" Title="How can I get better at reading handwriting?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;reading&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="66" CreationDate="2011-12-13T20:56:28.777" Score="53" ViewCount="9630" Body="&lt;p&gt;做 and 作 are both translated as &amp;quot;to do&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;to make.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I tell when I should use one or the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T13:52:20.927" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T13:52:20.927" Title="What is the difference between 做 and 作?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:04:00.050" Score="23" ViewCount="2665" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to build some automated tools for processing Chinese text. I'd like to know the relative frequencies of different characters and character combinations. Are there any web sites with this data that I can download?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2011-12-13T21:23:39.237" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:49:37.487" Title="Character and word frequencies" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:05:52.293" Score="29" ViewCount="2929" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any recommended resources or methodologies to improve ones Chinese pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides having a native speaker at your disposal, are there any tools that can help to correct pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-11T05:24:14.597" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:48:22.880" Title="Techniques for improving pronunciation" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:06:00.123" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://technology.chtsai.org/&quot;&gt;Chih-Hao Tsai&lt;/a&gt; has published a bunch of useful resources like this. I've used the &lt;a href=&quot;http://technology.chtsai.org/charfreq/&quot;&gt;character frequency&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://technology.chtsai.org/wordlist/&quot;&gt;phrase frequency&lt;/a&gt; lists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T21:06:00.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:12:54.263" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could be totally off-base on this, because my Chinese experience is colloquial Cantonese in Hong Kong, but here's my $0.02.  Generally from my experience, 作 is used in situations where you're doing something that has an end and an output, such as the Cantonese phrase 作准备.  做 seems to be used for things that are more ongoing, such as 做工作.  Please somebody come along and correct me if this is wrong, because I'd like to know the answer to this as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="26" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T21:12:54.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:14:40.733" Score="10" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;p&gt;Standard dictionaries have had a profound effect on languages like English. They've helped normalize spelling and pronunciation and provide reference for meanings and disambiguation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When thinking of English dictionaries, Oxford and Merriam-Webster immediately come to mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Are there standard, popular dictionaries for Mandarin and Cantonese?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T10:29:20.190" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T15:27:05.107" Title="Are there standard dictionaries for Chinese?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-08-26T23:59:17.543" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-14T14:39:29.993" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:28:30.377" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;a good way to improve pronunciation is to listen to natives speak. And when you don't have such a thing at your disposal, you can fall back on TV shows, news, radio, etc. This will get you used to hearing natives speaking so that you will learn to know the difference between what is pronounced right and what isn't. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you also need to practice. An easy way is to have some recorded show, audio of a native speaking that you can practice with. Just listen to what they say, pause and recite it. You should also record how you sound like so you can do a full comparison later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for tools, there probably are some programs out there that does this for you. But it's not that difficult to do it on your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="32" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T21:28:30.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="111" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:30:39.950" Score="8" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我跟朋友去公园了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我和朋友去公园了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are both of these sentences correct? Are there any subtle differences in the meaning conveyed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they are not entirely interchangeable, how do we know which one to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:55:09.650" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T09:04:55.477" Title="Are there sentences where 跟 and 和 are interchangeable?" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:37:34.283" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. For Mandarin (Simplified Chinese):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://book.douban.com/subject/1082272/&quot;&gt;The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; (现代汉语词典): This one is for words and phrases. They have a version in both Chinese and English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://book.douban.com/subject/1133158/&quot;&gt;Xinhua Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; (新华字典): this is for Chinese characters. Also available in both English and Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not too familiar with traditional dictionaries. But 國語日報辭典 seems pretty popular from googling around. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15" LastEditorUserId="8" LastEditDate="2011-12-13T21:47:03.863" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T21:47:03.863" CommentCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-14T14:39:29.993" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:37:40.073" Score="22" ViewCount="1276" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I wanted to translate the prepositional phrase &quot;on the bed&quot; to Chinese, I know to say &quot;床上&quot;, but I don't know what the translation would be for saying &quot;above/over the bed&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I can gather, 上 is used for both &quot;on&quot; and &quot;over&quot;. Is there another word that removes the ambiguity, or some modifier?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="37" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T16:27:50.117" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T21:50:08.813" Title="How to differentiate between &quot;On Top&quot; and &quot;Above&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:43:34.197" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For beginner level:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have some children's textbooks with short stories / poems (around 20 - 50 characters). Chinese children in years 1/2 spend time practicing by reciting these short stories until they get them perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of the first lesson from the school text book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一片一片又一片，两片三片四五片，六片七片八九片，香山红叶红满天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yīpiàn yīpiàn yòu yīpiàn, liǎng piàn sān piàn sìwǔ piàn, liù piàn qī piàn bājiǔ piàn, XiāngShān hóngyè hóng mǎn tiān&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try reciting these until you get fast and clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something else that worked for me was listening to music. You can easily get songs with lyrics from the Internet. Aim for pop songs where the singer has clear pronunciation.  Then practice singing along.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For intermediate level:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest regularly practicing reading aloud. This may sound overly simplistic, but if you get a book that has pinyin so that you can read at a reasonable pace without getting too caught up in the meaning. This will help you exercise your mouth and will improve your pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For advanced level:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try searching the net for some Chinese tongue twisters like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃葡萄不吐葡萄皮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chī pútáo bù tǔ pútáo pí&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:55:07.497" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:44:16.147" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you tried practicing with tongue twisters (绕口令)?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They can help with both listening and pronunciation. Repetition is really the only way to go if you want to master pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few to try: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(My personal favorite.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吃葡萄不吐葡萄皮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不吃葡萄倒吐葡萄皮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;四是四&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;十是十&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;十四是十四&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;四十是四十&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;四十四是四十四&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;四十四隻石獅子是死的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老师是四十四，是不是？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;梨和泥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;樹上有梨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;地上有泥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;風刮梨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;梨落地 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;梨滾泥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;泥沾梨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扁擔長&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;板凳寬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扁擔比板凳長&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;板凳比扁擔寬 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扁擔綁在了板凳上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;板凳不讓扁擔綁在板凳上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扁擔非要綁在板凳上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For practicing Cantonese, try this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;白石白又滑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;搬來白石搭白塔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;白石塔白石搭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;白石搭白塔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;搭好白石塔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;白塔白又滑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pronunciation (wasn't sure how to format this):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;baak6 sek6 baak6 jau6 waat6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;bun1 loi4 baak6 sek6 daap2 baak6 t'aap2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;baak6 sek6 t'aap2 baak6 sek6 daap2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;baak6 sek6 daap2 baak6 t'aap2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;daap2 hou5 baak6 sek6 t'aap2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;baak6 t'aap3 baak6 jau6 waat6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2011-12-13T21:56:51.570" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T21:56:51.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:44:29.063" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing that helped me was to not focus too much on individual characters and their tones. On learning material they tend to be a little over-pronounced, and when I practiced I would overemphasize things even more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By focusing on phrases instead of syllables I was able to make my speech more natural. Also listened to some native speakers instead of relying too much on learning materials. Repeat any phrases you recognize while listening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely it can be helpful to just go through the bo po mo fo alphabet repeatedly to get the different consonants into your head. Many of them blend together for me. For example, distinguishing between a zh and j, or remembering the difference between zou and zuo, took quite a bit of practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19" LastEditorUserId="19" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T16:35:36.703" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T16:35:36.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:47:33.207" Score="8" ViewCount="498" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know how to use 和 to link one or more nouns or noun phrases, but in this sentence I don't understand what purpose does it serve at the beginning of the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;和西方人过圣诞节差不多，这是一个全家团聚的节日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This sentence is from a text about 春节)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T00:28:15.820" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T00:28:15.820" Title="What is 和 used for in 和西方人过圣诞节差不多，这是一个全家团聚的节日?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="43" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:51:39.770" Score="33" ViewCount="3247" Body="&lt;p&gt;I struggle a bit to get my head around tenses in Mandarin, and in particular when I need to use 了 (le).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have any tips, examples or resources to help me out with this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:27:59.163" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T21:43:45.083" Title="Tense and use of 了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:51:50.683" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been able to purchase in China books that have different styles of handwriting including shortcuts. They also have a layer of thin paper over the top of each page so you can trace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also look for books that show common characters written in different styles from print, traditional to script etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not something you will be taught unless you pay someone to go through with you, as it's not commonly taught in classes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T03:45:53.720" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T03:45:53.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:54:55.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to translate the 和 in this sentence is using &quot;how&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence roughly translates to &quot;Spring festival is similar to how Westerners spend Christmas, this is a festival where the whole family gets together.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this is more of a contextual translation. 和 should be closer to &quot;with&quot; but it doesn't make exact sense to say Spring festival is similar to being with Westerners at Christmas...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally you would see something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;和西方人一起吃饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Eating with Westerners&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;和西方人过圣诞节&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Spend Christmas with Westerners&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:55:21.367" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:55:21.367" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:56:13.693" Score="12" ViewCount="14600" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I first started learning Chinese I knew the in order to say &quot;Nice to meet you&quot; or &quot;Pleased to meet you,&quot; I had to use the following expression:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很高兴见到您。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But recently I've come across other expressions to say the same thing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;认识你，我很高兴。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;很高兴认识你。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are the following: Are there any differences in style and &quot;situation&quot; between those two? Which ones is used when? And finally, are there other expressions to express the same thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T13:36:19.277" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T13:36:19.277" Title="Various ways to say &quot;nice to meet you&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:56:43.583" Score="15" ViewCount="1851" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if Chinese children's books might be a good starting place for adult Chinese language newbies (regardless of whether it be Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, whatever), in particular for westerners whom the Chinese language is completely different from their own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this sound like a good starting point, or are adult brains simply not wired that way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T06:59:37.053" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T06:59:37.053" Title="Are children's books a good starting place for beginners?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3" CreationDate="2011-12-13T21:59:01.787" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Unihan standard contains the &lt;strong&gt;kFrequency&lt;/strong&gt; field. This fields gives you a general idea of how frequent the character shows up. This data and other data gets aggregated from scholarly sources which the standard discloses in its notes. Note, Unihan will also contain the Korean and Japanese variants in use. As far as I know, it does not have data for character combinations. Some of the other answers point to resources that does have that data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/charts/unihan.html&quot;&gt;http://www.unicode.org/charts/unihan.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr38/#AlphabeticalListing&quot;&gt;http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr38/#AlphabeticalListing&lt;/a&gt; and search for field, &lt;strong&gt;kFrequency&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have prepared Unihan 5.1.0 into a sqlite database a couple years ago, here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://guwen.hiddenstorehouse.com/&quot;&gt;http://guwen.hiddenstorehouse.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The current version is Unihan 6.0 and I have not processed it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastEditorUserId="45" LastEditDate="2011-12-13T22:04:49.477" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:04:49.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:00:41.397" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here the use of 和 and 差不多 is similar to the phrasing &quot;Like how&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Like how Westerners celebrate Christmas, this [Chinese New Year] is a holiday when the entire family gets together.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:00:41.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="37" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:03:07.380" Score="21" ViewCount="832" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read that when asked the simple question 你好吗? (&quot;How are you?&quot;), answering 我很好 is the standard form, while 我好 is simply not used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很 means &quot;very&quot;, but 我很好 is simply translated as &quot;I'm fine.&quot; and &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;I'm very fine&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if I want to say &quot;I feel very good/I'm very fine&quot;, what should I say? Should I duplicate 很 or use another expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T13:13:02.083" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T13:13:02.083" Title="How should I say &quot;I feel very good/I'm very fine&quot; in response to 你好吗?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:04:27.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Xinhua Dictionary is kind of a gold-standard for Chinese dictionaries, similar to the place Merriam-Webster holds in the English-speaking world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:04:27.853" CommentCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-14T14:39:29.993" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:05:01.837" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jun Da has published character frequency, bigram and phoneme frequency lists &lt;a href=&quot;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used the character and bigram frequency lists for my final degree project, creating an application to allow for input of handwritten Chinese using neural networks combined with other techniques. Very helpful they were too :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested, bigrams are groups of two characters. For example,&lt;code&gt;一个&lt;/code&gt; has a high frequency of occurence in Jun Da's data, as &lt;code&gt;个&lt;/code&gt; often follows &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt;. Along with the character frequencies, I loaded the bigram data into a database and used it as part of an algorithm that was used to suggest the next character as a user drew characters with a mouse or stylus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="42" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T09:21:51.740" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T09:21:51.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:07:16.947" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is one main difference between children's books and adult foreign textbooks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adult foreign textbooks are designed to give foreigners the best chance to communicate in simple everyday circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Children's books start with the very basics and require longer to get to the same place, however they provide you a much more solid base and a far wider range of knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it depends on your aims. But if you are in for the long haul: I started with foreign language books and after a year was handed a set of Chinese primary school books. This gave me a huge benefit when going to the next level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:55:23.877" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:55:23.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:11:12.547" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;above/over the bed&quot; can be translated as &quot;在床的上面&quot; or &quot;在床的上方&quot; without any ambiguity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="31" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:11:12.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:15:18.457" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很高兴见到您。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means glad to see you. It's usually used if you know (or heard of) someone for a long time, but haven't seen him/her for sometime(first time in case of heard of). For example, you would use 很高兴见到您 to greet someone you know from the internet. It's a bit weird to say 很高兴见到您 to someone you know very well or see everyday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's the first time you meet/know someone, I think &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;认识你，我很高兴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is more suitable, which means I'm glad to know(meet) you.&#xA;you can also say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我很高兴认识你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;same meaning as above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can also say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;幸会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means &quot;glad to meet you&quot;, and is usually used when the first time you meet someone. Usually it's used twice together, so you would say 幸会,幸会 rather than just one 幸会.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;久仰大名&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means &quot;I've heard about you for a long time&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;见到您感到很荣幸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means &quot;It's an honor to meet(see) you&quot;. Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;认识您感到很荣幸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means &quot;It's an honor to know you.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;初次见面,请多关照&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's originally from Japanese and often used in Taiwan. It means &quot;It's the first time meeting you, please be kind.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="47" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T10:39:42.250" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T10:39:42.250" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="50" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:15:29.137" Score="19" ViewCount="3246" Body="&lt;p&gt;Living in Utah, I find it quite difficult to find places to practice speaking Chinese, especially Cantonese.  Apart from accosting people in stores and other public places when I happen to hear them speaking Chinese and bugging servers in Chinese restaurants, the only other Chinese I get is to try and hone my (admittedly very poor) Mandarin with a couple of my coworkers.  Where do you folks go to get practice speaking Chinese?  Is there somewhere I can find others in my area with whom to practice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="26" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T07:00:29.420" Title="Where to practice speaking Chinese?" Tags="&lt;practice&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-07-25T22:45:11.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="30" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:15:38.373" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both sentences are grammatically correct and almost the same in meaning.  Speaking of the slight difference, the first sentence (跟) is more of an oral language while the second (和) is kind of formal or written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="31" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:15:38.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="31" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="86" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:15:41.617" Score="25" ViewCount="8071" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best way for me to type pinyin using a keyboard on Windows?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried the built-in IMEs, but... they don't feel very intuitive to me. For example, if I want to get &lt;code&gt;wǔ&lt;/code&gt;, I need to type &lt;code&gt;wu&lt;/code&gt;, then select from a list of possible options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, I'd like to type something like &lt;code&gt;wu3&lt;/code&gt; to get &lt;code&gt;wǔ&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anything built in to Windows to allow that? Or are there any suggestions for applications to let me input pinyin like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="218" LastEditDate="2012-01-06T21:32:47.077" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T15:53:02.783" Title="Chinese input on Windows based on pinyin and tones" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="32" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:18:12.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;@StarCub pretty much covers it, so I'll just add:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看到你我很开心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'm so happy to see you&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another one which is quite common, but doesn't have the same meaning as your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好久不见了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Long time no see!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T09:03:51.280" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T09:03:51.280" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="33" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:18:16.480" Score="5" ViewCount="3185" Body="&lt;p&gt;What options are available for input of simplified Chinese on Windows computers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to draw characters using a mouse or stylus, or perhaps input using speech recognition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="42" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T12:51:28.863" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T04:24:04.273" Title="Input of Simplified Chinese on Windows" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="34" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:19:24.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could use 非常好 - 非常 is simply a modifier to take an adjective to the extreme, and 非常好 is a fairly common phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="26" LastEditorUserId="26" LastEditDate="2011-12-13T22:39:34.190" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:39:34.190" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="35" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:19:38.007" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this site, robrohan.com, that has &lt;a href=&quot;http://robrohan.com/2007/02/11/typing-pinyin-on-windows/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a page&lt;/a&gt; with a tutorial on how to set and use an application that remaps your keyboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also this question on Superuser SE, &lt;em&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://superuser.com/questions/27743/how-to-type-pinyin-text-with-tone-marks-in-windows&quot;&gt;How to type pinyin text with tone marks in Windows?&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, there are various resources in the answers, especially the main one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-20T10:18:35.557" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:19:38.007" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="36" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="55" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:24:21.073" Score="49" ViewCount="21046" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many Chinese characters would I generally need to learn to be able to handle most text in typical every day circumstances?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How many would be required to be considered fluent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any good resources for learning the most commonly used characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T10:37:07.340" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:51:25.960" Title="How many characters do I need to learn?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="26" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="37" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:24:50.917" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is &quot;我非常好&quot; I'm extremely well, or I'm extremely good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also &quot;我非常开心&quot; I'm extremely happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe if you want to aim for something a little more subtle you could try &quot;我很开心&quot; I'm very happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are mentioning that you are this &quot;good&quot; you will likely be asked for an explanation!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2011-12-13T22:30:16.670" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:30:16.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="38" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:24:56.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_input_methods_for_computers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a nice Wikipedia article outlines Chinese input methods&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using a keyboard, the most popular ones are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_input_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PinYin&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wubi&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can also use a drawing pad to draw characters using mouse or stylus. It's called &quot;写字板&quot; or &quot;手写板&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:24:56.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="39" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:29:08.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The particle 了 (le) suggests a completed action. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃饭了 (chi fan le), finished eating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="12100" LastEditDate="2015-11-12T21:02:11.407" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T21:02:11.407" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="40" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:30:00.223" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the OS you're in. On &lt;a href=&quot;http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/Search/Search?SearchTerm=chinese&amp;amp;CurrentScope.ForumName=Windows&amp;amp;CurrentScope.Filter=windows_7-desktop&amp;amp;askingquestion=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;answers.microsoft.com&lt;/a&gt; I searched chinese and you can see the solutions for each OS from Microsoft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for completeness, let me add also a quick guide for the Mac OS X. You do the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go to &lt;em&gt;System Preferences&lt;/em&gt; (you can reach it in the menu by clicking on the apple symbol on the top-left side);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click on &quot;Language and Text&quot; or something similar, it has a flag icon;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click on the &quot;Input source&quot; tab;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Scroll down until you see &quot;Chinese - Simplified&quot; or &quot;Chinese - Traditional&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select the input type you desire;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can select the language input by clicking on the Flag on the top bar, near the time and the battery level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now open a document. If you selected the &quot;pinyin input&quot; type, which is the most used (sometimes the only one available) and the easiest one, then you can type the &quot;alphabetical&quot; version of the characters, which is called &lt;strong&gt;pinyin&lt;/strong&gt;, indeed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you wanna write &quot;你好&quot;, type &quot;nihao&quot;. A menu will &quot;open&quot;. To select one of the choices, click on the number that corresponds to the expression you wish to write and voilà. Below you'll see the menu I was talking about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MKf4P.png&quot; alt=&quot;screenshot pinyin chinese&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By clicking one, I choose to write the two characters that correspond to &quot;nihao&quot; which mean &quot;hello&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the Mac it is also possible to draw using the trackpad or an external graphic tablet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tzJnY.png&quot; alt=&quot;screenshot trackpad&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was done like the video showed in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4288&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Apple support page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T14:30:34.507" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T14:30:34.507" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="41" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:30:21.047" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0asDB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;You can use the Tablet PC Input Panel (whether you are on a tablet pc or not) by right clicking the taskbar, hovering over the toolbars submenu and checking tablet pc input panel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that option isnt available, you may need to install it by going to Control Panel -&gt; Programs and Features -&gt; Turn windows features on or off and checking tablet pc components&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tablet pc input panel allows you to draw characters (english or chinese depending on what the current input language is set as) using the mouse or, if you have one, a touch screen or drawing tablet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to type your characters using Pinyin, then you can use the microsoft pinyin IME installable through Control panel -&gt; region and language -&gt; keyboard and languages&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="53" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:30:21.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="42" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:32:05.660" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on my experience, about 2000 characters will give you command of most texts. Perhaps 4,000 will make you fluent. For the first 2,000, I recommend, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0982232403&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Characters: Learn &amp;amp; Remember 2,178 Characters and Their Meanings&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:50:43.473" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:50:43.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="43" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:34:18.777" Score="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually 了 is used to indicate past tense (or the completion of). Such as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了 is added to the end of the sentence that change the statement to past tense. You can add 过 before 了 to add emphasis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;E.g., 我吃了 (I ate) vs. 我吃过了 (I have (already) eaten.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but 了 may be used for different reasons, some of which have nothing to do with past tense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With imperatives, it adds urgency: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;走了, 走了 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Let's) go, (let's) go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, a negative imperative becomes a warning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别说话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Keep quiet.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别说话了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(I'm warning you [to]) stop talking!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With certain modifiers you can use 了 to indicate future tense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天就要下雨了（it's raining soon)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 要 (an auxiliary verb) indicates future tense, by implying the sense of &quot;going to do (something).&quot; 會 is another auxiliary verb that does the same thing, but in the sense of &quot;intending to do (something).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 when used after an adjective or noun, conveys the meaning &quot;has become&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我餓 (I'm hungry)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我餓了 (I became hungry)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 了 expresses a clear (change of) state.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 can also be used to express excessiveness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;太 + (stative verb/adjective/noun) + 了. E.g., 太冷了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(stative verb/adjective/noun) + 极了. E.g., 热极了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;可 + (stative verb/adjective/noun) + 了. E.g., 可难了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太 can be used without 了.  If omitted, the tone can sound rather rough.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T14:05:51.473" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T14:05:51.473" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="44" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="49" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:34:23.430" Score="28" ViewCount="106646" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I tell people I speak Cantonese I'm often asked, &quot;What's the difference between that and Mandarin?&quot;.  This inevitably leads to a very poor explanation that includes references to the differences between Portugese and Spanish (which I feel is a poor analogy) and an explanation that Cantonese is a spoken dialect only, and &quot;written Chinese is the same but Cantonese speakers pronounce the characters differently, but they don't even use the same words when speaking&quot;, and really I find it a difficult thing to explain.  How would you explain the differences between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="26" LastActivityDate="2013-08-17T14:48:22.737" Title="How to describe differences between Cantonese and Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="45" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:34:46.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A literal meaning of 和 is &quot;with.&quot; But here, the context is not a literal with. It's more like &quot;similar to.&quot; That could be &quot;with&quot; in a figurative sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:34:46.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="46" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:35:39.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only place that comes to my mind is looking for an international penpal, getting to know each other and using a chatting service that allows you two to call using a webcam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That way you can also &quot;choose&quot; a Cantonese speaker, and considering those sites, also with similar interests that you have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:35:39.957" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-07-25T22:45:11.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="47" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:39:40.700" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned Chinese through children's books as a child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've suffered from NOT using children's books in other languages. What has happened in those languages is that I've learned a lot of &quot;technical&quot; terms, and can hold my own in &quot;advanced&quot; discussions. Then I trip over some grammar point or some every day phrase that every 10-year old native speaker knows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, I'd recommend children's books for most adults.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:39:40.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="48" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="58" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:41:21.090" Score="14" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any way to know what a character's pronunciation or tone is, based on the strokes or radicals that make up the characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T15:53:06.590" LastActivityDate="2021-04-28T12:45:46.670" Title="Character Pronunciation Clues" Tags="&lt;reading&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="49" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="44" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:41:31.773" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the most part both dialects use the same words and phrases (primarily with differences in slang terms).  While some phrases are used more frequently in one dialect than another to express the same idea, the meanings are preserved across dialects (they don't mean different things, just people who use one dialect may prefer one saying to another).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of vocabulary, the written words are identical (although a lot of written Cantonese-Chinese continues to use the traditional Chinese characters).  The primary difference is in pronunciation, where Cantonese is usually referred to as having 6 tones and Mandarin 4.  Also, some of the words are just said differently between the dialects, similarly to how American English may differ from British English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="53" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:41:31.773" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="50" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:42:20.707" Score="13" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Search online to try and find sites that provide language exchange. These are a good opportunity to have regular lessons and give at the same time as receiving.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Try and find or organise meet-ups in your area. I know a friend who is learning at the moment and he catches up every Saturday morning with about 3 or 4 others. This was organised by putting up a couple of posters at a local colleges that teaches different languages to adults.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Young Chinese people like to do a kind of &quot;chat roulette&quot; on Skype and QQ. I don't know specific details, but if you are brave!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you have a China town district sit on a bench and wait. This may sound impractical, but it all depends on your area. Our local shopping district has a high Chinese population and a limited number of public chairs/tables. I can often find someone to chat to while my wife goes to buy meat.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you live close to a university you will find they have societies and other social groups which have a high number of overseas students such as &quot;Chinese student friendship association&quot; or something similar. Try and get connected with students via your local campus. There are plenty of students looking to share and make friends.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Attend Chinese community social activities. Tree planting, New Years celebrations whatever.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:42:20.707" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-07-25T22:45:11.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="51" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="154" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:42:21.923" Score="12" ViewCount="2292" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that classical Chinese (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;see Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;) was very different from spoken Chinese (at least in the last centuries of its usage). Nevertheless, despite or maybe even because of this, it was used to write more languages than just Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Three questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What languages have been written with it? (I know about Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why was this possible? These languages are not only spoken differently, they have different grammar (or don't they).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Currently, if a foreigner wants to learn Classical Chinese, (in all cases known to me) he is asked to learn current spoken Chinese first. After pondering the first two questions - shouldn't it be possible to translate it directly? (aka &quot;read&quot; it in the language of the reader.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="54" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:46:49.967" LastActivityDate="2021-03-27T14:12:44.367" Title="Classical Chinese Literature - What languages could be written with it? And why?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="52" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="44" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:44:04.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My parents were Cantonese but I've studied Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I consider Mandarin softer, and smoother, Cantonese a bit rougher and harsher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, the word for &quot;not&quot; in Mandarin is &quot;bu,&quot; but it is &quot;but&quot; in Cantonese. Mandarin syllables often end in vowels; their Cantonese equivalents often have consonants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oddly enough, one language that appears to be more like Cantonese than Mandarin is Korean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:44:04.793" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="53" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:47:18.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alan Hoenig's book, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0982232403&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Characters: Learn &amp;amp; Remember 2,178 Characters and Their Meanings&lt;/a&gt; takes almost 2200 Chinese characters and ranks them from 1 to whatever by frequency of use, using &quot;official&quot; Chinese sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was surprised to find out that 一 is only number two. The most frequent character is the possessive, 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:49:37.487" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:49:37.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="54" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="61" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:47:19.487" Score="16" ViewCount="1968" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一只羊跑过来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would a Chinese person typically assume this is a goat or a sheep?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2012-03-03T01:36:08.970" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T22:58:14.617" Title="Sheep or goat? 一只羊跑过来" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="55" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:47:49.997" Score="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on how 'in touch' with the language (in terms of understanding grammatical constructions and context clues) you may be considered fairly fluent with 80% or so character recognition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think about your vocabulary in English.  If you pick up a book with many words you don't know, you may still be able to comprehend it based on the context of the words that you might not know.  Same applies for Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in numbers and facts, here are the results of some studies:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cumulative Character Frequency for the Top N Characters based on two studies (Huang 1994 and Da 2004)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top 250 characters: 64.4% / 57.1%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top 500 characters: 79.2 / 72.1%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top 1000 characters: 91.1 / 86.2%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top 1500 characters: 95.7 / 92.4%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top 2000 characters: 97.9 / 95.6%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top 3000 characters: 99.4 / 98.3%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above table tells us that the top 1000 characters account for between 86% and 91% of the characters occurring in the real world. Assuming, with great hope, that there is a good correlation between the top 1000 characters found in these studies and the 1000 characters that most second year college students are supposed to master, we can conclude that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, while we wouldn't advocate studying characters solely based on their high frequency, we believe that studying such lists is a reasonable supplement to conventional study programs. Such lists also provide a sense of just where one is on the path to full Chinese literacy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The results from the above studies have been used to generate two different sets of flashcards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Top 1000 Traditional Characters is based on C .H. Tsai's combined 1993–1994 data.&#xA;The Top 1000 Simplified Characters is based on Jun Da's combined classical and modern Chinese data, which has the advantage of being based on more recent data as well as more formal publications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/topchars.php&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/topchars.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="53" LastEditorUserId="3710" LastEditDate="2013-12-24T04:31:04.917" LastActivityDate="2013-12-24T04:31:04.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="56" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="44" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:47:56.480" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of the two are totally different. Hong Kong people humorously call it &quot;the chicken talking to the duck&quot; as they cannot understand each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two are both tonal languages (different tones has different meanings for the same sound) and they also have different vowels and consonants, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese preserves some older grammatical constructions that Mandarin no longer uses. Both languages use the same writing system, much like how the French and Portuguese both use the Latin alphabet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese can be more difficult because there are 6 (up to 9) tones (&lt;s&gt;with glottal stops at the end of syllables&lt;/s&gt; including &quot;entering tones,&quot; or 入聲) in Cantonese, while only 5 (four and a fifth/zeroth, neutral tone) in Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2012-08-29T13:43:53.530" LastActivityDate="2012-08-29T13:43:53.530" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="57" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:49:32.253" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other ways of saying &quot;I'm good&quot; without emphasizing (&quot;very&quot;) is &quot;还行&quot;, &quot;还好&quot;, &quot;还可以&quot;, &quot;还不错&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, you can only find the &quot;你好吗？我很好&quot; type of dialogs in textbooks.  Chinese people greeting each other generally do not say &quot;我很好&quot; at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="31" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:49:32.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="58" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="48" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:49:49.757" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, for example these characters are taken from a Chinese grammar textbook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GmFjc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are obviously others, but as you can see, it's possible to guess the pronunciation. In other cases, according to the radicals, you can understand if they refer to a certain &quot;topic&quot;, for example, the third one in that list is the radical for &lt;em&gt;&quot;water&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, the last one is the radical for &lt;em&gt;&quot;fire&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:49:49.757" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="59" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="48" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:49:58.237" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely not for the tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as pronunciation it is possible to guess from the right hand side of a character, but this is not something that is reliable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 根,跟,很,恨,狠&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All end in an &quot;en&quot; sound, but this is about as close as you will get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:49:58.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="60" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="54" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:51:22.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the context really. If it's just the sentence itself, I'd assume it's a sheep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:51:22.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="61" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="54" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:52:01.903" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;People would generally assume it's a sheep.&#xA;People usually say 山羊 when they mean a goat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="48" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:52:01.903" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="62" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="65" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:54:35.507" Score="6" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may be a SE dialect thing, but plenty of my friends say 我 &quot;ma&quot; 好的 to mean 我很好 or &quot;ma&quot; 好的 to mean good or I agree with you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone tell me which character (if there is one) is supposed to be used here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T19:23:18.280" Title="Which ma belongs in the phrase 我 &quot;ma&quot; 好的" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="63" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:56:29.747" Score="10" ViewCount="509" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always been fascinated about the etymology of languages and believe that we are seeing a significant series of changes within chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some fairly good &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;technical references&lt;/a&gt; for the transition from traditional chinese to simplified, however I'm wondering if there are any good geopolitical and social references that are publicly available. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, &lt;strong&gt;I'm interested in knowing how the transition between the two forms has altered the use of common words or phrases&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:56:35.157" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T16:56:35.157" Title="Geopolitical History of Simplified Chinese" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="64" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="54" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:58:52.080" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both goat and sheep belong to the same subfamily &quot;Caprinae&quot; in scientific classification.  &quot;羊&quot; can be used to refer to an animal within the &quot;Caprinae&quot; subfamily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="31" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:58:52.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="65" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="62" CreationDate="2011-12-13T22:59:02.207" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you mean &quot;man&quot; instead of &quot;ma&quot;?&#xA;If so, it's 蛮. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我蛮好的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T22:59:02.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="66" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:05:48.340" Score="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some real life examples to help identify the differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, &quot;做&quot; is almost always a verb that has some real meanings. It is very close to English word &quot;do&quot; in its verb form and &quot;make&quot;. E.g. &quot;Do your job!&quot; = &quot;做好你的工作!&quot;, &quot;do nothing&quot;=&quot;什么也不做&quot;, &quot;make love&quot; = &quot;做爱&quot;, &quot;make some cakes&quot; = &quot;做些蛋糕&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the word &quot;作&quot;, in my personal opinion for now, acts as a function word (虚词) more often than having some real meanings. E.g. &quot;作为&quot; = &quot;as/act as&quot;, &quot;装作&quot; = &quot;pretend as&quot;. In these examples, it is really close to &quot;as&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the most common &quot;real meaning&quot; usages of &quot;作&quot; is &quot;compose&quot;: &quot;作曲&quot; = &quot;compose a music&quot;, &quot;创作&quot; = &quot;compose/create/write&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another very common exception of &quot;作&quot; is the word &quot;作文&quot;. It is a noun means &quot;essay&quot; or generally the &quot;writing assignments&quot; for students. Without checking it up, I don't even know what exactly &quot;作&quot; in &quot;作文&quot; means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, &quot;做&quot; is much more widely used as it is really similar as English &quot;make&quot; and &quot;do&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T23:05:48.340" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="67" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="72" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:06:30.773" Score="14" ViewCount="5545" Body="&lt;p&gt;My son is almost 8 weeks old.  I don't speak Mandarin (yet, currently in progress) and am looking for ways to start him on learning Mandarin early, maybe at about 1 year of age.  What is the best way to go about doing this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="33" LastEditorUserId="33" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T05:23:58.507" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T04:36:26.330" Title="What is the best way to teach a child Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="68" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="71" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:10:02.860" Score="8" ViewCount="934" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost every foreign text book I've seen mentions 您 as a polite or formal address to others, however I rarely hear it said and rarely see it written except when addressing customers and occasionally in toilets asking people to take a step closer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has this fallen out of use or is there a correct place that I should be using this to address others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T09:56:38.910" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T09:56:38.910" Title="Where is the correct place to use 您 when addressing others?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="69" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:10:26.787" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;很 does mean &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; but not always and not literally.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's widely used in chinese for emphasis, for example consider 很多 which means &lt;em&gt;many&lt;/em&gt; and not &lt;em&gt;too many&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;in excess&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T23:10:26.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="70" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="67" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:13:53.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They say the best way to learn is by example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not learn it together with your child? Start with songs or flash cards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T23:13:53.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="71" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="68" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:17:59.083" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've found when meeting people for the first time, they often ask '您贵姓' as opposed to '你叫什么' or whatever else. This is even in informal situations with friends of friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, when meeting older people, or friends relatives for the first time I would definitely go with 您 - you just want to show your polite character. I've noticed all my friends doing this so I'm not the only one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, if you even meet anyone in a business context, then it pays to go with 您 from the outset, at least until you know them better. Just more polite really. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T23:17:59.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="72" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="67" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:18:48.817" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be worthwhile for you to read over what people say in this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/1169/would-it-be-bad-to-only-speak-to-a-child-in-a-language-in-which-you-are-not-com&quot;&gt;Would it be bad to only speak to a child in a language in which you are not completely fluent?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It raises some interesting points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://parenting.stackexchange.com/a/1218/480&quot;&gt;top answer&lt;/a&gt; from &lt;a href=&quot;https://parenting.stackexchange.com/users/96/javid-jamae&quot;&gt;Javid Jamae&lt;/a&gt; provides the following points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Spend as much time as you can around native speakers (family, friends, church, temple, cultural organizations, etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a concerted effort to improve your language skills by learning vocabulary that is pertinent to common dialog you have with your children (focus on commands, household objects, animals, etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keep a notebook near you and every time you can't remember a word you want to use with your child, write it down. Go ahead and use the English (or other language) word so you can complete your thought with your child. Then, after you learn the Mandarin word, make sure you use it from them on.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find a list of most commonly used conversational words in Mandarin and make sure you know the first 300-500.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Put your child in language classes as soon as they're old enough (5-6 yo).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play &quot;What is this?&quot; with your child. Point to things and have your child tell you what they are. Using flashcards works well too. I'm sure you can buy Chinese flashcards online. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get some Chinese-language kids TV shows and cartoons that you can play for you child when he gets a little older. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a commitment to your spouse that you will only speak Mandarin in front of your child. Struggle through it and you guys will notice that you're getting better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:41:16.217" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T23:18:48.817" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="74" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="67" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:21:49.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you want mandarin to be his first language? Or are you planning to teach him both english and chinese together? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know of many chinese american family that does the two combo language together. But what they usually do is speak to their child in a combination of both. Eventually at school age, the child will get more exposure to english due to the environment, so it's always best to limit conversation at home to mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if there are no native speakers in your home it could be a bit difficult. Since the way an adult learns a language is different from a child, you can't exactly sit down and learn together. Instead you can only teach your son what you already know, which is just going to be naming things, feels, etc in Chinese and have your son naturally pick that up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have have your child watch chinese kid shows it would most likely add to his comprehension and vocab. But like everyone else says, the environment is the most important. An foreign child that moves to china can pick up Chinese just like a native. So you must be able to accommodate that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="32" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T23:21:49.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="75" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:24:54.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I've got an answer that works on both Windows and Mac (quite recently), which is &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.sogou.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sogou Pinyin Input&lt;/a&gt;. The default Mac input system has terrible sentence generation, and the default Windows system is even worse, IMHO. Sogou is really fantastic, and quite a step up from either the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/ime/pinyin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Pinyin IME&lt;/a&gt; for Windows, or the recently-turned-freeware &lt;a href=&quot;http://glider.ismac.cn/RegQIME.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;QIM for Mac&lt;/a&gt; (which isn't too bad, I just didn't think it was worth paying for)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For character recognition, there are all sorts of tablets available (it would be very time consuming with a mouse), but there is also an app called &lt;a href=&quot;http://thisfinger.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Finger&lt;/a&gt; which works on your iOS device, and links up with your computer for doing handwriting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, and this is Mac only - you can &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4288&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;use the trackpad/magic touchpad&lt;/a&gt; to do Chinese handwriting. It's pretty neat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T23:24:54.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="77" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:29:56.607" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that you are taught to write &quot;cursive&quot; in Chinese, most of it is something people just adapt naturally. You just need a really good grasp of characters to understand it. Sometimes people write fast and tend to simplify parts. There is no standard mold for cursive like in english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what you can do is read a lot of handwritten documents, just doing that will allow you to see the patterns of how people write.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="32" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T23:29:56.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="78" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="107" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:30:09.857" Score="11" ViewCount="1998" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is something I still haven't mastered and still just go with the flow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I wanted to call someone a nickname, say for Mr. Wang, which one should I choose? What defines whether I should call him Xiao Wang or Lao Wang. Is it age, social status etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My wife has an Uncle who is older than both of us, but the family refers to him as 小居 including my wife (when talking with her parents about the uncle, not when talking directly to him), so I'm not sure if this is how I should be mentioning him when talking to others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T00:00:05.413" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T03:23:01.333" Title="&quot;小王&quot; 和 &quot;老王&quot; how to determine which to use?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="79" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="51" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:33:31.417" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As read in reference from &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%87%E8%A8%80%E6%96%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia (文言文)&lt;/a&gt;, classic Chinese (文言文) was the oral Chinese back to the 先秦 era (era before Qing Dynasty, i.e. before 221BC).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even as early as in Han Dynasty (汉朝, 202BC-220) to Tang Dynasty (唐朝, 618-907) period, the oral Chinese had already been shifting apart from classic Chinese (written) and the new Chinese (白话文) had already been merging even in writing. But during these times, the classic Chinese were still applied in most of the writing, especially, as I can imagine, for formal educations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;as stated in the same Wikipedia page, before 20th Century, it was used in China, Korean peninsula, Japan and Vietnam, and in almost all formal writtings in these areas at that time. Later, gradually, these countries shifted to their own writing systems.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;actually, just to answer this question, grammar seems not that important in Chinese as it is in English. This may be a very rough explanation. You may need to consult some formal linguistics knowledge for a more accurate answer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;why does a foreigner want to learn the classic Chinese in the first place? FYI, it is not used at all in almost all daily conversations, and it is really one of the biggest nightmares for Chinese students as it is compulsory in high school. In my personal experience, even educated Chinese people (say average college graduated) do not master the classic Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T19:59:37.200" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T19:59:37.200" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="80" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="78" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:45:13.753" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, &quot;小X&quot; should be used to a person who is younger than you while &quot;老X&quot; to an older person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such nicknames are often used by a specific group of people. This makes the cases that a person is called &quot;小X&quot; if major members in the group are older than him/her, or vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in such a situation, let's take an example: a guy is about 30 years old and is called &quot;小张&quot; in his office where most people in the same office are older than him. But the few people who are younger than him normally should not call him &quot;小张&quot;, but may call him some other nicknames, e.g. &quot;张哥&quot;, or just his given name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. calling an uncle &quot;小珠&quot; is little bit strange to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T23:45:13.753" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="81" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="68" CreationDate="2011-12-13T23:47:01.987" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just a matter of conveying respect to the other party (elders, superiors, customers, or potential clients).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您 is a Beijing honorific that made it into vernacular Chinese. 你 is a simplified form of 儞, which ultimately comes from 爾. 您 is indistinguishable from 你 in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of 您 in plural form, as in 您们, is usually incorrectly used. It should be 你们 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2011-12-13T23:47:01.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="82" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11" CreationDate="2011-12-14T00:02:00.760" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There may not be a definitive way to convey these differences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在床上&quot; is &quot;on the bed&quot;, to really eliminate the ambiguity, you could say &quot;就在床面上&quot; (&quot;right on the surface of the bed&quot;) or &quot;就在床单上&quot; (&quot;right on the sheets of the bed&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And use &quot;在床的上方&quot; to say &quot;above the bed&quot;, or more specifically, &quot;就在床上方的空气里&quot; (&quot;right in the thin air above the bed&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T00:02:00.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="83" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1593" CreationDate="2011-12-14T00:07:49.730" Score="2" ViewCount="1408" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been for some time &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/080483816X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;learning chinese characters&lt;/a&gt; along with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhengma_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zheng Ma&lt;/a&gt; input method. I found it convenient for coming with Windows and being able to easily convert to my Dvorak touch-typing, as opposed to Wubi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only resource I ever found in english, and have been using extensively, is this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scribd.com/doc/6082054/ZhengMa-Tutorial&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pdf guide on scribd&lt;/a&gt; (thanks MEGATRON COOKIE whoever and wherever you are). Especially the table at the end. But sometimes I find it incomplete and I then have to spend minutes on end trying every possible alternate combination to get to my character. Some characters have provided me with at least half an hour of frustration and I recall one which I never got to type and just gave up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have always thought more material on Zheng Ma should exist in chinese (or in english, who knows), but alas, I have to get up to baidu searching skill-level first. So the chinese.SE proves the perfect opportunity to find out what's out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="64" LastEditorUserId="64" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T01:47:28.200" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T06:21:54.657" Title="Learning resources for ZhengMa input method?" Tags="&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="84" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="54" CreationDate="2011-12-14T00:30:07.630" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did a quick whip round of some of my Chinese friends (well, 6 who are online currently) and came to the conclusion it could work either way, and doesn't really matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One made an interesting point that they don't really point out the difference in Chinese, but that she notices Chinese people say 'sheep' a lot more than 'goat' in English, which I think is an interesting point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T00:30:07.630" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="85" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2011-12-14T00:35:46.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually most input methods used for Chinese (and thus used by Chinese) are not based on tones. For Pinyin it is really rare that you input a single character at a time; you usually input a word composed of at least two characters or a sentence directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the IM you use you will have to choose from a list of propositions for different possible characters matching the Pinyin. I use &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.sogou.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sogou Pinyin&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; daily and for this kind of situation it is very rare that I have to choose characters not already &quot;pre selected&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="75" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T19:32:01.813" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T19:32:01.813" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="86" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2011-12-14T00:45:08.897" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like the &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyinput.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;pinyinput&lt;/a&gt; input method editor. Just type the letters for the syllable followed by a tone number, and it will combine them in the usual way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T00:45:08.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="87" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="83" CreationDate="2011-12-14T00:49:27.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;ZhengMa is rarely used in chinese.se, more people use PinYin and WuBi. ZhengMa have never been a mainstream type-in method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And One more thing, please use www.google.com.hk in Chinese to search what you want, not Baidu, which search result sorted by money website pay&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T00:49:27.900" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="88" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2011-12-14T01:09:17.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unispim.com/software/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ZiGuang&lt;/a&gt;; you can use Shift + 1, 2, 3, 4 after typing a word to select the tone you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to find a Pinyin typing method in daily life, I recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/ime/pinyin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Pinyin&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.microsoft.com/china/pinyin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Microsoft Pinyin 2010&lt;/a&gt; (a significant improvement over the one built-in to Windows)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, Microsoft Pinyin also supports typing with tones. However, I am currently using Mac OS X. If you have any more question, please feel free to comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastEditorUserId="75" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T19:32:26.480" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T19:32:26.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="89" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="96" CreationDate="2011-12-14T01:11:38.443" Score="52" ViewCount="48391" Body="&lt;p&gt;So the age old question of 的-地-得, when do you use which? When spoken, it all sounds the same, but on paper it depends on if it's a verb, noun, adjective. But I don't quite remember if that is all that matters or which applies to which.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone refresh my memory?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="32" LastActivityDate="2020-12-09T17:27:50.750" Title="的-地-得, when do you use which?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="27" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="90" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="54" CreationDate="2011-12-14T01:12:28.293" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't matter. As my first reflection after reading your question, I just ask myself which difference with 山羊 and 绵羊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I am a chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T01:12:28.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="91" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-14T01:18:22.190" Score="25" ViewCount="4437" Body="&lt;p&gt;For many of us, memorizing characters is a difficult thing. In Chinese, just because you can speak the word doesn't mean you can read it. Just because you can read it doesn't mean you can write it. At least for me, I find myself constantly forgetting characters I used to know, especially when it comes to writing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you guys have any tips or trick to avoid this? Aside from just constant writing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: I'm getting a lot of answers on learning based on the &lt;strong&gt;radicals&lt;/strong&gt;, which is valid and works for quite a lot of characters. But it doesn't always work. There are many cases where there are no such obvious correlations, especially in simplified characters, where many things are removed and sometimes loses the meaning the traditional character. Also, the below characters have obvious hints of pronunciation or meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;限制&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;矛盾&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;度&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="32" LastEditorUserId="16117" LastEditDate="2017-01-30T17:38:54.400" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T17:52:44.037" Title="Techniques for learning and retaining characters" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="16" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="92" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36" CreationDate="2011-12-14T01:18:38.030" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had heard various numbers over the years, so I guessed at 4000 and generated computer flashcards for reading and writing all the Chinese vocabulary I'll need for the foreseeable future. There are currently 32614 cards with 4166 characters and 18385 words. They are divided into separate files, each with about 100 cards in it. You can download the flashcards for the first 700 characters from &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/donkirkby/wiki/ChineseVocabulary&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;my Google Code page&lt;/a&gt;. I'll publish the remaining characters after I'm happy with the current set. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The cards cover English definition, simplified character, traditional character, and pinyin pronunciation of each character, as well as the most common words using those characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The software is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mnemosyne&lt;/a&gt;, which uses the spaced repetition technique to schedule when you review the cards you already know. It's not fast, but it seems to stick a lot better than manually reviewing vocabulary lists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a screenshot:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4SH02.png&quot; alt=&quot;Mnemosyne screenshot&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a couple of more recent projects, I tried to build some tools to help with reading practice. I sieved through Chinese text looking for sentences that use only the characters I know. My first attempt was with &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/donkirkby/wiki/ChineseTweets&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Twitter updates&lt;/a&gt;, but it was kind of a slow process to find and translate them. More recently, I found a huge collection of translated sentences on &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tatoeba&lt;/a&gt;. I've collected all the sentences that used the 500 most common traditional characters and posted them on &lt;a href=&quot;http://donkirkby.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/frequency-flashcards/sentence-rank/output/sentences.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;my Google Code page&lt;/a&gt;. They're sorted with the most common characters at the start of the page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T07:08:35.457" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T07:08:35.457" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="93" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2011-12-14T01:27:08.423" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;I generated a bunch of files for some flashcard software that uses &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;spaced repetition&lt;/a&gt; to help you learn efficiently. It's still a lot of work to memorize the flash cards, but I don't know of anything easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In total, I generated 32614 cards with 4166 characters and 18385 words. They are divided into separate files, each with about 100 cards in it. You can download the flashcards for the 700 most common characters from &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/donkirkby/wiki/ChineseVocabulary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my Google Code page&lt;/a&gt;. I'll publish the remaining characters after I'm happy with the current set. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The cards cover English definition, simplified character, traditional character, and pinyin pronunciation of each character, as well as the most common words using those characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The software is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mnemosyne&lt;/a&gt;, which uses the spaced repetition technique to schedule when you review the cards you already know. It's not fast, but it seems to stick a lot better than manually reviewing vocabulary lists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a screenshot:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4SH02.png&quot; alt=&quot;Mnemosyne screenshot&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a couple of more recent projects, I tried to build some tools to help with reading practice. I sieved through Chinese text looking for sentences that use only the characters I know. My first attempt was with &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/donkirkby/wiki/ChineseTweets&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Twitter updates&lt;/a&gt;, but it was kind of a slow process to find and translate them. More recently, I found a huge collection of translated sentences on &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tatoeba&lt;/a&gt;. I've collected all the sentences that used the 500 most common traditional characters and posted them on &lt;a href=&quot;http://donkirkby.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/frequency-flashcards/sentence-rank/output/sentences.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my Google Code page&lt;/a&gt;. They're sorted with the most common characters at the start of the page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-08-25T04:27:01.707" LastActivityDate="2012-08-25T04:27:01.707" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="94" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2011-12-14T01:27:32.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could try to use some Chinese flashcard software like ZDT or Easy Hanzi, and try to remember the pinyin, Chinese character or definition. If you don't want to write though, it's going to be difficult to remember them no matter what.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="76" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T01:27:32.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="95" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2011-12-14T01:38:21.307" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use a SRS (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition_system&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Spaced Repetition System&lt;/a&gt;) software, I personally use &lt;a href=&quot;http://ankisrs.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anki&lt;/a&gt; to create a deck of study cards and I review them on my mobile phone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.memrise.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Memrise&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2014 update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still use Anki, but combined with &lt;a href=&quot;https://images.google.cl/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Images Search&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.forvo.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Forvo&lt;/a&gt;: When I make new flashcards, I'll add the writing (hanzi &amp;amp; pinyin), its pronunciation (from Forvo) and a picture of the character's meaning (from Google Images), that way all the card's content is in Chinese, and I avoid relying on translation. By the way, Anki now allows to synchronize media files (audio/images) between devices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've started using this new method few months ago, and it has worked very well for me (especially with nouns). Credits of this method goes to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://fluent-forever.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Fluent Forever&quot; book&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2014-11-29T23:22:37.190" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T23:22:37.190" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="96" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2011-12-14T01:50:21.567" Score="46" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usage of “的” is in possessive or adjectival context.  E.g., (posessive) “我的狗”, or (adjectival) “真正的生意人”.  Generally a noun is modified, so a noun follows it, unless it doesn't, such as “有点儿不足是难免的”, (some insufficiency is unavoidable) which is still an adjectival modifier (unavoidable), even though it modifies the noun (insufficiency) in front of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“地” is used usually as an adverbial modifier, following the modifier and preceding the verb.  For example, in “她伤心地说” (she said sadly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last one, “得”, is distinct, because it's a &lt;em&gt;potential complement&lt;/em&gt;, not a modifier.  It follows a verb to show the result.  So the structure is VERB + 得 + RESULT.  One of the things I found confusing about this, coming from English, is that it leads to some structures that have bit of repetition.  So to say &quot;she speaks Chinese very well&quot;, you use something like &quot;she speaks Chinese, speaks very well&quot;, i.e., “她说中文说得很好”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since both “得” and “地” come between a verb and something else, they can be easy to confuse.  But just remember that if &quot;de&quot; functions as an adverb, the verb comes after it and “地” is appropriate, but if you are trying to complement or completes the verb that precedes it, then use “得”, even in weird cases like “好得很”! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For short, just remember: “地” usually appears before the verb while “得” appears after the verb. eg. “这件事漂亮地完成了。” and “这件事完成得漂亮。”  these two sentences are correct in grammar, although they have slight differences in emotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="74" LastEditorUserId="1034" LastEditDate="2012-09-11T16:22:46.797" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T16:22:46.797" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="97" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="99" CreationDate="2011-12-14T02:11:42.593" Score="8" ViewCount="522" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems various people often have various ways to write the same characters. For instance, I have seen the radical &quot;忄&quot; being written in three different ways (left, middle, right; left, right, middle; and middle, left, right) which is a lot for such a small radical. Chinese teachers sometime don't even agree on what should be the correct stroke order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is there any authoritative source on what the correct stroke order for a character should be? Perhaps some book published by the government?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="76" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T16:02:09.423" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T16:02:09.423" Title="Is there an authoritative reference for the stroke order of simplifed characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="98" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2011-12-14T02:22:00.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me, I found learning the meaning of all (or at least most) radicals (the parts that make up each character) the crux of it all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once I learned the meaning and could recognise the parts it made it a lot easier to remember them long term. For example, all metals seem to have the 金字旁, and every time I see a character that has this, e.g. 钢，铁等等, I can recognise them pretty immediately. Putting them together with the other parts, in this example 冈和失, I find it much easier to remember.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that makes sense to you. Let me know if you want some clarification. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T02:22:00.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="99" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="97" CreationDate="2011-12-14T03:00:41.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can reference &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yys.ac.cn/gfbz/scanning/bsgf/bsgf.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《现代汉语通用字笔顺规范》&lt;/a&gt; published by the Ministry of Education of PRC, which includes the stroke order of over 7000 daily used simplified Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to find some traditional Chinese stroke order resources, check &lt;a href=&quot;http://stroke-order.learningweb.moe.edu.tw/home.do?rd=66&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastEditorUserId="8" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T19:54:23.100" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T19:54:23.100" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="97" CreationDate="2011-12-14T03:17:29.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_order&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article on stroke order&lt;/a&gt; there is disagreement as you have already mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia sites the following text: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yys.ac.cn/gfbz/scanning/bsgf/bsgf.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;现代汉语通用字笔顺规范 (PRC-China modern Chinese commonly used characters standard stroke orders), Beijing: 语文出版社 (Language and Literature Press), 1997, pp. 453, ISBN 7801262018, retrieved 2010-09-02 (Authoritative)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the authoritative reference for the PRC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of the radical you have above is listed on the second page and is written as left dot, right dot, middle stroke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xjSjh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T03:17:29.030" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11" CreationDate="2011-12-14T03:40:01.937" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest you need to add more context such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;挂在床上&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   &lt;em&gt;Hanging over the bed&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漂在床上&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;Hovering (floating) over the bed&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in English above the bed still requires more info to make a complete sentence. I think the context is important here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-08-18T21:49:48.173" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T21:49:48.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20" CreationDate="2011-12-14T03:54:27.157" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read some children's books and found that they can be helpful. However, there is one drawback that I've seen, which doesn't apply to textbooks. Some children's books are designed to help children learn to read. However, the assumption is that the children already know how to speak. Thus, the book helps new readers learn characters but assumes they know the vocabulary. So as a foreign learner you have to learn both at the same time. A textbook, or a book designed for foreign speakers, will limit the vocabulary and also explain new vocabulary in ways that children's books do not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, anything you can read will be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T03:54:27.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="103" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="105" CreationDate="2011-12-14T03:56:03.520" Score="11" ViewCount="7238" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese phrase &quot;M Goi&quot; has many meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Excuse me&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Thanks&quot; (casual)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Hey&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it have a 普通话 equivalent? And how can I write it in pinyin? Is it even possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-08-11T11:39:46.067" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T15:23:59.267" Title="Is there an equivalent for the Cantonese phrase &quot;M Goi&quot;" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;informal&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="44" CreationDate="2011-12-14T04:07:54.700" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;The analogy to Portuguese and Spanish is a good one. Just don't forget that the writing system is a bit like Latin. In the middle ages nobody spoke Latin but many people could read and write it. Written Chinese was the equivalent to written Latin. Now, people write in Modern Standard Mandarin, which is the same as the spoken language taught in the schools. It's like when they started teaching the Spanish children to write in Spanish instead of Latin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both dialects have similarities but they pronounce most words totally differently. In some cases, Cantonese uses different words for the same meanings. For example, (I'm told that) &quot;we&quot; is not &quot;我们&quot; but rather something like &quot;我地&quot;. Cantonese speakers understand &quot;我们&quot; and if reading it aloud could chose to pronounce it as &quot;我们&quot;, but &quot;我地&quot; is how normal speakers would say &quot;we&quot;. This type of difference is fairly common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2970&quot;&gt;Here is an example of an ad that only makes sense in Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;去 緊 旅行，仲可以日日update，至勁係你. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which would probably be written in Mandarin thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;旅行當中，還可以 每一天update，你最了不起.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, if you are trying to explain the differences to someone who is not really interested in it but is just asking to be polite, you could sum it up as &quot;two different languages that use the same writing system&quot;. Different pronunciations, different vocabulary choices, different grammar, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese&quot;&gt;even some different characters&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastEditorUserId="18" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T14:49:51.477" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T14:49:51.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="103" CreationDate="2011-12-14T04:13:57.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;M Goi is written as 唔該 which in simplified is 唔该 or Wú gāi in pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only thing I can think of that may be similar, although it definitely doesn't mean thanks is 劳驾 Láojià which you could use for &quot;excuse me&quot; or &quot;hey&quot; but not for thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-08-11T11:42:48.327" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T11:42:48.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="63" CreationDate="2011-12-14T04:36:20.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a HUGE topic, which I think is impossible to thoroughly cover in one answer here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As usual, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_chinese&lt;/a&gt; is a good start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for mainland, the simplification efforts and processes are inherently tied to the geopolitical history of the turmoils and revolutions in the first half of the 20th century and PRC, as language is the foundation of culture, which is arguably more true for Chinese than most other languages and cultures in the world. The simplification of Chinese characters symbolizes and exemplifies the goods and bads toward a &quot;modern&quot; China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for the more specific question, I actually cannot think of an example of a word or phrase with very different literal meanings when written in simplified vs. traditional characters. After all it's just the written form that is simplified. However, traditional characters evoke a sense of historical and cultural heritage, so there can be some subtle perceived differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="83" LastEditorUserId="83" LastEditDate="2011-12-21T19:11:34.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T19:11:34.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="78" CreationDate="2011-12-14T04:38:59.023" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as @Flake said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In general, &quot;小X&quot; should be used to a person who is younger than you while &quot;老X&quot; to an older person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here is some additional usages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generally speaking, &lt;code&gt;老X&lt;/code&gt; is often used to address a &lt;code&gt;male&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;小X&lt;/code&gt; can be used for both &lt;code&gt;male&lt;/code&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;code&gt;female&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;老X&lt;/code&gt; can be used to a person who is an acquaintance to you(usually both of you have almost the same age), for example, a close friend at school. However, in some cases, close friends will use &lt;code&gt;老X&lt;/code&gt; as nickname without obvious distinction between ages(this rarely occurs, but exists).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You should not call a person who is &lt;strong&gt;much older&lt;/strong&gt; than you &lt;code&gt;老X&lt;/code&gt;, it's impolite. You can call him/her &lt;code&gt;X哥&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;X姐&lt;/code&gt;, and if they are older still &lt;code&gt;X叔&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;X姨&lt;/code&gt;, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In companies, superiors might call their subordinates &lt;code&gt;小X&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And in the family, elder ones might call the younger &lt;code&gt;小X&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your uncle is older than both of you, so I think you'd better call him &lt;code&gt;X哥&lt;/code&gt;(or just the given name, but should not use &lt;code&gt;小X&lt;/code&gt; as his parents used) when talking to others. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="79" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:55:28.887" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:55:28.887" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="108" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-14T04:47:57.663" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T04:47:57.663" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T04:47:57.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="109" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-14T04:47:57.663" Score="0" Body="Posts pertaining to teaching children chinese." OwnerUserId="33" LastEditorUserId="33" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T20:00:07.777" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T20:00:07.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="110" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="112" CreationDate="2011-12-14T04:56:41.547" Score="23" ViewCount="1170" Body="&lt;p&gt;I kind of have an idea when 了 and 过 should be used but it's mostly on a case by case basis, and I don't know the exact rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if I want to express something that happened in the past, when should I use 了 and when should I use 过?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="76" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:27:58.093" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T21:41:55.677" Title="When to use 了 and when to use 过 to express past actions or events" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2011-12-14T05:24:51.960" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of them are correct, and the &lt;code&gt;跟&lt;/code&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;code&gt;和&lt;/code&gt; here are the conjunction. The one &lt;code&gt;我同朋友去公园了&lt;/code&gt; is also correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are almost the same, but if you do want to distinguish the meanings (except for the spoken/written difference):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我跟朋友去公园了。&lt;/code&gt;: it seems like my friend (朋友) wanted to go to the park (公园), and s/he asked me whether I wanted to go with her/him. So I just went with her/him and left a message to my mother: &quot;Mam, 我跟朋友去公园了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我和朋友去公园了。&lt;/code&gt;: it seems like my friend and I were doing something together (e.g. having lunch), after it, we decided go to the park together.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe that's not a very good example. But I cannot think of a better one because both of them are almost the same (99.9%). :p&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="79" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:55:19.383" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:55:19.383" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="110" CreationDate="2011-12-14T05:55:37.643" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are multiple uses for both 了 and 过, so it's good you are just asking about usage to express past action or events.  了, as you probably know, is often used to express a change of state.  Perhaps somewhat relatedly, 了 can be used to express a past action &lt;em&gt;that is still ongoing.&lt;/em&gt; But 过 cannot:  when 过 is used to refer to a past event, that past event must have completed.  Additionally -- and most distinctly --  过 is used to express &lt;em&gt;having had the experience of something&lt;/em&gt;, rather than a particular instance.  As a simple example, consider the difference between&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去了长城 (I went to the Great Wall, refers to a single trip)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去过长城 (I have been to the Great Wall, could be one or more times)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the same structure is used intentionally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When combining them, it emphasizes the completion of a single action or event.  So, for example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去过了长城 (I went to the Great Wall, refers to a single, completed, event)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="74" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-19T12:39:23.573" LastActivityDate="2012-01-19T12:39:23.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="114" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="142" CreationDate="2011-12-14T07:07:34.253" Score="21" ViewCount="31202" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the most trickiest sounds to pronounce correctly in Mandarin seems to be the &quot;r&quot; sound, as in 日本 (rì běn). It's not uncommon to hear people pronounce that like &quot;urban.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been told it's not supposed to be pronounced like the English &quot;r&quot; like in &quot;&lt;b&gt;r&lt;/b&gt;ed&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_approximant&quot;&gt;alveolar approximant&lt;/a&gt;). Some say it's closer to the French &quot;j&quot; in &quot;&lt;b&gt;j&lt;/b&gt;our&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palato-alveolar_sibilant&quot;&gt;voiced palato-alveolar sibilant&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the correct way to pronounce the Chinese &quot;r&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="88" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T11:50:04.343" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T12:41:36.047" Title="How is the &quot;r&quot; sound pronounced?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="115" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="125" CreationDate="2011-12-14T07:30:05.630" Score="17" ViewCount="1198" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese has measure (or count) words like “个” (一个人), “部” (三部车), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These always get me confused, and there way too many of them. Are there any general rules that can help me memorize them? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I've been told it's generally acceptable to use the general count word &quot;个&quot; for &lt;em&gt;everything&lt;/em&gt;, although it makes it more clear that you don't know Chinese. Is that true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="88" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T10:27:42.360" LastActivityDate="2016-11-28T17:53:51.203" Title="Learning how to use measure / count words properly" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="116" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="145" CreationDate="2011-12-14T07:36:16.393" Score="31" ViewCount="13667" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find it a great struggle to try and remember tones for all the new vocab I learn, and aside from gradually picking up tones by listening and talking with native speakers, I can't really remember tones. Does anyone have any suggestions for good techniques to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-17T14:52:04.310" LastActivityDate="2020-09-24T08:49:31.860" Title="What is a good technique for remembering tones?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="13" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="121" CreationDate="2011-12-14T07:37:20.250" Score="17" ViewCount="6146" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do Chinese characters make it a lot harder to create or play word games in Chinese than it is in English? I have seen a few Chinese crosswords, but it seems like they aren't as densely cross-linked as English ones usually are. (In the few that I've seen, Chinese ones seem to have more black squares.) I suspect this difficulty is why logic puzzles like Sudoku and Masyu that use symbols instead of words are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nikoli_puzzle_types#Nikoli_puzzles&quot;&gt;popular in Japan&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I love the English word games you find in books like David Parlett's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.librarything.com/work/7959647&quot;&gt;Penguin Book of Word Games&lt;/a&gt;, or on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.davidparlett.co.uk/wgames/&quot;&gt;his web site&lt;/a&gt;. Do any similar resources exist for Chinese word games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2020-12-20T15:28:07.207" Title="Are there word games in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;games&gt;" AnswerCount="13" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="118" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="123" CreationDate="2011-12-14T07:41:12.567" Score="14" ViewCount="7108" Body="&lt;p&gt;My girlfriend is from Fujian and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_Nan&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;speaks 闽南语&lt;/a&gt;, so I am trying to learn so I can communicate with her family better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The struggle is finding any useful resources (even in Chinese), so I'm wondering if anyone has any good suggestions for sites, books, or anything else to improve my skills?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-17T14:50:27.773" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T04:59:28.357" Title="Useful resources for learning Taiwanese?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;taiwanese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-04T14:44:28.037" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="115" CreationDate="2011-12-14T07:42:14.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know there is no exact rule, it will depend on the object itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the top of my head you will say 一根筷子，一根头发, with 根, which here is used for a long and thin object (like for a chopstick or hair).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find other similarities like this, but I am afraid there isn't &quot;one ring to rule them all&quot;, you will have to learn them little by little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the usage of 个, it is mostly OK to use it in spoken Chinese — more and more Chinese tend to use it in speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T13:51:14.413" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T13:51:14.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="117" CreationDate="2011-12-14T07:47:25.297" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a game very similar to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiritori&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shiritori&lt;/a&gt; in Japanese. It's called &quot;文字接龙&quot;&#xA;And for more advanced Chinese speakers, all the words need to be idioms. It's called &quot;成语接龙&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T07:47:25.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="117" CreationDate="2011-12-14T07:47:56.043" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, not sure if this answers your question or not, but I've played a game before involving using idioms (aka 成语) where you have to carry on using the same sound (not including tone) from whatever 成语 the previous person said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if I started with 骑虎难下 (qi hu nan xia - something like stuck between a rock and a hard place) the next person might say 下里巴人 (xia li ba ren - like redneck) the following 仁者见仁 (ren zhe jian ren - different people have different opinions) and so on. It's pretty hard, but a great way to learn new 成语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T07:47:56.043" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="114" CreationDate="2011-12-14T07:48:55.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker, however, it's a little hard to tell you how to pronounce r in Mandarin, I would say it's similar the r sound in English(I am sure the French J is far different) word &quot;ray&quot;(in Chinese, there is a pronunciation: rui, which sounds similar with it). Please notice that the &quot;i&quot; letter actually has 2 different pronunciations, though we don't tell it in PinYin form. One is similar with &quot;i&quot; in English words like &quot;click&quot;,&quot;bit&quot;,&quot;mist&quot;, and in &quot;ri&quot; of &quot;ri ben&quot;, it's different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know if I could upload a sound clip here to show the pronunciatons?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T07:48:55.670" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="118" CreationDate="2011-12-14T07:52:15.700" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an American guy (I think) who teaches people how to speak Taiwanese on Youtube. He even teaches the native Taiwanese people how to speak 闽南语. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL41797BA5E0DBB4FD&amp;amp;feature=plcp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;You can see the videos here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;Looks like the playlist is dead. This is the guy &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJo2OHi6hgs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJo2OHi6hgs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="47" LastEditDate="2014-07-24T04:15:46.617" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T04:15:46.617" CommentCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-04T14:44:28.037" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="130" CreationDate="2011-12-14T07:55:39.333" Score="15" ViewCount="1774" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I went to China, it was apparent that many (sometimes most) people still spoke their local dialects instead of Standard Chinese/Putonghua (also known as &quot;Mandarin&quot; in English). I was told that because older people didn't know Putonghua, everyone also had to know the local dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is China's official language. Are all schools in China required to teach &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; in Standard Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are students who complete at least compulsory education in China expected to speak it fluently?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="88" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T05:24:31.380" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T05:24:31.380" Title="Do all schools in China teach in Standard Chinese (普通话)?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="115" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:03:09.780" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no strict rule, it's more like a convention. English uses similar measure words, too. For example, you say “A bowl of rice” = 一 &lt;strong&gt;碗&lt;/strong&gt; 饭, or “A pair of glasses” = 一 &lt;strong&gt;副&lt;/strong&gt; 眼镜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%87%8F%E8%A9%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a very useful Wikipedia article that outlines the measure words in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 个 in most cases, but it would be a bit weird in some cases. For example, you would say 一 &lt;strong&gt;杯&lt;/strong&gt; 水 (a glass of water) instead of 一 &lt;strong&gt;个&lt;/strong&gt; 水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2016-11-25T13:26:40.150" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T13:26:40.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="117" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:08:30.890" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is a game like &quot;Crossword&quot;. I played such a game in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tzgame.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;site&lt;/a&gt;. The site is a little famous since it provide this game for the famous newspaper &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.infzm.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Southern Weekend&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Here is a screenshot:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZbE2I.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T08:08:30.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="114" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:09:31.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pimsleur's Mandarin course suggests you pronounce it as somewhere between an English &lt;code&gt;r&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;y&lt;/code&gt;, and this is certainly what it sounds like to me when I hear it when spoken by native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A tip to get this sound is to say English &lt;code&gt;r&lt;/code&gt; with your tongue curled back a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T08:09:31.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="128" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="133" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:11:07.280" Score="14" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_punctuation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese punctuation&lt;/a&gt; is a little bit different from European punctuation, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The full stop (period) is &quot;。&quot; instead of &quot;.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The ellipsis are six vertically centered dots (… …) instead of just three (…)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and others...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the usage of European punctuation acceptable in Chinese writing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="88" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:30:10.333" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T16:30:10.333" Title="Is the usage of European punctuation acceptable in Chinese writing?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="128" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:19:02.270" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the Internet and other informal environments, that's OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In official publications, the answer is no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, if you write a book and do not use Chinese punctuation, the government won't allow you to publish it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T03:45:14.377" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T03:45:14.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="124" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:20:37.737" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on my own experience, Not!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the schools are asked to use the Mandarin in classroom, there are still many schools that doesn't follow this rule. I was born in a little city in west China, and I had never spoken in Mandarin, before I went to the university.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In big cities, schools follow this rule, while in small cities, especially in the poor areas, many teachers are local and can't speak Mandarin very well, how could they teach the students in Mandarin? Of course, it'a trend that more and more teachers speak in Mandarin in classroom. At present, if you want to be teacher in China, you have to pass the Mandarin exam to get certified, so more and more young teachers can speak Mandarin, however, there are plenty of old teachers who can not as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T08:24:45.013" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T08:24:45.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:24:45.527" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, there are two types of characters:&#xA;&quot;compound characters 合体&quot; and &quot;single component characters 独体&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there are four character building methods: &quot;pictogram 象形&quot;,&quot;ideogram 指事&quot;、&quot;indicatives 会意&quot;,&quot;phono-semantic 形声&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Single component characters 独体&quot; are characters that derive from &quot;pictograms 象形&quot; or &quot;ideograms 指事&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  e.g: &#xA;  pictogram:   &quot;人&quot; means people &quot;山&quot; means hill  &quot;木&quot; means wood&#xA;  ideogram:    &quot;上&quot; means up     &quot;下&quot; means down  &quot;本&quot; means origin&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These types of characters should be remembered by rote, and they are often used as components in &quot;compound characters 合体&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 95% characters in modern Chinese are &quot;Compound character 合体&quot; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 90% or even more of the &quot;compound characters 合体&quot; are &quot;phono-semantic 形声&quot;,&#xA;which means characters built with a semantic (形) part and a pronunciation（声）part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;dove 鸠&quot; is built with &quot;九&quot; and &quot;鸟&quot; . &#xA;means it's a kind of bird(鸟).&#xA;and its pronunciation is &quot;jiū&quot;, which is similar to &quot;九 jiǔ&quot;.&#xA;and there are &quot;pigeon 鸽&quot; &quot;duck 鸭&quot; &quot;crow 鸦&quot; &quot;chick 鸡&quot; &quot;ostrich 鸵&quot; ... &#xA;they are all kinds of birds.&#xA;&#xA;then &quot;steel 钢 &quot; &quot;iron 铁&quot; &quot;bronze 铜&quot; &quot;silver 银&quot; ... are other examples &#xA;which use &quot;钅&quot;(simplified &quot;金&quot; radical ), &#xA;they are all kinds of metals.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course , there are lots of exceptions to this,&#xA;as the pronunciation may have changed since ancient times,&#xA;or because the parts may not have the exact same meaning [as originally].&#xA;But it's a good method to retain the characters together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;indicatives 会意&quot; are another way of building &quot;compound characters&quot;.&#xA;But not many characters are built this way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;e.g.: &quot;尘&quot;, which means dust, consists of &quot;小&quot; (small) and &quot;土&quot; (soil).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you'd better learn the &quot;single component characters 独体&quot; by heart, and remember the &quot;compound characters 合体&quot; by their&#xA;radicals and components which are often the &quot;single component characters 独体&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a online tool I often use to look up characters by radicals: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/bs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/zd/bs/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE：I'm using simplified Chinese characters here, but the rules are the same for traditional Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will describe the way to learn &quot;独体字&quot; :&#xA;(My way is using Google before using this, but this may not suitable for you.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the character :  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e.g: &quot;矛&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Write the character and input it into the PC (when it's on your PC, go to the next part):  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For this part you need a Chinese IME.  QQ Pinyin Or sogou Pinyin if you&#xA;know it's pinyin &quot;拼音&quot; and works in Windows.  They both have&#xA;handwriting tool as well if you can only write it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Linux Users.&#xA;There is not any good handwriting IME. You can only use pinyin with&#xA;fcitx or ibus-pinyin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.sogou.com/cloud/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cloud IME&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;or QQ’s Cloud IME both on Linux and Windows as well. &#xA;They only support pinyin currently. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lookup the character you input in an online chinese dictionary like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;search the character in it and check the 字源字形 tab. This means the&#xA;origin of the character.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you can not input the character, you can check the character by&#xA;its radical 部首 using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/bs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;【字典部首检字】&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the 矛 ‘s stroke 笔画 is five. So you look up in  笔画五 and you will find it&#xA;there.  If not, check if it is using parts in 笔画一：丨亅丿乛一乙乚丶. In this&#xA;case, you can find it in 笔画五.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you are looking for &quot;予&quot;, you can only find it in 乛 of 笔画一.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE7Zdic9FZdic9B.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE7Zdic9FZdic9B.htm&lt;/a&gt; is the page you get about 矛’s 字源字形.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see the origin and evolution of the character. &#xA;And there is also basic info about it, like pronunciation, explanation and &#xA;stroking sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may help you understand the character better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PPS:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the best way to learn a single character（矛 here) I think is to read, write and learn it in words (矛盾 here) many many times. &#xA;All student in primary and junior school in &quot;语文&quot; (Chinese Language Lessons) must do this over and over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in fact, we are using  words not characters. &#xA;We don't use single 矛, as we haven't used spears for a long time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But 矛盾, which means contradiction, are more vigorous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="89" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-08-13T19:24:05.117" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T19:24:05.117" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="124" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:26:59.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In theory, all schools are required to teach only in Mandarin. Almost every city and big town actually enforce that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in Tibet and Uyghur, many schools teach in Mandarin &amp;amp; Tibetan/Uyghur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:55:34.813" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:55:34.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="128" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:29:42.997" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well yes and no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classic Chinese, there is no punctuation at all. I &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; the punctuation in Chinese are actually from European. All most all the punctuation you see in English are used in Chinese too. However because the way computer system encodes them differently, you see them differently on computer screen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the Chinese exclamation mark looks like these ！and English exclamation mark look like these !  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, single quotes are used when quoting a quote inside another quote. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我妈妈说:&quot;毛主席教导我们'为人民服务'&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in this case, 我妈妈 is quoting 毛主席's 为人民服务.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, although in formal writing, you should always use the correct punctuation. In informal writing (for example, in txting, sms or chatting online), you can expect a lot of mix uses of both European punctuation and Chinese punctuation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T08:29:42.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="124" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:36:02.603" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure about that in minority regions (Tibet or XinJiang), but in the provinces where most of the population is Han, school teachers are &lt;strong&gt;supposed&lt;/strong&gt; to teach in 普通话. It's sometimes related to their bonuses or teaching certificates etc. However, it's not a strict rule. Some great teachers teach in local dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T09:47:12.943" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T09:47:12.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="141" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:41:16.267" Score="15" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English we would look words based on their alphabetical order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how are Chinese dictionaries ordered to allow you to find what you are looking for - is it based on the radicals, number of strokes, or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T16:48:29.220" Title="How to Find Characters in a Dictionary?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="115" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:46:02.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Measure words is a feature in modern chinese. I think you have to learn and use repeatedly to memorize them. Pratice makes perfect, right? Actually, there are many cases. &quot;个“ is very common, but it doesn't cover all the cases. Below are some examples:&#xA;一幅画(a picture)&#xA;一张纸(a piece of paper)&#xA;一眼泉(a spring)&#xA;一棵树(a tree)&#xA;一条鱼(a fish)&#xA;一匹马(a horse)&#xA;一只猫(a cat)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice the last three phrase, even the nouns are animals, different measure word should be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T08:46:02.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="137" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="140" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:50:38.353" Score="3" ViewCount="299" Body="&lt;p&gt;What aspects of the Chinese language are the most difficult to learn for a westerner? In particular I'm interested in thoughts on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What do you find are the main difficulties?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any aspects of Chinese that you find &lt;em&gt;easier&lt;/em&gt; than expected?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you find the grammar more or less complex than that of Latin/Romance languages?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="42" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T09:28:07.637" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T09:28:07.637" Title="What are the most difficult things to learn for a westerner?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2011-12-15T16:29:49.640" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="135" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:57:02.917" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right. The most common ways are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By number of strokes, which is the easier way. You can almost always tell correctly how many strokes one character has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using radicals, which is quicker if well practiced. There are hard parts to it: some of the characters are just hard to guess the right radical. There is a list in Xinhua about the hard ones namely &quot;难查字表&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you know the pronunciation, but you're not sure how to write, you can then directly leaf through the dictionary. E.g. 新华字典 is indexed alphabetically, based on the pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-10-24T09:37:34.160" LastActivityDate="2012-10-24T09:37:34.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="135" CreationDate="2011-12-14T08:57:19.640" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese dictionaries include several methods for the user to look up a character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Radicals&lt;/strong&gt;: This is useful when you don't know how to pronounce a character;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pinyin in alphabet&lt;/strong&gt;: This is useful when you don't know how to write a character while you know its sound;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Number for strokes&lt;/strong&gt;: Based on my own experience, this only shown some characters that are difficult to find the right radical, i.e &quot;承&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The &quot;Four Corner&quot; method&lt;/strong&gt; (四角号码): It's a method to enumerate every character in 5 digits max, according to the writing of the character. This is useful for someone who doesn't know Pinyin and I have never used it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-10-29T16:48:29.220" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T16:48:29.220" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="137" CreationDate="2011-12-14T09:07:26.817" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the difficulties include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The tones, while almost all western languages don't have such a conception.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Remember how to write a character. There are many characters that you have to learn and remember.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but the grammar is easier. In Chinese, you don't have to take care of gender, inflection,conjugation, number and particles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T09:07:26.817" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="135" CreationDate="2011-12-14T09:14:24.427" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most dictionaries are ordered this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Section 1: 部首目录 （Radical directory）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the front there is a radical index, these are ordered by the number of strokes. So first you need to look at the radical then count the number of strokes of that radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have found your radical there will be a number next to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Section 2: 检字表 （Character checking table)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After all of the radicals have been listed then begins the Character checking table. This lists each radical as a heading alongside the number from the first section and then it lists all characters that have that radical in stroke order. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if your radical from the first section has the number 78 next to it you can go through this list until you come to the heading with your radical and your number. Then you look down the list until you find the right number of strokes then keep looking to find your character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to revise:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Identify your radical&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Count number of strokes in your radical&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go to section 1 and find your radical based on number of strokes and identify reference #&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take ref. number from section 1 then look it up in section 2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Count number of [remaining | total] strokes in your character then go to that section under the heading&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;部首目录：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/99BBB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T09:14:24.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="114" CreationDate="2011-12-14T09:24:29.913" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest you pronounce it like the &quot;r&quot; sound in &quot;brrrrrrrr I'm cold&quot; or &quot;grrrrrrrr I'm angry&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for Japan you could do it like &quot;rrrrrrr ben&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't roll this &quot;r&quot; sound. This will get you about 80% accuracy. To get the rest you need to make the same &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palato-alveolar_sibilant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;voiced palato-alveolar sibilant&lt;/a&gt;, then you will be there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just want to add the palato-alveolar sibilant in the French &quot;j&quot; is made in a different part of the mouth to the Chinese &quot;r&quot;. The &quot;r&quot; sound should be at the roof of the mouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a great video on youtube to help: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D6G0aqjtso&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D6G0aqjtso&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T11:50:12.520" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T11:50:12.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="143" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="144" CreationDate="2011-12-14T09:52:13.177" Score="11" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the correct Chinese words to use for the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vote-up&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vote-down&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vote to close&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume these will have been included in certain social platforms in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-02T17:10:12.297" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T17:10:12.297" Title="Chinese for &quot;vote-up&quot;, &quot;vote-down&quot; and &quot;vote to close&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="143" CreationDate="2011-12-14T09:56:31.333" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually you would use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(投)赞成(票)   Vote-up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(投)反对(票)   Vote-down&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;投关闭票       Vote to close&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when used on internet, especially sites like SE, probably the following is more suitable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;顶 - literally means bump  (Vote-up)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;踩 - literally means tread  (Vote-down)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;叉 - literally means X (cross), have the implication of closing.  (Vote to close)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="47" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T10:43:38.550" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T10:43:38.550" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="116" CreationDate="2011-12-14T10:12:02.953" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a technique I started to use and actually, I've seen it also in other dictionaries, so maybe I wasn't that original... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But anyway, the answer is colors! When you're studying new Hanzi or vocabulary, just color each character according to the tone... It's very helpful to remember the tones, because after a while, you visualize the tones in your head through the colors. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/am6J0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tones obviously indicate the tones of the single characters&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;, it doesn't take into account the tone changes in spoken Mandarin&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously these tones are just mine, which means you can change the colors according to your taste. This technique is very useful for the computers, since you can use the colors. Concerning something handwritten, I can suggest using colored flashcards for each tone, for example, or using different pen colors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For color blind people an alternative solution is needed. For single Hanzi on actual flashcards (not digital ones), a good idea would be the shape of the paper. Or the border style. For example an undulated border for the first tone and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For expressions instead you could add a symbol below each Hanzi. I know that it sounds too complicated, but right now I don't have a better idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1: dictionary tones&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;2: tone sandhi&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-11-17T10:58:30.667" LastActivityDate="2013-11-17T10:58:30.667" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="48" CreationDate="2011-12-14T10:37:34.987" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;too many characters can be classified into &quot;形声字&quot;, which consists of two parts, one (the radical) indicates the topic the character is referred to and the another indicates the possible pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xiaohouzi79 shows a good example. But remember, there are some commonly used characters that don't follow this, when you can't read a character, dictionary is your best teacher. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a counterexample is 垠（yin2），and there is a character very similar with 艮，良（liang2）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T10:37:34.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="148" CreationDate="2011-12-14T11:41:24.980" Score="11" ViewCount="947" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just wondered what are the rules of saying numbers...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10 = 十 &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;19 = 十九 &lt;br /&gt;&#xA;100 = 一百 &lt;br /&gt;&#xA;1,000 = 一千&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;10,000 = 一萬&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;119 = 一百一十九&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;110 = 一百一&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;1,100 = 一千一&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;11,000 = 一萬一&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10,110 = 一萬零一百一十&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any rule of thumb??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="48" LastEditorUserId="48" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T12:22:17.490" LastActivityDate="2013-08-20T12:30:47.090" Title="Rules for saying numbers" Tags="&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="147" CreationDate="2011-12-14T11:51:41.837" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;For reading numbers aloud, the wikipedia page has a section &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals#Reading_and_transcribing_numbers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Reading and transcribing numbers&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; that you might find useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I think you know the basics and your problem seems to affect the reading of &quot;zero&quot;, let me quote this passage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Interior zeroes before the unit position (as in 1002) must be spelt explicitly. The reason for this is that trailing zeroes (as in 1200) are often omitted as shorthand, so ambiguity occurs. One zero is sufficient to resolve the ambiguity. Where the zero is before a digit other than the units digit, the explicit zero is not ambiguous and is therefore optional, but preferred.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;I know you didn't ask for the writing part, but if you don't mind, I'd like to keep it. If you think it's misleading, I can delete it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For writing numbers, I found a nice page, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edhelper.com/ChineseNumbersIntro.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese numbers intro&lt;/a&gt;, that summarizes the rules for writing numbers. I summarized it below. If you find mistakes or if I forgot something, please post a comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Tens&quot; are expressed by writing &quot;numeral + ten&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;70 = 七十&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;when adding a single numeral, just add it after those two.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;75 = 七十五&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;with hundreds, you add the hundred and then the rest.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;275 = 二百七十五&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;with thousands, you do the same.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1275 ＝ 一千二百七十五&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;same with ten thousands.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;31275 = 三万一千二百七十五&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;if there's a ZERO, you include it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;31075 = 三万一千零七十五&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the character 点 is used for &quot;dot&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;16.98 = 十六点九八 (10-6-decimal-9-8)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can find more on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia page for numbers&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found a nice &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mandarintools.com/numbers.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;number converter&lt;/a&gt; that you can use for self-study, I think. You can output Traditional, Simplified Chinese and also Pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-08-20T12:30:47.090" LastActivityDate="2013-08-20T12:30:47.090" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="137" CreationDate="2011-12-14T12:12:33.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main difficulty is that Chinese, having a different linguistic root from English, does not have the shared vocabulary that European languages have.. for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English: telephone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;French: téléphone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Spanish: teléfono&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Portugese: telefone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;German: Telefon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dutch: telefoon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Danish: telefon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Italian: telefono&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hungarian: telefon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Estonian: telefon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Slovak: telefón&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Polish: telefon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many many words with common roots in European languages, so it is much easier to acquire vocabulary. However I find that once I had a &quot;base&quot; in Mandarin, once I knew the basis of many compound words - this obstacle had less impact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T12:12:33.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="150" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="156" CreationDate="2011-12-14T12:14:30.657" Score="23" ViewCount="40670" Body="&lt;p&gt;How offensive is the expression 他妈的? What is an English expression with a similar degree of offensiveness? In what situations is this expression appropriate / not appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T13:09:25.490" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T17:43:33.023" Title="How offensive is 他妈的?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;swearing&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="151" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="153" CreationDate="2011-12-14T12:37:01.477" Score="17" ViewCount="464" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that, when expressing possessives, we add 的 to the usual personal pronouns, such as 我的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in a question in my grammar textbook I saw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你爸爸忙吗? = Is your father busy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not &quot;你&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;爸爸忙吗？&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other exceptional or particular uses of 的 that are worth being mentioned here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:04:06.237" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:04:06.237" Title="Is this an exception in the use of 的?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="151" CreationDate="2011-12-14T12:50:44.923" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;code&gt;你爸爸忙吗?&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;你的爸爸忙吗?&lt;/code&gt; are possible. Perhaps because of high degree of collocation that &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; gets elided. In Chinese it is usually possible to express something similar to a genitive without &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; in between. I think instead of two nouns in a genitive relation, it becomes a single compound noun instead. Semantically equivalent but the grammatical make up behind it is slightly different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的国家 &gt; 我国&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="100" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T12:50:44.923" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="151" CreationDate="2011-12-14T12:51:59.957" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;When 的 is used for possession or 's, it is often omitted in speaking when it's the subject of a sentence.&#xA;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她(的)家很漂亮/她(的)家很漂亮 = Her house/home is beautiful.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;你(的)電腦很慢/你(的)电脑很慢 = Your computer is really slow.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;他(的)新車很貴/他(的)新车很贵 = His new car is quite expensive.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 的 is usually kept when it's the object of a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜歡他的車/我喜欢他的车 = I like his car.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then, again as in any language, there is always exceptions :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;我去過他(的)家/我去过他(的)家 = I've been to his house.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And because of this omission, interesting sentences like this one can come up occasionally in daily conversation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他媽的洋裝很高雅/他妈的洋装很高雅 = His mother's dress is very elegant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say this out loud, most Chinese people would pick up &quot;他媽的&quot; (damn, sh*t, bloody, f*cking depending on context) and think you are cursing for a split second before you finish the sentence. While this is not a serious problem in casual conversation, one way to avoid this awkward confusion is to explicitly say &quot;他媽媽的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Added simplified Chinese after the original examples in Traditional Chinese as requested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="48" LastEditorUserId="48" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T10:16:38.573" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T10:16:38.573" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="51" CreationDate="2011-12-14T13:05:54.267" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, classic Chinese is not used to &quot;write&quot; these languages as you think. Classic Chinese was just used as an &quot;international&quot; language among surrounding countries, like English nowadays. Take the Japanese Language for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient times, the Japanese had their own language, but they didn't have a writing system. Of course, China was powerful back then and exerted influence over the surrounding countries. Japan also imported Chinese characters and culture, especially during the beginning of the Tang Dynasty (唐朝) in China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After learning Chinese characters, some Japanese scholars started to use characters to note the pronuciations for Japanese words, something like the PinYin system, as now we use Latin letters express Chinese. However, every character had its own pronunciation and meaning, so the Japanese created their own &quot;letters&quot;, now called &quot;hiragana&quot; and &quot;katakana&quot;, based on Chinese characters. For example, the &quot;hiragana&quot; &quot;あ&quot; comes from the character &quot;安&quot;, &quot;か&quot; from &quot;加&quot;. They look similar, right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also happened to Vietnamese. The Vietnamese created their Vietnamese characters(喃字) based on Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, the Koreans don't use Chinese characters(but some characters are still used, especially in solemn situation and law), the Japanese still use them, and the Vietnamese quit thoroughly because the French instituted the use of a Roman alphabet during the colonization period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think the answers to your questions would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;None. They developed their own writing system based on Chinese characters and borrowed a lot of words from Chinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since characters are used as writing system and letters to note the pronunciation. Grammar is not the point&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Meanings for some characters changes through time. Furthermore, grammar also changes, so if you want to learn classic Chinese, you'd better learn mordern Chinese first. After you learn mordern Chinese, it won't be so hard for you to learn classic Chinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest everyone who wants to learn Chinese: you might as well learn some classic Chinese. Although we don't speak in Classic Chinese, there are many words(especially idioms) from classic Chinese, such as &quot;多行不义必自毙&quot;，“退避三舍”,“秋波”。Also, you can read some classic poems to get a feeling of classic Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: More explanations on point 2.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To clarify how the claiss Chinese were imported and affected Japanese. Imagine the steps below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;STEP 1:&lt;/strong&gt; Japanese had their language, so they could say: &quot;この山は　高い&quot; (This mountain is high), but they could not write this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;STEP 2:&lt;/strong&gt; They got to learn classic Chinese, and they(especially the nobels) decided to use classic Chinese for communication, because Chinese culture was so attractive to them. Now the classic Chinese worked as a popular foreign language, like English nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;STEP 3:&lt;/strong&gt; Some Japanese scholars thought:&quot;well, Chinese seems good, why not create our writing system based on it?&quot;, and eventually they invented the &quot;hiragara&quot; and &quot;katakara&quot;, by abstracting the Chinese Characters. For example, now they have &quot;こ&quot; from “己” and &quot;の&quot; from &quot;乃“ and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;STEP 4:&lt;/strong&gt; Now they could use these &quot;letters&quot; to write down the sentence. It could be like this(without any characters): 　この　やま　は、たかい, but it's not so conevnient because they had to divide every word in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;STEP 5:&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;Hey, we have learnt Chinese. In Chinese, “やま” is &quot;山&quot;, and character &quot;高&quot; means high, in our language, it's たかい. Why not use characters to simplify the writing system?&quot;, Japanese might think this way. Of course, in Japanese, an adjective has serveral kinds of conjugations, but that doesn't matter, because only the suffix(い) should change, the stem(たか) won't change, so they just used the character “高” for the stem and everything works well. I.e. the negative form of &quot;高い&quot; is &quot;高くない&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think you understand why importing characters won't affect the grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T12:12:33.467" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T12:12:33.467" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="150" CreationDate="2011-12-14T13:06:31.913" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In every formal environment, is not appropriate like fxxking &amp;amp; shxt in english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unofficially, in oral, people also use 他妈的 equivalent to VERY.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天气真他妈的热(It's really fxxking hot today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when used isolated, just means damn it and the same degree of offensiveness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T13:06:31.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="150" CreationDate="2011-12-14T13:16:21.413" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very common and, in my personal experience, has similar offensiveness as the f word in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be offensive and quite rude: e.g. in a business negotiation, when the deal is finally broken and one side says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你他妈的给我滚出去 = &quot;Get your fucking ass out of my office&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may be used in irony among close friends which is not offensive then:&#xA;E.g. when two close friends meet after a long time, one may say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你最近死哪去了? 他妈的都忘了哥了! similar as &quot;Where have you been lately? I fucking miss you!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this help to get the points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T13:16:21.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="150" CreationDate="2011-12-14T13:33:36.130" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that 他妈的 would be a general curse like &quot;f--k!&quot; (or &quot;damn&quot;), but not an insult , whereas 你妈的 would be a personal insult like &quot;f--k you&quot; or &quot;you mother(&lt;em&gt;truck&lt;/em&gt;)er.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of 他, in this context, as a generic form of &quot;you&quot;, much like &quot;on&quot; in French. In other words, &quot;one's mother&quot; or &quot;someone's mother&quot; (although could also specifically be &quot;his mother&quot; - depends on context).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the particular insult is an euphemistic omission of the female genital organ after &quot;的&quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T13:33:36.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="150" CreationDate="2011-12-14T14:12:07.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a highly offensive expression comparable in meaning and offensiveness to &quot;s-o-b&quot; in English. It refers to coming out of one's mother (one's birth), and not for the better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means, she's a &quot;b, because you're an &quot;s-o-b.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="52" LastEditDate="2014-06-16T13:32:11.263" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T13:32:11.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29" CreationDate="2011-12-14T14:22:05.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you get cable or &quot;direct&quot; TV, you can get a Chinese language channel, even in Utah.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That won't help your speaking (unless you choose to &quot;mouth&quot; along with the program). But it will help your LISTENING, and provide a good foundation for speaking later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T14:22:05.127" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-07-25T22:45:11.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2011-12-14T14:31:20.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I try to learn Chinese words in &quot;families.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, this word 妈 means &quot;mother,&quot; and is pronounced ma (first tone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take away the woman radical to the left, and you get ma (third tone), which means &quot;horse,&quot; which is the &quot;root&quot; word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place the mouth radical to the left and you get ma (unaccented), which is a word that makes a sentence a question (equivalent to the French n'est pas?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other variations of this word, take the meanings &quot;to scold,&quot; &quot;docks,&quot; &quot;agate,&quot; etc. Depending on the word, you could have 5-10 or more &quot;compound&quot; words from one root word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are something like 858 phonetic &quot;families&quot; of which maybe 400 are fairly common.I would try to learn these 400-800 &quot;families&quot; first. Once you master them, individual words are just variations of these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="52" LastEditDate="2013-02-03T20:14:49.560" LastActivityDate="2013-02-03T20:14:49.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="150" CreationDate="2011-12-14T14:36:06.710" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a restaurant in the Ximending district of Taipei, Taiwan, with a giant banner exclaiming;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;真他媽的好吃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;=~ &quot;Truly f**ing tasty&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I equate it to the British &quot;bloody&quot;. &quot;That's bloody tasty&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Offensive in a formal context, but a commonly accepted expletive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T14:36:06.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="151" CreationDate="2011-12-14T17:05:06.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the omitting of &quot;的&quot; of possessives in object of a sentence is done by&#xA;following situations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a person have some  relationship with preceding person&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or just some place after a movement &quot;去、来、上、下、到&quot;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or some words preceding by attribute &quot;这，那&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;places: &quot;去你家&quot;,&quot;来我国&quot;,&quot;去他办公室&quot;,&quot;去他车上&quot;,&quot;到我这里&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;relationships: &quot;问她爸&quot;,&quot;找他小孩&quot;，”看望他奶奶“ &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;attribute: &quot;坐他那车&quot;, &quot;用我这笔&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;and add &quot;的&quot; if followed by other things &quot;坐他的车&quot;, &quot;找她的笔&quot;, &quot;用你的电脑&quot;, &quot;讲他的笑话&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;and more. you can omit the one if it's still the attribute  of following words. &quot;坐他(的)车的后座&quot;, &quot;用你(的)电脑的主机&quot;, &quot;找她(的)钢笔的套子&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="89" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T20:00:02.283" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T20:00:02.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="51" CreationDate="2011-12-14T17:07:12.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To take one example, the Japanese language has two &quot;strains,&quot; an indigenous strain, and a &quot;Chinese&quot; strain. The latter is written using &quot;Kanji&quot; (classical Hanzi), and if not identical to Chinese, is recognizable to Chinese speakers. Likewise, the Japanese use of Kanji is similar (although not identical) to the corresponding Hanzi. Thus, a Chinese person writing  Hanzi could be understood by a Japanese, but a Japanese person speaking the &quot;indigenous&quot; strain would be incomprehensible to a Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like saying that English has both Germanic and Latin strains, therefore two words, &quot;chair&quot; and &quot;stool&quot; that correspond to the French &quot;chaise.&quot; The English speaker might be comprehensible to a Frenchman speaking or writing about &quot;chairs,&quot; and other French-based words, but not when using Germanic words like &quot;stool.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T17:07:12.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="51" CreationDate="2011-12-14T17:47:43.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The wiki link you provided can explain this very well. For historic reasons, the Chinese writing system influenced almost all of East Asia. So many countries and nations used Chinese characters or borrowed a subset of Chinese characters. That's another story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want the answer to this question, you should check the History books. In short, countries like Korea and Vietnam used to be ancient China's tributaries. For communication with the Chinese government, they took Chinese characters as their own languages' written characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Japan is different, Japan was never a tributary of China. The Chinese traveled to Japan, then the Japanese took some parts from Chinese characters to construct their own writing system. On the other hand, Chinese language researchers believe one important reason why China did not fragment into smaller countries like Europe did is because of  their written language. Chinese has so many dialects but only have one written language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even in China, students won't study classical Chinese until they enter 9th grade. So it is true like you said, learn modern Chinese first then Classic. Many Chinese idioms (成语) are inherited from classical Chinese and used widely in modern life. So I believe that before you can learn classical Chinese, you'll need to be build a strong foundation with modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:55:26.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="167" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="202" CreationDate="2011-12-14T19:26:49.650" Score="34" ViewCount="76907" Body="&lt;p&gt;For those who speak both Chinese and Japanese, would first learning Chinese make it easier to learn Japanese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing that Japanese Kanji are derived from Chinese characters, how hard is it to do the opposite? Learning Mandarin after learning Japanese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="110" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-06-24T16:57:11.650" LastActivityDate="2021-04-13T08:29:56.597" Title="Is it easier to learn Chinese after learning Japanese or vice versa?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="168" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="178" CreationDate="2011-12-14T19:30:45.427" Score="15" ViewCount="9606" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase 他妈的 has been explained in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/150/how-offensive-is-%E4%BB%96%E5%A6%88%E7%9A%84&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;. Since I'm a no-expletives guy, I don't feel comfortable so close to the f-word. :) I was wondering what would be the correct way to use some of the &lt;em&gt;milder&lt;/em&gt; curse words I use daily like &quot;damn&quot;, &quot;bloody hell&quot;, &quot;sh*t&quot;, &quot;arse&quot; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing most of these cannot be translated directly, so I guess what I'm asking is: &lt;strong&gt;What would be more-or-less socially acceptable way of cursing in Chinese when you stub your toe?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T13:09:48.260" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T13:09:48.260" Title="How do I say &quot;damn!&quot; or &quot;bloody hell&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;&lt;swearing&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="169" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="175" CreationDate="2011-12-14T19:47:43.737" Score="5" ViewCount="1862" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although traditionally Cantonese speakers just use standard Chinese (mostly Traditional in my experience) for writing and reading, written Cantonese does exist as you can read about in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.  I'm curious as to whether there exists any input system for this written Cantonese.  I specifically use Windows, but I'd be interested to know about systems for Mac and Linux as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, do most or all the characters used for written Cantonese exist in other Chinese input libraries?  I ask this realizing that many of the characters in written Cantonese are simply re-purposed, but I also know that many of them are other characters with the addition of a leading 口 character and I don't know whether those exist outside of written Cantonese or not.  Please enlighten me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="26" LastActivityDate="2012-12-11T22:13:54.453" Title="Written Cantonese input?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="172" CreationDate="2011-12-14T19:54:40.217" Score="37" ViewCount="7352" Body="&lt;p&gt;I already have a hard time distinguishing tones in normal speech. This gets significantly worse when I listen to Chinese songs, since the melody masks tones even further. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, I understand that context will help distinguish words from one another. But almost always I have to look up the lyrics to know exactly what they are singing about. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can native Chinese speakers tell tones apart in songs? How can I improve my tone-listening skills (in music)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="88" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T04:46:31.423" Title="Can native Chinese speakers distinguish tones in songs?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="170" CreationDate="2011-12-14T20:17:15.287" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Listen to a slow melodious song like 月亮代表我的心  and you should be able to pick out the tones reasonably well as the background music is quite soft and the words are spoken clearly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T20:17:15.287" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="170" CreationDate="2011-12-14T20:23:26.300" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure if listening skill to tones in Chinese songs has its own implication, I get the impression that songs are generally harder than daily conversations for a non-native language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the first part of your question: native speaker can not tell the lyrics all the time. One particularly interesting case is the songs by Jay Chou, who is one of the most famous Chinese singers since 2000. As a native speaker, I can only get about 10%-30% of the lyrics by only listening to his rap songs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, tones seem not to be problem, rather, it is the speed that makes the difficulty for native speakers. Personally, I do not really find tones as the problem. Perhaps only when listen to special dialects, nonstandard tones may be problematic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To improve, the suggestion could be similar as what you thought. Start with easier ones and try to understand in the context. This process should be very similar to or same as general listening skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="58" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T21:13:10.947" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T21:13:10.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="173" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="194" CreationDate="2011-12-14T20:26:48.747" Score="4" ViewCount="2514" Body="&lt;p&gt;I vaguely remember hearing somebody make observations about the word 奴隶 (slave). I would like to verify the impressions of the person who was speaking as being factual or just his impressions.&#xA;What is the Cultural etymology of the word 奴隶 (Slave). More specifically I would like to know more about the use of the female character in the radical of 奴 (Nú). The observation I had encountered was that in the past women had no rights and were regarded as 'property' or if not property then working hands for the household of the husband. I am wondering if this 'servitude' was the basis of using the female character as a radical for this word, or if there is some other link between the two words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="112" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T15:36:43.140" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T15:36:43.140" Title="Etymology of 奴隶 (Slave)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="167" CreationDate="2011-12-14T20:27:27.603" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from the Kanji/Hanzi, that they (partly) have in common, concerning the &lt;strong&gt;written&lt;/strong&gt; part, there is nothing that can really help you with the other language:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese is pretty much SVO, Japanese is SOV;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese has tones, Japanese has no tones. When speaking, sentences do have a certain &quot;tone&quot;, but not phonemic, i.e. it doesn't totally change the meaning;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese has one writing system (Hanzi), Japanese has 3 (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't come up with other substantial differences right now. But what I'm trying to say is that learning one or the other, won't give you a special advantage on the other one. You'll have some better knowledge about the characters they have in common but not all is always the same (pronunciation, strokes, meaning).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T20:27:27.603" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="169" CreationDate="2011-12-14T20:27:53.237" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe all Cantonese characters (theoretically) have pinyin representations. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冇 &lt;em&gt;(have not)&lt;/em&gt; / Yale: mou5 / Pinyin: mao3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;佢哋 &lt;em&gt;(they)&lt;/em&gt; / Yale: keui5 dei6 / Pinyin: qu2 di4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;咗 &lt;em&gt;(similar to 了)&lt;/em&gt; / Yale: jo2 / Pinyin: zuo3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嘢 &lt;em&gt;(thing)&lt;/em&gt; / Yale: ye5 / Pinyin: ye3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in my experience, using a Standard Chinese Pinyin IME to enter Cantonese characters is just not &lt;em&gt;natural&lt;/em&gt;. Sometimes characters are missing. Some commonly used characters are way down the list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One solution is to use a Cantonese IME like &lt;a href=&quot;http://cpime.hk/&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;. There are even &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantoneseinput.com/&quot;&gt;online tools to input Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="88" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T20:36:27.217" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T20:36:27.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="168" CreationDate="2011-12-14T20:28:21.177" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;For cursing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;操&quot; is pretty similar to &quot;damn&quot; or &quot;sh*t&quot; in such situation of cursing. Also similar as they should not be used in very formal situations. However, the meaning of &quot;操&quot; is same as the f word in its verb form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;操&quot; should be quite acceptable (or at least ok) in informal scenarios. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;靠&quot; has very very close meaning as &quot;操&quot; in this situation. Actually, it is some thing more dirty in origin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just express it hurts e.g. when get a toe stubbed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;While in very formal situations, I would say &quot;Ah!(啊!)&quot; (same as &quot;Ouch!&quot;) without cursing. Note: the ah sound is really short, something short than 1/2 second perhaps.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哎呀 has the similar meaning while in my personal impression, 哎呀 is more used in situation of surprises than got hurt.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="58" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T21:01:59.263" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T21:01:59.263" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="169" CreationDate="2011-12-14T20:36:18.680" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't want to install a Cantonese IME, the Cantonese specific characters are included in cangjie (倉頡), using the same stroke decomposing rules. Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冇 = 大月&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哋 = 口土心木&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;睇 = 月山金弓竹&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another useful resource is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantoneseinput.com/&quot;&gt;http://www.cantoneseinput.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T20:36:18.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="168" CreationDate="2011-12-14T20:45:20.360" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;May I suggest checking out the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinasmack.com/glossary&quot;&gt;ChinaSmack glossary&lt;/a&gt;? They have a huge array of colorful language, and there is sure to be something that meets your needs in terms of a curse word there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to add, I always hear Chinese girls saying &lt;strong&gt;讨厌 (taoyan)&lt;/strong&gt; when they are annoyed or frustrated, but it's not exactly the most masculine of statements. &lt;strong&gt;烦 (fan)&lt;/strong&gt; also seems to be a common expression amongst both genders, although not exactly the meaning you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T20:45:20.360" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="168" CreationDate="2011-12-14T20:48:17.727" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;靠&quot; is more like it, in modern oral Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While &quot;操&quot; is literally the F-word since it's a homonym of &quot;肏&quot; which &lt;strong&gt;means&lt;/strong&gt; the F-word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for a more speakable word, 倒霉, 该死 or 见鬼 would be more fit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="113" LastEditorUserId="113" LastEditDate="2011-12-14T21:56:17.927" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T21:56:17.927" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="180" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="188" CreationDate="2011-12-14T21:16:43.340" Score="10" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 也 only as &quot;also&quot;, but I see it now and then used in ways difficult to understand, especially in some negative statements. Why is this so? Does 也 also have some meaning not mentioned in dictionaries which is used in these cases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:17:48.867" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T04:17:48.867" Title="Why is it possible to replace 都 with 也 in 什么都没有?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20" CreationDate="2011-12-14T22:02:30.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well. If you learn as an adult, usually you want to learn quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many specialised learning methods targeting adults, and they are very helpful. So, if you want to learn quick - don't use children books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have children. And if you read to them. This is another pair of shoes. Yes, even if it is you who wants to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I read a book to my son, I do so twice, or much more often. So at the end I know the book by heart. This is very helpful when learning a language. So I dont learn quick here, but deep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, actually I don't think thats what you were asking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="54" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T22:02:30.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="182" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="208" CreationDate="2011-12-14T22:05:26.037" Score="6" ViewCount="1362" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've hear on many occasions that Chinese prolong the last word in a sentence, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ni hao ma ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;becomes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ni hao maaaaa ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm not sure that's clear enough but can't think of a better way to describe)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the purpose of this? Does it have any cultural meaning? What does it convey?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; Perhaps I misunderstood, maybe it's 你好吗啊？ with the 啊 being longer than usual?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:55:49.153" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T05:16:26.993" Title="Why do Chinese &quot;extend&quot; the last word when speaking?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;accent&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="83" CreationDate="2011-12-14T22:26:38.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm answering from an old memory, and can't know whether this is correct in any modern Windows system. Nevertheless: I think to remember that I installed ZhengMa for windows years ago. Then I changed the language to Chinese and got a help file in Chinese. This wasn't available in English. I'd assume that this help text is the best you get. But I just assume.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="54" LastEditorUserId="54" LastEditDate="2012-04-07T09:10:29.550" LastActivityDate="2012-04-07T09:10:29.550" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="182" CreationDate="2011-12-14T22:28:29.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very uncommon...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I can think of is... usually when people talk to a baby or when a girl whine to her boyfriend... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe sometimes when a native speaker talk to a foreigner.(I think it's because the person is  afraid the foreigner won't follow what he/she says)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T22:28:29.360" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="103" CreationDate="2011-12-14T23:21:07.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Similar to 劳驾, you could say 不好意思. It doesn't mean &quot;Thank you&quot; though. It can be used as &quot;Excuse me&quot; or &quot;Sorry&quot; or &quot;Hey&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T23:21:07.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="182" CreationDate="2011-12-14T23:22:01.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is only personal accent. I have never found that pronunciation among people I know. Theoretically, we don't extend any pronunciation, but I think you can do that when you want to emphasize that character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2011-12-14T23:22:01.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="187" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="190" CreationDate="2011-12-14T23:42:20.623" Score="11" ViewCount="535" Body="&lt;p&gt;I knew a Chinese woman who taught me a lot about Chinese languages. One of them was about 汉语's etymology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was told that all parts of these characters had a meaning connected to the History of Chinese language. Well, the story was like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China was once divided into 5 parts, each one had an emperor. Each emperor had a single language spoken among his people. That's why it is easy to identify characters as five (五), mouth (口). It is also easy to identify the &quot;language&quot; character and the water prefix in the first character. So, when China was unified, only a single language was spoken by everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this story true? If not, what's its etymology? How is it different from 中文?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-19T15:05:45.250" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T15:05:45.250" Title="Etymology of 汉语" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="180" CreationDate="2011-12-15T00:24:50.587" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;什麼都 can be used in both positive and negative statements while 什麼也 is usually used in negative statements. So, instead of focusing on the usage of 也 here, 什麼都 and 什麼也 can be regarded as phrases which are sometimes used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們以為什麼都知道，而實際上什麼也不知道。/ 我们以为什么都知道，而实际上什么也不知道。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possible translation:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We thought we knew/know everything but, in fact, we knew/know nothing at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it's ok to say (although the above example would read better):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們以為什麼都知道，而實際上*&lt;em&gt;什麼都&lt;/em&gt;*不知道。/ 我们以为什么都知道，而实际上*&lt;em&gt;什么都&lt;/em&gt;*不知道。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but odd to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們以為*&lt;em&gt;什麼也&lt;/em&gt;*知道，而實際上什麼也不知道。/ 我们以为*&lt;em&gt;什么也&lt;/em&gt;*知道，而实际上什么也不知道。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="48" LastEditorUserId="48" LastEditDate="2011-12-28T12:02:24.670" LastActivityDate="2011-12-28T12:02:24.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="189" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="192" CreationDate="2011-12-15T00:33:53.730" Score="19" ViewCount="5093" Body="&lt;p&gt;When addressing a female, do I have to use 妳 instead of 你?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How common is the usage of 妳?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-19T15:02:56.710" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T15:04:13.860" Title="How widespread is the use of 妳?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="187" CreationDate="2011-12-15T00:39:45.383" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure about the story, but to answer the difference between &lt;code&gt;&quot;汉语&quot;&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;&quot;中文&quot;&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally, &lt;code&gt;&quot;汉语&quot;&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;the language of Han Chinese&quot;, while &lt;code&gt;&quot;中文&quot;&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;the language of China&quot;. As defined in &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, they are interchangeable terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;汉语&quot; expresses the ethnic root of the language, as it may be created or first widely used by Han Chinese. There are other minor ethnic Chinese people, many have their own languages. E.g. 满语 is the language once widely used by 满族 people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, the expression &quot;中文&quot; seems to be a direct conclusion that the main language of China is Han Chinese, which actually is true in many aspects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further discussions may have deeper roots in Chinese history and culture, e.g. how come the term of &lt;code&gt;Han&lt;/code&gt;, or complex political implications, e.g. if you agree to consider 藏语 as one of the the languages in China or even one of the Chinese languages, or do you agree 藏族 people are one type of Chinese, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="58" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T00:51:04.257" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T00:51:04.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="187" CreationDate="2011-12-15T00:40:47.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not true. It's more like a tale other than history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉语 is just Han’s language. While 中文 is Chinese script(or language).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漢語 was already used in ancient China, while 中文 appeared in modern times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="113" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T00:40:47.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="189" CreationDate="2011-12-15T00:46:54.627" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mainland China doesn't use 妳 anymore. 妳 is mostly used in Hong Kong and Taiwan where they still use Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned in the question, 妳 is used to address a female person. In mainland China, people use 你 for both males and females.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: the right hand side of 你 or 妳 is 尔. In Traditional Chinese, 尔 is written as 爾. However, as far as I know, 你 and 妳 in Traditional Chinese are not written as 儞 not 嬭 but just 你 and 妳. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-19T15:03:35.903" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T15:03:35.903" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="189" CreationDate="2011-12-15T00:46:54.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure if it is a standard character in mainland Mandarin. I never use it in my life and have only seen it in very limited situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T00:46:54.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="173" CreationDate="2011-12-15T01:06:58.507" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;A personal experience, most etymology explanations of characters are not definitive. Explanations can be derived from theoretic work or maybe just personal imagination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That been said, I searched in google and found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figures on how &lt;code&gt;奴&lt;/code&gt; as written in ancient and modern times. Link from &lt;a href=&quot;http://alphads10-2.hkbu.edu.hk/~lcprichi/search/show_word.php?id=591&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;hkbu.edu.hk&lt;/a&gt;. Now, please look at the figure below, which is &lt;code&gt;奴&lt;/code&gt; in its &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E5%B0%8F%E7%AF%86&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;小篆&lt;/a&gt; form (the character written form standardized when China was first united in Qin Dynasty after 221BC). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As described in the same page, &lt;code&gt;奴&lt;/code&gt; --&gt; &lt;code&gt;女&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;又&lt;/code&gt; --&gt; &lt;code&gt;静坐的女性(Female seating courteously)&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;手的象征 (Symbol of hands)&lt;/code&gt; --&gt; &lt;code&gt;Female who work with her hands&lt;/code&gt; (hope you can get this point from the figure below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To go further, this explanation links &lt;code&gt;奴&lt;/code&gt; to one of its main meanings -- &lt;code&gt;奴婢/奴仆/奴才&lt;/code&gt;, which is similar as &lt;code&gt;servant&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;maid&lt;/code&gt; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, there is nothing about the 'servitude'. But, of course, one can explain &lt;code&gt;奴&lt;/code&gt; from another main meaning -- &lt;code&gt;奴隶\奴役&lt;/code&gt;, which means &lt;code&gt;slaves&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;servitude&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is really a side-proof that etymology of characters are open to ones' empirical/theoretical research or even imagination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qlUei.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="58" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T01:14:51.427" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T01:14:51.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="195" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="961" CreationDate="2011-12-15T01:28:43.320" Score="11" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;For translators, is there an authoritative source they go to where they can check translations are accurate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example say there was a political conference and someone wasn't sure if the word should be &quot;distraught&quot; or &quot;upset&quot; when quoting a Chinese diplomat. Is there anywhere they can go (an offical body, a book etc.) to get some sort of official information or where they can challenge a current translation of a word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen articles written in newspapers where the translation doesn't quite fit or they use a word that is archaic and I wonder if that is an agreed upon translation or it is just a dictionary look-up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T02:14:32.500" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T15:42:05.970" Title="Authoritative source for translators" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="197" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="198" CreationDate="2011-12-15T02:29:14.233" Score="8" ViewCount="367" Body="&lt;p&gt;When casually speaking English I use the word &quot;actually&quot; a lot at the beginning of a sentance, or as part of the flow of my speech. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Actually, next semester doesn't start for a month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Actually, I don't have any siblings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to be able to continue this speech habit in Mandarin Chinese, I have been using 事实上 (shìshíshàng), but from my listeners' reactions I am not sure if this is really the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the closest equivalent expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T06:42:16.240" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T06:42:16.240" Title="&quot;Actually&quot; as a sentence-starter of speech filler" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="197" CreationDate="2011-12-15T02:40:17.633" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;其实&quot; or &quot;其实呢&quot; is more similar to what you wanted, casually. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其实我没有兄弟姐妹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;事实上&quot; is not wrong, but it is literally &quot;in fact&quot; or &quot;as a matter of fact&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T02:40:17.633" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="199" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="211" CreationDate="2011-12-15T02:42:01.257" Score="10" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where is 计算机 used for &quot;computer&quot;, and where does it mean &quot;calculator&quot;. In regions where it means &quot;calculator&quot; what is the word for &quot;supercomputer&quot; (assuming that 超级计算机 is not used there)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T05:21:28.210" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T05:21:28.210" Title="Which regions use 计算机 for computer?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="197" CreationDate="2011-12-15T02:45:05.093" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following on from Flake, I also often hear people saying 那么 (那) or just as a way to begin sentences, or 那个 when stopping to think in mid sentences. Is that the sort of thing you mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T02:45:05.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="199" CreationDate="2011-12-15T02:48:50.870" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mainland China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calculator = 计算器&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer  = 计算机&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电脑 is also used for Computer, especially Personal Computer. Mostly used in oral form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="47" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T07:07:52.253" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T07:07:52.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="167" CreationDate="2011-12-15T02:56:43.067" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it would be easier to learn Chinese after learning Japanese rather than vice-versa, because too many Chinese characters are used in Japanese. I would like to talk about this from three points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pronunciations&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, in Japanese, one character has 2 types of pronunciations, &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%9F%B3%E8%AA%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;音読 おんどく ondoku or 音読み おんよみ onyomi&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%A8%93%E8%AA%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;訓読 くんどく kundoku or 訓読み くんよみ kunyomi&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;. The 音読 (in Chinese, 音读) is similar to the pronunciation of the character in Chinese, because both modern Chinese and 音読 come from ancient Chinese (漢字を字音で読むこと。). 訓読 is the Japanese way of rendering the characters pronunciation, choosing the similar Japanese vocabulary in meaning to substitute (訓読は、漢字を、その意味にあたる日本語の読み方で読むこと。). This could be an advantage when you learn one of these two languages after you learnt one another.It can help you to remember the pronunciations.  But it could be an obstacle in some cases, since the pronunciations of characters in Chinese also changed in the long history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: Character 人. In Japanese, its 音読 includes ニン nin (&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%B3%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;呉&lt;/a&gt;) as in &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/168822/m0u/%E4%BA%BA%E9%96%93/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;人間の歴史 にんげんのれきし&lt;/a&gt;　and　ジン jin (&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E6%BC%A2%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢&lt;/a&gt;) as in &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/srch/all/%E3%81%A8%E3%81%86%E3%81%98%E3%82%87%E3%81%86%E3%81%98%E3%82%93%E3%81%B6%E3%81%A4/m0u/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;登場人物　とうじょうじんぶつ&lt;/a&gt;. These two variants, ニン and ジン, come from different times of ancient China; one of its 訓読 is &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/113338/m0u/%E4%BA%BA/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ひと&lt;/a&gt;. In modern Mandarin, the pronunciation is &amp;quot;rén ㄖㄣˊ&amp;quot;, however, I know in &amp;quot;吳語&amp;quot;, the pronunciation is &amp;quot;nin&amp;quot;, which proofs the ニン nin (呉). Anyway, this could also help you to remember the 音読. If you know &amp;quot;Nin&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Jin&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;人&amp;quot;, you may guess &amp;quot;nin&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;jin&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;仁&amp;quot; (actually, it's right!), because both &amp;quot;人&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;仁&amp;quot; have the similar sound in ancient/modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Writing Characters&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Japanese uses a lot of Chinese Characters, it's an advantage for you to write down the characters if you have learnt one language. However, you still have to take care of some characters. Because both Japan and China conducted several reforms (i.e. simplification for better literacy, though in China some political motivation too, which is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E7%B0%A1%E5%8C%96%E7%88%AD%E8%AB%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;controversial&lt;/a&gt; action) on traditional characters, and of course, they didn't negotiate with each other (though in fact, Chinese government did treat Japanese version as reference, e.g. 國 simplified to 国), so some characters are different after the simplification. One thing is for sure, simplified characters done in China is much more than those in Japan or Republic of Korea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: Character &amp;quot;对&amp;quot; in simplified Chinese while &amp;quot;対&amp;quot; in Japanese, the traditional being &amp;quot;對&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Meanings of Characters&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, the meanings of a character in Japanese and Chinese are the same or almost the same. This is a big advantage. However, Japanese generally keeps meanings of a  character in Classic Chinese, while in modern Chinese meanings of some characters have changed. In this case, the learner should pay extra attention to these characters, compared to a learner who doesn't know one another language, because his experience will lead him to a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: Japanese verb &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/thsrs/1308/m0u/%E8%B5%B0/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;走る はしる hashiru&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;, which means &amp;quot;to run&amp;quot;. In modern Chinese, we use &amp;quot;走&amp;quot; to mean &amp;quot;to walk&amp;quot; and use &amp;quot;跑&amp;quot; to mean &amp;quot;to run&amp;quot;, however, in classic Chinese, &amp;quot;走&amp;quot; really can mean &amp;quot;to run&amp;quot;, as in &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E6%88%B0%E5%9C%8B%E7%AD%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰国策&lt;/a&gt;·楚策·江乙對荆宣王:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;荊宣王問羣臣曰 吾聞北方之畏昭奚恤也 果誠何如 群臣莫對 江乙對曰 虎求百獸而食之 得狐 狐曰 子無敢食我也 天帝使我長百獸 今子食我 是逆天帝命也 子以我為不信 吾為子先行 子隨我後 觀百獸之見我而敢不走乎 虎以為然 故遂與之行 獸見之皆走 虎不知獸畏己而走也 以為畏狐也 今王之地方五千里 帶甲百萬 而專屬之昭奚恤 故北方之畏奚恤也 其實畏王之甲兵也 猶百獸之畏虎也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared with the advantages and disadvantages, I believe it could be easier to learn one language of these two after you have learnt one another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="16264" LastEditDate="2021-04-13T08:29:56.597" LastActivityDate="2021-04-13T08:29:56.597" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="203" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="206" CreationDate="2011-12-15T02:57:53.073" Score="12" ViewCount="1162" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term &lt;strong&gt;fail&lt;/strong&gt; is pretty popular &lt;a href=&quot;http://failblog.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;on the internet&lt;/a&gt; these days, and one I'm quite fond of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking in my Chinese dictionary I can't find a great equivalent - is there a good way to say this? What would be the best word to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T17:17:07.567" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T17:17:07.567" Title="How to say &quot;fail&quot; in Mandarin? (as in &quot;epic fail&quot; in internet memes)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="167" CreationDate="2011-12-15T03:00:26.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had studied Japanese before I began Chinese (My father has lived in Japan for 15 years). In my experience, apart from the muscle memory in drawing characters, there was very little transferable knowledge / skills from Japanese to Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Japanese was extremely limited however, so this may be different for someone with advanced Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T03:00:26.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="203" CreationDate="2011-12-15T03:26:50.137" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Direct translation of fail would be 失败 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in internet context, I think 糗(qiǔ) is more suitable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;糗 means embarrassing, usually as a result of you failed something...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used as verb, you would say 出糗, means you did something embarrassing. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我出糗了  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T03:26:50.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="203" CreationDate="2011-12-15T03:27:18.567" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;囧(jiong3) to fail，or 囧大了，囧大发了 to epic fail&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When fail use to describe some fails in movie/tv drama, we say 穿帮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastEditorUserId="66" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T04:10:10.777" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T04:10:10.777" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="182" CreationDate="2011-12-15T04:16:14.030" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This kind of case is usually occurs on these occasions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you are standing at top of the mountain, you feel very exciting, and shout out with prolonging the each word(like &lt;code&gt;niiiiiii haooooooo maaaaaaa&lt;/code&gt;) or just the last word(like &lt;code&gt;ni hao maaaaaaa&lt;/code&gt;). Mum, so exciting! :p&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It usually occurs in young people, especially the female. Some cute girls will often prolong the word in front of her boyfriend. &lt;code&gt;你好吗~~~(ni hao maaaa)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;想我吗~~~(xiang wo maaaaaaa)&lt;/code&gt;, etc. This is often described as &lt;code&gt;嗲(dia3)&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese. When chatting via Internet, &lt;code&gt;~&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;'&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;.&lt;/code&gt; characters will often used as the word prolonged.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sometimes, wife will do like this in front of her husband. Just like the case No.2. :)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for your last question: you did not misunderstand. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="79" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T04:16:14.030" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="209" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="210" CreationDate="2011-12-15T04:19:22.357" Score="7" ViewCount="798" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there something in Mandarin like &quot;I don't give a f***&quot;, something that expresses the same sense of &quot;I don't care&quot; but with more force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T03:03:42.073" Title="Equivalent expression to: &quot;I don't give a f***&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="209" CreationDate="2011-12-15T04:27:10.127" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, but in the dialect spoken where I lived people say 没得屌事. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-29T01:32:28.863" LastActivityDate="2011-12-29T01:32:28.863" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="199" CreationDate="2011-12-15T04:36:34.887" Score="10" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;计算机&lt;/code&gt; is often used for &lt;code&gt;computer&lt;/code&gt; in written language in mainland China. And &lt;code&gt;电脑&lt;/code&gt; usually means &lt;code&gt;Desktop computer&lt;/code&gt; in oral language.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Calculator&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;计算器&lt;/code&gt; not &lt;code&gt;计算机&lt;/code&gt; just as @StarCub said.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And for &lt;code&gt;laptop&lt;/code&gt;, it's &lt;code&gt;手提电脑&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;笔记本电脑&lt;/code&gt;, or just called &lt;code&gt;笔记本&lt;/code&gt;(not the &lt;code&gt;notebook&lt;/code&gt; here).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Usually, &lt;code&gt;超级计算机&lt;/code&gt; is used for &lt;code&gt;supercomputer&lt;/code&gt;. But generally speaking, &lt;code&gt;supercomputer&lt;/code&gt; often has its own name, just like &lt;code&gt;天河一号(Thiahe-1A)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="79" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T04:36:34.887" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="209" CreationDate="2011-12-15T04:59:14.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A direct translation would be:&quot;我不在乎&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to make an emphasis or show your anger, you could say:&quot;爱咋咋的&quot;.&#xA;&quot;爱咋咋的&quot; is more commonly used in Northern area, which literally means &quot;[do] anything you like to[, I don't care.]&quot;, you can also simply say &quot;随便”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T04:59:14.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2011-12-15T05:15:47.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm getting a lot of answers on learning based on the radicals. Which is valid and works for quite a lot of characters. But it doesn't always work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond learning radicals and &quot;families&quot; like other posters suggested, there are no shortcuts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way to learn and retain characters is to constantly practice and reinforce what you learned by using it. Just talking from experience: I've done my share of copying down Chinese characters over and over again. But if I didn't use them, I'd quickly forget what I &quot;learned.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is probably true for any language you learn - you have to apply what you learned (and keep using it). I am a native and fluent Portuguese speaker, but after a few years of not using it as often, I am starting to forget things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So keep practicing. This is probably the best advice I can give you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="88" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T05:15:47.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="124" CreationDate="2011-12-15T05:35:05.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The situation in mainland China is not quite so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most universities in China use standard Chinese for common communication, but there is no such a course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From primary school to high school, we learn 语文. But it is not standard Chinese at all, because many teachers teach this course in regional dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="116" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:55:36.577" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:55:36.577" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="215" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="219" CreationDate="2011-12-15T05:55:30.540" Score="26" ViewCount="9077" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many times, when reading Mandarin, I will happen across a character that I don't know. Usually, the radical along with some context will clue me into the meaning, but if I can't determine the radical, I'm stuck. Generally, I can spot many character's radicals, such as &lt;code&gt;氵&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;辶&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;宀&lt;/code&gt;. However, there are characters who have one or more &quot;radical-like&quot; components to them, like &lt;code&gt;烋&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;想&lt;/code&gt;, and I'm unsure how to tell which is the true radical. Is there any general approaches which will at least more better than guessing? Are their certain radicals that generally take precedence over others when they both occur in the same character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; My examples aren't the best, as both of those characters have radicals that are easy to pick out. A general strategy for when they aren't so easy is really what I'm after. For example, &lt;code&gt;能&lt;/code&gt; seems to have two possible radicals, &lt;code&gt;厶&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;匕&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="67" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-12-14T16:22:28.187" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T11:26:14.073" Title="How can one determine the radical for a given character?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="182" CreationDate="2011-12-15T06:00:04.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the words didn't get extended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's a tone as a question sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="89" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T06:00:04.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="124" CreationDate="2011-12-15T06:03:32.800" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;They will, in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All teachers working for public schools (not only Chinese Language teachers) must pass the Mandarin exam to get the certificate to teach, every year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for now, it's still strictly enforced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="89" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:55:32.800" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:55:32.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="215" CreationDate="2011-12-15T06:11:01.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just remember the common radicals:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/jtbs/ZdicE7Zdic81ZdicAC.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;烋 is with 灬 （四点水）&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/jtbs/ZdicE5ZdicBFZdic83.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;想 is with 心 （心字底）&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are both very commmon radicals. You can look up radicals at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/bs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zdic.net&lt;/a&gt; site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning your latter question, I think you could look for the less stroke one; but the situation which both parts are radical is rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. you can find 贾 with '贝' radical but not in '西' radical in the site I linked above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="89" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-30T10:32:01.190" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T10:32:01.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="215" CreationDate="2011-12-15T06:11:11.390" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;A rule of thumb is to look for the radical that seems to be more &lt;em&gt;prominent&lt;/em&gt;. For those characters, it's pretty easy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In 烋, notice how 灬 spans the entire character horizontally: it is the radical (火) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Same thing applies to 想 : 心 is the radical.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a bonus, in 强 which you have in your name, 弓 is the radical: notice how it spans the entire character &lt;em&gt;vertically&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next best strategy is to identify and memorize common radicals and where they are commonly positioned, eg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In 很 the radical is 彳. This is a radical that mostly appears on the left.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In 责  the radical is 贝. This is a radical that mostly appears on the bottom&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In 军  the radical is 冖. When in doubt, pick the one on top (and/or the one with the fewest strokes).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In 明 the radical is 日. When in doubt, pick the one on the left.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of this will come with practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some tools that will allow you to look up word and it will give you the radical, like this: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mandarintools.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://mandarintools.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="88" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-30T10:32:34.760" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T10:32:34.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="220" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="221" CreationDate="2011-12-15T06:18:33.617" Score="8" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, these characters have different radicals:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;根 跟 恨 狠&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the part of the characters minus the radical is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that part (艮 in this case) have a name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="88" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T16:23:22.253" Title="What is the part without the radical called?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="220" CreationDate="2011-12-15T06:32:14.197" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt;, this part is defined as &quot;phonetic&quot;. I am not familiar with these jargons in English, but I thinks this one is acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case,&quot;艮&quot;(gèn or gěn) is really a character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: Add Chinese names for this part&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We call these characters “形声字”(in modern Chinese, many characters can be classified into this type). 形 means &quot;form&quot;, referring to the radical, 声 means &quot;sound&quot;, so I think &quot;phonetic&quot; is acceptable to call that part. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we call the &quot;radical&quot; 形旁 and the &quot;phonetic&quot; 声旁. Here, 旁(pang2) means a part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T06:51:29.750" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T06:51:29.750" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="223" CreationDate="2011-12-15T07:03:19.047" Score="8" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend asked me for a brief description of the general guidelines for writing Chinese characters. What are the simplest ways to describe those &quot;rules&quot; that apply across most characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:31:39.733" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T16:31:39.733" Title="General guidelines for learning stroke order" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="222" CreationDate="2011-12-15T07:03:40.480" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best place to start is with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_order#General_guidelines&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia entry on stroke order&lt;/a&gt;. It lists these guidelines, along with more detail and some nice animated examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Write from top to bottom, and left to right. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Horizontal before vertical &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Diagonals right-to-left before diagonals left-to-right &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Center before outside in vertically symmetrical characters &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Enclosures before contents &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Left vertical before enclosing &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Bottom enclosures last &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Dots and minor strokes last &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience, you don't need to panic about the details of each character, and there is sometimes disagreement about the &quot;correct&quot; order. If you learn the general guidelines, you won't usually make embarrassing mistakes. If you do want to see the details of a specific character, there are lots of on-line resources. Here are the two I most often use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG.net&lt;/a&gt; - Type the pinyin and press enter, then click on the character you want. Finally, hover over the &gt;&gt; arrow and click on the brush to see a stroke order animation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt; - Use the search page to find the character you want, then scroll to the bottom and click on the &quot;Animated&quot; link to see a different stroke order animation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although those are the two I use most often, the stroke order reference I find most beautiful and readable is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Stroke_Order_Project&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons Stroke Order Project&lt;/a&gt;, specifically, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bw.png_stroke_order_images&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Black and White images&lt;/a&gt;. Here's an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6O2F2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They're much easier for me to use than an animation, because they are static images. I can scan back and forth with my eye, instead of waiting for the animation to cycle through. I used them as the inspiration for my &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/donkirkby/wiki/ChineseVocabulary&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mnemosyne flash card files&lt;/a&gt;. Mine aren't quite as pretty, because they are automatically generated, but they have the added feature of a grid to guide your stroke placement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just discovered the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lri.fr/~dragice/strokefanning/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stroke Fanning&lt;/a&gt; reference. It's very compact (500 characters on a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lri.fr/~dragice/strokefanning/strokeorder-500.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;two-page PDF&lt;/a&gt;), but I still find the Wikimedia Commons format much more intuitive to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T07:03:40.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20" CreationDate="2011-12-15T07:20:32.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've used a mixture of textbooks and children's books to practice reading. The biggest advantage to children's books is that I can read them together with my daughter. She's not very interested in my textbooks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest thing to be careful of with children's books is to check which phonetic system they use before you buy or borrow them. Here in Vancouver, our library has a lot of Chinese children's books that were printed in Hong Kong, so they use Zhuyin Fuhao (bopomofo). I learned pinyin in my lessons, so I had to teach myself Zhuyin Fuhao just to read these library books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T07:20:32.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="225" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="245" CreationDate="2011-12-15T07:32:00.463" Score="13" ViewCount="2897" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any good magazines (or perhaps books) that can be used to practice reading for beginners? I feel that my Chinese level is good enough to read simple sentences but it's still impossible to read newspapers or normal magazines, so I'm looking for something easier to practice. Any suggestion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; Just started reading a &quot;Chinese Breeze Graded Readers&quot; book and I confirm they are quite good, and it's relatively easy to find a book that matches your level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="76" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T21:57:26.300" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T21:57:26.300" Title="How to practice reading for beginners?" Tags="&lt;reading&gt;&lt;practice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="7" ClosedDate="2020-07-15T23:15:55.883" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="225" CreationDate="2011-12-15T09:46:28.877" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My personal preference is children's books and television.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a China town section of your local city you should be able to find a book store with children's books in them. You usually won't find these books in a regular foreign langauges store or even large chain book stores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The alternative is to go to the children's second language section of a local university where you can usually find materials for teaching children Chinese as a second language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my local city we have a large Chinese population so we can get plenty of reading material at the local library.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also like children's television as a starting point to practice reading (subtitiles). If you can't get your hands on some children's DVDs with Chinese subtitles, try the Chinese online streaming video site from CCTV. You can see the &lt;a href=&quot;http://shaoer.cntv.cn/&quot;&gt;children's section here&lt;/a&gt;. Most videos have sub titles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading subtitles on TV will help train your brain to read quickl if you already have a good basic vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T09:46:28.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="228" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="230" CreationDate="2011-12-15T09:56:39.150" Score="4" ViewCount="332" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Shanghai dialect &lt;em&gt;dirty&lt;/em&gt; is pronounced something like &quot;o co&quot; with the o pronounced like the &quot;o&quot; in &lt;em&gt;cot&lt;/em&gt; and the &quot;c&quot; pronounced like the usual c in pinyin (kinda like an 'ts' sound).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which characters would be used for writing these two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:18:03.813" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:18:03.813" Title="What is the Mandarin equivalent for the Shanghai term for dirty?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;shanghainese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="228" CreationDate="2011-12-15T10:07:21.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;髒？ zang1, which means 'dirty' or 'filthy'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="119" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T10:07:21.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="228" CreationDate="2011-12-15T10:07:22.937" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;龌龊  wò chuò&#xA;Meanings:&#xA;(1) dirty；filthy&#xA;(2) mean,despicable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not Shanghai dialect only. It's used a lot in northern China as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T10:07:22.937" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="231" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="232" CreationDate="2011-12-15T10:09:22.937" Score="15" ViewCount="1105" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed sometimes in polite company or in the company of strangers some people will saying they are going to wash their hands 去洗手 (qù xǐshǒu) instead of going to the toilet 去上厕所 (qù shàng cèsuǒ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, asking for the 洗手间 (xǐshǒujiān) instead of the 厕所 (cèsuǒ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this something that should be copied? Does it matter for guys, is this more feminine to say 洗手?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:33:14.663" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T09:51:53.770" Title="When not to use 厕所 when asking for the toilet?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="231" CreationDate="2011-12-15T10:17:46.863" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Roughly speaking, &lt;code&gt;洗手间 = bathroom/restroom&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;厕所 = toilet.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗手 literally means &lt;code&gt;wash hands&lt;/code&gt;. It's not feminine, it's just more polite as you mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use either in most cases. You would use 洗手间 while eating or when talking to someone you don't know very well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T10:17:46.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="233" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="237" CreationDate="2011-12-15T10:19:39.173" Score="5" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the main differences between 蝉 (chán) and 知了 (zhīliǎo) both meaning cicada.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they both refer to the same species?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will either saying be understood by the majority of native speakers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a particular region where one is more common?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is one archaic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:44:17.457" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T16:44:17.457" Title="Differences between 蝉 and 知了?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="234" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="241" CreationDate="2011-12-15T10:27:52.193" Score="10" ViewCount="3400" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a sentence like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你&lt;strong&gt;给我&lt;/strong&gt;拿一杯水” You would translate it something like: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Get me&lt;/strong&gt; a glass of water&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is the &quot;给我&quot; in the sentence “你给我滚” supposed to be translated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should it just be &quot;Get lost / Piss off&quot; and just ignore the &quot;给我&quot; part?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-15T05:51:35.817" LastActivityDate="2020-04-03T17:31:41.203" Title="How to translate &quot;你给我滚&quot; properly?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="13" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2011-12-15T10:32:02.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say it is like 'you get away from me', with the 给我 part just meaning get away. I suppose if you were being polite you could translate it as 'give me some space', but to be honest I think it's pretty subjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T10:32:02.567" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="233" CreationDate="2011-12-15T10:36:08.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 知了 is based on the sound a cicada makes (aka onomatopoeia), but both are reasonable terms to call a cicada. I don't think one is more right or better than another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E7%9F%A5%E4%BA%86/55114&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This page on Nciku&lt;/a&gt; has a little more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T10:36:08.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="233" CreationDate="2011-12-15T10:38:05.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, they both refer to cicada.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most people use 知了 in both oral and written forms in mainland China. People almost never use 蝉 when they speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason cicada is called 知了 is because they make the noises which sound like they are saying (zhī liǎo... zhī liǎo... zhī liǎo...). Therefore, 知了 is also used to describe the sound cicada makes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if one is more archaic than the other. As the word 知了 was used in classic Chinese literature 《月令七十二候集解》, which was written by 吳澄 in 元 dynasty (AD 1271–1368)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蜩，蟬之大而黑色者，蜣螂脫殼而成，雄者能鳴，雌者無聲，今俗稱&lt;strong&gt;知了&lt;/strong&gt;是也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T10:38:05.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="233" CreationDate="2011-12-15T11:09:00.263" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that both 蝉 and 知了 refer to cicada, but I don't think people will speak 知了 across China. Here, in Chengdu ,people don't say 知了,but 蝉子.However， 知了is a mandarin word, so an educated man can understand if you say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some names for plants and animals vary from one place to another. One good exmple I would like to take is the &quot;corn&quot;，玉米 in mandarin. In the areas near Chengdu, people would say:&quot;苞谷&quot; or “玉麦&quot;, and in the city of Nanjing, people would say “苞芦&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T11:09:00.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="167" CreationDate="2011-12-15T11:56:25.577" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I'm a Chinese that knows a little Japanese. I can say both of them are not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you studying them together, you will be confused because they seem similar but are actually different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="89" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-19T15:52:08.067" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T15:52:08.067" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="233" CreationDate="2011-12-15T12:07:54.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;both of them are cicada&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蝉 is used as it's formal name， and it's more archaic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知了 is used more in spoken or literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="89" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T12:07:54.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2011-12-15T12:26:19.030" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to Ciaocibai's answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你给我滚&quot; could be same to &quot;给我滚&quot; and then further reduced to &quot;滚&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both &quot;你给我滚&quot; and &quot;给我滚&quot;, personally, I think the &quot;给我&quot; part is used to make emphasis on strong emotions, such as contempt or strong anger. It will therefore depends on the tune/context to translate it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. &quot;给我滚一边去&quot;, can be used by a gangster head to someone else who is not important, to show his/her contempt and therefore show his/her superiority in the gang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or when a father is really angry at his son who commit a crime, he is furious and shouts out loud &quot;给我滚!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T12:26:19.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="242" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="246" CreationDate="2011-12-15T12:53:08.630" Score="34" ViewCount="4880" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since there are many characters that share a common pronunciation and sometimes also the same tone, how do we properly choose which character best represents our name? Is it totally arbitrary or are there some rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, my name is Alessandro. Do I simply choose the characters that resemble the most my name's syllables or the characters that represent things I like? I mean, choosing something that means &quot;victory&quot; over &quot;building&quot;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: Note that this question is not about my name, I just took it as an example, and I'm certainly not asking you to make my name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm asking if, when making a Chinese name for non-Chinese people, we can choose what we want according to the reading or if we need to follow certain rules, and if so, what are these rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1: The character for victory might differ from the one from building, it was just a banal example to make the point. :)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-17T08:35:54.103" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T04:59:49.953" Title="How do we choose the correct characters for a westerner name?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="242" CreationDate="2011-12-15T13:21:34.103" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just made my personal name up and chose a Chinese family name (天) that was a syllable contained in my last name (Sebastian).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My &quot;made up&quot; personal name (云龙) is a modified version of the name of a famous monk (虚云) I didn't want to copy his name directly out of respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I figured that seeing as so many Chinese people come here (Australia) and select a personal name arbitrarily, I could do the same :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T13:21:34.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="242" CreationDate="2011-12-15T13:24:47.820" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can choose your chinese name by its original meaning or just by how it sounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know people named Alessandro and he picks 三多 as his chinese name, which come from a famous chinese TV series 《士兵突击》. 三多 sounds like a part of Alessandro and regular chinese given name is only one or two characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Picking name by meaning like 胜利 to victory isn't bad idea. However, take your name for example, 胜利 often used by people older than 40. And the same with 建设 to building. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more thing you should consider is your family name. No matter how beautiful your chosen for your given name, a bad picked family name in Chinese could make your whole name sound weird or funny. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T13:24:47.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="225" CreationDate="2011-12-15T13:45:08.683" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are books specifically designed for learners, such as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_14?url=search-alias=stripbooks&amp;amp;field-keywords=chinese%20breeze%20graded%20reader%20series&amp;amp;x=0&amp;amp;y=0&amp;amp;sprefix=chinese%20breeze&quot;&gt;Chinese Breeze Graded Readers&lt;/a&gt;. These books are small, have constrained vocabulary, and relatively simple stories, but not so basic that you don't feel some sense of accomplishment after reading one. I read the book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00127AJG0&quot;&gt;错，错，错！&lt;/a&gt; which features police officers investigating a suspicious suicide. The plot would make a terrible movie but it was still fun to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T13:45:08.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="242" CreationDate="2011-12-15T14:14:21.443" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's your name and you can arbitrarily pick characters to be your name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We Chinese generally select characters with positive meanings (of course, I think characters with negative meanings would not be the choice for most people) and avoid possible bad meanings from the words with the same or similar pronunciation with the name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, it's common to see characters like 刚（rigid), 强 (strong), 杰（excellent), 明 (bright), 阳（sun), 洋 (ocean) in a man's name, and 艳 (beautiful, brilliant), 卉 (flowers), 丽 (beautiful), 芳 (fragrance), 静 (quiet) in a woman's name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, some people, will name their offspring after related characters. A good example is the name of the famous poet and politician in Song dynasty, 苏轼; his brother's name is 苏辙. &quot;轼&quot; is the rail on a wagon and &quot;辙&quot; is the track a wagon leaves on the road.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people will also select words from classic Chinese books to be the name. trideceth12 shows the name &quot;云龙&quot;; I am not sure whether he takes this word occasionally or not, but this word really comes from the book of &quot;Yì Jīng&quot;(易经),&quot;云从龙，风从虎&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="2391" LastEditDate="2013-06-13T22:40:12.003" LastActivityDate="2013-06-13T22:40:12.003" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="247" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="876" CreationDate="2011-12-15T14:54:27.443" Score="47" ViewCount="2959" Body="&lt;p&gt;To negate something, we use 不 (bù) before the verb, such as in this short dialogue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 你是老师吗？= &lt;em&gt;Are you a teacher?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: 不是。= &lt;em&gt;I'm not.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the verb 有 (yǒu) is the only one that requires 没 (méi) = 不是，不来，不忙, etc. &lt;strong&gt;vs&lt;/strong&gt; 没有. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, is this correct? If so, are there any social or historical (or other) reasons for this? What other uses does 没 have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:13:11.680" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:13:11.680" Title="Why is 有 (yǒu) the only verb that requires 没 while other verbs can use 不?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;negation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="247" CreationDate="2011-12-15T14:59:19.133" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is only a partial answer because I don't know all the details. I've been taught that when you use 没 with other verbs it indicates a different tense or time aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没去 (I have not gone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不去 （I do not go)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T14:59:19.133" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="249" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-15T15:40:29.767" Score="5" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed discrepancies in how native Mandarin speakers spell certain words in Pinyin reflecting differences in pronunciation, for instance, pángbiān vs. pángbian and zǎoshang vs. zǎoshàng. I've been told that these reflect differences across dialects. I even find these discrepancies across dictionaries, so I'm wondering if anyone knows of a source for standard Pinyin spellings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:39:15.933" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T16:39:15.933" Title="Looking for Pinyin standards" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="249" CreationDate="2011-12-15T15:51:20.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that sometimes the transcription reflects the actual reading rather than the &quot;single-character-pinyin&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 你好 is sometimes transcribed as &lt;strong&gt;ní hăo&lt;/strong&gt;, even if the &quot;actual&quot; transcription per-character would actually be &lt;strong&gt;nǐ hăo&lt;/strong&gt;. This happens because when two third tones are next to each other, the first one becomes a second tone (when reading/pronouncing the characters, not when writing). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other cases there is a totall loss of the tone, such as in 窗户 (window) transcribed — and read — as &lt;strong&gt;chuāng hu&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;, rather than &lt;strong&gt;chuāng hù&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1: The source is the CEDICT dictionary.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T15:51:20.590" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="247" CreationDate="2011-12-15T18:01:16.157" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没开车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没关灯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没喝水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you can say 我没关灯 by any chance is a shortening of 我没有关灯,but there is few people speak like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some chances it is better to add 有 after 没, but in the other chances isn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="116" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T18:01:16.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="225" CreationDate="2011-12-15T19:12:51.393" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I built some tools to help me with reading practice. I sieved through Chinese text looking for sentences that use only the characters I know. My first attempt was with &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/donkirkby/wiki/ChineseTweets&quot;&gt;Twitter updates&lt;/a&gt;, but it was kind of a slow process to find and translate them. More recently, I found a huge collection of translated sentences on &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org&quot;&gt;Tatoeba&lt;/a&gt;. I've collected all the sentences that used the 500 most common traditional characters and posted them on &lt;a href=&quot;http://donkirkby.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/frequency-flashcards/sentence-rank/output/sentences.html&quot;&gt;my Google Code page&lt;/a&gt;. They're sorted with the most common characters at the start of the page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T19:12:51.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="253" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="255" CreationDate="2011-12-15T19:49:31.800" Score="34" ViewCount="7478" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to every dictionary I've seen so far, there is a big overlap in these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可以　=  can, may, be able to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;会　　=  can, be able to, able&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;能　　=  can, may, able, capable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I properly choose which one to use when I have a sentence with can / may / able? What are the differences in primary use of these characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastEditorUserId="3512" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T06:35:13.110" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T11:46:06.113" Title="How do I decide whether to use 可以, 会 or 能?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="257" CreationDate="2011-12-15T19:51:38.200" Score="7" ViewCount="1378" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like &quot;house&quot; is usually translated as 房子 (fáng zi) in standard Chinese, although 屋 (wū) is also a common translation, especially in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference between the two? When should I use one over the other (in Standard Chinese)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="88" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:36:45.090" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T16:36:45.090" Title="What's the difference between 房子 and 屋?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="253" CreationDate="2011-12-15T20:19:22.683" Score="23" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;可以&lt;/strong&gt; means I can do it, but may I? For example : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;可以&lt;/strong&gt; 开车吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May I drive? (Have the implication of I want to drive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;可以&lt;/strong&gt; 开车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can drive (have the implication of I can, but I don't want to (unwilling to do so))&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt; means I am able to, or I know how to do it For example : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你 &lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt; 开车吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you drive? (Are you able to drive? Do you know how to drive? Or even Do you have a drivers license?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt; 开车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can drive (I know how to drive)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;能&lt;/strong&gt; is similar to &lt;code&gt;can&lt;/code&gt;, in most cases they are interchangeable. It means &lt;code&gt;capable of doing something&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Would you...?&lt;/code&gt; For example :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你 &lt;strong&gt;能&lt;/strong&gt; 开车吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you drive?  (Would you mind driving?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Other Meanings&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Apart from the meaning of willingness, &lt;strong&gt;可以&lt;/strong&gt; can also mean &lt;code&gt;good/not bad&lt;/code&gt;.  For example : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的中文还 &lt;strong&gt;可以&lt;/strong&gt; 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your Chinese is not bad.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;能 can also mean &lt;code&gt;power / energy&lt;/code&gt; For example &lt;code&gt;能量&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="3512" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T06:35:05.390" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T06:35:05.390" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="256" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-15T20:29:41.063" Score="6" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm returning to China early next year to manage a business, and will be dealing with a variety of Chinese clients in that environment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to ensure my formal/business Chinese skills are up to scratch, but I'm not sure what the best way to do this is? Also (not so language related) are there any business related faux pas I need to avoid? What resources should I look at to improve my formal Chinese skills?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="62" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T21:41:58.517" LastActivityDate="2012-11-08T17:41:11.167" Title="Methods/resources for improving formal/business Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="254" CreationDate="2011-12-15T20:58:22.750" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;屋&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In standard Mandarin, &lt;code&gt;屋&lt;/code&gt; is not commonly used as a noun by itself. Though, &lt;code&gt;房屋&lt;/code&gt; is a common word, which is very similar to &lt;code&gt;real estate&lt;/code&gt; in English. e.g. &lt;code&gt;房屋中介&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;Real estate agency&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another common usage of &lt;code&gt;屋&lt;/code&gt; is in forming a name of a special kind of house. In such usage, it normally has a quite cozy feeling, e.g. &lt;code&gt;小屋&lt;/code&gt; is a hut, &lt;code&gt;淑女屋&lt;/code&gt; is a female clothing brand name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get feeling that the use of &lt;code&gt;屋&lt;/code&gt; was may be introduced from Japan in modern times. Just a wild guess because &lt;code&gt;屋&lt;/code&gt; seems much more common in Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;房子&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is quite widely used, and is very similar to the English word &quot;house&quot;.&#xA;E.g. &lt;code&gt;我有一幢房子&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;I have a house&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;老房子&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;Old house&lt;/code&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, &lt;code&gt;屋&lt;/code&gt; is not as widely used in Mandarin as &lt;code&gt;房子&lt;/code&gt;. And &lt;code&gt;屋&lt;/code&gt; is used in a more formal fashion compared with &lt;code&gt;房子&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="58" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T23:58:47.450" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T23:58:47.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="258" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="259" CreationDate="2011-12-15T21:24:53.593" Score="10" ViewCount="726" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like for some verbs (正)在 is used to indicate action in progress, but I have also encountered 着 for some, like 穿着. When should it be used, is there a rule to follow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastActivityDate="2013-08-25T10:08:00.543" Title="When do I use 着 to indicate action in progress?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="258" CreationDate="2011-12-15T21:51:00.993" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is used for both actions in progress and things that are happening in present tense, such as &quot;she is wearing a dress&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I sometimes equate this to the -ing suffix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他穿&lt;strong&gt;着&lt;/strong&gt;西装弹吉他&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He (She) is wear&lt;strong&gt;ing&lt;/strong&gt; a suit and playing guitar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你帮我看&lt;strong&gt;着&lt;/strong&gt;他&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Help me look out for him (her) &lt;strong&gt;(at this moment)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你看他扛&lt;strong&gt;着&lt;/strong&gt;那么大的一个东西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See him carry&lt;strong&gt;ing&lt;/strong&gt; such a big thing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this is not used as -ing with actions as you would expect:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is wrong:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strike&gt;他在游泳着&lt;/strike&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 着 here should be applied to the 游 i.e.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他在游着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wrong:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strike&gt;他在弹吉他着&lt;/strike&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他在弹着吉他&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2011-12-15T22:01:22.033" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T22:01:22.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="256" CreationDate="2011-12-15T22:12:32.590" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can actually work on doing this locally. I know a few of my Chinese friends who don't do business, but know every business owner in our local area and can get a decent seat at a restaurant even when people are lining up &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; these people aren't rich. They are just well networked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need to attend local business events, not the crap your local council will put on, but the kind of stuff that business owners will attend like opening of new stores etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Research the different business and find out about the different stories. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most importantly you will need to have high quality social skills, make others feel good about themselves and build up good guanxi. Which is what you are aiming to do overseas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can do it at home, then you can do it over there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T22:12:32.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="254" CreationDate="2011-12-15T22:43:19.470" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It might be a bit hard to explain it in English. I may sounds incoherently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First to clarify, '子' is a magic character. It's not fair to put it after one but not the other. Some usage of '房子' could be replaced with '屋子', but very few with just '屋'. So I will just discuss 房 and 屋.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As many synonym characters, their origins had different specific usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;房: Square(方) with a door(户), side room of a house.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Now it can refer to any house, room or small building.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;屋: Tent, since 幄 was created for tent, 屋 referred to housing.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you say &quot;房顶&quot;, one might think you are talking about &quot;ceiling&quot;, but &quot;屋顶&quot; will deliver the message of &quot;roof&quot;, for &quot;屋&quot; contains the meaning of &quot;shelter&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;房子&quot; and &quot;屋子&quot;, it's not precise science, but more about which one sounds or feels right. If you are talking, or casual writing, it's always ok to use &quot;房子&quot; for house, while sometimes it will be weird if using &quot;屋子&quot;. I believe &quot;屋&quot; will be hardly used. It normally use for short or elegant. For example, the Sherlock Holmes story &lt;em&gt;The Empty House&lt;/em&gt; is translated to 《空屋》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Sorry if I made it even more confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="113" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T22:43:19.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="253" CreationDate="2011-12-15T23:07:59.113" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;可以 refers to PERMISSION or &quot;social capacity.&quot; Am I allowed (permitted) to do such and such? Or at least can I &quot;get away&quot; with it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会 refers to &quot;know how.&quot; Do I know HOW to do such and such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能 refers to physical capacity: size, strength, dexterity. I may 会 (know how) to move a large piece of furniture or change a tire (having done so before), but no longer 能, have the capacity, because I've grown old, weak, clumsy, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T23:07:59.113" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2011-12-15T23:13:34.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A LITERAL translation would be something like: &quot;Give me space!&quot; But its real (impolite) connotation is more like &quot;get lost&quot; or &quot;buzz off.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T23:13:34.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="167" CreationDate="2011-12-15T23:22:00.817" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found PART of the Japanese language easier to learn after studying Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese has two basic strains, an &quot;indigenous&quot; strain, which its own hiragana and katagana script, and the &quot;Chinese&quot; based strain, in which the Japanese adopted the Chinese Hanzi as &quot;Kanji&quot; for many words, as well as a pronunciation similar to the Chinese for those words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Nearly) all Chinese Hanzi is part of the Japanese language, so someone with a knowledge of Chinese would be understood writing Hanzi. But it would be hard for the Chinese person to read (and hear) the non-Chinese part of the language, written in katagana and hiragana.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like saying that English has two strains, a Latin strain and a Germanic strain, and therefore, two words, e.g. &quot;chair&quot; and &quot;stool,&quot; for many words. &quot;Chair&quot; comes from the French &quot;chaise&quot; and &quot;stool&quot; from the German &quot;Stuhl.&quot; It's like saying that a French or German speaker could understand all the French/German derived words in the English language, and with some knowledge of English, could be understood using those words of his/her language that is part of English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T23:22:00.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="173" CreationDate="2011-12-15T23:33:53.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese society, most slaves were women. (Relative to it size and population, China fought and won few wars, and therefore did not &quot;import&quot; many male slaves.) That is why 奴 means (female) slave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Poor families routinely sold their girls into slavery or concubinage in order to raise money (almost never boys), because girls were regarded as (socially) &quot;expendable.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even Confucian precepts regarded women as being &quot;under&quot; (or subordinate to) men. &quot;Enslavement&quot; was just taking it a step further. The 奴 character is one of putting one's (presumably a male) hand on a woman to force her to obey.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only SOME women were made slaves. Those were usually poor, badly educated, badly connected women, who were either widows or orphans, or from a desperately poor family. A girl from an rich, well connected family was protected from being a slave, and may, in fact, have been given female slaves to take care of her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T23:33:53.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2011-12-15T23:46:56.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 和 and 跟 mean &quot;with.&quot; In this regard, they are basically interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of the two, 和 is more formal. It is also the more &quot;equal&quot; of the two words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跟 has the connotation of &quot;following&quot; or &quot;tagging along&quot; in order to be &quot;with&quot; someone. In Chinese society, that is actually more &quot;acceptable,&quot; because you are being &quot;agreeable,&quot; (as opposed to &quot;proactive&quot;). Meaning that many would find you the companion of choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T23:46:56.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="180" CreationDate="2011-12-15T23:57:27.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning of the original expression is &quot;I have nothing.&quot; But Chinese gets there in a &quot;strange,&quot; way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more literal translation of the expression is &quot;Everything not have.&quot; The &quot;everything&quot; is rendered by &quot;什麼都,&quot; which literally translates to &quot;whatever all.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什麼也 gets to the same place in a slightly different way. I would translate it as &quot;whatever included.&quot; And a literal translation would be &quot;whatever included, not have,&quot; instead of &quot;whatever all&quot; not have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-15T23:57:27.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="215" CreationDate="2011-12-16T00:12:38.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The radical largely determines the meaning of the word. So if the word relates to lifting, hitting, pushing, etc., the radical is probably the hand radical, since these things are done by hand. If the word relates to feelings or emotions, think of the heart radical. Something made of wood probably has the tree radical in front. There are 214 radicals in all, but only about 40 that are fairly common. So learn at least those 40.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T00:12:38.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="269" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="271" CreationDate="2011-12-16T01:26:24.217" Score="11" ViewCount="1387" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the (resultant) tones in those sentences, where all the words in isolation have 3rd tone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我很好。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我也很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Tone_sandhi_rules_at_a_glance&quot;&gt;tone shandhi rules on Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, there is no explanation about tree or four single-syllable words with 3rd tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-09-25T08:06:54.330" LastActivityDate="2012-09-25T08:06:54.330" Title="我(也)很好 and tone sandhi" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="269" CreationDate="2011-12-16T02:59:23.773" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at 我很好 this falls into the &quot;When there are three 3rd tones in a row&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 我 is one syllable so it falls into this part:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the first word is one syllable, and the second word is two&#xA;  syllables, the first syllable becomes half-3rd tone (˨˩), the second&#xA;  syllable becomes 2nd tone, and the last syllable stays 3rd tone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this 我也很好 this is logically split like this (我也) and (很好) which would result in two lots of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the first syllable becomes 2nd tone (˧˥), and the second syllable&#xA;  becomes a half-3rd tone (˨˩)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least that's what the rules say. As per my comment above, don't bother memorizing this. It is more likely an incidental phenomenon as a result of regular use of the language. In other words, you will pick it up by learning to speak it fluently rather than trying to learn it from paper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T02:59:23.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="272" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="273" CreationDate="2011-12-16T04:11:04.177" Score="4" ViewCount="1921" Body="&lt;p&gt;I regularly play soccer with a group of Chinese guys and wanted to share terms that I've learnt over the years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would appreciate if anyone can fill in any gaps (or correct me if I'm wrong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:37:56.643" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T16:37:56.643" Title="What are some common Chinese terms used when playing soccer" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="272" CreationDate="2011-12-16T04:17:01.550" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Red Card: 红牌 &lt;em&gt;hóngpái&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yellow card: 黄牌 &lt;em&gt;huángpái&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shoot: 射 (射门) &lt;em&gt;shè (shèmén)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pass: 传 (传球) &lt;em&gt;chuán (chuán qiú)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Goal: 门 （球门) &lt;em&gt;mén (qiú mén)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Referee: 裁判 &lt;em&gt;cáipàn&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Half time: 半场 &lt;em&gt;bàn chǎng&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full time: 全场 &lt;em&gt;quán chǎng&lt;/em&gt; or 结束了 or 踢好了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Team: 队 （蓝队， 白队 etc.) &lt;em&gt;duì&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ball has gone out: 出界&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did the ball go in?: 球进了没有?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are you injured?: （受）伤了没有？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kick off: 开球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pitch: 球场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Substitution: 换人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Score: 比分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1:0 (one to zero) :  一比零 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Offside: 越位&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Penalty area: 禁区&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overtime: 加时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Golden goal: 金球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Silver goal: 银球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Front-field: 前场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Midfield: 中场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Backfield: 后场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Handball: 手球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Header: 头球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Foul: 犯规&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Preliminary match: 预赛 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eighth-final: 八分之一决赛 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quarter-final: 四分之一决赛 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Semi-final: 半决赛 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Final: 决赛 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="47" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T09:09:14.890" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T09:09:14.890" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2011-12-16T08:53:27.690" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="272" CreationDate="2011-12-16T04:35:21.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Coach: 教练 &lt;em&gt;jiàoliàn&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Corner kick: 角球 &lt;em&gt;jiǎoqiú&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Penalty kick: 点球 &lt;em&gt;diǎn qiú&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Player: 球员 &lt;em&gt;qiúyuán&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Free kick: 任意球 &lt;em&gt;rènyì qiú&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT: A link for you to get more terms&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I find a &lt;a href=&quot;http://events.sparke.cn/digieng/zqyy/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt; where you can learn more terms in football game. It's displays a swf animation and is funny.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T07:39:53.047" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T07:39:53.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="275" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="315" CreationDate="2011-12-16T05:09:29.463" Score="26" ViewCount="7580" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my dictionary, 但是, 可是 and 不过 all mean &quot;but/however&quot;? However are there any differences between them? Are there some cases, where one can be used but not another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="76" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:48:48.557" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T20:26:02.830" Title="但是, 可是 and 不过 - how to know which one to use?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="275" CreationDate="2011-12-16T06:12:46.910" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally you can just use 但是. When you use them as &quot;but/however&quot;, they are essentially the same. The only difference is the intensity of tone: 但是 is the strongest like &quot;but&quot;, the other two are less strong, but still close to &quot;but&quot;. There is 然而 which is usually translated as &quot;however&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是 is only used as &quot;but&quot;, while 可是 and 不过 have various other usages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="113" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:55:38.387" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:55:38.387" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="277" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="279" CreationDate="2011-12-16T07:50:42.073" Score="19" ViewCount="2161" Body="&lt;p&gt;還是/还是 (háishì) and 或者 (huòzhě) seem to have very similar meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;還是/还是: or; still; nevertheless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或者: or; possibly; maybe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I want to say 'or', how to I choose which to use, and are there any hard and fast rules about this? Furthermore, are there yet more ways to say 'or'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T03:21:37.127" Title="How do I decide whether to use 還是/还是 or 或者" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="277" CreationDate="2011-12-16T08:05:37.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 還是(simplified form:还是) and 或者 can mean or, and I think the only different is that, &quot;还是&quot; is oral, and “或者&quot; is formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could just use ”或&quot; to mean &quot;or&quot;, you could also use “抑(yi4)或&quot;,but this word are used more in literature and you won't use it in ordinary life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Thanks for Cocowalla's reminder.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you can use either of them in both question and statement sentence. There is only one thing to take care of. When you ask some to pick one from your choices in a simple sentence(no clause) , only ”还是&quot; is acceptable, and when you express your choice in a simple sentence(no caluse), only &quot;或者&quot; is acceptable.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;See my comments please.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T08:35:09.353" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T08:35:09.353" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="277" CreationDate="2011-12-16T08:13:14.513" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very good question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还是 is usually used in asking questions. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你想去北京还是上海呢? = &lt;em&gt;Did you want to go to Beijing or Shanghai?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是橙子还是橘子? = &lt;em&gt;Is this orange or mandarin?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或者 is usually used in declarative sentence. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想去北京或者上海. = &lt;em&gt;I wanted to go to Beijing or Shanghai.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你可以叫我小王或者老王. = &lt;em&gt;You can call me Xiao Wang or Lao Wang.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T11:20:19.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="151" CreationDate="2011-12-16T10:27:06.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you are asking &quot;exception in the use of 的&quot;, just thought worth mentioning other meanings of &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;的(dí) means indeed. For example: &lt;code&gt;的确&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;的(dì) means object/aim/target/goal. For example: &lt;code&gt;目的&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T10:27:06.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="247" CreationDate="2011-12-16T10:47:16.607" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;有 can be translated as &lt;code&gt;have&lt;/code&gt; in English. So when you want to say &quot;I don't &lt;strong&gt;have&lt;/strong&gt; money&quot; in Chinese, you would say &lt;code&gt;我没&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;钱&lt;/code&gt;. If you don't have the word &lt;code&gt;have&lt;/code&gt; in your English sentence, you don't need to use 有 in it's Chinese translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of really common phrases that use the character 没:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没关系 = &lt;code&gt;That's OK&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没门 Literally means &lt;code&gt;no door&lt;/code&gt;, but it actually means &lt;code&gt;no way&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Other meanings:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没 has other means when it's pronounced as &lt;code&gt;mò&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沉没 = &lt;code&gt;sinking&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隐没 = &lt;code&gt;disappear/hide&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没落 = &lt;code&gt;decline/downfall&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没收 = &lt;code&gt;confiscate&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T10:47:16.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="282" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-16T10:54:26.730" Score="10" ViewCount="852" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having read this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/215/how-can-one-determine-the-radical-for-a-given-character&quot;&gt;How can one determine the radical for a given character?&lt;/a&gt;,&#xA;it gave me another question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since many simplified characters lost their original form (compared to traditional ones), how do I actually look up their radicals? A classical example would be &amp;quot;leaf&amp;quot;. In traditional form, it's 葉 whereas it's 叶 in simplified form. The traditional form preserved the 艹 (艸) radical (which means grass), but simplified form does not have it at all. Just by looking at 叶, you'd think it has 口 as radical, but 口 (mouth) has nothing to do with leaf...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone can think of examples similar to this, please share.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="48" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T06:58:35.230" Title="Determine radicals for simplifed characters that lost their traditional form completely" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="283" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:02:13.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin is one of the most spoken languages in the world with over 837 millions of native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a group of dialects, mostly from the north to the south-west China. Its standard pronunciation is the dialect of Beijing. It is also known in China as 普通话 &lt;em&gt;putonghua&lt;/em&gt; or 'the standard language'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taiwan refers to it as 國語 &lt;em&gt;guoyu&lt;/em&gt;, 'the national language', whereas in Southeast Asian Chinese communities such as those in Singapore and Malaysia it is common to hear 华语 &lt;em&gt;huayu&lt;/em&gt; or 'the language of the Chinese (华人 &lt;em&gt;huaren&lt;/em&gt;)'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-07-06T07:04:33.167" LastActivityDate="2013-07-06T07:04:33.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="284" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:02:13.987" Score="0" Body="Question specifically about the Mandarin dialect.  (Not for arbitrary questions that happen to involve Mandarin.)" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T02:47:46.320" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T02:47:46.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="285" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:04:29.877" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T11:04:29.877" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T11:04:29.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="286" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:04:29.877" Score="0" Body="Questions about what word fits better in a certain context or situation." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:56:02.083" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:56:02.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="287" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:05:50.577" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T11:05:50.577" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T11:05:50.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="288" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:05:50.577" Score="0" Body="Questions about Chinese characters, called Hanzi." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T02:55:52.483" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T02:55:52.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="289" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:07:57.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions about Pinyin in all of its usages. Pinyin is the transcription system of the Chinese language pronunciation of the standard dialect. It is also used for translating Chinese names such as personals and places. Pinyin is broadly used in language education both inland and abroad. It is also used as a writing system to script spoken Chinese by many people worldwide, but not yet official in publications. There are other alphabetic systems of the Chinese language. It may be accepted as related topics to Pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-02-04T22:18:48.803" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T22:18:48.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="290" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:07:57.203" Score="0" Body="Questions about the official transcription writing system that is used to write the reading of chinese characters using the roman alphabet." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:55:53.160" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:55:53.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="291" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:09:56.093" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Radicals, in Chinese 部首 (literally &amp;quot;section header&amp;quot;) are components of Chinese characters used to index dictionary entries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are &lt;strong&gt;not necessarily the semantic component&lt;/strong&gt; in phono-semantic compounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example the radical of 到 (dào “to arrive”) is刂 from 刀 dāo, which is the phonetic component, whereas the semantic component is 至.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most well-known list of radicals are the Kangxi radicals. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/29583&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; for more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use this tag for questions about radicals, as dictionary section headers. For questions about character components use &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/character-components&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;character-components&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;character-components&lt;/a&gt;. Unfortunately many old questions on this site use these tags somewhat inconsistently, as there is widespread confusion about what radicals actually are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rule of thumb that may help you decide which tag to use is: can your question be tagged [dictionary] as well? If yes, then use &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/radicals&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;radicals&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;radicals&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T21:12:33.870" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T21:12:33.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="292" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:09:56.093" Score="0" Body="Questions about radicals of Chinese characters." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T21:12:33.870" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T21:12:33.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="293" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:10:17.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions about the origin and history of development of Chinese words. Related to but distinct from the category &lt;code&gt;glyph-origin&lt;/code&gt;, which is for the graphical form of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T15:36:40.027" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T15:36:40.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="294" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:10:17.743" Score="0" Body="Questions about the origin and history of Chinese words.  Use [glyph-origin] for the origin of characters." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T03:51:30.473" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T03:51:30.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="295" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:11:45.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every language has a sort of intonation, but in Chinese, changes of tones are phonemic, which means that they bring &quot;meaning&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same character pronounced with two different tones might change meaning completely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:55:58.357" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:55:58.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="296" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:11:45.760" Score="0" Body="Questions about the tones used in Chinese. " OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T19:56:00.460" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:56:00.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="215" CreationDate="2011-12-16T11:15:04.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know you already accepted the answer but I wanted to post something I just found. Actually I can't post it because I'm not sure about possible copyright stuff, so I'll just link you to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_%28Chinese_character%29#Position_of_radical_within_character&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this table&lt;/a&gt; in the English wikipedia for radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It describes visually the usual positions of radicals in Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T11:15:04.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="282" CreationDate="2011-12-16T13:47:56.737" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The radical of many simplified characters has nothing to do with the character itself; the only reason for this is just to simplify characters. I have some examples (found on the web):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MNOwz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) Without the &lt;strong&gt;heart&lt;/strong&gt;, how can one &lt;em&gt;love&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) Looking back at the &lt;em&gt;hometown&lt;/em&gt;, the &lt;strong&gt;man&lt;/strong&gt; has already left&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) No &lt;em&gt;morals&lt;/em&gt;, because it is none of &lt;strong&gt;my&lt;/strong&gt; business&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4) The &lt;em&gt;leader&lt;/em&gt; has lost his/her &lt;strong&gt;path&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5) Unable to &lt;strong&gt;see&lt;/strong&gt; each other, how can the two &lt;em&gt;be close(intimate)&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="116" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-08T06:58:35.230" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T06:58:35.230" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="275" CreationDate="2011-12-16T13:56:48.653" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;但是 is a more definite &quot;but.&quot; 可是 is a bit more tentative, with a connotation of &quot;but, perhaps.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不过 means &quot;but,&quot; in the sense of &quot;notwithstanding.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T13:56:48.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="249" CreationDate="2011-12-16T14:17:37.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When the tone that's written doesn't match what tone you'd expect to see that indicates that the transcription is meant to match the pronunciation. For example, the book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0415700108&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Modern Chinese Grammar&quot; by Claudia Ross and Jing-heng Sheng Ma&lt;/a&gt; writes third tones as second tones when tone sandhi occurs. Other references do not necessarily do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is more consistently done is omitting the tone mark when that syllable loses its tone in common use. Here, you will run into differences between regions; for example in Taiwan Mandarin speakers often keep the tone on a word's second syllable whereas in mainland China Mandarin speakers more often omit that tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that the point of Pinyin is to show the pronunciation, it makes sense to leave off tones that are not pronounced. As for &quot;standard pinyin spelling&quot;, looking up an individual character should give you its pronunciations with tone(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T14:17:37.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="301" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="303" CreationDate="2011-12-16T14:43:33.083" Score="16" ViewCount="732" Body="&lt;p&gt;Earlier while chatting, I wrote a sentence and a native speaker told me it was correct. The sentence was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;某天我去北京。= &lt;em&gt;Someday I'll go to Beijing.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(mǒu tiān wǒ qù Běi jīng)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed that no prepositions are used here. It's probably because I'm still a beginner, but then I wondered: if it's true that 到 can mean &lt;em&gt;&quot;to (a place)&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, why isn't it used in that sentence? Are there some rules I'm not aware of or something I'm missing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also: when should we use 到? What are the situations/contexts that need it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-07T01:27:22.050" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T04:32:08.960" Title="Why isn't 到 (dào) used in 某天我去北京?" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="301" CreationDate="2011-12-16T15:14:25.430" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;A significant difference between Chinese and English is that sometimes the border between a &quot;verb&quot; and a &quot;preposition&quot; is blurred.  In your case, both &quot;去&quot; and &quot;到&quot; has the meaning of &quot;go&quot;, &quot;go to&quot;, &quot;reach&quot;, or &quot;visit&quot;, and therefore can be used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't need a preposition if you use a transitive verb to translate &quot;去&quot;:&#xA;某天我去北京。 = Some day I'll visit Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="31" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T15:14:25.430" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="301" CreationDate="2011-12-16T15:28:50.650" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, grammars of Chinese and English are totally different, you don't need the preposition like in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, in my opinion, 去 indicates that you start the action of &amp;quot;going to a place&amp;quot;,and &amp;quot;到&amp;quot; indicates that you have finished that action, so you &amp;quot;reach a place &amp;quot; or &amp;quot;arrive at a place&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本周二我会坐火车去北京，周三到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will  go to Beijing by train this Tuesday and I will arrive on Wednesday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-01-22T11:43:58.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="301" CreationDate="2011-12-16T15:29:44.763" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;到&lt;/code&gt; more or less means &quot;to arrive (at),&quot; &lt;code&gt;去&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;go to (someplace).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g., 你到18歲才能喝酒。You can drink alcohol, when you are (lit. &quot;arrive at&quot;) (the age of) 18.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used together with &lt;code&gt;去&lt;/code&gt; (e.g., &lt;code&gt;到马路那边去&lt;/code&gt;), it tells someone to go somewhere or do something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T15:35:57.873" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T15:35:57.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="305" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="382" CreationDate="2011-12-16T16:02:27.977" Score="7" ViewCount="2053" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a very strong interest in classical Chinese (文言文), but I am unable to find any ressources for learning it that don't assume Chinese is your mother language. Can anybody give me some pointers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="87" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:54:16.467" LastActivityDate="2020-08-24T21:53:03.680" Title="Resources for learning classical Chinese" Tags="&lt;reference-materials&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="306" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="312" CreationDate="2011-12-16T16:03:09.093" Score="5" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a children's wallchart with a variety of weapons and military vehicles. One of the items is 火箭扫雷车.  I think I understand the meaning (it's a kind of minesweeper that uses rockets to clear minefields); however, I am stumped on an elegant translation. Also I would like to know if this is a vehicle known to the average Chinese mainlander. It's not a weapon known to most westerners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BZ031.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;火箭扫雷车&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="3281" LastEditDate="2014-12-11T21:35:32.627" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T04:25:05.143" Title="Translation of 火箭扫雷车" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="307" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="321" CreationDate="2011-12-16T16:19:23.950" Score="26" ViewCount="3337" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a spin-off question from this one &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/282/determine-radicals-for-simplifed-characters-that-lost-their-traditional-form-com&quot;&gt;Determine radicals for simplified characters that lost their traditional form completely&lt;/a&gt;&quot; where radicals for simplified characters were discussed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the question is, how were some characters simplified, sometimes so simplified they lost their original intention and form completely?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;葉 (leaf) became 叶, where 叶 is basically a mouth (口) and a ten (十) put together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the rationale behind this??&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;And why were some complex characters not simplified at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(traditional : simplified : meaning)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;單 : 单 : single, also a family name&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;嚴 : 严 : strict, also a family name&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;嚼 : 嚼 : to chew (here traditional and simplified are identical and yet it's complicated to write)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the two 口 on the top of 單 and 嚴 were transformed into different forms when simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="48" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2019-04-15T01:08:33.043" Title="How did 葉 (leaf as in vegetation) become 叶 when it was simplified?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="308" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="384" CreationDate="2011-12-16T18:17:58.827" Score="3" ViewCount="2003" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese romanization scheme that I know is Yale Romanization, which to me makes the most sense and is the easiest to read of any that I've seen.  It seems to give a very good idea of how to pronounce things and is easier to read than, say, trying to remember which number goes with which tone.  I'm aware, however, that there are others out there.  Is Yale the most common and if not, what is?  What schemes do you all use?  Should I take the time to learn another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="26" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T16:24:45.587" Title="Cantonese Romanization schemes" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;&lt;yale-romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="309" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-16T18:20:16.530" Score="1" ViewCount="711" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned Cantonese using Yale Romanization, but I'm unable to type it easily because of the accent marks representing the tones.  Is there a quick and easy way to do this without using a special character set or keyboard layout?  If not, what's the best (read: simplest) character set to use that will give me the accents I need for Yale Romanization?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="26" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:51:24.603" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T16:51:24.603" Title="Typing Yale Romanization" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;&lt;yale-romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="306" CreationDate="2011-12-16T18:44:52.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if translation questions should be on-topic or not, but I think a literal &quot;Rocket minesweeper&quot; or &quot;missile minsweeper&quot; would be appropriate. Military vehicles don't usually have elegant names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.china-defense-mashup.com/chinas-arsenal/china-pla-army-weapons&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;found one example of the term &quot;rocket minesweeper&quot;&lt;/a&gt; specifically referring to a Chinese military vehicle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T18:44:52.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="311" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="334" CreationDate="2011-12-16T19:05:54.203" Score="18" ViewCount="2303" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I've asked &lt;em&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/242/how-do-we-choose-the-correct-characters-for-a-westerner-name&quot;&gt;How do we choose the correct characters for a westerner name?&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, and now, I'm facing a similar, yet kind of different problem, which I think applies to any westerner or Chinese student at a beginner level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two exercises that ask to translate some sentences, which are not that hard, thanks to the glossary, but I've faced a small, nonetheless daunting difficulty, which is the translation of Chinese names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I have to translate a sentence like &lt;em&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;Mr. Hu/Huang/... is a lawyer&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, how do I know which character corresponds to that name? Are there any guidelines for selecting the right character (apart from asking the person directly)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T12:00:13.053" Title="How do we know what characters correspond to Chinese names?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;proper-nouns&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="306" CreationDate="2011-12-16T19:17:02.570" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After searching on google I found &quot;Minesweeping Rocket System&quot; to be a somewhat official translation to &quot;火箭扫雷车&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="31" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T19:17:02.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="311" CreationDate="2011-12-16T21:06:56.353" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually people ask. Like people asking if a person's name is spelled a certain way, most Chinese people ask if it is a certain character. E.g., Your surname is 'Li'? Is that 'Li/李' as in plum (&lt;code&gt;李子&lt;/code&gt;) or 'Li/理' as in reason (&lt;code&gt;理由&lt;/code&gt;) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames&quot;&gt;commonly used names&lt;/a&gt;, but it's usually better to ask if you don't know. For exercises, the picking the actual character is arbitrary. As long as it sounds right it should be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2011-12-16T21:54:24.903" LastActivityDate="2011-12-16T21:54:24.903" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="311" CreationDate="2011-12-16T21:07:23.513" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To elaborate on Kabie's comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, the answer is that you never know for sure what is the right translation without further information but only a Pinyin of the name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the clue for guessing the right family names comes from experience in real life for native speakers. E.g. &lt;code&gt;Li&lt;/code&gt; is highly probably to be &lt;code&gt;李&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Wang&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;王&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Zhang&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;张&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Liu&lt;/code&gt; for 刘, etc. Because you gradually gain this knowledge when you meet people around you who have different family names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be a difficult task for foreigners, so as mentioned by Kabie, the 百家姓 is a great source for you to learn the statistics and major family names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;English wiki page&lt;/a&gt;, I did not find a statistics, but found in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%BE%E5%AE%B6%E5%A7%93&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese wiki page&lt;/a&gt;. As shown, the top 10 (full list in the page) family names in Mainland China are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in form of &lt;code&gt;Rank. Family name Population(million)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;01.王(Wang) 92&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;02.李(Li)90&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;03.张(Zhang)85&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;04.刘(Liu)67&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;05.陈(Chen)58&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;06.杨(Yang)40&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;07.黄(Huang)31&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;08.孙(Sun)26&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;09.周(Zhou)25&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.吴(Wu)24&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will help to get the clue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T12:00:13.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="275" CreationDate="2011-12-17T02:56:39.793" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out this page: &lt;a href=&quot;http://studymorechinese.com/profiles/blogs/say-but-chinese-ke-shi-butt&quot;&gt;3 ways to say 'but' in Chinese - difference between 不过 bù guò - 可是 kě shì - 但是 dàn shì&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That page says that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不过 is softer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可是 is usually associated with something unfortunate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;但是 is more formal and stronger.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T02:56:39.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="316" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="324" CreationDate="2011-12-17T04:09:55.660" Score="17" ViewCount="11825" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often get tripped up when reading names of Chinese people, and trying to work out if they are male or female. Is there a good rule of thumb to follow to determine which is which?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T10:38:20.640" Title="Is there a rule of thumb for distinguishing male and female names in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="317" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="322" CreationDate="2011-12-17T04:13:02.990" Score="7" ViewCount="1823" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always hear Chinese people making sentences using 而已 - but I've never quite, 100%, understood how to use this in sentences myself. What is the correct way to apply it, and what is the English equivalent? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:49:39.230" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T16:49:39.230" Title="What is the proper usage of 而已 in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="318" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-17T04:16:50.300" Score="25" ViewCount="7366" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed sometimes the word 的 is pronounced as &quot;di&quot; rather than &quot;de&quot;.&#xA;I'm aware that there is a valid use of 的 with pronunciation &quot;di&quot;, which means &quot;really and trully&quot;.&#xA;However for the sentence: 你的錯 (your fault), I've heard it pronounced &quot;nǐ di cuò&quot; instead of &quot;nǐ de cuò&quot; from several sources, even though here 的 is definitely being used as a possessive particle (for 'your').&#xA;The last example I've heard is in the song &quot;忘不了&quot; (a.k.a. &quot;不了情&quot;) sung by Lin Dai (林黛).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some rule for this (and I assume other examples with other words)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="129" LastActivityDate="2012-12-30T20:31:14.057" Title="Why is 的 (de) sometimes pronounced &quot;di&quot; even though it is used as a possessive particle?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="311" CreationDate="2011-12-17T04:20:29.227" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You clarified your question in a comment that your starting point is the Pinyin.  I'm not sure why this would ever be a starting point in real life for a Chinese name, but the analogous situation in spoken Chinese is quite common.  There is no &lt;em&gt;general&lt;/em&gt; solution, of course, since syllables as pronounced do not map to unique characters.  So if you don't know you have to ask or guess.  For family names, of course, the 百家姓 is the best reference, and provides an educated guess. For given names it's very common to refer, when introducing a name, to external uses that specify the character.  My daughter, for example, is named Nora.  Her Chinese given name is 南蕊.  She can introduce herself in Chinese by saying 我叫南蕊，南京的南，花蕊的蕊.  This is unambiguous so long as someone knows the external reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your exercise with Huang and Hu, you should just pick the most commonly used surnames for each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="74" LastEditorUserId="74" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T04:26:22.910" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T04:26:22.910" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="318" CreationDate="2011-12-17T04:55:04.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the examples of pronouncing &amp;quot;di&amp;quot; are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;标的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有的放矢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的士&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 is modal particle when pronouncing &amp;quot;de&amp;quot; which means respective relations.for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她的苹果比我的大&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的电脑坏了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 is noun when pronouncing &amp;quot;di&amp;quot; which means center of a target, or bull's-eye.i have more examples except above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一语中的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目的地&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;众矢之的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="116" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T04:55:04.030" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="307" CreationDate="2011-12-17T05:04:57.803" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the beginning, I want to say that I am a native speaker and love Chinese, but I am not on a research level. It is welcomed that anyone can make comments and supply more info to my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Introduction&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, Wikipedia (see the link provided by Krazer) is good start to get some background knowledge why we have simplified characters. After the found of the new China (People's Republic of China, P.R.C), the country was out of turmoils and wars and the government decided to simplify the characters (note that before P.R.C, there were some proposals and pratices on simplification). I think one main reason was to allow more people to get well educated, since simplified characters were easier to learn. However, the government didn't make a long-term preparation and thus some characters were not simplified in a &amp;quot;logic&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;scientific&amp;quot; way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Main Text&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“叶” is a typical example of a character that was not simplified &amp;quot;properly&amp;quot;. So how did characters get simplified? As far as I know, unfortunately, the government didn't issue any official document to explain this. I searched this topic on the internet and I found some useful info, one of them is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4cc726e10100crpt.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog&lt;/a&gt;, which I think has logic and acceptable explanations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will explain more with my own knowledge:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;古 (the original characters):  One example is &amp;quot;从&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;從&amp;quot;. In 《说文》(&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a famous old dictionary&lt;/a&gt;),&amp;quot;从&amp;quot; is explained to be the orignal form of “從&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;从&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;to follow&amp;quot; and it's intuitive (one 人 – &lt;em&gt;person&lt;/em&gt; – follows another) so &amp;quot;从&amp;quot; is selected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;俗 (the informal characters). In ancient times, few people got well educated and of course, characters were developing too, so there were some &amp;quot;informal&amp;quot; characters, which were popular among not-well-educated people. Two examples are &amp;quot;泪&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;淚&amp;quot;. In 《字彙》(a dictionary written in Ming Dynasty), &amp;quot;泪&amp;quot; is explained as the informal form of &amp;quot;淚&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;泪&amp;quot; is intuitive, because the left part refers to water, &amp;quot;目&amp;quot; means the eye, and &amp;quot;泪&amp;quot; means &lt;em&gt;tears&lt;/em&gt;. It's &amp;quot;reasonable&amp;quot; to use “泪&amp;quot; as the simplified form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;异体字 (characters with the same sound and meaning, but different shape). Example: &amp;quot;凶&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;兇&amp;quot;. Both have the same pinyin (xiōng) and same meaning (danger), so &amp;quot;凶&amp;quot; is selected because it has less strokes. Also, &amp;quot;凶&amp;quot; is intuitive: isn't it like a man dropped in a trap?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;闲置的旧字 (characters used under very rare conditions; they won't appear in most cases). This is how &amp;quot;叶&amp;quot; is simplified. Actually, even now, &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;叶&amp;quot; has another pronunciation and meaning&lt;/strong&gt;, if you consult it in a dictionary (higher-level) and this is actually the original “叶” in classic chinese. It's &amp;quot;叶 (xié)&amp;quot; as in the word &amp;quot;叶韵&amp;quot; (yùn), which means that some characters have similar or the same vowel so the pronunciations of them sound harmonious ( when rhyming). You can find this phenomenon in classic poems and modern lyrics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this meaning is very very rarely used and we would say “押(yā)韵&amp;quot; rather than “叶韵&amp;quot; nowadays. 叶 (xié) sounds similar with 葉 (yè) — remember this happened in ancient times —, so some not-well-educated people used 叶 instead of 葉 by mistake, and this mistake was &amp;quot;admitted&amp;quot; in simplification. Another example is &amp;quot;听&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;聽&amp;quot;(tīng) which means &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;to hear&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;. &amp;quot;听&amp;quot; (yīn) means &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;laugh&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; as in &amp;quot;听然&amp;quot; in Classic Chinese originally, but this meaning is generally expressed by other words like &amp;quot;哂&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;莞尔&amp;quot; in classic Chinese, so this character is borrowed to express &amp;quot;聽&amp;quot; because of similar sound, even &amp;quot;to hear&amp;quot; has nothing to do with the radical &amp;quot;口&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;听&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;草书楷化 (simplification from Cao to Kai). This will explain how &amp;quot;单&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;严&amp;quot; came out. &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive_script_%28East_Asia%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;草书&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; is a hand-writing font. Have you heard of Chinese Calligraphy? 草(草率) implies that characters are written very casually, so characters are difficult to read but fast to write.&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷(kăi, &lt;em&gt;paragon&lt;/em&gt;）书&lt;/a&gt; is another font in formal writing. This principle is used to simplify a character so that the shape looks like its shape in 草书. Below are some pictures to show.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters are 单, 书, 为, 学, 严, 专 in traditional form, from left to right and the traditional forms are: 單, 書, 為, 學, 嚴, 專. (Remember that 草书 has several schools so the shapes vary somehow. Examples below are based on the font of 黎凡草书 installed on my PC):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f9lkc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gZjfe.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SkWVm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y8CcW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dd1xc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xXltk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;同音字 (characters with the same pronunciation). Select a character with the same pronunciation to replace a complex one. Example: &amp;quot;后&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;後&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;后&amp;quot; is really a character used in Classic Chinese, meaning “the queen&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;the formal wife of the emperor&amp;quot;, and “後&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;to be after something, some time point&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;后&amp;quot; is selected as the simplified version of &amp;quot;後&amp;quot; and thus has the meaning &amp;quot;after&amp;quot;. This also brings problems: when people want to use traditonal characters in some cases, they may &lt;strong&gt;use wrong characters&lt;/strong&gt;. E.g. the year of 2009 was roughly the year of “己丑&amp;quot; in Chinese Lunar Calendar (known as &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagenary_cycle&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sexagenary cycle&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the spring festival of that year, I found &amp;quot;己醜年&amp;quot; in a website. I understood the site stuff wanted to express the year in a classic way, but they were absolutely wrong. &amp;quot;醜&amp;quot; means “ugly, not beautiful” and was simplified into “丑“. &amp;quot;丑&amp;quot; is really a character used in classic Chinese as an element of the Sexagenary cycle.After the simplificaion, “丑&amp;quot; got two meanings, that's right in simplified chinese. However, you can only write &amp;quot;己丑&amp;quot; in traditional form, and &amp;quot;醜&amp;quot; is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, there are some other cases, but I think it's enough now, because this answer is not written as research paper. It's time consuming because I have to consult some characters in 《&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_Dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;康熙字典&lt;/a&gt;》(a very prestigious dictionary written under the order of the emperor ”康熙&amp;quot; in Qing Dynasty).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At last, I want to say that language is not like Math or Physics, and it's hard to find &amp;quot;proof&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;theory&amp;quot; for some phenomena. Perhaps I can't explain why we speak that way, however, it's the way we speak. Take it easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T04:15:41.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="317" CreationDate="2011-12-17T05:49:06.920" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;“而已” is always used at the end of a sentence and with words like “仅仅”,&quot;只&quot;,&quot;不过&quot;. A similar word in Chinese is &quot;罢了&quot;(actually, this word comes from 满语). You use the structure &quot;......(part A),不过......(part B)而已&quot; to emphasize the expression that A is just limited within B. You could only use &quot;不过&quot;, also, and &quot;而已“ weakens your mood and sometimes expresses that you don't have help to (or don't take care of) B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your girlfriend and you are watching a magic performance. The magician is going to stab a sword into the assistant's body and your girlfriend gets scared. You would say:&quot;别紧张，这不过是魔术表演而已。&quot;(Don't worry, this is just a magic performance[so you don't have to get worried about it])&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The famous writer in modern times, 鲁迅(lu3 xun4) has a novel collection called 《而已集》.In the preface, he wrote:&quot;连‘杂感’也被‘放进了应该去的地方’时，我于是只有‘而已’而已&quot; (while my &quot;random thoughts“ are put into the place where it is supposed to go(meaning, he is not allowed to publicize his thoughts, criticisms), I could only say &quot;而已&quot;)to show his helpless and sadness.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The equivalent for the structure &quot;不过......而已&quot; would be &quot;only&quot;,&quot;just&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T10:31:57.130" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T10:31:57.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="316" CreationDate="2011-12-17T06:32:06.053" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, it mostly depends on two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's the meaning of the characters? Flowers, plants, beautiful things in general are used for women's name. If the radical of one of the characters is 女, that will give you another clue. While characters with a meaning related to strength and power (and possibly wealth) are usually for men.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How does the name sound? Names that sound &quot;light&quot; or delicate (yi, ye, li, ling, etc.) are often for women, while rough sounds are more commonly used for men (mou, zhang, hong, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="76" LastEditorUserId="76" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T06:39:31.283" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T06:39:31.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="316" CreationDate="2011-12-17T08:48:09.263" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a previous post &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/242/how-do-we-choose-the-correct-characters-for-a-westerner-name/246#246&quot;&gt;How do we choose the correct characters for a westerner name?&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, I listed some characters that I think are popular in names nowadays. Remember, characters don't express the gender, so there are only some &quot;&lt;strong&gt;rough clues&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; to &lt;strong&gt;guess&lt;/strong&gt; the gender of the person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example would be “芳”, which means &quot;fragrance,good smell&quot;.It's very common to be seen in a woman's name as in 梅艳芳(a last female singer from HongKong) and 谢杏芳(a famous female badminton player). However, I few cases, it appears in a man's name. I.e. 单田芳(a famous &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingshu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pingshu&lt;/a&gt; performer. &lt;strong&gt;Note: here 单 pronounces shàn as a family name&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with point 1 in 景洛弘's answer, that meanings could be a clue, but I don't agree with point 2, because in chinese, many characters share the same sound. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Counterexamples to point 2: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ye. There is a famous actor 刘烨(liu2 ye4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;li. li could be “力(li4)&quot;, which means &quot;strength&quot;. There was a famous linguist &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Li_%28linguist%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;王力&lt;/a&gt;(wang2 li4).li could also be &quot;莉(li4)&quot;,and “茉莉” means &quot;jasmine&quot;. There is a famous actress 牛莉(niu2 li4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hong. Hong could be &quot;宏(hong2)“, which means &quot;huge&quot;. There is a famous comedian 黄宏(huang2 hong2). Hong could also be &quot;虹(hong2)&quot;, which means &quot;rainbow&quot;. There is a famous actress 陶虹(tao2 hong2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2011-12-18T02:10:37.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="317" CreationDate="2011-12-17T09:40:39.480" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The easy way to understand this is to use an oral English sentence rather than something formal. This is commonly used to mean &quot;...and that's all&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example in English you can say &quot;It's just an exam and that's all&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese this could be said: &quot;这不过是一个考试而已&quot; &lt;em&gt;Zhè bùguò shì yīgè kǎoshì éryǐ&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T09:40:39.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="318" CreationDate="2011-12-17T09:45:32.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people pronounce this as &quot;di&quot; all the time and some people say &quot;di&quot; to just add some spice (or sound cool) or add a little bit of emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of this I have heard people say something simple as：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们是我的好朋友&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Tāmen shì wǒ di hǎo péngyǒu&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also heard it sang in songs just to match other parts of the song or to fit in well with the rest of the song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T12:01:28.137" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T12:01:28.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="258" CreationDate="2011-12-17T10:22:29.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;着 when used between two verbs signifies that the first action accompanies the second (main) action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢躺着听音乐。&#xA;I like to listen to music lying down&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他坐着看电视。&#xA;He sits watching television&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T10:22:29.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29" CreationDate="2011-12-17T10:35:50.787" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One strategy I use is shopping whenever I can at shops with Chinese speaking proprietors (Fast-food, groceries, restaurants, anything). I use a bit of Chinese, this generally interests them, and you will find that you have a small conversation with this person every time you go there. (Incidentally this is also a great way to get discounts :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T10:35:50.787" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-07-25T22:45:11.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="329" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="338" CreationDate="2011-12-17T12:24:46.840" Score="5" ViewCount="1751" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was a bit surprised at first when I discovered that Chinese doesn't have single words or expressions for &quot;yes&quot; or &quot;no&quot;, and that instead we must use the verb from the question to either confirm or deny. The difficulty is not insurmountable if we can understand the verb from the question, but there seems to be exceptions, and this brings me to the object of the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence and I need to modify as a yes/no question and then answer both positively and negatively:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Statement:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我妹妹来美国。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ mèimei lái Mĕiguó.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Yes/No Question:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你妹妹来美国吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Nĭ mèimei lái Mĕiguó ma?&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I answered with &quot;来。／不来。&quot;, but looking at the key of the exercise, enough surprisingly I noticed I was wrong, since I should have answered &quot;是。／不是。&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 是 used here instead of 来？ Is this event contemplated in the grammar, I mean, are there rules/guidelines to know when we can use 是 even if it's not the verb used in the question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T17:03:51.320" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T17:42:13.780" Title="Answering yes/no questions" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;yes-no-questions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="330" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="340" CreationDate="2011-12-17T14:04:01.337" Score="11" ViewCount="1970" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read somewhere that &quot;你好&quot; and &quot;你好吗?&quot; are mostly textbook greetings and are not used by native Chinese, at least not on daily basis. I would also find it hard to believe that two friends who know each other for years would still greet each other with 你好！:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what do the Chinese use? For acquaintances? Friends? Relatives? Family? People you've just met? How much does the level of closeness with the other person determine the greeting?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T13:10:00.427" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T13:10:00.427" Title="How do native Chinese greet each other on daily basis?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="331" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="363" CreationDate="2011-12-17T14:27:24.007" Score="5" ViewCount="1245" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am familiar with the sentence structure &quot;因为。。。所以。。。,&quot; but what is the correct way to say &quot;I am [doing something] because [reason]&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;I am asking this question because I am clueless.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does &quot;因为。。。所以。。。&quot; still apply in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:53:20.930" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T16:53:20.930" Title="Sentence structure &quot;I'm [doing something] because [reason]&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="309" CreationDate="2011-12-17T14:29:36.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;a href=&quot;http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~domingo2/Chinese.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;these&lt;/a&gt; input plugins for OSX (There is one for Jyutping and one for Yale). I have never used them myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T14:29:36.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="333" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="460" CreationDate="2011-12-17T14:45:26.730" Score="5" ViewCount="2411" Body="&lt;p&gt;How are Latin botanical names (e.g. Rattus rattus or Eucalyptus marginata) handled in Chinese? Does a Chinese botanist simply use Latin? Are there specific characters allocated for these words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T03:19:43.087" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T03:19:43.087" Title="How are Latin botanical names handled in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="311" CreationDate="2011-12-17T14:55:00.647" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually a common problem in newspapers and television in Singapore, where the original report may have been filed by a reporter who did not or cannot use Chinese. In these cases, the author simply chooses phonetically matching characters to fill in the name of the person, then add &lt;code&gt;(音)&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;(译音)&lt;/code&gt; to indicate that the name shown is only a phonetic translation of the person's name and not the actual characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example can be found in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zaobao.com.sg/sp/sp111217_029.shtml&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; from the local newspaper 《联合早报》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;被告谢国安（26岁，译音）共面对12项控状，包括四项冒充欺骗、两项麻醉物法令、三项偷窃，以及欺骗、失信和伤人罪状各一项。昨天他被判坐牢1年又10个月。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T14:55:00.647" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="333" CreationDate="2011-12-17T15:07:28.597" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems they use both. On this site, &lt;em&gt;alternativehealing.com&lt;/em&gt;, there is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://alternativehealing.org/crossReferenceLatinChinese1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;long list&lt;/a&gt; of botanical names, the characters and the pinyin as well. For completeness, I must say that in the Chinese wikipedia for &quot;botanical names&quot;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AD%B8%E5%90%8D_%28%E6%A4%8D%E7%89%A9%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;學名 (植物)&lt;/a&gt;, it's stated that Latin must be used for classes, see the part titled &quot;學名來源&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the same site, in &lt;a href=&quot;http://alternativehealing.org/chinese_herbs_dictionary.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;, there is even a dictionary; you can look up by the Latin name, the pinyin or the number of strokes of the characters (if you don't know the pinyin but you know the character).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T15:07:28.597" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="329" CreationDate="2011-12-17T15:15:59.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can answer &quot;对&quot; for &quot;Yes&quot;, and &quot;不对&quot; for &quot;No&quot;.  It's also fine to answer &quot;来/不来&quot; (these answers are correct).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="31" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T15:15:59.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="331" CreationDate="2011-12-17T15:19:56.033" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think “因为。。。所以。。。” still applies in this case. Or you could say “我。。。是因为。。。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃蛋糕是因为我饿了。= &lt;em&gt;I am eating the cake because I am hungry.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ chī dàn gāo shì yīn wèi wǒ è le&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T15:23:30.600" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T15:23:30.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="329" CreationDate="2011-12-17T15:30:34.067" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Statement:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我妹妹来美国。= &lt;em&gt;My sister is coming to the States.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ mèimei lái Mĕiguó.&lt;/sub&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yes/No Question:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你妹妹来美国吗？ = &lt;em&gt;Is your sister coming to the States?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Nĭ mèimei lái Mĕiguó ma?&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under this circumstances, both 来/不来 and 是/不是 are acceptable and can be understood with no difficulties. However, I have to disagree with your key to the exercise because 来/不来 is much more commonly used by native speaker. Chinese usually use the main verb in the questions to answer them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can understand the confusion. It is probably caused by the fact that &quot;是/不是&quot; means the same thing for &quot;yes/no&quot;, &quot;is/is not&quot;, &quot;are/ are not&quot; and &quot;am/ am not&quot;. Let me use a few example to illustrate my point:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你妹妹&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;美国吗？ Is your sister &lt;strong&gt;coming&lt;/strong&gt; to the States?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The way Chinese commonly do is: &lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;。It means: Yes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full answer is: 是的，她&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;。Which, in English, should be:  Yes, she &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt;. Here &quot;is&quot; refers to &quot;is coming&quot;, where the main verb is&quot;&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你妹妹是美国人吗? &lt;strong&gt;Is&lt;/strong&gt; your sister American? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The correct way in Chinese is: &lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;的。Also means Yes. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this time, the main verb is &quot;is&quot;. So the full answer is &quot;是的，她&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;的。&quot;meaning, &quot;Yes, she is.&quot; See we have two &quot;是&quot; here, meaning differently (yes and is) in English. This is where you need to use &quot;是/不是”。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="117" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-22T04:15:25.450" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T04:15:25.450" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="331" CreationDate="2011-12-17T15:47:12.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As long as there is a cause and effect logic in the sentence, &quot;因为...所以...&quot; applies. Therefore, the below situations all mean &quot;因为...所以...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A because B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B, therefore/hence/so, A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B causes/contributes to/leads to A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="117" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T15:47:12.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="330" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:01:34.623" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very interesting question. I am sure you can understand that even in English there are tons of ways to greet one single friend. It also differs from regions. Below I am listing some of the typical/common ways we greet people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;People you've just met: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你好！＝ &lt;em&gt;hello.&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很高兴认识你！ = &lt;em&gt;very glad to meet you.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For acquaintances: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你好吗？= &lt;em&gt;how are you doing?&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;忙吗？ = &lt;em&gt;are you busy recently?&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;最近忙什么？= &lt;em&gt;what have you been up to recently?&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;身体好吗？= &lt;em&gt;Are you well/healthy?&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃过饭了吗？= &lt;em&gt;have you eaten?&lt;/em&gt; — This is very typical and old-fashioned Chinese way to greet. It has been used by the older generation more frequently. Chinese won't be surprised if they are greeted this way when the timing is not applicable. Seldom will they misunderstand this as a lunch/dinner invitation. It is just a greeting....) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For close friends:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嗨/嘿！&lt;em&gt;hi/hey.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;怎么样/你怎么样？= &lt;em&gt;how are you doing?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For relatives: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for close relatives, we don't even greet a lot. Just call &quot;Mom/Dad&quot;. for relatives who we don't get to meet a lot, we use the similar greeting as acquaintances.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="117" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2011-12-19T05:26:28.453" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T05:26:28.453" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="341" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:16:11.543" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T16:16:11.543" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T16:16:11.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="342" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:16:11.543" Score="0" Body="Questions about the grammatical rules governing Chinese structure and composition." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T02:32:50.827" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T02:32:50.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="343" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:17:41.323" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T16:17:41.323" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T16:17:41.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="344" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:17:41.323" Score="0" Body="Questions about the Chinese language which are influenced by culture." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T03:57:32.907" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T03:57:32.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="345" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:18:18.670" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T16:18:18.670" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T16:18:18.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="346" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:18:18.670" Score="0" Body="Questions about the use of expressions, parts of speech, words, verbs, etc." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T04:56:59.093" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T04:56:59.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="347" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:19:49.977" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T16:19:49.977" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T16:19:49.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="348" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:19:49.977" Score="0" Body="Questions about Input Method Editors." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T22:31:02.283" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T22:31:02.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="330" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:20:06.933" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not a complete answer, but will probably supplement others you get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While working in Beijing I always heard colleagues greeting each other in the morning with just &lt;code&gt;早 (zǎo)&lt;/code&gt; instead of the full &lt;code&gt;早上好 (zǎo shang hǎo)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is quite similar to what we do in English, using &quot;morning!&quot; as a greeting instead of &quot;good morning!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T16:20:06.933" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="350" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:20:15.453" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T16:20:15.453" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T16:20:15.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="351" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:20:15.453" Score="0" Body="Questions about verbs, their characteristics and their specific use." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-22T04:28:27.983" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T04:28:27.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="352" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:22:26.323" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strokes in Chinese, as well as Japanese, characters are not random. They have a specific order, which also helps to make them look better when written. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lack of ability in following the right stroke order is regarded as a symptom of illiteracy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-22T04:28:20.353" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T04:28:20.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="353" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:22:26.323" Score="0" Body="Questions about the characters' stroke order." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-22T04:28:22.443" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T04:28:22.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="354" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:23:33.793" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T16:23:33.793" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T16:23:33.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="355" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:23:33.793" Score="0" Body="The romanization is the process of rendering Chinese characters with the roman alphabet." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-22T04:28:18.293" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T04:28:18.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="356" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:24:13.433" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T16:24:13.433" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T16:24:13.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="357" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:24:13.433" Score="0" Body="Questions about more or less fixed expressions." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T22:30:55.827" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T22:30:55.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="358" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:24:31.233" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T16:24:31.233" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T16:24:31.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="359" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:24:31.233" Score="0" Body="Questions about greetings in Chinese." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-17T22:30:59.413" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T22:30:59.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="360" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:24:50.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia defines &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synonym&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;synonym&lt;/a&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in the same language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use this tag for questions about synonyms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;finding a synonym of a certain word or expression&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;asking whether two words or expressions are actually synonyms of each other&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;other questions that touch upon words with similar meanings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your question is about words with &lt;em&gt;opposite&lt;/em&gt; meaning, use &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/antonyms&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;antonyms&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;antonyms&lt;/a&gt; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your question is about generic differences in usage or meaning, it might be better to use &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/difference&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;difference&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;difference&lt;/a&gt; too or instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T00:50:06.267" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T00:50:06.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="361" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-17T16:24:50.890" Score="0" Body="Questions about two or more expressions with a similar meaning." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-22T04:28:24.317" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T04:28:24.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="331" CreationDate="2011-12-17T19:48:16.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I am [doing something] because [reason]&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;has Chines equivalent, which preserves the same sentence order, as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;之所以我现在正在做.. 是因为...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though, I am not sure if &lt;code&gt;所以我在做.. 是因为&lt;/code&gt; is wrong, the &lt;code&gt;之&lt;/code&gt; in this sentence is not really optional, i.e. saying &lt;code&gt;之所以我在做.. 是因为&lt;/code&gt; is much more natural than &lt;code&gt;所以我在做.. 是因为&lt;/code&gt;, at least to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But normally, I would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我现在正在做.. 是因为...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, to add blaming emotion into the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我现在正在做.. 还不是因为...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我现在正在写报告, 还不是因为你忘了提前告诉我.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I am still writing the report, because you forgot to tell me earlier!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T19:48:16.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="330" CreationDate="2011-12-17T20:36:14.897" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;About &lt;code&gt;你吃饭了么&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is maybe more common to say &lt;code&gt;你吃了么?&lt;/code&gt; or even simply &lt;code&gt;吃了么?&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it is not necessarily rice, but any meal (except breakfast).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the translation to English should be &lt;code&gt;Have you eaten?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is used more commonly during the time period after lunch or after dinner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are jokes about this, e.g. two guys met near toilet but asking each other &lt;code&gt;吃了么?&lt;/code&gt;. :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastActivityDate="2011-12-17T20:36:14.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="365" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="366" CreationDate="2011-12-17T23:52:35.263" Score="10" ViewCount="1023" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just realized that the &lt;code&gt;还不&lt;/code&gt; part of speech in phrases such as &quot;还不是因为爱&quot;, &quot;还不都怪你&quot; is quite tricky. How do you translate it into English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:57:41.940" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T17:13:49.863" Title="How to translate/understand &quot;还不&quot; in &quot;还不是因为爱&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="365" CreationDate="2011-12-18T00:17:39.277" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's translated as “actually&quot;, &quot;really&quot;, &quot;just&quot;; it is used to show your emphasis. It's a very tricky expression because it has &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; negative meaning, while it has a negative look (不).You usually use this word in a sentence as a response to show your disagreement with the speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You and your friends go hiking in a big mountain, and you get lost. Fortunately, you have a GPS device, and it helps you get out of the adversity. When you are safe, one of your friends says, &quot;Thank goodness!&quot;. You would say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这还不是因为我带了GPS导航仪。= It is really because I took the GPS navigator along.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Here, You imply that he should thank you!Not thank goodness!&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And another one would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还不是我叫你带上的。=It's I who asks you to take it along.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now,he wants everyone to know that they should thank him :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还不是因为爱。= &lt;em&gt;(It is) really because of love.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also want to show you the negative form of this expression, you would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这还真不是因为爱。= &lt;em&gt;This is really &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; because of love.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-18T06:09:48.823" LastActivityDate="2011-12-18T06:09:48.823" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="365" CreationDate="2011-12-18T00:31:12.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although it's not quite, you can think 还不 as double negation. The character 还 contains a 不 too. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate 还不 as &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;isn't it&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还不是因为爱 = &lt;em&gt;Isn't it because of love.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还不都怪你 = &lt;em&gt;Isn't it because of you to blame.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-18T00:33:48.907" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="368" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="394" CreationDate="2011-12-18T05:54:08.740" Score="9" ViewCount="1864" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a sentence such as &quot;因为我去面试了，所以我刮了胡子&quot;, in one case, 了 is after the sentence, while in the other case it's after the verb, even though in both cases, 了 is used to express the past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how to know where to put 了? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any rules to follow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="76" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T16:58:36.620" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T16:58:36.620" Title="When should 了 be after the verb and when should it be at the end of the sentence?" Tags="&lt;past-tense&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="369" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="447" CreationDate="2011-12-18T06:43:52.713" Score="7" ViewCount="542" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend (Mainland Chinese, living in Hong Kong) recently posted the following sentence on Facebook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;聖誕節買禮物?做番中國人啦!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I had never seen the &quot;做番&quot; construction before, I asked if perhaps she had mistyped the phrase, and had wanted to use &quot;做返&quot; instead, seeing as the pinyin would be the same for both. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She responded that, in this case, both were OK. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is her assessment accurate? Why would one use &quot;做番&quot; instead of &quot;做返&quot;? Is there a subtle difference in meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="122" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-02-05T06:39:17.740" LastActivityDate="2012-02-05T06:39:17.740" Title="What is the difference between 做番 vs. 做返?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="44" CreationDate="2011-12-18T06:52:38.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the best analogy is between Spanish and French - mutually unintelligible, but the characters are largely the same, and a reader of Spanish could quickly acclimate to understanding written French, though would need to study before speaking with any fluency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese is often referred to as a dialect of Chinese, though, in my opinion, that's mostly for political reasons. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a good friend often says: The only difference between a dialect and a language is an army and a navy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="122" LastActivityDate="2011-12-18T06:52:38.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="247" CreationDate="2011-12-18T07:03:07.917" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly - you are correct, as are the others who have posted here. 没 is unusual in that it negates 有 and only 有，and for simplicity can itself serve as a contraction of 没有.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others have pointed out, 没/没有 also has the unique grammatical role of indicating an action &amp;quot;not yet done&amp;quot; (in conjunction with 还 and 过) or &amp;quot;never done&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你去过香港吗？= Have you been to Hong Kong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还没去过。= I still have not gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没去过。= I have never been.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; 有 takes 没, I think it's likely best to chalk that up to the irregularities of languages, which develop over time without any planning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="122" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-18T07:03:07.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="379" CreationDate="2011-12-18T07:08:44.920" Score="5" ViewCount="2997" Body="&lt;p&gt;Colloquial Cantonese phrases often differ significantly from Mandarin, so I would be nervous to use 你怎么样 pronounced in Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a greeting of identical (or nearly identical) meaning in Cantonese (ie, for closer acquaintances, implying &quot;how are ya?&quot; or &quot;what's up?&quot;)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="122" LastActivityDate="2015-02-21T18:26:52.540" Title="What is the Cantonese equivalent for 你怎么样？" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-18T07:16:54.007" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was learning, I spent a lot of time counting to ten. You get a great mix of all 4 Mandarin tones, plus you get good comparison opportunities, as well. It's also relatively mindless, so you can recite on a bus/subway/walk to school, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一，二，三，四，五，六，七，八，九，十&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yi1, er4, san1, si4, wu3, liu4, qi1, ba1, jiu3, shi2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 1-4-1-4 pattern at the beginning is really helpful, as is the 3-4 pattern at 五，六. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much of mastering tones is not only learning the tone, but also learning to transition fluidly between different tones. I found this method really helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="122" LastActivityDate="2011-12-18T07:16:54.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="368" CreationDate="2011-12-18T13:52:07.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 usually means you've done something. In most cases it can be put either after the verb or noun in the sentence and makes no difference. But   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example below sentence is equivalent to the sentence in this question.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为我去了面试，所以我刮了)胡子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;yīn wéi wǒ qù le miàn shì，suǒ yǐ wǒ guā le hú zi。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastActivityDate="2011-12-18T13:52:07.647" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="365" CreationDate="2011-12-18T13:59:26.477" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 还不=还不是，it might be translated into 'it's all'. Because in Chinese you could express the same meaning with “全都是。。。”.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还不是因为爱 = 全都是因为爱 = It's all because of love&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还不（是）都怪你 = 全都（是）怪你 = It's all your bad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastActivityDate="2011-12-18T13:59:26.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="376" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="383" CreationDate="2011-12-18T14:47:13.630" Score="15" ViewCount="1444" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know both of them mean &quot;want to&quot; but have usage in different contexts. When should I use each one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我要去上海市 and 我想去上海市 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference in the meaning between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I've seen these two characters together in some sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想要去上海市 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When they're together, is there a third context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastEditorUserId="21232" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T07:13:33.080" LastActivityDate="2021-01-11T06:56:48.553" Title="Difference between 想 and 要?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="376" CreationDate="2011-12-18T15:16:02.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;要 has more certainty or confidence than 想 in tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastActivityDate="2011-12-18T15:16:02.743" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="378" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="391" CreationDate="2011-12-18T17:03:56.140" Score="22" ViewCount="2508" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a book with the following lesson titles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中文以及中国&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;聚会和饮食&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;交通与环境&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are these terms connected with 以及 / 和 / 与, why not always use 和 for example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any rules for proper use of these conjunctions? What are the differences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-02-05T06:38:52.797" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T04:57:51.160" Title="What is the difference in use between 以及, 和 and 与?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="372" CreationDate="2011-12-18T17:12:58.337" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally we use the verb &amp;quot;点&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你点啊？&#xA;Nei5 dim2 aa3?&#xA;leih dim a?&#xA;English: What's up? (less formal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你点样啊？&#xA;Nei5 dim2 jeung5 aa3?&#xA;leih dim yeung a?&#xA;English: How are you doing? (more formal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你近排点啊？&#xA;Nei5 gan6 paai4 dim2 aa3?&#xA;leih gan pai dim a?&#xA;English: How have you been doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你呢排点啊？&#xA;Nei5 ni1 paai4 dim2 aa3?&#xA;leih li pai dim a?&#xA;English: How've you been lately?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-02-21T18:26:52.540" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="380" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="381" CreationDate="2011-12-18T20:39:30.000" Score="12" ViewCount="1616" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really enjoying learning 成语 (chéng yǔ) in Chinese, and I'm curious to know why they are often or always four characters long? Where does this tradition stem from? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And are there 成语 with more or less than four characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-18T21:28:27.713" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T13:31:09.137" Title="Why are 成语 (idioms) four characters long? Are there 成语 with more or less than four characters?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="380" CreationDate="2011-12-18T23:47:40.640" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://my.chinese.cn/space.php?do=blog&amp;amp;id=3063&amp;amp;uid=1061&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;my.chinese.cn&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;成语为什么四字者为多？这大概是因为四字容易上口。如我国古代的诗歌总集《诗经》，就以四字句为多，古代历史《尚书》，其中四字句也有一些。后来初学读的三、百、千《三字经》《百家姓》《千字文》，其中后两种即全为四字句。《四言杂字》《龙文鞭影》初、二、三集，都是四言。这虽然是训蒙书，也足以说明四字句之为人所喜爱、所乐诵。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why are idioms mostly four characters? This is basically because four words are catchy. Our country's famous book of poetry, 《诗经》, mostly uses four-character sentences, and the historical book 《尚书》 also has many four-character sentences. Then there are the (三、百、千) 《三字经》《百家姓》《千字文》, the latter two of which use four-character sentences. 《四言杂字》《龙文鞭影》 1st, 2nd and 3rd collections all have four words. Although these are books for educating small children they also illustrate people's enjoyment of four-character sentences.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find some examples of longer idioms at &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chinese_proverbs&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikiquote&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;天高皇帝遠。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Tiān gaō huáng dì yuǎn.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;&quot;The sky is high and the emperor is far away&quot;&lt;/em&gt; — used as in carefree (lawlessness).  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;自助者天助。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Zì zhù zhě tiān zhù&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Literally&lt;/strong&gt;: Those who help themselves, God will help. &lt;strong&gt;Meaning&lt;/strong&gt;: God will help those who help themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find some 3 character idioms (in Chinese) at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chengyu.itlearner.com/cy/list_9.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chengyu.itlearner.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="3202" LastEditDate="2013-09-05T17:21:50.990" LastActivityDate="2013-09-05T17:21:50.990" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="305" CreationDate="2011-12-19T01:08:05.330" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two books have been recommended from another site (I haven't read these myself):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0674017269&quot;&gt;An Introduction to Literary Chinese: Revised Edition (Harvard East Asian Monographs) by Michael Anthony Fuller (2004)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/067402270X&quot;&gt;A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese (Harvard East Asian Monographs) by Paul F. Rouzer (2007)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from learning yourself, another option is to find a Chinese person who did well in this subject to teach you or do language exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T01:08:05.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="376" CreationDate="2011-12-19T01:43:01.557" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I differentiate between these two is using &quot;want&quot; and &quot;need&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English &quot;need&quot; still means &quot;want to&quot;, but there is an added necessity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is apparent in the following two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想吃饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I want to eat&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我要吃饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I need to eat&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will also hear people using 需要 (Xūyào) to indicate need, so just think of 要 as a shortened version of that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你需要我做什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What do you need me to do&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想要 is interchangeable with 想 in most uses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also worth noting is 要 can be used to indicate &quot;going to&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你为什么想把它弄坏了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why do you want to break it?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你为什么要把它弄坏了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why are you going to break it?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你为什么想去他家？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why do you want to go to (his/her) house?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你为什么要去他家？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why are you going to (his/her) house?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T01:43:01.557" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="308" CreationDate="2011-12-19T01:55:53.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese#Romanization&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; will give you a good background into each of the systems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cantonese romanization systems are based on the accent of Canton and&#xA;  Hong Kong, and have helped define the concept of Standard Cantonese.&#xA;  The major systems are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett%E2%80%93Chao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Barnett–Chao&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer%E2%80%93Wempe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Meyer–Wempe&lt;/a&gt;, the Chinese&#xA;  government's &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong_Romanization&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Guangdong Romanization&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_Romanization#Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yale&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyutping&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jyutping&lt;/a&gt;. While they do&#xA;  not differ greatly, Yale is the one most commonly seen in the west&#xA;  today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's all personal preference. As you mention the Yale system makes most sense to you, then I would stick with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each system is about providing you a tool, but they all have the same aim. To enable you to understand Cantonese. To this end, there is no benefit in learning two of them thoroughly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another point is that romanization systems are limited in the benefit they provide for learning a language. They are covering a very minute amount of knowledge. So most students (in China) learn pinyin as a first step and then discard it. It is studied in the first month to become familiar with the sounds and letters and then it is only used for reading for a year or two after that. So don't rely on this as the cornerstone of your learning or as a regular tool for reading, use it as the most basic of tools, it is essentially just a 2 or 3 letter representation along with a tone to teach you pronounciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T01:55:53.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="385" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="387" CreationDate="2011-12-19T02:35:39.280" Score="9" ViewCount="2408" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've mainly been learning to read/write Chinese using computer based software as opposed to going to lessons etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I've realised that there is a small handfull of characters that look different handwritten and on the computer (and sometime there seems to be variations between fonts as well)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 聚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen it written once, and the bottom looks very different (so much so that I didn't recognise the character!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a rule of thumb for variations between handwritten/computer fonts? Also, is it acceptable if I hand write characters in &quot;computer form&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: adding picture...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EQ6Tr.png&quot; alt=&quot;&amp;#39;ju4&amp;#39; two fairly different representations&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=chardict&amp;amp;cdcanoce=0&amp;amp;cdqchi=%E8%81%9A&quot;&gt;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=chardict&amp;amp;cdcanoce=0&amp;amp;cdqchi=%E8%81%9A&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, those two characters (both 聚) seem quite different. If I remember correctly, the large black one is more similar to the handwritten one I saw (whereas the blue one is the one I usually see on the computer/mobile).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I'm fairly sure this isn't a case of simplified vs traditional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="60" LastEditorUserId="60" LastEditDate="2011-12-19T04:43:19.180" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T13:49:56.877" Title="Some characters look different handwritten and on the computer - how to learn the differences?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="380" CreationDate="2011-12-19T02:50:32.183" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the viewpoints from xiaohouzi79, and I would like to make a supplement here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many idioms come from classic poems and books，and  as xiaohouzi79 mentioned, four-character sentences were popular in these materials, especially I think in poems and books(such 《&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Poetry&quot;&gt;诗经&lt;/a&gt;》,《&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuo_Zhuan&quot;&gt;左传&lt;/a&gt;》,etc.) before Qin Dynast(221BC-207BC).Although foreigner may be more familiar with &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_poetry&quot;&gt;唐诗&lt;/a&gt;(poems written in Tang Dynasty(618 AD-907 AD)),in which one sentence usually consists of 5 or 7 characters, before &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Dynasty_%28265%E2%80%93420%29&quot;&gt;晋&lt;/a&gt; dynasty(266 AD-420 AD), it was popular to write a poem with sentences consisting four characters. I believe that because of the popularity of four-character sentence, people in later times would compact a sentence into a four-character sentence to be an idiom, as the four-character sentence became the standard de facto for idioms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to show you some idioms and their originations, and I strongly suggest you &#xA;consult them in a dictionary if you are interested, for my English level prevents me from&#xA;giving you good explanations. Of course, I will try to explain some :). &lt;strong&gt;Note:&quot;原文&quot; means &quot;the original text&quot; below.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;风雨如晦  原文：&lt;strong&gt;风雨如晦&lt;/strong&gt;, 鸡鸣不已。from the book of《诗经》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literally meaning: It looks like in a night because of the heavy wind and rain.In fact, it's an analogy that the society or the country is in a darkness or turmoil.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老骥伏枥  原文：&lt;strong&gt;老骥伏枥&lt;/strong&gt;，志在千里。from the poem of《步出夏门行·龟虽寿》 by famous politician, militarist and writer &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_Cao&quot;&gt;曹操&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literally meaning: An old good horse stays near the trough, while it still wishes to show its power outside. It's an analogy to describe an old hero still with aspirations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其乐融融  原文：大隧之中，&lt;strong&gt;其乐&lt;/strong&gt; 也 &lt;strong&gt;融融&lt;/strong&gt;。from the book of《左传》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literally meaning: very happy. It's offen used to decribe the happiness of a family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大义灭亲  原文：&lt;strong&gt;大义灭亲&lt;/strong&gt;，其是之谓乎？from the book of《左传》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literally meaning: Kill one's relatives(in the original text, his son), in order to ensure justice. It's used to describe someone injures someone else's interest, for the sake of justice or morality, although he is a relative (or a family member, or a close friend) of yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扑朔迷离  原文：雄兔脚 &lt;strong&gt;扑朔&lt;/strong&gt;，雌兔眼 &lt;strong&gt;迷离&lt;/strong&gt;。双兔傍地走，安能辨我是雄雌？ from the poem of《木兰诗》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you would have seen the film of &quot;Mulan&quot; from Hollywood, which is adapted from this poem. The original text is difficult for me to translate...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人言可畏  原文：仲可怀也，&lt;strong&gt;人&lt;/strong&gt; 之多 &lt;strong&gt;言&lt;/strong&gt;，亦 &lt;strong&gt;可畏&lt;/strong&gt; 也。from the book of《诗经》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning: the gossip or rumor from other people is really fearful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;缘木求鱼  原文：犹 &lt;strong&gt;缘木&lt;/strong&gt; 而 &lt;strong&gt;求鱼&lt;/strong&gt; 也。 from the book of《&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mencius_%28book%29&quot;&gt;孟子&lt;/a&gt;》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literally meaning: Climb up a tree to find fish. It's an analogy to say that someone is doing something in a wrong(impossible) way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;游刃有余  原文：恢恢乎其于 &lt;strong&gt;游刃&lt;/strong&gt; 必 &lt;strong&gt;有余&lt;/strong&gt; 地矣。from the book of《&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_%28book%29&quot;&gt;庄子&lt;/a&gt;》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literally meaning: there must be some gaps to accommodate the moving knife(in the original context, the writer is surprised to see that a butcher is so skillful to dismember a cattle that his knife moves freely in the cattle's body). It's an analogy to say someone is very proficient in doing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ther are very few idioms consisting of more characters or less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一叶障目不见泰山 from《鹖冠子》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With one leaf at front of your eyes, you can't see Mountain Tai. An analogy to say that someone is not able to have a long-term sight, to think about the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;多行不义必自毙  from 《左传》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(someone) will certainly get the punishment he deserves from the god, after he committed so many bad things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冒天下之大不韪  its prototype is from《左传》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To risk universal condemnation. To commit something wrong that all other people would not do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;莫须有 from the historical book of 《宋史》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literally meaning: not must have(in the original context, it means:&quot;[I] don't have to have[any piece of evidence to show his guilty]&quot;. This comes from a famous story related to the famous General &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Fei&quot;&gt;岳飞&lt;/a&gt;. Today, we use it to say something that is not true, that is fabricated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;想当然 原文：以今度之，&lt;strong&gt;想当然&lt;/strong&gt; 耳。 from the historical book of 《后汉书》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the original context, it means [by comparsing the current situation with that one, I] think it should be so(in the original context, the speaker &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kong_Rong&quot;&gt;孔融&lt;/a&gt; used this word to show his criticisms and sarcasms to 曹操).Now it is used to say someone assumes something without a strong foundation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At last, I want to say that I think idioms are derived from classic Chinese(but it seems that there is no offical standard to determine if a 4-character word is an idiom, of course an authoritative dectionary would give an answer), so some fixed words popular in oral speaking are not idioms(the words listed in the link given by xiaohouzi79), in my opinion, because of &lt;strong&gt;lackage of cultural heritages&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-20T02:08:23.570" LastActivityDate="2011-12-20T02:08:23.570" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="385" CreationDate="2011-12-19T06:11:59.983" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, this is similar to another question about why certain people refer to 土豆 as peanuts and some as potato and some other people as something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prior to the official process of simplification of characters there has already been different ways in which people were simplifying writing different characters, it didn't just happen overnight. So for certain characters and certain parts of characters there was already different ways of writing these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as per the language example above these traveled and certain simplifications were set in certain parts of the country so that there were regional differences. This in turn created sets of written characters used in different regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can switch the character set your browser is using, but most pages now are served in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Unicode&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume whatever encoding your browser has is not a standard Chinese font or Unicode. My Firefox browser detects the page as Unicode and it displays as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IcTqn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In answer to your question in the comments above as to which one is the right one for you to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your best bet in answering a question like this is checking a dictionary. That way you can be sure you have the right one. The other resource you can use for this is wiktionary &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%81%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%81%9A&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also see variants of characters at this site, including yours here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/variants.jsp?cid=19626&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/variants.jsp?cid=19626&lt;/a&gt; but this doesn't provide information if or where this is being used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2011-12-20T00:54:37.980" LastActivityDate="2011-12-20T00:54:37.980" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="385" CreationDate="2011-12-19T06:46:14.050" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe this happens because your PC lacks some fonts to show characters correctly. In my firefox, both of them are the same, no problem. I want to show the difference caused by fonts here below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The font we used are(from top to bottom) &lt;strong&gt;Arial,Century Gothic,DejaVu Serif,RomanD,Times New Roman,仿宋_GB2312,黑体,楷体_GB2312,宋体.&lt;/strong&gt; Have you seen the big difference between fonts for English letters and font for Chinese characters(3 characters at the beginning and the last character)? Even with different fonts for Chinese characters, there are some little differences. Usually, we use &quot;宋体&quot;,&quot;仿宋&quot; in print. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ynZI6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T06:46:14.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="307" CreationDate="2011-12-19T09:48:21.437" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://b8721035.blogspot.com/2009/03/blog-post_23.html&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【葉】和【叶】在普通話中雖然讀音相差很遠，但在古音(【葉】的古音為ㄕㄜˋ，是春秋楚國時的一個地方。)和吳方言中讀音相近，所以清末民初時蘇州等地的群眾開始把茶葉、百葉的【葉】寫成【叶】。錢玄同在1922年出版的《國語月刊‧漢字改革號》上提到這種用法。後來，中國人民共和國發布的《簡化字總表》吸收了這一用法，將【葉】簡化為【叶】，但注明【叶韻】的【叶】仍讀ㄒㄧㄝˊ。(時學祥、趙伯平主編的《語林趣話》一書（四川辭書出版社2002年1月出版）第396-397頁)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although in Mandarin the pronunciation of &quot;葉&quot; and &quot;叶&quot; are very far, however the ancient pronunciation (葉 ancient pronunciation was Shè, and was used for the name of a place in the Chu kingdom during the Spring/Autumn period.)  in Wu dialect is the same. So, people in the early Qing dynasty in places like SuZhou started to use &quot;叶&quot; in words like 茶叶(tea leaves), 百叶（literally means: one hundred leaves. In fact, it's a kind of food made of soybean, in the shape like a piece of paper). &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%92%B1%E7%8E%84%E5%90%8C&quot;&gt;錢玄同&lt;/a&gt; in his 1922 published &quot;國語月刊‧漢字改革號&quot; mentioned this use. Then the Chinese Republic released &quot;簡化字總表&quot; (simplified character table) they implemented this use, taking &quot;叶&quot; as he simplification of &quot;葉&quot;. However, the &quot;叶&quot; in &quot;叶韻&quot; is pronounced xié.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source (時學祥、趙伯平主編的《語林趣話》一書（四川辭書出版社2002年1月出版）第396-397頁)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-19T12:43:53.363" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T12:43:53.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="390" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="434" CreationDate="2011-12-19T10:09:57.310" Score="2" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Choong!&quot; is the sound of something taking off or being launched. I'm trying to find out if there is a character for this sound as &quot;choong&quot; is not used for any regular character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not to be confused with 冲, the oo sound is long and more like the &quot;u&quot; in put rather than &quot;oo&quot; in spoon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T17:02:36.227" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T17:02:36.227" Title="Character to use for the onomotapoeic sound &quot;choong!&quot;" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="378" CreationDate="2011-12-19T10:13:57.243" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few differences between those three words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;以及&quot; can only connect phrases,not words.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The phrases after &quot;以及&quot; is commonly considered to secondary.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;与&quot; and &quot;和&quot; are used to express the relationship. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;与&quot; is more elegant than &quot;和&quot;. such as &quot;老人与海&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;和&quot; is mostly used in oral form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In some cases,&quot;和&quot; and &quot;与&quot; are somewhat interchangeable, such as &quot;我和他做事方法不同&quot; or &quot;我与他做事方法不同&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="116" LastEditorUserId="116" LastEditDate="2011-12-19T10:21:35.623" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T10:21:35.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="390" CreationDate="2011-12-19T10:47:52.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although this doesn't answer your question specifically to &quot;choong&quot;, I found an interesting PDF about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyin.info/readings/yin_binyong/o09_onomatopoeia.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;onomatopoeic words in Chinese&lt;/a&gt; with many examples divided according to their structure. If you want I can transcribe them here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T10:47:52.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="380" CreationDate="2011-12-19T10:53:31.263" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As stated in this document about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyin.info/readings/yin_binyong/o10_1_4_syllable_idioms.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;four-syllables idioms&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;&lt;em&gt;Four-character idioms are fixed usage, four syllables in length, which convey simply and succinctly a certain meaning. That meaning can be a description of a person, object, or state of affairs, or some piece of wisdom about the world. &lt;strong&gt;There are other forms of idioms apart from the four-syllable type&lt;/strong&gt;; the Chinese language, however, tends naturally to form words and phrases into twos — so much that it has been called an &quot;even number&quot; language — and it particularly favors two- and four-syllable constructions. For this reason, &lt;strong&gt;four-syllable idioms are far and away the most numerous type.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; [...]&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bold parts are mine since they refer to your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T10:53:31.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="368" CreationDate="2011-12-19T13:06:07.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, you can use &quot;了&quot; right after the verb or at the end of the sentence when &quot;了&quot; is used to show the past tense. However, in your case, that's another thing that I want to clarify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think, &quot;去面试&quot; should be treated as &lt;strong&gt;one phrasal verb&lt;/strong&gt;, something like the phrasal verb &quot;go fishing&quot;, &quot;go shopping&quot; in English.Here &quot;面试&quot; (interview) is a noun which has a verbal meaning, and thus I will treat &quot;去面试“ as one verb, rather than treat “面试” as the object of the verb &quot;去&quot;.If you say &quot;我去了北京&quot;, it's different because here &quot;北京&quot; is the object of &quot;去“. Treating the two words as one verb, of course you should not insert “了” inside it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因为我去面试了，所以我刮了胡子. or 因为我去面试了，所以我刮胡子了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因为我去参加(参加=participate in)了面试，所以我刮了胡子. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, “去参加” is treated as one verb and “面试&quot; is its object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因为我去参加面试了，所以我刮了胡子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-19T13:49:05.947" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T13:49:05.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="395" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="396" CreationDate="2011-12-19T16:43:15.187" Score="27" ViewCount="2702" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed in China that people don't tend to use as many 'polite' words as we do in western languages, like 'please' or 'thank you'. I want to make it clear that I'm not complaining about this; I find that such niceties are often overused in English, to the point where they become insincere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English I would automatically say 'thanks' whenever someone does something for me. In China I found I got some quizzical looks doing this with &lt;code&gt;谢谢&lt;/code&gt; (xiè xie).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps another example is in restaurants where I've heard people screaming &lt;code&gt;服务员!&lt;/code&gt; (fú wù yuán) across the room, whereas westerners would raise a hand, or try to make eye contact, or say 'excuse me'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is, in China, how polite is too polite? When is it appropriate to use things like &lt;code&gt;谢谢&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;麻烦你&lt;/code&gt; (má fan nǐ), and when should I restrain the impulse to avoid sounding weird?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T05:34:10.360" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T05:34:10.360" Title="How polite is too polite?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="395" CreationDate="2011-12-19T19:19:34.077" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friends use 谢谢 all the time, so even if someone pours them a drink for the 10th time they will still say 谢谢. One thing I noticed when I first started learning was that how I said it sounded too exaggerated, so it was coming across like I was trying to thank someone for saving my life when it was just supposed to be a simple thanks. So maybe try toning it down slightly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;麻烦你 is also quite similar to the English &quot;sorry to trouble you&quot;. Don't use this when you haven't troubled someone. So, use it if you have to ask someone to unexpectedly baby sit your children, but not when you ask someone to pass the salt. However, this can be used with grumpy shop keepers (occasionally heard sarcastically) if they reluctantly have to get something off the top shelf or out of its packaging and you decide you don't want to buy it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please is hardly used as mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of niceties that you may have not noticed yet that are practiced regularly and not done in the West. Such as standing up when someone new enters a room, regularly offering food or drink to guests, regular giving of gifts etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say polite things are done as often as the West, just done in a different way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T19:19:34.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="397" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="404" CreationDate="2011-12-19T19:31:44.840" Score="9" ViewCount="3160" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some ways that I can let the other speaker know I want to finish a phone conversation and am going to hang up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I frequently come across as too abrupt. Usually something along the lines of extended pause followed by goodbye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Leaving the room you can say 我现在要走了，再见！ so there is some lead up to the goodbye. What are some good lead up sentences that I can use for ending a phone conversation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T05:50:14.440" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T05:50:14.440" Title="Effective and polite way to end a phone conversation" Tags="&lt;politeness&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="398" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="405" CreationDate="2011-12-19T19:50:33.190" Score="11" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possible to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三月初 (the beginning of March)&#xA;三月底 (the end of March)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我三月底要回国&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also refer to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;年初 and 年底&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is there something you can use to convey the beginning or end of the week, for example &quot;I am going to my parents house at the end of next week&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T08:49:56.860" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T08:49:56.860" Title="Beginning of the week / end of the week" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="398" CreationDate="2011-12-19T21:16:15.330" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;周末&lt;/code&gt; is used for weekend (the end of the week)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;星期一&lt;/code&gt; (Monday) is usually referred to as the beginning of the week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I am going to my parents house at the end of next week?&quot; can be translated as &lt;code&gt;下周末我去我父母家&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T21:16:15.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="397" CreationDate="2011-12-19T21:20:28.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are receiving the call, you could say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;感谢你的来电 = Thanks for calling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are calling someone, you could say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;感谢你的时间 = Thanks for your time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们再联系 = We will contact again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;before saying goodbye and hangup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T21:20:28.550" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="401" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-19T22:43:08.383" Score="6" ViewCount="450" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm corrected to pronounce WAH instead of &quot;wǒ.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it the same and I just hear it wrong in my head? Or is there a difference in dialect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="149" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:15:13.183" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T04:15:13.183" Title="Why do I see 我 for I, but is pronounced WAH" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="182" CreationDate="2011-12-19T22:52:05.907" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If this speaking is usually mixed with a drop in tone on the word before, it's just a cutesy speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the extended word gets elevated tone, but drops to normal tone right before the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;           /maaaaaa\&#xA;ni\       /         \aa&#xA;   \_hao_/&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Girls in japanese anime do that all the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="149" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T22:52:05.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="114" CreationDate="2011-12-19T23:08:45.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My method is to put my tongue flat on the roof of my mouth. The top of your mouth is curved, so I end up with the sides and tip of my tongue against the roof of my mouth, with the middle of my tongue not touching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open your mouth wide but almost closed (an English R will have your mouth in an O shape). It helps to pull back on the sides of your mouth. Remember, Chinese speak more inside their mouth with their mouth near closed. I teach them to open up their mouth more. So you need to close your mouth more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With mouth barely open, and wide, fold the tip of your tongue down and pronounce an r.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for holding the tip up, is because it will free you from using your mouth to hold the sound back before your pronunciation. We tend to use our mouths for that, and you need to have your mouth right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the tip down, you get a looseness in the r that approximates the Chinese R 99% perfect, without any effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find yourself still making an R sound, you didn't drop the tip of your tongue, or your moving your mouth into O shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To practice, put an English e in front. Er. Then after repetitions, shorten the emphasis on the e part, and you'll get a loose R as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find the Chinese [ren (person)] to be the easiest to practice with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To compare, the English R is pronounced by holding the sides of your tongue against the roof of your mouth with the tip already down, then holding your mouth in an O shape and pulling back on sides of mouth as your pronounce the letter. So, the exact opposite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="149" LastActivityDate="2011-12-19T23:08:45.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="397" CreationDate="2011-12-20T00:40:58.273" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;When talking with friends I generally end with one of the following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好，就这样吧 = That's it (kind of, hard to translate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好，我走了啊 = I'm off now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好，下次再聊 = Talk again soon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or of course, the very simple 好，拜拜！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at that, I guess I like to say 好 a lot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-20T00:40:58.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="398" CreationDate="2011-12-20T02:02:06.580" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周末 zhōu mò : The weekend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周初 zhōu chū : The beginning of a week&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In general, 周末 refers to Saturday and/or Sunday clearly, while 周初 is a little ambiguous. 初 means &amp;quot;the beginning&amp;quot;, and 周初 could refer to Monday or Tuesday or even Wednesday. You could say “星期三左右&amp;quot; to mean &amp;quot;days around Wednesday&amp;quot;. ”左右&amp;quot;(zuǒ  yòu) means &amp;quot;approximate,around, about&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You could say “月末(=月底),年末(=年底=岁末),周末,期末(qī mò,= the last few days of a semester in school)&amp;quot;,but don't say &amp;quot;期底&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;周底&amp;quot; or&amp;quot;岁底&amp;quot;. That sounds wierd.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-20T02:02:06.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="406" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="408" CreationDate="2011-12-20T03:20:21.207" Score="19" ViewCount="26465" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to think my Mandarin pronunciation is generally pretty reasonable, but I often get tripped up with X and SH - for example words like 雪 and 水, or 虾 and 莎. Even with different tones, I find these kind of tricky to get right - although obviously context makes the meaning more obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have a good tip on how to clearly show the difference in the X sound vs the SH sound? What shape should I have my mouth, and where should I put my tongue for each of these sounds?&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="18" LastEditDate="2011-12-20T20:10:03.903" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T17:15:41.663" Title="Tips for pronouncing X vs SH in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="406" CreationDate="2011-12-20T03:38:52.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For mandarin, I would like to say that &quot;X&quot; sounds like(just like, not the same) &quot;sh&quot; in English as in words &quot;sheep, shot, shoe,fish,etc.&quot; and &quot;S&quot; sounds much like(likely the same? sorry, I am not a linguist) &quot;S&quot; in English as in words &quot;silence,list,sort,etc.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the best answer is to listen to a native speaker and find out how he/she sounds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tips: For &quot;X&quot;, the tongue is curved a bit and the tongue tip touches your teeth(the top of your bottom teeth). The shape of your mouth is somehow like the shape when you pronounce &quot;i&quot; in Chinese or&quot;ee&quot; in English(as in bee, meet, flee).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: In Chinese, &quot;sh&quot; is far different with &quot;S&quot;.PinYin for your examples are 水shuĭ and 莎  shā.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-20T03:47:47.860" LastActivityDate="2011-12-20T03:47:47.860" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="406" CreationDate="2011-12-20T03:55:01.980" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to confirm the problem is with 'sh' and 'x' not 's' and 'x' because there is also a big difference between 's' words and 'sh' words e.g. &quot;四&quot; and &quot;十&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 'sh' the sound is made in the middle of the mouth and for the 'x' sound, it is made at the front of the mouth'. A good may to get the 'x' at the front is to make your mouth like you are going to whistle through your teeth (def. not through your lips). This is quite similar when someone is shooshing another person to be quiet, think gently saying 'shhhhhh'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'sh' sound is deeper, and hits the middle of the roof of your mouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to practice these is to split them up in to separate sounds and say each part slowly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for 雪 this would be sh-oo-air &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:zh-xu%C4%9B.ogg&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:zh-xu%C4%9B.ogg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 水 this would be sh-oo-ay &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:zh-shu%C7%90.ogg&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:zh-shu%C7%90.ogg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 虾 it will be sh-i-ah &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:Zh-xia.ogg&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:Zh-xia.ogg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 莎 it will be sh-ah &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:Zh-sha.ogg&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:Zh-sha.ogg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Just to repeat, the &quot;sh&quot; sound in the examples above should be the appropriate one either 'x' or 'sh' sound depending on the case).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just found this video, the difference is quite clear: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgjS7GMkgLM&amp;amp;feature=results_video&amp;amp;playnext=1&amp;amp;list=PL5F201419D79D5AF3&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgjS7GMkgLM&amp;amp;feature=results_video&amp;amp;playnext=1&amp;amp;list=PL5F201419D79D5AF3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2011-12-20T04:51:52.807" LastActivityDate="2011-12-20T04:51:52.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="369" CreationDate="2011-12-20T08:34:26.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a Cantonese construct, which is why either one is fine - there is no official way to write this in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The equivalent in Mandarin is 做回.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2011-12-20T09:02:48.860" LastActivityDate="2011-12-20T09:02:48.860" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="401" CreationDate="2011-12-21T04:06:53.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard pronunciation in Mandarin should be wǒ. &quot;Wah&quot; could be from some dialect in southern China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="117" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T04:06:53.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="401" CreationDate="2011-12-21T10:47:08.877" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I made a little search in forvo.com, a worldwide database that hosts user-provided audios for words, characters and expressions in every language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Making a quick search for 我, &lt;a href=&quot;http://it.forvo.com/word/%E6%88%91/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the results&lt;/a&gt; reveal several entries. The obvious ones Chinese and Japanese and others; among the others we have &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_Nan&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Min nan&lt;/a&gt; (Simpl: 闽南语; Trad: 閩南語; pinyin: Mǐnnán Yǔ), which is a family of Chinese language spoken in: &lt;em&gt;China (PRC and ROC areas), Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, United States (New York City), and other areas of Southern Min and Hoklo settlement.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you go to the &amp;quot;results&amp;quot; link, and scroll down until you find &amp;quot;min nan&amp;quot;, you'll see it's pronounced &amp;quot;wah&amp;quot;. It's unambiguous, it's pronounced very open so you can't be mistaken when you find it. I checked the others and no-one else seems to say &amp;quot;wah&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1: definition, chinese version and locations are taken from Wikipedia.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T10:47:08.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="413" CreationDate="2011-12-21T11:30:56.673" Score="10" ViewCount="645" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do we ask someone to &quot;translate&quot; a character or some pinyin into the other one? The expressions I'm referring to are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's the pinyin for &lt;em&gt;this/that (character)/...&lt;/em&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's the character for &lt;em&gt;this/that (pinyin)/...&lt;/em&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be useful to know these two expressions since they are more or less fixed like &quot;how are you?&quot; (or similar ones) but are not that popular, so that's why I'm asking for such a &quot;translation&quot; question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T06:53:01.993" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T06:53:01.993" Title="Asking &quot;what's the pinyin/character for X?&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="412" CreationDate="2011-12-21T12:28:59.460" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the pinyin for this/that character? 这个/那个字的拼音是什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the character for this/that pinyin? 这个/那个拼音代表的(or 对应的)汉字是什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would use the words “代表(dài biăo)的” or “对应(duì yìng)的&amp;quot; for the second translation, because in general, you can determine the PinYin for a specific character (though some characters have two or more pronunciations). However, you can't always determine the character for a specific PinYin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;代表: to represent, to delegate, to stand for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对应: to correspond to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: Answers to Alenanno. I would like to put them here because of the length&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, part in () is an alternative. I should have put a &amp;quot;or&amp;quot; there (already edited).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you ask the first question, I and I think other Chinese won't spell its PinYin (though, in English, it's common to spell a word), but show you simple or common characters with the same sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you meet a word &amp;quot;畏葸不前&amp;quot;, and you would guess the character “葸&amp;quot; sounds &amp;quot;sī&amp;quot; becaude it's similar with &amp;quot;思&amp;quot; (sī); however, you are not sure, so you ask me (it's a good habit to ask someone or consult the dictionary, don't ever guess the sounds),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个字怎么读？(really, this is more common) and I answer,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它读作(or simply 读) “喜欢的喜&amp;quot;(or simply, 它读‘喜'), to show you the sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are completly strange to Chinese and you can't get its PinYin from my pronunciation, you would continue the question,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它的拼音是什么？ and I answer,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Xi(I would repeat the sound, at a very low speech rate so you can catch the sounds of X and I), 3rd tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your second question, I'll take another example. Suppose that you just heard this sentence on the TV:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;他买了200克当归&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;tā măi le liăng băi kè dāng guī&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You understood [tā măi le liăng băi kè] stood for &amp;quot;他买了200克&amp;quot; (he bought 200 grams...) and you are wondering &lt;em&gt;what is &amp;quot;dāng guī&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;, so you try to repeat that sentence, &amp;quot;tā măi le liăng băi kè dāng guī?&amp;quot;，and ask me,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Huang, dāng guī是什么？(in this context, I may understand your question as &amp;quot;what is dāng guī?&amp;quot;, instead of &amp;quot;what are the characters for dāng guī )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I answer, &amp;quot;当归是一种中药材&amp;quot;(dāng guī is a kind of Chinese herbal medicine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want to know the corresponding characters, so you continue the question,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对应的汉字是什么？(or simply, 怎么写？).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I may answer, dāng是当然的当，(dāng stands for 当 as in the word 当然), guī是归还的归.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if your Chinese level is very low, and you even don't know the words 当然 and 归还, you would continue to say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么写呢？(how to write?), or 可以写给我看吗？ (Could you please write them down for me?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T17:49:19.797" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="406" CreationDate="2011-12-21T14:23:43.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;x&quot; is the &quot;sh&quot; sound for &quot;soft&quot; vowel combinations like &quot;i,&quot; &quot;ie,&quot; and &quot;ue.&quot; As such, it is pronounced with the tongue sticking to the roof of the mouth, while the &quot;sh&quot; (for other vowels), has a &quot;retracted&quot; posture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T14:23:43.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="406" CreationDate="2011-12-21T15:45:59.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was taught that for x, open your mouth slightly and keep your tongue straight. When you make the x sound, air should pass over the sides of your teeth.  Then for the sh sound, open your mouth wider, pucker your mouth a bit like you're forming the beginning of the word &quot;who&quot; in English and curl your tongue up a bit. This time, the air should push out forward over your lips. But basically, the tongue position (curled or flat) distinguishes them.&#xA;As for the sh vs. s distinction being lost, my understanding is that those are dialects that do not allow retroflex (i.e. your tongue curling up as in sh) consonants in onset position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T15:45:59.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="401" CreationDate="2011-12-21T18:52:31.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't rely on English phonetics.  Pinyin shouldn't be read as if it were English.  In a sense, especially with regard to vowels, Pinyin is more like Spanish or other Romance languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastEditorUserId="20" LastEditDate="2011-12-28T06:37:00.580" LastActivityDate="2011-12-28T06:37:00.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="401" CreationDate="2011-12-21T19:05:23.540" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker. It is &quot;wǒ&quot; in Mandarin. When my parents speak in Taiwanese, it sounds more like &quot;wah&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T19:05:23.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="412" CreationDate="2011-12-21T19:23:15.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Huang's answers are both great, but my personal favorites would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do I write the pinyin for this/that character? 这个/那个字的拼音怎么写？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do I write the character for this/that pinyin?这个/那个拼音用汉字怎么写？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where 怎么写 means &quot;how do you write&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2011-12-21T23:18:31.137" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T23:18:31.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="168" CreationDate="2011-12-21T19:30:00.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know some people might think 干 is not-so-mild, but I tend to hear it a lot in the sense of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Damn, all the way over there? That's a long way to go&#xA;干！那么远的地方？走过去要很久&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;That chick is hot, damn!&#xA;那个正妹好辣，干！&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="156" LastEditDate="2013-01-28T10:25:37.813" LastActivityDate="2013-01-28T10:25:37.813" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="395" CreationDate="2011-12-21T19:36:19.663" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find that at least in Taiwan, people tend to go with the less formal and more fluent 谢啦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A silent politeness favorite of mine is lightly tapping your fingers against the table, thus thanking someone for pouring tea (or similar) without interrupting the conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T19:36:19.663" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="365" CreationDate="2011-12-21T19:43:39.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think StarCub has a good answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With an example of a person explaining why or why not he is inclined to help another person, I'd possibly translate it as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;还不是因为爱 = If it wasn't for love...(I wouldn't help you)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example meaning: I will help you, because I love you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;还不都怪你 = If it wasn't all your fault...(I'd feel more inclined to help you)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example meaning: I would help you, if only you weren't solely responsible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T19:43:39.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="368" CreationDate="2011-12-21T19:44:51.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Paraphrasing from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.douban.com/group/topic/11223733/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.douban.com/group/topic/11223733/&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“了”常常用在句末，说的是已经发生的情况(了 is usually placed at the end of a sentence to indicate something already happened). ... 在有“来、去、到“等组成的连动句中，”了“应该放在第二个动词或句子之后(In phrasal verbs with 来、去、到, 了 should be placed after the second verb or at the end of the sentence. This is exactly what @Huang's answer said).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;表示动作的结束“了”一般用在动词后面(了 is usually placed after a verb to indicate the action is finished).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The examples in question are excellent demonstration of these rules. 面试 is a (hopefully) long event, and it's preceded by 去, so you put 了 at the end. In comparison, 刮胡子 is a shorter action so you put 了 after the verb 刮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="83" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T19:44:51.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="425" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="446" CreationDate="2011-12-21T20:08:19.270" Score="5" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;衣服 and 衣饰 both mean &quot;clothing&quot;; but are they truly synonymous or is the use of each term confined to its own specific context? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it simply a difference between colloquial and formal speech or between the spoken the written language?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="154" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T17:18:10.813" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T17:18:10.813" Title="Do 衣服 and 衣饰 carry different connotations or are they synonyms?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="187" CreationDate="2011-12-21T20:30:36.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between 汉语 and 中文 is that, although both mean the chinese language, 语 clearly makes reference to the spoken language, because of the talk or speak radical (言) and 文 was originally an ideogram of a man's chest with a tattoo, denoting writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T20:30:36.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="406" CreationDate="2011-12-21T20:46:12.913" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;'x' is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolo-palatal_sibilant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;alveolo-palatal fricative&lt;/a&gt;, while 'sh' is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_retroflex_sibilant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;retroflex fricative&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroflex_consonant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;retroflex&lt;/a&gt; 'sh', the tip of the tongue is curled up toward the roof of the mouth while the tongue body is low.&#xA;Mandarin 'sh' could be similar to Russian 'ш'.  Start with this wikipedia image of a retroflex stop, but make a slight space for air to pass above the tongue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ufUIP.png&quot; alt=&quot;wikipedia diagram of retroflex stop&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolo-palatal_consonant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;alveolo-palatal&lt;/a&gt; 'x', the blade of the tongue approximates the palate while the tongue tip is low.  Mandarin 'x' could be similar to Portuguese or Catalan 'x'.  It can help to press the tongue tip against the lower teeth when learning to pronounce 'x'---this doesn't change the sound, it just keeps your tongue tip out of the way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mXU5F.png&quot; alt=&quot;wikipedia diagram of alveolo-palatal fricative&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More details: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Standard_Chinese_phonology&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese phonology on wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="159" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T20:46:12.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="428" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-21T21:02:04.320" Score="11" ViewCount="959" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen mention of this word a few time. In English it is clear how certain words became swear words; f..., sh.. and damn all have very strong meanings in their literal sense; the former two being vulgar references to bodily functions and the last having to do with Hell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How in the world did &quot;他妈的&quot; become a swearing? &quot;His mother's...!&quot; doesn't seem like swearing to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="27" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2011-12-21T22:11:55.220" LastActivityDate="2012-04-29T13:36:07.160" Title="Etymology of 他妈的" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="369" CreationDate="2011-12-21T21:02:46.467" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;While officially there is only one Chinese written language, there are many spoken dialects. This written language is referred to as 白话 (báihuà) and is used across China. The spoken languages (i.e. dialects) can differ significantly from 白话 - both in vocabulary and in grammar. Thus, spoken Cantonese differs substantially from 白话. &lt;strong&gt;It is key here to realize that the spoken Cantonese language and the official written language (白话) do not correspond to each other!&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a trend in certain dialects to actually write down the language as it is spoken, which means the syntax, vocabulary and characters can differ from those found in 白话. For example, the site &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.canton168.com/2010/09/differences-between-mandarin-and-cantonese-written-and-spoken/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Canton 168 – 廣東一路發&lt;/a&gt; gives the following example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin: 我們明天可以去香港    Cantonese: 我聼日可以去香港&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This trend for using written Cantonese is most pronounced in Hong Kong. Because this is not an official written language, people themselves must agree on what characters to use in written Cantonese. Over time, certain characters become more popular than others and thus become the &lt;em&gt;de facto&lt;/em&gt; character to be used in a specific word. For 做番 and 做返, 番 and 返 are two competing characters, with some people preferring one and some the other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;做番 and 做返 thus represent written Cantonese, not 白话, and are two different ways to write the same word!&lt;/strong&gt; As Zannjaminderson pointed out in a comment above, in 白话 the term would be rendered as 做回. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="154" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T21:02:46.467" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="430" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="431" CreationDate="2011-12-21T22:47:09.157" Score="7" ViewCount="1645" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;因为&lt;/em&gt; is usually pronounced as &lt;em&gt;yīn wèi&lt;/em&gt;, but sometimes I hear it pronounced as &lt;em&gt;yīn wéi&lt;/em&gt; which really brings out the meaning as &lt;em&gt;reason (yīn) being (wéi)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which pronunciation came about first? Do regional differences account for this phenomenon? Are the two completely interchangeable in meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user160" LastEditorDisplayName="user160" LastEditDate="2012-03-17T04:29:20.420" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:34:59.320" Title="Pronunciation of &quot;因为&quot;" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="430" CreationDate="2011-12-21T22:58:56.513" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't have believed you unless I checked it myself, but it appears these are both interchangeable with one source claiming:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.askbennychinese.com/questions/detail/3713&quot;&gt;http://www.askbennychinese.com/questions/detail/3713&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In fact, in the south of China, people says “yīn wèi”, while in the&#xA;  north people say “yīn wéi”. The only difference lies in the&#xA;  pronunciation. Basically, they are exactly the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My wife and most of my friends are from the South which is maybe why I have always heard it as yīn wèi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9B%A0%E4%B8%BA&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9B%A0%E4%B8%BA&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因为 (simplified, Pinyin yīnwèi or yīnwéi, traditional 因為)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T22:58:56.513" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="412" CreationDate="2011-12-21T23:29:16.273" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although you didn't ask for it, I think this sentence is also useful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I pronounce this character? 这个字怎么念？ (Zhège zì zěnme niàn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I read this word? 这个字怎么读？ (Zhège zì zěnme dú)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-21T23:29:16.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="433" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="441" CreationDate="2011-12-21T23:32:07.147" Score="2" ViewCount="635" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following on from this question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/412/asking-for-transcription&quot;&gt;Asking &amp;quot;what&amp;#39;s the pinyin/character for X?&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've had difficulty previously asking native speakers which tone I should use for a particular character if I can't pick it by just listening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is they don't understand what I'm asking in most instances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I say &quot;Which tone should I use for this character?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the past I've used &quot;第几声&quot; for which tone, but this doesn't seem to be commonly understood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T17:00:58.050" Title="Which tone is it (in pinyin)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="390" CreationDate="2011-12-22T01:15:55.603" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe you are looking for &lt;code&gt;噌&lt;/code&gt;, or cēnɡ (the equivalent of &quot;whoosh&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“噌”的一聲，火柴劃着了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2011-12-22T04:03:28.450" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T04:03:28.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="433" CreationDate="2011-12-22T01:18:56.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have also used 第几声 and have had better success with it than anything else.  The real problem that you're up against is that most Chinese people know this intuitively rather than intellectually.  Many if not most native English speakers might be very hard pressed to tell you what a preposition was, even though they use them every single day.  I think it's like that for most native Chinese speakers who aren't language instructors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T01:18:56.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="395" CreationDate="2011-12-22T01:33:01.707" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cantonese really has a nice distinction here, between &quot;thanks for doing that&quot;, &lt;code&gt;唔該&lt;/code&gt; (m4 goi1), and &lt;code&gt;多謝&lt;/code&gt; (do1 ze6) for receiving something of great or tangible value.  You'd say &lt;code&gt;唔該&lt;/code&gt; to a waiter and &lt;code&gt;多謝&lt;/code&gt; to a co-worker who recommended you for a promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, I've always erred towards too polite, saying &lt;code&gt;谢谢&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;多谢&lt;/code&gt; for everyday interactions and &lt;code&gt;非常感谢&lt;/code&gt; when I really meant it, or wanted to be really sarcastic :)  My observation has been that average Chinese people amongst themselves don't generally feel bad about not having a way to verbalize thanks in everyday situations - it's really not expected. I do think, however, that as a foreigner (as you probably are if you're learning Chinese as a second language) it's always better to be too polite.  Just my 2 &lt;code&gt;分&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T01:33:01.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="433" CreationDate="2011-12-22T01:39:43.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you tried using &lt;code&gt;發音&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;念&lt;/code&gt; as in &lt;code&gt;這個字你怎麼發音&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;這個字怎麼念&lt;/code&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, I think it's better to ask if it sounds like another character (by association).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g., &lt;code&gt;這個字像「心臟」的「心」嗎？&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T01:39:43.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="397" CreationDate="2011-12-22T01:41:58.840" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the mainland, this is usually a somewhat drawn out process, usually ending with a sequence something along these lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;｀好了...好了。。。那，就这样吧。。。挂了。。。啊｀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;｀嗯，嗯，知道了。。。好了，好了， 好啊，。。。挂了｀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挂了 (I'm hanging up now!), sounds kind of abrupt and rude, but it's used all the time and it doesn't sound rude at all.  I'd would usually preface it with `那就这样｀ or the like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T01:41:58.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="114" CreationDate="2011-12-22T01:46:55.423" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best description of this sound I ever heard was a native American speaker, &lt;a href=&quot;http://encounterschinese.com/content/john-s-montanaro&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;John Montanaro&lt;/a&gt; in a first year Chinese class said it was just like the sound a car engine makes turning over but not catching on a cold morning.  He proceeded to demonstrate and everyone got it immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like the French &quot;j&quot; but with the tongue on the roof of your mouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T01:46:55.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="433" CreationDate="2011-12-22T01:55:32.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;这个字/词怎么念? = How do you pronounce this character/word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个字的发音是第几声? = Which tone should I use for this character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T01:55:32.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="442" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="444" CreationDate="2011-12-22T03:04:32.920" Score="6" ViewCount="1206" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that basic Chinese grammar tends to lack distinction between the plural and singular forms of many nouns. For example, &lt;code&gt;我的朋友是中国人&lt;/code&gt; could either mean &quot;my friend is Chinese&quot; (singular) or &quot;my friends are Chinese&quot; (plural).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While there could obviously be cultural reasons why the differences between these two sentences mightn't matter, &lt;em&gt;what if they do&lt;/em&gt;?  If the number of friends is known, could one simply put &lt;code&gt;一个&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;两个&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;三个&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;etc.&lt;/em&gt; in front of &lt;code&gt;朋友&lt;/code&gt;, or is there a better, less kludgy way to do this?  What if there's an unknown (but plural) number of friends?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, what are some of the best ways to &lt;strong&gt;indicate or emphasize the plurality or singularity of nouns&lt;/strong&gt; in ambiguous cases such as these?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T03:20:30.363" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T03:20:30.363" Title="How to indicate plurality/singularity" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2011-12-22T03:54:45.530" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;code&gt;(person) noun + 們&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;很多 + noun&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;幾 + classifier + noun&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;demonstrative pronoun + 些 + noun&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朋友們 ([some] friends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很多朋友 ([many] friends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些朋友 ([these] friends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幾個朋友 ([how many/some number of] friends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;多數的 + noun&lt;/code&gt; can also be used to signify &amp;quot;the majority/large portion of&amp;quot; the noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T04:37:30.043" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2011-12-22T04:05:25.980" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also use 好 to emphasize many:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有好几个朋友 Wǒ yǒu hǎojǐ gè péngyǒu - I have lots of friends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好多人来看我 Hǎoduō rén lái kàn wǒ - Many people came to see me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case the 好 is strongly emphasized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好几个 = Lots&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好多 = Very many&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To suggest some or a few:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有几个朋友来看我 Wǒ yǒu jǐ gè péngyǒu lái kàn wǒ - I have some friends coming to see me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有一些同学跟我一起去看电影 Yǒu yīxiē tóngxué gēn wǒ yīqǐ qù kàn diànyǐng - Some of my classmates will go with me to watch a movie&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;几个 = Some&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一些 = A few&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To emphasize singularity:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我只有一个朋友 Wǒ zhǐyǒu yīgè péngyǒu - I only have one friend &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你是唯一来看我的人 Nǐ shì wéi yī lái kàn wǒ de rén  - You are the only person to come&#xA;  and see me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有 = Only have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唯一的 = The only one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="156" LastEditDate="2011-12-23T17:49:12.277" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T17:49:12.277" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2011-12-22T04:10:52.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you know, in Chinese, there is no inflection as in some European languages. In English, you have &amp;quot;s&amp;quot; and in German you have &amp;quot;en&amp;quot;(or other form). You can insert some words into your sentence to emphasize plurality or singularity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;们(mēn)&amp;quot; is commonly used to indicate the plurality for people, but for a thing, there is not such a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, you could say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的朋友们是中国人  My friends are Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有一个朋友是中国人 One of my friends is a Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我只有一个朋友是中国人 Only one of my friends is a Chinese. (emphasize 'Only one')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的五个朋友是中国人 Five of my friends are Chiness (emphasize 'the number, quantity')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的一些(许多，几个)朋友是中国人 Some(Many，few) of my friends are Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的朋友都(全)是中国人. All of my friends are Chinese. (emphasize 'all')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T04:10:52.900" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="425" CreationDate="2011-12-22T04:11:11.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The former refers to clothes in general, while the latter refers to clothing ornaments/decorations (such as embroidery, patterns, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T04:11:11.650" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="369" CreationDate="2011-12-22T04:18:42.083" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 做番 and 做返 are used to represent the Cantonese expression, &lt;em&gt;jouh fāan&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a reason why some people choose to write 番 and others write 返.  Etymologically speaking, 返 is the correct character to use.  However, because the traditional literary pronunciation of 返 is fáan (2nd tone) instead of fāan (1st tone), some people will write 番 instead to make it explicitly clear that the 1st tone reading is intended (even though the original usage of 番 has nothing to do with 返).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because written Cantonese is not standardized, both characters are typically seen; so your friend is not wrong when she said that both are okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, the reason why 返 came to be pronounced in the 1st tone rather than its traditional 2nd tone is most likely due to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changed_tone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;changed tones&lt;/a&gt;, a phenomenon that affects various words in Cantonese (this phenomenon somewhat analogous to how &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;erhua&lt;/a&gt; affects various words in Mandarin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-01-09T23:51:30.793" LastActivityDate="2012-01-09T23:51:30.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="448" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="450" CreationDate="2011-12-22T04:33:27.767" Score="12" ViewCount="5859" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English we have different names for each of the fingers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thumb, index, middle, ring and pinky fingers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there special names for each of these in Chinese and if necessary what are the associated meanings or origins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-10-10T05:06:13.760" Title="Different names for each of the fingers" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="449" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="456" CreationDate="2011-12-22T04:44:05.053" Score="3" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;金丝熊 is easily available from local animal markets in my wife's home town. We asked the owners of different stores and they say it is not a mouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what exactly is it, is it just a fancy name for a mouse or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T17:17:06.467" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T17:17:06.467" Title="What exact breed of animal is a 金丝熊?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="448" CreationDate="2011-12-22T04:54:02.043" Score="14" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thumb: 拇(mŭ)指(zhĭ) or 大拇指 or 大拇哥.&#xA;The first two words are common while the last one is less common. You would hear it more in oral speaking, in some regions(I heard of it from one of my relatives in HeBei province).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Watch the shape of &amp;quot;拇&amp;quot;. The left part refers to &amp;quot;hand&amp;quot;, and the right part is &amp;quot;母“， meaning &amp;quot;mother&amp;quot;. I think it gets this name because of the importance of the thumb. I consult it in the dictionary of 《康熙字典》. It cites &amp;quot;【說文】將指也。&amp;quot; I believe &amp;quot;將指&amp;quot; is an analogy that a thumb is like a general among fingers :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Index Finger:食指(shí zhĭ)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think we call it because we would dip this finger to the food(soup, etc) to taste the flavour(食 means to eat). There is a famous story from 《左传》 related the index finger and we coin a word &amp;quot;染指&amp;quot; from it(here, 染 means &amp;quot;to dip&amp;quot;). I won't tell you the story here, because it's a little bit long and complicated, sorry. You can search an idiom we get from it &amp;quot;食指大动&amp;quot; to find more info about this story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middle Finger: 中指(zhōng  zhĭ).  &amp;quot;中&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;middle&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ring Finger: 无名指(wú míng zhĭ). Interesting, &amp;quot;无名&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;without a name, anonymous&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinky Finger:小指(xiăo zhĭ) or  小拇指(xiăo mŭ zhĭ). &amp;quot;小&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;little, small&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-07-23T11:41:07.027" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="449" CreationDate="2011-12-22T06:16:06.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/807094.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;, it's a &lt;strong&gt;Syrian Hamster&lt;/strong&gt; or a &lt;strong&gt;Golden Hamster&lt;/strong&gt;. I'd say it's safe to say it's a hamster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T06:16:06.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="452" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="455" CreationDate="2011-12-22T06:48:35.170" Score="7" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;How did the word 舆论 come to represent the concept of Public Opinion? I know the meanings of the individual characters but I just don't quite see how the combination of these two meanings leads to the concept of Public Opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;舆 （Yú） : Palanquin  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;论 （lùn）: To discuss; theory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="154" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T17:16:04.067" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T17:16:04.067" Title="How did 舆论 come to represent Public Opinion?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="452" CreationDate="2011-12-22T07:16:56.410" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides &quot;palanquin&quot;, 舆 has also &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE8Zdic88Zdic86.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;other meanings&lt;/a&gt;. One of them is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;古代奴隶中的一个等级，泛指地位低微的人，亦用以指众人的 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  One level in old slavery system, used to refer to people with low social level, also used to refer to the general population.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This lead to the meaning of 舆论 as &quot;public opinion&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T07:16:56.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2011-12-22T07:38:28.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's pretty straightforward:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For people (as discussed above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朋友 ＝ friend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朋友们 ＝ friends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For things, you can determine whether the noun is intended as plural based on whether the verb takes &amp;quot;都&amp;quot; in front of it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那家书店卖的书都是蓝色的 ＝ The books that bookstore sells are all blue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Context helps here, too. It would be hard to imagine a bookstore selling only one book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use the same logic in cases where the noun is a verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的朋友都喜欢吃广东菜。 = My friends all like eating Cantonese food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="122" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T07:38:28.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="452" CreationDate="2011-12-22T07:46:51.770" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was a student, I was wondering why until I read a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ci_%28poetry%29&quot;&gt;词&lt;/a&gt;(Cí, a type of poery) by famous writer &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xin_Qiji&quot;&gt;辛弃疾&lt;/a&gt;(I really like reading his works). In that Ci, I read a sentence &quot;百炼都成绕指，万事直须称好，人世几舆台&quot;, I got stuck with the word &quot;舆台&quot;. The note said, &quot;舆台“ meant &quot;people at a lower rank&quot;. In ancient times, people were classified into 10 classes. The sixth class is 舆 and the tenth class is 台. So where does this word come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the famous historical book 《&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuo_Zhuan&quot;&gt;左传&lt;/a&gt;》, in its section 《昭公七年》, it records a talk between two men, one says, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天有十日，人有十等，下所以事上，上所以共神也。故王臣公，公臣大夫，大夫臣士，士臣皂，皂臣舆，舆臣隶，隶臣僚，僚臣仆，仆臣台，马有圉，牛有牧，以待百事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This text shows the 10 classes are: 王(king), 公(duke),大夫，士，皂,舆,隶,僚,仆,台. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 舆 could mean people who is at a lower rank, a member of grass-root. That's why “舆论&quot; means “public opinion&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-22T08:14:48.917" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T08:14:48.917" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="449" CreationDate="2011-12-22T08:16:53.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Officially, it is &quot;Mesocricetus auratus&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_hamster&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Golden hamster&lt;/a&gt;) (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/807094.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;source1&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/zh/wiki/%E9%87%91%E4%B8%9D%E7%86%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;source2&lt;/a&gt;). It belong to &quot;仓鼠科&quot;, and it should a kind of &quot;鼠类&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as not everybody is a biologist, and as the name for it is &quot;金丝*&lt;em&gt;熊&lt;/em&gt;*&quot;, it may not be treated as mouse in everyday life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason is that &quot;鼠&quot; does not carry a good meaning in Chinese. It is often related to &quot;stealing&quot; or something alike. So it may be avoided to name a kind pet animal. (However, we do have &quot;仓鼠&quot; for pets.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw: To be honest, I've never seen a real &quot;金丝熊&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T08:16:53.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="457" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="458" CreationDate="2011-12-22T10:03:19.407" Score="7" ViewCount="1898" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese films I've often heard characters refer to each other using some of these honorifics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;大姐&lt;/code&gt; dàjiě (big sister; auntie)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;大哥&lt;/code&gt; dàgē (big brother)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;师傅&lt;/code&gt; shīfù (master)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In what kind of scenarios are such honorifics used, and when is it acceptable or polite to use them? Likewise, when should they &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; be used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What terms of familiarity you need to be with people before you should use them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any potential to offend by using the wrong honorific term?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T05:25:23.580" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T05:25:23.580" Title="In what kind of scenarios are honorifics such as 大姐, 大哥, and 师傅 used, and when is it acceptable or polite to use them?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="457" CreationDate="2011-12-22T11:36:58.497" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For males or females who are older than yourself are not blood relatives e.g. not 表哥 or 表姐 and are usually unmarried and not quite old enough to be referred to as 阿姨 or 叔叔 then this is someone you might refer to as 大姐 or 大哥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is normally out of respect to someone who maybe treats you as a younger brother or sister.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In certain movies 大哥 is used for a leader of a gang of street kids or thugs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also normally used for someone younger to someone older, so you won't see many people 40+ referring to someone else as 大姐 or 大哥 unless they have been doing this for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;师傅 is commonly used for someone with skills in a certain area. I have seen this used for a personal carer, a repair man and also someone that teaches martial arts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't call someone without specific skill 师傅, e.g. someone that helped you do something like give directions otherwise they may think you are having a lend of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2011-12-22T23:28:46.280" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T23:28:46.280" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="459" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21156" CreationDate="2011-12-22T15:19:52.947" Score="28" ViewCount="6443" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;tl;dr&lt;/strong&gt; Are you aware of any dictionaries that explain word etymologies (not merely character etymologies)?  Some links/references would be useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is actually a collection of related questions, but I thought it would be good to keep them together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any online &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;etymological&lt;/a&gt; dictionaries of Chinese?  All such dictionaries I can find deal with character etymologies, which is not at all the same thing as the etymologies of the real spoken language (which can do just fine without a writing system at all, I'm sure that not more than a 100 years ago literacy rate in China was far from great).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, how well do &lt;em&gt;character&lt;/em&gt; etyomologies reflect the true etyomologies of &lt;em&gt;words&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me give a motivating example, which made me curious about it.  &lt;em&gt;Yak&lt;/em&gt; in Mandarin is 牦牛 / 氂牛 / máo​niú, i.e. when spoken sounds just like &quot;hairy cow&quot; 毛牛, a very fitting description.  If it weren't for the characters, one would be tempted to suspect this is not an accident.  Yet if we look up the &lt;em&gt;character&lt;/em&gt; (not word!) online, we only get &lt;a href=&quot;http://internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E7%8A%9B&amp;amp;submitButton1=Etymology&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;signific cluster, an ox 牜牛 that requires couxing 攵攴 from a branch 未&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, which suggests otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid an all too common misunderstanding, I'd like to point out again that although a writing system can leave a deep mark on the oral language, a language can exist just fine without it.  I am sure that a 100 years ago the literacy rate in China was far below great, yet people could use the language just fine.  So again, when I say Chinese in this question, I mean the spoken Chinese language (take whichever variety you prefer), not the character based writing system (I have the impression that often answers about Chinese consider written Chinese first).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="92" LastEditorUserId="92" LastEditDate="2016-09-16T12:28:41.417" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T16:09:24.777" Title="Are there any online etymological dictionaries of Mandarin (not for characters but for spoken words)" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="333" CreationDate="2011-12-22T16:42:35.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm native, but not a botanist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For official binomial names, they are always Latin. We do have Chinese translation for every genus and species (well, at least most of the species), but not used in binomial names. These kind of translation don't use special characters, and usually not translated by sound, but by meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2011-12-23T17:49:07.267" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T17:49:07.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="269" CreationDate="2011-12-22T17:26:34.600" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no fixed answer how tone sandhi happens when three or more 3rd tone come together. It is still an active research area for linguists. It depends on grammar, speaking rate, and many other things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in normal speech, no two 3rd tone would come together (in a word), the first one must change. It seems to be still under debate (among linguists) what would happen when the two continuous 3rd tone are not in one phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can follow @xiohouzi79's advice, &quot;don't bother to memorizing this&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T17:26:34.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="333" CreationDate="2011-12-22T18:31:37.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;all sciences done in chinese speaking country/regions basically all use english when it comes to technical lingoes. For chinese medicine/herb communities, if they are scientific (e.g. research, done university work) it's just english. Those traditional chinese herb community use the traditional names, but they are basically ignorant of modern botanical science. (e.g. it's this group that believes in rhino horns or tiger penis as aphrodisiacs etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="175" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T18:31:37.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="459" CreationDate="2011-12-22T18:47:31.707" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese language doesn't work the way you might thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, there's no such thing as etymology of words, only characters, because each char is a word. Only in last century, vernacular Chinese popularized in using 2 or more chars to denote a word. The 2-char words of vernacular chinese naturally came from the single char words and usage patterns. So, if you want to learn the history of words, basically you learn the classical chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Chinese_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;History of the Chinese language&lt;/a&gt;, in particular &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Classical Chinese&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are lots of books on history of idioms though (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chengyu&lt;/a&gt;), but that's a bit different from what you mean by word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an analogy, let's say one might be wondering if there's a book on history of english phrases such as &quot;fried chicken&quot;, &quot;icy cold&quot;, &quot;flaming hot&quot;, &quot;black desk&quot;, &quot;round table&quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="175" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-12T11:49:16.853" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T11:49:16.853" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="464" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="465" CreationDate="2011-12-22T19:26:38.110" Score="10" ViewCount="4303" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;根据&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;按照&lt;/code&gt; can both function as a preposition that can be translated as &lt;strong&gt;according to&lt;/strong&gt;. I imagine that the translation does not capture the individual character of each term. What nuances do the two individual terms express and in what situation/context would you use one rather than the other? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="154" LastEditorUserId="3706" LastEditDate="2013-12-23T19:38:42.267" LastActivityDate="2013-12-29T15:16:39.443" Title="Two terms for &quot;According to&quot; - What are the differences between 根据 and 按照?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="464" CreationDate="2011-12-22T21:56:09.360" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;根据 is more formal, and preferably used when speaking about doing something according to some serious guidelines. Like following a law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;按照 is less formal, and can be used when doing something according to some less serious guide. Like following a person's idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;根据新法律上的规定，小学老师都必须..&#xA;In accordance with the new law, all elementary school teachers must...&#xA;&#xA;按照我们家的习惯，晚上九点钟小孩要去睡觉。&#xA;At our home we are accustomed that kids go to sleep at 9pm.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T21:56:09.360" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="425" CreationDate="2011-12-22T22:26:14.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Krazer has provided a good answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could think of 饰 in the way it comes in 饰品, which means &quot;jewelry&quot; or &quot;accessories&quot;. &#xA;In that sense, 衣饰 is ornaments of textile, and 衣服 just clothes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T22:26:14.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="197" CreationDate="2011-12-22T22:31:52.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;An addition to other great answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反正 can be used as &quot;actually&quot; too sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;谢谢你过来帮我 (&lt;em&gt;Thanks for coming over to help me&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Xièxie nǐ guò lái bāng wǒ&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;反正我刚好在这边附近而已 (&lt;em&gt;Actually, I happened to be just around the corner&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;fǎn zhèng wǒ gāng hăo zài zhè biān fù jìn ér yǐ &lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T07:39:40.220" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T07:39:40.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="209" CreationDate="2011-12-22T22:36:49.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another - not very vulgar - option is 我不管.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2011-12-22T22:36:49.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="469" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="474" CreationDate="2011-12-23T00:34:27.033" Score="3" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;p&gt;What meaning does 住 have when used as part of a verb phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她把花盆送到他面前。&#xA;哈利愣住了，大家都看着他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's clear from the meaning of 愣 that Harry didn't know what to do with the flower pot and was staring off blanking into space (发呆了). Could 着 also be used after 愣?  What would the difference in meaning be?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="177" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T17:20:32.087" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T17:20:32.087" Title="How is 住 used as a suffix in a verb phrase" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="470" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="473" CreationDate="2011-12-23T02:40:13.733" Score="37" ViewCount="7712" Body="&lt;p&gt;狗 (gǒu) and 犬 (quǎn) both mean &quot;dog&quot; and both seem relatively common, but is there any difference between them? When should I use one and when should I use the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="76" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T16:02:19.923" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T12:25:59.820" Title="What is the difference between 狗 and 犬?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="195" CreationDate="2011-12-23T02:48:00.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like for any other language, I think it depends a lot on the translator's skills. The dictionary or reference book cannot &quot;know&quot; what the diplomat intended to say. Only the translator can know, based on the context, the diplomat's personality, etc. Not sure a book could help here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="76" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T02:48:00.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="470" CreationDate="2011-12-23T04:29:46.777" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of them refer to the same thing, &quot;dog&quot;. “狗” is used much more in oral speaking, and “犬” is a formal word that you would see in books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For words expressed in a classical (formal) way, you won't see &quot;狗&quot; but &quot;犬&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An idiom: 一人得道，鸡犬升天 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a man becomes an Immortal(God), even his pets like chickens and dogs go to heaven. An analogy that when someone becomes powerful, his associates would somehow become powerful too. We use it in a critical and negative way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;犬子(literally: dog's son) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a word you will use to refer to your son in a humble way. In a few cases, you will hear this word nowadays. You would say &quot;犬子今年20岁&quot; (my son is 20 years old this year), to show your respect to the listener. (Of course, this expression is old-fashioned.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鹰犬 (literally: hawk and dog)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you hunt in the field, you would take advantage of a hawk (falcon) or a dog (hound) to chase the game for you, so this word is an analogy to say &quot;hired thugs&quot;, somone that implements your order [to commit crimes]. We use it in a negative way too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;犬只 (=dog).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, you will see it in the newspaper or the bulletins and  announcements from the government. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小犬座 (Canis Minor, a small constellation) Here we don't use 小狗座&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狗 is a vulgar (informal) word (in Chinese culture, a dog is not a good thing), so you will see it more in ordinary life, in oral speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;狗腿子 (literally: dog's feet). With the same meaning as “鹰犬&quot;.&#xA;  狗崽子 (literally: a puppy). A curse word to refer to someone that you hate.&#xA;  you would ask your neighbour:&quot;how old is your dog?&quot; &quot;你的狗多大了？&quot; here, you wouldn't say &quot;犬&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: There are few idioms with &quot;狗&quot; instead of &quot;犬&quot;. For example, “狗尾续貂&quot;, but this word came from a popular oral proverb in its times, so this doesn't violate the viewpoint that “犬&quot; is used formally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When would you use &quot;狗&quot; or &quot;犬&quot;? Well, these words are fixed, so you have to memorize them. It's good to enlarge your vocabulary to avoid misuse. In most cases, you would use &quot;狗&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="17019" LastEditDate="2020-02-03T12:25:59.820" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T12:25:59.820" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="470" CreationDate="2011-12-23T04:53:23.227" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;Huang's answer is great, some addition information here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犬 usually can be used to say categories of dogs.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;警(jǐng)犬(quǎn) -- dogs serve in police forces&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   导(dǎo)盲(máng)犬(quǎn) -- dogs to assist people with eyesight problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狗 usually can be used to refer a specific dog or dogs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我(wǒ)们(men)家(jiā)的(de)小(xiǎo)黑(hēi)狗(gǒu)。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The little black dog of mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="101" LastEditDate="2011-12-23T12:28:52.573" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T12:28:52.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="469" CreationDate="2011-12-23T04:56:43.277" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;when &quot;住&quot; is used as a suffix of a verb. It has two possible meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To express that something would be secured, under your control.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To express that the motion stops, or pauses, to be stationary.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, “住&quot; is used with the second meaning.We have words &quot;愣住&quot;,&quot;呆住&quot;,&quot;怔住&quot;,etc..They mean the same: [someone] gets surprised, or astonished, or bewildered [so he stops other actions and just stay there like a statue].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;着&quot; is a word to show the progress tense, that the action of the verb is going on.You could say &quot;他一直在那儿愣着(He is standing there all the time)&quot;,but &quot;着&quot; doesn't show the transformation between &quot;to be in action&quot; and &quot;stop to be stationary&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also want to show you an example for the first meaning. Imagine that you are a policeman, and your boss asks you to moniter a suspect.You boss would say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的任务就是看(kān)住他。 Your task is to watch over him[make sure he won't escape]. Here &quot;住&quot; shows that your boss requires you to keep him in your sight securely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the suspect escaped. You report this to your boss:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我一整天都在 &lt;strong&gt;看着&lt;/strong&gt; 他，但还是没 &lt;strong&gt;看住&lt;/strong&gt;。 I was wathing over him all the day, but I still failed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-23T05:03:50.360" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T05:03:50.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="475" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-23T05:21:44.767" Score="5" ViewCount="754" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a great question on '&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/225/62&quot;&gt;how to practice reading for beginners&lt;/a&gt;' at the moment that's got a lot of really useful answers, and so I figured I'd ask for some useful things closer to my level. Does anyone have good resources for improving reading for upper-intermediate level? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I probably understand 70-80% of what I read in the newspaper, but generally the news is pretty dry. What types of materials (not specific titles) would people recommend to help with improving my reading skills?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-08T08:37:03.240" LastActivityDate="2020-08-08T08:37:03.240" Title="Selecting resources to improve reading for upper-intermediate level?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-07-15T23:15:04.543" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="475" CreationDate="2011-12-23T07:42:57.850" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;思想与社会 (can't find a link, sold in Taiwan)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=8981611&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;博雅汉语 （upper levels）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I would also recommend preteen/teen books like Harry Potter and Twilight. The story isn't too complicated, and you get a chance to enhance your reading speed and smoothness level. I read Percy Jackson and Twilight. The story of Twilight was a little too cheesy for me, but I did learn a lot of new expressions and could read page after page without stopping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="156" LastEditDate="2011-12-26T11:35:29.040" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T11:35:29.040" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="376" CreationDate="2011-12-23T09:24:59.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;想 means you 'want to do' something , but maybe you would not to do it, just think about it.&#xA;要 means you 'will do' something  and it have been put in your schedule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="182" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T09:24:59.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="478" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="504" CreationDate="2011-12-23T12:08:35.100" Score="8" ViewCount="45992" Body="&lt;p&gt;When we know somebody is sick, how can we wish them to get better? What are the best ways and also the standard ones to do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like you to differentiate among some things, &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;when&lt;/em&gt; applicable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tell someone directly (&lt;em&gt;get better soon&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;strong&gt;VS&lt;/strong&gt; tell someone's relative/friend (I wish your __ gets better soon);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the cause is something &quot;light&quot; (like a flu) &lt;strong&gt;VS&lt;/strong&gt; something more serious (being in the hospital);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When there is confidence with the interlocutor &lt;strong&gt;VS&lt;/strong&gt; when there's no confidence;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc... Other things that I might have forgotten.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:22:16.197" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T04:22:16.197" Title="How do we wish someone to get better?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="480" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-23T12:28:12.417" Score="10" ViewCount="20043" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where can I find audio recordings (i.e. individual MP3s or WAVs) for every Chinese word? I have found some recordings of Chinese, but these only contain individual phonemes, not entire words. I am looking for something to download or as something to buy (e.g. as part of a dictionary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-12T06:06:44.207" LastActivityDate="2020-07-12T06:06:44.207" Title="Where can I find audio recordings of every word?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;audio&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="5" ClosedDate="2016-06-17T11:28:05.860" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="480" CreationDate="2011-12-23T12:35:28.380" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, you can go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.forvo.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Forvo.com&lt;/a&gt;. (You can find the Chinese section at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.forvo.com/languages/zh/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this address&lt;/a&gt;; on the right you see the top users that provided most audios.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a huge database of words, characters, expressions in any language provided by users. The good thing is there's a lot of stuff, but the down-side is that although some users provided many audios (so you have a sort of consistency), you'll have to switch between different audios not recorded professionally, although they usually are not low quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T12:35:28.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="486" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-23T13:13:12.540" Score="3" ViewCount="415" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found many grammar books, but none that go beyond the low-intermediate level. Some textbook series contain lots of grammar, but this is spread out across many books and difficult to quickly cross-reference. Are there any books or volumes of books containing all Chinese grammar or all sentence patterns, similar in scope to Diane Larsen-Freeman's &lt;em&gt;The Grammar Book&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="183" LastEditDate="2011-12-24T07:44:39.290" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T02:34:05.857" Title="What comprehensive grammar books are available?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;academic&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2012-02-14T09:42:56.453" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="487" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="599" CreationDate="2011-12-23T13:24:05.723" Score="10" ViewCount="8147" Body="&lt;p&gt;What software or online tools can detect the parts of speech in a piece of written text (e.g. to predict if a word is a verb, adjective, etc.)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:27:33.967" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T04:25:59.950" Title="What software can detect the parts of speech of written text?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;academic&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="488" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-23T13:30:05.680" Score="10" ViewCount="4997" Body="&lt;p&gt;What software is available which can record my voice and warn me about problems with my pronunciation and tones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="183" LastEditDate="2011-12-24T06:42:29.503" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T13:29:31.500" Title="What software can correct pronunciation?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="489" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-23T13:46:18.523" Score="2" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;What dictionaries are available that contain separate illustrations for most of the terms? I would prefer something in online or digital format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:12:42.240" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:12:42.240" Title="What digital illustrated dictionaries are available?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="490" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-23T13:55:16.247" Score="1" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;What On-line, for download or for purchase software-based games provide fun language practice for learners of Chinese? What level of learner are they best suited for? What platform do they run on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="183" LastEditDate="2011-12-24T01:18:25.697" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T03:33:28.053" Title="What computer games provide practice?" Tags="&lt;games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2011-12-24T04:13:37.893" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="492" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-23T14:07:16.360" Score="8" ViewCount="4150" Body="&lt;p&gt;CC-CEDICT is a Chinese to English dictionary, available for use online or for download (as a data file here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=cc-cedict&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=cc-cedict&lt;/a&gt;). What similar projects provide an English to Chinese dictionary, with definitions of the English words explained in Chinese? I am looking for something with can be downloaded or purchased in a digital format (the data file, such as a commas-separated file or spreadsheet, not the front-end software used to view it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T05:22:33.047" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T05:22:33.047" Title="Where can I find a downloadable database of English to Chinese words?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2011-12-23T14:32:55.673" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a web demo system called &lt;a href=&quot;http://ictclas.org/ictclas_demo.html&quot;&gt;ICTCLAS&lt;/a&gt; (Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Lexical Analysis System). It was developed by the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a web demo system from &lt;a href=&quot;http://nlp.csai.tsinghua.edu.cn/thulac/&quot;&gt;THULAS&lt;/a&gt; (Tsinghua University - Lexical Analyzer for Chinese), which was developed by the Nature Language Processing Group, Tsinghua University.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: I don't know (and I cannot test) whether these site can be accessed freely across the world. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;NOTE2: As with any software language tool, take the results with a grain of salt, they aren't perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="67" LastEditDate="2011-12-23T17:49:22.197" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T17:49:22.197" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="480" CreationDate="2011-12-23T14:57:42.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another web site is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com&lt;/a&gt; where you can find not only the pronunciation of Chinese characters and words, but also their meaning in English and Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This site has real person readings, but unfortunately the site is totally in Chinese:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.caca8.net/zi/py/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.caca8.net/zi/py/&lt;/a&gt; — single characters&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.caca8.net/ci/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.caca8.net/ci/&lt;/a&gt; — words&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.caca8.net/chy/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.caca8.net/chy/&lt;/a&gt; — idioms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-23T17:49:28.593" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T17:49:28.593" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="480" CreationDate="2011-12-23T18:27:05.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mdbg.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;mdbg.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of the words you look up in the dictionary there comes complete with an audio recording.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="122" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2011-12-24T03:33:26.323" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T03:33:26.323" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="496" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="503" CreationDate="2011-12-23T20:42:18.760" Score="6" ViewCount="1629" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can one write &quot;Please Recycle&quot; in the context of an office paper room?&#xA;I have tried: 请回收利用 but my friend says this is only for recycling batteries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="110" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:13:07.030" LastActivityDate="2019-08-22T03:37:22.667" Title="Writing &quot;Please Recycle&quot; in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="497" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="499" CreationDate="2011-12-23T21:03:14.430" Score="10" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;When should exchanges of the phrase &quot;你好&quot; end? I regularly see a Chinese person who greets me with &quot;你好.&quot; If I respond with &quot;你好&quot; he immediately says &quot;你好&quot;, and so on.  I normally end it with &quot;Yes, I'm fine.&quot; in English.  Am I doing something wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="177" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:09:06.753" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:09:06.753" Title="Neverending 你好 exchange, is it normal?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="490" CreationDate="2011-12-23T21:12:10.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One game I suggest you check out is &lt;a href=&quot;http://enterzon.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Enter Zon&lt;/a&gt; - an MMORPG specifically for learning Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially you run around in a game environment and have all sorts of dialogues about different things, with the end goal of improving your Mandarin. It's pretty neat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-24T03:33:28.053" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T03:33:28.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="497" CreationDate="2011-12-23T21:15:52.733" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't even imagine this scenario - but supposing they say 你好, and you replied that is where it should end. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they went on to say 你好吗？ You could obviously reply 我很好，你呢？ or words to that effect, but that should really be the end of any 你好 exchanges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never had a never ending 你好 exchange, and I'd be pretty confident in saying it isn't common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T21:15:52.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2011-12-23T23:09:52.313" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;请回收利用 is fine.  It's not limited to battery recycling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="31" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T23:09:52.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="492" CreationDate="2011-12-23T23:11:58.697" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;金山词霸 is a popular E-C dictionary among Chinese users:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also has a downloadable version: &lt;a href=&quot;http://cp.iciba.com/&quot;&gt;http://cp.iciba.com/&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="31" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T23:11:58.697" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2011-12-23T23:16:24.623" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 請回收利用/请回收利用 can apply to lots of stuff as well, for example, plastic bottles, tins, cans, glass and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to be specific about recycling paper, you can try&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請回收廢紙/请回收废纸 = Please recycle used/unwanted paper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請回收紙張/请回收纸张 = Please recycle paper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the above Chinese examples are written in Traditional/Simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="48" LastActivityDate="2011-12-23T23:16:24.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="478" CreationDate="2011-12-23T23:36:22.447" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;One common phrase is this one, where X is the somebody in your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;祝X早日康復/祝X早日康复。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Zhù X zǎo rì kāng fù&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 祝你早日康復/祝你早日康复, which can be translated into &lt;em&gt;&quot;wish/hope you'll recover soon.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;&quot;wish/hope you'll make a speedy recovery.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vocabulary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;祝 (zhù) = Wish&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你 (nǐ) = You&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;早日 (zǎo rì) = in the near future, soon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;康復/康复 (kāng fù) = recover from illness&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase can be used in most situations (mostly formal, informal and situations 1, 2 &amp;amp; 3 in your questions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;light&quot; sickness, say a cold or a headache, people often say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多休息/多休息 = &lt;em&gt;Take more rest.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Duō xiū xí&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多保重/多保重 = &lt;em&gt;Please take care.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Duō bǎo zhòng&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;小心別又著涼了/小心别又着凉了 = &lt;em&gt;Please don't get cold again.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Xiǎo xīn bié yòu zháo liáng le&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd often hear parents or elderly relatives say Example 3 to their kids or young people in the family when they have a cold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="48" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-28T12:39:49.937" LastActivityDate="2011-12-28T12:39:49.937" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="505" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-24T01:49:57.080" Score="11" ViewCount="530" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, in certain combinations of tones or words, the tones change. Where can I find a complete list of all tone changes that occur in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="183" LastEditDate="2011-12-24T06:48:10.973" LastActivityDate="2012-02-10T03:26:40.990" Title="When do the tones change?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;academic&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="506" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="530" CreationDate="2011-12-24T01:53:10.413" Score="9" ViewCount="5666" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where can I find a table showing the relation between Hanyu pinyin spelling and IPA for all phonemes in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:12:37.683" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T04:12:37.683" Title="How to convert from hanyu pinyin to IPA?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="428" CreationDate="2011-12-24T03:01:52.127" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;One version is that: in the old times (about the Warring States Period), people said something like “你妈是贱人” (&quot;your mom is a bitch&quot;) as a swear word. But this being a whole sentence made it difficult to insert into other sentences to express the emotion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, after a long time, &quot;your&quot; became &quot;his&quot; and &quot;is a bitch&quot; went missing, making it &quot;他妈的&quot;. As a result, just as the word &quot;f...&quot;, it's very convenient to put into another sentence like &quot;你他妈的干啥？&quot;, which can be translated to &quot;what the f... are you doing?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can check it out in this site if you can understand Chinese: &lt;a href=&quot;http://iask.sina.com.cn/b/8788863.html&quot;&gt;“他妈的” 作为脏话的起源是什么？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-29T08:58:14.647" LastActivityDate="2011-12-29T08:58:14.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="506" CreationDate="2011-12-24T03:08:00.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many tools can do it. &lt;a href=&quot;http://py2ipa.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://py2ipa.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T03:08:00.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="505" CreationDate="2011-12-24T03:15:14.400" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Complete rule of tones change is not a simple subject which can be understood just b a list. But there is a simple one I think might be suitable for you. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.trinity.edu/sfield/chin1501/ToneChange.html&quot;&gt;http://www.trinity.edu/sfield/chin1501/ToneChange.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, if you are a foreigner who want learn Chinese without academic purpose, I think it's enough since many Chinese cannot use tones change complete correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T03:15:14.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="510" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-24T03:31:40.020" Score="4" ViewCount="867" Body="&lt;p&gt;Table top (board games) games provide good opportunities for authentic and simulated communication with a group. I think such an activity would be ideal for language practice, if one had opportunities to play with native speakers or other students. Are there any board games or card games which might give good practice speaking Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:07:56.720" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T04:07:56.720" Title="What board games would facilitate speaking practice?" Tags="&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="511" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-24T03:34:46.400" Score="16" ViewCount="727" Body="&lt;p&gt;What dictionaries (online, software-based or in paper form) explain the origins of a word and its evolution over time? E.g. how the character was once written, how the usage – and the meaning – changed over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2011-12-29T01:20:48.810" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T23:24:51.867" Title="What etymology dictionaries are available?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;academic&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="512" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-24T03:40:27.870" Score="9" ViewCount="1353" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to quickly identify potential mistakes created by OCR software. Where can I find a list of all Chinese characters that visually look very similar and might often be confused?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="183" LastEditDate="2011-12-25T01:08:21.963" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T05:52:17.200" Title="Where can I find a list of commonly mistaken characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;academic&gt;&lt;mistakes&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="513" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="519" CreationDate="2011-12-24T03:44:18.197" Score="6" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some dictionaries provide a radical lookup for finding characters. Are there other systems available &lt;em&gt;besides&lt;/em&gt; radical lookup for finding the meaning of a word when one only has the character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:28:01.557" LastActivityDate="2021-04-10T22:50:14.937" Title="What methods are available for looking up a character?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="510" CreationDate="2011-12-24T03:59:13.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dixit is a great choice for practicing Chinese. In this game, one person describes a card (without show it), and then everyone including him/her take out one card. At last, everyone else guess which card is his/her. If everyone or no one get the right answer, he/she get no score. So, he/she should describe it in a suitable way in order to make someone right and some wrong. Everyone has change to speak and listen which is good for language learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T03:59:13.033" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="510" CreationDate="2011-12-24T04:09:54.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1) 杀人游戏&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, I used to play a game called &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/538.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;杀人游戏&lt;/a&gt; that involved nothing but listening and talking. It's not exactly a board game (you use one or more decks of cards), but as far as language practice goes, it's extremely useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the basic game you have a judge, killers, policemen and bystanders, and it's the policemen's job to work out who the killers are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each round the police can ask the judge to inspect one person and see if that person is a killer or not. Each round the killers can kill one person. At the end of each round everyone talks in sequence, and voices opinions on who they think the bad people are. Finally they have a vote, and one person is kicked out. If all the killers are kicked out, the police win, and if all the police are kicked out or killed, the police win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a ton of speaking and listening in this game, and there are more in depth versions with more roles that involve even more talking. If you like any crime shows on TV at all, this would be a good way to learn a lot of associated vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2) 三国杀&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These days I like to play &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-translation.co.nz/2011/03/san-guo-sha-learning-chinese-through-idioms-and-games/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;三国杀&lt;/a&gt; - I used to play with friends in China, but now I play it online, it's not so good for practicing Chinese, but it sure is a fun game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3) 军棋&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last game I frequently play which is actually a board game is &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/16756.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;军棋&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luzhanqi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;army chess/land battle chess&lt;/a&gt;. There are a couple of different versions, but either way there is a lot of strategy, and I often hold quite interesting conversations while playing this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4) Others&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I actually play a few other card games - 斗地主, 拖拉机 etc, along with 麻将 (mainly 武汉 style, but also 泉州，北京和哈尔滨. In other words, I'm pretty fond of games. All of these are great practice. I'd just suggest getting out there and seeing which games you most enjoy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T04:09:54.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="517" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="551" CreationDate="2011-12-24T04:12:12.840" Score="14" ViewCount="28286" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some texts, I have seen the following brackets:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Caret brackets: 《, 》, 〈, and 〉.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Square brackets: 【, 】, 〖, and 〗.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;C-brackets: 〔 and 〕.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;L-brackets: 「, 」, 『, and 』.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the Chinese names of these brackets?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the meanings of these brackets? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In what situations is each of these used? Is the usage exactly the same as their Western counterparts?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the differences between the solid brackets and hollow brackets?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2018-03-29T12:38:45.387" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T14:24:06.127" Title="When are &quot;《&quot; and &quot; 》&quot; and other brackets used?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="513" CreationDate="2011-12-24T04:16:09.243" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My favorite online dictionary, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nciku&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; lets you draw in a character, and then tells you what it is. Super useful if you can't find out what the radical is, or just want a quicker way to look something out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My favorite iOS app, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/pleco-chinese-dictionary/id341922306?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; has this functionality, along with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) so you can hold up/take pictures of one or more Characters, and it will then give you the definitions of them. It's pretty cool. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these the sort of things you mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T04:16:09.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="513" CreationDate="2011-12-24T04:28:32.673" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question could probably best be answered &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_input_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;by Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; as there are many, many methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One relatively common one is to look up the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_count_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;by stroke count, then by stroke order&lt;/a&gt;. In this system, there are five types of strokes and each is assigned a number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;+--------+------------------------------+&#xA;| Number | Stroke type                  |&#xA;+--------+------------------------------+&#xA;|      1 | Horizontal, or rising        |&#xA;|      2 | Vertical                     |&#xA;|      3 | Falling to the Left          |&#xA;|      4 | Dot, or Falling to the Right |&#xA;|      5 | Turning                      |&#xA;+--------+------------------------------+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the method used to look up characters in 现代汉语通用字笔顺规范, the official character stroke order reference in mainland China. For example, below is the character 永 in this book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E7my5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to look up this character, you will first go to the page with the 5-strokes characters, then you would search for the dot stroke (4), then the hook (5), etc. Basically, its code would be 45534.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="76" LastEditorUserId="76" LastEditDate="2018-01-09T14:54:46.130" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T14:54:46.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="520" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-24T04:38:31.293" Score="6" ViewCount="2729" Body="&lt;p&gt;For academic purposes, I need to print out some pages of characters with stroke orders shown. Which computer fonts (e.g. TrueType or OpenType) are available which show the stroke order of each character (e.g. by showing numbers near the beginning of each stroke)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T21:02:15.870" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T21:02:15.870" Title="Which fonts show the stroke order of all characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="517" CreationDate="2011-12-24T05:13:54.347" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;“《》” is used exclusively around names of books or articles.  When referring to a book name inside a “《》”, use “〈〉” (in a way similar to the use of ' and &quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="31" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T05:13:54.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="512" CreationDate="2011-12-24T05:41:20.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know of anything exactly like that, but you can find characters with similar structure at &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt;, and you can see the structural decomposition of characters at &lt;a href=&quot;http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons%3aChinese_characters_decomposition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T05:41:20.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="511" CreationDate="2011-12-24T05:43:27.223" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com/&quot;&gt;zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt; has a very limited amount of information on each character's origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T05:43:27.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="510" CreationDate="2011-12-24T05:56:18.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_%28game%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Password&lt;/a&gt; might be a good choice. One player is given a secret word, and has to get his teammates to say that word by giving them clues. He can't say the secret word as part of his clues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The trickiest part would be getting the words. You can either have everyone write a few words on slips of paper and stick them in a bag, or maybe use a deck of flash cards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might also find &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/117/16&quot;&gt;this question on word games&lt;/a&gt; relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T05:56:18.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="511" CreationDate="2011-12-24T06:37:51.640" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wenlin.com/gate&quot;&gt;Wen Lin&lt;/a&gt; is an amazing piece of software that has all of the etymological features you are looking for. The central downside is that it is a bit pricey. Most universities have a copy, though, and there may be the opportunity to get some kind of student pricing discount. (Not sure if that applies to your case.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="122" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T06:37:51.640" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="520" CreationDate="2011-12-24T07:12:00.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, there isn't any Chinese font with stroke order. But Japanese has: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nihilist.org.uk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.nihilist.org.uk&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/nihilistorguk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://sites.google.com/site/nihilistorguk/&lt;/a&gt;. And I have to remind you, even one character is the same in Chinese and Japanese, its stroke order may be different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T07:12:00.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="506" CreationDate="2011-12-24T07:53:28.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a list for all the pinyin and there correspondence IPA:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ling.cass.cn/yuyin/english/sampac/sampac.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ling.cass.cn/yuyin/english/sampac/sampac.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll need a special font to show the IPA on the page correctly, which is downloadable from the page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This page is in the web site of the Institute of Linguistics, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: same letter in different pinyin won't correspond to the same IPA, the pronunciation may be different. An simple example is that the 'i' in 'li' 'si' 'shi' are all different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE2: the pronunciation does change (a lot) in spontaneous speech. If you take that into account, it will be very complicated, with maybe no ready answer. The list only give the correspondence when they are pronounced alone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2011-12-24T08:18:53.550" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T08:18:53.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="492" CreationDate="2011-12-24T08:57:03.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try the &lt;a href=&quot;http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id326251330?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Youdao Dictionary&quot; (有道词典)&lt;/a&gt; for iOS (available through the App Store).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also a version for &lt;a href=&quot;http://cidian.youdao.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;computers&lt;/a&gt;, and an &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;online version&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="191" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2011-12-29T08:58:16.970" LastActivityDate="2011-12-29T08:58:16.970" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="532" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="540" CreationDate="2011-12-24T10:41:59.010" Score="13" ViewCount="1230" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen some old Chinese books. The words flowed from top to bottom on the page and there was no punctuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How did readers know when the sentences began and ended?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Were any older forms of punctuation used then?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When was punctuation introduced into books?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T03:26:02.937" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T03:26:02.937" Title="When was punctuation introduced into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="533" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-24T10:58:23.430" Score="5" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to find a sorted list of vocabulary that is studied by native students in primary (elementary) and secondary (middle) school in China, arranged by grade level. Is there any official place to download such a list?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T22:55:49.017" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T22:55:49.017" Title="Where can I find sorted word lists used by native students?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="506" CreationDate="2011-12-24T11:04:45.587" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally I think the IPA given in the Wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&quot;&gt;Pinyin&lt;/a&gt; is organized well and the symbols don't change like other pages I've seen, i.e.  the browser changes to other symbols ruining the IPA scheme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like it has been said, the IPA transcription might change in some words endings when you transcribe real speech, so you must be aware of that and know what the different symbols mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T11:04:45.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="520" CreationDate="2011-12-24T11:11:59.770" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No fonts do, just sites with pictures or animations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:-bw.png#file&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:-bw.png#file&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Instructions&lt;/strong&gt;: Past the address in your browser bar, then write a character between &quot;File:&quot; and &quot;-bw&quot;, like this &quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:你-bw.png#file&quot;. It will show you the character's stroke order, not animated, but very clear.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.visualmandarin.com/tools/dictionary/&quot;&gt;http://www.visualmandarin.com/tools/dictionary/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This shows the stroke order but not the stroke direction.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T11:11:59.770" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="536" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-24T11:28:08.017" Score="7" ViewCount="373" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to improve my reading and grammar skills by finding interesting things to read. What graded readers, basic textbooks, magazines, and other reading materials are available for adult students who can recognize the first 1,000 words from the HSK? I would prefer material which includes a CD or MP3 files, but without is okay too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-08-08T08:36:20.687" LastActivityDate="2020-08-08T08:36:20.687" Title="What readers are available at the 1,000 word level?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-06-17T10:57:51.053" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="537" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-24T11:38:42.197" Score="11" ViewCount="1795" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that sometimes certain finals in Chinese sound differently when combined with different initials.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For e.g., what is spelled &amp;quot;u&amp;quot; sometimes is pronounced &amp;quot;ü&amp;quot;. Other times, I think the final &amp;quot;i&amp;quot; sounds differently when combined with different initials.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a list of rules explaining all of these differences within standard Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T09:50:16.990" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T09:50:16.990" Title="Are there rules about the differences between pinyin spelling and pronunciation?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="489" CreationDate="2011-12-24T12:17:22.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found two but they are to be purchased and not free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mcgrawhill.ca/professional/products/9780071615907/mcgraw-hill%27s+chinese+illustrated+dictionary/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;McGraw-Hill's Chinese Illustrated Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;: 1,500 Essential Words in Chinese Script and Pinyin lay the foundation of your language learning;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.liveabc.com/english/chinese_info.asp?b_category=Books&amp;amp;issn=978-1-935181-94-1&amp;amp;items&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Illustrated Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T12:17:22.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="532" CreationDate="2011-12-24T12:24:14.987" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There were no punctuation marks such as comma in ancient Chinese writings. It's stated in &lt;em&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.keatsschool.com/view-828.html&quot;&gt;Punctuations in Chinese Language&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/em&gt; and in this forum's thread, &lt;em&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?/topic/2067-punctuation-marks-in-ancient-written-chinese/&quot;&gt;Punctuation Marks in Ancient Written Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, where there are two links to some ancient writings. As it's said there, having no punctuation at all, ancient scholars knew the meaning thanks to some structure and &quot;rhythm&quot; in the writing, but I haven't found any official source for this statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding its introduction, according to Wikipedia, it seems that punctuation in Chinese became a part of its system in the 20&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt; Century, so it's &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; recent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first book to be printed with modern punctuation was &lt;em&gt;&quot;Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy&lt;/em&gt; (中國哲學史大綱)&quot; by Hu Shi (胡適) in 1919.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T12:24:14.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="537" CreationDate="2011-12-24T12:43:00.013" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think one of the reasons is the loss of tone and/or stress in the syllable. But see this table, &lt;em&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_%28Mandarin%29/Pronunciation_of_Finals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese (Mandarin)/Pronunciation of Finals&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, it provides a good summary of the changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-24T12:43:00.013" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="537" CreationDate="2011-12-24T14:28:42.697" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciations of finals do not change when used after different finals, with perhaps only one exception: 'i'. It has three variations: 'zi ci si', 'zhi chi shi ri', and all others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: Not many Chinese know the differences, but you can compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;English pinyin&#xA; Lee     li&#xA; she     shi    (the two consonants are also different)&#xA; see     si&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three english /&lt;em&gt;ee&lt;/em&gt;/ in the above word are the same, but the three Chinese &lt;em&gt;i&lt;/em&gt; are all different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the spellings of the finals do change when used after different initials. The details can be found in 汉语拼音方案 (the Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet), which is the official standard for Chinese pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the example mentioned by the OP, 'ü' will be written as 'u' after 'j' 'q' and 'x'. ('u' will never be used after 'j' 'q' or 'x')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE2: I don't know whether the full detail of the scheme is appropriate for beginners. There are two links in Chinese: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/appendix/f8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/104414.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;BaiduBaike&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-01-21T08:12:14.397" LastActivityDate="2012-01-21T08:12:14.397" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="543" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-25T00:50:07.843" Score="4" ViewCount="4493" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need some software that can check the grammar of some Chinese passages. Are there any programs capable of identifying grammar problems? I'd prefer something for Linux, but other platforms would be okay too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T03:28:03.337" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T03:28:03.337" Title="What software can check for grammar mistakes?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;academic&gt;&lt;mistakes&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="544" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="548" CreationDate="2011-12-25T00:51:41.940" Score="10" ViewCount="6655" Body="&lt;p&gt;While studying I came across a useful expression to say &quot;I live in...&quot; which is &quot;...在...住&quot; such as in this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;意大利&lt;strong&gt;住&lt;/strong&gt;。= &lt;em&gt;I live in Italy.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ &lt;strong&gt;zài&lt;/strong&gt; Yìdàlì &lt;strong&gt;zhù&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I saw a different one which is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;住在&lt;/strong&gt;意大利。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ &lt;strong&gt;zhù zài&lt;/strong&gt; Yìdàlì.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are: Are both expressions correct? If so, are there any differences in usage and meaning? Is one of them more used currently?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T10:25:11.273" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T10:25:11.273" Title="Are these two form of &quot;I live in...&quot; both correct? 我在意大利住 and 我住在意大利" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="543" CreationDate="2011-12-25T02:01:45.277" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is NO software that can check Chinese grammar mistakes with satisfactory results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Automatic grammar analysis is hard. We cannot even get satisfactory result in word segmentation. (Well, this is the story in research field)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Microsoft Word has the functionality of spelling and grammar check for Chinese (it may not be installed by default in non-Chinese versions). In my opinion, the result can be far from satisfactory though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if there is any software developed for Language Study that has this functionality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2011-12-25T02:01:45.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="544" CreationDate="2011-12-25T02:06:24.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are both correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently I cannot think of any difference, or if any of them is preferred in usage. Hope others can catch that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2011-12-25T02:06:24.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="544" CreationDate="2011-12-25T02:06:56.557" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both make sense but the 2nd one is used more commonly in Mandarin Chinese while the 1st one is used more often in Cantonese Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="194" LastActivityDate="2011-12-25T02:06:56.557" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="549" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="595" CreationDate="2011-12-25T03:05:05.857" Score="10" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many different style guides for English, such as &lt;em&gt;The Chicago Manual of Style&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing&lt;/em&gt;. Are there similar publications available for Chinese? Although I do not need this specifically in academics, I need a general reference for preparing documents for publication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:26:56.320" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T09:25:06.003" Title="Are there any style guides for Chinese?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="517" CreationDate="2011-12-25T04:53:30.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carrot brackets: 《, 》,〈, and 〉: They are called 书名号. @Frank has given their use in his answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Square brackets: 【, 】,〖, and 〗, C-brackets: 〔 and 〕: They are all 括号.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;【, 】: 实心方头括号 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;〖, 〗: 空心方头括号 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;I only just found their names in &lt;a href=&quot;https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/zh/w/index.php?title=%E6%8B%AC%E5%8F%B7&amp;amp;variant=zh-cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt;, as they are not often used. Some of the situation that they may be used can be found in the wiki page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only pair of 括号 that is consistently used in articles is 〔, 〕, which is also called 圆括号. It is used to show comment, annotation, explanation, etc. to the previous word or sentence. The contents inside will be usually ignored when the passage is read out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;L-brackets: 「, 」, 『, and 』: These are quotation marks 引号, the previous pair is 单引号， the latter 双引号. The usage are almost the same as “ ” and ‘ ’ , but cannot be mixed with them. In mainland China, “” and ‘’ will be usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A further search in &lt;a href=&quot;https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/zh/w/index.php?title=%E5%BC%95%E5%8F%B7&amp;amp;variant=zh-cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1387855.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;baidubaike&lt;/a&gt; gives me some interesting results about quotation marks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In China mainland, “” will be used. When nested, the quotation marks are used in this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“ ... ‘ ... “ ... ” ... ’ ... ”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, the out most pair is “” ， the inner one is ‘’, and if there is another quotation level inside ‘’ , “” will be used again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Hongkong and Taiwan, 「」 will be used. And when nested: 「 ... 『 ... 』 ... 」 . I don't know what to use with more nesting levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2011-12-25T05:03:20.750" LastActivityDate="2011-12-25T05:03:20.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="517" CreationDate="2011-12-25T05:22:41.543" Score="7" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Caret brackets: 《, 》,〈, and 〉.&lt;/strong&gt; Called &lt;code&gt;双书名号&lt;/code&gt;(Double Angle Quotation Mark) and &lt;code&gt;单书名号&lt;/code&gt;(Single Angle Quotation Mark) in Chinese, both of them are &lt;code&gt;书名号&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Square brackets: 【, 】,〖, and 〗.&lt;/strong&gt; Called &lt;code&gt;实心方头括号&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;空心方头括号&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese, both of them are &lt;code&gt;括号&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C-brackets: 〔 and 〕.&lt;/strong&gt; Called &lt;code&gt;六角括号&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese, it belongs to &lt;code&gt;括号&lt;/code&gt; either.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;L-brackets: 「, 」, 『, and 』.&lt;/strong&gt; Called &lt;code&gt;引号&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese, they're same as &lt;code&gt;“”&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;‘’&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;书名号:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a symbol to identify the title, newspaper name, file name, opera name, song name, picture name, book name, the name of film and television programs, etc.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;《》&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;〈〉&lt;/code&gt; are used in horizontal format(Vertical format use &lt;code&gt;︽︾&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;︿﹀&lt;/code&gt;), and can be used nested. You need use &lt;code&gt;《》&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;︽︾&lt;/code&gt; first, then &lt;code&gt;〈〉&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;︿﹀&lt;/code&gt;, then &lt;code&gt;《》&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;︽︾&lt;/code&gt;，...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There're also some other types of &lt;code&gt;书名号&lt;/code&gt;, you can refer to the wiki page &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E4%B9%A6%E5%90%8D%E5%8F%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;括号:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're many types:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;圆括号&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;半型圆括号：()&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;全角圆括号：（）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;方括号：[]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;六角括号：〔〕&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;方头括号&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;实心方头括号【】&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;空心方头括号〖〗&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;花括号：{}&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can refer to the wiki page &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E6%8B%AC%E5%8F%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They are often used for notes and comments in articles. And &lt;code&gt;【】&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;〖〗&lt;/code&gt; often used in formal papers、articles that edited by computer(Handwritten articles will not use them, just use &lt;code&gt;()&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;[]&lt;/code&gt;, etc):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;【注】：一些作者想注释的话。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is often placed at the bottom of a page.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;〖〗&lt;/code&gt; is rarely used, and I'm not sure whether it is used for nesting with &lt;code&gt;【】&lt;/code&gt; or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;引号：&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's used for quoting, and like &lt;code&gt;书名号&lt;/code&gt;, you need to use &lt;code&gt;“”&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;「」&lt;/code&gt; first, then &lt;code&gt;‘’&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;『』&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他站起来问：“老师，‘有条不紊’的 ‘紊’是什么意思？”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他站起来问：「老师，『有条不紊』的 『紊』是什么意思？」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, the second one is rarely used. It's mostly used for quoting inside a quote. &#xA;You can refer to the wiki page &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%BC%95%E5%8F%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="79" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-11-06T14:24:06.127" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T14:24:06.127" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="520" CreationDate="2011-12-25T11:34:44.923" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mdbg.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; has stroke animations for all the characters, and highlights the radical, but I don't think you can print it out. That said, it's available online, for free, so it gets points for accessibility. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="122" LastActivityDate="2011-12-25T11:34:44.923" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="553" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-25T12:07:05.623" Score="16" ViewCount="6164" Body="&lt;p&gt;When analyzing Chinese speeches or essays, I often have difficulty understanding how their the authors organized their ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In North America, for example, a common template for writing an essay is the &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_paragraph_essay&quot;&gt;five-paragraph essay&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. This organizes the paragraphs and the sentences within each paragraph. Most English-language writing in academia follows a somewhat similar structure to this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do Chinese follow any particular structures when planning speeches or essays?&#xA;Are there any ancient scholars who heavily influenced this structure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:04:14.160" LastActivityDate="2021-02-22T13:21:36.963" Title="How do native speakers structure their essays?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;academic&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="554" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="576" CreationDate="2011-12-25T14:41:18.113" Score="9" ViewCount="377" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I want to say &quot;Thanks for your help&quot;, which sentence is correct and which one is more commonly used? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;谢谢你的帮忙&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;谢谢你的帮助&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that the first one is more uncommon but I'm not really sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T13:40:52.330" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T13:40:52.330" Title="Which expressions should I choose to say “thanks for your help”?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="554" CreationDate="2011-12-25T16:21:10.527" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are the same and both uncommon. More common way is just 谢谢 or 辛苦了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastActivityDate="2011-12-25T16:21:10.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="513" CreationDate="2011-12-25T16:25:57.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can just search it by www.baidu.com which can input character by drawing or search it by any search engine with Chinese input method supporting drawing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastActivityDate="2011-12-25T16:25:57.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="486" CreationDate="2011-12-25T16:36:07.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chinese-Comprehensive-Grammar-Grammars/dp/0415150329/sr=1-3/qid=1164505918/ref=sr_1_3/203-5787852-6539128?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;s=books&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar (Comprehensive Grammars)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-27T18:58:31.363" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T18:58:31.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="536" CreationDate="2011-12-25T16:48:22.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.duzhe.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;读者&lt;/a&gt; which is like Reader's Digest. I don't know if one with 1000 words can understand every article in it, but I think you can find some interesting essays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-25T18:25:42.493" LastActivityDate="2011-12-25T18:25:42.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="559" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-25T20:45:15.200" Score="17" ViewCount="2511" Body="&lt;p&gt;The relationship between simplified and traditional characters can be a headache for &lt;a href=&quot;http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Problems_with_server-side_Chinese_to_Chinese_translation_in_MediaWiki&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;organizations using both orthographies&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;A number of surveys, such as [Xiandai 1986], have demonstrated that&#xA;  the 2000 most frequent SC characters account for approximately 97% of&#xA;  all characters occurring in contemporary SC corpora. Of these, 238&#xA;  simplified forms, or almost 12%, are polygraphic; that is, they map to&#xA;  two or more traditional forms.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, it's a task that can one day be done relatively perfectly by a computer. Google Translate can do it for you more or less. But if you are converting a short story or a novel, the task is a little more difficult. That's why &lt;a href=&quot;https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/23830/making-a-simple-php-script-process-text-in-a-pipe&quot;&gt;I actually prefer&lt;/a&gt; to use &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/tszming/mediawiki-zhconverter&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Mediawiki converter&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, I don't really know how it works. I have a feeling the SCIM pinyin input tables are used somehow, and the tediously underdocumented non-bijective-mappings between the two orthographies coded for manually. Is that right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:37:12.510" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T19:21:38.267" Title="How does Wikipedia's simplified to traditional converter work?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="560" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-25T21:23:18.073" Score="8" ViewCount="332" Body="&lt;p&gt;Baidu's MP3 search engine used to be my first stop when studying &lt;em&gt;anything&lt;/em&gt; Chinese. Absurdly, even recordings of relatively rare poetry (for instance) were easy to find. &lt;em&gt;These recordings were not copyrighted, and were usually made by individuals just for fun&lt;/em&gt;. It was often possible to hear the ambient sounds of people's houses in the background of the recordings. As a bonus, sentimental backing tracks were often included. For a language geek, it was a dream come true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, mp3.baidu.com had an enemy. The last time I ever tried to download a recording, it was of a famous, funny Lu Xun story called Kong Yiji. Most of the download links failed, but when I found one that worked, it was a parody recording of &quot;The Real Slim Shady&quot; by someone with a Hubei accent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What gives?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that librivox has some recordings of Chinese poetry, but really for the amount of stuff that was previously accessible using mp3.baidu.com, it's a very poor substitute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="183" LastEditDate="2011-12-25T23:48:35.367" LastActivityDate="2012-03-09T10:58:28.593" Title="Where can I find recordings of people reading things now that mp3.baidu.com is dead?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;audio&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ClosedDate="2012-03-09T09:41:24.280" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="590" CreationDate="2011-12-26T02:19:21.783" Score="9" ViewCount="27964" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was writing a card to a friend and wanted to finish with &quot;Hope you'll have a great day&quot; but realised what I could think of wasn't quite the same meaning, or just sounded odd/weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I wrote in the end was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;希望你今天會很快樂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which, if I'm not mistaken is more so &quot;Hope you'll be very happy today&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried Google translate which gave me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;希望你有一個偉大的一天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which doesn't seem quite right to me (maybe I'm just not used to the phrases used?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So was wondering what is the best way to say &quot;Hope you'll have a great day&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="60" LastActivityDate="2013-08-01T05:49:32.113" Title="How to say &quot;hope you'll have a great day&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="561" CreationDate="2011-12-26T03:28:21.813" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think what you wrote is all right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the one given by Google Translation, it is unnatural. Or it may be treated as humorous, or comical. We don't use &quot;偉大的&quot; in this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of &quot;希望你&quot;, we may be &quot;祝你&quot; more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the situation, there may be several ways of saying this. For example: &quot;祝你今天過得愉快&quot; &quot;祝你今天玩的高興&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T03:28:21.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="563" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="566" CreationDate="2011-12-26T05:32:05.440" Score="3" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;In December, I read this in a social network post:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今年剩下一个星期了，继续努力搏杀！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English slang, one might say &quot;killing it&quot; to mean performing well. Is this use of &lt;code&gt;搏杀&lt;/code&gt; figurative, literal, or humorous?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="177" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T10:35:24.070" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T10:35:24.070" Title="Is 搏杀 used in jest in 今年剩下一个星期了，继续努力搏杀?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="554" CreationDate="2011-12-26T05:32:24.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think both uses are correct, depending on the context. The former might be more appropriate for work and labor (as in you &lt;em&gt;help&lt;/em&gt; someone do something), while the latter might be more appropriate for support and assistance (as in you &lt;em&gt;aid&lt;/em&gt; someone in doing something). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T05:32:24.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="559" CreationDate="2011-12-26T06:15:17.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is another converter at &lt;a href=&quot;http://mandarintools.com/zhcode.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://mandarintools.com/zhcode.html&lt;/a&gt;. I lack the capacity to judge its quality. Is that a suitable alternative? It may reveal how the conversion is done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I may have overlooked some parts, but here is my understanding of it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It seems to have a large two-column list of words (&lt;code&gt;hcutf8.txt&lt;/code&gt;). The first column contains simplified, the second column traditional. The second column occasionally contains two or more characters, in situations where one simplified character equals more than one traditional character.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When converting from simplified to traditional, it replaces all occurrences of words found in the first column with words in the second column.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When converting from traditional to simplified, it replaces all occurrences of words found in the second column with words in the first column.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps there is more in the code that I did not notice. Are additional steps needed for this conversion to be successful?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T06:15:17.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="563" CreationDate="2011-12-26T06:37:44.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be figurative, means &quot;working hard&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T06:37:44.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="553" CreationDate="2011-12-26T09:35:37.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In university I had to write quite a few essays in Chinese, they follow the same basic structure of introduction, point 1, point 2, point... conculusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have also spent time correcting thesis and academic writing and it's pretty much identical to in the West.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One point about learning to write better in Chinese that my wife taught me; don't get hung up on how to write something properly in Chinese. Thing about exactly what you want to say in your native tongue (English etc.) and then think about how to translate that into Chinese rather than going for the tricky approach of trying to get your point across in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T09:35:37.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="561" CreationDate="2011-12-26T09:56:42.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestion would be to use 过得. It's best to think of this as &quot;passed&quot;, as in &quot;I hope your day passed well&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the best sentence would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;希望你今天过得很愉快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My wife also said this is not something that people would normally say orally and also suggested if this is a birthday card then maybe you could use this for to wish happiness for the whole year:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;希望你今年过得很愉快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also it is common to put at the end of a letter something simple like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;祝愉快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2011-12-28T06:50:10.193" LastActivityDate="2011-12-28T06:50:10.193" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="513" CreationDate="2011-12-26T10:00:40.077" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also use Wiktionary to look up a word if you know the pronunciation and the meaning but you don't know the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ye4#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ye4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also quite frequently use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com.hk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google HK&lt;/a&gt; to perform a search, which is useful for when you have a sentence, and type in something like shanshuihua, it will provide you a list of options in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2021-04-10T22:50:14.937" LastActivityDate="2021-04-10T22:50:14.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="488" CreationDate="2011-12-26T10:12:28.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your options for doing this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pay someone to tutor you and listen to your pronunciation and correct you. This is highly effective, but costs money.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use Google transate, Wiktionary or some other tool that take Chinese as an input and provides an audio option for you to listen where you can listen and attempt for your self. Semi-effective and free.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Post on a learning forum and hope someone replies. Low effectiveness and free.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T10:12:28.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="571" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="575" CreationDate="2011-12-26T10:41:15.900" Score="7" ViewCount="3187" Body="&lt;p&gt;Previously I used to regularly go to a news site that had articles in English that allowed you to immediately switch to Chinese for the same article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also had good information on the Chinese side for English readers to introduce when difficult grammer or idioms were used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping someone knows of this site or something similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This site was awesome for building vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:06:26.950" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T23:04:26.067" Title="Site for reading the same news article in English and Chinese (简体中文）" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;practice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="170" CreationDate="2011-12-26T11:05:08.897" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In songs, most tones disappear. The syllables are sung along the melody of music. We only tell the tone because we can catch what the whole word or sentence is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In songs, usually the melody should be written to convey the tones of syllables (or syllables chosen to match the melody). Mismatch of melody and lyrics can result in misunderstandings. However, in pop music, not much attention has been paid to this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/chan9/articles/bls13.htm&quot;&gt;paper&lt;/a&gt; (that this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/12/06/tones-in-chinese-songs&quot;&gt;blog post&lt;/a&gt; pointed me to) claims that in Cantonese pop songs, the melody more closely follows the tones, while in Mandarin songs, the tones just get obliterated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="88" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T22:27:53.867" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T22:27:53.867" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="560" CreationDate="2011-12-26T11:18:07.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.verycd.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;VeryCD&lt;/a&gt; which is a Chinese &quot;peer-2-peer&quot; file sharing service. I have found whole novels in mp3 format there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another file sharing system used over there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://download.pchome.net/internet/server/proxy/detail-2532.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Foxy&lt;/a&gt;. However, it has had some security problems in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for copyright issues, same as with any other file sharing; if the material is copyrighted you shouldn't share it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="156" LastEditDate="2012-01-16T07:04:52.010" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T07:04:52.010" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="554" CreationDate="2011-12-26T11:20:28.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also, if you want to thank someone for helping you by supporting you somehow, you could use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;谢谢你的支持&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but it is rather formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T11:20:28.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="571" CreationDate="2011-12-26T13:56:29.740" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know two great sites just like you said. Hope you like it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dongxi.net&quot;&gt;东西网&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yeeyan.org/&quot;&gt;译言网&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-26T14:10:42.027" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T14:10:42.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="554" CreationDate="2011-12-26T14:20:52.740" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 帮忙 and 帮助 are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;帮忙: [verb]to help some do something .This word itself has declared its object[忙] already. I think the phrase &quot;do sb a favor&quot; is a more appropriate equivalent in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;帮助: [verb]to help. [noun]help. This word needs an object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would say, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你可以来帮忙吗？ Could you come and help? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你可以帮助*&lt;em&gt;我&lt;/em&gt;*一下吗？Could you help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我帮不上忙。 I am not able to help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我无法帮助*&lt;em&gt;你&lt;/em&gt;*。(Actually, 我帮不了你 is more common) I am not able to help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine that you are going to prepare a meal in your house,to entertain your friends, but you have a lot of work(buying, washing, cutting, cooking...) to do&#xA;, so you ask me for help. You would say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Huang,明早你可以来帮忙吗？Could you please come and help(do me a favor) tomorrow morning?  By using 帮忙, you should not express its object, and that doesn't matter, because in the context, I understand what I can help you. I say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没问题。我能帮助你什么呢？=没问题，我能帮什么忙呢？No problem! What can I help you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你可以帮助我去超市买菜。 You can help me buy the foods in the supermarket. Here, you won't say 帮忙, because you have to express the object explicitly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, for your question, I think the 2nd sentence is more common, though the first one could be understood. I guess you would not say &quot;Thanks for your doing me a favor&quot; in English, would you? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say other words to express this meaning,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谢谢(or 谢了 if you are familiar with the interlocutor)&#xA;  辛苦你了&#xA;  辛苦了&#xA;  麻烦你了&#xA;  麻烦了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-27T02:21:50.633" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T02:21:50.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="488" CreationDate="2011-12-26T14:42:05.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rossetta Stone has that feature standard. I've not used it, but I have friends who have with great success. Unless you get the tone correct, the software doesn't let you advance to the next word. It's pretty impressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't know of any free options, though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="122" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T14:42:05.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="578" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="583" CreationDate="2011-12-26T15:23:57.290" Score="13" ViewCount="1760" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I understood correctly, both 完 and 了 can be used to indicate a completed action, so what is the difference in use? How do we properly use 完 in a sentence? Which contexts would be valid?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T14:49:45.217" Title="What is the difference in use between 完 and 了?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="579" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="587" CreationDate="2011-12-26T16:24:45.383" Score="11" ViewCount="5449" Body="&lt;p&gt;A romanization system is basically a system in which roman (latin) letters are used for languages that use non-roman scripts. This has the obvious benefit that people who can (maybe only) read roman letters (a great part of the world's population) will be able to read it. But people who don't know the language being romanized will pronounce roman letters as they pronounce them in their language or in a general common pronunciation shared by romance languages and english, mainly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I've heard people pronounce Chinese names wrong each and every time, when those names have letters like B, D, ZH, C, Q, X and G. This letters are obviously pronounced very different in Pinyin than in any other language, so why were they chosen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that if one were to choose roman letters that sound like Chinese phonemes and not repeating those letters, the roman alphabet just isn't large enough for all Chinese phonemes, but anyway, a foreign speaker shouldn't need to distinguish Q from CH and ZH, especially if they were not to learn the language, but just to pronounce some Chinese names right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I think is, Pinyin is great for Chinese learners, who need to tell apart sounds like G &amp;amp; K; Q, CH &amp;amp; ZH; and SH &amp;amp; X, but for foreign readers, a simplified Pinyin should be used.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;So if someone who doesn't know chinese, reads &amp;quot;qing xin&amp;quot;, they would pronounce &amp;quot;king ksin&amp;quot;, but rather, if it was written &amp;quot;ching shin&amp;quot; they would read it right, at least the best way a non-Chinese speaker can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: Sorry for the long post, but the question would be, do you know why this foreigner-confusing letters as Q, X and C were chosen for Pinyin instead of making it more readable for non-chinese speakers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;This would be a &lt;em&gt;Relaxed Pinyin&lt;/em&gt; which would just allow a better pronunciation of Chinese names for people that don't know Pinyin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;Pinyin - Relaxed Pinyin&#xA;B        P&#xA;C        TS&#xA;CH       CH&#xA;D        T&#xA;G        K&#xA;K        K&#xA;P        P&#xA;Q        CH&#xA;SH       SH&#xA;T        T&#xA;X        SH&#xA;Z        TS&#xA;ZH       CH&#xA;J        J&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;  &#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, you can't go back from this to Pinyin because some letters represent more than one Piyin letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for example, the Pinyin &lt;em&gt;qīng xiāo&lt;/em&gt; which would be incorrectly pronounced by someone who doesn't know Pinyin, would be written &lt;em&gt;ching shiao&lt;/em&gt; in a &lt;em&gt;Relaxed Pinyin&lt;/em&gt;, which would allow them to pronunce Chinese in the most possibly correct way they could, &lt;strong&gt;without having to learn anything they don't already know&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastEditorUserId="59" LastEditDate="2021-04-15T01:20:47.017" LastActivityDate="2021-04-16T04:11:20.577" Title="Why were some letters like Q, X, C, chosen for Pinyin which confuse non-Chinese speakers?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="16" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="517" CreationDate="2011-12-26T16:47:51.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you might find this page helpful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;〈Intro to Chinese Punctuation with Computer Language Syntax Perspectives〉&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/bangu/chinese_punctuation.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/bangu/chinese_punctuation.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by the way, i've never heard of 〈〉 or 《》 referred to as carrot brackets, nor C-bracket or L-bracket. See the unicode names for these chars in the above, also English name and Chinese name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in traditional Chinese before exchange with western cultures (say before 1900s), there's no any of () [] {} “” ‘’ used in chinese. Also, chinese were written almost exclusively vertically (thus, all the horizontal ones such as 〈〉 《》 【】 〖〗 are rather recent.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the main ones are just these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• 「」 『』 analogous to ‘’ and “” or french ‹› «»&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• 【】 〖〗 〔〕 are analogous to () [] {}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• 〈〉 《》 are for book and other work's titles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;these, in particular the vertical versions, are the main ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;today in computer age, all of the above including western ones () [] {} ‘’ “” are common. These are becoming rare: 【】 〖〗 〔〕.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="175" LastEditorUserId="175" LastEditDate="2011-12-26T17:12:14.117" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T17:12:14.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="581" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2011-12-26T16:53:23.627" Score="10" ViewCount="2326" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been told by native speakers that the former refers to little dogs while the latter is for bigger dogs. I also have been told that the latter has a negative connotation. I'm wondering:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;how negative is the meaning of 一条狗?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is one used by speakers of a certain age or from a certain region? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T11:00:54.880" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T05:54:52.940" Title="What is the difference between 一只狗 and 一条狗?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="579" CreationDate="2011-12-26T17:06:44.457" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pinyin, like other written systems, is an arbitrary system, and the corresponding sounds were expressly decided. It seems it was based on preexisting systems: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwoyeu_Romatzyh&quot;&gt;Gwoyeu Romatzyh&lt;/a&gt; of 1928, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz&quot;&gt;Latinxua Sin Wenz&lt;/a&gt; of 1931, and the diacritic markings from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuyin&quot;&gt;Zhuyin&lt;/a&gt; (also known as Bopomofo).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the same problem you highlight in your question happens when learning any other language. For example, I'm Italian and when learning English I had to learn that: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;th&quot; can have different pronunciations, &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; vs &lt;em&gt;thick&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;ou&quot; has several pronunciations according to the word: &lt;em&gt;though, foul, through&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;c&quot; is not just &quot;tch&quot; or &quot;k&quot; sound but also &quot;s&quot;: &lt;em&gt;center&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Spanish, other sounds, such as &quot;j&quot; in &lt;em&gt;joven&lt;/em&gt;, or with french, with &quot;ç&quot; in &quot;ça va?&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why pinyin with Chinese should be different? A certain system has been decided, all that is left to do is for you to learn that system and learn to distinguish the sounds described in Pinyin from those in your language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the &quot;confusion&quot; is for anyone that decides to learn Chinese (and therefore, Pinyin) regardless of your mother tongue (if not from asian countries): some sounds correspond to a certain language, others to another language and so on, so everyone has some advantage. The sounds that really differ are a few, and you have the same chance of finding them when learning other languages too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T17:06:44.457" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="578" CreationDate="2011-12-26T17:13:29.280" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 完 and 了 together or separately. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了 is usually used to indicate the completion of an action. E.g. 你买了好多东西 (You purchased a lot of stuff). See the question &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16/tense-and-use-of-%e4%ba%86/43&quot;&gt;Tense and use of 了&lt;/a&gt;&quot; to learn more.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;完 is used to indicate the action of completing/finishing something. E.g. &quot;說話沒完的人&quot; (a motormouth, someone who talks to no end). Usually it's verb + 完.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完了 can have 3 different meanings/uses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Verb + 完了 can indicate that the (verb) action has come to an end. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Noun + 完了 indicate the feeling of despair or the end of something . E.g., 哎呀，我完了！ (On no, I'm finished/done for!) or 那個車完了(That car is finished/done for!). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;完了 by itself (usually at the beginning of a sentence) is usually an exclamation of despair. E.g., 完了, 车没油了！回不了家了！ (We're/I'm done [for], the car's out of gas. We/I can't go [back] home [now]).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没完 can be used to describe things left undone, or something never-ending/eternal. E.g., 活儿还没完 (Work is not done/finished yet) or &quot;說話沒完的人&quot; (a motormouth, someone who talks to no end).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T02:35:26.337" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="581" CreationDate="2011-12-26T17:17:54.720" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid I cannot agree with you (or with the native speakers who told you so).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The expressions don't have the differences mentioned in your posts. To me they are equivalent. I prefer &quot;条&quot; though, for no reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T17:17:54.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="581" CreationDate="2011-12-26T18:31:45.963" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no negative connotation, at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;条 and 只 are used interchangeably in today's Chinese, not just specific to a region. Long ago, 头（頭）were used as a quantifier for dogs or other farm animals. I suspect &quot;head&quot; was dropped because dogs do not have stocky builds as other animals(pigs, donkeys, bulls etc). Also &quot;头&quot; tends to associate &quot;dumb animals&quot; and dogs are perceived as intelligent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;条 in most cases is used to quantify something that's slender, e.g. 一条路(road)， 一条河(river)，一条虫(worm). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I say 一只狗 because it seems to make more sense considering others animals of simliar size and stature also use 只. e.g. 一只猫，一只狐狸 etc. But this is just a personal preference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="197" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T18:31:45.963" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="586" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="588" CreationDate="2011-12-26T20:15:49.717" Score="8" ViewCount="363" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember the first time I saw &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3aSonghuizong.jpg&quot;&gt;slender gold&lt;/a&gt; I had something like an 'am I dreaming?' moment. That's not how characters were supposed to look! The lines aren't supposed to cross, etc., etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But wait, it actually looked better than characters were supposed to look. The same way grass script makes kaiti look 'uptight', 瘦金體 makes kaiti look 'lazy', and clerical look 'boring'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, one year down the line, slender gold is my favorite calligraphy style. In fact, I am trying to learn it, and I wish that everything I printed out in chinese could be in slender gold. Is there a slender gold font?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T16:02:34.620" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T16:02:34.620" Title="Have any fonts been released that are based on slender gold?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="579" CreationDate="2011-12-26T20:20:08.453" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never found a reasoning on how Pinyin was created, but as Alenanno says, there have been predecessors and people working on the Pinyin standard already had some experience with existing systems. Some sounds can probably be mapped to similar IPA notation, while others seem totally off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my own reasoning I'd say there are at least two arguments that may speak for the possibly awkward choice of letters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whatever letters you chose, you could quite possibly only satisfy the pronunciation system of one language. And given that many sounds of Mandarin cannot be pronounced by non-native speakers, why even try to find &quot;closer&quot; matches (in whatever metrics you would define)? After all Pinyin was developed to map all Putonghua sounds to Roman letters in a bijective fashion. It is used to teach millions of Chinese school children, not only for foreigners to pronounce.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are 26 Roman letters. Without wanting to introduce too many diacritics, you need to map all the sounds to this limited set. There are already &quot;overloaded&quot; letters like 'e' having different pronunciations or simplifications like the sound 'ü' becoming 'u' (e.g. &quot;yu&quot; vs. &quot;nü&quot;). Any more tweaks will make the overall system more complicated.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are, by the way, academic studies on how Pinyin &quot;letter mismatch&quot; complicates the acquisition of Mandarin for western speakers. I'll look for them if you want more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="111" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-05T13:21:42.747" LastActivityDate="2013-11-05T13:21:42.747" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="586" CreationDate="2011-12-26T21:21:19.563" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can download them at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www6.flash8.net/font/2933.shtml&quot;&gt;http://www6.flash8.net/font/2933.shtml&lt;/a&gt; (traditional)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www6.flash8.net/font/4101.shtml&quot;&gt;http://www6.flash8.net/font/4101.shtml&lt;/a&gt; (simplified)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like this kind of style, you may also be interested in &lt;a href=&quot;http://bit.ly/rRl7eK&quot;&gt;鋼筆書法&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="197" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T21:21:19.563" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="589" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="591" CreationDate="2011-12-26T23:12:25.170" Score="5" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;I almost never see this construction in classical prose. (In fact, I'll venture I've never seen it.) However, it's in two of my favorite poems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this one, it's from the poem &quot;晨詣超師院讀禪經&quot; by 柳宗元:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;遺言冀可冥， 繕性何由熟？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other one is from a poem, by Li Bai if I recall correctly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;西飛精衛鳥，東海何由填&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does X何由Y mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:05:47.577" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T04:05:47.577" Title="What does the classical construction X 何由 Y mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="561" CreationDate="2011-12-26T23:30:04.860" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;Great&quot; has many meanings, both in English and Chinese. It seems that Google Translate picks &quot;magnificent&quot;, &quot;grand&quot; as its translation in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While &quot;Hope you'll have a great day&quot; is said time and time again in English conversation, it's less so in Chinese - but it does not mean people do not say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few different ways to say it depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone is having a day out, for example, visiting a place, going to a theme park, going shopping with friends and so on, you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Traditional/Simplified)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;祝你(今天)玩得愉快/祝你(今天)玩得愉快 = Hope you'll have fun./Have fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Today&quot; is often omitted in speaking here as it's a &quot;day out&quot; that happens today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone is organising an event, staging a gig, hosting a fair or similar stuff, you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝你今天順利/祝你今天顺利 = Hope it goes well today/Hope your gig goes well today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Today&quot; is usually not omitted here in speaking as it emphasises the event is happening today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you say it to a business owner or someone running a shop, this can translate into:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝你今天生意興隆/祝你今天生意兴隆 = Hope you'll have good business today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which according to Google Translate, it's &quot;I wish you business is booming today.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure there are other occasions where you'd say &quot;Hope you'll have a great day&quot; and it is not the same Chinese expression. If anyone can think of any, please share with us :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="48" LastActivityDate="2011-12-26T23:30:04.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="589" CreationDate="2011-12-27T00:26:04.580" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;in classic Chinese, 何由 is the inverse form of 由何, and it should be in the inverse form ,however, you can understand it by understanding 由何.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何 what&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由 [preposition] 1. from  2.because of  3.by(method, means,way)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so 由何 could mean, from what, because of what, by what. I guess, you would less commonly(Ok, at least I would) say,&amp;quot;By what, did you arrive at this conclusion?&amp;quot;, instead, you would say,&amp;quot;how did you arrive at this conclusion?&amp;quot; ;furthermore, when you say &amp;quot;how did you arrive at this conclusion?&amp;quot;, you would probably mean &amp;quot;It's impossible to arrive at this conclusion. I don't believe it&amp;quot;, depending on the context. This also happens to 何由.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your examples,I think 何由 means &amp;quot;how could&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I think this word is not rarely used in classic Chinese, I can give you another example from a poem 《茅屋为秋风所破歌》 by the great poet &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;杜甫&lt;/a&gt;, which was picked into the textbook when I was a student.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;长夜沾湿何由彻  How could I bear the bad situation(the house is broken and it rains heavily) in the long night , until the dawn comes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T02:43:38.663" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="578" CreationDate="2011-12-27T02:55:31.673" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;没 and 完 can be used together to indicate an action that has yet to be completed in this pattern  没 + V + 完 for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没看完 &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; 没吃完&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To mean I haven't finished watching/reading it &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; I haven't finished eating (it) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also combine the two in this case it would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没看完了 &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; 没吃完了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To mean the same as above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没看了 &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; 没吃了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means I haven't seen/read (it) &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; I haven't eaten (it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这本书我还没看了 &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; 他的冰淇淋还么吃了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I (still) haven't read this book &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; He/she hasn't eaten their ice-cream.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T02:55:31.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="579" CreationDate="2011-12-27T07:01:57.363" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I vaguely remember reading that Pinyin was developed originally to teach Chinese to Russians, so some of the sounds are based on Russian sounds. I'm not sure how the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets were mapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a brief browse through Wikipedia articles on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pinyin&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sin Wenz&lt;/a&gt; the Russian connection sounds reasonable, but I can't find any details to confirm my memory. I suspect I originally read about it in either &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.ca/Man-Who-Loved-China-Fantastic/dp/0060884592&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Man Who Loved China&lt;/a&gt;, or one of Peter Hessler's books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T07:01:57.363" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="571" CreationDate="2011-12-27T07:10:53.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.globalvoicesonline.org/hans/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Global Voices&lt;/a&gt; is a social site for hosting translations of articles in other languages. &lt;a href=&quot;http://popupchinese.com/tools/newsinchinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Popup Chinese has a tool&lt;/a&gt; to help you translate Chinese articles, but they don't have full translations of the articles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't used either of these sites, I've just seen them mentioned elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T07:10:53.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="549" CreationDate="2011-12-27T08:07:50.683" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three similar style guides for Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/service/SCIcenter/ip/standard-7714.pdf&quot;&gt;文后参考文献著录规则 GB/T 7714-2005&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/service/SCIcenter/ip/standard-7714-A.pdf&quot;&gt;Appendix A&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/service/SCIcenter/ip/standard-7714-B.pdf&quot;&gt;Appendix B&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/service/GB7713-87.doc&quot;&gt;科学技术报告、学位论文和学术论文的编写格式 GB7713-87&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/service/GB6447-86.doc&quot;&gt;文摘编写规则 GB 6447-86&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T08:07:50.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="581" CreationDate="2011-12-27T09:35:57.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most of context, those two just exchangeable.&#xA;只 and 条 is measure word, sometimes 只 means 'little' and 条 means 'long' and maybe 'big'.&#xA;for some person,esp. girls, 'little' hint 'lovable'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="210" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T09:35:57.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="512" CreationDate="2011-12-27T14:44:38.040" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend and I have started to collect a list of characters easy to misread by language learners: &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/eclectus/source/browse/trunk/libeclectus/data/similarcharacters.csv&quot;&gt;http://code.google.com/p/eclectus/source/browse/trunk/libeclectus/data/similarcharacters.csv&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="111" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T14:44:38.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="506" CreationDate="2011-12-27T14:52:48.603" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have created a list for fully mapping Pinyin to IPA. Sources should be given there: &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/cjklib/source/browse/trunk/cjklib/data/pinyinipamapping.csv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://code.google.com/p/cjklib/source/browse/trunk/cjklib/data/pinyinipamapping.csv&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="111" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T14:52:48.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2011-12-27T14:58:05.957" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have had good results with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://nlp.stanford.edu/software/tagger.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stanford POS tagger&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="111" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2011-12-28T06:35:58.007" LastActivityDate="2011-12-28T06:35:58.007" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2011-12-27T15:01:06.303" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请再循环使用 Please kindly recycle and reuse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="211" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2011-12-28T06:27:10.937" LastActivityDate="2011-12-28T06:27:10.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="505" CreationDate="2011-12-27T17:29:47.613" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a nice short overview on Mandarin tone sandhis: &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.mit.edu/jinzhang/www/pinyin/tones/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://web.mit.edu/jinzhang/www/pinyin/tones/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;If you want to read into the details I have found the following a very good source (from the father of another romanization): &quot;Yuen Ren Chao: A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1968, ISBN 0-520-00219-9.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="111" LastEditorUserId="111" LastEditDate="2011-12-30T14:29:04.323" LastActivityDate="2011-12-30T14:29:04.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="486" CreationDate="2011-12-27T18:06:47.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yuen Ren Chao: A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1968, ISBN 0-520-00219-9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="111" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T18:06:47.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2011-12-27T19:28:11.240" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;JIStone and tbaums both have great answers, studying bopo mofo and &quot;parroting&quot; are both great. I would like to make an addition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Listening to tv and radio are both ok, but will mainly increase your understanding of spoken Chinese, and possibly add some vocabulary. &lt;strong&gt;So don't count on it as a way to improve your pronunciation.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did the following a lot:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Listening to textbook material I would get hooked on some phrases, not really sure what the reason was, could be because they were funny, difficult, exaggerated etc etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anytime that you are not listening to the recording, keep these phrases or sentences rolling in your mind, and imitate the recording out loud as well as you can.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then go back to listening to those passages and see if your imitation was getting close to &quot;perfect&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now, start to restructure those passages on your own by exchanging words, or changing the order. Check with a native speaker or teacher if your &quot;mash-ups&quot; are grammatically correct.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go on with practicing these phrases, with and without your modifications.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this way you get a base of words and sentences you can pronounce very well, and use as fallback context if you want to insert new vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For tones, I would use head swaying and hand waving a lot. 2nd tone goes all the way up nazi-salute style, 4th slashes down like a samurai sword etc. All of a sudden I noticed I could do the movements inside my head instead. Thus looking less like a moron in the street.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:48:22.880" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:48:22.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="604" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="748" CreationDate="2011-12-27T22:57:14.737" Score="13" ViewCount="1605" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't mean traditional characters that weren't simplified, thus being the same in traditional and simplified.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I ask if there is any simplified character which in turn has the same form of another traditional character?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ask this because I was thinking if it was correct to mix simplified and traditional characters in the same text, and I guess it wouldn't be ambiguous at least if traditional and simplified character sets are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disjoint_sets&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;disjoint sets&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:00:15.687" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:00:15.687" Title="Is any simplified character also a traditional character?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="604" CreationDate="2011-12-27T23:28:34.123" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty actually, mostly due to the merger of multiple traditional characters into one simplified character.  For example, the simplified character 后 maps to both traditional &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%90%8E#Han_character&quot;&gt;后 (meaning 'queen') and 後 (meaning 'after' or 'behind')&lt;/a&gt;.  Many of these mergers are listed in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguities_in_Chinese_character_simplification&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2011-12-27T23:28:34.123" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="604" CreationDate="2011-12-28T00:27:38.520" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the previous answers said, some traditional characters were merged into one simplified character. From a mathematical view, you could say the set of traditional characters and the set of simplified characters have an intersection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you should not write Chinese in a mixed version, either simplified or traditional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;后来，王后发现她的头发变白了。 Simplified version Right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;後來，王后發現她的頭髮變白了。traditional version Right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;後来，王后发现她的头髮变白了。mixed version Wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pay attention to the simplified character 后 and 发. Both of them map to two traditional character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-28T00:27:38.520" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="607" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="608" CreationDate="2011-12-28T01:41:25.163" Score="14" ViewCount="8595" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have encountered characters written horizontally right to left on signs (at the top of a gate) and on vehicles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When is this used and why? Was this more common in the past?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are the individuals characters ever mirrored (e.g. &quot;b&quot; versus &quot;d&quot;)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is this change in direction confusing or disorienting to native speakers?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T05:12:44.860" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T05:12:44.860" Title="When and why is right to left writing used?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="607" CreationDate="2011-12-28T02:24:19.947" Score="11" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the past Chinese characters were written from top to bottom and from right to left. Horizontal right to left is not that common even in ancient times. The top scroll in a couplet is one case which might be the one you see at the top of a gate. The one you see on vehicles may not be the case. I think it's just on the right side from head to tail of the vehicle which makes it right to left.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course not, or else it would confuse the reader.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not for most adults, you just need to get used to it. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;?right .either English in readers confuse won't it think I&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2011-12-28T07:13:10.043" LastActivityDate="2011-12-28T07:13:10.043" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="611" CreationDate="2011-12-28T02:40:56.040" Score="8" ViewCount="990" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你叫我马丁好了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what's the role of 好了? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand this sentence as &quot;You can call me 马丁.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T04:28:28.533" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T13:08:54.643" Title="What's the role of 好了 in 你叫我(name)好了?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="609" CreationDate="2011-12-28T02:58:54.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It has no special meaning. It just establishes a tone similar to 就...吧. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你叫我马丁好了” equals “你就叫我马丁吧”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to find a homologous word in English, it's &quot;can just&quot;, in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你叫我马丁好了” means &quot;You &lt;strong&gt;can just&lt;/strong&gt; call me Martin&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我带你进去好了” means &quot;I &lt;strong&gt;can just&lt;/strong&gt; bring you in&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastEditorUserId="17462" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T16:35:30.473" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T16:35:30.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="609" CreationDate="2011-12-28T03:48:47.223" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;By using this word, you are reminding the listener that &quot;you don't have to worry about [something]; just ignore it; don't be so polite; don't speak so formally.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, the speaker wants to express that &quot;It's OK to call me 马丁. Just call me 马丁. You don't have to be polite and call me something like 马先生 (Mr. 马). Take it easy.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="17462" LastEditDate="2018-06-20T10:29:46.780" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T10:29:46.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="609" CreationDate="2011-12-28T04:21:28.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no special meaning, just like a modal particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="213" LastActivityDate="2011-12-28T04:21:28.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="609" CreationDate="2011-12-28T07:10:00.747" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the particle 好了 is used to mean &quot;OK&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你叫我马丁好了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this would be translated as &quot;You can call me Martin, OK.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好了 is also used to suggest something where you are not expecting a response:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在我带你去看他好了。 = &lt;em&gt;I'll take you to see him now.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, the person could still refuse or suggest now is not the right time. But by using the 好了, the speaker is suggesting that the other party is likely to go ahead with the suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contrast this with a sentence where 好吧 is used, which is more offering a suggestion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们现在去看他好吧？ = &lt;em&gt;Let's go and see him now, OK?&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;How about we go and see him now?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that 好了 can be used in another context to indicate completion, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你吃&lt;strong&gt;好了&lt;/strong&gt;没有? = &lt;em&gt;Have you &lt;strong&gt;finished&lt;/strong&gt; eating?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="17462" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T16:35:35.580" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T16:35:35.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="401" CreationDate="2011-12-28T09:40:09.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is the question for me, since I'm from Malaysia :p&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &lt;strong&gt;&quot;wah&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; is not really a 闽南语&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkien&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hokkien 福建話&lt;/a&gt;, it carry the meaning of &lt;strong&gt;me&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan 闽南语, &lt;strong&gt;me&lt;/strong&gt; = 阮 (pronunce similar to wound, without the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="207" LastActivityDate="2011-12-28T09:40:09.420" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="607" CreationDate="2011-12-28T09:58:03.680" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_and_vertical_writing_in_East_Asian_scripts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_and_vertical_writing_in_East_Asian_scripts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vertical writing is still used in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Countries like Singapore, Malaysia and China, on the other hand, are using right-to-left horizontal writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One popular saying of the difference is countries using vertical writing are still practicing traditional Chinese. The complexity of characters strokes make it hard to read if printed in horizontal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="207" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2011-12-29T08:58:13.477" LastActivityDate="2011-12-29T08:58:13.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="604" CreationDate="2011-12-28T12:41:17.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It'd be wrong to mix traditional and simplified characters in the same text as suggested by Huang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplification was applied to the characters used mostly in daily conversation and prints. This means a lot of complicated characters were not simplified at all and are identical to their traditional counterparts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came across this PDF which lists several thousand characters in simplified and traditional forms. You can see a lot of them are the same. I cannot say this is an authoritative resource but I find it quite comprehensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://huanyin.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/7/6/3776971/simple.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://huanyin.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/7/6/3776971/simple.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the characters on the top rows are traditional ones and the ones on the bottom rows are simplified characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="48" LastActivityDate="2011-12-28T12:41:17.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="533" CreationDate="2011-12-28T14:31:41.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China, in different areas or different years, they use many different books. But generally, primary school student's words should be very simple or commonly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you Google '小学生字表', you will get many results with the sort of information that you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="219" LastEditorUserId="62" LastEditDate="2012-01-03T15:45:38.617" LastActivityDate="2012-01-03T15:45:38.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="511" CreationDate="2011-12-28T17:04:20.157" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0824829751&quot;&gt;ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt; to be a great source if you're interested in the evolution of the prounciation and meaning of Chinese words.  It avoids etymology of character structure though; for that, I would suggest &lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/&quot;&gt;chineseetymology.org&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2011-12-28T17:04:20.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="428" CreationDate="2011-12-29T12:36:23.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another version which I have heard (and many would have as well) and is line with many popular variations in dialects, is that it is simply a contraction of his mother's (private parts). Omission of the latter is done either out of laziness or an attempt to make it sound less rude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="218" LastActivityDate="2011-12-29T12:36:23.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="607" CreationDate="2011-12-29T12:45:00.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add on to existing answers, right-to-left writing is still commonly seen in Japanese and Taiwanese comics and novels, which is how I became familiar with it. Given time it is not terribly confusing (at least not more than recognizing traditional characters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly enough, this is not always the case for other media, if you watch Taiwanese shows, the subtitles are in left-to-right, but many years ago it used to be in right-to-left as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="218" LastActivityDate="2011-12-29T12:45:00.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="209" CreationDate="2011-12-29T12:51:05.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;管他妈的, why didn't anyone suggest this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="218" LastActivityDate="2011-12-29T12:51:05.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="624" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="625" CreationDate="2011-12-29T16:39:12.977" Score="7" ViewCount="4467" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that &lt;em&gt;daughter&lt;/em&gt; in Chinese is 女儿, and &lt;em&gt;son&lt;/em&gt; is 儿子. A little side-question: Why isn't &lt;em&gt;&quot;son&quot;&lt;/em&gt; 男儿?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My main question is this one though: apart from son and daughter stated above, what are the corresponding words (specifically or in common, please make sure to explain this) for these terms? And are there rules worth to be mentioned about their use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Man;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Woman;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Male;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Female;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T05:16:25.153" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T05:16:25.153" Title="How are the terms for &quot;male/female&quot; and &quot;man/woman&quot; divided exactly?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="624" CreationDate="2011-12-29T16:54:45.587" Score="5" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Man    男人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Woman  女人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Male   男(性)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Female 女(性)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Son 儿子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Daughter 女儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Male and Female when used alone to refer to people, may be translated to 男性 and 女性. 男 and 女 are not often used alone, except in some forms. 男 and 女 can be used (in form of supplementary description) to form other word as &quot;male teacher&quot; &quot;男教师&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="211" LastEditDate="2011-12-29T23:47:25.583" LastActivityDate="2011-12-29T23:47:25.583" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="626" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="628" CreationDate="2011-12-29T21:39:18.187" Score="10" ViewCount="2169" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does the expression &quot;孤男寡女&quot; (gū nán guǎ nǚ) mean, exactly? Does it have inherently negative connotations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside, why does &lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.com/&quot;&gt;Google&lt;/a&gt; translate it as &quot;Needing&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="88" LastActivityDate="2013-02-05T13:48:55.643" Title="What does the expression &quot;孤男寡女&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="626" CreationDate="2011-12-29T22:52:10.213" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase, in direct translation, means single guy &amp;amp; single lady. More often than not, it is being used to implying that when a single guy &amp;amp; single lady spending time together alone, bad things/gossips might just happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="211" LastActivityDate="2011-12-29T22:52:10.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="626" CreationDate="2011-12-30T01:00:20.083" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Frankie's answer is good, but I want to make a clarification on 孤 and 寡. Both of them mean &amp;quot;only one&amp;quot; here, and I don't think &amp;quot;single&amp;quot; is good in this situation since it could mean &amp;quot;unmarried&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you and a female friend of yours are taking in a  club, in a room with the door closed,(of course, I don't recommend this :-)  ), unfortunately, your wife finds you here, so she would high suspect that you have affairs with your friend.You try to explain, but she retorts,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们孤男寡女，共处(chŭ, to stay in )一室，你还有什么好说的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one man, one woman, and one room, how could you explain?(I won't believe!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-30T02:32:28.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="629" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="630" CreationDate="2011-12-30T01:19:07.133" Score="12" ViewCount="12254" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate the old saying &lt;code&gt;&quot;民以食为天&quot;&lt;/code&gt;？ Would that be &lt;em&gt;&quot;Food is the priority of populace&quot;&lt;/em&gt;? That doesn't sound right to me,  though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="90" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:09:55.640" LastActivityDate="2020-07-24T09:41:17.503" Title="What does 民以食为天 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="629" CreationDate="2011-12-30T01:46:22.790" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, as fefe said, this idiom should be “民以食为(wéi)天&amp;quot; and it comes from 《汉书·郦食其传》“王者以民为天，而民以食为天。” (biography of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Yiji&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;郦食其&lt;/a&gt; in the historical record of 汉 dynasty). That sentence means &amp;quot;People are the most important to an emperor, while foods are the most important to the people&amp;quot;. Note that the correct pronunciation of the name is: &lt;strong&gt;lì yī jī&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? Remember in ancient times, foods were not as sufficient as they are now (remember, even now some people in poverty are hungry all days), and foods are indispensable to the life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: More details&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After reading that biography, I could explain more about the source. The context when 郦 spoke this was during the war time of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu%E2%80%93Han_contention&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚汉争霸&lt;/a&gt;, when he persuaded &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Gaozu_of_Han&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;刘邦&lt;/a&gt; to occupy a city in which a lot of foods were stored. He spoke that to emphasize the importance of the foods (especially in the war time, if you don't have enough food supply, the soldiers won't fight for you, or even they would fight against you!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, we usually use this proverb as an introduction sentence, when talking on the topic of foods. You would probably hear a sentence like this one from the host on the TV:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗话说，“民以食为天”。今天，就让我给观众朋友们介绍几家以其特色菜闻名的餐馆吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is popularly said that &amp;quot;foods are the most important to people&amp;quot;. Now, please let me introduce you some restaurants famous for their featured dishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T02:43:03.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="624" CreationDate="2011-12-30T02:02:09.287" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard for average Chinese to answer the etymology of the words, I think. Why isn't &amp;quot;son&amp;quot; 男儿? For me, I would say because &amp;quot;男儿&amp;quot; has another meaning in both classic and modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男儿 young man,  vital man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男儿何不带吴钩，收取关山五十州. By the poet &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_He&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;李贺&lt;/a&gt; in 唐 Dynasty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nán ér hé bù dài wú gōu ,shōu qŭ guān shān wŭ shí zhōu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a man, why not I take the sharp swords to retrieve the lost lands?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classic Chinese,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子 infant, child&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儿 teenager, son&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女 daughter, female(gender)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern chinese(actually, in vernacular Chinese from 宋 dynasty), 子 and 儿 are common suffix words. I believe this is how 女儿 and 儿子 evovle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2011-12-30T03:06:58.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="626" CreationDate="2011-12-30T03:09:16.463" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It describes a man and a woman being together (usually in some manner of seclusion). Depending on the marital status of the man and the woman, it can be seen either as a good/normal (a couple dating) or bad thing (a brewing affair). There is no inherent negative connotation unless it is used in certain context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google is just confused. It has problems with 寡女 (somehow it was &quot;trained&quot; into translating that into pinyin equivalents &lt;code&gt;guanv1&lt;/code&gt;) but not with 孤男,寡,女.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="218" LastActivityDate="2011-12-30T03:09:16.463" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="629" CreationDate="2011-12-30T03:23:42.587" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sustenance is of utmost importance to the people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idiom where it was taken from, actually means that the wellbeing of his people should be of utmost concern to a ruler, and this concern is best addressed by keeping his people well fed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="218" LastActivityDate="2011-12-30T03:23:42.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="629" CreationDate="2011-12-30T11:00:54.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to add to the answers above because I don't think they cover the full extent to the use of this saying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This saying points out the respect that Chinese people have in their culture for food and its importance to the Chinese people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in recent history, only two generations ago, many people died from hunger and this has had an effect on modern culture. Phrases such as &quot;吃了吗&quot; as a greeting also point to this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is apparent in many aspects of the culture; inviting others out to eat 请客, bringing out snacks and food as soon as a guest arrives, the complexity of preperation in Chinese cuisine and giving of health food gifts to others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is more than just saying food is the most important, it makes a vital point about the culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2011-12-30T11:00:54.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="520" CreationDate="2011-12-30T16:59:18.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a website called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE7Zdic90Zdic86.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt;. It is a dedicated Chinese character dictionary, and now has animated stroke order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is (almost) all Chinese though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2011-12-30T16:59:18.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2011-12-30T16:59:52.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Too many options, other possible candidates are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;F**k off!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Scram!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给我 used in such context is really just for emphasis and not required to be explicitly translated, just note the essence of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="218" LastEditorUserId="218" LastEditDate="2011-12-30T17:12:17.780" LastActivityDate="2011-12-30T17:12:17.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="561" CreationDate="2011-12-30T17:23:40.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this particular context, don't worry about having to translate 'great day' explicitly. I feel your best options according to what is usual in Chinese writing would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(祝|愿)你有个愉快的一天 (the closest to &lt;code&gt;have a nice day&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;祝你节日愉快 (if there's a special occasion/holiday like xmas)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;祝你(诸|事)事顺利 (everything is smooth-sailing, good tidings)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="218" LastActivityDate="2011-12-30T17:23:40.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="395" CreationDate="2011-12-30T17:29:13.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a subjective question, to some people polite words &lt;code&gt;谢谢&lt;/code&gt; or thanks do not mean much of a thing. (It is just 'niceties' making you appear to be 0.1% that much more polite to them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my verdict: It depends (does not matter whether it is English or Chinese, or whether young or old)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="218" LastActivityDate="2011-12-30T17:29:13.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="639" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="640" CreationDate="2011-12-31T12:38:07.283" Score="12" ViewCount="1792" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which one of these expressions is the best one? Or are they both good, but for different situations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你住在哪里？ &lt;strong&gt;VS&lt;/strong&gt; 你住在哪儿？ = &lt;em&gt;Where do you live?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Nĭ zhù zài nă lĭ? &lt;strong&gt;———&lt;/strong&gt; Nĭ zhù zài năr?&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你在哪里工作？ &lt;strong&gt;VS&lt;/strong&gt; 你在哪儿工作？ = &lt;em&gt;Where do you work?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Nĭ zài nă lĭ gōng zuò? &lt;strong&gt;—&lt;/strong&gt; Nĭ zài năr gōng zuò ?&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that when writing, the second version was actually suggested as a whole (for the second example only), while the first wasn't, maybe the second one is the more correct, but I'd like some more elaboration by a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T05:13:46.200" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T05:13:46.200" Title="Expressing the location: 哪里 or 哪儿?" Tags="&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="639" CreationDate="2011-12-31T14:54:13.087" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;When expressing locations, I don't think there is a difference between 哪儿 and 哪里. Both of them mean(to express locations),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;where, (in, at)what place&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(in, at)every place, everywhere&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your examples show the first meaning. I would like to write a sentence to show the second meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他在&lt;strong&gt;哪儿&lt;/strong&gt;都很出色。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他在&lt;strong&gt;哪里&lt;/strong&gt;都很出色。  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;He is outstanding everywhere.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 哪里 can mean something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Used in a sentence pattern called “反义疑问句&quot;(sorry, I don't know the grammar jargon in English, but I could show you an example about it. Can someone tell me this jargon?) to emphasize your mood of doubt, that you don't believe it. Here, you could also use &quot;哪&quot;. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他已经睡着了，&lt;strong&gt;哪里&lt;/strong&gt;会知道我们说了什么？   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他已经睡着了，&lt;strong&gt;哪&lt;/strong&gt;会知道我们说了什么？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Meaning: &lt;em&gt;He has been in sleep already. How could he know what we said. (I don't think he would know)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As an answer to the praises from others, to show your humbleness. For example, I find that you speak Chinese well, so I say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Alenanno, 你中文说得挺好的。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;and you answer&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哪里，哪里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally it means &quot;where, where&quot;, actually means &quot;No, I am not so good as you say. I still need improvements&quot;. We Chinese usually would answer in this way to show the humbleness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2011-12-31T16:02:23.523" LastActivityDate="2011-12-31T16:02:23.523" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="641" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="642" CreationDate="2012-01-01T05:17:41.557" Score="8" ViewCount="461" Body="&lt;p&gt;Example: in Chinese, you can't* speak of &lt;em&gt;siblings&lt;/em&gt; in a general term, and in turn you have to enumerate all 4 combinations of sex and age: 兄弟姐妹 ( older brother, younger brother, older sister, younger sister )   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you name other examples like this, and do anyone have any clues or explanations about why is this?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it might be in part due to Chinese being a very old language and carrying some aspects of more primitive ways of speech from long ago, but it's just speculation.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;* &lt;em&gt;as far as I know&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T06:37:51.093" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T06:37:51.093" Title="Why does Chinese lack some level of abstraction in some idioms? (e.g. 兄弟姐妹)" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="641" CreationDate="2012-01-01T06:16:33.957" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is a bit hard to answer because you can't say a word doesn't exist just because it's a combination of several related characters. This is how most words are made in Chinese. It would be like saying that you can't speak of psychology in a general term in English because you have to describe what it is every time (psychology = psyche + logia (study)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, 兄弟姐妹 is not really an enumeration, it's a word, just like 同学 is not a description but also a word. How these words are composed is mostly incidental (although it's often relatively logical and consistent).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To go back to your question, other examples of &quot;enumeration-based&quot; words I can think of are 夫妇 (couple), 父母 (parents)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="76" LastActivityDate="2012-01-01T06:16:33.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="641" CreationDate="2012-01-01T10:53:02.807" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's a good idea to analogize Chinese from English, as 景洛弘 said. Actually, there is a word which can mean &amp;quot;sibling&amp;quot;. It's 同胞(tóng bāo).同胞 could mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;people born of the same parents.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;people from the same race or nation(here, the mothercountry is used as an analogy of &amp;quot;parents&amp;quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in general, we don't use this word with the 1st meaning, instead, 兄弟姐妹 is more common to see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why should we use one or two special characters to express &amp;quot;Sibling&amp;quot; in Chinese, as in English? It has its own advantages. In Chinese, you could say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们是姐妹 &lt;em&gt;We are sisters.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们是兄弟 &lt;em&gt;We are brothers.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you could say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们是姐弟.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, if you are male, the listener will know that you are the younger borther and the other is your elder sister.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We also have words like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骨肉 Literally means: bone and flesh. Actually means: parents and children&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as in words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骨肉团圆 &lt;em&gt;The parents reunite with their children.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, could you express these meanings with one word respectively? I mean,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们是姐弟 &lt;em&gt;We are [?]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骨肉团圆 &lt;em&gt;[?] gets reunited.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-01-01T15:29:01.567" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="644" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-01T15:18:07.743" Score="3" ViewCount="302" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a concise way to express &quot;stir crazy&quot; in Mandarin, or is a long explanation needed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="240" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T05:17:16.293" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T05:17:16.293" Title="Mandarin equivalent of &quot;stir crazy&quot;" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="644" CreationDate="2012-01-01T15:25:37.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about this phrase very much, does it mean &quot;drive somebody crazy&quot;? If so, I think this one is ok:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;逼疯了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;bī fēng le&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="234" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-01T17:09:31.397" LastActivityDate="2012-01-01T17:09:31.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="644" CreationDate="2012-01-01T16:57:05.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you are talking about claustrophobia? &quot;幽闭恐惧症&quot; or &quot;闭室恐幽症&quot;, but can not think of any slang to describe it? Maybe &quot;恐幽症&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a wikipedia page for it titled &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E5%B9%BD%E9%97%AD%E6%81%90%E6%83%A7%E7%97%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;幽闭恐惧症&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="241" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-01T17:11:01.990" LastActivityDate="2012-01-01T17:11:01.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="647" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="655" CreationDate="2012-01-02T08:52:23.683" Score="14" ViewCount="13432" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often when learning new words, I want to see them in context. It helps my learning process, and understanding how to properly use new vocab makes it stick in my mind that much more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any good suggestions for a site where I can enter a word, and it will give good example sentences based upon that word? &lt;a href=&quot;http://nciku.com&quot;&gt;Nciku&lt;/a&gt; seems to do it for some words, but it's not super complete, so I'd love some more suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T23:57:33.473" Title="Which website/service can give good example sentences in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-08-26T23:57:41.660" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-02T13:33:49.500" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="647" CreationDate="2012-01-02T09:35:31.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think both of these sites are pretty good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zj.chinesehelper.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese helper&lt;/a&gt; (for kids)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eqie.com/sc/sc121.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Eqie&lt;/a&gt; (more advanced, technical and medical terms etc)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2012-01-02T09:35:31.257" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-02T13:33:49.500" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2" CreationDate="2012-01-02T09:51:58.827" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Flake has a really good answer, but I thought I'd add a favorite example of mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;工作&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;做工&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Having a job that you do is &lt;strong&gt;工作&lt;/strong&gt; not very specific, rather abstract. You go somewhere to think thoughts and do things that makes the counter in your bank account go up once every month. A part of your identity; an occupation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carving a spoon out of a piece of wood, or creating a vase out of clay is &lt;strong&gt;做工&lt;/strong&gt;. A highly tangible result of what you do with your hands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Getting up in the morning and going to your 工作 could very well mean doing some 做工, but whereas one is high level and abstract, the other one is quite specific (and often relates to working with your hands).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two differences apply to the usage of 作 and 做 in other contexts as well.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, just as Flake says, 作ing a piece of music isn't so much the actual writing notes on a paper; it is more about hearing the different instruments harmonize, the beat, the melody etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做ing a vase out of clay means actually shaping a lump of dirt into somehing that holds flowers in a pretty way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2012-01-02T09:51:58.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="650" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1553" CreationDate="2012-01-02T09:58:33.043" Score="6" ViewCount="3918" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've mostly read classical poems from guys such as 李白 and 杜甫, very nice in their own way, but it made me wonder if there is some form of poetry with rhymes in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would probably be more difficult to write such poems, due to the lack of available syllables, but possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of rhyming Chinese poetry?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="156" LastEditDate="2012-01-02T12:37:52.893" LastActivityDate="2014-11-01T22:19:24.067" Title="Are there poems in Chinese that rhyme?" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="624" CreationDate="2012-01-02T10:47:42.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the subject of 子 and 儿, they both have the meaning of &quot;son&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sons were the shit! Old China was a male oriented society, just like most other societies older than 80 years. Sons were the privileged kind of children, and really the only children that mattered. So if you have limited resources, these will be spent on the sons, as an investment for the future. Sons could study, make money, carry on the name of the family etc. A blessing to newly weds is 早生贵子(or 族), which is hoping for the birth of a son.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a 女儿 originally means a &quot;female son&quot;. A few generations back, some families didnt even bother with naming their daughters properly (as can be read in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Swans&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wild Swans&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-02T12:02:30.253" LastActivityDate="2012-01-02T12:02:30.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="650" CreationDate="2012-01-02T12:25:44.643" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;: The previous answer was replaced with this one, see the edit summary for the full explanation of why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A great poet along with &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Li Bo&lt;/a&gt; (also known as Li Po or Li Bai), was &lt;a href=&quot;http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;杜甫&lt;/a&gt; (Dù Fǔ, also known as Tu⁴ Fu³ in Wade-Giles).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find works written by him in this page, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-poems.com/du.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese-poems.com&lt;/a&gt;&quot;（you can find more authors in this site).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One is this one, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对雪 (duì xuě) - &lt;em&gt;Facing Snow&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;战哭多新鬼 zhàn kū duō xīn guǐ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;愁吟独老翁 chóu yín dú lǎo wēng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;乱云低薄暮 luàn yún dī bó mù&lt;br&gt;&#xA;急雪舞回风 jí xuě wǔ huí fēng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;瓢弃尊无绿 piáo qì zūn wú lǜ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;炉存火似红 lú cún huǒ sì hóng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;数州消息断 shù zhōu xiāo xī duàn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;愁坐正书空 chóu zuò zhèng shū kōng  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The scheme for this one is A B C B D E F E&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually hóng and fēng were/are considered perfect rhymes in Chinese, so the pattern is ABCBDBEB. Especially that it is a lüshi poem, so all eight rhymes must match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Not literal translation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;After the battle, many new ghosts cry,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The solitary old man worries and grieves.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ragged clouds are low amid the dusk,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Snow dances quickly in the whirling wind.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The ladle's cast aside, the cup not green,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The stove still looks as if a fiery red.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To many places, communications are broken,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I sit, but cannot read my books for grief.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-11-01T22:19:24.067" LastActivityDate="2014-11-01T22:19:24.067" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="395" CreationDate="2012-01-02T18:53:47.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We(I think) would like to say thanks to people who help us, however, we don't usually like to say thanks to people who serve us with a cup of tea. It is weird, yes compared to westerns. There maybe one reason for this (maybe significant): In China 'thanks' is a heavy word, we reluctant to say this all the time while a simple replay would mean a lightweight version of 'thanks', for example, say 'good' to the guy who bring a cup of tea to you. (pure personal opinion!)    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="249" LastActivityDate="2012-01-02T18:53:47.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="654" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="664" CreationDate="2012-01-02T21:08:17.380" Score="12" ViewCount="2132" Body="&lt;p&gt;有 and 机 are some of the first characters we learn in Chinese, but only recently did I find out that they mean &lt;em&gt;&quot;organic&quot;&lt;/em&gt; when put together. Can anyone explain why this is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T05:19:52.147" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T21:43:29.747" Title="Why does 有机 as in 有机食品 mean organic?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="647" CreationDate="2012-01-02T21:13:07.630" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't usually answer my own questions, but I was just having a chat with a friend of mine who reminded me about &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt; which works pretty well for what I was looking for, and has a pretty good selection of words available. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Jukuu:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gNgKT.png&quot; alt=&quot;Jukuu sentence generation&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-02T21:13:07.630" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-02T13:33:49.500" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="656" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="661" CreationDate="2012-01-02T21:13:28.270" Score="6" ViewCount="1762" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard the Chinese are fine to use the English word DVD, rather than the chinese word.  What is more common, and what measure word do they use with it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="251" LastActivityDate="2013-09-28T18:54:43.320" Title="What is the most common word in use to describe 'DVD' and what is its measure word" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="656" CreationDate="2012-01-02T21:31:23.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know that I've ever heard a Chinese person say anything but DVD to describe a DVD, although I remember learning &lt;strong&gt;光盘/数字光盘&lt;/strong&gt; (guāng pán/shù zì guāng pán) as CD/DVD when I was doing my Chinese course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The measure word for DVD is either 盘 or 张 - either one is fine so far as I know, although a native speaker might correct me on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-02T21:31:23.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="658" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-02T21:53:27.937" Score="5" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been studying Chinese for a few months now. I am using some software to test my knowledge of the characters. Sometimes I do not recognize every character of a word but I can still derive the meaning based on the character I do know. My Chinese wife thinks this is not such a good idea and I should be more demanding to myself.&#xA;Also, sometimes the differences between the characters is rather subtle and I make a mistake: when typing on the computer the first character the computer suggests is often the right one and I feel I depend too much on that.&#xA;I do notice when I study by writing down each character I pay much more attention and those characters are much 'deeper' in my brain, maybe this is the only good way to do it ? On the other hand, it feels like quite time consuming...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are your experiences ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="252" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-02T23:41:04.403" LastActivityDate="2012-01-02T23:41:04.403" Title="Do you write every character?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2012-01-06T21:40:04.647" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="658" CreationDate="2012-01-02T22:15:05.713" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my personal experience:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will remember and learn much more by writing things down than by using a computer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese writing is notoriously hard and that's why schooling in China is much more full on and you will struggle if you don't push yourself as hard as a Chinese school student&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learning to write helps with learning to read. However, unless you are practicing regularly, you will forget how to write after a while. A quote from one of my Chinese friends yesterday: &quot;Most of us have forgotten how to write. If someone asked me to write a letter today, I'd be lost.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I've seen many a demanding Chinese wife. Make yourself a level playing field and start asking for hand written 1k word essays once a week.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-01-02T22:15:05.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="395" CreationDate="2012-01-02T23:21:35.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only thing I can add to this is that with close friends you should be wary of using 谢谢 too much! My Chinese friend once told me that, because of our friendship, it should be obvious that we are thankful for the kind things that we each do for one another and that it can actually create the feeling of distance in a relationship rather than closeness. I have since found this to be good advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of daily life each situation is unique and its learning to judge the situation, rather than learning a set of rules regarding politeness that would be the best way forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="253" LastActivityDate="2012-01-02T23:21:35.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="656" CreationDate="2012-01-02T23:33:42.913" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had always used guanng pan (光盘) with ge (个), however I am told that it would be better to use pan (盘) or zhang (张). DVD is commonly used as is die pian (碟片) with the measure word bu (部) or zhang (张).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to my Chinese friend DVD is most commonly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will also hear wu（五 or jiu（九）after DVD if you're in a shop to signify the type of DVD (DVD 5 or DVD 9).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="253" LastActivityDate="2012-01-02T23:33:42.913" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="654" CreationDate="2012-01-03T00:48:52.820" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I never gave thought about how &quot;有机&quot; came to mean &quot;organic&quot; before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I search in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6Zdic9CZdicBA.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dictionary&lt;/a&gt; give the following meaning for &quot;机&quot;: 有生命的生物体器官的作用 (The functionality of organs in lifeforms). 《现代汉语词典》 the following meaning: 生活机能 (ability to live). &quot;有机&quot; is formed from this meaning of &quot;机&quot;. But the usage of this meaning of &quot;机&quot; is very limited, probably only in &quot;有机&quot; &quot;无机&quot; &quot;机能&quot;, so it should be save to remember these words as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: I don't know how &quot;机&quot; got this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-03T00:48:52.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="647" CreationDate="2012-01-03T01:22:23.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://tatoeba.org/&lt;/a&gt;. Even though it's more focused in languages in general you can still find some Chinese sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2012-01-03T01:22:23.897" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-02T13:33:49.500" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="654" CreationDate="2012-01-03T01:38:17.227" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you may know, &amp;quot;Organic&amp;quot; in your case is originally a chemical term and its noun-&amp;quot;Organ&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a collection of tissues joined in structural unit to serve a common function&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; from Wikipedia. Once the chemists incorrectly believed that &amp;quot;organic compound&amp;quot; could only be produced by lifes. I think this is how &amp;quot;organic&amp;quot; comes from &amp;quot;organ&amp;quot;. I don't find the exact origin of the word &amp;quot;有机&amp;quot; in Chinese, but I believe it originates as &amp;quot;organic&amp;quot; originates in English, from chemistry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;机 originally means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;主发谓之机。—《说文》&lt;em&gt;The thing that controls shoot is called 机&lt;/em&gt;. 《说文》is an old dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;trigger on a bow. A structure used to shoot the arrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other meanings extend from the original one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;critical part(point) in a system&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;organ&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;em&gt;organ&lt;/em&gt; is a critical part in the body&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;mechanical structure&lt;/em&gt;. The critical part that controls the movement of a machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In recent times, after Chinese came in touch with sciences from the west, some pioneering scientists translated the terms in sciences. In general, they translated them in a liberal way. I think this is why “有机&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;organic&amp;quot;, as you have &amp;quot;organic&amp;quot; from &amp;quot;organ&amp;quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T10:11:19.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="656" CreationDate="2012-01-03T02:30:02.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a supplement here. Many technical acronyms are borrowed directly from English, and we don't usually translate them into Chinese characters.Take DVD for example, its definition in Chinese is &amp;quot;数字多功能光盘“ as in English &amp;quot;Digital Versatile Disc&amp;quot;, however, we don't say &amp;quot;数字多功能光盘&amp;quot;, except that you want to explain what it is to other people.In general, we just say &amp;quot;DVD&amp;quot; and read it just in a letter-by-lettter way(Dee-Vee-Dee in this case). I would say &amp;quot;张&amp;quot; as the measure word for a piece of DVD. Some other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;LED (read: el-ee-dee)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;LCD (read: el-see-dee)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mp3(read: em-pee-sān) We use this word to mean a file with .mp3 extension or a mp3 player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jpeg(read: jay-pee-ee-jee. I have heard an American read it as &amp;quot;jay-peg&amp;quot;, but I have never heard my chinese friends read that way)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-01-03T03:36:46.277" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="533" CreationDate="2012-01-03T03:02:21.247" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Primary school students use 2 text books per year. Each book is broken down into individual lessons and there is usually about 4 - 8 characters to be learnt for each lesson. At the back of each book it lists all the characters in order from each lesson which are the required characters to be learnt for that half year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The set of high school (secondary) books I have are slightly out dated so I don't know if this is still how it is done, but the high school books I have are similar to primary school except the texts go across several pages and I can't remember if they list the characters at the end of the books or if it is just at the end of each lesson.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The primary school set of books provides a vocabulary of about 6k characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The high school list is much smaller and covers more obscure words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As well as these standard books that are used in high school, high school students are expected to learn classical literature and poetry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just found this site &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sanwen8.com/youshengduwu/kwls/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.sanwen8.com/youshengduwu/kwls/&lt;/a&gt; where someone has typed in all of the lessons from 小学, 初中 and 高中 language books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although these do not contain the lists of characters required to be learnt from each lesson, I can confirm that these are the lessons that are being used in Chinese schools by native learners (at the time they were typed in) and is in order of complexity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;Disclaimer: Although the site above was fine at the time I went there. I am not responsible for the above site in any way and any crazy pop-ups that may appear or what it may do to your computer. Go to any external site at your own risk.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-01-03T03:22:13.107" LastActivityDate="2012-01-03T03:22:13.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="668" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="669" CreationDate="2012-01-03T07:04:37.133" Score="12" ViewCount="23928" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen an old and very rarely used character that consisted of four traditional dragons (龍). As I remember it meant &quot;talkative.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That makes a total of 64 strokes, are there any other characters with more strokes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T05:20:49.760" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T00:43:36.620" Title="What is the character with the greatest number of strokes?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="668" CreationDate="2012-01-03T07:28:43.193" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1) 'biang'&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, the first one that came to my mind is '&lt;strong&gt;biang&lt;/strong&gt;', as in 'biang biang mian' - which a quick &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi%C3%A1ngbi%C3%A1ng_noodles&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia search shows has 58 strokes&lt;/a&gt;. This is still in some use (and I've seen it in restaurants), if that means anything to you. It is not, however, found in dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TNyAs.png&quot; alt=&quot;biang&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2) 'zhe'&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sadly however, biang doesn't have the most strokes (although I would argue it's the most complex) - &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character#Rare_and_complex_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia has a page on complex characters as well&lt;/a&gt;, and according to them '&lt;strong&gt;zhe&lt;/strong&gt;' meaning verbosity was the most complex/has the most stroke orders - possibly the character you are referring to, as it is just 'long' times four:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mwqxm.png&quot; alt=&quot;zhe&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3) 'zheng'&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also mentions '&lt;strong&gt;zheng&lt;/strong&gt;', another 64 stroke character meaning flourish, as being equally as complex:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OYu28.png&quot; alt=&quot;zheng&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The page on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character#Rare_and_complex_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia goes in to a lot more detail&lt;/a&gt;, so I suggest you check it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2015-01-06T00:43:36.620" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T00:43:36.620" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="670" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="674" CreationDate="2012-01-03T09:52:00.573" Score="7" ViewCount="851" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the question &lt;em&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/650/are-there-poems-in-chinese-that-rhyme&quot;&gt;Are there poems in Chinese that rhyme?&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, a debate started about what is considered a poem in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The texts I presented — 《三字經》 &lt;em&gt;(Three Character Classic)&lt;/em&gt;, 《百家姓》 &lt;em&gt;(The Hundred Surnames)&lt;/em&gt;, 《千字文》 &lt;em&gt;(Thousand-Character Essay)&lt;/em&gt; — that I thought to be poems, apparently aren't considered as such by Chinese people. I replaced them with other material until I understand more about this distinction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what are the parameters to consider something a poem in Chinese? What are the differences between these and westerner works?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what are 诗, 词, 歌 and 赋 and their characteristics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2021-03-05T23:04:55.750" Title="What are the different kinds of poems in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="492" CreationDate="2012-01-03T10:02:03.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lingoes.net/en/dictionary/dict_cata.php?cata=2.a&amp;amp;lang=&amp;amp;order=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;There are several downloadable dictionaries for lingoes&lt;/a&gt;. However, the dictionaries seem to be in a proprietary format and can only be accessed with lingoes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-01-03T14:36:02.847" LastActivityDate="2012-01-03T14:36:02.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="199" CreationDate="2012-01-03T11:10:22.247" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, 计算机 is a pocket calculator, and 电脑 is any kind of computer (with a screen, keyboard, graphics card etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2012-01-03T11:10:22.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="670" CreationDate="2012-01-03T15:28:34.400" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the beginning, I recommend you read the articles on Wikipedia to get some background info, because my English level limits me to elaborate on these info.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;诗 &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_%28poetry%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shi&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;词 &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ci_%28poetry%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ci&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;曲 &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qu_%28poetry%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qu&lt;/a&gt; (here it refers to 歌 in the question);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;赋 &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_%28poetry%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fu&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am quite not familiar with the poetry in English or some other languages. Here I would only like to explain how I think a Chinese poem is defined, and I can't tell the differences between chinese poems and poems in other languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the language changed, the style or pattern of Chinese poetry also changed. Nowadays, most famous and popular classic Chinese poems are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_%28poetry%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;唐诗&lt;/a&gt;, the poems written in the 唐 Dynasty. Here, I would like just to explain the style of 唐诗, because they are the most popular and the style definition is strict. Remember, &lt;strong&gt;there are&lt;/strong&gt; other styles of poems, but I won't talk about them here (too complicated, sorry).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, 唐诗 is subject to rules called 格律 (gé lǜ). 格律 includes four aspects: 用韵, 对仗, 平仄 and 字数.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;字数: &lt;em&gt;number of characters&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五言绝句: 4 sentences with 5 characters for each sentence.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;七言绝句: 4 sentences with 7 characters for each sentence.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;五言律诗: 8 sentences with 5 characters for each sentence.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;七言律诗: 8 sentences with 7 characters for each sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用韵: &lt;em&gt;to rhyme&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last character of the sentences, if its tone is 平 (see below), it should rhyme. I will show it in examples below. &lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; Because pronunciation in those times was different from that in modern mandarin, you would find some sentence don't rhyme in mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;对仗: &lt;em&gt;to match, to relate to, to pair&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to explain, I will show it in the examples. This characteristic is optional for 绝句, but required for 律诗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;平仄 (píng  zè)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平仄 refers to the tone of the characters. In ancient times (before the 元 dynasty), Chinese had 4 basic tones: 平, 上(shăng, &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; shàng), 去, 入. However, 入 has disappeared in mandarin, while in some dialects, especially in southern dialects, it remains. 上, 去 and 入 are classified into 仄. For 唐诗, the tone of every character is asked to satisfy a defined pattern based on 平仄.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, now it's time for the examples. &lt;strong&gt;Thereinafter, &amp;quot;-&amp;quot; means the tone should be  平，“|” means tone should be 仄, and &amp;quot;+&amp;quot; means the tone could be either 平 or 仄.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A 七言绝句 from 杜甫&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+-+|--|，+|--||-。+|+--||，+-+||--。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;两个黄鹂鸣翠柳，一行白鹭上青天(tiān)。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;窗含西岭千秋雪，门泊东吴万里船(chuán)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, 天 and 船 have 平 tone, and they rhyme (containing the same consonant &amp;quot;an&amp;quot;). Furthermore, 对仗 happens between the 1st and the 2nd sentence, and also between the 3rd and the 4th sentence. Read the 1st and the 2nd sentences (I wish you could), you would find what 对仗 means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两 means &amp;quot;two&amp;quot; while 一 means &amp;quot;one&amp;quot; (both of them are numbers). 黄 means &amp;quot;yellow&amp;quot; while 白 means &amp;quot;white&amp;quot; (both of them are colors). 翠 means green while 青 means blue(again, colors). 个 and 行(háng) are all measure words. 黄鹂 and 白鹭 are names of two kinds of birds. 鸣 means &amp;quot;[a bird] to cry&amp;quot; and 上 means &amp;quot;to soar, to fly high&amp;quot;. Both of them are verbs. 柳 means willow, and 天 means sky. Both of them are nouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rhetoric is called 对仗: words at the same position have similar or reverse or related meanings(depending on the context), and have the same part of speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;词 somehow works like 诗. The difference is that 词 has many different styles, called 词牌. One example would help me explain it: It's a work by the famous female writer &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Qingzhao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;李清照&lt;/a&gt;, with its 词牌 of 《如梦令》. Below, &amp;quot;韵&amp;quot; means this character should rhyme. &amp;quot;叠&amp;quot; means this sentence should repeat exactly its previous one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+|+--|(韵),+|+--|(韵)。+||--，+||--|(韵)。-|(韵),-|(叠),+||--|(韵)。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;昨夜雨疏风骤(zhòu)，浓睡不消残酒(jiŭ)。试问卷帘人，却道海棠依旧(jiù)。知否(fǒu)，知否？应(yīng)是绿肥红瘦(shòu)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another 《如梦令》also by her&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常记溪亭日暮(mù)，沉醉不知归路(lù)。兴(xìng)尽晚回舟，误入藕花深处(chù)。争渡(dù)，争渡。惊起一滩鸥鹭(lù)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A work by the famous writer and general &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xin_Qiji&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;辛弃疾&lt;/a&gt;, with 词牌 of 《南乡子》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+||--(韵)，+|--||-(韵)。+|+--||，--(韵)，+|--+|-(韵)。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;+||--(韵)，+|--||-(韵)。+|+--||，--(韵)，+|--+|-(韵)。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;何处望神州(zhōu)，满眼风光北固楼(lóu)。千古兴(xīng)亡多少事，悠悠(yōu)，不尽(jìn)长江滚滚流(liú)。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;少年万兜(dōu)鍪(móu)，坐断东南战未休(xiū)。天下英雄谁敌手？曹刘(liú)，生子当如孙仲谋(móu)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曲 is very similar with 词, having a lot of different styles, called 曲牌. It was originally composed for operas and was popular in 元 dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赋 is more like a prose, so it would be much longer, compared to 词 and 曲. It was popular in Han dynasty and before that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I shown, when composing a classic 诗 or 词, the writer should pay attention to these rules, especially the tones of 平仄; however, it's hard for a man who could only speak in mandarin or some dialects to tell 平仄 of a character. Besides, limited by the character numbers, the writer has to express the meanings in a classic way, with few characters. This is hard too. Nowadays, it's very very rare to see a classic 诗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the descriptions above, you may understand why 《三字经》is not treated as 诗 by Chinese people, though the sentences rhyme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2021-03-05T23:04:55.750" LastActivityDate="2021-03-05T23:04:55.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="675" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="681" CreationDate="2012-01-03T22:07:20.453" Score="8" ViewCount="8801" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English if you mistake someone for another person it is common to say &quot;I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should this be said in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T16:56:29.393" Title="What is the correct way to say: &quot;I thought you were somebody else.&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="675" CreationDate="2012-01-03T22:29:07.813" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the most common way is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我以为你是另外一个人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;wo yiwei ni shi linwai yi ge ren&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我以为你是别人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;wo yiwei ni shi bie ren&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often you may say the name of the person that you think they are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我以为你是 'someone's name'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may like to add: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不好意思&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;bu hao yisi&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the beginning of the sentence depending on the circumstance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="253" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-05T14:58:24.743" LastActivityDate="2012-01-05T14:58:24.743" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="677" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-03T22:58:34.667" Score="11" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my study software, I recently had the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想我们会上一样的学校.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context (a girl speaking to another girl who had just moved into the neighborhood) made it seem like the correct translation was something like &quot;I think we will be going to the same school.&quot;  But I had thought 一样 generally referred to things that were separate objects (though very similar), not the same exact one; and that 同一 meant &quot;the same exact one&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;these two women came to the party wearing the same dress,&quot; would use 一样, because it's two different dresses that look the same; but &quot;These children want the same toy&quot; would be 同一， because it's the same exact toy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my understanding correct?  Could I say &quot;我想我们会上同一个学校&quot; instead?  Why or why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T06:34:09.637" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T06:34:09.637" Title="Using 一样 instead of 同一 for &quot;the same school&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="678" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="679" CreationDate="2012-01-03T23:12:33.717" Score="17" ViewCount="2728" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always (no pun intended) wondered what the difference is between the two words. I thought they both meant always, but I've never quite grasped in what context they should be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone shed any light on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="251" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T13:43:50.777" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T13:43:50.777" Title="What is the difference between 总是 and 一直?" Tags="&lt;preposition&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="678" CreationDate="2012-01-03T23:35:08.540" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are synonyms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总是 places an emphasis on frequency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他上课总是迟到 = He kept being late for class all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一直 places an emphasis on consistency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他一直是个好孩子 = He has been a good kid through the years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2012-01-03T23:35:08.540" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="677" CreationDate="2012-01-03T23:50:03.787" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You never use 一样 to refer to the same school. You can only use it to refer to two similar schools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同一 always means the same one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I think we will end up going to the same school = 我想我们会上同一所学校&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2012-01-03T23:50:03.787" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="675" CreationDate="2012-01-04T00:06:21.717" Score="16" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;噢，不好意思，我认错人了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what I usually say in a real conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T00:06:21.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="682" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-04T00:36:09.843" Score="5" ViewCount="697" Body="&lt;p&gt;As &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/36/central-place-to-dump-resources&quot;&gt;discussed on Meta&lt;/a&gt;, I think it would be great to have a collection of sites and resources for learning Chinese, so that we can all benefit from the sites, services and resources that other members find. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please feel free to add any site or resource you think would be of value to all members of the site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also, to any of the mods, please turn this question into a community wiki. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:49:43.223" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T17:29:14.417" Title="Useful sites/services/resources/tools for learning Chinese" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="9" ClosedDate="2020-07-15T23:15:23.620" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-14T14:37:24.337" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="682" CreationDate="2012-01-04T00:38:48.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://nciku.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nciku.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My favorite online dictionary service, that also has iPhone and Android apps available. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can enter characters, pinyin, or even write them in, build vocab lists and more. You can also listen to different words/characters on the site to help improve your listening and pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also free, and it's really useful for learning Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9yyBe.png&quot; alt=&quot;nciku.com&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T00:38:48.620" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-04T00:38:48.620" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="682" CreationDate="2012-01-04T00:41:21.693" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://Jukuu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jukuu is a site that can help put Chinese words into context for you. You enter the word you are looking for, and it will show you a bunch of different sentences using that word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find putting terms into context really helps with my learning process. Plus, it looks simple, and I like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hwvgE.png&quot; alt=&quot;jukuu.com&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T00:41:21.693" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-04T00:41:21.693" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="682" CreationDate="2012-01-04T00:47:59.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://CSLpod.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CSLpod.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CSLpod doesn't seem to be very well known, but they have a ton of great resources available for free, plus you can sign up to a subscription to get extra added value services, like lessons with teachers and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I love their podcasts, plus the supporting materials that are provided, and find this to be a very valuable learning resource.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pYkEY.png&quot; alt=&quot;cslpod.com&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T00:47:59.620" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-04T00:47:59.620" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="682" CreationDate="2012-01-04T00:52:25.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://skritter.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Skritter.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Skritter is a helpful website for improving your writing abilities, and helping you to learn new vocab. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use a writing tablet or your mouse to enter characters from your wordlist, and get pretty feedback on how much study you have done, and how many characters you have memorised as you go on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It's $9.95 a month&lt;/strong&gt;, but worth it if you want to keep improving your writing skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/l9ruR.png&quot; alt=&quot;skritter.com&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T00:52:25.613" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-04T00:52:25.613" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="682" CreationDate="2012-01-04T00:55:45.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kkmlkkjojmombglmlpbpapmhcaljjkde&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhongwen for Chrome&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zhongwen for Chrome is a handy plugin that can help you to read Chinese text on websites, so you can read text that might otherwise be inaccessible to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also search words from a range of different online dictionaries, and even add them to your &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/686/62&quot;&gt;Skritter&lt;/a&gt; queue. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/01iRI.png&quot; alt=&quot;Zhongwen for Chrome&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T00:55:45.940" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-04T00:55:45.940" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="682" CreationDate="2012-01-04T01:04:55.877" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://singchinesesongs.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Singchinesesongs.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sing Chinese Songs is a site where you can listen to Chinese music, hovering over the characters of the lyrics you can see the corresponding pinyin/meaning (as shown in the image). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MfLjG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Sing Chinese Songs website&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T01:04:55.877" CommentCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-04T01:04:55.877" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="689" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="692" CreationDate="2012-01-04T01:27:16.517" Score="6" ViewCount="580" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently trying to learn '&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9PFQSVZdzM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;听妈妈的话&lt;/a&gt;' on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/688/62&quot;&gt;SingChineseSongs&lt;/a&gt;, and I'm having trouble keeping up with the fast parts. I also have trouble trying to speak terribly fast in Mandarin anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any tips or suggestions on how I can improve the speed of my spoken Chinese without losing clarity or making lots of mistakes (which is my current problem when speaking too fast)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T08:55:44.300" Title="How can I improve the speed of my spoken Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="690" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="691" CreationDate="2012-01-04T01:55:27.943" Score="6" ViewCount="415" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to get the correct meaning of this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我恨不得一下子把这么多好吃的都吃完。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand this sentence as &quot;I wish to eat up all those delicious things, all at once&quot;. I don't fully understand the meaning of &lt;code&gt;这么多好吃&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempt to decipher it was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;好吃 is delicious&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;多 says that there are many delicious (好吃) things&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这么??&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of &lt;code&gt;这么多好吃&lt;/code&gt;  in that sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T05:23:38.553" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T05:41:59.473" Title="Meaning of 这么多好吃" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2012-01-04T02:08:42.967" Score="13" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;这么&quot; means &quot;so&quot;, &quot;such&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;这么多&quot; is &quot;so much&quot;, &quot;so many&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;好吃&quot; is delicious;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;好吃的&quot; is &quot;delicious things&quot; (food in this case).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;这么多好吃&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (note the 的 at the end) is &quot;so much delicious food&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-04T09:50:41.563" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T09:50:41.563" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="689" CreationDate="2012-01-04T03:10:26.810" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The shape of your mouth and the muscles you need to speak effect the way that you speak another language. So you will naturally find yourself tripping over certain sounds or combinations of words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way you can improve this is by practicing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been casually teaching overseas students for over 10 years and the best way to do this is by doing two things: Read at a suitable level so you can read fast enough and read aloud so you are training your mouth and getting feedback via your ears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I started by practicing with childrens' books, you will find your mouth starts to hurt after a short while of reading if you are doing it constantly. Practice daily then you will notice your speaking will also improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Songs are a good way to train with, however this is usually via memorisation so it may improve the speed of your spoken Chinese, but not your conversational Chinese, that is, it's not going to teach you to speak better. Because speaking in a conversation requires you to consider a response and to have the skill to present that response with the right vocabulary and grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T03:10:26.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="492" CreationDate="2012-01-04T08:36:30.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only other two freely available that I'm aware of are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.adsotrans.com/downloads/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Adsotrans&lt;/a&gt;  and &lt;a href=&quot;http://projects.ldc.upenn.edu/Chinese/LDC_ch.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;LDC wordlist&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adsotrans is based on CC-CEDICT, but they also include (for non-commercial use) software for segmentation, hanzi2pinyin and apparently some sort of semantic analysis. I don't know whether dictionary itself differs from vanilla CC-CEDICT. Their download contains SQL instead of CSV. Also, if I remember correctly they used some sort sort of Latin-whatever encoding instead UTF-8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're willing to pay then most popular option seems to licence ABC dictionary, but unfortunately University of Hawaii  has granted Wenlin exclusive license so you'd have to sublicence it from them. See UH and Wenling respective pages here:&#xA;www.otted.hawaii.edu/technology/00294/abc-chinese-language-database-dictionary and www.wenlin.com/abc.htm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find another free or free-ish/cheap database I'd be interested too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="263" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T08:36:30.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="682" CreationDate="2012-01-04T10:28:03.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://english.cntv.cn/learnchinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CNTV's Learning Chinese section&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CNTV, part of CCTV, broadcasts a range of different shows to help foreigners learning Chinese, along with show notes and other resources to improve your skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These shows are, for the most part, available free on the CNTV website from anywhere in the world, and a great way to practice your listening and reading skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PduzG.png&quot; alt=&quot;CNTV&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T10:28:03.620" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-04T10:28:03.620" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="697" CreationDate="2012-01-04T11:36:15.250" Score="24" ViewCount="12672" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often see people having a big focus on correct stroke order for writing Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, for most learners, is it important to know the stroke order, and if so, why is it important? Where does the rigid adherence to stroke order stem from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T13:02:53.947" Title="Why is stroke order important when writing Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="695" CreationDate="2012-01-04T11:48:58.763" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;The stroke order is important, yes. The main reason that explains why the stroke order is so important is that the it helps to write the character correctly, with better speed and in an easier way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pick a character, and try to write it with the official stroke order, and then with another one: you'll find out that in the second case it will be sometimes harder to write it and mostly it will come out with a different shape, i.e. incorrect shape, and also ugly sometimes. This is because when using the official stroke order, the character will appear with more harmonious proportions and therefore, more beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I'm not sure the following are &quot;official reasons&quot;, but I suppose that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it helps to memorize the character and retain it too, because your muscles &quot;remember&quot; the movements and so does your brain;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;when reading someone else's handwriting, the shape changes a lot and the movement of the pen/brush can help you to read since you know the stroke order.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-08-24T20:32:24.330" LastActivityDate="2013-08-24T20:32:24.330" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="695" CreationDate="2012-01-04T13:04:08.267" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could think of some reasons why the stroke order is important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In modern times, especially in the digital times, there should be a standard of the stroke order, so that when people input characters with &quot;stroke order&quot; method, it's useful to program the input method consistently.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We have some general rules of the stroke order, such as &quot;from up to down, from left to right&quot;. I think this is reasonable, because you will feel comfortable when writing that way.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Remember, you are not a machine or computer, you can't precisely control the positions of each stroke, so you can't write the strokes here and there to get a beautiful character.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I want to say that there are really official standards of stroke orders. In mainland, it's 《现代汉语通用字笔顺规范》,and in Taiwan, it's 《常用国字标准字体笔顺》.However, I know 《现代汉语通用字笔顺规范》is a recommended, not a mandatory standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was a student, my teacher taught me the correct order for some characeters, but not all characters. I just reviewed the standard, and found I had some mistakes in the order against the standard.E.g. the standard says that “heart&quot; radical(left part of 情) is written: /，、，|， but my order is:|, /, 、.&lt;br&gt; I think minor &quot;mistakes&quot; are acceptable, because the stroke order is not something like math, you can't set up a definite system to specify everything. I think that's why the standard is not mandatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T13:04:08.267" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="695" CreationDate="2012-01-04T13:13:17.147" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The single most important reason for stroke order being adhered to is probably the handwriting problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine, if you will, someone writing an english text in cursive, consistently crossing the t's and dotting the i's before writing the stems; and making it part of the flow of the line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now imagine that same scenario, only with each character having dozens, if not hundreds of potential cursive shapes…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, the stroke order allows writers to make simplifications when writing the character; and readers to understand same. (Squiggly line at the left? 水 radical, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondary to this is the use of stroke order in memorization techniques, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="255" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-04T13:41:18.830" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T13:41:18.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="695" CreationDate="2012-01-04T14:12:24.460" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My teacher says there are two main reasons for stroke order:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Depending on the stroke order, the character will look one way or another. This is mainly a matter of style from times when writing was made exclusively with paint brushes. Now in the era of computers, stroke order is definitely not important for writing.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As it's been said, for systems that rely on stroke order to lookup and input characters on a computer, a standardized order is mandatory.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that Roman letters have also a standard (maybe more than one standard) stroke order and direction, which is taught at school, although I don't think most people is aware of this when writing (I know I'm not).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T14:12:24.460" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="695" CreationDate="2012-01-04T14:43:56.573" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a chinese. For my point that stroke order is necessary but not very important.It's a way to write them just like we write English. And the last question, I think less people could know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="267" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T14:43:56.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="682" CreationDate="2012-01-04T14:44:08.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://livinglanguage.com/languagelab/distribution/2497&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Living Language's Language Lab&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a great free resource for beginner to intermediate learners. It's a free sampling of their paid course and includes a ton of vocabulary with audio and games testing grammar points as well as vocabulary.  There's material from beginner to &quot;advanced&quot; although the advanced material I would actually call intermediate. &#xA;My favorite is the matching bubbles game to test character recognition. &#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gpoQl.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastEditorUserId="103" LastEditDate="2012-01-04T17:29:14.417" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T17:29:14.417" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-02T16:15:44.580" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="124" CreationDate="2012-01-04T14:55:45.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, standard Chinese is offical language, but many places in South of China, teachers always speak local dialects in class. Most people can understand by listening, although they're not able to takl well in standard Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="267" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T14:55:45.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="675" CreationDate="2012-01-04T15:42:45.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;chentudou has great answer. I'd like to add&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很抱歉，我看错人了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抱歉 for being extra polite&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2012-01-04T15:42:45.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="704" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="706" CreationDate="2012-01-05T00:29:23.670" Score="7" ViewCount="722" Body="&lt;p&gt;In zhuyin fuhao (bopomofo), &quot;ㄧ&quot; is equal to &quot;i&quot; or &quot;yi&quot; in Hanyu pinyin. I have noticed, when displayed on my computer, even with very complete fonts, I see a vertical line (similar to &quot;|&quot;), but when I see a picture of this symbol (e.g. see here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.omniglot.com/writing/zhuyin.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.omniglot.com/writing/zhuyin.htm&lt;/a&gt;), I see a horizontal line (similar to &quot;一&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does this symbol have two forms? When are they used?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the correct direction for this when writing horizontal text? Vertical or horizontal?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is my computer turning it the wrong direction if I see a &quot;|&quot; (vertical line) when typing horizontal text?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If horizontal is correct, how do I type it horizontal?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T05:25:15.843" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T18:42:59.893" Title="What is the correct orientation of &quot;ㄧ&quot; in zhuyin fuhao?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="705" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="707" CreationDate="2012-01-05T01:09:51.217" Score="12" ViewCount="1337" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 遇到 and 碰到 can be translated to &quot;come across/run into&quot; in those sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;遇到大学同学了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;碰到大学同学了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 遇到 and 碰到?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T13:43:15.980" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T13:43:15.980" Title="What's the difference between 遇到 and 碰到?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="704" CreationDate="2012-01-05T02:06:22.917" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry for my misunderstanding of your question. Actually, because 注音符号 is abandoned in the mainland(it still remains in the dictionary), and is mainly popular in Taiwan, so I am not familiar with that system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched 注音符号 on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B3%A8%E9%9F%B3%E7%AC%A6%E8%99%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, and I found the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;依照中华民国教育部规定，注音符号的“ㄧ(yi)”在直写时要写成“—”、而横写时写成“丨”。台湾国语教育一般使用直写，故在台湾一般人并没学过“丨”，在横写时亦写成“—”。中国大陆由于废除中文直写，故字典等采用的注音符号字型，都固定造成“丨”的形状。下为瓶子两字的排列方法：&#xA;  &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i3ckb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says, the Ministry of Education of R.o.C specified that &quot;|&quot; was used when the characters were aligned horizontally, and &quot;一&quot; was used when the characters were aligned vertically. However, in the practice of education in Taiwan, usually only &quot;一&quot; is used and thus Taiwanese doesn't know the &quot;|&quot; form. In the mainland, only &quot;|&quot; is used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-05T04:03:31.210" LastActivityDate="2012-01-05T04:03:31.210" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="705" CreationDate="2012-01-05T02:28:41.160" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;碰&quot; is more informal than &quot;遇&quot; when used followed by &quot;到&quot; or &quot;见&quot; to form &quot;碰/遇到&quot; and &quot;碰/遇见&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another difference is that &quot;碰&quot; is more 'physical' as a verb than &quot;遇&quot;, E.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;碰&quot; is literally &quot;touch&quot;, also with meaning &quot;collide&quot; as in &quot;碰撞&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;遇&quot; is more similar to &quot;meet&quot; as in &quot;遇见&quot; or &quot;being through&quot; as in &quot;境遇&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastActivityDate="2012-01-05T02:28:41.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="705" CreationDate="2012-01-05T03:04:15.103" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to think of 碰到 as the equivalent of the English &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bumped_into&quot;&gt;&quot;bumped into&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 遇到 as the English &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/come_across&quot;&gt;&quot;came across&quot;&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/encountered&quot;&gt;&quot;encountered&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The later being more formal and first being more oral in both the English and Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-01-05T03:04:15.103" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="705" CreationDate="2012-01-05T06:37:24.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got the impression that 碰到 implies a more unexpected or accidental meeting than 遇到. I can't find any references to back that up, though. They both seem to imply some element of chance or unpredictability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2012-01-05T06:37:24.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="710" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-01-05T07:28:54.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translation questions are not for asking things that you could answer yourself by looking into a dictionary or doing a simple search on the internet – this is not a translation service. When you ask a question like this, please show that you've already done some research, and explain what else you need to know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5472/how-to-translate-%E4%BA%BA%E6%98%AF%E9%93%81-%E9%A5%AD%E6%98%AF%E9%92%A2-%E4%B8%80%E9%A1%BF%E4%B8%8D%E5%90%83%E7%83%A6%E5%BE%97%E6%85%8C-what-is-the-logic&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; is a good translation question and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/8325/can-someone-translate-sentance-from-english-to-chinese&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; is a bad translation question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-02T02:52:43.263" LastActivityDate="2015-05-02T02:52:43.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="711" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-01-05T07:28:54.523" Score="0" Body="Questions on specific points regarding translating Chinese to/from another language. Do your own research first!" OwnerUserId="274" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2014-08-08T04:38:14.997" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T04:38:14.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="689" CreationDate="2012-01-05T08:13:29.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practise reciting news broadcasts (that's the speed you should aim for, not rap songs (Jay Chou is pretty notorious in that regard)) and speak more Chinese. You will gradually adapt to the speed of your regular conversation partners (at least those who can tolerate a learning speaker)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to practice with Jay's songs, try a ballad like 东风破&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="218" LastActivityDate="2012-01-05T08:13:29.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="704" CreationDate="2012-01-05T09:18:48.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Huang has a great answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional info is that in Taiwan when printing the bopomofo to the side of the character, the first tone &quot;一&quot; is usually &lt;strong&gt;not printed at all&lt;/strong&gt;. It is considered as the &quot;default&quot; tone. The other three and the neutral tone are printed out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2012-01-05T09:18:48.397" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="714" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="715" CreationDate="2012-01-05T09:31:14.570" Score="8" ViewCount="15351" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has to be one of the more ambiguous words I have struggled with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厉害 can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;very well performed&lt;/em&gt; = 玩得很厉害;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;harsh&lt;/em&gt; = 骂得很厉害;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;severe&lt;/em&gt; = 生病得很厉害;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;probably a bunch of other stuff...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone give a comprehensive summary of the meanings and related contexts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-05T09:36:37.103" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T10:39:53.773" Title="What does 厉害 mean, and in what context does it mean what?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="714" CreationDate="2012-01-05T11:55:09.597" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is somewhat similar in usage to the word &lt;code&gt;great&lt;/code&gt; in English, with the following meanings I can recall:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Impressive&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;skilled&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的功夫非常厉害。= &lt;em&gt;He is very skilled in martial arts.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太厉害了，他是怎么做到的？ = &lt;em&gt;Very impressive, how did he manage to achieve that?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;formidable&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厉害的角色 = &lt;em&gt;A formidable figure (not one to be messed around with)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厉害的手段 = &lt;em&gt;formidable tactics (in a sporting game, or as part of political intrigue)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;severe&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;某某股跌得太厉害了 = &lt;em&gt;Stock X has taken a severe fall (in value)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 厉害 is not usually the phrase/word of choice to describe a performance (of the arts).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="218" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-01-06T12:01:50.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="714" CreationDate="2012-01-05T13:00:50.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;prusswan's answer is great.I just want  to make a supplement . 厉害 can be a noun and means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;harsh(or severe) means(or way,manoeuvre,measure,etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看来我得让你看看我的厉害。&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;It seems that I should make you know my severe means.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a warning to the listener that you will do something bad to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-05T14:39:10.473" LastActivityDate="2012-01-05T14:39:10.473" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="717" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="718" CreationDate="2012-01-05T14:32:02.613" Score="8" ViewCount="1205" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have looked at the Wikipedia article &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couplet_%28Chinese_poetry%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Couplet (Chinese Poetry)&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;, but I think it poses more questions than answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a 对联 (duì lián) is a &amp;quot;Chinese couplet&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it is composed of two lines;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;each line must have the same number of characters;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the characters on each line must have a correspondence with each other;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the characters on each line must have opposite &amp;quot;tone pattern&amp;quot; (平 vs 仄).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a 平 tone is a &amp;quot;first tone&amp;quot;, and all other tones are 仄, then the Wikipedia example doesn't make sense (qín wéi is 平?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I'm unclear as to whether each &amp;quot;character&amp;quot; must be related, or each &amp;quot;word&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 很贵 and 便宜 have opposite meanings as words, but not as characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, is this a 对联?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;猪扒便宜 Zhū pá piányi&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;鸡腿很贵 Jītuǐ hěn guì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-11-05T19:13:09.050" LastActivityDate="2021-01-17T03:11:15.983" Title="What are the rules of writing a 对联 (chinese couplet)?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="717" CreationDate="2012-01-05T15:13:55.160" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;平仄 can not be understood by a Chinese who only speaks Mandarin or some dialects, as I mentioned in my answer to the previous question &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/670/different-kinds-of-writing-in-chinese&quot;&gt;Different kinds of writing in Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. In mandarin, in many cases, 平 refers to the 1&lt;sup&gt;st&lt;/sup&gt; and 2&lt;sup&gt;nd&lt;/sup&gt; tone. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The pattern of 对联 derives from the classic poems, a word-match is enough.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, we usually write a 对联 at a celebrating time, e.g. the spring festival, or on the day when you get married, etc., and paste it besides the gate of your house to celebrate the event. As it is written to celebrate something, the content usually refers to good things like &lt;em&gt;&quot;be fortunate, be lucky, be happy, be healthy, etc.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, so I think your example would not be considered as a 对联. Of course, you can use it in a humorous way, but I think you won't paste it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-01-05T18:31:05.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="704" CreationDate="2012-01-05T16:52:51.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just some additional information related to how to input the horizontal version:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Unicode, the code point for &quot;BOPOMOFO LETTER I&quot; (0x3127) takes the vertical form. There's not horizontal version in the 'Bopomofo' section in Unicode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a further search showed me that &quot;BOPOMOFO LETTER I&quot; is rendered either horizontal or vertical in different fonts. In Huang's post, I see &lt;code&gt;“ㄧ(yi)”&lt;/code&gt; as horizontal in my browser, however, we I copied it to word, it became vertical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked the fonts installed on my computer, and &lt;code&gt;MingLiU&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Arial Unicode MS&lt;/code&gt; will render it as horizontal, &lt;code&gt;Simsun&lt;/code&gt; will render it as vertical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want it to be definitely horizontal or vertical, the wiki article Huang cited may provide a solution: “—” (&quot;EM DASH&quot; , 0x2014) for the horizontal version, and “丨” (0x4E28 ,in the &lt;code&gt;CJK Unified Ideographs&lt;/code&gt; section) for the vertical version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-05T16:52:51.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="714" CreationDate="2012-01-05T22:45:25.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;厉害 can also mean quite a few things when describing a person and relies heavily on the context. For example the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他是很厉害&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has numerous possibilities and it would be wrong to assume something without further explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This person is very strict or harsh&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This person has a sharp personality&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This person is very skillful / capable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same with the use of 太厉害. This could have a positive or negative connotation. It could describe someone who is amazingly skillful or someone that is overly strict. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-01-05T22:45:25.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="721" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-06T07:13:07.167" Score="13" ViewCount="907" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just reading &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/656/what-is-the-most-common-word-in-use-to-describe-dvd-and-what-is-its-measure-wo&quot;&gt;a Q&amp;amp;A here about Chinese words for DVD&lt;/a&gt; and the discussion also included other acronyms from English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It struck me that nobody wrote the pinyin for any of the terms which made me think it means the tones must be obvious so the logical conclusion was that they are all neutral tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is this assumption correct and is it always the case? Also are such words ever affected by tone sandhi?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems this question is not clear to all readers. I'm specifically asking about tones, not about writing, though Pinyin is a good way to illustrate the tones. I couldn't find the pinyin for &lt;strong&gt;DVD&lt;/strong&gt; but if &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/CD#Translations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Wiktionary entry for &lt;strong&gt;CD&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is correct then it in fact uses the fourth, falling, tone for each syllable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;CD (sìdì)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So maybe I should change the question to ask if they always use falling tone for all syllables?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in both viewpoints: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;prescriptive&lt;/a&gt; (what, if anything, Standard Chinese has to say about borrowed acronyms) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_description&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;descriptive&lt;/a&gt; (how various Chinese speakers pronounce them in their natural speech, especially those who do not know English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T16:52:28.470" Title="Do acronyms borrowed from English use neutral tone (aka tone 0 or tone 5) for all syllables?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="721" CreationDate="2012-01-06T08:09:26.403" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From personal experience I would say A - Z are all pronounced in a certain way and this is different from the English A - Z.  These are written without tone marks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So DVD is just DVD but it is not pronounced the same DVD in the west.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are not affected by Sandhi or anyhting else. But they do have a reasonable exact pronunciation as A - Z has in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-01-06T08:09:26.403" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="721" CreationDate="2012-01-06T09:15:18.277" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short: the standard pronunciation is the English pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no Chinese standard way to pronounce English letter (how they are pronounced when they are used as pinyin should not be counted here, I think). Tone does not exist for English letters, as they are English, not Chinese. English intonation should take effect(in English, when 'DVD' is pronounced, some letter would be falling, others not).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as only few can pronounce English very good in China, and as the pronunciation is affected by the whole sentence(which is in Chinese), what mostly used is in fact Chinglish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the pinyin 'sìdì' for CD in wikitionary is definitely wrong. I've never heard anybody talk like that. Pinyin cannot be assigned to English letters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-01-06T09:21:19.980" LastActivityDate="2012-01-06T09:21:19.980" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="721" CreationDate="2012-01-06T09:40:21.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't believe there is a standard for it. But from news and gameshows it is quite common to pronounce the first few letters of the alphabet (ABCD..) in first tone as part of a Chinese sentence. For other letters like HXZ that do not go well in first tone, the fourth tone is used. Like I said I don't believe this to be a standard, but a result of people attempting to blend in the acronyms with the other Chinese words by pronouncing them in any of the four tones, whichever that sound natural enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="218" LastActivityDate="2012-01-06T09:40:21.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="721" CreationDate="2012-01-06T10:35:48.900" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with fefe and I would like to show my experience on how to read these acronyms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A native Chinese speaker will read it as he reads these letters in English. However, there is no standard way to pronounce these acronyms. Different people would read them differently, as every one has his own preference (also affected by his dialects, I believe) to read English letters. Have you heard a Japanese speak English and an Indian speak English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;CD&quot;, I (remember I could speak some English), will read it &quot;see-dee&quot;, with approximate 1&lt;sup&gt;st&lt;/sup&gt; tone of see and the approximate 4&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt; tone of dee, but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some friends of mine (also can speak some English) read it &quot;see-dee&quot;, with approximate 1&lt;sup&gt;st&lt;/sup&gt; tone of &quot;dee&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One of my teachers (an old professor, had been working in the USA for some years, with the mother tongue of 客家 (Hakka) dialect, I believe (because he came from a county where a lot of 客家 people live), reads the letter &quot;C&quot; as &quot;she&quot; with short &quot;ee&quot;, with approximate 1&lt;sup&gt;st&lt;/sup&gt; tone.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T11:06:20.433" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T11:06:20.433" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="721" CreationDate="2012-01-06T17:00:04.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't speak for either mainland or Taiwanese Mandarin speakers, but native speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese generally (in all cases I'm familiar with) use a high tone to pronounce acronyms like &quot;CD&quot; &quot;DVD&quot; or &quot;NBA&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="26" LastActivityDate="2012-01-06T17:00:04.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="727" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="729" CreationDate="2012-01-06T23:13:02.670" Score="1" ViewCount="193" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can make out bits of this calligraphy, but not enough to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shicimingju.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;look up the poem&lt;/a&gt;. The first line (and the poet, which I assume is the last two characters) should suffice for the purposes of using a search engine to find the entire thing...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The calligraphy is by 張照 of the Qing dynasty. I particularly like his style of grass script, but have not managed to find many images of his calligraphy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZKwml.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Click here to see the image (279KB)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T06:33:14.863" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T06:33:14.863" Title="What does this calligraphy by 張照 say?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="727" CreationDate="2012-01-07T00:58:17.423" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“自有仙才自不知、十年常梦采华芝、西风动地黄云暮、归去嵩阳寻旧师”——张照&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="190" LastActivityDate="2012-01-07T00:58:17.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="727" CreationDate="2012-01-07T01:42:23.883" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to read such works if you don't get trained with calligraphy knowledge. For me, I could only read some characters in this work. I.e., I read &quot;歸去嵩陽&quot; in the last line, so I used this word and 张照 as key word to search more info on the internet, and I found this on &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/3339882.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;baike.baidu.com&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. xiecheng127 is right, and I would like to paste the traditional version, since they are really traditional characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自有僲*才自不知，十年常夢採華芝。西風動地黃雲暮，歸去嵩陽尋舊師。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Actually, 仙 is also used in traditional system, and 僲 (or 僊, more standard) is another form in old times. Here, it seems that the 舛 part was replaced with 升. I think this happens in calligraphy (some characters look &quot;wrong&quot; in calligraphy when compared to the standard form).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to see more his works, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://artist.artxun.com/13022-zhangzhao/zuopin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;artist.artxun.com&lt;/a&gt;&quot; may be a good site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, when searching on some Chinese topics, google is not as good as baidu 百度, though you will get more ads with 百度. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-07T22:36:38.053" LastActivityDate="2012-01-07T22:36:38.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="730" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-07T05:54:06.250" Score="2" ViewCount="996" Body="&lt;p&gt;To improve my listening skills, I often watch television shows. Many Chinese-produced television shows, however, are difficult to understand due to context (for e.g. the setting, situation, and characters are too far outside of my schema).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when watching American or British TV shows, dubbed into Chinese, I can usually follow the conversations much more easily, either because I am already familiar with the series or can make guesses based on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to compile a list of English and Chinese names of US or UK TV shows which have been dubbed into Chinese. Do you know of any studios which frequently makes Chinese-language dubs for TV? Such information might be a good place to start in finding which shows have been dubbed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-09T11:05:50.867" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T11:05:50.867" Title="What studios produce dubbed TV shows?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ClosedDate="2012-02-14T14:35:45.430" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="717" CreationDate="2012-01-07T13:47:54.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;平仄 is not strictly required in modern 对联 but it is in poems some time in history such as Tang Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If possible, character to character match is preferred. In your example 很 is an adverb for 贵, but 便宜 in total is an adjective. So it's not a good match in characters.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="282" LastActivityDate="2012-01-07T13:47:54.617" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="721" CreationDate="2012-01-08T04:09:28.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have no insights to offer on correct pronunciation. I do know, however, that: 1) tones seem to make a difference, for example R and 二 ('two') are best pronounced differently. If you pronounce R with a falling tone it could be misunderstood as '2'. Other letters seem to have their own distinctive tones and misusing them can interfere with communication; 2) people from different parts of China appear to have different pronunciations -- what works in Beijing may not work elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The upshot is that if I'm trying to spell out letters to someone, it's often better to send a text message.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastActivityDate="2012-01-08T04:09:28.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="695" CreationDate="2012-01-08T04:12:48.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stroke order is important, but the rigid insistence on a single correct stroke order appears to be a product of modern universal education. The Japanese and Chinese have actually standardised different stroke orders for some characters (e.g., 必).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastActivityDate="2012-01-08T04:12:48.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="677" CreationDate="2012-01-08T04:20:43.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note: 一个 is often used to mean 同一个. That is, 我想我们会上一个学校 can also mean 'attend the same school'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastActivityDate="2012-01-08T04:20:43.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="736" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-08T06:06:25.950" Score="1" ViewCount="27803" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was in China, these video sites were great for getting chinese material to watch. Ever since I came back though, these sites are too slow to watch anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are these so slow and is there a way to make them download faster?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="288" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-08T06:34:33.853" LastActivityDate="2013-05-28T10:10:42.950" Title="Why are sites like youku and baidu so slow overseas?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2013-05-29T04:08:09.427" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="737" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-08T06:25:44.187" Score="56" ViewCount="7547" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that a lot of my friends that study Chinese at university spend a lot of their time learning to write Chinese. I would estimate more than 50% of their Chinese study time is spent on memorizing how to write Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm considering studying Chinese at university, but I'm unsure because I would have to learn to write, which I feel would be a big investment of my time which could be spent  practicing reading, listening and speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even with English, I feel I hardly ever write anything with a pen. Everything is done on cell phones, computers, etc. now and I feel this trend is only going to continue. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is there a value in learning to write characters by hand, if I know how to write them via pinyin input? Or should I continue to focus my time on learning to read, speak and listen instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="288" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T01:52:38.547" LastActivityDate="2020-12-24T13:55:22.907" Title="Is there a lot of value in learning to write Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="20" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="737" CreationDate="2012-01-08T07:10:15.620" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to answer this question with an analogy to English. In English,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You may not learn how to spell the word, and you could only rememeber the pronunciation and the meanings for every word, so you can &quot;speak&quot; English,but you can't write them down or read them. I believe in old times, when few people could get well educated, this might happen (in China, it really happened.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You may only remember the pronunciation and meanings and get a blur impression of how to spell a word, so you may read texts (by guessing the words) and when you write down the words with a pen, there may be a lot of spelling errors. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This could also happen in Chinese. Furthermore, there is another disadvantage. You can get suggestion from the phone when you try to input a word in English, but in Chinese, in most cases, One pinyin (especially without the tones) could map to several characters or words, so you need to decide which word should be selected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every language consists of four aspects: listening,writing,reading, and speaking, I believe. It's worthy of you spending some time on writing Chinese characters. I suggest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-08T13:59:40.473" LastActivityDate="2012-01-08T13:59:40.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2012-01-08T07:32:32.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see the 给我 as essentially having the same meaning in both sentences, a meaning which could be summarised as 'for me' . That is, the literal meaning of the sentence is 'Fuck off for me!', or 'I want you to fuck off!'. But this is not being polite, not at all. When you shout at someone in English, 'I want you out of here!', adding 'I want you...' isn't an attempt to be nice; it's a strong expression of the speaker's will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In translation the 给我 can be safely ignored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastActivityDate="2012-01-08T07:32:32.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="737" CreationDate="2012-01-08T08:45:38.733" Score="43" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right that most of the time, you use a computer or cell phone when &quot;writing&quot; Chinese characters. In fact, many Chinese will tell you that - beside their own name (used as a signature) - they almost never write any Chinese characters by hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, writing Chinese characters is more for memorization than for practical purposes. You might know a few characters and you might know how to type them in your computer, but the only way to really keep them in your mind, and being able to read them fluently, is to write them. It is however rather tedious so it works better if you have some interest in Chinese characters to begin with, otherwise it might get boring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way might be to just try. Write a few characters every day and you might find yourself interested in all the subtleties of Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; There's a related question about the relation between writing and memorizing on the Cognitive Sciences Stack Exchange - &lt;a href=&quot;https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/68/63&quot;&gt;https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/68/63&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="76" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:56:15.497" LastActivityDate="2012-01-24T14:19:46.127" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="737" CreationDate="2012-01-08T10:20:16.943" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are right in your desire to put as much time as possible into the speaking and listening aspects of Chinese. But there are various reasons why it's important to put in the effort to learn Chinese characters, even though the initial investment of time is quite large.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As others have explained, passive recognition is no substitute for active production. Having a vague sense of the general look of a character is no match for knowing how to write it down correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Given the large number of homophones among Chinese morphemes, characters give you an important leg-up in learning vocabulary, especially more difficult vocabulary. Again, it's important to have more than just a vague impression of the character.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;China is a literate culture that accords great respect to the written word. Chinese people will be very impressed if you can speak Chinese, but their respect will be doubled if they know you can read and write it, too (conversely, you will be regarded as a light-weight if you can't). Good knowledge of the writing system will be (correctly) interpreted as a real commitment to the language and culture.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, it all depends what you want the language for, but if you are in it for the long term, I would strongly urge you not to think of taking the 'easy way out' (tempting as it may be) and put in the necessary effort to learn all aspects of the language. In fact, the characters are fascinating in their own right and you may find them more interesting than you thought. (On the other hand, I might mention that getting too hooked on Chinese characters has its own perils, since they form such a vast and interesting field that you could easily become distracted from learning the actual language :))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastEditorUserId="285" LastEditDate="2012-01-08T20:55:20.047" LastActivityDate="2012-01-08T20:55:20.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="641" CreationDate="2012-01-08T10:29:46.957" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 'siblings' in English is a modern (1903) revival of an ancient term for relatives and kinsmen by an anthropologist. English didn't have a single word for 'brothers and sisters' before that. So it's hard to fault Chinese on this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastActivityDate="2012-01-08T10:29:46.957" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="743" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="751" CreationDate="2012-01-08T14:13:44.380" Score="23" ViewCount="7878" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know both mean &lt;em&gt;&quot;to study&quot;&lt;/em&gt; and I also know that while 学 (xué) is transitive, 学习 (xué xí) can be both intransitive and transitive, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我学中文。 (I study «what?» Chinese) = transitive;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在大学学习。 (I study at the university) = intransitive;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我学习中文。 (I study «what?» Chinese) = transitive.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But are there other differences? Also in usage and meaning? My grammar textbook was helpful enough but I'd like to hear something from the native speakers too. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-02-05T06:35:34.330" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T18:32:40.790" Title="What's the difference between 学 and 学习?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="743" CreationDate="2012-01-08T16:16:32.743" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the answer from a grammatical point of view, but I know both character's etymology which can give you a hint.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;学&lt;/strong&gt; in its traditional form is 學, an ideogram of two hands putting something (knowledge?) into a child's head, thus &lt;em&gt;teaching&lt;/em&gt;, and, from the child's standpoint, &lt;em&gt;learning&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;习&lt;/strong&gt; in its traditional form is 習, two feathered wings on top of white (originally a sun) and it meant learning or practicing how to fly, thus, &lt;em&gt;practice&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So while 学 means basically &lt;em&gt;to learn&lt;/em&gt;, 习 moves the meaning more towards learning by &lt;em&gt;practice&lt;/em&gt;, but this is pure speculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastActivityDate="2012-01-08T16:16:32.743" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="746" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-08T21:20:10.897" Score="11" ViewCount="379" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume 雪茄 (cigar) is a loanword. Who can tell me what language this word was loaned from and, if appropriate, how it was transcribed? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My own guess is that the word was transcribed from English and entered the Chinese lexicon via Cantonese - in which case the pronunciation of the characters may actually be similar to the English pronunciation of the word &quot;cigar&quot;. This is just my guess though and I have no idea whether it's on the mark of completely off.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="154" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T07:36:27.570" Title="What is the origin of the word 雪茄 (cigar)?" Tags="&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="747" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-08T21:29:07.853" Score="13" ViewCount="536" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why was the traditional character 滾 simplified to 滚? It's only one stroke less so it seems doubtful that it was done to make the character simpler to write. Does it change the meaning of the character in some way or is there any other logical reason why this character was simplified in this fashion? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="154" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-09T09:14:55.280" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T16:12:56.400" Title="Why was 滾 (gǔn) simplified to 滚?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="604" CreationDate="2012-01-08T21:51:17.927" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from simplified characters that merge two traditional characters into one, as already pointed out (and there are quite a few of these -- 後 and 后 merged into 后 is one example, 裏, 里 and 裡 merged into 里 is another, 鵰 and 雕 merged as 雕 is another), I couldn't offhand think of any cases where a simplified character has the same &lt;em&gt;form&lt;/em&gt; as a completely different traditional character, but ahkow found two (see answer below):&#xA;葉 &gt; 叶 (Mandarin yè; leaf) &#xA;聼 &gt; 听 (tīng; to listen) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where 叶 was xiè（to make something sound good/euphonous) and 听 was yīn (as an adjective to describe someone smiling) before simplification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theoretically merged characters could lead to ambiguity. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他射了學校裡的大鵰. Traditional: He shot a large eagle in the school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他射了学校里的大雕. Simplified: Either 'He shot a large eagle in the school' or 'He shot a large statue in the school'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他射了學校里的大雕. Mixed. By throwing 學 in there, you are opening the door to potential confusion. To a person familiar only with traditional characters, this could be interpreted as 'He shot a large statue in school village' (里=village). To a person familiar with simplified characters (but knowing the character 學 as the traditional form of 学), it would be: 'He shot a large statue in the school' or 'He shot a large eagle in the school'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So theoretically the choice of one character set or the other does imply certain choices and interpretations, and mixing the two can lead to confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, users of traditional characters &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; use simplified forms in handwriting -- because that's often what the simplified characters were originally based on! So in handwriting, it would be perfectly ok for a person from Hong Kong or Taiwan to write, say, 他進了校门, because 门 is a simplified form of 門 that has long been current in ordinary Chinese handwriting. There are also people on the Mainland who sometimes mix traditional characters into their writing because they happen to prefer the traditional form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The creation of an officially defined 'simplified character set' has in some ways interfered with the older fluidity that existed in writing. What it has done is set in stone the choices to be made (either Traditional or Simplified, and no mixing of the two), making it harder to simply use the form of character suited to the circumstances -- full forms in careful or official writing, simplified forms in casual handwriting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastEditorUserId="285" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T09:33:28.407" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T09:33:28.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="736" CreationDate="2012-01-08T22:59:48.367" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The great firewall being between you and the servers doesn't help, but the main reason is that they only have servers in China, not a distributed content network (CDN) like most of the sites you might regularly access (Google, Youtube, Facebook etc) so that the distance between you and the nearest server is quite great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also be aware that they are progressively locking down content on these sites from overseas - they don't want people accessing illegal content from abroad - so long term they aren't your best bet for getting learning material&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check out sites like &lt;a href=&quot;http://english.cntv.cn/learnchinese/&quot;&gt;CNTV&lt;/a&gt; - it seems to load fairly quickly for me at least, and they are actively promoting it to international users as part of the 'soft power' aspect of growing China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-08T22:59:48.367" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="737" CreationDate="2012-01-09T02:50:39.397" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right, from a practical standpoint, spending 50% of your time (as you say, I haven't measured it) might seem a little too much.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although as it was said, practicing writing not only improves your writing but also your reading as you &lt;em&gt;record the characters' forms in your subconscious&lt;/em&gt; (so to speak)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my case, writing is what I like most of Chinese, as it's an art in its won right, I feel every character is a drawing, and I enjoy drawing a lot, so to me writing is the most important part of my study. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastActivityDate="2012-01-09T02:50:39.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="743" CreationDate="2012-01-09T04:36:49.413" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like many Chinese words, 学 and 学习 differ primarily not in meaning but in length; in many cases, 学习 is chosen over 学 because the sentence calls for a disyllabic verb for reasons of prosody. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your example number 2 is a good one. We say 我在大学学习 not because 学习 can be used intransitively but 学 cannot be, but because the sentence *我在大学学 sounds &quot;incomplete.&quot; (You may have already learned that many disyllabic verbs cannot be used with monosyllabic objects; this is just one example of how prosody often governs the formation of Chinese sentences.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many (most? all?) Chinese words come in &quot;short&quot; and &quot;long&quot; forms. Native speakers switch back and forth between these forms effortlessly as the situation requires. In many cases, fixed expressions can take one form but not the other. Just another thing we students of Chinese have to learn. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, there is one &quot;grammatical&quot; difference between 学 and 学习 that I can think of off the top of my head. 学习 can be used as a noun to mean &quot;studies&quot; or &quot;academic skill&quot;, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我学习很好. -&gt; &quot;I am good in my studies.&quot; or &quot;I do well in school.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm not sure if this is technically a noun. I think most people would gloss it as a nested topic-comment structure: 我//学习//很好.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Most of my knowledge about this topic comes from the excellent &quot;Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar&quot; published by Routledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-02-24T15:51:51.210" LastActivityDate="2012-02-24T15:51:51.210" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="747" CreationDate="2012-01-09T05:51:41.463" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a real answer (i.e., a total guess), but too long for a comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zhongwen.com (a useful resource for issues etymological) says that the traditional character 袞 (&quot;imperial robes&quot;) comes from the characters for official (公) and clothes (衣), with the bottom part of 公 altered to 口. As many simplified characters are based on common alternate/handwritten forms, it is possible that the variant with an un-altered 公 survived because it appears to match the meaning of 衮 better than the form with the 口. The simplification committee may have followed that precedent when deciding on the simplified form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The simplified form of 滚, of course, would naturally follow.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-01-09T05:51:41.463" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="746" CreationDate="2012-01-09T06:01:34.680" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Chinese &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%9B%AA%E8%8C%84&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“雪茄”这中文译名为徐志摩所译，音译之余，也取其灰白如雪，因以为名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Loose!) Translation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Chinese translation 雪茄 was created by Xu Zhimo. In addition to the similarity of the sounds, the name also comes from the fact that its ash is white like snow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My dictionary confirms that it is a loanword from English. If wikipedia is to believed, it probably didn't come through Cantonese since Xu Zhimo is from Zhejiang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-01-09T06:01:34.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="604" CreationDate="2012-01-09T07:01:58.037" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bathrobe wrote (in a very thorough answer): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I can't offhand think of any cases where a simplified character has the same form as a &gt;completely different traditional character.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two examples:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE5Zdic8FZdicB6.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;葉 &gt; 叶 (Mandarin ye4; leaf)&lt;/a&gt;;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_58a8d85a0100vk0q.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;聼 &gt; 听 (ting1; to listen)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;叶 and 听 are xie2 （to make something sound good/euphonous) and yin1 (as an adjective to describe someone smiling) before simplification, although they were rarely used, which is why they were selected in the first place as simplified forms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, strictly speaking these characters now have two different pronunciations each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="295" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T16:09:25.660" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T16:09:25.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="755" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="767" CreationDate="2012-01-09T09:26:56.813" Score="30" ViewCount="3526" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always knew, from my studies of Japanese, that the number two is 二 (èr). I am not sure about the actual etymology, but looking at the character, it's understandable why it represents the number &quot;2&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, I discovered that there is another character that represents the same number. That character is 两 (liăng).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to my textbook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;二 is used when telling or writing a &quot;meaningless&quot; number, such as a telephone number, a zip code, etc;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;两 is used together with nouns, such as in &quot;two students&quot; = 两个学生.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct in current Mandarin? If so, does this mean that 二个学生 is just plain wrong or that Chinese people would give me a weird look if I said it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other situations in which the use differs or is it interchangeable? I found a site, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/qna/entrynote?entryId=10215&amp;amp;dictype=zh&quot;&gt;nciku.com&lt;/a&gt;, where there are notes about it, but it says what I already know more or less, so I am asking if there is something else. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, what's the etymology, if available, for 两?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:04:39.557" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T01:25:32.877" Title="Number two in chinese: 二 vs 两" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="757" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-09T12:52:02.337" Score="1" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lextutor.ca/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Compleat Lexical Tutor&lt;/a&gt; has a valuable tool &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/concord_e.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; for searching for English words in a corpus and displaying them in sample sentences. This is useful for checking the usage of a word. Where can I find a similar tool for Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1. The links path to get to the page is the following: Compleat Lexical Tutor —&amp;gt; Concordances —&amp;gt; English. &lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T06:39:53.913" Title="Where can I find a Chinese corpus concordance?" Tags="&lt;academic&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="764" CreationDate="2012-01-09T14:11:58.837" Score="9" ViewCount="1068" Body="&lt;p&gt;In what situations would you use one of the following instead of the others? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;男女 &lt;em&gt;nán nǚ&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;公母 &lt;em&gt;gōng mǔ&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;雄雌 &lt;em&gt;xióng cí&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a matter of formality or is each term confined to a particular field (e.g. biology)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="154" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T05:06:52.637" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T18:01:35.693" Title=" What are the differences between 男女, 公母, and  雄雌?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="759" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-09T15:29:44.917" Score="10" ViewCount="343" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are 汤 and 羹 used to refer to different kinds of soup or is 羹 merely a part of the full word for soup (汤羹)? For example, is one used to refer to light soups while the other is reserved for heavy broths?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="154" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-10T17:17:24.557" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T17:17:24.557" Title="Is there any difference between 汤 and 羹?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2012-01-09T15:40:35.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually 男女 is used when we are talking about people. 公母 or 雄雌 is used when we are talking about animals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="298" LastActivityDate="2012-01-09T15:40:35.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="755" CreationDate="2012-01-09T15:46:08.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your textbook is correct. Chinese people will never say or write 二个学生. 两个学生 is the correct way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="298" LastActivityDate="2012-01-09T15:46:08.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="759" CreationDate="2012-01-09T15:49:53.380" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For 羹， have a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geng_%28dish%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; at wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="298" LastEditorUserId="298" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T02:19:52.937" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T02:19:52.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1405" CreationDate="2012-01-09T16:18:22.467" Score="14" ViewCount="3786" Body="&lt;p&gt;虽然 and 尽管 can both be translated as &quot;despite&quot; and &quot;although&quot;. I've been familiar with 虽然 for a longer time already but I recently came across 尽管 for the first time. Is 尽管 a more formal or poetic term? In what contexts would you use 尽管 rather than 虽然?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="154" LastActivityDate="2012-12-09T03:42:19.580" Title="When should you use 尽管 (jǐnguǎn) instead of 虽然 (suīrán)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2012-01-09T16:49:15.017" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;男女 is used only for humans. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公母 is normally used on animals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雄雌 is more academic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公母 is usually used with terms closer to everyday life: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;公鸡 / 母鸡 &lt;em&gt;gōngjī / mǔjī&lt;/em&gt; for cock / hen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For biological terminology, usually 雄 / 雌 would be used: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;雄蕊 / 雌蕊 &lt;em&gt;xióngruǐ / cīruǐ&lt;/em&gt; for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;stamen&lt;/a&gt; / &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gynoecium&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;carpel&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are more characters for &quot;male&quot; or &quot;female&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;郎猫＝公猫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;米猫＝母猫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儿马＝公马&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骒马＝母马&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;草驴＝母驴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;叫驴＝公驴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牡＝公的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牝＝母的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2014-03-07T18:01:35.693" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T18:01:35.693" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="757" CreationDate="2012-01-09T17:14:03.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though it is much smaller than the corpus you linked to, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;JuKuu&lt;/a&gt; is an excellent resource for finding example sentences involving Chinese terms. Typing a Chinese word or phrase into the search bar usually yields enough sentences to get a good sense of a term's meaning and usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-09T17:37:37.533" LastActivityDate="2012-01-09T17:37:37.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="766" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="771" CreationDate="2012-01-09T18:30:01.473" Score="4" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been taught that the sentence 我刚到了 (wǒ gāng dào le) is not correct because 了 cannot be used as a complement of 到. Is this right? If so, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="144" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T06:40:45.757" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T06:40:45.757" Title="Why can't 了 be used to complement 到?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="755" CreationDate="2012-01-09T18:45:55.020" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rather than saying that 两 is used with nouns, I would say that &lt;strong&gt;两 is used with measure words&lt;/strong&gt;. If you use any type of measure word with the number 2, use 两. For convenience, I've identified 3 types of measure words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Standard measure words&lt;/em&gt;, e.g. 两个人、两本书、两棵树.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Numbers that are larger than 100&lt;/em&gt;, e.g. 两百, 两千三百六十二. 百, 千, and 万 can be seen as a sort of measure word. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Time&lt;/em&gt;, e.g. 下午两点. Again, 点 functions as a type of measure word here.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;二 is used when counting without measure words&lt;/strong&gt;, such as in telephone numbers, metro lines (二线), addresses, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;ordinal&lt;/em&gt;, e.g. 第二个, 二哥. when you want to say the second, you can only use 二, it is wrong to say that 第两个.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="154" LastEditorUserId="6999" LastEditDate="2014-12-05T04:40:10.573" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T04:40:10.573" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="763" CreationDate="2012-01-09T21:16:24.123" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When used as conjunctions, 尽管 and 虽然 are synonyms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 尽管 can be used as an adverb to mean &lt;strong&gt;feel free (to do)&lt;/strong&gt;.  虽然 does not share this meaning. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你尽管喝吧，晚上回家我开车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2012-01-09T21:16:24.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="766" CreationDate="2012-01-09T21:25:31.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before you provide more context, I would say this could be perfectly understood by people except that it might not sound that natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the context, you would prefer to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我刚到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我到了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2012-01-09T21:25:31.787" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="755" CreationDate="2012-01-09T22:19:17.653" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;For ordinal numbers use 二 as in 第二个小孩 or 第二天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are counting out loud it is perfectly fine to count 一， 二， 三， 四，五 etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you include a MW it should be 一个， 两个， 三个 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some other special 2 words in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一对 &lt;em&gt;yí duì&lt;/em&gt; - A pair&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一对兔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一双 &lt;em&gt;yì shuāng&lt;/em&gt;- A pair&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一双鞋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%B2%B3&quot;&gt;貳&lt;/a&gt; also pronounced èr is used to represent the number 2 on items to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Written_Chinese/Numbers#The_use_of_.E5.A4.A7.E5.AF.AB_numbers&quot;&gt;prevent forgery&lt;/a&gt; such as on cheques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B9%99&quot;&gt;乙&lt;/a&gt; pronounced yǐ which is the 2nd &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_Stems&quot;&gt;Heavenly Stem&lt;/a&gt; and is used to represent 2 or 2nd in some rare cases. See the linked article for some modern uses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T12:55:34.800" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T12:55:34.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="766" CreationDate="2012-01-09T23:08:28.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我刚到了 is perfectly understandable in oral communication. Your teacher probably thinks this is verbose because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刚 = just&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 = already&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我刚到了 = I just arrived already&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="301" LastActivityDate="2012-01-09T23:08:28.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="773" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-10T01:17:23.793" Score="1" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume this is a cultural thing that I am not aware of, but a friend just updated their status to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;希望猫舅变成天使守护全家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Xīwàng māo jiù biàn chéng tiānshǐ shǒuhù quán jiā&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who or what is 猫舅?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T17:17:08.007" Title="What is 猫舅 in the following sentence?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="773" CreationDate="2012-01-10T02:04:53.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the word &quot;猫舅&quot;. &#xA;舅舅 is used to refers to a brother of your mother. If one's mother is A, and she has two brothers: B and C,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;he would call B or C &quot;舅舅&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess 猫舅 is used to call a brother of the cat's mother. In your example, you friend uses this word from a cat's view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T02:04:53.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="759" CreationDate="2012-01-10T02:44:17.070" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 汤 is a more common to be seen. When it refers to &quot;soup&quot;, the &quot;soup&quot; is thin. I mean, most ingredient is water, and you can find other things such as meat, vegetables,etc. inside the water.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;羹 is a thick soup. Generally, we will add some 芡粉(qiàn fĕn)(most composition is the starch) to the soup(We call this action &quot;勾芡(gōu  qiàn)&quot;). The starch will absord the water, so it makes the soup &quot;thick&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T02:44:17.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="247" CreationDate="2012-01-10T02:49:11.063" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason the verb 有 (yǒu) takes 没 (méi) while other verbs take 不 (bù) is that 没 (méi) means, 'not have' and 有 (yǒu) means 'have'; thus they are tied linguistically (interestingly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, 没 (méi) can never literally serve as a contraction for 没有 (méiyǒu) 'not have', because by itself, historically, 没 (méi) already meant, 'not have'. One shouldn't discount the answer here by thinking of it as a contraction. Historically, this explains its peculiar attachment to 有 (yǒu).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one realizes the historical nature of this question, it is good to refer to a dictionary of ancient Chinese, such as Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Karlgren&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bernhard Karlgren&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps your question really is how to have a feeling for when to use these two words in sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没 (méi) means, 'not have'. It can be used alone, without 有 (yǒu), for that meaning. 没 (mò) has meanings related to that. It is a picture of a hand, a knife and water: a hand like a knife plunging into water: we don't see the hand anymore: 'not have'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 (bù) means, 'do not' (like, 'I do not', instead of a command). It is an (upside down) picture of a bird, landing. Perhaps it is the experience of seeing a bird not flapping wings, inactive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two concepts: 'do not' and 'not have'. They are not precisely the same concept, are they? If we think of 没 (méi) and 不 (bù) only as two negators, we are dropping what will help us learn them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没 (méi) 'not have' and 有 (yǒu) 'have' in 没有 (méiyǒu) combine to mean 'not have', in a somewhat poetic way, like many other two-word combinations, for other linguistic reasons than meaning because 没 (méi) already means, 'not have'. If you think of 没 (méi) audibly as 'not have' and of 没有 (méiyǒu) as 'not have-have', you'll be all right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, many verbs make sense both with 'not have' and with 'do not'. 我没开车 (wǒ méi kai-1 che-1) which glosses as 'I not have operate vehicle' (perhaps meaning, 'I haven't operated the vehicle'). 我不开车 (wǒ bù kai-1 che-1) glosses as, 'I do not operate vehicle' (perhaps meaning, 'I don't drive (vehicles)').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="303" LastEditorUserId="303" LastEditDate="2012-01-13T17:44:13.450" LastActivityDate="2012-01-13T17:44:13.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="755" CreationDate="2012-01-10T03:15:23.873" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;二 (èr) is used (with nouns), if you are talking about their order, but if you are counting how many, 两 (liăng) is used (also with nouns). Stated concisely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;两 (liăng) is a cardinal number, as in, 两个 (liăng-ge) 'two of something.'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;二 (èr) is an ordinal number, as in, 第二个 (dì èr-ge) 'the second thing.'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps more common in speech are the cardinal numbers, as in, 'I'll have two bowls of rice.' Both cardinal and ordinal numbers use measure words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is immensely weak on grammatical inflection, so two/second, an extremely important number (perhaps the most important number? thinking about odd or even) is the only number that it inflects in this way. English inflects all numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think, 'second' (二) or 'two' (两) you'll be all right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="303" LastEditorUserId="303" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T22:06:05.033" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T22:06:05.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="311" CreationDate="2012-01-10T04:16:42.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other posters have already answered the meat of the question: in most cases, there isn't a way to tell except by asking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As GTK mentions, one way of solving this ambiguity is to reference another use for the character. Another common strategy that hasn't been mentioned yet, though, is to describe the character by &lt;em&gt;radical&lt;/em&gt;. (This is true not only of proper names, but of all character questions in general.) For this reason, it's useful to know the colloquial names for common radicals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, the radical 氵, which appears on the left side of many water-related words, comes from the character 水 (shǔi, &quot;water&quot;). As such, this radical is called &quot;三点水&quot; (sāndiǎnshǔi, &quot;three dots of water&quot;). Someone trying to describe the character 鸿 (hóng, a common character in boy's names) might call it &quot;三点水的鸿&quot; (&quot;the hóng with the water radical&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.albany.edu/eas/205/205%20radicals%20of%20chinese%20characters.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This document&lt;/a&gt; (pdf) lists several common radicals and their colloquial names; if you can read Chinese, the Chinese wikipedia's &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E9%83%A8%E9%A6%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;page on radicals&lt;/a&gt; has a more complete list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T11:59:51.160" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T11:59:51.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="780" CreationDate="2012-01-10T05:26:18.253" Score="10" ViewCount="815" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a pair of rabbits there is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一对兔 &lt;em&gt;yī duì tù&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for a pair of shoes there is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一双鞋 &lt;em&gt;yī shuāng xié&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for twins there is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;双胞胎 &lt;em&gt;shuāngbāotāi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I be sure when to use 对 and when to use 双?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T20:18:54.137" Title="Difference between 对 and 双" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="779" CreationDate="2012-01-10T05:37:25.760" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &amp;quot;Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar&amp;quot; (Routledge):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一对夫妇 &amp;quot;a married couple&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一对枕头 &amp;quot;a pair of pillows&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一对耳环 &amp;quot;a pair of ear-rings&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一双手 &amp;quot;a pair of hands&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一双眼睛 &amp;quot;a pair of eyes&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;两双鞋 &amp;quot;two pairs of shoes&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;三双袜子 &amp;quot;three pairs of socks&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 对 and 双 seems to be that the former emphasizes complementarity while the latter indicates functioning together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Anecdotally, it's been my experience that, due to influence from Cantonese, 对 is much more common in the south even when 双 would be &amp;quot;correct.&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T05:50:13.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="781" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="782" CreationDate="2012-01-10T06:44:09.557" Score="23" ViewCount="10170" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there some sort of logical rule for when 血 is xuè and when it is xiě?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="304" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T13:18:44.730" LastActivityDate="2015-12-13T15:55:32.760" Title="血: xuè , xiě, what's the difference?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="15" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="781" CreationDate="2012-01-10T06:59:09.287" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard Chinese dictionary (《现代汉语词典》) lists xuè (fourth, not third, tone) as the official pronunciation and xiě as a colloquial variant. As such, in most compounds and technical terms, xuè is preferred. The pronunciation xiě is acceptable when you just want to say &quot;blood&quot; in casual speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several exceptions: the two modifiers 血糊糊 (xiěhūhū, &quot;covered in blood&quot;) and 血淋淋 (xiělínlín, &quot;gushing blood&quot;) are never read with the xuè pronunciation. There is also a word &quot;血晕&quot; the meaning of which differs based on which pronunciation of 血 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;血晕 (xiěyùn): to bruise&lt;br&gt;&#xA;血晕 (xuèyùn): a traditional Chinese medicine term for fainting after childbirth due to loss of blood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this is only what the dictionary says. I suspect many native speakers make different choices in their own speech. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T07:09:00.240" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T07:09:00.240" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="783" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="784" CreationDate="2012-01-10T07:18:54.477" Score="2" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this sentence and its English translation on &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/402894&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我知道的就這麼多了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond this I know nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm trying to parse the sentence structure, and I'd like some confirmation or a correction, please. I think that 我知道的 means &amp;quot;what I know&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;the things that I know&amp;quot;. Then 就這麼多了 means &amp;quot;just this much&amp;quot;. So I might literally translate the sentence as, &amp;quot;What I know is just this much, and no more.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I on the right track?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-01-16T08:56:38.677" Title="Translation of &quot;this much and no more&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="783" CreationDate="2012-01-10T07:34:19.367" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知道 = to know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我知道 = I know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我知道的 = What I know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 = Just&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這麼多 = this much&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就這麼多了 = Just this much&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally wouldn't translate this as &quot;Beyond this I know nothing.&quot; It would be closer to &quot;What I know is just this much&quot;, however I would translate it as &quot;I only know this much&quot;. I don't see where this sentence would insinuate the &quot;and no more&quot; or the &quot;beyond this&quot;; it is not expressed in the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the type of sentence that would benefit from a bit more context to get a more accurate translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T07:40:27.083" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T07:40:27.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="781" CreationDate="2012-01-10T08:11:12.253" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, such a problem even upsets native speakers, like me. When I was a student, I had to memorize the words for different pronunciatons too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately,there are some characters with two different pronunciations when used in colloquial language (白读) and literary language (文读), while different pronunciations basically mean the same. See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_and_colloquial_readings_of_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; in Wikipedia to learn more info about this special phenomenon (in my dialect, there is also such a phenomenon, but I really don't realize it because I have been used to these different pronunciations). 血 is a typical one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;xiě &lt;em&gt;blood&lt;/em&gt;. Generally used as a single word and used in oral speech(words with this are not literary, are coarse or vulgar).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  xuè &lt;em&gt;blood&lt;/em&gt; Generally used in a literary words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;xiě 血淋淋 (bloody,cruel), 血豆腐 (a kind of food looks like bean curd, but made of blood), 血糊糊 (bloody), 他流了很多血 (He bleeds too much)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  xuè 止血 (to stop bleeding), 流血 (to bleed), 血腥 (bloody), 血型 (blood type).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other characters with this problem would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;薄 báo, bó. &lt;em&gt;thin, with small thickness&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  báo is used in colloquial language and bó is used in literary language.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  壳 ké, qiào &lt;em&gt;the shell&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ké is used in colloquial language and qiào is used in literary language.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take it easy, you could consult the dictionary when you are not sure. If you want to speak Mandarin in a very formal way, you have to try to memorize the words for different pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-09-13T16:02:57.077" LastActivityDate="2012-09-13T16:02:57.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="786" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="788" CreationDate="2012-01-10T08:50:22.347" Score="8" ViewCount="1039" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I read &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.quora.com/Why-do-so-many-Chinese-learners-seem-to-hate-Dashan-Mark-Rowswell&quot;&gt;a blog post&lt;/a&gt; talking about a Canadian guy called Mark Rowswell (aka 大山) that appears on Chinese TV shows and who is able to do 相声. This 相声 is referred to as &quot;the art of language&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 相声 exactly mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="144" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T15:53:16.133" Title="What is the meaning of 相声?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="786" CreationDate="2012-01-10T09:09:23.203" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kind of hard to explain ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It a traditional performing arts in China, usually performed by two performers, in the form of dialogue between the two performers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a comedic performing art that would make people laugh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangsheng&quot;&gt;This is a short wiki article about it&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T09:09:23.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="786" CreationDate="2012-01-10T09:09:53.983" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;相声 is a form of Chinese traditional stand-up comedy where two two performers talk back and forth to each other, telling a funny story or just chatting about a humorous topic. Because it's a traditional Chinese art form and originates in northern China, it has a higher political status than other Chinese art forms. This means that it gets broadcasted across the country on CCTV a lot, and sinophiles like Mark Roswell get introduced to it when they are studying Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相声 performers who become make a name for themselves can establish their own styles and take on students to pass on their skills. Mr Roswell/Dashan's mentor was a performer named  姜昆. Dashan is not the only foreigner to have studied under a famous artist -- another name that I remember off the top of my head is Julien Gaudfroy (朱力安), a French student of Chinese who also studied 相声.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably the best way to get a better feel for 相声 would be to search for the term on Youtube, or if you're in China then search on Youku. Combine it with 大山 or 朱力安 to find videos of these talented performers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="304" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T09:09:53.983" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="755" CreationDate="2012-01-10T09:53:30.980" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question and a little complex to answer. Previous answers seem good, and I want to make a conclusion based on them.&#xA;Basically, 两 and 二 mean two, but either of them are used in some other cases, where they are not interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When counting (with single character), only 二 is used. You would hear &amp;quot;一二三四，二二三四...&amp;quot; as a melody when some is doing exercise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I agree with the viewpoint from MarkDBlackwell's answer and the measure word is a very rough standard to distinguish 二 and 两. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两天 (two days), 两夜 (two nights), 两次 (twice,two times), 两广 (short for 广东 and 广西 provinces. Note that there is no measure words in these cases), 第二天 (the second day), 二号(the second day, as in 三月二号 — march 2&lt;sup&gt;nd&lt;/sup&gt;), 两个苹果（two apples), 第二个苹果 (the second apple), 二等 (the second class), 二婚 (the second marriage), 两度 (two times), 二度 (the second time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;二 could mean &amp;quot;one another,different&amp;quot;. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二心 (literal meaning: one another heart, different heart&amp;quot;. Meaning &amp;quot;disloyalty&amp;quot;), 二话 (literal meaning: one another words, different words. Meaning &amp;quot;disagreement, objection&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;两 could mean &amp;quot;both, either&amp;quot;. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两侧 (both sides), 势不两立 (to be irreconcilable with), 两边 (both sides), 两端 (both ends), 两极 (both poles).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In a serial number (phone number) or code (barcode, etc.), only 二 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In science, 二 is often used. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二项式 (binomial), 二氧化碳 (CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;)，三氧化二铝 (Al&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;O&lt;sub&gt;3&lt;/sub&gt;), 二次曲线(curve of the second degree), 二元方程 (two element equation), 二阶微分方程 (two order differential equation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In numbers, when two is used at the digit fewer than hundred, only 二 is used. In other cases, 两 could also be used (they are interchangeable). Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;25 二十五, 12 十二, 22 二十二, 2.22 二点二二. 222.22 两百二十二点二二 or 二百二十二点二二.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But there are some other cases&lt;/strong&gt;, that don't follow the rules above. You may need to memorize them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Idioms: 说一不二, 三心二意, 三言两语, 三三两两, 二人世界(the world only contains you and your love)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T11:12:39.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="773" CreationDate="2012-01-10T11:16:17.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your friend might have some dogs, cats and other animals as pets. He might want to regard all these pets as a big family, to each member of which he might want to give a lovely nickname. For example, he might have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;猫舅， 猫姨， 狗外甥， 兔大姑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T11:16:17.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="786" CreationDate="2012-01-10T11:17:34.040" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's Chinese traditional talk show. Usually played by two persons.  But there is 单口相声 which played by one person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="310" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T11:17:34.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="792" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="794" CreationDate="2012-01-10T11:45:14.230" Score="17" ViewCount="5881" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;For those who might not read the question fully: this &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; about simplified vs traditional characters.  While the traditional and simplified version of a character can be considered the same, they at least have different code points, and I am well aware of the existence of traditional forms, so I won't get confused by them.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;First, some explanation:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed that my browser was displaying some Chinese characters in a way that's unfamiliar to me (I'm a beginner learner).  To cut a long story short: the reason is that the same character (with the same Unicode code point) may look different in a Japanese and a Chinese font.  English-language operating systems will typically choose a Japanese substitute font in almost any program when the main font doesn't include CJK glyphs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example of several characters that will typically appear markedly differently in a Japanese or Simplified Chinese font (Meiryo and YaHei on Windows):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5xISh.png&quot; alt=&quot;Comparison&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that sometimes even the stroke count differs, e.g. in 直!  Traditional Chinese fonts can be slightly different from Simplified Chinese ones too.  This is quite frustrating for me as a beginner because as you know sometimes the visual difference between truly different characters (like 八人入) is even smaller than the visual difference between these stylistic variants of identical characters on the image above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Now, the questions:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are all of these different styles of the same characters used in China as well, or are they specific to Japan?  Is it important for me to learn about them (i.e. learn both shapes of 令 or 直)?  Note that Traditional Chinese fonts (like MingLiu) will often have different versions from Simplified Chinese ones for the same Unicode code point (though not as extremely different as the Japanese one).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What other &lt;em&gt;common&lt;/em&gt; characters are there which may look significantly different in different-language fonts?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Should I just think of these differences as similar to the common stylistic differences in the small Roman letter 'a' and 'g', like in the image below?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MUiIN.png&quot; alt=&quot;Mathematica graphics&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course I'm aware that there are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calligraphy#Evolution_and_Styles&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;several calligraphy styles&lt;/a&gt;, but note that I'm a beginner (i.e. I definitely won't try to read 草书) and this is about common print styles I came across on a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Interesting reading:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unihan#Examples_of_language_dependent_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unihan#Examples_of_language_dependent_characters&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Note:&lt;/em&gt; Doesn't work in WebKit.  It will work in Mozilla browsers or IE on Windows.  It's unlikely to work on Linux due to bad font support.  I don't know about Mac.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="92" LastEditorUserId="92" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T12:41:43.793" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T04:55:40.903" Title="Characters which have several different shapes" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;style&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="793" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-10T11:51:57.090" Score="12" ViewCount="2948" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wordnet.princeton.edu/&quot;&gt;WordNet&lt;/a&gt; is a database of English words, which includes semantic relationships of words too.  It includes synonym and antonym-relationships, as well as &quot;categories&quot;.  For example, it will tell me that a &lt;a href=&quot;http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?o2=&amp;amp;o0=1&amp;amp;o8=1&amp;amp;o1=1&amp;amp;o7=&amp;amp;o5=&amp;amp;o9=&amp;amp;o6=&amp;amp;o3=&amp;amp;o4=&amp;amp;r=1&amp;amp;s=cat&amp;amp;i=1&amp;amp;h=100000000000#c&quot;&gt;tabby is a cat&lt;/a&gt; and that a cat is an animal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anything comparable for Chinese, which is freely downloadable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anything that can be used online is already useful, but I'd prefer a database that I can download and analyse on my own computer.  I only need it for personal use (in case the license doesn't allow anything else).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="92" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T23:01:13.070" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T23:01:13.070" Title="Is there a Chinese WordNet?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="792" CreationDate="2012-01-10T12:20:50.863" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Characters in the first image are the same(same meaning, same pronunciation). They are variants(we call them 异体字,异:&lt;em&gt;different&lt;/em&gt;, 体 &lt;em&gt;body, form&lt;/em&gt;, 字: &lt;em&gt;character&lt;/em&gt;) of the same character, however, Japan and China select different form as standard form. On the computer, using the proper fonts will solve this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Read &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Chinese_character&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; wiki article to find more such variants.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the mainland, only the standard form is used. You won't see any other variants if your computer is configured with correct fonts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T12:34:36.143" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T12:34:36.143" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="795" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="809" CreationDate="2012-01-10T12:27:30.447" Score="9" ViewCount="1891" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any online or computer dictionaries that allow searching for characters by any sub-part of the character?  Occasionally it I see a character the parts of which I can already type.  But I can't type the full character itself, and it's a lot of work to look it up using radical search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: Let's take 楼.  When I saw this for the first time, I could already type 木米女, but not 楼.  Is there a dictionary that gives me 楼 for the search 木米女 (and any other characters which might contain the same)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is something similar on this site, &lt;a href=&quot;http://kanji.sljfaq.org/mr.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;kanji.sljfaq.org&lt;/a&gt;, but it is for Japanese only, and it's for radicals only (not arbitrary typeable character parts).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;I have a semi-usable implementation of such a search, which I wrote in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://wri.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mathematica language&lt;/a&gt;, and uses &lt;a href=&quot;http://groovy.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=cjk-decomp&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this decomposition database&lt;/a&gt;.  This has shown to me that such an approach &lt;em&gt;can be&lt;/em&gt; valuable and usable for a beginner learner.  But making it complete and usable enough is a lot of work, and Mathematica is not designed for this, so I am really hoping to find a working implementation somewhere.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="92" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T08:51:03.267" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T11:44:45.770" Title="Searching for characters by parts" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="795" CreationDate="2012-01-10T12:39:25.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Althought this doesn't answer your question as you wanted, I found a nice site, called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nciku.com&lt;/a&gt;, where you can handwrite characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stroke order doesn't matter, on the side you'll see similar characters that you can click. It doesn't require touchscreen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eOoZp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T12:39:25.717" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="793" CreationDate="2012-01-10T12:41:40.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here it is: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.keenage.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hownet&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The website is mostly in Chinese. There does not seem to have an on-line version. I didn't try to download the whole program (database).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T13:00:52.497" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T13:00:52.497" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="795" CreationDate="2012-01-10T13:17:56.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a direct answer, just a suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may use some input method (google pinyin IME or sogou IME, for example) to input a character by strokes or by part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use google pinyin IME and I find it works for two parts. In the case of 楼，the left part is 木 and the right part is 娄, but if you don't know 娄, 木 米 女 won't be recognized by this IME.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dgxfH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;By the stroke input method, you have to input too much...&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3vr9f.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T13:58:21.610" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T13:58:21.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="792" CreationDate="2012-01-10T13:20:55.103" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Unicode standard put one character into one code point, but the character can be written differently in simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Japanese or Korean(oh, they don't use characters now, only Hangul). From the Unicode website, you can &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/Public/5.2.0/charts/CodeCharts-MulticolHan.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;download a list of all characters&lt;/a&gt;, with their origin local standard and shape. A example for character &quot;直&quot; is shown below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ugU52.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number under the character shows the original local standard (and code point in the standard). The local standard from mainland China are listed &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr38/index.html#kIRG_GSource&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. In short, it begins with &quot;G&quot;. And &quot;G0&quot; through &quot;G9&quot; (excluding &quot;G4k&quot;) should be the characters more often used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shape from the mainland standard is used in simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some cases, purely typographical variants are assigned different code points. These are referred to as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-variant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;z-variants&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2012-06-21T13:44:42.823" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T13:44:42.823" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="800" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="802" CreationDate="2012-01-10T14:40:09.387" Score="4" ViewCount="558" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 糗大 (qiǔdà) mean in the following phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那才真的糗大了。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From context, I think it &lt;em&gt;ought&lt;/em&gt; to mean something like &quot;that would really be terrible&quot; or &quot;that would be far worse,&quot; but I can't find a source to confirm my hunch. 糗大 isn't in my dictionary, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; lists the translation as &quot;hoax,&quot; which doesn't seem right in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T16:02:50.663" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T18:22:04.983" Title="What does 糗大 (qiǔdà) mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="737" CreationDate="2012-01-10T14:51:36.247" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing in the linguistic research that proves that writing the characters physically improves one's ability to recognize them in context (as in reading). If that were true, physically handicapped people who cannot write or speak would not be able to read or comprehend language, and clearly that is not the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Virtually all of the &quot;evidence&quot; presented in support of &quot;you must write to remember the characters&quot; is based on the personal experience of individuals. Most individuals who have been successful in learning Chinese to date are analytical thinkers who do not mind repetition, because the methods used to teach Chinese are largely based on memorization and analysis. If, however, we look at the broad mass of all students who begin first-year Chinese, the picture changes, and clearly the methods being used are not succeeding with every student who embarks on the study of Chinese, so we should be examining these assertions more closely and separating what is generally good for most from what works for a small minority of the &quot;talented&quot;. Language is not something that should be limited to &quot;the talented&quot; or &quot;the hard workers&quot;; it's a natural human ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a student enjoys writing by hand, likes calligraphy, or otherwise derives pleasure from the mechanical reproduction of Chinese characters, that has value. If, on the other hand, the student is being asked to spend many hours memorizing the mechanical reproduction of characters solely for the reason that &quot;he will have to write them in school&quot; but will never have a practical use for that skill in the real world, it is time to re-evaluate what school is teaching and how Chinese programs are preparing people for real life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T14:51:36.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="800" CreationDate="2012-01-10T15:03:04.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well that was easy: I should have done a better web search before posting. The answer can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/22639370&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;糗大了，为俗语。为：出丑的意思。（事情搞砸了，出丑了）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [糗大了 is a colloquial saying meaning &quot;to make a fool of oneself.&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone knows the origin of this phrase, I'd be glad to hear it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T15:03:04.710" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20" CreationDate="2012-01-10T15:06:32.250" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&#xA;Children's books are written -- not surprisingly -- for little native speakers. These are little people who have an astonishingly broad vocabulary at age three. And that vocabulary includes many words that foreign learners of the language never pick up (or need, really.) What kid doesn't know the sounds that every animal makes, or the words for a bunch of body positions, or a bunch of verbs that are rarely used outside of childhood routines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we teach students to read, we use purpose-written texts, not generic children's books. You can teach using children's books if you care to take the time to teach the vocabulary that is in them, but so much of it is not high-frequency that it's hardly worth the time. Mature learners need to focus on the highest-frequency words and structures in the language, and need to reinforce their acquisition of the structure of the language. They don't need to spend time decoding a lot of vocabulary they will have little use for in the near term. Those who stick with Chinese over the long term may want to know all those words eventually, but they are not in the majority by any means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T15:06:32.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="800" CreationDate="2012-01-10T19:54:37.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese and 糗大了 has a southern (Southern China) accent to it to my ears...also it's made of 米 (left part which means rice) and 臭 (right part which means stinky), so maybe the origin is from stinky rice? I didn't research but thought about sharing just for fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; as in somebody accidentally ate spoiled rice and made a fool out of himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-01-10T22:46:27.307" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T22:46:27.307" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="759" CreationDate="2012-01-10T20:03:04.123" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 羹 is thicker in texture whereas 汤 is more watery like stock. for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chicken stock: 鸡(chicken)汤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; interesting note: when you translate the book title &quot;chicken soup for the soul&quot;, it's translated to 心灵鸡汤 (chicken stock of the soul), so chicken soup and chicken stock both translate to 汤。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T20:03:04.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="808" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-10T20:05:32.153" Score="6" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;I chose 拳拳 as my own Chinese name, having the meaning of my name in mind. I got it from an online dictionary, so I would like to know what native speakers &quot;get&quot; from it, as in what are the connotations that a native speaker gets by such a name, since the dictionary cannot tell me that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some info might be useful: My name is &lt;em&gt;Ernesto&lt;/em&gt; from old english &lt;em&gt;Earnest&lt;/em&gt; which means &lt;em&gt;honest&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;sincere&lt;/em&gt;, among other things.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I translated &lt;em&gt;Earnest&lt;/em&gt; in various online dictionaries, and from the resulting meanings I chose 拳拳 mainly because I liked it from an aesthetic standpoint and also because the character 拳 is part of the name &lt;em&gt;Tae Kwon Do&lt;/em&gt; in Korean (跆拳道), a discipline I practice.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it reasonable to think that the word 拳拳 is related to the concept of &quot;honesty, sincerity&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-11-20T19:00:41.060" LastActivityDate="2012-11-20T19:32:09.777" Title="What are the connotations of the word 拳拳?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="795" CreationDate="2012-01-10T20:32:24.547" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tatoeba.org is a great resource of translated sentences, and it also includes exactly what you're looking for in its tools section. It has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/tools/search_hanzi_kanji&quot;&gt;sinogram search page&lt;/a&gt; that lets you search by subglyph. When I searched for 木米女, it returned these options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;偻 喽 娄 婅 嫾 嬏 屡 屦 嵝 搂 擞 数 楼 溇 瘘 窭 篓 籹 缕 耧 蒌 薮 蝼 褛 镂 髅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one you're looking for is number 13.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T20:32:24.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="808" CreationDate="2012-01-10T20:54:06.333" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I first saw it, I thought it meant &lt;em&gt;fist fist&lt;/em&gt;. By the way, I think the same word appearing twice in name usually is only appropriate in girls' names; it makes the name cute. If you are a guy, you probably don't want that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is a 成语（4 word idiom with well known meanings) that says 拳拳之心 (heart of 拳拳) which is an adjective that means &lt;em&gt;forever remembering in heart&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-11-20T19:32:09.777" LastActivityDate="2012-11-20T19:32:09.777" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="783" CreationDate="2012-01-10T21:18:12.847" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;without over-thinking, it translates to: This is all I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;maybe i watch too many detective movies, in which the guilty will end their confessions w/ &quot;我知道的就這麼多了&quot;...which to me translates to &quot;this is all I know&quot; in english dialog in such settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T21:18:12.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="781" CreationDate="2012-01-10T21:22:16.630" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;my teacher back in china always taught us that xue (4th tone) is more formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T21:22:16.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="779" CreationDate="2012-01-10T21:27:07.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;maybe this'll help choose which to use: (i don't know how universal the rule below will work but it works for the examples in this page so far. my logic is to look for the singular of the pair when just the pair is confusing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if one out of the pair can be prefixed w/ 只， then use 对&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if one out of the pair can be prefixed w/ 个， then use 双&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-01-10T21:27:07.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="773" CreationDate="2012-01-10T21:33:10.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;猫舅 in this sentence just means cat. It's become slang to say 猫舅 when one just means cat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the following might be helpful too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;猪爹 (pig dad) - means pig&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;猫舅 (cat uncle) - cat&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;狗老爷 (dog grandpa) - dog&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-10T17:17:08.007" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T17:17:08.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="808" CreationDate="2012-01-11T00:18:23.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be a good name only if you are not going to use it for any professional occasions. It sounds like a nickname for little kids, and you could totally keep it just for fun. But it should not be your Chinese name if your goal is to use it for job interviews or any business opportunities. You will need a better name than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="316" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T00:18:23.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="872" CreationDate="2012-01-11T00:37:24.660" Score="13" ViewCount="4642" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm always curious to know, as the world develops and new words come into existence, how are they adopted by the Chinese language? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some sort of government body that decides these sort of things, or is it just based on popular usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example would be 'internet' - did someone just decide that 网 would just be related to anything connected by a network, or is there someone somewhere who makes decisions about this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happens when more new terms/ideas are developed, and they need a name in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this question isn't too open ended, I'm just really curious to know how new words are added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:08:23.017" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T22:50:20.520" Title="How are new words added to the Chinese language?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="247" CreationDate="2012-01-11T00:56:22.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's quite possible that you are asking a question that makes no sense in the context of the language itself. Asian languages tend to be less logically-oriented than Western languages, and more influenced by temporal events, like politics and history. Scholars, for example, are able to date documents by the conspicuous absence of certain characters - writing the emperor's name was forbidden in ancient China, so if we find that a strange character is being used instead of a more common-sense one that also happens to be in the name of a known emperor, we can say with reasonable conviction that this document was produced during that emperor's lifetime/reign. So, some questions, ESPECIALLY questions that start with the word &quot;why,&quot; are more or less gibberish in the context of a lot of Asian cultures. I think you may have stumbled upon one such question here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="317" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T00:56:22.140" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="795" CreationDate="2012-01-11T02:49:14.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is what you want here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/tools/search_hanzi_kanji&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://tatoeba.org/eng/tools/search_hanzi_kanji&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can type in 木米女 and it will give you the result you are after.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also a Japanese tool, but if you click on the character it will give you the pinyin and you could also just cut and past the character into another tool such as wiktionary if you wanted more info.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tool itself is based on the data available from here &lt;a href=&quot;http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Chinese_characters_decomposition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Chinese_characters_decomposition&lt;/a&gt; which is available under a Creative Commons license and lists over 20,000 characters. This is where I would start if you wanted to build such a tool yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T02:49:14.120" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="397" CreationDate="2012-01-11T03:03:46.613" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if it's a close friend, then “那就先这样？改天我们再聊?&quot; (how about we leave it off like this? we'll chat later?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if it's somebody you want to be polite/safe with, then &quot;您看您还有什么事儿?&quot; (is there anything more i can do/answer for you?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if it's a telemarketer and you are in a good mood, then &quot;我现在没空.对不起挂了啊.&quot; (i'm busy sorry i have to hang up)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if it's a telemarketer and you are in a bad mood, then &quot;我没兴趣.别再骚扰我了!&quot; (i'm not interested. leave me alone!/don't bother me again!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@xiaohuozi, i'm assuming that you are a guy and i've tailored my answers to your gender group by recalling how my guy friends/relatives said in those occasions. Those answers can be tuned &quot;softer&quot; with more &quot;啊&quot; &quot;哈&quot; &quot;了&quot; &quot;呢&quot; if you were a woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T03:03:46.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1547" CreationDate="2012-01-11T05:00:30.580" Score="11" ViewCount="2377" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I first moved to the south of China, I was surprised to hear the phrase &quot;什么来的&quot; used to mean &quot;what,&quot; as in &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　这是什么来的？: &quot;What is this?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I could tell, in many cases there was no question of &lt;em&gt;motion&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;origin&lt;/em&gt;. (I.e., the question was not &quot;where did this come from?&quot;). The &quot;来的&quot; had been completely grammaticalized and did not carry its original meaning. At the time, I (probably wrongly) assumed that this was due to the influence of the Cantonese construction &quot;係乜嘢嚟嘅&quot; (&quot;what is it?&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fast forward several years, when I was speaking to a friend from the North who is studying to get his degree in teaching Chinese as a foreign language. He said that the phrase &quot;什么来的&quot; does not exist, and that the correct phrase is &quot;什么来着.&quot; He even intimated that I may have been mishearing 来着 as 来的 all this time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, a Google search gives ample evidence for both phrases, and even seems to indicate that 来的 is more prevalent!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my questions: (and here I'm looking especially for responses from &lt;strong&gt;native speakers&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you personally say &quot;什么来的&quot;? &quot;什么来着&quot;? Both? Neither?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which of these phrases strikes you as more standard? Does either one evoke Chinese spoken in a particular region?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you use both phrases (or have heard both phrases used), do you maintain a distinction in meaning between the two?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there analogous phrases in your native dialect? Do those phrases influence your usage in Mandarin?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:16:15.200" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:16:15.200" Title="What is the status of 什么来的 and 什么来着 in standard and colloquial Mandarin Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2012-01-11T05:39:29.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I only use &quot;什么来着&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I cannot recall whether I have heard of &quot;什么来的&quot; before. So that should probably be no.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My hometown is near Beijing, and the dialect is already very much like Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T05:39:29.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2012-01-11T05:51:28.367" Score="7" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I agree with your friend. I think the correct version is &quot;什么来着&quot;. You can find the word&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/865185.htm&quot;&gt;来着&lt;/a&gt;&quot;,but you can't find the word&quot;来的“ in the dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think it's popular in northern area(such as 北京，天津，河北，辽宁). I have heard of &quot;什么来着&quot; on the TV and I can understand it, though I have never used &quot;什么来着&quot;, either in mandarin or in my dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(Not applicable)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course the dialect will influce the way you speak mandarin Chinese, both in pronunciation and words. Examples from one of my roommates when I was in the university, he came from 浙江 province(in south China), and his mother tongue is a subclass of 吴 dialect.He likes to use words below and confused me at the first time when I met him, though he speaks in mandarin(not very standard).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;纸头 &lt;em&gt;paper&lt;/em&gt;  In mandarin, we use 纸 or 纸张&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  烧饭 &lt;em&gt;to cook&lt;/em&gt; In mandarin, we use 做饭&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A structure &quot;不要太[an adj]&quot;. He means &quot;very, quite [adj]&quot;, but in mandarin, it means &quot;don't be so [adj]&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At last, I want to make a clarification that, when I searched &quot;什么来着&quot; as keyword with Google, on the first page, I saw 10 results, each of which contains the complete &quot;什么来着&quot;;however,when I searched &quot;什么来的”, I saw 11 results on the first page, only 4 of which contains the complete &quot;什么来的“. Also, you could see &quot;什么来的&quot; as in &quot;他是冲什么来的？(what does he come for?)”,but that's another story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T05:51:28.367" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="825" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-11T09:16:19.413" Score="4" ViewCount="922" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the correct terms for both a roadside gutter and a gutter on a roof?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the sake of making me look bad, my guess would be 水沟 but I've seen that applied to a large canal so I'm not sure if it is the right choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:07:09.260" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:07:09.260" Title="Correct terms for a roadside gutter and gutter on a roof" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="826" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-11T09:20:08.630" Score="14" ViewCount="88239" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;4 or 四 means death&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;8 is similar to 发 as in 发财&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;9 is somehow related to the emporer or is the emporer's number&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please provide the meanings (if they exist) for each of the different numbers 0 - 10?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T07:41:51.093" Title="Special meanings applied to numbers 0 - 10" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="827" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-11T09:42:21.693" Score="3" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;In restaurants in Australia we quite often have Chinese dishes which are combination for example Combination Satay or Combination Fried Rice. These contain several types of meat as opposed to something like Chicken Satay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When this is written in Chinese on the menu this is typically written as 什会 for example with Combination Satay: 沙爹什会 &lt;em&gt;Shā diē shén huì&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This appears more typically with Cantonese/HK cuisine as this is more prevelant in Australia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this usage a Cantonese/HK usage or does it also appear on the mainland?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other uses for 什会 other than for food?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:06:00.647" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:06:00.647" Title="What are the uses of 什会 and from which area?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="826" CreationDate="2012-01-11T09:45:41.427" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is just a selection based on things I've heard - I'm not sure if these are the concrete meanings, or just what I've heard from friends, but here goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 - 要 - at least on occasions, for example there is a job website&#xA;  called 51job meaning '我要job'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 - 二 - in the north where I used to live, this commonly means stupid,&#xA;  shortened from 二百五 (also meaning stupid)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 - 生 - 1314 - 一生一世 - meaning one lifetime &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4 - 死 - as you said, meaning death&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5 - can mean either 我 or 呜呜 (like the noise you make when crying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6 - I've heard one for this in Cantonese meaning happy, but not in&#xA;  Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7 - I don't really know any for seven&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8 - either like 发财的发 as you said, or often used to say 拜拜 (88 is often used to mean 拜拜 in chat, although the pronunciation of the character 拜 is not ba1 but bai4.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9 - 久 - meaning to live a long life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10 - I don't know any for this either. Sorry!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps - it's really interesting to know the meaning behind these sort of things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2013-10-14T06:29:09.930" LastActivityDate="2013-10-14T06:29:09.930" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="825" CreationDate="2012-01-11T09:51:53.137" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know this word, so I consult it on the online dictionary and I found 排水沟 for the gutter at the roadsides and 檐沟 or 天沟 for the gutter at the roof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually,it's the first time for me to see 檐沟 or  天沟. After understanding what they mean,I think I would use 排水沟 for both cases.排水沟 means &quot;a ditch to drain out the water&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T09:51:53.137" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="825" CreationDate="2012-01-11T09:55:13.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a gutter on a roof, I'm sure &lt;strong&gt;屋檐 (wu yan)&lt;/strong&gt; is correct, or at least one correct option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the footpath however, I'm really not sure, and none of my Chinese friends seem to have a good answer either. As far as I know &lt;strong&gt;排水沟&lt;/strong&gt; is more like a drain where the water goes down from on the street (with a grate on top of it - I'm sure you know what I mean), and perhaps &lt;strong&gt;阴沟&lt;/strong&gt; is the best answer for gutter on the street. I'm not very confident about that though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="62" LastEditDate="2012-01-11T10:01:25.213" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T10:01:25.213" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="826" CreationDate="2012-01-11T10:13:26.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add to Ciaocibai's list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;0-&lt;/strong&gt; ling = 你 usually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1-&lt;/strong&gt; is also used for sounds like yi and ni&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen it used in cases like 521 (我爱你) 520 works as well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6-&lt;/strong&gt; = 了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7-&lt;/strong&gt; = sounds like qi or qu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;17 = 一起 or 你去 depending on context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a side note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;14&lt;/strong&gt; often sounds like 要死 and is a bad number (many buildings will omit the 14th floor for example and have 13A and 13B or directly jump from 13 to 15)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but 14 is also used to sound like 你是 like in 1487 你是白痴 :p&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's impossible to list all the meanings in one answer so I will link you to baidu:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=162343070&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=162343070&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="320" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T10:13:26.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="826" CreationDate="2012-01-11T10:15:52.907" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a Wikipedia article dedicated to this, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture&quot;&gt;Numbers in Chinese culture&lt;/a&gt;; it states that numbers are divided in two categories, &lt;strong&gt;lucky&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;unlucky&lt;/strong&gt; numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lucky Numbers&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;二, &lt;em&gt;the number 2&lt;/em&gt;: There is a saying that states &quot;Good things come in pairs&quot;, for this reason many things in China seem to be &quot;presented&quot; in pairs of two, since this is considered a positive number;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;三, &lt;em&gt;the number 3&lt;/em&gt;: It's considered lucky because it's similar to the character for &quot;birth&quot;, 生.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;五, &lt;em&gt;the number 5&lt;/em&gt;: This number is associated with the Five Elements (Earth, Water, Wind, Fire and Metal) and also with the Emperor of China; the Tianamen Gate has five arches;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;六, &lt;em&gt;the number 6&lt;/em&gt;: The number six pronounced as liù, is similar to the character 流 (liú) which means &quot;to flow&quot;. This is considered lucky in business. &lt;strong&gt;Side-note&lt;/strong&gt;: I've read elsewhere that objects with this number or with the string with three 6 in a row are considered very lucky, and people will try to buy such things (such as phone numbers). It's stated in this page, &lt;em&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pieceabout.com/aid17901/deciphering-the-meaning-of-chinese-numbers.html&quot;&gt;Deciphering The Meaning Of Chinese Numbers&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;七, &lt;em&gt;the number 7&lt;/em&gt;: It's a lucky number for relationships.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;八, &lt;em&gt;the number 8&lt;/em&gt;: It sounds similar to the word for &quot;prosper&quot; or &quot;wealth&quot; 發 (fā), short for &quot;發財&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;九, &lt;em&gt;the number 9&lt;/em&gt;: This number, like 五, was historically associated with the Emperor of China. As it's stated in that article, &lt;em&gt;&quot;before the establishment of the imperial examinations officials were organized in the nine-rank system, the nine bestowments were rewards the Emperor made for officials of extraordinary capacity and loyalty, while the nine familial exterminations was one of the harshest punishments the Emperor sentenced; the Emperor's robes often had nine dragons, and Chinese mythology held that the dragon has nine children.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Unlucky Numbers&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;四, &lt;em&gt;the number 4&lt;/em&gt;: As you said, this number is associated with death, 死 (sǐ). This happens in Japanese as well, by the way, both 四 and 死, can be read as &quot;shi&quot;. Following the same logic for the number 6, objects/things with this number are avoided, such as floors... A similar attitude in westerner countries which miss the 13&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt; floor, for example.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some numbers that were considered as lucky, can be considered unlucky too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;五, &lt;em&gt;the number 5&lt;/em&gt;: It's also associated to the character 無 (wú) &quot;not&quot;. If associated with something bad, it can become positive, such as in the number 54, because it means &quot;not + death&quot;. 528, instead might mean &quot;no easy fortune for me&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;六, &lt;em&gt;the number 6&lt;/em&gt;: &lt;em&gt;&quot;Six in Cantonese which has a similar pronunciation to that of &quot;lok6&quot; (落, meaning, to drop, fall, or decline)&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;七, &lt;em&gt;the number 7&lt;/em&gt;: As stated in the article this number &lt;em&gt;&quot;is considered spiritist or ghostly&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. However, since the 7&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt; day of the month, in the Chinese lunar calendar, is Valentine's Day, this number is not usually associated with bad luck.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to summarize most of the content here, but check the page for more info and other meanings of complex numbers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T10:15:52.907" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="730" CreationDate="2012-01-11T10:18:38.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this post, &lt;em&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/30129-what-popular-science-fiction-tv-shows-are-available-with-chinese-dubbing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;What popular science fiction TV shows are available with Chinese dubbing?&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, which provides links to various services. I am not advocating these services as most of them are illegal, however it will provide you with good information and many examples of movies and series that have been dubbed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples are &lt;a href=&quot;http://verycd.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;verycd.com&lt;/a&gt; which now no longer provides links to illegally stream, but will provide you with info of different series that have been dubbed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://normteam.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;NORMTEAM&lt;/a&gt;, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.normteam.com/thread-33919-1-8.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.normteam.com/thread-33919-1-8.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And PPTV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These should provide you with plenty of examples. However you will need to dig a bit to find what you are looking for and I personally wouldn't attempt to view anything from these sites because the software is so damn dodgy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is there are literally thousands of shows that have been dubbed in Chinese. If I was after this information and it was just for personal use I would just go to my local Chinese video store and ask them what dubbed series that have on offer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-11T10:45:16.167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T10:45:16.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="834" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="854" CreationDate="2012-01-11T10:45:28.940" Score="3" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm moving back to China again in a few weeks, and I've already got a few friends planning visits - this brings me to my problem: I can't always be around to translate, and I find people have a more enjoyable experience when they have even a few words to express themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What sites/sources/books etc should I recommend to them so they can have even a little foundation when they arrive? Does anyone have any particular phrase books that they would recommend? What have you suggested for friends and family traveling to China for the first time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T04:44:32.093" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T04:44:32.093" Title="What good resources are available to assist first-time travellers to learn basic Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2012-09-18T11:41:27.420" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="827" CreationDate="2012-01-11T11:05:48.657" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the correct characters should be 什烩 and the correct pinyin should be &quot;shí huì&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When 什 is prnounced as &quot;shí&quot;, it means &quot;serveral kinds of, various kinds of [something]&quot;. Generally, this meaning is used in dishes or foods, like 什锦糖(a kind of candy containing different flavors in one candy). &lt;br&gt;烩 is a method of cooking.It means,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. After frying or sauteing the ingredients(almost cooked), braise all ingredients, usually with the starchy. OR&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.Cook different things(rice, vegetables, meat, etc.,) together with water.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So 什烩 means food cooked with the first method of &quot;烩&quot;, with a lot of different ingredients.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. The character 什 really has this pronunciation, though you would only see &quot;shén&quot; as in the commonly used word &quot;什么&quot;. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.It's difficult for me to explain something clearly related to cooking(due to lackages of words and knowledge) in English. I have searched “什烩&quot; on Internet and found a lot of results. I am sure it should be &quot;什烩&quot;. You might as well ask the cook to understand the EXACT meaning of 烩.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-11T14:17:26.987" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T14:17:26.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="836" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-11T12:05:01.847" Score="11" ViewCount="2032" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know other words like 如果 also mean &amp;quot;if&amp;quot;, but why would 要是...的话 mean &amp;quot;if&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要是你喜欢汉语（的话），你该听中国的音乐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you like Chinese, you should listen to Chinese music.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="51" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:14:22.170" Title="Why does the construction of 要是…的话 mean &quot;if&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="836" CreationDate="2012-01-11T13:14:35.190" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you find these kinds of things puzzling, I suggest you try and download 现代汉语八百词. It gives meanings and uses of a lot of these constructions. As Huang says, these constructions mean just what they mean. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On page 594 of 现代汉语八百词 it says (the page number will depend on the edition you download):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要是 yào.shi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;［连］表示假设；如果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) 用于前一小句。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;～看见《汉英词典》，替我买一本 | ～他不去，你去吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) ‘要是...’后可加‘的话’。‘要是...的话’可用在后一小句。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;～有人问的话，说我在老马家 ｜ 坐船去好，～来得及的话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) 要是 ＋ 名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;～别人（＝如果换了别人），这事不一定能办成 | 老同学聚会真不容易，～去年，咱们还聚不齐呢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning is roughly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yào.shi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Conjunction] expresses hypothesis; if.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) used in first clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you see a &quot;Chinese-English Dictionary&quot;, buy one for me | If he doesn’t go, will you go?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) 的话 can be added after 要是. '要是…的话' can be used in the second clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If anyone asks, tell them I’m at Ma’s place | It’s good to go by boat, if you can make it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) 要是 + noun.&#xA;&lt;em&gt;If someone else (= if it were someone else), this matter could not necessarily be accomplished | It’s not easy for old classmates to get together, if [it were] last year, we couldn’t have done it!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-14T14:25:12.047" LastActivityDate="2012-01-14T14:25:12.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="825" CreationDate="2012-01-11T14:15:20.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;iciba.com gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(路边) 排水沟, 阴沟&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阴沟 doesn't look very apt since it literally means 'closed gutter' (i.e. 'sewer').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(屋顶的) 天沟, 檐槽, 檐沟&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the same as answers given by others, except that it adds 檐槽, which looks like a good option as 槽 means something like 'trough'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英汉大词典 (paper dictionary) gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(道路的) 排水边沟，街沟，明沟&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明沟 is an open gutter, which is what we want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天沟，檐槽&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also like to point out that Chinese is a great language for having several alternative names for the same thing. Of course it can happen in any language, but for some reason (the vast area over which its spoken? the flexible way that vocabulary is created by combining words together?) it seems to be particularly common in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastEditorUserId="285" LastEditDate="2012-01-11T14:23:21.287" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T14:23:21.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="825" CreationDate="2012-01-11T14:17:58.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Professional interpreters often use Google as a way of determining which wording or term is more prevalent. Looking at the gutter question, the first thing to do it link it with another word that one is more or less certain is correct. In this case, I'm using 下水管 (downspout) because that will rule out hits that have to do with street drains and the like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;排水槽(Gutter) and 下水管(Down Spouts): 9230 hits&lt;br&gt;&#xA;檐沟 (gutter, [yáNGŌU]) and 下水管: 15700 hits&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I'm searching only on the Chinese terms, with each individual term in quotes. Otherwise the results won't mean much. (Even searching in that way, it's only a guideline, not an absolute; you have to consider where the pages come from, though searching for Chinese usage it usually is not much of a problem. If you're trying to confirm an English term starting from Chinese, it's more difficult because there are a lot of non-native speakers posting Web pages in English and their wrong usage can skew results.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Alibaba (a site for export products) there is: 天沟外转角90°,檐沟，落水管，下水管，排水槽 which would suggest that both terms are used. The discrepancy in the Google results isn't that great, so most likely either one would be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were in the booth doing a job where people were talking about gutters, I'd probably use yáNGŌU based on this. But I'd listen during the coffee break to hear what people were saying when they commented on the morning's session. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T14:17:58.767" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="836" CreationDate="2012-01-11T14:22:35.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, one of the things about languages is that they are &quot;arbitrary&quot;. They basically just pick a group of sounds and declare, &quot;This is what that means.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, for example, a butterfly is not flying butter, even though the two smaller parts one can see in that word have those meanings. In the same way, it doesn't help much to think that one can break everything in Chinese down and get logical explanations for everything. Language is just that way (otherwise computers would have taken over our function a long time ago!) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T14:22:35.780" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="301" CreationDate="2012-01-11T14:30:48.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Huang and Krazer's answers already point you in the right direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot find an example where 到 alone means to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should use 到 (when alone) has you would use the verb arrive in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;到家我要睡觉. When I arrive home (when I am back at home) I need to sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我到北京了. I arrived at Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到 indicates a final point, a destination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also be used in combination with 去 to indicate the final destination  of a &lt;strong&gt;journey&lt;/strong&gt; (more or less long distance) and thus add the idea of movement, travel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the nuance in the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去北京. I (will) go to Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我到北京去. I (will) travel to Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="320" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T14:30:48.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="834" CreationDate="2012-01-11T14:31:47.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest a short intensive course in Chinese done through Comprehensible Input (that's a theoretical framework for language acquisition). You can also search for TPRS-based courses or teachers of Chinese -- that's the name of the language teaching method that uses this approach. Problem is, there aren't that many out there yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with a phrasebook is that it's just that -- a book of phrases. It doesn't build the ability to understand or create with the language. Doing a CI-based course, even a very short one, will give your visitors a lot more flexibility with the language. I've had people go to China after 8-10 hours and get along quite comfortably (able to buy things, eat, talk about themselves, and so on.) They're not going to be UN interpreters the next day but this kind of preparation goes a lot farther than memorization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional lessons or textbooks also fall short for short-term classes because they are not really much different from a phrase book. The student focuses on one &quot;pattern&quot; or a dialogue for a couple of hours, and doesn't develop much ability to use the language within the time they would have to devote to Chinese study before their trip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the US, Albany Language Learning or Fluency Fast do this sort of course. These are both Western-student-oriented organizations in the US, and will focus on the highest-frequency words and structures in the language. Full disclosure: I work for Albany Language Learning. But if I knew more sources I'd point you to them. People just get a lot farther in a shorter time when preparing for travel in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T14:31:47.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="836" CreationDate="2012-01-11T14:37:26.173" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Great answers by Terry and Bathrobe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this instance, when I bumped into the same thing, I thought of it as the English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Let's say that..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that way &quot;say&quot; gets a nice and logic connection with &quot;话&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T14:37:26.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="116" CreationDate="2012-01-11T14:40:49.183" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been developing and using the TOP (Tonally Orthographic Pinyin) system since 1995. There's a free online converter available at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesepronto.com/triple/flashfix.php&quot;&gt;http://www.chinesepronto.com/triple/flashfix.php&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The TOP system is redundantly marked for tones: with colors, with capital and small letters, and with the standard Hanyu Pinyin tone marks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The color system is simple and consistent:&#xA;BLUE for first tone (high like the sky)&#xA;Green for second tone (grows UP like a plant)&#xA;black for third tone (low like dirt on the ground)&#xA;Red for fourth tone (an angry sound in English, which is often associated with red)&#xA;Neutral tone is gray and adds an asterisk (*) to the third tone form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The scheme of capitalization and small letters is also simple:&#xA;FIRST TONE -- all capitals  (voice is high)&#xA;seconD tonE -- lasT letteR capitalizeD (voice rises)&#xA;third tone -- all lower case (voice is low -- 3rd tone does not really dip)&#xA;Fourth Tone -- First Letter Capitalized (voice falls)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a sample sentence would look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xia1ren2 chao3fan4 hao3chi1 ji2le5!&#xA;XIĀréN chǎoFàn hǎoCHĪ jÍle*!&#xA;(I can't figure out how this system would allow me to post colors, but the converter gives both colored text for use in word processors and in HTML pages. It works on my sites.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other useful thing to do with tones is to assign a directional gesture (another Mandarin-teaching extension I've been working on for some years now) to each new word. Yes, this is pain. But it really works. The gesture you choose (which can be arbitrary) must have both a meaning element and a tone element. As in ASL, which uses different areas of space to express past or future tense, with directional gestures we use areas of the body to indicate the tone of the syllable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All first-tone syllables are gestured at the chin level or above; all third-tone syllables at the waist level or below. All second tone syllables must have a gesture that rises, and all fourth tone syllables must have a gesture that falls. Combining two syllables with two separate tones and getting a &quot;meaningful&quot; gesture in there can be challenging but it's worth it. I've had students actually forget the word and remember the tones -- which had never happened before we started experimenting with this method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The combination of color-coding (we also color-code characters in our reading materials for students using the same color scheme, to reinforce when they are reading characters as well), tonal spelling and directional gestures works wonders with students' tones, both in knowledge of what is the correct tone and in their performance. Students are far more aware of tones when they are part of the syllable (you have to start writing a TOP syllable all over again if you get the wrong tone -- you can't just scratch in another tone mark as you can in Pinyin, and you know we are all guilty of that, at least I certainly was for many years!) and when the class cries out when you accidentally write a syllable using the wrong marker on the whiteboard, you know things are going in the right direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T14:40:49.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="78" CreationDate="2012-01-11T16:26:57.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to add some information to the accepted answer as I believe it is imprecise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小x and 老x are used directly with someone you are familiar with (or speak with regularly, like a colleague).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage is based not only on age difference but also on the social status, gender, family relation to you and who is your interlocutor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(You will not call your boss 老王 just because he is older than you but you would call him 老王 when talking &lt;strong&gt;about him&lt;/strong&gt; with some colleagues. Similarly you could call 老张 an 80 years old chess partner that you play often with - there is no age limit when using 老. It's a mark of respect, not a mark of age like &quot;old&quot; in English.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many ways to talk to/about someone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;-Using a diminutive like 小x and 老x&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both terms indicate that you converse or interact with the person on a regular basis but not regularly enough to be very good friends, intimate or family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;boss talking to an employee (小)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;employee talking about the boss to a friend (老)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;young chess club player talking to older friendly player (老)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;25 years old employee talking to 25 years old trainee (小)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;-Using the full name&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Colleague&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Friend&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Old person&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;-Using the first name&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rare. Can be used in the same place were you would call someone 小x&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;-Using a nickname&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously if you are close enough to this person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;-Using his/her specialty&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;王总理&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黄师傅&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;李老师&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;-Adding Mr or Miss or Mrs&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't know how to call someone, use those, you cannot be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;先生&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;女士&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小姐&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;-Using the family relationship&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually uncle/auntie and brother/sister (who are not your real brother or sister)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My wife's uncle: 王叔叔 or 叔叔&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My wife's auntie: 王阿姨 or 阿姨&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5 years old talking to a 20 years old girl: 姐姐 or 大姐&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5 years old talking to a 20 years old boy: 哥哥 or 大哥&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5 years old talking to a 50 years old woman: 阿姨&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;-First name + family relation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My wife's relative (male), a little older than me: (王志明) 志明哥&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case (uncle Ju) you can definitely call him (or talk about him) 居叔叔 or 叔叔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would avoid the 老/小 diminutives when talking to/about anyone for the moment until you are familiar with the nuances or until someone asks you to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list above is of course subject to exceptions and difference of usages in certain provinces but in general it works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="320" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-01-19T12:54:32.330" LastActivityDate="2012-01-19T12:54:32.330" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="826" CreationDate="2012-01-11T17:57:43.047" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add to the other answers (the followings are based on phonetic similarities):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 - 爱 (ai), love&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 - 我 (wo), I&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 - 你 (ni), you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;521 - 我爱你, I love you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1314 - 一生一世, this lifetime and beyond&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5211314 - 我爱你一生一世, I love you for this lifetime and beyond&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I've also heard that 4 means 发财 because the 4th note in music - do re mi fa - is fa)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T17:57:43.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="864" CreationDate="2012-01-11T20:28:35.420" Score="4" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't really understand the meaning or usage of 产生了. Google translate gives 'had'. But it doesn't really seem to be widely-used. When would it be used, and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:07:54.080" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:07:54.080" Title="When would 产生了 be used?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="849" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="866" CreationDate="2012-01-11T20:55:48.323" Score="5" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does one imply a much greater frequency? What about &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_%28sociolinguistics%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;register&lt;/a&gt;? Is the difference between and saying 有时 and 会偶尔 very big, or is it in all cases quite close?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T11:57:57.913" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T11:57:57.913" Title="Is the difference between and saying 有时 and 会偶尔 very big?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="850" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="874" CreationDate="2012-01-11T21:23:02.790" Score="5" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase 在瞬间 &lt;em&gt;zài shùnjiān&lt;/em&gt; seems literally to mean 'in an instant'. But usage-wise, is it more like 'at some point'? Or am I off the mark?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:10:59.133" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:10:59.133" Title="Is 在瞬间 something like 'at some point'?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="848" CreationDate="2012-01-11T21:25:33.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you just use 产生 in Google translate, it gives you a whole list of meanings: produce, generate, yield, emerge, bring, engender, bring about, beget, bring in, come into being, entrain, father, start up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These give you an idea of the kind of word it is, used in prose as an all-purpose word for causation or 'giving rise to' (which is missing from the list). I'm sure someone can give you some sample sentences to illustrate how its used. It's reasonably widely used in prose that uses the kinds of expressions given above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T21:25:33.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="852" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="870" CreationDate="2012-01-11T21:31:58.110" Score="8" ViewCount="396" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a feeling that one might mean &lt;em&gt;slightly earlier&lt;/em&gt;. Is this right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-11T23:01:55.560" LastActivityDate="2012-01-30T16:04:12.313" Title="Is there a nuance 今天早晨 conveys that 今天早上 does not?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="834" CreationDate="2012-01-11T21:37:15.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen a few things that work well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hand-held electronic device that will speak out the Chinese words for you (these are hard to get outside of China)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Personally write down some key phrases such as 'where is the toilet' etc on a piece of paper in both English and Chinese so they can point to what they are after if they can't pronounce it themselves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Previous versions of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lonelyplanet.com/china&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lonely Planet guide for China&lt;/a&gt; that I have seen have some key phrases in the back in an appendix&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Many tourist spots provide free audio guides in English and other languages&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Many tourist spots have younger people standing around who are happy to act as guides for a few dollars&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Suggest to them if they get stuck try to find someone in the 14 - 18 age bracket as they are most likely to be able to speak some English&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I also write down the characters for pork, chicken, beef, rice and noodles. This is usually enough for someone to pick something reasonable off a menu.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T21:37:15.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="852" CreationDate="2012-01-11T21:52:33.333" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;晨 itself means early morning or daybreak so 早晨 is early morning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早上 is for the morning period and can also be used throughout the entire morning period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T21:52:33.333" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="848" CreationDate="2012-01-11T21:57:23.123" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;产生 is a quite common way to express the emergence of new situations or phenomena. The example sentences on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%BA%A7%E7%94%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt; are a good place to get a sense of its use. As you can see from those examples, the object of 产生 is often abstract, and the verb often expresses the consequences or effects of a situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples of this usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;产生矛盾: to cause conflict&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  产生兴趣: to lead to an interest in sth.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  产生XX的效果: to have an XX effect&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  产生怀疑: to raise doubts (the subject here is the thing which is dubious)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-01-11T23:08:32.960" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T23:08:32.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="850" CreationDate="2012-01-11T22:03:32.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never heard it used to mean &quot;at some point.&quot; As far as I know, it always means &quot;instantly&quot; and is used to describe something which happens in the space of a brief moment. One illustrative phrase is &quot;瞬间即逝&quot; (shùnjiānjíshì), &quot;to disappear (in the blink of an eye).&quot; Indeed, 瞬 itself is quite close to the meaning of the English phrase &quot;the blink of an eye&quot; and 瞬间 preserves that sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T22:03:32.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="852" CreationDate="2012-01-11T22:09:41.003" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are Baidu entries for &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/854957.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;早晨&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/924974.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;早上&lt;/a&gt; should you be able to read them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, people will treat 早晨 and 早上 exactly the same way unless explicitly directed other ways. It's OK to translate both of them to &lt;strong&gt;morning&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you want to express early morning or daybreak, you may consider using 清晨.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-11T23:02:26.963" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T23:02:26.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="859" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-01-11T22:13:35.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A vocabulary is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the set of words used by a language, but also all of the words within a language known by a single person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use this tag for discussion about vocabulary itself, either your own or another specific set of words. See below for some practical examples of questions that can be tagged [vocabulary].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Your own vocabulary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;questions about improving your own vocabulary, e.g. memorization techniques, flashcards, etc. &lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; make sure your question can be answered as objectively as possible. If you word it in a way that seems dependent on your specific background and situation, it might get closed as opinion-based or too broad.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Specific sets of words&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;questions about HSK vocabulary requirements; avoid requests for resources.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;questions about how many characters/words one should know to do X, e.g. to read newspapers.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;questions about the set of Chinese characters as a whole, used in Mandarin or in another topolect&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do not use&lt;/strong&gt; this tag for questions about the meaning of one or more words, translations, resources, word choices, etc. As a rule of thumb, if the object of your question is not a self-consistent set of words, don't tag it [vocabulary].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-09T23:37:24.497" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T23:37:24.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="860" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-01-11T22:13:35.780" Score="0" Body="For questions about vocabulary, i.e. a set of words, as a whole. NOT for questions about meaning or translations, even when more than one word or phrase is involved." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T00:52:28.513" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T00:52:28.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="861" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-01-11T22:14:37.180" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-01-11T22:14:37.180" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T22:14:37.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="862" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-01-11T22:14:37.180" Score="0" Body="Questions about the differences between the Traditional and the Simplified form." OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-11T22:16:06.050" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T22:16:06.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="850" CreationDate="2012-01-11T22:20:00.957" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think 在瞬间 is used as often as 一瞬间， 瞬间，在那一瞬间，etc, which means &lt;strong&gt;at that very moment&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I can think of one situation where 在瞬间 can be perfectly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那座桥在瞬间崩塌了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence means &lt;em&gt;the bridge collapsed in no time&lt;/em&gt;. So yes, 在瞬间 means &lt;em&gt;in an instant&lt;/em&gt; in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can provide more context, I'll be more than happy to follow up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-12T16:23:10.250" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T16:23:10.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="848" CreationDate="2012-01-11T22:32:13.533" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我和书中的人物产生了共鸣：I am able to empathize with characters in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我对学中文产生了浓厚的兴趣：I have got strong interest in learning Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;牛顿的著作对自然科学的发展产生了深远的影响：Newton's great works influence the development&#xA;  of natural science significantly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So many examples I can give since there have been so many nouns that can be the target of the verb 产生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend you try to pick up that list of nouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2012-01-11T22:32:13.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="497" CreationDate="2012-01-12T01:43:51.050" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;This does happen every now and then. It is just a way of expressing enthusiasm to see you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And from experience it won't go on forever, usually just a second time, but sometimes people will say &quot;你好, 你好&quot; or even &quot;你好, 你好, 你好&quot; in a row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of it as a handshake, it is not going to go on until it is awkward, just showing some enthusiasm with a couple of extra &quot;hello's&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest going to the next part of the conversation with something like &quot;你好吗?&quot; or &quot;你怎么样呀？&quot;. If you continue on with English with &quot;Yes, I'm fine.&quot; this may be like dropping a handshake in the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T01:43:51.050" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="849" CreationDate="2012-01-12T02:20:37.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, 有时 and 偶尔 are interchangeable under &lt;strong&gt;ANY&lt;/strong&gt; circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on personal preference, feel free to pick either one when expressing &lt;em&gt;once in a while&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastEditorUserId="260" LastEditDate="2012-01-12T02:25:53.780" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T02:25:53.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="301" CreationDate="2012-01-12T03:04:49.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;某天我去北京 is arguably wrong due to the lack of any indication of tense. I will not be able to determine from this sentence the tense, therefore I will not know what exactly are you trying to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;某天我去到北京 will be interpreted as past tense, since 去到 essentially means &quot;arrived at&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;某天我会去北京的 will be interpreted as future tense. 会+verb means something you are going to do (or have planned to do).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the use of 某天 ruled out present tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that, &quot;someday&quot; in English usually indicates a day in the future (Someday, I will beat you in Chess!). However 某天 is &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; exactly the same because it can refer to any day, past or future. So 某天 is more like &quot;one day&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, your sentence would actually be interpreted as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One day, I [go/went/will go] to Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence the doubt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="325" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T03:04:49.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="826" CreationDate="2012-01-12T03:05:51.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As other have said pretty much, I just want to give the commonly accepted lucky and unlucky numbers in mainland China. (Maybe only in northern China, or Beijing area ..., I don't know. Haven't traveled that much.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lucky numbers are 6 and 8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning of 6 (may) come from &quot;六六大顺(liù liù dà shùn)&quot;, which means everything would go smoothly/as expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8 has a similar pronunciation as &quot;发(fā)&quot;, which has a meaning of making money, becoming rich.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The unlucky number is 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 has a similar pronunciation as &quot;死(sǐ)&quot;, which means die/death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have any special feeling about any other numbers, though they may have some other meanings as mentioned by others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T03:05:51.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="459" CreationDate="2012-01-12T03:17:01.160" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we take away the characters, which means we are going a long way back, prior to written records, which in terms of world history is a long time ago because Chinese writing is considerably early history (think 甲骨文). We are left with the spoken language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of a spoken language Chinese is different because it doesn't have an alphabet per se, so unlinke English where you have the opportunity to have an endless number of words Chinese uses a finite number of words. For English it could be possible to trace a word like Trampoline back through its roots where you get to a certain point where it first began arising. But with Chinese if you take a word like máo​ you are in trouble because it didn't stem from any other word or in any other culture or from any other root of a word or from any part of another word, máo​ is just máo​.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To go back to your question: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Generally, how well do character etyomologies reflect the true etymologies of words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the example provided &quot;an ox 牜牛 that requires couxing 攵攴 from a branch 未&quot; at some point someone or some group decided to choose that character to apply to that &quot;word&quot; so understand that the character has a meaning which is what you provided above, but the word already had a meaning and a context, so you can't use the meaning of the character as a basis for the etymology or origin of the usage of the word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn't confirm or contradict that 牦牛 comes from 毛牛 as you have insinuated. The etymology of the character is useless in telling that. If you strip away the characters a 牦牛 is still a 牦牛 and will have been called such for thousands of years even if some monk decides to use a more complicated character or decides a new character is required because there may have been some other context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was máo​ chosen as the spoken word for 氂 because it was hairy (毛 máo​)? You can't use the characters to answer that because both máo​ (氂) and máo​ (毛) existed prior to either character. You need to go back to a time when words first started arising and the language was born and that information is lost to the ages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to go into the above further I'm afraid that's off topic as per the FAQ for the site as the scope is too large and you would require a book to cover all of the necessary information. I hope the above is sufficient in answering why such a tool does not exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T03:17:01.160" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="852" CreationDate="2012-01-12T03:18:21.133" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As pointed out by xiaohouzi79, 晨 actually carries the meaning of sunrise, hence implying &lt;strong&gt;early&lt;/strong&gt; morning. However this indication is weak, especially when you contrast 早晨 and 早上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However 早上 would cover the entire morning, say, from 6am to 11:59am. Therefore in a way, it is less specific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we want to refer to extremely early morning, before dawn, say 3am to 6am. We sometimes use the word 清晨 and if we are talking about &quot;morning&quot; as in &quot;after midnight&quot; (00:01 to 3am for example) we usually use the word 凌晨 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So after sunrise, we usually just say 早上 , since that time period is not close to 晨 (sunrise) anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="325" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T03:18:21.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="817" CreationDate="2012-01-12T03:26:06.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this question is about linguistic in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English the same is seen in phones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Smartphone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mobile phone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cell phone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mobile&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cell&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hand phone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are familiar with cameras, following are all a bunch of new names, and many of them can refer to the same thing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;EVIL camera&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mirroless camera&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Interchangable lens camera&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Micro 4/3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;point and shoot&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;compact camera&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;digital camera&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;digital compact&#xA;etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whichever you choose to call your phone/camera can, of course, never be controlled by government ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So its generally adopted by how popular is the usage of the new noun is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="325" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T03:26:06.597" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="817" CreationDate="2012-01-12T04:28:22.293" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;For English technical term that does not yet have a translation in Chinese, maybe the first translation that got popular would be accepted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation is done by the person who need to use the translation. Sometimes the original English term or explanation with be also noted before the term is generally accepted. Terms are usually translated by the meaning of the word if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Internet, in the translation process, the &quot;net&quot; part is translated into &quot;网&quot;, and the &quot;inter&quot; part into &quot;因特&quot; (by sound). There is also another translation &quot;互联网&quot; in which no part is translated by sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be various translations for one term. So there is an official department (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.term.gov.cn/index.jsp&quot;&gt;China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies&lt;/a&gt;) that will pick one (or make up one) as the official translation. But even the official translation may vary depending on the research area. Take &quot;Internet&quot; as an example, the committee gives the following translation in different areas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;术语        中/英文名     学科            子学科&#xA;Internet    因特网      计算机科学技术   网络与数据通信&#xA;internet    互联网      通信科技       通信网络&#xA;Internet    因特网      通信科技       通信网络&#xA;Internet    因特网      资源科技       资源信息学&#xA;internet    互联网[络]  计算机科学技术  计算机总论 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I think this kind of official translation is only recommended, but not mandatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T04:28:22.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="459" CreationDate="2012-01-12T08:45:13.303" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In terms of answering your first question about the websites. I usually use &lt;a href=&quot;http://zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ZDIC.net&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu's Baike&lt;/a&gt;. However, Baidu Baike doesn't always give etymology. If those two fail, why not try searching for it using Baidu/Google and adding 字根 (character root), 本意 (original meaning) or 名源 (origin of names/etymology) to your search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it might be hard to get word etymology, like Xah Lee, that Classical Chinese were mostly one-character words. For instance, 牦牛 can said with just 牦。Thus, it might be more productive to go after character etymologies, rather than words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to answer your 牦牛 question. My Chinese is not good enough to understand all the dictionary speak, but looking at the traditional character version of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6ZdicB0Zdic82.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;氂 on zdic.net&lt;/a&gt; should be of some guidance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In linking that, there might be some hints as to where it originated. Another version of the traditional character is also 犛, which refers to a black ox/yak. See the radical difference underneath？毛 vs 牛。 In fact, the traditional character, according the above &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6ZdicB0Zdic82.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zdic link&lt;/a&gt; in the 说文解字 section, says that the tail of the 犛牛 was called 氂. However, it further states that 㲠, which is an abbreviated version of 氂，which seems have fallen out of use, means &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi2/ZdicE3ZdicB2ZdicA0.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;horse tail, long hair; thick hair&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. The old banners/flags had yak's tails on them. This was called 旄. In fact another meaning for 旄 is also a yak's tail. Thus, 旄 and 氂 became intertwined. 犛牛 became 旄牛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now here my Chinese gets a bit a dodgy. In Classical Chinese too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从犛省。从毛。莫交切。二部。按周禮樂師音義。氂舊音毛。但許不言毛亦聲。而左傳晏氂，外傳作晏萊。後漢書魏郡輿人歌。岑熙狗吠不驚。足下生氂。與災時茲三字韵。則是犛省亦聲。在弟一部也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can gather, what happened was that, people started calling 犛牛， 氂牛，but they wanted to stop this, due to its similar sound to 毛，but this came too late.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone with better understanding of Classical Chinese, can also verify the 说文解字 entry on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6ZdicB0Zdic82.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ZDIC link&lt;/a&gt;. Heck, I had fun researching this. Got to love the depth of Chinese!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="51" LastEditorUserId="51" LastEditDate="2012-01-12T11:07:18.433" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T11:07:18.433" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-12T08:45:13.303" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="850" CreationDate="2012-01-12T15:51:54.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the better way to analyse &quot;在瞬间&quot; is to break it down to &quot;在&quot;+&quot;瞬间&quot; or even &quot;在&quot;+&quot;瞬“+&quot;间&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;瞬“ originally means &quot;[the eye] opens and closes,  or, blinks&quot;. Because our eyes blink very quickly, this character extends to another meaning-&quot;very short while, very short time period&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;间&quot; means &quot;the interval between two things[or time points]&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;瞬间” literally means &quot;the interval between the time points when the eyes opens and closes&quot;, OK, just means &quot;very very short time period&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在&quot; is a preposition here and means &quot;in&quot;, so &quot;在瞬间“ means &quot;in a very short while&quot;, &quot;in an instant&quot;.You could also say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我会在5分钟内回来。 &lt;em&gt;I will be back in 5 minutes.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Here, &quot;在5分钟内&quot; has the same consruction as &quot;在瞬间&quot;. You could say,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我会在瞬间回来 &lt;em&gt;I will be back in an instant.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ok, you would say it only when you have the magic power :D Just kidding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &quot;瞬间” could be used as an adverb to mean &quot;instantly, immediately&quot;(=在瞬间 in this case).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我瞬间鼓起了勇气。 &lt;em&gt;I got up my nerve immediately.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T15:51:54.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="852" CreationDate="2012-01-12T18:49:24.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with Terry that 早上 and 早晨 are synonymous, with perhaps very slight differences in connotation. Pace Gapton, I wouldn't say that 早上 can always refer to any time from early morning to 11:59 am; for that time period, in some cases it is better to use the more general term 上午.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One place this distinction is important is in greetings. A person writing an email to a colleague at 10:30 am wouldn't start their email with 早上好 (&quot;good morning&quot;) because it sounds like the writer just got up. In this case, the looser term 上午好 is more appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T18:49:24.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="247" CreationDate="2012-01-12T20:52:40.580" Score="35" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Story of 没&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As other commenters have noted, looking for logic in language is almost always futile. No natural language is logical. But there is a historical logic to language development; even if the existence of a phrase is a historical accident, it's sometimes interesting to see when that &quot;accident&quot; took place, and why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such is the case with 没. One interesting fact I learned from all this that contradicts what some others have said in their answers: 没 is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; a contraction or shortening of 没有, at least not originally. MarkDBlackwell is right to point this out in his answer. The development of both words is slightly more complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(All of the following comes from Xu Shiyi's excellent paper &lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/2987364d852458fb770b5653.html&quot;&gt;&quot;否定词‘没’‘没有’的来源和语法化过程&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. To save time, I will not differentiate between places where I am quoting, summarizing, and expanding the original text. Apologies to the author; all errors are my own.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The History of Negatives in Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before beginning, it's important to distinguish between two different categories of negative words: negative adverbs (否定副词) and negative verbs (否定动词). For our purposes, the former category is any word that can be put before a verb to negate its sense; the word 不 in modern Chinese is a good example. Negative verbs can stand alone at the &quot;center&quot; of a predicate (谓语). The word 没 is sometimes used in this way in modern Chinese. For example, in the sentence, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;屋子里没人.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;wūzi li méi rén&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  There is no one in the room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没 is acting as a verb, not an adverb modifying another main verb. (The use of the word adverb is not exactly right here, by the way, because the category 副词 doesn't exactly correspond to the English category of adverbs, though it's pretty close.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll also be making a distinction between the use of 没 as a &quot;full-fledged verb&quot; (corresponding to its reading &quot;mò&quot; today,meaning &quot;to sink, to be covered&quot;) and its use as a negative verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Previously (in the oracle bone inscription days), Chinese had many negative adverbs, such as 不 、弗 、勿 and 毋, and later (during the Zhou and Qin dyansty period) added several more, like  非 、匪 、微 、无 、蔑  and 未. Both 无 and 蔑 were themselves negative verbs also, and both had the same meaning as 没有 does today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没 on the Scene&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first textual evidence for the existence of 没 (as a verb meaning to sink/submerge) is in the Tang dynasty, but various pieces of evidence which I will not repeat here imply that 没 was already being used as a negative verb (&lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; a negative adverb) before the Tang period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of 没 as a verb meaning to sink into water gradually extended until 没 meant to disappear or lose. From a phonetic perspective, though, there is no link between the use of 没 as a full-fledged verb and its use as a negative. (Recall that two different pronunciations of 没 exist today which enforce precisely this difference.) Indeed, many experts have assumed that 没 originated as a negative word because it sounded the same as 未 (wèi, which is still used as a negative adverb today to mean &quot;has not yet&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author of this work, though, prefers to trace the connection between 没 and 无, which, as I pointed out above, has long had the same meaning as modern &quot;没有.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Phonetic History of 没 and 无&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our knowledge of the phonology of middle Chinese comes mostly from a Song work called &amp;lt;广韵&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangyun&quot;&gt;Guangyun&lt;/a&gt;, which listed characters according to rimes [sic]. To indicate the pronunciation of a word, the dictionaries of those days used something called the 反切 method, which split a character up into two other characters, one representing the syllable onset and one representing the rime (rest of the syllable). Wikipedia's article on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot;&gt;Fanqie&lt;/a&gt; quotes an example from Gari Ledyard of how such a system might work in English: we could encode the pronunciation of the word &lt;em&gt;sough&lt;/em&gt; by using the two words &lt;em&gt;sun&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt;, to show that the word starts with an &quot;s&quot; and ends with the same sound as the word &quot;now.&quot; (I am omitting many details.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These books also come with a table of rimes so that we know basically how the various consonants and vowels were articulated in those days. There were two different syllable onsets (called 明母 and 微母) which sounded similar (the former corresponds to modern initial &quot;m&quot;, the latter variously to &quot;w&quot;, &quot;v&quot; or &quot;m&quot;): 没 was 明母 (cf. modern &lt;strong&gt;m&lt;/strong&gt;éi), and 无 was 微母 (cf. modern &lt;strong&gt;w&lt;/strong&gt;ú). Various historical clues allow the author to conclude that the popular pronunciation of those two words (as opposed to the possibly literary pronunciation in the Guangyun) was the same. At that time, 无 also had the meaning of &quot;to lose&quot; when used as a full-fledged verb. This similarity, combined with the at-least similarity in sound, led to an eventual mixing of the uses of 没 and 无. By the Song dynasty, these two words were being used interchangeably. By the Yuan/Ming period, the process was completed, and 没 had replaced 无 as the negative verb meaning &quot;没有.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But what about 没有?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The uses described above all still involve 没 as a negative verb. In fact, the above change also influenced the development of 没 as a negative adverb. 无 could always be used as a negative adverb in addition to being a negative verb, and the compound 无有 had always existed because 无 was viewed as being the direct negative of 有. As 没 gradually replaced 无, so too did 没有 replace 无有. (The form 不有 is attested, but was gradually superseded by 没有 as Chinese negative adverbs consolidated over time.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;There's more to be said about the process by which 没 and 没有 became fully gramaticalized, but I'm out of time and will have to come back later. Will be happy to post more if you're interested.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-14T09:17:07.627" LastActivityDate="2012-01-14T09:17:07.627" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="737" CreationDate="2012-01-12T21:12:15.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you actually write out Chinese characters, you will get a better feel for the &quot;structure&quot; of the language. That's because they can be grouped in &quot;families.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, this word 妈 means &quot;mother,&quot; and is pronounced ma (first tone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take away the woman radical to the left, and you get ma (third tone), which means &quot;horse,&quot; which is the phonetic, or &quot;root&quot; word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place the mouth radical to the left of the phonetic and you get ma (unaccented), which is a word that makes a sentence a question (equivalent to the French n'est pas?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other variations of this word, take the meanings &quot;to scold,&quot; &quot;docks,&quot; &quot;agate,&quot; etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most other Chinese words are members of &quot;families&quot; (of varying sizes) of this sort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-01-12T21:12:15.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="878" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="879" CreationDate="2012-01-13T02:24:16.803" Score="7" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my textbook I found this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;常常看着一个人面熟却叫不出名字来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If 面熟 is an adjective, why is it used after 人 (to indicate a &quot;familiar-looking person&quot;)?  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can 一个人面熟 be rewritten to 一个面熟人 without modifying the sentence's original meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T01:55:07.133" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T01:55:07.133" Title="Why is 面熟 used after 人 in 常常看着一个人面熟却叫不出名字来?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="878" CreationDate="2012-01-13T02:36:31.430" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a classic example of a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic-prominent_language&quot;&gt;topic-comment construction&lt;/a&gt; that is prevalent in Chinese.  In this case, 面熟 is not serving as an adjective to the noun, but rather as a comment on the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;常常看着一个人 (&quot;often seeing a person&quot;) is the topic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;面熟却叫不出名字来 (&quot;[he's] familiar, yet [I] can't come up with [his] name&quot;) is the comment.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All adjectives in Chinese can function as verbs (Chinese adjectives are sometimes called stative verbs for this reason); as such, they can function as a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicate_%28grammar%29&quot;&gt;predicate&lt;/a&gt; by themselves.  Because Chinese is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-drop_language&quot;&gt;pro-drop language&lt;/a&gt;, predicates can serve as their own clauses in a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your second question, you can't put 面熟 before the noun in this case without restructuring the sentence.  却 is used to connect two clauses together.  If you make 面熟 into an adjective, it's no longer a clause, so the usage of 却 will no longer make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-01-13T05:04:57.020" LastActivityDate="2012-01-13T05:04:57.020" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="878" CreationDate="2012-01-13T02:50:05.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look at 面熟 and it's meaning 面 = appeared / appearance 熟 = familiar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence in English reads more like this: &quot;I saw a person who appeared familiar (to me)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese this seems a bit strange, but this is a common construct. See this example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我看到一个人胡子长长的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe this reads better with a comma:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我看到一个人, 胡子长长的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which you will notice if you search Google for &quot;一个人面熟&quot; there are quite a few examples of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... 一个人, 面熟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also put the characters in front but you need to use the possessive 的 as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看到好面熟的一个人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which a good counter example in English to the sentence I provided above is more like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I saw a very familiar looking person&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-01-13T02:50:05.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="878" CreationDate="2012-01-13T03:25:54.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, here “面熟&quot; is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complement_%28linguistics%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;complement&lt;/a&gt;  to the clause &quot;常常看着一个人&quot;. That's why it is used after &quot;一个人&quot; though it's really an adjectvie. In English, you would see similiar consctructions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He makes me &lt;em&gt;angry&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I found her &lt;em&gt;so beautiful&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  He is coming here &lt;em&gt;with the final decision in his mind&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I saw a man &lt;em&gt;apparently faimilar to me&lt;/em&gt; yesterday, but I could't recall who he is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your second question, you could put &quot;面熟“ before &quot;一个人&quot; to modify it, but generally we use &quot;面熟的&quot;, or it sounds strange. You could say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;常常看着一个面熟的人却叫不出名字来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A little reminder:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the elements of sentences include:主语(Subject),谓语(Predicate),宾语(Object),定语(Attributive), 状语(Adverbial) and 补语(Complement). You may want to understand what they are and how to use them first, before you could analyze the sentence structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-13T03:40:08.627" LastActivityDate="2012-01-13T03:40:08.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="737" CreationDate="2012-01-13T03:36:00.613" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;One advantage of learning how to handwrite characters is that it makes it easier to distinguish similar-looking characters in unfamiliar contexts. If you can't handwrite you might still be able to correctly read known words like 快乐 and 决定, but if you encounter a new word such as 决心 it's sometimes hard to tell whether the first character is kuài or jué (especially if both of them would be plausible).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you can handwrite both characters there's a much stronger link in your mind between the character and its component radicals, so you'll instantly know which one it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="330" LastActivityDate="2012-01-13T03:36:00.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="489" CreationDate="2012-01-13T03:40:21.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;nciku.com has images for many of its entries (not the majority by any means, but most common nouns have images). There's also a 'theme words' section where all of the entries have images, categorised by subject (e.g. food, sports, clothing etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="330" LastActivityDate="2012-01-13T03:40:21.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="884" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-13T09:16:29.967" Score="17" ViewCount="4144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently discovered that in Chinese, adjectives can function as verbs. An answer on this site stated that &lt;em&gt;&quot;all adjectives in Chinese can function as verbs&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was obviously an interesting discovery for a Chinese learner like me, and I actually never noticed that this sentence lacks a verb, yet it's one of the first that we learn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or another simple sentence like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他很高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But both sentences show like the &quot;verb function&quot; is served by &quot;很&quot; and not &quot;好&quot; or &quot;高&quot;. As far as I can tell, &quot;很&quot; is an adverb not an adjective. Same with this one. &quot;Not&quot; is an adverb, not an adjective. Yet we have the same phenomenon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他不高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So am I missing something here? Am I being too strict about that &quot;adjectives&quot; or am I misjudging something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I'll take advantage of this question to ask: are really all adjectives able to be stative verbs or are there exceptions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2014-04-28T16:45:18.447" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T02:09:03.363" Title="Stative verbs in Chinese: only for adjectives?" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="884" CreationDate="2012-01-13T10:08:44.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The OP the the &quot;verb function&quot; is carried by &quot;很&quot;. This is not true. &quot;很&quot; is an adverb. &quot;很好&quot; can be treated as a adjective together (or as an adjective phrase). Also, &quot;我好&quot; &quot;他高&quot; are both good Chinese sentences. However, you will seldom hear such short sentences so these do sound a weird. But there is one that is used everyday, &quot;你好&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to whether all adjectives are able to be stative verbs, I though it was wrong at first. But when I checked a list of adjectives of Chinese (sorry I cannot share it), and tried to contradict it, I found that it is somehow true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to form sentences with those adjectives, and found nearly all of them can be used in that way, though sometimes we should add &quot;很&quot; or &quot;不&quot; to make it more natural. However, like I said, &quot;很&quot; and &quot;不&quot; are adverbs. They will form an adjective phrase with the adjective following them. Adverbs do not act as a &quot;verb&quot; by themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides &quot;很&quot; &quot;不&quot;, &quot;特别&quot; &quot;非常&quot; and some other adverbs can also serve this function. The adverb and the adjective together formed the predictive, functioning as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a guess: There may be some phonological reason for the need of adverbs. Sentence built up with only a subjective and an adjective seems to be unbalanced sometimes, so something should be added in between. When it is not a verb, adverb would be a good choice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in Chinese, the adjectives are still called adjectives, not verbs, in this kind of sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I believe every grammatical rule would have an exception. Finding some exceptions would not be surprising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese simple sentence structure can be put in two parts, the subjective and the predictive. The predictive part is the &quot;verb&quot; part. However, it can be formed by a verb with (or without) an objective, or by an adjective (with or without an adverb before it), or maybe in some other ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-01-13T12:27:44.110" LastActivityDate="2012-01-13T12:27:44.110" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="884" CreationDate="2012-01-13T11:39:23.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm having trouble understanding the question. Rather than saying that &quot;all adjectives in Chinese can function as verbs&quot;, I'm wondering whether the more normal formulation might not be &quot;in Chinese, adjectives are classed as a type of verb&quot;. There are many ways in which adjectives like 高 and 好 are the same as verbs. Like verbs, they can occur in the forms 高了，高着呢，高不了, etc. They can occur predicatively and attributively (in which case they resemble relative clauses). However, they must be regarded as intransitive verbs as they normally don't take objects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think Chinese is the first language for which it has been claimed that adjectives belong with verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to expand my answer by quoting here from Edwin G. Pulleyblank's &lt;em&gt;Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Verbal Predicates&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  1. Classes of Verbs&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Adjectives, e.g., &lt;em&gt;shān gāo&lt;/em&gt; 山高 'the mountain is high,' form the first major subdivision that needs to be distinguished among naturally predicating words in Chinese. Though, as words that form predicates without the addition of a particle, they belong with verbs rather than nouns, they differ from verbs proper in their syntactical behaviour in a number of ways. They are sometimes called 'stative verbs' but there are objections to this, since transitive verbs such as &lt;em&gt;zhī&lt;/em&gt; 知 'know' also denote a state rather than an action. A possible alternative would be 'quality verb,' but as a class they correspond closely in meaning to adjectives in other languages and we shall continue to use this traditional term.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2. Adjectives&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Adjectives must be classed as verbs in Classical, as well as Modern Chinese, since they form predicates without a copula or final &lt;em&gt;yě&lt;/em&gt; 也, are negated by &lt;em&gt;bù&lt;/em&gt;, and take the aspect markers &lt;em&gt;yǐ&lt;/em&gt; 矣 and &lt;em&gt;wèi&lt;/em&gt; 未. Nevertheless, as their behaviour with &lt;em&gt;kě&lt;/em&gt; 可 shows, they differ from intransitive verbs in their syntax and have certain resemblances to nouns.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here Pulleyblank is referring to the fact that intransitive verbs and transitive verbs in an active sense use &lt;em&gt;kěyǐ&lt;/em&gt; 可以 'possible', e.g., &lt;em&gt;wáng kěyǐ shā rén&lt;/em&gt; 王可以殺人 'the king can kill a man', whereas adjectives, like nouns, require the copula verb &lt;em&gt;wéi&lt;/em&gt; 為, e.g., &lt;em&gt;kěyǐ wéi měi hū&lt;/em&gt; 可以為美乎 'can be (or remain) beautiful'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, Pulleyblank is not talking about adjectives &lt;em&gt;being used as&lt;/em&gt; verbs here. He is talking about adjectives &lt;em&gt;as&lt;/em&gt; verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Classical Chinese is a rather different language from modern Chinese, and Pulleyblank is not a theoretical linguist, I think the passage quoted above is a good illustration of the point. As to whether this applies to all adjectives, I think Claw has pointed out a couple of interesting examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the function of 很, it is not a copula, as others have pointed out. To call it an 'adverb' isn't necessarily very informative since 'adverb' as a part of speech is a bit of a grab bag. (Incidentally, Chinese grammarians apparently class 今天 'today' as a noun, even where it is clearly functioning as a 'sentence adverb'.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastEditorUserId="23201" LastEditDate="2019-12-06T02:09:03.363" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T02:09:03.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="489" CreationDate="2012-01-13T12:45:56.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;Yale Picture Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt; has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://classes.yale.edu/chns130/Dictionary/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;version for Chinese&lt;/a&gt;.  This is a small dictionary for learners.  It has basic words organized into categories (such as colours, animals, etc.).  This is a dictionary to find new words to learn, not a dictionary to look up things in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not used the Chinese version much (yet!), but I did use the Greek version extensively in the past and found it quite useful as a beginner.  It is designed in a way so you can also use it in a similar way to flashcards (&quot;do I remember what to call this thing in this picture&quot;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a similar illustrated vocabulary collection at &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.languageguide.org/mandarin/vocabulary/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;LanguageGuide.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, just suggested to me by a friend.  I have not used this (yet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="92" LastEditorUserId="92" LastEditDate="2012-01-13T14:00:40.133" LastActivityDate="2012-01-13T14:00:40.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="834" CreationDate="2012-01-13T13:15:57.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0415018609&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the &lt;em&gt;old&lt;/em&gt; edition of Routledge's Colloquial Chinese excellent&lt;/a&gt; (though somewhat socially outdated, e.g. it suggests using 同志 = comrade).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This book was so successful that it is still in print even years after the completely rewritten new edition (by a different author) came out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, I believe using this book will require a lot of effort and dedication, and it's for those who are serious about learning the basics, and don't just want to pick up a couple of phrases, but wish to truly understand the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For memorizing useful phrases with relative ease, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimsleur_language_learning_system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pimsleur's&lt;/a&gt; Mandarin course should be useful.  My experience with another language Pimsleur course (Greek) was that if one invests enough time (e.g. listening to it &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; day while going to work/school), this is a relatively effortless way of &lt;em&gt;memorizing&lt;/em&gt; a lot.  But it did not help, and was in fact misleading about the structure and grammar of the language.  For this reason I did not bother much with it when starting Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that listening to Pimsleur daily for ~1.5 months should be very helpful in quickly memorizing many phrases, but I wouldn't recommend it to those who are serious about continuing to learn the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;This answer is subjective and based on my personal experience as a learner&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="92" LastActivityDate="2012-01-13T13:15:57.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="834" CreationDate="2012-01-13T15:02:25.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An Optical Character Recognizer like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pleco.com/ipmanual/ocr.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt; would be helpful when your friends want to order food at a restaurant on their own for example. &#xA;There are also lots of free beginner materials available for Chinese. I used &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesepod.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese Pod&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://livinglanguage.com/languagelab/distribution/2497&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Living Language Language Lab&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://livinglanguage.com/content/downloads/Chinese_ToGo.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pocket Travel Guide&lt;/a&gt;. &#xA;I found that even in Shanghai you could not always rely on someone speaking English so they should definitely come prepared with at least a few phrases or a pocket translator. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastActivityDate="2012-01-13T15:02:25.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="884" CreationDate="2012-01-13T17:00:51.003" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was the one who originally made the statement &quot;all adjectives in Chinese can function as verbs&quot;.  While I thought this was generally true, I took a look in &lt;em&gt;Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar&lt;/em&gt; by Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington to verify.  The book indicates that adjectives can generally be used in both attributive and predicative senses (i.e., adjective-like or verb-like), but there are a class of adjectives that are attributive only:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;They differentiate rather than describe, and most of them therefore have extremely restricted collocations.  Monosyllabic adjectives in this category are relatively infrequent: [The book then gives a few examples, such as 正 &lt;strong&gt;zhèng&lt;/strong&gt; and 负 &lt;strong&gt;fù&lt;/strong&gt; in 正数/负数 &lt;strong&gt;zhèngshù/fùshù&lt;/strong&gt; positive/negative numbers, and 公 &lt;strong&gt;gōng&lt;/strong&gt; and 母 &lt;strong&gt;mǔ&lt;/strong&gt; for male/female.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Disyllabic attributive-only adjectives usually convey a formal tone, and they are more likely to have an internal lexical structure.  [Examples such as 现代 &lt;strong&gt;xiàndài&lt;/strong&gt; 'modern' and 大型 &lt;strong&gt;dàxíng&lt;/strong&gt; 'large' are given.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book also describes predicative-only adjectives, which it says &quot;are generally more colloquial in tone, and are mostly monosyllabic&quot;, and gives examples such as 累 &lt;strong&gt;lèi&lt;/strong&gt; 'tired' and 对 &lt;strong&gt;dùi&lt;/strong&gt; 'correct'.  However, it then says the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, there is no absolute divide between the two types of adjective which cannot be crossed.  Though the result may sometimes sound a little forced, a predicative-only adjective can be made to function attributively by placing it in a 'degree adverb + 的 &lt;strong&gt;de&lt;/strong&gt;' frame (e.g. 很差的学校 &lt;strong&gt;hěn chā de xuéxiào&lt;/strong&gt; 'a badly governed school').  Likewise, an attributive-only adjective can be made to function predicatively by setting it in a '是 &lt;strong&gt;shì&lt;/strong&gt; + 的 &lt;strong&gt;de&lt;/strong&gt;' format (e.g. 这项工程是大型的 &lt;strong&gt;zhèi xiàng gōngchéng shì dàxíng de&lt;/strong&gt; 'This is an enormous project').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a slightly different topic, fefe's answer brought up the question of why adverbs like 很 &lt;strong&gt;hěn&lt;/strong&gt; are sometimes needed when an adjective is used predicatively.  The book also explains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The presence of these degree adverbs and complements removes any implication of contrast that is latent in an unmarked predicative adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If somebody says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;这本字典好。 &lt;strong&gt;zhèi běn zìdiǎn hǎo.&lt;/strong&gt; This dictionary is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the speaker must be understood to be implying that some other dictionary is not as good as this one. In fact the degree verb 很 &lt;strong&gt;hěn&lt;/strong&gt; 'very', unless it is emphasised, does not really mean 'very', and its integration into adjectival predicative is more often than not to counteract an implication of contrast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2012-01-13T17:00:51.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="884" CreationDate="2012-01-14T07:44:45.780" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I have noticed such a phenomenon for many years, but I have never thought of the logic or reasons behind it. &lt;strong&gt;Perhaps we should not (or even could not) go too far on this topic.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This topic is academic, I believe. You would find many papers on this topic when you search on the internet (I use the key word: &quot;汉语 形容词 谓语&quot;). After reading some papers and thinking of how I would say in different cases, I think we'd better say &quot;some adjectives could be used as the &lt;strong&gt;predicate&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese&quot; and there are some fixed patterns where an adjective is used in this case. I would like to elaborate on this topic from several points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;1. &lt;strong&gt;Types of the Adjective&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As Claw pointed out, there are two types of adjectives in Chinese (though, in academic world, there are some disputes on this. Someone holds that the adjectives (the term used now) in Chinese should be classified into two different parts of speech): &quot;attributive&quot; and &quot;predicative&quot;. The difference between the two types is: &quot;Can this adjective be modified with 很 (very)?&quot;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;2. &lt;strong&gt;Patterns for Attributive Adjectives&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You could use the construction &quot;[subject]是[attributive adj]的&quot;. In English, the verb &quot;be (是 in Chinese)&quot; is indispensable and it's called &quot;Link Verb&quot;. In this case, the use of the adjective is similar with that in English.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;3. &lt;strong&gt;Patterns for Predicative Adjectives&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The problem becomes a little complicated now. I can come up with some patterns.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;1. degree adverb (很,非常,十分,有些,有点,不) + adj. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is the pattern your examples use. In this case, I agree that the meaning of &quot;很&quot; weakens a lot. It seems that &quot;很&quot; works like a &quot;marker&quot;. Of course, you may use &quot;非常&quot; or &quot;十分&quot; to express &quot;very&quot; if you really want to.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, it sounds very wierd &quot;我好&quot; (&quot;你好&quot; is another story, since it has been a usage or one interjection word, I think), &quot;他高&quot; in Chinese, but I think in some cases they are acceptable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;a. In a question and in the reply to that question.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Q: 他帅吗？ &lt;em&gt;Is he handsome?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A: 他帅。&lt;em&gt;He is handsome&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. Used in two clauses to express parallel, comparsion or condition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他胖，我不胖。 He is fat, (while) I am not fat.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你高兴，我就高兴。 (If) you are happy, I am happy.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这篇小说精彩，那篇也精彩。 This novel is excellent and that one is excellent too.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c. 又+adj+又+adj,既+adj+且+adj&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Such patterns is used to connect two parallel words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个苹果又大又圆。 &lt;em&gt;This apple is big and round.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  敌人既凶残且愚蠢。 &lt;em&gt;THe enemies are cruel and stupid.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;2. Main subject (&lt;strong&gt;abbr: MS&lt;/strong&gt;) + Subject's Property or Part (&lt;strong&gt;abbr: SP&lt;/strong&gt;) + adj&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This pattern is used to decribe the property of something.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Note: English translations in the parentheses are more formal, I think.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他形容*憔悴。 &lt;em&gt;His appearance is emaciated. (He looks emaciated)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, MS=他,SP=形容 and 憔悴 is the adj.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;*形容 is a noun here, which means &quot;the appearance of, the look of [a man]&quot;. Dont' be confused with &quot;形容 (to describe)&quot; as in &quot;形容词 (adjective)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他工作能力强。 &lt;em&gt;His work ability is strong. (He is capable of doing the work)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, MS=他,SP=工作能力 and 强 is the adj.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我浑身无力。 &lt;em&gt;My all body is feeble (I am feeble all over, from head to foot)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, MS=我, SP=浑身 and 强 is the adj.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3.Subject+Adjective+&quot;了&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This pattern is used to express that the subject has been &quot;adj&quot; or has become (turned) &quot;adj&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;树叶红了 &lt;em&gt;The leaves has turned red.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  她漂亮了 &lt;em&gt;She has become beautiful (Implies: she was not beautiful in the past but she is beautiful now)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/li&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;4. &lt;strong&gt;Why do we need &quot;很&quot; here?&amp;lt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;fefe thinks that this is related to the length of syllables, but I don't think so. Because even with a two-character adjective, we still could not use the consctruction &quot;Subject+Adj&quot; to form a sentence (except for the cases I listed above). You won't say &quot;她漂亮&quot;, though &quot;漂亮&quot; has two characters. Instead, you would say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她很漂亮 or 她非常漂亮 (note 非常 has two characters)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classic Chinese, ”是&quot; was seldom used as &quot;to be&quot; and an adjective could be used as a verb or predicate directly. I really don't know why &quot;很&quot; or such adverbs are needed, but that just happens in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;春风又&lt;strong&gt;绿&lt;/strong&gt;江南岸  from the poem of 《泊船瓜洲》 by 王安石&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  绿: [adj]green. Here: to make something green&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;亲贤臣，&lt;strong&gt;远&lt;/strong&gt;小人，此先汉之所以兴隆也。 from 《出师表》 by 诸葛亮 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  远:[adj] remote, far. Here: to keep oneself from, to be far away from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just read 《&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Records_of_the_Grand_Historian&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;史记&lt;/a&gt;·淮阴侯列传》 (the biography of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Xin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;韩信&lt;/a&gt;) and I found some good examples with adjectives in classic Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;信亦知其意，&lt;strong&gt;怒&lt;/strong&gt;，竟绝去。 In modern Chinese, I would say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;韩信也知道她的用意，&lt;strong&gt;很生气&lt;/strong&gt;，最终离开。 &lt;em&gt;Hanxin also understood her intention, so he became angry [at her] and left at last.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;信数(shù)与萧何语，何奇之。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;韩信与萧何交谈几次后，萧何[对他的军事才能]&lt;strong&gt;感到惊奇&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;After several talks with Hanxin, Xiaohe got suprised [with Hanxin's military talent]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;见信死，且&lt;strong&gt;喜&lt;/strong&gt;且&lt;strong&gt;怜&lt;/strong&gt;之。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[刘邦]看见韩信已死，又高兴又同情。 &lt;em&gt;[Liubang] found Hanxin was dead; [he was] happy and sympathized&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-08-16T05:30:57.427" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T05:30:57.427" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="892" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-14T11:33:10.517" Score="6" ViewCount="3815" Body="&lt;p&gt;In alphabetical languages, diminutives are easily made by adding a suffix (e.g. -ito, -ino, -ine, which belong to some Romance languages) and sometimes contemporaneously changing the ending of the original name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese uses a sort of appending naming, such as &quot;-chan&quot;, &quot;-kun&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about Chinese? Are there rules when forming diminutives, or what's the usual way? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;what characters for diminutives exist;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;who can they be used with&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;when not to use them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you might have noticed, I am not talking about nicknames, but rather about diminutives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: Like Szabolcs said, I'm not asking for honorifics but rather about those changes in names that show affection, intimacy or close relation. Please, read this page on Wikipedia in your language so you understand what is meant by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Diminutive&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-14T18:58:50.833" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T10:38:27.390" Title="What is the rule for forming chinese names diminutives?" Tags="&lt;informal&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="892" CreationDate="2012-01-14T11:57:51.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A form of &quot;小&quot;+Surname can be used, like 小王 小李.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also we can call elder person (not superior, but the same or lower level) with &quot;老&quot;+Surname: &quot;老王&quot; &quot;老李&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This form will not be adopted if the surname has two syllables (not very common in China now).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And note &quot;大&quot; CANNOT be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-14T11:57:51.807" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="894" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-14T12:48:38.727" Score="10" ViewCount="566" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is retail referred to as 零售 in Chinese? Why the combination of &quot;zero&quot; with &quot;sales&quot;? Certainly one expects to make (hopefully many) sales in retail so why is the character for &quot;zero&quot; used here? It just strikes me as such a negative and inauspicious word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="154" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:15:57.393" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:15:57.393" Title="零售 - Why is the character for &quot;zero&quot; used in the Chinese word for retail?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="894" CreationDate="2012-01-14T13:31:33.693" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;零 means &quot;a part (fraction,fragment) of something&quot; here. Some examples for this meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;零钱 &lt;em&gt;small change&lt;/em&gt; such as RMB1, 2 or 5 (depending on how much you are talking);  It also has another meaning. &#xA;  I.e,you buy something at a total price of 8.3,and you give one note of 100 to the cashier, so the cashier needs to return you 91.7. in Chinese,we also call that 91.7 零钱(here,零 refers to fragment) . Usually,the cashier may ask you&quot;您有零钱(here,零 refers to small amount)吗？&quot; Here,he hopes that you have notes with a small face value.In this case, it would be 10 so that he doesn't need to return you too many notes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;零件 &lt;em&gt;part (in a machine)&lt;/em&gt; as a &quot;part&quot; is a part of a component in a machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is “零售” used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 售 means &quot;to sell&quot;. We have another word opposite to &quot;零售&quot;; it's “批发 (wholesale)”. &quot;批&quot; means &quot;a batch&quot;, &quot;a package&quot;, and &quot;发&quot; means &quot;to distribute, to sell&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The wholesalers (批发商) will buy a lot (&quot;a lot&quot; refers to 批 here)of goods from the manufacturers and sell them to different retailers(零售商). The retailers sell goods to end customers and generally a customer would only buy small amount (a small fraction, this is why we use 零 here) of the goods. You won't buy 10 soaps at a time, will you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-14T16:58:06.070" LastActivityDate="2012-01-14T16:58:06.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="892" CreationDate="2012-01-14T14:33:02.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For men:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;elder than you: 老+'family name'. For example: 老+王. it's ok to use this even you're the same age. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;younger than you: 小+'family name'. For example: 小+王. esp. leader calls his subordinate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For women:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;elder than you: 'family name'+ 姐. For example: 王+姐. It's not good to use ‘老’ for women. Just as you should not ask a woman how old she is.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;younger than you: the same as man. You can call 小王 (xiaowang) for a young lady.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some other usage for men:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'阿'+ firstname, like: 阿强 (if you're at almost the same age and very familiar,you can find this in  runfa chow 's films)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;firstname + '仔', like: 伟仔 (people call the Hong Kong film star Liang Chaowei like this).   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="334" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-14T15:27:39.090" LastActivityDate="2012-01-14T15:27:39.090" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="892" CreationDate="2012-01-14T15:21:48.803" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a broad question. You will use different words depending on different situations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To call someone that you are familiar with&lt;/strong&gt; (note: this is the &lt;em&gt;premise&lt;/em&gt;). There are several different cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For kids: In general, the parents will give their kids a diminutive, besides the formal name.The diminutive may have different forms so that you can't find a rule.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have a niece with the diminutive of &quot;小鱼儿 (literally means: little fish)&quot;. This name has nothing to do with her given name, but it is related (I think) to her surname &quot;余 (has the same pronunciation with 鱼)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One of my friends has &quot;俊&quot; as the last character of his given name, so his grandpa calls him &quot;俊俊&quot;. This &quot;XX&quot; form is very common. Note, his grandpa(from a grandpa's view, he is always a kid) can call him this way while I should not(for me, he is an adult, not a kid).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For adults. user334's answer is good (point 1 and 2). However, there are some details I want to point out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the listener is very old (60 above, very rough, no precise definition), and you are young. It's not polite to call him &quot;老+surname&quot;. You would:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;call him &quot;surname+叔&quot; or &quot;surname+叔叔&quot; for a man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;call her &quot;surname+姨&quot; pr &quot;surname+阿姨&quot; for a man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...when they are in the same generation as your parents. Or,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;call him &quot;surname+爷爷&quot; for a man&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;call him &quot;surname+奶奶&quot; for a woman&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...when they are in the same generation as your grandparents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, you could call an old (in the same generation as your grandparents) man or woman &quot;surname + 老&quot; to show your high respect. This form is very formal and not used usually.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For adult in the same generation as you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;阿+surname&quot; or &quot;阿+last character of the given name&quot; are often used. Yes, my friends would call me 阿黄, but not all of them call me this way (just call me with the full name).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;小+last character of the given name&quot; could also be used(less common).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“仔&quot; as in user334's answer, is popular in Guangdong, Fujian provinces and HongKong, Macau and Taiwan, I think. More presicesly, it's popular in the 粤 and 闽 dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also use &quot;surname+兄&quot; to call a man older than you. Ok, you could call me &quot;黄兄&quot; :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could use &quot;given name&quot; to call a man if his given name contains two characters.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, among familiar friends, they generally would call each other with nicknames to make things funny. When I was in the university, some of my classmates called me &quot;大黄&quot;. Oh, that's not a good name, but funny, because &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheum_%28plant%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;大黄&lt;/a&gt;&quot; is a kind of Chinese herbal medicine.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-30T10:38:27.390" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T10:38:27.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="894" CreationDate="2012-01-14T21:43:32.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 零 means &quot;small amount.&quot; In one context, &quot;small amount&quot; means &quot;zero.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context of &quot;sales,&quot; “零售,” it means &quot;small sales&quot; (Swedish: &quot;Minuthandel&quot; instead of &quot;Grosshandel.&quot;) An appropriate translation for &quot;small sales&quot; is &quot;retail.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2012-01-16T00:26:32.367" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T00:26:32.367" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="899" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="904" CreationDate="2012-01-14T23:38:36.490" Score="4" ViewCount="319" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他曾经在北京学过两年汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what's the role of 曾经? I understand that 过 already implies that the action happened in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-26T04:11:37.287" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T04:11:37.287" Title="What's the role of 曾经 in 他曾经在北京学过两年汉语?" Tags="&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="899" CreationDate="2012-01-15T00:08:19.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means 'already', to add emphasis to the sentence - 'he already studied Mandarin in Beijing for two years'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="335" LastActivityDate="2012-01-15T00:08:19.057" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="899" CreationDate="2012-01-15T01:29:13.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as 已经 means &quot;already&quot; and emphasizes the sense of the completed action particle 了, 曾经 means &quot;once&quot; and emphasizes the sense of 过. I disagree with Bob that 曾经 means already here; in general &quot;once&quot; or &quot;ever&quot; is a better translation. I would render your sentence as &quot;I once studied two years of Chinese in Beijing.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-01-15T01:29:13.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="902" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="905" CreationDate="2012-01-15T01:32:22.220" Score="8" ViewCount="2416" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/899/whats-the-role-of-%E6%9B%BE%E7%BB%8F-in-this-sentence&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; I was asking about 曾经 and one answer says it means 'already'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's the difference between 曾经 and 已经?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do the two sentences below have the same meaning?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他曾经在北京学过两年汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他已经在北京学过两年汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T01:30:33.747" Title="Difference between 曾经 and 已经" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="902" CreationDate="2012-01-15T02:00:23.087" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply put, 曾经 indicates &lt;strong&gt;past tense&lt;/strong&gt; while 已经 indicates &lt;strong&gt;perfect tense&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, 曾经 means &lt;strong&gt;once&lt;/strong&gt; while 已经 means &lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastEditorUserId="260" LastEditDate="2012-01-15T12:50:16.697" LastActivityDate="2012-01-15T12:50:16.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="899" CreationDate="2012-01-15T02:09:55.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;曾经 is more equivalent to &amp;quot;once&amp;quot; in English as in the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once we were the best friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is used to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;express the fact the sentence is talking about happened in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if the predicate verb is a durative verb*, express that fact can't be experienced(经=experience) by the speaker(doesn't last) any more. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;, the speaker implies that the status is different now. In this case, it means &amp;quot;used to&amp;quot; as in the sentence &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;I used to be a kind man(implies now I am not)&lt;/em&gt;.&amp;quot; For your example, the speaker implies that he is not studying Chinese in Bejing now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*By &amp;quot;durative verb&amp;quot;, I mean the action expreesed by that verb can last for a long time. For example, &amp;quot;study, like, look, be, work,feed, etc.&amp;quot;. These verbs can be used in the progress tense in English(-ing form). Some other verbs can not, such as &amp;quot;hear of, see, kick, etc.&amp;quot; You can't say &amp;quot; I am hearing of a terrible story&amp;quot;, while you can say&amp;quot; I am listening to a terrible story&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone tell me the right grammar term if I am wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-01-15T02:21:24.420" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="902" CreationDate="2012-01-15T04:17:49.740" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it could be close to the fact to say &amp;quot;曾经(&lt;em&gt;once&lt;/em&gt;)“ is used in the past tense, while &amp;quot;已经(&lt;em&gt;already&lt;/em&gt;)&amp;quot; is used in the perfect(past, present, or future, it doesn't matter) tense, that's why ”了&amp;quot; is often used with it..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you are using the present perfect tense or future perfect tense, only 已经 can be used. For example(where 曾经 can't be used):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明年他就已经结婚5年了。 &lt;em&gt;He will have been married for 5 years next year.&lt;/em&gt; Future Perfect Tense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他现在已经是这个公司的CEO了。 &lt;em&gt;He has been the CEO of this company now.&lt;/em&gt; Present Perfect Tense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How about the past(past perfect) tense?&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;As you may have learned in English. the past perfect tense implies that the fact the sentence is talking about is related to or affect the status quo, and the past tense just states a fact. That's true to &amp;quot;已经“ and &amp;quot;曾经&amp;quot;. ALso, 曾经 could implies that the fact doesn't last till now(see my answer to a related question &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/899/whats-the-role-of-%E6%9B%BE%E7%BB%8F-in-this-sentence&quot;&gt;What's the role of 曾经 in this sentence?&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;) .For your examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他曾经在北京学过两年汉语。 State the fact that he studied Chinese in Beijing for 2 years and implies he is not studing Chinese in Beijing now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他已经在北京学过两年汉语。Emphasize the fact that his experience in studing Chinese. This fact will affect the status quo, depending on the context.For example, when a company wants to hire a man who can speak Chinese and you go to the interview, you would prefer to say&amp;quot;我已经在北京学过两年汉语&amp;quot;. Here, you want the listener to understand that you can speak Chinese well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两年前他曾经是副经理。 &lt;em&gt;He was(used to be) the deputy manager two years ago.&lt;/em&gt; Here, the sentence implies he is not the deputy manager now. So what's his title now? The speaker doesn't have any idea about this. The speaker just stated a fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两年前他已经是副经理了。 &lt;em&gt;He had been the deputy manager two years ago&lt;/em&gt; Here, the sentence implies that he may get promoted now(perhaps he is the general manager now,in this case, you want to say he is talented), or he is still the deputy manger(in this case, you may want to say he should get promoted). All the implications depend on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me show a conversation here. A policeman is investigating a case, and he is looking for a witness. He finds you and asks you some quesstions. You say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You: 那天晚上我曾经在这儿看到他。 &lt;em&gt;I saw him(the suspect) here on that night.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The policeman: 是吗？不过已经有人给我们报告过了。 &lt;em&gt;Really? But someone else has informed us of this.(he is disappointed that you can't say something new).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You: 他曾经欠了A(the victim)一大笔钱，不过最近他好像突然有钱了。 He once owed a big sum of money to A, but it seems that he is rich now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The policeman: 我们还不知道这个，我想我已经能确定他的作案动机了。&lt;em&gt;We don't know this. Now I can say I have confirmed his motive to kill A&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-01-15T04:17:49.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="906" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="907" CreationDate="2012-01-15T05:34:22.707" Score="16" ViewCount="7212" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for confirmation of the way I'm parsing a sentence with 的 at the end, and I'd appreciate some background or other examples of this usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/403766&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this sentence on tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一定會去看他的。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I'll certainly go and see him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence is pretty clear to me, until I get to that 的 at the end. Is it one of the many &amp;quot;emphasis&amp;quot; patterns? I'm familiar with 是...的, but I haven't seen 的 on its own before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?wdqb=%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CEDICT definition of 的&lt;/a&gt; includes, &amp;quot;used at the end of a declarative sentence for emphasis,&amp;quot; so it seems like that's what's going on here. What exactly is it emphasizing? When would you use this pattern?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T11:09:02.663" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T11:09:02.663" Title="Why use 的 at the end of a sentence such as 我一定會去看他的?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;emphasis&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="906" CreationDate="2012-01-15T06:37:34.000" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;的&quot; in this case means &quot;certainly&quot;, &quot;really&quot;, &quot;I am sure that...&quot; as the conclusion says in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, such sentences are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我会去看他&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我&lt;strong&gt;一定&lt;/strong&gt;会去看他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;我一定会去看他的&quot;. The mood sounds stronger (I think it's not much stronger), but I can't tell you how strong it is (this is a natural language, not math). I would use this when I want to express that &lt;em&gt;&quot;please don't remind me of it any more. I am sure to do that. I won't forget it&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mom: 别忘了早点回家过年。— &lt;em&gt;Don't forget to come back home early for the Spring Festival holidays.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You: 知道了，妈妈。— &lt;em&gt;I will, mom.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Mom: 一定要早点啊。— &lt;em&gt;make sure [you will come back] early!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You: 我会的。— &lt;em&gt;I am sure I will (mom, you don't need to repeat that. I will. I am sure.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you don't need to treat &quot;的&quot; seriously. It's used very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-15T11:07:29.453" LastActivityDate="2012-01-15T11:07:29.453" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="908" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="910" CreationDate="2012-01-15T10:45:58.963" Score="9" ViewCount="2817" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was talking to my friend (native Chinese) the other day and when she read out a phone number she said &amp;quot;yao&amp;quot; for all the &amp;quot;ones&amp;quot; in the phone number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as far as I remember, for all other cases she says it normally - eg. &amp;quot;yi ge&amp;quot; when counting etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, as far as I know, people from Taiwan don't use &amp;quot;yao&amp;quot; but stay with &amp;quot;yi&amp;quot; for all cases of uses of the number &amp;quot;one&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know why &amp;quot;yao&amp;quot; is used instead of &amp;quot;yi&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="60" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T06:48:20.503" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T06:48:20.503" Title="Different pronunciation for the number 'one'?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="908" CreationDate="2012-01-15T10:50:50.047" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that it is originally a military usage. Since the pronunciation yī is easily mistaken for 七 qī in radio transmissions etc, yāo is substituted in the interest of aural clarity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This usage is not found in Taiwan (although I can't speak for the Taiwanese military).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question has been answered before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastActivityDate="2012-01-15T10:50:50.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="908" CreationDate="2012-01-15T12:19:25.940" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the mainland of China (I don't know how people in Taiwan use this character, sorry), people usually use &quot;yao&quot; when reading numerical serial numbers, digit by digit. One typical application is the phone number. In almost all other cases, only &quot;yi&quot; should be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why can it mean &quot;one&quot;?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character for &quot;yao&quot; is &quot;幺&quot;. Which originally (in classic Chinese) means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;young,little&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. Especially this meaning is used (still used nowadays, very popular here in Chengdu) to refer to the &lt;strong&gt;youngest&lt;/strong&gt; child in a family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the meaning &quot;one&quot; extends from this meaning, since 1 is the &quot;youngest&quot; element in natural number family (without 0).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why is it used as &quot;one&quot;?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Bathrobe pointed out, once this was very popular in military actions, to avoid the misunderstanding as 七, to express the numbers more clearly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-10-01T15:12:04.867" LastActivityDate="2012-10-01T15:12:04.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="902" CreationDate="2012-01-15T13:56:56.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He used to be dead - 他曾经死了 (implies he is &lt;em&gt;no longer&lt;/em&gt; dead now)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He is already dead - 他已经死了 (and is &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; dead)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;BIG&lt;/strong&gt; difference ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="325" LastEditorUserId="325" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T01:30:33.747" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T01:30:33.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="894" CreationDate="2012-01-15T14:17:35.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English one word often has one specific meaning. The word &quot;Apple&quot; can't mean much else. There are some examples of English word that have multiple (and seemingly unrelated) meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fast : To not eat for a period of time. Or, a description of speed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fan : I am a fan of ACDC, or 'fan' as in the electrical device you use in summer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, this is more common. It is actually &lt;strong&gt;extremely&lt;/strong&gt; common and it would not surprise me if I find 4-5 seemingly unrelated meanings to one word (I am native). Being bi-lingual, this is one of the most immediately noticed difference to me, and I think you will need to give yourself time to adapt to it. However being aware of such difference is definitely going to help you learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;零售 here means &quot;non wholesale&quot;. The reason is that 零 can means loose items, or surplus that cannot be grouped into one lot. It also carries the meaning of a small quantity of items. 批发 on the other hand, means wholesale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;批:&#xA;This means one lot (of goods), or a batch. For example a cargo container full of products. For example &quot;This shipment of fabrics&quot; can be said as &quot;这一批布料&quot; where we use 批 to express the large volume in a wholesale situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发:&#xA;To distribute (goods)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="325" LastActivityDate="2012-01-15T14:17:35.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="913" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="964" CreationDate="2012-01-15T22:21:39.290" Score="3" ViewCount="3026" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Possible Duplicate:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese&quot;&gt;Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a big podcast fan, and I think listening to Chinese podcasts would be a great way to improve my listening skills. I enjoy listening to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.slow-chinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;慢速中文&lt;/a&gt;, but I've already listen to all the podcasts they put out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for something at the upper intermediate level that covers a range of topics - I really like the way 慢速中文 covers anything they think is interesting, is well produced, and features a selection of great music as well... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have good suggestions for Chinese podcasts I should check out? What Chinese podcasts have you found to both good for your listening skills, and interesting to listen to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T22:59:11.123" Title="What Chinese podcasts are available to improve my listening skills?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="6" ClosedDate="2013-01-16T22:01:45.447" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-18T21:58:20.783" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="914" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-16T00:13:50.923" Score="4" ViewCount="1840" Body="&lt;p&gt;During the Chinese New Year celebration, one of the various traditions is to give money to younger people in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year#Red_envelopes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;red envelopes&lt;/a&gt;. Usually they are given from elderly married couples to younger couples or single people, but it's also common for old people to give them to children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These red envelopes are called in Chinese 紅包 and 红包 (hóng bāo), while the money is called 壓歲錢 and 压岁钱 (yā suì qián), both first in Traditional and then Simplified characters, respectively. The meaning of this name is literally &lt;em&gt;&quot;the money used to suppress or put down the evil spirit&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I've met the 岁 character before and that's in the expression used to tell your age:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我 ... 岁。= &lt;em&gt;I'm ... years old.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And actually, looking up this character, the meaning is &quot;year, years old, (measure word)&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why there seems to be no relation with the meaning of the envelopes above? If I look up the expression &quot;压岁钱&quot; in the same dictionary, I get a different meaning from above, which is &quot;money given to children as new year present&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that &quot;year&quot; relates to the meaning above? Where is the link, semantically speaking, between the character and the chinese name for the red envelopes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T16:03:18.737" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T16:03:18.737" Title="What and where is the connection between 压岁钱 and the character 岁 that appears in it?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="916" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-16T00:39:55.250" Score="1" ViewCount="428" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the night of New Years Eve in China many people watch the annual &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCTV_New_Year%27s_Gala&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;New Year's Gala&lt;/a&gt;. This in Chinese is called 春节联欢晚会 in English this is translated as New Year's Gala.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what exactly is a 联欢晚会? Can someone break it down and explain the parts. Google translates 联欢晚会 as &quot;gala&quot;. But if you type &quot;gala&quot; in as the English it doesn't provide 联欢晚会 as the translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2012-01-16T01:22:52.440" LastActivityDate="2013-02-24T18:24:05.927" Title="Better translation for 春节联欢晚会 than New Year's Gala" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="914" CreationDate="2012-01-16T00:58:25.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;压岁&quot; and &quot;压祟&quot; have the same pronunciation (yā suì). The meaning of &quot;压祟&quot; is exactly what you have mentioned here: &quot;suppress or put down the evil spirit&quot;. &quot;压岁钱&quot; is actually a homonym of &quot;压祟钱&quot;.  It's a usage passed down from ancient time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="332" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-16T15:01:41.517" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T15:01:41.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="916" CreationDate="2012-01-16T01:06:34.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think I know the exact meaning of gala.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 联欢晚会, we will have a lot of performances of different kind to celebrate a certain event. These performance would include  songs, dances, magic, acrobatics, Chinese traditional performing arts (e.g, Xiangshen(相声), Xiaopin(小品), Chinese Operas), etc. These will be performed on the same stage sequentially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T01:06:34.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="914" CreationDate="2012-01-16T01:23:37.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Red envelopes are not called 压岁钱. The meaning of &quot;money given to children as new year present&quot; is correct, at least in where I live. This is only given to children and babies, and never to young man/lady or couples. Children may stop receiving these money when they leave school and find a job, or when they graduate from junior high school (this will vary from area to area, and from person to person). But people with job or married couples would definitely not receive 压岁钱. (btw, we don't wrap the money in red envelops here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;RobbieLiu has given a possible (maybe real) origin of 压岁钱. Nowadays, we don't know that it comes from there. 压岁钱 is just given as a celebration of a child get one age, and becoming more closer to an adult. In the tradition way of count ages in China, people get on age at the Spring Festival, not on their birthday. This may be what the &quot;岁&quot; is related to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The wiki page may be mixing a lot things together. A lot of money exchange may happen in various celebrations in China, like the Spring Festival, Wedding, celebration of having a baby， etc. All these money can be wrapped in red envelops, can we call it 红包. But what is important here is the money, not the envelop. Money can be given without the envelop, but I cannot image what would happen if an empty envelop is given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-01-16T04:37:06.300" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T04:37:06.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="916" CreationDate="2012-01-16T01:25:50.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Meaning no offense, it sounds like you're overthinking this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of translation is not necessarily to go word-for-word. The point is to express the idea in the way it would have been expressed had the original writer been a native speaker of English (in this case). &quot;New Year's Gala&quot; is perfectly acceptable for this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could (optionally) choose to use a synonym like &quot;Extravaganza&quot;, &quot;Show&quot;, &quot;Variety Show&quot;, or whatever, but it really doesn't matter much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trusting Google translate as the basis to make decisions about translation or translation quality is also not generally a very good idea. It's much better to get in touch with someone who's an actual (professional) live translator, and in this case, a native speaker of English. (Yes, I'm all of those things.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T01:25:50.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="916" CreationDate="2012-01-16T01:27:48.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/082482766X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ABC comprehensive Chinese dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;联欢晚会&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;strong&gt;gathering or party&lt;/strong&gt;, but I think both of these are fairly synonymous with Gala. Google Translate doesn’t necessarily provide the right or best translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I think Gala is a good fit to describe the CCTV festivities on New Year's Eve, and sums up a collection of different performances quite well..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T01:27:48.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="922" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-16T01:47:29.033" Score="2" ViewCount="446" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the idiom 车水马龙 which is used to describe somewhere that is bustling and crowded, why was 龙 included considering it is a mythical creature?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it represent something other than a creature in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it have some special meaning when paired with 马, are there other idioms where 马龙 is a pairing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:18:24.753" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:18:24.753" Title="Use of 龙 in the idiom 车水马龙" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="923" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-16T01:57:05.763" Score="8" ViewCount="970" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Premise&lt;/strong&gt;: According to the mythology related to the Chinese New Year, a creature called 年 (also referred to as 年兽 — &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt;: nián shòu — 年獸 in Traditional chinese) was a mythical beast that &lt;em&gt;&quot;lived under the sea and in the mountains&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This beast used to come out once a year to attack people and eat them, although — always according to the mythology — it preferred children. Eventually the villagers understood that this beast hated loud noise and feared the color red (it seems this is the origin of the known red chinese lanterns), because it escaped when it saw a child wearing red.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here comes my question&lt;/strong&gt;: Although the story is interesting, I'd like you to focus on the language part of this question. I noticed fairly quickly the relation between the name of this beast, 年 which means (year) and the fact that it attacked &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;once a year&lt;/strong&gt;, during the spring, so around the Chinese New Year celebration&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it's a coincidence or maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but is this the origin of the term year or is it rather the opposite, i.e. the beast was given this name because it used to appear once a year?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, is the character etymology related to this fact? If so, in what measure and what manner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-16T10:54:37.450" LastActivityDate="2021-03-26T01:24:29.340" Title="Is  the character 年 (or its etymology) related to the mythical beast in Chinese mythology?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="924" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-16T02:28:13.107" Score="7" ViewCount="6995" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many traditional festivals are observed on a given date on the Chinese (lunar) calendar(Actually, the Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar). For example, the Spring Festival falls on the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar.  Besides, some people celebrate their birthdays based on this calendar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how can one express a date from the Chinese calendar? An answer with multiple examples and details would be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-12-27T15:43:25.143" LastActivityDate="2020-12-27T15:43:25.143" Title="How to express a date in Chinese (lunar) calendar?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;calendar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="924" CreationDate="2012-01-16T02:47:53.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You add &quot;农历&quot; (means old/lunar calendar) add the beginning, and the first month is called &quot;正(zhēng)月&quot;. The last month is called &quot;腊(là)月&quot;. Leap month (a whole month is added) is prefixed with &quot;闰(rùn)&quot;. Other months are read just as in the calender used now. The 1st to the 10th day is prefixed with &quot;初&quot;. Other date is read out just as you read out a number. &quot;号&quot; &quot;日&quot; or any other characters is never added after the date. When &quot;正月&quot; &quot;初&quot; is used, &quot;农历&quot; can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;E.g.: The Spring Festival is on (农历)正月初一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.10 : (农历)正月初十&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.15 : 农历八月十五&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For leap month: 闰四月初六&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last day of a year can be called &quot;大年三十&quot; or &quot;年三十&quot; (or sometimes simply &quot;三十&quot;. This can be used no matter the month has 30 days or not). The first day of the year can be called &quot;大年初一&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not quite sure what will be used when a leap month is added after the first month. I would prefer &quot;闰一月&quot; instead of &quot;闰正月&quot;, but not sure about the common practice. Also, it is unknown to me how to read the leap month added after the 12th month. It is rare, and the we don't often used the lunar calender now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T02:47:53.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="922" CreationDate="2012-01-16T03:09:17.777" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I quote some words from my dictionary specified for idiom(成语)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;成语，形容车像流水，马像游龙。形容来往车马很多，连续不断的热闹情景。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me try to translate &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;idiom,it describe the scenery that the wagon and the horse come and go just like the stream and the dragon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;马---&gt;horse,龙---&gt;dragon,they have no relationships with each other.In Chinese language,we often use metaphor ,here,we use dragon(龙) to describe the busy horse（马）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no word called 马龙 in Chinese,but it is of great possibility to have someone called 马龙,because this year is the year of dragon,if someone has the family name 马，then his parents may call him 马龙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there is another idiom 龙马精神，it describe  one man with great passion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="234" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T03:09:17.777" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="913" CreationDate="2012-01-16T03:16:51.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know what kind of material is your favorite,but you can try to search &quot;有声小说&quot;，there are a lot of audio novels in the results.I recommend a novel with the name&quot;明朝那些事&quot;,it is about the history of Ming dynasty, and it's popular in China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="234" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T03:16:51.413" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-18T21:58:20.783" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="923" CreationDate="2012-01-16T03:59:25.333" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's just a folklore, because every time I read this story, I can't find the source of the floklore cited there. I never treat this stroy seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The oracle form of the character &quot;年&quot; is:(note: one oracle character may have different but similar shapes, because characters were not standardized at all in that times)&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Viu1F.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The upper part looks like a bundle of grain, and the lower parts look like a man. This shape depicts a man with a bundle of grain on his back. It origninally means &quot;the grains are ripe and human being need it&quot;.Because the grain plants were ripe once per year(in ancient times, argricultural tech was very low), the meaning of &quot;year&quot; derived.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is the different shapes of &quot;年&quot; in different times,showing its evolution. The picture comes from a great online dictinary &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt;&quot;,however, it's only in Chinese. From left to right, the shape was used in &quot;甲骨文(oracle,which is the oldest as far as we know)&quot;,&quot;金文(popular in 商and 周 dynasty, carved on bronze castings)&quot;,&quot;小篆(a standardized font, used in 秦 dynasty)&quot;,“楷体(the modern Kai font)&quot;. You can see that &#xA;in 金文, the lower part became &quot;千&quot; and in 小篆, the shape was similar with the original 秊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5QELE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-16T06:09:31.377" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T06:09:31.377" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="913" CreationDate="2012-01-16T04:33:59.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about 新浪新闻? You can view latest TV news from CCTV etc from this podcast. It could be boring though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="340" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T04:33:59.583" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-18T21:58:20.783" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="892" CreationDate="2012-01-16T06:12:29.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to already informative existing answers. Another recent trend of honorific is 董 &lt;em&gt;dong&lt;/em&gt; (for both Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese), no literal meaning as it is fragmented but indicate meaning as 'boss'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You use this in conjunction with a surname. For example 陳董 &lt;em&gt;chen dong&lt;/em&gt; to refer someone as 'Boss Chen'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This honorific was widely popularised when referring to a successful Taiwanese singer (now actor, director, screenwriter) &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Chou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jay Chou&lt;/a&gt; (周杰倫 or 周杰伦 in Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese respectively where he was often referred to as 周董 &lt;em&gt;Zhou Dong&lt;/em&gt; as indication of respect to his success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, this honorific often seen within pop culture where one refer to another as 董 &lt;em&gt;dong&lt;/em&gt; as a respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;em&gt;seems to only applicable to&lt;/em&gt; male even though the word 董 &lt;em&gt;dong&lt;/em&gt; contains no gender indication, hence in theory you should still able to use this honorific on a female.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="341" LastEditorUserId="92" LastEditDate="2012-01-17T14:43:10.017" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T14:43:10.017" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="931" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="940" CreationDate="2012-01-16T08:16:52.467" Score="3" ViewCount="1561" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Western countries (or New Zealand at least), auld lang syne is a very common song over the the New Year holiday. Is there an equivalent song in Chinese that everyone instantly associates with Chinese new year? Or are there a range of popular new year songs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:19:58.453" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:19:58.453" Title="Is there a Chinese equivalent song of 'auld lang syne'?" Tags="&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="932" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="934" CreationDate="2012-01-16T08:20:26.533" Score="6" ViewCount="1279" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know people often say 新年快乐 to mean happy new year, but is there a traditional greeting used in Chinese to express your good wishes for the new year? If so, what, and how did it originate? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-23T06:07:27.520" Title="Is there a traditional Chinese New Year greeting?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="933" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="942" CreationDate="2012-01-16T08:24:06.093" Score="2" ViewCount="1578" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since Chinese New Year is on the way (and thanks to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/q/120/62&quot;&gt;Xiaohouzi's great suggestion&lt;/a&gt;), I've been thinking all about the new year. One term the sticks out is 拜年.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm very curious to know the exact meaning, where the 拜年 tradition stems from, how we could best translate it to English, and the etymology of this term. Does anyone have any insight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:49:43.223" LastActivityDate="2020-05-11T12:10:58.570" Title="What is the exact meaning and etymology of 拜年？" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="932" CreationDate="2012-01-16T09:12:16.890" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common I have heard is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;恭喜发财 gōng xǐ fā cái&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is a wish of a prosperous coming year. This is very common in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but I heard that it was frowned upon by the communists on the mainland, since it is a wish that does not align very well with communistic ideals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One story I read related to this is that there was a legend about a monster called 年 (&lt;em&gt;nian2&lt;/em&gt;) that would come down from the mountains around new year and eat people. He is afraid of the colour red, so that's why people would put up red paper on and around their doors. The following morning, when you see someone, you would greet them with 恭喜!; 'Congratulations (to still being alive)!', and then wish that they will 发财; 'get rich', i.e. will have a fruitful and prosperous year ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan there is a playful childrens' rhyme related to this. The tradition is that adults give children (without an income of their own) red envelopes with cash, 红包. So the adult says &quot;恭喜发财&quot; and the child immediately (and greedily) replies &quot;红包拿来&quot;; 'Give me the red envelope'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-01-18T11:20:38.253" LastActivityDate="2012-01-18T11:20:38.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="932" CreationDate="2012-01-16T09:19:04.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The greeting is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给您拜年了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is before the spring festival:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给您拜个早年。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot answer the origin now, and this coincide with your other question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As today is the Spring Festival, I heard 过年好(啊) is most often used as a greeting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-01-23T06:07:27.520" LastActivityDate="2012-01-23T06:07:27.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="936" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="941" CreationDate="2012-01-16T09:31:26.570" Score="13" ViewCount="47863" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of people, mostly those who haven't studied Chinese, like to claim something along the lines of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;In Chinese, the word for crisis 危机, also bears the meaning of opportunity.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is usually said right before or after making a remark that a crisis can also be a possibility. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thought on this is that it was originally written as 危险机会 (or 危险的机会), meaning a &quot;chance of danger&quot;, or &quot;possibility of danger&quot;. And then, as in many other cases, character 2 and 4 dropped, to make the word 危机. In this way, it has become a misunderstanding that the word means both &quot;danger&quot; and &quot;opportunity&quot;, as both of these words are represented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Am I totally wrong?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do Chinese speakers really think of 危机 as both &quot;crisis&quot; and &quot;opportunity&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do Chinese speakers use 危机 to describe some kinds of crises (possibly fortunate ones, less severe etc), and use another word for other kinds?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="156" LastEditDate="2019-07-17T10:26:24.410" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T19:14:49.427" Title="Does 危机 really mean both crisis and opportunity?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="14" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="936" CreationDate="2012-01-16T09:52:27.363" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've never heard &quot;危险机会&quot;, and I don't think it is valid in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;危机&quot; does not carry the meaning of &quot;opportunity&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are always opportunities in a crisis situation. Sometimes the ability of a person can be only shown in crisis situations. So a crisis is sometimes considered as an opportunity to appeal one's ability in achieve some task. And in overcoming a crisis, people can get various award or promotion. This should be how &quot;危机&quot; is linked to opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With respect the different crises given by the OP in the comment, &quot;危机&quot; can be used for all of them. However, a disaster can be a crisis to a country, and a missing deadline is only a crisis for a single person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;危机&quot; is used to refer to severe situations. There would not be &quot;fortunate&quot; ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-01-16T12:58:32.217" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T12:58:32.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="938" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-16T10:20:14.980" Score="2" ViewCount="1153" Body="&lt;p&gt;A recent question prompted me to look for expressions related to the Chinese New Year and, among them, I found one that particularly stroke me as interesting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五福臨門  = according to the poster it means: &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;five happinesses bestowed on your household&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?1,77140,77140&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese New Year phrases&lt;/a&gt;, third post by &amp;quot;14k Guy&amp;quot;, 7&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt; expression listed.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose that the pronunciation provided is Cantonese, since the site seems to be related to Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, looking up the expression as a whole doesn't give any results in Mandarin, apparently, whereas looking up each character alone, the meaning seems to match... So I wonder, does this expression exist in current Mandarin as well? If not, is there an equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases, I'd like to know why &amp;quot;five happenesses&amp;quot;, is it related to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture#Five&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;number meanings&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese culture?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T07:36:49.287" Title="Is the cantonese expression 五福臨門 present in Mandarin too?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="938" CreationDate="2012-01-16T10:44:31.023" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course it exists in Mandarin. I didn't know it is a Cantonese expression. Maybe it should be just &quot;Chinese expression&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot answer whether the meaning are the same. I don't know Cantonese. But I think the meaning should be the same in Cantonese and Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;五福&quot; comes form &lt;a href=&quot;https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikisource/zh/w/index.php?title=%E5%B0%9A%E6%9B%B8/%E6%B4%AA%E7%AF%84&amp;amp;variant=zh-hans&quot;&gt;《尚书·洪范》&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;五福：一曰寿，二曰富，三曰康宁，四曰攸(yōu)好(hào)德，五曰考终命。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which are long life, being rich, being healthy, clement, having a peaceful end (death). It may or may not be related to the number meaning of five, I don't know. Maybe the original author picked five because five is a good number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And currently, most Chinese cannot list what &quot;五福&quot; are, though &quot;五福临门&quot; is commonly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-16T14:08:37.313" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T14:08:37.313" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="931" CreationDate="2012-01-16T12:37:24.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, this famous song has a Chinese version called 《友谊地久天长》(&lt;em&gt;the friendship will last forever&lt;/em&gt;), however, we traditionally don't sing songs to celebrate over festivals, so this song is not popular in this peroid of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't think of such a popular song as &quot;auld lang syne&quot; in the west. Over this period, you wll find a lot of songs(different melodies, different lyrics, different singers) with the same theme &quot;happy new year&quot; on the street or in the markets(to convey the happiness or to attract more customers). I would like to recommend Timi Zhuo(卓依婷), a female singer famous for her &quot;new year&quot; type songs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-16T15:23:38.063" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T15:23:38.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="936" CreationDate="2012-01-16T13:54:46.923" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Victor Mair has an essay answering your question directly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.info/chinese/crisis.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Danger + opportunity ≠ crisis, how a misunderstanding about Chinese characters has led many astray&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] Like most Mandarin words, that for “crisis” (wēijī) consists of two syllables that are written with two separate characters, wēi (危) and jī (機/机).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] While it is true that wēijī does indeed mean “crisis” and that the wēi syllable of wēijī does convey the notion of “danger,” the jī syllable of wēijī most definitely does not signify “opportunity.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The jī of wēijī, in fact, means something like “incipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes).” Thus, a wēijī is indeed a genuine crisis, a dangerous moment, a time when things start to go awry. A wēijī indicates a perilous situation when one should be especially wary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] jī added to huì (“occasion”) creates the Mandarin word for “opportunity” (jīhuì), but by itself jī does not mean “opportunity.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="318" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T03:29:47.617" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="933" CreationDate="2012-01-16T15:24:22.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When Chinese new year comes, families will go out to visit their relatives, friends or seniorities. According to this page from &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/28690.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu Encyclopedia&lt;/a&gt;, at earlier time, the kids should &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowtow&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;kowtow&lt;/a&gt;(叩头, the same as 拜) to salute. In return, the elders will give them pocket money in red envelop. Nowadays kids don't have to kneel, but pocket money is still a tradition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you can say &quot;pay a New Year call&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T15:24:22.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="943" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="944" CreationDate="2012-01-16T15:50:50.360" Score="5" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;In relation to the Chinese New Year (or Spring Festival) I've heard different names, as you can see from what I just wrote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春節 / 春节 = Spring Festival&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Chūn jié&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;農曆新年 / 农历新年 = Chinese New Year&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Nóng lì xīn nián&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or simply (more general)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新年 = New Year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from the last one, which I doubt is the most used when referring &lt;em&gt;specifically&lt;/em&gt; to the Chinese New Year, which one is the most common expression in China? And are these the only ones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-04-13T06:16:14.287" Title="Which expression do native speakers actually use: Chinese New Year or Spring Festival (or other)?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="943" CreationDate="2012-01-16T16:47:30.267" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common expression should be 春节.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;农历新年 is a kind of rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have another word for January 1st (not spring festival), 元旦(yuan2 dan4). So 新年 is normally the Chinese New Year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another expression is 阳历年(yang2 li4 nian2) for January 1st, 阴历年(yin1 li4 nian2) for spring festival. 阳历年 may be used more often, as 阴历年 is the default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-16T16:47:30.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="945" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="951" CreationDate="2012-01-16T22:29:11.580" Score="1" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks to @xiaohuozi's &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/120/chinese-new-year-question-challenge-now-on&quot;&gt;wonderful suggestion&lt;/a&gt;. This is my question for the friendly contest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should one answer this question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今年是什么年？ &#xA;  (jin nian shi shen me nian) - which/what year is this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is in the context of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;春节快乐！&#xA;  (chun jie kuai le, Happy Chinese New Year!) 今年是什么年？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should it be answered with the year e.g. 2012年 or with the zodiac animal e.g. 龙年 or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:49:43.223" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:22:18.257" Title="How should one answer this question about 年?" Tags="&lt;chinese-new-year&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="946" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-16T23:30:11.280" Score="1" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard the saying 一窝猪 yī wō zhū when describing a family or group of people who are all 属猪 (have pig as their zodiac sign).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this something that can be applied to other animals e.g. 一窝龙 or 一窝虎?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just an update to address some of the answers: This has always been said either jokingly or in a self-deprecating way as a joke and amongst good company. Not something that has been said in a sarcastic or insulting way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T18:07:08.203" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T18:07:08.203" Title="Can 窝 be used for grouping any zodiac animal?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="947" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="948" CreationDate="2012-01-16T23:50:33.810" Score="6" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only time I have traveled to Beijing a taxi driver told me I had come at the worst and hottest time of year. He explained to me that the year was divided up in periods of roughly 16 days and the period I had come at was the hottest (a fact I wasn't going to disagree with considering the temperature outside the taxi).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the Chinese names and a brief description of these periods?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In researching to find this answer I came across &lt;a href=&quot;http://nzbornchinese.blogspot.com/2011/08/24-calendar-period-segments.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this blog post&lt;/a&gt; which is in English and describes 24 periods in a year but it doesn't include the Chinese characters for each of the periods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please provide further detail to the blog post and provide the Chinese names (characters) of each of the periods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:20:58.117" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:20:58.117" Title="Chinese weather periods" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="947" CreationDate="2012-01-17T00:43:44.640" Score="6" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;立春 &lt;em&gt;Lìchūn&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Beginning of spring&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雨水 &lt;em&gt;Yǔshuǐ&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Rain Water&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;惊蛰 &lt;em&gt;Jīngzhé&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Awakening of insects&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;春分 &lt;em&gt;Chūnfēn&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Mid spring&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;清明 &lt;em&gt;Qīngmíng&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Clear and bright&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;谷雨 &lt;em&gt;Gǔyǔ&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Rain for the grains&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;立夏 &lt;em&gt;Lìxià&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Beginning of summer&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小满 &lt;em&gt;Xiǎomǎn&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Partially filled grains&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;芒种 &lt;em&gt;Mángzhòng&lt;/em&gt; &quot;seed sowing&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;夏至 &lt;em&gt;Xiàzhì&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Summer Solstice&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小暑 &lt;em&gt;Xiǎoshǔ&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Slight Heat&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大暑 &lt;em&gt;Dàshǔ&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Great Heat&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;立秋 &lt;em&gt;Lìqiū&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Beginning of autumn&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;处暑 &lt;em&gt;Chǔshǔ&lt;/em&gt; &quot;End of heat&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;白露 &lt;em&gt;Báilù&lt;/em&gt; &quot;White dew&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;秋分 &lt;em&gt;Qiūfēn&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Autumn Equinox&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;寒露 &lt;em&gt;Hánlù&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Cold dew&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;霜降 &lt;em&gt;Shuāngjiàng&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Frost descends&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;立冬 &lt;em&gt;Lìdōng&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Beginning of winter&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小雪 &lt;em&gt;Xiǎoxuě&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Slight snow&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大雪 &lt;em&gt;Dàxuě&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Big snow&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冬至 &lt;em&gt;Dōngzhì&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Winter solstice&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小寒 &lt;em&gt;Xiǎohán&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Slight cold&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大寒 &lt;em&gt;Dàhán&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Extreme cold&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you have mentioned in your question, the hottest period, I think it is 大暑, end of July, the hottest time in Northern hemisphere. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="332" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-01-17T01:19:59.693" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T01:19:59.693" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="946" CreationDate="2012-01-17T00:51:54.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use this kind of expression with your friends, but keep in mind, &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; use this to describe a stranger's family, especially 一窝猪 because Chinese people regard 猪 as the symbol of laziness and stupid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 一窝龙 and 一窝虎，we don't often use these expressions. Just as I said, 一窝猪 is just a kind of expression which is only used with your &lt;strong&gt;intimate&lt;/strong&gt; friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="234" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-01-17T00:59:34.553" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T00:59:34.553" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="947" CreationDate="2012-01-17T00:52:06.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_term&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wiki article&lt;/a&gt; has more detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A solar term is any of 24 points in traditional East Asian lunisolar&#xA;  calendars that matches a particular astronomical event or signifies&#xA;  some natural phenomenon. The points are spaced 15° apart along the&#xA;  ecliptic and are used by lunisolar calendars to stay synchronized with&#xA;  the seasons. Solar terms originated in China, then spread to Korea,&#xA;  Vietnam, and Japan. This is exhibited by the fact that traditional&#xA;  Chinese, Hanja, and Kanji characters for most of the solar terms are&#xA;  identical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is called &quot;节气&quot;(jié qì) or &quot;二十四节气&quot; (èr shí sì jié qì) in Chinese. This is used to guide agriculture activities in the past. A list of them is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;立春 lìchūn&#xA;雨水 yǔshuǐ&#xA;驚蟄 (惊蛰) jīngzhé&#xA;春分 chūnfēn&#xA;清明 qīngmíng&#xA;穀雨 (谷雨) gǔyǔ&#xA;立夏 lìxià&#xA;小滿 (小满) xiǎomǎn&#xA;芒種 (芒种) mángzhòng&#xA;夏至 xiàzhì&#xA;小暑 xiǎoshǔ&#xA;大暑 dàshǔ&#xA;立秋 lìqiū&#xA;處暑 (处暑) chǔshǔ&#xA;白露 báilù&#xA;秋分 qiūfēn&#xA;寒露 hánlù&#xA;霜降 shuāngjiàng&#xA;立冬 lìdōng&#xA;小雪 xiǎoxuě&#xA;大雪 dàxuě&#xA;冬至 dōngzhì&#xA;小寒 xiǎohán&#xA;大寒 dàhán&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T00:52:06.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="945" CreationDate="2012-01-17T00:57:02.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as you said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春节快乐！(chun jie kuai le, Happy Chinese New Year!) 今年是什么年？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you could answer 龙年.That's OK!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 龙年 is not often used in Chinese culture nowadays.Even if in the ancient time,we use 壬辰年 to indicate the year,because there are 5个龙年 in every 60 years.However,there are also 1个壬辰年 every 60 years.So we use the 年号(emperor's symbol)to indicate the year,for example,乾隆50年（乾隆is the 年号 of one emperor of Qing dynasty）is 1785年，乙巳年 and 蛇年。 So it's safe to  answer your question like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;someone: 春节快乐！(chun jie kuai le, Happy Chinese New Year!) 今年是什么年？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you:2012年，the doom year!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;someone:haha，I know it's 2012 now, I want to know the lunar year!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you:Oh,sorry,it's 龙年！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="234" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T01:21:12.700" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="945" CreationDate="2012-01-17T00:59:06.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The zodiac animal should be the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you know, the Gregorian calendar is widely used in China, it is hard to image one not knowing the year. So when this is asked, the answer would be the zodiac animal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T00:59:06.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="946" CreationDate="2012-01-17T01:09:50.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;user911865's answer is good. I'll suggest not to use it at all. This can be easily misused. Maybe it can be only used when you have become part of family, or at least you have become a very intimate friend with every member of the family (not only the listener).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;窝&quot; is used to refer to multiple animals born together. If the animal is born one at a time, &quot;窝&quot; is not used. &quot;龙&quot; is a imaginary creature, we don't use &quot;窝&quot; on &quot;龙&quot;. &quot;一窝虎&quot; is possible but weird. Maybe &quot;一窝小老虎&quot;. &quot;一窝马&quot; is incorrect, as they are born one at a time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T01:09:50.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="946" CreationDate="2012-01-17T01:44:45.487" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, I think it's good to understand the meanings of &quot;窝&quot; mentioned here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Three possible meanings of “窝&quot; used in this case:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;to refer to several animal's babies who are born at the same time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This could happen to the mouse,pig, rabit，chicken ,etc. For these animals, the mother animal usually can give birth to(or brood, as a hen does) several babies at a time; but for animals like the cattle and tiger, the mother animal usually(exceptions are rare to see) can give birth to &lt;strong&gt;only one&lt;/strong&gt; baby, so it sounds very strange to say &quot;一窝牛&quot; or &quot;一窝虎&quot;, but sounds good to say&quot;一窝兔子”,&quot;一窝小鸡&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, because it's used for animials, and more importantly, parents and children always can't be born at the same time, by the same mother. &lt;strong&gt;You should not use 窝 to refer to a family, even in a figurative way.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;to refer to a group of bad people or things.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一窝土匪   a group of bandits&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remeber,  &lt;strong&gt;Bad&lt;/strong&gt; people and things, so 窝 is also not acceptable in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;animal's burrow or nest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In this case, 窝 seems accpetable to mean &quot;house, the place where a man lives &quot;, and could be used to refer to a family since all the members are in the same house.but as previous answers pointed out, it may offend someone. &lt;strong&gt;Don't risk saying that way!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never spoken that way or heard of someone saying that way in the real life.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how to describe a family when all the family members are of the same zodiac animal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to say&quot;他们一家都属[X]&quot; or &quot;他们一家都是属[X]的&quot;. Here, X is the name of the animal, 鼠，牛，虎，兔，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-17T15:47:56.013" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T15:47:56.013" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="946" CreationDate="2012-01-17T02:23:57.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context 窝 would be equivalent to the English word ‘litter,’ in reference to a number of young animals at one birth, hence 一窝猪. You may also say ‘a litter of tiger cubs.’ However, since the parity of the mythological dragon is not clear at the moment, I would suggest refraining from using this measure word unless you intend to say ‘a litter of newborn dragons.’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="318" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T02:23:57.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="956" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="957" CreationDate="2012-01-17T03:26:31.500" Score="15" ViewCount="1311" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was browsing the Chinese internet looking for a bank that supports Mac OS when I came across &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openbanks.info/&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt;. They list a range of different banks under a range of different headings, the first of which is 当仁不让. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've looked it up in my dictionary, but I'm really none the wiser. Can anyone tell me what it means in this context? Where does this expression come from? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T14:03:53.187" Title="What is the meaning of 当仁不让?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="956" CreationDate="2012-01-17T04:17:24.457" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;This idiom comes from the famous book of 《&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analects&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;论语&lt;/a&gt;》, a book recording the Confucius and his disciples' words. Here is the source:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《论语·卫灵公》：“子曰：‘当仁，不让于师’。”&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explanations:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卫灵公 is the name of a chapter of that book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that chapter, you can read this sentence(the 36&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt;) &amp;quot;子曰：‘当仁，不让于师’。“ &lt;em&gt;The Confucius said:&amp;quot; when [you are] facing 仁&lt;/em&gt;(see note), &lt;em&gt;you should not be modest to decline to do it,even if your teacher is next to you.(Don't leave it to the teacher. Just do it yourself!).&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note: 仁 is the &lt;strong&gt;core values&lt;/strong&gt; in Confucius's thoughts. Here I suggest you simply understand as &amp;quot;justice, morality,universal love&amp;quot;, since it's hard to explain, especially in a short paragraph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, we use this idiom to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when facing something that deserves you doing or undertaking because it conforms to our good values or will benefit someone else, don't be shy to say no.Just do it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example dialogue based on some a real dialogue :D :&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ciaocibai: Huang,我在Meta上提名你来做管理员了。&lt;em&gt;Huang, I nominated you as moderator on Meta.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Huang: 谢谢你的好意，不过我担心我做不好，因为我还不熟悉StackExchange的制度和管理员工具。&lt;em&gt;Thanks for your kindness, but I am afraid that I can't be a good moderator,because I am not familiar with the discipline of StackExchange and the moderator tools&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ciaocibai: Huang, 我觉得你应当“当仁不让”. &lt;em&gt;Huang, I think you should not be too shy to be a moderator. Show yourself!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, the owner of that webpage wants to say&amp;quot;the banks are good, and I am glad to list them here and share with you. &amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T14:54:29.373" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="958" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-17T09:54:57.330" Score="10" ViewCount="506" Body="&lt;p&gt;To enhance my Chinese language skills I am looking for some Chinese movies or series that fit a beginner's level. Currently I know around 1000 Hanzi. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is watching movies or series too early with this amount of known characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, how do you recommend going about selecting an appropriate movie or TV series?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="36" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-06-23T16:29:00.280" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T10:09:12.200" Title="What should a beginner be looking for when selecting a movie in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ClosedDate="2012-06-23T16:28:34.927" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="958" CreationDate="2012-01-17T14:04:25.113" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The important thing for understanding Chinese in spoken form is not how many characters you recognize (though this is the traditional measure of &quot;how good&quot; someone's Chinese is -- which makes no sense at all!). The acid test is how many words you know. Words are often composed of more than one character in written form, so the character/word correspondence isn't a good one in terms of &quot;calculating&quot; one's Chinese level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it's entirely possible to know thousands of characters and have very little ability to understand spoken Chinese. This is particularly true with students who have been taught using traditional drill-and-kill methods or popular textbooks that believe that the more vocabulary someone memorizes the better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in my mind, technically yes, it's kind of early if your level of spoken Mandarin is what I'm imagining (based on the &quot;average&quot; student at the 1,000 character level).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BUT — big &quot;but&quot; here — that's theoretically speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will benefit from any exposure to Chinese. You will benefit a LOT more if that exposure is comprehensible, because input has to be understood before the brain can deal with it and use it to enlarge the brain's model of the language. But even if the input is not 100% comprehensible, anything you can comprehend will help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't ignore other factors either&amp;nbwp;— if you enjoy watching movies or series, that's a good and motivating thing. Enjoy picking out what you can understand, even while you recognize that the time spent may not be as effective as getting 100% comprehensible input in Chinese in terms of actually expanding your Chinese. There are other benefits as well -- social (you can watch with others, and discuss the films or series with other people), general knowledge (keep an eye on the backgrounds, body language, and other non-linguistic features that are shown in the film). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For most learners, it's very difficult to get 100% comprehensible input, because most teachers do not teach this way, and don't worry about readers, textbooks or AV materials being 100% comprehensible. There's even a new textbook out that deliberately gives students materials that are way too hard with the rationale that &quot;they'll pick up whatever they can&quot;. Given what we know about how people acquire languages, I feel that teachers in general and textbook publishers specifically owe students a lot more than that, but since that's what's available, go for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the answer is, don't worry about which one you watch. It doesn't really matter! Pick something that looks interesting or intriguing to you, or is popular, or that people are talking about. Any native speaking video or series will be difficult at that level. Just don't expect too much. Relax, sit back and try not to look up every word. Use the grade school strategy of &quot;skip until you see it three times&quot;, maybe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastEditorUserId="3710" LastEditDate="2013-12-24T12:38:40.807" LastActivityDate="2013-12-24T12:38:40.807" CommentCount="6" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-18T22:14:19.660" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="536" CreationDate="2012-01-17T14:08:45.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anna mei Banfa! (an early level 2 reader) may be excruciatingly repetitious, but it's a good way to pound those most frequent characters into your head. It's used in high school classes in the US. Make it a bit more interesting by making up a parallel story in your mind about another girl who's a lot more interesting (using the same vocab, or looking up just a few more &amp;quot;colorful&amp;quot; expressions!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T23:10:44.260" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T23:10:44.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="195" CreationDate="2012-01-17T15:42:05.970" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;We (professional translators) generally check accepted sources such as official government publications from the government involved. We may take versions in a language that is not the native or strongest language for that country with a grain of salt, but often we have to accept them even if they sound bad. Remember that a translation being &quot;official&quot; has nothing to do with it being accurate!  Many official English translations of Chinese-language speeches or documents are really poor English, but we use the awkward sounding English formulations because they are the official version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are usually commonly-used formulaic utterances in Chinese (for example) that are accepted as having a particular meaning in English for diplomatic purposes. Again, that would be determined by referring to the small circle of official translators at high levels, or reference to published bilingual editions of speeches that come from official sources. Just because Johnny No-name says the word should be translated &quot;X&quot; and not &quot;Y&quot; doesn't make his version official (and, as has been said, just because the official version says &quot;Y&quot; and not &quot;X&quot; doesn't make that correct.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Things get more interesting when you are interpreting in a court situation. At that time, there tends to be a lot of he-said, she-said going on as both sides challenge the exact wording chosen by the interpreter or translator whose work is being dissected. Of course both sides simply want their point of view to prevail. The fact is that language is not simple, and there's generally no absolute correct answer for what is the &quot;correct&quot; way to say something in another language unless the original statement is unbelievably simple. Even when it is, if a witness (or a government official!) wants to be non-responsive, the interpreter is left looking silly as he accurately interprets the response. I was in a court case once in a local court where the witness was asked how long the leash on a dog was (it was a dog attack case) and the witness actually answered &quot;The leash was red.&quot; That's not an accuracy issue per se, but often if the audience doesn't understand the second language, it seems like it is a problem with the interpreter's accuracy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T15:42:05.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="913" CreationDate="2012-01-17T22:59:11.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you tried chinesepod.com?  They have podcasts on a variety of different topics across a range of different levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="251" LastActivityDate="2012-01-17T22:59:11.123" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-18T21:58:20.783" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="965" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="967" CreationDate="2012-01-18T01:04:04.360" Score="3" ViewCount="2527" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it means that I succeeded in part because of your luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard this used when I was in Beijing a few times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="343" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:30:27.130" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:30:27.130" Title="When is it proper to use 托您的福?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="966" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="987" CreationDate="2012-01-18T01:53:55.180" Score="5" ViewCount="24090" Body="&lt;p&gt;'niu bi' (牛逼? like the bees knees in English) is one of the more amusing expressions I learnt in my time in China. The literal meaning in English is quite colourful, so I won't describe it here, but I'm curious to know more about this term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the correct way to write this word, and how did it originally get it's meaning in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="312" LastEditDate="2012-01-19T09:14:33.237" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T04:54:53.607" Title="What is the correct way to write 'niu bi', and how did it get its meaning in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="965" CreationDate="2012-01-18T02:16:48.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's quite common in chinese. The English equivalent of this phrase should be &quot;thanks to you/your..&quot;.&#xA;托 means because of, a variant of this phrase can be 托您洪福, 托您的洪福..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-01-18T02:16:48.090" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="966" CreationDate="2012-01-18T02:18:18.790" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am Chinese, &quot;牛逼&quot; means a person who did something great like achieving a goal or did their homework faster than others etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally, we used &quot;牛叉 &lt;em&gt;niú chā&lt;/em&gt;&quot; instead of &quot;牛逼&quot;, because the former one is more polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="352" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-01-20T03:52:04.317" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T03:52:04.317" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="966" CreationDate="2012-01-18T02:22:19.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 牛屄. the meaning of 屄 is very easy to guess by its radicals, 尸 means body, 穴 means hole. you might not be able to find the char 屄 in some chinese dictionaries, it's considered as a vulgar word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-01-18T02:22:19.113" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="970" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-18T05:13:12.287" Score="6" ViewCount="1458" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like many language learners, I enjoy reading Chinese novels as a way of learning new vocabulary and practicing my reading skills. Nevertheless, in the process of muddling through Chinese fiction, I often find myself learning a lot of literary words and structures which are too rare to be useful (at least at my current level of Chinese). Ideally, I'd like to find an exciting book which, for the most part, avoids excessively flowery prose in favor of fresh, colloquial descriptions of characters and events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give you an example of what I &lt;em&gt;don't&lt;/em&gt; want: I've read several novels and short stories by 余华, which are colloquial enough but still end up teaching me a lot of lovely phrases that I rarely get a chance to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An ideal answer would be a novel which is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Exciting: mystery, suspense, or thriller novels would be especially welcome, but really anything that's hard to put down.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Colloquial, full of modern, or even slangy, words and phrases.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reasonably popular: I need a book that's easy to find in the United States. I have access to several Chinese bookstores and a Chinese library, but the book needs to be popular enough that I might find it in stock.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Young-adult books would be fine as long as they still might be stimulating to an adult reader.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-01-18T14:41:06.553" Title="Recommendations for novels written in colloquial Chinese" Tags="&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2012-01-18T22:16:49.860" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-18T22:14:45.313" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="970" CreationDate="2012-01-18T08:54:57.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You said &lt;em&gt;&quot;I need a book that's easy to find in the United States.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what kind of book is easy to find in the US.Let me give you some suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for mystery, suspense, or thriller：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蔡骏的小说：荒村公寓，荒村归来，天机，猫眼等等&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like novels written by 蔡骏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Colloquial, full of modern, or even slangy, words and phrases：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当年明月：明朝那些事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明朝那些事 is a history book of Ming dynasty.It's very easy to understand and full of Chinese wisdom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know whether you can buy these books in the US or not.If you don't mind the issues of copyright,all of these books are easy to download from the Internet.Especially 明朝那些事，It comes from a personal blog -----&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/1233526741&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;当年明月的博客&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, the best way to learn a foreign language is to involve in the culture.All novels are written in the past time,they can't provide you the most fashioned words and phrases in the other culture.If you can't live in China ,you should try to communicate with Chinese through the Internet.Registering in the weibo.cn(twitter),renren.com(facebook) is a good idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="234" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-18T14:16:32.170" LastActivityDate="2012-01-18T14:16:32.170" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-18T22:14:45.313" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="970" CreationDate="2012-01-18T14:41:06.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I take the opposite view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We place so much stress on learning about &quot;the culture&quot; of the language we're teaching or learning. That's great, and it's important -- but what is the first thing most learners need to talk about, right from the start when they take out that pile of photos to show people in China? Their OWN culture. This is a picture of Christmas at my house, and this is how we celebrate. This is Hanukkah. How many Chinese textbooks mention Hanukkah, let alone give anyone the vocabulary needed to talk about it intelligently in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in terms of finding books to expand one's language capabilities -- I tend to recommend books translated into Chinese from English. For a learner, there is a great advantage in reading a book with which he is already familiar. Harry Potter is quite difficult in Chinese for most learners, but there are shorter works available, like the Magic Treehouse series and many other children's (not emergent reader) and adolescent fiction. Heck, get the Hunger Games in its Chinese version (probably another very difficult one since made-up words would not be marked clearly, but I digress.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get a book you're familiar with and would enjoy reading. Then use the advantage of knowing the cultural background, the characters, and maybe even the specific plot, to help you READ. Not decode. READ. All that language flowing into your brain and being understood will do a lot to advance your Chinese overall. Then you can use your improved abilities to read things where you don't have those advantages, like &quot;authentic&quot; materials (overrated, IMO, in their value to learners, but ultimately the goal toward which we are helping learners.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other thing that has revolutionized reading for this generation of Chinese learners is Pleco. The PlecoDic app for iDevices (and other platforms as well) includes a reader. If you can find the reading material in digital form (text), you can copy it into the reader and look up anything just by touching the screen. It can make the difference from a piece of literature being inaccessible to being something a learner could read without frustration, or with a lot less frustration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The crucial thing for reading colloquial Chinese is to have a solid underpinning of spoken language that you understand immediately. Written Chinese of this type doesn't absolutely reproduce spoken language exactly but it's pretty close. If you need to stop and decode each word you're adding another step to the process (it becomes text &gt; Chinese &gt; meaning rather than text&gt; Chinese=meaning) and you will find that the weight of the unknown words and phrases becomes greater since they are more disturbing to your overall comprehension process. If you can automatically parse and comprehend &quot;normal&quot; language, you will have more brain resources left over to mull over the meaning of unknown terms you encounter, rather than having the entire train of thought you've got going unceremoniously derailed by the first word you haven't seen before. (The way reading is taught in Chinese classes also needs a huge overhaul, as it emphasizes looking up each word rather than using reading strategies. But I digress.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastActivityDate="2012-01-18T14:41:06.553" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-01-18T22:14:45.313" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="973" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="974" CreationDate="2012-01-18T15:02:45.873" Score="7" ViewCount="510" Body="&lt;p&gt;Scholars of Chinese will have a lot of work to do in the next 100-200 years, because eventually academics will take notice and want to document the self-emergent standardization of orthography for regional Chinese words (many of them particles) that never had them, which people are now using &lt;a href=&quot;http://qq.bur.st/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;every time they chat online&lt;/a&gt; to other people from their region. (So, I figure, why not start today?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what about the sentence-ending particle 'ga' in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuanese_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sichuan&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you write it, and what does it mean exactly? (If memory serves, it marks a sort of friendly assertion. Ie, you are sick, you should have some soup, ga.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:13:40.527" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:13:40.527" Title="Character and meaning for the 四川话 sentence-ending particle 'ga'?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="973" CreationDate="2012-01-18T17:49:01.163" Score="8" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are many different dialects in China, for many special words in dialects, the &quot;correct&quot; character may not be found (the character has been abandoned in Mandarin), or may be a character but with a different pronunciation from Mandarin, or even can't be found. In fact, the average Chinese person can't tell you what the &quot;correct&quot; character in the dialect is in many cases. We don't care about it when speaking, while in &lt;strong&gt;formal&lt;/strong&gt; writing, we will use another character or words in Mandarin to express the same meaning. Only linguists would be interested in them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I searched the &quot;ga&quot; on the internet and didn't find a good answer to the correct character. Generally, we will use a character with the same or similar pronunciation to represent it (in &lt;strong&gt;informal&lt;/strong&gt; writing). On the TV here, I find &quot;嘎&quot; is used for &quot;ga&quot;. Please note that &quot;嘎&quot; is not the correct character, just for the pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What does it mean? Well, your guess is basically right: assertion. More precisely, I would like to say, it is used when:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you think something (the sentence before &quot;ga&quot;) should be right (you are confident about it), but you are not &lt;strong&gt;very very&lt;/strong&gt; sure of it, you need the &lt;strong&gt;confirmation&lt;/strong&gt; from the listener. The answer from the listener is expected to be &quot;Yes!&quot; by you. It is used like &quot;right&quot; as in &quot;we are the best friends, right?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You example may be good, I think, when &quot;should&quot; shows your mood of guess (I am not an English expert. I know should can show that mood, or show the mood of &quot;order&quot;. I think &quot;will&quot; could be more proper here). At last, I want to say that when using &quot;ga&quot;, you should have an obvious stop before it. Your example is good in this sense because you have a comma.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="199" LastEditDate="2012-01-20T20:48:05.550" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T20:48:05.550" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="975" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="977" CreationDate="2012-01-18T18:53:06.940" Score="6" ViewCount="614" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to say &quot;Do not print this layer&quot; in Chinese, as past of a photoshop file. How does one say &quot;Layer&quot; in the photoshop sense of the word in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate thinks the translation of &quot;Do not print this layer&quot; is: 不打印這一層&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I expect that there's a specific word used for photoshop that's not a literal translation of the English word &quot;Layer&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="355" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-18T19:00:29.337" LastActivityDate="2012-04-01T22:54:00.083" Title="What's chinese for &quot;layer&quot; in the Photoshop sense of the word?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="975" CreationDate="2012-01-18T19:07:23.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character used, according to my dictionary, seems to be 層 for traditional and 层 for simplified (céng).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinatat.com/new/5_28/2009_8_20_xu054930454802890029000.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; on Chinatat.com, or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.phpv.net/html/35.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this other one&lt;/a&gt; at phpv.net, I think they confirm that character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, my level of Chinese doesn't allow me to formulate a sentence like the one you need. I'll ask some native speakers I know and get back at you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2012-01-18T19:07:23.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="975" CreationDate="2012-01-18T19:21:39.087" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;层 is right. to be specified for layers in photoshop, it has the term 图层. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-01-18T19:21:39.087" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="975" CreationDate="2012-01-18T20:23:07.433" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, the translations of many computer-related terms are shockingly literal from the American perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a whole list of all the Chinese menu items corresponding to layers and so on:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://expl.cpst.net.cn/esoft/2011_08/314772867.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://expl.cpst.net.cn/esoft/2011_08/314772867.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastActivityDate="2012-01-18T20:23:07.433" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="979" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="985" CreationDate="2012-01-18T23:05:23.103" Score="13" ViewCount="2934" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both mean &quot;language&quot; with some other related meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine told me that while 文 refers more to the written language, 语 is more related to the spoken one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a difference and is it the only one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-30T10:46:51.773" LastActivityDate="2013-09-18T06:57:07.193" Title="What's the actual difference between 文 and 语?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="979" CreationDate="2012-01-19T00:04:48.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;文 comes from an ideogram of a man's chest with a tattoo, referring to a written character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;语, as you may know, has the radical for speech, which is simplified from a mouth with 4 lines that resemble the sound of the voice. I once saw an explanation for the right part, the 五 over 口, but I can't recall it now, will search for it too.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sources:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E6%96%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=文&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastActivityDate="2012-01-19T00:04:48.053" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="981" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="983" CreationDate="2012-01-19T01:50:49.473" Score="6" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this dialogue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 昨天他开车的时候，头撞了一下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 怎么一回事?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the classifier 回 used instead of 件?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:28:29.360" Title="Why 回 is used in 回事 instead of 件事?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="979" CreationDate="2012-01-19T01:51:52.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have given the basic differences. Other meanings may be derived directly or indirectly from the basic meaning. The elaborated explanation can be found at 汉典: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6Zdic96Zdic87.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;文&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE8ZdicAFZdicAD.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;语&lt;/a&gt;. On the &quot;详细解释&quot; (detailed explanation) tab there are some English translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, besides what may directly related to language (when the difference is as your have mentioned), there are these other meanings (derived from the basic meaning) as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;文:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;noun: &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;natural phenomenon (E.g. 天文, astronomy)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;achievements in culture and education;civilian post (as opposed to military)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;文教;礼节仪式 [rites]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;指表现形式;外表 [form;appearance]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;verb:&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;tatto&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;修饰;文饰 [cover up]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;adjective&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;[magnificent;gorgeous]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;[mild;gentle]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;quantity word:&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;used for some kind of old money &lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;语:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;verb: &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;鸟兽虫类鸣叫 [cry;chirp;roar]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;noun:&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;特指谚语、古语或成语 [idiom;set phrase;proverb;saying]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;用以示意的动作或信号 [signal] (E.g. 手语 sign language)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the above are only some pickups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-19T01:51:52.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="981" CreationDate="2012-01-19T02:22:02.497" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are only a few phrases made up from 回事:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么(一)回事: what the matter with ..., why ..., what is the reason for ..., what happened&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这回事: The matter you just mentioned (E.g 没这回事。 There was no such thing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一回事: The same. (E.g. A和B是一回事。 A and B are the same (matter).)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above situations, &quot;件&quot; cannot be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-19T02:22:02.497" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="932" CreationDate="2012-01-19T03:43:21.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also another:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过年好&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  guo4 nian2 hao3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is used in spring festival greeting, because &quot;过年&quot; refers specially to celelbrating the Chinese new year in China -- we don't say &quot;过年&quot; on Jan.1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="357" LastEditorUserId="357" LastEditDate="2012-01-19T05:27:06.947" LastActivityDate="2012-01-19T05:27:06.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="979" CreationDate="2012-01-19T04:03:37.220" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, that is the main difference between 文 and 语. And you're right to say they refer &lt;em&gt;more&lt;/em&gt; to written/spoken language rather than having that exclusive meaning - when someone talks about 中文, for example, they often mean the spoken language as well as just the written form, while 书面语 refers to literary words usually found in books. The other differences are explained by Fefe's post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a post (in Chinese) on Baidu Zhidao asking the same question, which comes to the same conclusion: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/86849931.html&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/86849931.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="330" LastActivityDate="2012-01-19T04:03:37.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="118" CreationDate="2012-01-19T04:38:10.597" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go to the most reliable source -- order the Maryknoll Fathers' set of 3 textbooks with CDs. While it is not exactly comprehensible input in its best form (it's predictible, since it's a book and the order doesn't change), it is the best set of materials currently available, and certainly the most comprehensive. If you have the patience to work through all three volumes, you'll have a very good basic knowledge. (Maryknoll has a really far-reaching knowledge of Taiwanese language...As they told me at their Taipei language center once: &quot;Well, let's get going. When we finish these three books [each one is like an inch thick], we can really start learning the language!&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Minnan-English and English-Minnan dictionaries of theirs, which is excellent, is available for free download as well: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.taiwanesedictionary.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.taiwanesedictionary.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-17T04:59:28.357" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T04:59:28.357" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-04T14:44:28.037" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="966" CreationDate="2012-01-19T05:59:05.380" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;niu bi = f**king awesome in English.&#xA;And niu in slang means awesome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage is pretty same as in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A：我能一连吃10个汉堡.&#xA;   I can eat 10 burgers in a row.&#xA;B：牛啊！&#xA;   Awesome!&#xA;&#xA;A: 你好牛，这么难得题目你也会做！&#xA;   You are so awesome. You can even do such difficult questions!&#xA;B: 谢谢。&#xA;   Thanks.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, regarding to &lt;code&gt;牛X&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;牛叉&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;It is common in online forums/tweets/blogs, but it is rare in conversations.&#xA;Reason is same as people write &lt;code&gt;LOL&lt;/code&gt; online very often but seldom say &lt;code&gt;L-O-L&lt;/code&gt; in conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to be polite, say &lt;code&gt;牛&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;牛X&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;牛叉&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="358" LastEditorUserId="358" LastEditDate="2012-01-20T07:38:48.370" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T07:38:48.370" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="981" CreationDate="2012-01-19T19:06:59.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally, a &quot;piece&quot; of business, 事, is represented by 一件事. This could represent a contract, deal, or whatever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in this case, the &quot;business&quot; is a car accident, i.e. an action. 件 doesn't work as a modifier in this instance. You need an &quot;action&quot; modifier like 回, which roughly means &quot;to come and go.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-01-19T19:06:59.667" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="990" CreationDate="2012-01-19T19:25:42.927" Score="12" ViewCount="28585" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked a similar question on English Language &amp;amp; Usage site, but no one seems to come up with a good answer for me. I have decided to give our Chinese site a try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bonus: how will you describe the idiom 有缘无分?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-19T20:20:01.050" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T03:08:29.797" Title="What's the meaning of 缘分 in English?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="989" CreationDate="2012-01-19T20:39:43.847" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E7%BC%98%E5%88%86&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CEDICT definition&lt;/a&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;fate or chance that brings people together / predestined affinity or relationship / (Budd.) destiny&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not familiar with the Chinese term, but the translation sounds similar to &quot;Karma&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 有缘无分, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%9C%89%E7%BC%98%E6%97%A0%E5%88%86&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CEDICT definition&lt;/a&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;destined to meet but not fated to be together (idiom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest English phrase I can think of is &quot;star-crossed lovers&quot;. Romeo and Juliet are  star-crossed lovers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-01-19T20:45:01.393" LastActivityDate="2012-01-19T20:45:01.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="989" CreationDate="2012-01-19T20:49:56.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;缘 has the meaning reason, cause, it means some kind of causality. 缘 as in 缘分  it means luck which brought people together. It also has some sense of determinism. the two lovers were brought together by fate, then you can say they have 缘分. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as in 有缘无分, it usually refers to two lovers who have the luck to know and love each other, but has no luck to stay together(like marriage) by some reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastEditorUserId="351" LastEditDate="2012-01-19T21:14:57.510" LastActivityDate="2012-01-19T21:14:57.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="989" CreationDate="2012-01-19T22:07:36.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;缘: serendipity, as described in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240890/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the movie of the same name&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有缘无分: IMHO, describes a feeling of powerlessness at the relinquish of love/affair in compromising to life's interventions, be it societal or natural...a good example is the story describe in the movie &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033238/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Waterloo Bridge&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2012-01-19T22:24:50.383" LastActivityDate="2012-01-19T22:24:50.383" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="993" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="994" CreationDate="2012-01-19T23:08:49.373" Score="17" ViewCount="1698" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anybody know &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;why&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; this decision was made in pinyin, about not writing any hint of the sound &lt;code&gt;/o/&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;em&gt;liu&lt;/em&gt;, instead of writing something like &lt;em&gt;liou&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;liow&lt;/em&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first reaction of any newcomer to Chinese, and also, non-Chinese speakers, is to say &lt;em&gt;lee-oo&lt;/em&gt; instead of &lt;em&gt;lee-ow&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: some arbitrary decision seems to have been made by choosing &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; instead of &lt;em&gt;yu&lt;/em&gt;, but with other initials, the choice was: &lt;em&gt;liu&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;niu&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;jiu&lt;/em&gt;, etc. when the phoneme &lt;code&gt;/ou/&lt;/code&gt; in all cases is the same and one could reasonably expect them to be written the same, or at least to be a good reason as to why it isn't the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit2:&#xA;Happens something similar to the final &lt;em&gt;-ui&lt;/em&gt; which is pronounced &lt;em&gt;-uei&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T09:53:26.780" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T09:53:26.780" Title="Why is it written LIU in Pinyin, when there's clearly an O sound?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="993" CreationDate="2012-01-19T23:13:57.160" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;The same happens with other characters with the same &quot;finals&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 - Jiù&lt;br&gt;&#xA;扭 - Niǔ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; of Chinesepod.com:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mandarin's iu sound&lt;/strong&gt; can confuse you because what is written &lt;strong&gt;is actually an abbreviated form of &quot;iou,&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; a straightforward combination of the vowel sounds i and ou. Thus the iu syllable sounds similar to the &quot;yo&quot; of the English word &quot;yo-yo,&quot; with a bit more &quot;oo&quot; sound on the end. It is written as you when it stands alone, and as iu when it is preceded by a consonant (for example, diu, niu, liu).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emphasis and bold are mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: I think that the reason why we have &quot;you&quot; and &quot;liu&quot; is due to some important facts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese syllables are all made of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_%28Mandarin%29/Pronunciation_of_Initials&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;initials&lt;/a&gt; + &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_%28Mandarin%29/Pronunciation_of_Finals&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;finals&lt;/a&gt;. Unlike other languages, not all sounds in Chinese can be both initials and finals. For example the [s] sound never occurs at the end of a syllable in Chinese, but it does at the beginning, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this reason, we cannot have a stand-alone final&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;. Finals that stand by themselves need an initial anyway, and, apart from &quot;iou-you&quot;, this happens to other finals as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;iou —&gt; you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;uen —&gt; wen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;iao —&gt; yao&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;u —&gt; wu&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point we could write &quot;liou&quot;, but like it has been mentioned, this could have been done for a reason of &quot;economizing/saving space&quot;. This doesn't happen symmetrically to all syllables, but considering Pinyin is an &quot;artificial&quot; system for romanizations, many choices could be just arbitrary. In any case, if I find some other claim that explains more in depth, I'll make sure to add it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1: This is not true for all the finals. Check the link for &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_%28Mandarin%29/Pronunciation_of_Finals&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;finals&lt;/a&gt;&quot; to see which ones can stand by themselves, under the column &lt;strong&gt;Final-only form&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-22T19:09:29.157" LastActivityDate="2012-01-22T19:09:29.157" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="995" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="998" CreationDate="2012-01-20T00:46:46.573" Score="6" ViewCount="309" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was busy reading about Apple's new textbook announcement on Engadget China, and I came across the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;使用者将可轻松地以触控的方式浏览教科书内容.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 触控 in this sentence? (My guess is something like touch-control or touch-input?) Do these two characters form a word? How could I use this character combination in another sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-26T04:18:30.517" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T04:18:30.517" Title="What does 触控 mean in 使用者将可轻松地以触控的方式浏览教科书内容?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="996" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1010" CreationDate="2012-01-20T00:49:19.830" Score="8" ViewCount="1098" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard a range of different terms meaning 'indecisive' in Chinese - I'm not sure if they were in dialect, or there are several options for saying it in Mandarin, and so I'm curious to learn what expression native speakers use to say indecisive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone tell me what is the most common expression people use to say 'indecisive'? Is there one term that is more or less right than another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:22:11.413" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:22:11.413" Title="What is the most common way to say 'indecisive' in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="996" CreationDate="2012-01-20T00:55:28.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 优柔寡断 is the word you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T00:55:28.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="995" CreationDate="2012-01-20T00:57:41.970" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you guessed is right. 触控 is touch and control: 触 as in 触摸 (touch), and 控 as in 控制 (control).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-20T17:56:36.790" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T17:56:36.790" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="999" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-20T01:44:17.927" Score="5" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my understanding most Chinese workers only have one major holiday around the time of Spring Festival.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So are holidays 暑假, 寒假 only for students? Roughly speaking how long are they and when do they occur? Do they correspond with another holiday?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there another type of 假 that is used to describe the holiday period around Spring Festival?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T12:48:20.980" Title="Time periods relating to Chinese holidays (暑假, 寒假 etc.)" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1000" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1004" CreationDate="2012-01-20T01:50:29.680" Score="6" ViewCount="1012" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to find out more about the two sayings &quot;吹牛&quot; and &quot;拍马屁&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How these sayings come about and get their current meanings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吹牛 &lt;em&gt;chuīniú&lt;/em&gt; meaning to brag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拍马屁 &lt;em&gt;pāimǎpì&lt;/em&gt; meaning to excessively flatter someone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:59:27.537" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:59:27.537" Title="Meanings behind &quot;吹牛&quot; and &quot;拍马屁&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="993" CreationDate="2012-01-20T01:51:09.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because pinyin wasn't created by Westerners; it was created by the Chinese government.&#xA;Also transliteration systems, by nature, aren't perfect analogues to the mother tongue, and you're just setting yourself up for heartbreak if you expect them to be. Relevant: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwoyeu_Romatzyh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Gwoyeu Romatzyh&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="317" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T01:51:09.227" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="999" CreationDate="2012-01-20T02:01:46.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;假 means 假期 vacation, it also have 病假 sick days, and 请假 request a vacation/day off. &#xA;寒假 暑假 is mainly for students and teachers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 暑假 it usually starts at late June, and ends at 1st Sep, it's about 2-3 months. For 寒假, it depends on the day of chinese new year, usually it starts 1 or 2 weeks before that, and last for 1 and a half months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastEditorUserId="330" LastEditDate="2012-01-20T03:02:25.507" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T03:02:25.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1003" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-20T02:08:24.597" Score="4" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;What should I be using to describe a suburban fence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an image of what I am trying to find the right word for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tqEV6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;Author: &lt;a href=&quot;http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gobeirne&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Greg O'Beirne&lt;/a&gt; -  &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JarrahFence_gobeirne.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess I might go with 篱笆 or 栏杆. Could I get the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What main word should I go for?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What other words could I use to convey the right meaning e.g 很高的一个木头栏杆?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which measure word should I be going for?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:31:08.040" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:31:08.040" Title="Correct word to use for a suburban fence?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1000" CreationDate="2012-01-20T02:33:18.830" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found something in Baidu Encyclopedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 吹牛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/3806.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/3806.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Originally 吹牛 comes from 吹牛皮 (blowing cow leather). In the old times,&#xA;  people who lived along the Yellow River used cow leather to make&#xA;  rafts, cuz the yellow river could easily destroy wood boats. However&#xA;  there was no bumpers at that time. So it was strong people who were&#xA;  responsible to blow air into the &quot;leather bag&quot; to make it a raft.&#xA;  However, even the strongest man could not make it by himeself. So if&#xA;  someone says &quot;I can blow a raft by myself&quot;, he must be bragging. As a&#xA;  result, people use 吹牛皮 to refer to bragging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IlNmK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;A photo of a 牛皮筏&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The photo comes from: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinavalue.net/Wiki/%E7%89%9B%E7%9A%AE%E7%AD%8F.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chinavalue.net/Wiki/%E7%89%9B%E7%9A%AE%E7%AD%8F.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 拍马屁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/26474.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/26474.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When it was Yuan dynasty in ancient China, the mongolians loved riding&#xA;  horses (cuz they conquered China and many other places with their&#xA;  cavalry force). At that time, when a mongolian met another mongolian,&#xA;  he would pat the other's horse, and say something like &quot;nice horse&quot;.&#xA;  It was the best way to make generals and officers of the Yuan dynasty&#xA;  happy by saying &quot;your horses are good&quot;. And when the mongolians ruled&#xA;  China, this custom also came to China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, originally it was 拍马 (patting the horse), not 拍马屁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forgive my translate ^_^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="357" LastEditorUserId="357" LastEditDate="2012-01-20T02:59:56.557" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T02:59:56.557" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1005" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1006" CreationDate="2012-01-20T03:28:45.620" Score="28" ViewCount="828" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why was 非 chosen for 非洲 (Africa) and 亚 chosen for 亚洲 (Asia)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find a particular reason to use these characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2012-02-09T06:07:47.797" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T15:44:54.867" Title="Why use 非 and 亚 for continent names?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;&lt;proper-nouns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1005" CreationDate="2012-01-20T03:47:44.263" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;亚洲 is short for 亚细亚洲 while 非洲 is short for 阿非利加洲.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the article &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://qhs.mca.gov.cn/article/llyj/dmwh/200711/20071100004830.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;各大洲名称由来&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastEditorUserId="260" LastEditDate="2014-10-08T15:44:54.867" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T15:44:54.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2012-01-20T05:55:13.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E7%AF%B1%E7%AC%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;On the Hudong Baike page of 篱笆,&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;又叫栅栏、护栏，用来保护院子的一种设施，一般都是由棍子、竹子、芦苇、灌木或者石头构成，在我国北方农村很常见。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means, &lt;strong&gt;篱笆 is a kind of facility to protect private yards, which is usually made of wood sticks, bambooes, reeds, shrubs or stones. It is common in rural areas in Northern China.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 篱笆 should be the most correct word to describe a fence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E6%A0%8F%E6%9D%86&amp;amp;prd=button_doc_jinru&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;And 栏杆,&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;栏杆是建筑物的楼、台、廊、梯等边沿处的围护构件，具有防护功能，兼起装饰作用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's related to buildings (although it can be in other places, like a path in a mountain). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate translates 栏杆 into railing, not fence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The measure word, well, maybe 一排篱笆 will work. But as a Chinese I can't remember any measure word that is special for 篱笆...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="357" LastEditorUserId="357" LastEditDate="2012-01-20T07:49:55.533" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T07:49:55.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="993" CreationDate="2012-01-20T05:58:59.300" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I said in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/593/16&quot;&gt;another answer&lt;/a&gt;, I think pinyin was actually developed to help Russian speakers learn Mandarin. It may be that &quot;iu&quot; in Russian is pronounced with an added &quot;o&quot; sound. That question has some other answers with interesting information about the development of pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In spite of its quirks, I've found pinyin a lot easier to use than &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhuyin fuhao&lt;/a&gt;. It's a phonetic system that uses symbols instead of letters, often called bopomofo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T05:58:59.300" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2012-01-20T06:41:26.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure, but I've been using&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;藩篱&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No idea if it is suitable, or what measure word that goes with it. 个 possibly ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T06:41:26.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="996" CreationDate="2012-01-20T10:23:26.373" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find two meanings of &quot;indecisive&quot; in the dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;To hover between different choices and can't make a decision in a short while. &lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Not specified, undefined.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you are asking a word for the first meaning, and then the words are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;犹豫不决&lt;br&gt; &#xA;  优柔寡断&lt;br&gt; &#xA;  没主见*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  徘徊不定&lt;br&gt; &#xA;  犹豫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some other words related to this meaning, in different contexts. Besides, I think you are talking about &quot;磨蹭&quot; by &quot;磨(it may mean the same in some dialects)&quot; in your comment.  &quot;磨蹭“ is different. It's used to say someone intends to do something in a very slow process, thought he is able to do better or faster. I know the English words &quot;to loaf&quot; and &quot;to linger&quot; for &quot;磨蹭&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: To tell the difference.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use &quot;优柔寡断&quot; and  “没主见&quot; as an adjective to modify a man or his character, while other words can't be used in this case. You can use &quot;徘徊不定&quot;,&quot;犹豫&quot;,&quot;踌躇&quot;(also &quot;优柔寡断&quot; and  “没主见&quot;),etc. when talking about something, and you need to remember some patterns to express such a meaning.&lt;br&gt; Example sentences to help me explain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他的性格优柔寡断. &lt;em&gt;He has an indecisive character.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他是个没主见的人。 &lt;em&gt;He is indecisive.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他在提名谁做总经理的事上徘徊不定=他在提名谁做总经理的事上犹豫不决。 &lt;em&gt;He is indecisive to nominate who as general mangager.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我犹豫要不要接受他的邀请。&lt;em&gt;I am indecisive to accept his invitation or not.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  别犹豫了！&lt;em&gt;Don't be indecisive!&lt;/em&gt; (make your decision as soon as possible!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没主见 more precisely means &quot;not have one's own opinion, one's opinion is easily to be swayed by someone else.&quot;, while other words don't express the sense of &quot;easily to be swayed&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-01-29T05:01:47.870" LastActivityDate="2012-01-29T05:01:47.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="999" CreationDate="2012-01-20T12:48:20.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;寒假 and 暑假 are vacations of schools, from primary schools to universities. All students, teachers, employees of the schools would have these holidays. Some education related government bureaus also have these holidays. These are not holidays for the general public.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The period is like Fivesheep said. However, in universities, the period may be shorter depending on the school. Tsinghua University even has an extra summer semester in the 暑假 period, taking about half the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T12:48:20.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="114" CreationDate="2012-01-20T13:23:34.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Curl the tip of the tongue back so that it is at the part of your mouth where the roof of the mouth curves upward (the hard palate).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Prepare to pronounce the letter &quot;l&quot; in that position, but don't say it. Pull the tip of the tongue a little bit away from the roof of your mouth, so it is not in contact with it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Say &quot;ur&quot; (as you would in English &quot;purse&quot;) but don't move your lips.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different speakers of Chinese have the tip of the tongue at different distances from the roof of the mouth; some actually have some contact, so that you hear a sort of &quot;z&quot; sound with the /r/.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English r sound is very nearly a unique sound among languages, and IMO it is not a good idea to compare it to r in other languages -- certainly not as a point of departure or something to be modified to make a &quot;Chinese r&quot; out of it. Especially in terms of the lip movements involved, it's quite different from the Chinese sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastActivityDate="2012-01-20T13:23:34.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1013" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1014" CreationDate="2012-01-20T19:29:06.050" Score="7" ViewCount="485" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a four character phrase for which I have found no accurate translation online. I hear it all the time around CNY. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;万事大吉 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="122" LastActivityDate="2013-01-08T06:49:18.997" Title="How would one accurately translate &quot;万事大吉&quot;?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1013" CreationDate="2012-01-20T20:02:48.480" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an expression wishing the listener good luck. Any equivalent English expression will do: &quot;Best of luck in all your endeavors&quot;, &quot;May your every endeavor prosper&quot;, etc. The use of the character 万 (wàn, meaning &quot;10,000&quot;), here just means &quot;many&quot; or &quot;all&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-21T14:17:18.373" LastActivityDate="2012-01-21T14:17:18.373" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1016" CreationDate="2012-01-20T20:40:00.317" Score="10" ViewCount="5220" Body="&lt;p&gt;My favorite short story in modern Mandarin, &lt;em&gt;2015&lt;/em&gt; by 王小波, is basically a long, humorous digression about the author's 舅舅:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我舅舅是个无照画家，和别人不同的是，他总在忙些正事。有时他在作画；有时他卖画，并且因此蹲在派出所里。他作画时把房门锁上，再戴上个防震耳罩，别人来敲门听不见，打电话也不接，独自一人面对画架，如痴如狂。因为他住在十四层楼上，谁也不能趴窗户往里看，所以没人见过他作画，除了一个贼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word is translated as 'uncle.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why isn't the man a 叔叔? What's the difference in usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="2600" LastEditDate="2016-01-20T17:22:07.540" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T15:47:34.713" Title="What's the difference between 舅舅 and 叔叔?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;kinship&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1015" CreationDate="2012-01-20T20:56:50.810" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Uncles of mother's side are called 舅舅, while uncles of father's side if he's older than your father you have to call him 伯, and 叔 for younger ones. If you have more than one 舅 or 叔 or 伯. You need to add some prefix to specified them, like 大舅 for the oldest brother of you mother, the following are 二舅, 三舅... For 叔叔 伯伯 they apply the same, except there is no 大叔, and the 叔's numbering should inherit from 伯s(e.g., 大伯，二伯，Your Father，then 三叔,四叔).  There also have a word 大叔, but it's just a term to refer to some random older man...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 叔叔, 伯伯 they can also refer to your parents' friends of their generation or your friends parents who are of same generation of your parents. Usually you won't use the term 舅舅 for this kind of acquaintances, but it happens when the guy is your mother's distance relatives, they might come from a same village with a same family name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: 叔叔 is also used as a term of address for men (unrelated to you) who are roughly your father's age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastEditorUserId="3852" LastEditDate="2014-02-20T16:43:09.003" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T16:43:09.003" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1017" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1018" CreationDate="2012-01-20T21:18:31.393" Score="6" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;p&gt;傢伙 (an example of a Chinese lexeme that does not map bijectively between simplified and traditional characters, the simplified word being 家伙) is translated, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wang-Love-Bondage-Xiaobo/dp/0791470652&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;in the only translation Wang Xiaobo's work has received to date&lt;/a&gt;, as 'tool.' Which would indicate that the word is a euphemism (委婉语) for penis in the following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从派出所到居委会，都认为他是个好贼，舍不得送他进监狱，只可惜他偷得太多，最后只好把他枪毙掉，这使派出所的警察和居委会的老大妈一齐掉眼泪。这个贼临死还留下遗嘱，把尸体捐给医院了。我有个同学考上了医科大学，常在福尔马林槽里看到他。他说，那位贼兄的家伙特别大，躺在水槽里仪表堂堂，丝毫也看不出是个贼，虽然后脑勺上挨了一枪，但不翻身也看不出来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;— &lt;em&gt;2015&lt;/em&gt; by 王小波.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how euphemistic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the English word 'tool', while euphemistic, is also a bit cheeky. It's even an insult. It's not detached, scientific-sounding, or fantastical, like other euphemisms for things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 傢伙 carry those nuances? (I have to admit, it sounds just a bit scientific-sounding and detached to me. But obviously I'm not a native speaker.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, has the pair of translators captured something of a nuance here? Or has meaning been added, or lost?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T05:18:05.223" Title="How euphemistic is 傢伙?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;nuance&gt;&lt;euphemism&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1017" CreationDate="2012-01-21T02:21:15.880" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the nuance carried the English word &quot;tool&quot;. But according to your description, I don't think there's such nuance in Wang's article. It is just a normal euphemism, with no added meaning to the original word (penis).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, 傢伙 would carry a similar connotation as &quot;manhood&quot; or &quot;member&quot; (maybe without the informality associated with &quot;member&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="67" LastEditDate="2012-01-22T05:33:23.490" LastActivityDate="2012-01-22T05:33:23.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="537" CreationDate="2012-01-21T06:00:50.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the easiest ways to hear the different pinyin sounds is to look on YouTube. The trickiest ones for me to learn were the different pronunciations of &quot;i&quot;. Here are some videos that explain the differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D6G0aqjtso&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zhi, chi, shi, r&lt;/a&gt; sound a bit like English &quot;sure&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8WAjVeqD80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ji, qi, xi&lt;/a&gt; sound a bit like English &quot;she&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7ep35q9e_Y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zi, ci, si&lt;/a&gt; sound a bit like the vowel at the end of &quot;visa&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pinyin%20sounds&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lots more YouTube videos about pinyin sounds&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also a &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.info/rules/initials_finals.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;good chart at pinyin.com&lt;/a&gt; with all the changes described. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This table at quickmandarin.com&lt;/a&gt; will play the sounds for you if you click on one of them. It covers the tones as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-01-22T05:44:06.420" LastActivityDate="2012-01-22T05:44:06.420" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1020" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1022" CreationDate="2012-01-21T23:57:16.573" Score="11" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this dialogue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 现在恢复得怎么样了？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: 没问题了，又可以爬山了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 又 used there and not 再?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know (I might be wrong), both 再 and 又 are used for describing recurring actions, but 又 refers to actions that took place in the past and 再 refers to future actions. So in the example, 可以爬山 (&lt;em&gt;I can climb mountains&lt;/em&gt;) seems a future event (needs to go to a mountain first).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T03:09:49.290" Title="Why 又 is used there instead of 再?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1020" CreationDate="2012-01-22T01:04:55.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This 又 &quot;yòu&quot; is more like &quot;also&quot; in this example. &quot;I'm all right now, and I can climb mountains, too.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably most similar to the &quot;yòu... yòu...&quot;  (both...and...) pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-22T11:01:24.357" LastActivityDate="2012-01-22T11:01:24.357" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1020" CreationDate="2012-01-22T02:05:16.487" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here, &quot;又&quot; means: &quot;I &lt;strong&gt;am able to&lt;/strong&gt; climb mountains &lt;strong&gt;again&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not a past or future event. &quot;又可以&quot; here is to show ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It implies, &quot;I &lt;strong&gt;was able to&lt;/strong&gt; climb mountains before the (illness), and I've now recovered, and I &lt;strong&gt;am able to&lt;/strong&gt; climb mountains &lt;strong&gt;again&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-22T02:05:16.487" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1023" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1026" CreationDate="2012-01-22T12:35:16.637" Score="17" ViewCount="6283" Body="&lt;p&gt;When accepting an answer, I noticed that the example used the word 周三 for &lt;em&gt;Wednesday&lt;/em&gt;,  but in my grammar, the days of the week are 星期一, 星期二, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They seem both correct but, what's the difference? Is one more common, or are they simply used in difference situations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-09-02T23:08:08.953" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T23:08:08.953" Title="What's the difference between 星期X and 周X?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1023" CreationDate="2012-01-22T13:38:23.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't feel there is much difference in these two expression. There maybe some personal preference though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In formal situations, the 星期 version should be preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-22T13:38:23.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1023" CreationDate="2012-01-22T13:50:07.263" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have 3 methods when talking about the seven days of the week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;星期[X]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;礼拜[X]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;周[X]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, &amp;quot;X&amp;quot; represents &amp;quot;一，二，三,四，五，六&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday&amp;quot;. For case 1 and 2, X could be &amp;quot;日&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;天&amp;quot; for Sunday,for case 3, X should be &amp;quot;日&amp;quot; for Sunday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What' the difference?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Well, I think the 星期 and 周 are common to see, while 礼拜 is less but still common(I think it's the personal or regional perference. Thanks for fefe's suggestion). 礼拜 originates from Christianity, and in ordinary life, each type is accepatble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why did I use &amp;quot;周三&amp;quot; in that example?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because I used &amp;quot;本周二&amp;quot; in that example, then why I used &amp;quot;本周二&amp;quot;? When you want to express &amp;quot;this Tuesday&amp;quot;, you could say &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;本周二&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个星期二&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这周星期二&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;本周星期二&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of them is interchangeable. You see, &amp;quot;本周二&amp;quot; is the shortest form, so I used that. When you are talking about the days for a specific week, I think 周 is more common(please note that 周 means week).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-01-22T14:33:21.547" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1027" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-22T15:26:15.673" Score="5" ViewCount="554" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Chinese New Year period, many people will send text messages to their friends on the phone(via the SMS). I will also do that. When writing English letters, you may use &amp;quot;Yours,&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Sincerely,&amp;quot; before your name, to show your sincerity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in Chinese, how can we express this meaning? I mean, when you say &amp;quot; I wish you [...],&amp;quot; what special words will be used to show your sincerity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-12-28T00:26:49.333" LastActivityDate="2020-12-28T00:26:49.333" Title="What words are used to express the sincerity when texting your friends in festival period, such as the Spring Festival?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;word-lists&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1027" CreationDate="2012-01-22T15:35:37.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;此致&#xA;&#xA;    敬礼&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is the equivalent form in chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: the previous answer I gave was the way how we wrote in formal letters. For text message, I think the following form in chinese can accomplish the same function: [your name]敬上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastEditorUserId="351" LastEditDate="2012-01-24T02:36:42.140" LastActivityDate="2012-01-24T02:36:42.140" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1023" CreationDate="2012-01-23T02:02:45.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is that you may use 星期天, but not *周天; and you may use 周末, but not *星期末.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="318" LastActivityDate="2012-01-23T02:02:45.053" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="486" CreationDate="2012-01-23T05:52:45.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;AllSet Learning just launched a grammar web site, and the front page has &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/#Referenced_Throughout&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a list of reference books&lt;/a&gt; that they used to prepare it. The site itself also looks useful. There's not a lot of detail yet, but they say they will continue working to add more content.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-02-14T06:23:26.000" LastActivityDate="2012-02-14T06:23:26.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1031" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-23T08:04:05.163" Score="12" ViewCount="4767" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 通常，经常，and 常常？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hear them a lot in conversational Chinese, but I can't pick out the difference in meaning. The dictionaries I've checked don't seem to agree on their chosen English translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="327" LastEditorUserId="71" LastEditDate="2012-01-30T01:14:45.463" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T05:50:38.273" Title="What is the difference between 通常，经常，and 常常？" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1031" CreationDate="2012-01-23T11:55:43.250" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, 经常 is used ahead of action, like 我经常加班&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通常 is used to describe things happened frequently. like 事情通常是这样的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常常 can be used for both of the cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;----- Edit -----&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他通常说的都是对的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我通常都是晚上开始工作.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both are okay to me too, you can see the differences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常常 can always take place of 经常 (anyway, I cannot recall any examples now that cannot replace it). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通常来说， 常常 can also take place of 通常, but we just don't say 常常来说 :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="365" LastEditorUserId="365" LastEditDate="2012-01-29T16:43:01.570" LastActivityDate="2012-01-29T16:43:01.570" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="996" CreationDate="2012-01-24T00:25:55.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A more formal written word is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/cy/ch/ZdicE8ZdicB8Zdic8C4062.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;踌躇不前&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2012-01-24T00:25:55.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1035" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1036" CreationDate="2012-01-24T14:20:27.750" Score="7" ViewCount="424" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is tofu, among all foods that can be enjoyed hot, used in the expression &quot;心急吃不了热豆腐&quot;? Why not &quot;心急吃不了热饭&quot; or &quot;心急吃不了热牛肉&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-06-01T23:30:04.117" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T23:30:04.117" Title="Why is tofu used in 心急吃不了热豆腐？" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1035" CreationDate="2012-01-24T14:44:31.780" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;After tofu is made ready to eat, it is very hot. And even the outer part of the tofu get cooled down, the inner part is still very hot. It someone tries to eat it in a hurry, he will be hurt by the high temperature inside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rice or beef or some others cannot keep the inner part at a high temperature while the outer part is cooled down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. When you try to eat tofu, please be careful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS2. sorry for the English, feel free to correct me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-01-24T14:44:31.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1037" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-24T18:33:39.510" Score="11" ViewCount="1768" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a male &quot;friend&quot;, last name 柯 (kē) who is over 30.  From ages 18-30 or so, he went by 小柯, but that seems less and less appropriate as he gets older.  Always going by his full name seems overly long and formal, he doesn't like &quot;大&quot;, and he's not old enough for 老 (yet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My &quot;friend&quot; was thinking about going by 阿柯 (ā kē) and having friends introduce him this way.  He thought the main benefit would be that people both younger and older could use this friendlier, less intimidating and formal means of address.  My &quot;friend&quot; isn't a native speaker, so he's not sure if there are negative connotations.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So would 阿 [LAST NAME] be the best form of address for these conditions or if not, what would a better one be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[EDIT]&lt;/strong&gt; I should have originally specified that he himself is looking for something to be called &quot;around the office&quot;, that is, both by people senior and junior to him.  His boss calling him 老柯 or 柯哥 doesn't seem quite appropriate.  It does seem that 哥 is the most popular &quot;among friends&quot; answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T10:03:57.837" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T14:19:42.953" Title="What is a good form of address for a male friend who is too old to be 小, too young to be 老, and too humble to be called 大?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1037" CreationDate="2012-01-24T19:03:28.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The real age doesn't really matters for being 老sth. we usually call some of our peers 老* especially when one is considered having a mature personality.&#xA;If you are introducing your friend who's much younger than you, you can say 这是小*..&#xA;If your friend is a big guy around some age, you can say 这是大柯. 大* is popular in the north, in my hometown no one use this form.&#xA;you can also say this is *哥, around same age, he doesn't need to be older than you. &#xA;Always remember sounding good, sounding rhyme is important too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-01-24T19:03:28.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1037" CreationDate="2012-01-24T19:06:30.113" Score="7" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if he is older than you are, then 柯兄 (柯老兄)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if he is younger, then 老弟 (柯老弟)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if he is of the same age, and his first name consists 2 chinese characters, then first name&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if he is of the same age, and his first name consists 1 chinese character, then full name (calling someone by their full name is not rude if they are the same age or younger in China)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; I'm from Northern China and we don't use 阿X as often. that's more of a southern convention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: if his first name is one character, then calling him by his first name sounds 肉麻。 It is actually worse if you are of the same gender. then that just sounds wrong! :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2012-01-24T19:53:57.443" LastActivityDate="2012-01-24T19:53:57.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1037" CreationDate="2012-01-24T19:11:29.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;[Surname]哥哥 or 大哥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if his surname is 王 (Wong), you can use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王哥哥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, &quot;Brother Wong&quot; or for a literal translation: &quot;Elder Brother Wong&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Informally, when you're speaking to him one on one as a friend, constantly saying 王哥哥 can be verbose, in which case you can just say &quot;大哥&quot; like 喂大哥...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;] In response to your edit: 阿[Name] would be most appropriate around the office.  There are no negative connotations.  Note that you should not use the surname as you've proposed because many Chinese people share a similar surname.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use the last 1-2 characters in a name.  I'll attempt to explain by example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Name: 王小宝&#xA;Address as 阿宝 OR 阿小宝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Name: 王明明&#xA;Address as 阿明 OR 阿明明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For skills/crafts, you would use [Surname]师傅.  So if Chef Wong is a skilled chef, 王师傅.  Note that this is more formal, and if &quot;Chef Wong&quot; is a friend, you would go back to 王哥(哥)/&quot;Brother Wong&quot; in everyday speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user370" LastEditorDisplayName="user370" LastEditDate="2012-01-25T01:19:39.797" LastActivityDate="2012-01-25T01:19:39.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1020" CreationDate="2012-01-24T19:34:42.250" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;再 foresees the future, as  in 再见.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;又 emphasis 'once more', as in &quot;又可以爬山了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-01-24T19:34:42.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1042" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1043" CreationDate="2012-01-24T20:15:56.013" Score="22" ViewCount="43103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not talking about eating tofu, but the expression that means something more like taking advantage of someone. What exactly does 吃豆腐 mean, and where does this expression come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-03T06:18:42.983" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T16:37:48.973" Title="What is the exact meaning of 吃豆腐, and where does the expression come from?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1042" CreationDate="2012-01-24T20:36:57.890" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've only heard it used in describing sexual situations, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%90%83%E8%B1%86%E8%85%90&quot;&gt;wiktionary.org&lt;/a&gt; describes its usage as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This idiom usually only refers to a man taking advantage of a woman in a sexual situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical example would be some creepy guy pinching the flight attendant's backside as she walks past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also a good discussion at &lt;a href=&quot;http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2262646&amp;amp;langid=22&quot;&gt;wordreference.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不要吃我豆腐 is telling someone not to take advantage of me, but specifically in a sexual way, as in inappropriate touches etc. However, the accusation is not very serious in Chinese, and sometimes said in a joking manner. I would translate it as &quot;Don't harasse me!&quot;, &quot;Get your hands off me!&quot; etc., but understand that the Chinese expression is softer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found an origin story on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/23974-do-these-words-just-mean-tease-or-something-more-serious/page__p__198030#entry198030&quot;&gt;chinese-forums.com&lt;/a&gt;, but I'm not sure how reliable it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It’s said that tofu shops usually were run by wife and husband in the old days. Female boss in a tofu shop took tofu as their daily food, which made their skin tender and smooth. On one hand their fine skin helped attract more customers, on the other hand it showed some kind of coquetry to them. Men liked to take “to eat tofu” as an excuse to go to a tofu shop and flirt with the female boss there, verbally or even physically. Therefore, wives, feeling jealous, scolded their husbands, “Today, you went to eat tofu again?!” Now, “eating tofu” has become a word to describe man flirts with woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-05T13:43:35.990" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T13:43:35.990" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1044" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1045" CreationDate="2012-01-24T22:40:08.093" Score="13" ViewCount="4472" Body="&lt;p&gt;了解, 明白, and 知道 seem to be fairly synonymous in Mandarin, but there does seem to be some subtle differences between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly is the difference? When should I use each one? Could you give me an example sentence to show when each of these terms would be the most appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-07-24T00:58:17.497" LastActivityDate="2020-07-24T00:58:17.497" Title="了解 vs 明白 vs 知道 - what is the difference, and when should I use each one?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1044" CreationDate="2012-01-24T23:26:31.470" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;知道 means you just know something, you don't need to understand it.&#xA;了解, you understand it.&#xA;明白, you understand something, and have a clear idea of what it is about. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the order of them is: 知道&amp;lt;了解&amp;lt;=明白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for 了解, it can also means 'to investigate'. e.g 小白, 你去了解一下这事情怎么发生的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastEditorUserId="351" LastEditDate="2012-01-24T23:31:33.227" LastActivityDate="2012-01-24T23:31:33.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="559" CreationDate="2012-01-25T14:32:14.493" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Mediawiki converter uses a combination of automatic information from the Unicode standard, SCIM tables, and other sources plus manual tweaks to build a set of translation tables.  When going from Traditional to Simplified, some characters have been condensed into one.  Translating back from Simplified to Traditional requires context that a computer is not likely to understand unless you implement a full translation engine, not just a text replacement engine. This is where the manual enhancements come into play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mediawiki has a build system which automatically combines the automatic and manual information into a PHP source file of translations between many different types of Chinese.  It appears to cover dialectical differences for mainland Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. The information is then changed out with PHP's strtr() function which replaces all occurrences of items in a given array with matches in the supplied string, longest matches first.  This longest matching is the key when switching out characters because you have more context from the source to make a better replacement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source:&#xA;Code which uses mediawiki's conversion functions:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/tszming/mediawiki-zhconverter/blob/master/mediawiki-zhconverter.inc.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/tszming/mediawiki-zhconverter/blob/master/mediawiki-zhconverter.inc.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Build file to combine automatic conversion tables with manual tweaks:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/MW/browse/master/maintenance/language/zhtable/Makefile.py&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/MW/browse/master/maintenance/language/zhtable/Makefile.py&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compiled translation tables (large file, 17k lines):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/MW/browse/master/includes/ZhConversion.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/MW/browse/master/includes/ZhConversion.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversion tool to load tables for different conversions (used by first source link)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/MW/browse/master/languages/classes/LanguageZh.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/MW/browse/master/languages/classes/LanguageZh.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="177" LastEditorUserId="9695" LastEditDate="2015-04-05T19:21:38.267" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T19:21:38.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1044" CreationDate="2012-01-25T15:50:13.487" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;知道 = Know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了解 = Know clearly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明白 = Know completely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="373" LastActivityDate="2012-01-25T15:50:13.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1031" CreationDate="2012-01-25T15:53:09.427" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;通常 = usually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经常 = frequently&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常常 = very frequently&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="373" LastActivityDate="2012-01-25T15:53:09.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1044" CreationDate="2012-01-25T18:18:29.600" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;知道 = to Know, verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了解 = to understand, verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明白 = to be clear, adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-01-25T18:18:29.600" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1050" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-27T01:35:57.860" Score="4" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他一个人在搬东西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which could be translated as &quot;He is moving it by himself&quot;, the important information is 'by himself' (他一个人).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English we could point to an ant and say &quot;Look, he is moving it by himself&quot;. So the sentence can be used for both humans and animals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am trying to find out is the correct way of changing this sentence so it could be used with something that is not a person (人).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yesterday my son said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;看，他一个人在搬东西&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When referring to an ant that had decided to carry off a large piece of something and he was impressed that the ant could do it &quot;by himself&quot;. But the '一个人' part doesn't seem correct to me since the ant is not a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is the right way to say this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;看，他一只蚂蚁在搬东西&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or what is the right way to say this if you don't use '一个人', assuming that is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-02-01T23:15:07.690" Title="Replacement for &quot;他一个人&quot; when used in a sentence about an animal" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1050" CreationDate="2012-01-27T02:24:43.880" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An alternative way is to say 它自己在搬东西. but what your son said (he's cute!) feels natural to my ears too. What he used in this sentence is a technique called &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/25030891&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;拟人手法&lt;/a&gt;. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-01-27T02:24:43.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="966" CreationDate="2012-01-27T13:20:50.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;牛逼 牛X 牛叉 吊爆 all means &quot;Freaking Awesome&quot;&#xA;These can ONLY used in colloquial speech&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="379" LastActivityDate="2012-01-27T13:20:50.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1020" CreationDate="2012-01-27T14:49:02.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;又 has the connotation of &quot;there you go again.&quot; That is, of repeating a &lt;strong&gt;past&lt;/strong&gt; action in the present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再 is anticipatory: That is, planning to repeat a present action in the &lt;strong&gt;future.&lt;/strong&gt; 再见, used for &quot;good-bye,&quot; literally means &quot;see you AGAIN,&quot; (soon). It is the equivalent of the French au revoir or the German auf Wiedersehen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="52" LastEditDate="2014-09-13T22:36:22.390" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T22:36:22.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1055" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-27T18:27:28.073" Score="7" ViewCount="4482" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was chatting with a Chinese penpal recently and when I asked &quot;what are you doing?&quot;, I received the following answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吃东西，你呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, &quot;东西&quot; means &quot;east and west&quot; and so &quot;吃东西&quot; literally means &quot;eat/eating east and west&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After I asked for explanations, I got this reply &lt;em&gt;&quot;I am eating something&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. The explanation included the fact that this &lt;em&gt;depends on context&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how did 东西 come to mean &lt;em&gt;&quot;something&quot;&lt;/em&gt;? And in what contexts can it be found with what meanings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the list is long, include only the most famous cases (5, 10 cases).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T14:45:19.467" Title="How did 东西 come to mean &quot;something&quot; in the expression &quot;吃东西&quot;?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1055" CreationDate="2012-01-27T20:50:23.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only use I've heard for 东西 is to mean &amp;quot;thing&amp;quot;. CEDICT has &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?wdqb=%E6%9D%B1%E8%A5%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;two definitions&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thing / stuff / person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;east and west&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've come across the first one many times, but I've never seen it used literally as in the second one. Here are a couple of examples from &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%E4%B8%9C%E8%A5%BF&amp;amp;from=cmn&amp;amp;to=eng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这就是我在西班牙买的东西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what I bought in Spain. [Or, &amp;quot;This is the thing I bought in Spain.&amp;quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总有一些东西我永远不能学会，我的生命不是永恒的！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There will always be things I will never learn, I don't have eternity before me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see in the first example, you wouldn't always translate 东西 directly as &amp;quot;thing&amp;quot;. It sometimes is replaced by a pronoun in English, like &amp;quot;what&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-01-27T21:06:18.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1057" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8690" CreationDate="2012-01-28T02:30:37.273" Score="6" ViewCount="958" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching a TV show and heard them using the expression 凭什么 to say 'why' - I hadn't heard this with this exact meaning before, so I'm wondering what the proper meaning is in English, and what the proper meaning is in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T07:57:59.087" LastActivityDate="2014-07-18T09:18:58.477" Title="What is the meaning and proper usage of 凭什么？" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1057" CreationDate="2012-01-28T02:45:51.170" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;凭 is a coverb meaning &quot;based on.&quot; If you're looking for a Chinese meaning, my dictionary defines it as 根据 (i.e. based on, according to). In the example you gave, 凭什么 can be understood as &quot;on what basis?&quot;, which is only a short jump to &quot;why?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凭 is commonly used with the word 票, as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;凭票入场&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Admission by ticket only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; As ziyuang helpfully points out, 凭什么 has a somewhat accusatory tone and implies that the action in question is unwarranted. (That's how &quot;on what basis?&quot; sounds to me in English, but it may not have that sense for everyone.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-01-28T19:14:54.293" LastActivityDate="2012-01-28T19:14:54.293" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="966" CreationDate="2012-01-28T03:59:50.170" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To supplement, there are several slang words that have &quot;屄/逼&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牛逼: The one has been fully explained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;傻逼: A stupid guy (especially when he has done something very stupid) (这个傻逼把彩票扔了！)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;装逼: A verb means improperly showing himself in a higher level (for examples, of knowledge or cultivation) than others. &lt;a href=&quot;http://garbledtext.ycool.com/post.1247078.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A post on the internet&lt;/a&gt; refers it to &quot;campy&quot;. Think that you and your other friends are playing happily in a party, but he takes out a book written by Hegel and starts to read in the corner. Or you and your friend are talking about a comedic soup opera with a background in Roman times but he breaks in and says that he won't watch it because the opera is not in Latin at all, let alone the numerous details that fail to reflect the actual history. Some also thinks that adding too many English words/phases in a Chinese sentence is 装逼 (like &quot;不多写点application的话，这个project的funding就拿不下来.&quot;). 装逼 can be separated in a sentence (like &quot;你装什么逼呢！&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二逼: A idiotic guy, subtly different from 傻逼. An 二逼 behaves improperly or sillily. Also, 二 can be a adjective with the same meaning in 二逼. (你看你，二了吧！)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 二叉 is never used (except that you are talking about &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_tree&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;二叉树&lt;/a&gt; LOL).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastEditorUserId="342" LastEditDate="2012-01-28T04:05:11.083" LastActivityDate="2012-01-28T04:05:11.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="996" CreationDate="2012-01-28T04:31:11.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know anything about 磨. :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that those terms listed by Huang refer to a state instead of describing someone's characteristics.  They have some subtle differences between the states described by them.  I'll let Huang to explain the differences between the 4 character terms.  没主见 basically means &quot;no opinion&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say &quot;他常常都犹豫不决&quot; or &quot;他常常都不能决定的&quot; to refer to someone's characteristics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user382" LastActivityDate="2012-01-28T04:31:11.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1061" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1062" CreationDate="2012-01-28T05:48:51.510" Score="5" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/458549&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this sentence on tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我就是不知道說些什麼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just don't know what to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand most of the sentence, but what is &amp;quot;些&amp;quot; doing there? I've always seen it used to mean &amp;quot;a few&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T07:51:40.823" Title="What does 些 mean when it's combined with 什麼?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1061" CreationDate="2012-01-28T10:51:57.563" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct, &quot;些&quot; is used to mean &quot;a few&quot; and it also applies in the example you gave above - ie. you can't even find 'a few' words to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe you can also leave out &quot;些&quot; and it will still mean almost the same thing. To me, with/without &quot;些&quot; the sentence means the same thing but has a slightly different emphasis/tone to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, with &quot;些&quot; it feels a bit 'softer'...as if you are genuinely out of words (maybe you saw something and suddenly lost for words); whilst without &quot;些&quot; it sounds like you are frustrated (someone has annoyed you, did something stupid) and you don't know how to comment/what to say to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps. I would personally say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我就是不知道要說(些)什麼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pps. I'm also learning Chinese, so confirmation from someone who is a native speaker would be nice :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="60" LastActivityDate="2012-01-28T10:51:57.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1063" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-28T15:00:31.127" Score="7" ViewCount="1407" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know how to use 比 in simple sentences like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哥哥比姐姐高 (my big brother is taller than my big sister)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be used for other sentences like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You learn more words by listening than by reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="383" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-03-30T08:10:15.347" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T09:30:28.327" Title="Using 比 (bǐ) for comparison" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1064" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1071" CreationDate="2012-01-28T15:13:03.210" Score="8" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, given a conversation between P1 and P2, it's possible to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;P1: My wife died. Now I feel like I've got nothing. I'm so sad.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  P2: Don't say that. You've still got your son. You have your daughter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it's possible to use the word 'have' in an intimate way. We 'have' the people who are close to us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how can I express that in Chinese? Obviously, I can't say &quot;我有他們&quot; the same way I can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;P1: You're right. I have them. But my life is so sad now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the literal meaning of those words just sounds non-sensical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, maybe there &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a Chinese verb for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it expressed a totally different way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-28T16:07:13.610" LastActivityDate="2012-01-29T05:00:07.013" Title="How can I express 'having' in an intimate sense?" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1063" CreationDate="2012-01-28T16:00:41.167" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;哥哥比姐姐高&quot; is correct. The next sentence &lt;em&gt;&quot;you learn more words by listening than by reading&quot;&lt;/em&gt; can be translated like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听力比阅读更能提高你的词汇量&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;ting li bi yue du geng neng ti gao ni de ci hui liang&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="384" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-28T16:06:19.553" LastActivityDate="2012-01-28T16:06:19.553" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1057" CreationDate="2012-01-28T16:25:22.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;凭什么”has a tone of questioning and a little bit angry,its similar to &quot;by what&quot;.For example:&quot;你！凭什么左右我的心情！&quot;means&quot;You! By what can you control my feelings&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="384" LastActivityDate="2012-01-28T16:25:22.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1063" CreationDate="2012-01-29T04:09:46.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could simply translate &quot;than&quot; into &quot;比&quot; in Chinese, but in Chinese, there are several different patterns for comparison.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;grace's answer is good, but I think his translation is more likely a liberal translation(I would like to translate that Chinese sentence into English word by word: &lt;em&gt;Listening can enlarge your vocabulary more than reading&lt;/em&gt; .You see, the subject and object are different from the original sentence). By translating the English words into Chinese one by one, you get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You learn more words by listening than by reading.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你    学习 更多  词汇  通过   听力    比  通过  阅读&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To keep the sentence structure the same, I would like to use the pattern below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;相比于&lt;/strong&gt;阅读，通过听力你(可以*)学习更多的词汇。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*I think you need a model verb, such as &quot;may&quot; or &quot;can&quot; in your original sentence, that's why I add &quot;可以&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-01-29T04:09:46.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1064" CreationDate="2012-01-29T05:00:07.013" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Saying 我有他们 or 还有他们 is perfectly acceptable. I've heard this plenty of times before in conversation before, and it's a very common expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess this wasn't quite the answer you were looking for, but hopefully it's of use knowing that it's both acceptable and appropriate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-29T05:00:07.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1072" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1075" CreationDate="2012-01-29T05:04:47.943" Score="7" ViewCount="2840" Body="&lt;p&gt;I quite like the expression 拜托, but I've never been 100% sure of what exactly it means in English, and I'm not quite sure how to use it properly in Chinese. Little help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-29T10:59:50.633" Title="What is the English equivalent of 拜托, and what is it's proper usage in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1072" CreationDate="2012-01-29T05:41:39.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;which 拜托 are you talking about? &#xA;拜托某人做某事. ask/request somebody to do something (for you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拜托! Please!/Come on!/I beg you .... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-01-29T05:41:39.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1074" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1079" CreationDate="2012-01-29T08:36:10.623" Score="5" ViewCount="2118" Body="&lt;p&gt;一起 vs 一块, are these two expressions the same in Chinese, or is there a certain situation where one is more appropriate than the other? Can anyone explain what the difference might be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;code&gt;我们一块去&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;我们一起去&lt;/code&gt; - are both of these exactly the same, or is one better than the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T09:23:33.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T09:23:33.587" Title="一起 vs 一块 - what's the difference?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1072" CreationDate="2012-01-29T10:59:50.633" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The literal meaning is 'to respectfully ask someone to do something', and sometimes it's used in that way. But often, even though it's used as a verb, 拜托你xxx can just be translated as 'please can you do xxx for me'. It's not as common as 'please' in English though, so it sounds more formal / polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use it semi-sarcastically to show your exasperation with someone - nciku.com gives 拜托你闭嘴 (please just shut up) and 拜托你少管闲事 (I'll thank you to mind your own business).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As well as being a verb, you can use it on its own or at the end of a sentence. As above, this is either a polite phrase like &quot;I'm begging you for your assistance&quot; or a sarcastic phrase meaning &quot;oh for God's sake&quot; depending on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="330" LastActivityDate="2012-01-29T10:59:50.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1074" CreationDate="2012-01-29T21:12:57.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My husband couldn't resist answering this one. He said it is rather 一块儿. Both are good in your example. Northerners say 一块儿 more, and southerners say 一起 more, for example, in Sichuan (where he's from. so are pandas).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-01-29T21:12:57.063" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="714" CreationDate="2012-01-29T23:55:43.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;An idiomatic English translation of 厉害 might be something like &quot;beast&quot; or &quot;monster.&quot; Such a person might be &quot;very capable.&quot; Or else overly harsh, strict, or overbearing. But basically &quot;out of control.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-01-29T23:55:43.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1078" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-01-30T02:56:05.597" Score="10" ViewCount="1223" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've found many articles about differences in certain sentence structures regarding 台湾国语 and 大陆普通话, but does anyone have a large list of commonly-used vocabulary that are different? I spend a lot of time on the mainland and Taiwan, and sometimes I get blank stares when I say &quot;滑鼠&quot; in Shanghai or &quot;垃圾桶” in Kaohsiung.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note, when I refer to 台湾国语, I mean differences in word choice and sentence structure, not pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="327" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-13T22:03:30.370" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T22:03:30.370" Title="Is there a comprehensive list of vocabulary differences between 台湾国语 and 大陆普通话？" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1074" CreationDate="2012-01-30T09:01:19.823" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;For your example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们一块去 or 我们一起去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they are of exactly the same meaning. One slightly difference could be that the latter one is more formal (used in written Chinese) while the former is rather oral. And in spoken Chinese, we usually add an &quot;儿话音&quot; to the end of “一块”:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一块儿 (Note: the Pinyin is Yi Kuair, not Yi Kuai Er)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when referring to &lt;code&gt;together&lt;/code&gt;, you can either use 一起 and 一块儿, but I prefer to use 一块儿 in the daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other occasions, 一块 can be of other meanings. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一块钱 means &quot;RMB One Yuan&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一块蛋糕 means &quot;a piece of cake&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一起 also has some other meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一起车祸 means &quot;a case of car accident&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 块 and 起 are measure words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="357" LastActivityDate="2012-01-30T09:01:19.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1081" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1372" CreationDate="2012-01-30T11:40:13.983" Score="3" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found a dictionary about Mathematics; however, it goes from Chinese to English.  I have tried different bookstores in my city, but they don't have an English to Chinese dictionary.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have looked on 淘宝, but I'd like to find something of good/great quality, as I don't really trust the reviews that I have seen on there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="389" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-02-23T20:19:21.117" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T09:16:00.493" Title="What are some good dictionaries about Mathematics?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="924" CreationDate="2012-01-30T14:26:22.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can say &quot;农历&quot;(formal name) or &quot;阴历&quot;(or even &quot;夏历&quot;,which is less common) at the begining of the date to express that date is from the Chinese calendar.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The name of the months:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;正(&lt;strong&gt;zhēng&lt;/strong&gt;)月(the first month),二月，三月，四月，五月，六月，七月，八月，九月，十月，十一月，十二月&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Note: You could say &quot;冬月&quot; for &quot;十一月&quot; and &quot;腊(là)月&quot; for &quot;十二月&quot;. Both of them are common to see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the Chinese calendar,there is a concept of &quot;leap month&quot;(I wouldn't like to explain how it comes,because it's related to much Astronomy knowledge,hard for me to explain it in English),so one Chinese year may have 13 months,including an extra leap month. We use &quot;闰(rùn)&quot; before the name of a month when it's a leap month.I.e, this year,2012, the year of dragon, has a leap month, called &quot;闰四月&quot;, so we have two &quot;四月&quot; this year: a normal &quot;四月&quot; and a &quot;闰四月&quot; after it.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; the chance of which month having a leap month is not uniform.I haven't met a leap &quot;正月&quot;,&quot;十一月&quot; or &quot;十二月&quot; (they are very very rare), but I think the corresponding leap months are &quot;闰正月&quot;,&quot;闰冬月&quot; and &quot;闰腊月&quot;,based on some materials I read on this topic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For days, we say &quot;初一&quot;,&quot;初二&quot;,...,&quot;初九&quot; for the first day, the second day,...,the ninth day; &quot;十一&quot;,&quot;十二&quot;,...,&quot;二十&quot;,&quot;二十一&quot;,...,&quot;三十&quot; for the eleventh day, the twelfth day,...,the twentieth day, the twenty-first day,...the thirtieth day. It's very easy if you can count number in Chinese.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; In calendar, you will see &quot;廿(niàn)一&quot;, “廿二&quot;,...,&quot;廿九&quot;, instead of &quot;二十一&quot;,&quot;二十二&quot;,...,&quot;二十九&quot;, but in speaking, I think you would prefer &quot;二十一&quot; to &quot;廿一&quot;. &quot;廿&quot; is a classic character to refer to &quot;二十&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Please see the image below to get a feel of the calendar commonly used in China, written in both Gregorian(Arabic numerals) and Chinese(chinese characters) calendar. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OIQrn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, too much stuff. Now it's the time to show some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;正月初三&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  正月十四&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  正月二十五(=正月廿五 in calendar)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  闰四月十三&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  闰五月初五&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  冬月三十&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  腊月初八&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Q: 你的农历生日是哪一天? &lt;em&gt;What's your birthday in Chinese calendar&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A: 四月十五&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Q: 今年哪一天是四月十五? &lt;em&gt;What's the day of &quot;四月十五&quot; this year?&lt;/em&gt;(here,the speaker wants to know what day in the Gregorian calendar is &quot;四月十五&quot; in Chinese calendar?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A: 五月五号 &lt;em&gt;the fifth, May&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Q: 嘿，今年闰四月！你过哪一个生日？ &lt;em&gt;Hey, this year has a leap &quot;四月&quot;! Which &quot;四月十五&quot; will you observe?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-01-30T14:26:22.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1078" CreationDate="2012-01-30T15:21:15.123" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a list of books from Taiwan on this topic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010511098&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;兩岸現代漢語常用詞典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010409120&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;普通話vs.國語--兩岸對話一本就通&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010423879&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;最新兩岸用詞差異對照手冊&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010417519&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;最新兩岸用語速查1600&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010425241&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;兩岸常用詞語對照手冊：兩岸交流即時通&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010411991&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;兩岸詞語即時通&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010245745&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;兩岸用語快譯通&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="99" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T11:48:48.173" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T11:48:48.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1087" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1099" CreationDate="2012-01-30T19:38:07.033" Score="13" ViewCount="26602" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was told that when you are ordering food you can say either 带走 or 打包. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when you are not ordering food and you mean &quot;take this away&quot;, then you use 拿走。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference in context or meaning between 带走 and 打包?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="389" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-30T20:32:28.883" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T17:36:37.640" Title="Take away (when ordering food): is it 带走 or 打包?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1088" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1097" CreationDate="2012-01-30T19:47:46.660" Score="15" ViewCount="338" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a habit of using too many characters when I speak and write. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我回我的家。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的 is not needed, and we can simply say 我回家。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a grammar rule for when to cut characters? A more generic example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AB + CD = AD.  (A, B, C, D are characters and AB is one word and CD is another word). For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;啰哩啰嗦 is said as 啰嗦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="389" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-01-30T20:31:20.430" LastActivityDate="2012-01-31T19:01:57.153" Title="Is there a rule that tells what characters can be omitted?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1087" CreationDate="2012-01-30T20:06:32.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far as I know, the difference is simply a matter of region. In my experience 打包 is more common in central and southern China, and 带走 is more common in the north.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are interchangeable however, and I personally don't know any situations where one is different from the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastActivityDate="2012-01-30T20:06:32.207" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1090" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1093" CreationDate="2012-01-30T20:54:55.237" Score="11" ViewCount="2816" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does &amp;quot;gam&amp;quot; mean in these two contexts, and why is a different character used in each?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note 咁 used in this sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我睇見你坐喺梳化椅處， 唔停咁同張太太，何太太，王小姐佢哋傾偈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(ngo5 tai2 gin3 nei5 co5 hai2 so1 faa2 ji2 syu3, m4 ting4 gam2 tung4 zoeng1 taai3 taai2, ho6 taai3 taai2, wong4 siu2 ze2 keoi5 dei6 king1 gai2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempted translation is &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;I saw you sitting around the sofa, chatting non-stop with Mrs. Cheung, Mrs. Ho, and Ms. Wang.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the book, this character was transliterated with the second tone, which is a rising tone.  When I looked it up in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/369/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantodict&lt;/a&gt;, it shows up as a third tone, which is flat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, look at 噉 used in this sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我係被迫要唔停噉大聲傾偈啫，實在我唔想gaa3。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(ngo5 hai6 bei6 bik1 jiu3 m4 ting4 gam2 daai6 seng1 king1 gai2 ze1, sat6 zoi6 ngo5 m4 soeng2 gaa3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation is &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;I was forced to talk in a loud voice non-stop, but I really didn't want to.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="349" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-02-05T06:37:31.720" Title="What's the difference between 咁 (gam3) and 噉 (gam2)?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1087" CreationDate="2012-01-30T20:59:43.373" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;带走 or 打包 and 拿走 refer to the degree of care required regarding your &quot;takeaway.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;带走 (carrying away) or 打包 (wrap it up) means, &quot;I'm taking this home, please treat it with care.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿走 means &quot;get rid of it.&quot; (I don't care how you treat it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-01-30T20:59:43.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1090" CreationDate="2012-01-30T23:32:22.217" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;咁 (gam3) and 噉 (gam2) have very similar meanings: 'to this extent', 'so', 'such'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 咁 (gam3) pre-modifies adjectives, and 噉 (gam2) post-modifies verbs. 噉 (gam2) or 噉樣 (gam2joeng6*2) also occurs as a pronoun meaning 'like this/that'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the occurrence of 咁 in the first sentence should probably be written as 噉 (gam2) as well... after all, 敢 has the reading gam2 too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2012-01-30T23:32:22.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1090" CreationDate="2012-01-31T00:55:20.717" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you happen to be familiar with Mandarin or Standard Written Chinese, the Cantonese character 咁 (&lt;em&gt;gam3&lt;/em&gt;) corresponds to 這麼 or 那麼 and 噉 (&lt;em&gt;gam2&lt;/em&gt;) corresponds to 這樣 or 那樣.  As jogloran mentioned, 咁 is a prefix modifier whereas 噉 is postfix or a standalone pronoun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll often see 咁 written where &lt;em&gt;gam2&lt;/em&gt; is intended, which is likely the reason why 咁 appears in your first example instead of 噉.  This is due to the fact that written Cantonese is not standardized, so some people are not necessarily aware of which character to use.  For consistency sake though, I always use 咁 for &lt;em&gt;gam3&lt;/em&gt; and 噉 for &lt;em&gt;gam2&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-01-31T01:03:04.823" LastActivityDate="2012-01-31T01:03:04.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1094" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1098" CreationDate="2012-01-31T03:35:23.077" Score="5" ViewCount="4435" Body="&lt;p&gt;My first language is Cantonese.  I learned Mandarin as a second language.  Native speakers of Mandarin often understand me with no major issues.  Of course, they recognize the Southern accents right away.  Sometimes, I have trouble understanding people from Northern regions (example: Beijing).  Other than the &quot;learned&quot; retroflex constants (zh, ch, sh, r) produced by native Cantonese speakers, what are the other characteristics that I should aware to understand better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry to over-generalize the regions and their accents.  Please feel free to point out characteristics in speech between different sub-regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I'm not asking about terminology difference between different dialect/regional speech.  This topic can be covered in a separate question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user382" LastEditorDisplayName="user382" LastEditDate="2012-01-31T15:05:47.103" LastActivityDate="2012-01-31T22:57:18.537" Title="Characteristics of Northern and Southern accents" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1094" CreationDate="2012-01-31T12:14:28.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this is what you mean, but a friend (native speaker) said that Northern regions tend to 捲舌 &quot;roll their tongue&quot; more than Southern regions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I speak mandarin with a Taiwan accent (minimal 捲舌) and have been asked once if I came from Guangzhou - I'm assuming of my lack of 捲舌 was associated with a southern China accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, from my recent visit to Shanghai and Beijing, I noticed that in Beijing, people seemed to speak with slightly more variations in pitch and faster. While in Shanghai, people seemed to speak in a more monotone/flat manner, and also a bit slower (maybe I found it easier to understand since they didn't 捲舌 as much).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="60" LastEditorUserId="60" LastEditDate="2012-01-31T22:57:18.537" LastActivityDate="2012-01-31T22:57:18.537" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1088" CreationDate="2012-01-31T19:01:57.153" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting question. As other commenters have noted, the answer may depend on convention (e.g., &quot;回家&quot;) or grammar (possession vs. adverbial modification). It also may depend on the rules for Chinese prosody, which is what I will focus on here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tang Dynasty poetry was based on &lt;em&gt;disyllabic&lt;/em&gt; (grouped into two syllables), &lt;em&gt;trochaic&lt;/em&gt; (grouped into pairs having the form STRESSED unstressed, or, as I'll write it below, Xx) rhythms. Modern Chinese speech follows this basic pattern. Generally, Chinese utterances start with a stressed syllable (though a single unstressed introductory syllable may be used) and follow an alternating stressed/unstressed pattern. (One or two unstressed syllables may be used between stressed syllables, but having two adjacent stressed syllables is rare.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington's &lt;em&gt;Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar&lt;/em&gt; gives the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想再买一杯酒.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I'd like to buy another glass of wine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be analyzed as 我想 // 再买 // 一杯 // 酒, with stress pattern Xx // Xx // Xx // X. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the speaker wanted to add the word 去, the rhythm is disturbed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想再去买一杯酒.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most natural option is to parse this as 我想 // 再去 // 买 // 一杯 // 酒, but this is rhythmically unsatisfactory, since it leads to a stress pattern of  Xx // Xx // X // Xx // X. Both 再 and 买 should be stressed if the sentence is to maintain its emphasis on &quot;buy&quot; and &quot;another&quot;, but this is not possible within the trochaic rhythm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution is to delete the syllable 一 and say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想再去买杯酒.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pairs up nicely into stressed/unstressed trochees: 我想 // 再去 // 买杯 // 酒; Xx // Xx // Xx // X.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese speakers naturally add and delete words like 的 or 一 to fit the basic stressed/unstressed rhythm. The subject is complicated, and I'm not sure how well its completely understood. The difficulty for language speakers who aren't attuned to rhythmic variations is that it seems like the deletions are random, when in fact they're often manifestations of underlying rhythmical rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-01-31T19:01:57.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1094" CreationDate="2012-01-31T21:30:20.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for specific characteristics of particular accents, there are a couple I have noticed that have been fairly reliable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm usually able to tell whether someone is from Shanghai (or a nearby Wu-dialect area) based on the way they pronounce the word 能 (&lt;em&gt;néng&lt;/em&gt;).  Instead of the standard [nəŋ], they often say [nəɲ].  Note the [ɲ] (a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_nasal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;palatal nasal&lt;/a&gt; sound) rather than [ŋ] (a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velar_nasal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;velar nasal&lt;/a&gt; sound).  You can hear the differences on the Wikipedia pages that I linked.  If you happen to listen to &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesepod.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChinesePod&lt;/a&gt;, you may notice that Jenny typically pronounces 能 this way.  The reason for this particular pronunciation is because in Shanghainese and other Wu dialects, [ŋ] and [ɲ] are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allophone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;allophones&lt;/a&gt; of the same consonant and [ɲ] always occurs after the vowel /ə/.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tianjin folks sometimes pronounce initial &lt;em&gt;w-&lt;/em&gt; as [ʋ] (a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labiodental_approximant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;labiodental approximate&lt;/a&gt; sound that sounds somewhat like [v]).  There was some discussion of this sound on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sinoglot.com/bjs/2008/10/the-humble-v-says-veng-veng/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a post in the Beijing Sounds blog&lt;/a&gt;.  I don't necessarily know the real explanation for this, but this sound did exist in Late Middle Chinese (ca. 1200 AD) and is transcribed by linguists as &lt;em&gt;mv-&lt;/em&gt; (see note 2 under the table in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese#ref_mv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;).  All the &lt;em&gt;mv-&lt;/em&gt; sounds merged with &lt;em&gt;w-&lt;/em&gt; and Mandarin and &lt;em&gt;m-&lt;/em&gt; in Cantonese (e.g., 未 is &lt;em&gt;wèi&lt;/em&gt; in Mandarin and &lt;em&gt;mei&lt;/em&gt; in Cantonese), but it might be that in the Tianjin dialect &lt;em&gt;w-&lt;/em&gt; merged with &lt;em&gt;mv-&lt;/em&gt; and both came to be pronounced as [ʋ] (this is purely my speculation though).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we go to more general dialectical characteristics, you can often find &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;free variation&lt;/a&gt; of initial &lt;em&gt;n-&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;l-&lt;/em&gt; consonants in the south, particularly in Cantonese-speaking regions.  There is also free variation of &lt;em&gt;h-&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;f-&lt;/em&gt; around south-central China (i.e., Hunan region).  The latter probably has something to do with the fact that many /x/ and /ɣ/ sounds in Middle Chinese shifted to /x/ or /f/ (which correspond to pinyin &lt;em&gt;h-&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;f-&lt;/em&gt;, respectively) in various modern dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2012-01-31T21:30:20.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1087" CreationDate="2012-01-31T23:44:51.497" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience (Beijing), 带走 means take away or take out. 打包 means you want a doggy bag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: As a result of further observation, I've found that both 带走 and 打包 mean take away. However, if you want a doggy bag you would probably say 打包.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T15:03:01.670" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T15:03:01.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1031" CreationDate="2012-02-01T23:03:17.657" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;常常 simply means &quot;often&quot;, and is not very formal. You wouldn't find it in legal documents and such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经常 means &quot;frequently&quot; or &quot;regularly&quot;. It's not just conveying the frequency of something, but also its &lt;em&gt;regularity&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通常 also conveys frequency, but it's a bit more like &quot;usually&quot;. Under such-and-such a condition, &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; something often or usually happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I say 我常常在麦当劳吃饭, it just means that I &quot;often&quot; eat at McDonalds. But if it's 我通常在麦当劳吃饭, then when I have a meal, the &quot;normal&quot; or expected case is that I will be eating at McDonalds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is not really about the degree of frequency/infrequency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="396" LastActivityDate="2012-02-01T23:03:17.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="996" CreationDate="2012-02-01T23:07:46.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of the terms listed by Huang are very rarely used. 犹豫不决 and 犹豫 are by far the most common ones, and express the meaning of &quot;indecisive&quot; very directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="396" LastActivityDate="2012-02-01T23:07:46.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1050" CreationDate="2012-02-01T23:15:07.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“他一只蚂蚁搬东西” would sound very strange. &quot;他一个人&quot; is natural. I don't know if it's so much anthropomorphism as just treating &quot;一个人&quot; as a fixed expression which acts as an adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="396" LastActivityDate="2012-02-01T23:15:07.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="989" CreationDate="2012-02-01T23:30:18.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sure you've heard the expression in English: &quot;we were meant to be together&quot;. When applied to a romantic relationship, that's 缘分. Note, though, that Chinese apply 缘分 not just to romance, but also to friendship, especially friendships which result from a chance meeting. If the two of you have 缘分, then your meeting and becoming friends was &quot;meant to be&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be interesting to ask Chinese people if they actually believe in 缘分 -- is it a real force which exerts influence on things? Most of them do believe in it, even if they are not generally religious or superstitious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="396" LastActivityDate="2012-02-01T23:30:18.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1104" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-02-02T01:24:23.167" Score="4" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently same across this stumbling block in conversation; in one case I wanted to say &quot;doesn't lift a finger&quot; and in another &quot;without lifting a finger&quot;. These phrases mean that someone is extremely lazy or selfish and refuses to help with a task or to do something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English these have a certain emphasis and connotation and I want to find something similar in Chinese so I don't want to use &quot;他什么都不做&quot; or &quot;你什么都不用做&quot;. I am guessing there would be an idiom that I could use here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-02-02T07:08:36.037" LastActivityDate="2012-03-13T21:06:41.073" Title="How to translate &quot;doesn't lift a finger&quot; and &quot;without lifting a finger&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1105" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1110" CreationDate="2012-02-02T01:31:02.643" Score="10" ViewCount="1361" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several sayings and idioms similar to 四海一家 which reference &quot;四海&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the 四海 actually refer to 4 specific oceans such as the Indian, Pacific etc. or is it more of a metaphor for all of the oceans in the world?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="199" LastEditDate="2012-02-07T21:10:19.273" LastActivityDate="2012-02-07T21:10:19.273" Title="Specifics of the idiom &quot;四海一家&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1106" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1108" CreationDate="2012-02-02T01:41:57.193" Score="12" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/all/%E7%9E%A7&quot;&gt;瞧&lt;/a&gt; used every now and then in written Chinese, but I've rarely heard it said in spoken Chinese except for the occasional mention of 瞧不起.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of days ago I was watching &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_Panda&quot;&gt;Kung Fu Panda&lt;/a&gt; and it was used often enough in the dialogue that I noticed it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This had me thinking, do people actually use it in spoken Chinese regularly. Doing a Google search yields plenty of results, so it has me thinking that it must be common, just not within my circle of friends or family. Even with 瞧不起 I am more likely to hear 看不起.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is it very common in spoken Chinese? If so, is there a specific geographic location that is more likely to use it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:57:52.957" Title="How common is the use of &quot;瞧&quot; and which region?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1105" CreationDate="2012-02-02T01:53:58.253" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;四海如家 doesn't sound like an idiom. I think 四海为家 is what you are talking about. &#xA;In ancient china, people didn't have the idea of oceans named Pacific, Indian... They tended to believe china was surrounded by 4 seas, 东海, 南海, 西海, 北海(if you know the chinese myths you might have heard of 四海龙王). &#xA;In the idiom, 四海 means anywhere, or the whole world (Ancient chinese also believed the territory of Ancient China was the whole world).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-02-02T01:53:58.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1106" CreationDate="2012-02-02T02:41:54.070" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know the people of Beijing and Hebei province often use 瞧,for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瞧病（go to hospital）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瞧您说的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact,In most north parts of China use 瞧，such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让我瞧瞧（Let me see）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is often heard in Shanxi Province.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is more often to hear such word in dialect than in mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="234" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-02-02T02:41:54.070" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1104" CreationDate="2012-02-02T02:49:58.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK,you mean somebody is lazy,there are many idioms to describe such people,such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;游手好闲：指人游荡懒散，不愿参加劳动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好逸恶劳：逸：安逸；恶：讨厌、憎恨。贪图安逸，厌恶劳动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐享其成：享：享受；成：成果。自己不出力而享受别人取得的成果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐吃山空：只坐着吃，山也要空。指光是消费而不从事生产，即使有堆积如山的财富，也要耗尽。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不劳而获：获：获取，得到。自己不劳动却占有别人的劳动成果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饱食终日：终日：整天。整天吃饱饭，不动脑筋，不干什么正经事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact,it's too gentle to use these idioms to describe the lazy ones,using Xiehouyu(歇后语) is a good idea.for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懒驴子驾辕 - 不打不走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懒大嫂赶场 - 中间不急两头忙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懒婆娘坐轿 - 愿上不愿下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懒婆娘的针线筐 - 乱七八糟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懒鸡婆抱窝 - 守着摊几过&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懒木匠的锯子 - 不错(链)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懒人的铺盖 - 不理&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懒驴上磨 - 屎尿多(比喻懒惰的人一到干正事，便寻找借口逃避)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懒婆娘的裹脚 - 又长又臭(比喻文章篇幅长，内容空洞)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懒厨子做席 - 不想给你吵(炒)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倒了油瓶都不扶 - 懒到家了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃死老公睡崩床 - 懒婆娘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鹰饱不抓兔，兔饱不出窝 - 懒对懒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for me and my friends,we often use 倒了油瓶都不扶，in the past time,the oil is very precious for every Chinese family to use when they are cooking ,so how lazy someone is if he can allow the oil drain away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="234" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-02-02T09:07:49.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1105" CreationDate="2012-02-02T04:14:15.817" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Fivesheep pointed out, “四海” means &quot;the whole world&quot;. The word &quot;四海一家&quot; means &quot;the whole world is one family&quot;. It is used to expressed that &quot;we are family. we shall respect each other. we shall unite&quot;, something like this, to convey the politeness from the overseas Chinese people to the local people(in your case, the Australian people).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this word comes from the book of 《论语》. It records a speech from a Confucius's disciple &quot;子夏&quot;: &quot;四海之内，皆兄弟也。&quot;,which means &quot;[if you are a gentleman and you are polite to other people],all the people in the world are your brothers&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-02-02T04:14:15.817" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1106" CreationDate="2012-02-02T06:36:24.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen it used in Taiwan, but never heard anyone actually speak it.&#xA;I have seen it as subtitles of western movies or tv series as &quot;你瞧瞧&quot; , meaning &quot;Look at this!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="156" LastEditDate="2015-03-11T08:39:02.333" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T08:39:02.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1112" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1114" CreationDate="2012-02-02T10:48:39.677" Score="6" ViewCount="11592" Body="&lt;p&gt;On my birthday a friend wished me &quot;祝你年年有今日，歲歲有今朝&quot;. I can understand each of the individual words in this phrase, but the overall meaning is somewhat less clear to me (although I have some ideas about what it might mean). Searching around the web reveals many different translations into English, all with different nuances. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would one translate this phrase into English, in such a way as to accurately preserve the meaning of the original idiom? Are there particular contexts in which one would use the expression? Is it used by (or for) people of a particular age group? Lastly, are there any other Chinese expressions that use a similar pattern?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="135" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-02-02T13:17:30.023" LastActivityDate="2020-04-24T22:50:36.090" Title="How should one translate &quot;祝你年年有今日，歲歲有今朝&quot; into English?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1112" CreationDate="2012-02-02T16:43:27.780" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &quot;年年有今日&quot; and &quot;歲歲有今朝&quot; have the meaning of &quot;May you have today's glory forever.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually it's wished upon people on their birthdays. The contextual meaning is &quot;Although you are getting older as years pass by, I wish that you'll always have today's glory. And let today's good memory always be with you.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not used by a particular group. Other similar expressions include &quot;祝你青春永驻&quot;, which means &quot;may you have your youth forever&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-02-02T16:43:27.780" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="169" CreationDate="2012-02-03T06:48:09.000" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The preferred phonetic input method (like &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt;) for Cantonese is &lt;em&gt;Jyutping&lt;/em&gt; (粤拼/jyut6ping3/yue4pin1 in Mandarin).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In GNU/Linux, both SCIM and (the now preferred?) IBus have packages available that add Jyutping support. &#xA;They are available for Debian, but might be hard to find for other systems. At least I have only found .deb and .rpm for ibus-jyutping, and no source.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?2,90241,90241&quot;&gt;forum thread&lt;/a&gt; about getting compound words to work when using Jyutping in SCIM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="400" LastActivityDate="2012-02-03T06:48:09.000" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="308" CreationDate="2012-02-03T08:08:16.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two most common systems are Yale and Jyutping, the latter was invented as late as 1993. I think both are included alongside pinyin in Unicode's table of Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most native speakers don't use and are not even aware of these systems, especially in mainland China where Cantonese speakers never study their native language at school - it's hardly considered a &quot;real language&quot;.&#xA;I have heard though that natives tend to use Jyutping, while Yale is used in nearly all English teaching material for Cantonese and is thus more popular among foreigners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there is a third, obscure system with no tone information that nobody uses, except the HK government did when choosing all official, romanized place names, personal names, and so on. Oops. So neither system is good for reading romanized signs, maps et c!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd recommend learning and using Jyutping over Yale, for the following reaons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's recommended by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, who invented it. (Not a huge reason, but noteworthy.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is based on pinyin and uses the same letters for the same sounds. I think this is good for a Cantonese romanization system: many, many, &lt;em&gt;many&lt;/em&gt; more people know pinyin, thus Cantonese becomes more accessible by being compatible with it and avoiding confusion.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Jyutping distinguishes more sounds and is more accurate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Jyutping gets tones right, being straight-forward and consistent. It doesn't  mix tone information and &quot;spelling&quot;, like Yale (which sometimes uses double a:s or h:s to mark tones). It doesn't ignore tones entirely like the &quot;government system&quot;. And there are only 6 tones, unlike the 9-tone model responsible for the linguistic urban myth of &quot;look Cantonese has 9 tones, it's sooo hard to learn&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's takes a bit of work to get used to those 6 tones, but tones aren't optional. It's much more frustrating when you eventually speak the language somewhat well, you're trying to read signs with unfamiliar Chinese characters and the romanized text totally lacks tone data! What are you supposed to do, read all permutations and ask a native which one makes sense? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you learn Jyutping you can use it to input characters especially in Linux-systems, but also in Windows and perhaps Mac OS X, I think, by using commercial software.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="400" LastEditorUserId="400" LastEditDate="2014-09-23T16:24:45.587" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T16:24:45.587" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1118" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-02-03T16:33:04.567" Score="2" ViewCount="445" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Possible Duplicate:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1113/how-are-the-words-engineering-or-engineer-translated-in-cantonese&quot;&gt;How are  the words &amp;ldquo;engineering&amp;rdquo; or &amp;ldquo;engineer&amp;rdquo; translated in Cantonese?&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I love what I do and my family has no idea what I really do. I can explain it in English, but I have a hard time thinking of a way to explain it in Chinese. I am a computer engineer (and student) and I thought just saying &quot;computer engineer&quot; in chinese would make sense, i.e, 电脑工程师. I feel like I have to explain the engineering portion. I presume computers make sense to my native chinese people, but engineering isnt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I thought up was saying &quot;I build computers&quot; but its so inaccurate its almost offensive to myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engineering in english is someone who designs and builds a structure which will &quot;fix&quot; or improve a certain way of performing something, i.e improving a systems using whatever field of focus (mechanical, electrical, computer, etc) to improve how things are done. e.g, Cellphones were engineered to remove people from a land-line (very crude example), or cars moved people away from horse carriages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;good reference is from &lt;a href=&quot;http://Engineering%20is%20the%20discipline,%20art,%20skill%20and%20profession%20of%20acquiring%20and%20applying%20scientific,%20mathematical,%20economic,%20social,%20and%20practical%20knowledge,%20in%20order%20to%20design%20and%20build%20structures,%20machines,%20devices,%20systems,%20materials%20and%20processes.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Engineering: Wiki&lt;/a&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring&#xA;  and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical&#xA;  knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices,&#xA;  systems, materials and processes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="399" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-02-03T17:28:02.527" Title="Describe or explaining the Engineering occupation" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2012-02-04T17:18:15.633" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1118" CreationDate="2012-02-03T17:28:02.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, people know what &quot;工程师&quot; means. &#xA;If you say &quot;computer engineer&quot;, people will assume you are doing some programming work. If you can be more specific about what kind of engineering? It will explain everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, computer hardware engineer, software engineer,network engineer and so on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="227" LastActivityDate="2012-02-03T17:28:02.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1120" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-02-04T14:22:03.583" Score="130" ViewCount="39677" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/q/162&quot;&gt;community-maintained list of resources&lt;/a&gt; for learning Mandarin Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Alphabetical Index&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1325&quot;&gt;Add-ons (browser)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2523&quot;&gt;Apps&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1125&quot;&gt;Books&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1195&quot;&gt;Dictionaries&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2663&quot;&gt;Language Exchanges&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/41018&quot;&gt;Lists of Resources&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1213&quot;&gt;News&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1122&quot;&gt;Online Courses and Tutors&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1123&quot;&gt;Podcasts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/17648/8099&quot;&gt;Social Media&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2437&quot;&gt;Software&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1121&quot;&gt;Textbooks&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1233&quot;&gt;Websites&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just write in the appropriate answer/section. If you have concerns, questions, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/&quot;&gt;post a meta question&lt;/a&gt;, so we don't clutter the comments, but you can link your meta question from the comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Organization&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Answers have a type of resource &lt;strong&gt;each&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Please &lt;strong&gt;do not&lt;/strong&gt; include links to unlawful content (note: we are not international copyright lawyers).  If a resource is listed, it does not imply we endorse it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/q/159&quot;&gt;Both free and commercial resources are allowed&lt;/a&gt;, but make sure to include a note if they are. Remember the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/faq#promotion&quot;&gt;rules about self-promotion&lt;/a&gt;. Include also if registration is required.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Include links to the sites only, &lt;em&gt;don't post images&lt;/em&gt;, they would take too much space.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Add the resources &lt;strong&gt;in alphabetical order&lt;/strong&gt; so they're easier to find.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Please only include resources that have some kind of notoriety (we don't want to be flooded by useless resources).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: new rules could be added in the future.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T01:00:25.033" LastActivityDate="2021-04-05T00:33:18.310" Title="Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="13" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="182" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-04T14:22:32.723" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1120" CreationDate="2012-02-04T14:23:38.913" Score="14" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Textbooks&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Chinese_textbook_grammar_index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese textbook grammar index&lt;/a&gt; at the Chinese Grammar Wiki.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Learning&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yong Ho, &lt;em&gt;Beginner's Chinese&lt;/em&gt;, 2010.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0781812577&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;ShaoLan. &lt;em&gt;Chineasy Everyday: Learning Chinese Through Its Culture&lt;/em&gt;, 2016.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0062439715&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;.  (Now &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineasy.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;available as an app&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Kan Qian, &lt;em&gt;Colloquial Chinese: The Complete Course for Beginners&lt;/em&gt;, 2015.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1138958271&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.routledge.com/Colloquial-Chinese-The-Complete-Course-for-Beginners-2nd-Edition/Kan/p/book/9781138958272&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Routledge&lt;/a&gt;.  Texts, exercises, grammar highlights, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jiang Liping, &lt;em&gt;HSK Standard Course (HSK标准教程)&lt;/em&gt;, ~2018.  Amazon: HSK &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B07PRPG8QV&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B07PNSZSYZ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B07PMV711L&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B07PQZZ16F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4上&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B07PMVPFDT&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4下&lt;/a&gt;；&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B07RGSRZJ7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;5上 and 5下&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/7561942540&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;6上&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B01MY6TUTQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;6下&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yuehua Liu et al., &lt;em&gt;Integrated Chinese: Simplified Characters Textbook, Level 1, Part 1 中文听说读写&lt;/em&gt;, 2008. &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0887276385&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cheng-tsui.com/store/products/integrated_chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cheng &amp;amp; Tsui&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yong Ho, &lt;em&gt;Intermediate Chinese&lt;/em&gt;, 2013.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0781813115&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Peking University, &lt;em&gt;Modern Chinese: A Basic Course&lt;/em&gt;, 1971.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0486227553&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Liu Xun, &lt;em&gt;New Practical Chinese Reader&lt;/em&gt;, 2004. &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/7561910401&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;James W. Heisig and Timothy W. Richardson, &lt;em&gt;Remembering Traditional Hanzi&lt;/em&gt;  and &lt;em&gt;Remembering Simplified Hanzi&lt;/em&gt;, 2008+.  Amazon: &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0824833244&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;T1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0824836561&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;T2&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0824833236&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;S1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0824836553&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;S1&lt;/a&gt;; Nanzan &lt;a href=&quot;http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/en/publications/miscellaneous-publications/remembering-hanzi-1/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;T1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/en/publications/miscellaneous-publications/remembering-traditional-hanzi-ii/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;T2&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/en/publications/miscellaneous-publications/remembering-hanzi/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;S1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/en/publications/miscellaneous-publications/remembering-simplified-hanzi-ii/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;S2&lt;/a&gt;.  A method for memorizing Chinese characters without their pronunciation.  (See also: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.plecoforums.com/threads/heisigs-remembering-simplified-hanzi-1-2.3114/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a fan-made dataset&lt;/a&gt; for simplified characters.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yuonne Li Walls and Jan W. Walls, &lt;em&gt;Using Chinese - A guide to contemporary usage&lt;/em&gt;, 2009.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B00QIT3OBE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reference&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Muhammad Wolfgang G. A. Schmidt, &lt;em&gt;All the Grammar and Language Points For Each Of The Six Levels of the Chinese Language Proficiency Test (HSK)&lt;/em&gt;, 2018.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/3959354738&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yip Po-Ching and Dan Rimmington, &lt;em&gt;Chinese - An Essential Grammar&lt;/em&gt;, 2006.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0415372615&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Charles N. Li and Sandra A. Thompson, &lt;em&gt;Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar&lt;/em&gt;, 1989.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0520066103&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books/about/Mandarin_Chinese.html?id=njea2LBW4jcC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Books&lt;/a&gt;.  Only pinyin (no characters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Claudia Ross and Jing-heng Sheng Ma, &lt;em&gt;Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide (Modern Grammars)&lt;/em&gt;, 2014.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0415827140&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dejin Li and Meizhen Cheng, &lt;em&gt;A Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners (外国人实用汉语语法)&lt;/em&gt;, 2008.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/7561921632&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;.  Bilingual (English and Chinese); characters only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Claudia Ross, &lt;em&gt;Schaum's Outline of Chinese Grammar&lt;/em&gt;, 2004.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0071635262&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-26T08:40:02.850" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T08:40:02.850" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-04T14:23:38.913" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1120" CreationDate="2012-02-04T14:24:05.840" Score="14" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Online Courses&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesefor.us/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChineseFor.Us&lt;/a&gt; is a video course (around &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesefor.us/pricing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 9.99 per month&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineselearnonline.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Learn Online&lt;/a&gt; is an audio course taught from Taiwan; paid account (starting at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineselearnonline.com/amember/signup/signup_2020may&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 19.95 per month&lt;/a&gt;) required for transcript, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesezerotohero.teachable.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Zero to Hero&lt;/a&gt; is a video course based on the HSK (sample videos are on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ3IlLg5VGeydxtswBoyt6A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube&lt;/a&gt;); bundle price varies e.g. $US 29 for HSK1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Coursera&lt;/a&gt; includes many free Chinese courses, such as Chinese for HSK &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.coursera.org/learn/hsk-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.coursera.org/learn/hsk-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.coursera.org/learn/hsk-3-part2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.coursera.org/learn/hsk-4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.coursera.org/learn/chinese-for-hsk5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;5&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.coursera.org/learn/chinese-for-hsk-6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;6&lt;/a&gt; (payment required for course verification).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://culturealley.com/mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Culture Alley&lt;/a&gt; provides free language conversations and games, and includes Mandarin; paid expert help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iTunesU&lt;/a&gt; provides a variety of free Mandarin courses, such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/beginners-chinese-audio/id380227642&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Beginners' Chinese&lt;/a&gt; by The Open University and &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/beginning-chinese/id705335764&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Beginning Chinese&lt;/a&gt; by Seton Hall University.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.edx.org/school/mandarinx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MandarinX&lt;/a&gt; provides free online courses such as &amp;quot;Mandarin Chinese Essentials&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Mandarin Chinese for Business&amp;quot; (course verification costs $US 99).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.melnyks.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Melnyks&lt;/a&gt; provides Chinese audio lessons; paid account (starting at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.melnyks.com/amember/signup&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 97 per year&lt;/a&gt;) required for transcript, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.outlier-linguistics.com/products/how-to-learn-chinese-characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Outlier Chinese Character Masterclass&lt;/a&gt; provides instruction on character components, etc., for $US 99.00.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://popupchinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Popup Chinese&lt;/a&gt; provides Chinese lessons via podcasts; paid account (&lt;a href=&quot;http://popupchinese.com/account&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 99.99 per year&lt;/a&gt;) required for mp3, transcript, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://yoyochinese.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yoyo Chinese&lt;/a&gt; provides video lessons, etc.; starts at around &lt;a href=&quot;https://yoyochinese.com/store&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 88&lt;/a&gt; per bundle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tutors&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.berlitz.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Berlitz&lt;/a&gt; provides a range of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.berlitz.com/languages/mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin classes&lt;/a&gt;; pricing is not immediately available on their website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://instantmandarin.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Instant Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; provides 1-on-1 online courses; bundles start with 12 lessons at &lt;a href=&quot;https://instantmandarin.com/pricing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 120&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ltl-beijing.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LTL Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; provides a variety of tutoring methods; with pricing in the ballpark of &lt;a href=&quot;https://ltl-beijing.com/chinese-tutor-beijing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;￥150 per hour&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://thatsmandarin.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;That's Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; provides a variety of tutoring and learning methods; with pricing in the ballpark of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thatsmandarin.com/course/online/small-group-chinese-classes/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;￥70 per hour&lt;/a&gt; with pricing for 1-on-1 lessons at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thatsmandarin.com/course/online/private-chinese-classes/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;￥165 per hour&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="27848" LastEditDate="2021-04-02T20:16:00.847" LastActivityDate="2021-04-02T20:16:00.847" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-04T14:24:05.840" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1120" CreationDate="2012-02-04T14:24:23.610" Score="16" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Podcasts&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find many such podcasts by searching for &lt;code&gt;Chinese&lt;/code&gt; on e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?&amp;amp;q=site%3Aopen.spotify.com%20chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Spotify&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://tunein.com/search/?query=chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tune In&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesepod.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChinesePod&lt;/a&gt; has many Chinese lessons, starting at around &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinesepod.com/pricing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 14 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://radiolingua.com/coffeebreakchinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Coffee Break Chinese&lt;/a&gt;; transcript requires paid account, starting at &lt;a href=&quot;https://radiolingua.com/coffeebreakchinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;£96 once-off&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://popupchinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Popup Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://learningchinesethroughstories.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Learning Chinese through Stories&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mei-ri-shi-pin-xin-wen/id297394794&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;每日视频新闻&lt;/a&gt; video podcast news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.melnyks.com/learn-chinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Melnyks&lt;/a&gt; (also at &lt;a href=&quot;https://tunein.com/podcasts/Educational/Learn-Chinese---Easy-Situational-Mandarin-Chinese--p886447/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tune In&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://radio.garden/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Radio Garden&lt;/a&gt; enables listening to radio worldwide, including Chinese radio, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://radio.garden/listen/beijing-joy-radio-87-6-fm/Ts6_sOlz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Joy FM&lt;/a&gt; (Beijing) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://radio.garden/listen/kissradio-fm-99-9/zD7B9jSe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kiss Radio&lt;/a&gt; (Taiwan).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://speakchinesenaturally.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Speak Chinese Naturally&lt;/a&gt;; transcript requires paid account, starting at &lt;a href=&quot;https://speakchinesenaturally.com/join-us-2/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 3.99 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineasy.com/talk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Talk Chineasy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youcanlearnchinese.mandarincompanion.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;You Can Learn Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;YMC Learn Chinese (&lt;a href=&quot;https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ymc-learn-chinese/id1516233289&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Apple&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCye2eRed9pzbORP-KnwF8TQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-love-learning-chinese/id883679859&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;I Love Learning Chinese&lt;/a&gt;: dialogues focusing on a phrase or grammatical structure with Chinese sentences translated into English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNmZr4WBw71bdJYjaycLodA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大鹏说中文-Speak Chinese With Da Peng&lt;/a&gt; has short (~ 5 min) podcasts on daily Chinese expressions which are described in clear and relatively simple Chinese. There are also longer (~15 min) podcasts on various topics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="23374" LastEditDate="2020-12-23T00:06:58.870" LastActivityDate="2020-12-23T00:06:58.870" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-04T14:24:23.610" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1120" CreationDate="2012-02-04T14:25:00.050" Score="8" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Books&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Graded readers&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesebreeze.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Breeze&lt;/a&gt; series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sinolingua.com.cn/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sinolingua&lt;/a&gt; series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://mandarincompanion.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin Companion&lt;/a&gt; series (simplified and traditional).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cheng-tsui.com/browse/tales-and-traditions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tales and Traditions&lt;/a&gt; series at Cheng &amp;amp; Tsui.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note: Fig. 7 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jamesloach.com/papers/readability.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Loach&lt;/em&gt; (2017)&lt;/a&gt; analyzes the difficulty of Mandarin Companion and Sinolingua.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Novels&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Live_(novel)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;活着 (To Live)&lt;/a&gt;, available from &lt;a href=&quot;https://blah.me/read/1824/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blah.me&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chinesebookclub/comments/5pb4yx/corpus_of_chinese_novels_sorted_by_difficulty/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a Reddit /r/chinesebookclub post&lt;/a&gt; sorts Chinese novels by difficulty (&lt;a href=&quot;https://raw.githubusercontent.com/brendan-t/haodoo/master/haodoo-books.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;results&lt;/a&gt;).  The YouTube channel &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJxNLvWAnazm1w-EKoo7Z_Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kuo’s Audiobooks&lt;/a&gt; has readings of Harry Potter novels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user13604" LastEditDate="2020-12-22T12:03:38.397" LastActivityDate="2020-12-22T12:03:38.397" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-04T14:25:00.050" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1126" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1127" CreationDate="2012-02-04T19:39:15.587" Score="7" ViewCount="1946" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that a typical way to negate a verb is to stick 不 in front of it. But I learned some phrases that use 别 instead: 别担心, 别客气 and so on, all of them in short polite fixed phrases. I know that I could change 别 into 不 in those phrases too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's the difference between those words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-02-05T06:26:41.643" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T17:32:12.720" Title="Difference between 别 and 不" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;negation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1126" CreationDate="2012-02-04T20:17:27.480" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;不 means &quot;not&quot; and 别 means &quot;do not.&quot; One is a simple negation, and the other is a (negative) command.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-02-04T20:17:27.480" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1128" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1132" CreationDate="2012-02-05T06:23:30.683" Score="5" ViewCount="840" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned 接着 a while ago, and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?wdqb=%E6%8E%A5%E7%9D%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CEDICT definition&lt;/a&gt; is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to catch and hold on / to continue / to go on to do sth / to follow / to carry on / then / after that / subsequently / to proceed / to ensue / in turn / in one's turn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today I encountered 继续 for the first time, and it has &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?wdqb=%E7%BB%A7%E7%BB%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this definition&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to continue / to proceed with / to go on with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they mostly interchangeable? It looks like 接着 has a few more meanings, but are there any situations where 继续 is preferred? Are there any differences in tone or formality?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T12:03:56.183" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T12:03:56.183" Title="Difference between 继续 and 接着" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1128" CreationDate="2012-02-05T06:35:39.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;except the meaning 'catch something', 接着 usually has a function as 'then' in English.&#xA;继续 means 'go on', 'continue'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-02-05T06:35:39.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1130" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1133" CreationDate="2012-02-05T07:52:28.570" Score="10" ViewCount="514" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ask after encountering the &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/chi/sentences/show/868376&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;following sentence&lt;/a&gt; in Tatoeba: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;再过两、三个月，你就能说得一口流利的英语了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="403" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T12:02:32.480" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T12:02:57.420" Title="Is 再过［时间］ the most common way of expressing &quot;in [amount of time], something will happen&quot;?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1023" CreationDate="2012-02-05T08:02:22.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;星期X is more written word.&#xA;周X is more spoken word.&#xA;But in most cases, you can switch those words equally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="404" LastActivityDate="2012-02-05T08:02:22.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1128" CreationDate="2012-02-05T14:28:24.763" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of &quot;接着&quot; and &quot;继续&quot; can mean &quot;to continue&quot;(of course,either of them has other meanings), in this case, I would say &quot;接着&quot; must have an infinitive while &quot;继续&quot; may not have. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在太晚了，明天再接着写吧。  &lt;strong&gt;Right&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;em&gt;It's too late now. [I suggest you]continue to write tomorrow.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  现在太晚了，明天再继续写吧。  &lt;strong&gt;Right&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;It's too late now. [I suggest you]continue to write tomorrow.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  现在太晚了，明天再继续吧。   &lt;strong&gt;Right&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;It's too late now. [I suggest you]continue tomorrow.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  现在太晚了，明天再接着吧。   &lt;strong&gt;Wrong&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-02-05T14:28:24.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1130" CreationDate="2012-02-05T14:47:21.107" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, your guess is right. However, I think you should focus on the character &quot;再&quot; here. There are several such patterns with &quot;再&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pattern &quot;再 + verb + [], [] + 就 + []&quot; is used to express a condition, a premise; remember that &quot;过&quot; here means &quot;[time, etc] to pass, to elapse&quot; and &quot;再&quot; means &quot;to continue to do something&quot; or &quot;to do something again&quot; here. This pattern is somewhat like the pattern &quot;if sb/sth continues to do sth,sb/sth will...&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;再向前走500米，你就会看见那栋建筑。 &lt;em&gt;[if you ]continue to go forward for 500 meters, you will see that building.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;再&quot; here implies &quot;you&quot; have covered a distance already, so now you continue to walk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;再写一个小时我就去睡觉。 &lt;em&gt;[I want to ]continue to write for 1 hour, then I will go to bed.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;再&quot; here implies &quot;I&quot; have written for a while, so I want to continue to write.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;再骚扰我，我就报警。 Warning: &lt;em&gt;I will call the police if [you] continue to harass me.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;再&quot; here implies &quot;you&quot; have harassed me for some time, so now you continue to harass me or harass me again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a police officer is chasing a criminal, he would warn the criminal,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;再跑我就开枪了! &lt;em&gt;I will shoot [if you continue to] run/escape.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-02-07T06:09:20.147" LastActivityDate="2012-02-07T06:09:20.147" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1130" CreationDate="2012-02-06T07:20:57.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even without 再, it still means &quot;in [amount of time].&quot; For example, &quot;过几天&quot; means &quot;after a few days&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have any statistics, but yes, I think that using 过 is the most natural and common way to express this concept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="396" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T12:02:57.420" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T12:02:57.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="678" CreationDate="2012-02-06T15:24:41.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;总是 means &quot;every time.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一直 means &quot;continuously.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is &quot;discrete.&quot; The second is &quot;continuous.&quot; But they both mean &quot;always.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-02-06T15:24:41.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1128" CreationDate="2012-02-06T15:28:13.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;接着 has the connotation of &quot;picking up,&quot; after an interruption. Sometimes it could refer to &quot;passing the baton&quot; to another person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;继续 also means continue, but without the &quot;picking up&quot; connotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-02-06T15:28:13.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="578" CreationDate="2012-02-06T16:10:16.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate 完 as &quot;complete,&quot; and 了 as &quot;done.&quot; 完了 would then be a very emphatic &quot;completely done.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-02-06T16:10:16.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="578" CreationDate="2012-02-07T06:34:27.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers give some good examples, so I'll try to provide an answer from a grammatical perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完 can be used as a resultative complement meaning &quot;to finish doing something&quot;. You put it after a verb to mean that you finished doing that verb. 「吃完」 means &quot;finish eating&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 has &lt;em&gt;many&lt;/em&gt; different uses, but the one that I first learned was as a past tense marker. 「吃了」 means &quot;ate&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, to talk about something that you finished doing in the past, you combine the two. 「我吃完了」 means, &quot;I finished eating.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a ton more detail to learn with these two words. I suggest you look at the Chinese grammar wiki &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Complements&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;complements page&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_completion_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;completion with 了 page&lt;/a&gt;, and maybe the &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Uses_of_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;many uses of 了 page&lt;/a&gt;. I expect most beginner or early intermediate textbooks will cover these topics as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2012-02-07T06:34:27.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1139" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1142" CreationDate="2012-02-07T13:41:58.510" Score="22" ViewCount="8730" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Pimsleur Mandarin course it uses &lt;code&gt;如果&lt;/code&gt; (rúguǒ) to mean 'if', but the dictionary shows &lt;code&gt;要是&lt;/code&gt; (yàoshì) to have a similar meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果: if; in case; in the event that&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  要是: if&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any differences between the meanings of the two, and how should I choose which to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="42" LastEditDate="2012-02-07T20:48:13.677" LastActivityDate="2021-03-18T09:36:25.640" Title="Difference between 如果 and 要是?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1139" CreationDate="2012-02-07T16:22:49.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;要是 might be translated, if, supposing. There is a &quot;wish&quot; element to this construction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果 also means, &quot;if&quot; (in case) as the OP postulated, in a strictly factual sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-02-07T16:22:49.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1139" CreationDate="2012-02-07T17:51:53.917" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is quite slight. The word '要是' is, typically, an oral expression of 'if', it's fine to use it in usual talk, but might be improper to use it in any formal text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="409" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-02-07T18:28:09.833" LastActivityDate="2012-02-07T18:28:09.833" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1139" CreationDate="2012-02-08T02:12:16.570" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, they mean the same:&amp;quot;if&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;要是&amp;quot; is a little informal and more common in oral speaking, while &amp;quot;如果&amp;quot; is formal, I think, but you will see both of them in books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could only catch up with one differences in use between them. For &amp;quot;要是“, because there is a &amp;quot;是&amp;quot; inside, when the verb in the &amp;quot;if-clause&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;是(to be)&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;是&amp;quot; can be ommitted, however, &amp;quot;是&amp;quot; can't be ommitted when using &amp;quot;如果”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要是我，[我]就不会那么做。 &lt;em&gt;If [it were] me, [I] won't do that way.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果是我，[我]就不会那么做。&lt;em&gt;If [it were] me, [I] won't do that way.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I don't agree with Tom Au that only &amp;quot;要是&amp;quot; has a &amp;quot;wish&amp;quot; mood. I think &amp;quot;如果&amp;quot; can be used in this case too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要是我有100万就好了。 &lt;em&gt;It's good if I have 1 million&lt;/em&gt;,really means &lt;em&gt;I wish I could have 1 million&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果我有100万就好了。 &lt;em&gt;It's good if I have 1 million&lt;/em&gt;,really means &lt;em&gt;I wish I could have 1 million&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-02-08T02:12:16.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1143" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1786" CreationDate="2012-02-08T02:14:40.750" Score="4" ViewCount="626" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, Zhuyin fuhao, or Bopomofo, is the first system of phonetic symbols devised to aid to write Chinese phonology.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That was in 1910, so we could say very recent in the history of Chinese.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So I wonder if the way in that the phonemes, or sounds if you will, were grouped and assigned a symbol did in any way standardize the phonemes that were in use by Chinese.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to be clear, what I mean is, I can imagine that may be two or more characters that had slightly different phonemes or sounds and/or tones, were standardized with a single bopomofo or later Pinyin to make things simpler. Did this happen?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because before any attempt to make a phonetic writing system, I'm not sure if everybody knew that two different characters that were later rendered with the exact same bopomofo, were in fact the same sound, or slighltly different sounds.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean, before bopomofo, there wasn't a standard way or a common phonetic &lt;em&gt;base language&lt;/em&gt; to refer to when stating that two characters were pronounced the same, for example, I guess in that time you had to say 气 sounds just like 七 (ignoring tones) and now you can refer to Pinyin and say both are rendered &lt;em&gt;qi&lt;/em&gt; thus referring to a common base. (just imagine that this characters sounded a little different, may be one closer to &lt;em&gt;zhi&lt;/em&gt; and the other closer to &lt;em&gt;chi&lt;/em&gt; to illustrate my point)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if I was clear, if not, please ask and I'll try to explain better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T13:50:01.083" Title="Did phonological systems (namely bopomofo) standardize Chinese phonemes?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1139" CreationDate="2012-02-08T02:50:34.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com.hk/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=%E5%A6%82%E6%9E%9C%20%E8%A6%81%E6%98%AF%20%E5%B7%AE%E5%88%A5&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;ved=0CCUQFjAA&amp;amp;url=http://zephyr.nsysu.edu.tw/NCL2011/%25E5%258F%25A3%25E9%25A0%25AD/%25E6%259D%258E%25E4%25BD%25B3%25E9%2599%25B5/%28%25E5%2585%25A8%25E6%2596%2587%29%25E6%259D%258E%25E4%25BD%25B3%25E9%2599%25B5-%25E5%2581%2587%25E8%25A8%25AD%25E9%2580%25A3%25E6%258E%25A5%25E8%25A9%259E%25E3%2580%258C%25E5%25A6%2582%25E6%259E%259C%25E3%2580%258D%25E8%2588%2587%25E3%2580%258C%25E8%25A6%2581%25E6%2598%25AF%25E3%2580%258D%25E7%259A%2584%25E8%25AA%259E%25E7%25BE%25A9%25E5%258F%258A%25E8%25AA%259E%25E7%2594%25A8%25E5%2588%2586%25E6%259E%2590.pdf&amp;amp;ei=D94xT6zoH8-viQfQ6Z3sBA&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNEX68v-ayFD6q4eOnPlPo2M4zJQSA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;paper&lt;/a&gt; with 20 pages which described the difference between 如果 and 要是, but it is in Chinese. I don't have the time to translate it now. Must edit later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="411" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T11:51:28.803" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T11:51:28.803" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1143" CreationDate="2012-02-08T08:43:42.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For 'phoneme', it is defined as &quot;In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances&quot; in &lt;a href=&quot;https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Phoneme&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt;. In different languages, the sets of phonemes would be different, and the difference would include one phoneme in one language would correspond to several phonemes in another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not quite familiar with bopomofo. The symbols in it should correspond to one phoneme in Chinese each. But that does not mean they are pronounced in the same way in every syllable. The different way of pronouncing one phoneme is call &lt;a href=&quot;https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Allophone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;allophones&lt;/a&gt;. For Chinese people, these allophones would be heard as the same or at least very similar with no affection on meaning. For people from other language background, they can be heard as very different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, one bopomofo correspond to one phoneme in Chinese, but it can contain several allophones. These allophones can be heard differently, especially be foreigners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-02-08T08:43:42.770" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1146" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1148" CreationDate="2012-02-08T13:44:25.447" Score="6" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is taken from the phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;口感依成分不同而不同&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sounds like it means &quot;manifold&quot; or something like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-02-08T17:41:12.377" Title="What is the meaning of 不同而不同?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1147" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-02-08T16:25:58.377" Score="9" ViewCount="503" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese has a number of words with meanings like 'implement, execute, carry out', etc. These include 进行, 实行, 实施, 行使, 落实, 执行, and possibly a few others. These words are commonly used in bureaucratic, official, or journalistic prose, but it is difficult to get a handle on their usage and meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: How are these different words used, and what differences of nuance do they have, if any?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T09:58:50.357" Title="Different nuances of words such as 进行, 实施, 执行, etc" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1146" CreationDate="2012-02-08T16:32:48.580" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, here the real pattern that you should focus on is “依[A]而[B]&amp;quot;, which means &amp;quot;according to A, B is/does...&amp;quot;,remember 依 means &amp;quot;according to, based on&amp;quot; here. So your example means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The tastes are different, according to differen ingredients.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you would say, &lt;em&gt;The tastes of different ingredients are different.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;单价依采购量而定。 &lt;em&gt;The unit price is determined based on the purchase quantity.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-02-08T17:41:12.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1149" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-02-08T18:04:22.980" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-02-08T18:04:22.980" LastActivityDate="2012-02-08T18:04:22.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1150" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-02-08T18:04:22.980" Score="0" Body="For questions about simplified Chinese (standardized in printing since the 1950s in mainland China).  Not merely for questions which happen to be written in simplified Chinese." OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T04:01:56.720" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T04:01:56.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1143" CreationDate="2012-02-08T19:49:14.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&#xA;Since bopomofo and Pinyin are used as aids to literacy only by native speakers, they are not relying on those systems to learn how to pronounce the words in the first place. Any influence on pronunciation would be no greater than teachers in Taiwan pointing out that there is a difference between sh and x (Pinyin sounds): kids might do it in the classroom, but five minutes later on the playground, it's all x.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Ain't&quot; isn't &quot;proper English&quot;, and every English class for native speakers gives a class about how it should not be used. Yet people who were brought up speaking that way continue to use it regardless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Input trumps learning every time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="312" LastActivityDate="2012-02-08T19:49:14.423" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1152" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-02-09T00:49:31.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese dialect spoken in and around Guangzhou city (formerly Canton), and central and western Guangdong province. Because many overseas Chinese originated from this area, Cantonese is more common among overseas communities than it is among the general Chinese population. This is particularly true of those who emigrated in the 19th and early 20th centuries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-02-09T04:54:59.887" LastActivityDate="2012-02-09T04:54:59.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1153" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-02-09T00:49:31.220" Score="0" Body="The Chinese dialect spoken in and around Guangzhou city (formerly Canton), and central and western Guangdong province." OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-02-09T04:53:28.763" LastActivityDate="2012-02-09T04:53:28.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1143" CreationDate="2012-02-09T02:47:15.660" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, Bopomofo and other schemes were based on the pronunciation of Beijing dialect. That is, Bopomofo and pinyin are a representation of the phonological inventory of Mandarin as pronounced in Beijing. I don't believe that this involved standardising 'two or more characters that had slightly different phonemes or sounds and/or tones' with a single bopomofo (or later Pinyin) to 'make things simpler'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the creation of Bopomofo and pinyin involved drawing distinctions that were not found in other dialects of Chinese (including other pronunciations of Mandarin). One example is the distinction that pinyin draws between 'sh' and 's', which is missing from many dialects, even northern dialects (modern-day Dongbei, for example). It is therefore also possible that the opposite case was true, i.e., some distinctions drawn in other dialects were not drawn in the pronunciation of Beijing, and therefore ignored in Bopomofo and pinyin. I'm not knowledgeable about non-Beijing phonological inventories and have no way of commenting on this, but it is conceivable that the choice of Beijing dialect as standard (rather than, say, Nanjing or other varieties) &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt; have involved getting rid of certain phonological distinctions found in other varieties of Mandarin. This was not caused, however, by the adoption of Bopomofo, but by the choice of a particular variety as standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pronunciation of individual words has also been manipulated quite extensively in pinyin usage in order to bring about standardisation (I'm not sure about Bopomofo). For example, 法国 'France' was originally pronounced fàguó; it has now been standardised as fǎguó. 往 was originally pronounced wàng; it is now standardised as wǎng. There are many other cases where pronunciations have been standardised, including the abolition of alternative readings. But this is quite a different matter from making changes to the phonological inventory of the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think the answer to your question must be that, no, neither Bopomofo nor pinyin involved simplifying Mandarin phonological distinctions (where Mandarin is defined as based on Beijing pronunciation) out of existence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastEditorUserId="285" LastEditDate="2012-02-09T04:50:55.007" LastActivityDate="2012-02-09T04:50:55.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1155" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-02-09T04:43:28.323" Score="4" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that 偷工减料 is frequently used to describe intentionally (and perhaps secret) shoddy construction. When I translate it, I usually say &quot;Cut corners&quot;. However, I think 偷工减料 has a very negative connotation, whereas &quot;cut corners&quot; has a somewhat less negative connotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 偷工减料 have a much more negative connotation than &quot;cut corners&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I use 偷工减料 to describe intentionally purchasing inferior product that everyone knows about? For example, let's say that an IT department purchases a lower-end computer rather than a high-end (and perhaps more up to an acceptable standard) computer. They do so publicly and with everyone's knowledge. Can I call this &quot;偷工减料&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="327" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T03:24:14.967" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T14:29:36.990" Title="Can 偷工减料 be used to describe the intentional and open purchasing of somewhat inferior product?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1157" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1158" CreationDate="2012-02-09T05:59:10.553" Score="10" ViewCount="842" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E4%B8%AD%E4%B8%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dictionary&lt;/a&gt; lists both Middle East and Eastern China for 中东. Is one of these meanings more common? What would be a native speaker's first impression of the word? Does the meaning vary from mainland, Taiwan, S'pore etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE: I have since removed the meaning &quot;Eastern China&quot; from CC-CEDICT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-03T10:09:07.277" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T10:09:07.277" Title="中东 - &quot;Middle East&quot; or &quot;Eastern China&quot;?" Tags="&lt;place-names&gt;&lt;proper-nouns&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1157" CreationDate="2012-02-09T06:15:05.103" Score="11" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In all the news reports in Mainland China, &quot;中东&quot; refers to Middle East. This can be seen as a convention -- as a native speaker, if I hear &quot;中东&quot;, I will definately think of the Middle East. You can take a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E4%B8%AD%E4%B8%9C&quot;&gt;Wikipedia Page of 中东&lt;/a&gt;, and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/19973.htm&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike Page of 中东&lt;/a&gt;. Only one meaning is referred on both pages -- Middle East.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If anyone wants to refer to Eastern China, they will say &quot;中国东部（地区）&quot;. The dictionary lists Eastern China for &quot;中东&quot;, which looks like a result from translation software... So the dictionary makes a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if 中东 has any other meaning in Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. But when I search for 中东, I also noticed that in Japanese, the combination of these two Characters also refers to Middle East.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="357" LastActivityDate="2012-02-09T06:15:05.103" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1157" CreationDate="2012-02-09T06:22:03.863" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you only see &quot;中东&quot;, that means &quot;the Middle East&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you want to express the &quot;middle east area of China&quot;, you should say&quot;中东部&quot; or &quot;中东部地区&quot;, never say &quot;中东&quot;. “部”here means &quot;part&quot;, so &quot;中东部&quot; gets the meaning of &quot;the middle east part[of this country, China]&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-02-09T06:45:21.747" LastActivityDate="2012-02-09T06:45:21.747" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1160" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1162" CreationDate="2012-02-09T06:39:32.560" Score="7" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an official list of place names (esp. for non-Chinese places)? If a bureaucrat or journalist in China is writing about a lesser-known foreign place, how do they determine the characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I usually use Google maps for Chinese place names, are these names official in any way? Does anyone know how Google determined the characters for so many obscure places?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T11:33:22.623" Title="Official place names" Tags="&lt;proper-nouns&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1155" CreationDate="2012-02-09T06:43:23.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the character &quot;偷(to steal)&quot; implies, the action of &quot;偷工减料&quot; is generally done secretly. I am not familiar with the phrase &quot;Cut corners&quot;, so I can't make a comparison between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take your case of purchasing computers for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am selling computers and the parts. A company listed the requirement of the computer(CPU model, RAM size, GPU model, etc) and we sealed a contract, so I will supply the company with the computer,say 100, with such a configuration and I will get $100,000 from the company. However, for some(say 3) computers, I select second-hand/old/flawed/other model(low-end) hardwares to setup the computer, because I can save the cost and thus make more money. There are only 3 bad computers out of 100 in total, so I think it's safe to do so. My such behavior could be called &quot;偷工减料&quot;. Of course, this behavior is very negative, and the company will certainly sue me over this if it finds what I did.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the company itself just wants to save money and says,&quot;the computers should not be so good, you can sell us low-end computers(I.e, 128M RAM, P4 processor, integrated GPU)&quot; and I just satisfy this requirement, I should not be called &quot;偷工减料&quot;. But the company's employers, like you, would say &quot;公司真抠门!&quot;(The company is so mean!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-02-09T07:32:11.433" LastActivityDate="2012-02-09T07:32:11.433" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1160" CreationDate="2012-02-09T09:04:58.870" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the PRC, the official agency that decides this seems to be the 中国地名委员会 (China Commission on Place Names).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They published a book called 外国地名译名手册 (Reference Book of Translated Foreign Place Names), which according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/395126.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this Baidupedia entry&lt;/a&gt; includes the official translations of 18,000 place names plus general rules for translating place names from several different languages into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="330" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T11:33:04.953" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T11:33:04.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1155" CreationDate="2012-02-09T19:10:46.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;偷工减料 means shoddy/poor workmanship and lousy/substandard materials. It is not something you would use to describe intentionally buying something that is inferior or less expensive. It is by nature something that is deceptive or dishonest or even corrupt and dangerous. It is more severe than cutting corners, which is sometimes associated with the term &quot;cost down&quot; if cost reduction is being done dishonestly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-09T19:10:46.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="505" CreationDate="2012-02-10T03:26:40.990" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As xiecheng mentioned, tones changes are very complicated, and there is unfortunately little material on subject. Not that you care to this extent, but one can actually &quot;map&quot; tones using audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net). If you do that, you'll see that tones change a lot when they are in sentences and that how and the extent to which a tone can change, depends on where it appears in a sentence. For example, third tones tend to drop, but they rarely come back up when they are at the end of sentences. Also fourth tones change when they are next to each other, etc. These changes are not the same as the ones that occur when you have &quot;不&quot; or &quot;一&quot; right before a fourth tone, but I think they are interesting to study and knowing about them will certainly make you sound more &quot;native-like.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastActivityDate="2012-02-10T03:26:40.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="488" CreationDate="2012-02-10T03:36:00.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;NTU has a very good one, and you can (I think) download it here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.ntu.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinese.ntu.edu.tw/&lt;/a&gt;. It used to be free, but I don't know if they started changing. Also if you have Chinese friends you can ask them to correct your pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastActivityDate="2012-02-10T03:36:00.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1167" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1173" CreationDate="2012-02-10T06:11:09.013" Score="6" ViewCount="447" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 人民 and 民族, for example in 中华人民 vs. 中华民族?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T05:21:51.060" Title="What is the difference between 人民 and 民族？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1167" CreationDate="2012-02-10T07:43:32.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first means &quot;people&quot; as in citizens or nationals and the second means &quot;ethnic group&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-10T07:43:32.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="470" CreationDate="2012-02-10T07:54:44.850" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way to think of it is 狗 as &quot;dog&quot; and 犬 as &quot;canine&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-10T07:54:44.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="849" CreationDate="2012-02-10T07:57:42.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me 有时 feels more like &quot;sometimes&quot; and 偶尔 feels more like &quot;occasionally&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-10T07:57:42.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1139" CreationDate="2012-02-10T09:44:09.587" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me the biggest difference is &quot;flavor&quot;. Sometimes I like the way one sounds, sometimes I like the way the other sounds. For example, I think if I were giving someone an ultimatum, I might use 如果 because to me in that situation it sounds stronger and more consequential, whereas 要是 might feel weaker or more matter-of-fact (if you do this, such-and-such will happen). This might just be my own personal preference - I'm not sure if other people feel the same way or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-10T09:44:09.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="114" CreationDate="2012-02-10T09:48:42.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think if you growl like a dog &quot;Grrrrrrr&quot; but with your tongue curled back, you'll pretty much have it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-10T09:48:42.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1167" CreationDate="2012-02-10T10:05:37.290" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;人民 is translated as &quot;(the) people&quot;. You can find it in popular expressions like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;人民共和国 = People's Republic; as Huang said in the comments, if we include China it becomes &quot;中华人民共和国&quot;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;人民币 = Renminbi (the Chinese currency. 币 means &quot;money, coins, currency&quot;.)  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;人民日报 = &quot;People's Daily&quot; (a newspaper)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;民族 means &quot;ethnic group, nationality&quot;, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中央民族大学 &lt;em&gt;Central University for Nationalities&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;All of the examples have been taken from the CEDICT dictionary.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2012-02-10T10:05:37.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1160" CreationDate="2012-02-10T20:27:24.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyinplaces.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pinyinplaces.com&lt;/a&gt; has an extensive list of countries, cities, and states and provinces. I contacted the author, and he said he compiled the lists by buying a bunch of atlases and country maps from Chinese bookstores and culling the transliterations from them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T11:33:22.623" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T11:33:22.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1078" CreationDate="2012-02-11T06:04:24.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhonghuayuwen.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zhonghuayuwen.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw this website today. It is related to what I mentioned in the comment to the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Recently I saw a piece of news of a book being published later this year with a background of Mainland China and Taiwan cooperation, which can be used as a dictionary. – coolcfan yesterday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now you don't need to wait to buy the book. The link above is the official site of the cooperation project and it provides an online version of the dictionary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when you search for 垃圾 on that site, it will give you the following result:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大陆规范字形 垃圾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;台湾标准字体 垃圾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;读音&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PCnWE.gif&quot; alt=&quot;大陆读音&quot;&gt;汉语拼音：lājī&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PCnWE.gif&quot; alt=&quot;大陆读音&quot;&gt;注音符号：ㄌㄚ ㄐㄧ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EEuF1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;台湾读音&quot;&gt;汉语拼音：lèsè&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EEuF1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;台湾读音&quot;&gt;注音符号：ㄌㄜˋ ㄙㄜˋ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;释义&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  1、废弃物的统称。[例]～山︱～车︱～堆。2、比喻没有意义或引起不良作用的人或事物。[例]～邮件︱清除社会～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to use this website:&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when you search for 印表机, you will see &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8eZIB.gif&quot; alt=&quot;台湾词语&quot;&gt; and “见【打印机】” in the &lt;code&gt;释义&lt;/code&gt; section. This means: 1. 印表机 is a Taiwan word; 2. 打印机 is a word with the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then when you click on the link on “见【打印机】”, you will see &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6YQ5w.gif&quot; alt=&quot;大陆词语&quot;&gt; on the page, which means this is a Mainland word. In the &lt;code&gt;释义&lt;/code&gt; section you will see:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;计算机的输出设备，可以把文字、图表等直接印在纸上。&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8eZIB.gif&quot; alt=&quot;台湾词语&quot;&gt; 即“印表机”；也作“列印机”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you will know that for printer, 打印机 is the Mainland word, and 印表机 or 列印机 is the Taiwan version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="357" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T11:45:06.693" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T11:45:06.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1176" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1178" CreationDate="2012-02-11T09:52:49.197" Score="4" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wargame is 战争游戏 and tabletop game is 桌上游戏 so I'm assuming that &amp;quot;Tabletop Wargaming&amp;quot; is 桌上战争游戏? Is this the term used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This type of game is also called &amp;quot;Miniature Wargaming&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Miniwargaming,&amp;quot; is there another word for this is Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I am referring to tabletop strategy war games played with miniature figures and terrain).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-24T23:44:05.273" LastActivityDate="2020-06-24T23:44:05.273" Title="Is 桌上战争游戏 the term used for &quot;Tabletop Wargaming / Miniwargaming&quot;?" Tags="&lt;games&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1176" CreationDate="2012-02-12T01:50:07.180" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the answer should be 陆战棋 or 军棋. Although in the original designs the pieces don't look like figures, the game rules are similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="423" LastActivityDate="2012-02-12T01:50:07.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1176" CreationDate="2012-02-12T13:16:03.053" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;At least on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%98%E9%94%A440000&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Wikipedia article about Warhammer 4000&lt;/a&gt;, 桌上战棋游戏 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2012-02-12T13:16:03.053" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1179" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1180" CreationDate="2012-02-12T16:56:00.780" Score="4" ViewCount="540" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the correct way to form a sentence expressing the opposite of 得 (have to) as in &quot;to not have to&quot;.  I don't think 不得 is correct?! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*我不得工作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am thinking something like...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不需要工作 or&#xA;  我不用工作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a better way to construct &quot;do not have to?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T11:29:35.937" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T11:29:35.937" Title="Opposite of constructions using 得 (must / have to)" Tags="&lt;negation&gt;&lt;antonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1179" CreationDate="2012-02-12T17:23:16.877" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct in that 不得 is not the correct negation for 得 (&lt;em&gt;děi&lt;/em&gt;). The generally recognized negation for 得 is 不必 (&lt;em&gt;bùbì&lt;/em&gt;), although 不需要 (&lt;em&gt;bùxūyào&lt;/em&gt;) and 不用 (&lt;em&gt;bùyòng&lt;/em&gt;) are perfectly fine as well; you could also use 无须 (&lt;em&gt;wúxū&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-02-12T17:39:29.847" LastActivityDate="2012-02-12T17:39:29.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1181" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1182" CreationDate="2012-02-12T17:58:00.890" Score="2" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am referring to events such as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Festival&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Edinburgh Festival&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T11:29:48.450" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T11:29:48.450" Title="What is Chinese for &quot;Arts Festival&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1181" CreationDate="2012-02-12T18:02:32.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ha.. found it by looking up the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eif.co.uk/simplified-chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese Edinburgh Festival site&lt;/a&gt;. Guess I should have searched around more before asking here. Answer is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;艺术节&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;节 means festival in most situations where the English word would be used, so Edinburgh Festival is 爱丁堡节, film festival is 电影节。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2012-02-12T23:51:31.807" LastActivityDate="2012-02-12T23:51:31.807" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1183" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-02-12T20:18:20.767" Score="8" ViewCount="379" Body="&lt;p&gt;What characters are depicted on this old jar? My (art-)sources have all different opinions: &quot;fu2 shou4 an1 kang1&quot; or &quot;fu2 lu4 shou4 xi3&quot; or 4 x shou4 or &quot;fu2 shou4 kang1 ning2&quot; and all without telling which tree is what character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HB9YG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="425" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T16:03:39.843" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T00:10:03.430" Title="What characters are on this ceramic jar?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1183" CreationDate="2012-02-12T21:41:32.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be 福壽康寧 (&lt;em&gt;fú shòu kāng níng&lt;/em&gt;; simplified: 福寿康宁).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;福&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;康&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;壽&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;寧&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty certain about the first 3; 寧 is the only one that is hard to tell, but based on context, it should be 寧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: And this is what it means: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.bing.com.cn/#%E7%A6%8F%E5%AF%BF%E5%BA%B7%E5%AE%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;good fortune, long life, health and peace&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-02-12T21:49:03.050" LastActivityDate="2012-02-12T21:49:03.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1185" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1188" CreationDate="2012-02-13T00:24:30.800" Score="4" ViewCount="5314" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the usual way to say something along the lines of &quot;when I was young, petrol was cheap&quot; or &quot;when I was a kid, my family lived in Mexico&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T14:54:20.433" Title="Correct way to say &quot;when I was young...&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1185" CreationDate="2012-02-13T01:27:27.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native speaker but I have seen it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我小时候...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2012-02-13T01:27:27.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1179" CreationDate="2012-02-13T01:46:32.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a supplement. There is actually a word &quot;不得&quot;,which is a formal way to say &quot;should not&quot;,&quot;not to be allowed&quot;,&quot;to be prohibited&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may say &quot;我不得工作&quot;,which means &quot;I am prohibited to work&quot;,&quot;I should not work&quot;, however, this meaning sounds very weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also take care of the pronunciations. When &quot;得&quot; means &quot;to have to&quot;,&quot;must&quot;,the pinyin is &lt;strong&gt;dĕi&lt;/strong&gt;,while for &quot;不得&quot;, pinyin is &lt;strong&gt;bù dé&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-02-13T05:48:57.293" LastActivityDate="2012-02-13T05:48:57.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1185" CreationDate="2012-02-13T03:46:51.050" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;当我年轻的时候，...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我年轻的时候，...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;年轻的时候，...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;年轻时，...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, you are talking about the time when you were a young man (&lt;strong&gt;note&lt;/strong&gt;: not a kid nor a teenager). Perhaps you are now in your 40s/50s/60s etc, and you are talking about your 20s/30s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;当我年幼的时候，...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;当我还小的时候,...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我年幼的时候，...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我还小的时候，...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我小时候，...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;小时候，...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, you are talking about the time when you were a kid or teenager.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-02-13T10:30:49.310" LastActivityDate="2012-02-13T10:30:49.310" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1179" CreationDate="2012-02-13T04:43:56.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;don't have to&quot; could also be expressed as 不一定得.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-13T04:43:56.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1147" CreationDate="2012-02-13T06:55:54.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, it's all about the context of how they are used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;进行 refers the the advancement/progression/implementation of something that is currently under way, while 实行 refers to the (initial/early/start up) implementation/execution of something. Such as putting a theory into practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实施 refers to exercising/implementing/carrying out an order/command/action, while 行使 refers to exercising/implementing/carrying out a right/power/privilege/item (legal, sovereignty).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落实 refers to executing/exercising/implementing a decision, while 执行 might refer to exercising/executing/implementing a plan or course of action. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2012-02-13T06:55:54.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1191" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-02-13T12:35:21.943" Score="4" ViewCount="5256" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;No worries&quot; in English is used as a statement expressing that the speaker regards a task / problem / setback as inconsequential, or that a task is easy to complete. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: &quot;You're going to be late for work.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: &quot;No worries. My boss doesn't get in 'till lunchtime.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: &quot;Can you have this completed by Wednesday?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: &quot;No worries.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an equivalent phrase in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-02-14T21:23:06.543" Title="Chinese equivalent of &quot;no worries&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1191" CreationDate="2012-02-13T13:00:38.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say in both cases, &amp;quot;别担心&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别 : &lt;em&gt;don't&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;担心 &lt;em&gt;to worry&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so &amp;quot;别担心&amp;quot; is very close to &amp;quot;don't worry&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;no worries&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-02-13T13:00:38.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1191" CreationDate="2012-02-13T13:14:52.117" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although not a direct translation, &amp;quot;沒關係/没关系&amp;quot; or  &amp;quot;沒問題/没问题&amp;quot; can also sometimes mean &amp;quot;don't worry&amp;quot; depending on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒關係/没关系 - It doesn't matter (note: not suitable for the 2nd example)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒問題/没问题 - No problems (ok for both examples)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="60" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-02-13T13:14:52.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1120" CreationDate="2012-02-13T20:35:30.797" Score="11" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Dictionaries &lt;br/&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Online&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.almaany.com/en/dict/en-zh/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Almaany&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;Bkrs (mostly in Russian)&lt;/s&gt;  (removed for copyright reasons, see comments to the answer &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30478/bkrs-chinese-dictionary&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordlist.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CantoDict&lt;/a&gt; includes Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.czyzd.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;潮州音字典&lt;/a&gt; is a pinyin based dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fastchinese.org/dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Tutor Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/chinese-english&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Collins Mandarin Chinese Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cca.xingtanlu.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Collocation Search&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dict.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://forvo.com/languages/zh/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Forvo&lt;/a&gt; pronunciation dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HanDian (汉典)&lt;/a&gt; (zdic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://hanzicraft.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HanziCraft&lt;/a&gt; character dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strike&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;nciku&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strike&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Line Dict&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cn.linguee.com/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87-%E8%8B%B1%E8%AF%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Linguee&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG English-Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mo eDict&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/search.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Revised Taiwan Academic Online Dictionary 重編國語辭典修訂本&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wordbuddy.com/pages/dictionary/dictionarysearch.php?&amp;amp;force=1&amp;amp;search_type=a&amp;amp;search_words=nihao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WordBuddy Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Xiaoma Cidian (小马词典)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Youdao&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Image search provided by &lt;a href=&quot;https://image.baidu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bing.com/Images&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bing&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://images.google.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google&lt;/a&gt; can be used as a visual dictionary.  Many dictionaries are listed at &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/Dictionaryphile/All_Dictionaries&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dictionaryphile&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Technical&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iicm.org.tw/term/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Computer Term Translations (電腦名詞譯名)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.drdict.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dr. Dict&lt;/a&gt; medical dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cosdna.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cosdna.com&lt;/a&gt; for chemistry and cosmetics&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scidict.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SciDict&lt;/a&gt; for science, biomedical, mechanics, chemistry and computer science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://library.hkbu.edu.hk/electronic/libdbs/mmd/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Medicinal Material Images Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Offline&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;ABC dictionary - available as a paid-for add-on in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt;. Gives parts of speech and rates homonyms by frequency of usage. See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/41195/2508&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://simonwiles.net/projects/cc-cedict/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://cc-cedict.org/wiki/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiki&lt;/a&gt;) is downloadable as a plain text file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hanping Chinese Dictionary Pro 汉英词典 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.embermitre.hanping.app.pro&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android; $US 2.99&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pleco-chinese-dictionary/id341922306&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pleco.chinesesystem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) free dictionary with example sentences; many additional features e.g. OCR via in-app purchases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wenlin.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wenlin&lt;/a&gt;.  Non-introductory versions start at &lt;a href=&quot;https://wenlinshangdian.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 2.99 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many dictionaries are downloadable from &lt;a href=&quot;http://download.huzheng.org/zh_CN/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HuZheng.org&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-09-22T07:20:47.867" LastActivityDate="2020-09-22T07:20:47.867" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-13T20:35:30.797" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="486" CreationDate="2012-02-14T02:51:33.320" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners&lt;/em&gt;, which is a great book for non-Chinese speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="429" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-04T02:34:05.857" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T02:34:05.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1197" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1199" CreationDate="2012-02-14T04:34:29.543" Score="1" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to CC-CEDICT, this means both &quot;foot&quot; and &quot;leg&quot;. How does one know when this word refers to either foot or leg? It is difficult to discern when CC-CEDICT does not include sample sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="430" LastActivityDate="2012-02-14T09:32:01.977" Title="Meaning of the word 腳" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1191" CreationDate="2012-02-14T04:42:33.157" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the first meaning of regarding something as inconsequential, I think 没事 could also work since it can mean &quot;it won't be a problem&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你會遲到了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒事， 我的老闆中午才會到辦公室。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or something like that. I'm not a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-14T04:42:33.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1197" CreationDate="2012-02-14T08:40:10.243" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;脚 is 'foot', 腿 is 'leg', but in some dialects of Chinese 脚 is used for both foot and leg (I know this is the case in some Sichuan dialects).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastActivityDate="2012-02-14T08:40:10.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1191" CreationDate="2012-02-14T09:23:44.433" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another equivalent expression is 不要紧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastActivityDate="2012-02-14T09:23:44.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1197" CreationDate="2012-02-14T09:32:01.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found that at least some Mandarin speakers (I don't know about other dialects of Chinese) use the word 脚 loosely. For example, if they say &quot;我的脚不舒服&quot; it might actually mean their leg doesn't feel good rather than their foot doesn't feel good. However, they wouldn't say &quot;我的腿不舒服&quot; to mean their foot is uncomfortable. So, 脚 seems to be a more general term and 腿 a more specific term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-14T09:32:01.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1183" CreationDate="2012-02-14T10:05:45.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did some more research regarding the fourth character and found this in a book I did buy in China.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s6Q1L.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;scan chinese book&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't read it (I'm collecting art...) but recognize the 寿 (shou) between quotes, so is it 寿 in a different way of writing as 3 ? But then some time ago a Dutch professor in Chinese suggested 喜, Huang thinks it's 乐 and Claw 寧. So the mystery remains...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="425" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2018-12-29T00:10:03.430" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T00:10:03.430" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1191" CreationDate="2012-02-14T21:23:06.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the closest translation is 放心吧. It literally translates to &quot;put your suspended heart down&quot; and its contextual meaning is &quot;no worries&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-02-14T21:23:06.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1205" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1208" CreationDate="2012-02-15T01:21:10.947" Score="1" ViewCount="795" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E4%BF%AE%E5%85%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dictionary&lt;/a&gt; defines 修养 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;accomplishment / training / self-cultivation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However many examples in context seem to have the sense of the development of being a gentleman / lady, or being cultured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what kind of personal development 修养 implies. In western bookshops, for example, there is often a &quot;self help&quot; section. Is this 修养? What about religious practice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-02-15T09:19:04.997" Title="Meaning of 修养­­­­" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1206" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1207" CreationDate="2012-02-15T08:33:01.033" Score="8" ViewCount="875" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title mostly covers the question, but some elaboration might help.  In English, there is a common construction of ideas whereby the speaker makes a statement about an action or event, and follows this sentence with a comment about how it isn't good, depending on the tense of the action or event being described.  Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Past tense:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Last year I didn't exercise at all.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;might be followed by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;This didn't turn out well for me, the doctor said I was overweight.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;This didn't turn out well&quot; is a mildly colloquial way of saying that the previous topic ended up being negative in some way, with the implication that this was at least somewhat surprising to the speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Present tense:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I'm really late to class.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;followed by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;It's not good, my teacher will be very upset.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It's not good&quot; is a bit idiomatic, but refers to the previous statement negatively impacting the subject of the sentence, however doesn't portray any sense of surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Future tense:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Next year, I'm going to be working three jobs.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;followed by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;We'll see how it turns out, but I don't think I'll be sleeping next year.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, &quot;We'll see how it turns out&quot; conveys that the speaker is unsure if the future action or event will be positive or negative, and the second half of that sentence clarifies that the speaker thinks it will turn out negatively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these examples end up conveying the same general message, that &lt;strong&gt;the topic of the previous statement will negatively impact the speaker or subject&lt;/strong&gt;.  I'm looking for a Chinese phrase or fragment which conveys a similar meaning, as well as how to structure a sentence using it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="67" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T09:18:27.083" Title="What is an idiomatic way to say &quot;This is not good&quot; in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1206" CreationDate="2012-02-15T09:11:14.630" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In all these situations I would use one of these&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;这样不好&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;这样不太好&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;这样好象不好&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;short, simple and broadly usable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;adds a feeling of &quot;not optimal&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;adds some level of uncertainty to the statement.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-02-15T12:26:11.523" LastActivityDate="2012-02-15T12:26:11.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1205" CreationDate="2012-02-15T09:19:04.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/54173.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;指人的行为和涵养，与人的性格、心理、道德、文化等有着紧密的联系，即为人综合素质的表现。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simple Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;修养 refers to a person's behavior and conservation, which is closely linked with his personality, psychological state, moral view, cultural knowledge and things. It is the overall quality of a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is a big word. It can refer to how much a person knows in a particular area, or how a person treat the others, or many things else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="357" LastActivityDate="2012-02-15T09:19:04.997" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1209" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1214" CreationDate="2012-02-15T12:57:12.447" Score="5" ViewCount="735" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone please clarify how and when 做 is used to mean &quot;to be&quot; e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不愿做奴隶人们&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am familiar with 做 meaning &quot;to do&quot; or &quot;to make&quot;, and I would expect that if I was saying &quot;I am a slave&quot;, “我是一个奴隶“ would be preferable to “我做一个奴隶“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 做 used in the first instance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-09T22:24:48.500" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T22:24:48.500" Title="How and when is 做 used as the verb &quot;to be&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1209" CreationDate="2012-02-15T13:31:38.707" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;做 also means '(to) do' in 不愿意做奴隶的人们, you can try to translate it like this: the folks who don't want to do a slaver('s job).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我长大之后要做医生&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I want to [be a doctor]/[do a doctor's job] when I grow up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做 means some kind of action, while 是 means it's a state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-12T01:20:21.893" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T01:20:21.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1206" CreationDate="2012-02-15T13:51:44.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also like 真不好 and even the colloquial 糟糕 for some of the examples you wrote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-15T13:51:44.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="67" CreationDate="2012-02-15T16:21:57.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I speak Chinese well, but I can't imagine speaking to my young daughter primarily in anything but English since 1) that's my best language by far, and 2) it's important that she develop outstanding English language skills because she is in the US. I think your intentions are good but there might be better ways of achieving the goal. Have you looked into bilingual/immersion schools? If you do that, you get the best of both worlds...fluency in English at home and fluency in another language at school. I think that's the absolute best way to go if it's available to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-15T16:21:57.347" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1120" CreationDate="2012-02-15T17:09:25.383" Score="9" Body="&lt;h2&gt;News&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Australian &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.abc.net.au/news/chinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ABC中文&lt;/a&gt; News.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cn.theaustralian.com.au/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Australian&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;BBC News中文: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;simplified&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;traditional&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tv.cctv.com/live/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;China Central Television (CCTV / 中国中央电视台)&lt;/a&gt; live stream.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ftchinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FT中文网 - Financial Times Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.msn.cn/zh-cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MSN News&lt;/a&gt; has Chinese-English bilingual articles labelled 双语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cn.nytimes.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;纽约时报中文网 - New York Times&lt;/a&gt;: English-Chinese parallel text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Australian &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sbs.com.au/language/mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SBS News Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; (and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sbs.com.au/language/mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;audio podcast&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://news.sina.com.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sina新闻中心&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中国日报网&lt;/a&gt;: China Daily (&lt;a href=&quot;https://language.chinadaily.com.cn/news_bilingual/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bilingual&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T05:57:47.757" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T05:57:47.757" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-15T17:09:25.383" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1209" CreationDate="2012-02-16T13:08:06.720" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;做&quot; has a meaning of &quot;充当，担任&quot; (serves as, work as) (from 现代汉语词典 Modern Chinese Dictionary). It is different from &quot;是&quot; (to be).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The nuance of English and Chinese here is a little different. In Chinese, we don't say &quot;I don't want to be [a slave]&quot; (我不愿是[奴隶]). It is always &quot;I don't want to serve as (become, etc.) a slave&quot; (我不愿做(成为)奴隶).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-02-16T13:08:06.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1215" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1217" CreationDate="2012-02-16T14:38:01.910" Score="3" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;The full sentence was more or less: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;差点没把人家给盯背过去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if it was a phrase, or if it just meant that they were staring at the person's back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="442" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-30T23:47:35.917" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T23:47:35.917" Title="What does 给盯背过去 mean in 差点没把人家给盯背过去?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1216" PostTypeId="7" CreationDate="2012-02-16T14:59:31.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese Stack Exchange Site is for experts, language enthusiasts and people who have interest in the Chinese language. Whether you're a native speaker or not, this is the place for you. This site is about discussing about the finer points of the language, but also about less expert questions that might be encountered both when learning the language itself or when you're just interested in how it works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to see an additional list of what is Off Topic and On Topic, please &lt;a href=&quot;http://meta.chinese.stackexchange.com/q/237/43&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Can I request a translation?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We do not forbid translation requests but note that &lt;strong&gt;this is not a translation service&lt;/strong&gt;, so we will close any translation request that does not show research effort. Make sure you clearly show it in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Should I post in English or Chinese?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions and answers can be written both in Chinese and English on the Main Site &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt;. The Meta site should be in English only, though. This is a request by the Stack Exchange team so they can communicate with us. So, on the Main site you can choose either language, but we suggest a guideline that has been used on other Stack Exchange sites as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the question is in English, please answer in English;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the question is in Chinese, please answer in Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In either case, if you're not as comfortable in the question's language, you can provide a brief but complete answer in the original language, and then a more detailed answer in your preferred language. Other users may help improve your translation. Translations are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; mandatory, they are just &lt;em&gt;helpful&lt;/em&gt; for users who are not fully bilingual. But keep in mind that if your answer is correct without providing a translation, the OP might not consider it as much as it deserves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Can I ask for resources?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short answer is: &lt;em&gt;No, but it depends&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are already a few common resource questions collected under the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/resources&quot;&gt;resources tag&lt;/a&gt; that were asked in the early days of Beta. But most of these questions are locked, as they are not fit to the Q&amp;amp;A format. In any case, since they are highly requested, &lt;em&gt;we set up &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/1120/43&quot;&gt;a question that groups resources for learning or improving your Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. You're free to add more material to it, but make sure you read the instructions before posting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do ask for another list of resources, please &lt;em&gt;be very careful&lt;/em&gt; how you phrase your question. Open-ended, chatty questions are explicitly discouraged on the Stack Exchange network. The &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/01/real-questions-have-answers/&quot;&gt;Real Questions Have Answers&lt;/a&gt;&quot; post gives this advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We're not saying that you should never ask for a list of suggestions, but when you do, you should ask for something as specific as possible. &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/510/16&quot;&gt;Board games to practice speaking&lt;/a&gt;, for example. Avoid vague questions like, &quot;What are some good web sites for learning Chinese?&quot; as they are going to be closed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do have a chatty, open-ended question, visit our &lt;a href=&quot;http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/1984/chinese-language-and-usage&quot;&gt;chat room&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-01-16T22:06:02.410" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T22:06:02.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1215" CreationDate="2012-02-16T16:27:39.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this means that you are staring at people in a rude way which makes them so uncomfortable that they might want to turn their back at you to avoid eye contact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the &quot;背&quot; here is not a noun but a action which is performed by the person who is being stared at. Hope this will help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="443" LastActivityDate="2012-02-16T16:27:39.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1218" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1219" CreationDate="2012-02-17T06:07:40.453" Score="3" ViewCount="712" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know a few ways to say &amp;quot;more&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;in addition&amp;quot;, and I'm wondering which to use when translating this sentence. I came across the following English sentence and its Chinese translation on &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/890676&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May I ask you some more questions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我可以問你一些問題嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, it looks like the Chinese version has slightly changed the meaning to &amp;quot;May I ask you some questions?&amp;quot; Is that right, or is the &amp;quot;more&amp;quot; somehow implied?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I wanted to propose an alternate translation that clearly talks about &amp;quot;more questions&amp;quot;, would any of these work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我可以再问你一些问题嗎？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我可以問你更多問題嗎？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我可以問你一些更多問題嗎？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there better ways to translate this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-02-18T03:20:10.083" Title="Ways to say &quot;more&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1218" CreationDate="2012-02-17T07:32:46.043" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;For &lt;code&gt;May I ask you some more questions?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我可以再问你一些问题吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the way we speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;code&gt;我可以再问你几个问题吗？&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 几个 doesn't mean &quot;how many&quot;; while it means &quot;several&quot;. And 再 means &quot;again&quot;. So &quot;several again&quot; refers to &quot;some more&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;code&gt;可以再问你几个问题吗？&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because the subject of a sentence in Chinese is not always necessary -- saying like this infers that &quot;it's me who want to ask more questions&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;code&gt;可以再问几个问题吗？&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if the conversation happens only between two people (&quot;you&quot; and &quot;I&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我可以問你更多問題嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a wrong sentence, but we'd rather not use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我可以問你一些更多問題嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一些 and 更多 should not be used together directly like this. This is like a sentence translated word by word with a translation software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="357" LastEditorUserId="357" LastEditDate="2012-02-17T07:38:45.020" LastActivityDate="2012-02-17T07:38:45.020" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1218" CreationDate="2012-02-17T08:10:18.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another approach would be to say 我还有几个问题想问你. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-17T08:10:18.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1218" CreationDate="2012-02-17T09:41:12.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;* NON NATIVE-SPEAKER DISCLAIMER *&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about something using 另外?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*我还有一些另外的问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我还有另外一些问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Corrected following comment :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2012-02-17T10:59:12.660" LastActivityDate="2012-02-17T10:59:12.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1238" CreationDate="2012-02-17T13:42:45.470" Score="2" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there (m)any Chinese words that are their own antonyms? Similar to English &quot;terrific&quot;, &quot;wicked&quot;, etc. (which originally had negative meanings and now have positive meanings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I imagine that as Chinese words are so heavily tied to their etymology (and the meaning of the characters used to write them), &quot;auto-antonyms&quot; would be rare??? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2012-02-17T16:27:54.807" LastActivityDate="2012-02-21T08:02:12.063" Title="Chinese words that are their own antonyms" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;antonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1223" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1229" CreationDate="2012-02-17T13:47:44.310" Score="14" ViewCount="49477" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically I am looking for words in common usage which are roughly synonymous with English &quot;cool&quot;, &quot;wicked&quot;, &quot;awesome&quot;, &quot;sweet&quot;, and related positive slang adjectives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also like to know how common these kind of words are in Chinese (because in English there are so many).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T17:42:50.687" Title="How to say &quot;cool&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1224" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1225" CreationDate="2012-02-18T14:04:07.363" Score="2" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that the &quot;language&quot; descriptor on a movie, tv show, or comic is always listed using 语 instead of 文. (国语, 英语, 德语, etc) instead of 英文.  This is common even when listing the subtitles (although with subtitles I also see 文).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it that 语 is used so much in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T05:34:19.247" Title="Why is 语 used so much when describing the language media is presented in?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1224" CreationDate="2012-02-18T15:12:46.380" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 语 refers more specifically to &lt;em&gt;spoken&lt;/em&gt; language, which is what you find in a movie, as opposed to &lt;em&gt;written&lt;/em&gt; language, 文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="444" LastActivityDate="2012-02-18T15:12:46.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1223" CreationDate="2012-02-18T16:10:38.640" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;他很酷 (tā hěn kù) means &quot;He is cool&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a transliteration of &quot;cool&quot; using the sounds found in the Chinese language. I'm sure there are other ways to say it, but that is the most direct that I know of. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很帅 (tā hěn shuài) is closer to &quot;He is handsome&quot;. This could also be used to say someone is &quot;cool-looking&quot;, I believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;棒 (bàng) means great, awesome, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个电影的音响效果很棒！ = &lt;em&gt;This movie's sound effects are great!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-02-18T22:30:54.470" LastActivityDate="2012-02-18T22:30:54.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1027" CreationDate="2012-02-18T16:16:01.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I received (and sent) several of these messages. I copied down some phrases to use later:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝您事业兴旺！ = &lt;em&gt;May your career be prosperous!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝您福寿绵长！ = &lt;em&gt;I wish you a long &amp;amp; happy life!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝您龙年大吉！ = &lt;em&gt;I wish you a very lucky Dragon Year!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝您万事如意！ = &lt;em&gt;May everything be exactly as you wish it to be!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I can tell, Chinese often string many different phrases together with commas, so you might get something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝您龙年快乐，事业兴旺，福寿绵长，万事如意！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-02-19T00:16:12.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1222" CreationDate="2012-02-18T16:19:44.107" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this is exactly what you're asking, but 厉害 (li4hai) can have both a good or bad meaning depending on the context. For example, if a student says a teacher is li4hai they probably mean strict. If you do something and demonstrate great ability, someone might say, &quot;Wow! You're really li4hai!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2012-02-18T16:19:44.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1223" CreationDate="2012-02-18T18:19:33.127" Score="16" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;酷！= &quot;Cool!&quot;, transliteration from English&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;酷毙了！= &quot;Cool to die for&quot; (was a popular phrase in the 90s)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;牛！ = literally means bull, but here means &quot;genius&quot;; used to describe &lt;em&gt;people only&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他数学太牛了！He's so good at math!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个杂技演员太牛了！The acrobat is so talented!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;太棒了！= literally &quot;Too great!&quot;, or &quot;Fantastic!&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;爸妈下周带我们去海边。Mom and Dad will take us to the beach next week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;太棒了！Awesome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;帅！= &quot;Handsome!&quot; (&quot;帅翻了&quot; is also a popular phrase used among teenage girls. I don't know how much adults understand/like this usage.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;帅呆了！(was a popular phrase in the 90s)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;周杰伦已经过气了，现在最火的是许嵩。你看了她新出的MV了吗？Jay Chou is passé. Xu Song is what everybody's been talking about lately. Have you seen the music video he just posted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个字，帅！(Literally:) I can only use one word to describe it - handsome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;爽！= what you say when you are feeling refreshed and comfortable (after having some ice-creams on a hot summer day, taking public revenge on your long-time enemy&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;爽死了！&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;真好！= &quot;Really/truly good!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;真不错！= literally &quot;really not bad&quot;; &quot;Really good!&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;厉害！= used to express admiration of someone's skill (If you want to use it in a sentence, remember to say &quot;他很厉害/他特别厉害/他超级厉害&quot;; &quot;他厉害&quot; is incorrect.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="542" LastEditDate="2012-03-19T17:50:57.067" LastActivityDate="2012-03-19T17:50:57.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1222" CreationDate="2012-02-18T18:26:48.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes there are a lot, very often it depends on the context and how you say it (like the tone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 讨厌 means dislike, but can mean like some times, such as in: 真是个小讨厌 (used wen describing my little noisy baby but means I really like my baby, not dislike).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2012-02-18T18:26:48.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1231" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1232" CreationDate="2012-02-20T01:40:52.110" Score="3" ViewCount="3245" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen both &lt;code&gt;Nǎ'er&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nǎr&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first form looks more like a literal transcription of each character, while the second one  might be the way it's pronounced (assuming there is a difference)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do understand pinyin is just a learning / transliteration tool; I'm more interested in the explanation of the cases where this conversion is applied and why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="444" LastActivityDate="2012-02-24T18:45:13.103" Title="What is the correct pinyin for 哪儿?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1231" CreationDate="2012-02-20T03:36:47.180" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;儿 in this case indicates the application of 儿化 (er2hua4) or 'r-coloring' to the previous syllable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To input 哪儿 using a typical Pinyin IME, you would have to type &lt;code&gt;naer&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;na'er&lt;/code&gt;, because &lt;code&gt;nar&lt;/code&gt; would be segmented &lt;code&gt;na r&lt;/code&gt;, and the IME would then expect further input for a second Pinyin syllable beginning with &lt;code&gt;r&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Outside of keyboard input, however, the correct Pinyin for 哪儿 is &lt;code&gt;nǎr&lt;/code&gt;, because 儿 is not being used to represent a full syllable. Where it represents a full syllable, it would be represented as &lt;code&gt;ér&lt;/code&gt; in Pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2012-02-20T03:36:47.180" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1120" CreationDate="2012-02-20T04:52:01.757" Score="24" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Websites&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Blogs&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hackingchinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hacking Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sinosplice.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sinosplice&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Databases&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1195&quot;&gt;Dictionaries&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://9610.com/zidian/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;9610 Shufazidian&lt;/a&gt; is a database of calligraphic variants.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Linguipedia&lt;/a&gt; is a database of glyph origins.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-poems.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChinesePoetry&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese text project&lt;/a&gt; is a database of pre-modern Chinese texts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/home.do&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://learnchinese.club/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Learn Chinese Club&lt;/a&gt; catalogues YouTube videos for learning Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://technology.chtsai.org/namelist/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A List of Chinese names&lt;/a&gt; by Chih-Hao Tsai.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_classifiers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;List of Chinese classifiers&lt;/a&gt; at Wikipedia.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://petit-prince-collection.com/lang/show_langue.php?lang=en&amp;amp;id=58&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Little Prince Collection&lt;/a&gt;: 971 &amp;quot;The Little Prince&amp;quot; books in Mandarin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Multi-function Chinese Character Database&lt;/a&gt; provides ancient character forms and glyph origins.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://shtooka.net/overview.php?lang=cmn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shtooka&lt;/a&gt; provides Chinese word audio pronunciations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://taeglich.chinesisch-trainer.de/index.php?alle=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Täglich Chinesisch&lt;/a&gt; (German) characters and components database.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?l=intro&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wengu&lt;/a&gt; provides classical Chinese works.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Xiao xue tang&lt;/a&gt; provides ancient character variants, oracle bones, seal scripts, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example sentences&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bing.com/dict/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bing Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesepod.com/dictionary/english-chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChinesePod&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ICIBA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lwc.daanvanesch.nl/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Leiden Weibo Corpus&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.purpleculture.net/sample-sentences/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Purple Culture&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tatoeba.org/eng/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tatoeba&lt;/a&gt; (also &lt;a href=&quot;https://tatoeba.org/eng/downloads&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;downloadable&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wehanyu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;We Hanyu&lt;/a&gt; extracts example sentences (segmented with pinyin) from videos.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youglish.com/chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouGlish&lt;/a&gt; finds example sentences on YouTube.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zaojv.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zaoju Wang 造句网&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Flashcards and Writing&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://skritter.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Skritter&lt;/a&gt; for writing practice.  Subscriptions are &lt;a href=&quot;https://legacy.skritter.com/pricing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 14.99 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tofulearn.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TOFU Learn&lt;/a&gt; for writing practice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Forum&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinese-forums.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Forums&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.stackexchange.com/&quot;&gt;Chinese Stack Exchange&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.plecoforums.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco Software Forum&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reddit's &lt;a href=&quot;http://reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;r/ChineseLanguage&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://forum.wordreference.com/forumdisplay.php?f=72&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WordReference.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://forum.duolingo.com/topic/951/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Duolingo Chinese Forum&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General learning&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cchatty.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cchatty&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesekuang.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChineseKuang&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dong-chinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dong Chinese&lt;/a&gt; - paid version starts at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dong-chinese.com/pricing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 9.99 per month&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://fluentu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FluentU&lt;/a&gt; starts at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fluentu.com/pricing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 20 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ai.glossika.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Glossika&lt;/a&gt; focuses on learning, and starts at &lt;a href=&quot;https://ai.glossika.com/pricing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 24.99 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hackchinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hack Chinese&lt;/a&gt; starts at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hackchinese.com/pricing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 8 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ninchanese.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ninchanese&lt;/a&gt; starts at &lt;a href=&quot;https://ninchanese.com/pricing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 10 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pimsleur.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pimsleur&lt;/a&gt; for languages in general, includes Mandarin &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pimsleur.com/learn-chinese-mandarin/subscription-premium&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;starting at $US 19.95 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://reader.ponddy.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ponddy Reader&lt;/a&gt; for teaching and learning, starts at &lt;a href=&quot;https://reader.ponddy.com/pricing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 9.99 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt; starts at $US 12.95 per month.  See also: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PinYin Chart&lt;/a&gt; with audio.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yoyochinese.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yoyo Chinese&lt;/a&gt; bundles &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yoyochinese.com/store&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;start at $US 88&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zbschools.sg/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ZBSchools&lt;/a&gt; has Mandarin videos and reading materials for a Singaporean children.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Grammar&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineseboost.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Boost&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Multimedia lessons&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://gloss.dliflc.edu/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Global Language Online Support System (GLOSS)&lt;/a&gt; provides free audio lessons with transcripts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesepeppapig.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Learn Chinese with Peppa Pig&lt;/a&gt; has annotated Peppa Pig YouTube videos.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://learningchinesethroughstories.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Learn Chinese Through Stories 听故事学中文&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reading&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blah.me/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blah.me&lt;/a&gt; provides Chinese books, novels, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesecomicshop.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Comic Shop&lt;/a&gt; provides Chinese comics with clickable words.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesenewsclub.substack.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese News Club&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinesereadersguild.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Reader's Guild&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesereadingpractice.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Reading Practice&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://clozemaster.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Clozemaster&lt;/a&gt; &amp;quot;fill in the blanks&amp;quot; game (includes Chinese).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dzkbw.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子课本网&lt;/a&gt; provides textbooks (e.g. 语文) used in Chinese schools.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://fourthtone.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fourth Tone Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;; now approx. &lt;a href=&quot;https://fourthtone.com/pricing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 75 per year&lt;/a&gt; for a subscription.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://hskreading.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK Reading&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lingq.com/en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LingQ&lt;/a&gt; tracks words while reading, with various subscriptions e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lingq.com/en/accounts/subscription/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 107.88 for 12 months&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://mychinesereading.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;My Chinese Reading&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nanshansi123.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nanshasi123&lt;/a&gt; provides 语文 textbooks used in Chinese schools.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/languages/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Project Gutenberg&lt;/a&gt; provides Chinese novels.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qigushi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;七故事儿童网&lt;/a&gt; has children's stories.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ricciwawa.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ricciwawa&lt;/a&gt; has short stories with audio.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ruiwen.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;RuiWen&lt;/a&gt; has articles e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ruiwen.com/zuowen/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;作文&lt;/a&gt; written by Chinese children.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://xkcd.in/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;XKCD comics&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihudigest.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhihu Digest&lt;/a&gt; summarizes the top questions from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhihu&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://novel.zhwenpg.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ZhWenPG&lt;/a&gt; provides free Chinese web novels.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://fanyi.baidu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Translate 百度翻译&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bing.com/translator&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bing Microsoft Translator&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.deepl.com/en/translator&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;DeepL Translate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translateimages.site/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Translate an image&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Web tools&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pnlpal.dev/captionz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Captionz&lt;/a&gt; generates subtitles for YouTube videos.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Text Project&lt;/a&gt; allows search by radical.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinese-tools.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Tools&lt;/a&gt; has a range of tools, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/sinograms.html?r=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;search by radical&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hanzishan.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HanziShan&lt;/a&gt; estimates how many characters you know.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hskhsk.pythonanywhere.com/hanzi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK东西&lt;/a&gt; enumerates HSK characters and words in text; see also the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/glxxyz/hskhsk.com/tree/main/data/lists&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK data&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pin1yin1.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pin1yin1.com&lt;/a&gt; adds pinyin or Zhuyin to text.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qhanzi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;QHanzi&lt;/a&gt; allows character input via hand drawing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.njstar.com/cms/cjk-code-to-unicode-conversion&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;NJStar&lt;/a&gt; converts Chinese GBK, Big5, etc. to Unicode.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://talkify.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Talkify&lt;/a&gt; text to speech.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.worchid.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Worchid&lt;/a&gt; allows typing Chinese by inputting English, pinyin, or bopomofo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2021-04-05T00:33:18.310" LastActivityDate="2021-04-05T00:33:18.310" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-02-20T04:52:01.757" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1235" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1236" CreationDate="2012-02-20T18:02:15.907" Score="5" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have only a layman's grasp of phonology and a poor ear to boot, but it seems to me that for many Chinese whom I am told have markedly standard pronunciation, /w/ and some type of labiodental fricative are interchangeable. For instance, listen to Echo's 认为 near the end of this episode of Popup Chinese (from about 7:20 onward): &lt;a href=&quot;http://data.popupchinese.com/778/elementary-it-happened-one-night-traditional.mp3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://data.popupchinese.com/778/elementary-it-happened-one-night-traditional.mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I the only one who hears this? Could these two phonemes be in free variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="403" LastActivityDate="2012-02-21T07:54:34.243" Title="Do some (prestige?) accents swap /v/ or /f/ for /w/?" Tags="&lt;accent&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1235" CreationDate="2012-02-20T18:55:45.010" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I mentioned this phenomenon in an answer to another post &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1094/characteristics-of-northern-and-southern-accents/1098#1098&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.  This sound, which is actually [ʋ] (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labiodental_approximant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;labiodental approximant&lt;/a&gt;), was also discussed in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sinoglot.com/bjs/2008/10/the-humble-v-says-veng-veng/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this post in the Beijing Sounds blog&lt;/a&gt;.  Being characteristic of the Tianjin region (in my experience anyway), it's not standard, but many people don't seem to notice anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-02-21T06:29:56.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1235" CreationDate="2012-02-21T07:54:34.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may find the following references interesting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hu, Mingyang (胡明扬). 1991. &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/chan9/articles/bjw-hu_utf8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Beijinghua shengmu W de yinzhi&lt;/a&gt; (北京话声母W音值) (Phonetic value of W initial in Beijing speech). In: &lt;em&gt;Yuyanxue Lunwen Xuan&lt;/em&gt; (语言论文选) (Selected Writings in Linguistics). Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Chubanshe. Pp. 244-245. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shen, Jiong (沈炯). 1987. Beijinghua hekouhu ling shengmude yuyin fenqi (北京话合口呼零声母的语音分歧) (Phonetic differences of zero initial before finals beginning with u in the Beijing dialect.) &lt;em&gt;Zhongguo Yuwen&lt;/em&gt; (中国语文) 5: 352-36. Transcribed &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pkucn.com/viewthread.php?tid=36461&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="318" LastActivityDate="2012-02-21T07:54:34.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1222" CreationDate="2012-02-21T08:02:12.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's sometimes refered to in the traditional scholarship as '&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/cd/ci/4/ZdicE5Zdic8FZdic8D26589.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;反训&lt;/a&gt;.' 钱锺书 has an extensive discussion of it in his 《管锥编·周易正义·论易之三名》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="318" LastActivityDate="2012-02-21T08:02:12.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1260" CreationDate="2012-02-22T02:44:53.537" Score="-4" ViewCount="1184" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;be mature!&quot;, as in &quot;grow up!&quot; (a command or suggestion telling the listener to  take a more adult, responsible attitude to the issue)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Don't lie to your boss about being late, just be mature and confess.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Why are you driving so fast!?!  Be mature and drive sensibly!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Your mum does all your washing? Can't you me mature and do it yourself?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2012-02-23T20:04:34.410" LastActivityDate="2012-02-24T18:38:07.520" Title="How to translate &quot;be mature&quot; into Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1239" CreationDate="2012-02-22T04:50:53.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Context' includes things like: Why does this friend want this translated? Is he/she translating a manga? Is he/she planning on texting someone with this? Unless you know the purpose it's kind of meaningless asking 'how to translate this phrase'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would say something like 我等他给我发短信。要不我主动一点，从我这边先给他发。Probably not terribly idiomatic, and in fact, 主动 is quite different in its connotations from 'mature'. It means 'be aggressive' rather than sitting around waiting for the other person to take the first step. 'Be mature' sounds like a young person admitting that they shouldn't be so sulky or resentful (setting emotional traps) and making a move from their own end. Quite a difference. But I really don't know what the Chinese equivalent for 'being mature' in a situation like this is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastActivityDate="2012-02-22T04:50:53.957" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1241" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1242" CreationDate="2012-02-22T05:05:43.640" Score="3" ViewCount="1141" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several words that seem to be related to playing musical instruments (specifically 演奏, 弹 and 奏), and I would appreciate an elaboration on the nuances between them.  Are some used in specific cases where others do not apply?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="459" LastActivityDate="2012-03-09T15:23:14.733" Title="What is the difference between 演奏, 弹 and 奏?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1241" CreationDate="2012-02-22T06:43:35.993" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;演奏  (yǎn zòu)&#xA;to play a musical instrument in a performance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弹 (tan1)&#xA;to play sth by hand, sometimes roughly equivalent to &quot;pluck&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弹钢琴 (tan1 gang1qin2)&#xA;to play the piano&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弹琵琶 (tan1 pi2pa)&#xA;to play the pi2pa&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拉 (la1)&#xA;to pull; to play an instrument, usually with a bow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拉二胡 (la1 er4hu2)&#xA;to play the er4hu2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拉小提琴 (la1 xiao3ti2qin2)&#xA;to play the violin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吹  (chui1)&#xA;to play sth by mouth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吹小号 (chui1 xiao3hao4)&#xA;to play the trumpet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unrelated but funny:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吹牛 (chui1 niu2) &#xA;lit. &quot;to blow the cow&quot;; to brag/boast/talk big&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奏乐&#xA;play music for the padshah in ancient times，but not now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奏 a team（ or one） play a musical instrument in a performance On formal occasions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="460" LastEditorUserId="448" LastEditDate="2012-02-23T01:36:28.757" LastActivityDate="2012-02-23T01:36:28.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1241" CreationDate="2012-02-22T19:43:21.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;演奏 tends to be used in English as the equivalent of 'perform'. If you were practicing in a room by yourself, you wouldn't use it. While English only uses the word 'play' to refer to playing an instrument, in Chinese, 'play' changes depending on the type of instrument. 弹 would be used for the piano. I'm not 100% sure, but I think 弹 is also used for plucked string instruments such as the zither. Instruments you blow through (eg clarinet, flute) would use 吹, literally, to blow. String instruments you play with a bow like a violin or the 二胡 would use 拉 (to pull), referring to pulling the bow. For instruments you strike such as a drum, you would use 敲.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="442" LastActivityDate="2012-02-22T19:43:21.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="743" CreationDate="2012-02-22T23:31:36.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd also add that 学 by itself feels incomplete. In most sentences, 2 characters will be required for clarity, meaning and balance. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学着 (xue2zhe) studying &amp;lt;- I am not 100% certain if this is acceptable. Native speakers care to comment?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学会 (xue2hui4) here 会 is the complement of 学 and means that after studying, one is able to do something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学到手 (xue2dao4shou3) is also a completed form of the verb, it means to have obtained some knowledge or skill through study&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学完 (xue2wan2) to finish studying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学好 (xue2hao3) either to finish studying successfully or to study well (i.e. to learn from good examples)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2012-02-22T23:31:36.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1245" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1246" CreationDate="2012-02-23T04:07:53.363" Score="0" ViewCount="1400" Body="&lt;p&gt;How is 指 used, what is it's role in definitions such as this (from Wikipedia):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;研究生是*&lt;em&gt;指&lt;/em&gt;*获得学士学位后继续深造.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-02-23T04:38:42.883" Title="How to use 指 when giving a definition?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1245" CreationDate="2012-02-23T04:38:42.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my understanding, 指 (zhi3) means &quot;refers to&quot;. Sometimes it is interchangeable with 表示 (biao3shi4) or 表达 (biao3da2), which mean &quot;expresses&quot;. Just like in an English dictionary, you might see a word with a definition that says X refers to Y or X is used to express Y. These words are used in a basically parallel way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2012-02-23T04:38:42.883" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1248" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1269" CreationDate="2012-02-23T06:39:52.053" Score="3" ViewCount="1257" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I say &quot;Like I said...&quot;, or &quot;As I said&quot;, in Chinese. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: I've never been to China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: What do you think of Chinese culture?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: Like I said, I've never been to China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-04-21T10:54:40.203" Title="&quot;Like I said...&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1363" CreationDate="2012-02-23T06:54:14.657" Score="3" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I say &quot;all the usual ...&quot; in Chinese, for example.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;At my school we play all the usual school sports.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The pharmacy had all the usual junk.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-03-10T11:19:55.537" Title="How to say &quot;all the usual X&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1251" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1253" CreationDate="2012-02-23T13:37:25.103" Score="1" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the vegetable 菜心 (Choy Sum - English rendering of Cantonese) called 菜心 in Mandarin? Is it pronounced &quot;cài xīn&quot; or is it pronounced as it would be in Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-02-27T16:12:23.667" Title="Is 菜心 used in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;proper-nouns&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1251" CreationDate="2012-02-23T17:12:20.907" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I spoke Mandarin in Guangzhou, I -- and the people I was talking to -- called it 菜心, càixīn. Outside of Guangzhou, I heard it called 广东菜心, Guàngdōng càixīn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-02-23T17:12:20.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1296" CreationDate="2012-02-23T20:54:21.090" Score="4" ViewCount="572" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard phrases of the form 没得V, where V is a verb. Sometimes, the 没得 appears to function like 没, e.g., &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没得选: I don't have a choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, it appears to function like a softer, colloquial form of 不得 (i.e., as something like &quot;needn't&quot;), e.g., &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;往事，是没得介意的: Don't worry about it, it's water under the bridge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also think I've heard it to mean something like &quot;can't&quot;, e.g.,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;周六咱俩打羽毛球，好不？: Let's play badminton on Saturday, ok?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  不行，周末没得打。: No, we can't play on weekends. (I.e., the court is not available, maybe?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have three questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the grammatical structure of these 没得V phrases? Is 得 acting like a full verb with V as its object? Is V a complement of some sort? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is 得 properly pronounced as full second tone (dé) here? (I assume so.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the most common uses of this structure? With what verbs does it most commonly appear?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2021-04-02T20:16:24.243" Title="How to parse 没得 + Verb constructions" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1255" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1256" CreationDate="2012-02-24T16:38:30.513" Score="9" ViewCount="2133" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it mostly a question of register?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="403" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T18:05:48.230" Title="What is the difference between 怎么 and 如何？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1255" CreationDate="2012-02-24T18:18:18.533" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally, 怎么 is more oral than 如何. 如何 can be read in much ancient literature, and it can also be used in formal documents, but that is too formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may express &lt;em&gt;&quot;How about that?&quot;&lt;/em&gt; saying: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如何？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an idiom 如何是好, which expresses &lt;em&gt;&quot;What/How should I do?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="468" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-02-26T13:28:45.257" LastActivityDate="2012-02-26T13:28:45.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1249" CreationDate="2012-02-24T18:33:05.083" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一般性的，惯常的，普通的。我必须得凑够三十个字。够了三十字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="468" LastActivityDate="2012-02-24T18:33:05.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1248" CreationDate="2012-02-24T18:35:49.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A direct way of saying it would be “我说了”, though it sometimes suggests that the speaker is impatient/angry or high in the social hierarchy (teachers, bosses, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="468" LastEditorUserId="542" LastEditDate="2012-04-21T10:54:40.203" LastActivityDate="2012-04-21T10:54:40.203" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1239" CreationDate="2012-02-24T18:38:07.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;成熟点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“别跟个小孩子似的，迟到了还撒谎。成熟点，坦率地跟老板讲怎么回事。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="468" LastActivityDate="2012-02-24T18:38:07.520" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1254" CreationDate="2012-02-24T23:52:02.507" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked a native speaker and they said there is no such thing as 没得.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think I've ever seen it in a textbook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where did you hear/see this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2012-02-24T23:52:02.507" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1263" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1264" CreationDate="2012-02-25T07:18:48.070" Score="15" ViewCount="6836" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to have some way to differentiate between yǐqián (以前) and zhīqián (之前), in order to help with memorising them both.  Referring to Modern Mandarin Grammar (Claudia Ross, Routledge 2006), it seems to suggest that the only point of differentiation is that zhīqián is  more literary.  Is this the only difference?  If not, what do I need to know?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="459" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-21T01:52:40.257" LastActivityDate="2020-07-21T01:52:40.257" Title="What is the difference between yǐqián (以前) and zhīqián (之前)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1263" CreationDate="2012-02-25T20:10:21.080" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I agree with what you found in the book. Two words are almost identical except that Zhiqian is more literary. But, on a second thought, it seems that  zhiqian is similar to &amp;quot;earlier&amp;quot; while yiqian is similar to &amp;quot;used to&amp;quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我以前抽烟,但我现在不抽了. &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;I used to smoke, but I quit now.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我之前刚抽了一支烟. &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;I just smoked one cigarette earlier.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In its meaning of of &amp;quot;used to&amp;quot;, 以前 can be used to start a sentence, while 之前 cannot:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以前我们上学得反复背诵乘法表. &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;At school, we used to do a lot of multiplication-table drills.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;× &lt;strong&gt;之前&lt;/strong&gt; 我们上学得反复背诵乘法表.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以前：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. 在时间上，比现在，或某一时间（或某一事件）早的时期。如： 三岁以前，我只能喝牛奶。&#xA;2. 泛指从前，以往。如：我以前抽烟，但我现在不抽了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之前：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. 表示在某个时间或处所的前面。如： 他在满17岁之前发表了第一篇小说。&#xA;2. 在事情发生的先后次序方面，指一事先于另一事发生。如：吃饭之前要洗手。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般说来，“之前”所指的时间事件或处所，与所参照的时间事件或处所相隔不远。“以前”就比较宽泛。如：“吃饭之前要洗手”意思是说，洗手后很快吃饭。但“吃饭以前要洗手”则没有强调洗手后很快吃饭。早晨洗了手后，吃晚饭之前不洗手，也算是“吃饭以前洗手了”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外，“之前”要出现在某事某时某处之后，因为“之前”中的“之”指代前面出现的某事某时某处。所以“之前”用在句子开头是错的，因为前面没有所指的东西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="452" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T00:26:31.233" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1265" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1308" CreationDate="2012-02-26T01:40:40.807" Score="3" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw a portion of a video course of Japanese tutorials aimed at Hong Kong Cantonese speakers, and notice that while introducing Japanese numbers, they translated the Japanese word for 600 as 六百, then straight afterwards, the word for 800 as 八佰 (with the hundreds place in 大寫).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't think of a reason for the inconsistency — can you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-02-26T12:17:56.173" LastActivityDate="2012-03-06T11:52:08.473" Title="佰 vs 百: inconsistency in use" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1263" CreationDate="2012-02-26T05:39:06.220" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native speaker, but it seems to me that in some cases the usage of these two terms is different and not interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I think you could say 我三岁之前，我只喝牛奶 (or 只能喝牛奶), to have the meaning &quot;Before I was three&quot;, but it would sound a little odd to say 我三岁以前，我只能喝牛奶, wouldn't it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think both terms can mean &quot;in the past&quot;, but it seems to me that if you are referring to an event that occurred prior to some other event in the past, 之前 sounds better (but for something that occurs before something else in the future, both 之前 and 以前 are OK - for example, 我去欧洲之前，我需要学习法语 or 我去欧洲以前，我需要学习法语 (although personally I still like the sound of 之前 better than 以前 in this sentence too).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please correct me if I'm wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="432" LastActivityDate="2012-02-26T05:39:06.220" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1267" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1273" CreationDate="2012-02-26T11:53:53.050" Score="4" ViewCount="469" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 才 mean in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈说，鼻子长才是漂亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Quote taken from a nursery rhyme.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After looking in the dictionary my best guess is that it means &amp;quot;just&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;only&amp;quot;, so as to make the sentence mean &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;Mother says only a long nose is beautiful.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T23:03:42.633" Title="What does 才 mean in 妈妈说，鼻子长才是漂亮?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1265" CreationDate="2012-02-26T14:14:27.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's for security.&#xA;Upper-case of Chinese numbers prevent the number on financial forms from being modified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ｏ一二三四五六七八九十百千 vs 零壹貳參肆伍陸柒捌玖拾佰仟&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can easily make 一 become 二 or 十, but you cant make 壹 become 貳. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Independent meanings of each character:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA; 1. 壹: Consistent &lt;br/&gt;&#xA; 2. 貳: Another&lt;br/&gt;&#xA; 3. 參: Join (參加)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA; 4. 肆: Presumptuous (放肆)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA; 5. 伍: Associate with (與...為伍)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA; 6. 陸: Land (陸地)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA; 7. 柒: simplified 漆 which means Paint&lt;br/&gt;&#xA; 8. 捌: a kind of farm tools; another written of 扒&lt;br/&gt;&#xA; 9. 玖: a kind of black stone&lt;br/&gt;&#xA; 10. 拾: pick (拾取)&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="469" LastEditorUserId="469" LastEditDate="2012-02-26T15:13:54.477" LastActivityDate="2012-02-26T15:13:54.477" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1248" CreationDate="2012-02-26T19:29:27.587" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a full translation of your conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 我从没去过中国。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: 你对中国文化有什么看法&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A: 正如我说过的，我从没去过中国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, &quot;like I said&quot; is &quot;正如我说过的&quot; in Chinese. A word-to-word translation would be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;like&quot;  ⟶ &quot;正如/就如/就像&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   I      ⟶ &quot;我&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &quot;said&quot;  ⟶ &quot;说过的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="452" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-02-26T22:08:36.413" LastActivityDate="2012-02-26T22:08:36.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1267" CreationDate="2012-02-26T19:32:15.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, your interpretation is correct. So the mom indicates that a short nose is not beautiful by saying &quot;鼻子长才漂亮&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="452" LastActivityDate="2012-02-26T19:32:15.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1255" CreationDate="2012-02-26T19:35:30.713" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, I believe both &quot;怎么&quot; and &quot;如何&quot; have multiple senses. So you'd better to look up a thesaurus or specify which sense you are referring here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="452" LastActivityDate="2012-02-26T19:35:30.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1248" CreationDate="2012-02-26T21:54:19.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another suggested translation would be 像我刚说的 (as I just said) or 像我说过的 (as I have said).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="471" LastActivityDate="2012-02-26T21:54:19.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1267" CreationDate="2012-02-26T22:03:55.157" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a good way to translate that sentence into English so that the usage in Chinese is well understood would be to say &quot;Mom says that if your nose is long, only then is it pretty&quot;. I think it's important to think of 才 in this case meaning &quot;only then&quot; rather than just &quot;only&quot;. That makes a sentence like 你跟我去我才去 easier to understand (&quot;I'll only go if you go with me&quot; or &quot;If you go with me, I'll go&quot; or &quot;You go with me, only then will I go&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be careful not to confuse this meaning of 才 with its meaning in a sentence like 我才不去 in which 才不 means certainly won't or certainly do not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="471" LastActivityDate="2012-02-26T22:03:55.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1274" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1277" CreationDate="2012-02-27T01:22:39.927" Score="4" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a big difference between 即使 and 無論?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was working on a couple of fill-in-the-blanks exercises and the following sentence came up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的畫很有特色，_______ 是畫家也不一定能畫得比你好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the right answer here is 即使, but I am not sure why 無論 would not be right. If I did use 無論 would that change the meaning of the sentence, or do the two words mean about the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T20:23:19.063" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T20:26:11.437" Title="What is the difference, if any, between 即使 and 無論？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1275" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1276" CreationDate="2012-02-27T02:15:14.807" Score="6" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was using a text editor in Chinese, when I tried to exit without saving the currently opened  file it showed me this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;您要在关闭文件前保存吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the role of 在 here? Is it related to the usage of &lt;code&gt;(some event)前&lt;/code&gt;? Or can be omitted without altering the sentence meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T01:18:49.840" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T01:18:49.840" Title="What is the role of 在 in 您要在关闭文件前保存吗？" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1275" CreationDate="2012-02-27T02:46:13.383" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is part of the construction:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在....前&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;'before....' (used as a conjunction).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it means '&lt;strong&gt;Before&lt;/strong&gt; you close the file, do you want to save it?' The 在 effectively indicates a point in time, i.e., 'at' a particular time. (Literally translated into English, this would become 'at [the time] before you close the file').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is typical of constructions like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在...前&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;'before'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在...时&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;'when'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在...后&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;'after'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当...时&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;'when'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This tends to be a written usage and is omitted in conversation (and often in writing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-02-27T02:46:13.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1274" CreationDate="2012-02-27T04:20:54.697" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即使 is the correct word in this case because it means &amp;quot;even if&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;in fact&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;無論 means &amp;quot;regardless&amp;quot; (as does 不管) and would be used in a sentence like 無論是誰畫的，etc. (regardless of who painted it, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="471" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T20:26:11.437" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T20:26:11.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1278" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-02-27T04:56:12.867" Score="1" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;很 means very. 最 means truly, really. I was wondering in which context they would be most appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我最喜欢去组约。- I'd really like to go to New York. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 最 can be used as a descriptor in this instance but not 很?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她最很漂亮。- She is very pretty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can't do this? Is the 很 redundant? You'd have to say 她最漂亮, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, is there a way of saying &quot;This is okay&quot; rather than &quot;这是很好&quot; without the use of 很?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="472" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-02-28T23:42:55.697" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T14:16:08.337" Title="很 and 最 - Questions of The Context" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="906" CreationDate="2012-02-27T04:57:54.847" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to further this response.&#xA;You also use 的 in the capacity of &quot;one&quot;.&#xA;Like the brown one. 咖啡色的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="472" LastActivityDate="2012-02-27T04:57:54.847" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1280" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1284" CreationDate="2012-02-27T05:45:59.010" Score="9" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the rules governing expressions such as 七八成 (seventy or eighty percent) or 一两个 (one or two)? Must the numerals be monosyllables? What are the restrictions on the measure words? Can there be at most two numerals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2012-02-27T16:21:00.163" Title="Syntax of 'Number Number MeasureWord'" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;number&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1278" CreationDate="2012-02-27T05:59:36.217" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nope. Generally 最 should mean &quot;-est&quot; or &quot;most&quot; — like 最大 = biggest, 最好 = best, 最美 = the most beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最漂亮 = the most beautiful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很漂亮 = very beautiful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*她最很漂亮. = She is most very beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is actually no such use in Chinese. You use either 最 or 很 to modify adjectives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="357" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-03-01T11:59:57.403" LastActivityDate="2012-03-01T11:59:57.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1265" CreationDate="2012-02-27T08:26:24.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not actually an answer, more a guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible that they simply used 百 in line with the Japanese, and used 佰 according to their own custom (Hong Kong), and forgot to harmonise the two. Nothing mysterious, just a case of less than careful editing. A lot of Chinese might not even notice that there is any inconsistency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastEditorUserId="285" LastEditDate="2012-02-29T23:59:25.387" LastActivityDate="2012-02-29T23:59:25.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1280" CreationDate="2012-02-27T11:12:08.870" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Must the numerals be monosyllables?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, you can use multi-sllable numbers, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十五六公里 (fifteen or sixteen kilometers)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;百八十个 (one hundred or eighty)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三十七八岁 (thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Restrictions on the measure words?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, I have no idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can there be at most two numerals?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, I have never seen more than 2 numbers used in such a pattern. This pattern is used to express an estimation, an approximation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-02-27T12:03:36.680" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1251" CreationDate="2012-02-27T15:50:19.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;菜心 is Mandarin. 通指青菜的心。在很多菜名中有用到，比如果香菇菜心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="474" LastActivityDate="2012-02-27T15:50:19.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1251" CreationDate="2012-02-27T16:12:23.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan at least definitely called 菜心 and pronounced &quot;cài xīn&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="471" LastActivityDate="2012-02-27T16:12:23.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1280" CreationDate="2012-02-27T16:21:00.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think English usage can serve as a good reference here. In English, saying &quot;7 or 8&quot; sounds normal as a way of expressing an estimate, but saying &quot;7 or 9&quot; does not sound normal as a way of expressing an estimate (instead you would express it as a range of 7 to 9).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise, saying &quot;7, 8, or 9&quot; in English does not sound like an estimate but rather like a specific range or a specific set of choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the same holds true for Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="471" LastActivityDate="2012-02-27T16:21:00.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1288" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1293" CreationDate="2012-02-27T23:14:32.903" Score="16" ViewCount="4751" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are 明白 and 懂 synonymous? If not, could anyone please elaborate on the difference along with some examples of usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="418" LastEditorUserId="834" LastEditDate="2013-01-12T20:11:34.157" LastActivityDate="2013-01-12T20:11:34.157" Title="Are 明白 and 懂 synonymous?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1289" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1292" CreationDate="2012-02-27T23:43:30.933" Score="4" ViewCount="589" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the sentence 'I watched a movie after I had food', are the following translations equivalent? Additionally, is the 3rd translation incorrect (is the ...了...以后... usage valid)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我吃&lt;b&gt;了&lt;/b&gt;饭看电影。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我吃饭&lt;b&gt;以后&lt;/b&gt;看电影。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我吃&lt;b&gt;了&lt;/b&gt;饭&lt;b&gt;以后&lt;/b&gt;看电影。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="418" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T21:53:10.950" Title="Usage of 了 and 以后" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1288" CreationDate="2012-02-28T00:27:07.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native speaker, but in my opinion they are essentially the same, but 明白 has a connotation of &quot;clear&quot; and therefore might be more suitable in some situations, for example where a superior is being stern with a subordinate and asking if his instructions are clear. Just like in English where a drill instruction might ask a conscript &quot;Is that clear?&quot; or &quot;Have I made myself clear?&quot; instead of &quot;Do you understand?&quot;. I'm not saying that's the only way to use 明白 but rather that it works particularly well in that situation. And of course 懂 can be used in various ways with other words, such as 听得懂, in a way that 明白 cannot (you cannot say 听得明白 - but you could say 听清楚).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="432" LastActivityDate="2012-02-28T00:27:07.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1289" CreationDate="2012-02-28T00:31:52.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native speaker, but I don't like the first sentence, I don't think it's correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me the 2nd sentence implies a future event (I will watch a movie after I eat), whereas the 3rd sentence implies a past event (I watched a movie after I ate) although I would like to ask a native speaker whether there should be another 了 in that sentence such as 我吃了饭以后看电影了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="432" LastActivityDate="2012-02-28T00:31:52.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1289" CreationDate="2012-02-28T01:45:18.913" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Briefly, I'd parse them as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I ate dinner and watched a movie.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'll watch a movie after I eat dinner.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After I　ate dinner, I watched a movie. OR I'll watch a movie after I've eaten dinner.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以后 corresponds exactly to the English equivalent of 'after', while 了 has some more leeway in how it's used. All three of your sentences imply that you ate, and then you watched a movie (arguable for the first. The English equivalent would probably be &quot;I ate food, &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; watched a movie&quot;). I think 3 would be the closest in meaning to your original sentence. Although if you said that before a meal time, I'd assume you meant the upcoming meal, while if it was late at night, I'd assume that you'd already ate and watched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="442" LastActivityDate="2012-02-28T01:45:18.913" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1288" CreationDate="2012-02-28T03:52:58.790" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are differences in meaning between 明白 and 懂, but they are somewhat subtle. Several Chinese-language websites record Chinese speakers asking the same question, so the difference is certainly not obvious. Nevertheless, the long and short of it is that, for practical purposes, they are interchangeable: people use 懂 and 明白 to mean &quot;I understand&quot; in many daily circumstances without considering any deeper implications of their meaning. When they do intend to draw distinctions between the words, as in the last example below, they will so explicitly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/74702475&quot;&gt;This baidu question&lt;/a&gt; asks for the differences between 明白， 理解， 了解， 知道， and 懂. The consensus among the respondents is that 懂 represents a deeper level of understanding than 明白 does, even to the extent that 懂 can indicate a spiritual or essential understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenwen.soso.com/z/q278809826.htm?sp=2000&quot;&gt;This soso question&lt;/a&gt; adds another perspective: 懂 does not need to involve communication. (Again, it can refer to deep, almost spiritual understanding. For example, you would hear songs like &quot;不懂爱&quot; but not &quot;不明白爱&quot;) 明白 necessarily involves someone understanding something that someone else has communicated to them. I hadn't seen this rule formulated before, but it matches my experience of using and hearing these words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wenzhangwu.com/a/2011-07-30/8943.html&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt; is intriguingly entitled “越来越明白却越来越不懂” [&quot;I '明白' more and more, but '懂' less and less&quot;]. There's a sense in this article, as there is in the other sources above, that to 懂 something is to understand the principles behind it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thinkingchinese.com/index.php?page_id=95&quot;&gt;this English-language article&lt;/a&gt; on 懂, 明白, and 了解 dispenses with the first two words quite quickly. It supports my first point above that, in daily life, these two words are more or less interchangeable and don't imply any deep level of comprehension.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="542" LastEditDate="2012-05-16T20:32:22.570" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T20:32:22.570" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1254" CreationDate="2012-02-28T04:42:24.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native speaker, but I've heard this usage, and it's my understanding it means something like &quot;don't have anything&quot; (= &quot;nothing&quot;). So in your first example, it means &quot;nothing to choose&quot; (= &quot;no choice&quot;). In your second example, &quot;nothing to worry about&quot;. In your third example, &quot;nothing to play&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="471" LastActivityDate="2012-02-28T04:42:24.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1295" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1297" CreationDate="2012-02-28T12:09:18.937" Score="7" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=patch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dictionary&lt;/a&gt; lists many words for &quot;patch&quot; but none that explicitly state they mean patch in the software sense of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Dictionary has now been updated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="834" LastEditDate="2013-02-19T20:59:31.313" LastActivityDate="2013-02-19T20:59:31.313" Title="Chinese for &quot;patch&quot; in the sense of &quot;software patch&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1254" CreationDate="2012-02-28T12:51:54.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think you've got the idea what this phrase means. In terms of the grammatical structure, you can think about &quot;没法&quot; or “没办法” analogous to &quot;没得&quot;. They have similar meanings except that “没法” or “没办法” are more formal than &quot;没得&quot;. 得 is mostly acting like a full verb with V (you can interpret 得 as the same meaning as the 得 in 得到), though it's also sensible to consider it as a compliment.&#xA;Suggestion: Don't bother with this grammatical structure. &quot;没得&quot; is mostly used in informal speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's pronounced as second full tone here, as you said, PROPERLY. However, it's not strictly followed. It depends on the context and your emotions, like, some people may pronounce as first full tone when they say the sentence quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The most common uses for this structure are 没得＋比 \ 没得＋看 \ 没得＋选 \ 没得＋用 \ 没得＋上 \ 没得 ＋ 玩. But actually, the structure is pretty flexible, feel free to change!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it would help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="477" LastActivityDate="2012-02-28T12:51:54.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1295" CreationDate="2012-02-28T13:35:17.730" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 补丁. Like the English word &quot;patch&quot;, this word can also mean &quot;a piece of cloth used to cover holes in clothes when they get worn&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-02-28T13:35:17.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1298" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1313" CreationDate="2012-02-28T13:56:41.697" Score="3" ViewCount="527" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a question from an exercise book that I'm currently working through, to rearrange the given words into the correct order. I believe the format is along the lines of &quot;The person who was [doing a thing] is [a specific person]&quot;, but I'm not sure because I'm not too familiar with this construct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The words are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;张先生 男朋友 卖 妹妹 书 那个人 的 是 的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the correct order should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;卖书的那个人是张先生妹妹的男朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far two submissions, but no confirmation. Any native speakers like to weigh in?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="436" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T00:40:59.257" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T00:40:59.257" Title="How to correctly order the words 张先生 男朋友 卖 妹妹 书 那个人 的 是 的?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1298" CreationDate="2012-02-28T14:12:06.713" Score="-1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张先生是卖妹妹的男朋友书的那个人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mr. Zhang is that man who sells books to his sister's boyfriend.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alrhough “张先生是卖给妹妹的男朋友书的那个人“ (note the character 给) would seem to fit Chinese grammar better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="480" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-02-28T15:41:31.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1300" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1304" CreationDate="2012-02-28T15:11:31.910" Score="19" ViewCount="18522" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, let's examine the character 天 (heaven). It has a 人 radical (men). And then we add a strip to become 大 (big). And then we add another strip to get 天 (heaven).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, is there a site to do so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that'll be the easier for me to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="481" LastEditorUserId="23334" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T21:46:41.810" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T21:47:22.357" Title="Is there a site that can split characters into radicals?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1254" CreationDate="2012-02-28T15:18:19.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Cantonese speaker, I'd say that 没得 is more of a Cantonese than a Mandarin expression. As you correctly suspected, it's basic sense is &amp;quot;can't.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没得选: Can't choose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是没得介意的: Can't get I back from the bridge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other verb is a &amp;quot;full&amp;quot; verb,&amp;quot; and 没得 is a helping verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not being a native Mandarin speaker, I can't 没得 guide you on pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2021-04-02T20:16:24.243" LastActivityDate="2021-04-02T20:16:24.243" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1300" CreationDate="2012-02-28T15:38:17.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You seem to assume that characters are only done by radicals, which is not true. Not all parts in a character are radicals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider for example the character 他. The radical is 亻 which is 人, the other part is not a radical; its appearance is the same as the character for &quot;also&quot;: 也, but this is not a radical. Radicals are very useful, since you can understand the probable &quot;topic-area&quot; of a character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烊 has the radical 火 (fire), and means &quot;melt&quot;; 洋 has the radical 水 (water), and means ocean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of 天, the radical is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/radicals.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the #37 in this page&lt;/a&gt;, which is 大 + another stroke (4 strokes in total).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn characters by stroke, (for example for the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cchar.com/cwmaster/writing-chinese-characters.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;character 天&lt;/a&gt;) you can use some sites that help you with animations/pictures showing the stroke order; you can also start from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_%28Mandarin%29/Lesson_1/Stroke_Order&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the wikipedia resources&lt;/a&gt; regarding stroke orders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2012-02-28T15:38:17.777" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1300" CreationDate="2012-02-28T15:45:29.560" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;The online chinese dictionary &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; provides radical information for every character in its database. For instance, if you search for the character 天 (tiān) and click on the first result, the &quot;Rad/Str&quot; column reads 大 + 1, i.e., the radical 大 plus one stroke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com&quot;&gt;Zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt; also gives information on character decomposition. The entry for 洋 reads &quot;Water 水 with 羊 phonetic.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Alenanno pointed out, not all parts of characters are radicals, but these two resources can give you more information about how characters are constructed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-02-28T23:55:00.050" LastActivityDate="2012-02-28T23:55:00.050" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1298" CreationDate="2012-02-28T16:23:36.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native speaker, but personally I would say it this way (slightly different from what was already suggested if the meaning is to be &quot;Mr. Zhang is the person who sells (or sold) books to little sister's boyfriend.&quot;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张先生是卖书给妹妹的男朋友的那个人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that would be a good reply to the question &quot;Who is Mr. Zhang?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like the composition of your original 卖书的那个人是张先生妹妹的男朋友 but it has a very different meaning: &quot;The person who sells (sold) books is Mr. Zhang's little sister's boyfriend&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that would be a good reply to the question &quot;Who sells (sold) books?&quot; although the 卖书的那个人是 could be left out entirely from the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="471" LastEditorUserId="471" LastEditDate="2012-02-28T16:30:34.030" LastActivityDate="2012-02-28T16:30:34.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1249" CreationDate="2012-02-29T02:27:56.507" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to emphasise the 'all' (and so you want to keep the 都/全):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'all' and 'the usual X' are normally treated separately [rather than both being stacked adjectives in English], and are usually structured as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[一般的、普通的] [X] [都/全].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A casual glance might be misleading though, because 都/全 is acting as an adverb before the verb here, and so is generally followed directly by the verb. Hence you might have the subject of the verb being inserted before [都/全], depending on the sense of the sentence (especially when X is actually the object in the sentence).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[一般的、普通的] [X] [SUBJECT] [都/全] [VERB]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, where &quot;all the usual&quot; is exactly the same as &quot;the usual&quot;, the 全/都 is dropped, resulting in just the adjective coming before [X].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2012-02-29T02:27:56.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1254" CreationDate="2012-02-29T05:35:58.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I don't use 没得 very much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For its meaning, I agree with Dan's answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For its pronouncation, 得 is often pronounced as &quot;de&quot;, not &quot;dé&quot; (second tone). This is beacuse 没 is also in second tone, and in Mandarin Chinese, when two second tone characters are spoken together, the second one should be in light tone. (There are more conventions like this in Mandarin Chinese, for example, when two third tone characters are spoken together, the first one should be in second tone...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the third question, I think that any verb that could have an object will be OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="357" LastActivityDate="2012-02-29T05:35:58.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1265" CreationDate="2012-02-29T05:41:41.223" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A possible answer which accounts for the fact that the video was made in Hong Kong:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The cangjie (倉頡) code (the input method prevalent in Hong Kong) for 八佰 is &lt;code&gt;HO OMA&lt;/code&gt;, and the code for 八百 is &lt;code&gt;HO MA&lt;/code&gt;. A simple duplicated character would account for the error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2012-02-29T05:41:41.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1300" CreationDate="2012-02-29T06:28:13.177" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/795/16&quot;&gt;a question on searching by character parts&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/tools/search_hanzi_kanji&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt; has several tools related to character structure. The one you're interested in would be the one that explodes a character. It's not perfect, and your 天 example produced this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一 大 大 一 大 大&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 他 produced this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;亻 也 乜 丨 乚 乛 人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can always go to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Chinese_characters_decomposition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source data at wikimedia commons&lt;/a&gt;, but it's not as easy to use. There's &lt;a href=&quot;http://groovy.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=cjk-decomp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a similar data source on codeplex&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-02-29T06:28:13.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1310" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1314" CreationDate="2012-02-29T06:39:38.917" Score="3" ViewCount="782" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is there difference between these two expressions, or are they synonmyous?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-03-01T17:27:06.343" Title="What is the difference between 别人 and 别的人?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1300" CreationDate="2012-02-29T07:59:33.420" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;etymology explorer&lt;/strong&gt; of the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YellowBridge&lt;/a&gt; Chinese Character Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt; will show you the &lt;em&gt;decomposition&lt;/em&gt; of any Chinese character, and even lets you drill-down and explore the components further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: Search for &lt;code&gt;你&lt;/code&gt; and activate the &lt;strong&gt;Etymology&lt;/strong&gt; tab by clicking on it.&#xA;The following screen is then shown:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v2mxR.gif&quot; alt=&quot;etymology explorer&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="42" LastEditDate="2020-04-22T18:56:18.840" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T18:56:18.840" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1310" CreationDate="2012-02-29T21:05:39.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native speaker, but I think they can be used the same in most cases but in some cases are slightly different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did Tom's brother throw the ball?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不，是别人丢的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不，是别的人丢的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not same:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is Tom's brother the same guy who threw the ball?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不，Tom 的哥哥是别的人 (I don't think 别人 would work as well here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="432" LastActivityDate="2012-02-29T21:05:39.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1298" CreationDate="2012-03-01T04:09:56.580" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with your answer - it makes sense and reads well. I'm a native speaker, btw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although 张先生是卖书那个人的妹妹的男朋友 works too, I still prefer your order :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="48" LastActivityDate="2012-03-01T04:09:56.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1310" CreationDate="2012-03-01T17:27:06.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are, in fact, two different words written 别人. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is pronounced &quot;biérén&quot; and is a noun. It means &quot;other person (other people)&quot; (另外的人). An example of its use is a sentence like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;屋子里只有我和他，没有别人。 Only he and I are in the room, no one else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second is pronounced &quot;biéren&quot; (note the neutral tone on the second syllable) and is a personal pronoun. It is used to refer to people other than oneself or the person in question. Dan provides a good example (though I would have used 扔 instead of 丢 -- a native speaker will have to weigh in here); in &quot;是别人丢的&quot;, 别人 is a pronoun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, 别的人 can be used in place of 别人 in both cases. Nevertheless, I think 别人 is more common in general, and for some reason I tend to think that 别的人 is more naturally a noun than it is a pronoun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-03-01T17:27:06.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="512" CreationDate="2012-03-02T01:35:53.583" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/similarchars.htm&quot;&gt;List of 236 sets of commonly confused characters&lt;/a&gt; on Cantodict.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="491" LastActivityDate="2012-03-02T01:35:53.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1055" CreationDate="2012-03-02T18:34:50.383" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a good question about etymology of Chinese word. Most native speakers are not interested in etymology as they can speak out of habit while non-native speakers are more curious on how the sense of words evolves. Back to your question, there are nice articles on both &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E4%B8%9C%E8%A5%BF&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/22275.htm&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt; that explains the etymology of &quot;东西&quot;. Since there are acutally quite a few explanations for this one, so I cannot translate them all here. But I can help you if you have trouble to understand particular sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="452" LastActivityDate="2012-03-02T18:34:50.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1317" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1331" CreationDate="2012-03-03T01:31:54.000" Score="8" ViewCount="5432" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there are two words here: 老鼠 and 鼠. However, the dictionary states that 老鼠 (rat) can &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; mean mouse; how do you specify &lt;em&gt;rat&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I imagine that 仓鼠 (hamster) and 沙鼠 (gerbil) are often abbreviated to 鼠???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so how does one specify that you mean &lt;em&gt;mouse&lt;/em&gt;, rather than rat, hamster or gerbil?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. maybe someone could also drop in a comment about whether or not these animals are common house pets in China / HK / TW?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T02:24:16.627" Title="How to distinguish between rat and mouse in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1318" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1319" CreationDate="2012-03-03T01:51:23.117" Score="3" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;How am I supposed to put &quot;铁饭碗&quot; in simple words, and not a paragraph worth of explanation? I can't seem to find suitable adjectives or nouns to concisely interpret the implication of &quot;铁饭碗&quot; (Suppose to refer to jobs that &quot;won't get laid off&quot;)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="90" LastEditorUserId="90" LastEditDate="2012-03-03T02:39:29.830" LastActivityDate="2012-03-04T19:25:41.757" Title="How do I interpret 铁饭碗 concisely?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1318" CreationDate="2012-03-03T02:17:43.130" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think translating 铁饭碗 as &quot;guaranteed lifetime employment&quot; gets the point across quite well. There's also a phrase, &quot;cradle-to-grave socialism&quot; -- it's a little more political than guaranteed lifetime employment, but it accurately reflects the use of the word in Chinese history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither phrase has the English resonance of the Chinese original, but I think both are acceptable choices if you are seeking a short explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-03-03T02:17:43.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1318" CreationDate="2012-03-03T02:21:36.543" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your best bet is to use the translation &quot;Iron Rice Bowl&quot;.  There is no direct English equivalent, and (according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_rice_bowl&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;) there is a precedent for using the phrase in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus it's always great to expand English :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-03-03T02:21:36.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1289" CreationDate="2012-03-03T08:28:59.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When translating sentences that are in the past into Chinese it is always best to use time markers such as &quot;yesterday&quot;, &quot;this morning,&quot; etc. It is time markers that put sentences in a &quot;time context,&quot; not &quot;了&quot; or other particles. Strictly speaking your sentences are not equivalent, because they are ambiguous when it comes to tense. Sentence 2, for example, could be in the past, present or future tense depending on context. Something similar is going on in the other two sentences. As to how to translate your sentence, I would use the pattern I would use the pattern &quot;先...再&quot; (or 然后) and &quot;了&quot; or the word &quot;接着&quot; and &quot;了.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastActivityDate="2012-03-03T08:28:59.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1317" CreationDate="2012-03-03T15:23:47.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually you can see the differences in &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AE%B6%E9%BC%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;I think the word 鼠 includes the whole family of Muridae.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I think only the hamster is a popular pet in China/HK/TW&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="493" LastActivityDate="2012-03-03T15:23:47.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1317" CreationDate="2012-03-04T04:00:25.787" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translate suggests &quot;small rodents&quot; for 小老鼠.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that when you say &quot;老鼠&quot; most Chinese will think of &quot;rat&quot; first, but perhaps it is just an example of a slight mistranslation? Maybe, like the poster above said, it is really referring to the whole family of small mammals we call rodents, which includes rats, mice, gerbils, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard &quot;白老鼠&quot; used to refer to mice, specifically little white mice like the kind used in science experiments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no idea how to say gerbil. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2012-03-04T04:00:25.787" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1318" CreationDate="2012-03-04T04:08:46.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Mafia we'd say you are a &quot;Made Man&quot;, in other words, &quot;Set for life&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2012-03-04T04:08:46.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1120" CreationDate="2012-03-04T04:17:14.297" Score="25" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Browser Add-ons&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Add Pinyin - Chinese Zero to Hero Reader (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/add-pinyin-chinese-zero-t/nhhoiplgolfammoegggnjojoaljjbojg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chrome&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chinese Tutor (Chrome: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chinesetutor-flashcards/egbbefchlgcnhjoncjebmkffamidfhae&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Flashcards&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chinesetutor-speaking/lpflafdbjlkiabamakjkmjclmfkchfjh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Speaking&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chinesetutor-dictionary/glfkbeoehpfomhdacjdnjaompnmadnhj&quot; 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&lt;a href=&quot;https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/inkah/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Firefox&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;LiuChan Chinese Popup Dictionary (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/liuchan-chinese-popup-dic/hjpjmkjmkgedphipmbnmejlnfndjcgdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chrome&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/liuchan/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Firefox&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/popover-chinese/id1548419843&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Popover Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (Safari)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cschiller/zhongwen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhongwen: The Popular Chinese Learning Tool&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/zhongwen-chinese-english/kkmlkkjojmombglmlpbpapmhcaljjkde&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chrome&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/zhongwen/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Firefox&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Zhongzhong: An improved Chinese Dictionary (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/zhongzhong-an-improved-ch/dggcgdjndddfmcfoipccicfoajmciacf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chrome&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user3410" LastEditDate="2021-03-02T23:57:31.240" LastActivityDate="2021-03-02T23:57:31.240" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-03-04T04:17:14.297" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1328" CreationDate="2012-03-04T10:05:54.480" Score="6" ViewCount="436" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does one distinguish between, for example, 便宜 (cheap) and 便宜 (convenient) in written Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context may give no help whatsoever, cf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的大学很便宜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Bad example, please excuse my awful Chinese. Feel free to edit with a better one.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a general rule for identifying which meaning is intended when there are identical characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2012-03-04T12:36:32.513" LastActivityDate="2012-04-07T09:28:43.553" Title="How does one distinguish between homographs in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1327" CreationDate="2012-03-04T12:28:33.127" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, this word has two different pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;便宜 pián yi means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[adj] &lt;em&gt;cheap, inexpensive&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[noun] &lt;em&gt;benifit, interest, which you are not supposed(allowed) to get.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[verb] &lt;em&gt;to make sb get that benifit&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;便宜 biànyí means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[adj]&lt;em&gt;convenient&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because these meanings are different significantly, I don't think we'll get confused. Also, biànyí is a written, literature ,classic word, so you won't meet it in most cases. Instead, we'll use &amp;quot;方便&amp;quot; in that case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, I don't think 便宜 is used correctly, no matter how it pronounces. You may want to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的大学学费很便宜。 The fee of my university is very cheap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的大学上网很方便。It's very convenient to surf the web in my university.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-03-04T12:28:33.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1327" CreationDate="2012-03-04T12:35:39.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact there is only one important meaning of 便宜（cheap）。 when we want to say something which is convenient we say 方便。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="498" LastActivityDate="2012-03-04T12:35:39.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1317" CreationDate="2012-03-04T12:54:24.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a chinese .when we say &quot;老鼠&quot; we want to say the animal mouse, a specific animal. when we say &quot;鼠&quot; we always combine some word with it such like “田鼠”  “袋鼠” &quot;仓鼠&quot; 沙鼠&quot; .  &quot;鼠&quot; just describe the animal which have little head and long tail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="498" LastActivityDate="2012-03-04T12:54:24.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1317" CreationDate="2012-03-04T13:01:16.580" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, in ordinary life, Chinese don't distinguish mice and rats(Frankly speaking, when I was a student, studying English and met the two words, I was also wondering why there are two words in English?). We just call that dirty animal that often appears in the houses &quot;老鼠&quot; or &quot;耗子&quot;(oral word,common in dialects).When we see a mouse(rat?) in a field, we may call it &quot;田鼠&quot;(田 means the field). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仓鼠 is a kind of pet(one of my friends raise two). Wiki tells me rat is &quot;大家鼠&quot; and &quot;mouse&quot; is “小鼠&quot;, but I and people around me don't care this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, in scientific circle, academical researchers will adopt the Binomial Nomenclature(in Chinese, 二名法) system to distinguish them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-03-04T13:01:16.580" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1254" CreationDate="2012-03-04T13:09:12.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact not any verb can be used in this phrase. In my daily life I often say “没得说”(to describe something which is good) “没得选”(there is no choice)。and I think there is no need to learn this phrase, you will not find it in a chinese book except chinese novel.it's some kind of dialect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="498" LastEditorUserId="498" LastEditDate="2012-03-04T13:39:23.537" LastActivityDate="2012-03-04T13:39:23.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1318" CreationDate="2012-03-04T19:25:41.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Guarantees in terms of job-security, or residency are usually referred to as tenure so I'm going to suggest &quot;Life tenure&quot;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_tenure&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="436" LastActivityDate="2012-03-04T19:25:41.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1334" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1343" CreationDate="2012-03-05T07:16:35.153" Score="9" ViewCount="489" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the function of 了 in the following sentence? Does it imply a sequence of actions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她会杀了你的。&quot;She will kill you.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="403" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-05T18:50:59.123" LastActivityDate="2012-03-25T11:11:46.243" Title="What is the function of 了 in the sentence &quot;她会杀了你的&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1334" CreationDate="2012-03-05T09:00:08.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It implies (or puts an emphasis on) the result or the consequence (of &quot;you&quot; being dead/killed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine how the meaning would change if you left out the &quot;了&quot;。Though it would sound awkward, the resulting sentence would be almost reduced to mean that &quot;She&quot; &lt;strong&gt;attempts&lt;/strong&gt; to kill &quot;you&quot;, with no guarantee in regard to the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also consider the case of &quot;她会杀*死*你的&quot;。It may look strange that the &quot;死&quot; (death) seems to be part of the verb. But if you look at it another way, you can take &quot;死&quot; to be an attribute of the direct object &quot;you&quot; (I know they have that in French, &quot;attribut de l'objet direct&quot;), which is really a consequence on the direct object due to the effect of the predicate. Now substitute &quot;了&quot; for &quot;死&quot;, and you would realize that &quot;了&quot; has nothing to do with verb tense, but is in fact an attribute of the direct object &quot;你&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="501" LastEditorUserId="501" LastEditDate="2012-03-05T14:59:02.223" LastActivityDate="2012-03-05T14:59:02.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1327" CreationDate="2012-03-05T09:09:37.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a general set of rules beyond what is obviously distinguishable by grammar (e.g. &quot;Can it be used as a verb here?&quot;). Your only tool is context, and there is nothing universal about context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="501" LastActivityDate="2012-03-05T09:09:37.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1334" CreationDate="2012-03-05T09:41:41.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From iciba:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;（用在动词或形容词后， 表示动作或变化已经完成）:  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;（用在句子的末尾或句中停顿处， 表示变化， 表示出现新的情况， 表示催促或劝止）:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here when the one says &quot;她会杀了你的&quot;, of course &quot;she&quot; hasn't killed &quot;you&quot;. The speaker wants to say &quot;she will kill you&quot;. And thus the 了 (le) here applies to the second explanation above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a context is given, it will be easier for us to understand the 了 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（来了一个女杀手）快跑，她会杀了你的！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (A woman killer comes) Run! She will kill you!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The speaker is pressing the listener to run from the killer.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这件事要是被她知道，她会杀了你的！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  If she knows this, she will kill you!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The speaker is trying to stop the listener from doing something that will make &quot;she&quot; crazy, or trying to tell the listener the terrible consequence of what the listener is doing/going to do.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="357" LastActivityDate="2012-03-05T09:41:41.067" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="54" CreationDate="2012-03-05T10:04:57.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe it depends on the hometown of your interlocutor because there seem to be more goats than sheep in the southern parts of China. So the first thing that comes to mind for a southerner, especially someone who comes from a rural area, will probably be a goat instead of a sheep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="501" LastActivityDate="2012-03-05T10:04:57.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1339" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1344" CreationDate="2012-03-05T12:55:34.403" Score="9" ViewCount="1783" Body="&lt;p&gt;The textbook I'm reading now has liberal sprinklings of the 儿 character suffixing words that I have not previously seen suffixed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 空儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should this be pronounced? Are there any rules of thumb for pronouncing the 'er' in cases where the previous character doesn't end in a vowel? (Another example would be 馆儿 although I already know that sounds like 'guer')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="436" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-20T06:17:22.743" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T06:17:22.743" Title="How to pronounce 儿 in conjunction with other characters" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;erhuayin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1339" CreationDate="2012-03-05T13:24:56.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Audio clips of ”有空儿“ being pronounced can be found on &lt;a href=&quot;http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Chinese/topics/time3/douying.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;. From my (limited) listening experience the  儿化 &quot;儿&quot;, as with regional accents in most languages, is not entirely predictable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-03-05T13:24:56.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1339" CreationDate="2012-03-05T14:25:11.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't seen the rules formalized, but it seems to me if a word ends in a vowel, simply add the &quot;儿&quot; on the end just like 花儿. If the word ends in the letter &quot;n&quot;, drop the &quot;n&quot; and replace it with the &quot;儿&quot; sound, like 馆儿. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't access the sound files that trideceth12 linked in his answer, but I've heard 空儿 pronounced almost like 2 separate phonemes, rather than like one smooth sound like 花儿 or 馆儿. In this kind of case, where the word doesn't end in a vowel or &quot;n&quot;, it seems like you just add the 儿 sound on the end without changing the root word at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-05T15:08:05.157" LastActivityDate="2012-03-05T15:08:05.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2012-03-05T14:34:43.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Make up stories / mnemonic devices and memorize them. Review them periodically and write the characters based on the elements in the stories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example (聘):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Story: @hire@ the archer who draws his BOW (弓) back to his EAR (耳) and hits the X-MARKED SPOT (由).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I follow the story and recognize the capitalized words, I'll write an ear on the left, an &quot;x-marked spot&quot; on the top right and a bow under it: 聘. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't worry about making the story accurate or too logical. The more vivid, dirty, or crazy the more memorable it will be. I do try to keep the keywords for the radicals / components from changing too much from character to character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2012-03-05T14:34:43.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1334" CreationDate="2012-03-05T16:37:13.710" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;A small class of verbs (including 杀，喝，吃，扔，忘) can take 了 as a resultative complement meaning 掉. These verbs can use 了 in places where it might otherwise sound odd. In this case, 杀了 is not expressing completed action; rather, it expresses the result of the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不会忘了。 I won't forget.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  把它吃了！ Eat it!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他把旧的衣服都扔了。He threw out all the old clothes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grammatically, 了 here functions as an indication of the verb's result. In the last case, it simultaneously expresses completed action (and, I suppose, new situation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a more complete lists of verbs which can use 了 in this way (from the very useful 《现代汉语八百词》):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忘、丢、关、喝、吃、咽、吞、泼、洒、扔、放、涂、抹、擦、碰、砸、摔、磕、撞、踩、伤、杀、宰、切、冲、卖、还、毁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-03-06T14:10:28.773" LastActivityDate="2012-03-06T14:10:28.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1339" CreationDate="2012-03-06T04:54:21.093" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has a very useful &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua&quot;&gt;page on Erhua&lt;/a&gt;. I don't know how to type IPA here and I'm not sure whether the OP knows IPA, so I'll summarize the rules informally here, writing the approximate erhua pronunciation inside quotations marks. (Note that this does &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; represent the pinyin spelling of erhua words; those rules are different.):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Final i and n are deleted: 把儿 = ba + er -&gt; &quot;bar&quot;; 伴儿 = ban + er -&gt; &quot;bar&quot;; 盖儿 = gai + er -&gt; &quot;gar&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Main vowels i and ü are retained, and the &quot;er&quot; sound is added at the end of the syllable:  气儿 = qi + er -&gt; &quot;qier&quot;; 劲儿 = jin + er -&gt; &quot;jier&quot; (the n is deleted by the above principle); 裙儿 = qun + er -&gt; &quot;qüer&quot;, 驴儿 = lü + er -&gt; &quot;lüer&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Certain vowel sounds merge. These rules are complicated; I refer you to Wikipedia for more details.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Final ng is deleted, but the vowel becomes nasal. I've left this rule until last because (as a native English speaker) I find these sounds difficult to pronounce. Wikipedia, or the sound files mentioned in other answers, will give you a better sense of how these vowels sound.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-03-06T13:50:50.720" LastActivityDate="2012-03-06T13:50:50.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1265" CreationDate="2012-03-06T11:52:08.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;八佰伴&amp;quot; is the official Chinese translation of a Japanese retail group, Yaohan, of which the Japanese name is written as &amp;quot;ヤオハン&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;八百半&amp;quot;.[&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaohan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;]  This retail groups is well-known among certain Japanese/Chinese population and maybe the source of the erroneous translation of &amp;quot;八佰&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="31" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-03-06T11:52:08.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1346" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1355" CreationDate="2012-03-07T03:18:29.650" Score="4" ViewCount="1455" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a sentence in my textbook I've mostly translated, but I can't piece this part together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;交通不是很便利不说，还需要整块的时间&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate spits out: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Traffic is not very convenient, you also need the entire time&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...which doesn't make much sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pleco (my dictionary) doesn't list &quot;整块&quot; as one word, but separates this part into:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整: whole, complete, full, entire; in good order, neat, tidy; put in order, rectify; repair, mend, renovate; make sb suffer, punish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;块: piece, lump, chunk; MW for a piece or lump&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A whole lump of time? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this literally just 很长时间？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2019-01-10T04:57:38.240" Title="What does &quot;整块的时间&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1347" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1396" CreationDate="2012-03-07T03:39:04.723" Score="5" ViewCount="905" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like there are way more words for these things than in English, and I am having a hard time figuring out the difference between them. Some adjectives can only be used to describe mood, while some can be used to describe character or temperament. I'm not even too clear how they differ. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心境: state of mind, mental state, mood&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心气: mood, frame of mind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心情: frame of mind, mood&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心思: state of mind, mood&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脾气: temperament, disposition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;气性: temperament, disposition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心性: disposition, temperament&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;性格: nature, disposition, temperament&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;性气: temper, temperament, character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;性情: disposition, temperament, temper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the differences between these words? What adjectives may be used to describe which?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-20T06:12:29.220" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T06:12:29.220" Title="How to differentiate moods, characters, temperaments, etc?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1339" CreationDate="2012-03-07T07:52:17.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is indeed a very complex question and not easily answered fully (although what other people have said will still get you very far in practical terms). San Duanmu (2007) offers a fairly good introduction in his &lt;em&gt;The Phonology of Standard Chinese&lt;/em&gt;. It goes far beyond what most casual learners want to know, but it should be interesting for anyone who wants to delve deeper into this question (and many others, the books is an introduction to Chinese phonology in general).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2012-03-07T07:52:17.860" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1376" CreationDate="2012-03-07T17:29:48.173" Score="4" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the novel 《天机》, passengers on a bus become ill after eating an unfamiliar dish. They ask the driver to stop the bus, and the male passengers, including the protagonist 叶萧, descend: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【他们】六七个男人都纷纷下车了。叶萧走在后面，他同样也感到腹痛难忍，虽然在露天解决十分不雅，但实在是忍受不了。男人们纷纷冲到小树林里，各自找了一小块空地解决。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few lines later, the women join in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个三十多岁的女人站起来说：“我们还是先下车解决掉吧。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, there is another reference to the uncomfortable women, the “刚才露天解决的女士们。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems clear to me that 解决 in the above excerpts is used as a euphemism for going to the bathroom (or, perhaps, for vomiting, but I suspect the former). The sense is clear enough, but I haven't heard this usage before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 解决 a common euphemism for going to the bathroom, or is its use here justified solely by context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-03-12T06:36:35.050" Title="Is 解决 a common euphemism for going to the bathroom?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;euphemism&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1349" CreationDate="2012-03-07T21:40:23.727" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The real meaning of the word is solving an issue/problem/conflict. The first context is going to the bathroom, second one sounds more like a solving a conflict, the word 解决 is not that common to use for going to bathroom, the word '方便' probably more common. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="509" LastActivityDate="2012-03-07T21:40:23.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1346" CreationDate="2012-03-07T21:45:43.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;People do not say in that way in Chinese, the text book is trying to say is because of traffic, it will take long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="509" LastActivityDate="2012-03-07T21:45:43.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1349" CreationDate="2012-03-08T02:35:00.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;解决 means &quot;solve&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your examples, 解决 does refer to &quot;going to bathroom&quot; (although they did that in the wild). However, this is a kind of euphemism to be used when the writer doesn't want to write 小便 or something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the attempt of going to bathroom can be viewed as an effort to solve a certain problem, so 解决 can be used here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="357" LastActivityDate="2012-03-08T02:35:00.637" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1346" CreationDate="2012-03-08T13:42:39.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct, by raw translate 整块的时间 is &amp;quot;a whole lump of time&amp;quot;, but it's a strange sentence, Chinese never say/write like this. it's almost mean 很长时间.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We would say: &amp;quot;交通不(是很, optional, remove is better)便利不说，还要花(大量精力 or 很长时间)&amp;quot;, but the meaning would be different from your sentence. but with all the other sentences together, the meaning is same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one really wants to say that, 整段时间 is better, valid, widely-used, but still wired when put in OP's sentence. another similar word is 整天. They both mean &amp;quot;a period of continuous time&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早上11点到12点这&lt;strong&gt;段时间&lt;/strong&gt;我都用在泡Stack Exchange上了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爬了一&lt;strong&gt;整天&lt;/strong&gt;的山，累死我了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="514" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-04-02T02:53:16.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="560" CreationDate="2012-03-09T04:55:06.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;mp3.baidu.com is a music downloading site as far as I know...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for professional Mandarin recording of selective Chinese articles (includes Lu Xun's article sometimes), I would suggest the &lt;a href=&quot;http://yuedu.fm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yuedu.FM&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, VeryCD is no longer a file-sharing site anymore because of copyright issue, and all download links has since been removed. However, the resource pages still active and now they link to many Online Video Streaming sites (but people outside China cannot view them because of region restrictions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="514" LastEditorUserId="514" LastEditDate="2012-03-09T10:58:28.593" LastActivityDate="2012-03-09T10:58:28.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1357" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1384" CreationDate="2012-03-09T14:30:01.570" Score="1" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase “糊窗户” refers to the practice of pasting paper cutouts (similar to the one seen &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhongshenw.com/zszt/cjzt/dqrdagcj/hwqcj/ywlm/201101/W020110127634191873763.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;) on one's windows. There's a common larger saying, “二十五，糊窗户”, which I assume means that this is usually done on the 25th day of the lunar month. (I'm not sure which one.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning and significance of this phrase? What does it refer to? When is it used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-03-09T15:23:59.107" LastActivityDate="2012-03-14T02:55:59.753" Title="What is the significance of the phrase “二十五，糊窗户”？" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;chinese-new-year&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1358" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1361" CreationDate="2012-03-09T14:59:49.727" Score="1" ViewCount="382" Body="&lt;p&gt;就 and 便 are synonymous in many sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这儿（就、便）是我们的学校。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我看了报纸（就、便）扔了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如果你去，我（就、便）不去了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that 便 is more formal than 就; I've seen it in writing but never heard it in speech. However, my Chinese experience is mostly limited to the south, and &#xA;perhaps it's common in other regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 便 a common subsitute for 就 in certain parts of China? In places where 便 is common, can it be used everywhere that 就 is used? Are there sentences where 就 is appropriate but 便 is not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-03-13T08:15:43.157" Title="Does the use of 就 and 便 vary by region?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1241" CreationDate="2012-03-09T15:23:14.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a simple way to distinguish the three is that 演奏 can be intransitive and transitive. and when transitive, its object is normally 'a piece of music', e.g 演奏乐曲, whereas 弹 and 奏 in the sense of playing and performing, they are transitive. The objects of 弹 are usually instruments such as piano, e.g. 弹琴 but one can also say 弹一首歌, which implicates play a song with piano (so I suppose 弹 is strongly associated with keyboard instrument). 奏 often has pieces of music or melody as objects, e.g. 奏乐，奏曲. &#xA;Also regarding register, 奏 sounds more literary and has a feeling of antiquity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="521" LastActivityDate="2012-03-09T15:23:14.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1278" CreationDate="2012-03-09T15:31:59.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are adv. 最 is used in superlative and 真 as an intensifier of adj.&#xA;I think the example given above 我最喜欢去组约 should be translated by 'I like visiting NY the best (than the other places)' and 'I'd really like to go to New York.' means 我很*&lt;em&gt;想要&lt;/em&gt;*喜欢去，which signifies a non realized event in the future with the will of person named by the subject 'I'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="521" LastActivityDate="2012-03-09T15:31:59.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1358" CreationDate="2012-03-09T20:28:25.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I certainly never encounter anyone from any part of the mainland who uses &quot;便&quot; in colloquial language frequently, if ever. I'd say &quot;便&quot; is basically a written equivalent of &quot;就&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="452" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2012-03-10T14:11:22.433" LastActivityDate="2012-03-10T14:11:22.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1347" CreationDate="2012-03-09T23:34:04.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hmm, perhaps you're trying too hard, think of synonyms. This list resembles something of a thesaurus entry. In certain situations, you can substitute one for the other, while in a different context, you can't substitute the words, and you would know when to use the correct one from experience while conversing in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the best way I can explain it: think about the following two words in English: sever and cut. We can say, &quot;sever/cut ties&quot;, &quot;sever/cut the rope&quot;, but while we can say &quot;let's sever up the steak into little bits&quot;, it's much more comfortable to say &quot;let's cut up the steak into little bits&quot;. It would be tiring to compare the above words in 90 combinations, but you get the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="522" LastActivityDate="2012-03-09T23:34:04.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1249" CreationDate="2012-03-10T10:48:01.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Correct me if I'm wrong, but 'all the usual' in English has a certain nuance that seems to me slightly different from 一般的 or 普通的. That's because 'all the usual' doesn't mean 'all the ordinary' or 'all the general', etc; it means all the xxx that usually occur or are usually found in a particular situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, 'all the usual suspects' means 'all the people we usually suspect'. This seems slightly different from 'all the ordinary suspects'. 'An ordinary suspect' is a suspect who is not out of the ordinary; 'a usual suspect' is a person who you usually suspect.  If you wanted to say 'We rounded up all the usual suspects', surely 我们围捕了所有一般的涉嫌人 would not work here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that you can speak of 'an ordinary person' but not a 'usual person' -- 'a usual person' doesn't make any sense. 'All the usual people' means 'all the people you would expect', &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; 'all the ordinary or common people'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For that reason, I would look at different ways of translating this from 一般的 or 普通的. This could differ from situation to situation. One expression that comes to mind is 常見的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 'all the usual', Jukuu gives expressions like the following: 所有通用, 所有一般, 通常的, 通常表现出来的所有, (用尽)司空见惯的, 全是老一套, 日常的, 通常具有的所有, 所有的常客, 尽人皆知的, 平常所有的, 普通...通常具有的, 都有通常的, 各种常见的. While a lot of these sound like translationese, it seems to me that they are trying to express the requisite nuance of 'usually occurring', rather than just 'ordinary' or 'common'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastEditorUserId="285" LastEditDate="2012-03-10T11:19:55.537" LastActivityDate="2012-03-10T11:19:55.537" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1364" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1410" CreationDate="2012-03-11T11:53:20.103" Score="4" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering what the acceptable combinations of classifier, noun, and adjectival phrase are? For example 一本 + 有意思的 + 书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it acceptable to say both of the following?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;一本有意思的书。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;有意思的一本书。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other ways to produce the same meaning?&#xA;What is the difference (if any) in the meaning / connotation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2014-01-17T04:36:08.330" Title="What syntax is acceptable for classifier + noun + adjectival phrase" Tags="&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1365" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1370" CreationDate="2012-03-11T12:06:12.683" Score="4" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dictionary lists two classifiers for window (窗户) 个 and 扇. Are both of these in common usage? If so is there any difference in the register? Does one sound more formal, etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-03-12T12:44:32.700" Title="Which classifier for window (窗户) is regularly used?" Tags="&lt;ambiguity&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1364" CreationDate="2012-03-11T12:26:19.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are valid and commonly used. They have the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOW:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for 一本 + 有意思的 + 书：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;一本有意思的书。&lt;/code&gt; - GOOD, &quot;An interesting book&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;有意思的一本书。&lt;/code&gt; - GOOD, &quot;An interesting book&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;有意思的书一本。&lt;/code&gt; - WEIRD, and maybe incorrect grammar; don't use&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;situation suited for &lt;code&gt;adj. + 的&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;code&gt;搞笑的(funny)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;无聊的(boring)&lt;/code&gt;, etc&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;for 一本 + 好 + 书：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;一本好书。&lt;/code&gt; - GOOD, &quot;A great book&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;好一本书。&lt;/code&gt; - different meaning from the other 2 combinations, but totally valid; I'm unable to explain.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;好书一本。&lt;/code&gt; - GOOD, &quot;An awesome book!!&quot;, better than &quot;A great book&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;situation suited for selective one word adj.: &lt;code&gt;好&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;烂&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;破&lt;/code&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note that the second combination is &lt;em&gt;ONLY&lt;/em&gt; valid for &lt;code&gt;好&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="514" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2014-01-17T04:36:08.330" LastActivityDate="2014-01-17T04:36:08.330" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1367" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1368" CreationDate="2012-03-11T12:45:03.790" Score="6" ViewCount="413" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any way to refer to someones family member, lets say brother, who's relative age I am unaware of and consequently am unable to decisively call 弟弟 or 哥哥?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some sort of rule, like assume they are older?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2012-05-19T15:05:56.827" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T07:17:25.370" Title="How do I refer to someone's family member who's relative age I am unsure of?" Tags="&lt;ambiguity&gt;&lt;kinship&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1367" CreationDate="2012-03-11T14:00:30.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no rule in a such situation. You can always ask politely or figure out the relationship from conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there's no harm in assuming they're younger than you or the person introducing you and that family member, especially that relative is a female ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="48" LastActivityDate="2012-03-11T14:00:30.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1367" CreationDate="2012-03-11T14:48:09.517" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could use the terms 兄弟 and 姐妹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, lets say you know 小明 and 小華 are brothers but don't know who is older.  You could then say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小明跟小華是兄弟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="99" LastActivityDate="2012-03-11T14:48:09.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1365" CreationDate="2012-03-11T21:11:48.810" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;一扇窗户 refers to a window on the wall, while 一个窗户 refers to the object (frame and glass) of the window.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, 一扇窗户 is the only correct choice, 一个窗户 should not be used even in everyday speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 一个窗户 is more appropriate when:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the window is not installed on the wall yet.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the window refers to something in computer interface (窗口).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the window refers to a car window.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the window (窗口) refers to a counter (in a bank etc.).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="524" LastEditorUserId="524" LastEditDate="2012-03-12T12:44:32.700" LastActivityDate="2012-03-12T12:44:32.700" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1357" CreationDate="2012-03-11T21:18:54.497" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides the culture aspect, the significance of the phrase is rhyming. 五 and 户 share the same final sound (韵母)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="524" LastActivityDate="2012-03-11T21:18:54.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1081" CreationDate="2012-03-11T21:25:30.730" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you have is 汉英数学词典 and what you are looking for is 英汉数学词典. If you google 英汉数学词典, you can find a few sources for downloading. You can also search book-selling websites, and you will get a few choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="524" LastActivityDate="2012-03-11T21:25:30.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1349" CreationDate="2012-03-12T03:13:28.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's common enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People would understand you if you said something like 我去解决一下。 (wǒ qù jiějué yíxià.) They might laugh, not expecting you to know this euphemism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, 解决 probably means &quot;to dispose of&quot; or &quot;to eliminate&quot;. I always felt that &quot;to eliminate&quot; works well because eliminate is the technical term for excreting bodily waste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="347" LastActivityDate="2012-03-12T03:13:28.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1349" CreationDate="2012-03-12T04:46:06.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, it is more appropriate in certain contexts. If you examine the examples carefully, you will find that all of them provide a clue for the meaning of 解决. The clue is the location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;各自找了一小块空地解决 -&gt; 一小块空地&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们还是先下车解决掉吧 -&gt; 下车&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;刚才露天解决的女士们 -&gt; 露天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;解决 in those cases is actually the abbreviation of 解决大小便. At most of the time, it is only valid to use 解决 referring to 解决大小便 when certain context is provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When there is no such context, it is more appropriate to use 方便。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="524" LastActivityDate="2012-03-12T04:46:06.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1364" CreationDate="2012-03-12T04:56:34.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although both of them are valid, 一本有意思的书 is more commonly used than 有意思的一本书.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, the usage is depend on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 这是一本有意思的书 is OK; 这是有意思的一本书 is also OK, but more emphasized on &quot;有意思&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, 昨天我看了一本有意思的书 is OK; 昨天我看了有意思的一本书 is NOT acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, 我有一本有意思的书 is OK; 我有有意思的一本书 is NOT acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="524" LastActivityDate="2012-03-12T04:56:34.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1349" CreationDate="2012-03-12T06:36:35.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;”解决“ is very common to refer go to bathroom. But it's use in context for euphemism.&#xA;In Chinese, go to bathroom has so many way to express.&#xA;Like, but not complete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;去洗手间&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;去厕所&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;去茅厕&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;出恭&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;解手&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小解（urinate）/大解（defecate）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;方便&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;如厕&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;更衣（use in ancient essay）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="527" LastActivityDate="2012-03-12T06:36:35.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1358" CreationDate="2012-03-12T06:43:46.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;就“ and &quot;便&quot; almost has the same meaning. But it's a lot common to use &quot;就&quot; in speaking. And it's not a region issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="527" LastEditorUserId="527" LastEditDate="2012-03-13T08:15:43.157" LastActivityDate="2012-03-13T08:15:43.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1104" CreationDate="2012-03-13T21:06:41.073" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;doesn't lift a finger&quot; --&gt; &quot;他什么都不做&quot; --&gt; See user911865's response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;without lifting a finger&quot; --&gt; &quot;你什么都不用做&quot;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不费吹灰之力&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;轻而易举&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;举手之劳&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;易如反掌&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;信手拈来 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="524" LastActivityDate="2012-03-13T21:06:41.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1383" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-03-14T00:55:14.647" Score="4" ViewCount="1905" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a friend who is Lao and I've noticed that a lot of the same words in Lao and Cantonese sound the same. The grammar itself seem different, but the numbers are similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there much relationship between the Lao and Cantonese language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="288" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-03-14T14:05:06.807" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T14:45:16.547" Title="Are Cantonese and Lao related?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1357" CreationDate="2012-03-14T02:55:59.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditionally, the Spring Festival starts from 23rd December (lunar month), 23rd December is also called 小年 (little Spring Festival)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an old saying...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二十三，祭灶官；二十四，扫房子；二十五，糊窗户 (or 磨豆腐)；二十六，割块肉；二十七，杀只鸡；二十八，贴gaga(嘎嘎音，意为贴春联)；二十九，灌壶酒；年三十，包扁食。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, it describes what people do each day from 小年 to Chinese New Year Eve (三十).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2012-03-14T02:55:59.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1383" CreationDate="2012-03-14T03:11:49.407" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lao is a member of the Tai–Kadai language family. This family does include some languages spoken by minority groups, including the Zhuang languages of Guangxi. Several languages in this group have words which sound familiar to Cantonese speakers. (I remember traveling to Thailand and being shocked by how similar Thai numerals are to those of Cantonese.) Nevertheless, the historical relationship of this language family to Sino-Tibetan (the language family which includes Chinese dialects like Cantonese) is a matter of some debate. From &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai%E2%80%93Kadai_languages&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Tai–Kadai languages were formerly considered to be part of the Sino-Tibetan family, but outside China they are now classified as an independent family. They contain large numbers of words that are similar in Sino-Tibetan languages. However, these are seldom found in all branches of the family, and do not include basic vocabulary, indicating that they are old loan words (Ostapirat 2005).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That these languages share many similar words is not surprising because of the historical proximity of these communities, but it appears most linguists believe that there isn't a deep connection between the language families.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-03-14T03:11:49.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1386" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1394" CreationDate="2012-03-14T06:36:53.790" Score="9" ViewCount="1085" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English idiom &quot;as if!&quot; is used to express the speakers rejection that something is possible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: &quot;In a few years I'll be driving a Ferrari.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: &quot;As if you'll ever have a Ferrari!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, B, does not believe it is possible that A will ever own the car.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone suggested 废话? What is the best equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-15T13:31:41.020" LastActivityDate="2012-10-13T09:38:52.650" Title="What is the Chinese equivalent of English idiom &quot;As if!&quot;?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1387" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1436" CreationDate="2012-03-14T11:50:45.447" Score="4" ViewCount="353" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;The word on the street&quot; is an English idiom that basically means &quot;rumors&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The word on the street is that Bob's going to be fired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if there was a similar Chinese idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:22:51.913" Title="Chinese version of the idiom &quot;The word on the street&quot;" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1388" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1391" CreationDate="2012-03-14T12:56:47.923" Score="5" ViewCount="566" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translate gives me: Duōmǐníjiā gònghéguó.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I wondered if the chinese use a smaller word or lop-off the Republic at the end?­­­­&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="251" LastEditorUserId="298" LastEditDate="2012-03-22T10:46:10.317" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:37:27.870" Title="How would I say Dominican Republic in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;proper-nouns&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1389" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-03-14T12:57:33.770" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-03-14T12:57:33.770" LastActivityDate="2012-03-14T12:57:33.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1390" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-03-14T12:57:33.770" Score="0" Body="Usage and references to names of places in Chinese. " OwnerUserId="251" LastEditorUserId="251" LastEditDate="2012-03-14T14:05:01.923" LastActivityDate="2012-03-14T14:05:01.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1388" CreationDate="2012-03-14T14:43:40.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, let's confirm the translation. If you look for &quot;Dominican Republic&quot; on Wikipedia, and then choose the chinese page, the result is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;多米尼加共和国&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Duō mǐ ní jiā gòng hé guó&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes, it's the right translation. If you don't like Wikipedia as the only source, this is confirmed by the YouDao and CEDICT dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried searching for &quot;多米尼加&quot; only (in both of those named above) and the result is simply &quot;Dominica&quot;. Note that &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_Republic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dominican Republic&lt;/a&gt;&quot; and &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominica&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dominica&lt;/a&gt;&quot; refer to two different countries, so since I think the same ambiguity is present in Chinese, you should keep the whole expression in order to be understood unambiguously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-14T16:28:20.530" LastActivityDate="2012-03-14T16:28:20.530" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1388" CreationDate="2012-03-14T19:10:33.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;多米尼加 is an acceptable short form of 多米尼加共和国.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though the Wikipedia page lists 多米尼加共和国 as the primary name for the Dominican Republic, the sidebar says, &quot;通称：多米尼加&quot;, i.e., &quot;Commonly called 多米尼加.&quot; The &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/22088.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu page on 多米尼加&lt;/a&gt; is about the Dominican Republic, and Google results for 多米尼加 return pages about the Dominican Republic. A quick search reveals that 多米尼加 is also common in news reports about the country. (E.g., see &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2012-03/13/c_111645040.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Dominica, the other country Alenanno mentioned, is transliterated as 多米尼克, as Wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%9A%E7%B1%B3%E5%B0%BC%E5%85%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;attests&lt;/a&gt;. It is true that it used to be called 多米尼加联邦, but 多米尼克 is now preferred.*)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*EDIT: This claim is from the Wikipedia entry I linked to above. The Chinese original is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;多米尼克旧译多米尼加联邦，造成两个问题。一，“Commonwealth”是多义字，“联邦”并非唯一意思，不宜作为译名；二，“多米尼加联邦”与另一个以西班牙语为官方语言的加勒比海岛国多米尼加共和国易生混淆。为此，中华人民共和国外交部在1994年1月14日宣布把之改名为“多米尼克国”，简称“多米尼克”。现时，中华人民共和国外交部和中华民国外交部都称之为“多米尼克”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the last sentence says, the usage of 多米尼克 is now completely standard in both China and Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-03-15T01:30:31.807" LastActivityDate="2012-03-15T01:30:31.807" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1387" CreationDate="2012-03-14T19:15:18.937" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess 小道消息 or 坊间传闻 is closest. Others include 流言、流言蜚语、谣言。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="524" LastActivityDate="2012-03-14T19:15:18.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1386" CreationDate="2012-03-14T19:26:09.890" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest 就像真的 is the closest translation. First, it is literally close to &amp;quot;as if&amp;quot;. Second, it also has the implication of disbelief.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 过两年我就开法拉利了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 说得像真的一样 (means 别做梦了)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;废话!&amp;quot; literally means &amp;quot;redundant utterances&amp;quot;. It's the of equivalent somthing like &amp;quot;You bet! [with an unpleasant tone]&amp;quot; which implies you actually agree with him. That's diametrically opposite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="524" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T14:55:07.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1395" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1399" CreationDate="2012-03-14T20:39:58.893" Score="4" ViewCount="875" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a friend who bought a Buddha figure on a Chinese market. On its bottom there is this seal, written in seal script, that has an original size of 1.5cm × 1.5cm. Any idea what it means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character at the top left seems to have the component 是, the character on the bottom right is probably 隆. I've no idea on the others though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F6IUW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="87" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-02-05T05:08:55.723" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T05:08:55.723" Title="Deciphering a seal on the bottom of a Buddha figure (Characters identified: 乾隆御製)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1347" CreationDate="2012-03-14T21:01:30.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those terms can be divided into two groups:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First group&lt;/strong&gt;, temporary, like mood: 心境, 心情. Those two are close to each other. 心情 is more temporary, can be changed in a second. 心境 is more stable and broad, but it can still be changed by big event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am happy today. This is a kind of 心情.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am happy the whole month. This is a kind of 心境.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, if you are happy in a month, you are happy almost everyday in that month, so most of the time 心情 reflects 心境. But it is not always true, you can have an unhappy day in a happy month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Second group&lt;/strong&gt;, stable, like character: 脾气, 性格, 性情. Those three are very close to each other, the difference is very subtitle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, I left 心思 (ideas, thoughts), because it's totally different from the above. I also left 气性, 心性, 性气, 心气, because they are rarely used nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="524" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-03-14T21:01:30.770" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1387" CreationDate="2012-03-15T00:36:31.967" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;literally, it is 街谈巷语. But nobody will speak this word any more, it is only used in the article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When chinese people talk a rumor, they usually use 听说. This word means &quot;I heard&quot;, especially for rumor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="536" LastActivityDate="2012-03-15T00:36:31.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1395" CreationDate="2012-03-15T03:02:32.027" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's &lt;code&gt;乾隆御笔&lt;/code&gt;. It means &lt;code&gt;This is written by the king 乾隆&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look at this stamp, it looks similar to your seal...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r2A8P.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/10/0512/06/819217_27159047.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a collection of all 乾隆's seal if you are interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2012-03-15T03:02:32.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1395" CreationDate="2012-03-15T08:23:58.270" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Frankly speaking, I have very few knowledge about works of art, but for the characters, they look like &quot;乾隆御制(traditional Chinese:乾隆御製)&quot;. These characters are written in 小篆, which is an old font originally popular in 秦 dynasty and then mainly popular in seals afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;乾隆御制&quot; means &quot;[this work is] made for the emperor of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Emperor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;乾隆&lt;/a&gt;, or the royal members&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I believe this work is fake, since the font of &quot;乾隆御制&quot; is generally “楷体&quot;, not &quot;小篆&quot;. I have seen some works made in that times on the TV (there are many TV programms for identifying such works nowadays)and I don't remember a work with that font.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2012-03-15T23:19:02.913" LastActivityDate="2012-03-15T23:19:02.913" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1401" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1404" CreationDate="2012-03-16T14:39:41.710" Score="3" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a song sung by William So whose title is 《有人喜欢蓝》 (Yǒurén xǐhuan lán - There are people who like blue.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 蓝 (blue) mean in this context? Is it a reference to the sky, sea, a mood, or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2012-03-17T00:17:19.690" LastActivityDate="2012-03-17T16:15:17.983" Title="Use of 蓝 (Blue) in a Specific Context?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1401" CreationDate="2012-03-17T03:59:13.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think blue in this case means the color blue, since 藍 in Chinese doesn't mean anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps: The English name of the movie 有人喜歡藍 is not &quot;There are people who like blue.&quot; It is &quot;Blue Valentine&quot;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7B9LvwT8SU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7B9LvwT8SU&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="541" LastActivityDate="2012-03-17T03:59:13.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1387" CreationDate="2012-03-17T04:02:19.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;傳聞 is the word you are looking for! ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is widely used in mass media, to regular chatting as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="541" LastActivityDate="2012-03-17T04:02:19.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1401" CreationDate="2012-03-17T10:29:45.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below is the lyrics of 《有人喜欢蓝》. The singer refers to &quot;blue&quot;, for example, as &quot;the serenity at night&quot;, &quot;the pleasure he finds in jealousy&quot;, and &quot;the mystical excitement&quot;. I would assume that he is talking about love: no matter how difficult it is to love someone (jealousy, fear of rejection, insomnia), he falls for &quot;you&quot; for &quot;some inexplicable reason&quot; (see line 5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有人喜欢蓝 means, poetically, “有人”（i.e. the singer）坚持自己对爱的选择。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有人喜欢蓝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;作词：黄伟文 作曲：黄尚伟 编曲：黄尚伟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蓝是越夜越静越美丽的一种气氛 蓝是越妒越恨越快乐的一种斗争 蓝是如迷如幻却很迫真的某种兴奋 只可意会没法说　讲不出的快感&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蓝是辗转反侧在午夜　想起你睡也不稳 蓝是盛着寂寞酿的酒　跟星星对饮 蓝是传来流动怨曲声音　跟你的声线甚相近 似幕调情戏　难掩盖的风韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不清楚根本天生喜欢那样那样蓝 还是我已对你这种色彩太习惯 世间缤纷风景好比烟花　匆匆一刹便吹散 看尽浓和澹　还只有它不散&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蓝是将小小一幅天空　剪低了做你恤衫 蓝是铺开夜夜浪接浪　海水色被单 蓝是缠绵完后歇息之间　凄美的感叹在飘散 我怀疑和你　能否再多一晚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="542" LastEditDate="2012-03-17T16:15:17.983" LastActivityDate="2012-03-17T16:15:17.983" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="763" CreationDate="2012-03-17T11:03:54.440" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me translate an answer I saw on a Chinese website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这两个关联词语的使用是有差别的.词典中的注释很明了,&quot;尽管&quot;表达的是让步转折,即说话者已经认识到一种客观存在,这种客观存在应导致某一种结果；但他依然坚持自己认为正确的另一种结果。可谓坚持己见，态度坚定，大有死了的鸭子嘴硬不肯悔改之意。“虽然”是客观陈述，“尽管”是主观表达。&#xA;  如：虽然天冷路滑，学员们还是按时到达了；尽管天冷路滑，你们也要按时到达。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽管 and 虽然 are somewhat different. &quot;尽管&quot; implies personal opinion (similar to &quot;although&quot;?), indicating that the speaker understands that the situation usually leads to result A, but insists on result B nevertheless. &quot;虽然&quot;, however, does not carry this connotation because it goes with 但是 and can be treated as &quot;but&quot;. &quot;虽然&quot; merely states a fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然天冷路滑，学员们还是按时到达了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  It was cold outside, but the students arrived on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;尽管天冷路滑，你们也要按时到达。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Although it is cold outside, you should arrive on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a native speaker, I think 虽然 and 尽管 are interchangeable in the first example, while 尽管 is the best way to put it in the second sentence. &lt;strong&gt;Thus, when you are expressing strong personal opinion, 尽管 is a better choice.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尽管 is also more formal. People hardly use 尽管 in colloquial language. (Probably we omit 虽然 as well, as 但是 will do in most situations.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尽管 has an additional meaning, which Terry explained quite clearly in his post.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="542" LastEditDate="2012-04-01T03:17:04.073" LastActivityDate="2012-04-01T03:17:04.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2012-03-17T13:01:21.813" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am from the south and I only use 什么来着 (never heard of 什么来的）. My friends use 什么来着 all the time, usually in the following situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你给上次来我们公司的律师打个电话。Call the lawyer that came to our company last time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那个人叫什么来着？What's his name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there are two reasons you might have seen misleading search results regarding 什么来的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some have asked questions like &quot;人是什么来的&quot; on the Internet, where &quot;什么来的&quot; means &quot;come from where&quot;. The answer to &quot;人是什么来的&quot; (where did men come from) should be &quot;apes&quot;. The Google results might have mistakenly included these questions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I also see results like &quot;[桌子]是用什么来做的&quot;, where &quot;用什么来做的&quot; is one phrase, meaning &quot;made of/from what&quot;. The answer to the question should be &quot;wood&quot;. Similar questions include the classic &quot;拿什么来拯救你&quot; (literally &quot;what can I use to save you&quot;). The Google results might have mistakenly included these, too.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.omy.sg/tech/archives/4184&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;A Singaporean blog&lt;/a&gt; uses 什么来的, though. You might want to ask someone from Singapore, as I have never heard of the phrase in mandarin or my local dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastActivityDate="2012-03-17T13:01:21.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1407" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2444" CreationDate="2012-03-17T13:34:26.873" Score="7" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help me clarify the difference between 佈 and 布? If I'm not mistaken, this is only relevant for traditional characters since 佈 has been simplified to 布. A dictionary lookup for 佈 shows that it has the same meaning as 布:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 遍及、散滿。通「布」。如：「佈滿」、「遍佈」、「散佈」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(2) 宣布、宣告。通「布」。如：「公佈」、「頒佈」、「發佈」、「佈告欄」、「佈道大會」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(3) 安排、設置。通「布」。如：「佈置」、「佈陣」、「佈防」、「佈地雷」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When searching for pages in traditional Chinese on Google, it seems like &quot;公佈&quot; and &quot;公布&quot; are both commonly used, but in other cases, the difference is quite big; 布置 is much less common than 佈置.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what's the difference? Is it a matter of habit and common usage or is there a pattern I fail to see? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T05:28:48.170" Title="Difference between 佈 and 布" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1407" CreationDate="2012-03-17T17:05:07.997" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This doesn't exactly match the usage you observed, but《现代汉语词典》 differentiates between 布 and 佈 as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;布: 1. 用棉、麻等织成的，可以做衣服或其他物件的材料, 2. 古代的一种钱币, 3. 姓&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  佈: 1. 宣告；宣布, 2. 散布；分布, 3. 布置&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would lead me to believe that the traditional character 布 is only acceptable in cloth-related compounds and that 佈 is correct in both 公佈 and 佈置 (and all related verbs). This doesn't account for the prevalence of 公布; perhaps that's a simplification that's been in use so long that it's now commonly accepted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Of course, as you said, in situations where simplified characters are used, the distinction is irrelevant.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-03-17T17:57:03.173" LastActivityDate="2012-03-17T17:57:03.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1346" CreationDate="2012-03-17T18:21:14.473" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I share my thoughts after the OP has chosen the best answer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I disagree with everyone here: 整块的时间 is correct, and I hear people say it all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&amp;amp;rls=en&amp;amp;q=%E6%95%B4%E5%9D%97%E6%97%B6%E9%97%B4&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;oe=UTF-8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google the phrase &quot;整块时间&quot;&lt;/a&gt; (commonly used without 的), you see a lot of test prep  websites suggesting that students use an entire block/period studying for one subject as opposed to spending ten minutes on history when you wait for the bus and another ten before they go to bed (i.e. 用整块时间学习). The opposite is 零碎时间, which means &quot;fragments of time&quot; (five minutes today, five minutes tomorrow).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你今天得把文章写完！You have to finish your article today!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;根本不可能！我五分钟之后要开会，会结束之后十分钟又要参加开幕式！It's impossible! I have a meeting in five minutes and only a ten-minute break before the opening ceremony starts! &lt;strong&gt;(Here, if you combine the speaker's five- and ten-minute breaks, he could probably finish the article. But unfortunately he does not have 整块的时间 - only 零碎的时间.)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, 爬山 takes up 整块的时间 (can't be done during those five-minute breaks) because it's exhausting, not to mention the traffic and the mountain's location. The book is trying to illustrate that &quot;一年中能悠闲地爬那么一两回，已经算是十分的心满意足了&quot;, as 爬山 usually takes a day or two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Is there an English equivalent of 整块的时间? I can't think of any off the top of my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Aelephant suggests &quot;a relatively long period of uninterrupted time&quot; - perfect!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="542" LastEditDate="2012-03-18T05:04:58.723" LastActivityDate="2012-03-18T05:04:58.723" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1364" CreationDate="2012-03-17T18:38:21.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;有意思的一本书 is rarely used, either in colloquial language or formal speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 很有意思的一本书 is popular, as in &quot;这是很有意思的一本书&quot; (interchangeable with &quot;这是一本很有意思的书&quot; and &quot;这本书很有意思&quot;). The sentence literally means &quot;this is a book that's very interesting&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not know why adding &quot;很&quot; makes it sound right. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&amp;amp;rls=en&amp;amp;q=%E6%9C%89%E6%84%8F%E6%80%9D%E7%9A%84%E4%B8%80%E6%9C%AC%E4%B9%A6&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;oe=UTF-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Google results&lt;/a&gt; are quite convincing, though: all of them have &quot;很&quot; before &quot;有意思的一本书&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Is it the same case with &quot;你很漂亮&quot; (correct) and &quot;你漂亮&quot; (incorrect) ?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastActivityDate="2012-03-17T18:38:21.380" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1411" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1413" CreationDate="2012-03-18T02:56:51.183" Score="3" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best classifier to use for rooms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;_&lt;/em&gt;____&lt;/strong&gt; 卧室&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;两 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;_&lt;/em&gt;___&lt;/strong&gt;_客厅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;_&lt;/em&gt;___&lt;/strong&gt;_洗衣房&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about houses or buildings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know there is 一层楼 for a floor / level / story of a building, what about the building itself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about classifiers for collections of buildings like in English &quot;a block of houses&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other classifiers for building / rooms I should be aware of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-03-19T04:20:27.793" Title="Classifiers for rooms" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1387" CreationDate="2012-03-18T03:55:31.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard a different but similar phrase on a Chinese TV show. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was: &quot;你们听到什么风声？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pleco translates it into &quot;the sough of the wind&quot; or &quot;rumour&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sough apparently means &quot;rustling&quot; or &quot;murmuring&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2012-03-18T03:55:31.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1411" CreationDate="2012-03-18T06:22:06.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically, you would use 间 for all rooms: 一间卧室 (a bedroom), 一间书房 (a study).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;间 can refer to larger spaces as well in Mandarin spoken in Taiwan and Cantonese: 一间学校 (a school), 一间饭店 (a restaurant), 一间房子 (a house/apartment). Note that mainland China accepts this usage now and you can hear 一间饭店/学校 in the news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also the trend to simplify all classifiers to 个 where possible. 一个卧室, 两个客厅, 三个洗衣房, 四个房子 all sound right to me, and are perhaps more common than 间.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid repeating &quot;间&quot;, the classifier for 房间 (room) is often 个: 一个房间, 两个房间. (You hear 一间房间 as well.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A house: 一间房子/一个房子; a building: 一个大楼 (Note that the Chinese live in apartments, so 房子 usually refers to apartments.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Block is 街区. 时尚街区 and 高品质街区 are seen in the ads nowadays. But again, we don't live in houses, so 小区 (neighborhood/community) is more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="542" LastEditDate="2012-03-19T04:20:27.793" LastActivityDate="2012-03-19T04:20:27.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="956" CreationDate="2012-03-18T08:32:19.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Huang provided an excellent. I'd like to say more about the meaning in the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The banks listed under &quot;当仁不让&quot; are the good ones. Here, the website is personifying the banks, urging them not to be &quot;shy&quot; because they offer good services (similar to people that posses 仁/good moral values).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The column &quot;差强人意&quot; lists banks that are overall acceptable. (positive connotation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It comes from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hou_Han_Shu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《后汉书》&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《后汉书·吴汉传》：“帝时遣人观大司马何为，还言方修战攻之具，乃叹曰：‘吴公差强人意，隐若一敌国矣。’”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rough translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Emperor found out that Wu Han, a 大司马 (see note), was&#xA;  repairing the weapons after he lost a battle. The Emperor considered Wu's&#xA;  attitude/work ethic overall satisfactory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: 大司马 is a title, suggesting that Wu was in charge of some troops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;自郐 (kuai4) 以下&quot; suggests that the banks listed in the column are not notable. (negative connotation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It comes from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuo_Zhuan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《左传》&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《左传·襄公二十九年》：“自郐以下无讥焉。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rough translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ji Li was a music critic, but he had not given comments after he saw a&#xA;  performance in Kuai (a state). (All performances are not worth his&#xA;  attention after Kuai.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last one is &quot;千夫所指&quot;, indicating that you should avoid banks listed in this column.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;千夫所指&quot; comes from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《汉书》&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《汉书·王嘉传》：“千人所指，无病而死。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rough translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Dong Xian embezzled a lot of money in taxes. Wang Jia saw it, and&#xA;  referenced the idiom &quot;千人所指 (or 千夫所指), 无病而死&quot; to criticize him. Wang&#xA;  believed that Dong wouldn't end up well because everyone censured him&#xA;  for the embezzlement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;千夫所指&quot; literally means &quot;be subjected to everybody's censure&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idiom in the green bubble is &quot;三年化碧&quot;, suggesting that the banks are &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It comes from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_%28book%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《庄子》&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《庄子·外物》：“苌弘死于蜀，藏其血，三年而化为碧。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rough translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chang Hong was an honest bureaucrat free from corruption, but was&#xA;  killed in a conspiracy. One of Chang's supporters collected (some of?)&#xA;  his blood, which all turned into jade three years later. Jade often&#xA;  represents candidness and the courage to stand up for what one&#xA;  believes is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idiom in the red bubble is &quot;朝秦暮楚&quot;, indicating that the banks are &lt;em&gt;sometimes&lt;/em&gt; good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;朝秦暮楚&quot; comes from 《鸡肋集》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《鸡肋集·北渚亭赋》：“托生理于四方，固朝秦而暮楚。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rough translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Qin and Chu were the superpowers at that time, so the smaller countries sometimes side with Qin and sometimes side with Chu to protect themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;朝秦暮楚&quot; now describes people that are fickle or inconsistent about their views. The website here is again personifying the banks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The website has a very high level of vocabulary. Among the idioms (成语) mentioned here, only 差强人意, 千夫所指, and 朝秦暮楚 are popular in use. Banks are also personified - a very rare phenomenon in the Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Native speakers almost always mistakenly treat &quot;差强人意&quot; as a negative idiom. It in fact carries a positive connotation. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.douban.com/group/topic/5215329/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;See other common mistakes here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Great question and I learned two new idioms as a native speaker!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastActivityDate="2012-03-18T08:32:19.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1278" CreationDate="2012-03-18T14:40:42.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;最 is &quot;most&quot;, 很 is &quot;very&quot;, and 真 is &quot;truly/really&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我真想去纽约。I really want to go to New York.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;和巴黎、米兰相比，我最喜欢纽约。Compared with Paris and Milan, New York is my favorite&#xA;  city.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她很漂亮。She is very pretty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她真的很漂亮。She is so pretty!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她最漂亮。She is the prettiest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your second question - 这是很好 is incorrect. &quot;This is okay&quot; could be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个还能将就。/ 这个还凑合。This is barely tolerable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个还可以。This is acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个蛮好的。/ 这个（还）不错。 This is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个挺好。This is pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个很好。This is very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if the English translation makes sense - the examples show an increasing level of approval.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="542" LastEditDate="2012-03-18T14:48:41.357" LastActivityDate="2012-03-18T14:48:41.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1155" CreationDate="2012-03-18T18:05:06.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;偷工减料 is always negative by &lt;em&gt;denotation&lt;/em&gt;, whereas &quot;cut corners&quot; carries a slightly negative connotation, if not neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偷工减料 means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;using inferior materials to make substandard goods (its original meaning)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;slacking off, cheating in work&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a company does so publicly, people would refer to their products as 低端 (low-end). You often hear 低端产品 and 低端市场 in the news. The antonym is 高端 (high-end).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another relevant idiom:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;便宜无好货，好货不便宜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cheap products are not good; good products are not cheap. (Horrible translation but you get the idea!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastActivityDate="2012-03-18T18:05:06.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1418" CreationDate="2012-03-18T21:39:09.460" Score="3" ViewCount="308" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I'm trying to say someone is a good example I often hear 例子, however, I have also heard 榜样, which seems to make more sense to me based on the meaning of the characters. What is the difference between these two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="479" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T20:02:56.933" Title="What is the difference between 例子 and 榜样?" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1417" CreationDate="2012-03-19T04:49:40.197" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;榜样 is a model, specifically a &lt;em&gt;person&lt;/em&gt; regarded as an excellent example of a certain quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every year, the government announces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;全国劳动模范 or 劳模 in short (people who excel in work) and 全国道德模范 (people who possess good&#xA;  moral values)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a lot of companies, they have an honor called&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;模范带头人 (employees that come first in sales numbers, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Teachers use the word fairly often:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小明是我们（学习）的榜样。Xiao Ming set a good example for us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An idiom:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;榜样的力量是无穷的。&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kzxy.com.cn/Article/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=19941&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;If one sheep leaps over the ditch, all the rest will&#xA;  follow. (official translation)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例子 is a typical thing that can represent the whole kind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;举个例子 give an example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's actually very easy to distinguish between the two words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definition of &quot;example&quot; (from the Dashboard widget on my Mac):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;example |igˈzampəl| noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a thing characteristic of its kind or illustrating a general rule --&gt; 例子 (neutral)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a person regarded in terms of their fitness to be imitated or the likelihood of their being imitated --&gt; 榜样 (positive, and used to describe &lt;em&gt;people&#xA;  only&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="542" LastEditDate="2012-05-16T20:02:56.933" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T20:02:56.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2012-03-19T11:10:58.833" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a trick my Chinese teacher told me (and it rhymes!):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;动前“土”，名前“白”，动形中间“双人”来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 地 (土字旁) before verbs, 的 (白字旁) before nouns, and 得 (双人旁) between&#xA;a verb and an adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可爱的小妹妹正在快乐地拍皮球，笑得像花儿一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/bc0e07106c175f0e7cd13781.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;You can practice here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advanced 的得地 speakers are very welcome to take &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guokr.com/post/90968/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this challenge&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2020-12-09T17:27:50.750" LastActivityDate="2020-12-09T17:27:50.750" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1420" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-03-19T12:29:21.747" Score="11" ViewCount="4064" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to explain the phrase &quot;make sense&quot; to my cousin, who is learning English. The dictionary suggests &quot;有意义&quot;, but I believe that &quot;有意义&quot; is &quot;meaningful&quot; and that &quot;make sense&quot; should be &quot;讲得通&quot;, &quot;说得通&quot;, or &quot;符合逻辑&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我一个北京的朋友居然在上中文入门这门课！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One of my friends from Beijing is taking Chinese 101! [It doesn't make&#xA;  any sense!]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I translate the part in brackets? “这根本说不通？” Or maybe &quot;居然&quot; alone suffices?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/637385&quot;&gt;Here is another example on Tatoeba.org.&lt;/a&gt; Is &quot;你说的没有意义&quot; &quot;what you said is insignificant&quot;? Since &quot;有意义&quot; is used pretty often in Chinese, I am wondering whether there &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; an English equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2012-03-19T22:31:53.597" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T13:02:29.233" Title="What is the equivalent of &quot;make sense&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1420" CreationDate="2012-03-19T17:36:04.767" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most appropriate translation to &lt;code&gt;make sense&lt;/code&gt; would probably be &lt;code&gt;有道理&lt;/code&gt;, which literally means &lt;code&gt;has sense or reason&lt;/code&gt;.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你说的有道理&#xA;What you said is reasonable / What you said makes sense.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase &lt;code&gt;说不通&lt;/code&gt; would probably work, but it is not used frequently in Mainland China Mandarin (普通话) as &lt;code&gt;有道理&lt;/code&gt; for the same context, if at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;code&gt;符合逻辑&lt;/code&gt;, the phrase means the same thing as &lt;code&gt;有道理&lt;/code&gt;, but it is more verbose and academic.  It is like saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;That is well reasoned. &#xA;---as opposed to---&#xA;That makes sense.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see the latter is what people use in daily conversations, while the former make you sound like some College Professor. ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;[It doesn't make any sense]&lt;/code&gt; would translate to &lt;code&gt;这没有道理&lt;/code&gt;。  Though in the context of your example, I think it sounds more natural in the Chinese context to say &lt;code&gt;It is ridiculous (这太荒唐了）&lt;/code&gt; in response to the situation. Cultural differences in the way we think I suppose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="529" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T13:02:29.233" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T13:02:29.233" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="203" CreationDate="2012-03-19T17:47:50.713" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest &quot;悲剧&quot; (mainland China).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;悲剧&quot; literally means &quot;tragedy&quot;. When you &quot;fail&quot; to do something it's really a tragedy (haha).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This usage gained popularity in recent years among mainland Chinese Internet users.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;悲剧&quot; is a better translation of &quot;fail&quot; compared with &quot;囧&quot;. I use &quot;囧&quot; when I'm embarrassed or frustrated, similar to &quot;呃&quot; and &quot;无语&quot;. &quot;囧&quot; as a slang term has the same meaning as &quot;窘&quot; in &quot;窘迫&quot; (uneasy).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-10T17:17:17.727" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T17:17:17.727" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1423" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1427" CreationDate="2012-03-20T14:02:01.853" Score="4" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just realized that I have no idea how other romanization systems (besides pinyin) deal with 儿化 (er hua). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be the Wade-Giles or Zhuyin-Fuhao equivalent to 电影儿 (diànyǐngr)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="347" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-01T00:08:18.587" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T00:08:18.587" Title="How is 儿化 represented in other romanization systems like Wade-Giles, Zhuyin Fuhao, etc.?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;&lt;erhuayin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1423" CreationDate="2012-03-20T19:50:15.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;兒化 is the process of adding a 兒 at the end of words in some Notĥern Chinese dialects like the Beijing's one. There is no specific transcription for that other than adding a &quot;r&quot; in pinyin and a &quot;ㄦ&quot; in Zhuyin Fuhao. Although, in Taiwan, it's almost never seen since people don't do 兒化…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="554" LastActivityDate="2012-03-20T19:50:15.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1425" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-03-21T02:30:37.987" Score="7" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping to work my way through the Chinese tv series 新结婚时代, looking up new vocab, learning it as I go and I'm hoping to understand it all as I work through it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Already in the first few lines I've come across the following dialogue which is rather hard to work out: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;书名肯定不行&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  卖不出去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  人比黄花&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  文了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  也温了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The name of the book certainly won't do&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It'll never sell&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that the name of the book is probably untranslatable as it's some literary reference... but any ideas about the last two lines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="556" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2012-05-29T01:05:59.870" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T16:18:09.993" Title="文了 也温了 any ideas?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1423" CreationDate="2012-03-21T04:17:55.387" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not a complete answer, but the Wade-Giles example chart on &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A8%81%E5%A6%A5%E7%91%AA%E6%8B%BC%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Chinese-language Wikipedia entry&lt;/a&gt; includes &quot;kêrh&quot; as a transcription of the rhotacized &quot;哥儿.&quot; I do not know the general rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The GR (Gwoyeu Romatzyh) transcription system, which was used officially in China from 1928-1958, has complex rules for 儿化 spellings. I can't find a complete chart online, but, again, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%9C%8B%E8%AA%9E%E7%BE%85%E9%A6%AC%E5%AD%97#.E5.85.92.E5.8C.96.E9.9F.B3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; has some details. GR uses &quot;l&quot; to represent rhotacization, but the precise rules for how the resulting work is spelled differ depending on the syllable final and tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-03-21T04:17:55.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1423" CreationDate="2012-03-21T04:27:04.433" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archive.org/stream/chinesewithoutte00gileuoft&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mr Giles' phrasebook&lt;/a&gt; uses -r, the same as Pinyin. The phrasebook was published after he created the Wade-Giles system, so presumably it uses this system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(EDIT: I previously said &quot;I think this might have been before the Wade-Giles system was formalized&quot;, but then found that the date of publication was 1901, while Wikipedia says Wade-Giles &quot;was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="330" LastActivityDate="2012-03-21T04:27:04.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1428" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1429" CreationDate="2012-03-21T04:53:01.343" Score="6" ViewCount="541" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, what does 多到 (do1 dou3) mean in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你可以想像罪案&lt;strong&gt;多到&lt;/strong&gt;幾咁嚴重嘞!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nei5 ho2-ji5 soeng2-zoeng6 zeoi6-on3 &lt;strong&gt;do1 dou3&lt;/strong&gt; gei2-gam3 jim4-zung6 laak3!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that the sentence translates to something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can imagine the criminal cases — &lt;strong&gt;many became&lt;/strong&gt; quite serious!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm really not sure.  This is the first time I've come across this pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="349" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T14:35:51.017" Title="In Cantonese, what does 多到 (do1 dou3) mean?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1428" CreationDate="2012-03-21T06:16:04.573" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can understand it as &quot;so many that...&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can imagine the criminal cases are &lt;strong&gt;so many that&lt;/strong&gt; the situation is serious. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="298" LastActivityDate="2012-03-21T06:16:04.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1425" CreationDate="2012-03-21T07:08:44.273" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;书名肯定不行 The book title doesn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;卖不出去 It won't sell well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人比黄花 (The title comes from &quot;人比黄花瘦.&quot;) &lt;em&gt;See notes below.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;文了 (literally) It's too &quot;academic.&quot; (Only those trained in classics&#xA;  would understand.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;也温了 It's also too vague. (温 means &quot;not too hot and not too cold (lukewarm).&quot; I think the man is trying to say that the title doesn't hit the sweet spot: it's &quot;in-between&quot; and needs more work.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;指向性不明 Readers don't know what you are referring to. (This line helps you understand &quot;也温了.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes on &quot;人比黄花&quot; (which comes from &quot;人比黄花瘦&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/106130.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“人比黄花瘦”出自李清照前期的作品《醉花阴》，作品表面上是写深秋佳节孤独寂寞的心绪，实则表达了重阳节思念丈夫的心情。这个词语用来比喻人憔悴，暗示相思之深。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rough translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人比黄花瘦 comes from a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ci_%28poetry%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;词 (ci2)&lt;/a&gt; written by 李清照 (li3 qing1 zhao4). &quot;黄花&quot;&#xA;  is &quot;菊花&quot;, chrysanthemum. &quot;瘦&quot; is thin. The poet compares herself with&#xA;  the flower to illustrate her weary look (because she misses her&#xA;  husband dearly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 《新结婚时代》, after the man refused to use the title &quot;人比黄花&quot;, the editor (girl in pink with a ponytail) joked about changing it to &quot;地下通道的无头女尸&quot; (headless body found in the tunnel), which is more literal and &quot;catchy.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="542" LastEditDate="2012-05-28T21:16:28.337" LastActivityDate="2012-05-28T21:16:28.337" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2012-03-21T17:26:02.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started to use &quot;来着&quot; after I came to Beijing from Henan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use &quot;来着&quot; when&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I should know something, but I cannot remember. e.g. 他叫什么来着？让我想想。 &quot;I should know who he is, but I just cannot recall his name. Let me think for a while.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ask when the listener seems to have forgotten something. e.g. 昨天我说什么来着？我说了xxxx &quot;You must have forgotten what I said yesterday. I said xxxx&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But neither of them are actual questions. They only indicate the state of being forgotten and they are not supposed to be answered. So &lt;code&gt;他叫什么来着？&lt;/code&gt; actually means &quot;I forgot his name.&quot; rather than &quot;What's his name?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot distinguish &quot;来着&quot; and &quot;来的&quot;. I use them interchangably because they sounds similar. I even doubted whether &quot;来着&quot; or &quot;来的&quot; can be actually written since they are only used in spoken languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2012-03-21T17:26:02.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1432" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1434" CreationDate="2012-03-21T22:40:05.197" Score="0" ViewCount="626" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, 'shuo' is sometimes mistakenly pronounced 'shou'. 'Juan' is often pronounced 'zhuan'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone think of any others? I want to highlight some common mistakes to teach pinyin pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="251" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-22T00:31:44.903" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T20:40:34.043" Title="What are the most common mistakes when pronouncing Pinyin?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2012-03-22T09:39:07.853" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1432" CreationDate="2012-03-22T01:54:22.667" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;ng=&gt; mg&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zh=&gt; ch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ch=&gt; zh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?n=&gt; ?ng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zhu??=&gt;qu??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="559" LastActivityDate="2012-03-22T01:54:22.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1432" CreationDate="2012-03-22T02:16:11.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For people from south China, the following may be confused:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;z / zh&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c / ch&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;s / sh&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;n / l&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;l / r&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many Pinyin input methods include &amp;quot;fuzzy pronunciations&amp;quot;, a feature that automatically matches these confusable pronunciations. For example, if you input &lt;code&gt;zui&lt;/code&gt;, the results will also include all characters of &lt;code&gt;zhui&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Google Pinyin input method uses the following list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;z / zh&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c / ch&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;s / sh&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;an / ang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;en / eng&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in / ing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;l / n&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f / h&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;r / l&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;k / g&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ian / iang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;uan / uang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-10-17T20:40:34.043" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T20:40:34.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1387" CreationDate="2012-03-22T02:38:32.377" Score="6" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;流言&quot; (liú yán)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一时间 &lt;b&gt;流言&lt;/b&gt; 四起,亚洲陷入困境,资金加速流出,这些国家的本土银行纷纷倒闭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Once the &lt;strong&gt;rumor&lt;/strong&gt; got started that Asia was in trouble, these people started withdrawing their money faster and faster and it caused failures of domestic banks in these countries.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;谣言&quot; (yáo yán)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;布莱尔，如果你真的,编造了丹·汉弗瑞和那个老师的 &lt;b&gt;谣言&lt;/b&gt; ，她可以告你诽谤。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Blair,if you started that &lt;strong&gt;rumor&lt;/strong&gt; About Dan Humphrey and the teacher, She has a legitimate case for slander.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;小道消息&quot; (xiǎo dào xiāo xī)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这些 &lt;b&gt;小道消息&lt;/b&gt; 被当作一派胡言而一笑置之。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;These &lt;strong&gt;rumors&lt;/strong&gt; are regarded as nonsense and laugh at them.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="560" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-23T09:34:03.047" LastActivityDate="2012-03-23T09:34:03.047" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1437" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-03-22T05:48:29.807" Score="3" ViewCount="606" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following text is taken from the serial of &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4cbb2f0b0100e9ge.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;寒夜&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一直到有一天 一个偶然的机会&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我的心事 或者说是我们的心事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  被我们的学生捅破&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  感情是不能被捅破的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一旦捅破 就如同大坝破堤&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  汹涌而出&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He's talking about his love for the heroine of the series, then explains how the ice was broken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;捅破 is the problem word here.  None of the dictionary definitions seem to fit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, the following line referring to dams and dykes is also a bit cryptic.  I thought a dam and a dyke are pretty similar but that doesn't fit if you want to understand the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I'm in the process of transcribing both 新结婚时代 and 寒夜 with the aim of learning all the vocab and using the audio/video to get a feel for it all in context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are the transcribed subtitles of any of these two already available somewhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="556" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T00:48:31.787" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T00:48:31.787" Title="What is the meaning of 捅破 the serial of 寒夜? E.g. 被我们的学生捅破" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1437" CreationDate="2012-03-22T06:08:22.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think about that, there's a dam preventing they make a further step for their feelings/relationship. something or someone pokes a little hole on the dam, then the water just flood out...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-03-22T06:08:22.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1437" CreationDate="2012-03-22T08:18:30.633" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;捅破 comes from 捅破窗户纸 (poke the window paper). Try googling &quot;捅破窗户纸&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the past, Chinese used paper instead of glass on their windows until the technology of making glass is imported to China. Window paper can stop the wind, but is much more fragile than glass and can be easily poked. Window paper is not transparent. If you poke a hole on it, you can see the other side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two people loved each other, but they are too shy to tell each other. That's like there is a thin piece of paper hiding them from each other. Once it is poked, they can see each other. That is, they know how the other person feels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;捅破窗户纸 is also similar to &quot;break the ice&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2012-03-22T08:18:30.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1440" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1441" CreationDate="2012-03-24T10:35:48.247" Score="7" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国人爱喝茶的多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume the meaning is that &quot;Chinese people love drinking tea a lot&quot;, or &quot;...really love drinking tea.&quot; Does 的多 act as an adverbial structure here? In what other situations would it be appropriate to use it? Would it be possible to say something like this...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;要努力的多!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... or would that sound awkward?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="403" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T12:03:10.720" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T12:03:10.720" Title="What is the function of 的多 in 中国人爱喝茶的多?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1440" CreationDate="2012-03-24T12:13:51.230" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;中国人 is the topic of the sentence, which explains its position at the beginning. So, &quot;As for Chinese people, ...&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爱喝茶的 is a nominalisation of 爱喝茶 &quot;love to drink tea&quot;: hence &quot;people who love to drink tea&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, 多 is just the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/884/stative-verbs-in-chinese-only-for-adjectives&quot;&gt;stative verb&lt;/a&gt; &quot;many&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &quot;Among Chinese people there are many who love to drink tea.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T21:54:07.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1440" CreationDate="2012-03-25T09:58:19.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;FYI, I speak Chinese.&#xA;中国人爱喝茶的多 is actually an incomplete sentence. The complete form should look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比起美国人，中国人爱喝茶的多 or 中国人比美国人爱喝茶的多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 的多 can only be used in comparison, which means 'Far more than'.&#xA;And the sentence above means 'Chinese people love drinking tea far more than americans do'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 中国人爱喝茶的多, you should learn it in the context, and find the other item in comparison.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="571" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2012-03-26T03:33:47.627" LastActivityDate="2012-03-26T03:33:47.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1223" CreationDate="2012-03-25T10:12:27.143" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try 牛逼 (niú bī).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's almost the omnipotent slang-style compliment in Chinese, and the most frequently used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="571" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-26T12:05:41.453" LastActivityDate="2012-03-26T12:05:41.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1334" CreationDate="2012-03-25T10:23:30.877" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 indicates present perfect. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;杀  kill&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  杀了 have/has killed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="571" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-25T11:11:46.243" LastActivityDate="2012-03-25T11:11:46.243" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1223" CreationDate="2012-03-26T10:03:03.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;赞！ It means &lt;strong&gt;awesome&lt;/strong&gt;. You could also use 真赞！ which has the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And me and my friends often use 屌爆了, which mainly used among &lt;strong&gt;young people&lt;/strong&gt; oral language and Internet discussions, the text representation is not standardized, someone write as 碉堡了, when we (me and my friends) use this word, we roughly mean &quot;awesomeness explodes&quot;, though it has many &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E7%A2%89%E5%A0%A1%E4%BA%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;other meanings&lt;/a&gt;. 屌 and 真屌 is also valid and used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;wicked&quot; and &quot;sweet&quot;, above words can be very suited sometimes, but not always, since &quot;wicked&quot; and &quot;sweet&quot; have so many meanings. &quot;Wicked&quot; is more close to 屌 and &quot;sweet&quot; is more close to 赞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="514" LastEditorUserId="514" LastEditDate="2012-03-28T05:49:34.833" LastActivityDate="2012-03-28T05:49:34.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1440" CreationDate="2012-03-26T12:14:33.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your two examples are using two different structures. For the first, see jogloran's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second example you give, &quot;的多&quot; should be written as &quot;得多&quot;. The meaning is &quot;much more&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your example can be translated as &quot;much more hard-working&quot;. We can also say &quot;好得多&quot; (much better), &quot;漂亮得多&quot; (much more beautiful).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2012-06-21T09:37:54.733" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T09:37:54.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1448" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-03-27T00:45:35.800" Score="3" ViewCount="944" Body="&lt;p&gt;秀才、进士、举人、甲第那些单词有什么区别？好像它们都是指在中国古代科举制度下成绩特高的考生。准确的区别是什么？哪些至今还在使用？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(麻烦大家帮忙改正中文错误！)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 秀才, 进士, 举人, and 甲第? They all seem to refer to students who did particularly well under the ancient Chinese imperial examination system. What's the precise difference? Which ones are still used today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-27T08:33:41.960" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T06:11:45.690" Title="What is the difference between 秀才, 进士, 举人, and 甲第?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1448" CreationDate="2012-03-27T02:50:31.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest you read this article on wikipedia: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Imperial examination(科举制度)&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I bet you will see the word 状元 more often nowadays, It always used to refer to the rank #1 person on any competitive activities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-03-27T02:50:31.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1448" CreationDate="2012-03-27T05:24:56.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you want to know the original meaning or the current meaning. Anyway these pages on Baidu explain the main differences (both historical and currently): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/68458136.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/68458136.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/79445352.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/79445352.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently my reputation is to low to post more than 2 links, but if you replace the numbers in the link above with 168295796 and 175693117 you will find more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: In the meantime my reputation has increased a little bit, so here are the links:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/168295796.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/168295796.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/175693117.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/175693117.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-03-27T09:34:57.333" LastActivityDate="2012-03-27T09:34:57.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1451" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-03-27T10:10:08.873" Score="8" ViewCount="2319" Body="&lt;p&gt;Such as &amp;quot;offer&amp;quot; in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有了CUHK的入学许可 = I got an &lt;em&gt;offer&lt;/em&gt; from CUHK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还没有一个地方要我 = I still don't have any &lt;em&gt;offers&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there is no such noun in Chinese. Is there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="575" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T20:15:35.690" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T20:20:04.100" Title="How to say &quot;offer&quot; (as in &quot;job offer&quot;) in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1451" CreationDate="2012-03-27T11:06:44.783" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 录取通知书, but it is pretty formal. Often it is used for an admission notice of a school, but it can also mean job offer. So you can use 工作录取通知书, but it is not that often used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use 工作邀请. An example: 他只得到了一份工作邀请 means &amp;quot;He has only had one job offer&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/all/%E5%B7%A5%E4%BD%9C%E9%82%80%E8%AF%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nciku&lt;/a&gt; I also found this example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他顺利通过五场面试，并且每次面试后都收到了一份工作邀请。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He sailed through five interviews and was offered a job after each interview.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T20:20:04.100" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T20:20:04.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1451" CreationDate="2012-03-27T17:01:11.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As is the way of most languages, the meaning of a term often varies depending on the context.  The word &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/offer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;offer&lt;/a&gt;, when used as a verb, commonly means to provide(提供), furnish/offer(供奉), or propose(提议).  However in the context of your example, &lt;code&gt;offer&lt;/code&gt; is being used as a noun, and its meaning is more akin to the notion of &lt;code&gt;act of expressing willingness&lt;/code&gt;(表示愿意). Specifically, CUHK, by extending you an offer(of admission), has agreed to your previous application of requesting to be a student there.  Similarly, by not having any offers, not a single entity has agreed to whatever proposition you proposed.  As for a concise Chinese translation, I can't think of one at the moment that accurately captures the meaning you are trying to convey.  The closest one would probably be 提议, but it is not quite right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="529" LastActivityDate="2012-03-27T17:01:11.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1451" CreationDate="2012-03-27T19:46:06.750" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked for &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=offer&amp;amp;from=eng&amp;amp;to=cmn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;example sentences using &amp;quot;offer&amp;quot; on Tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt;, and most of them use 提议 as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1453/16&quot;&gt;Bojin Li mentioned&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was foolish of you to accept his offer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/760729&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;你真笨去接受他的提議。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, one did specifically relate to a job offer and used 工作錄取.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The job offer still stands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/793944&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;這份工作錄取仍然有效。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another one used 工作机会, but that seems closer to &amp;quot;job opportunity&amp;quot; than &amp;quot;job offer&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I received a good job offer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我得到了一个好的工作机会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found 16 total sentences that used &amp;quot;offer&amp;quot; as a noun. They translated it using the following terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;提议 - 7 sentences&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;报价 - 4 sentences used this, but it's specifically related to making an offer in a business transaction when negotiating a price.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;工作錄取 - 1 sentence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;工作机会 - 1 sentence, but it seems closer to opportunity than offer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;请求 - 1 sentence translated offer of support as 支援请求&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;资助 - 1 sentence used this, but again it's specifically a financial offer of help.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;建议 - 1 sentence, but it seems closer to suggestion than offer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-03-27T19:46:06.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1455" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-03-28T02:58:04.737" Score="4" ViewCount="368" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 改正 and 纠正 mean &quot;to correct&quot; or &quot;to make right.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between these words? Do they have different connotations? Are both words acceptable in sentences like the following?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;错误一经发现，就应立即（改正、纠正）。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Mistakes should be corrected as soon as they are discovered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T13:17:22.210" Title="Are 改正 and 纠正 interchangeable?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1455" CreationDate="2012-03-28T07:39:50.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The grammar is the same for both, but 纠正 often has a stronger meaning. It is often used when a lot needs to be changed or the errors are more serious, and 改正 is often for smaller changes, when not that much needs to be changed. Also 改正 is more used when you want to correct your own errors, instead of other people's errors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The are both typically used for 缺点 (shortcomings) and 错误 (errors).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 《现代汉语规范词典》 I found this: &quot;改正&quot;是主体的自觉行为；&quot;纠正&quot;可以含有强制意味&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 纠正 is slightly better in your sentence, since these errors need to be immediately corrected, they are probably a little bit more serious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-03-28T07:39:50.343" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1448" CreationDate="2012-03-29T02:37:41.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;秀才 is still used in my home town. When people think a young man or kid is smart, they use this word to praise him, but usually used for male, not for female.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;状元 is used more often nowadays, especially for a young man who get a pretty good score during the college entrance examination. This word is usually for male too, but you still can used for female, that is because it happened in ancient china, some female get this position by some reason. and there are some opera for this deeds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="536" LastActivityDate="2012-03-29T02:37:41.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1458" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1459" CreationDate="2012-03-29T16:13:15.567" Score="5" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 会儿 means &quot;a short amount of time.&quot; All dictionaries I have checked say that the correct pronunciation of this word is huìr (i.e., 4th tone). Nevertheless, I am &lt;em&gt;fairly&lt;/em&gt; sure that I have heard it pronounced huǐr (i.e., 3rd tone) from time to time. It's especially obvious in constructions like 等会儿, where the speaker will pronounce 等 as déng in accordance with tone sandhi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 会儿 ever pronounced huǐr in casual speech? Am I totally mistaken? If you're a native speaker, how do you pronounce it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:20:34.553" Title="Can 会儿 be pronounced 3rd tone?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1458" CreationDate="2012-03-29T19:33:06.390" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right. &#xA;会 is the 4th tone in the dictionary (the most official 新华字典) and if you are in a test, you'd better follow that. &#xA;However, in daily Chinese, there are a lot of people using the 3rd tone as casual speech. &#xA;Actually, 会 is a kind of popular mistake. There are a lot of examples for that. &#xA;In the ancient book POEM （诗经；shi jing）, one sentence reads 君子好逑 jun1 zi3 hao3 qiu2. But people tend to read it as jun1 zi3 hao4 qiu2. Upper level Chinese classes in Chinese high school specifically teaches the importance of these terms. But the daily talking is in a kind of casual style. &#xA;Anyway, people are able to follow your mind despite one or few pronunciation differences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="580" LastActivityDate="2012-03-29T19:33:06.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="215" CreationDate="2012-03-30T12:21:12.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.If the word is consisting of two parts, like 你. They are the left part  亻, and the right part 尔. The radical is usually the left part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.If the word is consisting of two parts, like 盅. They are the up part  中, and the down part  皿. The radical is usually the down part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.2.If the word is consisting of three parts, like 做. They are the left part  亻, and the middle part  古, and the right part  攵 . The radical is usually the left part which is also the first part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are all radicals: from one line to more than 12 lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丶一丨 丿 乙（乛）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;亠 冫冖 八 勹 匕卜 厂 刀 刂 儿 二 匚 阝 丷 几 卩 冂 力凵 人 亻 入 十 厶 讠 廴 又 巜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;艹 屮 彳 巛 川 辶 寸 大 飞 干 工 弓 廾 广 己 彐 彑 巾 口 马 门 宀 女 犭 山 彡 尸 饣 士 扌 氵 纟 巳 土 囗 兀 夕 小 忄 幺 弋 尢 夂 子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;贝 比 灬 长 车 歹 斗 厄 方 风 父 戈 卝 户 火 旡 见 斤 耂 毛 木 肀 牛 牜 爿 片 攴 攵 气 欠 犬 日 氏 礻 手 殳 水 瓦 尣 王 韦 文 毋 心 牙 爻 曰 月 爫 支 止 爪&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;白 癶 歺 甘 瓜 禾 钅 立 龙 矛 皿 母 目 疒 鸟 皮 生 石 矢 示 罒 田 玄 穴 疋 业 衤 用 玉&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;耒 艸 臣 虫 而 耳 缶 艮 虍 臼 米 齐 肉 色 舌 覀 页 先 行 血 羊 聿 至 舟 衣 竹 自 羽 糸 糹&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;贝 采 镸 车 辰 赤 辵 豆 谷角 克 里 卤 麦 身 豕 辛 言 邑 酉 豸 走 足&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;青 靑 雨 齿 长 非 阜 金 釒 隶 门 靣 飠 鱼 隹&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;风 革 骨 鬼 韭 面 首 韦 香 页 音&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;髟 鬯 斗 高 鬲 马&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黄 卤 鹿 麻 麦 鸟 鱼  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;more than 12 lines　　鼎 黑 黾 黍 黹 鼓 鼠 鼻 齐 齿 龙 龠&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-30T13:22:30.710" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:22:30.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1458" CreationDate="2012-03-30T12:36:40.690" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;China is a large country, and people in different parts of China have different accents.&#xA;It's totally ok if you pronunce in the third tone, we can understand you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-30T13:20:34.553" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:20:34.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1448" CreationDate="2012-03-30T12:56:15.610" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just like you attend the exam held in small village, then you passed it and became one of the top students. We call you  &lt;strong&gt;秀才&lt;/strong&gt; at that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, you are going to atten the exam held in a province scale, if you passed it also, then you became &lt;strong&gt;举人&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only those 举人 can attend the national exam, you passed it so you became 贡士.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only then, you can attend the exam held by the emperor and if you succeed, you became &lt;strong&gt;进士&lt;/strong&gt;. And the top one is called 状元, the second one is called 榜眼, and the thrid one is called 探花.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲第 means the　[top successful candidate in an examination]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T12:56:15.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1455" CreationDate="2012-03-30T13:02:48.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;纠正 sounds more serious than 改正.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the problem caused a lot of bad consequences, and maybe you were wrong since the first step, then you have to 纠正.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, 改正 only means change it to the correct way. Just like &quot;shut up&quot; and &quot;stop talking&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-30T13:20:11.930" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:20:11.930" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1223" CreationDate="2012-03-30T13:07:06.097" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;cool&quot; 醋，不错&#xA; &quot;wicked&quot;没道德的，不良的&#xA; &quot;awesome&quot;太棒了&#xA; &quot;sweet&quot;  好，甜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:07:06.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1451" CreationDate="2012-03-30T13:14:59.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When in translation English to Chinese.&#xA;We tend to use more verb than noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我被CUHK录取了 = &amp;quot;I got an offer from CUHK.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还没有一个地方要我&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我还没有工作 = &amp;quot;I still don't have any offers.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have to find the relative noun try 入取通知书 in acceptance from study and 工作邀请函 in acceptance from work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:19:39.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1387" CreationDate="2012-03-30T13:22:51.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word on the street&quot;： 东家长西家短.   rumors:&quot;闲言碎语， 流言蜚语，街头传闻&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:22:51.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1437" CreationDate="2012-03-30T13:30:23.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;uncovered. It means, there was love between two people, but they both said nothing and kept silence about their feelings toward each other. Untill, their students spoke it out or the feeling be found out by stuents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:30:23.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1437" CreationDate="2012-03-30T13:34:20.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing to do with &quot;the ice was broken.&quot; and &quot; dams and dykes is also a bit cryptic&quot; at all.&#xA;This sentence is just a  simile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:34:20.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1388" CreationDate="2012-03-30T13:37:27.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Duōmǐníjiā gònghéguó.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多米尼加共和国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多Duō   米mǐ    尼ní    加jiā     共和国gònghéguó&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:37:27.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2012-03-30T13:44:45.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;What is this?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这是什么？&quot;is enough, no need to say 来着or 来的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's only the influence of their dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是什么来着? in spoken Chinese may shows intimacy. Like talked between friends or the elder to the young. Or just to show a big curiosity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T13:44:45.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1425" CreationDate="2012-03-30T13:50:30.927" Score="-1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;书名肯定不行  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The title of the book is not good at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;卖不出去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't help promoting selling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人比黄花      &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人比黄花 (Is this the title of the book?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;文了&#xA;  也温了             &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gonnastop explained very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2012-05-29T16:18:09.993" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T16:18:09.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1420" CreationDate="2012-03-30T13:55:14.557" Score="-2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my friends from Beijing is taking Chinese 101! [It doesn't make any sense!]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[It doesn't make any sense!]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这根本不可能。/这是不可能的事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T13:00:38.947" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T13:00:38.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="956" CreationDate="2012-03-30T14:03:53.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;当仁不让. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like when you knows something well, and it should be done by someone. Maybe others can do it, but they can't do it better than you. So, there is no need to wait for others(ask you to do or do it themselves), you are going to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T14:03:53.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1155" CreationDate="2012-03-30T14:09:35.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;偷工减料means maybe you need to use 10 tons of concrete, but you wanted to short costs, so you only use 8 tons of concrete. It's the same to other materials, you lessen the quantity so you can get momey from not using the expensive materials.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T14:09:35.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1278" CreationDate="2012-03-30T14:16:08.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我最喜欢纽约。-I like New York the most. &#xA;我最喜欢去纽约。-New York is my favourite place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is there a way of saying &quot;This is okay&quot; rather than &quot;这是很好&quot; without the use of 很?&#xA;This is okay, we may say 这很好 without 是. But we seldom use it without 很.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T14:16:08.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1346" CreationDate="2012-03-30T14:22:07.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is literally almost 很长时间？&#xA;But at the same time it highlights the time is not seperated, like you do something 2 mins in 7am, then you do it again 2 mins in 9am. 整块means you do something 4 mins in 7am or 9am at a time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="584" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T14:22:07.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1480" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1481" CreationDate="2012-03-30T20:50:23.000" Score="4" ViewCount="582" Body="&lt;p&gt;I stayed in Taiwan for a few months and made friends with Tiántián (恬恬, a second tone character repeated twice). However, I heard everyone say her name as Tiǎntián (third tone followed by second tone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was I hearing wrong the whole time? (I hope not.) Is there such a tone change from 2-2 to 3-2 for proper names? What about common 2nd-tone letters repeated twice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand there's a variety of rules for 3rd tone combinations, such as 3 33 and 33 3, or 333, but never heard of a 2nd-tone, 2nd-tone tone change. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="588" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-03-30T21:12:16.750" LastActivityDate="2012-03-31T00:21:23.133" Title="Is there a tone sandhi for 2nd-tone-2nd-tone names?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1480" CreationDate="2012-03-30T21:14:34.423" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a 2nd tone-2nd tone change in spoken Chinese, but it's different from what you described. Y.R. Chao's fantastic &lt;em&gt;A Grammar of Spoken Chinese&lt;/em&gt; (unfortunately long out of print in English, though an abridged version is available in Chinese) describes a phenomenon where 2nd-tone words in the middle of trisyllabic compounds change to 1st tone. San Duanmu's &lt;em&gt;The Phonology of Standard Chinese&lt;/em&gt; confirms this fact, but the author notes, &quot;My own sense is that T2 Sandhi is not a productive or required rule. Instead, it is likely to be conditioned by the speed of speech (Shih 2005) and frequency of the expression.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the details of this sound change, as presented in Duanwu's book: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In a trisyllabic expression, if (a) the first syllable is T1 or T2, (b) the middle syllable is T2, and (c) the final syllable is not weak, then the middle T2 can change to T1 in conversational speed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(T1 and T2 stand for 1st and 2nd tone.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I admit that I have never consciously &quot;used&quot; this rule myself while speaking Chinese, but, when I'm paying close attention, I do notice it arising in my speech and in the speech of others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(There's no evidence in either of these books for the 2nd tone to 3rd tone change that you mentioned, so I assume that it's a unique nickname rather than a general rule.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I did a bit more reading in Duanwu, and was surprised to find that in Taiwan Chinese he notes widespread Tone 2 to Tone 3 shifts, but only on lexical boundaries. That still doesn't explain your situation, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-03-30T21:22:11.607" LastActivityDate="2012-03-30T21:22:11.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1480" CreationDate="2012-03-31T00:21:23.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is not such tone sandhi for 2nd-2nd tone in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the second one becomes neutral, but that is because the repeat of the same character, not the repeat of tone. And will happen for any tone, not only 2nd. If the same character repeat twice, the second may become neutral. I cannot give a definite rule when they must or cannot change though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the matter of fact, when talk about tone sandhi in Mandarin, the only one that is significant is the 3rd-3rd -&gt; 2nd-3rd one. It always happens. Others seem all optional. In bisyllable word, that may be the only one possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-03-31T00:21:23.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1483" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1484" CreationDate="2012-03-31T16:38:32.767" Score="2" ViewCount="2096" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure celery is 芹菜. qin2 cai4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I heard people referring to bok choy as qin cai as well, but I believe it was qin1 cai4. Is this correct? When I look up bok choy, it is 白菜 bai2cai4 which sounds phonetically similar to bok choy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="511" LastActivityDate="2013-07-21T07:06:56.970" Title="Does qin1 cai4 translate to bok choy?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1483" CreationDate="2012-03-31T18:08:27.303" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You probably mean qing1 cai4 (青菜). It is used for green vegetables in general, but is also used for Chinese cabbage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现代汉语规范词典 has this to say:&#xA;1.&#xA;名&#xA;一般指小白菜或油菜。&#xA;2.&#xA;名&#xA;泛指蔬菜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小白菜 is typically translated as Chinese cabbage or bak choy in dictionaries and also used like this in  many places in China, in other places people often mean baby bak choy when they use 小白菜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cabbage#Commercial_variants_of_Chinensis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;Wiki&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cabbage#Commercial_variants_of_Chinensis&lt;/a&gt; has this to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baby Pak choi, Shanghai Pak choi, or mei quin choi (Chinese: 上海白菜; pinyin: Shànghǎi báicài; Japanese: 青梗菜, chingensai) refers to greener varieties where the varioles are also green. It is simply a less-mature version that could develop into the white-stemmed variety with more time to grow before being harvested. In Shanghai and other eastern China provinces, it is simply called qīngcài (青菜; literally blue/green vegetable) or qīngjiāngcài (青江菜; literally &quot;blue/green river vegetable&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-04-02T07:44:14.707" LastActivityDate="2012-04-02T07:44:14.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1483" CreationDate="2012-04-01T19:23:01.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;芹菜 is celery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小白菜 is not actually bok choy.  The proper English name is &quot;baby bok choy&quot;.  Bok choy is a much larger vegetable that looks a little bit like a head of lettuce.  It doesn't come in the form of individual stalks and one bok choy weighs a couple of pounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="590" LastActivityDate="2012-04-01T19:23:01.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1483" CreationDate="2012-04-01T21:46:11.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;bok choy in Mandarin (Northern part of China) saying is 小白菜 (baby bok choy). The north don't just say bok choy, it's always added a 小 (baby, little, small) before anything else. That's their culture of saying things than the Cantonese at the southern part of China. The Cantonese saying is just the two words bok choy or 白菜子. The 子 at the end means 'baby,little, small, tiny' refer to as 小 (baby, small) in Mandarin. Mandarin put the '小, baby, little' at the beginning of the phrase while the Cantonese leave it at the end of the phrase. It all ended up the same meaning, it just reverse it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="591" LastEditorUserId="591" LastEditDate="2012-04-01T21:51:49.550" LastActivityDate="2012-04-01T21:51:49.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1346" CreationDate="2012-04-02T22:41:01.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I do not think 整块is a right word in Chinese. I did not understand what it means in this context. I guess, it means, it takes whole day to go hiking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;交通不是很便利不说，还需要整块的时间&#xA;It translates to: Not only the transpotation is not convenient, but also it takes whole day (to do something).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整段does not sound right in this context neither.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="597" LastActivityDate="2012-04-02T22:41:01.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1491" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-04-03T11:25:40.893" Score="5" ViewCount="4383" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Google translate it is 一个面包, but that doesn't sound right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I say &quot;A loaf of bread&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what I mean by a &quot;loaf&quot; of bread. Not just a bun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DHuFR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-04-04T22:51:12.247" LastActivityDate="2012-04-06T01:45:27.587" Title="How do I say &quot;a loaf of bread&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1491" CreationDate="2012-04-03T11:38:22.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends a little bit on the type of bread.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a long bread 条 is used. For a slice of bread 片 is used. 块 can also be used for a slice, but is also used for buns, a piece of bread or a complete bread. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-03T14:34:26.837" LastActivityDate="2012-04-03T14:34:26.837" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1493" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1494" CreationDate="2012-04-03T16:54:38.853" Score="2" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's this song in Chinese with these lyrics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;起雲動劍下虎嘯龍吟&#xA;誰知成敗早已是天定&#xA;想問伊人何處&#xA;離愁漸遠漸生&#xA;但願人長久情常在&#xA;無悔無憾&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the phrase &quot;想問伊人何處&quot; mean and connote? I understand this song to be sad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="343" LastActivityDate="2012-04-04T10:36:05.463" Title="What does &quot;想問伊人何處&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1493" CreationDate="2012-04-03T16:58:30.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;伊人 is lover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想問伊人何處 means: I want to ask where is my lover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="524" LastActivityDate="2012-04-03T16:58:30.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1495" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-04-04T01:03:25.413" Score="8" ViewCount="1747" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think they are necessarily different kinds of dictionaries, but is there a subtle distinction? Or maybe their etymologies?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-04T10:55:33.477" LastActivityDate="2012-04-04T10:55:33.477" Title="What's the difference between 词典, 辞典, and 字典?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1495" CreationDate="2012-04-04T04:27:43.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between 字典 and the other two is clear enough; the &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/6983.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu page on 字典&lt;/a&gt; describes it as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在西方，是没有字典的概念，全是中国独有的。 字典收字为主，亦会收词。词典或辞典收词为主，也会收字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;In the West, there is no concept of a &quot;字典&quot;; it is unique to China. A &quot;字典&quot; aims to collect 字, though it also collects words. A 词典 or 辞典 aims to collect words, though it also collects characters.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Non-Chinese languages lack a distinction between words and characters; Chinese differentiates between a 字典 and a 词典 because they have different goals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 词典 and 辞典 is more subtle. A neither sourced nor particularly scholarly &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/9202769&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu post&lt;/a&gt; gives the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;词典，比字多了一层：组词和释义；辞典，是在字典和词典的基础上增加了词的使用方法.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;A 词典 is one level deeper than a 字典: compound words and meanings; a 辞典 adds usage notes to the foundation of the 字典 and 词典.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This same post claims that the main function of a 字典 is to provide pronunciation and writing information for characters.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="99" LastEditDate="2012-04-04T10:32:08.437" LastActivityDate="2012-04-04T10:32:08.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1495" CreationDate="2012-04-04T08:53:05.550" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;字典 means dictionary of characters. A common 汉字字典 should contain ~8000 entries for each Chinese character. In each character entry, it's often to see example words or short phrases using that character. So, it's common to see a 汉字字典 is used as a 汉语词典.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;词典 means dictionary of words. So, each entry of a 汉语词典 is a word. Generally 汉语词典 is sorted in alphabetic order in Chinese characters, so it's common to see a 汉语词典 is used as a 汉字字典.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in China, there's not too much difference between 汉字字典 and 汉语词典. But the book of 汉语词典 is mostly thicker then 汉字字典.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辞典 means dictionary of phrases. Generally, 辞 may refer to some famous, well known phrases said by some dead guys or famous man. Well, like I've said it's not too much differences between 词典 and 辞典, but a book of 汉语辞典 is mostly thicker then a 汉语词典. You can also expect that a 汉语大辞典 is thicker then a 汉语辞典.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, it will be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English 字典： (26 entries)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A    This is the first letter.&#xA;B    This is the second letter.&#xA;...&#xA;Z    This is the last letter.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English 词典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A        Indefinite article. Also the first letter. e.g. a cat.&#xA;Apple    A kind of fruit. Green or red.&#xA;Cat      A white animal. two ears, four legs.&#xA;...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English 辞典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rain cats and dogs: A very big rain. Its rain drop is as big as cat or dog.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Most 汉语辞典s include words and characters entries as well.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="152" LastEditorUserId="152" LastEditDate="2012-04-04T09:49:51.250" LastActivityDate="2012-04-04T09:49:51.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1495" CreationDate="2012-04-04T10:28:19.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;词（辞）典 is for compound words, eg 成语词典、汉语词典、etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;字典 is for Chinese characters and meanings, focus on character's meaning, may also contain related compound words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastActivityDate="2012-04-04T10:28:19.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1493" CreationDate="2012-04-04T10:36:05.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;伊人 may be means 'my lover'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also can means 'a beautiful girl who he will fall in love with'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note that he is very sad, he failed in competition, and he need a girl to comfort him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastActivityDate="2012-04-04T10:36:05.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1491" CreationDate="2012-04-04T10:46:58.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in verbal Chinese, you can just say 一个面包, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you say 片, 块 etc. that seems a little formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In verbal Chinese, people don't care which measure word to use. We just say 个 in most situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note that just in verbal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃了俩（or 两个）面包&#xA;她刚吃了1个番薯、1个面包、5块饼干、2个糖果…这样吃一餐,会不会长胖？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastEditorUserId="603" LastEditDate="2012-04-04T15:21:21.387" LastActivityDate="2012-04-04T15:21:21.387" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1483" CreationDate="2012-04-04T15:33:21.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;qin1 cai4 means 青菜 or 小白菜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some people used to say qin1 cai4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like call it 小白菜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白菜 is bigger than 小白菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastActivityDate="2012-04-04T15:33:21.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1417" CreationDate="2012-04-04T15:41:54.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一个例子 means a example.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 榜样 means a &lt;strong&gt;PERSON&lt;/strong&gt; who made good examples. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or 榜样 describe a excellent person &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastActivityDate="2012-04-04T15:41:54.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1386" CreationDate="2012-04-04T15:50:34.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &amp;quot;In a few years I'll be driving a Ferrari.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;B: &amp;quot;As if you'll ever have a Ferrari!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest 再说吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 过两年我就有法拉利了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 等你将来真有法拉利的时候再说吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T14:56:19.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1112" CreationDate="2012-04-04T16:14:28.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wish every day like this day and happiness come along&#xA;  to you in the following years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastActivityDate="2012-04-04T16:14:28.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1206" CreationDate="2012-04-04T16:17:08.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;listed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I'm really late to class.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;followed by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;坏了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;糟糕！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;坏事了！！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;啊！！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这回可坏了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastActivityDate="2012-04-04T16:17:08.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1506" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1507" CreationDate="2012-04-04T17:50:59.107" Score="1" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase in the title comes from a Disney show, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That%27s_So_Raven&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;That's so Raven&lt;/a&gt;. But in my house, we have been confused on the proper way of translating this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now we are saying &quot;这是大Raven!&quot; with extra emphasis on &lt;strong&gt;dà&lt;/strong&gt;.  This is of course a very simplified translation. My wife says &quot;那真Raven!&quot;. Is this show even known in China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-05T15:46:31.483" LastActivityDate="2012-04-05T15:46:31.483" Title="What is an appropriate translations of &quot;That's so Raven!&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1506" CreationDate="2012-04-04T18:57:13.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think this show is particularly popular in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick search on Baidu gave me results like 天才魔女 (genius girl with magic), 超能力黑少女 (raven girl with superhuman abilities), and the literal 如此瑞文.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are just translating the phrase &quot;that's so &lt;em&gt;_&lt;/em&gt;,&quot; it would be 这太 __ or 这也太 __.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That's so cool!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这太酷了吧！ or 这也太酷了吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a name follows &quot;so&quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That's so Josh!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一看就是Josh做的！ or 典型的Josh作风！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="542" LastEditDate="2012-04-05T00:51:39.823" LastActivityDate="2012-04-05T00:51:39.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1491" CreationDate="2012-04-05T00:58:02.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think native speakers can give you a definite answer simply because we don't eat bread that often here!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say something like 他吃了一整块切片面包 or 他吃了一整袋切片面包. 切片面包 is literally &quot;sliced bread&quot;. Most of the bread you see in Chinese grocery stores (超市) is sliced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastEditorUserId="542" LastEditDate="2012-04-05T19:11:40.407" LastActivityDate="2012-04-05T19:11:40.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1509" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-04-05T16:02:21.133" Score="8" ViewCount="1019" Body="&lt;p&gt;The image below is from a book I bought while in Hong Kong (ISBN 957-14-4160-0. It's an edition of a work in classical Chinese, with an ancient commentary in classical Chinese, and a modern commentary in mandarin. The book is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sanmin.com.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;published in Taiwan&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have looked all through the book for any mention of the typefaces used to typeset the book, and have not found one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OOt2Y.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;what nice characters&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am basically in love with the typeface used for the mandarin commentary. I have never seen anything quite like it. The characters are rectangular, and usually 'top-heavy'. Since some of them are quite similar to handwritten forms I have developed over time, I would like to be able to use the font on my computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help identify it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastActivityDate="2012-07-13T04:43:46.410" Title="What is the name of this traditional Chinese character font?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1455" CreationDate="2012-04-06T01:38:01.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the phrase &quot;jiuzheng cuowu&quot; means you are partly wrong, in contrast, &quot;gaizheng cuowu&quot; is used to express that you are totally wrong. But I think most of the time they are interchangable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two have one same character- zheng, it is the result or target of these two words. However, they have different emphasis since the &quot;jiu&quot; and &quot;gai&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jiu:纠, it has a 纟.纟was writen as糸 in traditional chinese, it means hinged cords. Here is the link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%81L&amp;amp;tn=dict&amp;amp;dt=explain&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%81L&amp;amp;tn=dict&amp;amp;dt=explain&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gai:改，from the perspective of carapace-bone-script,it's left part-己,signifies a child on his or her knees, the right part signifies his or her parent stands by with a lash at hands. The whole part express that a parent taught the right way to do a thing if this child made some mistakes that a parent treats these mistakes as crucial problems. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is a link of the carapace-bone-script or jia gu wen.Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.iqilu.com/thread-113798-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://bbs.iqilu.com/thread-113798-1-1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="611" LastActivityDate="2012-04-06T01:38:01.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1491" CreationDate="2012-04-06T01:45:27.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;一条面包is fine. same like 一条香烟 etc&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.15buy.cc/goods.php?id=6007&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.15buy.cc/goods.php?id=6007&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The link below is 一包香烟， it is soft page cover( if it's hard page cover , it's 一盒香烟，some of the time they are interchangable）&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenwen.soso.com/z/q139243191.htm?pid=ask.box&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wenwen.soso.com/z/q139243191.htm?pid=ask.box&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="611" LastActivityDate="2012-04-06T01:45:27.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1509" CreationDate="2012-04-07T01:53:49.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhaozi.cn/fonts/china/riben/2010-11-18/21993.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;axisstd-extralight&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="611" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-04-07T05:12:08.063" LastActivityDate="2012-04-07T05:12:08.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1514" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1520" CreationDate="2012-04-07T09:08:38.727" Score="11" ViewCount="5009" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are already many questions about the different spoken languages that can be called Chinese. This question on the other hand asks about the written one(s?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, to start, is the written language different at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not - is it because Mandarin is used for writing, or why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The background of my question: I got told a while ago, that even if the different languages are not mutually understandable when spoken, they are when written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that even true after all? And, well, understandable to what degree? Completeley, mostly, almost?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="54" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:18:13.893" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T09:41:32.433" Title="Are there differences in writing between Chinese languages, such as Mandarin and Shanghainese" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;shanghainese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1327" CreationDate="2012-04-07T09:28:43.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, your example is bad. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, 便宜 (convenient) is not very commonly used. It appears almost only in set idioms such as 便宜行事 (meaning 'act as one sees fit'). &#xA;If you see 便宜 alone, you can assume it means &quot;cheap&quot;. You will be right 99% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, if you are looking for a general rule to distinguish between homographs, there is no simple easy rule. Your can use grammar and context to help you understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fourth, there are times when homographs cannot be distinguished, and that is often intentional--punning. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2012-04-07T09:28:43.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1317" CreationDate="2012-04-07T10:10:36.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 'rat' and 'mouse' in English? -.-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have looked up and found a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ratbehavior.org/RatsMice.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;page&lt;/a&gt; that says the main difference is that a rat is bigger than a mouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It that is so, then in Chinese we do not distinguish between 'rat' and 'mouse'. We just call them 老鼠 or 耗子 (耗子 is more colloquial and dialectal). If you want, you can say 大老鼠 and 小老鼠 to describe them vaguely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鼠 is seldom used alone. It is a morpheme that should be used together with other morphemes to form words, such as 老鼠, 田鼠, 袋鼠. These words cannot be abbreviated to 鼠. Maybe in scientific literature 鼠 can be used alone, but I think in that case people are more inclined to use precise terms in Binomial Nomenclature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仓鼠 (hamster) is a common pet in China. Some other rodents are also common pets, but we do not usually call them 'X鼠'. For example, cavia porcellus (豚鼠) is usually called 荷兰猪, and chinchilladale (南美洲栗鼠) is usually called 龙猫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The little white mice used in science laboratories are called 小白鼠.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastEditorUserId="617" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T02:24:16.627" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T02:24:16.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1224" CreationDate="2012-04-07T10:34:08.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically 'X语' refers to the spoken language and 'X文' refers to the written form, but in everyday life people do not normally make such fine distinction. The two forms can often be used interchangeably. I think 'X语' is more common in mainland China, and 'X文' is more common in Hong Kong and Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2012-04-07T10:34:08.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1518" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1523" CreationDate="2012-04-07T11:05:59.047" Score="1" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to say this in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Inheritance allows for reuse of code where common behavior is defined&#xA;  once for a number of related classes and unique behavior is&#xA;  implemented only in classes where the behavior is different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but this seems not very accurate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;继承允许代码的重用，一些相关联的类中共同的行为只被定义一次，具有唯一性的行为只在类之间的行为不同的地方实现。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this is a single English sentence, but it difficult to translate to Chinese&#xA;anybody can help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-08T08:56:28.910" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T15:57:31.977" Title="How do I translate a definition for inheritance (computer science)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1420" CreationDate="2012-04-07T19:01:00.570" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, I frequently hear all three of&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;沒有道理&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;說不通&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;沒有意思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I usually use 沒有意思. I think this is one of those situations where the literally meaning doesn't quite capture the sentiment (which is, indeed, &amp;quot;doesn't make sense&amp;quot;) while the literal meaning misses the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: If I were reacting to an absurd statement (&amp;quot;That doesn't make sense&amp;quot;) I would probably say 怎麼意思？ However, if I were describing a situation, then I would probably lean towards 說不通. I think it's true that it probably differs by region though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="621" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T13:01:09.613" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T13:01:09.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1514" CreationDate="2012-04-07T19:05:26.817" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me answer the most general question first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;even if the different languages are not mutually understandable when spoken, they are when written.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To a large extent, this is true - but for two different reasons. Before the modern era, this is true because &quot;written Chinese&quot; was based on classical Chinese; whereas the spoken languages were highly divergent from the written form. This is similar to the situation in pre-Renaissance Italy, where scholars wrote in Latin but spoke in highly divergent (mutually unintelligible) Italian dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the 1910s-1930s, when China was beginning to modernize, there was an influential literary movement to use &quot;Vernacular Chinese&quot; in place of &quot;Classical Chinese&quot; in writing, because the former was easier to understand for the vast majority of people, who were learning how to write and read for the first time. Of course, this created a problem - there are so many languages/dialects in Vernacular Chinese, so which one do we choose as the standard one? It was agreed, after about 20 years of (often bitter) debates, spanning across different regimes, that the Mandarin (Guanhua) dialect based in Beijing would be the standard form of written Vernacular Chinese. Today this is simply referred to as &quot;Chinese&quot; or &quot;Standard Chinese&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes - a person living in Shanghai, who only speaks Shanghainese, is generally able to write and read in a &quot;written form&quot; of Beijing Mandarin. You can see how this makes things difficult for speakers of non-Mandarin dialects - they speak with a particular grammatical structure and vocabulary, but have to write and read in a completely different way. Often, to make things easier, most non-Mandarin (Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi etc.) regions of China have adopted non-standardized ways of putting their native vernacular languages into writing. This usually happens when using Mandarin Chinese would create confusion or ambiguity, or when the vocabulary and grammar they used is significantly different from Mandarin vocabulary. For example, the Shanghainese would write &quot;再會&quot; for &quot;Goodbye&quot;, instead of &quot;再見&quot;. In Cantonese, in particular, the written form of Cantonese is highly developed (partially because of Hong Kong's unique history) and widely used in place of Mandarin writing in non-official settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the younger generation, regardless of whether they uses local vocabulary in writing, they usually understand Standard Chinese very well, since they learn it in school. So the mutual intelligibility goes one way - the non-Mandarin speakers can read Mandarin, but the Mandarin speakers usually cannot read local dialects. Summary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historical: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spoken languages: Many&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Written language: Classical Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spoken languages: Many&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Written language: Mandarin is understood by all; local varieties used by some&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may also be of interest to you that there are two different &lt;em&gt;scripts&lt;/em&gt; for written Chinese - traditional and simplified. Traditional Chinese is used by people outside of mainland China (Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, overseas communities) whereas Simplified Chinese is used by those within.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastEditorUserId="620" LastEditDate="2012-04-07T19:11:50.007" LastActivityDate="2012-04-07T19:11:50.007" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1514" CreationDate="2012-04-08T02:43:56.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin is the official 'language' in China, both verbal and writing must use Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in southern provinces of China, Cantonese is official too! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Northerner usually can't understand that 'language'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but most of the southerner can understand Mandarin, especially for young people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastActivityDate="2012-04-08T02:43:56.837" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1518" CreationDate="2012-04-08T04:59:22.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The transcript is about computer science inheritance concept. And the English is written very poorly. It is not easy to understand in English, if you apply it to this kind of abstract computer science concepts nobody will understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Inheritance allows for reuse of code where common behavior is defined once for a number of related classes and &lt;strong&gt;unique behavior is implemented only in classes where the behavior is different&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;继承允许代码的重用，一些相关联的类中共同的行为只被定义一次，&lt;strong&gt;具有唯一性的行为只在类之间的行为不同的地方实现&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think the marked bold one correspond to each other very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the following will be easier for you to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一個類別(A)如果继承了另一類別(B)，被继承的(B)為子類別，继承類別(A)則為父類別。子类继承允许代码的重用，可使子类别具有父类别的各种属性和行为，而不需要再次编写相同的代码；唯子類別之独特行为須在本身行為中個別定義。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that you have the basic computer science or programming knowledge before you do this kind of translation, or it will be very difficult for you to translate the whole passage!  For reference you can take chinese wikipedia of 继承_(计算机科学).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="624" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-04-08T14:27:41.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1386" CreationDate="2012-04-08T05:07:36.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about &quot;拜托!&quot; ? Which I would use to say 'come on!' Or 'puleeeeze' (an exagerated please)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="625" LastActivityDate="2012-04-08T05:07:36.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1525" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1531" CreationDate="2012-04-08T05:18:27.610" Score="2" ViewCount="1498" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in the the differences between English and Mandarin when they are talking about spatial preposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can i assume that in Mandarin, they use the preposition 上 for most of the times disregard the spatial differences? For example, in English, there are word like &quot;on&quot;, &quot;above&quot;, &quot;over&quot;, and they have different function in their spatial category, in which &quot;on&quot; should be higher than &quot;above&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="626" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-08T10:49:21.377" LastActivityDate="2012-04-10T21:05:58.057" Title="The use of 上 (shàng) &quot;on/above/over&quot; in Mandarin and English" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1526" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1527" CreationDate="2012-04-08T05:39:46.663" Score="3" ViewCount="1489" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ate with a Chinese who mentioned the soup was &lt;code&gt;清淡 (qing dan)&lt;/code&gt;: clear, and bland. On Google all I found were acupuncture and &quot;macrobiotic diet&quot; websites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &lt;code&gt;清淡 (qing dan)&lt;/code&gt; an adjective commonly applied to food that is simple and light, or is it reserved for food from a special diet?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastEditorUserId="99" LastEditDate="2012-04-08T09:46:38.513" LastActivityDate="2012-04-09T12:43:11.147" Title="清淡 (qing dan) usage: any food, or from a diet?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1526" CreationDate="2012-04-08T06:20:03.493" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's written as 清淡 and used in different contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For light colors, smells&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For light (non-greasy, non-oily) food&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Business running slow or slacking&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In arts for a simple style&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-04-08T06:20:03.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1526" CreationDate="2012-04-08T07:10:05.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These words are related to the Chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tea have been thought of &lt;code&gt;qing dan&lt;/code&gt;, but coffee is reverse. Vegetable been thought of &lt;code&gt;qing dan&lt;/code&gt;, but meat is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In traditional culture all these stuff like eat vegetables, drink tea, no sexual life, no smoke and no wine are be seen as &lt;code&gt;Qing&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before, some people thought it can make themself live long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-08T14:26:50.593" LastActivityDate="2012-04-08T14:26:50.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1526" CreationDate="2012-04-08T10:41:10.563" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When referring to food, &quot;清淡&quot; means &lt;em&gt;&quot;low-salt, low-fat, less sugar, less meat, low cholesterol, non-alcoholic and not spicy&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a wide sense,it does mean light and simple food, no fried-no barbecue-less edible oil; In a narrow sense, it is related to the Chinese culture which is very intriguing and complex to explain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="616" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-09T12:43:11.147" LastActivityDate="2012-04-09T12:43:11.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1525" CreationDate="2012-04-08T12:34:49.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese 「上」 just means above no matter further distance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For addition description, you should use some degree words as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上面一些  (means a little above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or add some given distance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大概兩米以上 (approximately two meters above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually I do not quite understand what you want to know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="627" LastEditorUserId="627" LastEditDate="2012-04-10T21:05:58.057" LastActivityDate="2012-04-10T21:05:58.057" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1535" CreationDate="2012-04-08T16:30:25.510" Score="6" ViewCount="5176" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I was chatting online with a Chinese person. I wanted to say &quot;I have to go&quot; to end the conversation and disconnect, so I wrote this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我得走了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I don't know if there is a better sentence. Or that sentence is just fine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-08T16:35:02.167" LastActivityDate="2012-04-11T05:30:13.057" Title="Saying &quot;I have to go&quot; in chat" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1534" CreationDate="2012-04-08T18:47:40.637" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is just fine, and it's a very native usage. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「得」 has the meaning of 'must' when read as 'dei3' in pinyin or 'ㄉㄟ ˇ' in zhuyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For expressing this, you could also say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我不得(&lt;em&gt;note&lt;/em&gt;: 'de2', not 'dei3')不走了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我必須走了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But '我得走了' is better in speaking and the above two are more used in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="627" LastEditorUserId="627" LastEditDate="2012-04-10T21:02:40.200" LastActivityDate="2012-04-10T21:02:40.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1534" CreationDate="2012-04-08T22:43:55.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience, the use of 得 (&lt;em&gt;dei&lt;/em&gt;， sometimes &lt;em&gt;di&lt;/em&gt;) to mean &amp;quot;have to&amp;quot; is generally seen in Northern China, and rarely elsewhere. Interestingly, the use of &amp;quot;不得不&amp;quot; (&lt;em&gt;bu de bu&lt;/em&gt;) to mean the exact same thing seems more prevalent, according to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pkucn.com/viewthread.php?tid=234815&amp;amp;extra=page=59&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;thread&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other combinations that can communicate similar meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我该走了 (I should go)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是时候走了 ([It] is time to go)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要走了 (I need to go)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(P.S.: Based on my amateurish understanding of the phrase, the use of &amp;quot;不得&amp;quot; to mean &amp;quot;cannot&amp;quot; is an abbreviation for the more ancient phrase &amp;quot;不得已&amp;quot;, which translates to &amp;quot;cannot stop&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;does not have an alternative&amp;quot; （已 means &amp;quot;end&amp;quot;). This is possibly the same reason why in Cantonese, &amp;quot;得&amp;quot; (when used alone) means &amp;quot;can&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is true, then the word &amp;quot;得&amp;quot; here is indeed the same word that we commonly see it refer to (to have, to obtain), so the pronunciation of &amp;quot;得&amp;quot; as &amp;quot;dei&amp;quot; in Beijing Mandarin is probably a corruption (or a vernacular reading), which might be intended to differentiate it from the words 的 and 地 in this particular context. This explains why &amp;quot;bu de bu&amp;quot; does not have the same corruption.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-04-08T23:41:33.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1526" CreationDate="2012-04-09T02:47:28.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of the time, it refers to food as low-salt, low-fat, less sugar, less meat, low cholesterol, non-alcoholic and not spicy. Seldom for other usage, do not make things complicated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="630" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-09T12:42:43.470" LastActivityDate="2012-04-09T12:42:43.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1525" CreationDate="2012-04-10T01:31:49.947" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you miss the point in your attempt to understand the use of 上 to represent on, above or over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese language proves there is no need for more than one word to do this as the necessary information is provided entirely in the context of the conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I am thinking of sentences that may appear difficult:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The bird was on his head&quot;, &quot;The bird was over his head&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which could both be translated in Chinese to something like:&#xA;“鸟在他头上”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out of context you may try and guess whether it is right on his head or right above his head, however it could be either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples of how this could be expanded (taken from Google results):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有一只鸟在他头上飞过 — &lt;em&gt;extended, no contact, vertical&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A bird flew &lt;strong&gt;over&lt;/strong&gt; his head.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;鸟在他头上做窝 — &lt;em&gt;contact&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A bird built a nest &lt;strong&gt;on&lt;/strong&gt; his head.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;鸟在他头上飞了几圈 — &lt;em&gt;extended, no contact, vertical&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The bird circled &lt;strong&gt;above&lt;/strong&gt; his head a few times.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be interested to find an example sentence in English that can not be easily understood in context in the Chinese with the same amount of information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-10T11:31:28.117" LastActivityDate="2012-04-10T11:31:28.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1540" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-04-10T01:42:40.357" Score="3" ViewCount="1629" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a lesson in a Chinese text book was the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他不由得哭 (Tā bùyóude kū)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;He could not help but cry&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never heard 不由得 used in a sentence, and I want to know if it is common and if not, what is typically used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence I was hoping to say is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I can't help but blame you&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate offers the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不禁责怪你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular I want spoken Chinese rather than written if there is a difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-04-11T17:19:58.833" Title="How to say &quot;I can't help but...&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1540" CreationDate="2012-04-10T02:14:57.490" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are actually two meanings of &lt;em&gt;&quot;can't help but&quot;&lt;/em&gt; here, with a rather subtle distinction. In your first example, the guy cannot control the fact that he wants to cry - he simply let go of his emotions. In your second example, you &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; control your behavior, and in fact you're very &lt;em&gt;determined&lt;/em&gt; to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first example, an equivalent phrase would be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不由自主地 (did something without control)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second example, an equivalent phrase would be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没有办法不[责怪你]  (have no choice but to [blame you]).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're right that the phrase 不由得 is rarely used. In fact, when it is used, it usually has a different meaning: telling another person &quot;You have no choice&quot;, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这件事情不由得你 = You have no say in this matter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastEditorUserId="620" LastEditDate="2012-04-10T02:20:19.840" LastActivityDate="2012-04-10T02:20:19.840" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1540" CreationDate="2012-04-10T03:09:02.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best direct translation to the phrase &lt;code&gt;... can't help but...&lt;/code&gt; that I can think of is &lt;code&gt;...不得不...&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He can't help but cry - 他不得不哭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can't help but to blame you - 我不得不责怪你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can't help but to think of you - 我不得不想你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase &lt;code&gt;...不得不...&lt;/code&gt; basically means one might not want to do something, but is compelled by whatever reason to it anyway.  Which is very similar to the meaning of the English phrase &lt;code&gt;... can't help but...&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="529" LastActivityDate="2012-04-10T03:09:02.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1540" CreationDate="2012-04-10T03:56:08.737" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, both of your examples are a little awkward. The following changes make them more natural Chinese sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不由得哭了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不禁要责怪你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, yes, both 不由得 and 不禁 are more common in written instead of spoken Chinese. A colloquial expression will be 忍不住:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他忍不住哭了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我忍不住要责怪你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;... can't help but ...&lt;/code&gt; implies &lt;code&gt;I don't want to do so but I can't control my feelings.&lt;/code&gt; So does 忍不住.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your first example, you can also use 不由自主地. It has the same meaning, but is more of written style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不由自主地哭了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for other suggestions such as 不得不 and 没法不, the meaning is a little different. It means &lt;code&gt;I don't want to but the objective circumstances compels me to do so.&lt;/code&gt; It is more a description of the physical world than an expression of the psychological mood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不得不哭。(In this case, there is no 了 at the end of the sentence. He had to cry but we do not know if he actually cried. The same below.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他没法不哭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不得不责怪你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没法不责怪你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-04-10T03:56:08.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1544" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1545" CreationDate="2012-04-10T06:19:25.103" Score="3" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;My main aim is to try and find the best word to use when describing a freshwater lake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what if any is the difference between the following: 清水, 淡水 and 自来水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-04-10T07:32:47.340" Title="Difference between 清水, 淡水 and 自来水" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1544" CreationDate="2012-04-10T06:34:51.293" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;清水 clear water; 淡水 fresh water (contrast to salt water); 自来水 Tap water,  30 years ago most of the chinese people had to fetch water from nearby rivers, lakes or wells by using buckets (挑水). Tap water goes through pipes to homes, people think these water go to their home automatically (without 挑水), they created the word 自来水 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-04-10T06:34:51.293" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1544" CreationDate="2012-04-10T07:32:47.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend the word 淡水.&#xA;Literally, &lt;code&gt;清&lt;/code&gt; means “&lt;em&gt;clear; distinct; complete; pure&lt;/em&gt;”. However, there is slightly difference of shade in the word &quot;&lt;code&gt;清水&lt;/code&gt;&quot;，清 emphasizes on &quot;&lt;em&gt;clean&lt;/em&gt;&quot;,whose equivalent is &quot;&lt;em&gt;clean water&lt;/em&gt;&quot; [Antonym:脏水dirty water] but not as same as &quot;&lt;em&gt;clear water&lt;/em&gt;&quot; in English.&#xA;As for 淡水Freshwater，自来水[lit. SELF-COMING WATER]Tap water, Fivesheep has given a good answer above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="616" LastActivityDate="2012-04-10T07:32:47.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2012-04-10T08:33:14.847" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your supposition about the &quot;来的&quot; is undoubtedly right! I am a native living in Guangzhou. It's very &quot;normal&quot; to say &quot;这 是 什么 &lt;strong&gt;来的&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; to mean &quot;What is it&quot; in the Cantonese-speaking area due to the influence of the Cantonese construction &quot;呢個 係  乜嘢 &lt;strong&gt;嚟嘅&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.You could say &quot;来的&quot; is a Cantonese-Mandarin粤式普通话.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;来着&quot; is a northern colloquial functional word to imply old information. It usually occurs when the speaker couldn't recall the old information. &#xA;Cf. WKS's answer 他叫什么来着？我昨天说什么来着？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both &quot;来的&quot; and &quot;来着&quot; are colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="616" LastEditorUserId="616" LastEditDate="2012-04-10T08:38:36.507" LastActivityDate="2012-04-10T08:38:36.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1534" CreationDate="2012-04-11T05:30:13.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我得走了is fine. Howver, we usually give a reason why you have to go. Such as:&#xA;我得走了，我要去参加一个会议. Means I have to go, for I'm going to attend a meeting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="637" LastActivityDate="2012-04-11T05:30:13.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1386" CreationDate="2012-04-11T17:10:18.567" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;肯定是&lt;code&gt;好像``正如&lt;/code&gt;的意思, 在您的例子中, 那句话最地道的中文说法应该是:&lt;code&gt;说的跟真的似的!&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;When we trans &lt;code&gt;as if&lt;/code&gt; into Chinese, We always use &lt;code&gt;好像&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;正如&lt;/code&gt;. But in different sentence, we will choose a best fit word. In that example, B think A is &lt;code&gt;做梦(空想)&lt;/code&gt;, so, the &lt;code&gt;说的跟真的似的&lt;/code&gt; 表达了B对A的想法的嘲笑的态度.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="638" LastActivityDate="2012-04-11T17:10:18.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1540" CreationDate="2012-04-11T17:19:58.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;I can't help but&lt;/code&gt;&#xA; 在你的两个例子中, &lt;code&gt;忍不住&lt;/code&gt;是最好的选择. 表达了人物想控制, 但是控制不住自己的情绪.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, &lt;code&gt;忍不住&lt;/code&gt; is the best fit choice. It express the person that want to control himself but failed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="638" LastActivityDate="2012-04-11T17:19:58.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="318" CreationDate="2012-04-12T09:59:50.177" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, the de/di phenomenon is not 文白异读 (literary-colloquial distinct readings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term &quot;文白异读 (literary-colloquial distinct readings)&quot; have strict academic definition. Not every homograph is 文白异读 (literary-colloquial distinct readings). Not every literary-colloquial distinction is 文白异读 (literary-colloquial distinct readings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Books on Chinese phonology do not list de/di as 文白异读 (literary-colloquial distinct readings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The differences between 文白异读 (literary-colloquial distinct readings) are systematic in nature. For instance, there is an (u)o/ao relationship:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;薄 bo bao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剥 bo bao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落 luo lao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烙 luo lao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凿 zuo zao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a systematic relationship is not a coincidence. This is so because 文白异读 (literary-colloquial distinct readings) reflects the contact of two sound systems. It is systematic in nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is not the case with de/di. There is no systematic relationship with the e/i pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;De&quot; is just a weak form of &quot;di&quot;. In Chinese, words seldom have weak form. But &quot;的&quot; is so common (it is the most commonly used character in modern Mandarin, both oral and written), and its meaning is so not concrete (it has no real content meaning; it is a function word that serves a lot of grammatical functions), it has a weak form. It takes the schwa sound, just like the typical weak form of an English word, because the schwa sound is the most neutral, some would say the easist sound that a human mouth can make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its written form is stabilized only recently. In 1940s, some writers still use &quot;底&quot; (di).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two other similar words are &quot;着&quot; and &quot;了&quot;. Both take the schwa sound as the weak form: &quot;zhe&quot; and &quot;le&quot;. Note that the &quot;proper&quot; pronunciations or strong forms of these words, &quot;di&quot;, &quot;zhuo&quot; and &quot;liao&quot;, have no similarity at all. Their common feature is in there grammatical function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In older songs (songs in the 1980s for instance), you can still hear singers use &quot;zhuo&quot; and &quot;liao&quot; respectively. But as I have noticed, these two pronunciations are fading more quickly than &quot;di&quot;. You can still hear &quot;di&quot; occasionally in new songs, but &quot;zhuo&quot; and &quot;liao&quot; can only be heard in really old songs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Naturally, weak forms are commonly used in colloquial occasions, and strong forms are used in more formal and literary occasions and in emphasis. Songs, of course, are more formal, literary and emphatic. (Yes, there is also a literary-colloquial distinction here, but it is not 文白异读 (literary-colloquial distinct readings).)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And don't forget the influence of dialects. Speakers of non-Mandarin dialects often have difficulty learning 轻声 (the neutral/fifth/zeroth tone) and weak forms. They may just stick to the strong form &quot;di&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two forms are more or less in in free variation. That means both pronunciations are right. It is not wrong to say &quot;some people just do it&quot;. If you say &quot;di&quot;, people may think you are stilted or having an accent, but they won't think your pronunction is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation is to use &quot;de&quot; in daily speech and &quot;di&quot; in songs. That way, you talk naturally and sing with refinement. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastEditorUserId="617" LastEditDate="2012-12-27T10:38:40.333" LastActivityDate="2012-12-27T10:38:40.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="428" CreationDate="2012-04-12T10:10:12.367" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another theory is: '他妈的' is the omission of 'a verb that meaning f**k' + '他妈的'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this is true, because sometimes you can still hear the full version (please forgive me): 操他妈的, 干他妈的, 日他妈的, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2012-04-12T10:10:12.367" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="650" CreationDate="2012-04-12T10:52:47.133" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question really surprises me. Since you mentioned 李白 and 杜甫, clearly you were talking about classical Chinese poetry. Classical Chinese poetry is so into rhymes and rhythms that it is almost unhealthy. There are volumes of books written on rhymes and rhythms of classical Chinese poetry. Asking 'Are there poems in Chinese that rhyme?' is like asking 'Does Facebook have users?' or 'Does Bill Gates have money?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many ancient poems do not rhyme today because Chinese pronunciation has undergone many changes over time. They did all rhyme at the time written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of a poem in which every sentence rhymes. This kind of poem has a special name called 柏梁体. This poem I'm quoting rhyme at the end of every sentence even today:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曹丕《燕歌行》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;秋风萧瑟天气凉，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;草木摇落露为霜。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;群燕辞归鹄南翔，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;念君客游多思肠。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;慊慊思归恋故乡，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;君何淹留寄他方？　&lt;br&gt;&#xA;贱妾茕茕守空房，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;忧来思君不敢忘，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不觉泪下沾衣裳。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;援琴鸣弦发清商，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;短歌微吟不能长。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;明月皎皎照我床，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;星汉西流夜未央。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;牵牛织女遥相望，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;尔独何辜限河梁。   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastEditorUserId="617" LastEditDate="2012-04-13T03:14:10.923" LastActivityDate="2012-04-13T03:14:10.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="318" CreationDate="2012-04-13T03:31:26.910" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;None of the other answers are really relevant to the question asked. The poster asks WHY the word 的 is sometimes pronounced &quot;di&quot;; not when and how you use it. And saying that &quot;some people just do it&quot; is not an answer, it's a tautology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The true reason why there are many distinct pronunciations is a historical/cultural phenomenon called 文白异读 (literary-colloquial distinct readings). This refers to the phenomenon that &quot;formal&quot; words or words used in &quot;elegant&quot; settings are pronounced in a (slightly) different way than the same words in &quot;vulgar&quot; or &quot;ordinary&quot; settings. This most often occurs in southern languages such as Cantonese and Hokkien, where the literati often imitated Mandarin sounds (of the Song-Ming variant) for some &quot;cultured&quot; phrases but retained most of the local pronunciations for other uses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this phenomenon happens occasionally in Standard (Beijing) Mandarin too. During most of the Qing dynasty, Nanjing Mandarin was the official language of the court, so many of the Northern Mandarin speakers tried to follow the Nanjing sound. The word 的 was pronounced as &quot;di&quot; or &quot;dih&quot; (with &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; representing a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop&quot;&gt;glottal stop&lt;/a&gt;/入声) in most of the southern dialects of Mandarin. At the same time, it was being &quot;merged&quot; with the sound of 得 in Beijing Mandarin. Thus two distinct pronunciations came into place - it retained the &quot;di&quot; pronunciation for more cultured usage (such as transliterated names, or in singing) while it changed into &quot;de&quot; for more popular uses such as possessive particle. This is the theory at least; in the actual world, phonological shifts are often highly confusing and convoluted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For much of the last century the &quot;di&quot; usage has been losing popularity, particularly because the Communist Party took a very practical approach to pronunciation (by trying to merge redundant sounds), but it is still used from time to time. You'll see it used particularly often by older speakers or more traditional singers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples of literary-colloquial differences (c=colloquial, l=literary):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Standard Mandarin (Pinyin):&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;血 xiě (C), xuè (L)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;露 lòu (C), lù (L)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;薄 báo (C), bó (L)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Standard Cantonese (Jyutping):&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;血 hyut (C,L)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听 teng (C), ting (L)  (this is a &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-close_near-front_unrounded_vowel&quot;&gt;long i&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, similar to the one in English)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;正 zeng (C), zing (L)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的 ge (C), dik (L)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;给 bei (C), kap (L)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Taiwanese Minnan:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;血 hueh (C), hiat (L)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听 tiann (C), ting (L) (this is a &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_front_unrounded_vowel&quot;&gt;short i&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, similar to the one in Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;正 ziann (C), zing (L)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的 e (C), dik (L)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;给 ka/ho (C), kip (L)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, literary readings tend to be pretty similar across languages (because they arise from cross-language borrowing). Colloquial readings, on the other hand, are the result of sound change, so they are (predictably) different across dialects. Here are some examples of usages for 血 in Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;血&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(C) xiě: 血淋淋, 鸡血, 流血&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(L) xuè: 血汗, 血缘, 血案&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, you have to follow your intuition. More &quot;formal&quot; phrases tend to use literary readings; single words tend to use colloquial readings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-10-11T04:45:43.760" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:45:43.760" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="943" CreationDate="2012-04-13T03:52:24.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;春节 is commonly used. 农历新年, 阴历年, etc. are rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another common expression is simply 年, but it usually needs to be used in context,  e.g. 过年, 拜年, 大年初一, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example: '年味', '你的年打算怎么过？' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the last example, it is not 'How do you plan to spend this year?', but 'How do you plan to celebrate the Spring Festival?' See &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.xinhuanet.com/city/2012-01/20/c_122610924.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.xinhuanet.com/city/2012-01/20/c_122610924.htm&lt;/a&gt; for a real usage example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastEditorUserId="617" LastEditDate="2012-04-13T06:16:14.287" LastActivityDate="2012-04-13T06:16:14.287" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1556" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1557" CreationDate="2012-04-13T16:40:43.003" Score="6" ViewCount="1465" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to compile a list of characters where you can draw two lines in a + shape, running through the center of the character to cleanly separate it into four &quot;components.&quot; Some leeway must be given when writing them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 疑, 殺, and 豔 fit my criteria. For 疑, I wouldn't call ヒ or マ Chinese real Chinese characters, but they are Japanese katakana so they must be related (maybe historically) to Chinese. So the character qualifies to me. I only studied traditional characters so there could be even more simplified ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not even sure if there's a term for this type of character geometry. There might be a workbook somewhere that has collected such characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="588" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T16:04:24.477" LastActivityDate="2013-12-16T13:04:57.323" Title="&quot;Four-part&quot; composition of characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1556" CreationDate="2012-04-13T18:25:28.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if there's a list for characters with distinct components - I imagine that will be pretty hard to define precisely - but there are indeed lists for characters with &quot;repeated&quot; components （同字合体字, or 疊字)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%9B%E5%8F%A0%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;On Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, there is a list for words with four repeated components (for interest only - most of these characters are not used in daily settings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-05T17:33:35.577" LastActivityDate="2012-05-05T17:33:35.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1556" CreationDate="2012-04-13T22:48:24.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1309/16&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;, there's &lt;a href=&quot;http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Chinese_characters_decomposition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a WikiCommons project&lt;/a&gt; to describe the composition of Chinese characters. If you search that table for entries with 叕 in the third column, you'll find a few, including 叕, 朤, and 燚. If you want to find characters with four different components arranged that way, then you'll probably have to do some coding. You'd have to find all characters that have 吅 in the third column, and then both components have 吕. There might be some in the opposite order, as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-04-13T22:48:24.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1560" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1562" CreationDate="2012-04-16T11:00:33.287" Score="3" ViewCount="1514" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching Raise the Red Lantern (which is an excellent movie by the way) and saw this phrase come up on the subtitles, but wasn't able to catch what the actual Mandarin behind it was. Does anyone know what it translates to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="581" LastActivityDate="2013-08-25T10:23:37.970" Title="What is the 成语 for &quot;face like buddha, heart like scorpion&quot;?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1564" CreationDate="2012-04-16T11:47:54.153" Score="7" ViewCount="5405" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, it is common to say you are &quot;passionate about something&quot; or &quot;something is your passion&quot; (e.g. &lt;em&gt;My passion is rockclimbing&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This use of 'passion' is different to 'passion' as in relationships/emotions etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What Chinese expression would be suitable to indicate 'passion' in the sense of &quot;My passion is rockclimbing&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="60" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-16T11:51:12.677" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T03:56:32.443" Title="What is the best Chinese equivalent for &quot;passion&quot; or &quot;to be passionate about something&quot;?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1560" CreationDate="2012-04-16T14:00:28.090" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strike&gt;I didn't see this film, so I am not sure if this is the original one used in the film.&#xA;From your description, I guess the idiom is &amp;quot;人面兽心&amp;quot;, which literally means &amp;quot;a human's face and a beast's heart&amp;quot;, actually is used to describe a man who looks kind, but really is vicious, evil or wicked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I think you can show us the time point or the scene when this line appears so we can easily catch it for you.&lt;/strike&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&#xA;The original word in the film is &amp;quot;菩萨脸,蝎子心&amp;quot;. I don't think it's an idiom. I'll treat it as an analogy, a figure of speech. Actually, &amp;quot;菩萨&amp;quot; isn't Buddha, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bodhisattva&lt;/a&gt;, an image in Buddhism. The subtitle translated the meaning well and I think it's easy for you to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-04-17T12:07:02.760" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1561" CreationDate="2012-04-16T14:27:41.650" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your case, passion could be translated into &quot;热情&quot;(zeal),&quot;激情&quot;(deep love), or &quot;爱好&quot;(hobby). Note that &quot;激情&quot; could also mean &quot;passion&quot; as in romantic relationships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to describe the pattern for this word. In general, you would say &quot;对X的热情/激情/爱好&quot; to mean &quot;passion for X&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for your example &quot;My passion is rockclimbing&quot;, you could say &quot;我的爱好是攀岩&quot;, or “我对攀岩富有热情/激情&quot;, but I would like to express it in a simple way,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我酷爱攀岩。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;酷爱&quot; means &quot;to love something deep&quot; as a verb here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-04-16T14:27:41.650" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1560" CreationDate="2012-04-18T00:37:04.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;面如桃李 心如蛇蝎。I think this idiom should be appropriate, although buddha is 佛陀 in Chinese, but 桃李 means the flowers of peach and plum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="646" LastActivityDate="2012-04-18T00:37:04.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1561" CreationDate="2012-04-18T23:25:38.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A common term that I often come across is 热衷于. It's normally used in conjunction with an intensifier like 十分 or 非常.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My passion is rockclimbing:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我非常热衷于攀岩.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-11T23:35:37.773" LastActivityDate="2012-05-11T23:35:37.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1568" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1570" CreationDate="2012-04-20T16:46:19.140" Score="6" ViewCount="2330" Body="&lt;p&gt;My wife gave up trying to correct me on how to pronounce green.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find it very hard to get a distinct sound from the word for 绿 (lü4 - green), Lu, and, Liu (as in Liu Bei). Obviously, Lu is exactly how it reads in English, but the other two are hard to get right with the tongue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I pronounce this sound?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="149" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-20T18:35:08.330" LastActivityDate="2013-03-11T22:46:26.503" Title="How can I pronounce 绿 (lü4 - green)?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1560" CreationDate="2012-04-20T17:11:04.473" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you insist to have it translated into the idiom, I think &lt;code&gt;佛口蛇心&lt;/code&gt;is the most suitable. It is the closest in meaning, and really is an idiom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="651" LastActivityDate="2012-04-20T17:11:04.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1568" CreationDate="2012-04-20T18:44:40.830" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sound represented by the ü sound in Chinese is the same as the German ü; this sound is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_front_rounded_vowel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;close front rounded vowel&lt;/a&gt;, the IPA is [y]; you can hear a sample in the link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you see in the table below in that wikipedia article, which lists the languages that possess this sound, we see both Mandarin (which uses green as the example) and German. So the sound is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to teach this is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pronounce an &quot;ee&quot; sound, in English, like for &quot;feel&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keep pronouncing the sound, but start rounding your lips as if you had to pronounce a &quot;oo&quot; sound, which is &lt;code&gt;[u]&lt;/code&gt;, a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_back_rounded_vowel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;close back rounded vowel&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The final sound you should get is the one of a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_front_rounded_vowel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;close front rounded vowel&lt;/a&gt;, also written as &lt;code&gt;[y]&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, you have the &lt;strong&gt;same lips position&lt;/strong&gt; for &lt;strong&gt;U&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Ü&lt;/strong&gt;, but a &lt;strong&gt;different tongue position&lt;/strong&gt;, the one for the [i] sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at the image below. The tongue position is different in &lt;strong&gt;[i]&lt;/strong&gt; (upper-left) and &lt;strong&gt;[u]&lt;/strong&gt; (upper-right).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cQpLA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;tongue position&quot;&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T09:53:59.147" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T09:53:59.147" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1568" CreationDate="2012-04-21T07:45:43.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seem to be 2 ways to describe the ü sound. One is the one Alenanno describes, and for example also &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/15&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;mentioned on ChinesePod&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To make the basic ü sound, make a continuous &quot;ee&quot; sound. As you make&#xA;  the sound, round your lips into the position they would need to be in&#xA;  to make an &quot;oo&quot; sound. By making the &quot;ee&quot; sound in your mouth with&#xA;  your lips in the &quot;oo&quot; position, you are pronouncing Mandarin's ü&#xA;  sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other one is described in &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.be/books?id=_YnFyi-_HYQC&amp;amp;pg=PR13&amp;amp;dq=chinese%20pronunciation%20u%20%C3%BC%20mouth%20position&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=F06ST4qNEuKQ0AXT9-nyAQ&amp;amp;sqi=2&amp;amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this book&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Place your tongue tip so that it touches the back of the lower front teeth. At the same time, stretch the corners of the mount towards two sides. Then draw your lips in to form a perfect circle as small as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't agree with Alenanno about the position of the tongue. For example this &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.be/books?id=_YnFyi-_HYQC&amp;amp;pg=PR13&amp;amp;dq=chinese%20pronunciation%20u%20%C3%BC%20mouth%20position&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=F06ST4qNEuKQ0AXT9-nyAQ&amp;amp;sqi=2&amp;amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;book&lt;/a&gt; says that ü should be at the lower front teeth, not the upper front teeth as shown in the picture in Alenanno's post.&#xA;Also the tongue positions in Chinese are in most cases more determined by the initials than not the finals. For example yu, qu, xu, ju have a ü proncounciation, but are both at the lower teeth. cu, su, zu have a u pronounciation, but are at upper teeth, not where it is positioned in the drawing in Alenanno's post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my mother tongue we also have the ü sound, and I can make it for any position of the tip of my tongue. The tip of the tongue is not important, what is important is that the shape of your tongue and lips are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;u on the other hand is pronounced as the oo in the English word too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Liu is a short version for liou. So you start with pronouncing li and continue with ou (de ou of 朋友).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-04-21T12:54:07.673" LastActivityDate="2012-04-21T12:54:07.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1568" CreationDate="2012-04-22T02:19:21.947" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try to prounce &lt;code&gt;re [ri:]&lt;/code&gt; as in reboot, the result would be approximate lü1, then just make it lü4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Drop a comment if anyone think this is a bad idea so we can improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="514" LastEditorUserId="514" LastEditDate="2012-04-22T05:38:51.760" LastActivityDate="2012-04-22T05:38:51.760" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1574" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1577" CreationDate="2012-04-22T10:20:54.573" Score="3" ViewCount="1084" Body="&lt;p&gt;In china they write y = kx + b&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just wondering if there was a reason. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="389" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-22T13:27:35.437" LastActivityDate="2012-04-23T06:45:56.043" Title="Why in China do they use k instead of m for the slope of a line?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1574" CreationDate="2012-04-22T13:04:34.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zzgwu.com/wiki/index.php?doc-view-7730&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese maths site&lt;/a&gt; has:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;定义与定义式：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  自变量x和因变量y有如下关系：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  y=kx+b（k，b为常数，k≠0)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variable &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt; is used in maths for constants — I suspect this is the intention behind using &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt; for the gradient here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-22T14:27:06.377" LastActivityDate="2012-04-22T14:27:06.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1568" CreationDate="2012-04-22T19:47:03.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used the have the exact same problem, and the solution couldn't have been more simple (worked for me anyways!):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Start to whistle. Just before you actually make a sound, freeze the position of your mouth. Now say lü.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perfect pronunciation :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recognize this won't work for everyone, but I literally tried for &lt;em&gt;months&lt;/em&gt; to get this sound right and this single-handedly did it for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="621" LastActivityDate="2012-04-22T19:47:03.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1574" CreationDate="2012-04-23T06:07:15.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect that it originated from one of the Germanic languages, where the &amp;quot;hard c&amp;quot; sound in English is represented with &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;k&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; and thus &amp;quot;coefficient&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;constant&amp;quot; would begin with a &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;k&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;. I tested the hypothesis with a translator and, indeed, the terms in modern German are &amp;quot;Koeffizient&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Konstante&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why would the Chinese mathematicians borrow from German/Swedish/Danish mathematicians? It might have to do with the fact that many of the leading mathematicians in the 18th-20th century were German-speaking, e.g. Euler who lived in Germany and who in fact was the first to use &amp;quot;a,b,c&amp;quot; to denote constants and &amp;quot;x,y,z&amp;quot; to denote unknowns; Leibniz, who invented much of modern calculus; Gauss, who contributed significantly to almost every field in mathematics; and other big names such as Riemann and Cantor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the Chinese academics were just opening up to the advances in mathematics at the time, it made sense that they would borrow the notation from the leading scholars of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes me more curious is why the Americans use m for slope, which don't seem to have any linguistic explanation. I did some brief reading and &lt;a href=&quot;http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Slope.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; seems to have the best (non-)answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;J. Miller has undertaken a detailed study of the origin of the symbol &lt;strong&gt;m&lt;/strong&gt; to denote slope. The consensus seems to be that it is not known why the letter &lt;strong&gt;m&lt;/strong&gt; was chosen. One high school algebra textbook says the reason for &lt;strong&gt;m&lt;/strong&gt; is unknown, but remarks that it is interesting that the French word for &amp;quot;to climb&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;monter.&amp;quot; However, there is no evidence to make any such connection. In fact, Descartes, who was French, did not use &lt;strong&gt;m&lt;/strong&gt; (Miller). Eves (1972) suggests &amp;quot;it just happened.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;: Actually, that might be wrong. I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mathsisfun.com/equation_of_line.html#Countrynote&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; which listed the common notation for slopes in many countries (based on letters from his readers). Excerpt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the US, Australia, Canada, Egypt, Mexico, Portugal and Philippines the notation is:     &lt;strong&gt;y = mx + b&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the UK, Germany, and former British colonies    &lt;strong&gt;y = mx + c&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Azerbaijan, China, Finland, Russia and Ukraine:     &lt;strong&gt;y = kx + b&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Sweden:     &lt;strong&gt;y = kx + m&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Slovenia:   &lt;strong&gt;y = kx + n&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the Germans today in fact use &amp;quot;m&amp;quot; like the Americans and the British. It's certainly possible that they used &amp;quot;k&amp;quot; in the 19th century and shifted to the more prevalent English usage later on. But based on the data above, it seems more likely that the Chinese usage came from Russia. There could be a historical explanation for this - the Chinese Communist Party adopted Soviet science education as the basis of their curriculum after the &amp;quot;liberation&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To test this &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;Soviet origin&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; hypothesis, I looked at the usage in the Nationalist-ruled province of Taiwan. And voila! The Kuomintang curriculum uses &lt;strong&gt;m&lt;/strong&gt; (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://atcm.mathandtech.org/Taiwan/Tentative_Dec10.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, page 8). This is evidence that the use of &lt;strong&gt;k&lt;/strong&gt; was probably not prevalent in China before 1949.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the conclusion: The use of &amp;quot;k&amp;quot; was probably adopted from the Russians. There is in fact &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an analogue of k&lt;/a&gt; in the Cyrillic alphabet, which looks extremely similar to the Latin k. And if you put &amp;quot;Constant&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Coefficient&amp;quot; in a Russian translator, you'll see that they do in fact use this letter. So I stand by my theory that &lt;em&gt;linguistically&lt;/em&gt; it comes from &amp;quot;Constant&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Coefficient&amp;quot;, but I'd say the historical origin was Russian, not German.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-04-23T06:45:56.043" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1568" CreationDate="2012-04-23T13:27:31.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of all the ee-oo stuff. I just started spouting words, until we noticed that the vowel syllable in Jew is the same exact sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now I just say Jew, but with an L instead. It works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="149" LastActivityDate="2012-04-23T13:27:31.333" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1518" CreationDate="2012-04-24T08:29:37.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;继承实现了代码的重用，即相关的类的相同行为被实现一次，不同的行为被单独实现。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="662" LastActivityDate="2012-04-24T08:29:37.663" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1568" CreationDate="2012-04-24T14:45:11.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would start by pronouncing lu4, with a regular u. This has your tongue touching the front of the palate, just behind your front teeth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now pull back the tongue as far as you can, so that it touches the BACK of the palate. Your lips should become progressively rounder as you do so. This produces the  lü4 sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-04-24T14:45:11.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1581" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1582" CreationDate="2012-04-26T02:58:12.823" Score="7" ViewCount="1746" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned formally that in the standard Beijing accent, zh, ch, and sh are pronounced more in the back in the mouth than j, q, and x. However, I got lazy and speak all six of these consonants in the front of my mouth. I'm curious, is this common for other speakers? Is there any region that speaks like this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="588" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T01:00:23.173" Title="Is it common for zh/j, ch/q, and sh/x to be merged?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1581" CreationDate="2012-04-26T05:11:26.343" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you probably know it is very common to mix up zh、ch、sh and z、c、s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jzvoice.com.cn/detail/z-zh-j%E3%80%81c-ch-q%E3%80%81s-sh-x.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here they say&lt;/a&gt; that in many dialects zh、ch、sh can't be distinguished from j、q、x.&#xA;But they don't mention which dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pkucn.com/viewthread.php?tid=243594&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;On this page&lt;/a&gt; somebody says that Cantonese people can't distinguish the 3 groups of consonants in j,q,x,zh,ch,sh,z,c,s&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the same page they also write that the consonants jqx are pronounced as /zi/,/ci/,/si/ in Nanijng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cyszw.com/cyzs/DATA/21-06-01.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;In the Chaoyang dialect&lt;/a&gt; there also seem to be such mix-ups. But not for all words. For example x、sh are read as j、q、zh、ch, for example in 喜(～鹊)、跹(翩～起舞)、械(机～化)、摔(～跟头)、尚(和～)、殊(特～)、匙(钥～)、始(开～)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;j、q、x and z、c、s are often mixed-up. For example in: 俗(风～)、宿(～舍、住～)、狙(～击)、沮(～丧)、咀(～嚼)、俊(长得～)、峻(险～)、竣(～工)、骏(～马)、(～包)等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-04-26T14:11:53.487" LastActivityDate="2012-04-26T14:11:53.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1583" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-04-27T02:48:40.063" Score="4" ViewCount="97449" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of my Chinese friends speak Chinese. I asked them how to say &quot;I love you&quot; in their language, but most of them said &quot;wa ai lo&quot; not &quot;wo ai ni&quot;, how can this be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I look for google translate, it says &quot;wo ai ni&quot; and not &quot;wa ai lo&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing something here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="665" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-13T02:09:21.193" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T03:16:41.530" Title="What should I use to say &quot;I love you&quot;: &quot;wa ai lo&quot; or &quot;wo ai ni&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1583" CreationDate="2012-04-27T04:17:40.950" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Wo ai ni&quot; is right, while &quot;lo&quot; is a wrong pronunciation in Chinese. You cannot find &quot;lo&quot; in  Mandarin. Note that wa ai lo is dialectal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="635" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-30T12:11:06.377" LastActivityDate="2012-04-30T12:11:06.377" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1583" CreationDate="2012-04-27T16:05:51.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;wa ai lo&quot; is Wu, a chinese dialect used in Shanghai and Zhejiang,because Chinese dialects very different from each other. and as far as I know, only Wu pronunce &quot;ni&quot; with the vowel &quot;o&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="668" LastEditorUserId="668" LastEditDate="2012-05-07T15:26:25.470" LastActivityDate="2012-05-07T15:26:25.470" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1586" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-04-27T16:36:42.100" Score="1" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Possible Duplicate:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1042/what-is-the-exact-meaning-of-%e5%90%83%e8%b1%86%e8%85%90-and-where-does-the-expression-come-from&quot;&gt;What is the exact meaning of 吃豆腐, and where does the expression come from?&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone made a joke with this phrase during dinner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does &quot;吃你的豆腐&quot; mean other than the obvious direct translation (&quot;Eat your tofu.&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="343" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-05-09T22:19:37.097" Title="What does &quot;吃你的豆腐&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2012-05-09T22:19:50.387" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1042" CreationDate="2012-04-27T17:56:44.087" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;吃豆腐 refers to sexual harassment or men being frivolous with women. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently it refers to a Tofu-shop a long time ago where the husbands rubs the tofu at night and the wife sells it during the day. To sell more tofu the wife flirts with her customers and the customers even grope her. The jealous wives of these &quot;customers&quot; will afterwards complain to their husbands: &quot;So you went out to eat tofu again&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: I can't find the real source of the story, but you can find it on many Chinese sites. It's probably a tale. About the translation, there are many possible gradations. I can go from &quot;I (will) take advantage of you&quot; to &quot;I'll molest you&quot; (actually it can both be in the past, the present or the future). Sometimes 吃豆腐 can also mean to crack a joke, but it's not the most common translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-04-27T21:28:52.143" LastActivityDate="2012-04-27T21:28:52.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1589" CreationDate="2012-04-27T23:03:52.097" Score="6" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I notice that 相 is pronounced xiang1 in most cases, but xiang4 in a few, mostly less-common words and phrases. The most commonly-used examples seem to be 照相 zhàoxiàng 'photo'; 照相机 zhàoxiàngjī 'camera'; 相片儿 xiàngpiān(r) 'photo'; 相声(儿) xiàngsheng(r) 'comic dialogue' (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/786/what-is-the-meaning-of-%E7%9B%B8%E5%A3%B0&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;); and 相 xiàng 'elephant' (the piece in Chinese chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually (sometimes?) in Chinese a change in tone tracks some differentiation in meaning - is there any such here that might help me to remember which pronunciation is which?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="634" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-04-28T00:50:21.547" Title="Why is 相 pronounced with a fourth tone in some cases?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1588" CreationDate="2012-04-28T00:50:21.547" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;相&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Xiang1]&#xA;surname Xiang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[xiang1]&#xA;each other,&#xA;one another,&#xA;mutually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[xiang4]&#xA;appearance,&#xA;portrait,&#xA;picture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should look into getting a Chinese reader. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.loqu8.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.loqu8.com&lt;/a&gt; has one for free that is really good. It uses the CC-CEDICT dictionary which is really good. If you would like more concrete examples, they're all going to be in Chinese, but there they are nontheless. &lt;a href=&quot;http://stroke-order.learningweb.moe.edu.tw/advExplain1.do?big5=ACDB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://stroke-order.learningweb.moe.edu.tw/advExplain1.do?big5=ACDB&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enjoy.^^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="669" LastActivityDate="2012-04-28T00:50:21.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1592" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1604" CreationDate="2012-04-28T15:03:47.753" Score="5" ViewCount="589" Body="&lt;p&gt;As most of you will probably know, 着 can be pronounced in many ways (depending on the context).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering how the 着 in 爱怎么着就怎么着 (meaning: do as you like) should be pronounced. Is it zhe or zhao1, and why? I've heard some people it pronouncing zhe and some zhao1. In MDBG they use zhao1, but say it is also pronounced as zhe, but all the other dictionaries I've checked, I can only find zhe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: In the mean-time I've found these websites where people asked for the same question: &lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=857383676&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://wenwen.soso.com/z/q238982274.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SOSO&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaotieba.com/topic-1038822-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Xiaotieba&lt;/a&gt;. There doesn't seem to be a consensus, and there are no references.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-05-16T11:03:57.920" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T04:28:53.560" Title="pronunciation of 着 in 怎么着" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="83" CreationDate="2012-04-28T18:17:59.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you use Windows 7, there should be a text document within the Program Files that contains a comprehensive list of Chinese characters and their ZhengMa codes. On my computer it is found at C:\Program Files(x86)\Windows NT\TableTextService; it is called TableTextServiceSimplifiedZhengMa.txt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if this exists on other operating systems.&#xA;Hope it helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastActivityDate="2012-04-28T18:17:59.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1594" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1598" CreationDate="2012-04-28T21:38:31.897" Score="10" ViewCount="5006" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, how would I say, 'instead of x, we should do y'?&#xA;I find it hard to balance the sentence correctly in chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do I need to use, 反而 or 而且? Or is there some better method?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="251" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T06:23:59.397" Title="What is the pattern for 'instead of x, y...'" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1595" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1596" CreationDate="2012-04-28T21:56:41.003" Score="7" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to say the above sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't think anything but the following sentence, but it just doesn't sit right with me somehow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们都要对我们的孩子最好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the subject &quot;what's best&quot; in english seems ok without any tangible object associated with it, in Chinese it sounds a little unfinished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone think of the correct, most chinese way of saying this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="251" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T08:18:07.740" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T08:18:07.740" Title="How to say &quot;we want what is best for our kids&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1595" CreationDate="2012-04-28T22:05:25.043" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;what about this one &quot;我们要给孩子最好的东西&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-04-28T22:05:25.043" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1594" CreationDate="2012-04-29T08:11:48.503" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;反而&lt;/strong&gt; is mostly used when something is &lt;em&gt;contrary to expectations&lt;/em&gt;.&#xA;An example: Suppose it is predicted that there would be no wind, but there is a lot of wind, and after a while it starts to blow even harder you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;风不但没停，反而越刮越大了&#xA;    the wind not only hasn't stopped, but blowing harder and harder&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;而且&lt;/strong&gt; is used to give some extra information and is typically translated as &quot;*and also; besides; and what's more; but also&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use &quot;&lt;strong&gt;而不是&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们需要的是能力强的职工，而不是吃干饭的&#xA;    What we need are people with great capabilities, instead of those who live off others. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use &lt;strong&gt;与其&lt;/strong&gt;..., &lt;strong&gt;不如&lt;/strong&gt;... which is translated as &lt;em&gt;rather than ... , you'd better ...&lt;/em&gt;.&#xA;An example:&#xA;    与其少买，不如不买&#xA;        I'd rather not buy anything at all than buy just a few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often Chinese wouldn't use a conjunction at all. For example (these 2 examples come from Nciku)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;中国人不习惯用刀叉，更喜欢用筷子&#xA;    Chinese people prefer to use chopsticks instead of a knife and fork.    &#xA;&#xA;我想上场，不想在余下的比赛中做替补。&#xA;    I want to play instead of spend the rest of the match on this bench.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-04-29T08:11:48.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1595" CreationDate="2012-04-29T08:25:58.237" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们要把最好的给我们的孩子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think most Chinese parents would rather use this expression:&#xA;我们望子成龙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;望子成龙 has this meaning: &lt;em&gt;lit. to hope one's son becomes a dragon (idiom); fig. to long for one' s child to succeed in life; to have great hopes for one's offspring; to give one's child the best education as a career investment&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has more emphasis on succeeding in life, while &quot;the best&quot; is more open, and can also refer to happiness. This because most Chinese people have different values and aspirations for there children than most westerners (I'm generalizing here).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-04-29T08:25:58.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="428" CreationDate="2012-04-29T13:36:07.160" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the full version is fxck（肏、日、干、嬲，etc.）+他妈的+屄（cxnt）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="676" LastActivityDate="2012-04-29T13:36:07.160" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1595" CreationDate="2012-04-29T22:44:32.157" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We as parents all want the best for our kids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们做父母的都是为了孩子好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was reading a book and just realized that this was what my mom always said to me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastActivityDate="2012-04-29T22:44:32.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1592" CreationDate="2012-04-30T07:03:29.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you see, there are two ways of pronouncing this character, one is zhe and the other one zhao1. They are all correct, but the only difference is in which circumstance. In this &quot;爱怎么着就怎么着&quot; sentence, it should pronounce as zhao1. In this &quot;Wo3 Zheng4 Zuo4 zhe1&quot;=&quot;I am doing it&quot;, it should pronounce zhe1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="678" LastActivityDate="2012-04-30T07:03:29.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1592" CreationDate="2012-05-01T00:39:08.350" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries generally only show the 'standard' heteronymic readings of a Han character, rather than including all its contextual variations. This is the unwritten standard on Wiktionary as well, on which I am an admin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you have precisely discerned, both pronunciations are acceptable in this particular phrase; however, the 'standard' reading of zhe0 would be used in a dictionary &lt;em&gt;for this particular phrase&lt;/em&gt; instead as it applies to a wider range of contexts, whereas zhao1 is restricted to this particular context (怎么着).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the Wiktionary entry for more information: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E7%9D%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;怎么着&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-05-01T00:49:40.053" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T00:49:40.053" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1595" CreationDate="2012-05-01T09:02:23.367" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我是中国人，我觉得按照英语语法来说应该是“我们要给我们孩子最好的东西”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    i'm a native chinese,according to the english grammer,the meaning of &quot;we want what is best for our kids&quot; is &quot;give(for) our kids the best thing that we want&quot;.just like the first line.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    By the way, i have learnt english grammer for nearly 8 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="681" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T09:02:23.367" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1583" CreationDate="2012-05-01T09:16:48.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native Chinese, I know the right pronunciation is 我(wǒ)爱(ài)你(nǐ). Maybe your friend are learning 粤语 or 广东话, the China official language is Simplified Chinese that is 普通话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a pic &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QSOci.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://i.stack.imgur.com/QSOci.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm very happy can make English friends here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="681" LastEditorUserId="514" LastEditDate="2012-05-01T19:14:19.257" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T19:14:19.257" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="647" CreationDate="2012-05-03T04:07:45.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you need English translations? If not, try the search function on Weibo ( &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.weibo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.weibo.com&lt;/a&gt; ); it has loads of real usage examples for any word you can imagine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="330" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T04:07:45.997" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-05-03T04:07:45.997" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1583" CreationDate="2012-05-04T03:36:54.990" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a list of how to say &amp;quot;I love you&amp;quot; in several Chinese languages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin, Beijing: &lt;strong&gt;Wo ai ni&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin, Southwest: &lt;strong&gt;Ngo ngai ni&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Minnan, Taiwan: &lt;strong&gt;Gua ai li&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wu, Shanghai:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;strong&gt;Ngu oi nong&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;strong&gt;Ngu huoe-xi nong&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hakka, Meizhou:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;strong&gt;Ngai ai ngi&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;strong&gt;Ngai jung yi ngi&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yue, Canton:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;strong&gt;Ngo oi nei&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;strong&gt;Ngo jung yi nei&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word for &amp;quot;love&amp;quot; in the second variant in Wu is &amp;quot;歡喜&amp;quot;; in the second variant of Hakka and Yue it is &amp;quot;中意&amp;quot;. They are considered somewhat less serious than &amp;quot;愛&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T03:42:13.483" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="647" CreationDate="2012-05-04T13:52:25.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from Jukuu.com as shown above I would suggest checking out the recently compiled &lt;a href=&quot;http://lwc.daanvanesch.nl/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Leiden Weibo Corpus&lt;/a&gt; for colloquial online usages of terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there's also &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.bing.com.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bing's Chinese dictionary&lt;/a&gt; (originally called Engkoo) which is also good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="51" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T13:52:25.463" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-05-04T13:52:25.463" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1612" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:06:17.130" Score="5" ViewCount="499" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look at the character 姜, it seems like the top part is ⺷ and the bottom is 女, however some sources, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-characters.org/meaning/5/59DC.html#.T6PTN8QtiDp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese-Characters&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanzijs.com/character/%E5%A7%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;HanziJS&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons%3aChinese_characters_decomposition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/a&gt; show the phonetic radical as 羊. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm the creator of HanziJS and use the data created by &lt;a href=&quot;http://groovy.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=cjk-decomp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Gavin Grover&lt;/a&gt; for decomposition. This is why I'm asking. I want to understand why there could be a discrepancy in the decomposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese Characters's page also mentions a term &quot;apparent&quot; components, which seems to refer to the original decomposition of the characters. However, in terms of phonetic radicals, it seems 羊 would be more suitable in determining the pronunciation than ⺷, which seems to be an archaic character. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wiktionary.org/zh/%F0%A6%8D%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese wiktionary page&lt;/a&gt; says that, ⺷, is made up of 羊. Now it's getting confusing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard that some have also suggest that the top part is 美?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be the correct decomposition and why are there discrepancies? What will a native Chinese person say when asked what components 姜 is made up of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="51" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T16:54:40.760" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T19:49:12.450" Title="What is the top part of 姜 and why does it differ?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1612" CreationDate="2012-05-04T15:02:19.557" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm also finding conflicting sources. For example according to the reference work &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux2.cgi?b5=%AB%B8&quot;&gt;Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; it's also 羊 + 女.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, still in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux2.cgi?b5=%AC%FC&quot;&gt;same work&lt;/a&gt;, 美 is 羊 + 大.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often when characters are combined they are slightly changed to make the character more compact and I think that is what has happened here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However when I look &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&amp;amp;char=%E5%A7%9C&quot;&gt;at the following online Classical Chinese dictionary they say&lt;/a&gt; that it is ⺷ + 女.&#xA;However if you look at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&amp;amp;char=%E7%BE%8A&quot;&gt;seal script of 羊 on the same site&lt;/a&gt; and compare it with the seal script of 姜 you'll clearly see the 羊. Also from &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&amp;amp;char=%E2%BA%B7&quot;&gt;the ⺷ page&lt;/a&gt;, one can  interpret  that the character ⺷ isn't that old. So it seems more likely that it indeed comes from 羊. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could be wrong about this, but I think the average Chinese doesn't care about how the character is made up. Their way of learning them is to drill them (rote learning), not by trying to see how there are made-up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I have been doing some more searching and actually ⺷ is 羊, but in radical form. See for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://alturl.com/rfvzq&quot;&gt;unicodelookup.com&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;So it doesn't exist as a separate character, but is used when it is used as a radical. Similarly as 手 is changed when used as a radical in 打.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T17:13:48.400" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T17:13:48.400" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1612" CreationDate="2012-05-05T07:46:21.283" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, ⺷ could be a variant of 羊 in the past, and is the radical form of 羊 when written &lt;em&gt;in the upper&lt;/em&gt; of a character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, ⺷ could be used as 羊 with the same meaning and pronunciation. 《字彙補》, a Qing Dynasty dictionary, gave the definition 『⺷，疑羊字之訛。』 that ⺷ could be a (possibly erroneous) variant of 羊. While Jin Dynasty's 《四聲篇海》 thinks that the pronunciation should be ren4 but still has the same meaning (『⺷，如甚切。稍長亦羊也。』).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As BertR has mentioned, ⺷ is the radical form of 羊. But it is only used when written in the upper part of a character, e.g., 美, 姜, 恙, and 義. It is not used in characters like 鮮, 群, 羚, or 羶.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Footnote:&lt;/strong&gt; The definitions are from &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;The Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants — Ministry of Education, Taiwan&quot;&gt;《異體字字典》&lt;/a&gt; published by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan. Please note that it's a traditional Chinese website in Big-5 encoding rather than Unicode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="686" LastActivityDate="2012-05-05T07:46:21.283" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="647" CreationDate="2012-05-05T08:38:48.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my studies and work I found that nciku.com and iciba.com have the most accurate and useful translations. When all else fails, try using a google news search with the word or word phrase in parentheses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="687" LastActivityDate="2012-05-05T08:38:48.173" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-05-05T08:38:48.173" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1616" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1617" CreationDate="2012-05-07T17:06:40.657" Score="1" ViewCount="834" Body="&lt;p&gt;I dont know how to type that character, otherwise I would try it out through other means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the character mean? It appears in a poster concerning the Japanese manga Naruto.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QmVmY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;naruto poster: bonds&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="691" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-08T15:14:19.307" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T15:14:19.307" Title="What does the character in this Naruto poster mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1616" CreationDate="2012-05-07T17:47:37.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That looks like 絆 (traditional character). The simplified one is 绊. Chinese pronunciation is bàn and it can mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to trip&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to get in the way&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to hold ... up&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it can also refer to 绊子 which is a wrestling technique that is executed by throwing the opponent over one's leg; to hurt somebody without letting them know&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Japanese it stands for kizuna and means bonding, connections between people or bonds (just as the picture says).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-05-07T17:58:35.653" LastActivityDate="2012-05-07T17:58:35.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1616" CreationDate="2012-05-08T01:24:55.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not Chinese, it's Japanese(絆). The meaning of the character in very different in the two languages now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of the symbol is already shown in the picture : bonds (between friends, family members, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T01:24:55.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1619" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1628" CreationDate="2012-05-08T01:34:55.080" Score="3" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to say that the lowest temperature will be around 0°C (e.g. -1°C ~ 1°C)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempt is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最低气温会成0°C左右。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2012-05-10T16:41:40.180" Title="Temperature around 0°C" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1619" CreationDate="2012-05-08T02:42:58.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is only one defect in your attempt, we would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最低气温会 &lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt; 0°C左右。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T02:42:58.633" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1619" CreationDate="2012-05-08T11:18:56.310" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最低气温 0 度左右&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where the 'will be' is ignored. Furthermore, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0 度左右&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;becomes the predicate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="693" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-08T11:49:01.887" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T11:49:01.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1623" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1626" CreationDate="2012-05-08T16:45:53.553" Score="2" ViewCount="215" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/9287/4727&quot;&gt;this Skeptics answer&lt;/a&gt;, a user provided a rough translation of a Chinese law article — from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gov.cn/banshi/2005-08/23/content_25575_2.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this source&lt;/a&gt; — about vehicles and pedestrians using Google Translate. So I thought, why don't we provide a good translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese article is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;第四十七条　机动车行经人行横道时，应当减速行驶；遇行人正在通过人行横道，应当停车让行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Google says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Article 47 of the motor vehicle when passing a crosswalk, shall slow down traffic; when a pedestrian is crossing a crosswalk, shall stop to give.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not the best translation, certainly. What would be a more appropriate translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:46:46.407" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T22:56:08.450" Title="What is the most appropriate translation for this law article?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1623" CreationDate="2012-05-08T17:55:38.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Article 47: A motor vehicle should slow down while passing a pedestrian crossing. When a pedestrian is crossing the pedestrian crossing, one should stop to let the pedestrian pass.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-05-09T10:30:09.983" LastActivityDate="2012-05-09T10:30:09.983" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1595" CreationDate="2012-05-08T18:06:53.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们 想要 对孩子最好的东西.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I can only think of very few situations where you may want to use this sentence. One example is when you are facing a few options and you are not able to make an educated choice. So you use this sentence to declare your over all goal and relay on the listener (usually a professional) making &quot;the best&quot; choice for you. If that's the case, I would suggest you to tell the listener something like this:我们不懂这个领域;请您帮助我们做一个选择。The possible outcomes are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The listener is more aware of you are relaying on him or her to make a serious choice;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The listener may provide more information to educate you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="694" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T18:06:53.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1623" CreationDate="2012-05-08T19:55:23.417" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Article 47: When a motor vehicle vehicle passes through a crosswalk, it should proceed at reduced speed; in the case when a pedestrian is crossing the crosswalk, the vehicle should stop and yield to the pedestrian. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2012-05-16T02:11:32.593" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T02:11:32.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1619" CreationDate="2012-05-09T06:10:27.383" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As fefe has mentioned, you could use “&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;”…左右&amp;thinsp;/上下/&amp;thinsp;附近 to describe a range near some position, somewhat like describing locations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最低氣溫&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt; 0 度&lt;strong&gt;左右&lt;/strong&gt;；&#xA;  蛋白質凝固的溫度&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt; 65 度&lt;strong&gt;上下&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not needed for exact values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;現在室溫 7 度；&#xA;  冷凍室的溫度是 -20 度。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For estimated values, you may also use 約 (about) to indicate uncertainty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最低溫&lt;strong&gt;約&lt;/strong&gt;為零度。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is worth noting that Celsius is omitted in all examples above, since Celsius is usually the only tempreture scale employed. Other scales, such as Fahrenheit and Kelvin, only exist in special contexts like academic research. You may use …°C (pronounced “度 C”) or 攝氏…度 if explicitness is needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example video for daily usages. In this weather forecast (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPKU9ErxMCA&amp;amp;hd=1#t=1m25s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;Weather Forecast (2011-11-06) — Next TV, Taiwan&quot;&gt;YouTube video&lt;/a&gt;) of Next TV, Taiwan, the reporter uses &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;白天最高溫&lt;strong&gt;降到&lt;/strong&gt;只有 24 度&lt;strong&gt;左右&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to express the tempreture &lt;strong&gt;lowers to&lt;/strong&gt; tempretures &lt;strong&gt;near&lt;/strong&gt; 24°C. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sidenote:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Please note that she also uses &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最低溫&lt;strong&gt;下探&lt;/strong&gt; 17 度。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to indicate the lowest temperature would &lt;strong&gt;touch a lower bound&lt;/strong&gt; of 17°C. This is mainly used in Taiwan for weather and stock reports. It is not used in China and usually would be interpreted as &lt;strong&gt;lower by 17 degrees&lt;/strong&gt; rather than &lt;strong&gt;lower to 17°C&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="686" LastEditorUserId="686" LastEditDate="2012-05-10T16:41:40.180" LastActivityDate="2012-05-10T16:41:40.180" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1629" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1632" CreationDate="2012-05-12T01:47:34.427" Score="7" ViewCount="775" Body="&lt;p&gt;Schuessler's reconstruction of the Old Chinese reading of 二 is *ńźi. It seems there is a correspondence between OC syllables beginning in *ń or *ńź and Mandarin syllables romanised as &lt;code&gt;er&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I've always wondered at what the intervening steps in the sound change were. Cantonese has &lt;code&gt;ji6&lt;/code&gt;, which maintains the nucleus. Similarly, the kan-on (漢音) borrowing of 二 into Japanese has the reading &lt;code&gt;ni&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did the rhotic syllabic vowel develop in Mandarin from *ńźi?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-05-14T08:28:06.493" LastActivityDate="2015-10-30T06:49:11.163" Title="The development of rhotic vowels in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;middle-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1630" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1631" CreationDate="2012-05-12T03:41:56.577" Score="5" ViewCount="608" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was chatting online with a Chinese person and he sometimes added 么 at the end of questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你觉得汉语难么？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;是因为声调掌握不好么？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can 么 and 吗 be used interchangeably? Do they have the exact same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T00:29:42.457" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T00:33:23.390" Title="Questions ending with 么: Do 么 and 吗 have the exact same meaning?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1630" CreationDate="2012-05-12T06:24:02.047" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;么 at the end of the sentence can both have the meaning of 吗 or that of 嘛. If you look-up 吗 and 嘛 in 《现代汉语词典》 么 is mentioned as alternative (but the pinyin is still &lt;em&gt;ma&lt;/em&gt;!). 吗 and 嘛 seem to be newer variants of 么.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These last years I've seen it used a lot in songs, on QQ and Weibo. Especially young people use it, but they often pronounce it &lt;em&gt;me&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zww.cn/zuowen/html/132/482473.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;very interesting (but not always very accurate) &amp;quot;homework&amp;quot; about 么 and 吗&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently at the time 鲁迅 (Luxun) it was used systematically used by most writers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the article the author give this example “孔乙已，你当真不识字么？” (but actually this contains an error, 鲁迅 actually wrote &amp;quot;你当真识字么&amp;quot;, and in the same story there is the more famous sentence &amp;quot;你读过书么？&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other famous writers such as 茅盾 and 曹禺 also systematically used 么. New editions of there books still often have 么 instead of 吗 and this usage hasn't completely disappeared.&#xA;么 was apparently already used during the Qing and Ming dynasties, but during the Spring Autumn Period they used 乎.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T00:30:34.907" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T00:30:34.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1629" CreationDate="2012-05-13T10:21:02.400" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;BTW, I have Schuessler's book, and the transcription shown in parentheses after the character indicates the Middle Chinese rather than Old Chinese pronunciation, so ńźi refers to MC rather than OC pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your question, it's important to note that initial ńź- is being used as a transcription rather than an indication of the actual pronunciation.  According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=_XJRT43MXRgC&amp;amp;pg=PA55&quot;&gt;A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology, p. 55&lt;/a&gt;, Karlgren chose ńź- to transcribe this sound in order to reflect the fact that it evolved into a voiced fricative in descendants such as Mandarin (pinyin r- is often analyzed as IPA /ʐ/, a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_retroflex_sibilant&quot;&gt;voiced retroflex sibilant&lt;/a&gt;); however, the book notes that &quot;for Early Middle Chinese, however, it is widely agreed that it was simply a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_nasal&quot;&gt;palatal nasal&lt;/a&gt; (IPA: /ɲ/).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you noted, this Early Middle Chinese /ɲ/ became /j/ in Cantonese, and /n/ in Japanese.  Such &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_change&quot;&gt;phonological changes&lt;/a&gt; are not too hard to imagine occurring, though EMC /ɲ/ changing to Mandarin's retroflex /ʐ/ may be a little harder to imagine.  However, it is interesting to note that &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese#Late_Middle_Chinese&quot;&gt;in Late Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt;, all palatal sibilants merged into the retroflex sibilants (e.g., /tɕ/ -&gt; /ʈʂ/, /dʑ/ -&gt; /ɖʐ/, etc.).  At this time the palatal /ɲ/, while not a sibilant, also got carried along with this change and became retroflex in LMC.  After that, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_%28linguistics%29&quot;&gt;metathesis&lt;/a&gt; occurred which changed /ʐɨ/ to /ɨʐ/ (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://ishare.iask.sina.com.cn/f/18289792.html&quot;&gt;《北京音系解析》, p. 24&lt;/a&gt;), which is realized as [əɻ] (pinyin: er) in modern Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an interesting aside, phonological changes often have exceptions, so a few words continued to retain the initial nasal in their modern descendants, the best example being 爾/尔 (MC: ńźje, Mand.: ěr, Cant.: ji5), whose colloquial pronunciation retained the nasal initial and became modern 你 (Mand.: nǐ, Cant.: nei5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-05-13T10:27:06.807" LastActivityDate="2012-05-13T10:27:06.807" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1633" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1635" CreationDate="2012-05-14T01:04:36.750" Score="4" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing a program and need to know how dates, versions, time, and numbers are formatted in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example (in English):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Version 1.0.0 (Build 0)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would that look in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="702" LastEditorUserId="702" LastEditDate="2015-05-07T04:38:03.197" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T04:38:03.197" Title="How are versions and dates formatted?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1633" CreationDate="2012-05-14T03:58:45.630" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sounds like you should investigate the localization features of your language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(&quot;zh-CN&quot;);&#xA;string version = strings.Version.replace('%version%', '1.0.0');&#xA;version = version.replace('%build%', '0');&#xA;Console.WriteLine(version);&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the information given in James Jiao's answer &amp;amp; comments, your Chinese version string and its English equivalent could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;版本%version%（编译版本号:%build%）&#xA;Version %version% (Build %build%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information on localization in C#, refer to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/a/1142840/187954&quot;&gt;https://stackoverflow.com/a/1142840/187954&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/brijrajsingh/glbal_110012005021049AM/glbal_1.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/brijrajsingh/glbal_110012005021049AM/glbal_1.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/1021kkz0(v=vs.71)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/1021kkz0(v=vs.71)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="704" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:41:53.630" LastActivityDate="2012-05-14T04:21:56.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1633" CreationDate="2012-05-14T04:14:15.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Micheal's answer is good, but it's from a programmer point of view. Mine's from a Mandarin speaker's point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Version: 版本&#xA;Major version: 主版本&#xA;Minor version: 子版本&#xA;Revision: 修正版本&#xA;Build: 编译版本&#xA;Number: 号&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/421712.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;GNU Style&#xA;　　zh: 主版本号.子版本号[.修正版本号[.编译版本号]]&#xA;　　en: Major_Version_Number.Minor_Version_Number[.Revision_Number[.Build_Number]]&#xA;　　e.g.: 1.2.1, 2.0, 5.0.0 build-13124&#xA;&#xA;Windows Style&#xA;　　zh: 主版本号.子版本号[修正版本号[.编译版本号]]&#xA;　　en: Major_Version_Number.Minor_Version_Number[Revision_Number[.Build_Number]]&#xA;　　e.g.: 1.21, 2.0&#xA;&#xA;.Net Framework Style&#xA;　　zh: 主版本号.子版本号[.编译版本号[.修正版本号]]&#xA;　　en: Major_Version_Number.Minor_Version_Number[.Build_Number[.Revision_Number]] &#xA;   e.g.: 1.3.4.2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a straight copy and paste so I don't take any credit for it. You should be able to match them up individually without needing any knowledge of Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2012-05-14T04:14:15.730" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1636" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1637" CreationDate="2012-05-14T04:16:31.410" Score="9" ViewCount="1259" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was first learning Chinese, I found the &lt;code&gt;e4 - 饿&lt;/code&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;code&gt;ü3/ü4 - 女/绿&lt;/code&gt; sounds to be the most problematic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has there been any research into this? If so, what sounds are generally the most problematic sounds for an initially monolingual English speaker to learn when studying Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="704" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-05-31T03:49:27.470" LastActivityDate="2014-05-31T03:49:53.507" Title="What is considered to be the most difficult sound for native English speakers to pronounce?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1636" CreationDate="2012-05-14T13:52:36.033" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure about research&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From experience the sounds that people have the most issues with are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the &quot;r&quot; sound when used at the beginning of a word. Best examples are 热 (re) and 日 (ri).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;differentiating between zh &amp;amp; j, sh &amp;amp; x, ch &amp;amp; q.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the ü sound as in 魚 fish (I think that is the one you mentioned).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="707" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-05-31T03:49:53.507" LastActivityDate="2014-05-31T03:49:53.507" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1630" CreationDate="2012-05-14T17:14:23.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese. I seldom use 么, except when saying &amp;quot;what&amp;quot;, I say &amp;quot;什么&amp;quot;; anywhere else at the end of an sentence, I use 吗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why you often see sentences end with 么, is that we often use pinyin input software, and when it pops up 么, we just choose it, because we don't want to spend time for searching the right one: 吗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you input the correct character, the next time you use the same pinyin to type 吗, computer will always give 吗 first. If not, they will effectively be wrong forever, because most of us are not willing to spend time for searching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When writing the formal articles, I think you will seldom see the 么 at the end of sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="708" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T00:33:23.390" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T00:33:23.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1639" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1642" CreationDate="2012-05-15T02:13:45.313" Score="3" ViewCount="355" Body="&lt;p&gt;While riding the subway in Shanghai last week, I glanced at the TV playing some commercials and saw what looked like a slightly off spelling of the city's name (上海). I could not get a very good look (and my area of [limited] expertise is kanji, not hanzi), but I am pretty sure the second character was: 嗨 (instead of 海).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I looked it up in my Mandarin dictionary, sure enough '嗨' had a &lt;em&gt;similar&lt;/em&gt; pronunciation, and a meaning ('alas', but also slang for 'hi!', according to that dictionary) that seemed to make it a pretty good fit for a pun on 上海.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the &lt;em&gt;tone&lt;/em&gt; seems to be different:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上海 [shàng-hǎi] &lt;strong&gt;vs.&lt;/strong&gt; 上嗨 [shàng-hāi]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my limited understanding, this would make the two words completely different to a native Mandarin ear...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is therefore:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To a regular Mandarin speaker, would 上嗨 sound close enough to 上海, to work as a pun? Would it only work as a visual pun (and not so much when read aloud)? Neither?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="710" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T17:30:58.653" Title="Does 上嗨 work as a pun for 上海?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1639" CreationDate="2012-05-15T06:10:28.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not native, but I've been speaking Mandarin for some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say that it depends on how clearly the two were pronounced, but if they were pronounced with any clarity at all then even I would be able to tell the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="704" LastEditorUserId="704" LastEditDate="2012-05-15T06:16:58.970" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T06:16:58.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1639" CreationDate="2012-05-15T06:14:56.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the fist place, 上嗨 is meaningless to me, so it cannot work as pun either by pronunciation or shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different tone would sound quite different in Mandarin. I cannot think of any examples for Mandarin puns now. But I think they should have exactly the same pronunciation to work as puns, including the tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上嗨 is more like a typo to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T06:14:56.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1639" CreationDate="2012-05-15T08:30:32.270" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't really know the answer, but have some hypotheses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What you saw is actually part of a sentence such as &quot;在大街上嗨&quot; where 嗨 has the meaning of 啊 (an emotion particle).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's actually Shanghainese. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/298635914.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;On Baidu&lt;/a&gt; somebody asked for the meaning of 吾雷给欧上嗨吾 (which is supposed to be Shanghainese) and somebody answered 我在学上海话 (I'm studying Shanghainese). So according to this 上嗨 refers to 上海 in Shanghainese. I didn't find any other websites supporting this claim. The answer also got the remark that if it would have this meaning 吾 should actually be 哎吾.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xici.net/d108411688.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This forum&lt;/a&gt; is called &quot;学嗨吾吖&quot; which actually refers to 学海无涯 (no limits to what one still has to learn). In this example the tones are changed and 海 is changed into 嗨). This is something that often happens on the Internet (mostly done by young people and sometimes used to bypass the Great Firewall of China). Some famous examples: 和谐 =&gt; 河蟹, 什么 =&gt; 神马， 肏你妈 =&gt; 草泥马, 压力 =&gt; 鸭梨, 央视 =&gt; 央屎. So maybe the advertisement wanted to appeal to young people.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T08:30:32.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1639" CreationDate="2012-05-15T17:14:13.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The overall matter for 嗨 is never &quot;tone&quot;, stupid or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嗨 is vocal, usage translation is &quot;hi&quot;, and created from &quot;Hi&quot;, the usage is glimmick and illusive, simply improper and nowhere applicable, but maybe unofficially cute for its existence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;hi&quot; is an english greeting, in Chinese, we'll proper say &quot;你好&quot;, &quot;早上好&quot;, &quot;新年好&quot;, etc..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has been some years that there is a trend to play with chinese words to produce illusive titles, but to make excitements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="711" LastEditorUserId="711" LastEditDate="2012-05-15T17:30:58.653" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T17:30:58.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1636" CreationDate="2012-05-15T17:39:09.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be native,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for Mandarin Chinese speakers, the most difficult is tongue rolling heavy gesture, which defacto necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for Yue Chinese, the most difficult is its variety of tones over every languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hardiest is Yue Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="711" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-05-30T22:30:52.373" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T22:30:52.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1645" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1655" CreationDate="2012-05-15T20:38:22.143" Score="3" ViewCount="9316" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in simplified only for this question - which simplified character retains the most complexity, defined by having the highest number of strokes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To clarify: I'm after the most complicated character in use on the mainland - i.e. the most complicated character that remains in common use amongst the literate mainland population.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="704" LastEditorUserId="704" LastEditDate="2012-05-16T02:45:15.197" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T08:03:10.673" Title="What is the most complex simplifed character?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1288" CreationDate="2012-05-15T21:16:13.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One note: anecdotally, I've found that 懂 is used more frequently in south China (Fujian, Guangdong, etc.) and with Cantonese speakers, whereas 明白 is less commonly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="715" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T21:16:13.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1647" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1648" CreationDate="2012-05-15T23:26:48.833" Score="14" ViewCount="4235" Body="&lt;p&gt;I realize this sounds like a very subjective question, so I will try to ask it very carefully:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm learning to speak, read, and write Mandarin. A lot of times (particularly on the web or in e-mail) I read or write text that has English and simplified Mandarin characters intertwined. It seems to me that the font size that is comfortable for reading English is too small for reading Mandarin. I'm not sure if this is because I'm still learning, but it seems to me that Mandarin characters have far more complexity than English characters. I end up jacking up the font size so that I can visually resolve the detail in the Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: in the US, a &quot;default&quot; font size in many cases is 11pt or 12pt. (E.g., if you start up Word, it's &quot;body&quot; style is around 11pt or 12pt.) Do Chinese readers use the same font sizes by default? If I start a Chinese version of Word, will the characters be in the 11-12pt range?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="647" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T09:10:24.760" Title="What font size for reading simplified characters on screen?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1647" CreationDate="2012-05-16T02:02:06.983" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The default font size in MS Word(or other soft) is 12pt, and that's quite ok to be read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to make it easier, 14pt is quite acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="716" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-09-13T02:39:37.550" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T02:39:37.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1645" CreationDate="2012-05-16T02:21:53.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's really a hard question to answer. Because there may not be an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;龖(dá) (I'm not sure if this character can display in your browser. It's two 龍 together) Means two dragon to fly. And this is announced by an organization called &quot;Chinese Academy of Languages&quot;(I google translated it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also there must be more complicated characters such as 龘(dá). But don't pay attention to it, we Chinese ourselves don't know those characters. We only use a little characters(may be 5000? not sure).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. I noticed that you mentioned simplified characters, but you must know that not all the characters has it simplified form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PPS. Another COMMON word 饕餮, mainly used in 饕餮盛宴, which means gluttonous feast, is used very widely and common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="716" LastEditorUserId="716" LastEditDate="2012-05-17T07:57:33.063" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T07:57:33.063" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1650" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1651" CreationDate="2012-05-16T03:40:08.513" Score="4" ViewCount="3927" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you refer to a specific great-grandparent? &#xA;Does Chinese language has all 8 relationship titles to refer to one of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T20:14:50.460" Title="Referring to great-grandparents" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;kinship&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1650" CreationDate="2012-05-16T06:29:26.270" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/7023871.htm&quot;&gt;The answer is yes&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曾 is for paternal paternal ancestors, 曾外 for paternal maternal ancestors, 外曾 for maternal paternal ancestors, and 外曾外 for maternal maternal ancestors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="390" LastEditDate="2012-05-16T06:37:54.530" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T06:37:54.530" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1652" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1657" CreationDate="2012-05-16T08:34:09.383" Score="1" ViewCount="2745" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese people I know don't have siblings. They refer to their cousin as &quot;cousin brother / sister&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this common?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, is this a modern change, perhaps reflecting the one-child policy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="704" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2012-05-17T02:01:07.127" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T08:15:06.690" Title="Is it common to refer to cousins as &quot;cousin-brothers&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;kinship&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1652" CreationDate="2012-05-16T09:11:44.410" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not really clear to me what you mean with &quot;cousin brother / sister&quot;. Do you mean for example 表姐姐姐 or a 表姐 simply called 姐姐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be complete:&#xA;表哥 or 表兄 is the older male cousin via female line. 表弟 is the younger male cousin via female line. Similar you have 表姐 and 表妹. Via the male line you similarly have 堂哥 or 堂兄, 堂弟, 堂姐 and 堂妹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These words are not new.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays a lot of only children want a 哥哥 of a 姐姐 to &quot;look after them&quot; or to have somebody to whom to can go to when one has some questions or problems and they search for them (for example in the family or a good friend), and afterwards always call them 哥哥/姐姐. Also cousins are often considered as brothers and sisters and are often simply called 哥哥, 弟弟, 姐姐 and 妹妹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T09:11:44.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1288" CreationDate="2012-05-16T11:59:15.713" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;one more point: 明白 may be used as an adjective (e.g. 明白人 means a wise person), whilst 懂 can only be used as a verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="718" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T11:59:15.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1645" CreationDate="2012-05-16T12:11:52.343" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;龖 (dá) from lol.wen's answer has 32 strokes, but I can better that by a bit ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;齉 (nàng) has 36 strokes, and my favourite dictionary, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/chinese-dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;YellowBridge&lt;/a&gt;, defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;stoppage of the nose; to speak with a nasal twang; to snuffle (as in nose with a cold); snuffling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should however add that, like 龖, this character is the same in both simplified and traditional script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other ones that appear in &lt;a href=&quot;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jun Da&lt;/a&gt;'s character frequency list, taken from a corpus of modern Chinese, include 鱄 (Zhuān, 22 strokes), 襽 (lán, 23 strokes), and 鑪 (lú, 24 strokes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-16T18:03:31.803" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T18:03:31.803" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1645" CreationDate="2012-05-16T14:15:39.777" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As discussed in the comments for the original post, two candidates are 攀 (19 strokes) and 蠢 (21 strokes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these are frequent: 攀 is #2439 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/statistics/char/list.php?Which=MO&quot;&gt;a frequency list of hanzi&lt;/a&gt;, and 蠢 is #2135.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I also forgot 馕 (náng, 25 strokes), which I certainly saw many times on menus in Beijing. The right hand side itself is also a marvel: surely it would have been a candidate for systematic simplification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T14:15:39.777" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1652" CreationDate="2012-05-16T19:51:08.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cousin is 表哥/表姐/堂哥/堂姐, and the 哥s and 姐s do not reflect the one-child policy. &quot;Cousin&quot; just happens to have 哥 and 姐 in them because it makes sense to say that cousins are &quot;siblings&quot; only with different parents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a lot of people nowadays refer to their cousins simply as 姐姐 or 哥哥 (&quot;sister&quot; or &quot;brother&quot;) probably because they don't have any siblings themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If my cousin's nickname is 豆豆, I would call her 豆豆姐姐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you should also be aware you can call those that are slightly older than you 哥哥/姐姐 in informal situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your co-worker's last name is 周, you could call her 周姐. 姐 here has nothing to do with whether you two are related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T19:51:08.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1650" CreationDate="2012-05-16T20:14:50.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;曾祖父, 曾祖母, 外曾祖父, and 外曾祖母 are only used in formal writings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paternal great-grandparents are 太爷爷/太奶奶.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(To help you memorize them, 爷爷 and 奶奶 are paternal grandparents.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maternal great-grandparents are 太姥爷/太姥姥 in the north and 太公公/太婆婆 in the south.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(姥爷/姥姥 and 公公（外公）/婆婆 （外婆）are maternal grandparents.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I expect these terms to vary greatly in different regions and families. I was told to somehow call my maternal great-grandmother 太太, which also means &quot;lady.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T20:14:50.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1659" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-16T23:06:15.310" Score="3" ViewCount="1542" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to create a chat meeting for CL&amp;amp;U and so I thought, why not make the title in Chinese? I was thinking of using the term &quot;meeting&quot; or a similar one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On my dictionary, for meeting, it lists the word 会议. Is this correct, or are there better terms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2012-05-23T01:21:30.430" Title="How to say &quot;meeting&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1659" CreationDate="2012-05-17T02:28:03.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;会议 is used to refer to meetings generally, which is perfectly fine in this case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to stress on a particular type of meeting, for example in your case, you could say &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2125328.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;讨论会&lt;/a&gt;, which is an interative meeting where people expression their opinion and communicate their thoughts with others &lt;em&gt;freely&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T02:28:03.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1652" CreationDate="2012-05-17T03:05:00.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way to call a relative may vary from place to place. The general idea is given by the previous answers. I'll show what we do in my family, which is on the north of Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally three prefixes are used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;表&quot; is used for siblings from father's sisters or mother's brothers&#xA;&quot;堂&quot; is used for siblings from father's brothers&#xA;&quot;姨&quot; is used for siblings from mothers' sisters&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;兄弟姐妹&quot; would be added cording to the gender and age of the sibling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;表哥&quot; and &quot;堂哥&quot; are also valid, but I've never heard &quot;姨哥&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, these prefixes can be dropped when the children are in one &quot;family&quot;. The &quot;family&quot; can be rather big. All descendents through the mail line can be considered in one &quot;family&quot;. When girls get married, move to another &quot;family&quot; (the way to refer to them in the original &quot;family&quot; will not change). So &quot;堂兄弟姐妹&quot; are in fact not often used, as they are always in one &quot;family&quot;, and &quot;哥哥&quot; &quot;姐姐&quot; &quot;弟弟&quot; &quot;妹妹&quot; will used in stead, maybe adding other prefixes to distinguish from each other (e.g. &quot;二哥&quot; &quot;三姐&quot; etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-05-17T08:15:06.690" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T08:15:06.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1300" CreationDate="2012-05-17T03:51:36.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another user here runs a site called HanziJS that does what you're asking for. (Sorry, I can't remember that user's name, but I discovered his website while reading here!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hanzijs.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://hanzijs.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="647" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T03:51:36.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1663" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1669" CreationDate="2012-05-17T04:03:32.910" Score="9" ViewCount="3430" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm surprised this question hasn't been asked yet!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pinyin for 那个 is nà gè, but in conversation, Chinese people often pronounce it more like nee-guh than nah-guh. I asked my teacher and she says this is just an example of spoken language diverging from &quot;proper&quot; language. Is that true? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that mean that in a formal setting (like giving a speech), that you would pronounce it nah-ge?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="647" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T00:49:48.790" Title="Pronunciation of 那个" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="242" CreationDate="2012-05-17T04:11:12.290" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few ways to look at this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some names that are translated so commonly, that people will easily guess your English name (or Spanish name) from your Chinese name. For example, 马克 is Mark, not just because it sounds similar, but also because there is precedent for it. It's similar to translating Jacques in French to Jack in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a Chinese friend who doesn't like this approach. He recommends picking a name that is more meaningful to you personally, especially since most native Chinese names have double meaning as well. He recommended picking names based on famous Chinese people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To flip the situation around, consider Chinese people that adopt an English name. Sometimes they transliterate the names, and sometimes they pick names of famous people. I met a Chinese man who's English name was Tracy, because he likes &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_McGrady&quot;&gt;Tracy&lt;/a&gt; McGrady. I met a woman who's English name was &quot;rabbit&quot;, because she likes rabbits!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, it's probably a personal decision, and it depends partly on what your Chinese name will be used for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="647" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T04:11:12.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1665" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1667" CreationDate="2012-05-17T04:39:04.097" Score="4" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;My textbook explains that 吧 is a modal particle, but I'm not a linguist and the &quot;modal particle&quot; article on Wikipedia didn't help. Can you give examples of using 吧 in conversation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="647" LastActivityDate="2012-05-18T12:53:45.890" Title="Example of using 吧 in conversation" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1665" CreationDate="2012-05-17T06:04:01.880" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many use-cases of 吧. In these 吧 should be placed at the end of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First the  吧 is used when making &lt;strong&gt;polite suggestions, requests or orders&lt;/strong&gt;. Its presence will &lt;em&gt;soften the tone&lt;/em&gt; of such a request or suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走吧 (zou3 ba): let's go&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;帮帮他吧! (bang1 bang1 ta1 ba): help him!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们赶快去医院看她吧 (wo3 men gan3 kuai4 qu4 yi1 yuan4 kan4 ta1 ba): let's go quickly to the hospital to see her&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;饭菜凉了，快一点儿吃吧 (fan4 cai4 liang2 le, kuai4 yi4 dianr3 chi1 ba): the food has become cold, please start eating&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;如果你在英语方面有问题，就问我吧 (ru2 guo3 ni3 zai4 ying1 yu3 fang1 mian4 you3 wen4 ti2, jiu4 wen4 wo3 ba): if you have questions related to&#xA;English, ask them&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你们快回家去吧 (ni3 men kuai4 hui2 jia1 qu4 ba): you'd beter go back home right away&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你就放心吧 (ni3 jiu4 fang4 xin1 ba): you can count on me&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;咱们喝点什么吧 (za2 men he1 dian3 shen2 me ba): let us drink something&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly it is used to &lt;strong&gt;express approval&lt;/strong&gt;. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;好吧 (hao3 ba): OK&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;好吧，听你的 (hao3 ba, ting1 ni3 de): all right; whatever you say/we'll do it your way&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thirdly it is used to &lt;strong&gt;ask a question&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;involving a conjecture or to indicate doubt&lt;/strong&gt; without seeking an answer or to &lt;em&gt;soften the question&lt;/em&gt;). Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你不会不知道吧？ (ni3 bu2 hui4 bu4 zhi1 dao4 ba): How can't you know (you have to know it already)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你有一点儿累了吧？ (ni3 you3 yi4 dianr3 lei4 le ba?): You are a bit tired, aren't you? (This is used for example you can see from the person's face that is tired so it's more a rhetorical question)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他到三十岁了吧？ (ta1 dao4 san1 shi2 sui4 le ba?): has he reached 30?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这是我的吧？ (zhe4 shi wo3 de ba ba): This is mine, right? (instead of 这是我的）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fourthly when you are not completely certain, you want to &lt;strong&gt;indicate uncertainty or supposition&lt;/strong&gt;.  It will &lt;em&gt;soften the tone&lt;/em&gt;. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个汉字不对吧 (zhe4 ge han4 zi bu2 dui4 ba): This Chinese character is wrong, I guess. (Compare this sentence to 这个汉字不对. The tone of the latter is much stronger. It's an authorative statement, while the former expresses doubt).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大概是前天吧 (da4 gai4 shi4 qian2 tian1 ba): It most have been the day before yesterday&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-05-18T12:53:45.890" LastActivityDate="2012-05-18T12:53:45.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1663" CreationDate="2012-05-17T08:06:43.477" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation &lt;em&gt;nèigè&lt;/em&gt; originally came from a contraction of 那一个 (&lt;em&gt;nà yī gè&lt;/em&gt;).  The same thing happened with 这一个 (&lt;em&gt;zhè yī gè&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;zhèigè&lt;/em&gt;) and 哪一个 (&lt;em&gt;nǎ yī gè&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;něigè&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the standard prescribes that you pronounce them &lt;em&gt;nà&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;zhè&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;nǎ&lt;/em&gt;, many speakers end up using the contracted forms, &lt;em&gt;nèi&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;zhèi&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;něi&lt;/em&gt;, respectively, whenever they occur before a measure word.  Because speakers no longer even realize that they are contractions, they can also occur when other numbers are specified; for instance, 那三个 can be &lt;em&gt;nà sān gè&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;nèi sān gè&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, these pronunciations can only occur before numbers and measure words.  For instance, 那里 is always pronounced &lt;em&gt;nàlǐ&lt;/em&gt; and never *&lt;em&gt;nèilǐ&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-05-17T08:13:04.607" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T08:13:04.607" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1663" CreationDate="2012-05-17T08:10:16.730" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation actually already find its way into the &quot;Contemporary Chinese Dictionary&quot; (现代汉语词典), though still not enough to form its own entry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under entry 那(nà), you can find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在口语里，‘那’单用或者后面直接跟名词，说nà或nè；‘那’后面跟量词或数词加量词常常说nèi或nè。以下【那程子】【那个】【那会儿】【那些】【那样】各条在口语里都常常说nèi或nè，【那么】【那么点儿】【那么些】【那么着】各条在口语里都常常说nè。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In spoken language, when '那' is used alone or directly followed by a noun, it is usually pronounced as 'nà' or 'nè'; '那' followed by a 量词 or numeral+量词 is usually pronounced as 'nèi' or 'nè'. In '那程子', '那个', '那会儿', '那些', '那样', it is usually pronounced as 'nèi' or 'nè'; in '那么', '那么点儿', '那么些', '那么着', it is usually pronounced as 'nè'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is in fact very common in spoken language. Sometimes using 'nà' even sounds a little strange. Note that in some situations above, 'nà' is not an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as foreigner learning Chinese, I think you can stick to 'nà' at first. You can start to try the variations when you think you are familiar enough with the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T08:10:16.730" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1663" CreationDate="2012-05-17T12:24:26.427" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I am aware, this is due to regional variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, in Beijing I have always heard 那个 pronounced like &lt;code&gt;nèi gè&lt;/code&gt;, even in formal settings such as business meetings. Same with 这个, which was always &lt;code&gt;zhèi gè&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Shanghai and Suzhou I only ever heard them pronounced as &lt;code&gt;nà gè&lt;/code&gt; and&lt;code&gt;zhè gè&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T12:24:26.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1671" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-17T15:09:29.577" Score="7" ViewCount="2250" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess in English maybe this would only be done by italics, I am not sure but here is a sample in English and my bad translation to Chinese, what is the best way to emphasis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know for example that in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我太太　vs　我的太太 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one says &quot;my wife&quot; and the second one emphasizes &quot;She is &lt;strong&gt;my&lt;/strong&gt; wife not &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; wife&quot;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But adding a &quot;de&quot; particle does not really work (in my head) here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now I don't want to talk to her. &lt;em&gt;(Declarative sentence)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;I&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; don't want to talk to her.  &lt;em&gt;(Declarative sentence emphasizing that before the other person did not want to talk to the writer.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would that emphasis be implied in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在　我　不要给他说话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the emphasis best added with bold or italics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1&lt;/strong&gt;: Taken from Beginner's Chinese Yong Ho&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="112" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-17T15:31:13.117" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T08:03:00.867" Title="How to emphasize a word in writing?" Tags="&lt;emphasis&gt;&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1671" CreationDate="2012-05-18T02:13:57.617" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your example is just an example of possessive elision in Chinese. Both are acceptable and considered equivalent. None of the two has more emphasis than the other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing to note is there are two different types of emphasis, one being the emphasis of tone/mood, the other being the emphasis of meaning. In your case, it's the former. In English, the first type is often represented with italic and the latter with bold. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many ways to bring the reader's attention to a particular phrase in a passage in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) The official method, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/underdot&quot;&gt;underdot&lt;/a&gt;, as the name suggests, is placed under the characters that need to be emphasized. Sometimes a small circle is used as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  那只笔是他拿的.&#xA;         .&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Another method is to use the squiggly underline (same as the one you see in MSWord when you have a spelling error)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Yet another method (but much rarer) is to use the normal underline, but this causes confusion in some cases, as it is also used to indicate proper nouns in Chinese in some older texts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) The first two methods are good for hand-written materials, but with the advent of typography, people are increasingly inclined towards using bold font to represent semantic emphasis and italic to represent tone/mood emphasis. This method is openly denounced by language purists due to the fact Chinese characters, unlike Western alphabets, look aesthetically &lt;em&gt;displeasing&lt;/em&gt; when boldened or italized in a computer font. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion for you is to express the emphasis in some other way. For example, you can spell things out: “她是我的太太, 不是你的!” Or if you are quoting someone, then: “她是我的太太.”, 他特别强调了‘我’这个字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2012-05-18T02:13:57.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1671" CreationDate="2012-05-18T04:12:29.997" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think bold or italics or any other typographical emphasis is the wrong way to go here. Yes, the underdot and the squiggly underline are technically analogous to the way we single out words in English, but I only see them used in Chinese grammar textbooks or possibly once or twice in instruction manuals where an entire sentence was &quot;&lt;em&gt;very important&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. Dots and underlines are almost never used in everyday writing, probably because they don't accurately reflect how emphasis is delivered in everyday Chinese speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; used are contextual clues, especially adverbs (副词) like 也 and 都. When dealing with emphasis in Chinese, I would advise you to, instead of thinking about how to emphasize a word (which is tricky even in spoken Chinese because of tone), think about what the emphasis means in the first place. Take your example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Now &lt;em&gt;I&lt;/em&gt; don't want to talk to her.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like you said, this probably implies that there was another person who didn't want to talk to this woman, and now the speaker &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; (也) doesn't want to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在我也不想跟她说话了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can almost hear the speaker's voice get just slightly louder and longer on the &quot;我&quot; leading up to the &quot;也&quot;, which is how the speaker probably would have said it in real life anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might also be that the speaker is someone closer to the woman than the first person, in which case a Chinese person might chose to emphasize the irony that &lt;em&gt;even I&lt;/em&gt; don't want to talk to her now, which can be expressed with 都:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在我都不想跟她说话了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So even though a Chinese person still probably would emphasize &quot;我&quot; when speaking (by adjusting volume or duration) in the sentences above, the adverbs allow the reader to &quot;hear&quot; the emphasis without being explicitly told where it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="321" LastActivityDate="2012-05-18T04:12:29.997" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1671" CreationDate="2012-05-19T00:36:38.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my high school Chinese lessons in China, (double) quotation marks, has one of its use being emphasizing. But the standards are only set by government authorities in Chinese speaking socities, so this might not work for other Chinese-speaking countries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="724" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T00:36:38.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1663" CreationDate="2012-05-19T00:49:48.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to understand that standard pronunciation is set by the government in various Chinese speaking societies, and its use is for, a, formal occasions, b, avoiding misunderstanding and confusion. On formal occasions, 那个, is pronounced na4ge. In speaking, provided that you are in Northern China, it depends on what you mean--it could mean &quot;that&quot;, or it could mean &quot;um, uh&quot; as in English &quot;I'ah, I am here to, um, ...&quot;. To mean &quot;that&quot;, you can pronounce either way, but to mean &quot;um&quot;, it is nei4ge, and not everywhere where Chinese is spoken, do people use 那个 to mean &quot;um&quot;, just like English people use &quot;um&quot; more and &quot;ah&quot; less than Americans.&#xA;In other parts of China or elsewhere, I would be careful not use 那个 to mean &quot;um&quot;, and I would only pronounce it the formal way, because in the local dialects 那个 sounds variously, for example, Szechuan people would say lago for 那个.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="724" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T00:49:48.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1581" CreationDate="2012-05-19T01:00:23.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Northern China they should never be mixed, unless you are a Japanese tourist. j, q, x, has no equivalence in English, so you have to learn it. However, for Cantonese speakers attempting to speak Mandarin, they might get hopelessly mixed and others allow for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="724" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T01:00:23.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1451" CreationDate="2012-05-19T01:05:24.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right that there is no Chinese words for offer, mainly because if the people can accept Western systems, they would just quote the english word, e.g. in HK. If they are reluctant to accept the Western system, they just don't have a concept of &quot;offer&quot;, hence not a word for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="724" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T01:05:24.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1568" CreationDate="2012-05-19T01:14:01.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Get you mouth in the shape as if you were whistling and attempt to pronounce loo and you will get it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="724" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T01:14:01.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1671" CreationDate="2012-05-19T07:09:06.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters do not like italics or bold-face treatment. Chinese people use other methods:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在我不要跟他说话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be emphasized on the 我 part like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在就是我不要跟他说话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means that right now, it is &lt;strong&gt;I&lt;/strong&gt; who do not want to talk to her, as opposed to a moment before, when it was another people that did not want to talk to her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="663" LastEditorUserId="663" LastEditDate="2012-05-19T08:03:00.867" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T08:03:00.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1681" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1683" CreationDate="2012-05-21T02:02:44.037" Score="2" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would you say 悲凉 in English? For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每当想起自己的经历，心里就阵阵悲凉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-21T08:38:58.200" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T21:58:52.947" Title="How would you say 悲凉 in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1386" CreationDate="2012-05-21T06:57:40.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A: 过两年我就有法拉利了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 你可拉倒吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;任何讽刺吐槽的词汇都适用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="731" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T06:57:40.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1681" CreationDate="2012-05-21T07:07:45.367" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;悲 means sad and 凉 means cold. So you feel both sad and cold. You can translate it as desolate or dismal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some definitions from different dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;According to 《现代汉语规范词典》 悲凄  is &lt;strong&gt;悲伤+凄凉&lt;/strong&gt; and 悲伤 means sad, sorrowful and 凄凉 means desolate, cold and lonely.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;According to 《现代汉语词典》 悲凄 is &lt;strong&gt;悲哀+凄凉&lt;/strong&gt; and 悲哀 means grieved, sorrowful, sad and 凄凉 means desolate, cold and lonely.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Comprehensive Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/em&gt; has &lt;strong&gt;sad and cold&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%82%B2%E5%87%89&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;MDBG&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; has &lt;strong&gt;sorrowful, dismal&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate your sentence as &lt;em&gt;Every time he recalled his own experiences, he felt sad and cold in his heart for a while&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-05-21T09:53:37.670" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T09:53:37.670" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1367" CreationDate="2012-05-21T07:17:25.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;let me use &quot;&lt;strong&gt;him&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; to instead of the &quot;&lt;em&gt;someone&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;other one&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; instead of &quot;&lt;em&gt;his family member&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, than suppose that &lt;strong&gt;other one&lt;/strong&gt; is male. ccording to what you say.you must have a good relationship with &lt;strong&gt;him&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if &lt;strong&gt;he&lt;/strong&gt; haven't introduced &lt;strong&gt;other one&lt;/strong&gt; yet, you could ask &lt;strong&gt;him&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“他是你弟弟/哥哥？ 他叫什么名字？ 我比他大吗？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so than, you could decisively call &lt;strong&gt;other one&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;弟弟/哥哥“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unless &lt;strong&gt;other one&lt;/strong&gt; is older than you, you can call &quot;哥哥” consequently. otherwise &#xA;if &lt;strong&gt;other one&lt;/strong&gt; is younger than you. i think call the first name is better, or the nick name which &quot;&lt;strong&gt;he&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; call &lt;strong&gt;other one&lt;/strong&gt;. just follow him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="717" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T07:17:25.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1685" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1716" CreationDate="2012-05-21T17:21:26.253" Score="5" ViewCount="1980" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a magazine, I know from a personal source that English text, when translated properly from German, fills out two thirds of the space the German source text usually takes up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know how much &quot;text volume&quot; differs when comparing Chinese to English &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; German?&#xA;Either for magazines, or for books? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe somebody has several books both in English and Chinese and can provide the page count?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="728" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T00:09:38.460" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T00:09:38.460" Title="For magazines or books, how much does &quot;text volume&quot; differ when comparing Chinese to English or German?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1386" CreationDate="2012-05-21T17:31:41.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about adding 个屁 to the end of the last thing they said? It can be rude, or very funny :)&#xA;Sorry for the brief answer, but my written Chinese is almost non present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="728" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-24T14:56:45.937" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T14:56:45.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1687" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1689" CreationDate="2012-05-22T00:19:13.507" Score="2" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this in the subtitles of a TV show:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的手被虫子给咬了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why 给 is used in that sentence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without considering 给, I've translated it to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My hand was bitten by an insect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2012-05-23T01:59:13.667" Title="Why 给 is used in 我的手被虫子给咬了?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1687" CreationDate="2012-05-22T02:29:50.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are almost the same, and in most cases it only depends on what prefer to say. But one small piece of difference that I, as a native speaker, can sense is that: the one without 给 sounds more flat, meaning that the one who says it doesn't treat it like a big deal; the one with 给 seems a bit stronger. If you know the pronunciation, you can try to read them out loud, and feel the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="730" LastActivityDate="2012-05-22T02:29:50.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1687" CreationDate="2012-05-22T02:57:09.000" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;给 is part of the passive structure of the sentence you've cited. It can be used before the verb either with or without another passive marker (like the neutral 被 or the colloquial 让 or 叫). It doesn't change the meaning of the sentence though, as dacongy mentioned, it can add emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some example sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衣服［让］他给弄脏了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The clothes were dirtied by him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个杯子［叫］我给打碎了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The glass was broken by me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confusingly, 给, like 叫 and 让, can &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; be used as a passive marker by itself in sentences like the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;门给风吹开了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The door was blown open by the wind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孩子给妈妈打了一顿。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The children were given a beating by their mother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above sentences, 给 could be replaced with 叫, 让, or 被 with no change in meaning. (The register and regional flavor will be slightly different.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This paper, &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ling.cuc.edu.cn/Staff/liyuming/papers/2005h.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;北京话“给”字被动句的地位及其历史发展 (PDF)&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;, which I haven't yet had a chance to read, analyzes the use of 给 in passive sentences (被动句) in Beijing dialect. I skimmed the abstract and it seemed like it might be illuminating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-05-23T01:59:13.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1690" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-22T13:26:22.430" Score="2" ViewCount="443" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an example sentence in my textbook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;建立良好的人际关系，是每个社会人的精神需要&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;精神 is translated in the dictionary into &quot;spirit, mind, consciousness&quot;. Here I believe it must be modifying 需要, which is acting as a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spiritual need? This translation seems right, but feels weird because nothing about &quot;人际关系&quot; (interpersonal relationships) is &quot;spiritual&quot; to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T23:50:27.133" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T23:50:27.133" Title="How can I translate &quot;精神需要&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1692" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-22T23:40:50.347" Score="2" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an example sentence from my textbook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;除了学习用语言表达自己的思想感情以外，还要学习用非语言表达方式。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here &quot;非&quot; has the meaning &quot;not&quot; or &quot;non-&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate it to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Aside from studying using language to express your deep philosophical thoughts and emotions, you also must study non-language methods of expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around what is meant by &quot;non-language methods of expression&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, I thought this might be referring to gestures, but gestures are also a kind of language, namely body language or &quot;肢体语言&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is meant by a non-language method of expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T23:50:20.817" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T23:50:20.817" Title="How can I translate &quot;非语言表达方式&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1692" CreationDate="2012-05-23T00:56:08.873" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding is right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;非语言表达方式&quot; means expressing things without using language, here the word &quot;language&quot; means just spoken and written language, gestures are not considered as &quot;language&quot; here although they can be refereed to as &quot;肢体语言&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that you need to understand the word &quot;language&quot; here by context. The word &quot;language&quot; from the first half of the sentence means spoken and written language, e.g. Chinese here, so it still means that in the second half of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, the reason we Chinese sometimes call gestures &quot;肢体语言&quot; is that it serves the purpose of expressing thoughts and emotions, just like what we can do with the &quot;real language&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other similar phrases like &quot;艺术语言&quot;, which means the way of expressing by practice of art.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="732" LastActivityDate="2012-05-23T00:56:08.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1690" CreationDate="2012-05-23T01:06:07.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese when you see &quot;精神&quot; modifying nouns to form phrases such as &quot;精神需要&quot; and &quot;精神文明&quot;, it just means the opposite side of their material counterpart such as &quot;物质需要&quot; and &quot;物质文明&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So your translation of &quot;spiritual&quot; is correct, but you need to understand it from a different point of view as I stated above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="732" LastActivityDate="2012-05-23T01:06:07.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1659" CreationDate="2012-05-23T01:21:30.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it is a chat meeting you refer to, you might want to use &quot;座谈会&quot;, which means an informal meeting where people gather and have some discussion or chatting on some topic. This is used when the topic is not serious or scientific related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are referring to some serious topics, &quot;讨论会&quot; or &quot;研讨会&quot; is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="732" LastActivityDate="2012-05-23T01:21:30.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1692" CreationDate="2012-05-23T02:58:19.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would not translate 语言 as language here at all. It sounds forced. Study is also a bad choice of word here. In fact, the whole English sentence sounds unnatural to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Aside from &lt;em&gt;learning&lt;/em&gt; to use &lt;em&gt;words&lt;/em&gt; to express one's thoughts and&#xA;  feelings, one must also learn to express oneself without using words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Words here may refer only to spoken words, but you could also interpret it&#xA;as both written and spoken.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Also&lt;/em&gt;, when used before a verb like in your example, sounds very awkward to me. It's best to move it immediately after the auxiliary verb.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;非语言 refers to everything other than using words: body language,&#xA;music, art, morse code or whatever method of communication or&#xA;expression you can think of that doesn't involve using words.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2012-05-23T02:58:19.313" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1692" CreationDate="2012-05-24T00:53:55.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with @fefe who posted his/her answer as a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非语言方式 is non-verbal ways, which include 肢体语言 (body language), 面部表情 (facial expressions), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book might be encouraging you to explore the cultural differences and social cues. For example, shaking your head in China means &quot;no.&quot; Typically, European and some American men pull out chairs for their female guests/partners -- that's something Chinese people should know if they are serious about learning English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 思想感情 is not necessarily &quot;deep philosophical thoughts and emotions.&quot; I think you can see it more like a 成语 (idiom) that means &quot;thoughts and emotions.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="542" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T00:53:55.617" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1698" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1699" CreationDate="2012-05-25T03:13:51.913" Score="6" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 东西 and 用品? They both seem to have the meaning &quot;stuff&quot; in certain circumstances, but then 用品 is used in more formal situations, such as 医药用品 which I am assuming is not in the same register as if I were to say &quot;Pharmaceutical Stuff&quot;! I lean towards translating 医药用品 as &quot;Pharmaceutical Products&quot;, but I am not convinced that 用品 is really the same as English &quot;product&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2012-06-01T17:33:08.737" Title="What is the difference between 东西 and 用品?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1698" CreationDate="2012-05-25T05:35:25.423" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;用品 is used for &lt;em&gt;articles that can be used, articles for use&lt;/em&gt; (Definitions is 2 dictionaries: 应用的物品 / 供使用的物品).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;办公用品: Office supplies, office goods&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;日用品: articles for daily use&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;常用品: everyday implement; object of everyday use&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;床上用品: bedclothes; bedding&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;体育用品: sporting goods&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;教学用品: educational supplies, study material&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东西 is just a thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should contrast 用品 with 产品.&#xA;产品 is something that is produced/manufactured, hence a product (Definitions in 2 dictionaries: 生产出来的物品 / 劳动所创造的物质资料，包括生产资料和消费资料). The last dictionary says it's also used for consumer goods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for 用品 the emphasis is more on the usage, and for 产品 it is more on the production.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-05-29T05:06:43.550" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T05:06:43.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1700" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1701" CreationDate="2012-05-25T12:38:51.320" Score="5" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 试验 and 实验 seems to be translated into &quot;experiment&quot;. What is the difference between the two words? Can they be used interchangeably or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-08-19T12:14:35.333" Title="What is the difference between 试验 and 实验?" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;nuance&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1700" CreationDate="2012-05-25T17:21:46.537" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;实验 is used for operations and activities done to test a scientific theory or hypothesis. An example: 经过反复实验，证明这一结论是正确的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;试验 is used to inspect the function or effect of some physical thing (something that already exists). It's typically done in some lab.&#xA;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;新农药要经过反复试验才能推广&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;试验新机器&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;新办法试验后推广&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-05-25T17:38:56.077" LastActivityDate="2012-05-25T17:38:56.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1700" CreationDate="2012-05-28T07:13:31.347" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply put:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实验 - An experiment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;试验 - A trial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="739" LastActivityDate="2012-05-28T07:13:31.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1698" CreationDate="2012-05-28T17:50:16.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;用品 refers to articles of utility.用 = use, 品= articles. That is things that are used in well defined contexts, per BertR's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东西literally means &quot;east-west.&quot; Figuratively, it refers to &quot;random&quot; items.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-05-28T17:50:16.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1708" CreationDate="2012-05-29T01:18:24.657" Score="4" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a calendar I saw this in reference to the Children's Day:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;快乐“六一”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Happy Children's Day!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess 六一 is a shorter form of 6月1日.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that form of writing dates only used for special dates? How widespread is that usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T23:35:55.013" Title="六一 and short date format" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;calendar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1707" CreationDate="2012-05-29T01:53:30.870" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This form of abbreviation is only reserved for special dates. Some popular Chinese holidays take this abbreviated form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;六一 == 儿童节&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十一 == 国庆节&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五一 == 劳动节&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any date can potentially become &quot;special&quot; following a major event or incident that occurred on that date or for a short period of time surrounding the said date. The abbreviated form is, therefore, used to identify the event:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;四一二讲话 the speech made on April 12th or the April 12th speech&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is predicated on the fact that the listener is fully aware of both the date and the event in question. The abbreviated form would be meaningless otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A dot, &quot;·&quot;, may be added between the month and the day in writing, especially when there is a possible ambiguity:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一·二四 January 24th&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一二·四 December 4th&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reading stays the same, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-05-29T23:35:55.013" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T23:35:55.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1698" CreationDate="2012-05-29T07:53:54.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;用品 is much more formal than 东西. I use phrases like 工作用的东西，开车用的东西，学习用的东西，etc., quite often in when speaking, but almost never when writing Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="718" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T07:53:54.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1710" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-29T08:42:19.323" Score="5" ViewCount="2805" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been doing research on how to translate the verb &quot;to give&quot;. I'm trying to find a common way to say it as in sentances like &lt;em&gt;&quot;I gave my friend one apple&quot;&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;&quot;My friend gave me one apple&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't really seen anything different than 给, but from what I'm reading, that translates more on the lines of &quot;for&quot; or &quot;for the purpose of&quot;, almost like 为. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm asking which verbs are commonly used to signify that something was granted to you, or that you granted something to someone else and in what sentence structure these words would be used to fit into the example sentances above (the apple situation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="742" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-05-29T19:14:08.093" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T07:56:41.713" Title="How to say &quot;to give&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1710" CreationDate="2012-05-29T09:42:36.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the action of giving a physical object, &quot;給&quot; is correct. Simple as that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="411" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T09:42:36.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1710" CreationDate="2012-05-29T09:48:08.197" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;给 is one of these verbs that can also be a preposition (which is quite confusing when you are not used to it). When there is no other verb near to it, it means to give.&#xA;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;给我勇气: &lt;em&gt;give me courage&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;把钥匙给我: &lt;em&gt;give me the key&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;叔叔给他一支笔: &lt;em&gt;uncle gave/gives him a pen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;杭州给我的印象很好: Literally: &lt;em&gt;Hangzhou gave me a good impression&lt;/em&gt;, a better sentence: &lt;em&gt;I was impressed by Hangzhou&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们给敌人一个沉重的打击: &lt;em&gt;We gave the enemy a serious blow&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Together with another verb it often becomes a preposition (with implicit meaning of giving something to somebody). Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我给妻子做早餐: &lt;em&gt;I made breakfast for my wife&lt;/em&gt; (= I gave my wife breakfast)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;给他看看照片: &lt;em&gt;Let him see the photos&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;留给他: &lt;em&gt;leave it to him&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;递给我: &lt;em&gt;pass it to me&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;送给他: &lt;em&gt;to give him (as a present)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他给我们当翻译: &lt;em&gt;he will be our translator&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有事给我打电话: &lt;em&gt;if there is a problem, give me a phone call&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some other verbs (I already used them in the examples meaning to give). For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;送 (typically used when you give a present)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;递 (to hand over)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;提供 (to give, to provide + opportunity，surprise，shock，job)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These can be used together with 给in two ways: 送给他礼物 or 给他送礼物, but you can also say 送他礼物.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your apple example, often depending on the context an extra verb will be added, but you can also say it without. So you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt; 朋友苹果 (in many contexts this sentence will sound as it is not finished).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;送给&lt;/strong&gt; 朋友苹果&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt; 朋友 &lt;strong&gt;送&lt;/strong&gt; 苹果&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;递给&lt;/strong&gt; 朋友苹果&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt; 朋友 &lt;strong&gt;递&lt;/strong&gt; 苹果&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T07:56:41.713" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T07:56:41.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1713" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1714" CreationDate="2012-05-29T11:19:20.420" Score="2" ViewCount="2158" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that 英国 has a phonetic origin, &lt;code&gt;Yīng guó&lt;/code&gt; is rather close to England. However I would like to know if it is possible to find out who coined that translation, and if there is more to it than phonetic similitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="133" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T12:21:16.900" Title="Origin of 英国 (England)" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1713" CreationDate="2012-05-29T12:21:16.900" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the article &lt;a href=&quot;http://dspace.xmu.edu.cn/dspace/bitstream/2288/687/1/%E8%AE%BA%E5%9B%BD%E5%90%8D%E4%B8%8E%E5%9B%BD%E5%8F%B7.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;论国名与国号&lt;/a&gt; it is mentioned that 英国 stems from 英格兰.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_names_for_the_British#Other_languages&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;On Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; they mention that it comes from 英吉利 (English) and 英格兰 (England):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The written form of Yīngguó in Chinese is made up of two characters: 英国. The first 英 (yīng) as an adjective means &quot;outstanding&quot; and &quot;fine&quot;, and as a noun means &quot;flower&quot;; the second is 国 (guó) which means &quot;country&quot;, &quot;state&quot; or &quot;kingdom&quot;. Originally the adjective word was written as 英吉利 Yīngjílì as an approximation of the adjective word English, and is still used to mean English in the Chinese word for the English Channel 英吉利海峡 Yīng jí lì hǎi xiá. The noun word was written as 英格兰 Ying ge lan for the noun England, also 苏格兰 Su ge lan for Scotland, 爱尔兰 Ai er lan for Ireland and 威尔士 Wei er shi for Wales. Also in history books Great Britain is written 大不列颠 da bu lie dian, from 大 (Great) and the sounds of the words 不列颠 similar to the sound interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find any older (and better) references explaining the origin of 英.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T12:21:16.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1715" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1733" CreationDate="2012-05-29T16:10:56.060" Score="5" ViewCount="841" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been looking for an open-source index of Chinese characters (Traditional) indexed by the Wubihua (五筆劃). I have found only partial lists (up to four digits), and only for Simplified. I know there are lists out there, since all the phones in Hong Kong have Wubihua for Traditional installed... Any pointers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2012-06-02T14:56:40.077" Title="Wubihua / Traditional Chinese / Open-source index" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1685" CreationDate="2012-05-30T08:33:48.260" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Judging from my personal experience (I do translation for a living), the English and Chinese versions of a text have a word count ratio of about 2:3. That is, if the English version has 1000 words, the Chinese version will usually have about 1500 characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the Chinese version usually takes up less space. In Microsoft Word, with the same font size and style, the Chinese version is usually one third shorter than the English version. If the Chinese version has 10 pages, the English version will usually have 15 pages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may seem to be a paradox, but please note that Chinese texts are counted in characters, not words. Each Chinese character consumes the space of about two English letters, while an English word is five letters long on average. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, these numbers vary every time, depending on what and how you translate. They are just very rough numbers to give you a general idea. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2012-05-30T08:33:48.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1690" CreationDate="2012-05-30T08:59:51.977" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Spiritual needs&quot; is a typical word-to-word translation that is common in texts translated from Chinese but does not fit in the English context. You may consider other words such as &quot;psychological&quot; or &quot;mental&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, for &quot;物质需要&quot;, I think &quot;physical needs&quot; is better than &quot;material needs&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2012-05-30T08:59:51.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1718" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-30T20:42:16.800" Score="4" ViewCount="2884" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, how do they normally sign off letters?  We normally use 'Yours Faithfully' or 'Your Sincerely' but we might not be so formal in emails and instead just 'Regards'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is standard practise in Chinese for both letters/emails?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="251" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-10T23:00:45.570" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T23:00:45.570" Title="What are the normal forms of valediction (signing off letters and emails) in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1718" CreationDate="2012-05-30T22:32:51.483" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;謹上&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;敬上&lt;/strong&gt; is fairly common. Your own name precede this closing term, contrary to English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="738" LastActivityDate="2012-05-30T22:32:51.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1718" CreationDate="2012-05-31T00:04:20.650" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It all depends on the formality of the letter or email, the age of person being addressed, his/her relationship to you and how familiar you are with the said person. This is not something that you can define or quantify - you just have to get a feel for it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, for letters, the standard valediction goes something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  此致 &#xA;敬礼!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the double space before 此致. This is used for someone you don't know (well) and is very respectful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have acquired a certain degree of acquaintenance with the person, then you can write pretty much anything that one considers respectful such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;身体健康 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;万事如意&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;工作顺利&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or even:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;谢谢&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to list a few. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For emails, the same rules apply; but since they are much more casual, sometimes people don't include any valediction at all. Just type the body and hit send. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2012-05-31T00:04:20.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1718" CreationDate="2012-05-31T08:23:53.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should say &quot;学业有成&quot; for the junior “桃李满天下”for your teacher&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="745" LastActivityDate="2012-05-31T08:23:53.813" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1690" CreationDate="2012-05-31T17:06:47.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;how about &quot;needs of cultural goods&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="718" LastActivityDate="2012-05-31T17:06:47.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1724" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1725" CreationDate="2012-06-01T03:03:37.193" Score="3" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always been curious about the process of simplifying 蘭 to 兰. I'm not really familiar with the simplification process, but this one is shocking to me. From what I've seen (I've studied only simplified characters), it's usually easy for me to recognize the similarities between traditional and simplified characters. But here, there appears to be no common basis at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="221" LastActivityDate="2012-06-25T16:40:50.880" Title="Simplification of 蘭（兰）" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1724" CreationDate="2012-06-01T04:24:44.013" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like a few other simplifications, 兰 is derived from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_script&quot;&gt;grass script&lt;/a&gt; for the traditional form. The first three strokes are derived from the 草字头 (the grass radical).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Various character forms can be seen &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cidianwang.com/shufa/lan5418_xs.htm&quot;&gt;on this site&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2012-06-01T04:24:44.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1726" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1729" CreationDate="2012-06-01T13:16:32.173" Score="2" ViewCount="888" Body="&lt;p&gt;If someone make a mistake and say this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不好意思，非常不好意思！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the proper response? &#xA;Should &lt;code&gt;没事&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;没关系&lt;/code&gt; be used to reply?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T07:45:22.230" Title="Proper response to 不好意思" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1698" CreationDate="2012-06-01T17:33:08.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First ,you might know the origin meanings of '东西'. &#xA;The Chinese word '东西' origins from '东市' (East Market) and '西市' (West Market) in Tang Dynasty. At that time, people bought stuff in the East Market or West market (人们去东市或西市买用品). After years, people simplified the usage and  used the word '东西' as '用品'. For example, '人们去买东西'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays,东西 is used often in talking with people. '用品' is used in writing articles. But you should not add a 'noun' modifier before '东西'. For example, '办公东西' is not used in China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="748" LastActivityDate="2012-06-01T17:33:08.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="743" CreationDate="2012-06-01T17:52:19.733" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you learn Chinese, you will get more if you know the origin of the words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'学习' origins form the ancient sentence '学而时习之', which means that you learn (学) theory and use (习) the theory correctly. So the 学 and '学习' are a little different although you can exchange them in most cases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="748" LastActivityDate="2012-06-01T17:52:19.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1726" CreationDate="2012-06-01T18:12:49.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;没事 and 没关系 are good responses to 不好意思. You can also use 不要紧 and 没什么.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhishi.sohu.com/question/62862108.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;搜狐问答&lt;/a&gt; they say that in normal circumstances the difference between these words is really small, but there can be a difference in meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没事 is rather used when there are no losses and no harm. 不要紧 is rather used when the losses or harm is small and 没关系 when the losses and harm is big, but you don't want to blame and the other person doesn't need to take responsibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/qna/entrynote?entryId=26729&amp;amp;dictype=zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;On Nciku&lt;/a&gt; they say that 不要紧, 没关系, 没什么 and 没事儿 all mean &quot;to be of no importance&quot;. They can also be used as a response to another person's apology. Furthermore 没事儿 can mean &quot;nothing serious&quot;. If 不要紧 is used in a subordinate clause, there is harm involved and the harm is mentioned in the main clause. On Nciku you can find some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T07:45:22.230" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T07:45:22.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="743" CreationDate="2012-06-02T10:57:37.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;「学」 can also mean &quot;to imitate&quot; or &quot;to repeat after &amp;lt;somebody&amp;gt;&quot;, whereas 「学习」 does not have this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="501" LastActivityDate="2012-06-02T10:57:37.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="242" CreationDate="2012-06-02T11:28:02.197" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tones&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless the name has a really old and/or well-known phonetic translation, a &quot;safe&quot; rule seems to be to pick characters pronounced in the 1st tone. This is particularly true for names that are either long, uncommon, or otherwise tongue-twisting (as far as Chinese speakers are concerned anyway).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Male vs Female&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certain characters convey masculinity (e.g.: 雄) whereas others convey femininity (e.g.: 娜, and pretty much any character that bears the 女 radical on the left, and there are more). The rest are neutral. So you need to be careful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Regional rules&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another rule that is commonly used in Hong Kong (and maybe in Macau and Taiwan), is to abandon a close phonetic translation altogether, and instead come up with a 2- to 4-character full name that has some phonetic elements of the original name, skipping syllables as necessary/appropriate, while looking very much like a regular Han Chinese name (1- or 2-character surname , plus 1- or 2-character given name). This is particularly true for people who work in the government or is otherwise a public figure (actor/actress/businessman/businesswoman). 盛智文 (Allan Zeman, the guy behind Hong Kong's Lan Kwai Fong and Ocean Park) is one such example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="501" LastEditorUserId="501" LastEditDate="2012-06-02T11:34:36.353" LastActivityDate="2012-06-02T11:34:36.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1715" CreationDate="2012-06-02T14:03:05.840" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do you want to use it for? Mostly it is used as an input method, which is probably why only four digits are included. If you need the order of all strokes, changing your search phrase to something like &quot;stroke order&quot; might help. Here are some links I have found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://stroke-order.learningweb.moe.edu.tw/&quot;&gt;http://stroke-order.learningweb.moe.edu.tw/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-stroke-order.php?searchChinese=1&amp;amp;zi=%E5%9C%8B&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-stroke-order.php?searchChinese=1&amp;amp;zi=%E5%9C%8B&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I've found this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://code.google.com/p/ibus-t9/issues/detail?id=3&quot;&gt;https://code.google.com/p/ibus-t9/issues/detail?id=3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very inclusive! Download that attachment. I bet that is exactly what you are looking for. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastEditorUserId="617" LastEditDate="2012-06-02T14:56:40.077" LastActivityDate="2012-06-02T14:56:40.077" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1726" CreationDate="2012-06-03T05:39:48.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 没事 and 没关系 are good responses. In Beijing, people always say 没事儿. 没事 and 没事儿 are used between close friends. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="638" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-06-03T10:20:26.580" LastActivityDate="2012-06-03T10:20:26.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1710" CreationDate="2012-06-03T11:32:47.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;BertR's answer is quite comprehensive, but I thought I'd add that for the apple example, in colloquial Chinese at least, it would be very common to hear 给他吃/给你吃/etc. (&lt;em&gt;lit. give it to him/you/etc. to eat&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 给 can be used alone (and in all the ways detailed in the accepted answer), if there is an action expected to follow the receiving of the object (eating an apple, reading a book) an extra verb will often follow the object of 给.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;给你吃: &lt;em&gt;lit. give it to you to eat&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  给她看: &lt;em&gt;lit. give it to her to look at&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;let her look at it&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  给我改: &lt;em&gt;lit. give it to me to correct&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Syntax-wise the 给 might be seen as subservient to the second verb in these examples, or maybe even functioning as a preposition--as 给 often can.  However, I feel that--in colloquial usage at least--the focus of the sentence is still on the giving action, with the latter verb providing auxiliary information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="753" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-06-03T12:07:32.520" LastActivityDate="2012-06-03T12:07:32.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1726" CreationDate="2012-06-03T12:22:03.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps, you might want to use 没事啦真的没事, since the person is so insistent on saying sorry. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不好意思，非常不好意思！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the person seems to be sincerely apologetic about some possibly grave mistake he has committed. If it were something minor, the person would have stopped at simply 不好意思. 没事 in this scenario implies &quot;It's nothing&quot;, so to emphasize and reassure the person, you continue by saying &quot;没事啦真的没事&quot; (it's nothing; it's really nothing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Substitutes that the others have offered (like 没关系、不要紧 and 不用紧) all work perfectly well--it's just up to your own preference. And the added reassurance is my personal opinion; you can do perfectly well without it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, you can go ahead and say 都怪你的错 and make the person feel even more guilty instead. :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="754" LastEditorUserId="754" LastEditDate="2012-06-03T16:16:45.840" LastActivityDate="2012-06-03T16:16:45.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1737" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-03T14:45:52.200" Score="2" ViewCount="1819" Body="&lt;p&gt;In what contexts can &lt;code&gt;老乡&lt;/code&gt; used? How do they translate to English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="452" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2012-06-03T23:35:26.547" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T04:37:25.773" Title="What is a good English translation for &quot;老乡&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1740" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8319" CreationDate="2012-06-05T16:01:23.437" Score="11" ViewCount="2572" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've just started taking Chinese lessons, and I've been trying to find a &quot;cheat sheet&quot; for pinyin pronunciation. All the sites I've found is either incomplete (only having some tones), only having the pronunciation as a description or comparison to English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm looking for is basically a table that looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;ā ē ī ō ū ǖ&#xA;á é í ó ú ǘ&#xA;ǎ ě ǐ ǒ ǔ ǚ&#xA;à è ì ò ù ǜ&#xA;a e i o u ü&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where I would be able to click on any one of them and hear the pronunciation. Sounds so simple, but I've just not been able to find one...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="759" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-05T13:21:49.373" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T11:44:47.183" Title="Pinyin tones pronunciation cheat sheet" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1740" CreationDate="2012-06-05T17:04:22.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not what you're looking for but I found the explanation of pronunciation in Julian Wheatley's MIT textbook very helpful.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check out the &quot;Sounds and Symbols&quot; sections available &lt;a href=&quot;http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/foreign-languages-and-literatures/21f-101-chinese-i-regular-spring-2006/readings/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="482" LastActivityDate="2012-06-05T17:04:22.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1740" CreationDate="2012-06-05T17:20:08.130" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a pretty good website: &lt;a href=&quot;http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It contains the pronunciation of all initial and final combinations and all tones for each of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You first have to click on one the pinyin in the table and afterwards choose the correct tone on the top right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-06-05T17:28:25.607" LastActivityDate="2012-06-05T17:28:25.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1743" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1745" CreationDate="2012-06-05T21:16:17.990" Score="8" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;During studying 条 character in one of the dictionaries I have found decomposition of this character to two components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;夂 zhǐ: to go &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;木 mù: tree; wood (Kangxi radical 75) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see the 夂 component but I am not sure of 木. Should it not be 小 or something similar instead to 木? When I've enlarged the font it resembles 小 without the horizontal stroke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="308" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-06-06T08:15:28.897" LastActivityDate="2018-10-07T00:55:18.087" Title="Is the description for components of 条 correct?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2012-06-05T21:53:47.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It has to be 木, 条 means 'twig' originally &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-06-05T21:53:47.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2012-06-05T23:32:37.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;条's radical is 木. That's an established fact. Just consult any Chinese dictionary. It's derived from 条's old form (旧字形), which lacks the tick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-06-21T20:39:02.490" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T20:39:02.490" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1740" CreationDate="2012-06-06T03:45:06.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this isn't a website as I asked for, but I just found this and it looks like it's going to be really helpful! It works fine under wine on linux too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="759" LastActivityDate="2012-06-06T03:45:06.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1747" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1749" CreationDate="2012-06-06T05:47:26.353" Score="8" ViewCount="523" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference in connotation/region/modernity/etc. between questions ending in 吗 and affirmative/negative questions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, does:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你很累吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;connote something different than:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你累不累？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And does the following have a third connotation?: 你很累没有？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="760" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-23T21:23:53.517" LastActivityDate="2020-08-24T15:01:33.997" Title="Is there a difference in connotation between questions ending in 吗 vs. X 不 X" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1737" CreationDate="2012-06-06T06:01:19.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;老乡 is a bit narrower than, but related to the Yiddish לאַנדסמאַן - landsman (with &quot;a&quot;s like the &quot;o&quot; in bottle and a true &quot;s&quot; like pass, not a /z/ like pans).  That word, according to Wikipedia, has made it into English as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/landsman&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;landsman&lt;/a&gt;, though I don't think it's widespread (I haven't heard anyone but my mom use it - and then only when describing the Yiddish word).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't like that, maybe an even broader term like compatriot, perhaps? or homey?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="760" LastActivityDate="2012-06-06T06:01:19.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1747" CreationDate="2012-06-06T15:52:07.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's also 嘛 and 吗. Practically, there is little difference between the two, aside from the pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吗 is most used in questions where speaker is usually neutral about the question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘛, although not applicable in your given example, it can be used to question or affirm. I.e., used with to express emotional context (positive or negative given the context) (e.g., 你这是干吗？ = questioning, vs.  你这是干嘛？ = complaining) or to express certainty with something (e.g. 很贵嘛! or 不错嘛！)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of connotation, &quot;你累不累?&quot; is the same as &quot;你很累吗?&quot; They both mean to ask if the person is tired or not, in a neutral tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你很累没有 seems a bit awkward grammatically. The way it's structured implies a statement rather than a question. You are probably looking to use 吧 in this case. E.g., 你很累吧 (You're pretty tired, huh/right/aren't you?), would be more appropriate here. 吧 is used at the end of a sentence when you are uncertain of something you can say. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also 呢, which is often used at the end of an interrogative sentence. e.g., 为什么...呢? 怎么...呢? Take note that 呢 is NOT interchangeable with 吗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2012-06-07T07:02:55.823" LastActivityDate="2012-06-07T07:02:55.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1751" CreationDate="2012-06-06T16:18:34.843" Score="4" ViewCount="9500" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that 干嘛 appears used in various forms of media, such as newspapers, magazines, and movie subtitles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a pronunciation standpoint, 嘛 and 吗 are different (neutral tone vs. second tone, respectively), but from a practical standpoint they seem to be similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an appropriate instance to use one over the other? Or are they (generally) interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2012-06-06T16:24:01.247" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T01:00:39.203" Title="In what instances can use you use 干嘛 over 干吗 (and vice versa)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1750" CreationDate="2012-06-06T16:44:32.913" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different sources seem to have to different opinions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most websites (for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/84845451.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/84845451.html&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/219005473.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/219005473.html&lt;/a&gt;) say that the 吗 in 干吗 has a neutral tone and &quot;干吗&quot; has the same meaning as 干不干 (or 做不做）. For example: 咱们干吗？ (will we do it?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to these websites 干嘛 on the other hand means &quot;干什么&quot;, asking why are are doing (with mostly a negative meaning). This 嘛 has second tone. An example: 你干嘛呢？ (what are you doing?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you however check dictionaries, you get a different answer.&#xA;Of course if 吗 &quot;干吗&quot; as a neutral tone, it still has the meaning of 干不干. But according to these the dictionaries in the other meaning it should also be written 干吗. But with this meaning he pinyin of 干吗 is gànmá, so the ma has a second tone here. The only dictionary that has 干嘛 is MDGB, but that not a reliable one (it's one made by the Internet community and it contains many errors). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example 现代汉语词典 has &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;干吗: gànmá 干什么：您干吗说这些话？ㄧ你问这件事干吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您干吗说这些话？ can be translated as &quot;Why are you saying this?&quot; and 你问这件事干吗？ as &quot;Why are you asking this&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现代汉语规范词典 writes &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;干吗 [gànmá]&#xA;  1. 代 [口] 做什么 你早干吗了，现在才说&#xA;  2. 代 为什么 你干吗不早说？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你早干吗了，现在才说 can be translated as &quot;What where you busy doing before that you only say it now&quot; and &quot;你干吗不早说？&quot; as &quot;Why didn't you say before&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现代汉语规范词典 also adds &lt;strong&gt;不宜写作&quot;干嘛&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. In other words, you can't write it as 干嘛. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This being said, especially on the Internet you more often see 干嘛 than 干吗 and I guess in the future both will be probably become accepted forms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-06-06T18:09:48.313" LastActivityDate="2012-06-06T18:09:48.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1752" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-06T20:39:11.240" Score="0" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm starting a Chinese languange course now, I've just seen that &lt;strong&gt;ma&lt;/strong&gt; can have four meanings, it depends only on their tonal qualities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder: How extensible is this tonal quality rule in forming new meanings? Is there a rule where only a few syllables can have different meanings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="763" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-06-07T05:00:15.633" LastActivityDate="2012-06-07T12:23:40.807" Title="How extensible is the tonal quality rule?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1752" CreationDate="2012-06-07T05:13:02.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Welcome to the big adventure of learning Chinese, and don't let the tones scare you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your question, I think most Chinese syllables can be pronounced with different tones in different words. For example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this big table of pinyin sounds&lt;/a&gt; lists four tones for each of the syllables I tried. As some others have pointed out, you can think of the meaning being attached to the character, not to the sound. Some characters just happen to have pronunciations that differ only in tone, and some characters are even pronounced with the same syllable and the same tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I said, don't let this freak you out. Chinese has some features that are strange to an English speaker, but it also has features that are easier. You don't have to worry about plurals or verb tenses, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if you enjoy wallowing in fear, you could always read David Moser's essay, &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2012-06-07T05:13:02.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1754" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1755" CreationDate="2012-06-07T05:21:18.413" Score="3" ViewCount="877" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to describe a puppet show we saw. It was in a theatre and performed by professional puppeteers. I found three terms for puppet: 人形, 木偶, and 傀儡. I couldn't find anything for puppeteer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my wild guess at saying, &quot;We saw a puppet show. The puppeteers were from Taiwan.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们一起去看木偶戏剧。木偶者是台湾人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T17:26:00.190" Title="How to describe a puppet show" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1754" CreationDate="2012-06-07T06:57:46.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &quot;puppet show&quot; can be called &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/51751.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;木偶戏&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%A8%E5%81%B6%E5%8A%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;木偶剧, 傀儡戲、人偶戲、or 人偶劇 &lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can refer specifically to a puppeteer as 操纵木偶者 or simply (遮蔽)操纵者. But to refer to puppeteers in general, I feel that 操纵木偶的艺人(们) would be more appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for your phrase, one way of saying it would be 我们去看了一个木偶戏/剧。操纵木偶的艺人们是从台湾来的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2012-06-07T06:57:46.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1752" CreationDate="2012-06-07T12:23:40.807" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like others have told you, you might be confused a little bit. First of all, while languages have words made of syllables, Chinese has characters where each character is a syllable. These syllables can be written using the Latin alphabet with some systems, Pinyin being the most common one. Syllables can have 5 different tones: &lt;strong&gt;high&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;rising&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;fall-rising&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;falling&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;neutral&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the syllable and the tone attached to it, you can have a different meaning (excluding the fact that many characters cannot stand alone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you write &quot;mā&quot;, it doesn't necessarily mean &quot;mother&quot;, since that Pinyin transcription can refer to different characters. For example, the characters below are all read as &lt;strong&gt;mā&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dxX1A.png&quot; alt=&quot;ma&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one on the left-center is the Traditional form for 妈, which means &quot;ma, mamma&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not only that, the &lt;strong&gt;same character&lt;/strong&gt; can have different readings, which means different meanings. But also in the same reading, we have different meanings! See the character 着 for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iZmq8.png&quot; alt=&quot;zhao&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you see, 着 has 5 different readings, but much more meanings, even for one single reading. I know this might scare you from learning Chinese, but once you start, you'll get used to it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastActivityDate="2012-06-07T12:23:40.807" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1757" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1758" CreationDate="2012-06-07T22:54:48.983" Score="2" ViewCount="7617" Body="&lt;p&gt;My parents are born in Hong Kong so I can speak Cantonese semi-fluently, although I cannot write.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been learning Mandarin and I find that my cantonese has been useful because if the word is used in Cantonese as well, its fairly easy to know the usage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find that a lot of the times I'm translating Mandarin into Cantonese into english basically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if anyone has come across a voice program / website similar to Google translate, which allows you to enter some characters in and it'll say it in Cantonese. All the ones I've come across so far speak in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="288" LastEditorUserId="288" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T05:04:11.830" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T05:04:11.830" Title="What website will speak Cantonese to me?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2012-06-07T23:48:13.100" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1757" CreationDate="2012-06-07T23:12:47.617" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sepc495.se.cuhk.edu.hk/cuvocal/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This one from 香港中文大学&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;it's easy to search for cantonese resources from HK websites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-06-07T23:12:47.617" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1759" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-09T03:07:49.813" Score="7" ViewCount="2319" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently attended a Cantonese reading class in Hong Kong and discovered that pronunciation of the spoken form of written Cantonese can be very different from normal speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The teacher was not able to provide an reasonable explanation as why this is the case and whether this is unique to Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone here provide some insight to this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="772" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T04:46:37.290" LastActivityDate="2015-04-04T18:45:41.400" Title="Written Cantonese Pronunciation" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1759" CreationDate="2012-06-10T03:44:21.040" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your title should rather be &quot;Cantonese Pronunciation of Written (Standard) Chinese&quot;. What you are talking about is not really Cantonese, rather it's (mostly) Mandarin, that, if you read out loud, will be pronounced with the Cantonese pronunciation of the characters. It's more or less the same as asking a Korean or Japanese to read out a text written in Chinese -- the characters will sound very different to Mandarin, but the reader would still be speaking out a Mandarin text. Hence the 給 vs 俾 example: 給 is Standard Chinese, 俾 is Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese can be (and is) written, with all the &quot;right&quot; characters (係, 唔, 俾, etc) and grammar. You can see many examples of this in ads, in trains and buses for example, especially from the government and local companies, when they want to &quot;talk&quot; to the public.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Guangdong people not knowing that 給 is kap1 that's not the case -- there are plenty of words used in Cantonese that have the word 給 is it, including more recent creations like the net slang expression &quot;給力&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T04:15:28.020" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T04:15:28.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1754" CreationDate="2012-06-10T17:26:00.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps 操偶師 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It literally means &quot;the master who controls the puppet.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T17:26:00.190" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1630" CreationDate="2012-06-13T07:55:53.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the situation you listed, “么” and “吗” have the same meaning.&#xA;In daily communications we often choose “么” instead of “吗&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="775" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T07:55:53.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1583" CreationDate="2012-06-13T08:01:50.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;All Chinese speakers can understand &quot;wo ai ni&quot; while only few Chinese in specific areas can understand &quot;wo ai lo&quot;, because &quot;wo ai lo&quot; is dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="775" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-22T08:14:07.110" LastActivityDate="2012-10-22T08:14:07.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1759" CreationDate="2012-06-14T22:59:04.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The spoken form of Cantonese is not unique to Hong Kong. Cantonese is used in many countries and cities, for example, Macau and ShenZhen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;給 is used only when you write. 俾 is used when you speak. If you use 給 as &quot;give&quot; when you speak, you will be weird because no one do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese-speaking regions, we also have &lt;em&gt;a lot of&lt;/em&gt; different words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write: 玩遊戲 (Play games)&lt;br&gt;Say: 打機 (Hit the machine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write: 不是 (No)&lt;br&gt;Say: 唔係 (Not yes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write: 回家打電話給我。 (Go home call me)&lt;br&gt;Say: 返到去打俾我。 (When you get back call me)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh one more thing. You cannot actually write out Cantonese. It is just using the words that have the same pronunciation as what we say. When we encounter some words that we can't write out, we use latin letters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%89%93c%20egg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;打C Egg&lt;/a&gt; (hiccup)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chok_%E6%A8%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chok 樣&lt;/a&gt; (to forcefully make oneself look more handsome)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="541" LastEditorUserId="541" LastEditDate="2012-06-14T23:15:31.547" LastActivityDate="2012-06-14T23:15:31.547" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1767" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-15T12:07:06.623" Score="5" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, my wife has been learning to program JavaScript using Codecademy. I like how it walks people through exercises step by step, and builds up concepts, etc. All the marking is automated, and there are hints available so you never get stuck. It allows multiple different answers which have equivalent meaning (so, it's not as simple as just fill in the blank).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to find something equivalent for learning/practicing written Chinese. Does such a thing exist? If so, where can I find it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm also hoping for characters [Simplified], rather than Pinyin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="781" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T12:36:13.083" Title="Where can I find Codecademy for Written Chinese?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;practice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1767" CreationDate="2012-06-15T12:36:13.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To memorize characters and pronunciation you can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.memrise.com/welcome/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Memrise&lt;/a&gt;, which will help you to learn by repeating words you've missed during the previous learning session.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you won't learn any grammar or usage, just words. So it is not a complete solution, but a good help to expand your vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not as feature complete as Codeacademy but I don't think that what you are looking for exists (yet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were you, I would keep an eye on &lt;a href=&quot;http://duolingo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Duolinguo&lt;/a&gt;, which does not yet provide Mandarin but should in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="133" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T12:36:13.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1759" CreationDate="2012-06-15T19:21:18.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to synthesize the two previous answers here, here's a summary: written Chinese is the written form of Mandarin.  Cantonese speakers read and write the same Chinese as Mandarin speakers, but pronounce most of the characters differently.  Cantonese itself is (traditionally) only a spoken dialect.  Written forms of Cantonese do exist, however, and are used in Hong Kong and elsewhere, but their use is much less frequent than written Chinese and is considered to be very informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="26" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T19:21:18.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1770" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1772" CreationDate="2012-06-15T20:40:55.397" Score="9" ViewCount="574" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a few of my entries on Lang-8.com, several of my Chinese friends have changed 平常 into 通常 and vice versa without providing additional explanation. It it just a matter of personal taste?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="403" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T23:14:04.203" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T08:09:41.163" Title="Are 平常 and 通常 essentially interchangeable?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1770" CreationDate="2012-06-15T23:44:46.360" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, it is the same in speaking, but 通常 is more formal and better use it in a formal contextual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="782" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T23:44:46.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1770" CreationDate="2012-06-16T15:03:30.210" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two words share the same character &amp;quot;常“(common, usual,eternal), so the meanings overlap somewhat. Both of them can mean &amp;quot;commonly, usually&amp;quot;, however, they are not exactly the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;平常“ means (notice 平 means &amp;quot;plain，commonplace&amp;quot; here）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[adj]ordinary, casual/informal&#xA;[adv]ordinarily,in a casual/informal way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;通常&amp;quot; means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[adj]common,usual&#xA;[adv]in general, generally, in most cases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When something is ordinary, usually you could say it's the most possible case or it's common, that's how the two words have the similar meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Examples:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我平常坐公交车去上班。 &lt;em&gt;Usually I go to work by bus ( in my ordinary life).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我通常坐公交车去上班。 &lt;em&gt;Usually I go to work by bus ( in most cases).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通常情况下，伤口的血液会自动凝固。 &lt;em&gt;Generally, the blood from the wound coagulates automatically.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平常情况下，伤口的血液会自动凝固。 Sounds weird to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真理通常掌握在少数人手中。 &lt;em&gt;The truth are held in few people in general.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真理平常掌握在少数人手中。 Sounds weird to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我平常叫他老王，但是在公司里我通常叫他王经理。 &lt;em&gt;I call him Lao Wang ordinarily(casually), but I would usually call him Manager Wang in the company(because this is a serious situation).&lt;/em&gt;  Not interchangeable in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我只想回到平常的生活。 &lt;em&gt;I just want to return to a common\normal(in a style that average people have) life.&lt;/em&gt; Here, 通常 is not acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-06-18T02:21:24.030" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1773" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-17T00:39:18.597" Score="9" ViewCount="908" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a translation of the word &lt;strong&gt;kosher&lt;/strong&gt; in it's most strict sense: a food that is apt according to the jewish law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translates kosher as 犹太, but if I'm not mistaken, that just means &quot;jewish&quot;. And you can certainly make non-kosher jewish food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="444" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T13:09:29.397" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T13:09:29.397" Title="Is there a word for &quot;kosher&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1773" CreationDate="2012-06-17T01:10:22.600" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on the context, there are different strategies for translating this word. In the most strict sense, leaving nothing unsaid, it is （符）合犹太教规的 when it comes to food preparation. If reference to 犹太教 isn't essential to the context, it can simply be 合礼法的, because the notion of doing things according to 礼法 is prevalent in Chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="738" LastActivityDate="2012-06-17T01:10:22.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1773" CreationDate="2012-06-17T01:32:49.497" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since there are few Jews living in China, I don't think there's a term for &quot;kosher&quot;. The official translation is highly likely to be &quot;犹太认证的&quot;, and &quot;犹太食品&quot; for kosher foods.&#xA;However, for Islamic food, they do have terms like 清真的, 清真食品 to refer to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-09-11T09:15:03.030" LastActivityDate="2015-09-11T09:15:03.030" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1759" CreationDate="2012-06-18T02:43:08.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't agree with Derek saying &quot;you cannot write out cantonese&quot;...There is written form of cantonese and you can see it everyday on HK newspapers, eg they don't write 不是 but they will write 唔係, and maybe native cantonese speakers never really think that written form is a &quot;big thing&quot;, but I have noticed that foreigners trying to learn this language all want to know the written characters too, how to write, what they mean and how to pronounce. &#xA;This is quite important too, if you want to read a magazine or newspaper in HK, you won't go anywhere if you don't know those cantonese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="787" LastActivityDate="2012-06-18T02:43:08.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1777" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1781" CreationDate="2012-06-18T10:51:44.387" Score="14" ViewCount="11073" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every since I learned the expression &lt;code&gt;AA制&lt;/code&gt;*, I have been curious as to its origins. The morphology seems clear enough: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;AA&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;制(定)&lt;/code&gt; = &quot;to draw up (the bill) in an &lt;em&gt;AA&lt;/em&gt; way&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; clear is how &lt;code&gt;AA&lt;/code&gt; acquired the meaning of &quot;evenly&quot; or something like that. The use of roman letters implies it's borrowed from another language (possibly English). Some Chinese netizens have suggested exactly &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/9916357.html?si=1&quot;&gt;that&lt;/a&gt;. However, I can't take seriously their suggestion that &lt;code&gt;AA&lt;/code&gt; is an abbreviation for &quot;Acting Appointment&quot; or &quot;All Apart&quot;. I know that I personally have never heard either of those expressions uttered by an English speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, any ideas where &lt;code&gt;AA制&lt;/code&gt; came from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;* For those of you who don't know, &lt;code&gt;AA制&lt;/code&gt; means to split the bill evenly when eating out. Or as we say in English, &quot;go Dutch&quot; (apologies to the Dutch).&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T00:41:19.530" Title="The origins of &quot;AA制&quot;" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="187" CreationDate="2012-06-18T14:33:00.120" Score="9" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Is this story true?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, but no. If it helps you remember how to write the characters, then knock yourself out. In fact, there is a whole book of such mnemonics (as well as an unfavorable &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1811&quot;&gt;review&lt;/a&gt; of said book, followed by a fascinating discussion in the comments)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;If not, what's its etymology?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That depends on what you mean by &lt;em&gt;etymology&lt;/em&gt; (a term often stretched to mean very &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2910&quot;&gt;different things&lt;/a&gt; in the context of Chinese). It seems that the story you were told was an attempt to explain &lt;strong&gt;the form of the characters&lt;/strong&gt;, rather than the history of the word, so I'll stick with that. Let's call it &lt;strong&gt;character analysis&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Character formation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters can be grouped into several categories based on how they are constructed. By far the largest category is phonetic-semantic compounds. Each character in this category can be broken up into two simpler characters. One (called the radical) is a hint as to the meaning. The other part refers to the pronunciation. Unfortunately for those of us not living in Han-dynasty China, the phonetic elements often seem poorly chosen, due to the huge changes in pronunciation over the centuries (&lt;code&gt;默&lt;/code&gt; = 'mo4' has the &lt;code&gt;黑&lt;/code&gt;= 'hei1' phonetic).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Analysis of 漢&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;漢&lt;/code&gt; is a phonetic-semantic compound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;氵&lt;/code&gt; (the 3-dot water radical) is the radical. Besides referring to the Chinese ethnicity, &lt;code&gt;漢&lt;/code&gt; also is used in a word for &quot;galaxy&quot; or &quot;milky way&quot;: &lt;code&gt;雲漢&lt;/code&gt;. In this light, the choice of water radical makes more sense.*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right side of the character is the phonetic. It no longer exists as an independent character, but it shows up in the phonetics for these (rare) characters, which are also pronounced 'han4': &lt;code&gt;暵&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;傼&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Analysis of 語&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;語&lt;/code&gt; is also a phonetic-semantic compound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;言&lt;/code&gt; is the radical, meaning speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;吾&lt;/code&gt; is the phonetic (pronounced 'wu2').&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;How is it different from 中文?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As other people have explained, &lt;code&gt;汉语&lt;/code&gt; means the language of the Han people, while &lt;code&gt;中文&lt;/code&gt; means the script of China (the &quot;middle&quot; kingdom).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese teachers will probably tell you that the former refers exclusively to the spoken language, and the latter exclusively to the written language. Heed not these pedants! You will find that &lt;code&gt;汉语&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;中文&lt;/code&gt; are used pretty interchangeably by actual Chinese people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;* It's also possible that &lt;code&gt;漢&lt;/code&gt; once made reference to an earthly river as well, but I can't find any good citations for that.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-06-18T14:33:00.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1773" CreationDate="2012-06-18T14:39:51.267" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can use &quot;犹太式的&quot; for kosher， &quot;式&quot; means style， or &quot;犹太风格的&quot; for the same meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="789" LastActivityDate="2012-06-18T14:39:51.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1780" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1782" CreationDate="2012-06-18T22:58:43.510" Score="9" ViewCount="1019" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question has two parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's the precise meaning of this expression?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the correct usage?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question (1) I understand it to mean that the person referred to (eg, 跟她过不去) is uncomfortable as a result of something deliberately done or said to her. Is this right? Is there a particular emphasis in this? Does it refer to the deliberate nature of the action/words, or an intent to anger, irritate or make someone feel uncomfortable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question (2) Is it possible to use the expression in reference to someone else, or only in reference to yourself? Does the meaning change in reference to an action done to oneself (ie, is it more like 何苦。。。呢？ when used in reference to oneself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples I have, the correctness of which I'm uncertain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;别提他妈妈的身体，你想跟他过不去吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;别跟我提那件事，否则跟我过不去。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你天天喝醉，为什么跟自己过不去呢？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="221" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T09:23:45.453" Title="Correct usage for 跟。。。过不去" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1777" CreationDate="2012-06-18T23:06:55.430" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I lived in Guangzhou I was told the expression came from Hong Kong and stood for &quot;Algebraic Average&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That also doesn't sound like something a native English speaker would come up with, however I don't think that's a reason to discount it (or even the other suggestions) if it came from Hong Kong where non-native English speakers come up with all sorts of part-English phrases that sound awkward to us but still become popular, like &quot;他真没有sense&quot; to mean &quot;he has no taste&quot; being one I heard recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then again I can't be sure if &quot;Algebraic Average&quot; is the true etymology either, just offering my two cents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="321" LastActivityDate="2012-06-18T23:06:55.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1780" CreationDate="2012-06-18T23:48:27.800" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This expression means 'to make life difficult for', 'to make it unpleasant for' or 'to pick on', just giving a few possible translations from the top of my head. Therefore your interpretation is correct. I am not sure what you mean by 'Is there a particular emphasis in this?' Emphasis in what? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your second question - yes, it can be used either reflexively or transitively (on another person). There is nothing that stops you from doing that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Does the meaning change in reference to an action done to oneself?&lt;/em&gt;. No it doesn't. You have correctly observed that 何苦呢 (why torturing yourself over this?) means the same as 为什么跟自己过不去呢 (why making it difficult for yourself?). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your examples, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;别提他妈妈的身体，你想跟他过不去吗？ - It's ok, but needs more context to make more&#xA;sense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;别跟我提那件事，否则跟我过不去。 - Missing a subject. Better served with:&#xA;别跟我提那件事，否则*&lt;em&gt;你就是&lt;/em&gt;*跟我过不去。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你天天喝醉，为什么跟自己过不去呢？- It's ok, but would sound more natural by adding the adverb 都 between 天天 and 喝醉.  I assume the subject is using alcohol to&#xA;forget his/her troubles. If not, then more context is required. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just a side note, variations of this include 和。。。过不去 and 同。。。过不去.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2012-06-18T23:48:27.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1770" CreationDate="2012-06-20T05:27:44.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;sometimes 平常 is used as an adjective,you can say someone is 平常，But you can't say someone is 通常,or you can say some situation is 平常.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="793" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T05:27:44.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1143" CreationDate="2012-06-20T11:09:36.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems there are several different issues, so I'll address them separately:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Was Bopomofo the first system of symbols for use in Chinese phonology?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qieyun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Qieyun&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangyun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Guangyun&lt;/a&gt; were published about a millenia before the Bopomofo system, and they are clearly analyses of Chinese phonology (although not of Mandarin, as that didn't exist yet). Rather than using symbols for the different sounds, they came up with a clever system called Fanqie, where a character's pronunciation would be indicated by two other characters--one with the same initial sound, and one with the same final. Beyond that, they grouped and labeled the initials and finals (which provides clues as to their actual pronunciations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the modern era, Bopomofo was also not the first of its kind. Some earlier phonetic &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;transcription systems&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pe̍h-ōe-jī (19th century, Taiwanese Min)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Legge (19th century, Mandarin)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qieyin Xinzi (1892, Xiamen Min)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wade-Giles (1867, Mandarin)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Did Bopomofo accurately capture existing phonemic distinctions?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, if you're asking about Beijing pronunciation, then yeah, pretty much. At the very least, it makes the same distinctions as Wade-Giles, which was around earlier. Modern Beijing dialect has some &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_dialect#Phonology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;phonological differences&lt;/a&gt; from the standard, but the phonemic inventory is the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Did transcriptions affect Chinese people's pronunciation?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes!! A century ago, most Chinese spoke their own dialect only. The promotion of a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/DeFr1950.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;national language&lt;/a&gt; (and a standard pronunciation) is rather recent. Many people end up speaking a version of Mandarin heavily influenced by the local dialect (Commonly merged phonemes: n-l, f-h, n-ng, zh-z, ch-c, sh-s) anyways. However, a lot of people feel that nonstandard pronunciation is &lt;em&gt;inferior&lt;/em&gt;, even if they're the ones pronouncing it that way. This deference to the standard (as recorded in the dictionary) sometimes results in people modifying the way they speak (or at least the way they judge speech), even if the dictionary is at odds with actual usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2012-06-20T13:50:01.083" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T13:50:01.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="459" CreationDate="2012-06-20T11:26:45.323" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not online, but it's worth checking out, as it actually does cover &lt;em&gt;word etymologies&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0824829751&quot;&gt;ABC Etymological Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T11:26:45.323" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="116" CreationDate="2012-06-20T16:19:02.680" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;For people who tell me they &quot;don't get&quot; the tones, or who can say them but quickly forget them, I usually explain them as listed below. I imagine you're well past this point, but the visuals might help remembering them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1st tone: Sing it -- &lt;strong&gt;♪&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2nd tone: Like a yes/no question -- &lt;strong&gt;?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3rd tone: Low, creaky. -- Still can't think of a good symbol &gt;_&amp;lt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4th tone: Like a one-word command -- &lt;strong&gt;!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for instance, you might have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;妈&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;ma♪&lt;/code&gt; (or &lt;code&gt;ma#&lt;/code&gt; if you require ASCII friendliness)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;麻&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;ma?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;骂&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;ma!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is useful at all, great. If you think it's crazy nonsense, just ignore it. Different strokes for different folks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T16:19:02.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="675" CreationDate="2012-06-20T16:56:29.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Useful to know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's on the phone, say &lt;code&gt;不好意思，我打错了。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T16:56:29.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="116" CreationDate="2012-06-20T22:25:46.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If none of these work for you, there's a Romanization system that takes tone into account.  It's called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwoyeu_Romatzyh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;国语罗马字&lt;/a&gt;.  I know ditching Pinyin can be tough, but some people find this very useful to learn the tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="760" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T22:25:46.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="220" CreationDate="2012-06-21T09:09:53.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_H._Mair&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Victor Mair&lt;/a&gt;, the well known sinologist (and occasionally outspoken advocate of pinyin) &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3699&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;consistently&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3750&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;uses&lt;/a&gt; the word &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.info/readings/zyg/phonophores.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;phonophore&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; to describe the phonetic part of the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you start saying &lt;em&gt;&quot;phonophore&quot;&lt;/em&gt; too, then there will be upwards of two people using the term. :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T09:09:53.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1081" CreationDate="2012-06-21T09:16:00.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An excellent way to translate technical vocabulary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Find the term in English on Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Go to the &quot;Languages&quot; list in the left sidebar and find 中文&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all articles have a Chinese translation (and sometimes they do, but they're not properly linked together), but when they do, it's a very reliable way to translate technical terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T09:16:00.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1794" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1796" CreationDate="2012-06-21T11:04:03.900" Score="2" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;Earlier today, I ended up in a discussion which somehow involved people who were (literally) transparent. I was somewhat at a loss for how to say &quot;Can you see through him?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After some research, I've come across a few different expressions, but I need some clarification:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;通过 &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; 看 &lt;strong&gt;Y&lt;/strong&gt; — See &lt;strong&gt;Y&lt;/strong&gt; by means of &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; (e.g., see a planet through a telescope)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;透过 &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; 看 &lt;strong&gt;Y&lt;/strong&gt; — See &lt;strong&gt;Y&lt;/strong&gt; (physically) through &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; (e.g., see something through a hole in the wall)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;看穿 &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; — See through &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; (either metaphorically or literally)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;看透 &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; — See through &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; (either metaphorically or literally)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;识破 &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; — See through &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; (metaphorically only, as in &quot;see through your clever plan&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like some clarification/confirmation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are 看穿 and 看透 totally synonymous?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did I make any mistakes above?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should I have said &quot;他是能看穿的吗？&quot; this morning?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-06-21T17:14:17.137" LastActivityDate="2012-06-22T22:03:32.650" Title="(Literally) Seeing Through Things" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="115" CreationDate="2012-06-21T13:11:18.370" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here has been my (I think successful) strategy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use measure words for mass nouns accurately. &lt;strong&gt;This is exactly like English&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一杯水 = &lt;em&gt;a &lt;strong&gt;cup&lt;/strong&gt; of water&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一瓶可乐 = &lt;em&gt;a &lt;strong&gt;bottle&lt;/strong&gt; of cola&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一斤青菜 = &lt;em&gt;a &lt;strong&gt;half-kilo&lt;/strong&gt; of cabbage&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You really have to use these in all languages, because you can refer to really different quantities depending on the measure word (a &lt;em&gt;tank&lt;/em&gt; of water vs a &lt;em&gt;drop&lt;/em&gt; of water).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learn the measure words that are based on shape. This is really different from English, but in spite of being &lt;strong&gt;challenging&lt;/strong&gt;, they're rather &lt;strong&gt;important&lt;/strong&gt;. Chinese people use them relatively consistently and might have trouble understanding you if you don't use them properly (or at least will find it annoying if you don't). Also, they're not that hard to learn, and you quickly develop an intuition for what kind of objects take what kind of measure words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;条 -- long, thin, windy things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;一条路 = &lt;em&gt;a road&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;一条裤子 = &lt;em&gt;a pair of pants&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;一条蛇 = &lt;em&gt;a snake&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;支 and 根 -- stick-like things, generally stubbier than 条 things, and not flexible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;一支笔 = &lt;em&gt;a pen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;一根香烟 = &lt;em&gt;a cigarette&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;一根灯管 = &lt;em&gt;a fluorescent tube (lightbulb)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;张 -- flat, broad, thin things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;一张桌子 = &lt;em&gt;a table&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;一张纸 = &lt;em&gt;a &lt;strong&gt;sheet&lt;/strong&gt; of paper&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;一张光盘 = &lt;em&gt;a DVD (or CD)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;颗 -- pebbly, kernely, small-and-round things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;一颗牙齿 = &lt;em&gt;a tooth&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;一颗星 = &lt;em&gt;a star&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;一颗心 = &lt;em&gt;a heart&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use &lt;code&gt;个&lt;/code&gt; for everything else until you've been corrected a few times. There are a lot of weird measure words that are only ever used with one or two nouns. Even a lot of Chinese people use &lt;code&gt;个&lt;/code&gt; in those circumstances. There's no point learning these if you don't have to, so let experience be your guide for which other measure words to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; Just to be clear, I'm not advocating only learning 4 measure words. I just think that the less common ones should be learned through real life experience rather than memorizing word lists. Also, I should point out that sometimes different measure words can be used on the same noun, &lt;strong&gt;but they mean different things&lt;/strong&gt;. When confusion arises, learn the distinction:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一门课&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;A subject or course (as in &quot;I have 3 classes this semester&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一次课 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;A meeting-time or occurrence of class (as in &quot;When's the next class? Next Monday.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一节课/一堂课 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;Classes often have a 10 minute break in the middle. The first and second halves can be referred to this way. (&quot;When does the next section start? In 15 minutes.&quot;) I think that 节 and 堂 sometimes overlap with the meaning of 次 when they're not being used contrastively. Correct me if I'm wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2013-09-05T15:10:08.880" LastActivityDate="2013-09-05T15:10:08.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1794" CreationDate="2012-06-21T19:30:32.233" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;看穿 and 看透 are hardly used in the literal way. They are almost synonymous as I can't think of any instances where they're not interchangeable. 看穿 has a slightly more derogatory tone as it's often used against tricks or lies. 看透 can be used against philosophical subjects such as the meaning of life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the most natural thing to say about an invisible man in Chinese is that he is transparent or invisible: “他的身体是透明的。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a phrase akin to &quot;seeing through&quot;, it should be &lt;code&gt;(透过[X])看到[something inside/behind X]&lt;/code&gt;. It sounds natural but the focus is on the object being seen rather than the transparent medium. When you try to emphasize the medium, this phrase feels like explanation or development for a previous declarative (such as &quot;he is transparent&quot;) rather than a standalone one. Also this phrase doesn't necessarily mean [X] is transparent; alternatively [X] can be a fishnet or the viewer has supernatural vision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples (all of them are optimized for natural-ness and fluidity rather than syntactic completeness, but I asure you they're all grammatical correct):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蒸馏水冻成的冰块是透明的，人们可以*&lt;em&gt;看见&lt;/em&gt;*里面的气泡。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;当他穿上隐身衣的时候，你可以*&lt;em&gt;透过&lt;/em&gt;*他的身体*&lt;em&gt;看到&lt;/em&gt;*后面的东西。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;*&lt;em&gt;透过&lt;/em&gt;*云层，我隐约*&lt;em&gt;看到&lt;/em&gt;*星空。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他*&lt;em&gt;透过&lt;/em&gt;*窗静静地*&lt;em&gt;看着&lt;/em&gt;*外面的世界。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Advanced tips] There is a widely known phrase &lt;code&gt;透过现象看本质&lt;/code&gt; (commonly translated into &quot;see through appearance to perceive the essence&quot;; 看 here is more 'find', 'seek' than 'can see'.) which sounds very serious and has a strong textbook tone. If you say &lt;code&gt;透过[XX]看[YY]&lt;/code&gt; where XX and YY are both two-character words, depending on the context it may (unintentionally) either inherit the seriousness, or become sarcastic, or sound like a ragged verse. This can be avoided by simply not using two-character words or replacing 看 with 看到/看见 or add fillers in between of the sentence to break the similarity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2012-06-22T22:03:32.650" LastActivityDate="2012-06-22T22:03:32.650" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="318" CreationDate="2012-06-21T19:41:17.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a tradition from theatrical performances (such as Chinese Opera) to replace vowel 'e' with 'i' or other vowels for quality and clarity of the tone. It's even true for pop music until the late 1990's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T19:41:17.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="115" CreationDate="2012-06-21T19:45:46.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning measure/count words in Chinese is like learning prepositions in English. There are only some basic rules then you're on your &quot;language sense&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T19:45:46.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="170" CreationDate="2012-06-21T19:52:19.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Native speakers can get tones in song by deducing without even realizing, but not by listening - the tones &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; obliterated as fefe's answer suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T19:52:19.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="958" CreationDate="2012-06-23T15:20:19.183" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can recommend 'Happy Chinese' (快乐汉语; kuàilè hànyŭ) for some basic Chinese-spoken episodes with both Chinese and English subtitles.  There are &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL626F9510F3604704&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;videos on YouTube&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="252" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-04T10:09:12.200" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T10:09:12.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1801" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1802" CreationDate="2012-06-24T11:21:46.260" Score="3" ViewCount="547" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to mdbg.net 感动 means both 'to move (emotionally)' and 'moving'.&#xA;But from what I understand from some texts I have '邻居们都很感动' implying a more passive meaning for 感动. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone shed some light on this ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="252" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-06-24T11:22:10.827" LastActivityDate="2012-06-25T05:25:42.367" Title="Usage of 感动 (active/passive?)" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1801" CreationDate="2012-06-24T12:35:32.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;感动 can both be passive and active. For completeness' sake this is the first meaning: &quot;受外界事物影响而引起内心激动&quot; and this is the second &quot;使感动&quot; in 现代汉语规范词典. The meaning will typically be clear from the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他的话感动了在座的人: His speech touched the people who where present. (here it is active)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他很容易被感动: He's very easily moved. (here 感动 is made passive by adding the 被)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看了电影《上甘岭》，我感动得流下了眼泪: after seeing the movie 上甘岭, he was so touched that he cried. (here is it passive, but without 被, 受 or another verb to make it passive)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although  not mentioned in most dictionaries, it can also be used as an adjective. Actually in your example (using the modifier 很) it is used as an adjective (according to Chinese grammar, in the translation it can be translation using a verb instead). As an adjective in also be in both directions (used when you move somebody else, or when you are moved by something or somebody. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这部很感动的电影是去年拍的: this very touching movie was filmed last year&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;听了你的话，我很感动: I'm very touched by what he said.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-06-25T05:25:42.367" LastActivityDate="2012-06-25T05:25:42.367" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1803" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-24T19:02:21.707" Score="10" ViewCount="945" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today John Pasden linked to an old Sinosplice post in which he discussed how Chinese grammatical categories cannot be mapped neatly onto those of Indo-European languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2006/03/20/chinese-parts-of-speech&quot;&gt;http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2006/03/20/chinese-parts-of-speech&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Near the end there is a neat chart that illustrates how simple “nouns of locality” combine to form compounds. My Zhongwen Popup Chinese Dictionary plugin for Chrome gives me essentially the same translation for 以后 and 之后, but I have seen them in different environments and don't think they're completely interchangeable. What is the difference in usage between 以后 and 之后？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="403" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T18:40:54.903" Title="What is the difference in usage between 以后 and 之后？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1803" CreationDate="2012-06-24T20:27:00.023" Score="9" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;之后&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;after that (something said earlier)&lt;/code&gt; which requires a context as the reference point of time. &lt;code&gt;以后&lt;/code&gt; can be used with or without context. When standalone, &lt;code&gt;以后&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;from now on&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;in future&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In general, &lt;code&gt;之后&lt;/code&gt; refers to a shorter time period than &lt;code&gt;以后&lt;/code&gt;. The difference is akin to that between &lt;code&gt;after&lt;/code&gt; vs. &lt;code&gt;since&lt;/code&gt; but weaker. In imperative sentences you may want to use &lt;code&gt;以后&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;之后&lt;/code&gt; can also mean &lt;code&gt;geographically behind&lt;/code&gt; though this usage is not common. &lt;code&gt;以后&lt;/code&gt; cannot be used in that way. Example: 围墙之后是一排小树。 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In colloquial language they are pretty much interchangeable. People don't pay much attention to the differences in #1 and #2. In other word, &lt;code&gt;之后&lt;/code&gt; can also be used without a context and means &lt;code&gt;from now on&lt;/code&gt;, etc. In writing and formal speech, however, they should be used with precision.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2016-03-23T18:40:54.903" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T18:40:54.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1805" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1806" CreationDate="2012-06-25T10:47:11.487" Score="19" ViewCount="1663" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some words in English use (capital) letters to describe the shape of the object to which they refer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A-frame, C-clamp, I-beam, O-ring, T-shirt, T-intersection, T-bone, U-turn, V-neck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese seems to have a few words like this (except they make reference to the shape of characters). There are a couple using &lt;code&gt;十&lt;/code&gt; that are very common:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;红十字 -- the Red Cross&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十字路口 -- a street intersection&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also come across one with &lt;code&gt;丁&lt;/code&gt; and one with &lt;code&gt;回&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丁骨牛排 -- a T-bone steak&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回形针 -- a paperclip&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other words like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-04T07:34:49.967" Title="Words referring to the shape of Chinese characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1805" CreationDate="2012-06-25T12:29:19.587" Score="21" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;金-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;金字塔 Pyramid (Because the shape of a pyramid looks like 金)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;田-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;田字格 grids with the arrangement like 田&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;工-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;工字梁 I-beam&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;工字柱 I-column &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;米-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;米字旗 the national flag of UK&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;之-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;之江 another name of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiantang_River&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qiantang River&lt;/a&gt;, because its course looks like the shape of 之&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;井-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;井形格床 two-way grillage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;井号 hash sign&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人字队 in V formation (for example for birds)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人字鞋 flip-flops (the sandals)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一字队 in line formation (for example for birds)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丁-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丁字路口 T-junction&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十字路口 crossroads; intersection &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;八-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;八字脚 splayed feet(normally when a man walks, the two soles are approximately parallel; however, someone would splay his feet when walking, so the two soles looks like a trumpet, the 八 shape)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;八字眉 eyebrow arranged in the shape like 八(imagine the eyebrow of the Angry Birds)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;国字脸, means a face looks like square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;日-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;马走日 knight (in both Chess and Xiangqi) goes L, that is, two steps in one direction plus one additional step perpendicularly. In Xiangqi where pieces go along lines instead of squares, the starting and stopping position of a 马 (knight) forms a 日.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大字形躺在床上 lying in bed with arms and legs open (that person must be very tired)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;品-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;品字结构的汉字 other Chinese characters whose structure is similar to 品, with three identical parts arranged in a triangle. e.g. 晶， 众， 鑫， 森 ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;品字形布局 a triangular arrangement. This may refer to anything, like three buildings, three wells and so on.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;弓-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;弓着身子 hump his/her back&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;卐 or 卍-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;卐字旗 the flag of the Nazi Party&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;回-shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;回字形建筑 a building with a large courtyard in the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;川 shaped&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;川字腹肌 six-pack abs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2015-07-04T07:34:49.967" LastActivityDate="2015-07-04T07:34:49.967" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1724" CreationDate="2012-06-25T16:40:50.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing that's frustrating about this particular simplification is that it's not consistent:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蘭 -- 兰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闌 -- 阑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about all the character which have &lt;code&gt;闌&lt;/code&gt; (no grass radical) as a component? Some of them are consistent with the simplification of &lt;code&gt;闌 -- 阑&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瀾 -- 澜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;斕 -- 斓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;襴 -- 襕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讕 -- 谰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鑭 -- 镧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others replace the &lt;code&gt;闌&lt;/code&gt; component with the simplification of &lt;code&gt;蘭&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欄 -- 栏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爛 -- 烂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;攔 -- 拦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn't make any sense to me. I think the nicest thing I can say is that there are some ancient character variants (&lt;code&gt;欗&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;爤&lt;/code&gt;) where these simplifications make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-06-25T16:40:50.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1808" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1809" CreationDate="2012-06-26T04:08:24.597" Score="7" ViewCount="5031" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've learned that 来不及 means that I can't make something at a specific time. I've most often seen it used in the sense that &quot;I can't make the appointment at all&quot;. How do you indicate to someone that you won't be able to make the appointment at the prescribed time, but you still want to meet and will be just a little later?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess would be: &quot;我晚一点到吧。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="802" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T03:07:12.140" Title="How do you say &quot;I'll be a little late&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1808" CreationDate="2012-06-26T05:44:06.923" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many ways you can say this. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我会迟到一点&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我要来得晚些&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我会晚来一会儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我会晚一点到达&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say it your way. It is not really necessarily, but I would add 要 or 会. I also wouldn't use the 吧 in this sentence. So something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我要晚一点到&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我会晚一点到&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-06-26T05:44:06.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1808" CreationDate="2012-06-26T06:35:19.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you suggested works, but you can still use 来不及 to say you won't be able to make a certain time if you use it in the right context (it doesn't have to mean &quot;I can't be there at all&quot;). Just put the time you can't make right before 来不及.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, to express &quot;I can't be there by 6, but a little later would work&quot; you could say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6点可能来不及，但晚一点就没问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="321" LastActivityDate="2012-06-26T06:35:19.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1805" CreationDate="2012-06-27T00:34:57.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;乒乓球 pīngpāngqiú ping pong; table tennis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this fit in with your thread?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe...maybe not...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first two characters make a good mnemonics for the table tennis table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also like the onomatopœia makes it easy to remember&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="800" LastActivityDate="2012-06-27T00:34:57.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1812" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1813" CreationDate="2012-06-27T03:34:07.360" Score="2" ViewCount="898" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that these two expression, in certain circumstances, have no meaning and are optional. I'm trying to figure out how to use them, even though they have no meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;什么&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has a meaning, (negation):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大家都是朋友，你客气什么呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, this use of 什么 means nothing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没什么说的了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;来着&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has a meaning (forgetting something you should remember):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;怎么写这个字来着？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This use of 来着 has no meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的女朋友到底是谁来着呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to clarify, I understand the situations where these expressions have a defined meaning. I just can't get my head around the usage when the expression is optional. I can leave it out, and I'm content with that. But for some reason my teacher in Beijing felt the need to show this to me, maybe to make me sound less 'academic' when I talk?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="221" LastActivityDate="2012-06-27T06:05:31.143" Title="Expressions that have no meaning (什么/来着）" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1812" CreationDate="2012-06-27T06:00:27.107" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker, and I'm no expert. But I do think you have some misunderstanding towards &quot;什么&quot; and &quot;来着&quot; in these examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大家都是朋友，你客气什么呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, &quot;什么&quot; means &quot;what ... for&quot;. The whole sentence means something like: &quot;(Considering) we are friends, (I have to ask) what are you being 客气 for?&quot; You can say it helped in expressing negation. (sorry I can't translate 客气 accurate enough)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the second example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没什么说的了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;什么&quot; doesn't mean &quot;nothing&quot;. On the contrary, it means &quot;anything&quot;. And &quot;没什么&quot; as a whole, means &quot;nothing&quot;. The whole sentence means &quot;I don't have anything to say.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;来着&quot;, I think it means exactly the same (forgetting something you should remember) in both of your examples. And I can't think of any cases in which this word means anything else or has no meaning at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to sum up, I don't think there is any cases in which these words has no meaning at all, at least not in your cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw. &quot;你的女朋友到底是谁来着呢？&quot; should really be &quot;你的女朋友到底是谁来着？&quot; (No &quot;呢&quot; at the end)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="805" LastEditorUserId="805" LastEditDate="2012-06-27T06:05:31.143" LastActivityDate="2012-06-27T06:05:31.143" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1814" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1816" CreationDate="2012-06-27T09:53:55.003" Score="4" ViewCount="466" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of phone conversations with vendors I often default to either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想问一下…&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;请问…&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a possibly more appropriate way to address someone in this context. Would it be appropriate to say any of the following?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想查询您…&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想询问您…&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="802" LastActivityDate="2012-06-27T23:24:55.050" Title="What's the difference between “问一下”，“查询”， “询问”？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1814" CreationDate="2012-06-27T21:14:42.560" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be appropriate to say any of the following?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想查询您…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This usage is wrong. &lt;code&gt;查询&lt;/code&gt; should be followed by the object being asked for, not the person who is being asked. The correct usages are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我想查询[sth]。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我想向[sb]查询[sth]。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想（向您）查询从北京到上海的机票价格。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想询问您…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is correct. &lt;code&gt;询问&lt;/code&gt; can be used in three ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我想询问[sth]&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我想询问[sb][sth]&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我想向[sb]询问[sth]&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想询问从北京到上海的机票价格。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想询问您从北京到上海的机票价格。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想向您询问从北京到上海的机票价格。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of them are formal but never too formal to use in daily conversations; I use them from time to time when talking to a service personnel, especially when over the phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-06-27T23:24:55.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="67" CreationDate="2012-06-28T01:52:58.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a new game for iOS/Android called Food Frenzy by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.penyopal.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Penyo Pal&lt;/a&gt;. It's specifically targeted at kids learning. The Food Frenzy game teaches basic vocabulary like names of fruits/vegetables, etc. but the company has other games in the works which are more comprehensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="781" LastActivityDate="2012-06-28T01:52:58.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1818" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1822" CreationDate="2012-06-28T06:48:42.137" Score="6" ViewCount="2245" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2207/62&quot;&gt;question was originally asked on Academia.Stackexchange.com&lt;/a&gt;. I would normally not cross-post, however, I think this question might be an exception, where both sites may provide complementary perspectives. I think cross-posting is a better option than migration in this particular case.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most Australian universities have a large number of international students. Common countries of origin include China, Singapore, and Malaysia. When interacting with students, it's much nicer if you can learn their name and pronounce it correctly. To reduce the scope of this question, I thought I'd limit it to Chinese names, but it could be broadened to include other Asian countries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Several challenges emerge with Chinese names for an Australian (and presumably others from North America, Europe, etc.):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;challenges of pronunciation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;challenges when reading a Chinese name of knowing which of name is the name to address the student by&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;challenges in remember the name. In particular, I find it difficult to remember a name that I can't pronounce. Furthermore, the less familiar I am with a name and the fewer associations I have with a name, the harder I find it is to remember.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Questions&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How can I learn how to pronounce names of Chinese students?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How can I better recall names of Chinese students? e.g., get acquainted with common names, build some semantic knowledge around Chinese names.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be particularly interested in any good online resources for this purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="807" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:49:59.083" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T02:29:36.643" Title="How to learn how to pronounce and remember names of Chinese students?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1818" CreationDate="2012-06-28T08:04:10.890" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;• I have been studying Chinese for about three years total and I still find it difficult to remember Chinese people's names. There isn't a short cut to learning how to pronounce Chinese names; &lt;strong&gt;you need to learn pinyin&lt;/strong&gt;, the Chinese phonetic system. Fortunately, it is not completely divorced from English phonetics, but there are enough differences that make learning it untrivial. Frankly, pinyin is the 'easy' part of Chinese; in pronouncing Chinese students names you won't have to deal with tones and you don't have to deal with Chinese characters. Googling 'learn pinyin' should be sufficient for you (if you're having trouble figuring out a sound, come back here and we'll try to help).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Once you get pinyin down, it solves the pronunciation problem but still doesn't solve the recollection problem. One good thing to know is that Chinese names are at least two syllables, at most four syllables, but three syllables being the most common. Unlike English names, the surname comes first and is actually considered part of the entire name, though sometimes people will shorten that and just call someone by their given name. What this means is that the name first portion of a Chinese student's name may be their surname so just addressing a Chinese student &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; by what a native English speaker would consider their first name (i.e. their surname) might be strange to them. I have seen that there are certain names more popular than others, but this is more a function of being in a Chinese speaking environment daily than a practical help to remembering/recognizing names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="802" LastActivityDate="2012-06-28T08:04:10.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1823" CreationDate="2012-06-28T08:16:34.063" Score="4" ViewCount="294" Body="&lt;p&gt;I encounter many situations where I want to ask someone what they would like as opposed to what they need. For example, I wanted to find a restaurant for our class to have an end of the semester celebration. I wanted to ask my friend if she had any preferences (i.e. western-style food, chinese style food, other style food, location, cost, etc). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't want to say: 你有什么要求？ I also didn't want to say 你喜欢什么样的饭馆？ &lt;strong&gt;How do you ask someone what kind of preferences they have for something?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a better example. I want to rent a flat (i.e. apartment). My friend, a Chinese national, is helping me. He asks me: &quot;你要租什么样的房间?&quot;. So at this point there are three classes (at least to my Western mind) of features that I could describe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What I must-have (我的要求)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What I like (我喜欢的)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What I'd prefer (?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I don't want to just say what I &quot;like&quot; because I'm not sure how my friend will interpret that (i.e. I think he will interpret that as a must-have) when in reality I have a list of prioritized preferences where I'm willing to give some up because I know that finding the perfect place isn't possible (for the amount of money that I have). Also, I don't feel that 'like' (i.e. 喜欢） really describes the categorization. For example I like vanilla ice cream, the Golden State Warriors, and comic books. There's nothing that I &quot;like&quot; when it comes to searching for a flat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="802" LastEditorUserId="802" LastEditDate="2012-06-30T10:50:34.867" LastActivityDate="2012-07-01T03:07:46.143" Title="How do you say &quot;preferences&quot; as opposed to &quot;demands&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1820" CreationDate="2012-06-28T11:25:46.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;for casual talk: &#xA;&quot;我们可以去吃西餐，也可以吃中餐，” + “你更喜欢哪个？&quot; or &quot;你倾向于哪个？&quot; or &quot;哪个是你最爱？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for normal talk/writing:&#xA;preference=偏爱，偏好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is it what you need?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="811" LastActivityDate="2012-06-28T11:25:46.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1818" CreationDate="2012-06-30T05:24:28.580" Score="7" Body="&lt;h3&gt;How can I learn how to pronounce names of Chinese students?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Short of learning Chinese? Avery suggested learning how to read pinyin. However, this ignores the problem that &lt;em&gt;there are sounds in Chinese that do not exist in English&lt;/em&gt;. For instance, following some consonants, pinyin &quot;u&quot; is pronounced like the German &quot;ü&quot;. Pinyin &quot;sh&quot; and &quot;x&quot; are both pronounced differently from English &quot;sh&quot;. Oh yeah, and every syllable has a tone. So, are you prepared to learn all of that and more? If so, then Avery's answer is spot on. &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.quickmandarin.com/&quot;&gt;Go learn pinyin.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect your question was more along the lines &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;As an English speaker in an English-speaking classroom, how can I pronounce Chinese students' names in an acceptable way?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that's the case, then here's my advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ask the student how they would like you to say their name. This is just a basic respect thing. Of course, there are a couple caveats:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Presumably you'd like to have an idea of how to pronounce their name &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; you ask them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some students (especially the stereotypical asian students) will not correct you even if you ask them to. In high school, a substitute teacher asked one of my friends--whose name is &quot;Jie Luo&quot;--if his name was pronounced &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Lopez&quot;&gt;J.Lo&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. He mumbled &quot;Yeah sure&quot;, and it was only because some other students corrected the teacher that he wasn't known as &quot;J.Lo&quot; for the whole week.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learn to recognize &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/&quot;&gt;pinyin syllables&lt;/a&gt; and come up with &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Rules_given_in_terms_of_English_pronunciation&quot;&gt;English approximations&lt;/a&gt; to them. I'd especially focus on the syllables where the pinyin spelling is not suggestive of the English approximation. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &quot;j&quot;, &quot;q&quot;, &quot;x&quot;, &quot;c&quot;, and &quot;zh&quot; initials&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &quot;ang&quot;, &quot;e&quot;, &quot;en&quot;, &quot;eng&quot;, &quot;ui&quot;, &quot;un&quot;, and &quot;iu&quot; finals&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The syllables &quot;zi&quot;, &quot;ci&quot;, &quot;si&quot; and &quot;zhi&quot;, &quot;chi&quot;, &quot;shi&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;How can I better recall names of Chinese students? e.g., get acquainted with common names, build some semantic knowledge around Chinese names.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Chinese surnames, I'd familiarize yourself with the top few names in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; list, as well as their various romanizations. For instance, the names &quot;Zhang&quot; and &quot;Chang&quot; are both transliterations of the surname &quot;张&quot; (one in pinyin, one in the wade-giles system formerly used in Taiwan). For given names, you're pretty well out of luck. There aren't very many &quot;common&quot; given names. Many people's given names are unique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-06-30T05:24:28.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1820" CreationDate="2012-07-01T02:34:27.107" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When asking for preference, you can use 愿意 to indicate what you are willing/prefer to do, or ask what he is willing/prefers to do. You can also use 想 to ask/indicate what he/you wish(es) or is thinking of (doing/wanting).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g., 你愿意租什么样的公寓(呀)? 我愿意找个有两层的公寓. (What kind of apartment/flat would you like to rent? I would like to find a two-story apartment/flat.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 必须 indicate what you &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; have or have happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g., 那桌子必须是红色的. (That table must be red.) / 你必须把他带回来. (You must bring him back.) / 那公寓必须有一个浴缸. (That apartment/flat mush have a bathtub.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to indicate that an alternative something also good/fine, but not would not be your top choice, you can use 也好, 也可以, or 也行.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g., 我喜欢(吃)香草(味的)冰淇淋, 不过草莓(味的)也行. (I like [to eat] vanilla [flavored] ice cream, but strawberry [flavored] is fine as well/also good.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2012-07-01T03:07:46.143" LastActivityDate="2012-07-01T03:07:46.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1818" CreationDate="2012-07-02T04:38:17.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other answers would like you to learn tones: If you don't plan to learn Chinese, this is a lost fight. I would ask the students to pronounce their name even before you prononce it, and write down phonetically what I heard beside their written name, in any way that make sense to you. You could even add information about the student (tall guy), or get a picture. Like that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HU Mingyun  (Who -- Mean youn, tall smiley guy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="663" LastActivityDate="2012-07-02T04:38:17.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1825" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1826" CreationDate="2012-07-02T14:30:41.767" Score="3" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I ask a question like &quot;is it really so that you're just 18?&quot; or &quot;is it really so that the movie was good?&quot;, i.e. a surprised question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is something along the lines of &quot;这是真的，你只有十八岁呢?&quot;, but it sounds weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="820" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-07-02T17:16:40.973" LastActivityDate="2012-07-03T11:42:25.987" Title="How to ask &quot;is it really so that...&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1825" CreationDate="2012-07-02T18:35:52.800" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds weird because there is no formal subject (A.K.A. anticipatory subject) in Chinese. &lt;code&gt;It is [X] that [Y]&lt;/code&gt; should be transformed into &lt;code&gt;[Y][verb as appropriate][X]&lt;/code&gt; during translation。For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;It is a pleasure to meet you. =&amp;gt;&#xA;Meeting you is a pleasure. =&amp;gt;&#xA;见到你很高兴。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for the original sentence,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Is it really so that you're just 18? =&amp;gt;&#xA;Are you really just 18? =&amp;gt;&#xA;你真的只有18岁？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-07-02T18:35:52.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1827" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-07-02T20:32:31.827" Score="8" ViewCount="1106" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested particularly in the 4-character idioms/chengyu's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some that I've learnt recently:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;独一无二 - unique &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;由此可见 - this shows that&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一般来说 - generally speaking&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've realised they come in really handy, but often they are difficult to understand when heard for the first time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="251" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-08-23T02:05:09.620" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T02:05:09.620" Title="Are there any online resources for learning Chinese 4-character idioms" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1825" CreationDate="2012-07-03T03:48:46.340" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I've had Chinese people express surprise to me is to use 这么. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你是18岁？这么年轻！看不出来！&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that this is different than the sentence structure that you gave (and that NS.X. helped clarify) but I find that in my interactions with Chinese, they're more apt to follow their question of disbelief with an exclamation describing their reaction in order to express their surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="802" LastActivityDate="2012-07-03T03:48:46.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1825" CreationDate="2012-07-03T05:10:24.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, &quot;is it really so that…?&quot; should be translate to &quot;...真的...吗？&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The First sentence shuold be &quot;你&lt;Strong&gt;真的&lt;/Strong&gt;只有18岁&lt;Strong&gt;吗&lt;/Strong&gt;？&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the second should be &quot;这部电影&lt;Strong&gt;真的&lt;/Strong&gt;好看&lt;Strong&gt;吗&lt;/Strong&gt;？&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="822" LastEditorUserId="822" LastEditDate="2012-07-03T11:42:25.987" LastActivityDate="2012-07-03T11:42:25.987" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1825" CreationDate="2012-07-03T07:45:11.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;sometimes, the same structure does not mean the same way of translate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for this question, i will translate as follow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is it really so that you're just 18?&#xA;你只有18岁？真的假的！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is it really so that the movie was good?&#xA;你确定这部电影还行？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="273" LastActivityDate="2012-07-03T07:45:11.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1831" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1832" CreationDate="2012-07-03T13:44:04.987" Score="5" ViewCount="7324" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was in China I bought some writing books for practicing Chinese handwriting. This is good but have 2 disadvantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Size of cell is too small for brush and too big for roller pen. Must&#xA;be for some fat marker.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Characters themselves are not the ones I am learning and interested in.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my solution is — Web service — Chinese Characters sheets generator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You choose your favorite font (some nice classics).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select size - roller, marker, brush.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Type in characters to learn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Press 'process' - you get PDF page with cells and first cell has&#xA;your character with pinyin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: are there any such tools so I do not have to reinvent bicycle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="823" LastEditorUserId="823" LastEditDate="2019-04-29T09:01:53.927" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T09:01:53.927" Title="Writing sheets generator" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1831" CreationDate="2012-07-03T14:20:55.047" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;One such website is: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanzigrids.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hanzigrids.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another website is &lt;a href=&quot;http://cop.yes-chinese.com/hanban/tzg/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://cop.yes-chinese.com/hanban/tzg/&lt;/a&gt; but it has less features and you can't choose your font.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-07-04T05:36:12.893" LastActivityDate="2012-07-04T05:36:12.893" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1831" CreationDate="2012-07-03T22:49:28.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of grids available &lt;a href=&quot;http://cml.chinesemandarin.org/2012/06/hanzi-practice-sheets-ii-hanzi-grids.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hanzi Practice Sheets II&lt;/a&gt; and a free customizable  one here &lt;a href=&quot;http://cml.chinesemandarin.org/2011/07/hanzi-practice-sheets.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hanzi Practice Sheets&lt;/a&gt;. There is also Arch Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="824" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-07-04T10:06:21.400" LastActivityDate="2012-07-04T10:06:21.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="67" CreationDate="2012-07-03T23:04:42.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could take your child to China.  I am serious... This is the trend in America. Here are my thoughts on the this. Watch the videos and let me know what you think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cml.chinesemandarin.org/2012/06/would-you-take-your-child-to-china.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Would you take your child to China?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="824" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-11T04:43:04.700" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:43:04.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1827" CreationDate="2012-07-04T02:31:50.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/chengyu/dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese-Tools.com&lt;/a&gt; offers a dictionary of them that you can search by character or pinyin. You can even search by ones with English translation/descriptions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2012-07-04T02:31:50.280" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1827" CreationDate="2012-07-04T05:55:07.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if you're looking for a way of learning them or if you're looking for a dictionary where you can look up those you don't know. If it's the first, you should check out FluentFlix.com, which has as &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fluentflix.com/blog/topics/intermediate-advanced-chinese/essential-chengyu/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Essential Chengyu&lt;/a&gt;&quot; section that teaches and explains Chengyu in an entertaining and informative way (something I haven't really found elsewhere).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's dictionaries you're after, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zdic&lt;/a&gt; has a pretty good one (Chinese-Chinese). Many good explanations with examples can also be found on &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt; (just search for the Chengyu, &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/78454.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is an example). &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.idioms.moe.edu.tw/cydic/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; dictionary from Taiwan's MoE is quite good, too. If you want explanations in English, your choices are more limited, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; works most of the time, along with the one on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/chengyu/dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese-Tools&lt;/a&gt; already recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, if you can't find a Chengyu, I suggest using Google. Just as in English, if you search for rather uncommon search terms, the first few hits will be dictionaries explaining the search term (in Chinese, most likely). If you still don't find anything, try adding 什么意思 or something, because it's very likely that someone has asked (and answered) your question already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2012-07-04T05:55:07.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1838" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-07-04T13:04:49.243" Score="8" ViewCount="812" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once found a Mandarin Chinese dictionary which for each character listed the ancient, the traditional and the simplified Chinese characters. For each it described its meaning and how it developed into the current form. I cannot find it or anything similar anymore. The most I can find are sites which explain radicals of each character but not actual ancient symbols and variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, the word &quot;eye&quot; was shown as a pictogram resembling an eye, then into the traditional and then into 目 explaining &quot;a simplified eye turned 90°&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know not all characters are made this way but again, maybe it was a dictionary of radicals but it was very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T09:17:49.387" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T09:17:49.387" Title="What was this online dictionary's name with ancient traditional and simplified characters and glyph origins?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-09-02T23:02:19.227" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1838" CreationDate="2012-07-04T13:37:04.440" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&lt;/a&gt; you can see how a character evolved, the simplified and traditional characters. For example for &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&amp;amp;char=%E7%9B%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;目&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another similar website is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx&lt;/a&gt; . Their result for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E7%9B%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;目&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zdict&lt;/a&gt; is completely in Chinese: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE7Zdic9BZdicAE.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE7Zdic9BZdicAE.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another website in Chinese (that only supports transitional characters): &lt;a href=&quot;http://alphads10-2.hkbu.edu.hk/~lcprichi/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://alphads10-2.hkbu.edu.hk/~lcprichi/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Aristide mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com&lt;/a&gt; has similar functionality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another one is &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-characters.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinese-characters.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it doesn't show how the characters evolved, I also like &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-02-22T09:56:49.870" LastActivityDate="2013-02-22T09:56:49.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1838" CreationDate="2012-07-04T14:48:08.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may be on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?searchChinese=1&amp;amp;zi=%E7%9B%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;yellowbridge.com&lt;/a&gt;, where the etymology tab includes notes on character formation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="826" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-07-04T19:49:34.173" LastActivityDate="2012-07-04T19:49:34.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1841" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-07-05T13:11:18.867" Score="8" ViewCount="8139" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently on vacation I wanted to ask a Chinese tourist if they would mind taking a photo of my wife and I - but I didn't know how, so just asked &lt;code&gt;你可以吗? (nǐ kěyǐ ma?)&lt;/code&gt; while pointing to my camera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I ask this in future?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastActivityDate="2012-07-05T17:24:05.767" Title="How to ask someone to take a photo?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1841" CreationDate="2012-07-05T13:41:24.583" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many ways to ask this. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;您能给我们俩照一张相吗?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;nín néng gĕi wǒ men liă zhào yì zhāng xiàng ma?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;您能帮我们拍个照吗?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;nín néng bāng wǒ men pāi ge zhào ma?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;您可以给我们照张相吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;nín kĕ yĭ gĕi wǒ men zhào zhāng xiàng ma?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;请问，您可以帮我们照张相吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;qĭng wèn, nín kĕ yĭ bāng wǒ men zhào zhāng xiàng ma?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;麻烦您给我们照张相&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;má fan nín gĕi wǒ men zhào zhāng xiàng&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;麻烦你，帮我们照张相，好吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;má fan nǐ， bāng wǒ men zhào zhāng xiàng，hǎo ma?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;照张相 means to take a picture, so does 拍照（片）。 You can both use 能 and 可以. 帮（助） means to help. 我们俩 means the two of us. 给 is here a proposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-07-05T17:24:05.767" LastActivityDate="2012-07-05T17:24:05.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1843" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1844" CreationDate="2012-07-05T20:00:10.977" Score="6" ViewCount="1802" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pimsleur's Mandarin course teaches 'both of us' as &lt;code&gt;我们两个都 (wǒ men liăng ge dōu)&lt;/code&gt;, but in another question I asked here I recently found that &lt;code&gt;我们俩 (wǒ men liă)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these always interchangeable, or are there any rules concerning when to use one over the other? Are there any more ways to say 'both of us'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastActivityDate="2012-07-19T15:42:35.717" Title="Difference between 两个都 and 我们俩" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1843" CreationDate="2012-07-05T20:11:27.690" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;俩 means 两个and is typically more colloquial. 俩 is often used for people, but doesn't need to be. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;买俩馒头: to buy two steamed rolls&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;兄弟俩&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他们俩。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively you can use &quot;咱俩&quot; in oral language, &quot;咱&quot; means &quot;我&quot;. The difference between 我们 and 咱们, is that 咱们 includes the listener. So 我们两个, 我们俩, 咱们俩 and 咱俩 all mean &quot;the two of us&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A side remark: when a father talks with his son he can use 咱爷俩 referring to himself  and his son.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-07-06T09:13:54.783" LastActivityDate="2012-07-06T09:13:54.783" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1827" CreationDate="2012-07-05T20:56:48.720" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;(As BertR pointed out, 独一无二 is a Chengyu; the other two are not.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike Chengyu, 4-character idioms don't have any significance over 3-character idioms, 5-character idioms or any other idioms, in any means other than the rhythm role it plays in the sentence. They're just valid combinations of words, you can totally replace parts or make your own, and there are millions of them. For example &lt;code&gt;由此可见&lt;/code&gt; is literally &lt;code&gt;from this (we) can see&lt;/code&gt; and we also say &lt;code&gt;由此可知&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;由此可得&lt;/code&gt;, etc. Similarly, for &lt;code&gt;一般来说&lt;/code&gt; we also say &lt;code&gt;一般来讲&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;总的来说&lt;/code&gt;, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to look them up, there are some good websites mentioned in the other answers or Bing/Google translation (I personally find Bing translation more accurate). If you're looking for a list of them, I am almost sure there isn't one, as they can be created ad hoc during a conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-07-05T20:56:48.720" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="167" CreationDate="2012-07-06T09:06:48.430" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Knowing Kanji can be both an advantage and otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advantage: You get a good headstart in writing Chinese. If you have been studying Japanese for a while, you probably have a sense of the patterns of Kanji. Even more important is the patience you gained while learning them. (i.e. English speakers who had not enough exposure to Kanji find it more frustrating to memorize Hanzi.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disadvantage: Many characters are used differently in both languages, which can cause confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've learned Japanese before Chinese and knowing the latter hasn't really significantly made by studies considerably easier, since both are different in terms of grammar, pronunciation, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="831" LastActivityDate="2012-07-06T09:06:48.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1847" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1849" CreationDate="2012-07-06T09:15:51.813" Score="13" ViewCount="2625" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard that character amnesia is becoming more and more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What if a Chinese has to write something and he doesn't have a cellphone or computer with him, what does he do if he forgot the character he needed? Does he use another character with the same pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Under the same situation do the Taiwanese use bopomofo?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="831" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2016-01-15T01:57:25.867" LastActivityDate="2016-01-17T16:44:33.227" Title="What do Chinese people do if they forget how to write a character?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1847" CreationDate="2012-07-06T09:50:42.643" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a difficult question to answer without generalizing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, it is hard to imagine a Chinese without a cellphone/smartphone, so in practice they would mostly use their phone with a pinyin input method (I'm talking about mainland Chinese, in Taiwan they would use something similar). If for some reason they wouldn't be able to use their cellphone, they'd ask somebody else and if he/she also doesn't know it and there isn't a good synonym, they would use pinyin. In most cases it will be clear from the context what is meant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-07-07T19:22:00.577" LastActivityDate="2012-07-07T19:22:00.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1847" CreationDate="2012-07-06T14:25:32.160" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I sometimes replace the forgotten phrase with another one which has same meaning. Sometimes I even rewrite the whole sentence to avoid writing some hard characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, since there are a lot of Chinese characters has the same pronunciation (ex: 意義/異議). The input programs are also very error-prone to select correct characters. Some people will just use wrong characters with the similar pronunciation because they are too lazy to correct them. This is why you can see some common mistakes like 因該 instead of 應該.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastActivityDate="2012-07-06T14:25:32.160" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1827" CreationDate="2012-07-06T14:31:26.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dictionary of Chinese idioms from the Ministry of Education of Taiwan is a very good resource if you can read traditional Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.idioms.moe.edu.tw/cydic/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.idioms.moe.edu.tw/cydic/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastEditorUserId="773" LastEditDate="2012-07-06T14:39:48.647" LastActivityDate="2012-07-06T14:39:48.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="579" CreationDate="2012-07-08T08:14:15.510" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pinyin was designed primarily as a writing system for Chinese speakers to use, and to help children who speak other dialects to learn Mandarin. As such, making it easy for foreigners was not a particular priority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, different languages use the Roman letters differently, so what would be obvious choice? For example, in different languages J can pronounced like in the English words lo*&lt;em&gt;ch&lt;/em&gt;* (Spanish), plea*&lt;em&gt;s&lt;/em&gt;*ure (French), or *&lt;em&gt;y&lt;/em&gt;*es (German and many other languages this side of Europe).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider also that Catalan pronounces X like 'sh', Polish pronounces C like 'ts', and Spanish pronounces Q like Italian pronounces CH, so these aren't terrible choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least with Pinyin you &lt;em&gt;can learn&lt;/em&gt; how to pronounce it properly, unlike Wade-Giles which, since it is almost never used correctly, leaves even proficient speakers making wild guesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="837" LastActivityDate="2012-07-08T08:14:15.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1853" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1855" CreationDate="2012-07-09T10:42:37.463" Score="6" ViewCount="928" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've tried a number of online and paper dictionaries (Chinese-Chinese character dictionaries) and I still can't find this character. Since I don't know how it's pronounced or what the right part is called, I have attached a representation of the character I drew: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k9ujk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This character is used many times over in the grammar book I'm reading, mostly in example sentences on 把 usage. The only time it occurs with any kind of context is 他有的時候把[X]當糖吃. Can anyone tell me what this character means and how it's pronounced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-17T04:27:44.073" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T04:27:44.073" Title="What does 塩 mean?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1853" CreationDate="2012-07-09T11:35:40.153" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Wenlin 4.0.2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Character: 塩&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pinyin: [yán] [yàn]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Meaning (Unihan): salt&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Encodings: U+5869 [CJK, Unicode 1.1] (GB+ 8963) (Big5+ bb92)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;References: Hànyǔ Dà Zìdiǎn:1.472.11*; Mathews:7352&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="826" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-07-09T13:25:50.617" LastActivityDate="2012-07-09T13:25:50.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1853" CreationDate="2012-07-09T11:41:29.320" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is something weird going on with 塩.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked many dictionaries (both online and offline, and both from the mainland and Taiwan and it seems that 塩 is an old variant of 盐|鹽 (See for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE5ZdicA1ZdicA9.htm&quot;&gt;Zdic&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zd.eywedu.com/zd/zi/ZdicE5ZdicA1ZdicA9.htm&quot;&gt;汉语大字典&lt;/a&gt;) meaning salt and is currently no longer used as a Chinese character, but it is still used as a Japanese one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it currently not used anymore (both on the mainland and Taiwan), it is normal that you can't find it in any Chinese dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This being said, I asked two Taiwanese friends whether they knew this character and they all recognize it and thought it was the simplified form of 鹽 used in mainland China. I also asked some mainland friends and they don't recognize it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-07-09T15:29:58.377" LastActivityDate="2012-07-09T15:29:58.377" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1853" CreationDate="2012-07-09T12:49:24.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way to look the character up is by using the IME Pad. The radical has three strokes while the remaining part has 10. Unfortunately IME didn't give the pronunciation this time, so I had to look it up in an online dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;塩&#xA;yan2&#xA;salt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tnWX8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="831" LastActivityDate="2012-07-09T12:49:24.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1853" CreationDate="2012-07-10T04:39:45.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This character is the shinjitai form of 盐/鹽 used in modern Japanese (pronounced えん for chemical salts or しお for common salt). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, either simplified or traditional, it is obsolete, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E5%A1%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hudong&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE5ZdicA1ZdicA9.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zdic&lt;/a&gt;, which means it is no longer in contemporary usage. Its use in your grammar book would therefore seem incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some exceptions to this rule, however. If you do a search online for 雪塩燒, which is a type of food consumed in Taiwan, you will find many instances where it's written with the Japanese kanji (although there are equal number of instances where it's written with 鹽). The food item obviously has its roots in Japan and it's possibly the reason why its name has preserved the Japanese kanji character in some instances (for branding purposes or simply fashion, who knows).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-07-10T06:52:36.933" LastActivityDate="2012-07-10T06:52:36.933" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1509" CreationDate="2012-07-11T17:32:33.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This one is also very similar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://font.chinaz.com/1028151550.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;金梅個性钢笔字体&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastEditorUserId="773" LastEditDate="2012-07-13T04:43:46.410" LastActivityDate="2012-07-13T04:43:46.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1859" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1860" CreationDate="2012-07-12T16:04:28.777" Score="4" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this sentence and its translation on &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/344579&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt;. Is there a better way to translate it into English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這是外行的想法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's a layman's idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked up 外行, and it does mean amateur or layman, but I've never heard anybody use the phrase &amp;quot;layman's idea&amp;quot; in English. Perhaps a better translation would be as simple as, &amp;quot;That's a dumb idea.&amp;quot; Or does the Chinese phrase emphasize that it's a bad idea because the person is inexperienced? If so, perhaps it would be best to translate as, &amp;quot;That's a rookie mistake.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-07-19T09:23:21.030" Title="Does 外行的想法 mean &quot;rookie mistake&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1859" CreationDate="2012-07-12T17:58:08.380" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;English is not my mother tongue, but I would translate 外行的想法 as &quot;unprofessional opinion&quot; or &quot;amateurish opinion&quot;.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/all/%E5%A4%96%E8%A1%8C&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;外行&lt;/a&gt; is the opposite of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/all/%E5%86%85%E8%A1%8C&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;内行&lt;/a&gt;, which means &lt;em&gt;expert, adept, experienced, an expert, a professional&lt;/em&gt;, so the emphasis is as you mentioned on the fact that the person is not experienced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-07-19T09:23:21.030" LastActivityDate="2012-07-19T09:23:21.030" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1827" CreationDate="2012-07-13T03:15:56.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might also like to look at this discussion on Chinese-Forums.  They list several different on-line resources plus a downloadable list of idioms from the Singapore government.  I point this out as it seems that you might be more interested in idioms than in chengyu &lt;em&gt;per se&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/16981-a-list-of-chengyu/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/16981-a-list-of-chengyu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="851" LastActivityDate="2012-07-13T03:15:56.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1862" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1864" CreationDate="2012-07-14T06:17:57.673" Score="8" ViewCount="6958" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this proverb which I'm not sure about what is its origin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this really a known chinese proverb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, how do you write it in chinese, and what's the Pinyin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="853" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-07-16T15:24:55.967" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T10:37:05.673" Title="Is this a Chinese Proverb?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1737" CreationDate="2012-07-14T06:44:23.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It shouldn't be using technical translation. Because &lt;code&gt;老乡&lt;/code&gt; the word itself is very informal and make people feel warm and relax. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would use &lt;code&gt;pals from hometown&lt;/code&gt; if I need to explain this word to foreigner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="854" LastActivityDate="2012-07-14T06:44:23.923" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1862" CreationDate="2012-07-14T09:58:44.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From online search:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好问的人，只做了五分钟的愚人；耻于发问的人，终身为愚人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appeared in many quote compilations but none of them mentioned the author or origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I've never heard of it, but it doesn't say much because many Chinese proverbs are regional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-07-16T15:25:59.133" LastActivityDate="2012-07-16T15:25:59.133" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="170" CreationDate="2012-07-14T15:37:40.830" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I'm not a native speaker of Chinese, but an avid musicologist and student of Chinese.)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard at least &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; Chinese pop music where the tones are certainly &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; obliterated, though I think it's reasonable to suppose this happens at least some of the time.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My speculation however is that in general something more interesting and complicated happens much of the time: which is that the tonal framework gets modulated and transposed onto the relevant key in the music at the time of performance.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the key changes or modulates during the piece, the tonal frame modulates along with it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The vocalist also has the option to alter the tonal framework's position in the key as the melody progresses.  The tonal framework will function fine as long as the tones are performed in a way which is internally consistent-- ie relative to the other tones performed in the same temporal context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may seem to be overly analytic, but I think it's just scratching the surface of the complexities in this topic... world of wonders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="246" LastActivityDate="2012-07-14T15:37:40.830" CommentCount="17" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1862" CreationDate="2012-07-16T15:12:51.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker. I have not heard of any proverb with a similar meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="718" LastActivityDate="2012-07-16T15:12:51.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1867" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1869" CreationDate="2012-07-16T20:57:41.733" Score="7" ViewCount="369" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;车费我们俩一人付一半，怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't fully understand the meaning of &lt;code&gt;一人付一半&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found that &lt;code&gt;付一半&lt;/code&gt; can mean &quot;pay half&quot;, but &lt;code&gt;一人&lt;/code&gt; confuses me (if it refers to one person, why is that form used instead of &lt;code&gt;一个人&lt;/code&gt;?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-04T01:28:58.790" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T04:24:30.793" Title="Meaning of 一人付一半 in 车费我们俩一人付一半，怎么样？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1867" CreationDate="2012-07-16T21:47:58.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Each of us two pay half the fee, what do you think?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's very common to say 一人..., e.g. 一人一个, 一人一次&#xA;there's also an idiom 一人做事一人当&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-07-16T21:47:58.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1867" CreationDate="2012-07-16T22:38:21.450" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;一人 can be thought of as 'per person' or 'each person'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This grammatical construction is extremely common in Chinese. I think it's called topical construction (correct me if I am wrong here). Essentially, you have the topic of the sentence (bus/taxi fare) at the start, followed by the subject, verb and the rest of the object. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's break it down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Topic: 车费 (bus/taxi fare - need more context to determine the exact&#xA;nature)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Subject: 我们俩 (We [two])&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Verb: 付 (to pay)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Object: 一半(车费) (half [of the fare])&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adverbial: 一(个)人 (each person, per person - alternative wording: 每(个)人)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possible translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We split the fare by paying half of it each.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We both pay half the fare.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each of us pays for half the fare.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I missed the last bit of your question the first time around. The measure word 个 is omitted. It means the same whether it's in there or not (in this case). However, 一人 in this sense is also used in some set phrases (such as 一人做事一人当 - one is responsible for one's own actions), and in those cases, you cannot use 一个人 in its stead. Fivesheep's answer has enough examples to give you a good idea how often it's used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-07-17T22:07:33.093" LastActivityDate="2012-07-17T22:07:33.093" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1862" CreationDate="2012-07-17T03:09:03.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The proverb I know which has related meaning is &quot;不耻下问&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="822" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-07-26T17:42:27.720" LastActivityDate="2012-07-26T17:42:27.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1859" CreationDate="2012-07-19T00:18:58.723" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;外行literally means &quot;outsider.&quot; But it can easily be interpreted as &quot;layman&quot; or &quot;non-professional.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外行的想法, would be &quot;outsider or non-professional way of thinking.&quot; It's something of a pejorative, because the Chinese culture places a greater emphasis on &quot;expert&quot; or &quot;professional&quot; opinions, as opposed to &quot;whatever works.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-07-19T00:18:58.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1843" CreationDate="2012-07-19T15:42:35.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;两 and 俩 are members of the same sound family, liang.  俩 has the 人 radical in front of 两.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两means &quot;two&quot; and  俩 means &quot;pair.&quot; The first refers to &quot;two things or people&quot; and the second to a &quot;pair of things or people.&quot; They are interchangeable in many contexts, but not all.  俩 is more colloquial, and can be considered an &quot;abbreviation,&quot;  两个 is the more proper long form.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-07-19T15:42:35.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1875" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1878" CreationDate="2012-07-21T09:23:33.750" Score="12" ViewCount="577" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like the title says, the question is simple: what's the proper way to handle tone sandhi in names? Is there something like &quot;pronounce the family name as-is, apply tone sandhi to given name&quot;? Or is tone sandhi applied to the whole name in it's entirety?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, what's the proper way to pronounce 马友友? (but feel free to add more:))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T18:15:25.597" Title="How does tone sandhi apply in people's names?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-01-28T07:33:51.370" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="117" CreationDate="2012-07-21T15:25:07.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've got a Chinese character matching game for my iPhone. It's called lingospring Chinese memory game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="486" LastActivityDate="2012-07-21T15:25:07.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1386" CreationDate="2012-07-21T15:37:49.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about adding 吹牛 to the end of the last thing they said? It can be suitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, it is literally close to &quot;as if&quot;. Second, it also has the implication of disbelief.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="865" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-11T04:39:39.677" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:39:39.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1875" CreationDate="2012-07-21T23:10:30.443" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule that applies to sentences also applies to names, that is for a sentence of sequential 3rd tone characters,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Optionally) Split it to phrases by functional groups.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For each group, every other character is read as 2nd tone while keeping the last character 3rd tone. &#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2.1. If a group has even number of characters, the tones become 2,3,...,2,3,2,3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2.2. If a group has odd number of characters, the tones become 2,3,...2,3,X,2,3. If the group has exactly 3 characters, it becomes X,2,3. In standard Mandarin, X=2. In spoken language you'll probably hear both X=2 and X=3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;马友友: &#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;223: ma2 you2 you3 (standard as you'll hear in CCTV news).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;323：ma3 you2 you3 (colloquial).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;similarly, 往北走: &#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;223: wang2 bei2 zou3 (standard).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;323: wang3 bei2 zou3 (colloquial).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;领导很满意: &#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2323...: ling2 dao3 hen2 man3 yi4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;往北走也挺好. Both of the following are correct:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;223 223: wang2 bei2 zou3 ye2 ting2 hao3 (rule is applied to 2 word groups respectively).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;232323: wang2 bei3 zou2 ye3 ting2 hao3 (rule is applied to the complete sequence).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;请你老叟往北走. (This is a well-known line in TV/movie industry for tone sandhi practice, similar to 八百标兵奔北坡 for stop consonant practice.)&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2323223: qing2 ni3 lao2 sou3 wang2 bei2 zou3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-07-21T23:10:30.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1880" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1884" CreationDate="2012-07-24T05:47:02.917" Score="2" ViewCount="1189" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 咩 (me1) and 嗎 (maa1) in Cantonese? Are they always interchangeable? Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;m4 sai2 faan1 gung1 me1? (You don't have to go to work)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="349" LastActivityDate="2012-07-26T07:43:10.213" Title="Cantonese 咩 (me1) vs. 嗎 (maa1)" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1880" CreationDate="2012-07-24T08:04:35.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of the time, 咩 is in fact the word  &quot;乜嘢&quot; spoken in a high vocal speed. 乜 means 什么 in mandarin, and &quot;what&quot; in English. 嘢 is a modal particle, has no actual meaning, so is 嗎 which is being used at the end of a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exception is 你吹咩. (It's kind of mocking, I just don't know how to translate it into English)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-07-24T08:04:35.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1882" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1883" CreationDate="2012-07-25T04:54:06.567" Score="13" ViewCount="537" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does 十年中 mean &amp;quot;in ten years&amp;quot;? I found it in this sentence from &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/335890&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他十年中第一次回家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He returned home for the first time in ten years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like I could use the same pattern to say, &amp;quot;I haven't had a drink in five years.&amp;quot; 我五年中没有喝酒。 Does that work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-07-30T05:20:09.430" Title="Use of 十年中 to express duration" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1882" CreationDate="2012-07-25T07:01:34.983" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&#xA;中 can be used to express that something happened of didn't happen &lt;strong&gt;within a certain scope or range&lt;/strong&gt; or just within something (《现代汉语词典》: 范围内；内部). The range doesn't need to be a time range, but it can be. Furthermore, it can also refer to the future.&#xA;So you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他预言战争将在下几年中爆发: He predicted that war would break out in the next few years.&#xA;年中&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在最近若干年中: In recent years&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在过去一百二十年中，人口已膨胀了十倍: In the past 120 years the population has increased tenfold.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;过去几年中，许多工人对美术发生了兴趣: Many workers have taken to the arts in the past few years.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;随后的四十年中，债务人受州法律的保护: For the next 40 years debtors were subject to state laws.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As already mentioned it can also refer to other things than a time range. Some examples:&#xA;家中， 水中， 山中， 心中， 队伍中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-07-28T05:55:52.500" LastActivityDate="2012-07-28T05:55:52.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1880" CreationDate="2012-07-26T07:43:10.213" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;咩 (&lt;em&gt;me1&lt;/em&gt;) as a sentence final particle is used not only to mark the sentence as a question, but also to indicate surprise (or disbelief) that the situation is not what you expected.  Taking your example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;唔使返工咩？ (&lt;em&gt;m4 sai2 faan1 gung1 me1?&lt;/em&gt;) &quot;You don't need to go to work?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This asks why the receiver doesn't need to go to work, but also indicates that you were originally under the impression that the receiver needed to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of 嗎 (which is usually pronounced &lt;em&gt;maa3&lt;/em&gt;, not &lt;em&gt;maa1&lt;/em&gt;) in Cantonese is usually considered formal and not commonly used in everyday speech.  Its existence in Cantonese is most likely due to Mandarin influence.  To express a neutral question, the verb-not-verb construction is generally favored.  Expanding your initial example, if you just want to ask whether someone needs to go to work, you would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;使唔使返工呀？ (&lt;em&gt;sai2 m4 sai2 faan1 gung1 aa3?&lt;/em&gt;) &quot;Do you need to go to work?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence final particle 呀 (&lt;em&gt;aa3&lt;/em&gt;) is often placed at the end of questions, generally to soften the tone so that it won't be considered abrupt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For information on these and other Cantonese sentence final particles, check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/essays/cantonese_particles.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/essays/cantonese_particles.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S., Fivesheep's answer notes that 咩 is a contraction of 乜嘢 (&lt;em&gt;mat1 je5&lt;/em&gt;), but this is a completely different &lt;em&gt;me1&lt;/em&gt; that just happens to be represented using the same character.  The use of 咩 as a sentence final particle is not related to this and is not a contraction of 乜嘢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2012-07-26T07:43:10.213" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1882" CreationDate="2012-07-26T18:14:12.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;中 literally means middle. Taken with respect to time or space, it means &quot;within.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 他十年中第一次回家 means, he returned home once within a [particular] ten year period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-07-26T18:14:12.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1886" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1887" CreationDate="2012-07-27T02:28:23.857" Score="5" ViewCount="418" Body="&lt;p&gt;竟 and 境 are both read &lt;code&gt;ging2&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese, which usually corresponds to a third tone syllable in Mandarin (as is the case for 警, which is &lt;code&gt;ging2&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese and &lt;code&gt;jing3&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, both of them end up as &lt;code&gt;jing4&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This table&lt;/a&gt; which gives sound correspondences from the Middle Chinese tones indicates it should be in tone class 3, but the Mandarin reflex is not third tone as expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;點解呢? (为什么呢?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="390" LastEditDate="2012-07-27T05:57:43.640" LastActivityDate="2012-07-27T09:06:44.927" Title="Tone of 竟 and 境 in Mandarin and Cantonese" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;middle-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1886" CreationDate="2012-07-27T09:06:44.927" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;As your &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_tones_%28Chinese%29#Distribution_in_modern_Chinese&quot;&gt;linked table&lt;/a&gt; indicates, the Middle Chinese 陰上 tone generally corresponds to Cantonese tone 2 and Mandarin tone 3, so it is indeed curious that you see both words having tone 4 in Mandarin, which typically corresponds to Middle Chinese 去 tones or 陽上 tones where the syllable onset is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruent&quot;&gt;obstruent&lt;/a&gt; (全濁聲母).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking up the characters in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_Dictionary&quot;&gt;Kangxi Dictionary 《康熙字典》&lt;/a&gt; appears to hint at a possible explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;file=77415&amp;amp;page=871#04&quot;&gt;竟&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【廣韻】【韻會】【正韻】居慶切，音敬。窮也，終也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangyun&quot;&gt;Guangyun&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%A4%E4%BB%8A%E9%9F%BB%E6%9C%83%E8%88%89%E8%A6%81&quot;&gt;Yunhui&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A3%E9%9F%BB&quot;&gt;Zhengyun&lt;/a&gt;: Initial of 居; final and tone of 慶; pronounced 敬. Means limit, final.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【集韻】舉影切，音景。與境同，界也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiyun&quot;&gt;Jiyun&lt;/a&gt;: Initial of 舉; final and tone of 影; pronounced 景. Means the same as 境, boundary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;file=77415&amp;amp;page=237#17&quot;&gt;境&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【唐韻】【正韻】居影切。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%94%90%E9%9F%BB&quot;&gt;Tangyun&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A3%E9%9F%BB&quot;&gt;Zhengyun&lt;/a&gt;: Initial of 居; final and tone of 影.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【集韻】【韻會】舉影切，音景。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiyun&quot;&gt;Jiyun&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%A4%E4%BB%8A%E9%9F%BB%E6%9C%83%E8%88%89%E8%A6%81&quot;&gt;Yunhui&lt;/a&gt;: Initial of 舉; final and tone of 影; and pronounced 景.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[BTW, if you're wondering what  is, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra00018.htm&quot;&gt;it's a variant of 並&lt;/a&gt;.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entry for 境 indicates that it has a 上 tone (since 影 and 景 both have 上 tones), as expected; however, it also indicates that the pronunciation of 竟 in its primary meaning has a 去 tone (since 慶 and 敬 both have 去 tones).  Only when 竟 is used as a substitute for 境 is it pronounced with a 上 tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this, we should expect that 竟 is pronounced &lt;em&gt;ging3&lt;/em&gt; in Cantonese and &lt;em&gt;jing4&lt;/em&gt; in Mandarin and that 境 is pronounced &lt;em&gt;ging2&lt;/em&gt; in Cantonese and &lt;em&gt;jing3&lt;/em&gt; in Mandarin; however, because 竟 can be used as a substitute for 境, perhaps their tones ended up getting mixed up, with Cantonese settling on &lt;em&gt;ging2&lt;/em&gt; and Mandarin settling on &lt;em&gt;jing4&lt;/em&gt; for both characters?  This is purely speculation on my part, but I haven't found any other sources that explain this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2012-07-27T09:06:44.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1888" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1889" CreationDate="2012-07-28T05:08:38.437" Score="6" ViewCount="3299" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a very short sentence on &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/1670075&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt;. All it says is, &quot;给你。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That literally means &quot;Give you,&quot; but what does it really mean? My best guess is that I could say it as I give something to you, kind of like, &quot;Here you go.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T09:20:10.170" Title="Does 给你 mean &quot;Here you go?&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1888" CreationDate="2012-07-28T05:53:15.000" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your guess is correct. You use it when you hand over or give something. You can translate it as &quot;there you are, here you are, here you go&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example a teacher might say it while handing out some study material. A student of course should use 给您 when handing in his exam papers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also add what you are giving. For example 给你一本书.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-07-28T05:53:15.000" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1386" CreationDate="2012-07-29T15:03:06.237" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest answer I can think of is &quot;才怪&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: &quot;In a few years I'll be driving a Ferrari.&quot;&#xA;B: &quot;As if you'll ever have a Ferrari!&quot;&#xA;&#xA;A: 过几年我就能够驾法拉利了。&#xA;B: 你能驾法拉利才怪!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;怪&lt;/code&gt; means incredible in English &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/258285.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;惊异，感到奇怪&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;才&lt;/code&gt; means having the ability &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/128156.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(能力：～能。口～。这人很有～干)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase &lt;code&gt;才怪&lt;/code&gt; is evolved from the longer phrase &quot;才奇怪&quot; and the usage of which only becomes popular in recent times. If you are interested, you can read up &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.soso.com/v9998889.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; which describes at length the historical development of the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quoting from the article,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;才怪&lt;/code&gt;逐渐演变出了一种新的意义：表否定。“否定”的意义是与“奇怪”义有紧密联系的，觉得某事奇怪，主观上本身就有不赞成之意。只有主观上认为与自己看法不相同才会觉得奇怪，出乎意料。所以，我们认为“才怪”现代常用表否定的意义是从“才奇怪”演化而来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated to English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;才怪&lt;/code&gt; slowly evolves to mean an &lt;strong&gt;expression of disagreement&lt;/strong&gt;. The words &quot;disagreement&quot; and &quot;incredible&quot; are closely related. To think that something is incredible implies that the person does not agree that it will happen. Only when a person disagree with something would he find it strange or out of the norm. Therefore, we believe that the contemporary meaning of &lt;code&gt;才怪&lt;/code&gt; is an &lt;strong&gt;expression of disagreement&lt;/strong&gt; and evolves from the longer phrase &lt;code&gt;才奇怪&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my own words, &lt;code&gt;才怪&lt;/code&gt; has the same exact meaning as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;as if it would happen&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: I'm not going to smoke again, I promise.&#xA;我绝不会再抽烟了，我向你保证。&#xA;B: As if this is going to be your last cigarette.&#xA;这会是你的最后一根烟才怪！ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T15:03:06.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1737" CreationDate="2012-07-29T15:29:14.177" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;An appropriate word would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/countryman?s=t&amp;amp;ld=1064&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;countryman&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;noun, plural countrymen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 1. a native or inhabitant of one's own country.&#xA; 2. a native or inhabitant of a particular region.&#xA; 3. person who lives in the country.&#xA; 4. an unsophisticated person, as one who lives in or comes from a rural&#xA;    area; rustic.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning from &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/354029.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1、老乡的范围可大可小。比如在市里看到同一县的人，在省里看到同一市的人，在全国看到同一省的人，都可以算做老乡&#xA;2、以前解放军对百姓们的称呼。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated to English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The usage of this word is flexible. For example, it can be applied to those living within the same district of a city, the same city&#xA;  within a province, or the same province within the country.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The PLA used to address the commoners this way.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;无论是因为工作漂泊在外，还是因为求学进去在外，一句老乡拉近了你我彼此之间的距离。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T15:29:14.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1882" CreationDate="2012-07-29T15:39:30.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt; is a redundant word when used in such context. Instead, you could write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他十年第一次回家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我五年没有喝酒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why &lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt; is not used to express a period in time is because &lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt; has another meaning - &lt;code&gt;middle&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他在年中考试考不及格。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He failed his mid-year exam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is clear to Chinese native speakers when the context is given that the number of years refer to a period in time instead of a specific point in time. So there is no real need to add &lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt; behind &lt;code&gt;十年&lt;/code&gt; to express a duration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you really insist, you can use &lt;code&gt;来&lt;/code&gt; instead to express duration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他这十年来都没有回家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He has never been home during the past ten years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-07-30T05:20:09.430" LastActivityDate="2012-07-30T05:20:09.430" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1894" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-07-30T00:21:31.450" Score="9" ViewCount="3795" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_%28Mandarin%29&quot;&gt;Mandarin wikibook&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It is considered easier for people who learn Traditional to read both sets than people who learn Simplified only, but Simplified characters are less intimidating for beginners. In this wikibook, all examples and vocabulary are given in both systems, and you are encouraged to choose one system and stick with it throughout&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found it to be potentially very valuable knowledge, so I started prodding around with a search engine only to find mass loads of Traditional vs Simplified web pages, which don't make me any more enlightened. What I'm interested in are facts that can help resolve the problem of which writing system I should learn first (or if I should learn both in parallel?), such as: What portion of people use each system? What portion of literature uses each system? &lt;em&gt;How&lt;/em&gt; much easier is it if one learns Traditional first. I have learned which parts of china use each system, but cannot find these numbers and facts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have started learning Mandarin by myself and my goal is currently as vague as &quot;wanting to speak Chinese&quot;. Being restricted to the last 6 decades of literature motivates me to know Traditional, but at first, Simplified seemed like the obvious choice. Of course, I don't know what weight to give these facts in my decision making, hence asking here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that I haven't asked a clear, single question, but I think it's clear what I'm trying to figure out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="876" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2013-03-01T12:52:16.970" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T16:11:01.660" Title="Learning Traditional first with the goal of learning both" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1896" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1901" CreationDate="2012-07-30T06:26:21.747" Score="3" ViewCount="1207" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Possible Duplicate:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/167/is-it-easier-to-learn-chinese-after-learning-japanese-or-vice-versa&quot;&gt;Is it easier to learn Chinese after learning Japanese or vice versa?&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm learning Japanese, and I'm going to learn all of the jouyou kanji, which is about 2000 characters. Of course, over time I'll learn many words made from them as compounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm wondering about is how much overlap there is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once I reach a certain level of ability and can read Japanese very well, will I also be able to read Chinese at least a little?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know I'll at the very least be able to pick out words here and there, but just how much? Are very many hanzi used the same way as their corresponding kanji? Are many compounds common to both languages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-07-31T08:08:42.440" Title="How useful are the kanji in reading Chinese?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2012-07-31T11:13:01.133" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11" CreationDate="2012-07-30T08:25:52.320" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's touched by the other answers but not as explicit: in Chinese, disambiguation is mostly done by nouns/verbs rather than prepositions. So the answer is to use distinctive verbs depending on the context: 躺在床上(边/面) vs. 挂在床上(边/面/方) vs. 悬在床上(边/面/方). (躺在床上方 is also correct but against idiom.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-07-30T08:25:52.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1898" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1902" CreationDate="2012-07-30T18:49:00.510" Score="6" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nciku tells me the proper measure word is 类, but a quick search on Google garnered mostly results like &quot;哪类角色更容易赢“小金人”？“ implying that for the most part 类 is used when inquiring about a particular type of role. Does that mean that 个 is fine in most general statements?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="403" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T06:16:30.523" Title="Which measure word should I use with 角色？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1898" CreationDate="2012-07-30T19:35:15.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you are right on 类. 个 is more general for 角色. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 你扮演哪个角色? you can also ask 哪类... but the two sentences will have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-07-30T21:40:31.330" LastActivityDate="2012-07-30T21:40:31.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1838" CreationDate="2012-07-30T21:08:32.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ehy I found it: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-characters.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinese-characters.org&lt;/a&gt;, in my opinion there's no rival so far, if you look at it it has ancient and archaic variations of each symbol...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="834" LastEditDate="2013-02-20T21:01:43.333" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T21:01:43.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1896" CreationDate="2012-07-31T08:08:42.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally I found learning Chinese after Japanese a very positive experience. Indeed having a good knowledge of Kanji made a big difference and eased the learning of Hanzi. At first it took me a while to get used to simplified characters. Knowing radicals has helped me a great deal. Also I tend to use a lot of technology that was not available when I was learning Japanese. Particularly for reading a writing Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="824" LastActivityDate="2012-07-31T08:08:42.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1898" CreationDate="2012-08-01T09:09:51.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Same as English,角色 is a noun.&#xA;For example,when there are only one person,we use &quot;is&quot;after words which express that,when there are many,we use &quot;are&quot;.&#xA;&quot;角色&quot; is the same as what I described,when you want to express many &quot;角色&quot;，use&quot;类&quot;，it won't be wrong,when you just want to say one &quot;角色&quot;，use &quot;个&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="886" LastActivityDate="2012-08-01T09:09:51.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1903" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1906" CreationDate="2012-08-01T09:15:31.827" Score="11" ViewCount="13055" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pimsleur's Mandarin course teaches &quot;I'm leaving very early tomorrow morning&quot; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我明天早上很早就走 (wŏ míngtiān zăoshàng hĕn zăo jiù zŏu)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says that &lt;code&gt;就 (jiù)&lt;/code&gt; doesn't have a corresponding meaning in English, but, frustratingly, that's all it says about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the role of &lt;code&gt;就&lt;/code&gt; in this sentence, and how is it needed and used in a more general sense in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2012-08-03T02:43:54.663" LastActivityDate="2012-08-14T15:31:42.820" Title="How is 就 (jiù) used?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1904" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1907" CreationDate="2012-08-01T10:35:30.700" Score="10" ViewCount="925" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese character for pig is 猪 / 豬 (zhu1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many Japanese restaurants around Hong Kong I've seen this somewhat different character 豚 which appears to also mean pig.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you say it in Mandarin, and how did the japanese come to use this different character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T09:17:05.867" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T09:17:05.867" Title="How is the Kanji character 豚 related to the chinese 猪 / 豬" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1903" CreationDate="2012-08-01T11:21:08.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, &lt;code&gt;就&lt;/code&gt; has the English meaning of &lt;code&gt;will&lt;/code&gt; as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I will be leaving very early tomorrow morning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/107664.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;code&gt;就&lt;/code&gt; has many usages. Although Baidu has stated that &lt;code&gt;just&lt;/code&gt; is the English word, I believe that &lt;code&gt;will&lt;/code&gt; is more appropriate as in the following commonly used phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;就会 - will be&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;就能 - will be able to&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;就可 - will be able to&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-08-01T11:21:08.240" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1903" CreationDate="2012-08-01T11:27:28.793" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since 就 is a construct that has many meanings, I'm only going to concentrate on your sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your sentence it will give emphasis that it is really early. You can also write: &#xA;我明天早上很早走 but this lacks the emphasis 我明天早上很早就走 has. And the latter construction will be used much more than the former.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some similar constructions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;马上就来: to come right down&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一会儿就好: I'm ready in a moment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is used for actions (after the 就). You have the structure A就B and B will be done after A is done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 can be used to say that one thing comes immediately or very soon after the other. For example 我明天吃了早饭就走: Tomorrow, I will immediately leave after having eaten breakfast. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this type of sentence you normally have a verb before the 就 and when after the 就. Although there is no verb in 我明天早上很早就走, it is actually the same kind of structure and you can understand it the same. Immediately after &quot;早上很早&quot; you'll leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opposite of this 就 is 才 (another word with many meanings). There you emphasize that  something happened really or rather late. For example 我十一点才起床了： I only got out of bed at 11.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-08-01T13:49:13.467" LastActivityDate="2012-08-01T13:49:13.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1904" CreationDate="2012-08-01T12:02:07.080" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;豚 is pronounced &lt;em&gt;tun2&lt;/em&gt; in Mandarin and &lt;em&gt;tyun4&lt;/em&gt; in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only word I know which still uses it is 海豚 &lt;em&gt;hai3tun2&lt;/em&gt; &quot;dolphin&quot;. The Japanese reading is &lt;em&gt;ton&lt;/em&gt; (on), &lt;em&gt;buta&lt;/em&gt; (kun), as I'm sure you know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;豚 was the original character (with the meat radical on the left hand side), while 猪 meant a wild pig (which is suggested by its radical). Japanese borrowings from Chinese happened in waves, as the Chinese language itself changed. Characters which were later supplanted in Chinese were fossilised in Japanese, because they were still current at the time they were borrowed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why Japanese uses characters like 足, 食 and 寝 which have fallen into disuse in modern Mandarin, or lost their identity as free morphemes, or have gained different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Semantic and lexical divergence from Mandarin is of course also present in Chinese topolects. Hokkien for example, preserves the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkien#Semantic_differences_between_Hokkien_and_Mandarin&quot;&gt;classical character for chopsticks, 箸&lt;/a&gt;, which is also still the preferred form in Japanese rather than 筷. Also, see on the same page that 册, whence &lt;em&gt;chaek&lt;/em&gt; in Korean, is still current in Hokkien too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://weizhoushiwang.blogbus.com/logs/418660.html&quot;&gt;http://weizhoushiwang.blogbus.com/logs/418660.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="390" LastEditDate="2012-08-02T00:17:01.707" LastActivityDate="2012-08-02T00:17:01.707" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1903" CreationDate="2012-08-01T13:53:10.623" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Taiwanese but not a trained Chinese teacher, my explanation might not be academically correct :p.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First let me explain what changes with &lt;code&gt;就&lt;/code&gt;. Adding &lt;code&gt;就&lt;/code&gt; emphasises the fact by making the tone sounds stronger, try read it out and feel the difference. It's a word you can say it with more strength, heavily, louder, tones up. Without it sometimes there is no place in the sentence to put the power. I will know you want me to be noticed that you are leaving early tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, the effect of &lt;code&gt;就&lt;/code&gt; varies depending on the reason you want to emphasise it and depending on the following or the followed statements. Maybe you don't like this place so you want to take the very first train to leave, or maybe you want me to send the kids to school because you won't be available tomorrow morning, or you are going to bed early tonight because you are leaving early tomorrow, or when you say it with no explicit reason it makes me feel you are expecting me to ask why. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="887" LastActivityDate="2012-08-01T13:53:10.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1903" CreationDate="2012-08-01T19:25:25.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese Grammar Wiki has a page on &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_earliness_with_%22jiu%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;expressing earliness with 就&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English this might be expressed with &amp;quot;as early as&amp;quot;, but usually it's not specifically marked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们 早上 九点 上课，可是 他 八点 就 来了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她 十八 岁 就 大学 毕业 了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们 上次 出去 玩，他 九点 就 回去 了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 五 点 钟 就 到 了 饭馆，你 让 我 等 这么 久，罚 你 请客！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the example sentences it is clear that 了 naturally occurs with a verb used after 就. This is because verbs following 就 generally have the feeling of being completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're interested in the many other uses of 就, they have &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%E5%B0%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;several related pages&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-08-01T19:25:25.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1910" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1911" CreationDate="2012-08-04T05:03:10.237" Score="9" ViewCount="666" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/794241&quot;&gt;sentence on tatoeba&lt;/a&gt; that isn't quite the translation I would expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I will not do it again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is translated as...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下次我不做了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?wdqb=%E4%B8%8B%E6%AC%A1&quot;&gt;mdbg.net&lt;/a&gt; to be sure, and 下次 is only translated as &quot;next time&quot;, not &quot;again&quot;. Is there another shade of meaning that I'm missing, or would this be significantly better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不再做。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 了 have any effect on my question, or is it just signifying a change in state?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2013-02-07T23:15:19.740" Title="Can 下次 mean &quot;again&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1910" CreationDate="2012-08-04T06:03:09.023" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The strict answer is no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;下次&lt;/code&gt; is a shorten form of &lt;code&gt;下一次&lt;/code&gt; which means next time.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;下&lt;/code&gt; carries the meaning of subsequent, the following or the next.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;一次&lt;/code&gt; carries the meaning of one time or once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, taken together, it means the next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, for the next time to occur, the same or similar situation has to repeat itself (again). Therefore, you are not wrong to translate in the manner you have quoted above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I will not do it again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is equivalent to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I will not do it the next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or it can be written redundantly as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I will not do it again the next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, you can also write the three sentences above to mean the same thing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不再做就是了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下次我不做了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下次我不再做就是了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the words don't necessary have the same meaning, they can be written to mean the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second part of your question is quite difficult to explain. My opinion is that &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; is used to indicate the closure or completion of an expression. I am not a language expert but I believe that the term &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfective_aspect&quot;&gt;perfective aspect&lt;/a&gt; may be useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-08-04T06:03:09.023" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1862" CreationDate="2012-08-05T13:58:09.300" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker. I don't think it is originally a Chinese proverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more idiomatic translation would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;敢问耻一时，不问耻一生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;问则耻一时，不问终身羞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect it is Japanese in origin. When I searched it, a lot of Japanese results came up and many people asked how to translate the Japanese proverb &quot;聞くは一時の恥 聞かぬは一生の恥&quot;. The Japanese sentence looks quite idiomatic to me, because &quot;聞かぬ&quot; is an archaic form. Modern Japanese would say &quot;闻かないの&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2012-08-05T13:58:09.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="117" CreationDate="2012-08-05T14:30:37.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course there are many Chinese word games. They just have different style than the English ones since the two languages have different writing systems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many Chinese word games are about radicals forming a character, not letters (characters) forming a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did a quick search and found an example: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.5dhz.com/game/chengyu/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.5dhz.com/game/chengyu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many other games, but the ones I can think of all require two or more people to play, such as &quot;成语接龙&quot; (as other answers have mentioned)，riddles，matching couplets (对对子), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2012-08-05T14:30:37.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2012-08-06T08:24:57.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest taking a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skritter.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;skritter.com&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;You can directly check out their demo on their site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Skritter is a website helping you to learn and memorize Chinese and Japanese characters. It uses the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skritter.com/spaced-repetition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;spaced repetition algorithm&lt;/a&gt; to get your Character retention to about 90%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Skritter basically shows you the pinyin and asks you to write the character stoke by stroke. It also has other memorization options, like word and character definition and tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have an active forum of learners.&#xA;And they just came out with a new iOS app. It works fabulously on my iPad.&#xA;You can add words to your skritter list directly through MDBG.net, by pressing the 's' icon near the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have learnt 200 new characters in the past month after not learning a thing for a while, and I feel that I do remember their writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer, I do not work for Skritter, but absolutely love it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="859" LastEditorUserId="859" LastEditDate="2012-08-08T09:52:08.927" LastActivityDate="2012-08-08T09:52:08.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1915" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-06T20:30:09.217" Score="4" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;The spreadsheet is related to food safety (processing, handling, storage, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ID: 编号 (项目?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Process: 制程&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Food category:食品类别&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Standard: 标准&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Frequency (as in how many times per day or every how many hours): 次数&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Min. Value: 最小(低?) value?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Max. Value: 最大(高?) value?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Food Correction (or Corrective Action): 纠正措施&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Check List Item Caption: 清单项目标题&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Question Group: 问题组&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Template: 模板&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two more I am working on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat Observation (yes or no question about whether the observation should be repeated or &quot;performed&quot; again): 反复观察 or 一再发生?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Policy (any company policy or standard is entered in this section and applied to that specific question): I think 政策 is only for government/political policy, right? How about 方针, is that the correct translation for a company policy/rule/standard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Order index (a numeric value assigned to each row that indicates which order category it belongs to such as 1, 2, or 3): does 秩序指数 work for that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="899" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-08T06:29:04.960" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T10:16:37.217" Title="Are these correct headings for a spreadsheet?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1915" CreationDate="2012-08-06T20:59:15.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks good. I would translate &quot;frequency&quot; with &quot;频率&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="718" LastActivityDate="2012-08-06T20:59:15.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1917" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-07T02:47:25.073" Score="5" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 浪费 and 糟蹋 mean &quot;to waste.&quot; (I'm not really concerned with the other uses of 糟蹋 right now.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen the collocations 糟蹋粮食 and 糟蹋人才, and 浪费 is very common in phrases like 浪费时间 and 浪费水.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there situations where both 浪费 and 糟蹋 are acceptable? Are they only applied to different types of things? Is there a tonal difference between the two words? (糟蹋 seems stronger, but 浪费粮食 and 浪费人才 also sound OK to me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T06:25:20.867" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T13:25:25.157" Title="Tonal difference between 浪费 and 糟蹋" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1917" CreationDate="2012-08-07T03:26:19.377" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;糟蹋比浪费的语气更强烈。人们觉得很珍贵的物品被损坏或不被爱惜的使用了，通常是用糟蹋，而不会用浪费来形容。粮食可被浪费，可被糟蹋；人才可能被糟蹋，无法被浪费。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浪费：较为便宜的物品被损坏或不被爱惜的使用了，说话者觉得可惜但不心痛，会使用浪费这个词。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;糟蹋：很贵重的物品被损坏或不被爱惜的使用了，说话者有心痛的情绪，才会使用糟蹋这个词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;糟蹋 has a stronger tone than 浪费. When people feel a valuable object is being damaged or is not being used with care, one would usually use 糟蹋, and not 浪费. 粮食 can be 浪费 or 糟蹋; 人才 could be 糟蹋, but is unable to be 浪费.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浪费: use when a relatively inexpensive object is being damaged or used without care, when the speaker feels it's a waste but not in a painful way.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;糟蹋: use when a very valuable object is being damaged or used without care, or when the speaker feels pained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="900" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T05:27:17.327" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T05:27:17.327" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1917" CreationDate="2012-08-07T03:30:35.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this dictionary &lt;strong&gt;《小學生的國語辭典》(精)(小贏家)&lt;/strong&gt; approved by the Taiwanese Ministry of Education for primary school students:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;糟蹋&lt;/strong&gt;:任意浪費,不加以愛惜。&#xA;  例:不要糟蹋糧食。請注意:「&lt;strong&gt;糟蹋&lt;/strong&gt;」和「&lt;strong&gt;浪费&lt;/strong&gt;」都有任急耗費不加以愛惜的意思,但是有分別:「&lt;strong&gt;糟蹋&lt;/strong&gt;」除了指浪費外,還指損壞、任意破壞:「&lt;strong&gt;浪費&lt;/strong&gt;」指的是人力、財力、時間沒有好好運用,和「&lt;strong&gt;節約&lt;/strong&gt;」、「&lt;strong&gt;節省&lt;/strong&gt;」相反。「&lt;strong&gt;糟蹋&lt;/strong&gt;」的語意比「&lt;strong&gt;浪賨&lt;/strong&gt;」重。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w6lxw.png&quot; alt=&quot;meaning for 糟&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated:&#xA;Both terms contain the meaning of indiscriminate wastage and not treasuring of the subject. But there is a distinction in that &lt;code&gt;糟蹋&lt;/code&gt;, besides possessing the meaning of &lt;code&gt;浪費&lt;/code&gt;, also includes some form of ruining or destroying at will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;糟蹋&lt;/code&gt; is a much stronger term to use than &lt;code&gt;浪費&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个数学题很难，浪费了我不少时间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I wasted quite some time attempting this difficult maths question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这蛋糕你不吃就算，别把它给糟蹋了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please don't ruin the cake if you don't want to eat it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-08-20T17:24:27.397" LastActivityDate="2012-08-20T17:24:27.397" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="117" CreationDate="2012-08-07T05:44:07.017" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Above answers provide a few Chinese word games, but I think most of them are a little too hard for beginners. Here I suggest an easier word game I played with my wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the beginning of the game, you thought (usually) two letters, for example &quot;SC&quot;. Then all players must say Chinese words whose “声母” meets SC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Player A: 市场  Shi Chang  -&gt; SC &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Player B: 生存  Sheng Cun  -&gt; SC &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Player C: 时常  Shi Chang  -&gt; SC &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Player A: ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the game the players can learn both PinYin and words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="901" LastEditorUserId="901" LastEditDate="2014-06-05T03:46:11.093" LastActivityDate="2014-06-05T03:46:11.093" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1915" CreationDate="2012-08-07T08:45:27.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Process: 制程 sounds strange, maybe 流程 is better (but it depends on the context).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="901" LastActivityDate="2012-08-07T08:45:27.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1915" CreationDate="2012-08-07T09:52:45.860" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without complete context I am just going with the most common translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Process 流程&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Frequency 频率&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check List Item Caption: 清单项标题 (项目 also means 'project' which can be confusing)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Repeat Observation 是否多次观察到 or 是否多次发生 (是否 makes it explicit that it's a Yes-No question; 多次 is neutral while 一再 has slight derogatory tone but both are fine) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Policy 政策 (company policy &amp;lt;=&gt; 公司政策 is a common translation. 方针 is more like 'direction; principle'.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Order Index: 顺序编号 or 订单编号, depending on whether Order here means sequencing (顺序) or written request (订单). Don't use 秩序指数, it's not understood.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-08-07T09:52:45.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1923" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1924" CreationDate="2012-08-07T15:16:58.927" Score="5" ViewCount="692" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started to learn Chinese like one month ago and I'm facing a first misunderstanding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my book it says that &lt;code&gt;快&lt;/code&gt; can be used to say &lt;em&gt;&quot;soon&quot;&lt;/em&gt; but &lt;code&gt;快要&lt;/code&gt; is also used to express the same thing. Is there a difference or I can use both in every situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="903" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T20:35:52.983" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T20:35:52.983" Title="What's the difference between 快 and 快要?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1923" CreationDate="2012-08-07T15:45:36.970" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't really a difference in the two if you are using it to mean &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;soon&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;, except that &lt;code&gt;快要&lt;/code&gt; is more formal than &lt;code&gt;快&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他快死了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他快要死了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is dying soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;快&lt;/code&gt; is just a shorten form of &lt;code&gt;快要&lt;/code&gt; when used in such context and it is quite commonly used in speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-08-07T16:05:40.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1925" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1926" CreationDate="2012-08-07T20:33:15.377" Score="14" ViewCount="2269" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_radicals&quot;&gt;the list of Kangxi radicals over at Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, I just noticed something I haven't noticed before. Radical number 34 (夂) and 35 (夊) are virtually identical. I write these radicals in the exact same way and I've asked one native speaker who also says she writes them the same way. The example characters are 夆 and 夏.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I mostly use radicals to learn/teach mnemonics, I realise that the difference between these two is irrelevant. They mean (almost) the same thing and can therefore be used as one for mnemonic purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm still curious about these two radicals. Is there a difference in how they are written? Is there a difference in meaning? And finally, how come that there are two very similar radicals which also has very similar meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T20:55:38.563" Title="Is there a difference between 夂 and 夊?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1925" CreationDate="2012-08-07T20:55:52.537" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between the two in writing should be clear from these drawings: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_35&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_35&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_34&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_34&lt;/a&gt; and the stroke animations from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A4%8A&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A4%8A&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A4%82&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A4%82&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夂 is normally used at the top (for example 条條修脩务務夐) or the left (for example 处) of a character, and 夊 at the bottom (for example 愛夏复) or the right (for example 致, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com/d/173/d80.htm&quot;&gt;http://zhongwen.com/d/173/d80.htm&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally both characters were quite different (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A4%8A&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A4%8A&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A4%82&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A4%82&lt;/a&gt;), but nowadays there are typically both written as 夂 by most people and most fonts don't make the distinction anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-08-07T21:02:50.220" LastActivityDate="2012-08-07T21:02:50.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1927" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1930" CreationDate="2012-08-08T10:10:09.107" Score="5" ViewCount="582" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence: 你明天这个时候会是在做什么?, I find 会 useless, especially since its English translation on &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/334624&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt; does not seem to reflect its sense.&#xA;What meaning does it carry here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="908" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T08:08:30.023" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T08:08:30.023" Title="What’s the meaning of 会 in 你明天这个时候会是在做什么?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1917" CreationDate="2012-08-08T11:08:45.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you hate the subject, use 糟蹋。 the subject is used to be considered as cheaper than the object. Or you have sympathy with the object, you can use 糟蹋. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="911" LastActivityDate="2012-08-08T11:08:45.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1927" CreationDate="2012-08-08T11:17:09.283" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found something similar, to me, &quot;would&quot; in &quot;what would you do tomorrow this time?&quot; is meaningless. I guess 会 here means &quot;possibly&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="911" LastActivityDate="2012-08-08T11:17:09.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1927" CreationDate="2012-08-08T11:18:11.440" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你明天这个时候会是在做什么?&lt;/code&gt; is not a very fluent sentence construction. I would have re-written it as &lt;code&gt;你明天这个时候会做什么?&lt;/code&gt; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;会&lt;/code&gt; is not useless. It carries the meaning of &quot;likely&quot; in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What will you be (likely) doing at this time tomorrow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way sentences are expressed in Chinese is not the same as it is done in English. What appears to be redundant in English need not be redundant in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above example, because you can't predict what another person will be doing tomorrow, &lt;code&gt;会&lt;/code&gt; has to be included in the Chinese sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the English sentence, the phrase &quot;will... be&quot; already expresses the meaning of likelihood in the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-08-08T11:18:11.440" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1894" CreationDate="2012-08-09T06:40:51.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I learned Chinese, the program I was in had reading passages in both short (simplified) and long (traditional) form. From day 1, however, I forced myself to only read the long form, and practiced writing both. I feel that it was absolutely the correct decision, as you will almost always be able to recognize a short form character if you know the long form, but it can be harder to go the other way around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned, geographic interest is a key factor, too. South China and a lot of China towns in the US (I'm not sure where you are located) has a lot of signage in long form. Taiwan uses long form exclusively. If your focus is solely on speaking, however, then this might not be so much of an issue for you. I will say that my classmates that blew off long form generally had a tough time retaining vocab and recognizing characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that learning Chinese is a MARATHON. The language is extremely deep and has been evolving for thousands of years. Have fun and don't force yourself to learn it all at once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="912" LastActivityDate="2012-08-09T06:40:51.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1933" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1937" CreationDate="2012-08-09T11:08:21.013" Score="8" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;厨房壁炉架上的那面镜子就把哈利吓了一跳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below are my translation variants. Bold letters should be a 'jiu' english analog here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The mirror on top of the kitchen's fireplace scared Harry &lt;strong&gt;the most&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Even&lt;/strong&gt; a (simple) mirror on top of the kitchen's fireplace was enought to scare Harry.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The mirror on top of the kitchen's fireplace scared &lt;strong&gt;the hell otta&lt;/strong&gt; Harry.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does it mean with 就 and what about without it? I know it should emphasis something, but my russian brain just can't get hold of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more example of the same construction: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Context&lt;/strong&gt; (paragraph before target):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他父母留给他的一点可怜的财产，存在古灵阁的地下金库里。当然，他的钱只能在魔法世界里使用，你不能在麻瓜的商店里用加隆、西可和纳特买东西。哈利从没向德思礼一家提起他在古灵阁的存款，他认为他们虽然惧怕与魔法有关的一切，但这种恐惧大概不会扩展到一大堆金币上面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;THE GAP HERE!!! I mean J.K. started the target sentence from a NEW LINE!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;到了下星期三，韦斯莱夫人一大早就把他们叫醒了&lt;/strong&gt;。他们每人匆匆吃了五六块咸肉三明治，然后穿好外套。韦斯莱夫人从厨房壁炉架上端起一只花盆，朝里面看着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so you see... it's given (in the book) WITHOUT any context as far as I understand the word context :)!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="913" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-08-10T09:29:24.813" LastActivityDate="2012-09-03T00:10:29.270" Title="That mystical 就 again" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1933" CreationDate="2012-08-09T11:48:59.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the second sentence, 就 is a kind of emphasis. The first is a little bit more complex. The meaning is, not to say more, only 厨房壁炉架上的那面镜子 has already scared 哈利. So, 2. in your question is the best in the 3 to explain the meaning of 就.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="914" LastEditorUserId="914" LastEditDate="2012-08-09T16:19:05.373" LastActivityDate="2012-08-09T16:19:05.373" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1894" CreationDate="2012-08-09T13:11:04.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, which type of language you want to learn depends on where you want to go and where the people you contact are from. As Question Overflow mentioned above, traditional Chinese is used mainly in Taiwan, Hong Kong and other southeast countries. While in the mainland, incomputable publications and resources are used in simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my experience. I learned simplified Chinese first, and hadn't come across any text written in traditional Chinese for a long period. Last year I became curious about the history of China and borrowed some books from the library, which turned out to be printed totally in traditional. Without any hesitation, I spent almost two months studying traditional, and it was quite easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is that try to master either one of them, then it won't take you long to switch to another. Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="635" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-08-11T08:53:55.470" LastActivityDate="2012-08-11T08:53:55.470" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1933" CreationDate="2012-08-10T00:48:27.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am going to stick with your first example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of 就 is reliant on the phrase or sentence that precedes the current one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence: &quot;韦斯莱家却充满了神奇和意外&quot; introduces the premise of the situation. The fact that the house of the Wesleys is full of mysteries and surprises primes the reader for what comes next. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that Harry's startled by a mere mirror is the result of this premise. So the use of 就 here is to emphasize on &lt;em&gt;how easily&lt;/em&gt; he's prone to be startled in a house like this. It's the result of the premise that leads up to this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the sentence: &quot;厨房壁炉架上的那面镜子就把哈利吓了一跳&quot; without any context sounds very strange as the reader/listener expects a condition to precede it, whereas if you remove the use of 就, it becomes a simple statement that expresses a fact without any antecedent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-08-10T03:00:26.657" LastActivityDate="2012-08-10T03:00:26.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1933" CreationDate="2012-08-10T07:47:15.917" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Relating to your first sentence: 韦斯莱家却充满了神奇和意外。厨房壁炉架上的那面镜子就把哈利吓了一跳。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 就 is the 12th meaning of 就 as an adverb in 《现代汉语词典》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表示事实正是如此：那就是他的家 ㄧ这人就是他哥哥ㄧ幼儿园就在这个胡同里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's meaning  12e in 《现代汉语规范词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表示事实如此。 这儿就是我的家 | 车站就前面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It &lt;em&gt;expresses that the facts or the situation are really like this&lt;/em&gt;.&#xA;It can be seen as an illustration of or a proof for the previous sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Relating to your second sentence: 到了下星期三，韦斯莱夫人一大早就把他们叫醒了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pattern of 就 is explained here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1906/540&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1906/540&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I'm not going to copy the answer I gave there :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-08-11T06:28:18.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1894" CreationDate="2012-08-10T08:09:13.667" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a difficult questions, since most people are quite religious about this topic. For some reason they prefer one over the other and say this one is the best one to learn first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning Chinese characters takes a huge effort and most need many years for that, however once you know one set learning the other one is relatively easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wiki says that the Jianhuazi zong biao lists 350 individually&#xA;  simplified characters, 132 generalisable simplified characters and 14&#xA;  simplified radicals. All other simplifications are simply variation of&#xA;  the latter two simplifications (thousands of them, but applied in a&#xA;  standard and predictable way), or standardising on a more simple&#xA;  variant in place of a more complex variant of the same character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This means that there are 500 characters that are significantly&#xA;  different between the two sets, and the rest appear to me to be easy&#xA;  (e.g. 説 = 说, 錢 = 钱, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So the extra effort one needs to invest into learning traditional&#xA;  characters after knowing the simplified set (or the other way around)&#xA;  amounts to learning about 500 characters. Since one should aspire to&#xA;  knowing about 3000 as some sort of arbitrary standard of literacy,&#xA;  this doesn't strike me as a huge deal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/14713-learning-hanzi-the-eternal-dilemma-of-simple-or-traditional/page__st__20__p__150151&amp;amp;#entry150151&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/14713-learning-hanzi-the-eternal-dilemma-of-simple-or-traditional/page_&lt;em&gt;st&lt;/em&gt;_20_&lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt;_150151&amp;amp;#entry150151&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also take a look on this page: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/25651-learning-traditional-characters-after-studying-simplified-for-4-years/#entry214033&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/25651-learning-traditional-characters-after-studying-simplified-for-4-years/#entry214033&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 10 hours mentioned on the last page is a bit optimistic, but it is certainly quite manageable once you already know that many characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also more or less all educated Chinese from the mainland can read traditional characters, and more or less all educated Chinese from Hongkong and Taiwanese people can read simplified characters. Not because they explicitly learned them, but due to exposure for example as subtitles from movies, songs or the internet. Once you have reached a certain level it's not that difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What to choose first depends on your personal situation. I would first study what you think you will encounter most. For example if you often plan to go to Taiwan or Hongkong or especially want to view Taiwanese or Hongkong soap operas or movies (while learning Chinese most people are better at reading than listening, so the subtitles are of huge help) or have friends from Taiwan or Hongkong, start with traditional characters. If you on the other hand think you'll more often encounter simplified characters, choose simplified characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-08-19T18:48:19.143" LastActivityDate="2012-08-19T18:48:19.143" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1939" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-10T14:01:09.913" Score="3" ViewCount="520" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reviewing the HSK1-limited-part1 flash card deck on Anki, and I keep coming accross this one flash card. On the front, it says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;母牛流产了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and for the definition,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The cow cast her calf&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this mean (in Chinese OR English?) How is this used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="751" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-08T08:06:19.223" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T14:53:53.487" Title="&quot;母牛流产了“ － &quot;The cow cast her calf&quot;? HSK Anki flash cards" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1940" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1942" CreationDate="2012-08-10T14:08:30.983" Score="6" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the purpose of &lt;code&gt;已&lt;/code&gt; in the following sentence？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好像她已出去好几天了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English translation given is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It looks as if she's gone away for a few days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is this an incorrect-character, supposed to be something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="751" LastActivityDate="2012-09-14T03:53:58.080" Title="What is the function of 已 in 好像她已出去好几天了。" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1939" CreationDate="2012-08-10T14:34:02.987" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;流产 means &quot;to have a miscarriage, to have an abortion&quot;. The former in case it happened as a natural process, the latter in case it was enforced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can translate 母牛流产了 means &quot;the cow had a miscarriage&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To cast means &quot;To give birth prematurely&quot; in this context, so the translation is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This definitely is not something you need to know for HSK 1 (even for the old exam).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-08-10T14:39:12.860" LastActivityDate="2012-08-10T14:39:12.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1940" CreationDate="2012-08-10T14:43:08.393" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here 已 has the same meaning as 已经 and means already. When speaking one would normally use 已经, but in written documents 已 can be found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate 好像她已出去好几天了 as &quot;It seems she's already been gone for some days&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-08-11T06:26:44.540" LastActivityDate="2012-08-11T06:26:44.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1943" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1945" CreationDate="2012-08-10T22:12:24.700" Score="4" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that the sentence means something like &quot;This disease was eradicated 30 years ago&quot;, but I have no idea what role does 被 have in it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the sentence okay if we remove it? Does it convey any special meaning when present?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastActivityDate="2013-06-04T22:05:27.023" Title="What is 被 doing in sentence &quot;这种病在三十年前就被根除了&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1943" CreationDate="2012-08-11T00:19:32.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;被 is the passive voice. It is the &quot;was&quot; in &quot;the disease was eradicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is not the usual &quot;was&quot; in the sense of 是, which is a &quot;state&quot; verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, the implication of 被 is, &quot;was done.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-08-11T00:19:32.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1943" CreationDate="2012-08-11T00:28:03.060" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;被 + verb = passive form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;根除 = eradicate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;被根除 = be eradicated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some verbs have active form with passive meaning. 根除 is one of them. So it's fine to remove 被 from this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(These verbs are very similar to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergative_verb&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ergative verbs&lt;/a&gt; in English but mainstream Chinese grammar doesn't interpret them as ergative verbs.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-05-29T17:53:03.437" LastActivityDate="2013-05-29T17:53:03.437" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1910" CreationDate="2012-08-11T00:30:17.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;下次 literally means &quot;next time.&quot; But if you've &quot;sworn off&quot; something for the next time, 下次我不做了, the implication is that you won't do it again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An idiomatic English translation is, &quot;There won't be a next time.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="52" LastEditDate="2013-02-07T23:15:19.740" LastActivityDate="2013-02-07T23:15:19.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1947" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1949" CreationDate="2012-08-11T23:54:42.103" Score="1" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;The quote&quot;我很想询问奸雄所见略同的由来&quot; seems very interesting to me. And in &lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.com/?hl=en&amp;amp;sugexp=les;&amp;amp;cp=10&amp;amp;gs_id=12&amp;amp;xhr=t&amp;amp;q=evil%20insurance%20companies&amp;amp;rlz=1C2RNKA_enUS490US490&amp;amp;bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&amp;amp;biw=1280&amp;amp;bih=636&amp;amp;um=1&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;sa=N&amp;amp;tab=wT#zh-CN/en/%E6%88%91%E5%BE%88%E6%83%B3%E8%AF%A2%E9%97%AE%E5%A5%B8%E9%9B%84%E6%89%80%E8%A7%81%E7%95%A5%E5%90%8C%E7%9A%84%E7%94%B1%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;, it translates to &quot;I would like to ask the king's men great minds think alike the origin of.&quot; It doesn't seem to make sense. What is the piece of important Chinese history this derives from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="922" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-08-13T07:40:03.633" LastActivityDate="2012-08-13T07:40:03.633" Title="询问奸雄所见略同的由来 and how does it relate to chinese" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1583" CreationDate="2012-08-12T00:08:54.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If HE or SHE comes from Mainland of China, then you should say &quot;WO AI NI&quot;. &quot;WO AI NI&quot; is a Chinese Mandarin / Han Yu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If HE or SHE use Hokkien (Hokkian) AND from Indonesia (mostly from Medan city) or Singapore or Malay, then I suggest you to say &quot;WA AI LO&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WA = I / me &lt;br&gt;&#xA;AI = love / want (to) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;LO = you &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some speaking of Hokkien ( Medan, Indonesia version ) : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wa ai lo.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Means : I love you / I want you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wa ai khi.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Means : I want to go&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lo hokkien esai ?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Means : Can you speak Hokkien ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lo ciak liao boi ? Wa ciak hamik.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Means : Have you eat(breakfast/lunch/dinner) ? I'm already eat(breakfast/lunch/dinner).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ce / No / Sa / Si / Nggo / Lak / Jit / Pek / Kao / Cap&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Means : 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Sometimes I use this for conversations with my friends (from Medan, Indonesia).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this help ^o^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="665" LastEditorUserId="665" LastEditDate="2012-08-12T00:15:41.610" LastActivityDate="2012-08-12T00:15:41.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1947" CreationDate="2012-08-12T02:12:46.720" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the web search, It was first appeared in &quot;&amp;lt;三国志·蜀书·庞统传&gt; with annotations by 裴松之&quot;, it first appeared as &quot;天下智谋之士所见略同耳&quot;. and then it was used as 英雄所见略同 in some later books. 英雄(Heroes, Great Leaders...) instead of 智谋之士( aka 谋士, counsellors to emperors).  Literally, It can be interpreted as: Heroes ( to kings/emperors) share same points of views and strategies, or Heroes' points of views are a bit similar. The difference is from the interpretation of the char 略, e.g 略 as in 战略 (strategy), or 略 as in 略有所闻 (a bit). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the widely used translation for this idiom is &quot;Great minds think alike&quot;, it doesn't matter which interpretation you used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastActivityDate="2012-08-12T02:12:46.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1950" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1951" CreationDate="2012-08-12T02:34:20.157" Score="4" ViewCount="758" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know in depth detail, what is the meaning of this expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How come there is only a few people saying it? Old and not died is a good thing in my mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="922" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-25T00:16:08.573" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T00:16:08.573" Title="What is the meaning of 老不死 exactly?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1950" CreationDate="2012-08-12T03:35:41.093" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;老不死 == 老而不死 being old, but not die; It implies some old guy should die as soon as possible, rather than stay alive, wasting food and hurting others... etc. &#xA;It's used to curse some old people whom you hate and consider to be useless to others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't mean Chinese think old is bad, instead Chinese people have a tradition to support old people.. Whereas, if there's someone who did nothing good when he was young, accomplished nothing when he was an adult, stays alive when old, and keeps hurting people around, his life then is considered useless and even harmful to others. You then can call him 老不死, to curse him to die early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there are some people who hate old people and think they are useless all over the word. For this kind of people, they might just use the word 老不死 to refer to any old people, in a derogatory way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original of the word was from Confucius. 子曰: 幼而不孙弟, 長而無述焉, 老而不死, 是為賊. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-08-12T06:04:18.533" LastActivityDate="2012-08-12T06:04:18.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1950" CreationDate="2012-08-12T11:15:32.233" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to supplement Fivesheep's answer with some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest equivalent I can find for &lt;code&gt;老不死&lt;/code&gt; in English is &quot;old fart&quot;. This is a very disrespectful way of addressing a senior person whom you despise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那老不死的为什么还不搬走?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why haven't that old fart move out of the house?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the term &lt;code&gt;老不死&lt;/code&gt; is usually used in a derogatory manner, it doesn't preclude some women from using it on their husband. It really depends on the tone and the level of relationship between the addressee and the addresser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你这老不死的，为什么那么晚才回来?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why the hell did you come back home so late?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The angry wife is swearing (not cursing) at her husband for coming home late, perhaps suspecting him of doing something up to no good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is quite similar in usage to &lt;code&gt;死鬼老公&lt;/code&gt; which some women may use on their husband when in a foul mood. In this case, it doesn't mean that the wife want her husband dead and become a ghost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-08-12T11:15:32.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1953" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1954" CreationDate="2012-08-12T17:54:01.243" Score="4" ViewCount="1371" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is what I think and how it is named: In &lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.com/?q=%E5%BE%B7%20extreme&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;rlz=1C2RNKA_enUS490US490&amp;amp;prmd=imvnsa&amp;amp;um=1&amp;amp;bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&amp;amp;biw=1280&amp;amp;bih=584&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;sa=N&amp;amp;tab=pT#zh-CN/en/%E5%BE%B7%0A%0A%E5%9B%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google translate&lt;/a&gt; it says it means &quot;virtue country&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is probably wrong but here it is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China is an alliy of America, and America boosted up the nuke technology and sped up the surrender of the Japanese by Germany. Is it correct, if it is not truth, then how come it was named the virtuous country?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="922" LastEditorUserId="23334" LastEditDate="2020-02-03T12:26:14.010" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T12:26:14.010" Title="Why is 德国 the “virtue country”?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1953" CreationDate="2012-08-12T19:06:50.560" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;德 is phonetic transcription of Deutsche.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly 法 in 法国 is phonetic transcription of France, not &quot;the country of law&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-08-12T19:06:50.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1953" CreationDate="2012-08-12T19:14:30.533" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Germany#Names_from_East_Asia&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; (bolding added):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Chinese name is probably a phonetic approximation of the German&#xA;  proper adjective. The Vietnamese name is based on the Chinese name.&#xA;  The Japanese name is a phonetic approximation of the Dutch proper&#xA;  adjective. Noticeably, the characters with which the Chinese name is&#xA;  written have a flattering connotation while the Japanese characters&#xA;  are degrading. This is consistent with naming patterns of the two&#xA;  countries during the nineteenth century. The Korean name is based on&#xA;  the Japanese name. This is explained in detail below: &lt;strong&gt;The common&#xA;  Chinese name (Traditional: 德國, Simplified: 德国, Pinyin: Déguó) is a&#xA;  combination of the short form of 德意志 déyìzhì, which approximates the&#xA;  German pronunciation [ˈdɔʏtʃ] of Deutsch ‘German’, plus 國 guó&#xA;  ‘country’.&lt;/strong&gt; The character 德 by itself means &quot;moral&quot; and is thus&#xA;  consistent with the Chinese pattern names of choosing characters which&#xA;  are not only phonetically comparable with national names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2012-09-04T05:27:06.797" LastActivityDate="2012-09-04T05:27:06.797" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1958" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-13T08:51:18.470" Score="1" ViewCount="422" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Possible Duplicate:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/511/what-etymology-dictionaries-are-available&quot;&gt;What etymology dictionaries are available?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/1838/43&quot;&gt;What was this online dictionary's name with ancient traditional and simplified characters and etymology?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always wanted to see where some Chinese characters originated from. Are there any websites that will show me how a Chinese character came into being?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I'm interested on how 讀 has 賣 on its right yet sounds nothing like each other, nor have any similar meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T09:15:50.467" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T09:15:50.467" Title="Is there any website of where I can look up the origins of a Chinese character?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2012-08-13T16:58:43.197" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1958" CreationDate="2012-08-13T09:51:42.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, almost certainly a duplicate question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you raise an interesting question: why does 讀 have 賣 (mai4) on its right hand side?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In actual fact, the right hand side is a character pronounced yu4 (which looks similar to 竇 but which I cannot find in my IME) which was simplified to 賣 in the clerical script. Why does yu4 not sound much like du2? Well, according to Baxter's reconstruction of Old Chinese, they did: 讀 (*lôk), 賣 (*luk).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="390" LastEditDate="2012-08-13T10:28:14.580" LastActivityDate="2012-08-13T10:28:14.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1958" CreationDate="2012-08-13T15:54:21.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can provite a website &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It was set up by Richard Horace Sears.&#xA;Maybe it can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="925" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2016-04-27T10:38:28.130" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T10:38:28.130" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1963" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-14T11:01:58.870" Score="14" ViewCount="1076" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to pronounce the word &quot;下载&quot;, &quot;xià zǎi&quot; or &quot;xià zài&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese people pronounce it &quot;xià zǎi&quot;, but there are some people insist on pronouncing it &quot;xià zài&quot;. There are different also different pronunciations in different dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The followings are the interpretations of the character &quot;载&quot; from zdic.net:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;● 载 （載）zǎi  ㄗㄞˇ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;年；岁：千～难逢。三年两～。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;记录；刊登；描绘：记～。连～。转～。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;● 载 （載）zài  ㄗㄞˋ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;装，用交通工具装：～客。～货。～重。～体。装～。满～而归。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;充满：怨声～道。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;乃，于是（古文里常用来表示同时做两个动作）：～歌～舞。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;姓。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;载&quot; of &quot;下载&quot; has the same meaning as &quot;load&quot; of &quot;download&quot;, but which meaning should we choose? The second meaning of &quot;zǎi&quot; or the first meaning of &quot;zài&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I visited an online dictionary site of the Ministry of Education of R.O.C. (http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw). The followings are the interpretations of the character &quot;载&quot; there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;● 載　　部首：車　部首外筆畫：6　總筆畫：13  ㄗㄞˇ  zǎi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;量詞。計算時間的單位。相當於「年」。如：「一年半載」、「三年五載」、「千載難逢」。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;● 載　　部首　車　部首外筆畫　6　總筆畫　13  ㄗㄞˋ  zài&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;乘坐。說文解字：「載，乘也。」史記˙卷二十九˙河渠書：「陸行載車，水行載舟。」唐˙孟郊˙感興詩：「吾欲載車馬，太行路崢嶸。」&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;裝運。如：「載人」、「載貨」。唐˙李白˙懷仙歌：「巨鼇莫載三山去，我欲蓬萊頂上行。」&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;記錄。如：「記載」、「刊載」、「轉載」。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;承受。易經˙坤卦˙象曰：「君子以厚德載物。」三國志˙卷二十七˙魏書˙王基傳：「臣聞古人以水喻民，曰：『水所以載舟，亦所以覆舟。』」&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;充滿。如：「怨聲載道」。唐˙李白˙天長節度使鄂州刺史韋公德政碑：「頌聲載路，豐碑是刊。」&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;conjs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;且、又。同時做兩個動作。如：「載歌載舞」。詩經˙鄘風˙載馳：「載馳載驅，歸唁衛侯。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no interpretation we can choose if it is pronounced zǎi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="929" LastEditorUserId="929" LastEditDate="2012-08-15T13:04:36.780" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T01:28:41.420" Title="How to pronounce &quot;下载&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1963" CreationDate="2012-08-14T12:33:27.870" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a difficult one.&#xA;Just by looking at the meanings of the characters, I would say the 4th tone is slightly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also checked some dictionaries for 下载 as a word and as you already mentioed, they don't agree on this one (and online resources also don't).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples from reference works for xiàzǎi and xiàzài:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;xiàzǎi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《现代汉语规范词典》 has this definition:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下载 [xiàzǎi]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;动 将互联网或其他电子计算机上的信息资料复制到本台计算机上&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Collins Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;xiàzài &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanban&quot;&gt;汉办&lt;/a&gt; has an official list of what you need to know for the new HSK (with Pinyin), and there it is xiàzài &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Comprehensive Chinese-English Dictionary &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I'm in doubt I normally rely on 《现代汉语规范词典》 and 汉办 but here they are in disagreement. I think in this case there is no right answer and both pronunciations are acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-08-14T13:29:37.837" LastActivityDate="2012-08-14T13:29:37.837" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1963" CreationDate="2012-08-14T14:53:01.900" Score="12" Body="&lt;h2&gt;What the online community thinks&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/4238.htm&quot;&gt;Baidu 百科&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;准确读音&lt;/strong&gt; xià zài&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　“下载”这个词，规范读音按照&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/98457.htm&quot;&gt;现代汉语词典&lt;/a&gt;、现代汉语规范词典等权威字典的标注应为“xià zài”。随着电脑的普及，这个词使用的频率越来越高，但可惜的是绝大多数人一开口就是从网上“xià zǎi”，就连播音员、主持人也读“xià zǎi”，如央视的晚间新闻在播送“网络侵权BT下载”时就读成“xià zǎi”。可以说电台、电视台的播音员、节目主持人对“xià zǎi”这个错误的读音起了推波助澜的作用。就目前的趋势来看，要推广“下载”的正确读音已非常困难，已经习非成是了。这些现象给人一种感觉，好像电台、电视台的播音员、节目主持人的发音很随意，因为这些错误的读音许多是在同一个播音员或主持人嘴里反复发出的，而这些错误的读音又严重影响了普通话规范语音的推广普及。这是当前语言文字规范化工作中不容忽视的一个问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says: According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/98457.htm&quot;&gt;Modern Chinese Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; and other authoritative sources, the accurate pronunciation should be &quot;xià zài&quot;. But due to the proliferation of computers and rise in the usage frequency of this term, the great majority of the people when they speak, pronounce it as “xià zǎi”. This includes radio and tv hosts, and even a newscaster from CCTV. This mispronunciation has a rippling effect that from current trend seems difficult to reverse and has already become a norm. The phenomenon seems to give one the impression that the these professionals are very lax in their pronunciation. However, the mistake, in most occasions, originated from one host or one presenter, repeated over a number of times. These mispronunciations have seriously impeded the popularisation and standardization of Mandarin as the universal dialect, and is a problem that should not be ignored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above is further corroborated with answers to the same question &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/30739489.html&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;What a research shows&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an interesting research paper on this “下载”的读音和释义 (&lt;code&gt;http://202.194.40.31:8080/ec2006/C234/res/7/res/201010241009%5B29477%5D.pdf&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The two most authoritative dictionaries give different&#xA;interpretations of the same term:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;下载 xià zài&lt;/strong&gt;: 从互联网或其他计算机上获取信息并装入到某台计算机或其他电子装置上 (跟 “上传” 相对)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《现代汉语词典》(第 5 版)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;下载  xià zǎi&lt;/strong&gt;: 将互联网或其他电子计算机上的信息资料复制到本台计算机上 (跟 “上载” 相对)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《现代汉语规范词典》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;According to research [see table], most of the dictionaries indicate&#xA;  the pronunciation as &quot;xià zài&quot;, however this is inconclusive since&#xA;  many of the minor dictionaries take reference from the more&#xA;  authoritative sources such as《现代汉语词典》and《新华词典》.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;According to a classroom survey of about 500, 68% respondents&#xA;  indicated that they pronounce the term as &quot;xià zǎi&quot; while 32%&#xA;  pronounce as &quot;xià zài&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;An &lt;a href=&quot;http://ccl.pku.edu.cn/poll/result.asp?wj_id=3&quot;&gt;online poll&lt;/a&gt; was also conducted with a clear majority of 94%&#xA;  pronouncing the term as &quot;xià zǎi&quot; out of 225 respondents.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;记载&quot; and &quot;装载&quot; are the two most closely associated terms with &quot;下载&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The word &quot;载&quot; is derived from &quot;车&quot; and &quot;装载&quot; precedes &quot;记载&quot; which is&#xA;  derived from &quot;containing&quot; in a metaphorical sense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  The above are some points put forth by the author, I left out part of his argument and conclusion which I find subjective and highly debatable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Justifications&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of &quot;xià zǎi&quot; can be justified to be derived from the term &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/749286.htm&quot;&gt;记载&lt;/a&gt;&quot; (jì zǎi) since &quot;下载&quot; or download refers to receiving a copy of the original file on the local system. The action of copying can be taken to mean recording or &quot;记载&quot; although it is not so obvious to some.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of &quot;xià zài&quot; can be justified by the single word &quot;载&quot; (zài) which means transporting. Downloading is a process of transmitting (or transporting) electronic data from the remote system to the local system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The verdict&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Inconclusive. Use whichever pronunciation that you feel can get the other party understand you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-08-19T02:23:48.780" LastActivityDate="2012-08-19T02:23:48.780" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1967" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1968" CreationDate="2012-08-14T16:20:22.637" Score="2" ViewCount="867" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Chinese book for beginners by Bellassen, it is stated that 国 cannot be used alone: it doesn't have a meaning on its own, and thus the word country/fatherland is 国家 and not 国.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However... I am surprised by the question 你是哪国人? (still in Bellassen's book). Would it be possible to ask 你是哪国家人吗? Are there other uses where 国 can be used alone, while still meaning country?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;edit:&lt;/strong&gt;  the word country/fatherland is indeed 国家 as stated in the answer below, and not 家国 as I first wrote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="834" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-08-15T14:11:50.960" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T00:55:23.990" Title="国家 vs. 国, when can 国 be used alone?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1967" CreationDate="2012-08-14T17:24:23.353" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You probably mean 国家 instead of 家国. 家国 doesn't exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是哪国家人吗  is not correct (nor is 你是哪国家人), but you can say 你是哪国家的人 or 你是哪国家的 (meaning: from which country are you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 你是哪国人, 国 is not really  on its own. You can treat 哪国人 as a unit (which is a short form for 哪国家的人).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In oral Chinese 国 is seldomly used on its own (but every character however has a meaning, and 国 on its own also means country), but is used in for example 国内 (inside this country, typically used to mean within China, 内 means inside) or 国旗 (national flag, 旗 means flag). The list of such examples is long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-08-15T05:46:02.797" LastActivityDate="2012-08-15T05:46:02.797" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1967" CreationDate="2012-08-14T20:59:34.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When used alone (like in a noun phrase), &lt;code&gt;国家&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;国&lt;/code&gt; are interchangeable, but there is a idiomatic tendency to use a word's multi-character form to make the sentence flow more &quot;stable&quot; (I am sure there is a concept/terminology for this but I don't know). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;code&gt;一个国家&lt;/code&gt;, as a noun phrase, sounds stable and complete. &lt;code&gt;一个国&lt;/code&gt; is not wrong but doesn't sound stable like something should follow. If you say &lt;code&gt;一个国，一个家，一个民族&lt;/code&gt; then the rhythm is satisfied and the phrase is now complete. When there are more and more characters in a phrase, the stability requirement of each single word is less important, so &lt;code&gt;国与国之间&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;国家与国家之间&lt;/code&gt; both sound natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In words that contains &lt;code&gt;国&lt;/code&gt; (e.g. &lt;code&gt;国旗&lt;/code&gt;), you can't replace it with &lt;code&gt;国家&lt;/code&gt; (i.e. &lt;code&gt;国家旗&lt;/code&gt; is not a word) simply because words are not free form. &lt;code&gt;哪国人&lt;/code&gt; can be seen as a word (as opposed to phrase) meaning &lt;code&gt;哪个国家的人&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-08-14T20:59:34.257" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1970" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-15T01:18:21.377" Score="6" ViewCount="350" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've tried out various language learning software (Rosetta Stone, Tell Me More, Transparent), and I've been severely disappointed by the fact that not one of them actually teaches you the LANGUAGE, they teach phrases and basic communication, but it's all done through repetition and association, rather than actual cognition.&#xA;I'm looking for a piece of software that teaches a variety of languages (ideally Spanish, Mandarin, Russian, Japanese, and German at least) by teaching you the mechanics of the language, rather than simply having me repeat phrases back at the screen and perform matching games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, with Spanish, I'd like this software to teach me the language's pronunciation rules and letters, conjugation of verbs, give me categorized lists of common verbs, point out irregulars and what their irregularities are, separate the various tenses, and overall teach the structure of the language so I can get to the point where I could read and write the language given only a dictionary, and eventually understand it given enough memorized vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this software exists, I would be grateful to whoever could point me to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="932" LastEditorUserId="932" LastEditDate="2012-08-15T01:36:36.720" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T08:27:34.880" Title="Language Learning Software That Teaches Mechanics (Not Phrases)" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1971" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1972" CreationDate="2012-08-15T17:33:56.150" Score="7" ViewCount="628" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sure like many students of Chinese, my first encounter with the character &lt;code&gt;留&lt;/code&gt; was in the word &lt;code&gt;留学&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &quot;to study abroad&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some time later I encountered &lt;code&gt;留&lt;/code&gt; as an independent word, meaning &quot;to stay&quot;. Most of the compounds with &lt;code&gt;留&lt;/code&gt; are consistent with that meaning (&lt;code&gt;停留&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;保留&lt;/code&gt;, etc.). However, &lt;code&gt;留学&lt;/code&gt; doesn't really make a lot of sense as &quot;stay&quot; + &quot;study&quot;. The dictionary was not very helpful, as it listed &lt;code&gt;留学&lt;/code&gt; as a (presumably obvious) example of &lt;code&gt;留&lt;/code&gt; meaning &quot;to stay in a place&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone proffer an explanation as to how &quot;staying a place studying&quot; came to mean &quot;study abroad&quot; as opposed to, say, &quot;going to boarding school&quot;? Perhaps someone knows something the history of either Chinese education and/or the usage of the word &lt;code&gt;留学&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T00:34:08.880" Title="留学: Why the use of &quot;留&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1971" CreationDate="2012-08-15T17:55:20.477" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is in this article:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dic123.com/A/D/D9/D9D_15223.html&quot;&gt;从&quot;出洋&quot;、&quot;游学&quot;到&quot;留学&quot;——晚清&quot;留学&quot;词源考&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is really a complicated history, but in short: During the Tang Dynasty Japanse students came to China to study. These were called 留学生 in Japan. During the Late Qing Dynasty 留学 was taken over in China and became more and more popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-08-15T18:54:09.373" LastActivityDate="2012-08-15T18:54:09.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1973" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-16T17:20:37.043" Score="6" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, if someone points to a book and says &quot;What's that?&quot;, &quot;A book&quot; is a sufficient reply. In Chinese, if someone points to a book and says &quot;这是什么？&quot;, can you say &quot;书&quot; or maybe &quot;一本书&quot;? What's the most natural and conversational response?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="937" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T23:29:23.007" Title="What's an appropriate conversational response to 这是什么？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="488" CreationDate="2012-08-16T17:44:01.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try &lt;a href=&quot;http://lingomi.com/blog/2011/03/practice-these-20-words-for-awesome-chinese-tones/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this drill&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's repetitive and boring but it covers all tone combinations. It builds muscle memory and helps train your ear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2012-08-16T17:44:01.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1973" CreationDate="2012-08-16T17:56:19.967" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most often, I would repeat 这是, so if you would ask me 这是什么? I would say 这是一本书. You can also say 一本书. But you can also just say 书.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-09-12T18:29:27.493" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T18:29:27.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="488" CreationDate="2012-08-16T18:05:22.413" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Qooco Chinese does something like this. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qoocochinese.com/web/OurTechnology.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.qoocochinese.com/web/OurTechnology.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also with Praat this is possible but not easy as with Qooco Chinese. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John on Sinosplice explains  how to use Praat for Chinese: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/01/21/seeing-the-tones-of-mandarin-chinese-with-praat&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/01/21/seeing-the-tones-of-mandarin-chinese-with-praat&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-08-16T18:23:29.737" LastActivityDate="2012-08-16T18:23:29.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1979" CreationDate="2012-08-17T00:34:54.317" Score="4" ViewCount="342" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found those translations of a &quot;table-tennis table&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;乒乓球桌&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  乒乓球台&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  乒乓球案子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching for pictures of them, all 3 appear to be the same thing. On &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mdbg.net/&lt;/a&gt; I only found 乒乓球台 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are those words interchangeable? Which is more commonly used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-08-20T11:34:27.687" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T16:18:31.403" Title="Table-tennis table: 乒乓球桌, 乒乓球台 or 乒乓球案子?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1977" CreationDate="2012-08-17T02:35:41.847" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first two are both commonly used. I have never heard of the third one, but a look on google shows usage. I suspect the third one is used more in Northern China, but this is just a guess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, since they refer to the same thing, you can use them interchangeably, but I'd stick with the first two just to be safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2012-08-17T02:35:41.847" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1977" CreationDate="2012-08-17T02:35:50.493" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;All three terms refer to the same thing - table tennis table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;乒乓球桌&lt;/code&gt; is a commonly used (1.58M results on Google, 2.60M results on Baidu) layman's term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;乒乓球台&lt;/code&gt; is the technical term (both &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1596244.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B9%92%E4%B9%93%E7%90%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; use&#xA; this term) and is commonly used (2.14M results on Google, 4.19M results on Baidu) as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;乒乓球案子&lt;/code&gt; is rarely used (0.21M results on Google, 0.13M results on Baidu) from my own personal experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used by itself,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;桌&lt;/code&gt; refers to a table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;台&lt;/code&gt; refers to a platform or a stage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;案子&lt;/code&gt; refers to a long table or a plank used as a make-shift table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are discussing about table tennis in general, you can also use &lt;code&gt;球桌&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;球台&lt;/code&gt; to refer to the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-08-18T02:47:00.763" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T02:47:00.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1977" CreationDate="2012-08-17T11:14:28.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;And in Cantonese, it is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兵乓波台&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pronounced, roughly, as &lt;code&gt;BING BUM BOR TOI&lt;/code&gt;, but often the second sound is shortened and quick, to &lt;code&gt;BING um BOR TOI&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="940" LastActivityDate="2012-08-17T11:14:28.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1971" CreationDate="2012-08-18T00:34:08.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate 留(at least in this context), as to &quot;sojourn,&quot; rather than to &quot;stay.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then 留学 would mean to &quot;sojourn and study,&quot; or &quot;study abroad.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T00:34:08.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1967" CreationDate="2012-08-18T00:55:23.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;国 is an abbreviation for 国家. The latter loosely translates to &quot;national family.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were talking about a country as a concept, you'd say&quot;一个国家.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you were talking about specific countries, you'd use 国as an &quot;abbreviation&quot; after a specifier:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德 国, &quot;Deutschland,&quot; or Germany.&#xA;Or 法国, France.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T00:55:23.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1963" CreationDate="2012-08-18T15:27:55.097" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;就算正确读法是 xia4 zai4 ，在中国大陆还是读 xia4 zai3合适，因为大家都这么读，除非你在台湾。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though the correct pronunciation is xia4 zai4, in mainland China it's still pronounced xia4 zai3, because everyone pronounces it this way, except in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="902" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-08-18T17:16:54.247" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T17:16:54.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11" CreationDate="2012-08-18T18:29:00.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use 上 or 以上 for on top or (immediately) above, and 之上 or 上方 for over (more remote).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上面 refers to a surface, e.g. the top of a table or bed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-08-18T21:50:08.813" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T21:50:08.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1988" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-19T03:20:38.323" Score="5" ViewCount="487" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was yesterday in a bus in the HK neighbourhood called 上環/soeng6 waan4. A guy nearby was talking in a strange, almost alien-sounding, Chinese dialect. At some point he mentioned (what I suppose is answering a question) &quot;tseng wan&quot; -- with the &quot;w&quot; being weaker than a normal [w]. I didn't catch the tones but &quot;zeng&quot;/上 sounded much higher than in Canto. I'd guess it's his dialect's version of 上環. It's not Hakka, I think. (上環 in HK's Hakka is song van). According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www3.fitnyc.edu/gene_chin/hed/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt;, 上環 is something like sèng vãn in Toisanese. Close but not quite right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The guy also spoke Standard Cantonese, which is why I suspect it's a Southern dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:22:01.433" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T04:56:53.503" Title="What dialect could this be? (Southern China)" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1910" CreationDate="2012-08-19T09:18:58.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's simply not a literal translation. Good translations do not necessarily have to be literal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="945" LastActivityDate="2012-08-19T09:18:58.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1990" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-20T01:23:14.097" Score="8" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some characters are visual puns: &lt;a href=&quot;http://img2.mtime.com/mg/2009/33/a4a259de-0899-4f0f-abdf-6951542513a4.jpg&quot;&gt;尜 (小大小)&lt;/a&gt;, 尖 (小大); others are a phrase written as a single character: 膥 (未成肉), 籴 (入米), 汆 (入水), 奀 (不大).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some other characters which fit into these categories?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2012-08-24T18:17:35.150" Title="Visual puns and phrases" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1990" CreationDate="2012-08-20T01:56:05.760" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Ideogrammatic_compounds&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ideogrammatic compounds&lt;/a&gt;. I remember my teacher said about 10% of Chinese characters are ideogrammic compounds, which means there are more than 5,000 of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category%3aHan_ideogrammic_compounds&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary page&lt;/a&gt; lists 270 of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jydoc.com/article/1743854.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This lesson&lt;/a&gt; took from an elementary school book analyzes about 10 characters whose original forms were ideogrammic compounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find some other information on &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/393169.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-08-20T01:56:05.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1990" CreationDate="2012-08-20T07:58:49.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's one I see regularly around Chinese new year, made up of 4 sinograms 招財進寶, looking like &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RU8R2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;this&quot;&gt;. Not a real sinogram, but quite nice...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2012-08-20T07:58:49.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1973" CreationDate="2012-08-20T08:04:14.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker, so I can tell you that the most natural answer is &quot;书&quot;. Of course, as you know, both are right. But in native Chinese, if you answer the question of &quot;what&quot;, no matter only one object or more, you don't need to express numerals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="925" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-08-20T11:33:43.820" LastActivityDate="2012-08-20T11:33:43.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1963" CreationDate="2012-08-21T07:27:26.613" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;there is a &lt;strong&gt;rule&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;when you meet 2 same tone, that's the second one should be declined.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In you case &quot;下载&quot;, both of their tone are fourth, so it should be&#xA;  pronounced as &quot;xià zǎi&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;While in another case of &quot;载人&quot;, it should be &quot;zài ren&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one word, &quot;载&quot; has two tones and which tone should be used depend on the context, remember the &lt;strong&gt;rule&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="949" LastActivityDate="2012-08-21T07:27:26.613" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1940" CreationDate="2012-08-22T05:08:27.133" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed &quot;It looks as if she's gone away for a few days&quot; is an incorrect translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate this as &quot;It seems she's already been gone for quite a few days&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the 已 were excluded, I would translate it as &quot;It seems she's been gone for quite a few days.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the 已 emphasizes the passage of time, just like &quot;already&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="953" LastActivityDate="2012-08-22T05:08:27.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1923" CreationDate="2012-08-22T05:19:20.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me it's also a matter of emphasis. I feel when used to mean &quot;soon&quot;, 快要 is more emphatic than 快.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the Chinese version of &quot;If you keep doing that, I'm going to go nuts soon&quot;, I would prefer to use 快要 to emphasize that I'm going to go nuts soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is no different from English where people use formality for emphasis. For example, a mother might call her daughter Lucille when she's angry at her but call her Lucy when she's not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="953" LastActivityDate="2012-08-22T05:19:20.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1997" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1998" CreationDate="2012-08-22T13:53:52.293" Score="3" ViewCount="732" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are &quot;我在哪里可以买火车票&quot; and &quot;我哪里可以买火车票&quot; both correct sentences? If one isn't, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="954" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-08-22T14:23:16.420" LastActivityDate="2012-10-19T09:10:53.670" Title="Are &quot;我在哪里可以买火车票&quot; and &quot;我哪里可以买火车票&quot; both correct sentences?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1997" CreationDate="2012-08-22T14:42:46.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The proper way of asking is &quot;我在哪里可以买到火车票?&quot;. Most Chinese would be able to understand your question even if you were to use the two sentences you have just written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw many comments asking about the correctness of different variations to the question. Although not directly relevant to the question itself, here are some of the variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在哪里可以买&lt;b&gt;得&lt;/b&gt;到火车票? (Where can I buy (a) train ticket?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在哪里可以买到火车票? (Same as above, less emphasis on getting the ticket)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哪里可以买&lt;b&gt;得&lt;/b&gt;到火车票? (Where can train ticket(s) be bought?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哪里可以买到火车票? (Same as above, less emphasis on getting the ticket)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Informal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;哪可买&lt;/b&gt;到火车票? (Where can buy train ticket?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;哪有卖&lt;/b&gt;火车票? (Where got sell train ticket?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;去哪买&lt;/b&gt;火车票? (Go where to buy train ticket?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are asking a stranger for directions, it would be prudent to ask in this manner:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;请问&lt;/b&gt;哪里可以买得到火车票? (Excuse me, where can train ticket(s) be bought?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-08-26T11:34:34.287" LastActivityDate="2012-08-26T11:34:34.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1997" CreationDate="2012-08-22T14:53:31.380" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我在哪里可以买到火车票?&quot; is the correct way to ask where you can buy the ticket, but in oral language &quot;我哪里可以买到火车票?&quot; is used quite often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually there are 2 ways how &quot;我哪里可以买到火车票&quot;  can be interpreted. The first one is a question asking where you can buy train tickets. The second one is a statement meaning there is no place where train tickets can be bought. In oral language people will know what you mean by the context, the tone of your voice and your expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-08-23T11:34:16.703" LastActivityDate="2012-08-23T11:34:16.703" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1997" CreationDate="2012-08-23T06:26:32.397" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;BerR's answer is correct. I have a supplement of the second expan of &quot;我哪里可以买到火车票&quot;. It is not only a statement that there is no place where the tickets can be bought, but no ways, no time or the tickets are sold out objectively like and so on, any situations that you can not buy the tickets, you can say that sentence with falling tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="925" LastActivityDate="2012-08-23T06:26:32.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="44" CreationDate="2012-08-23T07:14:32.453" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I speak both and find most of the commentary here to be overly generalized or incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, analogies in Indo-European languages: There are none. As to how far apart the oral languages are, think of French and Italian, which share more syntax than most Romance language pairs, but with very different phonetic structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, which is easier. A hypothetical visitor from another planet would find any form of Chinese to be among the easiest of all human languages due to the distict meaning of every sillable and the logical construction of compounds. Even the written language, although lacking an alphabet and requiring more time to learn, has many advantages, supporting the logic of the language and lending itself more readily to speed reading. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin may be a bit easier for some and Cantonese easier for others. I personally find Cantonese easier because there is a greater variation and contrast among the phonemes, while in Mandarin those differences are often more subtle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, grammar. Here the languages are closely linked, but the number of grammatical difference seems to be understated. There are MANY expressions and structures in Cantonese that simply do not exist in Mandarin, but the converse is not as frequent for the simple reason that Cantonese adopts many Mandarin expressions as part of its formal and written language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="960" LastActivityDate="2012-08-23T07:14:32.453" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1977" CreationDate="2012-08-24T06:38:25.353" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;乒乓球案子 is informal, kind of dialect in some areas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="968" LastActivityDate="2012-08-24T06:38:25.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2005" CreationDate="2012-08-24T16:01:12.840" Score="42" ViewCount="5095" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was browsing one day and came across this comment in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/737/is-there-a-lot-of-value-in-learning-to-write-chinese-characters&quot;&gt;this discussion&lt;/a&gt;(italics mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I feel English is a reading language, if you are reading an English book, you watch the word and make sound in your brain. &lt;em&gt;But Chinese can be a watching language, take a Chinese book, I can watch over a paragraph and get the meaning of most part.&lt;/em&gt; Well, you may not believe, but it's true. Compare Yahoo.com and Sina.com for example, you can see that Yahoo.com is simple and clear, but Sina.com like a mess. You maybe surprise how can Chinese find the information in this mess. Well, native Chinese will get the most part easy by scrolling down and take a glance. – Xiè Jìléi Apr 4 at 9:45&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any science behind this? Or does the commenter just refer to scanning text. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked out a number of other search engines(eg naver.com(Korean); the-search.jp(Japanese)) and found no correlations myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can Chinese readers scan large amounts of text faster/more accurately than their alphabet-using counterparts?&#xA;So if we placed a native Chinese speaker next to a native English speaker having the same education and literacy levels and gave them both a text of the same length and complexity in their respective languages, would one of them a) finish faster? b)comprehend more accurately? c)better retain read information?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T08:20:41.993" Title="Can Chinese readers scan large amounts of text faster/more accurately than their alphabet-using counterparts?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1990" CreationDate="2012-08-24T18:17:35.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know there is one more character “肏” that falls into your category, if you realize the two characters that it's composed of you know what it means LOL.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples include: 歪, 甭, etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="970" LastActivityDate="2012-08-24T18:17:35.150" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2003" CreationDate="2012-08-24T20:57:03.950" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1150863/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This research&lt;/a&gt; seems to be relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question seems to be closely related to rapid reading techniques. Looking on those techniques, you may notice that many of them don't apply to Chinese, simply because logographic writing systems naturally allow rapid reading with no extra training.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There is even an idiom, &lt;code&gt;一目十行&lt;/code&gt; -- &quot;reading ten lines at the same time&quot;; literally, &quot;one eye ten lines`.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sub-vocalization&lt;/strong&gt;, a process of associating a text with its phonetic representation. It slows down reading in any language, but Chinese symbols are always monosyllabic, and the majority of dictionary words consist of only two syllables.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Replacing a sequential word-by-word reading to &lt;strong&gt;seeing a whole page at once&lt;/strong&gt; (or, actually, square blocks of text). Chinese text is naturally a grid by itself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Related to above, but different, &lt;strong&gt;avoiding linear reading&lt;/strong&gt;. Alphabetic writing systems imply the words aligned horizontally. Your eyes follow a word and it's difficult to follow several lines at once.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Seenig the shape of the wrods, not redaing them in detial. (how many typos did you see here?). In Chinese, you don't look at each stroke or radical, you just get the entire character at once.&#xA;Look &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/21252-techniques-for-increasing-reading-speed/#entry172609&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;: someone can recognize 300-800 characters, but admits that he/she still needs 5-10 seconds to recall a single one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-13T08:20:41.993" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T08:20:41.993" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2003" CreationDate="2012-08-24T22:27:09.130" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding a point to bytebuster's answer: from my own experience, &quot;trackback cost&quot; is another major factor. During fast scanning it is common that I need to go back a few words/characters to get the context or resolve ambiguity. In English, in most cases going back one word or two is not sufficient, I need to go further back or even reread the whole sentence which is much more expensive than in Chinese I only need to look back a few characters and with square characters my eyes can locate them quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-08-24T22:27:09.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2007" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-25T03:12:57.037" Score="4" ViewCount="715" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a broad request for tips, but I have a specific question in mind as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽 can be pronounced as &quot;jin4&quot; or &quot;jin3&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Pleco, the definition for &quot;jin3&quot; is &quot;to the greatest extent&quot; while one of the definitions of &quot;jin4&quot; is &quot;to the utmost; to the limit&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this is a translation issue, because to me, these 2 definitions are essentially the same. Based on this, I still have no way of knowing when the character is jin4 or jin3 when it means &quot;to the utmost&quot; or &quot;to the greatest extent&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this just a brute force memorization problem or are there some tips for figuring out when to pronounce it one way &amp;amp; when to pronounce it another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-09-01T11:50:50.007" LastActivityDate="2012-09-01T11:50:50.007" Title="Tips for multiple-pronunciation characters (多音字)" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2012-08-25T06:01:32.147" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I rely heavily on SRS. My method is to mainly use Recognition cards (ie the front has the character &amp;amp; the back has the pronunciation &amp;amp; meaning). If I notice a certain character is repeatedly causing me difficulty, I will add more example sentences that include that character. Pleco dictionary &amp;amp; the website nciku.com are helpful sources for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once I feel confident that I can recognize the character reliably, I will reverse the card with the meaning on the front &amp;amp; the character &amp;amp; pronunciation on the back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once I can recognize the character from both directions, I will move on to learning to write it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Writing is less important to me on a day to day basis than being able to recognize the character or translate what I want to say into Chinese, so it is the last step in my mastering of a character. Once you can recognize a character, translate to the character from your language, and write it, I think you will find that it is much harder to forget it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2012-08-25T06:01:32.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2007" CreationDate="2012-08-25T07:47:12.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Baidu has a very good &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/642394.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; on this topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;多音字有以下几种用法：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　1．读音有区别词性和词义的作用。这种类型的多音字在文言文中叫做“破音异读”，约占到全部多音字的80%。对这类多音字，我们应该根据不同的读音加以辨析、记忆。如“将”：jiāng（可作动词或副词等），动词可作“带领”解，副词可作“将要”解；jiàng（名词），作“将帅”或“大将”解；qiāng（动词），作“愿”“请求”讲，如“将子无怒”（请你别生气）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　2．使用情况不同，读音也不同，读音有区别用法的作用。如“薄”：báo，不厚的意思，一般单用，薄饼、薄纸；bó，一般用于合成词，薄礼、厚古薄今；bò，薄荷（专有名词）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　3．语体不同，读音不同，读音有区别语体的作用，主要体现为口语和书面语等。如“给”：口语读gěi；书面语读jǐ，给予、给养。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　4．方言词汇的存在造成多音。这类多音字比较少，仅限于部分地区。如“忒”：tè，差忒（差错之意）；tuī（方言），风忒大、房子忒小（忒：太）等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　5．文言文中的一些通假字延续使用到现在而形成了多音字，普通用法和人名地名等用法不同而造成多音等。（此部分详见第二节“异读字”。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author of the article recommends using a classification technique to help remember the different pronunciations of 多音字. This boils down to identifying such characters (about 600 of them in 《新华字典》), organising them into different groups, and learning them by heart. The important point is to simplify the task by dividing it into smaller tasks and tackling them one at a time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, there is no short cut except practising and more practising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regards to your specific question, I don't have an answer to that. Based on my own experience, &lt;code&gt;jìn&lt;/code&gt; is used on most occasions. In some cases such as &lt;code&gt;尽可能&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;尽量&lt;/code&gt;, however, they seems interchangeable, though the meaning is exactly the same. Perhaps it is a matter of emphasis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-08-25T07:47:12.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2010" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-25T09:23:13.740" Score="3" ViewCount="863" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to learn Chinese grammar (e.g. sentence structure), however, &lt;strong&gt;I am a highly visual person&lt;/strong&gt; and feel a visual learning process would help me the most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have already taken a beginner Chinese Mandarin class in school but somehow feel it could've been taught visually and I might have learned better. I feel the way my teacher has gone about it with reading textbooks full of text is hurting me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, wondering if &lt;em&gt;similar visual thinkers&lt;/em&gt; have found ways they've used to understand the grammar faster and better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="971" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-07T03:12:57.950" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T03:12:57.950" Title="What effective methods exist for visual learners to get Chinese grammar?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2007" CreationDate="2012-08-25T09:33:03.993" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your specific question, it should be kept in mind that 尽 is a simplified character that merged both traditional characters 盡 (&lt;code&gt;jìn&lt;/code&gt;) and 儘 (&lt;code&gt;jǐn&lt;/code&gt;), which is why it appears to be a 多音字 in Simplified Chinese.  The difference between 盡 and 儘 is very subtle though.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kwuntung.net/check/focus/focusdetail.php?focus_ID=24&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This link&lt;/a&gt; talks about the difference as it applies in Cantonese, but I believe it applies in Mandarin as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「儘」是「力求達到最大限度」，強調的是「力求」，至於能否達到「所求」，不得而知。「盡」則有「達到最大限度」的意思，強調達到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;儘 is &quot;strive to attain maximization&quot;, with the emphasis on &quot;strive&quot;; whether it can be attained is unknown.&#xA;  盡 on the other hand has the meaning &quot;attain maximization&quot;, with the emphasis on attaining.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-08-25T09:45:04.627" LastActivityDate="2012-08-25T09:45:04.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2010" CreationDate="2012-08-25T12:39:47.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is a little related to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/91/techniques-for-learning-and-retaining-characters&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In @dusan's answer, it is recommended to try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.memrise.com/home/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Memrise&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have just started to try it, and have decided to use it for a long time. (all the more so that it also supports Spanish, Latin, German, Russian, and many other languages).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is sheer visual learning, backed with Space Repetition. Lessons goes like a breeze...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the tests covered the some words that I already knew... I really like/preferred their combination of visual and mnemonics. I won't give up my lesson books, but this site looks really great, and as long as i'll learn new sinograms with it, I'll continue using it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.memrise.com/home/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Try it.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: and I have discovered there are dozens of sets of lessons !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="834" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-08-25T14:55:14.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="116" CreationDate="2012-08-25T14:38:33.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't speak Mandarin and never will, but I was faced with the same problem as you in Cantonese -- and we have a couple tones more, and no real rules for tone sandhi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my first step was to stick to jyutping and learn the reading(s) of sinograms as a &quot;full set&quot;: sound+tone number. So I wouldn't just learn &quot;gwok&quot; for 國 but &quot;gwok3&quot; (&lt;code&gt;gwok three&lt;/code&gt;, and later &lt;code&gt;gwok saam&lt;/code&gt;, in my head).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second step was &quot;musical&quot; -- in the sense that I was memorizing the tone contours of a word, an aural memory of my voice going up/down while pronouncing (hopefully correctly) the word. I am gifted with a very acute sense of hearing and musical memory, so this may or may not work for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2012-08-25T14:38:33.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2012-08-25T14:42:31.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Write each new character you learn 250 times in a row, slowly, on a notepad. Pronounce it every time you finished writing it. Pen, paper and practice. Nothing can beat that...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-03-24T08:29:49.707" LastActivityDate="2014-03-24T08:29:49.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2015" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-08-26T02:54:25.210" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-08-26T02:54:25.210" LastActivityDate="2012-08-26T02:54:25.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2016" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-08-26T02:54:25.210" Score="0" Body="Heteronyms are words that are spelled or written identically, but have different pronunciations or meanings. An example in English would be &quot;tear&quot;, which can be pronounced 2 ways, each with a different meaning. " OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="448" LastEditDate="2012-08-26T09:44:46.670" LastActivityDate="2012-08-26T09:44:46.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2017" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2018" CreationDate="2012-08-26T11:57:26.070" Score="9" ViewCount="824" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got this sentence in my &quot;daily exercise&quot; newsletter, and I really don't understand what's 人 doing there? Doesn't it mean the same when 人 is removed? Could this simply be a typo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T15:06:24.753" Title="What is 人 doing in 你现在人在哪里？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2012-08-26T13:08:12.083" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both sentences are correct. The word &quot;人&quot; is added to add emphasis to the &lt;strong&gt;physical&lt;/strong&gt; location of the person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can take &lt;code&gt;你现在在哪里？&lt;/code&gt; to mean &quot;Where are you now?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;你现在人在哪里？&lt;/code&gt; to mean &quot;What is your current physical location?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former is normally used when the asker and the subject are within the same locality (e.g in a shopping mall). The latter is often used when the asker and the subject are far away from each other (e.g. in different countries).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A corresponding response to &lt;code&gt;你现在在哪里？&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;我现在在XX。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A corresponding response to &lt;code&gt;你现在人在哪里？&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;我现在人在XX。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-08-26T15:17:10.837" LastActivityDate="2012-08-26T15:17:10.837" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2010" CreationDate="2012-08-26T17:09:08.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Full Disclosure: I haven't tried this for studying Chinese but in English it seems to work quite well. I haven't a Doctorate in Educational Sciences or the like but have been teaching grammar to all ages and many nationalities of close to 10 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The method is based on Cuisenaire rods(coloured rods of differing lengths, the smallest being 1cm long(white) and the longest being 10cm(orange) the intermediate rods increasing in length one cm at a time.) While originally these rods were used to explain complicated mathematical concepts visually, Caleb Gattegno brought this concept initially to teaching literacy, and then to learning foreign languages. It came to be part of a teaching system called the Silent Way(since then has largely fallen out of favour.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, done with history. Gattegno used these rods to replace parts of speech(or syllables for sentence stress) and then would drill the students on proper placement. With my students, and a handful of different colour pens, we would construct sentences based on colour. The learning curve was steeper than many educationalists had claimed and I finally found it worked for extremely visual learners, and those with ADD(in my experience two boys 13 and 15 years old).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example take the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想买几个方形的扣子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since we already would have established the parts of speech as having corresponding colours, for the sake of the example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 is blue&#xA;想买 is green&#xA;几个 is orange&#xA;方形 is orange&#xA;扣子 is red&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you see this sentence your mind should automatically associate the part of speech/colour with that position and by imagining other words of the same colour inhabiting those regions reinforces the structure(drills).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps these structures will help to the explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把他的报纸给我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他给我他的报纸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把has no colour as a participle.(In English, I left the prepositions, articles and conjunctions, etc. black(vid. no special colour)) Because I am familiar with these colours I can easily see the grammatical difference. My tutor can explain the difference semantically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't believe I can add colour here and I haven't found an organization online that is using the same methodology. I am currently training my Chinese tutor in this method because I find I know it very well and it works for me. Also, I have helped many adults pass government exams on grammar and writing using this method. As you said, I feel textbooks hinder rather than help and have slowly been building my own &amp;quot;textbook&amp;quot; according to this and other methods I like for myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-08-26T17:09:08.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1915" CreationDate="2012-08-26T20:39:46.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Repeat Observation (yes or no question about whether the observation&#xA;  repeated or &quot;performed&quot; again): 反复观察 or 一再发生?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;复查 is better than 反复观察.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Policy (any company policy or standard is entered in this section and&#xA;  applied to that specific question): I think 政策 is only for&#xA;  government/political policy, right? How about 方针, is that the correct&#xA;  translation for a company policy/rule/standard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规章制度 or just use one of 规章 and 制度. 方针 is also used for gov/political policy more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Order index (a numeric value assigned to each row that indicates which&#xA;  order category it belongs to such as 1, 2, or 3): does 秩序指数 work for&#xA;  that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Order used here means 顺序 rather than 秩序, so 排序值 will be you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, Chinese like use two-characters word in a spreadsheet's headings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastActivityDate="2012-08-26T20:39:46.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2021" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2022" CreationDate="2012-08-27T09:25:44.583" Score="2" ViewCount="657" Body="&lt;p&gt;How should I order food from a menu in a restaurant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English I'd usually say something like 'I'll have the beef' or 'one of these and two of those' while pointing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the past in China I have simply pointed and said &lt;code&gt;一个&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;这个&lt;/code&gt;, but I imagine that is not quite correct :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastActivityDate="2012-08-27T23:36:18.657" Title="Ordering food from a menu in a restaurant" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;food&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2021" CreationDate="2012-08-27T09:36:39.463" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, it is correct when you point and say &quot;这个&quot;, but Chinese speakers often use &quot;一份&quot; instead of &quot;一个&quot;. The complete sentence may look like &quot;我想要一份XXX&quot; or “我要这个”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this may help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="974" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-08-27T23:36:18.657" LastActivityDate="2012-08-27T23:36:18.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2021" CreationDate="2012-08-27T10:39:44.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to Chang's answer, you may also ask in the following manner:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请给我一份牛排套餐，外加这道菜，还有那两样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-08-27T10:39:44.080" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2024" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2025" CreationDate="2012-08-27T15:09:08.873" Score="5" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read that both 活 and 住 both refer to the verb &quot;to live&quot;. Is there a difference between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="908" LastActivityDate="2012-08-28T13:02:46.637" Title="Difference between 活 and 住?" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2024" CreationDate="2012-08-27T16:08:41.437" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. The two words are actually applied differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;活 is applied in a more abstract sense. Such as to live in fear (活在恐惧之中), to live in this world (活在这世上). This has more to do with survival or staying alive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;住 is applied in a physical sense. Such as to live in this house (住在这屋里), to live in this place (住在这地方). &quot;Stay&quot; would be a good alternative to &quot;live&quot; for better clarity of the meaning. This has more to do with accomodation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-08-28T02:28:45.013" LastActivityDate="2012-08-28T02:28:45.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2024" CreationDate="2012-08-28T13:02:46.637" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;活  means &quot;live&quot; in the sense of being alive, while 住 means &quot;live&quot; in the sense of &quot;to reside.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-08-28T13:02:46.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2012-08-28T13:23:45.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你现在人在哪里？ refers to the &lt;em&gt;physical&lt;/em&gt; person, as opposed to &quot;where are you&quot; (intellectually)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 人character also separates the two 在s&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-08-28T13:23:45.613" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2032" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-29T13:16:06.997" Score="16" ViewCount="8640" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do the following three sentences mean the same thing, that is, can they be used interchangeably?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她的父母就来我们家与我的家人见面了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她的父母就来我们家和我的家人见面了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她的父母就来我们家跟我的家人见面了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="986" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-08-29T14:22:37.007" LastActivityDate="2012-08-30T14:43:11.953" Title="Difference between 与，和 and 跟?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2032" CreationDate="2012-08-29T15:37:01.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;与 is usually used more formal.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;和 is between 与 and 跟, plus it is used more often than others.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;跟 is usually used more oral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="988" LastActivityDate="2012-08-29T15:37:01.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2032" CreationDate="2012-08-29T17:38:52.463" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would reword the three sentences as follows instead:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她父母来我家&lt;b&gt;与&lt;/b&gt;我家人见面。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她父母来我家&lt;b&gt;和&lt;/b&gt;我家人见面。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她父母来我家&lt;b&gt;跟&lt;/b&gt;我家人见面。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, they can be used interchangeably as each one of them means &quot;and&quot;.&#xA;Here are the minute differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;与 [yǔ]&lt;/strong&gt; is more elegant and formal, and is usually applied to similar items of abstract and contrasting nature. E.g. 天与地 (heaven and earth), 是与非 (yes and no).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;和 [hé]&lt;/strong&gt; is more general and informal, and can be applied to list dissimilar items and more often on objects. E.g. 汽车和现金 (car and cash), 蓝宝石和翡翠 (sapphire and jade).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;跟 [gēn]&lt;/strong&gt; is used more often in speech, and is usually applied to similar items and more often on humans. E.g. 他跟她 (he and she), 我跟你 (you and I).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-08-30T14:43:11.953" LastActivityDate="2012-08-30T14:43:11.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2032" CreationDate="2012-08-29T17:39:45.930" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;跟 is totally oral and informal. The other two can be used in both formal and informal situations although in oral conversation 和 is more common. A person who speaks 与 (together with other formal/&quot;classical&quot; words) too much may be considered fastidious and/or pedantic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have the exact same meaning. Other than formality, people picks the one that is easy to pronounce and sounds smooth. For example, 英语与法语 is hard to pronounce so people may prefer 英语和法语; on the other hand 战争与和平 sounds better than 战争和和平.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When connecting words with &quot;classical feeling&quot;, such as one-character words, 与 is used even in oral language, e.g. 学与玩. In this case 学和玩 sounds okay but 学跟玩 sounds somehow unnatural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But again they mean the same and are interchangeable. It's only about tone, feeling and idioms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-08-29T17:39:45.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2036" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-31T07:02:15.243" Score="7" ViewCount="619" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my English tuned ear, these &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.learnchineseabc.com/a1/0009_understanding-the-pronunciation-and-explanation-of-ren.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;audio&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddictbasic&amp;amp;wdqb=ren&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wddmtm=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;files&lt;/a&gt; of people pronouncing 人 sound very different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My colleague (a native Mandarin speaker) insists they are the same sound, and thinks I am just confused because one speaker has a higher pitched voice. He said something about one speaker having a more feminine voice, but I'm not sure which of the two he meant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm happy to accept that I'm tuning into a non-key part of the phoneme, but to my ear these sounds sound consistently very different from speaker to speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_phonology&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Wikipedia page on Mandarin phonology&lt;/a&gt; has an explanation for the variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroflex_approximant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ɻ (a retroflex approximant)&lt;/a&gt; varies as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_retroflex_sibilant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ʐ (a voiced retroflex fricative)&lt;/a&gt;, depending on the speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also heard other speakers where a sound more like the English Y was more prominent. Is this difference something native speakers notice? Is it considered a regional variation, or as my colleague seems to be suggesting that one is more masculine and the other more feminine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="990" LastEditorUserId="990" LastEditDate="2012-09-13T21:38:40.223" LastActivityDate="2013-11-10T14:16:40.883" Title="pronunciation of 人 - regional or gender differences?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2036" CreationDate="2012-08-31T07:30:46.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not an expert in phonetics but here is my observation as a native Mandarin speaker: there &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; big differences in the pronunciation of PinYin 'r' across different regions of China, however, the difference between the two linked audio files was much less significant than that kind. I'll agree with your colleague that the audio in the first link has a higher pitched voice and maybe &quot;more feminine&quot; but this difference can be safely ignored in practice and it's even not noticed by many native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2012-08-31T07:36:39.910" LastActivityDate="2012-08-31T07:36:39.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2038" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2040" CreationDate="2012-08-31T09:05:21.073" Score="13" ViewCount="4715" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before schools started to use pinyin for teaching characters to Chinese children, how and/or what was used to teach it instead? And what about how dictionaries showed the pronunciation of characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-08-31T11:47:46.467" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T12:19:52.583" Title="How were Chinese characters taught to Chinese children before the introduction of pinyin?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2038" CreationDate="2012-08-31T10:17:23.893" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the (very) old days, there was a system called &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%8D%E5%88%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;反切&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;in English&lt;/a&gt;) where two characters were used, one for initial, one for the rhyme (vowel[s] + final), followed by 切 to indicate it was a phonetic notation. For instance, 東 could be represented as 德紅切.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Edit #2&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought I should insert an example from the canon of Chinese dictionaries, 康熙字典. Here's page 1 -- might as well start at the beginning...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2U235.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;康熙字典, 一部&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I highlighted the two definitions for 一: &lt;code&gt;於悉&lt;/code&gt; for 唐韻 and 韻會, &lt;code&gt;益悉&lt;/code&gt; for 集韻 and 正韻. Which is interesting, as these won't match the modern pronunciation in most dialects (strangely enough &lt;code&gt;於悉切&lt;/code&gt; works perfectly in Hakka for &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; but that's probably more likely an accident...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T08:03:07.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2038" CreationDate="2012-08-31T11:06:30.447" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, before Hanyu Pinyin was introduced, the PRC Chinese learnt Bopomofo or 注音符號 [Zhùyīn fúhào]. It comprises of 37 characters (注音) and four tone marks (符號).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;注音 consists of consonants, rhymes and medial (e.g. ㄅ,ㄆ,ㄇ,ㄈ)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;符號 is similar to the four tones in Pinyin except there is no marking&#xA;for the first tone (ˊ,ˇ,ˋ)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example: 大 (ㄉㄚˋ, dà) where ㄉ is the consonant for &quot;d&quot; and ㄚ is the rhyme for &quot;a&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a variety of ways to look up a word in the dictionary such as 部首查字法 and 数笔画查字法. This &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/827228.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; describes the various method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in the comment by Claw, &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/129724.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;反切&lt;/a&gt; (introduced around 220 A.D.) preceded 注音符號, which was introduced in the 1910s. And even &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-sg/%E8%AF%BB%E8%8B%A5%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;before&lt;/a&gt; that, there were two other methods, namely &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1898927.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;直音法&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/898354.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;读若法&lt;/a&gt;. As the names suggest 直音法 refers to learning by comparison with another character of the &lt;em&gt;same&lt;/em&gt; pronunciation while 读若法 refers to learning by comparison with another character of &lt;em&gt;similar&lt;/em&gt; pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for all the three methods described above, there is a need to memorise the pronunciation of a few characters first, before one can proceed to learn the pronunciation of other characters based on these characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-09-01T07:07:41.263" LastActivityDate="2012-09-01T07:07:41.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2036" CreationDate="2012-08-31T19:17:26.247" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two speakers sounded like they were both saying &lt;code&gt;人&lt;/code&gt; with a [ ɻ ]. One's voice was higher pitched and the recording conditions were different though. In practice, you're going to run into pronunciations &lt;em&gt;way&lt;/em&gt; more divergent than those. All the people I've met from 青田 say it with a [z] (note: not a pinyin &quot;z&quot;). Also, I've run into a few people who use an [l]!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice: Listen to a lot of people, chat with a lot of people. You'll pick up on which distinctions are important, which aren't, and which are regional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-08-31T19:17:26.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2043" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2044" CreationDate="2012-08-31T21:50:47.233" Score="9" ViewCount="646" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你说的是什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that 的 permits creating adjectives, like 我的 would be &quot;my&quot;. But here, I can’t see how it works. What is its purpose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="908" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T01:29:26.187" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T01:29:26.187" Title="In 你说的是什么？, what is the purpose of 的?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2043" CreationDate="2012-08-31T22:05:06.693" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;A reasonable translation of &quot;你说的&quot; is: &quot;That which you spoke&quot;.&#xA;的 turns 你说 (a verbal phrase) into 你说的 (a noun).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你说是什么 doesn't make any sense grammatically - it means &quot;You said is what?&quot; You &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; say, &quot;你说什么&quot; - which is literally, &quot;You said what?&quot; or in proper English, &quot;What did you say?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你说的是什么, however, means &quot;That which you said is what?&quot; or properly, &quot;What is that which you said?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="760" LastActivityDate="2012-08-31T22:05:06.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2045" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2046" CreationDate="2012-09-01T11:40:33.270" Score="10" ViewCount="2410" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I first learnt the numbers, I learnt &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; with the first tone &lt;code&gt;yi1&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But now, during a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.memrise.com&quot;&gt;Memrise&lt;/a&gt; lesson, they teach me that &lt;code&gt;一个&lt;/code&gt; should be pronounced &lt;code&gt;yi2 ge4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;yi2 ge5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct and, if so, is there a reason for that pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="834" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T07:39:07.580" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T16:33:47.610" Title="Pronunciation of 一 in 一个" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2045" CreationDate="2012-09-01T12:21:19.273" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;一 is pronounced in the first tone when it stands alone.&#xA;It is pronounced in the fourth tone when it precedes a first, second, or third tone. However, it is pronounced in the second tone when it precedes a fourth tone. 不 is a bit similar: It is also pronounced in the fourth tone when it precedes a first, second, or third tone. However, it is pronounced in the second tone when it precedes a fourth tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples (from: &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.mit.edu/jinzhang/www/pinyin/tones/index.html#1bu&quot;&gt;http://web.mit.edu/jinzhang/www/pinyin/tones/index.html#1bu&lt;/a&gt; but I used simplified characters instead and corrected a tone which is incorrect on that website)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一万 (yíwàn)&#xA;(ten thousand)  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一块 (yíkuài)&#xA;(one dollar)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一半 (yíbàn)&#xA;( a half)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不贵 (búguì)&#xA;(not expensive) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不对 (búduì)&#xA;(not correct)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不慢 (búmàn)&#xA;(not slow)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一天 (yìtiān)&#xA;(a day) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一生 (yìshēng)&#xA;(one's whole life)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不多 (bùduō)&#xA;(not many/much)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不吃 (bùchī)&#xA;(not eat)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一年 (yìnián)&#xA;(a year)    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一群 (yìqún)&#xA;(a group of)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不难 (bùnán)&#xA;(not difficult)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不忙 (bùmáng)&#xA;(not busy)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一晚 (yìwǎn) &#xA;(one night) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一早 (yìzǎo)&#xA;(early in the morning)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不晚 (bùwǎn)&#xA;(not late)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不早 (bùzǎo)&#xA;(not early)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 个 has a fourth tone, the tone of 一 should become a second tone. Although in practice 个 is most often spoken as a neutral tone, the original tone is used for the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi&quot;&gt;tone sandhi&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-09-01T12:21:19.273" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2043" CreationDate="2012-09-01T15:04:45.270" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to @Kang Ming's excellent answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; is not only used as a &lt;em&gt;possessive suffix&lt;/em&gt; (as in &lt;code&gt;我的&lt;/code&gt;). There are other uses, don't be confused.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In case of &lt;code&gt;你说的是什么&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; serves as &lt;em&gt;selector by an attribute&lt;/em&gt;. Literally, someone asks, &quot;what is it?&quot;, but out of all possible contexts picks up a context of the recent speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An illustration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你想买什么样&lt;b&gt;的&lt;/b&gt;手机？ What kind of cell phone you'd like to buy?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  很贵&lt;b&gt;的&lt;/b&gt;。 A very expensive one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's another usage of &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;, with the meaning of &quot;certainly&quot;. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/907/752&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; for details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-09-02T21:55:45.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2048" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2049" CreationDate="2012-09-01T21:28:08.367" Score="5" ViewCount="717" Body="&lt;p&gt;My newsletter says this sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我五分钟后就回来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is translated as &quot;I'll be back in 5 minutes&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am curious to know whether this sentence could be translated as &quot;I came back 5 minutes ago&quot;, or does it need to be changed? If so, how and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T01:36:20.203" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T06:31:52.947" Title="Is 我五分钟后就回来 ambiguous out of context?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2048" CreationDate="2012-09-02T00:08:55.063" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;I'll be back in 5 minutes&quot; is the only correct translation for this sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I came back 5 minutes ago&quot; is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我5分钟前就回来了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1000" LastActivityDate="2012-09-02T00:08:55.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1933" CreationDate="2012-09-03T00:10:29.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll stick with the first sentence. If the context was not given&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;厨房壁炉架上的那面镜子就把哈利吓了一跳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means &quot;Even a (simple) mirror on top of the kitchen's fireplace was enough to scare Harry&quot;, which implies that Harry is so easy to be scared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if the context was set:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;韦斯莱家却充满了神奇和意外&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 in the same sentence actually suggests an example. So, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;韦斯莱家却充满了神奇和意外，厨房壁炉架上的那面镜子就把哈利吓了一跳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;韦斯莱家却充满了神奇和意外，（比如）厨房壁炉架上的那面镜子就把哈利吓了一跳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the author will add more details about how the mirror actually scared Harry after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1000" LastActivityDate="2012-09-03T00:10:29.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2048" CreationDate="2012-09-03T03:45:15.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe this sentence should be translated as &quot;I will be back after 5 mins&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I'll be back in 5 minutes&quot; should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在五分钟内回来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1002" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-09-22T04:08:34.880" LastActivityDate="2012-09-22T04:08:34.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2048" CreationDate="2012-09-03T13:30:05.990" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure, but I think &quot;in 5 minutes&quot; here doesn't mean &quot;5分钟后&quot;. For example, now it's 00:12.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I say &quot;I will be back in 5 minutes&quot;, I mean &quot;I will have come back by 00:17. I probably come back at 00:13, or 00:14&quot;. In this case, I will say, in Chinese, &quot;我5分钟内回来“。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I say &quot;I will be back 5 minutes later&quot;. I mean &quot;I will be back at 00:17,&quot;. In this case, I will say, in Chinese, &quot;我5分钟后回来“。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please correct me if I misunderstand &quot;in 5 minutes&quot; and &quot;5 minutes later&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2012-09-03T13:30:05.990" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2053" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2055" CreationDate="2012-09-03T18:58:37.653" Score="9" ViewCount="881" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look at 1:54 and 5:22 of this video: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9Ayvjy-Dgs&quot;&gt;Chinese Pinyin in 6 Mins&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &lt;code&gt;ying&lt;/code&gt; really pronounced with an &quot;o&quot; sound?  This seems counterintuitive, especially when &lt;code&gt;yin&lt;/code&gt; (at 1:49 in the video) sounds as a native English speaker would expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1004" LastActivityDate="2012-09-03T20:02:14.997" Title="Pinyin &quot;ying&quot; has an &quot;o&quot; sound?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2054" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2056" CreationDate="2012-09-03T19:10:30.817" Score="8" ViewCount="1502" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between&#xA;是不是吃了蛋糕？  and 吃蛋糕了没有？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是不是喝酒了?  and   喝酒了没有？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="252" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-09-04T05:52:04.440" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:27:16.540" Title="Difference between 是不是喝酒了? and 喝酒了没有？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;yes-no-questions&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2053" CreationDate="2012-09-03T20:02:14.997" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In IPA transcriptions of Chinese, &lt;code&gt;ying&lt;/code&gt; is usually written as: [iŋ]. This is exactly like &lt;code&gt;yin&lt;/code&gt;, except with an &quot;ng&quot; sound. However, as you noticed, some people pronounce it a little differently. &lt;a href=&quot;http://online.sfsu.edu/~wenchao/presentations/phonetic.pdf&quot;&gt;This paper&lt;/a&gt; (page 9) transcribes the alternate pronunciation as [iɘŋ]. Wouldn't really call it an &quot;o&quot; sound, but the vowel &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; different than that of the &lt;code&gt;yin&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-09-03T20:02:14.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2054" CreationDate="2012-09-04T01:12:39.773" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first expression is usually used when the speaker has a feeling that the other person had done something, so he's making a guess, while the second could be either a simple question or suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first case,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你是不是吃蛋糕了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be used when the speaker noticed a cream stain on the other person's shirt or something like that. The speaker is guessing if the other person has had a cake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你吃蛋糕了没有？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be used when the speaker wants to suggest the other person to have a nice piece of cake or simply query whether he has had cake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1000" LastEditorUserId="1000" LastEditDate="2012-09-04T09:11:58.820" LastActivityDate="2012-09-04T09:11:58.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2057" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2058" CreationDate="2012-09-04T07:11:56.177" Score="6" ViewCount="1957" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;code&gt;呆在&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;待在&lt;/code&gt; are acceptable ways of writing &lt;code&gt;dai1 zai4&lt;/code&gt; meaning &amp;quot;stay at/in&amp;quot;. For instance, a couple sentences from &lt;a href=&quot;http://dj.iciba.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;iciba&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们因天气寒冷呆在家里。 Because of the cold weather, we stayed at home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们整天和朋友们待在外边。 They stay out(side) all day with their friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, which one of these came first? Where did the alternative come from? Was it originally a 错别字 which gained acceptance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[I would like to emphasize that I'm &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; asking which you think is correct. They're both widely used; they're both pronounced the same; and there's no stable difference in usage (subjective impressions != usage).]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T07:55:32.770" Title="Origin of 呆在 vs 待在" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2057" CreationDate="2012-09-04T08:36:35.007" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reference Materials about the differences between / origins of the 2 confusing words:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;from online newspaper - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gmw.cn/content/2006-01/10/content_357528.htm&quot;&gt;光明网&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;conclusion in translation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;one should use &quot;待在&quot; to express &quot;to stay&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;from research materials - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cqvip.com/Read/Read.aspx?id=37286546#&quot;&gt;中国知网&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5375d4df0102e55d.html&quot;&gt;a Chinese blog containing the full-text of &quot;中国知网&quot; paper&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;conclusion in translation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the 2 Chinese characters are different in meaning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it's not until ming/qing dynasty, did &quot;待&quot; have the meaning: &quot;to stay&quot;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it's not until modern/contemporary times, did &quot;呆&quot; have the meaning: &quot;to stay&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;initial answer:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;待在&quot; is more acceptable than &quot;呆在&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to judge by logic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;待 has another meaning &quot;to wait&quot;, which is closer to &quot;to stay&quot;, because the two actions usually happens at the same time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;呆 has another meaning &quot;stupid, idle&quot;, if you use &quot;呆在&quot;, one may imagine somebody &quot;to stay without doing anything actively&quot;, which&#xA;  usually connects to a negative impression.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to judge by reference sites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;in taiwan, education resource like this &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.mini.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/gdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=FDxH7N&amp;amp;o=sjmpage&amp;amp;jmpage=1&amp;amp;ckmod=50&amp;amp;searchq=word%3D%22%E5%91%86%22&quot;&gt;国语小字典&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  doesn't contain &quot;to stay&quot; as a meaning for &quot;呆&quot;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;you can also check the two words on &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com/m/search.htm&quot;&gt;中文.com&lt;/a&gt; to verify.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So, it will be more widely(both mainland and tw) accepted if you use &quot;待在&quot; to express &quot;to stay&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1005" LastEditorUserId="1005" LastEditDate="2012-09-05T05:38:46.583" LastActivityDate="2012-09-05T05:38:46.583" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2059" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2060" CreationDate="2012-09-04T23:34:51.467" Score="7" ViewCount="729" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence 我吃饭的时候看了一本书。 apparently has two verbs (吃 and 看), but I can’t see how the two actions are correlated. Could anyone explain that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="908" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T01:50:13.267" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T01:50:13.267" Title="What is the structure of 我吃饭的时候看了一本书?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2059" CreationDate="2012-09-04T23:51:13.920" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if you are familiar with 的时候 but this translates approximately to 'while'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the sentence reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;While I was &lt;strong&gt;eating&lt;/strong&gt; I &lt;strong&gt;read&lt;/strong&gt; a book.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see the English use &quot;I&quot; twice, so it may make more sense to you if you read it like this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃饭的时候(我)看了一本书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T19:07:20.617" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T19:07:20.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2059" CreationDate="2012-09-04T23:56:18.013" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A verb works with an object. In this sentence, the first verb 吃 (have or eat) works with 饭 (meal), and the second, 看 (read) works with 书 (book), and &quot;...的时候...&quot; (while) links two phrases together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1000" LastEditorUserId="1000" LastEditDate="2012-09-05T00:02:22.203" LastActivityDate="2012-09-05T00:02:22.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2043" CreationDate="2012-09-05T02:36:26.147" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One other way to look at it: 我的 is not only &amp;quot;my,&amp;quot; but can also be, &amp;quot;mine.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃饱了，你吃我的吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm full, so please eat mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like in English, in Chinese you could end the sentence with either &amp;quot;my &amp;lt;noun&amp;gt;&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;mine&amp;quot;. When you hear this sentence and notice no noun or noun-phrase follows 的, this is perfectly OK, and you can translate the 我的 as &amp;quot;mine&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But unlike English, Chinese follows a pattern. You can put other things before the 的, too. So not only can you specify 你说的事情 &amp;quot;The issue you're talking about,&amp;quot; you can instead say 你说的 &amp;quot;That which you're talking about,&amp;quot; which is awkward in English but concise and natural in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="894" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-09-05T02:36:26.147" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2063" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-05T12:43:24.253" Score="6" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a while I have wanted to learn to match the character names of the 64 hexagrams to the hexagrams themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, as for the names and hexagrams, none of them really stick in my memory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, the hexagrams all look alike at first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's not so much that the characters themselves are hard to remember, or that the meanings are hard to remember. It's just that there are 64 of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I usually do when absorbing a list-based piece of knowledge like this is to simply learn one half of the list in one big chunk, then go back and match the 'domain' to the 'range'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that in mind, I want to tackle the character names of the 64 hexagrams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, are there any short prose or poetry works in classical or modern Chinese designed specifically to teach the names of the 64 hexagrams?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am thinking in particular of the 千字文, a work of poetry that was mainly designed to teach calligraphy, versions of the work being available in a variety of calligraphic styles. Didactic literature like this has played a useful part in my own study of Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 百家姓 is another example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a work, translated into English, might go something like,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Sixty-three, the ox has already forded the stream,&#xA;But, sixty-four, the stag is still on the other side.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and would use the actual character names in the 'story', like 既济 for 'already forded.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastActivityDate="2012-09-28T15:01:01.173" Title="Are there any short prose or poetry works in classical or modern Chinese designed specifically to teach the names of the 64 hexagrams?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2064" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2065" CreationDate="2012-09-05T14:32:35.617" Score="3" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;To translate “what did you eat today at lunch?” in Chinese, I have 午饭 to translate lunch, and 今天 for today. Do they have to be located at the beginning of the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天午饭你吃了什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or can I put them in other locations, such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你午饭今天吃了什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are those interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="908" LastEditorUserId="760" LastEditDate="2012-09-05T15:25:44.157" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T19:45:27.777" Title="Should the temporal indicators be in a certain order?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2064" CreationDate="2012-09-05T15:10:53.027" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The time specification should be before the verb, but you can choose whether you put it before or after the subject. There is (a little bit) more emphasis on the first word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can either say 今天你吃什么了？  or 你今天吃什么了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you have both a time description, a place description and explained how you did something (manner), the time should be first, then the manner and finally the place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example: 我   昨天  在北京     看到他 （I saw him yesterday in Beijing) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Word_order&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt; for more details and some more examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in Chinese you normally specify something from broad to narrow, general to concrete. So the year comes before the month, the month comes before the day, and so on. For example, you could say 去年八月21号上午九点. For places it is similar (first the country, then the city, than the street, ...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example 午饭 can be seen as the topic of the sentence. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_grammar#Topic_prominence&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; for more information about topic prominence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With commas, your first sentence would be 今天，午饭，你吃什么了？ (I'll put the 了 at the end. Before 什么 is done a lot, but not really correct. I won't go into details about this, since it is a completely different topic). 今天，午饭 is the topic of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say this as 今天的午饭，你吃什么了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence is not really something you can use in written language, but people might say it in oral language, but they would say it like this 你午饭，今天吃什么了？  (added a comma). It still sounds quite awkward to me and certainly isn't standard usage, but I'm pretty sure some people would say it like this and others wouldn't look strange hearing this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I currently have no time, I'll extend this later).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-09-06T19:31:33.793" LastActivityDate="2012-09-06T19:31:33.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2063" CreationDate="2012-09-05T23:25:42.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/12/0203/23/4891624_184009111.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;. It's mainly focused on methods to quickly memorize the meaning and pattern of 64 hexagrams. Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1000" LastEditorUserId="1000" LastEditDate="2012-09-05T23:36:45.783" LastActivityDate="2012-09-05T23:36:45.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2054" CreationDate="2012-09-06T02:28:16.157" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your wife asks &quot;你是不是到外面泡妞啦&quot;.&#xA;Your brothers ask &quot;你到外面泡妞了没有&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you missed the point: &quot;你是不是到外面泡妞啦&quot; means your wife does not know whether you were flirting with other women, but she strongly thinks you were. This is because most women in love are paranoia. &quot;你到外面泡妞了没有&quot;, on the other hand, is a neutral question without any guesses. Your brothers ask in this way because they trust you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1013" LastEditorUserId="558" LastEditDate="2012-09-20T13:52:41.993" LastActivityDate="2012-09-20T13:52:41.993" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2069" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-06T23:16:22.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditional characters are currently used in the standardized character sets of Taiwan and Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Traditional Chinese characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-06T23:29:43.640" LastActivityDate="2012-09-06T23:29:43.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2070" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-06T23:16:22.313" Score="0" Body=" For questions about traditional Chinese (predating reforms in the 1950s in mainland China, and still used in e.g. Hong Kong and Taiwan). Not merely for questions which happen to be written in traditional Chinese." OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T04:03:27.973" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T04:03:27.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2071" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2095" CreationDate="2012-09-06T23:23:06.693" Score="6" ViewCount="2528" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd never seen or heard this before until I recently watched a TV series and had to ask my wife to explain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My initial guess was that it meant &quot;I feel sorry for you&quot; when in fact it means something like &quot;I'm very sorry&quot; (in the direction of the listener).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I dislike you&quot; which is &lt;em&gt;I ...verb... you&lt;/em&gt; is correct English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 我对不起你 seems like &quot;I sorry you&quot; which is &lt;em&gt;I ...adjective... you&lt;/em&gt; which is incorrect English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, have I got the wrong meaning of 对不起 (in this context), is there a verb meaning which I am missing or is this a sentence structure unique to Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%AF%B9%E4%B8%8D%E8%B5%B7&quot;&gt;listed under verb&lt;/a&gt; the following meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To cause someone embarrassment; to screw someone over; to do something&#xA;  to a person that would demand an apology later on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't think &quot;I caused you embarrassment&quot; or &quot;I screwed you over&quot; is a very adequate translation of 我很对不起你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T01:33:44.620" LastActivityDate="2012-09-20T12:27:53.997" Title="Is 我很对不起你 a unique sentence structure?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2072" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-06T23:25:08.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.china-language.gov.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;China National Language Committee&lt;/a&gt; defines &lt;strong&gt;Beginner&lt;/strong&gt; level requires 4-6 months of study.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi&lt;/a&gt;, beginner level usually means comprehension of about 300 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-06T23:41:05.697" LastActivityDate="2012-09-06T23:41:05.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2073" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-06T23:25:08.640" Score="0" Body="Questions at the low beginning or elementary level for students of Chinese language" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-06T23:26:07.267" LastActivityDate="2012-09-06T23:26:07.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2074" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-06T23:40:10.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.china-language.gov.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;China National Language Committee&lt;/a&gt; defines &lt;strong&gt;Intermediate&lt;/strong&gt; level requires 7-12 months of study.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi&lt;/a&gt;, intermediate level usually means comprehension of about 1200 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-06T23:40:52.890" LastActivityDate="2012-09-06T23:40:52.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2075" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-06T23:40:10.907" Score="0" Body="Questions at the intermediate level for students of Chinese language" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-06T23:41:19.627" LastActivityDate="2012-09-06T23:41:19.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2076" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-06T23:40:22.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.china-language.gov.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;China National Language Committee&lt;/a&gt; defines &lt;strong&gt;Advanced&lt;/strong&gt; level requires more than 12 months of study.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi&lt;/a&gt;, advanced level usually means comprehension of more than 1200 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-06T23:40:49.177" LastActivityDate="2012-09-06T23:40:49.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2077" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-06T23:40:22.437" Score="0" Body="Questions at the advanced level of Chinese language, discussing finer points of language comprehension." OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-06T23:40:58.223" LastActivityDate="2012-09-06T23:40:58.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2078" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T01:16:13.603" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T01:16:13.603" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T01:16:13.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2079" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T01:16:13.603" Score="0" Body="Questions about games that help learning Chinese language in terms of reading, listening, and also writing or speaking." OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T01:22:13.023" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T01:22:13.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2080" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T01:19:31.320" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T01:19:31.320" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T01:19:31.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2081" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T01:19:31.320" Score="0" Body="Questions that concern the reading and comprehension of a written text" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T01:21:48.563" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T01:21:48.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2082" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T01:22:46.807" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T01:22:46.807" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T01:22:46.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2083" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T01:22:46.807" Score="0" Body="Questions regarding the correct consonants, vowels, tone, stress, rhythm and intonation of a word in spoken Chinese" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T03:59:14.887" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T03:59:14.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2071" CreationDate="2012-09-07T01:24:54.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence can be used independently. It reads &quot;I'm terribly sorry&quot;. The speaker is apologizing sincerely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很 is an adverb that emphasize the extent of the adjective/verb that comes after it. It doesn't have to be translated to &quot;very&quot;. For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我很想要那个玩具&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want that toy badly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不起 in most cases is only used to offer apology or excuse for some fault, failure, or injury. It's a verb, but can be translated either to an adjective, &quot;sorry&quot;, or verb, &quot;apologize&quot;. The adjective version is grammatically wrong in this sentence, so we can consider the verb version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, saying &quot;I apologize to you&quot; still sounds strange. That's because when we apologize to someone directly we usually won't add the &quot;to you&quot; part, but in Chinese, it is essential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I feel sorry for you&quot; is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我为你感到难过&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1000" LastEditorUserId="1000" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T02:26:59.573" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T02:26:59.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2085" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T02:23:57.770" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T02:23:57.770" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T02:23:57.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2086" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T02:23:57.770" Score="0" Body="Questions about mathematical terms and expressions as they are represented in schools of China" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T03:46:41.453" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T03:46:41.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2087" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T02:28:44.347" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T02:28:44.347" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T02:28:44.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2088" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T02:28:44.347" Score="0" Body="Questions about understanding the meaning of words, phrases, etc.  For in-context meaning, use [meaning-in-context]." OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T02:35:46.637" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T02:35:46.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2089" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T02:38:48.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Phrases in Chinese language oftentimes are &lt;em&gt;idiomatic&lt;/em&gt; by nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In linguistics, &lt;em&gt;idiomaticity&lt;/em&gt; is defined as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Use of segmentally complex expressions whose semantic structure is not deducible jointly from their syntactic structure and the semantic structure of their components. -- Weinreich (1972:89)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also: &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/idioms&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged 'idioms'&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;idioms&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T03:39:56.380" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T03:39:56.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2090" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T02:38:48.010" Score="0" Body="A phrase is a group of words that form a single unit in the syntax of a sentence." OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T03:47:26.180" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T03:47:26.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2091" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T02:43:09.017" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T02:43:09.017" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T02:43:09.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2092" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T02:43:09.017" Score="0" Body="Questions concerning the types of words and phrases which are grouped and ordered meaningfully to express a statement, question, or another type of sentence" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T03:47:31.657" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T03:47:31.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2093" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T02:47:48.713" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T02:47:48.713" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T02:47:48.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2094" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T02:47:48.713" Score="0" Body="Questions about the words or phrases that may have non-unique meaning, spelling, or pronunciation, usually depending on a context" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T03:46:31.003" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T03:46:31.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2071" CreationDate="2012-09-07T03:25:07.973" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the Chinese language has always been very consistent here. Consider the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我很对不起你。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我很讨厌你。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我很爱你。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93verb%E2%80%93object&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;subject-verb-object&lt;/a&gt; sentence structure is very consistent. In English, the last two sentences can be translated directly with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I hate you very much.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I love you very much.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why the first sentence could not be translated directly is due to the lack of such a verb in English and not due to the peculiarity of the Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;third&lt;/em&gt; meaning in the Wikitionary article you quoted captures more of the essence of this verb &quot;对不起&quot; than the first two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to do something to a person that would demand an apology later on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To elaborate, &quot;我很对不起你&quot; is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; a statement of apology but a statement that you owe someone &lt;em&gt;more than&lt;/em&gt; just an apology. This is logically so, because the subject would have easily apologised with a simple sorry (对不起) when speaking directly to the other party.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To extend this further, &quot;你很对不起她&quot; is another valid statement to mean you owe her more than just an apology. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她为了你付出了这么多，你却这样糟蹋她。你真的很对不起她。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She has done so much for you, yet you treated her so badly. You really&#xA;  owe her more than just an apology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T05:31:20.067" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T05:31:20.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2096" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T03:26:36.577" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T03:26:36.577" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T03:26:36.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2097" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T03:26:36.577" Score="0" Body="Questions about understanding words or phrases within a given context." OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T02:50:08.893" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T02:50:08.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2098" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T03:33:32.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In linguistics, &lt;em&gt;idiomaticity&lt;/em&gt; is defined as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Use of segmentally complex expressions whose semantic structure is not deducible jointly from their syntactic structure and the semantic structure of their components. -- Weinreich (1972:89)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T03:47:19.003" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T03:47:19.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2099" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T03:33:32.633" Score="0" Body="Questions related to idioms, maxims, sayings, and other expressions consisting of a combination of words that has an indirect, figurative meaning." OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T03:46:37.273" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T03:46:37.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2100" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T04:13:48.207" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T04:13:48.207" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T04:13:48.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2101" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T04:13:48.207" Score="0" Body="Questions related specifically to academic study of the Chinese language, or specific vocabulary or style to use when writing Chinese in an academic style" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2015-10-10T05:36:11.347" LastActivityDate="2015-10-10T05:36:11.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2102" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T04:17:01.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic&quot;&gt;help pages&lt;/a&gt; for details of which requests for resources are on-topic for this site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Additional notes:&lt;/strong&gt; Resource questions are very likely to be closed. Check the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/1120/43&quot;&gt;Resource thread&lt;/a&gt; on this site, and make sure your question fits the SE standards and the site's scope. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What is a good list of sites/resources for X? = &lt;em&gt;not good&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Is this the correct way to express X? = &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2016-06-17T10:39:44.040" LastActivityDate="2016-06-17T10:39:44.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2103" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T04:17:01.290" Score="0" Body="Questions concerning search and sharing of supplementary resources used in the process of language study: books, articles, links to Web sites, audio and video recordings, corpora, etc. Click on &quot;info&quot; to have more information on how to use this tag." OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2016-06-17T10:39:44.040" LastActivityDate="2016-06-17T10:39:44.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2104" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-07T04:33:33.307" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T04:33:33.307" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T04:33:33.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2105" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-07T04:33:33.307" Score="0" Body="Classifier, or Measure Word, is a word or morpheme used along with numbers and countable nouns to denote the quantity of a given object, represented by a noun." OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T04:39:08.280" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T04:39:08.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2071" CreationDate="2012-09-07T05:21:08.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a classical Chinese sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm very sorry to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我: subject&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很: adjective &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不起: predicate &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你: object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classical Chinese sentence structure is: &lt;strong&gt;subject [adjective] predicate object [adjective]&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1014" LastEditorUserId="1014" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T05:28:09.557" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T05:28:09.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2054" CreationDate="2012-09-07T05:24:43.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;是不是喝酒了? is stronger than 喝酒了没有？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是不是喝酒了? means I doubt that you drunk wine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喝酒了没有？ doesn't have this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1014" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T05:24:43.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2109" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2110" CreationDate="2012-09-07T06:11:24.650" Score="5" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;p&gt;In another users answer &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2046/38&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2046/38&lt;/a&gt; they said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一 is pronounced in the first tone when it stands alone. It is&#xA;  pronounced in the fourth tone when it precedes a first, second, or&#xA;  third tone. However, it is pronounced in the second tone when it&#xA;  precedes a fourth tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was surprised to read this and didn't believe it. However, when searching the net I found several places where this is mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked Google translate and it gave me Yīzǎo for 一早 and Yī nián yǐhòu for 一年以后 which is what I always thought it was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A search on Google for &quot;yīnián&quot; provides me with 106,000 results, but a search for &quot;yìnián&quot; only provides 6,330 results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, the examples above only provide partial evidence of correctness. But, is there a reliable, authoritative resource which can confirm the claim that 一 should change to 4th tone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T07:54:26.570" Title="Authoritative source for 一 changing to 4th tone before 1st, 2nd or 3rd" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2109" CreationDate="2012-09-07T06:53:04.100" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;These tone changes, known as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi#Mandarin_Chinese&quot;&gt;tone sandhi&lt;/a&gt;, are not indicated &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyin.info/readings/zyg/rules.html#x4.11&quot;&gt;according to Hanyu Pinyin rules&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.1 Only the original tones are indicated; tone sandhi is not indicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why your Google search for &quot;yìnián&quot; would not necessarily yield more results, because it's still supposed to be written as &quot;yīnián&quot; even when it's pronounced &quot;yìnián&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; Here's more information on tone sandhi from &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=PUi6QoFNQ1sC&amp;amp;lpg=PA28&amp;amp;ots=Vb7X6m9nL7&amp;amp;pg=PA27#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Chinese Lexicon: A Comprehensive Survey&lt;/em&gt; by Yip Po-Ching&lt;/a&gt;, p. 27:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...tone sandhi may also happen by convention in a specific set of words in the lexicon when they are followed by words of different tones. This set includes numericals: &lt;strong&gt;yī&lt;/strong&gt; 'one', &lt;strong&gt;qī&lt;/strong&gt; 'seven', &lt;strong&gt;bā&lt;/strong&gt; 'eight', and the negator &lt;strong&gt;bù&lt;/strong&gt; 'not'. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;yī&lt;/strong&gt; on its own or not followed by other tones&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;yī&lt;/strong&gt; → &lt;strong&gt;yí&lt;/strong&gt; when followed by a fourth tone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;yī&lt;/strong&gt; → &lt;strong&gt;yì&lt;/strong&gt; when followed by other tones&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;qī/bā&lt;/strong&gt; on their own or followed by tones other than a fourth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;qī/bā&lt;/strong&gt; → &lt;strong&gt;qí/bá&lt;/strong&gt; when followed by a fourth tone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;bù&lt;/strong&gt; on its own or followed by tones other than a fourth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;bù&lt;/strong&gt; → &lt;strong&gt;bú&lt;/strong&gt; when followed by a fourth tone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;All these tone sandhi applications are actually more or less rule-governed and will not generally be reflected in the &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt; or phonetic notations of the disyllabic words or expressions in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T07:54:26.570" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T07:54:26.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2109" CreationDate="2012-09-07T07:08:13.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What source do you call authoritative? Any Chinese grammar book and handbook series should explain this at some point.&#xA;In Wikipedia it is also mentioned: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi#Mandarin_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi#Mandarin_Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that there are these tone sandhi, there are two ways to deal with these. You can either write the original tones, or you can write the sandhi.&#xA;For subsequent third tones (for example 你好), almost nobody will write the sandhi, so almost all dictionaries will write ni3 hao3 instead of ni2 hao3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Officially you shouldn't indicate the sone sandhi (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyin.info/readings/zyg/rules.html#x4.11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.pinyin.info/readings/zyg/rules.html#x4.11&lt;/a&gt;), but for 一 and 不 many dictionaries apply the sandhi, while others don't. For example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E4%B8%8D%E5%AF%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; and 现代汉语词典 write bu4 dui4, while &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/cc/detail/%E4%B8%8D%E5%AF%B9/33355&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nciku&lt;/a&gt; writes bu2 dui4, while nobody would pronounce it as bu4 dui4 in practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-09-07T07:20:19.030" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T07:20:19.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="579" CreationDate="2012-09-07T13:32:02.860" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The international phonetic alphabet would have been a great tool. I understand petruza's frustration completely. Names like Zhuang, Zhang, Zhou and Qing to name a few are almost always mispronounced. Tones and accents are not the problem, the accuracy of consonants needs to be brought in. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1016" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2012-09-22T04:02:31.280" LastActivityDate="2012-09-22T04:02:31.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2071" CreationDate="2012-09-07T19:14:33.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;对不起 is a verb not an adjective in Chinese. It is commonly translated into &quot;sorry&quot; to preserve meaning but not word class. A verb translation could be &quot;let down&quot; or &quot;disappoint&quot;. If you see 我对不起你 as &quot;I disappointed you&quot;, then 我很对不起你 is &quot;I disappointed you so much&quot;, which makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-09-07T19:14:33.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2071" CreationDate="2012-09-09T17:36:39.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A literal translation of 我很对不起你。is something like, &quot;I'm deeply in debt to you,&quot; or &quot;I'm very much obligated to you,&quot; which figuratively translates into &quot;I'm very sorry (for what I did to do). It is a passive, not active construction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-09-09T17:36:39.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2064" CreationDate="2012-09-09T17:40:04.777" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The temporal indicators need to be in a certain order relative to EACH OTHER. That is 今天午饭...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But relative to a subject, 你, it can be 你 今天午饭...or 今天午饭 你...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-09-09T17:40:04.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2057" CreationDate="2012-09-09T17:46:16.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both mean to &quot;stay in.&quot; But one has better connotations than the other.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;待&quot; means &quot;to serve&quot; or to &quot;wait on.&quot; As such, it connotes a certain level of alertness. &#xA;To &quot;待在&quot; in cold weather is a smart, alert, thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;呆&quot; means &quot;stupid&quot; or &quot;idle.&quot; To &quot;呆在&quot; suggests that you are hanging or &quot;idling&quot; around, because you have nothing better to do, not because (as in the previous paragraph) it is the &quot;right&quot; thing to do. It's more of a homonym or pun on &quot;待在&quot; than anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-09-09T17:46:16.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2054" CreationDate="2012-09-09T17:52:55.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;是不是喝酒了 refers to &quot;state.&quot; IS someone drunk (or sober)?  喝酒了没有 refers to &quot;action.&quot; HAS someone drunk (or not)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2012-09-09T17:52:55.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2012-09-11T08:51:27.340" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, 你现在人在哪里, is more like &quot;where the hell are you now?&quot; but maybe not that strong.  I personally will use that sentence if I were kept waiting and had to call someone to ask where he/she is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1027" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T08:51:27.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2012-09-11T10:40:08.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;正确的解析应该是有点埋怨的意思，例如我跟你约会，你迟到，我有点生气打电话：：“你现在人在哪里！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A proper analysis should have a bit of a reproachful feeling. For example, if you are late arriving for our date, I might make an angry phone call: “你现在人在哪里！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1040" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-09-27T20:08:50.457" LastActivityDate="2012-09-27T20:08:50.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2057" CreationDate="2012-09-11T10:43:33.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一般来说中文里会用“待在”而不是“呆在”，“待在”强调的是“stay”这种状态，强调的是身体，而“呆”强调的是“mind is empty”，强调的是思维停滞。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不要过分相信iciba之类的网络翻译工具，有条件的话还是买一本纸质字典会更有权威&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;还有什么疑问欢迎继续留言共同探讨&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, you can use 待在 or 呆在 in Chinese. 待在 emphasizes &quot;staying&quot; in the current state, while 呆在 emphasizes &quot;emptying the mind&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't put too much faith in iciba and similar online translation services. Sometimes you just need to buy an authoritative dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you still have questions, please leave a comment so we can search together.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1039" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-09-14T20:02:12.200" LastActivityDate="2012-09-14T20:02:12.200" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2054" CreationDate="2012-09-11T10:47:01.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“是不是吃了蛋糕？” ——这句话强调的是一个人“是否”吃蛋糕了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“吃蛋糕了没有？”——这句话强调的是一个人是否“吃蛋糕”了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总的来说两句话意思其实是基本一样的，现实生活里的效果是一样的：）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“是不是吃了蛋糕？” This sentence's emphasis is on whether or not the person ate cake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“吃蛋糕了没有？” This sentence's emphasis is on whether the person ate cake or something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, the two sentences have fundamentally the same meaning. In real life, the result is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1039" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-09-11T19:59:36.703" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T19:59:36.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2064" CreationDate="2012-09-11T10:54:12.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;今天午饭你吃了什么？——这句话更好一些&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你午饭今天吃了什么？——这句话日常生活中说出来中国人是可以理解的，但是不是很“native”，这句话如果想显得更加“native”一些的话可以改为“你今天午饭吃了什么？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天午饭你吃了什么？ This sentence is a bit better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你午饭今天吃了什么？ A Chinese speaker could understand this sentence in everyday speech, but it's not very &quot;native&quot;. If you want this sentence to sound a bit more &quot;native&quot;, you could improve it to, “你今天午饭吃了什么？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1039" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-09-11T19:45:27.777" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T19:45:27.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2059" CreationDate="2012-09-11T13:45:47.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“我吃饭的时候”是个状语从句，不知道你们能不能看懂,&quot;when 我吃的的时候，我看了一本书&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我吃饭的时候” has an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverbial_clause&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;adverbial clause&lt;/a&gt; (I'm not sure if you can understand that). &lt;strong&gt;When&lt;/strong&gt; 我吃的的时候，我看了一本书. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1051" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-11T04:13:13.617" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:13:13.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2057" CreationDate="2012-09-11T13:49:53.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;语法上“呆在”是错误的，只是用的人比较多，而且大家也理解（句号）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“呆在” is a grammatical error, simply a very common one. However, everyone understands it. (Period.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1051" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-09-11T19:49:33.560" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T19:49:33.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1953" CreationDate="2012-09-11T15:48:56.723" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am Chinese. Mr/Ms.Yozloy's answer is correct, and may I add something more here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what I know: some transcriptions of contries' names in Chinese came from Japanese (they share some same letters, which is called kanji, as you may know) in late 19th century. Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       Japanese / Modern Chinese&#xA;&#xA;America 米利坚   /  美利坚&#xA;&#xA;England 英吉利   /  英格兰&#xA;&#xA;Deutsch 独逸址   /  德意志&#xA;&#xA;France  佛朗西   /  法兰西&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The changes may come from the misunderstands in second translation（European language--Japanese--Chinese）or just because translators (they are all knowladged people at that time in China)want to show these contries' strength so that we can courage ourselves to run after them——at that time, China is a very weak country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually there are changes after 1949：at first we named Mozambique “莫三鼻给”，however， Premier ZhouEnlai said that 鼻（nose） is not a good word here——and now we call Mozambique “莫桑比克”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1056" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2012-09-22T04:03:32.233" LastActivityDate="2012-09-22T04:03:32.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2127" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2135" CreationDate="2012-09-11T15:59:51.433" Score="13" ViewCount="1206" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I understand, the dog radical (犭) was used for all non-Han ethnic groups before the Chinese Communist Party took power on the mainland. Is there truth to that? If so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why did the CCP stop the use of 犭?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why do we still see the the 犭 radical in some ethnic descriptors, like 犹太 (Jewish)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="760" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T19:29:15.660" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T13:14:54.223" Title="Dog radical (犭) for non-Han ethnic groups" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;proper-nouns&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1977" CreationDate="2012-09-11T16:18:31.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a chinese, I usually call table-tennis table &quot;乒乓球案子&quot;, it is correct in some area of China, but it is not formal.In china ,we call table-tennis table &quot;乒乓球台” formally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1057" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T16:18:31.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1923" CreationDate="2012-09-11T16:27:59.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can ignore the difference between them when they are used in front of a verb in a sentence. Otherwise we can say &quot;快了&quot; but not &quot;快要了&quot;. For example, when asked &quot;他什么时候来？”，one can say &quot;快了&quot; but cannot say &quot;快要了”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1057" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T16:27:59.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2003" CreationDate="2012-09-11T16:46:28.627" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;You maybe surprise how can Chinese find the information in this mess.&quot; To my opinion, Chinese has much more characters than English, each character is quite different form another, and when they consist of one word, it gets more different from other words, so we can easily find some key words in a text. You can practice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1057" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T16:46:28.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1997" CreationDate="2012-09-11T17:01:24.413" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;BertR's answser is right. But it depends on the circumstance you can saying it, if you are in front of the train station, you ask someone &quot;我哪里可以买到火车票&quot; instead of &quot;我在哪里可以买到火车票?&quot;, one can unterstand you want to buy ticket, they are almost the same though it seems not correct to say &quot;我哪里可以买到火车票&quot; to some extent. But when your friend ask you to visit him, and you are failed to buy a ticket, you can say &quot;我哪里可以买到火车票&quot;, it means the ticket is difficult to buy, this saying is a kind of complaint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1057" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T17:01:24.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2127" CreationDate="2012-09-11T17:13:48.670" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only provide a partial answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many of the characters used in the names of non-Han ethnic groups were originally derogatory. After the founding of the PRC, the government conceptualized New China as a multiethnic state (多民族国家), and they &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_issues_in_China#Orthographic_pejoratives&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;changed&lt;/a&gt; many of the characters that were perceived as derogatory. I don't know if this process started under the KMT (国民党), as you suggest, and I also don't know why no one bothered to fix the one for the Jews.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; The character for the Jews is a little different from those for other ethnic groups. For one, it was not an invented character. Rather, (in modern-ish times), existing characters were picked for the transliteration. Also, although it does have the dog radical, the other meanings of the character are not negative (or related at all to animals). The only extant meanings (besides being part of &lt;code&gt;犹太&lt;/code&gt;) are &lt;code&gt;seem (好像；如同)&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;still (还；仍然)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="17462" LastEditDate="2020-02-29T13:14:54.223" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T13:14:54.223" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1953" CreationDate="2012-09-11T17:13:53.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translate translates &quot;德国&quot; separately, which is a wrong way. &#xA;In Chinese, &quot;德&quot; is a word which means &quot;Virtue&quot;, and &quot;国&quot; is also a word which means &quot;country&quot;. So you get the result &quot;德国=Virtue Country&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the right way should be: you consider &quot;德国&quot; as a word. It means the country, German.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1063" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T17:13:53.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2054" CreationDate="2012-09-12T00:58:24.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first one is a yes-or-no question, the point is whether you drank or not. The second one is a question also. It means if you didn't drink, we can go drink together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1066" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-09-27T19:35:23.920" LastActivityDate="2012-09-27T19:35:23.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1953" CreationDate="2012-09-12T01:02:55.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;德国's 德 is from the Chinese word 德意志. Chinese people are used to use words with two characters, so we added a 国, which means nation, after 德.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1066" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-09-12T10:05:29.297" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T10:05:29.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1997" CreationDate="2012-09-12T01:07:50.353" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first one is proper, and for the second one most Chinese people will understand what you want to say, but it is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1066" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-19T09:00:48.587" LastActivityDate="2012-10-19T09:00:48.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1997" CreationDate="2012-09-12T01:10:51.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我在哪里可以买得到火车票 is the same as 哪买火车票.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese will understand even you just say&quot;火车票&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1067" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-19T08:59:58.400" LastActivityDate="2012-10-19T08:59:58.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2146" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2151" CreationDate="2012-09-12T03:31:24.560" Score="8" ViewCount="9839" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've asked some of my Chinese friends what the difference was. Most couldn't explain. Some said that you 了解 people but you 理解 things. What's the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="802" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T02:32:59.680" Title="What's the difference between 了解 and 理解？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2146" CreationDate="2012-09-12T03:38:09.527" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 理解 and 了解 can be used with human objects. However, at least colloquially, 理解 often implies empathy (concerning the person's circumstances), in addition to mere understanding, whereas 了解 does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="501" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T03:38:09.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2149" CreationDate="2012-09-12T04:21:04.377" Score="6" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2110/38&quot;&gt;previous question&lt;/a&gt; I found the following about tone sandhi and &lt;strong&gt;yī 'one'&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;yī&lt;/strong&gt; on its own or not followed by other tones&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;yī → yí&lt;/strong&gt; when followed by a fourth tone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;yī → yì&lt;/strong&gt; when followed by other tones&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if tone sandhi effects the way that set idioms such as 成语 are pronounced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A prime example is 一年四季, is this pronounced &quot;yī nián sìjì&quot; or &quot;yì nián sìjì&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-09-25T08:07:31.897" Title="Does tone sandhi apply to 成语" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2148" CreationDate="2012-09-12T04:43:27.477" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Similar as for words, tone sandhi also apply for 成语. So 一年四季 is pronounced as &quot;yì nián sìjì&quot;, 一波三折 is pronounced as “yì bō sān zhé” and 一马当先 is pronounced as “yì mǎ dāng xiān”. 一触即发 however is pronounced “yí chù jí fā”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1072" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-09-12T15:05:49.053" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T15:05:49.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1997" CreationDate="2012-09-12T05:33:17.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“哪里” sometimes means “how can I do this” or “It's too difficult for me”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在哪里可以买到火车票 = Where can I buy a train ticket?&#xA;我哪里可以买到火车票 = Why do you think I could buy train ticket?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 哪里 follows 在、去、到 it means somewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 哪里 follows someone or something it may mean  “how can I do this” or “It's too difficult for me”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他哪里能完成这个项目 = He cannot finish it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你哪里能承担责任 = You cannot be responsible for this thing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1075" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-11T04:38:25.310" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:38:25.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2146" CreationDate="2012-09-12T05:54:49.567" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;From 《商务馆学汉语近义词词典》：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同：&#xA;都有“知道”的意思。但意思和用法都有不用，一般不能互换。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;异：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用于事物，“了解”指知道得很清楚，强调知道事物的情况和过程，“了解”是一种感性的认识；“理解”强调懂得事物的意义和内容，明白为什么会是这样，是一种理性的认识，比“了解”更深入&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这件事我一点儿也不了解，不可能谈出什么意思。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你了解这家公司的基本情况吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;亨利非常了解中国历史和文化。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你这样说是什么意思，我还不能理解。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这篇文章内容太深，学生们理解不了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;发生这样的事真让人不可理解。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用于人，“了解”表示对此人知道得很清楚，知道此人的情况，性格，爱好，等；“理解”表示懂得此人的心，明白此人为什么要这样做，能谅解，宽容此人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我好久没有跟他谈过了，我真的不了解他有什么想法。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你们刚认识，应该互相了解。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我和刘芳是好朋友，所以我很了解她。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;虽然我跟李立是好朋友，但我真的不理解他为什么要这样做。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;夫妻之间最重要的是互相理解。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这件事我不能帮你，希望你能理解。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“了解”还有“打听，调查”的意思，还可以重叠；“理解”没有这样的用法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这次去中国农村，我们了解到喝多情况。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;火灾很严重，市长亲自到现场了解情况。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他的情况我已经了解过了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你去了解了解这个人的情况。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“了解”，“理解”在使用中有一些习惯搭配，不能互换&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了解到 - 进行了解 - 深入了解 - 向人了解 - 了解得很清楚&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得到理解 - 深刻理解 - 表示理解 - 理解能力 - 理解得很正确&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想向老师了解一下这里的招生情况。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;校长深入到师生之中，了解到了事情的真实情况。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;通过调查，我们对事情的经过已经了解得很清楚了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我对你的这种心情表示理解。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这句话的意思你理解得很正确。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-09-12T18:30:33.953" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T18:30:33.953" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2146" CreationDate="2012-09-12T06:12:52.487" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;了解&lt;/code&gt;: Somebody know some messages or news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eg. 我了解事情的内幕。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;理解&lt;/code&gt;: Somebody learn for somethings, then understand them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eg. 经过学习，我理解了这个公式。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1076" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T06:12:52.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2146" CreationDate="2012-09-12T06:50:12.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my point of view&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;理解 includes the meaning of understanding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了解 has a process like recognizing or hearing from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1078" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T06:50:12.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2127" CreationDate="2012-09-12T15:04:13.523" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;犭has nothing to do with dogs, it is often used in names of animals and its meaning can be rather neutral, such as 猛. Comparing human to animals may sound a little weird, but in modern Chinese, 犹 has four meanings and none of them is derogatory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1082" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T15:04:13.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1940" CreationDate="2012-09-12T15:18:35.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;已=已经. It just represents the past perfect tense. I think [been] is necessary here. The sentence implies that the subject never came back during the few days, in this case past perfect tense is appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1082" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-09-13T16:02:44.657" LastActivityDate="2012-09-13T16:02:44.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2012-09-12T15:27:55.757" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is always followed by a noun, 地 appears after adverbs, and 得 is used after verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你的苹果 your apple&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;快乐地唱 sing delightfully&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跑得很快 run very fast&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1082" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-09-13T09:08:22.430" LastActivityDate="2012-09-13T09:08:22.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2003" CreationDate="2012-09-12T15:42:14.053" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember there's a research about different ways of processing written information between Chinese and English speakers. Chinese readers have active spots in a part of the brain that deals with pictures, while a different place in the brains of English-speaking readers is responsible for reading. It might be possible that Chinese recognize all the characters on a page as a whole picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's more, the Chinese translation of a book is usually shorter than its English version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1082" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T15:42:14.053" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2059" CreationDate="2012-09-12T16:12:07.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read a book while having dinner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see 吃 as an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverbial_clause&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;adverbial clause of time&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1084" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-11T03:34:53.173" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T03:34:53.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1973" CreationDate="2012-09-12T16:25:50.103" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just 书 is enough. This is the most natural to answer such a question, and no need to say more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1084" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T16:25:50.103" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2045" CreationDate="2012-09-12T16:33:47.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;YI2 GE4 or yi2 ge5 are both correct, and it depends on where you using them.&#xA;When we use 一 and a quantifier together, we always proniunce 一 as Yi2, and there is no specific reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1084" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T16:33:47.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1950" CreationDate="2012-09-12T17:22:22.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China, if you call anyone as 老不死, you are not praising him as &quot;old and not died&quot;. In fact, you are asking him &quot;why don't you go die?&quot;. So we think it's so impolite to call anyone 老不死, especially call elderly. Besides, there is a saying &quot;老而不死是为贼“, it means that if someone is so old but never go die, then there must be something weird with him. Thus, nobody in China would apperciate you if being called 老不死.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1084" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T17:22:22.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1973" CreationDate="2012-09-12T23:29:23.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker. I will just say &quot;书&quot; in most cases. However, the way to answer depends on the situation. It's OK to say &quot;书&quot; between friends, relatives, and colleagues, etc. But when the question is from a senior or respected person, simple answer like &quot;书&quot; could make him/her feel that you are indifferent. In these situation, we will usually elaborate the answer a little bit, such as adding a very brief description about what sort of book it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1000" LastActivityDate="2012-09-12T23:29:23.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2146" CreationDate="2012-09-13T00:38:34.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the two words have almost the same meanings, maybe sometimes we used them by a little different way in different context. For example, u will date with your good friends, but one of them couldn't come because he must 够 shopping with his girlfriend. In this context, u can say &quot; 了解了解＂which accompany a little ridicules. In a little bit serious occasion, u will date with your good friends, but one of them coudn't come because his parents ill, you can say &quot;理解&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1086" LastActivityDate="2012-09-13T00:38:34.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2012-09-13T04:34:23.287" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, I dont think you need to distinguish 的 地 or 得 from others, because even as native speakers, we spend much time learning them. Also, we (even many tv programs）often use 的 instead of 地 and 得 since its convenient although its considered as a bad, even wrong way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1087" LastEditorUserId="834" LastEditDate="2012-09-13T10:56:41.887" LastActivityDate="2012-09-13T10:56:41.887" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2012-09-13T04:40:32.957" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's easy to distinguish them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Before a noun, like 家, we use 的, 我的家.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Before a verb, like 学习, we use 地, 好好地学习.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Before an adjective or adverb, like 快, we use 得, 跑得快.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1088" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2017-01-11T11:12:30.423" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T11:12:30.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2167" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2168" CreationDate="2012-09-13T11:01:21.713" Score="3" ViewCount="5449" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1581/is-it-common-for-zh-j-ch-q-and-sh-x-to-be-merged&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; states that these sounds can be often mixed (though mainly in dialtects...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know where I could find a detailed description of position and movement of the tongue &#xA;for these consonants - so as to learn how to make it sound properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example I have &lt;em&gt;very much difficutly&lt;/em&gt; making a different sound between &lt;code&gt;中 zhong1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;chong2 虫&lt;/code&gt;... because I don't know how to make them sound different. I feel like the zh should be a little more stronger, exploding. But on several audio excerpts, the ch is also strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Idem, I would say that x is a little more windy, and q has a soft and really short 'k' at the beginning of the beginning of the sound... but that's not precise enough to make it sound right all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="834" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-11-09T19:34:42.717" Title="Pronunciation differences between pinyin 'zh' and 'ch', and between 'qi' and 'xi'" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2167" CreationDate="2012-09-13T11:42:26.233" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between &lt;code&gt;zh&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ch&lt;/code&gt; has nothing to do with the position of the tongue: these two are pronounced with the tongue in the same position; the difference is aspiration -- &lt;code&gt;ch&lt;/code&gt; is aspirated while &lt;code&gt;zh&lt;/code&gt; is not. Both are retroflex affricates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;q&lt;/code&gt; have less in common -- actually &lt;code&gt;q&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ch&lt;/code&gt; are much closer to an untrained ear, as they're both aspirated affricates -- the only difference being the position of the tongue, &lt;code&gt;ch&lt;/code&gt; being a retroflex, and &lt;code&gt;q&lt;/code&gt; an alveo-palatal. &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; on the other hand is not aspirated, and a fricative. Actually &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; is close to the German Ich-laut (except &lt;code&gt;ch&lt;/code&gt; in Ich is a palatal rather than an alveo-palatal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2012-09-13T11:42:26.233" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2071" CreationDate="2012-09-14T03:52:37.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi，I don't know how to express the feelings of the sentence&quot;我很对不起你&quot;as a native Chinese speaker.it means I'm very sorry indeed.But in most cases if one use it ,he/she is to express one's guilty,in which case the fault speaker has made have no way to remedy.and there is also no way to get back the relationship between speaker and listener.As I known this is always used between lovers and friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,if a boy and a girl break up and because he treated her so badly ,&lt;strong&gt;notice here&lt;/strong&gt;,normally,he won't say &quot;我很对不起你&quot;when they just break up ,he will say&quot;我很对不起你&quot; when he want to get back with her but find there is no possibility that she will forgive him.this sentence always use in a very sad scene.in TV.not in real life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1093" LastActivityDate="2012-09-14T03:52:37.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2172" CreationDate="2012-09-14T04:11:31.457" Score="6" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Australia it is quite common to talk about Aboriginal people as they feature quite often when talking about sports, Olympics or politics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word that is used to describe Aboriginal people by native Chinese speakers is 土著人. I have had someone tell me (and I can't remember if it was a native Chinese person or not) that the word wasn't very flattering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 土著 mean, why was it chosen to mean an Aboriginal person and does it have negative connotations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-02-03T19:20:02.300" Title="Why is 土著人 used for Aboriginal people in Australia?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2171" CreationDate="2012-09-14T05:02:45.027" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some definitions for &amp;quot;土著&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;现代汉语词典&amp;gt;(商务印书馆,1992年):&amp;quot;世代居住本地的人.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;辞源&amp;gt;(商务印书馆,2004年):(1)&amp;quot;世代定居于一地&amp;quot;;(2)&amp;quot;后也称世代居住在本地的人为土著&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;辞海&amp;gt;(上海古籍出版社,1999年):(1)&amp;quot;古代游牧民族定居某地后,不再迁徙的称为‘土著&amp;quot;;(2)&amp;quot;后指世居本地的人&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classical Chinese, &amp;quot;土&amp;quot;, when used as an adjective, means &amp;quot;local&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;original&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zidiantong.com/ghy/648.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;形&amp;gt;本地的；当地的。《柳敬亭传》：“且五方～音，乡俗好尚习见习闻。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;著&amp;quot; has the meaning of &amp;quot;resident&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;stay&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zidiantong.com/ghy/2998.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;动&amp;gt;居于；处在。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically, &amp;quot;土著&amp;quot; means the original residents of some area. It does not have negative connotations. We use this word in daily conversations when referring to aboriginal people. However, in written articles, people may sometimes use &amp;quot;原住民&amp;quot; alternatively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1000" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-09-14T05:12:02.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2171" CreationDate="2012-09-14T06:11:36.047" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding one point to nfang's answer. Though both 土著(人) and 原住民 in general mean original residents of any area, people tends to use 土著(人) for Australian and New Zealand aborigines; use 原住民 for Taiwanese aborigines; and use more specific names for other areas (e.g. 印第安人 for Native Americans). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-09-14T06:11:36.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2071" CreationDate="2012-09-14T07:04:42.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;很 as simple means  &quot;Very much&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很爱你             I love you very much &lt;br&gt;&#xA;我很讨厌你           I hate you very much&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我很嫉妒你           I am envy you &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1095" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-09-14T09:40:52.787" LastActivityDate="2012-09-14T09:40:52.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2043" CreationDate="2012-09-14T17:28:26.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The role of “的” in this case is similar to &quot;what&quot; in English. So&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你说 -&amp;gt; you say&#xA;你说的 -&amp;gt; what you say (or said, depending on context)&#xA;你做 -&amp;gt; you do&#xA;你做的 -&amp;gt; what you do (or did, depending on context)&#xA;你说的和你做的不一致。 -&amp;gt; What you said does not match what you did.&#xA;他说的确实在理。 -&amp;gt; What he said really makes sense.&#xA;情况比我们估计的更糟。 -&amp;gt; The situation is worse than what we estimated.&#xA;&#xA;你说的是什么？ -&amp;gt; What is what you said?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or more concisely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你说什么？ -&amp;gt; What did you say?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or even more concisely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;什么？ -&amp;gt; What?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2012-09-14T17:28:26.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2071" CreationDate="2012-09-14T21:33:22.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here 对不起 is a verb and you can understand it as &quot;feel sorry&quot;. So the sentence &quot;我很对不起你&quot; is I feel sorry to you very much(&quot;very much&quot; --&gt; “很”).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="699" LastActivityDate="2012-09-14T21:33:22.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2177" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2179" CreationDate="2012-09-16T14:44:10.547" Score="3" ViewCount="582" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Possible Duplicate:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/783/translation-of-this-much-and-no-more&quot;&gt;Translation of &amp;ldquo;this much and no more&amp;rdquo;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this sentence on &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/spa/sentences/show/402894&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tatoeba&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我知道的就這麼多了。 (Simplified Chinese: 我知道的就这么多了。)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Beyond this I know nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mistakenly understood it as &quot;I know too much&quot; (just by looking at 我知道的 and 这么多), so maybe the 就 is playing a big role in this sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how did 我知道的就这么多了 comes to mean &quot;Beyond this I know nothing&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-09-17T20:52:19.987" Title="Meaning of 我知道的就这么多了" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2012-09-17T23:43:34.303" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2177" CreationDate="2012-09-16T15:29:28.087" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To translate directly,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我知道的就这么多了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;What I know is really this much.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which can be taken to imply that the person's knowledge is limited and can only help you this far. And hence, &quot;beyond this, I know nothing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put some context to the sentence above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: &quot;这题目很难，我不会做。&quot; (This question is difficult, I don't know how to do.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: &quot;是真的？&quot; (Really?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: &quot;我知道的就这么多了。你还是找别人帮忙吧。&quot; (What I know is really this much. You better&#xA;  find someone else to help you.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;就&quot; is the shortened form of &quot;就是&quot; and is spoken to emphasize that &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1937&quot;&gt;it is really like this&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. I think the confusion here has to do more with the understanding of the phrase &quot;这么多&quot; which means &quot;this much&quot; and not &quot;too much&quot; which is &quot;太多&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the record, &quot;I know too much.&quot; is translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我知道的太多了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2012-09-17T02:58:57.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2177" CreationDate="2012-09-16T15:39:58.550" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;就 has many meanings, but here it means &amp;quot;only&amp;quot;.&#xA;Definition + examples from 《现代汉语规范词典》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;限定范围，相当于&amp;quot;只&amp;quot;，&amp;quot;仅&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;屋里就剩下我一个人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这次聚会就他没有来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definition + example from《现代汉语词典》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仅仅；只：以前就他一个人知道，现在大家都知道了）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is used for a restricted scope and have the same meaning as 只 and 仅仅 (both meaning only).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples where 就 has the same meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;家里就是他一个人 (jia1 li3 jiu4 shi4 ta1 yi2 ge ren2): In his family there was only him&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三本书我看完了两本，就一本书没看了 (san1 ben3 shu1 wo3 kan4 wan2 le liang3 ben3, jiu4 yi4 ben3 shu1 mei2 kan4 le): I have read two of the three books. There is only one left that I haven't finished reading.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就去过一次 (jiu4 qu4 guo yi2 ci): only been there once&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;昨天就他没有来，别的人都来了 (zuo2 tian1 jiu4 ta1 mei2 you3 lai2, bie2 de ren2 dou1 lai2 le): yesterday only he didn't come, the others all came&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would translate your sentence as&#xA;&lt;em&gt;I only know this much&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-09-17T18:33:08.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2177" CreationDate="2012-09-16T19:57:47.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我知道的就這麼多了。 (Simplified Chinese: 我知道的就这么多了。)&#xA;Your guess on &quot;就&quot; is correct, this is the word that make difference in many senescence like this. 就 is used to emphasize the extent of how much you know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without &quot;就&quot;，  &quot;我知道的這麼多了&quot; means that “what I know is this much”. Now with &quot;就&quot;, you want to emphasize the extent what you know, so you can say &quot;this is all what I know&quot; or &quot;beyond this I know nothing&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1101" LastActivityDate="2012-09-16T19:57:47.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2057" CreationDate="2012-09-16T20:04:07.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“呆在” is definitely incorrect for your context. You may say &quot;一听到这个消息，他就呆在了那里，好久都没有动一下&quot; to emphasize that he has been shocked by the news. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1101" LastActivityDate="2012-09-16T20:04:07.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2182" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2184" CreationDate="2012-09-17T05:49:22.960" Score="7" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;護《說文》：『救視也』。但『擭』非同字，《說文》：『搫擭也。一曰布擭也，一曰握也』。&#xA;&#xA;我覺得『衛護』的『護』寫作『擭』更好。如題問，『護』為什麼是言部？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-09-18T23:11:43.603" LastActivityDate="2012-09-18T23:11:43.603" Title="Why 『衛護』's 『護』 is 言部？" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="747" CreationDate="2012-09-17T05:58:35.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;『滾』 is the formal form of gun3. 『滚』 is just used in normal people (like 『閱』『門 + 兊』(yue4)). This difference could be seen anywhere before. These days there are still many differences between Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese like 『強』『强』(qiang2). (I am not sure 口 is formal or 厶 is formal.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese just chooses the forms written by normal people（『俗體字』） first. So then, 『滾』 is simplified to 『滚』.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2012-09-17T05:58:35.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2182" CreationDate="2012-09-17T07:00:26.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我想&quot;衛護(wèi hù)&quot;的&quot;護(hù)&quot;是由&quot;辨護(biàn hù)&quot;演变而来的。I think &quot;護&quot; in &quot;衛護&quot; is derived from &quot;辨護&quot; (verbally defend) and hence the 言 radical. This is what I found on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE8ZdicADZdicB7.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清代段玉裁『說文解字注』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;救視也。尚書中握河紀。堯受河圖。伯禹進迎。舜契陪位。稷辨護。注云。辨護者，供時用相禮儀。周禮注亦云辨護。蕭何世家。數以吏事護高祖。从言。蒦聲。胡故切。五部。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Sorry, I can't decipher the full text for you. Maybe someone else can help to explain what it all means.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;衛護(wèi hù)&quot; means to protect or defend, so you are right to point out that 言 radical should be changed to ⺘radical instead. This is reflected in the new 简体字 &quot;卫护&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;擭(huò)&quot; wasn't used as it possesses the meaning of capture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清代段玉裁『說文解字注』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;搫擭也。从手。蒦聲。一虢切。古音在五部。一曰布擭也。此卽今之布濩字也。劉逵注吳都賦曰。布濩，遍滿皃。一曰握也。握者，搤持也。西京賦。擭獑猢。薛云。擭謂握取之也。今本握譌掘。玄應不誤。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-09-17T07:32:27.897" LastActivityDate="2012-09-17T07:32:27.897" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2012-09-17T13:41:03.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“的”字用于定语和中心语之间。如：“我的书”。由于定语的中心语通常是名词，可以认为“的”一般在名字之前。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“地”字用于状语和中心语之间。如：“认真地阅读”。由于状语的中心语通常是动词，可以认为“地”一般在动词之前。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“得”字用于中心语和补语之间。如：“读得很认真”。由于补语的中心语通常是动词，可以认为“得”一般在动词之后。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外，汉语的一般语序是：定语+主语+状语+谓语+补语+定语+宾语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2012-09-17T13:41:03.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2177" CreationDate="2012-09-17T20:52:19.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;that phrase means, &quot;I know only this much&quot;.  The emphasis is on the quantity limitation of knowledge and the implied meaning that a greater quantity of knowledge exists, but is not currently known by the speaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1106" LastActivityDate="2012-09-17T20:52:19.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="989" CreationDate="2012-09-18T09:12:05.960" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuanfen&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; has a very good explanation of the concept of 缘分:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yuan (simplified Chinese: 缘; traditional Chinese: 緣) or Yuanfen&#xA;  (simplified Chinese: 缘分; traditional Chinese: 緣分; pinyin: yuánfèn;&#xA;  Vietnamese: duyên phận) is a Buddhist-related Chinese concept that&#xA;  means the predetermined principle that dictates a person's&#xA;  relationships and encounters such as the affinity among friends or&#xA;  lovers. In common usage the term can be defined as the &quot;binding force&quot;&#xA;  that links two persons together in any relationship. The concept of&#xA;  synchronicity from the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung can be seen as&#xA;  similar to yuánfèn,[citation needed] which Chinese people also believe&#xA;  to be a universal force governing the happening of things to some&#xA;  people at some places. Yuánfèn belongs to the family of concepts known&#xA;  in theology as determinism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some believe that the driving forces and causes behind yuánfèn are the&#xA;  actions done in the previous rebirths. Therefore, it can be understood&#xA;  as the relational- as opposed to the physical- aspect of karma in&#xA;  Buddhism. However, while karma often refers to the consequences of an&#xA;  individual's actions on him- or herself, yuán is always used in&#xA;  conjunction with two persons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 有缘无分:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The proverb yǒu yuán wú fèn (有緣無份), &quot;Have fate without destiny,&quot; is&#xA;  sometimes used to describe couples who meet, but who do not for&#xA;  whatever reason stay together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than the above, I would like to add my own interpretation as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern day practice, 缘分 is used more seriously to describe a relationship between lovers, whereas 缘 is used more casually to describe the chanced encounter between friends. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我俩的缘分已尽，还是分手吧。(This is the end of our relationship, let's split up.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我跟你真的很有缘，走到哪里都可以碰面。(The two of us are so fated together that wherever&#xA;  we go, we tend to meet up.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character &quot;分&quot; is originally written as &quot;份&quot; and is still very much in use today. &quot;份&quot; has the meaning of a share or a portion, e.g. &quot;股份&quot;, &quot;名份&quot;, &quot;福份&quot;. Therefore, 有缘无分 (expanded as 有缘相爱，无份相守) can be taken to mean two persons having the fate (inevitable turn of events) to meet and become lovers, but not having the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;destiny&lt;/a&gt; (destination, the end result) to share the rest of their lives together as husband and wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-09-18T09:12:05.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2043" CreationDate="2012-09-19T14:04:45.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The full sentence should be &quot;你说的东西是什么？&quot; &quot;东西&quot; is omitted here.&#xA;In English, &quot;What did you say&quot; is short for &quot;What things did you say&quot;&#xA;&quot;说的&quot; here is used to prescribe something you said, but not heard (听到的), thought (想的) or did (做的).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1108" LastActivityDate="2012-09-19T14:04:45.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2054" CreationDate="2012-09-19T14:19:30.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't know he has a cake or not, but you are guessing, then you use the first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You know that he has a cake, you just want to make sure did he eat it or not, then you use the second one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of them are asking yes or not, but the first one is asking about the thing, is it a cake or a biscuit? The second one is asking about the action, have you eaten it or not? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1108" LastActivityDate="2012-09-19T14:19:30.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2191" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2193" CreationDate="2012-09-19T14:48:02.763" Score="28" ViewCount="79028" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been writing quite a few e-mails recently and I feel that I want to expand my vocabulary regarding acceptable phrases to use both at the beginning and end of an e-mail. When I say informal, I don't mean that I'm writing to a close friend (in which case no-one cares what words I use anyway), but rather to acquaintances, teachers I'm familiar with, staff at the university and so on. So, what I'm after are Chinese phrases such as &quot;dear xxx&quot;, &quot;best regards&quot; and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have searched for this online, but I find it very hard to gauge the formality level of the phrases I've found. Most of them seem way too formal and being overly polite is sometimes a way of being impolite. Therefore, I'd be grateful if people who might answer my question also include some kind of information about when and with whom they would use a specific phrase. Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T20:52:07.550" Title="Informal ways of beginning/ending an e-mail" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2191" CreationDate="2012-09-19T18:03:56.410" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese culture, politeness is never too much only except for between really intimate friends or lovers. Especially when getting along with an elderly person, it's a good idea to keep being formal and polite until you're completely certain that it's not necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thn21.com/Article/write/6157.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This link&lt;/a&gt; explains the conventions very well. To cite the essence of it,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 ．问候语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　第二行开头空两格写问候语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　运用礼貌语言，使收信人感到亲切，受到尊敬。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　长者多问候身体，中年人多问候事业和家庭，青年人多问候爱情和学业，少年儿童多祝愿健康成长。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 ．结尾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　要根据收信人的身份，写表示祝愿的话，以示礼貌。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　一般性的祝词“此致”“敬礼”，格式是另起一行空两格写“此致”，“敬礼”下一行顶格写。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　给长者的信往往写“祝您健康长寿”，给朋友写“祝工作顺利”，给晚辈写“祝你学习进步”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When in doubt, be as polite as possible. When I feel obligated by the culture, I would simply use formulaic &lt;code&gt;您好&lt;/code&gt; as 问候语 and &lt;code&gt;此致敬礼&lt;/code&gt; as 结尾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Adding translation for the citation with my editorial in parenthesis. The translation is done in a kinda verbatim way in order to preserve the sense of the culture, although it may sound unnatural in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 . Greetings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Greetings should be placed on the second line ( the first line is a title) with an indentation of two spaces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use polite language to make the recipient feel warm and respected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For elderly recipients, send regards to health; for middle-aged people, career and family; for a young person, love life (only appropriate if the sender is an elder to the recipient) and studying; for children, health and striving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 . Ending&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To show politeness, use some blessing words based on who the recipient is (social status and relationship to the sender).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A general one is “此致”“敬礼” (usage similar to &amp;quot;best regards&amp;quot; in English, literal translation should be &amp;quot;hereby, salute&amp;quot;). The format convention is to put &amp;quot;此致&amp;quot; on a new line with an indentation of two spaces and &amp;quot;敬礼&amp;quot; on the next line without indentation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People usually say &amp;quot;祝您健康长寿” (wish you health and longevity) to elderly people, &amp;quot;祝工作顺利&amp;quot; (wish you a successful career) to friends and &amp;quot;祝学习进步&amp;quot; (wish you good progress in studies) to the younger generation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T20:52:07.550" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2191" CreationDate="2012-09-20T00:42:12.363" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a selection that I have received via email from friends and family:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一切顺利 Yīqiè shùnlì - Wish everything goes smoothly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一切平安 Yīqiè píng'ān - Wish every thing is peaceful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一切好 Yīqiè hǎo - Wish everything is good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回头再聊 &lt;em&gt;Huítóu zài liáo&lt;/em&gt; - Talk to you next time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝你一路平安 &lt;em&gt;Zhù nǐ yīlù píng'ān&lt;/em&gt; - (For those going on travel) Wish your trip goes smoothly / safely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;保重 &lt;em&gt;Bǎozhòng&lt;/em&gt; - Look after yourself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;代我向你们全家问好 &lt;em&gt;Dài wǒ xiàng nǐmen quánjiā wènhǎo&lt;/em&gt; - Send my regards to your family&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, even just 谢谢 or 再见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等你有空再回信 &lt;em&gt;Děng nǐ yǒu kòng zài huíxìn&lt;/em&gt; - (Something nice to say to a busy friend) Reply to me when you have time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the equivalent of &quot;Dear xxx&quot; use &quot;亲爱的 xxx&quot;. I will leave it to others to comment on how informal the use of 亲爱的 is as I haven't used my Chinese in writing formal letters so I don't know if it is very informal or it is used in semi-formal situations like the English Dear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-09-20T00:42:12.363" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2071" CreationDate="2012-09-20T12:27:53.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, &quot;对&quot; is basically a verb, while &quot;起&quot; is an adv meaning &quot;live up to&quot;.&#xA;If someone says &quot;对得起你&quot;, that means he/she did sth benefited you or sth good to you, or lived up to your expectations.&#xA;So &quot;对不起你&quot; means he/she failed you or did sth bad to you.&#xA;&quot;很&quot; means &quot;very much&quot;, normally placed in front of the verbs.You can use other words like &quot;非常、真的&quot; to emphasize your sincere apology. See below,&#xA;我真的很对不起你！我非常对不起你！&#xA;Therefore it's not a unique sentence structure though. Each Chinese character has it meaning and function, so you just separate them and get it~ ：）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1111" LastActivityDate="2012-09-20T12:27:53.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1988" CreationDate="2012-09-20T12:37:29.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess it's &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teochew_dialect&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Teochew&lt;/a&gt; (潮汕话 / 潮州话), a southern language in Guangdong and Taiwan. There're actually many Teochew people living in HK. HKers call them Chiuchow people (潮州人). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can ask the local friends to know more about them and their language. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1111" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-09-20T23:39:39.153" LastActivityDate="2012-09-20T23:39:39.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2197" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2198" CreationDate="2012-09-20T14:22:29.383" Score="7" ViewCount="1207" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some characters in Chinese which give me severe headaches, especially those that have the same pronunciation and mean more or less the same thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have learnt three characters which are all pronounced shēng: 升, 陞 and 昇. Is there any significant difference between these characters in modern usage? I'm talking about traditional Chinese here, I don't think 陞 and 昇 are used at all in simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-09-20T14:44:52.243" LastActivityDate="2014-10-10T14:33:38.343" Title="What is the difference between 升, 陞 and 昇?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2197" CreationDate="2012-09-20T14:22:29.383" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to this one turned out to be fairly straightforward (assuming the website I found is accurate). The following is quoted from &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-character.info/content/195.html&quot;&gt;this website&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;升 ① 容積的法定單位（市升與之相同），1升等於1000毫升。 &#xA;  ② 量糧食的器具，容量爲斗的十分之一。 ③ 向上，高起：升旗。 ④&#xA;  提高：升級。 &#xA;  昇 同「升」③④。 &#xA;  陞 同「升」④。 （《新華字典》第436頁左列「升」字）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;說明：「升」「昇」「陞」三字在「登」的意義上相通，以「升」為正體。「昇」本義為太陽上升，例如「旭日東昇」，用「旭日東升」也正確，需要注意的是，「歌舞昇平」似用「昇」更正式。在一些人名上，如淸代寫《長生殿》的洪昇，宋代發明活字印刷術的畢昇。「陞」，古代「升」的寫法，可用於當今書法。&#xA;  舉例： 昇──昇華，昇天，歌舞昇平，高昇。 升──毫升，升高，升堂，升班，直升機，回升，調升，提升。 陞──步步高陞，指日高陞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in short, it's safe to use 升 in most cases (except in some names and fixed expressions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2012-09-20T14:22:29.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2199" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2201" CreationDate="2012-09-22T04:29:32.803" Score="3" ViewCount="436" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a short sentence on &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/1636188&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt; and I'm not exactly sure what it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好像找到了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess is that it means, &quot;Seems like you found it.&quot; Is that right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T09:16:01.253" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T09:16:01.253" Title="What's the subject of 好像找到了?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2199" CreationDate="2012-09-22T04:40:40.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It actually means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It seems that I have found it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subject is &quot;me&quot;. If it's &quot;找到了？&quot;(&quot;found it?&quot;), it's &quot;you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2012-09-22T04:40:40.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2199" CreationDate="2012-09-22T06:26:38.780" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence has no subject. In Chinese, it's sometimes acceptable to leave out the subject if it's obvious from the context (some sentences are better analysed without using the concept of subject altogether, but that's a bit out of topic). So, in this case, it's difficult to translate directly to English since the English version would need a subject. In this case, I would say it's very likely that the subject is &quot;我“ simply because &quot;我好像找到了&quot; makes more sense than other alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2012-09-22T06:26:38.780" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2202" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2203" CreationDate="2012-09-22T18:37:19.840" Score="7" ViewCount="1096" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很累。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我好累。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between those sentences? Both seems to mean &amp;quot;I'm tired&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T14:43:50.580" Title="Difference between 好累 and 很累" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2202" CreationDate="2012-09-22T20:50:12.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;好 is more describing the feeling of your heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我做了那麼多，都沒用。我好累。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I did so much. But nothing is useful. I feel &lt;strong&gt;really&lt;/strong&gt; tired. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很 is just describing you're physically tired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我跑了10公里。我很累了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've run for 10km. I'm &lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt; tired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, 『好』 is more than 『很』. Just like the example above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2012-09-22T20:50:12.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2199" CreationDate="2012-09-23T02:21:11.313" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The subject of the sentence can be a lot of things. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Your friend's book has been lost. You and another person know about that. Then after the book has been found by your friend, you say to another person that sentence. Then it means: It seems the book has been found (You don't know yet if the book is found, you are guessing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-It can be yourself. You have lost something and you think you have found it. It means, you forgot something where it placed and in a sudden you remember where you placed the thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can means a lot of things. Based on the previous statement following that sentence. It's just like Korean language that if the subject has been clearly stated before, then you will have no need to restated it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope helps. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1116" LastActivityDate="2012-09-23T02:21:11.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2205" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-24T04:11:55.297" Score="11" ViewCount="1472" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, one can write, &quot;I am mad at you!&quot; as &quot;I AM MAD AT YOU!&quot; for greater emphasis; on the internet, it's seen as &quot;yelling&quot;. Absent the ability to format text (say, &lt;strong&gt;bold&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;em&gt;italics&lt;/em&gt;), what is done / can be done to emphasize a statement in Chinese other than simply adding more exclamation marks or some kind of emoticon?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1119" LastActivityDate="2012-10-14T07:12:23.417" Title="How do you emphasize unformatted Chinese text?" Tags="&lt;emphasis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2205" CreationDate="2012-09-24T05:01:05.080" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%9D%80%E9%87%8D%E5%8F%B7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Emphasis mark&lt;/a&gt; (underneath dots) is the Chinese counterpart of italics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In printing, besides emphasis mark, fonts are used for distinguishing purposes. Bold (黑体) is also considered as a different font (rather than a variation of the same font).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In handwriting, people use straight underline and tilde underline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7rykj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Example of emphasis mark&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LInPn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Example of bold font&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2012-09-24T08:47:21.027" LastActivityDate="2012-09-24T08:47:21.027" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2202" CreationDate="2012-09-24T17:43:19.837" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In southern China (at least in the &lt;code&gt;浙江/江苏/上海&lt;/code&gt; area I've been in), &lt;code&gt;好&lt;/code&gt; is a perfectly acceptable substitute for 很 in &lt;strong&gt;almost all circumstances&lt;/strong&gt;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的脸好红哦!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他好坏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我好喜欢你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There isn't really a semantic difference, except that &lt;code&gt;好&lt;/code&gt; is more informal. Also, there are a few circumstances where it would be confusing to use &lt;code&gt;好&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;很&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-09-24T17:43:19.837" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2208" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2210" CreationDate="2012-09-25T07:36:29.330" Score="3" ViewCount="1083" Body="&lt;p&gt;A reference request. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any good source  of the differences word choice/meaning between Taiwan and Mainland Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not asking about Chinese Characters, but usage.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spain have different word choice or even different words for the same thing, than in Mexico for example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="389" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2012-09-25T09:17:21.450" LastActivityDate="2012-09-26T02:34:33.193" Title="Taiwanese Mandarin vs Mainland Mandarin" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2012-09-26T17:28:05.340" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2208" CreationDate="2012-09-25T07:46:18.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has a pretty thorough overview of the differences: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2012-09-25T07:46:18.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2208" CreationDate="2012-09-25T09:24:50.117" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2012-08/13/content_2203236.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Mainland China &amp;amp; Taiwan cooperate to edit a dictionary called &amp;lt;&amp;lt;两岸常用词典(Commonly Used Words in both Mainland China &amp;amp; Taiwan)&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&quot;&gt;An article on Chinese Government Official Website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The differences of word usage may be explained like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“机车”在大陆一般指“用来牵引列车车厢的动力车，即火车头”，在台湾则指摩托车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To translate in English, &quot;机车&quot; in Mandarin means locomotive, while &quot;机车&quot; in Taiwan means motorcycle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one can buy a paper-based dictionary at amazon dot cn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vZdLh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;两岸常用词典&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n4GHR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;两岸现代汉语常用词典&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure I can post urls to a commercial site, so please perform a search by yourself on amazon dot cn with keyword: 两岸常用词典. The search had returned at least 3 results for me on 2012/09/26.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And according to the article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;据悉，《两岸常用词典》网络版已于２月在两岸共建的“中华语文知识库”网站上开通&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one can also &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/clk/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;中華語文知識庫(Chinese Language Knowledge Base)&quot;&gt;access Taiwan-version dictionary online&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhonghuayuwen.org/dictquery.aspx?i=15526&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin-version dictionary online&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;now. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you try to look for &quot;硬碟(Taiwan Usage)&quot;, it will also show you &quot;硬盘/硬磁盘(Mandarin Usage)&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/clk/index.php/search/%E7%A1%AC%E7%A2%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;硬碟 in Chinese Language Knowledge Base&quot;&gt;Please try it for yourself!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1005" LastEditorUserId="1005" LastEditDate="2012-09-26T02:34:33.193" LastActivityDate="2012-09-26T02:34:33.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2211" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2213" CreationDate="2012-09-25T14:29:55.283" Score="9" ViewCount="1371" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first one (接受 jiēshòu) seems far more general and frequent:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我接受邀请。   I accepted the invitation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他将接受口试。  He will take an oral examination.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他拒绝接受治疗。 He refused treatment.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second one (接收 jiēshōu) appears to be specialized in signal reception (and expropriation), but I found the following examples too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我接收了邀请。  I accepted the invitation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;部队未接收他。  The army rejected him.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他接收礼物。   He receives gifts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are the latter simple typos?&#xA;Is it possible to swap 接收 and 接受 in all these six sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="826" LastActivityDate="2012-10-19T10:25:39.760" Title="Difference between 接受 and 接收" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2211" CreationDate="2012-09-25T15:20:16.017" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;邀请From 《商务馆学汉语近义词词典》：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同： 都表示受到、得到。当用于具体物品时，经常可以互相。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每天过生日的时候她都等着 接收/接受 朋友的礼物。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我可以帮你做这件事，但不能 接收/接受 你的礼物。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他从来就没想过要 接收/接受 父母的遗产。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;异：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“接受”的对象可以是抽象的， 如“意见，建议，教训，考验，挑战，任务”等；“接收”的对象不能是抽象的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他时刻准备着接受考验。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们要接受上一次的经验教训。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小王说的很有道理，你应该接受他的意思。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这一次他主动接受了任务。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们都应该虚心地接受批评。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“接收”的对象是具体的除了物品以外，还可以是“信件，稿件，无线电信号”；“接受”没有这样的用法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她在编辑部专门负责接收稿件。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;收发室每天接收大量的信件。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天线坏了，接收不到电视信号。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“接收”还可以表示接纳新成员和依照法令把某些机构、财务拿过来；“接受”没有这样的用法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;语言学会最近接收了一批新会员。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;联合国准备接收新的会员国。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;主管部门接收了那家公司。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;最近，一批腐败分子的房产被政府接收。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 《现代汉语规范词典》：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;接受&quot;跟&quot;接收&quot;不同。&quot;接收&quot;的对象通常是具体的；&quot;接受&quot;的对象可以是具体的，也可以是抽象的。如&quot;接受批评&quot;不能说成&quot;接收批评&quot;。&quot;接收&quot;所指的动作行为多带主动意味；&quot;接受&quot;则多带被动意味。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A brief summary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both sources say that &lt;strong&gt;&quot;接收&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; can only be used for &lt;strong&gt;concrete&lt;/strong&gt; things, while &lt;strong&gt;&quot;接受&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; can be used both for &lt;strong&gt;concrete and abstract&lt;/strong&gt; things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《商务馆学汉语近义词词典》 adds that &lt;strong&gt;&quot;接收&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; can be used to express that somebody is &lt;strong&gt;admitted to become a member&lt;/strong&gt;, while &quot;接受&quot; doesn't have this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《现代汉语规范词典》 also adds that &lt;strong&gt;&quot;接收&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; often has a more &lt;strong&gt;active&lt;/strong&gt; meaning, while &lt;strong&gt;&quot;接受&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; has a more &lt;strong&gt;passive&lt;/strong&gt; meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-09-26T12:23:15.957" LastActivityDate="2012-09-26T12:23:15.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2211" CreationDate="2012-09-25T15:59:49.620" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;接受(accept) ≠ 接收(receive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;接受 means agreeing to something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;接收 means getting something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have made some amendments to the six sentences (in brackets) for clearer understanding of the meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我接受(了)邀请。I accepted the invitation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他将接受口试。He will be (accepting) an oral test.*&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他拒绝接受治疗。 He refused (to accept) treatment.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我接收了邀请(函)。I received the invitation (letter).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;部队未接收他。The military has yet to (receive) him.*&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他接收了礼物。He received the gift.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;接受 can be used in an abstract manner (邀请，口试，治疗) but 接收 has to be something physical (邀请函，他，礼物). Therefore, they can't be interchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;#42; These statements may sound unnatural to native English speakers. Gloss translation is provided to give the precise meaning of 接收 and 接受, and to avoid causing confusion to learners of the Chinese language.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-10-19T10:25:39.760" LastActivityDate="2012-10-19T10:25:39.760" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2214" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2215" CreationDate="2012-09-25T23:49:32.660" Score="4" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just reading this news article and I'm interested to know which word or phrase would have been translated from Chinese to English as &quot;candid&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;China's foreign ministry described Tuesday's talks as &lt;strong&gt;&quot;candid&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; and&#xA;  said the two sides agreed to keep discussing the issue, though&#xA;  cautioned that responsibility for progress rests with Tokyo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-09-26T06:59:18.783" LastActivityDate="2012-09-26T06:59:18.783" Title="Chinese equivalent of the English word candid" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2214" CreationDate="2012-09-26T00:52:10.383" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese equivalent of &quot;candid&quot; is &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/cd/ci/8/ZdicE5Zdic9DZdicA6327541.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;坦白&lt;/a&gt;&quot;(tǎn bái) or more formally &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/cd/ci/8/ZdicE5Zdic9DZdicA6327544.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;坦率&lt;/a&gt;&quot;(tǎn shuài):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国外交部发言人洪磊表示，河相周夫与中国外交部副部长张志军之间的讨论是&lt;b&gt;坦率&lt;/b&gt;和深入的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(source &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.voachinese.com/content/china-japan-20120925/1514644.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.voachinese.com/content/china-japan-20120925/1514644.html&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外交部副部长张志军与日本常务副外相河相周夫今早在北京举行钓鱼岛问题磋商，外交部在官方网站上发出新闻稿，以「&lt;b&gt;坦率&lt;/b&gt;深入交换了意见」来形容这次会谈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(source &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.1688.com.au/site1/news/cn/2012/09/25/369457.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.1688.com.au/site1/news/cn/2012/09/25/369457.shtml&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-09-26T01:26:41.563" LastActivityDate="2012-09-26T01:26:41.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2218" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-27T06:06:17.450" Score="7" ViewCount="1552" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know some ways to agree in a non-committal or dismissive way. For instance, in English, we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that so? (with a flat intonation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really? (flat intonation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever you say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, I'm a bit at a loss. &amp;quot;Is that so?&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Really?&amp;quot; work fine translated literally (&lt;code&gt;是吗？&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;真的吗？&lt;/code&gt;, similar intonation). Beyond that, I'm drawing a blank. Furthermore, it seems difficult to look these things up since the &lt;strong&gt;tone&lt;/strong&gt; is important and &lt;strong&gt;not the literal meaning&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-09-28T07:42:35.450" Title="&quot;If you say so&quot;: Dismissive agreement" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2218" CreationDate="2012-09-27T07:39:43.120" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It will be easier to answer this question if a more specific scenario is given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me try to suggest one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 能不能再加一小时班? 明天绝对不会再让你加班了 (Could you work overtime again for an extra hour? I won't ask you tomorrow, I promise.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 好吧... 既然你已经这么说了, 那我还能说什么呢? (O--k--ay--, If you say so... :-| )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you simply want to say &amp;quot;O--k--ay--&amp;quot; in Chinese, with special tones, you can do it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 唉~~~ (extend the final sound &amp;quot;Sigh&amp;quot; &lt;strong&gt;to express disappointment&lt;/strong&gt; ) 好吧, 好吧, 好吧... (repeat saying &amp;quot;Okay&amp;quot; to &lt;strong&gt;show decent impatience in your tone&lt;/strong&gt; .),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other possible scenarios, please refer to the following links and examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.nciku.cn/blog/zh/?p=786&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;10 ways to express your &amp;quot;dismissive feelings&amp;quot; in English (10 种英文表达说出你的无所谓)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/language_tips/suvival/2011-11/02/content_14024959.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Some ways to express &amp;quot;whatever&amp;quot; (“无所谓”的几种表达)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In detail:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;对……无碍,不要紧 ~ be ok (fine) with&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever you think is fine with me. 随你怎么想,我无所谓.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不在乎, 不感兴趣 ~ give a damn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;永远用于否定形式, He couldn't give a damn whether he passes the exam or not. 他对考试及格与否满不在乎.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;随你的便(按自己的意愿行事). ~ suit yourself / as you wish / if you want.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) You don't want to join the club? Oh well, suit yourself. 你不愿意参加俱乐部是吗? 那好,随你的便吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) As for your departments plan, you can change as you wish. 至于你们部门的计划,你愿意怎么改就怎么改吧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;听你的 / 由你决定 / 取决于你. ~ it's up to you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you really want class to make a difference in your life, it's up to you. 所以如果你真的想通过这门课改变生活,一切取决于你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我不在乎. ~ I don't care.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't care what she thinks. 我不管她怎么想.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;管他呢 / 爱咋咋地 / 该怎么着就怎么着吧 ~ whatever&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I totally have no idea how to file my tax return, whatever. 我完全不知道该怎么报税,唉,该怎么着就怎么着吧/爱咋咋地. (在中文口语里, &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;咋&amp;quot;可以跟&amp;quot;怎么&amp;quot;互换&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没什么好说的/没啥好说的. ~ Nothing to say.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have nothing to say about the government's stimulation plan. 对政府的刺激计划, 我没什么/没啥好说的. (在中文口语里, &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;啥&amp;quot;可以跟&amp;quot;什么&amp;quot;互换&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;那又怎样? ~ So what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;没什么了不起. ~ No Big deal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;怎么都行. ~ Anything will do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1005" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-09-28T07:42:35.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2218" CreationDate="2012-09-27T19:48:07.460" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few that are used the most in my surroundings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;好吧 (in a helpless tone) = Fine.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;随便 = whatever.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;都行 = whatever.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;无所谓 = I don't care.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你说[X]就[X]吧 = If you say so.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1121" LastActivityDate="2012-09-27T19:48:07.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2221" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2227" CreationDate="2012-09-27T20:08:51.357" Score="11" ViewCount="6057" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English we can say &quot;sorry&quot; as an abbreviation for &quot;I am sorry to hear that&quot;/&quot;I feel sorry for you&quot; to express sympathy. Is there a Chinese word or phrase that bears the same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know one can say 对不起 when the conversation goes into a &quot;sorryful&quot; topic, but it's a real apology for misspeaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1121" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2012-09-27T22:37:22.907" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:20:51.177" Title="Translation for &quot;sorry&quot; as in &quot;I am sorry to hear that&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2221" CreationDate="2012-09-27T22:49:43.707" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;听到这个消息我感到很&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%81%97%E6%86%BE&quot;&gt;遗憾&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tīng dào zhège xiāoxi wǒ gǎndào hěn yíhàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-09-27T22:49:43.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2221" CreationDate="2012-09-28T05:54:41.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please advise the situation you are facing. Generally, when we want to express sympathy we will say &quot;我很同情您&quot; or &quot;很同情您的遭遇&quot;. When we say &quot;对不起&quot;, it always means we made a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1131" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-11T04:20:51.177" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:20:51.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2221" CreationDate="2012-09-28T07:07:03.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;sorry&quot; contains several meanings. It can mean a feeling of sadness or regret depending on the context. If the context is that of something bad happening to someone and you are saying &quot;I am sorry to hear that&quot; or &quot;I feel sorry for you&quot;, then I would consider this as a feeling of sadness. So, in this case, I would translate it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;知道这事我很难过&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我为你感到难过&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-09-28T07:07:03.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2054" CreationDate="2012-09-28T09:56:20.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你是不是吃蛋糕了？ 就好像他确定你吃了然后再来问你。   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是不是吃蛋糕了? This is as though the asker is suer you have eaten, but still asks you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃蛋糕没有？ 是在问你吃蛋糕没。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃蛋糕没有？This is asking if you have eaten the cake or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不过，他们得到的结果都是一样的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regardless of this, the asker still gets the same answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般如果你喝酒了，闻到你身上的酒味了，就会问;&quot;是不是喝酒了?&quot;。如果没有闻到的话，就会问：“ 你喝酒没有?”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General if you drink and someone can smell it you will be asked &quot;Have you been drinking?&quot;. If there is no smell someone might ask: &quot;Have you had a drink?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1133" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-11T04:27:16.540" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:27:16.540" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2063" CreationDate="2012-09-28T15:01:01.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;南宋理学家朱熹著有《周易本义·卦名次序歌》：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;乾坤屯蒙需讼师，比小畜兮履泰否；&#xA;同人大有谦豫随，蛊临观兮噬嗑贲；&#xA;剥复无妄大畜颐，大过坎离三十备。&#xA;&#xA;咸恒遁兮及大壮，晋与明夷家人睽；&#xA;蹇解损益夬姤萃，升困井革鼎震继；&#xA;艮渐归妹丰旅巽，兑涣节兮中孚至；&#xA;小过既济兼未济，是为下经三十四。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E5%8D%81%E5%9B%9B%E5%8D%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E5%8D%81%E5%9B%9B%E5%8D%A6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2012-09-28T15:01:01.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2221" CreationDate="2012-09-28T21:50:44.357" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;遗憾/惋惜/难过 all can be used in this context, but IMHO none of them is the Chinese counterpart of &quot;sorry&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the example in &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/I%20am%20sorry%20to%20hear%20that&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this reference&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am sorry to hear that your brother passed away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听到你兄弟去世的消息，我很难过。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it's in Chinese, it seems to imply the speaker knows the person who died and personally feels sad for it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People also say “我*为你*感到难过” (I feel sad &lt;em&gt;for you&lt;/em&gt;), but it's not really common in daily life. You'll probably hear it in televisions and read it in books, but I don't recall a single instance people around me actually say that. It doesn't mean people don't express pity over somebody else's demise, but they say other things like “我能体会你的感受” (I can imaging how bad you feel) etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-09-28T21:50:44.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2228" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-30T08:33:12.640" Score="3" ViewCount="2270" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not talking about instructional videos and bi-lingual videos. Just Mandarin cartoon videos which a young child, with the ability to naturally absorb a new language, can use to learn Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1136" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-12T06:07:58.890" LastActivityDate="2020-07-12T06:07:58.890" Title="Where can I find more cartoon videos like BBC's Muzzy for a young child to learn Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2012-11-03T10:35:46.437" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2232" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2233" CreationDate="2012-09-30T15:59:17.857" Score="2" ViewCount="383" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this sentence in a song's lyrics =&gt; &quot; 就算这次做错也只是怕错过 &quot;. What does it mean? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1138" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-10-01T08:59:54.610" LastActivityDate="2012-10-01T20:07:18.103" Title="What does 就算这次做错也只是怕错过 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2232" CreationDate="2012-09-30T16:23:06.420" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To translate directly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Even if making a mistake this time, it is still preferred for the fear of&#xA;  missing the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, it means one would rather take this opportunity (perhaps once in a lifetime opportunity) to do something even if it means making a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the full lyrics of this song 给我一首歌的时间 by Jay Chou, please refer to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.9ku.com/geci/176214.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-10-01T20:07:18.103" LastActivityDate="2012-10-01T20:07:18.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2038" CreationDate="2012-09-30T23:29:55.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually the comparison between the IPA and pinyin is misleading in another way.  In IPA the pronunciation of the letters remains constant... in pinyin, the pronunciation of certain letters changes according to preceding letters - namely - i after q is different to the i after c.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus iu in qiu is not what one would expect from an IPA.  Same for -un ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It always amazes me that pinyin was invented in 1949 or thereabouts and they still couldn't invent a romanisation without strange exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1140" LastActivityDate="2012-09-30T23:29:55.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2038" CreationDate="2012-10-01T01:53:26.410" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for the question how characters are &lt;strong&gt;taught&lt;/strong&gt;, one important point that all other good answers mentioning 反切 fail to elaborate, though they really give a brief &amp;amp; clear introduction to the traditional academic way of showing character pronunciation in dictionaries, is that when we are talking about &quot;before the introduction of pinyin&quot;, &lt;strong&gt;a nationwide standard Chinese (e.g. 國語 Guoyu, 普通話 Putonghua or so) might have nor been popularized&lt;/strong&gt;. What does this mean? Actually in the old days, as told by my 外公 Waigong, a native speaker of 贛語 Ganyu born in the 1930s, in any 私塾 Sishu, for a long period the only type of institution that served for elementary education before the introduction of western-style schools, all characters were pronounced by the 先生 Xiansheng in their dialectal versions. And kids generally recited the fundamental materials such as 《三字經》 Sanzi Jing 《百家姓》 Baijia Xing 《千字文》 Qianzi Wen by &lt;strong&gt;imitating&lt;/strong&gt; their 先生 without deeper understanding, till they could fully handle the mapping between the characters and their pronunciations. In such process, &lt;strong&gt;no auxiliary tools for phonetic indication were used, nor were a unified one even possible, due to the huge differences between dialects&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I shall say, from the viewpoint of a native speaker of 普通話 Putonghua, who has learned it through school education since young, 反切 could hardly have been used as a practical tool to teach young children the pronunciation of characters, since &lt;strong&gt;occasionally it uses more complex characters to explain simpler ones&lt;/strong&gt;. Plus, the practice of combining syllabic characters rather than juxtaposing phoneme symbols itself shows the restriction of old Chinese scholars' understanding of the relation between syllable and phoneme, not to mention how young kids should use this imperfect tool to learn &quot;hard&quot; characters from scratch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. apart from 反切 which indicates a syllable in whole, from my vague memory, there might also be a &lt;strong&gt;tone-indicating symbol system&lt;/strong&gt; called 四聲破讀記號 Sisheng Podu Jihao or something similar in ancient literatures, which &lt;em&gt;puts a small circle in one of the four corners of a character, so as to indicate whether its tone is 平 Ping, 上 Shang, 去 Qu, or 入 Ru of the traditional tonal system&lt;/em&gt;. But unfortunately I can hardly find a reference for this. Anyone who can provide further information would be highly appreciated ^_^.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1059" LastEditorUserId="1059" LastEditDate="2012-10-01T08:54:32.350" LastActivityDate="2012-10-01T08:54:32.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="228" CreationDate="2012-10-01T08:51:24.883" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As answered concisely by StarCub, 齷齪 龌龊 is the &lt;strong&gt;Hanzi representation&lt;/strong&gt; for Shanghainese &lt;code&gt;o co&lt;/code&gt;. Yet IMHO to call this word &quot;the Mandarin equivalent&quot; of &lt;code&gt;o co&lt;/code&gt; is a bit &lt;strong&gt;inappropriate&lt;/strong&gt;, since&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;from my understanding you are just asking for a Hanzi representation for a dialectal word, yet not its &quot;equivalent&quot; (or synonym, IMHO). A common mistake is to neglect the fact that any Chinese dialect can be a standalone system, &lt;strong&gt;completely represented in Hanzi&lt;/strong&gt; yet &lt;strong&gt;pronounced in a sound system different from Putonghua but still well organized in a way derived from ancient Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;though &quot;dirty, messy&quot; appears as one explanation for 龌龊 in modern Putonghua dictionaries, it's &lt;strong&gt;far less frequently used&lt;/strong&gt; (from my daily experience) than the word's extended meanings &quot;mean, despicable&quot; or &quot;narrow&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To add up, I'd like to mention 腌臢 腌臜 &lt;code&gt;a1 za1&lt;/code&gt; in at least 贛 Gan dialect &lt;code&gt;nga41 tsa&lt;/code&gt; is also a high-frequent daily word expressing &quot;dirty&quot;. And the phonetic similarity among 腌臢 &lt;code&gt;nga tsa&lt;/code&gt; in 赣, 齷齪 &lt;code&gt;o co&lt;/code&gt; in 吴, 污糟 &lt;code&gt;wu tsou&lt;/code&gt; in 粤 and 肮脏 &lt;code&gt;ang tsang&lt;/code&gt; in Putonghua is really a interesting topic for further discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1059" LastEditorUserId="1059" LastEditDate="2012-10-01T09:00:50.953" LastActivityDate="2012-10-01T09:00:50.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2237" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-10-01T09:01:16.273" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-10-01T09:01:16.273" LastActivityDate="2012-10-01T09:01:16.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2238" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-10-01T09:01:16.273" Score="0" Body="Questions about the words used in a song" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-10-01T09:21:49.210" LastActivityDate="2012-10-01T09:21:49.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2232" CreationDate="2012-10-01T09:34:41.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;歌词并不遵守严格的中文语法&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这句话完整的句子应该是“就算这次做错（那也没有关系），（相比之下）更怕错过”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1143" LastActivityDate="2012-10-01T09:34:41.460" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2221" CreationDate="2012-10-02T03:19:19.913" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sorry&lt;/strong&gt; has many meanings in English while &lt;strong&gt;对不起&lt;/strong&gt; doesn't do that in Chinese. Most of the case, you can use &lt;strong&gt;不好意思&lt;/strong&gt; - it'd be more easy-going and it's a little like &quot;sorry&quot; in English sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for different context you need to say different words. Some examples for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不好意思&lt;/strong&gt; - It's very general and can fit many situations. I recommend use it when you're not very sure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不好意思，我不知道你们已经离婚了。&lt;em&gt;I'm sorry that I didn't know about your divorce.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抱歉&lt;/strong&gt; - feel bad when you mention something that your listener don't want to hear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;抱歉，我刚知道你父亲去世的消息。&lt;em&gt;I'm sorry I just knew that you father passed away.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;难过&lt;/strong&gt; - feel sorrow about something (stronger emotional than the two above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听到这个消息，我很难过。&lt;em&gt;I'm sorry to hear that.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;伤心&lt;/strong&gt; - feel rather bad about the loss, especially someone loses his a family member. But it's a little formal than 难过. You can use it in a letter or e-mail&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;得知你要离开这个城市，我真的很伤心 &lt;em&gt;It's so sad to realize that you're leaving this city.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;遗憾&lt;/strong&gt; - it's a little formal and official, I do not suggest use this in a daily conversation. Chinese people seldom say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听说你不打算加入我们了，我感到很遗憾 &lt;em&gt;It's a pity to know that you're never gonna join us.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;惋惜&lt;/strong&gt; - the same like 遗憾, it's very formal and seldom used in daily conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;关键时候没能坚持住，真令人惋惜 &lt;em&gt;What a pity that you did not hold on at this crucial moment.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;悲恸&lt;/strong&gt; - it's much more formal and official, for example when some &quot;big brother&quot; in the gov is dead the media will use this word to report&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;毛泽东逝世后，举国上下沉浸在极其地悲恸之中无法自拔。 &lt;em&gt;Every single person in this country has broken his heart after knowing Chairman Mao has passed away.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="1042" LastEditDate="2012-10-02T12:27:50.680" LastActivityDate="2012-10-02T12:27:50.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2242" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2244" CreationDate="2012-10-02T11:37:37.807" Score="3" ViewCount="1200" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I first came to China, I was quite disappointed to find out that, in so many places, the colloquial pronunciation was so greatly different from the one I've studied so far. The phonological material, which is already rather limited in Mandarin (especially to my foreigner's semi-tone-deaf ears), seemed further reduced: I could no more distinguish &lt;em&gt;shi&lt;/em&gt; from &lt;em&gt;si&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;zhi&lt;/em&gt; from &lt;em&gt;zi&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;chi&lt;/em&gt; from &lt;em&gt;ci&lt;/em&gt;, and so on. More disturbing, many speakers appear to be totally unaware of any difference, and could pronounce 老师 as &lt;em&gt;laoshi&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;laosi&lt;/em&gt; in the same breath. The problem started in Jinan (Shandong), only to get worse in Wuhan (Hubei) and Nanjing (Jiangsu), not to mention Chengdu (Sichuan).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently decided to try to overcome this difficulty by training my ear with a student of mine who comes from Xiangyang (Hubei). For our first course, I asked him to record several chosen stock sentences. I transcribe some of them below, with the standard pronunciation, followed by what I can hear (both in pinyin, which may be not precise enough for a die-hard linguist, sorry!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你是什么时候到中国的？&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nǐ shì shénme shíhou dào zhōngguó de?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nǐ sì sénme síhou dào zōngguó de?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我真诚感谢你的一切帮助。&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wǒ zhēnchéng gǎnxiè nǐ de yīqiè bāngzhù.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wǒ zēncéng gǎnxiè nǐ de yīqiè bāngzù.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;请仔细看看。&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qǐng zǐxì kàn kàn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Xǐng zǐxì kàn kàn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;老师叫学生保持安静。&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lǎoshī jiào xuéshēng bǎochí ānjìng.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lǎoshī jiào xuésēng bǎocí ānjìng.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In the latter, please note the discrepancy in the pronunciation of &lt;em&gt;sh&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for my question. Do you know any resource (list, table), which clearly summarizes the main variations in the pronunciation of standard Mandarin (I'm not speaking of locale languages or dialects) in one or several given regions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update.&lt;/strong&gt; I'm perfectly aware that most chinese people use both their local dialect and Mandarin depending on the situation. I'm &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; interested in learning or understanding their dialect. But I need to understand them when they &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; they speak a perfectly standard Mandarin. The fact is that their pronunciation has usually several non-standard aspects. I've given some examples, and Stumpy Joe Pete has kindly began to provide a list of general patterns, which is exactly what I'm looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the very fact that Zhang Yao and Aw Qirui Guo, apparently both native speakers, thought my question was about local dialects, tells a lot about one of the greatest difficulties a foreigner encounters in such a situation: people don't realize that their pronunciation is non-standard, or consider that the differences are negligible and uninteresting. This explains probably why it's so difficult to find a simple list of correspondences like the one of Stumpy Joe Pete!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="826" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-06T18:15:49.013" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T18:16:10.513" Title="Regional pronunciations of standard Mandarin" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2012-10-03T12:28:00.467" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2242" CreationDate="2012-10-02T13:08:27.857" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays in mainland China, an increasing number of the younger generations are speaking standard mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest it would be much easier to make friends with these people than to collect and make a list or table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keeping the local pronunciation is one part of saving the culture but popularization and learning of standard Mandarin is mandatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1147" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-11T04:33:43.830" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:33:43.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2242" CreationDate="2012-10-02T16:42:50.427" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't think of any tables I've seen, but I can share some of the patterns I've encountered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;zh ch sh&lt;/code&gt; merge with &lt;code&gt;z c s&lt;/code&gt; (or distinguished at random):&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Almost everywhere in the south, at least among most speakers&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; merges with &lt;code&gt;l&lt;/code&gt; (conditioned on following vowel):&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, Nanjing, ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; merges with &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; (conditioned on following vowel):&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some Sichuan?, Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;final &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; merges with final &lt;code&gt;ng&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Jiangsu, Shanghai&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;r&lt;/code&gt; merges with &lt;code&gt;l&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Jiangxi? I've met several people like this, and 2 were from Jiangxi.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Something about mixing up &lt;code&gt;j q x&lt;/code&gt; versus the &lt;code&gt;z c s&lt;/code&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;g k&lt;/code&gt;:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Guangdong, HK&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-10-02T16:42:50.427" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2242" CreationDate="2012-10-03T01:57:26.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am from Wuhan, Hubei. But I really don't suggest you waste your time on this unless you are doing academic research. Because even I cannot understand much slang in Xiangyang dialect. Many Chinese people can &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; communicate in their native language and standard Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard Mandarin will be the trend and the government is trying the best to &quot;kill&quot; the non-standard speaking - Though this leads to some major controversies (&lt;a href=&quot;http://larrysalibra.com/2010/02/25/7-reasons-cantonese-is-dying-mandarin-is-king/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.straight.com/article-711606/vancouver/cantonese-endangered-language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.due-east.org/2009/10/21/top-10-reasons-to-learn-cantonese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;), at least in the future, more and more people will be able to speak Mandarin. So keeping your &lt;strong&gt;focus&lt;/strong&gt; on learning Standard Mandarin would be helpful and time-saving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are curious, you can read this article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Varieties of Chinese&lt;/a&gt;. Many details are included.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-06T18:16:10.513" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T18:16:10.513" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="430" CreationDate="2012-10-03T02:06:19.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest you say yīn wéi because it sounds more standard (Mandarin) to me. No reason, just the feeling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2012-10-03T02:06:19.633" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2247" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-03T04:18:48.287" Score="4" ViewCount="775" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不但能够让外国人坐我的车，还能够让他包我的车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is from a Chinese reader.  The voice is of a Chinese taxi-driver.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is the translation of 让...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He's talking about going to hotels and getting customers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 让 here mean, I can get them to take a ride in my taxi and also I can get them to hire my taxi (as in for several hours).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or does it mean 'offer' as that seems to be one of the meanings of 让 given in the dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1140" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-27T04:14:06.030" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T08:36:24.733" Title="What does 让 mean in 我不但能够让外国人坐我的车，还能够让他包我的车?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2247" CreationDate="2012-10-03T05:32:59.520" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does 让 here mean, I can get them to take a ride in my taxi and also I&#xA;  can get them to hire my taxi (as in for several hours).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you are right. In this case, the taxi driver is boasting his ability to persuade foreigners to ride in his cab and to even hire it for exclusive use over a period of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE8ZdicAEZdicA9.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;(ràng  ㄖㄤˋ) has the following meanings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　1. 不争，尽（jǐn）着旁人：～步。～位。谦～。 (yield, give up)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　2. 请：～茶。 (offer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　3. 许，使：不～他来。 (make, get)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　4. 任凭：～他闹去。 (let, allow)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　5. 被：～雨淋了。 (&lt;em&gt;indicates passive voice&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　6. 索取一定代价，把东西给人：出～。转（zhuǎn ）～。(trade)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　7. 闪避：～开。当仁不～。 (excuse)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　8. 责备，谴责：“二世使人～章邯”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　9. 古同“攘”，侵夺。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the context given, the taxi driver is certainly not boasting about offering a free ride to foreigners but his glib of tongue in getting (使, the third meaning) them to hire his service.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-10-04T03:15:45.263" LastActivityDate="2012-10-04T03:15:45.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2228" CreationDate="2012-10-03T10:26:06.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you mean &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzzy_in_Gondoland&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Muzzy&lt;/a&gt;? I've never seen that show, but I do have a 5 year old and I regularly let him watch videos from &lt;a href=&quot;http://shaoer.cntv.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CCTV's official video site&lt;/a&gt; which has full length episodes of things like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_&amp;amp;_Friends&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Thomas and Friends&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation is to show your child 小小智慧树 &lt;a href=&quot;http://shaoer.cntv.cn/cctvchildren/xiaoxiaozhihuishu/videopage/index.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link to video page here&lt;/a&gt;. This is a popular children's TV show in China and is educational, directed at younger children and has quite simple dialogue. Each episode also has a simple song and poem which my son found easy to sing along with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the video page you will notice their are videos marked 《小小智慧树》 followed by a date e.g. 20120928. These are the full length episodes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find showing my son these shows are much more valuable than having him stare blankly at cartoons as they encourage participation via dance, song and activities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-10-03T10:26:06.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2250" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2251" CreationDate="2012-10-03T17:54:41.987" Score="12" ViewCount="1121" Body="&lt;p&gt;How will translate &quot;谁让你&quot; into English? For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不得不服从你的安排。 谁让你是我的老板呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastEditorUserId="834" LastEditDate="2013-02-19T11:38:04.993" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T18:05:16.787" Title="How will translate &quot;谁让你&quot; into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2250" CreationDate="2012-10-03T19:05:09.947" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;谁让 expresses weak causality with a mood. Depending on the context and the tone, the mood can be humor, banter, sarcastic, helplessness, complaining or something else. Accordingly the translation can be &quot;since&quot;, &quot;after all&quot;, &quot;only because&quot;, &quot;God knows why&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, it seems the speaker is just grumbling or expressing helplessness in a cool mood. I would use &quot;after all&quot; in this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have to listen to you. You're my boss, after all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-10-03T19:05:09.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2252" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2257" CreationDate="2012-10-04T00:28:28.400" Score="6" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to be able to say to my son that an insect is beneficial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know I can use 害虫 for an insect that is harmful, but is there something I can use to say beneficial other than 好虫 which I assume is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1150" LastActivityDate="2012-10-04T20:19:14.720" Title="How to say &quot;a beneficial insect&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2253" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2255" CreationDate="2012-10-04T00:35:00.030" Score="5" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to find out how to say a sports game has four quarters and the translation I received from Google was: &quot;一个游戏有四个季度&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certain sports games are split into 4 quarters rather than 2 halves and I want to express this, but I was interested in seeing &quot;季度&quot; used to mean quarter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I check Wiktionary there is no entry for 季度 but 季 says it is used to mean a quarter of a year or season.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can 季度 also be used for other things that come in quarters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1150" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-10-04T01:28:19.377" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T02:25:28.993" Title="Is this correct: &quot;一个游戏有四个季度&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2254" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-04T00:39:40.090" Score="10" ViewCount="392" Body="&lt;p&gt;I live in an area where there are many Chinese so I get plenty of opportunity to use my language skills including shopping, eating at restaurants and meeting new people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese people I meet are always complimentary about my language skill although I think it is quite average.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some different ways I can express to people that I feel my skill level is not very good?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-10-04T01:48:13.930" LastActivityDate="2012-10-07T03:47:45.593" Title="What are some ways that I can be self-deprecating about my Chinese speaking ability?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2253" CreationDate="2012-10-04T01:17:58.987" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quarter in a sports game is usually translated as 节. For example, fourth quarter is 第四节. The first and second quarters are collectively referred to as 上半场 and similarly, the third and fourth quarters are referred to as 下半场. A sports season is usually translated as 赛季．&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;季度, when tranlated into English, only refers to a quarter of a year, as you have noted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2012-10-04T01:17:58.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2252" CreationDate="2012-10-04T01:29:32.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply the antonym of 害虫 &lt;code&gt;hàichóng&lt;/code&gt; is 益虫 &lt;code&gt;yìchóng&lt;/code&gt;, also literally 'beneficial insect'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI, one way to retrieve these kinds information is to check out for example the &lt;strong&gt;Chinese Wikipedia&lt;/strong&gt; page &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AE%B3%E8%9F%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;害虫&lt;/a&gt;, and in the 另见 (See Also) section you can find the term 益虫. I'll confess under most circumstances this way only helps to find related terms, not necessarily antonyms, but there's another route you can take on Wikipedia -- just go for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pest_%28animal%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pest(organism)&lt;/a&gt; (since you've already know the antonym of 害虫 in English) on the English Wikipedia and then look for a Chinese version in the 'Languages' toolbox on the left (luckily there is one), click it and voila is the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned by @JamesJiao, many antonymic pairs exist in Chinese, such as 好 &lt;code&gt;good&lt;/code&gt;&amp;lt;&gt;坏 &lt;code&gt;bad&lt;/code&gt;, 益 &lt;code&gt;benefit&lt;/code&gt;&amp;lt;&gt;害 &lt;code&gt;harm&lt;/code&gt;, 善 &lt;code&gt;virtuous&lt;/code&gt;&amp;lt;&gt;恶 &lt;code&gt;evil&lt;/code&gt;, and the both of a pair are usually compounded with the same element to further form an antonymic pair of compound words, for example 好人&amp;lt;&gt;坏人, 益虫&amp;lt;&gt;害虫, 善意&amp;lt;&gt;恶意. Generally this rule proves, but the antonymic pair may not only belong to a one-to-one mapping, e.g. 有益&amp;lt;&gt;有害 and 有利&amp;lt;&gt;有害, and also too many exceptions violate it, e.g. *利虫&amp;lt;&gt;害虫 is wrong. So take it as a hint for where to start searching for antonyms, but &lt;strong&gt;do check whether the rule-generated words actually exist and have the meaning desired&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know whether you have access to a 同义词词典 &lt;code&gt;Synonym Dictionary&lt;/code&gt; or a 反义词词典 &lt;code&gt;Antonym Dictionary&lt;/code&gt; or something combining these two. If convenient, get one, for they'll be useful when you are looking for words with similar or opposite meaning to one you already know. (After random search I've found no free ones on the Internet, though)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1059" LastEditorUserId="1059" LastEditDate="2012-10-04T02:23:55.977" LastActivityDate="2012-10-04T02:23:55.977" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2252" CreationDate="2012-10-04T01:33:06.287" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 益虫．　This is related to the compound 益害 (literally - beneficial and harmful), which means &lt;em&gt;effect&lt;/em&gt; (positive or negative). For example, you can say 喝咖啡的益害　（the effects of drinking coffee). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has many similar antonymic compounds like this. Some examples include 高矮　(height of a person, or literally - tall and short), 长短 (length, or literally - long and short), 大小 (size, or literally - large and small), or 深浅 (depth, or literally - deep and shallow). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-10-04T20:19:14.720" LastActivityDate="2012-10-04T20:19:14.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2253" CreationDate="2012-10-04T01:48:18.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;季度 means quarter of a year &#xA;四个季 means 4(quantity) quarters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个游戏有四个季度 Means &quot;1 game has 4 quarters of a year&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;游戏有四个季 Means &quot;The game has 4 quarters&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个游戏有四个季 Means &quot;1/a game has 4 quarters&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I'm a non-native speaker - if you can get a response from a native speaker I would be going with that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1152" LastActivityDate="2012-10-04T01:48:18.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="430" CreationDate="2012-10-04T02:18:45.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked the same question to someone a while ago the answer was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为(wéi) would be how you prounance it for 选为 (Selected to be/ellected) were 为(wéi) means to be or to become&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为(wèi) would be how you prounance it for 因为 (Becuase / Reason Being) were 为(wèi) means being or becuase of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: no-native speaker take what I have learnt with a grain of salt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1152" LastActivityDate="2012-10-04T02:18:45.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2254" CreationDate="2012-10-04T02:31:40.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could try as a response:&#xA;谢谢可是我仅知道很少汉语&#xA;Xièxiè kěshì wǒ jǐn zhīdào hěn shǎo hànyǔ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always forget which to put at the end but it is something I have use well still learning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you answer James question he will probably give you something much better :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1152" LastActivityDate="2012-10-04T02:31:40.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2254" CreationDate="2012-10-04T02:59:58.347" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try the following sentences which demonstrate humility:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不好意思，我的中文水平尚浅，有待跟您多多学习。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sorry, my Chinese language skill is still shallow, there is still a lot to learn from you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我的中文只不过马马虎虎而已，请您多多包涵。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My Chinese is just so-so only, please bear with me.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我的中文说得不好，请别见怪。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I am not good at speaking Mandarin, hope you don't mind.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone is praising your language ability, you can express in the following manners immediately after the compliments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哪里，哪里... (Nah, you think too highly of me...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;您过奖了。 (You flatter me.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-10-05T02:13:46.260" LastActivityDate="2012-10-05T02:13:46.260" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2253" CreationDate="2012-10-04T04:13:54.270" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The proper way to say &quot;a game has four quarters&quot; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一场比赛有四节&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of sports game, &quot;game&quot; should be translated to &quot;比赛&quot; rather than &quot;游戏&quot;. &quot;季度&quot; is very different from the meaning you want to express. As James has explained, it only refers to a quarter of a year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1000" LastActivityDate="2012-10-04T04:13:54.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2254" CreationDate="2012-10-04T04:41:50.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short and sweet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没有，没有。 No, no, [it's not so good].&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;江南 style:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我[中文]还讲得一般般。 I still don't speak that great.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-10-04T04:41:50.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2264" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2266" CreationDate="2012-10-05T13:17:22.260" Score="9" ViewCount="1546" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seen this phrase written by a Chinese person:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;爱老虎油&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [ài lǎo​hǔ yóu]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does it mean? Failed to find it in dictionaries.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is it some slang or 白话?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastActivityDate="2021-01-12T10:42:29.757" Title="爱老虎油 - is it slang?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2264" CreationDate="2012-10-05T13:36:33.790" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not a slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the way some Chinese learn to pronounce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I (爱)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;love (老虎)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you (油)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because they can't speak English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-10-05T13:36:33.790" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2264" CreationDate="2012-10-05T14:01:29.010" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning is: 我爱你.I love you. 爱(ài, love) sounds like the English &quot;I&quot;; 老虎(lǎohǔ, tiger) sounds like &quot;love&quot;; 油（yoú, oil) sounds like &quot;you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It originally comes from the movie &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E7%8B%AE%E7%8E%8B%E4%BA%89%E9%9C%B8&quot;&gt;狮王争霸&lt;/a&gt;. In the movie 十三姨 teaches 黄飞鸿 (played by 李连杰 (Jet Li)) how to say &lt;em&gt;I love you&lt;/em&gt;. 黄飞鸿 pronounces it as 爱老虎油. Afterwards 黄飞鸿's father overhears it and asks what it means. 黄飞鸿 says it means 问好 (to send one's regards, to say hello to). The father later in the movie also uses this phrase (but of course in the wrong meaning), ... .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the movie came out, the sentence became quite popular and is often used online (for example on sites such as 微博 (weibo) and QQ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E7%88%B1%E8%80%81%E8%99%8E%E6%B2%B9&quot;&gt;Hudong Wiki&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/56285.htm&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E7%88%B1%E8%80%81%E8%99%8E%E6%B2%B9/95365&quot;&gt;Nciku&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether you could consider it as slang is depending on how you define slang (there is a lot of discussion about that). If you follow this definition of Slang by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slang#Defining_slang&quot;&gt;Bethany K. Dumas and Jonathan Lighter (wiki link)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;It lowers, if temporarily, &quot;the dignity of formal or serious speech or writing&quot;; in other words, it's likely to be considered in those&#xA;  contexts a &quot;glaring misuse of register.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Its use implies that the user is familiar with whatever is referred to, or with a group of people who are familiar with it and use the&#xA;  term.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;It's a taboo term in ordinary discourse with people of a higher social status or greater responsibility.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;It replaces &quot;a well-known conventional synonym&quot;. This is done primarily to avoid discomfort caused by conventional phrases or by&#xA;  further elaboration.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say it has become slang (the 4 bullets are all fulfilled).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-10-05T15:12:56.600" LastActivityDate="2012-10-05T15:12:56.600" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2254" CreationDate="2012-10-06T03:42:31.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest you say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其实还好啦 (qi shi hai hao la) - It's actually just ok!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very casual and easy going. I don't suggest you say something too formal, too humble or too complicated :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2012-10-06T03:42:31.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2253" CreationDate="2012-10-06T03:47:00.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;quarter&lt;/strong&gt; can be translated into a lot of different meanings in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) n. 四分之一； (25%)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) n. 地区； Residential Quarter &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) n. 季度；For quarters of a year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) n. 一刻钟；(15 minutes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) n. 两角五分；(0.25 CNY)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) n. 节 (Sports, like basketball)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="1042" LastEditDate="2012-10-07T02:18:20.350" LastActivityDate="2012-10-07T02:18:20.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2247" CreationDate="2012-10-06T03:52:43.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;让 has a lot of different meanings in Chinese. You need to consider the context to figure out the exact meaning. (not only the literally context but also some other aspects, like the tone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, I think the driver is showing off his tricks/capabilities to persuade/convince foreigners to hire him as a driver (that he can get more payment than just ordinary operation). Many taxi driver told me the exact same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To know whether it's a &quot;tricks-persuade&quot; or &quot;capabilities-convince&quot;, you need to provide me more context :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2012-10-06T03:52:43.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2270" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2274" CreationDate="2012-10-06T09:18:35.597" Score="15" ViewCount="3106" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that most Chinese translation of English names sounds really inaccurate and weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the common translation of person's name &quot;Robert Wilson&quot; is &quot;罗伯特·威尔逊&quot;, which is not similar to the English pronunciation at all, &quot;若波特·维欧森&quot; could be a better one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So who came up with those common name translations in the first place? And why do they sound so unlike their English pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1156" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-11T03:52:01.070" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T03:52:01.070" Title="Why do Chinese translations of English names sound very inaccurate?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2270" CreationDate="2012-10-06T09:46:39.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are similar to the pronunciation in English, actually... 若 is often used for a girl's name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few rules... (hope more to add):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use &quot;l&quot; more, except something almost the same as &quot;er&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;son&quot; is translated into &quot;逊&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some translations come from Japanese. The first rule is likely from Japanese because Japanese doesn't have &quot;r&quot; but &quot;l&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, pronunciation of Chinese may be changed. A number of translations sound weird today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastEditorUserId="1104" LastEditDate="2012-10-06T09:53:11.510" LastActivityDate="2012-10-06T09:53:11.510" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2272" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2276" CreationDate="2012-10-06T13:33:53.287" Score="6" ViewCount="425" Body="&lt;p&gt;I realized 证 could be 証 and 證. Is there any difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2012-10-07T05:58:16.227" Title="What's the difference between 証 and 證?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2270" CreationDate="2012-10-06T14:20:23.337" Score="12" Body="&lt;h3&gt;So who came up with those common name translations at first place?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those common name translations are known as 音译 or transcription.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, transcription is known as yīnyì (simplified Chinese: 音译; traditional Chinese: 音譯) or yìmíng (simplified Chinese: 译名; traditional Chinese: 譯名). While it is common to see foreign names left in their original forms (for example, in the Latin alphabet) in a Chinese text, it is also common to transcribe foreign proper nouns into Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Homophones abound in Mandarin Chinese, so most English words have multiple possible transcriptions. Since there are many characters to choose from when transcribing a word, a translator can manipulate the transcription to add additional meaning. The official reference guide for transcription is &lt;strong&gt;Names of the World's Peoples (世界人名翻译大辞典)&lt;/strong&gt;, published by the Xinhua News Agency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is written with monosyllabic logograms which may not correspond to the syllables in the foreign words. For example, a word of three syllables will be transcribed into at least three Chinese characters, in most cases three meaningful verbal units. Transcriptions into other Chinese dialects such as Cantonese will differ from Mandarin transcriptions, since transcription based on one dialect may not sound close to the original when pronounced with another dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Names can be transcribed differently between the official transcription standards used within each of the different Chinese speaking regions. For example, US President Barack Obama's surname is rendered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;欧巴马 / 歐巴馬 Ōubāmǎ (Official translation)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  奥巴马 / 奧巴馬 Àobāmǎ (used mostly in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia and Singapore)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When transliterating foreign names whose pronunciation does not correlate to the spelling (especially in Russian names), Mainland China tends to preserve the original pronunciation, while Taiwan tends to transcribe along the spelling. For example, Putin, the former Russian president, is called 普京 （pujing）in Mainland China and 普廷 （puting）in Taiwan. In this case, when &lt;code&gt;t&lt;/code&gt; meets &lt;code&gt;i&lt;/code&gt;, its pronunciation will become &lt;code&gt;tʲ&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_into_Chinese_characters&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;And why do they sound not similar to their English pronunciation?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet&quot;&gt;IPA&lt;/a&gt; pronunciation of &quot;Robert Wilson&quot; is /ˈrɒbərt ˈwɪlsən/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Referring to the English-into-Chinese &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_into_Chinese_characters#Transcription_table&quot;&gt;transcription table&lt;/a&gt; from the semi-official Names of the World's Peoples (世界人名翻译大辞典), compiled by the Proper Names and Translation Service of the Xinhua News Agency:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/ˈrɒbərt ˈwɪlsən/ is transcribed as &quot;罗伯特·威尔森 (森 not 逊)&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The person who came up with the original transcription may not be able to follow the pronunciation close enough resulting in some Chinese words sounding quite different from the original pronunciation. But since it has already become a standard, people tend to follow it and not come up with new things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice also in the table that 若,维,欧,波 have already been used elsewhere, so changing one will affect the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-10-06T15:49:19.217" LastActivityDate="2012-10-06T15:49:19.217" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2272" CreationDate="2012-10-07T00:42:29.473" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I understand, 証 is a variant of 證 which means they essentially mean the same thing (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?cond=%B5%FD&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;ukey=421790014&amp;amp;serial=1&amp;amp;recNo=0&amp;amp;op=f&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). However, it seems like the usage of the two characters isn't identical. I can find no cases where 証 is accepted but 證 is not, but there are lots of cases where the opposite is true. All examples in the Ministry of Education dictionary are using 證, which wouldn't be the case if both versions were considered correct. Thus, I think it's safe to always use 證, even if both characters seem to be in use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kwuntung.net/check/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; site, it is acceptable to use 証 in most cases. A look at the etymology doesn't help much either. 証 seems to have had the meaning &quot;admonish, criticise&quot; originally, but I don't think this is relevant since 保証, 証物, 簽証 etc. all seem to be acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My conclusion: They are identical in modern usage. 証 is a variant of 證 and they can be used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorUserId="507" LastEditDate="2012-10-07T05:58:16.227" LastActivityDate="2012-10-07T05:58:16.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2272" CreationDate="2012-10-07T02:53:32.200" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 繁體字 證 and 証 are two different characters. As stated in &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/&quot;&gt;教育部重編國語辭典修訂本&lt;/a&gt; of Taiwan,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;證&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;1&lt;/strong&gt; 告發。說文解字：「證，告也。」論語˙子路：「其父攘羊，而子證之。」&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;2&lt;/strong&gt; 用憑據、事實來表明或斷定。如：「證明」、「證實」。莊子˙秋水：「證曏今故，故遙而不悶﹑掇而不跂，知時無止。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;1&lt;/strong&gt; 憑據。如：「人證」、「停車證」、「借書證」。&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;2&lt;/strong&gt; 病症、症候。如：「三焦辨證」、「血分證」。列子˙周穆王：「遇老聃，因告其子之證。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;証&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;  諫正。如：「証諫」。戰國策˙齊策一：「士尉以証靖郭君，靖郭君不聽。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;=&gt;「證」的異體字（07937)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you are using 証 for &lt;strong&gt;its only rarely-used meaning&lt;/strong&gt; of &lt;code&gt;admonish, remonstrate&lt;/code&gt;, then it &lt;strong&gt;cannot be replaced&lt;/strong&gt; by 證.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other cases 証 is used as an 異體字 &lt;code&gt;(informal) variant&lt;/code&gt; of 證, &lt;strong&gt;acceptable but less preferable&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twowin.com.tw/teacher/china_word.php?menu1=25&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; from Taiwan maintains that 証 is an erroneous form of 證 out of the reason of orthodoxy (despite the fact this variant is widely accepted).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.cantonese.asia/viewthread.php?tid=10542&amp;amp;rpid=85046&amp;amp;ordertype=0&amp;amp;page=1#pid85046&quot;&gt;Another post&lt;/a&gt; from HK gives more references. (It's written in Cantonese, though.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 簡體字 there is no such trouble since both of them are simplified to 证 (according to 新华字典).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1059" LastActivityDate="2012-10-07T02:53:32.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2254" CreationDate="2012-10-07T03:47:45.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had an early-intermediate textbook where the character who was learning responded, &quot;还差得远呢&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be careful that you don't make your self-deprecation too impressive or advanced (at least relative to your actual level), that could send a mixed signal!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="894" LastActivityDate="2012-10-07T03:47:45.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2253" CreationDate="2012-10-07T13:25:42.560" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the 季度 would be 制度（with the meaning of particular institution or system).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of sentence is &quot;There are four rules in a game.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1160" LastActivityDate="2012-10-07T13:25:42.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2279" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2281" CreationDate="2012-10-07T17:35:39.863" Score="17" ViewCount="1439" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I've been teaching an English-speaking friend some basics about Chinese, but inevitably he got stuck with the tones. I've demonstrated to him the 4 tones with audio files, yet it seems hard for him to distinguish between them. (That being said, he is still able to imitate the pronunciation immediately after listening, though not knowing what tone he is repeating.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I have picked up the tones through years of immersion in the language environment, which is of little help to a busy non-native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What can I do to help my friend perceive the tones? Is there a transition from &quot;cannot perceive&quot; to &quot;can perceive&quot;, or are there stages that I can guide him through? How can I describe the differences to him so that he can learn the nuances? Experience from teachers who are used to adult learners (especially learners whose native language is English) would be welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1059" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-08-06T08:31:47.923" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T05:36:12.910" Title="How do non-native speakers get to perceive tones in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2279" CreationDate="2012-10-07T23:11:35.920" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some different things that I have seen that has helped people pick up tones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Starting out&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most books use graphs which show how each of the tones rise, fall, flatten etc (&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.mit.edu/jinzhang/www/pinyin/tones/images/4tones2.jpg&quot;&gt;example here&lt;/a&gt;). It helps some people to see the difference visually and the graphs show how great an extent the tones differ.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The tones &lt;a href=&quot;http://mandarin.about.com/od/pronunciation/a/tones.htm&quot;&gt;also have names&lt;/a&gt; (not official) e.g. rising, falling. Show the learner the graphs and ask them how they would describe each of the tones. Then ask them to pronounce tone X based on their descriptor.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Almost everyone I've seen starting with tones have started with the exercise: mā, má, mǎ, mà.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is a bad habit, but it helps some people: using your head or your hand to move in the right direction of the tone while saying it. May help with beginners, but not recommended to keep this habit for long.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stepping up&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try using pairs of words, I suggest using names of places because the speaker will have something they are familiar with e.g. &lt;em&gt;běijīng&lt;/em&gt;， &lt;em&gt;táiwān&lt;/em&gt;， &lt;em&gt;shànghǎi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Counting 1 to 10 is a good exercise because it covers all four tones and as per above the speaker is familiar with the concept so they can concentrate on learning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Family members is another good one (bàba, māmā) that uses a variety of tones.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Becoming competent&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A good exercise for learning tones is practicing basic songs. I prefer to use children's songs than pop music as people tend to get distracted by the meaning of pop songs rather than concentrating on learning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn to recite simple poems (again, don't concentrate on meaning, just on exercising your tongue and mouth)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a concept which has spread across children's Mandarin classes in the West. I will check with my wife what it is called. It involves getting children to read and recite very old writing where the meaning is completely obscured. The purpose as with the examples above is to make the learner concentrate more on how they are speaking and getting the tones precise than understanding what they are saying.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Practice reading out loud, even to yourself, as often as possible. This helps to train the mouth. Once you become more fluent start singing along to your favourite pop songs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my personal experience learning tones is one of the hardest skills and it took me at least 5 years before I started getting over 90% correct in conversation. My 5 year old son, who had the benefit of learning as a baby from his mother and grandparents, still corrects me daily when I slip up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-08T04:37:58.577" LastActivityDate="2012-10-08T04:37:58.577" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="793" CreationDate="2012-10-08T01:47:09.623" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can take a look at : &lt;a href=&quot;http://lope.linguistics.ntu.edu.tw/cwn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lope.linguistics.ntu.edu.tw/cwn/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1162" LastActivityDate="2012-10-08T01:47:09.623" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2270" CreationDate="2012-10-08T05:40:43.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually it use some words that don't have meaning in Chinese to translate the name. It's similar to the original name but inaccurate for some reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1160" LastActivityDate="2012-10-08T05:40:43.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="430" CreationDate="2012-10-08T12:39:32.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be yīnwèi. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/cd/ci/6/ZdicE5Zdic9BZdicA0102058.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zdic&lt;/a&gt;. yīnwéi may be from some dialects and is not standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2012-10-08T12:39:32.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="793" CreationDate="2012-10-08T12:56:01.327" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I strongly recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zdic&lt;/a&gt;, where you can search a character &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/py/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;via pinyin&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/bs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;via radical&lt;/a&gt;, and look up &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/cd/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;words&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/cy/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;four-character-idioms&lt;/a&gt; with their synonyms and antonyms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The website also provides additional resources, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://sf.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a calligraphy viewer&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://sc.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a poems index&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.zdic.net/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a forum&lt;/a&gt;. It is a website not only as a dictionary, but also a windows for Chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2012-10-08T12:56:01.327" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2286" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-08T18:20:11.523" Score="1" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;I lived in China for a few months and picked up quite a bit of Mandarin. Now that I've moved back to the US, I have forgotten the Chinese I knew and spoke while there. Other than actually living where they speak Chinese, what is one of the most effective/efficient ways to learn Chinese (semi-quickly) and retain it? Software? Community classes? Watching/listening to Chinese media? Any suggestions of places to go to learn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1165" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T03:37:12.843" Title="Learning/remembering Chinese" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2286" CreationDate="2012-10-08T21:01:51.803" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, taking a class, and watching/listening to Chinese media truly helps. &#xA;I have taken classes on Chinese, and Chinese media can test if you understand Chinese. Using media also helps you &quot;exercise&quot; your brain; much like taking a jog once in awhile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to retain knowledge on the Chinese, you should practice saying the word, or at least use them once in awhile. It's easier to remember the words with constant/common usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not recommend software; one problem I see is that if you have a question, you can't ask your computer. With a teacher, on the other hand, you can ask them questions and they can explain. It's a great time saver.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure about any places you should go to learn, unfortunately. It greatly depends on what your age is, where you live, and your schedule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastActivityDate="2012-10-08T21:01:51.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2286" CreationDate="2012-10-08T22:11:46.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Language exchange. Look on classifieds sites and posters near universities to arrange a language exchange where you can practice with someone in Chinese and then help them with English or another language.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do plenty of reading and practice by reading aloud. Get books that are at your level e.g. use children's books if you are at a beginners level so you don't get hung up on trying to find the meaning of every sentence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn the words to your favourite Chinese songs. There are plenty on youtube.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pay someone from China to chat with you online using Skype. There are now plenty of services available on the net to do this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go to your local Chinese grocery / fish / butcher / restaurant / bubble tea shop once a week and practice your Chinese when buying.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get an account on &lt;a href=&quot;http://weibo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;weibo&lt;/a&gt; and join in a conversation on your favourite topic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This will highly depend on your local community, but I play casual soccer every week with an all Chinese team. I am the only white guy on the team and we only speak Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get some Chinese friends and just hangout / Skype / phone / play 三国杀 / whatever&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Join a Chinese language class and make some friends and also meet-up outside of class.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Date someone Chinese (I know this sounds stupid, but I would have never started learning if I never met my wife).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of opportunities, but it depends on your personality and how willing you are to reach out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-10-08T22:11:46.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="430" CreationDate="2012-10-09T01:47:46.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMHO, yīnwèi is a modern Chinese WORD, and yīnwéi is a PHRASE from classical Chinese.&#xA;Technically, you should always pronounce yīnwèi for you are speaking modern Chinese, but actually, you can pronounce what you like, nobody treated yīnwéi as a phrase unless they are dealing with classical Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1166" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T01:47:46.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2286" CreationDate="2012-10-09T02:01:29.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the same situation like you, just all the other way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am Chinese, used to work with people from US in 2008 a lot. Then my English was rather OK. But in 2009 I started a company so one day when I called a guy from US in English, I was shocked that I was speechless then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Luckily in 2010 I successfully expanded my business to oversea countries and all the communication is in English. So again I gained up my skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then due to some unexpected reasons my business did not go well in 2011-2012, and I do not have that much communication with those oversea partners. I feel my English is getting worse again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I decide to communicate more to retain it: Playing with Facebook, Twitter, Quora and now Stack Exchange :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;strong&gt;daily/casual communication&lt;/strong&gt; is the BEST way to retain it, otherwise you'll have to do it in a painful way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just my personal experience and advice. Not sure whether it works for Chinese but if you're interested, I suggest you start using websites like Weibo and Youku.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T02:01:29.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="430" CreationDate="2012-10-09T02:05:40.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This online dictionary with pronunciations will help you.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/1751.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/1751.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General speaking, we use the second pronunciation when it is a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 &#xA;（爲） &#xA;wéi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;◎ 做，行，做事：～人。～时。～难。不～己甚（不做得太过分）。 &#xA;◎ 当做，认做：以～。认～。习以～常。 &#xA;◎ 变成：成～。 &#xA;◎ 是：十两～一斤。 &#xA;◎ 治理，处理：～政。 &#xA;◎ 被：～天下笑。 &#xA;◎ 表示强调：大～恼火。 &#xA;◎ 助词，表示反诘或感叹：敌未灭，何以家～？ &#xA;◎ 姓。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 &#xA;（爲） &#xA;wèi &#xA;替，给：为民请命。为虎作伥。为国捐躯。 &#xA;表目的：为了。为何。 &#xA;对，向：不足为外人道。 &#xA;帮助，卫护。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笔画数：4； &#xA;部首：丶； &#xA;笔顺编号：4354 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1167" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-11T04:34:59.320" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:34:59.320" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2253" CreationDate="2012-10-09T02:25:28.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;季度 = season.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;游戏 means a small game such as a video game, or a computer game. It is quite common that Chinese use 比赛/体育比赛 to describe a sports game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &#xA;basketball games, 篮球比赛/篮球赛&#xA;football games， 足球比赛/足球赛&#xA;for short 球赛 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, a common expression of your meaning is&#xA;一场比赛有四节。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1167" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T02:25:28.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2247" CreationDate="2012-10-09T02:37:02.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It simply means 'allow' here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means that,&#xA;I could not only allow foreigners to sit in my car, but also allow them to rent my car.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in English, 坐我的车 should mean that 'sit in my car and I could take them a trip'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1167" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T02:37:02.440" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2264" CreationDate="2012-10-09T02:40:58.850" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a joke.&#xA;It is a homo phonic joke between English and Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1167" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T02:40:58.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2250" CreationDate="2012-10-09T02:45:02.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most situation, 谁让你 can be translated into only because.&#xA;谁叫你 and 谁让你 are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 你 could be replaced by some other words like 我，他 etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1167" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T02:45:02.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="989" CreationDate="2012-10-09T03:08:29.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;缘分 is actually two words in ancient Chinese, and this word came from ancient Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word clearly clarified the marriage system in ancient China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;缘 means boy meets girl.&#xA;分 means what the status the boy/man could give to the girl/woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In present China, Chinese abandon that old marriage system but the term remains.&#xA;有缘无分 is another way of saying we cannot get married.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1167" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T03:08:29.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2298" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-09T09:21:24.090" Score="3" ViewCount="505" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've only ever people say something like 我住在山坡上 but to me 山坡 sounds like the side of a mountain. Google translate gives me 我住在山脚下.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English we use, I live at the bottom of a hill, not I live at the bottom of a mountain or I live on the side of a mountain; mountain sounds too majestic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is 山坡 or 山脚 a good choice for side of a hill or is there a better word to describe where I live?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to say something like: Because I live at the bottom of a hill it is hard to ride my bike to work. 因为我住在山脚下，骑自行车上班很难。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1150" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T10:12:54.300" Title="How to say &quot;I live at the bottom of a hill&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2299" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-09T09:37:41.753" Score="4" ViewCount="501" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play soccer with a bunch of Chinese friends regularly and I want to say &quot;my legs are tired&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I already know 我跑不动了 and 我的腿很酸, but I'm not sure what is the best fit for the Chinese equivelant of &quot;my legs are tired&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate gives me 我的腿累了 and there are plenty of search results where this is used, but this sound doesn't sound right to me, kind of like something a Westerner would say in Chinese. Maybe I'm wrong!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-10-09T09:46:52.850" LastActivityDate="2012-10-23T08:17:15.560" Title="Can I use 我的腿累了 for &quot;My legs are tired&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2298" CreationDate="2012-10-09T10:07:13.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E5%B1%B1?prd=so_1_doc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;山&lt;/a&gt;, in general, refers to a mountain or a hill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;坡 refers to a slope.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Therefore, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E5%B1%B1%E5%9D%A1?prd=so_1_doc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;山坡&lt;/a&gt; refers to the side (or slope) of a hill (or mountain).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;脚 refers to the foot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E5%B1%B1%E8%84%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;山脚&lt;/a&gt; refers to the foot of a hill (or mountain).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on what bike you are referring to, it could be a motorcycle (摩托车) or bicycle (自行车).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the translation provided by Google is okay:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Because I live at the bottom of a hill it is hard to ride my bike to&#xA;  work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因为我住在山脚下，骑自行车(or 摩托车)上班很难。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are staying in a valley, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E5%B1%B1%E8%B0%B7?prd=so_1_doc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;山谷&lt;/a&gt; will be more appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-10-09T10:12:54.300" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T10:12:54.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2299" CreationDate="2012-10-09T18:20:06.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我的腿累了 is very normal to say. Alternatively you can say 我的腿没劲了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T18:20:06.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1953" CreationDate="2012-10-09T22:59:59.920" Score="-4" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;德国 virtuous country&#xA;法国 justice country&#xA;英国 heroic country&#xA;美国 beauty country&#xA;俄国 tilt country&#xA;泰国 peaceful country&#xA;韩国 wall country&#xA;中国 middle county&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1171" LastActivityDate="2012-10-09T22:59:59.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2299" CreationDate="2012-10-10T01:43:12.563" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not so good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never use this because it sounds strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Follow your feeling, don't use these words that you don't like to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1172" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-10-10T19:48:20.493" LastActivityDate="2012-10-10T19:48:20.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2299" CreationDate="2012-10-10T03:55:36.630" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我的腿累了&lt;/code&gt; is not as good as &lt;code&gt;我的腿好累&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The former one seems to suggest your leg tires on its own accord and sounds unnatural, where the latter one just states that the legs are tired (a condition). As a comparison, &lt;code&gt;我的手累了&lt;/code&gt; is quite normal, where the hand seems to be a more active body part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While other alternatives have subtle differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我的腿无力&lt;/code&gt;  = My legs are weak. (Maybe from hunger)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我跑不动&lt;/code&gt; = I can't run (Maybe need to catch a breath / or guy is too fat)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我的腿很酸&lt;/code&gt; = My legs are sore. (Maybe from sitting too long in a wrong posture)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1173" LastActivityDate="2012-10-10T03:55:36.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2306" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2307" CreationDate="2012-10-10T10:55:26.397" Score="5" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to write a program that can insert the count of objects into a text - without knowing virtually anything about the Chinese language. While for English this needs to distinguish between singular and plural, I don't know which special cases need to be handled for Chinese. Using an online translator to translate &quot;one house, ..., thirteen houses&quot;, I obtained&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一所房子，两个房屋、 三栋房子、 四个房屋、 五之家、 六套房子、 七个之家、 八个公司、 九个房屋、 十家、 十一间房屋、 12 间房、 十三个房子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same with cats:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一只猫，两只猫、 三只猫，四只猫、 五只猫、 六只猫、 七只猫、 八猫、 九猫、 十猫、 11 个猫、 十二个猫，十三个猫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of this may be caused by imperfections of the online translator used, but I wonder if some of the patterns should be observed by my program. And I need to provide it with suitably many &quot;declination&quot; forms to allow it to create the correct output:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Arabic digits for 12 in the first test and 11 in the second test are &lt;em&gt;obviously&lt;/em&gt; an artefact of the online translator. I assume that it is &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; customary to use arabic numbers in Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I wonder why &quot;two&quot; seems to be translated by 两 instead of 二. Is that correct? Or does it depend on something?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What follows the numeral seems to differ depending on the number. For example I see 所房子 with 1; 个房屋 with 2, 4, 9; 栋房子 with 3; and all remaining numbers seem to have their very individual signs, at least when it is about  &quot;houses&quot;. For the cats I see 只猫 with 1-7, 猫 with 8-10, 个猫 with 11-13. While this looks less complicated, I wonder: Are the different forms required by grammar? Do they follow a specific pattern (e.g. for living versus dead things)? Which variants have to be used for which number? (Or is this just another translator artefact?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for any hints on this, but please remember to keep them understandable for someone who knows no Chinese and will handle Chinese texts with a mere &quot;pattern substitution&quot; technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1175" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-10-10T15:17:33.170" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T16:06:42.450" Title="Grammar for counting in Chinese (for non-native speakers of Chinese)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2306" CreationDate="2012-10-10T11:24:02.297" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding arabic numerals: I think modern usage sees arabic numbers to be generally acceptable. However the context of the material, or even the region, may influence whether they're commonly used or not. For example, in metropolitan areas you might commonly see phone numbers or prices expressed in digits, whereas in more traditional material you probably wouldn't. You may or may not be able to get away with this in your project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding 两 vs 二: 两 is generally used as &quot;two&quot; for specifying a number of objects, whereas 二 is used as the digit, such as in a phone number. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/755/number-two-in-chinese-%E4%BA%8C-vs-%E4%B8%A4?rq=1&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; for more on this distinction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the classifier: As far as I'm aware, there's no such rule as 1-6 uses this classifier, 7-9 uses this, etc. The classifier is determined by the noun. In your example, the classifier for cats (猫） is 只. For house (房子) you can use 栋.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classifier for people is (usually) 个. Perhaps more importantly, 个 can be used as the catch-all classifier in casual language, or when an obscure noun has a classifier that you simply cannot remember. Again, whether you can use this &quot;shortcut&quot; will depend on the specifications of your project. In more formal situations, the correct classifier is preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a finite list of nouns in your project, you could spend some time looking up the relevant classifier for each noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php&lt;/a&gt; specifies the classifier in the dictionary entries, denoted by the &quot;CL:&quot; text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1129" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-10-10T11:30:57.467" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2308" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2318" CreationDate="2012-10-10T21:15:33.913" Score="6" ViewCount="1104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently seen two phrases which, in my understanding, looked very similar to each other:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;再看吧  [zài kàn ba]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  考虑考虑 [kǎo lǜ kǎo lǜ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I've been told that the first one means &lt;em&gt;almost certain disagreement&lt;/em&gt;, while the other is similar to &quot;maybe&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that Chinese culture is very polite; at least, more than many Western cultures. However, I'm still wondering how to correctly (and politely!) express my attitude if I:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tentatively agree;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tend to disagree;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or certainly disagree;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2218/if-you-say-so-dismissive-agreement&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;If you say so&amp;quot;: Dismissive agreement&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T02:47:59.470" Title="Idiomatic expressions for attitude (agreement or disagreement)" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2308" CreationDate="2012-10-10T21:48:03.283" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;tentatively agree: 没问题，我试试看&lt;br&gt;&#xA;tend to disagree: 应该可以&lt;br&gt;&#xA;certainly disagree: 再看吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Native Chinese here, at least for me when I heard 考虑考虑 I won't take it as &quot;maybe&quot;, rather it sounds a disagreement to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1177" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-10-10T22:24:40.280" LastActivityDate="2012-10-10T22:24:40.280" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2308" CreationDate="2012-10-10T22:50:56.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再看吧 is more like the English &quot;We'll see how it goes&quot;. Which is not as strong as indicating certain disagreement, but can be used to mean that. Have a look at the two examples below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有时间再看吧 - Let's look at it (the situation) again when we have time &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; I'll think about it later. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is can be used in English to politely decline something, that is, you are deferring it indefinitely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明天再看吧 - Let's reassess / have another look at the situation tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see in this situation, although you are saying you will think about it later, you have set a definite time. Far from being a certain disagreement. I guess it is certain disagreement for now, but not indefinitely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;考虑考虑 is similar to &quot;Let me think about it&quot;. Again, depending on the situation, the same as in English, &quot;Let me think about it&quot; can also be used to defer someone indefinitely. This really depends on how it is said and how much trust you will have in the situation that this person will really get back to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one of my friends asks me to do something difficult which involves things such as inconveniencing others, money or sacrificing personal time, but I am still willing to help but haven't worked out how I'm going to do it so it has minimal impact I will say something like &quot;我考虑考虑,等一会儿再给你打&quot; &lt;em&gt;Let me think about it and I will give you a call back later&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As per your question above 让我想一想 is almost the same as using 考虑考虑, they both mean &quot;Let me consider&quot; or &quot;Let me think about it&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So both of the above examples don't fit into the three points provided. They are more like being non-committal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;non-commitment: 让我想一想, 考虑考虑, 再看吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tentative: 你让我试试看吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dependent on outcome: 应该可以&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;not likely：有点难做， 应该是不行， 有可能做不到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;not possible: 我是做不到， 不能做， 不行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-10T22:56:16.210" LastActivityDate="2012-10-10T22:56:16.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2311" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2315" CreationDate="2012-10-11T01:48:23.297" Score="5" ViewCount="1013" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is &lt;code&gt;看一看&lt;/code&gt; equal to &lt;code&gt;瞧一瞧&lt;/code&gt; in meaning? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2021-04-26T02:44:59.110" Title="Do 看一看 and 瞧一瞧 have the same meaning?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2299" CreationDate="2012-10-11T02:11:51.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;for the native speaker,我的腿累了 is not normal used. We usually use 我跑不动了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1179" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T02:11:51.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2311" CreationDate="2012-10-11T02:17:54.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm from Southern China, never say 瞧一瞧, people may understand you when you say that but definitely it sounds a little bit weird, at least to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 看一看 will be good everywhere in China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I chat the informal way to say 看一看 is 瞄一眼(glance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1177" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T02:17:54.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2311" CreationDate="2012-10-11T02:20:02.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Northern China, 看一看 has the same meaning with 瞧一瞧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1179" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T02:20:02.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2311" CreationDate="2012-10-11T02:31:39.983" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Northern China, 瞧 is the colloquial form of 看 and they are always interchangeable. I can't speak for Southern China though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;瞧瞧 = 看看 = take a look&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你瞧瞧 = 你看看 = [in blaming tone] look (what you've done)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;瞧一瞧 = 看一看 = take a look (don't miss it)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;瞧得起 = 看得起 = look up to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;瞧得见 = 看得见 = can see&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;瞧一眼 = 看一眼 = cast a glance at&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T02:31:39.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2316" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-11T02:33:17.050" Score="6" ViewCount="1870" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English it perfectly fine in a business context and for someone you have never met before to use Dear XXXX at the beginning of a letter or email.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This causes some difficulty when moving to another language because 亲爱的 may have a slightly different connotation to the English &quot;dear&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rather than having answers that say &quot;yes you can&quot; or &quot;no you can't&quot;, I would appreciate if you could split into the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When is it definitely OK&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When should I use my own judgement as to whether its appropriate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When is it definitely not OK&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:18:12.893" Title="When is it appropriate to use 亲爱的?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2317" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-11T02:40:24.797" Score="5" ViewCount="5229" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some Chinese words that I can use to call either my spouse or a love interest?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English we have names like sweety, sweetheart, lovely, honey etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some common equivalents that are used in China today? I'm looking for words that are modern and I would not look that silly if someone heard me saying them or if I were type them online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be if you could classify the terms to assist with learning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which ones are for male/female&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which ones are better for a spouse or for a single person&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which ones should be used with care e.g In English you wouldn't just say &quot;Hey sexy lady&quot; to anyone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-10-12T13:45:22.733" Title="Terms of endearment" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2308" CreationDate="2012-10-11T02:47:59.470" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Complete agreement:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;没问题 (no problem)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我赞成 (I agree)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tentative agreement:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;还可以 (still okay)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;应该没问题 (should be okay)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我不反对 (I don't object)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Neutral, non-committal:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我考虑考虑 (let me consider)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我想一想 (let me think about it)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tend to disagree:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;再看吧 (consider about it another time)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;再说吧 (talk about it another time)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这很难 (this is difficult)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Complete disagreement:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不可能 (not possible)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不可以 (cannot)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;办不到 (can't be done)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我反对 (I object)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I notice that there are different answers to this phrase &quot;再看吧&quot;. To elaborate, when a person says 再看吧, it means to disagree looking at the current state, but there is a slight chance that he/she may agree at a later stage if situation warrants a relook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 明天去看戏好吗？ (Let's watch a movie tomorrow, shall we?)&lt;br&gt; B:&#xA;  我现在还有很多事要做，再看吧。(I am still busy right now, will consider about it&#xA;  another time.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, when a person give this kind of response, it is a tacit way of saying &quot;no&quot;. The asker is expected to ask again at a later moment if he/she hopes to get an affirmative answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T02:47:59.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2306" CreationDate="2012-10-11T04:06:25.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For classifiers there are actually a large range and, contrary to the answer above, there doesn't exist a catch-all classifier which can be used in all situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classifier 个 is the most common one and is used by new learners when they cannot remember which one to use, but it is important that the correct classifier is used in each case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is tricky is that sometimes different classifiers can be used with the same item (as you saw with 房子. This is usually region specific or dependent on what the object itself looks like. Some examples for this include the word for dog, you can use 一只狗 which is used for many animals or 一条狗 &quot;条&quot; is used for something that is elongated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As per your question, when counting from 1 to 10 the classifier is not going to change. However if you asked different people to type in 3 houses, you may get 5 or 6 different inputs. How you hand someone typing 3 or 三 into your program will need to be handled by the program as some people may type it differently. However, I think more than likely although 3 is acceptable, you will find more people would type 三个房子 than 3个房子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:06:25.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2316" CreationDate="2012-10-11T04:18:12.893" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, &quot;亲爱的&quot; does indeed has a slightly different connotation to the English &quot;Dear&quot;. It is not used as liberally in Chinese letters and emails. &quot;亲爱的&quot; expresses a closer relationship than &quot;Dear&quot; does. The following are situations where you may or may not use it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When is it definitely OK:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you writing to your spouse&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you writing to your lover&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you writing to your parent(s)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you writing to your colleagues&lt;br&gt;&#xA;an organization writing to its customers or patrons&lt;br&gt;&#xA;an institution writing to its students&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When should I use my own judgement as to whether its appropriate:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;male writing to a male friend&lt;br&gt;&#xA;male writing to a female friend&lt;br&gt;&#xA;female writing to a male friend&lt;br&gt;&#xA;male student writing to a female teacher (depending on relative age)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;male apprentice writing to a female mentor (depending on relative age)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you writing to complete strangers&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When is it definitely NOT OK:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;male writing to a female acquaintance&lt;br&gt;&#xA;male writing to a female colleague&lt;br&gt;&#xA;job seeker writing to the human resource department of a company&lt;br&gt;&#xA;anyone writing to higher authority&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In business &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/60368.htm&quot;&gt;letters&lt;/a&gt; (公函), salutations (修饰词) such as &quot;亲爱的&quot; are seldom used as it is quite informal and personal. Instead, &quot;尊敬的&quot; may be used if the letter is addressed to a higher authority. However it is often dropped, sufficing with just a title to address the person:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;XXX先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;XXX经理&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For informal letters, &quot;亲爱的&quot; is appropriate if it is used to express closeness in a relationship. It could be written by an organisation. However, on a personal level, care has to be taken to avoid misunderstandings especially when the addressee is from the opposite sex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T04:18:12.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1386" CreationDate="2012-10-11T06:28:47.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an aside, I think the Cantonese equivalent would be 咪呀嗎/唔係呀嗎. The way I've seen/heard it used in HK and China looks like a good match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T06:28:47.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1997" CreationDate="2012-10-11T08:36:25.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes 我哪里可以买火车票 without a questioning tone means can be used to indicate someone who can't buy a train ticket for some obvious reason (both talker and listener understanding the situation). Similar to the rhetorical &quot;Why can't I buy a train ticket?&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This case occurs in some disputation, and 我哪里 is emphasized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there is a case:&#xA;A: 你从火车站回来怎么不买火车票呢，明天买票排队要花很长时间呢。&#xA;B: 我哪里可以买火车票啊，昨天不是把钱都给你了嘛，我现在身无分文。&#xA;A: 哦，我忘记了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In oral Chinese, we can understand you, but in writing Chinese, only one statement without tone, there may be misunderstanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.我哪里面有时间陪你看电影啊，我今晚要加班。(I can't go to the cinema with you because I must go overtime work this night)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1182" LastEditorUserId="1182" LastEditDate="2012-10-19T09:10:53.670" LastActivityDate="2012-10-19T09:10:53.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2311" CreationDate="2012-10-11T10:02:26.927" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Southern China, people mainly use &quot;看一看&quot; rather than &quot;瞧一瞧&quot;，but using &quot;瞧一瞧&quot; in Southern China is still natural. Additionally, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9E%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;瞅一瞅&lt;/a&gt;&quot; &lt;em&gt;chǒu yī chǒu&lt;/em&gt; has the same meaning in Northern China, whereas nearly never be used in the Southern part of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1183" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-11T22:21:35.310" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T22:21:35.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2311" CreationDate="2012-10-12T10:00:19.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no difference between 看一看 and 瞧一瞧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you ask someone for help, if the guy considers helping you, he or she will say let me 看一看 or 瞧一瞧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1188" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-14T22:37:55.593" LastActivityDate="2012-10-14T22:37:55.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2317" CreationDate="2012-10-12T13:45:22.733" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess you have known the &quot;old fashioned&quot; terms like &lt;code&gt;宝贝&lt;/code&gt;(baby), &lt;code&gt;亲爱的/亲亲&lt;/code&gt;(darling), &lt;code&gt;心肝&lt;/code&gt;(heart and liver), &lt;code&gt;乖乖&lt;/code&gt;(well-behaved) etc. Here's some other terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;孩子他爸，孩子他妈&lt;/code&gt;(Father/Mother of our children). Used for spouses who have children.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some words for depreciating one's lover literally. &lt;code&gt;笨蛋、傻瓜、呆子、笨笨⋯⋯&lt;/code&gt;(fool,idiot). I guess it means love make a person blind and fool.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Retro style words. &lt;code&gt;娘子/夫人(wife)、丫头(maid servant)&lt;/code&gt; for female, &lt;code&gt;相公/官人(husband)、老爷(master)&lt;/code&gt; for male.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some creature names. The most usual one is &lt;code&gt;小猪(piggy)&lt;/code&gt;. Others like &lt;code&gt;小狗(doggie)、大脸猫(kitty with a big face, from a cartoon)、小猫(kitty)&lt;/code&gt; etc. Most of them are some cute animals. If one's bf is a muscle man, &lt;code&gt;大熊(bear)&lt;/code&gt; is also OK.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reiterative diction. Usually for the last character of one's name. For example, if the name is &lt;code&gt;于墨(yu mo)&lt;/code&gt;, we can call him/her &lt;code&gt;墨墨&lt;/code&gt;. And we often pronounce the second char in light tone(轻声).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;妹子(younger sister)&lt;/code&gt;. This is popular in recent years. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;老婆/媳妇(wife)、老公(husband)&lt;/code&gt; is not only used for spouse. Even teen lovers could address each other like this (and of course informal).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Like &lt;code&gt;nfang&lt;/code&gt; said, most couples use their own terms. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastActivityDate="2012-10-12T13:45:22.733" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1386" CreationDate="2012-10-13T00:01:41.007" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A.过两年我就能开法拉利了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B.好像法拉利是你家造的一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好像...一样，好像...似的；between them and “as if” have same means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1189" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-10-13T09:38:52.650" LastActivityDate="2012-10-13T09:38:52.650" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2299" CreationDate="2012-10-13T00:09:56.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;我跑不动了&quot; or &quot;我快要跑不动了” is right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1189" LastActivityDate="2012-10-13T00:09:56.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2329" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2330" CreationDate="2012-10-14T01:04:28.183" Score="6" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another pair of homonyms with similar/identical meaning. A dictionary check gives me this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;濱&#xA;(1) 水邊。如：「河濱」、「海濱」、「她喜歡在湖濱散步。」&#xA;(2) 靠近。如：「濱臨」、「濱海公路」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瀕&#xA;(1) 水邊。如：「河瀕」、「江瀕」。&#xA;(2) 臨近、迫近。如：「瀕臨」、「瀕危」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't very helpful since the definitions of the two characters are almost identical (including some of the examples). However, I do think that 瀕 is more often used in sense (2): 瀕臨，瀕危，瀕於 and so on, and that 濱 is more used in sense (1): 濱海，濱河，濱江. Some quick google checks seem confirms this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hypothesis: From a practical, modern point of view, they mean the same thing, but there is a preference for 濱 in the sense of being close to water and 瀕 in the more general sense of being close to something (even something more abstract).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct? Can these characters be used interchangeably, even if there seems to be a preference for one over the other in certain situations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2012-10-14T06:19:40.063" Title="What is the difference between 濱 and 瀕?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2329" CreationDate="2012-10-14T06:19:40.063" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bianjiao.net/news/html/?809.html&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; there is long explanation, but the summary that 濱 is more used when 濱 has the role of a noun (examples: 水~︱江~︱河~︱湖~︱海~), and 瀕 is more used when 瀕 has the role of a verb (examples: ~江︱~湖︱~海︱~绝︱~临︱~死︱~危︱~于, 东~大海).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-10-14T06:19:40.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2205" CreationDate="2012-10-14T07:12:23.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese people usually use some 语气词 like 啊, 呀 and other words describe your feeling (you can put any words here). Repeating is also a useful way (not for books). You can find that Chinese books don't ususually have such thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你笨(you are stupid)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你太笨了(you are too stupid)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你笨死了(hmmm... I don't know how to translate this well...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完了，你笨得没救了(oh dear, nobody can't help you to be not so silly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you've already known this person is &lt;em&gt;TOOOOO&lt;/em&gt; stupid, you can even simply say 完了,你没救了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you understand what Chinese language really is, you may find such a thing is useless, because there are many ways to say what you &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; want to express.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, &amp;quot;extract important points from text&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;understand the writer's feeling&amp;quot; are a basic knowledge taught in lessons, at least middle schools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the marks in the answer above are rarely used...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-10-14T07:12:23.417" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2332" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2335" CreationDate="2012-10-14T14:47:43.087" Score="9" ViewCount="701" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is a collective term for first cousins?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everywhere I've looked it is emphasized that the correct term for &quot;cousin&quot; depends on age, sex and whether the cousin is on father's or mother's side. But that's for individual cousins. And the closer I've found to a collective term is 堂兄弟，堂姊妹，表兄弟，表姊妹, which still is four terms for different types of cousins, so it isn't exactly what I'm looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how would you ask a question such as &quot;how many cousins do you have?&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="729" LastActivityDate="2012-10-15T03:37:08.580" Title="Asking &quot;how many cousins do you have?&quot;" Tags="&lt;kinship&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2332" CreationDate="2012-10-14T15:07:18.303" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest asking separately: 你有多少个堂兄弟姐妹 and 你有多少个表兄弟姐妹, &#xA;because China is a patrilineal society traditionally, relatives of father's side are more closer naturally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, things are changing rapidly in China nowadays, this might not be true to every individual any more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="351" LastEditorUserId="13" LastEditDate="2012-10-14T16:57:38.217" LastActivityDate="2012-10-14T16:57:38.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2332" CreationDate="2012-10-14T17:05:30.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;堂表兄妹 is the term you are looking for. As noted in the comments below, this is not a proper term, but is in use (Google search 273,000 results) and could be found in online dictionaries &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E8%A1%A8%E5%A0%82%E5%85%84%E5%A6%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/%E5%A0%82%E5%85%84%E5%A6%B9%E8%A1%A8%E5%85%84%E5%A6%B9/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兄妹 in a strict sense refers to elder brother and younger sister. But it could also be taken to mean siblings (abbreviation of 兄弟姐妹). To prove my point, please refer to this Baidu article &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/6443399.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;表兄妹结婚&lt;/a&gt; which talks about marriage between cousins and this article on &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2750250.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;堂兄妹&lt;/a&gt;. Again, I am not saying that it is a proper term, but it is understood that 兄妹, in a general sense, refers to 兄弟姐妹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as the Chinese tradition makes very clear distinction in relationships, it would be prudent to be clear by stating separately (堂兄妹,表兄妹) and do the Maths yourself. It doesn't hurt knowing a bit more ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-10-15T03:04:49.060" LastActivityDate="2012-10-15T03:04:49.060" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2332" CreationDate="2012-10-14T22:52:12.273" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is a collective term for first cousins?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no single official collective term for all cousins. You can use 堂表兄弟姐妹 which can be easily understood but it's not real word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;how would you ask a question such as &quot;how many cousins do you have?&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People from different regions may have different idiomatic opinions, but what's certain is you'll have to mention 堂 and 表 separately and explicitly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A relatively universal expression might be “你（一共）有多少个堂（兄弟姐妹）和表兄弟姐妹？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2012-10-15T03:37:08.580" LastActivityDate="2012-10-15T03:37:08.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2336" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-16T02:52:43.973" Score="4" ViewCount="689" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have asked Chinese co-workers &amp;amp; checked sites such as Iciba &amp;amp; Google Translate to no avail.  I know that this is talking about 2 points used in TCM, but I have no idea how to translate these into English.  I would appreciate help with the translation, but even more, I would appreciate some resource for translating this sort of specialized vocabulary in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The specific sentence in question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;贴于翳明或内关双侧穴位&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it common to just say something like &quot;the yi-ming acupuncture point&quot; or does yi-ming translate into something in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T09:11:01.353" Title="Translations from TCM (Traditional Chinese medicine)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2336" CreationDate="2012-10-16T04:51:12.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of places on the web where acupuncture points are mentioned in English like this: &lt;em&gt;NeiGuan&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Neiguan&lt;/em&gt;. In fact you can even do a plain Google search for &quot;&lt;em&gt;Neiguan&lt;/em&gt;&quot; and there are plenty of results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some listings for Yiming but this doesn't seem to be as well known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to be precise I would add the Chinese next to it, like Neiguan (内关).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at &lt;a href=&quot;http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Chinese_meridians.JPG&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this chart&lt;/a&gt; provided by Wikipedia it shows how each of the points have a code, so it may also be more accurate to provide the code e.g. Neiguan-P6* and Yiming-EX-HN14*. &#xA;An example of this format &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.opentcm.com/index.php?name=News&amp;amp;file=article&amp;amp;sid=580&amp;amp;theme=Printer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;can be seen here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;*Note: Please don't take my answer as a point of reference for the exact codes to be used for these points. I have seen Neiguan listed variously as PE6, PC6 and P6. I am not a doctor.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is common for terms that have no English equivalent to use the romanisation of the Chinese without the tones. I suggest you try either using the romanisation along with some related terms e.g. &quot;&lt;em&gt;neiguan acupuncture&lt;/em&gt;&quot; or use the Chinese and related English words e.g. &quot;&lt;em&gt;内关 acupuncture&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-16T04:57:04.080" LastActivityDate="2012-10-16T04:57:04.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2336" CreationDate="2012-10-16T05:17:21.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;翳明 is just name of an acupuncture point. When we talk this to others, we usually just use the name itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a brief explanation of the name. The character 翳 means &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/17625.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;cover/shield&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. In terms of medicine, it refers to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.med.nyu.edu/content?ChunkIID=102906&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;corneal opacity&lt;/a&gt;. 明 in classical Chinese has the meaning of &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E6%98%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;make clear-sighted&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. So, the meaning of the name reads &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://yibian.hopto.org/acu/?ano=374&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;remove opacity and get clear-sighted (除去翳障重見光明)&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. It got this name because TCM doctors found that stimulating it could help on eyesight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, when referring to acupoints, we can just use the name. The explanation of those names could be interesting, but they are not widely known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1000" LastActivityDate="2012-10-16T05:17:21.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2339" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-16T13:10:12.090" Score="1" ViewCount="299" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently come across this statement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那你可以在宾馆洗. &quot;Then you can wash them (clothes) at the hotel.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Can you wash your clothes at the hotel?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can't figure out the placement of the noun clothes.  Could someone translate &quot;Can you wash your clothes at the hotel?&quot; for me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2206" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-23T23:38:58.667" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T23:38:58.667" Title="How do I ask &quot;Can you wash your clothes at the hotel?&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2339" CreationDate="2012-10-16T13:55:13.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To translate directly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Can you wash your clothes at the hotel?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你可以在宾馆洗你的衣服(clothes)吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure if it is really what you want. But if you are asking the hotel staff whether they help you wash your clothes, then it should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Do you provide laundry service?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你有提供洗衣服务(service)吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic order of a Chinese sentence is usually in the form of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93verb%E2%80%93object&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;subject-verb-object&lt;/a&gt; arrangement. From the two sentences above, 你 is the subject, 洗 and 提供 are the verbs, 衣服 and 洗衣服务 are the objects. Please refer to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_grammar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; for more examples on the Chinese grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-10-16T14:09:11.510" LastActivityDate="2012-10-16T14:09:11.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2286" CreationDate="2012-10-18T00:47:54.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I try to learn Chinese words and characters in &quot;bunches,&quot; based on similar &quot;phonetics&quot; (typically the right side or bottom of characters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, the word  马 ma (third tone), means &quot;horse,&quot; is the &quot;root&quot; word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Add the radical for &quot;woman&quot; to the left, and the changed word 妈 means &quot;mother,&quot; and is pronounced ma (first tone). Change the radicals again, and you have a &quot;family&quot; of similar-sounding words that mean &quot;dock,&quot; &quot;agate,&quot; &quot;to scold,&quot; etc. all with a common phonetic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found it a lot easier to remember a &quot;bunch&quot; of similar words than the same number of unrelated words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="52" LastEditDate="2012-10-18T01:01:01.687" LastActivityDate="2012-10-18T01:01:01.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2342" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2344" CreationDate="2012-10-18T05:54:54.123" Score="0" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this sentence &quot;encircle the comma using slash&quot; right?&#xA;Actually, I want to figure out this situation \,\&#xA;I doubt the word 'encircle' is not accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1169" LastEditorUserId="834" LastEditDate="2013-01-19T16:48:53.577" LastActivityDate="2013-01-19T16:48:53.577" Title="How to say &quot;用斜杠包围逗号&quot; in english?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2012-10-18T19:41:30.203" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2342" CreationDate="2012-10-18T06:18:09.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the meaning you guessed is correct. Maybe it is best to translate  it as: Put the comma between slashes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-10-18T06:18:09.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2342" CreationDate="2012-10-18T06:36:09.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enclose&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;enclose&lt;/a&gt;&quot; would be a better word since &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/encircle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;encircle&lt;/a&gt;&quot; usually means to surround by forming a circle. Note that the character &lt;code&gt;\&lt;/code&gt; is actually a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;back slash&lt;/a&gt;, not a slash (&lt;code&gt;/&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Enclose the comma with two back slashes.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another alternative word is &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pad&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pad&lt;/a&gt;&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Pad the comma with one back slash in front and one behind.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delimiter&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;delimit&lt;/a&gt;&quot; if the purpose is to separate some text. But I doubt it is the case here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-10-18T06:36:09.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2286" CreationDate="2012-10-18T07:27:47.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the simplest way is to listening Chinese news and try to say it by yourself.I am a native Chinese and I have learned English for a couple of months.I listen VOA everyday,through this way,I can also get the international news.I think I can achieve two aims at the same time.&#xA;I think you need a Chinese friend too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1169" LastActivityDate="2012-10-18T07:27:47.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1997" CreationDate="2012-10-19T07:21:03.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're actually the same sentences, except the latter one is used a little more often in Chinese daily lives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2213" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-19T08:52:47.207" LastActivityDate="2012-10-19T08:52:47.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2349" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-19T09:08:59.890" Score="10" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my understanding 讲礼貌 translates as 'be polite' and 讲卫生 is something like 'be clean', but how should I explain the 讲 to a new speaker? I take this as a set phrase, but is there a way to translate the 讲 in these phrases separately?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary only &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%AE%B2&quot;&gt;provides the following meanings&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;explain&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;discuss&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;talk&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think this fits in with either 讲礼貌 or 讲卫生, so should a new meaning be added to the above list and what should that be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-10-26T19:04:51.907" Title="How to explain 讲 in 讲礼貌 and 讲卫生" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2349" CreationDate="2012-10-19T10:07:50.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you can see &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/3449.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. The third meaning is what you want. It can be translated into:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Focus on one aspect/pay attention to sth, and try to make it. e.g 讲卫生&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;strive for  e.g 讲速度&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastActivityDate="2012-10-19T10:07:50.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2349" CreationDate="2012-10-19T10:08:58.847" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context  讲 is short for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E8%AE%B2%E7%A9%B6/1307442&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;讲究&lt;/a&gt; which means &lt;em&gt;to pay particular attention to; to be particular about&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can also say 讲究礼貌 and 讲究卫生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-10-26T19:04:51.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2352" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2353" CreationDate="2012-10-19T12:55:41.080" Score="2" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;I watched the video ' Obama's Twitter Town Hall- Full Video ' in Youtube.But I knew the &lt;strong&gt;Town Hall&lt;/strong&gt; means '市政厅',and what does it mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1169" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-08T08:56:40.140" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T08:56:40.140" Title="What does 'twitter/facebook Town Hall' mean in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-08-08T15:48:39.490" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2352" CreationDate="2012-10-19T13:25:41.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A town hall meeting is known as &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B8%82%E6%B0%91%E5%A4%A7%E4%BC%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;市民大会&lt;/a&gt; or 市政厅会议. It has to be noted that this concept originates from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_hall_meeting&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;America&lt;/a&gt; and may not be well received in other countries depending on the political system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Facebook or a Twitter town hall meeting can be generally termed as 网上市民大会. An example sourced from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinanews.com/gj/2011/04-21/2987476.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; news article reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中新社旧金山4月20日电(记者&#xA;  刘丹)20日下午，美国总统奥巴马在加州帕洛阿图市的脸书(Facebook)总部举行“分担责任共享繁荣”&lt;b&gt;网上市民大会&lt;/b&gt;时表示，希望更多有智慧有雄心的人留在美国，不希望看到下一个英特尔这样的企业在中国或法国创业。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-10-19T13:25:41.810" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2354" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2356" CreationDate="2012-10-20T21:10:30.373" Score="1" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this sentence on a textbook: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漂漂亮亮地参加晚会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without more context information, what is the translation of that sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it has a meaning of &quot;(a girl) dress up beautifully before going to a party&quot;, but I'm not quite sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T18:15:02.900" Title="Meaning of 漂漂亮亮地参加晚会" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2355" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-20T21:14:19.087" Score="3" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard some Taiwan (and maybe Mainland) parents call their daughters měiméi. I'm wondering what is the reason for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2217" LastEditorUserId="2217" LastEditDate="2012-10-20T21:25:00.697" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T15:12:02.313" Title="Why do some parents pronounce 妹妹 as měiméi instead of mèimèi or mèimei?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2354" CreationDate="2012-10-21T02:03:58.727" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding is correct. This sentence is equivalent to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;打扮得漂漂亮亮去参加晚会&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1000" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T02:03:58.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2355" CreationDate="2012-10-21T02:40:08.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of 妹妹 (mèimei) could have been mixed up with that of 美眉 (měiméi) due to the popularity of Taiwan TV dramas where the Taiwanese cast tend to pronounce 妹妹 similar to that of 美眉, for example, in shows such as 《星星知我心》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美眉 (or MM in short) is a term used to describe young and pretty women. This term is to 妹妹 what 葛格 (gége) is to 哥哥 (gēge). The &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/18194.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;美眉 article on Baidu&lt;/a&gt; explains this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在美眉作为常用语流行起来是因为八九十年代在大陆风靡一时的台湾电视剧（例如《星星知我心》）里面带台湾地区口音的国语“妹妹”的发音和“美眉”的读音十分相似，听起来柔婉可人，给听惯了标准普通话（在台湾地区又称“北京国语”）的大陆观众留下深刻印象，用美眉就能惟妙惟肖地反映出这个发音特点，当时70-80年代生人的年轻人不约而同地使用了这个词指代年轻美女，并借网络和新文学的力量使“美眉”的使用慢慢得到社会主流的认可。当然“美眉”也还同时表示原有的意思：“妹妹”，同理“葛格”就是“哥哥”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-10-21T15:12:02.313" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T15:12:02.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2354" CreationDate="2012-10-21T10:47:04.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems it's out of context, but:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In the case of adjectives composed of two characters (morphemes), generally each of the two characters is reduplicated separately:&#xA;  piàoliang 漂亮 (beautiful) reduplicates as piàopiàoliangliang 漂漂亮亮&lt;/em&gt; (source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduplication#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as we know, the function of reduplication is to extend the meaning of the words. So, since the &lt;code&gt;漂漂亮亮&lt;/code&gt; has no first subject to mention (i.e.: The woman, etc.), &lt;code&gt;漂漂亮亮&lt;/code&gt; can't stand alone for only &lt;code&gt;漂亮&lt;/code&gt;, So, the subject here is: 漂亮. And it could means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The beautiful woman dressing nice (before/while) attends the party;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'The beautiful man' dressing nice (before/while) attends the party.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'The beautiful man' just the same with the handsome guys.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1116" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T10:47:04.367" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2354" CreationDate="2012-10-21T15:36:44.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a special point:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say this word with a pronunciation piàopiàoliāngliāng (i.e. XX阴平阴平) but not piàopiàoliangliang, it also means &quot;well done&quot;, &quot;a neat job&quot;, &quot;in style&quot;, &quot;chicly&quot;,or &quot;be not a procrastinator&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他漂漂亮亮地把事儿给办成了。 -- He did a neat job!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's &lt;em&gt;natural + welcome&lt;/em&gt; Chinese:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2219" LastEditorUserId="2219" LastEditDate="2012-10-21T18:15:02.900" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T18:15:02.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2306" CreationDate="2012-10-21T16:06:42.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Head(n.) --- Measure Word / Quantifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;房子 --- 间(for Room)；栋or幢(for House/Building)；所(for the abstract)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;房屋 --- 间(for Room)；套(for the abstract esp. real estate property right)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家 --- 户（for Family）  e.g. 一户人家(a family)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公司 --- 家(more formal)；间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;猫 --- 只(always use this word only but not else!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's &lt;em&gt;natural&lt;/em&gt; Chinese:) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2219" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T16:06:42.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2299" CreationDate="2012-10-21T16:28:00.143" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;“我的腿累了” seems to be &lt;strong&gt;Engchinese&lt;/strong&gt; if you think about &quot;My legs are tired&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unusually, “累了(but not a single 累)”'s &lt;strong&gt;subject&lt;/strong&gt; should be HUMAN/PERSON but not any part of human's body!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我的腿（走得/跑得）没劲儿了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我的腿都快酸死了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in some very special cases, a part of human's body could be the subject of “累了”. E.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的心累了。 --- My heart burdened be. Or: Something takes it out of me. Or: Doing something was anguishing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;heart&quot; is an abstract word on the people's emotion or feeling, so be the word “累了”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, similarly, there are some word else should be used on this way, such as “醉了”:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我醉了。 --- I'm drunk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone says “我的嘴巴/胃/大脑醉了”(My mouth/stomach/brain is drunk.), this guy should be really deeply drunk:p&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2219" LastEditorUserId="2219" LastEditDate="2012-10-21T18:51:09.960" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T18:51:09.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2012-10-21T16:42:42.093" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;On grammar, “你给我 [doing something]” means: I am ordering you [doing something].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你给我做点儿什么！ --- Do something useful for me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你给我说清楚！ --- Let me get this straight! Now!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你给我老实交代！ --- Tell me the truth!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你给我看清楚一点儿！ --- Watch carefully!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你给我去死吧！ ---  Go to hell!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's &lt;em&gt;natural&lt;/em&gt; Chinese:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2219" LastEditorUserId="2219" LastEditDate="2012-10-21T20:08:51.377" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T20:08:51.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2363" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2366" CreationDate="2012-10-21T16:49:26.377" Score="2" ViewCount="616" Body="&lt;p&gt;From some experience in Beijing, some on CCTV 9, and some reading, I begin to suspect that in Beijing the pronunciation &quot;一块&quot; is more often used for the count noun, and &quot;一块儿&quot; is more often used to mean &quot;together.&quot;  Could that be right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2220" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-22T08:11:39.717" LastActivityDate="2012-10-22T08:11:39.717" Title="&quot;一块&quot; versus &quot;一块儿&quot; in Beijing" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2127" CreationDate="2012-10-21T17:46:57.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is totally wrong on itself!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“犭”（反犬旁/犬部） is a radical of Chinese Characters (Han-Zi,汉字) which is only for forming/making up some single Chinese Characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the creating era aka ancient times, people used “犭”(a radical, the variant of 犬 i.e. dogs) to make some Characters which is with some relation to &lt;em&gt;beast&lt;/em&gt; such as 猴(monkeys)、狮(lions)、狐狸(foxes)、猛(violent, adj.)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original design of Character “犹” which traditional form is “猶” is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犭 &amp;lt;---&gt; 犬 ----&gt; Dogs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酋 &amp;lt;---&gt; 加时加料酿制的醇酒 ----&gt; Doing a materials&amp;amp;time-consuming brew ---&gt; 长时间精心培育 ---&gt; Carefully nurtured for a long time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犭 + 酋 ---&gt; 猶 ---&gt; The dogs which were nurtured for a long time ----&gt; Dogs/Something meet the target or template ----&gt; 如同、相似 ---&gt; &lt;strong&gt;be similar to&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To sum up: 犹 = 猶 = be similar to&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;“犹” sounds yóu/Yew/Jew. So, in the word “犹太人”, the Character “犹” is totally Phonological-TRANSLITERATION for יהודים (Yehudim)!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exactly NOTHING is with any relation to dogs/beasts/derogating/ethnic/political at the Character “犹” in the word “犹太”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please do not make an exceeding interpretation:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2219" LastEditorUserId="2219" LastEditDate="2012-10-21T18:08:30.147" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T18:08:30.147" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2363" CreationDate="2012-10-21T18:22:06.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;一块:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I) a piece of, a mass of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(II) (&lt;em&gt;Extended Meaning&lt;/em&gt;) together &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一块儿：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I) a piece of, a mass of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(II) (&lt;em&gt;Extended Meaning&lt;/em&gt;) together &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一块儿 is just an oral/colloquial style of 一块.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In China, using 一块儿(sounds &lt;strong&gt;yíkuàr&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;NOTICE：“一” sounds yí(阳平) here&lt;/strong&gt;) in your spoken Chinese, should be more natural and welcome:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Taiwan, do not speak yíkuàr. Speaking &lt;strong&gt;yíkuài&lt;/strong&gt; should be welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2219" LastEditorUserId="2219" LastEditDate="2012-10-21T18:27:46.760" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T18:27:46.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2363" CreationDate="2012-10-21T18:57:20.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Beijing dialect/Northern China dialects, 一块儿 is the idiomatic pronunciation of 一块 for all its meanings. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;缺了一块儿 (a piece is missing)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一块儿蛋糕 (a piece of cake)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一块儿玩儿 (playing together)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在一块儿 (be together)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;块儿状物 (blocks; lumps)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the special usage of 块 in 一块钱 (one RMB Yuan) should not be pronounced as 一块儿钱. 一块儿钱 makes no sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, your impression of 一块儿 is often used to mean &quot;together&quot; is also right. This is because the usage of 一块 (even without 儿) to mean &quot;together&quot; itself is a Northern China idiom; In Southern China, 一起/一齐 is more common. In other word, people who choose 一块 over 一起 will also tend to use 儿话音. On the other hand 一块 as a count word is the preferred word to mean &quot;one piece&quot; across all Chinese speaking regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T18:57:20.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="62" CreationDate="2012-10-21T19:23:18.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people might write “我满好的”, but it is NOT in a &lt;em&gt;professional&lt;/em&gt; style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I found it seems that Taiwanese prefers to write “满好” but not “蛮好”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is best to be wary of it:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2219" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T19:23:18.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="54" CreationDate="2012-10-21T19:28:17.807" Score="25" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;People usually say 山羊 when they mean a goat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;--- I don't think so.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Goat or Sheep, just only depends on the context or the environment!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, the scene of language is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a sheep comes, what the brain of a Chinese-speaking people presents/thinks about is: &quot;羊 is coming.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a goat comes, what the brain of a Chinese-speaking people presents/thinks about is &lt;strong&gt;ALSO&lt;/strong&gt;: &quot;羊 is coming.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is to say, when a &lt;strong&gt;concept&lt;/strong&gt; about any sheep or goat or any sheep-like or goat-like or any Caprinae-form animal comes into the brain of a Chinese-speaking people, he or she always thinks about &quot;羊&quot; only, usually without differentiation like a English-speaking people does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only if the Chinese-speaking people is &lt;strong&gt;need&lt;/strong&gt; to differentiate sheep or goat in his or her concept, he or she says “绵羊” or “山羊”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, in the area which people mainly eat pork (the flesh of a pig or hog), they usually refer to the pork as a single word “肉”. If the word “肉” leads to some ambiguity, they could say “猪肉” for  the pork and say “羊肉” for the mutton (or flesh of goat). Furthermore, in the area which people usually only eat mutton (the flesh of sheep), they could say “山羊肉” to indicate the flesh of goat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would meet a phrase “鸡鸭鱼肉”, these four words all indicate the flesh as food. Under this phrase,“鸡”means chicken, “鸭” means duck, “鱼” means fish, “肉” means pork mainly or means any flesh of a mammal such as beef, mutton. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Please NEVER forget this truth: The meaning of a word only should be presented from the context or the environment!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, similarly, when a English-speaking people says &quot;&lt;strong&gt;a cousin&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, that could puzzle a Chinese-speaking listener, the latter wonders what the &quot;a cousin&quot; exactly indicates: a 堂兄 or 堂弟 or 表兄 or 表弟 or 堂姐 or 堂妹 or 表兄 or 表妹? The fact about this conflict is: the English-speaking people usually do not differentiate those consanguinities, but the Chinese-speaking people &lt;strong&gt;care for&lt;/strong&gt; that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2219" LastEditorUserId="2219" LastEditDate="2012-10-22T16:09:02.630" LastActivityDate="2012-10-22T16:09:02.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="800" CreationDate="2012-10-21T19:40:00.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;糗大了 == lose one's face &lt;em&gt;very much&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2219" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T19:40:00.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1087" CreationDate="2012-10-21T19:53:14.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;打包是带走的必要条件，除非你想吃不了兜着走。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打包 is a necessary condition of 带走, unless you like to put your remnant food into your pocket:p&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2219" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T19:53:14.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2371" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2372" CreationDate="2012-10-22T01:51:03.197" Score="7" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got a number, &lt;code&gt;400,002,000&lt;/code&gt;, I wonder how to read it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should it be one of these two? Or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;四亿零二千&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;四亿二千&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2222" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-10-23T15:44:24.237" LastActivityDate="2012-10-25T11:23:45.100" Title="How to write 400,002,000 in Chinese properly?" Tags="&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2371" CreationDate="2012-10-22T03:40:31.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;你的第一种读法是正确的：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四亿零二千&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此外，之前已经有人讨论过相关内容了，请看这个问题：&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/147/rules-for-saying-numbers&quot;&gt;Rules for saying numbers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-10-22T03:40:31.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2299" CreationDate="2012-10-23T08:17:15.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no such sentence in Chinese. Instead we use &quot;我的腿酸了&quot; &quot;我的腿好酸&quot;, which seems authentic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2227" LastActivityDate="2012-10-23T08:17:15.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2375" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-23T22:13:34.323" Score="1" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;一看见这些楼房，他心里就想，自己一定要买上一套房子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the sentence that I've come across.  I've translated it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once he sees these houses, he thinks that he can definitely buy a house himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm always confused by 要.  I seems to have several meanings... 'to want to', 'will' and I suspect, in different contexts it has some grammatical meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context it seems to mean 'will', though I'd always learnt 要 as meaning 'want to'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any guidelines here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1140" LastActivityDate="2012-10-25T09:25:38.057" Title="problem with 要 - it seems to have several meanings" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2375" CreationDate="2012-10-23T23:25:25.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate &lt;code&gt;一定要&lt;/code&gt; as &quot;must&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Seeing those houses, he thought, &quot;I must buy myself a house!&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;要&lt;/code&gt; indeed has several meanings. I'm not sure I'd call that a &quot;problem&quot;, but it can be challenging for a learner. I think the most basic meanings are &quot;want&quot;, &quot;must&quot;, and occasionally &quot;will&quot;. Just my 2 cents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-10-23T23:25:25.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2375" CreationDate="2012-10-23T23:39:13.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;can definitely = 一定能&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一定要 = must&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2229" LastActivityDate="2012-10-23T23:39:13.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1970" CreationDate="2012-10-24T03:18:57.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want all of those mechanics of the language, aren't you just looking for a standard Spanish textbook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any textbook for the languages you mentioned should cover the pronunciation rules, conjugation, common verbs with irregulars, etc. And it probably is accompanied by audio, as well.  Seems just as good as any software for presenting that information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some free packages that have text and audio, and will probably cover all of the mechanics you mention:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://fsi-language-courses.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://fsi-language-courses.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2232" LastActivityDate="2012-10-24T03:18:57.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2371" CreationDate="2012-10-24T04:55:30.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;四亿零两千。don't read as“二”.it's “两”.&#xA;how do you read 22222?二万二千二百二十二？NO，it’s两万两千两百二十二.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2233" LastActivityDate="2012-10-24T04:55:30.380" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2380" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2385" CreationDate="2012-10-24T04:55:49.537" Score="2" ViewCount="322" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of a sudden in my course we've started using &quot;一巧&quot; everywhere, and I really do not understand it at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽管我很喜欢这张唱片，可是我一巧也开始喜欢它，想到以后可以跟一巧一起听音乐，我决定把这张唱片给他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which I understand all of, except how to translate the 一巧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;My apologies, there was a typo in the sentence. Fixed now. I had mistyped 也 as 页, and forgot the rest of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="736" LastEditorUserId="736" LastEditDate="2012-10-24T16:09:56.460" LastActivityDate="2012-11-12T09:32:47.953" Title="How to translate/use 一巧" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2380" CreationDate="2012-10-24T06:39:53.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like a person's (and probably a girls') name, inferred from the last sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't think the 2nd part makes any sense, which may be corrupted by some typos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further context should be provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1059" LastActivityDate="2012-10-24T06:39:53.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="135" CreationDate="2012-10-24T15:16:11.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We usually use &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pinyin&lt;/a&gt; (Pinyin is the official system for Romanization of Chinese characters). You can find the character by using the Pinyin equivalent then searching in alphabetical order. In most cases this is the fastest way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-28T22:38:23.023" LastActivityDate="2012-10-28T22:38:23.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2380" CreationDate="2012-10-24T22:00:54.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The typo aside, there are a few grammatical issues with your sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Mis)use of the 尽管...可是... construction. This conjunctional&#xA;construction, like in English (even though/notwithstanding),&#xA;indicates a condition/status, preceded by 尽管 and a second condition&#xA;that indicates a &lt;em&gt;contrast&lt;/em&gt; to the first, usually indicated by&#xA;adverbs like 却, 但还是, 也要, and very rarely, 可是. In your example, the&#xA;second condition seems to be a complementary/favourable condition to&#xA;the first or simply a statement, rather than a contrast.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The phrase 我一巧也开始喜欢它 makes no sense at all. My guess is that you&#xA;are simply trying to tell people that '一巧' (whoever that is) also&#xA;started to love the album. 开始喜欢 is grammatically sound in Mandarin&#xA;(assuming this is the flavour of Chinese you are learning), but it&#xA;does sound a little awkward to my ears. A better way to express this&#xA;would be 渐渐地喜欢上. I am not certain what you are trying to describe with 我一巧, but if you insist on using this structure, then might I suggest 我的一巧. 我的一巧 (my 一巧) is used to indicate a very intimate relationship between you and 一巧, to the extent of a romantic relationship. I can only assume that 一巧 is male, because you used the pronoun (他) in the second sentence (even though it sounds more female than male). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lastly, this should really be split into two sentences&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my attempt at reconstructing the sentence and my take on its meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我很喜欢这张唱片，就连我的一巧也渐渐地在喜欢上它。 想到以后可以跟一巧一起听音乐，我决定把这张唱片给他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I really love this album; even my yiqiao is beginning to like it. Realizing that I can listen to music together with yiqiao from now on, I decide to give this album to him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-10-24T22:17:54.217" LastActivityDate="2012-10-24T22:17:54.217" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2380" CreationDate="2012-10-25T01:45:44.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;this sentence is wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if 一巧 is a name, it should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽管我很喜欢这张唱片，可是我*&lt;em&gt;的&lt;/em&gt;*一巧也开始喜欢它，想到以后可以跟一巧一起听音乐，我决定把这张唱片给他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽管我很喜欢这张唱片，可是我一巧*&lt;em&gt;弟弟&lt;/em&gt;*也开始喜欢它，想到以后可以跟一巧一起听音乐，我决定把这张唱片给他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastActivityDate="2012-10-25T01:45:44.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2375" CreationDate="2012-10-25T09:25:38.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;See these two pages for a more detailed explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Wanting_to_do_something_with_%22yao%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wanting to do something with &quot;yao&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Auxiliary_verb_%22yao%22_and_its_multiple_meanings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Auxiliary verb &quot;yao&quot; and its multiple meanings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To express &quot;want to&quot; one often uses the verb 想. For example &lt;em&gt;I want to go to the US / 我想去美国&lt;/em&gt;. You can also use 要 in this sentence, but it completely changes the tone. In this case it might mean &lt;em&gt;I have to the US&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;I really want to go the US&lt;/em&gt; or it can just be &lt;em&gt;I'm going to the US&lt;/em&gt;, depending on the context. In general the tone is much stronger than for 想. For example if you want to express &lt;em&gt;want to have&lt;/em&gt; you should use 要 and not 想.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As already mentioned 要 often indicates a firm tone. 一定 (meaning: certainly, must) makes it even stronger, so 一定要 can be translated as &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-10-25T09:25:38.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2371" CreationDate="2012-10-25T11:23:45.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually I agree with James' comment that &quot;四亿二千 can totally be understood&quot;, and therefore 零 is optional. That is why I am providing an alternative answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's go back to the particular section on &quot;Reading and transcribing numbers&quot; in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals#Reading_and_transcribing_numbers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; on Chinese numerals again. Below, I quote the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Interior zeroes before the unit position (as in 1002) must be spelt&#xA;  explicitly. The reason for this is that trailing zeroes (as in 1200)&#xA;  are often omitted as shorthand, so ambiguity occurs. One zero is&#xA;  sufficient to resolve the ambiguity. Where the zero is before a digit&#xA;  other than the units digit, the explicit zero is not ambiguous and is&#xA;  therefore optional, but preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few things that need to be explained here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese numerals are grouped in blocks of four digits. So 400,002,000 can be regrouped as 4,0000,2000.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unit position is the position occupied by the right most digit in each block. Therefore, the digits 4, the 4th 0, and the last 0 occupies the unit position of their respective blocks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The middle block of 4,0000,2000 is completely comprised of 0s.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whenever a zero precedes a non-zero digit occupying the unit&#xA;position within a block, this zero has to be transcribed explicitly. This is actually what the last sentence in the quoted paragraph is trying to say. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each block can be transcribed independently of other blocks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To clarify what point 4 means, let us take a look at a few examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4,2002,2000 is transcribed as 四亿 [二千零二万] 二千&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4,2000,2000 is transcribed as 四亿 [二千万(零)] 二千&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4,2022,2000 is transcribed as 四亿 [二千(零)二十二万] 二千&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4,0202,0202 is transcribed as 四亿 [(零)二百零二万] (零)二百零二&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4,2020,2020 is transcribed as 四亿 [二千(零)二十万] 二千(零)二十&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;() - represents optional zero&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[] - represents the middle block&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to clarify what point 5 means, take a look at the examples below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4,0000,0000 is transcribed as 四亿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;400,0000 is transcribed as 四百万&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;40 is transcribed as 四十&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Combining them is as simple as doing a concatenation:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;四亿四百万四十 is interpreted as 4,0400,0040 only&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going back to the number 400,002,000. Since the middle block is all zeros, there is no need to transcribe the middle block. 四亿二千 is not ambiguous and 零 is added optionally to remind people that there is at least one zero between the digits 4 and 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-10-25T11:23:45.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2391" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-25T18:42:51.753" Score="3" ViewCount="805" Body="&lt;p&gt;My daughter's preschool has a Mandarin language immersion program and the teacher (from Fuzhou, Fujian province) seems to pronounce &quot;knee&quot; (膝盖) as qīgài instead of xīgài. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is qīgài a correct alternative pronunciation, or is her own dialect incorrectly corrupting her Mandarin pronunciation? If the latter, what other pronunciation errors is she likely to make?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2236" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-10-27T17:55:05.983" LastActivityDate="2012-11-05T17:11:08.773" Title="Is there more than one way to pronounce &quot;knee&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2392" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2394" CreationDate="2012-10-25T18:59:40.553" Score="7" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like references to classical literature are unavoidable in virtually all materials enjoyed by native speakers - I was watching an episode of 蚁族的奋斗 where a group of young men are talking informally around the dinner table, and one of them casually spouts off &quot;“实在不行了我回沂蒙山陪我妈种树去，当地主，娶个村姑，养条狗，这叫“门墩、胖狗、肥丫头，农夫山泉，它有点甜”。, after which they all laugh heartily. Now, I'm sure that there is some type of historical or literary context behind what he said, but I have been unable to find any indication as to a) which text this quotation was drawn from or b) how I ought to interpret it. More than the hanzi or the tones, it seems to me that cultural references pose the greatest challenge to learners of Chinese as a second language. Can anyone shed some light on this quotation, or point me towards a resource where its historical background is discussed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="403" LastActivityDate="2012-10-25T22:18:34.550" Title="How to cope with classical references?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2391" CreationDate="2012-10-25T19:08:03.793" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a non-standard pronunciation, but it is reasonably common. It is not in any way associated with the Fuzhou dialect specifically — even some northerners say qigai. Here's an interesting &lt;a href=&quot;http://sinoglot.com/blog/2011/10/knee/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;blog post and discussion&lt;/a&gt; about the free variation of the pronunciations of knee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-10-27T17:55:20.787" LastActivityDate="2012-10-27T17:55:20.787" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2392" CreationDate="2012-10-25T22:09:07.553" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not watched this drama so my interpret may not be accurate. From what is said, this line is self-mockery and ironic, but in a humorous and relaxed tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;门墩、胖狗、肥丫头 concludes the modest values of Chinese countrymen with a ragged verse. It doesn't look like from any specific reference, at least I am not aware of. However, in modern Chinese literature about country life (especially rural reform), there were some well known lines that were in the form of 3 words in parallel, such as “篱笆、女人和狗”. A similar construct may hint/recall similar subject or value statements.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;农夫山泉有点甜 is taken a famous TV commercial for 农夫山泉 (mineral water brand). This line is purely self-mockery. The subtext is &quot;Even if I fail to struggle in the city, I become a peasant (against my own wish), at least I have sweet water to drink.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;沂蒙山 is national wide known for its poverty. Even the speaker does have aspirations for what he said, the &quot;happily ever after&quot; tone in his words is unlikely to realize. This context confirmed that his intent of these words is purely being self-mockery and humorous.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To summarize, what he really means is &quot;There is no other option but to struggle in the city no matter how hard it is.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When his friends heard this and laughed, it means they shared the same feeling and the subtext could be &quot;cheers to you, Mr. Brightside!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again these are just guesses without having watched the drama. Having heard of it from many friends, I'll probably watch it some time...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2012-10-25T22:18:34.550" LastActivityDate="2012-10-25T22:18:34.550" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="44" CreationDate="2012-10-26T06:08:38.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hm, this is all very interesting. I have no knowledge of Cantonese, but the general impression I gleaned from Wikipedia is that Cantonese speaking regions operate under a form of diglossia wherein they use Cantonese and related dialects in speech but standard Chinese in writing. Traditional characters vs. simplified make no difference - that's a matter of orthography, not language. Written Cantonese does apparently have a variety of special characters associated with it (a lot of them, as far as I can see, have the 口 radical), but they are rarely employed outside of informal writing, such as on the web, for commercial purposes, light publications, etc. Significant differences in pronunciation, word choice, and grammar constructions no longer present in Mandarin render it, for all intents and purposes, a completely different language, albeit a structurally related one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If pressed to make a comparison with Indo-European languages (or better, Romance), would it be at all accurate to imagine a scenario where French is not a written language and is used almost exclusively in speech, and where Spanish is used instead for most formal writing? They would have been exposed to Spanish in a textual form since they were young, and if asked to read aloud can readily produce the French equivalent for each individual word, although the resulting speech would sound unnatural and stilted insofar as it does not reflect the rhythms/sentence constructions/ word choice of spoken French. Let me know if I'm anywhere near the mark, because I've always been curious about this subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="403" LastActivityDate="2012-10-26T06:08:38.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2397" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2410" CreationDate="2012-10-27T18:08:26.563" Score="5" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, one uses the phrase 其他 when refering to other things. In Japanese one uses a similiar phrase: 其の他 (Sono ta), where 其 is often written in Hiragana: その他. Since the meaning is identical, I want to ask whether these two phrases have an etymological connection. If yes, which language's phrase appeared first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="87" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-10-27T20:36:18.107" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T12:18:05.667" Title="Etymology of 其他" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2398" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2399" CreationDate="2012-10-27T19:26:49.930" Score="5" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;The radical 囗 is sometimes described as 圍字框. This phrase is a little bit ambigous to me. Does this mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;«the frame of the character 【圍】» (圍字的框子)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or «the frame that surrounds characters»? (包圍文字的框子)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="87" LastActivityDate="2012-10-27T21:32:11.860" Title="How to parse this phrase?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2398" CreationDate="2012-10-27T21:32:11.860" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The former interpretation is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters are composed of components (some radicals, some phonetics, some neither). For many of the components, there are standard or widely used ways to refer to them. A common pattern is &lt;code&gt;{component}+字+{旁/头/盖/底/儿/框}&lt;/code&gt;. (The last part refers to which part of the character it is--e.g., side, top, bottom, &amp;quot;frame&amp;quot;) For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讠= 言字旁 e.g, 说、讲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⺮ = 竹字头 e.g., 管、篮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心 = 心字底 e.g., 忌、忍&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of them break the pattern a bit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刂 = 立刀旁; e.g., 刻、则&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;彳 = 双人旁; e.g., 很、彼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忄= 竖心旁; e.g., 快、慢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辶 = 走之底; e.g., 这、迅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the situation is complicated because the component does not exist as a standalone character. In that case, it is often named by a common character with that component&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宀 = 宝字盖/宝盖头; e.g., 宇、定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; = 春字头; e.g., 泰、秦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冂 = 同字框; e.g., 周、网&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that there may be multiple names for a given component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/18315.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; are some &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jiantizi.com/help/bushoumingchen.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;resources&lt;/a&gt; to look at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-10-27T21:32:11.860" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2400" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2401" CreationDate="2012-10-29T03:32:05.870" Score="10" ViewCount="43355" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Chinese houses, people often place scriptures for luck, health, wealth, etc.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Often, they use the word 福 &lt;code&gt;[fú]&lt;/code&gt; turned upside down, like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bpfxQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;福 upside down&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the reason for it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastActivityDate="2019-03-08T02:05:12.637" Title="Why 福 is often used upside down?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2400" CreationDate="2012-10-29T03:32:05.870" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;福 &lt;code&gt;[fú]&lt;/code&gt; character means &quot;fortune&quot; or &quot;good luck&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Posting the &quot;福&quot; character is a tradition for Chinese people during 春节 &lt;code&gt;[chūn-jié]&lt;/code&gt; Spring Festival each year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;福&quot; character is often posted upside-down. It is said that this is because the character for &quot;upside-down&quot;, &quot;倒&quot; &lt;code&gt;[dào]&lt;/code&gt;, is a homonym of the character for &quot;to arrive&quot;, &quot;到&quot; &lt;code&gt;[dào]&lt;/code&gt;. So this means that &quot;福&quot; (happiness, good fortune, etc.) is &quot;arriving&quot;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.foreignercn.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;amp;view=article&amp;amp;id=1637%3a-upside-down-qfuq-character&amp;amp;catid=1%3ahistory-and-culture&amp;amp;Itemid=114&quot;&gt;(source)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It also said that Emperor &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongwu_Emperor&quot;&gt;朱元璋 (Zhu Yuanzhang)&lt;/a&gt;, a founder of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Dynasty&quot;&gt;Ming dynasty&lt;/a&gt;, once used the character &quot;福&quot; as a hidden signal to prepare killing someone.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The kind-hearted &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Ma_%28Ming%29&quot;&gt;Empress Ma&lt;/a&gt; decided to eliminate the tragedy of killing, so she ordered everyone in the city to put a label with the character &quot;福&quot; on the door of their house before the sun rises the next day. Everyone followed Empress Ma´s order, but one family is illiterate and pasted the label with the character &quot;福&quot; upside down.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  On the second day, the emperor ordered his officer to go to the city and found that every family had pasted the label with the character &quot;福&quot;, and with one family having the character &quot;福&quot; upside down. The emperor was very angry and ordered that family be executed. Empress Ma realized the incidence and told the emperor, &quot;that family knew you´re coming today, so purposely turn the label upside down. Isn´t that the same meaning as &lt;strong&gt;Luck arrives&lt;/strong&gt;?&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  After hearing this, the emperor immediately released the family and a tragedy was averted. From then on, people began to paste the label with the character &quot;福&quot; with the purpose of hoping for auspiciousness, and another to honor Empress Ma.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T03:32:05.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2397" CreationDate="2012-10-29T03:59:52.817" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 其他 and 其の他 appeared first in Japanese. 其の他 often appeared in 手紙、仕樣書. It means ceremonial and honorific. But in chinese 其他 was used extensively everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2242" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-10-29T09:34:18.280" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T09:34:18.280" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="656" CreationDate="2012-10-29T08:07:05.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My old textbook [1] claims that 看碟 is used to say watch a movie on DVD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yellow bridge [2] says 影碟 is used for DVD, and its measure word can be either 张 or 片.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] Integrated Chinese 3e, Level 1 Part 2, Lesson 11, p2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/wordsearch.php?searchMode=C&amp;amp;word=%E5%BD%B1%E7%A2%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/wordsearch.php?searchMode=C&amp;amp;word=%E5%BD%B1%E7%A2%9F&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2208" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T08:07:05.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2404" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2405" CreationDate="2012-10-29T08:14:59.097" Score="6" ViewCount="1824" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if I should say 一件问题 or 一项问题. I know I can get away with 一个问题, but I'd like to know the &quot;correct&quot; measure word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I would like to use the tag measure-word, but I can't. I used &quot;writing&quot; instead, because using the right measure word (instead of 个) seems to only matter in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2208" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T20:44:11.687" LastActivityDate="2020-11-09T08:01:02.490" Title="What is the correct measure word for 问题 (question)?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2404" CreationDate="2012-10-29T08:47:12.193" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are the standard measure words for 问题:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Normally you would use 个.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there is a stream of questions you can use 串, for example 一大串问题.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there are a couple of questions, you can use 些&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you are talking about kinds of questions, you have to use 类, for example   这类问题 (this kind of problem)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;件 is used, but not very often, even in writing. 项 is not a standard measure word for 问题, but it can be used when talking about problems (for example software problems), not when talking about questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T08:47:12.193" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2404" CreationDate="2012-10-29T08:47:42.107" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct measure word or (量词) for 问题 is 个 as in 一个问题. There is no explanation for this, and the knowledge is only acquired through practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;项 is a measure word for 工程&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;件 is a measure word for 事情&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other measure words include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一尊佛像 (a statue, unit word describes a statue)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一顶帽子 (a hat)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一只猫 (a cat)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一打鸡蛋 (a dozen of eggs)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一条蛇 (a snake)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一串葡萄 (a bunch of grapes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more examples, please refer to &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%8F%E8%A9%9E&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/633608.htm&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt; article on the topic of 量词.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T08:47:42.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2407" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2408" CreationDate="2012-10-29T09:43:51.490" Score="8" ViewCount="389" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong herbal tea shops, you will see a tea called &quot;廿四味&quot; (24 flavours)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(you will also hear &quot;廿蚊&quot; to mean &quot;20 dollars&quot; in small shops)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case 廿 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ni%C3%A0n&quot;&gt;niàn&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/p%C3%A1n&quot;&gt;pán&lt;/a&gt;) has the meaning &quot;20&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other chinese numerals that represent unusual numbers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-29T22:54:48.620" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T22:56:04.983" Title="Are there more special numerals like 廿?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2407" CreationDate="2012-10-29T09:52:54.590" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not only in Cantonese. People in several south provinces say these words. And most Chinese are familiar with &lt;code&gt;廿&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ni%C3%A0n&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;niàn&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/p%C3%A1n&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pán&lt;/a&gt;) and &lt;code&gt;卅&lt;/code&gt;, even though they don't usually say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;卅&lt;/code&gt; (sà) means 30&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;卌&lt;/code&gt; (xì) means 40&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;皕&lt;/code&gt; (bì) means 200&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-10-29T22:56:04.983" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T22:56:04.983" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2407" CreationDate="2012-10-29T10:47:05.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;halfelf's answer is correct, but I'll say a little more about how they're used in Cantonese, since the behaviour of these abbreviations is a little unusual there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;廿 &lt;em&gt;jaa6&lt;/em&gt; indeed abbreviates 二十 &lt;em&gt;ji6 sap6&lt;/em&gt;. Similarly, 卅 abbreviates 三十 &lt;em&gt;saam1 sap6&lt;/em&gt;. But 卅 is pronounced &lt;em&gt;saa1aa6&lt;/em&gt;, an unusual tone contour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Abbreviations for numbers 40 and above are formed regularly: &lt;em&gt;sei3aa6&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;ng5aa6&lt;/em&gt; and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T10:47:05.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2397" CreationDate="2012-10-29T12:18:05.667" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;其の他 can also be read as &quot;sono hoka&quot; in Japanese, both consisting of native Japanese morphemes. In &quot;sono ta&quot;, only the &quot;ta&quot; (他) is borrowed from Chinese. Early citations for both expressions is c. 14th century. Japanese borrowed much vocabulary from Chinese. It is entirely possible that the reading &quot;sono ta&quot; or &quot;sono hoka&quot; developed from the Chinese 其他. However, as halfelf has cited, the Chinese is much older, so Japanese likely did not have any effect on the Chinese expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="475" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T12:18:05.667" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1970" CreationDate="2012-10-31T01:42:28.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@slattery's answer is very correct.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I doubt there's any &lt;em&gt;deductive&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; model for teaching several languages at once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I consider it is useful to &lt;strong&gt;learn several languages at the same time&lt;/strong&gt; and try to &lt;em&gt;inductively&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; figure out what you call language mechanics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get back on topic for this site: I was studying Mandarin Chinese and Thai simultaneously for greater effect. One may consider adding Hindi or Sanskrit here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTOH, maybe you wonder if there are companies developing classes for various languages. It also seems to be useful. Although various languages require slightly different teaching methodologies, these methodologies are common in many aspects. So having the same vendor gives you some benefits:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you benefit from methodology similarities;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;usually, the same vendor has same topics for many lessons across the languages, e.g. Lesson 1 is &quot;Greeting&quot;, Lesson ~10 is &quot;Bargaining on the market&quot;, Lesson ~15 is &quot;Discussing weather&quot; etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you just subscribe and do not change vendors;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;maybe, you may have discounts or whatever you find with the particular vendor you find;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, you may consider (warning: all courses paywalled):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pimsleur.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pimsleur&lt;/a&gt; has &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pimsleur.com/List-of-Languages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;two dozen&lt;/a&gt; courses;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://openlanguage.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;OpenLanguage&lt;/a&gt;, the authors of &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesepod.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChinesePod&lt;/a&gt;, has also Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; &lt;em&gt;Deduction&lt;/em&gt; works from the more general to the more specific. Informally, &quot;top-down&quot; approach.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Induction&lt;/em&gt; is moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories. Informally, &quot;bottom up&quot; approach  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-10-31T01:47:28.423" LastActivityDate="2012-10-31T01:47:28.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2418" CreationDate="2012-11-01T02:23:36.870" Score="3" ViewCount="485" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently wrote a short article discussing the use of Pinyin and Zhuyin. One of the sentences I wrote, without thinking too much about it, was that Pinyin is normally written below the characters (in contrast with Zhuyin, which is written vertically on the right). However, I had two native speakers look at the text and both wanted to correct &quot;below&quot; to &quot;above&quot;. They said Pinyin is usually written above the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After looking through a dozen beginner textbooks, it seems much more common to write Pinyin below the characters, at least in this context. This is also what I find most in electronic or online dictionaries (MDBG, Pleco). However, a Google image search for 拼音 gives more diverse results with Pinyin sometimes written above the characters, sometimes below. My guess is that it doesn't matter much, but I have two questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Is there a defined standard for where Pinyin should be placed?&#xA;2) If so, are there any arguments (scientific or otherwise) for that decision?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2012-11-05T05:03:21.713" Title="Placement of Pinyin in relation to characters" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2412" CreationDate="2012-11-01T04:46:18.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pinyin is not normally written with the characters. While 注音符號 (Zhuyin) has rules as to how the symbols are in relation to a character, 漢語拼音 (Pinyin) does not. Do not think of the two systems as equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Zhuyin can be written on the top or on the right, according to Taiwan's Ministry of Education.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/M0001/juyin/jhs.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/M0001/juyin/jhs.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Click on both of the links here to see examples of both the vertical versions (直式) and the horizontal (橫式) versions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="669" LastActivityDate="2012-11-01T04:46:18.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2414" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-02T02:44:56.343" Score="7" ViewCount="414" Body="&lt;p&gt;在打油诗、顺口溜、儿歌里经常有纯粹是为了押韵或节拍而插入的和文意无关的词汇。在北方话、传统北京/天津评书相声里尤甚。我想知道在语言学专业里这种情况是怎么解释的，有没有术语或相关资料。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例如北京顺口溜：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;嗝屁着凉大海棠，脚不丫子蘸白糖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;里“大海棠”完全是为押韵，无意义；蘸白糖虽然略有意义，但选词十分随机，更多是为了一种插科打诨的效果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Brief translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's common to hear rhyming filler words without a relevant meaning being used in doggerel/jingles, especially in Northern China dialects and traditional Beijing/Tianjin storytelling and cross talk performances. I am wondering if there are linguistic terminologies, theories or reading materials around this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The example is a Beijing doggerel. The point won't hold after translation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-05-10T09:12:15.833" Title="Academic explanation for rhyming fillers with irrelevant meaning in doggerel" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;academic&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2415" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2417" CreationDate="2012-11-02T06:00:09.143" Score="4" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working in a Chinese pharmacy &amp;amp; have a product with the English name &quot;Compound Methylsalicylate cataplasma&quot;. This is supposed to be a translation from the Chinese &quot;复方水扬酸甲酯巴布膏&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, &quot;cataplasma&quot; is not a word in the English language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate says &quot;巴布膏&quot; means &quot;Babu cream&quot;, but that tells me next to nothing, while nciku.com has no results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-11-05T00:18:04.720" LastActivityDate="2012-11-05T08:40:33.550" Title="What is a &quot;Babu cream&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2415" CreationDate="2012-11-02T07:32:24.077" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not an expert in this area but online search gave me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataplasma&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cataplasma&lt;/a&gt; is a Spanish word. It could be a typo here. The English version is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultice&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cataplasm&lt;/a&gt;, Wikipedia says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A poultice, also called cataplasm, is a soft moist mass, often heated and medicated, that is spread on cloth over the skin to treat an aching, inflamed, or painful part of the body. It can be used on wounds such as cuts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;巴布膏, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/148141949.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu Zhidao&lt;/a&gt;, means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;巴布剂是一种外用贴膏剂，在日本有较久的应用历史，系药材提取物或化学药物与适宜的亲水性基质混合后，被涂布在背衬材料上制成的贴膏剂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I read, the narrow meaning of &lt;code&gt;cataplasm&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;巴布膏&lt;/code&gt; may not be exactly the same, but in your context they both mean medicated cloth patch applied on skin. I think the translation you've mentioned is accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2012-11-04T15:47:24.777" LastActivityDate="2012-11-04T15:47:24.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2412" CreationDate="2012-11-05T04:15:00.847" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as a &quot;defined standard&quot;, I believe there are no official rules for pinyin placement. Texts in Mainland China are likely to place pinyin above the characters, while texts for foreigners differ in their approach. Sometimes even a single text will have different standards; for example, the New Practical Chinese Reader sometimes places pinyin &lt;a href=&quot;http://a248.e.akamai.net/origin-cdn.volusion.com/frzm9.cpeg6/v/vspfiles/photos/LNPCR1-6.jpg?1351581464&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;above&lt;/a&gt; and other times places it &lt;a href=&quot;http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/3JmY6AaNwh0/mqdefault.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;below&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to argue for one approach or the other, I would reason as follows: if the pinyin is to come in a block (e.g., a full paragraph instead of a word-to-word matching) then I would put the Chinese characters first and the pinyin second, to force foreign language learners' exposure to Hanzi without pinyin, and have them try to get through the characters as best as they can without resorting to pronunciation help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the word-to-word matching that I think is your primary concern, I would argue for pinyin placed above the characters. The first reason is consistency with texts used by native speakers (though one might very well say consistency with native approaches is not in general best for foreign language learners). The second, more important reason is that the tone marks (more than most letters) may appear to foreign language learners as if they are part of the characters. Placing pinyin above characters allows the letters to serve as a sort of buffer between tone marks and Hanzi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, I highly suspect that a longitudinal study on the difference between learning outcomes for foreign language learners whose texts had pinyin above and learners whose texts had pinyin below would show no statistical differences. If your intuition tells you otherwise, I encourage you to find a first-year Chinese teacher and see if you can institute such a study, as it would be very easy to carry out. More interesting, I think, would be to include an additional group for whom the text's lessons are first written solely in Chinese characters, with pinyin presented separately afterwards (as opposed to a word-to-word matching). I think it's possible that the latter approach would show small differences in learning outcomes between either of the former two groups (my guess is the block group would fare better; others might disagree) though I'm not convinced they'd be statistically significant either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastEditorDisplayName="user2251" LastEditDate="2012-11-05T05:03:21.713" LastActivityDate="2012-11-05T05:03:21.713" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2391" CreationDate="2012-11-05T15:45:19.730" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;:-) don't waste time on this. Xi1 Gai4 is correct and will be more and more popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE8Zdic86Zdic9D.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE8Zdic86Zdic9D.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are preparing an exam, keep Xi1 in mind, or feel free to pronounce it. In China, there's numerous dialects. If you live in a small village of Fujian, you may even not understand what the neighboring village's people saying because of the mountains. This is the reason why people need Mandarin living in this big country with so many mountains, especially in South China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2253" LastActivityDate="2012-11-05T15:45:19.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2422" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2427" CreationDate="2012-11-05T15:46:08.787" Score="3" ViewCount="1644" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was recently discussing computer games with a friend and realised that I don't know how to express &quot;same shit, different names&quot; in Chinese. We were talking about DotA, LoL and similar games. If I come across as dismissive, I'm sorry, I only mention this particular example to provide context, my question is purely linguistic! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping to find a succinct way of expressing &quot;same shit, different names&quot;, but if there isn't a fixed expression, perhaps someone could provide a decent way of expressing the same thing. It doesn't necessarily have to have the same tone, though, so expressions which are more sophisticated or less blunt would work just fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2012-11-06T03:31:29.120" Title="How to express &quot;same shit, different names&quot; in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2422" CreationDate="2012-11-05T15:55:21.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;旧药换新瓶 which directly means Old medicine in new bottles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2253" LastActivityDate="2012-11-05T15:55:21.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2422" CreationDate="2012-11-05T16:28:48.233" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two set phrases come up to my mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;炒冷饭 (heat leftover meal/rice)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;新瓶装旧酒 (the same wine in a different bottle). 旧药换新瓶 is a less common variation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They're both applicable to your context. Their literal meaning is almost never used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大多数电子游戏的续作都是新瓶装旧酒。A lot of video game sequels are just rehash of the previous installation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2012-11-05T16:34:35.120" LastActivityDate="2012-11-05T16:34:35.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2391" CreationDate="2012-11-05T17:11:08.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Xi1 Gai4 is the standard pronunciation in Mandarin; If you are taking an exam, Xi1 Gai4 is the only correct answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in daily life, Qi1 Gai4 is so widely used that most Chinese don't distinguish them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2254" LastActivityDate="2012-11-05T17:11:08.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2422" CreationDate="2012-11-05T19:03:24.480" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A less vulgar English saying is &quot;six of one, half a dozen of the other.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way to say that in Chinese is 半斤八两, whose &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E5%8D%8A%E6%96%A4%E5%85%AB%E4%B8%A4/1300364?tooltip=1&quot;&gt;definition&lt;/a&gt; says: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比喻彼此相当，不分高下(多含贬义) = an analogy used for two things that are pretty much equivalent, neither one being better than the other (generally used in a derogatory sense).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, you could use the saying 大同小异, which also means &quot;pretty much the same.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Final note:&lt;/strong&gt; check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinalivedoor.com/dict/chengyu/%2a%E6%96%B0%2a%E6%97%A7%2a/&quot;&gt;this dictionary&lt;/a&gt;. It lets you type in the characters you are looking for, and then you can either put in a question mark (?) to mean &quot;replace with any character&quot; or an asterisk (*) to mean &quot;replace with any number of characters.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The link above contains the search results for *新*旧*, which will find any Chinese saying (in their dictionary) that contains both the characters 新 and 旧, with the former coming before the latter. As you can see, the first result there is 新酒旧瓶, which is quite similar to what others have answered with here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastActivityDate="2012-11-05T19:03:24.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2422" CreationDate="2012-11-06T03:31:29.120" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a more general term would be 换汤不换药. From 汉典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;换汤不换药&lt;/b&gt; [huàn tāng bù huàn yào]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;比喻只改变形式,而不改变实质内容&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(changed the soup, but not the medicine: a change in form but not in content)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;新瓶装旧酒&lt;/b&gt; [xīn píng zhuāng jiù jiǔ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;比喻用新的形式表现旧的内容。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(old wine in new bottle: using a new form to present old content)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a slight difference here in that the former can be applied to current content, not necessarily &lt;em&gt;old&lt;/em&gt; content that runs out of favour. If DotA and the likes are still in favour, 换汤不换药 would be appropriate. However, if it is out of favour already, then 新瓶装旧酒 would be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-11-06T03:31:29.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2428" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2448" CreationDate="2012-11-06T16:36:15.970" Score="7" ViewCount="797" Body="&lt;p&gt;Last week a kid wrote on the office white board &quot;Give me all your cheese now!&quot; and I attempted a translation into Chinese (mostly to practice my handwriting). I wrote 马上给我你的奶酪。 I felt like this translation was lacking emphasis, but I didn't know how to properly add it. I know that 啊 / 呀 is often used in this way, but I'm not sure if it's the correct choice to use here or where to add it. How do I increase the emphasis of this sentence instead of making it deadpan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2257" LastEditorUserId="2257" LastEditDate="2012-11-06T19:17:48.910" LastActivityDate="2013-11-10T14:30:33.133" Title="How to add emphasis to sentences" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2429" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2430" CreationDate="2012-11-07T01:39:50.020" Score="5" ViewCount="1870" Body="&lt;p&gt;行 can be pronunced &lt;strong&gt;háng&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;xíng&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I have seen, it means &quot;OK, to go, profession&quot;, and many more other meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you briefly summarize the usage of it and its corresponding pronunciation.&#xA;Because whenever I see this character I am lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any clue to help to match it with its correct pronunciation/meaning whenever I see it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="834" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-11-07T11:59:09.570" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T10:29:27.890" Title="What is the pronunciation of 行 according to its context?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2429" CreationDate="2012-11-07T04:29:00.967" Score="8" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;háng (in most noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;code&gt;line, row&lt;/code&gt;  表格中的一行 a row in a table, 字里行间 between the lines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)  &lt;code&gt;seniority among brothers and sisters&lt;/code&gt;， 我排行第二 I'm the second eldest one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3)  &lt;code&gt;some place of business&lt;/code&gt;, 银行 bank，花行 flower shop，商行 trading company&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4)  &lt;code&gt;trade, company&lt;/code&gt;(not very exact)     行业，同行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5)  &lt;code&gt;measure word&lt;/code&gt; 一行，两行&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;xíng (verb, use verb as noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;code&gt;walk -&amp;gt; distance&lt;/code&gt;  步行，行走 walk, on foot,    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;code&gt;something used when going out&lt;/code&gt;  行装 outfit for a journey，行李 luggage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) &lt;code&gt;transfer, propagation&lt;/code&gt; 行销 marketing, 风行一时 be in fashion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) &lt;code&gt;be engaged in&lt;/code&gt; 进行 proceed  行刺 assassinate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) &lt;code&gt;a surname&lt;/code&gt; 一个姓氏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(6) &lt;code&gt;behaviour&lt;/code&gt; 行为&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(7) &lt;code&gt;elements&lt;/code&gt; only in 五行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(8) &lt;code&gt;can, be able to, have the ability, ok to go&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(9) &lt;code&gt;soon&lt;/code&gt; 行将&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(10) 'travel party' 张三等一行人来到花市。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;héng  &lt;code&gt;skill&lt;/code&gt; 道行&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-11-13T02:22:21.567" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T02:22:21.567" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2431" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2433" CreationDate="2012-11-07T08:27:19.980" Score="10" ViewCount="526" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am referring to the &lt;em&gt;Origin of zhuyin&lt;/em&gt; symbols table on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo#Origin_of_symbols&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;. Under &lt;em&gt;Rhymes and Medials&lt;/em&gt; the following 3 entries confuse me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;div class=&quot;s-table-container&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;table class=&quot;s-table&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;thead&gt;&#xA;&lt;tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;th&gt;Zhuyin&lt;/th&gt;&#xA;&lt;th&gt;IPA&lt;/th&gt;&#xA;&lt;th&gt;Pinyin&lt;/th&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;/thead&gt;&#xA;&lt;tbody&gt;&#xA;&lt;tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;ㄧ&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;i&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;i/y&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;ㄨ&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;u&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;u/w&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;ㄩ&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;y&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;ü/yu/u&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tbody&gt;&#xA;&lt;/table&gt;&#xA;&lt;/div&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are there multiple Pinyin symbols for the same IPA sound? Are there any general rules as to which one of these symbols should be preferred?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2260" LastEditorUserId="24946" LastEditDate="2021-04-14T00:42:09.737" LastActivityDate="2021-04-14T00:43:26.453" Title="Why one-to-many mapping between IPA and Pinyin?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2428" CreationDate="2012-11-07T12:19:23.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally, I find Mandarin rather unsuitable for a sentence like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note that the sentence &quot;gimme yo cheese!&quot; sounds ridiculous in English.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I think about the formal nature of standardized Mandarin, I can't help but dream up a sentence like: 请把你的奶酪都给我吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this sentence sounds pretty silly, and the 请……吧 pattern has an effect opposite of what you wanted. Ending a sentence with 啊 (or one of its similar sounding particles, e.g., 哎) would do the trick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As suggested above: 交出你的奶酪啊！ is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I think you'd end up with better results if you resorted to a dialect (just like &quot;gimme&quot; is not standardized English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a more aggressive alternative in Mandarin, you could try: 赶快把(所有的)奶酪都给老子交出来！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This basically sounds like you are robbing someone for their cheese, which would have had the humorous effect you intended (judging by your described context), but it'd be tough to imagine an appropriate real-life scenario in which to employ this vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...Unless you were really trying to rob somebody: 把值钱的东西都给老子交出来啊！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Disclaimer:&lt;/strong&gt; Don't steal! Don't rob! 构建和谐社会！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastActivityDate="2012-11-07T12:19:23.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2431" CreationDate="2012-11-07T12:56:50.150" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find the explanation in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Rules_given_in_terms_of_English_pronunciation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;page for Pinyin&lt;/a&gt; on wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note on &lt;em&gt;y&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;w&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;y&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;w&lt;/em&gt; are equivalent to the semivowel medials &lt;em&gt;i&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;u&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;ü&lt;/em&gt; (see below). They are spelled differently when there is no initial consonant in order to mark a new syllable: &lt;em&gt;fanguan&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;em&gt;fan-guan&lt;/em&gt;, while &lt;em&gt;fangwan&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;em&gt;fang-wan&lt;/em&gt; (and equivalent to &lt;em&gt;fang-uan&lt;/em&gt;). With this convention, an apostrophe only needs to be used to mark an initial &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;e&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;o&lt;/em&gt;: &lt;em&gt;Xi'an&lt;/em&gt; (two syllables: [ɕi.an]) vs. xian (one syllable: [ɕi̯ɛn]). In addition, &lt;em&gt;y&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;w&lt;/em&gt; are added to fully vocalic &lt;em&gt;i&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;u&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;ü&lt;/em&gt; when these occur without an initial consonant, so that they are written &lt;em&gt;yi&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;wu&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;yu&lt;/em&gt;. Some Mandarin speakers do pronounce a [j] or [w] sound at the beginning of such words—that is, &lt;em&gt;yi&lt;/em&gt; [i] or [ji], &lt;em&gt;wu&lt;/em&gt; [u] or [wu], &lt;em&gt;yu&lt;/em&gt; [y] or [ɥy],—so this is an intuitive convention. See below for a few finals which are abbreviated after a consonant plus &lt;em&gt;w/u&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;y/i&lt;/em&gt; medial: &lt;em&gt;wen&lt;/em&gt; → C+&lt;em&gt;un&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;wei&lt;/em&gt; → C+&lt;em&gt;ui&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;weng&lt;/em&gt; → C+&lt;em&gt;ong&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; → C+&lt;em&gt;iu&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, this note is so detailed, I really feel it difficult to add something… maybe it can be concluded as this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When [i] and [u] sounds appear at the beginning of a Chinese character, they're written as &lt;em&gt;y&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;w&lt;/em&gt;, in other cases they're written as &lt;em&gt;i&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;u&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2259" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-11-07T18:05:50.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2428" CreationDate="2012-11-08T17:28:50.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think one challenge with this question is that the original English is kind of a strange sentence, i.e., it's frankly hard to understand in what context someone would actually say &quot;Give me all your cheese now!&quot;. I think if you provided a context, it would be easier to propose how to give proper emphasis in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, let's say a teacher was doing a cheese experiment, and asked all the students to give him all their cheese, and for some reason the students didn't hear or didn't respond, the teacher might say &quot;Give me all your cheese now!&quot; (although even in that case it still sounds a bit strange to me). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that situation, what needs to be emphasized is that it's a second request, which could be done by prefacing it with something like “我说” or “听到了没有”. How to emphasize this sentence in Chinese is highly dependent upon the context, and the context for this particular English sentence is rather hard to fathom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2217" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-11-11T22:41:34.590" LastActivityDate="2012-11-11T22:41:34.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2429" CreationDate="2012-11-08T17:34:08.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't be overwhelmed by that long list of definitions. Just remember three definitions and you'll be 95% covered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xing2: OK, alright&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xing2 (usually used in combinations with other characters): go, move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hang2 (usually used in combination with other characters): industry, line of business/work&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2217" LastActivityDate="2012-11-08T17:34:08.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="256" CreationDate="2012-11-08T17:41:11.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's the perfect website: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.laits.utexas.edu/orkelm/chinese/prof01.html#&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cultural Interviews with Chinese Speaking Professionals&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has hundreds of video clips, organized into categories. In each clip, a Chinese professional discusses a topic, providing helpful cultural insights and tips.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each video is fully transcribed in Chinese (simplified and traditional characters) as well as in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll gain an understanding of Chinese business culture, pickup helpful vocabulary, and get a taste of different regional accents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2232" LastActivityDate="2012-11-08T17:41:11.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1120" CreationDate="2012-11-10T16:14:37.097" Score="17" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Software for learning&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.ankiweb.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anki&lt;/a&gt; is an SRS program with &lt;a href=&quot;https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese decks&lt;/a&gt; (e.g. the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/53920083&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Spoonfed Chinese deck&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mnemosyne&lt;/a&gt; is a free downloadable SRS program, with some decks for &lt;a href=&quot;https://mnemosyne-proj.org/category/chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tools&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/Destaq/chinese-sentence-miner&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Sentence Miner&lt;/a&gt; extracts example sentences from a database of 18000+ sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ibus (&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ibus/ibus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Github&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/ibus/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Code&lt;/a&gt;) is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Input_Bus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese input framework for Unix/Linux&lt;/a&gt; (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ibus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ubuntu&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://hanziwriter.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanzi Writer&lt;/a&gt; is a javascript library for character animations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;iconv&lt;/code&gt; is a Unix command for converting between character encoding, e.g., &lt;code&gt;iconv -c -t=UTF-8&lt;/code&gt; can be used to convert to UTF-8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/fxsjy/jieba&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jieba&lt;/a&gt; is a free tool for Chinese text segmentation, written in Python.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/mingsai/MacOSX-Language-Tools&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MacOSX Language Tools&lt;/a&gt; includes Chinese-English dictionaries, character-to-pinyin conversion, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Microsoft Edge's Read Aloud function is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/grv8ey/psa_%E6%88%91%E5%8B%92%E4%B8%AA%E5%8E%BBmicrosoft_edge_read_aloud_function_is_the/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;noted for its high quality text to speech&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/BYVoid/OpenCC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;OpenCC&lt;/a&gt; converts between simplified and traditional characters; its &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/BYVoid/OpenCC/tree/master/data/dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dictionaries&lt;/a&gt; are available (&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/BYVoid/OpenCC/blob/master/data/dictionary/STCharacters.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;characters&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/BYVoid/OpenCC/blob/master/data/dictionary/STPhrases.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;phrases&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="834" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2021-02-07T04:45:01.030" LastActivityDate="2021-02-07T04:45:01.030" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-11-10T16:14:37.097" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2429" CreationDate="2012-11-12T09:03:25.583" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Language is just a tool to express oneself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;语言只是用来表达一个人想法的工具。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn a language well, you must get rid of all the &quot;Appeared Language&quot;, cast light on the inside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你想学好一门语言的话，就要抛弃语言外在的枷锁，找寻深刻的内在含义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the meanings of the language sometimes reflect on the wether it is a verb, noun or adj.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;语言的含义有时会体现在词性的表达上面，是动词呢，名词呢，还是形容词？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just as you said, &quot;行&quot; can be pronunced háng or xíng, but in different condition, the meaning will be total different!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就像你说的，“行”可以发háng和xíng，可是在不同的情况下，意义可能会大不相同。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;háng would be mostly used as a &quot;noun&quot; , such as &quot;bank&quot;, however, xíng would be mostly used as a &quot;verb&quot; which mostly means &quot;can&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;háng大都时候用在名词中，比如说“银行”，xíng 通常会用在动词中，而这些动词的意思通常有“可以”的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2267" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-11-12T23:42:41.997" LastActivityDate="2012-11-12T23:42:41.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2012-11-12T17:32:33.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use the Taiwan Pinyin.. You just have to add &quot;Chinese (traditional, Taiwan)&quot;. It is by default set to bopomofo, so when you add the keyboard, you just have to go to properties, then to the last tab and change it to 漢語拼音. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can decide when you want to type with tones or not. If for example you want to type a sentence with a name on it, you just type without the tones, and for it to be more accurate with some words or names, you just type the number of the tone at the end of the syllable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the most convenient Typing method that I have found until now.　For those of you who would like to type in Simplified Chinese, I think there's a way to change it, but I'm not sure because I never done it before. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2268" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-11-12T23:23:32.947" LastActivityDate="2012-11-12T23:23:32.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2429" CreationDate="2012-11-13T04:57:49.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/244/?full=true&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sheik&lt;/a&gt;. As you can see the situation is even more complex in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/粵拼: haang4 (in compound words, often 'hang4')//漢語: xing2/&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/244/?full=true&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; [v] to go; to walk; to go on foot&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[2] [v] to move; to travel; to circulate; to go&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/粵拼: hang4//漢語: xing2/&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[3] [v] to act; to do; to work&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[4] [v] to publish&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[5] [v] be current; to prevail&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[6] able; capable&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[7] all right; OK; enough&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[8] baggage for travel&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[9] [n] road; path&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[10] ready to...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[11] Kangxi radical 144&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/粵拼: hong4, hong4*2//漢語: hang2/&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[12] [n] row; line&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[13] [n] business firm; company&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[14] [n] trade; line; profession&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[15] [n] generation&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/粵拼: hang4//漢語: hang2/&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[16] order of siblings according to seniority&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/粵拼: hang6//漢語: xing2 (舊: xing4)/&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[17] one's conduct; one's behaviour&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-11-13T10:29:27.890" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T10:29:27.890" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1407" CreationDate="2012-11-13T05:28:48.170" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After having checked this with a few dictionaries, some native speakers and after doing some basic corpus research, I've got an explanation which looks fairly solid. In essence, there are two meanings we need to care about: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“cloth” and related meanings.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;to spread, to announce&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;布 can be used in both cases, so both 宣佈 and 宣布 are acceptable. 佈, however, can only be used in meaning 2), so 公佈, 宣佈 are all okay, but *佈料 is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sort of frustrating how clear it looks once a hypothesis has been found and has proved to be at least mostly correct. Ah, the joys of language learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T05:28:48.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2286" CreationDate="2012-11-13T07:11:04.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you find a group of people interested in Learning chinese you can start a weekly study group. I currently do this with a group of 4 people and we invite students from a local university who are from china to teach us, and in term we give them some english expressions and help with their pronunciation. I do suggest you set yourselves a goal. We use the NPRC and our goal is to go chapter by chapter every week or two depending on complexity. We also blazed through the yongho books two chapters at a time. It really helps if you lack discipline like me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="112" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T07:11:04.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2446" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2449" CreationDate="2012-11-13T07:25:05.177" Score="8" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are any of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_honorifics#For_self-deprecating_humbleness.2C_commoners_or_people_with_lower_status&quot;&gt;these honorifics&lt;/a&gt; still in use today? If not, might they be used and understood (as a joke) by regular Chinese in, say, a period film, much as English speakers would recognize someone using &lt;code&gt;Thine holiness&lt;/code&gt;, etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;For self-deprecating humbleness, commoners or people with lower status&#xA;愚   yú  I, the unintelligent&#xA;鄙   bǐ  I, the lowly/less educated&#xA;敝   bì  I, the unrefined&#xA;卑   bēi I, from a lower class&#xA;窃   qiè I, who did not give you proper notice&#xA;仆   pú  I, your servant (male)&#xA;婢   bì  I, your servant (female)&#xA;妾   qiè I, your concubine&#xA;在下  zàixià  I, who am humbler and lower than you&#xA;贱妾  jiànqiè I, who am humbler and lower than you (female)&#xA;小人  xiăorén I, the insignificant (male)&#xA;小女  xiăonǚ  I, the insignificant (female)&#xA;草民  cǎomín  I, the worthless commoner (male)&#xA;民女  mínnǚ   I, the worthless commoner (female)&#xA;奴才  núcai   I, your slave/servant (male)&#xA;奴婢  núbì    I, your slave/servant (female)&#xA;奴家  nújiā   I, your wife and servant (female)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T05:24:22.553" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T05:24:22.553" Title="Are any of these honorifics still in use today? 愚, 鄙, 敝, 卑, 窃, 仆, 婢, 妾, 在下, 贱妾, 小人, 小女, 草民, 民女, 奴才, 奴婢, 奴家" Tags="&lt;politeness&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2446" CreationDate="2012-11-13T08:51:26.287" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are not used in spoken language any more. They are quite common in novels, films and TV shows about ancient times. Most people can understand them without difficulty. Novels, films and TV shows about ancient times are very popular in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T08:51:26.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2428" CreationDate="2012-11-13T08:58:10.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To emphasise a part of a sentence, try putting the part at the end of the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把你的奶酪都给我，马上！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T08:58:10.500" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2446" CreationDate="2012-11-13T10:02:22.057" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Betty's answer is great. Here's some complement: Since almost every Chinese can understand these words, we use them in spoken lang occasionally, usually expressing some kind of mood or feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if someone adopts an arrogant and impolite attitude to you, you can use one of the honorifics to express a scatching satire to strike back. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And sometimes we use &lt;code&gt;草民&lt;/code&gt; or some other worse words like &lt;code&gt;屁民&lt;/code&gt; to deliver the helplessness about the status of common people in mainland. (There is even a word made for this: shitizen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there's something interesting too. We can call the company we working for &lt;code&gt;敝司&lt;/code&gt;, just in order to express our sense of humour. This may not be easy understood by a foreigner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T10:02:22.057" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2450" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2451" CreationDate="2012-11-13T14:54:16.930" Score="7" ViewCount="521" Body="&lt;p&gt;The prefixes &lt;em&gt;hyper-&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;super-&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;ultra-&lt;/em&gt; seems all has meaning 'transcend' or 'upper class' and can all be translated to '超'. But they have a bit difference, e.g. hypergiant is larger than supergiant; hypersonic is faster than supersonic; superhigh frequency is higher than ultrahigh frequency. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;strong&gt;my question&lt;/strong&gt; is what is the precise translation of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="795" LastActivityDate="2012-11-14T20:26:01.960" Title="How to translate 'hyper-','super-' and 'ultra-' exactly?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2450" CreationDate="2012-11-13T20:41:13.537" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In colloquial English, these words all mean pretty much the same thing (though &lt;em&gt;hyper-&lt;/em&gt; is used rather infrequently) so using 超 interchangeably shouldn't be much of a concern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regard to academic terminology, your best bet is to look up the specific term in question. One easy way to do this is to find the corresponding wikipage in English, and then click 中文 on the sidebar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the case of hypergiant vs supergiant, &lt;em&gt;hyper-&lt;/em&gt; is translated as 特超, while &lt;em&gt;super-&lt;/em&gt; is translated as 超.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, for sonic we have &lt;em&gt;hyper-&lt;/em&gt; as 超高 and &lt;em&gt;super-&lt;/em&gt; as 超.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, for high frequency, we have &lt;em&gt;super-&lt;/em&gt; becoming 超高, and &lt;em&gt;ultra-&lt;/em&gt; becoming 特高.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of the above translations were found using the aforementioned wikipage method. From just these few examples, though, we quickly conclude that there is no &lt;em&gt;single&lt;/em&gt; translation of the three prefixes at hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, hypersonic and super high frequency both use the same prefix (超高) as do hypergiant and ultra high frequency (特高).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, unfortunately, a precise translation must be done on a case by case basis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastEditorDisplayName="user2251" LastEditDate="2012-11-14T05:31:24.697" LastActivityDate="2012-11-14T05:31:24.697" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2286" CreationDate="2012-11-14T00:44:25.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that enrolling in a formal course of Chinese language study is the best. The reason is that it keeps you moving and keeps you motivated. It is fun studying with others too. I attended the local community classes and I met a lot of other motivated Chinese language learners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As well as my formal course of study at Uni. I also take private one on one lessons from a teacher in P.R.China. I found that there is a great deal of price difference in schools so shop around. Many offer a free introductory lesson. The advantage of this is that you can decide the text and content of your lessons. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="824" LastActivityDate="2012-11-14T00:44:25.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2453" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2454" CreationDate="2012-11-14T12:11:40.000" Score="6" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is this sentence in a dialog from my beginner text book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好，我走了，有时间到我家去。再见！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Well, I'm going, if you have time, come to my home. Goodbye.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, though I know all the words, I couldn't understand the sentence before reading the translation. And even now, I'm left puzzled wondering: 你 doesn't appear anywhere in the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, I had translated for myself something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Well, I'm going, it's time going home / it's long going back home&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(with the 有 referring to 我 as the subject).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the elements to guess the 有 is referring to 你 implicitly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, would it be possible to say: 如果有时间 , 到我家去.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="834" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T16:43:56.167" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T16:43:56.167" Title="What is the subject in 有时间到我家去" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2453" CreationDate="2012-11-14T14:45:25.580" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;有时间 literally means just &quot;have time&quot;.  The subject is inferred pragmatically from the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence the inferred subject would be 我:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好 , 你走了 , 有时间到你家去 . 再见 ! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2235" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-11-14T15:11:34.393" LastActivityDate="2012-11-14T15:11:34.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2453" CreationDate="2012-11-14T20:03:48.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ivan did a good job answering in that, in this example, it's all context based... just as all languages are. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's kind of like:&#xA;&quot;Hey man, I'm bouncing. Stop by some time&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereby you can guess they mean:&#xA;&quot;Hey man, I'm bouncing. You should stop by some time&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will find many more examples along your journey to learn Chinese where an expected subject is simply not there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like, given something as simple as: 走吧&#xA;This is a full statement with no subject... It could mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Let's go&quot;&#xA;&#xA;&quot;I'm gonna go&quot;&#xA;&#xA;&quot;You should go&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really depends on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question: &lt;code&gt;Also, would it be possible to say: 如果有时间 , 到我家去.&lt;/code&gt;...&#xA;You should also get used to &quot;的话&quot; and &quot;吧&quot;, which are often used at the end of a hypothetical or suggestion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Example: 如果有时间的话， 你到我家去吧&#xA;         If you have time, you should come over!&#xA;&#xA;Or maybe: 不及格的话， 我就完蛋啊 &#xA;          If I don't pass the test, I am screwed!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2012-11-17T20:15:33.793" LastActivityDate="2012-11-17T20:15:33.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2450" CreationDate="2012-11-14T20:26:01.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Taiwanese youth love to pair 超 up with adjectives to give a more colloquial, dramatic flavor &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;超好 = awesome&#xA;超级 = super &#xA;超累 = dead tired &#xA;超无聊 = completely boring, (but also can mean &quot;so lame&quot;)&#xA;etc...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2012-11-14T20:26:01.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2457" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2458" CreationDate="2012-11-14T20:26:40.450" Score="5" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed that hairdressing shops are usually called 沙龙 &lt;code&gt;[shā-lóng]&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Obviously, it's not a &quot;sand dragon&quot;, but a direct transliteration of English &quot;salon&quot; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the reason for using a loanword instead of something containing 发 &lt;code&gt;[fà]&lt;/code&gt; within?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastEditorUserId="752" LastEditDate="2012-11-14T21:26:12.217" LastActivityDate="2012-11-15T04:09:53.307" Title="What is etymology for 沙龙?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2457" CreationDate="2012-11-14T23:19:09.990" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's the transliteration of the French word &lt;em&gt;salon&lt;/em&gt;. It is equivalent to the English word &lt;em&gt;saloon&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;salon&lt;/em&gt; (alternative spellings). The French word probably is derived from the Italian word &lt;em&gt;salone&lt;/em&gt; meaning a large living area in the house or more generally a place where people gather to socialize. In China, the hairdresser's is often an unofficial social gathering place for especially neighbours, so it's not surprising that the word has been extended to mean hairdresser's in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 沙龙 doesn't always have to refer to a hairdresser's. It is also used in the way &lt;em&gt;salon&lt;/em&gt; is used in English and French, i.e. a gathering place for socialization. For example, a 英语沙龙 is a place for people to gather and practise their English. No hairdressing involved there!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to why people would borrow a term from a different language when there is already an existing one in the source language, there could be many reasons - fashion, western influence and convenience are just some of them. A good example is the word for a (train/subway) station in Japanese. The Japanese term for it is 駅 (えき, eki), but there are many places, even on official maps, where it is replaced by ステーション (sutēshon). I can't tell you the exact reason without doing some major research into the phenomenon. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-11-15T04:09:53.307" LastActivityDate="2012-11-15T04:09:53.307" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2459" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2462" CreationDate="2012-11-15T09:37:12.783" Score="2" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've just been looking at the wikipedia entry for Xi Jinping and the word used for the position he will be taken on Wikipedia is &lt;em&gt;incumbent &quot;paramount leader&quot;&lt;/em&gt; with paramount leader pointing to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_leader&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;. There is also a Chinese version of that page which translates paramount leader as 黨和國家最高領導人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However if I look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%83%A1%E9%94%A6%E6%B6%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hu Jintao's Chinese page&lt;/a&gt; it uses the phrase 中国共产党和中华人民共和国的主要领导人之一. With 主要领导人 pointing to this page &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%9A%E5%92%8C%E5%9B%BD%E5%AE%B6%E9%A2%86%E5%AF%BC%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;党和国家领导人&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I look at the very bottom of the 党和国家领导人 it also has 习近平（最高领导人）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping someone can help me, and forgive me if the answer is on the linked pages (my reading is too slow).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are my questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;党和国家领导人 - Is this singular or plural or both?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 最高领导人 and 主要领导人之一?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-05-31T13:39:12.960" Title="Difference between 最高领导人 and 主要领导人之一?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2460" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-15T10:10:23.313" Score="4" ViewCount="357" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strangely the Wikipedia article for president &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%9B%BD%E4%B8%BB%E5%B8%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;中华人民共和国主席&lt;/a&gt; doesn't mention 习近平 anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also asked my mother in law just now if she spotted any articles where it mentions him as the incoming president 国家主席 but neither of us could spot one, although there are a many English papers making the claim today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now this could be something to do with politics that I am not aware with, but even if that is the case it may explain why there isn't a word for incoming president (possibly)? Or maybe nobody has gotten round to update the wikipedia article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So can someone explain why I am not seeing many articles in Chinese using 国家主席 to describe 习近平? Is there a Chinese equivelant of incoming president, if so is it typically applied in Chinese politics or is it not used out of respect until the previous person has gone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-01-31T12:39:41.703" Title="How to say incoming president (国家主席)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2461" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-15T10:31:54.383" Score="3" ViewCount="604" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried to have this conversation a few times in China. The problem is when trying to explain the difference between beer, wine and spirits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People assume that spirits means something similar to 白酒. However many Western style spirits don't have the same alcohol proof as most 白酒 (to my knowledge). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't particularly want to discuss the alcohol proof, I am hoping there is already a collective word for Western style spirits (gin, whisky, brandy) without going into the routine of explaining that we have a range of liquors which aren't as strong as 白酒.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point gets lost in translation if I can't get my meaning across quick enough. So is there a term for &quot;Spirits&quot; other than the Chinese 白酒?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-11-15T21:18:39.953" Title="How can I distinguish between Western style spirits and Chinese style spirits (liquor)?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2459" CreationDate="2012-11-15T10:52:13.190" Score="7" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;党和国家领导人&lt;/code&gt; is both. It can refer to a few people or just someone. For example, 党和国家领导人某某(和某某)出席了某个活动。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;最高领导人 can be translated as supreme leader. There must be only one at one time. And 主要领导人之一 is just some one important.  For example, only 5 最高领导人 in PRC history. But anyone in the Political Bureau is one of 主要领导人。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The address(称呼) of important people of CCP is significant and subtle. Similar address may have big difference. &lt;a href=&quot;http://program-think.blogspot.com/2011/12/chinese-leader-death.html&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a great Chinese post analysing how to call CCP leaders after their passing, the best I've ever read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastActivityDate="2012-11-15T10:52:13.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2460" CreationDate="2012-11-15T11:09:01.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He's not 国家主席 at present. Only vice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;国家主席 is not important as Secretary General（总书记） or chairman of Military Commission（军委主席）. 国家主席 is only a title usually. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastActivityDate="2012-11-15T11:09:01.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2460" CreationDate="2012-11-15T12:54:37.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;即将就任 is the term used to describe incoming. Example 即将就任的国家主席. Normally, the Chinese word for president is 总统 and 主席 is usually used to describe chairman or chairperson. I note that China has changed the title of 国家主席 from Chairman to President from 1983 onwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The appointment 国家主席 is rather symbolic in nature as the real power lies with other political appointments (中国共产党中央委员会总书记 and 中国共产党中央军事委员会主席) that usually precedes it. As of current, 习近平 has yet been appointed 国家主席, but he already held the two most important appointments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-11-15T13:06:36.490" LastActivityDate="2012-11-15T13:06:36.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2460" CreationDate="2012-11-15T13:43:17.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is because now he is only elected to be the Secretary General of the CPC, but not the President of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it is almost certain that he would be the next president, he still has to be elected in the next National People's Congress which will be held early next year. Before the election, he is NOT the incoming President of China, just a (possible) presidential candidate （I don't know how and when the candidates are selected).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;incoming&lt;/strong&gt; president can be called &quot; &lt;strong&gt;候任&lt;/strong&gt; 总统&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A search for &quot;候任&quot; also give me many results from the Internet, including the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%80%99%E4%BB%BB%E8%A1%8C%E6%94%BF%E9%95%B7%E5%AE%98%E8%BE%A6%E5%85%AC%E5%AE%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Office of the Chief Executive-elect of Hong Kong&lt;/a&gt; (候任行政长官办公室).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-01-31T12:39:41.703" LastActivityDate="2013-01-31T12:39:41.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2466" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-15T20:56:51.647" Score="7" ViewCount="965" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read a story where a child dropped a berry into a bucket full of berries and then tried to take it back. When she reached in to pick up her own berry, she grabbed a handful of the other berries. In Chinese, it says, 一不小心,抓出来一大把。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that 小心 means &quot;careful&quot;, so I thought that 一不小心 meant, &quot;a little bit carelessly&quot;. When I asked a Chinese speaker, however, she said that wasn't quite right. She said there was something about the situation that was unavoidable, but she couldn't explain it clearly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 一不小心 mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2012-11-18T06:40:16.360" Title="Meaning of 一不小心" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2461" CreationDate="2012-11-15T21:18:39.953" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;烈酒&lt;/code&gt; means hard liquor. &lt;code&gt;洋酒&lt;/code&gt; means western liquor. Conceivably it could include wine and such, but it usually refers to western &lt;em&gt;hard&lt;/em&gt; liquor (e.g., whiskey, vodka, rum).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example sentence for your benefit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The city of Guangzhou consumes nearly 40% of the foreign hard liquor sold in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;广州人所消费的烈酒，占了中国洋酒总量的近40%。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-11-15T21:18:39.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2466" CreationDate="2012-11-15T21:22:59.517" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;一不小心 means &lt;em&gt;in an unguarded moment&lt;/em&gt;. Depending on the context you can translate it as &lt;em&gt;unguarded&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;carelessly&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;accidentally&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples (with a more free translation):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;然后你加一点点辣椒粉，但要小心——一不小心就加得太多了。Then you add a little cayenne pepper, but be careful - it's easy to overshoot the mark.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一不小心，他把柔嘉的酒杯碰翻，柔嘉“啊呀”一声，快起身躲，新衣服早染了一道酒痕。 While doing so, he accidentally knocked over Jou-chia's wine glass.With a cry, she quickly stood up and jumped aside, but not before her new dress had been dyed with a trail of wine stains.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;最后，他大事花小，只是简单地说明，他招待朋友时喝晕了头，发现保险柜是开着的，竟然把钱拿了出来，一不小心将保险柜锁上了。He finally narrowed it down to an assertion that he was light-headed from entertaining friends, had found the safe open, and having gone so far as to take the money out, had accidentally closed it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一不小心，还可能引发全新的争执和冲突。 A careless move may well trigger an all new debate and conflict.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他一不小心打翻了蚕匾，桑叶散满了一地。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He carelessly knocked over the silkworm tray, leaving the floor covered with folia mori&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他一不小心被玻璃丝划破了手。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He accidentally cut his hand on the glass silk.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-11-15T21:30:56.187" LastActivityDate="2012-11-15T21:30:56.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2466" CreationDate="2012-11-15T21:58:09.587" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The use of 一 here means &quot;as soon as&quot; or &quot;just as&quot; and it can be used in quite a few ways. The 一 is similar to 一下子 so it is also pointing to &quot;just in that instant&quot;, there is something immediate to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing that the Chinese speaker was trying to explain, I think, is that the phrase also points to the fact that in the case where the phrase is 一不小心 that they were trying their best to be careful (小心) but in the instant that it happened there was a consequence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is different from just being careless, someone 一不小心 might be sweating from trying hard to avoid something, but someone careless could knock over a glass of milk. I think in the case of the glass and being careless you could use 一不当心 rather than 一不小心. With 一不当心 being &quot;in a moment of carelessness&quot; rather than as a result of someone trying to be careful (小心).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples of the use of 一 with a similar meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我一看到他 (As soon as I saw him）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我一碰到他 （As soon as I touched it)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我一想到他 (Whenever I think of him &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; as soon as I think of him)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我一下班回家 (As soon as I finish work and return home)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-11-15T21:58:09.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2453" CreationDate="2012-11-16T17:35:29.740" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why need subject? It's a imperative. &quot;有时间“ just modifies the sentence as a condition. Comparing with some English sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Well, I'm going. Call me later.&#xA;Well, I'm going. Don't forget closing the door.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't need subject as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For you second question, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;would it be possible to say: 如果有时间 , 到我家去.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's rare to say like that. Firstly &quot;如果” is unnecessary for short condition. Secondly saying that would sound very formal. The whole sentence itself is not formal. Actually it's not an invitation at all. It just express willing of friendship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For real invitation, normally he will ask for your availability at first. For example, 下个星期有空吗？到我家去喝茶/吃饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2280" LastActivityDate="2012-11-16T17:35:29.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2471" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-17T14:08:00.207" Score="11" ViewCount="1034" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/18028.htm&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老外，是中国人对国外人的一种俗称，类似与老张、老王、老李之类的称呼。称呼中加“老”显得亲热，比如“老乡”“老表”，称呼你老外，就像称呼老张老李那样，大大咧咧，随便亲切。过去中国人对外国人的称呼都是用在第三人称上，只有“老外”可以用于第二人称。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To translate, it says laowai is a colloquial term for foreigners, similar to nicknames such as laozhang and laowang. The word lao is added to sound friendly. In the past, Chinese used terms that address foreigners as third persons, the term laowai can be used on a second person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laowai&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Laowai is a commonly used Chinese mandarin word. It is the shortened,&#xA;  informal version close to wàiguórén 外国人 (&quot;foreigner&quot;), a better&#xA;  translation of Laowai would be &quot;alien&quot;... So Laowai 老外 is more of a&#xA;  neutral term which can be used as: &quot;an obvious foreigner&quot;, &quot;very&#xA;  exotic&quot;, or &quot;adventive&quot;, &quot;alien&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the above, there are two lines of thought: one saying that 老 is added as an indication of friendliness to foreigners; another saying that 老 is added to indicate that a foreigner is &quot;always&quot; an outsider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know the exact origin of this term?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T06:49:32.790" Title="How did 外国人 become 老外?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2471" CreationDate="2012-11-17T16:19:55.660" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Wikipedia mentioned, “老” is an empty prefix. Laowai is neither positive nor negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, the word is often used to refer to a variety of races like Caucasians, Indians, Africans and Middle Easterners, who look drastically different from Asians. You will rarely hear a Chinese person call Japanese, Koreans and Filipinos 老外. That's why you hear some Chinese use this term even in the United States and Canada.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word emerged in Beijing and became popular there. In southern China it is used less. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the reason you hear this word used frequently in China? Because westerners attract more attention in the public as they look different. The quickest way to refer them is with 老外. Saying &lt;em&gt;外国人&lt;/em&gt; is too formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word might become less popular when more foreigners start living in/visiting China. It'd be less strange to see them in the public. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word is also used less among those who are better educated. He has a name, why call him 老外? Regardless of whether the word is negative or not, saying such is not really polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2280" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-11-17T22:33:35.963" LastActivityDate="2012-11-17T22:33:35.963" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2473" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-18T03:52:26.647" Score="7" ViewCount="2640" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I translate something like the below sentence into Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I wonder&lt;/strong&gt; how many people are going to the party?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T06:40:27.933" Title="How to translate &quot;I wonder...&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2473" CreationDate="2012-11-18T05:54:31.053" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;不晓得&quot; would be quite an appropriate translation for the word &quot;wonder&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不晓得会有多少人去舞会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To elaborate, &quot;I wonder&quot; has two components to it:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1) I don't know; and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) I am curious to find out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 不晓得 directly possesses the meaning of 不知道 or &quot;don't know&quot;, depending on the tone of the speaker and the statement itself, it can also take on a &quot;curiosity component&quot;. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不晓得今天会不会下雨。&lt;br&gt; I wonder if it is going to rain today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 我 is added in front, then the whole flavour of the sentence can be changed to a plain &quot;I don't know&quot; kind of statement:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不晓得会有多少人去舞会。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我不晓得今天会不会下雨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in the comments below, whether &quot;不晓得&quot; or &quot;不知道&quot; when used at the start of a sentence can be taken to mean &quot;I wonder&quot;. A list of references:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不曉得&lt;br&gt;&#xA;do not know; I wonder&lt;br&gt;&#xA;source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/17341/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;cantonese.sheik.co.uk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder how old he is.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不晓得他是几岁。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictall.com/indu56/05/56053834105.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;dictall.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if he can.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不晓得他能不能。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichacha.net/wonder.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ichacha.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder whether I might ask you a question.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不知道可不可以问你一个问题。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichacha.net/wonder.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ichacha.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When in doubt, please don't rely on a single source of references.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-11-20T07:21:57.020" LastActivityDate="2012-11-20T07:21:57.020" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2473" CreationDate="2012-11-18T06:12:06.423" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translation from English to Chinese is more a matter of capturing meaning than finding word for word equivalences. In this case, I think the best way to capture &quot;wonder&quot; is by saying &quot;would like to know.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, &quot;I wonder...&quot; becomes &quot;我想知道...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translating to &quot;I don't know&quot; (as is suggested by Question Overflow) might be appropriate in some situations. It's not what I would use for your example sentence, but the decision is admittedly subjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any event, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/all/examples/wonder&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is a collection of example sentences in English/Chinese with the word &quot;wonder.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastActivityDate="2012-11-18T06:12:06.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2453" CreationDate="2012-11-18T06:33:47.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally I find one thing odd about the sentence in question. It is written as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好 , 我走了 , 有时间到我家去 . 再见 !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if I were to say this, I think I would say this instead:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好 , 我走了 , 有时间到我家來 . 再见 !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It feels strange to me to invite someone to &quot;go&quot; to my house instead of &quot;come&quot; to my house. I'm not sure if that contributed to the difficulty of the new learner in understanding the sentence, but anyway that's my two cents worth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2217" LastActivityDate="2012-11-18T06:33:47.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2466" CreationDate="2012-11-18T06:40:16.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I totally agree that in this sentence you should just focus on the fact that 一 means &quot;as soon as&quot;. Too many examples of 一不小心 may not only overwhelm you but will also distract you from learning the general meaning of 一 and the various ways it is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2217" LastActivityDate="2012-11-18T06:40:16.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2478" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-18T07:38:21.533" Score="6" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;I encountered a very useful dictionary eight years ago, but have never been able to find a copy of it because I don't know what it's called. It not only gave examples in context of how to use the words, but also gave examples of how &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; to use the word (marked with an 【误】, if I remember correctly). Can anyone identify a dictionary that has this feature?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2283" LastActivityDate="2012-11-20T08:59:31.733" Title="Which dictionaries reveal the commonly mistaken usage of a word (i.e. how NOT to use a word)?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2479" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2484" CreationDate="2012-11-18T07:45:47.413" Score="10" ViewCount="5702" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does one pronounce the 'iu' sound (as in liu4 = six)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have always said it and heard it to end in an [joʊ] sound, as in 'low', 'go', and 'sew'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But once I was told that it should actually be a 'u' sound, perhaps something like [iu:] as in 'few'. (And from the pinyin, I suppose it would make more sense.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a 'u' sound the proper way to pronounce it? Or is this merely a regional difference in pronunciation (where both are acceptable)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2283" LastEditorUserId="2283" LastEditDate="2013-11-05T12:20:12.263" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T20:08:03.793" Title="How is the pinyin 'iu' pronounced?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2473" CreationDate="2012-11-18T14:24:32.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in your case: 想知道，好奇。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but if this is some information about it you got, &#xA;我纳闷儿/我嘀咕呢 ... it is very strange/can't accept estimated answer/or given by others, himself want to know the fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2271" LastActivityDate="2012-11-18T14:24:32.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2479" CreationDate="2012-11-19T05:53:28.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, the sound would be very similar to the one in &quot;Few&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at the IPA of &quot;iu&quot; in Chinese, which you can find in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt; ([iɤu], with some decorations I'm not able to reproduce here) or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.d-ear.com/CCC/resources/SampaC.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SAMPA-C&lt;/a&gt; ([iəu], &quot;iu&quot; is spelled as &quot;iou&quot; in the document), you'll see that unlike the [jʊ] in &quot;Few&quot;, we used [i], but not [j] and there's another (transitional) vowel in the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'iu' is made up of the 'i' and 'ou' sound in Chinese. (That's why it is spell as 'iou' in the SAMPA-C document, and also in the pinyin &quot;you&quot;.) So you can try to produce &quot;iu&quot; from 'i' and 'ou'. Sorry I'm not able to describe how to produce the sound literally. My suggestion, like others have made in the comment, is to listen to how natives say it. And if you can find a native, let him/her correct your pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: The two versions of IPA came from the two sources may come from the variation of how different people produce it, and may come from the notation variations of IPA, or both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-11-19T05:53:28.787" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2479" CreationDate="2012-11-19T10:18:27.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually fefe's answer is a pretty good one (except maybe on the the remark that it is similar to few).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The gist is:&#xA;iu is the combination i and ou. So you start with the pronuncation is i and then put your lips and tongue together to get the ou.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the book &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.be/books?id=owmFO25j9soC&amp;amp;lpg=PA28&amp;amp;dq=iou%20iu%20pronunciation&amp;amp;pg=PA28#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=iou%20iu%20pronunciation&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mandarin Pronunciation, Explained with Diagrams&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/iou/ is the combination of /i/ and /ou/. The /i/ in Mandarin is&#xA;  similar to the English /i:/ as in &lt;em&gt;see, sea&lt;/em&gt;. The /ou/ is similar to&#xA;  the English /ou/ as in &lt;em&gt;so, no&lt;/em&gt;. The Mandarin /iou/ is an even&#xA;  triphtong. In the production of the sound the jaw opens a little and&#xA;  then closes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the link for the picture of the tongue and lip positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/8&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mandarin's iu sound can confuse you because what is written is&#xA;  actually an abbreviated form of &quot;iou,&quot; a straightforward combination&#xA;  of the vowel sounds i and ou (see Section 2). Thus the iu syllable&#xA;  sounds similar to the &quot;yo&quot; of the English word &quot;yo-yo,&quot; with a bit&#xA;  more &quot;oo&quot; sound on the end. It is written as you when it stands alone,&#xA;  and as iu when it is preceded by a consonant (for example, diu, niu,&#xA;  liu).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This being said, there is quite some variation on how it pronounces in practice. The correct way is to have an ou sound (this is pinyin notation), however quite often native speakers pronounce it as u (again pinyin notation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-11-19T10:34:44.093" LastActivityDate="2012-11-19T10:34:44.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2479" CreationDate="2012-11-19T10:27:38.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/994/43&quot;&gt;my answer&lt;/a&gt; to a similar question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All characters &lt;em&gt;consonant&lt;/em&gt;+iu are pronounced as &quot;ee-ow&quot; and not as &quot;ee-oo&quot;. So &lt;strong&gt;liu&lt;/strong&gt; would rhyme, so to speak, with &lt;strong&gt;low&lt;/strong&gt; rather than &lt;strong&gt;few&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have always said it and heard it to end in an [joʊ] sound, as in 'low', 'go', and 'sew'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are correct, this is the proper way to pronounce it in Mandarin. Certainly, using English is not exact but it gives you the idea if you already heard it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But once I was told that it should actually be a 'u' sound, perhaps something like [jʊ] or [jʊ:] as in 'few'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who told you that is wrong. Perhaps in some dialect that's the way, but as far as Mandarin is concerned, you should stick to the original way you knew.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2012-11-19T10:27:38.307" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2479" CreationDate="2012-11-19T10:35:42.813" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The short version:&lt;/strong&gt; I think English &amp;quot;go&amp;quot; is closer to the correct sound than English &amp;quot;few&amp;quot;. If you want a non-scientific description which is reasonably accurate, I would use &amp;quot;low&amp;quot; (let's switch to the same consonant) with an added but not emphasised [i] between &amp;quot;l&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;ow&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The slightly longer version:&lt;/strong&gt; Pinyin &lt;em&gt;-iu&lt;/em&gt; is short for &lt;em&gt;-iou&lt;/em&gt;, which means that if you stress the syllable and pronounce it very clearly, it rhymes with Pinyin &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt;. For example, listen to the &lt;em&gt;liu&lt;/em&gt; (select the third tone, it's longest and clearest) pronounced &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newconceptmandarin.com/learning-tools/introduction-to-pinyin.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, note that the  diacritic (tone mark) in &lt;em&gt;liù&lt;/em&gt; is placed on the &lt;em&gt;u&lt;/em&gt; and not the &lt;em&gt;i&lt;/em&gt;, which means that &lt;em&gt;u&lt;/em&gt; is emphasised and &lt;em&gt;i&lt;/em&gt; reduced. This can be written in several ways, but in Duanmu's &lt;em&gt;The Phonology of Standard Chinese&lt;/em&gt; (2007), the broad transcription is [liəu] but in the narrow transcription, the [i] has been reduced to a superscript &amp;quot;j&amp;quot;, so [lʲəu]. This reduction is fairly obvious if you listen to natural, connected speech. It's also common to further reduce the [əu]. If you listen to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newconceptmandarin.com/learning-tools/introduction-to-pinyin.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the same sources as above&lt;/a&gt;, but select the fourth tone for the same syllable &lt;em&gt;liu&lt;/em&gt;, you will hear the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're curious about other learner-related problems with Pinyin, such as other cases where one letter stands for many sounds (i is the most obvious example because the sounds are completely different), I've summarised the important ones here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hackingchinese.com/a-guide-to-pinyin-traps-and-pitfalls/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A guide to Pinyin traps and pitfalls: Learn Mandarin pronunciation&lt;/a&gt;, which also contains some audio samples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorUserId="507" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T20:08:03.793" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T20:08:03.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2488" CreationDate="2012-11-19T16:39:27.473" Score="4" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often pick up relatively esoteric animal names, and I got looking at mammoths one day... I found two words for mammoth: 猛犸 and 毛象. What is the difference between these two words? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2257" LastActivityDate="2012-11-20T05:14:39.647" Title="What are the differences between the different words for mammoth? 猛犸和毛象有什么区别？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2473" CreationDate="2012-11-19T17:07:53.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always try to use the word I hear most in conversation given a context...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if that's what you're looking for... I think &quot;I wonder...&quot; by itself can be best described as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我想&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're trying to describe &quot;I wonder&quot; from a monologuing perspective... you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我在想会有几个人去那个派对 (派对: popular Southern Chinese transliteration of &quot;Party&quot;)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or add some colloquial flavor by repeating the verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我在想想...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2012-11-19T17:07:53.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2459" CreationDate="2012-11-19T18:54:39.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to keep my answer short and sweet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When thinking about Chinese, it's important to understand the meaning of each individual character, rather than memorizing statements... this has helped me disect puzzling meanings throughout my language learning journey so far...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in this case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 最高领导人 and 主要领导人之一&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Understanding the characters 最, 之 and 一 would ultimately help you understand the fundamental differences of the entire sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;最&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;utmost&quot;, or &quot;highest&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;最好 = the best&#xA;最高 = the highest&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 is more of a 古文(ancient)/书面字(literary) expression of the colloqiual possessive word 的. And 一 as you know means &quot;one&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;之一 = one of something &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;主要领导人之一 = one of the important leaders&#xA;最高领导人 = the highest leader&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;As an addon to this... Just as it's helpful to learn the meanings of each character to disect sentences, it's just as important to learn each radical to disect characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prime example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;把: grasp, hold&#xA;Radical: 手　means hand&#xA;吧: suggestive participle &#xA;Radical: 口 means mouth&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So without even having to know the meanings, you could already guess from the radicals that &lt;code&gt;把&lt;/code&gt; has something to do with touch, and &lt;code&gt;吧　&lt;/code&gt;has something to do with voice. Then you could use context to piece the meanings together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2012-11-20T17:33:14.437" LastActivityDate="2012-11-20T17:33:14.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2485" CreationDate="2012-11-20T05:14:39.647" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are the same, just translated in different ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;猛犸&lt;/code&gt; is a transliteration. &lt;code&gt;猛&lt;/code&gt; means robust dog. 《说文解字》: 猛，健犬也。 &lt;code&gt;犸&lt;/code&gt; seems a more modern character, only used here.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;长毛象&lt;/code&gt; is more common than &lt;code&gt;毛象&lt;/code&gt;. The literal translation is &quot;elephant with long hair&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastActivityDate="2012-11-20T05:14:39.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2491" CreationDate="2012-11-20T07:46:34.880" Score="3" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone recognize the characters written here? I've tried to figure it out but still can't understand what is written there, since I've just recognized the rightmost character, 天. It's a carving in my grandfather's house.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mQOfH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;UPDATE&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 1st character: 敘 | 叙 (xù) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 2nd character: 樂 | 乐 (lè)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 3rd character: 倫 | 伦 (lún)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 4th character: 天 (tiān)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried to show it to my 老师, who comes from the Guangdong province, and she said that the characters are read from right to left (since it is the old way of writing on carvings), and she has guessing the meaning of that sentence is (if I remember correctly): &lt;strong&gt;&quot;All generations of this family will always be happy&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1116" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-01T00:05:00.867" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T00:05:00.867" Title="Does anyone recognize the characters written here? (Characters identified: 天倫樂敘)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2478" CreationDate="2012-11-20T08:59:31.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend this《小學生的國語辭典》approved by the Taiwanese Ministry of Education for their primary school students. It contains the following features:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;语文帮手 (or language assistant) to highlight certain words that require&#xA;particular attention. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「人才」有才能和德性的人。例: ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  請注意：指才能和知質義時「人才」也可以寫成「人材」：但是有木料或原料的意思時「木材」和「藥材」不可以寫作「木才」、「藥才」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;小提醒 (or small reminders) for listing synonyms (相似詞), antonyms (相反詞)&#xA;and active terms (活用詞). For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「井井有倏」形容倏理分明。例：他井井有倏，很受上司的器重。&lt;br&gt; 相似詞：井然有序。相反詞：亂七八糟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;追本溯源 (or trace the origin) to explain the historical background that&#xA;give rise to the word. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「上當」的本義是指把物品典當給當鋪。據說從前有一个讀書人以經營當鋪為生，店裡的股東欺負他老實,紛紛把不值錢的物品拿來典當高價，沒多久，當鋪就關門大吉了。於是人們就把欺騙別人的行為,叫做「上當」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the dictionary is written in traditional Chinese (繁体字) and that it is availabe on Google Books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-11-20T08:59:31.733" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2489" CreationDate="2012-11-20T09:03:07.200" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm quite sure it is &lt;code&gt;天伦乐叙&lt;/code&gt;. Search for &lt;code&gt;天伦乐叙、乐叙天伦、天伦叙乐&lt;/code&gt; on google or baidu, there are many results. Like &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/4215901.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastEditorUserId="1124" LastEditDate="2012-11-20T09:46:50.903" LastActivityDate="2012-11-20T09:46:50.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2479" CreationDate="2012-11-20T18:41:14.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are indeed some people who when speaking Mandarin with the accent of their own dialect end up sounding more like &quot;few&quot;. For example, I think some Taiwanese native speakers sound like that when they speak in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2217" LastActivityDate="2012-11-20T18:41:14.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2493" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2495" CreationDate="2012-11-21T05:33:11.713" Score="4" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Chinese friend asked me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你有报语言培训班吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand what she means, but I wonder what meaning 报 carries here.&#xA;Anyone could help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="908" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-30T23:51:14.433" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T23:51:14.433" Title="What is the meaning of 报 in 你有报语言培训班吗?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2493" CreationDate="2012-11-21T06:36:36.263" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;报&lt;/code&gt; here means to apply, sign up, register.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence can be translated as &lt;code&gt;Have you applied/registered/signed up (for) the language training courses?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你报哪个学校了？ Which college did you apply for?&#xA;他报了400米。   He registered for the 400m (run).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-11-22T00:58:11.903" LastActivityDate="2012-11-22T00:58:11.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2493" CreationDate="2012-11-21T06:37:21.827" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the 报 here is referring to registering/signing up/apply as in 报名.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Have you registered/signed up for X class yet?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;B: Yes, I have (registered/signed up).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲: 你 X(课/班) 报名了吗？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;乙: 嗯 我报了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-11-21T19:55:20.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2493" CreationDate="2012-11-21T08:50:40.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding my one cent here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;报 can be a short form for 报读 or enroll.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;Did you enroll for the language class?&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-11-21T08:50:40.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2471" CreationDate="2012-11-22T07:14:48.467" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;as you metioned, &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Wikipedia saying that 老 is added to indicate that a foreigner is &quot;always&quot; an outsider&quot;.is totally wrong&lt;/strong&gt;.Chinese has never ever use 老:LAO before person or object to imply &quot;always&quot;.when use |老:lao&quot; to mean &quot;always&quot;,it's use just as*&lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt;* .just think there isn't something like&quot;always person&quot; in English.so you can image there isn't something like “a foreigner is &quot;always&quot; an outsider” in Chinese.Baidu is more familiar with Chinese than wiki,it's native Chinese.so you can accept the explanation of &quot;老外&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1093" LastActivityDate="2012-11-22T07:14:48.467" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2414" CreationDate="2012-11-22T07:43:24.523" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no meaning of these words,just to make them sounds better.There are no rules of adding words to make sentences more beautiful or poem more rhyming,as I know, just depends the need.sometimes the word doesn't read as it's original pronunciation,to make doggerel or song sound better,This can find in JINGJU：Beijing Opera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;淮河营&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此时间不可闹笑话，胡言乱语怎瞒咱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“咱“should read as &quot;zán&quot;.but in the Opera it read as &quot;zá&quot;,with melody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1093" LastActivityDate="2012-11-22T07:43:24.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2501" CreationDate="2012-11-23T22:12:29.370" Score="8" ViewCount="509" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an expression in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;For all I know, ....&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following clause often has a modal expressing uncertainty or the hypothetical nature of the assertion, like &amp;quot;might&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;may&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;could&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;would&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all I know, he might have gone abroad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all I know, she doesn't even work there anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all I know, the test hasn't even been written yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage is usually something like this. You are talking about some topic. You disavow even a basic level of certainty about the topic by saying &amp;quot;For all I know, &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;, meaning something like &amp;quot;I can't even be sure that &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; isn't true. How can I say anything useful about the topic, if I can't even rule out possibility &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt;?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; the same as &amp;quot;To the best of my knowledge, &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (which means you really think &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt;, you are just saying you are unsure). I think that &amp;quot;As far as I know&amp;quot; is more like &amp;quot;To the best of my knowledge&amp;quot; than &amp;quot;For all I know&amp;quot;, but I think it might have some flexibility. I don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=======================&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my question is whether Chinese has any equivalent phrases or ways to express &amp;quot;For all I know&amp;quot;? I've seen a few instances of &lt;code&gt;据我所知&lt;/code&gt;, but I don't know whether that's idiomatic Chinese or just a stilted and academic translation. Also, I don't know whether it really has any of the same implications that &amp;quot;For all I know&amp;quot; has. For all I know, &lt;code&gt;据我所知&lt;/code&gt; is just a neutral statement like &amp;quot;To the best of my knowledge&amp;quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T23:49:39.540" Title="Does Chinese have a phrase equivalent to &quot;For all I know&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2500" CreationDate="2012-11-24T01:37:05.513" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only give some possible translations based on your explanation of &quot;For all I know&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For all I know, he might have gone abroad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他说不准出国了呢。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For all I know, she doesn't even work there anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她没准已经不在哪工作了呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For all I know, the test hasn't even been written yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;测试题说不准还没出呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We would use &quot;说不准&quot; &quot;没准&quot; and things like that to express the uncertainty. I can't think of one phrase that would have the same meaning of &quot;For all I know&quot; as your explained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-11-24T03:23:42.463" LastActivityDate="2012-11-24T03:23:42.463" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2502" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-24T03:47:48.953" Score="6" ViewCount="324" Body="&lt;p&gt;It must be pretty easy, but what does 多 mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我才来了三个多月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="908" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T01:49:11.950" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T01:49:11.950" Title="How can I interpret 多 in 我才来了三个多月?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2500" CreationDate="2012-11-24T03:54:50.107" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;据我所知…… is good, but reminds me of newspaper writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就我所知…… is also quite reasonable (and probably the best choice in my opinion).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我所知道的是…… is yet another 所 + verb phrase that could work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还以为…… could also work in certain contexts, remembering that we aren't going word-for-word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastActivityDate="2012-11-24T03:54:50.107" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2502" CreationDate="2012-11-24T04:06:13.063" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Number] [Measure word] 多 [Noun]&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;More than [number] [noun]s&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“I've only been here a little over three months.” (The &lt;code&gt;才&lt;/code&gt; adds the meaning of &quot;only just&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2293" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2012-11-24T14:13:38.773" LastActivityDate="2012-11-24T14:13:38.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2502" CreationDate="2012-11-24T06:03:41.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, &quot;多&quot; can be taken to mean &quot;plus&quot;. Plus, as an adjective, carries the meaning of &quot;more than, by a certain amount&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have only been here for three months plus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to disagree with what many have written here regarding the purpose of &quot;才&quot;. Using the following example as a form of disambiguation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我三点多有一个会议，现在才十一点多，我们还有时间吃午饭。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I have a meeting at three plus, now is only 11 plus, we still have&#xA;  time for lunch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;才&quot; has &lt;em&gt;no implication&lt;/em&gt; on the &lt;strong&gt;actual time&lt;/strong&gt; since &quot;多&quot; in 三点多 is not much different from &quot;多&quot; in 十一点多. In the context of your sentence, &quot;才&quot; is &lt;em&gt;merely&lt;/em&gt; used to emphasize the shortness of the time period that you have been here. In my example, &quot;才&quot; is used to emphasize the earliness of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;多&quot; by itself means exceeding by less than a unit of measurement. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十多度 (between 10 and 20 degrees, 1 unit = 10 degrees)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一岁多 (between 1 and 2 years old, 1 unit = 1 year)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三个多月 (between 3 and 4 months, 1 unit = 1 month)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-11-25T15:15:22.253" LastActivityDate="2012-11-25T15:15:22.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2502" CreationDate="2012-11-24T08:12:21.680" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence means: I've been here for just over three months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side-note: you should be wary around sentences that have both 才 and 了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, check the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/#hl=en&amp;amp;safe=off&amp;amp;tbo=d&amp;amp;biw=1280&amp;amp;bih=669&amp;amp;sclient=psy-ab&amp;amp;q=%22%E6%88%91%E6%89%8D%E6%9D%A5%E4%BA%86%E4%B8%89%E4%B8%AA%E5%A4%9A%E6%9C%88%22&amp;amp;oq=%22%E6%88%91%E6%89%8D%E6%9D%A5%E4%BA%86%E4%B8%89%E4%B8%AA%E5%A4%9A%E6%9C%88%22&amp;amp;gs_l=hp.3...2611.4362.3.4481.5.5.0.0.0.1.1140.2254.0j1j0j1j0j1j0j1.4.0.les;..0.0...1c.1._ZVCvJj-KBc&amp;amp;pbx=1&amp;amp;bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&amp;amp;fp=fd1aeda2ebac34ea&amp;amp;bpcl=38897761&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;google results&lt;/a&gt; for your sentence (7 results) as compared to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/#hl=en&amp;amp;safe=off&amp;amp;tbo=d&amp;amp;sclient=psy-ab&amp;amp;q=%22%E6%88%91%E6%89%8D%E6%9D%A5%E4%B8%89%E4%B8%AA%E5%A4%9A%E6%9C%88%22&amp;amp;oq=%22%E6%88%91%E6%89%8D%E6%9D%A5%E4%B8%89%E4%B8%AA%E5%A4%9A%E6%9C%88%22&amp;amp;gs_l=hp.3...40325.40325.4.40503.1.1.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0.les;..0.0...1c.1.JYP77vHO_Eg&amp;amp;pbx=1&amp;amp;bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&amp;amp;fp=fd1aeda2ebac34ea&amp;amp;bpcl=38897761&amp;amp;biw=1280&amp;amp;bih=669&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;google results&lt;/a&gt; for the same sentence without the 了 (11,100,000 results).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any event, the 多 should be interpreted as meaning &quot;over&quot; or &quot;more than,&quot; and, in conjunction with the 才, it should be interpreted as meaning &quot;just over&quot; or &quot;just a bit more than.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastActivityDate="2012-11-24T08:12:21.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2507" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2508" CreationDate="2012-11-24T08:45:40.453" Score="13" ViewCount="4310" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking up these five words in dictionaries gives results that are almost identical. In Chinese-English dictionaries, I find explanations identical or very close to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a characteristic; a distinguishing feature; a distinctive mark&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference I can find is that 特性 seems to have the meaning of &quot;property&quot;, which the others don't. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese-Chinese dictionaries (below definitions are from &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;) give me definitions like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（特色）事物所表現出獨特優異的地方&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（特點）特別的地方&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（特徵）事物特殊的徵象、標誌&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（特質）異於其他眾物的性質&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（特性）某人或某事物所具有的獨特性質&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't very helpful (if it is, please highlight the differences, the ones I have found have turned out to be insignificant when checking sentences from an online corpus). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My next step is to check collocations (I used &lt;a href=&quot;http://corpus.leeds.ac.uk/query-zh.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this corpus&lt;/a&gt;). Among the top ten collocations for [名詞]+[特X] where 特X represents the words we're talking about here, there are several identical phrases that exist with all five words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;文化[特X]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;個人[特X]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some collocations which rank very high for some of the 特X words, but low for others, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;歷史特點&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;學校特色&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;身體特徵&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;時間特性&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;女性特質&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if these differences are significant or not, but I think some are. I now leave the area of actual observation and speculate a bit. I'll edit this bit if I turn out to be wrong. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;特色&lt;/strong&gt; seems to usually refer to a positive defining characteristic and is used more about objects than people. Among the 35 top collocations for this word, only 個人特色 is related to people. Can perhaps also be translated to &quot;style&quot; in certain contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;特點&lt;/strong&gt; seems to indicate a specific feature which marks something as different from something else (or what makes it stand out). At first, I thought this word was more neutral than 特色, but I'm not so sure. Still, it doesn't have the feeling of &quot;style&quot; mentioned above (compare 色/點）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;特性&lt;/strong&gt; seems to... sorry, I have no clue here. It might be the case that human-related activities appear more often, but that's about all I can see. Common examples are 文化特性, 生活特性, 市場特性, 聲音特性, 技術特性 etc. Perhaps this is irrelevant. Still, note that the word &quot;property&quot; appears in dictionaries for this word but not the others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;特質&lt;/strong&gt; seems to relate to the inner quality or nature of something (性質), including examples like 精神特質, 藝術特質, 心裏特質. That's about all I can find out from looking at examples of collocations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;特徵&lt;/strong&gt; again, I have no clue really. This seems to be a general word that can be used to describe features and characteristics of all kinds. The top collocates for this word all appear in at least some of the other 特X words as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my question is (obviously), what's the difference between these words? Can some of them be used interchangeably? All these are very common, but can someone perhaps comment on the difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;文化的特X&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;個人的特X&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;產品的特X&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;語言的特X&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;時代的特X&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there situations where you have to use a specific word (or where it's extremely common at least)? Are there any other rules or patterns to how these words are used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question became very long indeed, but it's also quite complex and I wanted to make sure I included what I've come up with so far. Please feel free to add/edit things I've overlooked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T02:41:51.310" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T02:44:39.277" Title="Difference between 特色, 特點, 特性, 特質, and 特徵" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2507" CreationDate="2012-11-24T11:10:32.393" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The words can be differentiated as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;特色 - style (abstract)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;特点[點] - unique point (general)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;特征[徵] - feature (of a person or a product)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;特质[質] - quality (of a product or a person)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;特性 - property (abstract)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are usually non-interchangeable if you are specific about what you are saying or writing. An example statement combining all the above would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这台相机有许多特征：它具有防水功能的特性，优良特质的防刮镜头，最主要的特点是它无需对焦就能让你拍出据有专业特色的照片。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This camera has numerous features: it has a&#xA;  water-resistant property, excellent quality scratch&#xA;  resistant lens. The most important (unique) point is that it doesn't&#xA;  require focusing and can let you shoot photos with a professional style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most appropriate character for X that I can think of is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;文化特色 - (cultural style)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;個人特徵 - (personal feature)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;產品特質 - (product quality)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;語言特性 - (language property)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;時代的特點/徵 - (unique point or feature about an era, epoch or period of time)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T02:44:39.277" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T02:44:39.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2502" CreationDate="2012-11-24T13:10:04.877" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means the person has been there for more than three months, but fewer than four months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated, it says, &quot;I've only been here for slightly more than three months.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2294" LastActivityDate="2012-11-24T13:10:04.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2502" CreationDate="2012-11-24T16:19:07.277" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As everyone else has said, it means &quot;just over x amount&quot; in this context. The major hint for &quot;just over&quot; is &lt;code&gt;才&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &quot;merely&quot;, or &quot;just&quot;. So, they could be saying &quot;I've only been here just over three months... give me a break!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing you may see to indicate &quot;it's just over&quot;, or &quot;it's been &lt;em&gt;about&lt;/em&gt; this long&quot; is the use of &lt;code&gt;左右&lt;/code&gt; zuo3 you4 (&quot;left, right&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我才来了三个月左右 = I arrived here about three months ago.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2012-11-24T16:19:07.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2511" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2513" CreationDate="2012-11-25T07:33:33.667" Score="3" ViewCount="535" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know what is written on the image? I tried to find out what is it, and got 丁財貴寿 (丁财贵寿), but not quite sure enough. I tried to find the meaning of the words but seems can't find it or I don't understand what is being written there. When I tried to search with the traditional hanzi, there is a lot of information provided in Japanese, but when use the simplified one, there is a lot of information provided in Chinese, but I can't get the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the characters is read: 丁财贵寿 (dīngcáiguìshòu), what does it means? And, does somebody knows why it is read orderly from top, bottom, right and finally left? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BtXeO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;丁財貴寿&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1116" LastEditorUserId="1116" LastEditDate="2012-11-25T07:50:54.167" LastActivityDate="2012-11-25T14:23:38.113" Title="Does anyone know what is the characters means (丁財貴寿)?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2511" CreationDate="2012-11-25T08:47:55.003" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丁: Male child&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;財: Riches&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;貴: Honor&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;寿: Longevity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a good fortune sentence. The order (which appears normally on coins, the shape of which this reproduces), is North South East West.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2012-11-25T08:47:55.003" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2511" CreationDate="2012-11-25T08:49:09.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are fengshui related words, each having its own meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丁 - 催旺人丁 (brings male offspring)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;財 - 興旺財源 (brings fortune)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;貴 - 平安富貴 (brings peace and wealth)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;壽 - 健康長壽 (brings health and longevity)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quoted from &lt;a href=&quot;http://zewei.com/Fengshui/fengshuiarticle08.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;玄空學說是利用五行形理相生的關係，去令一宅之中充滿生生不息的氣機。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;風水學中的「催旺人丁、興旺財源、人口平安富貴及健康長壽」等等目的，簡稱為「丁財貴壽」等方法，便是依五行相生之理而建立的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purpose of the inscription may be to counter (剋) some negative elements (煞) in the house.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-11-25T14:23:38.113" LastActivityDate="2012-11-25T14:23:38.113" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2500" CreationDate="2012-11-25T16:02:55.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;据我所知 is neutral, and hence is not appropriate in this case.&#xA;I agree with fefe that &quot;说不准&quot; can be used, but where I'm from, we generally use &quot;说不定&quot; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2294" LastActivityDate="2012-11-25T16:02:55.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2515" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2516" CreationDate="2012-11-25T23:38:05.137" Score="7" ViewCount="343" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend bought me a set of four Zhang Yi Mou movies. I watched Red Sorghum (红高粱) today, and there were a few sentences which, after looking up the meanings, I still couldn't quite understand. I'll give the entire sentence for context, and describe the word in the sentence that I'm having trouble with. Anyone mind helping?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1) &quot;颠不出话来还颠不出尿来&quot; &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;颠 dian1, seems to mean &quot;top&quot;, or to &quot;fall forward&quot;. It appears in this sentence it means &quot;to let out&quot;. What exactly should this word mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2) &quot;长出了百十亩高粱&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;百十 bai3 shi2, translates out to &quot;a hundred or so&quot;, but in other cases means &quot;110&quot;. So which is it in this case? It would seem strange for the context of the movie for him to specify exactly &quot;110&quot;. So is it always okay to use &quot;百十&quot; as an approximation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3) &quot;唱戏的，你给我出来！ 你他妈阴不阴，阳不阳的&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阴不阴，阳不阳 yin1 bu4 yin1, yang2 bu4 yang2, Not sure what this means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4) &quot;掉到福窝窝里， 还整天五眉三道地转不过来&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五眉三道 wu3 mei2 san1 dao4, I know this is some sort of Cheng Yu, but couldn't find a meaning for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5) 少若事， 少生非&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生非 sheng1 fei1, I know 生 and 非, but this doesn't make much sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6) 往后看哪，李家的财产都归你。 人活一世图个啥？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;图个啥? tu2 ge sha... I think it means something like &quot;people live a life for what?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7) 我在家排行老九， 是九月初九那天生的&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage of 初 chu1. I know this means &quot;the beginning&quot; or &quot;early stages&quot;. So 九月初 would mean the beginning of September. But what's the point if you end up specifying the exact day anyway (九月初九 - Sept 9th)... Unless my understanding of the &quot;九&quot; after &quot;初&quot; is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8) 俏食 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俏 qiao4 I know means &quot;pretty&quot; or &quot;smart&quot;. So does this mean &quot;high class food&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;9) 不行二旦他爹，你们穿好了&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二旦 er4 dan4... 一旦 means &quot;if&quot; or &quot;in case&quot;... but wasn't able to find the meaning of 二旦 for this particular sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-11-26T10:42:37.047" LastActivityDate="2012-11-26T10:42:37.047" Title="9 Questions from the movie Red Sorghum (红高粱)" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2515" CreationDate="2012-11-26T01:24:51.293" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) &quot;颠不出话来还颠不出尿来&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 颠 means shake, shaking. &quot;Even I cannot shake you word out, I can shake you ... out&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) &quot;长出了百十亩高粱&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;110 should be read as &quot;一百一十&quot;, neither of the &quot;一&quot; can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) &quot;唱戏的，你给我出来！ 你他妈阴不阴，阳不阳的&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess he's calling him a eunuch, who is considered neither 阳 (male) nor 阴 (female).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4) &quot;掉到福窝窝里， 还整天五眉三道地转不过来&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possibly &quot;五迷三道&quot;, meaning people talking nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5) 少若事， 少生非&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is 惹是生非 split up. &quot;Don't make trouble&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6) 往后看哪，李家的财产都归你。 人活一世图个啥？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your are right, it means &quot;people living a life for what?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7) 我在家排行老九， 是九月初九那天生的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is referring to date in Chinese lunar calender, where dates for the 1st and the 10th are always prefixed with &quot;初&quot;, as &quot;初一&quot;, &quot;初九&quot;, &quot;初十&quot;. Here it is September the ninth in the Chinese lunar calender. (Not sure whether I should call it September)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8) 俏食 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know. A search gave me some restaurant names ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9) 不行二旦他爹，你们穿好了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;二旦&quot; is probably a person's name ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-11-26T01:24:51.293" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2517" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2524" CreationDate="2012-11-27T07:57:03.110" Score="3" ViewCount="1570" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently heard, 如果你不介意 (literally: &quot;if you do not mind.&quot;). Is the literal translation from English also a correct, native one? Or is there a more common way to prefix such a question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T05:06:03.583" Title="如果你不介意 : appropriate translation from English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2517" CreationDate="2012-11-27T14:00:27.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've spent some time in both Taiwan and the Mainland. From my experience, I've heard:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;在乎 zai4 hu&#xA;在意 zai4 yi4&#xA;管 guan3 - More Mainland style... &quot;我不管!&quot;&#xA;无所谓 wu2 suo3 wei4 - A really popular phrase to show that you don't really care/mind&#xA;随便 sui3 bian4 - kind of like &quot;eh, whatever... I don't care&quot;.. Also quite popular&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I've also heard 介意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you're looking for that native, colloquial flavor, you can throw in 的话 at the end of 如果, which is just an extension of &quot;if&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你不在乎的话,我要去做什么什么...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what do you mean by &quot;Is there a more common way to prefix such a question?&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2012-11-27T14:08:06.723" LastActivityDate="2012-11-27T14:08:06.723" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2517" CreationDate="2012-11-27T14:02:03.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, it's the most common way in the area I'm from. In fact, I've never heard anyone phrase it differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2294" LastActivityDate="2012-11-27T14:02:03.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2521" CreationDate="2012-11-28T10:52:10.363" Score="12" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally, 死前 means before death while 生前 means before life. They seem to bear the opposite meaning. However, in most cases, they actually mean the same thing, i.e., when someone was still alive. What's more, in my experience, 生前 is being used more often than 死前. Any difference between them and when to use which? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T13:56:45.630" Title="Difference between 生前 and 死前" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2520" CreationDate="2012-11-28T11:50:31.847" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you are quite right that they both mean when someone was still alive. However, there is a clear distinction on the usage of the two words. 生前 is almost always used when someone is discussing about the life of a deceased. Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He did a lot of charity work when he was alive.&lt;br&gt; 他生前做了很多善事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;死前, or more properly 临死之前, is almost always used when someone is discussing about a person prior to his death. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What did he said to you before he die?&lt;br&gt; 他临死之前跟你说了什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-11-28T12:56:50.920" LastActivityDate="2012-11-28T12:56:50.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2520" CreationDate="2012-11-28T14:25:31.813" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;They mean differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生前&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when you use this word, the person you are talking about is dead and you are referring to the time(a long period) or the consistent behavior when he was alive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你生前想做些什么？ Wrong!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since in general, you can't talk to a dead man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他生前是一名著名的画家。 Right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this sentence, the listener knows he(他) has died.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;死前&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word refers to the time( a short/specified period) just before one's death. In this case, that person could be alive, or could have died, so you could say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你死前还有什么要说的吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Do you have any words to say before your death?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence could happen when a prisoner is going to be executed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a more complex sentence with both of the words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他生前一直宣称要把他所有的财产捐给慈善组织，却在死前一周改变了主意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;He always announced that he would donate all of his wealth to the charity organizations, but he changed his mind one week before the death. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T13:56:45.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1120" CreationDate="2012-11-28T15:57:56.343" Score="15" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Apps&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dictionaries&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hanping Chinese Dictionary Pro 汉英词典 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.embermitre.hanping.app.pro&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;; $US 2.99) includes handwriting recognition, native speaker audio, stroke animations, example sentences, idioms, HSK words, etc. More functionality via in-app purchases, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.embermitre.hanping.app.reader.pro&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanping Camera&lt;/a&gt; ($US 9.99) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.embermitre.hanping.app.popup&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanping Chinese Popup&lt;/a&gt; ($US 9.99).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pleco-chinese-dictionary/id341922306&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pleco.chinesesystem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) free dictionary with example sentences; many additional features e.g. OCR via in-app purchases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Flashcards and Writing&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;AnkiMobile (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ankimobile-flashcards/id373493387&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;; $US 24.99) and AnkiDroid (&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ichi2.anki&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) is a popular flashcard tool with many Chinese 'card decks' created by the community.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://app.chinesepeach.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Peach&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chinese-peach/id1533410359&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chinesepeach&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.trainchinese.com/v2/writer.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Writer&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chinese-writer-by-trainchinese/id422248993&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.molatra.chinesewriterlite&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) provides writing practice by tracing on-screen characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dailychinese.app/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Daily Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/daily-chinese-flashcards/id1468602303&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mojayllc.dailychinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) is a vocabulary builder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.flashonary.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Flashonary&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/flashonary-chinese-english-chinese-german-flashcard/id320888944&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;) is a flashcard dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Inkstone (&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.id126c0rsxlvjwv18cf44u&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android $US 4.99&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.skishore.me/inkstone/images/demo.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;demo video&lt;/a&gt;) is an app for writing practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.noodlechinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Noodle Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/noodle-chinese/id1375293467&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;) is an app for writing practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://skritter.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Skritter&lt;/a&gt; (iPhone: &lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/skritter-chinese/id520277126&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;old version&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/skritter-write-chinese/id1370892114&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;new version&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&amp;amp;hl=en_US&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) is a responsive app for writing practice.  Subscriptions are &lt;a href=&quot;https://legacy.skritter.com/pricing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 14.99 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.trainchinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;trainchinese&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/trainchinese/id333830076&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.molatra.trainchinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tofulearn.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TOFU Learn&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tofu-learn/id1298141461&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tofulearn.tofulearn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) includes character writing practice for Chinese.  It's described as free, but it also has paid &amp;quot;pro&amp;quot; accounts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Word Tracer (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/word-tracer-learn-chinese-iphone-edition/id453400918&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;) provides writing practice by tracing on-screen characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Games&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;酷狗唱唱 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/cn/app/%E9%85%B7%E7%8B%97%E5%94%B1%E5%94%B1-%E5%85%A8%E6%B0%91%E6%89%8B%E6%9C%BAktv/id1282270796&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://a.app.qq.com/o/simple.jsp?pkgname=com.kugou.android.ktvapp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;QQ&lt;/a&gt;) is a Chinese karaoke app which gives you a score based on your singing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;NiHao! (&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nihao!/id760028888?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPad; $US 4.99&lt;/a&gt;) grammar and puzzle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Word Swing (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wordswing-chinese/id1277286492&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wordswing.wordswingchineseapp&amp;amp;hl=en_US&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) is a choose-your-own-adventure text adventure game (paid version required for full access).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General learning&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;AI Super Chinese (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/uz/app/learn-chinese-ai-super-chinese/id1462500984&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.superchinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineasy.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chineasy&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chineasy-cards/id1318941705&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chineasy.cards&amp;amp;hl=en_US&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) is for memorizing characters and basic lessons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseskill.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChineseSkill&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/learn-chinese-chineseskill/id777111034&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chineseskill&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) provides learning materials up to HSK4 (speaking, writing, listening and reading), and flash cards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chinesimple HSK (HSK levels: &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=es.hskfree.ap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=es.aroundpixels.hsk2lite&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=es.aroundpixels.hsk3lite&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=es.aroundpixels.hsk4lite&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=es.aroundpixels.hsk5lite&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;5&lt;/a&gt;) provides grammar and vocabulary games, a dictionary, and special levels (Android)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dong-chinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dong Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.peterolson.chinse.dongchinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://languagedrops.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Drops&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/drops-learn-korean-japanese-chinese-language/id939540371&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.languagedrops.drops.international&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.duolingo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Duolingo&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/duolingo-language-lessons/id570060128&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.duolingo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) is a colorful language-learning app, including Chinese.  Paid versions start at &lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/duolingo-language-lessons/id570060128&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 9.99 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hellochinese.cc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HelloChinese&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/app/id1001507516&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hellochinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) is a beginner app for improving speaking skills based on speech recognition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://incrediblechinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Incredible Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fluent-academy/id1506535967&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=academy.fluent.android&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) uses AI/speech recognition to learn via Chinese conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lingodeer.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lingodeer&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lingodeer-learn-languages/id1261193709&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lingodeer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) has a variety of puzzles for languages including Chinese; paid version &lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lingodeer-learn-languages/id1261193709&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 11.99 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.memrise.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Memrise&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/memrise-ultimate-memorisation/id635966718&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.memrise.android.memrisecompanion&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) is a language memorization app, which includes Chinese.  Subscriptions start at around &lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/memrise-ultimate-memorisation/id635966718&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 8.99 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ninchanese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ninchanese&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ninchanese.app&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) starts at around &lt;a href=&quot;https://ninchanese.com/pricing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 10 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.rosettastone.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rosetta Stone&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rosetta-stone-learn-languages/id435588892&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.rosettastone.mobile.CoursePlayer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) is around &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.rosettastone.com/buy-chinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 9.99 per month&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reading and Listening&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thechairmansbao.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Chairman's Bao&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chairmans-bao-learn-chinese/id1074317405&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.metapps.thechairmansbao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) is a Chinese graded reader app.  Most content requires a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thechairmansbao.com/my-subscriptions/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;$US 10 per month subscription&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.clozemaster.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Clozemaster&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/clozemaster/id1149199075&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.clozemaster.v2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) provides fill-in-the-blank &amp;quot;cloze&amp;quot; sentences in many languages, including Chinese.  (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.clozemaster.com/pro&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pro version: $US 8 per month&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.duchinese.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Du Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/app/du-chinese/id1052961520&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.sinamon.duchinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) provides short stories for reading and listening practice (regularly updated; paid version required to access all lessons).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hanzi Reader (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hanzi-reader-chinese-dictionary-definitions-displayed/id383433187&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;) segments Chinese text and allows the user to look up words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://funnybean.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;M Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/m-mandarin-%E6%BC%AB%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87-learn-chinese/id1202173573&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.funnybean.mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) teaches Chinese via comics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Phrasis (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/phrasis/id1557374060&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;) searches movie subtitles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;PinyinBrowser (&lt;a href=&quot;http://itunes.apple.com/app/pinyinbrowser/id851303491?uo=5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;) adds Pinyin or Bopomofo to Chinese web pages while you browse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pinyiner Free (&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.astratech.chinesereader_free&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) for pinyin annotation of copied text or books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.readibu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Readibu - Chinese novel reader&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/readibu-chinese-novel-reader/id1474518982&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;; $US 4.99 per month; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.readibu.mobile&amp;amp;pcampaignid=MKT-Other-global-all-co-prtnr-py-PartBadge-Mar2515-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wise Talk (&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wise-talk/id854767124&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;) provides idioms for listening practice (paid version $US 0.99).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translations and OCR&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://fanyi.baidu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Translate&lt;/a&gt; (百度翻译) (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/cn/app/bai-du-fan-yi-baidu-translate/id605670941&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;) provides Chinese-to-English, English-to-Chinese translations, OCR (in-app purchase in Pleco), common phrases/expressions list, audio lookup, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.baidu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (百度汉语) (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/cn/app/%E7%99%BE%E5%BA%A6%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD-%E8%AE%A9%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E5%AD%A6%E4%B9%A0%E6%9B%B4%E7%AE%80%E5%8D%95/id1065829176&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPhone&lt;/a&gt;) provides free OCR, compositions (作文), and Chinese poetry recital.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://assistant.google.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Assistant&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-assistant/id1220976145&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.googleassistant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;) has an &lt;a href=&quot;https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9234753&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;interpreter mode&lt;/a&gt; which live translates conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2021-03-29T22:37:11.863" LastActivityDate="2021-03-29T22:37:11.863" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-11-28T15:57:56.343" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2517" CreationDate="2012-11-28T19:03:23.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only very very polite person would say &quot;如果你不介意 (if you don't mind)&quot;, probably this person is very well educated which is rare in China (school/parents simply never teach you this phrase). But interestingly, from my experience I sometimes speak this kind of language to my close friends,  to make fun of him/her, in this context, when I say &quot;如果你不介意&quot;, what I really mean is that you have to do whatever I am asking for...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="249" LastActivityDate="2012-11-28T19:03:23.717" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2525" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2526" CreationDate="2012-11-28T21:12:17.230" Score="6" ViewCount="3701" Body="&lt;p&gt;The prefix Dr. in English refers to both medical doctors, and PhD graduates. What are the correct titles for these in Chinese? I believe that 医生 is correct to use as a title for a medical doctor, but I don't know if it can be used for a PhD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2257" LastEditorUserId="2257" LastEditDate="2012-12-13T14:53:46.913" LastActivityDate="2013-09-20T14:39:18.650" Title="What are the corresponding titles for &quot;Dr.&quot; (in the sense of MD and PhD) in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2525" CreationDate="2012-11-28T23:24:15.313" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the information is taken straight from Wiktionary's English entries and the Chinese/Mandarin translations thereof. You don't really need to know any Chinese to find the information:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Doctor (physician): 医生, 大夫.&#xA;Doctor (person with a doctorate): 博士&#xA;Doctor (vet): 兽医&#xA;&#xA;Doctor of Philosophy: 哲学博士 &#xA;&#xA;Graduate (from a university): 毕业生&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;博士 can be used as a title. For example you'd call me 焦博士 if I was an academic doctor (I wish). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毕业生 is usually used without a name attached; however, if you have to use it as a title (which is really unusual in either English or Chinese), then you can append the name of the person at the end of it: 毕业生James or 毕业生小焦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2012-11-28T23:58:30.220" LastActivityDate="2012-11-28T23:58:30.220" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2500" CreationDate="2012-11-29T04:35:55.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Franky, for the example sentences you wrote, I think 有可能 is a good way to translate &quot;For all I know&quot;. This Chinese wording can imply that you don't know. It's just more common than any more direct translation of &quot;For all I know&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2302" LastActivityDate="2012-11-29T04:35:55.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2528" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2529" CreationDate="2012-11-29T13:32:38.473" Score="7" ViewCount="4072" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it true that 同志 has some different meaning? Like gay (as in homosexual) or something? I know that during the 20th century in China and communist Russia it was very common to call people 同志 (товарищ, comrade). So is it wrong to call someone 同志 in China nowadays?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2288" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-12-21T02:55:34.463" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T03:31:15.543" Title="Another meaning of 同志" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2528" CreationDate="2012-11-29T14:03:56.003" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it is true. The official word for somebody who is gay is 同性恋者 (tóngxìngliànzhě), but in recent years 同志 (tóngzhì) is frequently used as slang for somebody who is gay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2198.htm&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1989年，香港人林奕华将自己筹划的首届同性恋电影节命名为《香港同志电影节》，这可能是这层意义的开端。（最晚是）从此开始，在中国大陆之外的中文地区，如台湾、香港、新加坡、马来西亚等，“同志”一词逐渐演变成对同性恋者的另一个称呼。用的时候并不是如“某某同志”这样作称谓用，而是“某某是一个同志”、“某某参加了一个同志团体”这样。这种用法起先在同性恋群体中使用，后来影响逐渐扩大，上述地区的社会各界都采纳了这个用法，例如台北市政府民政局就在《认识同志手册2001年版》中写道：“市长爱同志”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most relevant parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1989年，香港人林奕华将自己筹划的首届同性恋电影节命名为《香港同志电影节》，这可能是这层意义的开端&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1989, the Hongkonger 林奕华 named the first edition of his gay film festival &quot;香港同志电影节&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从此开始，在中国大陆之外的中文地区，如台湾、香港、新加坡、马来西亚等，“同志”一词逐渐演变成对同性恋者的另一个称呼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From then on, in China and other Chinese speaking parts such as Taiwan, Hong kong, Singapore, Malaysia, “同志” gradually became the name for gays (and lesbians).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further on the same page you can read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;近年进入大陆后，由于绝大多数年轻人已经不再使用“同志”这个词汇，使得这层含义反而后来居上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In recent years after the introduction in China most young people stopped to use the word “同志” due to its implicit meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;尽管这一层新的含义在大陆地区也被越来越多的人所知晓并使用，不过中华人民共和国官方媒体和文件对这一外延含义基本不予采纳。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite its implicit meaning in China which is known and used my more and more people, the official Chinese media (in the mainland) and official documents don't accept this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-11-29T14:17:10.713" LastActivityDate="2012-11-29T14:17:10.713" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2528" CreationDate="2012-11-29T16:17:09.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure in what instance you'd be using 同志 nowadays anyway. Are you in the army? Do you actually have comrades? Or is this purely hypothetical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my experience with the language, if you want to call someone gay, people would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他是个同性恋 - tong2 xing4 lian4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, to say someone is not necessarily gay, but they're acting effeminate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他很娘娘腔 niang2 niang qiang1, or simply, 他很娘&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, idiomatically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;断袖之癖 duan4 xiu4 zhi1 pi3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Actually, this idiom has a pretty neat back story. Basically, Emperor Han Ai Di was in bed with his man lover Dong Xian, and had to attend a court audience that morning. Not wishing to awaken Dong Xian, whose head was resting on the emperor's robe's sleeve, he had to cut the sleeve off (断袖)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2012-11-29T23:25:18.023" LastActivityDate="2012-11-29T23:25:18.023" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2528" CreationDate="2012-11-29T17:53:38.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;People born in 70s or before won't consider this word the translation of gay. So be careful when you speak this word with young ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="249" LastActivityDate="2012-11-29T17:53:38.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2532" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2536" CreationDate="2012-11-30T05:44:39.157" Score="16" ViewCount="1195" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chairman Mao addressed Soong Ching-ling as 宋庆龄先生. Yang Jiang was also addressed as 杨绛先生 by the public. My dad used to tell me to address some of his female colleagues as 先生 too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder why a lady can be addressed as 先生. Does this 先生 have the same meaning as the commonly used one? When did this kind of practice come into being?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T09:54:19.893" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T09:54:19.893" Title="When is it appropriate to address a lady as 先生？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2532" CreationDate="2012-11-30T07:35:26.940" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;先生&lt;/code&gt; is an address with long history. But it is important that this address is only for male during a very very long time. Here are part of them (may have relevance to this question):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Original meaning is literal, first born. &lt;code&gt;《诗·大雅·生民》：诞弥厥月，先生如达。 朱熹 集传：“先生，首生也。&lt;/code&gt; Later extended as father or elder brother. &lt;code&gt;《仪礼·有司》：其先生之脀，折胁一。 郑玄 注：先生，长兄弟。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Older and learned people, extended as teacher, professor. &lt;code&gt;《孟子·告子下》：宋牼将之楚，孟子遇於石丘，曰：先生将何之？&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;General address for scholars. &lt;code&gt;《史记·三代世表补》：张夫子问褚先生。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are only a few females called as &lt;code&gt;先生&lt;/code&gt;. They share some common characteristics, like &lt;strong&gt;noble character, high prestige, well-educated and not young (middle or old age)&lt;/strong&gt;. And using such address on them is kind of respect. One with such title should be of &lt;strong&gt;great charisma, specialist in some field, famous and approved by common people. Additional, usually their husbands are of this kind too.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when did this address begin to use for a female? Modern times. (Hint: the following parts may be a little subjective.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After later Qing Dynasty, more and more western culture entered China, including feminism. When many females chose to be a teacher or even professor, the meaning of this address was extended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why they must be called as &lt;code&gt;先生&lt;/code&gt;? Is &lt;code&gt;先生&lt;/code&gt; the only way to tell others they are respected? I don't think so. There may be still some shadow of male chauvinism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And at last, use this address with great caution. It is strange to address a lady usually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastEditorUserId="1124" LastEditDate="2012-11-30T10:56:23.247" LastActivityDate="2012-11-30T10:56:23.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2535" CreationDate="2012-11-30T07:45:43.003" Score="17" ViewCount="3164" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard that it is not appropriate to call women or girls &quot;小姐&quot; in northern China. That it is considered rough and has a meaning close to &quot;hooker&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I never address girls or women as &quot;小姐&quot; in the north and even when I am in Shanghai or even further south. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is it really an issue? And if it is, what should I use instead? &#xA;Right now I always use 姐 or 大姐 just to be sure I don't &quot;hurt&quot; someone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2288" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T09:59:01.267" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T22:19:39.137" Title="Addressing women as &quot;小姐&quot; in Northern China" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2534" CreationDate="2012-11-30T08:18:47.740" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. It is an issue. But &lt;code&gt;姐&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;大姐&lt;/code&gt; is not very appropriate sometimes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can use &lt;code&gt;姐&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;大姐&lt;/code&gt; to call a lady who is elder than you. But they'd better be not very young.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To call a young lady, &lt;code&gt;美女&lt;/code&gt; is popular now in cities, though maybe they are not really very beautiful.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there is some context, like to call a waitress, just use &lt;code&gt;服务员&lt;/code&gt; or other address expressing their jobs. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And at last, &lt;code&gt;女士&lt;/code&gt;, literal translation of lady, is always a choice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited: It is an issue not because the meaning is used by everyone. But there are too many use cases, nobody wants to be misunderstood. Ironic, this is something like Gresham's Law. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastEditorUserId="1124" LastEditDate="2012-12-04T18:26:40.517" LastActivityDate="2012-12-04T18:26:40.517" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2532" CreationDate="2012-11-30T10:29:48.783" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The gender neutral form of the term 先生 is an antiquated &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_titles&quot;&gt;Chinese title&lt;/a&gt; used for addressing a knowledgeable person who is your senior. This person could be a teacher, a principal, a scholar, a professor or a doctor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This term, which literally means &quot;born (生) before (先)&quot;, has been in use for a very long time. Somebody who is born before you would be your senior, and is deemed to have more experience and knowledge, and therefore should command your respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to 汉典: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;先生 xiānsheng - 年长有学问的人。《孟子·告子下》：“ 宋牼 将之 楚 ， 孟子 遇於 石丘 ，曰：‘先生将何之？’” 赵岐&#xA;  注：“学士年长者，故谓之先生。”《战国策·齐策三》：“ 孟尝君 讌坐，谓三先生曰：‘愿闻先生有以补之闕者。’” 姚宏&#xA;  注：“先生，长老，先己以生者也。” 宋 叶适 《宋故孟夫人墓志铭》：“精义择语，类先生长者之法言。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that the term has been around for more than two centuries since the warring states period (475–221 BC).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, the gender neutral form of the term 先生 has been replaced by other equivalent titles (老師, 校長, 教授, 博士, 醫生, etc). However, it is still very much in use (pronounced as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensei&quot;&gt;sensei&lt;/a&gt;) in Japan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-11-30T10:29:48.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2537" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2538" CreationDate="2012-11-30T15:28:15.860" Score="6" ViewCount="442" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my own opinion, this sentence should be &quot;将在外，军令不受&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can hardly imagine any use of &quot;有&quot; and &quot;所&quot; here. Could someone explain the structure of this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2012-11-30T16:27:48.830" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T19:14:28.723" Title="How to explain the structure of &quot;将在外，军令有所不受。&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2537" CreationDate="2012-11-30T16:26:15.070" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is classical Chinese, not modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally in Classical Chinese 所 stands for an omitted object of a verb.  所 + Verb means ‘Verb 的东西 (the thing that is verb-ed), which is equivalent to a kind of relative clause marker (RM) in English ‘what/that is Verb-ed’. It makes the sentence passive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 有 just means 有.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese I would write it as: 如果将军在外面大战，朝廷的命令有可以不被将军接受的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/100331112.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt; I found this explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原义为：将军出征在外，由于敌情复杂，战场情况瞬息万变，所以可以依据实际情况对皇帝的命令适当的随机应变，不一定生搬硬套。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;释义为：作事情应掌握实际情况，根据现实作出适当的判断和行动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If you are reading these texts, your Chinese should be good enough to understand the explanation :-) ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-11-30T16:31:34.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2012-11-30T19:28:26.680" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote the PinyinTones IME a couple of years ago to do exactly what the OP was asking about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyintones.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.pinyintones.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PinyinTones a Windows IME that outputs Pinyin with tone marks, rather than Chinese characters.  Type 1, 2, 3, or 4 after each syllable to add a tone mark -- just as people have been entering Pinyin since the days of ASCII characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RWnvo.png&quot; alt=&quot;PinyinTones allows the user to type Pinyin with tone marks into any Windows program&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PinyinTones will automatically place the tone mark on the correct vowel in a combination, according to the rules of Pinyin orthography.  For example,  becomes hǎo -- with the tone mark on the &quot;a&quot; rather than on the &quot;o&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is PinyinTones different from other Pinyin tone entry IMEs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are no ads, toolbars, or popups.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It uses in-line text composition, just like the Microsoft IMEs.  This means that in most applications, text will reflow as you type.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It works fully in Windows 8 and 10 -- including Windows Store applications.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It was intentionally written to be very simple.  That means less that can potentially break with changes in system configuration.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I use Windows as my primary OS.  Thus, if something does break, I'll personally get very annoyed, and I'll fix it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2312" LastEditorUserId="2312" LastEditDate="2017-09-28T21:52:30.477" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T21:52:30.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2534" CreationDate="2012-12-01T06:35:31.873" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends. It can be dangerous if you are not familiar with use of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience, when 小姐 mean hooker, the 姐 often has a neutral tone. Normal 小姐 would never have a neutral tone. Instead, when someone uses 小姐 to call others, 姐 would be more emphasized than 小。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, when 小姐 is used to call someone, it seldom has the meaning hooker. The meaning hookers are used sentences like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她是一个小姐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She is a hooker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-12-01T06:35:31.873" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2012-12-01T07:37:18.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an alternative if to stay stick to Microsoft IME you can add Alphabetical Style Input Method Microsoft Pinyin. With that IME you can input pinyin with tone number. Although it's not perfect and not really convinient in Microsoft realization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2288" LastActivityDate="2012-12-01T07:37:18.123" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2012-12-01T17:06:31.223" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides Windows OS-included IME's, there's:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;搜狗 Sou Gou Pin Yin&lt;/strong&gt; is my favorite by far.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.sogou.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://pinyin.sogou.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can switch easily between simplified and traditional (if that matters to you), and you can download from several skins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pbGOl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;南極星 NJ Star&lt;/strong&gt; is one I used for a while: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.njstar.com/cms/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.njstar.com/cms/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9fnRW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Allows you to type in the tones (so you're forced to remember them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZymAi.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really don't think you need to look much further than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2012-12-01T17:06:31.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2543" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-03T20:30:35.563" Score="3" ViewCount="1154" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; This is now cross-posted to &lt;a href=&quot;https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/2936/benefits-of-learning-a-chinese-dialect-in-addition-to-standardized-mandarin&quot;&gt;linguistics&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Studies have shown that learning more than one language helps people of all ages learn each one of the languages. For a nice mainstream media piece on this, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; New York Times opinion article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The studies have focused on distinct languages, such as English and Spanish, but my question is whether there are relevant studies with regard to learning Mandarin and an additional Chinese dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize the aforelinked opinion piece, the &lt;strong&gt;previous paradigm&lt;/strong&gt; was the following: exposure to multiple languages presents us with cognitive challenges that interfere with our language learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;new paradigm&lt;/strong&gt; is that these cognitive challenges, rather than interfering with our language learning, force us to reconcile them in ways that are beneficial to learning each of the languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anecdotally, I have certainly found this to be the case as I learned Mandarin and Nanjing's dialect while living in the city of Nanjing for about 15 months. On an even smaller scale, I found my Spanish quickly improving while visiting Galicia, a region of Spain where a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galician_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;language&lt;/a&gt; closer to Portuguese is spoken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Re-stating my &lt;strong&gt;question&lt;/strong&gt; succinctly: are there studies on the learning outcomes for non-native Chinese speakers who learn Mandarin in conjunction with an additional Chinese dialect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, I would also welcome general feedback or comments concerning my question. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user2251" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:54:12.577" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:21:37.737" Title="Benefits of Learning a Chinese Dialect in Addition to Standardized Mandarin" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2543" CreationDate="2012-12-03T21:09:16.790" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I am not aware of any studies, I would add this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my own experience of trying to learn other dialects beyond Mandarin (Taiwanese, Cantonese), as well as simplified along with traditional characters, I'd tend to agree with the previous paradigm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that there is so much to learn in a single dialect that starting on another one would only get you to two &quot;good&quot; levels of a language, rather than one near-native level. I found that I was learning the same things in different dialects, but never really improving any one dialect beyond my current strongest (if that makes sense). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, unless you've already learned everything there is to know in your chosen dialect, or your preferences are to get to a certain level on mulitple dialects, I'd focus on one and make it awesome. Since you're a PhD student, I'm sure you can understand what I mean by &quot;focus&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, interesting study that you posted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2012-12-03T21:16:14.893" LastActivityDate="2012-12-03T21:16:14.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2528" CreationDate="2012-12-05T03:07:34.497" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both meanings are in use now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While President Hu reviews the People's Liberation Army in Hong Kong in June this year. He shouted 同志們好 and 同志們辛苦了. (Thanks for the hard work comrade!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Pride parade in Hong Kong last month. It is named 香港同志遊行. And artist HOCC came out by shouting 我係同志.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2319" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T03:07:34.497" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2517" CreationDate="2012-12-06T04:25:17.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;如果您能迁就的话...&#xA;如果您不嫌弃的话...&#xA;您能将就的话...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually we don't say '如果' in oral Chinese for this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T04:25:17.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2543" CreationDate="2012-12-06T04:53:58.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on your purpose of learning Chinese, it is a tool or a research.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning different dialects enables you learning the trend of Chinese pronunciation history. Also to quickly join local society, foreign people who speaks dialect is considered more friendly.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually standardized Mandarin (普通话) is a combination of dialects that are used by mainly Northern Chinese in Heibei and North eastern 3 provinces, originally. In theory learning the actual dialect in these area could help you memorize more synonyms. And in fact more and more words in the Northern Chinese dialect become popular all over China due to the official media tends to propagate Northern culture by accident. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there are benefits definitely, but I don't suggest you learn other regions dialect such as Sichuan dialect, Shanghai dialect etc. Because less and less people use them, and they are very difficult to handle in fact. Learning such will lead to no benefit except on Linguistics. And I do suggest you firstly learn Dongbei Hua(North-eastern Dialect, 东北话), since it is most similar with the original Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T04:53:58.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2517" CreationDate="2012-12-06T05:06:03.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't feel it is a native expression in Chinese. It probably is influenced from the western culture. On rare occasions I hear people use it, but it still feels strange as an oral phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2320" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T05:06:03.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2551" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2553" CreationDate="2012-12-06T22:09:29.147" Score="4" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a CCTV 9 show shot in Shanghai, a couple of people who were certainly speaking Putonghua have made comparisons and if I heard right they were pronouncing 比较 as &quot;biao.&quot; Am I wrong?  Is that a common contraction?  Is it typical of Shanghai? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="834" LastEditDate="2013-01-27T16:08:10.010" LastActivityDate="2013-01-28T09:03:08.617" Title="Pronunciation of 比较" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2551" CreationDate="2012-12-06T22:31:57.647" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;比较 pronounces 'bǐ jiào' in Putonghua not 'biao (表)' , I'm not from Shanghai I don't know if it's the same in their dialect， ‘biao' sounds like they were speaking Taiwan dialect or they just intended to speak in a nauseating way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T22:31:57.647" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2551" CreationDate="2012-12-07T04:11:46.547" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;When someone is speaking fast, or speaking casually, &lt;code&gt;bijiao&lt;/code&gt; may become something like &lt;code&gt;biao&lt;/code&gt;. The &lt;code&gt;i&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;bi&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;j&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;jiao&lt;/code&gt; are pronounced too weak to be heard. The first initial &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; and the last final &lt;code&gt;iao&lt;/code&gt; are left to form a &lt;code&gt;biao&lt;/code&gt;. However, this newly formed &lt;code&gt;biao&lt;/code&gt; is definitely different form the single syllable &lt;code&gt;biao&lt;/code&gt;. I'm not a linguist and cannot describe this difference in detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know in which area this usually happens. Native Chinese can &quot;correct&quot; this pronunciation variation automatically and may not even notice this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of weakening of sounds happens in every language. In Chinese, it may happen in a syllable or in a word, or even among a phrase. Usually, this kind of weakened syllables are auxiliary words which help construct the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is coarticulation which means that adjacent syllables would affect the pronunciation of each other, and they all sound differently from when they are pronounced alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting result of this is that if you cut out a single syllable from a spontaneous sentence, there is high probability that even natives cannot figure out what it is, although they would have no problem understanding the full sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-01-28T09:03:08.617" LastActivityDate="2013-01-28T09:03:08.617" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2554" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2558" CreationDate="2012-12-07T08:18:03.410" Score="6" ViewCount="488" Body="&lt;p&gt;Middle Chinese syllables with the shape CVP where C is a bilabial stop and P is a bilabial underwent dissimilation to CVF, where F = P[-labial]. For instance, Baxter's reconstruction of 法 is *pjop, 品 is *phim, and 凡 is *bjom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did this dissimilation only happen to syllables with &lt;em&gt;bilabial&lt;/em&gt; initials and codas, and not syllables with coronal or velar initials and codas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My pet theory is that they disappeared because they sound inherently funny. &lt;em&gt;(Only kidding.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="390" LastEditDate="2012-12-07T08:29:09.450" LastActivityDate="2013-04-10T07:47:43.753" Title="Dissimilation of bilabial finals following Middle Chinese (法, 品, 凡)" Tags="&lt;middle-chinese&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2537" CreationDate="2012-12-07T15:36:24.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To interprete this sentense, it means: &quot;when a general is outside, there are some orders can be ignored.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;structure of &quot;将在外&quot; is quite obvious. &quot;将&quot; refers to &quot;general&quot; which is the subject of the sentence. &quot;在外&quot; is an adjunct of the sentsence to tell the place. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The underline structure for &quot;军令有所不受&quot; is &quot;不受军令&quot;(&quot;no&quot; &quot;accept&quot; &quot;order&quot; ). &quot;所&quot; here is a marker which caused a movement of the complement of verb from the back to the front. Meanwhile, &quot;所&quot; here also played a role like a pronoun which coindex with &quot;军令&quot;（order）. Therefore we have &quot;有&quot;(have) in front of it to be its initial verb. Just like &quot;There have some orders that....&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1091" LastActivityDate="2012-12-07T15:36:24.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="763" CreationDate="2012-12-08T09:23:16.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;尽管 Can be used as adv. and conjunction in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it is an adv..it's different from 虽然. It means without constrains, can do something freely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eg.  你有什么困难尽管对我说。(just tell me, if you have any problem.)&#xA;     你尽管来吧。（just come)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it is an conjunction, it functions like 虽然。and most time it is ok to substitute one with the other.But,in my opinion they have little different in pragmatic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然 leads a turning clause. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他虽然身体不好，可是仍然坚持工作。in this sentence, &quot;身体不好＂should be the old information,and &quot;坚持工作＂should be the new information.&#xA;----he got sick these day,right? So pity..&#xA;----yes, 他虽然身体不好，可是仍然坚持工作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽管 leads a concessive clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他尽管身体不好，可是仍然坚持工作 in this sentence, &quot;坚持工作&quot; should be the old information,and &quot;身体不好 &quot;should be the new information.&#xA;----I heard that he is workaholic.&#xA;----yes, 他尽管身体不好，可是仍然坚持工作。&#xA;Coz here we may say 他还是会坚持工作的，尽管他身体不好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1091" LastActivityDate="2012-12-08T09:23:16.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="763" CreationDate="2012-12-08T17:17:36.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to keep it simple...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMO, it's extremely helpful to understand the meaning of each character in a phrase, rather than just the phrase itself. This will help you break down the meanings of characters, and will help your understanding of subtle differences, as you're asking here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So... Taking an excerpt from gonnastop's post:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Thus, when you are expressing strong personal opinion, 尽管 is a better choice.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at what 尽 means... it means &quot;strong, utmost, to the end, exhaust&quot;. And, 管 means to &quot;take care of, to care about&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can conclude that a phrase with the word 尽 would most likely be a stronger version of that phrase. This can help you think about the individual meanings of characters, and explain these nuances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I give another similar example in my post here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2459/difference-between-%E6%9C%80%E9%AB%98%E9%A2%86%E5%AF%BC%E4%BA%BA-and-%E4%B8%BB%E8%A6%81%E9%A2%86%E5%AF%BC%E4%BA%BA%E4%B9%8B%E4%B8%80/2487#2487&quot;&gt;Difference between 最高领导人 and 主要领导人之一?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-12-08T17:17:36.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2554" CreationDate="2012-12-09T02:33:34.790" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not just Cantonese. In Taiwanese Minnan (which does also preserve the labial final -m, usually), the finals of 法、凡、品 have also become alveolar. Also, most Hakka varieties have made the final of 品 alveolar too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phenomenon is examined in p.258 under &quot;Long-distance C..C effects&quot;, in the chapter on &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=Ffb0w64nI0cC&amp;amp;lpg=PP1&amp;amp;pg=PA251&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Consonant-vowel interaction in Cantonese&quot; by Moira Yip&lt;/a&gt;, part of collection of papers published in &lt;em&gt;Studies in Chinese Phonology&lt;/em&gt; (1997) ed. Wang Jialing. There, it is argued that it is evidence of consonant-vowel segregation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Labial dissimilation is among the features of Cantonese investigated in &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=QWNj5Yj6_CgC&amp;amp;lpg=PP1&amp;amp;pg=PA406&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;part 6 &quot;Cantonese syllabary&quot; of chapter 3 &quot;Cantonese syllables and words&quot; of &lt;em&gt;Modern Cantonese Phonology&lt;/em&gt; (1997) by Bauer &amp;amp; Benedict.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This labial dissimilation in Cantonese affects vowels and labialised velar consonants (e.g. /w/, /kʷ/) too: the front rounded vowels /yː/, /œː/, /ɵy/ are disallowed after labial or labialised consonants as well as before final labial consonants; /ɔː/ and /uː/ also tend to be disallowed before final labial consonants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it labial dissimilation, and not coronal or dorsal dissimilation? There is acutally some indication that coronal dissimilation is happening between the vowel and final consonant in loanwords into Hong Kong Cantonese, e.g. with /ɔːn/ and /ɔːt/ becoming /ɔːŋ/ and /ɔːk/ respectively. There is already an exclusion of front non-high vowel (/ei/, /ɛː/, /œː/) and of mid /ou/ pairing with a labial or coronal coda consonant; this points to an emerging injunction of mid vowels in general being paired with coronal consonants, i.e. coronal dissimilation. The injunction of high vowels with dorsal consonants isn't quite what one would see as dorsal dissimilation though. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/kenstowicz/cantoneseloanwords.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this paper&lt;/a&gt; for further details from these English-based loanwords.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, labial dissimilation far outweighs coronal and dorsal. &lt;a href=&quot;http://naccl.osu.edu/sites/naccl.osu.edu/files/23%20hsieh.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This paper&lt;/a&gt; argues, based mainly on data from Taiwanese Minnan, that it is not principally markedness that motivates the rime phonotactics, but the phonetics of having unreleased final stops. The difference between vowels in their vowel-consonant transition is the reason why some need not dissimilate; they may diphthongise (adding an excrescent schwa in Taiwanese Minnan), change vowel quality, or even neutralise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That explanation of course raises the following question: Why in Middle Chinese do all those syllables with labial initials and labial finals also have front vowels or front medials? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2013-04-10T07:47:43.753" LastActivityDate="2013-04-10T07:47:43.753" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="763" CreationDate="2012-12-09T03:42:19.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Concessive clauses belong to a category of contrast clauses. They usually denote some obstacle which does not prevent the fulfilment of an action expressed in the main clause. The first word that introduces the contrast clause is called a subordinator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 尽管 and 虽然 (in the context of the question asked) are concessive subordinators or subordinating conjunctions possessing the English meaning of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;even though&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; and &quot;&lt;strong&gt;although&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; respectively. To answer the question, 尽管 (or even though) is &lt;em&gt;emphatic&lt;/em&gt; while 虽然 (although) is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following examples show clearly the distinction between the two words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;尽管世贸中心大楼即将倒塌，消防员继续搜寻受困火海的灾民。&lt;br&gt; Even though the WTC tower is about to&#xA;  collapse, the firemen continue to search for trapped victims in the&#xA;  inferno.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Here, 尽管 is used to highlight to readers the &lt;em&gt;extraordinary&lt;/em&gt; risk that the firemen faced.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然下起毛毛细雨，但他还是出去跑步。&lt;br&gt; Although it is drizzling, he still went out for&#xA;  a jog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Here, 虽然 is used because the obstacle is certainly not something out of the ordinary and does not need emphasizing.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-12-09T03:42:19.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2560" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2563" CreationDate="2012-12-09T05:51:26.207" Score="5" ViewCount="608" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just saw a friend's profile saying: &lt;em&gt;Not a geek, but like a geek&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somehow I immediately translated it as 不是geek胜似geek. But it seems not right since &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that 不是geek胜似geek is much semantically richer than the original English version. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, I wonder how to translate 不是geek胜似geek into English so that it makes more sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2012-12-17T03:02:04.080" Title="How can we translate 不是……胜似 into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2560" CreationDate="2012-12-09T11:50:26.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would you like &quot;not a geek, but &lt;strong&gt;beyond&lt;/strong&gt; a geek&quot;?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are something more that I have referred to:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;prep.&#xA;  超过； 越过； 那一边； 在…较远的一边&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  adv.&#xA;  在远处； 在更远处&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  n.&#xA;  远处&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/search?s=beyond&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is what it comes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;PREP 影响；涵盖；包括 If something extends beyond a particular thing, it affects or includes other things.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;His interests extended beyond the fine arts to international politics and philosophy.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他兴趣广泛，涵盖了从美术到国际政治乃至哲学的各个领域。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the question, though it is said, I still care about if &quot;&lt;em&gt;beyond a geek&lt;/em&gt;&quot; will be ambiguous... Would someone like to tell me how you comprehend if you are natively speaking English? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;added on 12Y12M16D&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I want to note you all is, &quot;不是&quot;(pronounced bu2 shi4, means &quot;be not&quot;) is absolutely different from &quot;不似&quot;(pronounced bu2 si4, means &quot;not familiar to&quot;,&quot;be not like&quot;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And the non-poetic translation of the sentence &quot;&lt;code&gt;不是geek胜似geek&lt;/code&gt;&quot; can be &quot;&lt;code&gt;(He who) is not a geek is better than a geek&lt;/code&gt;&quot; Make attention that in fact the man/woman is not a geek, so @QuestionOverflow and @Jun1st is quite right...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the same reason what @Huang said:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;Both of them are correct to me, and the difference comes from the difference between &quot;是&quot;(to be) and &quot;似&quot;(to be like, similar to), so let's focus on the &quot;胜似&quot;。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;can be regarded as fault.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what @JohnSiu said:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;First half of the sentence A Better geek, is still referring to a geek. But when you combine with the second half of the sentence than Geek, which use geek in a more general sense, give you a feeling of Better Geek is something other than a geek. That seems to reflect the Chinese meaning better.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;is doubtful.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(btw: I likes your translation of Chairman Mao's poem ^ω^)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2012-12-16T08:41:37.943" LastActivityDate="2012-12-16T08:41:37.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2560" CreationDate="2012-12-09T14:42:32.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, there are two versions related to this pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不是X，胜似X&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不似X，胜似X&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of them are correct to me, and the difference comes from the difference between &amp;quot;是&amp;quot;(&lt;i&gt;to be&lt;/i&gt;) and &amp;quot;似&amp;quot;(&lt;i&gt;to be like, similar to&lt;/i&gt;), so let's focus on the &amp;quot;胜似&amp;quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;胜 means &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;to be better than&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, you use this pattern in a context with comparison, to express&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;something isn't(or isn't like) X, but better(bigger, more,etc. depending on the context) than X.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不似春光，胜似春光，寥廓江天万里霜。 A famous verse from 《采桑子·重阳》by Mao Zedong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;It(the scene) isn't like the scene in Spring&lt;/i&gt;(that poem was written in Autumn),&lt;i&gt;but more beautiful than that; &lt;/i&gt;   Sorry that I can't come up with the translation of the last sentence...&#xA;他们不是亲人，胜似亲人。&#xA;&lt;i&gt;They are not related by blood, but they are more intimate than people related by blood.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-12-09T15:09:19.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2560" CreationDate="2012-12-09T17:03:14.617" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer &quot;Not a geek, but more than a geek&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example, This man has profound knowledge of ancient China. he is not a professor, but I think he is more than a professor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2328" LastActivityDate="2012-12-09T17:03:14.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2560" CreationDate="2012-12-09T20:26:08.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I propose &quot;not &lt;em&gt;merely&lt;/em&gt; a geek&quot; or perhaps &quot;not &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; a geek...&quot; (the implication being that 胜似geek in the context the OP cites suggests transcending the status of geek, not opposition to it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2329" LastActivityDate="2012-12-09T20:26:08.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2565" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2567" CreationDate="2012-12-10T15:25:16.270" Score="5" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently attended a brief introductory workshop about calligraphy at a Confucius Institute. The instructor, who also teaches at the local university and is both a calligrapher and painter from China, pointed out the calming, almost meditative effect of exercising the art form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the perspective of my own very limited experience I do agree. I liked both the Tang poetry that served as templates and the visual aesthetics of the resulting calligraphy (esp. the teacher's work). One thing that appeared to be typical was an approx. 5  x 5 matrix arrangements (one matrix, or two next to each other) of the Chinese characters in the poems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my question: if I tried some more calligraphy of my own (and I might, because of the enjoyable experience and because it would help this beginning student of Chinese to internalize the written characters) I would chose Confuicius' &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Confucius#Chapter_II&quot;&gt;At fifteen&lt;/a&gt; my heart was set on learning ..&quot; (吾十有五而志於學，三十而立，四十而不惑，五十而知天命，六十而耳順，七十而从心所欲，不逾矩。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's apparently not 5 x 5, but rather 8 + 4 + 5 + ..., it's not from a poem, and it's considerably older than Tang poetry, but is there still also a traditionally right way to present it on a single sheet of paper (e.g. in the context of calligraphy)? How would that appear?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2333" LastEditorUserId="2333" LastEditDate="2012-12-10T18:28:38.630" LastActivityDate="2012-12-10T18:30:35.980" Title="Character layout in calligraphy e.g. with respect to a quotation from Confucius" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2532" CreationDate="2012-12-10T17:29:57.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;先生 has a very long history in Chinese. it refers to different kinds of people during its development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the very beginning, it refers to fathers or brothers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《论语·为政》：“有酒食，先生馔。”注解说：“先生，父兄也。”意思是有酒肴，就孝敬了父兄。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another semantics is for knowledgeably elders &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《孟子》：“先生何为出此言也。”这一“先生”是指长辈而有学问的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From knowledgeable elders, it derives to an address for teachers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;始见于《曲礼》：“从于先生，不越礼而与人言。”注：“先生，老人教学者。”今称教师为“先生”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since in ancient China, most teachers are male, and have a comparatively higher social status. They are respectable. So on one hand, 先生 is used by wives to address their husbands to show respect and formality, which later also became a respective address for men in public instead of only between wives and husband.For example we would address &quot;王先生&quot;， “李先生” to indicate that he is a men and his family name is &quot;王&quot;and &quot;李&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hands, 先生became an address for people who are respectable and have a high social status. In this case, a woman who is highly respectable and knowledgeable can also be addressed by 先生. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如宋庆龄、杨绛、冰心、丁玲、叶曼、许广平等均可称为先生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1091" LastActivityDate="2012-12-10T17:29:57.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2565" CreationDate="2012-12-10T18:30:35.980" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks there are quite a bit of concepts in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tang poetry. Typical Tang poetry style is 5x4 or 7x4, with a bit more variations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Layout of Chinese calligraphy. It's not necessarily 5x5. Don't be limited to that. Any size is okay. The typical layout is top to down, and right to left. For the layout of your mentioned Confucius, just write it as this layout with same characters in each column, without punctuations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Best script for starter. The &quot;calm&quot; effect comes mostly from &quot;Regular scripts&quot;, which is recommended for beginner, even for experienced ones.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Recommended process. I suggest you to copy 颜体（颜真卿）from the beginning, instead of writing your own. This is the most famous and respected Regular scripts. But I'm not a calligrapher. The teacher may has better and more specific recommendations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2280" LastActivityDate="2012-12-10T18:30:35.980" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2568" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2615" CreationDate="2012-12-11T16:52:21.550" Score="11" ViewCount="2649" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the gramatical difference between 光 and 只?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;光剩下2毛钱 does not have the same meaning/context as 只剩下2毛钱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems there is more emphasis to the part that comes after 光. When is the right time to use one over the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2013-01-09T01:36:22.227" Title="What is the difference between using 光 vs using 只?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2568" CreationDate="2012-12-11T16:52:21.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've consulted my cousin who lives and studied in China, here is a summary of his response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally, 光 was used to describe the brightness of flames. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it can also be used to describe the barren, emptiness of something (空). If a place is described 明亮透彻无遮挡 (brightness penetrates undeterred), it is the equivalent of saying that it is  无物的开放空间 (an expanse of empty space), allowing the light to penetrate undeterred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;光头 refers to a bald (barren) head. 钱包的钱花光了 refers to 钱包空了 (empty wallet)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只 is a quantifier that is similar in meaning to 独 (single/solitary/independent). It's said that original character depicts a solitary bird on one hand (单手持一只鸟, a pair would be 双手并持一对鸟).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore if you say 口袋里光剩下2毛钱，it implies that 2毛钱 is the only thing you have in your pocket. However, if you say 口袋里只剩下2毛钱，there might be other things inside your pocket besides 2毛钱, such as candy or a phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2012-12-11T16:52:21.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2568" CreationDate="2012-12-11T18:41:22.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, the difference is quite subtle, but the way I've used them are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只: &quot;only, just&quot;. I think this is more of an objective description of what you have. You can use it to objectively state your situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我只有一块钱 = I just have a dollar&#xA;我只是不明白你的意思 = It's just that I don't understand what you mean.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;光: &quot;only, empty&quot;. I think this has a stronger, more expressive meaning of one's situation. I suppose you can use it for emphasis on your situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我光有一块钱 = I *only* have a dollar &#xA;我把钱花光了= I've spent *all* of my money&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2012-12-11T18:41:22.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="169" CreationDate="2012-12-11T22:13:54.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a great system that has been created to do Cantonese Romanization to Traditional or Simplified Characters input, it is a program called NJ Star Chinese Word Processor. You can change the language to Cantonese Romanization and the output to either Traditional or Simplified and then write in the romanization and it will give you character options to choose from. The program is free and can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.njstar.com/cms/njstar-chinese-word-processor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and is a great help to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I havent found a character that I need that I cannot find in there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2336" LastActivityDate="2012-12-11T22:13:54.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1013" CreationDate="2012-12-12T05:32:30.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you get &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.perapera.org/PeraPera&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PeraPeraKun&lt;/a&gt; plugin (avail for Chrome and FireFox) it gives you the meanings of all of these idioms on hover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x6zMN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2012-12-12T05:32:30.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2573" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2575" CreationDate="2012-12-12T06:58:52.710" Score="6" ViewCount="558" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does the drop in &lt;code&gt;一、&lt;/code&gt; mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/41gLs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastEditorUserId="28" LastEditDate="2012-12-13T01:50:43.687" LastActivityDate="2012-12-13T15:28:53.080" Title="一、 marker meaning? Ordinal number?" Tags="&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2573" CreationDate="2012-12-12T07:26:29.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a comma, and it serves the same purpose as a colon in English. Somewhere further down in this lesson you'll see a 二 with a similar comma, followed by a heading, maybe 词汇. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2335" LastActivityDate="2012-12-12T07:26:29.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2573" CreationDate="2012-12-12T08:27:47.710" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It'a punctuation, which does not exist in English, and I don't know its English name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese it's called &lt;code&gt;顿号&lt;/code&gt; (dun4 hao4). It is usually used between listing of things (or verb, or adjectives ... I don't know the grammar term, who can help me please edit the post):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;屋子里有桌子、椅子、凳子。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually in English, comma would be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, it is just used a symbol separating the listing number and the title, which is not related to the use I mentioned above. This is common when Chinese numbers are used. The punctuation itself does not carry actual meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-12-12T08:27:47.710" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2576" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2578" CreationDate="2012-12-12T14:07:10.113" Score="10" ViewCount="4998" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 合适 and 适合 mean to fit/to suit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the grammatical form needed for each one is different:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这个情况下，你在穿的衣服就不合适。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在找一个适合我的女孩子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside of that, I have been told they cannot be used interchangeably but depending on the context either only one or the other may be used. Is that correct? How to know when to use each one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question refers only to the semantic context each of them is used in, not to the grammar itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="144" LastActivityDate="2012-12-14T00:03:46.223" Title="Difference between 合适 and 适合" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2577" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2584" CreationDate="2012-12-12T15:01:48.583" Score="6" ViewCount="1791" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to decide whether it would be better to use traditional or simplified characters for an iPhone game I'm making. If something is written in traditional, how many people will be able to read it? If something is written in simplified, how many people will be able to read it? From my research it seems most people can read simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2338" LastEditorUserId="2257" LastEditDate="2012-12-14T00:25:26.103" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T13:12:18.067" Title="What are the relative literacy rates in for simplified and traditional characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2576" CreationDate="2012-12-12T15:26:59.777" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The biggest differences between the two are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;合适 is an adjective while 适合 is a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;合适 can be used as an attributive modifier. E.g., 合适的机会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;适合 cannot. I.e., you cannot say 适合的工作&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2012-12-12T15:26:59.777" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2576" CreationDate="2012-12-12T15:37:14.103" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I've heard it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;适合: shi4 he2 is a verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;那件衬衫适合你. That shirt suits you!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;合适: he2 shi4 is an adj.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;那是一件很合适的衬衫. That is a very suitable shirt!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you are correct... they shouldn't be used interchangeably &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2012-12-12T15:37:14.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2580" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-12T15:53:46.687" Score="4" ViewCount="935" Body="&lt;p&gt;Title says it all, should I have my text using a variable width font, or fixed width. I didn't know if it is easier to read if its aligned on a grid?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here is my dialog with fixed width, one issue is where the space is, since its half the width of the characters it unalignes the remaining characters on the row, same for numbers in the text, should I not worry about this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/x6nJA.png&quot; alt=&quot;dialog with fixed width&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the text is a google translation and may not be correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2338" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-02-03T10:30:41.087" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T04:46:52.510" Title="Should Chinese text be grid aligned in game dialogs?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2577" CreationDate="2012-12-12T16:07:54.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct. Most people read simplified with the exception of Taiwan and HK (although, they can read it too).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2012-12-12T16:07:54.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2580" CreationDate="2012-12-12T16:40:07.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are full width unicode spaces and punctuation (which take up the same width as any other character). I recommend you use them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/3000/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;U+3000&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-12-12T16:40:07.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2580" CreationDate="2012-12-12T17:23:27.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You do not need to use a space after a period (or any other punctuation) in Chinese, and as a matter of fact you shouldn't for this very reason. If you need to use a space for another reason, Stumpy Joe Pete's answer is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2257" LastActivityDate="2012-12-12T17:23:27.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2577" CreationDate="2012-12-12T17:29:00.100" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;More people can read simplified than traditional, by a significant margin. There are roughly 1.3 billion people mainland China where simplified has been the standard since the 50s and 60s. Taiwan and Hong Kong, the three places traditional is the standard, total about 32 million between them (23 million in the Taiwan/ROC, 7 million in Hong Kong, 2 million in Macau). There are a lot of people from mainland China and Chinese outside of countries where Chinese in the primary language who can also read traditional, but I have no clue on the numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most people can get by more or less when reading the other character set because there are a lot of very standard substitutions. It is however easier to read simplified if you only know traditional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example substitutions (some standard ones):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;妈 马 语 诚 给 纽 约&lt;br&gt;&#xA;媽 馬 語 誠 給 紐 約&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(and some random ones):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;龟 龙&lt;br&gt;&#xA;龜 龍&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tools to convert between the two are readily available, although, as Ironfrost points out, these tools have a lot of problems with some of the 1:many conversion choices. Look at his comments below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/zh-TW/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/zh-TW/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.com/#zh-TW/zh-CH/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://translate.google.com/#zh-TW/zh-CH/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2257" LastEditorUserId="2257" LastEditDate="2013-01-11T15:27:28.080" LastActivityDate="2013-01-11T15:27:28.080" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2576" CreationDate="2012-12-12T18:50:09.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;OP, look at it this way, I feel that typically &quot;适合&quot; has a bit of a verb meaning, having a &quot;适&quot;. I feel that this statement is the equivalent to a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regards to your first two statements, the first one works fine with &quot;适合&quot;, but the second one, if you say &quot;我在找一个合适我的女孩&quot; (~I am looking for a girlfriend that I find suitable) is passable in colloquial speech, though it might stand out awkwardly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former is more like an adjective.Notice its &quot;适&quot; after &quot;合&quot;,Chinese expression(“适合” and &quot;合适&quot;are two Chinese expression) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For us the second word is like a “助词”(auxiliary word and it's like a modal particle) at least for me,so the sencond word has no means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a habit when you express  emotion or something use a expression with at least two similar word together that the real meaning of this Chinese expression only with the first word（sometimes it maybe the others,it depends the situation and your comprehension）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For convenient,you only need to think the first word “合” or &quot;适&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;合&quot; in these expressions is a adjective, when you use it in expression most of the time it&#xA;is a adjective,so think what adjective used for will help you understand it.(It also has mean of verb but you need not to know this time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I feel that the 适 in the latter can sometimes have the meaning of a verb. (Looking for what they have discussed in the second hyperlink they also get confused about these word now and then)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/368030966.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This is a Baidu discussion of the two&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/368030966.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This is another form discussion on the differences between the two from Baidu Post Bar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps you. Chinese is a language you have to pay close attention to ponder its meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;楼主，是这样的，我感觉一般&quot;适合&quot;有点动词意味，有一个&quot;适&quot;字，这个词我觉得相当于是个动词，就你那两句而言，第一句用适合也是可以的，但是第二句，就感觉而言如果你说“我在找一个合适我的女孩”这样口语也说的过去，就是显的有些别扭。前者更像一个形容词，后者的&quot;适&quot;我感觉有时候做动词意义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文有的时候有两个意义相近的词表示一个意思，这个时候第二词更像是一个虚的(没有实际意义)，注意其中一个词的意思即可，一般来说第一个为真正本意的概率大一些(当然，其他情况也是有的)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以这里你注意两个词组的第一个词即可.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/368030966.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;这是百度关于二者区别的一个连接&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1995411411&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;这是某贴吧的讨论&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望对你有帮助，中文更讲究一个语境和形义思维。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2340" LastEditorUserId="2340" LastEditDate="2012-12-14T00:03:46.223" LastActivityDate="2012-12-14T00:03:46.223" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1013" CreationDate="2012-12-12T19:00:40.207" Score="-1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;gas and gaiters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;everything is just fine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A idiomatic usage to show you hope everyone will be fine  or send a congratulation messages to others when Lunar New Year come. It often comes like &quot;祝各位新的一年心想事成，万事大吉&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's congratulatory speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2340" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2012-12-24T12:45:14.217" LastActivityDate="2012-12-24T12:45:14.217" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2580" CreationDate="2012-12-13T00:50:06.083" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, we don't care if it is grid aligned or not. And even in fonts that are not fixed-width, the Chinese characters usually have the same width.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make it to look better, it is better to make the right boundary a straight line, not zigzaged. If you find it hard to achieve, then just leave it as it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some punctuation marks, such as commas (，), periods (。), question marks (？), etc. do not appear at the beginning of a sentence, and can stick out of the right boundary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we use full-width punctuation, not the half-width counterpart. And we don't include spaces in sentences. If English is mixed in the text, half-width spaces are usually used to separate English words (not between English word and Chinese characters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Microsoft Word, there is a list of punctuation that should not start line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;!%),.:;&amp;gt;?]}¢¨°·ˇˉ―‖’”…‰′″›℃∶、。〃〉》」』】〕〗〞︶︺︾﹀﹄﹚﹜﹞！＂％＇），．：；？］｀｜｝～￠&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there is also a list punctuations that should not end a line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$([{£¥·‘“〈《「『【〔〖〝﹙﹛﹝＄（．［｛￡￥&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="2883" LastEditDate="2013-06-18T01:47:37.043" LastActivityDate="2013-06-18T01:47:37.043" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2573" CreationDate="2012-12-13T06:34:17.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a number with a Comma(顿号 in Chinese) and often appears in normal report or the text book for Chinese or something have relationship with social sciences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;一.课文&quot; is better. If you wirite it as “一 课文” is OK either.Maybe the editor stress the legitimacy of Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The comma dùn hào(顿号) is often used express pause between two word or among many word.The pause by comma is shorter than the comma  dòu hào（逗号）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like this 我喜欢足球、篮球、乒乓球、保龄球等。(I like playing football、basketball、pingpang、bowling and so on)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it's only a symbol to make the text look more normal. It appear sometimes in Chinese book.In other books like mathematic book or chemistry (science or engineering ) book we use 《.》 or not use a symbol more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2340" LastEditorUserId="2340" LastEditDate="2012-12-13T07:44:59.440" LastActivityDate="2012-12-13T07:44:59.440" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2573" CreationDate="2012-12-13T15:28:53.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While we're on this topic, you should also get used to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《》 are equivalent title marks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那部电影的名字是《红高粱》: The title of that movie is Hong Gao Liang (Red Sorghum).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;『...』 are quotation marks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're reading verticle text, use this as quotation marks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;﹁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&#xA;.&#xA;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;﹂ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2012-12-13T15:28:53.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2576" CreationDate="2012-12-13T20:43:30.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two cents here,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be safe, always use 适合 + 我/你...，比如说适合我，适合你，适合他，适合妈妈，适合爸爸，适合弟弟，适合妹妹，适合某某某…… 适合后面必有介词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;合适作为形容词，修饰名词的时候，会加上“的”字，合适的人，合适的衣服，合适的女朋友，合适的话，合适的场景。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;合适也常出现在一句话的尾部，比如说，“这个电脑合适”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;合适在生活口语中，常常之前加上其它修饰副词，例如，真合适，太合适了，十分合适，极其合适，超合适 ……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: 附带一个成语——“正合我意”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, when someone propose to go to a restaurant to do lunch, and you like the idea, and you could exclaim with &quot;正合我意&quot;，or “正中下怀”！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="684" LastEditorUserId="684" LastEditDate="2012-12-13T20:48:42.850" LastActivityDate="2012-12-13T20:48:42.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2580" CreationDate="2012-12-15T21:58:53.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than what others have already said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No extra space after period /full stop (。)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use full-width punctuation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also need proper line spacing and paragraph spacing, as Chinese can be read left to right or top down. In many case (eg. newspaper), there is no paragraph spacing, but the first line of each paragraph is indent with 2 full-width character space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use top-down flow, punctuation that is center to the character field should be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastActivityDate="2012-12-15T21:58:53.640" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2560" CreationDate="2012-12-15T22:50:47.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When we try to translate between different languages, we should not try to go word by word. Though sometimes it is possible, correct, or even the only way. But usually only for short senstance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OP friend's profile&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Not a geek, but like a geek&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is very close to, or very acceptable translation of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;不是geek胜似geek&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will also try follow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A Better Geek than Geek&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First half of the sentence &lt;strong&gt;A Better geek&lt;/strong&gt;, is still referring to a &lt;strong&gt;geek&lt;/strong&gt;. But when you combine with the second half of the sentence &lt;strong&gt;than Geek&lt;/strong&gt;, which use &lt;em&gt;geek&lt;/em&gt; in a more general sense, give you a feeling of &lt;strong&gt;Better Geek&lt;/strong&gt; is something other than a geek. That seems to reflect the Chinese meaning better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Referring to &lt;strong&gt;cuter44&lt;/strong&gt; post, I will try translating&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;不似春光，胜似春光，寥廓江天万里霜&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A Better Spring than Spring&#xA;  Lonely Fortress&#xA;    Shiny River&#xA;      A Frozen World&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="2263" LastEditDate="2012-12-16T07:51:39.587" LastActivityDate="2012-12-16T07:51:39.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2596" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2597" CreationDate="2012-12-16T01:59:33.663" Score="-2" ViewCount="553" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Possible Duplicate:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2577/what-are-the-relative-literacy-rates-in-for-simplified-and-traditional-character&quot;&gt;What are the relative literacy rates in for simplified and traditional characters?&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just wondering what language to use in game menus, buttons, and settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2348" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-12-16T07:28:07.793" Title="What written language is more commonly used for video games in China?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2012-12-16T15:08:20.193" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2012-12-16T04:51:17.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is probably you'd better prepare 2 versions of translation for the game menus/buttons to better sell your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, either Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese is OK, since most of the case you could use a locale converter such as AppLocale under windows to convert different encodes. But if the game cannot use such tools, better prepare 2 versions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the Classical Chinese, it depends on your game type, if it's an RPG, maybe some of the poem/idiom can be translated to Classical Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2012-12-16T04:51:17.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2012-12-16T07:28:07.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are asking about China only, then it is Simplified Chinese(SC).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of main-land China us SC, except Hong Kong, which use Traditional Chinese(TC).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taiwan (if you consider it part of China now) also use TC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2011 Population (&lt;a href=&quot;http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?cid=GPD_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Worldbank.org&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;China 1344M&#xA;HK       7M&#xA;Taiwan  23M&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastActivityDate="2012-12-16T07:28:07.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2532" CreationDate="2012-12-16T07:50:35.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In current day, the only situation you would address a lady as 先生 is if she is a teacher, which is inter-changeable with 老師.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先生 in such case means teacher only. It does not mean Male/Mister.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 李先生 = 李老師, regardless 李 is male or female.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is mainly being used this way in school(kindergartner to high school) or a teaching environment, by student addressing teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;教授(professor) is used for addressing university teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The common practice nowadays to formally addressing or introduce a lady, are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;last name or full name follow by 女士/夫人(for married woman)&#xA;last name or full name follow by title/position&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 先生 is common way use to address a male person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="2263" LastEditDate="2012-12-16T08:43:27.047" LastActivityDate="2012-12-16T08:43:27.047" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2580" CreationDate="2012-12-16T13:19:34.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese person in the Gaming business, I don't think you need to worry about this. Check this design:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RXV04.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;A very successful Chinese web-RPG game&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2013-02-03T12:13:04.937" LastActivityDate="2013-02-03T12:13:04.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2560" CreationDate="2012-12-17T03:02:04.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;John Siu makes an excellent point about not translating word for word.  Still, it's hard to avoid the parallel clauses in the structure.  A liberal translation, probably a bit too liberal, might take advantage of the thing being compared in the 不是......胜似 context. In this case, the comparison is of &lt;em&gt;geeks&lt;/em&gt;, so perhaps a geek phrase for &quot;beyond compare&quot; could work, so that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他不是极客胜似极客&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;could be expressed as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He's not just a geek, he's a level ω geek&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously that is not literal and only works in this context.  But any translation that expresses &quot;transcending comparison&quot; is already at the edge. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="74" LastActivityDate="2012-12-17T03:02:04.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2602" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2604" CreationDate="2012-12-17T13:16:50.530" Score="4" ViewCount="2878" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to learn the Chongqing dialect or chongqinghua. If anyone can help me to find resources like phrasebooks, differences with putonghua, or any article on this topic, I would be thankful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2354" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:21:51.767" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:21:51.767" Title="Are there online resources for learning the Chongqing dialect?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2602" CreationDate="2012-12-17T20:50:16.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This resource recommends learning Mandarin first, and then learning Chongqinghua using Mandarin. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/35629-resources-for-learning-chongqinghua/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/35629-resources-for-learning-chongqinghua/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This post claims it's almost identical to Mandarin with different tones and the trend is for it to be rolled into Mandarin since it's so similar already. &lt;a href=&quot;http://matthewsoren.blogspot.com/2009/06/chongqinghua-chongqing-dialect.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://matthewsoren.blogspot.com/2009/06/chongqinghua-chongqing-dialect.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then Google stops giving interesting results. It seems like given it's intense similarities to Mandarin and obscurity in the west, your best bet to study it is actually to study it using Mandarin as a basis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2257" LastActivityDate="2012-12-17T20:50:16.783" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2602" CreationDate="2012-12-18T02:34:18.400" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a form of Southwestern Mandarin, you can approach the Chongqing dialect with resources designed for Sichuanese in general. The English Wikipedia gives a lot of resources on &quot;Si&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt;cuan&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;hua&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt;&quot;, including a good overview of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuanese_Mandarin#Phonology&quot;&gt;phonology&lt;/a&gt;, and a introduction to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuanese_Pinyin&quot;&gt;Sichuanese Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;. The Chinese Wikipedia gives a little more detail on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%90%E6%B8%9D%E8%AF%9D&quot;&gt;Chengdu-Chongqing dialect&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for books, most will naturally be in Chinese. In English, there is the Lonely Planet China Phrasebook, which includes Sichuanese, but with a very idiosyncratic romanisation. Otherwise, there are only academic papers (e.g. Malmqvist's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B007VR8EHQ&quot;&gt;Syntax of Bound Forms in Sïch'uanese&lt;/a&gt;), although there are quite a few that mention Sichuanese or one of its constituent topolects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of the free papers that I was able to find in Chinese, there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://xbbjb.swu.cn/wkxb/2005/3/2005-3-177.pdf&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; on the evolution of the checked tone from Middle Chinese through early Southwestern Mandarin to the modern Chongqing dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are naturally quite a few books about Sichuanese and the Chongqing dialect in Chinese, among them the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.worldcat.org/title/si-chuan-fang-yan-ci-yu-kao-shi/oclc/301957977&quot;&gt;四川方言詞語考釋&lt;/a&gt; (ISBN: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openisbn.com/isbn/7806593713/&quot;&gt;7806593713&lt;/a&gt;), the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.worldcat.org/title/sichuan-fang-yan-ci-hui-yan-jiu/oclc/662405345&quot;&gt;四川方言词汇研究&lt;/a&gt; (ISBN: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openisbn.com/isbn/7500488165/&quot;&gt;7500488165&lt;/a&gt;), both about vocabulary; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.worldcat.org/title/sichuan-fang-yan-yu-pu-tong-hua/oclc/15397979&quot;&gt;四川方言与普通话&lt;/a&gt; (ISBN unknown; published 1982) compares it to Standard Mandarin. Sichuanese-to-Chinese dictionaries include &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=p-C6AAAAIAAJ&quot;&gt;this one from 1987&lt;/a&gt;; there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.worldcat.org/title/chongqing-fangyan-cidian/oclc/669317299&quot;&gt;one for the Chongqing dialect&lt;/a&gt; in particular (ISBN: 7562113378, apparently); also, one for the related Chengdu dialect from 1998, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.worldcat.org/title/cheng-du-fang-yan-ci-dian/oclc/298159551&quot;&gt;成都方言词典&lt;/a&gt; (ISBN: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/7534334209&quot;&gt;7534334209&lt;/a&gt; apparently), was one of the rather epic 现代汉语方言大词典 series. There is also a course, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.worldcat.org/title/sichuan-fang-yan-hui-tong/oclc/298408251&quot;&gt;四川方言会通&lt;/a&gt; (ISBN: &lt;a href=&quot;http://openisbn.com/isbn/7807521880/&quot;&gt;7807521880&lt;/a&gt;), apparently published in 2008.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elsewhere on the Internet, there are quite a few websites in English based on Chengdu Sichuanese rather than Chongqing Sichuanese. Among them, this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.npr.org/blogs/chengdu/2008/04/sichuan_accent.html&quot;&gt;Chengdu diary&lt;/a&gt; has an entry concentrating on dialect; there are a few guides to the phonology on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gochengdoo.com/en/blog/item/2380/sichuanhua_speaking_mandarin_with_a_southwestern_accent&quot;&gt;gochengdoo.com&lt;/a&gt;; and there is an interesting Sichuanese primer on the blog &lt;a href=&quot;http://long-legged-fly.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/sichuanhua%20primer&quot;&gt;Long Legged Fly&lt;/a&gt;. There is a now (in)famous video of a white American person speaking some Sichuanese &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWZBF5rWoMo&quot;&gt;here on YouTube&lt;/a&gt;; the Tudou version is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/c3Jnlu9shtk/&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Also some &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/xA2DpdtJN5I/&quot;&gt;here on Tudou&lt;/a&gt;. Plus a few courses on the Chongqing dialect can be on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fyan8.com/chongqing/&quot;&gt;fyan8.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2012-12-18T02:34:18.400" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2568" CreationDate="2012-12-18T06:04:48.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentences you gave, 光 and 只 are very similar and hard to distinguish. But, as you say, they have some differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we say 我只有2元钱了, I imply that the amount of money I have is small, maybe not enough. Like, when you have to pay 10￥, but you only have 2, we say 我只有2元钱.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we say 我光有2元钱, it implies that apart from these 2￥, we have nothing else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when we want to express that we have nothing except this 2￥, we could either use 光 or 只. But when we want to express that we have a little or not enough money in hand, we may only use 只 in this circumstance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1091" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2012-12-19T09:27:32.377" LastActivityDate="2012-12-19T09:27:32.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2568" CreationDate="2012-12-18T16:42:27.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question: &quot;光&quot; vs &quot;只&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I've said &quot;只剩下2毛钱&quot;, but never &quot;光只剩下2毛钱&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is &quot;guang3 剩下2毛钱&quot; in my dialect (I come form ChangChun, JiLin.).&#xA;Maybe in other dialects, people uses &quot;光&quot; instead in the place of &quot;guang3&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the question &quot;When is the right time to use one over the other?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use &quot;只&quot; in writen chinese, try to avoid &quot;光&quot; in spoken chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="534" LastActivityDate="2012-12-18T16:42:27.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2607" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2608" CreationDate="2012-12-19T08:55:11.267" Score="8" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was an example sentence in Practical Chinese Reader 31. Do people actually live in factories, or is there some cultural context I'm missing? In previous chapters, people are constantly visiting factories《参观工厂》, which I found bizarre. Who would want to visit a factory? Why would they live there? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T13:10:17.987" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T13:10:42.020" Title="他在工厂住了半年/living in factories" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2607" CreationDate="2012-12-19T09:25:12.403" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is common for many Asia countries that &quot;lodging&quot; (typically dormitories) is provided by the companies and often these &quot;factories&quot; form cities on their own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A famous (or maybe better to say notorious) example is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Foxconn&lt;/a&gt;. From Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Foxconn's largest factory worldwide is in Longhua, Shenzhen, where&#xA;  hundreds of thousands of workers (varying counts include 230,000,&#xA;  300,000, and 450,000) are employed at the Longhua Science &amp;amp;&#xA;  Technology Park, a walled campus sometimes referred to as &quot;Foxconn&#xA;  City&quot; or &quot;iPod City&quot;. Covering about 1.16 square miles (3&#xA;  square km), it includes 15 factories, worker dormitories, a&#xA;  swimming pool, a fire brigade, its own television network&#xA;  (Foxconn TV), and a city centre with a grocery store, bank,&#xA;  restaurants, bookstore, and hospital. While some workers live in&#xA;  surrounding towns and villages, others live and work inside the&#xA;  complex; a quarter of the employees live in the dormitories, and&#xA;  many of them work up to 12 hours a day for 6 days each week.&#xA;  Another of Foxconn's factory &quot;cities&quot; is Zhengzhou Technology Park in&#xA;  Zhengzhou, Henan province, where it is reported 120,000 employees&#xA;  work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T13:10:42.020" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T13:10:42.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2607" CreationDate="2012-12-19T15:02:10.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many people live at factories in China because many of them are migrants and it's more economical from their point of view to live in factory dormitories. It's also more efficient for them and their employers to have them on-site. Remember, China is crowded, housing is expensive and commuting is a bear. As for who would want to visit a factory, well many people, including vendors who sell parts, materials, and equipment to factories and customers who buy from factories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2302" LastActivityDate="2012-12-19T15:02:10.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2568" CreationDate="2012-12-21T19:29:12.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The emphasise part is right, but the difference is subtle. We don't specifically pick either one by situations, more likely by personal preference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the words &quot;just&quot; and &quot;only&quot; in English, see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;just two cents left (只剩兩毛錢)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;only two cents left (光剩兩毛錢)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2369" LastActivityDate="2012-12-21T19:29:12.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2568" CreationDate="2012-12-22T23:23:20.040" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;只 is more limited in grammatical scope: it can only function as an adverb, preceding the verb. 光 has a larger range of related uses, from being a pre-verbal adverb (also called a restrictive adverb) like 只, to a resultative complement used when a verb 'finishes' an associated noun (e.g. in 吃光了), as well its adjectival/adverbial meaning of 'empty' and 'naked'. 光 can also precede nouns and other adverbs (e.g. of time) in the sense of &quot;only&quot; where 只 cannot. However, words that include 只 such as 只要、只是 are used in a greater variety of set constructions (among the most well-known being 只要 X 才 Y).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, both 只 and 光 can be used as pre-verbal (restrictive) adverbs, as the famous &quot;只/光剩下2毛钱&quot; sentence illustrates. There have been various &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pkucn.com/viewthread.php?tid=227628&amp;amp;page=1&quot;&gt;analyses&lt;/a&gt;: 光 being more colloquial and characteristic of the spoken language, while 只 is preferred in the standard written language but is itself neutral with respect to spoken vs written. This is perhaps the most basic distinction in their use as adverbs: see &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/152128546&quot;&gt;Baidu's explanation&lt;/a&gt;. It is also known that 只 adopted its meaning of &quot;only&quot; earlier on (at the latest from the late Han dynasty) whilst 光 in this meaning is not even attested in the Kangxi dictionary (see zdic.net).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a claim that a clause with 光 implies a negative clause further on. One further explanation found on that website is that 光 with 有 has a focus on things other than the object of 光有, whilst 只有 shifts the focus onto the object of the clause itself. It uses the example 只/光有口号，是没用的 to make this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also the idea that 只 with quantitative measures (such as in the 2毛钱) means limited to that quantity, whilst 光 focuses on the object and the fact that it is alone. The modified sentence 口袋里只/光剩下2毛钱 illustrates this potential distinction: 只 may allow the possibilities of other non-money items in the pocket, whilst 光 emphasises that this money is all that exists in the pocket. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some of these later points, there really aren't many trustworthy sources. It may be an interesting point on which to do some further research! There are also a few other words for &quot;only&quot;, such as 单 and 仅 which could be examined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2012-12-22T23:23:20.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2568" CreationDate="2012-12-23T10:08:57.413" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Part I - OP Usage&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid confusion, Part I will stick to the usage OP is asking, and skip the other meaning of &lt;code&gt;只&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;光&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following two sentences are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;只剩下2毛钱&#xA;光剩下2毛钱&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They both can be translated to either of the following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Only 2 cent left&#xA;Just 2 cent left&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;code&gt;只&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;光&lt;/code&gt; mean(or translate to) &lt;code&gt;only&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;just&lt;/code&gt;, in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, following are correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;`只有`    = `光有`    = `only have`     = `just have`&#xA;`只剩...` = `光剩...` = `only ... left` = `just ... left`&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at following example, again, all four lines mean the same thing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他只有勇氣,沒有知識&#xA;他光有勇氣,沒有知識&#xA;He just have courage, don't have knowledge&#xA;He only have courage, don't have knowledge&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are few cases that only one should be use. Look at the following two cases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Case 1:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(1) 快吃吧,只剩一點點&#xA;(2) 快吃吧,光剩一點點&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For (1), both of the following are correct translations, where the 2nd one is more &quot;English&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Eat faster, only a little is left&#xA;Finish it, almost done&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For (2), it just doesn't sound &quot;Chinese&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Case 2:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(1) 太陽快下山了,只剩一點光&#xA;(2) 太陽快下山了,光剩一點光 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For (1), translate as follow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Almost sunset, only a bit light is left&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For (2), again, it just doesn't sound &quot;Chinese&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Case 3:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(1) 光說不練&#xA;(2) 只說不練&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both translate to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Talk only, no action (maybe someone can give a better English way of saying this)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a &quot;common phrase&quot;. In this case, (1) is the correct way. (2) is acceptable Chinese, but not the usual way for this &quot;combination&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is difficult to give a generalize rules on when the two are interchangeable and when they are not. The only way to improve is listen more and read more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Up for more challenge? Add &lt;code&gt;空&lt;/code&gt; to the group. Have fun and Merry Christmas!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Part II - Learn the Combo&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To learn Chinese, you have to learn, or more importantly, &lt;strong&gt;memorize&lt;/strong&gt; the different meaning and usage, when characters are put together in different ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will analogy this to learning spelling of English. &lt;code&gt;A&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;C&lt;/code&gt;, etc, most don't have meaning by themselves. When put together in different orders, they means all kinds of things(eg, try put 'h' 'i' 's' 't' in different order).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;adj. 形容词&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;光說,只說&#xA;只剩,光剩&#xA;只有,光有&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes they are interchangeable, sometimes not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;noun. 名詞&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;光 Light&#xA;陽光 Sun light&#xA;激光 Laser&#xA;月光 Moon light&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can not substitute &lt;code&gt;光&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;只&lt;/code&gt; for the above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Unit/classifier 量詞&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一隻(只)雞 a chicken (Simplified Chinese)&#xA;一雙手 a pair of hand&#xA;一對手 a pair of hand&#xA;兩杯水 two cups of water&#xA;一把刀　a knife&#xA;一對刀 a pair of knives&#xA;一本書　a book&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%8F%E8%A9%9E&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. All you can do is memorize them. If you omit them, sometimes it just doesn't sound Chinese, but sometimes the meaning change completely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一把刀   a knife&#xA;一刀     a slash / a stab&#xA;一對手   a pair of hand&#xA;對手     opponent&#xA;一手     first hand (car/boat) vs second hand, first owner&#xA;一手     stock market, minimum buying quantity (eg. 100shares/order, 500share/order) &#xA;一手好車　excellent driving skill&#xA;一本書　  a book&#xA;一書     !@#$, Japanese??&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exception - common phrase, omitting classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一雞死一雞鳴&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Direct Translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A chicken die, another chicken start calling&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;English&quot; Translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A dead chicken is always replaced by another one.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage/Meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Describe/conclude being replaced (person, organization, living entity).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Throw your logic away :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Part III - Bonus - Completely out of Context&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;月光族    Moon Light Tribe / Tribe of Moonlight&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That sounds poetic, romantic, right? The true/current meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;月 Month(ly)&#xA;光 Empty / Use up (money)&#xA;族 Type/Group of people&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Direct&quot; translation  - People who use up all their money each month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;English&quot; translation - People living paycheck by paycheck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a common Taiwan usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="2263" LastEditDate="2012-12-24T20:53:44.597" LastActivityDate="2012-12-24T20:53:44.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2616" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2617" CreationDate="2012-12-24T21:11:08.347" Score="5" ViewCount="12215" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for vocabulary to help puzzle-out the kind of tea contained in various packages from the Chinese characters on their labels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far I recognize 茶(tea) and 叶(leaves).  (Apparently these are simplified-Chinese forms.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the label i have in front of me, I can't even tell where the variety is named (as opposed to brand name, promotional adjectives, etc.)&#xA;The biggest character, I assume, is just a stylized caligraphic 茶(tea):&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hoRtX.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other main parts are near the top, in the middle below the big 茶(tea), and at the bottom:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dQONH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure where to look even, and I don't have a way to find or enter characters for searching, so any help with tea-variety vocabulary or other hints would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2376" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T05:22:15.253" Title="茶 - How to identify varieties of tea?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2616" CreationDate="2012-12-25T00:53:03.307" Score="11" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;铁观音　Tie Guanyin Tea / tat-kuan-yin Tea / Iron Buddha Tea&#xA;乌龙茶　Oolong Tea &#xA;黑茶　Dark Tea&#xA;红茶　Black Tea&#xA;龙井茶　Longjing Tea / Lungching Tea / Dragon Well Tea&#xA;君山银针　Junshan Silver Needle Tea&#xA;碧螺春　Biluochun Tea&#xA;牡丹绣球　Peony Jasmine Tea&#xA;黄山毛峰　Huangshan Maofeng Tea&#xA;岩茶　Rock Tea&#xA;冻顶乌龙　Dongding Oolong Tea&#xA;菊花茶　Chrysanthemum Tea&#xA;台湾阿里山乌龙　Taiwan Alishan Oolong Tea&#xA;大红袍　Dahongpao Tea (Wuyi Mountain Rock Tea)&#xA;普洱　Pu'er Tea&#xA;祁门红茶　Keemun Black Tea&#xA;茉莉花茶　Jasmine Tea&#xA;陈年普洱　Aged Pu'er Tea&#xA;立顿红茶　Lipton Black Tea&#xA;台湾冻顶乌龙　Taiwan Dongding Oolong Tea&#xA;绿茶　Green Tea&#xA;太平猴魁　Taiping Houkui Tea 　(A kind of Green Tea)&#xA;西湖龙井　Xihu Longjing Tea 　(A kind of Green Tea)&#xA;大白毫　White Milli-Silver Needle Tea&#xA;信阳毛尖　Xinyang Maojian Tea　 (A kind of Green Tea)&#xA;&#xA;Source : http://www.dxmtea.com/captions.asp?id=585, and multiple others&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So your package showed 铁观音 (Tie Guanyin Tea) 神品(Shen Pin, This is a brand maybe) 藏香 (Stock Flavored) 真空无氧包装(Vacuumed and oxygen-free packaging) 茶叶新鲜原味(Fresh and Original Flavor Tea).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;铁观音 is a kind of Oolong Tea here, this package assumes you already knew it's a name of tea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastEditorUserId="2322" LastEditDate="2012-12-25T00:59:03.280" LastActivityDate="2012-12-25T00:59:03.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2616" CreationDate="2012-12-25T08:09:22.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;tomriddle_1234 already give you a big list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to make the learning experience a bit more interesting, you can use the color list&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%91%E8%8C%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;黑　Black&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%BD%E8%8C%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;白　White&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%BA%A2%E8%8C%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;紅　Red&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%84%E8%8C%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;黃　Yellow&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%BB%BF%E8%8C%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;綠　Green&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B9%8C%E9%BE%99%E8%8C%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;烏龍Oolong&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of them are wikipedia pages. They all have Chinese and English version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastActivityDate="2012-12-25T08:09:22.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2619" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2620" CreationDate="2012-12-25T11:01:54.723" Score="2" ViewCount="836" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking for examples in Mandarin of poetic two-character words. What words have the following form...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Verb + Noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...where the noun is something that occurs in nature?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first examples that spring to mind for me are 赏月 and 踏青.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-01-12T11:42:08.183" LastActivityDate="2013-01-12T17:31:59.667" Title="Poetic two-character words of the form: Verb + Natural Noun?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2619" CreationDate="2012-12-25T18:16:38.983" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everything can be poetic, especially Chinese write all kinds of poems ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Part I - Nature/Astronomy&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Nature 自然&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;乘风 乘風 Ride the Wind&#xA;破浪 破浪 Break the Eave&#xA;&#xA;拈花 拈花 Touching Flower&#xA;&#xA;采花 採花 Picking Flower&#xA;扑蝶 撲蝶 Catching Butterfly&#xA;&#xA;看海 看海 Watch | Look | Admire the Sea&#xA;听涛 聽濤 Listen to the Wave&#xA;&#xA;落花 落花 Flower Dropping &#xA;流水 流水 Flowing Water&#xA;开花 開花 Blossom&#xA;结果 結果 Have Fruit&#xA;&#xA;煮海 煮海 Boil the Sea&#xA;焚天 焚天 Burn the Sky&#xA;&#xA;毀天 毀天 Destroy the Sky&#xA;灭地 滅地 Destroy the Ground/Earth(crust)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Astronomy 天象&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;追风 追風 Chasing the Wind&#xA;逐月 逐月 After the Moon&#xA;追星 追星 Chasing Star&#xA;逐日 逐日 After the Sun&#xA;摘星 摘星 Picking Star (as in Picking Flower)&#xA;采月 採月 Picking the Moon (as in Picking Flower)&#xA;奔月 奔月 Run to the Moon&#xA;赏月 賞月 Moon watching&#xA;观星 觀星 Star Gazing &#xA;观天 觀天 Sky Watching&#xA;登天 登天 Ascend to the Sky/Haven&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Part II - Extra&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Daily Live 日常生活&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;修桥 修橋 Fixing Bridge&#xA;补路 補路 Repair Road&#xA;杀人 殺人 Killing People&#xA;放火 放火 Burning Houses&#xA;&#xA;杀人放火金腰带  殺人放火金腰帶&#xA;修桥补路无尸骸  修橋補路無屍骸&#xA;&#xA;    Those who kill&#xA;        who burn&#xA;            Wear a golden belt&#xA;&#xA;    Those who build&#xA;        who fix&#xA;            Have no remains (Die and body not found)&#xA;&#xA;登顶 登頂 Ascend to Top(Mountain)&#xA;登极 登極 Ascend to Top(Thrown)&#xA;上台 上台 Get on Stage / Win a seat (Political)&#xA;落台 落台 Lost the seat/position (Political)&#xA;落幕 落幕 Closing/End (Performance/Situation)&#xA;&#xA;画眉 畫眉 Put on make up (specific for eyebrow)&#xA;弄妆 弄妝 Put on make up&#xA;添妆 添壯 Put on make up&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Yin Yan Elements 陰陽五行&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;溶金 溶金 Melting Metal&#xA;生木 生木 Growing Wood&#xA;納水 納水 Absorbing Water&#xA;炼火 煉火 Refining Fire&#xA;归土 歸土 Returning to Earth&#xA;化阴 化陰 Digesting negative energy&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Animal 飛禽走獸&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;骑虎 騎虎 Riding Tiger&#xA;骑鹤 騎鹤 Riding Crane&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Direction 方向&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;东进 東進 Enter/Move towards east&#xA;东来 東來 Come to the east (from west)&#xA;西去 西去 Go west&#xA;北上 北上 Go up north&#xA;南下 南下 Go down south&#xA;归西 歸西 Return west (also mean dying / death)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Time 時間&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;不长命 不長命 Don't live long&#xA;留千年 留千年 Remain for millennium&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Part III - Bonus&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we say &lt;code&gt;poem&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;poetic&lt;/code&gt;, we offend associate the term with &lt;em&gt;beautiful&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;romantic&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;relax&lt;/em&gt;, all the positive side of life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, a lot of famous Chinese poem has nothing to do with the above. They are good, excellent poem. Their wording are beautiful (詞藻幽美/華麗), but not the scene they describe. They present some dark reality in a poetic form. Following are two examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Poem about deep disparity between the rich and the poor&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;朱門酒肉臭    朱门酒肉臭&#xA;路有凍死骨    路有冻死骨&#xA; (唐 杜甫)     (唐 杜甫)&#xA;&#xA;    朱門 朱門 Red Door / Red Gate. In the past, only the wealthy can paint their door in red&#xA;    酒肉 酒肉 Wine and meat / Food&#xA;    臭   臭   Giving out rotten smell&#xA;&#xA;    路有 路有 On the road / On the side of the road / On the ground / On the floor&#xA;    冻死 凍死 Die from coldness / Freeze to death&#xA;    骨   骨   Bone / Dead Bodies&#xA;&#xA;Rotten food at wealthy door&#xA;Frozen bodies on the floor&#xA;(by Du Fu, Tang Dynasty)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Poem about courage and wish, disappointment and helplessness of a General&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;怒髮衝冠 憑欄處            怒发冲冠 凭栏处&#xA;瀟瀟雨歇 抬望眼            潇潇雨歇 抬望眼&#xA;仰天長嘯 壯懷激烈          仰天长啸 壮怀激烈&#xA;&#xA;三十功名 塵與土            三十功名 尘与土&#xA;八千里路 雲和月            八千里路 云和月&#xA;莫等閑 白了少年頭 空悲切    莫等闲 白了少年头 空悲切&#xA;&#xA;靖康恥 猶未雪             靖康耻 犹未雪&#xA;臣子恨 何時滅             臣子恨 何时灭&#xA;駕長車 踏破賀蘭山缺        驾长车 踏破贺兰山缺&#xA;&#xA;壯志飢餐 胡虜肉            壮志饥餐 胡虏肉&#xA;笑談渴飲 匈奴血            笑谈渴饮 匈奴血&#xA;待從頭 收拾舊山河 朝天闕    待从头 收十旧山河 朝天阙&#xA;  (宋 岳飛)                  (宋 岳飞)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an extremely good translation &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Jiang_Hong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. I cannot beat that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;PS1&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Previously included, but removed after review (Thanks NS.X for pointing out)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;朝花 朝花 Morning Flower | Blossoming in the Morning&#xA;夕拾 夕拾 Picking Flower in Evening&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two do not meet OP required Verb+Noun formation, not even in reverse order. (I have to read like 6 times to realize it &gt;.&amp;lt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;PS2&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ecj.hk/translate/translate.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tradition/Simplified Chinese Conversion Web Site&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="2263" LastEditDate="2012-12-26T04:43:03.923" LastActivityDate="2012-12-26T04:43:03.923" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2621" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2623" CreationDate="2012-12-25T23:58:52.627" Score="16" ViewCount="3523" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 许多 and 很多?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in this sentence I found on Jukuu both terms are used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After years of teaching, I have many memories to dwell on in idle moments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过了许多年的教学生涯，我空闲时缅怀的往事很多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are both terms interchangeable? One is more formal than the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-12-27T06:28:07.470" Title="Difference between 许多 and 很多" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2621" CreationDate="2012-12-26T01:15:56.893" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The most obvious difference is that 许多 is an adjective, while 很多 could be adjective or adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 很多 is used as adverb, 许多 can't be used in that case. They could be interchangeable as adjective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他每天都吃得很多，可还是不胖。&lt;i&gt;He eats a lot everyday, but still not fat.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, you can't replace 很多 with 许多, but you could say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他每天都吃许多食物，可还是不胖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他每天都吃很多食物，可还是不胖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the examples above, both of them are adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After reading your example, I realize that 很多 could be predicative while 许多 could not, so you can't replace 很多 with 许多 in your example. However, you could say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过了许多年的教学生涯，我空闲时缅怀的往事&lt;strong&gt;有许多&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;很多 is more colloquial so that you could hear it more in ordinary dialogue.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="2263" LastEditDate="2012-12-26T11:30:41.933" LastActivityDate="2012-12-26T11:30:41.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2621" CreationDate="2012-12-26T04:06:46.590" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;很多&quot; is not a word, but an adverb &quot;很&quot; and an adjective &quot;多&quot; combined to form a subordinate phrase. &quot;很&quot; as an adverb, is generally placed before an adjective to indicate a high degree of something. Therefore, &quot;很多&quot; has no particular significance. &quot;很 + adjective&quot; when used to modify the noun generally contains &quot;的&quot;, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很好的计划 (a very good plan)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很可爱的孩子 (very cute children)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &quot;很多&quot;, when used to modify the noun, is generally without &quot;的&quot;. Such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很多人 (many people)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很多地方 (many places)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很多东西 (a lot of things)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很多城市 (many cities)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;许多&quot; is a numeral (数词), meaning in great quantities. &quot;很多&quot; can be disassembled; &quot;许多&quot; cannot. The usage of &quot;很多&quot; is more flexible, and can serve as a predicative, attributive, or complementary component in a sentence. Such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;南京路上人很多（谓语）&lt;br&gt; On Nanjing Road, there are a lot of people&#xA;(predicate)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我去过很多地方（定语）&lt;br&gt; I have been to many places (attributive)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有些人吃得很多，却不爱运动（补语）&lt;br&gt; Some people eat a lot, but do not exercise&#xA;(complement)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;许多&quot;, as a numeral, can only be used as an attributive adjunct which generally modifies the noun. Such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;许多优秀人才 (a lot of talented people)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国的许多城市 (many cities in China)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;那火山已经沉睡许多年 (that volcano has been laying dormant for many years)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;许多消费者都不满意 (many consumers are not satisfied)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;许多人在生活中离不开手机 (many people cannot live without their mobile phones)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following statements are wrong when used with &quot;许多&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;南京路上人&lt;b&gt;许多&lt;/b&gt;（谓语）X&lt;br&gt; 有些人吃得&lt;b&gt;许多&lt;/b&gt;，却不爱运动（补语）X&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the dialogue, &quot;很多&quot; can be used alone, but not &quot;许多&quot;. Such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;排队的人多吗？——很多。√&lt;br&gt; (Is there a lot of people at the queue? - A lot.&#xA;  √ )&lt;br&gt; 排队的人多吗？——许多。X&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, &quot;许多&quot; is more formal than &quot;很多&quot;, and is used more often in writing, whereas &quot;很多&quot; is used often in speech. &quot;许多&quot; can be replaced by &quot;很多&quot;, but usually not the other way round:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过了许多（or 很多）年的教学生涯，我空闲时缅怀的往事很多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Adapted from: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ies.fudan.edu.cn/infodetail.jsp?cateid=1610&amp;amp;id=2303617&quot;&gt;“很多”与“许多” - 复旦大学国际文化交流学院&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2012-12-26T04:18:12.377" LastActivityDate="2012-12-26T04:18:12.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2624" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2625" CreationDate="2012-12-27T00:56:48.017" Score="10" ViewCount="825" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lgfOt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I'm reading ellipses in English out loud I usually say &lt;em&gt;et cetera&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;and so on.&lt;/em&gt; What should I say in Mandarin? 等等?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastEditorUserId="28" LastEditDate="2012-12-27T01:02:42.410" LastActivityDate="2013-01-24T03:55:49.770" Title="Pronounce ellipsis 《●●● ●●●》 in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2624" CreationDate="2012-12-27T01:16:19.857" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;等等&lt;/code&gt; is the official and only globally recognized way to read ellipsis in Chinese, unlike in English there are more than one (et cetera, and so on, and so forth, etc.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In casual occasions you can also say &lt;code&gt;等&lt;/code&gt; for short. In formal speeches like news broadcast it's always &lt;code&gt;等等&lt;/code&gt;. (Note I am talking about the pronunciation of ellipsis; I am not saying single &lt;code&gt;等&lt;/code&gt; or other alternatives are grammatically incorrect or cannot be used in formal conversations.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2012-12-27T01:22:07.540" LastActivityDate="2012-12-27T01:22:07.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2624" CreationDate="2012-12-27T04:31:19.777" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NS.X. answer is correct.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am just going to add one extra point about &amp;lt;&amp;lt;……&gt;&gt; in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one is to convert &amp;lt;&amp;lt;……&gt;&gt; to words in writing, other than&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    等等&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One can use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    等+category&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Using OP example&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    北海、頤和園、香山……      北海、颐和园、香山……&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;北海&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;頤和園&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;香山&lt;/code&gt; are all places/location&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be converted to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(1) 北海、頤和園、香山等等    北海、颐和园、香山等等&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(2) 北海、頤和園、香山等地方  北海、颐和园、香山等地方&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;地方&lt;/code&gt; = Location (as a category)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, sometimes there are multiple suitable categories. One should pick the most suitable one base on context. As in this case, the better choice is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;景点 景點 = Point of Interest (in terms of traveling)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is because the sentence before and after seems to be about sightseeing around Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastActivityDate="2012-12-27T04:31:19.777" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1838" CreationDate="2012-12-27T09:33:52.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese text is divided into &quot;象形字&quot; and &quot;象声字&quot;，&#xA;like a shape or a sound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can see this: &lt;a href=&quot;http://pipi275.blog.sohu.com/101889641.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://pipi275.blog.sohu.com/101889641.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="858" LastActivityDate="2012-12-27T09:33:52.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2631" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2633" CreationDate="2012-12-27T18:49:40.497" Score="11" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this idiom while looking for another idiom my friend told me about like 回去回来 or 回来回去. I'm wondering about the implications of 旧的不去，新的不来 though. Can this be used for people who hold onto broken items/trash? Can this be used for getting over failed relationships? Can this be used for social changes like the acceptance of homosexuality? Are there any particular uses that it implies first and foremost?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2257" LastEditorUserId="2257" LastEditDate="2012-12-27T22:32:49.993" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T18:55:19.973" Title="Implications of &quot;旧的不去，新的不来&quot;" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2616" CreationDate="2012-12-27T21:10:15.357" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you need to look up Chinese tea terms (including 藏香), please have a look at this &lt;a href=&quot;http://babelcarp.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese tea lexicon&lt;/a&gt;,&#xA;which has well over 3000 terms defined and cross-referenced.  Disclosure: I created the site about ten years ago and have been maintaining it ever since.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2383" LastActivityDate="2012-12-27T21:10:15.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2631" CreationDate="2012-12-27T21:49:03.157" Score="10" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Can this be used for people hold onto broken items/trash? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. This is the most common usage and safe to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Can this be used for getting over failed relationships? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes but don't use it if there is still chance for the relationship to be fixed or if the other party is also your friend. Because 旧的 (old thing) is more or less derogatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Can this be used for social changes like the acceptance of homosexuality?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes it can be used for social changes, in this case not a as consolation but a neutral sentiment. Please note the literal meaning of the phrase must meet i.e. there has to be an old thing being abolished and a new one being made. The emergence of new thing alone, gay marriage for example, is not enough to apply the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Are there any particular uses that it implies first and foremost?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned above, the first implication and most common usage is to console someone who can't get over broken things. Sometimes people use it on failed relationship or even dead pet, which is not always appropriate due to the derogatory sense of 旧的 (especially when put aside with 新的). To be safe, use this phrase only when you're certain the old thing is not worth holding onto and the new thing is better than the old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a related but generalized usage, that is on new year's eve people say &lt;code&gt;旧的不去，新的不来&lt;/code&gt; as a wishing message. In this usage 旧的 refers to all misfortunes and unnecessary concerns occurred in the past year and 新的 refers to all good things to come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another usage is to express a neutral comment as an observer of a change like in the social change example above. It carries little to none personal opinion, mostly a statement of the fact. This usage can be sometimes found in news or social chitchat but not really common in daily conversation or serious discussion. As a matter of fact when someone's asking your opinion about some change, you can use this phrase as hand-waving - it sounds like an opinion but it's just a recap of the fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2012-12-27T21:57:33.093" LastActivityDate="2012-12-27T21:57:33.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2634" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2637" CreationDate="2012-12-28T04:34:11.680" Score="2" ViewCount="499" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/2631/2263&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt;, Juckele mention two terms completely new to me : &lt;code&gt;回去回来&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;回来回去&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;来来回回 Things keep going in circle, usually use to describe situation in life&#xA;来来去去 Same as above&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about &lt;code&gt;回去回来&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;回来回去&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2012-12-29T10:54:54.580" Title="回去回来 回来回去 来来回回 来来去去 Are they the same?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2634" CreationDate="2012-12-28T05:05:18.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;回去回来  and  回来回去 are not chengyu. The majority of the Chinese people will not say this word.In accordance with the habits are 来来回回 or 来来去去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="858" LastActivityDate="2012-12-28T05:05:18.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2634" CreationDate="2012-12-28T08:15:35.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;回去 means to go back, 回来 means to come back. 回来回去 or 回去回来 are not proper terms, but can be understood as expressing a back and forth activity. Normally when used as verbs 回去 and 回来 are separated by a comma, but there are some people who combine them improperly as an adjective to imply something that attracts repeated visits, such as &quot;回来回去的个人空间&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contrary to what you mentioned, 来来回回 and 来来去去 are not the same. From 在线新华字典, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;来回&lt;/b&gt; means:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;含有以相反方向交替出动的活动 〖back and forth; to-and-fro; backwards and forwards〗∶&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;往往在返回时走同一路线的旅行 〖make a round trip〗∶&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;b&gt;来来回回&lt;/b&gt; can be taken to mean repeated back and forth activities or making repeated round trips. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那人在橱窗前&lt;b&gt;来来回回&lt;/b&gt;走了几次，似乎看中了一件珠宝首饰。&lt;br&gt; That man has been pacing back and&#xA;  forth in front of the display window, he seems interested in one of&#xA;  the jewellery on display.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;来来去去&lt;/b&gt; means:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;来和去。指往来不断的样子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来去 has the meaning of come and go, so the literal translation for 来来去去 is to come and go continuously. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天生意门可罗雀，&lt;b&gt;来来去去&lt;/b&gt;都是走马看花的人。&lt;br&gt; Business is bad today, many people come and&#xA;  go, but nobody bought anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2012-12-28T08:15:35.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2634" CreationDate="2012-12-28T08:47:59.233" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally I have never heard of 回去回来 or 回来回去, and they are highly unlikely to be idioms in any part of China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We do say 来回来去 in Northern China, not sure about Southern China. It means 'back and forth; repeatedly'. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他自从丢了钱包，就来回来去的说。He was complaining over and over again since he lost his wallet.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;整首歌来回来去就一句词。The entire lyrics are just one sentence going back and forth.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2012-12-28T08:47:59.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2616" CreationDate="2012-12-28T09:52:26.533" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks to @Stumpy Joe for his comment above about translation of tea colours. For completeness, note that 红茶 （lit. 'red tea') is 'black tea' in English, while 黑茶  (lit. 'black tea') is usually translated as 'dark tea'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See @tomriddle's answer for a very good run-down of the more popular kinds of tea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1155" LastActivityDate="2012-12-28T09:52:26.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2639" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2640" CreationDate="2012-12-28T13:06:45.967" Score="6" ViewCount="6511" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm surprised a question like this hasn't been asked yet. It seems Shanghainese is a dying language and it's rarely spoken. I'd like to know about resources and ways to learn the language by myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anybody know of good resources that teach Shanghainese? This could range from either actual video lessons to even Chinese-subbed Shanghainese dramas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2386" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:15:27.987" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:15:27.987" Title="Resources for learning Shanghainese" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;shanghainese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-12-28T13:15:17.747" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2639" CreationDate="2012-12-28T17:53:05.027" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was in Jiangsu province (and later, Shanghai), I was interested in learning Shanghainese and other Wu dialects. Unfortunately, there aren't that many resources, and a lot of the ones that do exist are low quality (No IPA, crazy made up romanizations, pronunciations indicated with characters, etc.) Here are a few things I found and my thoughts on them (Disclaimer--I can't claim to have succeeded in learning Shanghainese):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesepod.com/library/tag/Shanghainese&quot;&gt;Chinese Pod&lt;/a&gt; has a few lessons in Shanghainese. They have no romanization, they choose characters sometimes based on meaning and other times based on similarity of pronunciation (when read in Mandarin), and overall, it's really unsystematic. &lt;em&gt;But&lt;/em&gt; they do have some great audio, and it's phrase-book kind of stuff, which is good for starting off learning a language.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mandmx.com/shanghainese/&quot;&gt;M and MX&lt;/a&gt; is another podcast site aimed at foreigners in China, and they have some Shanghainese. Again, not systematic, but there's audio, and it's useful in a phrasebook sort of way.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sinoglot.com/wu/&quot;&gt;The Annals of Wu&lt;/a&gt; is a Sinoglot spinoff blog (BTW, Sinoglot is an &lt;em&gt;awesome&lt;/em&gt; blog for Chinese language learners, especially if you're into linguistics). It's updated infrequently, but if you want some linguistically accurate musings on Wu dialects, it's absolutely killer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wu-chinese.com/minidict/&quot;&gt;Wu-Chinese&lt;/a&gt; is a Chinese language site focused on the Wu dialects. Their dictionary (linked) is pretty excellent, and their resources explaining Wu phonology are decent, but the site in general is kind of a mess with lots of broken links and terrible navigation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2005/11/15/shanghainese-study-materials&quot;&gt;Jon from Sinosplice&lt;/a&gt; keeps a (long but infrequently updated) list of Shanghainese learning books and his opinions of them. Worth checking out. There are lots of great books, but many of them are impossible to find unless you're in China, and even then...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://shh.dict.cn/&quot;&gt;Dict.cn&lt;/a&gt; has Shanghainese content (with audio!). Unfortunately, the written forms are sort of a mashup of etymologically correct character choices and phonetic-via-Mandarin character choices.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2012-12-28T17:53:05.027" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-12-28T17:53:05.027" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2639" CreationDate="2012-12-29T06:40:55.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally enjoy &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSozklOm5JI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;these videos&lt;/a&gt; on Youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Title:&lt;/strong&gt; 学讲上海话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;As an orthogonal comment:&lt;/strong&gt; I keep a weibo on 南京话 (username: 听老外韶韶). It's on modern Nanjinghua, which is 江淮普通话 and therefore very close to Mandarin, though I occasionally include parts about 老南京话 which has features more like a Wu dialect (e.g., 嘎音). There is also a place near Nanjing called 高淳(chun2) where the Wu dialect spoken is apparently especially tough to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastActivityDate="2012-12-29T06:40:55.017" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-12-29T06:40:55.017" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2624" CreationDate="2012-12-29T07:04:59.277" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the ...... should never be explicitly pronounced when you read an paragraph, unless it uses 等等 directly rather than ......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you read this, just ignore the punctuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2012-12-29T07:04:59.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2634" CreationDate="2012-12-29T10:44:22.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Scene 1(场景一):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个朋友来我家，天要黑了，他说：我要回去了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A friend came to my house, the sky dark, he said: I want to go back&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scene 2(场景二):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚上我打电话给女朋友：你几点回来？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Night I phoned my girlfriend: What time do you come back?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scene 3(场景三):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Night ,in the bus,怎么来来回回还是我们这几个人?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sene 4(场景四):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taishan,诗人感概到,来来去去繁华诶梦会无忒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2371" LastEditorUserId="2371" LastEditDate="2012-12-29T10:54:54.580" LastActivityDate="2012-12-29T10:54:54.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2646" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2649" CreationDate="2012-12-30T17:50:04.323" Score="11" ViewCount="8247" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine said in a photo of me, my eyes looked very 萌(meng2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的眼睛很萌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My dictionary defines 萌 as;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;萌 méng （动）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;sprout;&#xA;  bud;&#xA;  germinate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But apparently in this context it means &quot;cute&quot;, &quot;kawaii&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is this so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T15:56:47.143" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T05:22:08.403" Title="Why does the word 萌 mean &quot;cute&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2646" CreationDate="2012-12-30T20:22:03.683" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;萌 = cute/lovely&lt;/code&gt; is an adoption from Japanese usage (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moe_%28slang%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is widely used as such in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong pop culture media (website, forum, publication), especially related to comics, animation, and video game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is popping up in main stream media from time to time, but only in entertainment section.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="2263" LastEditDate="2012-12-30T22:35:56.713" LastActivityDate="2012-12-30T22:35:56.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="318" CreationDate="2012-12-30T20:31:14.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it is because of where the person is from (different accents and proununciations), other times is that the person speaking is joking (I have friends who do this) but for songs, I think its just because of making it fit in with the other lyrics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2389" LastActivityDate="2012-12-30T20:31:14.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2646" CreationDate="2012-12-30T20:51:17.267" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%90%8C&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;關於「萌」這個字現今用法的來源，至今依舊眾說紛紜，以下為部份幾種的說法：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有種說法認為，原本所用的詞語應該是「燃え」(もえ)，但是因為「萌え」和「燃え」的日語發音相同，且動漫喜好者認為「萌え」更能形容他們對事物喜好的狀態，因此後來都用「萌え」了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;亦有說法認為，這個詞語原本來自較為常用的「燃えている」（燃燒），但由於日文電腦輸入平假名時會智能判斷漢字，而萌え排序在前面，變成現在的寫法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目前「萌」大多使用在二次元裡，如果遇到刻意將現實世界（三次元）的人套用到二次元的審美的情況，也有可能用到「萌」。 不過這種狀況十分稀少，因為三次元的人通常難以構成萌屬性。 現在「燃え」在中文界解作萌的相對詞，是對熱血的喜愛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Abbreviated translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two main theories of the origin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One is that 「燃え」(to burn, describing a reaction to something attractive) is a homophone in Japanese with「萌え」(to sprout), so Japanese Anime enthusiasts decided the latter was a better (perhaps more poetic?) way to describe this kind of reaction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One is that「燃え」and「萌え」got switched because the IME would put「萌え」 first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any event, it seems clear that this use of &lt;code&gt;萌&lt;/code&gt; comes from Japanese anime, and it originally described a reaction to a beautiful woman. Now, it can refer to anything loveable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-12-30T20:51:17.267" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2650" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2652" CreationDate="2012-12-31T01:27:58.883" Score="4" ViewCount="336" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many times when I want to tell someone that I don't have enough energy to do something. These are close but not exactly what I want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我太累。 I'm not too tired, I just don't have as much energy as I used to do what I want to do (like play basketball for 8 hours straight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的能力不够。Here, it's not that I don't have the ability to… I can do that, I just don't have the energy to do that (like play basketball for 8 hours straight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other contexts where I would like to use this phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;I have other responsibilities, so I don't have the time or energy&#xA;to sit beside you and manage you.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;The players aren't lazy, they&#xA;just don't have enough energy to keep up with the other team.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="802" LastActivityDate="2012-12-31T16:46:17.397" Title="What is the appropriate translation for 'energy'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2650" CreationDate="2012-12-31T04:36:28.343" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, &lt;code&gt;精力&lt;/code&gt; is the word for human energy as opposite to tiredness. &lt;code&gt;时间和精力&lt;/code&gt; (time and energy) is indeed an idiom in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I have other responsibilities, so I don't have the time or energy to sit beside you and manage you.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还有别的事，没有时间和&lt;b&gt;精力&lt;/b&gt;坐在你旁边伺候你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When referring to sport stamina, &lt;code&gt;体力&lt;/code&gt; is more accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The players aren't lazy, they just don't have enough energy to keep up with the other team.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;队员们不是懒惰，而是&lt;b&gt;体力&lt;/b&gt;不如对方。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When referring to vigorous personality or lifestyle, the general word is &lt;code&gt;活力&lt;/code&gt;. Some certain phrases containing &lt;code&gt;精力&lt;/code&gt; like &lt;code&gt;精力充沛&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;精力旺盛&lt;/code&gt; has similar meaning, but not &lt;code&gt;精力&lt;/code&gt; itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;He is always full of energy.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他总是充满&lt;b&gt;活力&lt;/b&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2012-12-31T04:36:28.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2650" CreationDate="2012-12-31T04:49:14.177" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translation of &lt;code&gt;energy&lt;/code&gt; to Chinese is really a tricky one, or very &quot;context sensitive&quot;. I will try to give example one by one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;体力 Body(Physical) Power&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我太累。 I'm not too tired, I just don't have as much energy as I used to do what I want to do (like play basketball for 8 hours straight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[繁] 我太累, 體力不夠了,不復當年啊。&#xA;[简] 我太累, 体力不够了,不复当年啊。&#xA;&#xA;Enerygy -&amp;gt;  体力   body(physical) strength / body energy&#xA;            不够了 no enough / run out&#xA;&#xA;            不復   not as (good as)&#xA;            當年   years ago / in the past&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;我的能力不够&lt;/code&gt; should be &lt;code&gt;我的体力不够&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following example fall in the same usage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The players aren't lazy, they just don't have enough energy to keep up with the other team.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;精神 Will Power / Brain Power&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have other responsibilities, so I don't have the time or energy to sit beside you and manage you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[繁] 我有其他事情要處理, 沒有那麼多時間精神跟在你後面管著你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[简] 我有其他事情要处理, 没有那麼多时间精神跟在你后面管着你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;事情要处理  things that have to be taken care of / responsibilities (责任)&#xA;精神       energy / will power (mental state related)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;体力&lt;/code&gt; is always referring to physical/body strength/state. As &lt;code&gt;体&lt;/code&gt; mean body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;精神&lt;/code&gt; can be referring to mental state only or both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[繁] 他今天精神很好&#xA;He look good today.&#xA;He is in good shape today.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;精力&lt;/code&gt; can refer to both physical or mental state, or both at the same time. Mostly interchangeable with the above two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[简] 我太累, &lt;strong&gt;体力&lt;/strong&gt; 不够了,不复当年啊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[简] 我太累, &lt;strong&gt;精力&lt;/strong&gt; 不够了,不复当年啊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[简] 没有那麼多时间 &lt;strong&gt;精神&lt;/strong&gt; 跟在你后面管着你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[简] 没有那麼多时间 &lt;strong&gt;精力&lt;/strong&gt; 跟在你后面管着你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="2263" LastEditDate="2012-12-31T16:46:17.397" LastActivityDate="2012-12-31T16:46:17.397" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2839" CreationDate="2013-01-01T09:38:48.147" Score="7" ViewCount="829" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that 經濟 is a translation from Japanese, but I do not know why it became this. Could someone explain it in detail?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-20T00:45:51.823" LastActivityDate="2020-08-20T00:45:51.823" Title="Why is “economics” translated to &quot;經濟&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2653" CreationDate="2013-01-01T14:02:35.587" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find an explanation &lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1839377362&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pasting verbatim (but let me know if you can't read/understand this):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;“经济”一词的来历&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　“经济”这一词来源于希腊语，其意思为“管理一个家庭的人”。唯物主义代表色诺芬在他的《经济法》中将“家庭”及“管理”两词的结合理解为经济。严复曾将经济一词翻为“生计”。日本人将其正式翻为经济，后由孙中山先生从日将这一说法引入中国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　1、“经济”一词最初在《周易》一书中出现。“经”解释为“径”，即指阡陌（纵横的田地）。“济”字从水旁，解释为“渡”，即指渡水。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　2、公元4世纪初东晋时代已正式使用“经济”一词。“经济”在中华传统文化中的本来意思都是“经世济民”、“经国济物”，也就是治国平天下之意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　3、古时有副对联：“文章西汉双司马，经济南阳一卧龙”，是夸奖司马迁的文章写得好，赞赏诸葛亮具有治理天下的卓越才能。这里面的经济就是经邦济世的意义。（因此有议论：“经济”这个词语在古代所代表的是知识分子的责任之一，而且是非常有深度、广度、高度的一个词语。能做到“经济”二字的人必须文能安邦兴业，武能御侮却敌。古代知识分子，特别是儒家学派的众人，会按照《大学》中“三纲八目”的要求去做学问、做人，而三纲八目最高的要求就是做到“治国平天下”，这个就是古代“经济”一词的最外向的表示。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　4、19世纪下半叶开始，一些日本学者在译英语Economy时，借用了古汉语“经济”一词，从而使它的含义发生根本变化，变成了专指社会物质生产活动的用词。辛亥革命后，在孙中山先生的建议下，逐渐统一沿用日本学者的译法，从而使“经济”一词以新词的面貌在中国流传至今。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　5、古时人们对衣食住行、国家财政等方面的内容，是用什么词来表达呢？最初是用“食货”来表示。《汉书·食货志》对食货作了解释：“食”指农业生产；“货”指农家副业布帛的生产以及货币。此外，还出现了理财、富民、货殖等词。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user2251" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T13:08:14.583" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2655" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2656" CreationDate="2013-01-01T19:41:47.933" Score="5" ViewCount="452" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was recently challenged to translate the following sentence from English into Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You should stay away from that bar. A friend of mine went there before, and he ended up in the hospital after one drink. We think they put fertilizer in the margarita mix to save costs.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I provided two translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你不要去那个酒吧啊！我朋友以前去过一次，才喝一杯酒就被送到医院去了。我们认为酒保为了省钱就把肥料放进玛格丽特混合物里！&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你最好别去那个酒吧！我的朋友去过一次，喝了一杯酒就必须住院。我们想酒保因为要省钱的，所以就把肥料放进玛格丽特里。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question (Request):&lt;/strong&gt; I'm wondering if a native Chinese speaker could do the following: (a) correct grammatical errors in each of the above translations; (b) make the translations sound more natural; (c) provide your own translation of the challenge sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you could explain your thinking behind the corrections (i.e., what was the grammatical error; what sounded unnatural; why did you choose to translate as you did) that would be even better. Feel free to write this explanation in Chinese or English; I can read Chinese far more easily than I can write it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, please do not hold back with your criticisms/corrections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastEditorUserId="834" LastEditDate="2013-03-13T03:07:05.440" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T06:12:14.417" Title="Errors and Unnatural Language in a Translation Challenge" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2655" CreationDate="2013-01-01T23:35:18.920" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Overall both translations are fine and fluent, with some small issues below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Grammatical/Syntactic issues:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there is only one issue, in (2) 我们想酒保因为要&lt;b&gt;省钱的&lt;/b&gt;. Either use 要省钱 as verb (i.e. remove 的), or use 要省钱的 as adjective (i.e. add 是 before 要).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Semantic issues:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In (1), margarita mix is translated into 玛格丽特混合物. In Chinese, people don't refer food/drink mix as 混合物. You can either just say 玛格丽特, or use the uncommon but well-understood word 混饮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In (2), &quot;ended up in the hospital&quot; is translated into 住院. 住院 means hospitalization (overnight), while &quot;ended up in the hospital&quot; might be just seeing the doctor. It's fine if 住院 is deduced from contexts not shown in the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both sentences, 酒保&lt;b&gt;因为&lt;/b&gt;要省钱，&lt;b&gt;所以&lt;/b&gt;... sounds a little weird, because 因为..所以 not only states causality, but also has a weak implication that the reason is valid, as if &quot;if the bartender is poor, it is right for him to adulterate the drink.&quot; Using &lt;b&gt;为了&lt;/b&gt; is much more idiomatic, e.g. 奸商为了赚钱，良心都不要了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also &quot;they&quot; in the last sentence is referring to the bar as a whole, not just the bartender, so 酒吧 would be more accurate than 酒保.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Idiomatic/Naturalness issues:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both translations, 我们&lt;b&gt;认为&lt;/b&gt;酒保.../我们&lt;b&gt;想&lt;/b&gt;酒保... 认为 sounds too formal; 想 sounds unnatural since 我们想 usually means &quot;we want to...&quot;. 我们觉得 or 我们猜 are better options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;My version:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你最好别去那个酒吧。我朋友以前去过一次，喝了一杯酒就去医院了。我们觉得酒吧为了赚钱，在酒里掺了化肥。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes on word choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;最好 is optional. With it the tone is softer and more suggestive.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;别 vs 不要: people tend to use 别 in Northern China and 不要 in Southern China. Both are correct and natural.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;省钱 vs 节约成本 vs 降低成本 vs 赚钱: 省钱 is fine but a bit strange (what money is being saved and why, the ultimate goal is actually 赚钱 not 省钱); 节约成本 is a commendatory word so inappropriate (not a problem if you say it automatically in colloquial language); 降低成本 is clear but too neutral to condemn the misbehavior; 赚钱 is the best fit and indeed the most common word to describe a profiteer's motivation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;酒 vs 玛格丽特/玛格丽特酒: 玛格丽特 seems redundant because it is irrelevant to the point. The line sounds more fluent without it. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;把A放进B vs 在B里掺了A: former seems to imply intentional poisoning; latter is a common phrase to describe adulterated product especially food/drink.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;肥料 vs 化肥: they are essentially the same, but when put side by side, 肥料 focuses on nutrition value while 化肥 focuses on chemical ingredients, hence 化肥 sounds more inedible and toxic.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-01-02T03:38:07.537" LastActivityDate="2013-01-02T03:38:07.537" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2657" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2658" CreationDate="2013-01-02T07:37:13.740" Score="14" ViewCount="1219" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I understand correctly, Cantonese sounds very different from Mandarin, despite being written in the same way (omitting some small differences, which are irrelevant for the question).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is the case, how can foreign words be transliterated into Chinese on a phonetic basis, so that both Cantonese and Mandarin would read them similarly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, suppose there is a Western company &quot;Blablawabla&quot; and I am writing Chinese text, where this company is referred to. Is it the case, that I would have to choose different representations for &quot;Blablawabla&quot;, depending on whether the text will be read by Mandarin or Cantonese speakers? Or are there some &quot;standard&quot; characters that are pronounced very similarly in Mandarin and Cantonese and I have to be aware of them when transliterating? Or am I misunderstanding the idea completely?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2394" LastActivityDate="2014-02-01T21:19:00.823" Title="How does foreign word transliteration work in the context of Cantonese vs Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2657" CreationDate="2013-01-02T09:02:16.673" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right, most foreign words are transliterated differently in Mandarin and in Cantonese. Sometimes there are even different standards in different Mandarin speaking regions. It's an interesting idea to use characters that have similar pronunciations in both dialects to unify the transliteration but it's not what has already happened. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few examples of different transliteration in Mandarin and Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Beckham: 贝克汉(姆) (Mandarin: Bèikèhàn[mú]), 碧咸 (Cantonese: Bīkhàahm)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hollywood: 好莱坞 (Mandarin: Hǎoláiwù), 荷里活 (Cantonese: Hòhléihwuht)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Titanic: 泰坦尼克 (Mandarin: Tàitǎnníkè), 铁达尼 (Cantonese: Titdaahtnèih)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The standards used by mainland China to transliterate English names into Mandarin can be found here: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template%3aTranscription_into_Chinese&quot;&gt;英语姓名译名手册&lt;/a&gt; (rules)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/1a1feee9856a561252d36f3d.html&quot;&gt;常见英美姓名音译表&lt;/a&gt; (list)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was unable to find a good reference for its Cantonese counterpart though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related reading: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_into_Chinese_characters&quot;&gt;Transcription into Chinese characters&lt;/a&gt; (wikipedia)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://learning.sohu.com/20121227/n361754673.shtml&quot;&gt;两岸四地外国专名翻译异同趣谈&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2013-01-03T07:48:59.583" LastActivityDate="2013-01-03T07:48:59.583" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2657" CreationDate="2013-01-03T04:40:49.253" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting topics. I will throw in my 2 cents too :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Company Names&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many big companies hire PR/Advertising firm to conduct research to create localized name or brand name. Though many times they will end up with phonetic translation, some will get nice semi-phonetic, some of them get lucky with phonetic and poetic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Famous Semi-Phonetic&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Coca-Cola 可口可樂 / 可口可乐&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;可口 Taste Good / Delicious&#xA;可樂 可以快樂 / 可以帶來快樂 Can Be Happy / Can Bring Happiness&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a very good semi-phonetic name for a drink.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Marlboro 萬寶路 / 万宝路&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;萬寶 Thousands of treasures&#xA;路   Road&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Road to thousands of treasures. Who wouldn't want it?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Famous Poetic&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Revlon 露華濃 / 露华浓&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The origin is a very famous poem 清平調(poem) by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;李白 Li Bai&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雲想衣裳花想容 春風拂檻 &lt;strong&gt;露華濃&lt;/strong&gt; 若非羣玉山頭見 會向瑤臺月下逢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;云想衣裳花想容 春风拂槛 &lt;strong&gt;露华浓&lt;/strong&gt; 若非群玉山头见 会向瑶台月下逢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The poem is often used to praise the beauty of ladies. Perfect fit for cosmetic!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: It is too difficult for me to translate 清平調, I will provide 2 links here (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.musicated.com/syh/tangpoems.htm#LiBai02&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;)(&lt;a href=&quot;http://my.opera.com/transient/blog/2010/11/23/317&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Pure Phonetic&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Too many, but I will give this one example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dior 迪奥&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a pure phonetic translation. If you reverse the order, it becomes 奥迪, which is Audi (the car manufacture).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-01-03T04:47:58.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1120" CreationDate="2013-01-03T15:59:08.333" Score="16" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Language Exchanges&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Various websites to find language exchange partners, people will meet in person or talk online and help each other learn each others' respective languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.busuu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Busuu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.conversationexchange.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Conversation Exchange&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hellotalk.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HelloTalk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://hinative.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hinative&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.italki.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;italki&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lang-8.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lang-8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://langcorrect.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LangCorrect&lt;/a&gt; for writing corrections.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.language-exchanges.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Mixxer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;My Language Exchange&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://polyglotclub.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Polyglot Club&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://reddit.com/r/language_exchange&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reddit's r/language_exchange&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.speaky.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Speaky&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2257" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2021-01-29T03:36:02.437" LastActivityDate="2021-01-29T03:36:02.437" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-01-03T15:59:08.333" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2664" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-03T18:36:51.620" Score="8" ViewCount="1776" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你还记得我吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can’t understand the meaning of 得, here. I don’t think it belongs to the rules explained &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%E5%BE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="908" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-12T01:00:41.233" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T00:09:06.327" Title="Why is 得 in 你还记得我吗?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2664" CreationDate="2013-01-03T18:47:58.647" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the example sentence you give, &lt;code&gt;得&lt;/code&gt; is just part of the word &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E8%AE%B0%E5%BE%97/18392&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;记得&lt;/code&gt; (= to remember)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你还记得我吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you still remember me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-01-03T18:47:58.647" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2664" CreationDate="2013-01-04T03:42:11.050" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very briefly, you should be aware that one additional meaning of 得 (de2) is &lt;em&gt;to obtain&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of this usage include 得到 and 获得.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular instance, I think of 记得 as being 记 + 得, where the 记 means &lt;em&gt;memory&lt;/em&gt;, 得 means &lt;em&gt;to obtain&lt;/em&gt;, and put together we have: &lt;em&gt;to obtain a memory&lt;/em&gt;. Thus, 记得 means &lt;em&gt;to remember&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastEditorDisplayName="user2251" LastEditDate="2013-01-04T07:07:40.723" LastActivityDate="2013-01-04T07:07:40.723" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2664" CreationDate="2013-01-04T04:32:23.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I check the &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%E5%BE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; OP used. It is very close, or actually answered the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is in the B1 category. The site contains many specific long examples, but none with the exact format OP is looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very difficult to &quot;explain&quot; or give a translation to &lt;code&gt;得&lt;/code&gt;. I will try to give a list of example (specific to this usage/format) and hope OP can get a &lt;em&gt;&quot;feel&quot;&lt;/em&gt; of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;用得 Can use&#xA;打得 Can fight&#xA;记得 Can remember&#xA;读得 Can read&#xA;写得 Can write&#xA;跑得 Can run&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;得&lt;/code&gt; in the above usage/combination gives a &lt;em&gt;&quot;sense&quot;&lt;/em&gt; of positive/confirmation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps and not being too confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="2263" LastEditDate="2013-01-04T04:57:44.830" LastActivityDate="2013-01-04T04:57:44.830" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2631" CreationDate="2013-01-04T07:50:44.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is safe to use the idiom when somebody losses something valuable, but it is unpertinent to use it while one loses something too important for him, espcially something would never be found a surrogate, such as one's parent. If you did, that could be consider as sarcasm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2399" LastActivityDate="2013-01-04T07:50:44.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2670" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2671" CreationDate="2013-01-07T20:40:48.463" Score="3" ViewCount="4742" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since learning Mandarin through Rosetta Stone, Youtube videos, and friends, I've begun to keep a journal of mandarin characters and phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first draw the character, along with the pinyin and english definition. However, I've noticed that compared with the characters on the computer, mine seem much more sloppy and pieced together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this normal? I don't think I've ever seen anyone write in Mandarin or at least looked at it carefully, so I'm not sure if it's just me or if it's normal. I've never been taught any formal way to do it, so I've just been winging it thus far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt; - it's not like I rush through it, even if I spend a painstakingly long time it just seems to come out badly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2407" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-19T10:08:30.010" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T10:08:30.010" Title="My Chinese Character Writing is Sloppy" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2670" CreationDate="2013-01-07T22:44:19.377" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;How long have you been practicing? At first it's normal. If you could see my first drawn characters... they didn't look good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are some simple rules to keep in mind to improve them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stroke Order&lt;/strong&gt;: It's unavoidable. You can actually use any stroke order you want, no-one is really going to check (unless that's the exam) but it's certain that writing using the correct stroke order not only helps you to retain the character but it also helps you to write much faster, with more beautiful proportions and in an easier way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/695/43&quot;&gt;Why is stroke order important when writing Chinese characters?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Characters are &quot;square&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;: This is actually a rule I learned while studying Japanese, but the same applies to Chinese, they're almost the same characters after all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters occupy the space of a square. Note: They're not square, but using a square as a reference will help you to correctly balance their proportions. Check the image below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BcplY.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Hanzi guides&quot;&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.learn-japanese.info/practiceltblsml.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each character must fit inside of the continuous-lined squares. The dotted lines in the middle help you position the elements correctly (so you don't squeeze the character or strech it unnaturally).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Honestly I've seen them being used for Japanese only but that might be just me, they're almost the same characters after all.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T22:44:19.377" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2673" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2676" CreationDate="2013-01-08T13:09:52.830" Score="24" ViewCount="16994" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my dictionary it defines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;黃 (Huáng)&#xA;- yellow&#xA;- pornographic&#xA;- to fall through&#xA;- surname Huang or Hwang&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imperial China and the robes of the emperor are commonly associated with the colour yellow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We also have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;黃河 - Huánghé   - the yellow river&#xA;黃山 - Huángshān - the yellow mountain&#xA;黃帝 - Huángdì   - the legendary Yellow Emperor&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how did the colour yellow come to be associated with pornography?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;黃色電影 - Huángsè diànyǐng - pornographic movie&#xA;黃色書刊 - Huángsè shūkān   - pornographic book&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastEditorUserId="80" LastEditDate="2013-01-08T13:15:16.747" LastActivityDate="2014-11-26T02:17:47.450" Title="How did 黃 (yellow) come to mean &quot;pornographic&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2674" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2677" CreationDate="2013-01-08T14:17:58.933" Score="10" ViewCount="497" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard the sentence &lt;code&gt;这毛衣&lt;/code&gt;, (so without measure word), but my chinese manual always use a measure word after &lt;code&gt;这&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这件毛衣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这件苹果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the measure word optionnal in after &lt;code&gt;这&lt;/code&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2410" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-01-08T20:42:03.357" LastActivityDate="2016-04-12T20:28:17.207" Title="Is the measure word optional in 这件毛衣?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2674" CreationDate="2013-01-08T14:27:05.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“这毛衣” works, but it means &quot;this sweater&quot;; while &quot;这件毛衣” means &quot;this /&lt;em&gt;measurement word in English for 件&lt;/em&gt;/ of sweater&quot;; they are different grammatically.&#xA;Just like: these shoes Vs. this pair of shoes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2411" LastActivityDate="2013-01-08T14:27:05.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2673" CreationDate="2013-01-08T18:08:56.550" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/jw!T2v.MHCfGRsGWv2fDKqtejg-/article?mid=6384&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;, there are four possible explanations as to why yellow colour is associated with pornography. Below is a slightly modified translation of the article based on further references from the internet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Orpiment (雌黃). &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpiment&quot;&gt;Orpiment&lt;/a&gt; is a toxic orange-yellow mineral that is used as a&#xA;pigment by ancient people. Due to poor bleaching technology, paper&#xA;produced in the olden days was slightly yellow. When words on a&#xA;paper need to be corrected, orpiment can be used to smear onto the&#xA;written words, creating a layer of slightly opaque yellow close to&#xA;the paper's colour, enabling a rewrite. Soon, people describe&#xA;uttering nonsense as &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/cy/ch/ZdicE4ZdicBFZdicA123609.htm&quot;&gt;信口雌黃&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. Subsequently, the yellow colour of&#xA;orpiment and its toxicity is later extended to mean poisoning of the&#xA;mind.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Yellow Union. In 1887, in a city in France, a factory owner tried to prevent his&#xA;workers from going on strike by bribing the Yellow Union. The&#xA;workers discovered the betrayal and angrily smashed the windows of&#xA;the union clubhouse. The union then used yellow paper backings as a&#xA;replacement for the windows. Since then, the workers labelled these&#xA;union people as &quot;见不得人的&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%84%E8%89%B2%E5%B7%A5%E4%BC%9A&quot;&gt;黃色工会&lt;/a&gt;”, meaning a union that cannot face the&#xA;public, similar to pornography.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Yellow Book. In 1894, a British magazine&#xA;named &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Book&quot;&gt;The Yellow Book&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, gathered in a group of conservative collection of authors&#xA;to produce quarterly literary periodicals that are thought to be scurrilous in content. Later, a&#xA;prestigious Irish playwright, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde&quot;&gt;Oscar Wilde&lt;/a&gt;, was arrested on&#xA;homosexuality charges. At the time of his arrest, Oscar was&#xA;seen holding a yellow book (which turns out to be a French novel). People misidentified the material to be The Yellow Book and associated it with his personality. The next day people demonstrated in front of the publisher, and a furry of media reports soon cemented an association between yellow paperbacks and homosexual content.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Yellow Kid. The end of the 19th century New&#xA;York, New York World and New York Journal competed for readers&#xA;intensely, posting vulgar comics content to which &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/YellowKid.jpeg&quot;&gt;The Yellow Kid&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&#xA;is one of them and is the origin for the term &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Journalism&quot;&gt;yellow journalism&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&#xA;Since then, the colour yellow is associated with erotic and vulgar&#xA;things.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-01-08T18:08:56.550" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2674" CreationDate="2013-01-08T20:17:04.237" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, especially Northern China dialects, measure words can be omitted when&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is following a demonstrative pronoun (e.g. 这, 那), AND&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The numeral is 1 (one), AND&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is not a collective measure word （e.g. 些, 群).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammatical role of the phrase does not change. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这一件毛衣 = 这件毛衣 = 这毛衣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这一些毛衣 = 这些毛衣 collective measure word 些 cannot be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-04-12T20:28:17.207" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2680" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2681" CreationDate="2013-01-09T14:56:54.237" Score="3" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a role playing game I'm joining, my character is a monk of Chinese origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to come up with a name I thought of &quot;Eye of (the) Hurricane/Typhoon&quot; as the monk is a very calm character caught in the turbulence of the real world outside of the monastery. I tried to look for a Chinese translation of which I would want to use the Pinyin equivalent, but I couldn't find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know what the eye of a hurricane or typhoon is called in Chinese and if so, could you provide me with a Pinyin alternative?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried this dictionary: &lt;a href=&quot;http://tool.nciku.com/pinyin-translator/#results&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://tool.nciku.com/pinyin-translator/#results&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;But the server isn't responding. Couldn't find any other good dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2416" LastEditorUserId="2416" LastEditDate="2013-01-09T15:02:15.720" LastActivityDate="2013-01-09T16:09:56.727" Title="What's the Eye of a Hurricane called in Chinese/Pinyin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2680" CreationDate="2013-01-09T16:09:56.727" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 风眼(feng1 yan3) or 台风眼(tai2 feng1 yan3), simply the word-by-word translation to the English word &quot;Eye of (the) Hurricane/Typhoon&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see it on the wiki: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A2%A8%E7%9C%BC&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A2%A8%E7%9C%BC&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2013-01-09T16:09:56.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2682" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2685" CreationDate="2013-01-10T00:38:53.787" Score="14" ViewCount="7197" Body="&lt;p&gt;A man I don't know calls me and starts talking to me in Chinese. All is fine, except I don't know who he is. I sense I'm not the person he's looking for. How do I ask who he is without being too blunt: &quot;你是誰?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2283" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T10:10:37.667" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T10:10:37.667" Title="What is a polite way to ask &quot;may I ask who is speaking?&quot;" Tags="&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2682" CreationDate="2013-01-10T00:51:07.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Politer than &lt;code&gt;你是誰?&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;你是哪一位?&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Side note: I'd also like to point out that &lt;code&gt;這是誰?&lt;/code&gt; is wrong, while &lt;code&gt;你是誰?&lt;/code&gt; is acceptable. You got this right, but it's not obvious to a lot of learners.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-01-10T00:51:07.117" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2682" CreationDate="2013-01-10T00:53:05.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Polite: 请问您是哪位？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Impolite: 哎，你是哪个？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, you could politely ask him who he is looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Polite: 请问您找谁？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2251" LastActivityDate="2013-01-10T00:53:05.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2682" CreationDate="2013-01-10T01:50:19.163" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several ways to say it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Polite&lt;/em&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;请问，你是哪位?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Qǐng wèn&lt;/strong&gt; (May I ask), &lt;strong&gt;nǐ shì&lt;/strong&gt; (you are) &lt;strong&gt;nǎ&lt;/strong&gt; (which) &lt;strong&gt;wèi&lt;/strong&gt; (identifier for people/position)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May I ask, who is this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;您好， 您找谁？&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Nín hǎo&lt;/strong&gt; (hello), &lt;strong&gt;nín&lt;/strong&gt; (polite form of you) &lt;strong&gt;zhǎo&lt;/strong&gt; (looking) &lt;strong&gt;sheí&lt;/strong&gt; (who)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hello, whom are you looking for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;喂，请问您是谁？&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wei&lt;/strong&gt; (&quot;hi&quot;- typical way people answer the phone), &lt;strong&gt;qǐng wèn nín shì sheí?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hi, who is this please (...&lt;strong&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; 请问 is &quot;please&quot;. 请问 &lt;strong&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt;... is &quot;excuse me&quot;) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Impolite&lt;/em&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;喂？ 哪位？&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wèi nǎ wèi&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hi, who is this...?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;找谁呀？&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Zhǎo sheí ya&lt;/strong&gt; (&quot;ya&quot; is a participle equivalent to 啊 &quot;ah&quot; expressing surprise or doubt)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who are you lookin' for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the ones I typically hear... although there are more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="3124" LastEditDate="2013-11-14T22:45:30.207" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T22:45:30.207" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2686" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2687" CreationDate="2013-01-11T09:10:24.037" Score="2" ViewCount="1775" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is using the resultative complement 到 generally  equivalent to saying &quot;at the time this action was finished&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can 你走到车站的时候已经很晚了吗？ be translated  as &quot;By the time you reached the station were you already late?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你跑到医务所的时候已经很晚了吗？&#xA;By the time you had run to the clinic, were you already late?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2013-01-11T13:12:07.860" LastActivityDate="2013-01-14T11:00:47.137" Title="Resultative complement 到" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2686" CreationDate="2013-01-11T10:13:27.187" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;UPDATE: I noticed that different sources disagree on whether to call the 到 in the context you used it &lt;em&gt;a complement of result&lt;/em&gt;. For example according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt; it is not a complement of result (and it's also my feeling). The most common definition is that a &lt;em&gt;complement of result&lt;/em&gt; implies that an &lt;em&gt;action has attained the expected aim or result&lt;/em&gt;. However the &lt;a href=&quot;http://comet.cls.yale.edu/mandarin/content/grammar.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mandarin Essential Grammar&lt;/a&gt; Guide of the University of Yale lists this use case under complement of result. See below for more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, regarding to your question &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is using the resultative complement 到 generally equivalent to saying&#xA;  &quot;at the time this action was finished&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your examples the 到 doesn't refer to time but to the location where you arrived.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki (complemented with my) explanation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say this in not a complement of result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your examples the 到 is not a complement of result, but one to &lt;strong&gt;indicate direction, target or  location&lt;/strong&gt;. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Complements_with_%22dao%22,_%22gei%22_and_%22zai%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Complements with &quot;dao&quot;, &quot;gei&quot; and &quot;zai&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation of your examples correct, but the reference to time doesn't come from 到, but from 的时候. 到 only refers to the location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you actually are using a &lt;em&gt;complement of result&lt;/em&gt;, the 到 will express that the &lt;strong&gt;outcome of the verb is achieved - what its result is&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我昨天买到了一辆汽车: Yesterday I (successfully) bought a car.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It emphasizes that the action has finished with a success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also see &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complements_%22dao%22_and_%22jian%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Result complements &quot;dao&quot; and &quot;jian&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also express ability and possibility with these complements of result. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;买得到: can buy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;买不到: can't buy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Explanation in Mandarin Essential Grammar&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://comet.cls.yale.edu/mandarin/content/grammar.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mandarin Essential Grammar&lt;/a&gt; Guide of the University of Yale also has a section on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://comet.cls.yale.edu/mandarin/content/result/grammar/result.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Complement of Result&lt;/a&gt;. In this they write (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://comet.cls.yale.edu/mandarin/content/result/grammar/Result-9.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://comet.cls.yale.edu/mandarin/content/result/grammar/Result-9.htm&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;dào到: implying that an action has attained the expected aim or result&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;kàndào    看到            see&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;tīngdào    听到            hear&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;yùdào      遇到            run into&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;jiēdào      接到            receive&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;shōudào  收到            receive&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;zhǎodào  找到            find&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;mǎidào    买到            succeed in buying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example 1: zhǎodào找到 (zhǎo找to look for + dào到[attain the expected result]) find&lt;br&gt;&#xA;     Wǒ zhǎodào Lǐ Xiānsheng le.&#xA;     我找到李先生了。&#xA;     I have found Mr. Li. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example 2: mǎidào买到 (mǎi买to buy + dào到[attain the expected result]) succeed in buying&#xA;     Wǒ qùwǎn le. Méi yǒu mǎidào diànyǐng piào.&#xA;     我去晚了。没有买到电影票。&#xA;     I was late./ I got there late. [So,] I did not manage to get the movie tickets.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;dào到: reach or arrive at (a place or a point of time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;zǒudào    走到            walk to /until/up to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;pǎodào    跑到            run to /until/up to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;xuédào    学到            study until/up to,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;shuìdào   睡到            sleep until/up to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;mángdào 忙到            be busy until/up to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;kàndào    看到            read or watch until/up to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;tīngdào    听到            listen until/up to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example 1: xuédào学到        (xué学to study + dào到 until/up to) study until/up to&lt;br&gt;&#xA;       Wǒmen xuédào Dì Bā Kè le.&#xA;       我们学到第八课了。&#xA;       We have studied up to Lesson 8 so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example 2:&#xA;       Zuótiān wǎnshang wǒmen xué Zhōngwén xuédào shíyī diǎn.&#xA;       昨天晚上我们学中文学到十一点。&#xA;       We studied Chinese until 11 o’clock last night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case it refers to the fact that one &lt;strong&gt;reaches or arrives at a place&lt;/strong&gt;. So the 到 on its own doesn't is not generally equivalent to saying &quot;at the time this action was finished&quot;. The time reference comes from 的时候 (到的时候 = when (one) arrived)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-01-14T11:00:47.137" LastActivityDate="2013-01-14T11:00:47.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2686" CreationDate="2013-01-11T16:37:17.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Is using the resultative complement 到 generally equivalent to saying &quot;at the time this action was finished&quot;?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can think of it that way, but not in the example you've provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to use in that sense, 到 would be paired with 了, signifying &quot;an end&quot;, or &quot;in the past&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我到北京了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the 了, &quot;我到北京&quot; would give no indication of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of &lt;code&gt;到&lt;/code&gt; as a definitive destination identifier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我明天&lt;code&gt;到&lt;/code&gt;北京去！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;到&lt;/code&gt; here is identifying a set location for you to travel to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Can 你走到车站的时候已经很晚了吗？ be translated as &quot;By the time you reached the station were you already late?&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are correct that &quot;晚&quot; does mean &quot;late&quot;, but moreso as a time of day. You can use 迟到 (&lt;strong&gt;Chí&lt;/strong&gt; - &quot;late, tardy, slow&quot; &lt;strong&gt;Dào&lt;/strong&gt; - &quot;until&quot;, &quot;arrive&quot;) to describe &quot;being late for something&quot;, or &quot;to arrive late&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你迟到车站了&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, you can use 来得及 （Lái de jí- &quot;in time for&quot;）and 来不及 (&quot;not in time for&quot;) to describe situations where you were your lateness actually caused you to miss something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你来得及到火车站了， 让你刚好 (Gāng hǎo - &quot;just&quot;, &quot;happen to be&quot;)上火车了&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just made it to the train station on time, allowing you to just make your train&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你来不及到火车站了，让你错过了火车&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You arrived too late to the train station, so you missed your train!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a general purpose word to describe &quot;at this time this action was finished&quot;, you can use 完 (Wán - &quot;complete&quot;), or even 好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃完了 - &quot;I finished eating&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你完蛋了 - &quot;You are finished (you are screwed)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我做好功课了 - &quot;I finished my homework&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-01-11T16:44:38.017" LastActivityDate="2013-01-11T16:44:38.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2682" CreationDate="2013-01-11T17:00:10.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people (at least in Taiwan) also say (你)哪里找, which to me doesn't seem either super polite or super impolite...really just depends on tone of voice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2302" LastActivityDate="2013-01-11T17:00:10.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2653" CreationDate="2013-01-12T09:56:51.327" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“经济”一词在古汉语中是“治理国家”的意思。后来被日本人作为西方经济学概念的翻译。当时中国学者的翻译是“生计学”、“计学”，到 1903 年以后在中国逐渐开始采用“经济学”。至于日本人为何翻译成“经济”，可能是联系了“经济”这个词原来的意义，具体的原因，我觉得应该去日语区问。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastEditorUserId="2421" LastEditDate="2013-01-14T14:14:17.107" LastActivityDate="2013-01-14T14:14:17.107" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2639" CreationDate="2013-01-12T10:15:31.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it's always pleased to see people learning foreign languages even dialects. There are so many dialects in China and Shanghainese is one of them, which is more popular than most of the others. It depends on how you look at it, I mean, there are quite many people speaking Shanghainese and the majority of them are in Shanghai. Above all, no matter it is Shanghainese or Cantonese, or other Chinese dialects, they are based on Chinese. So why don't you learn fundamental Chinese first? If you are interested in Shanghai dialects, you can live with people in Shanghai.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastActivityDate="2013-01-12T10:15:31.530" CommentCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-01-12T10:15:31.530" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2670" CreationDate="2013-01-13T05:47:48.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's normal. Just continue to practice and also, like someone mentioned above, learn the stroke order for the character in question, it will help you write better. Also going with the grid information, you can buy graphing paper and practice writing in there. That's what i used to do when I was learning Japanese. Another way to help your writing is to write overly big. For me that helps me remember not only the stroke order but the look of the character and all its parts. Good luck ^_^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2424" LastActivityDate="2013-01-13T05:47:48.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2693" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-14T15:46:49.870" Score="6" ViewCount="393" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently writing a Chinese translation for a &lt;a href=&quot;http://fuz.su/go/index.zh-TW.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;webpage&lt;/a&gt; about a Go meeting. The section about how to get there contains a lot of mixed Chinese and Latin text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;地點&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;社團處所在 Lehrter Straße 53，附近有 Kruppstraße, Perlenberger Brücke 和&#xA;Quitzowstraße&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;自 Hauptbahnhof 搭乘１２３號線公車前往 Mäckeritzwiesen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;自 Turmstraße 地鐵站搭１２３號線公車前往 Hauptbahnhof&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;從Ｕ７號線各站乘坐Ｍ２７號線公車前往 Pankow&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you give me a short stylistic guide about how to mix these two scripts? I am especially interested in how to handle punctuation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="87" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T19:41:42.103" Title="How to mix Latin and Chinese script with style?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2693" CreationDate="2013-01-14T18:30:43.190" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I understand your question correctly, you're asking how to format a mixed Chinese-Latin sentence... I don't think there is a set of rules on this...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way I think of it is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use the punctuation appropriate for that given sentence/word...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我明天要跟我女朋友去看&quot;Les Misérables&quot;电影。 (It's a latin movie title, so use latin quotes... but a Chinese sentence, so use Chinese 句号)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-01-16T04:54:39.393" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T04:54:39.393" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2695" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-15T08:21:47.953" Score="13" ViewCount="8245" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference in meaning, formality, tone, or otherwise between the &quot;good morning&quot; greetings 早安 and 早上好? Or just regional preferences? (I'm thinking perhaps the former may be more common in Taiwan and the latter more common in Mainland China and/or northern China but I'm not sure.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2302" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-01-15T10:28:26.117" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T05:52:56.077" Title="Any difference between 早安 and 早上好?" Tags="&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2695" CreationDate="2013-01-15T08:46:12.563" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the accepted answer at &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/101763528.html&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Both are words of greeting. Nowadays people generally use “早上好”. “早安”&#xA;  will give a feeling of before 民国 (the Republic of China (1912-1949)), &#xA;  or a literary feeling (it's common in literature).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other people think 早安 has a warmer feeling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course this is the perspective of mainland people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan 早安 is used much more than 早上好. （Ratio: 28, Google advanced search: exact phrase, country TW, language zh-TW)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;早安&quot; 5,340,000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;早上好&quot; 192,000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the mainland, incidentally, 早安 is &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; used much more than 早上好, although the degree of usage seems much closer. （Ratio: 2.3, Google advanced search: exact phrase, country CN, language zh-CN)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;早安&quot; 24,500,000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;早上好&quot; 10,400,000 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2013-01-15T16:38:27.240" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T16:38:27.240" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2695" CreationDate="2013-01-16T03:52:39.743" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally people in Taiwan and Hongkong write in &lt;strong&gt;traditional chinese&lt;/strong&gt; while people in Mainland China mostly write in &lt;strong&gt;simplified chinese&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese in mainland speak mandarin. We speak &lt;strong&gt;早上好&lt;/strong&gt; more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People in Hong Kong and Guangzhou speak Cantonese, which is much more ancient Chinese, they greet with &lt;strong&gt;早晨&lt;/strong&gt;. Cantonese &lt;strong&gt;sounds&lt;/strong&gt; totally different than mandarin, almost like a different language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People in Taiwan speak mostly mandarin, they say &lt;strong&gt;早安&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;安&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;strong&gt;safe , in peace&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For detailed information:http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/正體字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2426" LastEditorUserId="2263" LastEditDate="2013-01-16T07:34:35.357" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T07:34:35.357" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2698" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-16T06:22:04.783" Score="7" ViewCount="758" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any resources for students of Mandarin Chinese that allow them to listen or read Chinese news or literature in simple versions, preferably in podcast or e-book format respectively? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By that I do not mean &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simplified Chinese&lt;/a&gt; as used in Mainland China, but rather what is known e.g. as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hachettefle.fr/ouvrages/pages/catalogue/fiche-livre/les-trois-mousquetaires-t-2-a2-1552561.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Français facile&lt;/a&gt; in the case of French, i.e. resources that employ only well-defined, limited sets of words to support students in their initial encounters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Resources aligned with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK&lt;/a&gt; levels would be most valuable for me at this time. I am currently aware of the Graded Chinese Readers mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, but of no other material. What I'd like best is a simple/graded podcast from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;BBC World Service&lt;/a&gt;, say ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2333" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2013-12-11T12:06:49.983" Title="Graded Mandarin Chinese podcasts or e-books" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-06-17T10:49:41.317" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-02T09:21:21.100" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2699" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-16T06:32:28.930" Score="3" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked up the definition for 集合 in Baidu but I'm not sure how to use it. My example is like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其博大宽泛的特性集合，～&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context of this sentence is that it's describing PHP, a popular programming language. My translation thus far might look like this: &lt;code&gt;Its ubiquity ...&lt;/code&gt;, with ubiquity being my translation for &lt;code&gt;博大宽泛&lt;/code&gt; (i.e. widespreadness, popularity, etc.). I don't understand how 集合 works here. The definition I have for 集合 is 'assembled', 'set', 'brought together'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full passage is like this. It's technical, but I don't need help translating the technical part of it, just help understanding the grammatical aspect:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其博大宽泛的特性集合，简捷友好的语法结构以及对不同操作系统和Web服务器的支持，已经使它称为～&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="802" LastEditorUserId="802" LastEditDate="2013-01-16T07:02:18.040" LastActivityDate="2013-01-19T01:07:05.947" Title="How should I understand 集合?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2699" CreationDate="2013-01-16T07:34:18.330" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;‘集合’ refers to &lt;strong&gt;set&lt;/strong&gt; when it comes to math.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘集合’ refers to &lt;strong&gt;a collection/bunch of&lt;/strong&gt; when it comes to your sentence, which means a bounch of features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2426" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-01-19T01:07:05.947" LastActivityDate="2013-01-19T01:07:05.947" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2693" CreationDate="2013-01-16T09:39:22.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I don't think there are any prescriptive conventions for text format in mixed languages/character systems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, I don't think the example in your question is real 'mixed language'. I think it's Chinese translation with proper nouns, specifically street names, left in its original language, which actually makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for this example, I would suggest using Chinese format standards including using full width punctuation symbols.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For real mixed language usage, I would determine the 'primary language' by checking of which language is the grammar in effect, and stick with the format standards for that language. By this definition, your example is using Chinese grammar with a mixed vocabulary, so Chinese format standards should apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T09:39:22.000" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2673" CreationDate="2013-01-16T11:00:44.183" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was a time when the color yellow was associated with prostitution also in Europe. For instance, historian &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Johan_Ringdal&quot;&gt;Nils Johan Ringdal&lt;/a&gt; reports in his &lt;em&gt;Love For Sale: A World History of Prostitution&lt;/em&gt; that prostitutes were told to wear yellow scarves in 15th century Vienna. BTW, the book also has a chapter on Tang-dynasty China, but I don't remember further references to the color yellow in there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a bit more (condensed) information in the Wikipedia article on prostitution during the Middle Ages (&lt;a href=&quot;http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_im_Mittelalter&quot;&gt;German&lt;/a&gt; version only): it cites red, yellow, and green as (then) colors of shame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2333" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T11:00:44.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2577" CreationDate="2013-01-16T14:40:49.543" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese can read the both. The reason is that only a small portion of hanzi are different between traditional and simplified Chinese. (in other words, only a small portion is simplified from traditional version to simplified version.) Most hanzi are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mainland Chinese, you still can see traditional hanzi everywhere like plaques, posters, chess, academic philological periodicals. In Taiwan or Hong Kong, people also use some simplified ones in handwriting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2428" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T13:12:18.067" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T13:12:18.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2704" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2714" CreationDate="2013-01-16T21:39:59.853" Score="4" ViewCount="1687" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to identify some Cantonese poetry to study, and I'm looking for the kind of poetry that follows a recognized style and is bound by certain rules (even Cantonese haiku or limericks would do).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now obviously there is lots of classical Chinese poetry which can all be read in Cantonese. However this might sometimes not sound very natural, and I'm looking for poems that sound natural, not awkward, when read in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that written Cantonese is a very recent thing, and that classical written Chinese was sort of separated from spoken language; that &quot;traditional Cantonese poetry&quot; might be a self-contradictory term to some extent. Even so, I think some Cantonese poets would have had their own native pronunciation in mind, when supposedly writing the same non-verbal, classical written Chinese as everyone else, to a greater extent than someone from the other side of the country would have. My theory is that poetry by such poets might sound more natural in Cantonese, and it would qualify as &quot;Cantonese poetry&quot; for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question(s):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there any famous traditional Chinese poet who lived in Guangdong and/or is known to or can be assumed to have written poetry with Cantonese in mind?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any collections of modern Cantonese poetry following any recognized style (also non-Chinese styles)?   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any other sources one should know about?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I keep updating this as I think of ways to make more sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="400" LastEditorUserId="400" LastEditDate="2013-01-19T09:51:15.073" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T01:54:43.700" Title="Where can I find Cantonese poetry?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2698" CreationDate="2013-01-16T22:59:23.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;小王子 (Xiao3 Wang3 zi: Little Prince), 还游世界八十天 (huan2 you2 shi4 jie4 ba shi2 tian: Around the World in 80 Days) by 企鹅 (qi3 e2: Penguin) books were pretty interesting books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They aren't too packed with useless ChengYu (idioms), and tell a nice story (They also have some pictures... Which I find really helpful in pairing with Chinese to remember). You can download them on your smart phone and read them there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have Android, download the &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.embermitre.hanping.app.pro&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hanping Pro&lt;/a&gt; for like $.99... will help you with any characters you don't understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also recommend you read some 漫画 (man4 hua4：Manga)... The pictures along with the words are great for learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="3645" LastEditDate="2013-12-11T12:06:49.983" LastActivityDate="2013-12-11T12:06:49.983" CommentCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-01-16T23:51:46.787" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2706" PostTypeId="7" CreationDate="2013-01-17T00:14:15.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese Language and Usage&lt;/strong&gt; is a question and answer site for experts, language enthusiasts, and people who have an interest in the Chinese language. It's built and run &lt;em&gt;by you&lt;/em&gt; as part of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://stackexchange.com&quot;&gt;Stack Exchange&lt;/a&gt; network of Q&amp;amp;A sites. With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about the Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2013-02-01T20:43:16.407" LastActivityDate="2013-02-01T20:43:16.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2709" CreationDate="2013-01-17T22:57:36.090" Score="4" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across the phrase &quot;网络驿站&quot; a couple of times recently, but don't understand precisely what it means (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hbjjrb.com/yaowen/yw/201301/583647.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hbjjrb.com&lt;/a&gt; for an example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only translation of 驿站 that I can find refers to a relay station for post horses, and it seems like it's sometimes used in place names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2433" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-01-17T23:16:30.540" LastActivityDate="2013-01-19T22:56:24.693" Title="Meaning of &quot;网络驿站&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2707" CreationDate="2013-01-18T03:35:27.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;网络驿站 is only a fancy name that can be used to name a link on someone's personal webpage or the web site itself, such as 知心姐姐网络驿站. It has only the naming function, but not a jargon at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 驿站, a simple definition from baidu.com &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;驿站是国家出现以后，政府专门为传递公文和军情所设置的通信机构，至今已有3000年历史。 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation: For 3000 years since the advent of sovereign states, 驿站 Yizhan has been the communications network used by the government for delivering official documents and military intelligence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-01-19T22:56:24.693" LastActivityDate="2013-01-19T22:56:24.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2710" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2711" CreationDate="2013-01-18T05:30:33.380" Score="2" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this on nciku.cn and after searching around I could find no other references or even mention. Is this a translation error or some sort of dictionary blip?&#xA;I asked a few Chinese friends but they had never heard of it nor any idea to what it could signify aside from one's death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T10:18:44.777" Title="What is the significance of 吃秋葵时过世?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2710" CreationDate="2013-01-18T10:18:44.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that that at some time &lt;em&gt;dweg&lt;/em&gt; (or &lt;em&gt;died while eating gumbo&lt;/em&gt;) has been used in English by some people. Although I can't find many references to it. The definition for dweg can be found on this website: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.abbrt.com/dweg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.abbrt.com/dweg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some reason this ended up in the &lt;em&gt;Comprehensive English-Chinese Dictionary&lt;/em&gt; which is one of the sources of Nciku. Nciku also has the definition for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E5%90%83%E7%A7%8B%E8%91%B5%E6%97%B6%E8%BF%87%E4%B8%96/1850452&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dweg&lt;/a&gt; and 吃秋葵时过世 is their tranlation of &lt;em&gt;died while eating gumbo&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is definitely not a Chinese expression and not something that is worthwhile learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T10:18:44.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2695" CreationDate="2013-01-18T15:46:03.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;早安 is more literary, it's used more frequently in written form like novel and poems as well as articles, blogs and tweets. That's why Google gives more results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oral, we say 早上好 more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2437" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T15:46:03.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2704" CreationDate="2013-01-19T00:20:02.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese who happens to know the basics of Cantonese and grew up listening to some Cantonese pop songs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any famous traditional Chinese poet who lived in Guangdong and/or is known to or can be assumed to have written poetry for Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No I do not think there is any famous traditional Chinese poet who did that. There is an author 黄霑 who has some work written in Written Cantonese such as《不文集》, 《香港仔手记》and 《问我》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there any collections of modern Cantonese poetry following any traditional style (from anywhere)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, I do not believe so. However, there are tons of Cantonese songs like those played by Beyond (band). For all the subtitles I have ever seen for popular Cantonese songs in my entire life, there is not one written in Written Cantonese. They are all written in mandarin Chinese or traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there any other sources one should know about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might have seen this but the wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Written Cantonese&lt;/a&gt; is actually quite neat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This link for &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B2%B5%E8%AA%9E%E7%99%BD%E8%A9%B1%E6%96%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;粤语白话文&lt;/a&gt; should be useful too &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2434" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-01-19T14:24:22.417" LastActivityDate="2013-01-19T14:24:22.417" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2704" CreationDate="2013-01-19T13:48:30.913" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/search?q=%E7%B2%B5%E8%A9%A9&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;oe=UTF-8&quot;&gt;粵詩&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.cantonese.asia/thread-31942-1-1.html&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt; (PDF Download from Cantonese Association) in 趣味詩文 gives a few examples.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2013-01-19T13:48:30.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1647" CreationDate="2013-01-20T22:53:24.460" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very likely because you are still learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I started learning I had the same experience. At a regular font size, some characters that were different looked indistinguishable. As you become more familiar with the characters, you will find that you are comfortable reading them at smaller font sizes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is to use whatever size feels most comfortable to you. As you become more familiar with the words, the larger font sizes will probably begin to feel too large.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2391" LastActivityDate="2013-01-20T22:53:24.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="511" CreationDate="2013-01-21T02:02:03.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a list of etymology resources (including a couple already mentioned) on this page:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mandarinportal.com/etymology.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://mandarinportal.com/etymology.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2391" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T02:02:03.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="511" CreationDate="2013-01-21T09:07:13.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1838/what-was-this-online-dictionarys-name-with-ancient-traditional-and-simplified-c/1839#1839&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; I gave an overview of online resources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&lt;/a&gt; you can see how a character&#xA;  evolved, the simplified and traditional characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Another similar website is&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Zdict is completely in Chinese:&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE7Zdic9BZdicAE.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE7Zdic9BZdicAE.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Here is another website in Chinese (that only supports transitional&#xA;  characters): &lt;a href=&quot;http://alphads10-2.hkbu.edu.hk/~lcprichi/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://alphads10-2.hkbu.edu.hk/~lcprichi/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As Aristide mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com&lt;/a&gt; has similar&#xA;  functionality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Although it doesn't show how the characters evolved, I also like&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt; It explains how characters are composed out of other characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T09:07:13.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2718" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2723" CreationDate="2013-01-21T10:31:01.250" Score="12" ViewCount="1840" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to learn Cantonese. Does anyone know some good resources (books, websites) that provide a thorough introduction into the language? I know that the pronunciation is a lot harder than in Mandarin, so the resource should contain audios as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2444" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-07-26T07:11:43.827" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T07:11:43.827" Title="Resources for learning Cantonese" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="6" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-01-21T10:49:32.810" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="511" CreationDate="2013-01-21T22:55:09.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an excellent one (and it's free too ;) )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yellow Bridge&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T22:55:09.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2718" CreationDate="2013-01-22T10:36:22.800" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't much in terms of (good) teaching materials for Canto, unfortunately. The best/least crappy is probably &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/clc/new/en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CUHK's Yale-China Chinese Language Centre (CLC)&lt;/a&gt;'s coursework, but it is not publicly available -- ie you have to attend the classes to get your hands on the books and CDs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would anyway recommend against attempting to learn the basics of Cantonese unsupervised. While learning the grammar and vocabulary from a textbook is doable, there's no way you can learn the pronunciation without a (trained) native speaker making your life miserable until you manage to pronounce something that might sound like Cantonese -- and more importantly who'll train you to distinguish the 6 tones. And just be happy that it's only 6 and not 7 like 50 years ago (the high-falling tone, while still mentioned in some dictionaries, has fortunately gone the way of the Dodo).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2013-01-22T10:36:22.800" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-01-22T10:36:22.800" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2013-01-22T12:07:14.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to add new information to this post. I used 搜狗 Sou Gou Pin Yin as Growler suggest in his answer for this question. And now I really think that this is the best IME I ever used. But just a few weeks ago I installed the new Windows 8 and was pleased to find a new improved IME from Microsoft. It is pretty good, much better than the previous versions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2288" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-01-22T13:42:23.653" LastActivityDate="2013-01-22T13:42:23.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2722" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-22T18:55:41.113" Score="7" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;Received this in a text from a Chinese friend. I want to say that &quot;了&quot; here is not part of the verb phrase but instead just an emphatic particle, same as if you said something like &quot;我最怕蜘蛛了&quot;。Then again, that's not something I would ever think to produce, it just sounds more normal that way to me. Does anyone have a more authoritative answer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="321" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-01-23T14:27:32.797" LastActivityDate="2013-01-23T14:29:01.107" Title="What is the function of 了 in the sentence 我最怕去西单了?" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2718" CreationDate="2013-01-22T19:45:03.013" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with others who say you should work with a native speaker to help you with pronunciation. However, having a grammar book will be immensely helpful as well, since many native speakers are often unaware of their own language's grammar (many will often say &quot;that's just how you say it&quot; without knowing why; I've also heard native speakers assert that Cantonese doesn't have grammar).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this, I recommend the series of books by Virginia Yip and Stephen Matthews. &lt;a href=&quot;http://amzn.com/0415193850&quot;&gt;Basic Cantonese&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://amzn.com/0415193877&quot;&gt;Intermediate Cantonese&lt;/a&gt; are very good in my opinion. They also have &lt;a href=&quot;http://amzn.com/0415471311&quot;&gt;a more comprehensive reference&lt;/a&gt; that covers almost any question you may have about the intricacies of Cantonese grammar; it would be an excellent study companion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2013-01-22T19:45:03.013" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-01-22T19:45:03.013" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2724" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2727" CreationDate="2013-01-23T00:46:48.743" Score="25" ViewCount="2352" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hear that &quot;Windows XP&quot; is commonly called &quot;Chā P&quot; because the letter &quot;X&quot; may be pronounced &quot;Chā&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other Latin characters that have similarly peculiar pronunciations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-05-08T23:00:05.417" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T17:16:26.207" Title="How do native speakers of Chinese pronounce Latin characters?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2724" CreationDate="2013-01-23T04:39:12.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;X, pronounced as Chā in Chinese, looks like two stick. X is also corresponding to the Chinese character 叉. If you do your math homework wrong, your math teacher will use her pen to write a shape like X. I don't know whether your teacher gives one.&lt;p&gt;&#xA;You mean Latin alphabet?&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2449" LastActivityDate="2013-01-23T04:39:12.463" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2724" CreationDate="2013-01-23T04:52:00.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese people pronounce &quot;X&quot; as &quot;Chā&quot; because &quot;X&quot; is not easy to pronounce (at least is harder than &quot;Chā&quot;) and &quot;X&quot; looks like a cross, and a cross is pronounced as &quot;Chā&quot; (叉) in Chinese. Chinese people also pronounce &quot;XCode&quot;, a code editor on apple Mac, as &quot;Chā code&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As this &quot;custom&quot; derives from the difficulty of pronunciation, I think there may be some other similar &quot;customs&quot; for other Latin characters. However, as far as I, who is a native Chinese speaker, know, &quot;X&quot; is the only special case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2450" LastActivityDate="2013-01-23T04:52:00.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2724" CreationDate="2013-01-23T04:55:43.237" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no single way to pronounce a given letter in the Latin alphabet. The set of rules varies wildly depending on the speaker's geographical location. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said however, I have, a few years ago, compiled a list of common (more Northern I believe) pronunciations of Roman letters. You can find it on this subpage of my Wiktionary homepage: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User%3aJamesjiao/Roman_Letters_in_Mandarin&quot;&gt;Roman Letters in Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your convenience, I am going to paste it here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;字母  漢語拼音標音                    同音字&#xA;A     ēi    &#xA;B     bì                            閉&#xA;C     sēi                           塞（白讀）&#xA;D     dì                            地&#xA;E     yì                            意&#xA;F     ái fu                         癌副&#xA;G     jì                            既&#xA;H     éi chi    &#xA;I     ài 或 ái                      愛 或 癌&#xA;J     zhèi                          這（口語）&#xA;K     kèi   &#xA;L     ái lur                        癌露兒&#xA;M     ái mu                         癌木&#xA;N     ēn                            恩&#xA;O     ōu                            歐&#xA;P     pì                            僻&#xA;Q     kiùr  &#xA;R     àr 或 ár                       二&#xA;S     ái si                         癌四&#xA;T     tì                            替&#xA;U     yōu                           幽&#xA;V     wēi（聲母多為唇齒音 IPA: /ʋ/）    微&#xA;W     dá bu liu                     達不六&#xA;X     ái ke si                      癌克四&#xA;Y     wài（聲母多為雙唇音 IPA: /w/）    外&#xA;Z     zèi&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just on your specific example, chā is certainly possible as X resembles the cross. I have never heard of people pronouncing XP like this before though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2013-01-23T04:55:43.237" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2724" CreationDate="2013-01-23T05:23:10.667" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading X as cha1 is definitely informal, almost online talk. It is only because X resembles a cross (叉) and cha1 is easier to pronounce. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of meme is highly local and may not last long. Some other commonly used ones are actually from poker card names:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: 尖 (pointy)&#xA;J: 钩 (hook)&#xA;Q: 圈 (circle), 蛋 (egg) or 皮蛋 (preserved egg)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 'nicknaming' is not limited to Latin characters, but also symbols and signs, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Windows icon: 飘 ((flag) waving). E.g. 飘悠悠 (Windows key, U, U) means 'shut down your PC'.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again these are highly geographical and may go away at any time like any other urban catchwords.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-01-23T05:23:10.667" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2722" CreationDate="2013-01-23T07:09:30.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我最怕蜘蛛了&quot; totally equals &quot;我最怕蜘蛛&quot; from the perspective of grammar and meaning. &quot;了&quot;, which is similar to &quot;喔&quot;, &quot;吧&quot; and &quot;呀&quot;, is an auxiliary word that can be omitted because it doen't have any meaning, but it's very weird to omit it in some situations. Unfortunately, even native speakers can't tell you the exact rule of when to use this auxiliary word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, you should use it when you are &lt;strong&gt;speaking&lt;/strong&gt; and omit it when you are &lt;strong&gt;writing&lt;/strong&gt;. Basing on the same logic, you should use it when you are writing someone's talk. for instance, you should write&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他說：「我最怕蜘蛛了。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rather than&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他說：「我最怕蜘蛛。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, please remember that it's &quot;general speaking&quot;. I am sorry that it's very hard to tell you the exact rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2450" LastActivityDate="2013-01-23T07:09:30.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2722" CreationDate="2013-01-23T07:13:08.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I native speaker, I would say that &quot;了&quot; is mainly used to help with expressing an emotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我最爱你了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I love you the most&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where &quot;了&quot; helps express affinity toward someone. Sometimes &quot;了&quot; is also used to express the 'donenness' of an action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃完了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I have eaten&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where &quot;了&quot; helps express perfect tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2436" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-01-23T14:29:01.107" LastActivityDate="2013-01-23T14:29:01.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2722" CreationDate="2013-01-23T08:25:39.677" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a phrase with this construct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;可/太/最 + [adjective/adverb/stative verb] + 了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 serves as a modal article (rather than tense particle) to express emphasis and is optional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://cdmd.cnki.com.cn/Article/CDMD-10475-1012379314.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://cdmd.cnki.com.cn/Article/CDMD-10475-1012379314.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-01-23T14:28:18.917" LastActivityDate="2013-01-23T14:28:18.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2695" CreationDate="2013-01-23T16:36:53.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Slightly off-topic, an alternative to 早安 in Taiwan is &quot;吃飯了沒有？&quot;, literally ＂have you eaten， yet? &quot; .  You may hear this more among older folks who experienced lean times in their youth, and also reflects generosity of the speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2452" LastActivityDate="2013-01-23T16:36:53.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2624" CreationDate="2013-01-24T03:55:49.770" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any punctuation should never be pronounced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2453" LastActivityDate="2013-01-24T03:55:49.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2735" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-24T22:00:07.593" Score="2" ViewCount="2824" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to populate a database with Simplified Chinese mailing addresses. Where can I find some test data?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Edit&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I'm trying to work with these addresses in a computer program, it would be nice to know how Chinese mailing addresses are put together. What is the format? Are they like US postal addresses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing something about the format of mailing addresses--both in theory and as they appear in practice on, in speech and on the internet--would be greatly helpful to someone trying to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Generate plausible entries in a database of mailing addresses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Parse or scrape addresses in automated way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Communicate in Chinese where you live to a taxi driver.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mail a letter to someone in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learn about how the administration of geographical regions works in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2456" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-01-25T00:13:54.280" Title="Where can I find sample Simplified Chinese mailing address data?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2013-01-24T22:34:12.487" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2735" CreationDate="2013-01-24T22:34:39.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Understanding Addresses&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to understand the structure of addresses, this &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.phonemica.net/2012/04/geographical-classification/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Phonemica post&lt;/a&gt; is a good place to start. Turns out it's &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China#Levels&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;complicated&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roughly speaking, it's a hierarchical system working from the top down, from left to right. So, country (optional), province, prefecture level city, small town, district, etc. Unfortunately the levels are not consistent across the board. Some cities are &lt;code&gt;直辖市&lt;/code&gt; (directly-administered-cities) like Beijing and Shanghai, and as such, they do not belong to a province. Some provinces are called &lt;code&gt;自治区&lt;/code&gt; (autonomous regions), and their internal structure is different from a &lt;code&gt;省&lt;/code&gt; (province).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Getting Data&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Manually&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a rather slow process, but go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://ditu.google.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google maps (China)&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://map.baidu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu maps&lt;/a&gt;, zoom in or search and drill down to individual addresses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Baidu [Note, missing the province and city, which are obvious from the map]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;河东区津塘路互助南里18号楼底商(近二宫公园)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;武侯区通祠路39号一江城花2楼（春江花月夜对面）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Google [Full mailing addresses]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上海市徐汇区零陵路899号&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浙江省绍兴市越城区鲁迅中路237号&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Automation&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to get a &lt;em&gt;lot&lt;/em&gt; of addresses, you're going to need to automate. One approach you could try would be to scrape a website that does reviews, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dianping.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dianping&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Dianping [Same format as Baidu. You have to select a city first, and then all results are restricted to that area, and addresses are relative to it.]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成华区双庆路8号万象城1楼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;江汉区解放大道557号中山广场5楼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cheers, and happy data-ing!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-01-24T22:34:39.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2738" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-25T15:56:48.783" Score="9" ViewCount="1050" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about the difference between 更好 and 比较好. Since both seem to mean &quot;better&quot;, how are these used differently? In what cases would you use them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2207" LastActivityDate="2013-01-25T17:51:35.873" Title="Difference between 更好 and 比较好?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2738" CreationDate="2013-01-25T17:51:35.873" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's my take on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;更好&lt;/code&gt; = &quot;&lt;em&gt;even&lt;/em&gt; better.&quot; For example, &lt;code&gt;X很好。Y更好。= &quot;X is good. Y is even better.&quot;&lt;/code&gt; This comparison could be over time too: &lt;code&gt;X已经很好，现在更好了 = &quot;X was already good, now it's even better.&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;比较好&lt;/code&gt; = &quot;better&quot;, without an implication that the object of comparison was/is already good. So, it's acceptable to say &lt;code&gt;X不怎么样，Y比较好。= &quot;X kind of sucks, Y is better&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more example sentences, check out Allset's grammar wiki: &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%22Even_more%22_with_%22geng%22&quot;&gt;更 geng&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22rather%22_with_%22bijiao%22&quot;&gt;比较 bijiao&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-01-25T17:51:35.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2740" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2741" CreationDate="2013-01-25T18:58:32.627" Score="-3" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure this is the correct forum for this post as I'm not a student, but I need help translating this a error message I keep getting. I'm hoping it's Chinese. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10264776/Screen%20Shot%202013-01-25%20at%207.54.42%20PM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10264776/Screen%20Shot%202013-01-25%20at%207.54.42%20PM.png&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Any help would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2458" LastActivityDate="2013-01-25T22:07:26.917" Title="Help translating" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2013-01-26T11:57:18.137" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2740" CreationDate="2013-01-25T19:25:15.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;The installed program has already determined your configuration doesn't support any accessories&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2013-01-25T22:07:26.917" LastActivityDate="2013-01-25T22:07:26.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2664" CreationDate="2013-01-26T01:13:33.213" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;记得 as a whole:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First I take back my comment saying 记得 is one word, but I keep the part that it should be understood as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;记得 is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/165257.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;离合词&lt;/a&gt; (cleft word, a.k.a. separable word). &lt;strong&gt;Most, if not all, cleft words do appear in dictionary as a word, however in grammar, whether they're words or phrases is still being debated by the professionals.&lt;/strong&gt; No wonder there's a lot of confusion across the answers and comments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are different types of cleft words. 记得 falls into the type 'verb+result', where &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;记 (to memorize; to remember) is the 'action verb'.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得 (to obtain; 'can remember' in this context) is the 'stative verb as resultative complement'.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words with the same structure include: 看见, 听懂, 叫醒, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words with the same structure AND the 'result' word is also '得' include: 认得, 晓得, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;As a result, 得 in 记得 has the same meaning as in 得到, which is 'to obtain', although the syntactic roles are very different&lt;/strong&gt; (in 得到, '得' is the action verb and '到' is the resultative complement). You're right that this usage is not listed in the link you have in the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since we've touched the subject of cleft words, let's explore more about them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;记得得/记不得/记不记得/记得不记得:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a 'verb+result' cleft word, 记 and 得 can be infix-ed by a resultative particle to affirm/negate the result, or construct an interrogative pattern. Which means,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;verb+得+result = affirmative pattern: 看得见, 记得得 (the first 得 is the resultative particle and should be pronounced with neutral tone.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;verb+不+result = negative pattern: 看不见, 记不得 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;verb+不/没+verb+result = interrogative pattern: 看没看见, 记不记得&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'记得得' is grammatical, but seldom used due to the pronunciation difficulty caused by the repetition of '得'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides these patterns specific to cleft words, they can also apply the common verb pattern of 'word+不/没+word' for interrogative pattern. The meaning is exactly the same as #3 above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;word+不/没+word: 看见没看见, 记得不记得&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;记不得 vs. 不记得:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a common confusion between them and some people misuse them as if 记不得 means 'I used to remember but now forgot'; 不记得 means 'I tried to remember but never succeeded'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, 'verb+不/没+result' means 'cannot do' and '不/没+verb+result' means 'do not do', for example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看不见 = cannot see (maybe blocked by something)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没看见 = didn't see/haven't seen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However when it comes to 记得, although logically 记不得 means 'I don't have the ability to remember' and 不记得 means 'It's not in my memory', in practice they are both used for the same meaning of 'I don't remember' and are interchangeable. 记不得 is never used to describe someone's poor memorizing ability and you need some other expression for that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, there &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a difference in the usage, which is in geographical popularity. People from Northern China are more accustomed to say 不记得, while people from Southern China are okay to say both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;得 as in 记得住:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;记住 is also a 'verb+result' cleft word. 记得住 is 记住 infix-ed with affirmative particle 得 (pattern 'verb+得+result' for affirmation). Similar examples include 看得见, 跑得快, etc. 记 and 得 happen to be neighbors in this phrase, but it has nothing to do with the cleft word 记得.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-07-14T00:52:53.430" LastActivityDate="2013-07-14T00:52:53.430" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2743" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2744" CreationDate="2013-01-26T02:20:34.730" Score="4" ViewCount="1101" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English expression &amp;quot;fair enough&amp;quot; can be used to concede a point in an argument, or acknowledge the other person's position, without expressing complete agreement. To take an example from UrbanDictionary (surprisingly the best example I could fine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bro A&lt;/strong&gt;: Dude, why didn't you take that job? The benefits were killer!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bro B&lt;/strong&gt;: Maybe, but it was so far out, I'd have spent more on gas than what they were willing to pay me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bro A&lt;/strong&gt;: Fair enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bro A does not necessarily agree with Bro B's decision, but he acknowledges his position and does not want to try and talk him out of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar situation is one in which one person is critical of another, but is rebuffed by a counter-criticism:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bill&lt;/strong&gt;: You really shouldn't drink so much. It's bad for your liver.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Jill&lt;/strong&gt;: Don't you smoke a pack of cigarettes every day?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bill&lt;/strong&gt;: Fair enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, Bill is acknowledging he's not in a position to be criticizing Jill's behavior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, what might be used to express the same idea as &amp;quot;fair enough&amp;quot; does in these conversations. I doubt it has to do with &lt;code&gt;公平&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another similar English expression is &amp;quot;You have a point&amp;quot;, which expresses &amp;quot;You have a good argument, even though I might not agree with your conclusions&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-02-01T01:20:24.777" Title="Expressing &quot;Fair enough&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2743" CreationDate="2013-01-26T03:21:24.413" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Essentially it's form of concession, either through a counterargument or the acquiesence of a mutually agreed upon opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are different ways to express concession in Chinese. Here are some possible translations that I can think of based on your examples. This is far from exhaustive and some of them might be preferred over others depending on the situation and context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bro A: 兄弟, 你为啥没要那工作? 有这么多的员工津贴! &#xA;Bro B: 是啊，但这种工资水平还不够贴补我汽油费用的. &#xA;Bro A: 嗯，　有道理．&#xA;&#xA;Bill: 你真不该喝这么多，　太伤肝脏了. &#xA;Jill: 你不也每天吸一包烟吗？ &#xA;Bill: (你)说得对.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some others: 合乎情理，　说得通,　说得过去，　(我)认了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first example, Bro A has taken into account the additional information supplied by Bro B and has modified his previous conclusion. In this case, he's cooperating with Bro B so any reply that states 'your reasoning is sound' is suitable. This includes 有道理, 合乎情理, 说得通, 说得过去 and possibly 可能是吧 (which shows more doubts than the previous examples). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second example, Bill makes concession, due to his argument being countered by Jill. In this case, he's not cooperating with Jill, but acknowledging Jill's point/his defeat. So 说得对 is probably the best answer out of the list. 好吧 is appropriate, but it only serves as a precursor to what follows. One possible reply is 好吧, 我认输了. This particular reply is probably more appropriate after a long-winded argument with a lot of toing and froing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-02-01T01:20:24.777" LastActivityDate="2013-02-01T01:20:24.777" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2743" CreationDate="2013-01-27T22:18:27.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about simply &quot;好吧&quot; or &quot;可能是吧&quot;? They're both concession and seem to be suitable for giving in on a point that you're not totally convinced about or not totally interested in (which is similar to &quot;fair enough&quot; in English I think).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2462" LastActivityDate="2013-01-27T22:18:27.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2747" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2749" CreationDate="2013-01-28T00:25:16.147" Score="8" ViewCount="2092" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan Hakka is the 3rd most popular language, and the MRT in Taipei makes all announcements in 4 languages; Mandarin, Minnan, Hakka, and English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also a minority language in Hong Kong and neighbouring Guangdong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Hong Kong Hakka friend of mine said they did not understand the MRT announcements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the Hakka spoken in Taiwan the same as that in Hong Kong and Guangdong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:14:18.553" LastActivityDate="2015-07-17T19:24:28.833" Title="Is Hakka spoken the same in Guangdong and Taiwan?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2747" CreationDate="2013-01-28T02:25:13.593" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I [guess] maybe little difference exists.&#xA;I do not use Hakka but as a chinese, I know that the accents may even be different for one kind of dialect in a short range.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2463" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-02-01T01:22:37.040" LastActivityDate="2013-02-01T01:22:37.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2747" CreationDate="2013-01-28T03:40:51.713" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I don't speak Hakka (one of my PhD advisors studied a Hong Kong Hakka dialect, so I have a vague idea about it) I live surrounded by Hakka people, in Guangdong, and I go frequently to Taiwan for work. In Taiwan, I noticed that the HSR announcements in Hakka sounded very different from the &quot;regular&quot; Hakka I can hear in Guangdong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a bunch of Hakka dialects, but you can (over)simplify by saying that Guangdong-based Hakka people speak 梅縣 Hakka (Moiyan Hakka: 梅州, 慧州, etc) while Taiwan-based Hakka people speak 海陸 Hakka or 四縣 Hakka, which present large phonetic differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Hakka is influenced by the other main language of the region it's spoken in. In HK, and parts of Guangdong, Cantonese influences greatly the local Hakka dialects -- phonetics, vocabulary. In north-eastern Guangdong, 梅州 and around, where Hakka is the standard and the main language, it's probably less influenced by other languages -- rather the Cantonese spoken there sounds more Hakka-influenced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-02-05T07:29:57.210" LastActivityDate="2013-02-05T07:29:57.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2743" CreationDate="2013-01-28T15:29:27.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;好吧&quot; works perfectly in both these two situations and teens love it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2466" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-01-28T15:43:52.530" LastActivityDate="2013-01-28T15:43:52.530" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2743" CreationDate="2013-01-29T06:26:10.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about translating as 说的也是?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2302" LastActivityDate="2013-01-29T06:26:10.307" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2752" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2753" CreationDate="2013-01-30T18:42:47.563" Score="7" ViewCount="1164" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am fond of the simile structure &quot;I eat like a wolf&quot; or &quot;The light flickered like a candle&quot; in English. I never know how to express these thoughts in Chinese though, even if I know the underlying words. How do I express this style of simile in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2257" LastActivityDate="2013-01-31T03:48:07.533" Title="What's the grammatical structure for &quot;&lt;subject&gt; &lt;verbs&gt; like a &lt;noun&gt;&quot; style simile in Chinese" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2752" CreationDate="2013-01-31T00:00:49.643" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is indeed a complex matter. From the way you ask, I guess you're interested in the grammatical aspect, which is what this answer is focusing on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because Chinese language uses &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_verb_construction&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;serial verb construction&lt;/a&gt;, the simile is expressed as a V-O (verb-object) clause with simile connective as verb and vehicle noun phrase as object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[simile clause] = [connective verb][vehicle noun phrase][optional simile suffix]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simile connectives include: 像, 好像, 好似, 如同, 仿佛, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The suffix is an optional part to emphasize the analog. Words include: 一样, 一般, 似的, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Choosing connective and suffix are highly contextual and idiomatic. I don't think there are simple rules. However, connective 像 and suffix 一样 are applicable in most cases. When in doubt, go with these two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because there is no ordering relationship between the original verb clause and the simile clause, they can be placed in either order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[subject][original verb clause][simile clause]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[subject][simile clause][original verb clause]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A common realization with 像..一样 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[subject][verb clause]就像[vehicle noun]一样&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[subject]像[vehicle noun]一样[verb clause]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using your example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The light flickered like a candle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be translated into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;灯光闪烁不定，&lt;b&gt;就像&lt;/b&gt;烛火&lt;b&gt;一样&lt;/b&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;灯光&lt;b&gt;像&lt;/b&gt;烛火&lt;b&gt;一样&lt;/b&gt;闪烁不定。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-01-31T03:48:07.533" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2754" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2755" CreationDate="2013-02-01T02:04:47.447" Score="3" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that 非 and 不 have negative meanings by themselves, and 得 means &quot;must&quot;&#xA;by itself. So with a double negative, which means affirmative positive. So far so good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 非得 by itself is also &quot;must&quot;. Single negative. Also positive. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2356" LastActivityDate="2013-02-01T08:53:17.047" Title="Is there a logical explanation why 非得不 and 非得 means must?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2754" CreationDate="2013-02-01T02:46:55.740" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;非得 itself is always negative. The sentence contains only 非得 &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; be positive when there is a 2nd negative (most likely 不可) being omitted. This omission is common in colloquial language but not as common in written language or formal speeches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference #1 below is a semantic analysis for the pattern 非..不可. It mentions the fact that 不可 can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference #2 contains a lot of literature/publication citations where the 2nd negative of a double negative sentence is omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In reference #3 the writer thinks the omission is grammatically wrong and is due to people not treating the language seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.clra.edu.cn/showinfo.asp?id=841&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1. “非……不可”句式在对外汉语教学中的研究&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://archives.cnd.org/HXWK/author/XIONG-Youyu/kd091202-2.gb.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;2. 无可无不可的“不可”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.ifeng.com/article/1127222.html?flag=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;3. 肯定、否定、否定之否定&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-02-01T08:53:17.047" LastActivityDate="2013-02-01T08:53:17.047" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2756" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2758" CreationDate="2013-02-03T12:08:34.713" Score="5" ViewCount="215" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;给我站住&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume this means something like &quot;wait for me!&quot;. But I still have a couple of questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Google translate gives the meaning &quot;Nothing to say&quot; which implies that 给我站住 may be an idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If 给我站住 does mean &quot;wait for me&quot;, is this the normal way of saying it? How does it differ from something like “等我”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2013-02-03T12:33:14.377" Title="给我站住: Idiom or common meaning" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2757" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2769" CreationDate="2013-02-03T12:21:10.053" Score="7" ViewCount="383" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;灰太狼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;灰太狼 (A character in a TV show) is translated in English as &quot;Grey Wolf&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What has happened to the 太, wouldn't 灰狼 be enough to mean &quot;Grey Wolf&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T04:06:36.353" Title="太: Meaning in 灰太狼" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2756" CreationDate="2013-02-03T12:33:14.377" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;给我&quot; is usually interpreted as a command or an order to do something for the speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;站住&quot; means to halt or to stand still.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;给我站住&quot; is not an idiom, but a command to stop a person from walking away. In this case, Google Translate got it wrong. &quot;给我站住&quot; is usually spoken when someone has done something bad and you want that person to stop walking away from the &quot;crime&quot; scene:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你给我站住！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;等我&quot; is to ask someone to wait for you. Therefore, the two do not share the same meaning at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-02-03T12:33:14.377" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2757" CreationDate="2013-02-03T20:17:23.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;灰狼 is enough to mean &quot;Grey Wolf.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 太 was added for emphasis. A loose translation might be &quot;VERY Grey Wolf.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2013-02-03T20:17:23.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2528" CreationDate="2013-02-03T20:26:31.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;同志&quot; literally refers to someone else with a &quot;common&quot; purpose (with you). During the Maoist era, the connotation was &quot;comrade,&quot; in the context of &quot;Communist&quot; or &quot;party member.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, the connotation may be that GENDER is what someone (and a lover) may have in common. That would translate into &quot;homo&quot; or &quot;gay.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2013-02-03T20:26:31.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="786" CreationDate="2013-02-03T20:31:12.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;相声&quot; literally means &quot;mutual voice.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figuratively, it would refer to a &quot;back and forth&quot; dialog between two people, kind of like a ping pong game. Because no one is clearly dominant, it is a use of language that would be  considered a high art form. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2013-02-03T20:31:12.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1209" CreationDate="2013-02-03T20:40:59.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, 做 means &quot;to function as.&quot;&#xA;不愿做奴隶人们 means, &quot;I don't want to function as (do the role of) a slave.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idiomatic English expression would be &quot;I don't want to BE a slave.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2013-02-03T20:40:59.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2766" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2768" CreationDate="2013-02-03T23:17:39.443" Score="3" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I were to translate &quot;I only like you&quot; I'd say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我只喜歡你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wǒ zhǐ xǐ huan nǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I have seen the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我只喜歡你一個&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wǒ zhǐ xǐ huan nǐ yī ge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I like you alone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the effect of adding the &quot;一個&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastActivityDate="2013-02-04T05:55:48.020" Title="In “我只喜歡你一個” what does the &quot;一個&quot; do?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2757" CreationDate="2013-02-04T01:44:04.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is the name of the character, and names are arbitrary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-02-04T01:44:04.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2766" CreationDate="2013-02-04T01:47:18.107" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is there for emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two sentences have similar meanings, while the one with &quot;一個&quot; has more emphasis on that you are the &lt;strong&gt;ONLY&lt;/strong&gt; one that I like. It can be used to transfer stronger emotion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-02-04T01:47:18.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2757" CreationDate="2013-02-04T02:00:26.873" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like others said, it is just a name and names can be arbitrary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, to many of the audience, there is another layer of meaning that I am hesitant to lay bare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of 太狼 resembles a common Japanese name 太郎. Intentionally or not, this political metaphor helped the series to gain popularity and government support.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-02-04T02:00:26.873" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2766" CreationDate="2013-02-04T05:55:48.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as NS.X said in comment, your translation is already clear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我只喜歡你一個&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like you alone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or we can translate as follow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are the only one I love / like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-02-04T05:55:48.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2771" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-04T16:42:57.893" Score="6" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it important for young children (4 or 5 years old) in a Chinese language immersion program to be exposed to more than one type of Mandarin accent? If the child only hears one accent (and one that is not bad but not entirely standard Putonghua) for the first two years of learning Chinese, will that make it hard for the child to self-correct later when exposed to more standard accents?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2302" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-02-04T17:45:18.137" LastActivityDate="2013-02-22T06:49:57.640" Title="Early childhood Chinese language immersion accent exposure" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2772" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2776" CreationDate="2013-02-04T22:24:58.007" Score="1" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, related region names are often abbreviated. For example, Sino-Japanese is known as 中日　and Sino-African is known as 中非.　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know whether there is a corresponding abbreviation for Ponto-Mediterranean (i.e., the Black Sea and the Mediterranean)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is carried forward from a conversation on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Talk%3aponto&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;. Since I've been out of China for quite some time, newer terms often elude me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2013-02-08T19:28:22.380" Title="Is there an abbreviation for the 黑海/地中海 combo?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2772" CreationDate="2013-02-05T01:22:19.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've never heard such a combination for (黑海/地中海).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such combinations can be made up when needed. 中日 is used more often when may not need further explanation. 中 can be also combination with the initial character for other country names to form such combinations (like 中美), as long as you let the reader/listener know which country you're referring to. The full name of country should be already given in previous part of the article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other combinations of place names are also possible (like 北上广 for 北京 上海 广州), but not always acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These kind combination appears more in news articles. Some find their way into daily use, but most of them only appear in news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: For Chinese city/province name, the abbreviation is not always the first character, like (沪 for 上海).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-02-05T01:22:19.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="626" CreationDate="2013-02-05T13:48:55.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A literal translation is &quot;lonely man,lonely woman.&quot; To translate it as &quot;needy&quot; is a bit of a stretch, but that's basically what a lonely man and woman (together) are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2013-02-05T13:48:55.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2013-02-05T19:48:25.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a non-expert my answer is crude, but you'll get the idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the dialect/accent the child hears contains all the phonemes that Mandarin has (from your description this is the case), the child will be able to learn Mandarin perfectly even after phonology acquisition cut-off age which is around 7. If the child learns Mandarin before cut-off age, the past language experience is far less relevant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is actually broader than dialects within Chinese language. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/1280/evidence-for-age-cutoff-in-foreign-accent-acquistion&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; Linguistics SE question for more information on phonology acquisition cut-off age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:54:12.577" LastActivityDate="2013-02-05T19:48:25.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2772" CreationDate="2013-02-07T05:53:19.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that in English there is a standard set of words that one can use to form a phrase representing a relationship. I would bet you could figure out Sino-Luna, or Franco-Bovine despite the fact that they are &amp;quot;made up&amp;quot; relationships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My sense is that this is not the case in Chinese, as the components of the &amp;quot;relationship phrase&amp;quot; loose some of their individual meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Foe example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Russo-Sino: 俄中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Russo: *俄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sino: *中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see that when separated the Chinese terms become meaningless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is why it is easier to come up with these phrases in English - one can simply interpret each side and process the combined meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, unless the phrase is already in common usage - it would be hard to invent in any meaningful way. (As an extreme example, I would assert that no-one would read 法牛 to mean &amp;quot;The relationship between France and Cows&amp;quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s.  It doesn't seem like Ponto-Mediterranean is common in English literature either. &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Ponto-Mediterranean&amp;amp;year_start=1920&amp;amp;year_end=2008&amp;amp;corpus=15&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;See ngram&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-02-08T19:28:22.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2777" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2778" CreationDate="2013-02-07T09:31:41.763" Score="6" ViewCount="663" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries lead me to understand 快乐 as happy. Whereas 喜乐 as delighted, happiness, joy. In English joy denotes a stronger, deeper emotion. Is the difference in meanings of 快乐 and 喜乐 great enough to express the same contrast?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2013-06-14T12:27:37.440" Title="Difference between 喜乐 and 快乐？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2777" CreationDate="2013-02-07T13:35:45.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think what you mean is 喜悦 not 喜乐 though 乐 can also be pronounced as yuè . This is how I differentiate the two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;喜悦(xǐ yuè) is a passionate feeling of joy. This is usually&#xA;expressed in the form of a smile.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;快乐(kuài lè) is a pleasant emotional response due to an external&#xA;stimuli. This is usually expressed in the form of laughter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快乐 is more obvious than 喜悦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-02-07T15:42:10.643" LastActivityDate="2013-02-07T15:42:10.643" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2782" CreationDate="2013-02-07T17:35:21.600" Score="3" ViewCount="1091" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm translating my resume into Chinese so I can maybe apply for a Chinese job. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a number of items on there where I'm not sure when to use 家, 师, 员, or 者.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example, I developed a comics website, &lt;a href=&quot;http://HittingTreesWithSticks.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hitting Trees with Sticks.com&lt;/a&gt; where I was the &lt;strong&gt;sole developer, designer, artist, and writer.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translated it as this, but am not sure if I'm correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;其他          Hitting Trees with Sticks.com, 漫画与艺术        四月‘12年到至今   &#xA;        唯一的网站开发人员，设计师，艺术家以及作者&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there some rules I can use to determine when I should use which?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-02-07T18:06:13.067" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T06:02:23.223" Title="When to use 家 vs 师 vs 员 vs 者" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2779" CreationDate="2013-02-08T04:12:50.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;家 means someone who is really good at this domain. For example, writer can be 写作者 and also 作家. A 作家 is a well-known 写作者.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;师 isn't often used, often used for designing. designer -&gt; 设计师, architect -&gt; 构架师.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;员 isn't often used, often used for 人员.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;者, the most normal word, almost everything can use this. For example, developer is 开发者.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course, there will be some exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2013-02-08T04:12:50.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2777" CreationDate="2013-02-08T04:21:44.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;喜 -&gt; you are happy, in the bottom of your heart, you're smiling, or no actions, though to be honest, you're happy.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;乐 -&gt; you are happy, behaved outside your body, you're laughing, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can pretend to be 乐, but you can hardly pretend to be 喜. You can easily find someone 乐 but you cannot find someone 喜. That's why this word is seldom used. Here's a word 喜欢 which means 'like'. 欢 is happier than 乐, you may dance, sing and jump. Thus this word means &quot;when you see this, you are 喜 and 欢&quot;, so this word means 'like'. In the ancient time, 喜欢 can also be written as 欢喜, but in modern Chinese 欢喜 only refers to an emotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快乐 is the same as 乐, while 喜乐 is happiness, joy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 喜 and 乐 are together, you're REALLY happy (not only 喜 but also 乐), you are laughing loudly, or other actions, for example, your emotion after you win a lottery ($999999999999999).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't agree that 喜乐 is 喜悦, because 乐 refers to music when 乐 is pronounced as yue4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastEditorUserId="1104" LastEditDate="2013-02-08T04:27:46.260" LastActivityDate="2013-02-08T04:27:46.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2779" CreationDate="2013-02-08T06:24:20.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll just talk about my own understanding here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家 says that someone is so professional and experienced, and may have reputation so that he/she can be regarded as a master or authority in his/her field, e.g. 武术家, which means a martial art master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;师 often emphasizes occupation or job, compare 画家 and 画师.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;员 is usually related to staff or crew.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;者 is formal, as Mike says, and also general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastEditorUserId="2484" LastEditDate="2013-02-08T07:51:27.953" LastActivityDate="2013-02-08T07:51:27.953" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2779" CreationDate="2013-02-08T08:56:46.250" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Mandarin speaker, and I would say that your translation for &quot;sole developer, designer, artist, and writer&quot; is quite OK and in my point of view is good enough for your CV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I never think of the differences among 家,师,员 and 者. There are some rules as PJ.Hades and Mike Manilone explained in their answers, but following those rules do not guarantee a proper usage. There are many exceptions and you have to look at each case individually like Stumpy Joe Pete replied in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going back to your question, I actually would suggest you to translate &quot;sole developer&quot; to &quot;开发者&quot; instead of “开发人员”. Not saying your translation is not correct, but being a software developer myself, I would prefer &quot;者&quot; to &quot;人员&quot;, because &quot;人员&quot; refers more often to one in a staff or crew.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2485" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-02-08T22:45:03.230" LastActivityDate="2013-02-08T22:45:03.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2784" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2787" CreationDate="2013-02-08T14:50:12.663" Score="4" ViewCount="531" Body="&lt;p&gt;I first encountered this word in the brand of a kid's drink, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWwHN3gbhh4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;O泡&lt;/a&gt;.  When I &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%B3%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;looked it up&lt;/a&gt; I saw that it meant something like &quot;bubble&quot;, and was (ironically for the name of a drink) the classifier for urine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I saw on TV someone offer 一杯泡水 to a guest (It might have been 一泡杯水 but I read the subtitles and 泡 was definitely there).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is 泡水? Bubble water? &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.au/search?q=%E6%B3%A1%E6%B0%B4&amp;amp;tbm=isch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google images&lt;/a&gt; suggests it's water with slices of lemon/lime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And while we're on this character, how does one use it as a classifier for urine, perhaps someone could use it in a sentence (&quot;I'm going to do a trickle of urine?&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T20:24:12.507" Title="Meaning of 泡­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2785" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2786" CreationDate="2013-02-08T15:42:22.440" Score="9" ViewCount="2677" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is a meaning of 真是的. I heard for many times in context something like 你真是的！ And yet I have doubts about proper meaning of this expression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2288" LastActivityDate="2013-02-15T21:23:01.777" Title="What is the meaning of 真是的" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2785" CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:26:35.233" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an interjection, which means its translation relies very much on the context it's in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, it's an exclamation of disbelief or disagreement on what follows the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你真是的， 怎么没穿鞋就跑出来了？ (&lt;strong&gt;Come on&lt;/strong&gt;! You ran out without any shoes on?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你也真是的，　这么早就把我吵醒了.　(&lt;strong&gt;Seriously&lt;/strong&gt;? Waking me up this early?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真是的,　他到现在还没来.　(He's not here yet. &lt;strong&gt;Hopeless&lt;/strong&gt;!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2013-02-08T19:26:35.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2784" CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:55:19.657" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right in saying that, in general, 泡 means a bubble/bubbles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to drinks, 泡水 is actually a verbal phrase, usually preceded by a noun. It refers to water being mixed with other ingredients to create some sort of makeshift drink. For example 柠檬泡水 = lemon water, which is essentially lemon slices submerged in water. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another usage of this verbal phrase simply refers to dipping oneself in water. 我去游泳池里泡一下水. (I am going to hop in the swimming pool for a while).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一杯泡水 sounds very strange to me. It could be regional slang for 气水 (soft drink/soda) or it could be the result of making a makdeshift drink. You will need to show me the ad so I can understand the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a noun, 泡水 is an alternative phrase for 羊水, or the amniotic fluid that protects a foetus in the mother's womb. It's of course commonly referred to as simply &lt;em&gt;water&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a classifier, it's not just used for urine, but quite often for excrement as well. The following are very idiomatic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;撒一泡尿 (to urinate) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;拉一泡屎 (to defecate)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2013-02-08T19:55:19.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2785" CreationDate="2013-02-09T01:42:39.917" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;真是的 generally means something you're not satisfied with. Its specific mood depends on the conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're blaming someone:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;真是的，你又搞砸了！(Oh, no, you mess up everything again!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're talking to a friend who comes to visit you:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;真是的，还跟我客气什么。(Ah, come on, don't stand on ceremony.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2013-02-09T01:42:39.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2789" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2791" CreationDate="2013-02-11T06:21:47.593" Score="9" ViewCount="8288" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=ganma&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This dictionary&lt;/a&gt; translates 干妈 as &quot;Godmother&quot;, and my pocket dictionary also gives &quot;nominal mother&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, &quot;Godmother&quot; and &quot;Godfather&quot; are very specific titles - Your Godparents are the people who sponsored your baptism (if you had one).  Non Christians therefore do not have Godparents - indeed even many Christians do not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is twofold:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is 干妈 the word that Chinese Christians use for the person who sponsored their baptism?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Who else could be considered a 干妈. Where is the line between an older female friend of the family being a 干妈, and an 阿姨.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2013-02-20T09:51:59.843" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T09:51:59.843" Title="Who exactly is a 干妈" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;kinship&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2790" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2797" CreationDate="2013-02-11T08:36:28.383" Score="3" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the New Year, there are some sayings or greetings that are lucky or considered &quot;好听&quot;, which are especially fitting since they have to do with the upcoming new year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, at the New Year of the Dragon (or Horse?) one might wish someone &quot;龙马精神&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any that are said when the upcoming year is the Year of the Snake?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2283" LastEditorUserId="2283" LastEditDate="2013-02-11T16:59:11.000" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T05:57:56.317" Title="What greetings or sayings are there that are used during the new year, specific to the Year of the Snake?" Tags="&lt;greetings&gt;&lt;chinese-new-year&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2789" CreationDate="2013-02-11T10:03:55.057" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;干妈 is a kind of relationship in Chinese culture. It has nothing to do with Christianity (Christian godparents are called 教父 教母). Like Christian godparents, 干妈 or 干爹 would usually sponsor the child in some aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese tradition, 干妈 or 干爹 can act as real mother or father. They are different from 养父母 as they usually don't actrually raise the children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To become a 干妈 or 干爹, there should be some kind of ceremony. With the consent of involving parties, anyone of approriate age can become a 干妈 or 干爹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This relationship is not legally recognized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2013-02-20T03:31:26.163" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T03:31:26.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2013-02-11T16:06:30.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will go out on a limb and say &lt;strong&gt;yes, it is great to get exposure to different accents&lt;/strong&gt; even if it is not standard so long as the child is told what the standard would be. (Awareness of the differences) The reason being that people you encounter are not always going to speak the standard pu tong hua exactly the same. So when you encounter somebody from the guangdong area for instance, you can adjust your listening to understand when a person says &quot;si&quot; it should be &quot;shi&quot;. Oh really chinese has a certain rhythm to it as well. So if somebody asks you a question that is not in a set phrase you know, you can usually take a good guess at what you are being asked. (Not always but sometimes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related side note. Not everybody believes in the phonology acquisition cut-off age. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Paul Pimsleur's book, &lt;em&gt;How to learn a foreign language&lt;/em&gt; *&lt;em&gt;(December 1980)&lt;/em&gt;*He defends the idea that Adults are better equip to learn a (second) language then kids are. And that adults can a achieve a flawless native accent. But the thing is you have to consistently work at it. So if you are talking and are misunderstood you have to immediately correct your pronunciation, and the only way to do that is to ask the person you talk to what you said wrong. And correcting the tones. Of course some people have more difficulty than others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="112" LastEditorUserId="112" LastEditDate="2013-02-13T16:39:45.163" LastActivityDate="2013-02-13T16:39:45.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2580" CreationDate="2013-02-11T17:46:58.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hand wrote a letter in Chinese. For aesthetics I choose what I will call a half-grid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically the Chinese Characters are grided, but the grid can shift so that, I guess the best way I can describe it is like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine every character is a square. 2 units wide by 2 units tall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lines on &quot;the grid&quot; are 1 unit wide across and 1 unit tall going down.&#xA;One line of text is 2 unit tall. Punctuation counts as 1 unit. So when you get to the end of a sentence and the beginning of another. &#xA;我想找一个二胡老师。你认识不认识一个老师吗？&#xA;So the first sentence above excluding the period takes up 18 units across, then the period takes the 19th unit. and the aesthetic some in by shifting the grid for the next sentence so that the next character starts on the 20th unit instead of the 21st where it would be if it had no punctuation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still feel like that is not clear so refer to figure 1.1 as I think that will explain it all.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b2RFg.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Hastily done thing&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Photoshop didn't render some characters... oops)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know, this is what I used for my letter, not as much spacing between the characters though so it's not a square like I made in the picture but rather a rectangle. But it gives you an idea/different possibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="112" LastActivityDate="2013-02-11T17:46:58.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2794" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2795" CreationDate="2013-02-12T05:23:29.907" Score="5" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would imagine that 山火 meant &quot;a fire in the mountains&quot;, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=shanhuo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the dictionary&lt;/a&gt; lists &quot;wildfire / forest fire&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 山火 then a generic word for an out of control fire? What about 野火? I saw 山火 on the news, does that mean it is more formal? &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E6%BE%B3%E5%A4%A7%E5%88%A9%E4%BA%9E%E5%8F%A2%E6%9E%97%E5%A4%A7%E7%81%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; seems to use 丛林大火, is this another word for the same thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-08-03T10:13:56.470" LastActivityDate="2013-08-03T10:13:56.470" Title="山火 vs 野火 vs 丛林大火: Chinese for &quot;bushfire&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2794" CreationDate="2013-02-12T06:20:52.810" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;These words are all straight-forward in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;山火 = mountain fire&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;野火 = fire in the fields&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丛林大火 = jungle fire&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Forest fire = 森林大火, or 林火&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Forest fire on a mountain (explicit) = 山林大火&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note 丛林 means jungle/bush; Forest in general is translated into 森林; 野 in 野火 means 田野(field) rather than 狂野(out of control), but even many native speakers misunderstood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer your question,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;山火 is not a generic word for out-of-control fire. It means mountain fire.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;野火 means fire in the fields. It sounds a little less formal than the other words but still fine to use. News broadcaster may choose long form 田野大火 or 山野大火。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丛林大火 means jungle fire.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you want to say 'fires in a forest on a mountain', any of the following is fine: 山火，林火，森林大火，山林大火。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-02-12T06:20:52.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2796" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-12T06:21:00.753" Score="9" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm quite confused with using 在 in a sentence. I learned that it usually indicates a  place or a location. I'm trying to say &quot;I also live here&quot;. I thought that since I'm referring to a place, maybe I will need to use 在. But when I remove it, the sentence sounds correct as well. Which sentence would be more appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2497" LastActivityDate="2013-03-07T07:01:54.677" Title="我也住在這裡 or 我也住這裡" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2790" CreationDate="2013-02-12T06:39:46.873" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can search &amp;quot;蛇年祝福语&amp;quot; online, but most of the results are artificial and aren't as classy as the 龙 ones. If you look up for &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyu.iciba.com/cy/%E8%9B%87/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chengyu's that contain 蛇&lt;/a&gt;, you'll see the majority of them are negative, due to snake's symbolic meaning in Chinese culture. Even &lt;a href=&quot;http://cul.sohu.com/20130118/n363904274.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;novelists complained&lt;/a&gt; that it's very difficult to come up with greeting lines with 蛇.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last link contains some examples of greeting phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　从新春祝词的角度，如“龙蛇飞舞”、“笔走龙蛇”、“灵蛇之珠”等寓意美好的成语也可一用。网友“felix77”还创作出了不少祝福语：“龙蛇共舞三春景、蛇舞九州处处新、蛇步锦程业辉煌、蛇游大泽燕游春、蛇含瑞气报年华 、蛇出山穴喜报春、蛇衔瑞草户迎春。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　如果实在是想不到跟蛇相关的吉祥话，还有网友剑走偏锋：“只要把蛇称作小龙，一切问题都迎刃而解……”不过，最简单的方法还是用一些万能格式，如“蛇年吉祥、蛇年大吉、金蛇献瑞”。还有网友想出“硬上弓”的法子：“祝新年蛇腾虎跃，蛇飞凤舞，蛇蛇生威，蛇到成功，蛇马精神……”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To explain a few:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;龙蛇飞舞 (dragons and snakes are flying): Originally it's used to describe elegant and swift movement in calligraphy. When used as new year greetings, it's blessing the audience an elegant and swift conduct of life/career/business etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;笔走龙蛇 (dragons and snakes are following one's writing brush): Original meaning is the same as above. Since 笔 (pen) is explicit in this one, it's more appropriate to use it against someone who indeed writes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;灵蛇之珠 (pearl of the snake): Invaluable treasure or unique talent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;蛇舞九州处处新: Snakes are dancing all over China, taking everything to a new start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;蛇步锦程业辉煌: Snakes are stepping towards to a bright future and making outstanding achievements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-02-12T06:58:16.693" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2796" CreationDate="2013-02-12T07:14:26.280" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grammatically 在 is required. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike in English 'here' is an adverb which can follow verb directly, in Chinese 这里 is a pronoun, in order to construct a V-O phrase, there must be a preposition in between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In colloquial language, people often omit 在, so it's also understood and appropriate, just less formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-02-12T07:14:26.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2799" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2805" CreationDate="2013-02-12T14:05:06.120" Score="7" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand 凭 as a verb to mean rely. But I often read it and the seemingly related 凭着 in familiar contexts but still do not know what function it serves. Seeing example sentences doesn't make it any clearer. &#xA;In what cases is it most used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T06:19:52.823" Title="How to use 凭 as a preposition" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2800" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2804" CreationDate="2013-02-12T14:22:07.000" Score="6" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;When learning country/place names or reading about non-Chinese people in the media I see the same characters used for similar phonemes (see these &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/theme/detail?catg2ID=2&amp;amp;initial=&amp;amp;page=1%20%22celebrities&quot;&gt;celebrities&lt;/a&gt;). What rule or list do the writers follow when 'coining' a hiterto untranslated name into Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2013-02-12T21:20:47.113" Title="Is there a list of characters specifically used for western proper nouns?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2800" CreationDate="2013-02-12T15:24:12.070" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No list. It would be easy to make a list because it would be all characters (point 3). In general I think these are the rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1) The standard (which is really based off the next point).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2) The frequency/stroke count of the character.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3) The desire to represent style.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;The standard&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just mean x character has been used before, lets use it again because folks already know about it. Really just based off 2 and 3 below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;The frequency/stroke count of the character.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like Starbucks is an interesting example, a phono-semantic one too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;星巴克&#xA;xīng ba kè&#xA;star 'phonetic placer' 'phonetic placer' &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last two characters are the most interesting because they have no meaning and are used because of their sound and frequency/stroke count. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;巴 - 697 frequency (also the first ba in the list)&#xA;克 - 493 frequency (also the first ke in the list)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zein.se/patrick/3000char.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zein.se/patrick/3000char.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;The desire to represent one's style.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never heard about a law that saws parents cannot use x character to name their children. I think such censorship would cause a revolution before youku got shutdown. So following this point theoretically any character is up for grabs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2499" LastActivityDate="2013-02-12T15:24:12.070" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2800" CreationDate="2013-02-12T21:20:47.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following are standards for transliterating foreign names into Mandarin Chinese. There are a lot of exceptions due to historical reasons but new names are mostly following these standards:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template%3aTranscription_into_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;英语姓名译名手册/Phonetic mapping for name translation&lt;/a&gt; (wikipedia)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/1a1feee9856a561252d36f3d.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;常见英美姓名音译表/List of translation of common English names&lt;/a&gt; (Baidu)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_into_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Transcription into Chinese characters&lt;/a&gt; (wikipedia)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above are for names. I don't think there are rules/standards for any proper noun. As the other answer suggested, sometimes the translation is semantic, mixed semantic/phonetic or something else. Even for phonetic transliteration, people may choose characters to represent subject feelings or style over the one specified by the standard. In the past there were also incidences that one proper noun had multiple translations and eventually one defeated the others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-02-12T21:20:47.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2799" CreationDate="2013-02-12T21:25:13.783" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are close. 凭着 expresses the idea of &lt;em&gt;based on&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;according to&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;relying on&lt;/em&gt;, and when translating into English, prepositions such as &lt;em&gt;on&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;by&lt;/em&gt; can often be used to convey this. You should be able to use it in situations where this concept needs to be expressed. As you suspected, its part of speech is best thought of as prepositional. 凭, when used in this sense, is equivalent to 凭着.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她在沙漠里走了一个星期, 就凭(着)太阳的方位来认路. (She walked in the desert for a week,&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;using&lt;/strong&gt; only the sun's position for directions.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们的猫凭(着)它的本能, 走了十五公里的路, 回到了我们以前住的房子. (Our cat went back to&#xA;our previous house having walked fiften kilometres &lt;strong&gt;by&lt;/strong&gt; instinct. )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你是凭(着)什么文凭来应聘这个职位的? (What certifications &lt;strong&gt;make&lt;/strong&gt; you &lt;strong&gt;eligible&lt;/strong&gt; for this&#xA;job? / You are applying for this job &lt;strong&gt;based on&lt;/strong&gt; what certifications?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that translation is an art and you do not need to stick with the words that I used. Be flexible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-02-13T05:56:13.260" LastActivityDate="2013-02-13T05:56:13.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2789" CreationDate="2013-02-13T03:50:28.570" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;干妈 and 干爹 are used for describing the intimacy between two families. For example, two families are so intimate that the parents from one family treat the children of another family almost like their own. So the children may call the parents 干妈 and 干爹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2013-02-13T03:50:28.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2807" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2809" CreationDate="2013-02-13T05:17:48.590" Score="4" ViewCount="804" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know what 娘惹 means (&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B3%87%E5%B3%87%E5%A8%98%E6%83%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;), however, I couldn't find any reference on its origin. Is it a Chinese transliteration of a Malaysian word, a Cantonese/Hokkien word or a Mandarin word? What's the literal meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-02-13T05:52:10.063" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T12:38:00.733" Title="Origin of the word &quot;娘惹&quot;" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2785" CreationDate="2013-02-13T05:48:27.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some situations good translations would be &quot;You are too much!&quot; and &quot;I can't believe you!&quot;. Those could be both positive or negative situations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2504" LastActivityDate="2013-02-13T05:48:27.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2807" CreationDate="2013-02-13T08:56:44.617" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is definitely transliterated from Malay (it's noted on the zh Wikipedia as well). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baba and Nyonya (pronounced /ɲoɲə/) are descendants of Hokkien Chinese who migrated to Malaysia centuries ago. They have come to refuse to be recognized as descendants of the Chinese and instead, identified themselves as British subjects (as per Bahasa Malay WP entry). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peranakan#Terminology&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, the term &lt;em&gt;baba&lt;/em&gt; is a religious honorific term that originated from Persian and entered Southeast Asian languages possibly through traders. It originally was used as an honorific for one's grandparents in Malay. Its meaning changed over time among the Baba-Nyonya to refer to all males of this particular ethnic group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nyonya is a loanword from Javanese that was likely borrowed from Portuguese &lt;em&gt;don(h)a&lt;/em&gt; (compare Italian: donna; Spanish: doña) meaning &lt;em&gt;lady&lt;/em&gt; (夫人). The term was used by the Malay people to refer to all &quot;foreign&quot; women including female peranakan. With the departure of European colonists, the meaning of the term slowly narrowed down to only peranakan women.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For further reading on the cultural aspect of this term: &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=QKgraWbb7yoC&amp;amp;pg=PA198&amp;amp;dq=Southeast+Asia%3a+A+Historical+Encyclopedia,+From+Angkor+Wat+to+East+Timor+Nyonya&amp;amp;hl=fr&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=FFcbUeLNIOPMmgX01oCYDA&amp;amp;ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=Southeast%20Asia%3A%20A%20Historical%20Encyclopedia%2C%20From%20Angkor%20Wat%20to%20East%20Timor%20Nyonya&amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia, From Angkor Wat to East Timor, Volume 1&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-02-13T09:02:00.183" LastActivityDate="2013-02-13T09:02:00.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="44" CreationDate="2013-02-13T15:03:37.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Written character/written chinese is the only identical thing between these two languages. Nothing is the same other than that. You name it, grammar,speaking,wording patterns,pronounciation.. None of these facts is the same between the two languages. Most of time,even the meaning of written character are different. Do not try to answer the countless differences in any aspect of the two languages. You can't explain all differences through-out your long whole-life time because the differences are too numerous. So, I would rather inverse the question with explaining that the only identicality is the written character in text. Done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2506" LastEditorUserId="2506" LastEditDate="2013-02-13T15:30:09.167" LastActivityDate="2013-02-13T15:30:09.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2794" CreationDate="2013-02-13T16:02:11.750" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In term of the bushfire that is happening in Australia, 丛林大火 is more appropriate because it doesn't happen in mountainous areas actually, so we won't use 山火 in this context which specifically means the fires on mountains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could say the 丛林大火 is caused by 野火 which implies that no one burns the bushes and hot weather is probably the reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2507" LastActivityDate="2013-02-13T16:02:11.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2812" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2816" CreationDate="2013-02-14T03:59:11.467" Score="6" ViewCount="524" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard this a couple times now and most recently in a movie &quot;钢的琴&quot;. It's an idiom that means &quot;cut me some slack&quot;; &quot;let me off the hook&quot;. I couldn't make sense of the Baidu encyclopedia so I'm asking here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-02-14T08:55:20.360" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T03:01:41.163" Title="What is the etymology of 放我一马？" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2785" CreationDate="2013-02-14T05:45:06.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“真是的” is just an abbreviation of “真是XX的”(you are XX indeed). But the listener might be hurt if &quot;XX&quot; is spoken out directly. So we say “真是的” to express what we want to say, but in a not very sharp way. The true meaning of &quot;XX&quot; usually can be readily inferred from the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;“你好不容易出国，居然还回来，真是的”=“你好不容易出国，居然还回来，真是傻”. The latter sentence is obviously offensive and therefore make the listener unhappy, so the speaker omits it. But the listener can easily guess what is omitted from the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2509" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T05:45:06.617" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2796" CreationDate="2013-02-14T05:53:49.803" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you study and speak Chinese, remember one thing: There is no such thing as grammar in Chinese. If you want to speak Chinese fluently, forget all about grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in this problem, &quot;我也住在这里&quot;=&quot;我也住这里&quot;. They are identical! Which one you like, you use which one. No Chinese will blame you for using one but not another. (I am a Chinese, believe me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2509" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T05:53:49.803" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2812" CreationDate="2013-02-14T05:59:02.610" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be 放我一马. 马 here refers to the rider rather than the horse itself. It's from 三国演义.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;出自三国演义。赤壁之战，曹操大败，欲从华容道逃走，被关羽逮个正着，立马堵住去路。关羽念及往日旧恩，让开马位，使曹操得以逃脱。“放你一马”，比喻手下留情。即出于此。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2156078.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2156078.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English version of the story (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictitious_stories_in_Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms#Guan_Yu_releases_Cao_Cao_at_Huarong_Trail&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-02-16T08:53:16.047" LastActivityDate="2013-02-16T08:53:16.047" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2779" CreationDate="2013-02-14T06:02:23.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't try to find any rule such as grammar that can direct you how to speak Chinese like a PC program. For this problem, just &quot;死记&quot;, this is the only way. Any other method will waste you more time and give you more pain. Only one thing you need to have in mind: &quot;家&quot; usually means an expert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2509" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T06:02:23.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2799" CreationDate="2013-02-14T06:19:52.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;use&quot;. Usually the thing that is used has some specially importance, that is, if this thing is not used, people will not complete the task successfully. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你用什么来拆我的房子?&quot;--&quot;我用推土机.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你凭什么来拆我的房子?&quot;--&quot;就凭我是政府!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2509" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T06:19:52.823" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2820" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-14T12:03:02.967" Score="6" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why did 夠 get 'simplified' into 够?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know whether these existed as orthographic variants before simplification (such that the first round simplifications just standardised on one variant) or if there was some other basis, perhaps ideological, for either choosing one of the two forms, or creating a new form with 多 on the RHS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T12:46:40.403" Title="'Simplification' of 夠" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;orthography&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2820" CreationDate="2013-02-14T12:40:26.943" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is discussed extensively in this thread:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://forum.reviewingthehanzi.com/viewtopic.php?id=7698&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://forum.reviewingthehanzi.com/viewtopic.php?id=7698&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Because the &quot;simplified&quot; version of this character was made PRC&#xA;  standard when the new character lists were published. Even though&#xA;  nothing was actually simplified. There was a committee in China tasked&#xA;  with simplifying and standardizing written Chinese, when they came&#xA;  across this character they noticed there were two common versions of&#xA;  the hanzi being used so they had to pick which one will be in the&#xA;  official government approved lists. 够 won out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-02-14T12:46:40.403" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T12:46:40.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2823" CreationDate="2013-02-14T15:38:49.063" Score="3" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the dictionary I gather that 优先 by itself means &quot;priority&quot; and so 优先级 means &quot;level of priority&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a phrase such as 高优先级，or 最高优先级，is the 级 necessary to sound correct, or is it an optional &quot;stylistic&quot; element, as in English where &quot;highest priority&quot; is the same as &quot;highest level of priority&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T18:23:36.407" Title="Is 级 necessary in 优先级" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2822" CreationDate="2013-02-14T18:23:36.407" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unlike English, &lt;code&gt;（简）优先／（繁）優先&lt;/code&gt; is an adjective while &lt;code&gt;（简）优先级／（繁）優先級&lt;/code&gt; is a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. （简）这个项目优先级最高。&#xA;   （繁）這個項目優先級最高。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to use an adjective then the expression will be like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. （简）这个项目是最高优先的。（所以……）&#xA;   （繁）這個項目是最高優先的。（所以……）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may notice a small difference in meaning, the first one is often used as response or a single sentence. The second is &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; very usually used as only a single sentence, but you can still use it as a single when the &lt;code&gt;所以&lt;/code&gt; is obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T18:23:36.407" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2785" CreationDate="2013-02-14T18:27:47.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker I think it is most close to English &quot;How can you do that?&quot;. In daily use it is often used in a critical or ironic tone after someone has done something wrong or stupid considered by the speaker.&#xA;Example, after I bought a ugly shoes, my girlfriend would say:&quot;真是的，又乱花钱&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2511" LastEditorUserId="2511" LastEditDate="2013-02-15T21:23:01.777" LastActivityDate="2013-02-15T21:23:01.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="923" CreationDate="2013-02-14T21:06:23.123" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;《尔雅 释天》：「载，岁也。夏曰岁，商曰祀，周曰年，唐虞曰载。」&#xA;《爾雅 釋天》：「載，歲也。夏曰歲，商曰祀，周曰年，唐虞曰載。」&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;载/載 means 岁/歲. &#xA;In Xia dynasty, it's called 岁/歲; &#xA;in Shang dynasty, it's call 祀; &#xA;in Zhou dynasty, it's called 年; &#xA;when 尧/堯 and 舜 were kings, it's called 载/載.&#xA;All of these mean &quot;year&quot;.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can see, 年 is just a word describing year, no others. All of these are still using today except 祀 which only means 祭祀 now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T21:06:23.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2826" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2828" CreationDate="2013-02-15T19:02:22.350" Score="6" ViewCount="342" Body="&lt;p&gt;I sent new year greetings to my Chinese teacher last week, writing &quot;新年快乐! 恭喜发财!&quot;. When I saw her today she thanked me, but said I should never write 恭喜发财 to a teacher, because it's a greeting only people obsessed with money would use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 恭喜发财 generally understood this way? Who could I / should I write or say 恭喜发财 to? Also, if it was indeed inappropriate, how bad was it? Did it just sound awkward, or was it worse?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2515" LastActivityDate="2013-02-16T02:14:21.740" Title="Could 恭喜发财 sound inappropriate?" Tags="&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2826" CreationDate="2013-02-15T20:57:38.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;恭喜发财 is a customary New Year's greeting... I would think it's generally understood to be said during these times. She may just have an issue because you wrote it to her... Usually this is a spoken term, followed by &quot;红包拿来&quot; (&quot;Red Envelope, please!&quot;)... but it's usually just kids that get the red envelops... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-02-16T02:14:21.740" LastActivityDate="2013-02-16T02:14:21.740" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2826" CreationDate="2013-02-15T21:07:38.857" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;恭喜发财 may not be the best greeting word from student to teacher, but it's not awkward - the intention is always good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, parents usually wish children with good health, striving and studying. If a parent greets children with wealth, you may find them funny, fashionable or friend-like, but definitely not mammonish or evil. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In old Chinese traditions, there were strict rules about etiquette and word usage. A small misuse can be considered a big issue. But that time has long gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might sound a little sarcastic if you say 恭喜发财 to someone who is obviously in an opposite situation, otherwise it should be fine to say it to anyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-02-15T21:07:38.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2829" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-16T02:48:12.007" Score="7" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, as a sarcastic remark in the sense of &quot;pedantic&quot; or &quot;know-it-all&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2495" LastActivityDate="2013-02-16T08:46:27.647" Title="Is the expression 学识渊博 usually used in a pejorative sense?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2829" CreationDate="2013-02-16T08:46:27.647" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. It's usually used as a commendatory term. But it can be also used in a pejorative sense (the rule is called &lt;code&gt;褒義貶用&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: This is not used in a conversation, or it's an irony.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2013-02-16T08:46:27.647" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2831" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2832" CreationDate="2013-02-17T05:12:27.177" Score="4" ViewCount="910" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the best Chinese online TV channels with English subtitles for passive Mandarin learning. I find Chinese a rather musical language and would love to watch subbed TV (news, documentaries, culture etc) in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2517" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-25T17:37:51.600" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T17:37:51.600" Title="Advice on Mandarin Chinese passive learning" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2831" CreationDate="2013-02-17T06:07:42.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a few tips:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you own your house (or are on good terms with your landlord), I would recommend having a C-Band satellite antenna installed.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lyngsat.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The satellite you connect to&lt;/a&gt; will depend on the part of the world you live in. In Australia I had a 1.8m dish installed, and I connect to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lyngsat.com/ChinaSat-6B.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChinaSat 6-B&lt;/a&gt;. (The whole set up cost AUD$800) There are more than 60 free TV channels broadcast from that satellite (plus many radio stations).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shooter.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;shooter.cn&lt;/a&gt; to download subtitles.  Wherever possible I watch English language media with Chinese subtitles from this site.  It takes a bit of a knack to figure out which subtitles to download, there are a couple of different encoding systems and there are subtitles in simplified, traditional, and some with &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; English and Chinese. A lot of the time the subtitles are targeted at a specific torrent (i.e. the .sub file from this site has the same name as the most-seeded torrent)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Find a Chinese / &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.g-music.com.tw/GMusicBillboard0.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Taiwanese&lt;/a&gt; music charts website. Copy the titles into YouTube, and start making a compilation of tracks that you like. I listen to my playlist often in the car, It is amazing how after a few repetitions of the same tracks, you start singing along with the chorus.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Save your local Chinese radio station as a preset on your car stereo.  Most major cities will have a Chinese language radio station.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Subscribe to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese-language_radio_stations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese language podcast&lt;/a&gt; of your country's national broadcaster. Most major national broadcasters have a Chinese language podcast (National Public Radio, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dw.de/%E5%9C%A8%E7%BA%BF%E6%8A%A5%E5%AF%BC/s-9058&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Deutsche Welle&lt;/a&gt;, Radio Canada International, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sbs.com.au/podcasts/yourlanguage/mandarin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SBS Australia&lt;/a&gt;, The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ruk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;BBC&lt;/a&gt;, &amp;amp;c.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of all of these I really recommend getting the satellite antenna. It's definately worth the money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2013-02-17T08:07:03.177" LastActivityDate="2013-02-17T08:07:03.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2833" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2836" CreationDate="2013-02-17T06:15:56.367" Score="7" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;央行行长会 - A Meeting of the Heads of Central Banks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the second 行 necessary? If not why not? Does 央行长 mean &quot;Head of a Central Bank&quot; or is it necessary to say the equivalent of &quot;Bank-Head of a Central Bank&quot; i.e. 央行行长. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2013-03-06T17:00:37.853" Title="央行行长会: Is the second 行 necessary?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2833" CreationDate="2013-02-17T09:00:25.253" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can not translate literally in a character by character way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 央行 is an orgnization, and 行长 is a title for head of a bank. The second 行 cannot be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-02-17T09:00:25.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2833" CreationDate="2013-02-17T13:38:36.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“央行” is short for “中央银行”，which means &quot;central bank&quot;. It is an organization to regulate the banking industry. &quot;行长&quot;(head) is a title. You can't ommit the second 行 just because there are two 行. Actually, there isn't such a word &quot;央行长&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: an interesting(just I think) supplement on the character 行. &quot;行&quot; has two pronunciations and several different meanings for each pronunciation. We have an idiom &quot;景行行止&quot;. The former 行 reads hang2 and the latter reads xing2. It is neccessary to analyze the structure and check the vocabulary first to see if some characters could be ommitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2013-02-17T13:38:36.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2833" CreationDate="2013-02-17T15:16:53.130" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting question. My first impression is that there isn't such a term known as &quot;央行长&quot;. But after doing a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E5%A4%AE%E8%A1%8C%E9%95%BF%22&quot;&gt;quick search&lt;/a&gt; on Google, I realize that there are people who actually use such a term though it isn't that widely accepted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a look at the search results from a few similar terms before making a conclusion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;国防部部长 (11,500,000) vs 国防部长 (6,470,000)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;协会会长 (8,630,000) vs 协会长 (1,010,000)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;肃毒局局长 (31,500) vs 肃毒局长 (21,200)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;卫生厅厅长 (6,320,000) vs 卫生厅长 (21,500,000)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 央行长:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;央行行长 (4,310,000) vs 央行长 (80,600)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Language evolves with time and new terms are constantly being invented while old ones may fall out of use. Some of the new terms may gain wide acceptance while others may not. &quot;央行长&quot; could well be a new term which has not gain much acceptance. Therefore &quot;央行行长&quot; is still the recommended term to use in order to be understood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-02-17T15:16:53.130" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2837" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2840" CreationDate="2013-02-17T17:46:27.893" Score="11" ViewCount="1156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've gathered from context, that “人家” can be used like “我” with the following differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;人家&quot; seems more immature/cute. I often hear it in cartoons or children's shows or said by children in movies or shows.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;人家&quot; seems more colloquial. I often hear it, but rarely see it in print.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;人家&quot; seems to be kind of like passive voice in English somehow. For example, if someone wanted to defend an opposing viewpoint without directly challenging the other side, they might be more likely to say something like “人家只是擔心。。。” or &quot;人家沒有煩心工作的話就不會。。。“&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I haven't found a dictionary with a detailed (or any, really) definition of this often heard expression, I was curious if anyone has any advice on usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="613" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T06:31:47.093" Title="What's a precise definition of 人家" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2831" CreationDate="2013-02-17T17:59:58.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;While not exactly passive in the sense you might mean, I found comic books (manga, 漫畫) to be invaluable while learning chinese. The dialog is very colloquial and it's easier for me to learn new words when I have something written down I can look up in a dictionary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several places you can get them online and off, if you are not in Greater China, including &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yesasia.com/us/en/chinese-comics.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yes Asia&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://searchb.dangdang.com/?key=%C2%FE%AE%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dang-dang&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://miparentscouncil.org/2012/07/02/getting-kids-reading-in-mandarin-the-comic-book-connection/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a nice blog post with lots of details. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are in Greater China, comic books are everywhere, and I remember, in Taiwan at least, they have these great little comic book shops where you can rent or read in the shop very cheaply. Getting hooked on a long running comic book series that you are buying can do some serious dammage to your wallet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="613" LastActivityDate="2013-02-17T17:59:58.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2653" CreationDate="2013-02-17T21:31:01.910" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Japanese Wikipedia article to 経済 tells us this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;日本語である経済という語は、はじめpolitical economyの訳語として導入された。この訳語の作者は福澤諭吉であり、世の中を治め、人民を救うことを意味する経世済民（若しくは経国済民）を略した和製漢語といわれる。訳語として同時期に資生も提唱されたが、こちらはあまり普及しなかった。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The term &quot;経済&quot; in Japanese was first derived as a translation from &quot;political economy&quot;. The author of this translation was &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukuzawa_Yukichi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fukuzawa Yukichi&lt;/a&gt;, who understood it as &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B5%8C%E4%B8%96%E6%B8%88%E6%B0%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;経世済民&lt;/a&gt;&quot; or &quot;経国済民&quot;, which he intended to mean &quot;Govern of the world, save the people&quot;,&#xA;  and thusly coined the term. He also suggested the term &quot;資生&quot; with the same meaning, which never became popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2518" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T13:07:48.023" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T13:07:48.023" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2837" CreationDate="2013-02-17T22:12:02.020" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;人家 has many different meanings. Regarding the meaning in question,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The literal meaning is &quot;that person&quot; or &quot;someone&quot;, indirectly referring to oneself like &quot;guess who&quot; in English. This might be the reason you find something passive about it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's used by young girls/ladies to address themselves in a cute, innocent or flirtatious tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is informal and only used in colloquial language. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's inappropriate for a male to use it in any occasion, even not for little boys, otherwise it's considered extremely feminine in a bad way.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Even among young girls/ladies, not everyone is comfortable with using them. Some only use it in front of their lovers; some find this usage skittish (not in a bad way but uncomfortable to say it herself) and almost never use it. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is also regional difference. In Southern China it's more common to see usage between normal friends. In Northern China it's mainly within family (like daughter to parents) or between lovers.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In #3 in your question, the purpose is not to avoid direct conflict, but to play innocent/show weakness in order to gain advantage (in this case, excuse).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-02-17T22:12:02.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2841" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2842" CreationDate="2013-02-17T23:54:43.313" Score="6" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Dim Sum place I usually go to (in the U.S), they call the pan-fried bun stuffed with Chinese chive and shrimp 韭菜馅饼. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came from Northern China and the shape and size of that bun are, by any standard, 包子 rather than 馅饼. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if this is normal in Cantonese or just that restaurant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's normal, is the distinction between 包子 and 馅饼 cooking method (pan-fried vs. steamed) rather than shape and size?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-07-08T02:03:03.873" LastActivityDate="2013-07-08T02:03:03.873" Title="馅饼 in Cantonese" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2841" CreationDate="2013-02-19T04:11:44.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah. 包 (usually sans 子, most of the time, or sometimes as 包仔, and sometimes as 鮑[仔]) is a steamed bun, whereas 餡餅 is baked/pan-fried.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-02-19T04:46:02.877" LastActivityDate="2013-02-19T04:46:02.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2843" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-19T22:45:15.700" Score="1" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want a tattoo saying 時間 (time). However I was told this is not suitable for a tattoo. I wanted to know how to say time in chinese with a deep meaning. Is there a way to add a character so that it would not look funny?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2525" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-02-20T02:47:00.560" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T08:24:18.567" Title="Chinese tattoo help" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2013-02-20T09:33:17.347" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2843" CreationDate="2013-02-20T01:30:45.530" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right, 時間 would be awkward... that's literally the noun &quot;time&quot;, like &quot;do you have any time?&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That seems awkward in English too to get such a tattoo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you'd prefer something more poetic? Like...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;永恆 yong3 heng2 = eternity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe even get an idiom... those are usually pretty:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;萬古千秋 wan4 gu3 qian1 qiu = For all eternity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T01:30:45.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2843" CreationDate="2013-02-20T02:58:24.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;亙古不變 - never changed from ancient time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恆久 - for a long time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2526" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T02:58:24.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2843" CreationDate="2013-02-20T08:24:18.567" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure this is not the answer you are looking for, but here it is anyway...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BcnGy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T08:24:18.567" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2849" CreationDate="2013-02-21T02:00:05.677" Score="9" ViewCount="748" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading a text that uses the following phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;或謂鄭相曰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand it generally to mean that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;someone told to the prime minister of Zheng saying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand exactly what the character 或 means here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2528" LastEditorUserId="834" LastEditDate="2013-03-03T17:45:03.827" LastActivityDate="2013-03-03T18:47:11.033" Title="What is the classical Chinese meaning of 或?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2848" CreationDate="2013-02-21T02:23:39.263" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;someone&quot; in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From zdic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;某人，有的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Iciba:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[书] （某人； 有的人） someone ； some people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-02-21T02:23:39.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2850" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-21T04:28:01.380" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-02-21T04:28:01.380" LastActivityDate="2013-02-21T04:28:01.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2851" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-21T04:28:01.380" Score="0" Body="Classical Chinese (古文, Pinyin: gǔ wén, &quot;ancient text&quot;) is the language of the classic literature from the Spring and Autumn period through to the end of the Han Dynasty, a written form of Old Chinese. The term is also used for Literary Chinese (文言文 wényán wén, &quot;text of written language&quot;), a traditional style of written Chinese modelled on the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. " OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T11:43:55.520" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T11:43:55.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2848" CreationDate="2013-02-21T06:20:27.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;或&lt;/strong&gt;,is frequently to be seen in classical Chinese with the meaning——&lt;em&gt;someone&lt;/em&gt;,such usage is barely seen in modern chinese language.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而楼上人往来屑屑，或凭或立，不一状。————《山市》蒲松龄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;或&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is composed of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;口&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; and &quot;弌&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;口&lt;/strong&gt; resembles the city wall surrounding a city&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;弌&lt;/strong&gt; means the first time in night a soldier patrol with a polearm.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;弌&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;弍&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;弎&lt;/strong&gt; refer to first,second,third time of patrol&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people think that &lt;strong&gt;弌&lt;/strong&gt;  means that defend his land with polearm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;或，邦也。从囗，从戈，以守一。一，地也。——《说文》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking the above into consideration, &lt;strong&gt;或&lt;/strong&gt; can be understood as &lt;strong&gt;defending one's country with weapons.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It therefore means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;country&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and by derivation, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;someone&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in classical chinese,&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.cn/%E5%8F%A4%E4%BB%A3%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8-%E9%99%88%E5%A4%8D%E5%8D%8E/dp/B0011F959A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《古代汉语词典》&lt;/a&gt; is recommended. This book is of authoritativeness in china.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in modern chinese,&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.cn/gp/product/B008JAF6HA/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i4?pf_rd_m=A1AJ19PSB66TGU&amp;amp;pf_rd_s=center-2&amp;amp;pf_rd_r=1H1XTE29HH16YKFH4JMH&amp;amp;pf_rd_t=101&amp;amp;pf_rd_p=58223152&amp;amp;pf_rd_i=899254051&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《现代汉语词典》&lt;/a&gt;  ，This book is used for standardized 普通话,and also used by every students attending college entrance examination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2529" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2013-03-03T18:47:11.033" LastActivityDate="2013-03-03T18:47:11.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2013-02-22T06:43:09.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My little sister knew Mandarin before the age of four, but now she barely understands anything even when our family speaks Chinese, and my parents force her to go to Chinese school. So continuous exposure is important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you expose the child to multiple accents, I still think she would only be most familiar with the one that she has had the most exposure to. Personally I never learned my grandparents' dialects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2532" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2013-02-22T06:49:57.640" LastActivityDate="2013-02-22T06:49:57.640" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2854" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-22T11:45:33.703" Score="6" ViewCount="416" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y1Br2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; the traditional character for &lt;a href=&quot;http://screenshoot.me/XeEw1S&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://screenshoot.me/XeEw1S&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or are both &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y1Br2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://screenshoot.me/XeEw1S&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://screenshoot.me/XeEw1S&lt;/a&gt; considered the &lt;em&gt;same&lt;/em&gt; character (汉字) with simply different font styles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2533" LastEditorUserId="2533" LastEditDate="2013-02-22T12:55:18.203" LastActivityDate="2013-02-22T12:55:18.203" Title="Is the traditional character for 雪 the same as itself?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2854" CreationDate="2013-02-22T12:16:06.207" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are 2 different fonts for the same character. There are many website to check that, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1839/540&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; for an overview.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E9%9B%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chineseetymology.org&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-characters.org/meaning/9/96EA.html#.USdiEqVwp8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chinese-characters.org&lt;/a&gt; you can see that the simplified and traditional characters are identical (the former website explicitely writes: no simplification).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said this. Although they are considered to be the same character, people in different regions/countries have habits and the most common way to write something might be different and people might consider some variants as being wrong. This can be seen in the picture below (source &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE9Zdic9BZdicAA.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic.net&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NaHfr.png&quot; alt=&quot;雪in different countries&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-02-22T12:27:10.557" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2856" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2865" CreationDate="2013-02-23T04:59:29.657" Score="6" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found there are two characters for &quot;xia1&quot; (ghra as in Middle Chinese), 蝦 and 鰕.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone explain what the difference is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2013-02-23T06:21:35.317" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T12:31:56.727" Title="What's the difference between 蝦 and 鰕?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="520" CreationDate="2013-02-23T08:48:55.777" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just started a project to make such a font. You can find it here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rtega.be/chmn/index.php?subpage=68&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://rtega.be/chmn/index.php?subpage=68&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2535" LastActivityDate="2013-02-23T08:48:55.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2858" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2859" CreationDate="2013-02-23T10:29:55.243" Score="18" ViewCount="6972" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain why Cantonese is considered as a dialect of Chinese, instead of a language? It is also for any language exist in China, both land and Taiwan (Cantonese, Hunanese, Fujianese, Taiwanese, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AFAIK, dialect is differ from language. Just like in Indonesia: Javanese, Sundanese and Madurese is considered as a language, not a dialect. But, Javanese is called as a dialect when someone speak Indonesian language with Javanese accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, for Cantonese (or any other languages listed above), although you speak Cantonese, Chinese will considered it as a dialect, not a language. You know that, Cantonese and Mandarin is 'completely' different each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1116" LastEditorUserId="1116" LastEditorDisplayName="user3410" LastEditDate="2016-01-05T02:01:40.907" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T01:37:40.183" Title="Why Cantonese is considered as a dialect of Chinese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;accent&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2858" CreationDate="2013-02-23T10:35:20.690" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect#Dialect_or_Language&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is no universally accepted criterion for distinguishing a&#xA;  language from a dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My hunch is that &lt;em&gt;in general&lt;/em&gt; Chinese politics favors unity, whereas European politics favors separation, thus speakers of Dutch and German would hate to think that they were speaking dialects of the same language. Conversely &lt;em&gt;in general&lt;/em&gt; it is useful for the notion of Chinese unity, that there is only one &quot;Chinese&quot;, although in fact there are many spoken languages within the peoples considered Chinese, that are considered separate languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that (accoring to WP) the distinction is so unclear that some linguists consider &quot;Dialect&quot; and &quot;Language&quot; to be synonyms, and that a dialect can also be a language. Thus &quot;Hokkien is a language that is a dialect of Chinese&quot; would not be an illogical statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2013-02-24T04:58:52.293" LastActivityDate="2013-02-24T04:58:52.293" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2858" CreationDate="2013-02-23T10:41:37.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, they're not &lt;strong&gt;completely&lt;/strong&gt; different, but similar in some ways. You should know, all dialects are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mandarin Chinese is not a natural language. It grabs pronunciation from Beijing dialect, vocabulary from all the northern dialects, grammar from the articles written by great writers during the New Culture Movement.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Modern dialects have only one root -- &lt;strong&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;. Middle Chinese (中古漢語) is the lineal descendant of Old Chinese (上古漢語). Cantonese is also from Middle Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Although the written form is different. The original characters are the same. The new characters are only made to show the pronunciation of Cantonese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Northern dialects of Chinese lost the &lt;strong&gt;entering tone&lt;/strong&gt; (入聲). For example, 力 is pronounced as &quot;li4&quot; today in Mandarin, but it's &quot;lik&quot; in Middle Chinese. Many southern dialects still have entering tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese is not the same as Middle Chinese, but a descendant. In fact, all today's dialects are its descendants.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see: Cantonese is from a language which all other dialects (including Mandarin) are from, so Cantonese is a dialect of Chinese, not a new language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2013-02-23T10:41:37.523" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2861" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2863" CreationDate="2013-02-23T10:41:44.383" Score="6" ViewCount="1186" Body="&lt;p&gt;I actually suspect that this character may be a typo for ”了“, but I'll ask nevertheless.  What is the second character in this snippet?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fiWC0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I managed to write it into my pocket dictionary, it simply gave me &lt;em&gt;le1&lt;/em&gt; with no definition. MDBG has no entries for &lt;em&gt;le1&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Updated the title now that I can type the character in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastEditorUserId="98" LastEditDate="2013-02-23T11:08:23.480" LastActivityDate="2013-02-23T11:08:23.480" Title="What does 嘞 mean" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2861" CreationDate="2013-02-23T10:58:46.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's pronounced as &quot;lei&quot; (輕聲).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's just used for expressing feelings. 這是個語氣詞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2013-02-23T10:58:46.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2861" CreationDate="2013-02-23T11:02:34.707" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;嘞 has two pronunciations, le1 and lei. It's a spoken word which is very similar to 喽 but different from 了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 is a tense particle which focuses on the aspect that something has already occurred, while 嘞 is a modal particle which focuses on the aspect of (positive or negative) acknowledgement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 好了:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚饭好了么？Is dinner ready?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好了。Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 好嘞:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开饭啦！(Broadcasting) Dinner is ready!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好嘞。Okay!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the context, 好嘞 could also mean 'affirmative', 'well', 'there there', etc. 好了 doesn't have those functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice you may see people write 好嘞 as 好了 in written language. To me that's just a widely accepted misuse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ZDic: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE5Zdic98Zdic9E.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bing Dictionary: &lt;a href=&quot;http://cn.bing.com/dict/search?q=%E5%98%9E&amp;amp;go=&amp;amp;qs=n&amp;amp;form=CM&amp;amp;pq=%E5%98%9E&amp;amp;sc=0-2&amp;amp;sp=-1&amp;amp;sk=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-02-23T11:02:34.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2861" CreationDate="2013-02-23T11:03:18.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character is pronounced as &lt;code&gt;lei&lt;/code&gt;, as Mike Manilone says.&#xA;It is often used at the end of some simple short expressions to express something like agreement or appreciation (positive mood), for example, &quot;好嘞&quot;, &quot;得嘞&quot;. The meaning could be &quot;well done&quot;, &quot;well&quot;, &quot;good&quot;, &quot;fine&quot;, &quot;OK&quot;, depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2013-02-23T11:03:18.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2856" CreationDate="2013-02-24T15:18:54.563" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should use 蝦. As can be seen in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE9ZdicB0Zdic95.htm&quot;&gt;zdic.net&lt;/a&gt; 鰕 used to mean shrimp, but is not used anymore in this meaning. In Japan it however is still a common character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using Google:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com.tw/#hl=en&amp;amp;site=&amp;amp;source=hp&amp;amp;q=%E8%9D%A6+site%3atw&amp;amp;oq=%E8%9D%A6+site%3atw&amp;amp;gs_l=hp.3...12786.22078.0.23238.9.9.0.0.0.0.251.1012.5j3j1.9.0.les;..0.0...1c.1.4.hp.P0Jj0FTzGy4&amp;amp;bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&amp;amp;bvm=bv.42768644,d.d2k&amp;amp;fp=2504fab692a3f0a0&amp;amp;biw=1366&amp;amp;bih=643&quot;&gt;蝦 site:tw&lt;/a&gt; has about 7,060,000 results&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com.tw/#hl=en&amp;amp;q=%E9%B0%95+site%3atw&amp;amp;oq=%E9%B0%95+site%3atw&amp;amp;gs_l=serp.3...81528.81528.0.81858.1.1.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0.les;..0.0...1c.1.4.serp.LKEqni1coyQ&amp;amp;bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&amp;amp;bvm=bv.42768644,d.d2k&amp;amp;fp=eccac1687bb4e61e&amp;amp;biw=1366&amp;amp;bih=606&quot;&gt;鰕 site:tw&lt;/a&gt; has about 29,400 results&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter is used in some exotic fish names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2013-02-24T15:18:54.563" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="916" CreationDate="2013-02-24T18:24:05.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you should not translate an expression word by word.&#xA;Second, let me explain what 春节联欢晚会 is...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;春节：when it is held&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;联欢：being happay together&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;晚会：an evening party. refer to fefe's answer for what it does&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &lt;code&gt;party&lt;/code&gt; is not exactly what &lt;code&gt;会&lt;/code&gt; means... Here 会 means being together, but people do &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; dance &lt;em&gt;together&lt;/em&gt;, sing &lt;em&gt;together&lt;/em&gt;, or talk &lt;em&gt;together&lt;/em&gt;. That's very different from &lt;code&gt;party&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So then I'd recommend &lt;code&gt;Spring Festival Cohappy Wanhui&lt;/code&gt; with an explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cohappy: verb. being happy together. e.g.: We cohappied while we are playing games. （我们在一起玩游戏很开心）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;wanhui: noun[C]. a term comes from a Chinese word, &quot;晚会&quot;, (explain what 晚会 is)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2013-02-24T18:24:05.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2867" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2869" CreationDate="2013-02-24T22:30:33.783" Score="9" ViewCount="7562" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard in 广东 (guangdong) the term 三八 to mean &quot;gossip&quot;, particularly for a woman who gossips.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this common throughout China,&#xA;and why does it have this meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastActivityDate="2013-03-04T01:22:30.973" Title="Why does 三八 mean gossip?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2867" CreationDate="2013-02-25T02:22:40.437" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe it is understood throughout China, but it may sound 'Southern' to Northerners and it wouldn't be their word of choice when they want to express the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two possible origins:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/94446.htm&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;, 三八 means 三八妇女节 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women%27s_Day&quot;&gt;International Women's Day&lt;/a&gt; on March 8th), which is extended to refer to women in a derogatory sense, most commonly used against women who appear crazy or maliciously gossiping or interfering with other's business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89%E5%85%AB_%28%E4%BF%97%E8%AA%9E%29&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; says it's because when China first opened trade with foreigners, the foreigners were permitted into the city on 8th, 18th and 28th of every month, locals call seeing the foreigners 三八 (the three eight's), extending to anyone who's overly interested in fresh things, peeking secrets or gossiping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am from Beijing. People around me all share the first explanation, but maybe people from the south find the seconds one more sensible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T02:22:40.437" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2867" CreationDate="2013-02-25T05:05:37.010" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taiwanese like to use the word &quot;三八&quot; to describe female behavior bordering on  craziness such as frivolous actions or doing reckless things. It appears that the word originates from the Cantonese or Minnan dialect, but in reality it is not. In fact, &quot;三八&quot; is the authentic Central Plains vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刘福根, author of 《汉语詈词研究》 combed through &quot;A Short History of Chinese Swear&quot; (汉语骂詈小史) which listed &quot;三八&quot; as &quot;vulgar or primitive and showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable&quot;. It took reference from a book &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E6%8B%8A%E6%8E%8C%E9%8C%84&quot;&gt;《拊掌录》&lt;/a&gt; which contains the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;北都有妓女，美色而舉止生梗，土人謂之生張八。因府會，寇忠湣令乞詩於魏處士野。野贈之詩曰：“君為北道生張八，我是西州熟魏三。莫怪尊前無笑語，半生半熟未相諳。”座客大發一噱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;張八 refers to a prostitute from the north during the Song Dynasty, widely known for her beauty and yet unrefined manners. People called her &quot;生張八&quot;, &quot;生&quot; to indicate “生梗” or “生硬”. 野 who penned the above poem described himself as 魏三 because he is the third child in his family. Thus, &quot;三八&quot; is derived from combining &quot;三&quot; in 魏三 and &quot;八&quot; in 生張八.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Song Dynasty is the period where mass migration of people from Central Plain to Guangdong and Fujian occurred. The &quot;三八&quot; saying eventually crossed the Strait to Taiwan and became popularize as a swear word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/07/0310/17/13012_392020.shtml&quot;&gt;http://www.360doc.com/content/07/0310/17/13012_392020.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/94446.htm&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/94446.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T05:05:37.010" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1568" CreationDate="2013-02-25T13:16:09.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can hear pronunciation examples on MDBG (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=lv4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;See here for lv4&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest a repetition drill to practice and reinforce the pronunciation, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24369006/lv4%20vs%20lu4.mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;I have made one&lt;/a&gt; contrasting lu4 and lu4. (Note that I just downloaded the first couple of clips I could so there are probably better pronunciation examples - It is adequate but this is more to demonstrate the drill). The drill pronounces the syllable three times with a pause for you to say it once. Then once with a pause, then once with a pause again (I.e. it is a 3-1, 1-1, 1-1 drill) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T13:16:09.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2871" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:43:33.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hakka&lt;/a&gt; (客家话) is one of the main branches of Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is natively spoken mostly in South-Eastern China (Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangxi, to a lesser extend in Guangxi and Hainan) and Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The language is not mutually intelligible with other branches of Chinese, but closely related to Gan. As Cantonese, it has six tones. It &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/17169/is-written-hakka-the-same-as-simplified-chinese&quot;&gt;doesn't have&lt;/a&gt; a standardized writing system; it uses Mandarin characters and some specific ones borrowed from Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-16T17:18:11.857" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T17:18:11.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2872" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:43:33.633" Score="0" Body="Hakka is one of the main Sinitic languages. It is spoken natively by the Hakka people in southern China, Taiwan and throughout the diaspora areas of East Asia, Southeast Asia and around the world." OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-16T17:18:11.857" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T17:18:11.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2873" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:45:05.910" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T14:45:05.910" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T14:45:05.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2874" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:45:05.910" Score="0" Body="Shanghainese (Native name: 上海閒話/上海言话), or the Shanghai dialect/Hu dialect (simplified Chinese: 上海话/沪语; traditional Chinese: 上海話/滬語), is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai and the surrounding region." OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-02-26T01:15:07.540" LastActivityDate="2013-02-26T01:15:07.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2875" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:46:38.407" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T14:46:38.407" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T14:46:38.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2876" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:46:38.407" Score="0" Body="Middle Chinese (simplified Chinese: 中古汉语; traditional Chinese: 中古漢語; pinyin: zhōnggǔ Hànyǔ), formerly known as Ancient Chinese, is the historical Chinese dialect recorded in the Qieyun, a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions." OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-02-26T01:13:09.913" LastActivityDate="2013-02-26T01:13:09.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2877" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:47:40.387" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T14:47:40.387" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T14:47:40.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2878" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:47:40.387" Score="0" Body="Sandhi (Sanskrit: संधि sandhi &quot;joining&quot;) is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries (thus belonging to what is called morphophonology)." OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T00:06:00.867" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T00:06:00.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2879" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:48:29.700" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T14:48:29.700" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T14:48:29.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2880" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:48:29.700" Score="0" Body="Chengyu (simplified Chinese: 成语; traditional Chinese: 成語, pinyin: chéngyǔ, lit. &quot;set phrases&quot;) are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions, most of which consist of four characters. Chengyu were widely used in Classical Chinese and are still common in vernacular Chinese writing and in the spoken language today." OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-02-26T03:25:37.873" LastActivityDate="2013-02-26T03:25:37.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2881" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:50:26.923" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T14:50:26.923" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T14:50:26.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2882" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:50:26.923" Score="0" Body="Kanji (漢字) are the adopted logographic Chinese characters (hanzi) that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana, katakana, Hindu-Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet. The Japanese term kanji (漢字) for the Chinese characters literally means &quot;Han characters&quot; and is the same written term in the Chinese language to refer to the character writing system hanzi." OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-02-26T03:25:05.317" LastActivityDate="2013-02-26T03:25:05.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2883" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:52:24.223" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T14:52:24.223" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T14:52:24.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2884" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:52:24.223" Score="0" Body="Phonology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the systematic organization of sounds in languages. It has traditionally focused largely on study of the systems of phonemes in particular languages, but it may also cover any linguistic analysis either at a level beneath the word or at all levels of language where sound is considered to be structured for conveying linguistic meaning." OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-02-26T01:13:34.343" LastActivityDate="2013-02-26T01:13:34.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2885" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:53:21.493" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T14:53:21.493" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T14:53:21.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2886" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:53:21.493" Score="0" Body="The Yale romanizations are four systems created at Yale University for romanizing the four East Asian languages of Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Japanese. The Yale romanization for Mandarin was created during World War II for use by United States military personnel, while the Yale romanization systems for the other three languages were created later, in the 1960s and 1970s." OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-02-26T01:13:57.637" LastActivityDate="2013-02-26T01:13:57.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2887" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:55:56.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally the term &amp;quot;antonym&amp;quot; is understood as &amp;quot;opposite&amp;quot;. Wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposite_(semantics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;offers&lt;/a&gt; a stricter definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Graded (or gradable) antonyms are word pairs whose meanings are opposite and which lie on a continuous spectrum (hot, cold).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it's not necessary to follow this stricter definition (though it's good to know it!). You can use this tag for questions about antonyms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;finding an antonym of a certain word or expression&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;asking whether two words or expressions are actually antonyms of each other&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;other questions that touch upon words with opposite meanings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To help others understand what kind of answer you expect, it might be useful to specify whether you are looking for an antonym in its stricter meaning (opposite on the same spectrum), or simply a word with opposite meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your question is about words with similar meaning, use &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/synonyms&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;synonyms&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;synonyms&lt;/a&gt; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your question is about generic differences in usage or meaning, it might be better to use &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/difference&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;difference&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;difference&lt;/a&gt; too or instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T00:50:15.390" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T00:50:15.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2888" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:55:56.203" Score="0" Body="Questions about two or more expressions with opposite meaning." OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T00:49:54.467" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T00:49:54.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2889" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:57:12.723" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T14:57:12.723" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T14:57:12.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2890" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:57:12.723" Score="0" Body="Literary Chinese (文言文 wényán wén, &quot;text of written language&quot;), a traditional style of written Chinese modelled on the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. " OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-02-26T03:23:41.993" LastActivityDate="2013-02-26T03:23:41.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2891" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:58:46.827" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T14:58:46.827" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T14:58:46.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2892" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-25T14:58:46.827" Score="0" Body="Zhuyin fuhao (Chinese: 注音符號), often abbreviated as zhuyin and colloquially called bopomofo, is a phonetic system for transcribing Chinese, especially Mandarin. It was introduced in the 1910s.&#xD;&#xA;Consisting of 37 characters and four tone marks, it transcribes all possible sounds in Mandarin. Although phased out in People's Republic of China in the 1950s, this system is still the most widely used educational tool and Chinese computer input method in Taiwan." OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-02-26T01:15:29.583" LastActivityDate="2013-02-26T01:15:29.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2858" CreationDate="2013-02-25T16:30:20.677" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, I think the quote &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy&quot;&gt;&quot;A language is a dialect with an army and navy&quot;&lt;/a&gt; best describes the situation. Since the mainland government considers linguistic unity to be in favor of their ruling, they will consider any spoken variety of Chinese to be a dialect, no matter how different it is from Mandarin (excluding minority languages). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2493" LastEditorUserId="2493" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T17:02:45.600" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T17:02:45.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2900" CreationDate="2013-02-26T05:31:07.913" Score="4" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;To do a burnout&quot; is 烧胎, so I assume a reasonable sentence would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天晚上我在停车场烧胎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would one distinguish this activity from piling up tyres and setting fire to them, for example in this news clipping:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Pupils] had been unable to go to school ... because roads were being blocked with stones and burning tyres.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem was &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; that people were doing burnouts on the road to school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TL;DR&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6h15g.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2013-02-26T12:38:38.470" Title="Differentiating &quot;to do a burnout&quot; and &quot;burning tyres&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="520" CreationDate="2013-02-26T05:43:50.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know any fonts with stroke order, but there are some online resources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://stroke-order.learningweb.moe.edu.tw/home.do&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;常用國字標準字體筆順學習網&lt;/a&gt; (Learning program for stroke order of frequently&#xA;used Chinese characters) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/m0001/bishuen/f8.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;常用國字標準字體筆順手冊&lt;/a&gt; (manual)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2428" LastActivityDate="2013-02-26T05:43:50.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2897" CreationDate="2013-02-26T05:58:36.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like the TL;DR version!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest the translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;点燃轮胎 = to set fire to tires&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By using two separate words, it cannot be interpreted as a single term with an idiomatic meaning of &quot;to burn rubber&quot;*. &lt;code&gt;点燃&lt;/code&gt; might not be the best translation for &lt;code&gt;&quot;to light on fire&quot; (transitive)&lt;/code&gt;, so I'm open to suggestions, but there are plenty of google hits showing angry protestors lighting tires on fire, so it can't be &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;* As I side-note, I am familiar with &quot;to burn rubber&quot;, but not with &quot;to do a burnout&quot;. This may be an US vs UK thing though.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-02-26T05:58:36.047" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2897" CreationDate="2013-02-26T06:52:50.400" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2082664.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;烧胎&lt;/a&gt; is a technical term understood by motor-sports enthusiasts as a burnout. If you are really burning tyres, you would need to say 烧轮胎 instead:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天晚上我在停车场烧&lt;b&gt;轮&lt;/b&gt;胎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A translation for your news clipping example would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[学生]无法去上学......因为道路被石头和燃烧着的轮胎给封锁了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;TL;DR???&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HwCKN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-02-26T12:38:38.470" LastActivityDate="2013-02-26T12:38:38.470" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2901" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2904" CreationDate="2013-02-27T22:14:01.750" Score="6" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just got the following sentence in a newsletter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请问我可以跟你借支笔吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being a beginner that I am, I read it as &quot;Can I please get one pay-check in advance?&quot; because I saw this in my dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;借支 = &quot;to get an advance on one's pay&quot;; and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;笔 = &quot;classifier for sums of money, deals&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the newsletter corrected me with the correct translation &quot;Could I borrow your pen, please?&quot;. Only then I realized it was 借 + 支笔.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've noticed this happens to me a lot with new texts/sentences, and this is probably the most extreme example (because I already knew the 借支笔 characters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anything I can do to eliminate this issue? Or should I simply continue to learn and everything will &quot;fit into place&quot; eventually?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, do native speakers encounter ambiguities like this one in spoken Chinese? (Well, maybe not &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt; like this one..) How are they resolved/avoided?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastActivityDate="2013-02-28T08:58:48.553" Title="How do I practise grouping characters into words? At which stage of learning should one expect to be good at this?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;reading&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2901" CreationDate="2013-02-27T23:39:39.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First analyse the context in this sentence, this action happens between you and me. so 借支笔 must be predicate and the object. and &quot;借支&quot; is intransitive or noun, so it cannot point to &quot;笔&quot;, if you have more vocabulary, you know &quot;支&quot; is the quantifier for &quot;笔&quot;, then 借支笔 = 借 + 支笔 = adverb + object. The original complete phrase should be 借一支笔, as here &quot;一&quot; is saved for an idiom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but once you know 借支笔, you can memorize it as a short phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2013-02-27T23:39:39.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2901" CreationDate="2013-02-28T08:15:03.447" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very good question. Most Chinese would have no difficulty understanding your example sentence due to the sentence structure as explained by tomriddle_1234 in his answer. Once you master the basic &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_grammar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;grammatical structure&lt;/a&gt; and improve on your vocabulary, most of it will fall in place. In cases where Chinese do encounter ambiguities, most of it can be resolved by looking at the context. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他妈的厨艺真棒！&lt;br&gt; (His mum's cooking skills is great!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When reading the beginning of the sentence above, it sounds like someone is cursing &quot;他妈的&quot;, but upon further reading, it becomes clear that someone is praising another one's mother for her excellent cooking skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In cases which cannot be resolved from context, controversies arise. A good recent example will be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5CQly.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;做爱的上海人&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(做爱)的上海人； Love-making Shanghainese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;做(爱的)上海人； Be a cherished Shanghainese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other possible permutations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;做上海爱的人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;做爱上海的人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上海做爱的人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上海的人做爱&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;做爱的人上海&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-02-28T08:15:03.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2901" CreationDate="2013-02-28T08:57:05.483" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I'm trying to introspect my understanding process:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;借支 is not a common term. Even in the right context (the money business), it may take a while for a native speaker to realize these two characters are meant to be a word. 笔 isn't really ambiguous as its position in the sentence dictated it has to be a noun, so 支 is the measure word and 借 is the single-character verb 'to borrow'. 借支笔 sounds right, just like the other phrases with a similar pattern that bump into my head when I read this sentence: 借张纸, 借本书, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the key knowledge here is the contextual usage and the idiomatic patterns, which is something that really takes many years to build up and comprehend. Most native speakers learn it in elementary and middle school years in both explicit (textbook) and implicit (daily conversation) ways, hardened by a lot of repetitions, homework and examinations. For example, we were taught to differentiate the two possibilities of 把手 in 3-4 grade in elementary school (at age 8-9):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把手坏了 The door handle (把手) is broken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把手拿开 Move your hand away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or 球拍:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;球拍 卖 完了 The racket (球拍) is sold out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;球 拍卖 完了 The auction (拍卖) for balls is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And our language development comes to a stage that we can say and resolve most of these ambiguous phrases smoothly, generally at age 14-15.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a lot of freedom in Chinese grammar and a lot of mix-and-match combinations in the vocabulary, accordingly there are a lot of idiomatic patterns to know before you can segmentate a sentence with ease.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How native speakers deal with it? If there is only one way to make sense of the sentence, other possible segmentations don't really make sense, then there is no ambiguity and nothing to avoid. If it's really ambiguous, the speaker may become aware as soon as he says it and then adds something to clarify, or the audience asks a question or just repeats the sentence in a confused tone to seek elaboration. These methods are no different from any other language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, there are things that is totally ambiguous, even native speaker couldn't tell. Like 南京市长江大桥, without context you never know which of the two it means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;南京市 长江 大桥 The Yangtze River bridge in Nanjing city&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;南京 市长 江大桥 The major of Nanjing - Jiang Da Qiao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-02-28T08:57:05.483" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2901" CreationDate="2013-02-28T08:58:48.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;idontthinkyouneedtopractise. whenyouknowmostwords, yourmindwillgroupthemforyou.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2013-02-28T08:58:48.553" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2906" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-28T15:41:41.940" Score="7" ViewCount="11964" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I have some experience of using IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), I thought Standard Chinese transcriptions could be a good resource for practicing my pronunciation. Is such a resource available?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2493" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-02-28T18:17:15.860" LastActivityDate="2013-03-01T08:59:16.610" Title="Where can I find Chinese IPA transcriptions?" Tags="&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2906" CreationDate="2013-02-28T16:21:54.043" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you probably know, in China they use pinyin to describe the pronunciation. Dictionaries will normally always mention the pinyin for the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you can find the link between pinyin and IPA:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp052_chinese_ipa.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp052_chinese_ipa.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkbank.org/pinyin/Trad_chart_IPA.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://talkbank.org/pinyin/Trad_chart_IPA.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a website that will generate both Pinyin and IPA for a certain text:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://code.google.com/p/transcripa/wiki/Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://code.google.com/p/transcripa/wiki/Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese tones change depending on the context, but the pronunciation itself much less so. Especially if you take what is considered as Standard Chinese (what they speak on CCTV), this is not expected to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my humble option, it is best that you learn Pinyin as it will help you in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it is not what you are asking for this website might also be very interesting for you: &lt;a href=&quot;http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For every possible pinyin you can hear the pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-03-01T08:59:16.610" LastActivityDate="2013-03-01T08:59:16.610" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2906" CreationDate="2013-02-28T18:27:11.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to note that if you have a relatively new computer, you have Chinese pinyin in your Input Language. Perhaps you can play around with the typing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Taiwanese use a different system to learn, called zhuyin, which looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;ㄅㄆㄇㄈㄉㄊㄋㄌㄍㄎㄏㄐㄑㄒㄓㄔㄕㄖㄗㄘㄙㄧㄨㄩ ㄚㄛㄜㄝㄞㄟㄠㄡㄢㄣㄤㄥㄦ&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, you may easily be able to find Chinese speakers who would like to learn English pronunciation from you. Will you be interested?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2532" LastActivityDate="2013-02-28T18:27:11.697" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2906" CreationDate="2013-03-01T01:17:52.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;OP, you have stated that you want to &lt;strong&gt;&quot;study how the pronunciation of words change in different contexts&quot; by reading IPA transcriptions of Chinese speech&lt;/strong&gt;. I think this might be difficult because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Besides some well known Chinese-specific phenomena (e.g., 3rd tone tone-sandhi) and some pretty much universal phenomena (e.g., nasal assimilation), the pronunciation of individual words doesn't vary &lt;em&gt;too much&lt;/em&gt; by context.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dialectical differences (I'm talking &lt;em&gt;within&lt;/em&gt; Mandarin) are a lot bigger than the context-sensitive effects (e.g., You could write a book about 儿化音, but it would not generalize particularly well to southern Mandarin speech).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you were going to the trouble of transcribing the pronunciation of Chinese, you probably would aim for a phonemic transcription, rather than a tight phonetic one (e.g., you are a missionary or a foreign language learner). This means transcriptions will often lack exactly the things you're looking for.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the above difficulties, I might recommend trying to find an audio corpus of spoken Chinese. Some of the people at the wonderful blog &lt;a href=&quot;http://sinoglot.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sinoglot&lt;/a&gt; have begun compiling such a corpus, with a variety of dialects and speakers; and transcribing the audio segments is part of the project: &lt;a href=&quot;http://phonemica.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;So, check out Phonemica&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-03-01T01:17:52.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1894" CreationDate="2013-03-01T09:23:05.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Oh. As Taiwanese I am in full support of the traditional Chinese. Simplified Chinese looks like garbage-- Each Chinese character has its origins, and if you can learn systematically the extra strokes are not intimidating at all. The simplified system cut out many characters such that their meaning is not directly related to the character, just the phonetic, and eliminated  a lot of strokes that the resulting characters look mutilated, without explanation to its strokes, so it's a smaller set but not as systematic it seems. And if you like the aesthetic of Chinese calligraphy and ancient literature, traditional Chinese is the way to go. But these are probably my biased opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, I came to learn to read simplified Chinese equally well as traditional Chinese. At first I feel as if the text is garbled and had to rely on context clue. After a while I don't even sense the difference because I learned to read simplified Chinese fluently. I am not certain about writing in simplified Chinese however because I haven't have the need to, and the strokes still make little sense. Simplified Chinese has a larger population, and that is a big advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2532" LastActivityDate="2013-03-01T09:23:05.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2911" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2912" CreationDate="2013-03-02T03:53:00.350" Score="10" ViewCount="838" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is something that I noticed in Taiwanese Mandarin TV series and films. It seems that they pronounce this character as &lt;strong&gt;hàn&lt;/strong&gt; instead of the commonly accepted &lt;strong&gt;hé&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 我和你 is pronounced &lt;strong&gt;wǒ hàn nǐ&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally you'd expect accent differences, but this seems to be way off. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where did this pronunciation come from? Could it have been influenced by Taiwanese Hakka?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T04:46:45.727" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T04:46:45.727" Title="Pronunciation of 和 in Taiwan" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2911" CreationDate="2013-03-02T04:47:41.013" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As recorded in &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/93816.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;, this unique pronunciation of “和” as &quot;hàn&quot; actually originates from the Old Beijing dialect. Extracted from the blog article titled &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4b6668a101017ikp.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;台湾人为嘛把“和”读作hàn?&lt;/a&gt;, it says the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1945年10月台湾光复，日语的“国语”黯然退出，台胞急着要回复祖国的语文，要说国语，要认汉字。&#xA;  1946年4月2日台湾省国语推行委员会正式成立。台湾国语会的标志性贡献是编订《国音标准汇编》，作为推行标准国语的根据。1946年5月1日起，由“老北京”齐铁根先生每日在清晨7时，在电台担任“国语读音示范”，播讲民众国语读本、国语会话，国民学校国语、常识、历史、各种课本，供学国语的人收听，匡正语音。当时的学校教师现听现学现教，使广大的学生也能及时学到国语，学习标准的国音。这位齐铁根当时成了家喻户晓的大师级人物，直到现在上年纪的台湾人还能回忆起齐先生娓娓动听的“京片子”，连词“和”读hàn（“汗”）就此在台湾深入人心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, a Mandarin Promotion Council was formally established in Taiwan after the end of WWII to restore the literacy level of the Chinese Language. Mr Ji, an old-timer from Beijing, was enlisted to do a daily national broadcast to demonstrate the standard pronunciation of Mandarin through a series of dialogue and reading sessions. The teachers learned as they listened and help spread their knowledge to the students. Mr Ji was widely regarded as a Mandarin guru at that time and he is still a familiar household name for many of the older Taiwanese today.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-03-03T10:30:20.230" LastActivityDate="2013-03-03T10:30:20.230" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2913" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2915" CreationDate="2013-03-03T03:01:14.757" Score="7" ViewCount="4436" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are particularly loud Chinese fellows working together in the university study room I'm working in. How do I politely ask them to quiet down?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found a literal translation on Google Translate (能否请你安静), but I don't know if it has a rude connotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2552" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T12:04:09.120" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T12:04:09.120" Title="How to politely ask someone to please be quiet" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2913" CreationDate="2013-03-03T04:07:38.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In court, the judge usually say: 请保持肃静！ or 请肃静！ or 肃静！&#xA;In normal daily life, if you want someone shut up gentlely, you can say: 请保持安静！&#xA; or 安静！ or 小声点！ or 请小声点！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2553" LastActivityDate="2013-03-03T04:07:38.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2913" CreationDate="2013-03-03T04:38:34.260" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, avoid the exclamation mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;請保持安靜!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;Please keep quiet!&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;安靜!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;Quiet!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;小聲點!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;Lower your voice!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;請小聲點!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;Please lower your voice!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These from the above are a little commanding in tone, especially the second and third. You may change the tone by switching to a request rather than a command.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能否請你安靜 is relatively better. I usually go with this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;請問可以小聲點嗎? 謝謝。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2532" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-03-29T18:21:53.087" LastActivityDate="2013-03-29T18:21:53.087" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2913" CreationDate="2013-03-04T09:17:42.083" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;well,sorry for some Chinese interupt your study:P.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese will understand your intention but it sounds not that much original in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can say :拜托，都安静点，不然就出去。very serious word but very effective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or you can say:请小点声，谢谢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1093" LastActivityDate="2013-03-04T09:17:42.083" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2919" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-04T17:37:09.277" Score="7" ViewCount="722" Body="&lt;p&gt;I speak Mandarin Chinese, but it is the first time that I stumbled upon the word 鸡贼. According to 百度百科 (Baidu wiki), it means being &lt;em&gt;stingy&lt;/em&gt;. The wiki page also says that it comes from the Beijing dialect. Can anyone tell me what the origin of this word is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2558" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-03-05T02:44:48.747" LastActivityDate="2015-07-17T13:49:18.767" Title="The origin of 鸡贼" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2920" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-05T04:21:14.507" Score="3" ViewCount="534" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering whether anyone could help me distinguish how to pronounce tone 4 (mostly low flat) and tone 3 (mid flat). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read in tone 4, you should feel your throat vibrate. Honestly, I have my finger touch my adam's apple and try to feel the difference but I don't feel it between 3rd and 4th. Is there any way to better work out my tones alone? The only thing I do about my 4th tone is shorten my 3rd tone. Thus, 4th tone to me = 3rd tone, but in a shorter burst. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I distinguish them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2560" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-03-07T09:23:23.713" LastActivityDate="2013-03-07T09:23:23.713" Title="Cantonese jyutping Tone 4 question &quot;throat should be vibrating&quot;" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2920" CreationDate="2013-03-05T05:27:30.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fourth tone is usually considered low-falling, rather than low-flat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fourth tone begins just a little lower than where the sixth tone begins. Just start by producing the sixth tone, and then bring the pitch down as low as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of tone numbers (a 1-5 scale, with 1 the lowest), fourth tone is usually transcribed as 21, third tone as 33, and sixth tone as 22.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the reason for the advice about hearing your throat vibrate: the pitch you make should be low-frequency. I'd be happy to follow up on this for you if you have any more questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2013-03-05T05:27:30.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2920" CreationDate="2013-03-05T05:56:31.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 4th tone is the low-falling tone. You are probably referring to the 6th tone. The difference with the 3rd tone is the frequency (in hertz). The 6th tone is about 30 Hz lower than the 3rd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2013-03-05T05:56:31.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2833" CreationDate="2013-03-06T17:00:37.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can read &lt;a href=&quot;http://file.lw23.com/b/b1/b15/b155e7f0-f677-4f0b-86ba-07b73ed8e9a9.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; (in Chinese). It concludes the idiomatic abbreviations of &quot;ABBC&quot; -&gt; &quot;ABC&quot; (Chap 3). It also illustrates possible reasons behind the abbreviation (Chap 4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastActivityDate="2013-03-06T17:00:37.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1420" CreationDate="2013-03-06T22:30:36.277" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;英译汉时，一个很重要的问题，就是英汉词汇适用的范围常常是不同的。make sense 和 doesn't make sense这两个英文词（组）在英文中的适用范围是很宽泛的，但翻译成中文时，就得根据上下文及语境仔细斟酌了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When translating from English to Chinese, a very important problem is that the usage range of English and Chinese vocabulary is often not the same. The usage range of the two English phrases &lt;code&gt;make sense&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;doesn't make sense&lt;/code&gt; in English is very wide-ranging, but when translating into Chinese, one has to carefully consider what's written above and below, and the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my friends from Beijing is taking Chinese 101! [It doesn't make any sense!]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以译成 (can be translated as)：我一个北京来的朋友居然在上中文入门课！[真是胡闹！][真荒唐！][真有病！]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: If anyone has a better suggestion on how to differentiate &lt;code&gt;上下文&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;语境&lt;/code&gt;, please suggest. I'll be happy to hear from you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-08-24T01:08:35.897" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T01:08:35.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2837" CreationDate="2013-03-06T22:56:56.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;人家&quot; has serveral meanings in different contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A girl may say to her boyfriend: 人家担心你嘛。Here 人家 means I or me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a liberary, a mom may say to her son: 小点声，别吵到人家。Here 人家 means other people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a poem: 白云生处有人家。Here 人家 means house/home/family. The whole sentence means &quot;Where white cloud orignated, a few houses located.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the whole piece of the poem:&#xA;远上寒山石径斜，白云生处有人家。停车坐爱枫林晚，霜叶红于二月花。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-03-06T22:56:56.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2655" CreationDate="2013-03-07T00:29:23.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你可别去那个酒吧。我一朋友去过一次，喝了一杯酒就进医院了。我们觉得他们为了省钱，在酒里掺了化肥。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes:&#xA;1. 你可别去那个酒吧 sounds stronger than 你最好别去那个酒吧.&#xA;2. 我一朋友 is more colloquial than 我的一个朋友.&#xA;3. 进医院了 means &quot;end up in the hospital (because of sickness).&quot; 去医院 just means &quot;go to hospital,&quot; and it may not necessarily infer &quot;to see a doctor.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-03-07T00:29:23.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2796" CreationDate="2013-03-07T05:54:10.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually both sentences means the same, but when you try to breakdown each word meaning, it should be like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 - 也 - 住 - &lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt; - 這裡: I - also - live - &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; - here.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 - 也 - 住 - 這裡: I - also - live - here.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last sentence lack of preposition but it still able to understood and looks like less formal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw, the sentence should be constructed like S  O  V, and it should be like: 我也在這裡住, isn't it? But when the order like this, I think you can't omit 在.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1116" LastActivityDate="2013-03-07T05:54:10.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2919" CreationDate="2013-03-08T05:58:24.227" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This means a kind of ability of saving money or get more or cost little than others. &#xA;For example, you buy a coco-cola, the waiter will add some ice to the cup. Ice is cheaper than coco-cola. If you ask the waiter not add ice at all, then you cost the same amount of money as other people but buy more valuable thing. This kind of action could be said 鸡贼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2568" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-03-08T16:16:39.110" LastActivityDate="2013-03-08T16:16:39.110" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="44" CreationDate="2013-03-10T21:22:39.173" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is more like the difference between English and Swedish. They are obviously very closely related and share a lot of vocabulary, but intelligibility is pretty much zero. The poster who compared the difference to American and British English is TOTALLY wrong. Many Mandarin speakers will claim that they can understand Cantonese speakers &quot;if they speak slowly.&quot; But, this is a falsehood built on a misunderstanding: they assume this from hearing Cantopop songs that are just Mandarin lyrics sung with Cantonese pronunciation. They have never actually tried having a conversation with someone speaking Cantonese but parrot out these misleading statements because they are taught that Chinese dialects are just Mandarin with uncivilized, uneducated pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic core vocabulary of Cantonese is completely different from Mandarin. Out of the 10,000 most frequently used words in Cantonese and Mandarin, I would take a rough guess that at least 3000 of them have nothing in common -- like 边度 vs. 哪里 for “where”, 嘥 vs. 浪费 for &quot;to waste&quot;. On the other hand, the formal newspaper vocabulary is all the same and just pronounced differently. That is a big boon to learners because once you know how the pronunciations correspond, you can watch the news in either language and any new vocab words you learn in one, you can convert to the other in your head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2578" LastActivityDate="2013-03-10T21:22:39.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2932" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2933" CreationDate="2013-03-11T05:41:10.733" Score="8" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's used as a classifier, like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;亢龙有悔&quot;是&quot;降龙十八掌&quot;中的*&lt;em&gt;一招&lt;/em&gt;*.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*&lt;em&gt;一招一式&lt;/em&gt;*他都记得清清楚楚.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how to say it in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2564" LastActivityDate="2013-03-11T07:02:59.153" Title="How to say the term &quot;招&quot; and &quot;式&quot; in English?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2932" CreationDate="2013-03-11T07:02:59.153" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally it's called 'move'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be precise, 招 is 'move' and 式 is 'stance' or 'form'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to a specific move, you can use words like catch (手 as in 擒拿手), hit (打), reach (长拳), kick (踢) etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一招一式他都记得清清楚楚。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every move is imprinted on his mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-03-11T07:02:59.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2934" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2935" CreationDate="2013-03-11T14:55:28.983" Score="18" ViewCount="4721" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm referring to the repetition of names such as &quot;Dangdang&quot; and &quot;Renren.&quot; Why is this the case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-03-11T19:45:33.183" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T08:38:21.980" Title="Why do the names of some Chinese companies consist of &quot;repeated&quot; words?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2934" CreationDate="2013-03-11T19:53:40.283" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you compare Chinese with English, you will find a lot differences and similarities. Similarities may help you learn Chinese a little bit easily, while differences are the things you need to keep in mind and to get used to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the ways how English/Chinese sentences are constructed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English:  Letters ----------------- Words ---- Sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese:  -------- Characters ---Words ---- Sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may have noticed that I located Chinese characters somewhere between English letters and words. Each Chinese character has its own meanings, and we combine characters to make words (a lot words contain only one character though, like 我,你,他, etc.). Most of Chinese words (more than 80% maybe) have meanings related to the meaning of each character used in that word. For the rest words, their meanings have NOTHING to do with the meaning of each character in the word. Most of the words in this category are those translated from foreign languages by pronunciation, like 马达（motor），基因（gene）. There are a lot such words in English as well, like lychee （荔枝），ping-pong（乒乓）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One important feature of Chinese is that most Chinese words are two-syllable words. I guess two-syllable words sound more rhythmic than single-syllable words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, &quot;Dangdang&quot; 当当 (probably from the website name 当当网) is just a two-syllable name. 当当 is also used as the mimetic word for bells.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Renren&quot; is 人人。人 means man/people/person/mankind etc. 人人 means everybody. Other same pattern words are: 天天（everyday）， 月月（every month），年年（every year），处处（everywhere），个个（each and every one）， etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeating characters in the SAME WORD emphasize the meaning of that character, and also sound more rhythmic. Same idea behind all the 4-character words in the patter of AABB, like 时时刻刻，日日夜夜，分分秒秒，吹吹打打，来来去去，年年岁岁，熙熙攘攘，热热闹闹，高高兴兴，干干净净，整整齐齐，恭恭敬敬，花花草草，战战兢兢，形形色色，从从容容，利利索索 and a lot others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the above explanation doesn't apply to the repeating characters NOT IN THE SAME WORD. For example, 银行行长。银行 is a word, meaning bank. 行长 is another word, meaning the head of the bank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example: 小明明天去上学。小明 is a name （probably a boy）. 明天 is a word, meaning tomorrow. While in 明明天天去上学, 明明 is a name （probably a boy）. 天天 is a word, meaning everyday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very common in Chinese that repeating characters are used in the same word. Here are some cases where repeating characters appear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in person's names (usually children's): 明明,亮亮,云云,圆圆,皮皮, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in the words for simulating sounds made by things: 当当,轰轰,呜呜,呼呼,啪啪, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in the words for simulating sounds made by animals:汪汪,喵喵,咩咩,哞哞, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in the form of address: 姥姥,爷爷,奶奶,伯伯,叔叔,爸爸,妈妈,哥哥,姐姐,弟弟,妹妹,姑姑,舅舅, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in the words in v+obj pattern: 尿尿 (小刚去厕所尿尿)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in the words in v+adv pattern: 开开 (请把门开开)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in actions: 看看,听听,瞧瞧,打打,写写,说说,读读,练练,弹弹, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in words meaning &quot;every X&quot;: 天天,处处,个个,年年, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in ancient Chinese: 雨雨,将将,君君臣臣父父子子, etc. In this case, AA is a word, and usually the 1st A is a verb, and the 2nd A is a noun.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, you have to use the words consisted of repeating characters, and it can't be replaced by the word containing only one character, for exmaple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是我的奶奶. Here 奶奶 is grandmother (Dad's mom).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是我的奶. This sentence is totally different from the previous one. Depending on the context, this sentence can mean &quot; this is my milk&quot; when the speaker is having his/her breakfast, or it can mean &quot;this is the milk from my breasts&quot; when a mom breastfeeding her baby is talking to another mom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you regard Chinese characters as something similar to English words, you will be surprised to see repeating characters. However if you think characters as something similar to English syllables, then you will feel a lot comfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some English words that have repeating syllables:&#xA;mama,papa,yoyo,banana,Kijiji,Honolulu,Mississippi,Lady Gaga,Paganini,poopoo, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2013-03-12T19:52:30.660" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T19:52:30.660" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1568" CreationDate="2013-03-11T22:46:26.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try this for pronouncing Mandarin's ü sound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Start from the sound of 一 (number one) or 衣 (clothing/clothes) in Chinese correctly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: this Chinese sound is different from English &quot;ee&quot; as in Tee (letter T). For pronouncing this Chinese sound （一）, you need to press tongue tip firmly against the lower incisors, and you also need to tense up the muscle under jaw (Digastric M. Anterior Belly) a little bit. Then produce the &quot;ee&quot; sound in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Keep pronouncing the 一 sound, round your lips to make a circle as small and tight as possible, as what you would need to do for whistling. Then you will get the Mandarin's ü sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you can pronounce the ü sound correctly, you can add consonant l in front of ü. The l sound in Chinese is same as in &quot;late&quot; in English. Then you put the 4th tone on the syllable to make the sound of 绿 (lü4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-03-11T22:46:26.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2059" CreationDate="2013-03-12T03:15:10.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can't type in Chinese so I'll use pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally, it goes: &lt;code&gt;wo3 chi1 fan4&lt;/code&gt; (&quot;I eat/ am eating/ ate/ was eating etc.), &lt;code&gt;de5 shi2 hou5&lt;/code&gt; (POS &quot;time&quot;), &lt;code&gt;kan4 le5 yi1 ben3 shu1&lt;/code&gt; (&quot;saw/ had seen/ read/ had read one  book&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, it roughly translates to &quot;At the time when I was eating, I read a book.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2582" LastEditorUserId="834" LastEditDate="2013-03-14T08:35:14.410" LastActivityDate="2013-03-14T08:35:14.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2939" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2940" CreationDate="2013-03-12T19:58:15.640" Score="11" ViewCount="1129" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was taught that the closest analogue in English of Chinese measure words are 'units', e.g. &quot;a &lt;em&gt;pile&lt;/em&gt; of wood&quot;, &quot;a &lt;em&gt;cup&lt;/em&gt; of water&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What strikes me as a bit odd about this analogy is that the units in English add semantic meaning to the sentence (see paragraph below), whereas in Chinese, it seems it is just some formal 'rule'.  I find this particularly weird because Chinese isn't exactly a language with a lot of unnecessary morphemes floating about.  It seems more Chinese to me to say “一男人” as opposed to “一个男人”; the “个” doesn't really add anything to that sentence, so, in the spirit of Chinese, I feel as if we should drop it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, all this would be explained if it did in fact add meaning to the sentence.  In English, for example, we can say &quot;a &lt;em&gt;pile&lt;/em&gt; of wood&quot;, but we can also say &quot;a &lt;em&gt;stack&lt;/em&gt; of wood&quot;.  In both cases, we have three things:  the thing, the unit, and how many units, and the difference between the two is precisely the type of unit.  I've been taught, however, that in Chinese, every noun has one and only one correct measure word associated to it, and in particular, you can't make the analogous distinction between the two cases in Chinese.  Is that in fact incorrect, so that, in certain cases, more than one measure word makes sense for a particular noun?  For example, can I say both “一瓶酒” and “一碗酒”?  If it is correct, and one and only one measure word is correct for a given noun, why do they exist in the language at all (for reasons other than &quot;It's just a rule.&quot;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2341" LastActivityDate="2013-09-02T11:31:08.640" Title="Measure Words and their English Analogue" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2939" CreationDate="2013-03-12T20:30:17.847" Score="13" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've been taught, however, that in Chinese, every noun has one and only one correct measure word associated to it, and in particular, you can't make the analogous distinction between the two cases in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is completely wrong. Measure words in Chinese do carry meaning, just like in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the wine example, all the following are correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一瓶酒 (a bottle of wine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一碗酒 (a bowl of wine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一壶酒 (a kettle of wine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一杯酒 (a glass of wine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一滴酒 (a drop of wine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一斤酒 (a jin (a Chinese unit, =0.5 kg) of wine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because wine is uncountable, the measure words are container names, or volume, or weight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For countable nouns, such as 'person', there are singular measure words and collective measure words (also known as group measure words):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一个人 (one person)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一群人 (a group of person)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一队人 (a team of person)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一大帮人 (a big gang of people)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一小撮人 (a small proportion of people (from a large group))&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even within singular measure words for the same noun, there are different focuses corresponding to different contexts, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一堵墙 (literally 'a blockage of wall')&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一面墙 (literally 'a surface of wall')&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you want to say the wall blocked the exit, you may choose 一&lt;b&gt;堵&lt;/b&gt;墙挡住了去路, while expressing a wall-ful of photos, you may want to say 照片多得挂满了一&lt;b&gt;面&lt;/b&gt;墙. Although in this case switching them is fine (still grammatical), it would become less consistent in inner semantics, hence less literary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-09-01T21:56:09.613" LastActivityDate="2013-09-01T21:56:09.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2858" CreationDate="2013-03-12T20:38:49.750" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The thing that unifies Mandarin and Cantonese is the common Chinese script. For instance, in both Mandarin and Cantonese, 不 means &quot;not.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character is pronounced &quot;bu&quot; in Mandarin, and &quot;but&quot; in Cantonese, and while they are pronounced differently, they are recognizable versions of each other, even in sound, and have the same meaning linked to the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T20:38:49.750" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2943" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-13T00:07:45.263" Score="10" ViewCount="604" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my sources 饣 means &quot;food&quot; or &quot;eat&quot;. Since when do people eat jewelry?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2013-08-20T16:39:53.157" Title="Why does 首饰的饰 have the 饣radical?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2943" CreationDate="2013-03-13T01:09:45.473" Score="11" Body="&lt;h3&gt;TL;DR : &lt;code&gt;饣&lt;/code&gt; is the phonetic, not the signific.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;饣&lt;/code&gt;, which is simplified from &lt;code&gt;食&lt;/code&gt;, is the radical of &lt;code&gt;饰&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;飾&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;only in the sense&lt;/strong&gt; that it is listed that way in a Chinese dictionary. It is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; the meaning-bearing part of the character. Here are two possible analyses. In both cases, &lt;code&gt;饣&lt;/code&gt; is contributing to the pronunciation, not the meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;飾 = 食 (phonetic: shi2) + 布 (signific: cloth)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;飾 = 飤 (phonetic: si4) + 巾 (signific: cloth)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;飾 = 食 (phonetic: shi2) + [人 + 巾] (signific: person + cloth)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The first analysis might seem the most plausible, given the character's present appearance, but if you look at the seal script forms &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E9%A5%B0&amp;amp;submitButton1=Etymology&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;for 飾&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E5%B8%83&amp;amp;submitButton1=Etymology&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;for 布&lt;/a&gt;, you'll see that the right side of &lt;code&gt;飾&lt;/code&gt; doesn't really look much like &lt;code&gt;布&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The second analysis has the appeal that it's a simple phonetic + signific, but @Claw points out that both &lt;code&gt;飾&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;食&lt;/code&gt; are checked-syllables in Cantonese, while &lt;code&gt;飤&lt;/code&gt; is not. This indicates that &lt;code&gt;食&lt;/code&gt; is a much better phonetic match to &lt;code&gt;飾&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As alluded to in 1, the right side (in seal script) doesn't look like &lt;code&gt;布&lt;/code&gt;, it looks like &lt;code&gt;巾&lt;/code&gt; underneath a &lt;code&gt;人&lt;/code&gt;-like fragment. As pointed out by another answerer, cloth+person is a good signific for &amp;quot;decorate&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; Added analysis #3, which Claw suggests is the most plausible, incorporating his arguments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-08-16T16:59:04.283" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2943" CreationDate="2013-03-13T01:48:32.393" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE9ZdicA5ZdicB0.htm&quot;&gt;zdic.net&lt;/a&gt;, 饰 is formed of 巾, 人, and 食 (饣). 食 (饣) is the sound component, while the other portion suggests the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary explains the character's components this way: 形声。从巾,从人,食声。人佩巾有装饰作用。 So, it's a 'pictophonetic' character which signifies a person wearing or adorned with a cloth, thus having the effect of decoration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're interested in this kind of composition theory, you can look up more on the various ways characters were composed. 形声 being one of the ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zdic.net is great for this kind of thing. When you look up a character or word you can click 详细解释 for more in-depth info. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?searchChinese=1&amp;amp;zi=%E9%A5%B0&quot;&gt;Yellowbridge&lt;/a&gt; is also decent for this kind of question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2584" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2013-03-19T19:35:35.160" LastActivityDate="2013-03-19T19:35:35.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2950" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2951" CreationDate="2013-03-17T13:40:14.293" Score="2" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know it's possible to the use perfective aspect particle 了 for future events, eg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你家少爷长大了准能当个二流子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have yet to find example of similar occurrences with 过. Is it even possible to use it in other situations than past events?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2493" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-03-18T17:55:58.463" LastActivityDate="2013-03-22T02:34:18.707" Title="Is it possible to use the verb particle 过 for future events?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2950" CreationDate="2013-03-17T14:38:36.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, yes, only for events in the near future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;等我喫過(了)，咱們再走。 (= 喫了再走)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  等我玩過(了)，咱們再走。 (= 玩了再走) It's better to use &quot;玩夠了&quot; in this case.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  等我弄過(了)，咱們再走。 (= 弄了再走)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must say &quot;等 sb&quot; to make it natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: this is less used than only a &quot;了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-03-18T15:34:34.143" LastActivityDate="2013-03-18T15:34:34.143" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="44" CreationDate="2013-03-19T20:49:14.393" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good European analogy is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cantonese : Mandarin :: Swiss German : German&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following characteristics of Cantonese and Swiss German:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both are minority tongues that could be considered languages in their own right by linguists, but are popularly thought of as dialects for political and orthographic reasons.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Speakers of Cantonese and Swiss German are much more likely to be able to understand spoken Mandarin and German than vice versa.  Speakers of Mandarin and German find it very difficult to learn to speak Cantonese and Swiss German as fluently as a native speaker, due to complexity of pronunciation, lack of learning resources, and asymmetry of social expectations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They are generally written using the register, vocabulary, and expressions of their &quot;standard&quot; language counterparts.  Colloquial expressions of Cantonese and Swiss German are not transcribed verbatim in most contexts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2600" LastActivityDate="2013-03-19T20:49:14.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2913" CreationDate="2013-03-20T15:40:59.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would try just saying 拜托 first, since it will be understood that you are referring to the noise level without having to actually say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2504" LastActivityDate="2013-03-20T15:40:59.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2954" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2962" CreationDate="2013-03-20T21:34:27.193" Score="3" ViewCount="301" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I look for a dictionary translation of &quot;feelings&quot;, I see two translations: 情怀 and 情面. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which of these two would be better suited to translate the following sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The woman rhetorically replied to her partner, &quot;Are my feelings not important?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You should watch what you say as you may hurt the child's feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm most concerned with how to translate the the word &quot;feelings&quot; that would be appropriate for conversational usage (as opposed to textbook or academic terminology).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2604" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-03-21T15:28:48.447" LastActivityDate="2013-03-21T19:39:45.303" Title="Translating the word &quot;feelings&quot; for conversational use" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2955" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2957" CreationDate="2013-03-20T21:44:13.410" Score="3" ViewCount="1361" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would be the proper way of translating &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't have confidence in myself to dance on stage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that this isn't a translation service, but my difficulty arises from the many translations of the word &quot;confidence&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've narrowed it down to 信心 and 自信。I also believe the sentence structure will be slightly different depending on how which I select. May someone please provide an appropriate translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2604" LastActivityDate="2013-08-31T04:05:23.720" Title="Proper translation of the word &quot;confidence&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2954" CreationDate="2013-03-21T00:39:54.403" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither; 感情 is the most appropriate for your two examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a common problem with any language; there are multiple words that seem to mean the same thing but are appropriate for different cases. Using words that mean the same thing but are inappropriate for the situation is a dead give-away for whether someone is a natural or fluent in that language. For an English example, you would usually say &quot;I am mad&quot; or &quot;I am angry&quot;, but never &quot;I am enraged&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For completeness, 情怀 is more akin to &quot;mood&quot; or &quot;temperament&quot;, and 情面 has an element of &quot;face&quot; or &quot;sensibilities&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;情怀: 高尚情怀 - &quot;noble temperament&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;情面: 不讲情面 - &quot;insensitive (to feelings)&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-03-21T00:39:54.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2955" CreationDate="2013-03-21T00:49:34.527" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main difference between the two is that the subject of 自信 is fixed - self. That is, &quot;self-confidence&quot; is a more direct translation of 自信. If you can fit &quot;self-confidence&quot; in your English sentence, you can fit 自信 in your Chinese sentence the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-03-21T00:49:34.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2954" CreationDate="2013-03-21T03:30:26.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think for the first sentence, there are two choices, one is &quot;感情&quot; ，the other is &quot;感受&quot;. It's dependent on the situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2588" LastActivityDate="2013-03-21T03:30:26.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2955" CreationDate="2013-03-21T13:54:04.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我没有在台上跳舞的自信。I don't have confidence in myself to dance on stage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2609" LastActivityDate="2013-03-21T13:54:04.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2955" CreationDate="2013-03-21T15:44:11.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在台上跳舞, 我没有自信.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我对自己上台跳舞没有信心.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, it is not strict. Mostly, it depends your expression in chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2612" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-08-30T15:04:24.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2954" CreationDate="2013-03-21T19:39:45.303" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The woman rhetorically replied to her partner, &quot;Are my feelings not important?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那女子质问她的同伴：“难道我的感受就不重要？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should watch what you say as you may hurt the child's feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你说话可得注意了，可别伤了孩子的心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-03-21T19:39:45.303" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2950" CreationDate="2013-03-21T19:46:47.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some times you don't have to say 等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们吃 &lt;strong&gt;过（了）&lt;/strong&gt; 饭后就去看电影。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明天，我们的行程是：上午去看画展，看 &lt;strong&gt;过（了）&lt;/strong&gt; 画展后去海边游泳。中午……下午……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看 &lt;strong&gt;过（了）&lt;/strong&gt; 这封信，你就知道他为什么离开这个城市了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-03-21T19:46:47.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2965" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2966" CreationDate="2013-03-22T05:27:10.047" Score="4" ViewCount="1587" Body="&lt;p&gt;I normally hate overused catchphrases in English, like &quot;paradigm shift&quot; and &quot;out of the box thinking&quot;.  But I was recently chatting (in Chinese) with a friend about an earlier situation in which someone had used &quot;out of the box thinking&quot;.  (The phrase was used by my daughter's teacher).  I was at a loss to translate the idiom.  Is there some appropriate 成语?  A 成语 would be especially nice because the idiom in English is anecdotally thought to derive from a story of management consultants.  In addition, like many 成语, the meaning is really non-obvious from the words alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="74" LastActivityDate="2013-03-22T21:01:56.580" Title="Translating the idiom &quot;thinking outside the box&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2965" CreationDate="2013-03-22T06:19:26.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;别出心裁 also known as 别出新裁 is one 成语 that fits the bill:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[try to be different; adopt an original approach] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;独出巧思，不同流俗。 &lt;br&gt;独创一格，与众不同。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;别出&quot; means out of the box&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;心裁&quot; may refer to an idea, a scheme, a design or a solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《第六感》这部电影的拍摄手法别出心裁，许多观众都无法想象到男主角原来已死了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-03-22T06:19:26.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2965" CreationDate="2013-03-22T06:50:24.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 天马行空 is the one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天马行空 tiānmǎ-xíngkōng&#xA;[be powerful and unstrained like a heavenly steed soaring across the skies]&#xA;天神之马来往疾行于空中。比喻思想行为无拘无束。亦形容文笔超逸流畅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but use it carefully,天马行空 does not always commendatory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The imagination of child has no limits like the god horse flying in the heaven , details all show the creative ideas &lt;br&gt;&#xA;孩子的想象力如天马行空，且细节处均见独特之创意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the former mayor then delivered a meandering speech that left the audience dispirited&#xA;但是前市长讲话却天马行空,让听众失望之极。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2616" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-03-22T06:50:24.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2965" CreationDate="2013-03-22T20:16:56.327" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Thinking outside the box&quot; can be translated to 奇思妙想, which is a 成语 and also a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your idea is great! That is really thinking outside the box.&#xA;你这主意太棒了！可真是奇思妙想。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Think outside the box&quot; can be translated to 打破常规，开动思想, or 打破常规思维, which both are common expressions, but not 成语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to think outside the box to sovle this problem.&#xA;要解决这个问题，你得打破常规，开动思想。&#xA;要解决这个问题，你需要打破常规思维。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is interesting that there are a lot 4-character non-成语 common expressions in Chinese, for example: 大步前进，树叶茂密，小河流水，奋勇向前，又大又圆，越越来好，etc. I think 4-character expressions sound more poetic and more pleasant to the ear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2013-03-22T21:01:56.580" LastActivityDate="2013-03-22T21:01:56.580" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2969" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2970" CreationDate="2013-03-23T00:16:25.477" Score="4" ViewCount="1222" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would you say &quot;难得“ and ”尤为难得“ in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他在自己生活困难的情况下，资助老弱病残，尤为难得。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T14:37:34.667" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T14:37:34.667" Title="how to say ”(尤为)难得“ in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2969" CreationDate="2013-03-23T02:38:55.850" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;难“ means hard or difficult&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;得“ means to obtain&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Combining the two, ”难得“ means something that is hard to come by.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;尤为&quot; (formal) means especially or particularly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Putting all together, &quot;尤为难得&quot; means especially hard to come by or a rarity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-03-23T02:38:55.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2971" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2973" CreationDate="2013-03-23T06:12:12.300" Score="8" ViewCount="1117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 关掉  to mean &quot;turn off&quot; but it doesn't seem to convey the sudden-ness or unwelcome connotation of &quot;died&quot;. 突然关掉 is more precise but still seems to lack the negitivity. Also, as this is a common occurance, there must be a more colloquial way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-03-24T15:26:55.620" LastActivityDate="2013-03-25T17:28:29.553" Title="How would one say &quot;my computer died&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2971" CreationDate="2013-03-23T06:38:33.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The expression is &lt;code&gt;死机&lt;/code&gt; as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天早晨我的计算机死机,所有的文件都丢失了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My computer crashed this morning and I lost all my documents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-03-23T06:38:33.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2971" CreationDate="2013-03-23T06:41:09.910" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it hangs (not responding to any input), you could say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的电脑&lt;b&gt;死机&lt;/b&gt;了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the screen blacks out, you could say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的电脑&lt;b&gt;黑屏&lt;/b&gt;了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it doesn't turn on, you could say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的电脑&lt;b&gt;不亮&lt;/b&gt;了。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的电脑&lt;b&gt;打不开&lt;/b&gt;了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is completely broken and needs major repair, you could say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的电脑&lt;b&gt;坏了&lt;/b&gt;。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的电脑&lt;b&gt;完蛋&lt;/b&gt;了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: All above are used in Mainland China. I know they're expressed differently in other Chinese-speaking regions (e.g. Taiwan) but I don't know what they should become.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-03-23T06:41:09.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2934" CreationDate="2013-03-23T17:16:04.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition, some Chinese word which contains 'repeated' characters has related with the single character, but the word has more implicated. The common way of implication is about space or time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天 means day, 天天 means day after day, so we use it to express 'everyday'.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;远 means far, 远远 means faraway&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2630" LastEditorUserId="2630" LastEditDate="2013-03-24T08:43:09.273" LastActivityDate="2013-03-24T08:43:09.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2971" CreationDate="2013-03-24T13:39:05.403" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, usually we say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我的電腦當機了。&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;(My computer crashed.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我的電腦壞掉了。&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;(My computer is broken.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我的電腦不能用了。&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;(My computer can't be used anymore.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I think people can understand when you just simply translate it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我的電腦死了。&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;(My computer died.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Taiwan, but only from my experiences...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2632" LastActivityDate="2013-03-24T13:39:05.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2969" CreationDate="2013-03-25T16:18:27.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Scarce is probably the best word. It means very hard, (but not impossible) to find&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit for a more constructive answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scarce may be used in the following contexts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Water can scarcely be found in the desert.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Say, a popular new product is released, but sells out quickly, and the manufacturer cannot keep up with demand.  You might say &quot;the &lt;em&gt;product&lt;/em&gt; is going to be scarce for a while&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-certain personality traits are scarce among people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2639" LastEditorUserId="2639" LastEditDate="2013-06-28T15:48:29.943" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T15:48:29.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2980" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2981" CreationDate="2013-03-25T16:50:14.997" Score="8" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an example, I was at the cinema and I wanted to buy tickets for a film named&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;北京遇上西雅图&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I can't read all of the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English I'd say;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can I get a ticket for that film &quot;北京*something*上西*something**something*&quot;, please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an equivalent way to do this in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastActivityDate="2013-03-26T06:17:03.673" Title="How can I skip characters I can't read when reading aloud?" Tags="&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2980" CreationDate="2013-03-25T17:02:50.333" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use 什么, or 什么什么 as the placeholder for the characters I can't read. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your exmaple, I would say: 北京 &lt;strong&gt;什么&lt;/strong&gt; 西 &lt;strong&gt;什么&lt;/strong&gt;, or 北京 &lt;strong&gt;什么什么&lt;/strong&gt; 西 &lt;strong&gt;什么什么&lt;/strong&gt;, or 北京 &lt;strong&gt;什么&lt;/strong&gt; 西 &lt;strong&gt;什么什么&lt;/strong&gt;, or 北京 &lt;strong&gt;什么什么&lt;/strong&gt; 西 &lt;strong&gt;什么&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么 or 什么什么 can substitute any numbers of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am from Northern China, and I am not sure what words people in other regions in China would use for this purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2013-03-25T19:13:48.163" LastActivityDate="2013-03-25T19:13:48.163" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2971" CreationDate="2013-03-25T17:28:29.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate &quot;my computer died” to 我的电脑死机了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like also to comment on the differences bwtween the following words, based on my understanding. I would use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;死机 when computer is running well but suddenly halts and gives no response but seemingly still running and still power-on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;当机 when computer is running well but suddenly shuts itself down automatically and maybe power-off as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;坏了(坏掉了) when computer hardware/software is damaged and can't be started up.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;完蛋了 when computer is totoally ruined (like fall into water)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不能用了 to cover all the cases above as a summary conclusion.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-03-25T17:28:29.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2980" CreationDate="2013-03-26T06:17:03.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;many people read:北京X（音：叉cha）上西XX&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2642" LastActivityDate="2013-03-26T06:17:03.673" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2984" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2986" CreationDate="2013-03-26T20:03:18.213" Score="12" ViewCount="2213" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to be able to compute the distance between 2 hanzi according to their components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My idea is that a hanzi like 式 is made of 工 and 弋. 2 hanzi are close if they share common components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be able to compute such distance, I need to be able to have a list of hanzi and their components in a digital format. Does such list exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="908" LastActivityDate="2013-04-08T14:20:14.577" Title="List of hanzi and their components" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2984" CreationDate="2013-03-26T23:35:50.697" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know exactly the thing. There's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons%3aChinese_characters_decomposition&quot;&gt;project on Wikimedia commons&lt;/a&gt; to document the substructure of characters in terms of other characters. I haven't spent much time with the data itself, so I can't tell you how complete it is, but it seems pretty good based on my experience with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/tools/search_hanzi_kanji&quot;&gt;Tatoeba character search tool&lt;/a&gt; that is based on the data. That tool allows you to &quot;explode&quot; characters into their components (e.g., &lt;code&gt;蝴 =&amp;gt; 月虫...&lt;/code&gt;) or search for all characters with a particular component (e.g., &lt;code&gt;隹 =&amp;gt; 倠傕傩...&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another project to do something similar is Wenlin's database of characters in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_description_languages&quot;&gt;Character Description Language&lt;/a&gt;. Here is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wenlin.com/cdl/&quot;&gt;Wenlin's page of resources on the CDL&lt;/a&gt;. I'm not really sure if you have to buy Wenlin in order to get at some data. Anyhow, it looks pretty awesome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best of luck in your endeavors! I've wanted to do something similar, but I've always been too busy. Make sure to tell us about the cool things you do with the data :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-03-26T23:35:50.697" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2858" CreationDate="2013-03-27T17:12:54.697" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because it truly is a dialect.&#xA;Cantonese sounds very different from Mandarin, cuz they differed for a long long time. So called &quot;Chinese&quot; (by &quot;Chinese&quot;, I mean people) thousands years ago didn't include people in today's Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2654" LastEditorUserId="2654" LastEditDate="2013-03-28T06:14:13.737" LastActivityDate="2013-03-28T06:14:13.737" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2984" CreationDate="2013-03-28T00:45:37.027" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://cjkdecomp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=cjk-decomp&amp;amp;referringTitle=Home&quot;&gt;Gavin Grover's CJK Decomposition data&lt;/a&gt; (used by &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/nieldlr/Hanzi&quot;&gt;HanziJS&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://cjklib.org/cjklib/current/&quot;&gt;cjklib&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2013-03-28T00:45:37.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2858" CreationDate="2013-03-28T11:38:35.293" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is dialect indeed. Most usage of the cantonese is similar to mandarin. If a mandarin speaker watch a Cantonese channel for sometimes, he can grasp most of the detail.Like me I watch football match on UUSEE and I can understand most contents of the commentator mean. And I have not turned to any Cantonese classes before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2340" LastActivityDate="2013-03-28T11:38:35.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2969" CreationDate="2013-03-28T11:59:57.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase here means the people you mentioned before is rare. Becasue the people like that is nearly live in the textbook nowadays.&#xA;This phrase will have some difference when you use it on other situations.&#xA;You'd better note the context.&#xA;Here is some example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尤为难得的是，石头左下角，草书提款“清女”二字，和画面主体遥相对应&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“It's most precious that” it's signed in Chinese in the left hand corner &quot;Qing Maid&quot;, which is in line with main content of the maid in Qing Dynasty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;政治领导人有钱墨西哥总统路易斯.埃切维里亚，他曾毅然为中国恢复在联合国的合法席位投了赞成票，他被视为中国尤为难得的亲密朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Political leaders like former Mexico President Luis Echeverría, who voted affirmatively for restoration of China's lawful seat in the United Nations, were looked upon as close friends “particularly”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而真正推动英国经济发展的，可能是消费者这种“感觉不错”的心理——在今年，这种情绪尤为难得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real boost to the economy, however, could come from creating a &quot;feel-good factor&quot; among consumers that “proved elusive” this year with the England team's dismal performance in the soccer World Cup&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original means or usage is someone who is rare in nowadays. Or means someone who has  good character which is rare and he also have another one which may be more unusual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2340" LastActivityDate="2013-03-28T11:59:57.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2991" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2993" CreationDate="2013-03-29T09:42:23.637" Score="2" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;The poem 《登鸛雀樓》 (Climbing Stork Tower) has the final line 更上一層樓.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to read this in Cantonese, would I pronounce the final character as &lt;code&gt;lau4&lt;/code&gt; (without 變音), or &lt;code&gt;lau2&lt;/code&gt; (with 變音)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess would be without, because of the classical context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2013-03-30T06:46:27.560" Title="Using 變音 when reading Classical Chinese poetry in Cantonese" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2992" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2994" CreationDate="2013-03-29T18:16:07.897" Score="2" ViewCount="376" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/mcm/mcm05.htm#fr_9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; is from &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2788118.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;逍遥游&lt;/a&gt;， but I'm not sure.  I just can't locate the following sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thus, the wise man looks into space, and does not regard the small as&#xA;  too little, nor the great as too much; for he knows that there is no&#xA;  limit to dimension.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2486" LastActivityDate="2013-04-03T10:36:22.983" Title="Is this a translation of 逍遥游？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2991" CreationDate="2013-03-30T05:37:25.727" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be read in the original &lt;code&gt;lau4&lt;/code&gt; (陽平) tone, but not only because it's &quot;classical&quot;, but primarily because the poem follows the tone pattern of a five-syllable &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulated_verse&quot;&gt;regulated verse&lt;/a&gt; (五絕).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tones in Middle Chinese were classified into 平 (level), 上 (rising), 去 (departing), and 入 (entering), the latter three of which were classified as 仄 (oblique) for the purposes of tone classification in a regulated verse.  平 tones correspond to modern Cantonese tones 1 and 4 in the 9-tone system where entering tones are numbered separately, and 仄 correspond to the rest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical four-line five-syllable regulated verse that starts with a 仄 tone syllable (of which 《登鸛雀樓》 is one) has the following tone pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;仄&lt;/strong&gt; 仄 平 平 仄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;平 平 &lt;strong&gt;仄&lt;/strong&gt; 仄 平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;平&lt;/strong&gt; 平 平 仄 仄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;仄&lt;/strong&gt; 仄 仄 平 平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The syllables marked in &lt;strong&gt;bold&lt;/strong&gt; are those that can be substituted with their &quot;opposite&quot; tone (i.e., 仄 instead of 平 or vice versa).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The first line may also be &lt;strong&gt;仄&lt;/strong&gt; 仄 仄 平 平.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;All 平 syllables at the end of each line must rhyme.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line that you cite, 更上一層樓, is the last line in the poem. The Cantonese tones of the first four characters in this line is 3-5-7-4; you can see that the tone of the last character must also be 4 in order for it to match the tone pattern 仄 仄 仄 平 平.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I found a YouTube video as well where you can clearly hear it pronounced as &lt;code&gt;lau4&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YakQ1ACaf0&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YakQ1ACaf0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2013-03-30T06:46:27.560" LastActivityDate="2013-03-30T06:46:27.560" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2992" CreationDate="2013-03-30T11:13:26.897" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's reallys cited from 《庄子》,but not from the chapter of 《逍遥游》. It's from the chapter of 《秋水》. The orginal words for your citation are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是故大知观于远近，故小而不寡，大而不多，知量无穷。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是故大知觀於遠近，故小而不寡，大而不多，知量無窮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2013-04-03T10:36:22.983" LastActivityDate="2013-04-03T10:36:22.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2995" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3245" CreationDate="2013-03-30T15:15:18.033" Score="4" ViewCount="605" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had thought I knew how to pronounce pinyin &quot;c,&quot; like the English &quot;ts&quot; in &quot;cats.&quot; But on a trip to Shanxi it seemed like most of my friends were pronouncing it like pinyin &quot;ch.&quot;  Village names ending in pinyin &quot;cun&quot; seemed to be pronounced as if they had &quot;chun.&quot;  Chinese &quot;蔬菜&quot; (shucai) seemed to be pronounced &quot;shuchai.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was it just my bad ears?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:21:15.513" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:21:15.513" Title="Pronouncing pinyin &quot;c&quot; in Shanxi dialect" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2995" CreationDate="2013-03-30T16:50:22.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's difference between dialects and Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, they should be pronounced just the same as how they're spelled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, &quot;ts&quot; is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2013-03-30T16:50:22.470" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2858" CreationDate="2013-03-30T20:14:45.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might be a bit provocative and perhaps only half related to the question... However after reading the other answers and comments (of which I think many are excellent), I felt this was missing from the whole picture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last few years there have apparently been mass protests in HK against the Mandarinization of the Cantonese language-or-dialect and culture.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This obviously doesn't at all answer whether Cantonese is a dialect or a language, but it complements answers along the lines &quot;Chinese politics favors unity&quot; (true), &quot;because it's not a separate country&quot; (true), and the comment in Chinese saying &quot;don't worry, if you can just speak and understand Mandarin you'll be fine&quot; (often true, but not if you live in Canton).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my knowledge the Taiwanese also generally consider themselves having their own culture and language, and probably don't see Taiwanese as a Chinese dialect. But I'll try asking the next Taiwanese person I meet. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="400" LastActivityDate="2013-03-30T20:14:45.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2858" CreationDate="2013-03-30T23:54:37.863" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In reality, these two languages are not mutually intellegible. Cantonese is not considered another language per se, because Chinese characters unify these two languages in writing. In the absence of Chinese characters, they will be considered different languages today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot think of other group of languages that experience such phenomenon. For example, a person fluent in Mandarin can comfortably read content from Hong Kong and adjacent areas. We can say the same about people from Hong Kong reading material from the mainland and Taiwan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, take Spanish and French, which share the same alphabet. Without experience, however, it is much more difficult for a monolingual, native speaker of one of these languages to grasp the full meaning of the text in the other language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2662" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-03-31T20:14:01.503" LastActivityDate="2013-03-31T20:14:01.503" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2999" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3474" CreationDate="2013-03-31T17:24:30.977" Score="2" ViewCount="661" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an expression in Cantonese with roughly the same meaning as the Japanese 気分転換 (I guess it's 氣分轉換 in Chinese characters)?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I would include an English translation but something might get lost in translation, so I'll just refer to &lt;a href=&quot;http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E6%B0%97%E5%88%86%E8%BB%A2%E6%8F%9B&amp;amp;ref=sa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;these examples&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="400" LastActivityDate="2013-08-02T02:59:38.787" Title="Japanese 気分転換 in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2858" CreationDate="2013-04-01T01:16:49.650" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that the basic concept is all they use same character system (Cantonese or other dialect uses few new introduced words), from about B.C. 230 year, Qin dynasty uniform character script and units. Most of these dialect uses same characters. So Cantonese is dialect, but Man滿/Yi彝/Zhuang壮/Zang藏 are new languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2271" LastActivityDate="2013-04-01T01:16:49.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3001" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3002" CreationDate="2013-04-02T05:59:57.763" Score="13" ViewCount="3663" Body="&lt;p&gt;对不起 is one of the first phrases any student learns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We learn it as a set phrase, and don't question why it has this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we also learn the phrases;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听得懂 - &quot;hear and understand&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听不懂 - &quot;hear but don't understand&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is there a literal meaning to 对不起?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And is there an opposite to it - 对得起?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastActivityDate="2013-04-02T07:43:33.673" Title="Is there a literal meaning of 对不起?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3001" CreationDate="2013-04-02T07:34:57.183" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The compound 不起 is not just limited to this particular construction. It's a bit like a suffix that succeeds a verb, meaning 'not within one's power' or 'can't afford to due to the possibility of dire consequences'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples of compounds that use 不起 include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃不起 (Can't afford to eat - either due to financial constraint or social constraint)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;住不起 (Can't afford to live in - in a similar vein to the previous example)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;受不起 (Dare not accept - probably in fear of its consequences)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;伤不起 (Can't afford to suffer injury).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对 here means to face or to confront. So combining the two, you have 对不起, which literally means 'not having the capacity to face or confront'. The verb usage of 对不起 can also be explained in a similar fashion, which can be translated into 'to wrong' or 'to let down'. 对得起 would be a perfect antonym for the verb definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: See definition 6 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/cd/ci/4/ZdicE4ZdicB8Zdic8D29310.htm&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-04-02T07:43:33.673" LastActivityDate="2013-04-02T07:43:33.673" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3001" CreationDate="2013-04-02T07:35:44.417" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;对不起 literally means &quot;cannot face (someone)&quot;, implying &quot;let down&quot;, &quot;disappoint&quot; or &quot;betray&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your guess is right, there is 对得起, which is actually a common phrase. It literally means &quot;can face up to&quot;, implying &quot;regret-less&quot;, &quot;can justify&quot;, &quot;be worthy of&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples using 对得起:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;做人最重要是对得起自己的良心。One's primary duty is to obey the dictates of his conscience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-04-02T07:35:44.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3005" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3008" CreationDate="2013-04-02T22:50:54.307" Score="9" ViewCount="1016" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like both 为 and 是 mean &quot;to be&quot;. In which cases is one used but not the other? Is it something like the difference between &quot;estar&quot; and &quot;ser&quot; in Spanish and Portuguese? (In the sense that one is constant in time while the other is transient). Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2670" LastEditorUserId="2670" LastEditDate="2013-04-02T22:55:57.797" LastActivityDate="2013-04-11T22:15:45.217" Title="What's the main difference between 为 and 是?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3005" CreationDate="2013-04-03T00:32:40.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, the main difference lies in how formal they are. 是 is mostly used in colloquial Chinese, whereas 為/为 is much more formal, often used in constructions like 以...為... or just as a single character （1999年国民经济增长预期目标为7%）. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, it should be noted that 為/为 can mean other things than 是, but since you compare it with 是, I'm guessing that's not the problem here. 為/为 is read second tone when it means 是 (that's neither the only meaning of a second tone wei2 nor the only reading of the character, though). If you're not sure about the different kinds of 為/为, perhaps this entry over at Zdic will be useful: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE4ZdicB8ZdicBA.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE4ZdicB8ZdicBA.htm&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2013-04-03T00:32:40.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3005" CreationDate="2013-04-03T01:05:00.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both words have very broad usages (literal, rhetorical, metaphorical, etc.) and subtleties that must be analyzed within context. Generally speaking, 是 vs. 为 is similar to 'being' vs. '(serving) as', that is, 是 defines the subject while 为 scopes the connotation and/or extension of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-04-03T01:05:00.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3005" CreationDate="2013-04-03T19:41:12.387" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;为 has a lot meanings, and so does 是. A common meaning between 为 and 是 is &quot;to be&quot; or other variations of &quot;to be&quot;, like &quot;being&quot;. 为 is used more for its other meanings than &quot;to be&quot;, while 是 is used more for &quot;to be&quot; than its other meanings. When meaning &quot;to be&quot;, in some cases, 为 and 是 are interchangeable. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我们今年的工作目标 &lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt; ... &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我们今年的工作目标 &lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt; ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are some cases where 是 &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; be replaced by 为, for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes&lt;/strong&gt;: 我 &lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt; 一名学生.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;No&lt;/strong&gt;: 我 &lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt; 一名学生(X). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 has another meaning very close to &quot;to be&quot;, which is &lt;em&gt;&quot;regard ... as ... &quot;&lt;/em&gt; in the pattern of 以...为..., for example &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt; 厂 &lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt; 家, &lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt; 人 &lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt; 本, 民 &lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt; 食 &lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt; 天, &lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt; 救国救民 &lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt; 己任, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, 为 &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; be replaced with 是. By the way, 为 and 是 can even be used together, like 自以为是. But here 为 means &quot;believe&quot;, and 是 means &quot;right&quot;, or &quot;correct&quot;. 自以为是 means &quot;consider oneself always right&quot;. 自以为是 is a derogatory term, used to show dislike, disagreement or disapproval.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是为序。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 是 means &quot;this&quot;, 为 means &quot;is&quot;, 序 is &quot;preface&quot;, so the whole sentence means &quot;this is the preface&quot;. It is sometimes used to end a preface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;何以为是，何以为非？无以为是，无以为非。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here both 是 mean &quot;true&quot; or &quot;truth&quot;, both 非 mean &quot;false&quot; or &quot;falsehood&quot;. All the 4 为 mean &quot;to be&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to above-mentioned samples, 为 means that it is NOT xxx but very like xxx. In Chinese words, (可能它一定不是xx，但也可能它现在不是xx，将来可能是, 但)把它当作是xx。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 以厂为家，厂 is not home，but someone treats it as home。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今年的目标为xx，i.e. 我们把xx当作今年的目标。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 implies that we assign a role to a thing actively/explicitly, but 是 implies that a thing does natively have the role.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2013-04-11T22:15:45.217" LastActivityDate="2013-04-11T22:15:45.217" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2984" CreationDate="2013-04-06T19:48:04.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can looking for the hanzi in this page &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=radicals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mdbg.net&lt;/a&gt;. Then search the hanzi, when you found it click it. Then you can click over the (1) scissors and show it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;exemple: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-0xcJU0i3rns/UWB7C5ji4SI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/6P1xzl-fkBo/w570-h428-p-o/Selecci%25C3%25B3_001.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-0xcJU0i3rns/UWB7C5ji4SI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/6P1xzl-fkBo/w570-h428-p-o/Selecci%25C3%25B3_001.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) After you can click over the components!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2677" LastActivityDate="2013-04-06T19:48:04.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3010" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-08T13:47:34.373" Score="-2" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you tell me the structure and grammar of the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the main new effort presented inthis paper, an approach is developed for integrating&#xA;  the PSO algorithm as a driver at both the top and the discipline levels of a multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) framework which is based on the Target Cascading (TC) method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="635" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-04-10T19:15:08.417" LastActivityDate="2013-04-10T19:15:08.417" Title="How can we translate this sentence into chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2013-04-11T09:45:12.773" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3011" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-08T14:16:43.733" Score="3" ViewCount="445" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is really strange. Dictionary.com says &quot;obdurability&quot; isn't a word in English, but it is the ONLY translation for &quot;强韧&quot; in Pleco (my Chinese-English dictionary). Google.com has tons of results, but almost all of them seem to be Chinese companies describing their durable materials as having &quot;obdurability&quot;! Was this a typo by someone compiling a dictionary for Chinese readers that just got magnified over the years or what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T03:22:05.257" Title="Translation of Chinese word is not an English word?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2984" CreationDate="2013-04-08T14:20:14.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanzicraft.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;hanzicraft.com&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt;; they have functions that seem similar to what you're asking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2013-04-08T14:20:14.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3011" CreationDate="2013-04-08T15:05:00.917" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ABC dictionary definition in Pleco is &quot;pliable but tough&quot;. Other dictionaries in my Pleco edition have the same definition.  The only one that has yours is ADSO which is a community dictionary provided by the people of Popup Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My hypothesis about the wide-spread use of this word:&#xA;In online Chinese dictionaries I often see non-existing English words being used in the translation. This seem to happen when the Chinese word doesn't exist in English and hence can't be translated by one word. There is a lot of copied material on Chinese websites. You for example also see this on the Chinese wiki alternatives. The texts on different sites on a certain topic are most of the time almost complete rip-offs. It seems that they just want to be as complete as possible with minimal effort and in this way errors are spread quite quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-04-09T10:13:38.247" LastActivityDate="2013-04-09T10:13:38.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3010" CreationDate="2013-04-08T23:36:43.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You know, this is not a forum for providing translation services. So I will just analyze the sentence structure for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the main new effort presented in this paper -- 地点状语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;an approach -- 主语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is developed -- 谓语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for integrating the PSO algorithm as a driver at both the top and the discipline levels of a multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) framework -- 目的状语 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is based on the Target Cascading (TC) method -- 定语从句&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-04-08T23:36:43.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3018" CreationDate="2013-04-11T13:04:02.907" Score="2" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this text on the ubuntu.com website. There are what seems to be 2 different levels of politeness mixed together. Or is this a stylistic device?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下载并安装Ubuntu桌面操作系统，&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt; 只需要一张空白的光盘或U盘。无论 &lt;strong&gt;您&lt;/strong&gt; 当前的操作系统是Windows 或 Mac OS，&lt;strong&gt;您&lt;/strong&gt; 都可以用 Ubuntu 取代它们，亦可以选择让 Ubuntu 与它们并存。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2518" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-04-11T18:03:27.453" LastActivityDate="2013-04-12T05:58:05.643" Title="Mixing of 你 and 您 a stylistic device?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3015" CreationDate="2013-04-11T18:07:10.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mixing 您 and 你 is a bad practice. I am not aware of any fashionable usage of the mix, not even in net-speak. Your example is just loosely reviewed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One rare case where you may see both words in one dialog is when the speaker uses 您 for the listener while uses 你 as a reference to a general 2nd person (similar to &amp;quot;one&amp;quot; in English). In this case 您 and 你 refer to different persons and the mix is not about style. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“他9点才来。这么重要的事，&lt;b&gt;你&lt;/b&gt;怎么能迟到两个钟头呢？&lt;b&gt;您&lt;/b&gt;觉得呢？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;He didn't show up until 9. How could &lt;b&gt;one&lt;/b&gt; be late for 2 hours for such an important event?! What do &lt;b&gt;you&lt;/b&gt; say?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-04-11T18:07:10.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3015" CreationDate="2013-04-11T18:07:54.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think mixing 你 and 您 is a stylistic device . It is a little inconsistent, but it is NOT grammatically wrong. Actually I believe the sentences in your example are correct, just not perfect. I also believe it is also correct to use 你 and 您 even in one sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 你要和您的朋友一起来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-04-12T02:53:15.073" LastActivityDate="2013-04-12T02:53:15.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3015" CreationDate="2013-04-12T05:58:05.643" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a difficult question, before answering, let's have an understanding on what is a stylistic device. From &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylistic_device&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In literature and writing, Stylistic Elements are the use of any of a&#xA;  variety of techniques to give an auxiliary meaning, idea, or feeling&#xA;  to the literal or written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you probably already know, 您 is the polite way of addressing a second person, 你. Using Google search, I found quite a number of examples where both 你 and 您 are contained within a sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;您的孩子是否尊重你？ (Does your child respect you?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;您曾否上傳你創建的圖片，而不是用相機拍回來的？ (Did you ever upload pictures that are not taken from your camera?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;教您十招养车的秘籍让你的爱车光亮如新 (Teach you 10 ways to get your car a brand new look)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小心您的隐私：偷看你的QQ聊天记录 仅需300元 (Beware of your privacy: peep at your QQ chat record for just 300 dollars)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From these examples, it can be said that politeness is expressed at the earliest and once, only &lt;em&gt;where&lt;/em&gt; necessary. I would reason that Chinese wants to be polite, but not &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/395/how-polite-is-too-polite&quot;&gt;overly polite&lt;/a&gt; that it may appear annoying, fake or impersonal such as this ad from Google:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;您&lt;/b&gt;正在苦苦寻找顾客，而顾客也正在 Google 上寻找&lt;b&gt;您&lt;/b&gt;。&lt;b&gt;您&lt;/b&gt;可以在 Google&#xA;  和我们的广告网络中展示广告。仅当有人点击&lt;b&gt;您&lt;/b&gt;的广告时，&lt;b&gt;您&lt;/b&gt;才需要支付费用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylistic_device#Tone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;change in tone&lt;/a&gt; from 您 to 你 helps to bring back attention or focus to the subject (you, the reader). Therefore, contrary to other answers, I would argue that the mixing of 你 and 您 is indeed a stylistic device when used appropriately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for the specific example you have given, it seems to be just a case of imperfect writing, possibly due to the usage of a translation service. Instead of having so many &quot;yous&quot;, I would have rewritten it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;只需一张空白的光盘或U盘，即可下载并安装 Ubuntu 桌面操作系统 。无论当前的操作系统是Windows 还是 Mac OS，您都可以用&#xA;  Ubuntu 取代，或让 Ubuntu 与它共存。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-04-12T05:58:05.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2670" CreationDate="2013-04-13T02:58:09.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, you need to bear in mind that you are &quot;writing&quot;, not &quot;drawing&quot;. As another user mentioned, the stroke order / process is important. The stroke order helps you to have &quot;balance&quot; in your words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, don't compare with computer printout. Those are printed fonts, not handwriting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2691" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-04-15T01:53:57.317" LastActivityDate="2013-04-15T01:53:57.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3021" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3022" CreationDate="2013-04-14T05:00:02.767" Score="3" ViewCount="2265" Body="&lt;p&gt;What in a common test for fluency in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it when I can;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;talk to a shopkeeper&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;converse meaningfully about a film&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;do business purely in Chinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pass HSK6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When my friends ask I don't know what to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T16:07:15.167" Title="How do I know when I am &quot;fluent&quot;?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="9" ClosedDate="2014-03-20T14:15:52.107" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3021" CreationDate="2013-04-14T14:17:48.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the purpose of decorating a resumé, there are in my humble opinion three levels:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;beginner - can say 你好, with heavy accent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fluent - can talk to a shopkeeper, expat level&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;advanced - can converse meaningfully about a film, do business purely in Chinese, pass HSK 6, and teach a university course on Chinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;native - unreachable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What to tell your friends is an entirely personal matter – they will most likely consider you as the prime authority for Chinese anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2518" LastActivityDate="2013-04-14T14:17:48.660" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2670" CreationDate="2013-04-14T14:32:15.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider how many years you spent in elementary school from learning the alphabet until you were finally able to fake your parents' signature.&#xA;If you feel like you're spending way too much time on paintakingly drawing the characters, why not go the extra mile and familiarize yourself with the intricacies of 书法 – Chinese calligraphy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesenotes.com/calligraphy_strokes.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinesenotes.com/calligraphy_strokes.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://icalligraphy.blogspot.de/2009_08_01_archive.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://icalligraphy.blogspot.de/2009_08_01_archive.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://unomileyes.blog.163.com/blog/static/107584839201151915330578/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://unomileyes.blog.163.com/blog/static/107584839201151915330578/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After spending an hour getting brush-written characters to even stay within the boundary square, handwriting with a pen will likely seem a piece of cake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck, and welcome to your journey!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2518" LastActivityDate="2013-04-14T14:32:15.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3021" CreationDate="2013-04-14T16:09:01.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's my two cents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out of those four choices you provided us, I'd say that conversing meaningfully about a film (or a book or a painting) and conducting business strictly in Chinese are very close to fluency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, being fluent in a language does not pinpoint at a clear-cut level. You can be &quot;just&quot; fluent and be fluent like a native speaker. There's usually a difference between the two. Moreover, different native speakers elicit different levels of fluency. Compare a five year-old child with a novelist. Both are fluent, but one of them has a greater command of the language and a greater ability to convey his ideas with clarity and succinctness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, it all comes down to what you're happy with and what your aspirations are. When things start clicking in real-time, you are almost there. But, even after you reach fluency, you may still have a long path to go. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, your mother language plays an important role in how fast you can become fluent and continue to make progress after you have reached that level. I'm not talking about Chinese here, but about any language in general. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2662" LastActivityDate="2013-04-14T16:09:01.760" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3025" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-14T23:42:50.963" Score="11" ViewCount="9914" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any resources / how-to sources about how to write Chinese characters faster than normal while still being readable? It took me forever to take notes while in class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-22T16:22:29.803" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T21:32:08.560" Title="How to (hand) write Chinese characters faster" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3025" CreationDate="2013-04-15T00:10:48.327" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;In restaurants (茶餐廳) in Hong Kong, the &quot;waiters&quot; also face this problem because writing in a formal and clear way takes too much time. They developed methods so that they can take orders faster:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Write words with other words that has the same pronunciation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example, instead of writing the word 「飯」(faan&lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt;), they would write 「反」(faan&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;) because they both have similar pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Draw symbols instead of words.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Instead of writing 「叉燒」, writing 「╳燒」takes less time and is still readable.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Try to write with less strokes. Instead of writing a stroke by another, try this:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kCD9r.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use a mixture of Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese: (applies to people who are outside of mainland China, mainly for users of Traditional Chinese)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Eg: 我是一個好&lt;code&gt;学&lt;/code&gt;生。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="541" LastEditorUserId="541" LastEditDate="2013-04-15T03:12:57.767" LastActivityDate="2013-04-15T03:12:57.767" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3027" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-16T03:39:13.563" Score="5" ViewCount="1558" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that 由 means &lt;code&gt;through/via&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;from&lt;/code&gt; but I'm not sure exactly what contexts to use this in. For example the dictionary has this example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;运输问题由他们解决。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand this but I would have used a sentence like these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;让他们解决运输的问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;运输的问题是他们的责任。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to get more familiar with when to use 由 and to incorporate it in my verbal interaction (otherwise I'll probably never use it and forget it). I realize the three sentences above are very close in meaning, but I'm not really sure how to understand when, where, and why I should use 由.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="802" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T01:42:42.570" Title="In what contexts would I use 由?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3027" CreationDate="2013-04-16T04:25:21.360" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your example '由' means 'by'. To give you more examples,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发动机是&lt;b&gt;由&lt;/b&gt;蒸汽驱动的。&#xA;The engine is driven &lt;b&gt;by&lt;/b&gt; steam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这首歌是&lt;b&gt;由&lt;/b&gt;歌手自己创作的。&#xA;The song is written &lt;b&gt;by&lt;/b&gt; the singer himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小区里的足球场是&lt;b&gt;由&lt;/b&gt;大家共同维护的。&#xA;The soccer field in the neighborhood is maintained &lt;b&gt;by&lt;/b&gt; the community.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-04-16T04:25:21.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3025" CreationDate="2013-04-16T14:06:49.380" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learn the simplified characters. That's what they're there for. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO, they aren't easier to learn. But they ARE easier to write.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2013-04-16T14:06:49.380" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="167" CreationDate="2013-04-16T14:21:43.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Beyond the characters and grammar structures, Japanese has different levels of speaking, Keigo, as it is known, allows a speaker to change one's politeness when speaking to someone in a higher or lower social status, i.e a boss to co-worker and even more adults to kids. Even more so the structures used are also intended to be used when talking about these people in the abstract to show respect.&#xA;More in to grammar the intransitive and transitive verbs can be very difficult to learn. 開く and 開ける is an example of this, and can be very difficult to learn and to use without lots of practice.&#xA;I have not really experienced either of these concepts in Chinese, as I am sure they exist, as sentence structures are very simple and more literal and more direct when speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2704" LastActivityDate="2013-04-16T14:21:43.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3032" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3040" CreationDate="2013-04-16T15:12:36.427" Score="10" ViewCount="2589" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a way of adding tone marks above characters. It's fairly easy to add Pinyin with tone marks, but I want to add only tone marks. I want to use this as a teaching tool, because even though most students don't have a big problem with the syllables, they do need to focus more on tones. Thus, adding the tone marks would mean that students can focus on the characters while still being able to see the tones if they need to and focus on them more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now, I have to do this manually, which is quite tedious. However, I'm guessing that there might be a way of doing this automatically. Perhaps there are fonts that display the tone diacritic next to the character? The problem would be characters with multiple readings, of course, but perhaps there is a way around that. Does anybody know of any other way of adding tone marks above characters without having to do it manually?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is done both in Practical Audio-Visual Chinese and New Practical Chinese Reader (can't remember exactly where it begins and where it stops, though), but I think they've done it manually using some kind of typesetting tool. The best solution would probably be to use Ruby annotation and somehow get rid of the Pinyin/Zhuyin and get only the tone mark. I don't know if that's possible, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorUserId="507" LastEditDate="2013-04-17T02:47:11.410" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T06:15:32.017" Title="Adding tone marks to characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3033" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3039" CreationDate="2013-04-17T02:31:14.490" Score="12" ViewCount="9368" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am studying classical Chinese and when I try to type in any words that require the ü it just randomly chooses a character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I use the Traditional pinyin entry method on a Mac and get the the ü?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2528" LastEditorUserId="444" LastEditDate="2013-04-19T00:13:13.287" LastActivityDate="2013-04-19T04:51:20.677" Title="How do I type the lü for Character Romanization?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3034" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3036" CreationDate="2013-04-17T19:41:53.317" Score="5" ViewCount="470" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen two different stroke orders for this character:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uoeov.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HCqHW.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is more &quot;correct&quot; or widely used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that the fourth stroke in the latter picture is incorrect, and that it should be part of the second one. Is this right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="444" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T01:39:04.097" Title="Stroke order for 印" Tags="&lt;stroke-order&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3033" CreationDate="2013-04-17T20:17:36.067" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Type option-u then u on a Mac.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2013-04-17T20:17:36.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3034" CreationDate="2013-04-17T22:21:53.337" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe for 印 the 1st one is correct. 氏 is written in this order: &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cJr0G.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;. The first 3 strokes are exactly same as those first 3 stroks in 印.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following characters: 卯, 留，齊(齐). We finish this part first, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RUaRZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;, then add the next strokes, which are 丿, 丶, and ㇏ respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you make the font of 印 like this, the 2nd order in your question is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hXQG9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The discussion above is for 楷书. But the stroke orders are sometimes different for 行书 or 草书, in order to write faster. See the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8p2WW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ksHNv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; as an example, the stroke order is:&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LaGOT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2013-04-18T17:16:32.800" LastActivityDate="2013-04-18T17:16:32.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3037" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3038" CreationDate="2013-04-18T23:11:55.817" Score="1" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the image in question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/e4bPJv6.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://i.imgur.com/e4bPJv6.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your time!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2713" LastActivityDate="2013-04-18T23:55:37.367" Title="What are the characters on this image, and what do they translate to?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3037" CreationDate="2013-04-18T23:55:37.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it is 隔岸觀火(隔岸观火).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means (比喻见有危难不加援助而采取看热闹的态度）watch a fire from the other side [from the opposite bank] of the river -- look on at sb.'s trouble with indifference; adopt a “wait-and-see” attitude; look on (without sympathy); Praise the sea, but keep on land.; show utter unconcern; watch the fire from the other side of the river -- not interested in sb.'s success or failure. (from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E9%9A%94%E5%B2%B8%E8%A7%82%E7%81%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/%E9%9A%94%E5%B2%B8%E8%A7%82%E7%81%AB&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-04-18T23:55:37.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3033" CreationDate="2013-04-19T04:24:54.660" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The OP is asking how to type characters, using a pinyin IME, when those characters have a &lt;code&gt;ü&lt;/code&gt; in their pinyin spelling. For example, how do you type &lt;code&gt;绿&lt;/code&gt;=&lt;code&gt;lü&lt;/code&gt;? This is different than asking how to actually type the letter &lt;code&gt;ü&lt;/code&gt;. The answer is to type a &lt;code&gt;v&lt;/code&gt;. To follow the example, change to the pinyin IME, type &lt;code&gt;lv&lt;/code&gt; and select &lt;code&gt;绿&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2013-04-19T04:51:20.677" LastActivityDate="2013-04-19T04:51:20.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3032" CreationDate="2013-04-19T09:26:49.370" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not quite sure what your question actually is. Do you want to know how:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to better teach Chinese tones? (cram specific tone recall quizzes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to automate adding pinyin with diacritical marks to your text? (google, find e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://annotator.jiang-long.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;annotator.jiang-long.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to use Ruby annotations in your typesetting environment? (which?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use LaTeX, see e.g.: &lt;a href=&quot;https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/4448/tone-marks-above-chinese-characters-in-latex&quot;&gt;https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/4448/tone-marks-above-chinese-characters-in-latex&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might also try combining Unicode characters with the program of your choice: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combining_character&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combining_character&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The easiest solution to getting the tone marks out of pinyin is to use Regular Expressions. I have written a Javascript bookmark for you, which works with &lt;a href=&quot;http://annotator.jiang-long.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;annotator.jiang-long.com&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;javascript:(function(){var e,es,i;es=document.getElementsByTagName(&quot;acronym&quot;);for(i=0;e=es[i];i++){e.innerHTML=e.innerHTML.replace(/\w*[āɑ̄ēīōūǖĀĒĪŌŪǕ]\w*/g,' ˉ ').replace(/\w*[áɑ́éíóúǘÁÉÍÓÚǗ]\w*/g,' ˊ ').replace(/\w*[ǎɑ̌ěǐǒǔǚǍĚǏǑǓǙ]\w*/g,' ˇ ').replace(/\w*[àɑ̀èìòùǜÀÈÌÒÙǛ]\w*/g,' ˋ ');}})();&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And an advanced version using XPath which also takes care of toneless pinyin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;javascript:(function(){var i,t,ts,e,at;at=parseInt(prompt(&quot;Which row is the pinyin in?&quot;,1))-1;ts=document.querySelectorAll( 'table.textblock' );for(i=0;t=ts[i];i++){e=t.querySelectorAll('acronym')[at];e.innerHTML=e.innerHTML.replace(/\w*[āɑ̄ēīōūǖĀĒĪŌŪǕ]\w*/g,' ˉ ').replace(/\w*[áɑ́éíóúǘÁÉÍÓÚǗ]\w*/g,' ˊ ').replace(/\w*[ǎɑ̌ěǐǒǔǚǍĚǏǑǓǙ]\w*/g,' ˇ ').replace(/\w*[àɑ̀èìòùǜÀÈÌÒÙǛ]\w*/g,' ˋ ').replace(/[^ˉˊˇˋ ]+/g,' · ').replace(/ /g,'&amp;amp;nbsp;');}})();&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just create a new bookmark and past the Javascript as URL. It replaces any word containing an āíěòū etc. with the respective tone mark.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I picked &lt;a href=&quot;http://annotator.jiang-long.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;annotator.jiang-long.com&lt;/a&gt; totally at random; you may need to adjust the code if you want it to work with your favorite annotator webservice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;: convert pinyin without tonemarks into dots&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2518" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:36:12.587" LastActivityDate="2013-05-11T23:11:52.040" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3041" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3043" CreationDate="2013-04-20T02:44:10.217" Score="2" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;质数 and 素数 both mean &quot;prime numbers&quot; in chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference in their nuances and usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2533" LastEditorUserId="2533" LastEditDate="2013-04-20T04:19:29.187" LastActivityDate="2013-04-26T16:14:01.297" Title="质数 vs 素数​​​​​​​​" Tags="&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3041" CreationDate="2013-04-20T03:50:10.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;see the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B4%A0%E6%95%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; for the &lt;strong&gt;prime numbers&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in very first it says: &lt;strong&gt;质数，又稱素数&lt;/strong&gt;, so to translate this into English is: &lt;strong&gt;&quot;质数&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;,is equal to &lt;strong&gt;&quot;素数&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, so in Chinese they are both point to the prime numbers i think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese now live in Shanghai, i am not quite into the math things, but what i read form wikipeida is telling me that they are euqal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="208" LastActivityDate="2013-04-20T03:50:10.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3041" CreationDate="2013-04-20T08:02:36.600" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;质数 and 素数 are perfect synonyms. As far as I am aware of, both are used across all Chinese speaking regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find a reliable source on the origins or why there are two dissimilar terminologies for the same concept, but in the textbooks published in mainland China since late 90's, 质数 is the word for it, while in non-textbooks and older textbooks the two synonyms are used equally frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-04-20T08:02:36.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3044" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-20T12:51:04.320" Score="2" ViewCount="356" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cannot find a perfect word to describe &quot;记忆&quot;.&#xA;So any one can help me ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2716" LastEditorUserId="834" LastEditDate="2013-04-25T01:54:45.110" LastActivityDate="2013-04-25T01:54:45.110" Title="How to translate &quot;Muscle Memory&quot; to chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3044" CreationDate="2013-04-20T13:58:05.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Muscle Memory is &lt;code&gt;肌肉记忆&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2717" LastActivityDate="2013-04-20T13:58:05.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3046" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-22T22:49:33.483" Score="2" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to describe that the design of a golf ball gives it a good flight (not necessarily the same as distance).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an article that describes the basics of &lt;a href=&quot;http://golf.about.com/library/tips/aa080305a.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ball flight&lt;/a&gt; in golf. It makes me think that flight might not be the word to describe this but maybe trajectory or something similiar. But I am not a golf player and I don't really know the terminology in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess a golf ball design that produces good flight means that it is less prone to producing bad flight or trajectory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastEditorUserId="2725" LastEditDate="2013-04-23T03:55:38.573" LastActivityDate="2013-04-23T07:32:11.647" Title="How do you translate the word 'flight' in the context of a golf ball?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3047" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-22T22:56:05.213" Score="3" ViewCount="997" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to describe that a certain action gives you '面子', or that people do things to try and maintain or protect their '面子' but I can't think of an appropriate English word for it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2013-04-24T16:29:15.340" Title="How would you translate the word '面子'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3047" CreationDate="2013-04-23T02:43:52.520" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You just need to use face, prestige, reputation, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爱面子 be keen on face-saving&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;保全/顾全面子 save face&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丢面子 lose face&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;给面子 give face to somebody&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;面子问题 matter of face; issue concerning one’s reputation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that would be useful for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2726" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-04-23T06:33:07.157" LastActivityDate="2013-04-23T06:33:07.157" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3046" CreationDate="2013-04-23T07:26:52.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;flight is not particular to golf. In your context you can use &lt;strong&gt;飞行路线&lt;/strong&gt; (flight line) or simply &lt;strong&gt;飞行&lt;/strong&gt; (flight). Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;现在考虑球离手后的飞行 - Now consider the flight of the ball after it leaves the thrower's hand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他可能是如此充满焦虑地处于击球手的位置，以致于无法挥动球棒，但是在球的飞行时刻，他被彻底地沉浸于那一刻。 - One could be at the batter's plate so filled with anxiety that one couldn't swing the bat, but usually in the moment of the ball's flight, one is wholly absorbed and present to the moment   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你相对球的飞行路线的移动角度可以帮助你及时碰到球,第2步,使身体形成更强力的击球,第3步,帮助你以简单的方式获得力量,而不是你习惯的低效的方式,第4步. - The angle of your movement relative to the ball's flight line helps you reach the ball on time, Step2, structure the body for a strong hit, Step3, and helps you develop power in a simple manner and not in one you're used to that is counterproductive to success, Step4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-04-23T07:32:11.647" LastActivityDate="2013-04-23T07:32:11.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3027" CreationDate="2013-04-23T15:58:58.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your example 「运输问题由他们解决」 is similar to 「运输的问题是他们的责任」. They just state the fact. But 「让他们解决运输的问题」 is more like a suggestion or an order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @NS.X says, in this situation 「由」 means &quot;by&quot;. But these two statements 「运输问题由他们解决」 and 「运输问题*&lt;em&gt;是&lt;/em&gt;*由他们解决*&lt;em&gt;的&lt;/em&gt;*」 have differences in the tense. 「运输问题由他们解决」 means &quot;the transportation is to be done by them&quot;, while 「运输问题是由他们解决的」 means &quot;the transportation has been done by them&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 发动机是由蒸汽驱动的 equals to 发动机由蒸汽驱动, both of which states an objective truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you've mentioned that 由 means through/via or from, but not in your examples. The correct usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用户可经由网络收集信息. Users could get information through the Internet. (经由,  which means &quot;pass through&quot;, these two characters are usually used together)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;流行音乐由民歌演变而来. Popular music evolved from folk songs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="852" LastActivityDate="2013-04-23T15:58:58.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3051" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3053" CreationDate="2013-04-24T01:30:46.030" Score="7" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many Chinese clans have a &quot;昭穆&quot;, a kind of poem from which each generation of the clan picks a successive character as a prefix to given names, so we can easily identify people from one generation to another. For instance, I am of the &quot;性&quot; generation according to my clan's &quot;昭穆&quot;. Now, the &quot;昭穆&quot; contains this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;黃中元吉迪，青簡大名留。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://alhorn.pixnet.net/blog/post/2166355-%E5%BA%B7%E7%86%99%E5%BE%A1%E8%B3%9C%E6%96%BD%E7%90%85%E7%99%BE%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%8C%E6%AD%8C%20this%20page&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;黃中&quot; would mean &quot;being employed as an imperial government official&quot; or &quot;having a career in the imperial government&quot; (&quot;在朝為官&quot;). However, I have been unable to find further reference to back up that interpretation. I have even looked up the character &quot;黃&quot; in the 《古漢語常用字字典》 and the closest thing I get is &quot;[matters] related to the Emperor&quot;, with no direct mention of &quot;government&quot; or &quot;officials&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would somebody with good knowledge in classical Chinese be able to enlighten me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="501" LastEditorUserId="501" LastEditDate="2013-04-24T02:45:07.627" LastActivityDate="2013-04-24T02:45:07.627" Title="黃中 = being employed as an imperial government official/having a career in the imperial government?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3047" CreationDate="2013-04-24T02:34:51.340" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;面子&quot; means the reputation and Compliment from others&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2731" LastActivityDate="2013-04-24T02:34:51.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3051" CreationDate="2013-04-24T02:38:05.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;黃中 means the emperor, not the employment, and 黃中元吉迪 means the emperor along with the nation becomes better and better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the result, and via this the sentence would express the idea that it's a pleasure of your contributions to the nation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it concludes that the person is a government employee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="852" LastActivityDate="2013-04-24T02:38:05.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3047" CreationDate="2013-04-24T04:50:50.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;面子 = Face, self-esteem, etc. A word can contain many meanings by how you use it in a sentence.&#xA;If you split those two words it will have even more meanings. So just by how you use it in a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2732" LastEditorUserId="2735" LastEditDate="2013-04-24T16:29:15.340" LastActivityDate="2013-04-24T16:29:15.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3044" CreationDate="2013-04-24T04:53:55.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;记忆 = memory&#xA;Muscle memory = more exact is 肌肉的记忆&#xA;And how you want to describe of two words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To describe these two words. you can. A sence of memory from the past that still remember in our life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2732" LastActivityDate="2013-04-24T04:53:55.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3056" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3057" CreationDate="2013-04-24T15:03:34.467" Score="10" ViewCount="1898" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need help with sorting out the difference between 了, 著 and 到 when used as verb complements. I have learnt most of my Chinese in Taiwan and in my experience, Taiwanese people don't use 著 as a verb complement very often, except in some common phrases like 睡不著 and similar. I don't think I've ever heard anyone here say 買不著 or 見著. Most explanations I find online are next to useless, saying more or less the same thing, i.e. that these complements indicate the possibility of an action or if a result/goal has been attained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have much of a problem with 了 and 到, but I don't know how to use 著.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to have something to play with, here are some examples I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanyu.com.cn/ddzw/3-05/05yf.asp&quot;&gt;online&lt;/a&gt; for 著:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(1) 听说你想买一本汉英词典，**买着**了吗？&#xA;(2) 我去的时候，车已经开了，我没**见着**他们。&#xA;(3) 在那儿什么东西都**买得着**。&#xA;(4) 有些东西你带了也**用不着**。&#xA;(5) 我的药呢？刚才还在桌子上，怎么**找不着**了？&#xA;(6) 我经常**找不着**北。&#xA;(7) 这是十年前流行的衣服，现在已经**买不着**了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睡著 is the only sentence where I would use 著 naturally without thinking too much about it. When should 著 be used? What's the difference between that and using 到 (or 了 in some cases)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Drawing from the examples above, what's the difference between:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(3) 在那儿什么东西都**买得着** and 什麼東西都**買得到**&#xA;(4) 有些东西你带了也**用不着** and **用不到**&#xA;(5) 我的药呢？刚才还在桌子上，怎么**找不着**了？ and **找不到**了？&#xA;(7) 这是十年前流行的衣服，现在已经**买不着**了 and **買不到**了&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above cases, I would always opt for the second version and they seem to mean pretty much the same thing to me. Please help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-17T02:04:00.150" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T02:04:00.150" Title="What's the difference between 了, 著 and 到 when used as verb complements?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3056" CreationDate="2013-04-24T22:51:45.240" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 and 到/著(着) (zháo) serve different functions in sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 used after verbs implies a sense of &quot;stopped, finished,completed, or done&quot; on the action. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到 and 著(着) used after verbs indicate the result of the action. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;找(不/得)着, 找(不/得)到&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;够(不/得)着, 够(不/得)到&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;吃(不/得)着, 吃(不/得)到&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't really tell the difference between 到 and 著(着), but it seems to me that 到 sounds a little bit more formal than 著(着). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some cases, 著(着) seems emphasizing on the ability of doing something, while 到 seems focusing on the result of doing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;书架最上层的书，我够不着. vs 书架最上层的书，我够不到.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我跟你说话呢，你听不着吗？ vs 我跟你说话呢，你听不到吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;家里有这么多活儿，你看不着吗？vs 家里有这么多活儿，你看不到吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你打不着我. vs 你打不到我.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;找不着北了. vs 找不到北了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are some cases where one is more likely used than the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Case A)&lt;/strong&gt; In the following sentences, using 到 is good, but using 著(着) sounds awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;这个办法, 我早想到了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;演唱会的门票, 我终于搞到了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;这个赌, 我最终赢到了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Case B)&lt;/strong&gt; In the following cases, only 到 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;说到做到.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;说得到做得到.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;说得到做不到.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;请同学们说一下,你在这幅画中看到了什么, 又想到了什么.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;尽到责任.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;货送到了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;话我是带到了啊，去不去由你.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;收到信了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;受到好评.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;遭到敌人的伏击.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Case C)&lt;/strong&gt; In the following examples, only 著(着) is used, to show something (not) getting into a continuous state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他睡着了. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他翻来覆去睡不着. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;出了这么大的事他居然还睡得着觉.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他的衣服烧着了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他把油灯点着了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;油灯没油了，点不着了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他把炉子引着了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他把发动机起着了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他把打火机打着了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;打火机坏了，打不着了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Case D)&lt;/strong&gt; In the following examples, only 著(着) is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我爱怎样怎样，你管不着(or 你干涉不着).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;有话好好说，用不着这样鼻子不是鼻子脸不是脸的.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;这事儿还真让你说着了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;哼！这次算你捡着了，下次可就没这么好运了！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;丈二和尚，摸不着头脑.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Case E)&lt;/strong&gt; When there are place/time coming after verbs, only 到 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;爬到树上&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;睡到天亮&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;牛皮吹到天上去了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你这话说到我心里去了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你这话，说到点子上了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Case F)&lt;/strong&gt; When there are objects coming after verbs, in some cases both 到 and 著(着) are ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我没碰着他. 我没碰到他. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我没见着他. 我没见到他.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我没买着那本书. 我没买到那本书.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;再也吃不着这样好吃的菜了. 再也吃不到这样好吃的菜了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the following cases 到 is more preferrable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;听到一阵枪声&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;看到一块巨石&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, 着 (zhe) is used to descibe a continuous action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;看着她跳舞&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;打着手势&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;撇着嘴&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I polished my answer with some good points from other answers or comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2013-04-25T17:01:42.677" LastActivityDate="2013-04-25T17:01:42.677" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3056" CreationDate="2013-04-25T01:05:00.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually from your example, we already can know that 着（著） = 到&#xA;But i dont know why you are using some thing like that, actually it wasn't good to hear also that is not a verb, but from your sentences, it just look like a help verb. &#xA;And the differences between 着 and 到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference are depend on how you use it. Every word of Mandarin, it can mean of many of things, also it can change the meaning on how you put it on a sentences. Just like you example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;睡着 = Already sleep&#xA;睡到 = Sleep until&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it mean of many things, the most important is how you hear it. If sound like awkward, then you shouldn't put it together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2732" LastActivityDate="2013-04-25T01:05:00.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3056" CreationDate="2013-04-25T04:18:28.170" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since your difficulty relates more to the differences between 着(zháo) and 到(dào), I will just concentrate on these two in cases where they are used as a complement after a verb to indicate that a goal has been attained or that there is a result. Although both 着 and 到 are used for similar purposes, there are differences, and often, one is preferred over the other. Specific to the examples you have brought up, this would be how I would choose them: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在那儿什么东西都买得 &lt;strike&gt;着 /&lt;/strike&gt; &lt;b&gt;到&lt;/b&gt; (什么 - affirmative)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有些东西你带了也用不 &lt;b&gt;着&lt;/b&gt;&lt;strike&gt; / 到&lt;/strike&gt; (有些 - less defined)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我的药呢？刚才还在桌子上，怎么找不 &lt;strike&gt;着 /&lt;/strike&gt; &lt;b&gt;到&lt;/b&gt; 了？ (药 - very specific)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这是十年前流行的衣服，现在已经买不 &lt;strike&gt;着 /&lt;/strike&gt; &lt;b&gt;到&lt;/b&gt; 了 (十年前流行的衣服 - very specific)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 is often used when the goal or the result is less defined, such as in sentence (2) or when the result is negative (i.e. used together with 不). For example, when someone tries to interfere with your affairs, you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你管不着 OR 你管得到我再说 (rarely, 你管不到我)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 你管不着 and 你管得到我再说 share a common objective, i.e., to ward off any form of interference. The latter has a &quot;catch me if you can&quot; connotation, suggesting that &quot;you don't have the ability to interfere with my affairs&quot;, whereas the former now possesses the meaning of &quot;none of your business&quot; although it used to share the same meaning as the latter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 is also used more colloquially and has been incorporated into some idioms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;用不着担心 (colloquial, same as 不用担心)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;用不着烦恼 (colloquial, same as 不用烦恼)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;摸不着头脑 (idiom, it befuddles me)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;偷鸡不着蚀把米 (idiom, plan backfires on oneself)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-04-25T04:18:28.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3061" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3066" CreationDate="2013-04-26T04:43:04.177" Score="3" ViewCount="1867" Body="&lt;p&gt;I apologize if this is very elementary: I've &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; heard of closet referred to as 壁橱， only as 衣柜， but the direct translation doesn't seem appropriate. I've also heard 衣柜 used to reference cupboard as well. Is this for colloquial reasons?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2604" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-31T23:57:20.720" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T23:57:20.720" Title="Is 壁橱 (as opposed to 衣柜) only a colloquial word for &quot;closet&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3061" CreationDate="2013-04-26T05:58:42.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 壁 = wall&#xA; 橱 = cupboard/wardrobe&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, from there it's very clear. That a wall cupboard. In Mandarin, a word can remain very much of meaning. So, if only by a word, we can't know actually what they want to mean, after combine these words. We can actually know what it's mean. Actually if you uses these word to combine to other, it won't mean closet, but will mean other as what the sentences mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 衣 = clothes 柜 = something like a place to store things. So, combine it can became CUPBOARD&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2732" LastEditorUserId="2732" LastEditDate="2013-04-26T06:33:42.783" LastActivityDate="2013-04-26T06:33:42.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3061" CreationDate="2013-04-26T08:08:10.180" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe a &lt;code&gt;wardrobe&lt;/code&gt; is a kind of &lt;code&gt;closet&lt;/code&gt; for storing clothes, and depending on your locale, people may also loosely call it a &lt;code&gt;cupboard&lt;/code&gt; (sometimes also known as a &lt;code&gt;cabinet&lt;/code&gt;). You may like to look up these terms on Wikipedia. What I want to focus here is more on 橱 and 柜. Since I can't find a precise definition for these two on the internet, I shall describe them based on my experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;橱 and 柜 are a kind of furniture, usually rectangular in shape used mainly for storage purpose.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;橱 is usually full-height and placed against the wall, with doors that&#xA;open outwards. Most of them are made of wood.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;柜 is usually half-height and can have drawers or a lid instead of&#xA;doors. A good portion of them are for display purpose.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;壁橱 (cupboard placed against the wall)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;衣橱 (wardrobe)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冰橱 (refrigerator)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;电视柜 (TV cabinet)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;衣柜 (cabinet for storing clothes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;陈列柜 (showcase)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鞋柜 (shoe cabinet)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar kind of furniture with open compartments and no doors is known as 架 or a shelf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-04-26T08:08:10.180" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3041" CreationDate="2013-04-26T13:21:16.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;在汉语中，&lt;code&gt;质数&lt;/code&gt;和&lt;code&gt;素数&lt;/code&gt;在任何语境下都是可以互换的，这是绝对正确的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &lt;code&gt;质数&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;素数&lt;/code&gt; are interchangeable in any context; this is absolutely accurate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2740" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2013-04-26T16:14:01.297" LastActivityDate="2013-04-26T16:14:01.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3065" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3068" CreationDate="2013-04-26T18:59:59.133" Score="0" ViewCount="1624" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking at travelling to Shenzhen for a month. Which dialect(s) should I study? For speaking with factory managers, workers, and for day to day life?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="355" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:21:27.813" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:21:27.813" Title="Which dialect(s) to study before visiting Shenzhen?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2013-05-06T00:38:10.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3061" CreationDate="2013-04-27T00:05:11.680" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;壁橱 can refer to a small closet, a wardrobe embedded in a wall, a cupboard hanging on a wall, a chest placed against a wall or something else. As the characters go (壁=wall, 橱=case), it can be a container for anything not limited to clothes. Note, as an imported concept, 'walk-in closet' is not translated into 壁橱 but something along the line of 储衣间 (clothes storage room) or 更衣室 (dressing room).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衣柜 (衣=clothes, 柜=cabinet) means a wardrobe, either built-in in the wall or a standalone piece of furniture. A general-purpose cupboard should never be called 衣柜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the distinction between built-in in the wall vs. standalone furniture is not made by first-class words or affixes. Both 壁橱 and 衣柜 can refer to either a closet or something else. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the similarities/differences between 橱 and 柜, please refer to @Question Overflow's answer &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/3063/798&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-04-27T08:02:20.060" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3065" CreationDate="2013-04-27T14:47:18.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shenzhen is in mainland China, so you should study Mandarin. However, it is so close to Hong Kong, and there is a lot of business between Hong Kong and Shenzhen if you know a bit of Cantonese, it will suffice also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2741" LastActivityDate="2013-04-27T14:47:18.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3065" CreationDate="2013-04-27T16:10:44.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shenzhen is the United Nation of China -- take the subway and in any car you will hear a dozen languages and dialects. The whole of China is represented there -- from Guangdong people, of course (not all of them being fluent in Cantonese, there's a whole bunch of Guangdong-born Hakka and Chaozhou people in Shenzhen) to neighboring Guangxi (lots of them in Shenzhen and Dongguan; they were the first to settle down in Shenzhen when the FEZ was opened. They speak a moderately intelligible dialect of Cantonese, good luck with that) to Fujian, Hunan, way up north (always funny to hear a taxi driver asking 去儿哪儿里儿?) and even Uyghur people... Nobody speaks Mandarin but everybody think they do :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, how long do you have before your trip? A couple of years?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2013-04-27T16:10:44.610" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3074" CreationDate="2013-04-28T08:32:45.713" Score="7" ViewCount="1385" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;there aren't people I can talk to&quot; ? 没有对他们可以说话的人？or else &quot;the person with whom I had a fight last week is now a friend&quot; and all those sentences that require with/to/etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2743" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T03:39:01.730" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T03:39:01.730" Title="How do you say &quot;there aren't people I can talk to&quot;? 没有对他们可以说话的人？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3070" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3075" CreationDate="2013-04-28T09:56:06.277" Score="4" ViewCount="860" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a dish from Northern China called Harbin salad in English as well as in Russian. I want to find out what it is called in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://officechairtraveller.posterous.com/auntie-shaos-home-style-harbin-salad&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here is a link that describes the dish.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2744" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-04-29T00:04:46.480" LastActivityDate="2013-04-29T00:04:46.480" Title="What is the Chinese for &quot;Harbin salad&quot;" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3069" CreationDate="2013-04-28T10:12:41.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the first sentence in Chinese can be said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没有人可以交谈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the second one can be said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那个上周我和他打架的人，现在我们成为了朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2740" LastActivityDate="2013-04-28T10:12:41.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3069" CreationDate="2013-04-28T19:04:24.233" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Adapted from Linguistics answer I gave)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translating sentences like these can be problematic because you can't leave dangling prepositions. It used to really bother me because it wasn't hit on by grammar books, it's hard to google, and it can be difficult to convey to a person that &quot;I want a general strategy for translating these kinds of sentences&quot; and are not merely asking for a translation of a particular sentence. Here are some example sentences I've found along with various ways of fixing the ungrammaticality of the obvious translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;carry a bag &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; X&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm carrying this bag for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我帮他拿这个包。 &lt;em&gt;I help him grab this CL bag&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The person I carried this bag for is gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我帮他拿这个包的人走了。 &lt;em&gt;I help him grab this CL bag REL person leave PFV&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;come back &lt;em&gt;from&lt;/em&gt; X&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I just came back from France. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我刚从法国回来。 &lt;em&gt;I just from France return&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The country I just came back from uses the Euro.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我刚从那里回来的国家用欧元。&lt;em&gt;I just from there return REL country use Euro&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Call someone (literally &lt;strong&gt;hit a phone &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; X&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I called Apple (the computer company).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我给苹果公司打了电话。 &lt;em&gt;I give apple company hit PFV telephone&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The company I called makes computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我打了电话的公司是制造电脑的。 &lt;em&gt;I hit PFV telephone REL company is make computer&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;poke your arm &lt;em&gt;with&lt;/em&gt; X&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I poked your arm with a chopstick. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我用筷子戳你的胳膊。 &lt;em&gt;I use chopstick poke you POS arm&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The chopstick I poked your arm with is on the floor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我用来戳你胳膊的筷子在地上。 &lt;em&gt;I use-come poke you (POS) arm REL chopstick located floor-on&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;sell my bike &lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt; X&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I sold him my bike. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我把自行车卖给了他。 &lt;em&gt;I OBJ-Marker bike sell give PFV him&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The person I sold my bike to also lives in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我把自行车卖给(他?)的那个人也住在中国。&lt;em&gt;I OBJ-Marker bike sell give (him?) REL that CL person also live in China&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;It seems there are a few different grammatical strategies:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Delete the preposition (as in #3); the meaning is still clear from the context.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use a &quot;dummy variable&quot; as the object of the preposition (&lt;code&gt;他 = he&lt;/code&gt; in #1 and #5, &lt;code&gt;那里 = there&lt;/code&gt; in #2)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reverbalization of the preposition using &lt;code&gt;来 = come&lt;/code&gt; (e.g., #4)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at Timothy's answer, his first sentence changes the verb and then deletes the preposition. The second uses the &quot;dummy variable&quot; approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&#xA;Notes on glosses:&#xA;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&#xA;CL = Classifier, as in the measure words in Chinese (e.g., 个).&#xA;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&#xA;REL = Relativizer; the 的 particle which links adjectives or relative clauses to nouns.&#xA;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&#xA;PFV = Perfective; the 了 particle which marks for completedness of verbs. &#xA;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="2749" LastEditDate="2013-04-29T07:22:59.873" LastActivityDate="2013-04-29T07:22:59.873" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3070" CreationDate="2013-04-28T20:15:59.380" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the description, it contains glass noodle (a.k.a. clear noodle, noodle made of bean or potato starch), in that case the glass noodle is the main and other food materials are just sides, though in the picture the side overwhelmed the main. It is called &lt;b&gt;&lt;code&gt;东北大拉皮, 哈尔滨大拉皮 or 五彩拉皮&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/b&gt;. 大拉皮 literally means 'grand (dish of) glass noodles'. 五彩 means 'colorful' referring to the sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A dish that looks similar but without glass noodle in it is called &lt;b&gt;&lt;code&gt;东北大拌菜 or 哈尔滨大拌菜&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/b&gt;. 大拌菜 literally means 'grand mix of food'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The recipe of both dishes can vary from home to home, restaurant to restaurant. They usually contain Chinese cabbage, carrots, cucumber. Other common materials you may see include beancurd sticks (strips of tofu skin), Chinese cilantro (a.k.a. coriander), turnip. After 1990's people start to put lettuce and cherry tomato in them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main difference between the two dishes, other than having glass noodle or not, is the seasoning. Usually 大拉皮 is salty and dressed with chili or mustard, 大拌菜 is sweet and sour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东北大拉皮/哈尔滨大拉皮 'Grand dish of glass noodles'：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EZ2uI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;东北大拉皮&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五彩拉皮 'Colorful glass noodles'：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eUtrG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;五彩拉皮&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东北大拌菜/哈尔滨大拌菜 'Grand mix of food'：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fTyYQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;东北大拌菜&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-04-28T20:15:59.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3076" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3077" CreationDate="2013-04-28T21:33:11.183" Score="7" ViewCount="1395" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand when 没有 should be used instead of 不 when negating a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the example &quot;I'm not wrong.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it 没有错?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I know when to use 没有 when negating a sentence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2670" LastActivityDate="2013-05-26T20:09:05.800" Title="Why do you say 我没有错 instead of 我不错 to say &quot;I'm not wrong&quot;? When should I use 没有?" Tags="&lt;negation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3076" CreationDate="2013-04-28T22:17:58.573" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This particular example is completely idiomatic. 不错 is an adjective meaning 'not bad', the negation of 错 as verb 'to wrong; to mistake' is '没有错'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally 没有 is used in past tense or perfect tense to falsify a statement of fact; 不 is used in present or future tense to express (un)willingness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没有：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你吃饭了么？Have you eaten?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没有吃。I haven't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你吃饭么？Are you going to eat something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不吃。No I am not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example to compare the two as answers to the same question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 他说了么？Did he tell you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A1: 他没有说。He didn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A2: 他不说。He wouldn't tell me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-04-29T04:54:59.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3076" CreationDate="2013-04-29T03:20:51.770" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没(有) means not have&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不 means not&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The confusion arises because 错 has multiple meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a &lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt;, it can mean an &lt;strong&gt;error&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没(有)错 means have no error. Or idiomatically, not wrong.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As an &lt;i&gt;adjective&lt;/i&gt;, it can mean &lt;b&gt;bad&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;不错 means not bad. This adjective is always used with 不 in front.&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(有) is usually omitted in conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-04-29T03:20:51.770" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3080" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-29T04:51:05.950" Score="3" ViewCount="620" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chinese coworkers were describing Korean drama TV shows &amp;amp; said that the actors faces are &quot;细腻&quot; xi4ni4. When I look this up in my dictionary, I get 2 definitions &quot;fine &amp;amp; smooth&quot; or &quot;exquisite&quot;. I don't think those capture the meaning my coworkers intended. When they tried to describe what they were saying, they said something like the actors don't have to SAY what they are feeling, you can see in their eyes &amp;amp; so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this just one of those words that is difficult to convey in English or is there a good way to translate it based on this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2013-04-29T05:05:44.827" Title="How would you translate 细腻 into English?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3080" CreationDate="2013-04-29T05:05:44.827" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;细腻 in acting means delicacy and attention to details, also implying sensibility and emotional subtlety. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;演员的表情细腻入微。The actor performed with great delicacy and sensibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-04-29T05:05:44.827" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3069" CreationDate="2013-04-29T05:14:30.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;h3&gt;&quot;There aren't people I can talk to&quot;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation varies, depending on what word is used to translate &quot;talk to&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;说话&quot;, to get into a conversation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;找不到说得上话的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;倾诉&quot;, to pour out one's feelings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;找不到可以倾诉的人／对象。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or simply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;找不到倾诉（的）对象。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &quot;倾诉对象&quot;, the sentence is starting to become idiomatic. Other variants are also possible. For example, you can replace &quot;找不到&quot; with &quot;没有&quot;. If the context permits, you can also say &quot;没有人可以／愿意倾听／聆听我的倾诉&quot;. This last sentence is closer to &quot;Nobody could/would become my listener&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key here is that you need to find a word that conveys the meaning of &quot;talk to&quot; instead of just &quot;talk&quot;. In other words, it should emphasize the action on the subject's part. Otherwise the sentence will just become awkward because you need to make up for the missed meaning. This is why dictionary translations of &quot;talk&quot; like &quot;交谈&quot; and &quot;谈话&quot; will get you nowhere---these words can only mean &quot;talk with&quot;, which give equal weights to both parties involved in talking. Structurally this is similar to the deletion of preposition mentioned by Joe. But I think that this is more absorbing the meaning of the preposition into the verb than implying that meaning through the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;&quot;The person with whom I had a fight last week is now a friend&quot;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find this translation better than any attempt to simplistically duplicate the sentence structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上星期和我打（了一）架的那个人现在成了我的朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key here is that unlike in the original sentence, &quot;the person&quot; is now the implicit subject of the relative clause. This technique works trivially when the clause describes a reciprocal action with &quot;with&quot;. Sometimes, even if the action is not reciprocal, you can also get it to work by replacing the verb of the clause with its antonym. For example, for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The person I sold my bike to also lives in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;买了我的自行车（的）那个人也住在中国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparing with a sentence using the &quot;dummy variable&quot; approach mentioned by Joe,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我卖了自行车给他的那个人也住在中国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the former just sounds much more natural and less twisted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;How about &quot;all those sentences that require with/to/etc.&quot;?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two examples above show that you need to adapt the expression to the meaning of the preposition of the clause. But the way of adapting is different in the two examples. I doubt that general rules exist for all such sentences even though I am no linguist. But perhaps there exists this one technique that in many, even if not all, cases can at least make you sound less awkward and more comprehensible with little effort---use more than one sentence. For example, again consider the &quot;sold my bike&quot; example above. You can use these two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我把自行车卖给了一个人。那个人也住在中国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which are totally fine and even easier to understand than &quot;我卖了自行车给他的那个人……&quot;. This sacrifices on structural &quot;信&quot; in order to gain on semantic &quot;达&quot; and &quot;雅&quot; of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Fu&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yan Fu&lt;/a&gt;'s principles of translation. Sometimes, especially for complex sentences, this is probably the only sensible solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2749" LastActivityDate="2013-04-29T05:14:30.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3083" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-29T22:48:57.593" Score="23" ViewCount="4418" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many times I will know all the characters in a name but one &amp;amp; I'll ask what that one character means. 9 times out of 10 the response is, &quot;That character has no meaning&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it might be true that the character isn't used on its own, of course it must have meaning otherwise it wouldn't exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone asked me about a character, I might say, &quot;Oh, in this phrase XX it means something like 'luck' but it isn't ever used alone&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does it seem that native speakers aren't willing to answer in that way? Why would a native speaker choose to say that a character has no meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="448" LastEditDate="2013-04-30T03:27:14.653" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T18:21:37.220" Title="Why do native speakers often say a character has &quot;no meaning&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3076" CreationDate="2013-05-02T05:07:05.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply, 不错 means &quot;quite good&quot; in Chinese. It's a single word, not 错 with negating 不.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;那个女孩长得不错. That girl is so beautiful.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这道菜不错. This dish is quite delicious.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, 错 is a noun, and nouns should not appear after 不. Some verbs (usually actions like 看/听/去/吃) could appear after both 不 or 没有, but they usually have different meanings or tenses, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我没有回家. I didn't go home.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我不回家. I won't go home.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他没有看那场比赛. He didn't watch that game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他不看那场比赛. He wouldn't watch that game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="852" LastEditorUserId="852" LastEditDate="2013-05-02T05:21:12.097" LastActivityDate="2013-05-02T05:21:12.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3076" CreationDate="2013-05-02T18:51:55.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just wanted to complement the other answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不错 has two meanings, depending on the contexts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) it means &quot;quite good&quot;, where it is actually a single word, and you CAN NOT treat it as 不 negating 错.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 你字写得不错啊。Your handwriting is pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) it means &quot;not wrong&quot;, where it is a compounded word, and you CAN think it of 不 negating 错.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 原来你是西毒欧阳锋. You are OuYang Feng, the West Poisoner!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 兄弟所言不错，在下正是欧阳锋。Yes, What you brother said is not wrong (or is right). I am OuYang Feng. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for the 2nd meaning, I can only think of the usage in 所言不错, so this usage is very rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2013-05-02T22:38:54.483" LastActivityDate="2013-05-02T22:38:54.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3083" CreationDate="2013-05-03T08:01:26.153" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually it's true that every character have their own meaning. But many of foreigner can't understand every character without merge into sentence. So, probably they would just answer it NO MEANING. But as a person who are very linguistic, they can answer what it mean and completely answer what it's mean. For foreigner, even they know it can mean what, but they can't answer directly, cause afraid to answer wrong or not so sure.&#xA;Also, in Chinese. A character can be noun, verb or etc more else. If a character be a thing or noun. We can easily said what it's mean. But for a name Character, it's hard to said what it's mean. Cause no one wanted to use their name character by thing or any no good meaning.&#xA;You can't blame the person said like that, even no native will be same answer if they don't really know what it's mean. By which i know, chinese character are more than 3k and still increase also it can change time by time. So, hard to said for what it meanssss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2732" LastActivityDate="2013-05-03T08:01:26.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3088" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-03T12:02:26.457" Score="4" ViewCount="553" Body="&lt;p&gt;In talking about physical/geographical directions, I'm pretty comfortable using 朝 and 向 and 往 for the meaning of &quot;to&quot; or &quot;toward&quot;. But I would be hard put to describe to a Chinese language learner any differences in usage or meaning among these three words. Are there any important differences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2761" LastActivityDate="2013-05-03T12:58:59.770" Title="Comparing 朝 vs. 向 vs. 往" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3088" CreationDate="2013-05-03T12:58:59.770" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22chao%22_%22xiang%22_and_%22wang%22&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;. The explanation is quite extensive with many examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some relevant parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;向 and 往 can be placed after the verb, however it has to be used with&#xA;  an appropriate verb, Often used verbs are 开, 飞, 发, 运, 送, 寄, 带, 驶 etc.&#xA;  As you can see, this are words that at least imply some sort of&#xA;  motion. In addition, compared to 向, 往 is used more often with those&#xA;  verbs, because 往 expresses the destination while 向 merely expresses a&#xA;  direction, 朝 cannot be used this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When the action that takes place is specified to a specific target,&#xA;  use 向 or 朝. 往 cannot be used this way. Also, when the verb is a&#xA;  concrete action, the use of 向 and 朝 are the same, and they can be&#xA;  interchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When the verb has an abstract meaning, you can only use 向, and you&#xA;  cannot use 朝.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastActivityDate="2013-05-03T12:58:59.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3091" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-04T23:06:22.383" Score="10" ViewCount="4874" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word &lt;code&gt;垃圾&lt;/code&gt; is sometimes pronounced &lt;code&gt;laji&lt;/code&gt;, but other times I've seen it pronounced as &lt;code&gt;lese&lt;/code&gt;, which pronunciation is deemed to be more correct? Are they both interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="593" LastActivityDate="2013-07-17T14:25:38.363" Title="What is the correct pronunciation of 垃圾?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3091" CreationDate="2013-05-05T04:24:09.970" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(As I very recently learned)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;The standard pronunciation for &lt;code&gt;垃圾&lt;/code&gt; is lājī in the PRC and lèsè in Taiwan&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An obvious question to ask is &lt;strong&gt;Why?&lt;/strong&gt; Although I could not find an authoritative source, I have seen a number of claims that are very similar to each other. I'll refer to &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:%E5%9E%83%E5%9C%BE&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the talk page for 垃圾 on Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;标准普通话是读laji，以前的国语是读lese，因为垃圾本来是在方言中首先使用的，所以现在南方各地的方言里还是保留着当时的发音，后来普通话吸收了这个词，但是读音根据形声字的一般发音规则作了改变，所以读音改为laji，而台湾依然保留了lese的读音。--3dball 21:01 2006年1月13日 (UTC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;垃圾一词在宋朝就有, 见吴自牧的梦梁录. 本为lese, 是共产党有边读边念错变成laji --Bobbybuilder 2010年12月6日 (一) 18:36 (UTC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An translation I've taken a few liberties with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;: The reason that [on the mainland] it is read &lt;code&gt;laji&lt;/code&gt; but [in Taiwan] it is read as &lt;code&gt;lese&lt;/code&gt; is that the word was originally from a dialect. The word was borrowed into Mandarin, but the standard pronunciation eventually become &lt;code&gt;laji&lt;/code&gt; based on a (mis)interpretation of the characters' phonetic components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;: The characters &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; show up in Song dynasty texts (e.g., ...), but it was the CCP who mispronounced it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other important evidence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9E%83%E5%9C%BE&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The wiktionary page&lt;/a&gt; shows pronunciations in many dialects. If the characters are cognate, it's always an &amp;quot;s&amp;quot; for the second one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The characters don't show up in Song dynasty &lt;code&gt;广韵&lt;/code&gt; book of pronunciations (e.g., probably new characters), although they do show up in other Song dynasty texts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The word was written with different characters in different texts; the standard was established rather late.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;laji&lt;/code&gt; did not show up as the dictionary standard until PRC times.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Cantonese, it's &lt;code&gt;laap6 saap3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Shanghainese: &lt;code&gt;[lɒ²²ɕi⁴⁴]&lt;/code&gt;, Suzhou dialect: &lt;code&gt;[lɒ³¹⁻²²si⁴⁴]&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-05-07T03:05:13.290" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3094" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-08T06:24:13.957" Score="1" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in the romanization system, or similar systems to, the one that produced translations such as &quot;Confucius&quot; and &quot;Mencius&quot;. These names are very easy for non-Chinese speakers to pronounce. I've read that these came from very early romanization work by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Chinese#Missionary_systems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;various missionaries&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, but there's very little information about them. If anyone knows of good resources or books, that would be great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my case, I'm mainly interested in Mandarin romanizations that sound &quot;familiar&quot; and are easy to pronounce by English speakers, which sometimes means sacrificing consistency, accuracy or precision. For this purpose, I don't like Pinyin because some letters are pronounced much differently than in English, nor do I like Wade-Giles because it uses diacritics which are very foreign to English speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-05-08T12:42:41.567" Title="Missionary Romanization?" Tags="&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3094" CreationDate="2013-05-08T12:42:41.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Confucius is a latin transliteration as opposed to an English one. Etymology might be a good starting point: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Confucius&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Confucius&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This article is probably highly relevant: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_China_missions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_China_missions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further reading: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B000ID3EIE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/WINDOWS-INTO-CHINA-JESUITS-1580-1730/dp/B000ID3EIE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2257" LastActivityDate="2013-05-08T12:42:41.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3096" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3097" CreationDate="2013-05-08T13:05:54.987" Score="0" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone please tell me what these signs mean, the OCR couldn't read them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4WnJb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2770" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-07-13T01:34:52.727" LastActivityDate="2020-07-13T01:34:52.727" Title="Meaning of these signs (Characters identified: 宁静)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3096" CreationDate="2013-05-08T13:33:42.270" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word is &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html5/338651.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;宁静&lt;/a&gt; [níngjìng]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;①安定 (calm)；安宁 (tranquil)：宁静四海｜地方宁静。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ②安静 (quiet)；平静 (peaceful)：心情宁静｜宁静的灯光｜宁静的月夜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-05-08T13:33:42.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3101" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3104" CreationDate="2013-05-09T01:31:24.940" Score="8" ViewCount="619" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I would like to know is the proper way to say &amp;quot;I am behind schedule&amp;quot; in the general sense, similar to &amp;quot;I am running two hours late for the meeting&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;this project is two weeks overdue&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I searched for a translation for &amp;quot;I am behind schedule&amp;quot;, Google gave:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是落后于计划&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet when I search for &amp;quot;behind schedule&amp;quot;, the translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;进度落后&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't recall learning &amp;quot;behind schedule&amp;quot; when I took Chinese, so I don't know which one is correct, or if both of them are just poor machine translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone please help with this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2604" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T20:01:22.250" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T20:01:22.250" Title="How to say &quot;behind schedule&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3101" CreationDate="2013-05-09T03:26:03.297" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most machine translators won't be able to translate sentences containing idioms correctly. The trick is to rephrase those sentences to make the translation more straight forward:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;I am behind schedule (idiomatic)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My progress has fallen behind schedule (rephrased)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我的 进度   落后于   预期计划&lt;br&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;I am running two hours late for the meeting (idiomatic)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I am already late by two hours for the meeting (rephrased)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我  已  迟了 两个小时 出席这个会议&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;This project is two weeks overdue (idiomatic)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This project has already been delayed by two weeks (rephrased)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这个 项目    已     延误了 两个星期&lt;br&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-05-09T03:26:03.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3103" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3105" CreationDate="2013-05-09T08:29:19.517" Score="11" ViewCount="6645" Body="&lt;p&gt;饭店 and 餐馆 can both mean restaurant. My Chinese friend here in Dongguan tells me 饭店 is not commonly used to mean hotel. I want to understand in what contexts both of these words are used. 谢谢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2670" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T10:36:01.387" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T02:18:51.563" Title="What is the difference between 餐馆 and 饭店? Is 饭店 used for restaurant or hotel?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3101" CreationDate="2013-05-09T17:37:53.147" Score="9" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I am running two hours late for the meeting.&#xA;这个会我已晚到2个小时了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are various ways to say &quot;&lt;strong&gt;behind schedule&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in Chinese, depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I am **behind schedule**.&#xA;我的**进度晚**了。(or **进度拖后** or **进度滞后**)&#xA;&#xA;This project is two weeks **behind schedule**.&#xA;这个项目已**拖延**2个星期了。(or **拖后**)&#xA;&#xA;Any borrowing country must be aware of the hazards of refusing to repay its foreign debts, &#xA;or of paying them **behind schedule**.&#xA;任何借款国都必须意识到拒绝偿还或**拖延**偿还外债的各种危险。 &#xA;&#xA;Owing to various delays en route, we arrived two days **behind schedule**.&#xA;由于路上的种种耽搁,我们**比原计划迟**到了两天。 &#xA;&#xA;The project is **behind schedule** again.&#xA;这项计划的**进度又耽搁**了。 &#xA;&#xA;I am sorry to say that we are three months **behind schedule** .&#xA;很抱歉,我们**比计划晚**了3个月。 &#xA;&#xA;Programmes are running a few minutes **behind schedule** this evening.&#xA;今晚的节目演出**比预定的时间晚**了几分钟. &#xA;&#xA;The train's ten minutes **behind schedule**.&#xA;列车**晚点**十分钟。&#xA;&#xA;The flight is **behind schedule**.&#xA;班机**误点**了。(or **晚点**)&#xA;&#xA;This project is 1 year **behind schedule**.&#xA;这项目已**超期**1年了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;&lt;strong&gt;on schedule&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I am **on schedule**.&#xA;我的**进度正常**。&#xA;&#xA;Please try to sail **on schedule**.  &#xA;请尽量**按时**开船。&#xA;&#xA;He could have finished it **on schedule**, but somehow he fell behind.  &#xA;他原本能**按预定进度**做完这件事的，但不知怎地却拖后了。&#xA;&#xA;He was bidden to finish the work **on schedule**.  &#xA;他被要求**如期**完成工作。&#xA;&#xA;The train arrives at the station **on schedule**.&#xA;火车**准点**到站。&#xA;&#xA;The bridge was finished **on schedule**.&#xA;大桥**如期**竣工。(or **按期**)&#xA;&#xA;All trains are running **on schedule**.&#xA;全部列车均**正点**运行。(or **准点**） &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;&lt;strong&gt;adhead (of) schedule&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I am **adhead schedule**.&#xA;我的**进度超前**了。&#xA;&#xA;The plane arrived **ahead schedule**.&#xA;飞机**提前**到达了。 &#xA;&#xA;The task was fulfilled **ahead of schedule**.&#xA;任务**提前**完成了。&#xA;&#xA;The train arrived at the station **ahead of schedule**.&#xA;列车**早点**了。(or 列车**提前**到站了)&#xA;&#xA;The train arrived at the station 3 minutes **ahead of schedule**.&#xA;列车到站**早**了3分钟。(or 列车**早**到站3分钟 or 列车**提前3分钟**到站)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2013-05-10T18:05:20.820" LastActivityDate="2013-05-10T18:05:20.820" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3103" CreationDate="2013-05-10T00:18:00.703" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;restaurant - 餐馆，饭馆，小吃店，酒店，饭店，食肆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hotel - 旅馆，旅店，宾馆，酒店，饭店，客栈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酒家 in old days meant restaurant, but nowadays it is almost only used in the names of restaurants or hotels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-05-10T00:18:00.703" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3106" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-10T02:49:58.713" Score="3" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked them up and they both have relatively the same meaning. So what's the difference between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2777" LastActivityDate="2013-08-14T03:18:37.060" Title="What is the difference between 依偎 and 偎傍？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3103" CreationDate="2013-05-10T03:04:41.903" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between 餐馆 and 饭店 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;餐馆 is only meant for a place where you consume certain cuisine, i.e. a restaurant&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;饭店 can mean either a restaurant or a hotel, depending on whether the place offer accommodation as part of its business or not.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you say, &quot;I'm going to xxx 餐馆&quot;, people understand that you are going there for a meal only, if no other specific purpose is mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you say, &quot;I'm going to xxx 饭店&quot;, people may think you're going to eat there (if there's a restaurant at that place) or you're going to stay there for a night (if it's a hotel).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, it's more common nowadays in China to say &quot;酒店&quot; instead of &quot;饭店&quot; to name a decent hotel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2776" LastActivityDate="2013-05-10T03:04:41.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3106" CreationDate="2013-05-10T03:37:45.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;依偎 implies a strong sentimental attachement, usually expressing love or affection. Mostly used between couples, lovers, child and parent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偎傍 doesn't necessarily carry so much personal feelings, just meaning &quot;stay side by side closely&quot; and is seldom to use in informal/oral conversation. I think it's original from Chinese poems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2776" LastActivityDate="2013-05-10T03:37:45.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2414" CreationDate="2013-05-10T09:12:15.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding &quot;The point won't hold after translation&quot;, maybe the words in this poem are relevant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See you later, alligator!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After while, crocodile!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an hour, sunflower!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe two, kangaroo!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gotta go, buffalo!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adios, hippos!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chow, chow, brown cow!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See you soon, baboon!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adieu, cockatoo!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better swish, jellyfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chop chop, lollipop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gotta run, skeleton!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bye-bye, butterfly!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better shake, rattle snake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our school day now ends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, good-bye, good friends!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2778" LastActivityDate="2013-05-10T09:12:15.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3110" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3113" CreationDate="2013-05-10T19:05:40.410" Score="0" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I first came across the phrase &quot;head starts spinning&quot;, I thought it meant 大脑迅速转动起来 in Chinese, which means &quot;you start processing a lot info in your head in order to figure out something quickly&quot;. But I was shocked when seeing in a dict that &quot;someone's head is spinning&quot; means &quot;that person feels as if she(he) might faint&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how to say 大脑迅速转动起来 in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-05-10T21:36:07.707" Title="how to translate 大脑迅速转动起来?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2013-08-23T07:57:59.750" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3111" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3112" CreationDate="2013-05-10T19:16:23.080" Score="5" ViewCount="1543" Body="&lt;p&gt;To elaborate, although &lt;em&gt;ni3 hao3&lt;/em&gt; has a double third tone, when I hear native speakers say it, it's said so quickly that they definitely are not using that tone, nor is there feasibly &lt;em&gt;time&lt;/em&gt; to use the third tone when it's said that quickly; I mean there isn't time to lower and then raise pitch when the syllables are practically spat out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question is whether tones are sometimes, to some extent, omitted? Especially in extremely common phrases like &lt;em&gt;ni hao&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Listening to native pronunciation clips on many sites (for example, one among many: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.learnchineseez.com/lessons/mandarin/pinyin/index.html&quot;&gt;http://www.learnchineseez.com/lessons/mandarin/pinyin/index.html&lt;/a&gt;), take for example the clip of &lt;em&gt;wǒ hěn hǎo&lt;/em&gt;. To my uneducated ear, &lt;em&gt;none&lt;/em&gt; of those syllables have a full third tone pronounced on them, &lt;em&gt;especially&lt;/em&gt; &quot;hen3.&quot; It just sounds like no tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T03:00:38.747" Title="Are tones sometimes glossed over?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3111" CreationDate="2013-05-10T20:37:57.013" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a very interesting phenomenon in Chinese, called 语音变调（tone sandhi).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the rules. (Note: all the rules apply only characters in the same word/phrase)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tone Rule #1: 3-3 to 2-3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When there are 2 third tones in a row &lt;strong&gt;in the same word/phrase&lt;/strong&gt;, the first one becomes second tone. This rule is always followed automatically, even though it will not be reflected in the pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason of this tone sandhi, I personaly believe, is because 3rd tone needs a little bit more time to pronounce than any other tones, and if multiple 3rd tones roll in a row, a lot extra time will be needed if pronounce them all in 3rd tone, and that will break down the speech fluency. So in order to keep the speech speed nomal and speak natually and fluently, we drop the lowering part of the 3rd tone, and just keep the rising part, which makes it 2nd tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Like 你好，很好，买米，好酒，土改，检举，冷水，and many more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note this rule doesn't apply if the two third-tone characters in a row are not in the same word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example: 中午我出去吃饭。午 and 我 both are still 3rd tone in normal speed, and there will be a very short gap between 午 and 我. But when speak very fast, again 午 will become 2nd tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 3 third tones in a row &lt;strong&gt;in the same word/phrase&lt;/strong&gt;, both 1st and 2nd character will have 2nd tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example: 你好早啊。Tone pattern is: 2-2-3. This is a greeting used in the morning, used to the peope who arrive before you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 4 third tones in a row &lt;strong&gt;in the same word/phrase&lt;/strong&gt;, the tone pattern is: 2-3-2-3. like 剿匪手本。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 5 third tones in a row in the same word/phrase: 2-3-2-2-3. Like 剿匪手本好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 6 third tones in a row in the same word/phrase: 2-3-2-3-2-3. Like 剿匪手本挺好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tone Rule #2: 不&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the word 不 (bù) precedes a fourth tone, 不 changes to second tone (bú). This rule is always followed, automatically, even though it will not be reflected in the pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Like 不对，不去，不错，不坏，and many more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tone Rule #3: 一&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.1 The character 一 (yī), meaning &quot;one,&quot; is first tone when alone, or at the end of a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Like 一，第一，始终如一。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.2 It becomes second tone when followed by a fourth tone。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Like 一个 (yí gè) 一次 (yí cì) 一寸(yí cùn) 一夜(yí yè) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But This rule is NOT always followed, for example, 一月一号(Jan 1), some people say yí yuè yí hào, but others say yī yuè yī hào. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.3 It becomes fourth tone when followed by any other tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Like 一斤(yì jīn) 一天(yì tiān) 一杯(yì bēi) 一般 (yì bān) 一些 (yì xiē) 一直 (yì zhí) 一条 (yì tiáo) 一起 (yì qǐ) 一点 (yì diǎn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But This rule is NOT always followed, for example, (第)一期工程, it is (第)yī qī 工程, not (第)yì qī工程. Another example: 一条, when used in Mahjong for &quot;one stick&quot; tile, it should be pronounced as yī tiáo, not yì tiáo. Some people say 一鸡 (yī jī) for &quot;one stick&quot; tile. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.4 It becomes a Neutral Tone when in the pattern of X一X.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Like 听一听 (tīng yi tīng) 看一看 (kàn yi kàn) 走一走 (zǒu yi zǒu) 等一等 (děng yi děng)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The last but not least, DO NOT TRY TO REMEBMER ALL THESE RULES. You just need to listen to native speakers and imitate, until it becomes your natural speaking habit.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2013-05-14T17:14:54.270" LastActivityDate="2013-05-14T17:14:54.270" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3110" CreationDate="2013-05-10T21:36:07.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Figuring things out&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a very similar metaphor in English, but usage is much more restricted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I told John the money was gone, I could &lt;strong&gt;see the wheels turning&lt;/strong&gt; (in his head).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very often the use is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A person learns some new or surprising information.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This information &lt;em&gt;causes&lt;/em&gt; the person to think, and they slowly start figuring out the implications of it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They look like they're staring into space, eyes sort of glazed over.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An expression with almost the exact same use as &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;see the wheels turning (in X's head)&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;(X started to) put the pieces together&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;. To continue with the tale of deception and treachery above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the time he had &lt;strong&gt;put the pieces together&lt;/strong&gt;, it was too late--Bill had already fled the country with all of the cash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Concentrating deeply&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think there are any rotation-oriented metaphors for the scenario where you are &lt;em&gt;actively&lt;/em&gt; trying to think about something (rather than being spurred into thought by the information). A common enough, if somewhat silly idiom is &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;Put on your thinking cap&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hey class, let's &lt;strong&gt;put on our thinking caps&lt;/strong&gt; and try to solve this problem!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm open for alternative suggestions (that are less suited to elementary school).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-05-10T21:36:07.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3114" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3116" CreationDate="2013-05-11T10:05:04.640" Score="1" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out the references below, we see that Japanese has the same problem as Chinese: Does &quot;以X&quot; include the word itself, eg. is 1 included in &quot;1以上&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As what I have seen, in old Chinese books, there are &quot;以&quot; and &quot;已&quot; expressing the same(?) as in 以上/已上 以下/已下. Even 史記 itself used both (according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%B2%E8%A8%98#.E8.A1.A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;its &quot;tables&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, confusingly, the Chinese Wikipedia page used &quot;以&quot; instead).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answers come from the references simply gave us the answer and didn't say why, that's the reason why I come here for an authoritative answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/9671/is-%E4%BB%A5%E9%99%8D-inclusive&quot;&gt;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/9671/is-%E4%BB%A5%E9%99%8D-inclusive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1765/do-%E4%BB%A5%E4%B8%8A-and-%E4%BB%A5%E4%B8%8B-include-the-number-preceding-them&quot;&gt;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1765/do-%E4%BB%A5%E4%B8%8A-and-%E4%BB%A5%E4%B8%8B-include-the-number-preceding-them&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:43:48.687" LastActivityDate="2013-05-11T18:45:05.513" Title="Included or Not Included As In &quot;以後&quot; &quot;以來&quot;, etc" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3114" CreationDate="2013-05-11T18:45:05.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient Chinese, 以上 and 以下 are inclusive without a doubt. Why? Just because everyone use them in the same way and exceptions are few to none. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;三品以下&lt;/b&gt;用金宝，&lt;b&gt;二品以上&lt;/b&gt;用玉宝。（元史•选举志三）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;七月，定进马迁赏格，每甲马&lt;b&gt;一匹或二匹以上&lt;/b&gt;，迁赏有差。（金史•列传&#xA;第五十七）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese, they are supposed to inherit the ancient usage, however sometimes people try to be accurate by adding explanatory words which actually diluted the original meaning. For example the following forms are quite common in modern Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目前，浙江省&lt;b&gt;县及县以下&lt;/b&gt;考生占全省考生总数的 68%。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;设立公司应有&lt;b&gt;三个以上（含）&lt;/b&gt;发起人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In law space, the usage is still clearly defined to be inclusive. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本法所称以上、以下、以内，包括本数。（1997 年 3 月 14 日修订《中华&#xA;人民共和国刑法》第九十九条）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/china_law_prof_blog/files/YiShangYiXia.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This reference&lt;/a&gt; has a lot of examples to demonstrate the ancient and modern usages. (The author considered modern new usages wrong.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-05-11T18:45:05.513" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3184" CreationDate="2013-05-12T02:22:13.247" Score="6" ViewCount="811" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was requested by a friend to find out what this stamp is. Do you know what it says on the stamp?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dkwB3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="922" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2013-05-24T13:37:13.267" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T15:37:02.863" Title="What does it say on the stamp?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3103" CreationDate="2013-05-12T19:53:00.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;餐馆 and 饭店 differ in terms of formality, with 餐馆 being the more formal. 饭 and 店 are less formal words for &quot;meal,&quot; and &quot;store.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饭店 has the connotations of being an (informal) &quot;coffee shop&quot; type eatery. Ironically, it is the one that likely to be connected to a hotel, to which the 饭店  is an &quot;adjunct.&quot; A 餐馆 is a &quot;standalone&quot; operation that would NOT be &quot;adjunctive&quot; to a hotel. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2013-05-12T19:53:00.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3083" CreationDate="2013-05-12T20:01:12.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are times when a character is inserted for emphasis. At such times, it can be said that the character in question has no ADDITIONAL meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example is given in the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2757/%E5%A4%AA-meaning-in-%E7%81%B0%E5%A4%AA%E7%8B%BC/2761#2761&quot;&gt;太: Meaning in 灰太狼&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太 is the character with &quot;no meaning&quot; even though it has a &quot;standalone&quot; meaning of &quot;too.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T00:11:36.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3123" CreationDate="2013-05-13T02:23:04.873" Score="5" ViewCount="2018" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should I learn Mandarin basics first through pinyin and worry about the characters later, or should I learn them together? Pros and cons?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T01:09:16.747" Title="Learn the characters at the same time as the language?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3121" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3122" CreationDate="2013-05-13T03:16:15.567" Score="2" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国的风景都真不错。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A native speaker told me that the above sentence was wrong, so the corrected version should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国的风景真(的)都不错。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the first sentence's grammar wrong or it just sounds unnatural? Why 都 goes after 真? I was thinking of sentences like 他们都很聪明, where 都 appears before 很 (and because 很 is similar to 真).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastActivityDate="2013-05-14T17:10:55.397" Title="Why is 真都不错 used here instead of 都真不错?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3121" CreationDate="2013-05-13T05:50:08.653" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;很 is NOT similar to 真.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很 is used before adj or adv to form a compounded adj or adv phrase, 很 is at the phrase level (inner level). But 真 modifies the whole predicate (ourter level).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景不错。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景很不错。 很 modifies 不错.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景真(的)不错. 真 modifies the whole predicate (不错).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景真(的)很不错. 真 modifies the whole predicate (很不错).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we can't say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(NO)中国的风景很真不错. It is wrong because 真 can't be used at the inner level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景不错。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景都不错。 都 modifies 不错. inner level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景真(的)都不错. 真 modifies the whole predicate (都不错).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we can't say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(NO)中国的风景都真不错. It is wrong because 真 can't be used at the inner level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please Note: sometimes 真 is also used at the inner level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他跳得真高. 真 modifies 高.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他真跳得高. 真 modifies the whole predicate (跳得高).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他跳得很高. 很 modifies 高.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他真跳得很高. 真 modifies the whole predicate (跳得很高).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess, when only 真 appears, it can be at inner level or outer level. But if there are 2 or more modifiers, then 真 should be at outer level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Another way to explain this:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很, 都 and 真 work in different aspects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很 describes to &amp;quot;what extent&amp;quot; the following adj or adv imply. 很 corresponds to &amp;quot;very&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;very much&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都 describes the scope the following adj or adv imply. 都 corresponds to &amp;quot;both&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;all&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真 emphasizes the following adj or adv.  都 corresponds to &amp;quot;really&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the order of them is: 真, 都, 很.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景不错.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景很不错.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景都不错.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景都很不错.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景真不错.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景真很不错.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景真都不错.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的风景真都很不错.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-05-14T17:10:55.397" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3120" CreationDate="2013-05-13T05:59:32.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the way how Chinese kids start learning Mandarin in school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They first learn Pinyin, then learn simple and basic characters, like 人,口,手,天,大,我,你,他, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin tells you how to pronounce new characters. So learn Pinyin first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-05-13T05:59:32.873" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3131" CreationDate="2013-05-13T07:06:00.940" Score="4" ViewCount="8258" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a word for &quot;sophisticated&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Sophisticated&quot; here will mean of a person or their thoughts, reactions, and understanding, being aware of and able to interpret &lt;em&gt;complex issues&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Though young and inexperienced, his thoughts are more sophisticated&#xA;  than the world's best philosophers...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.com/#auto/zh-CN/sophisticated&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google translate&lt;/a&gt; has these options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;复杂&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;尖端&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;诡辩&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet neither of which is suitable to be used to describe a &quot;sophisticated&quot; person. What other alternatives are there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2533" LastEditorUserId="2533" LastEditDate="2013-05-14T11:31:15.590" LastActivityDate="2013-05-27T14:04:23.533" Title="How do we describe a &quot;sophisticated person&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3124" CreationDate="2013-05-13T08:01:35.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can say like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他為人世故。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means that he knows a lot about how the real world works, how to deal with complex politics, how to not offend others, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-05-14T03:45:06.390" LastActivityDate="2013-05-14T03:45:06.390" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3103" CreationDate="2013-05-13T08:17:02.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;餐馆 is a restaurant. It is usually a small one on the street where you can have an inexpensive lunch or something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饭店, on the other hand, could be either a restaurant or a hotel. And it could be as small as a 餐馆, or it could be as good as a five-star hotel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think they differ in formality; they refer to different types of restaurants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastActivityDate="2013-05-13T08:17:02.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3083" CreationDate="2013-05-13T08:32:40.343" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally believe that every character has its function in the sentence, but not all characters have a &quot;translatable&quot; meaning. Many characters, when they are added to the sentence, don't change the literal meaning of the sentence, but may create an emphasis or introduce a certain emotion, and there is no English equivalent to this phenomenon. Maybe that's why they told you those characters have no meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastActivityDate="2013-05-13T08:32:40.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2757" CreationDate="2013-05-13T08:48:47.803" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient Chinese, 太 means 'big', 'oldest/most senior', 'extreme'... The second meaning have largely fallen out of use today, but still survives in words such as 太郎 (the oldest son, mainly used in japanese),太子(the crown prince, usually the oldest son of the king),... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 太狼 is an intentional pun of 太郎, making the name 灰太狼 sound like a Japanese name 'grey taro'. Actually almost all characters' names in that show are word plays like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastActivityDate="2013-05-13T08:48:47.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3124" CreationDate="2013-05-13T09:46:35.603" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;sophisticated&quot; has several meanings. As you have already stated in your question the meaning in context being &quot;a person or their thoughts, reactions, and understanding, being aware of and able to interpret complex issues&quot;, I will try to elaborate on this meaning first before going into the details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being sophisticated does not mean being, 精明 (smart) or 老练 (an old hand). Being sophisticated is usually related to &lt;em&gt;EQ&lt;/em&gt; rather than IQ. A sophisticated person is usually someone who is able to handle complex situations in a &lt;em&gt;social setting&lt;/em&gt; rather than someone who can solve a complex algorithm. From this, we can &lt;em&gt;infer&lt;/em&gt; that this person must be mature in his/her thinking. Maturity comes with experience. Sophistication does not require the over-experience of an old hand nor the exposure to worldly affairs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that, the following examples is what I feel appropriate by inference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;熟女 - a sophisticated lady&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;成熟的观众 - a sophisticated audience&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;经验丰富的人 - a sophisticated person&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another meaning of sophisticated would be refined:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;品味高尚 - having a sophisticated taste&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both meanings can be applied on the same person and they &lt;em&gt;usually do&lt;/em&gt; when applied to a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on your updated example, the meanings above would not apply. In this case, sophisticated takes on the meaning of &quot;advanced&quot; or &quot;ahead of times&quot;. I would translate it as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然入世未深，但他的想法比世界上最好的哲学家还要&lt;b&gt;超前&lt;/b&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-05-14T13:56:55.373" LastActivityDate="2013-05-14T13:56:55.373" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3124" CreationDate="2013-05-13T19:09:06.483" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is an exact Chinese counterpart for 'sophisticated'. It depends on the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世故 (worldly) is the context-agnostic translation but sometimes it has a negative connotation of slyness. When you use it on a 10-year old, it's almost surely negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the other comment mentioned, (少年)老成 can be used when to say a kid is sophisticated, but 老成 also implies '(psychologically) mature'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The options Google translation gave you (复杂/尖端/诡辩) are definitely not the common words one would use to say 'sophisticated'. They may serve the purpose only in very specific contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the example you've added to the question, I'd choose 深邃 (deep) which is more idiomatic  than the other words mentioned above to praise a philosopher's thinking ability. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然年轻稚嫩，可是他的思想比世界上最伟大的哲学家还要&lt;b&gt;深邃&lt;/b&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;超前 (ahead of time/peers/age/...) mentioned in the other answer, or 领先 (in the lead) is also fine to use, though the meaning is slightly different: 超前/领先 is describing the thoughts, the outcome of thinking, rather than the thinking ability. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-05-14T19:26:44.637" LastActivityDate="2013-05-14T19:26:44.637" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3032" CreationDate="2013-05-14T15:31:09.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have written some software that does, this &lt;a href=&quot;https://code.google.com/p/tghz-word-tone-annotator/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://code.google.com/p/tghz-word-tone-annotator/&lt;/a&gt; . It is however a Microsoft word add-in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="2785" LastEditDate="2013-05-14T16:33:55.020" LastActivityDate="2013-05-14T16:33:55.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3133" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3135" CreationDate="2013-05-14T18:43:04.280" Score="3" ViewCount="1002" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an English example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Learner: Wait, how is &lt;em&gt;c-o-w&lt;/em&gt; pronounced?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Native: COW, like a K sound followed by &lt;em&gt;ow.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chinese there are no phonetic letters. So how are children taught how to pronounce something, other than to hear the difference by someone who already knows it? Unless they're taught pinyin (which didn't even used to exist), how on earth could you specify the difference between, for example, &lt;em&gt;j&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;q&lt;/em&gt;, if the learner were uncertain which sound was being used in the pronunciation of a given word or character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastEditorUserId="881" LastEditDate="2015-07-28T18:58:24.437" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T18:58:24.437" Title="How is pronunciation discussed in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-03-07T02:29:48.207" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3133" CreationDate="2013-05-14T20:31:47.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I were teaching my daughter a new character, let's say 浅, I would say it very slow: 七-----衣-----安-----, and let her repeat very slow in the same way, then increase the speed gradually to the normal speed, which makes it sound like 千, then aske her to put the 3rd tone on it to get 浅 qiǎn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 禁, it will be 鸡----阴----, and we get jin, then put 1st or 4th tone on it, because this character has 2 pronunciations, jīn and jìn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-05-14T20:31:47.410" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3133" CreationDate="2013-05-15T00:36:40.243" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays schoolchildren are taught Pinyin pretty thoroughly first, so they know how to correctly pronounce Pinyin. Then when learning new words, all they have to do is learn the Pinyin. A lot of primary/elementary textbooks will have annotations like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VXaHs.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a typical Chinese primary school blackboard:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hVbvu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a Taiwanese equivalent of this sort of annotation, usually used on difficult characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MsV9j.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While we're at it, here's a Japanese equivalent:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n3f7c.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-05-15T00:36:40.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3136" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3145" CreationDate="2013-05-15T00:52:10.603" Score="2" ViewCount="1503" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out when the title 先生 is used. Is it used for Mr., husband, honorary person, or something else? 谢谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2670" LastActivityDate="2013-05-17T01:45:31.130" Title="When is it appropriate to use 先生?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3137" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3139" CreationDate="2013-05-15T18:36:10.580" Score="3" ViewCount="2972" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to say please sometimes when I want to be polite to someone when asking them for something.  Is this customary in Mandarin?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if I wanted to ask for some water, I might ask my friend Li, in English, &quot;would you please pour me some water?&quot; In Mandarin, I only know to say wo xiang he shui, xie xie.  Also, I'm aware that saying thank you to a Chinese person can sometimes create a feeling of distance, and sometimes that is undesirable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, Chinese people, and speakers, how do you politely ask for things, and how do you receive a statement such as &quot;wo xiang he shui, xie xie&quot;?  Does it come off as rude in any way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS - sorry I don't have chinese input on this device, but I think fluent speakers will know what I mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2639" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T06:28:35.683" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T06:28:35.683" Title="How do you politely ask for things in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3138" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3140" CreationDate="2013-05-15T19:22:50.680" Score="7" ViewCount="1790" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.learnchineseez.com/lessons/mandarin/pinyin/page04.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt; to get my basic foothold in Mandarin. If you scroll down you'll see a section entitled &quot;WHAT&quot;, including some questions like &quot;What's the matter?&quot; and &quot;What did you say?&quot; and &quot;What are you doing?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;shén-me shì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  nǐ shuō shén-me&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  nǐ zuò shén-me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example question which doesn't end in ma is &quot;你再吃什么？&quot;, &quot;What are you eating?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unclear as to why these questions don't end with the &quot;ma&quot; particle. Is that only necessary for turning a declarative statement into a yes/no question? Is it not used for all questions of the forms who, what, why, etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-07-10T06:26:20.670" LastActivityDate="2013-07-10T13:49:48.020" Title="Why don't all questions have the &quot;ma&quot; 吗 particle at the end?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3137" CreationDate="2013-05-15T19:35:38.160" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Politeness in Mandarin is expressed by using different politeness elements, which include politeness characters, wording or manner of speaking. Usualy one element is enough in one sentence, because using 2+ elements in the same sentence may sound too polite, causing a feeling of distance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you please pour me some water? 请给我倒些水好吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: it is different from 我想喝水. Because 我想喝水 is not a request. If you tell me you want to drink some water, I will think, ok, no problem, go ahead and get some water for yourself, as you didn't ask me to get some water for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When making a request in Chinese, usualy we don't say 谢谢. Instead, we say 谢谢 when the request is either accepted or fulfilled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:您能帮我给他带个口信嘛？ B:可以。A:谢谢。---Request accepted but not fulfilled yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:请给我倒杯水好嘛？ B:给你。A:多谢。---Request fulfilled。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples of making polity requests in Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您能帮我个忙嘛？ ---Politeness character 您 is an equivalent personal pronoun of 你 in Chinese showing your repect for others, including the elder, your superiors, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请帮我个忙。---Politeness character 请 is used here to show politeness when asking for a favor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我看，也只有你能帮我这个忙了。 ---Wording, which makes a request indirectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帮帮忙吧。 ---Manner of speaking, in a supplicatory way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可怜可怜我们母子俩吧。---Wording + manner of speaking， which instigates pity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the following are the expressions to use when someone says 谢谢/多谢 to you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别客气 / 甭客气 / 不用客气 / 客气啥 / 太客气了 / 没事儿 / 见外啦 and a lot more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-05-16T09:29:27.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3138" CreationDate="2013-05-15T23:00:06.037" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your guess is correct. 吗 (ma) is usually used at the end of a narrative sentence, which without 吗 can become a declarative statement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吗 has other usages but at this learning stage you shouldn't let them distract you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-05-15T23:00:06.037" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3141" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-16T05:14:52.023" Score="3" ViewCount="676" Body="&lt;p&gt;A famous Chinese writer whose pen name is Bingxin once remarked, &quot;读书好 好读书 读好书&quot;, which is used to encourage Chinese students to read books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, there are altogether 3 &quot;好&quot;s. The first and the third, both pronounced as &quot;hǎo&quot;, are used as adj. to describe &quot;reading&quot; and &quot;book&quot; respectively. And the second one, pronouced as &quot;hào&quot;, is used as a verb to persuade us to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any good translation for this saying in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2682" LastActivityDate="2013-07-21T03:41:15.257" Title="How to translate &quot;读书好 好读书 读好书&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2013-07-25T00:28:45.170" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3120" CreationDate="2013-05-16T20:28:01.507" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a key difference between learning the language as a native speaker, and learning the language as a second language. Native speakers of all languages invariably learn speaking and listening skills first, and only start to learn reading and writing at school, after the age of about 3 or 4. Learning a language as a second language, reading and writing have more prominence and can expedite some of the learning, but this also depends on a person's 'learning style'. Generally, combining all four communication skills is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To clarify what I am trying to say, my own experience of learning Chinese (and other languages) mixes all four modalities (reading, writing, speaking, listening). I find that learning the characters sometimes gives insight into the relationships between words (the semantics), that are not obvious from how they are said. Sometimes the process works the other way, as I see patterns in the written characters that are reflected in the sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1155" LastActivityDate="2013-05-16T20:28:01.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3141" CreationDate="2013-05-16T23:43:53.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;读书好 好读书 读好书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Believe in reading, love reading, and cultivate reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-05-16T23:43:53.700" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3136" CreationDate="2013-05-17T01:45:31.130" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, it is always appropriate to use “先生” as it is a title used to show your respect for others, especially those elder than you. Because the title “先生” can be understood as &quot;born before you&quot;, which implys that they deserve your respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mr. Green 格林先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mr. Tom 汤姆先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mr. Tom Green 格林·汤姆先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hello, mister. 您好，先生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--- In this case, any male adult can be called “先生”, a child is seldom called that. The title can be used alone. Or you can add either his family name or given name before “先生”, or even his full name.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Your husband is handsome! 您先生可真帅气！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--- In this case, the husband of one's own or someone else's can be called “先生”, but instead of the meaning &quot;born before you&quot;, it is simply a title for &quot;husband&quot;. Usually it is used in dialogs and &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; be used alone. In other words, a person will not directly called her husband “先生”.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Miss He Xiangning 何香凝先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Miss Song Qingling 宋庆龄先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--- In this case, for those honorary persons, even female can be called “先生”, but this kind of expression can rarely be seen nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;算命先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;风水先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;教书先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看病先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;账房先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--- These are idiomatic usage&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2682" LastActivityDate="2013-05-17T01:45:31.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3141" CreationDate="2013-05-17T09:43:58.547" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.the first and the sencod &quot;好&quot; aren't  adj. They're adv in chinese, cus they modify the verb&quot;读&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the word modified the adj and verb is the adv&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the word modified noun is the adj&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&quot;读书好 好读书 读好书&quot;  ----&gt; reading is great,love reading,read excellent books&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope my answer can help ^_^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2797" LastEditorDisplayName="user2797" LastEditDate="2013-05-17T09:49:04.447" LastActivityDate="2013-05-17T09:49:04.447" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3148" CreationDate="2013-05-17T20:16:03.817" Score="10" ViewCount="450" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 球 means &lt;em&gt;ball&lt;/em&gt; and is composed of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;王 meaning &lt;em&gt;king&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;求 meaning &lt;em&gt;demand&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where does this composition come from? Did a king ask for a ball?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2799" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T19:56:58.770" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T03:41:22.737" Title="Did a king ask for a ball? How did 王 + 求 become 球?" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3147" CreationDate="2013-05-18T02:36:01.577" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nope. The radical was simplified from 玉 (jade), originally referring to a polished sphere of jade. 求 is the phonetic component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference, Baxter's Old Chinese reconstruction has 求 *grju, and 球 *grju. In this particular case, 求 has remained a good phonetic for three millennia!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sense of 'sounding stone made of jade' can be seen in the Kangxi dictionary: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kangxizidian.com/kangxi/0732.gif&quot;&gt;http://www.kangxizidian.com/kangxi/0732.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="390" LastEditDate="2013-05-18T05:32:51.517" LastActivityDate="2013-05-18T05:32:51.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2532" CreationDate="2013-05-18T17:18:13.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a supplement to the answers above, in &lt;strong&gt;Mainland&lt;/strong&gt; China 先生 is equivalent to Mister, so you can never address a female as 先生, but you might read about it in old books, and you CAN call an elderly female scholar 先生, especially when in formal context, in the obituary for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2013-05-18T17:18:13.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3150" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-18T17:58:30.420" Score="1" ViewCount="580" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we have the expression &quot;冒昧打扰&quot; &lt;em&gt;màomèidǎrǎo&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put it into a sentence: 冒昧打扰,请您见谅。 &lt;em&gt;màomèi dǎrǎo, qǐng nín jiànliàng&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a similar expression in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2801" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-07-02T05:36:11.703" LastActivityDate="2013-07-02T05:36:11.703" Title="What is the equivalent of &quot;冒昧打扰&quot; in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3151" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29312" CreationDate="2013-05-18T21:22:35.067" Score="3" ViewCount="6389" Body="&lt;p&gt;For female waiters, my dad taught me to use the phrase &quot;小姐 &quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for male waiters, my dad doesn't know how to properly call them. I discussed the possibility of using &quot;da ge&quot;, &quot;小ge&quot;, &quot;da di&quot;, &quot;小 di&quot;, but they sound whimsical compared to the way one calls for a female waiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should one appropriately call for a male waiter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2802" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T10:06:19.177" LastActivityDate="2018-03-31T19:41:11.963" Title="How do I call for a male waiter?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3150" CreationDate="2013-05-18T22:13:42.540" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say it is equivalent to &quot;Excuse me&quot; in context when you need ask some people for help or a favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冒昧打扰, 请问去这个车站怎么走？ - Excuse me, do you know how to get to this train station?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but 冒昧打扰 is kind of formal, we usually just say &quot;打扰一下&quot; in everyday life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2803" LastActivityDate="2013-05-18T22:13:42.540" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3150" CreationDate="2013-05-19T04:21:10.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;冒昧打扰 is a phrase that relates to Chinese social nuances. It is a very polite way of making an unsolicited request, usually to a stranger, and getting that person to help you when he/she is occupied with something else, or in a way that would inconvenient that person to a certain extent that it would usually be rejected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breaking it up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冒昧 means to be bold or taking the liberty to do something&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打扰 means to bother, disturb, interrupt or trouble&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some scenarios where this phrase could be applied:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A reporter trying to get an interview with a customer while he is having&#xA;breakfast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;冒昧打扰&lt;/b&gt;，我是XXX周刊记者。能否跟你做个采访？&lt;br&gt; Sorry to bother you, I am a reporter from XXX weekly. Can I do an interview with you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;An acquaintance trying to get a loan for his business over the phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是我，老陈，&lt;b&gt;冒昧打扰&lt;/b&gt;了.... 我的公司现在正面临财政危机，想向您借点钱周转。&lt;br&gt; It's me, Chen, sorry for taking the liberty to call you....(after some beating around the bush).... My company is facing some financial difficulties right now, not sure If I can borrow some cash from you to help me tide over this period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be overly polite to use this phrase if you are just asking for simple directions. But if you wish to persuade someone to bring you there instead, then, that would be quite an effective way to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further, to use 冒昧打扰 followed by 请您见谅 (pardon me) would be an overkill. Either which is already very polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-05-19T04:21:10.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3151" CreationDate="2013-05-19T10:13:50.747" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, 小姐 (xiao3jie3) is not very appreciated anymore by waitresses, even in Beijing; they might even be offended because that is how girls who sell their bodies are addressed. That is how Chinese people explained it to me. Waiters, be it male or female, are addressed as 服务员 (fu2wu4yuan2) and it is safe to call them that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2700" LastActivityDate="2013-05-19T10:13:50.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3151" CreationDate="2013-05-19T16:06:23.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is offensive to call any woman “shiao jie”(or in Pinyin, xiao jie) these days. Since maybe ten years ago &quot;shiao jie&quot; has carried the implication of being a prostitute(before that &quot;shiao jie&quot; is equivalent to Miss). And &quot;da ge&quot;, &quot;shiao ge&quot;, &quot;da di&quot;, &quot;shao di&quot; are not proper addresses. &quot;Da ge&quot; is usually related to gangs in cities, and in rural areas it can be used to address a man who is older than you. &quot;Xiao ge&quot; is not used now, except for humorous effect. &quot;Da di&quot; is an old-old-old-fashioned word for your biggest little brother. &quot;Shiao di&quot; is the exact opposite of &quot;da ge&quot;. You can call any waitor, either male or female, &quot;fu wu yuan&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. why can't I agree or comment here? I read through the FAQ section yet found no answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2013-05-19T16:06:23.227" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2532" CreationDate="2013-05-19T17:57:23.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;先生 literally means &quot;earlier born.&quot; It is a form of respect for an older person, usually a man. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The normal context of 先生 is &quot;teacher.&quot; A fairly old man (as Mao was at the time) would use this in reference only to a female who could reasonably be his &quot;teacher&quot; or &quot;role model.&quot; It is a way of acknowledging his intellectual debt to such a woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2013-05-19T17:57:23.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3157" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3160" CreationDate="2013-05-21T02:42:31.017" Score="1" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that 通风 means to ventilate, but how does one say circulation? Two specific sentences I'm having trouble translating are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He wanted to save energy, so he turned on the &lt;em&gt;circulation&lt;/em&gt; fan instead of the air conditioning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The new coins that the government approved go into &lt;em&gt;circulation&lt;/em&gt; today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not believe that circulation is the same in these sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2604" LastActivityDate="2013-05-31T13:14:29.650" Title="How to say properly translate &quot;circulation&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3158" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3159" CreationDate="2013-05-21T09:08:21.407" Score="4" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;Scientists and philosophers have at various times been quoted as saying: &#xA;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;There's nothing of which I'm absolutely sure&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;I'm not absolutely sure of anything&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. (Richard Feynman, for example.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can this logical concept be expressed in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've made a first attempt below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;對任何事情我都沒有絕對的把握.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some reason the above translation &quot;feels&quot; unsatisfactory (though, that might just be due to my undeveloped &quot;語感&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any clearer ways to express this logical concept in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="135" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T04:48:59.403" Title="How can I express the concept &quot;There's nothing of which I'm absolutely sure&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3158" CreationDate="2013-05-21T17:32:42.233" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) (对)任何事情我都没有绝对的把握.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is nothing wrong in this sentence, but it focuses on personal belief, a little bit inclining to the speaker's subjectiveness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we want to state something that describes a general belief, which focuses more on objectiveness, then we can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) (对)任何事情 &lt;strong&gt;我们&lt;/strong&gt; 都没有绝对的把握.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) (对)什么事 &lt;strong&gt;我们&lt;/strong&gt; 都 &lt;strong&gt;不可能有&lt;/strong&gt; 绝对的把握.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence 2 generalizes the idea expressed in sentence 1 by replacing 我 with 我们. 我们 covers not only the speaker, but also the readers and listeners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence 3 makes it even stronger, which emphasizes on the impossibility of having, while in sentence 2 没有 just describes the fact of not having.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: 任何事情 in sentence 2 is same as 什么事  in setence 3, no differences at all, they are interchangable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-05-21T23:47:53.807" LastActivityDate="2013-05-21T23:47:53.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3157" CreationDate="2013-05-21T17:43:28.820" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;circulation fan (空气)循环风扇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;money circulation 货币流通&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;blood curculation 血液循环&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the circulation of news, information, rumours, etc 新闻/信息/谣言的传播&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She's been ill but now she's back in circulation. 她一直生病, 但现在又重新参加社交活动了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a newspaper with a (daily) circulation of more than one million （日）销售量超过一百万份的报纸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;circulation figures 销售数字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-05-21T17:43:28.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3158" CreationDate="2013-05-21T19:44:26.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Colloquial: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我什么事情都不确定 Wǒ shénme dōu bù quèdìng &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure of anything...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-05-21T19:44:26.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3162" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3663" CreationDate="2013-05-22T00:53:47.423" Score="4" ViewCount="607" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm fluent in Chinese already. I just want to further my reading and writing skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking along the lines of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;NPR - has both (audio) news and talk radio that can be accessed online&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Time Magazine, The Economist - current events and issues, etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;New York Times - daily newspaper&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But all in Chinese (either for China, Taiwan or any other Chinese population)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2283" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T09:37:03.650" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T09:37:03.650" Title="What are some well-known, online news sources that are worthy of language study?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;reading&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-07-14T03:02:05.123" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3163" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3164" CreationDate="2013-05-22T03:45:31.217" Score="-1" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am translating the user manual to Russian. It is in English but translated from Chinese and about Chinese video security system (chinese software and hardware).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably the native Chinese speakers would help me to understand the meaning of some parts of it that I believe are culture-dependent and should be understandable to people living inside Chinese culture and mentality - way of thinking, using and constructing linguistic  artifacts from Chinese-specific terms.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First, the title of the manual: &quot;The IOS Client Operations &lt;strong&gt;that Ming&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What could chinese-speaking translator mean under &quot;...that Ming&quot;?    &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Also, the phrase. &quot;Mobile terminal main features include: &lt;strong&gt;yuntai&lt;/strong&gt; control, ...&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What does &quot;yuntai&quot; mean?   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not have access to either original text or to described in manual products (video system or its software)   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2810" LastEditorUserId="2810" LastEditDate="2013-05-22T04:26:50.353" LastActivityDate="2013-05-22T07:38:05.843" Title="Can you help me to understand the technical text translated from Chinese to English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2013-06-20T06:17:51.857" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3163" CreationDate="2013-05-22T07:38:05.843" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is off-topic and too localized. &lt;a href=&quot;http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/6586/&quot;&gt;Chinese chat&lt;/a&gt; might be a better place for this kind of question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess for &quot;The IOS Client Operations that Ming&quot; is &lt;code&gt;IOS客户端操作说明&lt;/code&gt; (IOS Client Operation Instructions) where Ming is the fragment from 说明 (instructions). Ming is obviously transliteration for a character and I can't think of any other word that fits the context and contains a Ming character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Mobile terminal main features include: yuntai control, ...&quot; Yuntai is the Pinyin for &lt;code&gt;云台&lt;/code&gt;, which means &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripod_head&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tripod head&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-05-22T07:38:05.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3165" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3166" CreationDate="2013-05-22T08:40:15.447" Score="1" ViewCount="5606" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that it is used at the end of a sentence to indicate suggestion, but I want to know what kinds of everyday situations warrant its use. I'd appreciate two or three examples. Also, does it have any other meanings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2670" LastActivityDate="2014-10-10T05:55:11.493" Title="When should 吧 be used?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3165" CreationDate="2013-05-22T17:45:21.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got this from an online dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吧 &amp;lt;助&amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;① 用在句末，表示恳求、提议、请求、命令等语气 [(used at the end of a sentence) indicating entreaty， suggestion， command， etc.]。如:派六个人不够吧，我的意见派十个人 / 你说给大家听听吧!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;② 用在句末，表示同意、认可的语气 [indicating agreement or acknowledgment]。如:好吧，我一定去 / 就这样执行吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;③ 用在句末，表示疑问语气，带有揣度的意味 [indicating doubt]。如:他现在赞同了吧? / 你弄通了吧?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;④ 用在句末，表示估量、推测语气 [indicating uncertainty]。如:他自己总该知道吧 / 老王会到这边来吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⑤ 用在句中，表示停顿，带假设语气，并带有列举性质 [indicating a pause]。如:说吧，不好；不说吧，也不好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-05-22T17:45:21.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3162" CreationDate="2013-05-22T19:35:35.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) 慢速中文 &#xA;(Slowly Chinese)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.slow-chinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.slow-chinese.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 央视听新闻学汉语&#xA; (Learn Chinese from listening news of CNTV) :&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://english.cntv.cn/program/learnchinese/specialchinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://english.cntv.cn/program/learnchinese/specialchinese/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) 网上孔子学院 (Confucius Institute online):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://adult.chinese.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://adult.chinese.cn/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) 慢速中文 Podcast （对外汉语教学）:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Slowly Chinese Podcast (Teaching Chinese as a foreign language):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://52podcast.com/slow-chinese.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://52podcast.com/slow-chinese.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend learning Chinese through listening first, then reading and speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2815" LastEditDate="2013-05-24T16:43:22.597" LastActivityDate="2013-05-24T16:43:22.597" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3168" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-24T07:11:37.530" Score="6" ViewCount="1852" Body="&lt;p&gt;What words should we use when we want to say &quot;a webpage is loading&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Gmail, when I change my settings to simplified Chinese, Google says &quot;正在加载&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when I change my settings to traditional Chinese, Google says &quot;正在載入&quot; (正在载入 in simplified Chinese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference in nuance and usage between 加载 and 载入?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is a better term to use to describe &quot;webpage loading&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2533" LastEditorUserId="2533" LastEditDate="2013-05-24T15:29:11.360" LastActivityDate="2013-05-30T20:14:16.030" Title="webpage loading.. 加载 vs 载入​​​​​​​" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3169" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-24T07:18:55.703" Score="4" ViewCount="450" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm having a hard time understanding when to use 了 as a modal particle (instead of as an aspect particle). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, what is the difference between the following two sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;现在几点？&#xA;现在几点了？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are a few other examples of this usage of 了? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2670" LastActivityDate="2013-05-24T19:09:34.373" Title="How to use 了 as a modal particle?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3117" CreationDate="2013-05-24T09:42:20.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's my guess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;祥·鳯&#xA;雲·凰&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The middle pair doesn't seem to be characters at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2518" LastActivityDate="2013-05-24T09:42:20.703" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3117" CreationDate="2013-05-24T10:29:38.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have a complete answer but this is as far as I got, it was a lot of fun and hopefully this may help others. I feel that some real expertise will be needed to solve this puzzle!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;查甲木引大子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's some very &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/seal.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fun&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tools&lt;/a&gt; which generate Chinese stamps in various scripts, which I used to make this image, which is as close as I got:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d04GT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's more important is that the characters make no sense! Perhaps they are encoding a person's name or date/time of birth using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pillars_of_Destiny&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Four pillars of destiny (生辰八字)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other information:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The reading order is irregular; it seems to zigzag starting from the top right&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The script is similar to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;seal script&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The script used in stamps is often highly embellished by the craftsmen, so often has extra &quot;squiggles&quot; compared to the seal script characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A lot of stamps break up the radicals of characters and write them individually, making the stamp seem like it has more characters. For example the surname &lt;code&gt;张&lt;/code&gt; might be carved on a stamp as &lt;code&gt;弓长&lt;/code&gt;. No indication whether that was done on this stamp however.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some extra information would definitely help a lot, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Who was the owner of this stamp&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When was it made&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What was it used for&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-05-24T10:29:38.140" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3168" CreationDate="2013-05-24T13:39:30.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese is usually used in Mainland China, and traditional Chinese is used in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan(and sometimes in other Cantonese-speaking areas). So the choice of words reflects the regional language habits. They may vary greatly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in this specific case, 加载 and 载入 are both acceptable. 加载 may sound a tiny little bit more (insert here an adjective that's related to jargon, terms, geek and stuff - I can't find one even in Chinese), but the difference is really trivial and you never have to worry about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastEditorUserId="2800" LastEditDate="2013-05-25T12:07:35.750" LastActivityDate="2013-05-25T12:07:35.750" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3169" CreationDate="2013-05-24T13:56:56.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two sentences in your example are the same. Native speakers usually use the latter, but if you use the former sentence no one will notice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not quite sure what a modal particle is so I will write some sentences ending in 了.Unlike the example, these 了 can't be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她八岁了。 She's eight years old now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们快要到家了。 We're almost home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夏天快到了。 Summer is coming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他已经走了。 He's already left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学中文太容易了。 It's so easy to learn Chinese!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2013-05-24T13:56:56.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3169" CreationDate="2013-05-24T19:09:34.373" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usage of 了 (le)：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A. auxiliary word (助词)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.1 used after verb or adj to indicate completion. This usage carries the same sense of &quot;Perfect Tenses&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 我已经问了老王 / 人老了，身体差了 / 头发白了 / 这双鞋太小了 / 他打开了窗子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.2 used at the end of a sentence, or in the middle of sentence but right before a pause(usually a comma), to indicate current situation changed or new situation coming up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 刮风了 / 下班了 / 开学了 / 天亮了 / 雨大了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B. modal word (语气词)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B.1 to indicate the mood of future certainty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 明天又是星期六了 / 要过新年了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B.2 to indicate speeding up or stopping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 快躲了! / 别吵了! / 闪开了!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B.3 to indicate interjection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 好了! / 累死了! / 弄疼我了!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C. Language Sense (语感)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each language has its own language sense. By language sense I mean something about language that you can feel if it is good or not. Language sense helps us to know the way how to speak a language in a smooth and natural way, as native speakers do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in Chinese, we can say: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;屋里有张桌子，桌子上有几本书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But translated into English, it will become something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is a table in the room, and on &lt;strong&gt;the&lt;/strong&gt; table there are some books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, the 2nd &quot;the&quot; is needed. Why? Language sense. But in Chinese, there is no need of such article in front of the 2nd 桌子, and we all know that both the 1st and 2nd 桌子 refer to the same table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After finishing &lt;strong&gt;his&lt;/strong&gt; lunch, he started running out of the house, but tripped on the doorsill and broke &lt;strong&gt;his&lt;/strong&gt; leg.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why are the 2 &quot;his's&quot; needed? Language sense. Someone may argue that without the 2 &quot;his's&quot;, we don't know whose lunch he ate, and whose leg he broke. True, but again why do we need those specifications in English? Language sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese we will say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吃过午饭后，他向屋外跑去，可却绊在门槛上摔断了腿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See, here we don't say 吃过*&lt;em&gt;他的&lt;/em&gt;*午饭, nor 摔断了*&lt;em&gt;他的&lt;/em&gt;*腿, why? Language sense. If you say 吃过他的午饭后，他向屋外跑去，可却绊在门槛上摔断了他的腿, then it is not wrong, but it sounds very bad, as this is not the natural way native speakers speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is a contextual language, which means a lot info of sentences are hidden in the context. Chinese language also relies heavily on default info (缺省信息 or 默认信息). If no specific info expressed in sentences, then we just interpret them in the normal situation, by drawing info from the same sentence or from context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So in some cases, need of 了 is just language sense.&lt;/strong&gt; You need to get yourself used to it and familiar with it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-05-24T19:09:34.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3168" CreationDate="2013-05-25T13:42:02.313" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking, the word formations between 加载 and 载入 are a little different; however, as Alex has said, both are acceptable in your case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加载(verb) = 加(verb, add) + 载(verb, load)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;载入(verb) = 载(verb, load) + 入(preposition, in/into)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice: both 加载 and 载入 can be used as a transitive verb or an intransitive verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, they are interchangeable; &lt;strong&gt;however&lt;/strong&gt;, because 入 in 载入 has implied a preposition, if they are used just before a prepositional phrase, they act in different ways. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These data should be loaded into the cache.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这些 数据 应当 &lt;strong&gt;加载 到&lt;/strong&gt; 缓冲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这些 数据 应当 &lt;strong&gt;载入 (到)&lt;/strong&gt; 缓冲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As 载入 has implied 入(in), the preposition 到(to) can be omitted. In contrast, if you omit 到 in the first sentence, the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Warning! May be ambiguous.] 这些数据应当加载缓冲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is (most likely) considered as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These data should load the (contents of the) cache.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, as you see in this &lt;code&gt;加载/载入+prepositional phrase&lt;/code&gt; case, they are &lt;strong&gt;not equivalent&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-05-25T20:50:25.460" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3177" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3182" CreationDate="2013-05-26T13:38:23.917" Score="3" ViewCount="474" Body="&lt;p&gt;In German, we have the expression &quot;Mut zur Lücke&quot;, in English something like &quot;courage to have a gap&quot; - a knowledge gap. It is used between students, when they skip to learn something for an exam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's more the hope that this topic will be not part of the exam or test. So it is some kind of taking a calculated risk. The reasons can be diverse. Normally caused by the inability to understand or simply running out of time. Laziness or carelessness  also play a role.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone says this, they stop learning (of a certain topic) and accept the risk that it maybe be asked in a test. Then of course they &quot;knows their limits&quot;, but this is secondary. They are brave / have nerve to have a knowledge gap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a similar expression in Chinese? I even could not found a translation for &quot;knowledge gap&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2817" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-05-28T01:37:20.747" LastActivityDate="2013-10-11T18:45:40.063" Title="Is there a Chinese equivalent of the German &quot;Mut zur Lücke&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3141" CreationDate="2013-05-26T15:31:25.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are often idioms in both languages that have the same meaning and many of the same words, but here are three expressions in one utterance. That means the chances of finding a &lt;em&gt;tight&lt;/em&gt; translation are small.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You probably have to chose whether to focus on translating the whole meaning, or building a less connected expression that contains many of the same words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a little of both:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;reading is good,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;so have a good read,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;read the whole book&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2819" LastActivityDate="2013-05-26T15:31:25.587" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3076" CreationDate="2013-05-26T20:09:05.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;没有 has some sense of past tense, similar to &amp;quot;haven't&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;didn't&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我没有吸烟&amp;quot; translates similarly to &amp;quot;I did not smoke&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我没有吃饭&amp;quot; translates similarly to &amp;quot;I have not eaten yet&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 is rather neutral, and has some sense of present tense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我不吸烟&amp;quot; translates to &amp;quot;I don't smoke&amp;quot;, it is stating a habit or a preference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我不吃饭&amp;quot; translates similarly to &amp;quot;I don't eat&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;I won't eat&amp;quot;, which is slightly strange&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2822" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-05-26T20:09:05.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3181" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-27T02:17:15.583" Score="6" ViewCount="822" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the following sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你是哪一天出生的？ (sentence 1)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand why 的 is being used in this sentence. I know it is used to express possession, but I'm not sure that's the case is this example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们什么时候开始的？ (sentence 2)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, the 的 seems to be functioning an aspect particle to indicate a past event. Is this correct? Can 的 be used like 了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;前天你什么时候来的这里？ (sentence 3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 的 functioning like an aspect particle in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2670" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-31T05:00:33.447" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T05:00:33.447" Title="Why is 的 used in 你是哪一天出生的 and 我们什么时候开始的 and 前天你什么时候来的这里?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3177" CreationDate="2013-05-27T05:01:54.587" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;google told me &quot;Mut zur Lücke&quot; means &quot;dare to venture into the unknown&quot;, and I can't find a Chinese phrase that have the same meaning xD. But there is a expression, 碰运气, which means to &quot;push your luck&quot;. So in your example about the exam, you can say 碰一碰运气吧，这部分我不复习了(Let me push my luck and skip this part).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. In Chinese, 人品 means moral qualities. Chinese people sort of believe in karma, where people with good qualities(人品好) will do good deeds, good deeds will be rewarded with good luck. So you can replace 碰运气 with 拼人品(the collocation can't be changed, 碰人品 and 拼运气 are not proper expressions). But this expression &quot;拼人品&quot; is informal and is only used among young people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2013-05-27T05:01:54.587" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3117" CreationDate="2013-05-27T09:44:41.657" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;After discussing it with my friends, the best result I can come up with now is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aD7uR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Analysis of the stamp&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters beside the stamp characters are the corresponding ones that may be the candidates. Seal script samples are also given. Unfortunately, I cannot find a 100% convincing answer, because they can hardly form a meaningful phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Character 1&lt;/strong&gt;: 聞 or 查. Either is &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;doubtful&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. If it's 查, it means the craftsman treat the vertical 丨 in 木 as two separate parts, then &lt;strong&gt;Character 5&lt;/strong&gt; will quite possibly be 木.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Character 2&lt;/strong&gt;: 男. It's &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;very doubtful&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; because there're too many horizontals 一 in 田. I am almost sure it can't be 甲, because adding one important stroke  into 甲 is very unreasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Character 3&lt;/strong&gt;: 天 or 引. Either is &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;possible&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Character 4&lt;/strong&gt;: 下 or 爪. Either is &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;very possible&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. Specially, if if &lt;strong&gt;Character 3&lt;/strong&gt; is 天 and this is 下, 天下(the world, land under heaven) is meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Character 5&lt;/strong&gt;: 木 or 大. Either is &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;doubtful&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Character 6&lt;/strong&gt;: 子. Well, it's the most &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;confirmed&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I should clarify is that I don't mean the candidate characters are just what I am listing. There may be some more acceptable ones. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalscientific.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This Chinese Etymology website&lt;/a&gt; may be a helpful tool for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with Xu's arguments partly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The scripts are seal characters or bronze characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There may be extra squiggles adding to the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A Character may be separated into two (seldom larger than two) parts and written as individual two characters. In the stamp, there may be one case: 李=木+子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the case of the zigzag reading order 1-2-4-3-5-6 is really seldom. I personally believe it's in this order: 1-2-3-4-5-6, or less possible, 1-3-5-2-4-6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jens's answer, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E9%B3%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鳳&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E7%9A%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;凰&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E7%A5%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;祥&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E9%9B%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;雲&lt;/a&gt;, are not so similar to the character shapes in the stamp (notice that there's no 凰 in seal scripts; in ancient Chinese, it will use an &amp;quot;interchangeable&amp;quot; character 皇 instead).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Character 5 may be also 北.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DujDk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;bei&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-05-27T15:29:00.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3124" CreationDate="2013-05-27T10:00:56.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know why but I can't write comments. So I'll just write something here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, Chinese language doesn't have a corresponding word to &quot;sophisticated&quot; to describe a person. Neither of the Google Translate results is right to describe a person. Instead there are a lot of Chinese words to use in different contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd agree more with @NS.X. . Also you'll notice in his/her example, 深邃 is used to describe the thoughts / ideas / thinking ability, but not the person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just one little comment here: 熟女 is sometimes used to describe a sexually matured young woman so I would avoid this. Except this, I'd agree with other examples @Question-Overflow posted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, different words as listed above are used in different contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2826" LastEditorUserId="2826" LastEditDate="2013-05-27T14:04:23.533" LastActivityDate="2013-05-27T14:04:23.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3181" CreationDate="2013-05-27T14:24:05.833" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 at the end of sentences can be seen in really a lot of cases. Here are just two cases I can think of at the moment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;case 1. 你(是)哪一天出生的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question asks about an event which happened in the past. Note it often comes with 是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we omit both 是 and 的, it will become 你哪一天出生？This sounds a little weird, because generally the new version means an event to happen in the future, but in the context people understand this is asking about an event in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A. 他(是)哪天来的？- asking about an event in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B. 他哪天来？- asking about an event to happen in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在20年前出生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There isn't 是 or 的, but people understand it without a problem and this is used a lot. It's also very common to see 他(是)(在)20年前出生的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;case 2. 树叶是绿的。 - The leaves are green.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence describes the current status, or the general case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally people don't say 树叶绿 as a standalone sentence, because it is incomplete. However this fragment can be used in poems or nursery rhymes(儿歌，童谣), for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黄瓜绿，番茄红，辣椒秧上挂灯笼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If people say 树叶绿了, this means &amp;quot;the leaves turned green&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;the leaves have turned green&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: in Chinese, there are a lot phrasal patterns, like 在 ... 以后, 从 ... 中, 虽然 ... 但是, 不是 ... 而是, and a lot others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是...的 is one of the most used phrasal patterns. Its structure is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subject + 是...的 (是 sometimes can be omitted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This structure can be used to give general descriptions, or to describe events which happened in the past, or to express possibility of something to happen in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他(是)前天来的。- describe past event&#xA;我(是)坐车来的。- describe past event&#xA;我们(是)一起来的。- describe past event&#xA;我(是)喝着草原的羊奶长大的。- describe past event&#xA;我的一个朋友是被他的女友杀害的。- describe past event. 是 not omitted before 被&#xA;我(是)不会弃我的目标的。- express willingness&#xA;我看，他(是)不会来的。- express possibility of future event&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although we can sometimes omit 是 from the 是...的 pattern, but we don't ommit 的。We can say, 树叶是绿色的。But we can't say 树叶是绿色。 Because 绿色 is the name of the color (green), and 树叶 is not a type of color. Just like in English, we say &amp;quot;the leaves are green&amp;quot;, where green is an adj. But we don't say &amp;quot;the leaves are green color&amp;quot;, while we can say &amp;quot;the leaves are &lt;strong&gt;of&lt;/strong&gt; green color&amp;quot;. Here the word &amp;quot;of&amp;quot; servers a very similar function as 的 in 树叶是绿色的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 是-omitted variation is used in poems a lot. In the following examples, 是 is omitted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;树叶绿绿的。&#xA;她的脸红红的。&#xA;时间的脚步轻轻的，走过了我的窗前，也走过了我的心田；走过了我的留恋，走过了我的思念。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2826" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-05-29T16:45:48.407" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3168" CreationDate="2013-05-27T14:32:39.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to write more, but they have the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok more here: as one who works in Internet business for quite some time, we use it interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Language-wise, although 入 sounds to need a word behind it as the place into/onto which the content is loading, it is often ommitted because in the context people knows where the content is loading into/onto.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2826" LastActivityDate="2013-05-27T14:32:39.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3192" CreationDate="2013-05-27T19:01:42.477" Score="3" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Unihan standard, just like virtually every online dictionary, lists 寸 as the 部首 for 将.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 部首归部 reference published in 2009 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s230/201001/75593.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s230/201001/75593.html&lt;/a&gt;), however, lists 将 under the (simplified equivalent of) 爿 header (page 34, section 45, bottom of page)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which header should one working on a simplified dictionary include 将 under? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etymologically speaking, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E5%B0%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Richard Sears&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; both analyse 將 as a phono-semantic compound, with phonetic 爿, and semantic ⺼ (meat) + 寸 (hand), without quoting reference works. On the other hand, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanziyuan.com/result.php?zi=%E5%B0%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this book&lt;/a&gt; explains that the character didn't originally have the 寸 part, and suggests that it was only later added :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“将”是个会意兼形声字，本义是将肉放在案上。甲骨文的“将”字，左边是个竖起来的桌案形状，两个桌腿朝左，右边是“肉”字，代表将肉放置在桌案上面。金文的“将”，在右方“肉”字的下方又加上了两个“手”形，表示用手拿着肉，将它放在桌上。现在，“将”有“将来”、“将要”之义，还指“将军”。“将”是多音字，还读作 jiàng，如“将领”，泛指高级军官。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case, can one really say that 爿 is phonetic in 將? Why would ⺼ + 寸 be considered the semantic part? Do you know other sources regarding the origin of this character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2515" LastEditorUserId="2515" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T15:20:25.310" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T15:20:25.310" Title="Semantic radical and dictionary header for 将" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3189" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3191" CreationDate="2013-05-28T01:46:07.607" Score="2" ViewCount="517" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone please tell me what 亮黄灯了 means in this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我承认，应该是运动量过大，身体&lt;strong&gt;亮黄灯了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And why is the colour yellow (黄) used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T23:49:01.790" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T23:52:25.367" Title="What does 亮黄灯了 mean in 我承认，应该是运动量过大，身体亮黄灯了?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3189" CreationDate="2013-05-28T02:18:32.607" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The color yellow is a sign of warning.&#xA;Here in your sentence, it is a metaphor of traffic lights (IMO). green-&amp;gt;yellow-&amp;gt;red&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我承认，应该是运动量过大，身体&lt;em&gt;亮黄灯了&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the quote 亮黄灯了 means that your body (身体) is warning you, e.g. headache, dizziness or some physical discomfort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T23:50:44.953" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T23:50:44.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3189" CreationDate="2013-05-28T03:12:33.410" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This probably refers to the &lt;em&gt;orange light&lt;/em&gt; (黄灯) in a &lt;em&gt;set of traffic lights&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially when the orange light lights up, it's time to slow down and stop. In this case, it refers to your body switching to the &quot;orange light&quot; (muscle cramps, short of breath and etc...), which is a sign for you to slow down and take a break from excessive exercising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2013-05-28T03:12:33.410" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3188" CreationDate="2013-05-28T03:54:21.993" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before answering of which radical 将 should be, let me introduce some authoritative reference books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;strong&gt;traditional Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;: 康熙字典 (compiled in Qing Dynasty) and 說文解字 (compiled in Eastern Han Dynasty by Xu Shen). The online dictionary I highly recommend is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢典&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;strong&gt;simplified Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;: 新华字典. Its online version is &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;在线新华字典&lt;/a&gt;. However, I find the online version is not well edited to include all information of the print published version.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &lt;strong&gt;of which radical 将 should be&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;康熙字典 lists &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE5ZdicB0Zdic87.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;將&lt;/a&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;寸&lt;/strong&gt; radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【寅集上】【寸字部】〔古文〕《廣韻》卽良切《集韻》《韻會》《正韻》資良切，音漿。《說文》本將帥字。一曰有漸之辭。《蘇林曰》將，甫始之辭。《易·繫辭》是以君子將有爲也，將有行也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;說文解字 lists &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE5ZdicB0Zdic87.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;將&lt;/a&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;寸&lt;/strong&gt; radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【卷三】【寸部】將 帥也。从寸，省聲。卽諒切。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;新华字典(10th Ed.) lists 将 as &lt;strong&gt;寸&lt;/strong&gt; radical &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;丬&lt;/strong&gt; radical.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vx7ja.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;jiang&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, a very safe answer to this question is &lt;strong&gt;the radical of 将 is 寸&lt;/strong&gt;. But there's another question: the ancient Chinese academic authorities thought the radical of 將 should be 寸, why now the new standard considers 丬? My personal answer to this one, is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is because the motivation of radicals is, to classify Chinese characters and then people can search them easily in a dictionary. 将 is a &lt;strong&gt;left-right structured&lt;/strong&gt; character, so if having not learnt the etymology of 将, nowadays, very possibly one native Chinese would consider its radical is just 丬. In order to meet this language intuition, the government made such a standard to include 丬 as one radical candidate for 将.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your second question: &lt;strong&gt;can one really say that 爿 is phonetic in 將?&lt;/strong&gt; The answer is &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt;. As said in 說文解字, the phonetic part of 将 is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;省聲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it should be &lt;strong&gt;酱&lt;/strong&gt; ( is the variant character of 酱, now is seldom seen), i.e., 爿+⺼. Maybe I should explain what &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Y is X省声/省聲&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; means, it is a terminology used by Xu Shen, the ancient Chinese academic authority in Eastern Han Dynasty, to describe &lt;strong&gt;the phonetic part of Y is a simplified form of the character X&lt;/strong&gt;. BTW, 爿 sounds &lt;code&gt;pán&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your third question: &lt;strong&gt;why would ⺼ + 寸 be considered the semantic part?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The definition of the phono-semantic compound character (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Phono-semantic_compound_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt;) is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a character with approximately the correct pronunciation (the phonetic element, similar to a phonetic complement) with one of a limited number of determinative characters which supplied an element of meaning (the semantic element, called a &quot;radical&quot;, which centuries later would be used to organize characters in a dictionary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the parts &lt;em&gt;which supplied an element of meaning&lt;/em&gt; can be considered as the semantic parts in a phono-semantic compound character. However, the case of 将 is a little special. &lt;strong&gt;爿(table)&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;⺼(meat)&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;寸(hand)&lt;/strong&gt;, they all supply meaning elements to form the final meaning. Thus, &lt;strong&gt;they should be all considered as semantic parts&lt;/strong&gt; (and 爿+⺼, i.e. 酱, is either the semantic part or the phonetic part) -- that's the reason why &lt;strong&gt;将 is not only a phono-semantic compound character but also an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Ideogrammatic_compounds&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ideogrammatic compound character&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS:&lt;/strong&gt; I think you've asked a brilliant question :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT 1&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;As the terminology &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_(Chinese_character)#Section_headers_of_a_Chinese_dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;radical&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is a little ambiguous, all &quot;radical&quot;s I mention in this answer mean the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_headers_of_a_Chinese_dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;section header of a Chinese dictionary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT 2&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;You may still wonder why the ancient Chinese authority thought the radical of 将 is 寸. Qing Dynasty's scholar, Duan Yucai's book 說文解字注 (&lt;em&gt;&quot;Notes on 說文解字&quot;&lt;/em&gt;) said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;將 [...] 从寸。必有法度而後可以主之先之。故從寸。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means &lt;strong&gt;&quot;The radical of 將 is 寸. There must be laws first, and then [將] can rule people, and exceed people in status. Thus, the radical of 將 is 寸&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. Ah, I should also explain why 寸 is related to &lt;em&gt;law&lt;/em&gt;: in 康熙字典.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;寸者，忖也，有法度可忖也。凡法度字皆从寸。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means &lt;strong&gt;&quot;寸, implies 忖(it sounds like 寸, and means &lt;em&gt;deliberate&lt;/em&gt;), and then implies there are laws to be deliberated. Thus, all characters about laws are related to 寸&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. So, it's the reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT 3&lt;/strong&gt; One may argue that, &quot;WTF is the phonetic part 爿⺼?! It's not like a character at all. Writing 酱 for that is weird!&quot; If you unluckily ran into such a question, just show the questioner a seal script of 酱 (generally, there are many kinds of seal scripts corresponding to one character we use today, this is only one of them):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ixyxo.gif&quot; alt=&quot;jiang&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then it's perfectly composed only by 爿 and ⺼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-05-29T10:46:29.527" LastActivityDate="2013-05-29T10:46:29.527" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-05-29T10:39:41.673" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3177" CreationDate="2013-05-30T00:45:25.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about &lt;code&gt;敢傻&lt;/code&gt; as a translation for &lt;code&gt;dare to stupid&lt;/code&gt;, which is what &quot;Mut zur Lücke&quot; sans euphemism means. It is also homophonous to &lt;code&gt;干啥&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2518" LastActivityDate="2013-05-30T00:45:25.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3168" CreationDate="2013-05-30T10:32:29.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I would remind you that try not to bother youself with so many details. Because as far as I am concerned, there is little difference between the two words, and both are accepted by most people. And some sites, trying to show their efforts to internationalize themeselves, even simply put a &quot;loading...&quot; on their pages. It's OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese sometimes is a language for you to understand the meaning of it, rather than a logical language like English with clear structure and grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, to solve your problem, I would suggest &quot;正在加载&quot; or &quot;网页载入中&quot; or &quot;loading...&quot; according to my experience. Notice that there is no subject in &quot;正在加载&quot;, therefore is can be reguarded as the translation of &quot;loading&quot;. While in &quot;网页载入中&quot;, the subject is “网页”, therefore the verb “载入” can give the users a kind of expectation that the page is &quot;coming&quot; and you'll be willing to wait.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2682" LastActivityDate="2013-05-30T10:32:29.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3168" CreationDate="2013-05-30T20:14:16.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Either &quot;加载&quot; and &quot;载入&quot; is acceptable translate for &quot;loading&quot; in the specific reference to transferring the content from a server to your computer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I like &quot;網頁加载中&quot; better for &quot;webpage loading&quot; because its sounding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The distinction between Traditional Chinese and Simplyfied Chinese is mainly the structure of the word, not necessarily the phraseology of terms (which of course can be very different in different parts of the Chinese speaking communities around the world).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;webpage loading&quot;, it's 網頁加载中 in simplified Chinese, and 網頁加載中 in traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's unfortunate that Google uses different wording for the same message in its 2 versions of Chinese pages. Of course, no one should look to Google as the authority of Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2839" LastActivityDate="2013-05-30T20:14:16.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3199" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3201" CreationDate="2013-05-31T09:58:57.500" Score="8" ViewCount="4567" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to find a new Chinese name for myself. Before, I simply used a transliteration of my western name. Now, as my Chinese progressed, I would like to find something that does not immediately reveal that I am a foreigner. &#xA;While leafing through my dictionaries, several rare characters attracted my attention. I like them, not only because they are exotic, but also because of their meanings and their components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am not sure if they may be used for names. I tried to baidu that question, but they seem to be to rare... &#xA;I think my question is twofold: First, do native speakers use rare characters for names? And, specifically concerning the character 飂:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Could I use a character like 飂 for my name?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;would a native speaker use a rare character like 飂 as name?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;what does a native speaker think seeing a name containing such a character? Is it simply rare? Or really strange?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what the dictionaries (mainly Longman and the dictionary of the Taiwanese ministry of education) told me, 飂 is used as 姓 (although I could not find any examples), and can mean either the sound of wind, wind in high places, or a west wind (what perhaps somehow fits to a westerner).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit:  I'm comfortable with reading Chinese sources when needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2250" LastEditorUserId="2250" LastEditDate="2013-05-31T15:37:41.410" LastActivityDate="2013-06-25T04:42:06.483" Title="Can I use a rare character like 飂 in a name?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3199" CreationDate="2013-05-31T12:51:51.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may use it, but you will be the uncalled one when the teacher makes a roll call. Because he will be confused about how to pronounce this character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In China, although characters are complicated, the basic elements you need to communicate are few, especially compared with hard-to-pronounce complex traditional characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may sound like someone named &quot;the-wind-go-so-fast-and-ferocious&quot;. Some parents will do, they pick a child's name in the dictionary, or by consulting a feng shui master, who'll determine which characters should be used in their child's name based on the birth date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people want to be specialized, they will also do the same, but anyway, in most cases, you will be regarded as one who has parents with smell of inkhorn. [???]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2843" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-06-04T22:05:58.460" LastActivityDate="2013-06-04T22:05:58.460" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3199" CreationDate="2013-05-31T13:03:41.923" Score="13" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q1: Could I use a character like 飂 for my name?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes.&lt;/strong&gt; In fact, you can freely choose &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;any character&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; for your name. However, for whether it is a good Chinese name, there may be many criteria. The most important criteria are supposed to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Elegant meaning.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE9ZdicA3Zdic82.htm&quot;&gt;飂&lt;/a&gt; is a good one, meaning &lt;em&gt;gone with the wind&lt;/em&gt; and implying a noble, unsullied, lofty, and proud character of a person. One derivation of this character is in 道德經&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;澹兮其若海，&lt;br&gt; 飂兮若無止，&lt;br&gt; 衆人皆有以，&lt;br&gt; 而我獨頑似鄙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, I'm not good at writing English poem ... the translation below is just a simple explanation line by line for the piece of 道德經 above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Being indifferent to fame and wealth, as floating on the sea;&lt;br&gt;Being &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;gone with the wind&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, as never heading for an end that can be seen.&lt;br&gt;Everyone is too busy, for their own living;&lt;br&gt;But just stubborn as me, keeping such an attitude like this!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess you can feel the feeling of 飂 now :)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Good and easy pronunciation.&lt;/strong&gt; It depends on character combinations so I can't tell whether a name containing 飂 (liù &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; liáo) sounds good or not. But it's really a rare character so that most people would have to look up a dictionary before calling your name; and being even worse, 飂 has two kinds of pronunciation -- people would be confused for which one is your preference. This is unlike a Japanese name. As a character would have many sounds in Japanese, they often write down the phonetic symbol, i.e. &lt;em&gt;Hiragana&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Katakana&lt;/em&gt;, for each name that is intended to be read out in documents. Thus, in conclusion, although polyphonic characters are even sometimes (in fact not often) used by native Chinese speakers for their names, I don't recommend to use them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other criteria, like some superstitious rules (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A7%93%E5%90%8D%E5%AD%A6&quot;&gt;姓名學&lt;/a&gt;), won't be introduced here. If you are interested in them, you can see the link for more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q2: Would a native speaker use a rare character like 飂 as name?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes.&lt;/strong&gt; But it will be probably considered as you are showing off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q3: What does a native speaker think seeing a name containing such a character? Is it simply rare? Or really strange?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether it is strange depends on &lt;strong&gt;character combinations&lt;/strong&gt;. That is to say, only when seeing a full name, one can answer such a question :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-05-31T13:09:49.160" LastActivityDate="2013-05-31T13:09:49.160" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3165" CreationDate="2013-05-31T13:08:50.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It get some meaning like, let it be, or there is nothing I can do about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you are someone without too many opinion, you can use it almost at every end of sentences,  of cause you can stop when feeling people get bored of hearing it. But properly use of it will make others feel you are kind of a obedient person, easily get along with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When in some phonetically translated words, it means bar. Not so hard to distinguish them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2843" LastActivityDate="2013-05-31T13:08:50.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3157" CreationDate="2013-05-31T13:14:29.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Circulation stresses more on the whole process of gas of liquor flow, while ventilate decline to the meaning of in and out. &#xA;And circulation is more abstract compared with ventilate, so it get a wider usage range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2843" LastActivityDate="2013-05-31T13:14:29.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3137" CreationDate="2013-05-31T13:25:44.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this question should be discussed on a higher level, maybe the culture kernel values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for a westerner, human-oriented culture make English experssion always start with a first person view, more directly and straight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in china, as be brought up with the belief, everyone should put others' benefits ahead of our own. So in the same case, we may say&quot;can you give me a cup of water?&quot;, means you may not if it's not convenient for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others will not blame you for this kind of trivial things, its part of tradition education belief in China. So relax and don't need to push yourself too hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2843" LastActivityDate="2013-05-31T13:25:44.103" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2459" CreationDate="2013-05-31T13:39:12.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are member of the Standing Committee of National People's Congress, you are nominally the leader of the China, it's part of our political system. But crystal clear, not everyone of them got real power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Few member of it,those Executive Committee of SCNPA, are decision makers of certain aspects.&#xA;And paramount leader will &quot;elected&quot; form them, as to say, paramount leader must be one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a paramount leader, he also be the leader of party, so from this level, paramount is precise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when 党和最高领导人 appeared, you need to know it's one and only.&#xA;主要领导人 means some of the EC member.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2843" LastActivityDate="2013-05-31T13:39:12.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="78" CreationDate="2013-05-31T13:49:19.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To make it short, in a word, theoretically 老王are ones look above 45, 小王 are ones underneath it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes people don't want to be seen as aging man, or too sensitive about it. we overlook the fact, call him 小王. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and use 老王 is call him with the respect of his passing days, so he can be a one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you familiar with  or admirable  or you want to fawn or make fun of.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CAUTION:never use it on your boss!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小王 just go opposite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2843" LastActivityDate="2013-05-31T13:49:19.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1106" CreationDate="2013-05-31T14:01:25.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes we use it in spoken Chinese regularly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Relatively speaking, 瞧 used more colloquially, partly for regional reason.&#xA;As said above, heads from north china.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But either are fine, just very tiny distinction. Use 瞧 makes you Chinese more impressive.&#xA;=)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2843" LastActivityDate="2013-05-31T14:01:25.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3208" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3209" CreationDate="2013-05-31T19:33:57.520" Score="1" ViewCount="5301" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Beijing&quot; means &quot;northern capital,&quot; and &quot;Nanjing&quot; means &quot;southern capital.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is even a &quot;Dongjing&quot; or &quot;eastern capital&quot; that is WAY east of China. It's the city that the Japanese call &quot;Tokyo.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was there ever a &quot;Xijing&quot; or &quot;western capital?&quot; There is Chinese city called &quot;Xi An&quot; or &quot;western peace&quot; which may have been a capital of part of China at one time. Was this city, or any other city, Chinese or otherwise, ever referred to as &quot;Xijing?&quot; Put another way, did anyone ever name a western capital city Xijing just because of its relative importance to Beijing, Nangjing, and Dongjing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="52" LastEditDate="2017-09-02T17:11:19.033" LastActivityDate="2017-09-02T17:11:19.033" Title="Was there ever a &quot;Xijing?&quot; Could it have been &quot;Xi An?&quot;" Tags="&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2013-07-05T00:04:53.050" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3208" CreationDate="2013-05-31T20:01:45.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't believe there is any city officially named 西京, but that name has been used to refer to &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A5%BF%E4%BA%AC#.E4.B8.AD.E5.9C.8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;at least several cities&lt;/a&gt;, including what is now 西安.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-05-31T20:01:45.970" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="242" CreationDate="2013-06-01T04:21:12.893" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;We may sort chinese name into the situations as follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;1. Contain elements from nature scenery or living beings - mainly for female&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ex&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;last name&lt;/strong&gt; + 桃(peach, recline to its flower meaning)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;          云（cloud）&#xA;          天(sky) &#xA;          梅(plum)&#xA;          莺(warbler) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kind of old-fashioned, almost every woman in early 70s 80s has a name like this, otherwise they will name after traditional criteria for women like 淑(elegant) 珍(self-dignified),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;2. contain elements from masculine descriptive adjective or noun or verb - mainly for male&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ex:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;last name&lt;/strong&gt; + 刚(tough)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       建(constructive) &#xA;       国(patriotic)&#xA;       勇(brave) &#xA;       壮(strong)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, chinese name are attached the best wish form it's parents to their children. In a nutshell, make a woman woman,or a manly man. at least, a moral citizen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in contemporary society, you can name after a celebrity or a buzzword from internet only if you want. We don't chose name from a bible story, so on the opposite, nomenclature has departed from the old age, it's no more bind now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;3. Name is indeed a picturesque portray of this person&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using phonetically translated western name is okay, it save much problems. however, if you want to be different, just build your name like draw a picture fearlessly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2843" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T22:03:07.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1943" CreationDate="2013-06-01T04:53:59.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is OK to remove the &quot;被”; we use both versions in daily life. If you add &quot;被&quot;, you emphasize the passive form, and in this sentence, this kind of &quot;passive form&quot; can be omitted because the meaning of this sentence will not change if you omit the &quot;被&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is different from English. English is used to emphasize the relationship of object by grammar, but Chinese is used to emphasize relation by meaning. And in this sentence &quot;病&quot; was cured, it is &quot;passive form&quot;, even you don't add &quot;被&quot;, everyone knows &quot;病是被动的&quot;, so you can omit it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you add &quot;被&quot;, it is very very correct, but if you do not add &quot;被&quot;，no one can say that is wrong.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2588" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-06-04T22:05:27.023" LastActivityDate="2013-06-04T22:05:27.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3214" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3215" CreationDate="2013-06-01T15:41:15.810" Score="-2" ViewCount="277" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am making a website for a friend. He has a (very) low quality logo for me to use. I want to remake the logo but it contains kanji. I do not know how to read kanji so I do not know how to remake these characters other than doing so by hand....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.schneidi.com/images/logo%20-%20wun%20hop%20kuen%20do.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.schneidi.com/images/logo%20-%20wun%20hop%20kuen%20do.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the kanji characters in this image, how do I type them (or can you just type them for me and I copy/paste?) and what do they mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you !!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2845" LastActivityDate="2013-06-12T05:05:38.187" Title="Need to know how to type specific kanji found in image" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3214" CreationDate="2013-06-01T15:55:27.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is &lt;code&gt;功夫&lt;/code&gt;. You might want to try figuring out further characters using handwriting input as on e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://nciku.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://nciku.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2518" LastActivityDate="2013-06-01T15:55:27.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3199" CreationDate="2013-06-03T15:51:24.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes and no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can use it as long as it is a real Chinese character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as a native Chinese with a rare character in my own name, it bothers me in life in various ways. First, some people don't know how to pronounce it. Second, some banks and airplane companies still limit their database of Chinese character to &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/GB_2312&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GB2312&lt;/a&gt; which includes only about 7 thousand Chinese characters. Third, rare characters are usually hard to write and also hard to input in computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But since you won't use this Chinese name in passports or so, I guess it's not a problem after all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2215" LastEditorUserId="2215" LastEditDate="2013-06-04T01:19:59.543" LastActivityDate="2013-06-04T01:19:59.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3199" CreationDate="2013-06-03T23:36:52.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You'd better not use such a rare character. I have '煦' in my name, which is much more common than your '飂', and it still bothers me for even some of my teachers don't know how to pronounce it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2847" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-06-04T18:51:09.683" LastActivityDate="2013-06-04T18:51:09.683" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3208" CreationDate="2013-06-05T04:51:40.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a 西京 to Japan's 東京; you were just looking in the wrong country: it's Kyoto, which &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_%28city%29#Name&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;for a short time was named Saikyō&lt;/a&gt;, just as Edo was renamed Tokyo when the capital moved from Kyoto to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is similar to how Nanjing and Beijing got their names too, when &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%8E%E6%88%90%E7%A5%96%E8%BF%81%E9%83%BD%E5%8C%97%E4%BA%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the capital was moved during Ming&lt;/a&gt; from then-金陵 to then-北平. In Japan's case only Tokyo's name stuck; in China's case both stuck (or rather, reverted a few times).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-06-05T04:51:40.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3221" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3222" CreationDate="2013-06-05T18:40:30.750" Score="3" ViewCount="1360" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen native speakers refer to &quot;we&quot; as both 我们 and 我們, so I was wondering if there's any difference in meaning or when to use one plural marker or the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2854" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2013-06-06T03:10:45.770" LastActivityDate="2013-08-22T17:18:15.467" Title="What is the difference between 們 and 们 for marking plurals?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;orthography&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3221" CreationDate="2013-06-05T19:17:15.180" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们 and 我們 are same, except 们 is simplified character, and 們 is traditional character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See this for more details: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters&quot;&gt;Simplified Chinese characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-06-05T19:17:15.180" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3223" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3232" CreationDate="2013-06-06T06:30:12.317" Score="4" ViewCount="1659" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been having problems knowing when to use either 不错 or 没错. I think 不错 means 'great'; and 没错 means no mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which should be used to:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(a)&lt;/strong&gt; praise somebody's work?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;(b)&lt;/strong&gt; indicate nothing wrong with the food/article/etc?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;(c)&lt;/strong&gt; approval or agreement with somebody's statement/idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-06-09T18:57:17.550" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T18:30:41.303" Title="Differentiate 不错 and 没错 in these situations" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2013-06-08T09:17:13.227" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3224" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3228" CreationDate="2013-06-06T06:49:08.467" Score="5" ViewCount="1052" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any characters that are considered simplified in some contexts (where there would be a corresponding traditional character), and traditional in other contexts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2391" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-04-23T07:32:00.803" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:14:28.487" Title="Can a character be simplified or traditional depending on the context it is used in?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3224" CreationDate="2013-06-06T07:24:54.287" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider traditional and simplified characters as two sets with a mapping between them. I'll refer to to simplified as &lt;code&gt;S&lt;/code&gt; and traditional as &lt;code&gt;T&lt;/code&gt;. Let's call the mapping &lt;code&gt;M&lt;/code&gt;, and we'll say &lt;code&gt;(s,t) ∈ M&lt;/code&gt; if there's a mapping from &lt;code&gt;s ∈ S&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;t ∈ T&lt;/code&gt;. So, for example, we have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;为 ∈ S&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;為 ∈ T&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;(为,為) ∈ M&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One obvious question: Are &lt;code&gt;S&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;T&lt;/code&gt; disjoint? No, they are not. For example, &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; is in both &lt;code&gt;S&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;T&lt;/code&gt; (i.e., &lt;code&gt;了 ∈ S ∩ T&lt;/code&gt;. By convention I'll say &lt;code&gt;(了,了) ∈ M&lt;/code&gt;). This bears on your question about context: When someone says a &quot;traditional character&quot; (I'll refer to the character in question as &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;), they may mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A character allowed in a text written in the traditional characters (i.e., &lt;code&gt;c ∈ T&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A character for which there exists a distinct simplified form (i.e., &lt;code&gt;(b,c) ∈ M : c ≠ b&lt;/code&gt;) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A character only allowed in traditional--but not in simplified (i.e., &lt;code&gt;c ∈ T \ S&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly for simplified. &lt;strong&gt;So, yes, it can depend on context what one means.&lt;/strong&gt; That context is often the surrounding text or what is considered &quot;normal&quot; to the speaker (i.e., they preferentially read and write in one script).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One question the astute reader may have noticed is the distinction I made between 2. and 3.--shouldn't those be the same? Indeed that would be the case if the mapping were a bijection... but sadly it isn't. In fact, it it's &lt;em&gt;neither one-to-one nor onto&lt;/em&gt;. Once upon a time when I was parsing the unihan files, I had a rather rude awakening. Turns out there are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguities_in_Chinese_character_simplification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lots of weird cases&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1 simplified character mapping to 2, 3, 4, or even 5 traditional ones. (This collapsing of characters in simplification was something I expected.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 simplified characters mapping to 1 traditional. (Not really expected.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This totally WTF case:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;(苧,薴) ∈ M&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;(苎,苧) ∈ M&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: fixed union vs intersection&#xA;Edit: fixed the notation for the &lt;code&gt;薴-&amp;gt;苧-&amp;gt;苎&lt;/code&gt; case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2016-09-04T21:51:17.293" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T21:51:17.293" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3224" CreationDate="2013-06-06T07:29:38.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can think of the following reasons why you might encounter them (in order of appropriateness):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Proper names, especially family names whose bearers want to maintain a tradition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Linguistic text about the other kind of character&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Simplified handwriting in Taiwanese or Japanese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Careless copy-and-pasting from 2 sources&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have any specific case they could apply to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2518" LastActivityDate="2013-06-06T07:29:38.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3223" CreationDate="2013-06-06T12:58:06.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;（a）不错 &#xA;（b）没错&#xA;（c）both&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不错 =  not so bad, quite good, emphasis on the expression of questioner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没错 =  nothing wrong, emphasis on the confirmatory meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2843" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-06-06T23:23:57.350" LastActivityDate="2013-06-06T23:23:57.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3224" CreationDate="2013-06-06T19:20:55.657" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, we need to clearly understand how Traditional Chinese characters got simplified, which I bet 99.999999% of the whole Chinese population don't even know about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very big topic that I am not able to discuss about it in detail. So I will give a much simplified explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider these 2 sets: Traditional Characters vs Simplified Characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of cause there is a mapping between the 2 sets. Most of the mapping (78%) is for &amp;quot;non-simplification at all&amp;quot;, like 人 口 手 大 小 天 地 etc. Those characters are NOT simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the rest of the mapping (22%) is the &amp;quot;real simplification&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the set of Simplified Characters, there are only 2235 &amp;quot;real simplified characters&amp;quot; in total.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among the most used 3500 Chinese characters, there are only 1116 &amp;quot;real simplified characters&amp;quot;, so the percentage is 32%, less than 1/3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A medium-sized Chinese dictionary roughly covers 10 thousand &amp;quot;head charcters&amp;quot;, among which there are 2235 &amp;quot;real simplified characters&amp;quot;, so the percentage is 22%, less than 1/4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we can see the real simplified characters are only a small portion of the whole Chinese charaters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the following discussion is on the &amp;quot;real simplification&amp;quot; part of the mapping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most people believe the Simplification was done at the character level, meaning one traditional character will be replaced by its simplified counterpart in all circumstances, which of cause is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually the Simplification was done at the sense level, so it means a traditional character will be replaced by a simplified version only for a certain senses, but for other senses of the same traditional character, it is not simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example 乾 (gān, qián)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(gān) when meaning &amp;quot;dry&amp;quot; in 河乾了 or &amp;quot;finish&amp;quot; in 乾杯 (and a lot other meanings), it is simplified to 干, so they will become 河干了 or 干杯.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(qián) But when meaning &amp;quot;sky&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;related to man&amp;quot;, then it is NOT simplified. So even in an article in Simplified Chinese, you may see this phrase 乾坤 (meaning the sky and the earth). Another example is 乾隆, which is a name of an emperor in Qin dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example 瞭 (liǎo, liào)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(liǎo) when in 瞭解 meaning &amp;quot;come to understand&amp;quot;, it is simplified as 了, so it becomes 了解.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(liào) but when in 瞭望 meaning &amp;quot;watch from a height or a distance&amp;quot;, it is NOT simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However there are quite some characters appear in both sets of Simplified Characters and Traditional Characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 丑 (chǒu)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the set of Traditional Characters, 丑 is used as the second of the twelve &amp;quot;Terrestrial Branches&amp;quot;, and also used as a surname. So its counterpart in the set of Simplified Characters is still 丑 (ie not simplified).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;醜 (chǒu) is a Traditional Character, meaning &amp;quot;ugly, hateful, disgraceful, scandalous, bad, dirty&amp;quot; etc. It is simplified as 丑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplification was done in the following 8 ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get rid of the whole &amp;quot;picture&amp;quot; of the character, and &amp;quot;redraw&amp;quot; it with its &amp;quot;main frame&amp;quot;, like 龜  -&amp;gt; 龟 (tortoise, turtle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Regularify a character's the simple cursive style, like 為 -&amp;gt; 为.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use only a part of the character, like 聲 -&amp;gt; 声.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Replace a part of a character by a lot less strokes, like 漢 -&amp;gt; 汉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Adopt a simple form from very old scripts (eg. oracle 甲骨文）, like 雲 -&amp;gt; 云.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use a simple character in the same pronunciation family to replace a part of the character, like 燈 -&amp;gt; 灯 (replace 登 with 丁, as pronunciation of 丁 is very close to that of 燈).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Create new characters, like 響 -&amp;gt; 响, 滅 -&amp;gt; 灭 (响 and 灭 were created for the sake of simplification).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use an existing simple character to replace a complicate character, like 幾 -&amp;gt; 几.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;newly&amp;quot; created simple characters are less than 100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, it is a separate topic regarding traditional characters used in proper names (or signs, symbols), or some careless writers mix-use simplified and traditional characters in their articles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So back to your question, using of simplified/traditional characters is NOT based on the context. Ideally if an article is written in simplified Chinese, then it should only use simplified characters, vice versa, unless for some special purposes (like an article written in simplified Chinese talking about simplification of traditional characters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-06-07T19:00:57.057" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3229" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-07T12:00:54.423" Score="11" ViewCount="857" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are they frequently used? Which one of the three is applied more often: is it the 章草, the 今草 or the 狂草? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they different in comparison with the 行書?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any online resourses to learn more about the most frequently used style (except the Wiki)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2469" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-06-10T05:36:35.737" LastActivityDate="2013-10-04T14:19:32.040" Title="Fast-written forms of 草书 characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3229" CreationDate="2013-06-07T15:04:29.403" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among the handwriting styles 章草, 今草 and 狂草, 今草 is the most frequently used. However, compared with 今草, 行书 is even more popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;章草 is the rapid writing of 隶书. Currently, Chinese teachers don't teach 隶书 in primary schools for its old style. Only calligraphy amateurs and experts would learn 隶书 so as 章草.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今草 is based on 楷书 -- 楷书 is formally taught in primary schools -- but 今草 is seldom used by young people, as it's hard to recognize. (Well, I mean the rigorous 今草, but not squiggles at random.) 狂草 is an even faster handwriting of 今草, now I can just see that in calligraphy art works, doctors' prescriptions, and some old educated persons' handwritings. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;行书(行楷) takes both the identifiability and the efficiency into account, so it's the most popular.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know whether there's any statistical research work about the most frequently used &lt;strong&gt;handwriting&lt;/strong&gt; style. Now less and less people need to write something by hand, as computers and the internet are occupying our life :( So a person with good handwriting is less seen now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most frequently used Chinese computer font should be 宋体, most characters in newspapers and official documents and books are printed in 宋体.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn something about the most frequently used handwriting. You can search &lt;code&gt;行书字帖&lt;/code&gt; in Google, and then you can find many. Because I am not sure about whether they are infringement of copyright, I don't leave any links here :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I don't recommend using the computer font &lt;code&gt;华文行楷&lt;/code&gt; as the handwriting model for practice. Because it's just designed for printing -- and personally, one of my friends, a professional graphic artist, says that font is &lt;em&gt;making people feel visual fatigue&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In fact, 章草 consists of seven types:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;原始型, 简章型, 标准型, 章今型, 今章型, 正章型, and 章篆型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most typical 章草 is 标准型 (&lt;em&gt;standard type&lt;/em&gt;, the name has suggested that). &lt;code&gt;急就章&lt;/code&gt; by Song Ke in Ming Dynasty is one master work of 章草:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cE75I.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;章草：明-宋克-《急就章》&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can find in some characters, some 隶书's styles -- like 燕尾 (swallow's tail) -- still persist. (Note: according to some references, the first character on the top-right is controversial. In the resource providing by &lt;a href=&quot;http://painting.npm.gov.tw/npm_public/System/View.jsp?type=1&amp;amp;ObjectID=1942&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taiwan National Palace Museum&lt;/a&gt;, it's &lt;code&gt;賣&lt;/code&gt;; According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%80%A5%E5%B0%B1%E7%AF%87/%E5%8D%B7%E4%BA%8C&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;急就篇&lt;/a&gt;, it is said to be &lt;code&gt;洞&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/a8/kx/28F4D.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. In this picture, it should be &lt;code&gt;&lt;/code&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OQpJ1.png&quot; alt=&quot;隶书&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Master work of 今草: &lt;code&gt;冠军帖&lt;/code&gt; by Zhang Zhi, in Han Dynasty. It's more fluent than 章草.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4e7Wl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;冠军帖&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Master work of 狂草: &lt;code&gt;古诗四帖&lt;/code&gt; by Zhang Xu, in Tang Dynasty. &#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rBbV6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;古诗四帖&quot;&gt;&#xA;Which says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;东明九芝盖，北烛五云车。飘飖入倒景，出没上烟霞。春泉下玉溜，青鸟向金华。汉帝看桃核，齐侯问棘花。应逐上元酒，同来访蔡家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狂草 is the most &lt;strong&gt;casual-like&lt;/strong&gt; works, and written at an as-fast-as-possible speed. Notice that, &lt;strong&gt;casual-like&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;not casual&lt;/strong&gt;, it doesn't mean you can freely write something very fast and then call it 狂草 (though, we sometimes make fun to call that kind of handwriting &lt;code&gt;&quot;狂草&quot;&lt;/code&gt;, with quotation marks). In fact, one needs to learn much about 楷书, experience the laws and spirit of Chinese calligraphy, and then they can write good 狂草 works with a rigorous but casual attitude. It's not easy. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Master work of 行书: &lt;code&gt;兰亭集序&lt;/code&gt; by Wang Xizhi, in Eastern Jin Dynasty. &#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hztHw.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;兰亭集序&quot;&gt;&#xA;This is the most famous Chinese calligraphy works ever. (Yes, I didn't say &lt;em&gt;one of the most&lt;/em&gt;.) High school students in China are required to recite the paragraphs of &lt;code&gt;兰亭集序&lt;/code&gt;. This is also considered as a paragon for 行书 learners.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-10-04T14:19:32.040" LastActivityDate="2013-10-04T14:19:32.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2777" CreationDate="2013-06-08T00:58:50.430" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;乐 of &quot;快乐&quot; : [1]:乐&amp;lt;- - - [1a]: It's a simplfied Chinese writing;   while &#xA;樂 &amp;lt; - - - [1b]: this one Traditional Chinese writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2]: the vey oiginal meaning of 樂  ::   total of 樂  made of 3 patrs / components:&#xA;[2a]:  2 &quot;ㄠ&quot; : these 2 ㄠ = 系 ::   窗簾的 蕾絲 = 窗帘的蕾丝 = Lace;   the lowest-portiong of curtains. so. it's image/graph similar to &quot;sum of strings&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2b]: 白 : it's an image/graph  the same as your 1st finge: thumb.= 拇指&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2c]: lowest paotion: 木.   indicate a wood-made musical instrument.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3]:  violin = 弦琴, 弧琴:  these musical instrument played by human-being's THUMB. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[4]: [1a+1c] = [ strings + wood ] = violin, or any Chinese 弦琴, 弧琴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[5]: { [1b]= THUMB ) + [4] } = when during human play music. they feel &quot;HAPPY&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[6]: finally, 樂 = happhy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to learn Chinese, when you see &quot;simplified 乐&quot; you can not link into [5];&#xA;you have to learn 樂 this taditional Chinese writing to get the image:&#xA;human play music , then get the feeling : HAPPY.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2853" LastActivityDate="2013-06-08T00:58:50.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3223" CreationDate="2013-06-08T01:11:56.410" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You already got the idea. To answer the situational questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(a) praise somebody's work?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 不错. If you use 没错, it means the content of the work is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他文章写得不错。He writes good articles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他文章写的没错。What is written in his article is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(b) indicate nothing wrong with the food/article/etc?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither. You can use 不错 to praise the taste or the quality of the food. 没错 doesn't make sense because 'the food' is unable to make mistakes. It can be 'mistaken' in a sense of improperly cooked, gone bad or poisoned. In that case you want to say the food 有问题 (has problems) or 没问题 (no problem).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这家饭馆的食物有问题。Something's wrong with the food from this restaurant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这家饭馆的食物没问题。There's nothing wrong with the food from this restaurant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这家饭馆的食物不错。This restaurant makes good food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这家饭馆的食物没错。(Doesn't make sense) The food from this restaurant didn't act wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(c) approval or agreement with somebody's statement/idea?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both can be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没错 expresses concurrence/agreement (not praise) to ideas and yes/no factual questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Idea) “我们应该先看说明书。”“没错。” 'We should read user's manual first.' 'Right.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Fact) “电影是不是9点开始？”“没错。” 'Is the movie starting at 9?' 'Yes.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没错 is seldom used for deeds. It's only used in very specific circumstances as an indifferent or perfunctory chime. Again this usage is uncommon and may sound strange depending on the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Deed) “我把作业都写完了。”“没错。” 'I have finished my homework.' '(Indifferently) I know.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不错 can be used to praise deeds as well as ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我把作业都写完了。”“不错！” 'I have finished my homework.' 'Great!'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不错 can also be used to express concurrence as an inherited usage from ancient Chinese. There's a subtle defensive and provocative tone in it though, as if the question or statement before this response is unexpected or offensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你一口气吃了十个冰淇淋？”“没错。” 'You ate ten ice creams at once?' 'Yes.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你一口气吃了十个冰淇淋？”“不错。” 'You ate ten ice creams at once?' 'Yes. (You have a problem with that?)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T18:30:41.303" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3233" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3239" CreationDate="2013-06-09T11:03:18.493" Score="2" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to ask: Will you wake at 6:00 tomorrow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2844" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-06-09T16:58:26.963" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T20:02:24.243" Title="Is '明天你都六点起床不起床？' a correct question?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3233" CreationDate="2013-06-09T23:24:35.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;你会明天早上六点起床吗？ (Will you wake up at 6am tomorrow?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to salvage your question so it at least makes sense, it'd be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明天六点,你起床不起床？ (Tomorrow at 6am, will you wake up or not?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2741" LastActivityDate="2013-06-09T23:24:35.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3235" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3236" CreationDate="2013-06-09T23:56:24.207" Score="13" ViewCount="2905" Body="&lt;p&gt;At one level, they both mean &quot;and.&quot; At another level, 和 also means &quot;peace,&quot; while 及 means &quot;to extend.&quot; This suggests different usages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is one used to connect nouns, while the other is used to connect predicates, for example? And which one (both, or a third) would take the place of &quot;and&quot; in 和 &quot;and&quot; 及?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-06-11T12:49:48.503" LastActivityDate="2021-02-22T10:02:03.673" Title="Do 和 and 及 refer to two different kinds of &quot;ands?&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3235" CreationDate="2013-06-10T05:27:45.300" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both “和” and “及” are conjunctions for connecting two words or phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;和 [hé] :&lt;/strong&gt; To connect nouns, verbs or phrases, not necessarily expressing a relationship and often informally. E.g. 汽车和现金 (car and cash),&#xA;蓝宝石和翡翠 (sapphire and jade).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;及 [jí] :&lt;/strong&gt; Mostly used in writing to connect nouns, with greater emphasis on the items preceding it. E.g. “囧”字的读音、意思及其常用表现手法&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of combined usage adapted from Google's policy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们的目标是不断超越，为您提供一流的服务&lt;b&gt;和&lt;/b&gt;易于使用的安全&lt;b&gt;及&lt;/b&gt;隐私权工具。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the order and how “和” is used to join the larger phrases together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/2032&quot;&gt;Difference between 与，和 and 跟?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot characters meaning &quot;and&quot;: 和/及/与/而/又/并/同/亦/且/兼/跟&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;面包 &lt;strong&gt;和&lt;/strong&gt; 黄油 bread and butter &lt;br&gt;&#xA;       一个女人﹑ 两个男人 &lt;strong&gt;及&lt;/strong&gt; 三个孩子 one woman, two men and three children &lt;br&gt;&#xA;      《儿子 &lt;strong&gt;与&lt;/strong&gt; 情人》 Sons and Lovers &lt;br&gt;&#xA;      缓慢 &lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt; 仔细地 slowly and carefully &lt;br&gt;&#xA;      能读 &lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt; 能写 able to read and write &lt;br&gt;&#xA;      他为她感到难过， &lt;strong&gt;并&lt;/strong&gt; 试图使她振作起来。 He was sorry for her and tried to cheer her up. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;      你 &lt;strong&gt;同&lt;/strong&gt; 他一起去。You and he go together.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      他生 &lt;strong&gt;亦&lt;/strong&gt; 穷来死 &lt;strong&gt;亦&lt;/strong&gt; 穷。He was born poor and died poor. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;      一个优雅 &lt;strong&gt;且&lt;/strong&gt; 和蔼的女人 a graceful and gentle woman &lt;br&gt;&#xA;      他担任教练 &lt;strong&gt;兼&lt;/strong&gt; 队长。He doubled as coach and captain of the team. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;      你 &lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt; 他一块儿来。You and he come togther. &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very hard to give specific rules on how to use them. You need to read a lot Chinese text to build up your language sense on those characters. But one rule seems holding the water all the time: if there are mutliple level things in the same sentence to be joined by &quot;and&quot;, then you will need to use different characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T20:13:01.393" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3237" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-06-10T05:39:20.417" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-06-10T05:39:20.417" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T05:39:20.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3238" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-06-10T05:39:20.417" Score="0" Body="a type of visual art related to writing" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-06-13T22:40:17.873" LastActivityDate="2013-06-13T22:40:17.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3233" CreationDate="2013-06-10T17:15:00.587" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;明天你都六点起床不起床？&amp;quot; is not a valid sentence in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we remove 都, and make it &amp;quot;明天你六点起床不起床？&amp;quot;, it is valid but a little awkward. Because we &lt;strong&gt;usually&lt;/strong&gt; don't say things like &amp;quot;起床不起床?&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;吃饭不吃饭?&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;睡觉不睡觉?&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;学习不学习?&amp;quot; etc. when asking questions. The point here is that we &lt;strong&gt;normally&lt;/strong&gt; don't repeat the whole word before and after 不 in questions, instead we simplify it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: It is ok to repeat the whole word before and after 不 in declarative statements, like 老师喜欢不喜欢你，我真的觉得不是什么问题. While it can also been simpified as 老师喜不喜欢你，我真的觉得不是什么问题.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the natual way to say it in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起床不? or 起不起床?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃饭不? or 吃不吃饭不?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睡觉不? or 睡不睡觉?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学习不? or 学不学习?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your question, &amp;quot;明天你都六点起床不起床？&amp;quot; is not correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are asking a person of his/her get-up time in the moring, you would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你早上6点起床嘛? or 你早上6点起来嘛?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the listener usually gets up at 7 o'clock, and you want to know if that person plans to get up at 6 o'clock tommorow morning, then you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明早你六点起床不? or 你明天早上六点起来吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T20:02:24.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3214" CreationDate="2013-06-12T05:05:38.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For others looking for tools to identify Chinese characters, you can look them up in a dictionary using radical + brushstroke count. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of a dictionary that uses radicals: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/sinograms.html?r&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/sinograms.html?r&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if there is a systematic method to identify which part of the character is the radical, but if you divide the character into separated &quot;parts&quot; it's usually the left-most or top-most part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2874" LastActivityDate="2013-06-12T05:05:38.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2695" CreationDate="2013-06-13T19:57:54.517" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;早安 is Chinese for the English &quot;good morning&quot; and used in China everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早上好 is the creation of machine translation of English &quot;good morning&quot; and is probably used by translation machines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaking person and have travelled all over the world and I have never been greeted by anyone with &quot;早上好&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2839" LastActivityDate="2013-06-13T19:57:54.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3199" CreationDate="2013-06-14T12:18:11.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes, it's your freedom, but not recommended, not many people know how to read it and what's it means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastActivityDate="2013-06-14T12:18:11.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2777" CreationDate="2013-06-14T12:27:37.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;i did a quick search: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.sg/search?q=%E5%96%9C%E4%B9%90&amp;amp;oq=%E5%96%9C%E4%B9%90&amp;amp;aqs=chrome.0.57&amp;amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com.sg/search?q=%E5%96%9C%E4%B9%90&amp;amp;oq=%E5%96%9C%E4%B9%90&amp;amp;aqs=chrome.0.57&amp;amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜乐 is common in the bible, we can deduce from sentences, it means 喜悦+快乐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastActivityDate="2013-06-14T12:27:37.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2995" CreationDate="2013-06-15T08:32:37.050" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your pronunciation is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a common mis-pronunciation in many places in China, not just Shanxi. In fact, this is so common that nearly every modern Chinese input software supports so called &quot;模糊音&quot;（ambiguous pronunciation). The user can config if this function is enabled. Here's a screenshot of the config in Google Pinyin software:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T72NO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;模糊音 config in Google Pinyin software&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, there are more than just &quot;c&quot; and &quot;ch&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is actually also a problem in China. It's a common topic in the many exams of Chinese language. The national exam for entrance to university used to have questions on this every year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2215" LastActivityDate="2013-06-15T08:32:37.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3247" CreationDate="2013-06-17T11:46:20.203" Score="2" ViewCount="554" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have recently received this vase as a gift from a business partner. I am very curious what this text on it means but am not in a position to ask them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wasn't able to use Google Translate (probably because it is handwriting) on it and I don't know anyone who speaks chinese. Could somebody here translate it for me please!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you! &#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gZuB1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Vase&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2893" LastActivityDate="2013-06-27T12:41:30.657" Title="What does this text on a vase mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3246" CreationDate="2013-06-17T12:20:07.910" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The text is read from top to bottom, right to left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First two columns:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;香遠溢清&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means &lt;strong&gt;As the aroma (of the flower, referring in particular to the lotus) goes further, it becomes more and more pure and fresh&lt;/strong&gt;. BTW, the artist mistakes 益(more and more) for 溢(overflow, spill). These two characters sound the same in Chinese. Maybe the artist was intentional, to express a different feeling from the original author of this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase originates from Song Dynasty's litterateur 周敦頤's essay &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;愛蓮說&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (Ode to the Lotus Flower).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水陸草木之花，可愛者甚蕃。晉陶淵明獨愛菊；自李唐來，世人盛愛牡丹；予獨愛蓮之出淤泥而不染，濯清漣而不妖，中通外直，不蔓不枝， &lt;strong&gt;香遠益清&lt;/strong&gt; ，亭亭靜植，可遠觀而不可褻玩焉。予謂菊，花之隱逸者也；牡丹，花之富貴者也；蓮，花之君子者也。噫！菊之愛，陶後鮮有聞；蓮之愛，同予者何人；牡丹之愛，宜乎眾矣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This essay is to praise the noble and unsullied characteristic of the lotus. So in Chinese culture, lotus flowers are often compared to gentlemen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The left text:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;癸巳年  彭湘龍  作於景德鎮一品畫苑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the artist's inscription.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%B8%E5%B7%B3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;癸巳年&lt;/a&gt; is the year. It is 2013, according to the context.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;彭湘龍 is the artist's name, Peng Xianglong.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;作於景德鎮一品畫苑. Finished in 一品畫苑(the studio's name), 景德鎮(&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingdezhen&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jingdezhen Town&lt;/a&gt;, a town that is called &lt;em&gt;Porcelain Capital&lt;/em&gt;. It is very very famous.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ll9l7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-06-27T12:41:30.657" LastActivityDate="2013-06-27T12:41:30.657" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3248" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3249" CreationDate="2013-06-17T23:40:45.317" Score="6" ViewCount="756" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across &lt;a href=&quot;https://answersingenesis.org/genesis/chinese-characters-and-genesis/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this interesting article&lt;/a&gt; which attempts to support the Christian Genesis story by showing the meaning of some ancient Chinese characters. I would like to verify the meaning of these characters and their use*.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Supposedly, the characters are based on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Oracle Bone scripts&lt;/a&gt; which I think are the oldest known Chinese manuscripts. Since this would place them at about 3000 years old it is likely that if these characters are still in use today their meanings have changed some or completely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I am not interested in opinions on whether these characters lend credence to the Genesis story. I am interested only in the meaning of the characters for the time frame suggested.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[EDIT:]&#xA;As the address of the article changed(fixed), I would list the characters mentioned in the article here, in case the link goes dead again:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;船  婪  造  完  禁  園  魔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2894" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2018-12-04T01:30:40.463" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T11:02:19.577" Title="Can someone verify the meaning and age of these ancient Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3248" CreationDate="2013-06-18T00:51:14.857" Score="10" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Most characters are composed of a phonetic and a semantic component.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phonetic component is a character with a similar pronunciation (...or at least the pronunciation was similar at the time the character was created). The semantic component (or signific) indicates the meaning, although usually very vaguely (again, meanings--like pronunciations--change over time). For more info, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Phono-semantic_compound_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;see the wiki article.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Classic example:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈 (mā, mother) ＝ 女 (nǚ, woman) ＋ 马 (mǎ, horse)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;horse&amp;quot; component is purely phonetic (and a relatively good phonetic too!), and the &amp;quot;woman&amp;quot; component hints as to the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author of the linked article is &lt;strong&gt;obviously grossly mistaken as to the construction of Chinese characters&lt;/strong&gt;, both in general, as well as in the specific cases he brings up. I'll offer non-ridiculous analyses for the characters listed, based mostly off of &lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the very useful Chinese character etymology website&lt;/a&gt;. I give the pronunciations for the phonetics and the meanings of the semantics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;船 (chuan2, boat) =  舟 (older word for boat) + 㕣 (yan3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;婪 (lan2, covetous/greedy) =  林 (lin2) + 女 (woman... sorry ladies)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;造 (zao4, create/cause) = 告 (report) + 辶 (foot, walk); original meaning in Old Chinese: &amp;quot;appear in court&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完 (wan2, complete) = 宀 (building/roof) + 元 (yuan2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;禁 (jin4, to forbid) = 林 (lin2) + 示 (omens)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;園 (yuan2, garden) = 袁 (yuan2) + 囗 (enclosure)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;魔 (mo2, wizard/magic/demon) = 麻 (ma2) + 鬼 (ghost/monster)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, &lt;em&gt;almost all&lt;/em&gt; of the characters are semantic-phonetic compounds. Also, &lt;strong&gt;the forms of the characters shown in the article are modern ones, not oracle bones forms&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Addendum:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I chose not to give the meanings of the phonetic components in my analyses because I don't want to encourage the widely held (and incredibly wrong) perception that characters have no phonetic content and that every part of a character &amp;quot;means&amp;quot; something. Certainly some characters are pictograms (e.g., 马 = horse) or semantic-compunds (e.g., 焚), but the vast majority are semantic-phonetic compounds. I also chose not to repeat the analyses given in the article, since I think it would only increase the likelihood of people taking them seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the OP's benefit, I will do a more detailed analysis for &amp;quot;garden&amp;quot; which looks at the makeup of the phonetic character and compares it to the analysis given in the article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The analysis given to us in the article is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;園 (garden) = 土 (dust) + 口 (&lt;strike&gt;breath&lt;/strike&gt; literally &amp;quot;mouth&amp;quot;) + ??? (two people) + 囗 (enclosure)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I made clear how the entire inner content of the box is a component used purely for its phonetic value (and therefore the article writer is mistaken in analyzing it for its meaning).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the article's analysis is flawed in several other ways as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It treats the character as being made up of 4 components. Even if it were a semantic-compound, it would be made up two parts: 袁 (???) + 囗 (enclosure). The former character survives in modern Chinese only as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_(surname)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a surname&lt;/a&gt;, so it's unclear what in the hell they would mean put together. I think 袁 once meant graceful, so I guess &amp;quot;graceful wall&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The phonetic part (袁) is itself a &lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E8%A2%81&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pictogram of a pendant over the character for clothing&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; 土 + 口 + ???. The fact that the modern form (which doesn't look like the Seal script form) appears to contain a 土 and a 口 isn't really relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even assuming it made sense to analyze 袁 into sub-components, and even assuming the seal-script components were the same as the modern ones, the author has done it wrong. The &amp;quot;two people&amp;quot; fragment given is not even a character. You could write &amp;quot;two people&amp;quot; as the character for person twice 人人 (doesn't look like it), use the &amp;quot;two people radical&amp;quot; 彳 (also doesn't look it), use the word &amp;quot;from&amp;quot; 从 (still doesn't look like it). What the fragment the article author wrote down as &amp;quot;two people&amp;quot; is actually the bottom part of 衣. It's a pictogram that originally depicted fabric.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You commented &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;I just need a clear answer: do the characters mean that or not?&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. I hope this answer has elucidated how the article's author was wrong on pretty much every level you can be wrong on. If you want that in yes/no format, I'm pretty sure it's &amp;quot;no no no no no...&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T17:56:05.213" CommentCount="27" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3248" CreationDate="2013-06-18T21:21:59.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two quick points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;These characters have differing ages. Some of them have etymology tracing back to the oracle bone script, others are newer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;船 doesn't mean a 'large boat', just a 'boat'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not really interested in going through full analysis on all of these, but suffice it to say that this article lacks correctness on both age and meaning claims.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2257" LastActivityDate="2013-06-18T21:21:59.037" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3224" CreationDate="2013-06-19T15:33:32.403" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anyone an idea where to get the mapping from? I'm talking traditional -&gt; simplified&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found this utftable.txt from this page:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://simplify.codeplex.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CodePlex&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;but it does not seem to be perfect and the author does not tell where the file is coming from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also where do the numbers come from? e.g.: 2235 real simplified characters in total (quote from above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2898" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:14:28.487" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:14:28.487" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3252" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3253" CreationDate="2013-06-19T16:04:23.777" Score="6" ViewCount="1388" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你想吃饭吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   Ni xiang chi fan ma ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it redundant to use &lt;em&gt;ma&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; a question mark? Doesn't &lt;em&gt;ma&lt;/em&gt; make it a question in of itself? I am unclear on the correct approach here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:08:51.013" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:08:51.013" Title="When writing pin yin, should you use a question mark in sentences using &quot;ma&quot;?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3252" CreationDate="2013-06-19T19:13:27.390" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions are always ended with a question mark (?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General questions may or may not have interrogative particles appearing at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Examples with interrogative particles : 1) 你去过美国*&lt;em&gt;吗&lt;/em&gt;*? 2) 这个电影很好看*&lt;em&gt;吧&lt;/em&gt;*? 3) 你说*&lt;em&gt;呢&lt;/em&gt;*?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Examples w/o interrogative particles : 1) 你来不来? 2) 这道菜好吃不? 3) 我听说小李辞职了? 4) 你从美国来的? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Special questions don't need interrogative particles at the end, as they have questions words like 什么,哪,几,多少,如何,怎么样, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example: 你去过哪些国家? 你几岁? 你怎么来的?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question marks are always needed even when questions written pin yin.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2013-06-20T17:02:32.730" LastActivityDate="2013-06-20T17:02:32.730" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3255" CreationDate="2013-06-20T11:36:02.113" Score="17" ViewCount="8881" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see quite often a few &quot;~&quot; characters placed at the end of sentences, especially in e-mails, texts, and social networks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this an informal exclamation or an emphasis mark?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the sentence below was extracted from a Facebook comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大家都在婚禮指認朋友 ~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2901" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-06-20T14:55:25.853" LastActivityDate="2013-06-21T13:08:46.353" Title="Meaning of &quot;~~&quot; at the end of a sentence" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;&lt;emphasis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3254" CreationDate="2013-06-20T14:07:39.333" Score="16" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Non-Standard Usage&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Is this an informal exclamation or an emphasis mark?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No&lt;/strong&gt;, it's neither an exclamation nor an emphasis. It's used for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Informal]&lt;/strong&gt; Showing a casual, lively mood. This is the situation of your example sentence. In fact, you can put this symbol freely if you are not so serious, and the number of waves is not strict.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;事实上～只要你不需要很严肃，你可以随意地使用这个符号～～～而且数量也是随意的～～&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[In fact ~ you can put this symbol freely if you are not so serious ~~~ and the number of waves is not strict ~~]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Not in standard, but considered formal]&lt;/strong&gt; Illustrating the continuation of the voice (suggesting the cadence of the voice). &lt;em&gt;Usually&lt;/em&gt;, it is used in the double wave form taking place of two characters, i.e. &lt;code&gt;～～&lt;/code&gt;, and is written vertically middle of a line. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喂～～ [Hey~~]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though this usage isn't listed in the official standard, interestingly, in the famous primary school's text, Lu Xun's &lt;code&gt;《从百草园到三味书屋》&lt;/code&gt;, there is a sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;铁如意，指挥倜傥，一座皆惊呢～～；金叵罗，颠倒淋漓噫，千杯未醉嗬～～&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in some other essays and novels&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大男孩的胳膊给老妇人抱住，不能取那翡翠簪儿，“哇～～”突然哭起来了。（叶圣陶《夜》）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“咳～～开～～啦！”桩家揭开盒子盖，也是汗流满面的唱。（鲁迅《阿Q正传》）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can call it &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B1%A1%E8%81%B2%E8%99%9F&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;象声号&lt;/a&gt; (《标点符号使用手册》 has included this usage). So, as many famous writers use &lt;code&gt;～～&lt;/code&gt; in their works, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;considering it informal may be controversial.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Not in standard, but undoubtedly formal]&lt;/strong&gt; Standing for the mentioned character &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;in a dictionary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (seen in most &lt;strong&gt;authoritative dictionaries&lt;/strong&gt;, like &lt;code&gt;新华字典&lt;/code&gt;). In &lt;a href=&quot;http://cn.chiculture.net/0609/html/a02/0609a02_04.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;some reference&lt;/a&gt;, it is called &lt;code&gt;代替号&lt;/code&gt;(replacement symbol). This &lt;em&gt;should be&lt;/em&gt; a formal usage, but I don't know why the standard hasn't included it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;省 shěng  ㄕㄥˇ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;地方行政区域：～份。～会。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Standard Usage&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The standard usage of this punctuation is a connective, called &lt;code&gt;浪纹&lt;/code&gt;(wave symbol). See the standard &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sasac.gov.cn/n1180/n1271/n6716920/n6716950/n6723785/6723901.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《中华人民共和国国家标准标点符号用法》&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.13 连接号&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.13.1 连接号的形式为“－”，占一个字的位置，连接号还有另外三种形式，即长横“－－”（占两个字的位置）、半字线“-”（占半个字的位置）和 &lt;strong&gt;浪纹&lt;/strong&gt; “～”（占一个字的位置）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;亩产1000公斤～1500公斤 [&lt;strong&gt;from&lt;/strong&gt; 1000 kilograms &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; 1500 kilograms]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT1: definition of &quot;formal&quot; and the very informal usage&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for @fefe's comment. To make it more clear, let me clarify the &lt;em&gt;definition of formal&lt;/em&gt; in this answer here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &lt;code&gt;formal&lt;/code&gt; in this answer means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;grammatically formal in punctuation&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, but &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;NOT suggesting wording or phrasing formal&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the non-standard usage,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Case 3: It's the de facto standard in Chinese dictionaries. Personally I cannot imagine saying &quot;this punctuation in dictionaries is informal&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Case 2: the punctuation &quot;illustrates&quot; the continuation of the voice, so that is to say, you were writing some voice in your works. Such a sentence is usually in a colloquial circumstance, so to this extent, the whole sentence is &quot;informal&quot;. However, it's related to the wording and phrasing, but not the punctuation itself. So I said the punctuation is still grammatically formal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's go further ~~ I think this topic would be related and interesting ~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the Internet, people aren't so aware of the grammar. Or, we can even say, the netizens are creating new grammar, though there's a debate resulting in the rule that &lt;code&gt;you should not use the Internet grammar in your Chinese examinations&lt;/code&gt;. In fact, &lt;strong&gt;there is a much more informal usage of &lt;code&gt;~&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, which is so informal that I consider even not to list it in the non-standard usage list. It is widely used in emoticons in China and Japan. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;~~~^_^~~~ [laughing to tears. &lt;code&gt;~&lt;/code&gt; stands for tears.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(～ o ～)~zZ [sleeping. &lt;code&gt;~&lt;/code&gt; stands for closed eyes and the snore.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;~\ (≧▽≦) /~ [hooray! &lt;code&gt;~&lt;/code&gt; may stand for something waving in the hands.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT2: brief history of the establishment of punctuation standard&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;History of the official standard of modern punctuation in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1919&lt;/code&gt; Some renowned scholars (馬裕藻, 朱希祖, 錢玄同, 劉復, 周作人, and 胡適) submitted a proposal for promulgating the modern punctuation standard (《請頒行新式標點符號議案》).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1920&lt;/code&gt; The ministry of Education of the Northern Warlords government promulgated &lt;em&gt;Order for Adopting Modern Punctuation&lt;/em&gt; (《通令采用新式标点符号文》). It is the first standard for modern punctuation published in the form of law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1951&lt;/code&gt; The General Administration of Press of the PRC government promulgated &lt;em&gt;Usage of Punctuation&lt;/em&gt; (《标点符号用法》).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1990&lt;/code&gt; As the punctuation had changed a lot in the past forty years, Press and Publication Administration promulgated the revised version of &lt;em&gt;Usage of Punctuation&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1995&lt;/code&gt; State Bureau of Technical Supervision promulgated the &lt;em&gt;National Standard for the Usage of Punctuation&lt;/em&gt; (《中华人民共和国国家标准标点符号用法》 GB/T 15834-1995). On &lt;code&gt;June 1st, 1996&lt;/code&gt;, this standard was executed. It is the standard we are using today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Punctuation and language are changing gradually all the time. I personally believe there will be some day that some of the informal usage of &lt;code&gt;~&lt;/code&gt; will become formal standard ~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT3: &quot;Which tilde should I use?&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilde#Similar_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiki page of &quot;tilde&quot;&lt;/a&gt; points out there are many kinds of tildes. Because your browser may not correctly render all the characters on that page. I illustrate the table as a picture here (open it in a new page to see full size):&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WO0kU.png&quot; alt=&quot;tildes&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, according to the standard (providing the size and the position of the &lt;code&gt;浪纹&lt;/code&gt;), in formal text, you should use unicode &lt;code&gt;U+FF5E&lt;/code&gt;, i.e., &lt;code&gt;～&lt;/code&gt;. In informal usage, a simple tilde on the keyboard &lt;code&gt;U+007E&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. &lt;code&gt;~&lt;/code&gt;, is just OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-06-21T13:08:46.353" LastActivityDate="2013-06-21T13:08:46.353" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3252" CreationDate="2013-06-21T00:57:48.397" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;For correctness, question marks are always required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they redundant? Perhaps. If so, they are probably also redundant in English. (eg. &quot;how are you.&quot; is clearly intended as a question even without the question mark)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Ma&quot; turns statements into questions. Think about &quot;ma?&quot; as being similar to &quot;correct?&quot; in English. (eg. &quot;you like coffee, correct?&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2391" LastActivityDate="2013-06-21T00:57:48.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3257" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3258" CreationDate="2013-06-21T09:23:52.580" Score="7" ViewCount="8143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm planning on visiting Taiwan as a tourist for about one week next year. Both &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Taiwan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Taiwan#Talk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikivoyage&lt;/a&gt; say that Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese Hokkien are common languages there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What advantages and disadvantages do the two languages have? Is one language easier than the other for a lazy person who only wants to learn a few phrases? Are both of them tonal? How many sounds that don't exist in English are there in the two languages? Does Mandarin Chinese have more learning resources in English-speaking countries like Australia?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In my case, I'm a native speaker of English, and speak enough Japanese to get around as a tourist in Japan and have a little bit of a conversation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T02:12:23.320" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T02:12:23.320" Title="Difference between learning Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese Hokkien for visiting Taiwan" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;&lt;taiwanese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3257" CreationDate="2013-06-21T14:37:01.053" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're only going one week, just learn some Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advantages of learning Mandarin is that there are a lot of free resources, cheap and useful phrase books, and most people you will run into will understand Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been studying Minnanhua (spoken in Fujian and pretty much mutually intelligible with Taiwanese) for about a year and I struggle with a couple of main obstacles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The pronunciation is tough for English speakers. Lots of labial and glottal nonsense. I haven't counted the differences.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pinyin is tough to figure out and there are two camps, there is a Xiamen University pinyin which favors consonants, and Peh-oe-ji, which was invented by missionaries in Taiwan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are more tones than Mandarin. Also some tones rules are not clearly expressed (some tones are based on pronunciation, for example if it ends in &amp;lt;-n&gt;; &amp;lt;-m&gt;, &amp;lt;-ng&gt; then the word is tone 1)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Native speakers won't let me practice, they will often switch to Mandarin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a good trip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you can check out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pe%CC%8Dh-%C5%8De-j%C4%AB&quot;&gt;Peh-oe-ji&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkien_dialect&quot;&gt;Hokkien&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.learnhokkien.com/lesson_01.htm&quot;&gt;Learn Hokkien&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-06-23T14:14:32.893" LastActivityDate="2013-06-23T14:14:32.893" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3259" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3260" CreationDate="2013-06-21T17:07:03.993" Score="2" ViewCount="395" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference between when to use one or the other? Both translate directly to fire truck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2905" LastActivityDate="2013-06-25T11:10:53.813" Title="Difference between 消防车 and 救火车" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3259" CreationDate="2013-06-22T07:03:13.953" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an issue about &lt;strong&gt;书面语&lt;/strong&gt;(words that are used for writing articles) and &lt;strong&gt;口语&lt;/strong&gt; (words that are usually used in oral Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two words have the same meaning. However, 消防车 is more formal, it's used in most of the written materials. 救火车, on the other hand, is usually used in spoken Chinese, it's rarely used in formal documents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, 妻子 and 老婆 are both Chinese words for &quot;wife&quot;. 妻子 is 书面语 while 老婆 is 口语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2215" LastEditorUserId="2215" LastEditDate="2013-06-22T07:09:44.507" LastActivityDate="2013-06-22T07:09:44.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3257" CreationDate="2013-06-22T08:02:44.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One advantage of Mandarin is that (due to the massive number of speakers) it will be useful beyond the one week that you will be in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something else you might want to consider is learning a bit of both. With Hokkien being a dialect, progress you make with one may also extend to the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2391" LastActivityDate="2013-06-22T08:02:44.743" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3262" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-22T09:23:16.110" Score="3" ViewCount="193" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any initial consonants/syllables in modern Chinese dialects which are incompatible with some tones? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can certain tones occur only in certain syllables (that is, within open or close ones)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am referring mainly to 普通话 (or 華語), but any other dialect will do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2469" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-02T01:14:53.963" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T01:14:53.963" Title="Are there any initial consonants/syllables in modern Chinese dialects which are incompatible with some tones?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3252" CreationDate="2013-06-22T10:14:02.987" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In total, the “吗” is  &lt;strong&gt;one of usual question marks&lt;/strong&gt; , you can see more words like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;么 \ 什么  what do you want ？ （你想要什么）&#xA;嘛        shall we ?       ( 一起嘛？ ）&#xA;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and some words in the beginning of sentence, like, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么  what happened ! (or use  WTF in some context )   怎么会这样？？！！ (with surprise) &#xA;难道  He's a student, isn't he?     难道他不是学生吗？？    (a little guess, but more sure for his statement) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2906" LastActivityDate="2013-06-22T10:14:02.987" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3262" CreationDate="2013-06-23T14:33:06.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I understand your question is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When two characters have similar tones, like a third tone followed by a third tone, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你好 Nǐ hǎo&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin speakers tend to find it easier to say if they pronounce the first character as &lt;code&gt;second tone&lt;/code&gt;, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Ní hǎo&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or two &lt;code&gt;fourth tones&lt;/code&gt; will sound too harsh, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;不对 Bùduì&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;fourth tone&lt;/code&gt; on 不 will change to second tone for easier pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me know if I misunderstood your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-06-23T14:33:06.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3262" CreationDate="2013-06-23T16:45:46.527" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an example of this sort of phenomenon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Syllables that begin with unaspirated stops b, d, g, or affricates j, zh, z, and end in a nasal n or ng, as a rule don’t have second-tone forms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.info/news/2011/the-where-and-why-of-missing-second-tones/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;more extensive explanation of how this came about&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-06-23T16:45:46.527" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3266" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3268" CreationDate="2013-06-23T23:53:31.250" Score="8" ViewCount="590" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese (&lt;em&gt;Yale&lt;/em&gt; cha4), Mandarin (&lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt; chá) and Kan’yōon (cha) pronounciations of 茶 are similar to the Russian чай (&lt;em&gt;IPA&lt;/em&gt; t͡ɕaj) word for tea. Do these have a common origin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2799" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-06-26T23:47:48.843" LastActivityDate="2013-11-07T18:14:05.313" Title="Similar pronunciations of tea/茶 across languages" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3266" CreationDate="2013-06-24T07:56:23.993" Score="10" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Yep, they do&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can find on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea#The_word_.22tea.22&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the great and all knowing wiki&lt;/a&gt;, the word for tea in most languages comes from the Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Cognate to Min &lt;em&gt;tê&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English &lt;em&gt;tea&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish &lt;em&gt;te&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finnish and Estonian &lt;em&gt;tee&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;French &lt;em&gt;thé&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;German &lt;em&gt;Tee&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Greek &lt;em&gt;τέϊον&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hebrew &lt;em&gt;תה&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Indonesian and Malay &lt;em&gt;teh&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A great many others&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Cognate to Mandarin &lt;em&gt;chá&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Greek &lt;em&gt;τσάι&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Japanese ちゃ and さ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Korean 차&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kurdish &lt;em&gt;ça&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Punjabi چا / ਚਾਹ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Portuguese &lt;em&gt;chá&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Turkish &lt;em&gt;çay&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And others&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Cognate to Mandarin &lt;em&gt;chá&lt;/em&gt; via Persian:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Arabic شاي&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Czech &lt;em&gt;čaj&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Georgian ჩაი&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Greek &lt;em&gt;τσάι&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hindi चाय&#xA;Pashto چای&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Persian چای&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Romanian &lt;em&gt;ceai&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Russian &lt;em&gt;чай&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Turkish and Turkmen &lt;em&gt;çay&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ukrainian &lt;em&gt;чай&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Urdu چائے&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Others&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's some double counting going on here, but I'm just copying from their list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an interesting map showing the etymology of various words for &amp;quot;tea&amp;quot; in Europe. &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/atJPu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Etymology map of words for &amp;quot;Tea&amp;quot; in Europe&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-11-07T18:14:05.313" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3199" CreationDate="2013-06-25T04:42:06.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, our name is used as our mark to identify.&#xA;If your name owns a rare character, it makes others (friends around you) hardly recognize and called.  The simple things just goes unfriendly. &#xA;Although, I admit it is a cool idea, but not easy to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, you can try your best to figure it out -- a perfect name using other easy-read words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, as a newly father, the name-thing almost killed me.  (一航 is my final decision for my boy ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2906" LastActivityDate="2013-06-25T04:42:06.483" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3259" CreationDate="2013-06-25T11:10:53.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think they are same thing in most situations. But,  in particular time ,the “消防车” ' range are bigger.   In use,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;救火车&quot; the name is called, for its reason -- directly to put off fire. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;消防车&quot; is not only to do that, they can be used in other disaster situation, such as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Earth Quake&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Flood &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, we called &quot;119&quot; as &quot;火警&quot; when fire happens. But now, we call &quot;119&quot; for more difficulties : stuck in somewhere, lost, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2906" LastActivityDate="2013-06-25T11:10:53.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3271" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3299" CreationDate="2013-06-25T12:49:24.670" Score="5" ViewCount="984" Body="&lt;p&gt;nciku.com states that 起码 is an adjective meaning &quot;minimum&quot; and 至少 is an adverb meaning at least； but the examples seem to use both words interchangeably.  Is one more colloquial than the other? Or is one used only for numerical amounts( It should cost at least $10) and the other for concepts/situations such as &quot;At least the bus isn't late&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T19:58:28.470" Title="What is the difference between 起码 and 至少？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3271" CreationDate="2013-06-25T14:22:58.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are almost the same and are interchangeble in most circumstances. Maybe the only difference is that &quot;至少&quot; is more formal than &quot;起码” and is more common in written expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2935" LastEditorUserId="938" LastEditDate="2013-06-26T07:24:47.993" LastActivityDate="2013-06-26T07:24:47.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3271" CreationDate="2013-06-25T14:37:11.180" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 起碼 and 至少 mean &quot;minimum&quot; and &quot;least&quot;. They both can be used either as adjectives or as adverbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最起碼 is valid, but because 至 means 最. 最至少 is invalid (just like &quot;the least least&quot; and  &quot;the most least&quot; are invalid).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至少 has a rarely-used meaning of &quot;very less&quot;, which can not be replaced by 起碼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至少 is a little more formal than 起碼. But in the legal documents, 以上 (&quot;equals to or more than&quot;) is more widely used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2927" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-06-26T18:58:36.670" LastActivityDate="2013-06-26T18:58:36.670" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3302" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3304" CreationDate="2013-06-25T22:58:26.557" Score="4" ViewCount="2295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw the phrase Koi no yokan described on the website: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hightowerflashes.com/untranslateablewords.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;High Tower Flashes&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Japanese phrase means a feeling that you will fall in love with someone, which is different from love at first sight. I don't know if there is an exact equivalent in English (&quot;premonition of love&quot;?), but I would be a bit surprised if there was no Chinese equivalent. Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-08-01T00:12:08.380" LastActivityDate="2020-08-01T00:12:08.380" Title="The Chinese equivalent phrase of 恋の予感" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3302" CreationDate="2013-06-26T00:22:32.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is an exact counterpart for this phrase in Chinese. A few similar ones come to my mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Describe 爱情 (love) or 缘分 (chemistry) with 命中注定 (fated), e.g. 命中注定的爱情 (predestined love), 命中注定的缘分 (preordained love luck).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走桃花运 or 命犯桃花 (blessed by peach blossom) means someone is in a lucky streak for love affairs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;真命天子/真命天女 (Heaven ordained lad/lass) means Mr./Ms. Right.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since there are more and more imported words from Japan, simply using 恋之预感 as a Chinese phrase can be understood by a lot of people. Actually this usage already took place in pop song lyrics as well as internet fictions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-06-26T00:22:32.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3302" CreationDate="2013-06-26T04:02:11.907" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will explain this in another view point :-) And I think it's better to put my conclusion first: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;恋爱的预感&lt;/code&gt; or just &lt;code&gt;恋之预感&lt;/code&gt; is a perfect translation in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, let's consider this interesting question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Why is it said to be untranslatable in English?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Koi No Yokan (Japanese):&lt;/strong&gt; Koi No Yokan is a truly beautiful concept. It can defined &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;the sense&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; can have upon first meeting another person that the two of them are going to fall in love. In other words, it is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;the knowledge&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; one has that he/she is going to fall in love with another person. This differs from the idea “love at first sight” in that &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;it does not imply that the feeling of love exists, rather it refers to the knowledge that a future love is inevitable.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the essentials of the concept of &lt;code&gt;恋の予感&lt;/code&gt; are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It should be a subjective sense, or, intuitive knowledge, about the future. So the word or phrase for &lt;code&gt;予感&lt;/code&gt; should be neutral -- it implies neither good future nor bad future.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It should precisely describe the delicate situation that you know the love happens in the future but not at present.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, in both Japanese and Chinese, &lt;code&gt;恋&lt;/code&gt; is not equal to &lt;code&gt;愛&lt;/code&gt;. In Japanese, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/71244/m0u/%E6%81%8B/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;恋&lt;/a&gt; is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;特定の異性に強くひかれること。また、切ないまでに深く思いを寄せること。恋愛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;a thing that one is attracted by another special person of the opposite sex, and thinking of him/her very deeply&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. And in Chinese, it is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;慕也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;feeling attached to, or being reluctant to part&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. So, the meaning of &lt;code&gt;恋&lt;/code&gt; can be considered the same in Japanese and Chinese. Intuitively speaking, &lt;code&gt;恋&lt;/code&gt; is an immature kind of love, green but beautiful. For example, &lt;code&gt;恋人(こいびと)&lt;/code&gt; is not &lt;strong&gt;lover&lt;/strong&gt; (愛人) but rather &lt;strong&gt;boy/girl friend&lt;/strong&gt; (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/srch/je/%E6%81%8B%E4%BA%BA/m0u/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;goo辞書&lt;/a&gt;). It reflects one aspect of the eastern culture: being veiled to the emotion of love.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Thus, for Chinese,&lt;/strong&gt; there isn't any culture barrier in the meanings of 恋 or 予感, besides, 恋爱的预感/恋之预感 makes sense in Chinese. So I said, 恋爱的预感/恋之预感 is a perfect translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For English,&lt;/strong&gt; I found one translation on &lt;a href=&quot;http://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E6%81%8B%E3%81%AE%E4%BA%88%E6%84%9F&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Weblio英語表現辞典&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;presentiment of a romance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would be better than &quot;premonition of love&quot; because it takes Point 3 into consideration. But still, I find presentiment/premonition is often associated to unpleasant future. Maybe &lt;code&gt;sixth sense&lt;/code&gt; is a better phrase, though it's informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I check through the &lt;em&gt;Roget's International Thesaurus&lt;/em&gt; for &lt;strong&gt;premonition&lt;/strong&gt;, and find these entries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;premonition, presentiment; hunch, feeling in one's bones ... [generally implying something unpleasant, or being informal]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;foreboding, apprehension, misgiving ... [implying something bad]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;omen, portent, augury, symptom ... [they are not &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;subjective sense&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;harbinger, forerunner, precursor, herald ... [not &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;subjective sense&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; either]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ominousness, portentousness, portent ... [something bad]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;inauspiciousness, unpropitiousness, unfavorableness ... [something bad]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;auspiciousness, propitiousness, favorableness ... [something good]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems difficult to find a neutral and subjective and formal word to state 予感/预感 :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-06-26T04:21:21.863" LastActivityDate="2013-06-26T04:21:21.863" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3305" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-26T23:51:56.423" Score="7" ViewCount="1346" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard this mentioned about someones name recently. Can someone explain the meaning and any connotations of &quot;土&quot; in the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个名字有点土&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T00:57:13.720" Title="What does 土 mean in this sentence 这个名字有点土?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3305" CreationDate="2013-06-27T00:15:28.410" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;土 has serveral meanings, one of which is 不合潮流 (out of the swim, out of fashion, out of step, old-fashioned, etc.). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in your example, 土 means old-fashioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess it is because the core meaning of 土 is earth or dirt, which we can't say is fancy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-06-27T00:15:28.410" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3305" CreationDate="2013-06-27T05:02:32.580" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;土 has the meaning of &quot;indigenous&quot;, as in phrases such as 土生土长, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/sinograms.html?q=%E5%9C%9F&quot;&gt;as opposed to 洋&lt;/a&gt;. There should be plenty of evidence for this definition; nowadays this definition is usually seen in phrases, such as 土货.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My impression is that the &quot;unrefined&quot; meaning may have appeared in more recent decades, as indigenous culture seemed unsophisticated compared to imported culture. However this is all speculation; I can't find an authoritative etymological source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find much more info on &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/9417.html&quot;&gt;Xinhua Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;. It has some interesting translations for 土 in the &quot;unrefined&quot; sense, under the colloquial phrase 土包子: clodhopper;bumpkin;barkwoodsman;boor;dott;yokel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-06-27T05:02:32.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3308" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3309" CreationDate="2013-06-27T12:45:28.080" Score="4" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;When referring to a previously mentioned object, such as a computer (一台电脑）, do you say 这个/那个 or 这台/那台?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. does the measure word used in 这个/那个 depend on the object, or is it always the generic 个?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2977" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-01T00:09:50.210" LastActivityDate="2020-08-01T00:09:50.210" Title="When referring to a previously mentioned object, such as a computer 一台电脑, do you say 这个/那个 or 这台/那台?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3308" CreationDate="2013-06-27T13:14:15.457" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;个 is a generic identifier for all objects. 这 and 那, as you know, are just specifiers for &lt;code&gt;this&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;that&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if you know the specific measure word for the object you're trying to describe, you should use it. It makes you sound more fluent/mature... you'll often hear kids in China use 个 for everything...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like, 这条鱼 (Zhè tiáo yú) sounds much better than 这个鱼 (Zhège yú)... people will understand you regardless, but it's just how you want to come off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like in English, you could &lt;code&gt;a bunch&lt;/code&gt; to describe everything... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A bunch of fish&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A bunch of birds&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A bunch of books&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we learn how to refine how we talk:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A school of fish&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A flock of birds&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A stack of books&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-06-27T13:14:15.457" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3305" CreationDate="2013-06-28T01:15:43.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence &quot;这个名字有点土!&quot; , the &quot;土&quot; mean antiquated, no trend, ancient, not fashion. This sentence can also be said &quot;这个名字有点老土!&quot;, which is more formal, but also easier to understand.The word &quot;土&quot; 's mean here is not the same with &quot;土包子&quot;,&quot;土货&quot;. In the words &quot;土包子&quot; , the &quot;土&quot; mean someone who have not seen the big world, more formal argument is &quot;乡巴佬&quot;. In the words &quot;土货&quot;, the &quot;土&quot; mean local product, native produce, more formal argument is &quot;土特产&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2979" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T01:15:43.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3312" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-28T07:01:57.630" Score="1" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the song &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&amp;amp;v=-IWoful2Nqo#t=73s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;千山萬水 at 1:13&lt;/a&gt;, the subtitles for the lyrics show 挟带, however, the word was pronunced as  jiādài instead of xiédài.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MDBG lists &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%A4%B9%E5%B8%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;夹带&lt;/a&gt;'s pronunciation as jiādài, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%8C%9F%E5%B8%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;挟带&lt;/a&gt;'s pronunciation as xiédài.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can 挟带 be pronunced as jiādài? Or is the lyrics/pronunciation wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2533" LastActivityDate="2013-06-30T04:14:47.513" Title="Can 挟带 be pronunced as jiādài?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3312" CreationDate="2013-06-28T07:22:29.217" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient Chinese, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/631F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;挟&lt;/a&gt; can be used as 夹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;挟（挾）jiā ㄐㄧㄚˉ ◎ 古同“夹”，从物体两边钳住。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in Taiwan, &lt;code&gt;挾&lt;/code&gt; has a pronunciation jiá (note that it's &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; jiā). So, the lyrics/pronunciation cannot be considered wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS&lt;/strong&gt; Thanks for NS.X.'s pointing out that &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;you cannot freely choose the pronunciation of a polyphonic character, it should depend on the context&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. That is correct, and I am sorry if I had misled anyone for my unclear statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That I said such pronunciation jiádài (Taiwanese) &lt;em&gt;cannot be considered wrong&lt;/em&gt;, is because the persons who use jiádài may argue like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(Possible Argument for jiádài)&lt;/strong&gt; The 挾 is an interchangeable character of 夾, though it's in ancient Chinese, I can use 挾帶 as 夾帶 without &lt;em&gt;being wrong&lt;/em&gt; because modern dictionaries still list &lt;code&gt;挾jiá&lt;/code&gt;(note that again in mainland China it is &lt;code&gt;挟jiā&lt;/code&gt;) as one entry. And, 夾帶 has meaning &lt;code&gt;夾雜&lt;/code&gt;(be mixed up with), so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;the lyric &lt;code&gt;夢想夾帶眼淚&lt;/code&gt; can be interpreted as a metaphor &quot;dreams are mixed up with tears&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;in the news, &lt;code&gt;颱風夾帶暴雨前進&lt;/code&gt; can be interpreted as &quot;the typhoon mixed up with rainstorms is moving forward&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;They both make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, it would be a little indiscreet to say it's wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;EDIT&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for QuestionOverflow's brilliant question! I study the pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;挟带(挾帶)&lt;/code&gt; for a while, and here's &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;my conclusion&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;In Taiwan, the pronunciations of &lt;code&gt;挾&lt;/code&gt; are &lt;strong&gt;xié, xiá, or jiá&lt;/strong&gt;. The formal pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;挾帶&lt;/code&gt; should be xiédài, or xiádài (preferred). However, the not-so-formal pronunciation jiádài can be commonly heard in TV weather reports.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;In mainland China, the pronunciations of &lt;code&gt;挟&lt;/code&gt; are &lt;strong&gt;xié or jiā&lt;/strong&gt;. The formal pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;挟带&lt;/code&gt; should be only xiédài.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Literature Evidence&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Case 2, the answer can be easily found in the authoritative dictionaries 《现代汉语词典》 or 《新华字典》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Case 1 is much more complex, because there are many dictionaries in Taiwan and it's difficult to tell which one is the most authoritative. Here, I would consider the &lt;code&gt;中華民國教育部 重編國語辭典修訂本&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised2.moe.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;online&lt;/a&gt;) as the most authoritative one. In that dictionary, the entries for &lt;code&gt;挾&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;挾帶&lt;/code&gt; are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pronunciation xié.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;挾&lt;/strong&gt; 部首　手　部首外筆畫　7　總筆畫　10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;注音一式① ㄒ｜ㄝˊ&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;漢語拼音① xié&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【動】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;夾在腋下、懷夾。國語˙齊語：「時雨既至，挾其槍、刈、耨、鎛，以旦暮從事於田野。」孟子˙梁惠王上：「挾太山以超北海。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;從旁箝夾。文選˙王粲˙登樓賦：「挾清漳之通浦兮，倚曲沮之長洲。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;脅持。如：「要挾」。三國志˙卷三十五˙蜀書˙諸葛亮傳：「挾天子而令諸侯。」水滸傳˙第三十六回：「若是如此來挾我，只是逼宋江性命，我自不如死了。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;持握、持有。戰國策˙趙策四：「位尊而無功，奉厚而無勞，而挾重器多也。」楚辭˙屈原˙九歌˙國殤：「帶長劍兮挾秦弓，首身離兮心不懲。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;倚仗、倚持。如：「挾恃」。孟子˙萬章下：「不挾長，不挾貴。」清˙洪昇˙長生殿˙第三十齣：「況且弟兄姊妹挾勢弄權，罪惡滔天。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;夾帶、夾雜。宋˙辛棄疾˙浣溪沙˙梅子熟時到幾回詞：「晚雲挾雨喚歸來。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;懷藏、隱藏。如：「挾怨」。漢書˙卷五十六˙董仲舒傳：「秦繼其後，獨不能改，又益甚之，重禁文學，不得挾書。」元˙關漢卿˙望江亭˙第二折：「挾這讎氣，朦朧奏過聖人，要標取我的首級。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pronunciation xiá. &lt;code&gt;①之又音&lt;/code&gt; means it is another acceptable formal pronunciation under the usage of case ①.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;挾&lt;/strong&gt; 部首　手　部首外筆畫　7　總筆畫　10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;注音一式② （又音）ㄒ｜ㄚˊ&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;漢語拼音② （又音）xiá&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;①之又音。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pronunciation jiá.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;挾&lt;/strong&gt; 部首　手　部首外筆畫　7　總筆畫　10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;注音一式③ ㄐ｜ㄚˊ&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;漢語拼音③ jiá&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【動】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;通達。詩經˙大雅˙大明：「天位殷適，使不挾四方。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;夾取。通「夾」。莊子˙駢拇：「問臧奚事，則挾策讀書。」舊五代史˙卷一二七˙周書˙盧文紀傳：「旭旦以箸挾之，首得文紀之名。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【形】 周匝、周遍。荀子˙禮論：「於是其中焉方皇周挾，曲得其次序，是聖人也。」楊倞˙注：「浹，匝也。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;挾帶&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;xié dài&lt;/code&gt; with the meaning &quot;carry&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夾持攜帶。如：「歹徒挾帶毒品闖關，被海關緝查人員當場查獲。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;攜挾帶&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;xī jiá dài&lt;/code&gt; with the meaning &quot;cheating in an examination&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;考試作弊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, consider the meaning of &lt;code&gt;挾帶&lt;/code&gt; in the context of weather report, formally, it should be pronounced as &lt;code&gt;xiédài&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;xiádài&lt;/code&gt;(preferred) in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Why xiádài is preferred in Taiwan&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find an article written by Prof. Pei-Jung Huang (Dept. of Chinese language and literature, National Taiwan University) on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesewaytogo.org/teachers_corner/expert/twoshore/twoshore.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this website&lt;/a&gt;. It mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;根據臺灣《國語一字多音審定表》（教育部出版）及大陸《普通話四讀詞審音表釋例》，兩岸的字音差異頗多，茲舉十例如下：[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;二、聲母、韻母或聲調不同的：（前面是臺灣讀音，後面是大陸讀音）[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;21．挾持、挾制、挾帶（ㄒㄧㄚˊ／ㄒㄧㄝˊ）  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is to say, &lt;code&gt;xiádài&lt;/code&gt; is preferred in Taiwan, according to the official document 臺灣《國語一字多音審定表》. And in the &lt;code&gt;國語小字典&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.mini.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/gdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=3F9ps2&amp;amp;o=sjmpage&amp;amp;jmpage=1&amp;amp;ckmod=50&amp;amp;searchq=word%3D%22%E6%8C%BE%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;挾&lt;/a&gt; is only given the pronunciation xiá.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【挾】手-7-10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;注音    ㄒ｜ㄚˊ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1)   用手臂夾在腋下。如：「挾帶」。&#xA;  (2) 以威勢壓迫。如：「挾持」、「挾制」、「要挾」、「挾天子以令諸侯」。&#xA;  (3) 暗藏於心。如：「挾怨」、「挾嫌」、「挾恨」、「挾隙」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Distinction between 挟带(挾帶) and 携带(攜帶)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/f/7e/133081.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;挟带&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;携带；混杂在他物中秘密携带。 宋 梅尧臣 《和王仲仪咏瘿二十韵》：“挟带岁月深，冒犯风霜冷；厌恶虽自知，剖割且谁肯。” 清 富察敦崇 《燕京岁时记·黄花鱼》：“京师三月有黄花鱼，即石首鱼。初次到京时，由 崇文门 监督照例呈进，否则为私货。虽有挟带而来者，不敢卖也。”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;谓以强力带着。 王愿坚 《普通劳动者》：“一阵疾风挟带着沙土扑过，大白点子雨急骤地撒落下来，打在沙土上。”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;犹夹杂，带有。 鲁迅 《坟·从胡须说到牙齿》：“其中大半是因为他们耽误了我的父亲的病的缘故罢，但怕也很挟带些切肤之痛的自己的私怨。”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/8b/151635.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;携带&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[carry;bring;take along]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;随身带着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;携带行李&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;经受或容许以特定方式带&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;易于携带的负载&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[pack]∶作为部分经常装备佩带&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[wear]∶手里拿着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;携带一根手杖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, though they have similar meanings, &lt;code&gt;携带&lt;/code&gt; can be only used to describe such an action or a status of humans, or, of something that is compared to humans in a metaphor. &lt;code&gt;挟带&lt;/code&gt; emphasizes more about the action than the status, and can be used for anything/anybody. The phrase &lt;code&gt;挟带暴雨&lt;/code&gt; is Case 2 of &lt;code&gt;挟带&lt;/code&gt; in the explanations above, meaning &quot;carrying (the rainstorm) with strong force&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Video Material Evidence for the Formal Pronunciation xiádài in Taiwan&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cwb.gov.tw/V7/media/video/edu_video6.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;One official introductory video about typhoon&lt;/a&gt; made by the &lt;strong&gt;Central Weather Bureau of Taiwan&lt;/strong&gt;. 挾帶 is pronounced as xiádài at 0:05-0:06.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;颱風是源自於熱帶海洋上的劇烈天氣系統，會挾帶(xiádài)著狂風及豪雨前進 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ap.ntdtv.com/b5/20130518/video/109427.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;A piece of weather news&lt;/a&gt; made by New Tang Dynasty Asia Pacific TV. 挾帶 is pronounced as xiádài at around 0:05.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwwdAZKLpW8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;A piece of Apple Daily news in Taiwan&lt;/a&gt;. 挾(帶) is pronounced as xiá at 0:00.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;挾1500毫米暴雨 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Not-So-Formal Examples of jiádài&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONcmt4TIalc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONcmt4TIalc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Around 0:05. 明天起將挾帶暴雨侵台&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iREbExawzeQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iREbExawzeQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0:08-0:12 其中，西半部依然挾帶豐沛水汽進入台灣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03_2kam1MrY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03_2kam1MrY&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0:24-0:28 天秤颱風從東部登陸台灣，挾帶著強風豪雨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-06-30T04:14:47.513" LastActivityDate="2013-06-30T04:14:47.513" CommentCount="9" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-06-30T04:07:58.200" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3181" CreationDate="2013-06-28T08:07:59.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think those sentence can be &quot;completion&quot; to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你是哪一天出生的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;你　　 &lt;em&gt;是&lt;/em&gt; 哪一天出生 　　　&lt;em&gt;的&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;人&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们什么时候开始的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;我们　 &lt;em&gt;是&lt;/em&gt; 什么时候开始 &lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;　&lt;em&gt;的&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;这件事&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;前天你什么时候来的这里？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;前天你 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;是&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 什么时候来　　 　&lt;em&gt;的&lt;/em&gt; 这里？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;前天&quot; means a time, now we can ignore it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;X &lt;b&gt;是&lt;/b&gt; Y &lt;b&gt;的&lt;/b&gt; Z&#xA;Which means&#xA;X is one of Z, but a &quot;special&quot; Z, that can be describe by Y.&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;草*&lt;em&gt;是&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;绿色&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;的&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;草&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;是&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;绿色&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;的&lt;/em&gt;*&lt;em&gt;植物&lt;/em&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grass 是 green 的 plant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grass is one of plants, And it is green.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The grass is green &lt;em&gt;plant&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;of course, &quot;grass&quot; is a &quot;plant&quot;, 草 is a 植物, so&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The grass is green.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  Every Y part can be remove:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;草是植物。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grass is a plant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Y part can be a question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;草是什么颜色的？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;草是什么颜色的*植物*？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grass 是 what color 的 plant?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grass is one of plants, And what color of it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What color is the &lt;em&gt;plant&lt;/em&gt; grass.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What color is the grass.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All your 3 sentences is Past Tense.&#xA;but these pattern can also use in “Present Tense”(or some others?), as my example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2980" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T08:07:59.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2580" CreationDate="2013-06-28T08:26:28.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't align them to a gird!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Becouse you can't put punctuations in front of a line, just like in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the spacing between chars must adjust dynamically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;of course you have several ways to write every line with same length, but... these is a game... not government reports.. right? :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ALL Chinese characters has the same width (Full with).&#xA;Chinese monospaced fonts means “monospace english font + extra chinese character”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr/&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;EDIT&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in english, monospace means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'A','W' don't have same width when writng on &lt;strong&gt;paper&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When using these &lt;strong&gt;font&lt;/strong&gt;, 'A' and 'W' has same width on &lt;strong&gt;screen&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in chinese, everything is &quot;same width&quot;, &lt;strong&gt;but latin letters and digits inside chinese sentence&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Normal&quot; way, everything align well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dZUOC.png&quot; alt=&quot;normal&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Justified align&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the first line &lt;strong&gt;stretched&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c4cp4.png&quot; alt=&quot;align just&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left align&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; the normal why of showing chinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tjXKp.png&quot; alt=&quot;align left&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;digits inside&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Most sentence has this form, and you can't change formatting behavior in most computer program&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;left align not recommend&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cLZVb.png&quot; alt=&quot;half width&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;also&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a &lt;strong&gt;big&lt;/strong&gt; paragraph with many many un-align line is &lt;strong&gt;ugly&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you may want to split paragraph. (text align will be &quot;force&quot; reset)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2980" LastEditorUserId="2980" LastEditDate="2013-08-23T04:46:52.510" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T04:46:52.510" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3316" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3317" CreationDate="2013-06-28T15:36:50.313" Score="7" ViewCount="7794" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just heard &quot;去你的头&quot; in a joke, and while it sounds like an approving &quot;go ahead&quot; OR &quot;go with your head/what you think&quot; I realized at the end of the joke it's kind of an equivalent of &quot;go f*** yourself&quot; in English.  Can someone confirm this is what it means. What are some other sayings that are similar to this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2639" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-07-10T06:51:11.057" LastActivityDate="2020-09-26T16:56:48.673" Title="Meaning of &quot;去你的头&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3316" CreationDate="2013-06-28T16:05:03.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it's not the entire phrase 去你的头... &lt;code&gt;去你的&lt;/code&gt; alone roughly means f*** you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though you should be learning more useful phrases... here are some more ambiguous favorites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Numbers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三八(n) san1 ba1: stupid, foolish (typically used to describe a naive, ditsy female&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;二百五 er4 bai3 wu3: stupid, idiot&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From stories:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;猪八戒 zhu ba jie4: fat, pig-like (Pig character from Journey to the West)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冷 leng2: boring, lame... like 冷笑话 = boring joke (lit: cold)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;臭屁 chou4 pi: arrogant, show off (lit: smelly fart)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;闪啊 shan3 a: kind of like a  &quot;get outta town...&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;妈的: ma de: Damnit! (lit: mom's thing)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll try to think of more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T16:05:03.303" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3318" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3319" CreationDate="2013-06-29T10:47:29.713" Score="2" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could somebody help me identify these two characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4VXD9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of the first one should be &quot;point&quot; or something similar, the second one looks to me like a combination of 月 and 爭, but I couldn't find it anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2983" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T14:16:21.353" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T14:16:21.353" Title="Can somebody identify these characters? (Characters identified: 㸃㬹)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3318" CreationDate="2013-06-29T11:11:12.417" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ipfNF.png&quot; alt=&quot;點&quot;&gt; is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/29/kx/9EDE.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;點&lt;/a&gt; (point). It's just written in a special &quot;font&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e3un6.png&quot; alt=&quot;㬹&quot;&gt; is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/10/kx/3B39.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;㬹&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 康熙字典, it is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LVQrG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; 《集韻》《類篇》甾莖切，音爭。足跟筋也。&#xA;  又《集韻》側杏切。義同。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means &lt;code&gt;足跟筋也&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. tendon in the heel. It is pronounced as &lt;code&gt;zhēng&lt;/code&gt;. Now it's seldom seen in Mandarin Chinese, but in spoken Cantonese, it's still widely and informally used (pronunciation &lt;code&gt;zaang1&lt;/code&gt;). For example, &lt;code&gt;脚㬹&lt;/code&gt;(heel), &lt;code&gt;高㬹鞋&lt;/code&gt;(high-heeled shoes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-06-29T12:22:14.143" LastActivityDate="2013-06-29T12:22:14.143" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3320" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-29T12:26:33.170" Score="3" ViewCount="1234" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching a Chinese show today, where they said '蛮舒服'. Since I've never heard 蛮 before I looked it up, and the dictionary tells me that 蛮 is only used as 'quite' in dialect. Now my question is, where?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2493" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:21:04.363" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:21:04.363" Title="Where is 蛮 used, as in the meaning of 'quite'?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3320" CreationDate="2013-06-30T04:46:29.827" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have said, 蛮 is not exactly dialectal. Most Chinese speakers would understand what you mean if you use it to mean &quot;quite.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it should be noted that it is colloquial--it shows up in spoken Chinese but rarely in print, hence your discovery of it on a Chinese TV show. In fact, some native Chinese speakers will confuse 蛮 with 满 when asked to write the word down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastActivityDate="2013-06-30T04:46:29.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3320" CreationDate="2013-06-30T07:03:43.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I lived in 江苏 and 上海. I used it in preference to 很 (I also used 好 in preference to 很). I certainly don't know the total geographical reach, but it's very common at least in the areas I was living.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-06-30T07:03:43.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3316" CreationDate="2013-06-30T15:25:27.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's usually used among friends, when A told a joke or B laughed at somebody, you can use &quot;去你的” as a response.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean &quot;f*** you&quot; is a little bit strong tongue. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can take it as &quot; Come on~ &quot; &quot; You are joking &quot; ...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some similar phrase: &lt;strong&gt;少来了（not serious)&lt;/strong&gt;；*&lt;em&gt;你说笑呢（you're joking)&lt;/em&gt;* ;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;一边儿去（get away from me)&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS : there is a different context, when argue happens. It means &quot;f**k off&quot;  &quot;get out &quot;.  (Chinese: 滚蛋)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2906" LastActivityDate="2013-06-30T15:25:27.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3324" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3326" CreationDate="2013-06-30T20:04:49.140" Score="3" ViewCount="300" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always been curious about this: What is the grammatical reason for 的 at the end of these short responses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 這樣好嗎？&#xA;A: 好的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 你是美國人嗎？&#xA;A: 是的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 你會彈鋼琴嗎？&#xA;A: 會的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone shed some light on it for me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-31T05:02:41.227" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T05:02:41.227" Title="What is the grammatical reason for 的 at the end of short responses such as 好的, 是的 and 會的?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3324" CreationDate="2013-06-30T20:53:52.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 has different meanings, but in your examples, all three 的 are auxiliary words. In general, it should be located at the end of sentence, indicating a positive response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more info, please check online Chinese dict 汉典: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/js/7684.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/js/7684.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2986" LastActivityDate="2013-06-30T20:53:52.283" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3324" CreationDate="2013-07-01T02:53:38.170" Score="8" Body="&lt;h2&gt;的: positive response? Not exactly!&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The function of &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; is well stated in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/js/7684.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢典&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 . 助词，用在句末， &lt;strong&gt;表示肯定的语气&lt;/strong&gt; ，常与“是”相应：这句话是很对～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of a sentence, 的 is an auxiliary word, &lt;strong&gt;indicating a response with emphasized confidence&lt;/strong&gt;. It is often used in the &amp;quot;是……的&amp;quot; structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's not proper to literally translate &lt;code&gt;表示肯定的语气&lt;/code&gt; into &amp;quot;indicating a positive response&amp;quot;. That's because, although the example sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这句话是很对的。 This sentence is quite right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is a positive response, &lt;strong&gt;a negative response in the 是...的 structure perfectly make sense too&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这句话是不对的。 This sentence is not right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 是...的 structure has been well studied in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3181/why-is-%E7%9A%84-used-in-these-sentences&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;. See golddc and 孤影萍踪's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;的 in a short answer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Come back to OP's question. Indeed, when 的 is used in a short answer, it's generally a positive answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 你會彈鋼琴嗎？ A: 會的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Can you play piano? A: (Yes), I can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would rather say, this effect is related to psychology. Most of the time, we tend to be confident to give a positive response; however on the contrary, a negative response is seldom stated with confidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 你會彈鋼琴嗎？ A: 不會的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammar is perfect in this sentence, but it would sound like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Can you play piano? A: &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Of course&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; I can't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would feel such an answer sounds cynic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For a neutral question (I mean, whether a &amp;quot;yes&amp;quot; or a &amp;quot;no&amp;quot; answer won't be specially expected), a negative response with confidence is commonly used too&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q:他會來嗎？ A：不會的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Will he come? A: &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I'm sure&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; he won't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q:你是黨員嗎？ A:不是的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Are you a party member? A: &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Of course&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is grammatically perfect and sounds right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Conclusion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &lt;code&gt;肯定的语气&lt;/code&gt; is a little ambiguous. It can mean either &amp;quot;positive mood&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;confident mood&amp;quot;. In this auxiliary word 的 case, &lt;code&gt;肯定的语气&lt;/code&gt; is better to be considered as the &lt;strong&gt;confident mood&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-07-01T06:49:51.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="488" CreationDate="2013-07-01T08:57:50.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Full-disclosure: I am the founder of Chinese Tutor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The feedback might not be 100% what you are looking for, but this does listen to your voice and give an indication of how well you pronounced each part of a word/phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fastchinese.org/speaking&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Speaking - Chinese Tutor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note: Google Chrome required)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2391" LastActivityDate="2013-07-01T08:57:50.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3328" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3343" CreationDate="2013-07-02T09:03:08.543" Score="2" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;My dictionary, along with many websites I've checked translates 制作 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to make&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to manufacture&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What sorts of things may I 制作?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second definition of &quot;manufacture&quot; leads me to believe that, for example, &quot;I made new flash cards.&quot; /「我制作了新的词卡。」, is too small-scale a thing to be 制作'ed. I haven't found any examples at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese-Tools&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin Tools&lt;/a&gt; or in my dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2990" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:06:29.600" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:06:29.600" Title="What are appropriate objects of 制作?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3328" CreationDate="2013-07-02T12:43:41.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look here for a very full list of examples: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E5%88%B6%E4%BD%9C/1319727&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E5%88%B6%E4%BD%9C/1319727&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;制作&lt;/code&gt; is comparable to the English word &lt;code&gt;to make&lt;/code&gt;, as you can 制作 anything from cake to advertisements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2978" LastActivityDate="2013-07-02T12:43:41.650" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3330" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-03T01:58:16.623" Score="-2" ViewCount="1912" Body="&lt;p&gt;A dialect or rather a language. Of course, Mandarin is the most popular one. But nonetheless, in Hong Kong, for instance, Cantonese is more popular, it's almost the one Chinese language there and people don't speak Mandarin (at all?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other ones. And now I'm confused and can't start because I hesitate whether the language I want to learn will be useful and understood by Chinese people in many situations and countries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2992" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:20:46.523" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:20:46.523" Title="Which Chinese dialect is it rewarding to learn?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="14" ClosedDate="2013-07-04T01:06:18.457" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3330" CreationDate="2013-07-03T03:19:44.857" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hope this will help:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;From a % speakers/opportunity to practice perspective:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the world, 12.44% of the total population speaks Mandarin (obviously heavily skewed by China's massive population, but still 12.44% nonetheless), compared to 4.83% native English speakers, and a measly .89% Cantonese speakers. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In China, more than half of the population of 1.4 billion (53%) speaks Mandarin. And 66% of city residents speak Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, heavy majority Mandarin speakers (don't have %), some Hakka, some Taiwanese, and virtually no Cantonese presence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In typically majority-Cantonese population provinces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Guang Zhou: percent of Cantonese speakers has dropped below 50%, and Mandarin is on the rise.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong, majority of residents speak English and Cantonese, and many understand Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;From a learning perspective:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mandarin Chinese has 4 tones&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese has 6 tones&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's generally much easier for students to learn Mandarin over Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;From a future perspective:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Chinese government is trying to sell Mandarin as the basis for other dialects, and uses that in most government jobs and mandates it as a base language in schools. That being said, you'll most likely find Mandarin to overwhelmingly overtake Cantonese soon. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://yolearnchinese.com/archives/mandarin-or-cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://yolearnchinese.com/archives/mandarin-or-cantonese&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it depends on your goals...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know you want to work, live or study in Hong Kong, then learn Cantonese... But if your goal is to learn a language that you'll have many opportunities to use worldwide/in the business world, then Mandarin is the language to learn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-09-07T15:07:58.910" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T15:07:58.910" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3333" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3334" CreationDate="2013-07-03T09:43:49.820" Score="6" ViewCount="1634" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that both of these constructions create what is called a &quot;subordinate clause&quot;. I know that 的 can be used to specify something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我喜欢的东西 (those things which I like),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很远的地方 (the place which is far), and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跟他谈恋爱的人 (the person who he is dating)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it true that all these examples also work with &lt;code&gt;所...的&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does &lt;code&gt;所...的&lt;/code&gt; carry a connotation that is not present in &lt;code&gt;...的&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there circumstances where one is preferred to the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2990" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-07-05T01:47:27.257" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T11:06:13.510" Title="What's the difference between ...的 and 所...的" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3333" CreationDate="2013-07-03T11:06:45.693" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;所...的&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...的&lt;/code&gt; are &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;different&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Function of &lt;code&gt;...的&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you have already known, &lt;code&gt;...的&lt;/code&gt; can construct &lt;strong&gt;adjective clause&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(我喜欢)+的+东西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(subject + verb) + 的 + noun&lt;/strong&gt; = noun + &lt;strong&gt;which&lt;/strong&gt; + subject + verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in Chinese, the noun can be omitted in a clear context. In this case, &lt;code&gt;……的&lt;/code&gt; constructs a &lt;strong&gt;noun clause&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢的（人）是你。 Who I like is you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(subject + verb) + 的&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;what/who&lt;/strong&gt; + subject + verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Function of &lt;code&gt;所...的&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though it's not so obvious, the function of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/6240.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;所&lt;/a&gt; in &lt;code&gt;所...的&lt;/code&gt; is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.　用在动词前，与前面的“为”或“被”字相应，表示被动的意思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;所&lt;/code&gt; is put before a verb, corresponding to the previous &lt;code&gt;为&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;被&lt;/code&gt;, indicating &lt;strong&gt;passive voice&lt;/strong&gt;. (And &lt;code&gt;为/被&lt;/code&gt; is often omitted.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, many chinese verbs are either transitive or intransitive, so the sentences containing &lt;code&gt;...的&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;所...的&lt;/code&gt; often look alike.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爱的人 &lt;strong&gt;the person who I love&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(被)我所爱的人 &lt;strong&gt;[literal translation] the person who is loved by me&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我讨厌的是你。 &lt;strong&gt;Who I hate is you.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我所讨厌的是你。 &lt;strong&gt;[literal translation] (The person) who is hated by me is you.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Difference between them&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the difference between the two structures is &lt;strong&gt;whether it is passive voice or not&lt;/strong&gt;. In most cases, one can be reconstructed to another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: So, which one should I use in the xxx case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: It depends on personal choice. Just as you didn't said &lt;em&gt;which one should be used (by me) in the xxx case?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT: Some irreplaceable examples&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is preference in some situations. &lt;strong&gt;Some idioms can only be expressed in a unique voice (active or passive).&lt;/strong&gt; Though this meaning of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/6240.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;所&lt;/a&gt; &lt;code&gt;4. 用在动词前，代表接受动作的事物&lt;/code&gt; is listed as a single entry, in the grammar structure, it's actually the passive voice. So I include it in the passive-only case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Active-Only Examples&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(Right)&lt;/strong&gt; 天杀 &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; 政府 the goddamn government = [literal translation] the government which god should kill&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(Wrong)&lt;/strong&gt; 天 &lt;strong&gt;所&lt;/strong&gt; 杀 &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; 政府&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(Right)&lt;/strong&gt; 狗日 &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; 政府 the fxxking government = [literal translation] the government which dogs should fxxk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(Wrong)&lt;/strong&gt; 狗 &lt;strong&gt;所&lt;/strong&gt; 日 &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; 政府&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Passive-Only Example&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(Right)&lt;/strong&gt; 你 &lt;strong&gt;所&lt;/strong&gt; 谓 &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; 正义 your so-called justice = [literal translation] the justice which is called (only) by you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(Wrong)&lt;/strong&gt; 你谓 &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; 正义&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;谓&lt;/code&gt; is a special verb, so in the example above (well, I don't mean everywhere), it can only be in the passive voice. However, a character with the same meaning, &lt;code&gt;说&lt;/code&gt;, can be in either active or passive voice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;code&gt;你说的正义&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;你所说的正义&lt;/code&gt; are OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, idioms always need to be memorized mechanically. It's difficult to find an easy rule for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T09:51:44.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3336" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-03T14:56:31.383" Score="3" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is sort of a chicken and egg question. Before I started to think (maybe too much), I just assumed that Chinese characters had their own independent meaning and got chosen in certain compound words because of this, but maybe in some cases it's the other way around? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2493" LastEditorUserId="2493" LastEditDate="2013-07-03T16:24:31.060" LastActivityDate="2013-07-03T17:53:06.870" Title="Were the choice of characters in compound words based on their intrinsic meaning, or are their meaning derived from their use in compound words?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3330" CreationDate="2013-07-03T15:05:26.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only speak from my experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I suggest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are going to live in Hong Kong for a long time, learn Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise learn Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I started learning Mandarin back in the UK, but ended up living in Hong Kong for 3.5 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Through hard work my Mandarin has improved, but Hong Kong is not a good place to learn Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few reasons why this is the case;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hong Kong mandarin isn't native - you will learn a few cantonese pronunciation and vocabulary bad habits&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Language lessons are very expensive, and largely focused at business people&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese is much better if you want to fit in socially&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of all the other places I've spent time (Shenzhen, Shanghai, Taiwan, Singapore) unquestionably Mandarin is the right language to learn. But you should probably learn a little bit of the local dialect (Shanghainese in particular will open a few more doors)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you plan to stay in Hong Kong for just a short time (a year or so) then I'd also say Mandarin is the right way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depends on your life plans. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastActivityDate="2013-07-03T15:05:26.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3336" CreationDate="2013-07-03T15:20:36.317" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most compound words in Chinese appeared later on in the history of the language. In ancient Chinese, just about every single character had it's own meaning. Later on when the language started becoming more modern, many words became compound words to simplify the language by making it easier to differentiate homonyms and to make the language sound more fluid when spoken. I've had a teacher explain that Chinese people feel that characters sound more natural in pairs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know the exact history in how the compound words were created, but having studied some ancient Chinese, I can say that the individual characters came first :) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2978" LastEditorUserId="2978" LastEditDate="2013-07-03T17:53:06.870" LastActivityDate="2013-07-03T17:53:06.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3305" CreationDate="2013-07-04T00:54:26.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;土 is the soil where plants grow. Therefore 土 is used to describe countryside concepts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;土 also means dust, kind of dull.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 土 is a neutral word. It can be used as a positive adjective. It's actual meaning depends on the context and speaker's understanding of the word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2997" LastEditorUserId="2997" LastEditDate="2013-07-06T02:01:25.953" LastActivityDate="2013-07-06T02:01:25.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3341" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3342" CreationDate="2013-07-04T01:25:02.030" Score="5" ViewCount="2010" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 不可, 不要, and 别 can all mean &quot;don't&quot;. I am wondering about the differences between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example these sentences:&#xA;1. 不可吃。&#xA;2  别哭了。&#xA;3  你不要打扰！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2996" LastEditorUserId="938" LastEditDate="2013-07-04T04:29:00.667" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T02:52:58.020" Title="Difference of 不可. 不要. and 别" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3341" CreationDate="2013-07-04T02:55:24.577" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;不可, in the context of your question, is short for 不可以, which means &quot;can't&quot;, not &quot;don't&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不可吃 means &quot;can't eat&quot;, perhaps it is inedible or passed expiry date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不要 and 别 both mean &quot;don't&quot;, but 不要 is &lt;strong&gt;stronger&lt;/strong&gt; and more &lt;strong&gt;instructive&lt;/strong&gt; than 别, example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;公共场所，请不要喧哗 (please don't make loud noises in public spaces)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不要 can be placed at the end of a sentence to mean &quot;don't want&quot;. It can also be placed before a noun. 别 requires a &lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt; behind it. You can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这东西我&lt;b&gt;不要&lt;/b&gt; (I don't want this thing)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我&lt;b&gt;不要&lt;/b&gt;这东西 (same as above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-07-04T02:55:24.577" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3328" CreationDate="2013-07-04T03:59:21.293" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After going through a few online examples, I think this is what &lt;strong&gt;制作&lt;/strong&gt; actually means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make something physically that requires a level of skill or artistry, such as, a movie, a cake, a greeting card or a toy. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;韩国制作巨型巧克力高跟鞋迎接情人节 (South Korea has made a gigantic pair of chocolate stilettos to welcome Valentine's Day)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since &lt;strong&gt;制造&lt;/strong&gt; is also mentioned, to provide disambiguation, 制造 means to manufacture or mass-produce something (both physical and non-physical). Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这AK-47是前苏联制造的 (This AK-47 was made in the former USSR)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  制造垃圾 (churning out rubbish)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  制造欢乐气氛 (creating a joyous atmosphere)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To build or construct something, usually big, we can use the word &lt;strong&gt;建造&lt;/strong&gt;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;建造楼房 (construct a building)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  建造卫星导航系统 (build a satellite navigation system)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-07-04T03:59:21.293" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3344" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-04T07:40:16.387" Score="3" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the Chinese equivalent of &quot;Encl.&quot; used in formal, written correspondences to alert the recipient of the presence of enclosed documents?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3000" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-07-05T00:06:10.337" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T06:10:53.510" Title="What is the Chinese equivalent of &quot;Encl.&quot; used in formal letters?" Tags="&lt;formal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3305" CreationDate="2013-07-04T12:41:44.490" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, the 土（tu） is like mundane, and it is a derogatory term/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3002" LastActivityDate="2013-07-04T12:41:44.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3344" CreationDate="2013-07-04T12:46:38.147" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;随信附上 or 附件 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a webpage of baidu(an chinese website) zhidao (pinyin, which means know) which explains Encl. in chinese and english.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/40359245.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/40359245.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Hope it is helpful. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3002" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-07-05T00:00:21.640" LastActivityDate="2013-07-05T00:00:21.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3208" CreationDate="2013-07-04T16:39:00.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kaifen(开封） used to be the &quot;Dongjing&quot; of China during Song dynasty. Xi'an(西安) was the &quot;Western capital&quot; of China in many dynasties. However instead of “Xijing” (西京)， it was referred as &quot;Xidu&quot;(西都） in many ancient literature. For example: &#xA;&quot;望西都，意踌躇。&quot; By 张养浩( Zhang yanghao ) Yuan Dynasty.&#xA;But Xidu and Xijing are basically same meanning.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-07-04T16:39:00.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3350" CreationDate="2013-07-05T21:38:52.160" Score="10" ViewCount="3676" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of posts for rules on numbers, but I can't seem to figure out how one would say, for example, -5 (negative five). I know that negative number is 负数, so would it just be 负五？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2604" LastActivityDate="2013-07-05T22:13:42.877" Title="How to say a negative number in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3349" CreationDate="2013-07-05T22:13:42.877" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Negative numbers are simply read &lt;code&gt;负xxx&lt;/code&gt;, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-5 负五&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-1234.5 负一千二百三十四点五&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(-3) x 5 = -15 负三乘以五等于负十五&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2^(-3) 二的负三次方&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When applied to certain domain, there might be domain specific way to read it. For example for temperature, it's more common to read it as 零下 (literally 'below zero'):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-10°C 零下十（摄氏）度&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading as &lt;code&gt;负十度&lt;/code&gt; is also correct, just less common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://beike.dangzhi.com/view/59ngmj&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;人教版小学四年级数学 第七单元 生活中的负数&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-07-05T22:13:42.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3316" CreationDate="2013-07-06T15:01:19.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go ahead!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the joke:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A employee said to his Chinese employer, 'Can I go for a trip?' 'Go ahead!' he responsed. The employee started packing his luggage happily. His colleague reminded:'At the employer's level, his word &quot;go ahead&quot; must means &quot;去个头!&quot;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;23333 (which means, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/LOL&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;LOL&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. &quot;去个头&quot; and &quot;去你的头&quot; are the same meaning. And &quot;Go a head&quot; is just paraphrased &quot;去&quot; &quot;个&quot; &quot;头&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, the phrase &quot;verb. + 个头&quot; or &quot;verb. + 你的头&quot; itself can be an negative answer to a question. But used when the two know each other very well. Or the one who answers is at a higher level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3007" LastEditorUserId="3007" LastEditDate="2013-07-17T23:32:04.933" LastActivityDate="2013-07-17T23:32:04.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3352" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3353" CreationDate="2013-07-07T02:23:31.043" Score="6" ViewCount="430" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know certain measure words convey respect, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一位客人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there something similar I could use to emphatically disrespect someone, as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他是一?饭桶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is just using &lt;code&gt;个&lt;/code&gt; disrespectful enough?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastActivityDate="2013-07-07T13:17:03.320" Title="Measure words for disrespect" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3352" CreationDate="2013-07-07T04:54:14.107" Score="10" Body="&lt;h2&gt;General answer to disrespectful measure words&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't recall any special disrespectful measure words in Chinese. Such disrespectful phrases are just expressed with simple measure words according to the noun. Like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一个笨蛋 [&lt;strong&gt;offensive level: 1&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一个饭桶 [&lt;strong&gt;offensive level: 2&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一个贱人 [&lt;strong&gt;offensive level: 4&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一个傻逼 [&lt;strong&gt;offensive level: 5&lt;/strong&gt;, with profanity word &lt;code&gt;屄/逼(cunt)&lt;/code&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一个二逼 [&lt;strong&gt;offensive level: 5&lt;/strong&gt;, with profanity word &lt;code&gt;屄/逼(cunt)&lt;/code&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一坨屎 [&lt;strong&gt;offensive level: 3&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一只(个)禽兽 [&lt;strong&gt;offensive level: 2&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一条走狗 [&lt;strong&gt;offensive level: 2&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the offensive level is my personal feeling: 1 is the lowest and 5 is the highest. You'd better not use &lt;code&gt;offensive level &amp;gt;= 3&lt;/code&gt; words when speaking to somebody face to face, or, you'd better be ready for a fight :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Metaphor of measure words&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few Chinese people use measure words &lt;code&gt;只/坨&lt;/code&gt; to show &lt;strong&gt;emphatic disrespect with metaphor&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是一只小人。 (the measure word implies he is even not a human.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is rarely heard in daily life. Interestingly, the official editorial often use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一 小撮 不明真相的群众&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一 小撮 犯罪分子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to describe some kind of people are &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;really few&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; with a derogatory sense. It's a metaphor too, implying that kind of people are just like &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;a small pinch of dust&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Common ways to emphasize your expression&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To emphasize the expression, you can omit the numeral&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是个饭桶。 He is a scalawag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can also use &lt;code&gt;就是&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;真是&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他就是个饭桶。 He is exactly a scalawag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他真是个饭桶。 He is really a scalawag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for shouting, omit the verb &lt;code&gt;是&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他个饭桶。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你个傻逼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-07-07T10:13:10.633" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3352" CreationDate="2013-07-07T13:17:03.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong Cantonese uses the expression &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(一  ) 條       友/友仔&#xA;(jat1) tiu4    jau5/jau5zai2&#xA;one    long:MW friend&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as a contemptuous way of referring to a person. While 個 can be used instead, the measure word 條 suggests something long, slippery and unpleasant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2013-07-07T13:17:03.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3356" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3358" CreationDate="2013-07-07T14:42:29.000" Score="10" ViewCount="1084" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dictionary definitions for &lt;code&gt;整个&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;全&lt;/code&gt; both use &quot;whole&quot; and &quot;entire&quot;. However, &lt;code&gt;全&lt;/code&gt; additionally has definitions of &quot;all&quot; and &quot;complete&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a homework assignment that asks me to distinguish their usage in various sentences, but I don't recall there being any significant difference between the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My intuition tells me that &lt;code&gt;整个&lt;/code&gt; would be used for something with obviously discrete parts, such as &lt;code&gt;整个美国人&lt;/code&gt;. I would use 全 for other things like &lt;code&gt;全身体&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the right intuition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2990" LastActivityDate="2013-07-08T08:40:28.517" Title="What is the difference between 整个 and 全?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3356" CreationDate="2013-07-07T17:59:35.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose you are right that obviously discrete components are involved with 整个. For instance, 整个部门 is the department as a whole, i.e. all the employees in a department. 个 does the unifying job because it implies what follows is a unit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 全, however, the emphasis is shifted slightly onto the collection, a plural, e.g. 全国 seems to me to be more 'all across the nation' rather than 'every state in the nation'. Possible exceptions are smoothed out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, note that 全身不舒服 is discomfort throughout the entire body, &lt;em&gt;all parts of the body&lt;/em&gt;, and one does not use 全身体 ... it just feels wrong, I can't explain it right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be glad to learn more about this, it's the blind spot a &lt;em&gt;kind of&lt;/em&gt; native speaker faces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2883" LastActivityDate="2013-07-07T17:59:35.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3356" CreationDate="2013-07-07T20:12:44.027" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thinking of the literal translation helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整 is 'entire, whole'. 个 is a widely applicable singular measure word, hence 'unit'. So 整个 is, literally, 'the whole unit (of), the entirety (of)', as opposed to 'a proportion (of)'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我整个身体都不舒服。My whole body feels sick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't think 'whether the object is having parts or not' matters for applying 整个 (on the contrary, it matters for 全). In the following examples, 'the ground' and 'the afternoon' are not 'obviously decompose-able':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白雪覆盖了整个大地。The entire ground is covered by white snow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他一整个下午都在看书。He was reading books for the entire afternoon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全 means 'all, every'. It is applied to a collection, or a unit that has 'obviously discrete parts'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sense, as the other answers already mentioned, &lt;code&gt;整个身体&lt;/code&gt; means 'the entire body' and &lt;code&gt;全身&lt;/code&gt; means 'all parts of the body'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我全身都不舒服。All parts of my body feel sick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(As for why &lt;code&gt;全身&lt;/code&gt; is used instead of &lt;code&gt;全身体&lt;/code&gt;, it's probably because 全, 身 and 体 are all &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bound_morpheme&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;bound morphemes&lt;/a&gt;, and people tend to construct words with the least number of bound morphemes necessary.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you may notice in this example, although 全 is applied to a collection, the word after 全 is not always a 'group noun'. Actually in most cases, it is only in the semantic but not the syntax/word formation. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全球金融危机 The global financial crisis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他全天都在工作。He is working all day long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these phrases, the knowledge (in the extent of Chinese language, not philosophy) that 'the globe' and 'the day' can be further broken down is implicit. On the other hand 'The afternoon' is considered atomic, so you can only say &lt;code&gt;整个下午&lt;/code&gt; but not &lt;code&gt;全下午&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-07-08T08:40:28.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3359" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3360" CreationDate="2013-07-08T14:53:17.353" Score="9" ViewCount="396" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often hear both used to describe a person or a person's action. The direct translations aren't the same, but from my experience, when used in context, I can't tell when to use one over the other. What are the differences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2604" LastActivityDate="2014-06-24T03:42:36.397" Title="What is the difference between 夸张 and 过分" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3359" CreationDate="2013-07-08T15:52:05.467" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;夸张 (kuāzhāng) simply means Hyperbole, Exaggeration. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in, your friend told a story that was too &lt;code&gt;夸张&lt;/code&gt;... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你朋友的故事太夸张了 - your friend's story is a bit exaggerated...&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if someone is acting ridiculous, crazy, or flamboyant (in a funny way, not in a mean way), you could say they're acting 夸张.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过分 (guòfèn), as you can tell from the two characters 过 (overstep), 分 (portion, point)... that they've overstepped their points/ or overstepped their boundaries. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你朋友干吗打我？ 他太过分了。。。 - Why did your friend hit me? He went a bit overboard...&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something helpful for me... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the translations of words are similar (in the case of 夸张 and 过分), it always helps to break the word into parts as I described above. That helps for two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It gets you familiar with the individual meanings of characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Makes you more self-sufficient with learning the language as you can dissect each meaning when given ambiguous translations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-07-09T04:40:59.883" LastActivityDate="2013-07-09T04:40:59.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3361" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3362" CreationDate="2013-07-09T20:22:00.373" Score="9" ViewCount="821" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard that ba (吧) can be used at the end of a sentence just like ma (吗). Per my understanding, it's not interchangeable with ma (吗) but a more playful way of asking the same question. (Some girl said I should use 吧 when asking her if she wants to go to lunch, idk what that means.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when do you use each of these words? What are the connotations of each?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2639" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-07-09T21:12:27.710" LastActivityDate="2013-07-17T03:21:39.137" Title="吗 and 吧 at the end of a question" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3361" CreationDate="2013-07-09T21:00:00.997" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, you are correct... both can be used at the end of a sentence, but they do not have the same meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吗 ma = question particle &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吧 ba = suggestive particle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你还好吗？(Nǐ hái hǎo ma) Are you okay? &#xA;&#xA;你还好吧。(Nǐ hái hǎo ba) Come on, you're okay, right? (suggesting that they're okay)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, In many cases 吧 is in response to 吗:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Person A: 好吗？Okay?&#xA;Person B: 好吧。 Fine...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That girl said you should use &lt;code&gt;ba&lt;/code&gt; because she thought you should be more suggestive &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们一起吃饭吧！（Wǒmen yīqǐ chīfàn ba）sounds more assertive than 你想跟我一起吃饭吗？（Nǐ xiǎng gēn wǒ yīqǐ chīfàn ma?）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-07-09T21:11:48.753" LastActivityDate="2013-07-09T21:11:48.753" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3316" CreationDate="2013-07-10T06:47:58.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Expanding on @simonmysun's answer &quot;你的头&quot; at the end of a sentence can be used as a gentle rebuke and said with a mocking or sarcastic tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to &quot;that's what you think&quot; or &quot;yeah, right!&quot; at the end of an English sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes my son might ask to eat chocolate right when dinner is served and the English conversation goes something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My son: &quot;I'm just going to eat some chocolate now&quot; (while opening the fridge door)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My wife: &quot;Chocolate, yeah right! Go and wash your hands&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In our house this would be in Chinese and go something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儿子： “我要吃一个巧克力吧！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈： “巧克力你的头！你快点去洗手。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see in this case &quot;你的头&quot; is suitable for use with children and not like telling someone to go f*** themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-07-10T06:47:58.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3364" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3365" CreationDate="2013-07-10T07:37:44.690" Score="2" ViewCount="594" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some sentences in Chinese which possess different meanings under different circumstances. Can someone explain the differences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a) In winter says: 能穿多少穿多少&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  b) In summer says: 能穿多少穿多少&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Girlfriend tells her boyfriend: &#xA;  我到了,你快往地铁站走。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如果你到了，我还没到，你就等着吧。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如果我到了，你还没到，你就等着吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1093" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-07-10T10:36:41.560" LastActivityDate="2013-07-11T05:00:24.637" Title="Can someone explain the differences between these sentences?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3364" CreationDate="2013-07-10T09:53:12.413" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 1， in winter one says:能穿多少穿多少&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the 多少 is one word and is the question word normally use to ask &quot;how much&quot;. In Chinese you can also use these question to denote a certain undefined amount of something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你想吃什么就吃什么 Here the 什么 does mean what, but something (an undefined amount of something). So 你想吃什么 becomes &quot;you want to eat something&quot; and &quot;你想吃什么&quot; &quot;then eat something&quot;. If you bring both together it becomes: &quot;eat what you want&quot;. In these grammar patters the question word is repeated and the second occurrence refers to the first occurrence, it refers to the unspecified amount mentioned in the first part.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你哪儿都去过: 哪儿 refers to a certain not specified place, and the 都 after it means all of these. So the sentence means &quot;you have been everywhere&quot;. This grammar pattern is also explain on these pages: &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22all%22_with_%22shenme_dou%22&quot;&gt;Expressing &quot;all&quot; with &quot;shenme dou&quot;&lt;/a&gt; and Expressing &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22everyone%22_with_%22shei%22&quot;&gt;&quot;everyone&quot; with &quot;shei&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 能穿多少穿多少 we don't have 都 or 也 after 多少, so it is not &quot;everything&quot;, but some amount of. The grammar pattern is similar to the 你想吃什么就吃什么 example.&#xA;So the sentence has 2 parts: 能穿多少 which means &quot;the amount of cloths you can wear&quot; and the 穿多少 means: &quot;wear that amount of cloths&quot;. So together it means: &quot;wear as many cloths your can&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 1， in summer one says:能穿多少穿多少&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although we have the same characters, we actually have different words. Here the 多 and the 少 refer to 2 different words. While pronouncing you really have to emphasize the 少.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again there are two parts: 能穿多少 and 穿多少. You see 穿多少 as 穿多    少. The 穿多 means: &quot;wear more cloths&quot; and 少 means less, but refers to the complete part before it. So it means &quot;less of wearing more&quot;. So the complete sentence becomes: &quot;if you can avoid wearing less cloths, then wear less cloths&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example2: GF telephone her BF:我到了,你快往地铁站走。如果你到了,我还没到,你就等着吧。如果我到了,你还没到,你就等着吧！&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first part of this sentence is pretty easy. For completeness I will translate it:&#xA;我到了,你快往地铁站走。如果你到了,我还没到,你就等着吧。： I (just) arrived, quickly come to the metro station. If I'm not there yet when you get there, just wait for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second part 如果我到了,你还没到,你就等着吧！ is read with a different tone. The sentense is not complete and it is implied that that something will come if the person is not there. In English we would normally add ellipsis (…) after the 你就等着吧.&#xA;The implied meaning of 你就等着吧 is: &quot;you are in for it, I'm going to kick your ass, you're going to be dead, ...&quot;, just wait for it and see). So the girl is giving a warning not to be late.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="540" LastEditorUserId="540" LastEditDate="2013-07-10T11:07:14.500" LastActivityDate="2013-07-10T11:07:14.500" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3364" CreationDate="2013-07-10T11:18:50.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Girlfriend tells her boyfriend: 我到了,你快往地铁站走。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果你到了，我还没到，你就等着吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means, if the boy arrival at subway station earlier than girl, then please the boy&#xA;wait for the girl。“你就等着吧” means wait for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果我到了，你还没到，你就等着吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means, if the girl arrival at subway station earlier than boy, then the boy may have&#xA;some trouble, may be the girl will angry with he, because it's not gentlemanly to let lady &#xA;wait for he. “你就等着吧” means she will angry with he or will give him a punishment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3019" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-07-11T05:00:24.637" LastActivityDate="2013-07-11T05:00:24.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3120" CreationDate="2013-07-10T13:40:02.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Get started the easiest way (romanization, aka &quot;pinyin&quot;, only) but once you've learnt a few basic sentences it's not a bad time to start learning characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You eventually want to be learning characters and pinyin at the same time anyway, so you might as well start as soon as you can. Much of the reward you will feel whilst learning is in being able to read bits and pieces here and there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2391" LastActivityDate="2013-07-10T13:40:02.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3138" CreationDate="2013-07-10T13:49:48.020" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, Chinese interrogative sentences must contain a question word to be a valid question. &lt;code&gt;吗&lt;/code&gt; is a question word, but doesn't necessarily have to be placed in every question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你吃饭了吗？ Have you eaten yet? （吗)&#xA;你吃了什么？ What have you eaten? (什么)&#xA;你在哪里吃了早餐？ Where did you eat breakfast? (哪里)&#xA;你怎么还没吃饭？ How have you not eaten yet? (怎么)&#xA;你为什么要吃那个? Why do you want to eat that? （为什么)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are quite a few other question words, and usually just putting one in a sentence is enough. Occasionally you may also see two question words in a sentence, for example the word &lt;code&gt;呢&lt;/code&gt; can also be appended to the end of an interrogative sentence to add a bit more stress to the tone of the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2978" LastActivityDate="2013-07-10T13:49:48.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3369" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-11T03:44:56.037" Score="2" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I attended a wedding last weekend and wanted to say something along the following lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;In the first year you will probably find there are many things that you don't agree on&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't think of what to use for the &quot;things that you don't agree on&quot;. I want to find a word or words that mean &lt;em&gt;don't agree&lt;/em&gt;, I don't want something that means &lt;em&gt;argumentative&lt;/em&gt;, I am looking for something that is more neutral that means they don't agree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking maybe something like 想法是不一样. Do you have any better suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T13:56:46.930" Title="Translation for &quot;things you don't agree on&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3370" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-11T06:44:55.657" Score="1" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard people call Waltz (music) either 华尔兹 or 圆舞曲, but I've only heard people call Waltz (dance) 华尔兹, never 圆舞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1608388.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;, 圆舞 does have a meaning of Waltz (dance). It has another meaning of some country/ceremonial dance, seems to suggest this word had been existed before Waltz was imported.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see this word used as 亦舒's book title, but having not read that book, I don't know if the usage is captured from real life experience or rather fictitious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I've never heard this word used in my daily life, not even from the elders, I am wondering if this word is still used at all. If yes, in which Chinese-speaking region is it used and which meaning of the two does it refer to? If no, was this word ever a common word (when?) and which meaning was it used for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T04:44:55.073" Title="Where, when and what is the word 圆舞 used for?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3371" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3375" CreationDate="2013-07-11T09:34:30.860" Score="1" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this word from this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2J0N6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;送官究辦&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3007" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-07-11T10:04:15.963" LastActivityDate="2013-07-13T11:19:07.890" Title="What is the modern meaning of &quot;送官究辦&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3371" CreationDate="2013-07-11T11:36:34.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It just means &quot;if someone breaks the rule, he will get punished.&quot;&#xA;Actually, this word is seldom used in China Mainland today. It is more common before 1911.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3024" LastEditorUserId="3024" LastEditDate="2013-07-12T13:30:58.880" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T13:30:58.880" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3373" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3374" CreationDate="2013-07-11T12:31:50.973" Score="6" ViewCount="7761" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know it's very common for Chinese speakers to add special particles to the end of their sentences to enhance the tone a little bit, such as adding &lt;code&gt;啊&lt;/code&gt; to show excitement or &lt;code&gt;啦&lt;/code&gt; to sound cute. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to show a few examples, I've heard native speakers say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们去吃饭吧&lt;/code&gt; (The proper way of saying it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们去吃饭啦&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们去吃饭喽&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们去吃饭耶&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides just throwing any random particle at the end of sentences for fun, is there a more proper explanation of how and when they should be used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2978" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-07-11T13:38:40.953" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T21:59:46.763" Title="Proper way to use sentence-final particles (like 啦 or 喽) in spoken Chinese" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3373" CreationDate="2013-07-11T13:24:21.487" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_exclamative_particles&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_exclamative_particles&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But use of exclamative particles is highly informal, and it is advised that they not be used in formal documents or academic papers, unless it is specifically required to do so (such as the case of narrative telling). Some common examples are shown below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;了   le  modal particle intensifying preceding clause / completed action marker&#xA;呢   ne  question particle for subjects already mentioned&#xA;吧   ba  modal particle indicating polite suggestion / ...right? / ...OK?&#xA;哦   ó   oh&#xA;啊   a   modal particle ending sentence, showing affirmation, approval, or consent&#xA;啦   la  sentence-final particle, contraction of &quot;了啊&quot; / follows after each item in a list of examples&#xA;呀   ya  &quot;softening&quot; particle used in questions; may also be used like 啊 after a vowel, expressing surprise or doubt&#xA;嗎/吗 ma  question tag / not for open-ended questions&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should add that each of these characters, with the exception of &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt;, have the &lt;code&gt;口&lt;/code&gt; radical. This suggests that they should only be used with the mouth (oral communication) and are informal. They are not generally used in formal papers/documents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in summary, there isn't a &quot;proper time&quot; for when they should be used in colloquial conversation, just only when you think it will give that added emphasis you're looking for... whether it be cute (我们一起吃饭啦！) or demanding（你跟我吃饭嘛...)。 Just like in English how there aren't really specified times you &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; be using &lt;code&gt;aww you guys are so cute&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;pfft that was lame&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;gee could ya take any longer??&lt;/code&gt;, it's just there to add some flavor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-07-11T13:24:21.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3371" CreationDate="2013-07-12T00:33:44.797" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;送官究办 &lt;em&gt;sòng guān jiūbàn&lt;/em&gt; - means &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%80%81%E5%AE%98%E7%A9%B6%E5%8A%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;to be sent to court to be dealt with&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;送 - to send&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;官 - means an official building, in this case it means the court&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;究 - investigate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;办 - to be dealt with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe others can provide some insight into whether or not this is still in use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-07-12T04:21:09.977" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T04:21:09.977" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3369" CreationDate="2013-07-12T03:11:49.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's some off the top of my head...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In the first year...&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你们有时候会有不相同的看法 (Nǐmen yǒu shíhou huì yǒu bù xiāngtóng de kànfǎ)&#xA;&#xA;你们有时候会彼此不同意 (Nǐmen yǒu shíhou huì bǐcǐ bù tóngyì)&#xA;&#xA;有的事你们不会有相同意见 (Yǒu de shì nǐmen bù huì yǒu xiāngtóng yìjiàn)&#xA;&#xA;会有一些事情，你们会不同意 (Huì yǒu yīxiē shìqíng, nǐ huì bù tóngyì)&#xA;&#xA;有的时候有些事情是你们不赞同的 （Yǒu de shíhou yǒuxiē shìqíng shì nǐmen bù zàntóng de）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-07-12T03:20:40.097" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T03:20:40.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3369" CreationDate="2013-07-12T04:03:22.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;分別的看法 is a pretty good way to describe this without sounding negative. Having separate points of view is a possible euphemism for disagreeing on things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T04:03:22.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3373" CreationDate="2013-07-12T04:14:45.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that in Japanese there are also sentence ending particles that are both gender-specific and can change the tone of the expression. So it certainly isn't random, and you need to be careful when you use which so the correct meaning is conveyed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I hear and am familiar with (from a Taiwanese perspective):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们去吃饭吧 - shall we/why don't we go eat (inviting or encouraging)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们去吃饭啦 - lets go eat (asking but more imperative)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们去吃饭喽 - we're going to go eat (telling someone what you are going to do)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们去吃饭耶 - are we going to go and eat? (uncertain or questioning)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T04:14:45.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3371" CreationDate="2013-07-12T04:16:47.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Offenders will be prosecuted by law/the authority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T04:16:47.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3324" CreationDate="2013-07-12T04:38:55.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there is the grammatical and dictionary version of the explanation, but also you can look at it from the way people talk in everyday life. In my experience, omitting 的 at the end of a response seems to cut the response short, as if someone is either given a short response, like 會 (yep) versus 會的 (I can/I know); 是 (yes) versus 是的 (that's correct). The other way to look at it is to express a more affirmative mood as described above by Stan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T04:38:55.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3370" CreationDate="2013-07-12T04:44:55.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess, and I think this is a reasonable good guess is that 华尔兹 = &quot;waltz&quot; and 圆舞 = &quot;round dance&quot; and in English a waltz is a type of round dance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you don't hear people calling &quot;华尔兹&quot; &quot;圆舞&quot; because &quot;华尔兹&quot; is a type of &quot;圆舞&quot; but 圆舞曲 can be used for any kind of &quot;圆舞&quot; not just for waltzes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.au/#output=search&amp;amp;sclient=psy-ab&amp;amp;q=define%3around+dance&amp;amp;oq=define%3around+dance&amp;amp;gs_l=hp.3...462.3321.1.3425.18.18.0.0.0.0.453.5353.3-12j3.15.0....0...1c.1.19.hp.6zpypz24qpk&amp;amp;psj=1&amp;amp;bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&amp;amp;bvm=bv.48705608,d.dmg&amp;amp;fp=ab5b7527b514333b&amp;amp;biw=1680&amp;amp;bih=843&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;use Google to search for the definition of round dance&lt;/a&gt; you get the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h3&gt;round dance&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;A folk dance in which the dancers form one large circle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;A ballroom dance such as a &lt;strong&gt;waltz&lt;/strong&gt; or polka in which couples move in circles around the &#xA;  ballroom.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_dance&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia article on Round dance&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Modern social round dancing is choreographed and cued ballroom dancing&#xA;  that progresses in a circular pattern, counter-clockwise around the&#xA;  dance floor. The two major categories of ballroom rhythm found in&#xA;  round dancing are the smooth or international rhythms, such as foxtrot&#xA;  and &lt;strong&gt;waltz&lt;/strong&gt;, and the Latin rhythms, such as cha-cha and rumba.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T04:44:55.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3383" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3395" CreationDate="2013-07-14T10:30:37.283" Score="2" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.singtao.com/yesterday/loc/0714ao14.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this news article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does &quot;酿&quot; mean in this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;苹果iPhone 5酿致命意外&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T12:11:51.423" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T12:11:51.423" Title="What does 酿 mean in 苹果iPhone 5酿致命意外?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3384" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3389" CreationDate="2013-07-14T15:05:39.710" Score="6" ViewCount="1564" Body="&lt;p&gt;I seem to hear 准备 and 预备 used for “prepare” and not as often to mean “plan&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们准备搬到美国； emphasizing the need for specific preparations for the move.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Myself， I use 打算 for planning something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们打算看新的电影； emphasis on merely being a future plan。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the differences in usage between 准备 and 预备？&#xA;At what point can one not use these to mean ”plan“？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="938" LastEditDate="2013-07-15T03:04:39.137" LastActivityDate="2013-07-15T03:04:39.137" Title="What is the difference between 准备， 预备 and 打算？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3385" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3388" CreationDate="2013-07-14T15:27:50.920" Score="3" ViewCount="572" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across these sentences &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我浑身都湿透了。&#xA;这些芒果熟透了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And MDBG lists these：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;坏透，烂透，恨透，干透。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should 透 only be used with these adjectives？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="938" LastEditDate="2013-08-05T09:00:13.590" LastActivityDate="2013-08-06T05:48:25.590" Title="When can I use 透?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3386" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-07-14T15:31:28.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Particles are words that have a grammatical function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chinese, the main particles are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;的 for modifying nouns, often to express possessives; for expressing certainty&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;地 (de) for modifying verbs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得 for expressing grade complements; for expressing potentiality&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了 for expressing completion (aspectual); for expressing change (modal)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吗 for asking questions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吧 for asking questions to which you expect an affirmative answer; for expressing commands&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;过 for expressing experience, or past occurrences&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;着 for expressing continuous aspect&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(正)在 for expressing actions in progress (similar to 着)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T13:58:30.683" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T13:58:30.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3387" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-07-14T15:31:28.713" Score="0" Body="A tag for discussing the nuances of particles. Including 的, 了, 吗, 过, 吧, 着, etc." OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T13:58:30.683" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T13:58:30.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3385" CreationDate="2013-07-14T17:28:55.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question: When can I use 透?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;透&lt;/code&gt; (tou4) = penetrate, pass through, transparent, to show&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you can use it to applicable situations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;penetrate: 墨汁渗透了那张纸 (Mòzhī shèntòule nà zhāng zhǐ): The ink penetrated through the paper&#xA;&#xA;pass through: 太阳射线穿透了窗口 (Tàiyáng shèxiàn chuān tòule chuāngkǒu): The sun rays passed through the window&#xA;&#xA;transparent: 她穿的衬衫是透明的 (Tā chuān de chènshān shì tòumíng de): she wore a transparent top&#xA;&#xA;to show/reveal: 他身上透出一股英气 (Tā shēnshang tòu chū yī gǔ yīngqì): he revealed his heroic spirit&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The commonality here is that 透 means something that is revealing, or gets through something... So in any instance that occurs, you can probably use 透&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-07-15T20:15:26.140" LastActivityDate="2013-07-15T20:15:26.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3384" CreationDate="2013-07-14T17:49:55.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;So there's two questions here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1) Difference between 准备 and 预备:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;准 (Zhǔn) = accurate, about to, standard, certainly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;预 (Yù) = in advance, beforehand, in the future&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;备 （Bèi） = prepare (among other unrelated meanings, such as &quot;equipment)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So these root differences tell you that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;准备 is more to describe readiness in preparation (accurate, certainty, etc)... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他正在为招待客人作准备 （Tā zhèngzài wèi zhāodài kèrén zuò zhǔnbèi） = He is preparing (planning how to) entertain guests &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;预备 is more to describe &quot;to make ready&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我给你预备了一件礼物 (Wǒ yě gěi nǐ yùbèile yī jiàn lǐwù) =  I prepared a small gift for you&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although subtle, differences do exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2) When to use 准备/预备 vs 计划/打算&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打算: 打 (to hit, to do, to make), 算 (calculate, to figure)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;计划: 计划 (to calculate, to count, to plan), 划 (to mark off, to draw a line)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 打算 and 计划 are to make calculations/plans, or mark off something. You cannot use them to say you're &lt;code&gt;prepared&lt;/code&gt; to do something, or that you've prepared/made something. They're only to say that you've figured/calculated something in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: You cannot say &quot;我打算了一件礼物给你&quot;, but you can say &quot;我打算送你一件礼物&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot say &quot;我预备送你一件礼物&quot; but you can say &quot;我给你预备了一件礼物&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-07-14T17:49:55.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3390" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-14T20:07:36.263" Score="-3" ViewCount="885" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think they both mean &quot;to go&quot; -- is that right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="473" LastActivityDate="2013-07-15T02:02:44.600" Title="What's the difference between 去 and 走？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2013-07-15T23:23:17.390" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3391" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3408" CreationDate="2013-07-14T23:59:35.440" Score="12" ViewCount="466" Body="&lt;p&gt;In male-female marriage we use the two verbs;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嫁給 (jiàgěi)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;娶 (qǔ)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But these are gender specific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a woman can 嫁給 a man&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a man will 娶 a woman&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how does this work in same-sex marriages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastActivityDate="2013-07-28T00:48:06.897" Title="Which marital verbs are used for same-sex marriages?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3390" CreationDate="2013-07-15T00:46:19.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com/&lt;/a&gt; provides great explanations on usage, etymology, and other aspects that will help you break down each character so you can understand the differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/wordsearch.php?searchMode=C&amp;amp;dialect=M&amp;amp;word=%E5%8E%BB&amp;amp;search=Go&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/wordsearch.php?searchMode=C&amp;amp;dialect=M&amp;amp;word=%E5%8E%BB&amp;amp;search=Go&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To go somewhere&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去海边 (Wǒ qù hǎibiān) I'm going to the beach (with no description of how you're getting there... are you walking （走路）? are you driving (开车)? are you running (跑步)?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走： &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/wordsearch.php?searchMode=C&amp;amp;word=%E8%B5%B0&amp;amp;search=Go&amp;amp;dialect=M&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/wordsearch.php?searchMode=C&amp;amp;word=%E8%B5%B0&amp;amp;search=Go&amp;amp;dialect=M&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To walk, to run, to move (vehicles), to leave&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我走到海边去了 （Wǒ zǒu dào hǎibiān qùle） I walked to the beach (where 走 specifies you walked there, paired with 到 to represent the destination)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-07-15T00:46:19.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3390" CreationDate="2013-07-15T02:02:44.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;去 means that you want to go to somewhere which is your aim.&#xA;走 It's just a kind of way to go to somewhere,you can walk(走),run,take a plane to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3030" LastActivityDate="2013-07-15T02:02:44.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3383" CreationDate="2013-07-15T06:49:04.533" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/26/js/917F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;酿&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;strong&gt;lead to/result in&lt;/strong&gt; in that sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the original meaning of 酿 is &quot;the process of making wine&quot;, the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A + 酿(成) + B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is a metaphor for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;A leads to B&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (in a gradual/long-term process)&quot;, &lt;code&gt;喻事情积渐而成&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;hr&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Issue of the causality&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I think the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;苹果 iPhone 5 酿致命意外。 Apple iPhone 5 leads to a fatal accident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is not rigorous enough. Though it is acceptable, and one may complete the sentence in mind as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;苹果 iPhone 5 (的设计缺陷) 酿致命意外。 (The design flaw of) Apple iPhone 5 leads to a fatal accident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, a more logical sample sentence would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;疏忽酿大错。 Carelessness leads to serious blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-07-15T08:21:24.903" LastActivityDate="2013-07-15T08:21:24.903" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3391" CreationDate="2013-07-15T16:57:33.037" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a Chinese magazine article about the prime minister of Iceland from about 3 years ago and the title is 冰岛女总理娶同性女友. Based on that, perhaps 娶 for anyone (male or female) marrying a woman and 嫁给 for anyone marrying a man. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3032" LastActivityDate="2013-07-15T16:57:33.037" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3385" CreationDate="2013-07-16T02:05:21.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is my point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;verb + 透: means &quot;through&quot;, such as 穿 + 透，看 + 透&#xA;adj + 透: means &quot;extreme&quot;, such as 湿 + 透, 糟 + 透&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3034" LastActivityDate="2013-07-16T02:05:21.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3398" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3399" CreationDate="2013-07-16T07:54:12.910" Score="7" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to translate a phrase in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Trust must be earned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A direct translation would look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;信任是要赚来的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the verb 赚 doesn't seem suitable in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What may be a more suitable word? Specifically, a word that means &quot;earn&quot; but without the &quot;work for money&quot; connotation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2533" LastActivityDate="2013-07-25T07:47:35.073" Title="A word that means &quot;earn&quot; without the &quot;money&quot; connotation?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3398" CreationDate="2013-07-16T09:13:29.890" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few substitutes I can think of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;信任是要&lt;b&gt;靠努力得来&lt;/b&gt;的 (trust is obtained through hard work)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;信任是要&lt;b&gt;争取&lt;/b&gt;的 (trust must be fought for)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;信任是要&lt;b&gt;赢得&lt;/b&gt;的 (trust must be won)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;信任是要&lt;b&gt;经营&lt;/b&gt;的 (trust needs to be maintained)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;信任是要&lt;b&gt;用时间去积累&lt;/b&gt;的 (trust is acquired over a period of time)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for a word, I think &lt;strong&gt;争取&lt;/strong&gt;[zhēngqǔ] is a good replacement for &lt;strong&gt;赚&lt;/strong&gt; because it means to put in effort to achieve a goal and has no monetary connotation in it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;争夺；力求获得; 力求实现&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-07-16T09:13:29.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3141" CreationDate="2013-07-17T14:19:41.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;读书好&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;reading is good&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;好读书&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;love reading&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;读好书”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;read good books&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3036" LastActivityDate="2013-07-17T14:19:41.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29" CreationDate="2013-07-18T05:37:38.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just recently found this language learning social network &lt;a href=&quot;http://polyglothub.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://polyglothub.com&lt;/a&gt;  . You can find there those who will be willing to practice with you Chinese (their native language) in exhange of your own. Success!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3044" LastActivityDate="2013-07-18T05:37:38.880" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-07-25T22:45:11.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29" CreationDate="2013-07-18T11:20:07.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Locally: Try meetups for group exchanges and whatnot - &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.meetup.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinese.meetup.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Online: italki have teachers and tutors you can practice with - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.italki.com/teachers/tutoring/chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.italki.com/teachers/tutoring/chinese&lt;/a&gt;. Or if you are up for a bit less structure, there is Skype Language rooms [http://education.skype.com]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mobile: Wechat [微信] This is a little bit more a stretch for speaking, but great for connecting with Chinese. It's like whatsapp, but where you can find people in your area to connect with [look around feature searches for Chinese in the area]. Unlike whatsapp, the default communication method is Spoken. So you record Walkie-talkie like messages. If you come to Shanghai, you'll see people holding the phones to their mouths.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All are quality&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="449" LastActivityDate="2013-07-18T11:20:07.753" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-07-25T22:45:11.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3407" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-18T21:28:17.500" Score="6" ViewCount="1546" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot posts online use 政治正确 to mean &quot;politically correct&quot; or &quot;political correctness&quot; in English and I can say it is wrong. A few posts use 政治委婉语, but it doesn't sound good to me either, because 政治 in Chinese only means a small part of &quot;political&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best translation I can get is: 交际婉语 for &quot;political correctness&quot;, and 交际用语委婉 for &quot;politically correct&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any thought on a better translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-07-18T22:21:04.350" LastActivityDate="2013-08-02T05:28:06.073" Title="How to say &quot;politically correct&quot; or &quot;political correctness&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;translation&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3391" CreationDate="2013-07-19T01:27:54.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple answer is either word will work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The nuance is little different though, as the word selection would show who has a &quot;male&quot; role or &quot;female&quot; role in the marriage. If this not clear, then the person who is more important (this may depend on context) would be assumed the &quot;male&quot; role, such as the 女总理 in Jodie's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-07-19T01:27:54.567" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3141" CreationDate="2013-07-19T06:02:32.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@yushulx very common and right answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;读书好 -&gt; Reading book is good and important, also mean learn everything is good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好读书 -&gt; after knew reading book is important, you became love read book, and learn from everything&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;读好书 -&gt; you read lots of book, then you know which is &lt;strong&gt;Excellent book&lt;/strong&gt;, and only &lt;strong&gt;Excellent book&lt;/strong&gt; will help you more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3048" LastEditorUserId="3048" LastEditDate="2013-07-19T06:07:39.180" LastActivityDate="2013-07-19T06:07:39.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3410" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3844" CreationDate="2013-07-19T16:30:23.490" Score="11" ViewCount="2075" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am referring to the fact that in English, we say &quot;northeast&quot;, whereas in Chinese, the equivalent direction is called 东北, which literally translates to &quot;east-north&quot;. One could say the same about &quot;northwest&quot; =&gt; 西北 (west-north), &quot;southeast&quot; =&gt; 东南 (east-south), and &quot;southwest&quot; =&gt; 西南 (west-south).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that in Chinese, the principal directions are east-west, with north-south being the secondary. This is in contrast to English. Is there a reason why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-07-24T04:51:38.593" LastActivityDate="2013-10-04T06:33:00.463" Title="Why are intermediate cardinal directions read differently in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3413" CreationDate="2013-07-19T18:14:15.923" Score="4" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used Google Translate to translate &quot;&lt;em&gt;learn&lt;/em&gt;&quot; to Chinese, and the first result was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;學習&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noted that another suggested option was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;學 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I wonder: what's the difference between the two results?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3052" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T17:39:30.020" Title="Difference between 學習 and 學" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2013-07-20T16:01:58.080" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3412" CreationDate="2013-07-19T19:10:25.157" Score="7" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Many Chinese words have both a 1-character and 2-character form&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;eat = 吃 = 吃饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;study = 学 ＝ 学习&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lion = 狮 ＝ 狮子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;coal = 煤 = 煤炭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Their usage is constrained by grammar and prosody&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ungrammatical: 我喜欢吃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Grammatical: 我喜欢吃饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bad prosody (&quot;sounds weird&quot;): 我在学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Good prosody: 我在学习&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Sometimes the 2-character form is an expansion of the 1-character word&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dummy object for a verb (allows a transitive verb to be used intransitively):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃(饭) &amp;lt;-- Grammatically 饭 is the object, but as a whole it means &quot;eat&quot;, not &quot;eat rice&quot;. The object is a &quot;dummy&quot; object.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跑(步)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;说(话)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two characters meaning something similar (you can pick the form that works best for prosodic reasons):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;学(习)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;煤(炭)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of the characters is a &quot;dummy&quot; word that means almost nothing (for making nouns into 2-character words for prosodic reasons mostly):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;本(子), 狮(子), 棒(子), ... almost anything ending in 子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(老)虎&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;盖(儿) ...almost anything ending with 儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;木(头)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Sometimes the 1-character form is a shortening of the 2-character word&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The word was originally a mono-morpheme polysyllabic word:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蝴蝶 (you'll sometimes see &quot;蝶&quot; used to stand in for &quot;butterfly&quot; in compounds)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Prosodic considerations in Chinese&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've alluded briefly to &quot;prosodic considerations&quot; in Chinese. But how are you supposed to know when to use the 2-character vs the 1-character version of a word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes grammar chooses for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我要吃饭 (intransitive) vs 我要吃冰淇淋 (transitive)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you're making compound nouns, it's usually the one-character form from each word (or even further reduction)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;北京大学 -&gt; 北大&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;高速铁路 -&gt; 高铁&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4616&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The following assertions are supported empirically, but they are not absolute&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[N N] is &lt;em&gt;almost never&lt;/em&gt; 1+2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1+1 鸡蛋&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2+1 商业区&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2+2 人民广场&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[V O] is &lt;em&gt;almost never&lt;/em&gt; 2+1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1+1 请客 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1+2 丢面子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2+2 学习经济&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are exceptions to every rule!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我喜欢你 (喜欢 is basically always 2-characters, regardless of the object)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To address your question, let's look at 学习. 学 means learn; 习 means practice. As noted above, this is a case of expansion where both characters mean something similar. 学 and 学习 are &lt;em&gt;identical&lt;/em&gt; in meaning, but one may be chosen over the other for prosodic reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（论语）: 学而时习之，不亦说乎？ &lt;em&gt;Isn't it a pleasure to study and practice what you have learned?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2013-08-12T17:39:30.020" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T17:39:30.020" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3141" CreationDate="2013-07-21T03:41:15.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As other explained,&quot;读书好&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reading is good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;好读书&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;love reading&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &quot;读好书” is ambiguious,which may mean &quot;read good books&quot;,or &quot;excellent at reading or at learning&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2013-07-21T03:41:15.257" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3320" CreationDate="2013-07-21T09:24:33.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“蛮舒服” means “比较舒服”, 蛮 expresses some extent like “还可以”（It is fine/OK.） It does not saying very &quot;舒服&quot;, or you are just expressing some feeling that you feel comfortable. You don't want to stress that it is comfortable very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3060" LastActivityDate="2013-07-21T09:24:33.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3305" CreationDate="2013-07-21T09:29:46.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If people say 土, they are saying that it is like things farmer use or do.&#xA;In China, farmer is a class, people may regard lower than other classes, although it is not true. They tent to think things from other countries are better and updated/new.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3060" LastActivityDate="2013-07-21T09:29:46.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3341" CreationDate="2013-07-22T02:52:58.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;别 is   syneresis of “不” and “要”,they all mean do not.But since 别 is   syneresis of “不” and “要” ,别 usually is more speech-styled,and 不要 is more formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T02:52:58.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2013-07-22T03:01:34.283" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;when 和 and 跟 mean &quot;and&quot; or &quot;with&quot;,they are interchangeable,but when in other meaning,they are not interchangeable, for example,in the case that 跟 mean &quot;follow&quot;,they are not interchangeable,like “我紧跟他，你跟上他”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastEditorUserId="3057" LastEditDate="2013-07-22T07:24:34.840" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T07:24:34.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3320" CreationDate="2013-07-22T03:12:30.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“蛮&quot; usually used in southern Jiangsu province  and northern part of Jiangsu near Yangtze river,and Shanghai,but since Nanjing had been the capital in last century,this usage has slided into Mandarin,but people grown up in northern china do prefer &quot;很&quot; to “蛮”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T03:12:30.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3385" CreationDate="2013-07-22T03:24:18.443" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As other explains,透 (tou4) = penetrate, pass through, transparent, to show,this is one meaning,the other is &quot;completely&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T03:24:18.443" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3333" CreationDate="2013-07-22T04:02:47.857" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;所&quot; is from ancient chinese or archaic chinese,“所+ vt” just denotes the object of vt,For example,“所思在远道”，but since Sui or Tang dynasty,there have been  exceptions like “所守或非亲”，“所守&quot;just denotes the subject of vt .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin,“所+VT” may be followed by “的”  where you may omit 所to have a more speech-styled sentence，or may not be followed by  “的” where the sentence is consistent with archaic chinese,and you can not omit 所to have a well-formed sentence ,like &quot;所谓清白，也就说不清楚了&quot;.In both cases,they are more formal ,less speech-styled,since &quot;所&quot; is from ancient chinese or archaic chinese. So，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 1&lt;/strong&gt; Is it true that all these examples also work with 所...的?&#xA;No,since some words or sentence are  familiar-styled and used in familiar speech,if you add 所 into the sentence,it sound like joking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 2&lt;/strong&gt; Does 所...的 carry a connotation that is not present in ...的?&#xA;Please see what I say above&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 2&lt;/strong&gt; Are there circumstances where one is preferred to the other?&#xA;Yes,in formal circumstances，you may use 所...的;in familiar speech,we have to use only 的 without 所。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastEditorUserId="3057" LastEditDate="2013-07-22T11:06:13.510" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T11:06:13.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3428" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-22T16:07:34.297" Score="2" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, in a dialogue about global warming, this sentence fragment:&#xA;这个在中文就特别的直接...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate to, &quot;In Chinese, this is especially relevant&quot;. But 直接 translates to immediate/straightforward in mdbg and other dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google/Baidu &quot;直接&quot; and a meaning that I think it is, &quot;直接&quot; and&#xA;&quot;relevant&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look it up in a Chinese only dictionary.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google Translate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other steps do you recommend?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="3063" LastEditDate="2013-07-24T13:44:47.427" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T04:10:57.743" Title="What do you do when the dictionary doesn't give you a meaning that fits your sentence?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3428" CreationDate="2013-07-22T16:18:31.413" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If dictionaries give various meanings, I always return to breaking down the word/phrase into its components and see if they make sense given your context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;直 Zhí = straight, direct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;接 Jiē = meet, connect, join&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it would seem that 直接 (direct connect) could mean both straightforward and relevant (hence why dictionaries give both as results). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But to remove all ambiguity, I would try searching other better fitting words... In this case, I would use 相关 xiāng guān = interrelated &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;相 xiāng = mutually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;关 guān ＝　to involve, to concern &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这些事情是特别相关 (Zhèxiē shìqíng shì tèbié xiāngguān) - These things are particularly relevant&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;相关任务间的重叠时间 (Xiāngguān rènwù jiān de chóngdié shíjiān) - Related tasks overlap time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichacha.net/zaoju/%E7%9B%B8%E5%85%B3.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;More examples here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-07-22T16:23:34.050" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T16:23:34.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3407" CreationDate="2013-07-22T17:45:19.630" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%94%BF%E6%B2%BB%E6%AD%A3%E7%A2%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; is a reliable source, &lt;code&gt;政治正确&lt;/code&gt; is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a simpler explanation of it on &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/449559198.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhidao Baidu&lt;/a&gt; as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这要看你是说汉语 “政治正确” 还是英语 “politically correct” 。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这个词语对英语有比较广泛的意思，即不仅是指涉及政治敏感的语言。&lt;br&gt; 英语 “politically (in)correct”&#xA;  形容任何不属于&lt;b&gt;社会规范的语言&lt;/b&gt;，比如美国和加拿大忌用一些词语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a very literal translation, but that is the proper word, even if a bit misleading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2978" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-07-24T04:30:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-07-24T04:30:06.457" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3431" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3432" CreationDate="2013-07-22T22:29:47.523" Score="4" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 輸 was originally pronounced yu (indicated by the right side phonetic) and meant to transport. How did it come to be pronounced shu (Mandarin) and take on the meaning of to lose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T00:38:27.723" Title="Development of 輸" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3431" CreationDate="2013-07-22T22:53:47.077" Score="6" Body="&lt;h3&gt;You are correct in thinking that is 俞 the phonetic for 輸, but even &amp;quot;originally&amp;quot;, they had distinct pronunciations:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Baxter's Middle Chinese reconstructions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ewbaxter/pdf/d161-180.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;yu2 俞 MC yu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ewbaxter/pdf/d121-140.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;shu1 輸 MC syu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Baxter-Sagart &lt;a href=&quot;http://crlao.ehess.fr/docannexe.php?id=1207&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Old Chinese reconstructions&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yú 俞 OC *lo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shū 輸 OC *l̥o&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, &amp;quot;originally&amp;quot;, one of them had a devoiced initial, and the other didn't. This is, of course, a reconstruction, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese_phonology#Evidence_from_phonetic_series&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;you can read about the evidence Baxter offers for the l/l̥ reconstructions&lt;/a&gt; and decide for yourself. In any event, devoiced l -&amp;gt; s (or some silibant) is quite plausible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T22:53:47.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3431" CreationDate="2013-07-23T00:32:52.497" Score="6" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Pronunciation of 輸&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stumpy's answer is correct, 輸 hasn't been pronounced as 俞 before. I add some Chinese materials to state this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;郭錫良《漢字古音手冊》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;輸&lt;/strong&gt; （上古音）書侯 ɕǐwo （廣韻）式朱切，書虞合三平遇 ɕǐu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where ɕ in international phonetic system sounds &lt;strong&gt;[舌上音]書&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《廣韻》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;式朱切&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where &lt;code&gt;AB切&lt;/code&gt; means initial consonant is from A and the vowel is from B.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《集韻》《韻會》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;舂朱切&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《正韻》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;商朱切，音鄃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Meaning of &quot;to lose&quot;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ming Dynasty 《正韻》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;俗謂勝負爲輸贏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Qing Dynasty, 段玉裁's 《說文解字注》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;引申之，凡傾寫皆曰輸。輸於彼，則彼贏而此不足。故勝負曰贏輸。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 輸 just extended its meaning from 傾瀉(pour, flow out) to 不足(lack) and then to 負(to lose).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-07-23T00:38:27.723" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T00:38:27.723" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3266" CreationDate="2013-07-23T03:30:51.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of 茶 in ancient china before Han dynasty was like /da/,there are different pronunciation in chinese dialects,in Min dialect,it is very similar to the ancient one.Because of international trade between countries ,it had been borrowed by other language in different historical period from different dialects.together with 茶，is 丝，silk,making us associate them with road of silk.&#xA; to&#xA;By the way,荼/t' u/ is originated from 茶，whose pronunciation is similiar to茶 in ancient china.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastEditorUserId="3057" LastEditDate="2013-07-23T04:00:59.103" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T04:00:59.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2167" CreationDate="2013-07-23T03:41:41.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pronunciation differences between pinyin 'zh' and 'ch' are same as differences between 'ji' and 'qi', 'ge' and 'ke' ,'de' and 'te'; same as 't' in 'stop' and 't' in top.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pronunciation differences between pinyin 'qi' and 'xi' are same as differences between 'ch' and 'sh' , 'c' and 's'; same as 'ch' in 'choose' and 'tion' in 'mention'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you may use Praat (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/&lt;/a&gt;) to check if you pronounce them as Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-09T19:34:42.717" LastActivityDate="2013-11-09T19:34:42.717" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3438" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3441" CreationDate="2013-07-23T06:04:30.637" Score="5" ViewCount="680" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a particular forum is a banner reading:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;此乃舊貼唯讀區&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which I imagine is a highfalutin way of saying that this thread is read-only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, 乃 has many senses in my dictionary. What is the sense of 乃 being used here? My best guess would be &quot;only&quot;, in the sense that this page is &quot;nothing more than&quot; a read-only area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-07-23T10:07:49.843" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T13:00:32.460" Title="What does 乃 mean here?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3344" CreationDate="2013-07-23T06:10:53.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Encl. means &quot;附件 (fù jiàn)&quot; in Chinese. You can say 请查看附件 (qǐng chá kàn fù jiàn) means &quot;Please check the enclosed files&quot; in English to alert your recipient. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3066" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T06:10:53.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3438" CreationDate="2013-07-23T06:33:06.080" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here &quot;乃&quot; means &quot;be&quot;. This sentence means &quot;This area is for old posts, and these posts are read-only.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next time, if you find &quot;此乃&quot; these two characters together or a noun+乃 together, &quot;乃&quot; properly means &quot;be&quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;此乃我的书.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   &lt;em&gt;This is my book.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;意识乃是大脑的一种自然属性。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   &lt;em&gt;Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3066" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-07-23T10:08:46.910" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T10:08:46.910" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2167" CreationDate="2013-07-23T16:23:03.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is something that also always confuses me when reading pinyin... In zhuyin, though, the zh for zhong is ㄓ, while the ch in Chong is ㄔ, ㄓ is pronounced more like the English &quot;dr&quot; sound, and ㄔ is pronounced more like the English &quot;tr&quot; sound. Also, the qi sound is ㄑ,which is pronounced like the English &quot;chi&quot; sound, and the xi sound is ㄒ, which is pronounced like the English &quot;she&quot; sound. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3069" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T16:23:03.697" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3428" CreationDate="2013-07-24T02:51:54.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some other options I go for if I don't understand immediately:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go to an online dictionary which includes example sentences in both Chinese and English  e.g &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/en/search/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;example1&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E5%88%B6%E4%BD%9C/1319727&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;example2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ask someone I know who is a native Chinese speaker (this is not always satisfying if it is a complex example)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ask on an online site like this one&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes when I am reasonably sure of something, but I want confirmation I still ask on a site like this one because there are people with better combined English/Chinese language skill than anyone I know in person and it is always helpful to verify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-07-24T02:51:54.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3438" CreationDate="2013-07-24T03:09:33.877" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your giving sentence, it means is (be)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but as a chinese ,this verb is hardly use in communicating or writing, this is a verb which uses in ancient chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3070" LastActivityDate="2013-07-24T03:09:33.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3447" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-24T14:12:49.737" Score="4" ViewCount="3816" Body="&lt;p&gt;This isn't a question on how to choose a Chinese name equivalent, but how the one that most media and people use, gets used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if some unknown person out there who never had a Chinese name, say Rufus Gainey (some random name), solves the Middle East crisis or something to gain worldwide attention, how do the Chinese press/people establish a name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it as simple as the first source who comes up with something and then others follow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, I'm just curious as to how the Chinese version of an English name becomes the standard and how people know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2013-07-25T03:49:09.813" Title="How does the Chinese translation of an English name get established?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2013-07-25T22:52:36.460" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3447" CreationDate="2013-07-24T17:13:35.863" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I'm a native speaker. I know this well but my English is not as good as you. so I hope it would not bother you, thank you.&#xA;Basically, what Chinese people would do is just to translate the name by its pronunciation and use some similar sounded Chinese characters to write it down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;Rufus Gainey&quot; will be translated to &quot;鲁福斯 · 甘利&quot;(Lu Fu Si | Gan li). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, because there are a lot of Chinese characters which have the same pronunciation（ 鲁福斯 · 甘利, 鲁服斯 · 干立， 鲁服思 · 肝力... they sound the same), it is important to choose the &quot;nice&quot; characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;鲁服思 · 肝力&quot; is not good because &quot;肝力&quot; means &quot;liver power&quot;, weird！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“干立” is also bad because it means &quot;standing there and do nothing&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;甘利&quot; is quiet good because &quot;甘&quot; means &quot;sweet&quot; and &quot;利&quot; means &quot;good&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also there are some &quot;conventional translations&quot; here like Tom -&gt; 汤姆, Jim -&gt; 吉姆... Because they are quite common in English so there are common Chinese version of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some interesting translation here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 1: first name&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Girls and boys tend to have different first names, right?&#xA;We all know that Tom is a boy name and Ann is a girl name. However, &quot;Tracy&quot; can be used both by a girl or boy. So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tracy McGrady: He is my favorite NBA star. We often translate his name as &quot;特雷西&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if Tracy is a girl, I think &quot;翠茜&quot; is a good translation because this two characters are quite female-style.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 2: family name&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Family names have no gender, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Marilyn Monroe -&gt; 玛丽莲·梦露 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jim Monroe -&gt; 吉姆·门罗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find here the same &quot;Monroe&quot; are translated to different characters. This is because 梦露 is quite girl-like name and it is quite good to represent the beauty and sexy of Marilyn Monroe. However I don't think a boy Jim will like this translation for him. So what I'm trying to say here is that some Chinese characters or word have strong genders so we can use them to translate the family name differently for boys and girls. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 3:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Irvin and Owen will both be translated to &quot;欧文&quot;. The reason is that if you let my grandpa(he know nothing about English) tell the difference between these two names. He would say there is no difference. Because there is no pronunciation like &quot;Irvin&quot; in Chinese. So we treat it as &quot;欧文&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, Steve is 史蒂夫 in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="390" LastEditDate="2013-07-25T03:49:09.813" LastActivityDate="2013-07-25T03:49:09.813" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3398" CreationDate="2013-07-25T07:47:35.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the exactly meaning of &quot;Trust must be earned&quot;, but &quot;信任是要赚来的&quot; doesn't sound like native Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;要&quot; has some kind of &quot;will&quot;, which hasn't been done, but &quot;赚来的&quot; is for something already earned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;信任是要去赚的&quot; or &quot;信任是赚来的&quot; may be more appropriate based on your original meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese don't have obvious tense, but there's still difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, as the answer above says, &quot;赚&quot; is OK here, and you can also use &quot;赢得&quot; to get rid of &quot;钱&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese and my English may be not good enough to express myself clearly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3076" LastActivityDate="2013-07-25T07:47:35.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29" CreationDate="2013-07-25T18:45:52.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can advice you to try &lt;a href=&quot;http://polyglothub.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Polyglothub.com&lt;/a&gt; - a brand new langauge learning social network concerning on communication as main strategy. There you'll be able to videochat with your language partners right on the site with no need to use Skype or any other third party videochating software. Wish you success in your langauge learning process!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3077" LastActivityDate="2013-07-25T18:45:52.030" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-07-25T22:45:11.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3451" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3454" CreationDate="2013-07-27T07:09:13.367" Score="7" ViewCount="577" Body="&lt;p&gt;余 and 我 both mean I. But I still can't understand the real difference. Also, I want an example sentence. When I use Google Translate and Bing Translator, the result is same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2996" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:17:46.847" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:20:52.253" Title="Difference of 余 and 我" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3452" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3459" CreationDate="2013-07-27T09:00:07.450" Score="12" ViewCount="2046" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, if I am spelling my name for someone over the phone I can use a phonetic alphabet to ensure they get my name right. Especially for potentially ambiguous letters; d and t, b and p, c and e, f and s etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I live on Theodore Ave, T as in today, H, E as in elephant, D as in delta, O, R, E as in elephant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Chinese does not have an alphabet per se and there are not enough intials in pinyin to cover the English alphabet, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What words would they use to confirm the receiver has the correct spelling of an English word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="938" LastEditDate="2013-07-27T15:35:33.937" LastActivityDate="2013-11-10T15:39:21.057" Title="How do Chinese spell English words over the phone?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3451" CreationDate="2013-07-27T09:15:29.317" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Stan said 余 is archaic and only found in literature. As in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;余既为此志。——明· 归有光《项脊轩志》&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 is what modern-day Chinese use as the first-person pronoun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我喜欢吃苹果。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked some Chinese friends and they only recognized 余 as a surname or meaning surplus or extra.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="938" LastEditDate="2013-07-27T13:59:00.640" LastActivityDate="2013-07-27T13:59:00.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3457" CreationDate="2013-07-27T11:18:28.190" Score="5" ViewCount="1766" Body="&lt;p&gt;和 means 'and', and so does 而. What is the difference between the two. I also know that 而 means 'but', and the second question is what is the difference between 而 and 但. Give me an example sentence, please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2996" LastEditorUserId="938" LastEditDate="2013-07-27T15:22:17.090" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T10:11:30.227" Title="Difference between 而, 但 and 和" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3456" CreationDate="2013-07-27T14:26:15.823" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you use 而, you are always expressing some kind of adversative meaning weaker than 但. Most of the time they can substitute each other but not 100% certain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 1:  both are fine   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;这件事很难，而那件事很容易。 =&gt; This thing is difficult while that one is easy.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;这件事很难，但那件事很容易。 =&gt; This thing is difficult but that one is easy.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 2: 而 is better here  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;他没有出国，而是留在了国内。 =&gt; He stayed in home country instead of going abroad.&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 3: 但 is better  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;这杯水不甜，但富含营养。 =&gt; This cup of water is not sweet but full of nutrition.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The differencies are subtle, taste them in more practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's clearer to distinguish 而 from 和. Remember 和 has no adversative meaning, and in most cases it connects objects:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tom and Jerry are good friends.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Correct: &lt;em&gt;汤姆和杰瑞是好朋友。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Wrong: &lt;em&gt;汤姆而杰瑞是好朋友。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3081" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-07-27T17:02:51.690" LastActivityDate="2013-07-27T17:02:51.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3452" CreationDate="2013-07-27T19:10:50.980" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even for educated Chinese people who know English fairly well, they do not use the same method that native English speakers use (the one mentioned in your question).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The common methods Chinese use include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 - Read a small sequence of letters from the alphabet that contains the letter in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Theodore怎么拼？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“T-H-...”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“等一下，是T还是P”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“T，&lt;strong&gt;R-S-T的T&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 -  Prefix the letter with its ordinal number in the alphabet. This is borrowed from school as it's how teachers and students read answers of choice questions. It is commonly used for A-D but not very common for letters after D.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“最后一个字母是&lt;b&gt;二B还是四D&lt;/b&gt;？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“&lt;strong&gt;四D&lt;/strong&gt;。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Make sure when you read “2B&amp;quot;, B is in prominent falling tone, to distinguish from the swearing word &amp;quot;二逼&amp;quot; where the second character reads bi1. Of course students often make joke out of these homonyms.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 - Describe the shape or some other distinctive properties of the letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“G还是J？” (It's very common for Chinese people to confuse the pronunciations of these two letters.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“J，&lt;strong&gt;勾儿&lt;/strong&gt;。” (It's referring to the shape of the letter AND also it's the urban name of the letter in poker games.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do need to spell some English word over the phone with a Chinese, chances are the person is a service personnel, receptionist or secretary, with whom these methods work quite well, as per my personal experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-07-28T11:09:32.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3391" CreationDate="2013-07-28T00:48:06.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of time,in same-sex marriages ,there has an assertive &quot;man&quot;(which called &quot;攻&quot;) and a easygoing  &quot;women&quot;（called “受”）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So customary, we use &quot;&lt;strong&gt;‘攻’&lt;/strong&gt; 娶 &lt;strong&gt;‘受’&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or “&lt;strong&gt;‘受’&lt;/strong&gt; 嫁给 &lt;strong&gt;‘攻’&lt;/strong&gt;”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3082" LastActivityDate="2013-07-28T00:48:06.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3456" CreationDate="2013-07-28T04:55:47.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;和 and 而 can be substituted occasionally when 而 connects two adjectives or verbs, but it is not very natural. I'd think it is similar to the words &quot;and&quot; in English, or other European language. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她堅強而果斷的態度十分吸引人=》她堅強和果斷的態度十分吸引人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他們堅持和推進了問題的解決=》他們堅持而（而且）推進了問題的解決&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-05-26T10:11:30.227" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T10:11:30.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2013-07-28T11:19:01.040" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have to tell you that not all Chinese can tell them apart now, although we've learnt it in primary school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should be really good at Chinese if you can easily tell the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;的 =&amp;gt; adj. + n.&#xA;&#xA;地 =&amp;gt; adv. + v.&#xA;&#xA;得 =&amp;gt; v. + adv.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘的’一般用在定语后面名词前面，‘地’用在状语后面动词前面，‘得’一般用在充当谓语的动词、形容词后面，补语的前面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3076" LastActivityDate="2013-07-28T11:19:01.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="561" CreationDate="2013-07-30T09:55:15.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;the word great have two meanings in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One meaning is like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is a great man. 他是一个伟大的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;great in here means very excellent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a great day. great means very happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How ever we don't usually say it. Instead, we give wishes more specific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like 玩的愉快， 一帆风顺， 工作顺利 and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3090" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T09:55:15.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3465" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-30T14:40:09.177" Score="2" ViewCount="759" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe in Taiwan people use traditional Chinese characters for writing whereas in China they use simplified characters. Assuming this information is correct I'd like to kindly request suggestions for good textbooks teaching Chinese using traditional characters. Thanks a lot for your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3092" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T21:41:02.980" Title="Learning Chinese using traditional characters" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2013-08-01T18:47:48.797" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3465" CreationDate="2013-07-30T21:41:02.980" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning the characters is mostly a matter of memorization. You will need to learn a lot of characters in the most efficient way possible. Textbooks are not good for this. Using a spaced repetition system is normally the best method. A free spaced repetition program is Anki (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ankisrs.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ankisrs.net&lt;/a&gt;). You can find &quot;decks&quot; of traditional characters within Anki to start learning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pay version of Anki that lets you write the characters stroke by stroke is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skritter.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Skritter&lt;/a&gt;. I personally like Skritter and have been using it for several years. I find writing out the character helps me to remember it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To supplement the learning of characters you are going to want to get some form of grammar textbook. I like Ross's &quot;Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user701" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T21:41:02.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3468" CreationDate="2013-07-30T22:18:14.877" Score="4" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having a hard time trying to identify a character inscribed on this gate at the Yellow Crane Tower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xvNCP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xvNCP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I have been able to identify the other three characters (入山江). &#xA;So the character I'd like to have identified is the character to the left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3094" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T00:25:17.660" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T00:25:17.660" Title="Paifang inscription on a gate at the Yellow Crane Tower (Characters identified: 江山入画)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3467" CreationDate="2013-07-30T23:53:16.150" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;That would be 江山入画. If you search for Yellow Crane and 江山入画, you will find a bunch of results confirming, for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.panoramio.com/photo/2638628&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T23:53:16.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3467" CreationDate="2013-07-31T01:57:02.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's worth noting that in ancient Chinese, words are read from right to left. Like here, &quot;江山入画&quot;, not &quot;画入山江&quot;. You can find examples in many places in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2215" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-08-02T02:03:24.257" LastActivityDate="2013-08-02T02:03:24.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3451" CreationDate="2013-07-31T07:17:07.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practically, 余 is no long in use unless in poems or classic literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be more interesting to look at the various characters refer to 'I'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 is certainly the most widely used one.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;咱 is colloquial.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;俺 is more colloquial and vulgar.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿拉 is commonly used in Shanghainese dialect.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吾 is in Cantonese dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;– and the list goes on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3098" LastEditorUserId="3038" LastEditDate="2013-12-09T01:26:24.647" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T01:26:24.647" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3471" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3472" CreationDate="2013-07-31T11:32:49.027" Score="2" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;We got this stamp as a gift. What does the Chinese characters translate to? It seems too long to just translate to &quot;conscius&quot; [sic].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HvT3K.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T00:20:28.953" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T00:20:28.953" Title="Translation of &quot;conscius&quot; [sic] on stamp (Characters identified: 自覚的)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3471" CreationDate="2013-07-31T12:01:27.333" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;自觉的&lt;/code&gt;, just &quot;self-conscious&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that, &lt;code&gt;覚&lt;/code&gt; is seldom used today. It's an interchangeable character for &lt;code&gt;觉&lt;/code&gt;(simplified Chinese) or &lt;code&gt;覺&lt;/code&gt;(traditional Chinese), which means &lt;em&gt;sense/feel&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I think the one who made the stamp maybe didn't know Chinese. He or She might search &lt;em&gt;conscius&lt;/em&gt; in an electronic dictionary and found the Chinese meaning &lt;code&gt;自觉的&lt;/code&gt;. However the translation can be greatly refined :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-07-31T12:20:57.713" LastActivityDate="2013-07-31T12:20:57.713" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="561" CreationDate="2013-08-01T05:49:32.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I simply regard this as your best wishes? Well, you may try this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;祝你一天顺利&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's much more common in oral Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3103" LastActivityDate="2013-08-01T05:49:32.113" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2999" CreationDate="2013-08-01T07:56:13.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think if this this phrase means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;release your stress and get a little rest, (maybe take some breath to help you relex ?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there is some Chinese expression “缓口气”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3090" LastActivityDate="2013-08-01T07:56:13.513" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2999" CreationDate="2013-08-01T13:02:35.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can just say &quot;放松一下&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-08-01T13:02:35.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3471" CreationDate="2013-08-01T22:47:28.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the others have noted it means 'self-conscious.' The 的 adds a meaning of &quot;being self-conscious&quot; or &quot;having the property of being self-conscious.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 觉 is simplified but 覺 is traditional.  This leads me to believe that the stamp was made from Japan/Japanese, since the same Chinese character when rendered in Japanese it looks like 覚.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自覚的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This expression has basically the same meaning for both Chinese users of traditional and simplified and Japanese.  (And probably Korean, though they would use 覺.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3106" LastEditorUserId="3106" LastEditDate="2013-08-01T23:37:45.753" LastActivityDate="2013-08-01T23:37:45.753" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2999" CreationDate="2013-08-02T02:59:38.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;轉換心情 I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are lots of Japanese words that have totally different meanings from Chinese words though they uses similar characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your question, 気分 in 気分転換 often meaning feeling or mood in Japanese, but in Chinese, there is no such a word 氣分, but a similar word 氣氛, which means atmosphere or ambiance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word structure is different, too. In Chinese we won't say 心情轉換 (object then verb) but 轉換心情 (verb then object), because Chinese is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93verb%E2%80%93object&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;subject-verb-object&lt;/a&gt; language, but Japanese is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93object%E2%80%93verb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SOV&lt;/a&gt; language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="852" LastActivityDate="2013-08-02T02:59:38.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3410" CreationDate="2013-08-02T05:19:16.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It just common use. But if you insist, here may be a reason. You know in Chinese, there are four tones. If in a word, the characters' meaning are similar, like 东北， 天地， 危险. We always put the third and forth tone in the end. How ever, there are similar phenomenon in ancient poems, we call that 平仄. Be careful we don't usually  implement 平仄 in short words, but poems and 对联. But since we always say poems and 对联, then we may have some habit trends to arrange the order of characters for our comfortable to say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3090" LastActivityDate="2013-08-02T05:19:16.893" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3407" CreationDate="2013-08-02T05:28:06.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;政治正确 in Chinese is very different. For history reason, China has only one domain party, in ages before, the political environment is strict, people was roughly divided. The one follow the domain party are called 政治正确, and the against behaviors are called 政治正确. I think western may not have these meanings. If you have a example sentence, I may tell you the meaning in that particular situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3090" LastActivityDate="2013-08-02T05:28:06.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3480" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-02T07:36:18.890" Score="1" ViewCount="970" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the following indeed a Chinese proverb and if so, is the author known, is it still commonly used and how is it spelled in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;If you want happiness for a lifetime, help the younger generation.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2333" LastEditorUserId="2333" LastEditDate="2013-08-02T16:51:35.477" LastActivityDate="2013-08-04T06:44:46.650" Title="Chinese proverb: If you want happiness for a lifetime, help the younger generation?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="13" ClosedDate="2013-08-04T23:57:41.880" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3481" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3536" CreationDate="2013-08-02T07:46:50.187" Score="9" ViewCount="851" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know it switches the order of the verb and object and can be used to place emphasis on the object. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我把东西放在椅子上&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 把 should be used to indicate some kind of change is happening to the object. In the example above the change is in position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under what circumstances can I use 把？&#xA;What verbs are most often heard in daily speech?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2013-08-26T20:19:29.963" Title="When can 把 be used？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3481" CreationDate="2013-08-02T09:58:53.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, sorry for my previous answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 always appear before a verb to emphasize the object you know that, but it also appear in some verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;把玩：play something in hands with joy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mostly used for play antique, jewelry(something valuable), or interesting little things like toy, electronic product. The object should be funny to be played in hands, you can use this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把持：hold up your desire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you see a really pretty girl, you want to chase her but you already have wife. Your father may tell you &quot;把持住啊&quot; which you should hold your desire, same like when you have intent to buy some really expensive stuff, while you don't have much money, you may need to &quot;把持住&quot;， and if you &quot;把持不住&quot;, means you failed to control your desire. If you cheat on your girl friend, you want to tell her, you accidentally failed to control your desire. You can say &quot;没能把持住啊&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把妹： It's used by youngsters, and is a vulgar expression for chasing a girl. You can joke with your friends using it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 can compose a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the original meaning of 把 is something like &quot;handful&quot;&#xA;you can say “胡子一大把”&#xA;mean very old. Grandpa can say it &quot;我都胡子一大把了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 can also appear as a quantifier。&#xA;Like &quot;一把米&quot; “一把柴火” “一把机关枪”&#xA;and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really to much to say about this character, you can raise more specific(although you are specific...but still too much to say) question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3090" LastEditorUserId="3090" LastEditDate="2013-08-02T14:41:33.863" LastActivityDate="2013-08-02T14:41:33.863" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3480" CreationDate="2013-08-02T10:08:13.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes! there is a very close proverb. 养儿防老, it's not said by any known author, but just very commonly used in Chinese daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3090" LastActivityDate="2013-08-02T10:08:13.570" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3484" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-03T01:26:05.480" Score="3" ViewCount="1688" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this word in a news headline. It isn't found in any of 4 dictionaries I checked (PLC, CC, ADS for Pleco; YellowBridge.com).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;劲 jin4 means strength, energy, or enthusiasm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爆 bao4 means explode or burst&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put them together &amp;amp; you get an enthusiasm explosion? Thanks to anyone who can give me a better understanding. Examples are welcome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-10T11:59:31.527" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T11:59:31.527" Title="What is the English translation for 劲爆?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3452" CreationDate="2013-08-03T02:00:27.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China, there isn't an custom of spelling potentially ambiguous letters. But spell them correctly is a &quot;Rigid Demand&quot;. The intelligent Chinese invent many method of dealing with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Repeat&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Repeat is the most common way to tell confusion. In many occasion, one spell, the other retell and he tell again to check it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use common word&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In my experience, letter &lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;D&lt;/code&gt; often confuse people. And these two letters are commonly use in multiple choice problem at school. Teachers always use word &lt;code&gt;Boy&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Dog&lt;/code&gt; to tell them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use a mixture of English pronunciation and Chinese Pinyin pronunciation&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Use a mixture of English pronunciation and Chinese Pinyin pronunciation is another effective solution. This solution has an advantage that we can spell fast with it because every Chinese Pinyin letter have just one syllable. But this solution is not widely used.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A [a:]   B [bɒ]   C [ts:]   D [də]   E [ə:]   F [fə]   G [gə]   H [hə]   I [i:]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some Chinese, especially who learns radio, are more likely to use NATO phonetic alphabet (aka International radiotelephony spelling alphabet).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also many other ways to solve this problem. Chinese often spell as they like, not restricted by any common rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="929" LastEditorUserId="2322" LastEditDate="2013-10-28T13:40:26.533" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T13:40:26.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3486" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-03T02:24:26.017" Score="4" ViewCount="1755" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know of a Chinese proverb that warns against something along the lines of idleness. Translated literally into English, it would be something along the lines of &quot;Drink the Northwestern winds.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the origin of the proverbial phrase? And what is so peculiar about the Northwestern winds of China that would have inspired this proverb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3108" LastActivityDate="2013-08-03T05:56:44.727" Title="What is the origin of the proverbial phrase, &quot;Drink the Northwestern winds&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3486" CreationDate="2013-08-03T02:31:52.783" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;喝西北风，originally as 吸风, from &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E8%8E%8A%E5%AD%90/%E9%80%8D%E9%81%99%E9%81%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《庄子·逍遥游》&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;藐姑射之山，有神人居焉……不食五谷，吸风饮露。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its original meaning is to live with just breathing the air, not eating or drinking anything else. It's a state in Tao.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, in oral Chinese, 喝西北风 usually means having nothing to eat because of poverty. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他工作要是丢了，全家都得去喝西北风。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2215" LastEditorUserId="2215" LastEditDate="2013-08-03T05:56:44.727" LastActivityDate="2013-08-03T05:56:44.727" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3488" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-03T02:48:36.510" Score="5" ViewCount="780" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know a Chinese proverbial phrase. Translated literally into English, it says something along the lines of &quot;Sky falls big pancakes&quot;. When used negatively in the phrase, &quot;The sky does not fall big pancakes,&quot; it is generally used to warn against idleness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the origin of the proverb? Also, I am not really sure if the object is pancakes. It may be a cookie or a flat cake or a flat flour wrap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3108" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T02:04:43.107" Title="What's the origin of the proverbial phrase, &quot;Sky falls/does not fall big pancakes&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3488" CreationDate="2013-08-03T03:16:55.400" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;天上掉馅饼，means that free and delicious food like pies are falling from the sky. Or its negative form: 天上不会掉馅饼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays it usually means that people who are lazy are expecting something miracle but impossible will happen to them. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不好好工作就想升职，别做梦了，天上又不会掉馅饼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase came from a Chinese myth. After 嫦娥(the lady in the legend who swallowed the elixir stolen from her husband and flew to the moon) went to the moon, 后羿(the man in the legend who shot 9 suns out of 10 and saved the earth from the heat) was very sad and thought about her every day. When 嫦娥 found out his love, she wrote her love on a pie. Because she is on the moon, there came the phrase: 天上掉馅饼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2215" LastActivityDate="2013-08-03T03:16:55.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3484" CreationDate="2013-08-03T08:39:56.747" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find a good reference on the origin of this word, but here is my understanding as a Mandarin speaker:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this word comes from Cantonese, or is deeply influenced by Cantonese. &lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; It is confirmed from Cantonese, please refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/3655/798&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; for its meaning breakdown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word can be applied to news, music beats, highlight reels from sports or action movies, or lively performances. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;劲爆的演出 Hot performance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;劲爆金曲 Greatest hits&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一场劲爆的比赛 An extremely stimulus match&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-01T01:55:28.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3484" CreationDate="2013-08-03T09:19:49.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese native speaker. I think this word is most similar to the English word &quot;awesome&quot;, they are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3109" LastActivityDate="2013-08-03T09:19:49.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3492" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-08-03T09:53:45.473" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-08-03T09:53:45.473" LastActivityDate="2013-08-03T09:53:45.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3493" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-08-03T09:53:45.473" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-08-03T09:53:45.473" LastActivityDate="2013-08-03T09:53:45.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3484" CreationDate="2013-08-03T10:08:42.317" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning of 劲爆 is basically the combination of what you have written. In English, an equivalent would be &lt;code&gt;high-octane&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Informal&lt;/em&gt;. intense; dynamic; very powerful; energetic&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The critics were impressed by Springsteen's high-octane performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to that, 劲爆 can also refer to something sexually stimulating or news on celebrities that appear &quot;shocking&quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;美女大学生劲爆私房照&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  勁爆：李冰冰“二奶”私秘生活『圖』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-08-23T07:17:19.380" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T07:17:19.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3495" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3529" CreationDate="2013-08-03T17:17:28.520" Score="5" ViewCount="2408" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard or seen all of them in real life situations, some of them seem to be exclusively for hostels, others only for larger hotels, but some verification would be nice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2493" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T17:16:56.183" Title="So when should I use 旅舍，旅社，宾馆，酒店, or 旅馆?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3496" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3497" CreationDate="2013-08-04T04:35:29.510" Score="11" ViewCount="2961" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is always a difficult topic because racial and ethnic identities are so complex, sensitive, and dynamic: what are the best (as in the most precise and neutral) terms for &quot;White&quot; people?  I've heard terms like 老外, 洋人, and 鬼佬.  Do Chinese also say 白人?  More precisely, I'd like to know any terms that could be used for anyone that self-identifies as &quot;White&quot; (could have origins in Europe, North Africa, West Asia, or any of their former colonies like here in America).  Many East Asians have skin that is as light as any European's; would they ever self-identify with a term that could be translated as &quot;White&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="314" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T06:06:58.997" Title="Neutral Terms for &quot;White People&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3496" CreationDate="2013-08-04T05:24:23.480" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;老外 and 洋人 are the general terms for foreign people, not specific to white people. 老外 is more often heard in oral Chinese. In formal situations, 外国人is more likely used. 洋人 is a somehow out of date word, seldom used today. 鬼佬 has an implicit negative meaning, don't use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, Chinese refers to white people as 白种人 or 白人. But the words are not often seen in self introduction. The Chinese are more interested in where people are coming from, like whether one is coming from France, India, or South Africa, etc. And I got to say this is not for foreign people only. When two Chinese met for the first time, the usual introduction often includes 我是山东人 or 我来自东北, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2215" LastActivityDate="2013-08-04T05:24:23.480" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3495" CreationDate="2013-08-04T07:12:31.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually 酒店 refers to larger hotels. 宾馆 can have the same meaning, but some smaller hotels are also referred to as 宾馆. 旅馆 always refers to smaller hotels. 旅舍 is not very commonly used; it appears in some hotel names near tourist attractions. In most situations, 旅社 is not usually used to refer to a place for temporary accommodation; instead it refers to a travel agency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't like things to be too complicated, simply using 宾馆 is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3090" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-08-04T23:31:36.660" LastActivityDate="2013-08-04T23:31:36.660" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3500" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-04T09:12:51.567" Score="12" ViewCount="496" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are (at least) &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_102&quot;&gt;six characters&lt;/a&gt; that consist of radical 102 plus 0 strokes: 田 由 甲 申 甴 电&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In each of the variants the middle vertical stroke is made shorter, longer or twisted at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a name for this phenomenon? I know radicals can look different depending on where they appear in a character and that is called &lt;em&gt;variants&lt;/em&gt;, but this seems to be something different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a formal system to describe this? E.g. &quot;radical 102 with middle stroke elongated at the top&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3112" LastActivityDate="2013-08-09T20:00:57.010" Title="How to differentiate &quot;radical plus 0 strokes&quot; characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3501" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-04T11:18:29.680" Score="12" ViewCount="2119" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found two public databases that describe the composition of Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 - &lt;a href=&quot;http://cjkdecomp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=cjk-decomp&amp;amp;referringTitle=Home&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK Decomposition Data&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 - &lt;a href=&quot;http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons%3aChinese_characters_decomposition&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Characters Decomposition&lt;/a&gt; on Wiki Commons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see how the formats they use are different, but I don't think they are incompatible. Are these two data sources related or completely independent? Is it known which one is of higher quality?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason I'm asking is because I'm working on a &lt;a href=&quot;http://kangxiradicals.com/lookup&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tool&lt;/a&gt; that makes it easier to look up characters. It allows you to search by radical anywhere in the character, rather than by just the primary radical used in dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3112" LastEditorUserId="3112" LastEditDate="2013-08-10T15:28:37.310" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T05:15:07.960" Title="How does CJK Decomposition compare to the Wikimedia Commons Chinese characters decomposition data?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3496" CreationDate="2013-08-04T14:52:17.607" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;My closer Chinese friends do use the terms 白人 and 白种人 neutrally in the same way we use &quot;white people&quot;, but by and large I find Chinese people avoid these terms, and are set slightly on edge when I drop them casually into conversation. One friend told me she doesn't use 白人 because &quot;听起来有种族歧视，不是吗?&quot;. Instead she and other Chinese usually use &quot;美国人/法国人/英国人 etc.&quot; to indicate whiteness, but of course this can lead to some politically incorrect statements：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: “你的朋友是华裔吗?” (&quot;Is your friend ethnically Chinese?&quot;)&#xA;B: “不，她是美国人.” (&quot;No, she's American.&quot;) [actually she's both]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: “是不是美国人和黑人之间发生过很多冲突?” (&quot;There have been many conflicts between Americans and black people, right?&quot;) [as if the two are separate groups]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both examples, I'm fairly certain that the speaker is using &quot;美国人&quot; to mean &quot;白人&quot;. Most Americans would take offense at this definition, because it subtly implies that non-whites are not true Americans, even if the speaker didn't mean it that way. Ironically, it is the avoidance of the term &quot;白人&quot;, not its use, that causes the political incorrectness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to answer your question, I think &quot;白人&quot; or &quot;白种人&quot; actually is the most neutral term possible for &quot;white people&quot;, despite the fact that it seems to make most Chinese people slightly uncomfortable. Neutrality aside, 老外, 洋人, and 鬼佬 all refer to all Westerners, not just whites. And I don't think any Chinese people would self-identify as &quot;白人&quot; because of their skin color, except jokingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="321" LastActivityDate="2013-08-04T14:52:17.607" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3506" CreationDate="2013-08-05T05:48:39.840" Score="13" ViewCount="2234" Body="&lt;p&gt;If writing for an exclusively Chinese audience, would the number 五萬  be written as 5,0000 or 50,000?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To flesh out the question, we could consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五千      5000  or 5,000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五萬     5,0000 or 50,000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五十萬   50,0000 or 500,000  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五百萬  500,0000  or 5,000,000 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am curious, about both text and software which is published with only a native Chinese speaking audience in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-10T11:58:43.373" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T11:58:43.373" Title="Where should I place the comma in large numbers?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;number&gt;&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3504" CreationDate="2013-08-05T06:18:52.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We usually just write as 50000, and sometimes follow the western standard 50,000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3120" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-08-05T07:14:02.100" LastActivityDate="2013-08-05T07:14:02.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3504" CreationDate="2013-08-05T07:26:10.273" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's &lt;code&gt;50 000&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;50,000&lt;/code&gt;, the same as international standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.china-language.gov.cn/wenziguifan/shanghi/021.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;出版物上数字用法的规定&lt;/a&gt; (General rules for writing numerals in publications) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8    多位整数与小数: &lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;8 Multidigit integers and decimals:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.1  阿拉伯数字书写的多位整数和小数的分节 &lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;8.1 Segmentations for multidigit integers and decimals written in Arabic numerals&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.1.1  专业性科技出版物的分节法：从小数点起，向左和向右每三位数字一组，组间空四分之一个汉字(二分之一个阿拉伯数字)的位置。 &lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;8.1.1 Segmentation rules for professional scientific publications: from the decimal point, towards the left and the right, make every three digits a group; the width of the gap between two adjacent groups should be 1/4 of a Chinese character width (or 1/2 of an Arabic numeral width).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;示例：2 748 456      3.141 592 65&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.1.2  非专业性科技出版物如排版留四分空有困难，可仍采用传统的以千分撇“,”分节的办法。小数部分不分节。四位以内的整数也可以不分节。 &lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;8.1.2 For non-&quot;professional scientific publications&quot;, if it is difficult to use &quot;quarter space&quot;, the traditional segment comma &quot;,&quot; is acceptable. Decimal part should not be segmented. Integers less than 4 digits can be either segmented or not segmented.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;示例：2,748,456    3.14159265    8703 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Edit by Stan:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If following 8.1.1, then the &lt;code&gt;四分空&lt;/code&gt;(quarter space) should be used according to the standard. Unfortunately, the standard hasn't exactly defined which space should be used. The list of spaces can be found in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_(punctuation)#Spaces_in_Unicode&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt;. And practically, when rendering &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; by a monospaced font, I suggest using&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;U+2005 Four-Per-Em Space, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;U+202F Narrow No-Break Space&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for the &quot;quarter space&quot;. Specially, the &quot;Narrow No-Break Space&quot; is for the intention of not breaking a digit number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rendering results with mixed font &lt;code&gt;宋体+Calibri&lt;/code&gt; via Microsoft Word are as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MRCNu.png&quot; alt=&quot;space&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and for the line-breaking case (text aligning setting: &lt;code&gt;两端对齐 Justify&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LiNvj.png&quot; alt=&quot;space-linebreak&quot;&gt;&#xA;*Note that in the &quot;Narrow No-Break Space&quot; case, no matter how you edit the content, the number won't be break into two lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, you can use the &lt;code&gt;Alt&lt;/code&gt; and the numeric keypad to input the special space, like &lt;code&gt;Alt+8197&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Alt+8239&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2215" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-08-06T06:33:28.667" LastActivityDate="2013-08-06T06:33:28.667" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3507" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3509" CreationDate="2013-08-05T10:53:00.373" Score="5" ViewCount="646" Body="&lt;p&gt;三寸不烂之舌 is used to describe great eloquence, similar to the English phrase &quot;silver tongue&quot;. How exactly did this phrase come about? What does &quot;三寸&quot; mean? What's the meaning of &quot;烂&quot; in this phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/142755.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Some examples&lt;/a&gt; of its historical use include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《水浒全传》第十五回：“小生必须自去那里，凭三寸不烂之舌，说他们入伙。”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《三国演义》第三回：“愿凭三寸不烂之舌，往江东说此人来降。”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sorry if this question seems very basic, as I'm getting a few very basic responses. This is what should be obvious (and I'm not asking):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三寸 is a length, alluding to the tongue&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;烂 also has the meaning of &quot;worn out&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The literal meaning of &quot;三寸不烂之舌&quot; would be &quot;a tongue that does not wear out&quot;, meaning someone who can speak at length with ease, hence eloquence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm not clear on, and I'm hoping there are some explanations, are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why use 三寸, a length, to describe the tongue? Why not use something else, like weight or colour? Why use 三寸 to describe the tongue, as opposed to other body parts? What's the significance?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;烂 has many meanings, so why pick the &quot;worn out&quot; one? Was the meaning of &quot;worn out&quot; more idiomatic during the origin of this phrase, as opposed to what it's usually used for now - tender or rotten? Why not use other characters to mean the same thing, is there a significance to using 烂?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I appreciate that in etymology, sometimes there are no good answers, or there were but are lost to time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2013-08-06T06:45:57.770" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T13:00:24.067" Title="Etymology of 三寸不烂之舌" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3508" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3510" CreationDate="2013-08-05T16:13:47.147" Score="8" ViewCount="5488" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know both &lt;code&gt;觉得&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;认为&lt;/code&gt; can be used to mean &amp;quot;to think&amp;quot;, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你认为这篇文章怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你觉得这篇文章怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But most people would translate &lt;code&gt;觉得&lt;/code&gt; to &amp;quot;to feel&amp;quot;. Does &lt;code&gt;觉得&lt;/code&gt; express more of what someone thinks based on just feeling, are there any cases where these two words are not interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2978" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-08-06T04:30:58.943" Title="Difference between 觉得 and 认为" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3507" CreationDate="2013-08-05T23:56:30.203" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one of those phrases that have no 'official' etymology, but there exists multiple folk etymologies based on cultural &lt;strong&gt;allusions&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of these allusions traces back to the Period of Warring States (战国时代). The state of Zhao (赵国) was being invaded by Qin (秦国). Out of desperation, the king of Zhao asked one of his officials to act as an ambassador to the state of Chu (楚国) to request for reinforcements. The official (平原君) selected 19 out of his thousands of followers to go with him, but had trouble selecting the last one to complete his entourage. One of the followers stepped forward and volunteered himself. His name was Mao (毛遂; this is also where the phrase 毛遂自荐 came from). Due to Mao's extraordinary talent of persuasion and speech, Chu agreed to send reinforcements. Here is a (rather abridged) section from the story:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平原君签定纵约返回赵国后曰：「我不敢再鉴识人才了。我鉴识人才多至上千人，少则数百人，自认为不会漏失天下贤能之士，现在竟遗漏毛先生了。毛先生一到楚国，就使赵国的地位比九鼎大吕的传国之宝还有份量。毛先生的三寸舌头，比百万大军还要强大。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, the official likened Mao's tongue to an army one million strong. Essentially, a human tongue is approximately 三寸 (or 10 centimetres), with 寸 being a Chinese traditional unit of measurement which is approximately 33.33 millimetres or 3.33 centimetres; 烂 means 'tattered' or 'worn' as in 破烂; 舌 or 舌头 means 'tongue'.  A 三寸不烂之舌, or 10 centimetres of tongue that never wears out, therefore, refers to a person's ability to engage in often long discussions and persuade the other party to pursue your cause in the end. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other cultural allusions. All of the ones I have seen seem to originate from the Period of Warring States. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-08-06T00:19:12.940" LastActivityDate="2013-08-06T00:19:12.940" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3508" CreationDate="2013-08-06T04:30:58.943" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 觉得 expresses more of what someone thinks based on feeling. 认为 expresses more of a person's opinion based on considerations and beliefs. As such, 认为 is always stronger than 觉得 when communicating thoughts. There are cases where the two words are not interchangeable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When expressing a strong belief:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在过去，人们&lt;strong&gt;认为&lt;/strong&gt;喜欢抛头露面的妇女是不守妇道的。&lt;br&gt; In the past, people considered women who&#xA;  appear in public to be lacking in virtue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When expressing a feeling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;觉得&lt;/strong&gt;很遗憾，这件事不该发生的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I feel very sorry. This incident should not have happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where they are meant to communicate thoughts, although interchangeable, there is always a preference of one over the other: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When expressing a casual thought without a line of reasoning:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;觉得&lt;/strong&gt;这篇文章太深奥了，就算让我再读几遍我也读不懂。&lt;br&gt; I feel that this article is too&#xA;  profound. I wouldn't be able to comprehend even if I read it a dozen&#xA;  times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When expressing an opinion with a clear line of reasoning:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;认为&lt;/strong&gt;这篇文章太深奥了，使用的词汇不是一般人都能看懂的。&lt;br&gt; I opine that this article is too&#xA;  profound. The vocabulary used is not what an ordinary person can understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-08-06T04:30:58.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3511" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3515" CreationDate="2013-08-06T04:46:11.113" Score="5" ViewCount="577" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 不停 and 不斷 (不断) ? Both mean incessant or unceasing. According to what I know, 不停 is an adverb, while 不斷 (不断) can be an adverb or adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this sentence seems to mean the same with both words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She kept working (she didn't stop working).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她*&lt;em&gt;不停&lt;/em&gt;*地工作. &lt;br&gt; 她*&lt;em&gt;不断&lt;/em&gt;*地工作.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="938" LastEditDate="2013-08-07T15:18:11.323" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T13:21:05.110" Title="What's the difference between 不停 and 不斷？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2471" CreationDate="2013-08-06T07:04:19.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have the answer in your own question &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;similar to nicknames such as laozhang and laowang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老 + surname is used as a way of addressing people in an informal way. As you said, a person whose surname is 张 can be called 老张 and a person whose surname is 李 can be called 老李. The same is true with younger people: 小张 and 小李。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how do you call a foreigner, who doesn't have a Chinese family name? You take the first character (the 'surname') of 外国人 and get 老外.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3061" LastActivityDate="2013-08-06T07:04:19.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3511" CreationDate="2013-08-06T10:29:25.430" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you go by the meaning of both &lt;strong&gt;sentences&lt;/strong&gt; they mean the same. But these are the words with the same meaning when if you go by the context.  But if you see the meaning of 2 words individually they have altogether a different meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不停 means STOP (adverb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不斷 (不断) means constantly or continued&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you said the second option can be an adverb or adjective, which depends on how you will use that word. So don't go by the meaning of sentences, see words alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3125" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-08-06T17:39:56.803" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3516" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3518" CreationDate="2013-08-06T14:11:27.480" Score="6" ViewCount="694" Body="&lt;p&gt;曾经 has already been well explained here, but I sometimes see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...曾 verb...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as opposed to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...曾经 verb...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference in meaning or usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-08-06T16:29:54.490" LastActivityDate="2013-08-08T04:59:36.507" Title="Can 曾 be used alone instead of 曾经？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3516" CreationDate="2013-08-06T15:22:22.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;曾 can be used with the same meaning as 曾经&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But one occasion is noteworthy: 不曾 - where you can't use 不曾经&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for undeleting me. I wanted originally to post this answer as a comment. But I'm a new user here, while it requires 50 reputation to post a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3126" LastEditorUserId="3126" LastEditDate="2013-08-07T04:27:38.073" LastActivityDate="2013-08-07T04:27:38.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3516" CreationDate="2013-08-06T16:46:19.587" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many verbs and adverbs in Chinese that hold the exact meaning without the second character. Chinese words have a more complete sound to them when they are in pairs of two characters, but it's not necessary to use the verb or adverb in its complete form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我也曾(经)涉足于多个领域，可惜学业不精。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他已(经)20岁了，已(经)到及冠之年，是个大人了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好久没有这样安恬熟睡(觉)了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having the two different choices though gives the speaker more control over making the sentence sound more fluid, generally by pairing single character words with the single character form, and using the full verb with two character form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2978" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-08-08T04:59:36.507" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3500" CreationDate="2013-08-06T18:26:48.750" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese native speakers don't treat 田 由 甲 申 甴 电 as related radicals. It is true that those radicals look very similar to each other, but we don't go further than that. We don't have any terms for this phenomenon, because we don't think it is something that needs special attention/study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are more examples:  刀 vs 力, 土 vs 士, 己 vs 已 vs 巳,  冂 vs 几, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, there are some words spelling almost same, for example: discreet vs discrete, complement vs compliment, calendar vs calender, etc. Are there any special terms for this phenomenon in English? Do you English native speakers treat them with special attention?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, your question reminds me a character game I played when I was a  child: form as many characters as you can by adding another stroke to the character 日. All the characters appearing in your question are part of the answer. There are some more, like 旦, 白, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited my answer as suggested by NS.X.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went too extreme saying &quot;Chinese native speakers don't treat 田 由 甲 申 甴 电 as related radicals.&quot; I admit that it was not true. Yes, they are related radicals, but only in the sense that they look very similar to each other, except for 由 and 甴 as pointed out by Stan, that they are variant forms of each other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way that those characters 田 由 甲 申 甴 电 are listed under 田 as &quot;radical plus 0 strokes&quot; only reflects what the author(s) / editor(s) thought was appropriate. Are there any fundamental rules behind that? I doubt it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, I believe it could've been done in another way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;list 由 as a new radical, and list the following characters under it: 甹, 畁, and 甴 as a variant form of 由.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;list 甲 as a new radical, and list 畢 under it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;list 申 as a new radical, and list the following characters under it: 畅, 畃.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;list 电 as a new radical, and list &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ea4R4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; under it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See, characters can be classified in different ways. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the author(s) / editor(s) of Kangxi Dictionary put 由 甲 申 甴 电 in the group of 田 for the sake of simplicity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2013-08-09T20:00:57.010" LastActivityDate="2013-08-09T20:00:57.010" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3523" CreationDate="2013-08-07T05:35:37.137" Score="5" ViewCount="768" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've lived in Henan provice for around 8 years and have never seen any texts for learners of the Henanese dialect. There are considerable variations in dialect within Henan between people from different cities and even different districts within the same city. I am able to understand much of what is spoken, but can't figure out which tones are being used because they are so inconsistent. So the only way I know of learning Henanese is to memorize the pronunciation of phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Henanese is much closer to Mandarin than dialects like Cantonese, Wenzhounese, etc. That may explain the lack of teaching material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know of foreigners who have picked up the local dialect, but I'm more of a visual learner. It would be far more efficient to look at a written guide. Are there any such resources for Henanese or other Chinese dialects?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3128" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:20:36.513" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:20:36.513" Title="Are there any resources for learners of Chinese dialects that are close to Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3516" CreationDate="2013-08-07T09:31:44.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;plus, 曾 can not be used instead of 曾经, and 曾经 can not be used instead of 曾 here,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;曾经，我犯了一个错。&#xA;曾几何时，我学会了抽烟。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, when you use &quot;曾经&quot; in the middle of one sentence, you can always use &quot;曾&quot; instead. Otherwise, you can not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3123" LastEditorUserId="3123" LastEditDate="2013-08-07T09:36:55.363" LastActivityDate="2013-08-07T09:36:55.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3525" CreationDate="2013-08-07T22:34:40.093" Score="3" ViewCount="516" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of any open source code for segmenting Pinyin syllables that has diacritic tone marks?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yìrúfǎnzhǎng -&gt; yì rú fǎn zhǎng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C#, Python, or Lex is preferred but any language will do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've searched the internet but I'm coming up dry.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit:&lt;/em&gt; This is the algorithm I'm thinking of implementing myself:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sort the standard list of all 414 syllables * 5 (tones) distinct syllable+tone combinations by length.  Starting at the beginning of the text, look for the longest pinyin syllable that matches.  Once a match is found move to the end of the syllable and repeat.  Of course, there is the problem with syllables like xian matching xi'an.  This happens because xian is longer than xi.  For short passages of text and given the expected number of syllables I think I can figure this out by backtracking.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="526" LastEditorUserId="526" LastEditDate="2013-08-08T21:16:22.467" LastActivityDate="2013-08-08T21:16:22.467" Title="Segmentation of Pinyin syllables with diacritics" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3520" CreationDate="2013-08-08T02:03:44.093" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is not much of this available even at bookstores within China. There is even much less for non-background speakers in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally have been lucky enough to get a book from Peking University Press titled &quot;Practical Suzhou Dialect&quot; which also includes English. I tried searching online however this appears to be a one-off. However, you could try contacting one of the major universities or even going to a university in Henan to see if they have resources available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also this book listed on Amazon &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/7500491832&quot;&gt;Henan dialect of Luoshan&lt;/a&gt; but this is not a text book. I have tried seeing if I could find the contents of this online, but only found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/11/1128/06/7434782_167891066.shtml&quot;&gt;a site listing an index of what is inside&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also suggest asking on Chinese social media sites to see if anyone can help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-08-08T02:03:44.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3520" CreationDate="2013-08-08T02:52:07.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;呵呵。I'm chinese in Peking.I suggest that Pekingnese also called Beingjingnese is the most close to Mandarin.In the fact,Mandarin is created basing on Beijingnese and refer to Most North of Chinese Dialect including Shangdongnese,Dongbeinese,But Henan dialect is more like mid-east region called &quot;ZhongYuan&quot; historically.So lots of Chinese costume drama online are the best resources,a good TV show is named &quot;I Love my family&quot; in Chenese “我爱我家”,like &quot;Friends&quot;.Have Fun in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3130" LastActivityDate="2013-08-08T02:52:07.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3522" CreationDate="2013-08-08T03:15:53.170" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/zhon/0.2.1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zhon&lt;/a&gt; would cover this I believe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        pinyin_a_re.findall('Yǒurén diūshīle yī bǎ fǔzi, zěnme zhǎo yě méiyǒu zhǎodào.')&#xA;    ['Yǒu', 'rén', ' ', 'diū', 'shī', 'le', ' ', 'yī', ' ', 'bǎ', ' ', 'fǔ', 'zi', ',', ' ', 'zěn', 'me', ' ', 'zhǎo', ' ', 'yě', ' ', 'méi', 'yǒu', ' ', 'zhǎo', 'dào', '.']   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastActivityDate="2013-08-08T03:15:53.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3501" CreationDate="2013-08-08T05:05:14.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not an expert in CJK decomposition, but I can share some of my knowledge as a native Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both decomposition are purely structural I would say. It is suitable for computer processing (input and recognition). We also use this way to look up a character in dictionary (99% of it actually, there are exceptions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in a broad sense they are compatible. But just as different Chinese dictionaries may put the same character under different &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_%28Chinese_character%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;radicals&lt;/a&gt; (部首 bùshǒu), there is no guarantee of consistency and mostly depends on the editor of the classification. Nevertheless these discrepancies should be treated as exceptions rather than norm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference on structural decomposition: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesenotes.com/chinese_fonts_structure.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinesenotes.com/chinese_fonts_structure.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;More on CJK characters&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese character decomposition &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;as a study&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is much more than that. None of the above decomposition referred to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;六書 liùshū&lt;/a&gt;, the six way of Chinese character formation. I highly recommend you look into it if you are interested in Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese has its own fixed set of phonetic characters (仮名 kana) and Chinese characters (漢字 kanji). It uses the rules in 六書 liùshū (mostly 會意 huìyì) to generate many kanji that is only used in Japanese and only have Japanese articulation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Korean characters (hangul) are actually shapes of consonants and vowels packed in a square  so it is also a fixed set of phonetic characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. maybe a bit off-topic, sorry :-P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2669" LastEditorUserId="2669" LastEditDate="2013-08-08T05:40:11.937" LastActivityDate="2013-08-08T05:40:11.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3495" CreationDate="2013-08-09T07:11:26.627" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;酒店 usually means restaurant only, but it refers to the hotel with restaurant advertised or the larger hotel too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宾馆/旅馆/旅店 is hotel, same exactly meaning, including the hotel with restaurant. But you never call a restaurant only as 宾馆. And you don't call a very good hotel as 旅馆/旅店.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;旅社/招待所 is often used by mid aged people in China, when they say 旅社 they meant those hotels that are nation sponsored (国营的) in the planned economics time. Mostly it is equivalent to 宾馆/旅馆, but 旅社 refers to the smaller cheap hotel on the street nowadays, 招待所 is still for the nation or organisation sponsored hotels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;旅舍 means the accommodation for travellers, mostly in country side, specifically  means the small and cheaper hotel. It refers the building rather than the function of the hotel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;YHA can be translated as 青年旅馆 or 青年旅舍, rarely with other names. Bagpacker's can be translated as 背包旅馆 or 背包旅舍, nobody calls it as 背包宾馆. Hilton hotel can be translated as 希尔顿酒店 or 希尔顿宾馆, nobody calls it 希尔顿旅馆. Novotel like business hotel can be translated as 商务旅馆, 商务酒店, 商务宾馆. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2013-08-09T07:11:26.627" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3495" CreationDate="2013-08-09T22:50:18.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding as a Mandarin speaker:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酒店 mostly refer to multi-functional fancy hotels, or at least they want to refer themselves as fancy and pricy. Normally there are pricy restaurants attached to 酒店. You would also be expected to see conference centers, gyms, bars inside a 酒店. For example Hilton will be a 酒店 - 希尔顿大酒店。 (I feel that the word 酒店 has some relation to higher social status.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then after that comes 宾馆. It mainly refer to some nice hotels more or less just for sleeping. So an international conference will likely to be held in a 酒店, not a 宾馆.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;旅馆 &amp;amp; 旅舍 seems like an inn/motel to me. 旅 in Chinese means to travel, so it translates to travel-accommodation - a Motel. I say Holiday Inn would be called a 旅馆. 旅舍 is similar in some sense, but it has the nuance of independent-organization. If my mom decide to open a hotel we might call it 旅舍, but this difference is very subtle and maybe ignored in some situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青年旅舍 as a phrase, means hostels. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;旅舍 &amp;amp; 旅社 maybe used interchangeably as in &quot;accommodation&quot;.  Although 旅社 sometimes short for 旅行社, is a &quot;travel agent&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3135" LastEditorUserId="3135" LastEditDate="2014-01-30T17:16:56.183" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T17:16:56.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3531" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-10T10:37:46.930" Score="3" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand the meaning of the sentence, but I have difficulties grasping the pattern and how I could extend it to other phrases. Could you please come up with other example sentences with similar patterns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2493" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T14:18:01.630" Title="How do I use a pattern like in 一年有春夏秋冬四季?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3531" CreationDate="2013-08-11T09:18:20.583" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose this is a pattern that is to describe a subject, which can be interpreted by different terms, but you can combine them together as a whole, so as to explain it more dramatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the sentence you give, you can say a year has 4 seasons, and a year has spring/summer/autumn/winter. Then you can combine them together a year has spring/summer/autumn/winter 4 seasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;空间有上下左右前后六个方位&quot; - The space has up/down/let/right/front/back 6 directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3136" LastActivityDate="2013-08-11T09:18:20.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3533" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3534" CreationDate="2013-08-11T13:23:40.373" Score="0" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://soundcloud.com/menevets/chinesepod-museum-clip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://soundcloud.com/menevets/chinesepod-museum-clip&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Around 3 seconds in, it sounds like gan3 ding3, but I can't figure out what it means. I think gan3 is 感. Could ding3 be 顶?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;na4 wo3 men jiu4 gan3 ding2 xu4 yu4 zhe4 ge bu3 wu3 guan3 ma.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那我们就 [? ? ] [絮语?] 这个博物馆吗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure the gist of the sentence is now let's [something something] this musesum&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2013-08-11T20:23:23.977" Title="Is it gan3 ding3 she is saying in this sentence? Audio clip" Tags="&lt;audio&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3533" CreationDate="2013-08-11T14:52:39.147" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;那我们就 &lt;strong&gt;赶紧&lt;/strong&gt; 去这个博物馆吧！ （Nà wǒmen &lt;strong&gt;gǎnjǐn&lt;/strong&gt; qù zhège bówùguǎn ba） - We should &lt;strong&gt;quickly&lt;/strong&gt; go to the museum now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赶 gǎn：to catch up; to overtake; to hurry; to rush; to drive away&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;紧 jǐn：tight; strict; close at hand; near; urgent; tense; hard up; short of money; to tighten&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赶紧：hurriedly; without delay&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-08-11T20:23:23.977" LastActivityDate="2013-08-11T20:23:23.977" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3531" CreationDate="2013-08-11T23:12:06.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In it's most basic form the pattern should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;subject + verb + (quantity) object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 一只猫 + 有 + (四条)腿 &amp;lt;-- (brackets not necessary, just trying to make the distinction clear)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年 + 有 + 四季&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example the sentence is expanded to list out what each of those items in the object are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 四季 includes 春、夏、秋、冬.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the sentence pattern then becomes something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;subject + verb + list of objects + (quantity) object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年 + 有 + 春、夏、秋、冬 + 四季&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another example of the same pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的家 + 有 + 爸爸 妈妈 和 我 + 三个人 (我的家有爸爸妈妈和我三个人)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, one of the first sentences I learnt from a text book was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我家有四口人爸爸、妈妈、妹妹和我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is similar to the pattern above, but you can see the place of the number of objects (四口人) is switched with the list of objects. Both ways are acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-08-11T23:50:57.483" LastActivityDate="2013-08-11T23:50:57.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3481" CreationDate="2013-08-11T23:53:22.660" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hard to say with which verbs 把 is used most often. However here are some examples to your other question (when to use it). Compare the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（1） 我吃了你的鸡蛋汤。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（2）我把你的鸡蛋汤吃光了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is &quot;I ate your egg soup&quot; in both cases. However, in the first case the emphasize is on eating the soup while on the second one it's about the result of the soup being eaten already. Look at this 2 dialogues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你吃了吗？ (Have you eaten?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 吃了。我吃了你的鸡蛋汤。(Yes. I ate your soup.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Topic of this conversation is &quot;eating&quot;, what you've eaten is not important. Maybe there is even some soup left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我的鸡蛋汤呢？ (Where is my soup?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 对不起。我把你的鸡蛋汤吃光了。(Sorry. I ate it up.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this conversation A wants to know where his soup is. Topic obviously is the soup itself, if you or someone else have eaten it doesn't matter here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把头发剪短了。(I cut my hair short.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emphasizes: hair is short now. Who, when, how it was cut doesn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把邮票贴上了。(I put the stamp on.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emphasizes: stamp is put on. Doesn't matter when you put it on, how you did it, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally I think one could say: 把 is used when you want to emphasize on the result. Same goes for &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请把门关上。 (Please shut the door.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally this is: Please make door shut, which is exactly the meaning of it. Just make it happen that the result (door closed) is accomplished. If you actually go up and pull the handle or swing your wand to close it doesn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2821" LastEditorUserId="2821" LastEditDate="2013-08-12T09:23:50.257" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T09:23:50.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3438" CreationDate="2013-08-12T13:00:32.460" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is that you'd better have a Chinese dictionary when you learn it, for example &amp;lt;新华字典&gt;. All the usual meaning will be presented with example. The 乃 in your example has the same meaning in the following example:吾乃常山赵子龙也from （三国演义）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T13:00:32.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3511" CreationDate="2013-08-12T13:21:05.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can understand it by each character in the words. 停 means stop while 断 means no more. Thus, 不停 means keep on going while 不断 means it is not the end. You can also compare with 不息 and 不止，there is a saying that 生命不息，奋斗不止 which means I will struggle till the end of my life. 止 has the same meaning as 停 sometimes, for example, 停止. 息 also has the same meaning as 停 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T13:21:05.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3369" CreationDate="2013-08-12T13:56:46.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, especially in Wedding, you'd better say '第一年，或许你们还会摩擦，但摩擦也是为了爱的火花' which means that 'Perhaps there is some friction between you, but all these are because of love'. One can give his opinion or suggestion in Wedding, but you'd better turn them into blessing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T13:56:46.930" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3531" CreationDate="2013-08-12T14:18:01.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also say 一年有四季：春夏秋冬 which has the same meaning. As @stan has said, one of 四季 or 春夏秋冬 is an appositive word. In general, the word as 四季 is put later since it has a function to summerize or explain the words before it. BTW, sometimes, 有 will be canceled, i.e. 一年四季，春夏秋冬. There is a poetry Chinese children will learn:一去二三里，烟村四五家，亭台六七座，八九十枝花, 一去 and 烟村 and 亭台 has the same function as 春夏秋冬 in your example while 二三里 and 四五家 and 六七座 has the same function as 四季.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T14:18:01.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3305" CreationDate="2013-08-12T14:29:06.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a grade in ancient China, 帝王、圣贤、隐士、童仙、文人、武士、&lt;em&gt;农&lt;/em&gt;、工、商. You see, &lt;em&gt;农&lt;/em&gt;(farmer) is a lower grade. And '土' is here and there in the country but not in the city, and only farmer relies on '土'（田地） for his living. Thus, 土=农民 who always in bad image and looked down on by others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T14:29:06.280" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3302" CreationDate="2013-08-12T14:35:40.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;爱情的征兆，that is, the feeling or phenomenon of love is coming. For example, 这可是爱情的征兆哦 means this is a phenomenon of your love is coming. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T14:35:40.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3229" CreationDate="2013-08-12T14:47:25.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most used style in life is 楷体. The suggested way to learn how to write in each style is imitate a copybook for calligraphy with a good pen. I recommend the ones written by 庞中华. You can buy from amazon &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.cn/s?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;page=1&amp;amp;rh=n%3A658390051%2Ck%3A%E5%BA%9E%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E5%AD%97%E5%B8%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.cn/s?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;page=1&amp;amp;rh=n%3A658390051%2Ck%3A%E5%BA%9E%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E5%AD%97%E5%B8%96&lt;/a&gt; or you write all the characters in a document in the style you like and then print it as a copybook for calligraphy. If you need the 庞中华 style of 楷体, leave your email and I will send it to you, since I do not know one can download it outside China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;草书 only appears in some artistic works, and even most Chinese can not recognize the characters in the style of 草书. What's more, 狂草 even the author cannot recognize the words he wrote down sometimes. In comparison, 行书 is more general. The most used style in life is 楷体. BTW, there is 行楷 between 楷体 and 行书. You'd better learn in this order 楷体 行楷 行书 草书. It requires great effort and a long time. But it is very comfortable if you can write in these styles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2013-08-12T18:04:10.313" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T18:04:10.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3488" CreationDate="2013-08-13T02:04:43.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an explain by BaiDuPedia in Chinese:天上掉馅饼本指天空中降落类似馅饼那样的即免费又好吃的食物，泛指在自然生活中会无缘无故的发生一些可以满足人们欲望的物质或财富上面的事情；现在也贬指那些坐享其成，成天不务实际的人在假想一些不可能发生的事情，等待出现奇迹，天上怎么可能会掉馅饼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;馅饼 is a common food in China even today, it may be like a salty pie(I'm sorry, I have not met a pie). You get a 馅饼 from sky rather than you cook it, how lucky! You pay no effort. Thus, 天上掉馅饼 means getting something without effort; 天上不会掉馅饼 warns you that this thing will not happen, that is, you'd better do your best to get something. There is a fable story known by everybody in China &amp;lt;守株待兔&gt;, it gives the same warning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T02:04:43.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33" CreationDate="2013-08-13T02:21:02.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd better say that we all use SouGou PinYin input method &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.sogou.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://pinyin.sogou.com/&lt;/a&gt; in Windows. It is the best pinyin input method and support all the functions you wanted. BTW, in linux (for example, ubuntu), we use Sunpinyin or Googlepinyin with ibus or fcitx.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T02:21:02.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2013-08-13T02:27:53.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can remember some examples, compare with them when you use. For example, 我的书，好得很，认真地读， or 我在认真地读我的那本好得很的书.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T02:27:53.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3550" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3551" CreationDate="2013-08-13T02:31:42.533" Score="4" ViewCount="20617" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I started learning Chinese I was taught that this term would mean I miss you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However have recently seen this been translated different ways into English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1st&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I miss you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2nd&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm thinking of you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the main word here is 想 and I understand it can be used to indicate &lt;em&gt;want, think, suppose, miss&lt;/em&gt; depended upon context but for this i'm lost and wanted to seek your guidance on how to interpret this statement 我想你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T21:10:21.840" Title="how to correctly translate 我想你" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3550" CreationDate="2013-08-13T03:00:49.983" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, miss equals to 想(念)，思念 while think of equals to 想到，想起. So 'I miss you' is the right choice. 'I think of you' means '我想起了你'. But sometimes 'I am thinking of you' is translated into ‘我想着你’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When one say '我想你(+Adverbial)' or ‘我在想你(+Adverbial)’ as a sentence alone, it means that I miss you or I'm missing you. And when one say '我想你+...', it generally means 'I think you +...'. For example, 我想你很适合这项工作 means I think that you are fit to this work. Another example, 我想你在这个夜里 means I miss you in this night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastEditorUserId="3142" LastEditDate="2013-08-14T05:25:51.270" LastActivityDate="2013-08-14T05:25:51.270" CommentCount="20" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3484" CreationDate="2013-08-13T03:26:27.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can understand it from each character, 劲 means strong and powerful while 爆 means explosive. Thus, 劲爆 means powerful and explosive, i.e. shocking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T03:26:27.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3481" CreationDate="2013-08-13T03:36:54.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the senctence with 把 is more formal, one usually use it in a formal situation, for example, make an apology or in offical situation. But in common life, two people knowing about each other, they will prefer to not use 把.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the most used verb in China is 吃（eat， eating）, it has been a culture. Even they say 吃了吗 as the most used greeting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T03:36:54.367" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3456" CreationDate="2013-08-13T03:51:17.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The corresponding is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; and&amp;lt;-&amp;gt;和&#xA; while&amp;lt;-&amp;gt;而&#xA; but&amp;lt;-&amp;gt;但&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when they are used as conjunction. One want to give a comparison when he use 而.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T03:51:17.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3428" CreationDate="2013-08-13T04:10:57.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You'd better read more books, especially poetry in Chinese, if want to understand or use Chinese with no difficulty. But even Chinese would find no proper words to express a phenomenon or his feeling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The principle of translation into Chinese is 信(correct) 达(clear and coherent) 雅(elegent or polish), sometimes, it is hard to balance this three standards. In Chinese, a writer maybe try to find a proper word or character for many year. You can find this in this sentence in a poetry '吟安一个字，捻断数根须'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T04:10:57.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33" CreationDate="2013-08-13T04:24:04.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try the Chrome Extension &lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-input-tools-by-goo/mclkkofklkfljcocdinagocijmpgbhab&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Input Tools&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2669" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T04:24:04.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3162" CreationDate="2013-08-13T04:42:23.480" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is: You'd better learn Pinyin at first for pronunciation. An advantage is that you can use Pinyin input method then. Then, you can read a &amp;lt;新华字典&gt; Xinhua dictionary or some books to learn words. The most standard pronunciation is the hosts in CCTV speaks. So you can watch CCTV on web &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cntv.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cntv.cn/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T04:42:23.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3158" CreationDate="2013-08-13T04:48:59.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, they will say '凡事我都没有十足的把握'，and '我能确定的就是凡事我都不确定' to enhance mood. Another alike saying is ' I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance', '我所知道的就是我一无所知'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T04:48:59.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3106" CreationDate="2013-08-13T04:55:04.463" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a understanding:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;依偎-&amp;gt;weak 依偎 strong&#xA;偎傍-&amp;gt;have same strength&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example, 依偎 is used as a baby(weak in strength) 依偎 his mother (stronger in strength), and 偎傍 is used as two comrade(have the same strength) 偎傍 each other. There is more example, '杨柳依偎磐石'，'磐石相互偎傍'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastEditorUserId="3142" LastEditDate="2013-08-14T03:18:37.060" LastActivityDate="2013-08-14T03:18:37.060" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2969" CreationDate="2013-08-13T05:09:59.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;难得：Even it is hard for somebody to do something, he do it. You can also consider this word '难得可贵' where '难得=可贵(valued, precious, applaudable)'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尤为=especially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T05:09:59.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2943" CreationDate="2013-08-13T05:15:51.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;饰 was first and ritual related to worship with cattle and other food in ancient China. &#xA;For example,《周礼·地官·封人》：“凡祭祀,饰其牛牲。”&#xA;So, 饰 has the 饣radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3142" LastEditorUserId="3142" LastEditDate="2013-08-14T05:29:25.443" LastActivityDate="2013-08-14T05:29:25.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3562" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3564" CreationDate="2013-08-13T07:25:23.227" Score="5" ViewCount="7223" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off... 七夕节快乐! For those who are wondering, today is the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar calendar meaning it is Chinese Valentine's Day!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually something that I have been wondering though is there a difference between 情人节 and 七夕节？ I know 七夕节 literally means something like the Seventh Evening but are both phrases interchangeable? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2386" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T09:45:39.110" Title="What is the difference between 七夕节 and 情人节?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3562" CreationDate="2013-08-13T08:01:21.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, they were completely different, but they're almost the same in modern life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%83%E5%A4%95#.E7.AF.80.E6.85.B6.E7.BF.92.E4.BF.97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;由於過往女子的命運只能嫁作人婦、相夫教子，因此不少女子都相信牛郎織女的傳說，並希望以織女為榜樣。所以每逢七姐誕，她們都會向七姐獻祭，祈求自己能夠心灵手巧、获得美满姻缘的节日。這也就是“乞巧”這名稱的來源。婦女亦會結綵樓，預備黃銅製成的細針（七孔針），以五色細線對月迎風穿針，穿進了為之得久。久而久之，七夕也成為了「女兒節」。不過，古人乞巧不獨七夕，正月及八九月都可以乞巧，只有宋以後才有七夕乞巧。宋元时期，七夕乞巧节变得很隆重，有专门卖乞巧饰品的市场，称作乞巧市。&#xA;&#xA;《荊楚歲時記》記載古代女子在七夕夜的“閨中秘戲”，“七月七日，為牽牛織女聚會之夜。是夕，人家婦女結采縷，穿七孔針，或陳幾筵酒脯瓜果於庭中以乞巧。有喜子網於瓜上。則以為符應。”喜子是指一種小型蜘蛛。《東京夢華錄》則說：“婦女望月穿針，或以小蜘蛛安合子內，次日看之，若網圓正，謂之得巧。”杜甫在《牽牛織女》詩中曾提及這種風俗：“蛛絲小人態，曲綴瓜果中。”劉言史《七夕歌》：“碧空露重新盤濕，花上乞得蜘蛛絲。”&#xA;&#xA;到了現代，七夕節又被人們稱為「愛情節」[1]。许多商家和民众称之为“中国情人节”，但由于“情人”一词可能产生的歧义，以及七夕傳統習俗中並沒有情侶約會的內容，因此民俗专家认为称为“情人节”不适当，而应称“爱情节”[2]。在中国大陆、台灣，七夕節被商家作为商业促销的一大良机，而传统习俗则呈现失落[3]。&#xA;&#xA;傳統七夕女兒節習俗雖然沒落，但現代七夕卻以情人節樣貌重生，在台灣七夕是情侶約會重要的節日，再經過商業化後七夕情人節的重要性已不亞於西洋情人節。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastEditorUserId="1104" LastEditDate="2013-08-13T08:36:43.490" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T08:36:43.490" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3562" CreationDate="2013-08-13T09:45:39.110" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though they are similar in significance they happen on two different dates, and therefore are not interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;七夕节 is a festival based on a very old myth. The story has many variations but simply put it tells of a young cow herder who is separated from his true love, a weaver maiden by a silver river. On the 7th day of the 7th lunar month they are rejoined when magpies form a bridge to allow the lovers be reunited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情人节 is a festival that started around the 18th century and used the name of a christian saint for the handwritten notes of love they would exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are very different in background but have given way to the commercial ideals of consumerism. The malls seem to treat both as the same type and I often see it referred to in print as &quot;Chinese Valetines Day&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T09:45:39.110" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="167" CreationDate="2013-08-13T16:43:48.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is, from my personal experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess some basic knowledge is not enough, but if you're a native speaker or have a good knowledge of the language (I have N1), it helps a lot. For me, reading and writing is easy, just need to remember a new pinyin for the characters I already know. Sometimes I need to remember the simplified version of the character or a different meaning/usage for the same character in Japanese. But I feel is easy because I already &quot;know&quot; the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Chinese pronunciation and tones are hard to learn, no matter if you speak Japanese or not. And sentence order. Another person already mentioned that Chinese is SVO, but the scarce chinese grammar makes sentence order very important in Chinese. That's another pain in the (my) ass.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3144" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T16:43:48.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3162" CreationDate="2013-08-13T23:24:10.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another source mentioning would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://marcopoloproject.org/online/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Marco Polo Project&lt;/a&gt;. They have a lot of articles including translations (which you probably don't need). It still has 2 main advantages over other sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;These articles are hand picked. So these are usually more interesting than the ones found on people.com.cn and the like.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They put their focus in selecting articles that are culturally valuable. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2821" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T23:24:10.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3162" CreationDate="2013-08-14T02:11:00.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in financial news, then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cn.wsj.com/gb/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;华尔街日报中文版 (Wall Street Journal)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ftchinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;英国金融时报中文版 (Financial Times)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2215" LastActivityDate="2013-08-14T02:11:00.050" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3568" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3571" CreationDate="2013-08-14T10:41:35.893" Score="3" ViewCount="710" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to determine the meaning of a particular character. Sparing the boring details, I'm trying to figure out what the meaning of this character is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eyiwn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As near as i can tell it might be a symbol for &quot;longevity&quot; but, the symbol for that &quot;shou&quot; looks more like that below?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rVCOc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the meaning of the top character correct? Is there a difference between these two versions of the character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3148" LastActivityDate="2013-08-14T11:14:01.317" Title="Is the meaning of this symbol &quot;longevity&quot;?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3568" CreationDate="2013-08-14T11:05:17.850" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is just &lt;a href=&quot;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/meancompare/58FD/5900&quot;&gt;a variant of 壽&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you suspect a character is a variant you can always go to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A3%BD&quot;&gt;wiktionary entry&lt;/a&gt; and refer to the Unihan data which will show common variants or use the service I linked above if it is something more obscure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-08-14T11:05:17.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3573" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3574" CreationDate="2013-08-14T19:58:11.710" Score="5" ViewCount="396" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please use your mouse to hover over the attribute icon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I do not know the Chinese equivalent for &amp;quot;hover over&amp;quot;, as used in technology / software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would 停留 be understood, or is there a better way to say it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3091" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T19:54:54.717" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T19:54:54.717" Title="How do you translate &quot;hover over&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3573" CreationDate="2013-08-14T20:53:28.803" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's called (鼠标)悬停 in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please use your mouse to hover over the attribute icon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请将鼠标悬停在属性图标上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you search this phrase on the internet you'll see more examples how it's used, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鼠标悬停效果是网页制作的常用特效之一。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Mouse over' is one of the most used special effect in web design.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should note that many Computer related words are translated very differently in mainland China ('zh-cn' in locale terms) and other Chinese speaking regions, especially in Taiwan where there is a complete different set of words. You may want to update your question to clarify your user locale. If it's different from 'zh-cn' you may want to wait for another answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-08-14T20:58:38.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3550" CreationDate="2013-08-16T07:41:38.797" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Miss has 掛念, 想念 meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thinking has 思考, 思想, 想起 meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I miss you. 我掛念你 / 我想你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I miss you so much. 我十分掛念你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am thinking of you. 我想你 / 我想起你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am thinking of your ear rings. 我想起你的耳環&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am thinking of my next year plan. 我正在思考來件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2013-08-16T07:41:38.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3576" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-16T18:57:02.960" Score="7" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was very small, my grandparents mentioned there are regional variations of the phrase &lt;code&gt;柴米油盐酱醋茶&lt;/code&gt; which is widely known to the local population (instead of made up by nobody and only used by a small circle). The first 4 things are still 柴米油盐 while the last 3 things are partially or completely different to reflect the local customs. Then they brought up an example but I forgot the characters long time ago. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I search online, I couldn't find any evidence showing such variation exists. Does anyone know if there really are common variations of the phrase, and what they are?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-09-25T12:10:59.250" Title="Regional variations of &quot;柴米油盐酱醋茶&quot;" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3577" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-16T22:10:02.777" Score="1" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend wanted to know what I was doing so sent a message with this question: 你在干吗呢, then immediately corrected herself by typing: 你在干嘛呢. I found it interesting that Google translate seems to do a better job translating the first sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the differences in actual meaning between these sentences? Is there enough of a difference that a correction is needed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've looked at some related questions such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1750/in-what-instances-can-use-you-use-%E5%B9%B2%E5%98%9B-over-%E5%B9%B2%E5%90%97-and-vice-versa&quot;&gt;Connotation of 吗 questions vs. affirmative/negative questions&lt;/a&gt;, which has helped some, but I'm still not sure in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3157" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-08-16T22:10:02.777" Title="Usage of 吗 vs 嘛 in Informal Questions" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2013-08-17T02:27:08.520" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="44" CreationDate="2013-08-17T14:48:22.737" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sounds to me more like how Sicilian differs from Roman--different versions of the Italian language; or how people speak English in (for instance) McIntyre, Georgia vs the East End of London.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3160" LastActivityDate="2013-08-17T14:48:22.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1560" CreationDate="2013-08-18T19:23:39.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The face of a Buddha, the heart of a scorpion means someone who appears to be kind and gentle but who in an instant will deliver a mortal wound by word or by action after another trusted them. In the film it is clearly to see why the warning comes to the young bride. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a Chinese friend in Hawaii who used to tell me &quot;beware of those who smile at you to gain your trust, before you give them your trust make sure their hands are in front of you&quot; which she explained it was her Grandmother's way of saying that before you trust someone you need to know them well to make sure they are worthy of your friendship. The hands in front of you meant that they would not be able to hide a dagger to later stabbed you with. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I saw that movie many years ago when it came in and promptly bought it for my collection. A real treasure of Chinese films.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3164" LastActivityDate="2013-08-18T19:23:39.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3573" CreationDate="2013-08-19T05:08:11.763" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;so what you mean can be you just wanna &quot;say&quot; it in spoken language, or what you really want is put it into something technical like a user's manual where you're pretty sure that it'd better be formal language construct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Casual&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you wanna just &quot;say&quot; it casually, in spoken language, em, take me as an example, I just say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;把鼠標晃到那屬性圖標上頭&#xA;  ba3 shu3 biao1 huang4 dao0 na4 shang4 shu3 xing4 tu2 biao1 shang4 tou2&#xA;  Hover the mouse over that attribute icon, please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Formal&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;請把滑鼠移動到屬性圖標上方。&#xA;  Pinyin : qing3 ba3 hua2 shu3 yi2 dong4 dao4 shu3 xing4 tu2 biao1 shang4 fang1&#xA;  Please hover the mouse over that attribute icon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Discussion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean a better one. But in the terms of natural feeling, my example shows a commonly used one in my area. You don't wanna presume that all people say it in the same way in such a vast piece of land. Mandarin is one way to make people from different area understand each other, but yet this way has not yet achieved one hundred percent victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;停留 is a good one too, I use that sometimes and heard about people use that too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need any reference to proof what I'm talking about here is not non-sense or want me to make things clearer, please leave comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;靜候疑者 (Waiting for any enquiry with open arms.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Welcome to the world of Chinese language :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-08-19T15:14:51.000" LastActivityDate="2013-08-19T15:14:51.000" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3576" CreationDate="2013-08-19T05:10:23.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;In Short&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Variant One&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;柴米油盐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin : chai2 mi3 you2 yan2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Variant Two&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鍋碗瓢盆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin : guo1 wan3 piao3 pen2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally : wok, bowl, ladle and tub&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Detailed&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my &lt;a href=&quot;https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&amp;amp;q=chongqing&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;hq=&amp;amp;hnear=0x369334baf3e64f43:0xde9f8616dc88b321,Chongqing,%20China&amp;amp;ei=nKgRUsuWDbGYiAfV94DQCA&amp;amp;ved=0CLwBELYD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;area&lt;/a&gt;, sometimes we just say it that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, I don't quite feel like to go that deep into the source behind, nor did I really care about there're some three other characters hacked off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But now, if you wanna me to say something about it, yes I can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Four-character phrases, idiom or not, are pretty popular my area, pretty popular all over China too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In China, people talk faster than foreigners thought, so seven character version is not so effective, it's like a poem. Four character one is welcome, and because we have hundreds of, or maybe thousands of, never count it, informal/formal four-character catch phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those who utter out this phrase, probably they don't care about literature, that's what used to be the paraphernalia of notable men.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鍋碗瓢盆 are the everyday kitchen utensils, so they match the flavors, seamless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Update&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;油鹽醬豉姜椒茶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin : you2 yan2 jiang4 chi3 jiang1 jiao1 cha2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally : oil, salt, sauce, fermented soybeans, ginger, pepper, and tea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;參見&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%96%8B%E9%96%80%E4%B8%83%E4%BB%B6%E4%BA%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;此處&lt;/a&gt;，來源於「湖海新聞夷堅續志」（元代 無名氏著），其影印本見&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=3442&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;此處&lt;/a&gt; (See &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%96%8B%E9%96%80%E4%B8%83%E4%BB%B6%E4%BA%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, the source (whose scan can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=3442&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;)「湖海新聞夷堅續志」is a collection of mysterious stories, whose author is unknown but believed to be someone living in Yuan Dynasty.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-25T12:10:59.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3582" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3583" CreationDate="2013-08-19T05:10:46.123" Score="3" ViewCount="1444" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked it up and something about the Seven Year Itch but I'm kind confused. Does it have any deep meaning in Chinese culture? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2386" LastActivityDate="2013-08-19T17:00:48.153" Title="What does 七年之痒 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3582" CreationDate="2013-08-19T05:15:53.000" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means seven years after marriage, both husband and wife would face numerous temptations that would harm their relationship. The seven years is a vague expression, sometimes a couple gets trouble earlier, sometimes later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048605/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;movie&lt;/a&gt; about this. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E4%B8%83%E5%B9%B4%E4%B9%8B%E7%97%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; has some hints too. &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1562.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Its Baidu page&lt;/a&gt; tells that it's borrowed from foreign country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Case Study&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a perfect case: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;amp;q=%E6%BD%98%E7%B2%B5%E6%98%8E%20%E8%91%A3#bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&amp;amp;fp=aae465304e6319c6&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;q=%E6%BD%98%E7%B2%B5%E6%98%8E%20%E8%91%A3%E6%BD%94%20%E4%B8%83%E5%B9%B4%E4%B9%8B%E9%A4%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;潘粵明 與 董潔&lt;/a&gt;, matching the definition pretty well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-08-19T17:00:48.153" LastActivityDate="2013-08-19T17:00:48.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3451" CreationDate="2013-08-19T06:37:45.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我 is also used in ancient times. For example, in 戰國策 之 鄒忌諷齊王納諫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鄒忌脩八尺有餘，而形貌昳麗。朝服衣冠，窺鏡，謂其妻曰：「我孰與城北徐公美？」其妻曰：「君美甚，徐公何能及君也。」城北徐公，齊國之美麗者也。忌不自信，而復問其妾曰：「吾孰與徐公美？」妾曰：「徐公何能及君也。」旦曰，客從外來，與坐談。問之曰：「吾與徐公孰美？」客曰：「徐公不若君之美也。」明日，徐公來，熟視之，自以為不如；窺鏡而自視，又弗如遠甚。暮寢而思之曰：「吾妻之美我者，私我也；妾之美我者，畏我也；客之美我者，欲有求於我也。」於是入朝見威王曰：「臣誠知不如徐公美。臣之妻私臣，臣之妾畏臣，臣之客欲有求於臣，皆以美於徐公。今齊，地方千里，百二時城。宮婦左右，莫不私王；朝廷之臣，莫不畏王；四境之內，莫不有求於王。由此觀之，王之蔽甚矣。」王曰：「善！」乃下令：「群臣吏民能面刺寡人之過者，受上賞；上書諫寡人者，受中賞；能謗議於市朝，聞寡人之耳者，受下賞。」令初下，群臣進諫，門庭若市；數月之後，時時而間進；諅年之後，雖欲言，無可進者。燕、趙、韓、魏聞之，皆朝於齊。此所謂戰勝於朝廷。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-08-19T06:37:45.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3585" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-19T13:31:04.960" Score="4" ViewCount="390" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the correct pinyin and pronunciation for 太阳?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most dictionaries put it as: tai4 yang2, but I noticed cc-cedict uses tai4 yang5. There is also a discussion in the change log around colloquial and correct pronunciation. They reference another discussion &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/73007286.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; which also talks about this, though the references here aren't what I'd call necessarily respected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So wondering what people's thoughts are here? In additon are there any respected sources for one way vs another for what is the correct pinyin and pronunciation? I'm talking &quot;普通话&quot; specifically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2301" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-08T08:08:27.740" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T08:08:27.740" Title="Correct pinyin and pronunciation for 太阳" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3585" CreationDate="2013-08-19T13:53:24.890" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;太阳 Tàiyáng, Sun: pronounced &quot;Tie Yang&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太 Tài：highest; greatest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阳　yáng：sun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may find some reference yáng as 5th tone (轻声 qīngshēng) because it's easier to pronounce in spoken Chinese. The character 阳 yáng by itself is always 2nd tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-08-19T15:40:28.400" LastActivityDate="2013-08-19T15:40:28.400" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3587" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3589" CreationDate="2013-08-19T15:03:49.700" Score="5" ViewCount="3141" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there is a Nanjing dialect of Jianghuai Mandarin but I have not been able to learn much about current usage in the city of Nanjing.  For example, do many people in Nanjing today ordinarily begin words with an &quot;l&quot; sound where standard Mandarin has &quot;n&quot;?  Do many people in Nanjing today use a very different vocabulary than say people in Beijing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am considering travel to Nanjing, and I wonder how well my Mandarin training will suit Nanjing and whether Nanjing usage will conflict with my training.  (I speak French with something of a Montreal accent, which causes more amusement than misunderstanding in France.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:20:55.073" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T08:42:34.103" Title="How widely is Mandarin used in Nanjing?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3587" CreationDate="2013-08-19T16:29:33.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nanjing has a very good education environment. Most of the famous universities of Jiangsu province locate at Nanjing. So Mandarin is wildly used in Nanjing and most of the young people are well educated there (this means they can speak English). They may speak Nanjing dialect with their parents and friends, but they can also switch to Mandarin as soon as they find you are speaking Mandarin. Additionally, my hometown is a small city adjacent with Nanjing and our dialect is very close to Nanjing dialect, but I found both these two dialects are quite close to Mandarin. So just go there with your Mandarin, don't worry! (I know little about French but I still went to the Quebec city last year!). And If you found some trouble, ask for help to the young people there, they can speak Mandarin and even English!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the 'l' and 'n' issue you referred is true about the dialect. However, most of Nanjing people won't do this when they are trying to speak Mandarin seriously.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-29T08:42:34.103" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T08:42:34.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3587" CreationDate="2013-08-19T16:47:04.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have friends who are native people near Nanjing, both mother tongue of language variants of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wu&lt;/a&gt;, one of the major Chinese dialect. Comparing to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuanese_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sichuanese&lt;/a&gt;, Wu is more difficult even for Chinese people who speaks standard Mandarin, in my view, Wu is just another &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cantonese&lt;/a&gt; level aircraft (figuratively).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of influence imposed by the China's economical center status, greater Shanghai area (including Nanjing) attracts more and more people working there, along with more and more Wu language learners. Some story as how Cantonese had thrived.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't get scared about the difference between Wu series and standard Mandarin, even we Chinese people can't understand them without professional and painstaking training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go ahead and you'll find out that you're welcome by all friendly people there. (But bad guys are anywhere though...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Update&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, both Wu and Sichuanese ignore the difference between &lt;code&gt;l&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; consonant (that is, &lt;code&gt;l&lt;/code&gt; is used in all cases), so guess your life get easier there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-08-19T16:56:17.190" LastActivityDate="2013-08-19T16:56:17.190" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3591" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3811" CreationDate="2013-08-19T18:03:47.560" Score="7" ViewCount="472" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have gotten two videos of Chinese movies at Amazon and in fact both had Mandarin soundtracks with a choice of Chinese (simplified or traditional) or English subtitles.  That is what I wanted.  But in both cases I was buying blind.  It seems impossible to get reliable information on the languages of a video either at Amazon or on IMDB (internet movie data base). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone recommend a source that does provide such information?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2013-10-01T12:31:50.720" Title="Informed sources for videos of Chinese movies" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" ClosedDate="2016-06-17T10:48:47.630" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2943" CreationDate="2013-08-19T18:10:21.593" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me connect the dots for @EdenHarder (but comment box is too narrow...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Explanation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;漢文&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夫飾者 形聲字也 據典[1]之二五七二頁 然竊以為會意也 參&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.shufaji.com/word-1905.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;此&lt;/a&gt;及&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.shufaji.com/word-1889.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;此&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E6%AE%B7%E5%91%A8%E5%88%B6%E5%BA%A6%E8%AB%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;殷商有祭祀者&lt;/a&gt; 食諸神袛以祭牲 飾牛牲以布匹 苟無食 何以有飾 飾者 从巾 从人 食聲 讀若式 一曰襐飾 賞隻切 據典[2] 恭候有疑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;English&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Signific or phonetic, imagine in an ancestor worship or toward a deity in ancient times (e.g. Shang), people present with food, covered with cloth; or people wearing cloth present it, such that 飾 follows巾 and 人, pronounced as 食, similar to the pronunciation of 式, also known as 襐飾 (xiang4 shi4); its consonant same as 賞, vowel same as 隻.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Welcome further enquiry with all respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;引典 Reference&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] 漢韓大字典，民衆書林，2013年1月10日 第3版 第6刷 發行，ISBN 978-89-387-0148-0. Chinese-Korean Dictionary, Minjungseorim Co., January 10 2013 3rd edition 6th print. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E8%AF%B4%E6%96%87%E8%A7%A3%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;說文解字 大徐本&lt;/a&gt;，許慎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Update&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ministry of Education, Taiwan, tells us that 飾乃刷洗清潔之意 通「拭」如 周禮．地官．封人：「凡祭祀 飾其牛牲」參見&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra04592.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;此處&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-08-20T16:39:53.157" LastActivityDate="2013-08-20T16:39:53.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3585" CreationDate="2013-08-20T10:34:11.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Heres a few excerpts from some books that speak about this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ross and Ma (2006), Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar, §2.4, p.9: In Beijing and northern China, certain syllables lose their original tone and are pronounced as neutral tone. This tone change does not occur in Taiwan, where all syllables retain their original tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;San Duanmu (2007), The Phonology of Standard Chinese, §13.7.2, p.308: In S[tandard]C[hinese], de-stressing is quite common (see above). In Taiwanese accented SC (TWSC), de-stressing occurs less frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sounds like these are books written in taiwan - so it looks like this is their opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2301" LastActivityDate="2013-08-20T10:34:11.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3594" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-20T13:51:48.377" Score="3" ViewCount="3701" Body="&lt;p&gt;When using a laptop touchpad to input Chinese via handwriting on Windows 8, I either have to double tap or press down in order to write. On a MacBook, I just write without needing an initial double tap or pressing down while writing. Is there a way to do the same in Windows 8? I read through some of Pinyin Joes pieces on Windows 8, he doesn't seem to have any info on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I tried using an iPad/iPhone stylus on a Windows 8 laptop touchscreen, it doesn't seem to be as receptive as on iOS devices. For example, if I write 我, it will miss every other or every third stroke. Is this a function of the touchscreen as it is a budget laptop or the stylus? Are styluses for Windows 8 different than those for Apple?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T23:44:46.817" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T23:44:46.817" Title="Windows 8 Chinese Input: Trackpad and Stylus" Tags="&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3595" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3596" CreationDate="2013-08-20T20:46:19.537" Score="3" ViewCount="594" Body="&lt;p&gt;I met the word 唰 shua1 in a Xi Yang Yang book as the sound 唰唰 one character makes while eating.  Two sources agree it is &quot;onomat. quick slick up.&quot;  I don't know the English &quot;quick slick up.&quot;  Google translate makes a plausible but unclear suggestion of shabu shabu for 唰唰. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is this word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the context.  Lazy lamb is enjoying a snack.  The panel caption tells us this is outside of the sheep village school, with a light breeze blowing (羊村“教室外,风儿轻轻吹过).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iKRcN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;L&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2013-08-22T16:09:11.910" LastActivityDate="2013-08-22T16:09:11.910" Title="What does 唰 (shua1) mean?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3595" CreationDate="2013-08-20T21:06:17.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E5%94%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;baike.com&lt;/a&gt; describes it as &quot;swiftly&quot; or &quot;swish&quot;... I believe it is indeed onomatopoeia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唰 &amp;lt;形&gt; - Adverb &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;形容迅速的样子 【swiftly】。如:唰地一下跳上墙;唰溜溜(形容极其迅速);唰啦(形容迅疾) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Describes &quot;swiftly&quot; or &quot;quickly&quot; doing something. Like to &quot;swiftly&quot; jump on the wall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唰 &amp;lt;象&gt; - Adjective for sound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;形容迅速擦过去的声音 【swish】。如:唰唰;唰喇喇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or describes a sound, to &quot;swish&quot; by something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-08-20T21:06:17.377" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3597" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3599" CreationDate="2013-08-21T02:21:02.117" Score="6" ViewCount="1032" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have only been studying a short while in spare time but have seen quite a few simple sentences in which 而 precedes the verb. Are there any basic ideas about the structure of such sentences? Places where this is required, recommended? What really is the meaning of 而 in such a sentence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My notes aren't in front of me but I will supplement this later with an example if I can find one and the question is too broad. If it helps, I am only concerned with very simple sentences of this type. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: (I will replace the toneless Pinyin time allowing, meanwhile I am sure the translations will take care of any ambiguity.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ta ying wo de qing qiu er lai. (He came at my request.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...dui mian er zuo...(sitting opposite each other)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...bu gao er qu...(leaving without announcing)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...yi dai er guo... (mention in passing)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...yan bi er guo ...(hold one's nose in passing, i.e. look down on)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will look at the answers as soon as possible. My sense is that 'er' functions as a marker of the infinitive and maybe gives a sense of the manner in which the verb is being done or the reason for it. Thanks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3171" LastEditorUserId="3171" LastEditDate="2013-08-22T00:55:53.890" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T15:55:18.063" Title="Use of 而 preceding verb" Tags="&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3520" CreationDate="2013-08-21T04:10:57.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on the purpose of learning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you wanna just communicate with local people&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend your visual learning. More efficient based on my experience. Few people would nor care to make a full summary of local usage, because it's painful, if not impossible, and it's something 費力不討好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being a Sichuanese, I learn standard Mandarin by listening to others talking in Mandarin much.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you really want to dig deeper as a linguist&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nice! Thank you for your contribution toward Chinese world! Then you may need to view it in the whole picture first, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;漢語方言介紹&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-08-21T04:10:57.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3597" CreationDate="2013-08-21T12:09:46.207" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;My go-to is usually &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%E8%80%8C&quot;&gt;百度 Bai Du:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means: &lt;code&gt;but （not）；yet （not）；and；as well as；&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out of all of the examples there, I only found a couple where it precedes the verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我愿意为什么**而** [VERB: 牺牲] 呢？&#xA;What am I willing to sacrifice?&#xA;&#xA;你原是为永恒**而** [VERB: 造]。&#xA;You were made to last forever.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而 here, as you can see from the translation, can mean &quot;to&quot; as an &lt;code&gt;infinitive&lt;/code&gt; (precedes verb). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you'll most often see it used as a &lt;code&gt;coordinator/conjunction&lt;/code&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;革命是广泛**而**自发的。&#xA;The revolution is broad and spontaneous.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definitely check out that Bai Du link above... You'll see 而 is also used a lot in conjunction with other words to actually mean many different things... Here's some more examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;而。。。却 : And...Yet&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这些话除了伤痛什么也不能带来 **而** 我们 **却** 乞求它。&#xA;Those words bring nothing but pain and yet we beg for it.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;而。。。，是为了 : I did [x], so that [y]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;而我看这些书，是为了让你不必再去看。&#xA;I read these books so that you don't have to.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-08-21T12:21:34.947" LastActivityDate="2013-08-21T12:21:34.947" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3595" CreationDate="2013-08-21T15:51:30.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;唰者 亦「」之正體也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唰 is considered as the standard for its variant 「」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BB%A3%E9%9F%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣韻&lt;/a&gt;．入聲．薛韻&lt;/strong&gt; 謂之曰 「 鳥理毛也 所劣切」&#xA;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BB%A3%E9%9F%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, ' is the act of a bird combing through her feather, consonant following 所, vowel following 劣'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9B%86%E9%9F%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集韻&lt;/a&gt;．入聲．薛韻&lt;/strong&gt; 謂之曰 「唰 鳥治毛也」&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9B%86%E9%9F%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Another dictionary&lt;/a&gt; puts it this way: '唰 is the act of a bird combing through her feather'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AD%97%E5%BD%99_%28%E6%A2%85%E8%86%BA%E7%A5%9A%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;字彙&lt;/a&gt;．口部&lt;/strong&gt; 謂之曰 「唰 所劣切 音刷 鳥理毛也  同上」&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AD%97%E5%BD%99_%28%E6%A2%85%E8%86%BA%E7%A5%9A%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yet another dictionary&lt;/a&gt; shows that '唰 consonant following 所, vowel following 劣, sounded as 刷, is the act of a bird combing through her feather.  ditto'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A3%E5%AD%97%E9%80%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;正字通&lt;/a&gt;．口部&lt;/strong&gt; 謂之曰 「 同唰」&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A3%E5%AD%97%E9%80%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;And another dictionary&lt;/a&gt; tells that ' is same as 唰'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BA%B7%E7%86%99%E5%AD%97%E5%85%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;康熙字典&lt;/a&gt;．口部&lt;/strong&gt; 謂之曰 「 &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9KPtH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣韻&lt;/a&gt;所劣切 音刷 鳥理毛也 按 &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9KPtH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣韻&lt;/a&gt;有「」無「唰」 &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8E%89%E7%AF%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;玉篇&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9B%86%E9%9F%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集韻&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E9%A1%9E%E7%AF%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;類篇&lt;/a&gt;有「唰」無「」 實即一字 譌分為二」&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BA%B7%E7%86%99%E5%AD%97%E5%85%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This famous dictionary&lt;/a&gt; also says something about it: ' as shown in &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9KPtH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣韻&lt;/a&gt;, is the act of a bird combing through her feather, consonant following 所, vowel following 劣, sounded as 刷, editor's note: in &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9KPtH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣韻&lt;/a&gt; there is an entry for  but not 唰; while in anyone of these &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8E%89%E7%AF%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;玉篇&lt;/a&gt;,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9B%86%E9%9F%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集韻&lt;/a&gt;,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E9%A1%9E%E7%AF%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;類篇&lt;/a&gt; 唰 has an entry but  does not. Thus these two are indeed one characters, somehow split into two versions.' Scanned page of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BA%B7%E7%86%99%E5%AD%97%E5%85%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;康熙字典．同文書局版．口部．唰二字&lt;/a&gt;．口部&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UFL4V.png&quot; alt=&quot;康熙字典之同文書局版口部唰二字&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Reference&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;台灣教育部異體字字典 (Ministry of Education, Taiwan)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盼諸君賜教&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please leave comment when you have questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-08-21T16:23:35.510" LastActivityDate="2013-08-21T16:23:35.510" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3601" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-22T05:19:54.793" Score="3" ViewCount="596" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aside from the standard printing style of Chinese (what is referred to in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_script_styles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; as regular script), what are the main styles that are in modern use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When looking at different styles of handwriting it appears to someone like myself (without much writing experience) that there is a large range of styles, so how do people approach individual writing styles in China? Are they taught a few different styles and they take some on board or do they usually pick on main style and stick to it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-08-22T11:11:28.757" Title="Understanding different Chinese writing styles" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3602" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3608" CreationDate="2013-08-22T05:38:22.760" Score="15" ViewCount="22886" Body="&lt;p&gt;When someone has grasped the basic concepts of writing Chinese, there comes a point where handwriting starts to look plain or mechanical. From what I have seen, the lines look very straight and like someone who has just copied directly from a book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know with my own journey I have gradually been given pointers to improve my writing that were simple, but changed my writing significantly to make it look much more elegant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two that come to mind immediately were to ensure that radicals were written smaller than the rest of the character and to have horizontal lines slightly angled upward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What pointers can you give to someone who has a basic grasp of writing so that they can make their writing appear more professional / more beautiful?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may not be something that everyone does, but could assist someone with developing their own style as not all techniques work for everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: Please provide concrete, useable answers, not just find some books and copy. I am looking for techniques that are practical and useable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="18760" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T09:16:32.417" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:29:50.570" Title="How to improve my Chinese handwriting?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3602" CreationDate="2013-08-22T05:51:58.663" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practice writing characters, over and over again:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fvNGX.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is to train your muscle memory to be able to write strokes in the right way - angles, shape, sizes. I don't think there is a silver bullet here; it's just practice, practice, practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was young I did this using tracing paper over a template. Nowadays you can probably find apps for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-08-22T05:51:58.663" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3604" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-22T05:57:43.090" Score="2" ViewCount="317" Body="&lt;p&gt;My son attends Chinese classes and one of the techniques they focus on is teaching the children to learn 成语接龙.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my observation this allows someone to learn a large number of 成语 as it prompts you with the first character and the brain is quite adaptive in remembering sequences like this. However, what it doesn't seem to allow you to remember is meaning or meaning in context and how the 成语 is used in conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases if you search for 成语接龙 online you will be provided downloaded pages or sets that you can use to learn, but not the meaning of the individual 成语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Western countries idioms and sayings are usually learnt from reading, conversation and popular culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference in the way that 成语 are learnt in Chinese that makes it important to learn in this way? What are the stated aims of using the 成语接龙 technique as I am aware that this also taught in (some) schools in China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-08-28T02:57:51.483" Title="What is the purpose of using 成语接龙 to learn 成语?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;teaching-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3605" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-22T09:43:41.627" Score="10" ViewCount="2733" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that the abovementioned formula expresses a negative result, but I am not exactly sure how to translate it. Some questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1      How to translate it well into English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2      Can I use it without verb + 到 / alternatively without verb, but with 到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3      Can I skip verb AND 到 altogether without ruining the actual meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4      One Chinese friend told me that the meaning of 头上来 is equivalent to 自己. False or correct_&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 To understand better, I quote a few sentences from my textbook - I seriously can not translate them well by myself. Help, please....&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a   我没找你算账，你倒先找到我头上来了&#xA;b  他们丢了东西，查来查去倒查到小孩子头上来了&#xA;c    你谁去欺负，现在竟然欺负到他头上来了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot for helping me out. Concerning this construction, I am lost! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3174" LastActivityDate="2013-09-21T11:31:08.237" Title="V + 到。。。。头上来: Exact meaning and how to use?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3605" CreationDate="2013-08-22T11:08:03.290" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a good question. First of all, 头 is the most important part of a human body. So, for someone to climb on top of another person's head &lt;strong&gt;爬到 &lt;code&gt;Subject&lt;/code&gt; 头上&lt;/strong&gt; or to ride on top of another person's head &lt;strong&gt;骑到 &lt;code&gt;Subject&lt;/code&gt; 头上&lt;/strong&gt; shows great disrespect to the person. This term is used usually to express &lt;em&gt;incredulity&lt;/em&gt; on the action of another person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Because this phrase &lt;code&gt;XX头上XX&lt;/code&gt; is usually used in the &lt;em&gt;literal&lt;/em&gt; sense,&#xA;any translation to English has to be done on a case-by-case basis.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;到 always used together with a verb in front for this type of construction if you want to use 到 at all.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes, for example, 算在 Subject 头上. Note, 来 is not necessary here.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As explained earlier, 头上 refers to the most important part of a&#xA;human body. It still refers to whoever is the Subject, not necessary&#xA;自己 (yourself).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The following would be how I would translate the three sentences:&lt;br&gt; a)&#xA;I should be the one looking for you to settle the score, but you&#xA;have come to look for me instead!&lt;br&gt; b) They lost some stuff but ended&#xA;up investigating on a little kid!&lt;br&gt; c) Your bullying antics have&#xA;gone on unchallenged, now you even dare to bully him!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that for the three sentences above, omitting the words 头上 would not change the meaning of the sentence. In English, it could only be represented by an exclamation mark as a way to express incredulity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the more common usage would be 爬/骑到 &lt;code&gt;Subject&lt;/code&gt; 头上 where 头上 is not optional. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;婚前她千依百顺，婚后她却&lt;strong&gt;骑到她丈夫头上&lt;/strong&gt;，百般刁难。&lt;br&gt; She was very obedient, but after their&#xA;  marriage, she &lt;strong&gt;rides roughshod over her husband&lt;/strong&gt;, making life difficult&#xA;  for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The words 头上 can also be found in an idiom &lt;strong&gt;在太岁头上动土&lt;/strong&gt;, which means to do a daring act that would offend someone of higher authority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-08-22T11:08:03.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3601" CreationDate="2013-08-22T11:11:28.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer to question one:&#xA;While you can still see them there, all of them are in use now, in different situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Short answer to question two:&#xA;In school, teachers give the one that they like, based on local policy or their textbook. Usually, one style is enough. 楷書 or 行書, neither is easy to learn, so different people work it around in their own style, a bit mixed of several styles, or new styles. Simple is good, when people write characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll edit this post with more detail if you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-08-22T11:11:28.757" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3602" CreationDate="2013-08-22T11:23:23.707" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Ensure correct proportions between all parts. Don't scrunch in. Don't squeeze down. Don't squeeze together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5tPB2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Radicals should be smaller on top and thinner on sides. Don't make radicals the same size as the rest of the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4TeZH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Horizontal strokes appear much nicer if they go up at a slight angle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8x73e.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Ensure vertical strokes don't go off at a weird angle and if there are multiple horizontal strokes make sure they are in harmony.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TMHsy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Top to bottom = thin to fat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MUFEq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Ensure left hand side radical height is similar in height to rest of the character (this has some exceptions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ySbEg.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7) Make sure second tier horizontal lines are long enough and longer than first tier horizontal lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6uzD7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-08-22T11:55:59.900" LastActivityDate="2013-08-22T11:55:59.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3597" CreationDate="2013-08-22T16:41:50.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tried to figure out what you mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他應我的請求而來&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ta1 ying2 wo3 de0 qing3 qiu2 er2 lai2 (He came at my request.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...對面而坐...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...dui4 mian4 er2 zuo4...(sitting opposite each other)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...不告而去...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...bu2 gao4 er2 qu4...(French leave)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...一帶而過...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...yi2 dai4 er2 guo4... (skimming)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...掩鼻而過...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...yan3 bi2 er2 guo4...(hold one's nose and leave)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而 gives us a sense of 韻律, without it, these sentences would become a little blunt, though still possible to be understood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又如 孔氏 論語 學而 子曰 學而時習之 不亦說乎 有朋自遠方來 不亦樂乎 人不知 而不慍 不亦君子乎 「學而時習之」中 「而」字當作繫聯之意 可有遞進之感 然「人不知 而不慍」中 「而」當講反襯 對立之意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's look at another example, from a famous text 論語 written by students of 孔氏 aka Confucius (551–479 BC), which goes like this: 子曰 學而時習之 不亦說乎 有朋自遠方來 不亦樂乎 人不知 而不慍 不亦君子乎. The first 而, in '學而時習之' (xue2 er2 shi2 xi2 zhi1, which means 'learn something and, in the meanwhile, you go over once in a while') shows us 而 with a sense of 'connection', though a little increase here, because you learn it, good, and going over it, em, even nicer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second instance, in '人不知 而不慍' (ren2 bu4 zhi1 er2 bu2 yun4, which means that 'others people offend you because that they did not know you well, but you keep it very gentle, didn't get mad about them') so here '而' gives a sense of U-turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Update - Explanation in &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.sanseido-publ.co.jp/dicts/foreign/dccj3/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a Japanese Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Through &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/cj/6498/m0u/%E8%80%8C/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the eyes from some Japanese&lt;/a&gt;, hope it'll help foreigners understand 而 better. Here I translate the parts that are related to our question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[接] = conjuction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(Original Japanese Explanation) 並列関係を表わす = (My English Translation) Gives a plain list&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Example) 真實而感人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Pinyin) zhēn shí ér gǎn rén&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Pinyin, another version) zhen1 shi2 er2 gan3 ren2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(注音)ㄓㄣ ㄕˊ ㄦˊ ㄍㄢˇ ㄖㄣˊ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Original Japanese Translation) 真実にして感動的 = (My English Translation) Real. Touching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: 真實, real, adjective. 感人, moving, touching, adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;相反する関係を表わす = Juxtapose two things with opposite meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;艷而不俗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yàn ér bù sú&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yan4 er2 bu4 su2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ㄧㄢˋ ㄦˊ ㄅㄨˋ ㄙㄨˊ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;派手だが俗っぽくない = Gorgeous, but not in a mundane manner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: If you remove 而,  艷不俗 is rare, though maybe possible, not as common as 艷而不俗. 艷, gorgeous, adjective. 俗, mundane, adjective. 不 gives negative to the adjective following.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;さらに一歩進めた関係を表わす = Shows further step&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;取而代之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;qǔ ér dài zhī&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;qu3 er3 dai4 zhi1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ㄑㄩˇ ㄦˇ ㄉㄞˋ ㄓ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;とって代わる = Replace it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: If you remove 而, it gives 取代之, still meaningful though not as common as 取而代之. 取, pick, verb. 代, replace, verb. 之, it, pronoun.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;原因・目的を示す語句を動詞につなぐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為勝利而奮鬥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wèi shèng lì ér fèn dòu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wei4 sheng4 li4 er2 fen4 dou4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ㄨㄟˋ ㄕㄥˋ ㄌㄧˋ ㄦˊ ㄈㄣˋ ㄉㄡˋ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勝利のために奮闘する = Fight for victory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: 為, for, preposition. 勝利, victory, noun. 奮鬥, hard working, noun.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;仮定を表わす = Gives an &quot;if…&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;理論而不與實踐相結合...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lǐ lùn ér bù yǔ shí jiàn xiāng jié hé&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;li3 lun4 er3 bu4 yu3 shi2 jian4 xiang1 jie2 he2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ㄌㄧˇ ㄌㄨㄣˋ ㄦˊ ㄅㄨˋ ㄩˇ ㄕˊ ㄐㄧㄢˋ ㄒㄧㄤ ㄐㄧㄝˊ ㄏㄜˊ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;理論がもし実践と結びつかないなら… = Work on theory without practical proof&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: 理論, theory, noun, here is a verb, that is, to work out a theory. 與, and. 實踐, practice. 相, with. 結合, combine, verb.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-08-23T15:55:18.063" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T15:55:18.063" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3221" CreationDate="2013-08-22T17:18:15.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on 孤影萍踪's explanation about 們/们, try to show you more detail:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他們 ta1 men0 = they (at least one man)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他們倆 ta1 men0 lia0 = they two (at least one man)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她們 ta1 men0 = they (all women)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;牠們 ta1 men0 = they (animals)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鐵哥們 tie3 ge1 men0 = a male close friend, sometimes female too&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;圖們江 tu2 men2 jiang1 = proper noun, name of a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumen_River&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;river&lt;/a&gt; near North Korea&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;它們 ta1 men0 = they (things)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你們 ni3 men0 = you (more than one)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;娘兒們 niang2 er0 men0 = a woman or some women (sometimes derogatory, sometimes just friendly)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;諾們罕 nuo4 men2 han4 = &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%AB%BE%E9%96%80%E7%BD%95%E6%88%B0%E5%BD%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Nomonhan Incident&lt;/a&gt;, a battle between Japan and USSR in 1939&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;老哥兒們 lao3 ge1 er0 men0 = buddy, in a friendly way, sometimes not so friendly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哥們兒 ge1 mer0 = dude, in a friendly way, sometimes not so friendly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哥兒們 ge1 er0 men0 = &quot;hey my dear friends&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;孩兒們 hai2 er0 men0 = &quot;my dear children&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;渠們 qu2 men0 = they (guess it's dialect)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小哥兒們 xiao2 ge1 er0 men0 = handsome young boys&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小姐們兒 xiao2 jie3 mer0 = sisters or sometimes whores&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這們 zhe4 men4 (this kind of... e.g. 西遊記˙第二十回 「那老兒 你這們大年紀 全不曉事」Journey to the West, Chapter 20, &quot;[Mondey King shouted] Hey, that old dude, look at you, such a old, but doesn't know anything!&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人們 ren2 men0 = people&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;咱們 zan2 men0 = we&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;俺們 an3 men0 = we&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爺們兒 ye2 mer0 = (a man or husband, emphasizing maturity)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爺們 ye2 men0 = (a man or husband, emphasizing maturity, see also: 紅樓夢˙第二十七回 「你別胡說 他是個爺們家 揀了我們的東西 自然該還的 我拿甚麼謝他呢」Dream of the Red Chamber, Chapter 27, &quot;Don't you talk non-sense, he's a man, picked our stuff, sure he should hand it back, why should I thank him??&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爺兒們 ye2 er0 men0 = (a man or husband, emphasizing maturity)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我們 wo3 men0 or wo3 men2 = we&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;們渾 men4 hun2 = buxom&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Reference&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] Entry of 們 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;教育部重編國語辭典修訂本線上版 National Chinese Dictionary Online, Ministry of Education, Taiwan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] Related words of 們 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;教育部重編國語辭典修訂本線上版 National Chinese Dictionary Online, Ministry of Education, Taiwan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-08-22T17:18:15.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3602" CreationDate="2013-08-22T18:14:42.410" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're serious learner, or educated Chinese speaker, try learn &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calligraphy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;brush writing&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mNwZdbaVqg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This video&lt;/a&gt; shows how it is possible to write it that beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Principles_of_Yong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;永字八法&lt;/a&gt;  Eight Principles of 永&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're eight basic strokes to practice on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://fthmb.tqn.com/N-JrsFwpThunAmZDeUkqu6mzNss=/768x0/filters:no_upscale()/625px-8_Strokes_of_Han_Characters.svg-56a5e0065f9b58b7d0dedaa0.png&quot; alt=&quot;eight principles of yong&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B3xOz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;english eight principles of yong&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Japanese:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RIOj1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;japanese eight principles of yong&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;How to grab the brush&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're two major ways of holding the brush pen: 單鉤法 and 雙鉤法:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iNxQ3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Two ways&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Treasures_of_the_Study&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;文房四寶&lt;/a&gt;  Paraphernalia&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文房四寶者 筆 墨 硯 紙也 (The four friends of the study, namely, brush, ink, inkstone, and paper)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tAlvJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;para&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;筆 brush&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;筆置 brush holder&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;墨汁 ink (liquid)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;墨 ink (solid)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;硯 inkstone&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;下敷 paper holder&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;半紙 paper&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;文鎮 paper fix&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Update - Dictionary&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you know all you need is practice, so a collection of writing styles from renowned writer can help us learn it nice and well, for example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvZxVnpXq6Y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新書道字典&lt;/a&gt;, a publication in Japan, where brush writing prevails in all time. In these kind of dictionary, many famous renderings are group together for each and every character: &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OXdaP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;preview&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2018-12-31T04:52:11.030" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T04:52:11.030" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3585" CreationDate="2013-08-23T01:15:33.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Speaking solely from my experience as a native, I think both pronunciation (tai4 yang2 and tai4 yang5) are OK. tai4 yang5 may be heard more because of the ease to pronounce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For respected sources, I'd still recommend 现代汉语词典. There is also a site called 汉典(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/&lt;/a&gt;) which I often refer to, but it sometimes has minor errors (as can be found in its forum). You should note that pinyin noted in dictionaries usually won't consider the tone sandhi effect (the effect that yu3 san3 is actually pronounce yu2 san3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T01:15:33.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3585" CreationDate="2013-08-23T07:29:13.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can use &lt;code&gt;Google 翻译&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.cn/#auto/zh-CN/%E5%A4%AA%E9%98%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://translate.google.cn/#auto/zh-CN/%E5%A4%AA%E9%98%B3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.cn/#auto/zh-CN/%E9%98%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://translate.google.cn/#auto/zh-CN/%E9%98%B3&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;tài &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; yáng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太 and 阳 both have only one pronunciation. (阳 as the second one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 太阳 speech as only the first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;becouse the last word speech &lt;strong&gt;softer&lt;/strong&gt; than their orignal sound &lt;strong&gt;in some word&lt;/strong&gt;. (I don't know why :P)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some other word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;妈妈&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爸爸&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;星星&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;月亮&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;桌子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;椅子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Word's &quot;orignal&quot; sound is align to 《新华字典》,which defined by the law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will &lt;em&gt;(only?)&lt;/em&gt; hear 太阳 really sounds &quot;tài yáng&quot; in government reports (Ha ha...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2980" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T07:29:13.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3604" CreationDate="2013-08-23T08:00:34.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only East Asia Languages can do 接龙 (maybe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成语接龙 is just a type of 接龙 that only allow use 成语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I don't think this game make significant effect on anything, it's just a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course children may have more enthusiasm than recite 《成语词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2980" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T08:00:34.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3597" CreationDate="2013-08-23T08:14:13.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;strong&gt;MOST&lt;/strong&gt; case, &quot;而&quot; have &lt;strong&gt;NO ANY&lt;/strong&gt; meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometime, &quot;而&quot; is short version of &quot;然而(but)&quot;,&quot;而且(and)&quot;,&quot;反而(instead)&quot;...etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at these time, word's meaning comes from &quot;然&quot;,&quot;且&quot;,&quot;反&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;而&quot; still &lt;strong&gt;NO&lt;/strong&gt; meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It just for padding word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2980" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T08:14:13.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3604" CreationDate="2013-08-23T13:53:16.933" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is just a Game, if you know more of 成语, the 龙 will go on. Actually, we do not use a lot of 成语 in daily life or modern novel. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3178" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T13:53:16.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="695" CreationDate="2013-08-24T02:57:21.313" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The order of strokes affects the &quot;evolution&quot; of the character when writing in high speed. In high speed the character shape shifts and one can often recognize the character even after extreme deformation because the general flow of the character is there. But if the stroke orders are changed, the deformation doesn't conform to the expected shape and it may be unrecognizable to other people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, imagine the &quot;s&quot; in the word &quot;best&quot;. If written in high speed the end of the &quot;e&quot; touches the top of the &quot;s&quot; and the &quot;s&quot; deforms to look like a &quot;backwards C&quot;. Imagine if people wrote &quot;s&quot; with the &quot;e&quot; touching the bottom of the &quot;s&quot;. i.e., the &quot;s&quot; is written from bottom-up. Now under high speed, the &quot;s&quot; actually looks like a well formed &quot;s&quot; but the &quot;e&quot; and &quot;t&quot; are deformed, make the word &quot;best&quot; look weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;High speed writers can make characters look almost nothing like it's proper counterpart, but people have learned to recognize them and recognize other people's handwriting because the stroke order affects the form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, following stroke order helps computers recognize characters better. Under high speed, a character will look totally different from it's proper form, but a trained computer can recognize the direction and order of the strokes and can recognize the character based off of that alone, rather than trying to recognizing the end image. I would imagine that that results in fewer false positives than recognizing by image alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3179" LastActivityDate="2013-08-24T02:57:21.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3618" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-24T12:33:25.900" Score="7" ViewCount="643" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that 占 means &quot;to occupy/to take up&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in this following sentence, I can not figure out what it adds to the meaning as a whole:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;对占人口绝大多数的民众来说，还是觉得有钱应该省着花&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I take &quot;zhan&quot; away, would it make any difference? A Chinese friend told me it would, but was not able to explain it exactly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you give me another example in an equivalent sentence-structure on how to use &quot;zhan&quot; in a similar structure?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The constellation of 省着花 is also a little strange to me; to save and spend money in the same construction? I suppose &quot;hua&quot; must have a different meaning here? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3174" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-11T01:00:49.063" LastActivityDate="2020-05-11T06:18:56.540" Title="The mysterious role of 占 in 对占人口绝大多数的民众来说，还是觉得有钱应该省着花" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3618" CreationDate="2013-08-24T12:56:40.063" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;占人口绝大多数的 is a compound adjective for 民众. 人口 means population, noun. 绝大多数的 means most, adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you take away 占, you got to take away 人口 as well to keep it grammatically sound. If you remove 占 and leave 人口 there, it's like this English sentence, &quot;For the people that most part of population, money should be spent wise.&quot; you feel a bit strange because something is missing in between &quot;that&quot; and &quot;most&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;That's easy, look at this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;占全年国内消费水平很大比例的是节假日的消费 (Simplified)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;占全年國內消費水平很大比例的是節假日的消費 (Traditional)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A very large portion of the national consumption is from that in holiday. (One possible English translation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As for 省着花, 花 really mean to spend money. 省着, an adverb for 花, means &quot;spend money for those necessary things only&quot;. The pattern of &quot;verb + 着&quot;, also shown in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/258/when-do-i-use-%E7%9D%80-to-indicate-action-in-progress&quot;&gt;another post&lt;/a&gt;, can be an adverb (as in 省着花) or indicating action in process as in 他正弹着吉他, tā zhèng tán zhe jí ta, &quot;He's playing guitar now.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Need more help? Leave comment :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-08-25T09:58:31.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3481" CreationDate="2013-08-24T13:07:25.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;把字當介詞講屬後起之意  先秦時代 把字做動詞 握 持 攢之意 如 臣左手把其袖 見於戰國策之燕策  及宋 如蘇東坡之絕句 飲湖上初晴後雨 欲把西湖比西子 借用使之介詞化 並口語化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 as a preposition emerged a bit late. Long time ago, 把 is a verb, meaning &quot;get hold of something&quot;, as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;荆轲曰 愿得将军之首以献秦 秦王必喜而善见臣 臣左手把其袖 而右手纆抗其胸 然则将军之仇报 而燕国见陵之耻除矣 将军岂有意乎&quot; Source:『&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E6%88%B0%E5%9C%8B%E7%AD%96/%E5%8D%B731&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國策 燕策&lt;/a&gt;』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then somehow people borrow from this meaning and to put it in front of object, as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;欲把西湖比西子&quot; Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E8%8B%8F%E8%BD%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蘇東坡 (1037-1101)&lt;/a&gt; 『飲湖上初晴後雨』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YN828.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;蘇東坡 『飲湖上初晴後雨』&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;把 doesn't just mean putting emphasis on the its following object. In fact, the emphasis is cast onto a component of a sentence based on how you say it. A bit extended from @langdi's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我把你的&lt;strong&gt;蛋湯&lt;/strong&gt;喝了 (&quot;I had your egg chowder.&quot; when you stress on 蛋湯)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wǒ bǎ nǐ de &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;dàn tāng&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; hē le (one possible rendering)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes using 把 gives a sense of casual, spoken language, for example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我明天再寫完它吧 (&quot;I'll write it up tomorrow.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wǒ míng tiān zài xiě wán tā ba (one possible rendering)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;明天再把它寫完吧 (&quot;Write it up tomorrow.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;míng tiān zài bǎ tā xiě wán ba (one possible rendering)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it's just weird to say it otherwise, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%8A%8A%E5%AD%97%E5%8F%A5#.E8.BD.89.E5.AF.AB.E6.88.90.E5.85.B6.E4.BB.96.E5.8F.A5.E5.BC.8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;click here for example&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid there's no such a universal rule about when to use 把 and when not. You can use it as much as you want. Having experienced for a while, you'll get a picture about when it's natural to use it and get a sense on when not to use it in some exceptional cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Happy learning ^o^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-08-24T13:34:58.937" LastActivityDate="2013-08-24T13:34:58.937" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3604" CreationDate="2013-08-24T17:03:21.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The purpose is to force one to recite idioms without explaining what they mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this kind of &lt;strong&gt;recitation&lt;/strong&gt; is a good way to learn language. Recite it first when we are &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;young&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;; ponder about its meaning &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;later&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; when we have a sound background of related skills, such as logic, critical thinking. This belief is well backed by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu_Hongming&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;him&lt;/a&gt;, who learned English, German, French, Latin and Greek by recitation, allegedly. Recitation is also an important method to learn in &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E7%A7%81%E5%A1%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;classic Chinese schools&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-08-24T17:03:21.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1560" CreationDate="2013-08-25T09:50:23.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;笑面虎 may be what you are looking for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; 佛面蛇心 may be another term for what you are looking for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastEditorUserId="3057" LastEditDate="2013-08-25T10:23:37.970" LastActivityDate="2013-08-25T10:23:37.970" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="258" CreationDate="2013-08-25T10:08:00.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Indicating action in progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As shown by @xiaohouzi79's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Accompanying another major action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As shown by @trideceth12's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Special usage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, neither of the above two can tell the whole story. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;走着瞧 (zǒu zhe qiáo) which roughly means Let's wait and see.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你看着办吧 (nǐ kàn zhe bàn ba) which roughly means It's up to you.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say it falls to case 1 in some sense. But I feel it's used as a whole, like an idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-08-25T10:08:00.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3624" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3628" CreationDate="2013-08-26T15:10:51.127" Score="11" ViewCount="3516" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see them both used in the same way and both seem to get equal hits in Baidu.&#xA;Here are some sample sentences containing each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictall.com/st/60/37/60372038C00.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.dictall.com/st/60/37/60372038C00.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictall.com/dictall/result_sentence.jsp?cd=UTF-8&amp;amp;keyword=%E7%9C%8B%E8%B5%B7%E6%9D%A5&quot;&gt;http://www.dictall.com/dictall/result_sentence.jsp?cd=UTF-8&amp;amp;keyword=%E7%9C%8B%E8%B5%B7%E6%9D%A5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionary definitions are similar...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看起来 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;①动看来。 看起来得你亲自出马。 ②动从表面上看。 看起来老实，实际上未必。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看上去 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;动从外观上估计（多在句子中充当插入成分）。 老人看上去有70岁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="3063" LastEditDate="2013-08-26T16:02:08.197" LastActivityDate="2013-08-27T09:16:18.803" Title="What's the difference between 看起来 and 看上去?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3481" CreationDate="2013-08-26T20:19:29.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are certain factors that motivate the use of the &quot;disposal&quot; form with 把 as the main verb (as opposed to the normal form).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the biggest is with complements. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the complement could refer either to the main verb or to the&#xA;object, then the 把 construction forces it to refer to the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他喝完水了。&#xA;He has drunk all the water. &amp;lt;完 refers to object&gt; / He has finished drinking the water. &amp;lt;完 refers to verb&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把水喝完了。&#xA;He has drunk all the water. &amp;lt;完 refers to object&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some verbs naturally take the 把 construction, often in preference to the normal construction. The reason for this may be to do with their collocation with resultative complements, often of direction or disposal. The pre-eminent example of 把-preference is the verb 放 &lt;em&gt;put, place&lt;/em&gt;, which is heard most often with 把 (its use without 把 is limited to set phrases like 放弃, 放手). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, when 买 &lt;em&gt;buy&lt;/em&gt; and 卖 &lt;em&gt;sell&lt;/em&gt; take complements, 把 tends to be more common. Other examples include 当 &lt;em&gt;act as&lt;/em&gt; and 成 &lt;em&gt;cause to become&lt;/em&gt; with large resultative complements.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When in addition to the direct object there is an indirect object within the complement (whether resultative or directional or of degree or time/action/frequency), the 把 construction is strongly favoured. Failure to do so is usually seen as hugely awkward (especially in writing), though it may be grammatical in some people's perceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把蛋糕切成八块。vs  ?*他切蛋糕成八块。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要把这个英文句子翻译成中文。 vs ?你要翻译这个英文句子成中文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要把东西摆得整齐一点(儿)。vs  *要摆东西得整齐一点(儿)。(although 摆东西要摆东西得整齐一点(儿) is OK without 把).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The disposal construction is not used with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Intransitive verbs that cannot take a direct object.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Complement-less verbs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Verbs that do not clearly &quot;affect&quot; the object, e.g. psychological verbs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sensory complements 见 or 到, nor with 到 in the sense of reaching a level or a time, though other senses of 到 can be used.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Potential complements, especially with negatives, e.g. 不完; these are generally converted into negated resultative complements within the disposal construction, e.g. 不能把...完。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The aspect particle 过.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources: &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Ba_sentence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;AllSet Learning - Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/Grammar%20exercises/Ba.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Oxford University: Centre for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language - Grammar&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2013-08-26T20:19:29.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3626" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-27T06:11:52.200" Score="7" ViewCount="1905" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two have very similar meanings and can both be used to mean &quot;detest, despise, look down upon&quot; but there seems to be a subtle difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to these entries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看不起 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/b/149/321190.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/b/149/321190.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看不上 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/b/164/364508.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/b/164/364508.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看不上 can also carry the meaning of &quot;cannot suit for one’s idea&quot;. There's also a &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_7eac08a701012ydt.html&quot;&gt;blog post&lt;/a&gt; that states that 看不起 is more of an objective judgement whereas 看不上 is more subjective, hence the latter could simply mean something is not up to the speaker's standards. However I'm not entirely convinced, and was hoping there were better sources outlining the differences between the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2020-12-18T02:16:44.337" Title="What is the difference between 看不起 and 看不上?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3626" CreationDate="2013-08-27T06:38:18.287" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a linguist. So I can only give you my perspective as a native Chinese speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make it short: 看不起 is &lt;strong&gt;rarely used on an object&lt;/strong&gt;, whereas 看不上 &lt;strong&gt;can be used on both persons and objects.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Some examples:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我最 &lt;em&gt;看不起&lt;/em&gt; 他这种自私的人。 &lt;strong&gt;CORRECT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我最 &lt;em&gt;看不上&lt;/em&gt; 他这种自私的人。 &lt;strong&gt;CORRECT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;品味一向很高的她根本 &lt;em&gt;看不上&lt;/em&gt; 这种便宜货。 &lt;strong&gt;CORRECT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;品味一向很高的她根本 &lt;em&gt;看不起&lt;/em&gt; 这种便宜货。 &lt;strong&gt;Understandable but AWKWARD&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3177" LastEditorUserId="3177" LastEditDate="2013-08-27T08:15:00.670" LastActivityDate="2013-08-27T08:15:00.670" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3624" CreationDate="2013-08-27T06:56:55.467" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a linguist, and thus can only give you my perspective as a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, they are quite similar. So I would only talk about their subtle differences here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看起来：&lt;/strong&gt; More often, 看起来 is used when you make a guess by &lt;strong&gt;FEELing but not necessarily really physically seeing&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. Today you did not come to school because of a bad fever. &#xA;I may call you and say:&quot;今天怎么没来上学啊？看起来你上病了啊！&quot;&#xA;Note here that &lt;strong&gt;I did NOT see you at all&lt;/strong&gt; before I make the guess that you are sick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看上去：&lt;/strong&gt; 看上去 is used usually when you express your feeling by &lt;strong&gt;really seeing&lt;/strong&gt; something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. The moment I see my girlfriend in a beautiful dress. I may go like:&quot;亲爱的，你今天看上去真漂亮！&quot;. Note here I can also use 看起来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To summarize:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may use 看起来 no matter you really see it or not, but when you see something, I recommend you 看上去. &lt;strong&gt;But Please note that it may largely depend on personal preferences.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3177" LastEditorUserId="3177" LastEditDate="2013-08-27T09:16:18.803" LastActivityDate="2013-08-27T09:16:18.803" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3626" CreationDate="2013-08-27T11:43:27.990" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;看不起 - Derogatory term&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看不上 - Neutral term&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A boy likes a girl, but the girl doesn't like the boy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;girl 看不上 boy. boy isn't a bad person, just isn't attractive enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A man stole something, so everyone hates him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The man is really bad, so everyone 看不起 him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2980" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-09-10T03:46:09.987" LastActivityDate="2013-09-10T03:46:09.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3630" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3631" CreationDate="2013-08-27T21:38:00.517" Score="3" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, if I went to the bank to withdraw money from my account and my account showed I took out $50, but the bank teller only gave me $40. I don't want to imply the bank teller was trying to cheat me or had bad intentions, I just want to say that she &quot;shorted&quot; or &quot;short-changed&quot; me by $10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2604" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-10T23:09:15.013" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T23:09:15.013" Title="How to say &quot;she short changed me&quot; (without negative conotation)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3630" CreationDate="2013-08-28T01:13:57.113" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你少给了我10块钱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin: nǐ shǎo gěi le wǒ shí kuài qián&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be sure to show the bank teller the money he/she gave you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-08-31T04:26:07.603" LastActivityDate="2013-08-31T04:26:07.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3604" CreationDate="2013-08-28T02:57:51.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;成语接龙 is a game for fun, which is used for opening our mind. You don't need to make sure the first Chinese character of every 成语 should be same to last end character, only same pronunciation is enough. Try your best to figure out 成语 which help you improve your mind and memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3036" LastActivityDate="2013-08-28T02:57:51.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3630" CreationDate="2013-08-28T03:01:34.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Be polite to say:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;不好意思，还差10元&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3036" LastActivityDate="2013-08-28T03:01:34.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3630" CreationDate="2013-08-28T03:07:10.130" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use the following if I am shortchanged of $10:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;少找&lt;/strong&gt;了十元（给我）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if I am given $10 extra change, I would use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;多找&lt;/strong&gt;了十元（给我）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 汉典, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/xs/627E.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;找&lt;/a&gt; means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(3) 退有余,把超过应收的钱物退还 [give change]。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如:找算(结算出多付而应找回的钱);找账(补足欠项);他找我一块钱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-08-28T03:07:10.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3630" CreationDate="2013-08-28T03:20:08.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another polite way to go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;不好意思，這裡才四十。(Sorry, but here is only $40.)&#xA;&#xA;bù hǎo yì sī，zhè lǐ cái sì shí。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which implies they should give you more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-08-28T03:20:08.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3636" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3638" CreationDate="2013-08-28T05:35:49.427" Score="12" ViewCount="4072" Body="&lt;p&gt;This expression connotes that one is willing to not insist on accusing someone of a mistake despite most evidence pointing to that someone as being responsible. As in a legal proceeding where the jury feel there is a reasonable doubt the defendant transgressed the law &lt;br/&gt;Or.&lt;br/&gt;More colloquially, when not understanding why someone took a certain action or made a decision that impacted others negatively, this expression means one doesn't impute bad motive on the someone. &lt;br/&gt; For example, someone says something very insensitive to you that hurts you, it might be a delicate situation or something very personal. If you give them the benefit of the doubt you don't feel they had bad motive but were trying to help or encourage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I express this in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="938" LastEditDate="2013-08-29T14:32:40.177" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T20:42:12.337" Title="How to say &quot;giving someone the benefit of the doubt&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3636" CreationDate="2013-08-28T06:16:53.673" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you sure they can be expressed with the same phrases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I think 既往不咎 is appropriate here. It means: Since your mistake is already committed, I will just forgive you and let it go.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不知者无罪. Another possible sentence goes like: 虽然我不清楚你为何这么做，但是我相信你的本意不是如此（如此 here means 伤害别人）。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3177" LastEditorUserId="3177" LastEditDate="2013-08-28T06:52:42.850" LastActivityDate="2013-08-28T06:52:42.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3636" CreationDate="2013-08-28T06:27:31.303" Score="8" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;寧縱勿枉&quot; best fits the description.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It literally means not enforcing justice (&quot;縱&quot; as in &quot;縱容&quot;) for fear of accusing someone wrongly (&quot;枉&quot; as in &quot;冤枉&quot;). The opposite phrase is &quot;寧枉勿縱&quot;. Note that the sayer &lt;strong&gt;does not&lt;/strong&gt; necessarily forgive the suspect here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;沒有實質證據證明銀包是小明偷的，&lt;em&gt;寧縱勿枉&lt;/em&gt;，此事就算了吧。 (There's no direct evidence proving Ming stole the wallet, &lt;em&gt;giving him the benefit of doubt&lt;/em&gt;, let's be done with this.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictall.com/st/55/22/5522513D48B.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;無心之失&quot;&lt;/a&gt; is applicable for the second description.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It means one is not intended for the mistake made.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雖然他這樣做是不對，但我相信只是 &lt;em&gt;無心之失&lt;/em&gt;，你不要責怪他吧。 (It's not right for him to have done that, but I beleive &lt;em&gt;he doesn't mean it&lt;/em&gt;, don't blame him, okay?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: added examples, sorry that the English translation may not be the best.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The OP also updated the question so I think the answer here is more appropriate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2669" LastEditorUserId="2533" LastEditDate="2016-04-05T14:24:48.707" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T14:24:48.707" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="167" CreationDate="2013-08-29T03:45:08.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learnt Japanese for five years before I started learning Mandarin, and it helped a lot! I had a huge advantage over the other students who were learning Mandarin as their first Asian language.&#xA;I knew how Chinese characters were constructed, and how the radicals affect pronunciation and meaning.&#xA;I understood lots of Chinese words that had Japanese equivalents, even if I couldn't pronounce them in Mandarin.&#xA;I even managed to understand some spoken words that I'd never heard pronounced in Mandarin before. (I remember how impressed the class was when the beginning student understood the word 天气 spoken, when the rest of the class didn't understand...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tl;dr, knowing intermediate-advanced Japanese makes learning Mandarin Chinese way easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3189" LastActivityDate="2013-08-29T03:45:08.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3642" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3644" CreationDate="2013-08-29T09:29:53.033" Score="2" ViewCount="2846" Body="&lt;p&gt;I mean OK as in said in agreement with what someone has suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: We should go to the park. &lt;br/&gt;B: OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone used the verb 不 verb structure I would think you should use the same verb in expressing agreeement but is this true for all cases, notably &quot;好“？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 我们去公园吧。&lt;br/&gt; B: 好 or 行 or ？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T01:34:58.023" Title="Various ways of saying OK?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3642" CreationDate="2013-08-29T13:26:37.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually 好，行 all works in this situation. No big difference but I slightly prefer 好, cuz 行 implying some sense that you allow this to happen, while 好 is a happy agreement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want be more delightful, you may want to try 好啊！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope this will help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3192" LastActivityDate="2013-08-29T13:26:37.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3642" CreationDate="2013-08-29T14:25:35.387" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are loose translations: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好的 = alright!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好吧 = okay, fine... (Kind of like... going along with it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好啊 = sure! (As Wendy said... a bit more of an upbeat tone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好 = Okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行 = Sure. I guess that works&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恩　= Colloquial form of grunting in agreement... kind of like a verbal nod of approval&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以/可以啊 = I can/Sure!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, if you agree with what someone said... You can repeat the verb, or similar verb (in this case replace 去 (go) with 走　(walk)):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: 我们去公园吧！ &#xA;B: 走啊！&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-08-30T14:43:25.573" LastActivityDate="2013-08-30T14:43:25.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3645" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3675" CreationDate="2013-08-29T16:39:05.523" Score="6" ViewCount="683" Body="&lt;p&gt;Isn't it more intuitive to just replace 馬 with 马 at the base of 驚 to get a well inductive simplified one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite weird, uh? Any historical, geopolitical, or other reason for the simplification of &lt;code&gt;驚 -&amp;gt; 惊&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Update&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's interesting is, &lt;code&gt;馬 -&amp;gt; 马&lt;/code&gt; is used in simplification as well. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/28/sw/9A5A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字 清 段玉裁注本&lt;/a&gt; gives a simple explanation for 驚 as 馬駭也. That is to say, 駭 is a synonym for 驚. We know that 駭 is simplified as 骇, as in, for example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.sohu.com/20130505/n374857644.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;骇人听闻&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-10T11:08:54.113" Title="How come 驚 evolves to 惊 in mainland China" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3645" CreationDate="2013-08-29T22:01:06.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Note&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This answer is entirely based on research, and my Chinese knowledge is still very limited, reducing my ability to fact check. Any concerns with the accuracy or additional detail will be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Character Classification&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This simplification is listed on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; as a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Phono-semantic_compound_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;phono-semantic compound character&lt;/a&gt;, that is a character with both a meaning and pronunciation related component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Character Components&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Chinese 352&lt;/em&gt; course materials on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/chinese/materials/352/simplified.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;character simplification&lt;/a&gt; from San Diego State University state that &quot;the character for ‘scare’ used to have a horse radical驚.  Now it is replaced with the heart radical, which is more transparent semantically&quot;. Rather than simplify the character as is, it appears that a decision was made to restructure the character to contain both a pronunciation component (京) as well as a more modern meaning (心). Today people associate alarm and fright more with a feeling of the heart than sensitivities and dangers of living with horses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3157" LastActivityDate="2013-08-29T22:01:06.863" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3642" CreationDate="2013-08-30T03:55:15.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1，可以 is another choice. so are 可以啊，可以呀。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2013-08-30T03:55:15.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3648" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3650" CreationDate="2013-08-30T13:59:40.433" Score="3" ViewCount="1104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see this come up sometimes in idioms, and I find it easy to understand but not easy to use&lt;br/&gt;(1) Is it used to spoken comparisons or analogies? Or is it only for literary, formal, fixed expression? &lt;br/&gt; If it can be used to make new expressions, (2) What is the proper syntax? &lt;br/&gt; (3) Can both adjectives and adverbs be used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-03-30T08:10:26.470" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T08:10:26.470" Title="How to use 如 to make comparisons or analogies" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2955" CreationDate="2013-08-30T14:22:17.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;yeah, I notice that @congusbongus has given a good answer, I only want to add some other things. as we know, there is a difference between &quot;自信&quot; and &quot;信心&quot; if that be used to descripe traits of person. we always say like this: he is a very confident man, in this sentence, the word confident is more close to the meaning of self-confidently. so you would better to praise somepeople by using the word self-confidently. and than if you want to express that somepeople would be largely successful to do some work, you could say like this: he has a very confident to do it. now have you get it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3194" LastActivityDate="2013-08-30T14:22:17.570" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3648" CreationDate="2013-08-30T14:35:02.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is more of a literary/formal expression; It's not really colloquial. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure exactly what you mean by making &quot;fresh&quot; analogies. If you mean &quot;Can you make new formal/literary expressions when writing literature?&quot;- the answer is yes. 如 is not bound to any fixed idioms/expressions. With that said, it helps to learn the root meaning of the word so you can use it how you want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;如 itself means &quot;as&quot;,&quot;as if&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take the following usage in a &quot;fresh&quot; expression:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;天上的星星**如**无数只眼睛，在一眨一眨。&#xA;(Tiānshàng de xīngxīng rú wúshù zhī yǎnjīng, zài yī zhǎ yī zhǎ.)&#xA;&#xA;The stars in the skies are **as if** there are countless blinking eyes. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 如, as you know, is also used in several fixed word pairs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;如果: if&#xA;如何: how&#xA;如此：if (more formal)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-08-30T14:35:02.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3648" CreationDate="2013-08-30T14:48:35.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to find the words having same meaning as 如, I think there are &quot;likely&quot; or &quot;as if&quot; or &quot;seems to be&quot;. On one hand, it's a formal expression in some context, e.g.,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;如下所述: as follows&#xA;如你所愿: as your wish&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 如 is used to make metaphor rather than comparison in strict sense. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;如花儿一样漂亮: as beautiful as the flower&#xA;如月亮般明亮: as bright as the moon&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that's two points I want to say. Any question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3194" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-08-31T04:45:41.980" LastActivityDate="2013-08-31T04:45:41.980" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2955" CreationDate="2013-08-31T04:05:23.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Now since the example is &quot;I&quot; being the subject, so there're no difference of sentence structure using either 自信 (self-assurance, confidence in yourself) or 信心 (confidence in yourself or someone/something else). The difference will occur in a sentence like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Traditional: 人們對今年的經濟前景沒多大信心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Simplified: 人们对今年的经济前景没多大信心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pinyin: rén men duì jīn nián de jīng jì qián jǐng méi duō dà xìn xīn。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Meaning: People don't give much hope to the economic growth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note: In this sentence, don't replace 信心 with 自信, though I can't say it's utterly wrong to use 自信 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, you can use both 信心 and 自信, because &quot;confidence in oneself&quot; is the common point between these two words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Using 信心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional: 在舞臺上跳舞，我沒信心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified: 在舞台上跳舞，我没信心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin: zài wǔ tái shàng tiào wǔ，wǒ méi xìn xīn。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Using 自信&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional: 在舞臺上跳舞，我沒自信。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified: 在舞台上跳舞，我没自信。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin: zài wǔ tái shàng tiào wǔ，wǒ méi zì xìn。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-08-31T04:05:23.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3648" CreationDate="2013-08-31T09:19:50.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;如 can be found frequently and in useful phrases, and to give you some confidence, I also find it easy to understand but not very easy to summarize its usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Question: &quot;Is it used to spoken comparisons or analogies? Or is it only for literary, formal, fixed expression?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer: 如 is used in many situations including literature, formal speech or writing, idioms, spoken conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Question: &quot; If it can be used to make new expressions, what is the proper syntax?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer: 如 is similar to a preposition in English. You can add something after 如; that something can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) a noun: 如下 (as follows, analogy), 如此 (analogy), 如今 (nowadays, analogy), &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/2/14b/326124.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;如火如荼&lt;/a&gt; (analogy), 百聞不如一見 (comparison), 明如日月 (analogy), 如膠似漆 (analogy), 往事如煙 (analogy), 身輕如燕 (analogy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) an adjective: 白髮如新 (analogy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) a sentence: 如獲至寶 (analogy), &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/2/79/125697.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;如影隨形&lt;/a&gt; (analogy), 如人飲水 (analogy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) a verb: 賓至如歸 (analogy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Special usages: 如果/如若/假如 (if), 不如... (suggestion, how about...), 如何 (how, based on analogy), 比如/譬如/例如 (for example), 正如... (just as...), 如來 (proper name), 如廁 (go to restroom), 如意 (follow), 突如其來 (如 modifies 突 yielding an adverb 突如 as a whole), among others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can make new expressions by replacing parts of some existing idioms/phrases. The existing idioms/phrases are enough for you to go in the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Can both adjectives and adverbs be used?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer: I guess you mean &quot;Can both adjectives and adverbs be used following 如?&quot; Then see the answer to question 2. Adverbs are rare, if not never.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Leave comment if you need more help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-08-31T09:19:50.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3484" CreationDate="2013-08-31T11:40:36.943" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am native Cantonese speaker. 劲爆 comes from Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;劲 means strong/unyielding/tough/power. Similar to 厉害 in Mandarin.&#xA;爆 is a adverb, originally means &quot;explosion&quot;, but here it means &quot;very extremely&quot;, other example: 潮爆, 爽爆.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3173" LastActivityDate="2013-08-31T11:40:36.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3656" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-01T13:38:42.587" Score="4" ViewCount="500" Body="&lt;p&gt;娘 is clearly niang2, but 炮 is a multiple pronunciation character; it can be bao1 or pao2 or pao4 according to the dictionaries I consulted. I tried searching Baidu for &quot;娘炮拼音&quot; but didn't find anything. Thanks for any help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="448" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T11:17:24.513" Title="娘炮 - how do you pronounce this word/phrase?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;swearing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3656" CreationDate="2013-09-01T15:50:21.330" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Oh, get you a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr2NPYqqsUg&quot;&gt;Taiwanese news (at 0:18 by the anchor, 0:58 by a student and 1:24, 1:56 by himself)&lt;/a&gt; about that, where it's pronounced as &quot;niáng pào&quot;. I can tell that we use this word in mainland China too, here is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTg5MjE2Nzg0.html&quot;&gt;proof&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It refers to a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/sissy&quot;&gt;sissy&lt;/a&gt; (a boy that other boys dislike because he prefers doing things that girls enjoy).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-09-01T16:03:30.827" LastActivityDate="2013-09-01T16:03:30.827" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3658" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3664" CreationDate="2013-09-01T16:26:51.993" Score="9" ViewCount="946" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been working with Rosetta Stone for about 2 weeks now, and due to the immersion (from the start, the entire program is entirely Chinese—no English anywhere), they don't do any explaining of grammatical concepts, they just demonstrate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've come across four phrases that appear to be demonstrating some grammatical concept that I don't understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here they are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;一辆车&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;一个鸡蛋&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;五本书&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;五份报纸&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I understand these to mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;a car&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;an egg&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;five books&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;five newspapers&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take #3. 五本书. I get that 五 is 5 and 书 is book. How does 本 function here? Is it a plural marker? Is there something with number words? Because it also seems like you can say 一匹马. So is 匹 here a plural marker? If these are plural markers, why are there so many?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To distill my question down, what is the word that often comes between a number and a noun? Are these phrases actually different, but they seem similar? It almost seems like every word has its own plural marker (if that's what these are). Are there more that I don't know about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3197" LastEditorUserId="3197" LastEditDate="2013-09-04T04:07:12.310" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T01:07:36.333" Title="份, 个, 本, 两: How do they function in these sentences?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3658" CreationDate="2013-09-02T11:03:19.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try to give a non-technical explanation here for immersion :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, 本 is there to make it more natural than just 五书 (though 五书 may be possible in some cases, but it's another topic). It's not a plural marker, so you can say 一本书 (one book). The choice of 本 itself depends on what kind of object you have: here the object 书 (book), so we can use 本, but not 辆, which is usually for some vehicles. Well the 匹 is one of the matches for 马 (horse).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There must be some list summarized by some nice guys to save you some time summarizing it yourself. But I didn't do it that way, instead, many people learn it case by case, which quite fits the immersion theory. I recommend that you make the list yourself first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-09-02T11:03:19.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2939" CreationDate="2013-09-02T11:31:08.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me give you some hints on your questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;code&gt;一男人&lt;/code&gt; and you can also use &lt;code&gt;一个男人&lt;/code&gt;. As to which one is better, I recommend &lt;code&gt;一个男人&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;一男人&lt;/code&gt; is quite spoken, but not so spoken as &lt;code&gt;一男的&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;一男性&lt;/code&gt;. Also, &lt;code&gt;一个男人&lt;/code&gt; is not as formal as &lt;code&gt;一位男性&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;一名男士&lt;/code&gt;. Yes, I agree that &lt;code&gt;个&lt;/code&gt; doesn't really add special anything, you can drop it. But I'm also sure it gives a different feeling to your listener or reader.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;a pile of wood&quot; and &quot;a stack of wood&quot; case can be well explained by the example of wine in @NS.X.'s answer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, a noun has one or more than one matching measure word, for example, for the man above, we have three there: &lt;code&gt;位&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;个&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;名&lt;/code&gt;. We can learn Chinese by comparing to English, by note that there isn't such a thing that we can perfect match with another. It is just so natural for Chinese and English to have something not in common.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you say both &lt;code&gt;一瓶酒&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;一碗酒&lt;/code&gt;, which depends on the container.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even if one noun has only one measure word, it doesn't hurt it be there. There may be a beautiful story behind the evolution of each word. We can have an expression evolved to be measure-word-free, sure we can have some other evolved another way.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nice questions!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-09-02T11:31:08.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3658" CreationDate="2013-09-02T21:49:48.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are measure words. A (probably not complete) list can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_classifiers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;List of Chinese classifiers&lt;/a&gt;. The most generic one is &quot;个&quot;. However, you should learn the measure word together with the noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2821" LastActivityDate="2013-09-02T21:49:48.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3656" CreationDate="2013-09-03T00:27:02.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is pao4 (the most common pronunciation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如法炮製、炮烙 are pao2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;炮羊肉 is bao1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When pronouced pào, it usually means artillery.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鞭炮: firecracker&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;炮兵、炮手: artilleryman&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;páo means burn or roast&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如法炮製 is an idiom, means follow suit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;炮烙 is a ancient torture (stamp on someone's body with burning iron)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;And bāo means stir-fry or drying&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;炮羊肉: stir-fry lamb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;炮乾: drying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but in fact, bāo is not in common use.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3199" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-09-03T10:46:08.617" LastActivityDate="2013-09-03T10:46:08.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3162" CreationDate="2013-09-03T16:55:08.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on your demand, here are my picks. They're locally famous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;China mainland&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nfpeople.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;南方人物周刊&lt;/a&gt;, a featured weekly on influencing people, with some exclusive interviews.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.infzm.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;南方周末&lt;/a&gt;, a weekly on politics, economics, culture, and especially recent (past week) controversial topics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bjnews.com.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新京报&lt;/a&gt;, a daily with Beijing (or China) features. Founded in 2003.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.caijing.com.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;财经网&lt;/a&gt;, a good source for financial and business news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qq.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;腾讯网&lt;/a&gt;, a major Internet portal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lifeweek.com.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;三联生活周刊&lt;/a&gt;, a major life style magazine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ftchinese.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FT中文网&lt;/a&gt;, Chinese version of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ft.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Financial Times&lt;/a&gt;, also with many Chinese columnists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hqzx/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;China Daily 中文版&lt;/a&gt;, famous for its English version, a major English daily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.caixin.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;财新网&lt;/a&gt;, another good source for financial and business news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youku.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;优酷网&lt;/a&gt;, the biggest video portal, YouTube's copycat, even from its name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://epaper.cqcb.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;重庆晨报&lt;/a&gt;, for those who wanna have PDF version of newspaper, this one's for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cbnweek.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;第一财经周刊&lt;/a&gt;, a reader-friendly financial weekly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bundpic.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;外滩画报&lt;/a&gt;, full of featured stories with pictures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Hong Kong&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yzzk.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;亞洲周刊&lt;/a&gt;, a weekly on politics, economics and culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mingpao.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;明報&lt;/a&gt;, founded by &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%91%E5%BA%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Louis Cha Leung-yung&lt;/a&gt;, a renowned novel writer, and his co-founder in 1959.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wenweipo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;文匯報&lt;/a&gt;, a left (pro-) newspaper. Founded in 1948.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.takungpao.com.hk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大公報&lt;/a&gt;, another left newspaper. Founded in 1902.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.singtao.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;星島日報&lt;/a&gt;, yet another left newspaper. Founded 1938.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ifeng.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鳳凰網&lt;/a&gt;, semi-official &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cntv.cn/index.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCTV&lt;/a&gt; like channel in Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.tvb.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TVB無線新聞&lt;/a&gt;, famous TV channel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hk.next.nextmedia.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;壹週刊&lt;/a&gt;, a sibling of Taiwanese &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.appledaily.com.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蘋果日報&lt;/a&gt;, quite popular and entertaining.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Taiwan&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cna.com.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中央社&lt;/a&gt;, a major news agency in Taiwan. Quite official. Founded in 1924.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.appledaily.com.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蘋果日報&lt;/a&gt;, a major daily. Good at entertaining people. I like its 3D video news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;自由時報&lt;/a&gt;, as its name suggests, it's somewhat &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B3%9B%E7%B6%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pan-Green&lt;/a&gt;. Founded in 1980.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://udn.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;聯合報&lt;/a&gt;, a conservative major daily founded in 1951.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinatimes.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國時報&lt;/a&gt;, a major daily. Founded in 1950.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cdnews.com.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中央日報&lt;/a&gt;, used to be official newspaper of the Kuomintang, founded in 1928.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cw.com.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天下&lt;/a&gt;, a financial-oriented magazine founded in 1981.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.businessweekly.com.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商業周刊中文版&lt;/a&gt;, Taiwanese version of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.businessweek.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Businessweek&lt;/a&gt;, with some local stories too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-03T17:00:10.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3658" CreationDate="2013-09-04T00:03:54.937" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have mentioned, these are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_word&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;measure words&lt;/a&gt; (also known as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classifier&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;classifiers&lt;/a&gt;*). To give a basis of comparison, in English measure words generally occur for uncountable nouns. For instance, because &quot;bread&quot; is uncountable, you cannot say &quot;*three breads&quot;; you must say &quot;three loaves of bread&quot; or &quot;three slices of bread&quot; (&quot;loaves&quot; and &quot;slices&quot; are the measure words in these examples).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; nouns are considered uncountable, and thus must have a measure word. Many nouns have a particular measure word associated with them (e.g., vehicles are typically measured by 辆; objects with a stick-like shape by 支; objects with handles by 把, etc.), and you simply have to remember which measure word is typically used with which noun. In many cases, the generic measure word 个 is acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some measure words themselves can be treated as nouns, in which case they can have their own measure word too when you use them this way. For instance, &quot;three bowls of rice&quot; would be 三碗饭, but when you use 碗 as a noun, you would say 三个碗 which refers to &quot;three bowls (of nothing in particular)&quot;. If you simply said 三碗, it would imply a measure of a noun that was already understood in context (for instance, of rice if the conversation was already about rice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;* Some make a distinction between the terms &quot;measure word&quot; and &quot;classifier&quot;, but many people use them interchangeably. See the linked Wiki articles for more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2013-09-05T17:37:52.153" LastActivityDate="2013-09-05T17:37:52.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3666" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-07T22:13:49.307" Score="11" ViewCount="2363" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there online corpus for the Chinese language? What I mean is something like the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Corpus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Brown Corpus for American English&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3208" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-12-27T21:40:17.273" LastActivityDate="2020-12-27T21:40:17.273" Title="Is there online corpus for the Chinese language?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="793" CreationDate="2013-09-07T22:31:59.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;CWN: Chinese Wordnet&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;National Taiwan University&lt;/em&gt; is working on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://lope.linguistics.ntu.edu.tw/cwn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;CWN&lt;/code&gt; (Chinese Wordnet or 中文詞彙網路)&lt;/a&gt;. The project seems to have started back in 2003.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Online dictionary&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They provide an &lt;a href=&quot;http://lope.linguistics.ntu.edu.tw/gcwn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;online dictionary for English←→Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (雙語詞網自動翻譯).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Database&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to works with their data, you can download the &lt;a href=&quot;http://lope.linguistics.ntu.edu.tw/cwn/CWN_DB/sqllite.data/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CWN DataBase as a SQLite file&lt;/a&gt; from the official website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3207" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T22:31:59.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3668" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-07T22:57:36.547" Score="10" ViewCount="2893" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Problem&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese student I found that one of the first barriers is reading. Indeed, when trying to acquire new vocabulary one might be faced with the &lt;em&gt;opacity&lt;/em&gt; of the Chinese character as opposed to alphabetical language: you can't pronounce a character on the first encounter while you can for unknown words in languages that use a Latin script (e.g English, French, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Per-application&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many web browser extensions or desktop applications try to fill the gap by providing &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_character&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ruby character&lt;/a&gt; (pīnyīn below/above characters), but that's limited to the application.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When looking for a system-wide solution I thought that a ruby-font could do the trick for beginners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Question&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So are there any such ruby-like fonts? I would prefer free/&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FOSS&lt;/a&gt; ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FOSS in order to be modifiable/redistributable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Limitations&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there are characters with multiple pronunciations, but my target audience is beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3207" LastEditorUserId="3207" LastEditDate="2018-03-08T12:39:09.147" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T12:39:09.147" Title="Are there any free/open fonts designed to help learn/read Chinese?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;reading&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="16" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3666" CreationDate="2013-09-07T23:21:42.000" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a big-data Chinese corpus, have a look at this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rocling.iis.sinica.edu.tw/CKIP/engversion/20corpus.htm&quot;&gt;(Taiwan) Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese 台灣 中央研究院 中文詞知識庫小組 現代漢語平衡語料庫&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A million-word level corpus&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Contact: Miss Su-Chu Lin (林素朱), jess@hp.iis.sinica.edu.tw&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://db1x.sinica.edu.tw/cgi-bin/kiwi/mkiwi/kiwi.sh?language=1&quot;&gt;Introduction in Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not sure if you can download it for free&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T23:21:42.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="380" CreationDate="2013-09-08T21:06:16.340" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;most of them are made up of 4 chinese characters.&#xA;when you study a lot more, you will find that chinese idioms can include chinese characters ranging from 3 to 7.&#xA;I agree with the opinion of symmetry.~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3213" LastActivityDate="2013-09-08T21:06:16.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3668" CreationDate="2013-09-09T15:26:28.327" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;as Stumpy Joe Pete said, you'll be hard pressed to find a font that works in all cases, and that you may want to look into a browser extension that highlights, magnifies, and explains the character you've hovered over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend Pera Pera Kun: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.perapera.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.perapera.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have extensions for FireFox and Chrome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a snapshot:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mWbxJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never seen or heard of a font that will provide that functionality intrinsically. Kids Chinese books, however, often have the pronunciation under the characters to help the kids learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-09-10T13:52:20.380" LastActivityDate="2013-09-10T13:52:20.380" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3666" CreationDate="2013-09-10T03:47:32.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can &lt;a href=&quot;http://dumps.wikimedia.org/zhwiki/latest/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;download all of the Chinese language Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;. (you would probably want: zhwiki-latest-pages-meta-current.xml.bz2) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another source that may or may not be suitable depending on the specific project is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/languages/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Project Gutenberg's collection of Chinese language books&lt;/a&gt;. The downside of this source is that most of them will be quite old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2391" LastActivityDate="2013-09-10T03:47:32.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3645" CreationDate="2013-09-10T04:46:46.760" Score="13" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Brief Answer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The construction of 惊 follows the essence of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Phono-semantic_compound_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;phono-semantic compound character&lt;/a&gt;. In folk culture, people who are not well-educated often &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;invent&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; characters in this way. Some of these characters became popular and then were included in the officially admitted simplified forms, and the others were eliminated. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(admitted formal simplified forms) 竊 -&gt; 窃, 響 -&gt; 响, 癢 -&gt; 痒, 憂 -&gt; 忧, 認 -&gt; 认&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(obsolete forms) 原 -&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MHPfQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;原&quot;&gt;, 菜 -&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jtsrZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;菜&quot;&gt;, 灌 -&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ymGT8.png&quot; alt=&quot;灌&quot;&gt;, 穩 -&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uf1a9.png&quot; alt=&quot;穩&quot;&gt;, 酒 -&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MXW6Z.png&quot; alt=&quot;酒&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may have found some regular pattern, when such a character is invented, they tended to use the simplest character as the phonetic part. That is the reason for &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;why not 憼 or &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; -- &lt;code&gt;京&lt;/code&gt; is simpler and well-known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For another question &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;why 駭 as a synonym of 驚 was simplified just as 骇&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;： though 駭 is a synonym of 驚, it is (and was) not often used by the under-educated people, so it wasn't invented by them and then simplified following another rule independently.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The history of the simplified 惊 is very interesting. My conclusion is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;惊 as the simplified form of 驚, was invented between the end of Qing Dynasty and the first decades of the Republic of China (i.e. around the beginning of the 20th century), and formally seen in 手頭字第一期字彙. Interestingly, it happened to be the same as a variant form of 悢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relationship among 驚, 悢, and 惊 can be illustrated in the figure below (&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xCZyq.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;full size&lt;/a&gt;):&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xCZyq.png&quot; alt=&quot;evolution&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Textual Research&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;1. How and When did 惊 become the simplified form of 驚&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Book &lt;code&gt;汉字字源: 当代新说文解字&lt;/code&gt; by 窦文宇 and 窦勇 says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;篆文和繁体“驚”字由“敬”和“马”构成。“敬”字有让人听话的含义，整个字的意思是马不听话了，由此产生马毛了的含义。引申表示惊动、害怕、出人意料等。汉字简化时按近代产生的俗字形式简化。简体“惊”字是形声字，“心”字表意、“京”字表音。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Seal character and modern traditional character 驚 is composed of 敬 and 马. &quot;敬&quot; has a meaning &quot;let people be obedient&quot;, and the whole character means &quot;a horse isn't obedient&quot;, then extends in meaning &quot;a horse goes mad&quot;, and then &quot;startle, scare, surprise, etc.&quot; The simplification follows the folk character form in modern times. The simplified 惊 is a phono-semantic compound character: 心 is the semantic part and 京 is the phonetic part.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;And a better book -- which points out a good reference 手头字第一期字汇(手頭字第一期字彙) -- &lt;code&gt;简化字溯源&lt;/code&gt; by 张书岩, 王铁昆, 李青梅 and 安宁 says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ucfQj.png&quot; alt=&quot;简化字溯源-惊&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【惊】“驚”的简化字。“惊”是近代群众创造的新形声字，最早见于1935年《手头字第一期字汇》。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;【惊】The simplified character of &quot;驚&quot;. &quot;惊&quot; was created by the masses in modern times. It was first seen in &lt;code&gt;手头字第一期字汇&lt;/code&gt;(1935).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Annotation: 手头字 is an old name for simplified characters, and 字汇 is a collection of characters.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main points this book states, are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) 惊 as the simplified form of 驚 was created following the construction method of phono-semantic compound characters;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) 惊 as the simplified form of 驚 was first formally seen in 手頭字第一期字彙(1935).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the mainstream view (As already pointed out in @Phil's answer). But, &lt;strong&gt;are they reliable?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Point 1), as I have analyzed in the &quot;Brief Answer&quot; above, 惊 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;can be&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; constructed in that way, but it &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;doesn't have to&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; -- the character 惊 had appeared for a long time as a variant character of 悢. So there's possibility that 惊 was borrowed to be the simplified form of 驚 (such a case isn't rare, like 葉-&gt;叶). However, because 惊 wasn't simplified by just an individual, it's difficult to find out the original motivation. Anyway, I personally accept Point 1), so I said in the Brief Answer they happened to be the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Point 2), it is possible for researchers to prove that, though still difficult, because proving &quot;惊 had not been (once popularly) used as another form of 驚 before&quot; needs much verification work. Personally, I also accept it, and I will demonstrate it in this logic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;惊 was formally stated as a variant character of 悢 in authoritative dictionaries, and in the past, educated people were not so many, thus very probably they did follow the dictionaries well. That is to say, if the newer dictionaries inherited the fact &quot;惊 is a variant character of 悢&quot; well, 惊 was not so possible to be used as 驚 in that times. =&gt; So I just have checked some dictionaries from 說文解字(A.D. 100-121) to 康熙字典(A.D. 1716).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;2. Inheritance Chain: 惊 as a Variant Character of 悢&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We will see, after 集韻, &quot;惊 as a Variant Character of 悢&quot; was well kept in dictionaries. In these one thousand years, people would not use 惊 as the simplified character of 驚.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;說文解字: there was no entry for 惊.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;集韻 (钦定四库全书本集韵)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;file=9463&amp;amp;page=112&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;卷三-平声阳第十&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【惊】悲也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;惊&lt;code&gt;liáng&lt;/code&gt;, sad/sorrow.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Bi5We.png&quot; alt=&quot;钦定四库全书本集韵卷三-平声阳第十&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;file=1627&amp;amp;page=61&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;卷八-去声漾第四十七&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【悢/惊/】博雅：悢悢，悲也。也或作惊、。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;悢/惊/&lt;code&gt;liàng&lt;/code&gt;, 博雅:&quot;悢悢&quot;, which means sad/sorrow. It can be also written as 惊 or .&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2MBJp.png&quot; alt=&quot;卷八-去声漾第四十七&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;類篇 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;file=38&amp;amp;page=19&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;钦定四库全书本类篇卷三十-心部&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【惊】呂張切，悲也。又力讓切。文一，重音一。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;惊, with consonant part of 呂 and vowel part of 張 (i.e. &lt;code&gt;liáng&lt;/code&gt;), sad/sorrow. Also with consonant part of 力 and vowel part of 讓 (i.e. &lt;code&gt;liàng&lt;/code&gt;). It has one character form and two pronunciations.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; Note that, 重(chóng)音 means polyphonic but not accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rHpws.png&quot; alt=&quot;钦定四库全书本类篇卷三十-心部&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;四聲篇海 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;file=17063&amp;amp;page=15&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;成化丁亥重刊改併五音類聚四聲篇海六-第十卷心母二十四-心部第四&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【惊】呂張切，悲也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;惊, with consonant part of 呂 and vowel part of 張 (i.e. &lt;code&gt;liáng&lt;/code&gt;), sad/sorrow.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bhZgK.png&quot; alt=&quot;成化丁亥重刊改併五音類聚四聲篇海六-第十卷心母二十四-心部第四&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;重訂直音篇 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;file=18347&amp;amp;page=130&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;卷二&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;悢，音亮，悲也。又音朗。惊、同上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;悢, sounds 亮, and means sad/sorrow. Also sounds 朗. 惊 and  are the same.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; Note: this dictionary cited 陰祐's 餘文 for this character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/coe1k.png&quot; alt=&quot;重訂直音篇&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;字彙 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;file=13046&amp;amp;page=28&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;五-卯集心部&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【惊】呂張切，音良，悲也。又去聲，力仗切，義同。亦作悢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;惊, with consonant part of 呂 and vowel part of 張, sounds 良, means sad/sorrow. Also in falling tone, with consonant part of 力 and vowel part of 仗, the same meaning. Also written as 悢.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RToil.png&quot; alt=&quot;字彙&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;正字通 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;file=14052&amp;amp;page=62&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;四-卯集心部&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【惊】同悢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;惊, the same as 悢.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cfPrg.png&quot; alt=&quot;正字通&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;康熙字典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【惊】《集韻》呂張切，音良，悲也。又《集韻》力讓切，音諒，義同。或作悢、。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;惊. In 集韵, with consonant part of 呂 and vowel part of 張, sounds 良, and means sad/sorrow. Also in 集韵, with consonant part of 力 and vowel part of 讓, sounds 諒, the same meaning. Also written as 悢 or .&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e5Prn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;康熙字典&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;3. Modern Times: 惊 as the Simplified Character of 驚&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have checked some other resources for folk characters, like &lt;code&gt;敦煌俗字典&lt;/code&gt;(2005) by 黄征, but I couldn't find any clue showing 惊 was used as the simplified character of 驚 before 1900s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you can find some text on &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&amp;amp;char=%E6%83%8A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ctext.org&lt;/a&gt; shows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《黃帝內經·經脈》: 是動則病洒洒振寒，善呻，數欠，顏黑，病至則惡人與火，聞木聲則惕然而 &lt;strong&gt;惊&lt;/strong&gt; ，心欲動，獨閉戶塞牖而處。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《通典·水利田》: 泉流灌 &lt;strong&gt;惊&lt;/strong&gt; ，所以育五穀也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《桃花扇·第六回阮學士懷怨進讒　楊知縣登樓報因》： 如此 &lt;strong&gt;惊&lt;/strong&gt; 慌！」龍友說：「今日清議堂議事，阮圓海對著大眾，說你與左寧南侯有舊，常通私書，將為內應。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《白圭志·第二回絕張宏廬山從學　遇菊英月下訂盟》： 歌罷琴息，庭瑞 &lt;strong&gt;惊&lt;/strong&gt; 喜欲狂，暗思：「此必才女所作也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《廉吏傳·廉吏传》： ...其令长贪洁吏民良猾悉知其状郡内 &lt;strong&gt;惊&lt;/strong&gt; 竦莫不震慑发兵击慈斩之贼既溃平...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after checking these classic works with their original scan versions, I just found those characters are &lt;code&gt;驚&lt;/code&gt; but not &lt;code&gt;惊&lt;/code&gt;. Such mistakes may be made by the software conversion from simplified Chinese to traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, very probably the statement that &quot;It was first seen in 手头字第一期字汇&quot; in the book 简化字溯源 is true. Amazingly, it is very very difficult to find a clear copy of 手头字第一期字汇. Currently (before I post this answer :D), the best version one can directly find by Google would be this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/l5wf1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vtcfb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hmm, and after very tough search work, finally I found this piece of newspaper: &lt;code&gt;申報 Feb. 24, 1935. No. 22210.&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shen_Bao&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shun Pao&lt;/a&gt;). It is so valuable that I decide to upload the whole picture here (&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HfxiW.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;full size&lt;/a&gt;). Please ignore the advertisement on the newspaper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HfxiW.gif&quot; alt=&quot;申報&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The table in the middle is the full list of 手頭字第一期字彙. With an introductory article 手頭字之提倡:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;手頭字之提倡&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;第一期手頭字共三百字 &lt;br&gt; 各界簽名發起者二百人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　中國文字、雖有種種優點、然筆劃過於繁多、而手寫體與印刷品又不一律、實爲民衆教育之一大阻力、近年全國有人主張减省漢字筆劃、以謀教學之便利、最近復由文化界人士、共同研究、已歷多時、頃始發表手頭字第一期字彙、各界人士簽名發起者二百人、各文化機關及刊物决定採用者已有十餘家、兹將推行手頭字緣起、及第一期字彙照錄如下、&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　推行手頭字緣起&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　我們往常有許多便當的字、手頭上大家都這麽寫、可是書本上並不這麽印、識一個字須得認兩種以上的形體、何等不便、現在我們主張把「手頭字」用到印刷上去、省掉讀書人設憶幾種字體的麻煩、使得文字比較容易識、容易寫、更能够普及到大衆、這種主張從　也有人提出過、可是他們没有實在做、所以没有甚麽影響、現在我們决定把「手頭字」鑄成銅模澆出鉛字來、拿來排印書本、先選出手頭常用的三百個字來作爲第一期推行的字彙、以後再逐漸加添、直到「手頭字」跟印刷體一樣爲止、希望開心文化的先生們、贊同我們的主張、並且儘量採用這個字彙、&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;發起人丁淑靜·萬迪鶴萬家寶·小默·王人路·豐子愷·方光燾·巴金·王紀　·王獨清·王特夫·王國秀·王集從·王屏南·方景略·葉聖陶·朱自清·葉放·左胥之·白薇·葉龢士·朱少卿·朱文叔·任白戈·劉延陵·劉廷芳·劉良模·老舍·余之介·沈子丞·李公朴·吳文祺·沈西苓·沈體蘭·沈志遠·徐澤霖·李長之·米星　·艾思奇·沈兹九·沈起予·李南薌·李冠芳·陸高誼·吳朗西·吳組緗·吳研因·吳清友·蘇雪林·艾寒村·仿聯德·李貽燕·余楠秋·吳敬恒·吳廉銘·沈端先·李輝英·杜鋼百·艾蕪·辛樹幟·汪靜之·吳翰雲·劉薰宇·伯韓·汪馥泉·吳耀宗·邵力子·孟十還·周木齋·周予同·林漢達·林本僑·東平·金兆梓·金仲華·歐陽山·周伯棣·周伯勳·邵宗漢·羅叔和·阿英·邰爽秋·周越然·征農·金燄·胡仲持·胡風·洪深·姚紹華·姜琦·柳湜·范揚·胡愈之·郁達夫·夏丐尊·倪文宙·祝百英·奚如·祝佛朗·馬宗融·草明·唐弢·馬星野·孫俍工·孫師毅·高夢旦·馬國亮·馬國英·席滌塵·高鐵郎·徐蔚南·徐懋庸·郭一岑·章乃器·曹小端·陳子展·張天翼·曹禮吾·陶行知·張仲實·陸衣言·張肖梅·張良輔·陳君冶·陳克承·陳君涵·許幸之·郭沫若·曹亮·陳致道·郭挹清·陳望道·張夢麟·　彬龢·畢雲程·許傑·許達年·許欽文·曹聚仁·陳維姜·陳端志·陸德音·陳樟生·章錫琛·陸錫值·庶謙·張耀翔·黄石·顧君義·傅東華·馮和法·黄素封·舒新城·黄源·程演生·顧樹森·黑嬰·靳以·臧克家·楊青田·楊東蓴·路敏行·葛喬·葛綏成·楊潮·楊騷·楊霽雲·趙義凭·熊昌翼·趙家璧·蒯斯嚑·趙景深·管萃眞·蔡元培·潘公弼·潘式·樊仲雲·鄭君里·鄭伯奇·蔡希陶·魯彦·鄭振鐸·黎烈文·蔣徑三·鄧裕志·樂嗣炳·蔣弼·蔡慕暉·黎錦明·蔣鏡芙·盧冀野·穆藕初·謝六逸·鍾天心·謝扶雅·鍾韶琴·聶紺弩·魏猛克·潭友六·&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we can find &lt;code&gt;驚-&amp;gt;惊&lt;/code&gt; is actually on the list. Interestingly, on Aug. 21, 1935, 第一批簡體字表 published by the Republic of China Government didn't include this simplified character:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kupMp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;ROC1&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wZvz7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;ROC2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wkSOZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;ROC3&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-09-10T11:08:54.113" LastActivityDate="2013-09-10T11:08:54.113" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3677" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3682" CreationDate="2013-09-10T15:07:36.250" Score="28" ViewCount="17296" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently, both of these mean Chinese, and the Chinese language. I gather that 中文 is maybe more like &quot;written Chinese,&quot; and 汉语 is &quot;spoken Chinese.&quot; Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've often looked at BBC zhongwen, so it makes sense that that's &quot;written&quot;. If a movie was in Chinese, would you say 汉语 for that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you give more examples of each, particularly when you could only use one or the other? Are there any examples in which you could potentially use either, with a slightly different meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3197" LastActivityDate="2021-03-20T23:10:45.983" Title="中文 vs. 汉语: What's the difference?" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3677" CreationDate="2013-09-10T16:50:58.313" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are quite equivalent to each other as Stan suggested in the comment. For most people, 中文 = 汉语. But I want to give you some interesting facts: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, there are 56 ethnic groups within the Chinese people and the majority ethnic group is the &quot;汉&quot;(Han). The 中文 literally means the language of Chinese people. The 汉语 literally means the language of &quot;Han&quot; people. So as you know now that the Chinese people are not all Han people, then you might think that 汉语 is a subset of 中文. Yes, the minority ethnic groups of Chinese have their own language, which is not 汉语. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However since the population of Han people is over 90% in China and minority ethnic groups of Chinese speak 汉语 more and more(the sad fact is that some of them forget how to speak their own language), 汉语 is equal to 中文 nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your are interested in the ethnic groups in China, you can visit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;List of ethnic groups in China&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Han Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-09-10T19:02:11.197" LastActivityDate="2013-09-10T19:02:11.197" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3679" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3680" CreationDate="2013-09-11T02:11:33.367" Score="4" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading a weird story about a myna (八哥儿，是一种鸟儿） that speaks and is quoting the price for himself, since he's a talking bird. Is what he adds after his price idiomatically translated as something along the lines of &amp;quot;and not a single cent more,&amp;quot; or something less emphatic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鸟儿又说：「你给十两银子，&lt;strong&gt;不要多给&lt;/strong&gt;。」县长一听，更高兴了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The myna spoke again: &amp;quot;10 silver pieces, &lt;strong&gt;no more&lt;/strong&gt;.&amp;quot; The magistrate was elated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-11T04:23:48.950" Title="不要多给： not a single cent more?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3679" CreationDate="2013-09-11T03:46:03.757" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the key to strengthening your Chinese is to have confidence in your intuition within the context of Chinese. Not saying you aren't already confident, but more so to apply the following method to approach future confusing sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Break them apart by word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;不 don't&#xA;要 want, do&#xA;多 more&#xA;给 give&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can infer from 不 + 要 = don't want, don't do something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As well as from 多 + 给 = give more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不要 + 多给 = don't give more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From there, you can understand nuances of the sentence given the context derived from the preceding or proceeding sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Preceding sentence: &lt;code&gt;你给十两银子&lt;/code&gt; : Talking about giving 10 silver coins...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the proceeding &lt;code&gt;不要多给&lt;/code&gt; probably has something to do with not giving any more of what the preceding sentence was talking about. In this case, coins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An aside:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be careful not to rely on literally translating Chinese text into English expressions, but rather focus on developing intuition within the context of Chinese language; this ability to use the target language to dissect more complex meanings in the target language will strengthen your fluency. It will also develop feelings/connections with the Chinese word itself... so you can feel emotion from the Chinese words/texts... rather than getting that emotion from the English expression you've translated it to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because many Chinese words are simply untranslatable to English given their cultural origins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;关系: in traditional Chinese society, you would build up good guanxi by&#xA;  giving gifts to people, taking them to dinner, or doing them a favor,&#xA;  but you can also use up your guanxi by asking for a favor to be&#xA;  repaid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This concept is pretty foreign to English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when thinking about 关系, think about it in Chinese context, and not to translate it to the next best word in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or perhaps 风水. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list goes on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-09-11T04:23:48.950" LastActivityDate="2013-09-11T04:23:48.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3666" CreationDate="2013-09-11T05:07:46.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't found a large corpus, but I have used the results of some projects that analysed all Usenet newsgroups from 1993-1994. You could probably contact &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.csie.nctu.edu.tw/~skhuang/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Shih-Kun Huang&lt;/a&gt; for information about the original corpus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The files I used were a list of &lt;a href=&quot;http://technology.chtsai.org/charfreq/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;character frequencies&lt;/a&gt; and a list of &lt;a href=&quot;http://technology.chtsai.org/wordlist/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;word frequencies&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's probably smaller than you want, and it only contains individual sentences, but you might find the translations at &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show_all_in/cmn/none/none&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tatoeba.org&lt;/a&gt; interesting. You can download the &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/downloads&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;raw data&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if they can be downloaded, but there are lots of example sentences on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%A5%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2013-09-11T05:07:46.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3677" CreationDate="2013-09-11T09:36:56.060" Score="19" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I gather that 中文 is maybe more like &quot;written Chinese,&quot; and 汉语 is &quot;spoken Chinese.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is correct as you would expect, however there are subtle nuances caused by the different spoken Chinese languages and issues of cultural identity, and that Mandarin is often considered the standard spoken Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before I digress here are some examples where you'd use one or the other:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese subtitles = 中文字幕&lt;/strong&gt;. When referring to only the written language, use 中文. Note that for practical reasons, you may need to disambiguate further: 简体字幕 or 繁体字幕.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese dictionary = 汉语字典&lt;/strong&gt;. For dictionaries, use 汉语 because they often relate to the entire language, both spoken and written, for example including pronunciation. To keep with convention though, all dictionaries use &quot;汉语&quot;, even if they don't deal with the spoken form, for example an English-Chinese dictionary would be called a 英汉词典.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I can speak Chinese = 我会说中文/汉语&lt;/strong&gt;. Here the two terms are interchangeable, &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; you are referring to Mandarin, which is confusing at first. This is because of the status of Mandarin as the standard Chinese spoken language. Sometimes you want to be more specific by referring to the specific Chinese language, e.g. 我会说普通话 or 我会说广东话. &lt;em&gt;(I'm not sure here, but in situations where a spoken Chinese language other than Mandarin is standard, 中文 also means that language. For example in Hong Kong saying 我会说中文 could mean &quot;I can speak Cantonese&quot;, especially if you were contrasting it with a non-Chinese language)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I can write Chinese = 我会写中文&lt;/strong&gt;. It would be improper in this case to use &quot;汉语&quot;. You can also say &quot;I can write Chinese characters&quot; though, by unambiguously saying 我会写汉字.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some background information:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There is &quot;one&quot; Chinese written language, and &quot;many&quot; Chinese spoken languages&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason I've used scare quotes is that the answer varies depending on how strict you are or what your political/ideological views are. The Wikipedia article explains all, but here are the basics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Linguistically, there are many Chinese spoken languages as they are mutually unintelligible. This is different from most other languages, where dialects are intelligible, but what's translated as Chinese &quot;dialects&quot; or 方言 can range from easily understood (between 北京话 and 东北话) to completely unintelligible (e.g. 客家話).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Despite this, many Chinese prefer to treat the different spoken languages as &quot;dialects&quot; of one language. This is due to a shared cultural identity; China experienced prolonged unified rule, in other words, many Chinese are historically accustomed to speaking mutually unintelligible languages but still being part of the same national identity. Do note that this is a politically charged topic though.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are two scripts used for written Chinese, Simplified and Traditional (简体 and 繁体). Some Chinese &quot;dialects&quot; even have their own unique characters (e.g. 冇 and 係) and grammars which are considered informal or archaic and you don't often encounter them in formal written contexts. For practical reasons though, you can consider there to be only one written Chinese language. This is also a controversial topic though, which I would rather only acknowledge without exploring further.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-09-11T09:36:56.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3683" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3686" CreationDate="2013-09-11T14:54:19.670" Score="8" ViewCount="933" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday I met a person that can speak Mandarin. We had a nice chat and I was going over it in my head today. I want to tell another friend that I met someone that can speak mandarin, but I'm having trouble with the grammar. My first thought is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天我认识一个人可以说普通话。(Zuótiān wǒ rèn shí yīgè rén kěyǐ shuō pǔtōnghuà.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I thought that the part about being able to speak Mandarin was something describing the person and so maybe it should come before 人 and I should use 的 (de) to tie them together. So it would be something like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天我认识一个会说普通话的人。(Zuótiān wǒ rèn shí yīgè huì shuō pǔtōnghuà de rén.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3214" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T03:58:22.050" Title="Describing a person that can speak Mandarin" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3684" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3687" CreationDate="2013-09-11T15:06:22.237" Score="11" ViewCount="1009" Body="&lt;p&gt;When Beijingers use words like 一点儿, the ending syllable will be very pronounced as far as I understand, and I'm aware that this is a typical feature of the Beijing dialect. But how is it pronounced in the rest of China? Is there no &quot;er&quot; sound there at all, or is it only there for special cases &quot;e.g. 一点儿&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3216" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:16:27.160" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:16:27.160" Title="How is the 儿 ending pronounced outside Beijing?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;erhuayin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3684" CreationDate="2013-09-11T17:33:45.167" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In MOST cases... Outside of Beijing, in texts, I believe the 儿 is still pronounced. But you can be sure that in spoken Chinese, it will never be pronounced (unless some kids are trying to mock the access by over accentuating it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I said in MOST cases because there are some words that have simply been adopted by non-Beijing'ers and will always be pronounced with a 儿, and would sound weird otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_dialect&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Some Beijing phrases may be somewhat disseminated outside Beijing:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;抠门儿 kōumér – stingy, miserly (may be used even outside Beijing) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So whether you're from Beijing or not, you will always pronounce and write this word as &lt;code&gt;抠门儿 kōumér&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest I can come to describing this in American English is how we pronounce certain areas/things in the actual dialectical origin of that word. For example, we say &amp;quot;New Orleans&amp;quot; as someone from New Orleans would say it: &amp;quot;Norlins&amp;quot; even though we're not from New Orleans necessarily. If you say &amp;quot;New Orleans&amp;quot; and pronounce every syllable, it would sound weird to anyone... native or not to New Orleans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: a better example is Louisville Kentucky. EVERYONE pronounces Louisville as &amp;quot;Louville&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-13T16:15:46.950" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3683" CreationDate="2013-09-12T00:22:59.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to expand on what is being said in the comments about context. One of the problems of speaking a language other than your first language is getting across the point of what you are trying to say, not just saying your main point but making yourself fully understood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think about this in the context of English. If you were going to say &quot;Yesterday I met someone who could speak English&quot;. If you were saying the sentence in English to someone else who understood English, in most cases it would have the listener wondering what your point was. Especially in this case as you are the foreigner, in terms of speaking Chinese, you are the special case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So maybe you want to say &quot;I met another foreigner who can speak Chinese&quot; or &quot;I met a Chinese person and I was able to practice my Chinese speaking with them&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand this doesn't answer directly what you are asking, but getting your &lt;em&gt;real&lt;/em&gt; point across is an important step in going from learner to expert. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I just started out learning my wife used to say to me, stop for a second, tell me in English what you really want to say and then start your sentence again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-09-12T00:22:59.940" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3684" CreationDate="2013-09-12T09:50:12.960" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Answer to each question&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;When Beijingers use words like…&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assume that by &quot;Beijingers&quot;, you mean those who born in or near Beijing, so do their parents or close relatives, growing up in a Beijing native people community, and not necessarily living in Beijing all the time of a year.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;When Beijingers use words like 一点儿, the ending syllable will be very pronounced as far as I understand, I'm aware that this is a typical feature of the Beijing dialect.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a feature for local native people around Beijing area, from a native speaker's viewpoint, not because the word 儿, but because their pronunciation, that is, their articulated way of the r consonant. For theory behind it, refer to others' related posts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;But how is it pronounced in the rest of China?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take 一点儿 for example, I can't give an absolute answer, because (1) I can't guarantee that the rule, if any, applies for each and every native speaker, (2) there seems to be hardly a theory that can catch up with real life conversation. But I can tell that both 一点儿 and 一点 can be used in some areas, such as Chongqing, Wuhan, and Shanghai. Few people (that ain't Beijing local native speakers) tend to stress on the tailing 儿 sound, though I can't say never. Imitating Northern Mandarin can be fun for some people too.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Is there no 'er' sound there at all, or is it only there for special cases 'e.g. 一点儿'?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Continued with the above 3., 一点儿 is also a little bit special case too, that is, this phrase is so common that some people, including me, may feel it kind of odd without using 儿. 一点 may be used for normal more often than 一点儿, however, 一点 is not so formal that would be used in formal cases such as in a speech of a conference, instead, we have 些许, 稍微, 少量, 片刻, to name just a few, to express ourselves in some formal situations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Reference&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pick one recent video program &lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjA2ODEyMTg4.html&quot;&gt;&quot;老友记 第二季 不做传统的奴隶&quot;&lt;/a&gt; from YouKu.com that films a conversation between two directors, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%B3%E5%BF%B5%E7%9C%9F&quot;&gt;吳念真, Wu Nien-jen&lt;/a&gt; (his &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-tw.facebook.com/wunienjen&quot;&gt;Facebook&lt;/a&gt;), born in &lt;a href=&quot;https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&amp;amp;q=%E5%8F%B0%E7%81%A3%E5%8F%B0%E5%8C%97%E7%B8%A3%E7%91%9E%E8%8A%B3%E9%8E%AE&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;ei=HYMxUvuZHua1iAfZ4YDYCQ&amp;amp;ved=0CAoQ_AUoAg&quot;&gt;台灣台北縣瑞芳鎮, Ruifang District, New Taipei City, Taiwan&lt;/a&gt; in 1952, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E6%9E%97%E5%85%86%E5%8D%8E&quot;&gt;林兆华&lt;/a&gt; (his &lt;a href=&quot;http://t.sina.com.cn/linzhaohuastudio&quot;&gt;Sina Weibo&lt;/a&gt;), born in &lt;a href=&quot;https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&amp;amp;q=%E5%A4%A9%E6%B4%A5&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;ei=-oIxUqn6LeSjigfUnIGoAg&amp;amp;ved=0CAoQ_AUoAg&quot;&gt;天津, Tianjin&lt;/a&gt; in 1936, giving us some clues about how 儿 is used by native people from different areas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some excerpts containing 儿. If English translation is needed, I'll update it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 00:50 to 01:02 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(原字幕, Subtitle in the video) 排戏都太严肃了 正经八百地 你还得导演阐述 这个戏剧的主题是什么 这个主题要飞跃到一个什么高度 什么他妈高度 再高把你摔死了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(我的簡體中文聽寫稿, My transcript in Chinese Traditional) 林兆华: 排戏都太严肃了 正儿八百地 啊 你还得导演阐述  这个戏剧的主题是什么 这个主题要飞跃到一个什么高度 什么他妈高度 再高把你摔死了 (Here, 正儿八百 is more casual than 正经八百, meaning &quot;seriously&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 02:42 to 03:03&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(原字幕, Subtitle in the video) 有时候觉得 每天早上醒来的时候 就会 一点儿把握也没有 都会觉得说 好不容易睡着了 干嘛又把我弄醒了 然后再去面对那些烦恼 一次又一次 如果你是我 你会希望再醒过来吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(我的繁體中文聽寫稿, My transcript in Chinese Traditional) 簡南峻(吳念真 飾演): 有時候覺得每天早上醒來的時候 就會 一點把握也沒有 都會覺得說 哇好不容易睡著了 幹嘛又把我弄醒了呢 然後再去面對那些煩惱 一次又一次 如果你是我 你會希望再醒過來嗎 (電影 &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%80&quot;&gt;&quot;一一&quot;&lt;/a&gt; 片段, from &quot;YI YI&quot; the movie. Here, the speaker uses 一點 (i.e. 一点) instead of 一點兒 (i.e. 一点儿), though the subtitle has 儿)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 05:14 to 05:21&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(原字幕, Subtitle in the video) 老娘爱看戏曲 就有时候看点评戏 看点京戏 就跟着去看 就是这点基因 我父亲爱拉弦 拉胡琴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(我的簡體中文聽寫稿, My transcript in Chinese Simplified) 林兆华: 老娘爱看戏曲 就有时候看点儿评戏 看点儿京戏 就跟着去看 就是这点儿基因 我父亲爱拉弦儿 拉胡琴的这这 (Here 儿 is used for four times.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 09:34 to 09:35&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(原字幕, Subtitle in the video) 你跟他较劲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(我的簡體中文聽寫稿, My transcript in Chinese Simplified) 林兆华: 你跟他较劲 (Here 劲 is used instead of 劲儿. 你跟他较劲 means &quot;You take on him. You compete against him or start a fight with him, especially when he is bigger or better or stronger than you.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-09-12T09:50:12.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3688" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-09-12T10:16:25.980" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-09-12T10:16:25.980" LastActivityDate="2013-09-12T10:16:25.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3689" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-09-12T10:16:25.980" Score="0" Body="儿化音 is a phonological process that adds the &quot;ér&quot; (儿) sound (transcribed in IPA as [ɻ]) to syllables in spoken Mandarin Chinese" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-09-12T12:59:38.227" LastActivityDate="2013-09-12T12:59:38.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3692" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3694" CreationDate="2013-09-13T12:49:10.773" Score="8" ViewCount="2039" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence below, why do you need 该公司? Chinese is contextual, right? 公司 talked about previously is 苹果. Instead of 该公司, why not use 它? Or 这个公司?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也有一些分析师和投资者为苹果辩护，他们说，&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;该公司&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 完全清楚自己在做什么，设定的价格也符合 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;该公司&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 的策略。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there were some analysts and investors who came to the company’s defense and said that Apple knew exactly what it was doing, and set the price accordingly. (NYT translation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cn.nytimes.com/technology/20130912/c12iphone/dual/&quot;&gt;http://cn.nytimes.com/technology/20130912/c12iphone/dual/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;路易斯安那州共和党众议员约翰·弗莱明(John Fleming)说，“奥巴马医改法案(Obamacare)是国会有史以来通过的最危险的立法案。”他还说，&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;该法案&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 是“自大萧条(Great Depression)以来”，美国所面临的“最根本的经济威胁，所以，我认为，多一点额外的赤字不算什么。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Obamacare is the most dangerous piece of legislation ever passed in Congress,” said Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana. “It is the most existential threat to our economy” that the country has seen “since the Great Depression, so I think a little bit of additional deficit is nothing,” he added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cn.nytimes.com/world/20130913/c13fiscal/dual/&quot;&gt;http://cn.nytimes.com/world/20130913/c13fiscal/dual/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2013-09-18T06:06:34.807" Title="该 - How do you know when to use it? Nothing to do with 应该" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3692" CreationDate="2013-09-13T13:12:59.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this situation, 该 is just a more formal way of 这个. Both of them mean &quot;this&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个 is typically consider too casual to this context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 此 or 该 instead of 这个 in this kind of context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-09-13T13:12:59.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3692" CreationDate="2013-09-13T13:28:30.530" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;该 is the formal equivalent of the word &lt;code&gt;aforementioned&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;said&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;该公司 - the said company&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  该法案 - the aforementioned legislation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is usually found in text to refer back to something that was mentioned previously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Informally, you can also use 那. Here is the meaning from 汉典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那，著重指出前面說過的人或事物：～地。～書。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-09-13T13:28:30.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3699" CreationDate="2013-09-13T19:15:22.517" Score="2" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that the Chinese ministry of education did release a lot of authoritative books on how characters should be simplified, how their stroke orders should be, and other similar stuff.&#xA;But it doesn't seem like the ministry released anything related to measure words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is there any authoritative work that gives for a word what measure words can be applied to it and what meaning does it imply? And also the reverse, a list of all measure words and with what kinds of words they should be use with? In English or in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, take the word 专辑:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一张专辑, an actual album object (e.g. as a CD album)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一种专辑, an album title&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一部专辑, an album taken as a piece of art&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the measure word 款: used to design a software as a piece of work, comparable to 部 when used to single out pieces of art.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3226" LastEditorUserId="3226" LastEditDate="2013-09-14T15:18:46.363" LastActivityDate="2013-09-16T15:07:23.040" Title="Is there any authoritative works related to measure words?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3696" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3698" CreationDate="2013-09-13T19:54:51.220" Score="8" ViewCount="27217" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm preparing for my first &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshi&quot;&gt;HSK&lt;/a&gt; exam in October - probably level 1 - so I completed a practice exam. I know the number of correct answers, but I don't how to convert these into a score. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/37160-correspondance-between-hsk-score-and-actual-correct-answers/&quot;&gt;what I've read&lt;/a&gt;, it's not a simple matter of dividing the number of correct answers by the total number of questions and then multiplying by the maximum score. Apparently the score is calculated by comparing with other students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where can I learn more about this? Is there at least some sort of heuristic, like: &lt;em&gt;if you answer X percent correctly, you'll probably pass&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3112" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T13:19:32.680" Title="How to estimate your score for an HSK practice exam?" Tags="&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3692" CreationDate="2013-09-14T02:36:33.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, I think &quot;该&quot; is just a formal language meaning &quot;the&quot; (that has been mentioned) or &quot;this&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3227" LastActivityDate="2013-09-14T02:36:33.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3696" CreationDate="2013-09-14T10:15:00.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Brief Answer&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To pass any level of the new HSK, you have to &lt;strong&gt;beat 74.75% of the total&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is to say, for this case&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had 11/20 correct answers in the listening part and 19/20 in the reading part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if 74.75% of the total had done worse than that (i.e. as the weights of listening and reading are 1:1, such many people had correctly answered less than 30 questions), you will pass the exam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &amp;quot;Is there at least some sort of heuristic, like: if you answer X percent correctly, you'll probably pass?&amp;quot;, the answer is &lt;strong&gt;maybe&lt;/strong&gt;. There may be some historical data that you can refer to. They serve as important references, but you cannot 100% trust them, if the HSK exam you take is specially more difficult or easier than former ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Why 74.75%?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hsk.org.cn/intro/HM_E.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;official website of the HSK&lt;/a&gt;, we know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;+------------------+--------------------+---------+&#xA;| HSK Score(Total) | HSK Score(Section) | Percent |&#xA;+------------------+--------------------+---------+&#xA;|              400 |                100 |      99 |&#xA;|              277 |                 69 |      90 |&#xA;|              250 |                 63 |      80 |&#xA;|              231 |                 58 |      70 |&#xA;|              215 |                 54 |      60 |&#xA;|              200 |                 50 |      50 |&#xA;|              185 |                 46 |      40 |&#xA;|              169 |                 42 |      30 |&#xA;|              150 |                 37 |      20 |&#xA;|              123 |                 31 |      10 |&#xA;+------------------+--------------------+---------+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And from its description:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;strong&gt;section score&lt;/strong&gt; of HSK (Elementary-Intermediate) is a scale score &lt;strong&gt;with 50 as the score mean and 15 as the standard deviation&lt;/strong&gt;, while the &lt;strong&gt;total score&lt;/strong&gt; is a scale score &lt;strong&gt;with 200 as the score mean and 60 the standard deviation&lt;/strong&gt; ... The right column indicates the percentage occupied by those whose scores are lower than the corresponding scores in the standard HSK reference group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is easy to verify via the table that a section score meets the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;normal distribution&lt;/a&gt; (with with 50 as the score mean and 15 as the standard deviation), so is the total score (with 200 as the score mean and 60 the standard deviation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, this &lt;a href=&quot;http://education.imextrade.ru/education/about-hsk/?lang=ch&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;page&lt;/a&gt; introduces a calculation method. In brief, it is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HSK=50+15×Z&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where Z can be considered as a Gaussian variate with 0 as the mean and 1 as the standard deviation, and then the HSK for a section is a N(50, 15^2) Gaussian variate. By observation, we can find that, there're some regular patterns for the setting of the total score. If an exam has 4 section, the setting for total score is a N(200, 60^2) variate. Consider these &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2117597.htm?fromId=53083&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;passing scores&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HSK level 1-2: listening (100), reading (100). Total (200). &lt;strong&gt;Passing: total score &amp;gt;= 120&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HSK level 3-6: listening (100), reading (100), writing (100). Total (300). &lt;strong&gt;Passing: total score &amp;gt;= 180&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can conclude that at level 1-2, the total score is a N(100,30^2) variate, and at level 3-6, N(150, 45^2). Thus we can see that in the standard Gaussian cumulative distribution function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Φ[ (120-100)/30 ] = 0.7475&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Φ[ (180-150)/45 ] = 0.7475&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: it seems in the old HSK, the weights of listening, grammar, reading, and comprehensive sections are with this ratio &lt;code&gt;1:0.6:1:0.8&lt;/code&gt;. However if we try the weighting formula for the old HSK total score&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HSK = [ (Z1+0.6×Z2+Z3+0.8×Z4) / 3.4 ] ×60 +200&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where &lt;code&gt;Z1,Z2,Z3,Z4 i.i.d. ~ N(50,15^2)&lt;/code&gt;, the final HSK will be a N(200, 30.566^2) variate, which is a contradiction to another definition N(200, 60^2). Anyway, as the math model hasn't been rigorously stated, my answer considers N(200, 60^2) as the correct one because its CDF value examples are well listed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-14T13:24:04.987" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3695" CreationDate="2013-09-14T19:28:29.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on your definition of 'authoritative'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for formal dictionaries as opposed to crowd-sourcing efforts, dedicated to measure words, there are 《量词词典》, 《现代汉语量词用法词典》, 《现代汉语量词规范词典》, etc. You can find them by searching '量词+词典' on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.cn/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/480-9325186-7990407?__mk_zh_CN=%E4%BA%9A%E9%A9%AC%E9%80%8A%E7%BD%91%E7%AB%99&amp;amp;url=search-alias=aps&amp;amp;field-keywords=%E9%87%8F%E8%AF%8D%20%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://book.douban.com/subject_search?search_text=%E9%87%8F%E8%AF%8D%20%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8&amp;amp;cat=1001&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Douban&lt;/a&gt; or other book sources. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for 'the source' that's used by all the schools as standard reference, there is none. At least in Mainland China, the only dictionaries that are used as standards are 《新华字典》 and 《现代汉语词典》. Both of them cover measure words but are not 'measure word dictionary' i.e. they do not provide reverse look up from a noun to corresponding measure words; they do not contain an extensive list of usages for each measure word; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-09-14T22:47:12.977" LastActivityDate="2013-09-14T22:47:12.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3695" CreationDate="2013-09-15T04:04:19.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look into things like &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/htm/liangtz/14a-1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;常用量詞手冊&lt;/a&gt; (use Big5 encoding), all you can get is some absolutely out of date information. The process of becoming authority is opposite to daily usage of a living language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【張】ㄓㄤ                                                                                        &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;計算某些可張開物體的單位。如：「一張弓」、「兩張嘴」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   計算平面物品的單位。如：「一張紙」、「兩張桌子」、「三張薄餅」。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://cldr.unicode.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR)&lt;/a&gt; from International Components for Unicode (ICU) might be the closest thing you can get and might be able to submit your revision. The bottom line you can have your version of ICU and make your own mapping table based on your rules. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3230" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-09-16T15:07:23.040" LastActivityDate="2013-09-16T15:07:23.040" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3701" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-15T04:09:44.433" Score="3" ViewCount="1026" Body="&lt;p&gt;After years of frustration about not being able to distinguish ㄥ ㄣ, and nearly no improvements on iOS Zhuyin keyboard layout. I decided to switch to Pinyin for both mobile usage and daily desktop (I am a Mac user). What's your suggested ways of learning and your experience?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3230" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T02:50:43.763" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T02:50:43.763" Title="Learn to type in Pinyin for a Zhuyin user" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3701" CreationDate="2013-09-15T07:54:28.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B3%A8%E9%9F%B3%E7%AC%A6%E8%99%9F#.E6.AF.94.E8.BC.83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;an (almost) one-to-one mapping from Zhuyin to Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;, replacing symbols with letters. In my humble opinion, Pinyin only save one from remembering symbols.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Neither Pinyin nor Zhuyin is perfect. Better learn both of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin is the result of an attempt of romanization, everything is going well except that, after all, Chinese language is quite different from Latin family languages in many aspects, spelling, pronunciation, logic, or the way of thinking, so a perfectly matched mapping can be really hard to realize, if not impossible. So it's not surprising when the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pinyin&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;transliteration&lt;/a&gt; is found to be a little strange to English pronunciation rules, e.g. in &lt;code&gt;qi&lt;/code&gt; vs. &lt;code&gt;chee&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;gu&lt;/code&gt; vs. &lt;code&gt;koo&lt;/code&gt;. A more intuitive transliteration is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade-Giles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wade-Giles&lt;/a&gt;. As a citizen of China, one had better learn and use Pinyin as Pinyin simplifies and boosts the learning or the input in digital devices in many situations. Chinese romanization is still in progress, and we all might contribute to it. Personally speaking, it is quite controversial to put Pinyin into the position of official representation of Chinese language pronunciation, say, for the lacking of cultural heritage, abrupt as a centaur. When it comes to input method, I prefer the faster heuristic Pinyin (such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/ime/pinyin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google's&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://shurufa.qq.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;QQ's&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.sogou.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sogou's&lt;/a&gt;) than Zhuyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zhuyin, based on a system invented by the late philosopher &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AB%A0%E5%A4%AA%E7%82%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;章太炎&lt;/a&gt; in 1910's. Zhuyin symbols presents a concise representation, which implies a simplification of pronunciation patterns, in other words, a standardized Mandarin would prevail and dialects or variations had to fend for themselves. Zhuyin is still officially in use among Taiwanese people, some of which feel it hard to move to Pinyin, for many reasons, such as personal habit or belief. Say it practically, Zhuyin has some advantage: some vowel Zhuyin symbols may give less keyboard hits than Pinyin, e.g. &lt;code&gt;ㄠ (L)&lt;/code&gt; vs. &lt;code&gt;ao (AO)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-09-16T13:39:29.923" LastActivityDate="2013-09-16T13:39:29.923" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3696" CreationDate="2013-09-15T18:08:20.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gurulu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;Gurulu&quot;&gt;Gurulu&lt;/a&gt; &lt;b&gt;estimates your likely HSK score&lt;/b&gt; based on any number of HSK practice questions you have answered preparing for your HSK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To pass the &lt;b&gt;new&lt;/b&gt; (new since 2010, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshi&lt;/a&gt;) HSK Test with levels ranging from the beginner HSK 1 to the advanced HSK 6, you generally have to answer approximately &lt;b&gt;60%&lt;/b&gt; of the questions correctly, give or take a little, depending on minor adjustment made by Hanban taking into account the performance of all students taking the test at a specific level at that specific time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;b&gt;old&lt;/b&gt; HSK was scored by averaging the results of all students. A score of say 50 simply meant that one was just about average.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;b&gt;new&lt;/b&gt; HSK is not scored like the old one, the score of the new HSK test is proportional to the number of questions answered correctly. It is likely that minor adjustments are still made to scores based on everyone's performance that day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3232" LastEditorUserId="3233" LastEditDate="2013-09-17T13:19:32.680" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T13:19:32.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3692" CreationDate="2013-09-16T00:45:45.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;”该“ can be a rude word too. It means deserve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小红说，小明鼻子被小刚打破了， 小刚还说“该！”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;该 is a modal particle, it emphasise 小刚‘s mind about 小明’s nose, &quot;you deserve it!&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both of OP's examples, &quot;该&quot; has a sense of negative feeling about the object it represents, so that &quot;该&quot; has the function of emphasis on the meaning of 'the', or 'this'. If you are writing something in a positive manner, avoid use &quot;该&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastEditorUserId="2322" LastEditDate="2013-09-18T06:06:34.807" LastActivityDate="2013-09-18T06:06:34.807" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3591" CreationDate="2013-09-16T04:20:49.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use some video software or website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like PPS, PPTV, CNTVBOX, Youku, TuDou, Xunlei Kankan, Xunbo, etc etc, but you won't get English subtitle in most of them, although you can find lots of videos with English voiceover. It maybe troublesome if you want to watch movies since they ban IP address outside China accessing movies, but they don't do this on TV shows, so you can watch many of the good China's current TV Shows like 非诚勿扰，非你莫属，康熙来了，快乐大本营， etc etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Douban (豆瓣), Mtime(时光网）or VeryCD is equivalent to IMDB in China， IMDB sucks at Asian movies database, so you can search the movie you wanted in these sites, then looking for the specific video/movies on the resource website above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2013-09-16T04:20:49.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3701" CreationDate="2013-09-16T16:04:17.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had a similar experience learning Chinese (My first teacher was from Taiwan, so we learned Zhu Yin). I found that the best way to learn pinyin was through chat room practice. Live conversations gave both contextual and applicable meaning to the pinyin I was using, and therefore helped solidify my understanding of pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend going to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhongwen.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zhongwen.com/&lt;/a&gt; and clicking on &lt;code&gt;Liaotian!&lt;/code&gt; and start chatting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That site gives a comprehensive pinyin learning experience by displaying the pinyin dictionary right next to your chat room- so looking up words is convenient. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-09-16T16:13:08.397" LastActivityDate="2013-09-16T16:13:08.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3626" CreationDate="2013-09-17T08:02:00.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看不起 + 某物品 (something)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表示 觉得这个物品没有价值，不值得拥有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indicates that you think that thing is worthless or not worth having&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看不起 + 某人 (someone)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表示 觉得这个人某方面能力或某方面不好，带贬义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indicates that you think this person is, in some respect, bad. Pejorative term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看不上 + 某人 (someone)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;觉得这个人不适合。 比如团队需要人，选择男女朋友时。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You think this person is unsuitable. For instance, when a team is selecting new members, or when one chooses a boy or girl friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3239" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T22:48:08.710" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3626" CreationDate="2013-09-17T09:02:11.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看不上&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没有达到自己的心理预估值，或者想要更好的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He/she/it doesn't meet your expectations, or you want something/someone better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看不起&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一点都没有看上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No desire for, totally despise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3242" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T22:42:29.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3701" CreationDate="2013-09-17T10:04:13.210" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being a Chinese in mainland, I never learnt ZhuYin.&#xA;I learn PinYin at my primary school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my mama learnt ZhuYin(60 years ago). &#xA;And I remember that my old Chinese dictionary has both ZhuYin and PinYin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3244" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T10:04:13.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3656" CreationDate="2013-09-17T11:17:24.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's &quot;niang2 pao4&quot;&#xA;The pronunciation &quot;bao1&quot; or &quot;pao2&quot; of &quot;炮&quot; rarely used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3246" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T11:17:24.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3626" CreationDate="2013-09-17T13:32:36.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;看不起 : look down somebody because his value is low. based on a value judgement on him/her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看不上 : will not accept/choose somebody because of many choices or better choices. based on demand on him/her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3250" LastEditorUserId="3250" LastEditDate="2013-09-18T13:02:32.260" LastActivityDate="2013-09-18T13:02:32.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3585" CreationDate="2013-09-17T16:22:09.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whether to realise 轻声 isn't really a problem -- many southerners in China don't do that (of course one may argue that it is a non-standard accent) and do not cause any problem at all in understanding, so long as you could realise the tones correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T16:22:09.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3602" CreationDate="2013-09-17T16:26:33.903" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just keep practising... Writing the same character again and again for 50 times or now? You'd be glad to know that's exactly what the education in primary school is like in China... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T16:26:33.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3668" CreationDate="2013-09-17T17:16:53.220" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've looked for a similar font (with pinyin on top, or bottom) and have not found anything. There are a lot of naysayers on this thread, and I'm not sure why. Such a font would be extremely useful, even given the limitations. Creation of such a font would be automatic using publicly available databases, and even if the original fonts were copyrighted, one could instead release a program to make a derivate font for personal use using the ones already on your computer. For the minority of characters with multiple pronunciations - they could all be shown in order of frequency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively I'd really like to see a browser extension that could put the ruby-text pinyin above chinese characters on-screen (no popups).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate will give the pinyin for a selection of chinese text (and read it out to you), although the pinyin does not appear near the characters themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advantage of browser extensions such as perapera or zhongwen (faster on chrome) are that they can identify multiple-character words, giving the correct pronunciation and definition. However hovering over word-by-word with popups can also be distracting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3252" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T17:16:53.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3642" CreationDate="2013-09-18T01:44:39.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嗯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嗯哪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必须滴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可不&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;愿意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;承当&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不辞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遵命&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;允&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;准&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3260" LastActivityDate="2013-09-18T01:44:39.427" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3718" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-18T05:32:39.227" Score="5" ViewCount="1706" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this phrase 爱慕虚荣 today in a piece of writing. When I use Goggle translate it tells me 爱慕虚荣 means &quot;vain&quot;, but 虚荣 by itself also means &quot;vain&quot; and when I search for &quot;vain&quot; and ask for the Chinese translation I only get provided with &quot;虚荣&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So does adding 爱慕 at the front change either the meaning or connotation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 爱慕虚荣 commonly used when speaking or is it better to just use 虚荣?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T06:07:07.513" Title="Need help understanding 爱慕虚荣" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3719" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3721" CreationDate="2013-09-18T05:37:23.950" Score="6" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm told that to express something as &quot;one day&quot; in the future, it's 「有一天」. For example, 「我希望有一天能够说好华语。」&quot;I hope that one day I can speak Chinese well.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you also use this to the English idiom &quot;one day&quot; in the past, such as &quot;One day, the boy went for a walk&quot;? Would that be something like 「有一天，这个男孩儿出去走了走。」?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pardon the bad grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3197" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-09-22T21:19:06.653" LastActivityDate="2013-09-23T07:23:24.833" Title="有一天: past as well as future?" Tags="&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3718" CreationDate="2013-09-18T05:54:45.450" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;虚荣 is a noun as well, meaning vanity. Now it's easy to get what 爱慕虚荣 means -- pursuing superficial things. 爱慕虚荣 sounds more literary. When referring to the character of a person, it is fine to say both 她是一个爱慕虚荣的人 and 她是一个虚荣的人. Both are common. The choice of the word also depends on the actual construction of the sentence. If there are other two-character words used in parallel, such as &quot;他虚荣,自负,贪婪&quot;, in which you wouldn't want to use 爱慕虚荣 because it'll break the (sort of) rhythm of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2013-09-18T05:54:45.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3719" CreationDate="2013-09-18T05:58:24.773" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, `one day' can certainly be used to refer to events in the past as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better translation of &quot;One day, the boy went for a walk&quot; could be &quot;有一天, 那个男孩外出散步&quot;, or less literary, &quot;那个男孩出门走路&quot;. &quot;去了走路&quot; is not grammatical, &quot;去走路了&quot; and &quot;走路去了&quot; are grammatical but do not fit in here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastEditorUserId="3251" LastEditDate="2013-09-18T06:39:16.273" LastActivityDate="2013-09-18T06:39:16.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3684" CreationDate="2013-09-18T06:08:53.937" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Across the Northern China, 儿 is usually realised as an /r/ sound gluing to the previous sound (and may affect the previous sound in some accents). It is not pronounced independently as a character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In southern China, -儿 construction (or the so-called 儿化) is much less common, which only exists in a few phrases such as 一会儿 (actually I cannot think of a second example at the point), and 儿 is usually realised as a separate character. People tend to say 一点 instead of 一点儿 in southern China. (This could be used as a linguistic marker to tell if one is from northern or southern China.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2013-09-18T06:08:53.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3723" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-18T06:12:49.897" Score="10" ViewCount="1220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to get some clarification on whether or not it is impolite to use 老头 / 老头子  when speaking outside a group of friends when referring to a third party.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my understanding 老头 is quite casual and I am interested to know if using this to describe someone's elder when also talking to another person who is also my elder, it may sound condescending?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe I am completely off the mark because I understand that something 老王 is fine when referring to an elder and the use of &quot;老&quot; here is not a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is somewhat impolite, is there a better word I can use similar to 老太太 to describe an older male?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天看到一个老头在喂鸽子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T12:06:16.710" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T23:21:15.863" Title="Using 老头 / 老头子 when speaking to others" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3723" CreationDate="2013-09-18T06:21:28.697" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The counterpart of 老太太 could be 老先生. It has a sense of showing respect. You can also say 老奶奶 (female) and 老爷爷 (male), which is more neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I feel 老头 is impolite, especially when combined with &quot;一个&quot; as in &quot;一个老头&quot;. I'd rather use 老人 to say 我今天看到一个老人在喂鸽子, of course, this doesn't imply the gender of the old person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老头子 is more commonly found in how an old woman calls her husband... Depending on the context it could have positive or negative connotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastEditorUserId="3251" LastEditDate="2013-09-18T06:27:10.450" LastActivityDate="2013-09-18T06:27:10.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3677" CreationDate="2013-09-18T06:59:47.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no difference. -文 sounds more formal than -语. Taiwanese mandarin prefers `-文' such as 英文, 法文, 德文 (English, French, German), while the mainland mandarin seems to use 英语, 法语, 德语 much more commonly; but both Taiwanese and mainland mandarin tend to say 拉丁文 (latin), I didn't really see 拉丁语 often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2013-09-18T06:59:47.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3723" CreationDate="2013-09-18T09:46:36.197" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are the old man's wife or good friends, you can use 老头to speak to him. &#xA;If not, you'd better use 老先生 to speak with him, and I think it is polite. &#xA;I'm a Chinese, this is my advice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3263" LastActivityDate="2013-09-18T09:46:36.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3730" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-19T01:18:32.393" Score="3" ViewCount="508" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I've been watching a lot of international news in chinese. I find that I have problems putting things in context because there are a whole lot of names of people and places which I don't know the Chinese transliteration for. I can remember country names and places and famous people to a certain extent but I can only memorize so much - plus there's a continous amount of new people on the news from congressmens to rockstars to murder suspects etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I'm able to guess (eg. obama's chinese name sound similar, spain not so much) but it's not always immediately obviously. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some sort of official method of translate names/ places into chinese? Is there some sort of easy way to reverse back to English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="288" LastActivityDate="2013-09-19T08:39:07.413" Title="Are there any good reverse transliteration strategies?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3618" CreationDate="2013-09-19T01:21:26.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;h3&gt;占, here, means &lt;em&gt;&quot;occupy; make up, account for&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples, highlighting the quantity being accounted for in both English and Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Coursework accounts for 40% of &lt;strong&gt;the final marks&lt;/strong&gt;.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;课程作业占*&lt;em&gt;最后总成绩&lt;/em&gt;*的40%。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These products, in total, account for about 80％ of &lt;strong&gt;all our sales&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这些产品总共约占*&lt;em&gt;我们全部销售额&lt;/em&gt;*的80%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He believes that his supporters are in &lt;strong&gt;the majority&lt;/strong&gt;. (&lt;em&gt;More literally: He believes his supporters account for &lt;strong&gt;a majority&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他相信支持他的人占*&lt;em&gt;多数&lt;/em&gt;*.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-09-19T01:21:26.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3730" CreationDate="2013-09-19T03:33:13.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am Chinese and I cannot do the reverse translation either except for the common and the established ones...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some names may have multiple translations in Chinese from different languages, and usually modern names are translated from their original language instead of English. For instance, Putin is 普京 in Chinese, but staring at this translation, unless you know the palatalization phenomenon in Russian, you'll be tempted to think that it could be Puking instead of Putin. And it is possibly hopeless to see from the Chinese translation that the final consonant is -n instead of -ng. I do not know why it isn't translated as 普金 (cf. 普希金 for Pushkin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastEditorUserId="3251" LastEditDate="2013-09-19T05:09:32.957" LastActivityDate="2013-09-19T05:09:32.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3730" CreationDate="2013-09-19T08:39:07.413" Score="6" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Names of persons&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2274/2583&quot;&gt;This answer&lt;/a&gt; explains that there are semi-official, conventional methods of transliterating foreign &lt;em&gt;names&lt;/em&gt; to Chinese, and sometimes they are not the closest to the English pronunciation, even for English names. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2658/2583&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;, transliterations are sometimes done for different Chinese &quot;dialects&quot; - e.g. Mandarin or Cantonese - and, confusingly, sometimes they get mixed up, e.g. a Cantonese transliteration is pronounced using Mandarin, yielding an even more inaccurate pronunciation. For example, &lt;em&gt;Taxi&lt;/em&gt; was transliterated using Cantonese as 的士 (Dīksíh) which is pronounced in Mandarin as di1 shi4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Names of places&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For place names, transliteration often uses the native pronunciation of the place name. This may not be obvious, but English transliterations are sometimes inaccurate too, for various reasons. For example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/1953/2583&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; asks why &lt;em&gt;Germany&lt;/em&gt; was translated as 德国 (de2 guo2) (the answer is the German name for Germany - Deutschland). Same goes for your example of &lt;em&gt;Spain&lt;/em&gt; - 西班牙 (xi1 ban1 ya2) - España. For a truly confusing example, see how &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_japan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Japan's English and Japanese names&lt;/a&gt; have the same origin, but are so dissimilar: Nihon (Japanese) - Cipangu (Marco Polo, from Wu Chinese) - Jepang (Old Malay) - Giapan (via Portuguese) - Japan (English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in conclusion, there are reasons for the transliterations, it's not completely random, but it's very hard to learn because it's quite complex, so it may be easier to remember by rote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-09-19T08:39:07.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3734" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-19T11:20:00.493" Score="4" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, it is hard to rhyme. So writers sometimes resort to rather awkward sentence structures, just to get the song to rhyme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recent example from Maroon Five:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I'm at a payphone trying to call home&#xA;All of my change, I spent on you&#xA;Where have the times gone?&#xA;Baby, it's all wrong&#xA;Where are the plans we made for two?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it's perfectly legal to say &lt;em&gt;&quot;All of my change, I spent on you&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, nobody would phrase it that way in everyday speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that since a lot of chinese words sound the same, it should be easier to rhyme. So it should be easier for chinese writers to achieve a natural flow. Right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I learn Chinese from new songs, do I risk learning unnatural expressions and word orders?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3268" LastActivityDate="2020-08-24T04:32:26.803" Title="Does chinese songs have a natural word order?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3735" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3742" CreationDate="2013-09-19T11:22:56.527" Score="5" ViewCount="3062" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do the following modern English words have Chinese equivelants that are understood by most young people:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;selfie&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;troll / trolled&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;spam&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;phishing scam&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-09-20T04:41:18.230" Title="Modern vocab. &quot;selfie&quot;, &quot;troll&quot; and &quot;spam&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3736" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3739" CreationDate="2013-09-19T14:48:35.310" Score="11" ViewCount="3279" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having studied French, I'm aware of the subtle social intricacies of the formal vs. informal &quot;you.&quot; I figured Chinese was at least similar, i.e., informal for people of your generation, people you know well, your parents, etc.; formal for people you don't know yet or don't know well, in a formal situation such as a gala dinner, older people, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was reading a dialogue today in which a girl said, “妈妈好。您好吗？” I was stunned; I had assumed one would definitely use 你 with their parents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you always say 您 to your parents, or was this a girl with particularly strict parents? Is it a cultural thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your answer, please feel free to also go into the particulars of 您 vs 你, though I'm sure they're complex and subtle. A rough overview might give context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3197" LastActivityDate="2013-09-21T08:51:04.123" Title="您 vs 你 for parents?" Tags="&lt;formal&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3736" CreationDate="2013-09-19T15:21:27.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I second what Stan said; I've never heard anyone call their parents by 您. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually,  if it is a friend, co worker, family member, 你 is usually fine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您 is a respectful/formal way to address elders, guests, people of distinction (addressing a professor).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind, in both formal and informal situations, I hardly have heard people speak 您好。 I usually see 您 in written form accompanied by other formalities such as 敬上 Jìng shàng ...  &lt;em&gt;your name&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-09-19T15:27:47.987" LastActivityDate="2013-09-19T15:27:47.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3738" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-19T21:22:17.293" Score="4" ViewCount="1165" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the correct Chinese term for &quot;home office&quot;? 办公室 is an office in an office building, and would not be correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3271" LastActivityDate="2013-09-23T12:44:17.063" Title="What is the Chinese word for &quot;home office&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3736" CreationDate="2013-09-19T23:44:50.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you mention this is complex and subtle and likely depends on upbringing and which area you come from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard my wife use 您 when talking to her mother, but not this is not a regular thing. From the conversations I remember, this is usually at times when my wife wants to discuss something difficult with her mother or when she is asking her to look after herself. So she is using it in a way to sound respectful to get my mother in law to listen to her opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also just searched for 您 in my wife's email account and the conversations are similar to what I mentioned above. I noticed that either 你 or 您 are used consistently, either one or the other throughout the email depending on the tone of what is being discussed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I have young children I also have plenty of Chinese children's books and I have seen 您好 used plenty of times for younger characters greeting their parents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-09-19T23:44:50.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3734" CreationDate="2013-09-19T23:51:10.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is really a big topic that can be expanded on multiple dimensions, but to the core of your question,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does Chinese songs have a natural word order?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not always, if 'natural' means grammatical and can be used in daily spoken language or formal non-poem writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If I learn Chinese from new songs, do I risk learning unnatural expressions and word orders?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, as you do from lyrics in any language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lyrics can be seen as free-form poems, which are very lax in grammar, syntax and idiom. The author may deliberately break grammatical rules or create non-existing words and usages, for the purpose of rhetoric, rhyming, style or any other reason. In lyrics, a big proportion of the lines, if not the majority, are language fragments instead of complete sentences. This is especially true in the Chinese pop songs since the late 90's. Grammar aside, they can be too rhetorical or too literary to use in daily conversations. Keeping that in mind, lyrics are still a good way to get familiar with the language and memorize vocabularies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can add some examples to demonstrate the point but it's nothing special given you know the phenomenon well in English lyrics. They can be added upon request.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-09-19T23:51:10.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3738" CreationDate="2013-09-20T04:08:26.820" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SOHO&lt;/strong&gt; (small office/home office) is a new business &lt;em&gt;concept&lt;/em&gt; that encompasses the idea of working and living, flexibility and connectivity using the limited space of a small office or home office. Depending on local regulation, real estate developments that are being marketed as SOHO may or may not be approved for both office &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; residential use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The proper term to describe SOHO activity is &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B1%85%E5%AE%B6%E5%B0%B1%E6%A5%AD&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;居家就业&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/4731.htm?fromId=289196&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;家居办公&lt;/a&gt;. As for the translation of the term &quot;home office&quot;, I would definitely go with &lt;strong&gt;家居办公室&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-09-20T04:08:26.820" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3735" CreationDate="2013-09-20T04:41:18.230" Score="7" Body="&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/selfie&quot;&gt;selfie&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;n.&lt;/em&gt; (also selfy, pl. selfies)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;自拍&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;n./vi.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (adj. 自拍的. Also specifically 自拍照片 (selfie photo) or 自拍视频 (selfie video))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;n.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 这是他的自拍。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;vi.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 他正在自拍。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29&quot;&gt;troll&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;n.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(Mainland China) 喷子&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;n.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(Taiwan)&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%BD%E7%9B%AE&quot;&gt;白目 / 白爛 / 小白&lt;/a&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;n.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: As the Internet slang is widespread, 喷子/白目/白爛/小白 are all acceptable in Chinese regions. However, the term &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/5500.htm&quot;&gt;小白&lt;/a&gt; in mainland China now can mean 菜鸟 (newbie, green hand), for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;新来的小白，请大侠指教。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then it's an almost neutral word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_%28electronic%29&quot;&gt;spam&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;n.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;垃圾 + 邮件/短信/信息&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;n.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The spam in English includes unsolicited bulk messages in all kinds of media. However in Chinese it's more specifically said 垃圾邮件 (and something else like that).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing&quot;&gt;phishing scam&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;n.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;钓鱼骗局&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;n.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked some websites and found 钓鱼骗局 is used both in mainland and Taiwan for &quot;phishing scam&quot;. However personally I don't meet the word 钓鱼骗局 much. More specific words like 钓鱼网站, 网络钓鱼 (Taiwanese 網路釣魚) appear more common. Anyway, the core word is &lt;code&gt;phishing (钓鱼)&lt;/code&gt;, the derivatives are based on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2013-09-20T04:41:18.230" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1023" CreationDate="2013-09-20T06:57:19.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could be regional difference. Some regions see more 星期x, some more 周x, some even 礼拜x. There could be personal preferences as well. I tend to say 星期x but 下周x and 上周x instead of 下星期x and 上星期x. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In formal situations, say 星期x; 本周x, 下周x, 上周x are also used, but not 星期天, say 星期日, 本周日, 下周日, etc instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2013-09-20T06:57:19.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3744" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3746" CreationDate="2013-09-20T13:26:05.850" Score="10" ViewCount="1870" Body="&lt;p&gt;My non-Mandarin colleagues have been using&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;英文也好，中文也好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lately and I assumed from their context they meant both languages are equal in whatever comparison they were making.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I looked it up I found it to mean &quot;might as well, whether...or...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I use 也好？&#xA;Is there more (or less) colloquial equivalents?&#xA;How is 也罢 different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2013-09-21T08:38:32.277" Title="How to use 也好. Not meaning 'also good'" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2525" CreationDate="2013-09-20T14:39:18.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would address Dr. Yang (PhD) as 杨博.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3271" LastActivityDate="2013-09-20T14:39:18.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3744" CreationDate="2013-09-20T15:26:03.593" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;code&gt;A也好, B也好&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;A也罢, B也罢&lt;/code&gt; construction mean &quot;whether A or B&quot;. It is usually spoken to show indifference when faced with two options or when the choice really doesn't matter. The explanation from 汉典 says the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A也好, B也好&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表示不论这样还是那样都不是条件&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Example: 插秧也好，收割也好，都不要误了农时。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A也罢, B也罢&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表示不以所列举的情况为条件&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Example: 运砖也罢，整地也罢，保证超额完成任务。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used together, people would normally associate 也好 to a &lt;em&gt;positive&lt;/em&gt; choice or action and 也罢 to a &lt;em&gt;negative&lt;/em&gt; one. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你去也好，不去也罢，都与我无关。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that for this &lt;strong&gt;A也好, B也罢&lt;/strong&gt; construction, the sequence is always 也好 first followed by 也罢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-09-20T15:26:03.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3744" CreationDate="2013-09-21T08:38:32.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, when using 也好 as &quot;A也好, B也好&quot;, it's different than use it alone. I partially confirm the answer provided by Question Overflow, but I don't think there is a different about positive/negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If using 也好 alone, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 我们去公园吧？(Shall we go to the park?)&#xA;  B: 我们还是去购物吧。(I'd like us to go shopping.)&#xA;  A: 也好。(All right.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this mean the proposal from another is not same as yours but still acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2013-09-21T08:38:32.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3736" CreationDate="2013-09-21T08:51:04.123" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;usually, a Chinese won't use 您 to his parents. it's used only for a non-closed friend, a business member for example. Using an appellation with 你 instead. for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;妈妈，你坐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is better than&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;妈妈，您坐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;except that women is not your mother but your wife's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, 您 don't have a plural form, turns to 你们 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2013-09-21T08:51:04.123" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3576" CreationDate="2013-09-21T08:54:41.340" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;as a person from China, I personally confirm this: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_necessities&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_necessities&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2013-09-21T08:54:41.340" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3719" CreationDate="2013-09-21T08:59:44.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;if it's about a real story, it's in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in some other situation, it just mean 'one day':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果有一天你需要我帮忙，请不要客气。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please do not hesitate if you need my help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2013-09-21T08:59:44.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3738" CreationDate="2013-09-21T11:14:27.967" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;code&gt;soho一族&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;在家办公&lt;/code&gt; is  proper for this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;家居办公&lt;/code&gt; is not good, because 家居 is confusing in Chinese. You know, &lt;code&gt;家居&lt;/code&gt; is also used in business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3277" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-09-21T12:41:17.773" LastActivityDate="2013-09-21T12:41:17.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3754" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3755" CreationDate="2013-09-22T15:44:36.890" Score="10" ViewCount="1869" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing it's slang and it looks like it has a positive connotation. Like 加油? Or maybe it sounds like 好, it means good? The dictionary says it means air-raid shelter / trench.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some Tweets that use it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/search?q=%23%E5%A3%95&amp;amp;src=hash&amp;amp;f=realtime&quot;&gt;https://twitter.com/search?q=%23%E5%A3%95&amp;amp;src=hash&amp;amp;f=realtime&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-09-25T23:52:06.643" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T01:03:19.080" Title="What does the Twitter hashtag #壕 mean?" Tags="&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3754" CreationDate="2013-09-22T16:09:30.030" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a currently popular Internet slang in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;壕&lt;/strong&gt; =&amp;gt; short for &lt;strong&gt;土豪&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt; =&amp;gt; &amp;quot;local tyrant&amp;quot;, &lt;strong&gt;someone who has much money&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壕/土豪 is used in a joking occasion, it doesn't mean the person it describes should actually have much money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我昨天买到了iPhone 5S！ &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I bought iPhone 5S yesterday!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 土豪土豪我们做朋友吧！ &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tuhao tuhao, let's make friends!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;(Note: A and B are already friends. That B says so is just to make fun. It is like another expression &amp;quot;你真有钱啊！&amp;quot;. But it doesn't mean B really thinks A has much money.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;EDIT&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1147101.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度百科【土豪】&lt;/a&gt; has well summarized this word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;指“暴发户”。&lt;br&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It means &amp;quot;nouveau riche&amp;quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;指网络上无脑消费的人，也可以引申到其他领域（网络游戏、电子设备、动漫ACG等）。如某网络游戏中的人民币玩家被称为“土豪”，有时也会简化为“壕”。 &lt;br&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It means someone who spends money mindlessly on the Internet. And its meaning can extend to other areas ([mindlessly spending money on] online games, electrical devices, or Animation/Comic/Game etc). For example, in an online game, the P4W (pay-for-win) players are called 土豪, sometimes using the short form &amp;quot;壕&amp;quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用于讽刺那些有钱又很喜欢炫耀的人，尤其是通过装穷来炫耀自己有钱的人。该意义衍生出“土豪，我们做朋友吧”等句子。 &lt;br&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It is used to satirize those who have much money but like showing off -- especially those showing off by pretending to be poor. For example, &amp;quot;土豪，我们做朋友吧&amp;quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;土豪的思想境界文化水平一般都不高，知识面却异常宽泛，但都是了解皮毛之辈。 &lt;br&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generally, 土豪 have low ideological and educational level, but broad scope of knowledge.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有些人把比自己肯花钱的人都称之为“土豪”。 &lt;br&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Some would call those who are more willing to spend money than themselves &amp;quot;土豪&amp;quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;土豪说简单点就是很土的富豪。 &lt;br&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In short, 土豪 is rustic but rich people.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an Internet slang, 壕/土豪 is very &lt;strong&gt;informal&lt;/strong&gt; and its definition cannot be rigorously stated. So it's better to use it only in spoken language or on the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T01:03:19.080" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3756" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-22T23:59:31.620" Score="5" ViewCount="2581" Body="&lt;p&gt;What traditions do Chinese people follow when selecting names for consecutive (2nd, 3rd etc.) children？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of my own children the second child was given the same middle character as my oldest son so they are both called 赵&quot;something&quot;恩.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is this the only way that it is done or can the last character be swapped out?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is done if the first child is a girl, does it make a difference if the next is a boy?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I once met a guy called 王一男 what would happen if the next is a boy, would it be 王二男? What if the second child were a girl, would it be 王二女?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any other ways that Chinese people show that children are consecutive children from the same family besides what I have described above (numbering, repeating characters etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-09-23T03:18:54.550" LastActivityDate="2013-09-23T03:18:54.550" Title="What traditions do people follow when naming a second child in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3757" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3758" CreationDate="2013-09-23T00:21:15.447" Score="4" ViewCount="2611" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the weekend I asked my mother-in-law how to say &quot;children's play equipment&quot; in Chinese, the answer I received was 儿童乐园.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to get some clarification on this and want someones help on translating the following two sentences into Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I took my children to the park. The oldest likes to kick a ball and the youngest likes to use the play equipment.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My son's school has two sets of play equipment.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-09-23T01:18:16.323" LastActivityDate="2013-09-23T10:58:28.930" Title="Children's play equipment and 儿童乐园" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3757" CreationDate="2013-09-23T02:40:24.170" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;儿童乐园 is children's playground, not play equipment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general term referring to play equipment is 游乐设施 (uncountable) or 游乐设备(countable). If you are referring to specific equipment, there are specific names for them, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跷跷板 - seesaw&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;滑梯 - slide&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;猴架 - monkey bars&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;沙池/坑 - sandpit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the translation of the two sentences, I would go with the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我带孩子们到公园玩。大的喜欢踢球，最小的则喜欢使用游乐设施。&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我儿子的学校有两套游乐设备。(Google Translate)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;To further distinguish both 设施 and 设备, quoting from 汉典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;设施&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为某种需要而建立的机构、系统、组织、建筑等&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;设备&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;指成套的建筑或器材&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you are referring to the whole installation, use 设施; if you are referring to individual equipment, use 设备.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-09-23T10:58:28.930" LastActivityDate="2013-09-23T10:58:28.930" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3756" CreationDate="2013-09-23T02:56:13.103" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First I'll state that you can use whatever Chinese names you want; unlike western names which often have standard names from the bible for example, theoretically you can use any combination of the thousands of Chinese characters to form a name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that there are so many choices that it's hard to decide on the name, so most parents use some convention or system to help them pick names. Nowadays the traditional naming systems have long fallen out of favour, so there's nothing stopping you from using any convention, system, or no system for the names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_given_name&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_given_name&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Same character for siblings&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A common convention, as you noted, is using the same character in the same position for two-character names. The repeated character is usually in the first position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Splitting words&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another common convention is to name siblings by splitting a word or idiom. An example would be naming the first child 健 and the second child 康. You could combine this convention with the same character convention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A1%8C%E8%BE%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generation names&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A tradition that has largely fallen out of practice since Republic times is the use of generation names - every sibling in the same generation would contain a certain character, and the characters would often form a generational poem. For example, Mao Zedong's family had the following poem, and he was the 14th generation: &quot;立显荣朝士，文方运际祥。祖恩贻泽远，世代永承昌&quot;. Note that Mao Zedong himself broke with this system in naming his children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_name&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Birth order in courtesy names&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another tradition that has also become archaic together with courtesy names is the use of special characters to denote birth order within the same generation. These are bó (伯) for the first, zhòng (仲) for the second, shū (叔) for the third, and jì (季) typically for the youngest. For example, Confucius's courtesy name was Zhòngní (仲尼), meaning he was the second son.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that the generation names and birth order names are the only proper naming systems, which influenced the conventions used today. For example, the use of generation names would give the appearance of using the same character for all siblings, but the repeated character is not arbitrary. These naming conventions are also used with daughters, when traditionally these systems were only used for sons. In other words, these conventions are not followed strictly at all, so you can use any convention or system you like. Unless you're superstitious that is, in which case you could try a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literomancy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;literomancer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-09-23T02:56:13.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3719" CreationDate="2013-09-23T07:23:24.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;first of all, you are very good at Chinese. About 'one day', it refers to the day in the past if you forgot the specific date of that day. So it's an obscure phrase. On the other hand, it represents some day in the future when you don't want to point out which specific day.&#xA;All in all, it's an obscure phrase. You should learn it by real life experience around Chinese,I suggest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3288" LastActivityDate="2013-09-23T07:23:24.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3763" CreationDate="2013-09-23T15:40:15.527" Score="8" ViewCount="621" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the following sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我病了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know 了 has many functions, and I believe one of them is a completive marker (past tense). But this sentence is apparently in the present, based on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked a grammar book about 了, and it seems that at the end of the sentence, it emphasizes a new situation; something that hadn't previously been, but now is. Is that how it functions here? So is the emphasis on the fact that the speaker is sick now, but wasn't previously, i.e., is suddenly sick?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that it could also be that 病了 together means &quot;sick,&quot; but I didn't find it in the dictionary. It seems that 病 is more illness, sickness, or disease, and is used as a noun, rather than an adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a few questions. How does 了 function in this sentence? Could you say &quot;我很病。&quot;, or does 病 somehow idiomatically always have to be accompanied by 了? If 了 has a grammatical function here, could you give more examples of it in the same context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3197" LastActivityDate="2013-09-25T06:11:13.437" Title="病了: Function of 了" Tags="&lt;past-tense&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3762" CreationDate="2013-09-23T16:00:37.687" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「我病了。」 can be a subtle expression which implies different meaning based its context. It can mean, but may not be limited to, these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Present status that I'm not so well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Past status that I was ill.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Completive sense that I've been ill for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「病」 the word is a common one, which can imply from a minor ailment to a mortal blow. Again, this depends on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「我很病。」is not often used as far as I know, if ever.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I recommend that you learn 「病了」 as a whole expression and together with its context.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two common patterns are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;adjective + 了&lt;/strong&gt;. Such as 「天亮了」, 「日子太平了」, 「孩子长大了」, 「这下好了」 though some may argue that in some examples, it's in fact &quot;verb + adverb + 了&quot;, e.g. 「孩子长大了」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;verb + 了&lt;/strong&gt;. Such as 「把书看了」, 「把家务做了」, 「啃了馒头」, 「溜了小狗」, 「洗了衣服」,&#xA;「种了菜」, 「玩儿了游戏」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-09-24T21:47:10.833" LastActivityDate="2013-09-24T21:47:10.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1023" CreationDate="2013-09-23T19:28:37.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are equal with slightly difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周X，specific to &quot;this week&quot;，means &quot;someday of this week&quot;&#xA;星期X，for general cases，means &quot;someday of any week&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3250" LastActivityDate="2013-09-23T19:28:37.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3723" CreationDate="2013-09-24T09:56:36.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;老头 / 老头子 are all mean &quot;old man&quot;.&#xA;But should not use those words to call a old man, it seems not polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some exceptions:&#xA;(1) An old lady say something about his husband: &quot;老头子&quot;， it has something like &quot;nickname&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Some young person call their aged leader.&#xA;    But never face to face. It has some what humour means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3244" LastActivityDate="2013-09-24T09:56:36.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3762" CreationDate="2013-09-25T01:59:13.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;verb + 了 is like 'have been being' or 'have done'.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;example:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA; 我吃了 means I have Eaten.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;开始了 means it has started &lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adjective + 了 is like 'have been becoming adjective' or 'have become adjective'&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;example: &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;我病了means I have been becoming ill.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;她红了: 'she have been becoming famous' or she have become famous' in different context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3292" LastEditorUserId="3292" LastEditDate="2013-09-25T06:11:13.437" LastActivityDate="2013-09-25T06:11:13.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3723" CreationDate="2013-09-25T02:44:26.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, the word &quot;老&quot; usually means &quot;old&quot;, we usually put it in front of a noun as an adjective. Something like&#xA;老头(An old man),老太(An old woman)……  So these words are neither positive or nagetive, they just mean someone is old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, sometimes we can use &quot;老&quot; as fix phrases: 老鼠(mouse)，老虎(tiger)，老婆(wife)，老师(teacher)……These phrases are ONLY meaning a kind of certain thing or man, ect. Having nothing to do with age (old) at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;老&quot;, used in front of a last name, meaning a polite to someone——老张，老李，老王……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;老”can be also used in other phrases meaning nagetive things: 老不死的(a dirty phrase meaning to curse/wish sb die immediately)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-09-25T03:54:00.467" LastActivityDate="2013-09-25T03:54:00.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3762" CreationDate="2013-09-25T02:59:48.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我很病&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &quot;病&quot; is a noun but here it's used as a predicate. So you CANNOT use &quot;很&quot; (because it's used as a adverb without the function to describe your illness). So &quot;我很病&quot; is a wrong statement in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“了”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word is used as an auxiliary word meaning something or some verb/state is finished, ends. The verb is usually a non-persistance one. Please compare the two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他走 (He's leaving)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他走了 (He's left, now he isn't here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他病了（He becomes ill, now he's ill——&quot;become&quot; is a non-persistance verb）&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes for a persistance verb such as 工作(work), maybe it means &quot;going to do something&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他工作(He's working)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他工作了(He's going to work)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;了&quot;(2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;了” can be also read as &quot;liao&quot; (Chinese prounciation), this word isn't used alone but with another word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1）他了解了（He understands）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）他了了(liao le)=他完蛋了 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2013-09-25T05:05:27.603" LastActivityDate="2013-09-25T05:05:27.603" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3591" CreationDate="2013-09-25T08:54:19.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a beginner of Chinese-learning, you can watch CCTV:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学说中国话，朋友遍天下 (Learning Chinese, full with friends)：&lt;a href=&quot;http://english.cntv.cn/learnchinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://english.cntv.cn/learnchinese/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides this, you can also see this &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese&quot;&gt;Thread&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2013-09-27T01:36:04.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3594" CreationDate="2013-09-25T09:01:44.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mainly two ways for you to input Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Use a Free PinYin inputter such as Sogou:&lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.sogou.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://pinyin.sogou.com/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ilWoG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;2) After installing, you can do writing with TouchPad on your notepad：&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WBQzM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-09-25T09:01:44.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3773" CreationDate="2013-09-26T00:00:42.873" Score="5" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does any difference exist between 部门 and 系?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the two different results I get from Google translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I work in the university Chinese language department &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的工作在大学中国语文系&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I work in the university IT department &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在大学的IT部门工作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides the fact that Google has opted for different grammar for these two similar English sentences. Is there are good reason to use 部门 in one option and 系 in the other or are these two interchangeable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T18:12:53.230" Title="Difference between 部门 and 系" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3771" CreationDate="2013-09-26T00:53:25.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;系&lt;/code&gt; is used exclusively for a department in a university, and you should not use any other word for it. (Of course, Faculty of Engineering/College of Engineering are translated into 学院 like 工程学院, but that's an upper-level organisation of a department)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When referring to a department in a hospital, use &lt;code&gt;科&lt;/code&gt;. For instance, department of radiology/internal medicine/obstetrics and gynaecology are called 放射科/内科/妇产科, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When referring to a government division or office, the names could vary among &lt;code&gt;局, 处, 厅, 部, etc&lt;/code&gt; depending on the level of that government division. For instance, Department of Personnel of the central Chinese government is called 人事部, of a provincial government 人事厅, of a city government 人事局, of a public university (which is sort of part of the government system) 人事处. This is the naming system in &lt;em&gt;mainland China&lt;/em&gt;. The names are &lt;em&gt;different&lt;/em&gt; in Hong Kong and Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When referring to commercial organisations, it is typically 部门. A company's department of human resources would be called 人力资源部.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The established name of a department usually contains a single character 部 (department of procurement 采购部), while 部门 would be used for generic references such as IT部门 (IT department).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastEditorUserId="3251" LastEditDate="2013-09-26T01:07:22.543" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T01:07:22.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3771" CreationDate="2013-09-26T01:00:54.397" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;系&lt;/code&gt; means  &lt;code&gt;college major&lt;/code&gt; and is exclusively used by the education system. &lt;code&gt;专业&lt;/code&gt; is a synonym in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a student of the English major, he would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我读英语系。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我读英语专业。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An institution, a faculty or a big department that hosts multiple majors is usually translated into &lt;code&gt;学院&lt;/code&gt;. In a college, there can be only one language department which teaches multiple languages as different majors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在英语系工作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means you work for the English department (if there is), or you work on stuffs related to English major for the language department. While&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在语言学院工作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Means you work for the department/school of language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;部门&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;部&lt;/code&gt; for short, is usually connected with the roles from an (commercial) enterprise, such as HR Department (人力资源部门), Operations Department (运营部门), Sales Department (销售部门), IT Department (信息技术部门), etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can connect &lt;code&gt;部门&lt;/code&gt; with the 'business subject'. It's not the best word choice but is acceptable, such as 洗衣机部门, 冰箱部门, if you are a manufacturer and have dedicated sector for each product.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the education system, you should stick with 系, 专业 or 学院 mentioned above. '英语部门' sounds very weird to me. However you can say '语言学院的IT部门' meaning the 'IT office for the language department'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a recap, &lt;code&gt;系&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;部门&lt;/code&gt; means different things and are not interchangeable in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Update:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I wrote this answer, I didn't realize there is a difference between Chinese college organizational model and the U.S. one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To clarify, the education system in China used to follow the Russian model, that is, there are different offices for different majors in one department, and there are supporting staffs like administrators and operation personnel within the department, each of whom may be assigned to serve a specific major or all majors in the department.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now they are gradually switching to the Western model, that is, each major is a department, and supporting services are run by the college.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-09-26T18:12:53.230" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T18:12:53.230" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3718" CreationDate="2013-09-26T06:07:07.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So does adding 爱慕 at the front change either the meaning or connotation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;爱慕虚荣&quot;——&quot;爱慕&quot; is a transitive verb, while &quot;虚荣&quot; is a noun. From the syntax, it belongs to &quot;V(t)—O&quot; (Transitive Verb+Object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared with this, &quot;虚荣&quot; is just a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formally speaking, you can use &quot;爱慕虚荣&quot; to make a whole sentence correctly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爱慕虚荣 (I love vainity/I'm fallen in vainity).  S-V-O&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T06:07:07.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7" CreationDate="2013-09-26T06:43:18.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there standard dictionaries for Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are always online, please use the Chinese dictionary on line:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information about Chinese words, you can see &quot;CiHai&quot; （辞海）&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiexingcun.com/cihai/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.xiexingcun.com/cihai/&lt;/a&gt;, this is a book similar to &lt;em&gt;Encyclopedia Britannica&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T06:43:18.903" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-09-26T06:43:18.903" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3496" CreationDate="2013-09-26T13:49:35.833" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't speak to mainland usage, but in Taiwan 老外 doesn't actually mean &quot;foreigner&quot;, it absolutely and definitely means &quot;white person&quot;. You'll never hear anyone with a skin tone darker than light beige get called a 老外.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3295" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T13:49:35.833" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3771" CreationDate="2013-09-26T13:51:01.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;系&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;部门&lt;/code&gt; have different connotations.  &lt;code&gt;系&lt;/code&gt; applies to academic departments, while &lt;code&gt;部门&lt;/code&gt; applies to professional/corporate departments.  With these definitions in mind, it should be clear that working for the &lt;code&gt;中系&lt;/code&gt; (Chinese academic department) justifies the use of &lt;code&gt;系&lt;/code&gt;, whereas working for the university's &lt;code&gt;IT部门&lt;/code&gt; (IT professional department) does not.  Thought of a different way, you work in an IT department that happens to be at a university; there is nothing inherently academic about your work.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if the school is teaching &quot;Information Technology&quot; (IT) as an academic discipline, there may be an academic department called the &quot;IT (academic) Dept.&quot; (though most universities would dub this a sub-section of their Computer Science department).  In this case, you would be working for the &lt;code&gt;IT系&lt;/code&gt; (IT academic department).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;tl;dr&lt;/strong&gt; It doesn't matter what job you do, it's who you are doing it for.  If you work for an academic department, it's &lt;code&gt;X系&lt;/code&gt;; if you work for a professional (non-academic) department, even if it's at a university, it's still just &lt;code&gt;X部门&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3202" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T13:51:01.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3780" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3781" CreationDate="2013-09-26T20:44:58.297" Score="7" ViewCount="328" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to translate &quot;Using the knife on these types of surfaces will dull the knife.&quot; This I find to be difficult grammatically as well. However, I'm not sure how to say &quot;dull&quot; in Mandarin, and google doesn't provide much help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2604" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T04:33:50.707" Title="How to say &quot;dull the knife&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3780" CreationDate="2013-09-26T21:09:57.000" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Dull&lt;/code&gt; (adjective) as in 'a dull knife' is &lt;code&gt;钝&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin. There is not a two-character version for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Dull&lt;/code&gt; (vt.) as in 'dull the knife' is &lt;code&gt;使..变钝&lt;/code&gt;, literally 'make .. become dull'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 钝 (adjective):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's impossible to cut a pineapple with such a dull knife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用一把这么&lt;b&gt;钝&lt;/b&gt;的刀子切菠萝是不可能的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To translate your sentence, which is also an example of 使..变钝:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the knife on these types of surfaces will dull the knife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这些类型的表面上用刀会&lt;b&gt;使&lt;/b&gt;刀&lt;b&gt;变钝&lt;/b&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Knife or blade) sharp (adjective): 快 or 锋利.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快 must be used in the same sentence as the noun (刀), otherwise it doesn't mean 'sharp'. 锋利 can be used standalone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sharpen the knife (V+O): 磨刀.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example using all these words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刀子用多了会变钝，磨一磨就又变快了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knife becomes dull after some use. Burnish it and it will be sharp again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-27T03:22:18.523" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3782" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3809" CreationDate="2013-09-26T21:34:03.660" Score="3" ViewCount="534" Body="&lt;p&gt;One man and I were crossing a busy Beijing intersection and were almost across when tour buses cut us off from both sides and we stood between them as they passed.  He smiled at me and said &quot;我们过去了!'  I took it as a joke &quot;we're done for.&quot;  But later I wondered could he be reassuring me &quot;we're (almost) across.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone here be sure about it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: fuller context.  I had tried to cross alone and was just giving up because of general heavy traffic.  He had seen me start and started himself.  When I saw him starting I joined him.  As the buses bore down on us I started smiling -- I thought they would not hit us but I really should not be there.  He spoke while we were pinned in place, not after the buses passed.  I may have missed hearing him say 不 in &quot;过不去&quot;but 不 is one of my better words and it was obvious we would soon make it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first thought, and my later second one, both involve 了 in the sense of what is about to become finished: either we are about to pass away (to use an  English idiom close to the Chinese), or our crossing is about to succeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure I heard right.  I am not sure what he meant.  But these are the things I do know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Another consideration.  No one has mentioned this, but how likely is it that someone (a stranger, to be clear about it) would joke about being dead (过去了)?  That is what I thought he was doing at the time but maybe it is not plausible.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2013-09-30T14:15:25.053" LastActivityDate="2013-10-01T10:14:27.253" Title="&quot;我们过去了&quot; was he joking?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3784" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5294" CreationDate="2013-09-26T23:04:56.023" Score="5" ViewCount="2379" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;cyberbully is someone who uses the internet to harm or frighten another person, especially by sending them unpleasant messages&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to translate cyberbullying into Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2507" LastActivityDate="2014-04-05T02:48:05.467" Title="how to translate cyberbullying into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3782" CreationDate="2013-09-27T01:27:42.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here still comes the usage of &quot;了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like what I said in &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3762/%E7%97%85%E4%BA%86-function-of-%E4%BA%86/3768#3768&quot;&gt;this thread&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (but very unfortunately, they don't believe me……)Haha.——&quot;了&quot; sometimes, in different kinds of context, &lt;strong&gt;this will mean something or somebody will do something immediately, or something is happening&lt;/strong&gt; Especially for a non-persistance verb such as &quot;come&quot;, &quot;go&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去了：I am to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他来了：He's coming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;火车到来了：The train is coming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-09-27T01:27:42.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3784" CreationDate="2013-09-27T01:41:07.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this meaning, I suggest you using &quot;网霸、骚客&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS：in my mind, &quot;黑客&quot; means hacker, &quot;网霸&quot; is a kind of person that troubles others by threatening, &quot;骚客&quot; is invented by me according to &quot;especially by sending them unpleasant messages&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-09-27T01:41:07.770" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3782" CreationDate="2013-09-27T06:08:25.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this situation, he may mean &quot;Let's go&quot; as the bus may have passed and you have a chance to cross the intersection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="447" LastActivityDate="2013-09-27T06:08:25.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3784" CreationDate="2013-09-27T11:34:54.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think is 网络暴力 or 网络霸凌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bully = 暴力/霸凌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3300" LastActivityDate="2013-09-27T11:34:54.137" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3165" CreationDate="2013-09-27T12:57:58.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From experience: if you are the host of a restaurant meal and it has wound down and you have to move on then you might use 吧 for a suggestion that would be a question in English &quot;Shall we go?&quot;  But if you are the guest you would not make such a suggestion.  Fortunately people in China are very kind about foreigners getting points of etiquette wrong.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2013-09-27T12:57:58.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3782" CreationDate="2013-09-27T13:07:01.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that he meant to say &quot;let's go&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3221" LastActivityDate="2013-09-27T13:07:01.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3782" CreationDate="2013-09-27T15:11:59.860" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably more natural to be 「我们过去啦！」, which means &quot;Let's go across [the intersection]!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reasoning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;啦 can be mistaken as 了 in this context, especially when the stress is on 过去 so that the 啦 is pronounced through quick.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your friend was smiling, which may imply a positive mood, and the imperative with 啦 can serve as an appropriate expression here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-09-27T15:11:59.860" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3803" CreationDate="2013-09-27T21:28:05.687" Score="6" ViewCount="798" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard my Taiwanese friends use the Mandarin phrase &lt;code&gt;不错用&lt;/code&gt; more than once, but didn't have a chance to ask them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it widely used in Taiwan, or is it used by a certain circle/type of person? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's the origin of the phrase, is it from a famous person or TV commercial?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any other phrases in the same pattern? E.g. do people say '不行去'?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T03:33:12.970" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T03:33:12.970" Title="Usage of the phrase '不错用' in Taiwan Mandarin" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3794" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-28T11:43:15.920" Score="2" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is (in traditional chinese) &quot;企業&quot; - noun or adjective? Is this menaing closer to &quot;readiness and willingness to take initiative&quot; or to &quot;a company&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3208" LastEditorUserId="3208" LastEditDate="2013-09-28T12:57:57.410" LastActivityDate="2013-09-29T01:01:46.020" Title="What does 企業 mean: property of the person or business company?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="656" CreationDate="2013-09-28T18:54:43.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwanese usage, no one says anything other than DVD, and the measure word is usually 片 or 張.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3295" LastActivityDate="2013-09-28T18:54:43.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3794" CreationDate="2013-09-28T19:47:47.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;企 refers to an attempt or expectation, and 業 means &quot;industry.&quot; So 企業 would best translate into &quot;enterprise.&quot; That would refer to an &quot;early stage&quot; company that is trying to make a name for itself but is not fully established.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2013-09-28T19:47:47.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3794" CreationDate="2013-09-29T01:01:46.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;企業&quot;is a fixed phrase that cannot be seperated from each character, its whole meaning:&#xA;company,enterprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-09-29T01:01:46.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3798" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3815" CreationDate="2013-09-29T02:11:30.497" Score="3" ViewCount="606" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this is even an appropriate question for this venue, but here's hoping. I want to read the translated works of Zhuangzi on this &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/man-in-the-world-associated-with&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;site&lt;/a&gt;, but I'd like to know how archaic the original Chinese is. The characters are traditional, which is fine, and makes sense given that James Legge (the translator) was writing in the 19th century. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, my Mandarin is nowhere near good enough to tell me if the grammar and word choice is simply quaint (e.g. circa 1850s modern Chinese), a faithful rendition of the Old Chinese that Zhuangzi was writing in, or something in between. In other words, is this an English translation of an translation (ancient to modern Chinese) or is it a translation directly from Old Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2195" LastActivityDate="2017-01-17T05:56:35.057" Title="How Archaic is James Legge's Written Chinese in this Side by Side English/Chinese Book?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3591" CreationDate="2013-09-29T03:10:49.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You see, I want to hear actual Chinese spoken at normal speed for the length of a movie or tv show. So 学说中国话 is run to hear but not really what I want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh, it seems that you can find more and more Chinese news played in CCTV4 (Chinese International Channel), this is now standard Chinese news for you to listen to:&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cctv4asia.cntv.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://cctv4asia.cntv.cn/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what's more, you can watch FREE Chinese movie here：&lt;a href=&quot;http://list.iqiyi.com/www/2/15------------5-1-1----.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://list.iqiyi.com/www/2/15------------5-1-1----.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-09-29T03:10:49.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3800" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3802" CreationDate="2013-09-29T21:42:20.177" Score="1" ViewCount="379" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to distinguish &quot;大学&quot;, &quot;学院&quot;, &quot;系&quot;. &quot;专业&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As myself, I'm in &quot;中国海洋大学数学科学学院数学系信息与计算科学专业&quot;. How to translate it properly? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And another question: What is &quot;国家保密学院&quot;? Is &quot;国家&quot; describing &quot;保密: or &quot;学院&quot;? I don't know it even as a native Mandarin speaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3007" LastActivityDate="2013-09-29T23:42:47.373" Title="How to translate the parts of Chinese university" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3800" CreationDate="2013-09-29T23:25:27.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;大学 is university. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学院, if a school on its own, is called college. As to a big 大学学院, it is usually called a Faculty (Commonwealth) or College (US usage) or School, up to the university's own choice.&#xA;For instance, 工学院 could be Faculty of Engineering or College of Engineering; U Waterloo has a Faculty of Mathematics (数学学院). 法学院, 商学院, 医学院 are usually schools (school of law / school of business / school of medicine) in US universities but Imperial College London has Faculty of Medicine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;系 is department, 专业 is major.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are names invented by each university, I think one'd better translate them into something that is commonly seen, even if it deviates a little bit from the literal word-for-word translation. 中国海洋大学数学科学学院数学系信息与计算科学专业 seems &#xA;&lt;code&gt;Major in Information and Computer Science, School of Mathematics at the Ocean University of China&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2013-09-29T23:25:27.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3800" CreationDate="2013-09-29T23:42:47.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As discussed in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3771/difference-between-%E9%83%A8%E9%97%A8-and-%E7%B3%BB&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, the university system in China is organized somewhat differently than the United States:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Chinese Universities &lt;em&gt;(please offer corrections)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At the top level, there is a &lt;code&gt;大学&lt;/code&gt;, which is usually translated as &lt;code&gt;University&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are groupings of related departments called &lt;code&gt;学院&lt;/code&gt;. Because this is not always similar to US universities, the translations vary. In order to translate &lt;code&gt;X学院&lt;/code&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nankai.edu.cn/english/schools.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;I've seen&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;institute of X&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;X school&lt;/code&gt; (especially &amp;quot;Business School&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Law School&amp;quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;college of X&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Individual &lt;code&gt;departments&lt;/code&gt; (which may have one or more related majors) are &lt;code&gt;系&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Courses of study towards a degree are called &lt;code&gt;专业&lt;/code&gt;, translated as &lt;code&gt;major&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;US Universities and Colleges&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At the top level you have either &lt;code&gt;University&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;College&lt;/code&gt; (both show up as &lt;code&gt;大学&lt;/code&gt;). Universities are bigger than Colleges and have more administrative subdivisions..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Universities (but &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; colleges) may be subdivided into various &lt;code&gt;schools&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;colleges&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Professional schools (business, law, medicine) are basically always a separate &amp;quot;school&amp;quot; from undergraduate programs. For instance, Harvard University includes the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hbs.edu/Pages/default.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Harvard Business School&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.law.harvard.edu/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Harvard Law School&lt;/a&gt;. Admissions for professional schools are always separate from admissions for undergraduate programs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Undergraduate programs in a university might all be lumped into a single &amp;quot;college&amp;quot; (e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.utexas.edu/ugs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;UT-Austin College of Undergraduate Studies&lt;/a&gt;), or there may be several &amp;quot;colleges&amp;quot; for related degrees. Generally, admission as an undergraduate into a University entitles you to take courses in &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; department or &amp;quot;school&amp;quot; that teaches undergraduates. For instance, you could start studying art and decide to study chemistry instead. If a student's major is part of some &amp;quot;college&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;school&amp;quot; within the university, they might not even know which one it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes graduate (Masters, PhD) programs are in their own &amp;quot;schools&amp;quot;, and other times their part of the same &amp;quot;school&amp;quot; as related majors at the undergraduate level. For instance, UW-Madison has the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ls.wisc.edu/about-departments.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;College of Letters &amp;amp; Sciences&lt;/a&gt; which includes many undergraduate majors and graduate programs in humanitites, social sciences, and sciences. Admissions for graduate programs are separate from undergraduate programs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Music programs are sometimes in a separate &amp;quot;school&amp;quot; within the university called a &amp;quot;conservatory&amp;quot;. Admissions might be separate from general undergraduate studies or require auditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;With a college or school, there are &lt;code&gt;departments&lt;/code&gt;, which may offer one or more courses of study, generally called &lt;code&gt;majors&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Second Question&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;国家保密学院 is a &amp;quot;School for the protection of state secrets&amp;quot;. The Chinese government has &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Administration_for_the_Protection_of_State_Secrets&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a bureau dedicated to this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-29T23:42:47.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3793" CreationDate="2013-09-30T03:40:09.430" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are &lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-333-208789-1.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;some more examples&lt;/a&gt; of this style of adjective:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好吃 = 不错吃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好玩 = 不错玩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好用 = 不错用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好喝 = 不错喝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These terms are extremely common in Taiwanese Mandarin, however their origins are unclear. I suspect it's due to a mix of Taiwanese terms and errors in translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take one example, the 不錯吃 phrase. At first glance it seems to be an incorrect use of Mandarin grammar; if you want to use those characters correctly you'd get 吃起來不錯. Otherwise what you'd normally use would be 好吃.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are a few sources that say that the origin of the phrase may have come from the Taiwanese (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Min&lt;/a&gt;, not Mandarin) phrase &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.udn.com/boyamboy/6709234&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;未歹食&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.udn.com/glwang/7312408&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;袂歹食&lt;/a&gt;. 歹 means &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; so if you negate it using 未 or 袂 it becomes &amp;quot;not bad&amp;quot;. A naive calque may yield the phrase &amp;quot;不難吃&amp;quot;, but that doesn't mean the same thing - it means &amp;quot;this doesn't taste bad&amp;quot;, which is not the same as &amp;quot;this tastes good&amp;quot;. When you negate adjectives, sometimes they become the opposite, but sometimes they become neutral, and it varies from phrase to phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to overcome this inconsistency, people may have used&#xA;不錯 instead, which does mean &amp;quot;good&amp;quot;. In other words, the transition is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未歹食 -&amp;gt; 不難吃 -&amp;gt; 不錯吃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you end up with this phrase which seems like bad grammar from a Mandarin perspective, and bad calquing from a Taiwanese perspective. But it's also very commonly used and is here to stay, so just deal with it! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-09-30T23:33:55.643" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3804" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-30T05:28:34.880" Score="6" ViewCount="663" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding of 占我的便宜 means something similar to 吃豆腐 and I have never heard it used outside of taking sexual advantage. Can this be used in other contexts? Google translate suggests it means &quot;take advantage of me&quot;, in English this phrase could also be used to take financial advantage or using someone for your own personal gain, is this the same usage in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further to this question, how did this phrase come about, why were these specific characters combined to make this meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T05:40:37.843" Title="Usage and meaning of &quot;占我的便宜&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3804" CreationDate="2013-09-30T07:13:46.713" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;占我的便宜&quot; and &quot;吃豆腐&quot; are all disadvantages for usage with nagetive meaning for daily Chinese people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the first set phrase is NOT ONLY used to women but to other things as well. We usually use this phrase to describe a senario that someones (tries to) gain sth at the expense of others, but the expense is very little for the others. And the fixed one is very similar to &quot;揩油&quot;(ShangHai dialect).——This is very similar to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another meaning is that “贪小”（greedy for small gains or profits）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's see some Chinese samples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不要捡地上随便掉落的元宝、金银器物，&lt;strong&gt;不要占便宜&lt;/strong&gt;，否则你极可能被犯罪分子要挟勒索！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;吃豆腐&quot; is used when a man wanna do something ugh to a woman (especially something that is dirty)：(e.g), &lt;strong&gt;A man in the bus is rubbing the woman with the reason that the bus is fully crowded with people&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more, you can see this &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1042/what-is-the-exact-meaning-of-%E5%90%83%E8%B1%86%E8%85%90-and-where-does-the-expression-come-from?lq=1&quot;&gt;sample&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-09-30T19:45:21.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3806" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3807" CreationDate="2013-09-30T18:32:27.077" Score="6" ViewCount="1794" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm designing a curriculum to teach middle school students elementary Chinese. When I started learning, I began with Traditional Chinese characters and pinyin together on day one. I'm not so sure the typical student would like getting thrown into having to remember both pinyin and characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, I was going to start off teaching basic grammatical structures and vocabulary using pinyin only. Have them practice those words and get used to pinyin as its own entity. Once they're very familiar with pronunciation of pinyin along with the tones, I will later introduce characters (which would force me to reintroduce the pinyin as they learn the basic characters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm debating if it would be better to just start off with both?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are your thoughts on learning? Did any of you start off learning pinyin, then phase in to characters later on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-09-30T18:43:13.500" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T03:18:57.660" Title="Teaching Pinyin and Characters together vs Teaching Pinyin then Characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;teaching-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3806" CreationDate="2013-09-30T19:41:44.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was first learning Chinese, we were using the &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/7561910401&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;New Practical Chinese Reader&lt;/a&gt; series of books. In them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dialogues and vocabulary are presented with &lt;em&gt;both characters and pinyin&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You were only expected to &lt;em&gt;memorize a subset of the characters&lt;/em&gt; used in a given chapter (e.g., in the first dialogue, you only had to learn how to write 你, 好, and 吗 or something like that).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Eventually you get weaned off pinyin for the dialogues and in some of the vocabulary parts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-09-30T19:41:44.830" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3806" CreationDate="2013-10-01T09:33:04.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;May this help you: As a member from a non-english spoken country, we start to learn english by words, not by phonetic transcription, because the phonetic transcription is less funny but more difficult to remember. in my opinion, you should start with characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastEditorUserId="87" LastEditDate="2013-10-17T20:44:37.737" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T20:44:37.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3782" CreationDate="2013-10-01T09:47:18.243" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们过去了: we passed/crossed/went through; we'd plan to go there / etc. coz 过去 has lots of meaning should be specified by the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example: (maybe on telephone, B are not visible for A.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你们还在火车轨这边吗？（Are you still at this side of the railway?）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 不，我们过去了。(No. We crossed.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another example: (maybe on telephone too)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你们看到Joe了吗？他现在正在市政厅。 (Did you see Joe? She is just in the city hall.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 真的吗？我们就在附近。那我们过去了。 (Really? We are closed there. So, we'd plan to go there now.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one more example. this is some grammar wrong in this example but it's quite usual in oral Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你们可以去办公室找他。(You can go to the office to find him.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 我们过去了，但是他不在。(We went there but he was not.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this situation 我们过去了 should be changed to 我们去过了, but in oral Chinese that's acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also, you know 过去了 has the meaning of dead but they are not same. For example in English, we can say &amp;quot;He went to heaven last night&amp;quot; but &amp;quot;go to heaven&amp;quot; does not always equal to die, &amp;quot;I dreamed to go to heaven to meet angels&amp;quot; is not equal to &amp;quot;I want to die&amp;quot;, right? The same in Chinese, saying 死了 may be too tough in some situation, so we can use 过去了 because 过世了、去世了 are equal to died and we just pick a part from those words to use 过去了. One thing need to be mentioned is, if you talk with a Chinese, unless you got very clearly context, don't consider 过去了 as died. In most situation, they are not same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-01T10:14:27.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3591" CreationDate="2013-10-01T10:01:37.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are / were a player of World of Warcraft, you may wanna check a Chinese cartoon name I'm MT 我叫MT. This cartoon series are recorded in Chinese but have English subtitles.  As a cartoon, the charters are talking mostly in oral Chinese, without so many attention  about grammar, but very closed to real Chinese conversations. The subject of this cartoon is based on that online game. If you are not familiar with that, this is not a good choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2013-10-01T10:01:37.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3591" CreationDate="2013-10-01T12:31:50.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you can find something useful at www.shooter.cn. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3221" LastActivityDate="2013-10-01T12:31:50.720" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3812" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3816" CreationDate="2013-10-01T14:55:55.110" Score="5" ViewCount="1394" Body="&lt;p&gt;For English (and some other languages), it's quite easy to find online tools that give a readability index of a specific text. Naturally, this doesn't necessarily match actual experience of reading the text, but it does seem to be reasonably accurate. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.standards-schmandards.com/exhibits/rix/&quot;&gt;Here's an example of such a tool&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: Are there any similar tools for Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, are there any other practical ways of automatically estimating the difficulty of a Chinese text? I have tried crude methods such as using an annotator that can show vocabulary at different HSK levels, which gives a clue to the difficult of the words in the text at least, but that's not really what I'm after. However, if anyone knows of partial solutions to the question, that would be interesting anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorUserId="507" LastEditDate="2013-10-01T15:02:21.833" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T23:08:26.137" Title="Are there any readability measurement tools for Chinese?" Tags="&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3812" CreationDate="2013-10-01T15:35:48.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this is what you are after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pub.mtholyoke.edu/journal/lrc/entry/chinese_readability_analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://pub.mtholyoke.edu/journal/lrc/entry/chinese_readability_analysis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3221" LastActivityDate="2013-10-01T15:35:48.857" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3798" CreationDate="2013-10-01T16:03:28.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a hard question which even puzzles many advanced Chinese researchers, such as this piece of The Question of Authorship in Chuang Tzu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;http://140.122.100.145/ntnuj/j29/j29-10.pdf&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;found &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%BA%84%E5%AD%90_%28%E4%B9%A6%29#cite_note-.E9.99.B3.E5.93.81.E5.8D.BF-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put simply, it may be a little too hard for Chinese writing beginner to pick it up something like Chuang Tzu, being hard not only for the text classical grammar text, but its introduction to a world of idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just because it's hard to learn doesn't mean it's not helpful. Chuang Tzu is a legendary that has been continuously influencing many people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the website you mentioned, that piece is quite classical formatted, though not necessarily the authentic one. It's really hard to tell how authentic a piece of writing like that can be, and that's the job of some specialists, such as historians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope you learn Chinese well :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-10-01T16:03:28.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3812" CreationDate="2013-10-02T00:50:15.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found one tool via the website that NewLong linked to in his/her answer: &lt;a href=&quot;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/vp/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese Vocabulary Profiler&lt;/a&gt;. It does the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A distribution of characters across ranges of frequency (how many characters fall within the 250 most common, how many within 251-500). Since difficult characters is at least part of the difficulty of a text, this is part of the answer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A similar distribution, but now across the different types of vocabulary in the HSK (甲乙丙丁 and outside HSK). This is actually better, since it gives me as a teacher a better feel for how much might be beyond the students.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The same data for bigrams, trigrams and N-grams in the text. Now this is much closer to what I'm after, since words are the real unit of communication rather than individual characters. For instance, the tool displays words in the text sorted according to HSK, frequency and a number of other factors.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pretty good as far as vocabulary goes. I'm guessing that grammar will be much harder (perhaps so hard that few people have even tried).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T00:50:15.073" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3819" CreationDate="2013-10-02T01:44:11.660" Score="4" ViewCount="2315" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have encountered both &lt;code&gt;老家&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;家乡&lt;/code&gt; for referring to one's hometown.  What are the differences?  That is: When should each one be used?  When should one or the other be avoided?  When can they both be used interchangeably?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; The terms &lt;code&gt;故乡&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;祖籍&lt;/code&gt; (or &lt;code&gt;籍贯&lt;/code&gt;), meaning &lt;em&gt;home of my ancestors&lt;/em&gt;, have been introduced as additional ways to express the same idea. [ &lt;em&gt;Question title updated.&lt;/em&gt; ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3202" LastEditorUserId="3202" LastEditDate="2013-10-03T00:53:33.247" LastActivityDate="2013-10-03T00:53:33.247" Title="Different Ways to Say &quot;Hometown&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3818" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-02T01:50:56.390" Score="2" ViewCount="9440" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't remember hearing anyone use an equivalent of &quot;stress&quot; or &quot;stressed&quot; in a conversation, what I usually here is something like 压力很大 which in English would translate roughly to &quot;I have a lot of pressure (on me) at the moment&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe 压力很大 is the only option, or maybe even the right option, when looking to express stress in Chinese. However, I'm wondering if others here think there is a better option &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; maybe there isn't options because the concept of being 'stressed out' is a somewhat recent mainstream concept in the West and maybe being stressed doesn't quite fit well with Chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What do you think about my suggestion of stress being somewhat new in the West so there isn't an immediate equivalent in Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How would you translate something like &quot;I'm feeling very stressed&quot; or &quot;I'm stressed out right now&quot;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't see how I can translate the full concept of these sentences just using 压力 because it's not just about feeling pressure, but there are a range of emotions involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2021-03-11T17:15:09.983" Title="Is there a Chinese equivelant of the word stress" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3817" CreationDate="2013-10-02T02:05:15.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have the same meaning, but &lt;code&gt;家乡&lt;/code&gt; is more formal than &lt;code&gt;老家&lt;/code&gt;.  I am Chinese; when writing, we use &lt;code&gt;家乡&lt;/code&gt; in our essays.  When speaking, we often use this phrase &lt;code&gt;我从《PLACE》来&lt;/code&gt;, which means &lt;code&gt;I come from《PLACE》&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3304" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2013-10-02T05:23:37.710" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T05:23:37.710" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3835" CreationDate="2013-10-02T03:11:36.120" Score="11" ViewCount="3856" Body="&lt;p&gt;Classical and Middle Chinese are often considered monosyllabic languages - most words are single syllables. Modern Chinese however is considered disyllabic - most words are two syllables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, take this excerpt about the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Red_Cliffs&quot;&gt;Battle of Red Cliffs&lt;/a&gt;, from &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89%E5%9C%8B%E5%BF%97/%E5%8D%B701&quot;&gt;Records of the Three Kingdoms&lt;/a&gt;, a text written in the 3rd century, in Classical Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;公至赤壁，與備戰，不利。&#xA;  (Cao Cao came to Red Cliffs, fought with Liu Bei, and lost.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that passage were to be written in modern Chinese, a lot of words might become disyllabic. For example, 公 = 曹操, 至 = 到达, 備 = 劉備, 戰 = 作戰 and so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is what are the main reasons for this transition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2016-11-19T16:48:14.300" Title="Reasons for Chinese changing from monosyllabic to disyllabic?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3818" CreationDate="2013-10-02T03:13:50.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, stress is not new in Chinese. Comparing with &quot;压力很大&quot;, it is more like &quot;烦燥&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, you can translate &quot;I'm feeling very stressed&quot; to &quot;我觉得很烦燥&quot;, and &quot;I'm stressed out right now&quot; to &quot;我现在快烦死了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3309" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T03:13:50.537" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3820" CreationDate="2013-10-02T03:28:56.030" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is just the difference between formal and informal, not about age. And actually, in most official document, you can still see many monosyllabic words, especially in countries using Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3309" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T03:28:56.030" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3817" CreationDate="2013-10-02T05:23:06.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They sound different to me, although they both mean a place where one grows up. When one says 老家, he does not live there any more. 家乡 does not have such connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T05:23:06.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3820" CreationDate="2013-10-02T05:25:30.173" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation is getting simplified (for some unknown reason)&#xA;and the number of homophones has increased a lot. In order to avoid&#xA;the ambiguity, it is natural to encode more information (using&#xA;additional characters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some southern dialects, the old monosyllabic words are still in use. For instance, in Min dialect, 筷子 are still called 箸, 剪刀 called 铰, 悲痛 called 恻.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Concepts and notions are getting more and more complicated, which also demand more information to be encoded. Especially most modern concepts are introduced from the western world, and new words have to be created for those new concepts. A single character could be very inaccurate, so two or more characters are used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the word like community or society or whatever was first translated into Chinese, the translator used the word 群, but then distinguishing among community / society / cluster / group becomes a problem, because they can all be called 群.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T05:33:52.133" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3804" CreationDate="2013-10-02T05:40:37.843" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;吃豆腐 always means 调戏妇女. 占我的便宜 is synonymous with 吃豆腐 in some contexts. For example, when a girl becomes the victim of sexual harassment, she might shout out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;抓流氓啊！有人占我的便宜！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are cases where 占我的便宜 has nothing to do with sexual harassment. For example, the following kind of conversation is very common in daily life:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小明：我特别喜欢吃火锅。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小英：真的吗？我儿子也特别喜欢吃火锅！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小明：你竟然占我的便宜！！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T05:40:37.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3826" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-02T06:37:12.037" Score="1" ViewCount="390" Body="&lt;p&gt;这个汤&lt;code&gt;_______&lt;/code&gt;么&lt;code&gt;_______&lt;/code&gt;么酸啊？ 我可喝不&lt;code&gt;_______&lt;/code&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no context for these fill in the blanks. I do have a few more, but this was the hardest question because my initial guess is that its the grammar pattern 要么。。。要么。。。, but the words are too close together. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3310" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-10-02T07:23:26.703" LastActivityDate="2013-10-06T09:32:55.040" Title="Could somebody help fill in these blanks" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" ClosedDate="2013-10-08T02:07:35.780" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3827" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3833" CreationDate="2013-10-02T08:15:33.537" Score="11" ViewCount="892" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/zy/6C14.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;气&lt;/a&gt; is an ancient character that has roots in an oracle bone pictogram, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/js/6C23.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;according to this&lt;/a&gt;, the rice radical was added in the Tang dynasty to form 氣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What were the reasons for this? What does 气, meaning gas, air or life force, have to do with rice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: this question is not about traditional vs simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-09-26T09:32:20.103" LastActivityDate="2020-09-26T09:32:20.103" Title="Why was the rice component added to 气 to form 氣?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3827" CreationDate="2013-10-02T13:40:14.897" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion,the rice is a kind of food. If someone don't eat anything,he will dead,and no longer  breath. So, if no food,then no breath.&#xA;My english is not good. Hope to help you .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3311" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T13:40:14.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3826" CreationDate="2013-10-02T13:59:55.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这个汤怎么这么酸啊？我可喝不下。 &#xA;But I'm wondering why there is a question mark in the end. This doesn't make sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T13:59:55.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3830" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5481" CreationDate="2013-10-02T14:07:07.150" Score="11" ViewCount="791" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are tens of thousands of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu&quot;&gt;chengyu&lt;/a&gt;, many of them are historical in nature, whilst others are loaned from foreign sources such as Buddhism. Which period or dynasty in Chinese history produced the most though?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect the earlier ones such as Warring States or Spring and Autumn periods to be the most productive but I have no sources to back that up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-12-30T16:18:16.390" LastActivityDate="2014-01-02T07:02:54.250" Title="Which period in Chinese history produced the most chengyu?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3826" CreationDate="2013-10-02T15:06:48.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这个汤怎么这/那么酸啊？我可喝不下。is correct; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个汤怎么这/那么酸啊？我可喝不了(liao)。is also correct but is more common in north China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个汤怎么这/那么酸啊？我可喝不得。I can understand, but it seems nobody talk like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这么 and 那么 have similar meaning in this sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence means &quot;the soup is too sour to drink&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage of 要么……要么……：他这么开心，要么中奖了，要么升职了 it is kind of guessing with two possible choices&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3312" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T15:06:48.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3817" CreationDate="2013-10-02T15:43:17.600" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, either of 老家, 家乡, or 故乡 gives similar meaning, any of one doesn't not necessarily mean the home that I'm living in currently, nor other implications. Context can determine the implied meaning. All of them can be used as written expression, and also can be heard often. 故乡 seems to be the most formal among these three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another one, 祖籍 (or 籍贯), is quite definite: home of my ancestor, usually being a different one from my current home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T15:43:17.600" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3827" CreationDate="2013-10-02T16:25:03.773" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;說文解字 has both references for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/sw/6C23.htm&quot;&gt;氣&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/sw/6C14.htm&quot;&gt;气&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put simply, 气 and 氣 comes from different origin and somehow merge together into one stream later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In detail: 米 is not added to 气 to get 氣 in Tang Dynasty. Long time ago, 氣 appears in the form of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=2046&quot;&gt;Bronze inscription&lt;/a&gt;, though different meaning as 气. 氣 is originally designed to mean the &quot;air generated from digesting food&quot;. While 气 is originally designed to mean the physical gas. In the reference of 氣, &quot;饋客芻米也&quot; means &quot;氣 is a verb, showing the action of giving guest fodder (芻, chu2) and rice (米) as gift.&quot; 饋 (kui4) is &quot;to give someone gift&quot;. 氣 with this meaning later becomes &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;char=%E9%A4%BC&quot;&gt;餼&lt;/a&gt; to clarify the action relating to food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So nowadays, in Taiwan, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitib/ldb/ldb05748.htm&quot;&gt;氣為餼之異體&lt;/a&gt; (氣 is another non-standard variant of 餼). Also, according the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/&quot;&gt;教育部異體字字典&lt;/a&gt; 气為氣之異體 (气 is another non-standard variant of 氣). In China mainland, 氣 is replaced by 气 as standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T16:25:03.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1005" CreationDate="2013-10-02T17:35:45.733" Score="9" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;亞洲 (亚洲) is short for 亞細亞洲 (亚细亚洲, Asia) which can be found as early as &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%9D%A4%E8%BC%BF%E8%90%AC%E5%9C%8B%E5%85%A8%E5%9C%96&quot;&gt;坤輿萬國全圖&lt;/a&gt; published in 1602 (萬曆三十年) , mainly by Italian Jesuit priest &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matteo_Ricci&quot;&gt;Matteo Ricci or 利瑪竇 (Lì Mǎdòu), 6 Oct 1552 - 11 May 1610&lt;/a&gt;, who is &lt;a href=&quot;http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9D%A4%E8%BC%BF%E4%B8%87%E5%9B%BD%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%B3&quot;&gt;believed&lt;/a&gt; to coin this transliteration into Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;非洲 is from 阿非利加洲 (Africa). The above &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%9D%A4%E8%BC%BF%E8%90%AC%E5%9C%8B%E5%85%A8%E5%9C%96&quot;&gt;work&lt;/a&gt;, however, gives a different name for Africa: 利未亞 (Libya) for some historical reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;利未亞 is also adopted in &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E6%B5%B7%E5%9B%BD%E5%9B%BE%E5%BF%97&quot;&gt;海國圖志&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://libapps2.nus.edu.sg/sea_chinese/doc_bg/hai%20guo%20tu%20zhi/cover%20page1.htm&quot;&gt;影印本 in National University of Singapore&lt;/a&gt;), published in 1843 (道光二十三年), by &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%AD%8F%E6%BA%90_%28%E6%B8%85%E6%9C%9D%29&quot;&gt;魏源&lt;/a&gt;, who referenced some British geographical work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But from &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E7%80%9B%E5%AF%B0%E5%BF%97%E7%95%A5&quot;&gt;瀛寰志略&lt;/a&gt;, published in 1849 (道光二十九年), by &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%BE%90%E7%BB%A7%E7%95%AC&quot;&gt;徐繼畬&lt;/a&gt;, we can see 阿非利加 there.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-10-02T17:42:30.223" LastActivityDate="2013-10-02T17:42:30.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3820" CreationDate="2013-10-02T20:18:46.890" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=tG0-Ad9CrBcC&amp;amp;pg=PA145&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Phonology of Standard Chinese by San Duanmu (端木三)&lt;/a&gt; has an entire chapter devoted to this topic (The Word Length Problem):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In this section I review six previous approaches to the disyllabic phenomenon in Chinese. For convenience, I call them (&lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt;) the homophone-avoidance approach, (&lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt;) the speech-tempo approach, (&lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt;) the grammatical approach, (&lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt;) the rhythm approach, (&lt;em&gt;e&lt;/em&gt;) the morphologization approach, and (&lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt;) the stress-length approach. These approaches are not all proposed by different people. For example, Guo (1938) suggests that both (&lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt;) and (&lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt;) play a role, Lü (1963) suggests that both (&lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt;) and (&lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt;) play a role, and N. Li (1990) suggests that both (&lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt;) and (&lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt;) play a role. I argue that none of the approaches, nor combinations of them, can explain the disyllabic facts adequately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my own readings, I found that the homophone-avoidance approach (which @user58955 explained in his first point) to be the most common explanation. It feels true too because phonological changes since Old Chinese have merged the pronunciation of many words that were once distinct, and modern Chinese languages that have been more phonologically conservative tend to retain more monosyllabicity (such as Min and Cantonese). The book points out several issues with the homophone-avoidance explanation though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...as Lü (1963) points out, most increase in disyllabic words took place in the past 100 years or so, during which period there has been little change in the phonology of Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this objection could be partially explained by the rapid incorporation of modern concepts (which @user58955 explained in his second point).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another interesting point concerning the homophone-avoidance approach:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... many proponents of homophone-avoidance ... assume that classical Chinese mostly consisted of monosyllabic words. However, when Chinese characters were created ... Chinese already had numerous homophones. ... In other words, there must have been many homophones from the beginning. This raises the question of why people did not create disyllabic words to avoid ambiguity then. The answer, as suggested by Guo (1938), must be that classical written texts did not reflect the spoken language, in part because of the scarcity of writing materials, and in part because characters offer more distinctions than speech. ... In any case, there is no clear evidence that classical spoken Chinese mostly consisted of monosyllabic words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the chapter is an interesting read. The conclusion eventually states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have also argued that, unlike a popular belief, homophone-avoidance does not play a clear role in the increase of disyllabic words in Chinese. Instead, the increase is mainly due to an increase in new words...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Finally, I have argued that word lengths are constrained by metrical structure, in that some positions prefer a disyllabic words and other prefer a monosyllabic word. ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-10-03T13:10:42.437" LastActivityDate="2013-10-03T13:10:42.437" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3837" CreationDate="2013-10-03T01:49:19.343" Score="5" ViewCount="673" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of Chinese words containing the 白 character that all mean &amp;quot;nonsense&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;speaking nonsense&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白呼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夸白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the significance of 白 in these words? 白 usually means &amp;quot;white&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;clear&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;plain&amp;quot;, so how did it become associated with nonsense? And is this related at all with the word 扯淡, which also means nonsense but originally meant 淡化 (water down)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-03T04:28:57.307" Title="Meaning of 白 in words for &quot;nonsense&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3836" CreationDate="2013-10-03T02:57:33.913" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the meanings of 白 is, roughly &quot;in vain&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没有成就的，没有效果的：～忙。～说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's easier to imagine how white/plain become &quot;without effect&quot; than it is to imagine how it became &quot;nonsense&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;P.S. 白话 means &quot;plain speech&quot; = vernacular, as far as i know.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-10-03T02:57:33.913" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3836" CreationDate="2013-10-03T04:28:57.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think either of 白呼 and 夸白 is used in formal text. Both 白呼 and 夸白 are phonetic notations of colloquial dialects in some parts of China. They just function like Pinyin. 白呼 is only used by people from 华北, which I've never heard before. 夸白 is commonly used by people from 湖北, which I once used in my composition and was caught by my Chinese teacher. Such kind of phonetic notations do not mean anything in written standard Chinese. I would say they are 错别字. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've just looked up 白 in 新华词典 to make sure that none of the meanings of 白 is related to nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2013-10-03T04:28:57.307" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3839" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-03T05:46:08.490" Score="2" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just received this in a message from a friend trying to determine what time we meet this coming Sunday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;星期天几点开踢? 夏时制开始&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nsw.gov.au/daylight-saving&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Daylight savings&lt;/a&gt; starts early this Sunday at 2am.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the purpose of 制 in the phrase 夏时制开始? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see from wiktionary that 制 can have the meaning of &quot;establish&quot; so is 制 included to indicate that daylight savings is starting on that particular day (which is Sunday by context of the previous sentence)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-10-26T22:22:18.493" Title="What is the purpose of 制 in this sentence 夏时制开始" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3840" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-04T02:22:37.787" Score="31" ViewCount="2934" Body="&lt;p&gt;A common experience of beginner hanzi students is their raised hopes and expectations when they learn 一 二 三 - &amp;quot;what a wonderfully elegant language!&amp;quot; - which are promptly crushed when they encounter 四.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So where did these characters come from anyway? Were they once more elegant and morphed in time? Or were the characters representative of other things?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一 二 三: horizontal lines, easy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四: this is kind of like a square I guess, but what's that in the middle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五: ok this is like 5 strokes, why in this particular shape though?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;六 七 八 九: now I have no idea what's going on!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I apologise if the answers are easily found online; I think the answers would be very interesting and useful to have in one place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T09:19:10.360" Title="Why isn't 四 four lines? (the origin of 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3840" CreationDate="2013-10-04T02:47:19.480" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikitionary has an etymology for this character &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9B%9B&quot;&gt;四&lt;/a&gt; which says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The original shell and bone character was 一 written four times, 亖&#xA;  (compare 二 and 三). The bronzeware style of the character featured a&#xA;  repositioning of those four lines inside 口; this later evolved into&#xA;  the combination used today of 口 mouth and 八 divide which meant a&#xA;  dispersal of breath. It could thus be said that four is a borrowed&#xA;  meaning for this character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you are right, it used to be written with one more horizontal stroke added to 三.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BA%94&quot;&gt;五&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One possibility is that 五 was originally written as five horizontal&#xA;  lines, similar to 一, 二, 三, and the obsolete 亖 (four), but in common&#xA;  writing the lines would blend together. Thus, two lines were turned&#xA;  vertical and the right one was shortened, to form one stroke with the&#xA;  middle horizontal line. An alternate hypothesis is that 五 originally&#xA;  resembled an X with a bar on top and a bar on bottom, as in . This&#xA;  would have meant five because when counting on a single hand, one&#xA;  first counts to five and then crosses back the other way to ten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-10-04T02:47:19.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3840" CreationDate="2013-10-04T04:26:45.227" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting topic; it touches one of the core idea of the Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese language and all its dialects have not been designed by one inventor at one specific day. Instead, they were created and evolved at different regions through thousands of years at least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evidences (see below) showed that some of the Chinese characters from four to ten (四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九) evolves as the type of 轉注 (轉注者，建類一首，同意相受。考、老是也。) or 假借 (假借者，本無其字，依聲託事。令、長是也。) instead of 象形 (象形者，畫成其物，隨體詰詘。日、月是也。); and one and ten (一, 十) evolves as the type of 指事 (指事者，視而可識，察而見意。上、下是也。) or 會意 (會意者，比類合宜，以見指撝。武、信是也。) instead of 象形. Any reference, say, 《鐵雲藏龜》by 清 劉鶚 in 1903 (清光緒二十九年), or the one below, can only act as possible explanations at their intellectual best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Reference&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《說文解字》by 漢 許慎.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《鐵雲藏龜》by 清 劉鶚 in 1903 (清 光緒二十九年).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《白魚解字》by 流沙河 in 2014, ISBN 9787514317329.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;One Possible Explanation&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一: one bar. May mean the whole, the universe. &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3598&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;二: two bars. May mean the positive and negative. The upper may refer to the heaven, the lower the earth. &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3599&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;三: three bars. The upper may refer to the heaven, the lower the earth, and the middle the human. &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3601&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;四: First |||| (four bars), then combines with 二 to avoid ambiguity: &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pGU6k.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;, like being mistaken to be two ||. &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3602&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五: First a 二 with X in between: &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WKSPL.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;. The two bars are sky and earth, the X being the intersection between them, to mean all positive number greater than four. &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3603&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;六: &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/907Dy.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;￼, a house with four sides plus roof and ground giving six. &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3604&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;七: Designed originally to be 十 (meaning all number greater than six) with a twist on the bottom: &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VoFm5.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3605&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;八: Opposite bracket-like curve &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q4cAa.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; meaning &quot;divide&quot;, used to be greatest number. See 八卦.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3606&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;九: Designed originally to be a right arm (&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EHiLC.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;) reaching for something. Nine bears a meaning of great, the number of categories for many things. &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3607&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十: | (a rope overhung) combines with a knot on it: &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jF1tR.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;. Using ten to mean &quot;all&quot; may be because of the fact that we have ten fingers. &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3608&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Another possible explanation&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, people may invent those most frequently used: one, two, and three, as put by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;老子&lt;/a&gt; in 「&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;道德經&lt;/a&gt;」: 道立于一, 一生二, 二生三, 三生萬物. (&quot;The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three;&#xA;Three produced All things.&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;translated&lt;/a&gt; by James Legge )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2017-09-28T13:20:11.997" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T13:20:11.997" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3410" CreationDate="2013-10-04T06:33:00.463" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;East/West comes before North/South: e.g. the phrase 东西南北&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;East comes before West&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;South comes before North: e.g. 南北朝, 南拳北腿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In asking why these particular orders, we're begging the question of why the Western cardinal directions are in their order? That is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;North/South comes before East/West&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;East comes before West&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;North comes before South&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After examining reasons for both, hopefully it will become clear why the orders are the way they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two differences to consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;whether the East/West axis comes before the North/South, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;whether North comes before South&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Warning: there's a lot of guesswork here; if anyone has better reasons or evidence please contribute, which is why I'm making this a CW answer&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Why is East/West more important than North/South?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were a prehistoric human and observed your world, the sun would be one of the most notable features of your world. It would be easy to notice that every day, it moves from one side of the sky to the other: East to West.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it should be easy to see why East/West is so important, and why East comes before West. There is evidence that in Western cultures, East once had primacy too, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20020610/medieval_maps.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;especially in the Medieval period, where most maps were East-oriented&lt;/a&gt;. It was also related to the phrase &amp;quot;to orient&amp;quot;, where orient also means East.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JciDf.png&quot; alt=&quot;T-O map, Isidore of Seville's tripartite world map,1472&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Why did North/South become more important than East/West?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leads to the question of why did North/South become more important. The answer is simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nfu3R.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Compass&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The compass's influence cannot be understated - it isn't one of the four great inventions of ancient China for no reason - as it was immensely useful for navigation and seafaring. North/South became more important in China too, at least for navigation and cartography, as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Ming_Hun_Yi_Tu&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;evidenced in this map dating from the Ming dynasty&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dCds0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Why is North more important than South, and vice versa?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which leads to the final question, why North is before South for the West, and South before North at least in the Chinese language. This may be the hardest question to answer, so let's go back to first principles, look at the reasons &lt;a href=&quot;http://geography.about.com/od/understandmaps/a/North-At-The-Top-Of-The-Map.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;why North became important in the West&lt;/a&gt;, and see if those same reasons or different ones are at play for China:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Compasses point North (but they also point South!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The North Star, Polaris, is visible in the Northern Hemisphere; no stars pointing South would be visible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Egocentricity: people associate up with good, so naturally they'd orient themselves at the top of maps relative to their neighbours. In Medieval times, the greatest enemy to Europeans were various Islamic sultanates, generally located to their South.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/441/on-maps-why-is-north-always-up&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ptolemy oriented his maps North&lt;/a&gt;; in his time the most interesting places were in the North which may have influenced his decision.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about China then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For most of China's history, their greatest external threats were various nomadic cultures to their North. Look no further than the walls they built for evidence of this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These reasons are not that convincing, but hopefully they are a start. It's interesting to see that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mawangdui_Topographic_Map.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese maps were once South oriented&lt;/a&gt;, but eventually they became North oriented too, leaving the word ordering as a legacy of ancient times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-04T06:33:00.463" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-10-04T06:33:00.463" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3845" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-04T12:00:14.353" Score="12" ViewCount="1799" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simplified_Chinese_characters#Speed_of_writing&quot;&gt;Speed of writing&lt;/a&gt; is cited as an advantage of simplified Chinese over traditional, which is especially important for schoolchildren, but are there any studies or measurements to this effect? How much faster is it really to write simplified, given similar skill levels?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm referring to writing all the strokes, by hand. Of course the differences disappear if people are writing cursive, or electronically using IMEs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T05:30:04.460" Title="How much faster is it to write Simplified over Traditional?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3846" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-04T12:04:27.083" Score="6" ViewCount="1148" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 二百五 stands for foolish/stupid and I assume I have to add up 二百五, 三八 and 二 to it to obtain 二百九. Is this right and if so, what does 二 mean and where did it get it's meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2817" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T04:58:18.817" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T09:16:48.667" Title="How to come from 二百五 to 二百九?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3845" CreationDate="2013-10-04T14:27:28.243" Score="24" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;How much faster is it really to write simplified, given similar skill levels?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, writing simplified characters (SC) can be faster than traditional characters (TC).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SC comes into stage primarily because of its handy characteristics. Some people really want to boost up the writing speed, among other personal reasons, and there's no such awesome typing machine like notebook today, so what can they do is fairly predictable, such as scribbling around, or just dropping some elements.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simplified_Chinese_characters#Speed_of_writing&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Speed of writing&lt;/a&gt; is cited as an advantage of simplified Chinese over traditional, which is especially important for schoolchildren, but are there any studies or measurements to this effect?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Provide you with my own experiment result here. I've timed and written the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simplified_Chinese_characters#Speed_of_writing&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;above Wiki page&lt;/a&gt; with its first two paragraphs in the introduction part, both &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E7%B0%A1%E5%8C%96%E7%88%AD%E8%AB%96&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;SC version&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E7%B0%A1%E5%8C%96%E7%88%AD%E8%AB%96&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;TC version&lt;/a&gt;. There're 306 characters. It took me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;14 minutes 43 seconds (883 seconds) to write up the SC version or 2.9 seconds per character on average, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;21 minutes 36 seconds (1296 seconds) to write up the TC version or 4.2 seconds per character on average.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Didn't write pretty well, just everyday performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The scan of my writing&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ksf9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;SC-vs-TC-writing-speed-test&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SC version script&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉字简化争论是一个讨论汉字之正式字体的话题。由于中国大陆、香港、台湾的使用习惯、文化认同及意识形态不同，而持续被提出来争论。汉字文化圈其他国家如日本、越南则较少关注这一争论。&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ksf9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;这里所谓的“汉字简化”，主要针对的是中华人民共和国所推行的简化字，台湾和香港地区并不采用，并有普遍的激烈批评。本条目中的“繁体字”是中国大陆对传统汉字字体的称呼，在香港、澳门等地区也较常使用此名称，中华民国（台湾）官方称之为“正体字”[2][3][4]。现行中国大陆的简体字属于毛泽东时代下，为响应苏联国际化语言而推动汉字拉丁化（废除汉字）的政治性产物。简体字仅是废除汉字前的过渡性措施。[5][6]1985年12月，国务院决定将中国文字改革委员会改名为国家语言文字工作委员会，强调国家语委要“促进语言文字的规范化、标准化”，这表明拼音化道路已被放弃。[7]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TC version script&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漢字簡化爭論是一個討論漢字之正式字體的話題。由於中國大陸、香港、台灣的使用習慣、文化認同及意識形態不同，而持續被提出來爭論。漢字文化圈其他國家如日本、越南則較少關注這一爭論。&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ksf9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;這裡所謂的「漢字簡化」，主要針對的是中華人民共和國所推行的簡化字，台灣和香港地區並不採用，並有普遍的激烈批評。本條目中的「繁體字」是中國大陸對傳統漢字字體的稱呼，在香港、澳門等地區也較常使用此名稱，中華民國（台灣）官方稱之為「正體字」[2][3][4]。現行中國大陸的簡體字屬於毛澤東時代下，為響應蘇聯國際化語言而推動漢字拉丁化（廢除漢字）的政治性產物。簡體字僅是廢除漢字前的過渡性措施。[5][6]1985年12月，國務院決定將中國文字改革委員會改名為國家語言文字工作委員會，強調國家語委要「促進語言文字的規範化、標準化」，這表明拼音化道路已被放棄。[7]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-10-04T15:16:09.280" LastActivityDate="2013-10-04T15:16:09.280" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3849" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3851" CreationDate="2013-10-05T06:21:08.513" Score="10" ViewCount="499" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/9/a5/192643.htm&quot;&gt;肉排 is Chinese for steak&lt;/a&gt; (e.g. 牛排 or 猪排 for beef steak and pork steak), but where did the 排 come from? As a Western cuisine dish, did the word have some roundabout origin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;排 means row/rank, which has nothing to do with steak. 排 makes more sense in the word 排骨 (spareribs) - literally &quot;rows of bones&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-06T18:16:25.640" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T18:16:25.640" Title="Why is &quot;steak&quot; 肉排?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;food&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3849" CreationDate="2013-10-05T10:27:03.627" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E7%89%9B%E6%8E%92#.E8.AF.8D.E6.BA.90&quot;&gt;Wiki page of 牛排&lt;/a&gt; gives a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.huayuqiao.org/articles/yuwenjianshetongxun/7606.htm&quot;&gt;clue&lt;/a&gt; of its etymology, written by, 姚德懷, the current chairman of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hkedcity.net/iclub_files/a/1/74/webpage/jfiles/chinsoc.html&quot;&gt;香港中國語文學會 (The Chinese Language Society of Hong Kong Ltd.)&lt;/a&gt;, a non-profit organization in Hong Kong. Here's a summary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E6%BC%A2%E8%AA%9E%E5%A4%A7%E8%A9%9E%E5%85%B8&quot;&gt;漢語大詞典&lt;/a&gt;, the word 牛排 has been cited in some novels in Qing Dynasty in the beginning of 20th century. Such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「三荷包接過看時，只見上面開的是：清牛湯、炙鰣魚、冰蠶阿、丁灣羊肉、漢巴德、牛排、凍豬腳、橙子冰忌廉、澳洲翠鳥雞、龜仔蘆筍、生菜英腿、加利蛋飯、白浪布丁、濱格、豬古辣冰忌廉、葡萄乾、香蕉、咖啡。」from『&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%AE%98%E5%A0%B4%E7%8F%BE%E5%BD%A2%E8%A8%98&quot;&gt;官場現形記&lt;/a&gt;』之&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E5%AE%98%E5%A0%B4%E7%8F%BE%E5%BD%A2%E8%A8%98/%E7%AC%AC007%E5%9B%9E&quot;&gt;第七回 第三段 第四句 (sentence 4, paragraph 3, chapter 7)&lt;/a&gt; and,&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「這句話被那位候補道听見了，到了晚上，便請制台吃飯，仍然辦的是西菜，仍用的是西式盤子，卻將一切牛排、雞排是整的都切碎了，席上不放刀叉，只擺著筷子。」from 『&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E4%BA%8C%E5%8D%81%E5%B9%B4%E7%9B%AE%E7%9D%B9%E4%B9%8B%E6%80%AA%E7%8F%BE%E7%8B%80&quot;&gt;二十年目睹之怪現狀&lt;/a&gt;』之&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.millionbook.net/gd/w/wuyanren/esnmdzgxz/078.htm&quot;&gt;第七十八回 第三段 第六句 (sentence 6, paragraph 3, chapter 78)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author puts: 排 seems to stem from the 排骨 in 排骨麵 served in Shanghai being similar to Western pork chop. (&lt;strong&gt;上海「排骨麵」裏的大塊「排骨」近似西菜裏的「豬排」，「排」字的用法似由此而起。&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of 排 in Shanghai local dialect is similar to 扒 in Cantonese, which seems to be the reason that Cantonese also use 牛扒 to mean 牛排. (&lt;strong&gt;「排」，上海話讀「bɑ」，廣東人聽成「p’a」，似因此也寫為「扒」。&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="2751" LastEditDate="2013-10-05T10:32:11.517" LastActivityDate="2013-10-05T10:32:11.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3852" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-05T12:36:33.630" Score="27" ViewCount="2208" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/js/8DB3.htm&quot;&gt;足&lt;/a&gt; is an ancient character meaning &quot;foot&quot;. However, it also means &quot;enough&quot; or &quot;sufficient&quot;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/19312.html&quot;&gt;this second definition is also very old&lt;/a&gt;. Consider this excerpt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;兵甲已足。——诸葛亮《出师表》 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is from &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%87%BA%E5%B8%AB%E8%A1%A8&quot;&gt;《出师表》&lt;/a&gt;, dating from 227-228 AD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why does 足 have these two very different meanings? Its oracle bone origin definitely suggests it means foot, so how did the &quot;enough&quot; definition come about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-09T21:06:33.637" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T21:06:33.637" Title="Why is 足 both &quot;foot&quot; and &quot;enough&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="3853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3852" CreationDate="2013-10-05T16:17:30.927" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let the &amp;quot;foot&amp;quot; meaning of 足 be A, the &amp;quot;plenty, enough&amp;quot; meaning be B. Will discuss about this topic in the following two sections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Different Root&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E7%8E%B0%E4%BB%A3%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E8%A7%84%E8%8C%83%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;現代漢語規範詞典 第二版 (&amp;quot;Modern Chinese Standard Dictionary&amp;quot; 2nd Edition)&lt;/a&gt; suggests that meaning A and meaning B come from different origin, though they share the same character currently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Figure 1. Meanings of 足 in 現代漢語規範詞典 第二版, page 1758.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8iuRm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It places the &amp;quot;foot&amp;quot; meaning as 足 entry with a superscript 1, 足&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;, the &amp;quot;enough&amp;quot; meaning with superscript 2, 足&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Figure 2. Explanation of the superscript.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v9Wlc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English translation of the above description can be:&amp;quot;Those whose form or pronunciation are the same but no relation between their meaning, basically will be in given different entries, with superscripts on their upper right corner. For example, '耳&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;' and '耳&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;', '安&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;', '安&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;' and '安&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;' &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chances are their ancient version characters bear the similar form and later merged together. Seven known variants (i.e. 異體字) of 足 are found &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra04001.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Figure 3. The variants of 足.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ipzB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hint is given by this blog:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「另有充足、足夠、滿足等的意義。《現漢規範》認為充足等意義的“足”和下肢意義的“足”没有意義上的聯繫，只是形同而已。換句話說，“足”的充足意義並不是下肢意義的引伸。」which in English can be:&amp;quot;足 has another meaning: plenty of, enough, satisfied. 現代漢語規範詞典 treats this meaning as independent from the foot meaning, except that they happen to be the same in form. In other words, the 'enough' meaning does not stem from the 'foot' meaning.&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://taiwanlanguage.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/%E8%B6%B3%E6%84%9F%E5%BF%83%EF%BC%88tsi%C9%94k-kam%CB%8B-sim%EF%BC%89%E2%94%80%E2%94%80%E9%9D%9E%E5%B8%B8%E4%BB%A4%E4%BA%BA%E6%84%9F%E5%8B%95%E3%80%81%E8%AE%9A%E5%98%86%E3%80%81%E6%AC%BD%E4%BD%A9/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ancient Sound&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among many opinions, even the ancient sound is believed to be something similar to modern ju4 instead of zu2, which is also backed by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;: 卽玉切, roughly &lt;strong&gt;j&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strike&gt;i&lt;/strike&gt; + &lt;strike&gt;y&lt;/strike&gt;&lt;strong&gt;u&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;ju&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Figure 4. The Scan of 說文解字 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duan_Yucai&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;段玉裁&lt;/a&gt;注本 足部 足.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/koUzm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 王力古漢語字典 (Wang Li's Classical Chinese Dictionary (page 1350), (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Li_(linguist)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;王力&lt;/a&gt; is the name of a late renowned Chinese linguist, who advocated a categorized set of meanings for each Chinese characters in the dictionary, and suggested students to learn classical Chinese with the knowledge of Chinese history.) In the following three-piece scan of explanation, the &amp;quot;foot&amp;quot; meaning is put at first, next the &amp;quot;enough&amp;quot; meaning, third the &amp;quot;qualified&amp;quot; meaning. We can see that the &amp;quot;enough&amp;quot; meaning appears in some really ancient work 「&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Poetry&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;詩經&lt;/a&gt;」, dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Figures 5-7. The Scans of Explanation for 足 in page 1350, 王力古漢語字典.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EyXuR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TMvZg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y2x34.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-05T16:17:30.927" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3846" CreationDate="2013-10-06T09:20:58.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We Chinese don't say &quot;二百九&quot; but just &quot;二百五&quot; to describe someone is foolish, a typical example is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你这个二百五，办事没有一件可以办好！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides we also have &quot;二货&quot;、“二B（Chinese character：屄；Chinese pronuncation: bi）”，This is a offensive saying that is always used to abuse others when you are angry or despise others (very very dirty!), so PLEASE DON'T USE THAT.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;二&quot; can be also used traditionally in the north dialect of China, meaning &quot;foolish&quot;. It can be used as an adjective word——e.g:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你真二！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-10-06T09:20:58.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3826" CreationDate="2013-10-06T09:32:55.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个汤_&lt;strong&gt;_&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;么&lt;/em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;_&lt;/strong&gt;_么酸啊？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1）怎&#xA;2）这/那（both of them are right, we Chinese usually use them to enhance the depth of something as an adverb).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我可喝不_&lt;strong&gt;__&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't write anything here, ……不=……吗, meaning a question to ask others. &#xA;e.g:&#xA;他是好人，可不？(He's a right man, isn't he?!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: According to the meaning of the part of the sentence, I guess “？”should be &quot;。&quot;, because the author wanna say &lt;strong&gt;this soup is too sour for him to have&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-10-06T09:32:55.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3818" CreationDate="2013-10-06T12:21:50.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese I must say that everyday we are faced with a variety of troubles too. So stress is not new in Chinese to express stress we have many options for a example “鸭梨山大”or“压力海大了” is a Optimism express when people facing stress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3329" LastActivityDate="2013-10-06T12:21:50.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3830" CreationDate="2013-10-06T13:05:03.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;chengyu Comes from people’s daily life. It’s difficult to distinguish which period produced the most chengyu. chengyu in Chinese is something like slang in English even in nowadays people make many chengyu for a example “不明觉厉” is a newborn chengyu translate into English is &quot;although i don’t understand but still fell it’s very cool&quot;！&#xA;my english is very poor maybe you can help me improve my English as return I can help you in Chinese. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3329" LastEditorUserId="3417" LastEditDate="2013-10-31T04:09:23.663" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T04:09:23.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3858" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-06T16:53:26.187" Score="7" ViewCount="1430" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do they generally mean the same thing? Is one more formal than the other? Both 大陆, 中国 seem to have the same number of hits on Baidu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2021-02-13T10:07:09.910" Title="When native Chinese refer to China, what's the difference between 大陆, 中国 and 中国大陆?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3860" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-07T02:34:59.073" Score="1" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to keep my study of Mandarin fun and engaging. One way I thought might be helpful is if there was a resource that held quality translations of famous American speeches or writing. By studying and practicing the Chinese version of famous passages, I think I could learn the language at a more lyrical level, while still working from an (english) base I can easily comprehend. This would be as opposed to studying the speeches e.g. of Mao Zedong, where I would need to learn both the English and the Chinese version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if there were a resource that took the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.americanrhetoric.com/newtop100speeches.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Top 100 Speeches&lt;/a&gt; from American Rhetoric, and translated them into Mandarin (ideally with commentary!) that would be exactly what I'm looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3045" LastActivityDate="2013-10-07T09:43:41.923" Title="Resource for quality translations of famous American English speech/writing into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2013-10-08T02:00:28.760" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3860" CreationDate="2013-10-07T09:43:41.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that you wanna learn Chinese by listening to its voice and let the video show English words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well……A pure Chinese film or TV, video CANNOT do that at all and you should involve yourself in Chinese environment to learn the language well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However (of course)——If you insist doing so, you can see this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.icshanghai.com/live/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ICS Channel&lt;/a&gt;——This channel is playing Chinese things but translated into English version for foreign people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-10-07T09:43:41.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3862" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3867" CreationDate="2013-10-07T14:31:34.160" Score="3" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;I learn Mathematica on the site StackExchange Mathematica,I encountered a problem?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;(on the picture)&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZuEl6.png&quot; alt=&quot;problem&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;backtick escapes&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result that the dictionary gives is &quot;那些逃离&quot;,Obviously,it is wrong.&#xA;So my question is how to understand it in Chinese or English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3296" LastActivityDate="2013-10-07T18:03:32.740" Title="What does &quot; backtick escapes &quot; mean in chinese?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3862" CreationDate="2013-10-07T15:21:43.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a backtick: `&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's sort of like a single-quote (') or a double-quote (&quot;), but not the same. When you put `backticks around stuff` then it will &lt;code&gt;appear like this&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2013-10-07T15:21:43.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3864" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5700" CreationDate="2013-10-07T16:25:55.983" Score="7" ViewCount="408" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many books about Confucius' Analects, 大學 is transliterated as Ta-Hio.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this? 大學 is &lt;code&gt;dàxué&lt;/code&gt; in Pinyin, &lt;code&gt;da hsüeh&lt;/code&gt; in Wade-Giles, &lt;code&gt;da sywe&lt;/code&gt; in Yale, and &lt;code&gt;daai hok&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese, so where does this transliteration come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3314" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2013-10-07T16:58:01.900" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T00:22:33.423" Title="About Confucius' Ta-Hio" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3865" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3866" CreationDate="2013-10-07T16:36:48.910" Score="6" ViewCount="2182" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to find a single-character translation of the word &quot;freedom,&quot; but I can't seem to find one anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best translation I can find is, of course, 自由, which seems to be a fairly modern thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question has now become this: Is there an ancient word for &quot;freedom&quot;? Is there a 文言文 word? If not, why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T01:17:43.913" Title="What is a one-character translation of the English word &quot;Freedom&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3865" CreationDate="2013-10-07T17:20:05.193" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question: &lt;code&gt;古文中哪个字有自由不受约束的意思啊？ (Gǔwén zhōng nǎge zì yǒu zìyóu bu shòu yuēshù de yìsi a) - Which word in Ancient Chinese means Free and/or Unfettered?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/122307745.html&quot;&gt;Bai Du&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appears there aren't single words, in modern and ancient Chinese, that have a denotative meaning of &quot;Freedom&quot;. There are however, connotative words that can mean &quot;free&quot; or &quot;to set free&quot; in context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;放 (Fàng) - Put, Release, Free, Lay &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;放出 (Fàngchū) - Release, Set Free&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;放心 (Fàngxīn) - Free your heart, don't worry &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;放松 (Fàngsōng) - Set loose, relax&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More ancient words for &quot;free&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;恣 (Zì) - Do as one pleases, free (From: 恣肆 (Zìsì) - Unrestrained)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;逍 (Xiāo) - Leisurely (From: 逍遥 (Xiāoyáo) - Free and unfettered)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;逸 (Yì) - Free, Leisurely (Common in names)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-10-07T19:04:50.230" LastActivityDate="2013-10-07T19:04:50.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3862" CreationDate="2013-10-07T17:51:25.557" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &quot;backtick&quot;, also known as a &quot;backquote&quot;, is a punctuation mark that appears to be translated as 反引号 and refers to this symbol:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;`&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the programming context, &quot;escape&quot; often refers to an &quot;escape sequence&quot;, which is translated as &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BD%AC%E4%B9%89%E5%BA%8F%E5%88%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;转义序列&lt;/a&gt;. I'm guessing that &quot;backtick escapes&quot; is used to mean 反引号转义字符.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[edited per user58955's comment]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2013-10-07T18:03:32.740" LastActivityDate="2013-10-07T18:03:32.740" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3868" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-08T10:23:31.817" Score="7" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;汉子 (son/person of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Han&lt;/a&gt;) was - in ancient China - a term used by various people north of China to refer to the Chinese, but over time has been used by the Chinese to refer to themselves, and by the Qing dynasty, was already being used as a complimentary term for a &amp;quot;true&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;heroic&amp;quot; man, as in the terms 好汉 and 男子汉. The term is used to embody various masculine ideals, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好汉不提当年勇 (A hero is silent about his past glories)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/d/164/364310.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;好汉做事好汉当&lt;/a&gt; (a true man has the courage to accept the consequences of his own actions)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 汉子 (and its related terms) seem to be classified using 条, which is unusual because normally when 条 is used on people, it is derogatory, for example 一条&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B5%B0%E7%8B%97&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;走狗&lt;/a&gt; (traitorous dog) or 一条&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bookstrg.com/Readstory.asp?Code=SS206264&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;豺狼&lt;/a&gt; (brutal jackal). And yet it is used for 汉子, which is supposed to be a compliment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;京剧《黑旋风李逵》第四场：“我看你是条汉子，为何不投奔 梁山 ？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隋唐十八条好汉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二十年后又是一条好汉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why use this particular measure word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T20:12:14.920" Title="Why is 汉子 measured in 条?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3869" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-08T18:16:46.130" Score="3" ViewCount="338" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of polyphonic character is usually deduced from the semantic of the context. In a transliterated word, there is no such context, the character only stands for its pronunciation, so it seems not a good idea to use polyphonic characters for that purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However they are used in transliteration. For example &lt;code&gt;什&lt;/code&gt; is extensively used for Russian names. More interestingly, there seems to be an agreement that in transliteration, its less common pronunciation &lt;code&gt;shi2&lt;/code&gt; is always used instead of the more common &lt;code&gt;shen2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are, in transliteration field,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there any guidelines around/against using polyphonic characters?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How does one decide which pronunciation is the 'agreed' one to use?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there any polyphonic character, of which multiple pronunciations are used for transliteration?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T00:42:12.523" Title="Use of polyphonic characters in transliteration" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3870" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-08T20:13:36.427" Score="4" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would be the english equivalent of bubbly and refreshing to describe something like a soft drink? What other words could be used to describe aspects of a soft drink, like the fizz and pop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3338" LastActivityDate="2013-10-10T06:39:03.593" Title="Refreshing and bubbly" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3818" CreationDate="2013-10-09T00:44:33.230" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess there is not a single Chinese word which can mean &amp;quot;stress/stressed/stressful&amp;quot; in all cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to suggest the following translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm feeling very stressed. 我感到很大的压力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot jobs are stressful. 很多工作都有压力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She finds her new teaching job very stressful. 她觉得新的教学工作非常紧张。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving to a new house is a very stressful experience. 搬家是一件很令人焦虑的事情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a long hard day at work, she is stressed out. 在单位劳累了一整天后, 她已是筋疲力尽了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How often do we arrive at work or school stressed out, tired and angry? 有多少次我们极度焦虑、疲惫、恼怒地来到单位或学校?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;under the stress of poverty 为贫穷所迫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in times of stress 在困难时期&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T00:44:33.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3870" CreationDate="2013-10-09T00:46:03.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally I'd look on a &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z2155m1104j18596.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;list of Chinese onomatopoeias&lt;/a&gt;, but soft drink sounds aren't listed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second option is to look at dictionaries for Chinese translations of English onomatopoeias, which leads to adequate answers (for example you can search Google for &quot;XXX in Chinese&quot;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;fizz = 嘶, 嘶嘶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Pop&quot; is problematic though; first it also means &quot;popular music&quot;, and second the translation is 砰, which is more of a loud pop, bordering on a bang - the sound a balloon popping would make. In this case I'd avoid looking for a Chinese pop, as you can't really hear popping sounds from soft drinks anyway - fizz is adequate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T00:46:03.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3870" CreationDate="2013-10-09T01:37:42.213" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure how literal you are trying to be, but if you want to say that this is a sparkling drink as opposed to a flat drink, 有气 or 有气泡 is what I've heard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, foods and drinks can be described as 爽快 (Shuǎngkuài), meaning refreshing, puts you in good spirits, etc. 爽 can also be used to describe a good feeling or state, i.e. 我感觉很爽 after a good meal or experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3315" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T01:37:42.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3868" CreationDate="2013-10-09T02:45:48.113" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, your are correct that 汉子 is more commonly being refer to as a man / manhood. And 条 is quantifier for refering things that are long, straight. So go figure =P.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 条 is not derogatory. We also use 条 for a life e.g. 一条人命, or a river 一条河, or loyalty 一条心. So it very much depends on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2717" LastEditorUserId="260" LastEditDate="2013-10-09T20:12:14.920" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T20:12:14.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="150" CreationDate="2013-10-09T08:01:01.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 他妈的 is perfectly normal and not offensive just liking fucking. It is used to emphasize something but people may regard you rude and uneducated if you say this in some formal situation.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3340" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T08:01:01.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3876" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3877" CreationDate="2013-10-09T08:35:58.820" Score="3" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the right translations of these IT-related terms into (simplified) Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;app (as in iOS apps)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;service (as in application service)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;consulting (as in IT consulting)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a reliable dictionary that includes such specialized contemporary terminology?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2333" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T10:48:23.610" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T17:15:01.357" Title="What are the translations of these IT-related terms: app, service, consulting?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3876" CreationDate="2013-10-09T11:52:50.363" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What are the right translations of these IT-related terms into (simplified) Chinese:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;app --&amp;gt; 应用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;service --&amp;gt; 服务&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consulting --&amp;gt; 咨询&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there a reliable dictionary that includes such specialized contemporary terminology?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cjk.org/cjk/samples/ceterm.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The CKJ Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/en/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dict.cn -- an online Chinese/English dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[Others]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T11:52:50.363" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3878" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3880" CreationDate="2013-10-09T16:39:29.053" Score="7" ViewCount="4572" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone tell me the difference between these to words. Are they both regularly used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They seem to both indicate jealousy. I've seen 羡慕 on different occasions and I'm used to that one, but I've come across 妒忌 a couple of times lately and wanted to know if they were interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3342" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T02:42:33.783" Title="what's the difference between 羡慕 and 妒忌？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3878" CreationDate="2013-10-09T16:46:17.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;羡慕 is envy, where as 妒忌 is jealousy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3343" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T16:46:17.560" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3878" CreationDate="2013-10-09T16:50:22.483" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;羡慕 is a good kind of envy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;You have a happy marriage. I'm really envy at you and I hope you can be happy forever&quot; This is 羡慕.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妒忌 is a bad kind of jealousy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;You have a happy marriage. You don't deserve it! I should be happier than you!&quot; This is 妒忌.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T16:50:22.483" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3878" CreationDate="2013-10-09T19:33:55.857" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;羡慕 = 看见别人有某种长处、好处或有利条件而 &lt;strong&gt;希望自己也有&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妒忌 = 看见别人有某种长处、好处或有利条件而 &lt;strong&gt;心怀怨恨&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T19:33:55.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3870" CreationDate="2013-10-09T21:36:23.170" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To say soft drink is &lt;b&gt;refreshing&lt;/b&gt;, there are some common words like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;提神 (spirit-lifting)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;醒脑 (mind-awakening)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;消除疲劳 (fatigue-removal)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喝点柠檬茶提提神吧。How about some lemon tea? It's refreshing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;碳酸饮料的醒脑效果来自咖啡因。Sodas are refreshing because they contain caffeine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other words that also mean refreshing but have a strong implication on the taste:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;清新 (fresh and pure) this word implies a 'fresh' flavor like lemon or mint.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;清凉 (fresh and cool) this word implies the drink is cold and has 'fresh' flavor.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These words are best suitable for drinks like: lemon water, ice tea, cold beer;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not best fit but okay to use for drinks like: Coke or stout;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not suitable for drinks like coffee or Gatorade. (Unlike 提神 and 醒脑, which are totally suitable for describing coffee.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say a drink is &lt;b&gt;sparkling&lt;/b&gt;, people say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;饮料有气(泡) (the drink contains air bubbles)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;苏打饮料 (soda drink)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;碳酸饮料 (carbonic acid drink).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;碳酸饮料 is a common term in Chinese, not 'nerdy chemist language'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To describe the &lt;b&gt;popping or fizz sound&lt;/b&gt;, there are some &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;onomatopoeia&lt;/a&gt; words like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;砰/嘭 (loud pop)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;噼/啪 (mild pop/crack noise)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嘶 (hiss/fizz)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可乐的气泡噼噼啪啪作响。The bubbles in the coke are making cracking noise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他拧开瓶盖，汽水发出嘶嘶的声音。He opened the bottle and the soda started to fizz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In spoken language, you can use any imitative voice, not limited to those have onomatopoeia characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-10T06:39:03.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3840" CreationDate="2013-10-10T16:25:04.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may not be the answer you at searching for, but we uses a number story to help us remember how to write these characters...&#xA;一 I took one step,&#xA;二 I took two steps,&#xA;三 I took three steps,&#xA;四 i came to a window with curtains&#xA;五 I saw a bench &#xA;六 there was a man doing star jump&#xA;七 he fell on his bum&#xA;八 he walked with a limp&#xA;九 He got worse and had to use a wheelchair &#xA;十 he died, and  was buried in a churchyard. Amen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3346" LastActivityDate="2013-10-10T16:25:04.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3885" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3886" CreationDate="2013-10-11T03:53:40.317" Score="5" ViewCount="521" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can use 才貌双全 to describe a person with both 貌 and 才 and 德才兼备 to describe a person with both 才 and 德.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does there exist a 成语 that describes a person with all of the three?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T14:02:50.937" Title="Request for a 成语 to describe a person with all of 貌, 才, and 德" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3885" CreationDate="2013-10-11T08:05:55.210" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, I don't think there is an idiom describing all of the three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, it is very common to use parallelisms, such as &quot;他才貌兼具，德艺双馨&quot;.&#xA;I used little different terms from yours and parallelize them together to avoid literal duplication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastActivityDate="2013-10-11T08:05:55.210" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3887" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5463" CreationDate="2013-10-11T09:46:04.513" Score="35" ViewCount="6830" Body="&lt;p&gt;Main Question: What is the glyph origin of the Chinese number characters (一二三四五六七八九十百千)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3840/why-isnt-%E5%9B%9B-four-lines-the-origin-of-%E4%B8%80-%E4%BA%8C-%E4%B8%89-%E5%9B%9B-%E4%BA%94-%E5%85%AD-%E4%B8%83-%E5%85%AB-%E4%B9%9D&quot;&gt;Why isn't 四 four lines? (the origin of 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I decide to write a Q&amp;amp;A-style post to &lt;strong&gt;discuss&lt;/strong&gt; this question. What motivates me to do this, is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In that brilliant question asked by @congusbongus, @congliu offers a good reference &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;象形字典&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;(a literally translation would be &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;). The explanation of the question &amp;quot;where does a Chinese character come from&amp;quot; can be easily found on that site, so it is really convenient for those who are interested in the glyph origin of Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;However, personally I cannot bear some &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;subjective or illogical&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; viewpoints on that site. It seems the administrator of &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt; hasn't make much efforts on historical issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, in this post, I will&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;provide the mainstream viewpoints on the glyph origins of the Chinese number characters &lt;code&gt;一二三四五六七八九十百千&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;criticize the subjective or illogical viewpoints on &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;post some rubbing pictures to prove my viewpoint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Index&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5463/2816&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary: A brief answer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/3888/2816&quot;&gt;Glyph origins of 一 (one), 二 (two), and 三 (three)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/4905/2816&quot;&gt;Glyph origin of 四 (four)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/4914/2816&quot;&gt;Glyph origin of 五 (five)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/4927/2816&quot;&gt;Glyph origin of 六 (six)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5421/2816&quot;&gt;Glyph origin of 七 (seven)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5424/2816&quot;&gt;Glyph origin of 八 (eight)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5438/2816&quot;&gt;Glyph origin of 九 (nine)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5446/2816&quot;&gt;Glyph origins of 十 (ten), 廿(niàn, twenty), 卅(sà, thirty), 卌(xì, forty)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5455/2816&quot;&gt;Glyph origin of 百 (hundred)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5462/2816&quot;&gt;Glyph origin of 千 (thousand)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;References&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://images.gg-art.com/dictionary/odindex.php#alpha&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《甲骨文字典》(&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt; by 徐中舒. Published in 1990. It is a dictionary epitomizing fifty-five important references of oracle scripts. The viewpoints on this dictionary are considered to be the mainstream, because most of them are supported by material evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://inscription.sinica.edu.tw/c_index.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;先秦甲骨文金文簡牘詞彙資料庫 (Lexicon of Pre-Qin Oracle, Bronze Inscriptions and Bamboo Scripts)&lt;/a&gt;. A useful online lexical search tool for Oracle, Bronze Inscriptions and Bamboo Scripts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;漢珍資訊:甲骨文全文影像資料庫. A very good database supporting textual search of oracle scripts on rubbings. A special software is needed to view the rubbing pictures. Unfortunately it is not free now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《甲骨文合集》(&lt;em&gt;Collections of Oracle Bones&lt;/em&gt;). Editor-in-Chief 郭沫若.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《甲骨文合集释文》(&lt;em&gt;Textual Research on 'Collections of Oracle Bones'&lt;/em&gt;). Editor 胡厚宣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《殷周金文集成》(&lt;em&gt;Collections of Bronze Scripts in Shang Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty&lt;/em&gt;) by  Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T09:16:35.420" Title="Etymology of the Chinese number characters (一二三四五六七八九十百千)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3887" CreationDate="2013-10-11T09:46:04.513" Score="19" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Etymology of 一, 二, and 三&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3598&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 一/二/三 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“一”是特殊指事字，抽象符号“一”既代表最为简单的起源，也代表最为丰富的浑沌整体。造字本义：最小原始单位，最小的正整数。古人认为“道立于一，一生二，二生三，三生万物”。就是说，混沌太初的存在整体是“一”；然后由太初混沌的“一”，分出天地“二”极；天地二极之间，又生出人这第“三”部分；天地人三者，衍化出宇宙万物。一 ，代替混沌太初的整体；二，上面的一横代表“天”，下面的一横代表“地”；三，上下两横代表“天地”，中间的一横代表“人”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一 is a special self-explanatory character. The abstract symbol &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; presents not only the simplest origin, but also the abundant chaos entirety. The original idea of character construction: the smallest basic unit, the smallest positive integer. Ancient Chinese people thought &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tao&lt;/a&gt; stands on &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt;), &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt;) bears &lt;code&gt;二&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt;), &lt;code&gt;二&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt;) bears &lt;code&gt;三&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;em&gt;three&lt;/em&gt;), &lt;code&gt;三&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;em&gt;three&lt;/em&gt;) bears everything&quot;. That is to say, the entity of original chaos is &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt;; then the chaos origin &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; differentiates into &lt;code&gt;二极&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;em&gt;two extremes&lt;/em&gt;), the sky and the earth; and between the two extremes, there breed humans (the &lt;code&gt;三&lt;/code&gt;); And finally, everything in the universe are derived from the sky, the earth and the humans. In conclusion, 一 presents the whole of the chaos origin; 二, the top bar stands for the sky and the bottom bar stands for the earth; 三, the top and the bottom is respectively the sky and the earth, the middle represents humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Annotation&lt;/strong&gt;: The statement &quot;道立于一&quot; (Tao stands on &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt;) is a little different from &quot;道生一&quot; (Tao gives birth to &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt;) in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tao Te Ching&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. This paper &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-JMDZ20050100C.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;“道生一” “道始於一” “道立於一” 合解&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; offers a further discussion on this issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Explanation in 甲骨文字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;一&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eYHJt.png&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典：一&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】卜辭由一至四，字形作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dYVw5.png&quot; alt=&quot;一&quot;&gt;、&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EWCGx.png&quot; alt=&quot;二&quot;&gt;、&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MhuTD.png&quot; alt=&quot;三&quot;&gt;、&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZAmxY.png&quot; alt=&quot;亖&quot;&gt;，以積畫為數，當出於古之算籌。甲文金文均同。屬於指事字。從五至九，則利用假借字，其形作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JBhFD.png&quot; alt=&quot;五1&quot;&gt;（或&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZKE08.png&quot; alt=&quot;五2&quot;&gt;）、&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ic5ZK.png&quot; alt=&quot;六1&quot;&gt;（或&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/39NyR.png&quot; alt=&quot;六2&quot;&gt;）、&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ugZxR.png&quot; alt=&quot;七&quot;&gt;、&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0Zun5.png&quot; alt=&quot;八&quot;&gt;、&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cjGOA.png&quot; alt=&quot;九&quot;&gt;，至十則為豎形。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; The glyphs of one to four in oracle inscriptions are respectively &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dYVw5.png&quot; alt=&quot;一&quot;&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EWCGx.png&quot; alt=&quot;二&quot;&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MhuTD.png&quot; alt=&quot;三&quot;&gt;, and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZAmxY.png&quot; alt=&quot;亖&quot;&gt;. The method of counting strokes is used for representing the number. &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;It should originate from the ancient &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_rods&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;counting rods&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; Their glyphs in bronze scripts are the same to those in oracle scripts. And they belong to the self-explanatory characters. From five to nine, oracle script uses the loan characters: &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JBhFD.png&quot; alt=&quot;五1&quot;&gt; (or &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZKE08.png&quot; alt=&quot;五2&quot;&gt;), &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ic5ZK.png&quot; alt=&quot;六1&quot;&gt; (or &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/39NyR.png&quot; alt=&quot;六2&quot;&gt;), &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ugZxR.png&quot; alt=&quot;七&quot;&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0Zun5.png&quot; alt=&quot;八&quot;&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cjGOA.png&quot; alt=&quot;九&quot;&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;ten&lt;/em&gt; is a vertical shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2jPZ4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;象牙算籌&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;em&gt;Ivory Counting Rods in Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C. -- A.D. 8). Photographed by maverwolf in Shaanxi History Museum.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;二&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WhUm5.png&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典：二&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; The glyphs of one to four in oracle inscriptions are respectively &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dYVw5.png&quot; alt=&quot;一&quot;&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EWCGx.png&quot; alt=&quot;二&quot;&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MhuTD.png&quot; alt=&quot;三&quot;&gt;, and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZAmxY.png&quot; alt=&quot;亖&quot;&gt;. The method of counting strokes is used for representing the number. It should originate from the ancient &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_rods&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;counting rods&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note that, the two strokes of &lt;code&gt;二&lt;/code&gt; in oracle script should be of equal length. It is different from &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gdTUt.png&quot; alt=&quot;上&quot;&gt; (上) and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gk56Z.png&quot; alt=&quot;下&quot;&gt; (下).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;三&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wMbq1.png&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典：三&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; See explanation of &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Rubbings&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 032013: 貞(divine to predict) ?? 來(come)，一(one) 羌(western shepherd) 一(one) 牛(ox)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qvw3B.png&quot; alt=&quot;一(32013，一羌一牛)&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 034575: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BA%9A%E5%8D%88&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;庚午(year of 庚午)&lt;/a&gt; 貞(divine to predict) 餗(food in a cooking vessel)，餗 其(, a basket made by bamboo splits; it; its) 二(two) 牛(ox)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2O76C.png&quot; alt=&quot;二（34575，庚午貞餗 餗其二牛）&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 032110: 其 一(one) 羌(western shepherd) 三(three) 牛(oxen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kS5hy.png&quot; alt=&quot;三（32110，其一羌三牛）&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Criticism on &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3598&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Explanation of 一/二/三 in 象形字典 (Dictionary of Pictographs)&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The explanations of 一/二/三 in &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt; are some concepts from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《周易》(&lt;em&gt;I Ching&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《道德經》(&lt;em&gt;Tao Te Ching&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huainanzi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《淮南子》(&lt;em&gt;Huainanzi&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;. And such a statement for 一 is similar to that in 《說文解字》(&lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;惟初太始，道立于一，造分天地，化成萬物。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But let's consider these questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I Ching&lt;/em&gt; was one of the oldest Chinese classic text, written in Western Zhou Dynasty; &lt;em&gt;Tao Te Ching&lt;/em&gt; was written in Warring States Period (newer than &lt;em&gt;I Ching&lt;/em&gt;); And &lt;em&gt;Huainanzi&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; were even newer. So &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;question 1: was it possible for ancient Chinese people to have such philosophical thinking, before the early period of Shang Dynasty when oracle scripts were invented?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As number characters are very important in communication, they must appear at the early stage of oracle scripts. So &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;question 2: at that early stage, would ancient Chinese people create 一/二/三 by such abstract thinking rather than by concrete images?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately these two questions are both based on conjectures. So there isn't a definite &quot;yes&quot; or &quot;no&quot; answer. For question 1, I would say the earliest evidence we have found today is &lt;em&gt;I Ching&lt;/em&gt;, and personally I don't believe philosophical thinking like &quot;道立于一&quot; (Tao stands on &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt;) can date from an earlier period before the creation of the writing system. For question 2, it was illogical to invent the &quot;basic characters&quot; utilizing very abstract concepts, or, it would very probably make the communication become more difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_rods&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;算籌 (counting rods)&lt;/a&gt; were used by ancient Chinese for more than two thousand years. It was possible to appear during or before the creation period of oracle scripts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So in conclusion, for the explanation of etymology of 一/二/三, opinions in &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt; are more reliable: &lt;strong&gt;they should originate from the ancient counting rods.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-10-14T07:24:44.990" LastActivityDate="2013-10-14T07:24:44.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3889" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3895" CreationDate="2013-10-11T18:34:09.717" Score="7" ViewCount="430" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/7561910401&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;New Practical Chinese Reader&lt;/a&gt; introduces the following &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3501/how-does-cjk-decomposition-compare-to-the-wikimedia-commons-chinese-characters-d&quot;&gt;decomposition&lt;/a&gt;: na4 (那) = na4zi4pang2 + yi4 (阝).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that 阝 represents &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%98%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;radical 163&lt;/a&gt; (yi4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Na4zi4pang2 (pinyin) looks close to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%BD%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;radical 74&lt;/a&gt; (yue4, 月), but only close. It apparently is not a proper Chinese word or phrase that can be looked up in a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current guess that it is an arbitrary construct for a situation where one of the basic constituents of a composite character is not another basic character nor a radical, yet something that is also made up of strokes, and that the pinyin name is the concatenation of stroke names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could an expert and/or native speaker please confirm or otherwise clarify. I'm especially interested whether such constructs have Unicode font representations (and what the Unicode representation U+&lt;em&gt;xxxx&lt;/em&gt; of na4zi4pang2 would then be).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2333" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T00:02:12.307" Title="What is na4zi4pang2 (pinyin) in the decomposition of na4 (那)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3177" CreationDate="2013-10-11T18:45:40.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is done I would think in many cultures.  Here is the scenario:   The student for what ever reason is not properly prepared for the exam and he doesn't have time to study thoroughly as he should.  The reason he got to this point is not the issue, I assume the German phrase is talking about WHAT the student actually does.  The German way of phrasing it might be different from in English, but I would say that  what the student actually does to salvage what he can of this sad situation is &quot;spot study&quot;.  He selects topics he thinks or hopes will be on the exam and just uses his limited time to study these.  A slightly different view of the student would be to &quot;spot study areas that he does not know but he figures he needs  (to stop his normal studying ) to concentrate on these troublesome areas in case they come up.&#xA;Hope I understood your question, and that my answer is helpful to who might need it at this juncture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3350" LastActivityDate="2013-10-11T18:45:40.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3889" CreationDate="2013-10-12T01:07:55.350" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s62aW.png&quot; alt=&quot;那字旁&quot; /&gt; radical, but the left part of 那 can be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;冄 rǎn (the same as 冉)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;U+5184&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Seal Script&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oVQNp.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's because in the seal script, 那 is written as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rM7pV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The left part is 冄, and the right part (radical) is 邑. So in 說文解字, it is described as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从邑，冄聲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is better not to call 冄 a &amp;quot;radical&amp;quot;, because modern dictionaries and older dictionaries haven't listed it as a radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is interesting in 康熙字典, 那 has these interchangeable characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IF7yb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A4WOe.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But they are obsolete now, you should not use them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-12T01:07:55.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3889" CreationDate="2013-10-12T01:19:38.907" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you use the too &lt;a href=&quot;http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/tools/windows/native2ascii.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;native2ascii&lt;/a&gt;  you can convert any character / text to its ASCII representation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Applied to 那字旁 阝you get \u90a3\u5b57\u65c1 \u961d&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2817" LastActivityDate="2013-10-12T01:19:38.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3865" CreationDate="2013-10-12T02:27:50.467" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If not, why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no exact one-word equivalent of the concept of &quot;freedom&quot; in ancient Chinese, just as there are no exact one-word equivalent of 仁， 理， 道, etc. in Latin, Greek or any Western languages. That's not surprising: it is what makes our world an interesting world of differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't mean ancient Chinese did not have or need or seek such a thing as freedom; it means they divided their concepts differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Confucianist context, you could find something related to the freedom of speech in scholars' duty to admonition the ruler when his conduct is improper. Confucius did it himself, at the risk of his life. It could also be said that the Confucian emphasis on &quot;rites&quot; over laws is a way to define free will: I do not steal my neighbour's possessions, not because I am forced to obey the laws for fear of the police, but because I have freely accepted and internalized the &quot;rites&quot; which equate stealing from fellow human beings with a great loss of self-esteem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taoist context, there is an emphasis on spontaneous action done with a free mind, and on a refusal to be &quot;used&quot; (trying to be a twisted tree from which no furniture can be made) which relates to other connotations of our concept of freedom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Buddhism has its hole concept of freedom too, but I know much less about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer your &quot;If not, why not?&quot;, I'd say that the lack of exact one-word equivalent of freedom in ancient Chinese do not mean that Chinese culture is missing an essential part. It covers the same human needs, but differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="663" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-17T01:17:43.913" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T01:17:43.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3889" CreationDate="2013-10-12T09:24:48.727" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;(This answer strictly speaks to the question. There is also some good, related information in the other answers you may find interesting.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Na4zi4pang2&lt;/code&gt; is Pinyin for &lt;code&gt;那字旁&lt;/code&gt;, literally 'the radical from 那'. It's the name of the radical instead of pronunciation for a character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not an expert in character classification and (de)composition, I don't know in linguistics whether radicals are prescribed or can be defined by usage, hence I am unable to tell you whether the left side of &lt;code&gt;那&lt;/code&gt; is indeed a radical, is not a radical because Kangxi Dictionary didn't list it, or is not a radical because of some deeper logic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we can be sure that it is not a character, and I don't think there is a Unicode character for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-10-12T09:24:48.727" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3878" CreationDate="2013-10-13T01:18:10.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;羡慕 means envy&#xA;嫉妒 means jealous, jealousy, this is normally a negative word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here are some examples,&#xA;我羡慕你。 I envy you(maybe because you are good at singing.), which means that I hope to have the same thing that you have(I want to be as good at singing as you are.). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我嫉妒你。 I'm jealous of you(maybe because you are good at singing), the meaning overlaps with that of the previous sentence, but this sentence implies the probability that I might do something to stop you being that good, due to the fact that you are so good at singing, but I'm not as good as you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope I've made myself clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2013-10-13T01:18:10.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3852" CreationDate="2013-10-13T05:38:00.297" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever I see a character with two very different meanings (e.g. 重 heavy/again, 長 long/elder), I assume that it's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters#Rebus&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;phonetic loan character (also called rebus)&lt;/a&gt;. This is one of the five major types of Chinese characters (the Wikipedia article I linked to lists six, but I don't remember reading about the last case before, and from the sound of it it's so rare that we probably wouldn't classify it as a &quot;major&quot; type anyway).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, a couple millennia ago, when the Hanzi were still in flux, if a scribe wanted to write a word for which he didn't know a character (or may not have been invented), he'd simply borrow an existing character that had the same sound as the word he wanted to write. I would venture that this is what happened with 足.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this is something we usually think of as happening a long time ago (as I alluded to above), it's actually still happening today. A few that come to mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;米 for &lt;em&gt;meter&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;趴 for &lt;em&gt;percent&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;掰 for &lt;em&gt;goodbye&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;酷 for &lt;em&gt;cool&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those all happen to be English words that have been adopted/adapted into Chinese, but I'm sure there are other new words that young Chinese invent and assign existing characters. However, this idea of taking a foreign word and using a Chinese character to represent it is very true to the term &quot;rebus&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3360" LastEditorUserId="3360" LastEditDate="2014-01-30T05:18:33.993" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T05:18:33.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4898" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4899" CreationDate="2013-10-13T12:55:13.277" Score="6" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;is 趁早 the same as saying as soon as possible in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary defines 趁早 as &quot;as soon as possible&quot;, but can I use it by itself in a sentence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example , if someone asks me &quot;你什么时候想去吃饭?&quot; Can I just respond by saying &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;趁早&quot;. Or do I have to use an entire sentence like ”我趁早想去.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3342" LastActivityDate="2013-10-14T01:38:50.850" Title="is 趁早 the same as saying as soon as possible? Can I use it by itself?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4898" CreationDate="2013-10-13T16:00:04.647" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, 趁早 does not exactly mean ASAP (as soon as possible).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;趁&lt;/strong&gt; means to take the opportunity&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;早&lt;/strong&gt; means early&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, &lt;strong&gt;趁早&lt;/strong&gt; means take the opportunity while it is still early or at the earliest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to clarify further:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;趁早 carries an emphasis on the window of opportunity. There is a deadline when such opportunity will be lost. The urgency of the matter is &lt;em&gt;conditional&lt;/em&gt; on the window of opportunity. That is, it can be a very urgent matter that needs to be handled immediately, OR it can be a non-urgent matter that you can take your time as long as the opportunity still exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果你觉得这份工作不适合你，想要退出，要&lt;strong&gt;趁早&lt;/strong&gt;让我知道。&lt;br&gt; If you think that this job is not&#xA;  suitable for you and want to quit, let me know &lt;strong&gt;at the earliest&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  看起来又要下雨了，你还是&lt;strong&gt;趁早&lt;/strong&gt;把晾好的衣服给收起来吧。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Looks like it is going to rain again soon, better keep all the laundry that you have just hanged out to dry &lt;strong&gt;while it is still early&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better translation for ASAP would be &lt;strong&gt;尽快&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;if someone asks me &quot;你什么时候想去吃饭?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;我想尽快去吃&quot; to mean you would like to have your meal ASAP or &quot;现在&quot; to have your meal now if you are really in a rush.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-10-14T01:38:50.850" LastActivityDate="2013-10-14T01:38:50.850" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4900" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-13T16:34:17.437" Score="12" ViewCount="1218" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know when to use 同一 and when to use 一样 when describing items or people as similar?  What is the difference in usage between these two phrases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3364" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T13:07:54.863" Title="Difference between 同一 and 一样" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4900" CreationDate="2013-10-13T19:15:41.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;同一 is usually used to modify nouns to mean exactly the same object, as &lt;code&gt;同一种生物&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;the same species&lt;/code&gt;, not &lt;code&gt;同一生物&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;同一物种&lt;/code&gt; is okay), &lt;code&gt;同一房间&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;the same room&lt;/code&gt;), etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一样 usually does not mean exactly the same object, we do &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; say 一样房间 to mean 'the same room'. It means, from the wording (一+样), both things look the same (but they are different objects). For instance, &lt;code&gt;一样的房间&lt;/code&gt; means the decorations and furnishings are the same, but the rooms are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2013-10-13T19:15:41.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4900" CreationDate="2013-10-13T20:19:20.637" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;同一&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;identical&lt;/code&gt; and is usually used on identities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一样&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;equivalent&lt;/code&gt; and is usually used on properties or results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们去过&lt;b&gt;同一个&lt;/b&gt;商店。We've been to the same store.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这两个商店卖的东西是&lt;b&gt;一样&lt;/b&gt;的。These two stores sell the same stuffs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;同一&lt;/b&gt;首歌，&lt;b&gt;不同&lt;/b&gt;的人唱，感觉是&lt;b&gt;不一样&lt;/b&gt;的。The same song doesn't sound the same when it's sung by different singers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note there are some (idiomatic) exceptions to these rules, which can be another topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you've mentioned 'similar', neither of these two words means 'similar'. You may want to use &lt;code&gt;类似&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;相似&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;差不多&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;similar&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有过&lt;b&gt;类似&lt;/b&gt;的遭遇。I've had a similar experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们的性格很&lt;b&gt;相似&lt;/b&gt;. We're much alike in character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;几个目击者的说法都&lt;b&gt;差不多&lt;/b&gt;. What the witnesses said are pretty much the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-13T20:19:20.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4900" CreationDate="2013-10-13T20:31:10.003" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;A little digression: adding to the complexity is the phrase “同样”&#xA;So, I think the first step to distinguishing between 同一 , 同样, and 一样 would be breaking them down into characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning of '样' is “appearance, kind, type, sample”.&#xA;as user58955 mentioned, things with the same appearance/kind/type/sample do not have to be the identical thing. (However, &quot;同一&quot; may not even point to the same &quot;instance&quot; of an object, see example 2 below)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“一” and “同” may both mean &quot;same&quot; or &quot;similar&quot;. But &quot;一&quot; implies a constraint on number: there is only &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; same thing in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples that may be interesting and are harder to generalize:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is a famous TV show called “同一首歌”, i.e. The Same Song. No matter how many times it is sung, it is still the same &quot;song&quot; in the sense of &quot;the same combination of melody and lyrics, although it may be rendered with different instruments&quot;. &quot;一样&quot; is not used here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我和他买了*同一*本书。我们买了*一样*的书。We bought the same book. We bought the same book(books). (Although s/he and I bought the &quot;same book&quot;, we each have a copy. With &quot;一样的书&quot;, s/he and I may have bought the same set of books, not just 1)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我和他上*同一*所大学，我和他*一样（同样）*厉害。 I went to &lt;em&gt;the same university&lt;/em&gt; as he did. I am &lt;em&gt;as successful as&lt;/em&gt; he is. （“我们上一样的大学” is ok, but may lead to being asked whether the universities are identical)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这两种塑料经过了*同一*道生产线，有着*一样（同样）*的品质。 These two types of plastics are processed &lt;em&gt;in the same production line&lt;/em&gt;, and they are &lt;em&gt;of similar qualities&lt;/em&gt;. (“一样的生产线” is also ok, but needs disambiguation. They may not be the identical production line.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这两台iPhone 5看起来*一样（can't use 同样 here）*，但不是*同一*型号，因为一台是16GB的，一台是32GB的。 These two iPhone 5's look the same, but the are not of the identical model. The first is a 16GB model while the second one is a 32GB one. (“一样”'s usage as an adjective is demonstrated. It shall not be replaced with &quot;同一&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;在*同一*天，A市与B市天气*一样（同样）*糟糕。 City A's and City B's weathers are equally bad on the same day. （to use “同一” in the latter half of this sentence needs rephrasing a bit: “A市与B市有着同一种糟糕的天气” and sounds a little weird)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/js/6837.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/js/6837.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.italki.com/question/98940&quot;&gt;http://www.italki.com/question/98940&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3358" LastActivityDate="2013-10-13T20:31:10.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3858" CreationDate="2013-10-13T21:11:18.593" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;When used with certain words, &quot;中国&quot; may be perceived more as a cultural/historical concept that has a vague boundary on what you want to refer to (the people, the land, the culture, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 周杰倫的中國風音樂／周杰伦的中国风音乐. Jay Chou's Chinese style music. (Jay is a popular artist from Taiwan.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular example, 中國 is similar to 中華 (The cultural concept). I think this is because 中国风 implies the usage of traditional style melodies, musical instruments, and lyrics, which is rooted in the cultural artifacts that have been existing for many centuries. The boundaries of &quot;中国&quot; in “中国风” feels vague, just like the bound of &quot;China Proper&quot; has kept changing over the many past centuries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another similar example: “中国话／中國話／中文”， the Chinese Language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may also happen in the phrase “中国历史”. The &quot;中国&quot; in this particular example would refer to the China encompassing both Mainland and Taiwan before Taiwan was ceded to Japan during the signing of《馬關條約》in year 1895, and/or the China during the Tang dynasty that did not include today's Tibet.&#xA;The word &quot;China&quot; may not even just refer to a particular ethnic group, e.g. the Han ethnic group (that accounts for 95%+ of China's population as of today), and the Han has been practically ruled over several times during history. Examples are the fall of the Song dynasty in the 12th century and the fall of the Ming dynasty in the 17th century when the Manchus ruled. (However, the rulers began to use Chinese characters, which is an evidence that some say would justify that they were &quot;assimilated into China&quot;, rather than &quot;they annihilated China&quot;.) That is another example the word &quot;China&quot; may refer to a concept that has a vague ethnic boundary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;大陆&quot;, &quot;中国大陆&quot; and when &quot;中国&quot; is used independently today, there shall be an implied geographic bound in today's world, and the bound is usually much more clearly defined, although it may slightly differ on the person's political viewpoint. &quot;中国大陆&quot; and &quot;大陆&quot; are used (only) to refer to People's Republic of China founded in 1949.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A little &lt;em&gt;digression&lt;/em&gt; below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;中国&quot; is said to have gained its new meaning --- a modern &quot;country/sovereignty&quot; in 1912 when Republic of China was established, as an abbreviation of 中華民國 (1). Prior to that, &quot;中国&quot; may more often mean &quot;the central area/district/city&quot; or the capital city. Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“湘娥啼竹素女愁，李憑*中國*彈箜篌&quot; (《李憑箜篌引》， by 李賀, Tang Dynasty) (2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B#.E8.AF.8D.E6.BA.90&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B#.E8.AF.8D.E6.BA.90&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki&lt;/a&gt;/李凭箜篌引&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3358" LastEditorUserId="3358" LastEditDate="2013-10-15T05:44:23.460" LastActivityDate="2013-10-15T05:44:23.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3887" CreationDate="2013-10-14T01:02:29.067" Score="10" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Etymology of 四&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3602&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 四 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictograph&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“四”是特殊指事字，甲骨文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/adOTb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四1.gif&quot;&gt;的字形，表示其为“二”的两倍。造字本义：两倍于二的正整数。金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wUVFv.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四2.gif&quot;&gt;承续甲骨文字形。将金文的横笔竖写，就成了&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XB958.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四3.gif&quot;&gt;；将&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XB958.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四3.gif&quot;&gt;与&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Oucj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四4.gif&quot;&gt;（二，表示4是2的倍数）合写，就成了&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7c8wA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四5.gif&quot;&gt;。有的金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IRg1J.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四6.gif&quot;&gt;在&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7c8wA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四5.gif&quot;&gt;的基础上再加“二”&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Oucj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四4.gif&quot;&gt;，强调“四”&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wUVFv.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四2.gif&quot;&gt;与“二” &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Oucj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四4.gif&quot;&gt;的倍数关系。篆文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kfIok.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四7.gif&quot;&gt;省去金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IRg1J.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四6.gif&quot;&gt;中的“二”&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Oucj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四4.gif&quot;&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;四 is a special self-explanatory character. Its oracle glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/adOTb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四1.gif&quot;&gt; represents it is the twice of 二. The original idea of character construction: twice of 二. Its bronze glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wUVFv.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四2.gif&quot;&gt; is derived from the oracle glyph. If we write the strokes of the bronze script vertically, it becomes &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XB958.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四3.gif&quot;&gt;; and then combine &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XB958.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四3.gif&quot;&gt; and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Oucj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四4.gif&quot;&gt; (two, meaning 4 is twice of 2), it becomes &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7c8wA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四5.gif&quot;&gt;. Some bronze script &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IRg1J.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四6.gif&quot;&gt; is written as adding a two &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Oucj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四4.gif&quot;&gt; to &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7c8wA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四5.gif&quot;&gt;, emphasizing the multiple relationship between &quot;four&quot; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wUVFv.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四2.gif&quot;&gt; and &quot;two&quot; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Oucj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四4.gif&quot;&gt;. The seal script &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kfIok.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四7.gif&quot;&gt; omits &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Oucj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四4.gif&quot;&gt; in the bronze script &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IRg1J.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四6.gif&quot;&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Annotation&lt;/strong&gt;: note that there's &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;NO&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IRg1J.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四6.gif&quot;&gt; or &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kfIok.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四7.gif&quot;&gt; in oracle scripts. &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictograph&lt;/em&gt; here discusses three types of scripts -- oracle, bronze, and seal. For more interesting glyph of 四, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E5%9B%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Chinese etymology site&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Explanation in 甲骨文字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;四&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yMgVz.png&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典：四.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】甲骨文一、二、三、四皆以積畫成數，蓋取象於橫置之算籌。早期金文亦作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QkaOU.png&quot; alt=&quot;孟鼎四.png&quot;&gt;（孟鼎）、&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EtZjF.png&quot; alt=&quot;墙盘四.png&quot;&gt;（牆盤），與甲骨文同。至春秋戰國時期四字作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KRoR9.png&quot; alt=&quot;郘钟四.png&quot;&gt;（郘鐘）、&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yzskg.png&quot; alt=&quot;徐王子钟四.png&quot;&gt;（徐王子鐘）、&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ivB08.png&quot; alt=&quot;大梁鼎四.png&quot;&gt;（大梁鼎），為《說文》篆文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ozUKd.png&quot; alt=&quot;篆文四.png&quot;&gt;所本。此形乃借為數名。丁山謂其本為呬息字（《數名古誼》），馬敘倫則說為涕泗字（《中國文字之源流與研究方法之新傾向》）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; The method of counting strokes is used for representing the number in oracle 一, 二, 三, and 四. Their glyphs originate from counting rods that are put horizontally. Early bronze scripts were also carved as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QkaOU.png&quot; alt=&quot;孟鼎四.png&quot;&gt; (on 孟鼎 Meng cooking vessel), &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EtZjF.png&quot; alt=&quot;墙盘四.png&quot;&gt; (on 牆盤 Wall plate) -- the same as oracle glyph. During the Warring States period / Spring and Autumn Period, bronze 四 became &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KRoR9.png&quot; alt=&quot;郘钟四.png&quot;&gt; (on 郘鐘 Shao bell), &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yzskg.png&quot; alt=&quot;徐王子钟四.png&quot;&gt; (on 徐王子鐘 Prince Xu bell), &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ivB08.png&quot; alt=&quot;大梁鼎四.png&quot;&gt; (on 大梁鼎 Big Liang cooking vessel) -- they were the origin of the seal glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ozUKd.png&quot; alt=&quot;篆文四.png&quot;&gt; in &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;. The bronze 四 was a loan character. In &lt;em&gt;數名古誼&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;The Ancient Meaning of the Chinese Number Names&lt;/em&gt;) by 丁山 (Ding Shan), the origin of 四's bronze glyph is explained as &quot;from 呬(breathing) in 呬息 (breathing)&quot;; In &lt;em&gt;中國文字之源流與研究方法之新傾向&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;New Trend of Research Methods of the Etymology of Chinese Characters&lt;/em&gt;) by 馬敘倫 (Ma Xulun), it is explained as &quot;from 泗 (snot) in 涕泗 (tears and snot)&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Annotation&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Rebus_.28phonetic_loan.29_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;loan character / phonetic loan character / rebus character&lt;/a&gt;, as the name suggesting, are characters that are &quot;borrowed&quot; to write another homophonous or near-homophonous morpheme. &lt;strong&gt;So for the question &quot;where did bronze glyph 四 come from&quot;, 甲骨文字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle scripts&lt;/em&gt;) adopts two viewpoints: it came from 呬 or 泗.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3aXfY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;孟鼎&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;孟鼎 Meng cooking vessel.&lt;/strong&gt; Kept in National Museum of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w6DXb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;牆盤&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;牆盤 Wall plate.&lt;/strong&gt; Kept in Zhouyuan Institute of Administration of Cultural Relics, Fufeng Town, Baoji City, Shaanxi Province.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QYSqm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;郘鐘&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;郘鐘 Lü bell.&lt;/strong&gt; Kept in Shanghai Museum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/absEQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;徐王子鐘&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;徐王子鐘 Prince Xu bell.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Rubbings&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's play a game: can you find &lt;code&gt;四&lt;/code&gt; in these rubbings? &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Open the links in a new window/tab to view full-resolution image&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I49ij.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郘鐘拓片 (Rubbing of Lü bell).&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aMDAw.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;徐王子鐘拓片 (Rubbing of Prince Xu bell).&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/181Pv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大梁鼎拓片 (Rubbing of Big Liang cooking vessel).&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Criticism on &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3602&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Explanation of 四 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictograph&lt;/em&gt;)&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The major points of statements for 四 in &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictograph&lt;/em&gt; are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;亖&lt;/code&gt; meant twice of two.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7c8wA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四5.gif&quot;&gt; was the result of combining &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XB958.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四3.gif&quot;&gt; and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Oucj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四4.gif&quot;&gt;, emphasizing four was twice of two.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(Though &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictograph&lt;/em&gt; doesn't clearly state that, it implicitly suggests) the bronze four came from &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7c8wA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四5.gif&quot;&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;For statement 1&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, it is OK to explain it like that. Either &lt;code&gt;2x2=4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;counting strokes&lt;/code&gt; gives the correct answer. In &lt;em&gt;說文解字注&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Annotations on Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;) by 段玉裁 (Duan Yucai), it was&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;此筭法之二二如四也。&#xA;&#xA;This is a calculation &quot;two and two make four&quot;.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;二二如四 (two and two make four)&quot; would support the &quot;multiple relationship&quot; viewpoint, but not necessarily be the truth. Because there is already a &quot;multiple relationship&quot; rule (we will discuss it in the Etymology of 十) for carving a number: &lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;= 5&lt;/code&gt; times of ten, combine the multiplication factor below the character ten. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RBsD4.png&quot; alt=&quot;50.png&quot;&gt; = 50, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LHl5J.png&quot; alt=&quot;60.png&quot;&gt; = 60&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was not necessary to make a specific rule for constructing &lt;code&gt;亖&lt;/code&gt;. So I would prefer the &quot;counting strokes&quot; explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;For statement 2 &amp;amp; 3&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, if there's any oracle scripts carving like &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7c8wA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四5.gif&quot;&gt;, then no doubt it will be the correct answer. However, not only the oracle &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7c8wA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四5.gif&quot;&gt; has never been found, but also, classical annotations by ancient scholars didn't support such a statement. The entry 四 in &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EO7VW.gif&quot; alt=&quot;说文四.gif&quot;&gt;象四分之形。凡四之屬皆从四。(&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ay1Nl.gif&quot; alt=&quot;古文四.gif&quot;&gt;)，古文四。亖，&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B1%80%E6%96%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;籒文&lt;/a&gt;四。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Like dividing a shape into four pieces&lt;/strong&gt;. Characters that related to 四 have the radical 四.  is the ancient form of 四. 亖 is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B1%80%E6%96%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhouwen&lt;/a&gt; glyph of 四.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;'s viewpoint about the transformation from 亖 to 四 was then further confirmed in &lt;em&gt;Annotations on Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; by Duan Yucai in Qing Dynasty:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;古文四如此。小篆略改之。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;The ancient form was just like that. Seal script 四 modified it a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;亖&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;此筭法之二二如四也。二字㒳畫均長、則亖字亦四畫均長。今人作篆多誤。&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&amp;amp;chapter=755092&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;覲禮“四享”&lt;/a&gt;。鄭注曰。四當爲三。書作三四字或皆積畫。字相似。由此誤。聘禮注云“朝貢禮純四只”。鄭志。荅趙商問四當爲三。周禮內宰職注“天子巡守禮制幣丈八尺純四”。鄭志。荅趙商問亦云四當爲三。左傳“是四國者，專足畏也。”劉炫謂四當爲三。皆由古字積畫之故。按說文之例。先籒文。次古文。此恐轉寫誤倒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;This is a calculation &quot;two and two make four&quot;. Because the two strokes in 二 have equal length, the four strokes in 亖 should also have equal length. &lt;em&gt;覲禮&lt;/em&gt; said &quot;四享&quot;, and 鄭玄 commented on that: &quot;The &lt;em&gt;four&lt;/em&gt; should be &lt;em&gt;three&lt;/em&gt;. Both writing three and four are all &lt;em&gt;counting strokes&lt;/em&gt;, 三 and 亖 look alike, so it is misread.&quot; Similarly, for &quot;朝貢禮純四只&quot; in &lt;em&gt;聘禮注&lt;/em&gt;, 鄭玄 said &quot;&lt;em&gt;four&lt;/em&gt; should be &lt;em&gt;three&lt;/em&gt;&quot;; &quot;天子巡守禮制幣丈八尺純四&quot; in &lt;em&gt;周禮內宰職注&lt;/em&gt;, the same, &quot;&lt;em&gt;four&lt;/em&gt; should be &lt;em&gt;three&lt;/em&gt;&quot;; &quot;是四國者專足畏也&quot; in &lt;em&gt;左傳&lt;/em&gt;, 劉炫 said &quot;&lt;em&gt;four&lt;/em&gt; should be &lt;em&gt;three&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. Thus, these mistakes were all because of the similarity of 三 and 亖: following the convention of &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;, when copy-writing a book, one should write &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B1%80%E6%96%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhouwen&lt;/a&gt; first and then the ancient form, but the mistake would happen when messing up the order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, Duan Yucai's opinion suggests: &quot;because 三 and 亖 can be easily mistaken, seal script 四 modified a bronze glyph  a little to avoid that.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, now we can see, both &lt;em&gt;Annotations on Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; didn't support the statement &quot;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7c8wA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四5.gif&quot;&gt; was the result of combining &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XB958.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四3.gif&quot;&gt; and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Oucj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典四4.gif&quot;&gt;&quot;. What's worse, &lt;strong&gt;the statement of&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictograph&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;contradicts the bronze glyphs  and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KRoR9.png&quot; alt=&quot;郘钟四.png&quot;&gt; (on Lü bell)&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;But how about the statements for &quot;oracle 亖 =&gt; bronze 四&quot; in Dictionary of Oracle Scripts? Are they more reliable?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; I would say both 丁山 (Ding Shan) and 馬敘倫 (Ma Xulun) had done much more research work on it, though whether they were correct or not has not been confirmed yet, they did provide brilliant opinions on how the transformation happened. And there's no contradiction between their statement and the bronze scripts we have found. Thus, the statement of &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt; for 四 is more reliable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Part of paper &lt;em&gt;數名古誼&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;The Ancient Meaning of the Chinese Number Names&lt;/em&gt;) by 丁山 (Ding Shan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i62Jh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Click to view the scanning copy.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;四之見于卜辭金文者大抵與籀文同，惟郘鐘作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9noxu.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;，大梁鼎作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iyckt.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;；秦碣石頌始作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r16Cv.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;；許君據秦書說&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a8ujn.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;象四分形，則將謂&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NSzeV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;象五分，&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rP0Dw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;象六分乎？竊疑積畫爲&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DGjCn.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;者數名之本字；後之作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/znUCG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;者皆借呬爲之。秦權量刻辭凡云“不一”皆作“&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TTCVs.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;”(MY annotation: 不壹)其摹印“三川尉印”亦作“&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uYlPm.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;”(MY annotation: 叁川)，凡數名之形體簡易者皆代以繁縟之文；許君知一壹殊文，三叁異義，而不知&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ISt7o.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;借爲&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DGjCn.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;者何也。蓋狃于所習而忘古義耳。&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X8dAV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;从&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kSmDw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;，象口形，或作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9noxu.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iyckt.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;者，兼口舌气象之也；其中之八蓋猶&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LLqqx.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;下从八象气下引，&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eLs1h.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;上从八气象越于[亏]；郘鐘八下之一，蓋猶&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FSmLa.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ftA7v.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;之从一以像舌形，气蘊舌上而不能出諸口非呬而何；說文口部“&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cjgb6.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;，東夷謂息曰呬，从口，四聲。詩曰，犬夷呬矣”。“犬夷呬矣”今左傳引作“喙矣”，廣雅“喙，息也”，國語“余病喙矣”，韋注云“喙，短气貌”；以呬義證&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r16Cv.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;形，冥然若合符節，則四呬一字可以斷言。文字孳乳，有因借義習用已久，後人不復知其本義乃妄加偏傍以見之者，若&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wlDEf.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;加一&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EX3eA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;中以指其爲株榦字，後人習用赤色意而增木其以爲株；叜本象&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/glJsv.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;持火室內有所尋也，後人習用尊老意而增手其以爲：雖無損本義，終病其繁複無理。四本从口，而復从口作呬，繩之六書，不又病衍複乎？自造字原則言之，四卽呬之本字，尤信而有徵。蓋自周秦之際借气息之四爲數名之&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DGjCn.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;，別增口四以爲气息字，漢儒習而不察，以爲四卽數名本字；于是正俗別爲異字，通叚輥于一文，四之形義旣荒而“陰陽四分”之說以起；此古誼失傳後儒皆不得其解者二也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;四&lt;/code&gt;s seen in oracle inscriptions and bronze scripts were almost the same as &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B1%80%E6%96%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhouwen&lt;/a&gt;, only specially as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9noxu.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; in Lü bell, as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iyckt.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; in Big Liang cooking vessel. In &lt;em&gt;Ode to Jie Stone&lt;/em&gt; in Qin Dynasty, it began to appear as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r16Cv.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;. Xu Shen (the author of &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;) said &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a8ujn.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; was like &quot;a shape divided into four&quot; according to some reference in Qin Dynasty -- but following this opinion, would &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NSzeV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; be &quot;divided into five&quot;, and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rP0Dw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; be &quot;divided into six&quot;? Thus I think the &quot;counting stokes&quot; character &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DGjCn.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; would be the original character of the numeral, and later &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/znUCG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; were all borrowed from &lt;code&gt;呬&lt;/code&gt;. All &lt;code&gt;不一&lt;/code&gt;s on the inscriptions on the &lt;em&gt;Standard Prototype of Weight of Qin Dynasty&lt;/em&gt; were all carved as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TTCVs.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; (MY annotation: 不壹), and its imperial seal script &lt;code&gt;三川尉印&lt;/code&gt; was also carved as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uYlPm.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; (MY annotation: 叁川) -- all numerals originally written in a simple shape were replaced by complex characters. Mr. Xu knew 一 and 壹 were different characters, 三 and 叁 had different meanings, but he didn't know why &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ISt7o.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; was borrowed as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DGjCn.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;. That would be because he was blocked by what he had learnt and forgot its real ancient meaning. &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X8dAV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;'s radical was &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kSmDw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, like a mouth, some others written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9noxu.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; or &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iyckt.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; included the tongue and the breath besides the mouth. The &lt;code&gt;八&lt;/code&gt; shape was just like the bottom of &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LLqqx.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/sw/53EA.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;只&lt;/a&gt;), which meant &quot;leading breath / air downwards&quot;; or like the top of &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eLs1h.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, which meant &quot;breath / air went upwards&quot;. In Lü bell's &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9noxu.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, the &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; below &lt;code&gt;八&lt;/code&gt; was just like &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FSmLa.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;'s and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ftA7v.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;'s &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; representing the tongue: the breath on the tongue that couldn't go out was exactly what 呬 had described. The 口 radical chapter in &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; said &quot;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cjgb6.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, the eastern foreigners call breath (息) 呬. Radical 口. Pronounce like 四. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Poetry&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Classic of Poetry&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; said &lt;code&gt;犬夷呬矣&lt;/code&gt;.&quot; That &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8A%AC%E6%88%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;犬夷&lt;/a&gt;呬矣&quot; referenced in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuo_Zhuan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Zuo Zhuan&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; was &quot;喙矣&quot;; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangya&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Guangya&lt;/a&gt; explained it as &quot;喙, is 息(breath).&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guoyu_(book)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Guoyu&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; said &lt;code&gt;余病喙矣&lt;/code&gt; (I have difficulty in breathing.) &lt;em&gt;Annotations on Guoyu&lt;/em&gt; by &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9F%8B%E6%98%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wei Zhao&lt;/a&gt; explained it as &quot;喙, the appearance of breathing difficulty&quot;. Using the meaning of 呬 to explain &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r16Cv.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, it coincided quite well, so we could assert that 四 and 呬 are actually one character. With the development of the writing system, some characters had been borrowed to indicate some meaning for a long time, so it was easy for later generations to forget the original meaning of a character and then to add radicals to it unreasonably. For example, 一 was added to &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EX3eA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; to mean the trunk of a tree (&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wlDEf.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;), later the character 朱 was usually used to mean &quot;red&quot;, so people added the radical 木, making &quot;株&quot; to denote its original meaning; 叜 (search) originally illustrated searching things in a room (宀) with a torch (火) held by a hand (又), and later the character was used to mean &quot;old man&quot;, so people added the radical 扌, making &quot;&quot; to denote its original meaning. Though this would not distroy the original meaning, I was dissatisfied with its unreasonable complexity. 四 had already had the radical 口, but redundantly being added 口 to form 呬, even if it met the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;six writings&lt;/a&gt;, wouldn't it be too complex? According to the rules of making characters, it is well-documented to assert 四 is the original character of 呬. During Zhou Dynasty and Qin Dynasty, 四 was borrowed to be the numeral &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DGjCn.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, and added 口 making 呬 to denote the original &quot;breath&quot; character. Students in Han Dynasty learnt it but hadn't noticed that, and then they considered it was the original character of four. After that, variants became more and more, the original meaning of 四 was forgotten and meanwhile the opinion &quot;Yin-Yang divided into four&quot; was developing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Part of paper &lt;em&gt;中國文字之源流與研究方法之新傾向&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;New Trend of Research Methods of the Etymology of Chinese Characters&lt;/em&gt;) by 馬敘倫 (Ma Xulun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k8PKV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Click to view the scanning copy.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;說文裏四字是篆文，古文寫作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lii3J.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;，籀文寫作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QGNRk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;，其實四&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QGNRk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;是兩個不同意思的字。四字曹籀以爲是泗的初文，象鼻子裏有涕。其實四字的確從鼻，鼻字的初文是自和白。（不是黑白的白。）說文疐字下說：“叀者，如叀牛之鼻。”（今本牛誤做馬。）王筠說：“叀中之&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a4hue.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;，乃牛鼻也。”我看了郘鐘裏的&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nHSmJ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;字，大梁鼎裏的&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hNpr5.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;字，相信這話不錯。&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nHSmJ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;字從白，&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hNpr5.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;字從自，古文經傳裏寫作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lii3J.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;，是從&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AJQL0.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;，&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AJQL0.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;也是鼻字，甲文有的。八是四所從得聲的，所以八四兩個字收音都在脂類。至於&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QGNRk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;字卻是數目的四字。羅振玉對於古文籀文還沒有弄得明白，也不曉得四&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QGNRk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;兩個不同意思的字，所以他以為&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lii3J.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;是“晚周文字，錢先生所謂古文之別字。”（這是錢大昕的話，可是前人已經糾正過他的了。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;四 in &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; is written in the seal script, its ancient form is &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lii3J.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, and Zhouwen is &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QGNRk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;. In fact, 四 and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QGNRk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; are two characters with different meanings. Cao Zhou considered 四 was the origin of 泗, which looked like having snot in the nose. Actually, 四's meaning comes from nose (鼻), the origin of 鼻 is 自 or 白. (Here 白 doesn't mean &lt;em&gt;white&lt;/em&gt;). The entry of 疐 in &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; says: &quot;叀 is like the nose ring on an ox.&quot; (New versions of &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; mistakes 牛(ox) for 馬(horse).) Wang Jun said: &quot;The &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a4hue.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; part in the character 叀 is just the ox nose.&quot; When I saw Lü Bell's &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nHSmJ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, and Big Liang cooking vessel's &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hNpr5.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, I believed it was true. &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nHSmJ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; comes from 白, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hNpr5.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; comes from 自. In canons written with ancient form characters, it is written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lii3J.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, which comes from &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AJQL0.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; -- &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AJQL0.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; also means nose, which can be found in oracle scripts. 八 is where 四 comes from, so when 八 and 四 are indexed by a dictionary, both are kept in the 脂 category (MY annotation: modern dictionaries don't adopt that method, if you are interested in how it was carried out in ancient times, you can read older dictionaries like &lt;em&gt;廣韻 Guangyun&lt;/em&gt;). As for &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QGNRk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; that meant numeral four, Luo Zhenyu neither understood the difference between &quot;the ancient form&quot; and &quot;Zhouwen&quot;, nor knew 四 and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QGNRk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; were two different characters. So he mistook &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lii3J.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; for &quot;character in late Zhou Dynasty, which Mr. Qian considered a wrongly written character of an ancient form.&quot; (This was what Qian Daxin said, but there had been somebody correcting him before.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2014-06-12T06:30:40.893" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T06:30:40.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4907" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-14T11:40:26.420" Score="1" ViewCount="7909" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does the word pronounced as &quot;ma&quot; in Cantonese Chinese mean in English?  I understand that this syllable has five different meanings according to how it is inflected.  What are the five different meanings of this syllable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3367" LastActivityDate="2013-10-14T13:16:57.213" Title="What does the word pronounced as &quot;ma&quot; in cantonese chinese mean in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2013-10-15T18:31:09.740" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4907" CreationDate="2013-10-14T13:16:57.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since &lt;em&gt;ma&lt;/em&gt; in Jyutping isn't a valid syllable according to Cantonese &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;phonotactics&lt;/a&gt;, I assume you mean Jyutping &lt;em&gt;maa&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Hong Kong Cantonese has six tones, of which five are indeed valid contours for the syllable &lt;em&gt;maa&lt;/em&gt;. I'll use the Jyutping tone numbers below, giving an example word for each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First tone (high level): &lt;em&gt;maa1&lt;/em&gt; 媽 (mother), 孖 (twin)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Second tone: not possible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Third tone (mid level): &lt;em&gt;maa3&lt;/em&gt; 嗎 (question particle)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fourth tone (low falling): &lt;em&gt;maa4&lt;/em&gt; 麻 (hemp)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fifth tone (low rising): &lt;em&gt;maa5&lt;/em&gt; 馬 (horse)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sixth tone (low level): &lt;em&gt;maa6&lt;/em&gt; 罵 (scold, abuse)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2013-10-14T13:16:57.213" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4909" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4910" CreationDate="2013-10-14T17:52:13.727" Score="4" ViewCount="4271" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese saying roughly equivalent in meaning to &quot;turning lemons into lemonade&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;When life gives you lemons, make lemonade&quot; is a proverbial phrase&#xA;  used to encourage optimism and a can-do attitude in the face of&#xA;  adversity or misfortune. &quot;Lemons&quot; in this expression is used in the&#xA;  informal sense of the word, to indicate an unfortunate or inadequate&#xA;  situation, a meaning which probably stems from the sour and acidic&#xA;  taste of unsweetened lemon. &quot;Lemonade&quot; on the other hand, is a&#xA;  sweetened form of this same acerbic fruit, and so in the context of&#xA;  this expression, conveys the potential for pleasure and opportunity in&#xA;  seemingly bad situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3370" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-10-15T01:46:44.990" LastActivityDate="2013-10-15T01:46:44.990" Title="Something like &quot;turning lemons into lemonade&quot;" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4909" CreationDate="2013-10-14T18:34:52.473" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some phrases of close meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;化干戈为玉帛   turn hostility into peace;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;转危为安 / 化险为夷       turn danger into safety;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;化压力为动力   turn the pressure of life into power;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;转悲为喜 turn sorrow into joy;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;化悲痛为力量   turn sadness into power;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;变废为宝    turn rubbish into useful things;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;化失败为教训  turn failure into lessons&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastActivityDate="2013-10-14T18:34:52.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4900" CreationDate="2013-10-14T20:12:53.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;同一 is a bit stronger than 一样.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同一 means the same &lt;strong&gt;thing&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA; 一样 means the same &lt;strong&gt;kind&lt;/strong&gt; (of thing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2013-10-14T20:12:53.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4912" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-15T01:41:52.427" Score="3" ViewCount="544" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Question&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does Chinese have sets of phrases that cover both basic and complex strokes that are memorizable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Situation&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Within Alphabetic based languages we would be able to practice handwriting using a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangram&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pangram&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Victor jagt zwölf Boxkämpfer quer über den großen Sylter Deich&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When zombies arrive, quickly fax judge Pat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This way we can practice writing in a real application because it utilizes the full alphabet of a given language&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Principles_of_Yong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Eight Principles of Yong&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; (image below) does contain the basic strokes but it's as useful for handwriting practice as writing out the alphabet in alphabetic based languages. Good for learning the basics but not practical once you start writing out fully qualified sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VjCi5.png&quot; alt=&quot;Eight Principles of Yong&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Character_Classic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Thousand Character Classic&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; was another piece I found but it's impractical to use as there is no way I can memorize&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly I found the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3602/how-to-improve-my-chinese-writing&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;How to improve my Chinese writing&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; to be very useful but only to the extent of how to critic ones own handwriting not so much on what to write out to review&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Definitions used&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To qualify the difference between basic and complex strokes below is picture of the Unicode CJK standard for strokes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O1LTl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T02:12:47.550" Title="Does a similar system to a pangram exist for handwriting practice" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="826" CreationDate="2013-10-15T02:03:31.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;just to tell you something relevant real quick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2, this is normally considered a way of calling others stupid, silly, foolish, particularly among youngsters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4, means death, to do with superstitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6, means everything is peachy, nothing is currently bad or going to be bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8, means to be wealthy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9, the only thing related to this number I can come up with is somewhat religious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;38, a bad way to call women, similar to the word &quot;bitch&quot; in English. By the way, March eighth is women's day in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;88, cyber language, it means bye bye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;250, you can consider this the full form of 2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;290, equals 250 + 38 + 2, you figure it out yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;520, means I love you(我爱你). 5 sounds similar to 我, 2 sounds similar to 爱, though I have no  idea why 0 stands for 你(you) here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1314, sounds similar to 一生一世, which means the whole of someone's life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2013-10-15T02:03:31.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3887" CreationDate="2013-10-15T15:59:56.460" Score="10" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Etymology of 五&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3603&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 五 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“五”也是特殊指事字，“五”的甲骨文字形&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f7G4L.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典五1.gif&quot;&gt;用一个叉号寓意天、地万物的交汇，以表示大于“四”的正整数。有的甲骨文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/51Mt5.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典五2.gif&quot;&gt;在字形&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f7G4L.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典五1.gif&quot;&gt;（万物交汇）基础上加&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Oucj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典五3.gif&quot;&gt;（天地之间），造字本义：金、木、水、火、土等宇宙的构成要素，代表天地间万物构成元素的极限数，大于四，小于六。在造字时期的远古时代，一，二，三，四，五，六，七，八，九，十，都曾是极限数。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;五 is also a special self-explanatory character. Its oracle glyph uses a cross &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f7G4L.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典五1.gif&quot;&gt; to imply &quot;meeting of everything between the sky and the earth&quot;, indicating a number larger than four. Some oracle &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/51Mt5.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典五2.gif&quot;&gt; adds &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Oucj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典五3.gif&quot;&gt; (between the sky and the earth) to the basic &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f7G4L.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典五1.gif&quot;&gt; (meeting of everything). The original idea of character construction: ancient Chinese people thought 金 (metal), 木 (wood), 水 (water), 火 (fire), and 土 (earth) were the elements of the universe, so the number of the elements was used to imply an extreme, which was larger than four and less than six. In the period of the construction of oracle scripts, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten, all had been once used as an &quot;extreme&quot; number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Explanation in 甲骨文字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;五&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mG51y.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典：五.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】甲骨文子午之午作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uT6II.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五1.gif&quot;&gt;，本以束絲之交午形，會意為啎，借為地支之午。束絲表示交午之全形，具體之交午在束絲中部之二斜畫相交作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m8CaW.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五2.gif&quot;&gt;形，故甲骨文借用為數詞之五，或啎逆之啎。又為明確表示交午之意，更于束絲之兩環形中部截除上下兩段，只保留中段，即由&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZNcST.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五3.gif&quot;&gt;形而為&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9tpzx.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五4.gif&quot;&gt;形，或更於之交貫部位加指事符號&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XQy1N.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五5.gif&quot;&gt;而作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/izoGC.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五6.gif&quot;&gt;，此二字形於卜辭中專作數詞之用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【釋義】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;啎，相冓（遘）也，祭名。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;數詞。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; In oracle scripts, 午 in 子午 (meridian) was written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uT6II.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五1.gif&quot;&gt;. Its original meaning was &quot;the shape of crossing two bunches of silk threads&quot;. And it was an ideogram for 啎 (meet), then borrowed by 午 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthly_Branches&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;earthly branches&lt;/a&gt;. &quot;Crossing two bunches of silk threads&quot; showed the whole image, but the actual &quot;crossing / meeting&quot; was located in the middle by two slant strokes as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m8CaW.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五2.gif&quot;&gt; shape. Thus in oracle scripts, it was used as a phonetic loan character for &quot;the numeral 五&quot; or &quot;啎 (meet)&quot;. To clearly indicate the &quot;crossing / meeting&quot; meaning, the head and the bottom were then cut off, i.e. the shape changed from &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZNcST.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五3.gif&quot;&gt; to &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9tpzx.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五4.gif&quot;&gt;; and an indicating symbol &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XQy1N.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五5.gif&quot;&gt; could be even also added to the exact point where &quot;crossing&quot; happened, so that the glyph became &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/izoGC.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五6.gif&quot;&gt;. These two glyphs were specifically used as the numeral in oracle inscriptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Meaning]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;啎, meet, name for the sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Numeral five.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Rubbings&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 029733. &lt;code&gt;今旬五雨&lt;/code&gt; (During this period of ten days, it has rained five times).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wHI1i.gif&quot; alt=&quot;五：029733.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;em&gt;殷契粹编&lt;/em&gt; written by Guo Moruo, No. 1149: &lt;code&gt;癸巳卜王其令五族戍朕伐[??]&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IU7JD.gif&quot; alt=&quot;五：郭沫若殷契粹编1149.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;em&gt;殷契佚存&lt;/em&gt; written by Shang Chengzuo, No. 224: &lt;code&gt;五鹿隻四鹿隻&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/myY1z.gif&quot; alt=&quot;五：商承祚殷契佚存.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Criticism on &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3603&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 五 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one point that the two dictionaries agree, &quot;the glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9tpzx.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五4.gif&quot;&gt; has a meaning of &lt;em&gt;crossing / meeting&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, however, they explain it in very different ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main opinion of &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;, though being not explicitly stated, is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Crossing between the sky and the earth =&gt; Element of everything =&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;五行 (Wu Xing)&lt;/a&gt; =&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Five&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the earliest record of Wu Xing found today can only date from the end of Western Zhou Dynasty (See &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%94%E8%A1%8C&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;). Similar to the entry of 一/二/三, it was not so possible for ancient Chinese people to develop these philosophy ideas during the period of creating the writing system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt; says it is a phonetic loan character. That is more reliable, because there are some cases that &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m8CaW.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典五2.gif&quot;&gt; doesn't mean &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;five&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; but just the name of the sacrifice (see 【释义】1. / &lt;strong&gt;[Meaning]1.&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-10-17T05:44:17.707" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T05:44:17.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4915" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4916" CreationDate="2013-10-15T17:05:07.460" Score="4" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couple of Chinese dictionaries I used says for 以来, part of speech is 名 (noun).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since in an English dictionary says preposition first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it incorrect to assume a direct correlation between parts of speech between Chinese and English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2013-10-15T18:21:27.807" Title="&quot;以来&quot; - Chinese dictionary says noun. &quot;Since&quot; in English dictionary says preposition, conjunction. Distinction?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4915" CreationDate="2013-10-15T18:16:24.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There has been an argument for this topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.huayuqiao.org/articles/yuwenjianshetongxun/7805.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;, the author stated that &quot;以来&quot; is a &quot;方位词&quot;. Which can be seen in reference &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.huayuqiao.org/articles/yuwenjianshetongxun/7805.htm#_ftnref6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;5&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.huayuqiao.org/articles/yuwenjianshetongxun/7805.htm#_ftnref13&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;12&lt;/a&gt;, it is also refered to as &quot;动态助词&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.hk/search?q=%E6%96%B9%E4%BD%8D%E8%AF%8D&amp;amp;oq=%E6%96%B9%E4%BD%8D%E8%AF%8D&amp;amp;aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.1375j0j9&amp;amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;amp;espv=210&amp;amp;es_sm=122&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;方位词&lt;/a&gt;&quot; is a type of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese, which represents the &lt;em&gt;location&lt;/em&gt; (of space / time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.hk/search?q=%E5%8A%A8%E6%80%81%E5%8A%A9%E8%AF%8D&amp;amp;oq=%E5%8A%A8%E6%80%81%E5%8A%A9%E8%AF%8D&amp;amp;aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.772j0j9&amp;amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;amp;espv=210&amp;amp;es_sm=122&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;动态助词&lt;/a&gt;&quot; is a type of Chinese &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;particle&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, you can read it from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.hk/search?q=%E5%8A%A8%E6%80%81%E5%8A%A9%E8%AF%8D&amp;amp;oq=%E5%8A%A8%E6%80%81%E5%8A%A9%E8%AF%8D&amp;amp;aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.772j0j9&amp;amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;amp;espv=210&amp;amp;es_sm=122&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's get back to the disagreement. &quot;以来&quot; is defined as a &quot;方位词&quot; in《现代汉语八百词》by 吕叔湘 while is is again defined as a &quot;动态助词&quot; in《现代汉语虚词词典》by 侯学超.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.hk/search?q=%E5%8A%A8%E6%80%81%E5%8A%A9%E8%AF%8D&amp;amp;oq=%E5%8A%A8%E6%80%81%E5%8A%A9%E8%AF%8D&amp;amp;aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.772j0j9&amp;amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;amp;espv=210&amp;amp;es_sm=122&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;动态助词&lt;/a&gt;&quot; also gets its formal definition in《现代汉语八百词》. So if you ask me, I prefer to believe it is a &quot;方位词&quot;, which is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the different part of speech of the word &quot;since&quot; appearing in English, I guess it is because that &quot;since&quot; is translated as &quot;自……以来&quot;, not just &quot;以来&quot;. &quot;自……以来&quot; IS a preposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastEditorUserId="2421" LastEditDate="2013-10-15T18:21:27.807" LastActivityDate="2013-10-15T18:21:27.807" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4912" CreationDate="2013-10-16T02:06:52.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you've pretty much answered your question. No there is no exact equivalent - an easily-memorised group of phrases that you can write repeatedly, to practice handwriting. There are two options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For basic practice of writing strokes, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Principles_of_Yong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Eight Principles of Yong&lt;/a&gt; is fine; you may even practice one stroke repeatedly, for example if you were doing brush calligraphy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To practice getting the shape and positioning of strokes/characters right, it is necessary to practice with a large corpus. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Character_Classic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Thousand Character Classic&lt;/a&gt; is a good option but you can substitute with your favourite poem or article. The point is to practice writing strokes and radicals that are different shapes and sizes, and getting their proportions right.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-10-16T02:06:52.627" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3885" CreationDate="2013-10-16T03:33:29.697" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a chinesse girl, if we meet a man with three of those at this time, we call him as 男神（just like 女神goddes,who are perfect）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;there is 才貌耀德 you can use it in writing, but don't use in oral Chinese.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3373" LastEditorUserId="3373" LastEditDate="2013-10-17T09:31:41.193" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T09:31:41.193" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="826" CreationDate="2013-10-16T06:54:22.130" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add onto the @laguna's and @thisiseast's answers there are a lot of different ways in sms/cyber chats that you would use numbers in place of what would Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Format:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;Numerical value | Chinese Number / Chinese words they mean | Translation&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;56 五六 / 无聊 Bored&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5201314 五二零一三一四 / 我爱你一生一世 I love you for a lifetime&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8384 八三八四 / 不三不四 Dubious&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;282 二八二 / 饿不饿 Are you hungrey&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;530 五三零 / 我想你 I miss you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;168 一六八 / 加油吧 Come on (Cheer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;246 二四六 / 饿死了 Staving to death&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;740 七四零 / 气死你 mad at you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;70 七零 / 亲你 Kiss you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFTW_abinnM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;How to Speak with Numbers in Chinese&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/NTDOffTheGreatWall?feature=watch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Off the Great Wall&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastActivityDate="2013-10-16T06:54:22.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4924" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5000" CreationDate="2013-10-16T23:00:31.233" Score="3" ViewCount="455" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;歪打正着“ in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I brought a gift to someone's place for appreciation of his help, but he wasn't there. Several days later, I went there with the gift again, and he was there, and that day happened to be his birthday. So the gift happened to be also for his birthday celebration&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in Chinese, it is kind of &quot;歪打正着“. How would you say it in English for such an example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T20:26:07.733" Title="How to say &quot;歪打正着“ in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4924" CreationDate="2013-10-17T00:05:21.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;Hit by a fluke&quot; conveys that meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3378" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T00:05:21.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3887" CreationDate="2013-10-17T07:33:28.643" Score="7" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Etymology of 六&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3604&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 六 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“六”是象形字，甲骨文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/79oVV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六1.gif&quot;&gt;像房屋的外形框架&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kb7nb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六2.gif&quot;&gt;，有立墙、斜顶，表示房屋的空间维度：四壁加屋顶地板两面。有的甲骨文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eZqo7.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六3.gif&quot;&gt;再突出了屋脊，像屋顶的烟囱。造字本义：庐，由四面墙，以及屋顶、地面两面构成的房屋。金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8GyK9.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六4.gif&quot;&gt;承续甲骨文字形。有的金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FgKkk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六5.gif&quot;&gt;变形了墙壁形象。篆文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mQEXH.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六6.gif&quot;&gt;则将金文的屋顶形象&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UDpSb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六7.gif&quot;&gt;变形成费解的&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hOsnV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六8.gif&quot;&gt; 。隶书&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mXDxP.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六9.gif&quot;&gt;继续变形屋顶形象。“六”作为单纯数字之后，后人再加“盧”（器皿中装着兽肉）另造“廬”代替，表示生活栖息的空间。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;六 was a pictographic character. Its oracle glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/79oVV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六1.gif&quot;&gt; looked like the frame of a cottage &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kb7nb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六2.gif&quot;&gt;. There were walls and a slant roof, indicating the spacial dimension of the cottage: four walls plus one roof and one floor. Some oracle glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eZqo7.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六3.gif&quot;&gt; stuck a stroke in the ridge, and it looked like a chimney. The original idea of character construction: 庐 (cottage) made by four walls, a roof and a floor. Bronze glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8GyK9.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六4.gif&quot;&gt; was derived from the oracle glyph. Some bronze glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FgKkk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六5.gif&quot;&gt; deformed the shape of the walls. Seal glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mQEXH.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六6.gif&quot;&gt; further deformed the roof &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UDpSb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六7.gif&quot;&gt; in bronze glyphs to an obscure shape &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hOsnV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六8.gif&quot;&gt;. Clerical scripts &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mXDxP.gif&quot; alt=&quot;象形字典六9.gif&quot;&gt; continued the deformation of the roof. After 六 being used only as a numeral, ancient Chinese people added 盧 (container with meat) and made a new character 廬 to represent the space for living.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Explanation in 甲骨文字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;六&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lgBdU.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典：六.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vg5C1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六1.gif&quot;&gt;象兩壁架有一極兩宇之棚舍正視形，此為田野中臨時寄居之處，其結構簡易，暴露於野，即古之所謂廬。《說文-广部》：“廬，寄也。秋冬去，春夏居。”廬六古音近，故&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vg5C1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六1.gif&quot;&gt;得借為數詞六。而作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Hk0v.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六2.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3mabV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六3.gif&quot;&gt;形者乃象圓形或方形圍牆上架以屋頂，東西南北四方全為屋頂所覆，與&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vg5C1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六1.gif&quot;&gt;之為兩柱屋，即左右兩壁上架棚，前後無牆壁遮阻之形有別。&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Hk0v.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六2.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3mabV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六3.gif&quot;&gt;實為宀之初文。《說文》：“宀，交覆深屋也。”&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Hk0v.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六2.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3mabV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六3.gif&quot;&gt;與&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vg5C1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六1.gif&quot;&gt;形近，故卜辭皆借為數目字六。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vg5C1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六1.gif&quot;&gt; looked like the front view of a cottage building with two roof sides and one roof beam on two walls. It was a temporary place for living on the field, had a simple structure, and kept open on the field, i.e. 廬 (cottage / hut). Radical 广 chapter in &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; said: &quot;廬, temporary place for living, not for autumn and winter but only for spring and summer.&quot; The ancient pronunciations of 廬(cottage) and 六(six) were similar, so &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vg5C1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六1.gif&quot;&gt; was borrowed as the numeral six. Some glyphs &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Hk0v.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六2.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3mabV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六3.gif&quot;&gt; were the shape of building a roof on a round or a square fence -- the roof covered all directions -- it was different from &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vg5C1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六1.gif&quot;&gt;, which had only two uprights (two walls) and a roof but lacked walls in the front and the back side. &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Hk0v.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六2.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3mabV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六3.gif&quot;&gt; were actually the original glyph of 宀. &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; said &quot;宀, house with all directions covered.&quot; Because &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Hk0v.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六2.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3mabV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六3.gif&quot;&gt; were similar to &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vg5C1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六1.gif&quot;&gt;, oracle inscriptions borrowed all of them as the numeral six. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Rubbings&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 032320. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8A%E7%94%B2%E5%BE%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;上甲&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;code&gt;燎六羊...其有...丑&lt;/code&gt; (Shangjia had roasted six goats ... [and some unrelated characters 其有...丑]).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/l1d2N.gif&quot; alt=&quot;六：032320.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 001374. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%B8%E9%85%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;癸酉&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;code&gt;卜, 侑于(之)成, 六月&lt;/code&gt; (Year of &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%B8%E9%85%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Guiyou&lt;/a&gt;, divine to predict. Sacrifice in Cheng. Sixth Month.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yiWZC.gif&quot; alt=&quot;六：001374癸酉卜，侑于成，之，六月.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Criticism on &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3604&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 六 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both the dictionaries consider the oracle six was the image of 廬 (cottage / hut). The major distinction is &quot;why it meant six&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;: the hut had six directions, front, back, left, right, up (roof), and down (floor), so the image stood for six.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;: again, the oracle glyph of six is considered as a phonetic loan character. Though we might never know why the numeral six was pronounce in that way, but 六 (as the image of hut) sounded like the numeral six in the period of making characters, thus it was used to indicate the numeral six.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;phonetic loan character&quot; opinion actually has some variants, e.g. Ding Shan said &quot;古皆借入为六&quot; (ancient Chinese borrowed &lt;code&gt;入&lt;/code&gt; to indicate six) in &lt;em&gt;数名古谊&lt;/em&gt;. This is quite reasonable, because an oracle glyph of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://images.gg-art.com/dictionary/oracledict.php?page=578&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;入&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;∧&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, which is exactly the same to some oracle inscription &lt;em&gt;six&lt;/em&gt; (and they also sounded similar). But personally I believe the 廬 (hut) opinion is more convincing, because in oracle bones found today, the number of appearances of &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vg5C1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六1.gif&quot;&gt; is greater than that of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;∧&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Besides, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vg5C1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典六1.gif&quot;&gt; was very similar to the top of the oracle glyph &lt;a href=&quot;http://images.gg-art.com/dictionary/oracledict.php?page=590&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;高&lt;/a&gt;. This would be a circumstantial evidence. Anyway, whichever &quot;phonetic loan character&quot; opinion is easy to be self-consistent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about the &quot;six directions&quot; opinion? Yes it was also possible to be true. But the most serious problem is, like rubbing No. 001374 above, the oracle glyph six could be like &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;∧&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Archaeologists have found that in the early period of Shang Dynasty, people lived in caves. The &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;∧&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; would just mean some coverings as the shape of the roof, there wasn't any &quot;wall&quot; like the modern concept. So, how could ancient Chinese people count directions to six?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-10-18T06:52:06.790" LastActivityDate="2013-10-18T06:52:06.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4928" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4931" CreationDate="2013-10-17T17:33:09.570" Score="6" ViewCount="437" Body="&lt;p&gt;Absolutely the best first question I've ever asked on any site, ever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've considered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃豆腐 (but I don't think this is limited to physical actions)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;偷偷亂摸&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;猴子偷桃 (but I think this is too specific?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a colloquial phrase or saying that approaches the English meaning and feel?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3382" LastEditorUserId="3124" LastEditDate="2013-10-17T20:25:03.303" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T20:51:51.770" Title="What's the most accurate translation for &quot;copping a feel&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4928" CreationDate="2013-10-17T18:11:43.303" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;吃豆腐 (Chī dòufu): You're right, &quot;Eating someone's tofu&quot; can be physical actions (&lt;em&gt;copping a feel&lt;/em&gt;) or biting someone's style. But I think this is as close to what you're looking for in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;These also work:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Description: 调情时抚摸 (Tiáoqíng shí fǔmō) Touching someone while flirting &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;耍流氓 (Shuǎ liú máng): Hoodlum. Or what someone may call someone who copped a feel (not so much the act of copping a feel). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咸猪手 (Xián zhūshǒu): Someone dirty who gropes at people, tries to &quot;cop a feel&quot;. (lit: Salty Pig Hand). Ex: 请你的咸猪手跟我的朋友保持距离 (Qǐng nǐ de xián zhūshǒu gēn wǒ de péngyǒu bǎochí jùlí) &lt;em&gt;Please keep your salty pig hands away from my friend&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;动手动脚 (Dòngshǒu dòng jiǎo): be &quot;handsy&quot; with someone (lit: move hands move feet)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-10-17T20:51:51.770" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T20:51:51.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4928" CreationDate="2013-10-17T19:47:18.960" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to use 动手动脚 for 'cop a feel', or 'paw someone'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他一接近女人就忍不住动手动脚. He can't be near a woman without pawing her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;揩油 and 吃豆腐 are also good options for 'cop a feel'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T19:47:18.960" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4932" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-18T11:14:38.183" Score="5" ViewCount="1125" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese idiom for &amp;quot;tilting at windmills&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This expressions stems from &amp;quot;The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha&amp;quot;. In that book, Don Quixote attacks windmills, incorrectly (and absurdly) believing them to be giants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_at_windmills&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tilting at windmills is an English idiom which means attacking imaginary enemies. The word “tilt”, in this context, comes from jousting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase is sometimes used to describe confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly perceived, or to courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications. It may also connote an importune, unfounded and vain effort against confabulated adversaries for a vain goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3271" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-21T11:49:11.897" Title="Chinese idiom for &quot;tilt at windmills&quot; or &quot;fighting against windmills&quot;" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4932" CreationDate="2013-10-18T15:09:17.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are looking for 螳臂当车. Note that in acient Chinese, 当 has the same meaning as 挡. It is from a story that a mantis tried to stop a carriage. Alternatively, you can use 蚍蜉撼树. More abstractively, you can use 不自量力.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3221" LastEditorUserId="3221" LastEditDate="2013-10-21T09:40:43.393" LastActivityDate="2013-10-21T09:40:43.393" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4932" CreationDate="2013-10-18T16:55:49.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess 无的放矢/庸人自扰/故作姿态 might be among the options for &quot;tilt at windmills&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-10-18T16:55:49.537" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4932" CreationDate="2013-10-19T08:42:58.917" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest I can find is &lt;strong&gt;水中捞月&lt;/strong&gt; (shuǐ zhōng lāo yuè). From 汉典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;到水中去捞月亮。比喻去做根本做不到的事情，只能白费力气。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to scoop up the &lt;strong&gt;imaginary&lt;/strong&gt; moon from its reflection in the water. That is, trying to do something &lt;strong&gt;in vain&lt;/strong&gt; or making a futile effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to emphasize on the physical effort, &lt;strong&gt;以卵击石&lt;/strong&gt; (yǐ luǎn jī shí) might be better:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拿蛋去碰石头。比喻不估计自己的力量，自取灭亡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using an egg to &lt;strong&gt;hit&lt;/strong&gt; the stone. Overestimating one's ability and courting certain &quot;death&quot;. The death here usually refers to &lt;strong&gt;failure&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if you will be able to find an idiom that matches all the characteristics in the English idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-10-19T08:42:58.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4924" CreationDate="2013-10-19T13:52:58.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;hit the mark by a fluke; score a lucky hit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3387" LastActivityDate="2013-10-19T13:52:58.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4937" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4939" CreationDate="2013-10-19T20:51:50.983" Score="1" ViewCount="466" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are all meanings of 截? as in 截拳道?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it pronounced &quot;Jeet&quot; or &quot;Jee&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in the word &quot;jeet&quot; and how it may be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3389" LastActivityDate="2013-10-22T05:43:27.290" Title="Meanings and pronunciation of 截" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4938" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4941" CreationDate="2013-10-19T21:15:11.413" Score="3" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just came across 汹 which is the simplified version of 洶. I was quite surprised as 汹 is not mentioned in neither &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E5%AD%97%E6%80%BB%E8%A1%A8#.E7.AC.AC.E4.B8.80.E8.A1.A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chart 1&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E5%AD%97%E6%80%BB%E8%A1%A8#.E7.AC.AC.E4.BA.8C.E8.A1.A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chart 2&lt;/a&gt; of the structural simplification of characters. Another example is 蹤 which is derived in 踪 -, although not being part of chart 1- and despite the simplification from chart 2 從-&gt;从.&#xA;I thought learning all characters from both chart 1 and 2 would be sufficient to be able to find the simplified version of any traditional character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How consistent is the method of simplification, why publish those lists if they are not used consistently, are there any other characters which have a simplified form not derived from chart 1 and 2?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3390" LastEditorUserId="3390" LastEditDate="2013-10-19T22:23:36.110" LastActivityDate="2013-10-20T02:46:02.300" Title="simplified characters not derived from chart 1 and chart 2 of 简化字总表" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4937" CreationDate="2013-10-19T23:33:41.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;1. What are all meanings of 截?&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has the following meanings according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/10849.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Xinhua Dictionary online&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;割断，弄断：截断。截开。截取。截面。(to cut off, to truncate)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;量词，段：一截儿木头。 (measure word: a section, a chunk)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;阻拦：截住他。截留。截击。截获。(to intercept, to obstruct)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;到一定期限停止：截止。 (cut-off point, deadline)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;2. (What's the meaning) as in 截拳道?&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 截拳道, 截 means 'to intercept'. The spirit of 截拳道 is to 'intercept' the opponent's intention/omens of attack, and counter the attack accordingly. There is more information on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeet_Kune_Do#Principles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;JKD teaches that the best defence is a strong offence, hence the principle of an &quot;intercepting fist&quot;. For a person to attack another hand-to-hand, the attacker must approach the target. This provides an opportunity for the attacked person to &quot;intercept&quot; the attacking movement. The principle of interception may be applied to more than intercepting physical attacks. Non-verbal cues (subtle movements that an opponent may be unaware of) may be perceived or &quot;intercepted&quot;, and thus be used to one's advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;3. Is it pronounced &quot;Jeet&quot; or &quot;Jee&quot;?&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;截&lt;/code&gt; is pronunced as &lt;code&gt;jie2&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin and &lt;code&gt;zit6&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jeet/Jee are non-standard transliterations from Cantonese to English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;4. I'm interested in the word &quot;jeet&quot; and how it may be used.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're talking about the English word, I don't think there are widely-known usages other than in 'Jeet Kune Do'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2013-10-19T23:33:41.137" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4937" CreationDate="2013-10-19T23:33:48.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, the character &lt;code&gt;截&lt;/code&gt; is pronounced jié. In Cantonese, zit6. The character has a few related meanings and is used in a number of words. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/622A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;From zdic&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;割断&lt;/code&gt;，&lt;code&gt;弄断&lt;/code&gt; = sever, cut off, break&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;截断&lt;/code&gt; = cut off, block&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;截开&lt;/code&gt; = cut open&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;截取&lt;/code&gt; = cut out, intercept&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;截面&lt;/code&gt; = cross-section&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;(量词) 段&lt;/code&gt; = a measure word, meaning a 'section' or a 'length'&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;一截儿木头&lt;/code&gt; = a length/section of wood&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;阻拦&lt;/code&gt; = stop, obstruct&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;截住他&lt;/code&gt; = stopped him, intercepted him&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;截留&lt;/code&gt; = trap, retain&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;截击&lt;/code&gt; = intercept, volley (tennis)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;截获&lt;/code&gt; = intercept and/or capture&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;到一定期限停止&lt;/code&gt; = stop (at a certain time)&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;截止&lt;/code&gt; = close, stop (in word for expiration date, deadline, etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;TL;DR&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It means to cut, sever, or block&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-19T23:33:48.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4938" CreationDate="2013-10-20T02:46:02.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason for why 汹 and 踪 being not listed in the &lt;code&gt;简化字总表&lt;/code&gt; is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;They have been already used in the old times as variant characters with the same meaning, so they were listed in &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E7%AC%AC%E4%B8%80%E6%89%B9%E5%BC%82%E4%BD%93%E5%AD%97%E6%95%B4%E7%90%86%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;异体字整理表 (Chart of Variant Characters)&lt;/a&gt;. Although they are usually considered as simplified characters (even by native speakers sometimes), they are actually traditional characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can find &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/kx/6C79.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;汹&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in &lt;code&gt;康熙字典&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【汹】《集韻》與洶同。 &lt;em&gt;Jiyun&lt;/em&gt;: the same as 洶.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you can find 踪 in &lt;code&gt;彙音寶鑑&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【踪】仝蹤，踪迹。 The same as 蹤, means 踪迹 (trace).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;How consistent is the method of simplification, why publish those lists if they are not used consistently, are there any other characters which have a simplified form not derived from chart 1 and 2?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say if you want to distinguish variant characters between mainland China and Taiwan / Hong Kong, it is better to learn &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E7%AC%AC%E4%B8%80%E6%89%B9%E5%BC%82%E4%BD%93%E5%AD%97%E6%95%B4%E7%90%86%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;异体字整理表 (Chart of Variant Characters)&lt;/a&gt; as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, good guess for &lt;code&gt;從-&amp;gt;从 =&amp;gt; 蹤-&amp;gt;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/a4/kx/27FDB.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kR7CY.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; is also a variant of 蹤, though it is not usually used today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2013-10-20T02:46:02.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4942" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4943" CreationDate="2013-10-20T04:25:35.987" Score="4" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best way of expressing 'dates back to' in Mandarin? e.g. the family's lineage dates back to 1720..etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3391" LastActivityDate="2013-10-23T09:40:41.927" Title="How do you say 'dates back to' in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4942" CreationDate="2013-10-20T04:50:35.373" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Dates back to' is usually translated into '追溯到', which literally means 'trace back to'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used in a sentence, people usually add 可以 (can/may) or 要 (have to) before 追溯到, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个城堡&lt;b&gt;要追溯到&lt;/b&gt;罗马时代。&#xA;(The history of) this castle dates back to Roman times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个家族的历史&lt;b&gt;可以追溯到&lt;/b&gt;十七世纪。This family can trace its history back to the 17th century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-20T04:50:35.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4944" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4946" CreationDate="2013-10-20T20:16:35.523" Score="1" ViewCount="903" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm creating a beginner level curriculum to teach middle school students the foundations of Chinese language and culture. I do not have a solid foundation in the culture, but wanted to impart what I know to inner-city kids in the effort of expanding their minds to East Asia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I watched/read 西游记 (Journey to the West) a while back and thoroughly enjoyed the story. Since this class is attempting to bridge students here to East Asia, I thought a clever name could be 东亚游记 （Journey to the East) to represent the beginning of these students' journeys on their way to learn more about East Asia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With my limited cultural background, would this misconstrue the point of the course? Is this actually capturing what I'm looking for? Or is there a better way/more concise way to translate &quot;The beginning/foundations to learning about Chinese language and culture&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-10-21T03:38:04.460" Title="Trying to think of creative name for beginner Chinese class" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4945" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-20T20:35:56.180" Score="5" ViewCount="586" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are those the correct characters? I understand it to be profanity but how bad is it? Worse than 你妈的 ? Any insight would be appreciated, just find this to be a funny expression that I haven't heard of before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3315" LastActivityDate="2013-10-23T04:52:25.163" Title="What exactly does 媽个八子 mean?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4944" CreationDate="2013-10-21T01:42:40.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are travelling ONLY in China (or mainly in China), you can name your class &quot;中国行&quot; (Tranvel in China).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Or is there a better way/more concise way to translate &quot;The beginning/foundations to learning about Chinese language and culture&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a beginning as a Chinese's thinking, I think you need to give such a name as &quot;中国行&quot;, because it's of too deep meaning and many students will think you have a lot of things to talk about. To be very honest, I think you can translate it as &quot;初识中国&quot;,&quot;认识中国&quot;or&quot;汉语语言文化基础&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2013-10-21T03:38:04.460" LastActivityDate="2013-10-21T03:38:04.460" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4945" CreationDate="2013-10-21T01:46:14.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are those the correct characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not exactly. This is a word used to curse others when you are very angry. So this words are ONLY more for pronunciations than the meaning of the fixed word itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I understand it to be profanity but how bad is it? Worse than 你妈的 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hard to say, both of them are very profantiy. DON'T use them anywhere;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-10-21T01:46:14.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4924" CreationDate="2013-10-21T03:42:12.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;歪打正着&quot; according to its meaning——It means &quot;something done for purpose A but in fact it makes purpose B successful&quot;. So can just translate it as：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;do something luckily, by chance, by accident&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-10-21T03:42:12.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3806" CreationDate="2013-10-21T09:48:00.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personal experience:&#xA;I'm chinese, when i goto school, i could speak a lot of Chinese already, and i started with ping ying and characters together,ping ying helps to let me know how to pronounce a character and help me link the character with the &quot;words&quot; which i already know. &#xA;I mean, when i see an egg, I know that thing is pronounced as &quot;dan&quot; and i just don't know how to write it. so they put 蛋 beside a picture of egg and ping ying &quot;dan&quot;. so what i do is link them together,  an egg=蛋, and both of them called &quot;dan&quot;. This is little bit different from English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when i start picking up my Japanese, as i was already at my 21, what teacher did is to ask me to study the Hiragana and Katakana. we learn these tool first, and later use it to study to pronounce these &quot;words&quot; in Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what i think is, if people already knows how to speak, just need to learn how to write, pingying and character together is a shorter cut, but if people don't know Chinese at all, better study pingying first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the more important thing is to let ppl know how to study this language themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3397" LastActivityDate="2013-10-21T09:48:00.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4932" CreationDate="2013-10-21T11:49:11.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Attacking windmills, being Don Quixote's most well-known episode, is also perhaps the best example in the novel of the word &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quixotic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;quixotic&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;; that is, the two share the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, you could sometimes use the direct Chinese translation of &quot;quixotic&quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2653989.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;堂吉诃德式&lt;/a&gt;. Don Quixote is well known in the West, not as much in the Sinosphere, but in intellectual circles you may stand a good chance of being understood. For example, take this article title:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2013-08/13/c_125158832.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;张跃远大“财富国” 堂吉诃德式的偏执生存&lt;/a&gt; (中国经济周刊)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-10-21T11:49:11.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4952" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-21T19:02:48.347" Score="2" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is said many words here &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr38/#SCTC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr38/#SCTC&lt;/a&gt; about kSimplifiedVariant and kTraditionalVariant field cases (5 cases). But I didn't understand, if these two relations reflect each other? For example if A is simplified version of B, then does it mean that B is traditional version of A?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2203" LastActivityDate="2013-10-21T20:10:35.647" Title="Does &quot;simplification&quot; relation reflect &quot;traditionalization&quot; relation in Unihan?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4952" CreationDate="2013-10-21T20:10:35.647" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me summarize the cases and try to answer your question (TC = Traditional Chinese character set, SC = Simplified Chinese character set).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some characters &lt;em&gt;were never simplified&lt;/em&gt;. For example, &lt;code&gt;井 U+4E95&lt;/code&gt; is in TC and in SC (and for that matter, most characters). In the Unihan database, codepoints like these have &lt;em&gt;neither&lt;/em&gt; a &lt;strong&gt;kSimplifiedVariant&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;nor&lt;/em&gt; a &lt;strong&gt;kTranditionalVariant&lt;/strong&gt; (both fields are empty).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is a traditional version of the character, only present in TC. For example, &lt;code&gt;書 U+66F8&lt;/code&gt; is in TC (and not in SC).  The &lt;strong&gt;kSimplifiedVariant&lt;/strong&gt; of &lt;code&gt;書&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;书&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The is a simplified version of the character, only present in SC. For example, &lt;code&gt;书 U+4E66&lt;/code&gt; is in SC (and not in TC). The &lt;strong&gt;kTraditionalVariant&lt;/strong&gt; of &lt;code&gt;书&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;書&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The character is used in both character sets depending on context. This is a bit of a mess, and I've written &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/3225/788&quot;&gt;more about it here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;The relations should &amp;quot;reflect each other&amp;quot;, but they're not a bijection&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; be the case that if &lt;em&gt;X.kTraditionalVariant includes Y&lt;/em&gt;, then &lt;em&gt;Y.kSimplifiedVariant includes X&lt;/em&gt;. When I last checked the data about a year ago, there was at least one bug where that wasn't the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This does &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; mean that the relation is one-to-one &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; onto. There are some cases that are truly bizarre; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguities_in_Chinese_character_simplification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;check this out here for all of the weird cases&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-21T20:10:35.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4954" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-21T22:21:15.547" Score="4" ViewCount="563" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does an adverb of frequency usually occur after the verb? How should I say &quot;how often do you play sports?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你运动&lt;strong&gt;多久&lt;/strong&gt;一次？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;多久&lt;/strong&gt;运动一次？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3399" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-18T00:29:01.387" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T04:34:20.250" Title="Where to put the time phrase? 你运动多久一次？ or 你多久运动一次？" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4954" CreationDate="2013-10-22T02:42:16.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The second one is better (as the first is a little grammatically off):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你多久运动一次？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although there's not really a hard and fast rule around whether it should be before or after the verb; from what I understand it should be based on the rest of the sentence structure. For example, these both work:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到底要多久你才會做完呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你多久才會把它做完呢?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it's best said that it goes before if it's being used as a descriptor for something (as in 多久 &lt;em&gt;_&lt;/em&gt;_ 一次) but not if it's used on its own / as the &quot;length of time / how long&quot; noun (as in 一次 多久)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[[nb. i might be terribly wrong. so take with a grain of salt like everything else on the internet :P]]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3382" LastActivityDate="2013-10-22T02:42:16.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4937" CreationDate="2013-10-22T05:43:27.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;截” should be pronounced as “ jie2”（second tone）, it has three meanings:&#xA;1. cut; sever:&#xA;  截成两段（cut in two）&#xA;  He cut the sugarcane into several pieces.&#xA;  他把甘蔗截成几节。&#xA;2. stop; check; stem; intercept:&#xA;  截流（dam a river）&#xA;3. （measure word)section; chunk; length:&#xA;half a piece of chalk;&#xA;半截粉笔&#xA;a section of a log;&#xA;一截木头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the “截” of “截拳道” means “ to stop”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastActivityDate="2013-10-22T05:43:27.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4957" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4958" CreationDate="2013-10-23T01:25:42.127" Score="4" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;带你出去...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;护送你出去...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陪你去玩儿...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am especially interested in the difference in meaning between the first and third. The third may not be correct because I may be recalling it poorly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first seems clear: &amp;quot;...to take you out&amp;quot; in the sense of escorting and showing around. But isn't there a similar meaning for &amp;quot;pei?&amp;quot; The second one is new to me and seems to have a similar meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3171" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T00:32:06.150" Title="Words for 'escorting,' 'showing around': 带你出去 vs. 护送你出去 vs. 陪你去玩儿" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4957" CreationDate="2013-10-23T01:39:22.923" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;带 has a sense of lead/host, A带B去 can be used in the situation where B doesn't know the place but A does, so A takes B there and shows him around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陪 means accompany, it does not have the sense of lead/host. B陪A may be used in a situation where A may feel strange or uncomfortable with acting alone and wants somebody else to accompany him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;护送 means precisely escort, where 护 means 保护 (protect). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastEditorUserId="3251" LastEditDate="2013-10-23T16:36:26.803" LastActivityDate="2013-10-23T16:36:26.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4959" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5012" CreationDate="2013-10-23T02:21:46.330" Score="5" ViewCount="1362" Body="&lt;p&gt;In spoken Mandarin Chinese what adjectives can be used to complement a person's appearance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can think of a couple off the top of my head:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;美丽 - Měilì - Beautiful&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可爱 - Kě'ài - Cute&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;性感 - Xìnggǎn - Sexy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been looking around but having trouble finding any information relating to this subject&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming a pre-existing close relationship with the person you're complimenting, what compliments would be used in a informal setting?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question updated to be more concise, also declaring &quot;pre-existing close relationship&quot; as someone you have known for a period greater then 6 months whom you're comfortable speaking freely around&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-18T00:33:35.090" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T00:36:47.430" Title="In spoken Mandarin, what adjectives can be used to complement a person's appearance?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4959" CreationDate="2013-10-23T02:37:32.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some other words are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漂亮 (piàoliang)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  秀丽 (xiùlì)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  姣好 (jiāohǎo)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  俏丽 (qiàolì)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  标致 (biāozhì)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  文雅 (wényǎ)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The adjectives you came about and the words above often used for females. By the way it's sometimes impolite to describe a girl as 性感。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3406" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-18T00:36:47.430" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T00:36:47.430" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4954" CreationDate="2013-10-23T04:36:42.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The second one is correct to express &quot;How often do you play sports?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, I would like to give a comment to @Stan, that &quot;你一次运动多久?&quot; is better to express &quot;How long does it last when you do sports for one time?&quot;. It's weird to say &quot;你运动多久一次?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="974" LastActivityDate="2013-10-23T04:36:42.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4945" CreationDate="2013-10-23T04:52:25.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I agree that @NS.X said. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, it should be &quot;妈了个巴子&quot;, not &quot;妈个巴子&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, it is much worse than &quot;他妈的&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, if you are angry with something, you can say &quot;他妈的&quot;, to express your dissatisfied emotion. But please do not use it to a person. However, please do not use &quot;妈了个巴子&quot; even if for a thing, since it is too coarse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, it is not good to say these kind of word in China. Others may look down on you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="974" LastActivityDate="2013-10-23T04:52:25.163" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4954" CreationDate="2013-10-23T09:37:48.303" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually a frequency adverb should be put before a verb. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(Wǒ)常(chánɡ)常(chánɡ)游(yóu)泳(yǒnɡ)。 （ I always swim.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(Wǒ)周(zhōu)末(mò)偶(ǒu)尔(ěr)去(qù)逛(ɡuànɡ)街(jiē)。( I go for shopping on weekends occasionally.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And “ How often do you play sports ？” could be translated as:&#xA;你(Nǐ)多(duō)久(jiǔ)运(yùn)动(dònɡ)一(yí)次(cì)？( how often = 多(duō)久(jiǔ) ）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastActivityDate="2013-10-23T09:37:48.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4942" CreationDate="2013-10-23T09:40:41.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very formal way to translate this word is “追(zhuī)朔(shuò)到(dào)”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &#xA;中(Zhōnɡ)国(ɡuó)的(de)历(lì)史(shǐ)可(kě)以(yǐ)追(zhuī)朔(shuò)到(dào) 5000 年(nián)以(yǐ)前(qián)。&#xA;( China’s history dates back to 5000 years ago.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastActivityDate="2013-10-23T09:40:41.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4957" CreationDate="2013-10-23T09:45:13.233" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will give you three sentences, let’s see the difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.我带你出去。&#xA;2.我护送你出去。&#xA;3.我陪你出去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence 1.： I take you out. So I will guide you and show you around. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence 2:  I escort you out. May be “you “ are in danger, somebody could hurt “you” if “you” go out by yourself, so I will go out with you and protect you. “ 护送”can also used to modify things, like “ 护送钱”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence 3: I will go out with you.  Because “you” don’t want to go out by yourself, you will be lonely, so I will company you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastActivityDate="2013-10-23T09:45:13.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4924" CreationDate="2013-10-23T12:03:26.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.&#xA;比喻方法本来不恰当，却侥幸得到满意的结果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&#xA;也比喻原意本不在此，却凑巧和别人的想法符合。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&#xA;do A with a wrong way. But..luckily.. succeeded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&#xA;wanto do A, but hasn't start to do it. But luckily made it by do another thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2980" LastActivityDate="2013-10-23T12:03:26.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4967" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4969" CreationDate="2013-10-23T14:21:53.713" Score="-2" ViewCount="1679" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm about to start learning mandarin chinese myself, without any teachers but with a help of textbooks and video (audio) lessons. My question is: where do I start, I mean, is it better to start with pinyin or with &lt;em&gt;Han characters&lt;/em&gt;? What words do I need to start with? What about grammar?&#xA;Maybe someone can recommend me a good book to start with?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T02:50:05.967" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T02:50:05.967" Title="Where to start learning mandarin" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-02-21T22:17:42.267" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3858" CreationDate="2013-10-23T17:43:34.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Note: I'm mainly answering from personal experience here.) 大陆 is used to refer to &quot;mainland China&quot;, which is effectively the PRC with the exclusion of areas such as Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, which have (to varying extents) some political/legal distinction from what might commonly be considered China. 中国 has a more catch-all sense to it, though when used by Chinese speakers from areas not considered as part of 大陆, it can be effectively equivalent to 大陆.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3410" LastEditorDisplayName="user3410" LastEditDate="2013-10-25T23:56:58.767" LastActivityDate="2013-10-25T23:56:58.767" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4967" CreationDate="2013-10-23T19:15:57.410" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding starting with pinyin or characters: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3806/teaching-pinyin-and-characters-together-vs-teaching-pinyin-then-characters&quot;&gt;It's funny, I recently asked this question myself.&lt;/a&gt; In your case, I would recommend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Starting with basics of pinyin... getting the hang of pronunciation. &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkbank.org/pinyin/Trad_chart.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TalkBank&lt;/a&gt; provides a pinyin chart that pronounces each for you given the selected tone. It's really cool. Just choose a tone, and click on a vowel/initial.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learn the 4 tones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mā: 妈 = mother&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Má: 麻 = hemp&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mǎ: 马 = horse&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mà: 骂 = scold&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Start pairing characters with pinyin. Learn the basics/greetings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nǐ hǎo: 你好 = hello&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Xièxiè：谢谢 = thank you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Bù kèqì: 不客气 = you're welcome&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Zài jiàn: 再见 = good bye&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Solidify what you've learned by practicing in a chat room. I recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt; &gt; then go to LiaoTian! (chat). Informal chat rooms were hugely helpful for me to get started.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Once you have some basics of chatting down, maybe head over to a Chinese restaurant and try ordering in Chinese (most speak Mandarin or at least some Mandarin that I've encountered). Or find a local Chinese market, or anything... Anything for you to go and practice speaking Mandarin. This will get you comfortable speaking. But you need a foundation with the words first. So keep practicing them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For a book, Stumpy Joe recommended &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/7561910401&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;. Also look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese&quot;&gt;community wiki&lt;/a&gt; for Chinese learning resources.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck! If I think of anything else I'll let ya know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-10-23T19:43:09.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3858" CreationDate="2013-10-23T19:24:51.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;This is an easy question but may be answered differently based on cultural heritage.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short 大陆 = PRC, 中国大陆 = PRC, 中国 = at least PRC but probably includes &quot;disputed territories&quot; i.e. Taiwan. This is the accepted use of these three terms by the overwhelming majority of Chinese speakers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By some Chinese, 中国 is used to refer to PRC + Taiwan + Tibet, territories that are historically Chinese. By referring to 中国, some speakers may be expressing their political view that China is not just the mainland but includes the aforementioned places. These people tend to be KMT (Kuomingtang) sympathizers. They will say 大陆 to differentiate PRC from 中国, which in their mind is a bigger country than the one run by CCP. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3315" LastActivityDate="2013-10-23T19:24:51.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4924" CreationDate="2013-10-24T06:40:39.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could consider an auspicious kind of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;irony&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, as in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony#Situational_irony&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;situational irony&lt;/a&gt;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When John Hinckley attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan, all of his shots initially missed the President; however, a bullet ricocheted off the bullet-proof Presidential limousine and struck Reagan in the chest. Thus, a vehicle made to protect the President from gunfire instead directed gunfire to the president.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note however that &quot;irony&quot; only requires the intent and outcome to be highly incongruous, and the outcome can be either good or bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-10-24T06:40:39.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4974" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4975" CreationDate="2013-10-24T16:37:23.417" Score="3" ViewCount="1105" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bei Wu Long in Cantonese means to make a big mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the Chinese characters for this?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a story for this?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3414" LastActivityDate="2013-12-22T16:37:49.030" Title="How to write &quot;bei wu long&quot; in Chinese and what is its origin?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4974" CreationDate="2013-10-24T18:31:08.973" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure that the &quot; Bei Wu Long&quot; is &quot;摆乌龙&quot;. &quot;乌龙&quot; in Cantonese sounds like &quot;own goal&quot; in English. You know own goal is a big mistake, right？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a long story. According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/124945.htm&quot;&gt;this website&lt;/a&gt;, is is original from a folk tale in Canton. Once upon a time, there was a drought. People prayed to the &quot;青龙&quot;(Green Dragon) because it can bring rain. However, at last it was the &quot;乌龙&quot;( Black Dragon) who bring disaster that answered to them. The situation became worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then in 1960s, journalist in Hongkong use &quot;乌龙&quot; to describe the &quot;own goal&quot; in soccer game because the &quot;乌龙&quot; sound similar in Cantonese to &quot;own goal&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-10-24T18:58:53.867" LastActivityDate="2013-10-24T18:58:53.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4976" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4982" CreationDate="2013-10-25T01:25:06.570" Score="15" ViewCount="991" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it that to say I very much or really want something I have to say 我很想要... and not just 我很要...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if I wanted a cup of coffee I would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我要一杯咖啡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if I want to say I really want coffee I have to add &lt;code&gt;很想&lt;/code&gt; and not just add &lt;code&gt;很&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我很想要一杯咖啡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this the case? or is my understanding of this incorrect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="3124" LastEditDate="2013-10-25T01:52:22.920" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T06:35:52.400" Title="Why is 我很要... an invalid statment" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4976" CreationDate="2013-10-25T07:56:14.913" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English we can say &lt;strong&gt;I like coffee very much&lt;/strong&gt;, but in Chinese we cannot say &quot;我很要一杯咖啡&quot; but &quot;我很想来杯咖啡&quot;——because &quot;很&quot; is a depth adverb, it is used to describe the depth of something done (how deeply is something done?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So: &quot;很&quot; can be used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1） &lt;strong&gt;Describe an adjust (even the adjective is used as predicate in a statement)&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g: 她*&lt;em&gt;很&lt;/em&gt;*美丽(She's very beautiful).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）Modify some special verbs (some verbs like &quot;love&quot;,&quot;like&quot;,&quot;hate&quot;……), &lt;strong&gt;describing something about your mind activity&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g: 他很*&lt;em&gt;恨&lt;/em&gt;*他。他*&lt;em&gt;很&lt;/em&gt;*想要一杯牛奶。小明*&lt;em&gt;很&lt;/em&gt;*喜欢游玩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2013-10-29T03:10:37.207" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T03:10:37.207" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4980" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4981" CreationDate="2013-10-26T07:06:56.180" Score="6" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the classic 相声《卖马》, near the beginning is a line that goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在下王老好的便是，就在这潞州天堂县开了一个*&lt;em&gt;小小&lt;/em&gt;*的店房&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but in that line, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;小小&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; was pronounced as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;xué xiǎo&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. Here's a clip: &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/cB391VthT4Q?t=1m11s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://youtu.be/cB391VthT4Q?t=1m11s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this pronunciation used? Is it a specific dialect? And if so, what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At first I thought perhaps it originated from Peking Opera, because the piece was adapted from the Peking Opera piece &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/371274/11204156.htm?fromId=371274&amp;amp;from=rdtself&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《秦琼卖马》&lt;/a&gt;. However finding a clip online, the correct &quot;xiao xiao&quot; pronunciation was used: &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/EUvd28rphTQ?t=2m48s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://youtu.be/EUvd28rphTQ?t=2m48s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't think it was a mispronunciation, because there's a modern version by 郭德纲 of the same piece which also uses the &quot;xué xiǎo&quot; pronunciation: &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/ixk1JoE3-Go?t=1m49s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://youtu.be/ixk1JoE3-Go?t=1m49s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-05-24T12:08:31.787" LastActivityDate="2014-05-24T12:08:31.787" Title="Why is &quot;小小&quot; pronounced as &quot;xué xiǎo&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4980" CreationDate="2013-10-26T08:13:09.307" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This particular pronunciation is traditionally used in crosstalk, especially in the northern area of China. I think it's related to Tianjin dialect. Today Chinese only pronounce 小小 as 'xiaoxiao'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3419" LastActivityDate="2013-10-26T08:13:09.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4976" CreationDate="2013-10-26T09:51:33.590" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native Chinese speaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a cup of coffee, it is okay to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我要一杯咖啡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but actually, in most cases, you should say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想要一杯咖啡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because &quot;想要&quot; is more polite, although &quot;want&quot; means both &quot;想要&quot; and &quot;要&quot; if we directly translate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your question, if you want to tell people that you really want something (or to do something), you should say it in a polite way. So you should say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我很想要一杯咖啡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, if you feel this complicated, you can simply forget the expression of &quot;我要 + something&quot;, and just say &quot;我想要 + something&quot; everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3420" LastEditorUserId="3420" LastEditDate="2018-05-14T06:35:52.400" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T06:35:52.400" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3784" CreationDate="2013-10-26T16:25:31.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a word to describe the full meaning of this. I will use “没有道德的黑客” to describe the person. &quot;网络恐吓” to describe this behavior. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3423" LastActivityDate="2013-10-26T16:25:31.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3839" CreationDate="2013-10-26T22:22:18.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From speaking to many mainland Chinese, 夏时 means daylight savings. If a Chinese speaker knows about daylight savings, 夏时 is quite clear. 夏时制 is more clear especially for Chinese who aren't familiar with daylight savings. The three words together express &quot;system of daylight saving&quot; loose translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Honestly, would a non-American English speaker be able to know what daylight savings is without previous knowledge of the concept? I don't think so. I can imagine less worldly Chinese not understanding either of the two above phrases unless the concept was carefully explained to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3315" LastActivityDate="2013-10-26T22:22:18.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4986" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-27T15:03:24.383" Score="-1" ViewCount="813" Body="&lt;p&gt;i'm trying to figure out the meaning of the term 女生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was told it's something deeper than &quot;school girl&quot;/&quot;student girl&quot;/not married&quot;/&quot;beauty&quot;  or&#xA;anything like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that in separated one means birth and the other means female or woman but together..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would appreciate your help on translating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3427" LastActivityDate="2013-11-03T15:14:37.567" Title="deep meaning of 女生" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2013-11-03T23:52:37.457" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4987" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5023" CreationDate="2013-10-27T21:30:10.187" Score="4" ViewCount="484" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do one need to write a word &lt;strong&gt;到&lt;/strong&gt; in statement &lt;strong&gt;我很高兴见到你&lt;/strong&gt;? Can we omit it?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's like being complete without that word for me. Why do we need to use it?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I found this phrase in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&amp;amp;book=9781741754599&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2013-10-28T01:03:32.387" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T03:28:46.720" Title="Usage of word 到 in 我很高兴见到你" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2013-10-27T22:52:47.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我很高兴见到你。or 见到你很高兴。&#xA;This sentence is the kind of too English. In normal life, Chinese people rarely say it like this although it is good to say. We say, 久违了,久仰了 or simply 你好， in the first meeting to someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to 见到 or 见， because you have to show respect to the one you are meeting, so you have to make the sentence more complete, 见到 is more complete than simply 见，and more respectful. So unless the one you are meeting are begging for meeting you, please use 见到 not 见.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2013-10-27T22:52:47.813" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4986" CreationDate="2013-10-28T01:45:10.180" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;女生 just means girl. If you are an English speaker, ask yourself what is the deep meaning of girl and that will answer this question. There isn't a deep meaning in every single Chinese word/phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3315" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T01:45:10.180" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4986" CreationDate="2013-10-28T02:08:13.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It simply means girl, not necessary to stand for students or adolescents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T02:08:13.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2013-10-28T04:38:22.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's because of the distinction between 见 and 见到. 见 only means &quot;to look&quot; whereas 见到 means &quot;to see&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很高兴见到你 roughly translates to &quot;I'm happy to see you&quot;. If you omit the 到 you'll get &quot;I'm happy to look at you&quot;, which is obviously not what you mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is confusing because the English word &lt;em&gt;see&lt;/em&gt; is sometimes used as &lt;em&gt;look&lt;/em&gt; and sometimes used as &lt;em&gt;look and see&lt;/em&gt;. For example, &quot;I'm going to see her&quot; in Chinese would be 我要去见她. In Chinese however there's a strong distinction between the action &quot;to look&quot; and the result &quot;to see&quot;. This confusion is also the origin of the phrase &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=look-see&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;look-see&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, which came from Chinese/English pidgin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T04:38:22.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2013-10-28T05:28:35.107" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, I'd like to say that you don't need to pay too much attention to grammars, for Chinese isn't a language like eurpean ones depending on syntaxes, variable genders,  plurals……ect. Chinese is a language with a lot of meanings in different kinds of situations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In your sentence, “见到” doesn't mean I've seen you (past tense or present participle tense), This is ONLY a spoken greeting statement to say &quot;Nice to meet you&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt; This is a fixed phrase without a concept of time,space……ect. So just like &quot;nice to meet you&quot;, &quot;nice to see you&quot;, &lt;strong&gt;we don't care about &quot;I won't be happy unless I see you&quot;……right?!&lt;/strong&gt; :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except the fixed greeting statements, sometimes it's time for us to pay attention to &quot;到&quot;'s usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;到&quot; is used after a verb (usually an intransitive verb) meaning &quot;verb's state is finished just now after a period of time, sometimes it means with tough things or not so easy&quot;. e.g:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1）我坐到你跟前（Maybe I'm walking in front of you and sit down）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【Compare: 我坐你跟前：I'm sitting in front of you.】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）很不容易见到你（Maybe I don't know about you at all, and I've been introduced to you by someone else and then we have a chance to meet each other）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T05:28:35.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4993" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-28T10:11:06.127" Score="9" ViewCount="18141" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many dictionaries translate it to &quot;ambiguity&quot;,but it looks so indefinitely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for more expressive answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3431" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-12-20T04:08:22.353" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T14:21:44.527" Title="How to translate &quot;暧昧&quot; into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4993" CreationDate="2013-10-28T10:26:00.273" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;(someone1) flirt with (someone2).&#xA;玩暧昧，玩调情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T10:26:00.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4993" CreationDate="2013-10-28T10:28:18.393" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally it is a &quot;shady relationship&quot;, although I am not a local english speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3432" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T10:28:18.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4993" CreationDate="2013-10-28T12:06:54.700" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on context, &lt;strong&gt;暧昧&lt;/strong&gt;[pronounced as &lt;strong&gt;ài&lt;/strong&gt; mèi] can take on a few meanings. The following is quoted from &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/5960/4940139.htm&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt; with some explanations in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（态度、用意）含糊；不明白。(attitude or intent is unclear or incomprehensible)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（行为）不光明；不可告人。(behavior is dishonorable or secretive, like having an illicit affair)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;男女或同性肉体关系还处于想象段。(at the non-physical stage of a relationship, that is, in between friendship and intimate relationship)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;男女或同性关系还未发展到恋人关系，但是行为举止和恋人关系差不多。(same as 3)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;暧昧 is usually used to describe a kind of ambiguous relationship that is neither here nor there. It is not necessarily a negative word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-10-28T12:13:22.503" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T12:13:22.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4924" CreationDate="2013-10-28T20:26:07.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could also call that... serendipitous!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3438" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T20:26:07.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5002" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-29T02:02:02.187" Score="6" ViewCount="1277" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be multiple versions of this idiom, with slightly different characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1923765.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu: 将在外，君命有所不受&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/6/e1/223906.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉典: 将在军，君命有所不受&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a big bunch of variants:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;将在外，军令有所不受&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;将在外，军令有所不从&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;将在外，君令有所不受&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;将在外，军令有所不为&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;将在外，军令有所不授&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be more that I have missed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in general, these variants are: 将在[外|军]，[君|军][命|令]有所不[受|从|为|授].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few variants are documented too (sometimes attributed the same person!):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;春秋·齐·孙武《孙子兵法·变篇》：“城有所不攻，地有所不争，*&lt;em&gt;君命&lt;/em&gt;*有所不受。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《史记·孙子吴起列传》：“ 孙子 曰：‘臣既已受命为将，将在*&lt;em&gt;军&lt;/em&gt;*， *&lt;em&gt;君命&lt;/em&gt;*有所不受。’遂斩队长二人以徇。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;司马光·宋·《资治通鉴》：“五十七年（癸卯，前258）将在外，*&lt;em&gt;君令&lt;/em&gt;*有所不受”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;亮曰：“彼本无战心，所以固请者，以示武于其众耳。将在*&lt;em&gt;军&lt;/em&gt;*，君命有所不受，苟能制吾，岂千里而请战邪！”（晋书.帝纪第一）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《史记·魏公子列传》：“ 侯生 曰：‘将在外，*&lt;em&gt;主令&lt;/em&gt;*有所不受，以便国家。’”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which ones are correct, which ones are incorrect?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the variants that are correct, are there subtle differences in their meaning?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T09:14:35.513" Title="Variants of 将在外，君命有所不受?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5002" CreationDate="2013-10-29T03:32:43.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;将在外，君令有所不受&quot; is right. Its meaning in Chinese should be &quot;如果一个将军在外行军打仗，那么他有一切临命专断之权&quot;。If you change &quot;君&quot; to “军”， the meaning isn't right.How can a general reject all the commands in his army?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the extended meaning is &quot;将在外，君王的（军令）或者任何其它命令可以不接受。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T06:39:39.027" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T06:39:39.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5002" CreationDate="2013-10-29T03:34:04.503" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be 君令有所不受. The whole sentence &lt;code&gt;将在外，君令有所不受&lt;/code&gt; means: &lt;code&gt;(if) the general is far away (at the battlefield), he does not have to obey all emperor's orders&lt;/code&gt;. The deeper meaning is that the general should judge and act according to the real situations at the battlefield and thus doesn't need to obey all the orders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;将在军&lt;/code&gt; means the same as &lt;code&gt;将在外&lt;/code&gt;. 军 there means at war as well. Hence 将在军 is also correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;君命&lt;/code&gt; is the same as &lt;code&gt;君令&lt;/code&gt;. Both &lt;code&gt;命&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;令&lt;/code&gt; mean &lt;code&gt;order/command&lt;/code&gt; there. Hence both 君命 and 君令 are correct. &lt;code&gt;军命&lt;/code&gt; is not correct. It does not have the right meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;主令&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;one's master's order&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;主&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;master&lt;/code&gt;. So it means the same as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastEditorUserId="3251" LastEditDate="2013-10-31T04:45:19.503" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T04:45:19.503" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4976" CreationDate="2013-10-29T06:59:17.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First， let’s look at some background information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“想”: when “想” means “to want”, it’s a psychological verb.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“要” :  is a volitive auxiliary, but it also has the meaning of “ to want” in some situations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When they both mean” to want”, they have different structures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;想： 想+ verb + object   eg  我想喝一杯咖啡。我想要一杯咖啡。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;要： 要+ object              eg  我要一杯咖啡。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because 想 can’t be directly used before the objective, it needs a verb in the middle， &#xA;like 想吃，想喝，想要。Unless when 想 means “to miss”, it can be used before the objective directly. Like: 我想你。（ I miss you。）&#xA;And 很 can only be used before psychological verbs and adjectives, that means you can say ： 很想，很想要， but not 很要。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2013-10-31T05:00:11.630" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T05:00:11.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4974" CreationDate="2013-10-29T07:17:42.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese character is : 摆乌龙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;It originatesfrom a folk legend in Guangdong China. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was a heavy drought in Guangdong, people prayed the Thanh Long to give people rain, but Wu long came instead of Thanh Long , and it brought big disaster to people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 摆乌龙 means to make a big mistake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T07:17:42.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5007" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-29T08:38:39.283" Score="7" ViewCount="423" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/js/8ECA.htm&quot;&gt;車 in Chinese chess is pronounced jū&lt;/a&gt;. Why isn't it pronounced chē?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this pronunciation used outside of Chinese chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T12:23:31.200" Title="Why is the 車 in Chinese chess pronounced jū?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5007" CreationDate="2013-10-29T09:31:13.243" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is an ancient pronunciation of that Chinese character. Because Chinese chess has been created for more than 2000 years. During this period of time, pronunciations of many characters have changed, &quot;車&quot; is one of them. But because this game has been widely spread, this ancient pronunciation has been retained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pronunciation is only used in this game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3420" LastEditorUserId="3420" LastEditDate="2013-10-31T12:23:31.200" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T12:23:31.200" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5009" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5010" CreationDate="2013-10-29T19:05:42.063" Score="4" ViewCount="807" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translate translates &quot;好高骛远&quot; into ambitious. I was wondering if you agree with that? I don't think ambitious carries the meaning of lacking capability. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T14:16:56.787" Title="What is 好高骛远 in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5009" CreationDate="2013-10-29T19:59:55.960" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/3520618.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bai Du Zhi Dao&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好高骛远 (Hào gāo wù yuǎn) means: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比喻不切实际地追求过高过远的目标 (Bǐyù bù qiè shíjì dì zhuī qiú guò gāo guò yuǎn de&#xA;  mùbiāo.) : you unrealistically pursue goals that are too high and far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To break down the phrase: 好高骛远&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好 (Hào- 4th tone = likes/wants), so... 好高 (Hào gāo): likes/wants (things that are) high&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骛 (wù): Greedy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;远 (yuǎn): Far, Distant (So, 骛远 = over ambitious/over greedy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To break that guy's response down&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不切实际 (bù qiè shíjì): Phrase to indicate impracticality of something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地 (dì): usually means &quot;ground&quot;... but here it follows an adverb. For example, 他慢慢地走过去 (he slowly walked over there). So, 慢慢 would be modifying the verb 追求 (zhuī qiú), so you use 地 (dì) between the adverb and the verb。 Like he &quot;impractically pursued x&quot;: 他不切实际*&lt;em&gt;地&lt;/em&gt;*追求x&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;追求 (zhuī qiú): to pursue something stubbornly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过高过远 (guò gāo guò yuǎn): 过 just means &quot;pass over, too much, pass&quot;: so 过高 and 过远 just means too high and too far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目标 (mùbiāo): Goal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2013-10-30T13:11:33.887" LastActivityDate="2013-10-30T13:11:33.887" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5009" CreationDate="2013-10-30T00:46:02.837" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think, 好高骛远 means: reach for what is beyond one's grasp&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is some example translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not prone to extravagant fancies.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是不会好高骛远的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A high flier may have an impossible hope for the future.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;好高骛远的人，也许将来有个难以实现的愿望。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hew not too high lest the chips fall in thine eye.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;伐木时不要砍得太高，否则木屑会跑入你的眼睛。（勿好高骛远，应实事求事。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People should be down-to-earth, instead of being over-ambitious.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做人应该脚踏实地，不要好高骛远。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tom has taken five courses this semester, including French. I think he is bitting offchew. &#xA;汤姆这个学期选修了五门课, 还包括法语, 我想他是有些好高骛远了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;====&#xA;I think &quot;over-ambitious&quot; will do the trick. Google is kinda right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3441" LastActivityDate="2013-10-30T00:46:02.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4959" CreationDate="2013-10-30T00:54:40.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an answer to a narrower version of the question, by only looking at single characters associated with good appearance. Hopefully this can help you understand what the multi-character versions mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that characters with a female radical tend to be used for females only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, note that these single characters often change meaning when used in different contexts, so do not use this as a guide to mix-and-match and make your own words!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美: beautiful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丽: beautiful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;秀: elegant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俊: handsome&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俏: spruce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;媚: charming&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;娇: tender&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;娆: graceful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;艳: gorgeous&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雅: refined&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;致: delicate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华: splendid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-10-30T00:54:40.403" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-10-30T00:54:40.403" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5013" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-30T01:36:22.510" Score="8" ViewCount="1017" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently found out that I've been incorrectly writing a lot of Chinese characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;口日目&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been writing them with the little feet (not sure of a better name for them) but have been told that they are written without them. Other examples would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了字好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I've been writing the line from from the centre to the bottom straight but have been told it needs to be curved. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/3847/3124&quot;&gt;@congliu's answer&lt;/a&gt; to another question the above holds true but that was regarding a different topic and didn't cover this topic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excluding &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/3026/3124&quot;&gt;speed writing&lt;/a&gt; and calligraphy how would you know what to write(By hand) based off printed text?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T23:20:13.290" Title="Writing in Chinese - What rules are there for handwriting vs printed" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5125" CreationDate="2013-10-30T12:46:48.497" Score="10" ViewCount="439" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1d/js/70AE.htm&quot;&gt;炮&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/js/7832.htm&quot;&gt;砲&lt;/a&gt; both mean &quot;cannon&quot;, but it seems the former is much more common, and the latter only really seen in Xiangqi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a difference in meaning? For example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi#Cannon&quot;&gt;on wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; it is said that 砲 means &quot;catapult&quot;, due to the stone radical.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Was 砲 a made-up variant used for Xiangqi? I know that for Xiangqi, different characters were chosen, which sometimes lead to arbitrary choices (e.g. 傌 which has nothing to do with horses)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or were there deeper historical reasons? For instance, it's hard to believe that 炮 existed before gunpowder, so it's plausible that 砲 was used earlier, to mean &quot;catapult&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T09:17:12.137" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T10:59:11.010" Title="What's the relationship between 炮 and 砲?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5015" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-30T18:33:00.210" Score="0" ViewCount="2161" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today i saw the expression: &quot;奻&quot; and &quot;女女女&quot; are they connected is some way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what they mean exactly? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3449" LastActivityDate="2013-10-30T19:24:37.203" Title="What is the exact meaning of 奻?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2013-11-01T01:28:50.013" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5015" CreationDate="2013-10-30T19:24:37.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, What do you mean you say &quot;女女女&quot;? Just as a string like that, or is it 3 女 combined to form the character &lt;code&gt;姦 (Jiān) : fornicate/rape&lt;/code&gt;? Could you possibly share the expression you encountered?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zidian.911cha.com/MTBqYQ==.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;新华字典&lt;/a&gt; gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;奻 (nuán)&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;争吵 (Zhēngchǎo): Quarrel &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;愚 (Yú): Ignorance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll need an answer to the first part (what is &quot;女女女&quot;) before I can say if they're connected or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-10-30T19:24:37.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5017" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5018" CreationDate="2013-10-30T20:01:23.303" Score="3" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stroke order according to Nciku and Visual Mandarin for 妆 and 装, the left radical, 丬, the two ticks go before the bar. But in 乘, the radical that looks like 丬, the bar comes before the two ticks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are the stroke orders different? They're practically look the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2013-11-01T03:36:40.290" Title="Stroke order confusion: 妆, 装 vs 乘" Tags="&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5017" CreationDate="2013-10-30T21:26:35.510" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @deutschZuid mentioned in his comment, the component in 乘 that you mention is technically not its radical. The &quot;radical&quot; refers specifically to which component the character is classified under in dictionaries, which in this case is 丿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But anyway, to answer your question, the 丬 component in 妆 and 装 and the component that looks like that in 乘 have different stroke orders because they were originally derived from different components in the first place, even though they may look similar here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of 妆 and 装, their 丬 radical comes from 爿, in which the vertical bar comes last in the stroke order. In the case of 乘, the component that looks like 丬 is actually from 北, in which the vertical bar comes first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[As an aside, the derivation of 乘 is actually even more complicated. It actually was originally 椉, which ended up getting simplified into 禾 + 北 = 乘.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2013-10-30T21:26:35.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5019" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-10-31T01:53:14.660" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-10-31T01:53:14.660" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T01:53:14.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5020" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-10-31T01:53:14.660" Score="0" Body="For seeking a Chinese word or phrase that fits a meaning. Please be specific about the intended use of the word, including context." OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T03:58:05.893" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T03:58:05.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5002" CreationDate="2013-10-31T02:53:56.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually we use the first one:将在外，军令有所不受， which means the general doesn’t have to wait for the king’s order in a war, because things change very fast in a war, so a good general should have the ability to decide what to do without waiting for his king’s order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;军令 means “military orders”， 君令and 君命 both  mean &quot;king’s orders&quot;. 不受 and 不授 both mean &quot;don’t accept&quot;， 不从 means &quot;don’t follow&quot;, 不为 means &quot;don’t do&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T09:14:35.513" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T09:14:35.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4993" CreationDate="2013-10-31T02:57:23.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;暧昧 is a kind of relationship between women and men; it exists in friendship, but the degree is higher than friendship; it’s almost love but has not become love yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t think there is a perfect English word which can perfectly express its meaning.  Actually, we can’t always find a correct word which has the exact same meaning in another language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T14:21:44.527" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T14:21:44.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2013-10-31T03:28:46.720" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Verbs like 见、买、吃、看、听 are all just express an action, when you want to express the result of the verb, you have to add “到”.  You will understand it better from the following  examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A blind man can do the action “ 看”, but he will never 看到 anything.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;People can go to the train station 买 train tickets during Chinese new year, but it’s very hard to 买到 a ticket. &#xA;In this sentence “我很高兴见到你” , there is a result of the action 见， the result is 你, so you can’t omit 到.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T03:28:46.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4986" CreationDate="2013-10-31T03:35:50.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, 女生 refers to school girls，in Taiwan 女生 refers to school girls and the girls who haven’t married yet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T03:35:50.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5025" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-31T14:31:58.737" Score="10" ViewCount="1576" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/charts/unihan.html&quot;&gt;Unihan database&lt;/a&gt; lists a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr38/index.html#kGradeLevel&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;kGradeLevel&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; for each entry. This is the primary grade in the Hong Kong school system by which a student is expected to know the corresponding character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a similar categorization of characters into grade levels that applies to all of China (PRC)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2333" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T04:46:17.850" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T04:46:17.850" Title="Analog of Hong Kong grade level for Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5014" CreationDate="2013-11-01T03:40:41.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, people used 砲 in xiangqi before，then when people invented gunpowder, it changed to 炮。&#xA;Second, you are right, 砲 was used earlier than 炮， because 砲 does means &quot;catapult&quot;., and 炮 existed after gunpowder. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastActivityDate="2013-11-01T03:40:41.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5029" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-01T23:06:32.313" Score="8" ViewCount="865" Body="&lt;p&gt;难 nan2, difficult; hard. Kangxi radical 172 隹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher says the radical for this character is 又 but the dictionary says clearly it's 隹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3458" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T06:55:38.803" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T07:40:58.883" Title="Why is the radical of 难 &gt; 隹 and not 又?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5029" CreationDate="2013-11-01T23:51:32.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Partial answer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;To the best of my knowledge and after a little research:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia defines a radical as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a graphical component of a Chinese character under which the character is traditionally listed in a Chinese dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So saying which dictionary you're referencing would be a big help as not all are based off Kangxi radicals. But let's take a quick look at the character 难. We have two ways of breaking it down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;又 + 8 &lt;em&gt;Strokes&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;隹 + 2 &lt;em&gt;Strokes&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are considered radicals and both would be valid entries in a dictionary but let's take a second to look at 難. This is the traditional variant of 难. See something missing? There is no 又 present in its traditional form but 隹 still is present so let's look at the options for classifying the traditional variant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;隹 + 11 &lt;em&gt;Strokes&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So based off the fact you're working with simplified I wouldn't see an issue with either your dictionary's answer or your teacher's answer but the dictionary has most likely placed 难 under 隹 as that was the location for the traditional variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T12:30:47.063" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T12:30:47.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5031" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-02T04:32:23.110" Score="0" ViewCount="1454" Body="&lt;p&gt;While visiting Dr. Sun Yat-sun Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver, B.C. I noticed the sign &quot;&amp;amp;&quot; (Ampersand) is posted everywhere. The tour guide said that &quot;&amp;amp;&quot; means money in Chinese, it is the most important sign in Chinese language. I never heard about that before, is it true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3459" LastActivityDate="2013-11-03T15:04:21.763" Title="What does &quot;&amp;&quot; (Ampersand) means in Chinese language?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2013-11-03T23:57:08.273" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5031" CreationDate="2013-11-02T05:38:37.460" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese money is &quot;￥&quot;. （Your PC's input mode to Chinese, and then press &quot;Shift&quot; and then input &quot;4&quot;）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2013-11-02T08:01:22.800" LastActivityDate="2013-11-02T08:01:22.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5033" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5035" CreationDate="2013-11-02T06:00:39.603" Score="7" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;A comment on a New York Times article about &lt;a href=&quot;http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/doctors-the-targets-of-patients-anger/?ref=world&quot;&gt;violence towards doctors in China&lt;/a&gt; reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The situation is explosive. In 2010 there were 17,234 cases of violence against medical personnel reported by CCTV. Hired thugs&#xA;  called &lt;strong&gt;&quot;niyao&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; beat up or kill doctors for 100 yuan ($16 US) plus&#xA;  cab fare. China Daily says attacks increase 20% per year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could not find the characters for &quot;niyao&quot; anywhere or a definition of a &quot;niyao&quot; as a strong-armer. Can someone point me to a source?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastActivityDate="2013-11-02T13:00:28.227" Title="&quot;niyao&quot; meaning strong-armer?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5033" CreationDate="2013-11-02T08:02:46.527" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;niyao&quot; is &lt;strong&gt;Chinese pronunciation, just a hired murder's name the doctor-killing group's name&lt;/strong&gt;, but as a Chinese, I didn't hear about that yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-11-02T08:02:46.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5033" CreationDate="2013-11-02T13:00:28.227" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is mistyped. There is something called &quot;医闹&quot; (yinao), which inherently means affrays in hospitals made by some troublesome patients because of medical disputes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the situation was, some patients hired some &quot;agency&quot; to make all the affrays for them. Before 2011, it was quite common, and those people get hired are called &quot;职业医闹&quot; (zhi ye yi nao). The payment is 100 Yuan per day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In recent years, as most of the 职业医闹 get caught into prison, much fewer reports of that events are heard, but &quot;医闹&quot; still exists, though most of the events didn't cause very serious consequences. But recently, a patient killed a doctor in Zhejiang, which is an open book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastActivityDate="2013-11-02T13:00:28.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5031" CreationDate="2013-11-03T03:40:06.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible you could be looking at a highly calligraphic &quot;钱&quot;, or qián, which means &quot;money&quot;. I could see those swirly lines bleeding together and looking like an &quot;&amp;amp;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm stumped for any other ideas!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3461" LastActivityDate="2013-11-03T03:40:06.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5031" CreationDate="2013-11-03T15:04:21.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;maybe you want to check this: &lt;a href=&quot;http://vancouverchinesegarden.com/calendar/iain-baxter/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://vancouverchinesegarden.com/calendar/iain-baxter/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2013-11-03T15:04:21.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5039" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5041" CreationDate="2013-11-04T04:31:45.523" Score="9" ViewCount="350" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where I am in Kunming there is a square that seems to go by two names:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金碧&lt;b&gt;广场&lt;/b&gt;, Jīn bì guǎngchǎng, &amp;quot;Golden Square&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金马碧鸡&lt;b&gt;坊&lt;/b&gt;, Jīnmǎ bì jī fang, &amp;quot;Golden Horse and Green Rooster Square&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look up &amp;quot;square&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;plaza&amp;quot; in English-Chinese dictionaries I only see 广场 (guǎngchǎng).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look up &amp;quot;坊&amp;quot; I only find senses such as &amp;quot;city subdivision&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;neighbourhood&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary does not list &amp;quot;坊&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;广场&amp;quot; as synonyms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate does translate &amp;quot;坊&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;square&amp;quot; but it can't always be trusted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Are &amp;quot;square&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;plaza&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;piazza&amp;quot; valid senses for &amp;quot;坊&amp;quot;?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-11-05T13:22:05.310" Title="Does &quot;坊&quot; also mean &quot;square&quot;, &quot;plaza&quot;, &quot;piazza&quot; like &quot;广场&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="242" CreationDate="2013-11-04T08:44:23.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best source I found was coworkers or peers at partner companies. If you need a name for a professional context that is probably the safest way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, you will want to shop around any name you get to a few different people to make sure they didn't give you a weird name that they liked (this happened when I asked a friend's mom to help me with a name).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end we settled on a name that was sounded similar to my last and middle name, but had a meaning of a mythological Chinese figure that had a meaning that was appropriate for my job. When Chinese people would read the name they would be surprised and impressed that I had picked a name like that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you should keep in mind that there can be different meanings of different words based on the dialect that is being spoken. My last name can be commonly translated into one character in Hong Kong, but it could be interpreted as &quot;I am not.&quot; This causes some situations with Shanghais where the same character means &quot;I am.&quot; So people from Shanghai will have this word and then something they want to be known for (e.g. &quot;I am smart&quot; or &quot;I am beautiful&quot;). In Hong Kong it means the opposite (e.g. &quot;I am not smart&quot; or &quot;I am not beautiful&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3466" LastActivityDate="2013-11-04T08:44:23.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5039" CreationDate="2013-11-04T09:25:36.623" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 坊 in 金马碧鸡坊 refers to 牌坊. There is a 金马牌坊 and a 碧鸡牌坊 as mentioned in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-sg/%E9%87%91%E9%A9%AC%E7%A2%A7%E9%B8%A1%E5%9D%8A&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the olden days, an arch known as 牌坊 is used to mark the entrance to a city subdivision. From Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The largest division within a city in ancient China was a fang (坊),&#xA;  equivalent to current day precinct. Each fang was enclosed by walls or&#xA;  fences, and the gates of these enclosure were shut and guarded every&#xA;  night. Each fang was further divided into several pai (牌; literally&#xA;  &quot;placard&quot;), which is equivalent to current day (unincorporated)&#xA;  community. Each pai in turn, contained an area including several&#xA;  hutongs (alleyways).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most busy part of a town is usually at the gateway where the thoroughfare is. In modern times, 牌坊 only serves as a monumental structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 坊 has several &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/574A.htm&quot;&gt;other meanings&lt;/a&gt;. Including:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;街市 (street market) and&#xA;里巷 (lane, e.g. 兰桂坊)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, the usage has been extended to represent a place filled with activities, including a square, a plaza or even a shopping mall e.g. 朗豪坊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-11-04T09:25:36.623" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4993" CreationDate="2013-11-04T23:21:19.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say its similar to being flirtatious with someone, but it's more Chinese culture related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because Chinese culture puts emphasis on being indirect, the relationship between a men and women can be somewhat unclear. 暧昧 describes the relationship of two people between &quot;friendship&quot; and &quot;partnership&quot;. Think of two people with mutual affection but haven't told each other their feelings. I know it is also common in western world but I would say it exists more in Chinese couples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3135" LastActivityDate="2013-11-04T23:21:19.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5043" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5053" CreationDate="2013-11-05T06:30:14.057" Score="10" ViewCount="608" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm in Yunnan and have noticed lots of Chinese muslims and ate at one of their restaurants today. I was aware of Turkic-speaking muslim ethnic minorities in the far west of China but now I know those people, the Uyghurs, are distinct from the Hui people I have been noticing. According to Wikipedia the Hui people speak their local Chinese dialect rather than an ethnic language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm wondering if they still have some common phrases or greetings used only by Hui and not by most Han Chinese, possibly due to Islamic or Arabic language influence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance do they have Sinicized equivalents to &quot;inshallah&quot; or the greeting &quot;As-salamu alaykum&quot;? Possibly translated literally or calqued into Chinese? Or possibly just adapted to the sound system of the Chinese language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia article on the Hui people has a language section, but it doesn't mention anything of this nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:15:54.557" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T22:23:56.493" Title="Are there some greetings or phrases particular to the Hui people?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5039" CreationDate="2013-11-05T08:21:51.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“坊” has two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;fāng  means “lane”.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;fáng  means “workshop”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that 金马碧鸡坊 is not the name of a square. We have a place called 田子坊, it’s a place that has lots of workshops and lanes, people can buy many handcrafts there.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Square” in Chinese should be 广场, and usually it could be a big place, like Tian’anmen square in Beijing.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Plaza” in Chinese could be 购物广场 (shopping mall).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Piazza” in Chinese should be 广场 as well, but usually it’s in the open air.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-05T13:22:05.310" LastActivityDate="2013-11-05T13:22:05.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5029" CreationDate="2013-11-05T08:39:50.290" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am sure the radical for this character is 隹 , I can list the characters of 又 radical：&#xA;又叉及反双友収发叏叐叒叓变取受叔叕叛叟叙叚叝叞叜叠叡叢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastActivityDate="2013-11-05T08:39:50.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5047" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-05T20:41:06.830" Score="7" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm doing a translation of the Dao De Jing, using some originals and some translations to english and portuguese. I've noticed that 常 chang is almost always translated as &quot;eternal&quot;, &quot;fixed&quot;, &quot;immutable&quot;, etc. That seems to be a monotheistic preconception, far from the natural view of the world that seems prevailing in the book. So I'm using &quot;common&quot; or &quot;usual&quot; - another translation of the term, and one that seems to fit better in the overall meaning of the text. After all, not everything &quot;common&quot; is &quot;unchangeable&quot;. Has anyone else thought about it? Which translation do you think is more adequate to the spirit of the original? Another question is: each chinese character should receive only one translation throughout the book? (Maybe that's a silly idea, maybe not.) Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T19:52:14.840" Title="In Dao De Jing, 常 should be translated as &quot;eternal&quot; or as &quot;common&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5047" CreationDate="2013-11-05T21:53:00.943" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/344137.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt; suggests that the original text was 道可道，非恒道. That is, 恒 &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; 常 (meaning 永恒 = eternal, unchanging).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/js/5E38.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This  dictionary definition&lt;/a&gt; for 常 also includes the meaning &quot;长久，经久不变&quot; (and gives the example 常量, with an alternate form 恒量).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-06T04:23:15.880" LastActivityDate="2013-11-06T04:23:15.880" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="936" CreationDate="2013-11-06T04:56:14.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;危机&quot; is not short for &quot;危险机会&quot;. never heard that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it means &quot;danger&quot;,but more serious than general &quot;danger&quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Example,if the company has some critical trouble,we can say that the company has &quot;危机&quot;.&#xA; By contrast,it also has chance to put the company back on its feet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3474" LastActivityDate="2013-11-06T04:56:14.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2013-11-06T05:01:49.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;来的&quot; = &quot;来着&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if u want to understand anything you didn't know , u can use &quot;這是什麼？&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is this = 這是什麼（來的）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3474" LastActivityDate="2013-11-06T05:01:49.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5014" CreationDate="2013-11-06T05:11:48.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;砲 is only used in Weapon&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1  &quot;砲彈&quot;(bullet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;炮 has many usage/meanings&lt;/strong&gt;        &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 same as 砲,so u also can say &quot;炮彈&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2 Firecracker  -&gt;&quot;鞭炮&quot;,&quot;炮竹&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3 A Cooking Method.it means to stir-fry sth.  -&gt;&quot;炮羊肉&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4 to concoct sth -&gt;&quot;炮製&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3474" LastActivityDate="2013-11-06T05:11:48.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3784" CreationDate="2013-11-06T05:18:01.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;網路霸凌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the definition is the use of communication technologies for the intention of harming another person,like hacker &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3474" LastActivityDate="2013-11-06T05:18:01.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5043" CreationDate="2013-11-06T06:00:26.227" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes there are.&lt;/strong&gt; Such language in Chinese is referred to as 回回话 &lt;em&gt;Huíhui huà&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to user xiaohouzi79 for &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5043/are-there-some-greetings-or-phrases-particular-to-the-hui-people#comment7887_5043&quot;&gt;pointing out&lt;/a&gt; the book &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; By Dru C. Gladney, which is &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com.au/books?id=_hJ9aht6nZQC&amp;amp;printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;partly viewable on Google Books&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This book contains a large appendix, &lt;strong&gt;A Select Glossary of Hui Chinese Islamic Terms&lt;/strong&gt; on pages 393 to 421.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some Hui greetings I found, which are transliterations from Arabic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;安色俩目阿莱空 &lt;em&gt;Ān sè liǎ mù ā lái kōng&lt;/em&gt; - &quot;Peace be to you&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;安色俩目，尔莱库目 &lt;em&gt;Ān sè liǎ mù, ěr lái kù mù&lt;/em&gt; - &quot;Peace be with you&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;色俩买提 &lt;em&gt;Sè liǎ mǎi tí&lt;/em&gt; - &quot;Peace be to you&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The glossary contains many terms relating directly to Islam and derived from Arabic, but there are many terms not pertaining to religion and terms from Persian, Turkic languages, and even wholly Chinese words used only by Hui or with additional Hui-specific senses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently Hui use Persian or Arabic numbers among themselves when bargaining so regular Chinese will not understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a couple of other terms I found interesting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;番客 &lt;em&gt;Fān kè&lt;/em&gt; - barbarian guest, foreigner&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;色瓦布 &lt;em&gt;Sè wǎ bù&lt;/em&gt; - expression of thanks, &quot;May Allah reward you&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a traveller in China I'm interested to find out if Hui think of me as a 番客 and I will try saying 色瓦布 instead of 谢谢 next time I buy a meal from them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-11-07T03:09:47.980" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5054" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-06T11:28:49.690" Score="8" ViewCount="661" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小黄儿, 小欢儿, 小花儿; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;唱歌儿, 树根儿, 一横儿; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't understand the difference between each phonetic symbol in the same row in the table below: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w4ZlB.png&quot; alt=&quot;普通话儿化音表&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The picture is from Wikipedia. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3007" LastEditorUserId="3007" LastEditDate="2013-11-06T11:39:15.477" LastActivityDate="2013-11-09T00:03:25.687" Title="How to distinguish the difference between the pronunciation of different erhuayin?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;erhuayin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5025" CreationDate="2013-11-07T05:53:23.160" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course we have, you can see it &lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/7ddd246ab84ae45c3b358cd5.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;on baidu.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But because in China many provinces now have the right to have their own teaching syllabus, they may have different categorization of characters. But all the characters must come from the most common used 2500 characters. Then spread to the  other characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2013-11-07T07:12:00.883" LastActivityDate="2013-11-07T07:12:00.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3496" CreationDate="2013-11-07T23:28:51.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of the many years I spent in Guangzhou I was always said to be 白人 in terms of the color of my skin. My Chinese friends called themselves 黄人 or yellow skin. No PC involved, just straight facts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3483" LastEditorUserId="11374" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T06:06:58.997" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T06:06:58.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5054" CreationDate="2013-11-08T01:53:08.330" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, the difference of the pronunciation with and without erhuayin is just like British English pronunciation and American pronunciation, for example, 'worker', in British you can't hear 'er' pronunciation but can clearly hear 'er' in American English. So, typically that's the 'same difference' in Chinese speaking, erhuayin or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3484" LastActivityDate="2013-11-08T01:53:08.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5054" CreationDate="2013-11-08T03:32:23.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Background information: We take “jiang” as an example: “j” is the initial, “iang” is the final, and in the final, “i” is the head of the final, “a” is the “central” of the final, “ng” is the end of the final. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course some of the syllables don’t have the “head” of “end”, but they must have a “central”. And the pronunciation of “erhuayin” is up to the “central” and the “end”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the that syllables don’t have an “end” or the “end” is “u”, add “er” directly after the syllable, like: cher, baor, hua4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the syllables ending with “i, n”, you need to omit “i , n” then add “er” after it, like: kuair renr &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the syllables with “ i, Ü” as their “central”, you need to add an “a” after the syllable then add “er”, like “xir, yur”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the syllables which are “ zhi chi shi zi ci si”, change the “i” to “er”, like: zhir, zir, xir.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the syllables ending with “ng”, omit the “ng” and add “er”, like： pingr， mangr.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-08T15:55:43.307" LastActivityDate="2013-11-08T15:55:43.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5047" CreationDate="2013-11-08T03:51:05.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the translation of “常” , I think using “ common” or “usual” if fine, like the first sentence “ 道可道，非常道”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I don’t think that “each chinese character should receive only one translation throughout the book”,  but for the special concepts that Laozi pointed out, I think they just have one translation throughout the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3374" LastActivityDate="2013-11-08T03:51:05.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5061" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-08T22:20:49.333" Score="5" ViewCount="2383" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering, which is the correct sentence in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的生日是几月几号？ or 你的生日几月几号？ (without 是) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also can I omit 的 in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3491" LastEditorUserId="3491" LastEditDate="2013-11-08T23:28:34.777" LastActivityDate="2013-11-10T14:26:08.583" Title="Which is the correct sentence? Question about birthday" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5061" CreationDate="2013-11-09T00:00:40.710" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The line without 是 is not a correct sentence because it doesn't have a verb. It's fine in spoken language but should be avoided in formal writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, it is fine to omit 的 in spoken language, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To recap,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的生日是几月几号？ Grammatical, fine for both formal and informal usages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的生日几月几号？Not a complete sentence, only used in spoken language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你生日是几月几号？Whether it's grammatical is arguable. Regardless, it's common in spoken language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-11-09T00:56:44.770" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5054" CreationDate="2013-11-09T00:03:25.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with TaraWordoor. You shouldn't be able to differentiate /er/ from /nr/ because when the sound /n/ is &quot;erhua&quot;-ed, you don't pronounce /n/ at all. So if you want to say 人儿, you're actually pronouncing /rer/. (BTW, these sounds are not in international phonetic alphabet. They're basically pinyin.) However, you should be able to hear the difference between /er/(/nr/) and /ngr/ because /ngr/ has a nasal sound at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you said, after you move to southern China, it's not a problem any more. It is mainly because &quot;the southerners&quot; (with all due respect) don't have 儿化音, and they don't have the difference between /n/ and /ng/ either. However, if you watch sit-coms about people from the north, it should be pretty easy to tell. I can't agree with some of the responses that standard Mandarin doesn't have 儿化音. Mandarin, as a partially artificial language, uses Beijing accent as a standard and northern accent in general as a base. So by definition, Mandarin should have 儿化音. The reason why you don't hear them often in the news is because 儿化音 is more colloquial and less formal. When you say something like 可爱的人儿, you're basically saying &quot;cutie pie&quot;; but when you say 可爱的人, you're saying &quot;lovely person&quot;. Not just the meaning changes, the connotation changes as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3492" LastActivityDate="2013-11-09T00:03:25.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5064" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-09T04:51:25.403" Score="5" ViewCount="1620" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a struggling very beginner having difficulties with both pronunciation and Pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I dabble in linguistics so I'm accustomed to dealing with IPA pronunciations. For this reason I have been looking for a table related syllables in Pinyin and IPA. I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkbank.org/pinyin/Trad_chart_IPA.php&quot;&gt;this one on &lt;code&gt;talkbang.org&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which I thought was just what I was looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I found my pronunciation of 去 (qù) &quot;go&quot; wasn't good I found on this site that the pronunciation would be &lt;code&gt;/tɕʰu/&lt;/code&gt;, with the &quot;u&quot; sound similar to the one in Engish &quot;food&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my native Chinese speaking friend didn't understand me and the pronunciation he demonstrated for me sounded like &lt;code&gt;/tɕʰy/&lt;/code&gt;, where &lt;code&gt;/y/&lt;/code&gt; is the IPA symbol for the &quot;ü&quot; sound not found in English but similar to a sound found in French and German.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know in Pinyin the spellings and sounds for &quot;ü&quot; and &quot;u&quot; are not totally obvious for new learners and I haven't got a grip on this yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is the chart on this website wrong, thus being part of what's hindering my progress, or am I just not hearing or understanding things at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T13:57:26.170" Title="Is 去 (qù) pronunced /tɕʰu/ or /tɕʰy/?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5064" CreationDate="2013-11-09T11:46:08.910" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is a terrible mistake that the website has made, because there is no occasion when qu is pronounced tsʰu in Mandarin. Since you can actually tell the difference between u and ü, things should be easier for you now. You can just memorise that after (pinyin) j, q, x, y, ü is always written as u, and if you see u after j, q, x, y, it's always pronounced as ü. It shouldn't cause any confusion at least to native speakers because these consonants are never followed by a vowel sound u but only by a ü.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3492" LastActivityDate="2013-11-09T11:46:08.910" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5066" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5067" CreationDate="2013-11-09T20:24:23.677" Score="5" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这一重大的历史时点，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和讯网&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;著名经济学家张维迎就改革的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发展问题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;进行了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一次非常深入的访谈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(From &lt;a href=&quot;http://economy.caijing.com.cn/2013-11-07/113534884.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CaiJing.com.cn&lt;/a&gt;; link now broken.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this important historical point, Hexun.com has conducted a very in-depth discussion on the question of development, which renowned economics professor, ZHANG Weiyin, has reformed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have I parsed and translated this sentence correctly? Or is there some better interpretation I'm not seeing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3438" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-04-15T04:26:11.093" Title="Have I parsed this correctly? 在这一重大的历史时点，和讯网对著名经济学家张维迎就改革的发展问题进行了一次非常深入的访谈。" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5066" CreationDate="2013-11-09T20:39:40.413" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;在这一重大的历史时点，和讯网/对(著名经济学家)张维迎(就改革的发展问题)进行了(一次非常深入的)访谈。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the main structure is &lt;code&gt;和讯网对张维迎进行了访谈&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the correct translation that reflects this structure should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;At this important historical point, Hexun.com has conducted a very in-depth discussion (or interview) with the renowned economist ZHANG Weiyin on the question (or problem) of future directions of reform.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2013-11-09T20:39:40.413" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2036" CreationDate="2013-11-10T14:16:40.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, I would say region is has a big influence on how the &lt;code&gt;r&lt;/code&gt; sound is pronounced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, I know an older aiyi from GuangDong who says &lt;code&gt;yan2&lt;/code&gt;. This is due to her being more familiar with Cantonese pronunciation. The younger generation who are educated more in Mandarin from school and TV, say the traditional &lt;code&gt;ren2&lt;/code&gt; with more of an &lt;code&gt;r&lt;/code&gt; sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3496" LastActivityDate="2013-11-10T14:16:40.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5064" CreationDate="2013-11-10T14:19:32.390" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is based upon an English accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;u&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;qu&lt;/code&gt; is defiantly more of a &lt;code&gt;goo&lt;/code&gt; sound, as in the sticky green stuff. As 去 is 4th tone, it is also quite a short sound. This is different to 不, where the &lt;code&gt;u&lt;/code&gt; is more &lt;code&gt;oooo, interesting&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;q&lt;/code&gt; is more of a &lt;code&gt;choo choo&lt;/code&gt; sound, rather than a &lt;code&gt;chip&lt;/code&gt; sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3496" LastEditorUserId="3496" LastEditDate="2013-11-10T15:18:26.790" LastActivityDate="2013-11-10T15:18:26.790" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5061" CreationDate="2013-11-10T14:26:08.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a general rule, if you use a 是, you should have a corresponding 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是很好吃的！&#xA;我今天是很忙的。&#xA;你今天是怎么样的呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese, though, favor saying less to get the same meaning across. So when speaking, sometimes the 是 and/or the 的 will not be spoken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3496" LastActivityDate="2013-11-10T14:26:08.583" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2428" CreationDate="2013-11-10T14:30:33.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Speed and efficiency are valued. Many Chinese add:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快点!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 马上给我你的奶酪，快点！is also a great way to add this type of emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3496" LastActivityDate="2013-11-10T14:30:33.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3452" CreationDate="2013-11-10T15:39:21.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a similar note, I have never heard a Chinese person spelling an English word to another Chinese person, but when trying to indicate an English letter, for instance an underground exit, they will often say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A, B, C 的 B 吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3496" LastActivityDate="2013-11-10T15:39:21.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5073" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-10T19:05:19.710" Score="4" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading a Chinese manga translation and have come across this note above a panel: 嘰咿—&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what it could mean or say in English. Can anyone help me? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3498" LastActivityDate="2013-11-10T23:28:24.077" Title="What does 嘰咿— mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5073" CreationDate="2013-11-10T23:28:24.077" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;That looks like onomatopoeia (象声词) so it means exactly what it sounds like: jiyi. In this case though, the 咿 (yi) and the dash (—) are meant to extend the &quot;i&quot; sound, so it's just &quot;jiiiii--&quot; altogether.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/5630.htm&quot;&gt;嘰/叽&lt;/a&gt; is usually used for small birds chirping, as in the second definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　2. 象聲詞：小鳥～～叫。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at this list of &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z2155m1104j18596.html&quot;&gt;Chinese onomatopoeia&lt;/a&gt;, you may notice that a lot of the characters have the mouth radical (口). When you see a single character or multiple characters all with that radical, especially in a manga, it's very likely that it's an onomatopoeia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-11-10T23:28:24.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5075" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5076" CreationDate="2013-11-11T13:40:59.177" Score="4" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to convey the idea: My residence is in the neighborhood of a bridge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Initially I got:&#xA;我住宅在附近的一座橋樑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ zhùzhái zài fùjìn de yīzuò qiáoliáng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But after listening to myself saying that, I think I got the &quot;de&quot; out of place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X de Y is the Y of the X.  So the neighborhood of the bridge is the qiáoliáng de fùjìn.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think I should say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我住宅在一座橋樑 的 附近。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ zhùzhái zài yīzuò qiáoliáng de fùjìn .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I welcome any corrections of obvious mistakes, but I think the second version of the basic grammar and syntax is correct.  However, I am not sure whether this sounds natural and idiomatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this sound like a native Mandarin speaker would say it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3499" LastEditorUserId="3499" LastEditDate="2013-11-11T13:55:07.373" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T05:48:37.660" Title="我住宅在一座橋樑 的 附近。Does this sound idiomatic and natural, or stilted and artificial?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5075" CreationDate="2013-11-11T14:00:07.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;住宅&lt;/code&gt;、&lt;code&gt;桥梁&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;这两个词语太书面化了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more natural way is to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我家附近有座桥。/我家边上有座桥。/我家在桥边。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastActivityDate="2013-11-11T14:00:07.520" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5075" CreationDate="2013-11-11T22:33:59.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My residence&lt;/strong&gt; should translate to 我*&lt;em&gt;的&lt;/em&gt;*住宅. Alternately you could consider using a verb &quot;I live&quot;, i.e. 我住在, or 我居住在.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;附近的一座橋樑 means &quot;a bridge nearby&quot;. 一座橋樑的附近 means &quot;near a bridge&quot;. So use the latter because the former means you live in a bridge :)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-11-11T22:33:59.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5078" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5094" CreationDate="2013-11-12T01:04:19.393" Score="6" ViewCount="443" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has always stumped me as all other base 10 numbers (&gt;10) in Chinese you declare 1 through 9 for the quantity [1] of these units but you only have to declare 2 through 9 for 十 as 1 is implied [2]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is there reason behind this or just a quirk in the numerical system? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一百&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一千 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一万&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;十六&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;二十六&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As @congusbongus has pointed out this is only applicable when talking about 十 through 十九&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="3124" LastEditDate="2013-11-12T01:38:01.073" LastActivityDate="2013-12-04T21:10:01.133" Title="Why do we have to say 一百 一千 but not 一十?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2013-11-12T02:39:18.500" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From google translate or other translate,十 or 一十 both translated into ten。Which will you select as ten?I choose 十，but as others said that &quot;一十&quot; is not  wrong.Maybe it happen to our daily life,we also say &quot;千二&quot; as 1200，&quot;百二&quot; as 120,&quot;十二&quot; as 12；Also we write 十二，but we won't write 千二。You know Oral and written will have a big differnt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3501" LastEditorUserId="3501" LastEditDate="2013-11-12T02:51:23.980" LastActivityDate="2013-11-12T02:51:23.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2013-11-12T03:00:26.890" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @Stan mention in the comment, we often omit the '一' when the number is in between 10 to 20.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we usually say&#xA;十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七, 十八, 十九&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you got to bank to write down the number you'd like to transfer or deposit, it comes to the more disambiguous way such as the case bellow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11111&#xA;壹萬壹千壹百壹拾壹元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me I think if you only need to write the characters, it doesn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only when you talk to normal people, that sounds a bit weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2337" LastActivityDate="2013-11-12T03:00:26.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5083" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5087" CreationDate="2013-11-12T11:16:02.587" Score="5" ViewCount="1719" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone please explain this sentence structure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;衣服也落在了房间内.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the 了 mean here? Is it pronounce le or liao?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T08:30:09.320" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T08:30:09.320" Title="What does 了mean in 衣服也落在了房间内, and is it pronounce le or liao?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5084" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5086" CreationDate="2013-11-12T11:45:58.040" Score="2" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;同学们，我的新家安电话的时侯还是几年前，可现在想起来可真是记忆犹新呀！不信？那我就讲给你听听，我可要出点丑了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 可现在想起来可真是记忆犹新呀！why is there a second 可 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2。我可要出点丑了！what is the meaning of 可 here and what does 出点丑 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T00:39:09.267" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T00:39:09.267" Title="What do the 可 mean in 可现在想起来可真是记忆犹新呀 and 我可要出点丑了?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5084" CreationDate="2013-11-12T20:32:06.357" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;可现在想起来可真是记忆犹新呀！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first 可 is the abbreviated form of 可是, meaning &quot;however&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The phone was intalled a few years ago, &lt;strong&gt;however&lt;/strong&gt;, I still remember it as clearly as if it's yesterday.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second 可 is used to emphasize 真是. This 可 can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我可要出点丑了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 可要 is used to draw more attention from, or to give heads-ups, warnings, or threats to the listeners. 可要 can be reduced to 要.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出丑 means to reveal something shameful or private about oneself to others. 出点丑 simply reduces the amount/intensity of the 'shame' being revealed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-11-12T21:49:08.000" LastActivityDate="2013-11-12T21:49:08.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5083" CreationDate="2013-11-12T20:46:21.823" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;衣服也落在房间内*&lt;em&gt;了&lt;/em&gt;*。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 了 is used to indicate the completion of the action of 落在房间内.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衣服也落在*&lt;em&gt;了&lt;/em&gt;*房间内。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 了 is moved forward and positioned after 在, and that makes 房间内 become the focus point of this setence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples: &#xA;一阵大风吹来，我的帽子飞到*&lt;em&gt;了&lt;/em&gt;*天上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他开车撞到*&lt;em&gt;了&lt;/em&gt;*树上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把狗锁在*&lt;em&gt;了&lt;/em&gt;*屋内。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她一挥手碰翻*&lt;em&gt;了&lt;/em&gt;*水杯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-11-12T20:46:21.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5088" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5090" CreationDate="2013-11-13T01:01:57.207" Score="8" ViewCount="1462" Body="&lt;p&gt;I never understood the usage of 弄 for example in this sentence 婶婶找来几片叶子，给雪弄了一双耳环 why is there a 弄了?  The sentence makes sense without it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T00:33:27.603" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T00:33:27.603" Title="Why is there 弄了 in the sentence 婶婶找来几片叶子，给雪弄了一双耳环?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5089" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5091" CreationDate="2013-11-13T03:07:04.547" Score="7" ViewCount="814" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have been working with a new &lt;a href=&quot;http://whizzlearning.com/2013/10/29/calls/&quot;&gt;character system&lt;/a&gt; that differentiates between a dot and a slash in Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The issue I have is being able to instinctively tell which one I should use. When I asked &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.easychinese.hk/&quot;&gt;the creators of the system&lt;/a&gt; they said it is because it is related to the rules of Chinese calligraphy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, on the character 下 the third stroke looks like a slash down and to the right, but it is actually a dot when handwritten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese computer font that shows the difference between the dot and slash more clearly? I had heard that there was one that was considered more standard, but I haven't been able to find it...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3466" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T05:32:02.113" Title="Dot vs. slash in Chinese computer fonts" Tags="&lt;input-methods&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="17" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5088" CreationDate="2013-11-13T03:47:44.637" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume the object in your question is actually a snowman 雪人 not just 雪. So I think it should be &quot;婶婶找来几片叶子，给雪人弄了一双耳环&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have in English: &quot;Shen Shen found some leaves and made a pair of earrings for the snowman.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you check the dictionary meaning of 弄 you will see it is quite similar to the English make. In the Chinese sentence you have 弄了 so that changes &quot;make&quot; into &quot;made&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without this, if the sentence was &quot;婶婶找来几片叶子，给雪人一双耳环&quot; the sentence would be: &quot;Shen Shen found some leaves and gave them to the snowman.&quot; Now this could technically still be correct based on the context of what's going on, maybe it's a magical snowman who is getting earrings as a gift, but you should be able to see how removing 弄了 changes the meaning of the sentence completely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;婶婶找来几片叶子，给雪人*&lt;em&gt;弄了&lt;/em&gt;*一双耳环&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Shen Shen found some leaves and &lt;strong&gt;made&lt;/strong&gt; a pair of earrings for the snowman.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T03:47:44.637" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5089" CreationDate="2013-11-13T04:19:54.683" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before simply answering &amp;quot;there is such a font&amp;quot;, I would like to seriously suggest you &lt;strong&gt;should not differentiate a dot and a slash&lt;/strong&gt;. The reasons are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Many Chinese people don't distinguish them when writing, even calligraphers. We care about &amp;quot;fast&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;beautiful&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The standard glyphs among mainland, Taiwan/Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, are usually different, you can't tell which one is the most authoritative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyway you need a computer font to do such analyses, check&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A8%99%E6%A5%B7%E9%AB%94&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;標楷體&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9C%8B%E5%AD%97%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E5%AD%97%E9%AB%94&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;國字標準字體&lt;/a&gt; for traditional Chinese. This font (&lt;strong&gt;edukai-3.ttf&lt;/strong&gt;, title: TW-MOE-Std-Kai) can be downloaded from the website of Ministry Of Education of Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;微软简楷体 for simplified Chinese. This font (&lt;strong&gt;simkai.ttf&lt;/strong&gt;, title: 楷体. Offered by ZHONGYI Electronic Co., Beijing) is the default Kai font in MS Windows for simplified Chinese. Note that though it is named &amp;quot;simplified Kai&amp;quot;, it includes traditional characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the examples of the wiki page &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9C%8B%E5%AD%97%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E5%AD%97%E9%AB%94&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;國字標準字體&lt;/a&gt;, the first column is &amp;quot;standard&amp;quot; and the second is &amp;quot;conventional&amp;quot; (both should be considered &lt;em&gt;correct&lt;/em&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/slA3m.png&quot; alt=&quot;國字標準字體&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some distinction of a dot and a slash is highlighted (維, 內, 集, 遨, 說, 眾). Yes, I should also mention even in Taiwan many scholars criticize this standard, &amp;quot;sometimes it departs from convention too much&amp;quot;. And I've &lt;strong&gt;never ever&lt;/strong&gt; seen any native speaker strictly follows such a standard when they are writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other minor differences can be also found, see the comparison (微, 標):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ubPdX.png&quot; alt=&quot;Kai&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess you can figure it out :) So, I'm afraid it's better not to differentiate a dot and a slash in a &amp;quot;character system&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T04:37:03.623" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5089" CreationDate="2013-11-13T04:32:19.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should use a fuzzy system instead of a strict one.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The difference between 點(dot) and 捺(slash) is not always obvious even to native user. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in lower right corner of the character 木, the stroke is a slash, but when we writing the character 林, the slash become a dot in the left 木. Why? because there is no room to put a full slash there. The choice here is base on the aesthetic, and the difference does not matter much when writing with pen instead of brush.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't believe a input system based on Chinese calligraphy is a good choice.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Not everyone is familiar with the principles of Chinese calligraphy.&#xA;And the input method should assist, instead of become a burden to the user.&#xA;The computer should be smart enough to guess what a user wants based on the input, like auto spelling correction doesn't need user to type every alphabet correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the question about the font, there are different standards of characters.&#xA;For traditional characters, there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/M0001/mu/f5.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;國字標準字體&lt;/a&gt;, and the 標楷體 in windows system should be good enough for your need. For simplified characters, there is 现代汉语通用字表, but it is not based on calligraphy but printing fonts. You can see that if your system is based on calligraphy, it may have issues to handle simplified characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T04:32:19.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2013-11-13T05:12:46.737" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just conventional. Even common Chinese don't know why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do can say 16, for example,  一十六 or 十六.  When we emphasizing something, we say 一十六. While in common usage, we say 十六, because it's tired to add a prefix 一. It's redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3173" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T05:12:46.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2013-11-13T10:42:29.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you should know I am fairly new to the Chinese language. So what I like for me may be too rudimentary for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Apps&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, I have used &lt;a href=&quot;http://ankisrs.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Anki&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skritter.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Skritter&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.memrise.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Memrise&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of them, I think that Memrise is the best for beginners. I like their system of additive learning. The package I have been going through most recently is their Chinese lesson on menus. It is great. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hardest to use for me was Anki since you need to own the direction of your learning. This seems better for someone that has particular higher education goals (e.g. HSK) rather than just wanting to improve their knowledge. There are lots of options to play around with and you can get backlogged pretty easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More recently, I have been using a mobile app I helped build called &lt;a href=&quot;http://whizzlearning.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Whizz Learning for Chinese&lt;/a&gt;. It combines SRS with a keyboard system referred to as &lt;a href=&quot;http://whizzlearning.com/2013/10/29/calls/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CALLS&lt;/a&gt; to make parsing Chinese characters easier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The system was created by a neurolinguist here in Hong Kong and it focuses on breaking characters out into symbols. I found it easier to write down new characters (and look them up) rather than using the radical and stroke system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It probably doesn't hurt to try all of them (they are free or have free modes) as it seems that people have opinions about what is best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Behaviors (non-apps)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Along with the apps, I think focusing on the environment around you is very helpful if you live in a Chinese speaking country (or you could just go to the Chinatown in your city). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I am constantly scanning business signs, menus, ads, etc. to see if there are characters that I recognize. If there is one that I recognize, but I can't remember the meaning of I look it up. It starts to build your ability to see the character in context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once I get up to 500 or so characters I am going to start trying to read newspapers or magazines. Until then I have found it to be pretty frustrating since I am looking up everything as I read. From what I have heard proper nouns are a sticky point when starting to read newspapers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Happy learning and best of luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3466" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T10:42:29.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5064" CreationDate="2013-11-13T13:57:26.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many accents, but I will try to describe the pronunciation.  I don't know phonetic characters, but if you go by an American accent, 去 sounds a lot like &quot;chew&quot; if one were to say it fast, adding more of a &quot;ts&quot; sound at the beginning, with a downward inflection, and emphasize the &quot;ee&quot; sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just listen to people talk, and imitate them.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2639" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T13:57:26.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5097" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5098" CreationDate="2013-11-13T14:27:33.023" Score="4" ViewCount="1021" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is 之 used in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;忍耐是幸福之门的一把钥匙.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cant it just as easily be substituted with 的?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T08:32:53.607" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T08:32:53.607" Title="Why is 之 used in 忍耐是幸福之门的一把钥匙?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5097" CreationDate="2013-11-13T14:45:30.507" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;之 and 的 are essentially synonyms for different contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 is mostly used in set phrases, idioms, proverbs, poems, etc. (Also math with percents and such: 百分*&lt;em&gt;之&lt;/em&gt;*百 100 points &lt;strong&gt;out of&lt;/strong&gt; 100. )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 is more fit for colloquial contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 忍耐是幸福之门的一把钥匙 &quot;Patience is the key to the door of happiness&quot; is a phrase, it is fit to use 之.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T14:45:30.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5066" CreationDate="2013-11-13T14:53:40.083" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using 时刻 instead of 时点 will be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这一重大的历史时刻，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和讯网&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对著名经济学家张维迎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就改革的发展问题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;进行了一次非常深入的访谈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastEditorUserId="3264" LastEditDate="2020-04-15T04:26:11.093" LastActivityDate="2020-04-15T04:26:11.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5097" CreationDate="2013-11-13T14:56:38.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;usually, you may translate x之y to &quot;y of x&quot;. Not applicable in ancient Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T14:56:38.610" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5097" CreationDate="2013-11-13T16:22:21.597" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another reason is to avoid using the same word again and again in the sentence. To make it easier to read and understand, in sentences where you get related 的, this adds variety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;忍耐是幸福之门的一把钥匙&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is easier to understand than:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;忍耐是幸福的门的一把钥匙&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3496" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T16:22:21.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5102" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5103" CreationDate="2013-11-13T16:29:20.753" Score="2" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not clear on the usage of 偏上 in the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;此前，《时代》周刊和皮尤研究中心也分别做过类似国家形象的调查。结果均显示，中国的受欢迎程度排名中偏上，但都远远落后于日本的排名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation: Prior to this research, ShiDai publication and Pew did a separate investigation of... Similar countries? All of the results show that China's acceptance rating is... Skewed/biased/prejudiced? But all still lag behind Japan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="223" LastEditDate="2013-11-15T04:25:38.357" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T04:28:25.300" Title="What is the conclusion of this article?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5102" CreationDate="2013-11-13T18:01:47.660" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;此前，《时代》周刊和皮尤研究中心也分别做过类似国家形象的调查。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Previous to this (research), Time Magazine and Pew Research Center had each done similar national image surveys.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;结果均显示，中国的受欢迎程度排名中偏上，但都远远落后于日本的排名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The results all showed, China's popularity is middle to upper, but ranks far behind Japan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T18:01:47.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5102" CreationDate="2013-11-13T20:45:35.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is my attempt at slightly refining Alex's translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;此前，《时代》周刊和皮尤研究中心也分别做过类似国家形象的调查。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Previously, Time Magazine and the Pew Research Center independently carried out similar national image research.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;结果均显示，中国的受欢迎程度排名中偏上，但都远远落后于日本的排名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The results indicated that China's popularity is upper-middle, but ranks far behind Japan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T20:45:35.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5105" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5111" CreationDate="2013-11-13T23:26:02.097" Score="3" ViewCount="326" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see various written sentences that refer to 住 人 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary says this means &quot;living people,&quot; but 住 seems to be &quot;live&quot; in the sense of &quot;I live in Beijing,&quot; or &quot;I reside in Beijing.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if the sentence says &quot;There are 住 人  here,&quot; does that mean, &quot;There are people who reside in this area,&quot; or &quot;There are living people here, but in the other room there are only non-living things such as puppets&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Okay, when I originally posted the question, I saw the characters on  banner ad and didn't bother clicking the ad.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since that time, I found another copy of the banner ad and noticed that they used more than a few Japanese characters.  I clicked through and found the game that the original ad was advertising.  It seems to be &quot;Inhabitant Love&quot; which makes no sense to me.  It seems to be hosted in Taiwan, so the major language of the site should be Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am putting a link to an imgur screencap.  I think the red-outlined slogan is &quot;Which one do you want to choose (選擇) today?&quot;  I think the yellow text says &quot;Just want to be with you.&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes little sense to me.  I understand that dating sims involve characters, but why call them &quot;inhabitants&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/ZQqVu1R&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://imgur.com/ZQqVu1R&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E4%B8%BB%E4%BA%BA/1319943&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/主人/1319943&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wait a minute.  I misread the characters.  It isn't &quot;Inhabitant People Love,&quot; it's &quot;mistress love.&quot;  Or possibly &quot;master love,&quot; as in, the player gets to be the master of a household and the maids are his romantic conquests.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need to recognize what's actually written, not what I'm looking for.  I had been studying different characters and I saw the characters I was looking for, not what was actually written. Sorry about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3499" LastEditorUserId="3499" LastEditDate="2013-11-14T10:46:18.010" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T14:52:09.887" Title="Does 住 人 mean &quot;people living in the area&quot; or &quot;real live people, as opposed to puppets and fictions&quot;?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5105" CreationDate="2013-11-14T00:03:42.143" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would help if you provided the sentence in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1402096.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1402096.htm&lt;/a&gt;) gives two definitions for 住人 as a noun, meaning either residents or, in the right construction, a group of people demarcated by the preceding description&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC has 住人 as a separable verb meaning to &quot;accommodate or put up people&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现代汉语词典 doesn't list 住人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And since 住 is a common complement, it could be that 人 is the object of V+住&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could also appear in 同住人, meaning husband and wife, and in 常住人口, meaning permanent residents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T00:03:42.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5105" CreationDate="2013-11-14T02:51:29.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my mind, this is verb-subject structure upside-down, just like sometimes in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There &lt;strong&gt;lives&lt;/strong&gt; a man in a house. (A normal English sentence: A man lives in a house).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can think:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个人住房子里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;房子里住人。（similar to &quot;There + verb + subject……&quot;）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, &quot;住人&quot; also means &lt;strong&gt;whether a place suitable for living&lt;/strong&gt;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这里合适*&lt;em&gt;住人&lt;/em&gt;*吗？(Is this place suitable for living?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T02:51:29.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5105" CreationDate="2013-11-14T09:57:52.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding on to the previous answers, 住人 seems to be (at least in my experience) used more or less as a combination of verb and noun. Thus, your first definition - &quot;people living in the area&quot; - seems correct (at least in the sense of &quot;residents&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second usage you suggested seems to be incorrect - 住, as far as I understand it, means &quot;to live [in/at/etc.]&quot; in the sense of residence, rather than in a biological sense of &quot;to live&quot;. You &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; have something such as &quot;这层楼住人&quot;, but this only implies that the other building(s) are for a different purpose other than housing people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3410" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T09:57:52.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5109" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5110" CreationDate="2013-11-14T13:02:02.483" Score="7" ViewCount="359" Body="&lt;p&gt;Got this off Weibo. What does 大秀香肩美背 mean? Particularly that 大 seems odd there..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【熊乃瑾秀香肩美背 性感造型女人味十足】女星@熊乃瑾xiong 近日在意大利为某杂志拍摄了一组复古时尚大片，大秀香肩美背。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T18:45:24.383" Title="What does 大秀香肩美背mean?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5109" CreationDate="2013-11-14T14:43:21.683" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;We all know that 大 means big. It can be used on things like 大香蕉（big banana). 大 can also be used to verb. When used to verb it means this action is really big. So 大 + verb means doing something really hard or doing something in a high profile or doing something very much(like thank you very much )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here 熊乃瑾 was trying so hard to &quot;秀香肩美背&quot; in a high profile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大展宏图， 大赦天下, 大快人心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-11-14T14:49:33.640" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T14:49:33.640" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5105" CreationDate="2013-11-14T14:52:09.887" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;哈哈, 主人 and 住人. 主人 means master or m'lord. 住人 means a building can have residence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T14:52:09.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5112" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5113" CreationDate="2013-11-14T20:07:12.753" Score="10" ViewCount="1016" Body="&lt;p&gt;So in the convenience store, there were bottles of iced coffee with the slogan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同  品  項 第 2 仵  6折  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was told that this meant: &quot;Buy the first item, get the second item at 60% of base price.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was able to find the individual characters in various dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同  tong2 be the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;品 pin3 merchandise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;項 xiang4 item? expenditure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第 [dì] number&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;件 [Thanks to wilson and user238264 for the correction]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;折 [zhé] discount&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hard parts are the last two Mandarin characters.  I couldn't find a translation for 件  and while &quot;lose money&quot; roughly fits &quot;discount&quot; for 折 [zhé], I couldn't see any grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possibly there isn't any grammar to be found.  Possibly the convenience store is wildly abbreviating its Mandarin because most customers can infer huge amounts of meaning from context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any grammar and usage insights are welcome. Thanks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3499" LastEditorUserId="3499" LastEditDate="2013-11-15T12:03:25.477" LastActivityDate="2013-11-18T05:41:33.740" Title="What grammar makes 同 品 項 第 2 仵 6折 mean &quot;Buy one, get the second at 60% of base price&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5112" CreationDate="2013-11-14T20:56:28.400" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am pretty sure that you have the second to last character wrong. It makes much more sense as 件 (item).  Also, 折 should be read as zhé in this context.  The character has a large number of meanings, but in this context it means discount (and the single digit numbers preceding it count by 10%; this is a common idiomatic construction for expressing discounts).  Finally, 第 signifies that the following number is to be read as an ordinal (1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, a very literal translation of 同品项第２件６折 would be:&#xA;same product, second item, discounted to 60%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T20:56:28.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5114" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5115" CreationDate="2013-11-15T01:18:26.370" Score="4" ViewCount="1822" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 什么，什么呢，什么吗 and 什么了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你要什么？&#xA;你要什么呢？&#xA;你在做什么吗？&#xA;你做什么了？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3496" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T18:49:52.947" Title="Difference between 什么，什么呢，什么吗 and 什么了?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5114" CreationDate="2013-11-15T01:32:27.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;你要什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you want?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要什么呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, as for you, what do you want?  (might be used, for example, after saying what you yourself want and then asking into the other person's desires.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在做什么吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This looks ungrammatical to me.  Without the 吗 it would be: What are you doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你做什么了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are you doing now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The differences between these sentences, however, lie in the verb and the presence of the final particle (呢 or 了) in these cases, or not.  There are no special combinations at work with 什么, except in the case of #3, which has a problem because 什么 already signals a question in this case.  你什么也不要吗？ might work (= You don't want anything?), but I am not a native speaker, so I can't say for sure if it would sound natural (请教).  Or, for another example: 你知道什么吗？ (= Do you know something?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-11-15T04:31:08.257" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T04:31:08.257" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5112" CreationDate="2013-11-15T01:40:18.823" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English we say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Buy one, get the second for 40% off!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is the other way round. They say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Buy one and get the other for 60% of the original price! &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;6折&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;60% of the original price&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;9折 means 10% off &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;85折 means 15% off &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;8折 means 20% off&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1折 means 90% off &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3496" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T01:40:18.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5118" CreationDate="2013-11-15T04:23:11.440" Score="4" ViewCount="490" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have always known 得 as an adverb. For example 跑得很快 ，run quickly or run very fast. The following sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;只有懂得节制欲望的人，才能享受到人生的真正乐趣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means &quot;Only a person that understands (how to) control his desires can achieve true happiness.&quot; However, I don't understand the use of 得 here. I think I would have written it without the 得. Or is 懂得 a special phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T08:40:35.207" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T08:40:35.207" Title="How is 得 used in 只有懂得节制欲望的人...？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5117" CreationDate="2013-11-15T04:45:46.983" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 懂得, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/js/5F97.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;得 is pronounced &lt;strong&gt;dé&lt;/strong&gt; and means &quot;gain&quot; or &quot;obtain&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, as in the first definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　1. 获取，接受：～到。～失。～益。～空（kòng）。～便。～力。～济。心～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, 懂得 means &quot;to obtain understanding&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning you were referring to is a different use of the same character, and is pronounced &lt;strong&gt;de&lt;/strong&gt; (neutral tone):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　2. 用在动词或形容词后的连接补语，表示效果或程度：跑～快。香～很。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is true that in your example, the 得 can be omitted without loss of meaning, but it is used to improve the rhythm of the sentence, as the emphasis is on the &quot;懂得&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T04:45:46.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5088" CreationDate="2013-11-15T05:34:17.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;弄 means “ to do， to make”. In this sentence if you omit “ 弄”， it will change to another meaning: 给雪了一双耳环。（ Gave Xue a pair of earings.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T05:34:17.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5083" CreationDate="2013-11-15T05:39:25.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The structure of this sentence is ： subject （衣服）+ verb（落）+ prepositional phrase .&#xA;“ 了” has two pronunciation：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;le   it’s a structuralparticle ， when it is used after a verb. It expresses completion of this action. It has another usage which is to express a new situation is about to happen or it has happened.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;liao  when 了 is pronounced as “ liao”, it meas “ to finish, over”, like: 我喝不了10瓶啤酒。 （I can’t drink over 10 bottles of beer.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T05:39:25.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2013-11-15T05:44:45.457" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don’t think there are deep reasons of this, this is the way we count numbers, actually for each number times 10 (from 1), we give them a unit, like :&#xA;一       十       百       千      万     十万      百万     千万     亿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T05:44:45.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5075" CreationDate="2013-11-15T05:48:37.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two ways to express your idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我住在一座桥附近。I live beside a bridge.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我家在一座桥附近。My house / residence is neighborhood of a bridge.&#xA;Why I don’t use “住宅”, because “住宅” is a noun, means “ house, residence”, , and it’s very formal, usually you may say “家” or “房子” instead.&#xA;Why I don’t use “桥梁” is because it is also very formal, we usually use “ 桥” instead. &#xA;And why you can’t say 我住宅在一座橋樑的附近, because “住宅” is a noun, but here you used it as a verb, that not correct, if I translate it to you, it could be :“ My house in the neighborhood of a bridge”. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T05:48:37.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5014" CreationDate="2013-11-15T06:20:26.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually, people use 炮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the dictionary [http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/] : 砲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;同「炮」。 &lt;strong&gt;(砲 is the same with 炮)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can say 砲火連天/炮火連天, 砲響/炮響, 馬後砲/馬後炮, 弩砲/弩炮, 開砲/開炮. Boths are acceptable and interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;炮's meaning involves fire but 砲's meaning involves stone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The early cannonballs (sling) were made by stone, so people use 砲 to describe it.&#xA;With the time past, fire was much counted so 炮 was derived from 砲 to describe gunpowder and the bullets. Therefore, 炮 appears and become more commonly used. &#xA;You can find some relevant sentences in the ancient chinese books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;【集韻】【韻會】【正韻】披敎切，拋去聲。俗作&quot;砲&quot;(name as 砲)。機石也(are just the stones of a slinging machine)。&#xA; About the slinging machine : &#xA;【前漢·甘延壽傳】投石(sling)拔距絕於等倫。&#xA;【張晏曰】《范蠡兵法》:飛石(flying stone)重十二斤，爲機發(from a machine)，行二百步，礮蓋出此。&#xA;【後漢·袁紹傳】曹操(Cao cao)發石車(slinging machine)擊袁紹，軍中呼霹靂車。【註】卽今拋車。&#xA;【魏略曰】諸葛亮(Zhuge Liang)起衝車，郝昭以繩連石磨壓之，衝車折，卽礮事。&#xA;【唐書·李密傳】以機發石(sling a stone by a machine)，爲攻城械(is a machine for attacking)，號「將軍礮」。又通作「拋」(commonly used as &quot;throw&quot;)。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;明朝方以智《通雅》: 「象棋始於唐，周武之《象經》，非今之象戲也。」&#xA;.................: Xiangqi is from Tang Dynasty...............&#xA;From Wikipedia : 象棋 (chinese chess / Xiangqi)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gunpowder is also from that time but slinging machines were still used in military aspect. Therefore, 砲 was used in Xiangqi until now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, not every Chinese can tell the difference between them. Nowadays, people are more familiar with 炮. So if you write 砲, some people may think it's not so proper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3512" LastEditorUserId="3512" LastEditDate="2013-11-15T11:23:50.010" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T11:23:50.010" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-11-15T07:49:37.830" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5126" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5152" CreationDate="2013-11-15T09:00:34.150" Score="5" ViewCount="3497" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence is very hard for me to translate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;许多事情，看得开是好；看不开，终归也要熬过去。别以为看不开就不会过去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My try: &quot;Have a lot of problems, Kan De Kai is good; Kan Bu Kai, in the end will still be angry (??). Don't think if Kan Bu Kai means can't go through.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does not make sense at all. Appreciate your help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T19:00:36.440" Title="What does 看得开 and 看不开 mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5117" CreationDate="2013-11-15T09:30:27.340" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you are right, “懂得” is a phrase which means “ understand”. And “得” usually is a structural particle , it is usually used in :“verb + 得+ adjective” structure, which expresses the comment or result of the verb, like: 跑得快  “快” is the comment of “跑”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T09:30:27.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5126" CreationDate="2013-11-15T09:35:03.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 看得开 and 看不开 represents a state of the mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看得开&lt;/strong&gt; means 不把不如意的事情放在心上 or being &lt;strong&gt;optimistic&lt;/strong&gt;;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;看不开&lt;/strong&gt; means 把不如意的事情放在心上 or being &lt;strong&gt;pessimistic&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate the philosophical piece like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are many trials and tribulations [in this world], it is good to&#xA;  be optimistic; even if you are pessimistic, you would still need to go&#xA;  through them. Don't assume that you can wish away your problems by being&#xA;  pessimistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to emphasize that 看得开 and 看不开 are not simple optimism or pessimism (which can be substituted with 乐观 and 悲观) but relates more to the tribulations that one experiences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-11-15T10:41:15.013" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T10:41:15.013" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5130" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5132" CreationDate="2013-11-15T09:38:33.097" Score="7" ViewCount="294" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always thought of 被 as &quot;by.&quot; I understand the following phrase means &quot;deducted 10 points&quot; but I don't understand the structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;整整要被扣十分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T17:49:57.967" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T17:49:57.967" Title="Doesn't 被 mean &quot;by&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5130" CreationDate="2013-11-15T11:30:49.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 被 here means &quot;be&quot;, 要被 should be translated as &quot;going to be&quot; or &quot;going to have&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the sentence should read something like: &quot;I'm really going to have (my) 10 points taken away&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be and by has this relationship, when you use going to be, you don't always say &quot;by&quot; whom, but its there in the context. You could say something like 被他扣十分 but when you switch over to 要被扣十分 it only means &quot;going to have&quot; not &quot;going to by (missing subject) have points taken&quot; which is what you may be thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T11:30:49.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5130" CreationDate="2013-11-15T14:37:03.847" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It suggests the passive mode as &quot;be done&quot; in English. So &quot;被&quot; + verb = be done in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the &quot;by&quot;, just as English, when using the passive mode, not all the sentence has a &quot;by&quot; in it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example with &quot;by&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;active: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lion ate the monkey.(狮子吃了那个猴子)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;passive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The monkey &lt;strong&gt;was eaten by&lt;/strong&gt; a lion.(那个猴子*&lt;em&gt;被&lt;/em&gt;*狮子吃了)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example without &quot;by&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He &lt;strong&gt;was killed&lt;/strong&gt;,(他*&lt;em&gt;被杀&lt;/em&gt;*了) but we don't know the murderer yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here there is no &quot;by&quot; because we all know he was killed by someone we don't know yet. So no need to add &quot;by the unknown murderer&quot; here. Same as the Chinese version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-11-15T16:37:46.057" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T16:37:46.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5133" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5134" CreationDate="2013-11-15T15:40:13.637" Score="4" ViewCount="503" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence the 不 in the last few phrases seems to mean the opposite. For example 放不下 seems to mean the same as 放下 in this context. Is the Bu just decorative or is there a special structure here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一次次反复。哭累了，沉默了。想放弃了，冷淡了。可是时间一过，却又还是想念了。放不下，忘不掉，戒不了，走不开。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T06:37:58.823" Title="Weird usage of 不" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5133" CreationDate="2013-11-15T19:44:09.530" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The structure of Verb + Result Complement is used to describe the result of an action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eg: 做完 看见 买到 说清楚 放下 抬高 忘掉 走开 走进去 打开 关上 ect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two ways to negate this structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;put negatives(不/没/别/不要/没有 etc.) before verbs, like 没做完 没忘掉 没看见 没买到 别放下 不要打开 没有走进去. This form of negation means that the action is NOT done(没有走进去/不走进去), or is asked to NOT be done(别放下), or is done but the result is not expected (没做完).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: 不走进去 sounds incompleted, so we don't use it alone. But we can put it in a full sentence, like 这个房间，你 &lt;strong&gt;不走进去&lt;/strong&gt; 就不知道它有多大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;put negative 不 between Verb and Complement, like 做不完 看不见 买不到 抬不高 打不开 关不上. This form of negation means that the subject performed this action, but was NOT ABLE to achieve the expected result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T19:49:25.300" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5209" CreationDate="2013-11-16T10:03:36.057" Score="3" ViewCount="393" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example when someone jumps the queue, I might tell them they lack good manners / human quality, what's the word in Chinese (Mandarin)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="187" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-16T17:22:58.583" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T16:21:22.063" Title="What's the word for 'human quality'?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5136" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5139" CreationDate="2013-11-16T11:22:21.297" Score="7" ViewCount="1170" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another Weibo post. This one has a lot that i dont understand. I think 有天二货朋友看到我的说说 Means “one day two friends said to me...&quot; But that structure is very strange. I would have written 有一天两位朋友对我说。。。is this some kind of slang? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest is difficult for me to translate as well. My take: one day two friends sais to me, compare girls to clothes, young women are brands that you can buy! They adamantly commented: expensive brands also need no money!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有天二货朋友看到我的说说， 就算女人如衣服，姐也是你穿不起的牌子！ 果断在评论里说：“再贵的牌子，试穿也是不要钱的！「转」更多精彩关注@女神阁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-12-09T22:32:46.047" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T22:32:46.047" Title="What does 二货朋友 mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5137" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-16T15:38:07.287" Score="8" ViewCount="527" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English I know of two colourful terms for blowing your nose without use of a handkerchief or tissue by holding one nostril closed and expelling mucus from the other:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;bushman's blow&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bushman%27s%20blow&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;[1]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://everything2.com/title/Bushman%2527s+blow&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;[2]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;snot rocket&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snot_rocket&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;[1]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=snot%20rocket&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;[2]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(There are other terms too that I've learned since starting this question: &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=farmer%27s%20blow&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;farmer's blow&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=farmers%20handkerchief&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;farmers handkerchief&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bushman%27s%20hanky&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;bushman's hanky&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://everything2.com/title/warehouse+blow&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;warehouse blow&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;...)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English we would never use the plain turn of phrase &lt;em&gt;to blow one's nose&lt;/em&gt; for this act, even if we didn't know the slang/jocular terms I listed above we would use some circumlocution to describe the (to us) irregular method of nose blowing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yesterday morning I saw a nice young lady perform this manoeuvre in the street outside my hotel in a town outside Chengdu, Sichuan. This cemented the notion I already had that this act is not stigmatized in Chinese culture. But I'm not sure whether it's considered a normal or plain way to blow one's nose using the usual Chinese expression for nose blowing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a slang, jocular, or colloquial term (or any other kind of term) for this act in Chinese? (I'm most interested in Mandarin but other varieties of Chinese are also interesting.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-23T17:22:39.210" LastActivityDate="2013-12-11T13:47:03.997" Title="Are there Chinese approximations for the colloquial/slang English terms &quot;snot rocket&quot; or &quot;bushman's blow&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5135" CreationDate="2013-11-16T15:40:37.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你没有礼貌！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...in a nice way of course &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3496" LastActivityDate="2013-11-16T15:40:37.410" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5136" CreationDate="2013-11-16T16:48:14.610" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;G.Depardieu is Jean Reno's 二货朋友 in Tais-toi. Joey Tribbiani is the 二货朋友 in Friends. As Stan mentioned above, 二货 is an affectionate way to refer to a friend that may not be a genius but everyone loves him. 二: stupid. 货: buddy/man/stuff. More usage: 吃货 is one that admires good food(in a less graceful way). A refined 吃货 is a 美食家(gourmet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女人如衣服 means &quot;women are like clothes&quot;. It's usually used with another sentence, 兄弟如手足, which means &quot;brothers are like limbs&quot;. If you ruined your garments, you can always buy new ones. But a lost limb is a pain that lasts. And here brothers mean true friends. But this joke is just using 女人如衣服 in its literal meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姐也是你穿不起的牌子！Here 姐 is just a way to call oneself. To further the comparison 女人如衣服, she says that I'm a brand that you can't afford.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再贵的牌子，试穿也是不要钱的！ I'm afraid there're a lot to cover if you want to make sens of this, so I will just write down the translation: No matter how expensive clothes are, it's always free to try them on!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is supposed to be a joke, but frankly I didn't get it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2013-11-16T16:48:14.610" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5140" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5151" CreationDate="2013-11-17T04:15:02.560" Score="4" ViewCount="2430" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a colloquial term in some regions in English I've seen spelled &lt;em&gt;hoik&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;hoick&lt;/em&gt; to refer to the noisy act of clearing the throat/nasal cavity of mucus/phlegm, usually just before spitting it out. This is different from what would in English normally be meant by the term &quot;to clear one's throat&quot;, which is a quieter action a bit like a closed-mouth cough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since this doesn't seem to be considered rude or vulgar in Chinese culture as it is in many western countries, it's a lot more common. So I'm wondering there are Chinese terms for it. (Mandarin preferred but all Chinese varieties are of interest.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-17T16:27:37.167" LastActivityDate="2013-11-18T02:30:17.473" Title="Is there a term for the noisy bringing up of phlegm in preparation to spit?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5136" CreationDate="2013-11-17T05:04:35.957" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to emphasize that 二货 and especially the &lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; part 二 used to be offensive until recent years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「二货」comes from the &lt;em&gt;adj&lt;/em&gt; 二 and 货(goods, commodity, entity). 二 used to be interpreted as &lt;em&gt;stupid&lt;/em&gt; or even &lt;em&gt;intellectually under-developed (due to disease)&lt;/em&gt;, especially in some regional dialects (so watch out and don't use this phrase in rural areas). But currently on the cyber space 二 is not considered offensive and tend to mean &lt;em&gt;silly&lt;/em&gt; (I assume you can distinguish &lt;em&gt;stupid&lt;/em&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;em&gt;silly&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 二货朋友 means &lt;em&gt;a silly friend&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3516" LastActivityDate="2013-11-17T05:04:35.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5142" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-17T05:19:53.237" Score="3" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alright, I'm pretty sure it is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;sh&lt;/code&gt; in pinyin is a [ʂ] in IPA (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_retroflex_sibilant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_retroflex_sibilant&lt;/a&gt;), while &lt;code&gt;sh&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;em&gt;shampoo&lt;/em&gt; in English, is a [ʃ] in IPA (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_palato-alveolar_sibilant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_palato-alveolar_sibilant&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it sounds pretty close and as a near-native speaker of Mandarin Chinese I use the SH in &lt;em&gt;shampoo&lt;/em&gt; to pronounce [sh] in pinyin. Still I don't think the listed entries in the wikipedia is correct on this one. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Transcription_into_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Transcription_into_Chinese&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what do you think? I'm near-native in Mandarin Chinese but no professional linguist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3516" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-17T10:44:46.373" LastActivityDate="2013-12-04T20:54:14.173" Title="Is pinyin `sh` of 什 the same as SHampoo" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5142" CreationDate="2013-11-17T05:31:17.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem is than pinyin &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; also sounds &quot;like&quot; an English &lt;code&gt;sh&lt;/code&gt;. I'm pre-embryonic at Chinese but I've been an armchair linguist for years and I'm in China trying to pick up Mandarin right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both Pinyin &lt;code&gt;sh&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; are different from English &lt;code&gt;sh&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English &lt;code&gt;sh&lt;/code&gt; your tongue is at the ridge just behind your upper teeth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Pinyin &lt;code&gt;sh&lt;/code&gt; your tongue bends backwards at the tip toward your palate. It curls upward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Pinyin &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; the middle of your tongue is at your palate and the tip of the tongue is at or near your bottom teeth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But even knowing this and usually being good at mimicking speech sounds I must get it wrong constantly because people don't understand most of my efforts at Chinese. Also as I move from place to place I'm sure people don't all pronounce these Chinese sounds alike.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what you might find is that maybe many Chinese hear your &quot;English sh&quot; as a &quot;Pinyin sh&quot; but perhaps some others might find that to them they hear a &quot;Pinyin x&quot;, or hear a strange sound they don't immediately associate with either Chinese sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2013-11-17T05:31:17.490" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5144" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5146" CreationDate="2013-11-17T06:30:15.560" Score="9" ViewCount="8477" Body="&lt;p&gt;The use of 拜拜 over 再见 at the end of a phone conversation is obvious as you haven't seen them so how could you see them again but I don't understand why 喂 is used as a greeting when answering the phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also seems the other dialect in Chinese use a different greeting for phone calls as compared to face to face interaction eg. &lt;code&gt;Cantonese 喂 wái&lt;/code&gt; | &lt;code&gt;Hakka 噯 oi&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is why was a different greeting needed for answering the phone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2013-11-17T10:55:56.817" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T11:36:52.080" Title="Why is 喂 used over 你好 when answering the phone?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5145" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5147" CreationDate="2013-11-17T06:39:38.677" Score="2" ViewCount="609" Body="&lt;p&gt;When ordering food at a cheap simple eatery in China, which words with which counters should I use that would be something vaguely like English &quot;serve&quot;, &quot;serving&quot;, &quot;helping&quot;, &quot;plate&quot;, &quot;bowl&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance in English I might say &quot;Can we have one serve of fried rice and two bowls of soup?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English you don't always need the words that are a bit like counter words, you can say &quot;two fried rices&quot;, &quot;two bowls of fried rice&quot;, or &quot;two servings of fried rice&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you might know that it comes on a plate or in a bowl so that might help, other times you might not be so sure, where the English words would be &quot;helping&quot;, &quot;serve&quot;, &quot;serving&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm assuming that in Chinese you would always need at least the counter word or both a noun and a counter word. Sometimes you might point at a picture or a menu item you can't read, or at a dish another customer has. In English you would say &quot;one of those&quot; but in Chinese again you would still need a measure word and probably a noun too right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-10T16:45:42.527" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T16:45:42.527" Title="Which term and which counter to use when ordering simple meals?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5144" CreationDate="2013-11-17T08:26:56.330" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeting#Telephone_greetings&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Most languages use an alternate greeting for telephone calls&lt;/a&gt;; the English &amp;quot;hello&amp;quot;, although originating from before the telephone, was popularised by it, so much so that it has become a common greeting outside the telephone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hello&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;hello&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1883, alt. of hallo (1840), itself an alt. of holla, hollo, a shout to attract attention, first recorded 1588. Perhaps from holla! &amp;quot;stop, cease.&amp;quot; Popularity as a greeting coincides with use of the telephone, where it won out over Alexander Graham Bell's suggestion, ahoy. Central telephone exchange operators&#xA;were known as hello-girls (1889).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the mandarin 喂 is not an exception, only that unlike &amp;quot;hello&amp;quot;, people do not use it outside telephone calls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for telephone greetings is that it was a medium where reception may be bad and you are unsure who you are talking to. Thus a short greeting meant to solicit response (i.e. &amp;quot;can you hear me&amp;quot;) is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-11-17T08:26:56.330" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5145" CreationDate="2013-11-17T09:56:38.373" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you don't know the measure word, the safest choice is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;个&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. It is the most common measure word, is used for things that do not have specific measure words, and can sometimes be used even if another measure word is used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“个”作为一个量词，它的使用范围十分广泛。它可以修饰没有专用量词的名词，如人、馒头、国家、苹果等等；同时，一些有专用量词的事物，如“一只耳朵”、“一所学校”、“一家工厂”等也都可以用“个”来修饰，成为“一个耳朵”、“一个学校”、“一个工厂”，因此，有人称“个”为“万能量词”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pep.com.cn/xgjy/hyjx/hyxxzy/hyxx/yffd/201009/t20100901_855523.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.pep.com.cn/xgjy/hyjx/hyxxzy/hyxx/yffd/201009/t20100901_855523.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For food servings, &lt;strong&gt;份&lt;/strong&gt; can be used too, but note that it is most properly used on items that are served from a larger whole. For example, this includes rice as it is cooked in one large pot and served in multiple bowls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where you can though, try to use the most specific measure word, as it will sound more natural:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use &lt;strong&gt;碗&lt;/strong&gt; for things that are served in bowls, often (plain) rice or soup noodles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use &lt;strong&gt;盘&lt;/strong&gt; for things served in dishes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use &lt;strong&gt;道&lt;/strong&gt; as a generic measure word for food dishes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-11-17T09:56:38.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5153" CreationDate="2013-11-17T10:42:01.807" Score="2" ViewCount="1620" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today in Chengdu I wanted to buy a replacement &lt;strong&gt;permanent marker&lt;/strong&gt; pen for writing on cardboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't like nonpermanent markers because the ink can sometimes wipe off and stain your clothes. I find that in English the nonpermanent ones seem to be called &lt;strong&gt;whiteboard markers&lt;/strong&gt; most often, and indeed that was written on most of the markers I could find in stores today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But permanent markers were not easy to find and I found myself wanting to say something like &quot;I want one of these but this is a whiteboard marker and I want a permanent marker&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These terms might not be considered basic enough vocabulary to be in most dictionaries. Google Translate translates them but I don't know if I can trust it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-17T16:59:41.503" LastActivityDate="2013-11-23T19:49:44.307" Title="What are the most usual Chinese terms for permanent markers vs. whiteboard markers" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5149" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-17T11:03:27.280" Score="4" ViewCount="542" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm having trouble acquiring both Mandarin pronunciation and tones (hampered by the opacity of Pinyin for beginners).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've learned various languages to various degrees and some people consider me to be &quot;good at languages&quot;. I thought I was a pretty good mimic. But I find learning the pronunciations and the tones of polysyllabic words and phrases just too much at once at my beginner level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought it might be worth trying to learn each independently and then combine them. I could do this to some degree when I had a local friend helping coach me but he's gone back to Beijing now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I'm looking for a way to take a Chinese word or phrase, strip out the consonant and vowel sounds, but leave the &quot;tone contours&quot;, something like humming or whistling or replacing every syllable with &quot;da&quot; but in the original tone for that syllable.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this might work for some Chinese learners (probably not all since we have unique ways to learn languages depending on our talents etc) since English does have similar tones at the phrase level that are only about nuances, emotions, etc, and those are easy to mimic, but dealing with the unfamiliar Chinese sounds simultaneously makes them too hard to grasp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An answer might be how to ask a new Chinese friend to help me do this, or it might be a way I can use my netbook computer to help me with it when studying alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-03T13:45:54.107" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T16:28:42.200" Title="Learning abstract &quot;tone contours&quot; for words and phrases" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;practice&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;audio&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5148" CreationDate="2013-11-17T16:55:40.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly, before I came to the UK, I don't know the difference between permanent and nonpermanent markers. Usually, we call those we use to write on a whiteboard 白板笔. I think we can call those pens that cannot be easily washed off 油性笔 as opposed to those that can be easily be washed off which we call 水性笔. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3492" LastActivityDate="2013-11-17T16:55:40.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5140" CreationDate="2013-11-17T17:01:44.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 咳 (ke) for the sound of clearing one's throat. It's the same character in 咳嗽, which is &quot;cough&quot;. It is also the character used when people clear their throat to draw others attention to themselves. In this case, it is 咳咳.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3492" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-11-18T02:30:17.473" LastActivityDate="2013-11-18T02:30:17.473" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5126" CreationDate="2013-11-17T17:22:33.757" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just so you have another interpretation. As far as I read the sentence, 看得开 means &quot;letting go&quot; and 看不开 means &quot;clinging on&quot;. Another hard point in this sentence is the structure &quot;... 是好 ...也...&quot;. The original structure should be &quot;...也好...也罢&quot; which can be construed as &quot;either... or...&quot; or &quot;for better for worse&quot;. Here 好 does not mean good. It just mean &quot;if it is so&quot;. So the first sentence means that &quot;either you let it go, or cling on it, you will get through&quot;. So what the sentence actually means is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;许多事情，看得开是好；看不开，终归也要熬过去。别以为看不开就不会过去&#xA;A lot of things in this world will of course fade away if you let it go; yet even if you simply cling on it, you will still get through. Don't you ever think that it will never end as long as you cling on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation is very crude, mainly because I can't convey the same tone as it is in Chinese. This sentence have a really Taoist tone that for better for worse, things will run on it's own course. It doesn't matter how you think of it. The only difference is that if you cling on it, you need to endure more (熬).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3492" LastActivityDate="2013-11-17T17:22:33.757" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5148" CreationDate="2013-11-18T00:06:26.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have mentioned, when you are using borrowed words you can sometimes get stuck with misunderstandings especially if you go to a market or book store to buy this item rather than going to a stationary or art store.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is to take a glossy piece of cardboard and then ask for a 马克笔 (mǎkè bǐ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are provided with what appears to be a whiteboard marker I would politely test it on the cardboard and if it is a white board marker I would say 我要擦不掉的那种. I think this should get you what you are after.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要擦不掉的那种 (wǒ yào cā bú diào de nà zhǒng) = &quot;I want the kind that cannot be wiped off&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要 = I want&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;擦不掉 = cannot be wiped off&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的那种 = the kind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might also help if they show you a thin marker pen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要粗一点的 (wǒ yào cū yīdiǎn de) = I want a thicker one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-11-18T04:17:38.423" LastActivityDate="2013-11-18T04:17:38.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5135" CreationDate="2013-11-18T00:34:15.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm unfamiliar with the use of &amp;quot;human quality&amp;quot; for lack of manners; to me it's similar to &amp;quot;humanity&amp;quot;, the lack of which describes a very severe condition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sense, it translates literally to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/14a/325675.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人性&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◎ 人性 rénxìng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) [humanity]∶指在一定的社会制度和历史条件下形成的人的品性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) [normal human feeling nature]∶人所具有的正常的感情和理智&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it is often used to describe &amp;quot;human nature&amp;quot;, when you say someone lacks it, it takes on the &amp;quot;humanity&amp;quot; definition. That is, you would describe war criminals or sociopaths as lacking humanity (没有人性).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you just want to describe courtesy, you can use 素质 or 礼貌.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-11-18T00:34:15.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5135" CreationDate="2013-11-18T04:44:47.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use one of the following 不文明 (uncivilized) or 不礼貌 (impolite).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note there is a cultural difference here and people don't like being told they are inhuman. The idea of queuing in a Chinese city is different to a western country. In most cases people will ignore you, if you want to make a point of it you are going to stand out because you are a Chinese speaking foreigner. If Chinese is your second language just be careful which battles you decide to pick. Look at @Stan's comment on @rhughes answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-11-18T04:44:47.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5114" CreationDate="2013-11-18T05:39:12.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First I will translate the four sentences in English , you can have a look at the the different information they have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要什么？  What do you want？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要什么呢？  What do you want？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在做什么吗？ Are you doing something？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你做什么了？   What have you done？ / What did you do？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can see “ 什么=什么呢”, “呢”usually is used in special questions （ those question with special question words, like 什么、谁、哪儿）， but usually you can omit it.&#xA;“ 吗” is usually used in declarative sentences, it can change a declarative sentence into a yes or no question.&#xA;“ 了” is a structural particle，when 了 is used at the end of a sentence, that means a new situation is about to happen, or has happened, or something changed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastActivityDate="2013-11-18T05:39:12.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5112" CreationDate="2013-11-18T05:41:33.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the sentence should be: t同品项第2件6折&#xA;Your translation for “ 同、品、项” is right，“第2” means “ the second”， and I am sure the character after “2” is “件（jian2）”， not仵，“件” is a measure word,  so “ 第2件” means “ the second（item）”， and “折” should be pronounced as [zhé], which means “discount”， so “ 6折” means “ 40% off”or “60% of base price”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastActivityDate="2013-11-18T05:41:33.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5109" CreationDate="2013-11-18T05:48:01.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here “大” is used to emphasise the degree of doing something as very high, so “大秀” means she showed a lot. “香肩美背” actually means “shoulder and back”, in Chinese we have many special words to describe women and their body, these words usually express the the beauty of women’s body or body parts like shoulder, back, cheek, lips, etc, so here “香” and “美” are used to describe this lady’s shoulder and back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-18T23:07:40.680" LastActivityDate="2013-11-18T23:07:40.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5133" CreationDate="2013-11-18T08:53:07.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, Bu (不) means cannot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that 放不下 means &quot;cannot&quot; and 放下，忘不掉 means &quot;cannot forget&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3520" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-18T23:07:52.883" LastActivityDate="2013-11-18T23:07:52.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5160" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5161" CreationDate="2013-11-18T15:49:59.727" Score="0" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;下面是英文的干活：&#xA;Second, whenever input is requested through the standard I/O library from either (a)an unbuffered stream or (b)a line-buffered stream (that requires data to be requested from the kernel),all line-buffered output streams are flushed. The reason for the qualifier on (b) is that the requested data may already be in the buffer, which doesn’t require data to be read from the kernel. Obviously, any input from an unbuffered stream, item (a), requires data to be obtained from the kernel&#xA;这段话是《Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment 3rd Edition》的Standard I/O Library那一章的一段话，学渣表示完全不能理解。求大神帮着理解一下。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3521" LastActivityDate="2013-11-18T19:34:24.553" Title="unix(apue) 高级程序设计理解问题" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2013-11-18T23:10:05.537" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5160" CreationDate="2013-11-18T19:34:24.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;本来不应回答这个问题，但由于我自己也是搞IT的，看到同行不能理解英文文档，我也很不安。所以就翻译了一下。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其次，当从标准IO库获取输入时，不论是(a)以非缓冲流，还是(b)以行缓冲流（要求数据从内核中取出）形式，所有的行缓冲输出流都会被清除。(b)中需要“要求数据‌​从内核中取出”这个限定，是因为所请求的数据也许已在缓冲中，这样就不需要从内核中读取了。当然，所有来自非缓冲流的输入，即（a）情况，都需要从内核获得数据。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-11-18T19:34:24.553" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5162" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5163" CreationDate="2013-11-18T20:10:08.563" Score="6" ViewCount="1163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if it is simply said, &quot;10 英镑 50&quot;？&#xA;In the UK we often drop the pence at the end and just state the decimal amount (10 pounds 50), but not sure if in Chinese it works the same.&#xA;Any help appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="251" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T03:00:12.040" Title="How would I say £10.50?" Tags="&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5162" CreationDate="2013-11-18T20:19:59.927" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard way of stating this would be: 十英镑五十便士. Of course, as you might have suspected, there are other informal/colloquial ways of saying it. Here are some that I personally would not find odd:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十镑五/十块五&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十块五毛 (based on the fact the pound/penny uses the same decimalized system as renminbi)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十点五(英)镑 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十磅半/十块半&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone has any other suggestions, don't hesitate to leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2013-11-19T01:02:06.727" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T01:02:06.727" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5162" CreationDate="2013-11-19T01:25:10.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to make the assumption that this is an informal interaction and a vocal conversation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First would be declaring the 10 pounds which can be 十镑 (Shí bàng) which would translate to £10 or 十块 (Shí kuài) which would translate to 10 units of the relevant currency in this case pounds. 块 is a colloquial word and in my experience more commonly used to measure currency then the proper words such as 镑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second thing we need to declare is the .50 so we can use 半 (Bàn) which means a half value of a single unit of the previous value in this case a single unit of 十镑/十块 would be 一镑/一块 so a half of that would be your .50 value in £10.50 or we can say 五/五毛 (Wǔ/Wǔmáo) which means 5 or 5 1/10 units of currency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to say £10.50 you can say:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十镑五毛 (Shí bàng wǔmáo) &quot;£10.50&quot; &amp;lt;- Semi-Formal  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十块五/毛 (Shí kuài wǔ/máo) &quot;Ten pounds 50&quot; &amp;lt;- Informal, colloquial *&lt;em&gt;毛 not required but can be used&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十块半 (Shí kuài bàn) &quot; Ten and a half pounds&quot; &amp;lt;- Informal, more colloquial only applicable for half values&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the 毛 can be dropped when your not using .05 in informal settings but if you are you need to add 毛半 example: 九块九毛半 (Jiǔ kuài jiǔ máo bàn) &quot;$9.95&quot; (&lt;em&gt;not up to date on UK currency so not sure if applicable&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T01:25:10.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5149" CreationDate="2013-11-19T03:45:45.410" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there is an app called “Allset Learning Pinyin” which can show you all the syllables in Chinese, and also show you their four tones and pronunciation. For the other functions you need, I am not sure are there some apps for you or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T03:45:45.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5148" CreationDate="2013-11-19T03:48:32.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're called 油(yóu)性(xìnɡ)记(jì)号(hào)笔(bǐ) in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can just say “擦(cā)不(bù)掉(diào)的(de)记(jì)号(hào)笔(bǐ)”, which means “those markers that can’t be erased.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-19T07:14:46.650" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T07:14:46.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5145" CreationDate="2013-11-19T03:51:15.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually if you can’t say the item’s name, you can just say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“我(wǒ)要(yào)这(zhè)个(ɡe)”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (I would like this one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“我(wǒ)要(yào)那(nà)个(ɡe)”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (I would like that one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the counter word, if you really don’t know exactly the counter word for the item, you can use the most common counter word “个(ɡè)”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-19T07:19:45.037" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T07:19:45.037" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5144" CreationDate="2013-11-19T03:53:26.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“ 喂” actually is not a greeting word, when telephone just appeared in China, its signal was not very stable( I think it’s the same in other countries), so when people was calling somebody, they first need to make sure the person on the other end of the phone could hear their voice, so they used “喂” ,  “喂” is just a word people using to make some sound to test their partner can hear them. We actually after say “喂”， we will greet people again, like” 喂？ 你好.”&#xA;Actually when you want to call somebody you don’t know on street, you can also say “ 喂”（but use the fourth tone this time ）. Or in KTV when we want to test the microphone is good or not, we will also say “喂，喂……”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T03:53:26.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5169" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-19T04:57:08.723" Score="3" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following passage there are a lot of 与. Please let me know if I understand each of them correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公关人是客户*&lt;em&gt;与&lt;/em&gt;*市场受众的纽带， 公关公司职员通过*&lt;em&gt;与&lt;/em&gt;*媒体编辑或记者的联系和沟通，将客户的需求软性地传递给目标客户群。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Public Relation are customers' &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; market audiences' link, PR companies' staff connects &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; media editor or reporters's connection and links(?), gathers customers' requests (and) softly/subtly reach out to the target market (?? please correct me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在*&lt;em&gt;与&lt;/em&gt;*客户的接洽方面，公关公司一般*&lt;em&gt;与&lt;/em&gt;*客户公司的公关部或市场部接口，而他们往往对生活的*&lt;em&gt;具象品质&lt;/em&gt;*质比较看重，在个人形象和品味方面会较为在意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;With&lt;/strong&gt; (?? No idea what 在与 is) customers' side of the matter, PR companies usually connects &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; customer's company's PR division or marketing division, furthermore they quite care about life's &lt;strong&gt;figurative product&lt;/strong&gt; (?? what is 具象品质?), fairly care about a person's image and interests (?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way do people actually speak like like this in oral conversation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you very much&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="223" LastEditDate="2013-11-19T05:23:18.783" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T07:00:53.190" Title="Why are there so many 与 here?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5169" CreationDate="2013-11-19T05:52:43.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not commenting on your whole translation here, just the parts relating to 与.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the first passage, in the first case 与 is used to show that the link/connection is between the two items connected by 与 (literally it would read like: the A and B connection, i.e. the connection involving both A and B, which we say as between A and B).  As for the second case, we can analyze it as follows: [公关公司职员]通过[[与媒体编辑或记者]的联系和沟通]，[将[客户的需求]]软性地传递给[目标客户群] -&gt; [the PR company's staff] through [[with media editors or reporters]'s relations and connections], [OBJ: [client's demands] gently convey to the target demographic] -&gt; Through connecting with the media, the the PR company's staff gently conveys the client's demands to the target client base[?] (perhaps target demographic? I'm not 100% sure with business jargon).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在与客户的接洽方面 can be dissected as 在[与客户的接洽]方面 -&gt; regarding/on/concerning discussions with customers.  As with the first passage, 与 is bringing together two items that are connected (in this case the two parties involved in the talks), only in this case the first item is omitted.  The next 与 is the same as described for the first passage (the interface between ... and ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as for 具象品质, the definition I found for 具象 has it as the opposite of 抽象, so perhaps: practical/effective product quality&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-11-19T07:00:53.190" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T07:00:53.190" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5171" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-19T10:05:10.237" Score="8" ViewCount="656" Body="&lt;p&gt;二百五 is Chinese slang for an idiot, but how did it come about? What's the earliest recorded usage of this term in this meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many theories for its origin, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/6/1/23/n1200682.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; lists as many as 6 different theories but most seem rather apocryphal to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also here, for those behind a firewall: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1493446.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1493446.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2013-11-22T04:15:11.397" LastActivityDate="2013-11-22T04:15:11.397" Title="Etymology of 二百五?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5172" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-19T11:40:01.643" Score="13" ViewCount="3807" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the local specialty favourite dishes in Shaanxi province where I am now is Biángbiáng miàn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cQx3i.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Restaurant in Xi&amp;#39;an selling Biángbiáng miàn.&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;Photo by hippietrail&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hanzi character for &quot;biáng&quot; is usually the focus of discusssions of this dish since it takes 58 strokes and is not supported by computers, including Unicode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I want to discuss the syllable &quot;biang&quot; in this question. To a beginner in Chinese like myself it seems to be composed of common initial &quot;b&quot;, medial &quot;i&quot; and final &quot;ang&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biangbiang_noodles&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; informs me that the alternative names for the dish with more common characters are 彪彪面 (biāobiāo miàn) and 冰冰面 (bīngbīng miàn), which each use a different syllable in place of &quot;biáng&quot; as well as a different hanzi character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is this syllable not even possible? If not, which phonological rules does it break? Also if it's not &quot;possible&quot; how could it become popular as part of the name of a dish? Is it something to do with the dialect or accent spoken in Shaanxi?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-19T16:56:55.977" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T18:08:21.960" Title="Is &quot;biang&quot; a phonologically possible syllable in Mandarin Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5172" CreationDate="2013-11-19T12:07:10.690" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2RL0r.gif&quot; alt=&quot;biang&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Biang is an interesting character, being absent in many dictionaries, and having an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biang#Origin_of_the_character&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;unverified origin&lt;/a&gt;. I don't think it being uncommon is reason enough to consider its pronunciation to be non-standard, however. There are quite a few characters that have very uncommon pronunciations, so much so that for the rare ones, most native speakers would also find them odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few examples from &lt;a href=&quot;http://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/unusual-syllables&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/unusual-syllables&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎 (zěn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谁 (shéi)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These characters are extremely common but their syllables are very rare. 给 in particular is the only character that is pronounced &amp;quot;gei&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咯 (lo)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;覅 (fiào)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鞥 (ēng)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These may fool many native speakers, but they are indeed real characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T12:07:10.690" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5171" CreationDate="2013-11-19T14:25:24.340" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;250&lt;/em&gt; page of Chinese wikipedia state this as : (&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/250&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/250&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;250是辱骂或调侃他人的俚语，意为“笨蛋”或“傻子”，该措辞来源于“半吊子”一词。古时五百两为一封，二百五十两为半封，谐音“半疯”，渐渐演化而来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;250 is an offending or teasing slang, interpreted as &quot;idiot&quot;, &quot;dumb&quot;. It originated (probably) in a way similar to that of another Chinese phrase 半吊子 (half a diaozi) (used to say someone is not good at something but assumes he or she is and brag about the fact). In ancient times 500 &lt;em&gt;liang&lt;/em&gt; (a mass unit) is a &lt;em&gt;feng&lt;/em&gt; (another unit), and &lt;em&gt;feng&lt;/em&gt; sounds the same as 瘋 &lt;em&gt;loony, crazy, out of one's mind, mad, lunatic&lt;/em&gt;. And therefore 250 stands for &lt;strong&gt;half a feng (500)&lt;/strong&gt; (semi-crazy?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course this is only another explanation but I'm afraid it's hard to trace the exact source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3516" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T14:25:24.340" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5175" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-19T17:15:24.730" Score="8" ViewCount="577" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I need to buy some cold weather clothes now that I'm heading further north than Xi'an I tried to look up the word for &quot;coat&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found there are at least these three terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大衣 (dàyī)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;外套 (wàitào)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;外衣 (wàiyī)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the differences between them? Are all terms still in use? Do some of them only refer to items of clothing not really worn any more?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T18:47:01.500" Title="What's the difference between &quot;大衣&quot; (dàyī), &quot;外套&quot; (wàitào), and &quot;外衣&quot; (wàiyī) - which can all be translated to &quot;coat&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5175" CreationDate="2013-11-19T17:25:46.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;大衣:coat &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外套:jacket &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外衣:outfit or more generally the out most cloth you're wearing &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider your situation I recommend you to look for &quot;保暖的大衣&quot; or &quot;保暖的外套&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I think “羽绒服&quot;(down wear or down jacket) is a good choice for you. It can be very cold in the north.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-11-19T17:34:55.563" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T17:34:55.563" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5175" CreationDate="2013-11-19T18:14:25.077" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;大衣&quot; usually refers to a specific type of garment, it should be longer and more formal, something you will certainly take off when you stay indoors. No one would call a tracksuit top(&quot;运动外套&quot;) &quot;大衣&quot;, but you can definitely call it &quot;外套&quot; or &quot;外衣&quot;. I think a better translation for &quot;大衣&quot; is &quot;overcoat&quot; or &quot;topcoat&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;外套&quot; and &quot;外衣&quot; are pretty much the same, if anything, &quot;外套&quot; might refer to something heavier than &quot;外衣&quot;. For example, it might be a bit odd to call a cardigan(&quot;开衫&quot;) &quot;外套&quot;, but it's ok to call it &quot;外衣&quot; as long as you wear it on top. These words are more general, both refer to the outfit you wear on top. From where I come from, the &quot;外&quot; in &quot;外套&quot; and &quot;外衣&quot; means 'on top of', not 'outdoors'. &quot;大衣&quot; is just a kind of &quot;外套&quot;/&quot;外衣&quot;, so is blazer(&quot;西装外套&quot;), trenchcoat(&quot;风衣&quot;), .etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, people still use these terms, and they are something we still wear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google some images and you will have a better idea of what they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, If you are shopping online, &quot;外衣&quot; might not be a good keyword for searching since it's too general to put in product names(I haven't seen any shop owner put it in the title), but &quot;外套&quot; is ok, so is &quot;大衣&quot; if you are looking for that kind of garment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3525" LastEditorUserId="3525" LastEditDate="2013-11-19T18:47:01.500" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T18:47:01.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5178" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-19T18:14:59.407" Score="3" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, 留. 刀 and 田 are obvious, but the top left? 匚 厶 come close but no match. Pleco says 卯, but I don't see this in many radical charts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T20:01:05.373" Title="When breaking down a character, what do you do for parts where no radical exists?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5178" CreationDate="2013-11-19T18:22:54.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually if you can look at the traditional form of this character. The upper part is &quot;丣&quot;.“丣” work as a phonetic radical here because it is pronounced you3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of characters have been simplified in Mandarin in main land China. This make it harder for us to break down a character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find more information here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/xs/7559.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;汉典解释&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the first thing to do when breaking down a character is to find its traditional version. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-11-19T20:01:05.373" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T20:01:05.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5175" CreationDate="2013-11-19T18:34:42.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;come on guy, as a native I should tell you that....we can't make these clear. Many people use them messy, especially in some small towns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外套and外衣may be not very thick, but you can still call大衣, but大衣in most cases refers to those heavy ones for cold winter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, yes, the 3 words are all alive, widely used by many people. and when you use any of these, we can get your idea. for example, it's winter now in Beijing, so no matter you are using any of these 3 words, we know you are wearing a very heavy and thick &quot;thing&quot;...yes, coat. But if in spring or autumn....I suggest you not say 大衣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T18:34:42.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5133" CreationDate="2013-11-19T18:41:23.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means not only negetive, but also disability, or impossible.&#xA;say, some one mentioned 不走进去, which is totally different from 走不进去&#xA;不走进去 means you are not willing to get into, or you are lack of the motivation&#xA;走不进去 means you want to get into, even you tried, but you failed to get into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T18:41:23.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5114" CreationDate="2013-11-19T18:49:52.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;了and吗, in Chinese, are called助词(maybe I should call it helper words in english? not sure). 助词have no actual meaning, but describe the state, or tense, or even attitude of the whole sentense, but not just to什么.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T18:49:52.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5144" CreationDate="2013-11-20T03:02:03.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is also the question of formality. &quot;喂，你好&quot; is a pretty common way of answering the phone, too... It just depends on who you are talking to. 你好 is way more formal than most foreigners realise. You'd never use it with your friends (unless there is a large age gap)... That would just sound weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3527" LastActivityDate="2013-11-20T03:02:03.250" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5135" CreationDate="2013-11-20T03:12:46.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As stan says, 素质 is probably the closest. Colloquially, &quot;没文化&quot; is also fairly appropriate for your example. It would be fairly unusual for a Chinese person to say that to someone directly though... I think they'd be more likely to say it to a friend, loud enough for the accused to hear! If you wanted to say this to someone directly you could say something like &quot;你能不能礼貌一点?&quot; or something like that. That still sounds pretty rude though!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3527" LastActivityDate="2013-11-20T03:12:46.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5162" CreationDate="2013-11-20T03:42:57.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should be 10 英镑50便(biàn)士(shì)。 “ 便士” means “ penny”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastActivityDate="2013-11-20T03:42:57.140" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5189" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-20T11:40:11.930" Score="9" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is about 简称 (&quot;abbreviations&quot;). The question is simple: where can I find a dictionary that includes abbreviations in its definitions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the NDRC here in Beijing is technically 国家发展和改革委员会, but everyone here calls it 发改委. A CC-DICT or nciku search may direct me from the abbreviation to the full word (i.e., if I search for 发改委, it will tell me it is an abbreviation for 国家发展和改革委员会). But I want something that includes the abbreviation for a given entry (i.e., if I search for 国家发展和改革委员会, it will say 'hey by the way, you should know that it is commonly abbreviated as 发改委').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider, for example, looking up 家用电器 ('household appliances'). It would be helpful if the dictionary entry included the more common abbreviation 家电.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas? Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3530" LastActivityDate="2013-11-20T16:24:56.757" Title="Does a dictionary exist that goes from full word -&gt; abbreviation? Many only offer abbreviation -&gt; full word" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5189" CreationDate="2013-11-20T15:29:58.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look for news articles, especially those from Xinhua, which are considered &quot;official&quot;. Typically if an article contains a long-winding name like &quot;人力资源和社会保障部&quot;, it is bound to introduce an abbreviation to reduce the verbosity. If you cannot find such articles, which should be unlikely for well-known entities, I suggest that you not abbreviate, especially not invent an abbreviation, as not even native Chinese can always be sure what an abbreviation is when expanded in full.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2749" LastActivityDate="2013-11-20T15:29:58.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5189" CreationDate="2013-11-20T16:24:56.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The baidu baike (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/&lt;/a&gt;) often has the abbreviation listed under the main entry. 中华人民共和国国家发展和改革委员会, for example, has 国家发改委.  中华人民共和国国务院办公厅 lists both 国务院办公厅 and 国办.  And yes, 家用电器 points to 家电 as the simpler form, although it is somewhat hidden in the entry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-11-20T16:24:56.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5171" CreationDate="2013-11-21T05:56:33.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The story is From the warring states period. There is a lobbyist, named shu qin, at that time has very  high power and prestige, but also have a lot of enemies. Finally he is killed in qi. King is angry, want to revenge for shu, but cannot find the murderer, so he has a ruse, he cut off shu’s head from the body, hung on the gate, with a statement said: &quot;shu is the hidden traitor, who killed him will receiving the reward, one thousand gold. When the notice posted, there are four people claiming to that they killed shu qin. King said: &quot;it is not allowed to pretend to be!&quot; Four people are convinced they did. King said: &quot;one thousand gold, how much four people share?&quot; Four answered: &quot;two hundred and fifty.&quot; King says with angry: &quot; put the four 'two hundred and fifty' out beheaded!&quot; The word &quot;two hundred and fifty&quot; origin, just like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3487" LastActivityDate="2013-11-21T05:56:33.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5135" CreationDate="2013-11-21T06:23:03.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a very famous Chinese saying online：人品（Pronunciation in Chinese：Ren Pin），shortened fixed phrase is: RP&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese usually have jokes with others：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲：我为什么不成功，而你成功了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乙：人品问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人品（网络用语）=素质（英语：sense，觉悟，遵守社会规则的意识）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）Sometimes it may mean a general, abstract meaning of the whole people's number, male Vs female's birth rate……ect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整体*&lt;em&gt;人口质量&lt;/em&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2013-11-21T06:29:59.283" LastActivityDate="2013-11-21T06:29:59.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5194" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-21T13:48:36.620" Score="9" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried several sources &amp;amp; can't find a translation that seems correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example sentence &amp;amp; my attempt at translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘴里漏拆了一根线怎么办？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mouth inside left behind remove a strip of thread what to do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;There's a thread (of stitches?) left behind (not removed) in my mouth, what should I do?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漏 means &quot;missed&quot; or &quot;left behind&quot;&#xA;拆 means &quot;to dismantle&quot; or &quot;take down&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 漏 is modifying the verb 拆 to make it mean &quot;not dismantled or taken down&quot;, sort of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my understanding correct? Can 漏 modify other verbs in this way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for any teaching!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3535" LastActivityDate="2013-11-24T01:18:02.170" Title="漏拆 - Meaning &amp; usage?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5194" CreationDate="2013-11-21T14:58:04.837" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, &quot;There's stitches left behind (not removed) in my mouth, what should I do?&quot; is a good translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes,漏 can modify other verbs. It means someone forgot to do something or some action has been missed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:&quot;How you feel about the question 31 in the exam?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B:&quot;OMG, I didn't notice there was a question 31!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:&quot;刚才考试第31题做的如何？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B:&quot;天啊！ 我漏做了!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2013-11-21T22:28:53.980" LastActivityDate="2013-11-21T22:28:53.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5162" CreationDate="2013-11-22T00:51:26.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We frequently have to talk about quantities of money in 人民币 vs 英镑 in the office. We always say 十块五英镑 and 十块五人民币 when we want to be clear. So I would go with just 十块五 if the currency is obvious, or 十块五 + currency when you want to be super clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2462" LastActivityDate="2013-11-22T00:51:26.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5194" CreationDate="2013-11-23T01:10:45.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This isn't actually a word. When you study Chinese, you shouldn't regard any pair of characters as a meaningful word. If you also study 文言文，you will find that people in ancient times often used only one character as a verb or a noun. That's why there are so many characters no longer used today: people use two-character words to express the meanings that were originally represented by a single character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, there are still many occasions in Chinese that people use only one character as one word. So you have to learn how to partition a sentence into several meaningful blocks.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3543" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-23T19:49:14.117" LastActivityDate="2013-11-23T19:49:14.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1289" CreationDate="2013-11-23T01:18:13.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;None of these sentences are spoken in a native way. Let me correct them for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我（昨晚）吃完了饭然后看了电影。 （Used to describe what I did last night, for example.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我吃完饭以后会看电影。（Describe What I'll do after I have dinner.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我吃了饭以后会看电影。 （Basically have the same meaning as 2)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3543" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-25T16:21:18.687" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T16:21:18.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5137" CreationDate="2013-11-23T07:29:19.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;在中文的世界裡，沒有一個能夠清楚傳達(或是相對應) &quot;Bushman's Blow&quot; 的詞彙，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而上述的討論中，@hippietrail 所指的 &quot;擤(ㄒㄧㄥˇ)鼻涕&quot; 是 &quot;Blow your nose&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;若真的要闡述 &quot;Bushman's Blow&quot; ，&quot;壓著一邊的鼻子，把鼻涕給噴出來&quot; 則是可以被接受的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS：華人很少有 &quot;Bushman's Blow&quot; 這個動作，幾乎是 &quot;Blow your nose&quot; 比較多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3544" LastActivityDate="2013-11-23T07:29:19.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5013" CreationDate="2013-11-23T08:15:37.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;這是一個很好的問題！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不太容易從 &quot;印刷體(Printed)&quot; 去學習如何 &quot;寫字(handwriting)&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由於 &quot;印刷體(Printed)&quot; 是為了能夠使閱讀者能夠清晰辨識文字而設計的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以，在台灣的國小生，在一二年級的時候都有 &quot;寫字本&quot; 當作家庭作業，而其中的字體皆是以 &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A8%99%E6%A5%B7%E9%AB%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;標楷體&quot;&lt;/a&gt; 作為臨摹的範本。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至於，您所謂的 &quot;口日目&quot; 有 &quot;Little Feet&quot; 是為了使 &quot;中文字&quot; 和 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/25a1/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;方格符號&quot;&lt;/a&gt; 有所區隔。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3544" LastActivityDate="2013-11-23T08:15:37.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5148" CreationDate="2013-11-23T17:02:41.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 白板笔 for &quot;Whiteboard marker&quot;  and  油性笔 for &quot;Permanent marker&quot;.&#xA;You see, I omit the &quot;马克&quot; in 油性&quot;马克&quot;笔.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In place where there are people who speak dialects other than Mandarin, “马克” does not necessarily sound like &quot;marker&quot;. I am a Cantonese and I tend to avoid the phonetic transcriptions that only exist in Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3547" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-23T19:49:44.307" LastActivityDate="2013-11-23T19:49:44.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5204" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5205" CreationDate="2013-11-24T02:46:47.467" Score="4" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my travels in China &lt;a href=&quot;https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/22014&quot;&gt;I've found myself in need of a place to use my internet device&lt;/a&gt;. Its battery has recently ceased to hold a charge so I also need to be able to plug in my AC adaptor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Chinese is at a level I describe as &quot;pre embrionic&quot; and my attempts are usually not fully understood. Here are the kinds of things I've been trying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wi-Fi 和 电 有马?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;无线 和 电 有没有?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there are two problems. The minor one is whether to try to use a Chinese or &quot;Universal&quot; (English) term for Internet/Wi-Fi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The major one is how ask if they have a place with an electric outlet/socket. Literally asking &quot;do you have electricity&quot; does not seem to convey my need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:52:12.633" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T06:06:33.227" Title="Asking a cafe/restaurant if they have Wi-Fi *and* electricity for using a device" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5204" CreationDate="2013-11-24T03:23:20.090" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually the literal translation of English sounds natural in this case: 你们有Wi-Fi和电源吗？  or 你们有Wi-Fi和插座吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 电源 means power source, and 插座 means electric socket.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2013-11-24T03:23:20.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5204" CreationDate="2013-11-24T05:56:55.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, we usually make it very simple：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请问你们这儿提供无线上网吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact I think if you wanna know whether a restaurant supports WiFi things such as WiFi devices，you can ask like this below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请问你们无线路由器有吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes China Mobile will offer some specific WiFi Areas or WiFi USB device, you can also try to ask like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请问无线上网区在哪里？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请问无线上网卡（无线上网U盘）有吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2013-11-24T05:56:55.973" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5204" CreationDate="2013-11-25T06:06:33.227" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can just pronounce Wi-Fi or Wu(up) Xian(down).&#xA;It's &quot;you wifi he dian yuan ma? &quot; or &quot;you wuxian he dian yuan ma?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3555" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T06:06:33.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5013" CreationDate="2013-11-25T08:16:07.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;黑体 is the font you are using and talking about, it is usually set as default Simplified Chinese font, but 楷体 or 楷书 is the font that more similar to the handwriting Chinese, if you want to learn handwriting from printing Chinese, you'd better download this font, you may need some books that teach you how to write every stroke and their order, every Chinese kid learn this before trying to write the first character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The little feet are always there, you should write like this, it is part of this character not just &quot;serifs&quot; for beauty. The two feet are different in the bottom, the left foot is a longer 竖（the straight line）, the right foot is called 竖钩, you must write a little angle to left after the straight line, if the angle is to right it will be called 竖提, the last stroke is the bottom bar(横), connect the left straight line（竖）and the line with angle（竖钩）with the little bar(横), importantly, don't start from the end of the left line(竖), leave a little foot there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The curve in 了字好 is also important, you may see the curve in 楷体 font.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn more about strokes I suggest you read this in Wikipedia: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_(CJKV_character)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_(CJKV_character)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3312" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T08:16:07.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5135" CreationDate="2013-11-25T08:38:03.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally translating from &quot;human quality&quot; is 素质 (su4 zhi4), and it is also the term we use for people who jump the queue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In north China, it is more common thto at just say the word 素质 to complain, but it is also considered rude; 请注意素质 can be used in most Mandarin speaking areas, and it is more polite and can show your anger as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Importantly, if you just complain about the guy's human quality it usually won't change anything, the best way is to tell them directly &quot;this is my place, please queue (这儿是我的位置，请排队 zhe'er4 shi4 wo3 de1 wei4 zhi4, qing3 pai2 dui4)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3312" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-11-25T16:21:22.063" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T16:21:22.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5144" CreationDate="2013-11-25T09:30:51.900" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;喂 is not only used in phone call, it was even used before the invention of phone. If you have watched lots of Chinese movies you may find that before people yell to another guy in mountain across a valley, yell through a tunnel, a pipe or even a well also start with 喂, the word 喂 is usually used as attracting attention and building connection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After we can use a phone to talk to a people far away, we also consider this thing is similar to a pipe, tunnel or talk between two mountains, we need to build connection first, so we say 喂 to attract attention. Today, phones are very popular and people are used to start with 喂, using other words as greeting for phone calls make people uncomfortable instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再见 should not be translated as &quot;see you again&quot;, the meaning of 再见 is just good bye, many Chinese words' meanings are not just the combination of the meanings of the two characters, you should be careful with that in your further learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3312" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T09:30:51.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5211" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5212" CreationDate="2013-11-25T16:36:20.590" Score="6" ViewCount="1150" Body="&lt;p&gt;I may be mistaken, but if I use 就像 , 像是 or 像 in any of the sentences, they are pretty much the same. Is there a difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“他们说‘电视直播’时，就像我说‘报税’一样无可奈何&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“They say ‘live TV’ the way I say ‘doing my taxes’ — with resignation,”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...夏洛特和阿萨认为所有的电视都更像是Netflix，而不是尼克儿童频道(Nickelodeon)：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...like many children, perceive all of television to be more Netflix than Nickelodeon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;像夏洛特·纳尔逊这样的孩子，他们喜欢一醒来就打开任天堂Wii U(Nintendo Wii U)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Children like Charlotte Nelson — who likes to turn on the Nintendo Wii U&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听起来像是年轻女性在和自己的朋友们聊天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Our goal was always to sound like how young women talk to their own friends,” she said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="3063" LastEditDate="2013-11-25T17:13:01.977" LastActivityDate="2015-02-23T20:47:10.137" Title="Deciding when to use 就像 vs 像是 vs 像" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5211" CreationDate="2013-11-25T18:58:25.703" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;in 就像, 就 means &quot;just&quot;, so 就像 means just like and there is also 就像是.&#xA;So the real problem is to distinguish 像是 and 像.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I think 像 can always substitute 像是 but 像是 can not always substitute 像. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, if I change it to 像是夏洛特·纳尔逊这样的孩子，他们喜欢一醒来就打开任天堂Wii U. Then it sounds weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or 这孩子长得像你。 This kid looks like you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;will sound weird if you say: 这孩子长得像是你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest, it's hard to tell the difference even as a native speaker. So I suggest you to use 像 always. It won't make mistake at least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T18:58:25.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5213" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-25T19:17:02.257" Score="10" ViewCount="542" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do you use 了 after 我饿？ I thought it was used to denote completion or the past tense of something, but isn't being hungry present tense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3558" LastActivityDate="2014-01-09T15:28:16.323" Title="Why use 了 in saying I'm hungry?" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5213" CreationDate="2013-11-25T19:49:51.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means a status that has just arrived and this status will last.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我饿了， 我懂了， 我知道了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈:&quot;你要好好读书！&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儿子:&quot;我知道！&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mom:&quot; You have to study hard!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Son：&quot; I knew it!( I already knew it, stop nagging!)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈:&quot;你要好好读书！&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儿子:&quot;我知道了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mom:&quot; You have to study hard!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Son：&quot; I get it.( I know it now and I'll try .)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T19:49:51.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5213" CreationDate="2013-11-25T20:17:49.173" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 has a lot ussages, one of which is to indicate the completion of an action or of a status change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples (indicating the completion of an action):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作业写完了 话说完了 他来了 他结婚了 演出结束了 我们毕业了 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples (indicating the completion of a status change):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天亮了 (status of sky changing from dark to bright is completed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;头发白了 (status of hair chaning from black to white is completed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;长大了 (status of body changing from small to big is completed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肚子饿了(status of stomach changing from full to empty is completed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睡着了 (status of mind changing from awaken to sleeping is completed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我饿 is also a valide sentence, meaning &amp;quot;I am hungry.&amp;quot; It shows only the current status, not indicating the CHANGE of the status. We say 我饿了 when emphasizing on the change of the status.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T20:17:49.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5213" CreationDate="2013-11-25T20:20:31.543" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, 了 following a verb indicates completion, while 了 at the end of a sentence or phrase indicates a change in state (and sometimes other things, 了 is very complicated).  A common use of this final 了 is to draw the attention of the listener to the fact that something is now the case (that wasn't previously).  In this case 我饿了 is saying: &quot;I'm hungry now,&quot; and drawing the listeners attention to the new hunger.  Of course, when the verb is at the end of the sentence the use of 了 can be ambiguous.  Such an 了 could be used in either, or even both, of these ways, but usually context makes the intention clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More general information on 了 can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Uses_of_%22le%22&quot;&gt;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Uses_of_%22le%22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-11-26T00:08:08.757" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T00:08:08.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5211" CreationDate="2013-11-25T20:31:01.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your last sentence, 像是 probably shouldn't be read as a single unit.  Rather, 像 governs 是年轻女性在和自己的朋友们聊天.  Thus, very literally, the implicit subject sounds like they/he/she/it is a 年轻女性在和自己的朋友们聊天.  To clarify the previous answer's example, 这孩子长得像你 cant have an 是 because this child grew up to be like you makes sense, but this child grew up to be like being you does not.  In other words, if you dropped the 像, would the sentence still be grammatical/make sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T20:31:01.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5218" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5220" CreationDate="2013-11-25T22:29:43.183" Score="7" ViewCount="679" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have difficulties understanding sentence.&#xA;What is meaning of 差 in the following sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我看一下，现在差一刻九点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="823" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-07T23:36:58.097" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T04:54:15.117" Title="Meaning of 差 in 现在差一刻九点?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2507" CreationDate="2013-11-25T22:45:04.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing I want to point out about &quot;特性&quot; and &quot;特質&quot; is to notice the word &quot;性質&quot;. This word means &quot;property&quot; and used more to describe objects as opposed to living creatures. Thus it's not hard to derive that &quot;特性&quot; and &quot;特質&quot; should be used to describe objects which the word &quot;property&quot; makes sense. And when it comes to using those two words, they are pretty much interchangeable, as both are just a short form of &quot;特别的性质&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, as you mentioned &quot;特色&quot; describes a more positive characteristic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than those rules, I can't see why these terms cannot be interchangeable when describing the objects/concepts you listed. Some may not imply the same meaning as the others, for example &quot;特色&quot; strikes positive tone into the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="970" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T22:45:04.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5218" CreationDate="2013-11-25T22:47:25.397" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It literally means &lt;code&gt;differ&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;差一刻九点&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;a quarter to nine&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;差&lt;/code&gt; in the phrase &lt;code&gt;差一点&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;差几块钱/几个月&lt;/code&gt; means the same, that is, adding the amount missed will turn the current situation into the target situation (could be better or worse).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T22:47:25.397" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5221" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5246" CreationDate="2013-11-26T05:31:42.953" Score="7" ViewCount="3961" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone tried to explain the difference in this answer &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/43/38&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/43/38&lt;/a&gt; saying that 我饿了 means &quot;I became hungry&quot;, but I don't see the difference because we don't say I became hungry in English, you are either hungry or you are not (I appreciate this could be a cultural difference). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So can someone try to explain to me further the difference between the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same with similar constructs like 我累了 and 我很累.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2013-12-31T17:56:02.377" Title="Difference between 我饿了 and 我很饿?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5221" CreationDate="2013-11-26T05:53:08.657" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that this is more a product of the fact that 我饿了 is something we don't commonly explicitly express in English.  We say &quot;I am hungry&quot; and let context and tone of voice determine whether this is some new information (I am hungry now) or merely the expression of a continuing state of affairs (I have been and continue to be hungry).  I have become hungry (to stick with the present) may sound like an awkward translation because it is trying to make the exact meaning of the expression explicit.  If we were translating a novel (and not tying to explain the language) we would probably translate it as &quot;I am hungry&quot; and allow the nuance to be suggested by the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-11-27T19:51:19.423" LastActivityDate="2013-11-27T19:51:19.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1289" CreationDate="2013-11-26T06:18:38.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to say something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These 3 sentences represented a trait in Chinese, that is there is no very explicit tense in the verb of this language. So actually, they can be correctly understood as the exactly same meaning - I will watch TV after eating dinner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless they provide more information like time or other adverb to tell you if it happened or is happening or finished already, either way is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think all of the answers above are right since no enough information provided. Furthermore, I don't think it is necessary to distinguish the meanings like tttt555's answer, because when the same sentence in a different environment or different paragraph, the 3 meanings can exchange each other without generating any mistake. This is Chinese, it is the same situation like news title 山东队大败河南队, you never know who actually won unless you read the details in the paragraph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T06:18:38.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2038" CreationDate="2013-11-26T12:19:52.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally believe Pinyin is only for non-native speakers or is only to set up a kind of standard prounciation system for Chinese language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below are the facts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Chinese children are taught how to write some special Chinese character with the already known prounciation immediately (so children don't have to learn the Pinyin first.  As a native speaker of Chinese, I even didnot know why Pinyin was taught before high school :)&#xA;Native speakers learn how to pronounce first, and then learn how to write; this should be the truth;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The modern Chinese Pinyin system (or scheme?) is only for Mandarin (or Putonghua, which is based on Northern China's Peiking/Beijing dialects). So most of the aged Chinese people in south China who were educated with only their own dialects even cannot pronounce Pinyin correctly.  One of the most popular Chinese character IME software is based on Pinyin, but I know a lot southern China people who cannot use such IME software but a more complicate to learn Wubi IME software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3563" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T12:19:52.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5249" CreationDate="2013-11-28T01:11:38.957" Score="5" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone assist with providing the correct Chinese characters for the saying &quot;bu da jie&quot; which means unrelated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This saying appears in the Suzhou dialect so it is quite common in our household, but I don't know how to write this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T09:40:40.290" Title="Chinese characters for &quot;bu da jie&quot; meaning unrelated" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5227" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5228" CreationDate="2013-11-28T01:15:05.023" Score="4" ViewCount="438" Body="&lt;p&gt;国家 and 国 both mean &quot;country&quot; or &quot;nation&quot;. However, what's the significance of the character 家 in the word? Does it really add the meaning of &quot;home&quot; or &quot;family&quot;? Is there a cultural or historical basis for this? Or did the words and/or characters mean different things in the past?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-11-28T03:31:35.903" Title="What's the significance of 家 in 国家?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5227" CreationDate="2013-11-28T03:24:18.217" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wiktionary.org/zh-hant/%E5%9C%8B%E5%AE%B6&quot;&gt;http://zh.wiktionary.org/zh-hant/%E5%9C%8B%E5%AE%B6&lt;/a&gt;, which explains lots of traditional meanings of 国家.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic meaning is related to &lt;code&gt;古代諸侯的封地稱國，大夫的封地稱家&lt;/code&gt;. In the classical age of China, there were vassal states and the land of a vassal was called 国. There were also officials titled 大夫 who were given land as well, and a 大夫's land is called 家. Later 国家 was used to mean 国 in some situations (for rhythmic reasons, I suppose). The meaning also got extended to mean the court, or the emperor, or the capital. None of these was  today's concept of 国家.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Chinese and Japanese were finally exposed to the Western world in 19th century, they had to create new words or re-use old words to translate the concepts and notions which were not existed in their traditional culture. Eventually &lt;code&gt;国家&lt;/code&gt; was picked to be the translation of the modern concept of a state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastEditorUserId="3251" LastEditDate="2013-11-28T03:31:35.903" LastActivityDate="2013-11-28T03:31:35.903" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5221" CreationDate="2013-11-30T19:27:42.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我饿了。 I am hungry.&#xA;我 I&#xA;饿 hungry&#xA;了 already&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;我很饿。 I am very hungry.&#xA;我 I&#xA;很 very&#xA;饿 hungry&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2013-12-31T17:56:02.377" LastActivityDate="2013-12-31T17:56:02.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5162" CreationDate="2013-11-30T21:32:28.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The official Chinese language &quot;£10.50&quot; is &quot;十英镑五十便士&quot; (literal meaning: ten pounds and fifty pence). However, native Chinese speakers would probably call it &quot;十块五&quot; in common or &quot;十块五英镑&quot; for emphasis. Some native Chinese speakers may also call it &quot;十点五镑&quot;(literal meaning: ten point five pounds), or rarely call it &quot;十块五毛&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;========================================================================&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese monetary system:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;元(official) or 块(colloquial) stands for &quot;dollar&quot; (i.e. the main currency unit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;角(official) or 毛(colloquial) stands for &quot;dime&quot; (i.e. one tenth of the main currency unit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;分 stands for &quot;cent&quot; (i.e. one hundredth of the main currency unit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;========================================================================&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Official Chinese translation of British monetary system:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英镑 or 镑  - pound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;便士  - penny &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;===================================&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, £10.05 can be colloquially called 10块5&lt;strong&gt;分&lt;/strong&gt;英镑. The official name is 10英镑5便士.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2018-02-05T03:00:12.040" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T03:00:12.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5233" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5234" CreationDate="2013-11-30T23:54:05.707" Score="10" ViewCount="5032" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the correct translation for 1.5 months?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it &quot;一个月半&quot; or &quot;一个半月“?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3574" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T02:07:52.223" Title="What's the correct translation for 1.5 months? Is it &quot;一个月半&quot; or &quot;一个半月“?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5233" CreationDate="2013-12-01T00:50:55.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;一个半月 according to Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar. A quick search online, however, turned up plenty of uses of both phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T00:50:55.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5233" CreationDate="2013-12-01T02:36:31.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically 一个半月 is better and more common in written scripts. Although I don't understand why 一个半月 returns few results in Google, but those mentioning 一个月半 seem to be mostly related to infant raising. I'd say both is okay if you want to use in informal speeches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3516" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T02:36:31.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5233" CreationDate="2013-12-01T05:26:40.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For my experience, when “半” appears in a sentence, its position should be &quot;&#xA;number + classifier + 半 + noun&quot;. &#xA;When you say &quot;I've been waiting for 1.5 months.&quot;, then &quot;月“ functions as the noun, and “个” as the classifier.&#xA;But sometimes “月” can also be used as a classifier, especially when describing the age of an infant. That's why we say &#xA;“一个月半（大）的 婴儿”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there is no general rule for which noun can be used as a classifier. For example, “天” and “年” always appear as classifiers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3575" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T05:26:40.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5133" CreationDate="2013-12-01T06:37:58.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;gcd0318 is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;不+verb+adv. = don't want to do&#xA;verb+不+adv. = not able to do (lack the ability of doning)&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;不走进去 = don't want to go into&#xA;走不进去 = not able to go into (probably want to go into, but failed to go)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T06:37:58.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5009" CreationDate="2013-12-01T06:51:45.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;好&quot; has two pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好(hǎo) is an adjective or an adverb, which means &quot;good&quot;, &quot;well&quot;, &quot;queit&quot; or &quot;very&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好(hào) is a verb, which means &quot;like to do something&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好高 should be read as &quot;hào gāo&quot;, so it means &quot;like to be high&quot; literally, similar to &quot;aim high&quot; in English, but in a derogatory way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;====================================================================================&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骛(wù) stands for &quot;seek&quot; or &quot;look for&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;远 stands for &quot;far away&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鹜远 stands for &quot;seek something far away&quot; (&quot;far away&quot; means that it is impossible, so the unspoken word is that it is stupid to aim so high )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;====================================================================================&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好高骛远 is a derogatory idiom, which means &quot;ambitious in an arrogant way&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-08-10T14:16:56.787" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T14:16:56.787" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3878" CreationDate="2013-12-01T07:16:35.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;羡慕 is an approving verb for &quot;envy&quot;, i.e. &quot;admire&quot;, that is to say &quot;I envy you, and I hope you better.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妒忌 is a derogatory verb for &quot;envy&quot;, i.e. &quot;be jealous&quot;, that is to say &quot;I envy you, because I hate you. You shouldn't be better than me.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2018-02-05T02:42:33.783" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T02:42:33.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3840" CreationDate="2013-12-01T07:22:48.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, &quot;sì&quot; (meaning &quot;four&quot;) was allowed to be written as 亖 in ancient times. 亖 and 四 were both correct written forms of &quot;sì&quot; (meaning &quot;four&quot;). However, the modern way of writing is always 四 (in common use) or 肆 (in finance), never 亖.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-12-01T23:08:59.673" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T23:08:59.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3451" CreationDate="2013-12-01T07:47:43.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;English also has ancient words, right? For example, English people used to use the word &lt;code&gt;thou&lt;/code&gt; rather than &lt;code&gt;you&lt;/code&gt;. It is the same in Chinese. 余 is the ancient word of 我.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T07:47:43.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5243" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5393" CreationDate="2013-12-01T22:44:26.413" Score="5" ViewCount="982" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for an idiom that describes feeling better after getting closure/some explanation/clarity on a certain issue... whether breaking up with significant other and having a final face-to-face... getting explanation on death of a loved one.. etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T02:38:28.497" Title="How you say... I feel good after finally getting closure" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5243" CreationDate="2013-12-01T23:21:08.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got 恍然大悟/善始善终/松了口气/释然/如释重负/大彻大悟/冰释前嫌/释然放怀，无复蔕芥/尘埃落定 etc. in mind. But they don't mean the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T23:21:08.330" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5245" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-02T16:04:05.547" Score="5" ViewCount="881" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have passed HSK2 already. Now my new target is HSK3. How is it different from HSK2 from your experience? What should I pay attention to? What about HSK4? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="823" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-12-03T23:08:16.893" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T23:08:16.893" Title="How to prepare for HSK3?" Tags="&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5221" CreationDate="2013-12-03T02:28:02.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another Aussie here just to give me interpretation of the way it would be translated into English &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;我饿了&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is more likely to be used as a interjection or to emphasise a point rather then a response  eg. you want to indicate your hungry to someone as a new topic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要吃东西因为我饿了 (I want something to eat because I've been hungry for a while now)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more aussie way of saying the above would be &quot;come on mate/love I'm hungry let go get something to eat&quot; but what is expressed as apart of 我饿了 isn't really used in the Australian English language&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are time when you can use it as a response though eg.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 为什么你要吃&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A: 因为我肚子饿了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However 因为我很饿 also works in this situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;我很饿&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is used more as a building block rather then a stand alone statement, I would personally only use it during a conversation and not as a stand alone statement eg.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女朋友：你饿吗&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我：    我很饿&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女朋友：你要不要吃米粥&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我：    要吃谢谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It took me a very long to understand and learn to use 了 because as previously mention it would literately translate into &quot;already&quot; and in most cases as it's not used in this context in Australia as if I said &quot;I'm hungry already!&quot; to one of my friends the response would be something along the lines of &quot;Oh my are you okay princess, please, please don't get up; just wait there I will go make you some fairy bread&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something to keep in mind 我饿了 isn't always to complain about hunger it's just a way of expressing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T02:28:02.280" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5247" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5248" CreationDate="2013-12-03T03:42:04.930" Score="5" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simplified characters do not always mirror their traditional counterparts one to one. Sometimes you have a simplified character where some of its senses have one traditional form and some have another traditional form (essentially it's merged from multiple traditional characters). A very common example is 后, whose traditional form is 后 (same as the simplified form) for the sense of 'queen' and 後 for the sense of 'behind' or 'after'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My confusion arises with the simplified character 制. I can't seem to figure out for which senses the traditional form 製 applies and and for which ones it doesn't apply. For example, the word 制服, it seems to be written in traditional as it is in simplified sometimes: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hkfsd.gov.hk/chi/uniform.html&quot;&gt;here (hk)&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://class.ruten.com.tw/category/sub00.php?c=000200340003&quot;&gt;here (tw)&lt;/a&gt;, whereas  other times, it's written as 製服 such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/entertainment/art/20130718/18338178&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.518.com.tw/%E7%8E%B3%E5%92%8C%E5%B0%88%E6%A5%AD%E8%A3%BD%E6%9C%8D%E6%9C%89%E9%99%90%E5%85%AC%E5%8F%B8-company-1582303.html&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (this page actually contains both instances!!). To further complicate things, 制服 has another unrelated verb sense meaning 'to overpower, to subdue' for which the traditional form is the same as the simplified form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone shed some light on this for me? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-12-03T03:48:34.713" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T07:36:53.883" Title="For which senses of simplified 制 would I use the traditional form 製?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5247" CreationDate="2013-12-03T03:59:16.450" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Historically they were the same character. Later the meanings split, 製 is usually the verb meaning to make, and 制 the noun meaning the system, or more abstract things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Uniform&lt;/code&gt; should be &lt;code&gt;制服&lt;/code&gt;, because it means the clothing following certain rules/system. &lt;code&gt;製服&lt;/code&gt; could be literally interpreted as &lt;code&gt;clothing-making&lt;/code&gt;. Regarding the meaning of &lt;code&gt;overpower&lt;/code&gt;, it must be &lt;code&gt;制服&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T03:59:16.450" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5226" CreationDate="2013-12-03T04:02:12.250" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;不搭界 (bùdājiè in Mandarin) is a common informal expression in Wu dialects (which include Shanghainese and the Suzhou dialect). Its literal meaning, as indicated in the comments, refers to 'not having a common boundary'. In current usage, it refers to two matters, objects or people having no shared connection or relationship. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example, of two people quarrelling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 阿拉从此浑身不搭界！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: 随便侬！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: We don't have anything to do with each other from now on! (lit: We from now on are unrelated all over the body)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: Whatever! (Lit: “Do as you wish”)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="3038" LastEditDate="2013-12-08T09:40:40.290" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T09:40:40.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5245" CreationDate="2013-12-03T15:01:07.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can review the vocabulary differences here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/godianado/vocab?vocabID=163720#U47109c9cf2676&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;HSK2&lt;/a&gt; vs &lt;a href=&quot;http://quizlet.com/6058630/hsk-3-vocabulary-flash-cards/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;HSK3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinaeducenter.com/en/hsk/hsklevel3.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt; also describes what a HSK 3 level should be able to achieve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T15:01:07.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5252" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-04T11:39:25.870" Score="6" ViewCount="1236" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have sometimes wondered what would be the appropriate way of addressing (fellow) students that are junior to oneself. Given name? Full name? Name + 妹/第? Are there even cases where one can use 哥/兄 etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume 小+surname is not used, is that correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And: does one have to take gender into account? I.e. boy addressing girl, boy—boy, girl—boy, girl—girl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one is not sure, how does one find out what the other person is comfortable with?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3584" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T09:59:30.173" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T09:59:30.173" Title="How to address fellow students junior to oneself (学妹，学弟)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5253" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-04T11:58:36.687" Score="4" ViewCount="3269" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can one use 亲爱 &quot;dear&quot; in a letter to a teacher one knows well? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the specific case that triggered this question, the student, who is a male student in his late 20s, is being addressed 亲爱的[name]兄弟 by a female teacher who is about 10 years older. They have known each other for several years, and cooperate on a research project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The student (as far as I know) always addresses her as [Surname]+老师, but since they get along very well, he is wondering if one could find a &quot;warmer&quot; way of addressing her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two questions:&#xA; 1. Is it possible for him to address her in emails as 亲爱的[Surname]老师 without invoking any undesired connotations (notably without suggesting anything beyond respectful friendship). &#xA; 2. Is there any alternative to 老师 in conversation? My guess is that there really isn't (except for more formal options, such as 先生, 教授 etc.), but perhaps I am wrong? Could one use, say, [Surname]+姐?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3584" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-12-20T04:10:02.377" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:38:40.777" Title="How to address a teacher one knows well (in conversation and emails). Is 亲爱 &quot;dear&quot; ever appropriate?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;academic&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5258" CreationDate="2013-12-04T12:58:59.407" Score="8" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this in a lesson:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你都会去吗?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, &lt;code&gt;都&lt;/code&gt; refers to islands, as in &quot;Will you go to all of them [the islands]?&quot; But, when I hear that my brain thinks &lt;code&gt;都&lt;/code&gt; refers to the subject, as in &quot;Will all of you go?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could &lt;code&gt;都&lt;/code&gt; refer to both the subject and the object, depending on context? How would one translate, &quot;Will all of you go to all of them?&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3587" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-12-09T01:26:35.023" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T22:42:59.647" Title="Using 都 when refering to both subject and objects" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5254" CreationDate="2013-12-04T13:43:30.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what i read from the text i would translate it as: &quot;Will you also go?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Will all of you&quot; I would translate as &lt;code&gt;你們都會&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;Will all of you go to all of them&quot; &lt;code&gt;你們都會去全部嗎？&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3047" LastActivityDate="2013-12-04T13:43:30.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5253" CreationDate="2013-12-04T14:04:29.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 敬爱的X老师 is good. 亲爱的 is mostly used to family member in China. 敬爱的 means 受人尊敬和喜爱的 and it is good for teacher and professor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-12-04T14:04:29.237" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5252" CreationDate="2013-12-04T14:14:48.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, if you have a female junior who has a family name of 张(Zhang) and your family name is 王(Wang) and you are male. She can address you as 小王学长 and you can address her as 小张学妹. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you two call each other instead of addressing each other to other people, you can just call her 学妹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a male senior is 学长 and a female senior is 学姐. A male junior is 学弟 and a female junior is 学妹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-12-04T14:14:48.330" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5254" CreationDate="2013-12-04T18:21:52.630" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 都 can refer to either subject or objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When subject is plural, 都 refer to &quot;all&quot; of the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们都来嘛？Are all of you coming?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;同学们都交按时交了作业。 All of the students in the class handed in their homework in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When subject is single, and object is plural, then 都 refers to &quot;all&quot; of the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你把糖果都吃了？ Did you eat all of the candy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这些衣服你都买吗 ？ Are you going to buy all of those clothes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那些岛屿你都会去吗？Will you (single) go to all of the islands?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When both subject and object are plural, if only using 都, it is ambiguous as we don't know if it refers to the subject or object or both. So we either need to draw more info from the context, or if no context, we will have to ask the speaker to clarify on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那些岛屿你们都会去吗？Will (all of ?)you (plural) go to (all of?) the islands?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we mean all of the subject AND all of the object, then we will have to use TWO words meaning &quot;all&quot; (所有/全部/都/全/全都) together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们都交了全部的作业嘛？  Did all of you guys hand in all the homework?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们都会去所有的那些岛屿吗？Will all of you (plural) go to all of the islands?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes it is still ambiguous even we use TWO such words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For exmaple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;所有的那些岛屿你们都会去吗？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In this sentence, 所有 refers to the islands for sure, no doubt about it. But 都 may refer to either object or subject. So we still need to ask the speaker to clarify on it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For this sentence, if there is no context, and we are not able to ask the speaker to clarify, then my intuition of interpreting this sentence is that both 所有 and 都 refer to islands. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/strong&gt; The things 都 refers to are somehow impacted by the sentence structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2013-12-04T18:28:26.863" LastActivityDate="2013-12-04T18:28:26.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5254" CreationDate="2013-12-04T20:15:44.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned previously, 都 simply means 'all', and what it really refers to purely depends on the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example sentence, the singular form of 'you' (你) is used, and 'all of you (singular)' does not make much sense. So it would not be usually understood this way. The interpretation that makes the most sense would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Will you go to all?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there is another interpretation: 都 can be understood as 'even' sometimes. So this sentence, without any context, can be also interpreted as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Even you will go?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in speaking, the first and second interpretations can be distinguished by  stressing on different syllables (on 都 for the first, and on 你 for the second), but there is no way to tell when it is written out if no context is provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not normally interpret this sentence as 'Will you also go'. The more common way to say the latter (at least in most parts of mainland China) is '你*&lt;em&gt;也&lt;/em&gt;*会去吗?' However, my observation is that people from Hong Kong tend to use '都' when they really mean the Mandarin '也'(too, also), AND VICE VERSA. So, this sentence may be understood as 'Will you also go' in Hong Kong (correct me if I am wrong), but less likely in Mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastEditorUserId="2786" LastEditDate="2013-12-04T20:30:29.747" LastActivityDate="2013-12-04T20:30:29.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5142" CreationDate="2013-12-04T20:54:14.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically they are close but very different sounds, as you may are already aware of. The difference is not as obvious on the word Shampoo though. I think the reason is that the tongue position is somewhat affected by the vowel 'a'. But you'll definitely notice the difference if you apply those two sounds on the word 'shoot'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, nowadays many people do bother to curl tongues that much, so for them, the pronunciation of ʂ indeed sounds very close to ʃ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastActivityDate="2013-12-04T20:54:14.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2013-12-04T21:10:01.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is not alone in this. Think about English. We say &quot;one thousand&quot;, &quot;one hundred&quot;, but we don't really say &quot;one ten&quot;. And all numbers between 20 and 100 are represented as &quot;(root for higher digit)-ty + (lower digit)&quot;, if you follow this rule, then 13 should be &quot;onety three&quot;, but no, it is &quot;thirteen&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the reason is that people tend to make the numbers frequently used as short as possible. As mentioned before, 一十六 is not wrong, but the shorter version 十六 is much more preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastActivityDate="2013-12-04T21:10:01.133" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5262" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5265" CreationDate="2013-12-05T03:35:21.303" Score="3" ViewCount="9785" Body="&lt;p&gt;How shall we say &quot;不甘心“  in English? For example, &quot;经历多次失败后，仍然不甘心放弃过去的种种努力和自己的理想”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &quot;is not willing to&quot; means &quot;不愿意“， still not exactly &quot;不甘心“. Consider an example, &quot;经历多次失败后，仍然不甘心放弃自己的理想”， “不愿意帮助他”。 In the first example,  “不愿意“ doesn't have the exact meaning of &quot;不甘心“, while in the second example, “不愿意“ cannot be replaced with &quot;不甘心“.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T21:46:28.750" Title="&quot;不甘心“ in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5263" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5264" CreationDate="2013-12-05T04:59:30.027" Score="0" ViewCount="4279" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an iOS app. I want to do &lt;code&gt;localization&lt;/code&gt; of the app in &lt;code&gt;Chinese language&lt;/code&gt;. But, in language settings, there are two options &lt;code&gt;Simplified&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Tradition&lt;/code&gt;. I' m not able to figure out which is the best one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please any one could tell me, which &lt;code&gt;language&lt;/code&gt;, shall i use for &lt;code&gt;Localization of my App&lt;/code&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in Advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3592" LastActivityDate="2013-12-05T16:54:15.433" Title="Chinese (Simplified) or Chinese (Tradition), which language is used as Most popular language in China?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2013-12-06T04:26:47.127" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5263" CreationDate="2013-12-05T05:14:31.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese is used throughout mainland China, though pretty much everyone can read the Traditional also. Traditional Chinese tends to still be used in places like Malaysia, Singapore, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're marketing to mainland China then you probably want Simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, do both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastActivityDate="2013-12-05T05:14:31.960" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5262" CreationDate="2013-12-05T05:47:58.623" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about &quot;not resigned to&quot; or &quot;not happy to&quot; for 不甘心?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-05T05:47:58.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5263" CreationDate="2013-12-05T07:44:41.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditional characters are standard in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taiwan might be the biggest market for traditional characters, although they are certainly known in many other areas, such as Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3499" LastActivityDate="2013-12-05T07:44:41.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5268" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5277" CreationDate="2013-12-05T07:53:48.573" Score="4" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a cafeteria, there is a sign which presumably means something like, &quot;There are a limited number of seats, so please don't sit down with just one person to a table; plan your seating arrangements so that everyone can have a seat.&quot;  I don't recognize most of the characters, but I managed to use a handwriting program to feed them into Google Translate, and I still don't really know what it is supposed to mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The actual text is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用餐畢請隨手整理桌面 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;座位有限請勿休憩佔用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I can't figure out what the function of &quot;畢&quot; is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was no punctuation in the original.  I don't know if the division into two lines is supposed to indicate a division into two sentences or not.&#xA;As my paraphrase of the Google Translate shows, I can't even translate this phrase very precisely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose it can all be considered one sentence, but the &quot;sentence&quot; distinction doesn't really work as it does in English.   In English, the &quot;sentence&quot; is a very important distinction;  each complete thought is supposed to have a complete sentence. In Chinese, each paragraph seems to be one thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that 限請 is 'please don't' and '請隨手' means 'please make an effort, even though we can't specify in advance what measures you will need to take.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用餐 might be &quot;when you are eating&quot; or it might be the adjective &quot;dining&quot; in &quot;dining table.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess 座位有限 is &quot;limited seating&quot; or &quot;a limited number of seats.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone provide a grammatical explanation of how these vocabulary words go together?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3499" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-12-06T04:00:05.837" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T00:50:29.767" Title="What is the grammar of &quot;用餐曅請隨手整理桌面 座位有限請勿休憩估用&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5262" CreationDate="2013-12-05T08:28:15.737" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't deserve that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不甘心&#xA;means you work hard and don't get reasonable feedback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3090" LastActivityDate="2013-12-05T08:28:15.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5270" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5289" CreationDate="2013-12-05T10:01:13.757" Score="3" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;These characters all mean &quot;to attack&quot; or &quot;to invade&quot;, but what are the differences between them? When should one be used and not the others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-12-19T11:34:44.777" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T09:15:00.133" Title="Differences between 征, 伐, 讨, 侵, 袭?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4993" CreationDate="2013-12-05T15:14:07.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Common ways of 暧昧 use:&#xA;When you see a guy and a girl are flirting with each other but they denied that they are in a relationship. You call that 暧昧. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means the relationship of two people that you assume they are feeling affectionate towards each other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, ambiguity is not right word for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3596" LastActivityDate="2013-12-05T15:14:07.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5263" CreationDate="2013-12-05T16:54:15.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simplified characters are used in mainland China, but in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, traditional characters are much more likely to be used. In Hong Kong at least (possibly Taiwan and Macau as well), simplified characters are pretty rare in usage, though most people will be able to read them anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3410" LastActivityDate="2013-12-05T16:54:15.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5273" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-05T17:15:19.590" Score="11" ViewCount="25012" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, ”委屈“ has the meaning of being treated unfairly and consequently felt bad but didn't dare to complain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;be upset&quot; doesn't necessarily imply being treated unfairly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;be wronged&quot; doesn't seem to imply feeling bad but not dare to complain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how would you say it in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-12-20T04:08:33.947" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T03:33:10.993" Title="”委屈“ in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5273" CreationDate="2013-12-06T00:58:46.613" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a simple expression that captures that exact nuance in English.  For the feeling generated you could describe the person as &quot;simmering with resentment&quot;.  Otherwise, I might say &quot;he/she was wronged but couldn't air his/her grievances.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-06T00:58:46.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="705" CreationDate="2013-12-06T01:55:34.860" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, they have the same meaning！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 遇到大学同学了。&#xA;&#xA;&#xA; 碰到大学同学了。  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3474" LastActivityDate="2013-12-06T01:55:34.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5268" CreationDate="2013-12-06T04:19:03.510" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is probably easier with some punctuations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用餐畢， 請隨手整理桌面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;座位有限， 請勿休憩佔用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's break it down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用餐畢: 用餐 means 'to dine' or literally 'to use meal'； 畢， short for 完畢, means 'to finish, to complete' (intransitive sense only); so altogether - 'after your meal'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請隨手整理桌面: 請 - 'please'; 隨手 means 'while at it, while doing it' or literally 'to follow hand'; 整理 - 'to arrange, to put in order', in this case 'to tidy up'; 桌面 - 'tabletop' ; so altogether - 'please readily tidy up the table'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;座位有限: 座位 - 'seat'; 有限, means 'having a limit, limited' ; altogether - limited seating&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請勿休憩佔用: 請 - 'please'; 勿 - 'don't, not' ; 休憩 - 'to rest' ; 佔用 - 'to occupy'; altogether - please don't rest (here) and occupy (the seats)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole thing can be translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please tidy up the table after your meal; limited seating, so please don't rest here and/or occupy the seats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I'd have used 清理 instead of 整理, as 清理 implies cleaning and taking your mess with you whereas 整理 usually means to put things in order. It just sounds a little unidiomatic. Maybe it's more idiomatic in Taiwan (I assume this is where you saw the phrase from)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-12-09T00:50:29.767" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T00:50:29.767" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5262" CreationDate="2013-12-06T14:08:55.020" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the right context, it can easily be translated as or ‘not willing to’. In other contexts, different translations may be necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, ‘not willing to’ does seem stronger than 不甘心 implies, though ‘unwilling’ might work. Better than ‘unwilling’, though, I would suggest either ‘hesitant’, ‘loath’ or ‘reluctant’:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;经历多次失败后，仍然不甘心放弃过去的种种努力和自己的理想。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Despite having failed several times, he was still hesitant/loath/reluctant to change his views.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3038" LastActivityDate="2013-12-06T14:08:55.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5279" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-06T14:29:21.283" Score="4" ViewCount="2230" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lately I have been confused on how to say different in Mandarin. I learned 不同 and 不一样 but am not confident on their usage. I am also unsure of the grammar. I found 与众不同 but this seems to also have the meaning of a grade above, or unusual in a good way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I use 跟、和、像 or 与？ What is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other ways to say something is different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 没有人想跟同辈不同 an accurate translation of &quot;No one likes to be different from their peers&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="938" LastEditDate="2013-12-09T04:32:51.167" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T04:32:51.167" Title="How to say things are different from one another" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5280" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-06T16:21:20.080" Score="4" ViewCount="4658" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that Chinese sometimes prefer to say &quot;ay pee pee&quot; rather than just &quot;app&quot; when referring to a computer application. I infer there is a chance that &quot;app&quot; already had a meaning in a Chinese language other than application. Can anyone tell me what meaning it may have in Mandarin or Cantonese? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3605" LastEditorUserId="3605" LastEditDate="2013-12-06T16:33:26.760" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T07:48:06.030" Title="What does the sound &quot;app&quot; mean in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5280" CreationDate="2013-12-06T17:19:29.420" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure it doesn't have any meaning in Mandarin itself, given that &quot;words&quot; in Mandarin end with either a vowel, &quot;n&quot;, or &quot;ng&quot; (as per the pinyin romanization). It could be another word from English but I doubt it (given that I can't think of any other words with similar spelling/pronunciation in common usage). Moreover, in my experience, most people who speak Mandarin just use &quot;app&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience Cantonese speaking people seem more inclined to use &quot;app&quot; as well, even though there &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; a couple characters with slightly similar pronuncation (but as obvious, significantly different tones) in Cantonese, such as 鸭 (&lt;em&gt;aap&lt;/em&gt; with the jyutping romanization system). That said, given the tonal nature of the words in Cantonese and the fact that there is still a different pronunciation, I don't think there's any risk of confusing &quot;app&quot; with any of those words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(However, it's worth noting that my experiences have mainly been around Cantonese/Mandarin speakers who probably are inclined to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching&quot;&gt;code-switch&lt;/a&gt; with English words and phrases than average.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude, I'd say that while there might indeed be Chinese speakers who pronounce &quot;app&quot; as &quot;A-P-P&quot;, I wouldn't attribute this to any words in Chinese with similar pronunciation and different meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3410" LastEditorDisplayName="user3410" LastEditDate="2013-12-06T19:40:58.747" LastActivityDate="2013-12-06T19:40:58.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5280" CreationDate="2013-12-06T18:44:36.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although it might be obvious that app(/æp/) stands for application(/æplɪˈkeɪʃn/), most Chinese just say &quot;A-P-P&quot; because they simply have no idea what does it represent and won't notice the correlation between &quot;app&quot; and &quot;application&quot; for the first time they see it(which might be the same situation even if they're getting more familiar with the word add).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3606" LastActivityDate="2013-12-06T18:44:36.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5279" CreationDate="2013-12-06T19:03:46.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;众&quot; stands for everything/everyone. 跟、和、像 or 与 are prepositions. 与众不同 means diff from everything/everyone. There are several ways to say &quot;be diff from something&quot; in Mandarin, for examples: 与something不同/和something不一样/跟something不一样(substitute &quot;something&quot; with the one you want to say in Mandarin). These sentences have the same meaning. However, 像 is seldom used with &quot;不同&quot; or &quot;不一样&quot;. &quot;异&quot; also has the meaning of &quot;different/difference&quot;, but usually used in a differently way. For your last question, I assume you might mistype one thing, since a more appropriate way to translate would be &quot;没有人想跟同辈不同&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3606" LastActivityDate="2013-12-06T19:03:46.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3784" CreationDate="2013-12-06T19:08:37.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, it is translated as 网络暴力 (mainly used mainland China).&#xA;In Traditional Chinese, it is translated as 網路霸凌/網絡暴力 (used in HongKong, Taiwan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3606" LastActivityDate="2013-12-06T19:08:37.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5285" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5286" CreationDate="2013-12-06T21:26:10.037" Score="7" ViewCount="2390" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literal translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 - You&lt;br&gt;&#xA;什么 - what / who / something / anything&lt;br&gt;&#xA;都 - entire / all&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不是 - blame&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess - It's all your fault?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2013-12-08T03:09:22.620" LastActivityDate="2013-12-31T15:08:30.423" Title="What does &quot;你什么都不是&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5285" CreationDate="2013-12-07T00:04:48.783" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally: you are nothing at all, usually used in a disparaging way from what I can gather.  It follows the common pattern of Sub+什么都不+Verb, meaning that the subject verbs nothing at all.  Ex: 我什么都不知道 = I don't know anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T00:04:48.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5287" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5293" CreationDate="2013-12-07T04:53:37.217" Score="6" ViewCount="672" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm unfamiliar with the variety of Mandarin spoken in Taiwan, so I was surprised to see a chilli-snack 香脆椒 referred to as 餅乾:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mall.tw100years.com/goods.php?id=9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://mall.tw100years.com/goods.php?id=9&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真不敢相信這真是美味的&lt;strong&gt;餅乾&lt;/strong&gt;！看起來是紅紅的辣椒，吃起來是香、脆外加點淡淡的鹹，不但能幫您排去宿便，還能養顏美容！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The definition of 餅乾 that I'm familiar with is biscuit or cracker, a baked pastry food. This snack doesn't fit that definition; it is made of fried chilli peppers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kH8TI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T04:45:51.410" Title="What does 餅乾 mean in Taiwan?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5287" CreationDate="2013-12-07T07:48:28.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As 饼干 is generally used for things that we would describe as cookies in English, what he have here seems to be cookies wrapped in peppers, so spicy cookies.  From the description: 它是辣椒，也是饼干.  Also one of their primary ingredients is sugar.  So it seems safe to say that they are an unusual kind of cookie, and that we are not dealing with a deviant usage of 饼干.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T07:48:28.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5270" CreationDate="2013-12-07T08:36:23.300" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;it is hard to tell what they exactly mean without contexts, but i can give you a very general idea of these characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;征 (zheng1) means 'wage war by travelling a long distance'. it is usually associated with a war with a very large scale in both space and time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伐 (fa2) is just 'to wage war against', nothing more. in fact, among all five characters, only the original meaning of 伐 is directly related with war.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讨 (tao3), literally &quot;to demand&quot;, means &quot;to wage war demanding justice/punish the wrongdoers&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;侵 (qin1) means “to invade&quot; or &quot;to encroach&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;袭 (xi2) is usually associated with “sudden attack”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastEditorUserId="3610" LastEditDate="2013-12-07T21:16:29.517" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T21:16:29.517" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5290" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5296" CreationDate="2013-12-07T12:51:09.743" Score="11" ViewCount="1578" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know relatively little about typography but I know that Lorem Ipsum or other similar bodies of text appear a lot in the world of typesetting. Because Chinese characters are pretty much square, is there a need for a Chinese Lorem Ipsum? If so, what texts or series are used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T01:28:19.703" Title="In Chinese typesetting, is there a version of Lorem Ipsum?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5291" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-12-07T12:55:15.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In any learning process, it's common to come across topics, terminology or complex concepts that are closely related. Identifying and then accurately describing their differences is critical to gain a deeper understanding of the subject at hand, and eventually achieving mastery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Inquiring about differences is a sign of curiosity, the attempt to make sense of what one is learning and to organize knowledge. This naturally applies to the study of languages as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more expressive a language is, the more often learners will come across words and idioms that convey essentially the same meaning, but present nuances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having a good command of those nuances will help the learner expand their vocabulary and choose more appropriate words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, differences aren't relegated to word choices. Syntactic constructs, idioms and phrases, usage of particles require the same level of attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese language in particular offers ample opportunities to draw comparisons, with its variety of characters, character sets, writing styles, dialects, regional variations, and many more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have doubts about anything that involves comparing two or more items, feel free to use this tag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-16T02:39:46.737" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T02:39:46.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5292" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-12-07T12:55:15.217" Score="0" Body="For questions about differences or comparisons between two or more words, lexical nuances, characters, pronunciation, syntax, etc." OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T02:19:50.530" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T02:19:50.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5287" CreationDate="2013-12-07T14:54:48.123" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am Taiwanese, and I have even had this &quot;餅乾&quot; once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, we can refer to almost every snack that is made with flour and &quot;cracks&quot; in your mouth as 餅乾. So when you say you want some 餅乾, people will not only give you crackers, but also cookies, potato chips, wafer cookies, wafer rolls, mille feuille, etc. These things have their own specific names, of course!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even these are 餅乾: &lt;a href=&quot;http://aaaleopard.pixnet.net/blog/post/30765742&quot;&gt;Jagabee Fries&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocky&quot;&gt;Pocky&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also like to clarify that this sentence is not in Taiwanese. It is in Standard Chinese, but we have our own accent and wording. Just like the differences between American English and British English. We normally speak two languages in everyday life, i.e. Chinese and Taiwanese, a Min dialect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3611" LastEditorUserId="3611" LastEditDate="2013-12-07T15:35:30.077" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T15:35:30.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3784" CreationDate="2013-12-07T15:53:32.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;在网上发表具有攻击性、煽动性和侮辱性的言论，造成当事人名誉损害，人们习惯称之为“网络暴力”。&#xA;In the online publication of aggressive, provocative and insulting remarks, honorary damage caused by parties, people used to call it &quot;the network of violence&quot;.it,s from www.baidu.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3612" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T15:53:32.683" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5285" CreationDate="2013-12-07T16:14:00.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's mean “You are a waste”  but it is more tactfully。Don't be serious occasion to say this sentence, it is considered an insult or hurt. For example: meeting, break up&#xA;------------------------------You would think that this would be that, but it's true. In addition, I talk with Baidu Chinese translation (search engine a Chinese common) translated into English in released, may be because of social philosophy and misunderstanding, please forgive me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3612" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T16:14:00.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5290" CreationDate="2013-12-07T16:51:35.470" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no standard text, but there is sometimes the need for something equivalent (i.e. a body of text to see how typesetting looks).  Sometimes this is referred to as 乱数假文.  Your exact question has been asked and answered in Chinese here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhihu.com/question/19708165&quot;&gt;http://www.zhihu.com/question/19708165&lt;/a&gt; , if you want to read more.  You can also find a tool for generating such texts here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.richyli.com/tool/loremipsum/&quot;&gt;http://www.richyli.com/tool/loremipsum/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T16:51:35.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5233" CreationDate="2013-12-07T21:31:02.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me, both of them are acceptable and mean the same thing. however, i do prefer 一个半月 over 一个月半. the latter seems a liitle too colloquial for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T21:31:02.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1289" CreationDate="2013-12-07T21:53:10.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;all three sentences are grammatically correct. the first one may be a little colloquial but it is definitely something i would use in a daily conversation. The real problem is: They are &lt;strong&gt;ambiguous&lt;/strong&gt;. it is impossible to tell if it happened in the past, present, or future. ttt555 gives one possible, but not the only interpretation for each sentence. my observation is that, however, if no particles indicating tense is found near a verb, then it'd be normally understood as present or future tense. in your three sentences, none of them have such a particle for 看. Therefore, i'd naturally interpret ALL of them to be a prediction of the future, rather than something happened in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃过饭以后看了电影。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to describe these events that occurred in the past. note that i replaced the first 了 with a 过 to avoid repetition. Also, i think keeping 以后 here helps making the sentence less ambiguous and getting rid of the &quot;colloquial&quot; flavour as found in your first sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T21:53:10.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5301" CreationDate="2013-12-08T01:50:22.650" Score="3" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;My translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当你长大，你慢慢学会几件事情；有些人不必理会，无论他说什么做什么，多么幼稚又多么讨厌，真的不需要在乎。有些人永远成不了你的敌人，不必抬举他，这种人太看得起自己了，以为拼命攻击你伤害你，就能够被你所恨。有些人不必等待，你心里其实清楚得很，这个人不必再等了，只是你放不下.&#xA;As you grow up, you slowly learn a few things; there are people that (you) don't need to understand/care about, no matter what they say or do, regardless of how naive or annoying he is, don't pay any mind/depend on. There are people that will never become your enemy, don't praise him, this type of person cares too much about himself, will go all out to hurt you, will be hated by you. There are people that (you) don't need to wait on, actually inside you are very clear, don't wait on this person any longer, it's you that can't let go.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is my translation? Would appreciate your corrections. There are many I dont really understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有些人不必理会. Actually there are two translations I thought of:&#xA;A.there are people that just don't understand (dont understand what? &quot;You&quot;?). &#xA;B. There are people that YOU don't need to understand/care about.&#xA;Which one is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有些人永远成不了你的敌人，不必抬举他，这种人太看得起自己了，以为拼命攻击你伤害你，就能够被你所恨。this sentence is talking about someone that can NOT be your enemy, yet this person is doing his worse to hurt &quot;you&quot; and &quot;you&quot; will totally hate him? Is there a double meaning to 敌人 that I don't understand?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you very much&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastActivityDate="2013-12-22T22:35:13.770" Title="Not clear what or who the subject of these sentences is" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5299" CreationDate="2013-12-08T02:58:24.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;有些人[你]不必理会. 你 is dropped as the context is clear. If you read the sentence again, it starts with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;长大，&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;慢慢学会几件事情；有些人不必理会...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-drop_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pro-drop language&lt;/a&gt;, you will encounter this quite often. 理会 here does &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; mean understand, but to bother or care about. So, it is saying, there are some people that you don't need to care about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有些人永远成不了你的敌人，[你]不必抬举他，这种人太看得起自己了，以为拼命攻击你伤害你，就能够被你所恨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people will never become your enemy; there is no need to flatter them. This kind of person thinks too highly of himself and assumes that by attacking and harming you relentlessly, he will be hated by you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no double meaning here for 敌人. It is just a philosophical statement advising you not to bear grudge against an unworthy opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T02:58:24.983" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5285" CreationDate="2013-12-08T09:00:12.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you are a nobody .我是中国人 我知道答案。告诉你们了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3615" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-12-09T01:02:19.737" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T01:02:19.737" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5303" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5308" CreationDate="2013-12-08T17:46:31.057" Score="3" ViewCount="321" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some sentences for context. To me, leaving out the 地 preserves the meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再一次地感谢大家&#xA;让我再一次地想你&#xA;微笑,再一次地让我们微笑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 再一次地 a set phrase/固定短语?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one w/o the 地:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再一次战胜自己&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2013-12-31T15:03:12.543" Title="再一次地, why is 地 used?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5303" CreationDate="2013-12-08T19:38:41.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's fine to use 地 but we usually leave it out in conversations. The 地 literally makes the sentence more formal, like in a poem, a speech, or something has strong emotions attached. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3617" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T19:38:41.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5303" CreationDate="2013-12-08T19:51:43.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;再一次地 is not a set phrase. 一 and 地 can often be dropped, and people more often say 再次感谢，再次想你，etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3618" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T19:51:43.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5290" CreationDate="2013-12-09T00:02:04.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that your guess is right. Since Chinese characters are all square (even for punctuations, in fact, punctuations are not commonly used until early 1900s), when typeset, they are all perfectly aligned, and there is no need to prepare something like Lorem Ipsum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3620" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-12-09T01:28:19.703" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T01:28:19.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5303" CreationDate="2013-12-09T00:58:14.250" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese「地」is the adverb marker. &#xA;It's used bewtween an adverb and the verb it describes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase「再一次」 acts like a adverb whcih means &quot;do something once again&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So use 「地」after 「再一次」 and the verb behind it。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example：&#xA;「再一次地感谢大家」 --&gt; Thanks everyone once again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 「地」can be omitted in this case, so&#xA;「再一次地感谢大家」 --&gt; 「再一次感谢大家」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This kind of usage is usually more informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The words 「的/地/得」 is quite confusing in Chinese language.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Even Chinese native speakers do not care about the difference between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More information please see:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/%E7%9A%84-%E5%9C%B0-%E5%BE%97-summary&quot;&gt;http://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/%E7%9A%84-%E5%9C%B0-%E5%BE%97-summary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3622" LastEditorUserId="3622" LastEditDate="2013-12-09T01:27:45.643" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T01:27:45.643" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5253" CreationDate="2013-12-09T09:15:56.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;without invoking any undesired connotations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is the purpose of this question, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, the student wants to avoid 暧昧, please see the Q&amp;amp;A &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/4993/808&quot;&gt;How to translate &amp;quot;暧昧&amp;quot; into English?&lt;/a&gt; for further explanation of 暧昧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the answers for your questions,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it possible for him to address her in emails as 亲爱的[Surname]老师&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't use 亲爱的 if you want to avoid 暧昧. Keep the way the student always uses, i.e. [Surname]+老师.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any alternative to 老师 in conversation? My guess is that there really isn't &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you are right. Actually, [Surname]+姐 will add even more 暧昧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="808" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T09:15:56.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5311" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5313" CreationDate="2013-12-09T10:23:40.983" Score="9" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which is the correct use of this grammar pattern?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一字一字地学习汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一个字一个字地学习汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one feels correct to me. The pattern is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一{MW,N}一{MW,N} + 地 + V&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3627" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T08:01:15.790" Title="我一字一字地学习汉语 OR 我一个字一个字地学习汉语" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5285" CreationDate="2013-12-09T11:17:36.430" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simple translate: You are nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T11:17:36.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5311" CreationDate="2013-12-09T11:56:58.620" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are correct, but the second one sounds more natural to a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;个&lt;/code&gt; is omitted only in some idiomatic phrases like &lt;code&gt;一字一句&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;一字排开&lt;/code&gt;(though here &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; doesn't mean the number, but the shape of the number).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, it's more idiomatic to use a &lt;code&gt;measure word&lt;/code&gt; between the number and the noun in most cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3076" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-12-09T20:21:15.443" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T20:21:15.443" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5315" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5316" CreationDate="2013-12-09T17:24:53.057" Score="4" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;假如我们现在碰到有个人，觉得他实在太不争气，实在太让我们失望，我们对他又爱、又恨、又急，那么&lt;code&gt;我们经常会怎么说&lt;/code&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We often do what/as we say?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is from an ancient text so I'm not sure if the style of language back then is different from today's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jxjjxx.com/web/jxjjxx_detail.php?dlmmc=%BD%CC%B9%A4%D6%AE%BC%D2&amp;amp;lmmc=%C8%D5%D0%C2%BD%B2%CC%B3&amp;amp;zlmmc=%C8%D5%D0%C2%BD%B2%CC%B3&amp;amp;wzid=620&amp;amp;lbid=322&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.jxjjxx.com/web/jxjjxx_detail.php?dlmmc=%BD%CC%B9%A4%D6%AE%BC%D2&amp;amp;lmmc=%C8%D5%D0%C2%BD%B2%CC%B3&amp;amp;zlmmc=%C8%D5%D0%C2%BD%B2%CC%B3&amp;amp;wzid=620&amp;amp;lbid=322&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="3706" LastEditDate="2013-12-23T08:45:44.983" LastActivityDate="2013-12-23T08:45:44.983" Title="Translation help:: How to translate 我们经常会怎么说 into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5315" CreationDate="2013-12-09T18:42:27.797" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;假如我们现在碰到有个人，觉得他实在太不争气，实在太让我们失望，我们对他又爱、又恨、又急、&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;那么我们经常会怎么说&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think here it means: &quot;so then is that how we usually put it?&quot;, &quot;so is that how it is usually said?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T18:42:27.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5317" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5319" CreationDate="2013-12-09T21:25:17.320" Score="3" ViewCount="1947" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would I congratulate someone on getting a new job?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English I would say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Congratulations on your new job!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've done a bit of research and came up with these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;祝你找到一个好工作&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;恭喜获得这个工作&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你的新工作表示祝贺&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm not sure about how 'natural' these sound, or if there is a better alternative?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T03:36:20.960" Title="How to congratulate someone on getting a new job?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;congratulations&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5311" CreationDate="2013-12-10T00:52:23.723" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As other people have pointed out, both versions are correct. However, I prefer the second one (一个字一个字) for two reasons: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一个字一个字 has a stronger emphasis on learning by INDIVIDUAL characters, and thus implies a higher degree of difficulty and diligence. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;number + noun (without MW inbetween) is a somewhat archaic structure. As such, it is more frequently seen in set phrases. Therefore, when a native speaker of Chinese sees the first 一字, he tends to think of idioms that contains this expression, for instance 一字一句, 一字一顿...  This may cause a mild diversion. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T00:52:23.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5317" CreationDate="2013-12-10T00:53:41.637" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;「祝你找到一个好工作」 means &quot;Wish you find a good job&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's usually used when somebody is hunting for a (new) job,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「恭喜获得这个工作」and「你的新工作表示祝贺」 are quite natural expression.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But from my point of view:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「恭喜获得这个工作」   --&gt; 「恭喜您获得这个工作」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「你的新工作表示祝贺」 --&gt; 「对你的新工作表示祝贺」&lt;br&gt;&#xA; are a little better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say 「祝您今后在工作岗位上大展鸿图！」 to wish other people a bright future on their new job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3622" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T00:53:41.637" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5317" CreationDate="2013-12-10T03:36:20.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple and direct translation of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Congratulations on your new job!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;恭喜你找到新工作!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is mostly used when you know that person but not very close to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know him well, then you should say more, such as suggested by fabregaszy 祝您今后在工作岗位上大展鸿图 !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everybody likes to hear good words!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="808" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T03:36:20.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2919" CreationDate="2013-12-10T04:22:12.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this page: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E9%B8%A1%E8%B4%BC%E7%94%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E9%B8%A1%E8%B4%BC%E7%94%B7&lt;/a&gt; 鸡贼 stems from a popular online article that coined the term.  Specifically, this article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vdolady.com/html/17/n-4017.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.vdolady.com/html/17/n-4017.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For posterity, baike claims that the origin of the term is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“鸡贼男来源于网络热帖。杭州一男士与女友外出晚餐，女友吃面3.5元，又要一瓶饮料3.5元。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男士大为不满，认为女友吃太多想分手。他说女友如果口渴可以吃汤面或者喝1元1瓶的矿泉水，甚至回家喝水，为什么还要在外面喝饮料?在女友发帖控诉后，这个男人又上网辩称自己年收入10万元，为了供房，自己早餐只用2元，午餐公司里吃，晚餐不会超过5元，为什么女友就做不到同样节省，一餐吃了他一天的饭钱？和女友交往已经一年，一共花费了他300元买戒指和鲜花，这个开销实在太大了，现在不节约，等中年再节约就来不及了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-12-10T04:50:39.620" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T04:50:39.620" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="118" CreationDate="2013-12-10T05:27:08.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;XiaMen University publishes a couple books on MinNanHua, they use their own pinyin which will make sense if you have studied some Mandarin but in any case is often clearer than the Peh-oh-je the Taiwanese missions use.&#xA;The amazon.cn link is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.cn/%E9%97%BD%E5%8D%97%E8%AF%9D%E6%95%99%E7%A8%8B-%E6%9E%97%E5%AE%9D%E5%8D%BF/dp/B008QIYR2U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1386652441&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;keywords=%E9%97%BD%E5%8D%97%E8%AF%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (Not an associate link)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also look at these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkien_dialect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hokkien&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.learnhokkien.com/lesson_01.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Learn Hokkien&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T05:27:08.297" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-12-10T05:27:08.297" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5252" CreationDate="2013-12-10T14:50:32.073" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be honest, although you could use 学弟, 学妹, etc. to address other students, &lt;strong&gt;the most natural way of addressing them (especially when you interact face to face) is by full name&lt;/strong&gt;. Full names retain a reasonable amount of respect without making it sound too formal. Adding a suffix would only make it overly formal and consequently awkward. For example, &lt;em&gt;full name&lt;/em&gt; + 同学 might be used by a teacher when announcing an award given to the student.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: 兄，哥 were used in more ancient times such as 师兄 and 师哥. Back then things tend to be much less casual. For example, if you and your older &quot;classmate&quot; both train under the same martial arts master, you'd might call that student 师兄.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: I grew up in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3637" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T14:50:32.073" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5324" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5326" CreationDate="2013-12-11T00:46:50.687" Score="10" ViewCount="1969" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is anyone able to explain the history behind this cheer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the face of it I'm unsure how this could be a cheer as &lt;code&gt;加&lt;/code&gt; translate to &lt;code&gt;add/plus/apply&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;油&lt;/code&gt; translates to &lt;code&gt;oil/fat/grease&lt;/code&gt; you would think that &lt;code&gt;加油&lt;/code&gt; would translate to &lt;code&gt;Add oil&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of my research showed that 加油 means a cheer or add oil but I've been unable to find any information as to how it translate into a cheer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-12-11T20:09:09.723" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T07:59:03.243" Title="How is adding oil going to beneficial to the situation? 加油" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5324" CreationDate="2013-12-11T00:58:33.310" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to one source, the expression originally comes from racing, used in its most literal sense.  Another source claims that it has its roots in 明代, in a family of expressions including &quot;火上加油&quot;.   Both agree, though, that &quot;加油&quot; became a general expression of encouragement through its metaphorical usage becoming more and more closely tied to the word by itself.  There is nothing in the meaning of the constituent characters themselves, however, that conveys the meaning of encouragement.  Not all Chinese words can have their current meaning explained in terms of their parts (like 肥皂). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source alleging origins in racing: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=yiP6iAc0S-3VMztyCR8dID7OYfAskDbfmR8_jBZ0Zs9RXweUeYBLpzRYnNBNU5PyNcOLgyrxMKTaWGb49G3Xpa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=yiP6iAc0S-3VMztyCR8dID7OYfAskDbfmR8_jBZ0Zs9RXweUeYBLpzRYnNBNU5PyNcOLgyrxMKTaWGb49G3Xpa&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Source alleging origins in 明代: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiexingcun.com/yuwenjianshe/ywjs2009/ywjs20090125.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.xiexingcun.com/yuwenjianshe/ywjs2009/ywjs20090125.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2014-06-18T15:26:17.830" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T15:26:17.830" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5324" CreationDate="2013-12-11T02:14:17.323" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a literal sense, 加油 means to step on the gas pedal when you drive a car.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine what happens when you step on the gas pedal? More gasoline is added to the engine. What happens when more gasoline is added to the engine? The engine roarsssss!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone is having a hard time, they are like a car being stuck in the mud or a similar situation and unable to move forward. You would encourage them to &quot;add in some gasoline&quot;  加油!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3639" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2013-12-11T20:12:56.680" LastActivityDate="2013-12-11T20:12:56.680" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5280" CreationDate="2013-12-11T07:53:45.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Still a lot of people in China can not understand English very well, just like say 'app'. Pronounce them seperately is easier for most Chinese people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3644" LastActivityDate="2013-12-11T07:53:45.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5137" CreationDate="2013-12-11T13:47:03.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the comments it seems like we've already established that blowing your nose is accurately translated as &quot;擤鼻涕&quot;. As far as I can tell (from experience and further online research), there is no popular slang for doing so. The closest way to easily describe such action would be something like &quot;不用纸擤鼻涕&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I should point out that this action is in fact pretty stigmatized in the Chinese culture, especially in more developed regions. Chinese people are simply less self-conscious about what others might think of their actions, which is why you'll still see people doing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3637" LastActivityDate="2013-12-11T13:47:03.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5329" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-11T17:00:02.023" Score="1" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;How will you say &quot;曲折的学习经历&quot; without negative connotation? &quot;torturous experience&quot; is one that involves pain, suffering, or discomfort, and does it indicate some negativity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a graduate student who had to change his study focus twice, and hoped that he could eventually switch to the research area he loved. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Because of his 曲折的学习经历, he more treasures the opportunity that he can have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about&quot;坎坷的学习经历&quot;? Will it be more appropriate and easier to translate into English, than &quot;曲折的学习经历&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If if were you, how would you say the above in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastEditorUserId="725" LastEditDate="2013-12-11T18:23:03.280" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T14:31:52.500" Title="&quot;曲折的学习经历&quot; in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5330" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5343" CreationDate="2013-12-11T17:30:53.643" Score="2" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say something is your &quot;自身的兴趣“, instead of being forced by the outside, in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;inherent interest&quot; fine? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-22T00:13:31.733" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T00:13:31.733" Title="How to say &quot;自身的兴趣“ in English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5324" CreationDate="2013-12-12T05:41:38.920" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Thai, they use ‘chaiyo!’ [ไชโย] for cheers.  Thai has borrowed a lot of vocabulary from Sanskrit and Pali, and ‘chaiyo’ is likely derived from the Sanskrit verb ‘jayati’ meaning ‘to win’.  If the Mandarin term was borrowed from the same source (also likely in my view), it could have been written with various characters down through the centuries.  The current 加油 would then be a kind of rationalization in order to make a foreign word seem native.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more specific conjecture about the source form:&#xA;Pali, the language of the Theravada Buddhist scriptures, has the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;imassa&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;jayo&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;bhavissati&lt;/em&gt;     '&lt;strong&gt;Victory&lt;/strong&gt; will be his.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jayo here is a deverbal noun in the nominative case: ‘victory.’  The form in Sanskrit would be identical in this context.  As Sanskrit broadly speaking is the language of the Mahayana scriptures, this would most likely be the source for the Chinese word.  加油 is thus a transliteration, where the characters were chosen for their sound, not their meaning.  Interpreting this as ‘add oil’ etc. is what linguists call folk etymology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="3647" LastEditDate="2013-12-14T15:42:31.303" LastActivityDate="2013-12-14T15:42:31.303" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5332" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5338" CreationDate="2013-12-12T16:26:42.497" Score="3" ViewCount="429" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just came across someone asking this in online chat:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;这里能说脏话吗&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've taken that to mean, &lt;code&gt;is there anyone here who can speak x?&lt;/code&gt;. It's the &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; bit I'm unsure of. If I look up &lt;code&gt;脏话&lt;/code&gt; in a dictionary it says it means 'speaking rudely'. Does it have another meaning in &lt;code&gt;这里能说脏话吗&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastActivityDate="2020-12-23T21:23:52.733" Title="Meaning of 脏话 in 这里能说脏话吗" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5332" CreationDate="2013-12-12T16:55:29.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would read this sentence as literally &quot;can one speak rudely here?&quot;  Or, more colloquially: &quot;can we swear here?&quot;  &quot;Is there anyone here who can swear?&quot; would be more like &quot;这里有人能说脏话吗?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-12T16:55:29.407" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5334" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5337" CreationDate="2013-12-12T18:20:45.267" Score="6" ViewCount="563" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know if 从来 translates to &quot;always&quot;? And if it is, is it used in the same way?&#xA;For example if I want to say: &quot;I always buy oranges&quot;, would that be “我从来买橘子”？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3655" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T07:58:27.143" Title="Does 从来 translate to &quot;always&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5332" CreationDate="2013-12-12T19:54:00.083" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, you saw this sentence in a online chat, people in online chat room tend to use sarcasm. So the meaning of the sentence here is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I swear/speak rudely here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This situation happens when a guy saw something in the chat and really want to swear on it. Instead of typing a particular one, this guy use this sentence to explain that he really want to swear all the rude words he can come up with.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-12-12T19:54:00.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5334" CreationDate="2013-12-12T20:01:52.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to 现代汉语虚词词典, 从来 always means always (given that always + a negative + ... = never + ...) and it can be used in the following ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;从来+没【有】/不+动词短语&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;从来+没/不+形容词短语+【过】&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;从来 as a 副词 in a positive sentence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;occasionally it can function as a 定语.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience it is much more commonly used with negative sentences.  So, if you want to use always in a positive sentence, such as &quot;I always buy oranges,&quot; it may sound more natural to use some other way to express always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-12-12T20:12:41.270" LastActivityDate="2013-12-12T20:12:41.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5334" CreationDate="2013-12-12T20:07:08.627" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;从来 in modern Chinese is more like &quot;never&quot;. It is always used with other negative word like 不 or 没有. In ancient Chinese it does means &quot;always&quot; but nowadays nobody use this original meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is not common to say &quot; I always buy oranges &quot; as &quot;我从来买橘子&quot; in Chinese. You can say &quot; 我 经常/一直 买橘子&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when you try to say &quot; I've never bought orange&quot; in Chinese. You can say: &quot;我从来没买过橘子&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-12-12T20:07:08.627" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5332" CreationDate="2013-12-13T00:16:11.770" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my point of view, 「这里能说脏话吗」may have several different meanings in different contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ask other people whether he can swear in the chatroom.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;In this case, the person asking the question wants to talk rudely in the chatroom.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It serves as a rhetorical question.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;This person may have seen some people talk rudely in the chatroom. So he said this to remind other people that it is not allowed to speak rudely in this chartroom.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「我能说脏话吗」&amp;quot;Can I speak X?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;This is most commonly seen online. It's widely used that in fact this phrase has become an online idiom among Chinese people.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;It origins from a passer-by when asked by a journalist of his opinion about increasing gasoline price:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;「我能说脏话吗？不能？那就没有可说的。」 &amp;quot;Can I speak X? No? Then there's nothing to say..&amp;quot;&#xA;Now Chinese people use this phrase to express dissatisfaction about something especially when under some kind of censorship.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3622" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-12-23T21:23:52.733" LastActivityDate="2020-12-23T21:23:52.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5334" CreationDate="2013-12-13T01:23:51.140" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without 都, 从来 does not mean always. 从来 actually means from (从) past till present (来). It is obvious where the &lt;code&gt;always&lt;/code&gt; come from by looking at the example given by NS.X:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他每天一起床就喝咖啡，从来都是这样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyday, he drinks coffee when he wakes up. From past till present, it has always been like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;每天      他  喝    咖啡   就      一起床     从           来           都     是   这样&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See grammar usage &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%22Always%22_with_%22conglai%22&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to say &quot;I always buy oranges&quot;, you can try using 向来都 instead. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我向来都是买橘子的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;向来 means all along.&#xA;都 makes it always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-12-13T01:23:51.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5332" CreationDate="2013-12-13T01:57:52.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple and direct translation of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这里能说脏话吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can we speak dirty words here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can we speak filthy words here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;we&quot; or &quot;I&quot; is implied in the sentence. The words would have to be spoken by someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The wiki page &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Seven dirty words&lt;/a&gt; are examples of dirty words (profanity) or 脏话.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, 脏话 is not allowed here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="808" LastEditorUserId="808" LastEditDate="2013-12-13T04:26:14.477" LastActivityDate="2013-12-13T04:26:14.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5341" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5403" CreationDate="2013-12-13T13:56:57.027" Score="3" ViewCount="1028" Body="&lt;p&gt;警方将小印度一带规划为受管制区，不许任何人在管制区内公共场所喝酒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure how these 将 and 为 are used grammar-wise. If I were to break it down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(警方)（将）（小印度一带）（规划）（为）（受管制区）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（police）（towards/把？）(little india) (plans) (???) (area under surveillance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a whole I understand that the police plans to put little India under surveillance. Could someone explain the grammar please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-18T20:08:10.880" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T20:08:10.880" Title="What do these 将 and 为 mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5341" CreationDate="2013-12-13T14:55:37.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;为&quot; is &quot;as&quot; here. &quot;Subject + 将 + object + verb&quot; is equal to &quot;subject + verb + object&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So  警方将小印度一带规划为受管制区 is equal to 警方规划小印度一带为受管制区&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-12-13T14:55:37.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5330" CreationDate="2013-12-13T15:37:16.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not knowing the context, I would guess that ‘personal interest’ is the best way to express this.  People have professional or academic interests that are connected with work or studies.  In contrast to those, they have hobbies, and these are their personal interests.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘Inherent interest’ is different – a student could say ‘I’m learning about plant genetics at the moment, but the topic has no inherent interest for me.’  He or she isn’t interested in plant genetics for its own sake, but just to get a good grade on the exam.  I’m not sure how to get this nuance in Chinese though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2013-12-13T15:37:16.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5341" CreationDate="2013-12-13T16:43:37.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case 将 is equivalent to 把; both introduce the object and allow it to be placed before the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 为, I agree that it can be tricky to analyze here*.  I think two of the definitions that ABC gives for 为, &quot;act/serve as&quot; and &quot;be; become,&quot; are the most useful here.  In other words, one might read this part of the sentence as saying that the 警方 plan for 小印度一带 to be/become a 受管制区.  More naturally, we might put this as: the 警方 plan to make 小印度一带 a 受管制区.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;* as 为 is taught almost exclusively as part of a limited number of constructions, even though it does have other uses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-12-13T16:50:19.330" LastActivityDate="2013-12-13T16:50:19.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5341" CreationDate="2013-12-13T18:23:31.497" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 将 and 为 gives different meanings in different context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think the 将 in the sentence is not read as a single character. It is read as 将.......规划为.  So the grammar is 将.......動詞(some verb) because it will not be a complete sentence if there is no verb follows. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 here is supporting 规划 like a preposition. It is usually used when you are dividing something, like an area. 一个分为两个.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3596" LastActivityDate="2013-12-13T18:23:31.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2919" CreationDate="2013-12-14T08:13:06.117" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This word is obviously from a half-fictional character with the nickname of “Zhou Bapi” 周扒皮 which was well known during the 1950s and 60s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Zhou Chunfu 周春富, who owned over 200 hectares of farmland in Dalian, was also identified as a landlord. His story became widely known after the soldier-writer Gao Yubao's semi-fictitious autobiography depicted Zhou as a landlord who allegedly mimicked a crowing rooster to get his hired laborers to work early. ”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that fiction, Zhou was then mistaken as a chicken thief and shot by a Japanese soldier. The fiction grew so popular in the 1950s and 60s that this word became a phrase in some areas. But although this novel was believed to be semi-autobiographic, in recent years researchers found this novel was far from reality and was a product for the purpose of political propaganda.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AB%98%E7%8E%89%E5%AE%9D_(%E5%B0%8F%E8%AF%B4)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AB%98%E7%8E%89%E5%AE%9D_(%E5%B0%8F%E8%AF%B4)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.86wiki.com/view/586712.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.86wiki.com/view/586712.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3657" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-07-17T13:49:18.767" LastActivityDate="2015-07-17T13:49:18.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5347" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5348" CreationDate="2013-12-14T13:25:12.570" Score="-1" ViewCount="829" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone please tell me the correct Chinese translation of the following sentence:&#xA;&quot;How many people are you?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3655" LastActivityDate="2013-12-14T19:02:33.010" Title="Translation of: &quot;How many people are you?&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2013-12-16T08:51:31.557" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5347" CreationDate="2013-12-14T19:02:33.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When entering a restaurant in China you will typically be asked 您几位.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not completely sure if this can be applied to all contexts though. Perhaps someone more proficient than myself can comment on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastActivityDate="2013-12-14T19:02:33.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5349" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-15T16:06:41.987" Score="-2" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say “某些事实被别有用心的人断章取义和利用” in English? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is the following translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some facts have been （断章取义） and (taken advantage of) by some (别有用心) 的人？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T23:34:55.390" Title="“某些事实被别有用心的人断章取义和利用” in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2013-12-16T01:39:00.560" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5349" CreationDate="2013-12-15T23:10:32.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some facts were mistakenly taken advantage of by those with ulterior motives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3664" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T23:10:32.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5349" CreationDate="2013-12-15T23:34:55.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some facts have been quoted out of context (断章取义) and taken advantage of by people with ulterior motives (别有用心).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T23:34:55.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1556" CreationDate="2013-12-16T13:04:57.323" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;here some data i managed to compile. it's a bit of a mess, so pls bear with me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.whnews.cn/simple/index.php?t133800.html&quot;&gt;http://bbs.whnews.cn/simple/index.php?t133800.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;品字结构：&#xA;鑫森淼焱垚品晶瞐畾矗聶众劦叒尛姦磊孨森蟲譶赑馫雥飍飝毳骉犇羴贔龘皛轟麤靐厽垚壵惢歮皛羴骉驫鱻卉芔灥厵猋舙掱晿刕嚞雥䨺㐂䆐䖃  灥厵叒&#xA;田字结构：&#xA;燚茻㵘䲜㗊䨻㸚㠭朤叕&#xA;三叠字：&#xA;雦㴇 㙓㐺渁隻雙䨇 巛彡巜十卄卅卌廿嬲 嫐  奻&#xA;左右上下叠字：&#xA;吅吕昍昌目䀠炎炏从仌厸㕕双㕛騳多奻㚣誩弜㯤喆屾出&#xA;上下叠字：&#xA;爻戔哥棗畕圭亖&#xA;左右叠字：&#xA;囍 孖夶㹜犾㚘㯥皕豩牪龖虤聑朋臸㱛砳玨甡祘竝覞賏踀辡秝兟兢競竸槑雔抙䬕䎜㐩㒭㚁㲎㿟 䡛玆㐨絲㣈㚡㒹㽬䪭兓幵艸斦比羽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://culchina.net/bbs/dispbbs.asp?boardID=6&amp;amp;ID=10236&amp;amp;page=1&quot;&gt;http://culchina.net/bbs/dispbbs.asp?boardID=6&amp;amp;ID=10236&amp;amp;page=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一二三亖、七㐂、十卄卅卌、廿、人从仌众㐺、金鑫、木林森、水沝㴇淼㵘、火炎炏焱燚、土圭垚㙓、士壵、豕豩、牛牪犇、牟、羊羴、馬騳骉驫、、犬㹜犾猋、鹿麤、龍龖龘、虎虤、屮艹艸芔、虫蟲、魚鱻䲜、鳥 隹雔雦雥、飛飝、习羽、古、吉喆嚞、毛毳、口吅吕品㗊、舌舙、耳聑聶、手抙掱、舌、白皛、日昍昌晶、、月朋朤、明 、目䀠瞐、至臸、女奻姦、男、了、子孖孨、山岀出屾、石砳磊、泉灥、刀刕、力劦、心惢、戈戔、百皕、玉玨珏、風䬕飍 、雷靐䨻、雲䨺、厶厸㕕厽、又双㕛叒叕、乂爻㸚、田畕畾、生甡、示祘、立竝、香馫、原厵、見覞、言誩譶、貝賏贔、足踀、車轟、辛辡、糹絲、至臸、禾秝、止歮、大夶、小尛、少、无兓、先兟、克兢、竞競、竟竸、呆槑、干幵、可哥、弓弜、工㠭、个、門、面、牙、齒、文、甲、乙、亦、永、僉、斤斦、兀、且、串、凡、卤 、直矗、喜囍、善、東㯥、朿棗、束、秦䆐、若䖃、夏、春、空、客、寒、宝、舍、県、夕多、户 、启、支、果、比、盖、秉、竹、老䎜、興、來㯤、函、歹㱛、幽、隻雙䨇、井㐩、兄㒭、尭㚁、、旡兂、卪、㔾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; 或 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一二三亖、四、七㐂、九、十卄(niàn)卅卌(xì)、廿、人从仌众㐺、金鑫、木林森、水沝(zhuǐ)㴇淼㵘、火炎炏(yán)焱(yàn)燚(yì)、土圭垚㙓、士壵(zhuàng)、豕(shǐ)豩(bīn)、牛牪(yàn)犇(bēn)、牟、羊羴(shān)、兔、馬騳(dú)骉(biāo)驫、犬㹜犾猋(biāo)、鹿麤(cū)、龍龖(dá)龘(dá)(zhé)、虎虤(yán)、屮(cǎo)艹(cǎo)艸芔(huì)卉、虫蟲(chóng)、魚鱻(xiān)䲜、鳥隹(zhuī)雔(chóu)雦(jí)雥(zá)、飛飝(fēi)、飞、习羽、古、吉喆(zhé)嚞(zhé)、毛㲎毳(cuì)、口吅(xuān)吕品㗊、舌舙(huà)、耳聑(zhé)聶、手抙掱(pá)、舌、白㿟皛(pò)、日昍(xuān)昌晶、月朋朤、明、目䀠瞐(mò)、至臸(zhī)、女奻(nuán)㚣姦、男、了、子孖(mā)孨(nì)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;山岀出屾(shēn)、石砳(lè)磊、泉灥(xún)、原厵(yuán)、刀刕(lí)、力劦(xié)、心惢、戈戔(jiān)、百皕(bì)、玉玨(jué)珏(jué)、風䬕飍(xiū)、雷靐(bìng)䨻(bèng)、雲䨺、厶(sī)厸(miǎn)㕕厽(lěi)、又双㕛叒(ruò)叕(zhuó)、乂爻㸚、田畕(jiāng)畾(léi)、生甡(shēn)、示祘(suàn)、立竝(bìng)、香馫(xīn)、見覞(yào)、言誩(jìng)譶(tà)、貝賏(yīng)贔(bì)、頁、足踀(cù)、車䡛轟、辛辡(biàn)、禾秝(lì)、止歮(sè)、大夶(bǐ)、小尛(mó)、少、老䎜、先兟(shēn)、克兢(jīng)、竞競(jìng)、竟竸(jìng)、呆槑(méi)、干幵(jiān)、可哥、弓弜(jiàng)、工㠭、个、門、面、牙、齒、文、甲、乙、亦、永、僉(qiān)、斤斦(zhì)、兀、且、串、凡、卤、直矗、喜囍(xǐ)、善、東㯥、朿棗、束、秦䆐、若䖃、夏、春、客、寒、空、宝、宜、妥、盖、舍、県、斗、市、太、天、興、光、企、果、秉、竹、夕多、户、尸、启、支、比、或、来來㯤、去、函、歹㱛、幽、隻雙䨇、井㐩、兄㒭、尭㚁、巜、玄玆、予㐨(xù)、㣇㣈、糹(jiǎo)絲(sī)、幺、奇㚡、倉、入、号、巾、巢、左、臣、易、昔、欠、母、禺、尹、真㒹、夫㚘、畐㽬、音䪭、囚、因、困、全、几、凡、句、區、彐、、、㔾、旡兓(jīn)、卪、、、巿(pó)、桼(qī)、兂、㖖(niè)、、眉、&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaohui.com/weekly/20070305.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.xiaohui.com/weekly/20070305.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;记得当年读初中刚学英语时，常说“我是中国人，不会学外文”，借此来嘲笑那些学英语发狠的同学。哈哈，对头，咱们是中国人，学就应该学中国汉字。不过，既然大家都是中国人，嘿嘿，那么，列在本文 《你认识这些三叠字和四叠字吗? —— 三叠字与四叠字大全》 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaohui.com/weekly/20070305.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.xiaohui.com/weekly/20070305.htm&lt;/a&gt; 页面中这些字，你认识几个?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;鑫 森 淼 垚 焱 靐 晶 卉 芔 轟 磊 畾 厽 馫 飍 灥 厵 犇 猋 赑 贔 蟲 麤 毳 龘 骉 驫 羴 雥 鱻 矗 姦 舙 瞐 聶 品 掱 叒 惢 譶 劦 壵 众 孨 歮 晿 飝 刕 尛 嚞 皛 雦 朤 燚 叕 茻&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　上面这些字是我今天收集整理的汉字三叠字与四叠字大全。三叠字，又叫品字型汉字，指由三个完全相同的字叠成“品”字形而形成的新字；四叠字，指由四个完全相同的字叠成“田”字形而形成的新字。&#xA;汉字三叠字与四叠字大全&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　收集整理这个东西，缘起今天下午的时候，在网上看到一个三个牛字叠起来的 犇字，一时想不起起读音，后来一问才知道读 bēn，与奔一个意思， 三头牛一起跑当然就是奔了。貌似以前有个演戏的就叫牛犇。在网上一搜，关于三叠字的介绍有不少，但是没有一个完整的整理集合。维基百科上分别有一个三叠字和四叠字的词条，但数据不全(注: 完成此文后，我在维基百科上更新了此词条)。于是把字典搬出来，借助网络，把所有的三叠字和四叠字找了出来，并注明读音和释义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　一、三叠字列表(共52个)&#xA;　　&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaohui.com/weekly/20070305.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.xiaohui.com/weekly/20070305.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&#xA;      首先我查的就是与五行相关的三叠字: 金木水土火：&#xA;         1. 三金鑫 xīn 多用于商店字号、人名用字,取其金多兴旺之意&#xA;         2. 三木森 sēn 本义: 树木丛生繁密&#xA;         3. 三水淼 miǎo 会意。从三水。又作“渺”。本义:水大的样子。这个字多用作女孩子的名字，我邻居小孩就叫淼淼。:)&#xA;         4. 三土垚 yáo 意思为山高，那么多土当然山高啦。多用于人名。古同“尧”。&#xA;         5. 三火焱 yàn 光华,光焰。&#xA;   2.&#xA;      还有一些跟自然植物有关系的三叠字:&#xA;         1. 三雷靐 bìng 雷声&#xA;         2. 三日晶 jīng 从三日,表示光亮之意&#xA;         3. 三屮卉（芔） huì 会意。小篆字从三“屮”(chè),草木初生。本义:草的总称&#xA;         4. 三车轟 hōng 同“轰”,会意。从三车。本义:群车行驶声&#xA;         5. 三石磊 lěi 众石，石头多,心地光明坦白&#xA;         6. 三田畾 léi 古同“雷”，同“垒”，也表示田间的土地&#xA;         7. 三厶厽 lěi 垒土块为墙&#xA;         8. 三香馫 xīn 古同“馨”,芳香,散布很远的香气&#xA;         9. 三风飍 xiū 惊跑的样子&#xA;        10. 三泉灥 xún 三泉&#xA;        11. 三原厵 yuán 古同“源”,水源,源泉&#xA;   3.&#xA;      跟动物有关的三叠字:&#xA;         1. 三牛犇 bēn 同奔。有个人的名字叫“牛犇犇”，小名叫“七匹牛”。:)&#xA;         2. 三犬猋 biāo 狗奔跑的样子。同“飙”&#xA;         3. 三贝赑(贔) bì传说中的一种动物,像龟。旧时大石碑的石座多雕刻成赑屃形状&#xA;         4. 三虫蟲 chóng 同虫&#xA;         5. 三鹿麤 cū 同“粗”&#xA;         6. 三毛毳 cuì 会意。从三毛。本义:鸟兽的细毛&#xA;         7. 三龍龘 dá 这个是刚才去台湾维基查词条时发现的。《广韵》说该字之义为“龙飞之状”；《说文》解作“飞龙”。成语：龍行龘龘。龘字是现时大五码编码(big5)当中笔划最多的一个字，共48划。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     8. 三马骉(驫)piāo 众马奔腾的样子&#xA;     9. 三羊羴 shān 古同“膻”,也表示群羊。另外是鼻烟品目之一。&#xA;    10. 三隹雥 zá 群鸟；聚&#xA;    11. 三鱼鱻 xiǎn 古同“鲜”&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.&#xA;      下面是跟人物有关的:&#xA;         1. 三直矗 chù 会意。从三直。本义:直立&#xA;         2. 三女姦 jiān 会意。从三女。本义:奸邪,虚伪狡诈&#xA;         3. 三舌舙 huà 播弄是非。古同“话”。&#xA;         4. 三目瞐 mò 美目; 目深; 美丽的样子&#xA;         5. 三耳聶 nie 会意。从三耳。本义:附耳小语。这么多耳朵凑在一块，当然是咬耳朵说私语了。&#xA;         6. 三口品 pǐn 会意。从三口。口代表人,三个表多数,意即众多的人。&#xA;         7. 三手掱 pá 俗称扒手为三只手,故写作“掱”。掱手 = 扒手。哈哈，这个很形象。&#xA;         8. 三又叒 ruò 古同“若”&#xA;         9. 三心惢 suǒ 疑虑；善&#xA;        10. 三言譶 tà 说话快&#xA;        11. 三力劦 xié 古同“协”，合力；同力。&#xA;        12. 三士壵 zhuàng 古同“壮”, 本义:人体高大,肌肉壮实&#xA;        13. 三人众 zhòng 人三为众&#xA;        14. 三子孨 zhuǎn 谨慎；弱，懦弱；孤儿&#xA;   5.&#xA;      其他&#xA;         1. 三止歮 sè 古同“涩、澁”&#xA;         2. 三日晿 chēng 古人名用字. 注意这个字与晶字不同。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        附注：在本文评论的第12楼、第14楼中，一位叫蓝昊的朋友认为“晿 ”字的底部，不是日字，而是一个曰字。我查证了一下，认为他说得有道理。不过由于没有翻到权威的证据，估且仍列在这里。&#xA;&#xA;     3. 三飞飝 fei&#xA;     4. 三刀刕 lí 姓氏&#xA;     5. 三小尛 mó 古同“麽”，细小，微细&#xA;     6. 三吉嚞 zhé 古同“哲”,聪明,有智慧&#xA;     7. 三白皛 xiǎo 皎洁，明亮&#xA;     8. 三隹雦 chóu 古同“集”, 群鸟在木上也&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　四、四叠字列表(共17个)&#xA;　　&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaohui.com/weekly/20070305.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.xiaohui.com/weekly/20070305.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　除了三叠字，还有四叠字。顾名思义，四叠字由四个完全相同的字叠成“田”字形而形成的新字。目前计算机系统能够显示四个四叠字，其余的已经被 Unicode 标准收录，但现在的系统和字库还没有支持，所以不能够被显示。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&#xA;      计算机能够显示的四叠字&#xA;         1. 四月朤 lǎng 古同“朗”。本义:明亮。四个月亮当空照，不明亮都没天理了。:)&#xA;         2. 四火燚 yì 火貌&#xA;         3. 四又叕 zhuó 连缀,短；张网的样子&#xA;         4. 四屮茻 mǎng 众草；丛生的蕨类&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki&lt;/a&gt;/三叠字&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三叠字&#xA;三叠字是指汉字中一类由三个完全相同的字叠成“品”字形而形成的叠字。现将已知的此类字列于下表：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[编辑] 漢字中的三疊字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以下標示的為汉语拼音。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;* 鑫 拼音：【Xīn】發音同：【音】注音：【ㄒㄧㄣ】&#xA;* 森 拼音：【Sēn】發音同：【蔘】&#xA;* 淼 拼音：【Miǎo】發音同：【秒】&#xA;* 焱 拼音：【Yán】發音同：【炎】&#xA;* 垚 拼音：【Yáo】發音同：【搖】&#xA;* 犇 拼音：【Bēn】發音同：【奔】&#xA;* 驫,骉 拼音：【Biāo】發音同：【飆】&#xA;* 羴 讀音：【Shān】發音同：【杉】&#xA;* 猋 拼音：【Biāō】發音同：【飆】&#xA;* 麤 拼音：【Cū】發音同：【粗】&#xA;* 鱻 拼音：【Xiān】發音同：【鮮】&#xA;* 蟲 拼音：【Chóng】發音同：【崇】&#xA;* 贔, 赑 拼音：【Bì】發音同：【毙】&#xA;* 众 （「眾」的簡化字） 拼音：【Zhòng】發音同：【仲】&#xA;* 品 拼音：【Pǐn】發音同：【品】&#xA;* 掱 拼音：【Pá】發音同：【爬】&#xA;* 劦 拼音：【Xián】發音同：【协】&#xA;* 晶 拼音：【Jīng】發音同：【精】&#xA;* 磊 拼音：【Lěi】發音同：【壘】&#xA;* 姦 拼音：【Jiān】發音同：【奸】&#xA;* 聶 拼音：【Niè】發音同：【涅】&#xA;* 毳 拼音：【Cuì】發音同：【脆】&#xA;* 矗 拼音：【Chǔ】發音同：【觸】&#xA;* 飝 拼音：【Fēi】發音同：【飛】&#xA;* 刕 拼音：【lí 】發音同：【离】&#xA;* 厽 拼音：【Lěi】發音同：【垒】&#xA;* 叒 拼音：【ruò】發音同：【若】&#xA;* 壵 拼音：【Yáo】發音同：【搖】&#xA;* 尛 拼音：【Má】發音同：【麻】&#xA;* 孨 拼音：【zhuǎn】發音同：【转】&#xA;* 歮 拼音：【sè】發音同：【涩】&#xA;* 惢 拼音：【suǒ】發音同：【所】&#xA;* 皛 拼音：【xiǎo】發音同：【晓】&#xA;* 畾 拼音：【léi】發音同：【雷】&#xA;* 嚞 拼音：【zhé】發音同：【哲】&#xA;* 舙 拼音：【huà】發音同：【hua】&#xA;* 譶 拼音：【tà】發音同：【踏】&#xA;* 雥 拼音：【zá】發音同：【杂】&#xA;* 灥 拼音：【xún】發音同：【寻】&#xA;* 飍 拼音：【xiū】發音同：【修】&#xA;* 馫 拼音：【xīn】發音同：【興】&#xA;* 厵 拼音：【yuán】發音同：【员】&#xA;* 靐 拼音：【bìng】發音同：【雷】&#xA;* 龘 拼音：【dá】發音同：【踏】&#xA;* 赑 拼音：【bì】發音同：【闭】&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[编辑] 三疊字的功能&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 表示加三倍的東西之獨特：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鑫 xin1 (很富的，越來越大的豐富) 姦 jian1 (姦淫) 猋 biao1 (快) 鱻 xian1 (鮮) 惢 suo3 (善) 瞐 mo4 (美目的) 麤 cu4 (粗)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 集合概念：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;驫 / 骉 biao1 (馬群) 羴 shan1 (羊群) 磊 lei3 (堆) 垚 yao2 (堆) 众 zhong4 森 sen1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 小的與多有的：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毳 cui4 (鸟兽的细毛 / 寒毛) 晶 jing1 (本指星星，現代表示光亮) 蟲 chong2 (蟲子)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) 誇大：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;掱 pa2 (偷) 譶 ta4 (说话快) 舙 hua4 (说是非话) 猋 biao1 (狗奔) 聶 nie4 (附耳小语) 叒 ruo4 (若 （用又［手］表明方法） 飍 xiu1 (惊跑) 犇 ben1 (奔)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正常表示用什麽身體的部分動作的偏旁，這爾是加三倍的，又是用長的寫法的。表示誇大的行爲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) 比較級：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;矗 chu4 (矗立的) 尛 mo2 (微小的) 皛 xiao3 (喧)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) 加三倍表現狀況或者景象：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;轟 hong1 (三輛車相撞） 品 pin3 （三個箱子） 厽 lei3 (垒) 畾 lei2 雷 (鬼魂頭) 淼 miao3 (水面)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki&lt;/a&gt;/二叠字&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二叠字，也稱爲雙叠字，指汉字中一类由三个完全相同的字組成的叠字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表示加倍的東西之獨特&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昍 xuān (明) 吅 xuān (喧)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這個功能很稀少的，因此我們認爲例外。三叠字為這個功能更常見的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[编辑] 加倍指肯定的狀況&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奻 nuán (争吵) 夶 bǐ (比) 从 cóng (跟随) 誩 jìng (争论)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;與三叠字的第四功能很近。這爾的只是更象形的，和跟三叠字相反不是誇大的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[编辑] 表示東西雙倍地存在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孖 zī (双生子) 皕 bì (二百) 斦 yín (二斤、公斤、千克) 双 shuāng 二 èr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[编辑] 集合的概念&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;林 lín (森林)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;森林是樹木的集合，如同一群是牛或似的動物的集合。 雖然森林的使用跟群的不同的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;經常用三叠字為這個功能。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki&lt;/a&gt;/四叠字&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四叠字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四叠字是指汉字中一类由四个完全相同的字叠成“田”字形而形成的叠字。现已知的此类字共17個，列于下表：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[编辑] 汉字中的四叠字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;* 叕 讀音：【茁】 拼音：【zhuó】&#xA;* 朤 讀音：【亮】 拼音：【liàng】&#xA;* 燚 讀音：【一】 拼音：【yī】&#xA;* 茻 讀音：【蟒】 拼音：【mǎng】&#xA;* 㠭 (四個工) 讀音：【】 拼音：【】&#xA;* 㵘 (四個水) 讀音：【漫】 拼音：【màn】&#xA;* 㗊 (四個口) 讀音：【】 拼音：【】&#xA;* 㸚 (四個乂) 讀音：【麗】 拼音：【lì】&#xA;* 叕 讀音：【】 拼音：【】&#xA;*  (四個人) 讀音：【】 拼音：【】&#xA;*  (四個厶) 讀音：【】 拼音：【】&#xA;*  (四個日) 讀音：【】 拼音：【】&#xA;*  (兩個比) 讀音：【】 拼音：【】&#xA;*  (四個田) 讀音：【】 拼音：【】&#xA;*  (四個竹) 讀音：【】 拼音：【】&#xA;*  (四個金) 讀音：【】 拼音：【】&#xA;* 䨻 (四個雷) 讀音：【蹦】 拼音：【bèng】&#xA;*  (四個龍) 讀音：【哲】 拼音：【zhé】&#xA;* 䨻 (四個雲) 讀音：【農】 拼音：【nóng】&#xA;* 䨻 (四個興) 讀音：【正】 拼音：【zhèng】&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;28cc8     #25115112&#xA;200db   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6b63    正   #12121&#xA;23944     #12121&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;821b    舛&#xA;5905    夅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;20141   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;【辰集下】【止字部】  ·康熙筆画：4　·部外筆画：0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【唐韻】【集韻】他達切，音撻。【說文】蹈也。从反止。轉注。本作。　與少別。【佩觿集】少，申兆翻，不多也。，他末翻，蹈也。步字从此。【集韻】作。原从反止，類似从反正。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3674" LastActivityDate="2013-12-16T13:04:57.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5355" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5359" CreationDate="2013-12-17T09:33:47.287" Score="9" ViewCount="1357" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am referring to the usage as defined on zdic.net&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用在动词后表示动作完成：改～。戒～&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 掉 often have the connotation of falling or missing？&#xA;What is the difference between (verb)掉 and （verb)了 and（verb）掉了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard this in the negative （擦不掉）。 How does that differ from（verb）不了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T07:26:03.710" Title="How to properly use 掉？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5355" CreationDate="2013-12-17T13:43:13.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;掉 and 了 can be used as verb or adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;掉 &lt;em&gt;(verb)&lt;/em&gt; means drop or fall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 &lt;em&gt;(verb) [pronounced as liao]&lt;/em&gt; means finish or understand, but it is rarely used in speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;掉 &lt;em&gt;(adverb)&lt;/em&gt; is used to show the result of the verb, eg. 吃掉 (show result, ate it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 &lt;em&gt;(adverb) [pronounced as le]&lt;/em&gt; means already. In grammar of English Language can be interpreted as perfect tense. Eg. 吃了 (has eaten).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, 掉了 in Chinese can be interpreted as &lt;code&gt;has fallen&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;P/S: In fact, these explanations are not enough to explain all situations because these two words have a lot usage.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3679" LastActivityDate="2013-12-17T13:43:13.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5357" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-18T01:14:22.957" Score="9" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was young, I read Traditional Chinese Reader's Digest. I noticed that the translation of husband is 外子. That's the first time I noticed this usage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone has any clue about why this is being used? Could it have come from another language? Or is it archaic usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3230" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-12-19T11:52:54.047" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T10:57:23.300" Title="What's the origin of 外子?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5357" CreationDate="2013-12-18T01:50:09.680" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although this would not strictly categorize as an &lt;em&gt;answer&lt;/em&gt; since I didn't track down the exact source, referring to the wife as 內人 is still commonly used in written script. It probably (which I didn't track down the exact source) originated from the old tradition of young men leaving home working as government officials, military men or business people. By contrast, their spouse often stayed at home. And therefore 外 and 內 is referring to whether they stay at home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3516" LastEditorUserId="3516" LastEditDate="2013-12-18T04:18:45.910" LastActivityDate="2013-12-18T04:18:45.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5355" CreationDate="2013-12-18T09:44:34.927" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When 掉 is used as a verb complement (not a verb), it indicates that something disappears, is removed, is disposed of, etc. as the result of an action. Not really &quot;falling&quot; or &quot;missing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;擦不掉：Something can't be &lt;strong&gt;removed&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;got rid of&lt;/strong&gt; by rubbing or wiping. Maybe it's a stain on your shoes, and you're trying to rub it off with a cloth, but it can't be wiped away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃掉：To &quot;eat something up&quot;. All of it is gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卖掉房子：To sell your house. After you sell it, it's gone. It's off your hands now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忘掉：To forget something. After you forget it, it's gone from your memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忘不掉：To not be able to forget something, to be unforgettable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="396" LastEditorUserId="396" LastEditDate="2013-12-18T09:52:00.407" LastActivityDate="2013-12-18T09:52:00.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5360" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5363" CreationDate="2013-12-18T13:40:22.910" Score="6" ViewCount="975" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's the &lt;a href=&quot;http://cn.tmagazine.com/living/20131218/t18japan/dual/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;context&lt;/a&gt;. I am guessing it means &amp;quot;stumble&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其他选手则要么在微妙的措辞上卡了壳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other contestants stumble on delicate phrasing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/544189879.html?qbl=relate_question_0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; it means &amp;quot;quiet/silenced&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 步枪卡了壳是什么意思？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 步枪卡了壳 - 不响 咯咯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T20:36:46.963" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T20:36:46.963" Title="What does 卡了壳 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5360" CreationDate="2013-12-18T14:38:08.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;卡壳 means &quot;getting a stuck cassette&quot; &lt;em&gt;literally&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;em&gt;cassette&lt;/em&gt; most probably refer to the one holding bullets in a shotgun. But it's also commonly used to say someone getting stuck in the middle of a speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3516" LastActivityDate="2013-12-18T14:38:08.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5360" CreationDate="2013-12-18T15:09:44.637" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a kind of analogy. Originally, 卡壳 (qiǎ ké) meant &quot;a cartridge got jammed inside the gun.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people are talking very fast and fluently, they are like a gun continuing shooting without any interruption. Words are &quot;shot&quot; (spoken) fast and continuously. There is also an expression &quot;说话像机关枪一样,&quot; the literal meaning of which is that someone &quot;speaks like firing a machine gun.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when someone gets stuck while speaking, we say that he or she &quot;卡壳&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3684" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2013-12-19T23:35:22.630" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T23:35:22.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5357" CreationDate="2013-12-19T07:24:12.130" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;外子 an archaic term, parallel to calling one's wife 内子. It was very common in Song dynasty（between 960 and 1279). Regarding its origins, the third volume of 《恒言录》 written by 钱大昕, a famous scholar in Qing dynasty（1636-1912), gives the following origin for 外子: &quot;in Liang dynasty, a country during Southern and Northern Dynasties of China(420 - 589), the poet XuFei wrote a poem called “赠内诗&quot; and his wife wrote a poem called &quot;答外诗,&quot; and that's the origin of 外子 and 内子. By the way, 内子 and 外子 &lt;em&gt;can only&lt;/em&gt; be used by a couple to refer to each other, meaning that you can call your husband 外子 or your wife 内子, but you never can call another women's husband 外子 or another man's wife 内子.  Lastly, what I want to say is that now we never say 外子 and 内子 in Chinese-speaking countries, including China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3686" LastEditorUserId="3686" LastEditDate="2013-12-20T09:37:57.183" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T09:37:57.183" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5332" CreationDate="2013-12-19T07:32:20.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;F words, &lt;em&gt;litterally&lt;/em&gt;   dirty words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这里能说脏话吗= Is speaking F words allowed here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2013-12-19T07:55:22.333" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T07:55:22.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5329" CreationDate="2013-12-19T07:37:40.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;曲折的学习经历= step-by-step experiences of learning/(properly) gradual advancing in learning.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坎坷的学习经历= troublesome experiences of learning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 经历 is equivalent to experience's'   in English, it must be step-like. Thus we shall focus on the secondary meaning of the adjectives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T07:37:40.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5330" CreationDate="2013-12-19T07:40:20.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;somebody's own preference/interest/favour&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'inherent interest' seems to me more like 'intrinsic interest', which doesn't make sense because no 'extrinsic' interest exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, in English, interest has a 2nd meaning of profit, which is not that exact in translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be more comprehensive, 自身的兴趣 belongs to a phenomena in official mandarin, called the 'Virtualization of definite concepts' (might not be exact in translation of the term). We do this to make it sounds more elevated by adding verbs like 执行、实施 to a verb that is already perfect in meaning, or in this case, adding an adjective emphasizing it is very personal, which is, however, less meaningful and just making the phrase seem longer. This is why some authors criticize such elevated language as 官样文章 because it is very rigid and illogical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2013-12-19T07:48:48.523" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T07:48:48.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5334" CreationDate="2013-12-19T07:58:27.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;it is more like the word 'ever' in (old) English, whose meaning changes as the word going with it changes, like &lt;em&gt;forever&lt;/em&gt;(for ever) and &lt;em&gt;not...ever&lt;/em&gt; (or &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; in its abbr. form)  .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, 从来都=forever/always, 从来不=not...ever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T07:58:27.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5273" CreationDate="2013-12-19T08:22:30.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hmmm... I would say 'didn't know what I could do' in English. However, unlike in English, it has a sense of not being understood by the common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T08:22:30.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3451" CreationDate="2013-12-19T08:28:51.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recent researches show that there are differences in grammatical forms of the 2 characters in ancient scripts before or in Qin Dynasty (approx. before 207 B.C.), but in later classical Chinese literature, they are synonyms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In today's language, 余 as a pronoun has died and only can be seen when people try to &lt;strong&gt;write&lt;/strong&gt; in classical Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:20:52.253" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:20:52.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5270" CreationDate="2013-12-19T08:46:10.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As single characters they are only used in classical Chinese scripts, and their level of just decreases as has been listed before. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;征 usually describes a war initiated by the emporor against local rebels/nomades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伐 describes a war between emporors/kings/dukes because of various affairs political, marital, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讨 describes a war initiated by a low class, sometimes a minister, against a high class. e.g.讨武曌檄文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;侵 describes a war unfair without proper Casus Belli, typically strong kingdoms bullying weak kungdoms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;袭 describes a battle initiated when the opponent is unprepared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;攻 means to attack on a general sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Meaning of characters can only help you to understand words, but since mandarin has gone through so many years, it does not have a rigid way of composing words from characters. And in classical Chinese, characters may have plural meanings, and character used for the same meaning changes with time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read more:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.douban.com/group/topic/11633451/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.douban.com/group/topic/11633451/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T08:46:10.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5285" CreationDate="2013-12-19T08:58:05.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你什么都不是actually means&quot;you are nothing,what right do you have to do this?&quot;,it's usually used when you quarrel with someone you despise because he/she is snooty or stupid,it's sort of rude,a more common expression is 你算什么东西 or 你他妈算什么东西,i suggest that you'd better not say 你什么都不是，你算什么东西 or 你他妈算什么东西 unless you wanna give someone a lesson,because they are expressions in a rude way,but if you hear someone says that to you，it implies he/she is not friendly to you.Sometimes you may hear someone say &quot;你什么都不是&quot; to himself,it probably means he blames himself  because he does something stupid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3686" LastEditorUserId="3686" LastEditDate="2013-12-19T09:14:59.837" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T09:14:59.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-19T12:52:56.573" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier and I'm even more surprised no one thought of this before me, well, I'm sure someone did just didn't find it on the internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was installing fonts and noticed some of the fonts that came with my operating system - OS X Mountain Lion - was cursive Chinese. So a thought occurred to me. Cut and paste the same text but format each version with different fonts and compare. This has really helped me learn how to read cursive better. Bonus is it's free and customizable. Hope this helps. The middle font really isn't cursive, but it's blocky handwriting and different enough from &quot;standard&quot; text to see a slight contrast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jzMDz.png&quot; alt=&quot;Sample of KaiTi, XingKai and kid-like block HW font&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jIyrl.png&quot; alt=&quot;Sample calligraphy fonts&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a page where you input a couple of words and it'll render them in different handwritten fonts:  &lt;a href=&quot;http://font.chinaz.com/tag_font/CaoShuZiTi.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://font.chinaz.com/tag_font/CaoShuZiTi.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;I also bought this book from the US Amazon store and recommend it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eJPGM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="3063" LastEditDate="2014-03-30T11:06:54.523" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T11:06:54.523" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5311" CreationDate="2013-12-20T02:18:46.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I prefer the second one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From your question, I gather that we have something in common when it comes to learning a foreign language. But now, I have begun to understand that grammar is not so important. Like you, I paid a lot of attention to English grammar while learning....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for this question, nobody will care about this detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3692" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-12-20T08:01:15.790" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T08:01:15.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5379" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-20T04:20:34.627" Score="3" ViewCount="954" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a group of friends who regularly meet to play soccer, someone asked on WeChat: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今晚怎么意思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reply given was the time that we start &quot;7&quot; (meaning 7pm).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I may be missing something very simple here, but I have never heard someone just ask &lt;code&gt;怎么意思&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the correct way to translate this into English? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the reply, I don't see how this means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;what time are we starting tonight&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;what time are we meeting tonight&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; - which is the kind of question I would expect if it was in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2013-12-23T06:06:16.253" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T08:03:32.330" Title="How can I translate this correctly into English &quot;今晚怎么意思&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5379" CreationDate="2013-12-20T04:34:58.330" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your friend was asking how to arrange the evening, not literally ask the time to meet. 「今晚怎麼意思？」 means “Any plans tonight?&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3693" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T04:34:58.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5379" CreationDate="2013-12-20T04:42:02.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would read 意思 here as &quot;wish; desire&quot; (source: ABC).  So perhaps something like: &quot;what are your intentions for tonight&quot; might be a somewhat literal (albeit overly formal) translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T04:42:02.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5382" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-20T06:40:07.967" Score="-3" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;p&gt;“苦笑” is usually defined as a forced smile, a sickly smile, a wry smile, and a bitter smile. Is there a single English word that means the same or closest to “苦笑”? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T09:23:25.347" Title="Is there a single English word for “苦笑”?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2013-12-23T00:25:14.773" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5379" CreationDate="2013-12-20T08:15:08.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I don't think it has the meaning of asking for time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And agree with the translation of &quot;any plans tonight&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BUT I have to say this sentence is not very standard, even not close to life chatting. And &quot;意思&quot; has so many many many meanings in Chinese. So pay attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3692" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T08:15:08.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5285" CreationDate="2013-12-20T09:09:27.463" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;means:&#xA;you suck!you are nothing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3695" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T09:09:27.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5270" CreationDate="2013-12-20T09:15:00.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;although I'm a native speaker, I still can't tell you the difference between them. In fact they have the same meaning, maybe include some little difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we always use them as following method:&#xA;征伐, 征讨, 侵袭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but don't mind it. Chinese is not a strict language. for example, elevator and escalator,we just use one word to describe them:电梯 sometimes we also use 手扶梯 to specific the escalator. But nobody will be puzzle when you say elevator when you point to a escalator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3695" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T09:15:00.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5382" CreationDate="2013-12-20T09:23:25.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example.&#xA;You are a Chinese.&#xA;Your breakfast is not safe. N, not breakfast. it should be dinner.&#xA;You can't sleep well in each night.&#xA;You pay a lot of work day and day but you get less and less money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You didn't have enough time to play, to laugh, to do every thing you want to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this evening, you are watching TV, you are eating the hardest bread in this word, and you find there is a girl in the news, she said:&#xA;&quot;as a report, Chinese is the happiest person in this world.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;What a good joke!&quot; you smiled. just with a little sad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone take a photo for you in this moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The title of this photo should be:&#xA;someone is 苦笑ing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3695" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T09:23:25.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5315" CreationDate="2013-12-20T10:32:35.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means &quot;&lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;what we usually say&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;to him&lt;/em&gt;?&quot;, it's usually followed by an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2279" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T10:32:35.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5379" CreationDate="2013-12-20T10:42:42.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't understand what the '今晚怎么意思' means, even I'm Chinese.&#xA;I think it should be '今晚怎么样？'. It means 'How about tonight?', then they said '7 pm'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3697" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T10:42:42.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5357" CreationDate="2013-12-20T10:57:23.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Old usage, exactly just from the First Person.&#xA;Simply means the only important one who always work outside. so '外子' is husband.&#xA;Another word '内人' means wife, also old usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3697" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T10:57:23.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5379" CreationDate="2013-12-20T12:47:37.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It might be a little off the topic, but you remind me of a popular joke online:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;阿呆给领导送红包时，两人的对话颇有意思。领导：“你这是什么意思？”阿呆：“没有意思，意思意思。”领导：“你这就不够意思了。”阿呆：“小意思，小意思。”领导：“你这人真有意思。”阿呆：“其实也没有别的意思。”领导：“那我就不好意思了。”阿呆：“是我不好意思。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your friend's expression is similar which is highly irregular and non-standard. Coincidentally, my friend and I also use &quot;怎么个意思&quot; in asking for advice and comments on recreational plans, attitudes and even just for greeting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually the meaning of this kind of expression is gradually formed during daily usage among a small group of close friends and it might be difficult for outsiders to get to know the meaning at first glance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3684" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T12:47:37.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5379" CreationDate="2013-12-20T21:07:59.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is more commonly used in Northern dialects. 今晚怎么意思=今晚怎么个意思=(litterally) How would you make tonight meaningful?=Where shall we hang out tonight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may have relation with 名词使动用法(noun being used as a donative verb) of classical Chinese. Since 意思=significance， here it means &quot;to render significance&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种用法在北方方言中更常见。今晚怎么意思=今晚怎么个意思=（字面上）今晚要怎么使它有意思=今晚上哪儿去high。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这可能与古代汉语中的名词使动用法有关。意思=使...变得有意思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2013-12-20T21:20:23.613" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T21:20:23.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5243" CreationDate="2013-12-20T21:17:14.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;松了口气=(literally) to get my lung exhausted=to finally relax&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如释重负=(literally) just like having uninstalled a heavy burden=to finally relax&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other expressions include&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拨开云雾见太阳=拨云见日（short form）=(literally) to wipe away clouds and fog to see the sun=to feel happy after a catastrophe (metaphor or literally)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3699" LastEditDate="2013-12-26T04:03:46.417" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T04:03:46.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5303" CreationDate="2013-12-20T21:33:37.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;再一次地 并非固定短语。这里只是在语法合乎规范的条件下“凑”成四字短语，使之听起来更大气(rigistre soutenu)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再一次地 is not a set phrase. Here, although 地 is a possibility not essential, we choose to add it to make the phrase into a four-character phrase to sound like a 成语, which sounds more elevated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2013-12-20T22:40:34.073" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T22:40:34.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5262" CreationDate="2013-12-20T21:46:28.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;不甘心=(litterally)to not make heart sweet=not willing to feel content&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=（extensively）not willing to have a feeling of being a loser / not willing to accept the current bitter situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T21:46:28.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5233" CreationDate="2013-12-20T21:51:34.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In classical Chinese we say &quot;月半&quot; without quantities because there are only 1 for 月 and 1 for 半.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese both are acceptable, but 一个半月 seems more natural to most native speakers, especially in oral communication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T21:51:34.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5221" CreationDate="2013-12-20T21:57:31.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我饿了 litterally should be translated into &quot;I am starving&quot;, because 饿 here is used as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很饿 is litterally &quot;I am very hungry.&quot;. 饿 is an adj here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say these are only different expressions and are both very common. The only difference is that 我很饿 is emphasizing the extent of starving. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that we do not usually say &quot;我饿&quot; as a lighter form of &quot;我很饿&quot;, maybe because it is very simple and we only say it to people with very close relationship, as a form of 撒娇.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T21:57:31.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5213" CreationDate="2013-12-20T22:05:32.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这样听起来比较生硬，句子的重心被放在了“已经“上。一般我们只对比较亲密的人说“我饿”，就像小孩子呼唤大人一般，所以只在家庭、朋友、恋人之间使用。并且在社会心理的意义上，相当于承认了自己是被照顾的那一方。如果是在工作场合，我们一般不会说“我饿”来表示“我并不是很饿”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because by adding “了”, the emphasis is put on the existence of the state of &quot;hunger&quot; and the sentence seems more rigid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, we only say 我饿 to people with close relationship, like a baby calling its parents. As a result, this composing style can only be seen in family, between friends or lovers. Note that sociologically, when you use this expression, you are at the same time admitting that you are the one being taken care of. Thus we do not expect people to say that in business situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T22:05:32.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5315" CreationDate="2013-12-20T22:26:48.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们会怎么说=How will we say (about) / criticize it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们会说什么=What will we say?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, here 经常=normally / usually &lt;strong&gt;rather than&lt;/strong&gt; often&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T22:26:48.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5400" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-20T22:34:24.557" Score="2" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know where I can find a list of terms used for units of currency throughout the history of China?  I am especially interested in finding those terms that can function as 量词, like 文 and 贯.  I have already checked Wikipedia (&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E8%B4%A7%E5%B8%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E8%B4%A7%E5%B8%81&lt;/a&gt;) and Baidu (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1802633.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1802633.htm&lt;/a&gt;), but am not entirely satisfied inasmuch as they focus on the currency itself rather than the terms used to talk about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-12-20T22:41:34.427" LastActivityDate="2013-12-23T06:26:10.227" Title="List of historical Chinese currency terms" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5253" CreationDate="2013-12-20T22:37:48.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;尊师XXX公(classical)/XXX先生(Taiwan)/尊敬的XXX老师(mainland official)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=Most serene Mr. XXX / Respected XXX &lt;strong&gt;who was born before me&lt;/strong&gt; (a litteral expression for teacher/prof) / Respected Teacher XXX&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a student, you are expected to write in a very litteral style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T22:37:48.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5254" CreationDate="2013-12-20T22:42:59.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We distinguish thou and you in Chinese, so that it is not possible here for 都 to be you all, as you here is singular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T22:42:59.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5341" CreationDate="2013-12-20T23:09:45.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;将...+v.+为=把...+v.+当作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这篇报道中提到的”小印度“在新加坡，那里的人使用的中文有自己的标准。这也许就是你查不到翻译的原因。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽管如此，在报章杂志或者政府公文中，我们一般不说”把...“，而是用更古雅的”将...“来表达。在方言中，”把“一般只在北方方言中出现，南方跟喜欢说”拿“一类的词。对于比中国南方更处于南端的新加坡而言，对”把“的使用是不习惯的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至于第二部分，&quot;将...规划*&lt;em&gt;为&lt;/em&gt;*&#xA;&quot;在大陆有时会写成”将...规划*&lt;em&gt;作&lt;/em&gt;*&#xA;“。”作为“是一个词，这里只是用它的不同简略形式。本文这里这样写是因为古语中视&quot;为&quot;为介词，”作“是动词；但是大陆现代汉语中”作“也可以作为介词，如同在”当作“一词中一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将...+v.+（作）为=把...+v.+当作=do the (verb) to the object and thus make it into the state of (following text)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here: The police has &lt;strong&gt;set&lt;/strong&gt; the region of Little India &lt;strong&gt;as&lt;/strong&gt; Restricted Area where no alchohol can be consumed in public.  (Singapore is famous for weird rules.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Little India&quot; in this report is in Singapore, where people speak Chinese in a different style. Maybe that's why you cannot find proper translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in official texts or newspaper and magazines, we rarely use ”把...“. We prefer ”将...“ because we cannot find any usage of ”把...“ in classical Chinese which makes ”将...“ a more elegant way to put it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in dialects, ”把...“ is more commonly used in Northern areas. In the south, we say &quot;拿..&quot; more often. For Singaporeans (and Malaysians) who lives south to Southern China, they are simply not used to such expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the 2nd part, in mainland, we sometimes write &quot;将...规划*&lt;em&gt;作&lt;/em&gt;*&#xA;&quot; rather than &quot;将...规划*&lt;em&gt;为&lt;/em&gt;*&#xA;&quot;. That's because both are abbr. from the verb 作为, meaning &lt;strong&gt;being/regarded as&lt;/strong&gt;. Here the author picks 为， also because grammar of classical Chinese regard &quot;为&quot; as a proposition and &quot;作&quot; as a verb; but in mainland modern mandarin, we also regard 作 as a proposition sometimes, like in the word 当作.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2013-12-21T00:45:47.460" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T00:45:47.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5400" CreationDate="2013-12-20T23:53:22.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most used ones are 钱、文、贯、吊、千 and 万。They are not names for money, they are quantitive nouns. Read more: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%BA%E8%B4%AF%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%BA%E8%B4%AF%E6%B3%95&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally, 钱 is a very small mass amount. However, as time went by, it became the name for money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other nominative words to refer to currency itself: &lt;strong&gt;贝(shell)、币(刀币as referring to antique money)、帛(fine silk that can be used in barter trading)、锱铢(bronze or cast steel coins)、孔方(bronze coins with a hole)、元（圆）(coin)、金(metals)&lt;/strong&gt;。Sometimes we also use &lt;strong&gt;元宝、锭&lt;/strong&gt; for different shapes metals are made. For the modern world, we sometimes use 刀 or 美刀 to refer to USD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others are quantitive words. They might be quite confusing because traditionally we think it a vulgar doing as to refer to money directly, or because it is inconvenient to compose quantitive word and the noun itself together. Fortunately today we only use a little of them now. Note that in strict grammar, &lt;strong&gt;quantitive words are a special kind of nouns.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, sometimes ancient people pay their debts in precious metal like gold / silver / bronze. Then we use mass units to count.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following are quantitive words for counting money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文(&lt;em&gt;historical&lt;/em&gt; &quot;small&quot;)=枚(&lt;em&gt;when you don't know the coin's value&lt;/em&gt;, &quot;a small piece&quot;)=元(&quot;the basic&quot;)=圆(&quot;a round stuff&quot;)=块(“a bulk”)=1 main unit coin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;角(&lt;em&gt;litterally&lt;/em&gt; a corner / a horn of an animal)=毛(&lt;em&gt;litterally&lt;/em&gt; &quot;a feather of a bird&quot;)=1/10 the main unit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;分(&lt;em&gt;litterally&lt;/em&gt; &quot;a part&quot;)=1/100 the main unit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厘(&quot;nuance&quot;)=1/1,000 the main unit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毫(&quot;body hair of a beast&quot;)=1/10,000 the main unit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;贯(&lt;em&gt;historical&lt;/em&gt;,&quot;to string up&quot;)=千(&quot;a thousand&quot;)=1,000 main unit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note: In classical Chinese scripts, since there is no clear difference between quantitive and nominative words, it is possible to say 二百又一錢, which equals to 二百零一块钱 in mandarin.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2013-12-21T00:28:07.280" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T00:28:07.280" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3869" CreationDate="2013-12-21T00:42:12.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are guidelines. We won't get confused in the 什 example because PRC had long contact with Russia, but we may get confused for some unfamiliar countries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this guideline is only made and followed by authors and editors in mainland China. Taiwan and Hong Kong all have their own standards due to divergence in pronounciation. Whatsmore, Hongkong-neses prefer reading and writing in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KFFQZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;A translation guide for translitterating specific names in mainland China.&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the table, you can see that we use different characters for different syllables according to which language it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T00:42:12.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5233" CreationDate="2013-12-21T04:09:27.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a local chinese,i think, for us,both are ok,when a chinese want to say 1.5 mouth, we usually say &quot;一个月半&quot; rather then &quot;一个半月&quot;. And sometimes, &quot;一个月半&quot; also means half a mouth if you separate it as &quot;一个&quot; and &quot;半月&quot;,that mean a half month&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3702" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T04:09:27.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5233" CreationDate="2013-12-21T13:24:51.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be &quot;一个半月&quot;. It's easy. When we refer to somethings, we usually say &lt;strong&gt;&quot;mumber&quot;+&quot;classifier&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. For this phrase, &quot;一个半&quot; is &quot;number&quot; and &quot;月&quot; is classifier. BTW, 'more than one month'(less than two months) should be &quot;一个多月&quot; rather than &quot;一个月多&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3703" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T13:24:51.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="464" CreationDate="2013-12-22T00:51:57.737" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to 现代汉语虚词词典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;根据 - （介词） 介绍得出某种论断的依据。介词短语可以修饰主谓短语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;按照 - （介词） 表示动作行为遵从莫一标准。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in actuality, the times when they are completely interchangeable (meaning not just that the sentence would make sense, but that it would also have the same meaning) would appear to be relatively rare, even though they translate to roughly the same thing in English. 按照 introduces a principle or formula according to which an action is carried out, while 根据 introduces the grounds on which some conclusion, decision, or judgement rests.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-22T00:51:57.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4974" CreationDate="2013-12-22T16:37:49.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;擺烏龍&#xA;baai2 wu1 lung4*2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/38479/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/38479/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no explanation for it (except that it does state &quot;accidentally score against one's own team&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2013-12-22T16:37:49.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="464" CreationDate="2013-12-22T21:36:01.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;根据 has more a &quot;by...&quot; feeling in English, which gives a stronger sense of sureness. 按照 has a more &quot;according to...&quot; feeling, which is used more in colloquial setting. But in most cases, these two are interchangeable, but used of 根据 is rare in daily conversation as a preposition (mostly only &quot;据&quot; or &quot;照&quot;, e.g. 据/照他说...). Note that 根据 can also be used as a noun, but 按照 cannot. e.g. 这事没有根据 (This thing comes out of thin air).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3664" LastActivityDate="2013-12-22T21:36:01.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5233" CreationDate="2013-12-22T22:03:29.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native Chinese speaker. I can't agree with 'Red Wolf's Husband'.&#xA;I can't explain too much from grammar point of view.&#xA;But I can guarantee you that &quot;一个半月&quot; is the correct way to express 1.5 month.&#xA;&quot;一个月半&quot; can also be understood by native speaker though. &quot;一个月半&quot; sounds not that smooth especially in oral Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3705" LastActivityDate="2013-12-22T22:03:29.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5299" CreationDate="2013-12-22T22:35:13.770" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@rabbid&#xA;Question 1: 'care about' is more appropriate for '理会' here.&#xA;Your second translation is right. (There are people that you don't need to care about.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 2: This sentence is talking exactly about how you treat your enemy instead of friend. '敌人' in this sentence describes the type of people who are worth for you to see them as enemy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The educational meaning behind this sentence is that there may be some people using some cheap tricks to compete with you. Don't even bother to treat them as 'opponents'.&#xA;Those people don't even have the privilege to be your opponents. They will be ruled out by history eventually. On the other hand, some people compete with you by improving themselves. These people are your true 'enemies'. (You may be confused now. You might think that the second type of people I'm talking about are friends in your perspective. Let me explain more.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think about it this way. Imagine that you are on sports field. Those great players (opponents) that race with you in the game can be your friends off the game. Right? If some player is cheating in order to win over you, then don't see him/her as enemy. Don't be upset if got beaten by him/her. Do your practice, focus on yourself, you will eventually beat him/her.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3705" LastActivityDate="2013-12-22T22:35:13.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5400" CreationDate="2013-12-23T06:26:10.227" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some of my preliminary notes, please suggest additions or corrections&#xA;Note that the following is focused exclusively on &quot;coinage&quot; (not all are actually coin shaped)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;commonly used weight measures for many of the currencies listed below are 两, 镒, and 钱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;布币&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;used by 赵, 韩, 魏三国, and 周王室&lt;br&gt;&#xA;also called 铲布 (owing to their shape)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;varieties include 空首布 and 平首布&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;刀币&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;used by primarily by 东方的齐 and 北方的燕国&lt;br&gt;&#xA;varieties include 齐刀, 即墨刀, 安阳刀, 针首刀, 尖首刀, 圆首刀, and 明刀&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;皮币&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;issued by 汉武帝&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;蚁鼻钱&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a copper currency from 战国时期楚国&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;圜钱&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;also called 圜金 and 环钱&lt;br&gt;&#xA;primarily issued by 战国时的秦国 and 战国时的魏国&lt;br&gt;&#xA;varieties used 两, 釿, and 刀 as their standards&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;半两钱&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;used by 秦朝&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;大泉五十&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;used by 王莽新朝&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;荚钱&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;used by 汉朝&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;王莽币&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;used around the end of 西汉&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;三铢钱&lt;/strong&gt; (briefly):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;五铢钱&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;originated in 西汉, varieties used in 东汉, 蜀, 魏, 晋, 南齐, 梁, 陈, and 北魏&lt;br&gt;&#xA;in actually lighter than 五铢&lt;br&gt;&#xA;varieties include 三官钱 (aka 上林三官钱), 郡国五铢, 仄五铢, 三官五铢, 宣帝五铢, 小五铢, 金五铢&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;钱牌&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;used in 南宋&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;元宝&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;originated in 唐朝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;denominations (weights) found in 一, 二, 三, 五, 十, and 五十两&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;制钱&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;commonly measured using 文，贯, and 串&lt;br&gt;&#xA;varieties include: 宋代制钱, 明代制钱, and 清代制钱 (which has 一千文 fixed as 一串)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;铜元&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;aka 铜板&lt;br&gt;&#xA;post 清代&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-23T06:26:10.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5414" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5415" CreationDate="2013-12-24T08:34:40.677" Score="5" ViewCount="2776" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know what to say in the following scenario: I am pushing someone for his own good, and he is not doing what I want, so I would then say to him &quot;Okay, as you wish.&quot; How can I express this in Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt; 如你所愿（rúnǐsuǒyuàn）from Google Translate is not understood as having the same meaning by Chinese speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3713" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2013-12-25T07:36:57.700" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T01:46:49.157" Title="How to say &quot;as you wish&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5414" CreationDate="2013-12-24T08:51:08.077" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that “随你便” may suit your needs.  This phrase can be translated as &quot;as you wish&quot; or &quot;suit yourself&quot; or even &quot;whatever.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-24T08:51:08.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5414" CreationDate="2013-12-24T14:08:31.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If congratulatory words, you can say '祝你心想事成'.&#xA;If for greetings, ..., in fact, there's no such greetings exactly, maybe '随你便' is more suitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3697" LastActivityDate="2013-12-24T14:08:31.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5429" CreationDate="2013-12-24T23:58:28.447" Score="3" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know where I can find a list of characters that are, at least in common usage, found only as a component of names (especially of persons) in modern Chinese?  I have in mind characters such as 璋, which I have encountered only in names (although my dictionary does contain 圭璋 and 弄璋).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-12-29T07:34:51.677" LastActivityDate="2013-12-29T07:34:51.677" Title="Which characters typically occur only within names?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;proper-nouns&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5418" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5419" CreationDate="2013-12-25T01:19:00.697" Score="3" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw a single row of characters with no punctuation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忠美聖愛仁義利義好哀恕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this is a proverb relating to Confucian values, but I can't break it into separate words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zhongmei (忠美) might be loyalty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sheng-ai (聖愛) is probably love between humans and gods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ren-yi (仁義) is compassion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Li (利) might be benefit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't even figure out the boundaries of the words, much less the grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3499" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-09T00:45:38.323" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T00:45:38.323" Title="忠美聖愛仁義利義好哀恕: How do I segment this proverb into separate words?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5418" CreationDate="2013-12-25T01:26:49.150" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would attempt to break it up as follows:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;忠美圣 &amp;nbsp;爱 &amp;nbsp;仁义 &amp;nbsp;利义 &amp;nbsp;好哀恕&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And from there we have something like:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The honest and virtuous sage loves benevolence, righteousness, morality, and justice [and here is where I am somewhat uncertain because of the many possible readings of 好] and readily sympathizes with and forgives others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-25T01:26:49.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5414" CreationDate="2013-12-25T10:14:37.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your context, you can say 悉听尊便。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also use 任 as the first character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also use 随 as the second character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also use 君 as the third character, though that is rarely used in speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also use 意 as the fourth character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which of these characters you use, 悉随君意。 :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3717" LastActivityDate="2013-12-25T10:14:37.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3887" CreationDate="2013-12-25T11:58:05.810" Score="6" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Etymology of 七&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3605&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 七 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“七”是特殊指事字，甲骨文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U2APu.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1).gif&quot;&gt;写作“十”。一横代表全部、一切；一横加一竖，表示对全体进行切分。金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3TpeH.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(1).gif&quot;&gt;承续甲骨文字形。有的金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jRsx8.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2).gif&quot;&gt;为了区别于“十”，将竖笔转折。造字本义：古人认为需要切分的极限数，即比六更大的数，六与八之间的正整数。篆文字形&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CIxke.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[4]zhuan(1).gif&quot;&gt;基本承续晚期金文字形。在发明十进制之前，一，二，三，四，五，六，七，八，九，都曾是古人认识中的极限数字：一，混沌宇宙，代表全部；二，天地或乾坤或阴阳，代表一切；三，天、地、人，也代表一切；四，超越“三”的数，“二”的两倍，也是极数；五，天地交汇，也代表一切，中国珠算采用五进制；六，房屋的四壁及顶和底，也代表宇宙空间的一切；七，需要切分的极限数，也代表一切；八，分，与“七”相同，表示需要细分的极限数；九，用手极力地抓，表示数多至极，中国珠算亦采用九进制。当“七”的“切分”本义消失后，篆文再加“刀”另造“切”代替。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;七 is a special self-explanatory character. Its oracle script is written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U2APu.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1).gif&quot;&gt;, just like the modern Chinese glyph of the numeral &lt;strong&gt;ten&lt;/strong&gt; (十). One horizontal stroke stands for whole/all, and plus one vertical stroke, the combination means &quot;dividing the whole&quot;. Bronze script &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3TpeH.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(1).gif&quot;&gt; inherits its oracle glyph, and some of them are written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jRsx8.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2).gif&quot;&gt; for clearly distinguishing it from the numeral ten (十) by bending the vertical stroke. The original idea of character construction: ancient Chinese people thought there should be a divided &quot;extreme number&quot; between six and eight. Seal glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CIxke.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[4]zhuan(1).gif&quot;&gt; basically inherited its late bronze glyph. Before the decimal system being invented, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine, had been once considered as &quot;extreme numbers&quot; in ancient Chinese people's view: &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt;, &quot;chaos universe&quot;, stood for the whole; &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt;, &quot;the heaven and the earth&quot;, or &quot;&lt;em&gt;yin&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;yang&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, stood for everything; &lt;strong&gt;three&lt;/strong&gt;, &quot;the heaven, the earth, and the human&quot;, also stood for everything; &lt;strong&gt;four&lt;/strong&gt;, larger than three, double two, thus was also an &quot;extreme number&quot;; &lt;strong&gt;five&lt;/strong&gt;, &quot;intersection of the heaven and the earth&quot;, also meant everything (the Chinese abacus adopted the quinary system); &lt;strong&gt;six&lt;/strong&gt;, &quot;four walls and one roof and one floor of a house&quot;, stood for everything in the universe; &lt;strong&gt;seven&lt;/strong&gt;, &quot;the extreme number that needed segmentation&quot;, again, stood for everything; &lt;strong&gt;eight&lt;/strong&gt;, &quot;dividing&quot;, the same as seven, stood for the extreme number that needed subdivision; &lt;strong&gt;nine&lt;/strong&gt;, &quot;trying hard to grab things by hand&quot;, suggested the number is very large (the Chinese abacus also adopted the novenary system). When the original meaning of &quot;dividing&quot; in 七 disappeared, the seal script made the character 切 (cut, divide) by adding 刀 (knife) to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Annotation&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The explanation of the &quot;extreme number&quot; here appears to be ill-logical and far-fetched. On the one hand, I haven't seen any archaeological findings or ancient literature supporting that claim. On the other hand, as basic numerals, 1~9 were very probably invented at the same time, how could ancient Chinese people consider they are all &quot;extreme numbers&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The claim &quot;the Chinese abacus adopted the quinary or novenary system&quot; is wrong. It should be &lt;strong&gt;decimal system&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;hexadecimal system&lt;/strong&gt; (rarely seen now). See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AE%97%E7%9B%98&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abacus#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;English Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; for details. What's more important, the abacus was invented after characters, so it is an unrelated topic in the explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Explanation in 甲骨文字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;七&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QAeeh.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】於橫畫中加一小竪，會切斷橫畫之意，丁山謂&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/657eE.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-1.gif&quot;&gt;本象當中切斷形，自借為七數專名，不得不加刀于七以為切斷專字（《數名古誼》）。按其說可從。甲骨文七字橫畫較長，後因十字由&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6RL2t.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-2.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cF6ZZ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-3.gif&quot;&gt;漸譌為&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3b3Bz.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-4.gif&quot;&gt;，&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/657eE.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-1.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3b3Bz.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-4.gif&quot;&gt;二形易溷，篆文七字乃彎曲竪畫而作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zj2RQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-5.gif&quot;&gt;以與十區別。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; Adding a small vertical stroke on the horizontal stroke, this &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Compound_ideographs&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;associative compound&lt;/a&gt; character meant &quot;cutting off the horizontal stroke&quot;. Ding Shan said in his paper &lt;em&gt;數名古誼&lt;/em&gt;: &quot;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/657eE.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-1.gif&quot;&gt; was originally a pictogram meaning cutting off in the middle. When it was borrowed to mean seven, a new character for the meaning &lt;em&gt;cutting off&lt;/em&gt; had to be invented by adding 刀 (knife).&quot; His view appears to be true. In oracle scripts, the horizontal stroke of seven was quite long, however, because later the numeral ten &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6RL2t.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-2.gif&quot;&gt; or &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cF6ZZ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-3.gif&quot;&gt; was gradually mistakenly written like &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3b3Bz.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-4.gif&quot;&gt;, the seal script seven then bent the vertical stroke as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zj2RQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-5.gif&quot;&gt; to be distinguished from ten (十).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Rubbings&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 12606.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Upper part)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 丙戌卜貞今夕亡&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/88/js/211A5.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;七月. Year of &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%99%E6%88%8C&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bingxu&lt;/a&gt;, devine to predict, showing it has no &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/88/js/211A5.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; tonight, the seventh month.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Lower part)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 貞今夕不雨七月. Show it won't rain tonight, the seventh month.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a4swc.gif&quot; alt=&quot;No.12606-丙戌卜貞今夕亡jiu七月.貞今夕不雨七月.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Criticism on &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3605&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 七 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both the dictionaries agree on the original meaning of the oracle glyph seven &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/657eE.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典7-1.gif&quot;&gt; being &lt;em&gt;cutting off&lt;/em&gt;. However, for the question &lt;strong&gt;why it stands for seven&lt;/strong&gt;, they explain it in different ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;: it is an extreme number, the &lt;em&gt;cutting&lt;/em&gt; meaning is embodied in &quot;cutting between six and eight&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;: again, the oracle glyph of seven is considered as a phonetic loan character.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned above, Dictionary of Pictographs considering all integers from one to nine as extreme numbers is quite illogical and far-fetched. But &lt;strong&gt;how about the &quot;phonetic loan character&quot; explanation?&lt;/strong&gt; Yes, it looks like a free riding -- it just explains &lt;em&gt;how&lt;/em&gt; it came but bypasses the question &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; it came. Anyway, maybe, naming a thing (including numerals, of course) didn't have to have a concrete reason in the very early ancient times.     &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-12-26T06:47:16.077" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T06:47:16.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5417" CreationDate="2013-12-26T06:55:54.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;short answer: 铖 and 曌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;the detailed answer: these charactors were created and used for Emperors only.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you should 'baidu' for the keywords &quot;只能用在名字中的字&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some answer in Chinese: &#xA;&quot;铖&quot;有只能用于人名的可能。 在明朝的时候，朱元璋规定他的子孙起名时都得按照金木水火土的顺序带偏旁，刚开始倒没什么，但时间一长就出了问题。因为当时起名字的时候也得避讳长辈的名字，这样一来，没过几代，明朝皇室的人就没法起名字了。 为了解决这个问题，当时就有人专门造了一些字，就是给皇家人员起名字用。这些字都是带金木水火土偏旁的，铖是金字旁，有可能就是明朝时造的那批字里的。 这种只能用于名字的字不是非常罕见，比如说李大钊的钊字，除了在名字里面以外，别的地方也见不到它。还有武则天给自己起的名字武曌，这个曌字也是这种。类似的还有，学识有限举不出更多，但是有些字只是用于名字是确有其事的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3718" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T06:55:54.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="464" CreationDate="2013-12-26T07:22:03.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No much difference in daily use, but in formal text, 根据 is prefer. And 根据 also can be a noun (example: 你有什么根据？) which means &quot;the reason or source for&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3723" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T07:22:03.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3887" CreationDate="2013-12-26T09:08:51.710" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Etymology of 八&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3606&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 八 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“八”是特殊指事字，甲骨文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3bwVl.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1) (1).gif&quot;&gt;用相背的两条弧线指事符号，表示物体被分离为两部分。造字本义：切分。金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k8k0V.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(1).gif&quot;&gt;、篆文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NqDQv.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[4]zhuan(1).gif&quot;&gt;承续甲骨文字形。楷书&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WcaGn.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[6]kai(1).gif&quot;&gt;承续隶书字形，写成一撇一捺。当“八”的“切分”本义消失后，篆文再加“刀”另造“分”代替。&lt;strike&gt;古人认为“八”是极限数，曰：“七乱八糟”。在发明十进制之前，一，二，三，四，五，六，七，八，九，都曾是古人认识中的极限数字。&lt;/strike&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;八 is a special self-explanatory character. The oracle script &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3bwVl.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1) (1).gif&quot;&gt; uses two detached arc as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character#Simple_ideograms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;simple ideogram&lt;/a&gt; symbol, representing an object is divided into two parts. The original idea of character construction: dividing. Bronze script &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k8k0V.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(1).gif&quot;&gt; and seal script &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NqDQv.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[4]zhuan(1).gif&quot;&gt; inherit its oracle glyph. Regular script &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WcaGn.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[6]kai(1).gif&quot;&gt; inherits the clerical glyph, writing it as a left-falling stroke and a right-falling stroke. When the original meaning of &quot;dividing&quot; in 八 disappeared, the seal script made the character 分 (divide) by adding 刀 (knife) to it. &lt;strike&gt;Ancient Chinese people thought eight was an extreme number, so there was an idiom &quot;七乱八糟&quot;. Before the invention of the decimal system, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine, were all extreme numbers in the view of ancient Chinese people.&lt;/strike&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Annotation&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The part being struck out is the &quot;extreme number&quot; explanation, which appears to be illogical and far-fetched. For details, see &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Explanation of 七 in 象形字典 (Dictionary of Pictographs)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;My Annotation&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; in the entry &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5421/2816&quot;&gt;Etymology of 七&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The motive of putting the idiom &quot;七乱八糟&quot; (&quot;乱七八糟&quot;, more commonly) in the explanation is unclear. It hasn't offered any support to the &quot;extreme number&quot; claim. The etymology of this idiom was once guessed as: 七乱 originated from the &quot;Rebellion of the Seven States&quot; in Western Han Dynasty; 八糟 originated from the &quot;Upheaval of the Eight Princes&quot; during the Western Jin Dynasty. Although this etymology of the idiom is highly doubted by a famous historical scholar Jin Wenming in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cqvip.com/qk/81202x/200607/22105894.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;his paper&lt;/a&gt;, anyhow, the idiom is hardly related to &quot;extreme numbers&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Explanation in 甲骨文字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;八&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RNvBY.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典8.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】《說文》：“八，別也，象分別相背之形。”甲骨文乃以二畫相背，分向張開，以表示分別之義。卜辭中借用為紀數之詞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; As said in &lt;em&gt;Shouwen&lt;/em&gt;, &quot;八, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;being parted / leaving each other&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character#Pictograms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pictograph&lt;/a&gt; showing being parted in different directions.&quot; The oracle glyph used two parted strokes in different directions to mean being parted. Then oracle inscriptions borrowed it to mean the numeral eight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Rubbings&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 1014. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B7%B1_(%E5%A4%A9%E5%B9%B2)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;己&lt;/a&gt;...貞(divine to predict)...伐(send armed forces to suppress)...用(can be carried out)...室(room)...八月(eighth month). (This is not a sentence, just part of an oracle bone.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZHVWx.gif&quot; alt=&quot;No.1014-己...貞...伐...用...室...八月.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Criticism on &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3606&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 八 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the entry &quot;Etymology of 七&quot;, both &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt; agree on the original meaning of the oracle glyph of eight, but just explain it respectively as &quot;an extreme number&quot; and &quot;a phonetic loan character&quot;. See the entry &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5421/2816&quot;&gt;&quot;Etymology of 七&quot;&lt;/a&gt; for the details of criticism.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T09:08:51.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5417" CreationDate="2013-12-26T15:15:56.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Chinese high school student, I knew someone who has a 垚 in her name. &#xA;垚 is often used in the belief that if someone is lack of &quot;earth&quot; in the &quot;five elements&quot; (metal金, wood木, water水, fire火 and earth土), it is good to add more 土 to his/her name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;淼，炎，森，鑫 are often used for the same reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3724" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T15:15:56.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5426" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5430" CreationDate="2013-12-26T23:29:54.220" Score="3" ViewCount="865" Body="&lt;h1&gt;爱不释手&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;be so fond of something that one will not let it out of one's hand&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm guessing 爱 would be the being fond of something and the 不释手 would be the not letting go. I feel like it's missing structure like it should be something like 他爱他的{Object}不释手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anything more to this saying and how would it be used in practical speech?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T15:16:46.233" Title="What is the etymology and usage of 爱不释手" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5426" CreationDate="2013-12-26T23:42:48.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;爱不释手:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be explained as: 释：放下。喜爱得舍不得放手。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Its origins are noted as: 南朝·梁·萧统《陶渊明集序》：“余爱嗜其文，不能释手。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And has the following usage notes: 补充式；作谓语、状语、宾语；含褒义，表达喜欢物件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%E7%88%B1%E4%B8%8D%E9%87%8A%E6%89%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%E7%88%B1%E4%B8%8D%E9%87%8A%E6%89%8B&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T23:42:48.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5426" CreationDate="2013-12-27T02:48:41.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is something missing but for reason, you know in Chinese, four has special meaning, people learned that there are four directions, North, East, South, West, so four means something just fine. in other hands, the pronunciation of four is similar with the pronunciation of death in Chinese, so four is good, but the pronunciation of four is bad, you can take the meaning of four, but avoid to speak it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So most famous saying in Chinese has four words, this one missed something just for align.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be: 爱 something, 不(愿意)放手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You love something, you don't want it to get out of your hand. You can not say love someone, do not want to let him/her go, only for something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bought a new cellphone, and I like it very much, you can say: 刚买的新手机太酷了，简直爱不释手,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;small toy, cellphone, art craft, only something that can be held in your hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3725" LastEditorUserId="3725" LastEditDate="2013-12-27T02:58:45.090" LastActivityDate="2013-12-27T02:58:45.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5417" CreationDate="2013-12-27T06:39:25.083" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://technology.chtsai.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chih-Hao Tsai's Technology Page&lt;/a&gt; is an excellent resource (with the caveat that the corpuses it uses are Taiwanese). &lt;a href=&quot;http://technology.chtsai.org/namefreq/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;On this page&lt;/a&gt; you can find frequencies of the most common characters used in surnames and given names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most common surnames (2012):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陳&#xA;林&#xA;黃&#xA;李&#xA;張&#xA;王&#xA;吳&#xA;劉&#xA;蔡&#xA;楊&#xA;許&#xA;鄭&#xA;謝&#xA;郭&#xA;洪&#xA;邱&#xA;曾&#xA;賴&#xA;廖&#xA;徐&#xA;周&#xA;葉&#xA;蘇&#xA;莊&#xA;呂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's clear that this is from a Taiwanese source since 陳 is most common; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;if this were the mainland&lt;/a&gt; you'd expect 王 to be the most common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the list of most common characters in given names (2012); if you cross reference this with &lt;a href=&quot;http://technology.chtsai.org/charfreq/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the list of most common characters&lt;/a&gt;, you get this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;庭 (rank 1447)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;婷 (rank 2410)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;宇 (rank 1159)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;文 (rank 33)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;佳 (rank 739)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雅 (rank 1112)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;怡 (rank 1651)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;家 (rank 66)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;柏 (rank 1585)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冠 (rank 1023)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;子 (rank 66)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;廷 (rank 1834)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;安 (rank 360)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;翔 (rank 1503)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嘉 (rank 1056)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;彥 (rank 1677)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;宜 (rank 719)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;瑋 (rank 2246)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;軒 (rank 1698)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;瑜 (rank 1854)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;欣 (rank 943)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;凱 (rank 1413)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;君 (rank 767)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;育 (rank 585)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;萱 (rank 3029)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can see that apart from a few very common characters (like 文, 家 and 子), most of these characters are relatively uncommon outside of names. Keep in mind that characters that are common in given names also obviously show up in the list of most common characters, so anything above say rank 2000 may qualify as &quot;name&quot; characters. I'd say it's very hard to encounter the characters 婷, 瑋 or 萱 outside of names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can download the entire corpus and run your own analysis if you wish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's the list of most common given names (note that most of these are two-characters long):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雅婷&#xA;雅筑&#xA;冠宇&#xA;冠廷&#xA;怡君&#xA;宗翰&#xA;佳穎&#xA;彥廷&#xA;家豪&#xA;柏翰&#xA;宜庭&#xA;郁婷&#xA;承翰&#xA;詩涵&#xA;宇軒&#xA;佳蓉&#xA;鈺婷&#xA;家瑜&#xA;怡婷&#xA;怡萱&#xA;詩婷&#xA;怡安&#xA;家瑋&#xA;郁雯&#xA;冠霖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wonder how many (thousands) of 陳雅婷 are in the world? :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2013-12-27T06:57:56.160" LastActivityDate="2013-12-27T06:57:56.160" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5426" CreationDate="2013-12-27T08:36:16.087" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;爱不释手 is idiom in Chinese. You cannot split and use it. In most time, we use it as adjective or adverb to describe that you love something very much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Common Usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爱不释手的{Object}&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他对他的{Object}爱不释手&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;{Object}让我爱不释手&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry ,I miss the etymology:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;南朝·梁·萧统《陶渊明集序》：“余爱嗜其文，不能释手。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2013-12-27T08:36:16.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="464" CreationDate="2013-12-27T09:58:22.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;根据 means you can find the rules, ordinance etc in written format or published. &#xA;按照 means you may follow some rules, conventions that are not necessarily in written format&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2013-12-27T09:58:22.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5418" CreationDate="2013-12-27T20:13:38.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there may be a character missing. Like: 忠美圣  爱仁义  X利义  好哀恕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or 利 might be 礼, like 忠美圣  爱仁义礼义  好哀恕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2013-12-27T20:13:38.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5434" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5436" CreationDate="2013-12-28T08:35:03.590" Score="4" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;The name of the ship below is given as: 四航奋进&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen it previously*** &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/vessel--%28four-aircraft-endeavour%29-vid685.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;translated as &quot;Four Aircraft Endeavour&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, which seems peculiar, as it's not an aircraft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 四 I can understand: it has two pairs of two cranes, so four cranes in total. Are those the four endeavours? Isn't 航 boat? So I can see how the component syllables could conceivably form &quot;Four Endeavours Boat&quot; - but is that a valid translation? Are there implications, idioms, or subtexts in the name 四航奋进?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll also note that in English, some speakers get quite passionate about distinguishing between &quot;boat&quot;, &quot;ship&quot; and &quot;vessel&quot;, though I don't really understand the nuances, but if there are nuances in this name, I'd appreciate pointers to them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MEgka.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/vessel--%28four-aircraft-endeavour%29-vid685.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;***(note: subsequent to this post, the linked page at the top has updated the translated name to &quot;Fourth Harbour Endeavour&quot;, thanks to the answers here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3730" LastEditorUserId="3730" LastEditDate="2014-01-05T12:46:23.337" LastActivityDate="2014-01-05T12:46:23.337" Title="四航奋进: This ship's name is translated as &quot;Four Aircraft Endeavour&quot;, but is it?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5426" CreationDate="2013-12-28T08:58:22.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“爱不释手”usually used to describe that someone like something so much,and can't bear to put it down. it is an adjective to describe small things that you like .for example, when you get a watch for Christmas ,you can say &quot; 我对这个手表爱不释手&quot;means &quot;you like the watch so much,that you keep touching or looking at it&quot; and the &quot;something&quot;should be of small size and not a living thing .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3731" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T08:58:22.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5434" CreationDate="2013-12-28T08:58:31.347" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a typical example of Chinese English. 「四航」is the company or institution who built the ship. It has nothing to do with the ship's structure. I read 「四」 in 「四航」 as fourth. There might or might not be 「一航」 or 「二航」. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gzpcc.com/web/default.biz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt;'s the official website for 「四航」.  「四航」 is short for 「第四航务工程局」， it's a company mainly engaged in construction of a variety of infrastructures like ports, bridges, hydraulic works and etc. according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.gzpcc.com/en/showmypage.aspx?id=4&amp;amp;menuname=About%20Us&amp;amp;imgsrc=/userfiles/image/pic/pic1.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;about page&lt;/a&gt;. They call themselves Fourth Harbour Engineering in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Four Aircraft Endeavour&quot; is a confusing translation. Literally, 「四航」 is &quot;Fourth Harbour&quot; and「奋进」 is Endeavour in this context, although I'm not sure whether Endeavour is a good translation. I would probably translate 「奋进」 as striving forward but it doesn't sound like a name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3693" LastEditorUserId="3693" LastEditDate="2013-12-28T12:28:12.070" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T12:28:12.070" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5434" CreationDate="2013-12-28T08:58:49.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;航 can be translated in a number of various ways, and its meaning commonly involves transport by air or space in the right context or word (consider 航空, 航天, 民航, etc).  In some cases the same word can even apply to both sea and air transport (航班, 航线, 航模)  But in this case I agree that &quot;aircraft&quot; is just a bad translation.  It was probably produced by a computer or a non-English speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T08:58:49.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3887" CreationDate="2013-12-28T10:22:58.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Etymology of 九&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3607&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 九 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;九，甲骨文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NwRAH.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1).gif&quot;&gt;是“厷”（肱、臂）与“又”（抓、掏）的组合，表示伸出手掏摸、探究，力求确定内部情况。造字本义：伸手往洞里掏摸、试探，以求确定情况。金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9vSHB.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(1).gif&quot;&gt;承续甲骨文字形。篆文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rf4ax.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[4]zhuan(1).gif&quot;&gt;淡化了手形。当“九”的“掏摸、力求确定情况”的本义消失后，篆文再加“穴”（未知空间）另造“究”代替。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;The oracle script of nine &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NwRAH.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1).gif&quot;&gt; is a combination of 厷 (arm) and 又 (grab), and means &quot;stretch out a hand to grab&quot; and then extends to &quot;explore&quot;, &quot;try to make inside information clear&quot;. The original idea of character construction: stretch a hand into a hole to grab, in order to explore inside. The bronze script &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9vSHB.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(1).gif&quot;&gt; inherits its oracle glyph, and the seal script &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rf4ax.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[4]zhuan(1).gif&quot;&gt; fade out the shape of a hand. When the original meaning &quot;grab, explore&quot; of 九 disappeared, the seal script added 穴 (hole, unknown space) to make it 究 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Explanation in 甲骨文字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;九&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v9yPw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典9.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】象曲鉤之形。鉤字古作句。內公鐘句作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dXLL4.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典9-1.gif&quot;&gt;形，羅振玉云其狀正為圓環，下有物如蛇狀，尾上曲為鉤（《貞松堂集古遺文》卷十一）。句九古音同，故句得借為九，復於句形上加指示符號而作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mkme8.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典9-2.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qOugz.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典9-3.gif&quot;&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; It was a pictograph of a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;hook&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. 鉤 (hook) was written as 句 in ancient times. On the Ruigong Bell, 句 was carved as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dXLL4.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典9-1.gif&quot;&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_Zhenyu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Luo Zhenyu&lt;/a&gt; (an important Chinese classical scholar, philologist, epigrapher, antiquarian and Qing loyalist) said &quot;its shape was exactly a ring with a dangling snake-like object; the tail curled upwards as a hook.&quot; (in &lt;em&gt;貞松堂集古遺文&lt;/em&gt;, volume 11). 句 and nine pronounced the same in the ancient times, so 句 (hook) is borrowed to mean the numeral nine as a loan phonetic character with an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character#Simple_ideograms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;indicative symbol&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; on it as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mkme8.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典9-2.gif&quot;&gt; or &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qOugz.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典9-3.gif&quot;&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Annotation&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;indicative symbol&lt;/em&gt; is a symbol on a pictograph character, which aims at making a new character to have new meanings. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gH6f4.png&quot; alt=&quot;indicativeSymbol.png&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;My Analyses&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, let's summarize the major points in the two dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The oracle nine is a combination of 厷(arm) and 又(grab). (Implicitly, it suggests 九 was a loan phonetic character, as 厷 and 九 sounded alike in the ancient times.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;九 is the origin of 究. (It's unlikely to be true, because 究 isn't only written as the glyph that &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt; has analyzed, but also as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/8a/kx/21AC4.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E7%A9%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ancient forms&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;九 is a loan phonetic character. It is formed by a hook (句) and an indicative symbol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, let's consider the difference in these two explanations. The core problem is then clear:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KtGbP.png&quot; alt=&quot;upper.png&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;Is the upper part (colored blue) of nine an &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;indicative symbol (shape of a bar)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; or a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;hand (shape of the oracle glyph 又)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We will compare the oracle glyphs: 九, 又, and 厷.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;九 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E4%B9%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(Source: Chinese Etymology website)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gRxbp.png&quot; alt=&quot;hanzi-nine.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;又 &lt;em&gt;hand&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E5%8F%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(Source: Chinese Etymology website)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8qd5y.gif&quot; alt=&quot;hanzi-又.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;厷 &lt;em&gt;arm&lt;/em&gt; (Source: Dictionary of Oracle Scripts)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b4QCw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;厷.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we can see, the characteristic of the pattern of 又 , the &quot;hand part&quot;, is written in broken lines or an arc. However, the key part in most character forms of 九 is not written like that but just a straight bar. Only few of them are written like an arc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's interesting, the entry of 厷 in &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甲骨文或省指事符號作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o4Mvb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;厷like九.gif&quot;&gt;，致與九字形近。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... Some oracle glyph of 厷 would omit the indicative symbol to be written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o4Mvb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;厷like九.gif&quot;&gt;, which makes it look like 九.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, although the comparison result supports the opinion of &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt; more, as this ambiguity actually exists, I won't negate the opinion of &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;, but would like to consider the opinion of &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt; more reliable :D&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Rubbings&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;內公鐘(Ruigong Bell, 內 is an interchangeable character for 芮)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2hM4F.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Ruigong Bell&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;內(芮)公乍(作)從鐘，子孫永寶用。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(On the hook) 內(芮)公乍(作)鑄從鐘之句(鉤)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 1055.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aLUCQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;No.1055.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;四日&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B9%99%E9%85%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乙酉&lt;/a&gt;...九人...在...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-12-28T14:56:16.863" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T14:56:16.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5426" CreationDate="2013-12-28T15:16:46.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;【爱不释手】means love this object so much, doesn't want to put it away&#xA;Example: 我爱这个手机爱不释手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3732" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T15:16:46.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="464" CreationDate="2013-12-28T19:36:46.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One point that has been missed is that 根据 also has the use of &quot;according to [source of information]&quot;, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;根据［新闻社／政府部门／等］星期一发布的统计，什么什么什么.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This use appears frequently in news articles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: internship at the EVIL People's Daily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3114" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T19:36:46.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5047" CreationDate="2013-12-28T19:52:14.840" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't mean to stray from the text itself, but I think it helps to consider what Daoism is all about (a contentious topic, of course). The meaning in those opening lines, to me, reflects a larger theme in Daoism about how things are constantly changing, or impermanent, so while the word 'eternal' might have a bit too much monotheism / eternal god / etc. contained within it, I don't think that a word to the converse, like impermanent, is necessarily inappropriate. In other words, if you're not trying to do a word-by-word translation, combining 非 and 常／恒 gives you many more options in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These stories I think are thematically-appropriate illustrations of Daoism and impermanence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi#The_butterfly_dream&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhuangzi's butterfly dream&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://taoism21cen.com/story5.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhuangzi's story about his wife&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3114" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T19:52:14.840" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5443" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-29T06:49:24.777" Score="4" ViewCount="1997" Body="&lt;p&gt;People often regard Chinese, including Standard Mandarin, as a monosyllabic language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classical Chinese apparently was a monosyllabic language, where words consisted of a single syllable (a single character also equals a single syllable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Standard Mandarin still has quite a few single-syllable words/terms, but more common are two-syllable (two-character) terms, to the point where many common words have an &quot;empty&quot; second syllable &lt;code&gt;子&lt;/code&gt; literally meaning &quot;child&quot;. This turns old single-syllable words into two syllable words, and it's a bit like a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;diminutive&lt;/a&gt; in western languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also very many 4-syllable words and terms. Some seem to be made up of two 2-syllable words and others seem to be made up of four single-syllable words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But are there also three-syllable and five-syllable words? How common/rare are they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2013-12-29T07:48:37.623" LastActivityDate="2013-12-29T08:19:37.677" Title="How common are three-character or five-character words/terms in Standard Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5443" CreationDate="2013-12-29T07:21:28.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have any specific frequency data for you, but three and five syllable words certainly do exist.  Three syllable words are certainly less common than two syllable words but they do compose a decent amount of anyone's basic vocabulary (consider 毕业生), and five syllable words are fairly rare and restricted to certain proper nouns and the occasional fixed expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, as words get longer, it is less and less clear what counts as a single word.  ABC has 应届毕业生 as one word, but is it really one word or is it a stock expression composed of two words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2013-12-29T07:21:28.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5443" CreationDate="2013-12-29T08:19:37.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not so many but still exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example: &#xA;好心无好报: doesn't get good feedback/reward for a kindly heart.&#xA;小学生: student of primary school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but i found most of them actually are combined words. 小学生 is built by 小学 (primary school) and 学生 (student). after thinking about 5 min, i still cannot find a word with 3 or 5 chars but cannot be considered as a combination. except some words built from a story, just like idiom. If you like, search idioms with 3 or 5 letters. There are some, but not many.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2013-12-29T08:19:37.677" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3887" CreationDate="2013-12-29T09:24:18.673" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Etymology of 十, 廿(niàn), 卅(sà), 卌(xì)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Explanation in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3608&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;十 (ten)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“十”从金文开始成为指事字。“十”的甲骨文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ztDnG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1)(1).gif&quot;&gt;是象形字，像一根用于纪事的垂悬的绳子。古人用结绳纪事、计数，一根绳子代表一个纪事主题，代表全数。造字本义：一根用来打结纪事的绳子，代表满数、全数。金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3XFxg.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(1).gif&quot;&gt;承续甲骨文字形。有的金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJamQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2).gif&quot;&gt;在绳上加圆点指事符号&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mEHWw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2)jian(1).gif&quot;&gt;，表示结绳纪事。有的金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KOHZp.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(3).gif&quot;&gt;误将圆点&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mEHWw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2)jian(1).gif&quot;&gt;（绳结）写成短横&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FEPNk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(3)jian(1).gif&quot;&gt;。篆文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iPCF4.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[4]zhuan(1).gif&quot;&gt;承续金文字形&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KOHZp.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(3).gif&quot;&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;十 had become a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character#Simple_ideograms&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;simple ideograph character&lt;/a&gt; since he bronze script age. Its oracle glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ztDnG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1)(1).gif&quot;&gt; is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character#Pictograms&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pictograph character&lt;/a&gt;, and looks like a hanged rope for recording events. Ancient people tied knots on a rope to keep a record of events or numbers. One rope might stand for a subject, meaning &quot;all&quot;. The original idea of character construction: one rope with knots for recording events, stands for the &quot;whole number&quot;. The bronze glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3XFxg.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(1).gif&quot;&gt; inherits the oracle glyph, and some of them &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJamQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2).gif&quot;&gt; was added a round point &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mEHWw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2)jian(1).gif&quot;&gt; as an indicative symbol to mean &quot;tying knots to record&quot;; while some &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KOHZp.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(3).gif&quot;&gt; mistook the round point &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mEHWw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2)jian(1).gif&quot;&gt; (knot) for a short bar &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FEPNk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(3)jian(1).gif&quot;&gt;. Its seal glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iPCF4.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[4]zhuan(1).gif&quot;&gt; inherits its bronze glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KOHZp.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(3).gif&quot;&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3609&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;廿 (twenty)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;廿，甲骨文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vwM97.gif&quot; alt=&quot;11jia00.gif&quot;&gt;像两根纪事的绳子，一根绳子&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJamQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2).gif&quot;&gt;代表数目“十”，两根绳子&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJamQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2).gif&quot;&gt;、&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJamQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2).gif&quot;&gt;代表两个“十”。造字本义：二十，十的双倍。金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MoMCj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(1) (1).gif&quot;&gt;将两根有绳结的绳子相连接。有的金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jJNJG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2) (1).gif&quot;&gt;将绳结连成横线。篆文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DIOeQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[4]zhuan(1) (1).gif&quot;&gt;承续金文字形&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jJNJG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2) (1).gif&quot;&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;廿's oracle glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vwM97.gif&quot; alt=&quot;11jia00.gif&quot;&gt; looks like two ropes, one of which stands for the numeral ten, so two ropes &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJamQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2).gif&quot;&gt; and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJamQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2).gif&quot;&gt; make twenty. The original idea of character construction: twenty is double ten. The bronze glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MoMCj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(1) (1).gif&quot;&gt; shows two ropes with knots are tied together. Some bronze glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jJNJG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2) (1).gif&quot;&gt; replaces the knot with a bar. The seal glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DIOeQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[4]zhuan(1) (1).gif&quot;&gt; inherits the bronze glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jJNJG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2) (1).gif&quot;&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Explanation in 甲骨文字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;十 (ten)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MAcqS.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典十.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】丨為古代之算籌，竪置一籌表示數量十，以與橫置之算籌一區別，卜辭中十之五倍以上數字皆置倍數於十之下合書，如五十作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RBsD4.png&quot; alt=&quot;五十&quot;&gt;，六十作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LHl5J.png&quot; alt=&quot;六十&quot;&gt;等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; 丨 is an ancient counting rod. Placing it vertically means the numeral ten, so it can be different from the numeral one that is placed horizontally. In oracle inscriptions, numbers that are larger than fifty are written as &quot;joining the multiple under ten 丨&quot;. For example, fifty is written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RBsD4.png&quot; alt=&quot;五十&quot;&gt;, sixty is written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LHl5J.png&quot; alt=&quot;六十&quot;&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;廿 (twenty)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qibSg.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典廿.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】并連兩枚竪直之算籌以表示二十之數。《說文》：「廿，二十并也。」周金文作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/J3ldl.gif&quot; alt=&quot;廿1.gif&quot;&gt;（宰椃角），&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0DmwP.gif&quot; alt=&quot;廿2.gif&quot;&gt;（戊辰簋），與甲骨文同，後漸譌&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AIWfN.gif&quot; alt=&quot;廿3.gif&quot;&gt;（伊簋），&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2DUxd.gif&quot; alt=&quot;廿4.gif&quot;&gt;（曾姬無卹壺），&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bHr9y.gif&quot; alt=&quot;廿5.gif&quot;&gt;即為《說文》篆文所本。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; Placing two vertical counting rods side by side means the numeral twenty. &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; says: &quot;廿 is two 十s placing abreast.&quot; In Zhou Dynasty, the bronze scripts were written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/J3ldl.gif&quot; alt=&quot;廿1.gif&quot;&gt; (on Zaihao horn), &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0DmwP.gif&quot; alt=&quot;廿2.gif&quot;&gt; (on Wuchen vessel), the same as oracle scripts. After that, mistakenly, it was gradually written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AIWfN.gif&quot; alt=&quot;廿3.gif&quot;&gt; (on Yi vessel), &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2DUxd.gif&quot; alt=&quot;廿4.gif&quot;&gt; on (Princess Zeng No Worries kettle). So the glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bHr9y.gif&quot; alt=&quot;廿5.gif&quot;&gt; is the origin of the seal script of &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;卅 (thirty)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zdEUE.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典卅.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】并連三枚竪直之算籌以表示三十之數。《說文》：「&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4h5X2.gif&quot; alt=&quot;卅1.gif&quot;&gt;，三十并也。」金文作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SOuQI.gif&quot; alt=&quot;卅2.gif&quot;&gt;（昌鼎），與甲骨文同。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; Placing three vertical counting rods side by side means the numeral thirty. &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; says: &quot;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4h5X2.gif&quot; alt=&quot;卅1.gif&quot;&gt; is three 十s placing abreast.&quot; The bronze script is written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SOuQI.gif&quot; alt=&quot;卅2.gif&quot;&gt; (on Chang cooking vessel), the same as the oracle scripts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;卌 (forty)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FISQ9.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典卌.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】并連四枚竪直之算籌以表示四十之數，《說文》所無，見於《廣韻》。漢孔龢碑有之，作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nlTv1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;卌1.gif&quot;&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; Placing four vertical counting rods side by side means the numeral forty. Not found in &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; but in &lt;em&gt;Guangyun&lt;/em&gt;. In Han Dynasty, there was one on Konghe Stone Tablet, written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nlTv1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;卌1.gif&quot;&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Rubbings&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 10103: 年于[目口]...受年 &lt;strong&gt;十&lt;/strong&gt; 一月...不其受年...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cdQqw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 17489: 婦井示 &lt;strong&gt;二十(廿)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CGyOB.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 1513: 甲申卜乙酉侑祖乙三[宀羊][冊口] &lt;strong&gt;三十(卅)&lt;/strong&gt; 牛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m9zFB.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 33371: 丙戌卜丁亥王陷[凶十]允[凶十]三百又 &lt;strong&gt;四十&lt;/strong&gt; 八&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GAhCV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 11055: &lt;strong&gt;五十&lt;/strong&gt; 牛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e7Cf1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 11054: &lt;strong&gt;六十&lt;/strong&gt; 牛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AiUhE.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 20723: 鹿 &lt;strong&gt;七十&lt;/strong&gt; 一，豕四十一，麑百&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bctwz.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 27512: 妣戊于翌日 &lt;strong&gt;七十&lt;/strong&gt; 牛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gzx1b.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 37471: 貞王田于雞往來亡災，弘吉茲御獲狐 &lt;strong&gt;八十&lt;/strong&gt; 又六&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C6XMp.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 10407: ... &lt;strong&gt;九十&lt;/strong&gt; 又九 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cxkJF.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Criticism&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides the two explanations in these two dictionaries, there are also some other conjectures. For example, Guo Moruo said (in &lt;em&gt;古文字诂林&lt;/em&gt; volume 2):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国以一掌为十，故金文十字（像掌），…一竖而鼓其腹，亦象形也。 A palm in China means ten, so the bronze glyph (like a palm) ... one vertical stroke fat in abdomen, just a pictograph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I think they all make sense, that is to say, they don't contradict current archaeological findings. So before getting further evidence, they are all acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2013-12-30T08:05:55.593" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T08:05:55.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="464" CreationDate="2013-12-29T15:16:39.443" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a verb, 根据 simply means &quot;based on&quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;根据&lt;/b&gt;我的直觉(the basis)，他应该是一名教师。&lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Based on&lt;/strong&gt; my intuition, he should be a&#xA;  teacher. (direct translation)&lt;br&gt; My intuition tells me that he is a&#xA;  teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a noun, 根据 is the &quot;basis of something&quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你表达的只是你个人的看法，完全没有&lt;b&gt;根据&lt;/b&gt;。&lt;br&gt; What you have expressed is just your personal&#xA;  opinion, there is no &lt;strong&gt;basis&lt;/strong&gt; whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;按照 can only be used as a verb. It means &quot;in accordance to/with&quot;, or more specifically, &quot;as directed or required by&quot; something, which could be a rule, a tradition, a law, a set of instructions, etc. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;按照&lt;/b&gt;刑事法典第304（a）节条文(the rule)对误杀罪的刑罚规定，一旦罪名成立，可被判终身监禁，或坐牢最长20年，并可另加罚款或打鞭。&lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;In accordance with&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  the Criminal Code, Section 304(a) provisions for&#xA;  culpable homicide not amounting to murder, whoever convicted, may be&#xA;  sentenced to life imprisonment, or imprisonment of up to 20 years, and&#xA;  may also be liable to a fine or caning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As seen from the examples above and contrary to some answers, 按照 can also be used formally and 根据 informally. So, the formality is not really an issue. When used as verbs for the purpose of comparison, 按照 must be followed by a rule or direction, whereas 根据 must be followed by a basis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the rule forms the basis of a decision, then 根据 can be used. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;根据&lt;/b&gt;校方规定(rule as a basis)，经过授权的学生可以自由进入实验室。&lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Based on&lt;/strong&gt; the rules set by the [school]&#xA;  authority, students who have been authorized can enter the lab freely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2013-12-29T15:16:39.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5360" CreationDate="2013-12-30T03:37:18.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this word 卡壳了 can also be used in a situation like the following. (not only referring to speech):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, for performing the piece, memorizing it HS (=Hand-Separated)&#xA;  will be useful for recovering from &lt;strong&gt;blackouts&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（“&lt;strong&gt;卡壳了&lt;/strong&gt;”, or its noun form 卡壳 is a pretty good translation of &quot;blackouts&quot; here）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(From Fundamentals of Piano Practice PDF Page 107, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;ved=0CC4QFjAA&amp;amp;url=http://www.pianopractice.org/book.pdf&amp;amp;ei=durAUprKIor-2gX51oCQAw&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNE6pWOGnB85hqIYsEc-WiXzOIH5Rw&amp;amp;sig2=R3uVb8OtS_U_7gfSP8ff3Q&amp;amp;bvm=bv.58187178,d.b2I&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3358" LastEditorUserId="3358" LastEditDate="2013-12-30T03:43:08.643" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T03:43:08.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5451" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-30T05:55:06.263" Score="4" ViewCount="528" Body="&lt;p&gt;我最近对这个古代世界地图产生了特别浓厚的兴趣。但因为都是文言文，没有断句，非常难懂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想请问有没有谁知道这幅由利玛窦原创的地图曾经被学者翻译过么？ 在哪里可以找到全部文字的翻译呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它在&lt;a href=&quot;http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Kunyu_Wanguo_Quantu_%28%E5%9D%A4%E8%BC%BF%E8%90%AC%E5%9C%8B%E5%85%A8%E5%9C%96%29.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;这里&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am very interested in these old Chinese maps, such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunyu_Wanguo_Quantu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the 坤輿萬國全圖&lt;/a&gt;.  They are so advanced, and highly accurate for their time.   I hope someone out there can read the traditional Chinese.  I can recognise only a few characters, and what I really want is to get a feel for what the cartographer thought about Australia, and the Pacific.  Unfortunately with my limited Chinese literacy, I cannot get the full picture.  If someone would please translate for me the big blocks of text in the Pacific Ocean, and Australia, I would be so thankful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this doesn't get flagged.  I'm only posting here because this site is the best, and I feel like perhaps this could be of historical or educational significance to those studying Traditional Chinese, and who want to know more about the history of the Chinese people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2639" LastEditorUserId="2600" LastEditDate="2014-08-28T19:25:43.323" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T10:14:10.743" Title="翻译这个传统的中国地图 －－坤輿萬國全圖－－" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5360" CreationDate="2013-12-30T06:42:32.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means the round is stuck in the barrel&#xA;or sometimes it means your thought is stuck and can't come up with a solution&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T06:42:32.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5379" CreationDate="2013-12-30T06:45:53.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means what your plan is for tonight? how will you spend tonight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T06:45:53.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3887" CreationDate="2013-12-30T09:09:12.083" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Etymology of 百&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3611&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 百 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/11bSK.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1)jian(1).gif&quot;&gt;像是在舌头&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qmIGV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1)jian(2).gif&quot;&gt;上再画一个舌尖&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e0LK7.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1)jian(3).gif&quot;&gt;，表示不断鼓舌说话。百，甲骨文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TT9Km.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1).gif&quot;&gt;在（不断鼓舌说话）上方加一横指事符号**&lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt;**，造字本义：说不完道不尽。有的甲骨文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n3VIP.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(2).gif&quot;&gt;将&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/11bSK.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1)jian(1).gif&quot;&gt;写成&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q1pp3.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(2)jian(1).gif&quot;&gt;，像舌头&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qmIGV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1)jian(2).gif&quot;&gt;伸在嘴巴&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jGAPC.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(2)jian(2).gif&quot;&gt;之外，表示张口鼓舌，力图说明。金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qs0Fa.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(1).gif&quot;&gt;、&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dv4au.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2).gif&quot;&gt;、篆文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/J578e.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[4]zhuan(1).gif&quot;&gt;承续甲骨文字形。隶书&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MEQmK.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[5]li(2).gif&quot;&gt;有所变形。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/11bSK.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1)jian(1).gif&quot;&gt; looks like drawing the tip &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e0LK7.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1)jian(3).gif&quot;&gt; besides the tongue, it means &quot;endlessly talking with the tongue&quot;. The oracle glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TT9Km.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1).gif&quot;&gt; puts an indicative symbol &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; above it. The original idea of character construction: endlessly talking. Some oracle glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n3VIP.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(2).gif&quot;&gt; writes &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/11bSK.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1)jian(1).gif&quot;&gt; as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q1pp3.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(2)jian(1).gif&quot;&gt;, looking like the tongue &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qmIGV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(1)jian(2).gif&quot;&gt; is put out of the mouth &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jGAPC.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[1]jia(2)jian(2).gif&quot;&gt;. It would mean &quot;trying hard to illustrate something&quot;. Bronze glyphs &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qs0Fa.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(1).gif&quot;&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dv4au.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[2]jin(2).gif&quot;&gt;, and seal glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/J578e.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[4]zhuan(1).gif&quot;&gt; inherit its oracle glyph. The clerical glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MEQmK.gif&quot; alt=&quot;[5]li(2).gif&quot;&gt; changes a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Explanation in 甲骨文字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;百&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GbhCG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典百.gif&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】從一从&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mgRWp.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典百1.gif&quot;&gt;（白），&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mgRWp.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典百1.gif&quot;&gt;為古容器，復加指事符号**&lt;code&gt;∧&lt;/code&gt;**，遂為表示數目之百。《說文》：「百，十十也，从一白。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; Its radical is 一 or &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mgRWp.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典百1.gif&quot;&gt; (白). &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mgRWp.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典百1.gif&quot;&gt; is the ancient container, adding the indicative symbol &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;∧&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, it becomes the numeral &lt;em&gt;hundred&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;: &quot;百, ten times ten, radical 一 or 白.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Rubbings&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 50: 百&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jm5m0.gif&quot; alt=&quot;No. 50.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Criticism&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both explanations can justify themselves. So both are possible to be true.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T09:09:12.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5459" CreationDate="2013-12-30T14:55:58.513" Score="9" ViewCount="7269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm doing some translations of New Practical Chinese Reader 2. In lesson 17, there's a dialog between two people, and 不客气 appears as a reply to compliments rather than someone saying 谢谢。Is it supposed to be some kind of joke? I have left it as &quot;don't be polite&quot; in my translation for now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D6zIU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3739" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2014-01-06T20:51:35.460" LastActivityDate="2014-01-11T05:08:21.130" Title="How can I translate 不客气 here?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5456" CreationDate="2013-12-30T17:01:01.823" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a way we express humbleness. so the 不客气 is equivalent to &quot;I'm flattered&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T17:01:01.823" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2003" CreationDate="2013-12-30T19:22:44.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, the speed of reading Chinese and reading English are just not comparable. I can read a long paragraph written in Chinese at a single glance, and get almost all the essential meaning. Also, I could scan and locate the information I need in a hell long article almost instantly, provided it must be written in Chinese. I am trying to find a way that can make me achieve this in reading English articles, especially huge amount of academic content. I can now apply some rapid reading tricks to reading English stuff, but still cannot read a whole page at once, which seems to be natural when I am reading Chinese content.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important issue that prevents fast reading should be Sub-vocalization, not information processing limit, for educated people. Chinese symbols, if you have been enough familiar and sensitive to them, would result in reading Chinese at the speed of light. The logographic writing systems in Chinese are essential for extreme fast, non-linear reading, which is mentioned in a Chinese idiom “一目十行” -- &quot;reading ten lines at the same time&quot;; literally, &quot;one eye ten lines`.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3740" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T19:22:44.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5456" CreationDate="2013-12-30T22:31:26.443" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1791625.htm&quot;&gt;不客气&lt;/a&gt; is a polite way of acknowledging someone's compliment or thanks. Although it literally translates to &quot;don't be polite&quot;, once you consider some equivalent phrases, it's meaning becomes clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Equivalents in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不用谢 - (no need to thank [me])&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;别客气&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Equivalents in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You're too kind&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't mention it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not at all&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T22:31:26.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3887" CreationDate="2013-12-31T10:16:38.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Etymology of 千&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3612&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explanation of 千 in 象形字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;千，甲骨文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b8H9s.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;在人&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qtBUc.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;的小腿部位加一横指事符号**&lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt;**，表示不停地行走。造字本义：不停地走，跋山涉水，&lt;strike&gt;即“迁”的本字&lt;/strike&gt;（当“千”由本义“不停地行走”引申出数量词“十个一百”之后，甲骨文将“二千”二字写成“二”&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OtuBp.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;、“千”&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/897NS.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;重叠的一个字&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BLuL0.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;；将“五千”二字写成“五”&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cUHTc.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;、“千”&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/897NS.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;重叠的一个字&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GNhTj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;）。金文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eBDjb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;、篆文&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IH7aI.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;承续甲骨文字形。隶书&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QYtfL.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;变化较大，失去甲骨文、金文、篆文字形中的“人”形。&lt;strike&gt;当“千”的“不停行走”本义消失后，后代再加“辵”另造“迁”代替。&lt;/strike&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The oracle glyph of 千 &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b8H9s.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; adds an indicative symbol &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; on the man(&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qtBUc.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;)'s shank. It means &quot;continuously walking&quot;. The original idea of character construction: continuously walking, crossing mountains and rivers, &lt;strike&gt;it's the original character of 迁 (move)&lt;/strike&gt;. (When 千's original meaning &quot;continuous walking&quot; extended to &quot;ten times of one hundred&quot;, the oracle script wrote &quot;二&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OtuBp.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; 千&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/897NS.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&quot; as one overlapped character &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BLuL0.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;; and wrote &quot;五&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cUHTc.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; 千&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/897NS.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&quot; as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GNhTj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;.) Bronze script &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eBDjb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; and seal script &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IH7aI.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; inherited the oracle glyph. The clerical glyph &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QYtfL.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; changed a lot, lost the shape of a man (人). &lt;strike&gt;When the original meaning &quot;continuously walking&quot; of 千 disappeared, later 辵 was added to make it 迁 instead.&lt;/strike&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Discussion&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The conjecture &quot;千 was the original character of 迁 (move)&quot; on that website was made before the author knowing there were combined oracle glyphs like &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cRZR1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; and &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sNZP0.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;. A visitor with the nickname &quot;熊猫&quot; left his brilliant comments below that entry as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;熊猫 2012-12-22 5:43:30 说「千」为「迁」的初文，似不妥。甲骨文中还有「人」字腿上两横，「人」字腿上三横的字，就是两千和三千。所以「千」上的一横似没有更深的意思。况且小篆里面都没有「迁」这个字，只有「遷」。而且「遷」的异体字里，并无一个类似「迁」的字，可见「迁」本就是后人的俗字，无字理可言。以「迁」来附会「千」，实不妥。&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    2012-12-22 5:43:30 &lt;b&gt;Saying 千 is the original form of 迁 appears to be improper. In oracle scripts, there are also characters like &quot;two strokes on 人&quot; and &quot;three strokes on 人&quot;, which respectively mean &quot;two thousands&quot; and &quot;three thousands&quot;. So the one stroke in 千 shouldn't have a deeper meaning. Furthermore, in seal scripts, there isn't a character like &quot;迁&quot; but only &quot;遷&quot;; besides, in all the variant forms of 遷, there's no one like 迁. Thus essentially 迁 should be the folk form in the later times, without the principle of character forming as what the author has stated. Drawing a far-fetched conclusion for the false evolution &quot;千=&gt;迁&quot;, is really not proper.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This comment has pointed out all the potential mistakes in &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;'s theory, I fully agree with it. And the author replied:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;2012-12-26 3:32:07 感谢熊猫的批评与分享！“千”的甲骨文、金文字形十分丰富，绝大部分字形是“人”字加一横；至于极少数加两横、三横的，说明在造字时代“千”已经引申出了数词（十个百）的含义。&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    2012-12-26 3:32:07 Thanks for the criticism from 熊猫. The glyphs for 千 in oracle scripts and bronze scripts are very abundant, but almost all of them are &quot;one stroke adding to 人&quot;; for those tiny minority with &quot;two or three strokes on 人&quot;, it just suggests 千 had extended to a numeral in the character making age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However it hadn't refuted 熊猫's criticism well. So I left a comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;2013-10-7 14:42:43 赞同网友熊猫的意见。管理员所说“至于极少数加两横、三横的”，单论甲骨文，给人字加二加三的非常常见，甚至还有一些加四横和加“五”字的。在《甲骨文合集》里面如果我没数漏的话，有千字的甲骨一共101片，里面出现的合体千字一共51个（有些一片里面有多于一个），所以用【极少】来形容之，显然不妥。&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    2013-10-7 14:42:43 I agree with 熊猫's criticism. For &quot;those tiny minority with &quot;two or three strokes on 人&quot;, alone in oracle scripts, they are quite common, even you can find some of them with four strokes or oracle five on it. In &lt;em&gt;Collections of Oracle Bones&lt;/em&gt;, if I don't miss any, there are 101 pieces of bones with the character 千, 51 pieces of which have the &quot;combined character 千&quot; (some pieces contain more than one). Thus, using &quot;tiny minority&quot; to describe it, obviously, is not proper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And the author replied:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;2013-10-8 2:29:24 感谢溯度的批评！是的，“极少”的说法不妥！在“千”（并非“人”）字上加“二”或加“三”或加“四”或加“五”，本站以为这是古人对“二千”、“三千”、“四千”、“五千”简便合写，而这并不排除“千”的本义为“迁”：正因为“千”有“千万步不断前行”的本义，才引申出数量巨大的“十个百”的含义；而所谓“人+二”或“人+三”或“人+五”的字形，则是以“千”的引申义（数量词）为前提创造的字形。……今人未发现“迁”的金文、篆文，并不说明古代一定没有“迁”的金文、篆文，因为唐代楷书“迁”的字形，或许是全新创造，也可能是有所依循。“迁”强调长距离位移；“遷”强调为移居而转移。&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    2013-10-8 2:29:24 Thanks for the criticism! Yes, I admit the &quot;tiny minority&quot; description is not proper. But I think adding &quot;二&quot;, &quot;三&quot;, &quot;四&quot;, or &quot;五&quot; to the character 千 (not 人) was a convenient combining writing for ancient people. It doesn't exclude the original meaning of 千 is 迁. Just because 千 has an original meaning &quot;continuously walking forwards with thousands of steps&quot;, it can extends the large numeral meaning &quot;ten times of one hundred&quot;; The glyphs &quot;人+二&quot;, &quot;人+三&quot; or &quot;人+五&quot;, are based on the extended meaning of 千 (numeral). ... Although we cannot find any bronze script or seal script for the character 迁, it doesn't mean there mustn't be any in the ancient times, because the regular script 迁 in Tang Dynasty might be a new invention, and might be following something. (I think) 迁 emphasizes a long-distance displacement; and 遷 emphasizes &quot;migration&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Well, although this reply might be able to answer why &lt;code&gt;in seal scripts, there isn't a character like &quot;迁&quot; but only &quot;遷&quot;&lt;/code&gt; (without support of material evidence, though), it hadn't explained one crux: why &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;in all the variant forms of 遷, there's no one like 迁&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Thus, personally I haven't been convinced yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Explanation in 甲骨文字典 (&lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;千&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w43UC.gif&quot; alt=&quot;甲骨文字典千.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解字】《說文》：「千，十百也。从十从人。」甲骨文從一，&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iX0kB.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;（人）聲。以一加於人，借人聲為千。又甲骨文以加數目字於千字中表示數千，如二千作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bkJz4.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;，五千作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DUyiP.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;，等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Character Forming]&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; said: &quot;千, ten times of one hundred. Radical is 十 and 人.&quot; For the oracle script 千, it's radical is 一, sounds as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iX0kB.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; (人). Adding 一 to 人, borrowing the pronunciation of 人 as 千 (MY annotation: so it is a loan phonetic character). In oracle scripts, numerals can be added into the character 千 to mean several thousands, e.g. two thousand can be written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bkJz4.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, five thousand can be written as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DUyiP.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Rubbings&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 17909: &lt;strong&gt;千&lt;/strong&gt; ...七...白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u7NkS.gif&quot; alt=&quot;No. 17909 - 千...七...白.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 7771: 八日辛亥允伐 &lt;strong&gt;二千&lt;/strong&gt; 六百五十人在...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d0gcF.gif&quot; alt=&quot;No. 7771 - 八日辛亥允伐二千六百五十人在.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 33182: 召方 &lt;strong&gt;二千&lt;/strong&gt; 惟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1kg7l.gif&quot; alt=&quot;No. 33182 - 召方二千惟.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 6640 &amp;amp; 6641 &amp;amp; 6642: &lt;strong&gt;三千&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/N50uA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;No. 6640-6641-6642 - 三千.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 6175: 人 &lt;strong&gt;四千&lt;/strong&gt; 呼...貞共人呼見...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dN3AV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;No. 6175 - 人四千呼...貞共人呼見.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 7317: 人 &lt;strong&gt;五千&lt;/strong&gt; 呼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OG1z7.gif&quot; alt=&quot;No. 7317 - 人五千呼.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 17913: &lt;strong&gt;六千&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MzEzl.gif&quot; alt=&quot;No. 17913 - 六千.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 31997: &lt;strong&gt;八千&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DQJKs.gif&quot; alt=&quot;No. 31997 - 八千.gif&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2013-12-31T10:16:38.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3887" CreationDate="2013-12-31T13:31:09.103" Score="10" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Summary: Etymology of Number Characters&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/3888/2816&quot;&gt;一(one), 二(two), 三(three)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simple ideographs / Self-explanatory characters&lt;/a&gt;. Originate from the ancient counting rods. (Explanation from &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/4905/2816&quot;&gt;亖 and 四 (four)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;亖: Simple ideograph. Originate from the ancient counting rods.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;四: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Rebus_.28phonetic_loan.29_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Phonetic loan character&lt;/a&gt;. Come from 呬 or 泗. (Explanation from &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/4914/2816&quot;&gt;五 (five)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Phonetic loan character. Originate from 午 in 子午 (meridian). (Explanation from &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/4927/2816&quot;&gt;六 (six)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Phonetic loan character. Originate from 廬 (cottage/hut). (Explanation from &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5421/2816&quot;&gt;七 (seven)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Phonetic loan character. Originate from 切 (cut). (Explanation from &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5424/2816&quot;&gt;八 (eight)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Phonetic loan character. Original meaning is 分别 (being parted). (Explanation from &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5438/2816&quot;&gt;九 (nine)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Phonetic loan character. Original meaning is 鉤 (hook). (Explanation from &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5446/2816&quot;&gt;十 (ten), 廿(niàn, twenty), 卅(sà, thirty), 卌(xì, forty)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Simple ideographs. Originate from counting rods. One vertical rod stands for one ten. (Explanation from &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pictographs. Originate from the rope for keeping records by tying knots. One rope stands for one ten. (Explanation from &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5455/2816&quot;&gt;百 (hundred)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Phonetic loan character. Originate from 白 (a kind of ancient container). (Explanation from &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Simple ideograph. It means &quot;endlessly talking with the tongue&quot; and then extends to one hundred. (Explanation from &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Pictographs&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5462/2816&quot;&gt;千 (thousand)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Phonetic loan character. It borrows the pronunciation of 人 (human). (Explanation from &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Oracle Scripts&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;i&gt;Note: As the number characters can date from a very ancient age, the research on their etymologies can hardly be a rigorous science -- it inevitably involves subjective conjectures. The explanations I picked above are the ones I consider &quot;appearing more reliable&quot;, i.e., for which less contradiction are found among archaeological findings. However, I don't mean they are the very truth. I will appreciate comments and edits that would refine these answers. Thank you!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2013-12-31T13:31:09.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5303" CreationDate="2013-12-31T15:03:12.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;地 is just an adverb marker, similar to &lt;em&gt;-ly&lt;/em&gt; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高兴的  happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高兴地  happily&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2013-12-31T15:03:12.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5285" CreationDate="2013-12-31T15:08:30.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你什么都不是。  You are not anything at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么 what (using the extending meaning &quot;anything&quot; here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都 at all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不是 &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt;, an auxiliary word means negative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2013-12-31T15:08:30.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5213" CreationDate="2013-12-31T15:19:42.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;饿 is a verb meaning the state &lt;strong&gt;from full to hunger&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e. &lt;strong&gt;become hungry&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我饿了 literal meaning: I have become hungry already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2013-12-31T15:19:42.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5332" CreationDate="2013-12-31T15:29:12.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;脏话&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;F-word&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;profanity&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;脏&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;dirty&lt;/code&gt;, implies &lt;code&gt;sex organs&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;sexual intercourse&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;话&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;language&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;words&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the literal meaning of &lt;code&gt;脏话&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;dirty words&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;脏话&lt;/code&gt; stands for some words about sex organs used to insult people, that is to say, &lt;code&gt;profanity&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;F-word&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;这里能说脏话吗？&lt;/code&gt; stands for &lt;code&gt;May I speak F-words here?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, another example mentioned by user fabregaszy: &lt;code&gt;我能说脏话吗？不能？那我就没什么可说的。&lt;/code&gt; stands for &lt;code&gt;May I speak F-words? No? Then I have nothing to say.&lt;/code&gt; It shows that the speaker is extremely angry of this decision so I have to say nothing except F-words to the decision maker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2013-12-31T17:28:09.077" LastActivityDate="2013-12-31T17:28:09.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-31T15:50:36.397" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The modern handwriting scripts of Chinese characters are 楷书, 行书 and 草书.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;楷书 is the standard and official handwriting script, which is made up by 笔画 (strokes) and looks like printing script. It is the only handwriting script taught in primary schools in China, because it is the only legal standard of handwriting script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行书 is the handwriting script that writes much faster and much more scrawled than 楷书. It is a shortcut of Chinese characters. 行书 connects several strokes together as if one stroke in order to write faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;草书 is the handwriting script that writes much faster and much more scrawled than 行书. It is a better shortcut of Chinese characters, because it connects more strokes and even omits many strokes, in order to write much faster. However, 草书 is too scrawled to be recognized even by native Chinese speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For most of the native Chinese adults, 行书 is used in handwriting, because 楷书 writes too slowly and 草书 is too difficult to recognize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bSJnt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;楷书&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bM1Eu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;行书&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xXDeU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;草书&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2013-12-31T16:21:28.630" LastActivityDate="2013-12-31T16:21:28.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5451" CreationDate="2014-01-01T01:54:03.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many of the names have Japanese katakana so if you (learn to) read katakana, that will help you. E.g., in Europe, Italy 意大利亞 has イタリア (i-ta-ri-a), and in the Pacific, Solomon Islands 沙蠟門島 has サラモん (sa-ra-mon). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some katakana and Chinese don't match though, like Madagascar, which katana is マダカスカ (ma-da-ka-su-ka) but the Chinese is 仙勞冷祖島 (with a Chinese approximation of Madagascar as an also-known-as, &quot;一名XXXXX&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Australia looks totally wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3717" LastActivityDate="2014-01-01T01:54:03.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5456" CreationDate="2014-01-01T02:16:48.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you are offered something (food, drink, etc.) it's a way to express &quot;Make yourself at home/Help yourself/etc&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3508" LastActivityDate="2014-01-01T02:16:48.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36" CreationDate="2014-01-01T02:24:03.283" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Counting the characters doesn't make sense at all. It doesn't really say much about your proficiency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3508" LastActivityDate="2014-01-01T02:24:03.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5472" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5485" CreationDate="2014-01-01T10:34:36.893" Score="14" ViewCount="2453" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人是铁，饭是钢，一顿不吃烦得慌&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can not really figure out to translate this sentence. I guess it basically means that not eating is a bad thing. The first sentences - do they indicate that &quot;iron&quot; and &quot;steel&quot; belongs together, and so does &quot;man&quot; and &quot;food&quot;, and it there is one, there better be the other, and thus - not eating is a terrible thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would this be a correct understanding - or what else is the logic behind this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3174" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2014-01-08T04:33:37.890" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T11:27:26.703" Title="How to translate: 人是铁，饭是钢，一顿不吃烦得慌. What is the logic?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5472" CreationDate="2014-01-01T11:20:55.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a Chinese slang which doesn't have very solid logic in it. It's very hard to track the original source of this expression but most people guess it's getting more and more popular in 1980s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was a child, my grandma often said this when I wasn't likely to have food on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally think this is because Chinese people were so hungry in 1960s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may want to read the following topics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://donwagner.dk/MS-English/MS-English.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://donwagner.dk/MS-English/MS-English.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-01-01T11:20:55.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5472" CreationDate="2014-01-01T16:00:33.737" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idiom's meaning is reinforced by the rhyme. I think you have the basic meaning correct. Maybe if you rhyme it in English it'll come out more like the Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;People are iron/Rice is steel/You'll feel like crap without a meal&quot; - not a literal meaning, but conveying the gist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3750" LastActivityDate="2014-01-01T16:00:33.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5475" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-01T18:04:47.080" Score="2" ViewCount="1132" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning Chinese, and I was confused on how to use the previously mentioned phrases in a sentence. Is it possible that someone could put them into a basic sentence so I could get a basic understanding of the two phrases? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what is the difference between: 比, 比较, and 较?  How would you use them in a sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not have a certain context in mind, anything works! (It would be nice to have the sentences short, since it would be a lot easier for me to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you very much!　&#xA;谢谢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3751" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-08T08:08:47.340" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T08:08:47.340" Title="How do you use 附近的 in a sentence? Also, 所有的？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-08-11T17:26:05.127" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5475" CreationDate="2014-01-01T22:02:26.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;附近的 and 所有的 can both function as adjectives.  So 附近的+Noun would be &quot;the neighboring/nearby Noun&quot; and 所有的+Noun would be &quot;all the Noun.&quot;  As for 比, 比较, and 较, I suggest looking them up in a good dictionary (many people like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net&lt;/a&gt; as an online dictionary) and reading the explanations given for each, paying careful attention to the different grammatical functions of each.  Then, if you have a specific question based on what you have learned, you will probably be able to get a useful answer here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2014-01-02T02:21:52.573" LastActivityDate="2014-01-02T02:21:52.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5472" CreationDate="2014-01-01T23:13:27.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To understand such an unsophisticated phrase, one should look for the most straight-forward and culturally obvious explanation. That is, I don't think analysing the chemical properties of iron and steel will be the right way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, there is one very obvious relationship between iron and steel: steel is tougher than iron. This fact is historically and culturally well known in China; for example there's a chengyu called &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/8/10f/294500.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;恨铁不成钢&lt;/a&gt;&quot; (lit. to wish that iron can turn into steel), which can be seen in &lt;em&gt;Dream of the Red Chamber&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I believe the logic is that &quot;you may think you are tough, but you are not tough at all without a meal&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-01-01T23:13:27.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5475" CreationDate="2014-01-02T01:59:50.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;附近的&lt;/code&gt; , &lt;code&gt;所有的&lt;/code&gt; are adjectives. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;附近的&lt;/code&gt; common usage: &lt;code&gt;附近的&lt;/code&gt;+{Object} , means {Object} is near.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;所有的&lt;/code&gt; common usage: &lt;code&gt;所有的&lt;/code&gt;+{Object} , means all {Object}.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*&lt;em&gt;附近的&lt;/em&gt;*建筑非常漂亮。&#xA;  Nearby buildings are very beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;附近*&lt;em&gt;所有的&lt;/em&gt;*建筑都非常漂亮。&#xA;  All nearby buildings are very beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E6%AF%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;比&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E6%AF%94%E8%BC%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;比较&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E8%BC%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;较&lt;/a&gt; they all have the meaning &lt;code&gt;To compare,To contrast&lt;/code&gt; . Their usage are very complex. Let me just show some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我比你高&#xA;  I am taller than you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;和你家比较，我家更大。&#xA;  To compare with your house, my house is bigger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastEditorUserId="3706" LastEditDate="2014-01-02T02:43:07.840" LastActivityDate="2014-01-02T02:43:07.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5475" CreationDate="2014-01-02T02:03:43.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a chinese and i will give you a few examples below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;附近的超市真多 means There are lots of supermarket nearby&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;所有的人请站起来 means Everyone please stand up&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我所有的朋友都住在附近 means All of my friends are living nearby me&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.比, 比较, and 较&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我比你矮 means I am shorter then you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我最近比较忙 means I am so busy recently&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;较 Generally speaking, this word usually combine with &quot;比&quot; , so i can't memory any sentence with a single 较&#xA;比：usually use in a comparison while &quot;比较&quot; usually means relatively, rather, fairl or quite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3702" LastActivityDate="2014-01-02T02:03:43.223" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5475" CreationDate="2014-01-02T02:28:43.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not 100% sure with what you are asking for but let me try with the things right off my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;附近的&quot; can only be used to mean that somehow physically near by, and it is not used to measure something past in time -- &quot;刚才的&quot; is used to measure the past time. &#xA;Example: 你刚才说的我听不懂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比   -- to compare. &#xA;Example: 你的英语比我好(Your English is better than mine). 比一比，看谁比较重（To compare it, Let use see whom is relatively heavier) Please notice I put a &quot;比较&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比较 -- to compare, or relatively, or to some degree. &#xA;Example for comparision: 比较下来，我还是最喜欢stackexchange.(After some comparison, I decided that I liked StackExchange best.&#xA;Example for relatively: 我比较喜欢吃水果. (I prefer fruits). Please notice the degree of preference here is not that strong, just a slightly inclined intention).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;较   -- sometime this is used as a shorten form of 比较. This is not commonly used compared with 比较. &#xA;Example: 我比较喜欢两个女人中胸部较大的那个(Among these two women, I prefer the one with bigger boobs). Please note that here again I gave the example of 比较. And if you replace the 较 with 比较, it is 100% ok except a little bit of tendentious. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3753" LastActivityDate="2014-01-02T02:28:43.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3830" CreationDate="2014-01-02T07:02:54.250" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll answer based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4871440d0100027c.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the article&lt;/a&gt; provided by @Stan. From what I can tell, it is a transcription from a 1999 article that appeared in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ywjs.cc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《语文建设》&lt;/a&gt;, the raw data of which came from &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com.au/books/about/%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E6%88%90%E8%AF%AD%E8%80%83%E9%87%8A%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8.html?id=4XIxAQAAIAAJ&amp;amp;redir_esc=y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉语成语考释词典 by 刘洁修, 1989&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Period                           | Number | Percent&#xA;---------------------------------+--------+--------&#xA;春秋以前 Before Spring and Autumn |     88 |    1.21&#xA;春秋 Spring and Autumn           |    320 |    4.41&#xA;战国 Warring States              |    232 |    3.19&#xA;秦 Qin                           |      1 |    0.01&#xA;两汉 Han                         |    479 |    6.59&#xA;三国 Three Kingdoms              |     96 |    1.32&#xA;两晋 Jin                         |    198 |    2.73&#xA;南朝 Southern Dynasties          |    270 |    3.72&#xA;北朝 Northern Dynasties          |     71 |    0.98&#xA;隋 Sui                           |     16 |    0.22&#xA;唐 Tang                          |    711 |    9.79&#xA;五代 Five Dynasties              |     75 |    1.03&#xA;两宋 Song                        |   1251 |   17.22&#xA;金 Jin (Jurchen)                 |     36 |    0.50&#xA;元 Yuan                          |    401 |    5.52&#xA;明 Ming                          |    854 |   11.76&#xA;清 Qing                          |   1494 |   20.57&#xA;Modern/Unknown                   |    671 |    9.24&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BNUlw.png&quot; alt=&quot;totals&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But these numbers aren't all directly comparable; some dynasties such as Qin only existed very briefly, others such as North/South dynasties co-existed. I've therefore combined some and produced a graph showing number of chengyu per year:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QzBpA.png&quot; alt=&quot;per year&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Caveats&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the number of years &quot;before Qin&quot;, I started counting from the Zhou dynasty.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's probably unfair to show the &quot;Modern/Unknown&quot; category as-is; strictly speaking, the source material only categorises up to Qing dynasty, but according to the source, &quot;most&quot; of those in this category are probably modern.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;On determining the source of a chengyu&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not easy determining the source of a chengyu, since like the rest of the language, it evolves and even changes meaning over time. The method used in these statistics is &lt;strong&gt;the first record of a chengyu in its modern form&lt;/strong&gt;. This would necessarily bias the data towards more recent ages, even though those chengyu either had different forms earlier, or were modern chengyu based on older origins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use an example from the article, the chengyu &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/c/103/276762.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;镜花水月&lt;/a&gt; is recorded as appearing in Ming, however it had appearances earlier:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Jin, there is the passage &quot;如镜中像、水中月，见如有色，而无触等，则非色也&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Tang/Song, there is &quot;水月镜像&quot;; at this stage it is not quite chengyu as its form has not yet stabilised&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, even in Ming, this chengyu had a different meaning to its modern meaning. Its modern meaning only appeared in Qing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the results may differ quite a lot depending on how you determine the origin of a chengyu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-01-02T07:02:54.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5149" CreationDate="2014-01-02T08:45:38.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's an  animation named &quot;喜洋洋和灰太狼&quot; might give you a little help. It is usually for Chinese children at 3-4 years old when they start to learn the Chinese. &#xA;I am a chinese native speaker, if you have any other problem,I'm glad to help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3731" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T15:08:50.707" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T15:08:50.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5484" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-02T16:44:11.567" Score="5" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;After carefully listening to the tapes of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.assimil.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Assimil&lt;/a&gt; &quot;Chinese with ease&quot;, I noticed that the pronunciation by the native speakers of a few characters differs from the standard tones: 多 pronounced with a 2nd tone, 複雜 3-2， 回來 2-4, 因爲 1-4...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did not found any information about it on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt;, and would like to know whether some dictionaries would reference such change in tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3390" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-03T07:22:26.840" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T07:22:37.297" Title="non-standard tone pronunciation" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5472" CreationDate="2014-01-02T18:17:34.647" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;在改革开放以前，大陆这边搞政治运动和大跃进嘛。为了“赶英超美”，提出“大炼钢铁”，所以就喜欢把人称为“铁人”、”铁姑娘“来表示这个人能吃苦、会劳动，是对人的一种褒美。&#xA;而对于饭，俗文化中认为“吃软饭”代表一个男人靠他的女人过活，所以“饭硬得像钢“也是对饭和人的褒美。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽管如此，根据某些意见，当时要是说出这样的话属于觉悟低，甚至要被扣上“阴谋颠覆生产”的罪状。所以可能和政治没有关系。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;引用&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.zdic.net/thread-184770-2-1.html&quot;&gt;汉典论坛的讨论&lt;/a&gt;，“人是铁，饭是钢”有两个含义：1. 人是铁，但饭比铁厉害，铁是斗不过钢的。不吃饭是不行的。2. 人是铁，经过吃饭，锻炼成钢。以上的观点源自商务印书馆出版、由日本语言学者集体编写的《现代汉日辞海》中谚语“人是铁，饭是钢”一词的解释。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the Reformation and Open Doors, in mainland China were many political movements and the Great Leap Forward Movement (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward&lt;/a&gt;). The Chinese leaders that time dreamed of 赶英超美 （'leaping' beyond UK and USA), and since the production is the basis of heavy industry, it was very much emphasized. As a result, in that time, we used to describe a man or woman as 'iron'(“铁人”、”铁姑娘“) to show our admiration towards their toughness and as an honor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for rice being steel, in vulgar culture, 吃软饭 ((to be used to) eating soft(well-cooked) rice) for a man means to live upon his wife/lover's wealth, which is not good. So, this metaphor here is to emphasize a good sense in it, and it really goes with this expression because of the rhyme and the consistency between 铁 &amp;amp; 钢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though, at that time, saying something like this aloud will be regarded as not understanding true Communism, and might be sentenced sinful privately in the name of &quot;reversing production with conspiracy&quot;, which suggests it might have nothing to do with politics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to some web discussion posted @ &lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.zdic.net/thread-184770-2-1.html&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt;, someone has looked in the Chinese-Japanese dictionary 现代汉日辞海 where 2 explanations are given. 1. The human is iron, but rice is more useful than 'iron'. Since iron is weaker, it is incredible to have no rice. 2. He who is iron, after having rice  becomes steal. The whole process is abbreviated to the word 是, since it is an idiom who must conncentrate it into a single character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2014-01-08T01:16:20.270" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T01:16:20.270" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5472" CreationDate="2014-01-02T21:56:57.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;人是铁，饭是钢，一顿不吃烦得慌.&#xA;Rén shì tiě, fàn shì gāng, yī dùn bù chī fán de huāng.&#xA;People are iron, rice is steel, to not eat a meal is to be hungry and need to be in a panic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3549" LastActivityDate="2014-01-02T21:56:57.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2014-01-02T22:39:52.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你给我滚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nǐ gěi wǒ gǔn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You for the benefit of me, get lost !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3549" LastActivityDate="2014-01-02T22:39:52.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5484" CreationDate="2014-01-02T23:16:53.577" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three things going on here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;多 pronounced with a 2nd tone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you observe carefully, you may notice that all examples of 多 with 2nd tone occur when the following character is 4th tone. I believe this is an erroneous extension of the same rule for the characters &quot;一&quot; (yī) and &quot;不&quot; (bù), which both become 2nd tone when the following character is 4th tone, such as the words &quot;一定&quot;, &quot;不够&quot; etc. Standard Mandarin does not apply this rule for 多, but some dialects may.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;複雜 as 3-2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure about this one; may be a dialect thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Last character of word turned into 4th tone, e.g. 回來, 因爲&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually the tone disappears instead of being 4th tone - it only sounds like 4th tone. It occurs when the last character is unstressed, it loses its tone and sometimes may have its vowel reduced too. Consider the following examples: 东西 dōngxi, 父亲 fùqin, 耳朵 ěrduo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few more rules covered in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Wikipedia article on Standard Chinese phonology&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-03T07:22:37.297" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T07:22:37.297" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2014-01-03T07:43:21.560" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;code&gt;给我&lt;/code&gt; has a meaning of 'order' and 'command'. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你们给我听好了...&lt;/code&gt; is usually used when a commander is giving orders to his soldiers (and they would never disobey or even doubt the content)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-01-03T07:43:21.560" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5149" CreationDate="2014-01-03T13:13:44.913" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why visualize something that you need not to learn not by your eyes, but by your ears? Listen to whatever audio you can download until you feel familiar with them. And don't listen to that &quot;Colloquial Mandarin&quot; / &quot;Easy Mandarin&quot; / &quot;Superfast Mandarin&quot; junk. Half of the time English is spoken on the CD, not Chinese, so you are spending more than half of your time learning English, rather than Chinese. The best audio is published by the Beijing Foreign Language Universtiy &lt;code&gt;北京语言大学出版社&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Download &lt;code&gt;Audacity&lt;/code&gt;, load the audio, select small portions of the audio and play them again and again. Speak along and sometimes record yourself and listen back. You will hear how bad your pronunciation is, because you hear the right thing, but produce something different. This is the biggest obstacle: you think you pronounce it right, but you don't. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best exercise is to contrast the tones: compare each with one another and make sure you can make them different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in the beginning listening to audio material, where the speakers are extra slow to make you less irritated about the speed, is OK, but in the long run, you don't want to listen to them. Otherwise you will never get accustomed to everyday normal-speed speech. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember: don't expect to make progress fast. Most likely you will need months to get these things right. I know some people who never got it right, and no Chinese understand them. I feel embarrassed when they try to speak Chinese and I have to repeat what they say to make the Chinese understand what they are trying to say. Take your time and get it right, rather than never master it and get stuck for the rest of your life (and make every Chinese smile around you because no one understands you...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3508" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-03T16:24:37.517" LastActivityDate="2014-01-03T16:24:37.517" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2003" CreationDate="2014-01-03T13:46:59.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Senseless question. You wouldn't acknowledge, but you scan 'images', too when reading English. You never read a word letter-by-letter, unless you encounter something that is not familiar to you, foreign names, etc.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3508" LastActivityDate="2014-01-03T13:46:59.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5493" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5496" CreationDate="2014-01-03T22:03:51.373" Score="9" ViewCount="824" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm playing around with my mother tongue so I tried to translate sentences that I might write into Chinese. One of them was this sentence, in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The great strength of Annie comes from the long range of her fire ball.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I put in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安妮的主力是她的很长的(???)火球.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should be in the missing slot?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3760" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-08T08:07:52.843" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T08:07:52.843" Title="For video games terminology, what is the proper translation for &quot;range&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5493" CreationDate="2014-01-03T22:12:54.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use 射程, which means &quot;range of fire&quot; in English. Are you sure that you have all those 的s in the right place?  Although 远程 is the more common way of expressing long range, it obviously cannot be inserted into the sentence given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2014-01-06T20:14:49.677" LastActivityDate="2014-01-06T20:14:49.677" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5456" CreationDate="2014-01-04T02:04:17.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;don't mention it&quot; would be the best here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally &quot;no worries&quot; works too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3761" LastActivityDate="2014-01-04T02:04:17.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5493" CreationDate="2014-01-04T04:59:17.977" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In gaming field, &lt;code&gt;(of) long range&lt;/code&gt; is commonly translated into &lt;code&gt;远程&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;远距离&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;ranged attacked&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;远程攻击&lt;/code&gt;. You can use &lt;code&gt;射程&lt;/code&gt; when you want to express the notion of &lt;code&gt;range&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, &lt;code&gt;主力&lt;/code&gt; is not the right word for &lt;code&gt;strength&lt;/code&gt;. If you use &lt;code&gt;主力&lt;/code&gt; here, it means &lt;code&gt;primary (attack method)&lt;/code&gt;. To say &lt;code&gt;strength&lt;/code&gt; you may want to use &lt;code&gt;强项&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;优势&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would translate this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The great strength of Annie comes from the long range of her fire ball.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安妮最大的优势是她远距离的火球。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-01-06T19:02:00.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5498" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5499" CreationDate="2014-01-05T02:03:53.463" Score="1" ViewCount="472" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently at an art gallery, I was introduced to some works of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takashi_Murakami&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Takashi Murakami&lt;/a&gt;. On quite a few of his paintings were symbols which looked like Chinese, some sort of a seal perhaps. There was a painting I really liked and I took a snapshot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q99N4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so we see three symbols and then what looks like a seal. This is just one corner of the huge painting. My question is, what are these symbols? What do they mean? Are they Chinese, Japanese, or Kanji? My guess is Chinese and hence the post here. Do they collectively have a meaning? Is there a meaning-in-context here perhaps because they are on a painting?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3758" LastActivityDate="2014-01-05T02:11:42.640" Title="Chinese symbols on a Murakami painting?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2014-01-14T00:20:00.167" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5498" CreationDate="2014-01-05T02:11:42.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is “澗声”, which means the sound of the mountain stream.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3754" LastActivityDate="2014-01-05T02:11:42.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5500" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-05T20:11:23.613" Score="8" ViewCount="747" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the expression 冰雪聪明 (bīng xuě cōng míng) really only used for girls? The literal translation is &quot;snow smart&quot; and I understand it means something along the lines of &quot;extremely smart&quot; but the times I've tried using it for boys/men I'm told it's only for girls. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3770" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2014-01-06T02:00:00.913" LastActivityDate="2021-02-26T17:23:44.417" Title="冰雪聪明... only for girls?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5500" CreationDate="2014-01-05T20:30:55.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to baidu (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/117274.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/117274.htm&lt;/a&gt;), it is usually used to describe women, but can occasionally be used to describe men as well.  &quot;这个词通常用来形容年轻女子。 ... 有时也可用于才貌双全的男性。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2014-01-05T20:30:55.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5500" CreationDate="2014-01-05T22:13:25.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say, in most cases it is used to describe young girls. In some other cases, if people want to make their comments/conversation to take a flavor of humor, they can be used to describe boys/men.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才貌双全 is relatively more neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3582" LastActivityDate="2014-01-05T22:13:25.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5456" CreationDate="2014-01-05T22:23:58.487" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think those &quot;不客气&quot; are of proper usage in daily life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it is from a cross-talking (相声), I think the author of this 相声 is trying to be sarcastic [otherwise, it would not be funny]: some people pretend to be humble and polite but in their heart they are actually very arrogant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of someone who is complimented says &quot;You're welcome&quot;  instead of &quot;Thank you&quot; or &quot;I am flattered&quot;. Same story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3582" LastEditorUserId="3582" LastEditDate="2014-01-08T01:08:02.307" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T01:08:02.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5504" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-06T07:19:33.280" Score="1" ViewCount="406" Body="&lt;p&gt;What software do most of you using for typing Chinese characters, and is it developed by someone Chinese? I am using Sougou.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3771" LastEditorDisplayName="user3410" LastEditDate="2014-01-06T11:48:23.470" LastActivityDate="2014-01-06T11:48:23.470" Title="how do you type a Chinese Character in computer?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2014-01-06T11:48:52.460" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5504" CreationDate="2014-01-06T07:48:46.477" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Windows, there are so many tools to help you to type Chinese characters. Such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/ime/pinyin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;google pinyin&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.microsoft.com/china/pinyin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Microsoft pinyin IME&lt;/a&gt;(if you know pinyin of the Chinese characters), and so on. If you use Ubuntu, there are also many options, type the command to install scim &lt;code&gt;sudo apt-get install scim scim-pinyin&lt;/code&gt;, or you can try iBus(I use it in linux): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sudo apt-get install ibus ibus-clutter ibus-gtk ibus-gtk3 ibus-qt4 &#xA;sudo apt-get install ibus-pinyin&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;after you install them, enable or disable them by hitting Control + Space by default then you can type Chinese characters by Pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3187" LastEditorUserId="3187" LastEditDate="2014-01-06T07:57:16.560" LastActivityDate="2014-01-06T07:57:16.560" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5504" CreationDate="2014-01-06T11:37:24.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will give you another way to input Chinese without installing any software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enter &lt;a href=&quot;https://mail.google.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Gmail&lt;/a&gt; setting&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In General setting, under Language&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Enable input tools - Use various text input tools to type in the language of your choice&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, and Click &lt;strong&gt;Edit tools&lt;/strong&gt; choose 拼音 or 漢語拼音&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can type Chinese when you are writing email.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5OjjYC-e-zg/UsqXsKr8yuI/AAAAAAAAaVM/OQ4GjEDnY78/w379-h203-no/2014-01-06_192816.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I believe it works with &lt;a href=&quot;http://drive.google.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Drive&lt;/a&gt; too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastEditorUserId="3706" LastEditDate="2014-01-06T11:47:34.067" LastActivityDate="2014-01-06T11:47:34.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5500" CreationDate="2014-01-06T12:02:47.703" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;冰雪聪明 always describes that someone is very clever and smart. It comes from &lt;code&gt;唐·杜甫《送樊二十三侍御赴汉中判官》诗：“坐知七曜历，手画三军势。冰雪净聪明，雷霆走精锐。”&lt;/code&gt;. But &lt;code&gt;冰雪聪明&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;not only for girl&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;冰雪聪明&lt;/code&gt; can be used to describe the child too----冰雪聪明的孩子, but be careful when you use it to describe adult, especially male adult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples in ancient articles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以冰雪聪明的文章，写雷霆精锐的思想，这种议论，就容易动人听闻了。（清·曾朴《孽海花》第十回）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姬冰雪聪明，靡不淹悟，类多韜匿不言。(清·陈孟楷 《湘烟小录·香畹楼忆语》)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.udn.com/glwang/3277222&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;為何叫冰雪聰明&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-01-06T12:02:47.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5508" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5510" CreationDate="2014-01-06T20:35:49.727" Score="2" ViewCount="1102" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far I have &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;President • 总统&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FOUNDER • 创办人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CEO • 主席&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CMO • 营销总监&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these the correct characters to use on a business card for each title listed above?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-01-07T22:44:58.280" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T22:44:58.280" Title="Proper translations on manager titles on business cards" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5456" CreationDate="2014-01-07T00:09:19.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My money is on: 别客气 in the 5th line should be &quot;Oh, you're just being polite&quot;. In subsequent lines it might be &quot;No, no, no&quot;. But the use of 不客气 in succession like this sounds weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3776" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T00:09:19.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5508" CreationDate="2014-01-07T00:46:44.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will go over your list one by one. Please note I am talking about the mainland and not sure it is true for HK or Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) President • 总统&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is true only if this president is managing a country, otherwise don't call him/her 总统.&#xA;Depends on the type of organization, a president could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;总统 if he/she is the top governor of a country&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;主席 if he/she is the leader of a club&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;董事长 if he/she is the chairman of a board&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;校长 if he/she is the leader of a school&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this one could be tricky and you really need to bring the context in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) FOUNDER • 创办人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This translation is fine, or you can say 创始人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) CEO • 主席&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most cases this will be translated to 总裁, but it can also be left as is and no translation required... It has been kind of a fashion to print CXO in the business card or title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) CMO • 营销总监&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3753" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T00:46:44.060" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5511" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5518" CreationDate="2014-01-07T09:30:57.390" Score="3" ViewCount="1233" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请优先发给我，抄送其他人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it: &quot;please reply to me and cc others&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or does 优先 express the priority, the emergency of the issue and that translation should be: &quot;please reply to me ASAP, and keep others in the loop&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3778" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T23:19:15.220" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T23:19:15.220" Title="how to translate &quot;请优先发给我，抄送其他人&quot; in an email?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5508" CreationDate="2014-01-07T13:01:16.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;President • 总统 (for people like Obama)、 董事长 (chairman of board) 、(副)总裁 (vice) president&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FOUNDER • 创始人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CEO • 首席执行官&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CMO • 市场总监 or 首席市场官&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3779" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T13:01:16.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5513" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-07T22:39:59.897" Score="3" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per title. Both describe an institution for children who have no parents.  I've looked around on the Internet and asked several people about this, but no one seems to have a definitive answer? Does it have anything to do with how they become orphans, i.e., whether they were abandoned by their parents/caretakers or whether their parents/caretakers died?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T11:55:53.213" Title="What's the difference between 保育院 and 孤儿院?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5514" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5516" CreationDate="2014-01-07T22:50:04.677" Score="3" ViewCount="490" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if I used the idiom 惹人心烦 correctly. This is the sentence I used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好啊，然而我不要惹人心烦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would that be a good use of it or is there a better way of saying you don't want to be a pain in the neck for someone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="530" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T23:15:21.450" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T23:15:21.450" Title="Correct use of 惹人心烦: is 然而我不要惹人心烦 a suitable way to say you don't want to be a pain in the neck?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5513" CreationDate="2014-01-07T22:53:30.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, assuming my sources are correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;保育院: 为保护、教育失去父母或父母无法照管的儿童而设的机构，内有托儿所、幼儿园、小学等&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孤儿院: 中文解释 ①抗日战争时期由宋庆龄创建的孤儿收养机构。 ②也称“育婴堂”。解放前，国民政府、外国教会等举办的收养社会遗弃婴儿的慈善机构。新中国成立后，由人民政府接收并改建为儿童教养院和儿童福利院&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the difference appears to be that 孤儿院 is a more archaic term referring to a set of institutions that have now been (generally) replaced, while 保育院 is a more modern term. However, the institutions that these terms refer to appear to have essentially the same function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;However&lt;/strong&gt; while Wikipedia gives essentially the same answer, it reverses the distinction.  It has 孤儿院 as the more general term and 保育院 as the archaic term referring to a historical set of institutions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T22:53:30.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5514" CreationDate="2014-01-07T23:18:55.040" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks fine to me.  But you could say 不好意思麻烦你 = sorry for bothering you.  To me 麻烦你 sounds like a more colloquial way of talking about bothering someone or being a trouble for someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T23:18:55.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5493" CreationDate="2014-01-08T00:49:41.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Long range ballistic missiles are translated as 远程导弹 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so I would say 远程火球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3780" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T00:49:41.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5511" CreationDate="2014-01-08T01:20:08.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;优先&lt;/code&gt; expresses priority/precedence/privilege, but not urgency. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this specific sentence it feels redundant to me. I think the person was trying to emphasize that he/she should be the only one on the TO line and others on CC line are FYI (for your information) only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-01-08T01:32:53.707" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T01:32:53.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5513" CreationDate="2014-01-08T05:10:44.100" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, they have quite different meanings. 保育院 is to 孤儿院 what nursery is to orphanage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="260" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T05:10:44.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5513" CreationDate="2014-01-08T05:12:36.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;孤儿院 sounds more straightforward to me while 保育院 seems a more considerate name. 孤儿院 is much more frequent in casual talk, at least just for me, it's not common to use 保育院 in my dialect. I think the recent usage of 保育院 might be a protection of children. I didn't look up in a dictionary or any other reference. Literally, 孤儿院 implies the children have lost their parents, which in reality that might not be the case. 保育院 doesn't have that implication. Chances are the children still have their parents, but for some reason, the custodies are taken over. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I'll vote for 保育院, that's definitely a better name. It's safer to use 保育院, especially in formal situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3693" LastEditorUserId="3693" LastEditDate="2014-01-08T05:18:57.477" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T05:18:57.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5513" CreationDate="2014-01-08T11:55:53.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, I believe the difference between &lt;code&gt;孤儿院&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;保育院&lt;/code&gt; is that there are kindergarten  and primary school in &lt;code&gt;保育院&lt;/code&gt; while &lt;code&gt;孤儿院&lt;/code&gt; is just an institution that keep and take care of orphans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other word, &lt;code&gt;孤儿院&lt;/code&gt; is not responsible to educate orphans. Like what @LadyP said,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/d/8/12504.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;保育院&lt;/a&gt;: 为保护、教育失去父母或父母无法照管的儿童而设的机构，内有托儿所、幼儿园、小学等&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/4/32/78677.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;孤儿院&lt;/a&gt;: 中文解释 ①抗日战争时期由宋庆龄创建的孤儿收养机构。&#xA;  ②也称“育婴堂”。解放前，国民政府、外国教会等举办的收养社会遗弃婴儿的慈善机构。新中国成立后，由人民政府接收并改建为儿童教养院和儿童福利院&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;保育&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/d/8/12502.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;taking care&lt;/a&gt; , especially for children. Check this &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E6%88%98%E6%97%B6%E5%84%BF%E7%AB%A5%E4%BF%9D%E8%82%B2%E4%BC%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;中国战时儿童保育会&lt;/a&gt; , it may be helpful. The word &lt;code&gt;保育院&lt;/code&gt; comes from here. &lt;code&gt;保育会&lt;/code&gt; established lots of &lt;code&gt;保育院&lt;/code&gt; to save, develop, and educate children that suffered in war. But actually after war, people still call similar institution &lt;code&gt;保育院&lt;/code&gt; till now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T11:55:53.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5523" CreationDate="2014-01-08T13:23:34.820" Score="3" ViewCount="1805" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just felt like some French fries for the first time since I've been in China so I bought some from a Dico's here in Zhangjiakou.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ordered by pointing at the menu becuase I'm just beginning at Mandarin and don't know the Chinese word yet. But when I took note of the characters on the menu and then pulled out my phrasebook when I sat down to eat, I noticed the terms were totally different. When I got home and looked on Wiktionary I found there were even more terms. Here's just the simplified character spellings of the terms I found so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;马铃薯条 (mǎlíngshǔtiáo)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;薯条 (shǔtiáo)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;土豆条 (tǔdòutiáo)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;炸薯条 (zhàshǔtiáo)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;炸土豆条 (zhátǔdòutiáo)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know if any have subtle differences in meaning, are old fashioned, are used in some places but not others, etc. Or are they all totally interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-18T23:15:23.410" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T23:15:23.410" Title="Are there any differences between these Chinese terms for &quot;French fries&quot; / (hot) &quot;chips&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5522" CreationDate="2014-01-08T14:14:15.920" Score="10" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;马铃薯 (commonly known as 土豆 in Northeastern China) is the general term&#xA;for potato.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(炸/马铃)薯条 is commonly understood as French fries (hot chips). By default, both 炸&#xA;and 马铃 are redundant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;土豆条 and 炸土豆条 are the less common terms for French fries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other related terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;薯片 - potato chips / potato crisps / packet chips&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;薯泥 - mashed potato&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;薯餅 - hash brown&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;烤马铃薯 - baked potato&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;薯角 - potato wedges&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;土豆丝 - shredded potato&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2014-01-09T01:54:10.903" LastActivityDate="2014-01-09T01:54:10.903" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5524" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-08T23:00:05.793" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would you say 绵延不绝的小山 and 一望无际的田野 in English? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Continuous mountains, and large and large fields?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2014-01-08T23:37:08.747" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T23:41:03.700" Title="How would you say 绵延不绝的小山 and 一望无际的田野 in English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-01-10T05:37:29.127" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5525" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5547" CreationDate="2014-01-08T23:22:12.493" Score="9" ViewCount="355" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the etymology behind &quot;的话&quot; in the common construct &lt;code&gt;如果...的话&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;要是...的话&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to wondering about it's meaning, what exactly is the &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; doing? Is it modifying the &lt;code&gt;如果&lt;/code&gt;? Is it modifying the phrase in between? Or is it somehow a possessive construct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any light you can shed on the subject would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note: I looked over &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/836/why-does-the-construction-of-%E8%A6%81%E6%98%AF%E2%80%A6%E7%9A%84%E8%AF%9D-mean-if&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; but there is no real answer, accepted or otherwise.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T15:15:32.867" Title="Questions on &quot;的话&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5524" CreationDate="2014-01-08T23:28:59.840" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Rolling hills stretching on endlessly&quot; and &quot;fields as far as the eye can see.&quot;  But is this really a question about Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T23:28:59.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5524" CreationDate="2014-01-08T23:30:03.680" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are pretty close. One thing to note is that &lt;code&gt;小山&lt;/code&gt; is more accurately translated as &quot;hill&quot; and not &quot;mountain.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these contain what could be considered a 成语 (four-character idiom), and both idioms are very similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;绵延不绝的小山&lt;/code&gt; essentially translates as &quot;endless hills&quot; and &lt;code&gt;一望无际的田野&lt;/code&gt; basically means &quot;fields as far as the eye can see.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more literal translations of the individual idioms, &lt;code&gt;绵延不绝&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;continuing and stretching without cease,&quot; whereas &lt;code&gt;一望无际&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;one look without end.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastEditorUserId="2984" LastEditDate="2014-01-08T23:41:03.700" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T23:41:03.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2003" CreationDate="2014-01-09T03:14:53.853" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.1080/19388079909558298&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lü and Zhang (2010)&lt;/a&gt;, Chinese is indeed read at a measurably faster speed than English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Findings indicate that the Chinese readers (24.7 minutes) are faster than the English readers (26.6 minutes) by about 2 minutes on the same reading material.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Lü and Zhang, &lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.1080/19388079909558298&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Reading efficiency: A comparative study of English and Chinese orthographies&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, Reading Research and Instruction, 2010&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T04:02:56.877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T04:02:56.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5529" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5532" CreationDate="2014-01-09T04:38:19.587" Score="2" ViewCount="14394" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any websites or tools that will put pinyin on top or bottom of the characters automatically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3786" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2014-01-12T17:21:47.637" LastActivityDate="2014-01-12T17:21:47.637" Title="Website or tools that puts pinyin on top or bottom of the characters automatically" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-01-14T00:20:18.187" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5530" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5531" CreationDate="2014-01-09T05:20:22.160" Score="8" ViewCount="7782" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm finding in the non-touristy places in China where I'm spending my time in cheaper places etc that there's often no place to wash your hands, or it's dirty, or there's no soap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been recommended to buy some &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_sanitizer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hand sanitizer&lt;/a&gt;, but the Wikipedia page doesn't link to a Chinese equivalent and Wiktionary doesn't even include an entry for &lt;em&gt;hand sanitizer&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never been one to use it before so I'm not an expert, but I think the key things about hand sanitizer that make it different to liquid soap is that &lt;strong&gt;1)&lt;/strong&gt; it is alcohol-based and does not require water, and &lt;strong&gt;2)&lt;/strong&gt; doesn't just clean but disinfects, so is better than soap for preventing spread of diseases such as the common cold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate offers several alternatives though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;洗手液 xǐshǒu yè&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;s&gt;洗手 xǐshǒu&lt;/s&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;免洗洗手液 miǎn xǐ xǐshǒu yè&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;消毒洗手液 xiāodú xǐshǒu yè&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;s&gt;的洗手液 de xǐshǒu yè&lt;/s&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of these, I don't trust &lt;strong&gt;2.&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;5.&lt;/strong&gt; - the first because it translated back as &quot;wash your hands&quot; and the second because starting with the character &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; doesn't seem right for a noun phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So on the face of it, &lt;strong&gt;1.&lt;/strong&gt; looks most versatile with &lt;strong&gt;3.&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;4.&lt;/strong&gt; just being alternative long equivalents. But is it so simple in reality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(For me right now the term most useful in Hebei province is probably what I want.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T13:43:01.677" LastActivityDate="2021-02-28T14:11:18.230" Title="What's the most usual way to say &quot;hand sanitizer&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5530" CreationDate="2014-01-09T05:51:34.127" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to say hand soap (not necessarily for sanitation), you can use &lt;code&gt;洗手液&lt;/code&gt;. To specifically ask for hand sanitizer (for disinfection/sterilization), you may want to use &lt;code&gt;消毒洗手液&lt;/code&gt;. Below is an analysis for the options you've listed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;洗手液 xǐshǒu yè&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Liquid) hand soap. Here soap is in general sense, could be sanitizer, scented soap, skin smoother, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;洗手 xǐshǒu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Verb phrase) to wash hand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;免洗洗手液 miǎn xǐ xǐshǒu yè&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Waterless hand soap. Though not explicitly stated in the name, the waterless hand soap products are mostly sanitizers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;消毒洗手液 xiāodú xǐshǒu yè&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hand sanitizer. (消毒 means to sterilize.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;___的洗手液 de xǐshǒu yè&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Incomplete phrase) hand soap of &lt;em&gt;_&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-01-09T06:36:13.497" LastActivityDate="2014-01-09T06:36:13.497" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5529" CreationDate="2014-01-09T05:54:18.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never looked for this kind of a tool before - good idea! I just ran a search using  and came across an online tool that will do what you ask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwenzhuanpinyin.51240.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhongwenzhuanpinyin.51240.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can read a little bit of Chinese, I would recommend trying this one. It will convert your Chinese characters to pinyin and show tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have read on many Chinese website that there is a way to do all of this with Word but I am not familiar enough with this. You can get the basic idea here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://office.wps.cn/wpsword/21508-2013-04-10-16-44-20-302.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://office.wps.cn/wpsword/21508-2013-04-10-16-44-20-302.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully someone else will be able to explain how that works in more detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3787" LastActivityDate="2014-01-09T05:54:18.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5533" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-09T07:50:56.713" Score="2" ViewCount="1465" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed the kangxi radicals all have two ways that people refer to them.&#xA;For example: &lt;code&gt;氵&lt;/code&gt; is sometimes called &lt;code&gt;shuǐ&lt;/code&gt;, sometimes called 三点水. &lt;code&gt;饣&lt;/code&gt; is sometimes called &lt;code&gt;shí&lt;/code&gt; or 食字旁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the correct names for the radicals as radicals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there's lots of these on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_%28Mandarin%29/Radicals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikibooks&lt;/a&gt; and in the other way at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archchinese.com/arch_chinese_radicals.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;archchinese.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2301" LastEditorUserId="3706" LastEditDate="2014-01-11T14:53:52.263" LastActivityDate="2014-01-13T05:50:56.123" Title="What are the radical names?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5529" CreationDate="2014-01-09T07:57:44.850" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;google translate will do this now.&#xA;Though this is notoriously hard to do. there are many many research papers on this. So keep in mind that it won't always be correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;translate.google.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2301" LastActivityDate="2014-01-09T07:57:44.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5533" CreationDate="2014-01-09T11:12:01.803" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The wiki link is correct. 氵is 三点水 and 饣is 食字旁. I don't think [citation needed] 氵is a character with a real meaning. Didn't find it in the Kangxi Dictionary. I only use its pinyin &quot;shui3&quot; when I want to type it with a pinyin input method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Almost all characters with the radical 氵is about water(河 river, 海 sea, 洋 ocean), and water(水) is pronounced shui3. And 饣-shi2-食 is about food/diet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2014-01-09T11:12:01.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5530" CreationDate="2014-01-09T14:14:27.757" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.洗手液 xǐshǒu yè&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3221" LastActivityDate="2014-01-09T14:14:27.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5538" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5541" CreationDate="2014-01-09T16:13:15.030" Score="11" ViewCount="5274" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just felt like typing &quot;hello&quot; in Chinese in a chat room (with no Chinese speakers in it but what the hey...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Halfway through it struck me that there's &quot;你们&quot; (nǐhǎo) for hello, &quot;你&quot; (nǐ) meaning you, and what about &quot;你们&quot; (nǐmen) being more or less a plural &quot;you&quot;? In Spanish for &quot;welcome&quot; you can say &quot;bienvenido&quot; to one person or &quot;bienvenidos&quot; to two people, so there could be similar in other languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well my IME suggested &quot;你们好&quot; as first option when I typed &quot;nimenhao&quot;, so that made me think it actually is used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I come here to ask of ye experts, &lt;strong&gt;What actually is the story with &quot;你们好&quot;?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2014-01-13T15:14:55.737" Title="Is &quot;你们好&quot; (nǐmen hǎo) in actual use for greeting multiple people at once?" Tags="&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5538" CreationDate="2014-01-09T20:54:48.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are a whole range of greetings similar to &quot;你好&quot;, including &quot;你们好&quot;， “大家好”， “老师好”， and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="396" LastActivityDate="2014-01-09T20:54:48.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5533" CreationDate="2014-01-10T02:48:12.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 三点水 and shui3 are all correct names for 氵, so for 饣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, 氵is also 水, just in another face. &#xA;You can know this by comparing Chinese Seal Character(小篆)&#xA;河:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/zy/6CB3.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/zy/6CB3.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;水:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/zy/6C34.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/zy/6C34.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三点水 is more formal, shui3 is most used in computer world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope my explanation can help you understand this further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3789" LastActivityDate="2014-01-10T02:48:12.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5538" CreationDate="2014-01-10T02:54:26.300" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it's in actual use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you need use it carefully, because &quot;你们好&quot; is always used when famous people meeting their fans, or teacher meet there students. If you are meeting elders or in honorific expression, you should use &quot;您好&quot; to each person, even if there are many people at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3789" LastActivityDate="2014-01-10T02:54:26.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5542" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5562" CreationDate="2014-01-10T03:03:27.327" Score="10" ViewCount="407" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a facetious phrase for asking someone what they do, using &amp;quot;的干活&amp;quot;, most commonly in the fragment &amp;quot;什么的干活&amp;quot;, or in this example exchange:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你的，什么的干活? (Who are you?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 我的，农民的干活. (I am a farmer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase is often associated with Japanese speakers unfamiliar with Chinese grammar; the equivalent phrase in Japanese might be &amp;quot;お前は何者 (omae wa nanimono)&amp;quot;, it has the words in the same order although it's a bit of a stretch to replace &amp;quot;者&amp;quot; with &amp;quot;的干活&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, is this a phrase that real people have used seriously, or was it a product of exaggeration for effect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T07:21:06.233" Title="Origin of -的干活?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5542" CreationDate="2014-01-10T03:22:12.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not real people have used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it's a facetious phrase, but actually in the deep inside, it's in sad background.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase came out when Japanese occupied Chinese North East, the native people wanted to express their anger in another way...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3789" LastActivityDate="2014-01-10T03:22:12.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5542" CreationDate="2014-01-10T06:25:28.103" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is that Chinese fakes Japanese Accent of speaking Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of usage in Chinese TV/Movies about anti-Japanese war:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese actor playing a bad Japanese solider on TV may speak like in this way, so the Audience will know this people is a bad Japanese solider and the actor might not even required to speak Japanese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The actor playing Chinese Traitor who work for Japanese army, he may speak in this way to his Japanese master.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The actor playing a village people role who may speak in this way to play around their children.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3292" LastEditorUserId="3292" LastEditDate="2014-01-14T02:13:42.177" LastActivityDate="2014-01-14T02:13:42.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5525" CreationDate="2014-01-10T17:14:37.347" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it doesn't modify &lt;code&gt;如果&lt;/code&gt; or the phrase in between, and there's nothing to do with possessive constructs. I wouldn't even notice it when I speak, but when I think about it, I agree with hrzhu, that it can be loosely translated to &lt;code&gt;is the case&lt;/code&gt;, the actual words don't have explicit meaning here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;code&gt;的话&lt;/code&gt; provides a short pause, which gives the speaker a chance to actually think about the condition or assumption being said. It sometimes creates a tension, e.g. &lt;code&gt;如果我杀了你的话...&lt;/code&gt;, you can pause for many seconds here to frighten someone. Notice that &lt;code&gt;话&lt;/code&gt; ends with the [a] vowel, so people tend to lengthen it when they don't know what to say, and need a sec to think, e.g. &lt;code&gt;如果他是GAY的话......他就不会喜欢你&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the idea is that with &lt;code&gt;的话&lt;/code&gt;, the &lt;code&gt;如果&lt;/code&gt; clause sounds more natural, because the condition or assumption being said does sometimes need a sec for you to pause and think. Without &lt;code&gt;的话&lt;/code&gt;, it sounds quite abrupt, although it does work if you leave it out, in most cases. Personally I call these constructs the lubricant of the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3791" LastEditorUserId="3791" LastEditDate="2014-01-11T04:24:13.313" LastActivityDate="2014-01-11T04:24:13.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5529" CreationDate="2014-01-10T22:21:10.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, I believe this tool does what you're requesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.standardmandarin.com/chinese-pinyin-annotation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.standardmandarin.com/chinese-pinyin-annotation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It even allows you to automatically add English definitions on top, giving you a sort of 3-line interlinear version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The output has also been designed to be print-ready, if that is relevant to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3793" LastActivityDate="2014-01-10T22:21:10.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5472" CreationDate="2014-01-11T04:41:58.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;以铁和钢分别形容人和饭，比喻饭的重要性超过人，因为刚比铁更坚硬。也就是说，如果人是铁的话，那么饭就是钢，一顿不吃都不行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quick translation: iron and steel describe people and food; metaphorically the importance of food is greater than that of people just as steel is tougher than iron.  In other words, if people are iron, then food is steel; you absolutely have to eat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3794" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2014-01-16T22:26:17.073" LastActivityDate="2014-01-16T22:26:17.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5456" CreationDate="2014-01-11T04:55:07.110" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think the accepted answer is approriate given the circumstance of conversation.&#xA;这个相声里的“不客气”，是“过奖”的意思：“您过奖了”,或者“不敢当”，something like &quot;You flatter me.&quot; 所以到最后一句，就抖出包袱了：说他表快一个小时，仍用了&quot;You flattered me.&quot; 显然不合适。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3794" LastEditorUserId="3794" LastEditDate="2014-01-11T05:08:21.130" LastActivityDate="2014-01-11T05:08:21.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5533" CreationDate="2014-01-11T13:25:56.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, My teacher told me that &lt;code&gt;氵&lt;/code&gt; called &lt;code&gt;三点水&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;饣&lt;/code&gt; called &lt;code&gt;食字旁&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, we never call &lt;code&gt;氵&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;水&lt;/code&gt;. It's a little strange. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_%28Mandarin%29/Radicals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link wikibooks&lt;/a&gt; you gave is exactly the right answer to your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2014-01-11T13:25:56.663" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5533" CreationDate="2014-01-12T03:23:18.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are called 部首. And, in antique dictionaries like 康熙字典, they are referred to as 部. It is very formal and scholarly to address the whole bunch of characters containing 氵 or 水(at the bottom) or other parts showing links to 水 as 水部. The logic here is ''the original character of the radical' + 部', following the rules of &lt;strong&gt;classical&lt;/strong&gt; Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in everyday life, when we describe how to write an unfamiliar character or admiring calligraphy, we cannot address both 氵 and 水 as 水, because they are too vague for radicals in different positions. Popular names are called for, and here I enclose a list of popular name for radicals found on wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%83%A8%E9%A6%96#.E5.81.8F.E6.97.81.E7.9A.84.E4.BF.97.E7.A8.B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Popular Names for Radicals(Chinese)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2014-01-13T05:50:56.123" LastActivityDate="2014-01-13T05:50:56.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5554" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5557" CreationDate="2014-01-12T13:41:34.640" Score="3" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;The definition of &amp;quot;to build&amp;quot;, in software, is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the process of converting source code files into standalone software artifact(s) that can be run on a computer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm working with a software development team and I'm struggling with specific software-related vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few potential direct translations of the verb &amp;quot;to build&amp;quot;, in Mandarin: 建设 and 建造 seem related to physical construction. 构建 and 搭建 seem more abstract in use, though they sound like &amp;quot;to compose&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;to put together&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BB%9F%E9%AB%94%E7%B5%84%E5%BB%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;relevant Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; offers 组建 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the correct technical translation for &amp;quot;to build&amp;quot; a software?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3778" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-23T02:32:02.047" LastActivityDate="2020-09-26T17:42:15.690" Title="How to translate &quot;build server&quot; (software terminology)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5555" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5556" CreationDate="2014-01-12T18:51:37.140" Score="6" ViewCount="640" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is simple...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct measure word for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中药 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;西药&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Appreciate your time!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3795" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-08-13T14:23:32.343" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T14:23:32.343" Title="Measure word for 中药 and 西药" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5555" CreationDate="2014-01-12T20:10:17.227" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;剂 and 服(fù) are measure words for doses, although I believe that 服 is used only for Chinese medicine.  You can use 丸 for pills, and I think that I have seen 片 for tablets.  For other forms you might wish to describe it by weight or volume (esp. for liquids).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2014-01-12T20:10:17.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5554" CreationDate="2014-01-12T23:29:47.950" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;build server: 编译服务器&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;to build: 编译（编译整个工程)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a build: 一个版本的编译，编译的一个版本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a code drop: 一个代码实现 （minor milestone）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T11:09:47.010" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T11:09:47.010" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5554" CreationDate="2014-01-13T04:51:40.467" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;BUILD SERVER 搭建服务器，for both hardware and software terms.&#xA;A BUILD, depends on the context, can be translate as 一款软件建成的版本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-01-13T04:51:40.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5555" CreationDate="2014-01-13T08:18:31.513" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;a single package of a prescription of Chinese Medicine is called 一服（FU）， because you would normally boil the whole package in a pot and drink the produced liquid at once. so one of 服's meaning is taking medicine for both western and chinese medicines.  The units of each ingredient in the prescription normally are tael(两) and mace(钱）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For western medicine, we use 片(pian) for pill, 粒(li) for capsule，and 支（zhi) for bottled liquids, 袋（dai) for pouch, and 板（ban) for foiled pills&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this link is about ancient Chinese weighing metrics &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_units_of_measurement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_units_of_measurement&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-01-13T08:18:31.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5538" CreationDate="2014-01-13T15:14:55.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel 你们好 is a little stiff sentence, and I believe that people prefer to say 大家好 instead of 你们好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3394" LastActivityDate="2014-01-13T15:14:55.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5542" CreationDate="2014-01-13T15:43:51.213" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is 协和语, it used to help Japanese officials and soldiers to communicate with Chinese in Manchukuo and the Second Sino-Japanese War(中国抗日战争).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“协和语”中的“干活”、“新交”，这是两个动词，“干活”是汉语“工作”的意思，在协和语中汉语干活就变成许多意的动词了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;干活&quot;, &quot;新交&quot;, which are the two verbs, &quot;干活&quot; is the Chinese &quot;work&quot; means, so in 协和语 &quot;干活&quot; becomes a verb of many meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;see &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%8F%E5%92%8C%E8%AF%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%8F%E5%92%8C%E8%AF%AD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;see also &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_48670cb20100be1t.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_48670cb20100be1t.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3394" LastEditorUserId="3394" LastEditDate="2014-04-28T07:21:06.233" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T07:21:06.233" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5565" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5566" CreationDate="2014-01-14T01:10:04.327" Score="-3" ViewCount="1401" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want you to suggest me some very good greetings for Chinese New year which can make my girl friend think that I love her so much and I love her Only :p &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3713" LastEditorUserId="3713" LastEditDate="2014-01-14T03:22:12.287" LastActivityDate="2014-01-14T03:58:52.593" Title="How to greet &quot;Chinese New Year&quot; to your Girlfriend" Tags="&lt;greetings&gt;&lt;chinese-new-year&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-01-14T08:38:27.577" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5565" CreationDate="2014-01-14T03:22:38.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hm, Chinese New Year is not just between BF and GF, all Chinese celebrate Chinese New Year. I think this is the reason why someone voted down this question, but never mind, there is something much more important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you asked. and there must be related with Chinese New Year, greetings, GF. I think you can say... ok, here we go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;honey, 新春快乐，我希望和你度过下一个甲午年。(please, only for the Chinese New Year of 2014)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English: honey, happy new year, I want to spend my life with you forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bro, this shows your respect of Chinese culture, shows your sincerity, shows you are willing to put effort to overcome anything to be with her, the exact result is much less important than your spirit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I'm not an expert in this field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3725" LastActivityDate="2014-01-14T03:22:38.007" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5565" CreationDate="2014-01-14T03:58:52.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;to your gf, you just say, 亲爱的，在新的一年我会更爱你呀。 Honey, I will love you more in the coming new year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-01-14T03:58:52.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5514" CreationDate="2014-01-14T04:21:06.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sounds a little strange to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Incidentally, one can get beaten up in school simply by referring to oneself as one.&lt;/em&gt; - Sheldon Cooper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here &lt;code&gt;人&lt;/code&gt; maps quite well to &lt;code&gt;one&lt;/code&gt; as a third person neutral pronoun, but &lt;strong&gt;more often than not&lt;/strong&gt;, is used to refer to oneself, such as &lt;code&gt;me&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;us&lt;/code&gt; (although it can also refer to &lt;code&gt;you&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;her&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;them&lt;/code&gt;, in most contexts, it points to self).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;惹&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;make&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;人&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;one&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;心&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;heart (mood)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;烦&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;annoyed&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;code&gt;惹人心烦&lt;/code&gt; literally means &lt;code&gt;make one annoyed&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这天气真是惹人心烦。(The weather really makes one annoyed. (me or us))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;楼上的邻居真是惹人心烦。(The upstairs neighbor really makes one annoyed. (me or us))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对你/她来说，那也许是惹人心烦的吧！(you/her)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct way to say you don't want to be a pain in the neck for someone is &lt;code&gt;我不想惹你心烦&lt;/code&gt; （yes, you can substitute &lt;code&gt;人&lt;/code&gt; directly with &lt;code&gt;你&lt;/code&gt; if you are talking to that person). On the other hand,  &lt;code&gt;我不想让你麻烦&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;我不想麻烦你&lt;/code&gt; means something different, something similar to &lt;code&gt;I don't want to bother you&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;I don't want to trouble you&lt;/code&gt;). LadyP's interpretation of &lt;code&gt;麻烦你&lt;/code&gt; is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3791" LastEditorUserId="3791" LastEditDate="2014-01-14T05:54:32.927" LastActivityDate="2014-01-14T05:54:32.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5569" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-14T14:12:29.207" Score="3" ViewCount="342" Body="&lt;p&gt;The vocabulary flashcard website &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.memrise.com/course/251/restaurant-survival/3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Memrise&quot; has in one of its Chinese menu learning modules&lt;/a&gt; as entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Word: 可以来...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Definition: please bring... (food or dish)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But one of the comments says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I thought this might mean something&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  like &quot;bring me a plate&quot; in English. But I&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  can't find any reference to this&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  phrase. I think it might just mean&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &quot;can come&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is this a mistake that should not be in something purporting to teach Chinese? Is the commenter right or wrong? If this is the wrong way to say it, is there a right way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2014-01-15T02:20:32.097" Title="Is &quot;可以来 (ke3 yi3 lai2) ...&quot; an idomatic way to say &quot;please bring me ...&quot;?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5569" CreationDate="2014-01-14T16:23:54.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate 可以来... as &quot;I'll accept...&quot; It is less emphatic or positive than &quot;Please bring me...&quot; but is an understated way of saying &quot;I wouldn't mind if your brought me...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="52" LastEditDate="2014-01-14T16:30:15.903" LastActivityDate="2014-01-14T16:30:15.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5569" CreationDate="2014-01-14T18:04:48.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a euphemistic way to say so, as it would seem more polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We would use subjunctive mood/subjonctif to translate this expression, as &quot;Could I have...&quot; or &quot;Puis-je avoir...&quot;. Note that this is always in the form of a question, so please do not forget to add &quot;...吗？&quot; in the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-01-14T18:04:48.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5569" CreationDate="2014-01-15T02:20:32.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;可以来&quot; is only used only you want to be very polite and or in a formal occasion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the sentence start with &quot;可以来&quot; must be finish with &quot;吗?&quot;, otherwise the whole clause will not make any sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example： &quot;可以来 one burger 吗?&quot; or &quot;我可以来 one burger 吗?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally, it is translated in English as &quot;May I ( ask you to ) bring ( me ) a burger?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我可以&quot; equals &quot;May I&quot;,  &quot;来&quot; equeals &quot;bring&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In real life, people do not talk like that, just like you never say &quot;May I ask you to bring me a burger?&quot;, you usually just say &quot;a burger please&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So In real life, chinese people just say &quot;来个汉堡&quot;, omit that &quot;可以&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="536" LastActivityDate="2014-01-15T02:20:32.097" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5472" CreationDate="2014-01-15T02:49:33.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Human is iron as if the meal is steel,you will be hungry if you don't eat. Meaning is no one can live without food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3806" LastActivityDate="2014-01-15T02:49:33.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2014-01-15T03:33:44.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe get out of my face is a proper translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3806" LastActivityDate="2014-01-15T03:33:44.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5575" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-15T09:56:01.260" Score="3" ViewCount="1626" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I'm buying food in China, especially in the street but sometimes also in restaurants, people often ask me if it want &quot;là&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that means &quot;spicy&quot; and I really enjoy spicy food. As there's not really a word for &quot;yes&quot; in Chinese I often answer &quot;我爱辣&quot; (Wǒ ài là).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everybody understands me but I'm not sure if it's pidgin Chinese or actually a perfectly valid expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance I've learned that &quot;辣&quot; means spicy, but maybe it also means &quot;spiciness&quot;. Anyway I do know that equivalent Chinese and English sentences are usually not word-for-word literal translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2019-02-06T08:32:03.733" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T19:33:20.950" Title="Is &quot;我爱辣&quot; (Wǒ ài là) a correct/understandable/idiomatic way of saying I like my food spicy?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="512" CreationDate="2014-01-15T12:29:21.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started a web site to collect and help differentiate similar-looking Chinese characters: &lt;a href=&quot;http://horizontalhanzi.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;HorizontalHanzi.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can either search for a character to view a list of similar ones (e.g. search for 主 and get 王, 玉, 壬) or just browse the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lists show the characters placed side-by-side for easy comparison as well as definition breakdowns and links to sites with more details about the individual characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contributions welcome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2360" LastEditorUserId="2360" LastEditDate="2014-02-01T04:31:00.767" LastActivityDate="2014-02-01T04:31:00.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5575" CreationDate="2014-01-15T14:12:01.490" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This happens when the food can be cooked with (little or much) or without spicy. People ask how should the food cook for you, 我爱辣 (a weird expression) answers this question indirectly -- I like spicy so please put a lot of it in the food. The direct answers could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不要 (bùyào) / 不要辣 (bùyào là) / 不放辣椒 (bù fàng làjiāo) &quot;cook without spicy&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;微辣 (wēi là) / 少放点 (shǎo fàng diǎn) / 一点点 (yī diǎndiǎn) &quot;cook with a little spicy&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;要 (yào) / 多放点 (duō fàng diǎn) &quot;cook with a lot of spicy&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要 (yào) should mean default spiciness and be enough for most people. 多放点 (duō fàng diǎn) is for those who &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; enjoy spicy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3809" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-01-23T01:14:28.397" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T01:14:28.397" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5575" CreationDate="2014-01-15T19:21:28.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I first saw the question title, I thought you were looking for a way to express the statement 'I love spicy food', which is what &lt;code&gt;我爱辣&lt;/code&gt; sounds like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although grammatical, &lt;code&gt;我爱辣&lt;/code&gt; doesn't sound very natural, probably because the pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;辣&lt;/code&gt; is close to the tone particle &lt;code&gt;啦&lt;/code&gt;. A more natural expression is &lt;code&gt;我爱吃辣&lt;/code&gt;, in which &lt;code&gt;吃&lt;/code&gt; (eat) nails &lt;code&gt;la4&lt;/code&gt; into the context of food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for expressions to respond to the question equivalent to 'how spicy do you like your food' in Chinese, I think you should phrase the response based on the format of the question, instead of using a uniform statement. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 菜里要不要放辣椒？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 要/要放/要放辣椒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 放点辣椒好不好？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 要辣的还是不辣的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 辣的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 要多少辣椒？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 不要辣椒/要一点点/很多/越辣越好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-01-15T19:21:28.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5581" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-16T11:55:34.863" Score="11" ViewCount="3281" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to type radicals on a computer? I'd like to insert some in a  document I'm writing but I'm not sure how to write those that don't correspond to an actual word. Any tips? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3814" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-25T23:21:58.783" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T05:44:11.233" Title="Typing Chinese radicals?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5581" CreationDate="2014-01-16T12:40:14.160" Score="8" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Install input method tools such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/ime/pinyin/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Pinyin&lt;/a&gt; Windows only&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;type &lt;code&gt;u&lt;/code&gt; start to input&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;then type follow to input radicals&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丨 shu 竖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一 heng 横&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丿 pie 撇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;礻 shi 示&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衤 yi 衣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think most easy way is &lt;kbd&gt;Ctrl&lt;/kbd&gt;+&lt;kbd&gt;C&lt;/kbd&gt;,&lt;kbd&gt;Ctrl&lt;/kbd&gt;+&lt;kbd&gt;V&lt;/kbd&gt;&#xA;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/radicals.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;list of radicals&lt;/a&gt;. Find it and copy it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-01-16T12:44:07.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5575" CreationDate="2014-01-16T23:07:27.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is more of an expansion on NSX's comment from above, but hopefully it gives you something extra to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我爱吃辣的 &quot;I love to eat spicy food&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我喜欢吃辣的 &quot;I like eating spicy food&quot; if you don't want to emphasize the 'love' part, you just want to state matter of factly that you like eating spicy food&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might get asked by new acquaintances 你可以吃辣的吗? or 你吃不吃辣的? &quot;Can you eat spicy food?&quot;. You could say 我不怕辣! &quot;I'm not scared of spicy food&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a colloquialism which I am not sure of the origins 不怕辣，辣不怕，怕不辣 (bù pà là, là bù pà, pà bù là). It doesn't translate well into English, but it's something like &quot;I'm not scared of spicy food, I'm only scared the food is not spicy&quot;. If you are a confident person and can pull this out it often gets a laugh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you often eat lots of spicy food you may hear people say 他不怕吃辣的 &quot;He's not scared of eating spicy food&quot; when describing you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2014-01-16T23:07:27.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5575" CreationDate="2014-01-17T02:33:14.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are answering to a waitress, just use the following words would be fine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;请免辣，谢谢 - I don't like spicy at all!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;微辣，谢谢 - I like spicy but I don't want it too spicy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;多放点辣，谢谢 - I like spicy very much! Give me a lot!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-01-17T02:33:14.897" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5586" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-17T10:43:58.367" Score="2" ViewCount="723" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to name my baby daughter &quot;嫣&quot; which is written as &quot;yān&quot;, per pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However my elder daughter's name is &quot;彥&quot; which is pronounced as &quot;yàn&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it considered taboo to give my daughters the similarly pronounced name, though it is different in Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3818" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2014-01-17T20:26:34.867" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T12:21:36.987" Title="Naming siblings with same sounding chinese characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-01-30T01:59:19.443" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5586" CreationDate="2014-01-17T12:10:33.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I never heard of such kind of &quot;taboo&quot;. But if you are very sensitive with this for some reasons like you believe in things like &lt;code&gt;周易取名&lt;/code&gt;, you may search &lt;code&gt;周易取名&lt;/code&gt; on Google or Baidu. I think most of the key/original information is in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I think &lt;code&gt;嫣&lt;/code&gt; is a very good name for a girl while &lt;code&gt;彥&lt;/code&gt; sounds like a boy's name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-01-17T12:10:33.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5590" CreationDate="2014-01-17T17:10:16.857" Score="8" ViewCount="3127" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm used to using 每 for every. However, 各 came up one day and appears to me to have the exactly same meaning. Is there a contextual difference between the two that I am missing or can they be swapped for each other? When should someone use 各 instead of 每?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="530" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-20T17:33:01.553" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:15:54.470" Title="Difference between 各 and 每?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5588" CreationDate="2014-01-17T20:23:27.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another difference, beyond the subtleties of each/every, is that 每 can be used as an adverb meaning frequently or at every occasion, while 各 can be used as an adverb meaning separately or independently.  各 also appears in constructions such as 各V各的 (ex: 各唱各的) and 各V所B (ex: 各有所好).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that the common word 各种 means various kinds, while 每种 would be every kind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="3445" LastEditDate="2014-01-18T01:17:36.063" LastActivityDate="2014-01-18T01:17:36.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5588" CreationDate="2014-01-18T00:25:14.237" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;各 is more like &quot;each&quot;. It is more frequently used when the intention is to describe some sort of individuality of some group. It is more common to see this character in describing the &lt;em&gt;difference&lt;/em&gt; in each item in a group. Example: 各种不同的花 (many different kinds of flower).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每 is more like &quot;every&quot;. It is used more when the intention is to describe a group's collective property that all members share, and consequently seen more often when describing the sameness of items in a group. Example: 每种花都一样 (all the flowers are of the same kind).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The confusion is that they are both used when describing &lt;em&gt;some property of the individual in a group&lt;/em&gt;, but with different intentions. You can see them as two kinds of &quot;every&quot; with different connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3637" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T23:15:54.470" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:15:54.470" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5581" CreationDate="2014-01-18T01:57:36.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could also go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.inputking.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.inputking.com&lt;/a&gt; and type shu, then select the appropriate character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2014-01-18T01:57:36.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5592" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-18T02:59:08.270" Score="2" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The hijackers were said to demand the plane to fly to Iran&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only think I could think of was 有人告訴 (somebody said), and putting it at the beginning, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有人告訴劫機者...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this right? Or is there a better option?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3820" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T01:25:38.227" Title="How to say X were said to do Y?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5593" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5596" CreationDate="2014-01-18T04:12:20.123" Score="7" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the name Kongzi, 孔子, it seems to me that people often pronounce Kong with third tone (low-falling form) and zi with no tone, like a lot of final syllables.  Officially both syllables are third tone.  So is the rule for sandhi with successive third tones inactive when the second of the syllables is pronounced toneless?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1875/how-does-tone-sandhi-apply-in-peoples-names&quot;&gt;How does tone sandhi apply in people&amp;#39;s names?&lt;/a&gt; suggests it should be pronounced by the general rule so Kong gets rising tone and zi falling-rising as suits a third tone in final position.  Maybe just my ear is bad for tones.  It is pretty bad. Or maybe my friends are getting it wrong.   So I thought I'd ask here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T18:19:34.143" Title="Tone sandhi before a toneless final syllable" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5594" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5598" CreationDate="2014-01-18T05:07:55.577" Score="7" ViewCount="4206" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to preface this by saying I'm Australian and speak with an Australian accent when I'm speaking English which can be hard to digest for a lot of people new to Australia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of 1st gen Chinese-Australians struggle with my accent so I commonly find it easier to order in Chinese. This is how I would normally transition between the two languages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我：你会说汉语吗&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他：我会说&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我：我要...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that this is kind of a harsh transition but haven't been corrected; yet. I've considered saying something like: 我们可以说汉语吗 but it doesn't sound overly natural or correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would I politely ask to continue the conversation in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T12:04:42.560" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T12:04:42.560" Title="Correct/Polite way of asking &quot;Can we speak in chinese?&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5594" CreationDate="2014-01-18T05:19:03.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about: &quot;那么，请跟我说汉语/普通话&quot; (in that case, please speak Chinese with me)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2014-01-18T05:19:03.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5593" CreationDate="2014-01-18T05:59:38.063" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This rule is not so strict, as in my specification, we never pronounce 甲苯（methylbenzene）,乙苯(ethylbenzene), 苯甲酸(acetic acid) in that fashion, though no ambiguity is produced, it is just weird and funny to pronounce so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for familiar words like 奶奶，姐姐, the other extreme is present, which is they are always pronounced as 21-5. (In my opinion, this is an abbreviation of 3rd tones (214) rather than sandhi, as sandhi actually refers to the change of nasal sound between [n] &amp;amp; [m] according to the consonant after it.) This may be due to the level of serenity of words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 孔子 and 老子, who are generally regarded 圣贤 and widely respected, it is just improper to do so. (By the way, in the case of 老子, pronouncing it in 21-5 literally means &quot;your father&quot;, which is &quot;I&quot; in a very rude way, contrary to 小子, also pronounced 21-5) The only people I have ever know was my professor of classical Chinese, maybe to add some humor to the classroom or just because he himself is &quot;familiar&quot; with them， being old friends in books for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两个三声(214)碰在一起合为21-5这一规则并不是强制性的。在化学当中，“甲苯”、“乙苯”、“苯甲酸”这些名词永远也不会用这种方式合韵，这样虽然不会产生歧义，但是怪得很！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是“姐姐”、“奶奶”这些常用名词就一定要合韵。这种差别可能在于语境的高低。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孔子、老子是古代的圣贤，并且被广泛地尊重，所以用21-5的调子去读很不严肃。（顺带一提，“老子”用21-5来读，字面上变为“你父亲”，实际是“我”的意思，是很没有教养的表达方式，与“小子”相对。）实际上，我长那么大唯一一次听到别人这么说的，是我的古汉语老师。但是他那是为了给课堂增加幽默气氛，并且，老子和孔子对于他而言是在书本当中熟识的老朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2014-01-18T21:57:38.463" LastActivityDate="2014-01-18T21:57:38.463" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5594" CreationDate="2014-01-18T06:21:30.250" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In eastern asian languages, hints are very important, thus, if you have already said &quot;你会说汉语吗?&quot;, it has included an indication of &quot;让我们说汉语吧&quot; and the part you are asking for is actually an unnecessary part of the communication. You can just switch to your Chinese mode after that sentence as a notice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the same case in English. When you say &quot;Can we speak in Chinese?&quot;, obviously you are not inquiring if we really have the ability to say Chinese, rather, it is an indication including the sentence &quot;Let's speak Chinese.&quot;, which you will not speak aloud.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is important you know the correct answer. “（咱们/我们）能用（普通话/汉语）说吗？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-01-18T06:21:30.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5592" CreationDate="2014-01-18T12:14:35.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think @Question Overflow tells the different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;告訴 means to tell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. You are told to bring your book to classroom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When in a passive voice, 告诉 has the mean of request. Therefore last sentence means you are request to bring your book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;说 means to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When in a passive voice, 说 is same as 'somebody said' or 'it is said'. Therefore 说 is a better choice for your case. When the person who tell the message is not important, we say 据说 or 据传, which is the same as 'it is said' in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3821" LastActivityDate="2014-01-18T12:14:35.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5594" CreationDate="2014-01-18T12:29:08.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;哦，好的。我要...&quot; is good enough, or 'OK, 我要...'. There is no difficulty for them to understand words like 'OK', 'yes' and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3821" LastActivityDate="2014-01-18T12:29:08.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5592" CreationDate="2014-01-18T14:28:27.010" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;X were said to do Y&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be translated to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;据说X想做Y&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The hijackers were said to demand the plane to fly to Iran&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is equal to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is said that hijackers demanded the plane to fly to Iran.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-17T01:25:38.227" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T01:25:38.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5603" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-19T02:31:49.747" Score="12" ViewCount="335" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a couple compound words that end with 乎:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;热乎, 温乎, 確乎, 玄乎, 忙乎, 晕乎, 近乎, 热乎乎, 傻乎乎.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an understanding of how 乎 became used in these words? Does it have any relation to the classical usage of 乎 as an interrogative marker?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3823" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T23:14:32.937" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:15:28.573" Title="Origin of 乎 as a bound morpheme in words such as 热乎" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5603" CreationDate="2014-01-19T08:51:41.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the explanation given by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4E4E.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zdic.net&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;古形容词或副词后缀：巍巍～。郁郁～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;乎&lt;/code&gt; here in &lt;code&gt;热乎&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;確乎&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;玄乎&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;晕乎&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;近乎&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;热乎乎&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;傻乎乎&lt;/code&gt; is used after adjective or adverb. &lt;code&gt;乎&lt;/code&gt; has no meaning here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know any relation to the usage of interrogative marker. &lt;code&gt;乎&lt;/code&gt; is a kind of &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%99%9A%E8%AF%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;虚词&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;code&gt;乎&lt;/code&gt; is used as 语气词、介词.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2014-01-19T08:51:41.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5594" CreationDate="2014-01-19T11:46:12.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it were me, I'd say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;要不这样，我们讲中文吧。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this will be very gentle and soft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-01-19T11:46:12.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5592" CreationDate="2014-01-19T13:22:57.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有人告訴劫機者...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is actually the opposite to the original meaning. Instead it is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（有人）告诉（其他人）劫机者...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is equivalent to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;据说，劫机者...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3825" LastActivityDate="2014-01-19T13:22:57.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5594" CreationDate="2014-01-19T13:27:08.720" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since it is possible that the waiter/waitress speaks Cantonese as his/her mother tongue, saying something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们能说普通话吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would kill two birds with one stone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3825" LastActivityDate="2014-01-19T13:27:08.720" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5594" CreationDate="2014-01-19T15:20:07.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about 「您要说汉语吗？」&#xA;In this you are asking if they want to speak Chinese instead of asking if we can speak chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3826" LastActivityDate="2014-01-19T15:20:07.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="578" CreationDate="2014-01-19T20:33:31.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;so instead of saying, 没看完了 ... one would say 沒有看完 or沒有吃完 for eating...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3828" LastActivityDate="2014-01-19T20:33:31.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2639" CreationDate="2014-01-20T04:19:04.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a free Android App for learning medically-relevant Shanghainese sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robtheis.android.phrasebook.cs.md&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robtheis.android.phrasebook.cs.md&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can also see how Shanghainese is written a little differently from Putonghua, even though they both use Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3829" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T04:19:04.263" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-01-20T04:19:04.263" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5586" CreationDate="2014-01-20T06:16:42.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no such &quot;taboo&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I think it's very beautiful name, when you have one more child, you can also pick the name in &quot;yan&quot; series. e.g. 燕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But never pick the names in the same tone for different children. Same tone means 燕 and 艳 are in the same tone: yan4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3789" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T06:16:42.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5586" CreationDate="2014-01-20T12:21:36.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No such Taboo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;嫣&lt;/code&gt; is a very nice character used in name. &lt;code&gt;嫣&lt;/code&gt; in most time means beautiful smile and also means someone is very beautiful. I have a lot of girl classmates using &lt;code&gt;嫣&lt;/code&gt; in their names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;彦&lt;/code&gt; means people with knowledge and good morality. I once have a boy classmate having &lt;code&gt;彦&lt;/code&gt; in his name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T12:21:36.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5594" CreationDate="2014-01-20T13:14:04.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To avoid making the other party feel you're not satisfied with his or her English level, you may say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们可以用中文吗？ (wǒmen kěyǐ yòng zhōngwén ma?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which translates into: Can we use Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this way you're kindly asking if speaking Chinese is possible. Also, it would propably make the other party feel that you're simply interested in speaking Chinese rather than English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3793" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T13:14:04.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="578" CreationDate="2014-01-20T14:49:45.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;All answers miss an important point: the two words are total two different stuff at all! 完 is a verb while 了 is an auxiliary word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完 in case of this question is used as a secondary part of a compound verb, it denotes the result of the dominated verb. Such kind of compound verbs are called &lt;em&gt;Resultative Compound Verbs&lt;/em&gt;. In most situations, say 写完了报告, 了 is used with the whole compound verb instead of just 完. They are not connected as they seem!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3809" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T14:49:45.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5525" CreationDate="2014-01-20T15:15:32.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just like @congusbongus said, it's used as an optional part of 如果. In case of 你想看的话, you can consider 的话 is introduced &lt;em&gt;implicitly&lt;/em&gt; by 如果. The introducer itself is omitted. Really no magic here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3809" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T15:15:32.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5588" CreationDate="2014-01-20T16:09:25.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @LadyP indicates, these two words have totally different meaning when used as adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used as 'every', sometimes, they are interchangable, e.g. (每/各)个学校. But:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With some nouns, 每 can used directly without quantifier but 各 can't. E.g.: &#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每星期 -- good 各星期 -- weird&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But sometimes it's is reversed.&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每单位 -- wrong 各单位 -- good&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In this case, 每 must be followed by quantifiers: 每个单位 -- good&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generally speaking, 每 is usually followed by quantifier. Those not are exceptions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每 can be followed by all kinds of quantifiers while 各 can be followed by limited quantifiers. In this sense, 每 is more widely used compared to 各. E.g.:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;各件商品 -- wrong  每件商品 -- good&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;各个学校 -- good   每个学校 -- good&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;TDOD&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(各/每)位领导 -- good, but used in different situations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;充斥着各种声音 -- good  充斥着每种声音 -- doesn't make sense&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;各个大学之间的区别 -- hrm ... a little uneasy 每个大学之间的区别 -- doesn't make sense&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每 can be followed by numeral while 各 never (when used as 'every'). &#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每五人 -- good  各五人 -- good such in 男女各五人 but it does not mean 'every'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3809" LastEditorUserId="3809" LastEditDate="2014-01-20T16:18:25.407" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T16:18:25.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5617" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5618" CreationDate="2014-01-21T05:17:56.240" Score="4" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to pay off the remainder of my credit card bill. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me differentiate between 余额 and 尾数?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-22T00:13:56.287" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:14:05.587" Title="difference between two words for balance of account" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5617" CreationDate="2014-01-21T08:33:30.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;余额 means credit balance, the amount of money remaining in your credit card account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 尾数, it usually means when you buy something which is not available yet, the shop may require you to pay some money first (deposit), when the goods available, you will need to pay the remaining amount of the price, that is 尾数.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think the 尾数 on your bill means the amount of money you not yet paid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3835" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T23:14:05.587" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:14:05.587" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="537" CreationDate="2014-01-21T09:58:17.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;'U' is pronounced 'Ü' with the initials J, Q, X and the pseudo-initial 'Y'. Otherwise it is always pronounced 'U'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something that might help one remember it, is that J, Q and X are also pronounced with the same tongue-position but with slightly varying flow of air. So J, Q and X are basically one pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like to think that the inventors of pinyin wanted to save some trouble, and decided to spare the writers of pinyin the hassle (and ink) of writing the umlaut above the 'U', when it is not absolutely necessary. (It does pose a challenge for learners though).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some pinyin charts can help you remember it by visualization. On the chart below you'll see the 'Ü' pronunciation is grouped regardless of how it is written ('Ü' or not)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y4YLU.png&quot; alt=&quot;Standard Mandarin pinyin chart&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3793" LastActivityDate="2014-01-21T09:58:17.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5603" CreationDate="2014-01-21T17:43:11.153" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Classical Chinese, the word 乎has several other uses besides as an interrogative marker.  In Ch 27 of ‘Classical Chinese, A Basic Reader’ by Yuan, Tang and Geiss, it occurs with an adjective:  巍巍乎若泰山  ‘solemn and majestic like Mount Tai’ (referring to lute playing).  They describe 乎 here as ‘an enclitic particle attached to an adjective to intensify or emphasize its meaning.’ (Glossary, p. 110.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 漢語大字典 (p. 19) gives a similar example from the 論語:  郁郁乎文哉!  ‘What elegant words!’ There might be a link here with another use of 乎 as an exclamatory particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet another (maybe more prominent) use of 乎 is as a variant of the coverb 於, which marks locative complements and can basically be translated as an English preposition like at, in, to or from, depending on the main verb.  (See Pulleyblank, ‘Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar’, p. 53 f.)  One modern item on the list seems to work this way.  With 近, we find both 近乎 and 近於 with the meaning ‘close to, bordering on’. The FLTRP Chinese-English dictionary gives these examples: 近乎荒謬 ‘bordering on the absurd’ and 近於荒唐 (same gloss).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, here are two possible classical sources for 乎 as an adjectival suffix.  Probably in the majority of cases it is emphatic, but with 近 it functions as the head of a complement clause. In modern Mandarin it may well have taken on additional meanings or connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T23:15:28.573" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:15:28.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5603" CreationDate="2014-01-21T19:53:05.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Kang Xi Dictionary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乎 hū 〈后缀〉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)&#xA;单用或叠用在单音或叠音的形容词后面。如:许多新事物,确乎到处可见;我心里热乎乎的;他胖乎乎的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)&#xA;用在动词或副词后面,构成新的动词或副词。如:他对这点事却不在乎;几乎人人都称赞他&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) 用在形容词后面,单独不能翻译&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;宜乎众矣。――宋·周敦颐《爱莲说》&#xA;洸洸乎干城之具。――明·刘基《卖柑者言》&#xA;昂昂乎庙堂之器。&#xA;巍巍乎可畏。&#xA;赫赫乎可象。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2014-01-21T19:58:32.657" LastActivityDate="2014-01-21T19:58:32.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5603" CreationDate="2014-01-22T06:17:40.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;乎, or 乎乎 are used to emphasize the vivid-ity of a scene. For example, 饭还热乎着呢。---The rice is still (vigorously, with steam forming above it like clouds/冒着热气) hot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also we have the noun form of 热乎, which is 热乎劲(儿)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;温乎,確乎 i believe these 2 to be only used in classical texts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玄乎,忙乎,晕乎,近乎 I am not sure how these come from, but since they are sth 不明觉厉, it might just because they are hard to understand so that we use this form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;傻乎乎 not only shows vividuty, but also gives a feeling of being a very honest and cute (= = It is hard to explain what the standard of cute is for Chinese) person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: In the south, we hardly use these words, especially when we speak southern dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-01-22T06:17:40.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5623" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-22T07:43:30.133" Score="10" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry about the cryptic title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/js/6848.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;案&lt;/a&gt; is a character that can mean &amp;quot;bench&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;desk&amp;quot; but it can also mean &amp;quot;(legal) case&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;file&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;长形的桌子或架起来代替桌子用的长木板：～子。～板。书～。条～。拍～而起。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;提出计划、方法和建议的文件或记录：档～。备～。议～。提～。方～。有～可查。～卷。～牍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does this one character come to mean two very different things? The radicals suggest that the original definition may have only been the &amp;quot;bench&amp;quot; one, and the second definition is only incidentally related - I guess people would look at legal cases on a bench or table, but it seems a bit of a stretch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T08:01:16.620" Title="案: why is a bench also a case?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5623" CreationDate="2014-01-22T10:26:21.667" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding seems to be correct. For example, in Liu Yuxi of Tang Dynasty's 《陋室铭》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;无丝竹之乱耳，无案牍之劳形&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where &lt;code&gt;案&lt;/code&gt; means the desk, and &lt;code&gt;牍&lt;/code&gt; is a type of hard wood board or pad, on which you write articles. Put together, the bisyllabic word simply means cases, articles, or documents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3825" LastActivityDate="2014-01-22T10:26:21.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5626" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5628" CreationDate="2014-01-22T12:33:23.377" Score="1" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pinyin is really strange. It is like the English word, but with&#xA;  different meaning and pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know the origin of pinyin. If someone can give a clear answer, I will be very thankful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3676" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2014-01-22T14:32:00.993" LastActivityDate="2014-01-22T14:32:00.993" Title="The origin of pinyin" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-01-25T21:07:37.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5623" CreationDate="2014-01-22T13:27:41.670" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well. This is very hard to answer because Chinese characters have evolved into different shapes over time. However, if the 案 remains the same shape, we can tentatively guess its meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the upper half: it's &quot;安“, which means the security of a town/country, etc. It might be related to some documents and cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the lower half, it's &quot;木“. You see how it is associated with tables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a language learner, you don't have to care about it. It's too trivial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3839" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-01-23T00:50:35.713" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T00:50:35.713" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5626" CreationDate="2014-01-22T13:39:22.973" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We don't have pinyin(the one used today) until the foundation of PRC. The creator of Pinyin is this man, zhoyouguang &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Youguang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;(wiki)&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;In my point of view, pinyin has little to do with English. So don't mess them up. Pinyin has its own pronunciation, its own combination rules. The practice of Pinyin is to, reduce the illiteracy of Chinese people, to better facilitate people's needs (say, type Chinese chars in QWERTY keyboard).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;One thing to note is, other than pinyin, there is also a widely used kanji notation, namely zhuyin. It is also designed in the 20th century, and remains its popularity in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3839" LastActivityDate="2014-01-22T13:39:22.973" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5626" CreationDate="2014-01-22T14:30:52.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;another wiki link here that with much detail:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3840" LastActivityDate="2014-01-22T14:30:52.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5632" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5639" CreationDate="2014-01-22T23:11:03.200" Score="6" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;Until now, I thought 新 meant 'new' in all contexts. In class recently, our tutor showed a slide in which he used 生词 for 'new words'. My dictionary gives the meaning of 生 when used as an adjective as 'raw, uncooked, unripe'. Is there some other subtle meaning of 生 when used in this context to distinguish it from 新 - when would I choose one over the over?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3844" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T07:26:25.627" Title="Difference between 新 and 生?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5632" CreationDate="2014-01-22T23:53:41.433" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try a dictionary such as the excellent &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/751F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;生&lt;/a&gt; is both a common and ancient character, so it has many meanings (汉典 lists 20), although a lot of them are related. The definition you are after is this one, which means &quot;unfamiliar&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　11. 不熟悉的，不常见的：～疏。～客。～字。陌～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is subtly different from 新 which means &quot;new&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-01-22T23:53:41.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5632" CreationDate="2014-01-23T00:14:04.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;新词 = new words that did not exist&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生词 = words new to me (literally raw/uncooked words)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are as such because the opposition of 新(new) is 老(old)/旧(used), while for 生(raw/living), it is 熟(fully cooked). In French, also, they distinguish 'neuf' and 'nouvel' just so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally we make metaphor of the process of learning things as raffinated cooking. For example, a stranger is 生人, however, a familiar person is 熟人 (literally cooked people, here should be taken as 'a learned people'). Although sometimes we regard this 熟 as abbr of 熟悉 (literally all-cooked-ly known)， it cannot really jump out of this opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, 新人 means a nova/noob（=新手）, its opposition is 老人/熟手 rather than 旧人. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, 炒冷饭 means to learn something you have known well over and over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2014-01-24T07:26:25.627" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T07:26:25.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5632" CreationDate="2014-01-23T02:02:31.000" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;新: new&#xA;生: fresh. There are many meanings of this character also. Fresh is only one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T02:02:31.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5233" CreationDate="2014-01-23T02:07:52.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;easily, there should be one unit character between number and the 半.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个半月 一天半 for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T02:07:52.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5638" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-23T03:56:06.330" Score="2" ViewCount="347" Body="&lt;p&gt;The popular song goes, &quot;今天你要嫁给我好吗&quot; but I feel something like &quot;你愿意嫁给我吗&quot; sounds more like a question, rather than just adding &quot;好吗&quot; at the end of a statement. Does anybody have any critiques or suggestions for a nice proposal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T13:47:37.917" Title="Common (and good) ways to ask for hand in marriage" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5632" CreationDate="2014-01-23T08:03:06.883" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新 means new and 生 means unfamiliar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your daily study, a word you first see could be either 新词 (new word) or 生词 (unfamiliar word) to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in public articles, 新词 usually stand for newly made word (ABSOLUTELY NEW TO EVERYONE), and 生词 stand for unfamiliar word (RELATIVELY NEW TO SOMEONE).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3849" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T08:03:06.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5640" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5699" CreationDate="2014-01-23T08:04:52.880" Score="5" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once worked on a project called &lt;code&gt;实时新闻定制和推送系统&lt;/code&gt;. Now someone translated it to English as &lt;code&gt;Real-time News Ordering and Pushing System&lt;/code&gt;. However I feel strange with the word &lt;code&gt;Ordering&lt;/code&gt;. I often hear the word &lt;code&gt;subscribe&lt;/code&gt; when we refer to news. So my question is how can I translate  this project name into English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T22:59:22.663" Title="How to translate 实时新闻定制和推送系统 to English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5638" CreationDate="2014-01-23T13:47:37.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't find a Chinese song named '今天你要嫁给我好吗'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it &quot;今天你要嫁給我&quot; by 陶喆 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considered about the sentence &quot;今天你要嫁给我好吗&quot;, I think  &quot;今天你要嫁给我吗&quot; or &quot;今天嫁给我好吗&quot; are better. &quot;你願意嫁給我嗎?&quot;is smooth and clear too. However, adding &quot;今天&quot; is more pressing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, in the song '今天你要嫁給我', it used '今天嫁給我好嗎' as a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3850" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T13:47:37.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5581" CreationDate="2014-01-23T15:19:24.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would rather recommend Cangjie input method. It's not pinyin-based.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 「亻」 is 「竹中」（i.e. 丿丨）. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very easy-to-learn. You can combine the use of pinyin and cangjie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T15:19:24.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5640" CreationDate="2014-01-23T15:23:19.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Real-time News Customizing and Pushing System&lt;/code&gt;. Is this okay?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T15:23:19.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3864" CreationDate="2014-01-23T15:26:27.500" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just the pinyin of a dialect for 大學.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T15:26:27.500" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5623" CreationDate="2014-01-23T15:44:02.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q.Z.'s anwser is correct. Allen St.Clair's answer is also right. I don't know why it's downvoted. I have some additions for them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;案&lt;/code&gt; (case) is an extension in meaning of bench. Officials sit around a bench/desk, and deal with their documents. Because Chinese have a &quot;bad habit&quot; -- imagination and association, 案, unfortunately, have had another meaning which is documents/files/cases. (This is reasonable. If you were attacked by aliens and they were driving a UFO which looks like an apple, apples would remind you of the attack every time you see them!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;案 is not the only example of association and imagination. Here comes another example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the 甲骨文 and 金文 of 典 （&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/zy/5178.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;“典”的字源&lt;/a&gt;）. The 甲骨文 of 典 looks like a book in hands, read by a man. The 金文 (as well as 小篆) of 典 looks like a book on desk, read by a man. Books in the ancient times are rare and valuable, so only classics can be &quot;printed&quot;. That's why 典 means classics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can now draw the conclusion: the ambiguity is often caused by active imagination! :-P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastEditorUserId="1104" LastEditDate="2014-01-23T17:39:13.867" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T17:39:13.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5646" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5654" CreationDate="2014-01-23T19:04:09.933" Score="5" ViewCount="13967" Body="&lt;p&gt;In response to kindnesses I sometimes say &quot;不好意思了&quot; and I don't think there has ever been a misunderstanding.  But as an English speaker I feel unsure how this is different from saying &quot;不好意思&quot; for a bad thing.  Can anyone advise on how the two meaning differ in use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 了 occur here only in response to a kindness, and not in describing a bad thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me give an example.  A friend took me to see a friend of hers who gave me a thoughtful gift.  I said &quot;thank you.&quot;  Everyone involved spoke enough English but later I thought &quot;thank you&quot; was not the right thing to say.  In English I could have said &quot;this is too kind of you,&quot; or in Mandarin 不好意思了.  My friend confirmed that in her opinion those would have been better.  And I normally do say 不好意思了 at times like this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was not a case of any problem either with the gift or my gratitude.  It was just a case where I should have been more modest.  Maybe such things are always clear from context but I wonder if there are points of usage aside from context to distinguish the agreeable sense of 不好意思 from the sense of something wrong.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2014-01-24T14:08:17.820" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T14:08:17.820" Title="The meanings of 不好意思" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5647" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5648" CreationDate="2014-01-23T21:15:31.970" Score="4" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to convey &amp;quot;If you do x, we'll call it even.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们可以互相学习，我教你滑雪，作为回报你可以教我什么呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can both learn from each other... I'll teach you to ski... and in return what can you teach me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没有什么特长&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have any specialties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I was going to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about you cook for me and we'll call it even?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would I say that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T12:42:30.993" Title="Do this for me and then we'll be even" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5647" CreationDate="2014-01-23T21:33:50.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;you might say:&#xA;你给我做饭如何？这样我们就扯平了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3606" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T21:33:50.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5649" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5655" CreationDate="2014-01-23T22:04:58.677" Score="3" ViewCount="1149" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you make an agreement with someone, how do you say, both formally and informally, &quot;it's a deal.&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like, formally &quot;Do you agree to the contract?&quot; &quot;Yes. It's a deal.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Informally, &quot;I'll make you food if you teach me Chinese.&quot; &quot;Fine. It's a deal!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T14:19:59.387" Title="how to say It's a deal" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5649" CreationDate="2014-01-23T22:15:49.080" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Oops, just remembered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一言为定。 Yī yán wéi dìng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T22:15:49.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5646" CreationDate="2014-01-23T22:58:40.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 refers to a completed/past event/action, or intensifier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as &lt;code&gt;user58955&lt;/code&gt; said, they're the same meaning. Adding 了 just &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;specifies the past: Q: 你吃过这个东西吗？ A: 吃了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;intensifier: 没有了！ = 我什么都没有 (I think I saw this in a Chinese movie where the guy lost his house in a bet. Then was yelling 没有了 in the streets. Forgot the movie though.) So, &lt;code&gt;没有了&lt;/code&gt;有时候形容一种状态。 &lt;code&gt;没有&lt;/code&gt;有表示结果。我觉得大同小异。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1289/usage-of-%E4%BA%86-and-%E4%BB%A5%E5%90%8E&quot;&gt;Usage of 了 and 以后&lt;/a&gt; should help you clarify usage of 了 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as the phrase 不好意思 (lit: bad meaning/intention) itself, it's a 客气/礼貌 response to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;disturbing someone: 不好意思，现在几点呢？ (or can sub 麻烦你了 or 请问)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;doing something that bothered someone: 我忘了叫你跟我们一起吃饭。不好意思。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T23:17:27.140" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5646" CreationDate="2014-01-24T02:07:22.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is also used as a modest response to an invitation, or a gift, or other. I am concerned that I might sometime use the phrase intending to express modest acceptance, and yet get the nuance wrong so that it sounds like I am saying something is wrong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, what you said is right!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不好意思&quot; is something like &quot;I'm sorry but I want to……can you help me&quot;. Here you know that &quot;I'm sorry&quot; doesn't mean to make an apology to others but just a starting an expression when you wanna make a very tiny trouble(e.g: You wanna others help you……). Or maybe others will spend a lot of time, energy, ect on your task while helping you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it means &quot;Excuse me&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不好意思，想问如何去一号线？Excuse me, how can I go to Metro 1？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T02:07:22.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5649" CreationDate="2014-01-24T02:13:16.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My additions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say &lt;strong&gt;不见不散&lt;/strong&gt; when you want to have a appointment with others at some time in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T02:13:16.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5646" CreationDate="2014-01-24T04:23:11.207" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;不好意思 has two meanings which are quite similar but applied differently. Quoting from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/d/142/310512.htm&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt; (English translation mine): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;①表示碍于情面而只能怎样或不便怎样。(to indicate a face-saving compromise)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is usually used as a form of acknowledgement and indirect acceptance of another person's kindness or generosity when none is expected. The person saying it usually has little choice, either because he is in desperate need for help or it would make the situation embarrassing if he refuses the generosity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;②害羞；难为情。(feel shy or embarrassed about the situation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is used in situations where one would feel embarrassed for troubling someone else. The level of embarrassment can be quite abysmal though, especially when spoken in sarcasm or when used for very minor things like asking for directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does 了 occur here only in response to a kindness, and not in&#xA;  describing a bad thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, 了, does not determine the meaning of 不好意思. The reason why you may think so is due to the way you apply the first meaning of 不好意思 at the end of a sentence. Some examples to demonstrate why this is not necessarily the case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;真不好意思，又让您破费了。(without 了 ①)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不好意思，厕所在哪里？(asking for directions ②)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她被夸得不好意思&lt;b&gt;了&lt;/b&gt;。(counter example ②)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不好意思&lt;b&gt;了&lt;/b&gt;大家，我已经上岸了，你们继续摸石头吧。(counter example with sarcasm ②)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T04:23:11.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5649" CreationDate="2014-01-24T07:06:50.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;不见不散 is often used if you are making an appointment, especially for a dinner. 一言爲定 is more formal, and one may prefer 就这么定了 in oral conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3516" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T07:06:50.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="759" CreationDate="2014-01-24T07:46:21.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient classical texts, 汤 means hot water, while 羹 means meat with sauce(see &lt;a href=&quot;http://site.douban.com/106369/widget/notes/134616/note/96052054/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;), and later thick meaty sauce and sticky soup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when time went by, they are now all used to describe soup. But because they have different etymology, 羹 is taken as a thicker form of 汤. 汤 is a dish whose nuclear process is to boil a crock of water and consumed in the manner of drinking with a spoon. (By the way, you westerners seems to categorize things like chicken noodles also as a kind of soup....In China, soups and noodles are 2 categories excluding each other) However, 汤 is a wider concept though it does not contain noodles=,=.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古文当中，汤最开始指的是热水，羹最初指的是带汁的肉，准确说来是一种红烧肉（见&lt;a href=&quot;http://site.douban.com/106369/widget/notes/134616/note/96052054/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;此文&lt;/a&gt;），然后才演变成肉酱和糊糊一类的东西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是随着时间推移，他们现在都属于汤的概念里面。但是因为语源的不同，现在羹指的是较浓的哪一类*&lt;em&gt;汤&lt;/em&gt;*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;。汤的话，就是烧的时候主要是煮水，享用方法主要靠勺子舀来喝的菜肴。（顺便，西方人似乎把鸡面也算作soup，但是对于中国人来说，面是面，汤是汤。）总之现在而言，汤的范畴要大于羹=,=。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T07:46:21.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5649" CreationDate="2014-01-24T14:19:59.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with “一言为定”, also you can say &quot;成交&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3606" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T14:19:59.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5640" CreationDate="2014-01-24T22:03:10.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Customizing Push System and real-time news.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here Push system is like the one sending notification on any mobile device.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3853" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T22:03:10.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5659" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21498" CreationDate="2014-01-25T17:27:11.850" Score="5" ViewCount="10688" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've just finished my two months travelling in China and have arrived to spend one month in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I now want to learn as much as I can about how Mandarin Chinese is used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing different in Taiwan is that people type using Zhuyin Fuhao a.k.a. bopomofo. So I want to learn both bopomofo and how to type it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A website I'm using to learn bopomofo via flashcards requires me to type in bopomofo to test myself. There are a good few IMEs in Windows 7 for traditional Chinese and I've fiddled with a couple of them but have not found out how to enter &quot;raw&quot; bopomofo without the IME converting to characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;To illustrate:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To enter a character such as &lt;code&gt;馬&lt;/code&gt; you would type &lt;code&gt;ㄇㄚˇ&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in certain situations you don't want &lt;code&gt;ㄇㄚˇ&lt;/code&gt; to be converted to &lt;code&gt;馬&lt;/code&gt;, you just want it to stay as &lt;code&gt;ㄇㄚˇ&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can this be done? (The website is memrise.com but please don't just suggest some other site or app to help me learn, because I'm curious to figure out how to enter bopomofo anyway.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T04:20:16.880" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T09:51:58.867" Title="How can I type bopomofo on Windows without converting to hanzi?" Tags="&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5660" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5673" CreationDate="2014-01-25T19:05:23.560" Score="6" ViewCount="2352" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I'm not going to use the hanzi or even proper pinyin for some terms because I only know them from speaking as an absolute beginning learner.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mainland China the currency is the &quot;yuan&quot; but in practice nobody calls it that. Instead they say &quot;kwai&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've just arrived by ferry in Taiwan from China and here the currency is the &quot;New Taiwan Dollar&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I refer to it by the term &quot;yuan&quot;, &quot;kwai&quot;, or by an adaptation of the English word, something like &quot;dola&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bonus: What about when referring to the Old Taiwan Dollar between 1946-49 or the Taiwan Yen during the time under Japanese rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T03:08:13.673" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T08:18:06.307" Title="How is the currency of Taiwan referred to in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5660" CreationDate="2014-01-26T03:37:08.643" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, people use ‘kuài’ in conversation, as in ‘yī qiān duō kuài’ (over 1,000 NT$).  You can also add ‘qián’ to make it clear you’re talking about amounts of money:  ‘wŭ shí kuài qián’ (50 NT$).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might want to use ‘(xīn) tái bì’ when changing money, as in ‘qĭng gĕi wŏ tái bì’ (please give me Taiwan dollars).  I don’t know what was used in previous periods, but here are some ways to refer to other currencies:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;mĕi jīn   ‘American dollars’ &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rì bì   ‘Japanese yen’&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;găng bì  ‘Hong Kong dollars’&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yīng bàng  ‘British pounds’&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are from a Mandarin textbook put out by TLI, a language school in Taiwan.  Be careful with the tone on ‘tái’ - in some contexts this can be confused with the falling tone ‘tài’ referring to Thailand/Thai money.  But if you’re already in Taiwan, that shouldn’t be a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="3647" LastEditDate="2014-01-26T03:52:06.217" LastActivityDate="2014-01-26T03:52:06.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5662" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-26T04:28:45.177" Score="2" ViewCount="18660" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am now used to typing Chinese using a pinyin IME from my time in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as far as I know the pinyin IMEs usually generate simplified characters. I'm now in Taiwan and having trouble learning the ways they type here so I'm wondering if there's a way to type in pinyin but generate traditional characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm using Windows 7 and would prefer to use one of the IMEs included with it. But if none of them will do it then an answer involving downloading another IME would also be OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T02:36:50.637" Title="Is it possible to type traditional characters with a pinyin IME in Windows 7?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="18" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5663" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-26T04:40:55.587" Score="6" ViewCount="4041" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm very interested in the old forms of Chinese characters that you still see in many contexts including historical, artistic, and design contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm wondering if there are free fonts for these old script styles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Seal_Script&quot;&gt;Large Seal script&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;Great Seal script&lt;/strong&gt; (大篆, Dàzhuàn) - from before the Qin dynasty&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/12/%E9%BE%8D-bigseal.svg/32px-%E9%BE%8D-bigseal.svg.png&quot; alt=&quot;large seal&quot;&gt; is the large seal script style for &lt;code&gt;龍&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Seal_Script&quot;&gt;Small Seal Script&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (小篆, xiǎozhuàn), also known as &lt;strong&gt;Seal Script&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Lesser Seal Script&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Qin Script&lt;/strong&gt; (秦篆, Qínzhuàn), from the Qin dynasty&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/%E9%BE%8D-seal.svg/32px-%E9%BE%8D-seal.svg.png&quot; alt=&quot;small seal&quot;&gt; is the small seal script style for &lt;code&gt;龍&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot;&gt;Oracle bone script&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (甲骨文, jiǎgǔwén) - the earliest version of Chinese script. I'm expecting this is less plausible since there were surely far fewer characters back then.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/%E9%BE%8D-oracle.svg/32px-%E9%BE%8D-oracle.svg.png&quot; alt=&quot;bronze&quot;&gt; is the oracle bone script style for &lt;code&gt;龍&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really only want free fonts that I can use in web pages or in open source projects, or even edit. Modern font formats such as &lt;code&gt;OTF&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;TTF&lt;/code&gt; that are supported on all modern operating systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-26T05:16:16.540" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T18:17:52.907" Title="Are there some free fonts for the small seal, large seal, and even oracle bone script styles?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5662" CreationDate="2014-01-26T05:26:36.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's one way to do it which I figured out starting from some tips thanks to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/3647/user2619&quot;&gt;user2619&lt;/a&gt; in the comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Right click on the keyboard/IME icon in the system tray.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select &quot;Settings&quot; from the popup menu.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &quot;Text Services and Input Languages&quot; dialog will appear. Use the &quot;General&quot; tab.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Under &quot;Installed services&quot; click on &quot;Add...&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find the section &quot;Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select &quot;Chinese (Traditional) - New Phonetic&quot;. Click &quot;OK&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left click on the keyboard/IME icon in the system tray. Select &quot;Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan)&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click on the &quot;Tool Menu&quot; icon in the IME's system tray icon. It's the 4th icon to the right of the &lt;code&gt;CH&lt;/code&gt; icon.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select the &quot;Properties&quot; menu item. Then the &quot;Keyboard&quot; tab.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the section labelled &quot;Choose your preferred keyboard layout&quot;, choose &quot;HanYu Pinyin&quot; from the dropdown list.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if you are used to the Pinyin IME for simplified Chinese in the PRC the way to select characters is totally different. I haven't figured out that part yet ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-01-26T05:26:36.787" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5660" CreationDate="2014-01-26T12:08:39.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;kuai4 (块) is a generic word that does not say anything about the money's currency. So regardless of the currency you can always use kuai4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New Taiwan Dollar is either tai2 bi4 (台币) or xin1 tai2 bi4 (新台币) according to dictionaries. (I've never used them so I'm not sure.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=New+Taiwan+Dollar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=New+Taiwan+Dollar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="945" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T08:18:06.307" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T08:18:06.307" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5660" CreationDate="2014-01-26T18:43:05.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To make a distinction between the two, people in China and Taiwan refer to it as 台币 tai2 bi4 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For general conversation, just use 块.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3856" LastActivityDate="2014-01-26T18:43:05.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5660" CreationDate="2014-01-27T02:27:40.860" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As many have said the &quot;proper&quot; way to refer to the currency of Taiwan is 新台币 (Xīn tái bì) which is literally broken down to 新 (Xīn) = New and 台币 (tái bì) = Taiwan Dollars   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Old Taiwan dollars are referred to as 舊臺幣&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Taiwan_dollar&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;*&lt;/a&gt; (旧台币) (jiù tái bì)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However you would only refer to them by these proper names when dealing with multiple currencies. When referring to local currency you would use 块, 毛, 半 (Kuài, máo, bàn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;块 Kuài&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refers to 1 unit of currency relative to where you are. So 一块 (Yī kuài) in Australia refers to $1 AUD, in Singapore refers to $1 SGD, in the UK refers to £1 GBP, and in Taiwan refers to $1 TWD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Now because you're in Taiwan you won't be using much more then 块 Kuài because the half dollar is rarely used. But please have a read since you seem to travel a lot and it will be helpful to know:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;毛 Máo&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refers to 10's of cents so 一块五毛 (Yī kuài wǔ máo) would be $1.50 in AUD, $1.50 SGD, £1.50 in GBP, etc ...   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;半 bàn&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now 半 (bàn) isn't a unit of currency but a modifier whose value is equal to half of a single unit of its parent value. Now that seems a little confusing at first but it's the same as saying &quot;and a half&quot; in English. So let's move on to some full prices of some items:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;六块九毛半 (Liù kuài jiǔ máo bàn) = $6.95&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一百八十九块半 (Yī bǎi bā shí jiǔ kuài bàn) = $189.50  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note: 块毛半 (Kuài máo bàn) only works for currencies that use whole values. Under the older systems of currency like the old British system of 12 pence to a shilling, 20 shillings to a pound this would not work and you would have to use the formal names of each unit.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="3124" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T07:54:15.563" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T07:54:15.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5675" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-27T03:01:03.340" Score="8" ViewCount="5329" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because there are many kinds of input method and many implementations of each kind of input method, it's not really practical to learn many.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PRC, mainland China uses simplified Chinese characters, as does Singapore. I assume most people in these places would use a Pinyin IME. But it would be good to know which Pinyin IME is most used currently. If I choose to learn the most popular one I will have the best chance of finding somebody who can help me when I have questions about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong and Taiwan both use traditional Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here in Taiwan most people do not use a Pinyin based IME, there are several IMEs based on bopomofo and others based on character shapes. Do we know which type is most used? And do we know which specific ones of the main types are used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think Hong Kong uses bopomofo and with their changing demographics from Cantonese where pinyin wouldn't work to Mandarin, I'd be very interested to know which kind of IME is most used there, and which actual implementation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best answers will be able to refer to some official website or statistics. For people who haven't travelled to these countries and who are just trying to learn Chinese, the IMEs from Chinese and Taiwanese companies and ones that can be downloaded from websites that don't have any English are probably not well known. People learning Chinese with a western language background are probably most likely to use IMEs that come with their computer or OS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it would be very good for us to know which ones actual Chinese speakers really use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One issue though might be lack of English menus, dialogs, settings, and help for the IMEs that don't come with your OS. Learners are not proficient enough to use those in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T03:37:34.743" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T10:06:52.330" Title="Which IMEs (input method editors) are actually most used in each of PRC, ROC, and Hong Kong?" Tags="&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5659" CreationDate="2014-01-27T04:00:03.310" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use your own IME:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pAfiA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Make sure that your IME is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wD6WP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Choose &quot;Phoetic&quot; and directly input what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T08:11:05.883" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T08:11:05.883" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5678" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5682" CreationDate="2014-01-27T07:52:36.400" Score="6" ViewCount="465" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese 師傅 will often be used to refer to some sort of specialized worker (e.g. a plumber, or a renovator) or some sort of &quot;master&quot; or &quot;teacher&quot; (not in the sense used in a school setting), similar to some senses of 先生 in Japanese as far as I know. Is this sort of usage also common in Mandarin, and is it used for the same things?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Are there also regional differences to how commonly the phrase is used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3410" LastEditorDisplayName="user3410" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T17:50:48.540" LastActivityDate="2015-04-19T09:49:01.883" Title="Usage of 師傅 in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5678" CreationDate="2014-01-27T08:18:56.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this sort of usage also common in 普通話, and is it used for the same things?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;师傅&quot; means teacher or the guider who guides you to do something at the very beginning. There's a very famous saying: 师傅领进门，修行靠个人。 (Teachers can only guide you, Deeply learning depends on yourself).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, 师傅 is a formal statement. E.G: 功夫熊猫(KongFu Panda)'s ShiFu:D,  Here it means &quot;大师&quot; (master). We usually use &quot;老师&quot; when speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T08:18:56.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5675" CreationDate="2014-01-27T08:59:02.063" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I try to answer for the mainland China part. And I only mention Pinyin IME here because that's what I and the majority use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Windows:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;IMHO, the best Pinyin IME on Windows is &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.sogou.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sogou Pinyin&lt;/a&gt; regarding match rate. As you might already know, Pinyin are not 1-to-1. Sogou Pinyin has the highest match rate of all IMEs I've used. I recommend you to try it if you're still using the IME shipping with Windows. Sogou is also a search engine company. They improve their the word databases by analysing the search keywords submitted by users. Sougou Pinyin is proprietary software. Unfortunately, most Chinese companies don't respect users' privacy. Maybe I'm paranoid, I'm reluctant to use it, although Sogou Pinyin is the most widely used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Pinyin. The second best regarding match rate imho. Google Pinyin is made by Google China. They were once accused by Sogou for stealing Sogou Pinyin's word databases. Google actually did and admitted. They apologized for that and deleted the words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/rimeime/wiki/Downloads&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Rime IME&lt;/a&gt; It's not as good as the developers and the community claim to be but it's open source. Best choice if you're willing to trade performance for privacy. It supports many platforms besides Windows. I'm not certain but it might have English UI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Microsoft Pinyin IME I haven't used recent version but it wasn't as good as Google or Sogou Pinyin regarding match rate. I mention it because it ships with Windows and might also have English UI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Android:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Sogou is again the most popular. I use &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.pinyin&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Pinyin&lt;/a&gt; and it has English UI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Linux:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I use &lt;code&gt;ibus-pinyin&lt;/code&gt;. I'd say it's the wrost IME I've used regarding match rate. &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/sunpinyin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sun Pinyin&lt;/a&gt; is a better alternative. I don't use it because it doesn't support traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry I'm not familiar with Mac OS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't mention Baidu Pinyin because I didn't use it. Baidu Pinyin is a late comer. I definitely miss many other IMEs too. Note that when I say Sogou Pinyin is the most widely used, I don't have any statistics to support it, it's just that every one around me is using it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3693" LastEditorUserId="3693" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T14:09:14.120" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T14:09:14.120" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5675" CreationDate="2014-01-27T10:14:19.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many people in Hong Kong use Quick aka 速成 or Simplified Cangjie.&#xA;There is a wiki link for this input method:&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Cangjie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Simplified Cangjie&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a build-in Quick IME in Windows and Mac. Most of the Quick users use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quick users type Chinese using Quick on smartphone too, as the build-in IME of smartphone that selling in Hong Kong usually support Quick. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, some people prefer to type using 5-stroke input method(5筆畫輸入法) on phone. There is a wiki link for this input method:&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubihua_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wubihua method&lt;/a&gt;. This is a very simple input method. It is based on the stroke order of a Chinese character so as long as you write Chinese, you will know how to type.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3835" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T10:14:19.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5678" CreationDate="2014-01-27T14:10:56.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 普通話, a 師傅 (simplified Chinese 师傅) is a specialized worker, while 師父 (simplified Chinese 师父) is a master who teaches something that will promote people spiritually. I think the two are different, although the pronunciations are the same. For the teacher who teaches us math, science, etc we use &quot;老師&quot; (simplified Chinese 老师).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3860" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-01-28T20:08:33.980" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T20:08:33.980" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5659" CreationDate="2014-01-27T15:03:06.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is quite easy to me, are you using MS IME? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;follow the tutorial in this page&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://goo.gl/PAAj2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://goo.gl/PAAj2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when you reach the &quot;Add Input Language&quot; part, select &quot;Chinese(Traditional) - Phonetic&quot;, then save setting, then switch your IME to &quot;Chinese(Traditional) - Phonetic&quot;, press any bopomofo characters you want, then press space bar, the characters you want should appear(sometimes you have to select them from a list).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3860" LastEditorUserId="3860" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T15:23:42.663" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T15:23:42.663" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5684" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5685" CreationDate="2014-01-27T16:25:18.377" Score="3" ViewCount="801" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to translate my website into Traditional and Simplified Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a full human translation for it into Traditional Chinese and I was wondering about what errors and inaccuracies can be caused by machine translating into simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'd use a tool like Google Translate, the Word 2010 translation plug in or another online tool)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although there's a reasonable amount written about the problems translating from Simplified to Traditional there's very little I can find for the reverse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seems to be only a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguities_in_Chinese_character_simplification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;small number of characters&lt;/a&gt; which are 2:1 for traditional to simplified and I didn't think there were any grammar differences. But I also can't quite imagine something as complicated as language translation by machine would work perfectly. What kind of problems exist for traditional to simplified translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I chatted to an IT technician in Hong Kong. His points on the subject were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's still a margin of error from traditional to simplified, get it proof read if you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Watch out Chinese punctuation. It's different heights (middle in traditional and bottom in simplified).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing any of this in Adobe if you want pdf's is very hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3861" LastEditorUserId="3861" LastEditDate="2014-01-30T13:05:31.763" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T13:05:31.763" Title="Issues with machine translation from Traditional to Simplified (not vice versa)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5684" CreationDate="2014-01-27T16:48:35.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might be interested in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/opencc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;opencc&lt;/a&gt; project. Besides trad-to-simp and simp-to-trad conversion, it can also convert different common word usage in different areas. For example, 「程式」 to 「程序」. And it also deals with the small difference between Simplified and Traditional Chinese you've mentioned in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3693" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T16:48:35.650" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5663" CreationDate="2014-01-27T18:17:52.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is some chinese &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ibiblio.org/chinesehistory/contents/08fea/c02.html#Fonts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;font&lt;/a&gt; including small seal scripts, but I haven't tried it myself. Might be useful for u.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3606" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T18:17:52.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5688" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-28T02:37:08.667" Score="3" ViewCount="4586" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've tried google translate, but it doesn't seem like what I'm trying to translate is quite right (at least I'm not sure if it's correct).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say &quot;end of the month&quot;, I have heard people say &quot;这月底“，but is there a complement to that for &quot;beginning of the month&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2604" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T09:36:39.710" Title="How to say &quot;beginning of the month?&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5688" CreationDate="2014-01-28T05:05:05.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides what hrzhu says, you can also say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本月起，本月伊始&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T05:05:05.873" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5688" CreationDate="2014-01-28T09:36:39.710" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are lots of translations. What @agriprop said is probably the most common translation----&lt;strong&gt;月初&lt;/strong&gt;----both in spoken and written Language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;月初 对应着 月末,月底(end of month)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What @CA55CE37 answered should not have &lt;code&gt;本&lt;/code&gt;, here &lt;code&gt;本&lt;/code&gt; means this month. You cannot use it to describe other month. However &lt;code&gt;月起&lt;/code&gt; is not a word. I never heard. While &lt;code&gt;伊始&lt;/code&gt; is a very formal word that we often used in written Chinese. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/8/12020.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;伊始&lt;/a&gt; means the beginning. &lt;code&gt;伊始&lt;/code&gt; is often used as adverb to describe that we begin to do something. The usage of &lt;code&gt;伊始&lt;/code&gt;: verb+伊始----the beginning of doing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;refer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E6%9C%88%E5%88%9D/52961&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E6%9C%88%E5%88%9D/52961&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/8/94/168956.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/8/94/168956.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T09:36:39.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5692" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5693" CreationDate="2014-01-28T18:43:43.543" Score="5" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;Earlier when I was in China I learned &quot;便利店&quot; (biànlì diàn) to mean &quot;convenience store&quot;. I think from looking it up in the English Wiktionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But now that I'm in Taiwan when I used it people didn't understand it and then corrected me to use instead &quot;便利商店&quot; (biànlì shāngdiàn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I check on Google Translate it supports both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is this a PRC vs Taiwan difference? Or is it generational? Or are they straight synonyms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-28T19:44:19.513" LastActivityDate="2014-02-04T16:39:41.197" Title="&quot;便利商店&quot; (biànlì shāngdiàn) vs &quot;便利店&quot; (biànlì diàn)" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5692" CreationDate="2014-01-28T19:37:13.270" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a PRC vs. Taiwan thing. It's like American English vs. British English. You'll find many words are different in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T19:37:13.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5694" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-28T19:51:50.983" Score="8" ViewCount="22546" Body="&lt;p&gt;At home in Australia my neighbouring shop owners are from Shanghai and taught me some Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From them I learned two ways of responding to &quot;谢谢&quot; (xièxiè):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;不客气&quot; (bù kèqì)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;谢谢你&quot; (xièxiè nǐ)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess these mean roughly &quot;you're welcome&quot;, &quot;don't mention it&quot;, &quot;it's nothing&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that I've travelled in China and Taiwan I can only recall hearing the former. I've tried using the latter here and nobody reacts strangely like when I say other things wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is one more casual than the other? Are they used in different regions? Could one be more used in Shanghai? Or are there some slight connotations different? When is it better to use one or the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-03T05:14:01.430" LastActivityDate="2014-02-04T04:07:52.970" Title="&quot;不客气&quot; (bù kèqì) vs &quot;谢谢你&quot; (xièxiè nǐ)" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5675" CreationDate="2014-01-28T19:54:19.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use &lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://translate.google.com&lt;/a&gt;. You can output it to Traditional Chinese. The Pinyin method is very fast, sometimes you only need to type the first letter only. For example 拼音输入法 I only need type &quot;pysrf&quot; and it also includes the Pinyin with intonation marks Pīnyīn shūrù fǎ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T19:54:19.810" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5694" CreationDate="2014-01-28T20:00:23.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's the same in English. If you've helped someone and they say 谢谢 (thank you), your response should be 不客气 (you're welcome). It's strange to reply 谢谢你 (thank you [too]) unless maybe you both mutually helped each other in some way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T20:00:23.793" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5640" CreationDate="2014-01-28T20:36:54.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;实时新闻定制和推送系统 Real-time news customization and notification service.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T20:36:54.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5640" CreationDate="2014-01-28T22:59:22.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Real-time news subscription and notification system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T22:59:22.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3864" CreationDate="2014-01-28T23:19:36.810" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's Mandarin transliteration by Portuguese Jesuit Fr. Inácio da Costa (17th century).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Partial text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“大学之道，在明明德，在亲民，在止于至善”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ta hio chi dao, cai min min te, cai cin min, cai chi yu chi xen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastEditorUserId="3866" LastEditDate="2014-01-29T00:22:33.423" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T00:22:33.423" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5678" CreationDate="2014-01-29T01:02:52.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A master/teacher should be 师父 instead of 师傅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T01:02:52.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5694" CreationDate="2014-01-29T01:07:35.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From then I learned two ways of responding to &quot;谢谢&quot; (xièxiè)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;谢谢你&quot; (Thank you) is really a response to those who have helped you. However, to give a respectful response to them, you would say &quot;不用谢&quot; or 不客气. So &quot;不客气&quot; is a very polite reply to &quot;Thank you&quot;, but you cannot equate &quot;谢谢&quot; with &quot;不客气&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very typical scenario is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Please help me with ……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &lt;strong&gt;Many thanks&lt;/strong&gt; for your help. *&lt;em&gt;非常感谢&lt;/em&gt;*你的帮助。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &lt;strong&gt;You're welcome&#xA;不用谢。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However we don't say anything like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Please help me with ……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A: You are welcome…… (It's not right in Chinese, either)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-29T16:25:25.687" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T16:25:25.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5694" CreationDate="2014-01-29T02:08:44.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hong Kongers use 多謝 (do ze) and 唔該 (ng goi). Both mean thank you. But they have slightly different connotations / usage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 多謝, it usually means thank you for something which others gave you such as present or cash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 唔該, it usually means thank you for some service that others offer to you (For example, someone helped you open a door, you can say 唔該).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Foreigners usually mix up these two words and it is a bit hilarious for locals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3835" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-29T16:25:06.077" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T16:25:06.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5694" CreationDate="2014-01-29T03:44:57.167" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stepping in for my Chinese to Australian translations:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Also a couple of other phrases that are good to keep in your toolkit&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Thank you&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;谢谢 Xièxiè&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the most basic and common way of saying thank you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Australian Translation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Cheers&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;谢谢你 Xièxiè nǐ&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a more sincere or formal way of saying thank you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Australian Translation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thank you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thanks Heaps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;多​谢 Duōxiè&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translates to many thanks, Where &lt;strong&gt;谢谢你 Xièxiè nǐ&lt;/strong&gt; is used to more formally express a greater amount of thanks &lt;strong&gt;多​谢 Duōxiè&lt;/strong&gt; is a slightly more casual way of saying the same.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Australian Translation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Cheers mate this helped a ton&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thanks, I really appreciate this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;我​很​感​谢​ Wǒ hěn gǎnxiè&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translates to I am very thankful/Grateful. This term I'm less familiar with but to me it would be to a way of expressing a large amount of gratitude in a formal manner. Same sort of situations &lt;strong&gt;您 Nín&lt;/strong&gt; is used over &lt;strong&gt;你 Nǐ&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Australian Translation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thank you sir, I appreciate this.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Responses&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;不客气 Bù kèqì&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best translation for this is No politeness necessary or more commonly You're welcome&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Australian Translation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You're welcome&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;不用谢 Bùyòng xiè&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It literately means &quot;No need thanks&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Australian Translation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Don't worry about it mate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;没事 Méishì&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It literally translates to &quot;Nothing Thing&quot; but a more natural translation would be it's nothing / never mind &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Australian Translation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It was nothing mate (As in it was no trouble)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Post thoughts&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Responding to 谢谢 (xièxiè) with 谢谢你 (xièxiè nǐ) although would be understood it isn't a way I have heard before. I think it would work well if someone who you were in a position to thank thanked you before you said thank you. An example would be purchasing something from someone as you're both equally profiting from the interaction but if the thanks are one sided I wouldn't use 谢谢你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean if you helped a lady up after she tripped and then thanked her for letting you help her she would scream 变态 (biàntài) and slap you across the face assuming you took some sick joy in it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Bonus way of saying thanks&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;note: this is not about the Chinese language but the Chinese culture&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone pours you a cup of tea rather then vocalizing your thanks you can tap 2 fingers on the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This custom is said to have originated in the Qing Dynasty when Emperor Qian Long would travel in disguise through the empire. Servants were told not to reveal their master's identity. One day in a restaurant, the emperor, after pouring himself a cup of tea, filled a servant's cup as well. To that servant it was a huge honour to have the emperor pour him a cup of tea. Out of reflex he wanted to kneel and express his thanks. He could not kneel and kowtow to the emperor since that would reveal the emperor's identity so he bent his fingers on the table to express his gratitude and respect to the emperor.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Partial Extract from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_tea_culture#Finger_tapping&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="3124" LastEditDate="2014-02-04T04:07:52.970" LastActivityDate="2014-02-04T04:07:52.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5705" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-29T15:02:02.053" Score="1" ViewCount="373" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been looking at some very cheap tablet computers made in China and one goes by the English brand name &quot;Cube&quot; or &quot;Alldocube&quot; or &quot;cube51&quot;. Their Chinese brand name is &quot;酷比魔方&quot; (Kù bǐ mófāng).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see that &quot;魔方&quot; is the Chinese name of Rubik's Cube and that &quot;酷&quot; is a colloquial or slang term like &quot;cool&quot; (as well as other meanings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though &quot;酷比&quot; gets lots of Google hits it could just be a regular phrase. I see that &quot;比&quot; has a meaning &quot;than&quot;, among others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So does the brand name &quot;酷比魔方&quot; just translate to the phrase &quot;Cooler than Rubik's Cube&quot;, or is &quot;酷比&quot; actually some kind of compound as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate translates &quot;酷比&quot; as &quot;cool&quot;, which is one clue that maybe it's not just a phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-30T05:54:36.120" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T05:54:36.120" Title="Is &quot;酷比&quot; an actual used word in any Chinese-speaking location? (Including colloquial and slang)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5706" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5714" CreationDate="2014-01-29T15:55:58.900" Score="1" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is my translation right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the context (conversation about Snowden):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:     未证实的意思呢就是还没有去证实、证明它是一个事实。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B:     嗯。我想，会吗？他可能已经在暗中做安排了吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:     这个只是他们的官方说法嘛，呵呵。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean different things in different contexts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesepod.com/lessons/%E6%96%AF%E8%AF%BA%E7%99%BB%E4%B8%8E%E2%80%9C%E6%A3%B1%E9%95%9C%E9%97%A8%E2%80%9D%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Transcript of conversation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="3063" LastEditDate="2014-01-29T17:00:32.817" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T02:27:28.063" Title="Translation of 我想会吗? - I thought, is it possible?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5705" CreationDate="2014-01-29T16:15:16.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no meaning for &quot;酷比&quot;. I guess it could be just a transliteration of &quot;cube&quot;, you see these two words are pronounced similarly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While &quot;酷&quot; has the meaning of cool, &quot;酷比&quot; stands for cube, &quot;魔方&quot; means Rubik's Cube, all these words put together make an easy-to-remember and catchy brand name. Brand names don't always have a meaning, they just need to be cool and catchy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3860" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-30T05:30:50.393" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T05:30:50.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5705" CreationDate="2014-01-29T16:23:12.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think 酷比 has any virtual meaning. But one can argue it means cool guy. 比 is a homophone of 逼, which is a homophone of 屄， which means female genital. It can be used to refer people. For example, 傻逼 means ass-hole. Similarly, 酷逼 means cool guy. Generally, 酷比 is just a name without any virtual meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3693" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T16:23:12.087" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5706" CreationDate="2014-01-29T16:54:10.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you provide the source or the whole conversation? I've read the dialogue a few times. I think 会吗 is a rhetorical question here. It means B doesn't believe what A says. And A replies 这个只是他们的官方说法嘛. A says it's just their official announcement. It can be just diplomatic parlance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3693" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T16:54:10.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5710" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5711" CreationDate="2014-01-29T18:08:38.833" Score="6" ViewCount="763" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I looked up how to say &quot;next&quot; some time in the last couple of months I found &quot;下一个&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I was using that and seemed to be mostly understood. But then I started noticing that just &quot;下一&quot; was used by others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that &quot;个&quot; is the generic counter/classifier, so is it actually part of the phrase/term for &quot;next&quot; or could it be just a kind of mistake from using Google Translate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are different ways to use &quot;next&quot; in English and I'm sure there must be in Chinese too. In my case I always needed to say things like &quot;to the next city / town / petrol station / service area&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what do I need to know about using &quot;下一个&quot; or just &quot;下一&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-01-29T19:26:35.933" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T05:10:40.410" Title="When to use &quot;下一个&quot; and when just &quot;下一&quot; to translate English &quot;next&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5710" CreationDate="2014-01-29T19:17:14.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Noun phrases in many cases require classifiers (= measure words). 个 is the generic classifier, but you should use whichever classifier is appropriate. Note that 一 is usually elided from &quot;下一个&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Next month = 下(一)个月&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Next week = 下(一)个星期&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The next book (e.g., imagine it's a series) = 下一本书&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The next photo = 下一张照片&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some words are &quot;their own measure word&quot; in some sense. 天 is really the only one in this category that struck me as weird. The others are words that usually are measure words but occasionally stand on their own:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The next day = 下一天&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The next (bus/train/subway) stop = 下一站&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The next sheet = 下一张&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One word I've encountered optionally takes a measure word: 小时. It's (normatively) correct to always use 个, but in some people's colloquial speech, it (like 天) acts &quot;as its own measure word&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The next hour = 下个小时&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't think I've heard &quot;下小时&quot;, but I've definitely heard it sans-measure-word in other contexts, e.g., &quot;还有三小时&quot; (= Three hours to go!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2014-01-29T21:12:52.627" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T21:12:52.627" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5705" CreationDate="2014-01-29T21:20:59.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it might comes from 酷毙了(sounds similar) which means being awesome/cool. 酷比 doesn't have any meaning by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3606" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T21:20:59.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5684" CreationDate="2014-01-29T22:59:36.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another useful tool for translating between Simplified to Traditional Chinese would be &quot;cjklib&quot;.  It has a Python API as well as a command-line interface &lt;code&gt;cjknife&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://code.google.com/p/cjklib/wiki/Screenshots&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://code.google.com/p/cjklib/wiki/Screenshots&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/cjklib/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/cjklib/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3720" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T22:59:36.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5706" CreationDate="2014-01-29T23:28:55.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 嗯。我想，会吗？他可能已经在暗中做安排了吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, this is a transcription of colloquial dialog, which means the lines can be fragmented and is not entirely grammatical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, I can see how it can be ambiguous and misleading due to the punctuation. Actually, &lt;code&gt;他可能已经在暗中做安排了吧&lt;/code&gt; is also a part of the 'thinking'. It could have been clearer if it had been punctuated this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 嗯。我想：“会吗？他可能已经在暗中做安排了吧。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which makes the meaning obvious:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: Yes. I was thinking, is it possible that some arrangements had been done by him already, in secret.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T23:28:55.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5706" CreationDate="2014-01-30T02:14:46.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Translation of 我想会吗? - I thought, is it possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我想&quot;：You don't need to translate this because this is called (Parenthesis，插入语). No real meaning. So just translate it as &quot;Is it possible&quot; is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It takes the same action like &quot;you see&quot; in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a lot of flowers, &lt;strong&gt;you see&lt;/strong&gt;, there are red,green,blue,yellow……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2014-01-30T02:27:28.063" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T02:27:28.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5705" CreationDate="2014-01-30T04:59:49.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Google Translate translates &quot;酷比&quot; as &quot;cool&quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why Google translated like this is that &quot;cool&quot; means &quot;酷&quot; (it may have many meanings according to different kinds of contexts, may be 爽 or 帅).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking, we Chinese usually don't use &quot;酷比&quot; but &quot;酷毙&quot;。&quot;毙&quot; here doesn't mean &quot;make someone die by shooting&quot; but is a complement to descript the depth of 酷.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also see many situations as (bold words are complements):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爽*&lt;em&gt;歪了&lt;/em&gt;* (rapidly happy or comfortable)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发*&lt;em&gt;大了&lt;/em&gt;* (earn lots of money)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T04:59:49.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5710" CreationDate="2014-01-30T05:01:39.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you're in Taiwan, I'll use traditional characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it's not part of of the phrase &quot;next&quot;. It's separate. 下 indicates &quot;the next&quot; and 一個 as you said is a counter. 下一個 literally is &quot;the next one&quot;, 下兩個 &quot;the next two&quot;, 下三個 &quot;the next three&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll have heard these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;下一位 (xià yī wèi) &quot;next person&quot; (when in a queue/waiting in line)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;下一站 (xià yí zhàn) &quot;next stop/station&quot; (public transportation)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;下一頁 (xià yī yè) &quot;next page&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In my case I always needed to say things like &quot;to the next city / town / petrol station / service area&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下一個 works for all those. 城市 (chéng shì) or 城鎮 (chéng zhèn) would be OK for city and town, better if you know the name of where you're going.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Petrol station is 加油站 (jiā yóu zhàn) and service area is 休息站 (xiū xí zhàn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T05:01:39.243" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5710" CreationDate="2014-01-30T05:10:40.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So what do I need to know about using &quot;下一个&quot; or just &quot;下一&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“下” means &quot;next&quot; in English. but the latter &quot;一&quot; or &quot;个&quot; is not a fixed phrase with &quot;下&quot;. “一” is a numeric word plus &quot;个” (a unit word). So from linguistics speaking, the structure of the phrase is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方位词（localizer）+数词(numeric word)+量词(Unit word)/或者名词(noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can substitute any of them, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) *&lt;em&gt;前面+三+排&lt;/em&gt;*座位上的人聚精会神看电影。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）*&lt;em&gt;左边+一+枚&lt;/em&gt;*纽扣掉了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) *&lt;em&gt;右边+二+位&lt;/em&gt;*同志请让出道，谢谢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4）*&lt;em&gt;前+一+小时&lt;/em&gt;*你在干什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T05:10:40.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3852" CreationDate="2014-01-30T05:27:55.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So why does 足 have these two very different meanings? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;足&quot; &lt;strong&gt;when it's used as a noun, it means foot; while used as an adjective or adverb, it means &quot;enough&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; (Just depends on where and how it's used).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This senario also occurs in English——&quot;resume&quot; (used as a verb, means continue to do). But when used as a noun, it means &quot;papers for applying for a job&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2014-01-30T05:36:54.533" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T05:36:54.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2014-01-30T09:04:55.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesegrammar.info/vocabulary/gen1-ye3-difference/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chinesegrammar.info&lt;/a&gt; - the most important difference between 跟 and 也: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跟 links nouns (things), 也 links verbs (actions)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3874" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T09:04:55.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5722" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5723" CreationDate="2014-01-30T09:31:26.930" Score="13" ViewCount="931" Body="&lt;p&gt;For lunch today in Taipei I found a small street food place near my hostel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the menu was this item:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;麻油Q米血&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a photo of the relevant part of the menu:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A716J.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;menu including &amp;quot;麻油Q米血&amp;quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;麻油 is sesame oil, 米 is rice, and 血 is blood. But what is Q?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know English/Latin/Roman alphabet letters are sometimes used in colloquial/casual Chinese, often but not always when there is not a character to represent a word or sound from language besides Mandarin, be it English or another Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the Q stand for, and what is this dish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:18:35.167" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T12:55:26.210" Title="麻油Q米血 on a menu in Taipei" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;food&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5722" CreationDate="2014-01-30T11:27:11.603" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q is Chinese slang for &quot;chewy&quot;, similar to al dente in texture. You can see it in example phrases such as &quot;Q感十足&quot; (very chewy). You would expect foods such as tapioca pearls, gelatinous candies, pasta, or rice to be described as &quot;Q&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my experience, this term is more popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong and less so in the mainland. I have not seen this term in the 90's or before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;I'm not sure where this phrase came from; if I had to venture a guess I would suggest &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E6%97%BA%E4%BB%94QQ%E7%B3%96&quot;&gt;QQ candy&lt;/a&gt;, a gummy candy that first appeared in the late 90s which has the same kind of texture.&lt;/s&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Q&quot; originated as a &lt;a href=&quot;http://taiwanlanguage.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/q%EF%BC%88kiu%E2%8A%A6%EF%BC%89%E2%94%80%E2%94%80%E8%BB%9F%E9%9D%AD/&quot;&gt;Taiwanese morpheme&lt;/a&gt; that &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2252&quot;&gt;has no agreed upon character&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This definition of &quot;Q&quot; is not to be confused with another definition, as a short-hand for &quot;cute&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2014-01-30T17:22:51.180" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T17:22:51.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5724" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5725" CreationDate="2014-01-30T11:53:00.083" Score="1" ViewCount="406" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far I can read most of the characters on this picture, except 1 character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The characters on the center is: 忠義 (zhong1yi4 - Tiong-gī), which&#xA;means: &lt;strong&gt;Loyalty&lt;/strong&gt; and is related to the story of &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A1%83%E5%9C%92%E4%B8%89%E7%B5%90%E7%BE%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the three&#xA;brothers&lt;/a&gt;. (Thanks to Question Overflow)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The characters on the left is: 千秋羕 &lt;strong&gt;[x]&lt;/strong&gt; 振乾坤.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The characters on the right is: 萬古桃園喜永存.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone can read the character mark as &lt;strong&gt;[x]&lt;/strong&gt; on the left side? I tried to google like &quot;萬古桃園喜永存&quot;, or &quot;萬古桃園喜永存, 千秋羕 ..&quot;, but found nothing. Many thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/L3a99.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1116" LastEditorUserId="1116" LastEditDate="2014-10-23T11:12:12.413" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T11:12:12.413" Title="Does anyone recognize the characters written on this home shrine?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ClosedDate="2014-02-06T02:52:11.433" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5724" CreationDate="2014-01-30T13:12:30.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is what I got: 万古XXX永存，千秋XX振乾坤。 A picture with higher resolution would be helpful for a complete answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3865" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T13:12:30.947" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5726" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5730" CreationDate="2014-01-31T01:23:53.540" Score="7" ViewCount="3914" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Innhg.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;A pair of Mandarin oranges&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://marlboro-manalapan.macaronikid.com/article/234656/chinese-new-year-treat&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;image courtesy of&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, when Chinese people celebrate the New Year, there's a tradition to offer each other Mandarin oranges. As &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wikihow.com/Celebrate-Chinese-New-Year&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;many sources&lt;/a&gt; say, the Mandarin oranges should be offered &lt;strong&gt;in pairs&lt;/strong&gt;, since the phrase &lt;em&gt;&quot;a pair of Mandarin oranges&quot;&lt;/em&gt; is a homophone to &lt;em&gt;&quot;the gold&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, 柑桔 &lt;code&gt;[gan1 ju2]&lt;/code&gt; or 瓯柑 &lt;code&gt;[ou1 gan1]&lt;/code&gt; are not homophones to 金 &lt;code&gt;[jin1]&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nwcca.org/culture/cny.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;sources&lt;/a&gt; say that 柑 &lt;code&gt;[gan1]&lt;/code&gt; is a homophone (or close) to Cantonese 金 &lt;code&gt;[gam1]&lt;/code&gt;, which does not sound very convincing for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I suppose there's some older/dialectal pronunciation of one of these phrases (or both) that makes a closer match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question is: What are the exact words of the phrase &lt;em&gt;&quot;a pair of Mandarin oranges&quot;&lt;/em&gt; which form a homophone to &lt;em&gt;&quot;the gold&quot;&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="752" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T16:48:12.457" Title="&quot;A pair of mandarin oranges&quot; as a homophone of &quot;the gold&quot;" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5727" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5729" CreationDate="2014-01-31T07:41:27.480" Score="6" ViewCount="388" Body="&lt;p&gt;馬上 can be used as an adverb that roughly means &quot;at once&quot; or &quot;immediately&quot;, for instance in: 我馬上來幫你. It can also mean &quot;on horseback&quot;. Where does the usage with the sense of &quot;at once&quot; originate from, and does it have anything to do with the other meaning of the adverb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3410" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T07:29:34.590" Title="Where does 馬上 originate from?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5727" CreationDate="2014-01-31T07:54:39.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My wild guess would be that it came from some &quot;mount up!&quot; command, which was always in a hurry 8)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="553" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T07:54:39.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5727" CreationDate="2014-01-31T08:53:38.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E9%A9%AC%E4%B8%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;互动百科&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, it's said that during China's ancient times, a general on horseback was on its way to perform an important task, but he was interrupted midtrip when a messenger caught up to him bringing him a message, which stated that the emperor was deathly ill. He immediately turned around and rode back to see the emperor without alighting from his horse (note: riding in the Forbidden City was strictly forbidden), hence the word &quot;马上&quot; to mean &quot;immediately&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-02-02T21:57:57.550" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T21:57:57.550" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5726" CreationDate="2014-01-31T16:48:12.457" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually 金 and 柑 are both pronounced gam1 in Cantonese, according to Rita Mei-Wah Choy’s ‘Read and Write Chinese’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it may be better to refer to Shantou as Chaozhou (潮州), I think CA55CE37 is onto something here.  Indeed, in chaozhouhua 大橘/桔 (orange) and 大吉 (great luck) are apparently near homophones.  A Thai source I have mentions this as well and asserts that oranges are given out at weddings for this reason.  In Thailand, people from the Chaozhou region are dominant in the Chinese community, as you probably know.  And oranges are given for the New Year holiday too (we live in Bangkok and received two oranges from our Thai-Chinese neighbors just yesterday, as it happens.)  It may be simply that two is an even number and thus auspicious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, there are various words for orange/tangerine (there is also 橙) and various rationalizations for giving people fruit during holidays, depending on local dialect and local tradition.  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn of more wordplay of this nature, for instance the link between pomelos and ‘to have’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T16:48:12.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5731" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-31T18:00:01.477" Score="5" ViewCount="1340" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I learn Cantonese on my own? What resources can I use and what is the right way to do it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have friends who are from Hong Kong so I have people to &quot;talk at&quot; I guess who will honestly evaluate me (although they will probably make fun of the guailo in the process) but I can live with that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learned some Mandarin while I was in the Marine Corp as part of my service but its not helping me with Cantonese AT ALL. To those who understand Mandarin I can use a few choice words to express my frustration but I want to be able to communicate with them in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3460" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T03:38:54.023" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:13:34.897" Title="How to start learning Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5727" CreationDate="2014-01-31T20:33:27.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;馬上, which literally means &quot;on horseback,&quot;  basically means, &quot;as fast as you can&quot; (in the pre-automobile era).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An equivalent (military) expression in English would be &quot;on the double&quot; (speed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T20:33:27.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5733" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14606" CreationDate="2014-01-31T20:39:23.517" Score="6" ViewCount="713" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I look up the etymology of 对象 on the internet, most of the answers (&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/18198932.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;link1&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://wenda.google.com.hk/wenda/thread?tid=2542a31286f67797&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;link2&lt;/a&gt;) refer to an explanation from 《幽默与笑话》. The source makes me doubt if it's the real origin of the word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人们习惯把青年男女自由恋爱叫“搞对象”或“找对象”。“对象”一词是怎么来的呢？这其中源于一个有趣的神话传说。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在造世之初，男女原是连体而生，好像海蜇一样是雌雄长在一起的。那时候，世上的夫妻从脱娘胎后就在一块儿，走到哪里也不会分离。谁知如此欢快的人间夫妻生活，却遭到天上一个“二尾子神”的忌妒，他想：我贵为神，身子却不男不女的，连那些凡人都不如，非拆散他们不可！于是，他招来手下的神兵，把天下的人类召集到一起，用刀把男身和女身砍开，再使法刮起大风，把被分开的夫妻吹得世界各地都有。这一来，男的找不见自己原来的妻子，女的见不着自己原来的丈夫，都伤心得大哭起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天上的王母娘娘听到人间遍地哭声，忙命人拨开云彩一看，见是“二尾子神”在作恶，即命天将把他捉到天庭，乱刀砍成万块，抛到人间。接着又打发高媒神下凡，帮助世人把自身的那一半找回来，仍然配成夫妻。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高媒神下凡后，整天为人类奔忙，累得头昏脑涨，免不了弄错，把李四的一半身子往张三身上安，把王五的身子配给赵六。这样一来可乱了套，被配错的夫妻都吵闹着去找高媒神。高媒神只好把他们再分开，让他们各自去找身上失去的另一半。从此，世间就留下了离婚休妻的恶俗。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王母娘娘知道这事后，只好把最有能耐的月老仙派到人间，帮助人类寻伴配对。月老仙让大家找到自己的另一半身子时，不要匆匆忙忙结合，先互相间相一相，对一对，如像就重新结合，错了再重找。相媳妇的习俗就是从此留下来的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;摘自《幽默与笑话》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I've been interpreting 象 as 'feature' (like in 新年新气象), and 对象 as 'feature on a par'. I'm very interested in the real etymology of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T01:58:15.833" Title="Etymology of 对象" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5731" CreationDate="2014-02-01T04:20:32.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning always beings with interest and talking as well. So first you can chat with your friends and live with them for ages. Later, you can learn from watching videos such as: &lt;a href=&quot;http://v.ku6.com/playlist/index_3074499_2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;快速学粤语&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, singing more songs in GuangDong dialect will also help you to enchance the feeling of the language (such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTg2MzEzMzU2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;万里长城永不倒&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-02-01T04:20:32.460" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5731" CreationDate="2014-02-01T09:44:37.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;YouTube:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=learn%20cantonese&amp;amp;sm=3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=learn%20cantonese&amp;amp;sm=3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=learn+cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com/search?q=learn+cantonese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can search for specific websites focusing on Cantonese, use dictionaries to look up pronunication. Watch (via YouTube) news, TV shows, movies with subtitles to get a feel of Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few links to get you started:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/CantoneseClass101&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/user/CantoneseClass101&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cantonese.ca/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://cantonese.ca/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.learnchineseez.com/lessons/cantonese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.learnchineseez.com/lessons/cantonese/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freehongkong.net/learn-cantonese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.freehongkong.net/learn-cantonese/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-02-01T09:44:37.683" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5736" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-01T12:07:51.220" Score="6" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm teaching myself bopomofo/zhuyin keyboard while I'm in Taiwan. My Chinese level is raw beginner too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just came across the word for tofu:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hanzi: &lt;code&gt;豆腐&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pinyin: &lt;code&gt;dòufu&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Zhuyin: &lt;code&gt;ㄉㄡˋㄈㄨ·&lt;/code&gt; (or &lt;code&gt;ㄉㄡˋㄈㄨ˙&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see that the second syllable is tone 0 a.k.a. tone 5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if I try to enter it using Microsoft Chinese Traditional New Phonetic IME this way the computer beeps and will not accept the final syllable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look up just the last syllable on its own, it's actually tone 3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hanzi &lt;code&gt;腐&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pinyin &lt;code&gt;fǔ&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Zhuyin: &lt;code&gt;ㄈㄨˇ&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I type the whole word as &lt;code&gt;ㄉㄡˋㄈㄨˇ&lt;/code&gt; in the IME then indeed it does work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's the explanation for this? Is it due to tone sandhi? Or is it a quirk of the IME? Or is it related to some other property of two syllable words and tone 0/5? Is there a name for this and where can I read more about it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English Wiktionary and Google Translate both list &lt;code&gt;豆腐&lt;/code&gt; as having tone 4 + no tone. But I can't be sure whether they are listing pre- or post- tone sandhi rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Baidu dictionary and the book &quot;Chinese for Everyday Scenarios&quot; I've found here in Taiwan lists &lt;code&gt;豆腐&lt;/code&gt; as having tone 4 + tone 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-06-01T23:33:15.457" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T23:33:15.457" Title="Zhuyin IME and tone 0/5 syllables" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2657" CreationDate="2014-02-01T21:19:00.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;May be irrelevant but there are many western companies that do not need to transliterate their names in Hong Kong such as Dior or Revlon. In standard everyday conversation and even in newspapers, their English names are used to reference their products and not the transliterated name. In fact, I think many people in HK would do a double take if you referenced 迪奥 instead of just &quot;Dior&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;News Article Sample Links&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://metrohk.com.hk/?cmd=detail&amp;amp;id=196040&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;REVLON&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/supplement/columnist/%E9%84%A7%E9%81%94%E6%99%BA/art/20140107/18581405&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dior&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3886" LastActivityDate="2014-02-01T21:19:00.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5738" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-02T00:46:42.930" Score="6" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an example, if I am making plans to meet with a friend, and I say I am free on a specific date, say 2 weeks from now, and then I follow up by asking my friend &quot;Or is that too far ahead?&quot; To translate &quot;Or is that too far ahead?&quot; into Mandarin, can one say &quot;会不会太久？“? Or is there a better translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2604" LastEditorUserId="2604" LastEditDate="2014-02-03T03:18:04.140" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:54:09.603" Title="Can 太久 be used to refer to time past between two dates?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5738" CreationDate="2014-02-02T02:11:23.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;太久&quot; really means the period between a time and another one, the distance is too far for us to wait for. You can translate it as, &quot;It's a bit too late.&quot; Because when you hear this statement, usually means someone is not much patient to wait for others, maybe come with some complaining.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:54:09.603" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:54:09.603" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5736" CreationDate="2014-02-02T04:30:04.153" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you're right. The phenomenon of 豆腐 dòufu is the result of tone sandhi (连续变调 liánxù biàndiào). IME does not support tone sandhi, so you're unable to search for it as a neutral tone. The only accepted tone entry for 腐 is 3rd tone fǔ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T04:30:04.153" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5741" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5742" CreationDate="2014-02-02T11:09:51.790" Score="6" ViewCount="593" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know how to say &quot;red book&quot; in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can it be 红色 的 书 or 红书? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read a book to learn about color, it used 红色 的 before a noun but I heard in a song it used only 红 before noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:51:57.703" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:52:39.640" Title="How to say &quot;red book&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5741" CreationDate="2014-02-02T13:08:49.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, 紅色的書红色的书）is better. Red (adj.) Book (n.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3885" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:52:11.147" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:52:11.147" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5623" CreationDate="2014-02-02T13:57:06.423" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a courtroom, a &quot;bench&quot; refers to the JUDGE's bench.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, &quot;to bring something to the bench&quot; is to bring something to trial. That &quot;something&quot; is a legal case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put another way, a &quot;bench&quot; is where a legal case is filed, which is why they are synonymous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T13:57:06.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5738" CreationDate="2014-02-02T21:16:08.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can ask 会不会太早约定? (Is it too early to make such an appointment?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T21:16:08.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5722" CreationDate="2014-02-02T22:46:36.483" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q is Hokkien. The character is「食邱」and pronounced ㄎㄧㄨ (kiu, same as &quot;Q&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese definition is 軟靭 ruǎn rèn (soft and tough) and means the texture of food being chewy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the post &lt;a href=&quot;http://taiwanlanguage.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/q%EF%BC%88kiu%E2%8A%A6%EF%BC%89%E2%94%80%E2%94%80%E8%BB%9F%E9%9D%AD/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Q（k‘iu⊦）──軟靭&quot;&lt;/a&gt; on the &quot;taiwanlanguage&quot; blog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-03T06:19:52.507" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T06:19:52.507" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5738" CreationDate="2014-02-02T23:15:04.047" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For &quot;is that too far ahead&quot;, it should be “太旧*&lt;em&gt;之后&lt;/em&gt;*”,&#xA;For &quot;too long (PERIOD)&quot;, it should be ‘太久’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3885" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T23:15:04.047" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5694" CreationDate="2014-02-02T23:21:03.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess, it's a little too formal.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Just say ‘谢了’(thanks) is ok.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Never mind / No problem ‘没关系’ is a little bit more casual than ‘不客气’, so it's better to be casual when you speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3885" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T23:21:03.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1759" CreationDate="2014-02-02T23:31:55.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For spoken Cantonese, it's different from written Cantonese.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;e.g. 唔係(m4 hai6)--&gt;不是(bat1 si6)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's different, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3885" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T23:31:55.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5753" CreationDate="2014-02-03T05:21:14.893" Score="9" ViewCount="645" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a followup to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5736&quot;&gt;my earlier question about the tones in the word &quot;豆腐&quot;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On their own &quot;豆&quot; and &quot;腐&quot; have the tones 4 and 3: &lt;code&gt;dòu&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;fǔ&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a two-syllable / two-character word, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%B1%86%E8%85%90#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;豆腐&quot;&lt;/a&gt; has tone 4 but &quot;fu&quot; has tone 0 / tone 5 / neutral tone: &lt;code&gt;dòufu&lt;/code&gt;. At least according to the English Wiktionary and Google Translate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a normal tone sandhi rule that fourth tone followed by third tone becomes fourth tone followed by neutral tone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T18:14:46.640" Title="Is there a tone sandhi rule that &quot;4 3&quot; changes to &quot;4 0&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5751" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-03T08:15:09.477" Score="7" ViewCount="633" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the English Wiktionary there are four Chinese terms equivalent to English &quot;oyster&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;mǔlì : 牡蠣 / 牡蛎&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;hǎilìzi : 海蠣子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;háo : 蚝&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;háozi : 蚝子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is one of these standard or most common in Taiwan? What's the difference between them all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T08:19:51.760" Title="Which term is used for &quot;oyster&quot; in Taiwan?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5751" CreationDate="2014-02-03T08:19:51.760" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwanese 蚵仔 (ô á), in Taiwan Mandarin 牡蛎 (mǔ lì).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also 蛤蠣 (há lì) but this means clams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T08:19:51.760" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5750" CreationDate="2014-02-03T18:14:46.640" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply put, there are no tone sandhi rules for when words change from their citation tone to the neutral tone. The appearance of the neutral tone is morphologically motivated, not phonologically motivated &amp;mdash; in other words, the tone change is not governed by the sounds of the surrounding words. Because the definition of sandhi is phonologically-motivated sound changes, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi#What_is_and_is_not_tone_sandhi&quot;&gt;the appearance of the neutral tone is not tone sandhi&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certain words simply have the neutral tone because that is how their speakers have become used to saying them; for instance, many words that are pronounced with the neutral tone in Mandarin as spoken on the Mainland are not pronounced with the neutral tone in Mandarin as spoken in Taiwan. One example is 东西, which is typically pronounced as dōngxī in Taiwain rather than dōngxi. The phenomenon and its unpredictability is similar to the appearance of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua&quot;&gt;erhua (儿化)&lt;/a&gt; in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T18:14:46.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5754" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5756" CreationDate="2014-02-04T15:11:00.553" Score="1" ViewCount="601" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since in &lt;strong&gt;Chinese culture&lt;/strong&gt; there is a lot of materials about &lt;em&gt;astronomy&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;supernatural&lt;/em&gt; methods so I'm interested to know about &lt;strong&gt;Gematria&lt;/strong&gt; as it exists in most languages...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gematrix.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gematria Calculator&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3899" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T11:31:46.913" Title="what kind of gematria systems are there in chinese?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5741" CreationDate="2014-02-04T15:39:21.347" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 红色的书 are 红书 correct, 红 alone has the meaning of 红色的(of the color red), for example:&quot;那是一本红书&quot;(That is a red book), in this example we use 红 to describe the color of a book, it's an adjective, its meaning is the same as 红色的. However, the character of 红 sometimes can be part of a noun which composed of two or more character, example: 红豆, 红茶, 红包, in this case 红 is a part of a noun, but it also implies that the thing is of red color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to describe a red thing, and you don't want to make grammar error, it is safer to use &quot;红色的&quot;, because sometimes use 红 alone cannot complete a sentence, for example you can not say&quot;那东西是红&quot;, that sentence isn't complete, you must say &quot;那东西是红色的&quot;(That thing is red).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule of above can be applied to other colors,for example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;橙chéng orange, 橙色的 of the color orange &lt;br&gt;&#xA;黃Huáng yellow, 黃色的 of the color yellow &lt;br&gt;&#xA;綠lǜ green, 綠色的 of the color green &lt;br&gt; &#xA;藍lán blue 藍色的of the color blue&lt;br&gt;&#xA;紫zǐ purple, 紫色的of the color purple&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3860" LastActivityDate="2014-02-04T15:39:21.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5754" CreationDate="2014-02-04T16:31:47.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are asking for similar Chinese Numerology, here's some useful &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;info&lt;/a&gt; which describe the meaning of different numbers in Chinese culture. I would not define it as a classical Gematria system, but that's the only thing in my mind now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3606" LastActivityDate="2014-02-04T16:31:47.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5692" CreationDate="2014-02-04T16:39:41.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can just search it on Chinese Wikipedia, when you found the page of the phrase you are look for, there is a drop down menu on the top left, look the picture below.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/ktxIMG0.png&quot; alt=&quot;便利商店Wikipedia&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt; In this drop down menu, you can choose what kind of Chinese language you want to see. &quot;台灣正體&quot; is for Chinese speak in Taiwan, &quot;大陆简体&quot; is for Chinese speak in main land china. This is a way to see how character was used in both Taiwan an PRC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3860" LastActivityDate="2014-02-04T16:39:41.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5759" CreationDate="2014-02-04T18:21:22.643" Score="2" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trying to translate this: 始终是碰不上边的...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the beginning, not able to meet (in agreement) with those above? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched on &quot;不上边&quot; in 百度 and it seems there are multiple ways to interpret it - position-wise and for example, this: 世界杯与穷人沾不上边. Here top is not top as in position, but priority? Does 不上边 have different meanings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the context for the first phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Connie:     龃龉，我们看它的汉字。这两个字呢，都有一个，牙齿的齿… …它的左边。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徐州:     那跟牙齿有关系。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Connie:     啊，有关系。龃龉呢是说，牙齒上下，对不起。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徐州:     啊…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Connie:     嗯，就是它对不上，就是很错乱的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徐州:     啊…唉…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Connie:     看起来很难看吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徐州:     对的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Connie:     啊， 所以它用来比喻呢，啊， 双方的意见不和。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徐州:     嗯。观念啊、关点啊、始终是碰*&lt;em&gt;不上边&lt;/em&gt;*的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Connie:     嗯，对。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徐州:     好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Connie:     所以我们会说龃龉不断或者发生龃龉。就是两个人产生意见不和你可以说发生龃龉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T04:38:25.720" Title="Are there multiple translations for 不上边?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5758" CreationDate="2014-02-04T22:37:57.033" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's two things going on; a verb (碰边 or 沾边) and an auxiliary verb (不上) inserted in the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;碰边, &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2730787.htm&quot;&gt;沾边&lt;/a&gt; literally mean &quot;to touch the edge&quot;, which is a metaphor for relationship. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/d/142/310430.htm&quot;&gt;不上&lt;/a&gt; means &quot;unable to&quot; in this context (similar to 不到 or 不得). So altogether, 碰不上边 means &quot;unrelated&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-02-04T22:37:57.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5731" CreationDate="2014-02-05T03:49:06.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should learn some daily phrases from your friends first like 食左飯未？ (Had lunch?), 做緊咩？ (What are you doing?) to build up your vocabulary base and the 'feeling' of Cantonese grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find difficulty building up a complete sentence in Cantonese, you may try to mix up English and Cantonese like '個 party cancel 左' (The party is canceled, 個派對取消左). Hong Kong people often speak like that so it shouldn't feel odd. Of course, you should ask your friends to correct your sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong people are usually willing to teach so don't give up!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3835" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-05T06:35:57.130" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T06:35:57.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5758" CreationDate="2014-02-05T03:53:47.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;碰不上边(cannot touch each other's edge)=对不上(cannot match each other)=不合(cannot agree with each other)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不知道词源是怎么样的，但是你想象有两个盘子，连边都碰不上，怎么可能合得上呢？&#xA;(How can they match each other (like we are doing a jigsaw) even if their edge cannot touch each other?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说 两个人（意见）不合，就是说they don't agree with each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T03:53:47.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5758" CreationDate="2014-02-05T04:38:25.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there multiple translations for 不上边?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The related phrases are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1）无关&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）不着调&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3）牛头不对马嘴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T04:38:25.720" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5768" CreationDate="2014-02-05T08:50:08.290" Score="7" ViewCount="249" Body="&lt;p&gt;When wanting to learn the word for &quot;ID card&quot; I seem to find both &quot;身份证&quot; and &quot;身分证&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They both have the same pronunciation &quot;shēnfèn zhèng&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think they differ by being traditional vs simplified?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly is the difference? Can I use either one? Is it maybe regional?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T06:07:19.080" Title="Are &quot;身份证&quot; and &quot;身分证&quot; totally interchangeable?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="14" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5763" CreationDate="2014-02-05T09:05:50.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In simplified, it's 身份证. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E8%BA%AB%E4%BB%BD%E8%AF%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E8%BA%AB%E4%BB%BD%E8%AF%81&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In traditional, it's 身分證. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BA%AB%E5%88%86%E8%AD%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BA%AB%E5%88%86%E8%AD%89&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3904" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2014-02-06T06:07:19.080" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T06:07:19.080" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5765" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-05T10:48:13.540" Score="4" ViewCount="1152" Body="&lt;p&gt;So these three have always threw me through a loop  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;去 - Qù - Means to go to a place&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;出 - Chū - Means to go out&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;回 - Huí - Means to go back&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only case I know to not use 去 (Qù) as a way of going somewhere is when saying your going home at which point you use 回 (Huí)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I identify a situation where each version of 'to go' is correct to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="3124" LastEditDate="2014-02-06T02:08:31.513" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T06:29:34.990" Title="去出回 Where is it appropriate to use each" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5766" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5769" CreationDate="2014-02-05T10:58:24.350" Score="11" ViewCount="818" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the following sentence in New Practical Chinese Reader 2, lesson 21, paraphrasing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;南方的花园&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国人常说： “上有天堂，下有苏杭。”意思是苏州和杭州这两个城市跟天堂一样美。它们都在中国的南方，是中国南方的“花园”。它们的美在哪儿呢？－－杭州的山水和苏州的园林。苏州的园林非常有名。那些园林是过去一些有钱人请人修建的。园林里边有山，有水，有花儿，真是*&lt;strong&gt;一幅幅&lt;/strong&gt;*美丽的山水画。中国的园林跟西方的园林很不一样。中国的园林好像中国画，是用水和墨画的；西方的园林好像油画，是用油彩的。因为中国古典的园林常常是画家和诗人设计的，西方的园林是建筑师设计的，所以它们的美很不一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learned that 幅 is a measure word for pictures and that some verbs can be duplicated, but I don't understand the implication in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Chinese friend says it can also be done for other measure words such as 一张张 but she couldn't explain why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3739" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-05T11:38:36.593" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T01:51:08.813" Title="Purpose of duplicating measure words?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5763" CreationDate="2014-02-05T13:34:59.220" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 分 has two different readings. As fen1, it has a range of meanings.  As fen4, it can mean a role or part played by a person, a more general part or portion of something, or a component.  Fen4 can also be written 份, and dictionaries I consulted from both Taiwan and the mainland don’t seem to differ here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Far East Chinese-English Dictionary, pretty much the standard bilingual dictionary in Taiwan, has the following: 身分證  or  身份證 shēnfènzhèng ‘ID card’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese-English Dictionary from the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press is a mainland publication.  It has 身分证  or 身份证  shēnfenzhèng ‘ID card’.  This dictionary does one thing a bit differently – it divides the meanings of fen4 into those which can be written with either character and those which use only 分.  In the latter category is 分外  ‘especially’.  But this doesn’t affect the term for ID card.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be some cross-strait difference in actual usage between分 and 份 in this word, but as I have shown here, according to dictionaries both forms are acceptable wherever you are!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T13:34:59.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5766" CreationDate="2014-02-05T14:13:45.637" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;重叠量词&lt;/b&gt; (repetitive classifiers) are used to indicate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;every, or;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;one by one, or;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;abundance.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;除了计量名量词外，不少量词可以重叠使用。例如：名量词：个个/件件/张张。动量词：次次/趟趟/回回。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;量词重叠还有一种形式是 “一XX” 如 “一个个” “一件件”&#xA;  “一趟趟”，这种形式表示的语法意义有和上面的重叠形式相同的，也有不同的。意义有三种：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;表示“每一”。基本同 “XX” 重叠式。小伙子们一&lt;b&gt;个个&lt;/b&gt;身强力壮。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;表示“逐一”。表示此种意义的重叠形式作状语。我们要一&lt;b&gt;件件&lt;/b&gt;仔细检查，不要漏掉。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;表示“多”。他一&lt;b&gt;次次&lt;/b&gt;给我打电话。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.china001.com/show_hdr.php?dname=6FA0G51&amp;amp;xpos=132&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.china001.com/show_hdr.php?dname=6FA0G51&amp;amp;xpos=132&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how I would interpret the particular sentence in your question,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;园林里边有山，有水，有花儿，真是&lt;b&gt;一幅幅&lt;/b&gt;美丽的山水画。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Within the forest garden, there are hills, rivers and flowers; a picturesque view from &lt;b&gt;every&lt;/b&gt; angle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2014-02-06T01:51:08.813" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T01:51:08.813" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5766" CreationDate="2014-02-05T16:43:42.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;one reason for using duplicate measure words is to emphasis. But in this case, using &quot;一幅幅&quot; is a bit different from &quot;一幅&quot;. &quot;一幅&quot; implies &quot;一幅画园林的画，其中有山有水有花&quot;, and &quot;一幅幅&quot; means &quot;一副画山的画，一幅画水的画，一幅画花的画&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3606" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T16:43:42.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5765" CreationDate="2014-02-05T17:36:20.957" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't understand. It seems you answered your own question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some example usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去学校 (go to school)，去公司 (go to the office; 去上班 go to work)，去旅行 (go on a vacation)，去法国 (go to france)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出门 (leave the building)，出去 (go out)，出来 (come out)，出国 (leave the country)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回家 (go back home)，回去 (go back)，回国 (go home [from abroad])，回公司 (return to the office)，回学校 (go back to the school)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastEditorUserId="3866" LastEditDate="2014-02-06T01:22:32.407" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T01:22:32.407" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5772" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-05T21:15:17.077" Score="2" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am well aware there of posts such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, but I am specifically looking for videos that would be on youtube, for example. There are many videos on youtube, but I have been able to find anything that is like a lecture. I have only been able to find short videos here and there, but nothing that follows some sort of syllabus (lesson 1, 2, 3, etc.). Are there any such resources?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2604" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T09:02:20.043" Title="Videos for learning Chinese Mandarin" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-06-17T10:48:14.840" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5765" CreationDate="2014-02-06T01:25:34.090" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is differences for using these words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;回&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(note the usage of 去 in this context)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are in US, and you are asking your friends in US when will he/she going to China, then you will have to use: &lt;strong&gt;你什么时候回去中国？&lt;/strong&gt;, means &quot;when will you &lt;strong&gt;go back&lt;/strong&gt; to China?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are in China, and you are asking your friends in US when will he/she going to China, then you will have to use: &lt;strong&gt;你什么时候回来中国？&lt;/strong&gt;, means &quot;when will you &lt;strong&gt;come back&lt;/strong&gt; to China?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot use: 你什么时候回去中国？ while you are in China, and you cannot use 你什么时候回来中国？ while you are in US.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回 itself means &lt;strong&gt;back&lt;/strong&gt;, but it cannot stand alone while you are asking a question like above. It just like in English: &lt;strong&gt;come back&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;go back&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;出&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same goes to 出, just like in: 出去 and 出来. You will have to use 出去 when you tell your friends to go out of the room while yourself is in the room, and you will have to use 出来 when you tell your friends to go out of the room while yourself is out of the room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Refer &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Direction_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for more information about the usage of these words)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1116" LastEditorUserId="1116" LastEditDate="2014-02-06T06:12:22.150" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T06:12:22.150" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5772" CreationDate="2014-02-06T01:39:22.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As what you said, Television also helps you that have all been in your seen post:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CCTV 4 (mms://8.3.230.132/cctv-4/cctvNews01.wmv)&#xA;NJTV 1 - Nanjing TV (mms://218.94.122.203/njtvxw)&#xA;XZTV1* (mms://218.3.205.21/xwzhpd)&#xA;XZTV2* (mms://218.3.205.21/jjshpd)&#xA;XZTV3* (mms://218.3.205.21/shzfpd)&#xA;NYTV - Nanyang TV (mms://61.136.113.41/nytv_1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, you can also see this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cctv.cntv.cn/lm/kuailehanyu/index.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;快乐汉语&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://english.cntv.cn/learnchinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;跟我学汉语&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T01:39:22.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5733" CreationDate="2014-02-06T08:54:08.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I should say, in most cases (about 95% in Mandarin), 对象 means your girl/boy friend, or your wife/husband.  It's not very formal compared to '男女朋友/丈夫/妻子'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are studying Software development, 对象 == Object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3718" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-06T18:16:19.767" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T18:16:19.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5772" CreationDate="2014-02-06T09:02:20.043" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;environment is the most important. buy a ticket and fly to China, rare a house and then you would learn Chinese in 6 months. ( in Beijing, you can rare a house at $500 ~ $1000 per month )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but, I suggest you first of all have the basics of Chinese, such as: pronouciatin, the gramma, and learn more than 2000 characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;don't study from CCTV news... even we Chinese people can not understand some of the them, such as: '一手抓农业结构的战略性调整'... '大力开展。。。把XX政策落实到实处'...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3718" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T09:02:20.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5779" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-06T15:28:11.453" Score="5" ViewCount="1841" Body="&lt;p&gt;With Mandarin making more and more in-roads into Cantonese speaking Hong Kong, I'm wondering what characteristics set it apart from Standard Mandarin or other regional Mandarin dialects and/or accents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not asking so much about native Mandarin speakers that have relocated to Hong Kong. But about Hong Kongers whose first language is Cantonese but also speak fluent Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a Mandarin speaker visits Hong Kong what stands out most?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other areas where Mandarin is spoken with identifiable regional differences have Wikipedia articles, but Hong Kong does not. Compare the articles on Mandarin in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singaporean_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Singapore&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Taiwan&lt;/a&gt; for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If it is felt that this question would fit in better at linguistics.SE I am not opposed to migrating it there.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-06T17:48:26.890" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:20:02.023" Title="What qualities does Hong Kong Mandarin have?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="14" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5779" CreationDate="2014-02-06T18:13:20.597" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I am hardly an expert on this topic. I know basically nothing about Cantonese-influenced Mandarin&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;per se&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;but I'll offer an answer of the variety that I think hippietrail is looking for. Hopefully other people will be like &amp;quot;I now understand what a good answer to this question is supposed to look like, and furthermore, I know more than that idiot Stumpy Joe Pete! I'll answer it!&amp;quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2244/788&quot;&gt;an answer to a similar question&lt;/a&gt;, most southern Mandarin has the characteristic of merging &lt;code&gt;zh&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;ch&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;sh&lt;/code&gt; into the &lt;code&gt;z&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;s&lt;/code&gt; series (e.g., &amp;quot;zhi&amp;quot; pronounced as &amp;quot;zi&amp;quot;). Cantonese does this, so I expect HK Mandarin accents to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese (among the many many other differences in pronunciation) the &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt; are preserved in places where, in Mandarin, they have been palatalized into &lt;code&gt;j&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;q&lt;/code&gt;. For example, 北京 is pronounced &amp;quot;bak1 ging1&amp;quot;. (Aside: this helps to explain the outdated Western spellings of &amp;quot;Beijing&amp;quot; as &amp;quot;Peking&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Chongqing&amp;quot; as &amp;quot;Chungking&amp;quot;--the &lt;code&gt;q&lt;/code&gt;s and &lt;code&gt;j&lt;/code&gt;s were originally velar! As for the p/b k/g thing... blame the Europeans.) Sometimes this shows through in people's Mandarin. For instance, some HK classmates of mine mistakenly guessed the pronunciation of 季节 as &amp;quot;gui4jie2&amp;quot; (instead of &amp;quot;ji4jie2&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not only &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt;s and &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;s that became &lt;code&gt;j&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;q&lt;/code&gt;. There were also fricatives and affricates that palatalized in similar circumstances (before [i]/[j]). See &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Chinese_phonology#From_Late_Middle_Chinese_to_Standard_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and look for the /tɕ/ /tɕʰ/ /ɕ/ parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possibly related to that: I once had a very young student with a rather hilarious Mandarin accent (I don't know if she was a Canto speaker). In at least some circumstances, &lt;code&gt;zhi&lt;/code&gt; would become &lt;code&gt;ji&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;chi&lt;/code&gt; would become &lt;code&gt;qi&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;shi&lt;/code&gt; would become &lt;code&gt;xi&lt;/code&gt;. This culminated in her yelling about a spider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师，老师，有蜘蛛啊！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard: lao3shi1, lao3shi1, you3 zhi1zhu1 a!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Her: lao3xi1, lao3xi1, you3 ji1zhu1 a!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I say that it's possibly related, because in Cantonese, 师 = si1 and 蜘 = zi1 (where the i's are actual [i]s! Not like Mandarin!). By analogy to Cantonese words pronounced sik and zik, you would expect the Mandarin to be xi and ji. So, like I said, possibly related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T04:51:37.823" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5765" CreationDate="2014-02-07T00:19:00.403" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;去 is the &quot;all purpose&quot; word for &quot;to go.&quot; The others are used for &quot;specialized&quot; cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T00:19:00.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5783" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-07T01:18:44.127" Score="5" ViewCount="333" Body="&lt;p&gt;When expressing a series of object does 也 occur prior to each object or only prior to the last object to express the list&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我没有房子没有工作没有车也没有朋友。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我没有房子也没有工作也没有车也没有朋友。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T16:54:03.330" Title="也 When expressing a series does 也 need to be before each object or just the last object" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5783" CreationDate="2014-02-07T01:33:29.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the last object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没有房子，没有工作，没有车也没有朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3909" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T01:33:29.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5783" CreationDate="2014-02-07T02:00:48.190" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I) &quot;也&quot; means &quot;too&quot;：&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;也&quot; means &quot;too&quot; in English, this is an adverb put at the back of the last statement to enhance that the same situation……ect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你没有车，我*&lt;em&gt;也&lt;/em&gt;*没有。(You don't have a car, I don't have a car &lt;strong&gt;either&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你喜欢巧克力，我*&lt;em&gt;也&lt;/em&gt;*是 (You like chocolates, I do, &lt;strong&gt;too&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;II) &quot;也&quot; means &quot;the end of a list things shown to others&quot;：&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When explaining a list of things, you can use commas or 顿号（slight-pause mark used to set off items in a series; punctuation mark (、) used between parallel words or short phrases; the caesura sign “、”placed between several proper names），but add &quot;也&quot; at the end. Here &quot;也&quot; doesn't mean &quot;too&quot; but just an end to tell others that the list of things I've listed comes to an end only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没有车、没有房、没有工作、&lt;strong&gt;也**没有老婆。(I have no cars,no houses,no jobs **and&lt;/strong&gt; no wives).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T02:00:48.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5783" CreationDate="2014-02-07T02:31:36.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没有房子, 没有工作, 没有车, 也没有朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first example, 也 functions as &quot;and&quot; to finish off a list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没有房子, 也没有工作, 也没有车, 也没有朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second example, 也 functions as an emphasis on each item listed. It comes across as being very critical (or if using 也有, it sounds like a bragging competition of who has what).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're expressing a series of objects, please stay away from using 也 for each item because it will sound like scolding someone for having nothing or bragging about who has more possessions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T02:31:36.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5787" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5788" CreationDate="2014-02-07T06:21:57.800" Score="12" ViewCount="1080" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singaporean_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Singapore Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; from the question here on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5779/what-qualities-does-hong-kong-mandarin-have&quot;&gt;Hong Kong Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; and came across the word for cellphone. I know it's popular now to refer to cellphones as 手机 but I remember in Taiwan they used to call it 大哥大. (I don't know if they still use this term).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never thought about it until now but does anyone know why it was called 大哥大? It's a very strange use of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:19:04.510" Title="Anyone know why cellphones are called 大哥大 in Taiwan?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5787" CreationDate="2014-02-07T08:40:29.350" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to one of the rumors, the first cellphone was used and introduced by Sammo Hung, which is the elder kung-fu brother of Jackie Chan. Since at that time Hong Kong entertainment was fairly respected in nearly the whole East and Southeast Asia, most people showed their respect to call Jackie Chan as 大哥 and his elder kung-fu brother Sammo Hung as 大哥大. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, clearly the cellphone being used by 大哥大 is 大哥大電話. However, after a while, most people simplified the usage and just used 大哥大 only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3908" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T23:19:04.510" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:19:04.510" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5779" CreationDate="2014-02-07T19:17:22.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll give my attempt at an answer. I don't have quite the time to give a long list of examples that I see as common qualities, but I can try to add some more in later if necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned by Stumpy Joe Pete, the &lt;code&gt;zh&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;ch&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;sh&lt;/code&gt; sounds will sometimes be pronounced as &lt;code&gt;z&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;s&lt;/code&gt;. This may possibly be more prominent in words that sound similar in Mandarin. For instance, a speaker may pronounce the 沙 in 沙田 as &lt;code&gt;sa1&lt;/code&gt; rather than as &lt;code&gt;sha1&lt;/code&gt;, which essentially is the Cantonese pronunciation of 沙.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More generally, Hong Kong speakers in particular may be prone to mispronunciation of standard Mandarin (compared to those in 廣東) - the above is a part of this issue. Part of this is probably simply that Mandarin is used less in Hong Kong, outside of school settings or interactions with mainland Chinese. This generally tends to &quot;materialize&quot; by way of Hong Kong speakers pronouncing words/characters more similar to how they might in Cantonese, even when speaking in Mandarin. Anecdotally, two examples of this would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0RJGAlQAxM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;李家仁's 小明上廣州 song in Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;, where (as one example) 上 is pronounced to sound more like the Cantonese &lt;code&gt;soeng5&lt;/code&gt; than the Mandarin &lt;code&gt;shang4&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwOemRiuO5A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;崔世安's infamous instances of mispronouncing Mandarin in public&lt;/a&gt;. The latter is (or was?) the chief executive of Macau, but I believe his Mandarin provides a fairly good illustration of how Hong Kong speakers of Mandarin might use pronunciations of words closer to Cantonese pronunciations than the &quot;correct&quot; ones in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3410" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditorDisplayName="user3410" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T23:20:02.023" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:20:02.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5765" CreationDate="2014-02-08T06:29:34.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You can use &quot;去&quot;, when you go some place that no matter whether you had gone before. &#xA;You can use &quot;回&quot;, only when you go to the place where you had been gone before.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.You are going back home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;我去家里&quot;, or &quot;我回家里&quot;(because you usually stayed at home);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.You are going to the restaurant where you lost your phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;我去饭店，我手机丢那了&quot; or &quot;我回饭店，我手机丢那了&quot;（because you had gone to the restaurant before）;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.you are going to the USA that you had never been to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;我要去美国&quot;, but can't use &quot;回&quot;, because you had never gone there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;出&quot; looks like &quot;out&quot;. You can use it when you are out of something.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;出门&quot; -- You go to somewhere out of your house.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;出国&quot; -- You go another country out of your contury.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;出家&quot; -- You are monk and are out of the raucous riot of commerce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;出来&quot; -- You are out of the place that you stay, and will be in another place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;出去&quot; -- You are out of the place where you stay, and go to other places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T06:29:34.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5791" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5792" CreationDate="2014-02-08T11:39:18.033" Score="3" ViewCount="2366" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Wiktionary there are two ways listed for saying &quot;such is life&quot; / &quot;c'est la vie&quot; in Chinese. Both look like literal translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這就是生活, 这就是生活 (zhè jiùshì shēnghuó)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;生活就是這樣, 生活就是这样 (shēnghuó jiùshì zhèyàng)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I get Google Translate to translate &quot;c'est la vie&quot; from English to Chinese it produces two more options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(上)力威 (either with or without the &quot;上&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize the phrase is originally French of course but it's very common in English. I'm curious to know whether this has any meaning at all in Chinese since I can't make sense of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T03:34:03.840" Title="&quot;C'est la vie&quot; (such is life) in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5791" CreationDate="2014-02-08T12:39:50.270" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;(上)力威&quot; has no meaning in Chinese. &quot;這就是生活/这就是生活/生活就是這樣/生活就是这样&quot; is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T12:39:50.270" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5738" CreationDate="2014-02-08T14:17:33.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, I want to explain the difference between &quot;太久&quot; and &quot;太迟&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;太久&quot; means you spend long time. &quot;太迟&quot; means you spend long time and don't know whether something will what happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your friend live the same city with you. You are going to visit him after two weeks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can say &quot;我两个星期后来看你，会不会太久？&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your friend has a trip in your city. You plan to meet him after two weeks. But you don't know when he will return home, you are afraid that he will have gone back home by the time you visit him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;我两个星期后来看你，会不会太迟？&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T14:17:33.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5733" CreationDate="2014-02-08T16:57:57.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ancient Chinese use single character as a word, but the modern usually use 2 or more characters. Some of the modern words come from the speech, have the meaning constructed by the characters which built up the word. But some are not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese is not developed from the ancient. The ancient Chinese used only in written for dominators. Modern Chinese is developed from the mix of oral and written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对象 can be translated in to Object, or Partner. In most case, Object should be correct.&#xA;对象 is imported from Japanese. You cannot translate it into 2 characters of Chinese, coz it's not a Chinese word. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.soso.com/v178317.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.soso.com/v178317.htm&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T16:57:57.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5659" CreationDate="2014-02-08T17:13:25.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use &lt;a href=&quot;http://rimeime.googlecode.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Rime&lt;/a&gt; and Chuimfuhau schema from &lt;a href=&quot;https://code.google.com/p/rime-aca/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Rime-aca project&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, type bopomofo in pinyin. Enjoy the ease.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1104" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T17:13:25.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5796" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5802" CreationDate="2014-02-08T18:03:35.133" Score="10" ViewCount="10188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had heard a husband refer to his wife in Cantonese as 師奶 (pronounced &quot;see lai&quot;). The way he said it sounded like an insult but I was told it's not a bad word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would 師奶 be described in English? Is it a word that carries any negative connotations? Would certain women be offended if they are addressed as 師奶? Is it ever appropriate to call a woman 師奶? Is 師奶 unique to Cantonese? Is there an equivalent word in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The impression I get is it carries the same weight as the Japanese おばさん (obasan), which Japanese women do not like to be called. Obasan means a woman has passed her youth (青春 seishun) and is now a middle aged &quot;aunty&quot; who is no longer attractive to men. Is 師奶 similar or different to this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if 師奶 is a slang. If it's not, let me know so I can remove the tag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:26:51.677" LastActivityDate="2021-01-01T11:53:14.373" Title="Is 師奶 (see lai) strictly a Cantonese word? Is it a neutral word or does it have a negative connotation?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5796" CreationDate="2014-02-08T19:22:00.947" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note: I'm only answering from my experience, so my extrapolation of meaning/connotation may not be completely correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;師奶 (I'm not sure about the exact characters used, since the second character as a different tone than that of 奶) generally refers to a married woman, as stated &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B8%AB%E5%A5%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; by Wiktionary. It generally has fairly negative connotations: e.g. uncouth, gossipy, etc. - perhaps the stereotypical uncultured housewife. (See &lt;a href=&quot;http://student.thestandard.com.hk/liberal/PDF/s/file_20070515174149070554.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this student feature in The Standard&lt;/a&gt; for some examples.) Thus, the term probably generally offensive if said to someone's face, although at times it might be used more neutrally, depending on the context. In this way, the term seems different from おばさん, given that the latter seems more of a comment on the addressee's age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judging from the first site, it seems to be chiefly a Cantonese term. However, I don't know enough informal Mandarin to be able to give an equivalent term in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3410" LastEditorDisplayName="user3410" LastEditDate="2014-02-08T22:47:59.290" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T22:47:59.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5798" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-08T21:34:34.677" Score="5" ViewCount="950" Body="&lt;p&gt;In watching CCTV-4 news, I frequently see country names abbreviated but miss the leading character before I can look it up carefully (I know the major ones).  Is there a list anywhere  of those standard abbreviations (most of the form X国)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3916" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T10:04:59.937" Title="list of Chinese language country name abbreviations" Tags="&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5029" CreationDate="2014-02-08T23:51:34.420" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @50-3 has mentioned, the 难 is the simplification of the traditional character 難. Most Chinese characters are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Phono-semantic_compound_characters&quot;&gt;phono-semantic compounds (形声字)&lt;/a&gt;, in which the radical hints at the meaning while the phonetic hints at the pronunciation. In the case of 難, the phonetic component is 堇 while the radical is 隹. In modern Chinese, the pronunciation of 堇 has diverged from 難, but their pronunciations in Old Chinese were presumably closer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the radical 隹, which typically refers to birds? This link gives the explanation: &lt;a href=&quot;http://font.zenque.com/zidian/4796.html&quot;&gt;http://font.zenque.com/zidian/4796.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;難，今单用简作难，读nán，本义指一种鸟。因其从“堇”（火焚人祭雨）取得声义，故借以表示①困难；艰难&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;難 originally referred to a type of bird, but because the pronunciations coincided, the character ended up being borrowed to also refer to hardship and difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T23:51:34.420" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5796" CreationDate="2014-02-09T02:12:03.870" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;師奶(师奶)&quot; refer to a married woman, and is popular used in Southern China. Is is rarely used in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;師奶（「奶」字要讀高N音，同「拉」嘅音調一樣），太太嘅俗稱。主要係街坊之間用嚟打招呼嘅用詞。哩個詞語亦都可以用嚟取笑嗰啲唔多化粧，外表睇起上嚟土土地好似傳統家庭主婦咁嘅未婚女士，有所謂「師奶仔」嘅叫法。&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B8%AB%E5%A5%B6&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;translate to Simplified Chinese &quot;师奶（‘奶’字要读高N音，和‘拉’到音调一样），太太的俗称。主要是街坊邻居用来打招呼的词。也可以用来嘲笑不修边幅，看起来向像家庭主妇的未婚女士，这些未婚女士也会被叫做‘师奶仔’。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;translate to English &quot;师奶，refer to 太太(太太 is not wife but married woman in here). It is often used among the neighbors. A makeup-free unmarried woman who looks like a housewife is mocked and called '师奶仔'. &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B8%AB%E5%A5%B6&quot;&gt;粤语维基百科&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2014-02-09T02:12:03.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5798" CreationDate="2014-02-09T23:02:00.640" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is a fairly exhaustive list of currently existing countries. This does not encompass unabbreviated country names that end with 国 (e.g., 孟加拉国):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Common&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国 (Zhōngguó) - P. R. China or R. O. China depending on context&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;法国 (Fǎguó) - France&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;德国 (Déguó) - Germany&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;泰国 (Tàiguó) - Thailand&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;英国 (Yīngguó) - England / UK&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;美国 (Měiguó) - USA&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;韩国 (Hánguó) - South Korea&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;俄国 (Éguó) - Russia&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;寮国 (Liáoguó) - Laos (chiefly Taiwan, the term is dated in mainland China. Use 老挝 (Lǎowō).)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rare&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;奥国 (Àoguó) - Austria&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;葡国 (Púguó) - Portugal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墨国 (Mòguó) - Mexico&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;加国 (Jiāguó) - Canada&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-02-10T20:25:27.550" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T20:25:27.550" CommentCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5807" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-10T16:13:39.117" Score="6" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've just noticed that the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhajiangmian&quot;&gt;English Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; gives these spellings for &quot;Zhajiangmian&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Simplified Chinese    炸酱面&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Traditional Chinese   醡醬麵&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%82%B8%E9%85%B1%E9%9D%A2#Mandarin&quot;&gt;English Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; gives these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;炸酱面 (simplified, Pinyin zhájiàngmiàn, traditional 炸醬麵)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm in Taipei and have a menu from a restaurant at the local night market. The spelling on the menu is &quot;醡醬麵&quot; as in Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now Wiktionary does not list &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%82%B8&quot;&gt;&quot;炸&quot;&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%86%A1&quot;&gt;&quot;醡&quot;&lt;/a&gt; as the simplified and traditional variants of the same characters!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's going on here? Is one a Taiwanese spelling rather than a simplified vs traditional spelling? Are the two any kind of variants of each other or is it just a quirk of this single word? Are they fully interchangeable? Also is this related to the two pinyin spellings with the differing tones on the first syllable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T02:24:11.537" Title="&quot;醡&quot; and &quot;炸&quot; in &quot;醡醬麵&quot; and &quot;炸醬麵&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;food&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5807" CreationDate="2014-02-10T16:32:22.090" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just a difference of simplified vs tradtional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong and Taiwan tends to stick to tradtional, whereas mainland China uses simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think it is just Wikitionary lacking an entry for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3928" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T16:32:22.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5813" CreationDate="2014-02-10T16:33:31.587" Score="4" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there 的, 地 and 得 confusion among native speakers as well or am I missing some subtleties of the language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T08:31:31.247" Title="So technically, the correct usage of 得 for run very fast is 跑得很快 - why are there so many Baidu hits for 跑的很快 and 跑地很快?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5796" CreationDate="2014-02-10T16:43:10.200" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a Hong Kong person's perspective:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;師奶 is indeed a term that is rather offensive to most ladies in today's context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experiences, it tends to be used to refer to one or more of the below characteristics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Horrible lady drivers&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ladies who love to gossip&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Housewives with too much time on their hands&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bargain hunters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Poor fashion sense, or wearing very &quot;aunty&quot; clothes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Out of shape &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Loves mahjong, loves drama serials on TV&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://evchk.wikia.com/wiki/%E5%B8%AB%E5%A5%B6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This is a link from Hong Kong's phrase dictionary.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry it is written in Cantonese Chinese. I can try translate any parts of it for you if you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would never try calling any lady a 師奶, at all. I will stick to 家庭主婦 (jiā tíng zhǔ fù), which means housewife instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes it counts as slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3928" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-10T16:50:36.713" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T16:50:36.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5812" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5844" CreationDate="2014-02-10T19:05:47.320" Score="1" ViewCount="498" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Mac has a &quot;Pinyin - Traditional&quot; keyboard mapping that shows the most frequently used Chinese characters for the sound typed (i.e. &quot;m&quot; or &quot;a&quot;) so I can select the Chinese character I want. This works well for very frequently used words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But oddly enough, even though &quot;ma&quot; (the question particle) is (I think) very often used, it is not in the frequent list of &quot;m&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it not so often used as I think? Is there an easy way to type it using the Pinyin-Traditional keyboard mapping?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3930" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-10T22:15:11.907" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T07:31:09.687" Title="How can I type 吗 in Pinyin keyboard setup?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5809" CreationDate="2014-02-10T23:27:07.153" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct word to use in this context is indeed 得; however, because all three of these characters have the same pronunciation in Mandarin (&lt;code&gt;de&lt;/code&gt;), they are very often confused by native speakers. This is similar to how some English speakers often confuse &quot;there&quot;, &quot;their&quot;, and &quot;they're&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information on the grammatical differences among the three, refer to this previous question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/89/166&quot;&gt;的-地-得, when do you use which?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[As an aside, while these three characters have the same pronunciation in Mandarin, they differ in other Chinese varieties such as Cantonese (的 &lt;code&gt;dik&lt;/code&gt;、地 &lt;code&gt;dei&lt;/code&gt;、得 &lt;code&gt;dak&lt;/code&gt;), so this mistake does not occur as often with speakers of those topolects and replacing one with the other would end up sounding obviously wrong.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T23:42:17.727" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5798" CreationDate="2014-02-11T02:51:55.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We only refer to some countries this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德国 (Deutsch)，法国 (France)，美国 (America), 英国 (England), 俄国 (Russia) - these countries were the first countries to visit China. Maybe at that time people began to learn English and translated the name in a different way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also 俄国 is more for referring to Russia before Soviet Union (苏联). Current Russia we call 俄罗斯.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 韩国 (south Korea), it's because Koreans call their country &lt;a href=&quot;http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EB%8C%80%ED%95%9C%EB%AF%BC%EA%B5%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;大韓民國&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 泰国, I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other countries' names, we try to use the pronunciation for translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Australia - 澳大利亚, 澳洲&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Austria - 奥地利&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Spain - 西班牙&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Canada - 加拿大&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Portugal - 葡萄牙&#xA;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3931" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-11T10:04:59.937" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T10:04:59.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5807" CreationDate="2014-02-11T03:41:03.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;醡&quot; is not only tradtional spelling but also simplified spelling. So does &quot;炸&quot;. &quot;炸&quot; can be used in both tradtional chinese and simplified chinese. &quot;炸酱面&quot;, &quot;炸醬麵&quot;, &quot;醡酱面&quot; and &quot;醡醬麵&quot; are all right. However, &quot;炸&quot; is used in mainland China, and &quot;醡&quot; is used in Taiwan usually. It seems like that &quot;apartment&quot; is used in the USA and &quot;flat&quot; is used in the Uk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the view of English Wiktionary is right. &quot;醬麵&quot; is the traditional variants of &quot;酱面&quot;. &quot;炸&quot; has same spelling in both tradtional and simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to, Wikipedia is also right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T03:41:03.240" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5798" CreationDate="2014-02-11T04:03:12.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most countries can be abbreviated by the first character in their name especially when describing the relations between two or more countries. There are some exceptions and many will be duplicates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;印 can refer to both 印度 India and 印尼 Indonesia; short  for 印度尼西亚.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;伊 can refer to 伊朗 Iran and 伊拉克 Iraq. 两伊 means Iran-Iraq.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;新 can refer to 新加坡 Singapore and 新西兰 New Zealand.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;巴 can refer to 巴基斯坦 Pakistan, 巴勒斯坦 Palestine, 巴拿马 Panama, 巴拉圭 Paraguay and 巴布亚新几内亚 Papua New Guinea.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can put two countries together + 战争 War, + 冲突 Conflict, + 关系 Relations, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;以巴冲突 Israeli-Palestinian conflict.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;两伊战争 Iran-Iraq War.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;中日关系 Sino-Japanese relations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T04:03:12.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5807" CreationDate="2014-02-11T05:01:44.163" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;醡醬麵 and 炸醬麵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;炸醬麵 can work as it means &quot;noodles with fried sauce&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;醡醬麵 is &quot;noodles with extracted sauce (e.g. extracting oil)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;炸 fried (火 fire radical + phonetic 乍 zhà)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;醡 extract (酉 container + 窄 narrow; from 穴 hole and 乍) Archaic character for 榨 (tool for extraction process. 木 wood used to refer to tools in this case)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;醬 sauce&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;麵 noodles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, 酢醬麵 is also used. The Koreans have used this but it's now written 炸醬麵. I guess the difference is 醡 is a much older usage which is now replaced with 炸 in modern times. Taiwan tends to retain older usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T05:01:44.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5809" CreationDate="2014-02-11T05:02:29.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a question which is hard to explain for whom is not a linguistic. But also it's one key point to find out whether one is well educated in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, I can use it well, but like I've said, hard for me to explain.&#xA;according to my understanding, the rules are like below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;verb + 得 + adjective&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;adjective + 地 + verb&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;noun + 的 forms a adjective. And this can be only used to modify a noun, &#xA;like 红的 (adjective) + 苹果(noun).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for your examples, 跑(verb) + 得 + 很快(adjective) is correct,&#xA;all the others are incorrect.&#xA;Furthermore, 很快(adjective) + 地 + 跑(verb) expresses the same meaning as 跑得很快.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3932" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T05:02:29.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5826" CreationDate="2014-02-11T06:59:30.990" Score="9" ViewCount="2469" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why in Mandarin chinese, USA is beautiful kingdom and England is hero kingdom?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3933" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-11T08:54:13.427" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:20:44.533" Title="Origin of beautiful kingdom and hero kingdom" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5822" CreationDate="2014-02-11T07:08:41.817" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually they all came from their &lt;strong&gt;pronunciation&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;America: 美利坚 (&quot;美国&quot; for short)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;England: 英格兰 (&quot;英国&quot; for short)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3868" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T07:08:41.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5809" CreationDate="2014-02-11T08:31:31.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seriously? I think 得 (adverb) is the only correct one. 的 is possesive (我的, 你的, 他的) and... 地 is just wrong. I think a typo of 的 which can be pronounced the same as 地.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T08:31:31.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5807" CreationDate="2014-02-11T08:33:33.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;not sure about Taiwan, but in Hong Kong, most of the time people just use the word 炸 instead of 醡.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's anything related to simplified/traditional wording coversion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's simply because 炸 pronounce similar to 醡, and 炸 have way less strokes than 醡. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean, when you work as a waiter in any kind of food place, you really don't have that kind of time to write down this word with 20,30 strokes each and every time people order it, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3936" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T08:33:33.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5822" CreationDate="2014-02-11T08:44:59.437" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are not really called beautiful kingdom and hero kingdom. When Chinese come up with phonetic names of foreign things, they try to find a character that come close enough in sound while having a good meaning. Luckily 英 and 美 happen to correspond well with &quot;Eng-&quot; and &quot;-me-&quot; while having suitable meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like France 法兰西 (法国) has meaning of 法 Law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Germany 德逸 (德国) has meaning of 德 Moral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;亚美利加 (America), used 美 because 亚 is reserved for Asia.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Japanese uses 亚米利加 (米国 rice country lol)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;英吉利 (England), UK is 大不列颠 及 北爱尔兰 联合王国 (Great Britain and Northern Ireland United Kingdom)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can also refer to the UK as 联合王国.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T08:44:59.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5827" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5828" CreationDate="2014-02-11T10:46:42.953" Score="2" ViewCount="459" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;好饱了&quot; and &quot;好包了&quot; both seem to be used to mean &quot;I'm full&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure that &quot;好饱了&quot; is definitely correct but they both get lots of Google hits and if I combine the search with the English &quot;full&quot; they are about equally popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is &quot;好包了&quot; also correct or is it a common spelling mistake?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T16:55:08.697" Title="Are &quot;好饱了&quot; and &quot;好包了&quot; both correct?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5827" CreationDate="2014-02-11T12:29:49.820" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, &quot;好包了&quot; does not mean &quot;I'm full&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may see &quot;...打好包了...&quot; in the Google hits. It refers to &quot;have made something into a package.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your friend say &quot;这顿饭我包了&quot;. That means your friend will get the bill, and you don't pay the bill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will see &quot;7天包退&quot; on some goods's package, that means &quot;7 days to cancel purchase for non-faulty goods&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &quot;他们的村庄被敌人包围了&quot; refers to &quot;Their village was surround by the enemy.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T12:29:49.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5754" CreationDate="2014-02-11T12:34:36.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know you can calculate Gematria on UTF8 (Hence Unicode and all the chars) using the Online Gimatria Calculator &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gematrix.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.gematrix.org&lt;/a&gt; - it worked for me in Hebrew too: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.c2kb.com/gematria&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.c2kb.com/gematria&lt;/a&gt; - Hope it was help full.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3937" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T12:34:36.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5812" CreationDate="2014-02-11T15:40:46.473" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you are using the &quot;Pinyin - Traditional&quot; input method, maybe what you can see will only be the traditional character &quot;嗎&quot;. To convert it into simplified Chinese, try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hao123.com/haoserver/jianfanzh.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this tool&lt;/a&gt; by pasting it into the blank and click the second button.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, sometimes we also use &quot;麼&quot; (or &quot;么&quot; in simplified form) at the end of a question. And the corresponding Pinyin should be &quot;me&quot;, although most Chinese may pronounce it as &quot;mo&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2682" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T15:40:46.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5831" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-11T15:53:42.803" Score="2" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you take out 手中, isn't the translation, YouTube founder buys Delicious from Yahoo, still conveyed? What does 手中 add?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2011-04-28/09065460713.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2011-04-28/09065460713.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T06:24:28.130" Title="Headline: &quot;YouTube创始人从雅虎手中收购Delicious&quot;. What is the purpose of &quot;手中&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5827" CreationDate="2014-02-11T17:57:28.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no expression &quot;好包了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, &quot;好饱了&quot; is also a strange spelling, since we usually use &quot;我吃饱了&quot; to express &quot;I am full&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3939" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T17:57:28.437" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5831" CreationDate="2014-02-11T21:22:24.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;手中 actually indicates somebody possess something.&#xA;For example B从A手中拿走C means A used to possess C and B take it from A, the sentence is to emphasize the action &quot;take&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3943" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T21:22:24.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5831" CreationDate="2014-02-12T03:03:11.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Original:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;YouTube创始人从雅虎手中收购Delicious&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After removing &lt;code&gt;手中&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;YouTube创始人从雅虎收购Delicious&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think the second one sounds good. &lt;code&gt;手中&lt;/code&gt; doesn't only express that Yahoo owns Delicious before the acquisition but also act as a complement to &lt;code&gt;雅虎&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thinking again, I don't think it's just an emphasis usage because &lt;code&gt;YouTube创始人从雅虎收购Delicious&lt;/code&gt; sounds really weird. In Chinese &lt;code&gt;从&lt;/code&gt; is looking for a noun for place not just a noun. A few examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;从北京得到的消息&lt;/code&gt; - ok, because &lt;code&gt;北京&lt;/code&gt; is a place&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;从宾馆到机场&lt;/code&gt; - ok , because &lt;code&gt;宾馆&lt;/code&gt; is a place&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;从张三那里得到的消息&lt;/code&gt; is better than &lt;code&gt;从张三得到的消息&lt;/code&gt; because &lt;code&gt;张三&lt;/code&gt; is just a name not a place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="1042" LastEditDate="2014-02-13T01:36:00.490" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T01:36:00.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5822" CreationDate="2014-02-12T03:07:27.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Remember that despite having a writing system much more heavily vested in meaning vs pronunciation, Chinese still has a need to transcribe foreign sounds and words. Speakers of European languages tend not to notice this issue as much, because words from other languages can at least be approximated by sound, if not assimilated completely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese does not have such an easy option, and the result is that transcriptions cannot escape having meanings - often quite interesting ones in this case. The general rule with country names seems to be a selection of something that sounds similar to the name of that country in its own language, and that is complimentary in some way, or at least not derogatory. Some countries come out of this better than others, e.g. 美国 and 英国 vs 西班牙 and 俄罗斯.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a set of characters that tend to crop up a lot in these transcriptions, too many to list here, but common examples are 奥, 利, 德, 阿, 斯.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, you also encounter issues where a foreign transcription word entered the Chinese lexicon through a Chinese language other than Mandarin, or even a non-Chinese language that makes use of hanzi, such as Japanese. When this happens they don't seem to sound like the original word at all. An example is the UK city of Cambridge, which is 剑桥 in Chinese. This sounds nothing like Cambridge in its Mandarin pronunciation (Jiànqiáo), but that's because it entered through Cantonese, in which it's pronounced Gim3kiu4. So you've got &quot;gim + bridge&quot;, which makes much more sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR - these are transcriptions focusing on sound. The meaning is a secondary concern.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2462" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T03:07:27.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5859" CreationDate="2014-02-12T03:53:58.147" Score="11" ViewCount="738" Body="&lt;p&gt;In sentences that already have a point in time word that indicates that the event happened in the past, is 了 optional? Or could there be some additional meaning with it present? For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我昨天去商店。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我昨天去了商店。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since &quot;yesterday&quot; is included in the sentence, does 了 really add anything?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not concerned with the end-of-sentence 了 in this question, only the aspect marker. Follow up question: Is it grammatically incorrect to say ”我昨天去商店“？ That is, it obviously happened in the past but i don't use 了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3944" LastEditorUserId="3944" LastEditDate="2014-02-12T13:59:39.647" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T00:48:38.130" Title="Is 了 optional when a time word is present?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5836" CreationDate="2014-02-12T04:04:04.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Edit for your new question.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我昨天去商店。Normally when you said it without 了， this sentence does not stop, you'd like to continuous and introduce what you did in the shop. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我昨天去了商店。 That's end. I got the information, you have been to shop. You can continuous your topic or not, what ever. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3945" LastEditorUserId="3945" LastEditDate="2014-02-15T00:48:38.130" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T00:48:38.130" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5812" CreationDate="2014-02-12T04:14:34.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will recommend to install &lt;code&gt;google pinyin&lt;/code&gt;, its url is here: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/ime/pinyin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/ime/pinyin/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with that, you can easily get 吗 with  &lt;code&gt;ma&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3945" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T04:14:34.223" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5822" CreationDate="2014-02-12T04:21:31.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, there is no meaning of beautiful (美) for America, it is just a name. Think about the name:  &lt;code&gt;Mr White&lt;/code&gt;, not means that the name is only for white people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We just show our kindness, that we like this country with positive words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone doesn't like America, he/she will  call America &quot;霉国&quot;, the pronounce of &quot;美(mei3)&quot; and &quot;霉(mei2)&quot; are similar. But &quot;霉&quot; are totally different meaning, it means &quot;rotten.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3945" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T23:20:44.533" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:20:44.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5722" CreationDate="2014-02-12T04:48:45.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure chewy is the meaning of Q, but my understand is , Q is from cute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So explain the sample &lt;code&gt;Q感十足&lt;/code&gt; which @congusbongus gave, means &lt;code&gt;very cute&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3945" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T04:48:45.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5841" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-12T06:20:49.850" Score="4" ViewCount="2529" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any tools that can convert &lt;strong&gt;an &lt;em&gt;entire&lt;/em&gt; webpage&lt;/strong&gt; from characters into either Pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally something like Google Translate. So perhaps a website where I enter the URL of the page I want converted. Or a browser extension that allows me to convert whichever page is currently displayed in the tab or window.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't mind if it does only pinyin or zhuyin, but one that handles both would be great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like this is handy when you want to focus on learning or practicing words and phrases, comprehension, etc when you don't know all the characters, especially when you don't have any speakers to practice with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Yes I know there are all kinds of tools that can pop up the pronunciation of an individual word or character in running text in the browser. Or where you can cut and paste plain text. For the purposes of this question I'm only asking about &lt;strong&gt;full-page conversion&lt;/strong&gt; please.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-12T07:06:09.807" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T05:05:20.217" Title="Tool which can convert web pages from Hanzi to either Pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5836" CreationDate="2014-02-12T06:42:12.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“了” is a special character usually meaning &quot;finished&quot; or &quot;something happen in the future&quot;, we can summarize these points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) For a verb that can be persistant, “了” means “begin to do something immediately on spoken” （usually SVO+了）：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈，我*&lt;em&gt;做功课了&lt;/em&gt;*；做完功课后我出去散步。(Mon, I'll &lt;strong&gt;start homeworking&lt;/strong&gt;, then I'll walk outside).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;strong&gt;if SV了+O（Subject+Verb+了+Object），mostly this means something happened&lt;/strong&gt;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare with: 妈妈，我*&lt;em&gt;做了功课&lt;/em&gt;*。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) For a verb that can NOT be persistance, &quot;了&quot; means &lt;strong&gt;a finished state&lt;/strong&gt;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他*&lt;em&gt;坐下了&lt;/em&gt;*。 - He &lt;strong&gt;has sit down&lt;/strong&gt; (implying that he's currently sitting).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他*&lt;em&gt;骨折了&lt;/em&gt;*。 - He &lt;strong&gt;has had a fracture&lt;/strong&gt; (implying that the fracture is still there).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;树叶*&lt;em&gt;掉落了&lt;/em&gt;*。 - Leaves &lt;strong&gt;have fallen&lt;/strong&gt; (implying that they are still on the ground).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3）For a verb that can be persistant but intransitive，&quot;了&quot; means something happend or immediately happen (just depending on contexts):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他唱了。(He's song/He's going to sing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-02-12T20:57:29.653" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T20:57:29.653" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5841" CreationDate="2014-02-12T07:20:00.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To PinYin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please use: Chinese version of word or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wps.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WPS&lt;/a&gt;, in word you can see: 用鼠标选中需要注音的文字（拖黑）——格式——中文版式——拼音(Word2003,XP……) for Word2007 or above version, switch to &quot;Home&quot; page and then click this：&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MkHDu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T07:20:00.873" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5812" CreationDate="2014-02-12T07:31:09.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;吗&lt;/code&gt; is a simplified Chinese character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can tell from the short horizontal line where traditional would have four dots or legs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;嗎&lt;/code&gt; is the traditional Chinese character equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you really need &lt;code&gt;吗&lt;/code&gt; you should install Simplified instead of or as well as Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao, but most people in those places do not use pinyin input. In Taiwan zhuyin input is most popular. In Hong Kong and Macau nonphonetic input methods such as cangjie are most popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified is used in mainland China and Singapore and most people do use pinyin to type it. There are many implementations of pinyin input editors for different operating systems. I'm not familiar with Macs but I am positive it ships with a pinyin input method for simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T07:31:09.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5029" CreationDate="2014-02-12T08:19:40.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually it depends on what you mean by &quot;radical&quot; which can stand for both &quot;&lt;strong&gt;偏旁&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;(pian1pang2) and &quot;&lt;strong&gt;部首&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;(bu4shou3) in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are such ambiguous concepts that even some Chinese teacher can get confused, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1433394.htm#1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“偏旁部首”常常连在一起说，于是有些教师就认为“偏旁”和“部首”是一回事，这是一种误解。偏旁和部首，虽然有某些联系，却是两个不同的概念。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two concepts are different in that while &quot;部首&quot; &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; includes &lt;strong&gt;semantic radicals&lt;/strong&gt; (I'm not sure if there is such a term. By &lt;strong&gt;semantic radical&lt;/strong&gt; I mean &quot;形旁&quot; in Chinese) which is rare in Chinese characters, &quot;偏旁&quot; includes both semantic radicals and &lt;strong&gt;phonetic radicals&lt;/strong&gt; (Again, by &lt;strong&gt;phonetic radical&lt;/strong&gt; I mean &quot;声旁&quot; in Chinese). In other words, &lt;strong&gt;&quot;部首&quot; can be seen as part of &quot;偏旁&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. So it's OK to say that &quot;the '偏旁' of '难' is '又'&quot;, if we consider &quot;又&quot; as a phonetic radical. But why shall we think so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the &lt;strong&gt;semantic radicals&lt;/strong&gt; of &quot;难&quot; should be &quot;隹&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we open our &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/kx/a20737b62544c97077d.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kangxi Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; to study the explanation of it, we can see this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【說文】鳥也。本作&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o9jlw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;nan&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;难&quot; originally means a kind of bird. Then which part of &quot;难&quot; stands for a &quot;bird&quot;? If you know the traditional form of &quot;鸡&quot;(chicken)—— &quot;雞&quot;, you will find that they share the same part &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/20735.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隹&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, which exatly means &quot;birds&quot; with short tails. Therefore, the &quot;部首&quot;, or &quot;semantic radical&quot; of &quot;难&quot; is &quot;隹&quot;. And of couse you can say that &quot;the '偏旁' of '难' is '隹'&quot;, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the development of dictionary has subdivided &quot;部首&quot; into &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1433394.htm#3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;识字部首&quot; and &quot;检字部首&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. The former is actually the &quot;部首&quot; I explained above, while the latter is some commonly shared part of a large number of characters which helps us to look them up in dictionaries more easily. Although most of the time both are the same, they can differ from each other in some cases, as in the case of &quot;难&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;鸡&quot;,&quot;难&quot;,&quot;艰&quot;,&quot;邓&quot;, they all share the part of &quot;又&quot;, so &quot;又&quot; is one of those &quot;检字部首&quot;s in the dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe your teacher meant that you could look &quot;难&quot; up in the dictionay by the radical of &quot;又&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2682" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T08:19:40.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5836" CreationDate="2014-02-12T12:24:15.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.When &quot;了&quot; put the end of a sentence, that means something changed/be changing/be going to change. It can be used in the past, present and future. But usually there is &quot;就&quot; in the future tense. &quot;就&quot; is similar to &quot;will&quot;. for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;昨天，我去学校了。&quot; refers to &quot;I went to school yesterday.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;现在，我去学校了。&quot; refers to &quot;I am going to school now.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;明天，我就去学校了。&quot; refers to &quot;I will go to school tomorrow.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.When &quot;了&quot; follows a Verb, that means something had done. And it should only be used in the past tense.for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;昨天，我去了学校。&quot; refers to &quot;I went to school yesterday.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.If a sentence without a &quot;了&quot;, that means doing something/be going to do something. And it could be used in the present tense and future tense. for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你现在去哪里？-- 我现在去学校。&quot; means &quot;Where are you going now? -- I'm going to school now.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你明天去哪里？-- 我明天去学校。&quot; means &quot;Where will you go tomorrow? -- I will go to school tomorrow.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T12:24:15.977" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5807" CreationDate="2014-02-12T13:44:25.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a translation error of wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you switch the entry to chinese, it will give you 炸醬麵.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk&lt;/a&gt;/炸醬麵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;醡 and 炸 do mean differently as stated by other answers. And I think the two words have been mixed up when they did the simplification on chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2319" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T13:44:25.683" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5857" CreationDate="2014-02-12T15:15:45.617" Score="3" ViewCount="382" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used Google Translate for these sentences but I'm not sure they are correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mom 's white dog     妈妈的白狗&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My mom's white dog  我妈妈的白狗&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;And it is possible if I say&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mom 's white dog     妈妈的白色的狗&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My mom's white dog  我的妈妈的白色的狗&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder whether I should use 的 or I can omit 的 sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you also provide me the correct sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-12T17:25:37.167" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T14:57:52.330" Title="Possessives in Chinese" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;particles&gt;&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="385" CreationDate="2014-02-12T15:36:21.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use font type microsoft YaHei and the characters look very standard. I decided to change to another font because I had the same problem and I solved changing to this font.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this help&#xA;Fvazquez &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3947" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T15:36:21.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5850" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5856" CreationDate="2014-02-12T15:50:06.780" Score="6" ViewCount="12854" Body="&lt;p&gt;When we've finished doing something like I've finished (doing my homework) what we should say. &#xA;Can we say 好了 &quot;I'm finished&quot;? (Hǎole)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about &quot;are you finished&quot;?  Can we say &quot;好了吗&quot;?. (Hǎole ma)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-12T17:36:48.340" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T14:52:08.380" Title="How to say &quot;I'm finished&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5850" CreationDate="2014-02-12T16:42:49.477" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might consider 完 and its associated words for the meaning of &quot;finished.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T16:42:49.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5850" CreationDate="2014-02-12T16:56:06.143" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depend on the context, 好 and/or 完 can be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好 is more oral friendly as there is no emphasize of any difference between the speaker and the listener. In some cases, using 好 may show a closer relation between the parties of conversation than 完.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 完 is more formal. It is a better parallel to &quot;finish&quot; comparing to 好 as the latter has broader usage. Be weary while using 完 as it is often used when the parties involved in conversion are not equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, 完 is used when your boss speaks to you, your teacher speaks to you, your group leader speaks to you, etc. 好 on the other hand, tend to be used when your friend speaks to you, your partner speaks to you, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3948" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T16:56:06.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5848" CreationDate="2014-02-12T17:11:54.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The omitting of 的 follows a loose rule of minimal reappearance in the context you gave. The first two are the correct expression in Chinese. The latter two, though with correct grammar, would never make to any Chinese conversation, oral or literal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, another general rule here is that the closer the relationship, the bigger probability the omitting. Note that Mom has closer relationship to My than white. As white has same level of relation to mom and dog, both 的 are left their to imply possession. 我 thus become adverb for 妈妈. As a union, 我妈妈 acts as the adverb for 狗 and so does 白色. Changing the position of the two adverbs does not change the meaning which reflects the relationship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3948" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T17:11:54.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5451" CreationDate="2014-02-12T17:45:04.330" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doesn't look like they reached Australia at all. They have reached Indonesia and not further South from there. From the map, it looks like the area between Indonesia an Antarctic was off limits due to heavy storm in the area.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/31I0m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the look of above picture (from bottom middle of the original map), the following are translations to the left:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First paragraph to the top left:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recent years, there are small ships to this area do to the wind direction. They parked and only said that the area is vast but there is nothing to export.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second paragraph to the bottom left:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Southern part of this place is rarely reached by humans, as a result, I have not surveyed and studied the place and people.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding of the positioning is that this might be northern tip of the Australia. Due to the geographic locations, not much information is available of the area during Ming Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3948" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T17:45:04.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5836" CreationDate="2014-02-12T19:41:15.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it grammatically incorrect to say ”我昨天去商店“？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is grammatically correct. Since the sentence already indicate past tense you don't have to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In basic Chinese learning material it is common to avoid using le 了 to keep it simple. See the examples at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictall.com/indu57/08/5708187C16D.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.dictall.com/indu57/08/5708187C16D.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;(maybe you can find some in one of your learning books to verify)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Since &quot;yesterday&quot; is included in the sentence, does 了 really add anything?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depends on the context. Probably not in this example, but 了 can also be used to make a sentence sound more serious. For example when saying 谢谢 you can add 了 - &quot;谢谢了&quot; to indicate that you're sincerely grateful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I got this information from a long discussion with a Chinese friend - I've got no credible sources to link to. Hopefully someone else can contribute with a credible source. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="945" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T19:41:15.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5850" CreationDate="2014-02-13T01:24:31.833" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Usually, there is a &lt;strong&gt;Verb&lt;/strong&gt; before the &quot;好了&quot;. for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你作业做好了吗？-- 我&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;好了&quot; translate to English &quot;Have you finished doing homework? -- Yes, I have finished.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你电影看完了吗？-- 我&lt;strong&gt;看&lt;/strong&gt;完了&quot; translate to English &quot;Have you finished watching movies? -- Yes, I have finished.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is definitly correct to say &quot;好了吗？&quot;, when you want to ask &quot;Are you finished?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-13T09:44:50.363" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T09:44:50.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5848" CreationDate="2014-02-13T02:23:34.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of your examples are correct. In my opinion, &quot;Mom 's white dog 妈妈的白狗&quot; is the most appropriate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether the sentence needs to use &quot;色的&quot; depend on the context. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8C%AB%E8%AE%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;不管&lt;strong&gt;白猫黑猫&lt;/strong&gt;，能抓到老鼠就是好猫&lt;/a&gt;&quot; translate to English &quot;Whatever &lt;strong&gt;white cat&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;black cat&lt;/strong&gt;, it is a good cat only if the cat can catch a mouse.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我刚才在街上看到一个&lt;strong&gt;红头发&lt;/strong&gt;的人&quot; translate to English &quot;I saw a guy with &lt;strong&gt;red hair&lt;/strong&gt; just now.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你能递给我那本&lt;strong&gt;白色的书&lt;/strong&gt;吗？&quot; translate to English &quot;Could you pass &lt;strong&gt;the white book&lt;/strong&gt; to me?&quot;. It is a little strange in this sentence, if you don't use &quot;色的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, I suggested that you'd better add &quot;色的&quot;, if you are not sure. Because that is never wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastEditorUserId="3914" LastEditDate="2014-02-13T14:57:52.330" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T14:57:52.330" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5836" CreationDate="2014-02-13T02:49:03.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 is a special word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 3 question have to ask first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A. 了 is a verb or not?&#xA;B. If not, is there other verb in the sentence?&#xA;C. If so, 了 is after the verb? or in the end of the sentence?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following your example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;了 is not a verb.&#xA;了 is after a verb,&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 3 tense I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;past tense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我昨天去商店。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a complete sentence!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People usually say that following something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 我昨天去商店，買了很多東西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can simply say that, but it's weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(You said that, then? What'd happened?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The special situation is when you are in a conversation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;example 1:&#xA;甲：我昨天去商店。(Yesterday, I went to the store.)&#xA;乙：去幹嘛？(So?)&#xA;甲：你猜！(You guess?)&#xA;......(a long conversation.)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;example 2:&#xA;甲：你昨天幹嘛？(What did you do yesterday?)&#xA;乙：我昨天去商店。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我昨天去了商店。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same as non-了 sentence, but emphasize it like &quot;already did&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;present tense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我現在去商店。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not a complete sentence! Same reason as past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can't use 了 in this sentence if you wanna say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I'm going to the store now.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may use 就 to emphasize it like &quot;我現在就去商店。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我現在去了商店。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm on my way to the store.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's present and use 了 to tell someone in the past I was doing this too,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's Present Continuous! Same meaning as &quot;我正在去商店的路上&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;future tense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我明天去商店。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a complete sentence! Same as present-tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我明天去了商店。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's weird, because 了 is past and 明天 is future, but may happen in a story of a book.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3949" LastEditorUserId="3949" LastEditDate="2014-02-13T02:54:57.807" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T02:54:57.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5836" CreationDate="2014-02-13T03:36:35.013" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Chinese textbooks should start their 了 sections with this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了 is not about time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了 is not about tense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Goto 1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are only concerned with 了 as an the aspect marker, aka completed action 了, or perfect aspect 了, so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;昨天去商店&quot; and &quot;昨天去了商店&quot; are both valid &lt;strong&gt;verb phrases&lt;/strong&gt;. The second one explicitly states that the action was completed, whereas the first one does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As other posters have mentioned, &quot;我昨天去商店&quot; isn't wrong, but it is incomplete as a sentence because it leaves that verb phrase hanging. It feels like &quot;Yesterday I went to the shop and...&quot; in English. It needs to carry on with more information, e.g. &quot;我昨天去商店的时候发现鸡蛋都卖完了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我昨天去了商店&quot; is a complete sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be easiest to look at examples to get a better sense of this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们昨天卖了十个。 -&gt; &quot;We sold ten yesterday.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到了红绿灯，往左拐。 -&gt; &quot;When you get to the traffic lights, turn left.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你买了东西以后可以去银行取点现金吗？ -&gt; &quot;After you've bought the things could you go to the bank and get some cash out?&quot; (notice this in the future, the action hasn't happened yet, but still uses 了)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My point is that 了 is not about tense or time. It's about whether an action is complete &lt;strong&gt;in the time frame we're talking about&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that this is the sort of issue that can't be resolved by reading textbooks or explanations online. It's got to be done through long-term exposure and practice, in my view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2462" LastEditorUserId="2462" LastEditDate="2014-02-13T04:55:23.927" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T04:55:23.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5848" CreationDate="2014-02-13T04:14:17.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;My: 我、我的&#xA;mom: 媽、媽媽&#xA;'s: 的&#xA;white: 白、白色、白的、白色的&#xA;dog: 狗、狗狗&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember a common rule: &quot;Don't use 2 more 的 in one sentence.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So following all are correct sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Mom 's white dog&#xA;媽媽的白狗。&#xA;媽媽的白色狗。&#xA;My mom's white dog&#xA;我媽的白狗。&#xA;我媽的白色狗。&#xA;我媽媽的白狗。&#xA;我媽媽的白色狗。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A special word you can't choose in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;媽的&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;媽的 is a dirty word.(You can't say &quot;媽的白狗&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3949" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T04:14:17.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5848" CreationDate="2014-02-13T04:52:23.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is more of an aesthetic / rhythmic issue than a grammatical one. Technically you can keep adding 的 to make a chain as long as you like, but it won't be &quot;nice&quot;. It's like saying &quot;that&quot; repeatedly in English, e.g. &quot;the man that ate a dog that ate a fly that watched a cat that liked to browse stack exchange.&quot; Grammatically valid but not natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general rule with multiple 的s is to only keep the last one, but sometimes you do have to use multiple 的s. It's usually worth looking at rephrasing the sentence if possible to avoid this (in writing), but in speech I would say just don't worry about it. Even native speakers say things that don't sound perfect, especially if they pause for thought in the middle of an utterance, e.g. &quot;妈妈的那个白色的狗&quot; isn't nice Chinese but people could easily end up saying it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there is a slight difference between 白狗 and 白色的狗. 白狗 sounds like a particular established category of thing, 'white dog', whereas 白色的狗 is modifying an existing category of thing, 'dog that is white' (although you would translate it into 'white dog'). This may seem obvious but there is a subtle but important difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2462" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T04:52:23.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5831" CreationDate="2014-02-13T06:24:28.130" Score="-1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“手中” means Delicious belonged to Yahoo, in this Headline the author treated Yahoo as a person (of cause a person with hands) —— Yahoo hold Delicious in his hands, and the creators of YouTube take Delicious from Yahoo's &quot;hands&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“手中” 相当于“那里”（there）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“YouTube创始人从雅虎手中收购Delicious”&#xA;has the same meanig as &#xA;“YouTube创始人从雅虎那里收购Delicious”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3950" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T06:24:28.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5836" CreationDate="2014-02-13T14:30:00.687" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to expand on Hugh’s answer a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To understand what’s wrong with ‘我作天去商店.’ standing alone, we could translate it as ‘Yesterday I was going to the shop.’  Speaking English, if you said this and just stopped, the listener would think, well so what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some verbs which are not used with 了 where a time phrase is enough to show past action.  For example, stative verbs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我上個月不忙.   Last month I wasn’t busy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also equative verbs like 是:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小的時候他是我的朋友.  He was my friend when we were kids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also with some regular verbs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;去年他住在北京.   Last year he lived/was living in Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天我想家.   Yesterday I was missing home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in all these cases, the action described is inherently incomplete.  So Hugh is correct, it’s best to go verb by verb and get to know how frequently and in what situations each will be used for completed actions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want another take on aspect, try studying Russian with its perfective/imperfective verb system.  For a native speaker of English, it’s really hard to get your mind around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T14:30:00.687" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5841" CreationDate="2014-02-13T14:38:25.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry pal, I don't think such software exist for a simple reason of exponential combination process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese pronunciation has so many rules. Add on top of that, there are &quot;occasional&quot; special cases which may be frequent in usage. I gave it a minutes and I couldn't see how such a software could be designed to translate Chinese text to sound symbol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The software will have to focus on character, word, phrase, context, even implication of the phrase into account as all these affect the sound, especially punctuation. I'm sorry to say even we software guys are good at abstracting logic, this is simply too much :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3948" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T14:38:25.237" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5866" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5868" CreationDate="2014-02-13T14:56:17.160" Score="10" ViewCount="4014" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this word,  廁所 (Cèsuǒ). Does it mean a toilet outside house like a toilet in the mall?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for a bathroom in a house which has only a toilet and a shower and there is no bathtub. How can I call it? Is that 廁所, too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2014-02-13T23:25:57.190" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T11:51:07.167" Title="Should the term 廁所 (bathroom) be used for both a home and public toilet?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5866" CreationDate="2014-02-13T15:07:46.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it does. Whether the toilet is outside the house or the bathroom is in a house which has only a toilet and a shower, it is called &quot;廁所(厕所)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And we call toilets &quot;洗手间&quot; in a formal situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-18T02:32:06.200" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T02:32:06.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5866" CreationDate="2014-02-13T21:56:38.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can definitely say &quot;廁所&quot; even it is in your house. There are more than one way to say it. The word &quot;廁所&quot; and &quot;衛生間&quot; probably are most common ones. Other than that &quot;洗手間&quot; is pretty common too. &quot;盥洗室&quot; is not very common in daily uses. You normally will see this in the hospital or kindergarten. The word &quot;浴室&quot; might not be the best one for bathroom because it focus more on the cleaning part. It usually indicate the place that you take a bath. In some area in China &quot;浴室&quot; normally means public bath place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, different place in China has different language habit but &quot;廁所&quot; is definitely ok. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3954" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T21:56:38.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5866" CreationDate="2014-02-13T23:41:38.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bathroom is a 浴室.&#xA;Toilet is a 廁所.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But one thing you should know &quot;廁所 is not about home or public&quot;. It's a specific place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;廁 means a place people do pee or poo.&#xA;所 means a place.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, a bathroom also is a 廁所.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;浴: The Left part of this word means water, is a different writing type of 水.&#xA;    Right part, 谷, means a mountain valley, and this is U shape.&#xA;    So 浴 means bath, do a thing with water and a U shape container.&#xA;室: a closed area.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now you know what the 浴室 mean. But people usually use this word just describe a place people can clean their body. It's totally same meaning as &lt;strong&gt;bathroom&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no word to describe &quot;take shower&quot; in old century, so people create a new word &quot;淋浴&quot;. If you want to describe a place you can do a specific thing - take a shower, you can say &quot;淋浴間&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3949" LastEditorUserId="3949" LastEditDate="2014-02-14T10:29:10.053" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T10:29:10.053" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5866" CreationDate="2014-02-14T02:08:31.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;when mention “我去趟厕所”, it implies that you go to pee or poo.&#xA;when mention “我去趟洗手间/卫生间”， it doesn't imply pee or poo, you may go to wash hands which sounds better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So nowadays, people more and more use “洗手间/卫生间” instead of “厕所” for politeness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for bathtub, since Chinese not use that much before, as others mentioned, you can call the room “浴室”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3931" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T02:08:31.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5873" CreationDate="2014-02-14T06:09:21.940" Score="1" ViewCount="2762" Body="&lt;p&gt;As per my knowledge, both these sounds are considered the same in Mandarin. Do Chinese speakers them have difficulty in distinguishing between say Paul and Ball? How do they deal with it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2260" LastEditorUserId="2260" LastEditDate="2014-02-15T07:16:48.403" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T07:16:48.403" Title="Are Chinese language equivalent of English /p/ and /b/ sounds the same?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-02-15T02:39:36.743" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5871" CreationDate="2014-02-14T06:33:43.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P&lt;/strong&gt; lease &lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt; elieve me my friend, most of Chinese speakers handle this well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/b/ and /p/ are both commonly used in daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;皮: /pi/ (skin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笔: /bi/ (pen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3868" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T06:33:43.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5871" CreationDate="2014-02-14T06:41:14.023" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the International Phonetic Alphabet, for stop consonants, the three following categories are distinguished:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(Truly) voiced stops. The vocalization begins &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; the release of the stop. Examples would be [b], [d], and [g]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Voiceless, unaspirated stops. The vocalization begins simultaneously with the release of the stop. Examples: [p], [t], [k].&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Voiceless, aspirated stops. The vocalization begins shortly after the release of the stop. This is often perceived as a &quot;puff of air&quot;. Examples: [pʰ], [tʰ], [kʰ].&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The true situation is a little more complicated, but for any given language, we really only need to distinguish 2 or 3 of these in order to explain the phonological structure. To give some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In English, our voiced stops (e.g., spelled &quot;b&quot;, &quot;d&quot;, and &quot;g&quot;) are pronounced as voiced consonants; that is, [b], [d], and [g]. Our unvoiced stops are pronounced as either aspirated or unaspirated depending on context: &quot;pop&quot; = [pʰap], &quot;stop&quot; = [stap], and so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, the distinction is between aspirated and unaspirated. There are no voiced stops at all: 白 = [pai], 拍 = [pʰai].&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In many languages (including, say French), the distinction is between voiced and unvoiced, and there is no aspiration. So, you have &quot;tout&quot; = [tu], &quot;deux&quot; = [dœ].&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mismatch between different 2-way distinctions can either be unnoticable or a huge communication barrier. My experience is that English speakers have no problem communicating with either the aspiration-distinguishers or the voicing-distinguishers. If I say &quot;to&quot;/&quot;do&quot; (= [tʰu]/[du]), an aspiration distinguisher will perceive it as [tʰu]/[tu], and a voicing distinguisher will perceive it as [tu]/[du] (and vice versa).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real problem is when aspiration-distinguishers attempt to communicate with voicing-distinguishers. This can be hard. A Chinese friend of mine complained about an Indian person who asked for &quot;the [t]ime&quot;, and she had no idea what the &quot;dime&quot; he was asking about! Similarly, I've heard Europeans complain that Pinyin &quot;makes no sense&quot; because pinyin 'p' and 'b' &quot;sound the same&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To address the OP's question, Mandarin speakers &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; distinguish a &quot;p&quot; and &quot;b&quot;, but they do so on the basis of aspiration. This works fine for communicating with native English speakers, but works poorly for communicating with other non-native speakers who only make voicing distinctions (e.g., many Europeans).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T06:41:14.023" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2507" CreationDate="2014-02-14T10:02:04.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;特: special, good&#xA;色: color, but not here.&#xA;點: point, a small hole or circle&#xA;徵: sign&#xA;質: physical thing&#xA;性: function&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The words you asked all include 特, so there are positive words, but not really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;特色 is a special word, can't combine 2 words' meaning. Just translate to style. (&lt;strong&gt;outside&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;點 is small. In chinese, small usually means less, not many. So you can use 特點 to describe something or someone &lt;strong&gt;1 more things, but not many&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徵 is a sign, you can see it. People generally use 特徵 to describe things or people &lt;strong&gt;outside&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;質 is physical, chinese think things inside are. So we always use 特質 to describe &lt;strong&gt;things inside&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;性 is function. 特性's common usage is to describe &lt;strong&gt;abstract things&lt;/strong&gt;. (&lt;strong&gt;inside&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Example1: (abstract)&#xA;文化特色(OK)、文化特點(OK)、文化特徵(OK)、文化特質(OK)、文化特性(OK)&#xA;&#xA;Example2: (physical or not?)&#xA;水的特色(OK)、水的特點(OK)、水的特徵(OK)、水的特質(OK)、水的特性(OK)&#xA;你的特徵是啥？(OK in phone, but don't ask the person sit front of you.)&#xA;女人特性(OK, the reason we can't discuss)&#xA;他的特性是？(Not ok. Human is not a thing, also not abstract)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3949" LastEditorUserId="3949" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T01:29:29.383" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T01:29:29.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5871" CreationDate="2014-02-14T12:10:53.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For Chinese (native language speaker), someone from south of China may have issue to distinguish between &lt;code&gt;an&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ang&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;en&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;eng&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;in&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ing&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;s&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;sh&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ch&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;z&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;zh&lt;/code&gt;, but never mix &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;p&lt;/code&gt;. They are totally different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3945" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T12:10:53.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5866" CreationDate="2014-02-14T12:19:04.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;厕所 is a word that can be used for home and public toilets nowadays. In general, any room with a toilet (马桶), which for pee and poo, is called 厕所.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were no bathrooms (浴室) in old China, there were only 澡堂, which are public bath houses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other names such as &lt;code&gt;卫生间&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;洗手间&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;盥洗室&lt;/code&gt;, I think are imported from Japanese or translated from foreign languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3945" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-18T02:30:52.647" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T02:30:52.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5850" CreationDate="2014-02-14T12:26:18.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;I'm finished&lt;/code&gt; can be translated to &lt;code&gt;做好了&lt;/code&gt;， or &lt;code&gt;做完了&lt;/code&gt;， both make sense for me, nothing  wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3945" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T12:26:18.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2507" CreationDate="2014-02-14T15:50:54.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;首先说特征吧，特征强调某人或者某物与其他人或其他物的区别。例如，犯罪嫌疑人的特征是左眼有伤疤。&#xA;特色强调人文方面，例如学校的特色是学风严谨，当地的特色小吃是包子。&#xA;特质一般指人的精神方面，例句&#xA;，阴柔是女性特质之一。&#xA;特性用在自然科学比较多，物体特别的的性质，可以说是特性。&#xA;特点基本可以包含以上四个词的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3956" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T15:50:54.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5871" CreationDate="2014-02-14T20:09:05.800" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others explained, there are two qualities of these sounds which distinguish them in different languages:  &lt;em&gt;voicing&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;aspiration&lt;/em&gt;.  I'll leave you to look up on Wikipedia what these mean exactly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin Chinese,  &lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt; is always unvoiced and unaspirated. &lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt; is always unvoiced and aspirated. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In English, &lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt; is always voiced an unaspirated.  &lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt; is always unvoiced, however it can be either aspirated or unaspirated depending on the phonetical context.  It is aspirated (i.e. identical to the Chinese &lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt;) when standing alone, as in &lt;strong&gt;Paul&lt;/strong&gt;, while is is unaspirated when next to another consonant as in &lt;strong&gt;spit&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since &lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt; is usually aspirated in English when at the beginning of words, Mandarin Chinese speakers usually have no difficulty distinguishing it from &lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt; based on aspiration alone.  &lt;strong&gt;Paul&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;ball&lt;/strong&gt; do differ in aspiration and are easily distinguished by Chinese speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's more interesting to look at languages where aspiration can't be used at all to distinguish these two.  In Hungarian (my mother tongue), &lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt; differ in voicing only, and they are both unaspirated.  &lt;strong&gt;I know from first hand experience that Chinese speakers do indeed have a little difficulty distinguishing the Hungarian &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; as I did teach some Hungarian to Chinese people I know.  To them the Hungarian &lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt; tend to sound similar, and more like the Chinese &lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt;, because both lack aspiration.  Not to say they &lt;em&gt;can't&lt;/em&gt; distinguish them after some practice, but this was indeed a point of difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Naturally, when people learn a new language, they still keep focusing on sound differences that are important in their mother tongue.  While in English &lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt; are (usually) differentiated by both aspiration and voicing, native Chinese speakers focus more on aspiration, and if you listen carefully, you'll notice that they occasionally get the voicing wrong  in English (&lt;strong&gt;crab&lt;/strong&gt; vs &lt;strong&gt;crap&lt;/strong&gt;? :-)    Similarly, native Hungarian speakers tend to focus on the voicing more, and will often get the aspiration wrong (they'll say &lt;strong&gt;Paul&lt;/strong&gt; with an unaspirated unvoiced &lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt;).  It also goes the other way: When native English (or Chinese!) speakers learn Hungarian, they'll typically aspirate initial &lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt;'s, which is one of the things which makes their accent sound &quot;English&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="92" LastEditorUserId="92" LastEditDate="2014-02-14T20:24:24.893" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T20:24:24.893" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5885" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-14T21:49:37.677" Score="1" ViewCount="1085" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been pondering on this one for a while, but I'm still not sure about the best wording for it. It seems to be often used by someone who has been defeated/humiliated/etc, implying something along the lines of &quot;you're quite something&quot; / &quot;you got me!&quot; / &quot;you win!&quot; / &quot;kudos to you&quot; but with a certain negative/derogatory undertone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3959" LastEditorUserId="3959" LastEditDate="2014-02-26T11:23:30.047" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T13:13:45.487" Title="What does 算你狠 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2507" CreationDate="2014-02-14T22:46:15.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;特色 is a. &amp;amp; n., meaning featured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All others can only be used as noun. See others' response for details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T22:46:15.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5887" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5889" CreationDate="2014-02-15T16:16:55.560" Score="1" ViewCount="1583" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I am reading the &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/7561910401&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;New Practical Chinese Reader&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/1121#1121&quot;&gt;Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I got to the translation of Tamen dou hen hao and I was wondering something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation of &quot;Tamen dou hen hao&quot; is: &quot;They are both fine&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I dont understand what they mean with &quot;They are both fine&quot; in this case since in english it can mean 2 things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They are both &lt;strong&gt;DOING&lt;/strong&gt; fine, as  a response to &quot;How are they?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They are both fine, as in a choice between 2 things. Like would you have a coke or water?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering wether it means the 1st meaning or the 2nd or even both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3901" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T02:08:36.453" Title="Tamen dou1 hen3 hao3" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4967" CreationDate="2014-02-15T16:25:25.117" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Start with PinYin. Don't worry about writing and grammar at this stage. Find a native speaker to correct your tones. I have used chinese-bootcamp.com practice session several times, very useful to practice with native speakers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3961" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T16:25:25.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5887" CreationDate="2014-02-15T18:41:35.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most likely it's the first meaning.  I would give the second as 都可以 'dou1 ke3yi3' in the sense of 'both are possible'.  Dou1 actually means 'all', but obviously it can refer to two items as well.  Anyway isn't the sentence in context in the book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's nice to indicate the tones too when you write pinyin, it might help others identify the words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T18:41:35.967" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5890" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5954" CreationDate="2014-02-16T04:39:02.890" Score="3" ViewCount="600" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is somewhat similar to this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/110/when-to-use-%e4%ba%86-and-when-to-use-%e8%bf%87-to-express-past-actions-or-events&quot;&gt;When to use 了 and when to use 过 to express past actions or events&lt;/a&gt;. I understand that the 过 particle helps express the idea of having had the experience of something. my question is would you use it with a specific time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;举个例:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我知道我可以说：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去过中国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我可不可以这样说：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去年去过中国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the later is possible, what would it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3944" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T20:50:41.083" Title="Is it possible to use 过 with specific time words?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5890" CreationDate="2014-02-16T07:00:18.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes,两个都可以。比如:去了北京与去过北京大体意思是一致的。但是，“去了北京”有已经回来与没有回来两种可能，而去过北京则结果只有一个，那就是现在已经不在北京了！谨记：过的语句后可以加了字，反之不可以！!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit (Translation):&#xA;Yes, both are possible. For example, 去了 Beijing and 去过 have roughly the same meaning. But, 去了 Beijing has two possible meanings; went and already came back, or went and still hasn't returned. However, 去过  Beijing only has one, you have been but you are no longer there! Remember: You can put 过  at the end of a sentence but the reverse is not true!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Comment by editor) Im not sure if the last sentence is translated correctly or maybe the OP meant something else. Possibly you can put 了 at the end but not 过。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3955" LastEditorUserId="3944" LastEditDate="2014-02-16T17:16:10.410" LastActivityDate="2014-02-16T17:16:10.410" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5892" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-16T08:05:10.460" Score="8" ViewCount="707" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seem to be two words for each season. Each pair has the first character in common but for the second character one will have 季 (jì) and the other will have 冬天 (tiān).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example &quot;winter&quot; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冬季 (dōngjì) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冬天 (dōngtiān)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between the two? I can see the first uses the character for &quot;season&quot; and the second uses the character for &quot;heaven&quot;, but this doesn't seem to tell me anything useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-16T08:27:48.507" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T20:15:56.437" Title="Differences between the two words for each season, such as 冬季 (dōngjì) and 冬天 (dōngtiān)" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5892" CreationDate="2014-02-16T13:21:06.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;冬季 (and other season names containing 季) is a formal term, used mainly in writing (书面语). 冬天 is a frequently used term. In practice, I guess it should be OK if you recognise both, and use the latter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastActivityDate="2014-02-16T13:21:06.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5892" CreationDate="2014-02-16T23:06:11.780" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;冬季 is more formal than 冬天. When used to refer to the season itself, the former is more commonly found in literature, the latter in vernacular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when used to refer to something of that season, i.e. in a noun phrase, the 冬季 form is almost always used. For examples, &quot;winter fashion&quot; is 冬季服装, &quot;Winter Olympics&quot; is &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%86%AC%E5%AD%A3%E5%A5%A5%E6%9E%97%E5%8C%B9%E5%85%8B%E8%BF%90%E5%8A%A8%E4%BC%9A&quot;&gt;冬季奥运会&lt;/a&gt;*. You would never use 冬天 for these, unless rephrasing them in a very informal way e.g. 冬天穿的衣服.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;em&gt;: if they don't get abbreviated awaylike &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/c/25/59579.htm&quot;&gt;冬装&lt;/a&gt; or 冬奥, that is.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-02-16T23:06:11.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5887" CreationDate="2014-02-16T23:23:59.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is most likely to be the first answer. When one is indifferent over choices, one usually uses 都可以/都行/随便. 他们都很好 does not sound authentic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3968" LastActivityDate="2014-02-16T23:23:59.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5896" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-16T23:47:07.363" Score="18" ViewCount="6953" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm having a little trouble with learning directions and positions. It seems that most often the word bian is being used to indicate a position: front side 前邊, back side 後邊, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I see stuff that uses mian for position: 外面有人吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm a little confused as to when I should use bian and when I should use mian. Can you help me come to an understanding of the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3214" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T02:53:51.473" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T12:52:07.330" Title="Confusion about bian 邊 and miàn 面" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5897" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-17T02:53:04.337" Score="8" ViewCount="2232" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, you are a 20 year old male/female. You are walking on the street, then you see a male stranger who seems to be the same age as your. He is in hurry, you see him drop his wallet. You pick up the wallet and want to give back the wallet to the person. He is walking quite fast and the street is quite crowded, so there is no way to approach him and pat him saying &quot;对不起，你的钱包掉了&quot; (excuse me, you dropped your wallet). You don't want to let him out of your sight, so you decide to shout to him &quot;sir! you dropped your wallet!&quot;. How to say that in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can we use 同伴 or 同学 to address him? (eg: 同伴！你的钱包掉了！)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T09:51:05.610" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T04:20:38.400" Title="What's the title for addressing an unknown young person the same age as you?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="16" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5896" CreationDate="2014-02-17T03:39:47.313" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;To understand the differences properly, you need to know what is 面 and what is 边. 面 is a &lt;strong&gt;face&lt;/strong&gt; whereas 边 is an &lt;strong&gt;edge&lt;/strong&gt;. An edge is like a line guiding you the &lt;em&gt;direction&lt;/em&gt;. A face is what is facing you giving you a sense of &lt;em&gt;position&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;前/后面 is used to describe the position of something within your visual range. Whereas, 前/后边 is more appropriately used to describe&#xA;something beyond visual range when giving directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;镜子前面 (in front of the mirror) vs 车站前边 (beyond that bus stop in front)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;外/里面 is used to describe location of an object in relation to another object. 外/里边 is used strictly&#xA;for giving directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;书包里面 (inside the school bag) vs 巷子里边 (in that alley)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;左/右面 is used mainly to point to the left or right face of an&#xA;object. 左/右边 is used to describe left or right side directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;墙的左面 (on the left face of that wall) vs 车道左边 (left side of the&#xA;  roadway)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, when you are giving directions, use 边; when you are describing positions, use 面.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="4410" LastEditDate="2014-04-25T03:13:09.990" LastActivityDate="2014-04-25T03:13:09.990" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5897" CreationDate="2014-02-17T05:00:40.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would shout:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喂！喂！先生! 你掉了钱包!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Wèi! Wèi! Xiānshēng! Nǐ diào le qiánbāo!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hey! Hey! Sir! You dropped your wallet!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喂 is important to attract attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; Never use 小姐 (xiǎo jiě) to address a mainland Chinese woman. This has developed into a derogatory slang term meaning &quot;slut&quot; in mainland China (referring to those who work in hostess bars).  It's only OK to use in Taiwan where it retains the original meaning &quot;Miss&quot;. It's also OK in other dialects such as Cantonese. Remember, this term is no longer OK in Mandarin usage in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need to address a woman in China, call her 大姐 (dà jiě).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Extra:&lt;/strong&gt; 同伴 (partner) is weird. Don't use it. It's like &quot;Hey, comrade!&quot;. 同学 would be OK if you're from the same school, otherwise it's awkward. Better stick with 先生. I would advise against using 大哥 as it sounds gangsterish and uncouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T09:36:04.753" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T09:36:04.753" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5897" CreationDate="2014-02-17T06:53:29.397" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, if you are adult and the person who droppd wallet is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;younger than 11, you can call him or her &quot;小朋友&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;at the age of 11 to 18, you can call him or her &quot;同学&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;at the age of 18 to 24, you can call him &quot;同学&quot;, &quot;帅哥(cool man)&quot;, and call her &quot;同学&quot;, &quot;美女(beautiful girl)&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;at the age of 24 to 35, you can call him &quot;帅哥&quot;, and call her &quot;美女&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;older than 30, it really depend on your age and the person's age. For example, the person is 42, and you are 23, you can call him &quot;叔叔(uncle)&quot;, and call her &quot;阿姨(aunt)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you can call the person who dressed very fashionably &quot;帅哥&quot;,&quot;美女&quot;, eventhough he(she) is older than 35.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, I think the person will usually stop walking, if you shout &quot;喂，你的钱包掉了！(Hey, You dropped your wallet.)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T09:30:46.083" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T09:30:46.083" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5896" CreationDate="2014-02-17T07:40:23.817" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;外面( &lt;em&gt;literally&lt;/em&gt; out-&lt;strong&gt;surface&lt;/strong&gt;)=外边=out-&lt;strong&gt;side&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking of etymology, 边 is a 1-D concept, while 面 is a 2-D concept. The sides of a rectangle is addressed as 长边（长）、短边（宽）, while 面 is its area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Habitually, ~边 is more oral while ~面 is more literal. But as far as I know, people in southern regions do not really distinguish them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T07:40:23.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5841" CreationDate="2014-02-17T08:03:31.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyu.iciba.com/pinyin.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://hanyu.iciba.com/pinyin.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;and&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ifreesite.com/phonetic/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ifreesite.com/phonetic/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These websites may do the work, but only for plain text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3974" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T08:03:31.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5897" CreationDate="2014-02-17T08:04:13.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before the '90s, 同志 (comrade) was a popular term that was fine to call others, both man and woman. But after Hong Kongers started to use it for another meaning (gay/lesbian), we stopped using it most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we can use 先生 (sir), 小伙子 (young fellow), 帅哥 (handsome man), 朋友 (mate), 小姐 (miss), 美女 (beauty).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3945" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-18T02:27:38.927" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T02:27:38.927" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5896" CreationDate="2014-02-17T09:42:40.713" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese and basically both are same to me. We don't really differentiate them :).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;外面 - normal to say in Mandarin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;外边 - normal to say in Cantonese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3975" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-18T02:28:53.903" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T02:28:53.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1037" CreationDate="2014-02-17T20:02:48.947" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to address a person properly depends on a lot factors, but as the rule of thumb, Chinese people like to use 2 characters to address a person. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that, I guess -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) using 1 character from the given name sounds intimate (like between lovers), &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) using the person's 1-character surname sound foreign. In English, if a person's surname is Wang, we can address him as Wang, no problem, but it is very weird to address him as 王 in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) if a person's name has 3+ characters, and address him/her using his/her full name sounds too distant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a guy is named 王良, it is natural for people not too younger than him to address him by his full name, as his name has 2 characters. A guy a few years younger than him may call him  王哥 to show a little closeness. A young lady may also call him 王哥, but it may sound flirty if she says 王哥 in a certain way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a girl is named 张玲, it is natural for people not too younger than her to address her by her full name, as her name has 2 characters. A guy or girl a few years younger than her may call her 王姐 to show a little closeness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When meeting people for the first time, we can use 先生 to address men, like 王先生, and use 女士 or 太太 (if she is married and likes to be addressed that way) for women, like 张女士, 刘太太. 小姐 was a formal/good way to address ladies, but nowadays it is assigned with another meaning (hooker), so avoiding using 小姐 if you are not confident with maneuvering the subtleness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the workplace, people use surname + title to address a person, like 李经理, 张总, 王处长. If your boss addresses you as 李经理, it shows some distance between you two. If the boss addresses you as 老李 or 小李, it shows closeness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Between close friends or family members, given names can be used to address someone. Givenames have almost always 1 or 2 charaters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a person has a 复姓 (99% of all 复姓 have 2 characters) like 上官, 欧阳, 司马, usually people address him/her by their surname.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even for Chinese natives, sometimes we can't figure out the proper way to address a person either, so we will try the most conservative ones first, like 先生/女士, and usually that person will tell you what he/she prefers to be addressed as.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your friend is not a Chinese native, then I suggest him picking a 2-character Chinese name directly translated from his original name, like 马克 for Mark, just forget about the surname. So in this way 马克 can be used by EVERYONE, because for directly translated foreign names, the necessity of properness is much less, after all it is already foreign, isn't it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One note on translating original names into Chinese: you need to make the Chinese name sound foreign, and avoid the names sounding close to the existing Chinese words. For example, if your name is Philip, don't pick 菲力, as it sounds close to 费力, or 非礼. In this case, go with 3-character names, like 菲力普.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T19:35:00.767" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T19:35:00.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5909" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-17T23:57:40.260" Score="6" ViewCount="1338" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/9/149/321413.htm&quot;&gt;拉倒&lt;/a&gt; is a word that can mean &quot;forget about it&quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鲁迅 《华盖集续编·马上支日记》：“现在这书既然借不到，只好拉倒了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems strange though, because 拉倒 literally means &quot;to pull over&quot;. What is the etymology of this word? What was being &quot;pulled over&quot; that signified forgetting about something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-18T02:13:54.890" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T03:46:54.087" Title="Why does 拉倒 mean &quot;forget about it&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5887" CreationDate="2014-02-18T02:08:36.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We need know the contents before and after when see this sentence. Normally, I don't think it relates or focus on &lt;code&gt;DO something&lt;/code&gt;, it is daily greet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;how are you? I am fine (我很好)&#xA;how about your parents? They are fine. (tamen dou hen hao, 他们都很好)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3945" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T02:08:36.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5909" CreationDate="2014-02-18T05:50:43.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拉倒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a mandarian Chinese, this really means &quot;pull down&quot;. However &lt;strong&gt;the words are constructing a certain dialect's pronunciations&lt;/strong&gt;, so you cannot split words from words to understand its meaning. In ShangHai dialect, this means &quot;give up because of no choices or no other ways&quot;, &quot;Have to do something narrowly&quot;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【e.g】既然你不肯给我东西，那就*&lt;em&gt;拉倒&lt;/em&gt;*了。（=那就算了）&#xA;Since you won't lend me what I want, &lt;strong&gt;that's all for that&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2014-02-21T05:34:21.277" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T05:34:21.277" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5866" CreationDate="2014-02-19T03:01:53.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;廁所 (厕所) only means &lt;code&gt;toilet&lt;/code&gt;, never means &lt;code&gt;bathroom&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese character 廁(厕) means &lt;code&gt;urination&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;defecation&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The Chinese character 所 means &lt;code&gt;place&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore 廁所 (厕所) literally means &lt;code&gt;urination/defecation place&lt;/code&gt;, so it can only mean &lt;code&gt;toilet&lt;/code&gt;. It never means &lt;code&gt;bathroom&lt;/code&gt;. You can &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; take a shower in 廁所 (厕所).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. If you want to say &lt;code&gt;bathroom&lt;/code&gt;, you should use the word 浴室. You can take a shower in a 浴室 (bathroom). Moreover, most 浴室 (bathrooms) contain 厕所 (toilets) for urination and defecation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T06:30:37.597" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T06:30:37.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5917" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5918" CreationDate="2014-02-19T04:38:27.527" Score="4" ViewCount="499" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since learning the adjective + 得很 rule I have only seen it once in writing with a two syllable adjective。&#xA;What are the differences in register and／or meaning between 很 + adjective and adjective+得很？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="938" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T06:45:47.203" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T19:46:26.817" Title="What is the difference between 很 + adjective and adjective + 得很" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5917" CreationDate="2014-02-19T06:50:51.023" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a linguist. As Chinese is my first language, I can describe how I use these 2 words.&#xA;很is like English word 'very', its place in a sentence is aways before another adjective. While 得很 is more intense, and it usually follows another adjective.&#xA;For example:  a, 这件东西很好。b,这件东西好得很。Both sentence a and b mean 'This thing is very good.', but sentence b is stronger in feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;很 + adjective&lt;/strong&gt; can be followed by nouns, but &lt;strong&gt;adjective + 得很&lt;/strong&gt; can not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 很高的山峰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we don't say: 高得很的山峰. It is just wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say &lt;strong&gt;adjective + 得很&lt;/strong&gt; alomst always comes (with or without modal particle) at the end of a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这屋子 &lt;strong&gt;脏得很&lt;/strong&gt; 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的字， &lt;strong&gt;好得很嘛&lt;/strong&gt; 。你怎么说不好呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3987" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T19:46:26.817" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T19:46:26.817" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5919" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-19T11:42:00.700" Score="5" ViewCount="1141" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've realized that I still don't know the way to talk about &quot;speaking a language&quot;, for instance the Chinese equivalents to sentences like these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you speak English?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I can speak a little Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there are other senses of &quot;to speak&quot; as in &quot;he speaks very loudly&quot; and &quot;who were you speaking to?&quot; and there is the similar word &quot;to talk&quot; which cannot be used with the name of a language, except in colloquial or nonstandard speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I have found at least two single-syllable Chinese words that both seem to work for the sense of &quot;to speak&quot; that I am interested in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;說&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;说&lt;/code&gt; (shuō)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;講&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;讲&lt;/code&gt; (jiǎng)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these two interchangeable synonyms or are there subtle differences? Are these the only two options for expressing &quot;to speak XX language&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T05:34:02.060" Title="Is it 說 /说 / shuō or 講 / 讲 / jiǎng for &quot;to speak a language&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5919" CreationDate="2014-02-19T14:11:24.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;其实两个是一个意思，to speak xx language一般用&quot;说&quot;，&quot;讲&quot;用的相对较少，而且&quot;讲&quot;还有讲课的意思，比如说&quot;他是讲英语的老师。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3988" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T14:11:24.627" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5921" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5985" CreationDate="2014-02-19T16:26:54.450" Score="3" ViewCount="335" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in finding any &lt;strong&gt;webpages or books&lt;/strong&gt; that list words and phrases of more than one character that share the same pronunciation but not the same tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, here are some terms I've discovered in EDICT with the syllables &amp;quot;li&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;ji&amp;quot; in different tones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Lǐjì&lt;/code&gt; 禮記 礼记 &amp;quot;Classic of Rites&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;lǐji&lt;/code&gt; 裡脊 里脊 &amp;quot;(tender)loin (of pork, beef etc)&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;lìjī&lt;/code&gt; 利基 利基 &amp;quot;niche&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;lìjí&lt;/code&gt; 立即 立即 &amp;quot;immediately&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;lìjǐ&lt;/code&gt; 利己 利己 &amp;quot;personal profit / to benefit oneself&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;lìji&lt;/code&gt; 痢疾 痢疾 &amp;quot;dysentery&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for something like this but with &lt;strong&gt;lots more&lt;/strong&gt; words and phrases &lt;strong&gt;so that I can listen to the differences in tones in words and phrases&lt;/strong&gt;, not just isolated syllables/characters, and without the distraction of also having varying pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Resources including audio would be amazing, but just lists of words is quite good enough so that I can get a Mandarin-speaking helper to pronounce them for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Please do not paste a list or partial list as an answer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T23:12:09.407" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T23:12:09.407" Title="Resources listing polysyllabic Mandarin words with same pronunciation differing only by tones?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5919" CreationDate="2014-02-19T18:35:03.117" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two are interchangeable in this particular context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two has different usage in other contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;讲&lt;/code&gt; can mean &lt;code&gt;to say&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;讲话&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;to explain&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;讲解&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;to bargain&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;讲价&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;说&lt;/code&gt; can mean &lt;code&gt;to persuade&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;劝说&lt;/code&gt;, and it can be a noun in &lt;code&gt;学说(theory)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The choice of syllables for your situation I would say is based on statistical usage of each. In certain areas &lt;code&gt;说&lt;/code&gt; is more naturally used because it's used more by the community. And the same is true for &lt;code&gt;讲&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3989" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T18:35:03.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5921" CreationDate="2014-02-19T19:25:31.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some exmaples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;shi jian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;尸检 shi1 jian3&#xA;时间 shi2 jian1&#xA;实践 shi2 jian4&#xA;使剑 shi3 jian4&#xA;世间 shi4 jian1&#xA;事件 shi4 jian4&#xA;试建 shi4 jian4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;shi shi&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;失实 shi1 shi2&#xA;失事 shi1 shi4&#xA;实施 shi2 shi1&#xA;时时 shi2 shi2&#xA;时事 shi2 shi4&#xA;实事 shi2 shi4&#xA;十世 shi2 shi4&#xA;史实 shi3 shi2&#xA;史事 shi3 shi4&#xA;誓师 shi4 shi1&#xA;事实 shi4 shi2&#xA;事事 shi4 shi4&#xA;逝世 shi4 shi4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;yi yi&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一亿 yi2 yi4&#xA;疑义 yi2 yi4&#xA;意义 yi4 hi4&#xA;异议 yi4 yi4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ji jian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;鸡奸 ji1 jian1&#xA;肌腱 ji1 jian4&#xA;基建 ji1 jian4&#xA;击剑 ji1 jian4&#xA;急件 ji2 jian4&#xA;己见 ji3 jian4&#xA;计建 ji4 jian4 &#xA;计件 ji4 jian4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a lot others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;技艺 — 记忆&#xA;景观 — 警官&#xA;密集 — 秘籍&#xA;未免 — 慰勉 — 卫冕&#xA;毅然 — 屹然&#xA;文明 — 闻名&#xA;夕阳 — 西洋&#xA;幽雅 — 优雅&#xA;长枪 — 唱腔&#xA;机动 — 激动&#xA;记起 — 激起 — 机器 — 极其&#xA;……&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T19:25:31.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5921" CreationDate="2014-02-19T21:31:32.157" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's the ultimate one for you. 92-character poem by Zhao Yuanren (赵元任)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《施氏食狮史》&#xA;石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮。&#xA;氏时时适市视狮。&#xA;十时，适十狮适市。&#xA;是时，适施氏适市。&#xA;氏视是十狮，恃矢势，使是十狮逝世。&#xA;氏拾是十狮尸，适石室。&#xA;石室湿，氏使侍拭石室。&#xA;石室拭，氏始试食是十狮。&#xA;食时，始识是十狮尸，实十石狮尸。&#xA;试释是事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;« Shī Shì shí shī shǐ »&#xA;Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.&#xA;Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.&#xA;Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.&#xA;Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.&#xA;Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.&#xA;Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.&#xA;Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.&#xA;Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.&#xA;Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī.&#xA;Shì shì shì shì.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;« Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den »&#xA;In a stone den was a poet called Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten lions.&#xA;He often went to the market to look for lions.&#xA;At ten o'clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.&#xA;At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.&#xA;He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.&#xA;He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.&#xA;The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.&#xA;After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.&#xA;When he ate, he realized that these ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.&#xA;Try to explain this matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T21:31:32.157" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5925" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5926" CreationDate="2014-02-20T00:26:49.233" Score="11" ViewCount="1678" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couple of years ago I wrote this comment &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/383/38&quot;&gt;below an answer&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On mainland China 他 is used for both male and female. I've only seen 她&#xA;  used as a stylistic thing for advertising and some old formal writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I wrote that comment I have had a few people ask about whether or not this is true. When I think about it today I am not sure what my original thinking was and I am doubting myself over whether or not this is a true statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't been back to China in 3 years (going in September, yay!) and I haven't picked up a newspaper in a while. What I do recall is seeing 她 used in social media (微信 posts) which has only become mainstream in the past few years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neutral_pronouns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia says&lt;/a&gt; on the subject:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 1917, the Old Chinese graph tā (她, from nǚ 女, &quot;woman&quot;) was borrowed&#xA;  into the written language to specifically represent &quot;she&quot; by Liu&#xA;  Bannong. As a result, the old character tā (他), which previously also&#xA;  meant &quot;she&quot; in written texts, is sometimes restricted to meaning &quot;he&quot;&#xA;  only. In contrast to most Chinese characters coined to represent&#xA;  specifically male concepts, the character tā is formed with the&#xA;  ungendered character for person rén (人), rather than the character for&#xA;  male nán (男).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how correct is my original statement and has social media and the internet caused an increase in the use of 她?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T23:09:16.960" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T09:32:03.190" Title="How gender specific in writing is the character 他" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5925" CreationDate="2014-02-20T01:25:43.227" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, when referring to a single subject, I have never seen &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4ED6.htm&quot;&gt;他&lt;/a&gt; used as a female pronoun. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/5979.htm&quot;&gt;她&lt;/a&gt; is used for females, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/js/5B83.htm&quot;&gt;它&lt;/a&gt; used for non-gendered or non-human subjects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do note that 他 has meanings outside pronouns; it can have the meaning of &quot;other&quot;. In these cases, 他 is used and never 她. Examples include &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/6/3f/98488.htm&quot;&gt;他人&lt;/a&gt; (other people), &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/6/9/14485.htm&quot;&gt;他乡&lt;/a&gt; (a place far away from home), &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/6/3d/94553.htm&quot;&gt;他日&lt;/a&gt; (future).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two interesting cases for the 他/她 question though: in the group pronouns 他们/她们 and when the gender is unknown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/6/10d/290322.htm&quot;&gt;他们&lt;/a&gt;/&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/9/78/123290.htm&quot;&gt;她们&lt;/a&gt;, 他们 is indeed the gender-neutral term. Use this when referring to a group of people (other than yourself and your subject, i.e. &quot;they&quot; or &quot;them&quot;), where their genders are either mixed or not relevant. If you are specifically referring to a group of females though, use 她们. &lt;a href=&quot;http://iask.sina.com.cn/b/17371072.html&quot;&gt;Here's some discussion on this matter&lt;/a&gt;. This is in contrast to English which has no gendered &quot;they&quot; or &quot;them&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When gender is unknown, it is more proper to use 他. This is similar to older English style which considered &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun#Generic_he&quot;&gt;generic he&lt;/a&gt; proper usage. Use 他 when in English you would have used &quot;he / she&quot;. Note that some people use &quot;他/她&quot; which is perfectly understandable but less proper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to summarise:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他 is &lt;strong&gt;gender neutral&lt;/strong&gt;, except in two cases where you would use 她 instead:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When referring to a &lt;strong&gt;single female&lt;/strong&gt; of known gender&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When referring to a &lt;strong&gt;group of females&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T01:25:43.227" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5928" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5932" CreationDate="2014-02-20T03:49:25.303" Score="6" ViewCount="684" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of my teachers asked us the example question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你有什么安排吗？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked her why there would be two &quot;question words&quot;, &lt;code&gt;什么&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;吗&lt;/code&gt;, when I believed you should only have one question word (in this case, &lt;code&gt;吗&lt;/code&gt; should not be there in my opinion.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this some kind of slang? Or just wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can it safely be disregarded?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T15:27:01.830" Title="Two &quot;question words&quot; in one sentence" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5928" CreationDate="2014-02-20T04:34:01.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker , I must tell you that it is OK both&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你有什么安排?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你有安排吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think the difference is that what they emphasize are different. When you ask &lt;strong&gt;什么安排&lt;/strong&gt; , it may emphasize the detail of your plan . While you ask &lt;strong&gt;你有安排吗&lt;/strong&gt; , it just ask you whether you are available .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你有什么安排吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is just a question that ask whether you are available while not caring about the details of your plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T04:34:01.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5928" CreationDate="2014-02-20T06:57:23.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你有什么安排吗？ means what plans do you have. so it emphasizes on WHAT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你有安排吗？ means do you have any plans? so it emphasizes the existence of the plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well according context, they are sometimes exchangeable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T06:57:23.743" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5925" CreationDate="2014-02-20T07:03:55.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;for the third party, we always use 他 for male person, 她 for female person. 它 for animals both female and male.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but it's a little tricky when talking about &quot;YOU&quot;, in mainland, we use 你 for both male and female, however you may encounter “女尔” mentioning &quot;YOU&quot; if you are female in tai wan and hong kong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T07:03:55.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5928" CreationDate="2014-02-20T07:06:08.033" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem is not whether Chinese allows two question words in one sentence, it's that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/0/3d/93485.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;什么 has multiple meanings&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can variously mean &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;anything&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;whatever&lt;/strong&gt;. In the example &amp;quot;你有什么安排吗&amp;quot;, 什么 means &amp;quot;any&amp;quot;, as in &amp;quot;Do you have &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt; plans?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very similar question to &amp;quot;do you have plans?&amp;quot;, which is what &amp;quot;你有安排吗&amp;quot; is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By contrast, in the question &amp;quot;你有什么安排?&amp;quot;, 什么 is asking &lt;strong&gt;what&lt;/strong&gt;, as in &amp;quot;What plans do you have?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some examples of when 什么 doesn't mean &amp;quot;what&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要认真学,什么都能学会 (as long as you study hard, you can learn &lt;strong&gt;anything&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他什么也不怕 (he's not afraid of &lt;strong&gt;anything&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们到处放火，把什么都抢得精光。 (they set fires everywhere, and looted everything)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T07:06:08.033" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5925" CreationDate="2014-02-20T14:20:53.633" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a matter of fact, (exactly as OP mentioned in the post), the character 她 has a history of fewer than like a hundred years. Therefore, it is actually kind of natural to use 他 when the person referred to is not so apparent. (Although not that politically-correct, phrases like his-or-her are rare in Chinese.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, in places other than mainland China, they differentiate 你／妳／祢、他／她／牠／它／祂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3516" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T14:20:53.633" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5885" CreationDate="2014-02-20T15:19:02.797" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example，when you are bullied, you can speak this phrase to the bully.It shows your anger and admits that you can't defeat him by yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3997" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-13T13:13:45.487" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T13:13:45.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5940" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5941" CreationDate="2014-02-20T19:18:29.220" Score="1" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple question, trying to say, let's have a lesson from 4 to 5 -- want to make sure that &quot;to&quot; is indeed 到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3998" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T23:15:18.040" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T23:15:18.040" Title="Is the &quot;to&quot; in &quot;Let's meet from 4 _to_ five&quot;, 到？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5940" CreationDate="2014-02-20T20:29:25.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;到 is OK. You could also use 至. 到 is more colloquial. In many cases they are interchangeable, for example: 从古到今/从古至今（from ancient times to the present）, 直到此刻/直至此刻（up to now）. But you could only say 自始至终（from the beginning to the end），从这到那（from here to there） because 自始至终 and 从这到那 are kinda like set phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1168" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T20:29:25.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5942" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5994" CreationDate="2014-02-21T00:53:18.710" Score="11" ViewCount="672" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious as to why the stroke order of &lt;code&gt;力&lt;/code&gt; is different to the stroke order of &lt;code&gt;九&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One page I found (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?1,121912,121912&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;力&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;九&lt;/code&gt; stroke order&lt;/a&gt;) theorises that the reason is because &lt;code&gt;力&lt;/code&gt; has &quot;touching&quot; strokes and there is a hook that &quot;points&quot; to the second stroke, so it could not itself be the second stroke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be a decent theory, though I'd like to know if anybody has a concrete source proving (or disproving) this rule. It does note that it only applies for cases where the strokes touch, so it does not count in cases like &lt;code&gt;刂&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any insights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T06:06:31.547" Title="Stroke order of 力 vs 九" Tags="&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5943" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5945" CreationDate="2014-02-21T01:12:18.280" Score="1" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to teach my daughter Chinese.&#xA;Since she loves to sing songs in English, I believe that teaching her to sing Chinese songs will help her to learn more Chinese.&#xA;Unfortunately, because I did not grow up singing Chinese songs, I don't know what songs parents sing to their toddlers in China/Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt; What are popular Chinese songs for toddlers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3999" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T02:24:10.663" Title="What are popular Chinese songs for toddlers?" Tags="&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-02-22T08:36:41.920" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5940" CreationDate="2014-02-21T02:12:30.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes, you are right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general meaning of &quot;到&quot; in Chinese is the same as &quot;to&quot; in &quot;from...to&quot;, and also it has the meaning of arrival.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastEditorUserId="4001" LastEditDate="2014-02-21T04:14:07.160" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T04:14:07.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5943" CreationDate="2014-02-21T02:24:10.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quite a lot of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1）&lt;a href=&quot;http://app.baidu.com/app/enter?appid=108606&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小兔子乖乖&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）&lt;a href=&quot;http://app.baidu.com/app/enter?appid=143561&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;数鸭子&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3）&lt;a href=&quot;http://app.baidu.com/app/enter?appid=249688&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;马兰花&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4）&lt;a href=&quot;http://app.baidu.com/app/enter?appid=228216&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;找朋友&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more, please refer to：&lt;a href=&quot;http://app.baidu.com/app/enter?appid=139616&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;儿童歌曲列表&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T02:24:10.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5925" CreationDate="2014-02-21T03:36:55.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;As a local Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;, I'd suggest @sotondolphin 's answer. Forget about the history usage, in my opinion, the key point is the target you would like to express to. For the modern Chinese people, &quot;use 他 for male person, 她 for female person. 它 for animals both female and male.&quot; when you want to express a few people including both male and female, use 他们 as 'them'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stuff above fits for both written and oral Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Feel free to ask me anything about Chinese. I am glad to help you guys :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4003" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T03:36:55.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5897" CreationDate="2014-02-21T04:20:38.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think good old 你好 makes a very nice general-purpose way to get people's attention. It's not super-polite but it's not impolite either, and you can generally say it to any stranger to get their attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure it's ideal for the situation you describe, especially as you don't really have to think about it before blurting it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2462" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T04:20:38.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5925" CreationDate="2014-02-21T04:21:19.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;just remember this and you won't make any mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他 = he    他的 = his&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她 = she   她的 = her&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它 = it    它的 = its&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T04:21:19.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5890" CreationDate="2014-02-21T04:29:36.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course the later is possible, it means &quot;I had been to China last year.&quot; the position of adverbs of time is not important, you can express the same meaning like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;去年我去过中国.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国我去过, 去年.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我去过中国, 去年.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T04:29:36.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1015" CreationDate="2014-02-21T04:38:44.123" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lqVlc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because it is traditional chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姊=姐  媽=妈 親=亲  婦=妇  兒=儿  孫=孙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the person above has given a wonderful answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the additional image which explains the relationship of chinese relatives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This image is from &quot;baike.baidu.com&quot;. So there won`t be any copyright problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find 「舅」「叔」in this image ( both in the second line ), which can help you understand more about the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姪子、姪女 is not very common, we usually use 侄子、侄女&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4004" LastEditorUserId="4004" LastEditDate="2014-02-21T05:10:52.623" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T05:10:52.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5940" CreationDate="2014-02-21T04:43:56.753" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;至 is more formal.&#xA;Both are ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4004" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T04:43:56.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5890" CreationDate="2014-02-21T10:13:00.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The minor difference between &quot;了&quot; and &quot;过&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Where did you go last year? (去年你去哪了?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我去年去了中国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: have you been China before? （你去过中国么?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我（去年）去过中国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3931" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T10:13:00.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5955" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5961" CreationDate="2014-02-21T13:30:52.030" Score="13" ViewCount="5149" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was in China, I heard people using 不好意思 to apologize casually.&#xA;I also heard the expression 对不住 in TV series and movies. Is there any differences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3226" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-22T03:00:26.093" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T16:47:23.140" Title="What's the difference between 对不起, 对不住 and 不好意思" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5956" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-21T15:31:15.667" Score="8" ViewCount="2451" Body="&lt;p&gt;（求词源）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/9/111/298383.htm&quot;&gt;三长两短&lt;/a&gt; is a chengyu that means &quot;unforeseen disaster&quot;. It can also be a euphemism for death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example of its usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;明·罗贯中《三遂平妖传》：“万一些后再有三长两短，终不能靠着太医活命。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is its etymology though? One way of literally interpreting this chengyu is that it refers to three long things and two short things; what could they be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a theory that it's referring to the coffin box, which is made up of three long and two short pieces of wood, but this seems like a false etymology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2020-12-22T21:54:06.270" Title="三长两短: what's long and what's short?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5957" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5967" CreationDate="2014-02-21T16:06:54.620" Score="1" ViewCount="1125" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 面 and 边 when they are used as suffixes, e.g. 前面 and 前边? Is one preferred over the other? Please provide examples of their different usages in both written and spoken Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4006" LastActivityDate="2014-02-22T07:01:23.803" Title="What is the difference between the suffixes 面 and 边?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-02-23T19:47:27.013" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5955" CreationDate="2014-02-21T17:00:35.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;对不起 More formal，对不住 and 不好意思 colloquial。不好意思 is a polysemy word,means shy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4007" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T17:00:35.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5960" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5962" CreationDate="2014-02-21T18:41:38.697" Score="1" ViewCount="825" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the bottom of a web form, you might click update, or submit. I was wondering what the Chinese word for 'submit' is, and if this is correct: 提交. Similarly, if there is a distinct word for 'update'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3998" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-22T02:58:46.367" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T02:19:10.520" Title="When submitting forms on the web, you often click a button label 'submit'. I was wondering how to express the word 'submit' in chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-02-25T03:36:29.520" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5955" CreationDate="2014-02-21T20:13:47.253" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;对不起(*): Sorry/Excuse me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不住: Ditto (colloquial). I'd assume it is mainly used by northern Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不好意思(*): Excuse me (colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;* Other meanings exist in different contexts, e.g. 对不起=let somebody down, 不好意思=be embarrassed, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3865" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T20:13:47.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5960" CreationDate="2014-02-21T20:18:49.410" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answers are 提交 and 更新, respectively. FYI, I am a native speaker with enough knowledge of IT terminology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3865" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T20:18:49.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5960" CreationDate="2014-02-21T20:19:34.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mainland China,&#xA;submit - 提交&#xA;update - 更新&#xA;clear  - 清空&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if they are used in Hongkong or Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1168" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T20:19:34.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5890" CreationDate="2014-02-21T20:50:41.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you can. For instance, 我三年前去過這個公園．This of course emphasizes the fact that it was three years ago, and consequently that you have been to &quot;this park&quot; before at a specific point in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3410" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T20:50:41.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5957" CreationDate="2014-02-22T07:01:23.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If solo 边 means the side of something.&#xA;Solo 面 means surface of something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前面 and 前边 has no difference because it comes from different accent like beijing or sichuan accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前面 is more hand-writting and 前边 could be used more in some cities like sichuan for accent use . All in all , both are ok in spoken language and writing . Just like 'Hello' and 'Hi' , and a little bit similar to 'old' and 'auld'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any more questions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4010" LastActivityDate="2014-02-22T07:01:23.803" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5960" CreationDate="2014-02-22T09:03:25.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For &quot;submit&quot;, you can use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)提交&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that's a file to be posted onto a server, please use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)上传&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2014-02-23T01:11:06.353" LastActivityDate="2014-02-23T01:11:06.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5969" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-22T09:17:38.373" Score="1" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, in written Chinese 给 is used a ideograph for &quot;to give&quot; and is read with whatever the word for &quot;to give&quot; is in the various languages, even if the word is not cognate or in any way related to the etymology of 给. Are there words in Mandarin that are written with characters for words that are not etymologically related? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's just selecting a phonetic loan for a word that has never been written before, that is understandable because you have to start somewhere. I'm more curious about stuff where the pronunciation/etymology is completely unrelated but a character is used just because of its meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4011" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-02-23T00:43:49.953" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T03:50:13.227" Title="Are there words in Mandarin written by characters for other words that mean the same thing?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5969" CreationDate="2014-02-23T04:03:50.127" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are words that have different shapes(uncognated）yet share the same meaning in Mandarin. Written Mandarin is relately a new form of writing, words have been simplifed more than once during the 50s-80s (and even some of the words' pronounciaton have been altered). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for just answering your TITLE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If what you meant by &quot;Mandarin&quot; is not the thing I percieved (which I think is a spoken standard based on Beijing dilect),then you may show some e.g to clarify your original question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4016" LastActivityDate="2014-02-23T04:03:50.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5972" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5975" CreationDate="2014-02-23T10:13:25.677" Score="3" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;When should 之 be used as a particle? There doesn't seem to be a straightforward answer on Nciku. On &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B9%8B#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;, the entry states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Indicates that the previous word has possession of the next one. In&#xA;  English it functions like 's or like the word &quot;of&quot; but with the&#xA;  position of possessor and possessee switched. 的 (de) is more common&#xA;  but 之 is used in many set expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the contexts I've seen so far, the 之 particle is used more like 的 in some sense (rather like the Japanese の perhaps) - for isntance, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%93%B6%E4%B9%8B%E5%8C%99_Silver_Spoon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;银之匙 as a translation of a manga title&lt;/a&gt; - so the usage seems to be more of a &quot;link&quot; between two different words as some sort of descriptor or identifier (in terms of a quality of the second word, in a sense).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, the purpose of the 之 in 之前 or 之後 seems to be slightly different than in the other example I gave. Taking all this into account, when should I should 之, outside of expressions that have it already (such as 之前), and what makes in different from 的 in phrases such as &quot;银之匙&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3410" LastActivityDate="2014-02-24T06:37:05.880" Title="When should 之 be used as a particle?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1015" CreationDate="2014-02-23T13:21:41.103" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I call my mother's brothers &quot;舅舅&quot;,&#xA;and I call my father's brothers &quot;叔叔&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4020" LastActivityDate="2014-02-23T13:21:41.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5974" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5978" CreationDate="2014-02-23T14:05:41.587" Score="1" ViewCount="932" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 给力 is often used on Chinese social networks. What is the correct meaning of it in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4020" LastEditorUserId="945" LastEditDate="2014-02-25T10:00:37.730" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T05:32:27.177" Title="How to translate &quot;给力&quot; in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2014-03-03T04:19:18.040" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5972" CreationDate="2014-02-23T14:09:01.770" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;之 is the &lt;strong&gt;wenyan&lt;/strong&gt; equivalent of Mandarin 的.  Here are some examples from a Classical Chinese textbook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鄰人之父 &amp;gt;    鄰居的老人       ‘an old man who lived next door’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衛國之法   &amp;gt;  衛國的法律       ‘the laws of Wei’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仁義 之 道  &amp;gt;  仁義的 道理      ‘the doctrine of benevolence and righteousness’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because parts of speech in wenyan are quite flexible, using 之 to link two terms can have the effect of nominalizing the second one, like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王來      ‘the king comes’  &amp;gt;&amp;gt;   王之來    ‘the king’s coming/the arrival of the king’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 has other meanings in wenyan, too.  The most important of these is probably its use as a third person pronoun he/she/it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;strong&gt;formal written Mandarin&lt;/strong&gt;, 之 can appear in either of these functions.  It would be interesting to hear from a native speaker about usage here.  I consulted a book called ‘A Learners’ Handbook of Modern Chinese Written Expressions’ by Yu Feng (Chinese U. of Hong Kong Press).  He suggests a couple of uses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In idioms like 之後, 之中  etc.  For example:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美國總統的中東之行     ‘the US President’s Middle East visit’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice both ‘de’ and ‘zhi’ occur in this phrase – clearly you can’t simply replace the one with the other to achieve a formal style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In a pattern ‘2-character noun + 之 + 1-character adjective’.  This also creates a noun phrase, i.e. nominalizes like in the ‘king’s coming’ example.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;品種之多  ‘a large quantity' [of goods at an exhibition]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some set expressions with this pattern that you might use in writing, like 十天之內  ‘within ten days’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a third person pronoun, according to Yu Feng mainly in idioms:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等閑視之     ‘regard it as unimportant’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受之有愧     ‘to feel shame in accepting it’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you encounter 之 in titles like in the example you gave, I would read it as meaning 的 but also as indicating some sort of formal/classical/literary/archaic quality.  Personally I would avoid using it except in set phrases.  Unless you do a lot of formal writing at an advanced level, in which case it wouldn’t hurt to go to the source and learn a bit of wenyan!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-02-23T14:17:37.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5974" CreationDate="2014-02-23T14:40:01.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When people want to express a very extraordinary thing, but can not find the apposite words. People usually us &lt;code&gt;给力&lt;/code&gt;. It comes from Northeast dialect. You can translate it as FANTASTIC ect. In short, it is to express your surprise emotions. For more information,you can send Email to lzy785@163.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4018" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-14T05:32:27.177" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T05:32:27.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5984" CreationDate="2014-02-23T19:27:36.590" Score="5" ViewCount="1553" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hear a lot of people in mainland China use the former (never from Taiwanese Mandarin) when saying a phrase as a sort of command, but I'm still not sure about why someone would say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2969" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:13:56.833" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:13:56.833" Title="When do you use 唄 instead of 吧 to end a sentence?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5974" CreationDate="2014-02-23T20:34:18.887" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &lt;code&gt;awesome&lt;/code&gt;. All English translations for 给力 at mdbg.net: &lt;code&gt;cool, nifty, awesome, impressive, to put in extra effort&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=geili&quot;&gt;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=geili&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word has also found it's way into English slang in the form of &lt;code&gt;geilivable&lt;/code&gt; &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=geilivable&quot;&gt;http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=geilivable&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Geilivable is not very common in western countries though, as far as I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="945" LastActivityDate="2014-02-23T20:34:18.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3083" CreationDate="2014-02-23T20:44:40.070" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the same situation, living in China for quite some time, and unlike some other people who have answered, I understand &lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt; what you're asking. It was quite annoying to try to learn new words when the native speaker just tells you the meaning of 3 characters together and doesn't know or can't explain each character's meaning. I think the answer is related to how derivations work in English. Keep in mind that to us, the word duibuqi seems to be 3 words together because technically it is, but to Chinese people who aren't language experts, they will just think of it as one word, essentially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some parallels in English. Think about it in the reverse. Imagine you are Chinese and you are asking an English speaker this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You say 'sorry' to mean duibuqi. What is 'sor' and what is 'ry'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you answer that off the top of your head? Most English speakers incorrectly assume that prefixes and suffixes and word derivations aren't &quot;words.&quot; They are words. Or at least they used to be words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From an online derivation dictionary, this is how we have the word sorry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Old English sarig &quot;distressed, grieved, full of sorrow&quot; (not found in the physical sense of &quot;sore&quot;), from Proto-Germanic *sairiga- &quot;painful&quot; (cf. Old Saxon serag, Middle Dutch seerigh &quot;sore; sad, sorry,&quot; Dutch zeerig &quot;sore, full of sores,&quot; Old High German serag, Swedish sårig &quot;sore, full of sores&quot;), from *sairaz &quot;pain&quot; (physical and mental); related to *saira- &quot;suffering, sick, ill&quot; (see sore (adj.)). Meaning &quot;wretched, worthless, poor&quot; first recorded mid-13c. Spelling shift from -a- to -o- by influence of sorrow. Apologetic sense (short for I'm sorry) is attested from 1834; phrase sorry about that popularized 1960s by U.S. TV show &quot;Get Smart.&quot; Related: Sorrily; sorriness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it appears the answer to what is 'sor' and what is 'ry' would be:&#xA;&quot;Sor&quot; means grieved or distressed&#xA;&quot;ry&quot; (from online dictionary) means &quot;indicating a state or condition.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore while you may be asked by a Chinese speaker &quot;What is sor and what is ry?&quot; and you will feel like saying &quot;Nothing, it's just one word,&quot; in this kind of context you would be wrong. They are two words indeed, we just don't usually use them separately. Sound familiar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I'm not a native Chinese speaker but the above answer does seem to be the most rational, to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4022" LastActivityDate="2014-02-23T20:44:40.070" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5977" CreationDate="2014-02-23T22:52:49.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Always use 吧. This is standard/proper Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唄 is used in regional dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;口 mouth radical indicates the character is meaningless and used purely phonetically. The pronunciation is indicated by the character on the right 贝 (bèi) and 巴 (bā).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3866" LastActivityDate="2014-02-23T22:52:49.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5955" CreationDate="2014-02-23T23:20:55.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I may be wrong, but I always equated 对不住 with 辜负. As some of the above posters have said, 对不起 is a little bit formal, and, at least in my experience, not used too often. 不好意思 is what you generally hear. When I was living in mainland China, it seemed rare to hear 对不起, especially among friends. My Chinese friends often thought it was strange when I would say sorry to them, as we were friends and that formality seemed to put an unnecessary distance between us. It seemed to be the same for 谢谢. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4024" LastActivityDate="2014-02-23T23:20:55.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5791" CreationDate="2014-02-23T23:25:37.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you mean something along the lines of &quot;what're ya gonna do&quot;, then I think 没办法 also works. However, saying 这就是命 or 这就是生活, as some posters above have noted both sound correct to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4024" LastActivityDate="2014-02-23T23:25:37.500" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5977" CreationDate="2014-02-23T23:46:07.813" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Their meanings are somewhat different. In a few situations, they are interchangeable, but there are many others where you can only use one and not the other. The key difference is that &lt;strong&gt;呗&lt;/strong&gt; is much more assertive, even rhetorical, whereas &lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt; can be used to express doubt or uncertainty as well. For completeness I'll cover them all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definitions taken from zdic.net&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/xs/5457.htm&quot;&gt;呗&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) 表示事实或道理明显,很容易了解。如:你不会骑车就学呗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) 表示勉强同意的语气。如:你一定要去,就去呗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/xs/5427.htm&quot;&gt;吧&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) 用在句末,表示恳求、提议、请求、命令等语气 [(used at the end of a sentence) indicating entreaty, suggestion, command, etc.]。如:派六个人不够吧,我的意见派十个人;你说给大家听听吧!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) 用在句末,表示同意、认可的语气 [indicating agreement or acknowledgment]。如:好吧,我一定去;就这样执行吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(3) 用在句末,表示疑问语气,带有揣度的意味 [indicating doubt]。如:他现在赞同了吧?你弄通了吧?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(4) 用在句末,表示估量、推测语气 [indicating uncertainty]。如:他自己总该知道吧;老王会到这边来吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(5) 用在句中,表示停顿,带假设语气,并带有列举性质 [indicating a pause]。如:说吧,不好;不说吧,也不好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When expressing a foregone or obvious conclusion, you can only use &lt;strong&gt;呗&lt;/strong&gt;. Let's examine the example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你不会骑车就学*&lt;em&gt;呗&lt;/em&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the speaker is saying that the solution, to learn how to ride a bike, is obvious, and doesn't need asking, as if the question was rhetorical. If you change the 呗 to a 吧, then the implication changes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你不会骑车就学*&lt;em&gt;吧&lt;/em&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the solution of learning to ride a bike is more of a suggestion, and that other solutions may also be valid.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When expressing reluctant agreement, use &lt;strong&gt;呗&lt;/strong&gt;, although &lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt; can also be used. Let's examine this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你一定要去,就去*&lt;em&gt;呗&lt;/em&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the speaker is expressing reluctance that &quot;you&quot; have to go. The speaker could replace it with 吧:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你一定要去,就去*&lt;em&gt;吧&lt;/em&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But unless expressed elsewhere with tone or context, the tone of this sentence is ambiguous, and not necessarily reluctant.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When used as a suggestion or command, you can use either &lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;呗&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你说给大家听听*&lt;em&gt;吧&lt;/em&gt;*!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你说给大家听听*&lt;em&gt;呗&lt;/em&gt;*!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When expressing agreement or acknowledgement, you would use &lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt;. Sometimes you can use &lt;strong&gt;呗&lt;/strong&gt; as well, but watch out for its more assertive tone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就这样执行*&lt;em&gt;吧&lt;/em&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就这样执行*&lt;em&gt;呗&lt;/em&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When used to indicate doubt or uncertainty, you can only use &lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你弄通了*&lt;em&gt;吧&lt;/em&gt;*?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老王会到这边来*&lt;em&gt;吧&lt;/em&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There's another special use of &lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt;, as a pause in speech. In this manner, it is interchangeable with characters like &lt;strong&gt;呢&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;呗&lt;/strong&gt; doesn't have this usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;说*&lt;em&gt;吧&lt;/em&gt;*,不好;不说*&lt;em&gt;吧&lt;/em&gt;*,也不好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-02-23T23:46:07.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5921" CreationDate="2014-02-24T00:56:58.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest you use an online dictionary similar to this site: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=shishi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=shishi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The linked site above allows you to hear the pronunciation (click on the arrows), however I suggest you copy and paste two characters into Google translate which has the audio and it pronounces it as a set phrase rather than separately as the first site does e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com.au/?hl=en&amp;amp;tab=wT#zh-CN/en/%E6%97%B6%E4%BA%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://translate.google.com.au/?hl=en&amp;amp;tab=wT#zh-CN/en/%E6%97%B6%E4%BA%8B&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2014-02-24T00:56:58.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5972" CreationDate="2014-02-24T06:37:05.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;银之匙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here &quot;之&quot; has no real meaning but it's &lt;strong&gt;just a 助词 to modify the noun (匙) to make it a part of the fixed phrase (usually used in WenYan sentence)&lt;/strong&gt;. In fact this &quot;之&quot; is usually ignored by shorting it as &quot;银匙&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, &quot;之&quot; can be also used to link a subject with predicate verb to be a part of sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大道*&lt;em&gt;之&lt;/em&gt;*行，天下为公。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more about the usage of “之”, you can look up here：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4E4B.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4E4B.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-02-24T06:37:05.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3083" CreationDate="2014-02-24T07:04:16.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It just depends. Though we say that a Chinese character has its meaning in a common way （such as &quot;我&quot; means &quot;me/I&quot;……）. But we must say that some Chinese characters (especially some auxility words such as &quot;之&quot;……), in some sentences they really don't have a real meaning for the word itself but just plays a role to make up a whole sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[e.g]&#xA;大道*&lt;em&gt;之&lt;/em&gt;*行，天下为公。 (most this senario is seen in WenYan).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing we'd attention is that special characters making a whole special fixed usage such as your name, address Rd……. It's just for a caller so you cannot split them from each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[e.g]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王伟(A Chinese name, you cannot ask what is &quot;王&quot; and what's &quot;伟&quot;, even if you know the two characters' meanings, the combined meaning doesn't fit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-02-24T07:04:16.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3083" CreationDate="2014-02-24T08:07:02.750" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what your question is. As a native speaker, I think the words you refer to are function words (虚词), which have no direct meaning but has the function of organizing the sentence. The words have direct meaning are notional words (实词).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3974" LastActivityDate="2014-02-24T08:07:02.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5996" CreationDate="2014-02-25T01:28:59.207" Score="5" ViewCount="1288" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for some concrete answers on the difference between &lt;code&gt;坏&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;破&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I have been able to understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;坏&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bad: as in 坏人 (bad person) or 鱼坏了 (rotten food)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;broken: as in 手机坏了 (broken mobile phone,) or 腿坏了 (a broken leg)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;破&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ripped: as in 这张纸破了 (ripped piece of paper)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;worn out: as in 鞋破了 (worn out shoes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;broken: as in 手机破了 (broken mobile phone,) but not a broken leg&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My issue is the overlap, unless I'm wrong. It looks to me to be something like a venn diagram (&lt;a href=&quot;http://maass.nyu.edu/images/venn.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://maass.nyu.edu/images/venn.jpg&lt;/a&gt;) where &lt;strong&gt;broken&lt;/strong&gt; is shared by both words, and there are other meanings that belong only to each word. Is this right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-02-25T20:32:38.600" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T05:30:58.607" Title="Difference between 坏 and 破" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5960" CreationDate="2014-02-25T02:19:10.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, &quot;submit&quot; means &quot;提交&quot;, and &quot;update&quot; means &quot;更新&quot;. But I couldn't find &quot;update&quot; button in Twitter, Amazon and Linkedin. So that I couldn't take a screenshot.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bWL1E.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T02:19:10.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5989" CreationDate="2014-02-25T03:02:43.133" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, they both have the &amp;quot;broken&amp;quot; meaning, with subtle differences. Unfortunately there are not many situations where you can simply replace one with the other - everyone will understand but you will still sound awkward if you use the wrong character. Plus there may be regional differences!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose if you had to generalise, &lt;strong&gt;破&lt;/strong&gt; is used when the breakage is obvious, there's a clear mark or split or wound, whereas &lt;strong&gt;坏&lt;/strong&gt; is for things that are broken in more subtle ways, or less obvious. &lt;strong&gt;坏&lt;/strong&gt; also tends to be used by default, when the situation is ambiguous (other characters for &amp;quot;broken&amp;quot; include 碎, 败, 漏, 裂 etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here's where you'd use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/574F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;坏&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and why:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;手机坏了 (broken mobile phone), because the phone may look fine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鱼坏了 (the fish has spoiled), because the fish may otherwise look fine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's where you'd use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/js/7834.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;破&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and why:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;纸破了 (the paper is broken), because the paper has a visible hole or rip&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鞋破了 (the shoe is worn), usually because you wear through the sole so that there's a hole&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;碗打破了 (the bowl is shattered), because the bowl is now in many pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also watch out for words that use &lt;code&gt;坏&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;破&lt;/code&gt; since, as you may know already, Chinese words cannot be mixed-and-matched by replacing similar characters in them. E.g. you cannot replace the &lt;code&gt;破&lt;/code&gt; in the word &lt;code&gt;破裂&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;坏&lt;/code&gt; to get &lt;code&gt;坏裂&lt;/code&gt;, as Chinese doesn't work that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a bit of etymology which somewhat explains the subtle differences, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/sw/574F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;坏&lt;/a&gt; has the &amp;quot;earth&amp;quot; radical and originally meant &amp;quot;unfired clay&amp;quot;, so outward appearance is fine but it's not really &amp;quot;made&amp;quot;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/sw/7834.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;破&lt;/a&gt; has the &amp;quot;stone&amp;quot; radical and originally meant stones shattering, so there's a visible, obvious breakage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T23:17:54.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5989" CreationDate="2014-02-25T04:44:35.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;坏了 = doesn't work / out of order, usually after an objects&#xA;for example 电视机坏了&#xA;坏了 = very generally refer to some parts of your body impaired. for example 腿坏了 = cripple&#xA;坏了！ = exclamation. similar to DAMN it!! 坏了，我忘带钱包了。 damn it! I forgot to bring my wallet.&#xA;坏了 = something goes bad/expired 牛奶坏了，不能喝了： the milk is expired, can't drink it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;破了 = broken&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;破了 = injured 手破了，流血了。 hand is injured and bleeding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T04:44:35.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5989" CreationDate="2014-02-25T05:22:04.000" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;the meanings of 坏 correspond more to the English words &quot;bad&quot;/“rotten”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好人/坏人 - Good guy/Bad guy&#xA;牛奶坏了 - The milk's spoilt / gone bad&#xA;一粒老鼠屎，坏了一锅粥 - One bad apple spoils a whole bunch (lit. a drop of mouse poo spoils a pot of congee.=)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;破 has less of these negative connotations, and may sometimes even have positive ones in the sense of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;突破 &quot;making a breakthrough/breaking new ground&quot; &#xA;打破纪录 “breaking a record/setting a new record time&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In every everyday speech/slang, 破 along with 烂 is used as an adjective to mean disapproval, in the same was as crappy/shitty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这什么破玩意 - what is this crap?&#xA;这破电影真难看 - this crappy movie is just awful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, &quot;破坏&quot;  means destruction, which kinda tells you what the two characters have in common with regards to meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4030" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T05:22:04.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5942" CreationDate="2014-02-25T06:06:31.547" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;About this question, you can consult &lt;a href=&quot;http://yufan.net.my/index.php?option=com_content&amp;amp;view=article&amp;amp;id=223:2010-12-21-03-29-43&amp;amp;catid=35:2009-08-01-01-46-21&amp;amp;Itemid=56&quot;&gt;Guobao Wang's summary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.只有横折钩类与撇相遇：先写横折钩，例刀、力、万 、方、乃、杨。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.其他横折类与撇相遇：都先写撇，例如及（横折折撇 ），几（横折弯），九（横斜钩）、匕（竖折弯）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;translate into English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Only when &lt;strong&gt;uppermost and rightmost lines with a left hook&lt;/strong&gt; cross with &lt;strong&gt;right-to-left diagonals&lt;/strong&gt;(ノ): &lt;strong&gt;uppermost and rightmost lines with a left hook&lt;/strong&gt; is written first. For example: &quot;刀&quot;, &quot;力&quot;, &quot;万&quot;, &quot;方&quot;, &quot;乃&quot;, &quot;杨&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.In other situation &lt;strong&gt;uppermost and rightmost lines&lt;/strong&gt; cross with &lt;strong&gt;right-to-left diagonals&lt;/strong&gt;(ノ): &lt;strong&gt;right-to-left diagonals&lt;/strong&gt; is written first. For example: &quot;及&quot;, &quot;几&quot;, &quot;九&quot;, &quot;匕&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, maybe the following links will offer you more information about stroke order rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.china-language.gov.cn/wenziguifan2/scanning/bsgf/bsgf.htm&quot;&gt;现代汉语通用字笔顺规范(official version)&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;a href=&quot;http://pan.baidu.com/s/1qWJIT1U&quot;&gt;现代汉语通用字笔顺规范.pdf&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/8c9d39c32cc58bd63186bdff.html&quot;&gt;现代汉语通用字笔顺规范&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/link?url=NaFg546kBIw0eoIwMQ07oXMjvrtDe-7okUTqMuueqCLWExQjovs4Gtqhxy-YCDGxSN9MmL-p_OSC6XlVJgJ8pHL4TRRDuScHgLbo8jvz8Ha&quot;&gt;《现代汉语通用字笔顺规范》电子版&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thn21.com/base/zi/26438.html&quot;&gt;&quot;火&quot;的笔顺&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, the website &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/zy/4E5D.htm&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt; is perhaps useful to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T06:06:31.547" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5989" CreationDate="2014-02-25T08:16:05.437" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;“坏” is a very general word meaning &lt;strong&gt;something &quot;useless&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, but what makes the thing &quot;坏了&quot; has many reasons, and “破了” is one of them, so when something's state is “破了”, you can also say something is “坏了”；&lt;strong&gt;However “破” means something is broken or has cracks&lt;/strong&gt;. So &lt;strong&gt;when you describe something that is useless because of inner reasons such as quality, but it still looks nice in its aspect, “破了” is no longer used&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to compare the two sentences：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1）这热水袋破了（The warm-water bag is broken, &lt;strong&gt;maybe is of cracks by falling down onto the ground&lt;/strong&gt;）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）这热水袋坏了（The phone is useless, &lt;strong&gt;maybe it doesn't keep warm anymore but NOT of cracks&lt;/strong&gt;）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2014-02-26T09:24:55.950" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T09:24:55.950" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5989" CreationDate="2014-02-25T09:39:42.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a side note to the other answers.  One way to capture the difference is to look at each one as the resultative element of a compound.  For 破, we might find this:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他把我的手機打破了 ‘He smashed my cell phone.’  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 壞, this:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他我的手機用壞了  ‘He was using my cell phone and now it doesn’t work.’  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases the cell phone is broken.  But in the first case it’s physically broken, in the second something more subtle happened.  打破了 and 用壞了 sound natural for this reason.  I don’t know if 打壞了 and 用破了 are possible compounds or not, but even if possible they would be going against the semantic grain as it were.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T09:39:42.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5956" CreationDate="2014-02-25T09:55:52.177" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://d.wanfangdata.com.cn/Periodical_nccwkj200806046.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Theory 1&lt;/a&gt;: A coffin is made of three long and two short pieces of wood. And a coffin means death, dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also can find some clues in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BD%BF%E7%94%A8%E7%AD%B7%E5%AD%90%E7%A6%81%E5%BF%8C#.E4.B8.AD.E5.9C.8B.E7.89.B9.E6.9C.89.E7.A6.81.E5.BF.8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia article about &quot;使用筷子禁忌&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=Gg4y5P6dUDG3wdrbblvgjZSMmXkPAGhDmQxnEEtOdGeLXnnEICrYdkTiCQXT8t_V#8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Theory 2&lt;/a&gt;: Taoist forecasts through burning incenses. It is the most dangerous condition that there are three long incense sticks and two short incense sticks after burning five incence sticks in some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theory 3: In ancient times, a master swordmaker called Ouyezi (欧冶子) made five sharp swords. Three of them were long, the others were short. And an assassin used the one called &quot;鱼肠剑&quot; among the five swords to kill the ennemy King. So &quot;三长两短&quot; refers to coming across a dangerous accident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-02-18T03:03:37.970" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T03:03:37.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6000" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-25T11:51:47.743" Score="16" ViewCount="19229" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for data that would let me estimate how much written language young Chinese at different ages know, in terms of number of characters they can read/write.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of materials that would help answer this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lists of characters that Chinese pupils learn at different grades at school (ideally official lists, if there are any)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;statistics of how many new characters they learn at each grade&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;information about how many hours at every grade are dedicated exclusively to learning characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in data from China and from other Chinese-speaking countries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2014-02-25T23:25:30.597" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T12:05:58.910" Title="How many characters do Chinese pupils know at different ages?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1037" CreationDate="2014-02-25T13:09:39.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the experience from my workplace, the most popular way of addressing co-workers (also those who are higher or lower in the hierarchy) was to simply use one's given name, or one's surname + given name, if the given name had only one character. I've been told that this 老*/小* thing is used only if addressing someone in a slightly &quot;tongue-in-cheek&quot; way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: I used to work in Beijing in a branch of a European company and apart from me, basically everyone was Chinese. I'm not sure if my experience applies to companies originally established in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2014-02-25T14:19:42.953" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T14:19:42.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5885" CreationDate="2014-02-25T22:11:26.593" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It literally just means &quot;consider you to be brutal&quot;. Maybe &quot;you're brutal&quot; or &quot;that's brutal&quot; fits better for English speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly both characters &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E7%8B%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;狠&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E5%BE%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;很&lt;/a&gt; share a common meaning that they both mean &quot;brutal&quot;, or &quot;cruel&quot;. However in some scenarios brutal/cruel might be too much, maybe you can seek some thesaurus from the tangent of &quot;很&quot;, meaning &quot;very&quot; (adj), &quot;too much&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's more like expressing &quot;you win&quot;, but with the emotion saying &quot;you only win because you over-do it brutally&quot;. But when it is physical rather then mental, 狠 would mean &quot;aggressively&quot; or &quot;violently&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it can be used as a admiration between friends expressing &quot;you accomplish this job in a awesome way, although that feels a bit overkill. 算你狠&quot; -- In this sense that'll be more like &quot;you're the man&quot; kind of expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4036" LastEditorUserId="4036" LastEditDate="2014-02-27T20:22:11.073" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T20:22:11.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6000" CreationDate="2014-02-26T01:11:27.170" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Children go to grade 1 at the age of 7 and when they graduated from the primary school (grade 6), they should know at least 2500 characters, and the target made by the China Ministry of Education is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;grade 1~2: learn 1600 characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;grade 3~6: learn 900 characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about your 3rd question, I think it should be the time for Chinese lessons, there should be at least one Chinese lesson a day, and each lesson takes 40 minutes. you can calculate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastEditorUserId="4001" LastEditDate="2014-02-26T01:49:23.287" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T01:49:23.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5974" CreationDate="2014-02-26T03:32:12.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;给力 is mostly used for the &quot;to put in extra effort&quot; meaning. Like in football, if Germany is not doing well, “不给力啊，德国。” Or if Spain is putting in a lot of effort, “西班牙太给力了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T03:32:12.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5969" CreationDate="2014-02-26T03:50:13.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good example is numbers in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals#Standard_numbers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals#Standard_numbers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T03:50:13.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3083" CreationDate="2014-02-26T08:04:39.770" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might come across the phrase 虛詞 which literally means &quot;empty phrase&quot; but refers to function words. I've heard people describe them as &quot;meaningless&quot; especially function words in classical texts but of course they have important grammatical functions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for lexical terms, each character had a well defined meaning in Old Chinese but nowadays many of them simply don't mean anything by themselves. There are a variety of reasons why a native might brush it off as &quot;meaningless&quot; but if you want to really get them to answer (and possibly offend them by asking a question they don't know how to answer) ask what the character meant originally in 文言/古文. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T08:04:39.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6007" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6114" CreationDate="2014-02-26T08:22:24.443" Score="14" ViewCount="1088" Body="&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese 之 is thought of as the literary genitive particle and 的 as the colloquial. In most reconstructions of Old Chinese 之 looks very similar to the way 的 is pronounced now. For example in Baxter-Sagart's OC reconstruction, 之, OC /*tə/ is similar to 的, Modern /tə/. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any reason to believe that the commonly used genitive particle resisted sound change in colloquial usage which would mean that 之 and 的 come from the same word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard that 你 and 爾 form a pair like this. Are there any other examples where colloquial speech resisted sound change? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastEditorUserId="3064" LastEditDate="2014-05-10T00:12:23.617" LastActivityDate="2014-05-10T00:12:23.617" Title="Do 之 and 的 come from the same word?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6007" CreationDate="2014-02-26T08:28:10.020" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned Ancient Chinese Literature back in high school and usually the passages use 之 in place of 的. Seems like 的 is more of a modern Chinese Language thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T08:28:10.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5989" CreationDate="2014-02-26T08:35:04.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;1. for &quot;破&quot;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact in china, few people will directly say &lt;code&gt;手机破了&lt;/code&gt;, but say &lt;code&gt;手机屏破了&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;手机壳破了&lt;/code&gt;, here &lt;code&gt;屏&lt;/code&gt; means the screen of the phone, and &lt;code&gt;壳&lt;/code&gt; means the shell of the phone, because in Chinese, &lt;code&gt;破了&lt;/code&gt; is often related to things like glass, or something used for packaging, or containers, so you can say: &lt;code&gt;我的包裹(package)破了&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;我的信封(envelope)破了&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;我的纸箱(carton)破了&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;我的花瓶(vase)破了&lt;/code&gt;, they are both ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but, sometimes you can simply use it as &lt;code&gt;old&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;outdated,&lt;/code&gt; and so on, because we often use &lt;code&gt;破&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;旧(old, outdated)&lt;/code&gt; together as &lt;code&gt;破旧&lt;/code&gt;, here the two characters have the same meaning, one example is: &lt;code&gt;我的手机很破了&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;我的鞋很破了&lt;/code&gt;, note here I use a character &lt;code&gt;很&lt;/code&gt;, it means &lt;code&gt;very&lt;/code&gt;, when you see these two characters used together, maybe someone wants to tell you something he is using is very old or outdated(and one possible reason maybe he doesn't have much money to afford a new one)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h3&gt;2. for &quot;坏&quot;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literally meaning of &lt;code&gt;坏了&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;broken&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;doesn't work any more&lt;/code&gt;, if you say &lt;code&gt;手机坏了&lt;/code&gt;, may be the screen and the shell are both fine but you just can't turn on the phone, tons of reason can cause this.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while there is another meaning of &quot;坏了&quot; --&gt; you can simply understand it as &quot;damn it!&quot;, so if something happened in a sudden and you don't know what to do, you would say &quot;坏了!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-14T05:30:58.607" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T05:30:58.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5472" CreationDate="2014-02-26T11:27:26.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taiwanese MoE dictionary defines it as: (諺語)比喻吃飽了飯才有力氣。如：「俗話說：『人是鐵，飯是鋼。』三天沒吃東西了，鐵打的身體也受不了，更何況還要做粗活呢！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Isn't that rather similar to the English saying &quot;an empty sack cannot stand upright&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3959" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T11:27:26.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3021" CreationDate="2014-02-26T12:47:51.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply don't use the word &quot;fluent&quot;, because it may mean anything from &quot;has internalised a few hundred words and can use them to get his meaning across&quot; to &quot;is often mistaken for a native speaker&quot;. Isn't it simpler and more meaningful to say you're a at beginner/intermediate/advanced level? CEFR provides good descriptions of different levels. I'd say A1/A2 means beginner, B1/B2 -  intermediate and C1/C2 - advanced. Even if some people disagree, the confusion is much lower than for the word &quot;fluent&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T12:47:51.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3021" CreationDate="2014-02-27T00:00:41.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;when you can understand all chinese news and talks like that, you will be good then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4038" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T00:00:41.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6013" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6024" CreationDate="2014-02-27T00:10:32.157" Score="5" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see both used seemingly interchangeably, what is curious to me is that the same person will sometimes use one over the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentences: &quot;我想吃晚饭&quot; or &quot;我在煮早餐&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking into the roots of the words I see that while both have the meaning of a meal, 饭 is associated with cooked rice while 餐 is associated with the action of eating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When is one more appropriate?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does using 饭 imply that the meal will contain rice?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3157" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T01:52:27.187" Title="When to use [time of day]+饭 vs [time of day]+餐?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6018" CreationDate="2014-02-27T00:29:01.357" Score="5" ViewCount="876" Body="&lt;p&gt;It has something to do with salary bonuses. Anyone know how to describe this in English? I haven't the slightest clue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="526" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T03:41:28.657" Title="What is the meaning of 十三薪?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6026" CreationDate="2014-02-27T00:47:17.493" Score="4" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;When searching for airline flights, for example, there may be an option to filter by ticket price, or filter by airline, or filter by flight duration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for the Chinese translation of &quot;filter&quot; in this sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if 筛选 is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3998" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T00:33:22.390" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T00:33:22.390" Title="筛选 is the correct filter for 'search filter'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6016" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6017" CreationDate="2014-02-27T00:49:38.500" Score="4" ViewCount="2247" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like, if I wanted to say &quot;Some people think　I look like....&quot; how would I say that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be: some 人觉得我长得像．．．．？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3922" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T15:52:34.667" Title="How do you say &quot;some people&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6016" CreationDate="2014-02-27T00:54:37.670" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;有人 is someone, some people, anyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有人觉得我长得像&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T00:54:37.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6014" CreationDate="2014-02-27T00:55:48.003" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/13%E8%96%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.baike.com/wiki/13%E8%96%AA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13薪 is a type of salary bonus scheme. The 13 comes from &quot;13th month&quot;. The idea is that in the last month of the year (or after working for 12 months), the last monthly salary will be doubled, as if you receive the salary for a non-existent 13th month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it's calculated based on total employment, so if you have only been working for half a year, the 13薪 bonus is half of what it would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a scheme that helps retention, as employees who don't work for at least 12 months may not receive this bonus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2014-02-27T12:42:56.300" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T12:42:56.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6019" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6020" CreationDate="2014-02-27T00:58:28.063" Score="1" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an example that came from a document talking about salary bonuses: 未体年假折现.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess for 未体 would be &quot;haven't done&quot;. So the example above would be translated to &quot;discount for not taking annual leave&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="526" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T03:52:14.890" Title="What is the meaning of 未体?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6019" CreationDate="2014-02-27T01:34:27.383" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that's a typo, it should be 未休， which not yet taken&#xA;未休年假折现： cash redeems for un-taken annual holiday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T01:34:27.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6016" CreationDate="2014-02-27T01:38:55.170" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;some people can be translated as 有人，某些人，有些人，有部分人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T01:38:55.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6014" CreationDate="2014-02-27T01:44:20.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means you get two months' salaries at the end of each year. 12 + 1 = 13. It's usually included in the employee' benefit package.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T01:44:20.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6013" CreationDate="2014-02-27T01:52:27.187" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Informally in daily life, we talk about eat meals by referring to 吃饭。 In a formal situation, i.e. hotel, meeting, we use 餐 mostly in writing. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;饭's meaning is quite flexible. You can use 饭 to refer to a general meal. However if you talk about specifically what in the meal, 饭 should be used only for boiled rice. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想吃午饭。 ---&gt; A general meal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天午饭吃了米饭和汤。 ---&gt; food you eat in a general meal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, they use 餐 referring to a general meal, 饭 for the boiled rice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T01:52:27.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6015" CreationDate="2014-02-27T02:39:28.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/%E7%AD%9B%E9%80%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/%E7%AD%9B%E9%80%89&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a more sophisticated word than 过滤, which we usually use for filter. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过滤 mean filtering out unwanted substances, like filtering coffee. &#xA;筛选 is more for computer filtering. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T02:39:28.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6027" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6028" CreationDate="2014-02-27T02:50:21.913" Score="7" ViewCount="559" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always wondered why all main European countries are spelled in chinese with a Hanzi that identifies them or some about their origins more the 国 morpheme, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Italy has a uncontested importance in European history, nevertheless its name has been just transliterated to 意大利, which IMHO reveals less participation in its codification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a matter of when the name was transposed to Chinese language? Maybe it's just the minor influence of the country in that period? I tried to search some information but I couldn't find anything (furthermore, my chinese level reading is extremely low).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;UPDATE&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The information and &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_547c338d01000828.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the page&lt;/a&gt;  suggested by @user2619 unfolded my research on the topic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems like all the country names were just transliterated at first. The former name of the well know *什么*国 countries was, e.g.,:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;美利坚 --&amp;gt; 美国&#xA;法兰西 --&amp;gt; 法国&#xA;日耳曼 --&amp;gt; 德国&#xA;不列颠 --&amp;gt; 英国&#xA;[...]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, above for all countries with more strict relations with China, these names were translated to a form more similar to 中国 possibly as a form of bigger respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was teached at a chinese course that the particular 汉字 characherizing the country was somewhat chosen because of some historical reason. For example 法 for the country which invented the constitution. But chinese people I asked say this is not true and has to do with nothing but phonetic reasons. Then as seen in [&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_547c338d01000828.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;] in some case like 希腊， the sound is taken from the endonym rather than exonym.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4031" LastEditorUserId="4031" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T06:53:30.700" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T06:53:30.700" Title="Why 意大利 and not e.g., 意国" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6027" CreationDate="2014-02-27T03:14:21.850" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just historical stuff. European countries that have commerce with China prior to the Ching dynasty and also modern countries after WWII, in general have fancier names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;希腊 for Greece&#xA;意大利 for Italy&#xA;瑞典 for Sweden&#xA;法国 for France&#xA;美国 for US&#xA;葡萄牙 for Portugal&#xA;马来西亚 for Malaysia&#xA;日本 for Japan&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just have to accept them as it is. It's hard to find a pattern why. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/countrynames_chinese.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/countrynames_chinese.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's very few countries which have 国 in their names, it's more of a short form, like 英格兰 for 英国, 美利堅合眾國 for 美国. Others which have 共和国 in their names are People's Republic, like China, whose official name is People's Republic of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastEditorUserId="3992" LastEditDate="2014-02-27T03:42:58.457" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T03:42:58.457" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3021" CreationDate="2014-02-27T03:40:32.403" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;when you can understand 郭德纲的相声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T03:40:32.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5955" CreationDate="2014-02-27T04:04:17.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll draw some comparisons with Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不好意思 is similar to Sumimasen （すみません), which means excuse me/sorry, depending on context. It's a more lighter version of 对不起.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不起 is more similar to Gomenasai, which is very deep, like if you did something wrong that you really regret and wish you can undo the mistake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Examples: &#xA;不好意思, 我们的面了卖完了。(Sorry, but our noodles are sold out.) (More formal in this sentence)&#xA;对不起, 我们的面了卖完了。(Sorry, but our noodles are sold out.) (More informal but usable.)&#xA;对不起, 我错了. (I'm sorry, it's my fault.)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T04:04:17.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6032" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-27T04:23:38.737" Score="5" ViewCount="3262" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are chengyu with two numbers in them, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一穷二白 (一, 二)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万众一心 (万, 一)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;七上八下 (七, 八)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;九五至尊 (九, 五)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it seems that the selection of numbers is not completely random, and that certain numbers tend to have certain connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the number-pairs, and what meanings are they usually used for?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there deeper cultural or historical reasons for these number-meanings?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T03:04:48.723" Title="Chengyu with two numbers" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6032" CreationDate="2014-02-27T05:24:15.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's usually stories where the numbers come from. Can't remember a lot from when I learned them in grade school but here's one example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;九五至尊&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至尊 means Supreme. It's usually associated with the emperor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The nine and five, 九 and 五 respectively comes from the fact that nine is the largest single digit number and five is the middle number of the single digit numbers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the nine means grandest or biggest while five symbolizes the emperor to be the middle of everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for others, there are stories behind why the numbers are used. I'll see if I can find the stories and link them here. BTW, always look at the 出处, which usually tells you where the chengyu is from and why it is that way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:  万众一心 (万, 一) - 万 is a large unit, meaning 10,000. 万众一心 means many people with one common goal. The reason they use 万 is probably because 万 is a big number at that time compared to 亿, the next biggest unit meaning 100 million. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit2: 一穷二白 is a made from a quote of Mao Zedong &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wiktionary.org/zh/%E4%B8%80%E7%AA%AE%E4%BA%8C%E7%99%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wiktionary.org/zh/%E4%B8%80%E7%AA%AE%E4%BA%8C%E7%99%BD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastEditorUserId="3992" LastEditDate="2014-02-27T05:35:10.267" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T05:35:10.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5919" CreationDate="2014-02-27T05:34:02.060" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;讲 is formal while 说 is casual in this particular context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually you won't hear Northern Chinese say &quot;讲英语&quot; or &quot;讲话&quot; in oral Chinese, however these two expressions are used in TV news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Southern Chinese usually use &quot;讲&quot; orally though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4047" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T05:34:02.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6035" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-27T06:07:43.500" Score="6" ViewCount="24345" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like Pinyin, but I need something that can recognize Cantonese instead of Mandarin. The only Chinese keyboards recognize Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:24:30.100" LastActivityDate="2016-11-09T04:16:58.933" Title="How can I get a Cantonese keyboard on an iPhone?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6036" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6082" CreationDate="2014-02-27T06:14:47.937" Score="1" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the right context in which to say, &quot;三九唔識七&quot;? Would like to know how to properly use this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorDisplayName="user3410" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T01:32:29.287" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T11:15:36.617" Title="(Cantonese) What's the right context in which to say, &quot;三九唔識七&quot;?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6035" CreationDate="2014-02-27T06:15:34.217" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/canton-guang-dong-pin-yin/id385519764?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/canton-guang-dong-pin-yin/id385519764?mt=8&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or use stroke keyboard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or ask Siri. The Cantonese version of Siri can understand Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;Edit: Apple does not have such a keyboard and as you would know iOS does not allow custom keyboards. Anything suggested is a workaround. &lt;/s&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Apple now allows custom keyboards in iOS 8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cantonotes-jyutping-annotator/id354063453?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cantonotes-jyutping-annotator/id354063453?mt=8&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;might also work for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastEditorUserId="11199" LastEditDate="2015-06-20T13:46:36.203" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T13:46:36.203" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6016" CreationDate="2014-02-27T06:27:46.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people think I look like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有人认为我长的像&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4051" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-14T05:29:59.133" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T05:29:59.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6039" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-27T06:35:28.510" Score="2" ViewCount="440" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was typing something in Chinese to a friend including 你这人 (or 你这个人), when I realized that I didn't have a good interpretation of it in English. It just feels like the sort of thing you say to somebody when you're pointing out something criticizable of theirs, but I don't know how to put it in words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like this: 你这人，怎么能说那个乱话呢？ (&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;_&lt;/em&gt;__&lt;em&gt;_&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, how can you say that messed-up stuff?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4050" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T13:35:00.903" Title="How do you idiomatically transate 你这个人?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6040" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6061" CreationDate="2014-02-27T06:35:33.960" Score="5" ViewCount="1658" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both phrases are listed in CantoDict (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/3497/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/3497/&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like 剩係 makes more sense, but which is actually correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:26:42.350" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:26:42.350" Title="In Cantonese, which is correct: 淨係 or 剩係?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6039" CreationDate="2014-02-27T06:43:08.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;You, how can you say that messed-up stuff?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or just omit that and say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;How can you say that messed-up stuff?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T06:43:08.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6040" CreationDate="2014-02-27T06:51:22.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hear 淨係 more than 剩係 in daily conversations though both are correct. 剩 is more Mandarin than Cantonese I think. 剩 means remainder. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T06:51:22.100" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6039" CreationDate="2014-02-27T07:54:15.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Dude! How can you say that messed-up stuff?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4054" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T07:54:15.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6045" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-27T08:00:28.307" Score="4" ViewCount="1201" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often hear on TVB shows that people say 最多 in a context when they mean to say, &quot;at the very least?&quot; For instance, something like, &quot;At the very least, I'll take you to dinner tomorrow for being late.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:25:21.243" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:25:21.243" Title="Why do people often say 最多 in Cantonese when they mean &quot;at the very least&quot;?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6014" CreationDate="2014-02-27T08:12:33.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add to other's answer, 13薪 is normally given at the end of Lunar year (usually in Jan / Feb) but not December.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4056" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T08:12:33.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6032" CreationDate="2014-02-27T08:32:17.037" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some pairs which frequently appear: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;三 and 二/两: 三三两两, 三心二意, 三天两头, 三长两短. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;三 and 五：三令五申, 三五成群, 三番五次, 三纲五常. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;四 and 八：四平八稳, 四通八达. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;三 and 六/九：三头六臂, 三六九等, 三教九流, 三公九卿, 三跪九叩. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;五 and 十：五光十色, 一五一十. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;千 and 百/万：千奇百怪、千方百计、千辛万苦、千恩万谢. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may notice that:&#xA;(1) 三 is often used. In classical Chinese (文言文), 三 not only means the exact number of &quot;three&quot;, but also &quot;several&quot;. It's vague and thus widely used to describe several or some.&#xA;(2) Very often, a number-pair consists of a number and its multiple (四 &amp;amp; 八, 五 &amp;amp; 十, 三, 六 &amp;amp; 九). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a former Chinese elementary school student with rich experience of being forced into playing &quot;name as many as possible chengyu with numbers!&quot; games, I would say that in most cases, there are just no rules to follow. That's because, first, some chengyu are originated from historical stories or incidents, e.g. 过五关，斩六将 (from a story of Guan Yu. He literally went through five passes and killed six), 七擒七纵 (story of Zhuge Liang). These numbers are not changeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, there are just &lt;em&gt;too&lt;/em&gt; many chengyu. Let's welcome 三 again: 举一反三, 三心二意, 三生三世, 朝三暮四, 三五成群, 三头六臂, 三七二十一, alas none with 八 (though there're 三八妇女节, and gossip woman, 三八), 三教九流. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It simply goes well with everyone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, though I didn't really enjoy the game mentioned above, it is good practice if you are interested in chengyu. You see, I can still recall loads of them without referring to dictionaries. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2766" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T08:32:17.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3021" CreationDate="2014-02-27T08:46:51.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;starting a new foreign language, best test by communicate with kid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4058" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T08:46:51.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6000" CreationDate="2014-02-27T09:08:41.843" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Malaysia Chinese Essay Test :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;primary school , age 7 - 12 = &gt;120 Character; &#xA;secondary 13 - 15 = &gt;220;&#xA;secondary 16 - 17 = 400 - 600;&#xA;high/STPM 18 ~ 20 = &gt;1000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4058" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T09:08:41.843" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6045" CreationDate="2014-02-27T09:25:40.230" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;at most&quot;. Cause I believe Chinese people's nature is to do as less as possible, so we say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: 你可以帮我做完这件事无?&#xA;B: 可以! 我做这件事可以拿到乜嘢?&#xA;A: 最多，我可以请你吃饭. &#xA;&#xA;A: Can you help me with something?&#xA;B: What will I get out of this?&#xA;A: I can, at most, treat you to dinner. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;At least&quot; in contrast we use for if someone declines our favor.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: 你帮我好多, 我可以用乜嘢方法报答你无?&#xA;B: 毋使!&#xA;A: 至少 ，我应该请你吃饭.&#xA;&#xA;A: You helped me so much, how can I repay you?&#xA;B: No need to.&#xA;A: At the very least, I should treat you to dinner. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:It's a perspective problem. It's usually from the speaker's perspective, not the listener's. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastEditorUserId="3992" LastEditDate="2014-02-28T03:04:45.830" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T03:04:45.830" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6000" CreationDate="2014-02-27T09:59:12.793" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Children usually go to grade 1 at the age of 6 or 7 in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/3568694.htm#2_2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;全日制义务教育语文课程标准&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, the character number that children should learn is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grade 1 to Grade 2: can &lt;strong&gt;read 1600&lt;/strong&gt; characters, and &lt;strong&gt;write 800&lt;/strong&gt; characters;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grade 3 to Grade 4: can &lt;strong&gt;read 2500&lt;/strong&gt; characters, and &lt;strong&gt;write 2000&lt;/strong&gt; characters;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grade 5 to Grade 6: can &lt;strong&gt;read 3000&lt;/strong&gt; characters, and &lt;strong&gt;write 2500&lt;/strong&gt; characters;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grade 7 to Grade 9: can &lt;strong&gt;read 3500&lt;/strong&gt; characters, and &lt;strong&gt;write 3000&lt;/strong&gt; characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastEditorDisplayName="user10952" LastEditDate="2016-02-15T07:54:18.950" LastActivityDate="2016-02-15T07:54:18.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6014" CreationDate="2014-02-27T14:21:57.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Annual Wage Supplement (AWS) is commonly known as the 13th month payment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3931" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T14:21:57.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5002" CreationDate="2014-02-27T18:42:40.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It has lots of variants however all of them should be &quot;君&quot; (emperor), other than &quot;军&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to mention another implied meaning of this sentence. Although it means &quot;A general at battle field far away does not have to strictly obey all the orders from the emperor&quot;, it implies something else in many cases in the history, as wars are so frequent and certain general has the ability to rebel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spies or opponent of the general may say this to the emperor to imply the general is actually disobeying his order (further implying rebellion). Generals may say this to imply that he is going to rebel. Deputy or counselor may say this to the general or soldiers to cover the general's intention of rebellion or to give the excuse of making preparation of rebellion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is all because Chinese are complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4067" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T18:42:40.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3021" CreationDate="2014-02-27T18:50:20.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doing business purely in Chinese with Chinese is a challenge, even to Chinese people. The other 3 are trivia comparing to business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4067" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T18:50:20.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5909" CreationDate="2014-02-27T20:30:00.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm just guessing and have no idea if it's related but the verb for &quot;building up&quot; relationship is 「建立」, as in 「建立關係」, or 「建立信用」。 And it means exactly the opposite of 拉倒 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if it cannot be &quot;built up&quot;, it might as well be &quot;pulled down&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it was a nicely-done word play by 魯迅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my 2c.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4036" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T20:30:00.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6039" CreationDate="2014-02-28T00:36:25.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Hey you! how can you say that messed-up stuff?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T00:36:25.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6007" CreationDate="2014-02-28T01:01:51.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although they may have similar meaning nowadays, I would say they didn't come from the same word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k0Cs3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;之&quot; /&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/83eDV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;的&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By comparing 篆書(~221 B.C.), they are totally different. And 的 seems to be a pretty new word because I couldn't found it in bone script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not only the appeal but the meaning is also different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The old 之, graphically means one foot on the ground, and the other foot stepping front. Which originally means moving, walking by foot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, 之 is use as a pronoun, which means &amp;quot;him, her, me, you, it, them&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later on, they used 之 as a preposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The old 的 on the other hand, combined from 日(sun) and 勺(spoon). It does not mean there is a spoon under the sun. 勺 in here means &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dipper&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;勺星(star), as know as Big Dipper&lt;/a&gt;, an asterism. Old Chinese used it to recognize direction and time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under the sun, everything is clear. Under the Big Dipper, everything becomes directional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 used to mean the sun is really shiny. Then expands to truth/reality, archery target, purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 then becomes preposition to replace 之 in modern Chinese. The actual reason is unknown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of their age, meaning and shape, I would not say they came from a same word. However, the similarity of 的 and 之 in ancient pronunciation might be the reason why 的 replace 之. But we'll probably never know, because we don't know how they used to talk, the old pronunciation we know could be wrong. All we can know is they don't talk like writing in the books. Perhaps they even told like modern chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4071" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T01:01:51.853" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6040" CreationDate="2014-02-28T01:14:53.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are both correct but I would say 淨係 is better than 剩係.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;淨 means &quot;pure, clean&quot;, while 剩 means &quot;leftover, remains&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The original pronunciation of 剩 is sing6, not jing6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4071" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T01:14:53.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6045" CreationDate="2014-02-28T01:57:34.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This heavily depends on the situation and the tone of the speaker. But in general, the speaker is either asking for something/help, or willing to gift something to listener because listener is unpleasant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not like &lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;I will only treat you dinner tomorrow at most&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;I will treat you a dinner tomorrow, please do me a favor&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;You look sad, I could treat you a dinner tomorrow&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just found out an easy way to distinguish between them, is to listen if it is &amp;quot;我最多&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;最多我&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我最多請你食飯㗎喳&lt;br&gt;I could only treat you a dinner at most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最多我請返你食飯啦&lt;br&gt;I will treat you a dinner tomorrow~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most difficult thing in Cantonese is the emotional particles. Most of the sentences will include particles at the end and represent our attitude and emotion. There are a lot of them but they are only 1-3 characters so it is very easy to be confused. I suggest you to ask your Hong Konger friends about it or you can ask me too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4071" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T01:57:34.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6035" CreationDate="2014-02-28T03:23:11.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are a iPhone user:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Settings -- General -- Keyboard -- International Keyboards -- Add New Keyboard&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There should be four &quot;Chinese - Traditional&quot; keyboards: Stroke, Handwriting, Cangjie, Zhuyin.&#xA;I recommend Handwriting. You just write Cantonese characters like 冇, 喺, 瞓, etc.. The system recognizes them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2766" LastEditorUserId="2766" LastEditDate="2014-02-28T03:38:38.833" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T03:38:38.833" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6019" CreationDate="2014-02-28T05:35:34.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;未体&quot; it's a typo, 100% for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the correct word based on the context should be &quot;未休&quot;, means not taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the reason why this typo happened could possibly be that the typer was using a kind of Chines input method based on characters strokes, rather than IMEs based on pronunciations, because &quot;体&quot; and &quot;休&quot; are quite similar in strokes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T05:35:34.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3501" CreationDate="2014-02-28T18:03:31.433" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that the &lt;a href=&quot;http://cjkdecomp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=cjk-decomp&amp;amp;referringTitle=Home&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK Decomposition Data&lt;/a&gt; (your first link; henceforth CJKDD) is better of the two, for most purposes. Some time ago I used the &lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons%3aChinese_characters_decomposition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;character decomposition data from Wikimedia Commons&lt;/a&gt;, and there were quite a few popular characters with missing decompositions. Now I checked a few of these characters, and all of them had decompositions in CJKDD, so it seems more complete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wikimedia database is better than before, but still lacks decompositions of some characters, such as 齒, 風 and 龠. Moreover, some decompositions are incorrect, e.g. 辰 is shown as a component of 脈. And in general, the Wikimedia database doesn't show components that aren't separate characters. CJKDD, conversely, contains all kinds of components, including the ones that don't have their own Unicode code points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenlin.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wenlin&lt;/a&gt; with its &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wenlin.com/cdl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Character Description Language&lt;/a&gt; (CDL) is another source of decomposition data that you may want to look at. Even CJKDD has inconsistent descriptions of some characters, and Wenlin seems a bit better in this regard. For example, even though  is present in the database, it is not shown as a component of 範 (範 is decomposed as &lt;code&gt;範:d(⺮,38298)&lt;/code&gt;, which is in turn decomposed as &lt;code&gt;38298:a(車,㔾)&lt;/code&gt;. In Wenlin, 範 is correctly decomposed into  and . Wenlin uses Unicode &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Use_Areas&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Private Use Areas&lt;/a&gt; for encoding components that aren't separate characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, Wenlin has its peculiarities and, for example, decomposes 齒 into  and 凵. CJKDD splits 齒 into 止 and , which seems much more natural. In the result, Wenlin doesn't see  as a component of 齒. Similarly, 曲 a sub-sub-component of 曹 in CJKDD and Wikimedia, but not in Wenlin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another difference between the databases is that CJKDD decompositions are consistently graphical. For example, 條 is decomposed as &lt;code&gt;條:a(39752,条)&lt;/code&gt;, which is in turn decomposed as &lt;code&gt;39752:wr(亻,㇑)&lt;/code&gt;. In Wikimedia Commons, 條 is decomposed into 攸 and 木, which has more to do with the historical development of the character and its radical (which happens to be 木), but not with its modern form. Wenlin provides both the graphical decomposition (based on the CDL data), and the list of all the sub-components that may be associated with this character (in this case: 攸亻丨条夂木). Another example: because the CJKDD decompositions are purely graphical, the upper right part of 祭 is shown as 卩. Wenlin, more correctly, shows it as a graphical variant of 又.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2017-01-07T12:10:48.363" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T12:10:48.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6035" CreationDate="2014-03-01T04:54:07.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're asking for a jyutping IME you should specifically say so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my own research &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyutping&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;jyutping&lt;/a&gt; is quite new and if it has any IMEs at all they are not yet popular and not available on iDevices at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The input method that's popular in Hong Kong is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cangjie_input_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;cangjie&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. It is based on the shapes the characters are made from and not based on phonetics. I briefly tried to teach it to myself after learning both Pinyin and Zhuyin IMEs but I gave up. It has a much steeper learning curve because there are many principles you must learn. I believe it is much faster for touch typists because it doesn't require (much?) interaction with &quot;candidate lists&quot;. But this doesn't help you much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were using an open device like a PC or an Android device you could probably find a Jyutping IME somebody made for their own needs. iDevices are closed and do not allow third party IMEs but maybe you can try to persuade Apple to make one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a look around and there are indeed jyutping IMEs available for just about every OS and device, except iOS. Sorry )-:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T04:54:07.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6032" CreationDate="2014-03-01T09:40:43.453" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I may answer to the first part of the question. I did a script to search all 4 characters ChengYu with your requirements. Here a resume about their number and the exaustive result from my db (ccdict).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一一(26) &#xA;一二(13) &#xA;一三(5) &#xA;一四(1) &#xA;一万(2) &#xA;一九(1) &#xA;一十(5) &#xA;二一(2) &#xA;二三(1) &#xA;二五(1) &#xA;二八(1) &#xA;二六(1) &#xA;二四(2) &#xA;三一(2) &#xA;三七(1) &#xA;三九(3) &#xA;三二(1) &#xA;三五(6) &#xA;三六(5) &#xA;三四(21) &#xA;四五(2) &#xA;四八(4) &#xA;五一(1) &#xA;五七(2) &#xA;五八(2) &#xA;五六(4) &#xA;五十(3) &#xA;五四(1) &#xA;六三(1) &#xA;六八(1) &#xA;六四(2) &#xA;七八(14) &#xA;七四(1) &#xA;八八(1) &#xA;九一(3) &#xA;九六(1) &#xA;十万(1) &#xA;十九(2) &#xA;十八(2) &#xA;十十(1) &#xA;万一(2) &#xA;万八(1) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems like 一一(26) , 三四(21) , 七八(14) , 一二(13) are the most common. Follows the complete (possibly not exhaustive) list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一一(26) &#xA;    一东一西&#xA;    一丝一毫&#xA;    一中一台&#xA;    一举一动&#xA;    一五一十&#xA;    一分一毫&#xA;    一唱一和&#xA;    一夫一妻&#xA;    一字一泪&#xA;    一心一德&#xA;    一心一意&#xA;    一惊一乍&#xA;    一房一厅&#xA;    一朝一夕&#xA;    一板一眼&#xA;    一模一样&#xA;    一步一趋&#xA;    一点一滴&#xA;    一点一点&#xA;    一琴一鹤&#xA;    一生一世&#xA;    一瘸一拐&#xA;    一言一动&#xA;    一言一行&#xA;    一递一个&#xA;    一递一声&#xA;一万(2) &#xA;    一本万利&#xA;    以一驭万&#xA;一三(5) &#xA;    一日三秋&#xA;    一日三餐&#xA;    一板三眼&#xA;    一波三折&#xA;    举一反三&#xA;一九(1) &#xA;    一言九鼎&#xA;一二(13) &#xA;    一干二净&#xA;    一式二份&#xA;    一心二用&#xA;    一来二去&#xA;    一清二楚&#xA;    一清二白&#xA;    一石二鸟&#xA;    一穷二白&#xA;    划一不二&#xA;    数一数二&#xA;    独一无二&#xA;    臣一主二&#xA;    说一不二&#xA;一十(5) &#xA;    一暴十寒&#xA;    一曝十寒&#xA;    一目十行&#xA;    假一赔十&#xA;    闻一知十&#xA;一四(1) &#xA;    一年四季&#xA;七八(14) &#xA;    七七八八&#xA;    七上八下&#xA;    七嘴八张&#xA;    七嘴八舌&#xA;    七扭八歪&#xA;    七拼八凑&#xA;    七爷八爷&#xA;    七老八十&#xA;    七荤八素&#xA;    七零八碎&#xA;    七零八落&#xA;    夹七夹八&#xA;    杂七杂八&#xA;    横七竖八&#xA;七四(1) &#xA;    七政四余&#xA;万一(2) &#xA;    万众一心&#xA;    万无一失&#xA;万八(1) &#xA;    万儿八千&#xA;三一(2) &#xA;    三位一体&#xA;    周三径一&#xA;三七(1) &#xA;    三魂七魄&#xA;三九(3) &#xA;    三教九流&#xA;    三旬九食&#xA;    三跪九叩&#xA;三二(1) &#xA;    三心二意&#xA;三五(6) &#xA;    三令五申&#xA;    三侠五义&#xA;    三番五次&#xA;    三皇五帝&#xA;    三纲五常&#xA;    隔三差五&#xA;三六(5) &#xA;    三亲六故&#xA;    三十六计&#xA;    三头六臂&#xA;    三姑六婆&#xA;    三茶六饭&#xA;三四(21) &#xA;    三从四德&#xA;    三催四请&#xA;    三朋四友&#xA;    不三不四&#xA;    丢三落四&#xA;    传三过四&#xA;    低三下四&#xA;    再三再四&#xA;    勾三搭四&#xA;    巴三览四&#xA;    张三李四&#xA;    挑三拣四&#xA;    挑三窝四&#xA;    推三阻四&#xA;    朝三暮四&#xA;    横三竖四&#xA;    狂三诈四&#xA;    说三道四&#xA;    调三窝四&#xA;    连三并四&#xA;    颠三倒四&#xA;九一(3) &#xA;    九九归一&#xA;    九死一生&#xA;    九牛一毛&#xA;九六(1) &#xA;    九声六调&#xA;二一(2) &#xA;    二十一条&#xA;    二十一点&#xA;二三(1) &#xA;    接二连三&#xA;二五(1) &#xA;    二十五史&#xA;二八(1) &#xA;    二十八宿&#xA;二六(1) &#xA;    二十六岁&#xA;二四(2) &#xA;    二十四史&#xA;    二十四孝&#xA;五一(1) &#xA;    五七一代&#xA;五七(2) &#xA;    五劳七伤&#xA;    五痨七伤&#xA;五八(2) &#xA;    五花八门&#xA;    五行八作&#xA;五六(4) &#xA;    五脏六腑&#xA;    五颜六色&#xA;    人五人六&#xA;    吆五喝六&#xA;五十(3) &#xA;    一五一十&#xA;    五代十国&#xA;    五光十色&#xA;五四(1) &#xA;    五湖四海&#xA;八八(1) &#xA;    八荣八耻&#xA;六三(1) &#xA;    六韬三略&#xA;六八(1) &#xA;    六合八法&#xA;六四(2) &#xA;    六十四万&#xA;    六十四卦&#xA;十万(1) &#xA;    六十四万&#xA;十九(2) &#xA;    十成九稳&#xA;    十拿九稳&#xA;十八(2) &#xA;    十之八九&#xA;    十有八九&#xA;十十(1) &#xA;    十全十美&#xA;四五(2) &#xA;    四分五裂&#xA;    四舍五入&#xA;四八(4) &#xA;    四平八稳&#xA;    四通八达&#xA;    四邻八舍&#xA;    四面八方&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4031" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T09:40:43.453" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5885" CreationDate="2014-03-01T09:55:31.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;别人要求自己做自己不想做的事情，而又没有办法拒绝，不用于长辈与晚辈之间。多用于朋友之间和仇人之间(Ps:编辑又麻烦你了，不好意思。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3955" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T09:55:31.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6076" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6079" CreationDate="2014-03-02T05:05:07.120" Score="10" ViewCount="2419" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've asked quite a lot of native speakers about this and the general consensus seems to be that there is no significant difference in meaning between &quot;欢迎你到中国来&quot; and &quot;欢迎你来到中国&quot; (and similar sentences), but &quot;欢迎你到中国来&quot; seems to be the more common and natural version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There definitely is an important point that many people seem to be unaware of, which is that &quot;欢迎你到中国来&quot; can be used to make invitations (&quot;you're welcome to come to China&quot;), although Chinese native speakers nearly always mis-translate this into &quot;welcome to China&quot; when speaking English. &quot;欢迎你来到中国&quot; is definitely only for when they've already arrived in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tricky point here is that one or two native speakers I've asked believe that strictly speaking, &quot;欢迎你到中国来&quot; should &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; be used for invitations, and cannot be used if the person is already in China. But textbooks and many other native speakers routinely use it for &quot;welcome to China&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So my question is: which is it?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A:&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;欢迎你到中国来&quot; and &quot;欢迎你来到中国&quot; can both mean &quot;welcome to China&quot;. &quot;欢迎你来到中国&quot; is only for this, whilst &quot;欢迎你到中国来&quot; can &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; be used for invitations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B:&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;欢迎你到中国来&quot; is &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; for invitations, and &quot;欢迎你来到中国&quot; is &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; for welcoming.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for answers focused on these two options (even if neither is the correct explanation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE BASED ON ANSWERS:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;It seems there is no definitive answer to this. The summary seems to be that &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; is mostly correct: these are pretty much the same. However, &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; native speakers believe that &lt;em&gt;strictly speaking&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt; is correct, even if people don't generally care about the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2462" LastEditorUserId="2462" LastEditDate="2014-03-02T10:56:32.457" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T10:56:32.457" Title="Is there a significant difference in meaning between &quot;欢迎你到中国来&quot; and &quot;欢迎你来到中国&quot;?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;direction-complement&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6076" CreationDate="2014-03-02T09:16:21.783" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker but not language specialist, thanks for @Earth Engine awared that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion (not from authoritative textbook), strictly speaking, &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;. &quot;欢迎你到...&quot; means you are not in the place... we welcome you to there; &quot;欢迎你来到&quot; means you are already there, we welcome you.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, except very formal situation or someone who is extremely sensitive with language, most people in China will not care about the difference. In fact, I thought these two expressions are essentially the same in the beginning. It took me one minute to figure out there is a sutble difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4083" LastEditorUserId="4083" LastEditDate="2014-03-02T10:41:44.207" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T10:41:44.207" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6076" CreationDate="2014-03-02T10:07:44.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speakere as well, but I am not a language specialist. I think Rodriguez is not, as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I my opinion, Chinese language is loose and not a very strict language. So &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; looks more reasonable to me. There are a lot of cases that changing the order of words does not change the meaning. However, there are also some tricky case to the language learners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one example that came from a language specialist's book when I was young: “好不容易&quot; and &quot;好容易” (can) mean the same thing (&quot;hardly&quot;), but &quot;很高兴“ and ”很不高兴&quot; mean the exact opposite (“very happy&quot; and &quot;very upset&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4084" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T10:07:44.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6076" CreationDate="2014-03-02T10:32:10.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker, here is my opinion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;欢迎你来到中国！&lt;/code&gt; is a complete sentence, it emphasize that the opposite side already arrived in China.;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;欢迎你到中国来！&lt;/code&gt; is an uncompleted sentence, the part of Purpose is omitted. &lt;code&gt;来&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;去&lt;/code&gt; is an adverbial modifier, it's commonly following by a noun or phrase for purpose. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;欢迎你到中国来访问！&#xA;欢迎你到中国来旅游！&#xA;欢迎你到中国来玩！&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &lt;code&gt;欢迎你来中国！&lt;/code&gt; can be used for invitations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The masses may not strictly follow Chinese grammar in daily life. Moreover, each of the local has its own dialect, this may affect their expression also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the option A is more right than B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4085" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T10:32:10.213" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6036" CreationDate="2014-03-02T11:15:36.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase is used when you want to &lt;em&gt;stress&lt;/em&gt; that some two people are complete strangers to each other. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我同佢三九唔識七，點敢叫佢幫忙呀？(I am a complete stranger to him. How can I bother him for help?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;阿仔，你同人三九唔識七，唔好咁易信佢呀！(My son, you know nothing about him. Don't trust him so easily.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, please note that the phrase is used essentially in spoken form but not in formal writings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T11:15:36.617" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2014-03-02T12:04:57.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the accepted answer, I add some more use cases here, for those that interested in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When suffix with &quot;性&quot;, you can say &lt;strong&gt;&quot;男性/女性&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;&quot;雄性/雌性&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, but NOT &lt;del&gt;”公性/母性&quot;&lt;/del&gt; for male/female (use the former for human being and the later for other species). &lt;strong&gt;&quot;母性”&lt;/strong&gt; is valid but means “maternity”。If use &lt;strong&gt;&quot;雄性/雌性&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; for human being, you are likely talking about specie &lt;a href=&quot;http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Homo sapiens&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use &quot;公/母“ for things that does not alive. If you have a VGA  extension cable, you call the head with pins &quot;公的”， the other head (with holes) &quot;母的“。In this case ,neither &quot;男/女&quot; or &quot;雄/雌” can be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some tricky things here. Sometimes you want to combine two word together. This can be done as &quot;男女“，”雌雄“(!) and &quot;公母&quot;. Be careful that it is not &lt;del&gt;&quot;雄雌&quot;&lt;/del&gt; (this is only valid in ancient Chinese texts)!.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;男女&quot;, you can also replicate it to say &lt;strong&gt;&quot;男男女女&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, but not &lt;del&gt;&quot;公公母母”&lt;/del&gt; or &lt;del&gt;&quot;雌雌雄雄“&lt;/del&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4084" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T12:04:57.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6084" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-02T18:21:45.563" Score="10" ViewCount="3876" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the differences between 饭，菜， 食 and 餐？Basically all mean food. But I know they are sometimes used in different curcimstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is then the most common word for food: 菜 or 食 ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃过四川菜。Also here I am wondering, can I use anything else but 菜？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3491" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2020-06-13T15:57:41.750" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T15:16:49.457" Title="Differences between 饭，菜， 食 and 餐" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2014-03-02T20:42:01.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When referring to genders:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;男 and 女 are used for human beings.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;公, 母 are used primarily for animals in written Chinese. The two words may be used for human beings in some &lt;em&gt;spoken&lt;/em&gt; Chinese topolects, but I think in Mandarin, this is not a customary use. But of course, the two words can be used for humans in other contexts, e.g. 母親 (mother) and 公公 (maternal grandfather, an old man or in figurative speech, a male human-like character, e.g. 太陽公公).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雌, 雄 may refer to human beings and animals (edit: and plants as well), but they are less frequently used for humans except in classical Chinese or in scientific reports.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, note that &quot;男女&quot; and &quot;雌雄&quot; are valid compounds (as in 男女不分 or 雌雄莫辨), while &quot;公母&quot; is not (at least not in customary uses). Though, in spoken Cantonese (but not Mandarin), 乸 is used in place of 母 when referring to genders and &quot;公乸&quot; is a legitimate compound word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the compound word &quot;男女&quot; can be used to mean a group of people that consists of both genders. E.g. 一群男女從旅館走出來 &quot;a group of people (with men and women) walk out the hostel&quot;, but &quot;雌雄&quot; and &quot;公乸&quot; have no such (or analogous) uses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastEditorDisplayName="user4086" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T02:27:39.910" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T02:27:39.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6086" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-02T20:44:17.223" Score="6" ViewCount="849" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, would it be: 我从我的家到教室走路。?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know how to say simply &quot;from somewhere to somewhere&quot; but I'm not sure where you put the verb if you want to say like &quot;walked from somewhere to someone&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3922" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T15:49:46.957" Title="How do you say &quot;walked from....to....&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6086" CreationDate="2014-03-02T21:58:03.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我*&lt;em&gt;从&lt;/em&gt;*家里*&lt;em&gt;走到&lt;/em&gt;*教室。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I walked from my house to my class(room).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4092" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T21:58:03.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6088" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-02T23:56:00.600" Score="5" ViewCount="890" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, if I wanted to say, &quot;Last week I saw my friend in Japan,&quot; where would the location (Japan) go in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought it would go like this:&#xA;在日本，我上个星期看朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that correct or does the location go after the time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3922" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T15:37:15.990" Title="When you use 在 with a time, where does 在 go in the sentence?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6084" CreationDate="2014-03-03T00:14:42.823" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are so many subtle differences and I don't think one can summarise these differences in a set of simple rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When referring to food in general, 食物 (edit: or 食品) can be used. Note that 食物 is a compound word, which literally means &quot;something (物) to eat (食)&quot;. Examples: 食物安全 &quot;food safety&quot;, 红十字会正为地震灾民分发食物 &quot;Red Cross is now distributing food to the earthquake survivors&quot;. In modern Chinese, the character 食 in 食物 is not a standalone morpheme. It is standalone in classical Chinese, though, and this classical use of the word &quot;食&quot; still remains in a few terms (see &quot;cuisine&quot; below).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When referring to food prepared by an organisation (e.g. a restaurant or a school meal supplier), 食物 (edit: or 食品), 菜, 饭菜 or 饭餐 can be used. However, there are many exceptional cases that are hard to summarise. For instance, on one hand, even rice-based foods are provided by some McDonald's restaurants, one wouldn't use 饭菜 or 饭餐 as an umbrella term for the food offered by the franchise. On the other hand, even if a usual restaurant (fast food shops excluded) does not offer any rice (饭), one may still call its food 饭菜.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When referring to the food prepared by a specific person, it is more customary to use 菜 or 饭. The two words are usually interchangable, but 菜 is used more frequently. Examples: 他做的菜很美味 (the food he made was delicious), 她很会做饭 (she cooks very well).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When referring to catering, since not only food but also drinks are provided in catering services, unless you want to exclude drinks, 饮 (drinks) and 食/餐 (food) are used together to form the compound words 饮食 or 餐饮. The terms 食物, 饭菜 or 饭餐 can also be used, but 饮食 or 餐饮 are more customary and the word &quot;catering&quot; itself should be translated as 饮食 or 餐饮. Again, 食 or 餐 are not standalone morphemes here. Also, note the character orders: you must write 饮食 or 餐饮 but not 食饮 or 饮餐.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When referring to diet, use 饮食 (but not 餐饮). Again, since you not only eat but also drink, 饮 and 食 are not standalone but used together.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When referring to cuisine from a specific region, 菜 is definitely the most customary word for &quot;food&quot; (四川菜、日本菜、韩国菜 etc.). [Edit:] In many circumstances you may also say 菜式 in place of 菜, e.g. both 我喜欢法国菜 and 我喜欢法国菜式 mean &quot;I like French cuisine&quot; [end of edit]. 餐 is also valid when a &lt;em&gt;Western&lt;/em&gt; country is mentioned (e.g. both 法国菜 and 法国餐 may refer to French cuisine), but seldom used if you refer to other countries or regions within a country (therefore, 四川菜, not 四川餐). At any rate, if you mean a specific dish, use 菜 (edit: or 菜式) instead of 餐, because 餐 implies a meal. Example: 左边这碟是法国菜, 右边这碟是意大利菜 &quot;the dish on the left is French; the one on the right is Italian&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you mean cuisine in general (with no specific cultures or cooking styles in mind), the word &quot;cuisine&quot; is 美食 (edit: or 菜式) in Chinese, literally meaning &quot;fabulous food&quot;. Example: 我们提供世界各地美食 (edit: or 我们提供世界各地菜式) = &quot;we offer cuisines from around the world&quot;.  (Here, the character 食 alone means &quot;food&quot;, so the usage of 食 is partially classical Chinese. Yet we cannot say 我们提供世界各地食 with the character 美 omitted. So, unlike the case in classical Chinese, the character 食 here is still not a standalone morpheme.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you mean meals, use 饭 or 餐. There are various similarities and differences between the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When referring to breakfast, lunch or dinner, etc., both 饭 or 餐 can be used. E.g. 你吃了早饭没有？and 你吃了早餐没有？(Have you had your breakfast yet?) are perfectly fine questions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;餐 in some occasions is more formal. On a food menu, &quot;breakfast&quot; usually reads 早餐 but not 早饭. Both 餐桌 or 饭桌 mean &quot;dining table&quot;, but &quot;table manner&quot; is 餐桌礼仪, not 饭桌礼仪. Also, if the character for &quot;have/eat&quot; and the character for &quot;meal&quot; are used &lt;em&gt;adjacently&lt;/em&gt;, the verb to use depends on the character used. For 饭, use 吃饭 or (less frequently) 用饭; for 餐, use 用餐 but not 吃餐.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the time of having meal is unspecified, it is customary to say 饭 instead of 餐. Example: 你吃了饭没有？(&quot;Have you had the meal yet?&quot;) One may ask 你用过餐没有？for the same purpose, but 用餐 is much more formal than 吃饭 (imagine a butler asking his master the question when the latter is back to his castle).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To say one is full, one may say 吃饱饭了 (or simply 吃饱了 or better, 饱了), but never 吃饱餐了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For festival meals, in general the character 餐 is used. Example: 圣诞大餐 = Christmas dinner, 感恩节大餐 = Thanksgiving dinner. In a related note, the sacrament of Holy Communion is 圣餐 in Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 餐 is also a quantifier for meals, so its use may sometimes confuse non-native speakers. E.g. in 这餐饭是圣诞大餐 (literally &quot;this meal is Christmas dinner&quot;), the first 餐 is a quantifier for the word 饭 (meal), while the second 餐 refers to a meal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastEditorDisplayName="user4086" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T09:08:31.977" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T09:08:31.977" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6088" CreationDate="2014-03-03T00:23:37.360" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the introductory Chinese courses I've seen they've taught two basic sentence structures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;STPVO&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;TSPVO&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;S = Subject&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;T = Time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;P = Place&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;V = Verb&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;O = Object&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence sounds quite strange to me, and I think it's because you're putting the &lt;em&gt;place&lt;/em&gt; in front instead of the &lt;em&gt;time&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;subject&lt;/em&gt;. Either of these variations sound much better:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我上个星期在日本看朋友。(STPVO)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上个星期我在日本看朋友。(TSPVO)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's technically &lt;em&gt;wrong&lt;/em&gt; to put 日本 first, but in that case you're putting much more emphasis on the place, which doesn't seem to be reflected in your English sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, you're right that 在 should go in front of 日本.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3360" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T00:23:37.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6086" CreationDate="2014-03-03T02:05:03.940" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;[Subject] + 从/由 (from) + [source] + [verb or phrase for the appropriate mode of travel] + 到 (to) + [destination].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我从家里走到教室 I walked from home to the classroom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我从家里搭公车到学校 I took a bus from home to school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;失明机师由英国飞到澳洲 Blind pilot flies from UK to Australia. (News headline)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T02:05:03.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6040" CreationDate="2014-03-03T02:33:23.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;淨係 is correct. You can find it in earlier literature, e.g. in the anonymously written prose 俗話傾談 published in Canton back in 1870:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;唔通 &lt;strong&gt;淨係&lt;/strong&gt; 你做好細佬，我就唔好細佬嗎 (Oh, [you really think] only you behave as a good younger brother, and I'm not a good one?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I wouldn't say 剩係 is wrong. The character rhymes with 淨 (zing6) in spoken Cantonese in the first place. And it's a long and quite common tradition in Chinese (whatever the topolect is) to &quot;borrow&quot; (假借) a rhyming character to signify another one. I had also heard people saying &quot;zing6 hai6&quot; (which could be both 淨係 and 剩係) and &quot;sing6 hai6&quot; (剩係) in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastEditorDisplayName="user4086" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T03:04:12.597" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T03:04:12.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5796" CreationDate="2014-03-03T02:50:09.347" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 師奶 is (1) exclusively Cantonese, (2) the equivalent of 太太 (meaning &amp;quot;Mistress&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;madam&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;lady&amp;quot; here, not &amp;quot;wife&amp;quot;) when used in a neutral manner, and (3) not a slang. It was used as a &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;compliment&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; in old Hong Kong (around WWII, for instance). The commentary from &lt;a href=&quot;http://smalleditor.mysinablog.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&amp;amp;articleId=3806538&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this blog&lt;/a&gt; (written by a book editor) says it well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十九世紀初香港曾有一場反蓄婢運動，有心人成立反對蓄婢會，1933年出版了《反對蓄婢史略》。把書借了一看，從頭翻到尾，卻找不到有助解答的蛛絲馬跡。反而，在書中見到一個反映語言演變的有趣證據。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先施公司創辦人馬應彪夫人（霍慶棠），是當年大力推動反蓄婢運動的女將。這本書中提到馬夫人的名字，都稱為「馬應彪師奶」。今天的「師奶」近乎貶詞，令人聯想到貪小便宜、老土庸俗的女性，當年卻是可以登大雅之堂，可以印在書上的尊稱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this complimentary usage is now lost, and the word is either used in a casual but neutral manner or as a pejorative to signify ignorant housewives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user4086" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T03:02:02.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6088" CreationDate="2014-03-03T03:58:28.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most comfortable statment may be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我上个星期在日本看朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you want to emphasize &quot;when&quot;, you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上个星期，我在日本看朋友。 or&#xA;我在日本看朋友，上个星期。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T03:58:28.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6032" CreationDate="2014-03-03T06:33:29.823" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across a PhD dissertation which covers this exact topic plus many others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/123456789/193423&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Analysis of Chinese Four-Character Idioms Containing Numbers: Structural Patterns and Cultural Significance&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nall, Timothy M.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2009&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It turns out this subject is much larger than I anticipated, so I'll only strictly answer the question I've asked (chengyu with only two numbers, patterns/meanings) and leave the rest for future questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thesis concludes that there definitely are many patterns in chengyu with numbers, although exceptions exist because it is language after all. Numbers also tend to be used for the same meaning, influenced by schools of thought (yin yang), ancient literature (i-ching), and natural phenomena.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Within the two-number chengyu however, although there are structural patterns and in certain types of combinations, the specific numbers used are mostly arbitrary. The only exception is the seven/eight combination, used to mean &amp;quot;disorder&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Structural patterns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out of 1895 chengyu with numbers (and number-like characters such as 半), 700 (or 37%) had two numbers. Of these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;74%, a supermajority, take the form &lt;code&gt;# X # X&lt;/code&gt; (e.g. 一穷二白)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;15% take the form &lt;code&gt;X # X #&lt;/code&gt; (e.g. 朝三暮四)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7% take the form &lt;code&gt;X X # #&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Other forms are much rarer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The popularity of certain forms, especially the &lt;code&gt;# X # X&lt;/code&gt; form, is evidence that the thesis uses to support the idea that the selection of numbers is not entirely random, that there are cultural reasons for using certain numbers in certain ways. The rhythm of the chengyu is probably a major reason for the &amp;quot;interspersed&amp;quot; forms i.e. &lt;code&gt;# X # X&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;X # X #&lt;/code&gt;, where the first pair of characters &amp;quot;balance&amp;quot; the second pair. The thesis cites many papers noting the prevalence of such parallelism in Chinese, especially classical and literary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Number patterns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;12% used repeated the same number twice (e.g. 一手一足)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;32% used decreasing numbers (e.g. 万众一心)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;57% used increasing numbers (e.g. 一穷二白)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Number combinations&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's not too much information on special two-number combinations. The seven/eight combo seems to be an exception in this regard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thesis notes the influence of &lt;strong&gt;Yin Yang&lt;/strong&gt; thought, where it's preferable to have a balance of Yin and Yang in chengyu. Odd numbers were attributed to Yang, and even numbers to Yin, and most chengyu with two different numbers (68%) have one Yin and one Yang number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;seven/eight&lt;/strong&gt; combination seems to have special meaning. Out of 37 chengyu with seven and eight, 29 are used to express disorder, untidiness or disturbance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from that, there seems to be no pairs that have special meaning. Instead, numbers can be used for various purposes, chosen arbitrarily:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Used to &lt;strong&gt;highlight contrast&lt;/strong&gt; between the two numbers. For example, in the chengyu 挂一漏万, it's the contrast in magnitude between 一 and 万, rather than some special meaning in the 一 / 万 pair.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Numbers of a similar magnitude used for emphasis&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, in 千了百当, the 千 and 百 can both mean &amp;quot;many&amp;quot;, so their use in this chengyu are meant to emphasise the &amp;quot;many&amp;quot; meaning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T06:33:29.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6084" CreationDate="2014-03-03T10:40:47.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;饭，菜， 食 and 餐 not really all the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饭 ：Rice&#xA;菜 ：Vegetables&#xA;食 (食物） ：Food&#xA;餐 ：Meal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃过四川菜 means I ate before 四川 dish/Veg&#xA;There's 早餐，午餐 and 晚餐 that stand for breakfast, lunch and dinner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;炒饭 : Here it means fried rice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4098" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T10:40:47.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6088" CreationDate="2014-03-03T10:47:49.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;上个星期我在日本看见了我的朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should use 看见了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source : &#xA;Im Chinese, but not from China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4098" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T10:47:49.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6088" CreationDate="2014-03-03T15:02:35.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best description is &lt;code&gt;我上个星期在日本见了朋友&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please be aware that you should add a &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; because the action is already done. It's like &lt;code&gt;did&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;done&lt;/code&gt; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please also be aware that &lt;code&gt;见了&lt;/code&gt; is slightly different than &lt;code&gt;看见了&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;见了&lt;/code&gt; means that you visited a friend, and even had a conversation/dinner together.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;看见了&lt;/code&gt; means that you happen to see a friend, but you didn't even talk to him/person.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also want to add a &lt;code&gt;一个&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;几个&lt;/code&gt; in front of &lt;code&gt;朋友&lt;/code&gt; to make it more smoothly and local. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我上个星期在日本看见了几个朋友&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;我上个星期在日本见了一个朋友&lt;/code&gt; is much better than &lt;code&gt;我上个星期在日本看见了朋友&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;我上个星期在日本见了朋友&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes we could also say &lt;code&gt;我上个星期在日本见朋友了&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T15:02:35.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5892" CreationDate="2014-03-03T18:59:29.283" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;冬季, more like talking about the season it self, for example &quot;冬季是睡觉的好季节。&quot;, &quot;今年冬季假期有 2 个星期&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冬天, commonly used; refer to the &lt;em&gt;time&lt;/em&gt; in Winter, such as &quot;今年冬天，我将去北京旅游。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4092" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T18:59:29.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6088" CreationDate="2014-03-04T00:28:19.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most cases, the location adverbial should be placed after the time adverbial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the intention is to make a statement without emphasizing time or location, these adverbials should be placed after the subject:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subject Time Location Verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我上个星期在日本看见了一个朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To emphasize time, take it before the subject:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time Subject Location Verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上个星期我在日本看见了一个朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To emphasize location, take both time and location before the subject and keep the order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time Location Subject Verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上个星期在日本，我看见了一个朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find any authoritative reference saying location before time is wrong, but it sounds so unnatural that you should consider it wrong and avoid using that order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T00:28:19.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6086" CreationDate="2014-03-04T01:24:37.250" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading the previous answers, I am adding this one for fulfilling your initial interest which is to translate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;walked from somewhere to _someone_&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The trick in Chinese language consists of transforming someone into a destination, which is needed after some complements (e.g., 在, 到). &#xA;For doing this you use a place specifier (e.g., 那儿， 这儿) after the pronoun, as in the example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我要去她那儿。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would translate your sentence as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我 从 家里 走到 她那儿。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which can also be written, if you already know the place she is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我 从 家里 走到 她家。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course replacing the place you start, the way you go (e.g., 骑自行车， 走路， 开车) , the place she/he is. Just a final remark, in case you need to translate somewhere, you can use 哪里 as in 他在哪里。Note that this is not an interrogative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4031" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T01:24:37.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6045" CreationDate="2014-03-04T03:06:44.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider it this way: If &lt;em&gt;your offer&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;his expectation from you&lt;/em&gt; are at two opposite ends, then the &lt;strong&gt;most&lt;/strong&gt; you can offer only meets the &lt;strong&gt;least&lt;/strong&gt; he has expected, or even less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the perspective(point of view) affects the use of &quot;most&quot; and &quot;least&quot; -- quite subtle. To make a specific case clear, we need the vivid context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4104" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T03:06:44.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6086" CreationDate="2014-03-04T05:07:38.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;walked from somewhere &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; someone ： 去哪&lt;strong&gt;找&lt;/strong&gt;某人。&#xA;&quot;to&quot; translate &quot;找&quot;.&#xA;   ha-ha, i'm a Chinese, know Chinese, but English is bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4105" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T05:07:38.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6105" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6115" CreationDate="2014-03-04T05:34:46.140" Score="3" ViewCount="3442" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always been puzzled at the origin of the translation of &quot;George&quot; into Chinese. It's probably the only (pardon me if there are more) name that does not sound like its English counterpart. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-03-05T06:26:33.207" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T16:56:09.650" Title="Why is George 乔治 in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6106" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6109" CreationDate="2014-03-04T06:13:02.277" Score="7" ViewCount="717" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I read the following dialogue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 今天有转校生要来吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 听说是这样，好象是临时决定的，所以才没有及时通知我们。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I was trying to make out what they were saying, I noticed that 临时 and 及时 have similar meanings. The former seems to mean &amp;quot;at the instant something happens&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;ad hoc&amp;quot; while the latter seems to mean &amp;quot;promptly&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;without delay.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a feeling that in the second sentence, replacing &amp;quot;好象是临时决定的&amp;quot; with &amp;quot;好象是及时决定的&amp;quot; would also work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between them, and when should I use one over the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4106" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T07:42:24.270" Title="When would one use 临时 versus 及时?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6105" CreationDate="2014-03-04T06:31:24.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that &quot;乔治&quot; is the only one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I think its pronunciation is the nearest one with its English counterpart In Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T06:31:24.490" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6106" CreationDate="2014-03-04T06:51:06.997" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cannot use them interchangeably. '及时' is just 'in time/without delay', '临时' is unplanned, not always similar to 'immediately'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4107" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T22:34:22.157" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T22:34:22.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6106" CreationDate="2014-03-04T06:55:02.323" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you use &quot;临时&quot;, your point is &quot;wasn't part of the plan&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you use &quot;及时&quot;, your point is &quot;rapidly/promptly&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you replacing &quot;好象是临时决定的&quot; with &quot;好象是及时决定的&quot;, it also works but the point will become to &quot;They made the decision promptly&quot; from &quot;They made the decision that wasn't the part of the plan (of the meeting)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of cource &quot;临时&quot; has other meanings, such as &quot;temporarily&quot;, which means a temporary solution which will be replaced by the formal one later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T06:55:02.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6045" CreationDate="2014-03-04T09:39:31.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Vietnamese, 最多 means at most, upper limit. And 最少 means at least.&#xA;Not sure why in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1109" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T09:39:31.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5989" CreationDate="2014-03-04T11:03:09.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;坏：bad -&gt; roted -&gt; malfunction. Something that is not good internally. NOTE, this does not mean it is &lt;strong&gt;useless&lt;/strong&gt;, just mean there are some function that expected to work but actually not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;破：broken -&gt; holes/spots in skin -&gt; old. Something that is not good in the surface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you say 坏手机 for a malfunction mobile, say 破手机 for an old mobile. If a pair of high heels was broken on the heel, you say &quot;高跟鞋坏了&quot;, but if some one can see you leaked toes from your leather shoes, &quot;这皮鞋破了&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: be careful to use the word &quot;破鞋&quot;, this means &quot;second hand woman&quot; in a bad sense!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4084" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T11:03:09.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5149" CreationDate="2014-03-04T11:35:46.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you want to listen to separated 聲母(initial consonant) and 韻母(simple vowel), I would suggest this swf from here &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdnkids.com/BoPoMo/BoPoMo.swf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.mdnkids.com/BoPoMo/BoPoMo.swf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This material is made by 國語日報 from Taiwan. Just click those symbols (left 16 are vowels, right 21 are consonant) and you can listen to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tone of Taiwan Mandarin is a little bit different from that of Beijing (basically, Taiwan Mandarin has weaker -ing or -er sound), but the consonants and vowels are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: I misunderstood that you want to listen to consonants and vowels. I found this &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.huayuworld.org/gallery/7001/4Tones.swf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://blog.huayuworld.org/gallery/7001/4Tones.swf&lt;/a&gt; turn to page 4 (toolbar is at the bottom) click the mouths and you can listen to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4110" LastEditorUserId="4110" LastEditDate="2014-03-04T12:03:17.503" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T12:03:17.503" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2856" CreationDate="2014-03-04T11:51:35.663" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to modern science, shrimp is not a kind of fish, and it is not even &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertebrate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Vertebrate&lt;/a&gt;，so you shall use 蝦 rather than 鰕. Because 虫 usually used to build glyphs related to worm-like animals, and 魚 used for fishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exceptions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;鯨 (whale)&lt;/a&gt; is not fish, but ancient people simply don't know!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;蛇 (snake)&lt;/a&gt; is vetebrate, but people just think it is a huge earthworm! &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4084" LastEditorUserId="4084" LastEditDate="2014-03-04T11:57:41.880" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T11:57:41.880" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6007" CreationDate="2014-03-04T12:00:10.710" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 in its function as a particle is attested in the 四大名著 Four Great Classical Novels, which are written in a vernacular Mandarin-type language, dating from the Ming dynasty. The particle use of 的 is also attested from the Yuan dynasty, when it seems it was adopted for the grammatical particle of the emerging new literary language. Its earliest attestation is in a Song dynasty source (my reference says Coblin, personal communication); another one can be dated to an inscription of 1238 (ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, p.208). The consensus is that it is linked to the grammaticalisation of 底 dǐ (&lt;em&gt;root&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;foundation&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;bottom&lt;/em&gt;), e.g. according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanziyuan.com/result.php?zi=%E7%9A%84&quot;&gt;汉字源 HanZiYuan's entry for 的&lt;/a&gt; (see meaning three). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of 底 for the genitive particle / general nominaliser was a slow process which can be observed through diachronic studies of the extant literature. Note that 的 has functions which can be split into several aspects, and these also emerged gradually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lexeme 底 (and its cognates 氐、抵 etc., with Baxter-Sagart Old Chinese reconstruction *tˁijʔ and Baxter Middle Chinese reconstruction *tejX) was semantically extended, and then went through &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammaticalization#Semantic_bleaching&quot;&gt;semantic bleaching&lt;/a&gt; and subsequent grammaticalisation. This actually covers the whole period from pre-Qin &lt;em&gt;sensu stricto&lt;/em&gt; Classical Chinese through the Han to the Tang and Song dynasties. Its grammatical uses came to be very varied by the end of the Tang (including a status suffix for proper nouns, a demonstrative, an intensifier, and even a general interrogative). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the southern Song, its use as a genitive became quite well-established [e.g. 療萬病底藥], and then took on functions as a relative clause marker, and then extended to headless clauses [e.g. 碾損老僧腳底], which approaches its role as a nominaliser. It is also during the Tang/Song period that the character 的 emerged in this role as well. The story is told in the 2010 paper &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.engl.polyu.edu.hk/research/nomz/pdf/Yap_Choi_Cheung_Chinese_DI.pdf&quot;&gt;Delexicalizing di: How a Chinese noun has evolved into an attitudinal nominalizer&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could 之 then be related to it? The same paper mentions how on phonological grounds that some have postulated that 底 is derived from 之, and others saying it came from 者. But note that there is a fundamental structural difference: Wang Li's work 漢語史稿 states in Chapter 45:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;由此看來，上古漢語這種結構中的動詞（或動詞仂語）近似一種行為名詞 (action noun)，中古以後，在口語中漸漸喪失了這種結構，只有古文作家模仿這種結構寫成書面語言。大約口語重的“的”（“底”）字產生後，這種結構就在口語絕迹了，因為“的”是尾詞（語尾），不是介詞，所以沒有把介詞“之”字這種功能繼承下來。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which, roughly paraphrased, says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The verb / verbal phrase in a 之 structure of the Classical age virtually acts as an action noun, but this structure was gradually lost in the oral vernacular of the post-Classical age and was only imitated by scribes in their literary language. After the appearance of 的/底, the structure was lost from the oral language, because 的 is a final particle rather than a preposition, and so could not preserve its structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, Pulleyblank pulls 者、之 and 底/的 together with the Tibetan demonstrative &lt;em&gt;de&lt;/em&gt;, and surmises that the original particle was merely *tV, i.e. the consonant */t/ with any syllabic vowel (&lt;em&gt;Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar&lt;/em&gt;, pp.166-7). 之 being *tə, with 者／諸 as *ta, indicates a form of ablaut. It also means that the actual modern pronunciation of 的 is meant to be a relic of the original pronunciation of 之, and that the modern pronunciation of 之 is an evolution of the &quot;reading pronunciation&quot;. Hence the ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese states that 的 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;thought to be a col. archaism of the classical 'genitive particle' → zhī&lt;sub&gt;1&lt;/sub&gt; 之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the consensus seems to agree that it has resisted the sound changes of the ages. Whether there are many other such &quot;colloquial archaisms&quot;, that remains to be seen. We'd also have to cover lexemes in other Sinitic varieties too (there's the &quot;obvious&quot; archaism of 筷 vs 箸, found in the Min topolects).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2014-05-07T08:45:39.010" LastActivityDate="2014-05-07T08:45:39.010" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6105" CreationDate="2014-03-04T14:55:14.043" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;About the &quot;乔&quot; part of &quot;George[dʒɔ:dʒ]&quot;, you can find some material in the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8B%B1%E8%AF%AD%E5%A7%93%E5%90%8D%E8%AF%91%E5%90%8D%E6%89%8B%E5%86%8C#.E8.AF.91.E9.9F.B3.E8.A1.A8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;译音表(the Form of Ttransliteration)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Besides, &quot;奇&quot; should be instead of &quot;治&quot; following the form. &#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MLUPc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8B%B1%E8%AF%AD%E5%A7%93%E5%90%8D%E8%AF%91%E5%90%8D%E6%89%8B%E5%86%8C#.E7.BA.A6.E5.AE.9A.E4.BF.97.E6.88.90&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;约定俗成(the convention)&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is one of the important rules of 《英文人名翻译准则》. Everybody often use &quot;乔治&quot; refer to &quot;George&quot;, so that &quot;乔治&quot; is agreed upon gradually. Anyway, I don't know why did the first person call &quot;George&quot; &quot;乔治&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pan.baidu.com/s/1sjlld73&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Download 英语姓名译名手册(商务印书馆 第四版).pdf&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastEditorUserId="3914" LastEditDate="2014-03-04T15:00:20.847" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T15:00:20.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6117" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-04T15:48:36.863" Score="2" ViewCount="1108" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the Chinese term for &amp;quot;Stack Overflow&amp;quot; website and how do I pronounce it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3841" LastEditorUserId="23922" LastEditDate="2021-02-01T17:05:00.733" LastActivityDate="2021-02-01T17:05:00.733" Title="What is the Chinese term for &quot;StackOverflow&quot;？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="9" ClosedDate="2014-03-07T04:13:20.220" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6117" CreationDate="2014-03-04T16:05:49.403" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to wikipedia: 堆疊溢位&#xA;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A0%86%E7%96%8A%E6%BA%A2%E4%BD%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A0%86%E7%96%8A%E6%BA%A2%E4%BD%8D&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4115" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T16:05:49.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5783" CreationDate="2014-03-04T16:41:02.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adverbs like 也, 都, 还, etc. are sometimes obligatorily used, otherwise the consecutive sentences would sound incoherent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your examples, I would only use 也 for the last clause. Using 也 for each one is possible, just a little verbose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没有房子，没有工作，没有车，也没有朋友。 Better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没有房子，也没有工作，也没有车，也没有朋友。 Ok, probably used when you are listing while thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also vary the adverbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没有房子，&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt; 没有工作，&lt;strong&gt;甚至&lt;/strong&gt; 没有车 &lt;strong&gt;和&lt;/strong&gt; 朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What realy strikes me as odd is that, the 也 is not necessary for the second clause, however it does not imply the omission of 甚至 as one may expect. It seems that we can infer the implied relation (也 in this context) without actually seeing the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没有房子，没有工作，&lt;strong&gt;甚至&lt;/strong&gt; 没有车 &lt;strong&gt;和&lt;/strong&gt; 朋友。  -- 也 is implied&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But wihout the last clause, it would sound awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;* 我没有房子，没有工作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So remember, use the adverb at least once at last.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastEditorUserId="4117" LastEditDate="2014-03-04T16:54:03.330" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T16:54:03.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6117" CreationDate="2014-03-04T16:48:07.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese: 栈溢出, or 堆栈溢出&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese:棧溢出, or 堆棧溢出 means Stack Overflow in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;栈 or 堆栈 means stack, and 溢出 means overflow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pronunciation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;栈溢出 zhàn yì chū&#xA;&#xA;堆栈溢出 duī zhàn yì chū&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4118" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2021-01-22T02:53:10.983" LastActivityDate="2021-01-22T02:53:10.983" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5149" CreationDate="2014-03-04T17:41:18.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a way to take a Chinese word or phrase, strip out the consonant and vowel sounds, but leave the &quot;tone contours&quot;, something like humming or whistling or replacing every syllable with &quot;da&quot; but in the original tone for that syllable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't bother with it. Reproducing sounds by combining elements like consonants, vowels, pitch, etc., has been very &lt;strong&gt;unsuccessful&lt;/strong&gt; in computer science, producing very unnatural sound. Hence there won't be any tools that can help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will be better off if you just keep imitating audio records. There are only less than 2000 syllables and 10k frequent words with an average syllable length of 2.4 per word, much  less than English, isn't it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Everyone is a good mimic, but even trained linguistics have problem to correctly analyze and combine the segments of sounds without equipment's help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you have found, there are many factors that may influence tone contours, such as consonants and vowels, stress, speech speed, emotions, surrounding syllables, etc. Don't try to &lt;strong&gt;synthesize&lt;/strong&gt;, try to imitate real sounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find a textbook with audio recordings, and keep repeating after it. You don't need I saw a lot of foreigner acquired a very good accent after practicing for a few months, even though they could only use limited expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seem to be some tools which can replay, adjust the speed, record your sound, and rate your recording, but I have never tried them out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are more than half answers down-voted? What's wrong with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastEditorUserId="4117" LastEditDate="2014-03-04T17:53:56.637" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T17:53:56.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6122" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6123" CreationDate="2014-03-04T21:47:50.457" Score="2" ViewCount="375" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to CantoDict, 找晦氣 in Cantonese means, &quot;to get back at someone or cause trouble over a past grievance&quot;. Link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/50994/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/50994/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CantoDict is sometimes wrong since it is edited by volunteers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wouldn't 找負氣 make more sense instead of 找晦氣 because 負氣 means to act out of stubbornness or irritation whereas 晦氣 means unlucky or gloomy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:25:53.440" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:25:53.440" Title="How do you say &quot;to get back at someone&quot;? Is it 找晦氣 or 找負氣?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6122" CreationDate="2014-03-05T02:08:25.930" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;找晦氣 is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你得罪咗佢，佢实找你晦气[你得罪了他，他一定会来报复的] 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T02:08:25.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6105" CreationDate="2014-03-05T02:50:43.670" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some says that &quot;乔治&quot; is very close to George in Shanghainese (上海話) since Shanghai was the big harbor allows international trades in 17th century. Lots of phrases are created/translated at that time. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Pidgin_English&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Pidgin_English&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4110" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T02:50:43.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6122" CreationDate="2014-03-05T08:41:28.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think  找晦氣is an idiom in Chinese mainland now, but I never heard about&quot;找負氣&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a word&quot;負氣&quot;, but here 負 is a verb, means bear or carry angry(氣) on the back, &#xA;for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;負氣離家, 負氣出走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I'm not sure about the diff between Cantonese and Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4125" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T04:17:10.120" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T04:17:10.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5002" CreationDate="2014-03-05T09:52:21.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;将在外，君命有所不受&quot; is correct.&#xA;it is a ancient idiom in china. It means if one army general is having a war with enemy, he can do something against the idea of the emperor, in China the method to win a war is changing by many conditions. for example weather, location or the superiority of the soldier. so the decision of general is very flexible.&#xA;if you are out of office for a product show, but you find your booth is too boring, you want to change the style of you booth, but you boss calling you don't do that. you can say&quot;将在外， 君命有所不受, 我坚持要换展台&quot;, maybe you will be cursed roundly by your boss if you come back to office. maybe your decision get a big success, and your boss will praise you. but anyway, if you say such a idiom, it means you will response the result of your decision. so be careful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4057" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T09:52:21.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2856" CreationDate="2014-03-05T12:31:56.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This can help you to distinguish 蝦 and 鰕 &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra03660.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra03660.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蝦 蝦蟆也。蝦蟆見於本艸經。背有黑點。身小。能跳接百蟲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蝦 the toad. The toad can be found in Compendium of Medical Herbs. It has black spots at the back. Small one. Can jump to catch many insects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鰕 鰕魚也。三字句。各本作魵也。今正。鰕者、今之蝦字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鰕 the shrimp. In three characters. (this is 說文解字 typical wording) Other book says this is a kind of spotted fish. Now is corrected to shrimp. 鰕, is the character 蝦 we use now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so the character 蝦 came from 蝦蟆 (toad), but somehow it replaced 鰕 and become the right character. So if you want to have some shrimp, you should use 蝦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though I'm a native speaker, I'm still amazed that 鰕 is original character since I use 蝦 all the time. Thanks for your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4110" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T12:31:56.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6117" CreationDate="2014-03-06T00:42:30.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Simplified Chinese characters: 栈溢出  (used in mainland China)&#xA;Traditional Chinese characters: 堆疊溢位 (used in Hong Kong and Taiwan)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mainland and Hong Kong/Taiwan use differnt translations in jargon terms. &lt;code&gt;Stack&lt;/code&gt; is a jargon term meaning &lt;code&gt;the memory which obeys the rule of FILO (first in last out) or LIFO (last in first out)&lt;/code&gt; in computer programming, which is translated to &lt;code&gt;栈&lt;/code&gt; in mainland China, but is translated to &lt;code&gt;堆疊&lt;/code&gt; in Hong Kong and Taiwan. &lt;code&gt;Overflow&lt;/code&gt; is a jargon term meaning &lt;code&gt;number too large and not able to express in the computer&lt;/code&gt; in computer programming, which is translated to &lt;code&gt;溢出&lt;/code&gt; in mainland China, but is translated to &lt;code&gt;溢位&lt;/code&gt; in Hong Kong and Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T00:47:41.460" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T00:47:41.460" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2014-03-06T00:55:57.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;男女 is used only for humans.&#xA;公母 is only used on animals.&#xA;雄雌 is used for anything except humans, including animals, plants, etc.&#xA;雄雌 is often used in biology, because it sounds very academic and scientific.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男人    male person (i.e. man)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女人     female person (i.e. woman)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公鸡/雄鸡    male chicken (i.e. cock, rooster)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;母鸡(rarely 雌鸡)   female chicken (i.e. hen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雄蕊   male pistil (i.e. stamen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雌蕊    female pistil (i.e. carpel)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T01:28:58.750" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T01:28:58.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6117" CreationDate="2014-03-06T09:01:14.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Stack Overflow == 堆栈溢出&#xA;&#xA;堆栈 == stack&#xA;&#xA;溢出 == overflow&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very technical term. Only people who work in programming and other related fields would be able to understand this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T22:08:05.020" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T22:08:05.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6132" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6186" CreationDate="2014-03-06T10:31:53.270" Score="1" ViewCount="363" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would you say this in Cantonese and how would you say this in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:26:24.840" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:26:24.840" Title="How would you say &quot;he does not take criticism well&quot; in Cantonese and in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-03-20T14:13:28.447" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2014-03-06T10:41:59.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;雄雌 is used for nature science&#xA;男女 is used for human beings.&#xA;公母 is used for animals&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ram &gt; 公羊&#xA;ewes &gt; 母羊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rooster &gt; 公鸡&#xA;hen &gt; 母鸡 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4131" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T10:41:59.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6132" CreationDate="2014-03-06T12:10:18.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can answer for the mandarin part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他不在乎别人的评价。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the Cantonese i can say you it sounds more or less, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Kui m zayi kue ta yen hua kui.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but i don't know how to write it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4112" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T12:10:18.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6132" CreationDate="2014-03-06T13:35:49.800" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他很介意被批评。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;佢好介意畀人讲。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T13:35:49.800" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6132" CreationDate="2014-03-06T17:26:51.477" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, we can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他听不进别人（对他）的批评。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很反感别人（对他）的批评。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不喜欢别人（对他）的批评。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他受不了别人（对他）的批评。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很难听取别人（对他）的批评。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很难接受别人（对他）的批评。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不善于听取别人（对他）的批评。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不善于接受别人（对他）的批评。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不能正确对待别人（对他）的批评。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不能虚心接受别人（对他）的批评。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, I don't speak Cantonese. I hope someone who speaks Cantonese can translate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T18:50:31.943" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T18:50:31.943" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6137" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-06T19:42:35.790" Score="-1" ViewCount="501" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the right way to say, &quot;He is very sensitive to criticism&quot; in Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:26:33.583" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:26:33.583" Title="How to say in Cantonese, &quot;He is very sensitive to criticism&quot;" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2014-03-08T18:57:22.153" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6132" CreationDate="2014-03-07T01:33:27.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin : 他不能很好的接受(别人的)批评。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry I don't know about Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T01:33:27.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6137" CreationDate="2014-03-07T02:09:04.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;oh sorry, you need cantonese. &quot;距对批评好敏感”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="194" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T02:09:04.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6141" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7013" CreationDate="2014-03-07T08:02:05.183" Score="6" ViewCount="499" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've asked this elsewhere before but without much luck so I'm just gonna paste what I wrote before:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran across &amp;quot;Ẓ&amp;quot; use some what in some old texts used as a sort-of &amp;quot;IPA&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then to make sure I wasn't crazy I did a little googling and found:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sinoglot.com/wu/2009/09/i-vs-z/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://sinoglot.com/wu/2009/09/i-vs-z/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;[this]&#xA;which usage is not quite the same but at least it is an instance of the &amp;quot;Ẓ&amp;quot; being used as a sort of ipa symbol in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but my question to you is:&#xA;is there a difference between &amp;quot;Ẓ&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;ẓ&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least aesthetically a lowercase 'emphatic z' looks better when it is surrounded by everything else that is also - lowercase... but the texts I have are specifically using a capitalized 'emphatic z' so I was just wondering, ya'know...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;edit:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's not really an IPA but just a place holder for IPA [z] - but that doesn't really change my question all that much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is there a reason for using this Ẓ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is there a difference between &amp;quot;Ẓ&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;ẓ&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/epnWd.png&quot; alt=&quot;pinyinbiao&quot; /&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wrg6o.png&quot; alt=&quot;2&quot; /&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FQrok.png&quot; alt=&quot;3&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T10:13:24.280" Title="Chinese [Topolectical] IPA Placeholder: Ẓ" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="116" CreationDate="2014-03-07T22:47:49.340" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel this is a pedagogical shortcoming. New words should be introduced using pairs of words with the same sound but different tones, for example {天、甜｝,｛湯、糖｝,｛上海、傷害｝. This might help the learner make remembering tones a prioity in his efforts to learn the language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in a lesson with 20 new vocabulary words, perhaps there should be two pairs of words with the same sound but different tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my early struggles with Chinese it seemed that there was no placeholder in my brain for the tone associated with a word.  I think exercises like finding words with similar sounds but different tones helped to &quot;create&quot; that slot in my brain to hold the tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastEditorUserId="3118" LastEditDate="2014-03-08T04:19:37.340" LastActivityDate="2014-03-08T04:19:37.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6143" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6144" CreationDate="2014-03-08T09:38:13.847" Score="7" ViewCount="553" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那个是我工作上的东西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is there a 上 in this sentence? How does it change the meaning? Ie, what's the difference between 工作的东西 and 工作上的东西? When should 工作上 be used as opposed to 工作?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4006" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-17T00:05:39.510" LastActivityDate="2020-05-17T00:05:39.510" Title="In 那个是我工作上的东西, what is the difference between 工作上 and 工作?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6143" CreationDate="2014-03-08T10:47:54.283" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;上&lt;/code&gt; here means &lt;code&gt;about（相关）&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to understand it like this: &lt;code&gt;那个是我工作相关的东西&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you omit &lt;code&gt;上&lt;/code&gt;, it'd be understand as the item &lt;code&gt;used&lt;/code&gt; for work rather than &lt;code&gt;about&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;那个是我工作的东西&lt;/code&gt; sounds a bit like &lt;code&gt;那个是我工作用的东西&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, both are rarely spoken for native Mandarin speakers. You'd better provide more context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-03-08T10:47:54.283" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6146" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-09T15:07:52.917" Score="3" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, if I wanted to say the library is in front of the dorm, would it be:&#xA;图书馆在宿舍的前面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or using the B的location是A pattern, would it be: 宿舍的前面是图书馆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just get a little confused when using location words like front and behind. When I use actual directions it makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3922" LastEditorUserId="3922" LastEditDate="2014-03-09T16:04:07.643" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T23:46:05.313" Title="Confusion when describing the location of something using A在B的location pattern?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6156" CreationDate="2014-03-10T07:18:24.663" Score="8" ViewCount="6707" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a database file, the designer uses &lt;strong&gt;chi&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;zho&lt;/strong&gt; to tell simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese. It's hard to tell whether &lt;strong&gt;chi&lt;/strong&gt; means the simplified one or traditional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seemingly, &lt;strong&gt;chi&lt;/strong&gt; is derived from the first three characters of &quot;Chinese&quot;, &lt;strong&gt;zho&lt;/strong&gt; from the first three of &quot;Zhōngwén&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiki page of Chinese language&lt;/a&gt;, as well as the following two links from ISO 639 documentation, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=chi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chi&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=zho&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zho&lt;/a&gt;, all tell us that &lt;strong&gt;chi&lt;/strong&gt; is ISO 639-2/B, where the &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt; stands for bibliographic, &lt;strong&gt;zho&lt;/strong&gt; being ISO 639-2/T, &lt;strong&gt;T&lt;/strong&gt; for terminological. The explanation of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639-2#B_and_T_codes&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the B and T codes&lt;/a&gt; does not shed any light on traditional-or-simplified information the either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is nowhere that I can refer to showing which one representing the traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2751" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2018-10-04T16:47:18.560" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T16:47:18.560" Title="Which one of these two ISO 639-2 code refers to Traditional Chinese, chi or zho?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6154" CreationDate="2014-03-10T08:21:46.263" Score="4" ViewCount="973" Body="&lt;p&gt;While reading a news article from Hong Kong, I noticed the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;XXX 未有回覆传媒查询。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I replaced specific details that aren't relevant to my question with &quot;XXX&quot;.) This I take to mean that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;XXX did not respond to media inquiries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, why is 未有 used here, instead of, for instance, 沒有? The dictionaries I have consulted say that 未有 is to be understood as &quot;never having existed&quot;, so is using the term here instead of 沒有 simply indicating something stronger, or does it also have some other function (e.g. being more formal)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3410" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T09:37:17.117" Title="Why is 未有 used here?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6146" CreationDate="2014-03-10T08:24:06.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This makes sense if both buildings' front doors face each other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the situation is that you need to describe a direction using 前面 or 后面，you have to first define there's the front and back of that particular building.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4151" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-03-11T22:28:16.983" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T22:28:16.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6148" CreationDate="2014-03-10T08:27:10.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;未 means &quot;not yet&quot; in this case. &#xA;so 未有 kinda means &quot;have not got it yet&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it probably indicates it might have  a respond in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4151" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T08:27:10.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6148" CreationDate="2014-03-10T08:29:12.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's used there mainly for formality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未有 means exactly the same as 没有, not “have not exist yet”. In Classical Chinese, many negative adverbs, such as 不,未,弗,无,etc. could be used before 有, which is quite annoying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未有 is old-fashioned, somewhat obsoleted. But 未 itself is frequently used in both Classical Chinese and modern formal writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose 未回覆传媒查询 would be more common in formal witting and speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@RaymondYue might be right. Cantonese often chooses different words than what we often use in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastEditorUserId="4117" LastEditDate="2014-03-10T09:09:36.440" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T09:09:36.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6148" CreationDate="2014-03-10T08:46:04.197" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;未有 is often used in Cantonese,while 没有 is often used in Madarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4152" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T08:46:04.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6148" CreationDate="2014-03-10T10:05:49.133" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;未有 could mean &quot;not / not yet / haven't / haven't yet&quot;, while 沒有 means &quot;not / haven't&quot;. So, the two words have subtle differences and they are not always interchangable. In your example, the reporter probably means that while XXX has not responded, XXX also hasn't &lt;em&gt;refused&lt;/em&gt; to respond and hence there is a slight chance that XXX will respond in future. Therefore, for sake of &lt;em&gt;accuracy&lt;/em&gt; (rather than &lt;em&gt;formalness&lt;/em&gt;) one should use 未有 instead of 沒有 in this case.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whether the two words are replacable depends on context:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When some other words in the sentence have already implied a sense of temporariness, such as 我們暫時未有機位 (&quot;We haven't any flight seats available for the time being&quot;; here 暫時=&quot;for the time being&quot;), it's OK to use 未有 or 沒有.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sometimes, 未有 simply means &quot;not/haven't&quot;. In this case, you can replace it by 沒有. E.g. in chapter 68 of the novel 鏡花緣 (1819), there is a sentence 若稍不留神，未有不遭其害. Here one can replace 未有 by 沒有.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;While both 未有 and 沒有 can be used in many cases (as in the previous example), since the character 未 literally means &quot;not yet&quot;, 沒有 is not always replacable by 未有. E.g. in the conservation 你有帶手機嗎？我沒有 (&quot;Have you brought a cellphone? No, I haven't&quot;), the asker is essentially asking whether one has a cellphone &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt;. It doesn't make sense to answer &quot;No, I haven't &lt;em&gt;yet&lt;/em&gt;&quot; and so one cannot replace 沒有 by 未有.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Novice learners of Chinese may have difficulties to figure out when 沒有 and 未有 are interchangable. To avoid making mistakes, one may simply use 未有 &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; when one means &quot;not &lt;em&gt;yet&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, and use 沒有 for negatives when there is no implication of temporariness.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;未有 is classical Chinese; as in the cases of many other classical Chinese phrases, its uses are preserved in modern Cantonese (in both oral conversations and formal writings) but not in Mandarin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T10:05:49.133" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6146" CreationDate="2014-03-10T11:58:04.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning of you sentence depends on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If somebody was lost and asks you for direction, say &quot;图书馆在宿舍的前面&quot; usually mean that he/she will reach the dorm before the library. In this case, “前面” means from the current location (and following some path), somewhere is closer than somewhere else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are showing a map to somebody (or you want to describe the map in your mind), use &quot;图书馆在宿舍的前面&quot; will then require some prior definition of &quot;前面&quot;. As another answer suggested, one possibility is use the direction of the front door. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4084" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T11:58:04.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6147" CreationDate="2014-03-10T18:15:10.663" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;chi and zho stands for the Chinese language, but not one of its &lt;strong&gt;writing forms&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specific codes for traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese widely in use being zh-Hant and zh-Hans respectively, specified by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IETF_language_tag&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;IETF language tag&quot;&gt;IETF&lt;/a&gt; and also &lt;a href=&quot;http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5646&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;RFC 5646&quot;&gt;RFC 5646&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of improvised codes &quot;tc&quot; and &quot;sc&quot;, which abbreviate &quot;Traditional Chinese&quot; and &quot;Simplified Chinese&quot;, are often observed too in Chinese websites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, just as @TactMayers said in the comment, I also think that the designer chose them deliberately, or simply due to misunderstanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;By the way, here may not be a right place for this question; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.stackoverflow.com/&quot; title=&quot;Stack Overflow&quot;&gt;Stack Overflow&lt;/a&gt; is more suitable.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4159" LastEditorUserId="4159" LastEditDate="2014-03-10T18:32:15.410" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T18:32:15.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6157" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6180" CreationDate="2014-03-10T21:49:00.917" Score="4" ViewCount="588" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard that expression while I was in Beijing, and I can't find the translation when I scroll the Internet. &#xA;Do you know what it means? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4161" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T01:58:41.900" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T22:30:46.147" Title="Meaning of 他急红了眼?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6157" CreationDate="2014-03-10T23:12:33.923" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;急红了眼 means being &lt;strong&gt;very anxious or angry&lt;/strong&gt;. I think it's a regional slang but I can't find a dictionary entry to this exact phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found two very closely related (and synonymous) words: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/5/145/318439.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;急眼&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/2/13d/305211.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;红眼&lt;/a&gt;, the former of which is slang. The reference to &quot;red eyes&quot; indicates strong emotion, where the eyes can become reddened especially when one is on the verge of tears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T23:12:33.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6159" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6161" CreationDate="2014-03-11T01:46:27.800" Score="2" ViewCount="575" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find the phrase 韬光养晦 in a context,and I look up it in the dictionary,it means hidden talents, do not make the leakage.But I still don't know the meaning of 晦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4162" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T02:01:49.980" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T05:12:29.750" Title="What is the meaning of 晦 in the phrase 韬光养晦?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6160" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-11T02:06:37.613" Score="3" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I learned recently that you can do two things in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;repeat the verb (such as in 看看)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;append 一下 to the verb to denote a shorter duration (in this case,&#xA;look for a moment).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was just wondering, can you use both at once? For example, could I say &quot;你看看一下我的书,好吗？&quot; to, in this case, ask someone to look at my book for an extremely short period of time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4163" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T02:02:06.747" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T08:32:45.990" Title="Can you combine sentence structures to denote an extremely short duration?" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6159" CreationDate="2014-03-11T03:08:29.783" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;晦 means some place which is dark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;韬光养晦 means hide one's talent and keep a low profile&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4151" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T03:08:29.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6160" CreationDate="2014-03-11T03:17:57.037" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;normally I don't use repeated verb with 一下，not sure if it's legit but it does sound weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in that case. 看一下 would be sufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4151" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T03:17:57.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6122" CreationDate="2014-03-11T03:47:03.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;找晦氣 is a verb.  To avenge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;負氣 is an adjective.  &quot;Being negative&quot;.  負 itself means &quot;negative&quot; (the opposite of positive).   氣 is energy.  Full of negative energy... being negative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 佢好負氣 - he is so negative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;找負氣 is an improper use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4164" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T03:47:03.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6159" CreationDate="2014-03-11T03:49:39.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;晦's original meaning is dark moonless night, here it figuratively means the lack of accomplishment or culture. And other words' meanings are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;韬 : restrain, hide&lt;br&gt;&#xA;光 : shine, ray of light, here it figuratively means talent&lt;br&gt;&#xA;养 : cultivate, train  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 韬光养晦 means to hide talent and keep improving, to achieve balanced development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-13T01:08:12.087" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T01:08:12.087" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6160" CreationDate="2014-03-11T04:03:25.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: no.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you explained, 看看 and 看一下 have the same meaning, so use both of them does not make sense.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to emphasize it's a very little bit time, you can say:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你看看我的书,好吗？就(只)看一下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-14T08:32:45.990" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T08:32:45.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6166" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-11T04:41:15.757" Score="2" ViewCount="5620" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 闽南话/Hokkien (and 启海话, and possibly all dialects) when we call our uncles and aunties we call them by the order of their age and whether they're on our father's or mother's sides, and the wives/husbands of those people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As some examples, this is what it would be like in Hokkien:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Tua pei &amp;amp; Tua mm (father's eldest brother and his wife)&#xA;Di chek &amp;amp; Di chim (father's 2nd brother and his wife)&#xA;Saa chek &amp;amp; Saa chim (father's 3rd brother and his wife)&#xA;Bay chek &amp;amp; Bay chim (father's youngest brother and his wife)&#xA;&#xA;Tua ku &amp;amp; Tua kim (mother's eldest brother and his wife)&#xA;Di ku &amp;amp; Di kim (mother's 2nd brother and his wife)&#xA;Saa ku &amp;amp; Saa kim (mother's 3rd brother and his wife)&#xA;Bay ku &amp;amp; Bay kim (mother's youngest brother and his wife)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, all I can find in Mandarin is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;伯父 (father's elder brother) &amp;amp; 大妈 (his wife)&#xA;叔父 (father's younger brother) &amp;amp; 婶婶 (his wife)&#xA;&#xA;舅舅 (mother's brother) &amp;amp; 舅妈 (his wife)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that all the granularity required in Mandarin, or are there more specifics, just hiding where I can't find it? I want to know what the Mandarin equivalents are, or if that's all I need to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A list of these somewhere would be great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T17:43:28.133" Title="Names of extended family members" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6166" CreationDate="2014-03-11T05:07:14.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like: 李二婶 would be &lt;code&gt;[the Li family's] second eldest son's wife&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe this is Topolectical aswell though, but it's in the numbers...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T05:07:14.470" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6166" CreationDate="2014-03-11T05:42:55.217" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Tua pei &amp;amp; Tua mm 大伯 &amp;amp; 大伯母&#xA;di chek &amp;amp;  di chim  二叔 &amp;amp; 二婶 (二叔母)&#xA;Saa chek &amp;amp; Saa chim 三叔 &amp;amp; 三婶 (三叔母)&#xA;Bay chek &amp;amp; Bay chim 小叔 &amp;amp; 小婶 (小叔母)&#xA;&#xA;Tua ku &amp;amp; Tua kim  大舅 &amp;amp; 大舅母&#xA;Di ku &amp;amp; Di kim    二舅 &amp;amp; 二舅母&#xA;Saa ku &amp;amp; Saa kim  三舅 &amp;amp; 三舅母&#xA;Bay ku &amp;amp; Bay kim  小舅 &amp;amp; 小舅母&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You probably can see the pattern now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chinese, if the uncle is the brother who is elder than your father, you need to call him 伯伯(pei in hokkien), if younger than your father is called 叔叔（ chek in hokkien).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for mother's brother side, there is no such difference like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For father's sisters(regardless elder or younger than father), we call 姑姑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;eldest sister &amp;amp; husband 大姑 &amp;amp; 大姑丈&#xA;2nd sis &amp;amp; husband 二姑 &amp;amp; 二姑丈&#xA;3rd sis &amp;amp; husband 三姑 &amp;amp; 三姑丈&#xA;youngest sis &amp;amp; husband 小姑 &amp;amp; 小姑丈&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For mother's sisters(regardless elder or younger than father), we call 姨姨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;eldest sister &amp;amp; husband 大姨 &amp;amp; 大姨丈&#xA;2nd sis &amp;amp; husband 二姨 &amp;amp; 二姨丈&#xA;3rd sis &amp;amp; husband 三姨 &amp;amp; 三姨丈&#xA;youngest sis &amp;amp; husband 小姨 &amp;amp; 小姨丈&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4151" LastEditorUserId="4151" LastEditDate="2014-03-11T05:58:35.323" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T05:58:35.323" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="116" CreationDate="2014-03-11T06:27:02.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on your method of memorizing characters. If you are using a story, it would be easy to append the tone somewhere in there. &#xA;Even if you are not, I would recommend using this method, works well!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;: So far, I was largely ignoring tones when memorizing new words. Not a good idea, but it did help in giving me a good momentum. Now, I have switched to using bopomofo (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo&lt;/a&gt;) and not pinyin which I was using earlier, this thing really helps as when you are typing characteres you actually have to key in the tones to get to the final set. &#xA;I like how it reinforces the association. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3963" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-17T14:52:24.673" LastActivityDate="2014-07-17T14:52:24.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3021" CreationDate="2014-03-11T07:18:26.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like the idea of of being mistaken for a native. It's something like a Turing Test but arguably higher up on the scale of fluency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would serve as a good (or the ultimate?) check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3963" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T07:18:26.540" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6105" CreationDate="2014-03-11T08:03:16.800" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it is not the only one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless you think John sounds similar to 约翰.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese translations for foreign names and words (such as names of other stuff) are weird if you compare them to each other. People from the cities, Guangzhou, Hong Kong (Speaking Cantonese), and Shanghai (Speaking Wu), which were first open to the world, created these translations based on their dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples (Some of them have been used for such a long time that native speaker as me would not notice that they are not original Chinese words):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Sandwich 三明治&#xA;Toast 吐司&#xA;Cookie 曲奇&#xA;Humor 幽默 (I thought it is originally Chinese)&#xA;Taxi 的士&#xA;Pancake 班戟&#xA;Chocolate 巧克力/朱古力&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that one word may have more than one translations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4067" LastEditorUserId="4067" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T23:53:45.280" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T23:53:45.280" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6157" CreationDate="2014-03-11T15:02:56.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;他急红了眼means he is so angry that his eyes turn red.It is a strong emphasis which means he is very angry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4152" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T15:02:56.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6157" CreationDate="2014-03-11T15:08:52.737" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;他急红了眼&quot; means &quot;He is extremely anxious&quot;. Generally speaking, when people go crazy, his eyes usually are full of red bloodshot. It seems that eyes turns red. Besides, Maybe you will see &quot;杀红了眼&quot; in literature and mass media to describe a crazy killer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T22:30:46.147" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T22:30:46.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6166" CreationDate="2014-03-11T17:43:28.133" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Family Members in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;father: 爸 ba4 /爸爸 ba4 ba/爹 die1/爹爹 die1 die/父 fu4/父亲 fu4 qin&#xA;mother: 妈 ma1/妈妈 ma1 ma/娘 niang2/母 mu3/母亲 mu3 qin&#xA;son: 儿子 er2 zi&#xA;daughter: 女儿 nv3 er2&#xA;older brother: 哥 ge1/哥哥 ge1 ge/兄 xiong1/兄长 xiong1 zhang3&#xA;younger bother: 弟 di4/弟弟 di4 di/兄弟 xiong1 di4&#xA;older sister: 姐 jie3/姐姐 jie3 jie/姊 zi3/姊姊zi3 zi&#xA;younger sister: 妹 mei4/妹妹 mei4 mei&#xA;&#xA;husband: 夫 fu1/丈夫 zhang4 fu/老公 lao3 gong1/先生 xian1 sheng&#xA;wife: 妻 qi1/妻子 qi1 zi/老婆 lao3 po2/太太 tai4 tai/媳妇 xi2 fu4/内人 nei4 ren&#xA;&#xA;son’s wife: 儿媳 er2 xi2/儿媳妇 er2 xi2 fu4&#xA;son’s wife’s dad: 亲家公 qing4 jia1 gong1&#xA;son’s wife’s mom: 亲家母 qing4 jia1 mu4&#xA;son’s son: 孙子 sun1 zi&#xA;son’s daughter: 孙女 sun1 nv3&#xA;&#xA;daughter’s husband: 婿 xu4/女婿 nv3 xu4&#xA;daughter’s husband’s dad: 亲家公 qing4 jia1 gong1&#xA;daughter’s husband’s mom: 亲家母 qing4 jia1 mu4&#xA;daughter’s son: 外孙 wai4 sun1&#xA;daughter’s daughter: 外孙女 wai4 sun1 nv3&#xA;&#xA;older brother’s wife: 嫂子 sao3 zi&#xA;younger bother’s wife: 弟妹 di4 mei4/弟媳 di4 xi2/弟媳妇 di4 xi2 fu4&#xA;brother’s son: 侄 zhi2/侄子 zhi2 zi&#xA;brother’s daughter: 侄女 zhi2 nv3&#xA;older sister’s husband: 姐夫 jie3 fu&#xA;younger sister’s husband: 妹夫 mei4 fu&#xA;sister’s son: 外甥 wai4 sheng&#xA;sister’s daughter: 外甥女 wai4 sheng1 nv3&#xA;&#xA;father’s dad: 爷 ye2/爷爷 ye2 ye/祖父 zu3 fu4&#xA;father’s mom: 奶 nai3/奶奶 nai3 nai/祖母 zu3 mu3&#xA;father’s older brother: 伯 bo2/伯伯 bo2 bo/伯父 bo2 fu4/大爷 da4 ye&#xA;father’s older brother’s wife: 伯母 bo2 mu3/大娘 da4 niang2&#xA;father’s younger brother: 叔 shu1/叔叔 shu1 shu/叔父 shu1 fu4&#xA;father’s younger brother’ wife: 婶 shen3/婶子 shen3 zi/婶婶 shen3 shen&#xA;father’s brother’s son (older than me): 堂兄 tang2 xiong1&#xA;father’s brother’s son (younger than me): 堂弟 tang2 di4&#xA;father’s brother’s daughter (older than me): 堂姐 tang2 jie3&#xA;father’s brother’s daughter (younger than me): 堂妹 tang2 mei4&#xA;father’s sister: 姑 gu1/姑姑 gu1 gu/姑母 gu1 mu3/姑妈 gu1 ma1&#xA;father’s sister’s husband: 姑父 gu1 fu4&#xA;father’s sister’s son (older than me): 表哥biao3 ge1/表兄 biao3 xiong1&#xA;father’s sister’s son (younger than me): 表弟 biao3 di4&#xA;father’s sister’s daughter (older than me): 表姐 biao3 jie3&#xA;father’s sister’s daughter (younger than me): 表妹 biao3 mei4&#xA;&#xA;mother’s dad: 姥爷 lao3 ye/外公 wai4 gong1/外祖父 wai4 zu3 fu4&#xA;mother’s mom: 姥 lao3/姥姥 lao3 lao/外婆 wai4 po2/外祖母 wai4 zu3 mu3&#xA;mother’s brother: 舅 jiu4/舅舅 jiu4 jiu/舅父 jiu4 fu4&#xA;mother’s brother’s wife: 舅母 jiu4 mu3/舅妈 jiu4 ma1&#xA;mother’s brother’s son (older than me): 表哥biao3 ge1/表兄 biao3 xiong1&#xA;mother’s brother’s son (younger than me): 表弟 biao3 di4&#xA;mother’s brother’s daughter (older than me): 表姐 biao3 jie3&#xA;mother’s brother’s daughter (younger than me): 表妹 biao3 mei4&#xA;mother’s sister: 姨 yi2/姨妈 yi2 ma1/姨母yi2 mu3&#xA;mother’s sister’s husband: 姨父 yi2 fu4&#xA;mother’s sister’s son (older than me): 表哥biao3 ge1/表兄 biao3 xiong1&#xA;mother’s sister’s son (younger than me): 表弟 biao3 di4&#xA;mother’s sister’s daughter (older than me): 表姐 biao3 jie3&#xA;mother’s sister’s daughter (younger than me): 表妹 biao3 mei4&#xA;&#xA;husband’s dad: 公公 gong1 gong&#xA;husband’s mom: 婆婆 po2 po&#xA;husband’s older brother: 大伯哥 da4 bai1 ge1/大伯子 da4 bai1 zi&#xA;husband’s older brother’s wife: 嫂子sao3 zi&#xA;husband’s younger brother: 小叔 xiao3 shu1/小叔子 xiao3 shou1 zi&#xA;husband’s younger brother’s wife: 弟妹 di4 mei4/弟媳 di4 xi2/弟媳妇 di4 xi2 fu4&#xA;husband’s brother’ son: 侄子 nei4 zi&#xA;husband’s brother’ daughter: 侄女 zhi2 nv3&#xA;husband’s older sister: 大姑子 da4 gu1 zi/大姑姐 da4 gu1 jie3&#xA;husband’s older sister’s husband: 姐夫 jie3 fu&#xA;husband’s younger sister: 小姑子 xiao3 gu1 zi&#xA;husband’s younger sister’s husband: 妹夫 mei4 fu&#xA;husband’s sister’s son: 外甥 wai4 sheng&#xA;husband’s sister’s daughter: 外甥 wai4 sheng&#xA;&#xA;wife’s dad: 丈人 zhang4 ren/老丈人 lao3 zhang4 ren/岳父 yue4 fu4&#xA;wife’s mom: 丈母娘 zhang4 mu3 niang2/岳母 yue4 mu3&#xA;wife’s older brother: 大舅哥 da4 jiu4 ge1/内兄 nei4 xiong1&#xA;wife’s older brother’s wife: 大舅嫂 da4 jiu4 sao3&#xA;wife’s younger brother: 小舅子 xiao3 jiu4 zi/内弟 nei4 di4&#xA;wife’s younger brother’s wife: 弟妹 di4 mei4/弟媳 di4 xi2/弟媳妇 di4 xi2 fu4&#xA;wife’s brother’ son: 内侄 nei4 zhi2&#xA;wife’s brother’ daughter: 内侄女 nei4 zhi2 nv3&#xA;wife’s older sister: 大姨子 da4 yi2 zi/大姨姐 da4 yi2 jie3&#xA;wife’s older sister’ husband: 姐夫 jie3 fu&#xA;wife’s younger sister: 小姨子 xiao3 yi2 zi&#xA;wife’s younger sister’s husband: 妹夫 mei4 fu&#xA;wife’s sister’s son: 外甥 wai4 sheng&#xA;wife’s sister’s daughter: 外甥女 wai4 sheng1 nv3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T17:43:28.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6157" CreationDate="2014-03-11T18:30:00.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;But the phrase prefers to express someone is about to do something so badly that he wouldn't care about any (usually terrible) consequences.&#xA;Considering 红眼 also has the meaning of envy, jealous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看到自己打下的猎物被张三捡了起来，就在张三跨上马背挥鞭离去时，他急红了眼，搭上箭开弓射去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So violated, fictional not real&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当年一起入职的同事都已经升官发财，只有自己还看不到出路，每次想到这个，都让他急红了眼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3725" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T04:17:35.573" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T04:17:35.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6160" CreationDate="2014-03-11T22:42:46.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我略微看了一下。&#xA;我稍微看了一下。&#xA;我大略看了一下。&#xA;我粗粗看了一下。&#xA;我匆匆看了一下。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我略微看了看。&#xA;我稍微看了看。&#xA;我大略看了看。&#xA;我粗粗看了看。&#xA;我匆匆看了看。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: the difference between 看了一下 and 看了看 is that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;看了一下 means take ONE look at it, and its time duration is very short.&#xA;看了看 means take a FEW looks at it, and its time duration is a little longer.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T22:42:46.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6160" CreationDate="2014-03-11T23:41:56.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very interesting question, yes, you can repeat the verb, but except 看看, most of the time, people use this kind of trick just to show cuteness. Especially the girls will do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;摸摸 &lt;em&gt;Touch&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我摸摸小狗.&lt;em&gt;I gently touch the puppy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 一下 is often used in this kind of situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你过来一下好吗? Would you come here for a second?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in theory your sentence &lt;em&gt;你看看一下我的书,好吗&lt;/em&gt; is correct, but we never speak this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T23:41:56.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6159" CreationDate="2014-03-12T01:40:09.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The literal meaning of '晦' is the dark night, without the moonlight, as @songyuanyao said.&#xA;and in this idiom, '晦' means one's shortcoming, weakness, opposite to strong and advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can comprehend this idiom in this way: In order to survive, one needs to hide his talent and pretend to be weak, so that he can get enough time to be strong and defeat his opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T22:26:34.343" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T22:26:34.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6157" CreationDate="2014-03-12T03:02:53.913" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 红眼(red eyes) always mean someone is in extreme emotional state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So combing with 急(anxious\angry), it means you are so anxious that your eyes turn red.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他急红了眼(He's very very anxious or angry)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can try more combinations, like 哭(cry)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他哭红了眼(He's very sad)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or 愁(worry)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他愁红了眼(He's very worried)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or 杀(kill)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他杀红了眼(He's on killing spree)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In theory, you can add 红眼(red eyes) to many verbs, but in reality, only a few verbs are allowed to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T22:29:52.243" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T22:29:52.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3021" CreationDate="2014-03-12T03:31:21.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I am native Chinese speaker, and I am trying hard to speak English, so here are some answers based on my secret paper &lt;em&gt;7 Tips to know you are fluent in English&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;s&gt;Actually it's not 7 I just type 7 because it is cool.&lt;/s&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can buy things at supermarkets, &lt;em&gt;alone&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can bargain with cashier at supermarkets withtou being hit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can understand a film without subtitles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can ask strangers to tell you the nearest toilet&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can do business in China &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can drink spirit with your friends &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can make Chinese &lt;strong&gt;male&lt;/strong&gt; friends&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, if you can do all things in Chinese, then you are fluent. Oh, wait a second, I forget to mention HSK, don't worry about those examinations, they don't reflect your true ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T03:31:21.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6146" CreationDate="2014-03-12T05:00:55.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in terms of grammar, both sentences are ok. but the two sentences emphasize different points.&#xA;i'll put these two sentences in dialogues of English so that you can get a better understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 图书馆在宿舍的前面:&#xA;-Where's the library?&#xA;-The library is in front of the dorm.&#xA;(This is probably what you want in your case, emphasizes the location of the library-WHERE)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 宿舍的前面是图书馆:&#xA;-What's in front of the dorm?&#xA;-The library (is in front of the dorm).&#xA;(Emphasizes it is the library that lies in front of the dorm-WHAT)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-native speaker here, hope this help :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4077" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T05:00:55.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5841" CreationDate="2014-03-12T05:08:04.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/conversion.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/conversion.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;copy the text that you want to convert and paste it in in the upper box, click on &quot;查拼音&quot; and you'll get the pinyin in the lower box.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope this help&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4077" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T05:08:04.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6148" CreationDate="2014-03-12T09:37:17.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As all the users mentioned, &quot;未有&quot; is more classical and formal, while &quot;没有&quot; is more common in everyday use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of 没有:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;-你吃晚饭了没有?(Have you enjoyed your supper yet?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  -还没有呢.(Not yet)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  -你作业写好了没有?(Have you finished your homework yet?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  -没有写好,还在努力(Not yet, still working on it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of 未有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吾尚未有子(I have't got a son yet)&lt;br&gt; 未有以应。(No responds yet)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T09:37:17.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6143" CreationDate="2014-03-12T09:44:45.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, there's not so much difference. &lt;code&gt;工作上的东西,工作的东西&lt;/code&gt;both mean something related to your work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;上&lt;/code&gt;actually doesn't mean too much , Chinese language is not that strict as English, you don't have to understand every word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples about &lt;code&gt;上&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;-孩子,你在看什么?(Son, what' are you viewing?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  -妈妈,我在看学习上的书(Mom, I am just viewing some academical books)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T09:44:45.940" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6132" CreationDate="2014-03-12T09:59:24.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他无法接受批评.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不太接受批评.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很反感别人批评.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese Parts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢唔擅长听其他人嘅意见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;距五擅长听人意见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢最唔叻听人意见了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“距都”钟意听人地讲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T12:50:15.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3021" CreationDate="2014-03-12T16:07:15.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fluent simply means that input and output in the given language is fluid: that is, without abrupt stops and hesitations. It is not related to speaking as a native. It also doesn't mean you are correctly pronouncing or using words necessarily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4022" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T16:07:15.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5909" CreationDate="2014-03-13T03:46:54.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone said it comes from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhihu.com/question/20072812&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Manchu language&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“倒”（dǎo）形声。从人，到声。本义是“倒下”。具体来说是“竖立的东西躺下来”，如“摔倒”，“墙倒了”，“卧倒”；还有“对调，转移，更换，改换”，如“倒换”，“倒戈”，等。“倒”（dào）是“位置上下前后翻转”；“把容器反转或倾斜使里面的东西出来”；“反过来，相反地”；“向后，往后退”；“却”，等等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or it comes from &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/39955565.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mandarin dialect&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“拉倒”最先是一个动补的组合，执行“拉倒”这一动作是人，“拉倒”的或者是人或者是物，总之都是看得见的东西，“拉倒”有着实实在在的意义。如明代的《金瓶梅崇祯本》的句子：“不由分说，教春梅拉倒，打了十下。”到了清代，“拉倒”的语义虚化，“拉倒”的对象不一定是实在的物体了。如清末小说《二十年目睹之怪现状》中的句子：“他们穷了，又是终年的闹饥荒，连我养老的几吊棺材本，只怕从此拉倒了，这才是城门失火，殃及池鱼呢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But hi, &lt;code&gt;拉倒&lt;/code&gt; can simply means pull down, so it means when all things fall apart you can forget about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T03:46:54.087" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6019" CreationDate="2014-03-13T03:52:14.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's right, it's a typo, it should be &lt;code&gt;未休&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;休假&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;take holidays&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;未&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;haven't done something&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;未休年假折现 means  compensate someone by money if he does not take annual&#xA;  leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T03:52:14.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5885" CreationDate="2014-03-13T10:56:52.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can mean many things , if you're bullied or beaten up or lost a big deal to someone, you can use this phrase to express your anger and also it slightly implies your weakness. Because &lt;code&gt;算你狠&lt;/code&gt; so please just leave me alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or it can mean you admire someone you like or close to you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-我居然是第一名(I can't believe I am the champion!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-算你狠(Congratulations!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T10:56:52.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6106" CreationDate="2014-03-13T11:05:12.540" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;临时&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;unplanned&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他临时改变了计划,He changes the plan temporally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It means he does not stick with the origin plan, and sometimes the&#xA;  newest plan is often bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;及时&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;timely&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他及时改变了计划  He changes his plan timely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It means thanks to his wisdom, he changes his plan or something bad&#xA;  will happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T11:05:12.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6016" CreationDate="2014-03-13T13:08:02.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hmm, a simple question, it will be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有人觉得我长得像...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but as @charlese said &lt;code&gt;other phrase s have a little bit derogatory sense&lt;/code&gt;, so be careful when you are saying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;某些人觉得我长得像&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有一部分人觉得我长得像&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有些人觉得我长得像&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does those phrases have derogatory means? Well, my guess is because China used to criticize someone without mention his name, like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有些同志以为...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有些人已近向糖衣炮弹投降了!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;目前党内有一小部分人...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T13:08:02.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6015" CreationDate="2014-03-13T13:19:44.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are absolutely correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【词目】 筛选 &lt;br&gt;【拼音】shāi xuǎn &lt;br&gt;【释义】利用筛子进行选拣，现泛指通过淘汰的方式挑选。&lt;br&gt; 【示例】 筛选种子|筛选矿沙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes, we use &lt;code&gt;筛选&lt;/code&gt; on the Internet, &lt;code&gt;过滤&lt;/code&gt; is more technical&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过滤一下烧杯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T13:19:44.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1917" CreationDate="2014-03-13T13:25:25.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;浪费&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;waste&lt;/code&gt;,while &lt;code&gt;糟蹋&lt;/code&gt; kind of means &lt;code&gt;destroy&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;浪费&lt;/code&gt; has a more board use than &lt;code&gt;糟蹋&lt;/code&gt;. You just have to remember the situation when &lt;code&gt;糟蹋&lt;/code&gt; will be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我舍不得那么糟蹋粮食&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;糟蹋我的妻和女&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自己家乡受糟蹋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T13:25:25.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6088" CreationDate="2014-03-13T13:32:07.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在日本，我上个星期看朋友.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在日本上个星期看朋友.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去看朋友,是上个星期日本去看的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上个星期我去日本看朋友.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They all seem OK to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T13:32:07.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6039" CreationDate="2014-03-13T13:35:00.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Dude\Come on!\Man!\Buddy\Amigo\My friend, how can say than kind of&#xA;  stuff?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T13:35:00.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5955" CreationDate="2014-03-13T13:51:44.423" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a linguist, so I will just speak my mind. There's not too much difference between &lt;code&gt;对不起&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;不好意思&lt;/code&gt;. But &lt;code&gt;对不住&lt;/code&gt; is more formal, it often means does not live up to someone's expectations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T13:51:44.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6199" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-13T23:58:42.927" Score="1" ViewCount="1057" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a well crafted app named &quot;I learn Chinese&quot; for iPad. I like it, it seems a quality app. However, it teaches simplified Chinese characters. I'd like to learn traditional Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a similar app for iPad to learn traditional Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3052" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T02:45:13.870" Title="App similar to &quot;I learn Chinese&quot;, but for traditional Chinese" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ClosedDate="2014-03-20T06:34:05.470" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6200" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6201" CreationDate="2014-03-14T00:33:08.500" Score="5" ViewCount="6125" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a table like &lt;a href=&quot;http://bit.ly/1dyfdxl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; for Chinese characters, that lists which Chinese characters are taught for each year of primary school?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'd like to learn Chinese, so this would be a great source of information about what characters to learn first.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3052" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2020-03-19T12:17:46.153" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T12:17:46.153" Title="Table of Chinese characters taught in primary school, grouped by grade" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6200" CreationDate="2014-03-14T00:52:31.733" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20111215143140/http://residence.educities.edu.tw/wei3128/currinstruc/wordclause/generwordgrd9.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This list&lt;/a&gt; roughly groups the 5568 most common characters over the nine years of compulsory education in Taiwan. You didn't specify if you were looking for simplified or traditional, but since I only know of this one source and it's traditional, that's what I will recommend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be noted that this isn't an official list of what pupils should learn, but rather the result of doing some statistics on textbooks and reading materials. I don't know what you want to use the list for, but as a learner of Chinese, the first seven levels are definitely useful and probably the eighth as well. The ninth level contains a lot of proper names and characters that aren't all that useful in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update March, 2020: The original web page is no longer reachable, so I have replaced the link to an archive copy over at Wayback Machine. &lt;a href=&quot;http://residence.educities.edu.tw/wei3128/currinstruc/wordclause/generwordgrd9.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This is the original link&lt;/a&gt;, which no longer works.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T08:09:13.830" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6200" CreationDate="2014-03-14T01:14:43.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/97cdbb1da300a6c30c229fa2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This (simplified Chinese)&lt;/a&gt; table with Pinyin might be what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastEditorUserId="4001" LastEditDate="2014-03-14T05:17:58.973" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T05:17:58.973" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5940" CreationDate="2014-03-14T02:23:45.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you are right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们上课从四点到五点. Let's have a lesson from 4 P.M. to 5P.M .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T02:23:45.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5925" CreationDate="2014-03-14T02:34:43.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very interesting question. We use 他 for male, 她 for she male. But there are some tricky situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When we do not know the gender, yes, we will use 他&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;她 means female, but it often suggest youngness and beauty. For example, simply write the character 她, most Chinese will picture a beautiful girl in their minds. That's probably the reason why so many poets and singers will use 她 in their poems and lyrics.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We do not have a common picture for 他&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T02:34:43.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5892" CreationDate="2014-03-14T02:46:33.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 天 means heaven sometimes, but 天 can also mean weather. Most of times, they are both exchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冬天真冷-冬季真冷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;相约在冬天-相约在冬季&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今年冬天不下雪-今年冬季不下雪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe a native Chinese speaker will find some of the sentences are kind of weird, but people will understand your phrases none less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T02:46:33.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5977" CreationDate="2014-03-14T06:34:33.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simple answer, use 吧 anytime you want, and if you want to impressive your colleges, you can use 呗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T06:34:33.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5956" CreationDate="2014-03-14T06:43:13.053" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe the answer is this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;学者以为三长两短指的是未盖上盖儿的棺材，因为棺材正好由三块长木板、两块短木板构成一个匣子。棺材是用来装死尸的，“三长两短”在口语中常指意外的灾祸、有生命危险的事故，或许与此有关。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The coffin has three long wood pieces and two short wood pieces, so&#xA;  三长两短 is a sign for bad things&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or in Chinese 三 does not mean really numbers, it refers to huge number of things(just like &lt;b&gt;三&lt;/b&gt;人行必有我师), so perhaps 三长两短 has something to do with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T06:43:13.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5928" CreationDate="2014-03-14T06:55:56.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rest assured, there's not too much difference between those two answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T06:55:56.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6210" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6212" CreationDate="2014-03-14T16:54:20.597" Score="3" ViewCount="812" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noted that the simplified Chinese character for &amp;quot;doctor/medicine&amp;quot; 医 &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8C%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;has the same aspect&lt;/a&gt; of the Japanese kanji for &amp;quot;doctor/medicine&amp;quot;. So, in this case, &lt;strong&gt;the Japanese kanji and the simplified Chinese character are the same&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;Instead, the traditional Chinese character seems more different: 醫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems also that the simplified Chinese character for &amp;quot;turtle&amp;quot; 龟 is very similar to the corresponding Japanese kanji 亀 (the kanji seems to just have one more smaller rectangle piece in the upper part). Instead, the traditional Chinese character is much more different: 龜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I wonder: is this a common pattern? i.e. Are simplified Chinese characters more similar to Japanese kanji than traditional Chinese characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I've read somewhere that the &lt;em&gt;traditional&lt;/em&gt; Chinese characters are more similar to Japanese kanji, but at least in these two cases, it doesn't seem the case.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3052" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T21:13:04.743" Title="Simplified/Traditional Chinese characters commonalities with Japanese Kanji" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6210" CreationDate="2014-03-14T17:32:11.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While most Kanji maintain the same meaning from their Chinese Hanzi counterparts, some Kanji have been given different meanings after the post-world war 2 simplification of Kanji&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#Local_developments_and_divergences_from_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#Local_developments_and_divergences_from_Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T17:32:11.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6210" CreationDate="2014-03-14T20:50:13.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's true to state that &quot;traditional chinese characters are more similar to Japanese Kanji than simplified chinese.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In more example, you are going to find Japanese Kanji and traditional chinese characters are identical due to the fact that Japanese adopted Chinese Characters much earlier. &#xA;Chinese character simplification only started in 1956 (quite recent in comparison).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese has also gone through a simplification process called &quot;Shinjitai.&quot; And during the Japanese simplification, some characters went from identical to Traditional Chinese to identical to simplified Chinese. For example, 體   →体(tai). Please refer to this page for more example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjitai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjitai&lt;/a&gt;. So only after this, some Kanji resemble the simplified Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4183" LastEditorUserId="4183" LastEditDate="2014-03-14T21:13:04.743" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T21:13:04.743" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6213" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6215" CreationDate="2014-03-14T22:48:10.833" Score="1" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, 打机 is used colloquially to refer to playing video or computer games. Where does the expression/word come from, and is it also used in Mandarin? If not, what is a similar Mandarin expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3410" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:25:43.667" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:25:43.667" Title="Usage and origins of 打机" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6214" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6224" CreationDate="2014-03-14T23:18:41.180" Score="3" ViewCount="1137" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious if people living in places like Hong Kong and Taiwan, where the official characters are the &lt;em&gt;traditional&lt;/em&gt; Chinese characters, do use them also in handwriting, or if they use the &lt;em&gt;simplified&lt;/em&gt; Chinese characters in handwriting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The traditional Chinese characters seem aesthetically more beautiful, but I think they are harder to write (requiring more attention, and more time to fully write them, I suppose...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3052" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T02:35:05.840" Title="Are simplified Chinese characters used for handwriting in places using traditional Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6213" CreationDate="2014-03-15T03:35:29.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Mainland China, we say&quot;打游戏&quot;, more information about the&quot;打機&quot; can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://evchk.wikia.com/wiki/%E6%89%93%E6%A9%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://evchk.wikia.com/wiki/打機&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3003" LastActivityDate="2014-03-15T03:35:29.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6216" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-15T11:24:07.693" Score="2" ViewCount="470" Body="&lt;p&gt;刚跟一个好久没联系的威海朋友在聊聊时，他说了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;时间过得太快了，一别五六年了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“&lt;code&gt;一别五六年&lt;/code&gt;”，或者“&lt;code&gt;一别&lt;/code&gt;” 是什么意思？我查了一下，没找到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I thought that according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/a/346/3061&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, questions in Chinese were allowed, but I can't publish it without English...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3061" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:49:43.223" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T08:01:12.110" Title="&quot;一别五六年&quot; 是什么意思？？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6217" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6222" CreationDate="2014-03-15T11:54:12.757" Score="3" ViewCount="1757" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3aMap_of_sinitic_dialect_-_English_version.svg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this map&lt;/a&gt;, there are different Chinese &lt;em&gt;&quot;languages&quot;&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;Sinitic languages&lt;/strong&gt;) in the Chinese area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my understanding correct that the &quot;official&quot; Chinese language is the &lt;strong&gt;Mandarin&lt;/strong&gt;? In other words, if someone studies Chinese as a foreign language, is he taught the Chinese Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, are the languages spoken by people living in non-Mandarin areas of the aforementioned map essentially the same of Mandarin, or are they very different?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In other words, if a foreigner learns Chinese (Mandarin) and goes to Hong Kong, or Shangai, or Taiwan, can he understand and speak with the locals, or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To try to make an analogy: in Europe there are different languages, like Italian, French, Spanish, etc. Even if they have something in common, an Italian can't speak with a French person, without proper previous study/training in French. In other words, Italian and French are &lt;em&gt;different&lt;/em&gt; languages (even if with some &quot;roots&quot; in common), not just dialects. Is this the same for e.g. Chinese Mandarin and Chinese spoken in Hong Kong or Shangai or Taiwan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the clarifications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3052" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:17:13.113" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:17:13.113" Title="Are Sinitic languages mutually comprehensible?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;shanghainese&gt;&lt;taiwanese&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6216" CreationDate="2014-03-15T12:21:21.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一&amp;lt;verb&amp;gt;&amp;lt;time period&amp;gt;了&lt;/code&gt; is a commonly used pattern.&#xA;It means &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;time period&amp;gt; has passed since &amp;lt;verb&amp;gt;&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think “一” might originally mean “slight(ly)”, “mere(ly)” or “just”, but it's commonly used in various constructions  where its original meaning is not preserved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After thinking for a day, I feel that this “一” might have been derived from “the first” or “the beginning”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel “一” often signals the beginning of a significant change, or some special event. It's also used to form nominal phrases. e.g. “一别” can function like a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, “一” is mainly used in classic Chinese and retained in fixed expressions, e.g. 一…就…, 一…,…了. When we use it, we tend to understand the structure as a whole, without thinking the meaning of any individual word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastEditorUserId="4117" LastEditDate="2014-03-16T04:05:43.607" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T04:05:43.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6216" CreationDate="2014-03-15T12:22:02.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general its meaning is same as &quot;分别&quot;, usually used to emphasize the time was so long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-03-15T12:22:02.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6217" CreationDate="2014-03-15T13:45:33.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience, the talk between people living in non-Mandarin areas usually use their local dialects, which are very hard to understand for people only know Mandarin.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But When they talk to the people from Mandarin areas, they also can speek Mandarin. Especially the young people can speek Mandarin because the Chinese class were taught by the official Mandarin from their primary school.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know much about the Europe language, but I think Chinese dialect is somewhat different because for a person who want to learn other dialect, he/she does not need to learn new grammar, he/she only need to remember the special pronunciation of words, and some special idioms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above I said is about Mainland, sorry I don't know much about Hong Kong and Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-03-15T13:45:33.053" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6217" CreationDate="2014-03-15T15:47:05.083" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking, the official spoken language in Chinese mainland is known as &quot;Putonghua&quot; (普通话) or &quot;Modern Standard Chinese&quot; (MSM, 现代标准汉语), while the official spoken language in Taiwan is called &quot;Mandarin&quot; (國語).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both Putonghua and Taiwanese Mandarin are dialects of Pekingese (北京話). While there are differences among them, people who speak these three dialects can practically understand each other without difficulties. When no distinction is needed, English speakers often simply refer to all these three dialects as &quot;Mandarin&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you have pointed out, there are many other Sinitic languages apart from Mandarin. In practice, many of these languages are mutually unintelligible. So, yes, similar to your example of French vs Italian, Mandarin, Min, Hakka, Cantonese etc. are different &lt;em&gt;spoken languages&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, since Putonghua is the official language in Chinese mainland and it is the teaching medium in schools, most Han Chinese people &lt;em&gt;in Chinese mainland&lt;/em&gt; now speak Putonghua.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ethnic minorities are also forced to learn Putonghua in schools. This policy has created some very serious tension between some ethnic minority groups and the Chinese government. But politics aside, many non-Han &quot;Chinese&quot; people do speak Mandarin nowadays as their first or second languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Foreigners tend to think that almost all people in China speak Mandarin, but in reality this is far from being true. If I remember correctly, according to official figures from the Chinese Ministry of Education, about ten to twenty years ago, only 58% of all &quot;Chinese&quot; people spoke Mandarin. The figure I read a few years ago was slightly lower than 70%, but I don't remember the precise number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Macau and Hong Kong, the majority populations are Cantonese speakers. Owing to close economic/cultural ties between these two cities and the Chinese mainland (and also Taiwan), many people in these two cities do understand Mandarin to various degrees. But there are also people who don't speak or comprehend Mandarin at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to answer your question, if a foreign learner of Mandarin goes to Shanghai and Taiwan, the chance that he can understand and speak with the locals is close to 100% (assuming that he speaks Mandarin well). But if he goes to Hong Kong, the chance that he can communicate well in Mandarin with the locals is significantly lower (I would say 50-50). Since the de facto official languages in Hong Kong are English and Cantonese, I would suggest him to speak English instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;strong&gt;written&lt;/strong&gt; languages, practically what Han Chinese people write are all dialects of each other, and is (IMHO) more appropriately called &quot;官話&quot; (also called &quot;Mandarin&quot; in English; now you see that there are many loaded meanings for the word &quot;Mandarin&quot;). While there are recognisable regional differences between the styles, vocabularies and grammars of these written dialects, such differences are not large enough to justify calling those dialects different &quot;languages&quot;. Nevertheless, as in the case of English accents, the differences between dialects of written &quot;Mandarin&quot; are often large enough to alienate these dialects among themselves. For instance, suppose you ask an average Cantonese speaker in Hong Kong how he would classify his written language, and three choices are given: (a) 官話, (b) 國語 or (c) 普通話 (all these three terms can be called &quot;Mandarin&quot; in English). It is very unlikely that one would pick (c).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastEditorDisplayName="user4086" LastEditDate="2014-03-17T14:49:21.000" LastActivityDate="2014-03-17T14:49:21.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6214" CreationDate="2014-03-15T18:17:50.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong, students write traditional Chinese in schools. So, you can imagine that Hong Kongers usually write traditional Chinese in their handwritings. However ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some people do write simplified Chinese almost exclusively in their handwritings, because they are immigrants from China.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some people do occasionally write simplified Chinese in their handwritings by mistakes, because they are confused by the merging of characters in simplified Chinese. The most notable example is the Chinese word for &quot;excuse&quot; (noun). Many Hong Kongers mistakenly write &quot;借口&quot; without noticing that &quot;借口&quot; is actually simplified Chinese. The correct form in traditional Chinese should be &quot;藉口&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For various reasons, some people do occasionally write simplified Chinese in their handwritings on purpose. E.g. in markets stalls, simplified characters are used relatively frequently because they are less cluttered. In the following picture (source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7693201.stm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;BBC News&lt;/a&gt;; see picture 9) of a Hong Kong egg stall, &quot;5元4隻&quot; ($5 per 4 pieces) is written as &quot;5元4只&quot; instead (只 is the simplified character for 隻).&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JcwqL.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some people do occasionally write simplified Chinese in their handwritings on purpose, &lt;em&gt;but these simplified Chinese characters are not exactly those used in China&lt;/em&gt;. Hong Kongers had been using their own set of simplified characters for a long time. Some of these characters (e.g. 万 &quot;myriad&quot;) are simplified characters from Qing dynasty and they happen to be identical to China's official simplified characters, but the others are different. As in the case of China's simplified characters, a number of HK's own simplified characters are based on cursive or other calligraphic forms of traditional characters. Most of these character forms are not standardised and the ways people write the same character may be different from one another. But a few of these character forms are more common. The one I've seen the most is the character 學 (&quot;learn&quot;). The official simplified character in China is 学 and in the following image is HK's own simplified counterpart. One can easily spot the differences: in the HK version, the three dots on the top of 学 are replaced by three vertical strokes, and there are two horizontal dashes on rightmost vertical stroke.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JNBMc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastActivityDate="2014-03-15T18:17:50.730" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6216" CreationDate="2014-03-15T21:32:58.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;this separation being 5 to 6 years&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一should be understood as 一旦(as long as, since).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-03-15T21:32:58.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6213" CreationDate="2014-03-16T00:36:12.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only answer the mandarin part, we never say 打机 in Mandarin. But we will say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;打游戏 玩游戏 打电动 玩电脑 打电玩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 打机 looks like 打飞机...which is kind of weird and embarrassing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T00:36:12.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6214" CreationDate="2014-03-16T02:23:26.393" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;They can understand and will occasionally &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=CxXYTspjnC9ZX3QWRyRQaIY0UraQn5lqMy0yWV_UEnM_E8L-aeUdgHoqpNQqYcmq8jw7p5BIMXKMZU9CJawzMq&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;use simplified Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1、台湾老的文化人都认识简体字。过去，台湾像大陆一样流行简体字。只是在中华人民共和国政府宣布实行简化字方案后，台湾当局才不许公共场合出现简体字，以表示不承认共党政府。但是，老人手写字依然有用简体字。我曾在回答关于“煎体字”问体中附一张照片，是1958年蒋介石写给郝伯村的信，信中就有几十个与我们完全一样的简体字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2、书法爱好者认识简体字。简体字大量是行书、草书规范化。经常看古人书帖自然会认识简体字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3、经常与大陆往来的人会认识简体字。要说台湾与大陆往来密切，哪里也比不上厦门。厦门一切公共场合，包括与台湾的经济、学术交流，都是规范字，台商工厂中也如是。看多了自然就认识了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  4、这几年，台湾从大陆购买上百万册简体版图书，说明有很多人认识；原来不认识的，看这些书自然也就认识了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Taiwan people know Simplified Chinese but in opposition to the Communist Government     of Mainland China, they refused to allow Simplified Chinese to be officially used. (This is more for political reasons) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;People who study classical Chinese literature will know simplified Chinese because Simplified Chinese evolved from XingShu and CaoShu styles. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;People who frequently go between Taiwan and Mainland obviously will know Simplified Chinese. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Importation of Mainland Literature definitely helps others to learn simplified Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2014-03-19T02:35:05.840" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T02:35:05.840" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6216" CreationDate="2014-03-16T06:31:31.150" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;既然你对汉语比较熟悉了。一别的意思是自上一次离别，不是所有的离别，就是指在上下文环境中的上一次离别。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3725" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T06:31:31.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6217" CreationDate="2014-03-16T08:16:54.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Is my understanding correct that the &quot;official&quot; Chinese language is the Mandarin?&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;Yup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;In other words, if someone studies Chinese as a foreign language, is he taught the Chinese Mandarin?&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;Depends on your definition of &quot;study&quot;. &#xA;(I'll come back to this in a second)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Moreover, are the languages spoken by people living in non-Mandarin areas of the &#xA;aforementioned map essentially the same of Mandarin, or are they very different?&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;According to the map that you posted, I would even go as far as saying those that live in the 'supposed' Mandarin speaking areas will not necessarily speak Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know plenty of people who have, basically, been living with the in-laws in &quot;Mandarin speaking areas&quot; but who have only ever learned dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw some mentions of writing systems aswell...and to be honest each place would most likely, originally, had their own writing system -- a lot of topolectical things people will tell you today &quot;this is only spoken -- we can't write it&quot; but that basically is an uneducated lie. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can have a read of this:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=5961&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=5961&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;here's a clip:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In my estimation, there is far too little genuine topolectal literature in China.  Throughout history, nearly everything has been written either in one or another style of Literary Sinitic (Classical Chinese) or in the national koine / lingua franca vernacular (currently known as Pǔtōnghuà 普通话 [in Mainland China] / Guóyǔ 国语 [in Taiwan] / Huáyǔ 华语 [in Southeast Asian countries]), i.e., Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I wish that there were vibrant, vital written forms for Hokkien, Shanghainese, Hakka, and many other varieties of Chinese, just as there are for Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya / Odiya, and so forth in India.  Considering the plethora of spoken languages in China, I believe that the development of corresponding written languages for at least the major varieties would lead to mutual enrichment and invigoration, including of the national language.  While there have been some sporadic efforts to write Taiwanese / Amoyese, a full-blown literary tradition has never developed for that language (see Sino-Platonic Papers #89, #92, and #172, as well as the works of Henning Klöter).  There have also been occasional efforts to incorporate a few words of the local language in so-called Shanghainese literature, but it usually amounts only to a sprinkling of Wu lexical items in what is basically a Mandarin matrix.  The situation for the other topolects is even less, with next to none or no written form at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is only in Cantonese that there has been anything approaching true topolectal writing.  I suspect that this has been possible mainly because of the special sociopolitical conditions that obtained while Hong Kong was a colony of the British Empire.  Whatever the reason, I am always pleased when I learn of evidence that written Cantonese is clinging to life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Consequently, I was delighted to learn about a recently published novel in written Cantonese, called naam4 jan4*2 m4 ho2 ji5 kung4 男人唔可以窮 (&quot;A man Ought not Be Poor&quot; or &quot;A Man Must not Be Poor&quot;).  It’s interesting that the book originated in a series of posts on the popular HK web forum HKGOLDEN (gou1 dang1 leon6 taan4 高登論壇), which is part of a computer information portal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=6501&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=6501&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After 1949 over the last few decades of British colonial rule, Cantonese was regarded as one more desirable/useful barrier separating HK from China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As a consequence, the British treated Cantonese with benign neglect which allowed it to develop naturally and without interference, and this is why it has been doing as well as it has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A couple of years ago the fact that only a handful of people showed up at a demonstration in support of Cantonese in HK shows that most HK speakers do not see it as being under imminent threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In Guangzhou people are told that &quot;civilized people speak Mandarin&quot; wénmíng rén shuō Pǔtōnghuà 文明人説普通話, which to me implies that uncivilized people speak &quot;dialects&quot; (topolects) such as Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some people hold the view there is only one kind of &quot;proper&quot; Chinese and that is standard written Chinese (i.e., Modern Standard Mandarin). The &quot;dialects&quot; (topolects) are nonstandard or substandard and hence unimportant and uninteresting — except to linguists and dialectologists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Here in HK I've encountered people who have told me that Cantonese cannot be written and should not be written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I once told students in a sociolinguistics class I was teaching some years ago that I thought written Cantonese should be standardized and promoted as another Chinese variety. One of the students who was from the mainland and a teacher of Chinese language in HK could barely suppress her outrage, telling me if that were done then written Cantonese would challenge and compete with standard written Chinese and such a situation could not be allowed or tolerated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But in reality written Cantonese and standard written Chinese have already been in competition in HK for some time, although not on a large scale, and Cantonese could in no way be said to challenge the pre-eminent position of standard written Chinese. The standardization of written Cantonese has been evolving for some time on its own informal, ad hoc basis, but so far this phenomenon hasn't received much attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A couple of observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The other day as I was riding down the escalator in a train station I saw the phrase 啱晒 ngaam1 saai3 'thoroughly correct, absolutely right', a thoroughly Cantonese expression, written in an advertisement. I assume northerners who don't speak Cantonese would find it completely meaningless, and for the time being that doesn't seem to matter to the advertiser who rented that space, but such an attitude will likely change before long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The other night at a linguistics conference dinner the man sitting on my left said he was from Chongqing and couldn't understand anything Cantonese speakers in HK were saying. Earlier in the day I had come across the word 萬字夾 maan6 zi6 gaap3/2 which was said to be the Cantonese word for 'paper clip' and equivalent to standard Chinese huíxíngzhēn 回形針 or huíwénzhēn 回纹针, so I showed him the Cantonese word and asked him if it meant anything to him. He said 'no'. I think it may be an old Cantonese word, since most of my Cantonese-Putonghua dictionaries published in HK haven't recorded it, although three other references have listed and defined it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2014-03-16T09:00:36.827" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T09:00:36.827" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6230" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-16T11:45:09.413" Score="4" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since 屌 means &quot;genitals&quot; and 丝 means &quot;hair&quot;, 屌丝 basically means &quot;pubes&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then Mandarin speaking audiences seem to accept and openly use this dirty word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What am I missing? If it's a dirty word like it seems to be why doesn't it get censored / bleeped out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-03-18T06:39:45.427" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T06:43:28.320" Title="屌丝&quot; seems to be a &quot;dirty word&quot; but also accepted and openly used. Am I missing something?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="23" ClosedDate="2014-03-18T07:08:23.437" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6230" CreationDate="2014-03-16T14:41:41.720" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To most people the origin of 屌 is not really &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KEY dictionary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. {TW usage} swagger, be cocky/brash; be imposing, be &quot;bad-ass&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cc c-edict&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. cool or extraordinary (colloquial)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Chou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jay Chou&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%91%A8%E6%9D%B0%E5%80%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;周杰伦&lt;/a&gt; always goes around saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;超屌&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Baidu there are even people who ask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;周杰伦总是说“超屌”,为什么这两个字被禁了呢?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why is Jay Chou's “超屌” always getting censored?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to most people 屌 just means cool...despite it's origin...and while others may think it &lt;em&gt;sounds&lt;/em&gt; vulgar they know that is certainly doesn't not mean genitals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as the origin goes this baidu user explains pretty well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;吊丝是早年李毅吧和三巨头吧互掐的时候三巨头用来骂毅丝的，之后被毅丝们用来自嘲，为什么会火，&#xA;那是因为李毅吧有内涵，号称百度卢浮宫 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;basically it was just a way for people to call Li Yi's fans on 贴吧...&#xA;丝 is from 粉丝 for &quot;fans&quot; and well 屌 you already know...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-03-18T06:43:28.320" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T06:43:28.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6233" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-17T02:35:08.057" Score="4" ViewCount="2991" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just talking about how the old Paul Simon song &lt;em&gt;Mother and Child Reunion&lt;/em&gt; was inspired by the name of a menu item he saw in a Chinese restaurant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wanted to know what the dish is and what its name is. Specifically I wanted to know if the Chinese name of the dish used a word/character for &amp;quot;reunion&amp;quot; or if that was just made up by whoever made the English translation of the menu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did some investigation and found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/motherchildreunion.asp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the actual story explained on Snopes&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Know where the words came from on that? You would never have guessed. I was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called &amp;quot;Mother and Child Reunion.&amp;quot; It's chicken and eggs. And I said, &amp;quot;Oh, I love that title. I gotta use that one.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simon wasn't pulling his interviewer's leg: chicken-and-egg dishes&#xA;known as &amp;quot;mother and child reunion&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;mother-daughter reunion&amp;quot; are not uncommon menu items at Chinese restaurants. According to the &amp;quot;New York Rock-N-Roll Trivia Map,&amp;quot; the specific eatery where Simon made this fortuitous culinary discovery was Say Eng Look Restaurant in New York City's Chinatown district.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Annoyingly, when I try to search further and find the actual Chinese name of the dish, I run into the typical western ignorance confusing all things Chinese and Japanese and can only find &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyakodon#See_also&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Japanese dish Oyakodon mentioned&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;strong&gt;what is the Chinese name for the chicken and egg dish?&lt;/strong&gt; Does it have the character for &amp;quot;reunion&amp;quot;? Is it even a famous/typical dish or just something invented by that one restaurant? Or is it a Chinese version of the Japanese dish? Or is the Japanese dish a version of the Chinese dish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway I'd like to know the &lt;strong&gt;Chinese word&lt;/strong&gt; for this, if it is indeed a typical Chinese dish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only after asking this question did I find out that the Japanese dish's name literally contains the characters for &amp;quot;parent and child&amp;quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A6%AA%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;親子&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. There could even be the possibility that the restaurant Paul Simon ate in served both Chinese and Japanese food?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T06:02:00.370" Title="Chinese name of a dish containing both chicken and egg?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6233" CreationDate="2014-03-17T04:04:27.980" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's just invented by that one restaurant (or some restaurant else before). It's something like paronomasia, and may be seen at some Chinese restaurant, but it's not a famous/typical dish in Chinese dishes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;親子丼 has nothing to do with the Paul Simon song. And 親子丼 is a famous/typical dish at Japan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: &quot;Mother and Child Reunion&quot; can be translated as &quot;母子重逢&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-17T05:41:13.957" LastActivityDate="2014-03-17T05:41:13.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6233" CreationDate="2014-03-17T07:33:09.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no standard Chinese name for the chicken and egg dish! you must know something about the Chinese food and its naming rule (actually there's no strict naming rules, just some conventions) to figure out what's going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese dish naming rule is that, to attract customers to order a certain dish, the restaurant owner will name the dish in an attractive way, you can name the dish, for example, &quot;Fried chicken with egg&quot;, that's totally no problem, but the result could be totally different, because that name is toooooo ordinary, it's far less to be attractive. So, &quot;Mother and Child Reunion&quot; is a good name, because it reflects the chicken and egg and at the same time it arouses customers' curiosities. You can name this dish whatever you like, and the same dish could have different names in different restaurants, that's why there's no Chinese name for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-17T07:33:09.863" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6233" CreationDate="2014-03-17T09:23:02.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was no 'chicken-and-egg dish' in  traditional chinese food at all, at least in my 27 years life in China I've never seen such dish in any chinese restaurant . As I know this is a Japanese dish called 親子丼 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4191" LastActivityDate="2014-03-17T09:23:02.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6233" CreationDate="2014-03-17T09:57:27.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this:&#xA;www.joyofkosher.com/recipes/mother-and-child-reunion-chicken-and-corn-egg-drop-soup/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Mother and Child Reunion (Chicken and Corn Egg Drop Soup)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then wikipedia:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;Egg drop soup (traditional: 蛋花湯; pinyin: dàn huā tāng; literally &quot;egg flower soup&quot;) is a Chinese soup of wispy beaten eggs in boiled chicken broth.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gives us:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;鸡蛋花汤&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=vnt7q2xujF5GZN5VDQWW9JzUBfrVYkJynmo52cv0nuR6VeMIf0wBQAZ5Xt4X90J4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=vnt7q2xujF5GZN5VDQWW9JzUBfrVYkJynmo52cv0nuR6VeMIf0wBQAZ5Xt4X90J4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the translation I'm not so sure about ... maybe it's got something to do with the fact &lt;code&gt;蛋花汤&lt;/code&gt; is sometimes called &lt;code&gt;木樨汤&lt;/code&gt; ... because &lt;code&gt;木樨&lt;/code&gt; can easily be confused with &lt;code&gt;母系&lt;/code&gt; meaning &quot;maternal&quot; but I don't really have anything to prove this at the moment just speculating....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-03-17T09:57:27.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6240" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-17T20:43:00.370" Score="21" ViewCount="10747" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering what do Chinese speakers do when they are reading aloud and encounter a character they don't know (sometimes it happens, isn't it?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In phonetic languages, there is a possibility to read an unknown word correctly, but in the ideographic ones you have no idea on the pronunciation. Meaning is also hard to guess, because that unknown word is likely to be a very narrow term. E.g. it's difficult to guess what the &lt;code&gt;bleak&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;anticlinorium&lt;/code&gt; are, even having the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the most common way for native Chinese speakers to read aloud unknown words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4195" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-03-18T18:43:06.077" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T15:56:24.100" Title="How do Chinese speakers pronounce unknown characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6241" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6242" CreationDate="2014-03-17T20:51:38.587" Score="6" ViewCount="423" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the website &lt;a href=&quot;http://learnchinesethrubible.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://learnchinesethrubible.org/&lt;/a&gt; I find the following&#xA;phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;seek and you will find&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寻 找 ， 就 寻 见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not understand the second &amp;quot;xún&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the dictionary &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.mdbg.net&lt;/a&gt; I cannot find an entry for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寻 见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, why is this second &amp;quot;xún&amp;quot; here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3889" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T00:09:38.197" Title="寻 找 ， 就 寻 见: I do not understand the second &quot;xún&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6241" CreationDate="2014-03-17T22:37:10.193" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found it!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is a grammatical construct called &quot;resultive complement&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;见 is the resultive complement for 寻. 寻 only means search and&#xA;寻 见 means &quot;successful search&quot; =&gt; &quot;find&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/result-complement-detail-explanation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/result-complement-detail-explanation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3889" LastActivityDate="2014-03-17T22:37:10.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6240" CreationDate="2014-03-18T02:23:06.023" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When encountering unknown characters, native speakers often refer to dictionaries, which have pinyin of the unknown character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it is hard to guess the exact pronunciation of unknown characters, there are a subset of Chinese characters, called phonogram(形声字), whose pronunciation is related to part of the character. For example, 蛛(spider) has the same pronunciation with 朱. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4200" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T02:23:06.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6241" CreationDate="2014-03-18T02:53:05.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is not a normal to express the meaning of &quot;seek and you will find&quot; at least not in simplified chinese. In traditional, might be. I think it should be &quot;xun zhao, ni jiang hui zhao dao&quot;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4202" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T02:53:05.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6247" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6248" CreationDate="2014-03-18T03:56:17.237" Score="3" ViewCount="1820" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried to find how to say &quot;peekaboo&quot; in chinsese when playing hide and seek.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I 've just found 门门! but I don't know it is corect or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you tell me how to say &quot;Peekaboo!&quot;  and &quot;Play hide and seek!&quot; in chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS It's a little game, often played with very little children to make them laugh. You cover the eyes or face of the baby and then you suddenly remove them and say &quot;peek-a-boo!&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say it to children. A child that was hidden and shows up in a sudden, can also say &quot;peek-a-boo!&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-03-18T04:19:46.787" LastActivityDate="2014-04-11T06:00:55.350" Title="How to say &quot;Peekaboo&quot; when playing hide and seek" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6247" CreationDate="2014-03-18T04:10:34.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems there's not a suitable Chinese name for the game 'Peekaboo'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Someone says its name should be 躲躲猫, but I'm not sure.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Anyway, if you just want to know what should be said when you show up in a sudden in the game, you can say any modal particles such as &quot;啊!&quot;, &quot;哈!&quot; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: In Chinese 捉迷藏 usually means a game played by several children. One child is selected, cover eyes and make a countdown, and the others hide themselves in the period of the countdown. And then the child selected try to find out all other children.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;捉迷藏 also can be said as 躲猫猫, 藏猫猫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-18T05:33:19.220" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T05:33:19.220" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6250" CreationDate="2014-03-18T05:29:37.323" Score="4" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;Had a look around in my dictionaries wondering if anyone has any input as to why a 秋千 is 秋＋千, what's the significance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-05-22T10:38:40.410" LastActivityDate="2014-05-22T10:38:40.410" Title="why 秋千? Where does the name come from?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6249" CreationDate="2014-03-18T06:15:21.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“秋千” in the acient times of China was written as &amp;quot;鞦韆&amp;quot;。——at that times, in order to pick up fruits from the high trees or patch up something higher, the old Chinese people usually binded themselves with ropes from animals'skins and it made themselves wave from one place to another. And now we use a common rope instead of skins, so “革” is removed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more please refer the Chinese version：&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=-K1jYYkd9ntkeyPNUAG_XEqO8iy6ROtIPGqLEt7YIylCs3L7TfGC4yqBzeE00f3WuVpqcBDCInSdwpGcRCQ5xa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;荡秋千的来历&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T06:26:20.637" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6216" CreationDate="2014-03-18T07:15:22.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“一别五六年”，或者“一别” 是什么意思？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“一别” means the time since we left from each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“一别五六年”：“五六”——we cannot translate it as the chinese characters as &quot;five&quot; or &quot;six&quot;, this just meeans for ages or long time. So the correct translation of “一别五六年” should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's been &lt;strong&gt;for ages&lt;/strong&gt; since we left from each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS：&lt;strong&gt;We Chinese usually use some numbers to describe something special, here the &quot;numbers&quot; aren't used for count.&lt;/strong&gt; Let's take some samples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)七上八下：(Pretty unsure because of being worried, meaning “六神无主”、“忐忑不安”)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)五颜六色：(very beautiful).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T07:15:22.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5956" CreationDate="2014-03-18T08:13:34.530" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;三长两短 refers to a coffin.&#xA;The lower part of the coffin is made of 3 long wooden board and 2 short wooden piece of board.&#xA;It is also referring to death or something very bad that related to life danger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other usage on non-living things, it refers to severe damage， unrecoverable malfunction or lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 我可以把手机借给你，但是万一它有什么三长两短，你可要赔一部新的给我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate: I can lend you my mobile, but if it is lost or damage, you have to replace it with a new one for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4206" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T08:13:34.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5892" CreationDate="2014-03-18T08:18:51.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;季 = Season&#xA;冬 = Winter, Cool&#xA;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4206" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T08:18:51.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6214" CreationDate="2014-03-18T08:44:59.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese is official Language in Hong Kong and Taiwan.&#xA;They read, write and print in Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4206" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T08:44:59.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6240" CreationDate="2014-03-18T09:28:32.843" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have asked this question before to native speakers, and their answer was the same as my natural intuition did in cases where I have read unknown characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most probable case is that the character is read with a similar pronunciation as one of its radicals. For example, many native Chinese speakers may not know with certainty how to pronounce the word 椛 (hua), but their best guess would be that it is pronounced as its radical 花 (hua1), or with another tone (hua2, hua3, or hua4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4208" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T09:28:32.843" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6258" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6259" CreationDate="2014-03-18T16:52:50.737" Score="3" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to get the meaning of the following expression: &lt;strong&gt;爱惜花草树木&lt;/strong&gt;. A Chinese friend told me that it's something like &quot;&lt;em&gt;It's so corny&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, but I'm having a hard time finding an explanation online. I've found a few Chinese websites but the explanation Chinese is way too hard for me :-/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4161" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-19T04:30:06.203" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T04:30:06.203" Title="Meaning of 爱惜花草树木" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6258" CreationDate="2014-03-18T17:23:21.323" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In simple terms it means to treasure nature. It literally means &quot;love and treasure flowers, grass, trees&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd generally find it on park signs so that it's a catch all for people not to trample on grass, to not pick flowers, wreck trees, that sort of thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4210" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T17:23:21.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6240" CreationDate="2014-03-19T01:52:16.433" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We will try to read the character using the phonetic component, get it wrong and get corrected by others, then move on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T01:52:16.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6214" CreationDate="2014-03-19T02:02:08.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;People in Hong Kong and Taiwan use Traditional Chinese officially, both in Handwriting and Documents, not just because it's aesthetically more beautiful, but also because Traditional Chinese retains the personality and original shape of words compared to the simplified version. Taiwan especially uses Traditional Chinese as an opposition to Mainland China's usage of Simplified Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, having gone through grade school with Simplified Chinese makes you appreciate Traditional Chinese because the simplification of words sometimes makes no sense until you see the original Traditional writings.  Eg. 愛 (Traditional) has the word 心 (Heart) in it versus 爱 (Simplified) which removes the heart. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The older generation would be better with Traditional because that's what they learned growing up. The younger generation probably love simpler things so Simplified would be the way to go. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in the debate between both : &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simplified_Chinese_characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But to answer your question, yes, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan officially uses Traditional Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T02:02:08.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6240" CreationDate="2014-03-19T02:19:21.930" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my favorite question so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can only guess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I don't know how to pronounce character 笪, what can I do? Well, I will pronounce as 旦(dan4). Is that correct? Maybe or maybe not.(Actually it is da2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me give you one more example, I don't know how to pronounce character 啝 so I will just pronounce 和(he2), and in this case, it's correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T02:19:21.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6263" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6292" CreationDate="2014-03-19T02:20:27.047" Score="6" ViewCount="539" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my beginning Chinese class, many students consistently pronounce tones incorrectly when answering questions aloud.  I realize this is expected of beginners, but I've noticed that it happens most frequently with the fourth tone, and even when the answer is a single syllable.  My teacher has noticed it too, and said this is surprising - he expects us to have more trouble with 2 and 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me (native English speaker), it sounds like my classmates are uptalking: They are not sure of the answer or the pronunciation, so they are answering with &quot;question intonation&quot; to solicit confirmation.  It stands to reason that the effect of this would be negligible on the first three tones, where high or rising intonation is actually correct.  But on the fourth tone, the error is clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For anyone unfamiliar, here is what Wikipedia has to say about &quot;uptalk&quot; or &quot;high rising terminal&quot;.  A Google search also returns plenty of media coverage and some research references.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is, does anyone have experience with this problem?  If you agree with my suspicions about the cause, can you suggest some strategies to address it?  Better yet, some examples or references that I might share with my teacher to help explain what's going on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would really like to help my classmates overcome this, as we've wasted a lot of class time on it already.  (Each time it happens, I desperately want to interject, &quot;are you asking me or telling me?&quot;, as my elementary school teachers used to do.)  My teacher's approach when a student makes this error is to have the class repeat various syllables in the fourth tone after him, over and over.  I haven't noticed that having much effect.  Uptalk is so pervasive now - my classmates also answer in English like this? - so I'm hoping to hear that this is a common problem with some established solutions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4211" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T17:14:59.937" Title="Strategies to discourage uptalk in Chinese language learners?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6264" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6266" CreationDate="2014-03-19T03:38:30.000" Score="4" ViewCount="1819" Body="&lt;p&gt;It probably doesn't. I tried searching but couldn't find one. &#xA;But would be great if it does! Would help me remember so many new words. I hope somebody has figured out a pedagogical role of that symbol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3963" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T09:18:20.320" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T09:18:20.320" Title="Does the beta like character (as in 陳, 附 and many more) in Chinese have a special meaning?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6264" CreationDate="2014-03-19T03:49:46.653" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, all radicals have meaning. The one you are talking about is 阝(fù) and called &quot;Radical 170&quot; (when used on the left, meaning mound or dam) or &quot;Radical 163&quot; (when used on the right, meaning city) while the Unicode dictionary says the radical means 'place'. Given the two examples you listed, it does relate to this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%98%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%98%9D&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_170&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_170&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_163&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_163&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T03:49:46.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6264" CreationDate="2014-03-19T03:51:23.547" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This radical is called the 双耳旁 or 双二刀, due to it looking somewhat like an ear or the 刀 character. There are actually two radicals depending on whether it's placed to the left or right: 左耳刀 if on the left, 右耳刀 if on the right. The two radicals have different origins and different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/457766.htm&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/457766.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The left version is derived from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/27/js/961C.htm&quot;&gt;阜 (fù)&lt;/a&gt; character, meaning &quot;mound&quot; or &quot;abundant&quot;. Characters with this radical are often related to mountains, hills etc, such as 陵 (hill), 险 (steep), 陆 (terrestrial).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right version is derived from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/26/js/9091.htm&quot;&gt;邑 (yì)&lt;/a&gt; character, meaning &quot;city&quot;. Characters with this radical are often related to cities or human settlements, such as 都 (capital), 郊 (suburb), 郡 (commandery).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T03:51:23.547" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6264" CreationDate="2014-03-19T05:17:26.237" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;That &quot;beta like&quot; symbol &quot;阝&quot; is a radical (部首) called &quot;阜&quot; in Chinese. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictogram&quot;&gt;pictogram&lt;/a&gt; (a very ancient form of Chinese character) of 阜 is &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ze4N2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aS0HU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; or &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AYGNj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; (source of images: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/lda/lda04401.htm&quot;&gt;中華民國教育部異體字字典&lt;/a&gt;). According to dictionary 說文解字 (compiled around the first century), &quot;阜&quot; means 小土山 (a mound or a hillock). So, the pictogram signifies a heap of gravel on the ground.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pictogram for the character 附 (&quot;attach&quot;) is &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2HKwQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; (source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E9%99%84&quot;&gt;Chinese Etymology&lt;/a&gt; &amp;lt;- a great site!), which is comprised of three parts: a mound &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ze4N2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; (i.e. the radical &quot;阝&quot;), a man &quot;亻&quot; and the character &quot;寸&quot; (&quot;an inch&quot;, but a Chinese inch, of course). So, it uses the picture of a person leaning close to a mound to mean &quot;attach&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pictogram for the surname 陳 is &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h26xy.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;. According to the dictionary 說文解字 again, the Chans got the surname 陳 because their ancestors initially resided in a place called 陳, and the major city in this place was 都於宛丘之側, i.e. next to a hillock named Yuan. That explains the radical &quot;阝&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T05:17:26.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6241" CreationDate="2014-03-19T05:48:39.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 尋見 is classical Chinese. It has two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ask to meet.&lt;/strong&gt; 隋唐兩朝志傳(1619): 郭孝恪...逕去邊塞， &lt;strong&gt;尋見&lt;/strong&gt; 西突厥曷沙那可汗。&quot;Guo went to the border and asked to meet West Turkic Khan (whose name was 曷沙那)&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Find (discover).&lt;/strong&gt; 西遊記(circa 1600): 容弟子去 &lt;strong&gt;尋見&lt;/strong&gt; 母親 &quot;allow me to find my mother&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the other answers or comments indicate, the word is no longer used in daily mainland Mandarin (i.e. Putonghua). Someone from Taiwan may answer whether this word is still used in Taiwanese Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T05:48:39.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6241" CreationDate="2014-03-19T06:56:02.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;寻见 means 找到(find), but we do not use this word anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当你寻见了世界上有一个人 when you find someone at this world&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T06:56:02.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6241" CreationDate="2014-03-19T07:39:05.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Matthew 7:7 马太福音 7:7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese Union Version 和合本 (Old version)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= 寻找，就寻见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contemporary Chinese Translation 现代中文译本 (New version)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= 寻找，就找到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should understand that Chinese language do not have rigid grammar structure like English. That's why it is very easy to make a poem in Chinese with the same number of words in each line. Something of the same meaning can be expressed with many different words, like 寻 and 找, both have the same meaning, but they are put together into a phrase 寻找 to make it sound nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寻找 = find&#xA;就 = then&#xA;找到 = found&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example, the English can be &quot;seek and you will find&quot;, or &quot;seek and it will be found&quot;, but either &quot;you&quot; or &quot;it&quot; are ignored in the Chinese version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4213" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T07:39:05.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6273" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6383" CreationDate="2014-03-19T09:41:03.873" Score="8" ViewCount="740" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couple years ago, I was at a Chinese(-American) gathering and the topic of 成语 came up. One of them was 三更半夜. My family is from Hangzhou, and previously I had always known of it as 深更半夜. On the other hand, someone from the northeast noted that she was accustomed to saying 三经半夜. After comparing among all of ourselves, it seemed that southerners tended to use 深更半夜 while northerners tended to use 三经半夜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a well-documented phenomenon? That is, is this actually a thing, or was our observation due to pure coincidence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4204" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-19T16:32:22.787" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:29:16.433" Title="Regional variations on 三更半夜" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6275" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6276" CreationDate="2014-03-19T10:58:31.687" Score="12" ViewCount="917" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;bo, po, mo, fo, wo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;duo, suo, luo, zuo, ruo, cuo, guo, huo, nuo, tuo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In each, the vowel is pronounced the same, but the creators of pinyin have chosen two different spellings.  It seems that the &lt;em&gt;u&lt;/em&gt; could be dropped from the second group without introducing ambiguity. So far, none of my Chinese friends have been able to convincingly explain this apparent inconsistency.  Why does it exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After some discussion, both here and with native speakers IRL, it seems that I might have been incorrect in my assumption that both groups' vowel sounds are pronounced exactly the same. See jogoloran's and j5shi's answers that suggest a very subtle difference that occurs naturally due to initial position of the lips.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4215" LastEditorUserId="4215" LastEditDate="2014-03-23T12:30:28.297" LastActivityDate="2014-03-23T12:30:28.297" Title="In pinyin, why is there an inconsistency between bo, po, suo, duo etc" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6275" CreationDate="2014-03-19T11:32:39.587" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the consonants in the first group are bilabials (articulated with the two lips).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason can't be phonemic, since there are no such Pinyin syllables *do, *so, *lo etc. -- as you correctly note Pinyin could be simplified by replacing all -uo syllables with -o.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I expect the reason for the spelling is perceptual -- from the perspective of phonetics, since the semi-vowel (the [w]) is a labial approximant, the glide is less noticeable when the consonant involved is bilabial to begin with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="390" LastEditDate="2014-03-19T11:38:14.760" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T11:38:14.760" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6277" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6279" CreationDate="2014-03-19T12:16:15.963" Score="5" ViewCount="866" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally I would say 加油. On my city's news page this morning, they asked 10 people how to say &quot;Go Syracuse (雪城)&quot;. There's a video of two men debating what to say, and then they say something like 雪城 __. I'm not sure what the other 2 words are. BiXue? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone tell me what the characters are?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this something more popular in China? In Taiwan, I always used 加油. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the link (it's in the middle and right at the end):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/03/what_does_lets_go_orange_sound_like_in_10_different_languages.html#incart_river_default&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/03/what_does_lets_go_orange_sound_like_in_10_different_languages.html#incart_river_default&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4216" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T15:04:57.547" Title="Say go team in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6278" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6299" CreationDate="2014-03-19T14:10:58.567" Score="2" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;加上本来就对空心怀反感的贵族们煽动之下，发生了示威游行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's from a translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation would be: Moreover originally the nobles that felt disgusted by Kong were stirring up under the situation, so they made a march.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 之下? Is it something like &quot;under the situation&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T13:35:37.147" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T13:35:37.147" Title="What does 之下 mean in 加上本来就对空心怀反感的贵族们煽动之下，发生了示威游行?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6277" CreationDate="2014-03-19T15:04:57.547" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;At Chinese mainland, we use 必胜 or 加油, they are both OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, no, there are no phrase more popular than those two phrases, at least in my experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T15:04:57.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1263" CreationDate="2014-03-19T20:24:10.510" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我只能简单地说一说。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“之前”是介词，“以前”是副词也是介词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在你不能断定该用“以前”还是“之前”地方，写上“过去”。能用“过去”的地方，就只能用“以前”，不能用“之前”。不能用“过去”的地方，就可以用“之前”也可以用“以前”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请看下面的例句：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对：以前，中国骑自行车的人很多。（可以改为“过去，中国骑自行车的人很多。”）&#xA;错：之前，中国起自行车的人很多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对：在出现汽车之前人们骑马。&#xA;对：在出现汽车以前人们骑马。（不能改为“在出现汽车过去人们骑马。”）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很遗憾，越来越多的说中文的人把“之前”当作“以前”用。It is very bad more and more Chinese people are using “之前” where they should use “以前”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4221" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T20:24:10.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6275" CreationDate="2014-03-20T01:43:54.377" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;what you asked is called compound finals, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1180804.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And your case (o -&gt; uo) is just one of the several cases, for example, a -&gt; ia,  e -&gt; ie, o -&gt; uo, a -&gt; ua.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has a slight difference in pronunciation, with compound finals, it sounds more smooth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T01:43:54.377" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6273" CreationDate="2014-03-20T02:27:54.423" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;三更 is a Chinese term which means midnight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;19—21时 戌时 一更&lt;br&gt;  21—23时 亥时 二更&lt;br&gt;  23— 1时 子时 三更&lt;br&gt;  1— 3时 丑时 四更&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3— 5时 寅时 五更&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can see, 三更 also means 深更. I think 更(jing1) or 深(sheng) is just dialect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-24T06:19:28.023" LastActivityDate="2014-03-24T06:19:28.023" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6199" CreationDate="2014-03-20T02:45:13.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;not an app but here is a good resource: &lt;a href=&quot;http://eword.ntpc.edu.tw/phrase.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://eword.ntpc.edu.tw/phrase.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i admire you're willingness to learn traditional characters. we call these 生字簿 (unknown character booklet) in taiwanese elementary schools, so it helps if you know 注音 (zhuyin, aka ㄅㄆㄇㄈ bopomofo), and the pages flow from right to left vertically for stupid political reasons so be prepared for smudges. unfortunately the site is designed for parents and teachers, so kinda unfriendly if you don't already read chinese, but the link above should contains all the links to the pdfs. start with 一年級 (first grade) then 二年級 and so on. it's a lot to go through and meant to take six years even for kids with they sponge like memory so take it slowly, have fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4222" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T02:45:13.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5741" CreationDate="2014-03-20T03:03:48.147" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;毛主席的小红书 The little red book of Chairman Mao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, we don't use 小红色的书.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But usually, we use 红色的书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那本红色的书 That red book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T03:03:48.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5896" CreationDate="2014-03-20T03:53:32.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;as a native speaker, i would almost always use 前面，後面，上面，下面，裡面，外面, but 左邊 and 右邊 for simple positioning. no why, they just sound right to my taiwanese ears and i guess you can use 邊 for all of them and it would sound more mainland-ish. even more general is 旁邊 (next to), which has no discernible direction. e.g. 我坐在他旁邊, 超市在加油站旁邊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as a side note, for 前後左右上下 ＋ 面/邊, there's no concept of inside or outside, so something like 火車前面 can mean both &quot;at the front of the train (inside)&quot; or &quot;in front of the train (outside and about to be hit!)&quot;. in practice it never really causes too much confusion because you can tell from context. e.g. 駕駛座在火車前面 or 有東西擋在火車前面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4222" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T03:53:32.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5741" CreationDate="2014-03-20T07:15:11.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the &quot;red&quot; describes the attribute of an object, you'd better suffix with “的” 比如 红色的椅子，红色的书. For some situation, it's a fixed phase, such as the red traffic light. 你只能说红灯. Red also has the implication of the things regarding to Mao Ze Dong and communism revolution, in this case, you don't use “的” after 红.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:52:39.640" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:52:39.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6275" CreationDate="2014-03-20T07:44:15.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also struggle with all of these kinds of strange inconsistencies in Pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your Chinese friends have trouble explaining it because they learned speaking before they learned Pinyin and Pinyin seems to have been designed to make sense that way at the cost of confusing adult second language learners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With many languages such as English the writing is based on the idea of having certain letters for certain sounds, wherever they occur in a word. And because Pinyin uses our alphabet we expect it to work that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chinese there's a different tradition based on syllables. Each syllable has a beginning sound and a final sound, also a medial sound. Some of these are optional so don't occur in every syllable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now there is actually greater variety in the sounds of these initials and finals, the sounds written with the same letters are often not quite the same, but they didn't want to have to use too many letters so decisions were made about which sounds would use the same letter and which would use different letters. There as more than one way to decide these things (linguists analyse the Chinese sounds typically three different ways), but Pinyin chose one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a native speaker all these sounds and combinations are already known and they just have to learn which letters to use for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for a nonnative who is already used to the Latin alphabet from their native language we expect certain letters to each have one sound all the time, but in Chinese they actually don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also explains a lot of bad foreigner pronunciations from people who learned Chinese with too much reading in pinyin and too little speaking with natives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to deal with it is to learn all the initial sounds, all the final sounds, and all the syllables made from them. But there a lot of them to learn! Way more than just learning the Pinyin letters, so it takes time and you first have to free your mind from your expectation of alphabetic spelling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(And of course English spelling is nothing like one letter for one sound either. I suppose it might be harder for people who know a language with much more phonetic spelling to learn Chinese Pinyin.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T07:44:15.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6216" CreationDate="2014-03-20T08:01:12.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一别 = 距离上一次分别已经 &#xA;省略了好多字~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T08:01:12.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6275" CreationDate="2014-03-20T12:07:52.340" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that Pinyin does this to conform to a former phonetic transcription system 注音符号, which drops u (ㄨ) before o (ㄛ) after b p m f.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;注音符号 was originally designed to reflect some old (perhaps not even real) phonetic rules and symbols like uo (ㄨㄛ) uan (ㄨㄢ) were used. However, in most Chinese dialects there's no contrast between rounded and unrounded vowels after b p m f. So they decided to remove all u (ㄨ) and yu (ㄩ) after b p m f to simplify this system. [1] In fact (u)o is the only rounded vowel that can appear after b p m f. [2]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another note: o (ㄛ) and e (ㄜ) are traditionally considered to be a rounded-unrounded pair, that's why 注音符号 deliberately chose similar symbols to represent them. In the Pinyin system, you will find “we” “o” are sometimes used interchangeably. e.g. weng = ong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://shang-you-ge.blogspot.com/2013/11/blog-post_11.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;聲韻學：為何ㄅ、ㄆ、ㄇ、ㄈ不能與ㄨ的結合韻相拼？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;民國10年（1921年）2月國語統一籌備會訂正、教育部公布之《教改國音字典》（商務印書館本）附〈修正《國音字典》之說明〉一文，云：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又如唇音各聲母與韻母拼合，原案根據韻書，有用開口呼之韻母者，有用合口呼之韻母者，如「剝」「駁」音「ㄅㄛ」，「撥」「鉢」音「ㄅㄨㄛ」；「煩」「繁」音「ㄈㄨㄢ」，「凡」「帆」音「ㄈㄢ」之類；編《字典》時，因唇音聲母本（巳）［已］合口，故遇原案中唇音與合口呼韻母拼合之字，除「ㄨ」韻以外一律改用開口呼韻母。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BC%80%E5%90%88#.E5.94.87.E9.9F.B3.E5.AD.97.E7.9A.84.E5.BC.80.E5.90.88&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;唇音字的开合&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因此，唇音字没有开合口的对立。赵元任《中古汉语的语音区别》和李荣《切韵音系》中都主张中古汉语唇音字不分开合口。虽然原则上没有对立，但是在开合口分韵而且原来的主要元音是央、后元音的韵部中，唇音声母后有一个介音。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这和现代汉语普通话的情况非常类似。其他位置的声母都有有无介音[u]的对立，如“单”和“端”、“甘”和“关”、“三”和“酸”、“詹”和“砖”、“安”和“湾”，只有唇音原则上没有不分开合的对立。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-21T12:14:50.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6263" CreationDate="2014-03-20T17:14:59.937" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In class, I can see that as a problem. I agree the best approach is the teacher asking them to repeat themselves again and again, particularly while doing reading. I could really feel the pressure so I knew I had to know exactly which tone it was, and then be definitive in what I said. There was a lot of 再說一次.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, once people are outside of class, I think it will be impossible to get around. In Taiwan, people just wouldn't understand me at all when I said a word like a question because I wasn't sure. And typically if I was definitive, the conversation would continue on normally with full (hopefully) understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4216" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T17:14:59.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6293" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6295" CreationDate="2014-03-20T19:08:10.930" Score="5" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I´m working with Chinese resumes and I´ve found this expression&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;工作详细情况&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I´d like to know if it could be translated as work experience. Is it the same thing? Could 工作详细情况 work as a work experience section label inside a resume or does it refer to the job responsibilities? Is it normal to come across 工作详细情况 in Chinese resumes as a Section Title?&#xA;Thanks!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4225" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-08T08:05:59.940" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T08:05:59.940" Title="Is 工作详细情况 similar to work experience?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6293" CreationDate="2014-03-20T19:46:23.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;工作详细情况 means work experience in detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For work experience, some people may just list their previous job titles only, like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2000年 － 2003年  在XX公司任人力部职员&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2004年 － 2009年  在YY公司任人力部主任&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2010年 － 至今    在ZZ公司任华北区总经理&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This looks too simplified, so in you resume, it is sepecified as 工作 &lt;strong&gt;详细情况&lt;/strong&gt; , which means you will need to describe what you did and what you achieved in each job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T19:46:23.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6293" CreationDate="2014-03-20T23:07:09.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes and No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it means work experience, but you will have to specify each job experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2004-2007 I worked as an HR manner and I ....(specify what you did as an HR manager )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T23:07:09.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6293" CreationDate="2014-03-21T05:58:12.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that &quot;工作经历&quot;, or less formally &quot;工作经验&quot;, would be more appropriate. Baidu has a sample of a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E7%AE%80%E5%8E%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;resume&lt;/a&gt; written in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;工作经历&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; 2000年5月至今： 担任某瓷器公司的市场部业务员。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  主要负责与经销商签定经销合同、办理产品的包装、运输、保险、货款结算、售后产品跟踪、市场反馈以及开拓新的销售渠道等。负责公司新业务员的培训，在实际工作中具体指导和协调业务员的销售工作，并多次受到公司的表扬。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1999年12月至2000年5月：在某公司做市场调查员。主要负责以电话形式向客户提取对产品的意见，并填写相应的表单转报给公司。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经验 translates directly to experience while 经历 refers to past experience. 工作情况 is usually taken to mean the conditions at work, while 工作详细情况 generally refers to the working conditions in detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, I would recommend that you use &quot;工作经历&quot; in the heading for your resume.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2014-03-21T05:58:12.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6240" CreationDate="2014-03-21T06:35:18.767" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;What we say is, 有边读边，没边读中间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes this becomes 有边读边，没边自己编！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;:-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4228" LastActivityDate="2014-03-21T06:35:18.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6240" CreationDate="2014-03-21T07:17:16.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is such a mish-mash of ideograms/pictograms and other grams that reading a new character is virtually impossible. But there are clues in the radicals but there are no clear rules the helpers embedded in there for meaning and sound - the best thing would be probably an educated guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider 紅 for example - the color red, the 工 present to the right is the &quot;phonetic helper&quot; - same goes for 空. Consider 東, 凍 the meaning here comes from the radical while the character helps with the sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there are the &quot;phoyinji&quot; (that's the approximate pronunciation of what my teacher told me) which is the same character pronounced differently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[This is the point where its totally legit to have a panic attack, but thankfully there aren't too many of these.] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that the language is constrained by the sounds that can be produces. Another interesting question would be &quot;What happens when a sound that is new is heard?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3963" LastActivityDate="2014-03-21T07:17:16.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6278" CreationDate="2014-03-21T09:25:51.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answering in context of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/revisions/6278/3&quot;&gt;this edit&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;In short&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, 之下 means &amp;quot;under (the situation of) ...&amp;quot;. A more common form is &amp;quot;在...之下&amp;quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在群众压力之下，他最後正式向公众道歉。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Under (the situation of) the pressure of the masses, he eventually made an official public apology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Additional info&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since some comments have doubt with the grammatical aspect of the sentence, I would like to explain more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 加上 indicates that something happened(有些事情发生了) in previous sentences alongside with the 贵族们煽动. To aid understanding the sentence easier let's try to omit the part 本来就对空心怀反感的 and add 有些事情发生了 at the start. The sentence becomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有些事情发生了。加上贵族们煽动之下，发生了示威游行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which can be translated to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under the situation of (something happened) and the stir-up of the nobles, a march ensued.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A comment suggested that the sentence should be rewritten to either:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;加上 (本来就对 空 心怀反感的) 贵族们煽动&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This rewrite removed the cause-effect relationship of the stir-up and the march, which diluted the meaning of the original sentence a bit.) or;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在 (本来就对 空 心怀反感的) 贵族们煽动 之下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rewrite broken the concurrent relationship of the &amp;quot;something happened&amp;quot; part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the two rewrites can actually be combined together to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加上 在(本来就对 空 心怀反感的) 贵族们煽动 之下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which retains both the meaning of 加上 and 之下.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, frankly speaking the grammar of this sentence is not very good, especially the ending part . For me, I would rewrite the whole sentence as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加上在本来就对空心怀反感的贵族们的煽动之下, 結果示威游行就爆发了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And by reading more of the original text, it seems that the author is just doing &amp;quot;literal&amp;quot; translations, without much care about the relationship between sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2832" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-21T09:25:51.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6300" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-21T11:24:54.610" Score="-2" ViewCount="2683" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am tired of searching and not finding any result. Please help me translate this symbol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LJje9.png&quot; alt=&quot;Chinese symbol&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4229" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-21T17:23:38.790" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T01:12:26.043" Title="What does this Chinese symbol mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-03-22T12:33:54.060" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6300" CreationDate="2014-03-21T12:48:07.190" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;That might be a rendering of 忠 zhong1, meaning ‘faithful, loyal, honest’.  This character consists of two parts, the radical 心 ‘heart’ and a phonetic element 中.  It seems that the writer has allowed the radical to snake up over the top in an unorthodox way.  That’s my guess anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2014-03-21T12:48:07.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6300" CreationDate="2014-03-21T14:03:03.200" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This means faithful of course. However the meaning one wants to express by writing this on his body (I bet you see this in tattoos) means &quot;I'm a tough guy and I'm in a gang&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's because loyalty has been regarded to be the most important virtue of gangsters. So a troop wrote this symbol on the body is a good one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4231" LastActivityDate="2014-03-21T14:03:03.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6303" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6306" CreationDate="2014-03-21T15:31:06.013" Score="3" ViewCount="743" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard name for moon cakes in Chinese is 月餅.  In Thailand they are called ขนมเปีย or roughly ‘khanom pia’.  The first element is a general word for baked goods, so the operative term is ‘pia’ with middle tone.  I recently learned that in Vietnamese they are called something similar – bánh pía, with the first element again meaning cake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering now if there is some alternative name for moon cakes that is the source of this ‘pia’ in Thai and Vietnamese.  It might come from some southern language like chaozhouhua, since the huaqiao communities in Southeast Asia mainly have their roots in the South.  Does anyone know?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-05-24T12:08:16.920" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T19:06:14.387" Title="Alternative name for moon cakes?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6300" CreationDate="2014-03-21T17:10:19.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It most resembles zhōng (see image below) however, a better rendering or a picture of the typed character is needed to be sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JWD8B.png&quot; alt=&quot;zhong&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-03-21T17:10:19.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6305" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6307" CreationDate="2014-03-21T17:30:17.327" Score="2" ViewCount="1737" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English culture, when someone is giving other a surprise, he/she can call out with voice 'surprise!'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an equivalent in Chinese culture? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-03-25T04:54:32.950" Title="Chinese equivalent of 'Surprise!'" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6303" CreationDate="2014-03-21T17:59:16.010" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1nh_p%C3%ADa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Wikipedia article on bánh pía&lt;/a&gt;, which cites &lt;a href=&quot;http://pwmf.blogspot.com/2005/12/bnh-bapa-triu-chu-theochew-pia-pastry.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this source&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;code&gt;pía&lt;/code&gt; comes from from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teochew_dialect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Teochew dialect&lt;/a&gt; (i.e., Chaozhouhua 潮州話):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Vietnamese name comes from the Theochew word for pastry, &quot;pia&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I wouldn't necessarily consider this source to be authoritative, I looked up the Teochew pronunciation of 餅 &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/ccr/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, and it is indeed &lt;code&gt;pĩã&lt;/code&gt; so the derivation is likely to be true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know the connection between the Vietnamese and Thai &quot;pia&quot;, but it's likely they're related too. It would seem then that the Vietnamese and Thai names both end up literally meaning &quot;pastry-pastry&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2014-03-21T17:59:16.010" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6305" CreationDate="2014-03-21T19:24:40.310" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't recall any Chinese expressions used in the same way as calling out with 'Surprise!' in English. I guess the reason might be that Chinese Culture doesn't make Chinese people as playful as English Culture making its people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say something different from 'surprise!' in similar cases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I bring a gift to a friend, before showing him/her the gift, I say: 猜我给你带来了什么？or 看我给你带来了什么？ Then show the gift, and after seeing his/her facial surprise expression, I say: 没想到吧？or 喜欢吗？He or she may say: 真没想到。or 我很喜欢。or 我太惊讶了！&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We plan to throw a party for a friend's birthday, and one person leads the friend to a room where everybody else is hiding. When they come in, all the hiding people jump out together and say: 生日快乐！&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In a classmates reunion party, we decide to invite the old flame of one of our classmates. Once that classmate arrives, we say to him/her: 你看谁来了？Then the old flame comes in to give him/her a surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At a performance audition, the judge is pleased with an actor's performance. The judge may say: 你的表演很不错，但是你知道，其他的表演者也非常优秀。我知道你非常热爱表演，所以不论今天你是否被录取，我希望你一直坚持下去，不要放弃。Now the actor probably thinks he will not be picked. Then the judge says: 恭喜你，你被录取了！The actor is definitely surprised.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2014-03-21T21:01:03.400" LastActivityDate="2014-03-21T21:01:03.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6308" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6309" CreationDate="2014-03-21T21:01:50.523" Score="9" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what this sentence means. My dictionary lists 以 as having an adverb-like function of indicating purpose or result so my best guess in translation would be &quot;A vassal intending to kill/having killed his lord, can this be called 仁?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this even remotely correct? Is there any way to disambiguate purpose and result without further context? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what is the relationship of this 以 to the other 以 in a sentence like 王以舟去國, &quot;The king left the state on a boat&quot;. Are they etymologically related or two different words pronounced similarly or unknown? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T18:54:28.420" Title="Use of 以 in 臣以弑君、可謂仁呼" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6308" CreationDate="2014-03-21T21:41:17.357" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I didn't realize that there were typos in the quotation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The original one should be &lt;s&gt;臣&lt;/s&gt; 以&lt;strong&gt;臣&lt;/strong&gt;弑君、可謂仁&lt;strong&gt;乎&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;s&gt;呼&lt;/s&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose 臣以弑君 might be an uncommon variant, but it is still grammatical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;臣&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;弑君 = &lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;臣弑君  killing his lord &lt;strong&gt;as&lt;/strong&gt; a vassal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以 is used as a preposition “as” but the word order is reversed, making it looks like a post-position. The sentence structure is similar to 以下犯上 and 以弱胜强&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;You can also think this 以 means “and”, so 臣以弑君 meaning “being a vassal but killing his lord”.&lt;/s&gt; &lt;em&gt;Although it's common to see 以 be used as “and”, I cannot think of any examples of using 以 as “but”. When I wrote this, I just thought 以 and 而 are sometimes interchangeable. e.g. 臣而弑君 sounds fine to me, which is similar to “人而不仁”, “人而无信”, “君而知礼” ... But 人以无信, etc. do not sound good.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think either interpretation doesn't make much difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以 originally meant  “take” or “use” and was later used as a preposition meaning “by”, “through”, “via”, “with” “because”, etc. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;王以舟去國 (by the way, where does this sentence come from?)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also common to put the object before it, e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;仁以為己任 = 以仁為己任, take 仁 as one's responsibility&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 何以 and 是以 almost never become 以何 and 以是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the object 是 (this) or 之 (it) does not appear at all, which makes 以 look like a conjunction meaning “in this way”, “because of this”, “in order to” or “then”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;溫故而知新，可以為師矣&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, the original meaning of 以 becomes totally lost and 以 becomes a pure conjunction meaning “and”, which is similar to 而.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;夫夷以近，則遊者眾；險以遠，則至者少。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastEditorUserId="4117" LastEditDate="2014-03-23T18:50:36.113" LastActivityDate="2014-03-23T18:50:36.113" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6300" CreationDate="2014-03-22T01:12:26.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means loyalty. And we often relate 忠 to 关二爷(Guan Yu), so you can see 忠 in many tattoos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the famous tattoos is perhaps Allen Iverson's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ivCh3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T01:12:26.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6016" CreationDate="2014-03-22T06:05:36.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should be translated to 有人 or 有的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Difference:&#xA;有人 is declarative sentence, no emotion, just someone.&#xA;有的人 has a kind of emotion, usually their attitude will be attached, a kind of that one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Statement of fact:&#xA;有人觉得饭菜不好吃，勉强吃一点，剩下的就都倒掉了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Own comment and judgment:&#xA;有的人！觉得饭菜稍微不合自己的胃口，就都倒掉！浪费可耻，这是什么行为？！现在还有几亿人忍受饥饿的煎熬，他们却这样不知珍惜和羞耻。谁知盘中餐，粒粒皆辛苦啊！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And:&#xA;有的人活着&#xA;他已经死了&#xA;有的人死了&#xA;他还活着&#xA;……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3725" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T06:05:36.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6313" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6314" CreationDate="2014-03-22T12:59:40.647" Score="3" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;As part of my immersion process I am studying Chinese lyrics of songs that I like. Many times I find Chinese phrases that I understand all of the words but none of the context. In this case 大河向东流哇 seems to describe a great river flows eastward. The final word threw me for a loop and so I wanted to ask whether how that word affects the overall sentence? What is the implied emphasis being added (if any) or am I misunderstanding the interpretation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My local MacOSX dictionaries tell me that 哇 (wā) is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;哇 (Simplified/Traditional)&#xA;| wā |&#xA;sound of child's crying&#xA;&#xA;哇 wā&#xA;拟声模拟呕吐、哭等的声音。&#xA;哇的一声吐了出来 | 小孩子哇 哇地哭。&#xA;另见 wa。&#xA;哇 wa&#xA;助“啊（a）”受前一个字韵母u、ao、ou 的影响产生音变而采用的不同写法。&#xA;你让我找得好苦（kǔ）哇 | 这样多好（hǎo）哇 | 快走（zǒu）哇。&#xA;另见 wā。&#xA;&#xA;wā&#xA;哇&#xA;&#xA;Wow!; sound of child's crying; sound of vomiting&#xA;哇&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW - This line is from the following song/artist:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歌名:   好汉歌&lt;br&gt;&#xA;演唱:   刘   欢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T22:52:21.413" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T22:52:21.413" Title="How does 哇 affect the meaning of 大河向东流哇?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6313" CreationDate="2014-03-22T14:23:08.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does not change the sentence meaning. 哇,啊,呀, those words are always just for emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大河向东流哇=大河向东流啊=大河向东流.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T14:23:08.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-22T15:56:49.997" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Software Tools&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use MacOSX 10.9.2 and one free tool that I've discovered is a Chinese language system voice that can speak Beijing Mandarin, Taiwan Mandarin, or Cantonese. I use this tool to listen to any highlighted Chinese text on my computer or the web. Although translate.google.com also supports speech, the site will sometimes translate improperly so I find it better to use Google+ and sites like this one to review posts from Chinese language users (this helps me assess good contextual phrases). Okay so back to using the tool, please follow these instructions to enable Chinese language speaking on MacOSX 10.9+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Navigate to System Preferences &gt; Dictation &amp;amp; Speech&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select the Text to Speech tab&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VdlYU.png&quot; alt=&quot;Text-to-Speech&quot;&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select the System voice popup button&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xQE0B.png&quot; alt=&quot;Popup&quot;&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select Customize... (at the bottom of the list of voices)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Search &quot;chin&quot; (no quotes)&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IHWJC.png&quot; alt=&quot;Search&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Select all of the available Chinese voices (Sin-ji speaks Cantonese,&#xA;Ting-Ting speaks Beijing Mandarin, Mei-jia speaks Taiwanese&#xA;Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After you click OK; Change the System Voice to the appropriate Chinese dialect you want using the voice names described in step #7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Safari and elsewhere, use the default context menu on highlighted&#xA;Chinese text and system will speak in the current Chinese dialect&#xA;selected&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple Automator Service&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can take this a step further by creating a set of automator services that will speak in any language you desire. To set this up is very easy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Complete the steps from the first eight steps above (adding as many&#xA;speaking voices in different languages that you'd like)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open Automator (comes standard with MacOSX 10.9+ and can be found by typing in Spotlight)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click New Document&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Choose Service as the document type&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ayLif.png&quot; alt=&quot;Service Type&quot;&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Search for Speak Text Action&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R3zif.png&quot; alt=&quot;Search Speak Text&quot;&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Drag the Speak Text Action to your workflow&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Z8PA.png&quot; alt=&quot;Drag Speak Text&quot;&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Save your new service to a name like Speak Beijing Mandarin &#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9jMiL.png&quot; alt=&quot;SaveAs&quot;&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your new service will be available when you highlight a piece of text and right click the selected text. A sub menu with the language Services is available at the bottom of the context menu.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aO9Te.png&quot; alt=&quot;Services-SubMenu&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NB&lt;/strong&gt;: If the highlighted text is not English the voice will speak the language used by the service (otherwise it will speak English) and mixed language will speak both English and the foreign language where appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oa8K2.png&quot; alt=&quot;Service Menu&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bonus&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may want to try adding a keyboard shortcut to the Services you've created above. To do this you can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Navigate to System Preferences &gt; Keyboard&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select Shortcuts Tab&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select Services on the left side&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LZPxJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;Services-Tab&quot;&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Double-click into the add shortcut area next to the spot where you&#xA;see your service (this may also have the word &quot;none&quot; shown)&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QPndk.png&quot; alt=&quot;Service-Shortcuts&quot;&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Type a hot-key combinations that you want to use&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will want to confirm that your hot-keys speak when you have some&#xA;    highlighted text in the dialect/language that you desire. Different applications may use the same hot-keys. In any case if your text is highlighted then these services should always be available in the service menu of the app.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-03-22T16:07:39.820" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T16:07:39.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6317" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-22T17:45:51.317" Score="0" ViewCount="1017" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to either say last year I moved to Leeds or last year I started studying at Leeds University.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4238" LastActivityDate="2014-03-25T04:28:25.697" Title="How to say 'moved to [place]' or 'enrolled at [place]" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-04-22T15:04:44.000" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6317" CreationDate="2014-03-22T21:23:45.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;去年 (last year) 我 (I) 搬 (moved) 到 (to) ... (name of place)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qùnián wǒ bān dào ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去年 (last year) 我 (I) 开始 (started) 在 (at) ... (name of university) 读书 (study)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qùnián wǒ kāishǐ zài ... dúshū&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去年 (last year) 我 (I) 被 (by) ....(name of university) 录取 (enrolled) 了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qùnián wǒ bèi ... lùqǔle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4239" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T21:23:45.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6317" CreationDate="2014-03-23T05:12:35.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on OP's question, it should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去年搬到了利兹大学.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去年开始在利兹大学念书.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-03-23T23:14:36.613" LastActivityDate="2014-03-23T23:14:36.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6322" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6336" CreationDate="2014-03-23T11:14:39.417" Score="4" ViewCount="821" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which word should I use for &quot;spoon&quot;, as a noun or as a measure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4161" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-23T16:59:31.610" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T12:08:17.570" Title="What is the difference between 勺子 and 调羹?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6322" CreationDate="2014-03-23T12:10:48.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be 勺子 (or just 勺 as a measure).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;调羹 has similar meaning with 勺子, but is partial to the spoon used for eat soup.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And 调羹 usually used in southern dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-03-23T12:10:48.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6308" CreationDate="2014-03-23T13:20:49.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, the sentence is incorrect, although your translation is correct. I don't know whether it's a typo or that you read it from an inaccurate source. But the correct version is &quot;以臣弑君、可謂仁乎&quot;, as you can find &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/256577.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the correct sentence, I disagree with Yang Muye here. First, “以” doesn't have a meaning equal to &quot;but&quot;. Refer to dictionaries of ancient Chinese to verify this fact. The meaning of “以” here, in my opinion, can be roughly translated to &quot;as&quot;, &quot;with the identity of&quot;, as an extension of its original meaning &quot;using&quot;, &quot;with the help of&quot;. It's more or less same as “王以舟去国”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second the original sentence &lt;em&gt;certainly&lt;/em&gt; doesn't mean the same as &quot;以下犯上 and 以弱胜强&quot;. “以下犯上” means &quot;revolting against your superiors.&quot;, while not necessarily between vassal and lords. “以弱胜强” is even more totally different. It means &quot;winning with ostensibly lesser power&quot;, for example if you win a war with 5k soldiers against 50k soldiers, then it's “以弱胜强”. It's a positive word, while the previous two are mostly with negative connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.: I don't really think &quot;君臣“ can be translated as &quot;vassal&quot; and &quot;lord&quot;. There is hardly a western equivalent for this concept, though a more or less more appropriate one would be &quot;king&quot; and &quot;chancellor&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the usage of this kind of auxiliary verbs like “以” is extremely diffuse. It has 18 meanings in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4EE5.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; dictionary. Many auxiliary words in ancient Chinese just don't have concrete meanings. It happens a lot. Don't let such words get into your understanding of articles. If you can make sense of what's going on, just don't tangle on specific words. It's fine. We had to identify specific words in our high school Chinese to an unhealthy extent, which is quite a waste of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastEditorUserId="4241" LastEditDate="2014-03-23T13:26:27.303" LastActivityDate="2014-03-23T13:26:27.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6325" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-23T13:51:29.903" Score="13" ViewCount="1276" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not mean to cause offence with this question; I ask only to potentially become better acquainted with Chinese vernacular, and, I must admit, a little out of curiosity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A politically incorrect and borderline racist way for an English speaker to stereotype the sound of spoken Chinese is &quot;ching chong ching chong&quot; or variant thereof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do the Chinese have an equivalent standard gibberish for impersonating English speakers or other westerners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4215" LastEditorUserId="4215" LastEditDate="2014-12-05T19:55:03.147" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T09:26:57.590" Title="Do the Chinese have a (potentially politically incorrect) way of imitating English speakers?" Tags="&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6329" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6332" CreationDate="2014-03-24T07:27:03.897" Score="5" ViewCount="1005" Body="&lt;p&gt;I still have difficulty to identify tones when I listen to Chinese. Moreover I have difficulty in saying second tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you guys advice me some way to improve my tone? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4243" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T11:48:13.813" Title="What is the best way to learn tones?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2014-03-24T17:15:34.047" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of the answers involve SRS, rote and methods. I use Anki. I have thousands of words in my deck. I've tried rote. They work but they're mind numbingly boring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my take. &lt;strong&gt;Read&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;Read a lot&lt;/strong&gt;. What's the use of memorizing if you're going to spend so much time memorizing, no practical usage? Read things you're interested in. Not just from books, but from anything you can get your hands on. online news, Twitter, Weibo, blogs, print books, movie/tv subtitles, video newscasts that have transcriptions available, commercials with transcriptions available. This way you're taking in info you're for the most part interested in too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is probably a wealth of reading material out there of things you are interested in and tools today - popup translation and handwriting recognition make it way easier compared to pre-computer days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="3063" LastEditDate="2014-06-13T12:53:04.443" LastActivityDate="2014-06-13T12:53:04.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6329" CreationDate="2014-03-24T23:14:24.097" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the 5 tones in Mandarin exist in English already, but not used in the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1st tone:&lt;/strong&gt;  I am a &lt;strong&gt;STUUUUU&lt;/strong&gt;-dent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you read this sentence in the normal way, the syllable &lt;strong&gt;STUUUUU&lt;/strong&gt; carries the first tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2nd tone:&lt;/strong&gt;  Are you a stu-&lt;strong&gt;DENT?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we ask a yes-no question in English, we need to raise the last syllable of the sentence. The syllable of &lt;strong&gt;DENT?&lt;/strong&gt; carries the 2nd tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3rd tone:&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your friend tells you an unusual story, and you are surprised, and you ask in surprise: &lt;strong&gt;REA&lt;/strong&gt;-ly? in the way that the syllable of &lt;strong&gt;REA&lt;/strong&gt; goes down, and the syllable of &lt;strong&gt;ly&lt;/strong&gt; goes up. In this case, the syllable of &lt;strong&gt;REA&lt;/strong&gt; carries the 3rd tone, and &lt;strong&gt;ly&lt;/strong&gt; carries the 2nd tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4th tone:&lt;/strong&gt; pay lay day lie pie tie buy my high (Those words, when read alone, carry the 4th tone.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example: you accidently hit yourself on a corner of a table, it really hurts, right? So what do you say? You say: &lt;strong&gt;Ouch!&lt;/strong&gt;, which carries the 4th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5th tone (the neutral tone):&lt;/strong&gt; Go &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;-head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The schwa &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; carries the 5th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See this video for the tones: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZB9-vZFesk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mandarin Made Easy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my Mandarin teaching experience, I think mastering the 4 tones individually is easy for English speakers, but consciously applying the tones on each syllable in Mandarin is very challenging for English speakers, because tones are not used in English in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can practise tones by reading the following sentences aloud. You may have already noticed that all characters in each sentence have the same tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1st tone:&lt;/strong&gt;  今天三家三星分公司开张。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2nd tone:&lt;/strong&gt;  德国游人年年来长城游玩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3rd tone:&lt;/strong&gt;  祖母总给予我理解与鼓舞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4th tone:&lt;/strong&gt;  第二次世界大战正在迫近。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can read aloud those sentences correctly without any hesitation, then you know you have won the battle with tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T17:26:50.240" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T17:26:50.240" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6317" CreationDate="2014-03-25T04:28:25.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;last year I moved to Leeds.&#xA;去年我搬到了利兹居住。&#xA;&#xA;last year I started studying at Leeds University.&#xA;我从去年开始进入利兹大学念书。&#xA;&#xA;'moved to [place]'&#xA;搬 到 [place]&#xA;&#xA;'enrolled at [place]&#xA;进入/参加/录取 到 [place], 录取：get admitted to the University.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-25T04:28:25.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6305" CreationDate="2014-03-25T04:33:09.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many of them will actually use the English word, as weird as that sounds. This is true mostly with younger and more educated Chinese people. Here is a video of it actually being used in a very natural setting. Skip to 3:58. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqUpsXF4Yu8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqUpsXF4Yu8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4250" LastActivityDate="2014-03-25T04:33:09.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6322" CreationDate="2014-03-25T04:47:19.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;form the function point of view, 勺子, 瓢 and 调羹 are the same, they are a sort of object used to get water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from the use cases point of view, 瓢 is used to get water only and not suitable to be appear on a table since it's too large, and 勺子 is used to get soup, 调羹 is used to get whatever food in your bowl. so typically in size 瓢 &gt; 勺子 &gt; 调羹, BUT, there's no limitation that you must use 勺子 to get soup, it's just the table manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, 瓢 originally stands for an tool made of very old calabash which is used to get water. when a calabash gets old, it will be very hard, so people cut it in the middle and a calabash  becomes two 瓢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-25T04:47:19.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6339" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6382" CreationDate="2014-03-25T09:25:42.167" Score="6" ViewCount="336" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Japanese, there's a set of 48 characters called katakana that is often used for transliterating words of European origin. (This is a slight simplification - katakana is used for other purposes as well, and there's some European words that don't use katakana)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a subset of characters in Chinese (especially traditional Chinese, as I'm planning to go to Taiwan) that's used for transliterating words of European origin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastEditorUserId="200" LastEditDate="2014-03-25T21:44:04.573" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T10:32:57.367" Title="Is there a limited character set for European loanwords?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6339" CreationDate="2014-03-25T09:41:17.147" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There're no such character set like Japanese &lt;code&gt;katakana&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;kana&lt;/code&gt; is a kind of phonography, but in Chinese only select similarly pronounced &lt;code&gt;Hanzi(汉字)&lt;/code&gt; to transliterate loanword. Such as &lt;code&gt;沙发(sofa)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there're some commonly used idiom for special English pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-03-25T09:41:17.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6339" CreationDate="2014-03-25T10:46:11.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pretty much what @songyuanyao said, though, you will find some words in the dictionary that are marked (or defined I guess I should say) as &quot;used in transliteration&quot;&#xA;like:哌、吖、叭...etc etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-03-25T10:46:11.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6342" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6343" CreationDate="2014-03-26T00:28:24.500" Score="4" ViewCount="686" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend has asked me how to translate a sign asking people using a bathroom (toilet) at the tourist attraction where she works. She wants to ask that they do not to throw toilet paper in the wastebin/basket but instead to put it in the toilet bowl (and flush).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not good at formal Chinese, but I've done a little research and have come up with this as a suggestion. Could you let me know if it's OK?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请勿将卫生纸入篓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卫生纸应扔进马桶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4255" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T09:36:06.610" Title="How do I word a polite notice about toilets in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6342" CreationDate="2014-03-26T00:44:52.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Written pretty well, I would just suggest switching the order...first sentence last, last sentence first &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T00:44:52.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6342" CreationDate="2014-03-26T01:25:57.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's OK mainly, unless missing &quot;to flush&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as a suggestion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请将卫生纸扔进马桶并冲掉&lt;br&gt;&#xA;请勿扔进纸篓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T01:25:57.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6329" CreationDate="2014-03-26T03:27:03.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;John Pasden, a linguist you may be familiar with if you use ChinesePod, has developed a system for learning tones called &quot;Mandarin Chinese tone-pair drills.&quot; The program he developed costs money and is probably easier to use than anything else, but there is no reason why you could not simply practice all of the different tone combinations in pairs of two on your own. Here is the link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sinosplice.com/learn-chinese/tone-pair-drills&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.sinosplice.com/learn-chinese/tone-pair-drills&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading aloud or reciting memorized phrases helps quite a bit not only for tones, but all aspects of pronunciation. Record yourself if necessary. Be aware of what kind of language you are using. It is beneficial to recite informal spoken Chinese as well as more formal language.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4250" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T03:27:03.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6329" CreationDate="2014-03-26T06:32:07.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The method that worked best for me was recording myself reading something and then comparing that with a native speaker.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They actually sell &quot;language learning&quot; CD players/tape recorders that play a recording, and when you hit a button, record a few seconds of your speech, then play you and the last few seconds of the recording back. I used this system and worked through the language tapes that came with my 口语 texts. It's a very slow process at first--it can take half an hour to get a few sentences right--but if you stick with it, your tones and pronunciation will make amazing progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a link to the sort of tape recorder I used.  They're common in China but I've never seen them in the US.  There's probably software that does the same thing out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/tape-recorder-for-language-learning_1498282025.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/tape-recorder-for-language-learning_1498282025.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4257" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T06:32:07.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6347" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6371" CreationDate="2014-03-26T08:42:13.613" Score="1" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently encountered: 除非，你堅持躲在潮濕的甲殼裡更快樂。in an email.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context is that the writer was telling me to cheer up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can recognize some of these words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to start off with &quot;unless you persist&quot;, but beyond that I'm not very sure what to make of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Unless you persist in making yourself sad, you will become more cheerful&quot; is one guess, but I can't make that out of the remaining words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Unless you persist in trying to be happy, you can't hope to be happy&quot; would be another reasonable guess, but again I don't see how to get that from the remaining words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's quite possible that both of the above guesses are completely misguided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3499" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T13:38:31.247" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T19:14:29.600" Title="What is the grammar of : 除非，你堅持躲在潮濕的甲殼裡更快樂。" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6347" CreationDate="2014-03-26T09:21:30.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My thinking of meaning of this sentence is &quot;Don't insist to stay in the shell unless you feel more happy with that&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4258" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T09:21:30.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6342" CreationDate="2014-03-26T09:36:06.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My recommend are &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese - &quot;使用過衛生紙請直接沖入馬桶&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese - &quot;使用过厕纸请直接冲入马桶&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4258" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T09:36:06.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6347" CreationDate="2014-03-26T09:44:09.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Unless you insist that hiding in the moist carapace is happier.&quot;  &#xA;&quot;除非    你  堅持        躲      在     潮濕的 甲殼(裡)     更快樂。&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think what the writer want to tell you is not to escape, just let the life go on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T09:52:38.960" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T09:52:38.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6325" CreationDate="2014-03-26T09:46:21.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe it is difficult for English speakers to learn the four tones of Mandarin. &#xA;When you read Chinese characters in a sentence all with a high level tone or falling tone, it sounds like a foreigner who has not mastered oral Mandarin. This phenomenon of imitating foreigners' accents always occurs in Chinese films and TV series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3003" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T09:46:21.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6352" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-26T10:00:13.403" Score="11" ViewCount="2117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just stumbled across a new phrase 无消息。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the first time I've encountered 无.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How it is used, and how it is different from 没有，as in 没有消息？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T15:18:44.270" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T18:07:45.860" Title="Usage of 无 compared with 没有" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6353" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6355" CreationDate="2014-03-26T10:55:12.737" Score="1" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi I'm trying to figure out what the lyrics of mean of 思 念.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last sentence is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又把聚会当做一次分手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the grammar is a tad difficult and I'm struggling to make sense of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My interpretations:&#xA;Again, treat our meeting as goodbye?&#xA;As soon as we met again, it's goodbye?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain it to me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T15:18:36.030" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T23:23:38.380" Title="Meaning of 又把聚会当做一次分手" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6354" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-26T11:08:58.780" Score="5" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok so firstly I take the sentence as a whole to mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The missing is accumulating in my heart (i.e. I'm missing you more and more).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Provided I've got that correct, what function does 只 perform here. Is it superfluous and just added as emphasis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is from the lyrics of 思想&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's at all relevant the preceding line is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为何你一去便无消息 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只把思念积压在我心头 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T15:18:41.503" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T18:35:29.673" Title="Meaning of 只 in 只把思念积压在我心头" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6353" CreationDate="2014-03-26T12:26:07.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your interpretations is quite right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lyrics means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Even though we met again, but soon we separate again.&#xA;It should be treated as a goodbye, rather than a meeting.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T12:32:40.177" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T12:32:40.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6354" CreationDate="2014-03-26T13:18:55.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning of &quot;只&quot; is only.&#xA;only the thought in my mind backlog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4259" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T13:18:55.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6352" CreationDate="2014-03-26T17:34:56.793" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is hard to give a rule on using 无 vs 没有， even they mean the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Only 无 is used:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无所谓 （We don't say 没有所谓, but some people say 没所谓）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无线电 （We don't say 没有线电）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无论如何 （We don't say 没有论如何）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无性繁殖 （We don't say 没有性繁殖）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Only 没有 is used:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没有钱 （We don't say 我无钱）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你没有失败 （We don't say 你无失败）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Both can be used:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没有&lt;/strong&gt; 消息就是好消息。 or &lt;strong&gt;无&lt;/strong&gt; 消息就是好消息。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没有&lt;/strong&gt; 人能猜出这个谜语。 or &lt;strong&gt;无&lt;/strong&gt; 人能猜出这个谜语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there are still some clues on using 无 vs 没有.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;无 is more like '&lt;strong&gt;non-&lt;/strong&gt;' or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;un-&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;in English, and 无 is used in some Idioms or fixed phrases, like 无所谓, 无论如何, 无土栽培, 无独有偶, 无恶不作 etc. In those words, we don't use 没有.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When 没有 is used for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in English to negate something, 没有 can NOT be replaced with 无. For example, 他没有做完作业. We don't say 他无做完作业.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When 没有 is used for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;without&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in English, it can be replaced with 无. But I am not sure if it is always true. For example, 无人喝彩. We can say 没有人喝彩. But if used as a tile of a book, a story, or a movie, 无人喝彩 is better, but using 没有人喝彩 is also ok.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T22:03:53.580" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T22:03:53.580" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6358" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-26T22:01:09.573" Score="-7" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know where to get a list of US universities in both chinese and english?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3998" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T22:38:15.307" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T22:38:15.307" Title="List of US universities in English and Chinese" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2014-03-28T01:18:59.593" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6354" CreationDate="2014-03-26T23:21:36.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here, I thinks 只 is short for 只能, so it actually means &lt;em&gt;since you leave without a message&lt;/em&gt;, 我只能把思念压在我心头.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T23:21:36.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6353" CreationDate="2014-03-26T23:23:38.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means, 尽管你同意和我见面,但是你和我一见面之后就要分手(Although you wish to see me again, but as soon as our meeting is over, you coldly leave me without a message).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T23:23:38.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6347" CreationDate="2014-03-26T23:26:44.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潮濕=moistly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甲殼=shell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;快樂=happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you can understand the sentence now, it means &lt;em&gt;unless you insist that hiding in a moistly shell is more happy.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T23:26:44.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6273" CreationDate="2014-03-26T23:55:52.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The same way how Americans pronunciate &quot;our&quot; like &quot;R&quot; when it should be pronunciate as &quot;hour&quot;, your friend perhaps was using regional dialect to pronunciate &quot;更&quot; as 经.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I disagree with all explainations above. Both 深更半夜 and 三更半夜 are idioms although they have the exact same meaning, they are not dialect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T23:55:52.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6354" CreationDate="2014-03-27T01:27:22.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ave's answer is incorrect.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;只 is short for 只能&quot; is normally correct. But here 只 is short for 只是.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我只能把思念压在我心头&quot; is again, a normally correct interpretation. But here you need to put it in context. it means &quot;你只是把思念压在我心头&quot;. YOU, not I.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;为何你一去便无消息&lt;br&gt;&#xA;只把思念积压在我心头  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to interpret these two sentences together. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4264" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T01:27:22.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6358" CreationDate="2014-03-27T02:26:09.027" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;just can list some famous universities as below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Adelphi University 亞狄非大學&#xA;2. American University 美國大學&#xA;3. Arizona State University 亞利桑那州立大學&#xA;4. Andrews University 安德魯斯大學&#xA;5. Boston University 波士頓大學&#xA;6. Biola University 比奧拉大學&#xA;7. Baylor University 貝勒大學&#xA;8. Ball State University 鮑爾州立大學&#xA;9. Duke University 杜克大學&#xA;10. Drexel University 德雷塞爾大學&#xA;11. DePaul University 德寶大學&#xA;12. Colorado State University 科羅拉多州立大學&#xA;13. Colorado School of Mines 科羅拉多礦學院&#xA;14. College of William and Mary 威廉與瑪麗學院&#xA;15. Cleveland State University 克利夫蘭州立大學&#xA;16. Clemson University 克萊姆森大學&#xA;17. Clarkson University 克拉遜大學&#xA;18. Clark University 克拉克大學&#xA;19. Carnegie-Mellon University 卡內基美隆大學&#xA;20. Brown University 布朗大學&#xA;21. Brigham Young University 楊百翰大學&#xA;22. Brandeis University 布蘭迪斯大學&#xA;23. Bowling Green State University 鮑靈格林大學&#xA;24. Duquesne University 迪尤肯大學&#xA;25. Emory University 艾摩雷大學&#xA;26. Florida Atlantic University 佛羅里達大西洋大學&#xA;27. Florida Institute of Technology 佛羅里達科技大學&#xA;28. Florida International University 佛州國際大學&#xA;29. Florida State University 佛羅里達州立大學&#xA;30. George Mason University 喬治梅森大學&#xA;31. George Washington University 喬治華盛頓大學&#xA;32. Georgetown University 喬治敦大學&#xA;33. Georgia State University 佐治亞州立大學&#xA;34. Howard University 霍華德大學&#xA;35. Idaho State University 愛達荷州立大學&#xA;36. Illinois State University 伊利諾州立大學&#xA;37. Illionis Institute of Technology 伊利諾理工學院&#xA;38. Indiana State University 印第安納州立大學&#xA;39. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 賓州印第安納大學&#xA;40. Indiana University Bloomington 印第安納布盧明頓大學&#xA;41. Iowa State University of Science And Technology 依阿華州立大學&#xA;42. John F. Kennedy University 約翰.肯尼迪大學&#xA;43. Kansas State University 堪薩斯州立大學&#xA;44. Kent State University 肯特州立大學&#xA;45. La Sierra University 拉西拉大學&#xA;46. Loma Linda University 洛瑪連達大學&#xA;47. Lehigh University 利哈伊大學&#xA;48. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge 路易斯安那州立大學&#xA;49. Louisiana Tech University 路易斯安那理工大學&#xA;50. Loyola University of Chicago 萊奧那芝加哥大學&#xA;51. Marquette University 馬奎特大學&#xA;52. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 麻省理工學院&#xA;53. Miami University, Oxford 邁阿密大學&#xA;54. Michigan State University 密執安州立大學&#xA;55. Michigan Technological University 密執安理工大學&#xA;56. Middle Tennessee State University 中田納西州州立大學&#xA;57. Mississippi State University 密西西比州立大學&#xA;58. Montana State University 蒙大拿州立大學&#xA;59. National Hispanic University 西班牙語裔國民大學&#xA;60. Naval Postgraduate School 海軍研究生院&#xA;61. New College of California 加利福尼亞新學院&#xA;62. New Jersey Institute of Technology 新澤西理工學院&#xA;63. New Mexico State University 新墨西哥州立大學&#xA;64. New school for Social Research 社會研究新學院&#xA;65. New York University 紐約大學&#xA;66. North Carlonia State University ay Raleigh 北卡羅來納州立大學&#xA;67. North Dakota State University 北達科他州立大學&#xA;68. Northeastern University 東北大學&#xA;69. Northern Illinois University 北伊利諾伊大學&#xA;70. Northwestern University 西北大學&#xA;71. Nova Southeastern University 諾瓦東南大學&#xA;72. Ohio State University 俄亥俄州立大學&#xA;73. Ohio University 俄亥俄大學&#xA;74. Oklahoma State University 俄克拉荷馬州立大學&#xA;75. Old Dominion University 奧多明尼昂大學&#xA;76. Oregon State University 俄勒岡州立大學&#xA;77. Pace University 佩斯大學&#xA;78. Pacific Union College 太平洋聯合大學&#xA;79. Pennsylvania State University 賓州州立大學&#xA;80. Pepperdine University 佩波戴恩大學&#xA;81. Pepperdine Univrsity 佩普丁大學&#xA;82. Pittsburg State University 匹茲堡州立大學&#xA;83. Polytechnic University 理工大學&#xA;84. Portland State University 波特蘭州立大學&#xA;85. princeton university 普林斯頓大學&#xA;86. Purdue University 珀杜大學&#xA;87. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 倫斯萊爾科技學院&#xA;88. Rice University 萊斯大學&#xA;89. Rutgers at New Brunswick 拉傑斯大學&#xA;90. SCHILLER INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY 席勒國際大學&#xA;91. Seton Hall University 薛頓賀爾大學&#xA;92. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale 南伊利諾伊卡本代爾大學&#xA;93. Southern Methodist University 南衛理工會大學&#xA;94. St.John's University 聖約翰大學&#xA;95. st.Louis University 聖路易斯大學&#xA;96. Stanford University 斯坦福大學(史丹福)&#xA;97. Stevens Institute of Technology 史蒂文斯科技學院&#xA;98. SUNY at Albany 紐約州立奧爾巴尼大學&#xA;99. SUNY at Binghamton 紐約州立賓漢姆頓大學&#xA;100. SUNY at Stony Brook 紐約州立石溪大學&#xA;101. SUNY at Buffalo 紐約州立水牛城大學&#xA;102. Syracuse University 雪城大學&#xA;103. CHRISTCHURCH POLYTECHNIC 基督城理工學院&#xA;104. The johns Hopkins university 約翰霍普金斯大學&#xA;105. The University of Akron 阿克倫大學&#xA;106. The University of Texas at Arlington 德州阿靈頓大學&#xA;107. Thomas Aquinas College 托馬斯阿奎那斯學院&#xA;108. Tufts University 塔夫脫大學&#xA;109. Tulane University 杜倫大學&#xA;110. Tulane University 圖蘭大學&#xA;111. United States International University 美國國際大學&#xA;112. Univ. Of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 北卡羅來納-教堂山大學&#xA;113. Univerity of North Carolina at Greensboro 北卡羅來納格林斯伯勒大學&#xA;114. University of Alabama at Birmingham 阿拉巴馬伯明翰大學&#xA;115. University of Alaska 阿拉斯加大學&#xA;116. University of Arkansas 阿肯色大學&#xA;117. Tennessee State Univerity 田納西州立大學&#xA;118. Texas A&amp;amp;M University 德克薩斯州A＆M大學&#xA;119. Texas Christian University 德州基督教大學&#xA;120. Texas Southern Univrsity 南德州大學&#xA;121. Texas Tech University 德州理工大學&#xA;122. Texas Woman's University 德州女子大學&#xA;123. The Catholic University of America 美國天主教大學&#xA;124. University of California at Berkeley 加州柏克萊大學&#xA;125. University of California at Los Angeles 加州洛衫磯大學&#xA;126. University of California at Santa Cruz 加州聖克魯斯大學&#xA;127. University of California, Davis 加州戴維斯大學&#xA;128. University of California, Riverside 加州河畔大學&#xA;129. University of California, San Diego 加州聖迭戈大學(加州聖地牙哥)&#xA;130. University of California, Santa Barbara 加州聖芭芭拉大學&#xA;131. University of California-Irvine 加州伊榮大學&#xA;132. University of Central Florida 中佛羅里達大學&#xA;133. University of Chicago 芝加哥大學&#xA;134. University of Cincinnati 辛辛那提大學&#xA;135. University of Colorado at Boulder 科羅拉多博爾德大學&#xA;136. University of Connecticut at Storrs 康涅狄格斯托斯大學&#xA;137. University of Delaware 特拉華大學&#xA;138. University of Denver 丹佛大學&#xA;139. University of Florida 佛羅里達大學&#xA;140. University of Georgia 佐治亞大學&#xA;141. University of Hawaii at Manoa 夏威夷馬諾大學&#xA;142. University of Huston 休斯頓大學&#xA;143. University of Idaho 愛達荷大學&#xA;144. University of Illinois，Urbana－Champaign 伊利諾伊大學&#xA;145. University of Iowa 依阿華大學&#xA;146. University of Kansas 堪薩斯大學&#xA;147. University of Kentucky 肯塔基大學&#xA;148. University of La Verne 加州拉文大學&#xA;149. University of Louisville 路易斯維爾大學&#xA;150. University of Maine at Orono 緬因州奧羅諾大學&#xA;151. University of Maryland 馬里蘭大學&#xA;152. University of Massachusetts at Amherst 阿默斯特大學&#xA;153. University of Massachusetts at Lowell 盧維爾大學&#xA;154. University of Memphis 孟菲斯大學&#xA;155. University of Minnesota，Twin Cities 明尼蘇達雙城大學&#xA;156. University of Mississippi 密西西比大學&#xA;157. University of Missouri, Columbia 密蘇里哥倫比亞大學&#xA;158. University of Missouri/Kansas City 密蘇里堪薩斯大學&#xA;159. University of Montana 蒙大拿大學&#xA;160. University of Nebraska at Lincoln 內布拉斯加林肯大學&#xA;161. University of Nevada, Reno 內華達裡諾大學&#xA;162. University of New Hampshire 新罕布什爾大學&#xA;163. University of New Mexico at Main Campus 新墨西哥大學&#xA;164. University of New Orleans 新奧爾良大學&#xA;165. University of North Dakota 北達科他大學&#xA;166. University of North Texas 北德州大學&#xA;167. University of Northern Colorado 北科羅拉多大學&#xA;168. University of Notre Dame 聖母大學&#xA;169. University of Oklahoma 俄克拉荷馬大學&#xA;170. University of Oregon 俄勒岡大學&#xA;171. University of Pennsylvania 賓夕法尼亞大學&#xA;172. University of Pittsburgh 匹茲堡大學&#xA;173. University of Rhode Island 羅德島大學&#xA;174. University of San Diego 聖迭戈大學(聖地牙哥)&#xA;175. University of San Franciso 舊金山大學&#xA;176. University of South Carolina at Columbia 南卡羅來納哥倫比亞大學&#xA;177. University of Southern California 南加利福尼亞大學&#xA;178. University of South Dakota 南達科他大學&#xA;179. University of Southern Mississippi 南密西西比大學&#xA;180. University of Southwestern Louisiana 西南路易斯安那大學&#xA;181. University of Texas at Dallas 德州達拉斯大學&#xA;182. University of Texas-Austin 德州大學奧斯汀分校&#xA;183. University of the Pacific 太平洋大學&#xA;184. University of Toledo 托萊多大學&#xA;185. University of Tulsa 塔爾薩大學&#xA;186. University of Utah 猶他大學&#xA;187. University of Vermont 佛蒙特大學&#xA;188. University of Virginia 弗吉尼亞大學&#xA;189. University of Washington 西雅圖華盛頓大學&#xA;190. University of Wisconsin，Milwaukee 米爾沃基大學(密爾瓦基)&#xA;191. University of Wisconsin-Madison 威斯康星大學麥迪遜分校&#xA;192. University of Wyoming 懷俄明大學&#xA;193. University ofTennessee, Knoxville 諾斯維爾田納西大學&#xA;194. Univresity of Arizona 亞利桑那大學&#xA;195. Utah State University 猶他州立大學&#xA;196. Vanderbilt University 范德比大學&#xA;197. Virginia Tech 弗吉尼亞科技大學&#xA;198. Wake Forest University 威克森林大學&#xA;199. Washington State University 華盛頓州立大學&#xA;200. Washington University 華盛頓大學&#xA;201. Wayne State University 韋恩州立大學&#xA;202. West Virginia University 西弗吉尼亞大學&#xA;203. Western Michigan University 西密執安大學&#xA;204. Wichita State University 維奇托州立大學&#xA;205. Woodbury University 伍德布里大學&#xA;206. Worcester Polytechnic Institute 伍斯特科技學院&#xA;207. Wright State University 萊特州立大學&#xA;208. Yale University 耶魯大學&#xA;209. Yeshiva University 耶希華大學&#xA;210. Georgia Institute of Technology 喬治亞理工學院&#xA;211. Harvard University 哈佛大學&#xA;212. Occidental College 西方學院&#xA;213. The Wharton Business School 沃頓商學院&#xA;214. VALLEY FORGE MILITARY ACADAMY AND COLLEGE 美國翠谷軍校&#xA;215. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 密歇根大學&#xA;216. Art Institute of Atlanta 亞特蘭大(Atlanta)藝術學院&#xA;217. Art Institute of Dallas 達拉斯藝術學院&#xA;218. Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale 弗特勞德達爾藝術學院&#xA;219. Art Institute of Houston 休斯頓藝術學院&#xA;220. Art Institute of Los Angeles 洛杉磯藝術學院&#xA;221. Art Institute of Colorado 科羅拉多藝術學院&#xA;222. Art Institute of Philadelphia 費城（Philadelphia）藝術學院&#xA;223. Art Institute of Phoenix 鳳凰藝術學院&#xA;224. Art Institute of Pittsburgh 匹茲堡（Pittsburgh）藝術學院&#xA;225. Art Institute of Seattle 西雅圖藝術學院&#xA;226. Art Institute of Portland 波特蘭藝術學院&#xA;227. Art Institutes International at San Francisco 舊金山國際藝術學院&#xA;228. Art Institute of California 加里福尼亞藝術學院&#xA;229. California State University-Stanislaus 加州州立大學-斯坦尼斯勞斯分校&#xA;230. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University 艾姆伯裡-利德爾航空學院&#xA;231. Illinois Institute of Art Chicago 伊利諾斯芝加哥藝術學院&#xA;232. BUENA VISTA UNIVERSITY 比尤納維斯特大學&#xA;233. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 美利堅大學&#xA;234. BERRY COLLEGE 貝里學院&#xA;235. AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE 阿格尼斯?斯科特學院&#xA;236. BETHEL COLLEGE 貝塞爾學院&#xA;237. RICE UNIVERSITY 賴斯大學&#xA;238. BELLARMINE COLLEGE 貝拉明學院&#xA;239. BARD COLLEGE 巴德學院&#xA;240. ALLEGHENY COLLEGE 阿勒格尼學院&#xA;241. BENNINGTON COLLEGE 本寧頓學院&#xA;242. BOWDOIN COLLEGE 鮑登學院&#xA;243. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC 大西洋學院&#xA;244. BALDWIN-WALLACE COLLEGE 鮑德溫—華萊士學院&#xA;245. ALBION COLLEGE 阿爾比恩學院&#xA;246. ECKERD COLLEGE 埃克德學院&#xA;247. ST. JOHN'S UNIVERSITY 聖瓊斯大學&#xA;248. ALBERTSON COLLEGE OF IDAHO 愛達荷艾伯森學院&#xA;249. ALBRIGHT COLLEGE 奧爾布賴特學院&#xA;250. FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE 富蘭克林與馬歇爾學院&#xA;251. AUGUSTANA COLLEGE 奧古斯塔那學院&#xA;252. BIRMINGHAM-SOUTHERN COLLEGE 伯明翰-南方學院&#xA;253. EARLHAM COLLEGE 厄勒姆學院&#xA;254. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 約翰霍普金斯大學&#xA;255. COLLEGE OF WILLIAMS AND MARY 威廉姆瑪麗亞大學&#xA;256. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA 南佛羅里達大學&#xA;257. LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY-BATON ROUGE 路易斯安那州立大學巴頓汝之分校&#xA;258. OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY 多米尼恩大學&#xA;259. BRADLEY UNIVERSITY 布拉德利大學&#xA;260. Dickson State University 狄克森州立大學  &#xA;261. Stanford Graduate School of Business 美國斯坦福商學院&#xA;262. Southern New Hampshair University 南新罕布什爾大學&#xA;263. Johns Hopkins University 約翰-霍普金斯大學&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4265" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T02:26:09.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6365" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6367" CreationDate="2014-03-27T07:12:54.040" Score="2" ViewCount="476" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the male equivalent of 小三、二奶, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest thing I can think of is 小白脸 but it seems to be missing that certain something...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T13:18:04.760" Title="Male equivalent of 小三?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6365" CreationDate="2014-03-27T07:39:14.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;二爷&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Or be more formal, &quot;情夫&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: &quot;小三&quot; can also be used for male in theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-03-27T13:18:04.760" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T13:18:04.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6365" CreationDate="2014-03-27T07:39:38.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A proper term would be 情夫:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;男女两人,一方或双方已有配偶,他们之间发生性爱的行为,男方是女方的情夫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小三 can also be applied to a male as it means the third party in an affair or 第三者.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二公 and 二爺 are informal terms opposite to 二奶.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小白脸 does not necessarily refers to a man who has committed adultery with a married woman. It can also mean the the guy is living off the woman or that the guy has a fair complexion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T07:39:38.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6325" CreationDate="2014-03-27T10:09:19.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;English as far as I know is represented by just making some crazy &quot;lul-lul-lul&quot; noises (I'm sorry I really don't know how to describe it -- it's the sound that sounds like &quot;lul-lul-lul&quot; while your tongue is being pushed out of your mouth and then brought back in again, kind of like the sounds babies make)....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;－－－－&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard Sichuan people say &quot;剥了壳壳吃米米&quot; to make fun of the way Japanese people speak (the phrase itself does have meaning too though - it's just unrelated to the topic)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T10:09:19.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6354" CreationDate="2014-03-27T10:53:46.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;只&quot; means &quot;but only&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can understand it like this: &quot;why you gone, I can't find you, touch you, hear you.You disappear in my world totally. I tried but can't get any message of you, only the endless missing on my heart&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4268" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T10:53:46.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6354" CreationDate="2014-03-27T11:13:25.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You got the general meaning right, but because some details are left out, it is harder to understand the meaning of “只” here. And the context does affect the interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, &amp;quot;只&amp;quot; here means only, which could be interpreted as the only thing you do since the first part says there isn't even a word/news from you after you left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To better illustrate it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为何你一去便无消息&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why (I) never heard from you after you left?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只把思念积压在我心头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(You) only left memories accumulating in my heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR: The only (thing you left) are memories that accumulate at the bottom of my heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here &amp;quot;思念&amp;quot;(the feeling of missing someone) is translated as &amp;quot;memory&amp;quot; for connivence although they are not exactly the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if I have to put the two parts in one sentence, it would be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Why did you leave without a word except letting memories accumulate in my heart.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T11:13:25.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6347" CreationDate="2014-03-27T11:37:36.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, this is not well written Chinese since it could lead to different interpretations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;除非，你堅持(認為)躲在潮濕的甲殼裡更快樂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless, you insist that hiding in a moist carapace is happier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;除非，你堅持躲在潮濕的甲殼裡更（讓你）快樂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless, keeping your self hidden in a moist carapace (makes) you happier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the essential meaning is similar. There are different interpretations because 堅持 used in the sentence is not clear enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;堅持 could have two different meanings in the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;persist in: Basically, it means keep doing something persistently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;insist (that.../on):&#xA;In this case, it's actually means 堅持（認為）、堅持（覺得）、堅持（要）and the words in the brackets can be omitted if there is no ambiguity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With appropriate pauses in speaking, this ambiguity can be avoid. In written, normally, such ambiguity is avoided by proper punctuation. However in this case, additional words might be necessary to avoid misinterpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T11:37:36.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6352" CreationDate="2014-03-27T11:56:53.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, the meaning of &amp;quot;无&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;沒有&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;沒有&amp;quot;, can serve as a component of a sentence. I think in technical terms, you can say it can serve as predicates in sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in this sense, &amp;quot;没有&amp;quot; is more like &amp;quot;There be no&amp;quot; in a sentence.&#xA;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这里没有人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no people here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, &amp;quot;无&amp;quot; is more similar to &amp;quot;no&amp;quot;,&amp;quot;non-&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;-less&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;-free&amp;quot; in English when constructing a phrase or word. It sounds more formal, and it normally (in modern Chinese) cannot be used as predicates in sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无人区&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unpopulated (human-free) zone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无消息&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;without information (as the name of a status)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他想升级这个软件，但是程序显示“无可用的更新”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He wanted to update the application, but the program showed &amp;quot;no updates available&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无以置评&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-20T05:45:36.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6322" CreationDate="2014-03-27T12:08:17.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Beijing dialect:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勺儿 sháo er&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勺子 sháo zi4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can both use it as the name of a tableware or other instruments resembling the shape of a spoon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use it as the a measure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formal Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勺 sháo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;匙 chí&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use these two in the scenarios you mentioned. However, they are more formal, and normally used in written or in a setting formal oral language are required (e.g. TV program).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarine spoken in southern and mid China:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勺子 sháo zi3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T12:08:17.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6084" CreationDate="2014-03-27T12:24:58.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;饭:&#xA;1. In a narrow sense, it mean's prepared, ready to eat rice or rice bowl. In some parts of China, it can mean the main course of a meal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你来煮饭，我来弄几个菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You cook the rice, I'll come up with some dishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In a wide sense, it means meal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一天三顿饭对于健康很重要。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Three meals a day is important for health.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In a figurative sense, it can mean food in general.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很多穷人没饭吃/很多穷人吃不上饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Many poor people have nothing to eat/Many poor people can not afford food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;菜: Basically dishes in a meal other than the rice, desert and soup. For example Kong Pao Chiken is 菜 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;餐: means meal. Its meaning is similar to the second meaning of 饭, but in most of the cases, it is used to construct phrases and words or to be formal in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就餐/用餐&#xA;  dinning/to dine. Compare it with 吃饭(eating/having a meal, to eat/to have a meal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T12:24:58.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6375" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6446" CreationDate="2014-03-27T15:15:56.783" Score="12" ViewCount="12699" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the most frequent words I'm likely to encounter when using a computer in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stuff like file menu, cut, copy, paste, edit, properties, ok, cancel, back, refresh, save, print etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just want to learn a few so I don't get lost everytime I have to use a Chinese computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a list somewhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the 250 most common menu items / words I am likely to encounter when using a Chinese computer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastActivityDate="2021-02-11T03:06:53.690" Title="Chinese computer vocabulary, and most frequently encountered common computer terms" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="316" CreationDate="2014-03-27T15:22:22.450" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a computer library ('Wudi gender guesser') to predict the gender of a Chinese name, based on statistics of the use of individual Kanji caracters in Male/Female given names. This approach accounts for both for the meaning and the sound. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an online version here&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://namesorts.com/2014/03/27/chinese-name-gender-guesser-api/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://namesorts.com/2014/03/27/chinese-name-gender-guesser-api/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4270" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T15:22:22.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6354" CreationDate="2014-03-27T18:35:29.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here &quot;只&quot; means &quot;can do nothing but&quot;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为何你一去便无消息&#xA;只把思念积压在我心头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is to say &quot;I can do nothing but miss you&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4271" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T18:35:29.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6308" CreationDate="2014-03-27T18:54:28.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;以臣弑君&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;”以“ means ”as“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Killing the Emperor as a minister&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;王以舟去国&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;”以“ means &quot;by&quot; or &quot;with&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;The Emperor leaved his country with a boat&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4271" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T18:54:28.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6379" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6380" CreationDate="2014-03-28T04:53:07.230" Score="5" ViewCount="1181" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you tell me if we can omit subjects or some verbs in Conversational Chinese? Like these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;叫什么名字？  jiào shénme míngzì? What is your name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么?        jiào shénme? What is your name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;叫 A.        jiào A. I’m A.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要去哪里？    yào qù nǎlǐ? where are you going?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃饱了.       chī bǎole I'm full.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饱了       bǎole I'm full.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you check if we can say those sentences above or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-03-28T10:15:37.237" Title="Can we omit subject or some verbs in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6379" CreationDate="2014-03-28T06:09:19.147" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you can, let me first give the possible short version of the example you gave:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is your name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FULL VERSION: 你叫什么名字？/你的名字是什么？(What's your name?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SHORT VERSION 1: 你叫什么？ (Here we don't usually say 叫什么？ as its tone is more rude or intimidating. To make the tone softer, normally you could add 呀ya/啊ah at the end such as 叫什么呀？And it also could mean &amp;quot;why the yelling&amp;quot; if used in wrong context, so I don't recommend using it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SHORT VERSION 2: 你叫……? (Your name is...?) actually it's more &amp;quot;you are called...?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SHORT VERSION 3: 什么名字？(What's the name? Bond) OR 名字？(Name?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WRONG: 什么? (什么 means &amp;quot;what&amp;quot;, it would be too general, the listener would have trouble to understand what you are asking)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WRONG: 叫 This is not a valid short version of &amp;quot;what's your name&amp;quot; because it doesn't give any hit to the listener about what you are asking, and it could be misunderstood as a command to shout or yell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要去哪里？ yào qù nǎlǐ? where are you going?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SHORT VERSION: 去哪(儿)？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃饱了. chī bǎole I'm full. [This one is correct]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饱了 bǎole I'm full. [This one is correct] moreover it could be both a question or the answer depending on the tone. I.e. Q: 饱了？(Are you full?) A: 饱了。（I'm full)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When spoken, the grammar of Chinese is very flexible. Except in formal settings (e.g. broadcasting, meetings, court, press conference), you can almost bend the grammar in anyway you want as long as it makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By making sense, I mean that the listener should be able to understand and fill the omitted part in the meaning with minor effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Below is some additional stuff, if above is enough for you, you can skip the rest]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, as a Chinese, when I was in middle School (sort of 7-9th grade), after learned the grammar, we spent more time focusing on constructing sentences without ambiguity rather than practising the grammar. I mean to eliminate ambiguity, you must know some grammar of the language, but for Chinese, it's more important to avoid ambiguity rather than to construct grammatically correct sentence (sometimes, grammatically correct sentences just doesn't make sense and not so grammatically correct ones just makes so much of it). I guess this is determined by the fact that Chinese is an analytic language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, sometimes, ambiguity is preferred in circumstances such as when the speaker want to convey two meanings in one sentence with a tweak of certain words. But if you tried to be clever and failed, people will think you are pretentious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, in everyday life, when you want to omit something in Chinese, just make sure it's understandable and there is no ambiguity, you'll be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-28T10:15:37.237" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="316" CreationDate="2014-03-28T06:26:47.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sadly there are no such rules since customs varies from parts of China to other parts. And in different times, there were different trends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there are no strict rules to follow. There are just patterns which loosely apply but with many exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 红(red) is thought to be more common in female names when it is the last character of a name. But in the early years of the PRC, there were many male whose name contains the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is that I have a classmate in high school whose name is 王男, 王(wang) is surname, 男 is given name and it literally means man/male. But she is a girl. She said that because the name is given by his grand father and he wanted a boy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2014-03-28T06:26:47.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6339" CreationDate="2014-03-28T07:55:13.040" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are preferred characters used in transliteration. But in Chinese the case is a little bit complicated than in Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Japanese, Katakana is part of the phonetic system of the language (although in written, those characters can be used with Kenji).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese the phonetic system and the writing system are completely separated except in rare case where there is no character available for certain sound (In mainland China, the character with closest sound will be used, in Taiwan, zhuyin symbols will be used).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because in most cases the loanword will be translated to characters and characters have meanings, translating European loanword to Chinese is a combination of transliteration and translation. This means besides the phonetic accuracy, there are other rules applicable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In names, characters with positive meanings are preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you encounter consonant r, most of the time it would be replaced by consonant l.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are translating for a woman's name, characters with 艹 or has meanings associated to female, flower are preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In certain field there are additional rules applicable, for example, Chemistry, Medicine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also translations that have been done in the past but do not follow current rules. E.g. Smith in Adam Smith is translated as 斯密 instead 史密斯 which are commonly used in today's translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With those being said, unfortunately I don't have any rulebook or codes. Those are just generally speaking. I believe there are corresponding guidelines designed by authorities, but I didn't find any on the internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a practical way to do that is check the wikipedia page of a word or a word has similar pronunciation and change the language to Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2014-03-28T07:55:13.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6273" CreationDate="2014-03-28T09:01:30.027" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &quot;三更(gēng)半夜&quot; and &quot;深更(gēng)半夜&quot; are correct. They are listed in most modern Chinese dictionaries. And &quot;半夜三更&quot; and &quot;半夜深更&quot; could also be used as there are no change in the meaning at all, although they may sound peculiar to some people, but they are totally correct to use. (Actually, in Chinese reverse such word constructions are widely used in many case to improve the variety of the text).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 三经半夜 is not valid or formal Chinese. 经 cannot be used to substitute 更 both in writing or in pronunciation in formal Chinese. However, it is widely used in speaking but it's widely believed to be a mispronunciation widely adopted. There are many similar cases that average Chinese use pronunciations which is not listed in dictionaries. You could say there is a gap between the speaking system and the writing system of Chinese. But those mismatches are normally minor and most of the time the meaning can be inferred from the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 更&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The essential meaning of the character is &quot;Change&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also used as a time unit. In ancient China, a day is divided into 12 parts. Each part is called 时, thus it is equal to two hours. According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxue.com/?p=4025&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.guoxue.com/?p=4025&lt;/a&gt; in Han dynasty, there were five shifts during the night in the palace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一更/头更：戌时　19:00 – 21:00&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;二更：亥时　21:00 – 23:00&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;三更：子时　23:00 – 01:00&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;四更：丑时　01:00 – 03:00&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;五更：寅时　03:00 – 05:00&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 更 actually means the change of shift originally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the difference between 三更 and 深更, from the table above you can see 三更 is actually midnight. 深更 means deep in the night, so basically they are the same thing except 深更 could also be used to refer 四更 or 五更 literally. But when used in 成语 and in combination with 半夜, they don't mean the literal, exact time, they just mean late in the night or midnight in general. In the past, numbers in Chinese are often used figuratively rather than indicating the exact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2014-03-28T09:01:30.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6313" CreationDate="2014-03-28T09:12:53.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;哇, in this case interchangeable with 啊 or 呀, does not change the meaning but can affect the intonation and atmosphere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way you pronounce will totally change how your utterance is perceived.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, with a powerful sound (as in the song). It provides a background of the rest of the song. Since the song is about history/hero/war etc. It has a sense of the flow of time and history. In Chinese, river are often used as a symbol of time and history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, with a soft, emotional tone like a sigh (of course the rhythm of the whole sentence should be adjusted accordingly, e.g. slower), it could be perceived as full of regret and sorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2014-03-28T12:51:43.437" LastActivityDate="2014-03-28T12:51:43.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6385" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6389" CreationDate="2014-03-29T14:23:55.313" Score="4" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I translate this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Today I completed 2 chapters of my grammar book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammar book being an instructional book on Chinese grammar with exercises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天我做两章完了语法的书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastActivityDate="2014-03-29T15:29:14.823" Title="translate: Today I worked through 2 chapters of my grammar book" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6386" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6388" CreationDate="2014-03-29T14:38:09.120" Score="1" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Today I discovered that 得 has a related term 不得不 which is used to emphasize somebody had to do something they didn't want to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact I'm not even sure what to call that relationship in English。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T19:30:56.300" Title="How to say related term in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6386" CreationDate="2014-03-29T15:20:35.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相关词&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-03-29T15:20:35.003" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2014-03-29T15:29:14.823" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天做完了两章语法练习题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-03-29T15:29:14.823" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6390" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6393" CreationDate="2014-03-29T18:18:40.617" Score="6" ViewCount="3033" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I prefer eating fried rice over fried chicken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to say that in chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我较喜欢吃炒饭比炸鸡&#xA;我炒饭比炸鸡较喜欢吃&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastEditorUserId="3970" LastEditDate="2014-04-01T05:43:35.260" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T07:36:44.177" Title="How to say &quot;I prefer x over y&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6390" CreationDate="2014-03-30T00:50:10.057" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer X to Y can be translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我喜欢X&lt;strong&gt;甚于&lt;/strong&gt;Y&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;比起&lt;/strong&gt;Y&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;，我&lt;strong&gt;更加&lt;/strong&gt;喜欢X&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我喜欢X&lt;strong&gt;的程度要超过&lt;/strong&gt;Y&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我喜欢Y，&lt;strong&gt;更加&lt;/strong&gt;喜欢X&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I prefer eating fried rice over eating fried chicken.&lt;br&gt; 我喜欢炒饭&lt;strong&gt;胜过&lt;/strong&gt;炸鸡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastEditorUserId="11374" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T07:36:44.177" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T07:36:44.177" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6394" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6396" CreationDate="2014-03-30T01:04:48.917" Score="7" ViewCount="2588" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently had to select the correct answer for a homework assignment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我学了10年汉语了，汉语水平 。。。 很高&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I chose 一定，but the correct answer turned out to be 当然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was my answer incorrect, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do these two answers differ in meaning. I'm thinking perhaps that 当然 has a stronger connotation of certainty, as in yes my Chinese level is very high, where as 一定 implies that it should be high, but isn't necessarily... Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastEditorUserId="23915" LastEditDate="2020-03-25T09:47:57.830" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T09:47:57.830" Title="Why is 当然 the correct choice in 我学了10年汉语了，汉语水平 [一定 / 当然] 很高?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6394" CreationDate="2014-03-30T01:26:26.283" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is really tricky. As a native speaker, I would say it depends on what the speaker is trying to say here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's really hard to explain so I put up some English translations that have very close meaning and tone to both 当然 and 一定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;I've been learning Chinese for 10 years, OF COURSE my level is very high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;I've been learning Chinese for 10 years, my level is DEFINITELY very high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;I've been learning Chinese for 10 years, my level MUST be very high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically 一定 is more like a judgment and is more certain. From the English examples above you could see that all of them are right in terms of language itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I believe, not many people would say themselves must be good at something. To me it sound more natural if saying about others like &quot;He's been learning Chinese for 10 years, his level MUST be very high.&quot; The same concern is valid in Chinese, I guess that's why the correct answer is 当然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T01:26:26.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6394" CreationDate="2014-03-30T01:42:33.140" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;一定 either introduces an INFERENCE, which is very likely to be true (as in the context of the given sentence), or shows a strong intention (in other contexts). On the other hand, 当然, equivalent to the English 'of course', indicates an inevitable consequence that the speaker KNOWS to be true. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, since the speaker is talking about himself, he does not need to make an inference about him being good at Chinese; he knows he is good at Chinese. Therefore 当然 would make more sense here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An easy way to differentiate the two is to translate the sentence into English with 一定 and 当然 replaced by 'must be' and 'of course', respectively, and you will be able to immediately see which one is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T01:42:33.140" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6397" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6398" CreationDate="2014-03-30T01:55:34.820" Score="3" ViewCount="1669" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Today I reviewed the homework my teacher had marked.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best I can do is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;今天我复习了我老师会给我的作业&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's without saying the homework was assessed (and corrected).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can't seem to find the right verb in the dictionary and I'm a little sketchy on the grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastActivityDate="2014-04-10T14:36:00.483" Title="How to say that the teacher has marked my homework?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6397" CreationDate="2014-03-30T02:01:51.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;今天我复习了我老师给我批改的作业&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;批改&lt;/code&gt; means correct. Or you can use &lt;code&gt;批阅&lt;/code&gt;, which has similar meanning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4256" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T02:01:51.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6394" CreationDate="2014-03-30T04:44:13.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;一定&quot; means &quot;definitely&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use this word when you confirm something is truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can write:&#xA;&quot;我*&lt;em&gt;一定&lt;/em&gt;*去&quot; means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I confirm that i will go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;当然&quot;(write &quot;當然&quot; when you translate it into traditional Chinese) means &quot;of course&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use this word when you describe something as &quot;certainly&quot;, &quot;no doubt&quot;, or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;the result will happen naturally&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can write:&#xA;&quot;我*&lt;em&gt;當然&lt;/em&gt;*去&quot; means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will surely go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember, 一定 is a stronger than 當然 when describe something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&#xA;&quot;理所当然&quot; means something is reasonable and no doubt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You think or you judge something is reasonable, so you do it because you think it's right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it does not confirm something. If you have evidence and confirm something is right, you can use 一定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T04:44:13.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6397" CreationDate="2014-03-30T04:51:05.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always use &lt;code&gt;检查&lt;/code&gt; for marking homework or classwork for that matter &amp;amp; my students use it back to me so I'm pretty sure it's okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;改错&lt;/code&gt; is also a very common word for correcting marked homework/classwork - so I don't know if you ever need to go back and correct your own mistakes but if so you can use this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T04:51:05.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6394" CreationDate="2014-03-30T09:03:46.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;一定 means &quot;definitely,&quot; while 当然 means &quot;of course.&quot; In both English and Chinese, these two words have very similar meanings. They pretty much have the same denotation; I can't think of an example where it would be factually accurate to use one and factually inaccurate to use the other. However, they differ in their connotation. Both express certainty, but 当然 does so in a way that presumes the certainly should be obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, since the person studied Chinese for 10 years, it is obvious (at least to the speaker) that he is good at it. Note that if the sentence were this instead:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他学了10年汉语了，含有水平 。。。 很高&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both would be acceptable, but have slightly different connotations. 一定 implies that the speaker is inferring that that person must be good at Chinese since they've been learning it for 10 years. 当然 implies that the speaker knows that that person is good at Chinese and using the fact that they have been learning it for 10 years as evidence to support this &quot;obvious&quot; point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4204" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T09:03:46.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6397" CreationDate="2014-03-30T09:16:59.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use 批:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天我复习了我老师给我批下来的作业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 复习 sounds a bit weird to me, since it means &quot;review&quot; as in &quot;review for a test.&quot; If you're talking about corrections, 改正 will work better. If it's just looking over it, a simple 看 will do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4204" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T09:16:59.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1063" CreationDate="2014-03-30T09:30:28.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you already have the answer! just remember when using 比, having an adjective at the end makes it very easy to build sentences, such as 高 in your first example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;building on what you already know, a more colloquial way of saying your second sentence could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你要學單字，用聽的 &lt;em&gt;比&lt;/em&gt; 用讀的 &lt;em&gt;快&lt;/em&gt; 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(if you want to learn words, listening if faster than reading.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can also swap 快 with 有效 (effective) or 有效率 (efficient)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4222" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T09:30:28.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3784" CreationDate="2014-03-30T16:24:46.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;wouldn't 网霸 be the perfect word for a cyberbully? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[I'm just making this up myself]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: oh haha it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; the word for a cyberbully...I just checked from baidu:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;网霸(cyber bully)是指专门利用网络、手机等电子设备在虚拟空间里对别人进行攻击的现象或发动此类攻击的人。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T16:24:46.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5530" CreationDate="2014-03-31T04:28:09.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can just call it 干洗洗手液. For short you can say 干洗手, and in the right context you can even just say 干洗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure why there's so much hate on this post (two down votes and two votes to delete). So here's an example of usage from 2021/02/28:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cna.com.tw/news/aopl/202102280066.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CNA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「持續配戴口罩、備好乾洗手、保持社交距離」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rough translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Continue to wear a mask, prepare hand sanitizer and keep your social distance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here they use the word 干洗手(乾洗手).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps hand sanitizer was first popularized in Taiwan and if you consumed any Taiwanese media you would know it by this term first because you certainly couldn't find it readily available on the mainland years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2021-02-28T14:11:18.230" LastActivityDate="2021-02-28T14:11:18.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6407" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6416" CreationDate="2014-03-31T04:36:39.520" Score="3" ViewCount="640" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alright before I get a bunch of crappy answers saying things like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt; postive &#xA;&amp;gt; active &#xA;&amp;gt; energetic &#xA;&amp;gt; vigorous &#xA;&amp;gt; proactive&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to say these are not the words -or- phrases I'm looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like 积极 is very versatile and clear but I always have a hard time translating it back to English or finding a good equivalent to express the same thing in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the following contexts what English word or phrase would you use to express 积极?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他在课堂上举手发言不是很积极 &#xA;他做事很都积极&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to use something like &lt;code&gt;enthusiastic&lt;/code&gt; but it doesn't &lt;em&gt;quite&lt;/em&gt; express it for me...any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T09:15:07.290" Title="Better ways to translate 积极?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6407" CreationDate="2014-03-31T05:29:34.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;code&gt;active&lt;/code&gt; is ok for the examples you took.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;Active&lt;/code&gt; is used to emphasize that someone is taking action in order to achieve something, rather than just hoping for it or achieving it in an indirect way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4280" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T05:29:34.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6407" CreationDate="2014-03-31T07:01:58.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;积极 has two meanings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;positive&#xA;This meaning is often used to describe abstract concepts such as 态度(attitude), 措施(steps, means)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;active&#xA;Often used to describe doing things in a active, often with initiative or a self-motivated manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your examples, the 积极 are used with the second meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在课堂上举手发言不是很积极&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is not very active in raising his hand and asking questions in class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know active is not the word you are looking for, but I think it's quite suitable here, since enthusiastic seems to be stronger than 积极。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他做事很都积极&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He's motivated in doing everything&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He does everything with initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T07:01:58.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2336" CreationDate="2014-03-31T09:11:01.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is kind of old but it seems to be missing some info:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) From &lt;strong&gt;Wiseman Chinese Medical Terms&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;翳明 (main acupoint name) Shielding Brightness&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick Google search will show that this does have some use in other texts, i.e:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=KLd9v4hwtGgC&amp;amp;pg=PA555&amp;amp;lpg=PA555&amp;amp;dq=%22Shielding%20Brightness%22&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=YM68qkfEY0&amp;amp;sig=zUEJDIgIvvVLlZYFNUzvlo3e7xE&amp;amp;hl=zh-CN&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=DC45U8mzEOntiAfnr4GYBA&amp;amp;ved=0CDsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%22Shielding%20Brightness%22&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Practical Therapeutics of Traditional Chinese Medicine by Yan Wu&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;M-HN-13 yi ming (Shielding Brightness)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) From the &lt;strong&gt;Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;内关 **Inner Pass PC-6**&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From From &lt;strong&gt;Wiseman Chinese Medical Terms&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;(main acupoint name) PC-6&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Inner Pass&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This like wise can be found through a quick Google search, i.e: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.naturalnews.com/034467_acupuncture_inner-pass_stress_reduction.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;(NaturalNews) Pericardium 6 or Inner Pass (PC6, Neiguan) is one of&#xA;  the most well-known, highly researched and often utilized Acupuncture&#xA;  points.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T09:11:01.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6329" CreationDate="2014-03-31T18:55:01.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Improve the pronunciation of the second tone and your problem with the identification/perception will automatically disappear. It’s neurolinguistic magic. The pronunciation can be improved with a good voice training, a skilled Mandarin teacher or with a tool which has been made for tone training and voice analysis: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhoong.info/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhoong Tone&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3681" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T18:55:01.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6415" CreationDate="2014-03-31T21:41:25.757" Score="4" ViewCount="2224" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously this question is very similar to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/368/when-should-%E4%BA%86-be-after-the-verb-and-when-should-it-be-at-the-end-of-the-sentence&quot;&gt;When should 了 be after the verb and when should it be at the end of the sentence?&lt;/a&gt;. I just wanted you to know that I consulted that before I posted this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm working through Rosetta Stone and I have a screenshot that illustrates what I'm struggling with.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4PuWe.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;screen shot from Rosetta Stone chinese&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here we have two instances where le is appearing at the end of the sentence and one where it appears immediately after the verb. However, all three sentences involve someone giving an item to someone else so I would think they would all follow the same grammar rules. Here is another example:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vYdVj.png&quot; alt=&quot;Woman that ate chocolate&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bShYt.png&quot; alt=&quot;People that ate&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both pictures someone finished eating something so I would think they would follow the same grammar. So why does le appear after the verb in one picture but at the end of the sentence in the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3214" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T04:17:10.237" Title="Still confused about putting 了 at the end of a sentence or right after the verb" Tags="&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6412" CreationDate="2014-04-01T03:38:45.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think whatever you put 了 after verb or at the end of of sentence. they both means the action is finished or completed. It is past tense. So, 我吃了巧克力 and 我吃巧克力了 just means I ate chocolate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is a slight difference between them . 我吃了巧克力 means to emphasize the verb &lt;code&gt;ate&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;我吃巧克力了 means to emphasize &lt;code&gt;ate chocolate&lt;/code&gt;. Hope it helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4280" LastEditorUserId="4280" LastEditDate="2014-04-01T03:45:19.840" LastActivityDate="2014-04-01T03:45:19.840" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6407" CreationDate="2014-04-01T03:50:25.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe try &lt;em&gt;be in for&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;have a passion for&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;have a strong inclination of&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;be used to&lt;/em&gt; , &lt;em&gt;go into&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(PS. It is my personal thought that western languages weigh verbs more than how Chinese does.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(PSS. Or are you just seeking some 'natural' expressions in English?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他在课堂上举手发言不是很积极 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He is not &lt;em&gt;that used to&lt;/em&gt; expressing his ideas in classes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他做事都很积极&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He always &lt;em&gt;has a passion&lt;/em&gt; for working.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-04-01T03:50:25.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6412" CreationDate="2014-04-01T06:06:45.363" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The order where 了 appears in the sentence is important: when placed at the end of a sentence, it represents a &lt;em&gt;change of state&lt;/em&gt; (it has nothing to do with tenses); when placed at the end of a verb, it represents a &lt;em&gt;completed action&lt;/em&gt;. Using the examples in your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他们给我写信&lt;b&gt;了&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt; They wrote me a letter. (This is the first time I receive&#xA;a letter from them.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他们给我写&lt;b&gt;了&lt;/b&gt;信&lt;br&gt; They have written me a letter. (This is the fifth letter&#xA;from them.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她给我们买巧克力&lt;b&gt;了&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt; She bought us chocolate. (It has been a long while since she last treated us.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她给我们买&lt;b&gt;了&lt;/b&gt;巧克力&lt;br&gt; She just bought us chocolate. (Oh, she bought some yesterday too.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-10-16T04:17:10.237" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T04:17:10.237" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6407" CreationDate="2014-04-01T14:06:42.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;i think proactive and enthusiastic are pretty good translations. you typically use 積極 to describe such qualities in a younger person who's eager to learn or do something but still humble to listen to advice, so it's not used a lot to comment on older people, though you can also use it to describe someone who's new to a role and wants to do a good job. e.g. a newly elected president (who's never been a president before). maybe that's what you feel is missing from the english words? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;same thing for the opposite adjective 消極, which also lends itself better to describe younger people IMHO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4222" LastActivityDate="2014-04-01T14:06:42.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6418" CreationDate="2014-04-01T18:52:56.250" Score="2" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know whether 2010年10-12 indicates a range or an specific date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4289" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T14:46:18.970" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T14:46:18.970" Title="Does 2010年10-12 means October to December of 2010, or October 12th, 2010?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;calendar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6417" CreationDate="2014-04-02T00:34:04.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In that case it would be saying 10th month through 12th month&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See @Ming's comment about the specific date format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There could be a case where the writer is using their own unique format, but that would depend on context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T00:34:04.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6419" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6435" CreationDate="2014-04-02T01:29:23.823" Score="7" ViewCount="1965" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess the question could also be, is 其他 any different from 别的?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is one any more formal, any more slang, any more rude, anything of the sort, than the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or are they essentially the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-26T03:43:45.400" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T11:43:13.013" Title="Is 其他人 any different from 别的人?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6419" CreationDate="2014-04-02T06:41:24.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not think there will be much difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其他人&lt;br&gt; qítāгéп&lt;br&gt; 其他所指的就是另外的，额外的。&lt;br&gt; 其他人所指的就是本身或涉及范围以外的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This definition is the same with 别的人, as far as my experience, I think you can exchange those two words in everyday life and in formal reports.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T06:41:24.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6417" CreationDate="2014-04-02T06:43:15.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most cases, it means 9/2010-12/2010, unless in specific text it has some other meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T06:43:15.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6419" CreationDate="2014-04-02T14:53:34.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;其他人 is used more often than 别的人 in everyday life, although they have the same meaning.&#xA;Also in my opinion, 别人 sounds more appropriate than 别的人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4293" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T14:53:34.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6419" CreationDate="2014-04-02T18:00:38.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;其他 人 means &quot;the rest of the people. 别的人 means &quot;OTHER people.&quot; They are similar, but not quite the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T18:00:38.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6430" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6431" CreationDate="2014-04-02T21:49:59.167" Score="-2" ViewCount="429" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently come in acquisition of some artifacts and I'm looking to learn more about their origin and history. I thought I'd start with the maker's mark. If anyone could help me out with translating this image that would be awesome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xjVXb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Porcelain Mark&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4295" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T22:36:47.567" Title="Porcelain Mark Translation?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-04-04T03:12:53.323" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6430" CreationDate="2014-04-02T22:36:47.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大明宣德年制&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is a product made in the series of years named 'Xuande' of the Ming Dynasty.（Around 1400）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 'Xuande''s were among the 1st period in the history to mark porcelain with marks, and also the first several years when the Chinese people developped an aesthetism for Qinghua （blue-and-white）, their values are normally extremely high and particularly preferred by forgers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. Even forgers in the history loved to fabricate porcelain with 大明宣德.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T22:36:47.567" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2718" CreationDate="2014-04-02T23:37:31.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Surprised no one mentioned Pimsleur ... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0743500172&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Pimsleur-Chinese-Cantonese/dp/0743500172&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I took 1 year of Cantonese at my Jr. College back in 2001.  These audio CD's could help a BIT with pronunciation, but there really is no replacement for native speakers and conversation (over dim sum?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4296" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T23:37:31.647" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-04-02T23:37:31.647" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6419" CreationDate="2014-04-02T23:39:00.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No difference in meaning at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good way to think of 其他人 may be &quot;The rest of people&quot; or &quot;The rest of individuals&quot;. 别的人 should be translated as &quot;other people&quot;, which is not grammatically wrong, but it does sounds unnecessary when you can just say 别人. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EX: Here is an example where it is acceptable to use either.&#xA;我已经开始着手解决这件事了, 其他人就不要再插手了.&#xA;我已经开始着手解决这件事了, 别人就不要再插手了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T23:39:00.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6146" CreationDate="2014-04-02T23:46:05.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both way are grammatically correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on which item is what you want to highlight, you may choose a different way to present it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to highlight the location of the library, you would want to say &quot;The library is located in front of the dorm&quot; or &quot;There is a library in front of the dorm&quot;. Which directly translates in Chinese &quot;图书馆在宿舍的前面&quot;. The subject here is library. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to highlight what's in front of the dorm, you would want to say &quot;宿舍的前面是图书馆&quot;. The subject here is dorm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T23:46:05.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6419" CreationDate="2014-04-03T01:28:45.760" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are similar in the meaning, however, not exactly the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其他 has a meaning of &quot;the others&quot;, but it also has the meaning of &quot;the rest&quot;, since this word is often used in the last when you are listing some categories, for example, &quot;这个项目, 小王负责写代码, 小李负责 code review, 其他人去做测试.&quot; this word has the meaning in dividing the scopes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别的 also has the meaning of &quot;the others&quot;, for example, &quot;我只知道这些, 别的我不知道了&quot;, in this sentence, the speaker tries to emphasize what he knows (&quot;我只知道这些&quot;), since &quot;别的&quot;, from the literature meaning, &quot;别&quot;+&quot;的&quot;, 别 has the meaning of different, so this word has the tendency in comparing and emphasis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T01:28:45.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6436" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6438" CreationDate="2014-04-03T07:51:16.153" Score="3" ViewCount="1483" Body="&lt;p&gt;I notice these two words come out frequently, but the meaning seems like be different. Who can tell me what is the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If possible give me some examples too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4299" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-04-04T03:07:49.280" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T16:35:56.683" Title="what are the different and usage between 已 and 己" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6407" CreationDate="2014-04-03T09:15:07.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;eager&quot; as in &quot;he is always eager to participate in class activities&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4300" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T09:15:07.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6436" CreationDate="2014-04-03T09:24:36.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;己&quot; is usually used by&quot;自己&quot;.&#xA;“已” is usually used something like “自己”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that：&#xA;已：Something that is done (you can use this to mean time is overdue, ect).&#xA;己：A kind of expression of myself （自己）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more, please check:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/js/5DF1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;己&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/js/5DF2.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;已&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T09:24:36.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6436" CreationDate="2014-04-03T13:21:27.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;己&lt;/strong&gt;, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自己 means Myself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;己見 means my opinion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;己身 means my body&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;已&lt;/strong&gt; for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已經 means: Already&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已為 means: have become, as in &quot;已为人妇&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已婚 means: married already&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastEditorUserId="2669" LastEditDate="2014-04-04T06:35:38.843" LastActivityDate="2014-04-04T06:35:38.843" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6440" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6444" CreationDate="2014-04-03T20:52:46.733" Score="7" ViewCount="460" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it a verb? A past tense maker? Which is its function of 了 in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;曾在新西兰Burger King做过汉堡，当过收银员。这份工作让我认识到了团队合作的重要&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4289" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T08:01:13.463" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T08:01:13.463" Title="What does 了 mean in ...这份工作让我认识到了团队合作的重要?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6440" CreationDate="2014-04-03T23:36:57.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;认识到了 &amp;lt;- Acknowledged, Learned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;了&quot; means past tense &quot;ed&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T23:36:57.527" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6375" CreationDate="2014-04-03T23:39:04.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think my answer may not be what you are looking for... but your best bet is to go into control panel and change language setting instead to learn a new language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T23:39:04.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6045" CreationDate="2014-04-03T23:43:18.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you maybe have understanding issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最多 does not mean &quot;at least&quot;. It means at the most. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I honestly have no idea why someone who provided you the best answer from user3992 is having negative points but his answer is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T23:43:18.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6440" CreationDate="2014-04-04T01:36:43.770" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;verb + 了&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is used to emphasize the &lt;strong&gt;completion&lt;/strong&gt; of the action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;认识到了&quot; means &quot;I have realized&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-04-04T01:36:43.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6436" CreationDate="2014-04-04T07:07:12.227" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are two totally different words in Chinese. Be careful about the writing of them, then you will know the difference between them, just like the English words &quot;pee&quot; and &quot;pea&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vgDc3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4307" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-02-29T22:13:28.787" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T22:13:28.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6375" CreationDate="2014-04-04T07:36:03.560" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;menu - 菜单&lt;br&gt;&#xA;cut - 剪切&lt;br&gt;&#xA;copy - 复制&lt;br&gt;&#xA;paste - 粘贴&lt;br&gt;&#xA;edit - 编辑&lt;br&gt;&#xA;properties - 属性&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ok - OK / 好的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;cancel - 取消&lt;br&gt;&#xA;back - 返回&lt;br&gt;&#xA;refresh - 刷新&lt;br&gt;&#xA;save - 保存&lt;br&gt;&#xA;print  - 打印&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4293" LastActivityDate="2014-04-04T07:36:03.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6390" CreationDate="2014-04-04T08:00:20.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the answer should be like this：&#xA;比起Y，我更喜欢X&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4309" LastActivityDate="2014-04-04T08:00:20.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6375" CreationDate="2014-04-04T09:10:04.110" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Institute of Information &amp;amp; Computing Machinery is maintaining a comprehensive list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iicm.org.tw/term/index.asp?new=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;電腦名詞譯名&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which cites standards by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan and by Authorized Committee of Science and Technology of PRC. This may offer some useful information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2014-04-04T09:10:04.110" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6419" CreationDate="2014-04-04T11:48:53.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many cases in China,其他人=别的人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4312" LastActivityDate="2014-04-04T11:48:53.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6390" CreationDate="2014-04-05T02:13:26.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the answer can be this:相比y，我更喜欢x&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4318" LastActivityDate="2014-04-05T02:13:26.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3784" CreationDate="2014-04-05T02:48:05.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in my opinion, you  should use &quot;网络暴力&quot; to express you ideal. &quot;网络暴力&quot; has some symptom as following:&#xA;1).For unconfirmed or proven network events, netizens express some aggressive,provocative,insulting and untrue statements, which make parties' reputation damage ;&#xA;2).Public the privacy in real life of the parties. Therefore infringing the right of privacy&#xA;3).Harass parties, their relatives and friends in  action or  comments, which cause damage to their personal rights,.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4318" LastActivityDate="2014-04-05T02:48:05.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6452" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-06T14:43:10.080" Score="3" ViewCount="294" Body="&lt;p&gt;For some reason i have these two muddled in my head. Presumably cause they sound similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to 找了女朋友？&#xA;or does it have to be 交了女朋友&#xA;can it be 找着了女朋友？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone clear this up for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When is it appropriate to use 交 vs 找。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am assuming &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;If a person was looking for a 女朋友 and he found one, both 交了 and 找到 would be appropriate&#xA;&#xA;If a person wasn't looking then is only 交了 appropriate&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T05:20:07.457" Title="differentiation of 交女朋友 vs 找女朋友" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6453" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-06T16:04:00.067" Score="9" ViewCount="390" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese equivalent of &quot;I can honestly say&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a rather colloquial expression, and I was wondering if there were something equivalent in Chinese to convey the same earnestness of the expression, &quot;I can honestly say...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can honestly say I did my best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could try for a literal translation, but I want something that a native speaker would say, not Chinglish (or whatever the Chinese equivalent is called :P please comment if you know!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T22:06:40.240" Title="Chinese equivalent of &quot;I can honestly say...&quot;" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6452" CreationDate="2014-04-06T16:15:36.197" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I think in this case 交 and 找 is absolutely the same in this situation. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find it on dictionary, It may turns out that the verb 找 looks like more active than 交, but I am quite sure that in daily conversion or formal writing they have the same meaning in this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4328" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T16:15:36.197" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6453" CreationDate="2014-04-06T16:21:44.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a equivalent for that is 实话说 or 我真的认为.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4328" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T16:21:44.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6453" CreationDate="2014-04-06T16:23:21.810" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;For 'I can honestly say I did my best.':&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  * [说实话]我已经尽力了 or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  * 我[真的]已经尽力了 ←probably the most colloquial one&#xA;  * &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4293" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T16:23:21.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5787" CreationDate="2014-04-06T17:34:20.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Beijing in the early 1990s, the expression 大哥大 for cellphone was in use; the explanation being offered was that it referred to a gang leader. (Have always wondered what sense that made.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4329" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T17:34:20.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6394" CreationDate="2014-04-06T18:04:09.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there is a typo, it should be 汉语水平...很高, not 含有水平...很高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;however, whether it is a typo or not, your question is already explained by the previous answerers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4330" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T18:04:09.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6452" CreationDate="2014-04-06T18:13:02.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;even though you can take them as the same, I do think there is a tiny difference between the two phrases:&#xA;Literally, 找 means find and 交 means make. I feel like 找女朋友 is more often used when someone do not have a girl friend or just got one recently, and 交女朋友 does not have such preference.&#xA;What is more, using only one of them is enough, so conclusively I agree with user4328  ：P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4330" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T18:13:02.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6440" CreationDate="2014-04-06T18:18:31.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might already know that Chinese does not have a lot of grammatical structure.  But how do Chinese people make a sentence to mean what past tense and perfect tense?&#xA;They put a 了 in the sentence (most of the times right after the verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4330" LastEditorUserId="12262" LastEditDate="2015-12-11T17:55:55.333" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T17:55:55.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6453" CreationDate="2014-04-07T02:59:56.813" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below all are fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)坦白說,...&#xA;(2)老實說,...&#xA;(3)坦白講,...&#xA;(4)老實講,...&#xA;(5)說[老]實話...&#xA;(6)說真心話...&#xA;(7)[我]打從心底說...&#xA;(8)[我]敞開心房[向你]傾訴 (more literal, less colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+我已經盡[全]力了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+我已經做到最佳(表現,etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are writing a formal letter or convey in a more literal way, you may say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我已付諸全力(+以赴).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4335" LastEditorUserId="4335" LastEditDate="2014-04-28T04:03:28.457" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T04:03:28.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6462" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6463" CreationDate="2014-04-07T03:23:03.937" Score="4" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently &quot;巴利佳能&quot; is the translation of &quot;Pali Canon.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When referring to the foundational documents of other theological or philosophical schools, will I be understood if I use the term &quot;佳能&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3485" LastActivityDate="2014-04-07T09:00:17.113" Title="Is &quot;佳能&quot; the standard translation for &quot;canon&quot; in a religious sense?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6462" CreationDate="2014-04-07T04:14:03.703" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. &lt;code&gt;佳能&lt;/code&gt; is only used for the translation for Canon the brand/company name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more than one translation for canon in religious sense based on its different meanings. The standard translation for &lt;code&gt;Pali Canon&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;巴利文大藏经&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B7%B4%E5%88%A9%E6%96%87%E5%A4%A7%E8%97%8F%E7%B6%93&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in the translations for other meanings, you can find them in a dictionary. Another way to find out is on the Wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon&quot;&gt;disambiguate page for 'canon'&lt;/a&gt;, choose the term you're interested in, and click on 中文 on the left to see the Chinese version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-04-07T04:14:03.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6462" CreationDate="2014-04-07T09:00:17.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe not what you are looking for but &lt;code&gt;正典&lt;/code&gt; seems to fit your meaning of canon here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;汉语大词典&#xA;1 正宗典籍。如儒家六经之类。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E6%AD%A3%E5%85%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; talks of it in a Biblical sense, but as you can see from the entry in HDC it can also refer to other things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;正典源自希腊语κανων,kanōn，意为“规则；量尺”，英语为Canon。在基督宗教，因教父时期为了系统化神学内容以回应异端的挑战，乃将整个基督宗教的经典分为正典、次经与伪经三个层级。正典是完全可靠的经典，现在通用的拉丁版圣经便是在这一次的集结中定本。“次经”是一些作者还不能完全确定的作品，次经的内容通常无损于正统神学的内涵，因此仍有参考的价值。最后一个级等的“伪经”便是指那些“次经以外的著名”，内容是一些未能确定真伪的著作。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正典 is also listed in ABC E-C Dictionary &amp;amp; 21 Century E-C Dictionary as &lt;code&gt;canon&lt;/code&gt; [among many others].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you should keep in mind though is that as NS.X. said above specific writings also have their own specific translations so you might want to check &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt; what you want to say before you say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-04-07T09:00:17.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6465" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6473" CreationDate="2014-04-07T10:07:54.167" Score="3" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;Heard &lt;code&gt;啥子树子招啥虫&lt;/code&gt; used in the same sense as &quot;不是一家人，不进一家门&quot; - I was wondering if there is a similar phrased expression in Mandarin for the first, mentioned, expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T08:53:41.753" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T19:22:11.497" Title="Mandarin Equivalent of 啥子树子招啥虫?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6452" CreationDate="2014-04-07T13:41:12.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is whether you ask someone to be your girlfriend.&#xA;If it was not you who has asked your girlfriend to be your girlfriend, then you can not say 找了个女朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was you, then both phrases are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3725" LastActivityDate="2014-04-07T13:41:12.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6470" CreationDate="2014-04-07T17:11:12.883" Score="2" ViewCount="847" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know which criteria do chinese use when writing a resume. I know that in Taiwan most people use simplified chinese, but what about the rest of China? Is it common to find both simplified and traditional characters mixed in a resume? The election of one type of writing depends on the education level the person has?&#xA;Thanks for your help&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4289" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T04:03:44.637" Title="Writing a resume - traditional vs. simplified chinese" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6375" CreationDate="2014-04-07T23:20:06.313" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Chinese/topics/topics.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Chinese/topics/topics.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a collection of pages from University of Maine at Farmington I think. It's a good summary of computer/tech/internet related words. Mouse over 电脑 at the top left and the following topics will show:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Computer Terms 计算机词语 ji4suan4ji1 ci2yu3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using Windows 视窗基准 shi4chuang1ji1zhun3 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Programming 程序设计 cheng2xu4she4ji4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Internet WWW 网络 Wang3luo4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keyboard 键盘 jian4pan2 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Computer Games 电脑游戏 dian4nao3 you2xi4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Internet shopping 网购 Wang3gou4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Computer equipment 计算机设备 ji4suan4ji1 she4bei4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Computer problems 计算机问题 ji4suan4ji1 wen4ti2 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Brand names 品牌 pin3pai2 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Social networking 社交网络 she4jiao1 wang3luo4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;E-mail 电子邮件 dian4zi3you2jian4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some samples from the Using Windows page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;click and drag 单击及拖动 dan1ji1 ji2 tuo1dong4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You need to unzip that file.  你需要解压缩那个文件。Ni3 xu1yao4 jie3ya1suo1 na4 ge4 wen2jian4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;default; to give tacit consent, to give tacit approval  默认 mo4ren4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;extension (computer -- after the dot)  后缀名 hou4zhui4ming2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;file format  文件格式 wen2jian4 ge2shi4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;icon 图标 tu2biao1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;print preview  打印御览 da3yin4 yu4lan3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;status bar  状态条 zhuang4tai4tiao2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A deep dive way to learn terms is to go to a discussion board, the more specific the better. Here, you also get to see acronyms/slang native Chinese speakers use as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="3063" LastEditDate="2014-04-07T23:36:24.147" LastActivityDate="2014-04-07T23:36:24.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6467" CreationDate="2014-04-08T00:44:45.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply depends on region. Put it this way: you use British English when you write resumes in Great Britain (and related regions/countries) and American English in the US. Nothing more than that. As you would not mix British and American English in an English resume, you would neither do so in a Chinese resume.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The places that use traditional Chinese are: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The places that use simplified Chinese together with traditional Chinese: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand(&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A9%AC%E6%96%B0%E7%AE%80%E4%BD%93#.E6.9D.B1.E5.8D.97.E4.BA.9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;See this&lt;/a&gt;). However using traditional Chinese in such regions can't go wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The place that uses simplified Chinese only: mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T00:44:45.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6467" CreationDate="2014-04-08T04:03:44.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends on the intended reader of the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most of the settings, it is not encouraged to mix Traditional Chinese characters and Simplified Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Long answer:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese normally referred to Chinese used in mainland China. Officially, this varient of Chinese is often called Mandarine. And the term Simplified Chinese is the character set used in Mandarine. The latest standard is 通用规范汉字表2013 (General Standard Chinese Characters Table). Beyond that, Simplified Chinese are also used in some other areas, but not as official language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese is used in countries/regions such as Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. But there are subtle differences in those variants. You can consider Simplified Chinese as US English and Traditional Chinese TW as UK English, and Traditional Chinese used in Hong Kong as Australian English which follows spelling of UK English in many cases but still there are differences between the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;One more thing&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite the difference in the shapes of characters, there are more complicated differences between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, character 后 in Simplified Chinese has two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After/behind&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Empress&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in Traditional Chinese, there are two characters for these two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After/behind 後&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Empress 后&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a common mistake made by people in Mainland China who tries to use Traditional Chinese just to impress others but get it backfired on them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what I'm trying to say is that conversion between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese is not a simple click-and-done process, let alone the vocabulary and usage differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although most people in above mentioned areas normally can understand other variants of Chinese, since you mentioned using it in a formal document such as a resume, the mix or the two or the wrong use of them would be considered not very professional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is that the resume should be in the variant of Chinese required by the intended organisation. If the organisation do not have such requirement, use the official variant used by the organisation. If the organisation do not have an official variant, at least provide one error-free version in either Simplified or Traditional Chinese. If you want to present an international multilingual image, provide both, but do not mix them (this is the same as many signs in places like international airport, where even sometimes the simplified version and traditional version are the same, both are provided).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T04:03:44.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6452" CreationDate="2014-04-08T05:20:07.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;交了女朋友 is the same with 找着了女朋友. It both mean the girl you asked to be your girlfriend has considered you as your boyfriend.找了女朋友 do not means the girl you asked to be your girlfriend has considered you as your boyfriend.After reading your question, I just feel I can not speak Chinese normally just like Chinese do……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4337" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T05:20:07.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6465" CreationDate="2014-04-08T06:02:25.430" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that 啥子树子招啥虫 emphasizes more on similarity of couples of marriage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;龙生龙，凤生凤，老鼠儿子会打洞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dragon's son must be a dragon, phoenix's son must be a phoenix, and that of a mouse must can dig holes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A great man teaches out great sons, a noble man cultivates noble sons. Normal people have only normal posterities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes we neglect the second half of the phrase, i.e. just 龙生龙，凤生凤.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2014-04-09T02:05:25.260" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T02:05:25.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5787" CreationDate="2014-04-08T10:26:10.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;大哥大 refers to the old-style &quot;brick&quot;-like mobile phones, though the word is rarely used now. 手機 is the common term for mobile/cell phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4339" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T10:26:10.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6390" CreationDate="2014-04-08T10:28:50.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese people don't say this. You can't force a language into any structure that happens to be common in English. 我喜歡X (&quot;I like X&quot;) is good enough. Or 我更喜歡X (&quot;I prefer X&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4339" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T10:28:50.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6339" CreationDate="2014-04-08T10:32:57.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There should be a list somewhere, as I imagine some linguist would have done research about it. It would be very long though. I don't believe there is an official one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some characters that are commonly used in transliterations, off the top of my head: 布, 斯, 爾, 尼, 拉, 克, 阿, 格, 雷, 卡, 達.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4339" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T10:32:57.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="316" CreationDate="2014-04-08T10:38:20.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't believe there is a rule of thumb on this. Some characters used as names can be misleading, even for native speakers of Chinese. For example, I've met women named 帥 (meaning handsome, though it can also mean commander) and 虎 (tiger), both of which Chinese people would assume were male names due to their masculine connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still there are some names that are commonly given to male and female babies, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Common male names: 偉, 磊, 軍, 傑.&#xA;Common female names: 芳, 秀英, 琳娜, 靜, 麗, 秀蘭.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4339" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T10:38:20.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6352" CreationDate="2014-04-08T10:40:49.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;沒有 is the common word for &quot;no/none&quot; used in conversation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;無 is a character that is used in words and set phrases, and cannot be used by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4339" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T10:40:49.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6479" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-08T11:39:25.193" Score="5" ViewCount="1496" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 模 in this phrase mo2 or mu2? Literally, have mold/model, have appearance/shape. Does it mean something like takes shape?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fire TV, which arrives after years of explicit rumors and intense speculation, costs $99. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;数年来，关于Fire TV，坊间一直存在着各种*&lt;em&gt;有模有样&lt;/em&gt;*的传言和激烈的揣测，如今它终于以99美元（约合620元人民币）的价格面市。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最萌对眼猫咪穿哈利·波特制服 &lt;strong&gt;有模有样&lt;/strong&gt; 图&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://edu.people.com.cn/n/2014/0316/c1053-24647134.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://edu.people.com.cn/n/2014/0316/c1053-24647134.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T07:05:32.107" Title="What does 有模有样 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6479" CreationDate="2014-04-08T16:32:42.480" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;模 is mu2 (some people pronounce it as mo2, but that's incorrect in this instance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;模样 is a common word in Chinese means appearance, especially referring to one's look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有模有样 means has the look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first context, 有模有样 means vivid and seems-to-be-true. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second context,  it means the cat has the look of Harry Porter by waring the Uniform.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another 成语 with 模样 is&#xA;人模狗样.&#xA;It means something looks good from outside, but indeed is bad from inside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4341" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2014-04-09T07:36:17.737" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T07:36:17.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6479" CreationDate="2014-04-08T22:06:19.957" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;模&lt;/code&gt; should be pronounced &lt;code&gt;mu2&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;模样&lt;/code&gt; and words like &lt;code&gt;[X]模[Y]样&lt;/code&gt;. This can be verified in any Chinese dictionary, references:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/12041.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;模 in Xinhua Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/8b/152020.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;模样 in ZDic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyu.iciba.com/a/20090914/2428.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Q/A on Ciba&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In colloquial language though, many people read it as &lt;code&gt;mo2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;有模有样&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;looks nice/real/decent/authentic&lt;/code&gt;. This word is used a lot for teasing or irony, like to say somebody is ludicrously pompous. It can be used as a genuine praise &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; for something still being developed, like to praise a student's work. It shouldn't be used to praise a real master's work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黑猩猩有模有样的拆着礼物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chimp opens the gift with a serious but pleasant look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小王才学一个月钢琴，就弹的有模有样了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although Wang just started playing piano a month ago, he has become fairly decent at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T05:13:40.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6453" CreationDate="2014-04-08T22:58:05.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;凭良心讲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C'est juste une phrase contre la censure de langue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2014-04-09T19:52:28.240" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T19:52:28.240" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6484" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6488" CreationDate="2014-04-08T23:11:01.737" Score="6" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does that count?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As we know, Chinese directions can be categorized as 六合八方, but none of them is related to the number 10?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T00:04:27.833" Title="Why is 十面埋伏 related to the number 10?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6397" CreationDate="2014-04-08T23:23:12.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;修改 or just 改 is the most common way of expressing &quot;mark&quot; in this context. So I would translate your sentence as 我今天複習了我老師給我改的作業。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4339" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T23:23:12.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6484" CreationDate="2014-04-08T23:51:59.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;古文中这类数词多有虚指之意，例如“三番五次”是指“许多次”而非“3+5=8次”，“士别三日，当刮目相看”也不是真的隔了“3天”而是一段时间。“十面埋伏”应该也不是严格意义上的“十面”，而是到处都是埋伏的意思吧。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Translation&lt;/em&gt;: In ancient China, these kinds of numbers have abstract meanings.  For example 三番五次 means &quot;many times&quot; not &quot;3+5 = 8 times&quot;, and 士别三日，当刮目相看 also is not separation for 3 days, but rather a period of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十面埋伏 also should not be strictly interpreted as &quot;10 faced&quot; but rather ambushes are everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-28T00:04:27.833" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T00:04:27.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6484" CreationDate="2014-04-09T00:51:45.900" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;KEY defines:&#xA;十面&#xA;as:&#xA;(on) all sides, (from) all sides&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also from a Baidu Zhidao question:&#xA;十面指的东,南,西,北，东北，东南，西北，西南,上，下 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ten sides: east, south, west, north, north-east, south-east, north-west, south-west, above, below&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T00:51:45.900" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6479" CreationDate="2014-04-09T08:05:21.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means your are mimicking some practices in a very professional way which you are not supposed or likely to be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T08:05:21.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6490" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-09T12:11:55.963" Score="2" ViewCount="1936" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps one is &quot;To rebel is justified / Revolution is no crime.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This however does not seem to me to fully capture the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if there are perhaps other standard translations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4133" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T23:55:28.713" Title="造反有理　革命無罪: What are the standard English translations of this?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6490" CreationDate="2014-04-09T17:53:31.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;right to rebel! right to revolution!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Rebellion justified, Revolution legitimated!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="823" LastEditorUserId="823" LastEditDate="2014-04-09T18:07:01.087" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T18:07:01.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6453" CreationDate="2014-04-09T18:53:27.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“实话和你说吧，”&#xA; or “实话告诉你，” or &quot;说实话, &quot;都是比较口语的说法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4344" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T18:53:27.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6490" CreationDate="2014-04-09T19:49:34.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Innocent it is to make revolution, and justified it is to rebel!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The quotation is reversed, its order should be 革命無罪 造反有理. I did not find it in the &lt;em&gt;quotations of Chairman Mao&lt;/em&gt;, though some references show he said the second part of this slogan, which was later composed into a famous propaganda song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-27T23:55:28.713" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T23:55:28.713" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6397" CreationDate="2014-04-10T00:39:08.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to: &quot;今天我复习了老师给我布置的作业。&quot;&#xA;maybe forgot at all~! :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4347" LastActivityDate="2014-04-10T00:39:08.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6397" CreationDate="2014-04-10T01:53:29.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Regarding correcting/marking homework&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many ways to say &amp;quot;correcting/marking homework&amp;quot;. The most formal name of the action is &amp;quot;批改&amp;quot; of which 批 means commenting the homework and 改 means correcting the homework.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many words in modern Chinese are constructed in this manner which is a combination of two characters have similar meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that being said, when casual conversations, people do not say &amp;quot;批改&amp;quot;. Instead, there are several single character verbs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;判 pan4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;判作业, mark homework.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师判你的作业了吗？ Have the teacher corrected your homework?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I prefer using this one, and it's widely used in places like Beijing, as far as I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;批 pi1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;批作业, mark homework.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师批你的作业了吗？ Have the teacher corrected your homework?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was a student, I normally wouldn't use this one, but some teachers does. Personally I don't like using it in this scenario as 批 also has the meaning of criticise, which also used to refer to the action that teacher or parents scolding a child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;改 tai3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;改作业, correct homework.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is more widely used in Taiwan, and maybe some southern areas of China. Personally I don't use it either as it may be mistaken as the action of correcting the mistakes in homework. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I corrected Tom's homework&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 改了      汤姆的 作业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way to know whether 改 means to mark Tom's homework as a teacher or to correct the errors in Tom's homework without context and inference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Regarding reviewing homework&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary translation of review is 复习 in this settings. But 复习 literally means to study again or to study again to prepare for a test. See the examples bellow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When it just means to study again. For this meaning you can also use the word 温习&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Teacher: you should review what you learned today after school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师：放学后你们应该复习/温习你们今天学到的（内容）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When it means to prepare for a test&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Student A: Have you prepared for the today's test?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学生A：今天的考试你复习了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Student B: I meant to, but I spend the whole night playing Diablo III last night somehow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学生B：我本来打算复习的，但是不知怎么的，晚了一晚上的暗黑破坏神3。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you may noticed both scenarios don't fit quite well with your example. In your case review means to look or view again where &amp;quot;again&amp;quot; here is not very important as the homework is already finished and corrected. So the sentence could be modified and translated as following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today I reviewed the homework my teacher had marked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= Today I inspected the homework my teacher had marked. | Today I took a look at the homework my teacher had marked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= 今天我检查了我的老师给判/改/批的作业 | 今天我看了我的老师给我判/改/批的作业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-10T01:53:29.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6497" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6498" CreationDate="2014-04-10T07:25:48.080" Score="6" ViewCount="3046" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're both verbs, they both have meanings &quot;to worry, to be anxious&quot;, they both seem to be able to be used as adjectives also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to know if there's any difference: is one used more in Northern China vs. Southern China? Is one more formal than the other? Anything different? Or are they totally interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="3561" LastEditDate="2014-04-10T07:53:27.510" LastActivityDate="2014-04-14T03:37:13.300" Title="Is there a difference between 担心 (dānxīn) and 着急 (zháojí)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6497" CreationDate="2014-04-10T08:47:29.547" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some differences between these two words. &#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“着急” &#xA;  &lt;br/&gt;Used as an adjective:&#xA;  &lt;br/&gt;1. Something emergent happens (in other words, something horrible or fatal is very likely going to happen), and you feel upset. For example, when you lost your kids or you're going to be late for your work.&#xA;  &lt;br/&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example&lt;/em&gt; 一位母亲因为找不到她的孩子而非常着急。(Can't use &quot;担心&quot;)&#xA;             &lt;br/&gt; &lt;em&gt;A woman is very upset because she can't find her kid anywhere.&lt;/em&gt;         &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;2. While doing something, you only care if you can finish the work as soon as possible and may forget something you should notice, thus causing the work to be done badly.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;Example&lt;/em&gt; 老师嘱咐我们考试做题的时候不要太着急。(Can't use “担心”） &lt;em&gt;The teacher told us not to be too hurry when when answering the questions.&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br/&gt;used as verb or adv: means the same when used as adj. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Used as a verb:&#xA;  &lt;br/&gt;Use it as a verb only when nothing emergent happens, yet in the future things are going to be pretty bad very likely, and you're sure that it's deadly. You're hopeless or you know doing something though won't likely help you, but still possible to help you out, therefore you'll try your best to avoid it.&#xA;  &lt;br/&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example&lt;/em&gt; 儿子因父亲日益加重的病情而着急（Can't use “担心”）。 &#xA;  &lt;em&gt;The son feels upset for his father's deteriorating illness.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;“担心”&#xA;  &lt;br/&gt;Used as a verb: You're worrying that something bad might happen in the &lt;em&gt;future&lt;/em&gt;, but you comfort yourself, reasoning that it possibly won't happen. Or you know it's very likely to happen, but you also know that it's not a big deal since it will get fixed if it happens. For instance, if you're worrying about your kid's future, you can use this word to describe yourself. &#xA;  &lt;br/&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example 1&lt;/em&gt; 他车开的太快了，我担心他会出事故。（Can't use 着急. it's likely to happen, but not that likely. It's a big deal once it happens though. And the other reason is that 着急 is a intransitive verb.）&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;He drove the car too fast, and I was worrying that he would have an accident.&lt;/em&gt; &#xA;  &lt;br/&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example 2&lt;/em&gt; 儿子马上就要出国留学了，父亲为他在外的生活而担心（You can use 着急 too, and actually it's better than 担心 in this case since it shows that the father really cared about the son.)&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;The son is going to be studying aboard, and the father is worrying about his daily life.&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;  孩子出门上学的时候雨下得很大，他的父母为他的安全而担心（interchangeable with 着急 since something bad would very likely happen to the kid)。&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;It rained fiercely when the kid went out of the home for school, and the parents were worrying about the kid's safety.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Used as an adj: the same when used as a verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Summary: &#xA;&lt;br/&gt;1. “着急” is more intense than “担心”. When something terrible or may cause death or injury will happen very soon, you can &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; use “着急”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;2.Under some situation, they're &lt;em&gt;somewhat&lt;/em&gt; interchangeable. For example, when you're worrying about someone's health, security, etc., as long as a catastrophe is not sure to happen, or it is very likely to happen but not that serious, you can use both words. But here &quot;着急&quot; is more intense than &quot;担心&quot;, because &quot;着急&quot; shows that you really care about someone, or you really don't want that bad thing to ever happen. And If you use “担心”, it reveals that though being bothered, you're comforting yourself that it probably won't happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;3. “着急” also means that you're eager to finish something, which is not one of the meanings of the word &quot;担心&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;4. 着急 is an intransitive verb, and 担心 is a transitive or intransitive verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;5.着急 is often used as an adjective while 担心 is often used as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;6.To answer your question concerning the variation between north and south: These two words are both used in the north quite frequently. As to the southerners, I think they should use these words often too, as these two are basic words in Mandarin. Some place in the south may use some uncommon words for each of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;7. Certainly 着急 is &lt;em&gt;informal&lt;/em&gt;, but 担心 is considered as formal, and it often appears in newspapers and broadcasting. &#xA;&lt;br/&gt;So remember in formal situations, use 担心 when both of them make sense. When you want to express the feeling that could be described by 着急 when writing a news report, use 焦虑，焦急，紧张。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;I'm not an expert on this, so some contents may be inaccurate. Any edition or correction is welcomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Synonyms for &quot;担心&quot;: 忧虑，着急，忧愁，担忧  synonyms for &quot;着急&quot;：焦虑， 焦急，匆忙，紧张&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4343" LastEditorUserId="4343" LastEditDate="2014-04-14T03:37:13.300" LastActivityDate="2014-04-14T03:37:13.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6453" CreationDate="2014-04-10T09:56:52.727" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;坦白说（讲），老实说（讲），凭心而论, 实不相瞒&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;oral forms (Northern dialect):说真的，不瞒您说，说实话，凭良心说，打心眼里说，实话告诉你，说实话，说句老实话，凭良心说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4343" LastEditorUserId="4343" LastEditDate="2014-04-12T01:56:51.187" LastActivityDate="2014-04-12T01:56:51.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6397" CreationDate="2014-04-10T14:36:00.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to use: &quot;今天我溫习了老師批改的功课。”&#xA;1. In Chinese, we don't need to specify &quot;my teacher&quot;. Instead of &quot;我老師”，just “老師” is enough.&#xA;2. When I use &quot;溫习”，it means &quot;revision&quot;. It seems to be more natural.&#xA;3. When you use &quot;homework&quot;, &quot;功课” first comes to mind though &quot;作业” is of similar meaning.&#xA;4. &quot;批改” can be a stand-alone verb. This makes the sentence flow smoothly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.B. I am a Chinese born in Hong Kong. We study Chinese all the way from kindergarten till now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4351" LastActivityDate="2014-04-10T14:36:00.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6490" CreationDate="2014-04-10T23:32:32.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, you need to know the background of this .....you can't  just simply translate from what it looks like....there were about 10 years of history in this one sentence.,.... get to know the history first, then you will understand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4038" LastActivityDate="2014-04-10T23:32:32.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6502" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6503" CreationDate="2014-04-11T03:12:57.423" Score="6" ViewCount="353" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone provide some guidance on word order of a sentence if it has an adverb using 地 and coverb phrases. I thought 地 always came directly in front of the verb, but then I saw this site: &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Word_order#Placement_of_manner_in_a_sentence&quot;&gt;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Word_order#Placement_of_manner_in_a_sentence&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Which showed the &quot;manner&quot; part coming before all the coverb phrases. So, I started doing some searching and found this sentence which has the coverb 向 after the adverb and before the verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他会很诚恳地向你道歉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, I also found this sentence with the coverb 把 first, and then the adverb after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;父母应该把事情好好地告诉孩子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what is the difference between the two word orders?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3944" LastActivityDate="2014-04-12T16:47:13.400" Title="What is the proper word order when a sentence contains an adverb using 地 and a coverb phrase?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6502" CreationDate="2014-04-11T03:53:32.263" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese you can also say &quot;他会很诚恳地向你道歉&quot; in this way: &quot;他会向你很诚恳地道歉&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the order of coverb and adverb is the same as the sentence &quot;父母应该把事情好好地告诉孩子.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: the following 2 sentences have the same meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;coverb first, adverb after: 医生*&lt;em&gt;对他&lt;/em&gt;*仔细地检查&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adverb first, coverb after: 医生仔细地*&lt;em&gt;对他&lt;/em&gt;*检查&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4353" LastActivityDate="2014-04-11T03:53:32.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6579" CreationDate="2014-04-11T04:41:27.780" Score="1" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found a lot of information about asking questions but very little about answering them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to create a rule to help learners answer affirmative/negative questions in Chinese. Presently I ask them to identify the following in a sentence: copulas, modals, main verbs or solitary adjectives and then use them in one or two-word answers. My question is how would you answer the following questions in the simplest way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;李先生在吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他是你的朋友吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;李先生很累吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你要这张卡片吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;李先生有朋友吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastEditorUserId="4354" LastEditDate="2014-04-17T08:09:29.847" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T19:07:32.207" Title="What do you think about this introduction to answering Yes/No questions?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;yes-no-questions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6247" CreationDate="2014-04-11T06:00:55.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience we would say &quot;鬼來了&quot;, which means &quot;The ghost is coming&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We call the seeker as 鬼/ghost, and the ghost will announce that he is going to find others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastActivityDate="2014-04-11T06:00:55.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6504" CreationDate="2014-04-11T06:38:38.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't know how much I can discover...and I'm not writing that strict rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One can combine Ma with a negative sentence, and its answer is&#xA;always reverse to the western logic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-你们还没吃饭吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-不，吃了。/对，没吃。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thus there are direct answers as simplified compound answers based on&#xA;main verb.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是的／对／对的－不是／不对、 是的－（还）没有 、 有的－没有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Note that &lt;strong&gt;你吃了吗?&lt;/strong&gt; is not really a question asking if you have had meal, but somehow a kind of invitation. The right way to answer is&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-你吃了吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-吃得可好了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you have had your meal and don't want to be invited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any other answer leads to the consequence of being invited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-11T07:24:10.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6504" CreationDate="2014-04-11T07:25:45.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answering everything with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嗯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is perfectly acceptable and can avoid having to have any sort of conversation!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-04-11T07:25:45.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6508" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-11T08:04:22.447" Score="8" ViewCount="665" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that questions about resources are generally accepted on the site. If not, please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if anyone knew where to find maps with isoglosses for dialects of Mandarin. I am especially interested in phonemic features, such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;erhua&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;mergers, such as eng/en, in/ing, x/sh etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;regional differences in tones&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but anything would be interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2464" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T10:32:06.300" Title="Where can I find isogloss maps for Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6508" CreationDate="2014-04-11T08:37:38.940" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The shapes of Isogloss maps are generally identical to those of dialect maps. So I think this could give you some clues.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IFRPm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is a sample for isogloss maps(from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yupoo.com/photos/9919/7485900/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.yupoo.com/photos/9919/7485900/&lt;/a&gt;)&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SEVrf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;More of them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P9WPo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bRFiR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o9dZp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suggestion: For more information about isogloss maps, visit &lt;a href=&quot;http://image.baidu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://image.baidu.com/&lt;/a&gt; and type in &quot;同言线&quot;. Further reading: &lt;a href=&quot;http://book.kongfz.com/15325/226467644/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://book.kongfz.com/15325/226467644/&lt;/a&gt; This is a book about chinese linguistic geography. For more books in this subject, search &quot;汉语方言地理学&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4343" LastEditorUserId="4343" LastEditDate="2014-04-13T10:32:06.300" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T10:32:06.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6419" CreationDate="2014-04-11T12:43:55.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, “别的人” isn't used quite often,at least not used often by Beijingers, more common form is &quot;别人&quot;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;“其他人” always represent the rest in a team, class, squad, etc. It's more formal, and more specific, and when you want to explicitly refer to some people, use this word, especially when you are assigning works to people. You can still use &quot;别的人&quot; or &quot;别人&quot; if you wish, but not if you're writing a news report, research paper, etc.&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&quot;别人&quot; has the same meaning. But it's informal. When you're chatting with someone, use this word. Again, you're still allowed to use &quot;其他人&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4343" LastEditorUserId="4343" LastEditDate="2014-04-12T01:46:47.760" LastActivityDate="2014-04-12T01:46:47.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6511" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6514" CreationDate="2014-04-11T15:04:37.580" Score="3" ViewCount="416" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference between 成员 and 会员? Both mean member. I encountered this in a Level 2 Chinese workbook. Are they used in different contexts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3805" LastActivityDate="2014-04-12T07:37:12.590" Title="Difference between 成员 and 会员?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6511" CreationDate="2014-04-11T16:12:43.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;成员 more talking about &quot;member&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会员 is &quot;member&quot; too but more about &quot;membership&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4038" LastActivityDate="2014-04-11T16:12:43.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5841" CreationDate="2014-04-11T16:16:05.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;google translate is the best one. copy your words and paste to google translate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4038" LastActivityDate="2014-04-11T16:16:05.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6511" CreationDate="2014-04-11T18:23:16.230" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;成员&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;member&lt;/code&gt; in a generic sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can refer to a member of any organization, like a team (e.g. 团队成员), a class (e.g. 班级成员), a party (e.g. 党派成员), a tribe (e.g. 部落成员), a crew (e.g. 机组成员), a committee (e.g. 委员会成员), the jury (e.g. 陪审团成员), etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be extended to mean an &lt;code&gt;element/component/constituent of an object&lt;/code&gt;, for example in Computer Programming, a variable defined on a class is called 成员变量.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;会员&lt;/code&gt; also means &lt;code&gt;member&lt;/code&gt; but with much narrower usage. It is used only when &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The organization is a membership club, e.g. 俱乐部会员 -or-&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Chinese translation of the organization ends with &lt;code&gt;会&lt;/code&gt;, e.g. 国会会员. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, &lt;code&gt;会员&lt;/code&gt; can be replaced with &lt;code&gt;成员&lt;/code&gt; but not the other way round. 俱乐部成员 sounds equally correct and natural as 俱乐部会员, but for member of the jury you can only say 陪审团成员 while 陪审团会员 is wrong and sounds funny.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-04-11T18:23:16.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6511" CreationDate="2014-04-12T05:40:32.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;会员：more specific than 成员， thus has a narrower range of usage. When you are a member of an associate, club, then use this word to describe yourself. “国会会员”sounds ok, but &quot;国会议员&quot; sounds more professional and formal, it sounds more appropriate. Some company, supermarket, bookshop etc, may assign or sell a kind of cards called “会员卡”， which is used to record how much money a customer has paid or show the privilege the person has got by spending money or buying their product and discount respectively.Whoever possess this card is a member of a group of people which can be somewhat viewed as a club. Whenever the word ends with &quot;会&quot;，use the word, and you'll get it right most of the time, e.g: 兄弟会会员(fraternity member)，女大学生联谊会会员(sorority member)，学生会会员（student union member）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成员：More general, more commonly used. Apart from “会员卡” or other fixed phrases, you can replace “会员” by “成员” whenever you see some phrases containing “会员”&quot;议员&quot; or other words indicating a membership and still get it right. E.G: 兄弟会会员--&gt;兄弟会成员，国会议员--&gt;国会成员，机组组员--&gt;机组成员，协会会员--&gt;协会成员。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4343" LastEditorUserId="4343" LastEditDate="2014-04-12T07:37:12.590" LastActivityDate="2014-04-12T07:37:12.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6516" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6525" CreationDate="2014-04-12T10:04:43.910" Score="4" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for any phrases (成语/俗语/谚语, 等) that talk about the meaning of tress growing out of graves/tombs/resting places (of the dead).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently having a tree growing out of someones grave is  supposed to be good thing for their offspring - just wondering if there are any phrases that talk about this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T17:51:19.940" Title="Any Phrases About Trees Growing From Peoples Graves?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6517" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6518" CreationDate="2014-04-12T12:46:25.910" Score="5" ViewCount="3351" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between &quot;举行&quot; and &quot;举办&quot;? Both of them have the meaning of 'holding / organizing an event&quot;, but do they have any difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T22:39:16.240" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T09:14:55.063" Title="What is the difference between 举行 and 举办?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6517" CreationDate="2014-04-12T13:42:11.350" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;An answer I found on &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=tKhYZuKNEya_MQ0EBcHvM67Bbm8-FLgjJ3WQ_MfmgefVLR0BPIgI_YsEYlcJwZLYTcGWVLgX8fQ9MeHQfNMPsK&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Zhidao&lt;/a&gt; says this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;二者的区别在字面上，“行”注重过程，“办”强调事情，进行（集会、比赛等）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between the two words can be seen from the words themselves, “行” focuses on the process of events, while “办” emphases the thing things and the carrying out of such things themselves (meetings, competitions, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following all use &quot;举行&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;～会谈 &#xA;～球赛 &#xA;展览会在文化宫～。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Hold talks&#xA;to hold a sporting event&#xA;the exhibit will be held at the cultural palace&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following, here, would all use &quot;举办&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;～展览会&#xA;～学术讲座&#xA;～训练班&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;To hold an exhibition&#xA;The hold an academic speech&#xA;To hold a training class&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically&#xA;行 = just doing it&#xA;办 = includes setting it up and doing it (edit: or organizing like you said in your original post)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-04-12T13:42:11.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6519" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-12T14:38:43.133" Score="1" ViewCount="455" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I wanted to say, &quot;Each person's monthly rent is $650&quot;, what is the correct way to say it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每个月各人的房租是六五十钱。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一人的每个月房租是六五十钱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or something else if neither is right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3922" LastEditorUserId="3922" LastEditDate="2014-04-12T15:48:08.590" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T15:44:56.300" Title="Correct way to say &quot;each person&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6519" CreationDate="2014-04-12T14:58:31.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;房租每人每月六百五十美元！  六五钱 is ungrammatical in Mandarin Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4038" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-04-13T21:48:07.907" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T21:48:07.907" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6519" CreationDate="2014-04-12T15:01:59.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Each person&quot; here means &quot;每个人&quot;, such as,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;每个人的房租月租金是650元。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: Your translation is understandable except for 六五十钱 which can't be understood correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-04-13T15:46:15.447" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T15:46:15.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6502" CreationDate="2014-04-12T16:47:13.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, &quot;地&quot; is used as adv, that means it is used when describing verbs.&#xA;for example &quot;他大聲地笑著&quot; means &quot;He is laughing loudly&quot;. loudly is used to describe how he laughs, so we use 地.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4352" LastActivityDate="2014-04-12T16:47:13.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6508" CreationDate="2014-04-13T01:09:34.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try &lt;a href=&quot;http://phonemica.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乡音苑(phonemica)&lt;/a&gt;, it has dialects map in both English and Chinese, maybe you can find isogloss maps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U0TI6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T01:09:34.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6516" CreationDate="2014-04-13T01:22:33.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just find 成语, and they're not very good meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;墓木已拱\墓木拱矣 &lt;br&gt; ﻿[mù mù yǐ gǒng] &lt;br&gt; 【发音】mù mù yǐ gǒng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  【解释】坟墓上的树木已有两手合抱那么粗了。意思是你快要死了。这是骂人的话。后指人死了很久。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  【出处】《左传·僖公三十二年》：“尔何知？中寿，尔墓之木拱亦。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T01:22:33.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6519" CreationDate="2014-04-13T01:25:50.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每人每月房租650元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its meaning is simple and clean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T01:25:50.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6352" CreationDate="2014-04-13T01:40:11.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;basically, same meaning, but 没有 for modern people, 无  for people from hundred years ago....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4038" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T01:40:11.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6529" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6531" CreationDate="2014-04-13T04:34:54.813" Score="1" ViewCount="929" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read &lt;a href=&quot;http://asianpopnews.com/alan-tam-tries-to-be-peacemaker-anthony-wong-please-let-me-off/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;an article&lt;/a&gt; which says that &quot;Mao Li&quot; in cantonese means &quot;fool&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the mandarin equivalent of &quot;Mao Li&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mandarintools.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;MandarinTools&lt;/a&gt; does not seem to return any useful results for Cantonese look up of &quot;Mao Li&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2533" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:25:12.493" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:25:12.493" Title="What's &quot;Mao Li&quot; (Cantonese) in mandarin?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6529" CreationDate="2014-04-13T06:01:30.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're probably referring to 無厘頭 (mou4 lei4 tau4), which in Cantonese refers to something illogical or nonsensical and gave its name to a genre of surrealistic comedy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T06:01:30.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6529" CreationDate="2014-04-13T09:58:24.410" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is one of the obscene language in Hong Kong.&#xA;It can be write as 茂利/茂李 (mau6 lei2 in cantonese, Màolì in mandarin), sounds like an English word &quot;mullion&quot;&#xA;In Cantonese, we use the word to describe a man standing still like a pillar, later use to describe stupid person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference from &lt;a href=&quot;https://hk.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question?qid=7008062100602&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://hk.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question?qid=7008062100602&lt;/a&gt;, I did a simple translation on the important parts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是由20世紀初，英國人在香港教中國人建築而來。&#xA;  當時英式建築有好多大型窗戶和陽台，例如港督府，&#xA;  這些窗戶和陽台的主要支柱，英文叫mullion。&#xA;  當時的mullion全部都是使用很粗大的木柱，但只有立著的才叫mullion，&#xA;  橫的叫transom。當時香港人又不懂英文，聽見那些洋人指著一大根木桿猛叫[mullion] 漸漸就學著叫[茂利]，意思是一根根木棍或木柱，&#xA;  就像傻愣愣站著的人，後來變成用來形容一些愚鈍之人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4359" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T09:58:24.410" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6519" CreationDate="2014-04-13T11:02:23.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;每个月各人的房租是六五十钱。&quot;&#xA;  &quot;一人的每个月房租是六五十钱。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“六五十钱” is not a correct way to say. Therefore, you should substitute that by &quot;六百五十美元&quot; or in a more common form &quot;650$&quot;. After that, the first one sounds ok, but the second one doesn't sound right. Place that &quot;的&quot; in your sentence behind “每个月”. &#xA;The way I say it will be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每人每月的房租为650$。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It contains a rhythm in it since “每” is used twice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4343" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T11:02:23.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6533" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6534" CreationDate="2014-04-13T19:33:18.783" Score="6" ViewCount="655" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following dialogue is in NPCR 2, Lesson 23, listening exercise 7 in the exercise book, and my attempt in translating it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cXjhY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unsure about the sentence marked in red. I have not learned the pattern 比较+adjective until now but my Chinese friend told me that it's the comparative form of the adjective, so in this case &quot;good&quot;-&gt;&quot;better&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can't make sense of this question. It's better compared to what? I also see a 走 (to walk), but in the next sentence they talk about trains and climbing. So how should I translate it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3739" LastActivityDate="2014-04-14T07:11:11.237" Title="Making sense of 去华山怎么走比较好？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6533" CreationDate="2014-04-13T21:37:34.223" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;比较 here doesn't so much accentuate the comparison between two or more objects/methods. It more gives you an idea of something that has a quality to a somewhat significant degree or above the average. (So in some way, it is a comparison, but a comparison to an unreferenced standard/average). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be loosely translated into 'relatively', 'fairly', 'rather' or 'somewhat'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example would be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;玛丽长得比较胖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mary is &lt;strong&gt;rather&lt;/strong&gt; obese/overweight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="653" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-04-13T21:42:38.600" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T21:42:38.600" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6533" CreationDate="2014-04-14T00:11:05.980" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A literal English translation is, &quot;To go to Mt. Hua, how does one go there comparatively well [better]? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;To go to Mt. Hua&quot; is what is called the &quot;topic&quot; of the sentence, and is placed in front for emphasis. The rest of the sentence is &quot;commentary,&quot; with &quot;how does one go there&quot; preceding &quot;better.&quot; The last part, 比较 好 is &quot;commentary on commentary.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-04-14T00:11:05.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6533" CreationDate="2014-04-14T01:59:37.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What your Chinese friend said is right. 比较+adjective is a very common pattern used in Chinese which means 'beyond average' or 'beyond other competitors' according to one's knowledge or some theories and so on. So there do exist some comparative meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know the very reason why this expression makes sense, most of us Chinese don't. I think it appears as a brief way to say '...the best ... according to...'. The following sentence says &lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt; the same thing in Chinese &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你觉得去华山怎么走最好？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We also say in oral language&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;去华山怎么走最好？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 比较+adjective is the most commonly used pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Supplement&lt;/strong&gt;: Chinese has a tradition of modesty. We don't usually assert something is 'the best' unless it is the fact that we want to emphasize. When asked by your close friend '你最喜欢什么运动', you can say that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我最喜欢打篮球了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when asked by an elder, we naturally would answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我比较喜欢打篮球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter sounds softer and implicitly express your modesty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4361" LastEditorUserId="4361" LastEditDate="2014-04-14T03:15:01.233" LastActivityDate="2014-04-14T03:15:01.233" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6537" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6538" CreationDate="2014-04-14T02:48:45.403" Score="1" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard the phrase &quot;猫来穷, 狗来富&quot; before but everywhere people have 招财猫s and 招福猫 ornaments, bracelets and the like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's the deal?&#xA;What's the association between cats and good fortune and/or money, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-04-14T03:42:21.127" Title="招财、招福, why cats?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6537" CreationDate="2014-04-14T03:28:28.467" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually this association comes from Japan, as written in &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=KkPY0N-Q8dHD348EY2B1gu4nHgN_LKGysf9imzbiW4AZ6p-7H0upYmOiYMTnNrCO&quot;&gt;百度百科：招财猫&lt;/a&gt;. The article says there are stories of cats repaying their masters in Japan since Edo period and this is the origin of different kinds of 招财猫s. There is also a movie &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347618/&quot;&gt;Neko no ongaeshi&lt;/a&gt; about this kind of stories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4361" LastEditorUserId="4361" LastEditDate="2014-04-14T03:42:21.127" LastActivityDate="2014-04-14T03:42:21.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6519" CreationDate="2014-04-14T05:45:47.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Each person's monthly rent is $650&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to use a sentence it would be something along the line with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每个人一个月的房租是$650&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$650 can be read as 六百五十 元/块/刀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can say 一个人/每人 instead of saying 每个人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can say 每个月/每月 instead of saying 一个月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to express it as a phrase, like used on a sign or something, in this situation in Chinese words like &amp;quot;的&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;是&amp;quot; would normally be omitted, it would be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每人每月房租$650&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to read currency:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If in a context where there is no confusion of what currency you are referring to, you can just read the dollar sign as 元/块.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to emphasise the unit your are referring to is dollar, you can use 刀 in no-formal conversation. Using 刀 is not valid Chinese but it's widely used in China nowadays since the country is been more exposed to foreign culture. However, note that language and education authorities does not encourage such usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise you can use 美元 if it's USD, or 澳元 for AUD and so on so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-14T05:57:25.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6533" CreationDate="2014-04-14T07:11:11.237" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;怎么走？&quot; = &quot;How to go to ... ?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;去华山怎么走比较好？&quot; = &quot;去华山怎么走？&quot; = &quot;怎么去华山？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4363" LastActivityDate="2014-04-14T07:11:11.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6541" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6543" CreationDate="2014-04-14T12:10:23.133" Score="4" ViewCount="3488" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between &quot;由于&quot; and &quot;因为&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, what is the difference between&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;由于今天是公共假期，我不需要上学。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因为今天是公共假期，我不需要上学。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T22:39:44.420" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T22:39:44.420" Title="What is the difference between 由于 and 因为?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6541" CreationDate="2014-04-14T13:00:28.407" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;由于&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;due to&quot; or &quot;because of&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;因为&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;because&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some differences in usage too,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;由于 is usually placed at the &lt;em&gt;beginning&lt;/em&gt; of a sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;由于天气恶劣，飞机被迫折返梳邦机场降落。&lt;br&gt; Due to the bad weather, the plane is forced&#xA;  to turn back to land at Subang Airport.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;因为 can be used where the &lt;em&gt;cause&lt;/em&gt; is stated following the &lt;em&gt;effect&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不需要上学，因为今天是公共假日。&lt;br&gt; I don't need to go to school because today is a&#xA;  public holiday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;因为 can be used in conjunction with 所以&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因为今天是公共假日，所以我不需要上学。&lt;br&gt; Because today is a public holiday, therefore I&#xA;  don't need to go to school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2014-04-16T06:05:04.397" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T06:05:04.397" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6544" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6546" CreationDate="2014-04-14T14:22:01.270" Score="3" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;In both situations my pen is now on a table. Speaking to another person, why do we say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) Qing3 na2 qi3 wo3 de5 bi3. 请拿起我的笔。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Not:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) Qing3 na2 qi3 lai2 wo3 de5 bi3. 请拿起来我的笔。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does the addition or deletion of lai (来) change this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;++Yet this seems O.K.++&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) Qing3 ni3 ba3 bi3 na2 qi3 lai2. 请你把笔拿起来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-04-15T22:09:32.170" LastActivityDate="2014-04-15T22:09:32.170" Title="What is the difference between qi3 and qi3 lai2?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6544" CreationDate="2014-04-15T00:19:00.187" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Verb + Directional Complement&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The direction verb immediately following the verb and indicating the direction of the action, is called the direction complement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the object is a thing, it can be placed as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他**带**了一份合同**回来** (Tā dài le yí fèn hétóng huílái)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他**带回**一份合同**来** (Tā dài huí yí fèn hétóng lái)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Source: 当代中文 (Dāngdài Zhōngwén) Book 2, 2nd Edition, 2006]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can Google directional complement to find more information as well as quizzes, so you can learn more about it and test yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. if you are teaching beginners, with pinyin only, this sentence construct is beyond them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; sorry I realise I only answered via inference. To be clear, the reason why we don't say it your second way: because grammar, that's why. An arbitrary set of rules that all (read: most) people agree upon :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="3561" LastEditDate="2014-04-15T00:38:30.867" LastActivityDate="2014-04-15T00:38:30.867" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6547" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6562" CreationDate="2014-04-15T00:58:17.187" Score="1" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the word 跟到, as in 我们跟到就走, part of MSM? If not, what topolect is it from? Is there any documentation on it? (Dictionary entries, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case it's not clear the meaning of 跟到 is pretty much the same as 马上 here - and does not mean follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: I've heard it used frequently in the 四川 area&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-01T08:31:19.720" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T08:31:19.720" Title="跟到: 方言? Or what?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6547" CreationDate="2014-04-15T02:25:50.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, &quot;我们跟到就走&quot; is not widely used and seems wired. Maybe you should provide more context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;跟到&quot; means &quot;arrive&quot; or &quot;as soon as I/we finish doing something&quot;. I would like to translate &quot;我们跟到就走&quot; into &quot;We will leave here as soon as I/we finish doing something/dressing/packaging/etc&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update to answer more precisely: it's not the Modern Standard Mandarin, and it seems rarely used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4368" LastEditorUserId="4368" LastEditDate="2014-04-15T02:55:05.780" LastActivityDate="2014-04-15T02:55:05.780" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6529" CreationDate="2014-04-15T02:42:50.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Newman's answer about its origin should be right. &quot;Mao Li&quot; has the meanings of &quot;fool&quot; and/or &quot;stupid person&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it also means &quot;jerk&quot;, &quot;bitch&quot; and/or &quot;son of bitch&quot;. In my opinion these meanings are used more often. When two people (Cantonese speakers) are quarreling with each other, one may say &quot;你条茂李！&quot;, meaning &quot;you son of bitch!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Mao Li&quot; is used in Cantonese context. No one uses it in Mandarin context, though you can write it down as &quot;茂李&quot; and pronounce it in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin equivalent of &quot;Mao Li&quot; can be &quot;傻逼&quot;(fool) or &quot;贱人&quot;(jerk, bitch, son of bitch). Attention! These are dirty words! Everyone should not use them in formal (or informal) occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4368" LastActivityDate="2014-04-15T02:42:50.810" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6554" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6561" CreationDate="2014-04-15T08:01:03.477" Score="0" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually hear 路 used with 條 as the classifier, but sometimes people also use 個. in cantonese, which is the correct classifier? are both correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:25:01.367" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T21:41:51.110" Title="條 or 個 as classifier for road (路) in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6555" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6558" CreationDate="2014-04-15T09:56:18.027" Score="2" ViewCount="578" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between &quot;激动&quot; and &quot;冲动&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for example, what is the difference between:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;先别激动，冷静一下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;先别冲动，冷静一下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T22:38:40.890" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T22:38:40.890" Title="What is the difference between 激动 and 冲动?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6555" CreationDate="2014-04-15T11:47:29.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;冲动 means to be inclined to do something suddenly , regardless of its outcome which usually is dangerous and harmful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of 激动 is relatively neutral. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4372" LastActivityDate="2014-04-15T11:47:29.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6555" CreationDate="2014-04-15T13:14:00.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;激动&lt;/code&gt; is more likely for psychological while &lt;code&gt;冲动&lt;/code&gt; is more likely for physical. For example: &lt;code&gt;得知自己的公司即将拿到新的投资了，我们几个创始人都很激动&lt;/code&gt;（Knowing that our company's gonna get a new round of investment, all the founders are very excited）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;激动&lt;/code&gt; is more when something good happened while &lt;code&gt;冲动&lt;/code&gt; is more likely when something bad happened. For example: &lt;code&gt;他不是故意要害你的，千万别冲动啊&lt;/code&gt;（He's not offending you on purpose, just let it go）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-04-15T13:14:00.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6555" CreationDate="2014-04-15T13:31:10.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;i would translate 激動 to &quot;intensely emotional&quot;, where the emotion can be any sort of emotion, positive or negative (e.g. sorrow, anger, happiness). so it's very useful word because it can mean many things (despair, rage, ecstatic). and 衝動 means recklessness or impulsiveness driven by strong emotions, again any kind of emotion will do. typically the type of emotion is implied or from context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when describing a person, 激動 is more of a &lt;strong&gt;mental state&lt;/strong&gt;, where as 衝動 implies the person is &lt;strong&gt;physically&lt;/strong&gt; getting ready for action (larger and more violent actions). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;激動 examples： 他激動到哭出來。他激動到說不出話來。 (he is so emotional he starts to cry. he is so emotional he couldn't speak.) i used these examples intentionally to demonstrate that even though crying is an action, it's not big enough of an action so you can't use 衝動。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衝動 examples: 他一時衝動，把車窗打破。他衝動的跑去找上司理論。(he became reckless and broke the car window. he recklessly went to argue with the boss.) here the person is driven by the emotion (rage, displeasure or whatever) to do something reckless or impulsive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衝動 can also be used to describe an action, where as 激動 only works on people.&#xA;eg. 衝動的舉動，衝動的行為 (reckless actions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so to answer your question, the first sentence implies the person should calm down in order to think clearly (or not have a mental break down), and the second sentence means the person should calm down and not do what he is about to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another usage you might find useful: 我這樣做會不會太衝動？ (would it be reckless if i did this?) for asking people's opinion when you feel like you're about to do something you might regret.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4222" LastActivityDate="2014-04-15T13:31:10.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6547" CreationDate="2014-04-15T13:31:19.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Sichuan, &lt;code&gt;跟到&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;sooner&lt;/code&gt; - indicating that something is gonna happen soon or sooner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-04-15T13:31:19.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6519" CreationDate="2014-04-15T13:34:09.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, there are two ways to say it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每人每月650元 - general speaking&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;650块钱一人一个月 - emphasis the price, more oral&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-04-15T13:34:09.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6554" CreationDate="2014-04-15T15:06:52.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;條&quot; is the correct one. I speak Cantonese and never heard of &quot;個&quot; in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4368" LastActivityDate="2014-04-15T15:06:52.467" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6547" CreationDate="2014-04-15T15:21:09.050" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well apparently I got the characters wrong as it should be “跟倒”...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is not part of MSM.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's from 四川话&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Documentation:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from &quot;四川方言词典&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bzKbq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;四川方言词典&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from &quot;成都方言词典&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oZ6b4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;成都方言词典&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-04-15T15:21:09.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6555" CreationDate="2014-04-15T23:39:37.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to translate these two is 激動 as excited, and 衝動 as impulse or drive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4339" LastActivityDate="2014-04-15T23:39:37.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6541" CreationDate="2014-04-16T09:07:42.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nice question and a trick question. Their differences are very &lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1057838954&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;subtle&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因为是表示做过的事情 或做某件事、产生某种结果的缘由 所以是描述“因为”的内容而客观发生的事实，即“怎么了”。 由于是表示某种东西或动作&#xA;  因此是表示针对之前做过的或发生的某件事做出的反应，即“所以就”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;例如：因为他昨天乱吃东西，所以他生病了。&lt;br&gt; 如今，由于学生早恋问题严重，因此各校对此均表示坚决抵制。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or if you want a more &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=oCc62z-iSBPzcLlWRX5iDg4F3TlCUPWQR56HmaGtWPZIL_Z8z4B-JqhBLbdWNGwZyQSyG9rTtAIznWkeEu5_Aa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;linguistic approach&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“因为”和“由于”既是介词，也是连词，都用在因果复句中，表示原因和理由，有时可以互换。如“因为情况发生了变化，工程计划有所调整”可以写成“由于情况发生了变化，工程计划有所调整”。但是，两者的用法又有一些差别，有些情况只能用“因为”不能用“由于”，有些情况则只能用“由于”而不能用“因为”。它们用法上的差别主要表现在三个方面。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一是搭配不同。“因为”主要跟“所以”一起使用，不能与“因此”、“因而”搭配；“由于”除了跟“所以”一起使用以外，还可以跟“因此”、“因而”搭配。例如“由于他工作努力，因此常得到领导赞扬”不能写成“因为他工作努力，因此常得到领导赞扬”。例三和例四的问题就属于搭配不当的问题。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  二是位置不同。“因为”可以用在后一个分句，补充说明原因；“由于”引出的原因分句，不能倒装在表结果的分句后面。例如“你要早点儿休息，因为明天还要早起赶车”不能写成“你要早点儿休息，由于明天还要早起赶车”。例一和例二的问题是“由于”的位置放置不当。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  三是答问不同。“因为”可以用在说明原因的答话的开头来说明原因，“由于”则不能放在答问句的前头引导答问。例如“为什么要提倡电解铝在冶炼过程中实现合金化？因为这样做避免了铝锭二次重熔，可以节省能耗并减少金属烧损”不能写成“为什么要提倡电解铝在冶炼过程中实现合金化？由于这样做避免了铝锭二次重熔，可以节省能耗并减少金属烧损”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T09:07:42.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1126" CreationDate="2014-04-16T17:32:12.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Put it in simple words: 不 means &quot;not&quot; while 别 means &quot;don't do something&quot;, it is also good to compare them with another negation word:没有， which literally means lack of the action:having, so in other words it means don't have or doesn't have. Don't forget in Chinese we don't conjugate the verbs.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T17:32:12.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="67" CreationDate="2014-04-16T18:22:42.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Luckily, in learning Chinese, there are at least clues (radicals that are originally drawn from real-life objects) to help in the learning process instead of just memorizing vocabs boringly and endlessly. Therefore, the best way to teach a child Mandarin, according to our 10+ of teaching experience, is to teach the radical of the characters first, which by itself usually has a hint from the writing (or drawing) and then forms the character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people thought it is difficult to learn Mandarin Chinese for English-speakers. However, that notion is not true because Chinese is quite different than English, which is a spelling language! Chinese is a picture language, which means ancient Chinese people draw different pictures as Chinese characters out of everything they saw in the environment, and which makes it advantageous to learn over other languages in a way. It does take time and efforts to learn it well, but what doesn't? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T18:22:42.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6554" CreationDate="2014-04-16T18:33:17.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some cases, people who are bilingual in Mandarin and Cantonese might use 個 and 條 as classifier interchangeably for road (路). In Chinese, 個 is a universal classifier or measure word for objects, you might hear it in many occasions to count a &quot;stuff&quot; even for a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T18:33:17.430" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6570" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6572" CreationDate="2014-04-16T19:01:03.067" Score="4" ViewCount="959" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unlike English, Chinese is not a spelling language, which means there is no hint from the characters themselves for pronunciation. Therefore, we can only work on the characters individually to figure a way to learn and memorize them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, is learning and memorizing Chinese Characters much different than learning and memorizing English words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T00:17:06.367" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T00:17:06.367" Title="Is Learning and Memorizing Chinese Characters much different than English?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6570" CreationDate="2014-04-16T20:30:34.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The grammars are similar but characters are way to different. There is no easy way to learn another language, you have to work hard on it. from my own experience of learning different languages, grammar is the foundation of everything. you need to spend lot of time to learn it first, then later on you can build up your words library, another important thing is you have to speak loud lol. best way is to get a Chinese girl friend and live together....lol     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4038" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T20:30:34.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6570" CreationDate="2014-04-16T22:29:49.977" Score="13" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Chinese characters and phonetics&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike English, Chinese is not a spelling language, which means there is no hint from the characters for pronunciation!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Luckily for us, that's not true! Actually, by some estimates, &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=gQF8kvWmFJkC&amp;amp;pg=PA109&amp;amp;lpg=PA109&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;almost 90%&lt;/a&gt; of characters have a phonetic component to them. To understand what that actually means, you have to know how characters are constructed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Types of characters&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several ways in which characters are constructed. Westerners often exoticize and obsess over 1-3 and don't realize that 4 and 5 exist (and indeed, 5 makes up the vast majority of cases).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Pictograms&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pictograms&lt;/a&gt; -- These are visual representations of the morpheme they stand for. Of course, given how old these characters are, the modern forms are highly stylized, to the point of unrecognizability (e.g., 马 = horse). These are &lt;strong&gt;not common&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Simple_ideograms&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simple ideograms&lt;/a&gt; -- These are iconic representations of abstract concepts (e.g., 二 = 2). &lt;strong&gt;Most uncommon&lt;/strong&gt; category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Compound_ideographs&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Compound ideograms&lt;/a&gt; -- These are juxtapositions of pictograms and ideograms, where the meaning is supposed to be inferred from that juxtapositions (e.g., 人 [man] + 木 [tree] = 休 [rest]). These are also &lt;strong&gt;not common&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Rebus_.28phonetic_loan.29_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rebus characters&lt;/a&gt; (phonetic borrowings) -- It turns out that you &lt;em&gt;can't actually draw pictures of all concepts&lt;/em&gt;. If you want to have a writing system where you can actually write down anything, you &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=hypplIDMd0IC&amp;amp;pg=A47&amp;amp;lpg=A47&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;need to make reference to the spoken language&lt;/a&gt;. A common strategy (used in every independently invented system of writing) for getting around the limits of pictograms is the Rebus Principle: use existing symbols purely for their sounds regardless of their meaning. Chinese example: 來 (to come) originally was a pictogram of wheat, a word that had a similar pronunciation. You may also be familiar with rebuses in the context of &lt;a href=&quot;http://mickeysbeercappuzzles.blogspot.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;amusing puzzles&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Phono-semantic_compound_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Phono-semantic characters&lt;/a&gt; -- It can be confusing to have two different morphemes written with the same character. Many phonetic loans were &amp;quot;clarified&amp;quot; by distinguishing the two usages by adding a semantically-suggestive piece. For example, 皇 (pronounced &amp;quot;huang2&amp;quot;, meaning &amp;quot;emperor&amp;quot;) and 蝗 (pronounced &amp;quot;huang2&amp;quot;, meaning &amp;quot;locust&amp;quot;, has the &amp;quot;bug&amp;quot; radical). &lt;strong&gt;The vast majority&lt;/strong&gt; of characters are of this type. Unfortunately, the phonetic parts are often approximate or even poor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Is Learning and Memorizing Chinese Characters much different than English?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; different. Like I explained above, it's often the case that you can guess (or at least remember) the pronunciation of characters based on the pronunciation of other characters. Also, like I said, phonetics are far from perfect. There has been thousands of years of sound change working to make once-great phonetics bad. If you want to learn Chinese characters, it's going to be a lot of work, no matter how you slice it. Start with the basics, and once you work up to several hundred of them, you'll start understanding some of the patterns, both in terms of semantic radicals and common phonetic components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T22:29:49.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6573" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6574" CreationDate="2014-04-16T22:40:08.570" Score="7" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many resources listing classifiers for Mandarin, but do any pages exist that document classifiers for Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:24:51.183" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:24:51.183" Title="List of classifiers for Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6573" CreationDate="2014-04-17T00:08:40.197" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_classifiers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;list of classifiers on Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; -- it notes that particular classifiers are Cantonese only, like &lt;em&gt;zam6&lt;/em&gt; for smells, &lt;em&gt;bung6&lt;/em&gt; for walls, &lt;em&gt;gaan1&lt;/em&gt; for stores, &lt;em&gt;zoeng1&lt;/em&gt; for chairs and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="390" LastEditDate="2014-04-17T08:01:58.067" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T08:01:58.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6575" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-17T06:50:12.453" Score="3" ViewCount="1833" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many resources documenting the most common words for Mandarin, but none for Cantonese. Is there a list of the most common 500/1000/2000 words in Cantonese? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:24:42.763" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T21:58:09.760" Title="Most common words in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6575" CreationDate="2014-04-17T10:41:47.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is one ::::::::::::::广东话常用语对照表 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/11/0228/19/4410155_96958044.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.360doc.com/content/11/0228/19/4410155_96958044.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3173" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T10:41:47.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6577" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-17T18:46:30.417" Score="5" ViewCount="1764" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 多 means many. But in some cases, it is used as in this sentence, such as this one: &quot;多好看啊!&quot; How exactly does it work? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastEditorUserId="4381" LastEditDate="2014-04-26T08:43:19.520" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T01:08:39.670" Title="How does &quot;多&quot; work in this describing sentence &quot;多好看啊!&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2502" CreationDate="2014-04-17T18:56:25.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Put it in a simple way, first, we know 多 means many. But the 多 here has a meaning of many or less - 多少。 So literally is 3 months and &quot; many or less&quot;. Because the speaker is not sure many or less, so here 三个多月 in English term is 3 months or so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T18:56:25.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6504" CreationDate="2014-04-17T19:01:15.193" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First answer is yes, and next answer is no:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;李先生在吗？&#xA;在/不在&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他是你的朋友吗？&#xA;是/不是&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;李先生很累吗？&#xA;累(This is shortest, but in real life people wouldn't answer like that)/不累(This is native.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你要这张卡片吗？&#xA;要/不要&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;李先生有朋友吗？&#xA;有/没有&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And using the 嗯 to make no answer is not the right way, people don't speak like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4389" LastEditorUserId="4389" LastEditDate="2014-04-17T19:07:32.207" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T19:07:32.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6570" CreationDate="2014-04-17T19:18:16.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think memorizing foreign words are similar, for you to memorizing Chinese character and for me to memorizing English words, of course there some kind of rules, but rules won't be perfect, hard works are always needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4389" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T19:18:16.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6583" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-17T19:31:42.893" Score="1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 了 is a indicator for past tense in Chinese. But it seems there are more usages for this character, so how to use 了 in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T17:47:40.660" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T17:47:40.660" Title="How to use 了 in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-04-22T15:04:51.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6583" CreationDate="2014-04-17T19:39:39.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should probably look it up in a dictionary. Foreign learners won't remember, and native speakers can't make a list, native language is almost an instinct, we won't remember every usages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4389" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T19:39:39.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6585" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-17T19:41:02.367" Score="-1" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm recently studying the most frequently used Chinese characters list, and 的 is the #1 in the list, which means it is the MOST USED character in Chinese! So my question is how to use 的 in Chinese? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T04:26:50.623" Title="How to use 的 in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-04-22T05:10:01.347" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6586" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6587" CreationDate="2014-04-17T19:49:17.173" Score="0" ViewCount="403" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 不 is the negative prefix for a verb, such as 不是. However 没 is also a negative prefix, such as 没有, so what is the difference between 不 and 没?  Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T23:43:02.560" Title="What is the difference between 不 and 没?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-04-22T15:04:16.490" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6586" CreationDate="2014-04-17T23:43:02.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;不 is the negative prefix for a verb and adjective, here are some examples:&#xA;不对,not right;&#xA;不好，not good;&#xA;不错，not bad;&#xA;你想去购物吗?不去.Do you want to go shopping? No,I don't;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However 没 is focused on existence or ownership, for example:&#xA;没有，I don't have it.&#xA;从没发生过，This never happens before.&#xA;这里没有人, No one is here.&#xA;我没钱, I don't have money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope you are clear now!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4391" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T23:43:02.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6577" CreationDate="2014-04-18T00:34:56.113" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese words or characters are best not to be thought of as having specific meanings but rather of having a concept or a general meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in the case of 多 anything that roughly means many, a lot, very (like Rui said) can work&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T00:34:56.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6577" CreationDate="2014-04-18T02:16:53.373" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer to the meaning as &amp;quot;how&amp;quot;, because here's a hiding sense of trying to remind others to pay attention to, so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;多好看啊!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be translated to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;How beautiful (it is)!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/9959.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;在线新华字典&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多 duō【副】means 多么〖how〗, 用在感叹句里,表示程度很高。如:你看人家做得多好!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(多 as adv, means how, used in exclamatory sentence to indicate the high level of sth. Such as : To see how well others have done!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T02:35:14.337" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6585" CreationDate="2014-04-18T04:26:50.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are mainly three cases for 的 in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Suffix to make personal pronoun&#xA;E.G. 我的，mine or my, it's placed behind 我, that is I, to make 我的， that is MY or MINE.&#xA;Similar case like 他的 for his,她的 for her, 我们的 for ours.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As a modal&#xA;It means nothing but emphasize the feeling or state. E.G 好的 good,不是的 not at all,特别的 special. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As connection word between adjective and noun.&#xA;E.G. A beautiful girl, 一个美丽的女孩，here 的 is between 美丽 and 女孩， 美丽 is both a adjective and noun in Chinese, but in this sentence it makes adjunct word before 女孩.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4391" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T04:26:50.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6577" CreationDate="2014-04-18T05:32:55.237" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;“多好看啊”=“多么好看啊”&#xA;“多漂亮啊”=“多么漂亮啊”&#xA;“多热闹啊”=“多么热闹啊”&#xA;etc...&#xA;In this sentense, It means &quot;very&quot; but not &quot;many&quot;&#xA;Regards!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4370" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T05:32:55.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6570" CreationDate="2014-04-18T05:46:17.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm so luck as a Chinese native speaker, that means I can skill that easily. even as a native speaker, I also can't write down to some Characters. in fact, We usually use a small part of these characters. more even, with PCs and Phones development, in the information period, I seldom have chance to write down these characters. so, don't worry, Just remember what you like want to remember, if you have some difficult, just look up dictionary. Regards!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4370" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T05:46:17.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6577" CreationDate="2014-04-18T06:47:56.113" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What&lt;/strong&gt; an adorable baby!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How&lt;/strong&gt; beautiful it is!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes like songyuanyao said 多 is used in exclamatory sentence to indicate the high level.&#xA;I'm a native speaker of Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4395" LastEditorUserId="4395" LastEditDate="2014-04-18T08:07:08.913" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T08:07:08.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6570" CreationDate="2014-04-18T08:24:53.693" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;At a high level, the answer is yes, reading Chinese and an alphabetic writing system stimulates brain parts differently. For instance, in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pitt.edu/~perfetti/PDF/Reading%20in%202%20writing%20systems.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.pitt.edu/~perfetti/PDF/Reading%20in%202%20writing%20systems.pdf&lt;/a&gt;, it says that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Not only did results show more bilateral activation for Chinese in occipital and fusiform regions, they showed more activation in a frontal area, the left middle frontal gyrus (LMFG).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At the same time, studies of Chinese&#xA;  typically were not finding the same levels of activation of&#xA;  the temporal-parietal region nor the inferior frontal gyrus&#xA;  as found in alphabetic reading, where both are assumed&#xA;  to support phonological processes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The paper also analyses the brain activities in Chinese-English bilinguals and language learners. Alphabet readers show Chinese pattern when reading Chinese,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The critical results for word perception areas are that English speakers learning Chinese showed only left fusiform activation for English-like stimuli, but bilateral fusiform activation when viewing Chinese-like stimuli, whereas the left fusiform gyrus showed significantly greater activation for both languages relative to baseline, English speakers learning Chinese show significantly more activation for Chinese than English in the right fusiform region.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but not vice versa...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;alphabetic readers learning Chinese showed the Chinese pattern for occipital and&#xA;  occipital-temporal areas, Chinese native speakers for whom English was a second language did not show the alphabetic (left hemisphere dominant) pattern for English. ... they showed the Chinese pattern of bilateral occipital and occipital-temporal activation for both Chinese and English. Thus, whereas alphabetic readers showed the accommodation&#xA;  pattern, Chinese readers showed the assimilation pattern, with their native language reading network supporting their second language reading. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There has also been a paper that found learning Chinese affects math ability. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pnas.org/content/103/28/10775.full.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.pnas.org/content/103/28/10775.full.pdf&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;native Chinese and English speakers treat numbers with different cortical parts of the brain&#xA;  which indicates that&#xA;  different language systems, such as Chinese and English, can shape the way non-language-related content is processed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T08:24:53.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3507" CreationDate="2014-04-18T08:38:58.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original allusion was back in the Period od Warring States as deutschZuid has said. &quot;三寸之舌，强于百万之师&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now as to the question of why use 三寸. This is apparently the usage of parallelism which is one of the most common rhetoric in ancient China: [三(number)寸(unit)之舌(noun)]，强于[百(number)万(unit)之师(noun)]. Although 百万 is actually a number, it can be interpreted as &quot;one hundred of 万&quot;, hence using 万 as an unit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the last question left is why use 不烂 to describe the tongue. Notice that the oldest allusions were without these two characters. 不烂 was added to this phrase later on. Considering the etmology, the most sounding source should be the legend of Kumārajīva(鸠摩罗什), who was a famous 4th century Buddist and translator. Before his death he took an oath: &quot;若所传无谬者，当使焚身之后，舌不焦烂&quot;(roughly means, &quot;if my translation works are without errors, my tongue shall not be burnt during the cremation of my body&quot;), and it turned out, according to legend, his tongue did preserved after the cremation. Therefore 不烂 had since then merged in to the phrase 三寸之舌, somehow, to describe the great eloquent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T08:38:58.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6516" CreationDate="2014-04-18T08:51:29.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;《周礼·冢人》疏，引《春秋纬》: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天子坟高三仞, 树以松; 诸侯半之, 树以柏; 大夫八尺, 树以药草; 士四尺, 树以槐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was the ancient regulations of tomb sizes and grave-tree species for different classes of the society.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T08:51:29.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3507" CreationDate="2014-04-18T13:00:24.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't remember what the story was, but this phrase is about 张仪。You should probably read 史记 or 战国策。张仪 is the student of 鬼谷子。And the story has something to do with a failed 游说。I am sorry I can't provide more details. But even if I do, I am not sure I can tell the story in English, I am not good at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4389" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T13:00:24.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6598" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6600" CreationDate="2014-04-18T13:11:18.007" Score="3" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok so I recently heard the phrase on a tv show &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没四百下不来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I kind of intuitively understand in the context that it meant that not even 400元 could buy the flowers that they were discussing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, exactly how this grammar works I'm not sure.What is the construction here and how is it used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T23:02:03.137" Title="What is the grammar behind 没四百下不来" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6375" CreationDate="2014-04-18T14:13:10.453" Score="15" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;computer -  电脑&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;internet -  因特网&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;software -  软件&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;program -  程序&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Windows -  视窗&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mac -  苹果（电脑）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Apple -  苹果 （公司）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Microsoft -  微软 （公司）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google -  谷歌&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;file -  文件&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;copy -  复制&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;save -  保存&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;delete -  删除&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;open -  打开&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;close -  关闭&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;click -  点击&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;double-click -  - 双击&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;turn on -  打开&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;turn off -  关掉&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;plug in -  插入&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;image -  图片&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;video -  视频&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;connect -  链接&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;network -  网络&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;wireless -  无线&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;email -  电子邮件&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;inbox -  邮箱&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;browser -  浏览器&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;URL / Internet address -  网址&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;send an email - 发邮件&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;reply -  回复&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;forward  -  (v.) 转发&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chat -  聊天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;hard disk -  硬盘&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;keyboard -  键盘&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;drive (n.) -  磁盘&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;screen -  屏幕&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;mouse -  鼠标&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;USB drive -  U盘&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;crash -  (v.) 电脑死机&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;broken -  (adj.) 怀了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;desktop (computer) -   台式机&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;laptop (computer) -   笔记本&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;desktop  -  桌面  (means: computer background)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;icon -  图标&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Excel -  Excel （软件）(no translation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Word -  Word （软件）(no translation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Powerpoint -  简报 （软件）(more commonly called PPT; no translation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;spreadsheet -  表格&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Word document  -  Word文档&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;slideshow -  幻灯片&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;:) Self-compiled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4398" LastEditorUserId="4398" LastEditDate="2014-04-18T14:23:54.627" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T14:23:54.627" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-04-18T14:13:10.453" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6598" CreationDate="2014-04-18T17:05:52.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually your interpretation is not exactly correct(Although pretty close). The sentence means 400 yuan &lt;em&gt;will be approximately sufficient&lt;/em&gt;(still probably a little bit too high or too low) to buy the stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is quite an oral expression(more commonly seen in northern China). But you can interpret it this way: “拿下来” means &quot;get/fetch/catch something&quot;, a connotation which can also be expanded to &quot;buy something&quot;(e.g. get the ownership of something). In this sentence, “下来” can be seen as a shorthand for “拿下来”. And therefore “下不来” is &quot;unable to get&quot;, the &quot;不&quot; in the sentence signifying negation(cannot, unable to). And the whole sentence therefore is &quot;Without (at least) 400 yuan you cannot buy it&quot;. This should now make sense to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastEditorUserId="4241" LastEditDate="2014-04-18T17:13:40.990" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T17:13:40.990" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6453" CreationDate="2014-04-19T01:16:34.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In more Chinese term:老實的告訴你 我已經盡力了 (老实的告诉你 我已经尽力了）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-19T01:16:34.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6603" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6604" CreationDate="2014-04-19T13:37:18.960" Score="3" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 假如 and 例如? As far as I know, their usage is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T23:27:42.100" Title="What is the difference between 假如 and 例如?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6603" CreationDate="2014-04-19T13:46:33.710" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Their usage are quite different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;假如 means &quot;if&quot; or &quot;in case&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例如 means &quot;such as&quot; or &quot;for example&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4358" LastActivityDate="2014-04-19T13:46:33.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6605" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6606" CreationDate="2014-04-19T13:54:48.243" Score="9" ViewCount="2377" Body="&lt;p&gt;May sound like a silly question, but is there a difference between 傻瓜 and 笨蛋? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastActivityDate="2014-04-19T20:49:10.557" Title="What is the difference between 傻瓜 and 笨蛋?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6605" CreationDate="2014-04-19T16:39:04.983" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally 笨蛋 and 傻瓜 mean stupid and silly respectively. I would say, as a native speaker,  笨蛋 is used as a negative adjective for others while 傻瓜 is more teasing especially for the the speakers themselves. Also, it depends on the status of the speaker and listener, for example, we will call the kids 笨蛋, but call the wife 傻瓜 when they make the same mistake.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-04-19T20:49:10.557" LastActivityDate="2014-04-19T20:49:10.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6603" CreationDate="2014-04-19T16:43:07.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;假如 is a condition word, it means &quot;if&quot; (some conditions happen, then...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例如 is to list a few examples as to what the speaker was talking about earlier, it means &quot;for example&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-19T16:43:07.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6352" CreationDate="2014-04-19T17:03:48.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Put it in simple way, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无 means lack of (noun objects), i.e. 无语（lack of speech-&gt; speechless）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没 means lack of (an action), i.e. 没有（lack of having-&gt; don't have）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it would be better to compare 无 and 没&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-19T17:03:48.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6615" CreationDate="2014-04-20T02:14:28.250" Score="9" ViewCount="518" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the dictionaries I've checked say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;bu4 zai4 hu5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but should it actually be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;bu2 zai4 hu5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get different answers searching for 不对， some dictionaries say bu4dui4 others bu2dui4, but as far as this phrase goes they all say bu4 zai4 hu, so is this some sort of exception to the tone change rules of 不？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T10:34:17.857" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T10:34:17.857" Title="What's the pronunciation of 不在乎" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6609" CreationDate="2014-04-20T02:31:10.257" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct one should be bu2 zai4 hu. Unless there is an emphasis for &quot;NOT&quot; CARE, a 4th tone bu4 is then used, but I rarely hear that as a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's review the tone change rule for 不，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A second tone bu2 is used only when the tone of next character is a 4th tone, i.e. bu2 shi4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A forth tone bu4 is used if the tone of next character is 1st, 2nd or 3rd tone, i.e. bu4 hao3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-04-20T18:45:43.790" LastActivityDate="2014-04-20T18:45:43.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6612" CreationDate="2014-04-20T04:12:07.807" Score="6" ViewCount="565" Body="&lt;p&gt;is there a difference between 投诉 and 抱怨? All I know is that they both mean &quot;complain&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T04:46:37.763" Title="What is the difference between 投诉 and 抱怨?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6611" CreationDate="2014-04-20T04:17:48.940" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;投诉=complain (to a department)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抱怨=grumble (usually talking to a friend)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at the character, 诉=suit, 怨=grudge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3974" LastActivityDate="2014-04-20T04:17:48.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6611" CreationDate="2014-04-20T10:51:30.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;抱怨 is to complain&#xA;投诉 is to lodge a complaint&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-04-20T10:51:30.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6614" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6625" CreationDate="2014-04-20T11:37:16.063" Score="0" ViewCount="294" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the question states, how do you say, &quot;Did you hold your cellphone close to your face?&quot; in Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:24:22.357" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:24:22.357" Title="How to say, &quot;Did you hold your cellphone close to your face?&quot; in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6609" CreationDate="2014-04-20T12:12:21.213" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries, in general, will not incorporate tone sandhi rules into their pronunciations (of which Mandarin has quite a few)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi#Mandarin_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; says the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mandarin Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin features several sandhi tone rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When there are two 3rd tones in a row, the first one becomes 2nd tone,&#xA;and the second one becomes a half-3rd tone. E.g. 你好 (nǐ + hǎo = ní&#xA;hǎo)&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi#Mandarin_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The neutral tone is pronounced &amp;quot;low&amp;quot; when following the 1st, 2nd, and&#xA;4th tones, and pronounced &amp;quot;high&amp;quot; following the 3rd tone.[dubious ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 (bù) is 4th tone except when followed by another 4th tone, when it&#xA;becomes 2nd tone. E.g. 不對|不对 (bù + duì = bú duì)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一 (Yī) is 1st tone when it represents the ordinal &amp;quot;first,&amp;quot; Examples:&#xA;第一个 (dìyīgè). It changes when it represents the cardinal number &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;&#xA;following a pattern of 2nd tone when followed by a 4th tone, and 4th&#xA;tone when followed by any other tone. Examples: 一个 (yī + gè = yí gè),&#xA;一次 (yī + cì = yí cì), 一半 (yī + bàn = yí bàn), 一般 (yī + bān = yì bān),&#xA;一毛 (yī + máo = yì máo), 一会儿 (yī + huǐr = yì huǐr).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules you need to learn yourself dictionaries will not help you out on this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer your question anytime you see 不+4th-tone it will actually be pronounced 2nd tone+4th-tone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T10:22:44.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5172" CreationDate="2014-04-20T17:14:54.427" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;So time for an update…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play by the books, &lt;code&gt;biang&lt;/code&gt; is not a permissible syllable. If you are concerned with what comes out of a speaker’s mouth, syllables like &lt;code&gt;nim&lt;/code&gt; (contraction of 你們) are even possible, although they are technically &lt;em&gt;surface realizations&lt;/em&gt; of a phonology that does &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; allow such syllables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The surprising fact is that &lt;code&gt;iang&lt;/code&gt; as a rime for the labial initials (&lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;p&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;ph&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;m&lt;/code&gt;) did not even exist in Middle Chinese, so the omission of &lt;code&gt;biang&lt;/code&gt; is nothing new. That isn’t to say it couldn’t develop in Mandarin, but there was nothing shaping the language in that direction. The only likely source would be a borrowing sort of like how &lt;code&gt;fiao&lt;/code&gt; is a borrowing from Wu, which has its own interesting story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Old Answer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’ve made a chart here for my own understanding of Standard Mandarin Chinese phonology a while ago:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        a       ai      au      an      aŋ      e       ə       əi      əu      ən      əŋ      i       ia      iai     iau     ian     iaŋ     ie      iə      iəu     iən     iəŋ     io      iu      iuan    iuə     iun     iuəŋ    aɻ      o       u       ua      uai     uan     uaŋ     uə      uəi     uən     uəŋ     m       n       ŋ      &#xA;        a       ai      ao      an      ang     ê       e       ei      ou      en      eng     yi      ya      yai     yao     yan     yang    yê      ye      you     yin     ying    yo      yu      yuan    yue     yun     yong    er      o       wu      wa      wai     wan     wang    wo      wei     wun     weng    m       n       ng     &#xA;p       ba      bai     bao     ban     bang                    bei             ben     beng    bi                      biao    bian    biang           bie     biu     bin     bing                                                            bo      bu                                                                                             &#xA;pʰ      pa      pai     pao     pan     pang                    pei     pou     pen     peng    pi                      piao    pian                    pie     piu     pin     ping                                                            po      pu                                                                                             &#xA;m       ma      mai     mao     man     mang            me      mei     mou     men     meng    mi                      miao    mian                    mie     miu     min     ming                                                            mo      mu                                                                                             &#xA;f       fa                      fan     fang                    fei     fou     fen     feng                            fiao                                                                                                                    fo      fu                                                                                             &#xA;t       da      dai     dao     dan     dang            de      dei     dou     den     deng    di                      diao    dian                    die     diu             ding                                                                    du                      duan            duo     dui     dun     dong                           &#xA;tʰ      ta      tai     tao     tan     tang            te              tou             teng    ti                      tiao    tian                    tie     tiu             ting                                                                    tu                      tuan            tuo     tui     tun     tong                           &#xA;n       na      nai     nao     nan     nang            ne      nei     nou     nen     neng    ni                      niao    nian    niang           nie     niu     nin     ning            nü              nüe                                     nu                      nuan            nuo                     nong                           &#xA;l       la      lai     lao     lan     lang            le      lei     lou             leng    li      lia             liao    lian    liang           lie     liu     lin     ling            lü              lüe                             lo      lu                      luan            luo             lun     long                           &#xA;ts      za      zai     zao     zan     zang            ze      zei     zou     zen     zeng    zi                                                                                                                                                      zu                      zuan            zuo     zui     zun     zong                           &#xA;tsʰ     ca      cai     cao     can     cang            ce              cou     cen     ceng    ci                                                                                                                                                      cu                      cuan            cuo     cui     cun     cong                           &#xA;s       sa      sai     sao     san     sang            se              sou     sen     seng    si                                                                                                                                                      su                      suan            suo     sui     sun     song                           &#xA;tʂ      zha     zhai    zhao    zhan    zhang           zhe     zhei    zhou    zhen    zheng   zhi                                                                                                                                                     zhu     zhua    zhuai   zhuan   zhuang  zhuo    zhui    zhun    zhong                          &#xA;tʂʰ     cha     chai    chao    chan    chang           che             chou    chen    cheng   chi                                                                                                                                                     chu     chua    chuai   chuan   chuang  chuo    chui    chun    chong                          &#xA;ʂ       sha     shai    shao    shan    shang           she     shei    shou    shen    sheng   shi                                                                                                                                                     shu     shua    shuai   shuan   shuang  shuo    shui    shun                                   &#xA;ɻ                       rao     ran     rang            re              rou     ren     reng    ri                                                                                                                                                      ru      rua             ruan            ruo     rui     run     rong                           &#xA;tɕ                                                                                              ji      jia             jiao    jian    jiang           jie     jiu     jin     jing            ju      juan    jue     jun     jiong                                                                                                                  &#xA;tɕʰ                                                                                             qi      qia             qiao    qian    qiang           qie     qiu     qin     qing            qu      quan    que     qun     qiong                                                                                                                  &#xA;ɕ                                                                                               xi      xia             xiao    xian    xiang           xie     xiu     xin     xing            xu      xuan    xue     xun     xiong                                                                                                                  &#xA;k       ga      gai     gao     gan     gang            ge      gei     gou     gen     geng                                                                                                                                                            gu      gua     guai    guan    guang   guo     gui     gun     gong                           &#xA;kʰ      ka      kai     kao     kan     kang            ke      kei     kou     ken     keng                                                                                                                                                            ku      kua     kuai    kuan    kuang   kuo     kui     kun     kong                           &#xA;x       ha      hai     hao     han     hang            he      hei     hou     hen     heng                                                                                                                                                            hu      hua     huai    huan    huang   huo     hui     hun     hong                           &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The table contains every possible pinyin in Standard Mandarin Chinese &lt;em&gt;sans&lt;/em&gt; tones. Columns are headed by the finals, and rows are headed by the initials. They are derived from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Standard_Chinese_phonology&amp;amp;oldid=603715295&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Standard Chinese phonology&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pinyin_table&amp;amp;oldid=604692173&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pinyin table&lt;/a&gt; pages on Wikipedia. A quick look at the table will reveal patterns in the phonology with a few oddities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;biang&lt;/code&gt; is certainly listed in the Pinyin table, but a quick search for any word with a pinyin of &lt;code&gt;biang&lt;/code&gt; produces 0 results. And it makes sense: because the bilabial/labiodental series of initials (b-, p-, m-, f-) is excluded from combining with many finals (such as: -uan, -uo, -ui, -un, -ong). Have a look at the &lt;strong&gt;iaŋ&lt;/strong&gt; column and you see that &lt;code&gt;piang&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;miang&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;fiang&lt;/code&gt; are missing; &lt;code&gt;biang&lt;/code&gt; looks like it should not be there either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are oddities where a sound that looks like it should be there isn’t there (like &lt;code&gt;bou&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;tei&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;ten&lt;/code&gt;), but they can be easily explained as, “there weren’t any words that used that sound.” It’s what is called an “accidental gap,” and you can read more about it here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://charlesames.net/pdf/JamesKirby/lecture4-hanoi-4up.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Phonotactics (âm pháp)&lt;/a&gt;. It’s much more difficult to make a case for &lt;code&gt;biang&lt;/code&gt; which exists in no dictionaries, is not in common usage, and is the sole proprietor of the Pinyin “biang.” Considering the facts, it’s my opinion that &lt;code&gt;biang&lt;/code&gt; is illegal in Standard Mandarin Chinese phonology and was probably concocted for promotional purposes. What better way to stand out than to own a “rare” character, a “rare” sound, and an exclusive position in the Pinyin table?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4403" LastEditorUserId="4403" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T18:08:21.960" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T18:08:21.960" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5172" CreationDate="2014-04-21T02:26:34.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple answer is yes, it is a phonologically possible syllable in Mandarin Chinese. Remember for every Chinese syllable, there is a initial + final + tone , &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in this case, &#xA;b is the initial,&#xA;iang is the final,&#xA;and the tone is 2,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the three factors complete its qualification as a Mandarin Chinese syllable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-21T02:26:34.637" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6618" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6619" CreationDate="2014-04-21T09:31:53.253" Score="5" ViewCount="482" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, 撒谎 and 说谎 have the same meaning of &quot;telling a lie&quot;. Is there a difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T23:35:04.997" Title="What is the difference between 撒谎 and 说谎?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6618" CreationDate="2014-04-21T10:19:32.547" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;说谎 can be used in the case of telling white lies; 撒谎 usually means telling malicious lies just to cheat someone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;说谎 is inclined to telling meticulously prepared lies; 撒谎 in inclined to telling casual lies.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;说谎 is more formal; 撒谎 is used in spoken language more.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-04-21T10:33:16.300" LastActivityDate="2014-04-21T10:33:16.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6620" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6626" CreationDate="2014-04-21T11:34:58.207" Score="2" ViewCount="2328" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of them can mean difference. Are all of them interchangeable when used to mean 'difference?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3805" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T04:07:47.253" Title="What is the difference between 差别, 分别, and 区别?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6621" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-21T11:56:53.840" Score="8" ViewCount="6969" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are five 变 here, so what is the difference between 变成、变化、变得、改变、转变?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-18T20:14:57.237" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T20:14:57.237" Title="What is the difference between 变成、变化、变得、改变、转变?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6620" CreationDate="2014-04-21T12:01:20.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;差别 means literally difference (usually as a noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;分别 and 区别 are interchangeable, meaning to sort out to get the difference (usually as a verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-21T12:01:20.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6621" CreationDate="2014-04-21T12:45:13.727" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I really need more context to tell the differences. Sometimes they are  interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;code&gt;变成&lt;/code&gt; -&amp;gt; Become / Turn into&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五年过去了，我从一个学生变成了一名老师 - I was a student. After 5 years I am a teacher now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;code&gt;变化&lt;/code&gt; -&amp;gt; Difference / Change (mostly used as noun)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五年过去了，这里还是没有什么变化 - After 5 years there's nothing changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;code&gt;变得&lt;/code&gt; -&amp;gt; It's like &lt;code&gt;变成&lt;/code&gt; but it should be used before a adjective/adverb.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五年过去了，我变得越来越谨慎了 - After 5 years I'm getting more and more careful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;code&gt;改变&lt;/code&gt; -&amp;gt; Change (verb/noun)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她想改变自己的生活 - She wants to change her life (she wants to have a new lifestyle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;code&gt;转变&lt;/code&gt; -&amp;gt; Seldom used. Sometimes A more formal version of 改变&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;专家建议毕业生们转变就业观念 - Experts advice graduates to change their thoughts on getting a job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-21T12:45:13.727" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6611" CreationDate="2014-04-22T00:43:28.097" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's right that they both mean complain, and that is because &quot;complain&quot; has different meanings. &#xA;If you look up complain in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/complain&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dictionary &lt;/a&gt;, 抱怨 is corresponding to the &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 投诉 is corresponding to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.To make a formal accusation or bring a formal charge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4410" LastEditorUserId="4410" LastEditDate="2014-04-23T00:27:01.180" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T00:27:01.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6614" CreationDate="2014-04-22T03:12:14.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose that you mean &quot;Were you holding your phone to your ear?&quot; Then you can say &quot;你 lik 住部手机来打啊？&quot; I don't know the character for &quot;lik&quot;, which means &quot;to hold&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2749" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T03:12:14.217" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6620" CreationDate="2014-04-22T04:07:47.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When they function as nouns to mean difference in the general sense, they are mostly interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这两个东西的差别/分别/区别在于……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between these two thingies lies in…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差别 seems to emphasize the difference itself, while 分别/区别 tend to indicate a desire to tell two different things apart (therefore the word &amp;quot;difference&amp;quot; in the title of your question should be translated into 区别). The above example sentence may have slightly different nuances depending on interpretation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这两个东西的差别是……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is different in one than in the other is…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这两个东西的区别是……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What distinguishes one from the other is…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, although not in noun form, 差别对待/分别对待/区别对待 makes for an interesting comparison:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差别对待&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to treat discriminatorily&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;分别对待&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to treat separately&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;区别对待&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to treat discriminatively (not necessarily with discrimination)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2749" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T04:07:47.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6627" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6630" CreationDate="2014-04-22T05:01:26.537" Score="10" ViewCount="2050" Body="&lt;p&gt;We know 名 means name or famous, but what is the subtle difference between 有名，著名 and 闻名?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T17:46:50.757" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T17:46:50.757" Title="What is the difference between 有名，著名 and 闻名?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6628" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-22T06:12:02.050" Score="5" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a follow up to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/6603/3124&quot;&gt;&quot;What is the difference between 假如 and 例如?&quot;&lt;/a&gt; I've become unclear on the use of the if statement in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the most part I would use 如果 as an if statement when ever it's required but I have now stumbled across a few:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;假如 Jiǎrú - if &#xA;要是 Yàoshi - if&#xA;若是 Ruòshì - if&#xA;如果 Rúguǒ - if / in case / in the event that&#xA;倘 Tǎng - if / supposing / in case&#xA;倘若 Tǎngruò - provided that / supposing that / if&#xA;假若 Jiǎruò - if / supposing / in case&#xA;假使 Jiǎshǐ - if / in case / suppose / given ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translations from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these translate into &quot;if&quot; so how are they used differently or are they interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3124" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T15:31:27.033" Title="Which &quot;if&quot; is appropriate for what situations" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6628" CreationDate="2014-04-22T06:43:23.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are pretty much interchangeable, 如果,假如,假使,要是 are more common used ones, as a native speaker, I rarely hear 倘, only saw it in literature books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T06:43:23.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6627" CreationDate="2014-04-22T06:47:47.530" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me, as a native speaker, I use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有名 for person, i.e. Kobe Bryant 很有名。&#xA;著名 for place or books i.e. 那是一个著名的景点。&#xA;闻名 for a brand name i.e. 孔老夫子古今闻名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T06:47:47.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6618" CreationDate="2014-04-22T06:54:18.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's interesting to look at the usage of the verbs for lies. 说 means say, so literally say a lie. But 撒 means throw，so &quot;throw&quot;  a lie indicates the lie teller is throwing the lie from the distance, which means he or she can not face to the listener(s) too close because of the guilty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T06:54:18.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6632" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6633" CreationDate="2014-04-22T09:33:08.457" Score="12" ViewCount="2484" Body="&lt;p&gt;It just seems that 太太、老婆、妻子 are all either overly formal or make my wife sound older than she is (she's not even 30). Maybe one of those terms is actually more acceptable than I think it is; I don't know. Are there any other options that would be more socially appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2283" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T19:07:53.457" Title="How should I introduce my wife?" Tags="&lt;politeness&gt;&lt;introductions&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6632" CreationDate="2014-04-22T10:58:09.380" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you introduce your wife both 太太 and 老婆 are acceptable, depending on whether it's a formal occasion. 太太 is more formal while 老婆 is more casual. Both are socially appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 汉语词典：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太太：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（名）旧社会中通称官吏的妻子。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（名）旧时官僚地主人家的仆人等称女主人。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（名）对已婚妇女的尊称（带丈夫的姓）。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（名）旧时称某人的妻子或丈夫对人称自己的妻子。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although dictionary says it's used in past (旧时) , people are actually using this word more and more often in recent decades. If you are going to introduce your wife to new friends, business partners, or acquaintances, 太太 is the word you should use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In comparison, other pronouns to introduce one's wife include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;老婆: used in casual and informal occasion, like with close friends or relatives. Especially, you can use this word to directly address your wife.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;妻子: extremely formal. most likely only used in written language, e.g marriage certificate, court decision, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;夫人: rarely used to introduce one's own wife. Generally, 夫人 is used to introduce someone else's wife, to show respect (to the husband), cause the word 夫人 hints that the husband is socially recognized and esteemed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;内人: archaic. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爱人: used to be the right word to introduce one's wife. But it was like 30 years back... Now it's also old and rarely used (only by senior people)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;媳妇: acceptable in casual occasion, but only used in northern China.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T10:58:09.380" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6627" CreationDate="2014-04-22T11:26:09.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed there is difference...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally, 有 means &quot;has/have&quot;, 名  means &quot;name&quot;, so 有名 means &quot;has one's name (heard by others)&quot;, hence &quot;famous&quot;. 著 means &quot;prominent&quot;, so 著名 means &quot;(has) a prominent name (heard by many)&quot;. 著名 describes a more famous person, and most likely a positive reputation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闻名 cannot be used to directly describe a person. You can say 他是一位有名的学者(he is a famous scholar), or 他是一位著名的学者, both are acceptable usage. However you don't say 他是一位闻名的学者. 闻名 is usually used in phrases, e.g. 他是一位闻名遐迩的学者, or is used when you want to express &quot;has a reputation for something&quot; e.g. 他是一位以博学而闻名的学者. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh and, when you want to say &quot;has a reputation for/ is famed for&quot;, you can use either 闻名 or 著名 (or even 出名): 他是一位以博学而著名的学者. But you can't use 有名 here. In stead, you split the word 有名 so that you can put the kind of the reputation in between: 他是一位有博学之名的学者.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T11:26:09.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6628" CreationDate="2014-04-22T15:31:27.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;h1&gt;假如 Jiǎrú - if&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally used. In most case, it's for something that wouldn't happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;要是 Yàoshi - if&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mostly used in &lt;code&gt;最近雾霾这么厉害，要是我离开北京就好了&lt;/code&gt; - &lt;code&gt;It'd be great if I had left Beijing! The air pollution is so heavy here.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;若是 Ruòshì - if&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally used, similar to &lt;code&gt;要是&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;如果 Rúguǒ - if / in case / in the event that&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;倘 Tǎng - if / supposing / in case&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost only used in literature works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;倘若 Tǎngruò - provided that / supposing that / if&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mostly used in love letters or lyrics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;假若 Jiǎruò - if / supposing / in case&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Seldom used. A bit like &lt;code&gt;假如&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;假使 Jiǎshǐ - if / in case / suppose / given ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Seldom used.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T15:31:27.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6636" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6638" CreationDate="2014-04-22T15:37:22.943" Score="-2" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sure the first one is wrong and definitely couldn't figure out the one with fish. Fairly certain of the ones with pork.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西乳柿, 小葱, 排骨, ?鱼, 龙骨, 山药, 豆子, 猪腰, 猪肺?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Dsb73.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;HandwrittenGrocery List&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T16:29:24.793" Title="Found a grocery list - used it for handwriting reading practice. Corrections?" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6632" CreationDate="2014-04-22T16:15:41.827" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In present day Beijing, the term 对象 (dui4 xiang4) is often used to introduce one's spouse. I would translate 对象 as &quot;counterpart&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally, 对象 means &quot;object&quot;. &quot;Object&quot; refers to that which is perceived by a subject. For example, as English grammar dictates, when you love your wife, you are the object and your wife is the subject of your love. Although I need to clarify that the grammatic concepts of &quot;subject&quot; and &quot;object&quot; are technically translated as 主语 and 谓语 respectively.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few months ago, I visited Dalian in the Liaoning province of China. The people there drew a distinction between 对象 and 爱人, with the former term as referring to a partner before marriage and the latter term referring to a spouse. This constrasts with my experience in Beijing, where people referred to their spouses as 对象. I guess that this distinction started to be drawn more recently as historically a Chinese would introduce one's partner as such only after their marriage has been planned.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4413" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T16:15:41.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6636" CreationDate="2014-04-22T16:29:24.793" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My list of corrections: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;西红柿 (tomato)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;侧 鱼. As for what fish this is, I had to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%E4%BE%A7%20%E9%B1%BC&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;oe=utf-8&amp;amp;aq=t&amp;amp;rls=org.mozilla%3aen-US%3aofficial&amp;amp;client=firefox-a&amp;amp;channel=sb&amp;amp;gfe_rd=cr&amp;amp;ei=DJhWU6DYEILRrQeexoDYDg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;google&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;豆干 (dried bean curd) rather than 豆子, which is the whole bean itself]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;猪肝 (pig liver) rather than 猪肺 (pig lung)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4413" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T16:29:24.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6639" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6640" CreationDate="2014-04-22T18:17:39.947" Score="7" ViewCount="2028" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 30m more hits on 番茄 in 百度. Search results are pretty much the same for both. Is one version used more in different regions than others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-04-23T04:35:44.677" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T08:26:27.400" Title="What's the difference between 番茄 and 西红柿?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6639" CreationDate="2014-04-22T18:36:10.110" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both mean tomato, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, 西红柿 is used more often while in Taiwan 番茄 is more used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T18:36:10.110" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6632" CreationDate="2014-04-22T18:45:08.207" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;太太 and 老婆 are probably the most used two. Don't worry, 太太、老婆、妻子 are all socially appropriate. My wife is 27, that is the way I refer to her in most social occasions. 老婆 is used even in younger generation, a teenage boy might call his girlfriend &quot;老婆&quot;. 妻子 is kinda formal though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-05-27T19:07:53.457" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T19:07:53.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6632" CreationDate="2014-04-22T23:04:09.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way of introducing your wife without making her sound &quot;old&quot; is &quot;内人.&quot; That literally means &quot;internal [to the house] person.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an old-fashioned expression that has the connotation of &quot;sheltered, inexperienced person,&quot; but maybe that was the meaning you intended.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T23:04:09.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6611" CreationDate="2014-04-22T23:16:41.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;投诉 means to complain in the &lt;strong&gt;legal&lt;/strong&gt; or &quot;formal&quot; sense.抱怨 means to complain in the &lt;strong&gt;social&lt;/strong&gt; sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They both meant to &quot;complain,&quot; just in different contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T23:16:41.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6609" CreationDate="2014-04-22T23:24:18.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For purposes of &quot;tonality,&quot; Chinese doesn't want to have two words with the fourth tone or  third tone &quot;back to back.&quot; When this happens, the first word in the series takes the second tone instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The example of using two words with fourth tones such as 不在 is one where the two words together are pronounced bu2zai4, even though they are pronounced 不bu4 and 在 zai4 when separate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example using the third tone is 可 以.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可 is pronounced ke3, and 以 is pronounced yi3 when they are separate, but they are pronounced ke2yi3 when they are together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T23:24:18.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6603" CreationDate="2014-04-22T23:27:42.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate 假如 as a &quot;false if.&quot; That is, as a &quot;hypothetical.&quot; 例如 translates into &quot;if,&quot; in the &quot;example&quot; (例) sense of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T23:27:42.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6598" CreationDate="2014-04-22T23:33:23.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would parse the sentence as 没四百,下不来, meaning roughly, &quot;Without 400, it won't come down.&quot; The latter would be in the &quot;auction&quot; sense, where the seller hammers the anvil, and says &quot;sold.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sense is something like, &quot;400 [yuan, dollars, etc.] will just about do it.&quot; (Certainly not less, maybe a bit more, to close the deal.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T23:33:23.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6577" CreationDate="2014-04-22T23:45:37.767" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, I believe that 多 is short for 多 么. The 么 changes the meaning of 多 from &quot;much&quot; to &quot;how much.&quot; Thus, 多 (么) 好看啊 would mean &quot;how (much) good looking!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T23:45:37.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6575" CreationDate="2014-04-23T01:05:02.180" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working on some tiny SMT project at the moment and I was looking for this too, the only one I could find is this &lt;a href=&quot;http://ec-concord.ied.edu.hk/hkcc/corpus/listword.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;word list&lt;/a&gt; from this &lt;a href=&quot;http://ec-concord.ied.edu.hk/hkcc/corpus/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;corpus of mid-20th century Hong Kong Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;, It might not be great if you are using them for learning Chinese, as it's mid-20 century's. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4410" LastEditorUserId="4410" LastEditDate="2014-07-02T14:27:37.770" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T14:27:37.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6632" CreationDate="2014-04-23T03:19:56.467" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also say &quot;牽手&quot; Qian1 Shou3 (literally means &quot;holding-hand&quot; ) if you're in Taiwan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4415" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T03:19:56.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6611" CreationDate="2014-04-23T04:46:37.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;投诉 is to express your discontentment to some organizations or institutes; 抱怨 is usually used to grumble to people around you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4417" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T04:46:37.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6639" CreationDate="2014-04-23T13:48:19.957" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are different words used by people from different parts of China, just like aubergine and eggplant for English speakers from different regions. This is very common in Chinese，like potatoes(土豆，洋芋，马铃薯 and more)， pineapples(菠萝，凤梨)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is one version used more in different regions than others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would rather say that people from northern China only used the word 西红柿， and people from southern China, as well as Hong Kong, Taiwan, only use 番茄. But of course people understand each other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An exception is when forming a new word(product name, dishes), 番茄 is often used, despite the regions, like 番茄酱, 番茄鸡蛋汤. Although you can hear 西红柿炒鸡蛋 in north China, that probably only appear in spoken language(or small casual catering).&#xA;Also， if you look into the words literally, 西红柿 stands for western red Diospyros, and 番茄 for foreign Solanaceae&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4410" LastEditorUserId="4410" LastEditDate="2014-04-24T10:53:33.037" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T10:53:33.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6632" CreationDate="2014-04-23T15:30:39.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a not so formal way, you could introduce your wife as your 老板/当家的 (boss) to your friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4246" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T15:30:39.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6671" CreationDate="2014-04-23T16:01:44.493" Score="4" ViewCount="1227" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can we call someone X太太 ? or is it the calling of husband to his wife?  In my textbook everybody calls one women 錢太太. But my teacher said it is unsuitable. Which one is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4243" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T20:40:38.130" Title="Can we call someone X太太 or not?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6653" CreationDate="2014-04-23T16:18:32.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 太太 in this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most Ch-En &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Define it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mrs.; madame&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T16:18:32.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6655" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-23T17:12:14.673" Score="3" ViewCount="2260" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 3 听 (hear or listen to). What is the difference between 听到, 听过, and 听说?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-12T00:31:54.927" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T01:01:07.727" Title="What is the difference between 听到、听过 and 听说?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6653" CreationDate="2014-04-23T17:15:47.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is suitable and respectful that we call someone X太太 (usually last name+太太), but in a condition that we know for sure that she is &quot;MARRIED&quot;, otherwise it will be unsuitable!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T17:15:47.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6655" CreationDate="2014-04-23T17:19:08.067" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;听到 means : you are listening to something right now.&#xA;听过 means: you have heard about it.&#xA;听说 means: you heard someone's something from anther people, and you are talking to this people about this thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4419" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T17:19:08.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6653" CreationDate="2014-04-23T17:24:36.713" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, you can call any women who has been married with &quot;X太太&quot;， it shows lots of respectation and manner. However, if you call your wife, usually we don't use X太太， it will make your wife unwell, just like a stranger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4419" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T17:24:36.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6653" CreationDate="2014-04-23T17:34:19.223" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is absolutely OK to call someone's wife &quot;X太太&quot;， alternatively, you can use &quot;X夫人&quot;, which, in my opinion, is more polite and respectful(unnecessary in causal occasions, but often used in business and diplomacy occasions). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4410" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T17:34:19.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6660" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-23T20:30:33.163" Score="2" ViewCount="474" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some common words are 先生 or 老公,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other options that would be more socially appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:37:49.773" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:37:49.773" Title="How to introduce &quot;Husband&quot; in social occasions?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;&lt;introductions&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6655" CreationDate="2014-04-23T21:59:47.360" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;听到、means listenING (present progressive tense). 听过 means listenED or heard (past tense) and 听说 means listening to SPEECH (说), as opposed to sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T21:59:47.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="78" CreationDate="2014-04-23T22:22:23.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with all the above posts, very thorough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually the best way to determine whether to use &quot;老王&quot; or &quot;小王&quot; is to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;See what other people call him.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ask him which one he likes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might find it is very common that your calling &quot;小王&quot; to an old guy might make him happy (sounds like he is still young).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4422" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T22:22:23.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1750" CreationDate="2014-04-23T22:39:44.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tone is important when talking about the difference between &quot;干吗&quot; and &quot;干嘛&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is no problem if you always use &quot;干吗&quot; when writing. (of course you are talking about writing, or someone wrote and you are reading). This is because the reader can understand &quot;吗&quot; is a neutral tone or second tone, depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;干嘛&quot; is always second tone. So potentially it can save the reader 0.01 second of determining whether it should be a neutral tone or second tone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As to what neutral tone or second tone means, I quote BertR's great post.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO, &quot;干嘛&quot; is becoming popular recently because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you can type on computer now. That's the same key stroke for 吗 and 嘛 if you are using PinYin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the old days, I would save considerable time to use 吗 instead of 嘛 if I have to do hand writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;People are getting lazy to spend 0.01 second to determine the tone from context.&#xA;or people are more considerate to save each reader's 0.01 seconds. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a consequence, &quot;干嘛&quot; beat &quot;干吗&quot; if the tone is second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4422" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T22:39:44.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1750" CreationDate="2014-04-23T22:48:01.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Put it in simple way, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干嘛 means what's up or what did you want? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干吗 doesn't make sense in Chinese, what makes sense is to be used in a context.&#xA;i.e. We're gonna RUB the bank(kidding), 干吗 (wanna do it)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T22:48:01.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6660" CreationDate="2014-04-23T22:54:03.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;more socially appropriate? Probably no one can beat &quot;老公&quot; now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4422" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T22:54:03.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6598" CreationDate="2014-04-23T23:02:03.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;没四百下不来  : You can not get it without 400&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The contrapositive of the statement：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想拿下来至少得四百 ： In order to get it, you need to spend at least 400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4422" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T23:02:03.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6618" CreationDate="2014-04-23T23:35:04.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no essential difference between them and usually they are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May be this is not a good analogy, but:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;think about &quot;撒尿&quot;, which means piss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We do it everyday.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We are accustomed to it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My impression is that 撒谎 applies more to children, while for adult, 说谎 is inclined to telling meticulously prepared lies (quoted from songyuanyao's comment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4422" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T23:35:04.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6668" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6670" CreationDate="2014-04-24T00:07:32.570" Score="2" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chinese teacher recently introduced us to the character 只. Specifically, using it to mean &quot;only&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, all of the examples that she gave were things, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A:你有没有X和Y？&#xA;&#xA;B:没有Y，我只有X。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in, to use 只 to specify only one out of a list of different things. However, I was curious, could you use 只 to indicate a smaller number of something? For example, could you say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A:你有三件旗袍。对不对？&#xA;&#xA;B:不对。我只有两件旗袍。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4163" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T20:38:22.747" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T20:38:22.747" Title="Can 只有 be used in this context?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6668" CreationDate="2014-04-24T01:50:21.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“只” means “by no means more than”，“only”.&#xA;If you add this word, this means you have no more than ……, &lt;strong&gt;at most&lt;/strong&gt; I have……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) I have &lt;strong&gt;no more than&lt;/strong&gt; 2 dresses（我**只有**2件衣服）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) I have 2 dresses（我有2件衣服，可能还有，但是未提及）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T01:50:21.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6653" CreationDate="2014-04-24T02:30:08.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(After further thought, I feel the usage of &quot;太太&quot; is more complicated than  my original thought. To avoid misguide others, I decide to delete my answer.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4424" LastEditorUserId="4424" LastEditDate="2014-04-25T02:27:22.247" LastActivityDate="2014-04-25T02:27:22.247" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6672" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-24T07:36:31.873" Score="1" ViewCount="215" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been struggling to get my head around how to properly use the word 欠. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary has to lack, as a meaning, but I can't find any example sentences with it used that way, only owe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那我一分钱也不欠你的了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume this means, I don't even owe you a fen, is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does this sentence end with 了， what is it's usage here?&#xA;Is it necessary to accompany 欠?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T08:10:37.410" Title="Usage of the word 欠 and 了 in 那我一分钱也不欠你的了" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6672" CreationDate="2014-04-24T08:09:19.757" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it is hard to guess without looking at the full context.  However, one of the possibility of having 了 is to represent &quot;I owed but no longer is&quot;.  &quot;了&quot; in many cases give a hint of something happens just now, which is different from the past.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不愛你了 vs 我不愛你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不愛你了 actually means I used to love you, but now I don't love you anymore.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我不愛你 simply means I do not love you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我敢吃榴槤了 vs 我敢吃榴槤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我敢吃榴槤了 means I was not dare to eat durian but now I am.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我敢吃榴槤 simply means I am dare to eat durian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3633" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T08:09:19.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6672" CreationDate="2014-04-24T08:10:37.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right in translating the sentence. 欠 does mean owe in that example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 is used here mainly to indicate the perfect aspect, focusing on the result of &quot;not owe you any more&quot;. It is not necessary to accompany 欠. For example you can simply state the fact by saying &quot;我一分钱也不欠你的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欠 means lack in cases like 欠缺. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这道菜欠缺口味&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;translation: this dish lasks flavor and tastes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, in some idioms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;万事俱备，只欠东风&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T08:10:37.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6660" CreationDate="2014-04-24T08:19:18.913" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;老公 is more for casual conversation. e.g. 這是我老公 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先生 can be used in a more formal situation. e.g. 這是我先生 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a even more formal situation, you can use 外子.  e.g. 這是外子 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3633" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T08:19:18.913" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6655" CreationDate="2014-04-24T09:44:05.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;聽到 聽過 聽說 are kind of hard to have a simple translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聽說 should be the easiest one here: it means &quot;heard someone talked about something&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聽到 you can simply treat it as &quot;hear&quot; in English.  It is not necessary to relate to tense. e.g.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;剛才你有沒有聽到怪聲？: Have you heard any weird sound (some time before)?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我聽到怪聲: I hear weird sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聽過 is a bit more complicated.  First thing you need to understand is, in Chinese , 聽 can mean Listen or Hear. 過 in 聽過 means it is something that happened in the past and is finished.  In brief you can translate it to &quot;have listened to&quot; or &quot;have heard of&quot;, depending in context. e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我聽過這演講 I have listened to this speech&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我聽過這怪聲 I have heard of this weird sound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3633" LastEditorUserId="3633" LastEditDate="2014-04-25T05:23:24.000" LastActivityDate="2014-04-25T05:23:24.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6677" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6682" CreationDate="2014-04-24T12:32:40.783" Score="6" ViewCount="1086" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I know, 竟然 and 居然 both mean &quot;unexpectedly&quot;. Do they have any difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T16:23:32.990" Title="What is the difference between 竟然 and 居然?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6660" CreationDate="2014-04-24T12:34:03.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;老公 is the most commonly used words in both mandarin and Cantonese, we usually introduce or describe husband using &quot;這是我的老公。&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As 先生 in Cantonese can also means teacher, so the most appropriate is &quot;呢位係我老公。&quot;&#xA;In formal written language, 丈夫 also means husband but it is not used in spoken language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4359" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T12:34:03.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6679" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-24T13:18:11.583" Score="2" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese equivalent of I'm stealing that joke?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just heard a hilarious joke, and I'd like to say &quot;that's a great joke, I'm stealing it&quot; (i.e. I will use it myself).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese equivalent? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose the idea of &quot;stealing&quot; a joke doesn't really fit into Chinese culture?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T22:22:29.267" Title="Chinese equivalent of &quot;I'm stealing that joke&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6680" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6689" CreationDate="2014-04-24T15:47:16.460" Score="5" ViewCount="581" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both have the meaning &lt;code&gt;sudden&lt;/code&gt;, but what is a subtle difference between 突然 and 忽然?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T18:07:43.383" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T20:11:19.887" Title="What is the difference between 突然 and 忽然?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6679" CreationDate="2014-04-24T16:05:53.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Right, the word &quot;stealing&quot; doesn't fit into Chinese culture that much. We would use &quot;borrow&quot; instead, although we are not give it back anyway. The words in Chinese are &quot;借用一下&quot;，literally means borrow and use for a little bit. (We use a little bit at the end to soften the sentence and be more polite)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T16:05:53.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6677" CreationDate="2014-04-24T16:16:32.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are very similar. The difference is that 竟然 is more used in a negative situation where the unpleasant result is out of control and beyond the expectation, while 居然 could be used in both good(i.e. surprise) and bad (i.e. accident). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-04-24T16:23:32.990" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T16:23:32.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6655" CreationDate="2014-04-24T18:46:17.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To understand them, you should learn their structures. They have different structures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听到 verb - result complement (outcome is achieved)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听过 verb - experiential aspect (EXP) marker (got the experince)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听说 a compound (hear somebody say)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic meaning of 听 is 'to listen'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到 is a result complement expressing the meaning that &lt;strong&gt;the outcome of the action is achieved&lt;/strong&gt;. When you try to listen to something, what is the desired outcome of your action? The outcome is that you can hear it. The negative form is 沒听到 or 听不到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you listen(听) to music, you do it intentionally. Usually you can hear(听到) the music if nothing disturbs you. When you are at the street, you can hear(听到) different noise. You do not intentionally listen(听) to the noise, but the outcome of listening is achieved. When you are alone, you cannot hear(听不到) my voice, even if you try hard to listen(听) to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: the complement 到 seems to mean that you do not intentionally do something, but this is a misunderstanding.  It actually means that the outcome of the action is achieved. When 到 is absent, the verb is by default intentional, but when 到 is present, the meaning of achieving the outcome prevails, so the phrase are usually no longer intentional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过 is an (or 'the') EXP aspect marker. (Chinese has no tense but aspect.) The EXP aspect emphasize &lt;strong&gt;the experience of the action&lt;/strong&gt;. 听过 can mean 'have ever heard' or 'have ever listened'. The negative is 沒听过. For example, I have ever listened to the compositions by Hisaishi Jō. (我听过久石譲的作品.) I have never heard my father's voice. (我沒听过我爸爸的声音.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the translation into perfect tense may be questionable. For example, you listen to Hisaishi's music very often, but last week you did not listen(上星期沒听过), and last month you listened to it twice only(上个月只听过两次). The use of 过 is an emphasis of the experience (or lack of it) of the action. It is not directly related to a perfect tense in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I also talk about another aspect. 了 is the actual aspect marker. It makes an assertion that something is actually done, without emphasizing any experience (or lack of it). It does not appear in any negative form because negation and actuality are incompatible. After you have listened to Hisaishi's music, you can say 听了 or 听过. The first choice emphasizes that the act of listening did really happen, but the second choice emphasizes that you have got the experience of listening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I ask by saying '他听过沒听过?', I ask whether he has the experience of listening (to some thing). But if I ask by saying '他听了沒听?', I ask whether the state of his listening (to some thing) has been made true by his action of doing so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听说 is a compound. It is formed by two verbal parts: listen-say. I suggest that this compound is &lt;strong&gt;a contraction of 听某人说(hear that somebody say)&lt;/strong&gt;. If Putin 听说 that North Korea has nuclear weapons, it literally means that he has heard somebody say so, but he is not the one to witness it, because he just heard it from other mouths. I suggest that 听说 can sometimes be translated as &quot;it's said that&quot;. When the subject of 听说 is the first person. When the subject is the third person, it can be translated as &quot;He heard that&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4428" LastEditorUserId="4428" LastEditDate="2014-04-25T02:42:19.190" LastActivityDate="2014-04-25T02:42:19.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6655" CreationDate="2014-04-24T20:17:53.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听到（听见）－没听到（没听见）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 &lt;strong&gt;听到（听见）&lt;/strong&gt; 水 烧开了 的 声音 &lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt; 吗？(&lt;strong&gt;Can&lt;/strong&gt; you &lt;strong&gt;hear&lt;/strong&gt; water boiling?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没听到（没听见）&lt;/strong&gt;。(No.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 他妈的 到底 &lt;strong&gt;听见 了 没有&lt;/strong&gt; (=&lt;strong&gt;听不听得见&lt;/strong&gt;)！ (What the f**k &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; you &lt;strong&gt;hear&lt;/strong&gt; me &lt;strong&gt;or not&lt;/strong&gt; on earth!) (=Why are you keeping ignoring me?/ You'd better keep that f**king well in mind.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;听得见嘛&lt;/strong&gt;。 (Obviously I &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; = =.) (=I am not./Yes I will.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听到（听见）=听+到(见). You should have learned that, when we describe the state that we &lt;strong&gt;can hear&lt;/strong&gt; the thing, we say &lt;strong&gt;听得到（听得见）&lt;/strong&gt;. The logic here is the verb itself + the character corresponding to its consequence. As a result, the proper English word for it is &lt;strong&gt;to (can) hear&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听过（听说过）－没听过（没听说过）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 &lt;strong&gt;听过&lt;/strong&gt; 中二病 吗？(&lt;strong&gt;Have&lt;/strong&gt; you ever &lt;strong&gt;heard&lt;/strong&gt; of chuu-ni syndrome?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没听过&lt;/strong&gt;。 (Never ever.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 &lt;strong&gt;听过&lt;/strong&gt; 京剧 吗？ (&lt;strong&gt;Have&lt;/strong&gt; you ever &lt;strong&gt;listened&lt;/strong&gt; to Peking Opera?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没听过&lt;/strong&gt;。 (Never ever.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听过 is simply the past form of 听. Note that either &lt;strong&gt;hear&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;listen&lt;/strong&gt; can fit the translation here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听说－没听说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 &lt;strong&gt;听说&lt;/strong&gt; 明天 要 降温 &lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt; 吗？ (&lt;strong&gt;Have&lt;/strong&gt; you &lt;strong&gt;heard people say&lt;/strong&gt; that tomorrow's temp is going down?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没听说&lt;/strong&gt;。 (Not yet.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;听说&lt;/strong&gt; 从前的 中国人 人人 都 会 武术。 (I &lt;strong&gt;hear somebody say&lt;/strong&gt; that every ancient Chinese people &lt;strong&gt;could&lt;/strong&gt; play martial art.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;听说&lt;/strong&gt;？ &lt;strong&gt;听&lt;/strong&gt; 谁 &lt;strong&gt;说&lt;/strong&gt; 的？ (Hear-say? &lt;strong&gt;Hearing&lt;/strong&gt; whom &lt;strong&gt;saying&lt;/strong&gt; that?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg3 (in comparison with eg1 in the 2nd part.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 &lt;strong&gt;听说过&lt;/strong&gt; 中二病 吗？(Have you ever &lt;strong&gt;heard of the saying&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;chuu-ni syndrome&quot;?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没听说过&lt;/strong&gt;。 (Never ever.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the examples you can see that 听说 is the combination of &lt;strong&gt;hear&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;say&lt;/strong&gt;. It could be &lt;strong&gt;to hear somebody say&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;to hear a saying&lt;/strong&gt;. The liaison between the 2 characters are not so important. And so, from time to time you can hear people say &quot;听人说&quot; in place of &quot;听说&quot;. (Try translate the last sentence. :D)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T20:17:53.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6679" CreationDate="2014-04-24T20:29:51.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;that's a great joke, I'm stealing it.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;好 段子 ，我 &lt;strong&gt;抄&lt;/strong&gt; 去 用 了 哈～&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抄 = to copy, to transcribe, to plagiarize&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T20:29:51.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6660" CreationDate="2014-04-24T20:40:57.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;（Old Beijing dialect）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;－这 我们 家 挣钱的/管事儿的/拿主意的。/这 (孩儿)他爸。(husband)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;－这 我们 家 掌柜的/管账的。/这 (孩儿)他妈。(wife)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(for old people, generally above 50 yrs old)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-这 是 我 老伴儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2014-04-25T21:01:37.287" LastActivityDate="2014-04-25T21:01:37.287" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6679" CreationDate="2014-04-24T22:22:29.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese people not tend to say this during a conversation,(maybe because it's so nature to steal jokes, how many people invent jokes themselves?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we might say something similar during a text chat(SMS, onine chat,etc). user3685's is a good one. Or you may say &quot;已转发(forwarded)&quot;,&quot;已收藏(added to my collection)&quot;，&quot;已右键(saved)&quot;,to show that you will use it later. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拾人牙慧(what was mentioned in the question's first comment) was definitely not what you are looking for, that's used for &quot;borrowing other people's ideas &lt;strong&gt;without referencing&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4408" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T22:22:29.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6680" CreationDate="2014-04-24T22:48:57.300" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are identical when used as an Adverb.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天空突然/忽然下起了大雨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 突然 can also be used as a complement of a verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这雨下得太突然了。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where you can only use 突然。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4408" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T22:48:57.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2724" CreationDate="2014-04-25T02:39:44.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is an old question, but since none of the above answer have mentioned, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;O&lt;/strong&gt; would be another one, sometimes pronounced as 圈, but it's not as common as X, and the only example I can think of is OOXX (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/770422.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;圈圈叉叉&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4410" LastActivityDate="2014-04-25T02:39:44.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6692" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6693" CreationDate="2014-04-25T09:59:31.373" Score="9" ViewCount="2440" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 依然 and 仍然?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T07:43:47.510" Title="What is the difference between 依然 and 仍然?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6692" CreationDate="2014-04-25T11:27:01.753" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;依然 and 仍然 both can be used as adverb to mean &quot;still&quot;. And when used this way, they are interchangable in most cases. You can say &quot;虽然生病，他依然去上学了&quot; or &quot;虽然生病，他仍然去上学了&quot;. Both are appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However 依然 can also be used as a verb, such as &quot;noun + 依然&quot; (most likely in some idioms or phrases). e.g 旧态依然, 风采依然. You cannot use 仍然 in these situations. But anyway, such kind of usage is rarely heard in daily talks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition you'll find 依然 in some classic poems. But I haven't seen any occurence of 仍然 in poetry before 20th century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastActivityDate="2014-04-25T11:27:01.753" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6694" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6712" CreationDate="2014-04-25T14:44:32.383" Score="1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working on a research project. I'd like to know if there's any lexicon or thesaurus or maybe a dataset (as complete as possible) with cities, forenames, surnames,placeNames, common words, all written in hanzi and lemmatized or tagged.&#xA;Thanks for your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4289" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T21:16:26.160" Title="Is there any Simplified Chinese Thesaurus/Lexicon of cities. forenames and surnames, and commonwords?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;word-lists&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6696" CreationDate="2014-04-25T15:48:15.437" Score="1" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many Mandarin Chinese teachers claim that the step 1 for Learning Chinese is: Sounds (Pinyins).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How different is it to English sounds and are there any good tips to learn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastEditorUserId="4381" LastEditDate="2014-04-26T01:35:18.500" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T11:44:46.953" Title="Learn Chinese Step 1: Sounds (Pinyins). How different is it to English sounds and are there any good tips to learn?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-04-29T02:24:55.697" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6695" CreationDate="2014-04-25T16:22:51.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't connect Chinese sounds to English sounds (or any other language, for that matter). It will only hinder your pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of learners want to connect 'xi' with the English 'she' - but first the Chinese 'x' is represented by the IPA letter ɕ where as the English 'sh' is represented by IPA ʃ - although it might be considered a variation (by some) but it certainly is not the same!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These kinds of things often leave foreigners sounding 洋腔洋调 because they're just using sounds from other languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-04-25T16:33:22.990" LastActivityDate="2014-04-25T16:33:22.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6698" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6699" CreationDate="2014-04-26T01:43:25.187" Score="0" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many Mandarin Chinese teachers claim that the step 2 for Learning Chinese is: Learning Characters, I know many learners skip this step and just focus on conversational skill,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q1: How different would it be if a learner skip the character learning process?&#xA;Q2: Are there any good tips to learn the writing and make sense of these square characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastEditorUserId="4381" LastEditDate="2014-04-26T04:12:34.110" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T04:12:34.110" Title="Learn Chinese Step 2: Characters. Are there any good tips to learn the writing and make sense of these square characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-04-29T23:21:40.647" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6698" CreationDate="2014-04-26T02:09:36.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, characters learning process is of the most importance in learning Mandarin Chinese. In my teaching experience, we've seen too many cases where there is a huge difference between the learning results of those who learn characters and those who skip this step just try to save time. The latter usually ended up spending more boring time memorizing and memorizing... Therefore, I always believe the KEY to learn well Chinese, a language that is so much different than English, is FIRST to learn well the characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are definitely tips to learn the writing or understand the composition of Chinese characters! Many thought it is difficult to learn Mandarin Chinese, particularly the characters. It is not true though. It takes time and efforts to learn it well, but what doesn't? In my opinion, Chinese is one of the most interesting languages in the world! Chinese is a picture language, which means ancient Chinese people drew different pictures as Chinese characters out of everything they saw in the environment! Therefore, the best way to learn well the language, in my own experience as a Chinese teacher for many years, is to learn the radicals of the characters first, which by themselves usually have hints from the writing (or drawing) and then form the meaning of a character. This is exactly the approach that is been used in the Chinese tutoring video lessons of the website &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesehulu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ChineseHulu.com&lt;/a&gt;, check it out if you want to find out more about Mandarin Chinese, one of the most mysterious and ancient languages in the world! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T02:09:36.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6660" CreationDate="2014-04-26T02:13:35.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我家死鬼 might be an interesting one. Literally it means &quot;my house dead ghost&quot;. It is used usually in a teasing way when mentioning &quot;husband&quot; to a close friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T02:13:35.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6694" CreationDate="2014-04-26T02:14:21.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a complete list of all administrative divisions in China (from province to village) from National Bureau of Statistics of China:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjbz/tjyqhdmhcxhfdm/2013/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjbz/tjyqhdmhcxhfdm/2013/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I can't find official website about other alternative names of them, but there are several useful sites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xzqh.org.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.xzqh.org.cn/&lt;/a&gt; (by Ministry of Civil Affairs)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xzqh.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.xzqh.org/&lt;/a&gt; (not official site, but informative)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4358" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T02:14:21.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="78" CreationDate="2014-04-26T02:24:25.877" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;小王 is used to call someone who has the 王 last name and who is younger than the speaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same, &#xA;老王 is used to call someone who has the 王 last name and who is older than the speaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, 老王 could mean the paramour (of the wife) i.e. 隔壁老王 - Literally means the 老王(old Wang) next door, in this case, 王 doesn't necessarily need to be the last name, it is  just a specific term in this idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-04-26T03:23:01.333" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T03:23:01.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2014-04-26T02:32:36.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Put it in simple way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-的 is used as possessive suffix or adjective suffix, &#xA;i.e 我的 (I + 的 = my) or 美的 (beuaty + 的 = beautiful)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-地 is a adverb suffix, it works as -ly in English,&#xA;i.e. 快地（quickness + 地 = quickly）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-得 is a particle word after a verb to soften the action (Verb), so it doesn't mean anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T02:32:36.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2014-04-26T07:05:37.427" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 and 地 are easy to learn. 的 is used for adj. 地 is used for adv.&#xA;得 is not clean to be translated well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But one good thing is even Chinese young people cannot do this separation well. The new Chinese culture book for primary school in China mainland is use 的 only. This question will be meanless within 2 decades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T07:05:37.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6692" CreationDate="2014-04-26T07:07:50.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a secondary school of China: &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.etiantian.com/staticpages/study/question/question_1454993.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://web.etiantian.com/staticpages/study/question/question_1454993.htm&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仍然 is an adverb, be used before the verb, stressing the thing is continued.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;依然 is an adjective, be used alone generally, 风景依然 for example. And also, it can be adverb, the same as 仍然 but stressing the thing is as before, nothing changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammar in example 风采依然 is like 身体健康, noun + adjective. just like subject + contact verb (ignored in Chinese) + predicative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastEditorUserId="3264" LastEditDate="2014-04-26T07:15:34.517" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T07:15:34.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6653" CreationDate="2014-04-26T07:23:43.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, the husband may call his wife 太太 but not with the surname.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you are not the husband of this lady, you can call her surname + 太太. Even you can use 这位太太 (this lady) but never use 太太 lonely, or you may be get beaten from her husband lol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But using surname + 太太 is not so good in Chinese culture because the lady will NOT change the surname after marriage. It's complicated to choose the right surname before 太太, from her original one, or her husband's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T07:23:43.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6695" CreationDate="2014-04-26T11:44:46.953" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found listening to music really helped when learning - artists from Taiwan and the south tend to sing more clearly in my opinion. perhaps you could start there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it is worth noting that in English we have around 8000 unique syllables, whereas in (mandarin) Chinese there are only around 400 (multiply this by 4 for the tones).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4448" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T11:44:46.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6709" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6713" CreationDate="2014-04-26T13:18:29.553" Score="3" ViewCount="8360" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using OS X 10.9.2, is there any easy way to transfer traditional Chinese to simplified Chinese? Like some apps? I don't really like using website to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-08T07:28:02.757" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T07:28:02.757" Title="Any easy way to convert traditional Chinese to simplified Chinese on Mac?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6352" CreationDate="2014-04-26T18:07:45.860" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the most significant difference is that 无 can be used as a bound morpheme, but 沒有 is always a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example 无形资产 can never be &quot;沒有形资产&quot;. It is 无形的, and it 沒有实物形态.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4428" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T18:07:45.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6653" CreationDate="2014-04-26T20:40:38.130" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker born and living in northern China. In my experience of life, calling someone X太太 only appears in some old literatures (or maybe I am just too young and naive :) ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many differences in the calling conventions of one's wife in China. As far as I know, people tend to say “我媳妇” in northern China while “我老婆” in southern China (both are called only by the husband or very good friends). They are not Honorifics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you meet a couple for the first time, you can say 嫂子 in northern China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you meet a stranger, you can say X女士. This is also can be used in written language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you a among young people, never say X太太 or 太太. This makes others think you are too old-fashioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4450" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T20:40:38.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6694" CreationDate="2014-04-26T21:16:26.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For surnames, there are many, and you can refer to the 《百家姓》。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this link may help：&lt;a href=&quot;http://baijiaxing.51240.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baijiaxing.51240.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most surnames（姓） are one character（单姓）. some surnames are two characters, and are called 复姓。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no stationary forenames. But in Chinese tradition (although many Chinese ignore this tradition to make distinctive names), the first character of forenames are give strictly according to the seniority in the family --- for a generation in the family, the second character are the same character, which are selected according to a list. For example, in my family, my grandfather has the character 焕，and all his brothers and cousins are called X焕Y。My father and all his cousins are called X金Z. For my generation, we should be called X斯W， but my parents did not obey this tradition and gave me a distinctive name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, most of the posterities of 孔子 still obey this rule strictly. They use this list:&#xA;希言公彦承，宏闻贞尚衍，兴毓传继广，昭宪庆繁祥，令德维垂佑，钦绍念显扬，建道敦安定，懋修肈懿长，裕文焕景瑞，永锡世绪昌 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AD%94%E5%AD%90%E4%B8%96%E5%AE%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AD%94%E5%AD%90%E4%B8%96%E5%AE%B6&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and there are also many surnames are given according to the society environment. like 马文革，李建国，刘跃进。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every province has a name and a abbreviation.&#xA;黑龙江省（黑) 吉林省（吉） 辽宁省（辽） 河北省（冀）山西省（晋） 河南省（豫）安徽省（皖）&#xA;青海省（青）山东省（鲁） 江苏省（苏）浙江省（浙）福建省（闽）江西省（赣）湖北省（鄂） &#xA;湖南省（湘） 广东省（粤）台湾省（台） 海南省（琼）甘肃省（甘或陇）陕、西省（陕或秦）          四川省（川或蜀）贵州省（贵或黔）云南省（云或滇）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some cities, they also have a one-character abbreviation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4450" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T21:16:26.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6709" CreationDate="2014-04-26T21:34:44.433" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, paste the traditional Chinese texts into Textedit, select those texts. Then Right-click the texts in Textedit, choose Services/Convert text to simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorUserId="2599" LastEditDate="2014-04-29T08:27:04.480" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T08:27:04.480" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6714" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-27T16:10:55.373" Score="0" ViewCount="597" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't seem to find it anywhere, I was told it was by a famous Beijing lecturer (?). Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fe4c7.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4455" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2019-08-26T00:36:09.983" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T00:36:09.983" Title="What does this calligraphy say? who is it by?" Tags="&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-04-28T21:19:47.300" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6714" CreationDate="2014-04-27T16:29:15.663" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The words are &quot;天行健，君子以自强不息。地势坤，君子以厚德载物&quot; from 《周易》。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;君子以自强不息 means one(君子) should keep on hard working and self-improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;君子以厚德载物 means one should take responsibilities and be open-minded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a motto of man's behavior. &quot;天行健&quot; and “地势坤” are terminologies of 八卦, a kind of divination. The way of man's life is extended from the result of divination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although many people do not believe in 八卦, this motto still motivates people to improve their ways of life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4450" LastActivityDate="2014-04-27T16:29:15.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19" CreationDate="2014-04-27T22:05:52.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;很高兴认识你 is usually used when FIRST meeting with someone, while 认识你，我很高兴。is more used after knowing each other for a while, could be just minutes, hours, and even days or months, to express the feeling that &quot;I'm really happy to have a friend like you&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good one could be: 认识你真好 at first meet，literally it means to get to know you is really good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-27T22:05:52.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6717" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6740" CreationDate="2014-04-27T22:13:24.377" Score="2" ViewCount="536" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the textbook, we learned that 一片 is the measure word for thin, flat objects such as leaves. But it seems to mean differently in 一片草地. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the measure word 一片 mean? and how to use it?　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-04-28T05:34:37.663" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T02:42:29.513" Title="What does the measure word 一片 mean? and how to use it?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6718" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-27T22:28:45.963" Score="1" ViewCount="538" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title， is there a word in Mandarin Chinese to mean &quot;mostly&quot; ? For example, I am going to tell my friend who wrote a letter to me that &quot;I mostly got what you man&quot;, is it appropriate to say &quot;大多&quot; that I found in dictionary in this case for &quot;mostly&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4457" LastEditorUserId="4457" LastEditDate="2014-04-28T03:54:44.543" LastActivityDate="2014-05-10T02:03:03.843" Title="Is there a word in Chinese to mean &quot;mostly&quot;? Is &quot;大多&quot; appropriate?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6719" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-27T22:41:12.080" Score="3" ViewCount="1503" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked up in the dictionary, there are 12 meanings for it! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;well&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;aiblins&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;anywhere&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;belike&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;supposedly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;probably&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;prob.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;maybe&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;mayhap&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;presumedly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;presumably&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ordinarily&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;somewhere&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;easily&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;mainly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just wonder when to use which for “大概”? Are there any words with the same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4457" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T17:19:33.307" Title="What does “大概” mean? Are there any words with the same meaning?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6720" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6731" CreationDate="2014-04-27T22:47:26.997" Score="0" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many Mandarin Chinese teachers claim that the step 3 for Learning Chinese is: Vocabulary Building. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it the same way(s) to memorize Chinese vocabulary as it is to memorize English vocabulary? Or are there any good tips to memorize Chinese vocabulary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T10:20:01.227" Title="Learn Chinese Step 3: Vocabulary Building. Is it the same way to memorize Chinese vocabulary as it is to memorize English vocabulary?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-04-28T16:51:33.100" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6719" CreationDate="2014-04-28T01:27:08.430" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“大概”means “unsure/maybe/perhaps/probably”，不确定。&#xA;The same Chinese words can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)或许&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)也许&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3)可能&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T01:27:08.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6717" CreationDate="2014-04-28T01:33:13.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“一片” can be used in many ways. Generally speaking, we tend to use that in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;strong&gt;A wide plain of groud&lt;/strong&gt;（一片草原，一片草地……）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &lt;strong&gt;A very thin,small or tiny thing&lt;/strong&gt;: （一片胡萝卜，一片山楂） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) &lt;strong&gt;few, little&lt;/strong&gt;（片刻，片甲不留）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more, you can refer this：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/7247.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/7247.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T01:33:13.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6719" CreationDate="2014-04-28T02:55:57.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;大概 has three basic meanings:&#xA;1 general (idea)&#xA;2 approximate&#xA;3 probably&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Longmans Dictionary&#xA;Contains the following comparison/warning about similar Chinese words:&#xA;【大抵•大概•大致】&#xA;dà dǐ / dà gài / dà zhì&#xA;都可作副詞﹐都表示對數量的估計和對情況的推測。區別在：①「大概」只表示約數；「大抵」能表示數量範圍﹐有大都﹑大多的意思；「大致」側重於事情的主要方面的情況。②在表示對情況的估計﹑揣測時﹐「大概」重在猜測；「大抵」偏重於肯定；「大致」偏重於大體上的意思。③「大概」和「大致」在口語﹑書面語中都較常用；「 大抵」一般用於書面。④「大概」還可以作名詞和形容詞﹐如「知道個大概」﹑「一個大概的數字」；「大抵」沒有名詞和形容詞用法；「大致」可作形容詞﹐如「大致的想法」﹐但不能作名詞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Guifan contains this note:&#xA;注意 ㊀跟“大致”不同。做副词时, “大概”侧重于估计, 既用于对数量的估计, 也用于对情况的估计; “大致”侧重于估算, 一般用于对数量的估算。㊁见大约的提示。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大约：&#xA;注意 跟“大概”不同。“大约”只作副词, 没有名词､区别词用法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So while words like 大抵、大致、大约 may be similar to 大概 (in certain contexts) you still need to be careful how you use them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T02:55:57.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6718" CreationDate="2014-04-28T03:01:10.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;is there a word in Mandarin Chinese to mean &quot;mostly&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, but that just depends on different kinds of senarios:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) “相当，非常……”（程度副词）: adverb something related to the depth:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I &lt;strong&gt;mostly&lt;/strong&gt; love peace (我**非常**热爱和平)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）It's &lt;strong&gt;mostly&lt;/strong&gt; bad=It's quite bad=It's awfully bad 糟糕**透**了！（implementation to describe &quot;bad&quot;'s depth in Chinese, but that's used as an adverb in English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3）包含很大程度上的可能性，肯定：&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Mostly&lt;/strong&gt; speaking, It's almost of no hope to save people who sunk in the sea disaster of Korea.（可以这么说，救援韩国海难沉入水的群众希望破灭了）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T03:01:10.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6726" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-28T03:49:33.990" Score="6" ViewCount="890" Body="&lt;p&gt;I''m a Chinese learner for quite a while, I've been wondering why (是) shi4 is dropped in sentences like this：&quot;我很好&quot; Isn't there supposed to be a verb in every sentences? like 我（是）很好.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4457" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-06T21:19:43.850" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T21:19:43.850" Title="Why is (是) shi4 dropped in this sentence：&quot;我很好&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6726" CreationDate="2014-04-28T05:18:40.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, “是” means “is”. &lt;strong&gt;In English you can use &quot;be&quot;+adjective to mean &quot;A subject whose property/attribute is of sth&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm well/better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chinese, &lt;strong&gt;“是” is usually means &quot;to define a subject to be sth&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;：So when we say &quot;some subject&quot; “是” &quot;sth&quot;, this means &quot;Some subject equals sth&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是学生：I'm a student (meaning I'm working as a student).&#xA;So “是” is usually used with a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;strong&gt;“是” can be also used to enhance a meaning&lt;/strong&gt; (just like your example above)——this means some subject is REALLY sth, maybe according to the context, this is something with your mood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是很好！(Of course I'm fine, maybe someone is saying badly about you.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是很坏！(He's really very bad, agreeing with sb's saying)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2014-04-28T08:32:50.450" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T08:32:50.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6728" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6733" CreationDate="2014-04-28T09:51:35.360" Score="3" ViewCount="1546" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between these two words? Both mean train. Is there any difference? Are they used in different regions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3805" LastEditorUserId="3805" LastEditDate="2014-04-28T09:58:30.513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T12:45:09.043" Title="What is the difference between 列车 and 火车" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6729" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6732" CreationDate="2014-04-28T09:57:50.123" Score="5" ViewCount="1241" Body="&lt;p&gt;In what contexts are both used to mean ice-cream? Is one used in more formal occasions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3805" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T09:45:59.403" Title="Is there any difference between 冰淇淋 and 冰激凌" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6728" CreationDate="2014-04-28T10:04:32.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;几乎没有区别，但列车的说法更正式些，也可以说火车是列车的俗称。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4458" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T10:04:32.540" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6720" CreationDate="2014-04-28T10:08:48.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Similar to learning prefix/suffix and transformation of words in Latin derived languages, it's quite important to break down a Chinese character (in Traditional Chinese, 繁體字) into different components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will find most of the characters are constructed according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E6%9B%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;六書&lt;/a&gt; principles. Also Google for other resources on 六書.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in 葉(leaf) 碟(disk) 蝶(butterfly) the common 枼 component provides for the pronunciation and meaning (thin and flat) for the character.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The 廾，石，虫 indicates the word relates to plants, something hard, insects respectively.&#xA;Knowing these rules helps you to learn these three words with less effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2669" LastEditorUserId="2669" LastEditDate="2014-04-28T10:20:01.227" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T10:20:01.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6729" CreationDate="2014-04-28T10:22:43.927" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;冰激凌 is the translation in Mainland China.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;冰淇淋 is used in Taiwan and Hong Kong.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hong Konger also call ice-cream as 雪糕.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2669" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T10:22:43.927" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6728" CreationDate="2014-04-28T10:31:51.897" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes there are differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;火车 literally means &quot;fire car&quot;, and it got this name since the steam locomotive era when trains relied on buring coal as fuel. Later this word is generalized to refer to trains. But with modern technology developing, for example 高铁 (High Speed EMU Train), official media usually referes to it as 高铁列车, not 高铁火车. I guess it's because 火车 simply does not fit into the image. 电气列车, 地铁列车 and 轻轨列车 are some other examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the word 火车 is still used when referring to train in general. For example, 火车票 means &quot;train ticket&quot; and 火车站 means &quot;railway station&quot;. You cannot replace 火车 with 列车 in these cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technology aside, 列车 literally means &quot;linked car(s)&quot;. So this word should also be used when the subject referred to is related to the linked cars (passenger units), not the locomotive (motor unit). Hence in the word 列车乘务员 (train conductor), you shouldn't use 火车, because the conductor serves the passenger units. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T10:31:51.897" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6726" CreationDate="2014-04-28T16:44:08.553" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply put, adjectives in Chinese can function as verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More specifically, they can form &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicate_(grammar)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;predicates&lt;/a&gt; without the use of a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copula_(linguistics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;copula&lt;/a&gt; verb such as 是. For this reason, adjectives in Chinese are sometimes considered to be a class of verbs called &quot;stative verbs&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can refer to the answers of this previous question for more details: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/884/166&quot;&gt;Stative verbs in Chinese: only for adjectives?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T17:28:53.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6735" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-28T21:22:19.843" Score="3" ViewCount="319" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked it up and a lot of words that mean &quot;trick&quot; come back so I'm sure which is the right one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3922" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T04:07:31.200" Title="How to say &quot;tricks&quot; in Chinese? As in &quot;Snowboarding Tricks&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6735" CreationDate="2014-04-28T21:49:30.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Tricks&lt;/code&gt; here means 'maneuvers performed for fun or for show in a sports game'. It's translated into &lt;code&gt;花样动作&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;花式动作&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sports games for the exhibition of tricks is called &lt;code&gt;花样xx&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;花式xx&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. &lt;code&gt;freestyle snowboarding&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;花样滑雪&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;figure skating&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;花样滑冰&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;exhibition basketball&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;花式篮球&lt;/code&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T21:49:30.347" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6735" CreationDate="2014-04-28T21:55:37.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your context, &quot;技巧&quot; is a candidate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4422" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T21:55:37.777" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19" CreationDate="2014-04-28T22:21:11.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;很高兴认识你 ---- Common&#xA;认识你，我很高兴 ---- Common&#xA;如果给高兴一个定义，那就是认识了你 ---- It is a humor way that I liked. Someone might be moved to tears if you say this, so don't use it easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4422" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T22:21:11.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="884" CreationDate="2014-04-29T00:05:23.060" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;She &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; (very) beautiful. ==&gt; &#xA;她 &lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;（很）漂亮。 ==&gt;&#xA;她（很）漂亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So adjectives as verbs? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, simply because &quot;是&quot; (am/is/are/was/were) is intentionally removed.&#xA;Besides, there is nothing to do with adverb like &quot;很/十分/特别&quot; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4422" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T00:05:23.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6717" CreationDate="2014-04-29T02:42:29.513" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;About 一片, there are some explanations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refers to flat and thin (eg: 一片肉)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refer to the ground surface (eg: 一片空地)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refer to flaky patches (eg: “黄河远上白云间，一片孤城万仞山。”---王之涣 《凉州词》)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refer to diffuse scattered (eg: 一片红光)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refer to gather together (eg: 响声连成一片)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refer to mood, the mind (eg: 一片心意)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refer to language (eg: 自做一片文字)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refer to the whole piece (eg: 军民打成一片)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that can help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4460" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T02:42:29.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6741" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6743" CreationDate="2014-04-29T02:47:50.723" Score="7" ViewCount="778" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding of 的-地-得 is the same as what's here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/89/%E7%9A%84-%E5%9C%B0-%E5%BE%97-when-do-you-use-which&quot;&gt;的-地-得, when do you use which?&lt;/a&gt; -- which is summarised as: “地” usually appears before the verb while “得” appears after the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I found a sentence which I found very curious in its structure, it doesn't follow these rules. I couldn't find an explanation as to why. The sentence is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不是运动得太少，是事儿太多，&lt;strong&gt;多得做不完&lt;/strong&gt;，哪有时间运动？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;code&gt;多得做不完&lt;/code&gt;, “得” doesn't follow a verb. Is this an uncommon usage, or is this simply incorrect usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anybody shed some light on this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-21T13:09:25.610" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T13:09:25.610" Title="Why is 得 in 多得做不完?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6719" CreationDate="2014-04-29T02:52:09.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Synonyms：好像，也许，八成，似乎，可能，大致。&#xA;Basic explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[broad outlinne;general idea]∶大致内容或情况  eg.略知大概&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[probably;presumably]∶表示推测  eg.你的书大概能出来&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[approximate;likely;raugn]∶表示对时间、数量的不很精确的估计  eg.大概到了半夜时分&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;['adverb']表示有很大的可能性，表示推测  eg.雪没有多厚，大概半夜就不下了吧&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4460" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T02:52:09.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6741" CreationDate="2014-04-29T03:10:16.333" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a correct, and common usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得 can be also used after an adj to complement its degree/level, similar as the case following a verb. Such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她红得发紫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the usage of 得 should be &lt;strong&gt;verb/adj + 得 + complement&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reference here:&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/3ce1a977a417866fb84a8eca.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/3ce1a977a417866fb84a8eca.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-04-29T03:22:44.047" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T03:22:44.047" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6741" CreationDate="2014-04-29T03:26:48.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just share a source on zdic.net. As an auxiliary word, 得 generally has three functions. And in the question, it is &lt;strong&gt;case 3&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/xs/5F97.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;得 as an auxiliary word&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;得 de&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用在动词后面，表示能够或可以。如：我们可粗心不得。她能去我为什么去不得。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;After a verb, means &quot;be able to&quot;, &quot;can&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;我们可粗心不得&quot; == &quot;我们可 不得(能) 粗心&quot; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;We can't (shouldn't) be careless.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;她能去，我为什么去不得&quot; == &quot;她能去，我为什么不能去&quot; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;She can go, why can't I?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用在动词和补语中间，表示可能。如：我拿得动。那办得到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Between a verb and a complement, means &quot;possible to do&quot;, &quot;can&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;我拿得动&quot; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;I can bring it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;那办得到&quot; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;That can be done.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用在动词或形容词后面，连接表示程度或结果的补语。如：我冷得打哆嗦。我笑得肚子痛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;After a verb or an adjective, links a complement indicating &quot;degree/extent&quot; or &quot;result&quot;.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;我冷得打哆嗦&quot; (Literally) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;I feel cold so that I am trembling.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;我笑得肚子痛&quot; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'm laughing myself to stomachache.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (= die laughing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T03:26:48.853" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6719" CreationDate="2014-04-29T03:51:43.530" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think these other answers are more harmful than they are helpful and here's why: none of them have addressed how 大概 is applied in the real context of using the language. Anyone can look up a word in the dictionary and copy/paste the results here. OP's question is what does 大概 really mean (aka how is it used) and is there anything else like it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大概 is generally used to mean &quot;approximately&quot;, &quot;more or less&quot;, or &quot;something like that&quot;. Here's an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我大概明白你的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What this sentence is saying is: &quot;I don't understand what you're saying completely but I get the gist.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And another:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A：你打了多少个电话？ (How many phone calls did you make?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B：大概50个。(Approximately 50.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of other words that capture a similar meaning, the closest approximation I can think of is 左右. Here's how this word could be applied to the example above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B：50个左右。(50 or thereabouts.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another example of how using 大概 and 左右 are approximately the same but have a different connotation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A：你的车买了多少钱？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B1: 大概三十万人民币。(Around 300,000RMB.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B2: 三十万人民币左右。(300,000RMB more or less.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, 大概 implies the speaker is unclear or uncertain about the amount, or perhaps they don't remember. The use of 左右 implies a greater level of accuracy or certainty on the part of the speaker but they don't care to go into greater detail. The listener could press the speaker for more detail, in which case they would follow up with a more exact number if they were able.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing I rarely if ever hear 大概 used for is to express possibility. What this means is I don't think other words like 可能, 或许, and 也许 are similar in meaning. That said, I'm not a native speaker so I'm willing to allow for a number of use cases I'm not familiar with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4461" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T03:51:43.530" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6735" CreationDate="2014-04-29T03:58:54.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question Overflow made a good point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;招式 is often used for 'tricks' in sports like skateboarding - so in theory it should work with snowboarding just the same. You can even shorten it to just 招 if you'd like -- might sound a bit kung-foo-y though...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: some extra info:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;see this &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_68254bb20100spfw.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the article talks, mainly, about ski + snowboard tricks the article features the word 招式 a lot：&#xA;&lt;code&gt;等你熟练起跳跟着陆之后，可以开始最基本的招式。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;在雪地上尝试招式前，你可以先在干地上练习。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-04-29T04:07:31.200" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T04:07:31.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6747" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6751" CreationDate="2014-04-29T03:59:19.370" Score="8" ViewCount="554" Body="&lt;p&gt;May I know how the rules governing the pronunciation of 地?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the song, 吻别, the singer pronounces 地 as di.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷得连隐藏的遗憾都那么地明显&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;leng de lian yin cang de yi han du na me di ming xian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, a quick check with the Oxford Chinese-English Dictionary suggests that 地 is pronounced de when used&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[with an adverb or adverbial phrase]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while the pronunciation of di is used when referring to distance, position, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my interpretation of the Oxford Dictionary wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3805" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T06:28:50.677" Title="地 pronunciation variation" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6728" CreationDate="2014-04-29T04:01:39.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;列车&lt;/code&gt; is used more frequently in formal cases. For example, you may often hear such broadcasting in a station: &lt;code&gt;开往武汉方向的列车即将进站，请您文明候车有序排队&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;火车&lt;/code&gt; is more commonly used in daily life. After 2011, &lt;code&gt;高铁&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;动车&lt;/code&gt; are more and more popular because they are faster and more comfortable than traditional trains, so more and more people are using those two words to replace &lt;code&gt;火车&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T04:01:39.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6747" CreationDate="2014-04-29T04:05:09.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 can even be pronounced 'di' for emphasis.&#xA;A lot of kids when they say 我的 will say &quot;wo di&quot; just to emphasize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something similar can happen with 地. Singers prefer to use the 'di' pronunciation - perhaps it sounds cuter. In some regions people also insist on reading 地 as 'di' and will tell foreigners likewise - but in MSM (Modern Standard Mandarin) it &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt;, as oxford mentions, be read 'de'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: the only instance of this I can find in a dictionary is KEY dictionary, under '地' di entry they have the following explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6 (suffix, forming an adverb from an adjective, e.g., gāoxìng 高興/高兴 &quot;happy&quot; + dì 地 yields gāoxìngdì 高興地/高兴地 &quot;happily&quot;; in this function often pronounced &quot;de&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;de entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{grammar} (variant pronunciation of -dì) (forming an adverb from an adjectiv, e.g., gāoxìng 高興/高兴 &quot;happy&quot; + de 地 yields gāoxìngde 高興地/高兴地 &quot;happily&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-04-29T04:42:05.853" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T04:42:05.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6747" CreationDate="2014-04-29T04:10:10.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;90% Singers are pronouncing incorrectly. And even those wrongly pronounced songs are even more popular than correct ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, the correct pronunciation should be &lt;code&gt;[de]&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just fyi, the singer of &lt;code&gt;吻别&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;张学友&lt;/code&gt; from Hong Kong. People from Hong Kong are not quite professional in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update on May 4: sorry that I didn't check Jacky's original version on Youtube. He's pronouncing it correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="1042" LastEditDate="2014-05-04T11:45:03.487" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T11:45:03.487" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6747" CreationDate="2014-04-29T08:42:03.227" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very interesting question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like what @AwQiruiGuo has said, 地 should be pronounced as [de] (in speech, that is). And indeed the mentioned singer does not speak perfect Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this questions has more complicated background and should not be simply explained as the personal accent of the singer. Because in the case of songs, pronounciation variation kicks in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese Mandarin is a tonal language. But when the lyrics were sung, rhythm and beats can alter the tones. I'll take the lyric in the question as an example: Dictionary says 那 should be pronouced in 4th tone, but in this song, 那 is in 1st tone. Just listen to this song, and imagine what it would sound like if 那 is sung in 4th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In lyric, when a charater is on the downbeat, it is accented (stressed). If we mark all the downbeats, the lyric in the question will look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷得[连]隐[藏]的[遗]憾都[那]么[地]明[显]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters in square brackets are on downbeats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese phonology there is a concept called 平仄, which deals with the arrangement of characters in poems(诗) and lyrics(词) according to their tones. 词 is an art form with strict metrical foot which is comparable to English poetry. You have to write each line of lyrics with specific number of syllables in specific stressed/unstressed order. The guideline of how you arrange the stressed/unstressed syllables was of course the original rhythm and beats of ancient songs, which unfortunately were most - if not all - lost in the history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ancient Chinese pronounciation was different from modern Chinese but you can roughly interprete 平 as stressed (1st and 2nd tones in modern Mandarin) and 仄 as unstressed (3rd, 4th and 5th tones in modern Mandarin). Although pop music does not follow ancient meters any more, rhythms and beats still impact pronounciation because it's only nature that people pronounce stressed syllables on downbeats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this in mind, now take a look again at the downbeat characters in the mentioned line of lyrics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷得[连]隐[藏]的[遗]憾都[那]么[地]明[显]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;连: 2nd tone, stressed. In this song, it sounds like 1st tone, still stressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;藏: 2nd tone, stressed. In this song, it sounds like 1st tone, still stressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遗: 2nd tone, stressed. In this song, it sounds like 1st tone, still stressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那: 4th tone, unstressed. But in this song, it sounds like 1st tone, stressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;显: 3rd tone, unstressed. But in this song, it sounds like 1st tone, stressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now back to 地 in question: shoule be 5th tone, unstressed. But in this song, it sounds like 1st tone, and is altered from [de] to [di].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because [de] was 5th tone which is a very light one, if simply pronouced as [de] in 1st tone it just doesn't feel right. So traditionally when you want to stress [de5] you make it [di1]. And not only 地, but even 的 also follows this rule. I think this usage traces back to Chinese Opera. For example in &lt;em&gt;The Legend of the Red Lantern (红灯记)&lt;/em&gt; there are some famous lines of lyrics：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;穷人的孩子早当家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都有一颗红亮的心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where 的 is pronounced as [di], even if it's not on downbeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T08:51:01.727" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6729" CreationDate="2014-04-29T09:45:59.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are the same and 冰淇淋 is used more offen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4464" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T09:45:59.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6726" CreationDate="2014-04-29T12:05:53.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;是 is a contact verb here.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The grammar in example 我很好 is noun + adjective. just like subject + contact verb (ignored in Chinese) + predicative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T12:05:53.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19" CreationDate="2014-04-29T15:59:35.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers are correct translations, but saying &quot;nice to meet you&quot; is not a common social etiquette in China, according to my life experience. If I meet someone for the first time, and he said this to me, I may feel weird. Maybe this makes people feel you are too enthusiastic. Perhaps saying 你好 and then shaking hands is enough in some formal situations. And when your meeting is going to an end, it would be very nice to say something like &quot;今天认识各位朋友很高兴&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4450" LastActivityDate="2014-04-29T15:59:35.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6757" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6782" CreationDate="2014-04-30T02:09:33.137" Score="7" ViewCount="350" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is inspired from a recent question here about 列车.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question: How is this word formed, and/or where does it come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(When I am asking this question, I have my own guess: this word is formed by the nominal element 车 referring to 火车, preceded by a noun classifier 列, as in 兩列火车. But I wonder why the noun classifier should precede the noun. In many other phrases the classifier should follow the noun, as in 犬只, 鸡塊, 纸张, 木条. Is 车列 also an acceptable word?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4428" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-09T11:01:38.517" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T11:01:38.517" Title="What is the morphology or etymology of the word 列车?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6728" CreationDate="2014-04-30T02:26:32.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;火车 and 列车 denote a bit different concepts. The most significant meaning of 列车 is a series of linked train cars. If you are in the depot and see only one single car, you will not call it 列车. In addition, 列车 refers to the tangible object of linked train cars. If you want to tell me you will travel by train, you will not say *坐列车. In contrast, 火车 can refer to the mode of transport. In 火车票 and 火车站 (from Rephinx's examples), 火车 refers to the mode of transport. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4428" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T02:26:32.650" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6759" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6763" CreationDate="2014-04-30T03:03:52.560" Score="2" ViewCount="700" Body="&lt;p&gt;I come across this kind of construct frequently in literature but never really understood the workings of 道.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like:&#xA;想道&#xA;说道&#xA;写道&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly does 道 mean here?&#xA;What exactly does 道 do here?&#xA;How is it different from 到?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T07:35:13.613" Title="How does V+道 work?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6757" CreationDate="2014-04-30T05:41:11.527" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a classifier here. From dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;列车 lièchē&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) [train]∶众多连续的车辆。一般指火车,尤指由牵引机车和运货或载客的车厢组成的连挂成列的火车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can see, 列 is short for 成列的 (lined up in a row), therefore it's put before 车 as an adj.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T05:41:11.527" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6759" CreationDate="2014-04-30T05:53:34.517" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally it means &lt;code&gt;as follows&lt;/code&gt;. You have to put something related to that verb after it. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;他说道：“我们还是不要去了吧”。&lt;/code&gt; - &lt;code&gt;He said (as follows), &quot;We'd better not go&quot;.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except having the same pronunciation, there is nothing common between &lt;code&gt;道&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;到&lt;/code&gt;, they are totally different. &lt;code&gt;到&lt;/code&gt; mostly means &lt;code&gt;go somewhere&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1) Inversion usage&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can put the &quot;content&quot; before &lt;code&gt;XXX说道&lt;/code&gt; to form a inversion sentence. But it only applies to formal cases especially writings. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“敌人应该全军覆没了”，他说道。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2) 说到&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you might notice there're &lt;code&gt;说到&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;想到&lt;/code&gt;. In those cases, &lt;code&gt;到&lt;/code&gt; is a &lt;code&gt;补充式合成词&lt;/code&gt;. After it normally goes names or things. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;他说到你的时候，忍不住的掉眼泪&lt;/code&gt; - He can't help crying when talking about you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="1042" LastEditDate="2014-04-30T07:06:04.503" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T07:06:04.503" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6759" CreationDate="2014-04-30T06:53:26.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;道 has several meanings but here as a verb it means &amp;quot;speak, say&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The earliest usage of v+道 was more than 1600 years ago, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《后汉书·皇后纪上·明德马皇后》：常与帝旦夕言道政事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;translation: (She) always talks about political affairs with the emperor, day and night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;言 also means &amp;quot;speak, say&amp;quot;, so here 言道 is used as rhetorical reiteration. Note that back in early literatures the verb in v+道 has to be &amp;quot;speak/say&amp;quot;. e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唐 白居易 《登郢州白雪楼》：朝来渡口逢京师，说道烟尘近洛阳。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reiteration/repitation is common in ancient Chinese literatures because there is a principle:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奇字难适，偶语易安&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which roughly means: odd number of characters hardly make readers feel good, even number of characters easily make readers feel good. So when a verb is only one syllable, people tend to add a synonym to make it two syllables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说+道 is used in a lot of idioms as rhetorical repitation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说三道四&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说长道短&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说东道西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later on, this v+道 form was somehow extended to other verbs like 想 and 写, which does not involve making sound. But still, these verbs are related to &amp;quot;carrying or expressing thought&amp;quot;. This v+道 form is used before or after quotes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他想道：“很好。” (He think, &lt;em&gt;very good&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“很好。”他想道。 (&lt;em&gt;Very good&lt;/em&gt;, he thinks.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to the last part of your question, 说到 shouldn't be used to lead a quote. It's just a wrong usage. People tend to make this mistake because 道 and 到 has same pronounciation. 到 means &amp;quot;arrive, reach&amp;quot;. So the only valid usage of 说到 is in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说到做到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literally translated to: (whatever) saying reaches, doing reaches.&#xA;which means: to be as good as one's word/keep one's promise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T06:53:26.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6759" CreationDate="2014-04-30T07:22:35.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;道 in 说道、想道、写道&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I am a native speaker, I had to look it up in a dictionary to try to explain it, so here it goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According my dictionary, 道 can be a noun, a verb and a measure word. Obviously, it isn't either a noun or measure word in our scenario. So it must be a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the beginning, I thought the structure of phrases like 说道 is verb followed by complementary part. But since 道 is verb here, it would make more sense if 说 serves as adverbial part here as 道 here means &amp;quot;to speak, to express, to think, to understand or assume&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, literally, 说道 means to convey by speaking, 写道 means to convey by writing and 想道 means to understand by thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One may wonder if so, what's the difference between 说道 and 说. In my opinion, there isn't any in meaning but rather a style choice which is often preferred (but not mandatory) in written, especially in narrative context, for example a novel, rarely used in everyday conversation, in which case people would just use 说、写、想.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When it is used&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'll try to explain the tone of this usage, THIS IS BASED ON PERSONAL FEELINGS, IT MAY VARY FROM PERSON TO PERSON.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I said 说道、想道 and alike are often used in narrative context, but still some may prefer this way some may not. It's very hard to explain, but if I had too, I would say if the author want to give a very strong feeling of &amp;quot;story telling&amp;quot;, he or she probably would employ this kind of phrases. And it's not as modern as just using the verbs 说、写、想.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if tlor was written in Chinese, 说道、想道、写道 would be all over it. But if its Halo the novel, simple 说、写、想 probably would sever better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;说道 v.s 说到&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are totally different in meanings. 到 in 说到 means arriving certain point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For example&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说到他，我觉得他是个员工&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking of him, I think he is a good employee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们说到哪儿了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where were we? (in terms of conversation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 说到 is kind of a figurative speaking as if there is roadmap of conversation, and 到 is a preposition here, combined with what follows it, normally pronouns such as 'here/this这' and 'there/that那' and topics, they form the complementary part of 说.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T07:35:13.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6764" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-30T08:53:38.247" Score="0" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is my sentence correct?&#xA;&quot;When you come to my house, you first have to take the train, get out of it at the 3° station, and then take the bus n°60. My house is in front of the supermarket.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你来我家的时候, 你要坐火车, zài3 火车站下车, 然后你换60路公共汽车. 我家zài超市前边.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sorry for &quot;zài&quot;, I can't write it with my phone... I don't know why...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T17:01:30.837" Title="How can I say this?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6764" CreationDate="2014-04-30T09:46:12.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you come to my house,&#xA;你来我房子的时候，&#xA;you first have to take the train, &#xA;首先要坐火车，&#xA;get out of it at the 3° station, &#xA;在第三个站下，&#xA;and then take the bus n°60.&#xA;然后坐 N60 路。&#xA;My house is in front of the supermarket.&#xA;我的房子在超市的前面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1076" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T09:46:12.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6764" CreationDate="2014-04-30T16:48:02.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you need a more like English translation, here it is: (The ultimate translation is not necessarily doing it literally, that was what I learned from translation graduate school :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你来我家的时候, 你要坐火车, 在第三站下车, 然后你换60路公共汽车. 我家就在超市前边.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before you come to my house, you'll need to take the train, then transfer to #60 bus at 3rd stop. My house is in front of the supermarket.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-04-30T17:01:30.837" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T17:01:30.837" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6741" CreationDate="2014-04-30T16:59:42.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Put it in simple way, 得 works as a adverb, or some call it particle word that doesn't have a meaning by itself in Chinese. A adverb (or particle word) is to modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the possible usages of 得 should be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;verb + 得 + complement.&#xA;adj + 得 + complement.&#xA;adv + 得 + complement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T16:59:42.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1087" CreationDate="2014-04-30T17:10:13.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker and Chinese teacher, I would say 带走 and 打包 are interchangeable. Usually after a meal in a Chinese restaurant, it is appropriate to either say 不好意思,我要带走 （Excuse me, I'd like to take leftover to go）or 请帮我打包 （Please wrap the leftover up for me）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T17:10:13.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6719" CreationDate="2014-04-30T17:19:33.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;大概 has the meaning of 'roughly'. Words with similar meaning are:&#xA;差不多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4473" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T17:19:33.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6771" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-30T17:45:30.323" Score="0" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend's Chinese name is Zengyang and I want to surprise her by being able to pronounce it properly when she visits me in a few weeks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4474" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T17:46:35.177" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T17:46:35.177" Title="How to pronounce Zengyang?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-05-01T15:32:54.023" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6771" CreationDate="2014-05-01T10:15:57.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well this is a bit of a wild guess - but we don't really have much to work with do we now...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for the first part of your friends name you can take a look here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%E6%9B%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;曾&lt;/a&gt; and click the audio button next to &lt;code&gt;[zēng]&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;(this &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; likely is the correct pronunciation for the first part of your friends name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yang is most likely a second-tone (again best guess)&#xA;so you can have a look here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%E9%98%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;阳&lt;/a&gt; and click the audio button next to &lt;code&gt;[yáng]&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the best I can do you for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-01T10:15:57.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6773" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-01T11:03:35.490" Score="4" ViewCount="415" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that this is a pattern that expresses a reverse meaning of what is really expressed (some kind of rhetorical question) - and that the speaker is somehow showing a negative attitude. I suppose the expression is very easy to translate - if I only knew what would be a good equivalent in English. I ll give some examples. Please do help me with suggestions. Thanks a lot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 叫你买彩票，你还真买呀 ?&#xA;2) 那是 公家的东西！人家叫你拿，你还真拿呀？ (and which tones should this 人家 have?)&#xA;3) 现在刚下午四点，他让你睡觉，你就真睡觉呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be correct to translate no.3 this way: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The time is just four o' clock, and he allows/ lets you go to sleep - will you &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; go to sleep? &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I have no clue how to translate well the two first ones - maybe because the difference between 让 and 叫 slightly mess up the translation for me - but maybe there is no big difference? )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3174" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T05:26:55.800" Title="How to translate the following grammar-pattern: 让/叫 N+V —— N还/ 就真 V (呀)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6774" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-01T13:57:12.843" Score="1" ViewCount="588" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 餐馆 饭馆 酒家 饭店 and all the other different words that exist to say restaurant??? What's the most common and used and what is the one that could fit in quite every situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastActivityDate="2014-05-01T15:28:15.257" Title="餐馆, 饭馆, 酒家, 饭店 - restaurant in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-05-01T23:02:00.197" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6774" CreationDate="2014-05-01T15:28:15.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They all mean restaurant, but a little difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;餐馆 is normal, not so big, but formal restaurant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饭馆 is smaller, and casual restaurant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饭店 is bigger restaurant with higher qualification, be able to perform ceremony such as wedding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酒家 is an ancient word which means a kind of restaurant providing liquor. Nowadays used for the name of restaurant for antique flavour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-05-01T15:28:15.257" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6777" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-01T22:24:52.547" Score="1" ViewCount="3669" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to buy from an older Chinese couple and am trying to come up with an enticing offer. The listing price is 388K but I am looking to pay around 350K. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone pointed out that 388 is a good or lucky number so I am looking for a number near 350K that is good and why it is a good number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4479" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T18:33:00.917" Title="A good price to offer - Chinese Numerical Significance" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;number&gt;&lt;nuance&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-05-04T05:13:57.223" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6777" CreationDate="2014-05-01T22:37:52.427" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anything with 8 or double 8 is best. 68 is or 28 may also be considered favourably. Avoid the use of anything with a 4 as this is associated with the same phonetic sound as death...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that covers them all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-05-01T22:37:52.427" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6773" CreationDate="2014-05-02T04:31:31.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This kind of reminds me of &lt;code&gt;If I asked you to jump off a cliff/bridge would you do it?&lt;/code&gt; but that's kind of getting off the subject a little...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These sentences could even be translated as &quot;You didn't know I was kidding when I said &quot;....&quot;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-#3 could even use the &quot;if sb. asked you to 某某某 would you do it?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there is no 'fixed' way to translate these kind of things -- a more flexible approach will make it sound &lt;em&gt;way&lt;/em&gt; better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-02T04:31:31.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6757" CreationDate="2014-05-02T04:51:40.907" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;About morphology:  列車 is a compound noun made up of two morphemes, with the head being 車.  According to Chaofen Sun’s ‘Chinese:  A Linguistic Introduction’ (p. 50), about 90% of compound nouns in Chinese have the head (nominal formant) on the right.  Thus the structure of 列車 is not unusual at all.  The morpheme on the left tells us what kind of car it is, as in similar compounds like 汽車, 公車, 三輪車 etc.  It’s just a coincidence that 列 also happens to be used as a classifier.  (So @Rephinx is correct.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About etymology:  steam engine trains were only invented in the 19th century, so this word won’t be very old.  It’s instructive here to look at the origins of the English word ‘train’.  (See link here:  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=train%29&quot;&gt;http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=train&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘Train’ comes from a Latin root meaning ‘pull, draw’, which is quite similar to the meaning of 列.  It seems that 列車 is a kind of calque on the English word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally Chinese word formation is an interesting topic.  Besides Sun, I would recommend Jerome Packard’s ‘The morphology of Chinese:  a linguistic and cognitive approach’ (Cambridge UP 2000), although parts of it make use of X-bar theory and thus might be difficult to follow if you don’t have a background in linguistics.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2014-05-02T04:51:40.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6783" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6784" CreationDate="2014-05-02T11:21:53.883" Score="1" ViewCount="415" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently read a post here on CSE regarding the use of multiple input methods. I use MacOSX 10.9 so I began experimenting with an interesting aspect of the operating system called predictive completion. I added a Cangjie input source to my system and typed the letter P and selected the first option (心), the OS then offered (情) as the next first option, followed by 舒暢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please explain the framework used by MacOSX to produce predictive Chinese grammar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am more interested in whether choosing the top choices along any given thread will produce reliable grammatical structures rather than the technology behind it. Although, if known, I would appreciate an understanding of the logic behind this option as well (on initial inspection, the completions do not appear to come from the dictionary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please let me know if I need to clarify this further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LiOyi.png&quot; alt=&quot;Predictive Completion&quot; /&gt;&#xA;(System Preferences &amp;gt; Keyboard &amp;gt; Input Sources)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T08:20:55.027" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T08:20:55.027" Title="Why does the MacOS Keyboard with Predictive Completion produce 心情舒暢?" Tags="&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-08-13T00:25:26.730" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6783" CreationDate="2014-05-02T13:22:17.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has very little to do with grammar. It is more likely making logical word associations. I have no idea what &lt;code&gt;Cangjie&lt;/code&gt; is or how it works － but if you take out an iPhone or iPad or any iDevice and type in &lt;code&gt;xin&lt;/code&gt; you can repeat the process that you just did in MacOS, i.e.: 心--&amp;gt;情--&amp;gt;舒暢 (these being the &lt;em&gt;top&lt;/em&gt; recommended choices).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_input_method#Word_prediction&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia talks about this here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Word prediction&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Word prediction (simplified Chinese: 联想; traditional Chinese: 聯想;&#xA;pinyin: liánxiǎng; literally &amp;quot;association&amp;quot;) is a feature of an input&#xA;method that attempts to guess the next series of characters that the&#xA;user is attempting to enter. This feature is often used to refer to&#xA;two different mechanisms that have similar functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of these mechanisms is akin to an auto-complete function for user&#xA;input. While the user is typing the appropriate pinyin, the input&#xA;method would take the input and look up all possible word phrases that&#xA;might match the user input even though the input is incomplete. For&#xA;example, when the user enters &amp;quot;shang&amp;quot;, the input method would show&#xA;&amp;quot;上海&amp;quot; (Shanghai) as a word candidate under this feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second possible mechanism is the prediction of the user's next&#xA;input after the user completes entering a set of words. For example,&#xA;in the above example, after user selects &amp;quot;上海&amp;quot; (Shanghai) from the word&#xA;candidate list, the input method's pinyin buffer would be empty. Under&#xA;this mechanism, the input method would display a list of words that&#xA;often follows the word Shanghai, such as &amp;quot;人&amp;quot; (people), &amp;quot;市&amp;quot; (city), &amp;quot;的&amp;quot;&#xA;(an auxiliary word).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: this kind of 'word prediction' is a key feature of all Chinese IMEs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-02T13:22:17.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6785" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-02T17:29:52.540" Score="3" ViewCount="4527" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the general word for &quot;cheese&quot;? I've tryed to look it up in the dictionary but there are so many options!! What's the most general, the word that native speaker would use to say &quot;I want a piece of cheese&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastActivityDate="2014-05-03T14:50:00.797" Title="What's the general word for cheese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6785" CreationDate="2014-05-02T17:46:46.347" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general term in mainland China is 奶酪. 乳酪 is seen as well. 干酪 seems the standard term in Taiwan, where the phonetic translation 起司 is also seen. Hongkongese have a phonetic translation 芝士.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastEditorUserId="3251" LastEditDate="2014-05-02T19:28:09.293" LastActivityDate="2014-05-02T19:28:09.293" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6785" CreationDate="2014-05-02T21:57:59.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;请给我一块奶酪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that you shouldn't use the general classifier 个 for cheese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-02T21:57:59.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6773" CreationDate="2014-05-02T22:12:26.597" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for tones, it is &lt;em&gt;rénjia&lt;/em&gt;, as in &quot;people&quot;, &quot;somebody&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If talking about a family, it is more stressed: &lt;em&gt;rénjiā&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-02T22:12:26.597" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6789" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6791" CreationDate="2014-05-03T05:32:02.990" Score="5" ViewCount="735" Body="&lt;p&gt;They all have a meaning of &quot;praise&quot;, but do they have a difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T20:32:19.997" Title="What's the difference between 称赞, 表扬 and 夸奖?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6790" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6792" CreationDate="2014-05-03T05:33:33.430" Score="4" ViewCount="2126" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 很, 十分 and 非常? Or do they have the same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastActivityDate="2014-05-03T16:12:58.003" Title="What is the difference between 很, 十分 and 非常?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6789" CreationDate="2014-05-03T06:12:10.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are different forms of praise that can function as a verb or a noun:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;称赞 - a simple praise or compliment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;表扬 - to laud or commend someone publicly for his/her deed or achievement&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;夸奖 - lavish praise, sometimes can be viewed as a flattery to please someone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2014-05-03T06:12:10.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6790" CreationDate="2014-05-03T06:12:26.690" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;很 = very&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;很&lt;/strong&gt; 謝謝 你 = Thank you very much&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 &lt;strong&gt;很&lt;/strong&gt; 厲害 = You are very good.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;非常 = 十分 = extremely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;十分/非常&lt;/strong&gt; 謝謝 你&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 &lt;strong&gt;十分/非常&lt;/strong&gt; 厲害&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Word by word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;非-常 = extra-ordinary, ab-normal&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;十分 = 100 percent&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="469" LastEditorUserId="469" LastEditDate="2014-05-03T06:21:00.577" LastActivityDate="2014-05-03T06:21:00.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6790" CreationDate="2014-05-03T07:27:39.327" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would argue that 很 is more often than not used to couple nouns and adjectives. It then only means &quot;is&quot; rather then &quot;very&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他很高 / he is tall&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他非常高 / he is very tall&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他十分高 / he is extremely tall&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他高极了 / he is extremely tall (modifier after adjective)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although you could simply say 他高, it is more common to use 很 as copula.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorDisplayName="user4452" LastEditDate="2014-05-03T16:12:58.003" LastActivityDate="2014-05-03T16:12:58.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6785" CreationDate="2014-05-03T14:31:24.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;奶酪 nailao - cheese&#xA;我要一块奶酪。 - I want a piece of cheese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4480" LastActivityDate="2014-05-03T14:31:24.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6795" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-03T14:39:21.847" Score="-1" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an offline program I could download for the Chinese telegraph code?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4480" LastActivityDate="2014-05-03T19:22:12.387" Title="Is there an offline program I could download for the Chinese telegraph code 中文电码?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-05-05T18:40:30.700" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6785" CreationDate="2014-05-03T14:50:00.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general word for cheese in chinese would be &quot;奶酪&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4471" LastActivityDate="2014-05-03T14:50:00.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6797" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-03T16:30:47.700" Score="1" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这家餐馆菜都很好吃的&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这家餐馆的菜都很好吃&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the correct form to say &quot;all the food of that restaurant it's delicious&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2014-05-03T16:36:32.930" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T11:38:56.210" Title="Which one is correct?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6797" CreationDate="2014-05-03T17:27:01.797" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Number 2 is correct. &#xA;Number 1 translates as This restaurant food is delicious. (Does not make sense)&#xA;Number 2 translates as The food in this restaurant is delicious. (Should be what you are looking for) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4471" LastActivityDate="2014-05-03T17:27:01.797" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6795" CreationDate="2014-05-03T19:22:12.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have an idevice, you could always use &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chinese-telegraph-code/id658197225?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chinese-telegraph-code/id658197225?mt=8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a fairly updated Windows OS, you could use &lt;a href=&quot;http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/chinese-telegraph-code/2ff68977-4c6a-47a3-bc2d-e0fe78c4d068&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/chinese-telegraph-code/2ff68977-4c6a-47a3-bc2d-e0fe78c4d068&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-03T19:22:12.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6757" CreationDate="2014-05-03T21:23:28.580" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;While the other answers here are interesting, one should not overlook the possibility that 列車 is a loan word from Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastActivityDate="2014-05-03T21:23:28.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6777" CreationDate="2014-05-03T22:31:33.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;388 is considered lucky because 3 rhymes with 生 (&quot;live&quot; or &quot;lively&quot;) and 8 rhymes with 發 (&quot;rich&quot;, &quot;wealthy&quot;). The whole phrase should be &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%E7%94%9F%E7%94%9F%E7%99%BC%E7%99%BC&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;oe=utf-8&amp;amp;aq=t&amp;amp;rls=org.mozilla%3aen-GB%3aofficial&amp;amp;client=firefox-a&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;生生發發&lt;/a&gt;, but of course, that couple would be going too far if the price was 3388K instead of 388K.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the price was 150(K), the nearest lucky numbers are 138 &quot;一生(都)發(達)&quot; (&quot;rich throughout your life&quot;) and 168 &quot;一路發&quot; (&quot;wealthy all along&quot;). But for 350, I think 388 is already the nearest lucky number. [&lt;em&gt;Edit:&lt;/em&gt; 338 is actually nearer to 350 than 388 is, but I wonder if the couple is willing to cut the price.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the numeral 4 rhymes with 死 (&quot;death&quot;). Some buildings in China don't have a fourth floor (i.e. 4/F is re-numbered as 5/F). 14/F, 24/F, 34/F, 4x/F etc. may be skipped too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastEditorDisplayName="user4086" LastEditDate="2014-05-04T18:33:00.917" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T18:33:00.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6804" CreationDate="2014-05-04T01:49:19.763" Score="9" ViewCount="2706" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, using &quot;们&quot; after a noun is, in some sense, equivalent to adding an &quot;s&quot; after an English word.  Yet I find the rules in Chinese of using 们 to be very puzzling; I am a native speaker yet I couldn't figure this out when a good friend of mine asked me when to use 们 and when not to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can come up with a few examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我每天和我的同学**们**一起写作业。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looks like a 们 is needed in this case.  Yet, in &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有很多要好的同学。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...it sounds awkward if there is a 们 after 同学.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone could come up with a rule that's easy to follow and applies to most cases, that would be very helpful, especially to non-native speakers like my friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4484" LastEditorUserId="4484" LastEditDate="2014-05-04T05:48:31.923" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T07:04:08.550" Title="When to use &quot;们&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6802" CreationDate="2014-05-04T02:53:51.093" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a short explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;们 is used after pronoun and personal noun to indicate plurality, but if numeral-classifier compound or words indicating plurality have been added ahead, no need to use 们 again. For example, you can't say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三个孩子们&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;许多老师们&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很多同学们&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T02:53:51.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6802" CreationDate="2014-05-04T03:01:04.503" Score="9" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;们 can only be used for pronouns and human nouns, as in 女士们 and 同事们, not for things or animals. 猫们 for cats, or 车们 for cars, are not valid.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;们 cannot be used in conjunction with measure words. 我跟孩子们做作业 is fine, but 三个孩子们做作业 is not; the last example reduces to 三个孩子做作业.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not aware of any definite rule pertaining to your example. 最坏的朋友们 and 我和我的同学们 are two movie titles, and you can just search for &quot;很多的同学们&quot; for more examples. I would agree that you more often than not omit 们 in such a case, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T03:01:04.503" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6773" CreationDate="2014-05-04T05:26:55.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the sentences above, such structure means &quot;something meaning about irony,sarcasm. And if you do what someone told you, you are very fool or idiot&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can translate this in different kinds of situations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) You're an idiot to by the lottery!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) How dare you to take the thing shared by the common people! (Or: It's very shamed of you to take such thing by the common people!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) It's too early for you to go to sleep at 4 O'clock P.M!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T05:26:55.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2057" CreationDate="2014-05-04T07:55:32.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just about to ask a similar question - but all of the answers here seem to baffle me a bit. When looking through some dictionaries I came across the entry for &lt;code&gt;待&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;现代汉语词典&lt;/code&gt; which says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;同“呆”③。 现在一般写作“呆”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“呆”③:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;停留; 逗留&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So apart from referencing &lt;code&gt;呆&lt;/code&gt; as the definition to &lt;code&gt;待&lt;/code&gt; they also claim that &lt;code&gt;呆&lt;/code&gt; is the new 'norm' for &quot;to stay&quot;. &lt;code&gt;现代汉语词典&lt;/code&gt; is based on the mainland though - so perhaps it's just a mainland thing...but I still find this whole thing quite confusing myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T07:55:32.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6797" CreationDate="2014-05-04T11:38:56.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker of Chinese. Both can be understood by me, but the second one makes me feel more comfortable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is probably because that sometimes 的 can be omitted. For sentence (1), changing to  这家餐馆的菜都很好吃 is correct I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to live in northern China, and I am living in southern China. Perhaps sentence (1) is correct in some dialects, maybe Wu dialect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sentence (1) is not 普通话，so if you are preparing for an exam, forget what i said. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4450" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T11:38:56.210" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6808" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-04T13:33:34.083" Score="2" ViewCount="1568" Body="&lt;p&gt;When should I prefer to use only 正, only 在 or both together? Are there any rules? Does it sound really weird or incorrect to native speakers if someone use them improperly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastEditorUserId="4145" LastEditDate="2014-05-04T14:52:50.483" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T14:52:50.483" Title="Differences between 正在, 正 and 在 with the meaning of an action in progress?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6818" CreationDate="2014-05-04T13:36:19.080" Score="10" ViewCount="722" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the best (传神) translation of &quot;很不起眼儿&quot; in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;例句：&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不认识他的人觉得他很不起眼儿，认识他的人觉得他很优秀。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;辨析：&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more formal term that related to &quot;很不起眼儿&quot; is &quot;其貌不扬&quot;, but&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;其貌不扬&quot; will normally be &quot;很不起眼儿&quot;, yet &quot;很不起眼儿&quot; does not necessarily means &quot;其貌不扬&quot;. So the side question is,  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to translate &quot;其貌不扬&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for the answers, by 传神 translation, I meant to ask what people would say in their daily expressions...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他很不起眼儿&quot;, my closest English translation is &lt;em&gt;&quot;He's quite a normal Joe&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, but &quot;很不起眼儿&quot; is a bit stronger than that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4488" LastEditorUserId="8081" LastEditDate="2015-06-08T05:13:44.040" LastActivityDate="2015-06-08T05:13:44.040" Title="How to translate &quot;很不起眼儿&quot; in English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6809" CreationDate="2014-05-04T14:06:25.493" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;ABC:&#xA;inconspicuous; not striking; unremarkable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary:&#xA;DIALECT&#xA;not attract attention; not be noticeable; not be attractive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这座厂房并不起眼, 但产品却是第一流的。 &#xA;Zhè zuò chǎngfáng bìng bù qǐyǎn, dàn chǎnpǐn què shì dì-yī liú de.&#xA;The factory building doesn't attract much attention, but the products are first-class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别看这人不起眼儿, 人家可是一肚子学问。 &#xA;Bié kàn zhè rén bù qǐyǎnr, rénjia kěshì yī dùzi xuéwen.&#xA;He is not taken much notice of, but he is a very learned man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ADS:&#xA; not to draw the eye&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CC:&#xA;1 unremarkable&#xA;2 nothing out of the ordinary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KEY:&#xA;inconspicuous, unremarkable, plain, modest, unassuming&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxford:&#xA;Nondescript&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxford Pocket;&#xA;Not noticable / not attractive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;其貌不扬&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC:&#xA;be homely/unprepossessing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary:&#xA;be unprepossessing (or unimposing) in appearance; be of undistinguished appearance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxford:&#xA;of undistinguished appearance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别以为他其貌不扬就小看他。 &#xA;Don't slight him just because he is unimposing in appearance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KEY:&#xA;of undistinguished appearance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T14:06:25.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6453" CreationDate="2014-05-04T14:12:40.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you can see that there are lots of translations, all are prefect translation for &lt;em&gt;&quot;I can honestly say&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, user43796's list is what I'd choose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in the content of &lt;em&gt;&quot;I can honestly say I did my best&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, 比较口语的说法 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;说真的,我真尽力了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More formal expression &lt;strong&gt;for this specific content&lt;/strong&gt; are,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凭心而论, 凭良心说，实不相瞒 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;坦白的说（讲）&quot;/ &quot;老实说&quot; was my first choice, until seeing your example. It is more appropriate if the example is something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can honestly say you are not ugly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; use “实话和你说吧，” or “实话告诉你，” unless you are expression your intention to &lt;strong&gt;argue&lt;/strong&gt; with him/her. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4488" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T14:12:40.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6808" CreationDate="2014-05-04T14:33:03.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;正 in itself has many meanings, one of which is &quot;just&quot;, and thus can be used in conjunction with 在.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正在 is what you are doing at this very moment, or where you are right now, or in general what is currently present, the &lt;strong&gt;progressive aspect&lt;/strong&gt; (the English -ing form) if you will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们正在吃饭 = We are eating&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西方正在经历的艰难 = The economic hardship that the West is presently enduring&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我正在北京 = I am currently in Beijing (I just got here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在北京 = I am in Beijing (more or less stationary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could not use 正 alone in a similar fashion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The progressive 正在 could also be contrasted with the continuous aspect using 着. 我正在穿衣服 = I am getting dressed (current action), while 我穿着衣服 = I am wearing clothes (current state).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then it gets more tricky when you use both simultaneously, as in 我正在爱着你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T14:33:03.767" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6809" CreationDate="2014-05-04T15:48:26.007" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with you that the English classification you are using is not accurate because the strong negative inference is lost. 不起眼 represents the outer idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AymdX.png&quot; alt=&quot;buqiyuan&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but just taking 起眼 shows the highly negative implication of the main term:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0QGvs.png&quot; alt=&quot;qiyan&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore as you've noted, the English term is much softer than Chinese term used in this case.  Regarding your side question, 其貌不扬 seems to be &quot;homely&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0iFgn.png&quot; alt=&quot;qimaobuyang&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T15:48:26.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6814" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6817" CreationDate="2014-05-04T16:04:08.620" Score="-1" ViewCount="376" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an official translation for &quot;南繁&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in &quot;南繁基地&quot; and other &quot;official&quot; names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've looked on baidu and other sites but have only come up with things like &quot;south reproduction&quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone on 百度知道 defines it like this:&#xA;南繁，是我国作物育种的专有术语。意思是利用海南冬季大陆所不具备的光温条件对育种材料进行繁殖加代。比如大陆冬季（10-次年3月）水稻无法生长，在海南刚好完成一个生长季节。南繁不仅可以加快育种进程，而且可以利用不同的生态和土壤环境对杂交后代进行加压筛选，寻找到适用性广的材料，提高育种效果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-07T13:35:20.140" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T13:35:20.140" Title="Official translation for &quot;南繁&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6660" CreationDate="2014-05-04T21:40:14.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the matter of fact, this question, and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/6653/can-we-call-someone-x%E5%A4%AA%E5%A4%AA-or-not&quot;&gt;Can we call someone X太太 or not?&lt;/a&gt; one, has a common answer in mainland China, at least for the past 40~50 years since &quot;New China&quot; -- it's &lt;strong&gt;“爱人”&lt;/strong&gt;. Both “爱人” &amp;amp; “同志”, were commonly used to address people after year 1949 in mainland China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately it has been viciously attacked and jeered by the HK &amp;amp; TW people, now “爱人”/“同志” are mostly abandoned/avoided. I'm not blaming people here. This is only the sad part of the Chinese language history. For example, I myself would avoid the term “太太”，because it has been &lt;em&gt;negatively&lt;/em&gt; associated with “官太太”, “姨太太” in mainland China for a very long time (40~50 years after 1949). This is the &lt;strong&gt;main reason&lt;/strong&gt; that we suddenly feel that that there is no proper ways to say &lt;em&gt;husband/wife&lt;/em&gt; in China. “老公”，“老婆” maybe a formal way to address people in some area, but in mainland China, especially the norther side, it is widely regarded as “乡下话”, thus only used informally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“爱人” can be used both formally in the newspaper and casually among friends. &#xA;I &lt;strong&gt;still&lt;/strong&gt; think “爱人” is a good answer. Some people demean it by saying it means &lt;em&gt;&quot;lover&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. But I'd say that is a deliberated disgracing, because &lt;em&gt;&quot;lover&quot;&lt;/em&gt; has a proper Chinese translation for very very long time -- “情人”. The proper translation of “爱人” is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;beloved significant other&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, a marvelous word that has no western counterpart. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4488" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T21:51:07.030" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6453" CreationDate="2014-05-04T22:06:40.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you are asking for colloquial expression, these ones are commonly used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哥们儿，&lt;strong&gt;我不骗你&lt;/strong&gt;，我尽全力了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我尽全力了，&lt;strong&gt;骗你我是小狗&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4422" LastActivityDate="2014-05-04T22:06:40.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6814" CreationDate="2014-05-05T09:21:11.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Correct me if I am mistaken but I think the offical translation for &lt;code&gt;南繁&lt;/code&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hainan National Breeding and Multiplication (HNBM)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.casb.org.cn/CN/article/downloadArticleFile.do?attachType=PDF&amp;amp;id=29372&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;中国农学通报 Chinese Agricultural Science Bulletin (2013,29(27):135-140)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;国家南繁育制种基地正规化建设的关键问题分析&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;陈冠铭1,2，李劲松1,3，林亚琼1，汪李平2&#xA;  （1三亚市南繁科学技术研究院，海南三亚572000；2华中农业大学园艺林学学院，武汉430070；&#xA;  3海南省南繁管理办公室，海南三亚572000） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;摘要：&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;通过对南繁科技性与历史性、海南南繁不可替代性、南繁功能价值层次结构以及存在的关键问题&#xA;  进行分析，得出南繁已上升为国家战略，成为国家战略性资源。海南南繁作为科研实践与历史的选择的&#xA;  重大成果，在气候条件、科学育种、粮食生产抗灾救灾、保障种业安全和区位优势等方面发挥着不可替代&#xA;  的作用；同时通过引入价值工程、产业集群、区域经济等理念，在研究南繁的功能、价值和存在的关键问&#xA;  题基础上，建立南繁功能价值的层次结构。但要实现南繁产业集群化发展，充分实现南繁功能价值，必&#xA;  须要解决南繁在顶层规划、试验用地、制度设计、硬件建设和生态安全等方面存在的关键问题。提出了&#xA;  建设南繁育种科研核心保护区、完善南繁法规政策保障机制、健全南繁管理体制、编制实施南繁育制种 基地发展规划、争取国家政策资金支持等建议。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;关键词：&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;南繁；价值工程；基础功能；科技功能；社会价值；南繁定位 中图分类号：S-3 文献标志码：A 论文编号：2012-3921&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;Analysis on the Key Issues About the Regularized Construction of the Base of Hainan National Breeding and Multiplication&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Li Jinsong1,3, Lin Yaqiong1, Wang Liping2 (1Sanya Sci-tech Academy of&#xA;  Hainan National Breeding and Multiplication, Sanya Hainan 572000;&#xA;  2College of Horticulture and Forestry, Huazhong Agricultural&#xA;  University, Wuhan 430070; 3Hainan Province Management Office of Hainan&#xA;  National Breeding and Multiplication, Sanya Hainan 572000) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;Abstract:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;By analyzing technology features, historical characteristics,&#xA;  irreplaceability, function and value hierarchy, and the key problems&#xA;  of Hainan National Breeding and Multiplication (HNBM in short, its&#xA;  essence is the off-season breeding and seed production, its base is&#xA;  similar to winter nursery and shuttle breeding), showed that HNBM had&#xA;  risen as a national strategy and became a national strategic resource.&#xA;  HNBM as the major achievement of the practice of scientific research&#xA;  and the choice of history, played an irreplaceable role in the&#xA;  climatic conditions, scientific breeding, grain production in disaster&#xA;  relief, protecting the safety of the seed industry and locational&#xA;  advantages. At the same time, through introducing concepts of value&#xA;  engineering, industrial clusters and regional economy, on the basis of&#xA;  the research of the function and the value and the key problems, we&#xA;  established the function and value hierarchy of HNBM. But to fully&#xA;  achieve the development of industrial clusters and the functional&#xA;  value of the HNBM, we might solve the key issues of the HNBM in the&#xA;  top-level planning, experimental bases, system design, hardware&#xA;  construction and ecological security. This paper presented some&#xA;  suggestion to build the research core protected areas of HNBM, improve&#xA;  the regulations and policies safeguard mechanism and management system&#xA;  of HNBM, draw up and carry out the base development planning of HNBM,&#xA;  and seek government support. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;Key words:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hainan National Breeding and&#xA;  Multiplication (HNBM); value engineering; basic functions; technology&#xA;  functions; social value; location of HNBMChen Guanming1,2,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;each instance of &lt;code&gt;南繁&lt;/code&gt; is translated as either &lt;code&gt;Hainan National Breeding and Multiplication&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;HNBM&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-05T09:21:11.427" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6809" CreationDate="2014-05-05T12:44:11.850" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;my preference: &quot;很不起眼儿&quot; can be translated into “unimpressive”,while &quot;其貌不扬&quot; into &quot;unimpressive-looking&quot;. The reason is that &quot;unimpressive&quot; can refer to many aspects such as his appearance, his achievement, and etc. Compared with&quot;很不起眼儿&quot;, &quot;&quot;其貌不扬&quot;is more specific to the appearance, so &quot;looking&quot; is added to &quot;unimpressive&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4491" LastActivityDate="2014-05-05T12:44:11.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6821" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6826" CreationDate="2014-05-06T12:26:24.513" Score="2" ViewCount="908" Body="&lt;p&gt;Title says it all; what's the difference between 阻拦, 阻止, 阻挡, and 阻碍?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T15:25:00.530" Title="What is the difference between 阻拦, 阻止, 阻挡, and 阻碍?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6831" CreationDate="2014-05-06T12:37:03.487" Score="3" ViewCount="723" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend asked me about the following sentence that appears in NPCR 1, Lesson 12:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要多穿点儿衣服.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that it means &quot;You should wear some more clothes.&quot; However, she is confused about the word order adverb (多)+verb (穿)+点儿 here, I couldn't quite explain why. Are we supposed to treat 点儿 like an adverb, and if so, why does it make sense to have both in one sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3739" LastActivityDate="2014-05-07T02:20:46.803" Title="Is verb+点儿 an adverb?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6822" CreationDate="2014-05-06T13:28:19.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not exactly a grammar expert, but when it comes to 点儿, I'd probably explain it by relating it to &quot;a little&quot;&#xA;so &#xA;你要多穿点儿衣服.&#xA;would roughly translate to &quot;You should wear a little more (clothes).&quot;&#xA;It can be applied to different things like, -&quot;do you want to eat something?&quot; - &quot;a little&quot;&#xA;so I'd say its rather a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determiner&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;determiner&lt;/a&gt; than an adverb, much like the english word &quot;a little&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4498" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T13:28:19.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6822" CreationDate="2014-05-06T14:50:31.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally it is &quot;you have to more wear a little clothes&quot; or &quot;you have to wear a little more clothes&quot; in English. (多 acts as an adverb, which means many --&gt;more, 穿 means wear, 点originally means dot, 儿 is a particle word that doesn't have a meaning, so 点儿&#xA; means a dot --&gt; a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is kinda of a commanding sentence. In Chinese, it is very common to use &quot;点儿&quot; after the verb to soften the level of the verb particularly when in a commanding sentence, or in other words, to be more polite. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-05-06T15:27:35.927" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T15:27:35.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6577" CreationDate="2014-05-06T14:55:54.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply put, 多 works as an adverb in this sentence to indicate the level of the adjective (好看 good-looking), therefore literally it means many good-looking, or in English term, very  good-looking --&gt; very pretty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T14:55:54.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6821" CreationDate="2014-05-06T15:25:00.530" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I personally use them or hear people using them interchangeably. More specific distinctions are as following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阻拦 means to intercept, which can be used to stop someone from doing something or stop something from happening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阻止 means to stop ... from ..., which is usually used to stop someone from doing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阻挡 means to block, which is usually used when someone or something is physically blocking in the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阻碍 means to obstruct, which is usually used when a difficulty or obstacle is posing a 阻碍. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T15:25:00.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6827" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6829" CreationDate="2014-05-06T16:04:29.603" Score="2" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious whether the shorter stroke or longer stroke are the extra strokes added to 木 to form the characters 未 and 末? And do these strokes have a semantic significance? I learned that 本 has the extra stroke at the bottom for the meaning of root. I'm expecting that 未 and 末 have a comparable explanation that might help me remember them, as I'm continually getting these two mixed up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3912" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T02:44:52.167" Title="Which is the additional stroke added to 末 and to 未? significance?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6822" CreationDate="2014-05-06T16:49:35.677" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;点儿 actually is not attached to the verb in this case and thus is not an adverb. Instead, 点 is being used as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_measure_word&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;measure word&lt;/a&gt; for the noun 衣服. The 儿 is the result of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;erhua (儿化)&lt;/a&gt; on 点, which is common in northern China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一点 or 一点儿 is used as a measure to indicate &quot;some&quot; or &quot;a little&quot;. When the count for a measure is one (一), it is often optional and can be dropped. Also note that when the noun is understood from context, it can also be dropped, so your sentence could also simply end up becoming 你要多穿点儿. This may end up making it look like 点儿 is modifying the verb, even though that's not the case; it's modifying an implicit noun that had been dropped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's true that this phenomenon of word dropping can often make sentences harder to analyze for Chinese learners, but learning when certain parts of sentences can be optional will help your understanding of the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2014-05-06T16:55:47.180" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T16:55:47.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6827" CreationDate="2014-05-06T17:33:28.140" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;末 is logographically comparable to 本. The top stroke indicates the top branches of a tree, the end of the tree. Hence the meaning &quot;end&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 未 is unrelated to both characters above, it is just a representation of a tree. It is one of the twelve earthly branches, and as such a character that once had some original meaning that is now lost to us; it has been abstracted to mean &quot;not yet&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T17:33:28.140" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6577" CreationDate="2014-05-06T19:25:15.780" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's like the &quot;so&quot; in &quot;So pretty!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4500" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T19:25:15.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6822" CreationDate="2014-05-07T02:20:46.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to 现代汉语词典，点儿 is a counter word (量词).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full explanation is :&#xA;量词，表示少量。(counter word, mean a little amount of)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it has the following examples:&#xA;一点儿小事&#xA;吃点儿东西再走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage is the second example is exactly the same as the sentence you gave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-05-07T02:20:46.803" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6832" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6835" CreationDate="2014-05-07T02:49:51.750" Score="16" ViewCount="9283" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 绿 and 青? Do they refer to different shades of green? I know 青 can be used in many more contexts; it can be used to mean 'young' or 'immature'. I find it boggling how 青 can mean blue too. Do the Chinese differentiate between blue and green? Or does 青 mean blue+green?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3805" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T20:04:07.883" Title="What is the difference between 绿 and 青?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6832" CreationDate="2014-05-07T04:01:52.993" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://haiyuhanmo.home.news.cn/blog/article.do?bid=858765&amp;amp;aid=200842292&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://haiyuhanmo.home.news.cn/blog/article.do?bid=858765&amp;amp;aid=200842292&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《说文解字》：“青，东方色也。”《考工记》也说“东方谓之青”。何为东方色？桂馥《义证》引杨慎说：“木色青，故青者，东方也。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E4%BA%94%E8%A1%8C%E5%AD%A6%E8%AF%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E4%BA%94%E8%A1%8C%E5%AD%A6%E8%AF%B4&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;东方木，南方火，中央土，西方金，北方水。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 青's original meaning is the color of the East, and the East indicate the wood/tree, so 青 originally is the color of the plants after primary growth, it's &lt;strong&gt;green&lt;/strong&gt;. And the East can indicate the Spring according to 五行, so 青 is the color of Spring, so there's a word &quot;青春&quot;, and then has a relevant meaning of &quot;young&quot;, such as &quot;青年&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/20381.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, 青 could be used for the color of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;green, such as 青草.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;blue, such as 青天.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;black, such as &quot;青衣&quot;, &quot;青眼有加&quot;(It's based on the fact that the Chinese's eyes are black).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in general, 青 means dark green, or light blue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a parlance about rainbow does make sense: &quot;红橙黄绿青蓝紫&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you see, 青 is between &quot;绿&quot; and &quot;蓝&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-05-07T05:53:24.883" LastActivityDate="2014-05-07T05:53:24.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6832" CreationDate="2014-05-07T04:55:39.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%9D%92%E8%89%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;青色（Cyan）又称为水绿色，在是指在介于绿色和蓝色之间的颜色，波长大约为500-485纳米。青色的含义没有统一规定，因人而异，可以泛指介于蓝色和绿色之间的各种颜色。在加色法中，青色被定义为等量的绿色光和蓝色光混合而成的颜色，如右边的色标所示。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KhZd5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加色法中，绿色（G）和蓝色（B）混合得到青色。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;青色(cyan) = 绿色(green) + 蓝色(blue)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However though in practice, most Chinese tend to interpret 青色 as 绿色 or less commonly as 蓝色.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What many of the answers above provide are the etymology of 青色. The table below give the technical names of all the different shades of green and blue. I have highlighted the more important ones. For the full list, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A2%9C%E8%89%B2%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xDXAt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2014-05-08T02:45:38.613" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T02:45:38.613" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6832" CreationDate="2014-05-07T08:37:50.410" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am Chinese and I don't think 青色 is the same as 绿色 or 蓝色. For me, 青色 is more of a kind of blue. Personally, blue and 蓝色 also cover different shades of blue color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very common proverb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;青,出于蓝,而胜于蓝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literally it means 青色 and comes from blue, but better than blue. Or more straightforward, 青色 is extracted from the blue plant(indigo), but is bluer than the plant. The next part is &quot;冰，水为之，而寒于水&quot;(ice comes from water but is colder than water). This proverb is often used to describe how students can achieve more than their teachers, or the younger ones can eventually do better. I think that is why 青 occurs in words other than color, like 青春，青涩，青年, to describe a young, inexperienced stage just like the green used in &quot;green hand&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a common color name in Chinese, 靛青，which is a kind of dark blue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;check the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:%E9%9D%9B%E9%9D%92%E8%89%B2%E7%B3%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia link&lt;/a&gt; about the color.&#xA;青色 is the colors like Lapis lazuli, Salvia blue, Wedgwood blue or Slate blue. The screenshot below from &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%8B%BC%E9%9D%92%E8%89%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt; describes the difference between 青色 and 蓝色.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IbJwU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other use of &quot;青&quot; besides color and the implicit meaning of young， I don't know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4502" LastEditorUserId="15367" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T06:41:44.027" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T06:41:44.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6838" CreationDate="2014-05-07T09:12:36.307" Score="4" ViewCount="6588" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked online and couldn't find an answer. I was told it means something similar to &quot;poker face&quot; here in Taiwan. Do you know what this might mean? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4503" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2014-05-08T13:33:01.700" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T00:43:08.880" Title="What does &quot;yellow face wife&quot; (黄脸婆) mean?" Tags="&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6832" CreationDate="2014-05-07T09:29:59.097" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, the color of rainbow should be 红橙黄绿蓝靛紫, NOT 红橙黄绿青蓝紫. The later one is simple wrong however it was wildly spread thanks to one of Mao's poems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to explain 青, we also need to understand 绿 and 蓝.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The definition of 绿 is quite clear: the color of green leaves/grass. It's the 4th of seven colors in rainbow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蓝 is somehow vague. The original definition of 蓝 is: a kind of plant that has greenish/blueish color and can be used to extract dye (you can tell that by the top component of 蓝, 艹, which means herb). wiki: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persicaria_tinctoria&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Persicaria tinctoria&lt;/a&gt;. There was a famous poem, quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;春来江水绿如蓝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means: in the spring, the river water is as green as 蓝(the plant). If you interpreted 蓝 as a color then this line would be incompresensible. However it's hard to tell whether the poet was comparing riverwater to the color of the herb itself or the dye that came from the herb. I would guess it's the herb. Reasoning will be given after next quote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later 蓝 become a color (from the dye). 蓝 mostly refer to skyblue/lightblue/waterblue, which can be equal to the 5th color in a rainbow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 6th color is 靛, which is blue/indigo. Note the left part of this character is 青. 青 is somehow like indigo/midnight blue/prussian blue. (It can refer to other greenish colors but I'll cover that later.) There are a lot of evidence, for example: 1) if you google 青花瓷 you'll see the color of the pattern on those vases are blue/indigo. 2) 青布衣 was common clothing of peasants in Ming and Qing dynasty and it was dyed with indigo blue. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;青出于蓝而胜于蓝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;translation: 青(indigo dye) was extracted from 蓝(the herb) but the color is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can see 青 is indeed blue/indigo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However there are other usage to suggest 青 is used as &quot;green&quot;. The most notable would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;青山绿水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hills are green for the trees growing on them. So why can 青, an indigo color, also refer to green?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll blame 五行 theory for this. In 五行, the five major colors are 赤(red), 白(white), 青, 黄(yellow), 黑(black). As you can see there's no 绿 or 蓝 or whatever other coloes of green/blue/indigo hue. However, 五行 was designed to be a theory of everything, a system to describe all phenomenon in the world. Therefore 青 has to take over the responsibility to cover all greenish/blueish items. Especially, in 五行, 青 is related to 木(woods/trees/herbs, one of the five 五行), so later on people started to use 青 for green color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least: what is the color 青 in 青天? is it sky blue? Answer: no. If you google &quot;kuomintang&quot; you'll see the flag of kuomintang government 青天白日 is a white sun in indigo background. 青天 is used to describe government officials that are honest and hands clean, literally &quot;as clear as the sky&quot;. So I think 青 in 青天 is a loan character(假借) from 清天.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--TLDR--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion: 青 should be indigo blue especially when referring to daily artifacts that were dyed by indigo. However it can also be used to mean green, especially plants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2014-05-08T04:06:34.823" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T04:06:34.823" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6836" CreationDate="2014-05-07T09:46:28.283" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess the term you mentioned, yellow wife, is referred to &quot;黃臉婆&quot; (yellow-face wife).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;黃臉婆&quot; describes a woman who has married for a long time.&#xA;The (face) color indicates that she has aged with the burden of housework.&#xA;(Someone says, in ancient China, to cover the aging face, women misuse the cosmetics with lead and make their face getting yellow. The elder, more yellow.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a negative term. Husbands use this term to describe their wife as love is fading out.&#xA;Wives complain the houseworks and the relationship by calling themselves as &quot;黃臉婆&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there's some differences between poker face and this term. : )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4504" LastActivityDate="2014-05-07T09:46:28.283" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6839" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-07T18:36:15.210" Score="-1" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qeuym.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for bad drawing, I have been trying to find out for sometime without success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4507" LastActivityDate="2014-05-07T18:57:41.137" Title="Can anyone tell me what this means?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-05-08T00:08:07.560" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6839" CreationDate="2014-05-07T18:57:41.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think they are 迪恩.  In Chinese they sounds like &quot;Dean&quot; in English? Is that a Chinese Name for someone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2014-05-07T18:57:41.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6841" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-07T19:01:44.603" Score="4" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;could please someine help me making sense of the following two hanzi characters 与世？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally it would mean &quot;and the world&quot; but for me it does not fit into the following idioms : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与世无争&#xA;yǔ shì wú zhēng&#xA;to stand aloof from worldly affairs &#xA;与世长辞&#xA;yǔ shì cháng cí&#xA;to die &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与世永别&#xA;yǔ shì yǒng bié&#xA;to die&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2014-05-07T19:53:54.697" Title="与世 How best translate in english" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6841" CreationDate="2014-05-07T19:53:54.697" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;与 would mean &lt;strong&gt;&quot;with&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; here, like 跟, to connect a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与世无争 would then mean &quot;not strife with the world&quot;, to keep a low profile, to lead a life in moderation and self-restraint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与世长辞 is likewise a statement of a person and the world, namley that of taking a long farewell from the world, to leave this word, or less prosaic: to die. 长 here has the notion of 长久, for a very long time, or forever, like in the famous poem 但愿人长久.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与世永别 is similarly to part forever from the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-07T19:53:54.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6843" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6846" CreationDate="2014-05-07T20:34:21.383" Score="4" ViewCount="829" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the story named in English &quot;The true story of Ah Q.&quot;  Author Lu Xun transliterates the pronunciation of Q as Quei, and suggests that the Q could stand for 桂, or 贵, which are today pinyin Gui4.  I think Lu Xun grew up speaking a Wu dialect, but I am not sure of that.  Anyway I am less concerned to know how he pronounced it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answers to the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2724/how-do-chinese-people-pronounce-latin-characters&quot;&gt;How do native speakers of Chinese pronounce Latin characters?&lt;/a&gt; suggest it could be pronounced by the name of the Latin letter, kiùr.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is it said today by Mandarin speakers in China? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:19:19.230" Title="How do current Mandarin speakers usually pronounce 阿Ｑ正传?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6843" CreationDate="2014-05-07T23:30:37.133" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q is pronounced the same as the English pronunciation of the letter Q.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is funny actually because a lot of mainlanders pronounce QQ (software) as &quot;kou kou&quot; (pinyin spelling). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: maybe my answer does not quite fit the criteria because my understanding is purely coming from the way people talk of 阿Q精神 —— but the 阿Q we're talking about is obviously the same...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-05-09T03:30:16.407" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T03:30:16.407" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2724" CreationDate="2014-05-08T06:15:19.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very interesting question. We all know that there are many dialects in China, and the pronunciations of Latin alphabets are also varied in different areas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to live in Shandong, and now in Nanjing where I can hear accents from different places in China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to give you the pronunciation of them in my hometown(泰安 or 莱芜 in 山东):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    字母  漢語拼音標音                    同音字&#xA;A     ei35 or ngei35                    唉(ei)&#xA;B     bi55                            閉&#xA;C     xi55                            细（白讀）&#xA;D     di21                            地&#xA;E     yi55                            意&#xA;F     (ng)ai35 fu                         癌副&#xA;G     ji21                            既&#xA;H     (ng)ei35 chi21    &#xA;I     a53i11/æ53                      愛 或 癌&#xA;J     zhei53                          這（口語）&#xA;K     kei53   &#xA;L     ai35 l                        &#xA;M     ai35 mu21                         癌木&#xA;N     (ng)en213                            恩&#xA;O     (ng)ou213                            歐&#xA;P     pi53                            僻&#xA;Q     kiu53/qiu53  &#xA;R     ar53 或 ar53                       二&#xA;S     ai213 si21                         癌四&#xA;T     ti21                            替&#xA;U     you213                           幽&#xA;V     wei33                           微&#xA;W     da35 bu liu21                     達不六&#xA;X     (ng)ai35 ke si                      癌克四&#xA;Y     wai21/wæ21                           外&#xA;Z     zei21 /zæ213de (声母为IPA的z)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4450" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T06:15:19.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6843" CreationDate="2014-05-08T06:33:36.480" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, in modern practice, Chinese speakers pronouce mixed English letters as is. for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5A级景区&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is pronouced as &quot;wu3 ei1 ji2 jing3 qu1&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿Q正传 is somehow different, because the author had explicitely mentioned in this novelette that Q should be pronounced as 桂 or 贵. (Note that back in the era of this novelette Chinese people were just starting to get familiar with western cultures so there was no established rules as how to incorporate English letter pronouciations in Chinese context.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I have experienced, when famous theatre companies present the play of 阿Q正传, they were always faithful to the original novelette and pronouced &quot;gui4&quot; in the play. However in daily speech, people sometimes just follow common practice and forget that this should be a special case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastEditorUserId="4396" LastEditDate="2014-05-08T07:54:32.340" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T07:54:32.340" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6847" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6851" CreationDate="2014-05-08T06:42:16.987" Score="6" ViewCount="909" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been practising Chinese by trying to read some articles in the Chinese section of the BBC News site: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/&quot;&gt;http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/&lt;/a&gt;.  (I am making quite heavy use of Pleco Reader for this, I can only recognise about half the characters unaided.) The advantage of using the BBC is that after I have struggled through the Chinese I can compare my understanding with the original article, which of course is written in natural English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I looked at this report about the South African elections:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在南非结束种族隔离20年之际，该国民众踊跃参加国民议会大选投票。&#xA;  民众在投票站外排起长队，特别是1994年南非结束白人少数统治后出生的年轻人投票选举的情绪很高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这也是南非第一位黑人总统曼德拉去世后的首次大选。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然受到一些腐败的指控，预计执政的非国大将第5届连续赢得大选。 预计非国大将赢得60%的选票。 南非总统祖马也有望蝉联总统，再次执政5年。&#xA;  记者们说，反对党可能在这次大选中获得更多的支持，但不足以改变自1994年以来非国大主导南非政坛的格局。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do people consider that this is written in natural, idiomatic Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that the translated articles often seem to be phrased in a much more repetitive way than the original English.  Is this just standard style for Chinese news reports, or is it some kind of artifact of translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4366" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T07:04:59.153" Title="Quality of BBC Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6847" CreationDate="2014-05-08T06:45:52.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not perfect, but almost native Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T06:45:52.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6843" CreationDate="2014-05-08T06:49:06.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We Chinese pronounce 阿Q正传 like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;a1 Q(exactly the same as English letter Q) zheng4 zhuan4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T06:49:06.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6850" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-08T06:56:55.070" Score="1" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;p&gt;My take is that 挽钱 (wǎn qián ) would mean to withdraw money from an ATM and 换钱 (huàn qián) to change money&#xA;... or am I mistaken?a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T16:06:56.223" Title="Difference between 换钱 and 挽钱" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6847" CreationDate="2014-05-08T07:04:59.153" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The example you have quoted is fairly standard &quot;translated text&quot;. You can tell it by the usage of attributive clauses, e.g. &quot;...1994年南非结束白人少数统治后出生的...&quot;. In natual Chinese, there's no such kind of clauses and hence sentences are usually short. However in translation you have to be faithful to the original context, therefore many English grammar got awkwardly translated into Chinese. Since Chinese has been heavyly affected by huge amount of translated text in last decades, people started to get used to these awkward grammar. Still, it is recommended to avoid it. I recall there's a term coined for it, &quot;translationese&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T07:04:59.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6850" CreationDate="2014-05-08T07:14:46.513" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No such saying as '挽钱'. It's not even a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'换钱' means exchanging money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are going to withdraw money from an ATM, a Chinese usually says '取(qu3)钱'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T07:14:46.513" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6632" CreationDate="2014-05-08T07:32:26.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The wikipedia has a list of all the words that refers to someone's wife:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E5%A6%BB%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E5%A6%BB%E5%AD%90&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T07:32:26.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6854" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6855" CreationDate="2014-05-09T01:44:03.417" Score="12" ViewCount="1448" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two words mean approximately the same thing but I find that there is a nuance I'm missing in terms of the appropriate context to use one or the other. How should I think about the difference between these two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="802" LastActivityDate="2014-05-10T16:40:45.360" Title="When do I use 确定 versus 决定？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6854" CreationDate="2014-05-09T02:18:46.273" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;确定 means 'be sure' or 'comfirm'/'be confirmed'. 我确定他会回来的.(I'm sure he will be back.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;决定 (v) means 'decide to do'. 我决定做...(I decide to do something...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;决定 (n) means 'decision'. 我终于做出了决定.(Finally, I made my decision.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T02:18:46.273" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6858" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-09T05:15:47.100" Score="5" ViewCount="4423" Body="&lt;p&gt;My teacher said that a particle word in Chinese is a function word, but don't quite understand what is means. How does the particle word such as &quot;呢&quot; work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, are there any other Chinese particle words out there? Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4457" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2014-05-09T17:06:02.620" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T20:17:24.040" Title="How does the particle word &quot;呢&quot; work?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6858" CreationDate="2014-05-09T05:30:31.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, this word has no meaning. Chinese usually use this at the very end of a interrogative sentence. It won't affect the meaning of the sentence if you ignore this word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;e.g. &#xA;&#xA;'我该不该去那里?' is equal to '我该不该去那里呢?'&#xA;(Should I go there or not?)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊&#xA;呀&#xA;么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2014-05-09T06:16:50.100" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T06:16:50.100" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6861" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6863" CreationDate="2014-05-09T12:37:25.750" Score="6" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the 舌 radical the first stroke is right to left but inside 舒 it is left to right. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know some characters where the stroke &lt;em&gt;order&lt;/em&gt; changes when it is a radical (e.g. the 牛 in 物) but I haven't encountered a case so far where the stroke &lt;em&gt;direction&lt;/em&gt; changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this happen for other characters too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4033" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T11:45:45.250" Title="Stroke direction of the 舌 radical in 舒" Tags="&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6862" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6867" CreationDate="2014-05-09T12:57:57.837" Score="3" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese there is a 感叹词：&quot;坏了&quot;, means something went unexpected wrong. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;坏了，下雨了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  坏了，手机忘带了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  坏了，迟到了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the common English expressions that can express that &quot;astonishing strike&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/strong&gt; Thanks everyone for your answer. To foster participation, I'll make my pick a week later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4488" LastEditorUserId="4488" LastEditDate="2014-05-09T19:59:19.683" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T19:59:19.683" Title="What's the English expression that means 感叹词：&quot;坏了&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6861" CreationDate="2014-05-09T13:05:36.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are making something wrong. In Chinese characters, there are many different kinds of strokes 横（一）、竖（丨）、撇（丿）、点（丶）、捺（㇏）、折（亅）. Directions are only one of the differences. If you only cares about its directions, you cannot write the strokes properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the ancient China, people use ink brushes instead of pens or pencils, and ink brushes are more easily to express the strengths when writing (notice the difference in width of different part in a stroke). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phenomenon you have mentioned is not the change of direction, but change of strokes instead. In 舌-&gt;舒, &lt;del&gt;横&lt;/del&gt;撇 turns to 横, while in 牛-&gt;物, 横 turns to 提(㇀). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AC%94%E7%94%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AC%94%E7%94%BB&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4450" LastEditorUserId="4450" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T11:45:45.250" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T11:45:45.250" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6862" CreationDate="2014-05-09T13:07:39.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am native speaker of Chinese. I guess &quot;oh, no&quot;, &quot;gosh&quot;, or &quot;too bad&quot; are OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4450" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T13:07:39.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6861" CreationDate="2014-05-09T14:11:37.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a matter of fact, stroke direction changes don't happen that much. In this particular case,舌(she2) is borrowed only for sound in the character 舍(she4), which means house (there is a roof radical on top). In Chinese, around 80% of the characters are the composition of picture + sound (because there are not that many pictographs to represent everything, therefore sounds of the most basic radicals are borrowed as parts or radicals of other more complicated characters). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T14:11:37.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6862" CreationDate="2014-05-09T14:42:42.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Damn!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Hell!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Crap!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are pretty colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T14:42:42.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6862" CreationDate="2014-05-09T16:28:06.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Shoot!&amp;quot;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Shoot; it's raining.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Shoot; I forgot to bring my phone.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Shoot; I'm late.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Darn.&amp;quot;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Darn, it's raining.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Darn! I forgot to bring my phone.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Darn; I'm late.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Oh no.&amp;quot;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Oh no, it's raining.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Oh no. I forgot to bring my phone.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Oh no; I'm late.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To emphasize that &amp;quot;astonishing strike,&amp;quot; perhaps something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Shoot, shoot, shoot! Darn it! I forgot to bring my phone!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;坏了，坏了！忘带手机了！&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4520" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T16:28:06.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6858" CreationDate="2014-05-09T23:34:31.830" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have pointed out, 呢 is a &lt;strong&gt;sentence-final particle&lt;/strong&gt; that nowadays mostly has an &lt;strong&gt;interrogative&lt;/strong&gt; function, namely to form a question regarding a topic that has already been brought up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The normal interrogative particle is 吗, as in 你是中国人吗？ Or more rhetorically using 吧: 你是中国人吧？ But if you first introduce your own nationality, the question would instead involve the particle 呢: 我是丹麦人，你呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you read older literature like 红楼梦, you will also find 呢 as a sentence-final particle that is not interrogative, but rather &lt;strong&gt;emphatic&lt;/strong&gt;. It may indicate softening or suggestion, like in the sentences 尤氏的母亲已先在这里呢 and 太太们都在楼上坐着呢，请奶奶就从这边上去罢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other such particles are 吧 (softening of statements) and 啊 (affirmation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there is a whole range of &lt;strong&gt;exclamative particles&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;interjections&lt;/strong&gt; used in spoken Chinese, such as 呗 (when stating something obvious or with authority), 嗯 (acknowlegding), 哦 (surprise), and 哇 (awe).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Functional particles that are essential to Chinese grammar include 着 (&lt;strong&gt;durative aspect particle&lt;/strong&gt; for continuous action, 我穿着衣服 = I am getting dressed), 了 (completion, 我回来了 = I am back, or 我不抽烟了 = I am not smoking anymore), and 的 (&lt;strong&gt;possessive particle&lt;/strong&gt;: 我的车子).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particles are thus used to &lt;strong&gt;modify&lt;/strong&gt; words and sentences. They are not words &lt;em&gt;per se&lt;/em&gt;, but add structure to sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T23:34:31.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6718" CreationDate="2014-05-10T02:03:03.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use the phrase 大部分, which means &quot;most of it&quot;. &quot;I mostly get what you mean.&quot; can be translated to 你说的话我大部分都懂.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4513" LastActivityDate="2014-05-10T02:03:03.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6854" CreationDate="2014-05-10T05:11:32.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;确定=i am sure that&#xA;决定=i decide to do sth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4523" LastActivityDate="2014-05-10T05:11:32.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6872" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-10T05:32:19.363" Score="2" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the dictionary, 成 has meanings of to become or to form, what is the subtle difference between 形成, 构成, 组成 and 养成?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-22T01:11:24.087" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T01:11:24.087" Title="What is the difference between 形成, 构成, 组成, 养成?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6873" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-10T05:35:45.273" Score="8" ViewCount="2591" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked up in the dictionary, 帮 means help, and 忙 means busy while 助 also means help, so is 帮忙 (help busy) and 帮助(help help) interchangeable? Or what is the subtle difference between them? Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4381" LastActivityDate="2014-05-13T02:02:57.487" Title="Is 帮忙 and 帮助 interchangeable?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6873" CreationDate="2014-05-10T07:19:51.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have the same meaning. But 帮助 is more formal. 帮忙 is used more in oral Chinese. Besides, 帮忙 can't have an object while 帮助 usually have. And 帮助 can be a noun while 帮忙 cannot. Usually they are not interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4525" LastActivityDate="2014-05-10T07:19:51.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6872" CreationDate="2014-05-10T07:38:23.507" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can look up a dictionary first, as they are quite different, except for 组成 and 构成. Compared with 组成, 构成 sometimes emphasize the interaction between constituents, but they are very similar in most cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4525" LastActivityDate="2014-05-10T07:38:23.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6873" CreationDate="2014-05-10T11:09:45.797" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;帮忙 is more colloquial, it is intransitive or separable. 'A comes to help' translates into 'A来帮忙了' and 'A helps B' into 'A帮B的忙', not *'A帮忙B'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帮助 is a transitive verb or a noun. 'A helps B' translates into 'A帮助B', the verb is not separated unlike 帮忙. 'With the help of A' translates into '在A的帮助下', usually not '在A的帮忙下'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another difference is that 帮忙 is always used for more concrete activities (related to its colloquial state). For instance, 'to help fight against infection' translates into '帮助对抗感染', never '帮忙对抗感染'. On the other hand, 'to help lift the box' translates into '帮忙抬箱子' more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2014-05-10T11:09:45.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6877" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6881" CreationDate="2014-05-10T13:54:14.607" Score="3" ViewCount="3781" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend sent me a screenshot of her message history in Cantonese, and she was describing a couple and saying how they're like 'primary chicken' or 'secondary chicken', I think in a negative light. Anyone knows what this means? I have tried the &lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/hkcantonesedict/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cantonese slang dictionary&lt;/a&gt; with no success obviously...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2741" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:23:40.260" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T09:57:05.907" Title="Cantonese slang - What does 'Primary Chicken' and 'Secondary Chicken' mean?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6854" CreationDate="2014-05-10T16:40:45.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;确定 means sure that / sure to do something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(我确定他在中午之前一定能把那碗饭吃完。）--&gt; I am sure that he will be able to finish eating that plate of rice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;决定(N) means decision. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（二十分钟后，他终于做出了决定。）--&gt; 20 minutes later, he finally made his decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;决定(V) means decide to do something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(我决定吃饭。）--&gt; I decided to eat rice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helped. (:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4471" LastActivityDate="2014-05-10T16:40:45.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6879" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6880" CreationDate="2014-05-10T19:07:55.033" Score="0" ViewCount="2091" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for the (traditional) Chinese letters for 'he fu tong qing' (pin yin transcription), which should mean something like 'the whole family invited' in the context of a wedding invitation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2444" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T23:17:51.777" Title="Letters for chinese wedding invitation" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6879" CreationDate="2014-05-10T20:20:42.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;阖府统请 (Simplified Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闔府統請 (Traditional Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-05-11T23:17:51.777" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T23:17:51.777" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6877" CreationDate="2014-05-10T22:26:31.487" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's &quot;primary school chicken&quot; (小學雞), not &quot;primary chicken&quot;. The term refers to someone who's as childish or as immature as primary school pupils. It has the derivative &quot;secondary school chicken&quot;, which means someone who behaves only slightly more maturely than primary school students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastActivityDate="2014-05-10T22:26:31.487" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6873" CreationDate="2014-05-10T23:53:45.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;帮忙 can only be used as a verb, as in &quot;他帮忙我做事情.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帮助, on the other hand, can only be used as a noun, as in &quot;他给我很多帮助.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4513" LastEditorUserId="4513" LastEditDate="2014-05-13T02:02:57.487" LastActivityDate="2014-05-13T02:02:57.487" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6883" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6895" CreationDate="2014-05-11T04:54:18.603" Score="6" ViewCount="425" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know ㄍ一ㄥ[gīng] is used extensively in Taiwan and in Taiwanese media, but my question is what dialect/topolect does this come from and what exactly is the character for this word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a lot of people are going to tell me - it's just used orally and there is no way to write it but that's just a bunch of baloney...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Examples:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;youtube: ㄍ一ㄥ舞曲&#xA;个性测试：你是否ㄍ一ㄥ一族. 个性测试开始....&#xA;msn: 【測驗】妳到底ㄍ一ㄥ在哪？&#xA;別ㄍ一ㄥ了,你可以吐苦水| Facebook&#xA;國際書展《創意不是用ㄍ一ㄥ的》新書發表會| Facebook&#xA;安海瑟威上錯車愛面子死ㄍ一ㄥ| 蘋果日報&#xA;[不負責任健康講座] 為什麼搖頭丸能讓你ㄍ一ㄥ？&#xA;&#xA;你是否ㄍ一ㄥ一族 - 星座屋&#xA;&amp;quot;ㄍ一ㄥ&amp;quot; | Flickr – 相片分享!&#xA;张克帆_百度百科: 个性:温暖,很ㄍ一ㄥ 最爱吃的食物:玉米&#xA;阿喜扮「猫熊圆仔」! 收起丑脸硬ㄍ一ㄥ清纯模样 | ETtoday影剧...&#xA;...确实,作为闷骚而又很ㄍ一ㄥ的A型血,实在不能理解B型血到底在想什么,...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit 2: my guess is the character will be something like: '硬'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T08:53:07.870" Title="ㄍ一ㄥ? What dialect? What character?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="973" CreationDate="2014-05-11T05:36:33.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成都方言词典｜&#xA;现代汉语方言大词典·分卷:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hMDMF.png&quot; alt=&quot;嘎&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;· The correct character, from the world of academia, is '嘎'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;· Sichuanese Pinyin is: gā&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;· It is a contraction of '该是哈' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;· It means 'isn't that so' or 'isn't that right' - equivalent to the how people in English say &quot;you know what I mean?&quot; at the end of sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;· Also has the connotation of 'hoping that the listener will agree with their opinion or viewpoint' (希望对方能同意自己的主张和看法)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T05:36:33.677" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-05-11T05:36:33.677" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6883" CreationDate="2014-05-11T06:48:22.973" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;ㄍ一ㄥ translates to 撑, as in 硬撑: 勉强支撑, 逞強, 死要面子, to overexert oneself, to stubbornly do something you can't really do, to preserve face at all cost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think it is any particular dialect, it is just standard taiyu slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T06:48:22.973" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6850" CreationDate="2014-05-11T16:06:56.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;挽钱 might be a typo?&#xA;挽 can be used in the context of walking hand in hand (挽手), or deterring (挽留 - although this can be used in a positive context, like if you don't want your friend to leave). It can also mean resuscitation (挽救)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4532" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T16:06:56.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2724" CreationDate="2014-05-12T11:58:26.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker of Chinese, I must to say that many chinese don't say chā to replace x(at least my classmates and I don't say chā to replace x).But actually the pronunciation of x is difficult for us chinese.So sometimes we will say chā to replace it real pronunciation.E.g.,we will say chā-box to replace the word Xbox.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4538" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T11:58:26.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6889" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-12T14:57:58.367" Score="5" ViewCount="6477" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both mean &quot;a little bit&quot; according to the dictionary. However, does the meaning both apply in V and Adjective? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. &#xA;V + 一点儿/一下儿 (吃一点儿/吃一下儿，快一点儿/快一下儿) and &#xA;Adj + 一点儿/一下儿 (美一点儿/美一下儿, 好一点儿，好一下儿) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above examples, my native Chinese friend told me she rarely or even never heard 快一下儿，美一下儿，好一下儿. So my question: is there any difference of meaning and usage between 一点儿 and 一下儿?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4457" LastActivityDate="2014-05-13T03:10:02.770" Title="How to use 一点儿 and 一下儿？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6088" CreationDate="2014-05-12T15:31:30.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;上个星期, 我在日本看到朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, because there is no conjugation in Chinese verbs, so the time adverb is important in Chinese language to indicate the time tenses. Usually it is better to point out the time asap in a sentence. Also, Chinese sentence structure is very straightforward, which is mostly S + V + O, even in a question sentence. As for the verb 看, in a past tense, a 到 or 了 (past tense indicator) is needed after the verb 看 to indicate that the verb (action) is completed already in in past.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, to answer your question, 在(to be at / to be in) is always used right before the location. For example, 在日本，在家，在加州。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-05-12T15:37:15.990" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T15:37:15.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6519" CreationDate="2014-05-12T15:44:56.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;每人 or 每个人 is appropriate. Sometimes people will use 各个人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T15:44:56.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6086" CreationDate="2014-05-12T15:49:46.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“from…to…” in Chinese would be &quot;从。。。到。。。&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“walked from…to…” in Chinese would be &quot;从。。。走(路)到。。。&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is 我从我的家走(路)到教室. Remember, Chinese sentence structure is very straightforward, which is mostly S + V + O, even in a question sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T15:49:46.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6016" CreationDate="2014-05-12T15:52:34.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;有人 and 有些人 are the most used ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your sentence, it should be 有（些）人觉得我长得像．．．．？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T15:52:34.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6889" CreationDate="2014-05-12T15:52:38.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;一下 is mainly talking about time&#xA;While&#xA;一点 is talking about quantity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One learners dictionary says the following of 一下&#xA;(used after a verb to indicate the action is done briefly or casually)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While describing 一点儿 as&#xA;a tiny amount, a bit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your examples 一點兒 has the following meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 {grammar} (a bit) more... (following an adjective, used to form the comparative, e.g., hǎo yī diǎn 好一點/好一点 &quot;[somewhat] better&quot;, dà yī diǎn 大一點/大一点 &quot;[a little] larger&quot;, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T15:52:38.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6883" CreationDate="2014-05-12T17:00:58.003" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%87%BA%E7%81%A3%E9%96%A9%E5%8D%97%E8%AA%9E%E5%B8%B8%E8%A6%8B%E6%B5%81%E8%A1%8C%E8%AA%9E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipage&lt;/a&gt; says that 台語正字 is 矜/楗(教育部用字). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also this &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?source=1&amp;amp;in_idx=09ing7&amp;amp;n_no=9600&amp;amp;curpage=0&amp;amp;sample=%E6%A5%97&amp;amp;radiobutton=0&amp;amp;querytarget=0&amp;amp;limit=1&amp;amp;pagenum=0&amp;amp;rowcount=0,&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;online dictionary&lt;/a&gt; of Taiwanese dialect lists 楗 to be the character in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is possible that neither is the true character. They just made up some characters in order to transcribe the word. The ancient phonetic books describe that 楗 rhymes with 偃/鍵/建/件, which rhyme with -ian or -iann in Taiwanese， not -ing. On the other hand, 矜 has a historic pronunciation that ends with -m instead of -n or -ng, and the meaning does not really match 硬撑 either. A wild guess of mine is that the character might be 经/擎.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastEditorUserId="3251" LastEditDate="2014-05-12T18:22:06.000" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T18:22:06.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6873" CreationDate="2014-05-12T17:10:18.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;帮忙-&gt;(verb+object) while 帮助 is a transitive verb or noun. I don't think it's interchangeable because their different grammar structure. 帮忙 is a fixed with an object&quot;忙&quot;, for this we can call it 离合词. You cannot say 帮助[我的/他的]忙. However, semanticallay, 他帮我的忙。 has the same meanings as 他帮助我。(what kind of help not specified here).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4529" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T17:10:18.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6897" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-12T20:03:28.057" Score="3" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this string 档案专业人员 in a Chinese resume. Google translated it as &quot;file professional&quot; but I don't know what the proper word in English for it would be. I'd like to know which are the main duties of a File Professional or File Manager.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What kind of job is it? Is there any alternative translation?&#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4289" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-12T04:02:41.550" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T22:10:15.997" Title="Translation of 档案专业人员" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6897" CreationDate="2014-05-12T20:15:56.433" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;档案专业人员 in English is &quot;Archivist&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorDisplayName="user4452" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T14:00:53.840" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T14:00:53.840" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6889" CreationDate="2014-05-13T01:12:22.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一点儿，一般指数量，如爱你多一点儿；&#xA;一下儿，一般指动作，如亲你一下儿。&#xA;另外，“儿”在这里没有实际意义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4539" LastActivityDate="2014-05-13T01:12:22.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6889" CreationDate="2014-05-13T02:51:03.877" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;一下 is a little (time.) This makes it mostly after a verb. I believe the two most common uses are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;等一下 (děng yíxià) Wait a bit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;休息一下 (xiūxi yíxià) Rest a little while&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also used as a numeral classifier after a verb, indicating an attempt or act:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看一下 (kàn yíxià) have a look&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;试一下 (shì yíxià) have a try&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一点（儿） is a little (quantity.) Some common uses are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我会说一点儿。 (Wǒ huì shuō yìdiǎnr.) I can speak a little bit.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;快（一）点儿！(Kuài diǎnr!) Hurry up (a bit!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also gets used before a negative expression (or after 这么 or 那么,) meaning &quot;(not) even a little bit&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一点儿也不方便。 (Yìdiǎnr yě bù fāngbiàn.) Not even a little bit convenient.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这事我就知道那么一点儿。 (Zhè shì wǒ jiù zhīdao nàme yìdiǎnr.) That's all I know about it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contrast this to 有（一）点（儿） which is a little (degree.) Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我有点儿累。 (Wǒ yǒudiǎnr lèi.) I'm a bit tired.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;第十一课有点儿难 (Dì shí yī kè yǒudiǎnr nán.) Lesson 11 is a bit difficult.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="3561" LastEditDate="2014-05-13T03:10:02.770" LastActivityDate="2014-05-13T03:10:02.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6902" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6906" CreationDate="2014-05-13T07:23:59.533" Score="1" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone explain what the difference or relation between 一片空地 and 一片草原 might be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these two expressions the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2014-05-14T00:42:24.087" Title="一片空地 and 一片草原 - what's the difference/relation" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6902" CreationDate="2014-05-13T08:48:08.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“一片草原”得有草才能这么说吧，“一片空地”通常指没有建筑或没有摆放其他东西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4545" LastActivityDate="2014-05-13T08:48:08.843" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36" CreationDate="2014-05-13T21:16:24.310" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Zhonghua Zihai, the largest Chinese character dictionary, there are more than 85,000 Chinese characters! However, research (Huang 1994 and Da 2004) shows that the most frequently used 1200 Chinese Characters account for about 90% of the characters occurring in the real world. Therefore, this is about the number of characters needed for a learner to reach intermediate level, which is also the level to be able to communicate effectively, or in other words, to be able to carry on a daily conversation in Chinese for average Chinese learners or to be able to do business in Chinese for business people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesehulu.com/for-new-arrival/1200-most-frequently-used-chinese-characters-list-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinesehulu.com/for-new-arrival/1200-most-frequently-used-chinese-characters-list-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-13T21:16:24.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3" CreationDate="2014-05-13T21:23:29.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Zhonghua Zihai, the largest Chinese character dictionary, there are more than 85,000 Chinese characters! However, research (Huang 1994 and Da 2004) shows that the most frequently used 1200 Chinese Characters account for about 90% of the characters occurring in the real world. Here is the most used 1200 Chinese Characters by frequency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesehulu.com/for-new-arrival/1200-most-frequently-used-chinese-characters-list-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinesehulu.com/for-new-arrival/1200-most-frequently-used-chinese-characters-list-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-13T21:23:29.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6902" CreationDate="2014-05-14T00:42:24.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“一片草原” - obviously there must be grass growing there; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iZf2w.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;草原&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“一片空地” - just open space/ground without any building or trees, so you can put something there or build something there, or even play baseball there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TyBJU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;空地1&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VM2GK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;空地2&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-05-14T00:42:24.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6897" CreationDate="2014-05-14T05:32:13.687" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;@倪阔乐 was right. Google parses chinese sentences according to phrase frequency. &quot;专业人员&quot; is more frequent than &quot;档案专业&quot;, so the whole string was parsed as [档案[专业人员]], which in turn got translated to [File [Professional]]. And that didn't make much sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the correct parsing should be [[档案专业]人员], since this appeared in a resume. It most likely means that person (人员) graduated from Archival Science (档案专业).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastActivityDate="2014-05-14T05:32:13.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="714" CreationDate="2014-05-14T06:33:51.490" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been quite busy preparing for my Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL) exam, a Mandarin certification exam held twice annually. There are five levels and I started from the third level. &lt;a href=&quot;http://vivitranslation.com/interpreting/beijing-interpreting.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Translator in Beijing&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4552" LastActivityDate="2014-05-14T06:33:51.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6910" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-15T01:10:48.143" Score="10" ViewCount="810" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tea&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article on the history of tea&lt;/a&gt; mentions that Laozi described tea as &quot;the froth of the liquid jade.&quot; What is the original text in Chinese? If the original text cannot be found, could I request a translation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempt at a literal translation is: yè (liquid) yù (jade). I'm only a second-year Chinese student, so I don't know if this rendition is literary, as the English translation implies, or if it sounds right to the ears. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4557" LastEditorUserId="4557" LastEditDate="2017-10-27T04:57:23.153" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T04:57:23.153" Title="What is the original Chinese text to &quot;liquid jade&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6911" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6949" CreationDate="2014-05-15T02:13:45.603" Score="4" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have had eight mainland Chinese teachers over the time I have spent studying, and I am &lt;strong&gt;still&lt;/strong&gt; confused, because I find there are inconsistencies between my textbook's audio CDs, my teachers' explanations, and what I typically hear people say. I don't know how to read IPA so please bear with me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some audio CDs, and most of my teachers, they agree that &quot;an&quot; should be pronounced like the English &quot;an&quot; (e.g. an apple) and &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; like the English &quot;un&quot; (e.g. that was fun) and I &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; often hear it for cases such as &quot;怎么办？&quot; and &quot;赶得到&quot;. They also tell me it's the same for 换 and 言 etc. (just not for 天 as &quot;ian&quot; is a different rule.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the disagreement stems from others telling me it &lt;strong&gt;should&lt;/strong&gt; be the English &quot;un&quot;, and there are resources that also show this (I read through &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1740/pinyin-tones-pronunciation-cheat-sheet&quot;&gt;Pinyin tones pronunciation cheat sheet&lt;/a&gt; and listened to the accompanying links &lt;a href=&quot;http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation&lt;/a&gt;, which follows this rule.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do also notice that some of the teachers in the first camp, while pronouncing 办 with the English &quot;an&quot;, seem to pronounce 看 with the English &quot;un&quot;. Not all of them, however. This makes things very confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have broken my pronunciation habits once and switched from the first camp to the second camp, and now am wondering if I should have done that, and if I should actually be switching back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anybody clarify this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note: The teachers that were staunchly in the second camp also pronounced &quot;iu&quot; as English &quot;ew&quot;, not like the &quot;iou&quot; that it should be (就 etc.,) but I don't know if that's enough to disregard their arguments for what is considered correct pronunciation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Pronunciation_of_finals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiki article on pinyin&lt;/a&gt; claims:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;an  [än]    an  like British English &quot;ban&quot;, but more central&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not ... entirely sure what &quot;but more central&quot; means, but going by the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/british/ban&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Macmillan Dictionary audio sample for ban&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53IeAFaBCXc&amp;amp;t=14m51s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCTV link @Stan commented with&lt;/a&gt; it doesn't sound like the &quot;an&quot; in &quot;an apple&quot; &lt;strong&gt;nor&lt;/strong&gt; does it sound like the &quot;un&quot; in &quot;that was fun&quot;, but it sounds somewhere in between the two, what I'm thinking at the moment is that it sounds like the &quot;an&quot; in &quot;hand&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T08:12:03.867" Title="&quot;an&quot; final pronunciation" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6912" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6913" CreationDate="2014-05-15T03:58:16.187" Score="3" ViewCount="345" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase 盛开 means to bloom, as in, &quot;池塘里的荷花盛开.&quot; Is this pronounced as &quot;shèng kāi&quot;, or is it pronounced as &quot;chéng kāi&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4513" LastActivityDate="2016-06-23T17:31:57.010" Title="How do you pronounce 盛开?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6912" CreationDate="2014-05-15T04:51:05.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, you pronounce it as &quot;shèng kāi.&quot; The other pronunciation, &quot;chéng&quot; is for the phrase &quot;盛饭.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4559" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T04:51:05.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6914" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6916" CreationDate="2014-05-15T05:36:35.543" Score="4" ViewCount="699" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to ask, &quot;Are you sure you want to start a new game?&quot; My best guess is, 你確定要开始新遊戲？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure whether I used &quot;start&quot; correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4560" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T19:26:31.130" Title="How do you translate &quot;start&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6914" CreationDate="2014-05-15T05:44:04.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. Start——its original meaning is &quot;do something from beginning&quot;. So “开始” is translated well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T05:44:04.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6914" CreationDate="2014-05-15T05:55:09.503" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your guess is correct. You can use it as the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;start a new game - 开始新游戏&#xA;&#xA;start to do something - 开始做某事&#xA;&#xA;a good start - 一个好的开始&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T05:55:09.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6912" CreationDate="2014-05-15T06:13:41.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can guess the pronunciation according to its usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;盛(&quot;chéng&quot;)&quot; in 盛饭 is used as a verb, which means to fill or to contain.&#xA;&#xA;&quot;盛(&quot;shèng&quot;)&quot; in 盛开 is used as a non-verb(adj./adv./noun), which means prosperous(ly), flourishing(ly)... (盛宴,盛装,旺盛,兴盛...)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by the way, 盛&quot;shèng&quot; is also used as a surname, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%9B%9B%E5%85%89%E7%A5%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this man&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T06:13:41.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6910" CreationDate="2014-05-15T06:56:28.677" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be '玉液'. But it often used together with another word '琼浆'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;琼浆玉液 is often used to describe extremely delicious things to drink, like wine or tea...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T06:56:28.677" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6911" CreationDate="2014-05-15T07:11:49.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;there's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/link?url=uNo_Jo7H7qmOcS-tgnL4HT-evvfkJXh8mbW4ySVrLy9xEwKE3kKgMrumGeUppwPE1lw5yDV_qibDZe1yFtRMhM6WHrEvecwexeBig2xC1CC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;script&lt;/a&gt; from a Chinese teacher, which explained your confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T07:11:49.487" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6914" CreationDate="2014-05-15T07:31:26.563" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other comments are good I just want to add if you are trying to stay &quot;start&quot; a &quot;new round&quot; of a game you are already playing you should probably say something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重新来一盘&#xA;Or &#xA;重新来一次&#xA;or&#xA;重新来一回 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the context...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You already know how to say &quot;are you sure you want to&quot; - so I won't bother commenting on that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T07:31:26.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6921" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6930" CreationDate="2014-05-15T15:40:57.270" Score="4" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;So these terms for Guinea Pig all seem to be fairly common and in use, at least as far as I know, but the question(s) are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where do the different terms come from? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is there any actual difference between the terms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are the terms regional or not?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-05-22T15:09:08.517" LastActivityDate="2014-05-22T15:09:08.517" Title="荷兰猪、天竺鼠、豚鼠 ——What's the deal?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="117" CreationDate="2014-05-15T18:37:15.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than 成语接龙，I've played another word game of 成语. First，given a special topic, e.g. 数字(number)、生肖(Chinese Zodiac) etc， then name one 成语 related to the topic alternately. If you cannot think of a new one in your turn, you lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. the topic is 生肖, I start with 鼠目寸光, then you say 对牛弹琴, then a third person would go with 如虎添翼, and so on. If one couldn't name a new one, then he/she lose. Note that you could add some limits to the game to make it more difficult, in this case, a limit is that 生肖 should be in the order of 鼠牛虎兔龙蛇马羊猴鸡狗猪, which means that the next person should say 成语 with character 兔. Actually, there are so many 成语 related to 生肖 that it is not quite hard in the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1168" LastEditorUserId="1168" LastEditDate="2014-05-15T18:44:29.433" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T18:44:29.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6911" CreationDate="2014-05-15T18:52:13.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me, the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese pinyin sounds like the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;father&lt;/code&gt;.(It's same as the Italian pronunciation of vowel &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; too) The &lt;code&gt;an&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese sounds like the &lt;code&gt;an&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;fantastic&lt;/code&gt;. Hope that helps! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4565" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T18:52:13.073" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6924" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6925" CreationDate="2014-05-15T19:27:43.480" Score="3" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book &quot;A First Course in Literature&quot; from Shaddick uses this character:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BLbum.png&quot; alt=&quot;yu2&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the vocabulary section it is explained as &quot;TV to cross; to exceed&quot;. But I can't seem to find this character anywhere else (e.g. pinyin input). The closest matches are 逾 and 踰, the latter is also what we use at our university course instead. However, does anyone know anything about the original? Or is it just a mistake Shaddick made?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2821" LastEditorUserId="2821" LastEditDate="2014-07-09T11:18:34.977" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T11:18:34.977" Title="What character is this? (yu2)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6924" CreationDate="2014-05-15T20:16:19.260" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is 踰 (yú): exceed, transgress, cross over. It is a variant of 逾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters are sometimes rendered differently. In this case, the phonetic is 俞 (yú), meaning &quot;boat&quot;, and the bottom part is written similar to seal script style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally, the 月 and 刂 in 俞 were 舟 (zhōu, boat) and 巛 (chuān, water), and the seal character is a transition in progress. Another evolutionary bastard is  (containing 舟 and 刂), with the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uMgAZ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;seal script&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T20:16:19.260" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6911" CreationDate="2014-05-15T23:32:29.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Madanrin native speaker, and I pronounce pinyin an in the exactly same way as &lt;strong&gt;un&lt;/strong&gt; in lunch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for me 饭 is pronounced exactly same as &lt;strong&gt;fun&lt;/strong&gt; in &quot;Have fun.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 烦 is pronounced exactly same as &lt;strong&gt;fun&lt;/strong&gt; in &quot;Did you have fun?&quot; Because fun is the last word in that sentence, its tone is raised, making it sound exactly same as 烦 or 凡 or 繁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the following pairs are pronounced exactly same:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;办 BUN, 畔 PUN, 饭 FUN 蛋 DUN, 难(nàn) NUN, 干(gàn) GUN, 汉 HUN, 散(sàn) SUN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2014-05-15T23:41:15.470" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T23:41:15.470" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6911" CreationDate="2014-05-16T02:03:00.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The right pronunciation should sound like &quot;ahn&quot;. The English pronunciation of &quot;an&quot; sounds wrong in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4567" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T02:03:00.103" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="209" CreationDate="2014-05-16T03:03:42.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strong but not vulgar answer: 我才不管&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't give a f*** what he thinks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我才不管他想什么呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4488" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T03:03:42.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6911" CreationDate="2014-05-16T03:29:27.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation and/or images of the &lt;code&gt;an&lt;/code&gt; sound of the teachers from Zhejiang might well be influenced by their dialectal mother tongue. In Zhejiang dialects, at least in that spoken in Hangzhou, where Zhejiang University is located, many &lt;code&gt;an&lt;/code&gt; sounds are pronounced closer to the English &lt;code&gt;an&lt;/code&gt; as in &lt;code&gt;an apple&lt;/code&gt; than their  Mandarin equivalents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples from Phonemica, a site collecting samples of Chinese dialects:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://phonemica.net/entry/353&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://phonemica.net/entry/353&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;The &lt;code&gt;板&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;銅板&lt;/code&gt; at 00:09 and elsewhere&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://phonemica.net/entry/368&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://phonemica.net/entry/368&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;The &lt;code&gt;饭&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;中饭&lt;/code&gt; at 00:12&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4551" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T03:29:27.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6921" CreationDate="2014-05-16T06:16:21.567" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are just nicknames.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There are no evidence about where these names come from, as I can see.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I found some explanations but I can't make sure they're true. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is called 天竺鼠 because Indian businessmen brought them into China.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is called 荷蘭豬 because it looks like a pig and its barking sounds like pigs' barking.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is called 荷蘭豬 because it was eat by Dutch before.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is called 豚鼠 because it is 鼠...  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;em&gt;user58955&lt;/em&gt; also provided some explanations. I don't think any of them is true... Just don't be too serious with these nicknames...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4324" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T06:16:21.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6931" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-16T13:12:48.983" Score="7" ViewCount="1307" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone please give we a hint when to use either of those?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My take is that 想 is used for actions and 喜欢 for things!? Am I right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2014-05-17T00:17:54.523" Title="When to use 想 versus 喜欢?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6931" CreationDate="2014-05-16T13:44:02.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;想 means think of (something or doing something)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜欢 means to like (something or doing something or someone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想 isn't necessarily used for actions, it could also be &quot;thinking of something or someone&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜欢 isn't necessarily used for things, it could also be &quot;like&quot; doing something&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T13:44:02.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6931" CreationDate="2014-05-16T14:42:56.543" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, &lt;code&gt;想&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;think (of)&quot; when followed by noun phrases or clauses, and &quot;want to&quot; when followed by verb phrases, while &lt;code&gt;喜欢&lt;/code&gt; simply means &quot;like / be fond of&quot; in all cases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some details:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When followed by nouns/pronouns,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;想&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;think of / consider&quot; or &quot;miss&quot;, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在想你 = I am missing you; 我在想这个问题 = I am considering this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;喜欢&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;like&quot;, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢你 = I like you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When followed by verb phrases,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;想&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;want to (do)&quot;, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想吃鱼 = I want to eat fish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;喜欢&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;like to (do)&quot; or &quot;like (doing)&quot;, expressing non-momentary preference, hence not &quot;would like to (do)&quot;, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢吃鱼 = I like eating fish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When followed by clauses,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;想&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;think (that)&quot;, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想他不会来了 = I think (that) he won't come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two relevant notes here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. When &lt;code&gt;想要&lt;/code&gt; is followed by clauses, it doesn't mean &quot;think (that)&quot;, but &quot;want A to do&quot;, where A is the subject of the following clause, for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想要他唱 = I want him to sing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, a few native speakers may feel that &lt;code&gt;想要&lt;/code&gt; in this usage is interchangeable with &lt;code&gt;想&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. When &lt;code&gt;不想（要)&lt;/code&gt;, in which &quot;要&quot; can be omitted, is followed by clauses, it doesn't mean &quot;not think (that)&quot;, but &quot;not want A to do&quot;, where A is the subject of the following clause, for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不想（要）你来 = I do not want you to come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;喜欢&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;like it that&quot;, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢你这样做 = I like it that you do it this way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4551" LastEditorUserId="4551" LastEditDate="2014-05-17T00:17:54.523" LastActivityDate="2014-05-17T00:17:54.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6924" CreationDate="2014-05-16T15:36:12.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Certainly not a mistake - just a simple variant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;《中华字海》页:1420:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GkYKD.png&quot; alt=&quot;《中华字海》页:1420&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;字海:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/te8q5.png&quot; alt=&quot;zisea&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(You notice how it says 非unicode字 right? So basically that means it's 打不出来的 or cannot be typed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;字海&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3AYBn.png&quot; alt=&quot;zisea&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Here's &amp;quot;踰&amp;quot; with its definitions (bottom) and variants (right))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T15:36:12.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6935" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6950" CreationDate="2014-05-16T15:55:43.977" Score="7" ViewCount="572" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find this sort of uncommon, unorthodox, whatever you wanna call it, pinyin very fascinating. These are the ones that I know of already - that, apparently, are still considered to be Mandarin. What I'm wondering is, are there others? What other wild, bizarre pinyin(s) exist in Mandarin and what characters go along with them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;·cěi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;·cèi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;覅&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;·fiào&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;黁&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;·nún&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NfS5J.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;biang&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;·biāng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T16:38:45.967" Title="Uncommon (Unorthodox?!) Pinyin: What are these?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6931" CreationDate="2014-05-16T16:09:07.613" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because I find the other answers a little overwhelming and unclear I'm going to add my own two-cents:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[and the reason for my explanation being based &lt;em&gt;completely&lt;/em&gt; on the confusion found in OP's question]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;想 is just a shortened form of 想要 meaning &amp;quot;to want&amp;quot;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;喜欢 means &amp;quot;to like&amp;quot;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;·I like chocolate = 我喜欢巧克力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;·I want to eat chocolate = 我想吃巧克力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T21:16:44.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6931" CreationDate="2014-05-16T17:43:33.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We use想for the meaning of thinking,as 我想去中国 I want to go to China.&#xA;We use喜欢for the meaning of like,as 我喜欢中国 I like China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4569" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T17:43:33.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6516" CreationDate="2014-05-16T17:51:19.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;沉舟侧畔千帆过，病树前头万木春。选自唐代刘禹锡的《酬乐天扬州初逢席上见赠》&#xA;原意为翻覆的船只旁仍有千千万万的帆船经过；枯萎树木的前面也有万千林木欣欣向荣。运用比喻，借用自然景物的变化暗示社会的发展，蕴涵哲理。现多指新生事物必然战胜旧事物。 &#xA;Original intention is overturned boats sailing through the side still have thousands on thousands of trees have withered; in front of thousands of trees thriving. The use of metaphor, borrow natural scenery changes suggests that the development of the society, contain philosophy. It refers to the new thing must overcome old things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4569" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T17:51:19.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6924" CreationDate="2014-05-16T18:56:23.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;踰[yú] &#xA;to pass over；to cross；to go beyond；to transgress；to exceed；&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%E8%B8%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;踰&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wapbaike.baidu.com/view/387594.htm?uid=A0449943A27A07A2F862A73EB3223E49&amp;amp;bd_page_type=1&amp;amp;ssid=0&amp;amp;from=844b&amp;amp;st=3&amp;amp;step=1&amp;amp;net=1&amp;amp;ldr=2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;踰&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;异体字是形体不同而音义完全相同，古代在任何情况下都可以互相代替的字。&#xA;Variant form of different and identical ancient pronunciation, can replace each other in any case word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4569" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T18:56:23.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6872" CreationDate="2014-05-16T19:05:06.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;形成: to form to some situation or status by developing a progress of action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;构成, 组成: consist of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;构成 and 组成 can be used interchangeably in most of case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;养成 is a bit different from the other 3 words. It means to cultivate (a habit). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4570" LastEditorUserId="4570" LastEditDate="2014-05-16T20:47:47.760" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T20:47:47.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6836" CreationDate="2014-05-16T19:50:43.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古代女性所用的化妆品落后，一般所用的搽脸粉含铅，有毒性，长期使用会导致脸色变黄。所以年纪愈大的女性，受害时间愈长，受害愈深。故年长一些的女性就会呈现“黄脸婆”的症状。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%BB%84%E8%84%B8%E5%A9%86/7037385&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;黄脸婆&lt;/a&gt; [huáng liǎn pó]&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ancient women's cosmetics are backwards, with face powder containing lead, and those generally used are toxic, long-term use can lead to pale yellowness. So in older women, the longer the time of injury, the more severe. The older women will show a 'Huanglian Po'.&#xA;现代的“黄脸婆”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;①大龄女人卵巢功能减退，导致内分泌失调，在皮肤上形成黄褐斑，脸色泛黄。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;②指女子因各种原因导致肌肤表面老化，黄黑色素的生成，细胞沉积。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;③指男人对妻子的贬称，往往感情出了问题，男方厌倦女方，婚姻出现危机。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;④指容貌不好看的女子，不一定是中年女子，带有贬义，一般是骂人时用的。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/36596180&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;成为黄脸婆的坏习惯，你中招了吗？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern 'wives':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Older woman have ovarian dysfunction, leading to endocrine disorders, melasma forming on the skin, pale yellow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Refers to women and is caused by aging of the skin surface, generating yellow melanin, cell deposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The mean man disparages his wife, often causing emotional problems; the man is tired of the woman, leading to a marriage crisis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The appearance of women is not good, not necessarily for middle-aged woman, carrying negativity, is generally used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4569" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-09-23T00:43:08.880" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T00:43:08.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6931" CreationDate="2014-05-16T20:55:54.337" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;想 has several meanings: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;think(想法) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;suppose(想来) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;miss(想念)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;want to(想要)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜欢 as a verb, it means to like or to love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4570" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T20:55:54.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3723" CreationDate="2014-05-16T21:53:40.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that 伯伯 would be a better term to use to either address or refer to an older male.  For one thing, the age is implicit rather than explicitly stated with 「老」.  It's also more polite, and not slang.  「伯伯」 is a term that kids can use to address an adult; for a child to use 「老头子」 would be entirely inappropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get a rough sense of the difference in politeness, compare Google Image Search results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%E4%BC%AF%E4%BC%AF&amp;amp;rls=entbm%3Disch&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;伯伯&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%E8%80%81%E5%A4%B4%E5%AD%90&amp;amp;rls=entbm%3Disch&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;老头子&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll see that the results for 伯伯 are of a more serious and respectful nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2600" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T21:53:40.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3723" CreationDate="2014-05-16T23:21:15.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;老头&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;老头子&lt;/code&gt; are truly impolite in most of the cases. But in some areas of China, when you are very familiar with the person, it's OK (though I personally do NOT like it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, many people in Wuhan call their father &lt;code&gt;老头&lt;/code&gt;. They just think it's casual though I'd never say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are &amp;lt;=10 years younger you can just call him/her &lt;code&gt;(大)哥&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;(大)姐&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are more than 10 years younger you can call him/her &lt;code&gt;叔叔&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;阿姨&lt;/code&gt; - You can always say this unless that person looks extremely old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-05-16T23:21:15.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6935" CreationDate="2014-05-17T08:54:10.110" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I know one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;扥&lt;br&gt;&#xA;dèn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means &quot;pull with a little brutal force&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4574" LastActivityDate="2014-05-17T08:54:10.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6935" CreationDate="2014-05-17T10:47:38.920" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Skimmed through the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/pyjs/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pinyin index page of 汉典&lt;/a&gt;, and found that, as user58955 commented, most of the uncommon pinyin included there were either dialectal or obsolete, as a native speaker, I have never come across them in my life in either spoken or written mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did find one that can still be heard in nowadays spoken mandarin but I guess most Chinese do not know how to write. That is an onomatopoeia: 欻(chuā) as in &quot;欻的一声&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also like to know 嗲(diǎ), which means coquettish, although it may not sound that uncommon to native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4551" LastEditorUserId="4551" LastEditDate="2014-05-17T16:23:27.610" LastActivityDate="2014-05-17T16:23:27.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6911" CreationDate="2014-05-17T15:17:25.047" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, we need a little basic phonetics: A vowel has two main attributes -- how open your mouth is when you are making the sound, and whether the sound is made at the front of the mouth or at the back. For example, FLEE vowel is close and front, FLU vowel is close and back. BAN vowel is open (more open than BET, which is more open than FLEE) and front, START vowel is open and back. The FUN vowel is usually in the mid of the mouth, but not as open as START.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The BAN vowel is more open in some accents in England than in the general American accent. As Stan has found, the vowel in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/british/ban&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/british/ban&lt;/a&gt; is front and very open, more open than the same vowel in American accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, regarding your original question what 'more central' means, it means that you open your mouth as wide(open) as the BAN vowel in the audio clip above, but move the tongue position a bit towards the back. As a side note, the standard mandarin accent uses a mid vowel in pinyin &lt;code&gt;ban&lt;/code&gt;, while the Taiwanese accent uses a fronter variant (just like the BAN vowel in the audio clip).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2014-05-17T15:17:25.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6935" CreationDate="2014-05-18T00:19:43.097" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;so far,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nóu   羺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yō    哟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nòu   耨   搙   槈   檽   獳   鎒   鐞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4410" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T00:19:43.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6951" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6952" CreationDate="2014-05-18T04:31:07.840" Score="3" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I know this topic has - kind of - been discussed over here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/511/what-etymology-dictionaries-are-available&quot;&gt;&#xA;  What etymology dictionaries are available?&#xA;  &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In order to avoid seeming like I'm advertising for anyone I will refrain from mentioning where I heard this but...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I once heard an explanation of the character 取 talking about how it came from the character 馘 (meaning: to cut off the left ear of the slain in battle) - and how the meaning of 馘 is visually represented in the character 取 (an ear + a hand) now meaning 'to take' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where would one go to find this type of etymological explanations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T02:02:58.253" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T02:02:58.253" Title="Glyph origin or Word Etymology Resources" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6951" CreationDate="2014-05-18T06:48:13.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;zdic.net is an authoritative resource: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/xs/53D6.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/xs/53D6.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会意。从又,从耳。甲骨文字形。左边是耳朵,右边是手(又),合起来表示用手割耳朵。古代作战,以割取敌人尸体首级或左耳以计数献功。本义:[捕获到野兽或战俘时]割下左耳。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't think it is true that 取 developed from 聝 and 馘, they have always been separate characters, even though Shuowen (same site) indicates that 取 has also been used in that sense: 捕取也。从又从耳。《周禮》：“獲者取左耳。”《司馬法》曰：“載獻聝。”聝者，耳也。七庾切。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T06:48:13.997" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6953" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6954" CreationDate="2014-05-18T13:19:11.657" Score="1" ViewCount="680" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would I translate the phrase, &quot;Please sign in to send the message&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would think it's something like, &quot;Qing 登录 fa xin&quot; -- is that correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3998" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T15:32:49.780" Title="Please sign in to send a message" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6953" CreationDate="2014-05-18T13:23:31.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;请登录来送出信息 or 请登录来发送信息 or 请登录以便发送信息.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T13:23:31.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6955" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-18T14:14:13.947" Score="0" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just started to learn Chinese a few years ago but I find essay-writing especially difficult. For example, the following essay took me about 45 minutes to an hour and I was told that it had poor word choice at times. If anyone can, I would be greatly appreciative if you toke a quick read and give me a few comments to help improve my writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This is in response to an [informal] question: What do you think of the term &quot;Jia You,&quot; do you support this saying / view?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 “加油“ 地道的翻译成英文是个困难的事。翻译的定义常常会把本来的定义解的不利。加油可以代表多种的意思从鼓励到欢呼何况同情和团结－翻译的时候就会往往把这多数含义缺漏掉的。用英文来表示就会给这个词一个单纯没劲的意义，普通翻译成 &quot;Let's go!&quot; 或者 &quot;You can do it!&quot; 或者 “Come on!&quot;。这些句子说出来不含加油的内涵意义 - 就是鼓励斗志能力。其实用 &quot;Fighting!&quot;来表示可能是更镇却的翻译，可是在英文里 &quot;Fighting!&quot; 通常含义个打仗和暴力的现象不是决心或者意志力的表示。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种观念我挺支持的因为是个正面情绪向上的口语。我自己听到的时候会受到一古港动力让我加强的努力，要没有的话起码让我思考一下我做中的目的因为说给我听的人肯定有她的意向。一个缺点是过用－把加油整天放在舌尖上（就是天天都说，张口就说）。过用会把给说的人的期望射得特别高（做不到的请款就带来羞辱的感觉）或这老是抱着一个不满足的心态（社么东西都能加油，不够好)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种心理状况在美国对于华人配演小孩的方法是个挺红的辩论题。反正有两组人－一种觉得父母实景推动小孩的前途是很重要的，在一种觉得小孩能自己发现他么的前途，不要干涉，未来小孩高兴为主（这不是说第一组家长就不想要他们小孩高兴，就是会用不痒的眼光看来高兴这个词)。可能在美国多数人的想法都在第二组里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有可能把这个题目想的太宽了，也不太用加油这个词，所以我不知道是不是所说的话是正确的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4578" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T18:29:17.943" Title="chinese essay review?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2014-05-19T04:05:47.397" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6632" CreationDate="2014-05-18T14:17:31.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard this used in modern TV shows -- usually face-to-face (husband to wife) -- as 情爱的 。。。I suppose it works just as well when you are introducing someone by saying 。。。这是我的情爱的。。。literally: This is my loved one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might work better in certain circumstances when you are uncomfortable saying 太太，老婆，or 爱人, which I will agree seems a bit formal or has misinterpreted meanings...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4578" LastEditorUserId="4578" LastEditDate="2014-05-18T14:26:09.247" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T14:26:09.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6953" CreationDate="2014-05-18T14:42:10.517" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you mean to say &quot;To send the message, please first sign in&quot;, then “发送信息前请先登录” may sound more natural and clearer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4551" LastEditorUserId="4551" LastEditDate="2014-10-18T15:32:49.780" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T15:32:49.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6955" CreationDate="2014-05-18T16:45:26.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is so hard to edit this,because I do not know what you mean in some sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 “加油“ 地道地翻译成英文是个困难的事。翻译的定义常常会把本来的意思解释错误。加油可以代表多种的意思，从鼓励到欢呼，甚至同情和团结－翻译的时候就会往往把这多数含义缺漏掉的。用英文来表示就会给这个词一个单纯没劲的意义，普通翻译成 &quot;Let's go!&quot; 或者 &quot;You can do it!&quot; 或者 “Come on!&quot;。这些句子说出来不含加油的内涵意义 - 就是鼓励斗志能力。其实用 &quot;Fighting!&quot;来表示可能是更正确的翻译，可是在英文里 &quot;Fighting!&quot; 通常描述打仗和暴力的现象，而不是决心或者意志力的表示。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种观念我挺支持的，因为它是个正面情绪向上的口语。我自己听到的时候会受到一股动力，让我加倍地努力，要没有的话起码让我思考一下我做事的目的，因为说给我听的人肯定有他的意向。一个缺点是滥用－把加油整天放在嘴边上（就是天天都说，张口就说）。滥用会把给说的人的期望射得特别高（做不到的情况就带来羞辱的感觉）或者老是抱着一个不满足的心态（什么东西都能加油，不够好)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种心理状况在美国对于华人培养小孩的方法是个挺红的辩论题。反正有两组人－一种觉得父母使劲推动小孩的前途是很重要的，在一种觉得小孩能自己发现他们的前途，不要干涉，未来小孩高兴为主（这不是说第一组家长就不想要他们小孩高兴，就是会用不一样的眼光看来高兴这个词)。可能在美国多数人的想法都在第二组里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有可能把这个题目想的太宽了，也不太用加油这个词，所以我不知道所说的话是不是正确的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4579" LastEditorUserId="4579" LastEditDate="2014-05-18T16:56:45.713" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T16:56:45.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6955" CreationDate="2014-05-18T17:21:46.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Chinese from hong kong so my choice of wording may be a bit different from the mainland Chinese (the word choice sometimes differs, like American English and British English). My Chinese writing is not that good (the spoken language in hk is very different from written chinese)...so just take it as a reference!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 “加油“ &lt;strong&gt;地道&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;using 地道 seems a bit weird to me but i have no idea what to use&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的翻译成英文是个困难的事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翻译的 &lt;strong&gt;定义&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;常常&lt;/strong&gt; 会把本来的定义 &lt;strong&gt;解的不利&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;code&gt;&quot;定义&quot; doesn't make much sense. What do you intended to mean by this word?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;You can use 往往 instead of 常常(&quot;常常&quot; isn't incorrect but its seems to be more appropriate)，&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;and 曲解 to replace 解的不利; &quot;解的不利&quot; doesn't make any sense in Chinese&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加油可以代表多种的意思 &lt;code&gt;add a &quot;,&quot; here&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从鼓励到欢呼&lt;code&gt;add a &quot;,&quot; here&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何况 - &lt;code&gt;using &quot;何况&quot; doesn't make sense here; it means &quot;furthermore&quot; but only in negative meaning.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;In this sentence the adj you use like 鼓励到欢呼 同情和团结 all have a positive meaning so it'd better to use other conjunction word like “再到”&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同情和团结&lt;code&gt;add a &quot;,&quot; here&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翻译的时候 &lt;strong&gt;就会往往&lt;/strong&gt; 把这 &lt;strong&gt;多数&lt;/strong&gt; 含义 &lt;strong&gt;缺漏&lt;/strong&gt; 掉的。&lt;code&gt;Better change 就会往往 to &quot;往往会&quot;. the meaning is right but the order is weird.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;多数(means many) should change to &quot;多重&quot;(multiple layers).&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;缺漏 seems weird to me...but I am not sure what to use here.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用英文来表示就会给这个词一个 &lt;strong&gt;单纯没劲&lt;/strong&gt; 的 &lt;strong&gt;意义&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;单纯没劲 doesnt make sense - use 单薄 is better.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;意义 mean &quot;spiritual meaning&quot; in chinese, so you should use &quot;意思&quot; which means &quot;literal meaning&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;普通&lt;/strong&gt; 翻译成 &quot;Let's go!&quot; 或者 &quot;You can do it!&quot; 或者 “Come on!&quot;。&lt;code&gt;the meaning is right, but you can use 一般, which sounds more appropriate to me&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些句子说出来不含加油的 &lt;strong&gt;内涵意义&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;use 神髓 instead!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就是 &lt;strong&gt;鼓励斗志能力&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;code&gt;i cant think of a better word...but your word choice doesn't quite make sense&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其实用 &quot;Fighting!&quot;来表示可能是 &lt;strong&gt;更镇却&lt;/strong&gt; 的翻译，&lt;code&gt;i don't know what does 镇却 means.... i would use 传神 here; btw you can use &quot;较为&quot; instead of &quot;更&quot;, so that you can have a &quot;4-word word&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可是在英文里 &quot;Fighting!&quot; 通常 &lt;strong&gt;含义个打仗和暴力的现象&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;不是&lt;/strong&gt; 决心或者意志力的表示。&lt;code&gt;change 打仗(verb) to 战争(noun) because &quot;暴力&quot; is also a noun, to keep the two sides of the word &quot;和&quot;(and) balanced;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;then change the word order&amp;amp;usage from &quot;含义个 战争和暴力的 现象&quot; to &quot;含有 战争和暴力的意思&quot;;&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;for &quot;不是&quot;（means &quot;no&quot;）, change it to &quot;而非&quot;(means &quot;but not&quot;)&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;这种观念&lt;/strong&gt; 我挺支持的 &lt;code&gt;add a &quot;,&quot; here.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Also you should state what does 这种观念 means. If you're using 观念 to mean &quot;the act of using the word Jiayou&quot; than it's a wrong word choice here.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为是个 &lt;strong&gt;正面情绪向上&lt;/strong&gt; 的 &lt;strong&gt;口语&lt;/strong&gt; 。&lt;code&gt;正面情绪向上-&amp;gt;正面向上， 口语-&amp;gt;用语&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我自己听到的时候会 &lt;strong&gt;受到&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;一古港动力&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;让我加强的努力&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;OK. first change 受到 to 感受到 because &quot;受到&quot; means &quot;being ...&quot; but you dont have a verb to fill the &quot;...&quot; , so you should add the word &quot;感&quot;(feel)。 “感受” together means &quot;feel&quot;.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一古港动力 -&amp;gt; doesnt make sense, i guess you means &quot;一股动力&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一股动力 and 让我加强的努力 actually have the same meaning, so it's duplicated here. but thw word 一股动力 is like...more native. so you should just delete &quot;让我加强的努力&quot;. So 受到一古港动力让我加强的努力 -&amp;gt; 感受到一股动力&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要没有的话 &lt;code&gt;i guess you means &quot;if not&quot; in english. but this word choice is improper. Use &quot;即使没有&quot; instead which means &quot;if not&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;起码&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;让我思考一下&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;in English &quot;at least would make me think about&quot;. in Chinese you may use 至少 (but 起码 is ok too);&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;让我思考一下 here you should emphasis '思考'(think). A good way to emphasis it is put the word at the end of the sentence. change it to -&amp;gt; 会激发我的思考 (会 would 激发inspire 我的 my 思考thoughts )&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我做 &lt;strong&gt;中&lt;/strong&gt; 的目的 &lt;code&gt;do u mean 我做人的目的？Also add a &quot;,&quot; here&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为 &lt;strong&gt;说给我听的人&lt;/strong&gt; 肯定有她的意向 &lt;code&gt;说给我听的人-&amp;gt;给我加油的人&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;肯定有她的意向&quot; this is too vague. you should specific what does 意向 means...so change it to &quot;肯定是支持我的&quot; or &quot;肯定是想鼓励我的&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个缺点是 &lt;strong&gt;过用&lt;/strong&gt; －把加油整天放在舌尖上（就是天天都说，张口就说）&lt;code&gt;过用 is a bit weird... maybe use 过度使用(excessive usage) instead?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过用（-&gt;过度使用）会把 &lt;strong&gt;给说的&lt;/strong&gt; 人的期望 &lt;strong&gt;射&lt;/strong&gt; 得特别高 &lt;code&gt;&quot;delete &quot;给说的&quot;, you dont have to use these words here.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;In Chinese, 射 means aiming at a PHYSICAL target. Here you want to mean &quot;aim at high expectation&quot; and you cant translate this literally to chinese. Use 过度使用会把人的期望 **提**(lift) 得特别高 instead, which literally means excessive use would lift up people's expectations &quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（做不到的 &lt;strong&gt;请款&lt;/strong&gt; 就 &lt;strong&gt;带来羞辱的感觉&lt;/strong&gt;）&lt;code&gt;请款-&amp;gt;情况；带来羞辱的感觉-&amp;gt;会让人觉得 蒙羞/被羞辱&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或 &lt;strong&gt;这&lt;/strong&gt; 老是抱着一个不满足的心态 &lt;code&gt;-&amp;gt;者&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（社么东西都能加油，不够好)。&lt;code&gt;-&amp;gt; 永远(always)都要(have to)继续(continue)加油，永远(always)不(not)够(enough)好(good) (-&amp;gt;never good enough)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种 &lt;strong&gt;心理状况&lt;/strong&gt; 在美国对于华人配演小孩的方法是个挺红的辩论题 &lt;code&gt;It's weird to use 心理状况 here..&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;反正&lt;/strong&gt; 有两组人－一种觉得父母实景推动小孩的前途是很重要的 &lt;code&gt;delete 反正&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt; 一种觉得小孩能自己 &lt;strong&gt;发现&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;他么&lt;/strong&gt; 的前途 &lt;code&gt;在 doesnt make sense here. use &quot;另&quot;。 发现 isnt a proper word choice here, use 掌控(control) instead. 他么- is it a typo? do u means 他们？&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未来小孩高兴为主（这不是说第一组家长就不想要他们小孩高兴，就是会用 &lt;strong&gt;不痒&lt;/strong&gt; 的眼光看来高兴这个词)&lt;code&gt;dont understand what do you want to mean by 不痒, but this is a wrong word choice. we dont have a vocab 不痒 in chinese.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;可能在&lt;/strong&gt; 美国多数人的想法都在第二组里。&lt;code&gt;-&amp;gt; 美国 **大** 多数人的想法都 **应该** 在第二组里&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt; 可能把这个题目想的太 &lt;strong&gt;宽&lt;/strong&gt; 了&lt;code&gt;delete 有。 hmm i am not sure if 宽 is ok here... you can also use 远&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也不太用加油这个词，所以我不知道 &lt;strong&gt;是不是所说的话&lt;/strong&gt; 是正确的 &lt;code&gt;word order - 所说的话是不是&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's it! Actually I think the question is a bit confusing. We don't say the term Jiayou as a 观念，it's just a word.... you wont say its a &lt;code&gt;view&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like you won't have a question in English asking &quot;What do you think about the word awesome, do you support this saying/view?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question should explain itself more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4565" LastEditorUserId="4565" LastEditDate="2014-05-18T18:29:17.943" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T18:29:17.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6960" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6961" CreationDate="2014-05-18T18:59:23.213" Score="6" ViewCount="1544" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know a lot of Chinese characters are either a symbol of something or a combination of symbols in the space of one character, &lt;strong&gt;so what's the origin of the symbol for numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9?&lt;/strong&gt; since knowing what the symbol is suppose to represent does make it much easier to remember, eg. the symbol for tree is a simplified tree branches with roots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Some context...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need to explain a fairly large group of people how to count from 1 to 9 in chinese, in at most 3min.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally memorized them fairly easily, but don't think most people have any chance in 3min to just pick them up on the spot, so is there a pattern to them (for 4 and above) that can be used to help people pick them up quickly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've considered teaching the Chinese 1-9 single-hand gestures as a &quot;teaching tool&quot; but don't know what the pattern/correlation between those is either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid confusion I'm referring to the traditional chinese numerals (modern ones are very much the same as far as I know). Not the so called &quot;capital notation&quot; used in checks and official documents, and not the so called &quot;mercantile notation.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4580" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T09:16:56.810" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T09:16:56.810" Title="Pattern in the Chinese numbers 1 to 9" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6960" CreationDate="2014-05-18T20:54:25.873" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;一二三 should be self-evident, they are equivalent to Roman numerals, that is, simple enumeration symbols.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then it gets murky, but note that even numbers 二四六八十 are all symmetrical, whereas the odd numbers (一三)五七九 are not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四 is defined by this symmetric property, as an even number that can be halved. 六 is actually a 四 with a dot above, using old seal script. 八 is also defined as a mirror symmetry, indicating divisibiliy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 五七九, there are no good etymological derivations, they are simply symbols since long lost in origin. There are no patterns associated with these characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T20:54:25.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6960" CreationDate="2014-05-19T04:53:23.290" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only because you're asking about origins: (and don't take the explanations &lt;em&gt;too&lt;/em&gt; seriously)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;4: Primitive pictograph 四. Unknown origin. Originally 4 strokes. Meaning four.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RPOoY.png&quot; alt=&quot;4&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;5: Primitive pictograph 五. {Sears: 二 top and botom bars for of beeds on the 5+2 abacus 㐅 the separation}. Meaning 5.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NaNCf.png&quot; alt=&quot;5&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;6: Primitive pictograph 六. A yurt, pronounced like liu. Meaning 6.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aKHeA.png&quot; alt=&quot;6&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;7: Primitive pictograph 七. Originally looked like 十. Some say a modification of 乂 which meant to cut 切, which was pronounced like seven. Meaning seven.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PEvCQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;7&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;8: Primitive pictograph 八. Two lines indicating separation. Meaning separaton. Now maning 8.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/G6d8H.png&quot; alt=&quot;8&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;9: Primitive pictograph 九. A couple of hooks 九. Borrowed for sound to mean nine.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/37H2v.png&quot; alt=&quot;9&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-19T04:53:23.290" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6914" CreationDate="2014-05-19T09:13:30.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you're right and but perhaps you should use the &quot;restart the game ?&quot; the best mean about your sentences : 你确定,你想开始新游戏吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4583" LastActivityDate="2014-05-19T09:13:30.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6964" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6965" CreationDate="2014-05-19T14:59:40.567" Score="-1" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel like this is a case of &lt;code&gt;One of these things is not like the other&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Four Arts of the Chinese Scholar are 琴、棋、书、画 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;琴 : &lt;code&gt;Musical instrument = great&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;书 : &lt;code&gt;Calligraphy        = great&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;画 : &lt;code&gt;Painting           = great&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These three no problems at all, all very sophisticated...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how about 棋? What? 圍棋? Go? A board game? Seriously? Really? Go?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can 'Go' be part of the &lt;code&gt;Four Arts of the Chinese Scholar&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="3512" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T06:34:40.240" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T20:42:58.157" Title="Explanation of why 棋 is included in 琴棋书画?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6964" CreationDate="2014-05-19T16:35:39.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No particular reasons. It is considered as an art for ancient chinese, though the &quot;art&quot; in ancient China has not the same meaning of the modern &quot;art&quot;, or even the occidental &quot;art&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4585" LastActivityDate="2014-05-19T16:35:39.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6964" CreationDate="2014-05-19T20:12:55.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think Go is as simple as you thought...As user58955 has mentioned&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's not just a easy board game..It takes a lot of time to master it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Besides these, 围棋 is a traditional Chinese game and 琴棋书画 is a conventional word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4324" LastActivityDate="2014-05-19T20:12:55.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6967" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6968" CreationDate="2014-05-19T23:11:39.240" Score="-4" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for the translation of 28 short sentences to their &quot;online&quot; equivalent which can not be found by simply using a dictionary (The big text is mostly context clarification)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The forms that are used on websites and in applications are translated different in this &quot;online&quot; context (For example: On a website, the button &quot;OK&quot; in English, if it will be translated using a Romanian dictionary, will be translated to &quot;Bine&quot; which has the meaning: &quot;I'm doing well&quot; or &quot;I accept what you proposed&quot;. In an application or online form, this translation is wrong, thus confusing the user. In an application, a good translation for the word &quot;OK&quot; in Romanian language would be &quot;Continua&quot; which implies that the user can go to the next step, and using &quot;Continue&quot; in English is counter intuitive because users are accustomed to buttons displaying &quot;OK&quot; as text if they no longer need to enter any data in the next step. So this is why i'm looking for translation to the &quot;online&quot; equivalent.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These texts are for a mobile/online application that helps the users manage their passwords.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for the &quot;online&quot; use of these texts/words applicable for the context i will define as &quot;(CONTEXT:...)&quot; and between () after each sentence that i look to be translated. The text explaining the context and the text in () doesn't need to be translated, it's there to specify what the text must express when translated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do have the choice to use a short version for translation (Example: &quot;Enter your password&quot; versus &quot;Enter the password that belongs to you&quot;) without sacrificing the meaning, please use the short version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The texts help the user navigate and use the application. These are text for buttons and text form fields.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(CONTEXT: The user opens the application for the first time, he didn't read any instructions yet. There is a field where he can enter the password of his choice to be used later in the application for generating other passwords, this can be any password but to avoid confusion i will ask for his password. After he enters his password he clicks a &quot;OK&quot; button to go the next step. On the same page there is a text explaining how the password will be used)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.Text to be translated: &quot;Enter your password&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Hint for the password field - It has to specify &quot;your&quot;, implying that the password belongs to the user, it is his password that he must enter.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2.Text to be translated: &quot;OK&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(After entering the password the user will press this button to submit the form and continue)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3.Text to be translated: &quot;Account passwords will be generated depending on the password you enter here&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Account refers to an online account like Gmail or DropBox - username and password. The password for his account is generated by computing it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.Text to be translated: &quot;Password can not be empty&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Error message displayed in case the user clicks the &quot;OK&quot; button without entering any password)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(CONTEXT: The user is now presented with a screen that shows a message telling him how to add a new account. After he enters an account, a list containing the name of the accounts is shown to him. He can delete or edit the account details by pressing for a long time on the account name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5.Text to be translated: &quot;My Accounts&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Title of the page - Letting the user know that he is now on the page where his accounts are shown)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6.Text to be translated: &quot;To add a new account, click on the Menu button and select &quot;Add account&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Help message letting the user know how he can add a new account)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7.Text to be translated: &quot;Edit&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The user can press this button in order to edit the details of the account - username and internet address)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8.Text to be translated: &quot;Delete&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The user can press this button in order to delete the account from the list)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9.Text to be translated: &quot;Help&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Menu button that leads the user to a new page showing him instructions on how to use the application. English aliases: instructions)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;10.Text to be translated: &quot;Add account&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Menu button that lets the user add a new account in the list)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11.Text to be translated: &quot;Settings&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Menu button that lets the user change preferences like password lenght. English aliases: preferences)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;12.Text to be translated: &quot;Save&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Menu button that lets the user save his input)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;13.Text to be translated: &quot;Copy&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Menu button that lets the user copy the password to his clipboard)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;14.Text to be translated: &quot;Cancel&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Menu button that lets the user cancel any changes he has made)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;15.Text to be translated: &quot;Close&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Menu button that lets the user close/dismiss an alert dialog)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;16.Text to be translated: &quot;Open website&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Menu button that lets the user open a website page address that is shown on screen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;17.Text to be translated: &quot;New account&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Title of the page, letting the user know he is now in the place where he is adding a new account)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;18.Text to be translated: &quot;Account name:&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Text that lets the user know that he is supposed to fill in an account name. Example: &quot;johndoe&quot; or &quot;johndoe@example.com&quot;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;19.Text to be translated: &quot;Internet address:&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Text that lets the user know that he is supposed to fill in an internet address. Example: &quot;google.com&quot;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;20.Text to be translated: &quot;Password:&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Text that lets the user know that what follows after &quot;:&quot; is a password) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;21.Text to be translated: &quot;Edit account&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Title of the page, letting the user know he is now in the place where he is editing the account)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;22.Text to be translated: &quot;Password strength:&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Text that lets the user know that the number that follows is the strength/length of a password. Can also be translated from &quot;Password length&quot; which is more common.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;23.Text to be translated: &quot;Account Name can not be empty!&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Error message displayed in case the user clicks the &quot;Save&quot; button without entering any name for the account)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;24.Text to be translated: &quot;Account added. Long click on it to edit&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Alert displayed to the user to let him know that the account was added to the list and that he must click on its name for a longer period of time in order to edit it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;25.Text to be translated: &quot;Password copied to clipboard&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Alert displayed to the user to let him know that the password he was seeing was copied to the clipboard after he clicked &quot;Copy&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;26.Text to be translated: &quot;Account deleted&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Alert displayed to the user to let him know that the account was deleted from the list after he chose to delete it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;27.Text to be translated: &quot;Account updated&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Alert displayed to the user to let him know that the account details where updated successfully after he edited them and clicked &quot;Save&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;28.Text to be translated: &quot;Preferences updated&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Alert displayed to the user to let him know that the preferences from the settings screen where updated successfully after he edited them and clicked &quot;Save&quot;. English aliases: Settings saved, settings updated, preferences saved)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2014-05-20T00:10:39.547" LastActivityDate="2014-05-20T00:11:49.687" Title="English text to it's “online slang” equivalent" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-05-20T14:20:29.193" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6967" CreationDate="2014-05-20T00:11:49.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.Text to be translated: &quot;Enter your password&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请输入密码&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Text to be translated: &quot;OK&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;确定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Text to be translated: &quot;Account passwords will be generated depending on the password you enter here&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您的账户密码会由您输入的密码产生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.Text to be translated: &quot;Password can not be empty&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;密码不能为空&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.Text to be translated: &quot;My Accounts&quot;&#xA;我的账户&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.Text to be translated: &quot;To add a new account, click on the Menu button and select &quot;Add account&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要添加一个新账户，点击菜单键并选择“添加账户”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.Text to be translated: &quot;Edit&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;编辑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.Text to be translated: &quot;Delete&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;删除&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.Text to be translated: &quot;Help&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帮助&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.Text to be translated: &quot;Add account&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;添加账户&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.Text to be translated: &quot;Settings&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;设置&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.Text to be translated: &quot;Save&quot;&#xA;保存&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13.Text to be translated: &quot;Copy&quot;&#xA;复制&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14.Text to be translated: &quot;Cancel&quot;&#xA;取消&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;15.Text to be translated: &quot;Close&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;关闭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;16.Text to be translated: &quot;Open website&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打开网址&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;17.Text to be translated: &quot;New account&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新账户&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;18.Text to be translated: &quot;Account name:&quot;&#xA;账户名称&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;19.Text to be translated: &quot;Internet address:&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;网址&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;20.Text to be translated: &quot;Password:&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;密码&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;21.Text to be translated: &quot;Edit account&quot;&#xA;编辑账户&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;22.Text to be translated: &quot;Password strength:&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;密码长度&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;23.Text to be translated: &quot;Account Name can not be empty!&quot;&#xA;账户名称不能为空&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;24.Text to be translated: &quot;Account added. Long click on it to edit&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;账户已添加。长按编辑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;25.Text to be translated: &quot;Password copied to clipboard&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;密码已复制到剪贴板&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;26.Text to be translated: &quot;Account deleted&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;账户已删除&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;27.Text to be translated: &quot;Account updated&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;账户已更新&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;28.Text to be translated: &quot;Preferences updated&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;个人偏好已更新&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4590" LastActivityDate="2014-05-20T00:11:49.687" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6910" CreationDate="2014-05-20T12:24:54.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only thing that I've found that is even &lt;em&gt;remotely&lt;/em&gt; close is from a poem by 郭璞 (Guo Pu)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;游仙詩十九首&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;第九&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which contains the following line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呼吸玉滋液&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which has been translated as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nurturing breath and liquid jade:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-20T12:24:54.087" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6970" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-20T12:52:30.243" Score="3" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many characters are made up of a semantic and a phonetic part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the phonetic part only valid with regards to Mandarin pronunciation?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or not even for Mandarin in all cases?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or does it work with for example Cantonese as well? That is, are Chinese dialects at least partially 'parallel'?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose the phonetic clue does not help a Japanese or Korean learner. Am I right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4594" LastEditorUserId="25227" LastEditDate="2020-10-02T20:19:09.303" LastActivityDate="2020-10-02T20:20:18.527" Title="Phonetic clue of characters in languages or dialects other than Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6970" CreationDate="2014-05-20T14:40:22.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question: Yes, the phonetic part is valid in all the dialects, since the dialects are just a variation of Mandarin Chinese, which ancient Chinese people drew upon or in which they gave ideographic meaning to various objects and concepts in the environment. So in other words, Chinese dialects are &amp;quot;parallel&amp;quot; in a way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-10-02T20:19:36.593" LastActivityDate="2020-10-02T20:19:36.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6970" CreationDate="2014-05-20T18:23:05.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally yes. But I want to mention that Mandarin was also a dialect. So I'm not agree that the dialects are variations of Mandarin, I think that they are parallel. Most dialects are more ancient and closer to the ancient Chinese than Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4585" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-10-02T20:20:18.527" LastActivityDate="2020-10-02T20:20:18.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6974" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-20T18:28:22.320" Score="7" ViewCount="1573" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember there is something that translates closely to &quot;mouth itches&quot;, you say it when you want to express a craving for a certain food. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3315" LastEditorUserId="3512" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T06:50:03.260" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T06:50:03.260" Title="How to say &quot;craving for something&quot;? (Food Related)" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6970" CreationDate="2014-05-20T19:02:50.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese characters have been around a lot longer than modern Mandarin, so their phonetic parts often reflect much older pronunciations to the extent that these hints are actually not quite as reliable in modern Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take, for instance, 工, pronounced &lt;code&gt;gōng&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin; it is used as a phonetic in the characters 江、紅、項, but they are now pronounced &lt;code&gt;jiāng&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;hóng&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;xiàng&lt;/code&gt;, respectively, even though their pronunciations were much closer in older varieties of Chinese. Cantonese, for instance, is considered a more phonologically conservative variety of Chinese that preserved more of the rimes from Middle Chinese. As such, 工、江、紅、項 in Cantonese are pronounced more similarly: &lt;code&gt;gūng&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;gōng&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;hùhng&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;hohng&lt;/code&gt; (using &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_romanization_of_Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yale romanization&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, all of the Chinese varieties each have underwent their own set of sound changes. Because sound changes are typically systematic, words that were pronounced similarly tended retain their similarity even as their underlying pronunciations changed so the phonetic parts of characters are often still relevant. However, as shown by the example, sometimes initial slight differences between them could also end up being magnified over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your question about Korean and Japanese, while they are not related to Chinese, they did initially borrow the pronunciations that came with those characters as well when they borrowed the vocabulary from Chinese. In the case of Japanese though, they assigned their own &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#Kun.27yomi_.28Japanese_reading.29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;non-Chinese readings&lt;/a&gt; to many characters, so any phonetic hints in the original characters would no longer apply to those readings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Korean language (to my knowledge at least) used Chinese characters only for Sino-Korean words of Chinese origin, and did not assign non-Chinese readings to them; for this reason, the phonetic hints for Chinese character readings in Korean are still relevant. For instance, according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary%3aMain_Page&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;, the pronunciations of the four example characters above in Korean are &lt;code&gt;gong&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;gang&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;hong/gong&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;hang&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that an added complication is that different words may have been imported into Korean and Japanese during differing periods, so their pronunciations will reflect the state and variety of Chinese used at that time. This may also end up making the phonetic hints not as reliable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2014-05-20T19:16:29.313" LastActivityDate="2014-05-20T19:16:29.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6974" CreationDate="2014-05-20T22:05:36.230" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;嘴馋 should be the one. 馋 in this case means piggish or greedy for food, particularly in a situation that one is not really hungry, but just wants something to be in the mouth for chewing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-05-22T05:33:45.310" LastActivityDate="2014-05-22T05:33:45.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6977" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-21T01:42:41.617" Score="4" ViewCount="317" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I say my patience is wearing thin or my patience is running out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess if I were to translate it, I'd say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的耐心越来越少&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That doesn't seem right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T03:41:56.630" Title="My patience is running out" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6977" CreationDate="2014-05-21T02:23:43.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can choose to use the following sentences, which sounds more Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我越来越不耐烦了。&#xA;我的耐心是有限的。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T02:23:43.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6977" CreationDate="2014-05-21T02:24:56.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我正在失去耐心.......................&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T02:24:56.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6980" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6983" CreationDate="2014-05-21T04:00:15.040" Score="10" ViewCount="1033" Body="&lt;p&gt;These 4 words (实际, 现实, 确实, and 实在) all mean different combinations of 'real', 'indeed', 'practical', 'really', and 'reality'. Is there any easy way to distinguish, remember and understand the differences between these 4 words? Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3805" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T06:37:02.837" Title="Difference between 实际, 现实, 确实, and 实在" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6977" CreationDate="2014-05-21T05:52:35.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我快要失去耐心了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的耐心快要用完了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, your sentence &quot;我的耐心越来越少&quot; is also a right answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4596" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T05:52:35.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6982" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-21T06:24:57.167" Score="3" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a tutoring website with many teachers on it. On the front page, there is a button to browse the profiles of all the teachers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is &lt;code&gt;访问老师&lt;/code&gt; the correct translation?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3998" LastEditorUserId="3512" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T06:49:46.300" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T06:49:46.300" Title="The Chinese of &quot;Browse Teachers&quot; : 访问老师？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6980" CreationDate="2014-05-21T06:37:02.837" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to try and make this as clear and simple as I can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实际：practical/actual(ality)&#xA;实际上：&quot;in fact,....&quot;&#xA;很实际：very practical&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现实：real/reality&#xA;现实生活中：in real life&#xA;成为现实：to be realized&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;确实：indeed/really &#xA;确实好：it really &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实在：really/honestly/truly&#xA;实在对不起：truly sorry&#xA;这个人很实在：he's really down to earth &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as remembering I would highly suggest you understand what each individual character means...most Chinese words are compounds (two words put together) - for instance if we look at 确实 we have: (确 certain + 实 substantial = verified to be true, indeed). This kind of understanding will give you a huge advantage to learning Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T06:37:02.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6982" CreationDate="2014-05-21T06:40:41.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Browse - as in to browse online is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浏览&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Key dictionary says:&#xA;1 browse (on the web)&#xA;2 glance over&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you want to say browse as in &quot;I'm just browsing&quot; (when the shopkeeper asks you what you're looking for) would just be a simple 看看.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: a better translation might just be &quot;详细资料&quot;....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-05-21T07:29:27.547" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T07:29:27.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6964" CreationDate="2014-05-21T08:20:32.023" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;One may, of course, argue that Go is a &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; sophisticated game. While a 30-node supercomputer could already beat a world chess champion in 1996, supercomputers with hundreds of cores were unable to beat a Go Master &lt;em&gt;without handicaps&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Go&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;until 2012&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, your question is invalid, not because Go is a highly intellectual game, but because &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;the Four Arts of the Chinese Scholar&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; is a mistranslation of the term 四藝 (&amp;quot;four arts&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese character 藝 can refer to various skills, arts or crafts. E.g. 武藝 means &amp;quot;martial arts&amp;quot; and 工藝 means &amp;quot;crafts&amp;quot;. Those arts or skills that are more intellectual and do not require much labour or physical strength fall inside the category of &lt;strong&gt;文藝&lt;/strong&gt; (literally &amp;quot;literary arts&amp;quot;, but it includes other intellectual or art activities/skills than writing novels or poetries). Some people nowadays translate the word 文藝 to &amp;quot;scholarly arts&amp;quot;, but this is a poor translation if not wrong. Twisting &amp;quot;scholarly arts&amp;quot; into &amp;quot;arts of scholars&amp;quot; is a further distortion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if we put the translation issues aside, there is no such thing as &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;the&lt;/strong&gt; Four Arts of the Chinese Scholar&amp;quot; in classical Chinese. The phrase &amp;quot;琴棋書畫&amp;quot; did appear in ancient Chinese literature, but it was not meant to be representative of &amp;quot;scholarly arts&amp;quot;. The earliest known appearance of the phrase is in the calligraphy commentaries 法書要錄 (circa 780 AD) written by 張彥遠. &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06067704.cn#page/n220/mode/2up&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The relevant sentence&lt;/a&gt; says that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;辯才博學工文，琴棋書畫皆得其妙。&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Biàncái was erudite and skillful in various 文藝; he knew the very essence of musical performance, chess, calligraphy and painting.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Remark: the 辯才 here is not the word for &amp;quot;eloquence&amp;quot; but the name of a person).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the author merely wrote that Biàncái was good at many 文藝 and they happened to be 琴, 棋, 書 and 畫. He didn't claim or imply that 琴棋書畫 were &lt;strong&gt;the&lt;/strong&gt; four most representative 文藝 activities in Biàncái's or his own times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the prose 閒情偶寄 (1671), the author 李漁 did call 琴棋書畫 &amp;quot;the four arts&amp;quot;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/02097228.cn#page/n108/mode/2up&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;He wrote&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;以閨秀自命者，書、畫、琴、棋四藝，均不可少。&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those whose viewed themselves as ladies must know four arts, namely, calligraphy, painting, musical instruments and chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, these are at best &amp;quot;the four arts of &lt;strong&gt;ladies&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;, not &amp;quot;the four arts of &lt;strong&gt;Chinese scholars&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At any rate, Go is clearly an intellectual activity that should be classified as 文藝 instead of 武藝 or 工藝.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user4086" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T10:51:22.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6986" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-21T12:57:15.030" Score="3" ViewCount="753" Body="&lt;p&gt;And are there any proper ways to translate the action “抠脚”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your comments and answers. Although there is an &quot;引经据典的&quot;answer, 我本来是想知道它的字面意思。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I tried Google translation which regrad 抠脚 as 抠出芯片的引脚。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forgive my poor English...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4450" LastEditorUserId="4450" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T11:37:11.553" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T11:37:11.553" Title="How do we translate the Chinese slang “抠脚大汉” into English？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6986" CreationDate="2014-05-21T14:16:05.927" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Baidu baike:&#xA;网络语言，抠脚大汉即字面意思为抠脚的男人。事实上网络用语解释为：指一些猥琐男人在网络上扮女生，引围观，然后看着聊天记录一边抠脚一边大笑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抠脚 : to scratch ones legs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抠脚大汉 ：Internet creep&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T14:16:05.927" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6988" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6990" CreationDate="2014-05-21T14:31:27.403" Score="-1" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm getting this error message.&lt;br /&gt;I need help finding out what this means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xAjMp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4597" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T18:28:27.300" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T18:28:27.300" Title="What does this mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2014-05-22T03:54:52.640" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6988" CreationDate="2014-05-21T15:25:26.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;找不到网络名 - Literally means &quot;couldn't find the network name&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In computer terms, it could mean that you either lost the internet connection or the network the application was going to connect does not exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T15:25:26.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="189" CreationDate="2014-05-21T21:56:59.327" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;妳 is used more in Taiwan and Honk Kong where traditional Chinese is the official language while 你 is used generally to indicate both genders in mainland China where simplified Chinese is used. Actually, nowadays in Taiwan and Honk Kong more and more people use 你 for both male and female, unless in a particular situation that a man or boy is writing a love letter to his lover, 妳 would be used to show more uniqueness and respect and so forth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T21:56:59.327" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6982" CreationDate="2014-05-22T02:35:57.757" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;师资介绍&quot; is better. As a Chinese native speaker, It's very intertesting for me to got this site. :D hahaha&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4603" LastActivityDate="2014-05-22T02:35:57.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6977" CreationDate="2014-05-22T02:38:59.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我快没耐心了&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;or&#xA;&lt;code&gt;我等不及了&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4604" LastActivityDate="2014-05-22T02:38:59.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6977" CreationDate="2014-05-22T05:22:18.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我快要生气了，literally means I'm almost angry. This is particularly said by a mom when she is losing patience with her kids.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-22T05:22:18.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="253" CreationDate="2014-05-22T05:43:21.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;可以 means may or can, it is usually used to ask for or to give permit to do something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能 means may, can or be able to, it is used more to show an ability to do something as well as to ask for or to give permit to do something.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会 means can or will, it is used to show an ability to do something. Be careful here, 会 also means will or would, it is a future tense indicator in this case&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-22T05:43:21.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6982" CreationDate="2014-05-22T06:18:30.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with kayneo. “师资介绍” is the saying that we would pick up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4574" LastActivityDate="2014-05-22T06:18:30.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="253" CreationDate="2014-05-22T10:31:32.300" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problems with these are because &quot;can&quot; or be able to&quot; does not make these distinctions in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以 = Involves social permission and the question of whether something is &quot;permitted&quot; (or not) based on the way social relations are ordered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会 = Involves an ability (or not) that you acquired through direct experience or instruction. You are able to do certain things because of the knowledge you have acquired. We use this word with swimming because we believe that swimming is not a skill that we are born with but rather must be acquired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能 = Involves an ability that you have because your base physical constitution alone permits it. Machines or tools may extend a native ability as in night goggles that permit you to see at night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastActivityDate="2014-05-22T10:31:32.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6998" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6999" CreationDate="2014-05-22T15:10:46.930" Score="2" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;很笨&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard my doctor refer to his employees on some occasion using the phrase hen ben (I assume he meant 很笨). When I first heard it I was a bit bothered. Should I be upset when this term is used or is this &quot;light teasing&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried to evaluate this snippet a bit via research and came up with this &lt;a href=&quot;https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100722191750AAnVqUP&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;discussion&lt;/a&gt; on Yahoo Answers. A wider &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/custom?domains=www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk&amp;amp;q=stupid&amp;amp;sa=Search&amp;amp;sitesearch=www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk&amp;amp;client=pub-7666422977838952&amp;amp;forid=1&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;oe=UTF-8&amp;amp;cof=GALT%3a#E9382F;GL:1;DIV%3a#CCCCCC;VLC:7E3939;AH%3acenter;BGC%3aFFFFFF;LBGC:991122;ALC%3aE9382F;LC%3aE9382F;T:000000;GFNT:7E3939;GIMP:7E3939;LH:50;LW:292;L%3ahttp://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/images/icons/searchhomeicon.gif;S%3ahttp://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk;FORID:1;&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;channel=6624377293&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;variation&lt;/a&gt; appears on CantoDict (Cantonese/Mandarin). I guess there are varying degrees of insults and I'm simply curious to what extent this colloquialism applies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T15:26:30.397" Title="Relative strength of 很笨 and it's variants" Tags="&lt;slang&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6998" CreationDate="2014-05-22T15:56:01.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should be upset. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be upset if my employer said I was &quot;很笨&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很笨 pretty much means what you would think it means &quot;very stupid&quot;. Teasing on the other hand would be something more along the lines of 傻瓜, etc — and depending on the tone you should be able to tell teasing from non-teasing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-22T15:56:01.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7000" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7001" CreationDate="2014-05-22T22:40:04.270" Score="2" ViewCount="657" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 早 and 早晨?  I hear people say 早晨好 sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it refer to a different time in the day?   They both say morning in my dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4609" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T13:42:43.993" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T09:36:51.250" Title="What is the difference between 早 and 早晨? E.g. 早晨好" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7000" CreationDate="2014-05-22T23:21:01.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;早 is not morning, it means &quot;early&quot; in general. 我早知道了！吃早饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早上 is morning in general. 早上好！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早晨 is also morning, but earlier, at daybreak, in the very early morning hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The day is divided into twelve 时辰, where 寅时 is before dawn, the 凌晨.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then comes the 卯时 between 5 and 7, the 黎明, the dawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辰时 is the next two hour period between 7 and 9, the 早晨.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 9 is 上午, but 早上 refers to the greater morning period in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-22T23:21:01.313" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6141" CreationDate="2014-05-23T00:59:52.967" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is there a difference between &quot;Ẓ&quot; and &quot;ẓ&quot;?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a thorough review of several texts and online sources I cannot find any evidence of a significant difference in the usage between the uppercase and the lowercase Z with a diacritic dot below the letter. I think the context is pertinent in discovering the intent of the usage (Can you share the textual reference?). But lack of evidence is not sufficient to rule out the possibility of a difference. Here is what I have found so far (I will continue once I get a contextual point of reference):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacritic#Transliteration&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;underdot&lt;/a&gt; is a common transliteration element used in different languages whose appearance in a Chinese language volume appears to indicate usage of the term from an older romanisation system. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BA%92#Translingual&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikitionary&lt;/a&gt; classifies the symbol as Translingual (which implies its usage as a phonetic code). The current &lt;a href=&quot;http://loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/chinese.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;library of Congress&lt;/a&gt; romanisation does not include this term and does provide references to other sources for disambiguation of conflicting text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsolete_and_nonstandard_symbols_in_the_International_Phonetic_Alphabet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; on obsolete and non-standard IPA symbols indicate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Several symbols indicating secondary articulation have been dropped&#xA;  altogether, with the idea that such things should be indicated with&#xA;  diacritics: ʮ for z̩ʷ is one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The IPA &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-charts/ipa-symbols-chart-complete/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;symbol chart&lt;/a&gt; appears to have a [related?] symbol (note the glyph used in the symbol may be a font variant) described as &quot;Voiced labial-palatal approximate,&quot; however the underdot shown on IPA is described as &quot;Voiceless&quot;. I've reviewed the Chinese phonetic transcription systems listed on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.omniglot.com/chinese/chinese2.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Omniglot&lt;/a&gt; without finding these symbols and several offline books (again without success). As a student of both Cantonese and Mandarin, I've even taken a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://sidneylau.com/en/sidney-lau-cantonese-romanization-system-pronunciation-guide-tones.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sydney Lau&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade%E2%80%93Giles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wade-Giles&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer-Wempe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Meyer-Wempe&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_romanization_of_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yale&lt;/a&gt; romanisations systems. I do have one other &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0966075005&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dictionary&lt;/a&gt; (which is currently missing) that may have further references. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checking on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesenotes.com/syllables_ipa.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese Notes&lt;/a&gt; revealed little new insight on the origin/behaviour of this symbol. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nciku&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zdic&lt;/a&gt; (surprisingly) also came up empty while researching this symbol. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyin.info/romanization/compare/tongyong.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pinyin Info&lt;/a&gt; reviews several romanisation systems. At this point I have not been able to conclude that the variance is insignificant and require further information to continue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other texts evaluated include&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chen, J., &amp;amp; Simms, E.G. (1992). &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0804818770&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;A Practical English-Chinese Pronouncing Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;McNaughton, W., &amp;amp;  Li, Y. (1999). &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0804832064&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Reading &amp;amp; Writing Chinese: Traditional Character Edition, A Comprehensive Guide to the Chinese Writing System&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Liu,Y.H, Yao, T.C., Bi, N.P., &amp;amp; Ge, L.Y. (2006) &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0887276482&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Integrated Chinese - Traditional &amp;amp; Simplified Character Edition - Workbook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Liu,Y.H,  Yao, T.C., Bi, N.P., &amp;amp; Ge, L.Y. (2006) &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0887276881&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Integrated Chinese - Traditional &amp;amp; Simplified Character Edition - Textbook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Liu,Y.H, Yao, T.C. Bi, N.P., &amp;amp; Ge, L.Y. (2006) &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0887276482&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Integrated Chinese - Traditional &amp;amp; Simplified Character Edition - Character book&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lau, S. (1972) &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B001RYZ0MQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Elementary Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lau, S. (1972) &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B000S2URBC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Intermediate Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T01:06:19.523" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T01:06:19.523" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7005" CreationDate="2014-05-23T03:31:12.033" Score="12" ViewCount="1238" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read a bunch of answers on 百度知道 but they are all very vague, indecisive and unauthoritative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;1&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么人们喜欢用那字，那是因为用的人多，人们大多都没有自己的想法，别人说什么，别人什么说地多，他觉得不用就是落伍了。就这样，时间一长就很多人在说了，而且觉得自己特牛，会用那字。恨不能见谁都说。这不是很幼稚吗。&#xA;就像“晕”字，现在人们聊天也老喜欢用，跟那是差不多的。只是骂人跟觉得别人不懂表达的区别。 一楼那人说这跟日本有关系。这应该有关系。&#xA;但是这肯定是没有什么可查的。谁都不知道是怎么用起来的。 如果真的是抵触日本情绪，那用这字来骂同胞，真让人搞不懂！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;2&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西北一带都用这个字骂人的，意思都是一样的，其实这个”日”字并不是正确的，真只表达这个意思的那个”日”是一个”尸”字头的字，至于到底怎么写就不记得了，曾经在红楼梦里见过的，康熙字典里应该能查的到的．．．．汉语里很多关于”性”方面的字都是”尸”字头的，只是现代汉语里已经不常见了&#xA;有一种解释为骂日/本/人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;3&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日是象形字，可分成“口”和“一”，口是女性性器官的象形意思，“一”就不用讲了，一插进口，你也懂了，就是操。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess was that it had to do with Chinese peoples hatred of Japanese people and thus becoming a curse word. So whats the deal? Where does this word come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-26T13:31:03.623" Title="What is the origin of '日' as a curse word?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7003" CreationDate="2014-05-23T03:39:36.617" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually the Chinese chanters is actually from 象形文字 slowly become traditional Chinese character then simplified Chinese characters. for more accurate information you may do more research on 象形文字 so that you will understand the transformation process of the character characters .I think it will help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit : I did some of research.. I dont think the word  日 got to do anything with Japanese&#xA;This is what I found “日”字就像一个圆形，中间有一点，很像人们在直视太阳时，所看到的形态。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4610" LastEditorUserId="4610" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T03:59:41.770" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T03:59:41.770" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7003" CreationDate="2014-05-23T03:59:20.727" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;日 sounds like 入 when stressing the vowels. Compare with the character 肏 for the literal meaning of 入 in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T03:59:20.727" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6982" CreationDate="2014-05-23T06:42:24.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest..  师资简介 . hope it helps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4610" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T06:42:24.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7007" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7008" CreationDate="2014-05-23T08:18:45.493" Score="4" ViewCount="387" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to learn some vocabulary thanks to memrise.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the word list, 师 is mentionned two times, once meaning &quot;teacher&quot;(pinyin: shi1), the second one as an adjective meaning &quot;handsome, smart&quot; (pinyin shuai4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find the second meaning anywhere else online. Is this an error from the site, or something deprecated or unusual ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="133" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T00:37:20.960" Title="Clarification on 师 meaning" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7007" CreationDate="2014-05-23T08:21:09.010" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Similar characters:&#xA;师 shi1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帅 shuai4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would imagine someone mixed them up accidentally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T08:21:09.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7009" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-05-23T08:45:20.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any questions relating to Chinese dialects or topolects other than Mandarin or Cantonese should use this tag. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word dialect, although often used incorrectly by linguistic standards, is the main term for varieties in Chinese (be it an actual dialect or a completely different language in itself). Here it can be defined as any non-standard language used in and around China. Further information can be found on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_varieties_of_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T20:13:59.600" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T20:13:59.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7010" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-05-23T08:45:20.830" Score="0" Body="questions about Chinese dialects or topolects" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T20:13:51.623" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T20:13:51.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7011" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-05-23T08:51:06.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;topolect is defined as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A set of similar dialects constituting any of the larger distinct&#xA;  regional varieties of a language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example, Mandarin Chinese is a topolect that includes the dialects&#xA;  of Beijing and Nanjing, and is distinct from Hakka, another topolect&#xA;  of Chinese. [topo- + (dia)lect (translation of Chinese (Mandarin)&#xA;  fāngyán, regional speech : fāng, place + yán, language).]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus making it a more appropriate term for what are usually called 'dialects'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T20:14:07.567" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T20:14:07.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7012" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-05-23T08:51:06.120" Score="0" Body="Questions regarding regional variants of the Chinese language" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T04:59:42.877" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T04:59:42.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6141" CreationDate="2014-05-23T10:13:24.280" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's quite clear that there is no difference between &quot;Ẓ&quot; and &quot;ẓ&quot; in the 1987 成都话方言词典 as you have shown. If you look at page 26 of the dictionary, you can see everything that starts with &quot;ẓ&quot; in the particular Chengdu Pinyin system that they have, listed from ẓán to ẓùn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really then, this is a typographical question. Looking at the page, you see that there's plenty of typographical variation, with severe difficulties aligning the underdot of the ẓ below the line. Occasionally, this stretches the verticality of the ẓ character, e.g. in ẓóng,  making it appear a little like a majuscule character where it should be a normal miniscule. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a more linguistic level, &quot;ẓ&quot; in this Chengdu Pinyin system corresponds with &quot;r&quot; in the Sichuan Dialect Dictionary 四川方言词典, also published in 1987, although both correspond to   the phoneme /z/. Note that &quot;z&quot; is the romanised version of /ts/ in both, as it is in standard 汉语拼音 too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, Sichuanese does exhibit the phenomenon of 儿化 érhuà, independently of this phoneme (see 桡片儿 ẓáo pěr in the dictionary). The 成都话方言词典 Chengdu Dialect Dictionary treats them as separate phonemes which happen to be in complementary distribution, whilst the 四川方言词典 Sichuan Dialect Dictionary treats them like 汉语拼音 Hanyu Pinyin does, as realisations of a single /r/ phoneme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T10:13:24.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7016" CreationDate="2014-05-24T03:39:42.870" Score="1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone point me to distinct, accurate terms for 'authentication' and 'validation' in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is in a web development context, and I can only find 验证 as the best word for both of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When writing about web development, that's quite a big problem as these are both important and distinct concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some dictionaries give 证明 for authentication, but I get the impression that isn't appropriate for authenticating with a website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has 身份验证 for authentication, which isn't bad. Currently I'm using 数据验证 for validation and 用户验证 for authentication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2462" LastActivityDate="2014-05-24T04:25:48.487" Title="Distinct terms for 'authentication' and 'validation'? Both seem to be 验证" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7015" CreationDate="2014-05-24T04:25:48.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;authenticate ＝ 核实&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;authenticate here means to prove your identity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;validate ＝ 验证&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;captcha is 验证码&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-24T04:25:48.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7017" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-24T08:43:44.633" Score="1" ViewCount="511" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a good online site to keep track of chinese words I've learned. I've looked at memrise.com, but found it lacking in features since its not linked to a dictionary and I have to manually enter character, pinyin and english. I've also looked at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.nciku.com/&lt;/a&gt; which seems to has a nice vocabulary list which is integrated with their dictionary. Both of these sites also has the ability to generate &quot;tests&quot; for you to help you test and remember things you've learned in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other options available out there? What are you guys using?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jaco&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4615" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T22:54:38.013" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T22:54:38.013" Title="Keeping track of words learned" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-05-29T05:02:19.957" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7018" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-24T09:53:51.883" Score="3" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone tell me if these two words in the image below are equivalent? The top word I grabbed from an image, the bottom word I am creating in photoshop by typing in what I believe is the correct characters: 更容易，才能 but can't seem to precisely match the 2nd to last character when it renders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a significant difference, or perhaps just a font-issue? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GIEsj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4616" LastActivityDate="2014-05-26T13:21:05.167" Title="Are these two Chinese words the same ( 更容易，才能)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3496" CreationDate="2014-05-24T10:52:28.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;西方人&lt;/em&gt; would be the most neutral term I can think of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-24T10:52:28.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7017" CreationDate="2014-05-24T10:58:02.343" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a close search of the SE site is what's called for here. Doing so I was able to find a link to Yellowbridge.com and it's memory game (an alternative to flash cards). &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/mtch-options.php?deck=ic-1-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/mtch-options.php?deck=ic-1-1&lt;/a&gt;. There are other websites like &lt;a href=&quot;http://lingomi.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lingomi.com&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt; that may prove useful.  Chinesetools.com is another. A Google search will yield many more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-05-24T10:58:02.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7017" CreationDate="2014-05-24T11:03:06.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Skritter&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn vocab and hand writing at the same time, while keeping track of your vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-24T11:03:06.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2673" CreationDate="2014-05-24T12:57:37.623" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese meaning for &quot;yellow &quot; has nothing to do with Pron.  In contrast with the English, it has more of the meaning of sexual thoughts, or expressions of sexual content in mind displayed in conversation, non verbal communication. An individual can look yellow, or have yellow thoughts. or say yellow words.  In fact in American slang, we would use the word &quot;Nasty&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4617" LastActivityDate="2014-05-24T12:57:37.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7018" CreationDate="2014-05-24T13:11:26.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone tell me if these two words in the image below are equivalent? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a significant difference, or perhaps just a font-issue? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fonts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The font Song might give you the desired result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-24T13:11:26.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7024" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-24T15:41:38.283" Score="4" ViewCount="819" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that my sougou pinyin program doesn't even have 她们的 in the choices, how strict is this gender difference applied in writing, Maybe some specific questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I refer to a group of people of both genders. would &quot;their&quot;be &lt;code&gt;他们的&lt;/code&gt;， does the male form take precedence here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I refer to a group of females, is 他们的 acceptable or does it have to be 她们的 ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I refer to a group of animals, should it always be 它们的 ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4618" LastEditorUserId="653" LastEditDate="2014-05-26T21:14:58.187" LastActivityDate="2014-05-26T21:14:58.187" Title="How strict is pronoun gender applied in writing" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7024" CreationDate="2014-05-24T15:49:12.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very strict! Since there is no conjugation for verbs in Chinese, to use proper pronoun gender is very important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-24T15:49:12.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7024" CreationDate="2014-05-24T16:14:05.993" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I refer to a group of people of both genders. would &quot;their&quot;be 他们的， does the male form take precedence here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I refer to a group of females, is 他们的 acceptable or does it have to be 她们的 ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are acceptable but if you really wanted to be &lt;em&gt;specific&lt;/em&gt; then 她们的 would be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I refer to a group of animals, should it always be 它们的 ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe  牠 would be more appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there are a few different 'ta's depending on what you want to say -- even one for 'gods' or deities &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-05-25T09:01:42.540" LastActivityDate="2014-05-25T09:01:42.540" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7024" CreationDate="2014-05-25T07:18:57.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他 is used for males and someone(s) whose gender is either unknown or unimportant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for a group of both females and males, normally 他们 should be used. For a group of people of females, 他们 could be used where there is no implication on the genders of the people in question. For example, if you are talking about a group of people, who are not necessarily all females, but happen to be all females and this fact is not important, you can use 他们. If the group in question is obviously all females, you'd better use 她们, e.g. Referring to four queens as 他们 is not recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;她&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她 is used for females.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is only applicable when referring to single female or a group of females.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;它&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 他 and 她 are used for people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For things, use 它 no matter it's a concrete object (a pen, a dog) or abstract object (a country, an ideology).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use 它 referring to people, there would be an implication that the person being referred to is not considered human. This normally is an insult in Chinese culture and the person may be offended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike English, baby is considered people, so don't use 它 for baby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anthropomorphically, 她/他 can be used to refer things other than people, commonly pets and animals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你 vs. 妳&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are writing in Traditional Chinese, there would also be a gender distinction in the second person pronouns as 你 vs. 妳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2014-05-25T07:30:23.460" LastActivityDate="2014-05-25T07:30:23.460" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3496" CreationDate="2014-05-25T07:23:18.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;strong&gt;Mandarin&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the most proper and natural words are 白人，白种人，西方人. Other words like 白皮, 洋人 and 鬼佬 are more or less ironic or offensive. It would be a good idea not to use these words if you want to appear polite. In addition, 外国人 is an extensive word for foreigners, which is not necessarily negative but contains a sence of alienation. And 老外 is an emotional derived term for 外国人. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a term 黄种人 identifying Mongoloids but almost only used when making a comparison with Negroids or Europoids. Thus the short form 黄人 is a rather obesolete one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4619" LastActivityDate="2014-05-25T07:23:18.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7029" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7034" CreationDate="2014-05-25T17:21:57.370" Score="2" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I am studying idioms and in many cases I come across one whose words I understand but whose meaning must apparently lie in a deeper story. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P5ZdD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wise Talk app&lt;/a&gt; gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;來鴻去燕 (lai2 hong2 qu4 yan4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[literally] the goose comes, the swallow goes; (always on the move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, I keep thinking there must be a larger story that would put the entire thing in context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any thoughts on the source of the idiomatic expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any resource for etymology of idioms would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T00:16:49.873" Title="來鴻去燕 interpreting idioms" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3496" CreationDate="2014-05-25T21:38:58.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 白人 is more colloquial, and also quite neutral at the same time. 白人 doesn't necessarily translated to White people, it is also referred to Caucasian by some native speakers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-25T21:38:58.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7018" CreationDate="2014-05-25T21:46:23.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;更容易 could mean easier or more easily,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才能 could mean then be able to (as a verb) or talent and ability (as a noun),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would say they are equivalent (i.e. more easily to do something or then we are able to do something) in a way, but not exactly interchangeable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-25T21:46:23.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7032" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7033" CreationDate="2014-05-26T01:16:43.380" Score="8" ViewCount="777" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between these two words 叫做 and 叫作? The dictionary definition is quite similar and when I use this term in conversation I am unaware of which character combination I am using.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T07:36:53.213" Title="What is the difference between these two words 叫做 and 叫作?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7032" CreationDate="2014-05-26T02:26:34.473" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have same meaning, same usage and same pronunciation, basically you don't need to figure out them consciously especially in spoken Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但实际上两者并没有什么区别，也就是说“叫作”同“叫做”，而“叫做”同“叫作”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here're some more clarifications; it seems 叫做 is the standard usage formerly, but 叫作 is recommended more now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而我又翻看了现在的一些教材，发现现在版本教材上写的都是“叫作”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上网查了下之后，发现2011年时全国科学技术名词审定委会和国家语言文字工作委员会推荐的是使用“叫作”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而《现代汉语规范词典》每一版对于“叫作”和“叫做”的记载也都不同。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bX6WA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bX6WA.png&quot; alt=&quot;现代汉语3/5/6版本的不同解释&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在大体上理解，曾经是以“叫做”为标准，但是现在更推荐的都是“叫作”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;简单的说这俩词是互用互通的，而也有些资料上显示“叫作”本身就是错误用法，但现在与“叫做”混用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv125296/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;叫做还是叫作？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-06-01T07:36:53.213" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T07:36:53.213" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7029" CreationDate="2014-05-26T02:50:29.143" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was a bit of a challange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the information is pretty much the same as Stan commented above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;词语解释&#xA;比喻行踪漂泊不定的人。 清 黄景仁 《稚存从新安归作此寄之》诗：“来鸿去燕江干路，露宿风飞各朝暮。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成语解释&#xA;解释&#xA;◎ 比喻行踪漂泊不定的人。&#xA;出处&#xA;◎ 清·黄景仁《稚存从新安归作此寄之》诗：“来鸿去燕江干路，露宿风飞各朝暮。”&#xA;语法&#xA;◎ 联合式；作宾语、定语；含贬义&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of this really answers the question though. Searches for 来鸿去燕 don't elaborate at all and that's just the problem - it's so easy to over-complicate Chinese; what originally was very simple is very easily complicated by our strange minds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's look at this as simply as we can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We have 来。。。去。。。a very simple + common construct &quot;to come &amp;amp; to go&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;鸿 &amp;amp; 燕&#xA;So let's look in the dictionary for 鸿燕:&#xA;汉语大辞典:&#xA;鸿雁和燕子。两者均为候鸟。于 长江 一带, 前者秋来春去, 后者秋去春来。&#xA;Swan goose &amp;amp; swallow. Two migratory birds. Along the Yangtze River the swan goose comes in the autumn and leaves in the spring, the swallow leaves in the autumn and comes in the spring.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清 方文 《芜阴送钱既白游太湖》诗&#xA;我方來爾邑, 爾復去吾鄉。交錯如鴻燕, 拼飛爲稻粱。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see the usage here:&#xA;交錯如鴻燕&#xA;Zigzagging like swans and swallows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can get the feel of the &quot;one comes&quot; the &quot;other leaves&quot; concept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we can see 来鸿去燕 is kind of like zigzagging all over the place - leaving and going - coming and going.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-26T02:50:29.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7024" CreationDate="2014-05-26T07:06:31.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experiences, the pronoun gender is strict when it comes to singular forms. For instance, 他 and 她 are usually strictly distinguished between (although they sound the same).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when it comes to plural forms, it is not that strict. The difference between 他們 and 她們 is not that important, and it is not necessarily to take into account the relative majority of either gender.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mind you, 他 and 她 (he &amp;amp; she) are not distinguished between in traditional Chinese, but 你 and 妳 the other way around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notably, when writing in traditional Chinese, other &lt;em&gt;ta&lt;/em&gt;-pronouns are also strictly distinguished between, such as 他 (he), 她 (she), 它(it), 牠 (refer to animals), 祂 (refer to god).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3516" LastActivityDate="2014-05-26T07:06:31.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7032" CreationDate="2014-05-26T12:59:29.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;叫做 is more casual and 叫作 is less casual. Usually in Cantonese Chinese, we use 叫作 in writing and 叫做 in speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4481" LastEditorUserId="390" LastEditDate="2014-05-27T06:05:09.990" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T06:05:09.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7018" CreationDate="2014-05-26T13:21:05.167" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes they are the same, just font issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4481" LastActivityDate="2014-05-26T13:21:05.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7003" CreationDate="2014-05-26T13:31:03.623" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, 日 doesn't related to any curse word, it just mean &quot;sun&quot; in Chinese. And I never heard someone use it as a curse word in Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4481" LastActivityDate="2014-05-26T13:31:03.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36" CreationDate="2014-05-26T13:34:36.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would probably need to learn 500 for very basic communication, but to be able to talk to someone, 2000 is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4481" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:51:00.690" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:51:00.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7041" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-26T14:34:53.480" Score="4" ViewCount="7557" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, can you write the character by strokes (that the pinyin input recognizes it and that the character can be found among all the other stored characters)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4628" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T06:26:11.693" Title="How to write &quot;BiángBiáng麵&quot; using pinyin?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7041" CreationDate="2014-05-26T14:58:48.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Biang biang mian 的 biang can't be typed because this character doesn't exist in any IME database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unicode&#xA;The character has not been added to Unicode yet, but is being considered by the IRG for inclusion in the CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E block.[1]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-26T14:58:48.567" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36" CreationDate="2014-05-26T20:28:27.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer to the first question is that the Official list of 2,000 characters contained in the book are what I would recommend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not qualified to answer regarding fluency and accept the answer of others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're interested in a good offline reference that you can study at length, I'd recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0804832064&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;McNaughton and Li's (1999)  Reading &amp;amp; Writing Chinese (Revised Edition)&lt;/a&gt;. The traditional version is just fine as it shows both Traditional and where needed Simplified versions of the characters: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sample of text:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9LOvO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;ReadingandWritingChineseSample&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other properties of this text (ignore cantonese handwritten notes):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Includes 1020 Character (Student List)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2000 Characters on the Official List&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sample usage of characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Explanation of the character&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stroke order diagram&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Radical Information&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Seems some cheap used copies available on Amazon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-08-12T12:37:01.073" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T12:37:01.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6910" CreationDate="2014-05-27T01:19:59.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Searching the dictionary at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&amp;amp;char=%E7%8E%89%E6%B6%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese Text Project&lt;/a&gt; offers some usage examples of 玉液 found in ancient Chinese literature, although I am unsure of the applicability in this case (maybe one of our native speakers or authoritative scholars might further elaborate on the sources presented below and at the website):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《楚辭·疾世》: 吮玉液兮止渴，齧芝華兮療饑。 Show complete text 《抱朴子·微旨》:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《抱朴子·微旨》:    長谷之山，杳杳巍巍，玄氣飄飄，玉液霏霏，金池紫房，在乎其隈，愚人妄往，至皆死歸，有道之士，登之不衰，採服黃精，以致天飛，此二山也。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《藝文類聚·總載山》:  《宋謝莊山夜憂》曰：庭光盡，山明歸，流風乘軒卷，明月緣河飛，澗鳥鳴兮夜蟬清，橘露靡兮蕙煙輕，凌別浦兮值泉躍，經喬林兮遇猿驚，南皋別鶴佇行漢，東鄰孤管入青天，沉痾白髮共急日，朝露過隙詎賒年，年去兮髮不還，金膏玉液豈留顏，迴舲拓繩戶，收棹掩荊關。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《西遊記·靈根育孕源流出　心性修持大道生》:   香桃爛杏，美甘甘似玉液瓊漿；脆李楊梅，酸蔭蔭如脂酥膏酪。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《三國演義·玄德用計襲樊城，元直走馬薦諸葛》:  玄德請徐庶飲酒，庶曰：「今聞老母被囚，雖金波玉液不能下咽矣。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《金瓶梅·西門慶熱結十弟兄　武二郎冷遇親哥嫂》: 思飲酒真個瓊漿玉液，不數那琥珀杯流；要鬥氣錢可通神，果然是頤指氣使。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《封神演義·雲中子進劍除妖》:  樓閣金輝來紫霧；交梨玉液駐朱顏。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《太平御覽·仙經上》:  王君賜玄水玉液，絳日丹芝，可授齄弟齋戒三月而服之。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《太平廣記·蘭公》:   第三塚有玉液丹，服之，白日便當冲翥。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《紅樓夢·賈寶玉神遊太虛境　警幻仙曲演紅樓夢》: 正是：「瓊漿滿泛玻璃盞，玉液濃斟琥珀杯。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《全唐詩·與生公遊石窟山》:   猶希咽玉液，從此升雲空。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T01:19:59.973" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3496" CreationDate="2014-05-27T09:39:23.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I sometimes heared people say 歐洲人 (European) vs 美國人 (American) which sounds very neutral to me as well. It would be kind of the same, here, as we refer to people from either China, Japan etc. (who we don't know for certain about where they're from, but somehow their appearance gives it away) as Asians，亞洲人. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With European vs American it would be an indication of how many oceans someone is away I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4628" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T09:39:23.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7047" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7052" CreationDate="2014-05-27T09:47:45.887" Score="1" ViewCount="1741" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just like the title says, what does 软文 and 小号 mean in internet slang?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还有就是严禁那些动不动就说是&lt;strong&gt;软文&lt;/strong&gt;或&lt;strong&gt;小号&lt;/strong&gt;的人发言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T10:14:45.727" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T10:14:45.727" Title="What does 软文 and 小号 mean in internet slang?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7048" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-27T09:49:22.677" Score="3" ViewCount="4976" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do hear people say that a lot to me in China and I am always surprised by the timings and situations in which people just, kind of bluntly I feel, say this. I wonder what all those situations would be where someone could say that to you and why it's been said so often, it seems prioritized to saying some other, more proper things (I believe) sometimes (as if appearance is the most important thing &quot;to talk about and mention&quot;, giving it a lot of priority.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4628" LastActivityDate="2014-06-08T13:39:09.420" Title="In what situations can one use 帥哥?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7048" CreationDate="2014-05-27T10:06:24.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;帥哥 (shuai ge), though it literally means &quot;handsome&quot;, has nothing to do with one's appearance. It's just a polite way for addressing a young person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any situation, in English, where one might say &quot;guy&quot; or &quot;gal&quot; can be replaced by this. So, anytime you may want to draw someone's attention or someone else may want to draw your attention, you could just use 帥哥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4628" LastEditDate="2014-06-04T21:34:55.913" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T21:34:55.913" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7048" CreationDate="2014-05-27T10:34:43.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;帥哥 is just a noun commonly use in Taiwan and sometimes in China. It have the same meaning to &quot;sir&quot;(not Madam!!), but more causal way to greet someone. You can also use it to a stranger as more polite and respect. Normally you won't use the 帥哥 to a friend or family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4481" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T10:34:43.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7047" CreationDate="2014-05-27T10:40:58.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't speak Chinese for long time(I am a Chinese!!) but I think 小号 means go to the toilet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4481" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T10:40:58.100" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7047" CreationDate="2014-05-27T11:10:57.260" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the Internet, 軟文 means an article intended as advertisement but disguised as ordinary posts. 小號 means the &lt;em&gt;auxiliary accounts&lt;/em&gt;, referring to the usual practice of cyber forum participants maintaining multiple accounts so that his or her posts can be &lt;em&gt;bumped&lt;/em&gt; up or appeared as if well received.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3516" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T11:10:57.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7053" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-27T11:47:54.790" Score="10" ViewCount="3324" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new on this website and my only objective is to get some answers. But the main question I have is: How and where to start learning Chinese? How to begin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4632" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T06:24:21.147" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T06:24:21.147" Title="How to get started learning Chinese?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="10" ClosedDate="2014-05-29T04:00:12.913" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7053" CreationDate="2014-05-27T12:30:54.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trying to find a local language exchanger would be a good idea, even if you are not living in China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4633" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T12:30:54.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="189" CreationDate="2014-05-27T13:23:28.660" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, no dictionaries have the Chinese characters 妳, only 你 is valid. 妳 is not acceptable at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong and Taiwan, 你 is for male while 妳 is for female.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice: 儞 and 嬭 are wrong, no such characters at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2014-05-28T06:23:44.240" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T06:23:44.240" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7053" CreationDate="2014-05-27T13:32:57.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't buy books to learn Chinese, that will never helps. Try to find a Chinese friend and ask him to teach you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4481" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T13:32:57.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7053" CreationDate="2014-05-27T14:32:36.747" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Learn Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could just assume you mean that you want to learn to speak Mandarin Chinese, but I'd like you to take a moment to share what you mean by &quot;learn chinese.&quot;  Since it will likely be the hardest thing you've ever tried to do, I'd recommend you consider the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mandarin is the most popular dialect and the official language spoken&#xA;throughout China (but many &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;variants&lt;/a&gt; exist) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you want to learn to read and write as well? (this can help&#xA;comprehension)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you have anyone you can practice with or would you need to partner&#xA;with someone who speaks the dialect you want to speak? (See &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.italki.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;italki.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Assuming you are not in China, you should Google your local Chinese&#xA;community to learn a bit about a &quot;china town&quot; near you (visiting a&#xA;local sit down Chinese restaurant and speaking with Chinese staff may&#xA;be a good way to get some interactive Chinese - let them know you want to learn, most Chinese people are pretty good about helping language learners practice)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Overview&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will likely want to review music, texts, and conversations. A common method of getting started is use of tourist books/apps/websites that focus on the most important phrases one needs. You can try to immerse yourself or take things very slowly. Eventually you will want to understand spoken Chinese in order to engage in a conversation. Without knowing your budget it would be hard to provide a precise plan. Generally, if you are looking for free help/products then you will be able to find these online by searching (just keep in mind that some of the resources may be hard to navigate). If your budget allows, you can look at buying a book or getting an introductory personal lesson (if you are near a big city or one with a large Chinatown).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Getting Started&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many of the questions/answers on this site actually end up providing good references to online resources. I suggest you start by &lt;em&gt;reviewing this site&lt;/em&gt; for references to other online sites that have audio, visual, spoken, and written materials. Here's one such &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/6780#6780&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;question&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. I recommend you review each answer and bookmark the websites. Many of the resources are free. You can also do a Google search. A used book on Reading &amp;amp; Writing Chinese can help, see my answer &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36/how-many-characters-do-i-need-to-learn/7043#7043&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for a good cheap source. You might also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Review Tutorials on Youtube&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check out Chinese Music Videos on Youtube (Here's a mix of some&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3C52C9ABD44ADEBB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;modern Chinese music&lt;/a&gt; or some &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chinese%20i%20am%20singer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;amazing singers from a popular show&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Review iTunes University for Chinese Material (if you have iTunes or&#xA;an iProduct, will also work just fine from browser as this &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/beginners-chinese-audio/id380227642?mt=10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check free mobile apps for your phone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bookmark many external sites mentioned in answers on this website (Here is a link that holds &lt;a href=&quot;http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin Sounds and Phonetics&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Start collecting language notes (you might try using Google Docs for this)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Books&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe in getting the right book and would encourage you to look for a book that is well organised. As an example, the book I mentioned earlier for Reading &amp;amp; Writing Chinese, introduces characters in a very logical order (with each character building on the next one). The result of this is that you will learn multiple characters that look similar at points where it is easy to see the relationships between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;McNaughton &amp;amp; Li (1999), p. 35, presents these characters in sequence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冂，囗，十， 田，厶 followed on p. 36 by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幺，八，小， 糹，累&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right book can ease the learning experience if well-ordered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Common Grammar Points&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese and English are both basically Subject Verb Object (&lt;a href=&quot;http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/Svo-Subject-Verb-Object.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SVO&lt;/a&gt;) languages so you will find many consistencies between the languages. This means one can take a basic sentence and simply replace with a Chinese synonym to have the same meaning. This is of course not always the case (meaning there are many variations) but I want to assure you that learning Mandarin is not only possible but can be easier if you think in grammatical terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I am American (person) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;wǒ shì měi guó rén&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我是美国人&#xA;  (more on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.brighthubeducation.com/learning-chinese/42645-mandarin-grammar-how-word-order-is-structured/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin Grammar Word Order&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.english-grammar-revolution.com/sentence-structure.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English Sentence Structure&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Free Mac OSX Chinese English Language Guide&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a Mac OSX Guide which details how to setup a Mac OSX system to enable Mandarin, Cantonese, and English speech, Pinyin Conversion, Chinese Writing, and Chinese-English Dictionaries (please check my profile for the links). Sorry that I don't have this for Windows but I've made everything one needs to get started for free. If I get a lot of requests for Windows setup then I'll pull together the material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://googledrive.com/host/0B8D3kbf8rViMMEN0aDVLdDNRb0U/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Video Demo of MCE Tools&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Final Thoughts&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need more help, please edit your question further and I can refine this answer. I encourage you to jump right in and enjoy the journey.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T19:35:20.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7053" CreationDate="2014-05-27T15:06:36.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many thought it is difficult to learn Mandarin Chinese. It is not quite true! It takes efforts and time to learn it well, but what doesn't? In our opinion, Chinese is one of the most interesting languages to learn in the world! Chinese is a picture language, which means ancient Chinese people draw different pictures as Chinese characters out of everything they saw in the environment! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the best way to learn well the language is to learn the radicals of the characters first, which by themselves usually have hints from the writing (or drawing) and then forms the characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some free tutorial videos about the basics of Chinese for you to get started: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesehulu.com/2011/11/the-basics-pinyin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinesehulu.com/2011/11/the-basics-pinyin/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good Luck Learning Chinese!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-05-27T15:35:53.617" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T15:35:53.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7048" CreationDate="2014-05-27T15:17:37.757" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, 帥哥 is more addressed to refer to young people. It's like &quot;Hey young man&quot; in English. No matter what, being young is a beauty. People call the young generation 帥哥 in memory of their own long passed golden youth years. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T15:17:37.757" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6998" CreationDate="2014-05-27T15:26:30.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say it depends on contexts. &quot;很笨&quot; could be just a mild upset or a teasing that doesn't matter at all. For example, a father could call his kids &quot;很笨&quot; when the kids made mistakes by not following his instructions or advice from a supervising perspective. So is it in the doctor case.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T15:26:30.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7053" CreationDate="2014-05-27T15:39:26.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Get up half an hour earlier every morning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Choose 15 characters to learn that day, write one line of each of them whilst trying to memeorize the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat those characters in the evening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are good if 5-7 will stay in your memory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After one year you shoul know 2500 characters ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Don't say learning to read is too difficult. 1 billion Chinese learn that by the time they are ten yeras old!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now for the easy bit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are only 214 components (&quot;radicals&quot;) that make up ALL characters. Therefore all lou have to learn is combining them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4634" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T15:39:26.127" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7041" CreationDate="2014-05-27T15:44:59.590" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Phonetic Substitution&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the character cannot currently be typed into a computer, wikipedia notes that one may use a phonetic substitution. I doubt that most people would recognise this 58 stroke original character in any case but at least this may be a usable substitute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Chinese character for &quot;biáng&quot; cannot be entered into computers.&#xA;  Therefore phonetic substitutes like Chinese: 彪彪面; pinyin: biāobiāo&#xA;  miàn) or Chinese: 冰冰面; pinyin: bīngbīng miàn) are often used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Wikipedia, n.d., &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi%C3%A1ngbi%C3%A1ng_noodles#Mnemonics&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biángbiáng_noodles#Mnemonics&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T15:44:59.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7063" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-27T18:22:08.120" Score="3" ViewCount="1677" Body="&lt;p&gt;Either close friends, family friends or fun/casual friends. E.g. &quot;hey ... (close/family/fun friend), what are you up to?&quot; I am looking for a word to replace the &quot;close/family/fun friend&quot; with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4628" LastEditorUserId="4628" LastEditDate="2014-05-28T08:38:41.933" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T21:34:37.797" Title="What word could you use to approach your friend in Chinese with?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7063" CreationDate="2014-05-27T18:54:55.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Words you could use to approach your friends in Chinese with are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老爸 (lao ba) for a dad or 老妈 (lao ma) for a mom. 老兄 (lao xiong) and 老哥 (lao ge) for older male persons and 老姐 (lao jie) for an older female person. 老弟 (lao di) for a younger male person and 老妹 (lao mei) for a younger female person.&#xA;In all of the mentioned examples, 老 (lao) doesn't mean old. Its closest English equivalent might be &quot;dear&quot;. As in &quot;dear ((younger)(fe)male) friend&quot;, &quot;dear mother&quot; etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way for approaching a good friend with whom one shares a lot of interests is 好小子 (hao xiao zi), which is an expression used irrespective of age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4628" LastEditDate="2014-06-04T21:34:37.797" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T21:34:37.797" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6303" CreationDate="2014-05-27T19:06:14.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some areas of China, 中秋餅 (Mid-Autumn Cake) is used to refer to moon cakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T19:06:14.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6465" CreationDate="2014-05-27T19:09:23.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;虎父无犬子 would also be a good one.（Literally means tiger fathers don't have dog sons）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-05-27T19:22:11.497" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T19:22:11.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7000" CreationDate="2014-05-27T19:21:26.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer you question, the difference between 早 and 早晨 is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早 means early by itself, however, in this case 早 means early part of the day, which is morning! In Chinese it is rare to use just one character to convey an idea, so 早上 (upper part of the daytime) is used to mean morning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早晨 means the time between early morning (凌晨 00:00-06:00) and morning (早上06:00-11:00)，so around 06:00 - 08:00.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually there is not a official cut off point for each period of the day, the definition above is based on me being a native speaker for more than 30 years.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T13:44:00.023" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T13:44:00.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6914" CreationDate="2014-05-27T19:26:31.130" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你確定要 开始 新遊戲？would be good if you mean to play another game instead of the one you'd been playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你確定要 再玩一次？ is better if you intend to start a new match in the game you'd been playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T19:26:31.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7007" CreationDate="2014-05-27T19:42:53.760" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is good to make a distinction here,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First they both have a 巾 radical, which means scarf,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;师 means a teacher with a stroke (hat) over the scarf (巾),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帅 means a leader (particularly a general in the battle field) when a teacher is taking off the hat and go on the battle field. Also, as an adjective it means handsome because a general in the battle field looks handsome (not necessarily appearance) because he or she must be brave and charismatic in the field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T19:42:53.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7053" CreationDate="2014-05-27T22:10:50.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had a wonderful experience learning Russian at the website Russianpod101.com There is also Chineseclass101.com run by the same company. You can get a 1-month free trial with this website. Many of their video lessons are posted on Youtube. I've been studying Russian at this website for 4 years and am at an intermediate level. You can reach as high a level as you want on this website. They have all the bells and whistles--flashcards, dictionaries grammar bank, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will also need a very comprehensive Chinese grammar book, a concise grammar book (easier to lift) and dictionary (available at amazon.com). also a fat book of Chinese verbs. But don't worry about verb conjugations--these don't exist in the Chinese language. I recommend that you don't go cheap on the book purchases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to the website and the textbooks, you eventually will want to subscribe to a Chinese television website which would include Chinese movies, live tv, recorded tv shows and such. Good for improving comprehension&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a couple years of learning the basics, you will want conversation practice. Go to mylanguageexchange.com to match up with a Chinese person who is learning English and you can converse via Skype.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also there is Chinese.stackexchange.com which is a storehouse of answers to questions about Chinese grammar, idioms and such. Be prepared for the long haul. I expect to still be studying Russian for many years to come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4639" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T22:10:50.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2014-05-27T22:19:32.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Total Recall&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find the best way to recall characters is reading. I have found lots of material that one can read online. I prefer fiction and find the work of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.geocities.jp/louisng888jp/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;倪匡&lt;/a&gt; pretty interesting (note: you will need to enable Traditional Chinese Windows encoding). Since I use a Mac, I have added multiple Chinese-English Dictionaries to the computer, which makes for easy lookup. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Music is also a very important way to remember characters. A good song goes quite a long way to help in this area as most folks tend to love memorable songs. One can search for song names, download lyrics, and singalong. In fact, there is a website for that at &lt;a href=&quot;http://singchinesesongs.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SingChineseSongs&lt;/a&gt;. Karaoke works wonders too.. Here is a list (with links) of some of the entertainers who have inspired me to learn Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiFm7AWP9n4&amp;amp;list=PL1F3EC94FCEA4669F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;鄧麗君&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErkZacqsW18&amp;amp;list=RDErkZacqsW18#t=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;费玉清 &amp;amp; 周杰倫&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl9V4emPgAI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;韩磊&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgURQjsTVDM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;G.E.M 邓紫棋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMtyJns8LDo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;茜拉 (not chinese but sings mandarin)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the best way to remember is to force yourself to start fearlessly speaking/reading/writing Mandarin at home. I am lucky to be able to do this (sometimes I'm forced to as my wife will sometime insist talking only Mandarin or Cantonese). Find online games can be another way to build recall (Check out memory game at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yellowbridge&lt;/a&gt;). Read character books, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chinese%20cartoons%20in%20mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese Cartoons&lt;/a&gt;, and watch Chinese Movies are also good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Interesting New Google Service&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; has added something quite useful called a phrasebook. One can add translated sentences, phrases or words to a list (together with a translation, which one can edit for correctness before adding to the phrasebook). The phrasebook can then be converted with a single click to a Google spreadsheet (and from there downloaded as a CSV wordlist).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-05-30T21:04:37.670" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T21:04:37.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7072" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-27T23:30:29.777" Score="3" ViewCount="566" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is a follow up question regarding Cantonese Pronunciation. Previous question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1759/written-cantonese-pronunciation&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know how people from Guangdong, who would speak Cantonese at home but be taught in Mandarin at school, read in Cantonese? Would they know that 给 is pronounced as KAP or would they just read it as BEI?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="772" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:23:31.377" Title="Written Cantonese Pronunciation 2" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1592" CreationDate="2014-05-28T00:33:47.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I try to give you an answer from what a native speaker thinks. The two pronunciations have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the dictionary, 着(zhao1) has the following definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;● 着&#xA;zhāo ㄓㄠˉ&#xA;　1. 下棋时下一子或走一步：～法。～数。一～儿好棋。&#xA;　2. 计策，办法：高～儿。没～儿了。&#xA;　3. 放，搁进去：～点儿盐。&#xA;　4. 应答声，表示同意：这话～哇！～，你说得真对！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see the closest meaning is &quot;2. 计策，办法 -- strategy, measure&quot;. Literally, 怎么着 means &quot;how do you handle it?&quot; when it is pronounced as zhao1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By contrast, 着(zhe) has the following definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zhe ㄓㄜ&#xA;　1. 助词，表示动作正在进行或状态的持续：走～。开～会。&#xA;　2. 助词，表示程度深：好～呢！&#xA;　3. 助词，表示祈使：你听～！&#xA;　4. 助词，用在某些动词后，使变成介词：顺～。照～办。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means '1. on-going', '2. pretty (+verb)', '3. emphasize the verb (imperative)', '4. introducing an object for an intransitive verb'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of the meanings is suitable for 怎么着 (how do you handle it?) However, it can mean 'how it is like.' For example, 你猜怎么着，我赢了一张免费票！Guess what (it is like), I got a free ticket. BTW, this phrase can also be pronounced as 怎么着(zhao1), because native speakers are not so strict about colloquial expressions, as long as it can be understood as the right mood and meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At last, the phrase 怎么着 is mostly used in Northern China. In Southern China, a similar phrase 怎么样 or 怎么办 is often used. If you look at more examples, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichacha.net/%E4%BD%A0%E7%8C%9C%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E7%9D%80.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ichacha.net/%E4%BD%A0%E7%8C%9C%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E7%9D%80.html&lt;/a&gt;, you may see yourself that it doesn't make sense to pronounce as zhe. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="4640" LastEditDate="2014-05-28T04:28:53.560" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T04:28:53.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7063" CreationDate="2014-05-28T00:44:16.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use their name - or if you really are close to them probably their nickname. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's family you probably need to use their position in the family relative to you 'name'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More general things:&#xA;哥们儿：for friends&#xA;朋友：for friends&#xA;亲家：for the in laws &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: just wanna add 老兄: for friend (you'll sound pretty awesome if you call your friend (male of course - hence the whole 兄 thing going on over there) this).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T00:44:16.380" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6747" CreationDate="2014-05-28T01:13:21.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might be historical reasons. According to some discussions in other forums, 'Di' pronunciation was common in almost all songs before 1995. After 2000, almost all are pronounced as 'De' -- the same as speaking. If you sing late songs with 'Di' sound, it sounds really weird, because it is no longer common in spoken languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T01:13:21.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6977" CreationDate="2014-05-28T01:19:25.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a idiom which can be translated to &quot;I can't wait&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我迫不及待。&#xA;(wo po bu ji dai)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4642" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T01:19:25.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6977" CreationDate="2014-05-28T02:17:07.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;my suggestion will be ..我的耐心快被磨尽了[my patience is wearing thin],&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i hope it helps.. if wrong please correct me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4610" LastEditorUserId="4610" LastEditDate="2014-05-28T02:25:44.157" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T02:25:44.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6977" CreationDate="2014-05-28T03:41:56.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我快没耐心了  this is one correct answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4643" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T03:41:56.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7079" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7085" CreationDate="2014-05-28T03:54:58.210" Score="13" ViewCount="3938" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question has puzzled me since I have no training in ancient Chinese and ancient phonetics. What is puzzling me are the following facts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The tones in different regions are quite different. If they are from Ancient Chinese, why are they not more consistent?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When Chinese characters were borrowed by Japanese and Korean around 1000 years ago, the tones are not picked up by their languages. Did Chinese actually have fixed tones at that time, or not?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ancient Chinese had codas (Cantonese codas like [p], [t], [k]) but modern Chinese doesn't. Is it possible that the information in the codas is transformed to tones? Otherwise, a lot of information would have been lost.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T00:44:12.287" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T00:44:12.287" Title="Did ancient Chinese have tones (声调)?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;middle-chinese&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7079" CreationDate="2014-05-28T04:33:29.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia is your friend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tones&#xA;See also: Four tones&#xA;The Qieyun classified characters in four parts according to their tone: even tone (píngshēng 平聲), rising tone (shǎngshēng 上聲), departing tone (qùshēng 去聲), and entering tone (rùshēng 入聲). The &quot;entering tone&quot;, also known as a &quot;checked tone&quot;, actually refers to syllables characterized by a final stop consonant (/p/, /t/, or /k/) rather than a distinct pitch.[48]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is difficult to determine the exact contours of the other tones. Karlgren interpreted the names literally as level, rising and falling pitches, respectively.[48] The oldest known description of the tones is found in a Song dynasty quotation from the early 9th century Yuanhe Yunpu 《元和韻譜》 (no longer extant): &quot;Level tone is sad and stable. Rising tone is strident and rising. Departing tone is clear and distant. Entering tone is straight and abrupt.&quot;[m]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every topolect has their own ancient Chinese as well. For example 四川话 has 蜀语 as its &quot;Classical Chinese&quot; - so your assumption that ancient Chinese is root of all modern Chinese would be wrong. Chinese has a lot of variants - that does not mean that they stem from each other or that they are strictly speaking even dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;入声 was originally considered a tone - it is your so-called &quot;coda&quot; as you can see from the quote from Wikipedia above. This can still be found in a few Sinitic topolects today, which you obviously already know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-05-30T15:02:38.633" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T15:02:38.633" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6747" CreationDate="2014-05-28T06:28:50.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 地 得 as particles should be pronounced as &lt;code&gt;de&lt;/code&gt; in the standard Mandarin Chinese. However, they are usually pronounced as &lt;code&gt;di&lt;/code&gt; in singing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T06:28:50.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7072" CreationDate="2014-05-28T07:38:51.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, 俾 is BEI, and 给 is KAP in Cantonese pronunciation. In fact, 俾 and 给 also can be pronounced in Mandarin: 俾 is something like BI, I guess, and of course 给 is GEI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, they won't get confused, because they would certainly be taught that both words contain the same meaning but with a different pronunciation. In fact, I think 俾 is sort of like an unofficial word, which people usually use in texts/chats, and 给 is the official one. If you noticed, songs usually use 给 instead of 俾 :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4642" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-05-30T15:41:18.050" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T15:41:18.050" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7053" CreationDate="2014-05-28T07:46:00.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been studying Chinese for several years using a variety of methods.  I have two things to recommend without question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hackingchinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hackingchinese.com/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;He has a ton of great learning tips aimed at the absolute beginner through the expert levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) I highly recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://yoyochinese.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://yoyochinese.com&lt;/a&gt; as a good place to learn pronunciation and grammar.  You won't be drilled on writing at this site yet (though they plan to add that in the future at some point), but you will get really great explanations specifically geared toward native English speakers about how to pronounce Chinese words, train your listening skills, and learn how to form correct sentences, as well as learn some Chinese culture along the way.  This is a Mandarin-Chinese-only site, and so they are completely focused on this one language.  This will get you up into intermediate Chinese.  I don't know if they have plans for more advanced levels or not yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other good sites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;popupchinese.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fluentu.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lang-8.com (for writing practice)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4645" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T07:46:00.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7053" CreationDate="2014-05-28T08:21:39.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a beginner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Michel Thomas disks are an excellent way to start. They will get you moving. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Watch as many movies as you can, but make sure they're not Cantonese (unless you want to learn Cantonese). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend pinyin. If you want to start to learn characters, use memrise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammar of the language is easy compared to Western European languages. Verbs are not conjugated. The word order is the same as English (these are both generalities).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably the best advice I ever got was concerning tones. I had learned the four tones of Mandarin and was showing off my scholarship to a Chinese friend. He then asked, &quot;are you singing it or saying it?&quot; If you listen to Chinese people talk, the tones are very subtle. Context is more important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, with respect to the characters, there is a great deal of misinformation and ignorance. Take for example, the long-accepted Western meme that the term &quot;crisis&quot; in Chinese is made by combining the characters for &quot;danger&quot; and &quot;opportunity.&quot; This is to suggest the Chinese reader will hear the sympathetic notes of the underlying two characters to help explain the concept, a la Fenollosa. This is akin to claiming that English speakers treat bovines and felines similarly, because the word &quot;cattle&quot; contains the word &quot;cat&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn the 1000 or so basic vocabulary words and you'll be off and running. But I can't recommend Michel Thomas highly enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4646" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T08:21:39.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7079" CreationDate="2014-05-28T08:46:20.507" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Linguists divide pre-modern Chinese broadly into two periods: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt;. I wanted to preface my answer by noting that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Karlgren&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bernhard Karlgren&lt;/a&gt; used the term &quot;Ancient Chinese&quot; to refer specifically to Middle Chinese, and it appears that your questions seem to be referring to Middle Chinese as well, though I will be making a note about Old Chinese in my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middle Chinese is documented as having tones (in particular by the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qieyun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Qieyun&lt;/a&gt; in 601) while Old Chinese has been postulated as being atonal. I will go into more detail as I address your questions in order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_contour&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tone &lt;em&gt;contours&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; of the various modern Chinese varieties can appear to be superficially quite different, but the tones themselves are actually quite consistent in the way they evolved from the tones of Middle Chinese. Words that belong to particular tone categories tend to remain in the same tone category across the various modern Chinese varieties, even though the ways the tone itself is pronounced has diverged among differing dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take for example, the word 平, which generally always has the 陽平 tone across all of the modern Chinese varieties; however, the 陽平 tone itself has evolved into having, for instance, the contour 35 in Standard Mandarin but contour 21 in modern Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Various tone categories can end up getting split or merged though during the evolution of any particular Chinese variety due to various phonological environments, so for instance, Middle Chinese 陰去 and 陽去 tones both ended up merging into one 去 tone in Mandarin (with contour 51), while they remained separate in Cantonese (with contours 33 and 22, respectively).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One area where tone mergers were not very consistent is the loss of the checked tones (入) in Mandarin. Words with this tone ended up being redistributed to the other 4 modern Mandarin tones seemingly randomly in Beijing Mandarin (and thus also in Standard Mandarin which is based on Beijing Mandarin); however the redistribution in other dialects of Mandarin appear to more consistent in this regard (refer to the table in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checked_tone#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;). One explanation for this inconsistency is that checked tone words in Beijing Mandarin ended up being pronounced in a variety of different tones once the distinguishing feature of checked tone words (namely the stop consonant codas) were lost and the confluence of various dialects in the capital reshaped the tones with which these words were pronounced in different ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer to the table in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_tones_(Middle_Chinese)#Distribution_in_modern_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; for how the various modern Chinese varieties map the original tones of Middle Chinese into their modern tones and tone contours.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Japanese and Korean belong to separate language families that are not related to Chinese even though they imported many Chinese words. The time period during which most Chinese words were imported fall squarely during the Middle Chinese period, which was documented as already featuring tones. Japanese and Korean though, are not tonal languages, and because they don't distinguish lexical tone, it's not unexpected that they would also not distinguish tones in the words they imported.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a parallel example, English is an atonal language that has also imported a few words of Chinese origin, such as &lt;code&gt;bok choy&lt;/code&gt; from Cantonese and &lt;code&gt;feng shui&lt;/code&gt; from Mandarin, and the tones with which these words are originally pronounced are similarly ignored in English.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As I mentioned above, the words with stop codas were classified under the checked tone in Middle Chinese, and when the stop codas were lost in Mandarin, their tone contours ended up being redistributed to the other tones. Strictly speaking, yes, this did end up resulting in a loss of information leading to a possible increase in ambiguity; however, this is not an uncommon occurrence in the evolution of any language. Distinguishing features have been lost in the history languages across the world, but their speakers generally make up for it in other ways. Mandarin, in particular, lost many of the distinguishing features that were present in Middle Chinese, leading to a reduced syllable inventory, but it has compensated by increasing the number of disyllabic words in its vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is interesting to note, though, that loss of certain codas in the transition from Old Chinese to Middle Chinese did indeed get transformed to tones. It is postulated that Old Chinese was actually not a tonal language, and words ending in a glottal stop (&lt;code&gt;-ʔ&lt;/code&gt;) in Old Chinese ended up &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshirization&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;cheshirizing&lt;/a&gt; to the 上 tone and words ending in &lt;code&gt;-s&lt;/code&gt; to the 去 tone. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese_phonology#Tones_and_final_consonants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; for more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, a later tonal distinction caused by voiced vs. unvoiced initial consonants in Middle Chinese lead to the split of the four 平上去入 tones into two registers, 陰 and 陽, leading to 8 tones (this marked the transition from Early Middle Chinese to Late Middle Chinese). The voiced vs. unvoiced distinction has disappeared in most modern varieties of Chinese (a notable exception being the Wu dialects), but the tonal distinction still remains in many of them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T01:27:50.120" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T01:27:50.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7086" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7087" CreationDate="2014-05-28T12:57:05.720" Score="3" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;大风绝尘而去&quot; In a weather report document, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.163.com/14/0528/18/9TBR0KOI00014Q4P.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.163.com/14/0528/18/9TBR0KOI00014Q4P.html&lt;/a&gt;, does this phrase mean that the gale is going to 'stay away and leave' ? or 'A large storm will avoid the area'? What does 绝尘 mean in general? Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3438" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T13:29:31.007" Title="大风绝尘而去 in idiomatic English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7086" CreationDate="2014-05-28T13:29:31.007" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;绝尘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;move very fast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KEY：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 run as if flying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 be above mundane thoughts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A netizen on Baidu Zhidao defines 绝尘而去 as：脚不沾土,形容奔驰得飞快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another explains it this way:&#xA;绝是消失不见&#xA;绝尘就是消失在扬起的尘土里&#xA;绝尘而去就是飞快的离去了，消失在马蹄扬起的尘烟里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate 大风绝尘而去 as big winds (are going to/will) sweep through&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T13:29:31.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7088" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-28T15:07:13.413" Score="8" ViewCount="1017" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are sentences in English like &quot;What's up?&quot; &quot;What's going on?&quot; &quot;how have you been?&quot; to begin a conversation with or to greet people (friends or relatives)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what are the common ice-breaker sentences in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-26T05:28:33.210" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T05:28:33.210" Title="What are the common ice-breaker sentences in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7088" CreationDate="2014-05-28T15:07:13.413" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few ice-breaker sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最近怎么样？（Literally &quot;recently how&quot;? = How've you been recently?）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最近好吗？（Literally recently good?）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最近忙什么？(Literally recently busy what? = What have you been busy for?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T15:07:13.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7090" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7092" CreationDate="2014-05-28T15:20:26.663" Score="1" ViewCount="660" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a newbie Chinese student and I have a question about the pronunciation of the word shān (山), meaning mountain. When I went to Taiwan recently, friends there pronounced it as sān, not shān. For example, they referred to the National Park Alishan (阿里山) as Ali SAN. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this particular to Taiwan, to my friends, or some other reason? 谢谢 for your help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4651" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T13:09:48.523" Title="Pronunciation of 山 (in Taiwan)" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7091" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7095" CreationDate="2014-05-28T15:45:11.460" Score="7" ViewCount="420" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ask because I'm curious as to what's the reasoning behind simplification. It would look something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;灬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T07:22:01.727" Title="If the simplified version of 態 is 态 is why isn't there one for 熊?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7090" CreationDate="2014-05-28T15:45:34.067" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Still should be shan1 but probably they have some 翘舌音 problems, i.e. cant pronounce ch, sh, zh etc. A lot of Chinese variants don't have 翹舌音 so these pronunciations become problematic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Count it as an accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T15:45:34.067" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7053" CreationDate="2014-05-28T16:08:48.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese native speaker, and I can't share with you about how to learn Chinese. But I have something to say about learning English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a English course at high school, and really got into reading English articles late at college. And I tell you that the English I learned during courses is very different from the English I read. Courses do help, they would build you a solid foundation, but you can always teach yourself, in your own ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here come the rules. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule one: use the language. Read a lot, or write a lot, or both. I would suggest to begin with reading, because writing includes word choosing, and this depends on a fairly large vocabulary. As my writing in English is not good, this conclusion comes from experience. To learn to write well, there is a long way to go from a no-background beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in order to use it, there are two things you need to know: grammar and vocabulary. I am not aware whether there is a thing like idiom or phrase verb or anything like that which behave like a single word, that is, as an single semantic unit, in Chinese. Words in most case, are the elements of semantics. And grammar is how they compose into a more complex and specific unit, which is the sentence. Both of them are important. But I suggest to go first with grammar and basic vocabulary, this is what a course would provide, and is good at. And next you need to grow your vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because memorizing words is hard work, and you need to do it a lot, and for a long time. That's where rule two comes in: using the language your are learning frequently, as long as you can. Because your going to forget faster than you can imagine without review. So having fun is also important, it keeps you going.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the specific plan: First catch a course, video or text, whatever you like. Video is easier, but I suggest at least have a textbook. Then you can take some book, either valuable or interesting, to read. That is actually the harder part. And then using the knowledge you learn to interpret the text, from beginning to end for one or two books that are short enough. After that, you can pick a book with both original and translated version to read. Read the Chinese version first, and if you have doubts, read the translated version, usually you would get it, if not, post a question here or any sort of site like this. Keep reading and asking and your Chinese will improve. For the writing part I am not sure what to do yet, hope I can figure out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last it would be better to have a partner who can speak Chinese, it will help a lot. That is part of the reason why I am writing this answer. I need a partner! Native speaker of English would be fine to help me with the question I meet while reading. For anyone reading this answer, if you want to learn Chinese, and you are a native speaker of English, and you wish to have a partner, please contact me, we can help each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And wish you learn Chinese well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4389" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-08-09T14:03:01.327" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T14:03:01.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7079" CreationDate="2014-05-28T16:28:48.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an addendum, two brief comments regarding how tones are reflected in the languages that borrowed a lot of vocabulary from Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;According to the Wikipedia page on ‘Sino-Xenic pronunciations’, “[m]ost Middle Chinese tones were preserved in the tones of Middle Korean, but these have since been lost in all but a few dialects.”  The source cited seems reputable.  It seems Korean initially did retain the tones!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is another language which borrowed large amounts of vocabulary in the period of Middle Chinese:  Vietnamese.  Since this language has 6 tones as well as checked syllables, it was able to preserve the tone categories quite faithfully.  This means that the tone classes of Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary items and Cantonese words line up at least 80% of the time, at least that was what I found in an informal comparison of about 200 characters that I did recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, words of the 陰 上 class correspond to the SV &lt;em&gt;ngã&lt;/em&gt; tone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚  MC &lt;em&gt;mjonX&lt;/em&gt; = Cant &lt;em&gt;maáhn&lt;/em&gt; = SV &lt;em&gt;vãn&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雅  MC &lt;em&gt;ngaeX&lt;/em&gt; = Cant &lt;em&gt;ngáh&lt;/em&gt; = SV &lt;em&gt;nhã&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 陽 上 words correspond to SV &lt;em&gt;hỏi&lt;/em&gt; tone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早  MC &lt;em&gt;tsawX&lt;/em&gt; = Cant &lt;em&gt;jóu&lt;/em&gt; = SV &lt;em&gt;tảo&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;普  MC &lt;em&gt;phuX&lt;/em&gt; = Cant &lt;em&gt;póu&lt;/em&gt; = SV &lt;em&gt;phổ&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(MC pronunciations taken from William Baxter's list.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T16:28:48.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7091" CreationDate="2014-05-28T17:19:46.660" Score="11" Body="&lt;h1&gt;態 to 态&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;态 is a &quot;new&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Phono-semantic_compound_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Phono-semantic compound character&lt;/a&gt;. 態 sounds &lt;code&gt;tài&lt;/code&gt;, so a simple character 太 with the same pronunciation is chosen for the phonetic part. Then it becomes 态.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This character was simplified by the people who lived in places governed by the CCP during 1940s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h3&gt;Why not simplify 灬 to 一 for 熊, but for 魚&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Answer&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: 灬 came from 火 (fire) in the seal script. For 灬 under 熊, it has the meaning of fire. But for the character 魚:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/csB4D.gif&quot; alt=&quot;鱼&quot;&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K52Gk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;goldfish&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;though the bottom is written like 火, it is not really 火. Duan Yucai's &lt;em&gt;Annotation to Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; said: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;非从火也 the semantic part is not 火 (fire)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;象形。魚尾與燕尾相佀。 (this character) is a pictogram character. The fishtail is just like the swallow tail.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thus, when simplifying 魚, they made 灬 (fishtail) as 一; while for 熊, they kept 灬.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2014-07-08T07:22:01.727" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T07:22:01.727" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7090" CreationDate="2014-05-28T20:39:29.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;San is the &lt;strong&gt;Japanese&lt;/strong&gt; pronunciation for 山.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taiwan (or &quot;Formosa&quot;) was part of Japan for nearly a century before 1945. So the &quot;Taiwanese&quot; pronunciation of 山 may be a relic of the Japanese occupation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-05-28T20:39:29.210" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7097" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-28T21:09:16.427" Score="1" ViewCount="2185" Body="&lt;p&gt;Either words or expressions, formal ones or informal ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4628" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T17:38:21.413" Title="What words or expressions could be used to say someone is/looks handsome?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7097" CreationDate="2014-05-28T22:14:15.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Formal Ones&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;帥氣 (shuai qi)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;英俊 (ying jun)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Informal Ones&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This varies between places where Chinese is spoken. Also, since each of these places has many smaller, individual dialects, these examples may not always apply to each Chinese-spoken area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan you could say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;美型男 (mei xing nan)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;潮男 (chao nan)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In China you could say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;高富帅 (gao fu shuai)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong you could say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;靚仔 (liang zai)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="469" LastEditorUserId="4628" LastEditDate="2014-06-04T21:35:00.743" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T21:35:00.743" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7097" CreationDate="2014-05-28T22:40:40.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are some idioms which may be an answer to the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眉清目秀 (mei qing mu xiu) This literally means: &quot;(His/this Man's) eyebrows are clear and (His) eyes are beautiful.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玉树临风 (yu shu lin feng) This literally means: &quot;(Men are/He is like a) grown jade tree which has faced the wind.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英姿挺拔 (ying zi ting ba) This literally means: &quot;The handsome appearance (of Him/this Man) is outstanding.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帅气逼人 (shuai qi bi ren) This literally means: &quot;The handsome attitude (of Him/this Man) is daunting.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese idioms, usually, only consist of four characters. And all of the above given examples can be used to refer to a handsome man. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be aware, though, that these are formal expressions, so, they are literary and are likely to be interpreted as being corny when used in an informal context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-06-06T15:32:50.047" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T15:32:50.047" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7088" CreationDate="2014-05-29T00:54:26.343" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you see someone you know but they seem busy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去哪儿？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyone else:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃饭了没？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-29T00:54:26.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7101" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7117" CreationDate="2014-05-29T05:26:24.740" Score="-1" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry if this is a bit off-topic not sure where else to ask this &amp;amp; I know you guys will have answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to read 蛮子文摘 back in the day, till man zi got busted. The &quot;digest&quot; (if we can even call it that) wasn't anything super special, it just complied a bunch of 微博 news snippets but there was a &quot;morning paper&quot; and an &quot;evening paper&quot; which was great. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After everything went down - I have super missed his &quot;papers&quot; and have been unable to find a good alternative. Any, good, weibo news round-up snippets resources will be greatly welcomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T06:30:10.813" Title="News &quot;Digest&quot;: Resources" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-06-17T10:46:02.870" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7102" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7103" CreationDate="2014-05-29T06:51:16.347" Score="0" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is Chinese culture?&#xA;What does it consist of?&#xA;How would you describe it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been asked what American and British culture is - and I really have no idea what it is or how to even explain it others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard from a lot of Chinese, even, that Hong Kong and Taiwan have preserved Chinese culture better than mainlanders. So what Chinese culture?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-29T09:08:59.993" Title="What is &quot;Chinese Culture&quot;?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2014-05-29T16:09:32.360" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7102" CreationDate="2014-05-29T09:08:59.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's difficult to describe precisely what the culture is, different people give different answers. As to me, the culture is: Filial piety, jiaozi , kongfu, paper-cut, beautiful scenery.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4658" LastActivityDate="2014-05-29T09:08:59.993" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7088" CreationDate="2014-05-29T09:19:20.967" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The weather is a good topic for people living in a city.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今儿天不错啊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天热死了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看起来一会儿要下雨是吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4659" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2016-09-05T17:52:41.027" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T17:52:41.027" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7105" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7122" CreationDate="2014-05-29T14:36:08.243" Score="1" ViewCount="550" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese food is delicious. For example, beef noodles (牛肉面) is one of my favorites. Fried noodle (炒面) and fried rice with shrimp（虾仁炒饭）are also yummy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: How to say other mouth-watering Chinese dishes in Chinese? (What are other favorite food names in a restaurant menu.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: What are the proper sentences to order food in a Chinese restaurant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-17T01:53:35.280" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T01:53:35.280" Title="How to say those mouth-watering Chinese dishes names in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-05-31T12:56:21.280" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7091" CreationDate="2014-05-29T14:50:02.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Second Stage Simplification Tables&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Table 2 Subtable 9 : Generic Simplifications of Component Elements (16 entries)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where the second stage simplified form of an example character is&#xA;already encoded it is put in parentheses after the corresponding&#xA;example character, but these parenthesized forms are not given in the&#xA;actual second stage simplification tables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FGnaN.png&quot; alt=&quot;prop&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see that a simplification for 熊 was actually proposed before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia cites the following as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Reason For Failure&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Second Scheme broke with a millennia-long cycle of variant forms&#xA;coming into unofficial use and eventually being accepted (90 percent&#xA;of the changes made in the First Scheme existed in mass use, many for&#xA;centuries[13]) in that it introduced new, unfamiliar character&#xA;forms.[14][15] The sheer number of characters it changed — the&#xA;distinction between simplifications intended for immediate use and&#xA;those for review was not maintained in practice — and its release in&#xA;the shadow of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1978) have been cited&#xA;among the chief reasons for its failure.[9][16][17][18] As a result of&#xA;the Cultural Revolution, trained experts were expelled and the Second&#xA;Scheme was compiled by the Committee and its staffers without outside&#xA;consultation, which may also have been a factor.[13]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exact circumstances surrounding the creation and release of the&#xA;Second Scheme remain shrouded in mystery due to the still-classified&#xA;nature of many documents and the politically sensitive nature of the&#xA;issue. However, the Second Scheme is known to have encompassed only&#xA;about 100 characters before its expansion to over 850.[19] A two-year&#xA;delay from 1975 to 1977 was officially blamed on Zhang Chunqiao, a&#xA;member of the Gang of Four; however, there is little historical&#xA;evidence to support this.[20] Against the political backdrop of the&#xA;Cultural Revolution, a special section known as the &amp;quot;748 Project&amp;quot; was&#xA;formed with an emphasis on non-experts, under whose supervision the&#xA;lists grew significantly. The bulk of the work is believed to have&#xA;been performed by staffers without proper oversight.[18][21]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Second Scheme's subsequent rejection by the public has been cited&#xA;as a case study in a failed attempt to artificially control the&#xA;direction of a language's evolution.[22] Indeed, it was not embraced&#xA;by the linguistic community in China upon its release;[23] despite&#xA;heavy promotion by official publications, Rohsenow observes that &amp;quot;in&#xA;the case of some of the character forms constructed by the staff&#xA;members themselves&amp;quot; the public at large found proposed changes&#xA;&amp;quot;laughable.&amp;quot;[24]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Political issues aside, Chen objects to the notion that all characters&#xA;should be reduced to ten or fewer strokes. He argues that a technical&#xA;shortcoming of the Second Scheme was that the characters it reformed&#xA;occur less often in writing than those of the First Scheme. As such it&#xA;provided less benefit to writers while putting an unnecessary burden&#xA;on readers in making the characters more difficult to distinguish.[25]&#xA;Citing several studies, Hannas similarly argues against the lack of&#xA;differentiation and utility: &amp;quot;it was meaningless to lower the stroke&#xA;count for its own sake.&amp;quot; Thus, he believes simplification and&#xA;character limitation (reduction of the number of characters)[26] both&#xA;amount to a &amp;quot;zero-sum game&amp;quot; — simplification in one area of use&#xA;causing complication in another — and concludes that &amp;quot;the 'complex'&#xA;characters in Japanese and Chinese, with their greater redundancy and&#xA;internal consistency, may have been the better bargain.&amp;quot;[27]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-05-29T14:50:02.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7107" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-29T18:44:09.207" Score="3" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm having problems figuring The NY Times' translation. Why so complex?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他用非此即彼的二元论来表述这个选择. He presented the choice in binary terms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Google Translate gives me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他用非此即彼 - He used one or the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This I don't get it. He used not 此-this 即-? 彼- that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二元论 - dualism&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来表述这个选择 - to formulate these options&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奥巴马说，有朝一日，当美国不再受到直接威胁时，“军事行动的门槛必须要提得更高。”他用非此即彼的二元论来表述这个选择，暗示他的批评者想用武力解决全球的许多麻烦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the future, when the United States is not directly threatened, “the threshold for military action must be higher,” Mr. Obama said. He presented the choice in binary terms, suggesting that his critics want to use force to solve many of the world’s troubles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T13:25:51.693" Title="NY Times 翻译: He presented the choice in binary terms - 他用非此即彼的二元论来表述这个选择. Too complex?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7107" CreationDate="2014-05-29T20:32:01.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;他用非此即彼 is a sentence fragment, thus Google translate does not translate it well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非此即彼 literally means &quot;if not this, then it is that&quot;, leaving no other choice. &#xA;I think 非此即彼的二元论 means &quot;binary terms, which means leaving only two choices&quot;, it is not a literal translation but one with additional information as ordinary people may not know what 二元论 means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4657" LastEditorUserId="4657" LastEditDate="2014-05-29T20:45:12.507" LastActivityDate="2014-05-29T20:45:12.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7090" CreationDate="2014-05-29T21:15:46.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rather than Japanese, Minnan (san/suan, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/index.html&lt;/a&gt; search for 阿里山　A-lí-san) and Hakka (san1) are probably more of an influence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2014-05-29T21:15:46.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7105" CreationDate="2014-05-30T01:30:20.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Q: How to say other mouth-watering Chinese dishes in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese you can say something like “垂涎欲滴”、“垂涎三尺”……This means foods are too nice for you to eat so that you are now drooling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Q:What are the proper sentences to order food in a Chinese restaurant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some steps of ordering dishes, you can watch the torturial of Chinese video: &lt;a href=&quot;http://kuailehanyu.cntv.cn/20100619/100042.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;点菜&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/link?url=6-6I-J9fVP3wSNQKmL5dXhGmDJteKKG6nCidVjAJVBHjV99gbybOpu_8Ne_fnOPSC7kyA7pTOHBNaf1w3vDwOb8gS6XIlshKypjaBdpL3vG&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;幻灯片教学版&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T01:30:20.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7112" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-30T03:09:10.900" Score="4" ViewCount="5182" Body="&lt;p&gt;How usually native chinese speaker pronounce the “的” orally in “他妈的”? Is it &quot;Ta Ma De&quot; or &quot;Ta Ma Di&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastEditorUserId="133" LastEditDate="2014-06-19T11:33:27.033" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T22:42:58.817" Title="How to pronounce the “的” in “他妈的”?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;swearing&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7112" CreationDate="2014-05-30T03:19:09.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;De or Di would both work depending on the regions of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T03:19:09.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7112" CreationDate="2014-05-30T03:58:40.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;De and Di and both accurate.  Di is more colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4662" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T03:58:40.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7112" CreationDate="2014-05-30T04:56:35.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should be De, although 的 can also be pronounced as Di, but it has a different usage, such as 的確, 目的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4663" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T04:56:35.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7101" CreationDate="2014-05-30T06:30:10.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hot.weibo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;hot weibo&lt;/a&gt; should be a good alternative, you can read it by different categories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="289" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T06:30:10.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7112" CreationDate="2014-05-30T09:16:05.917" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only correct answer is &quot;TA MA DE&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the equivalent version of &quot;F**K&quot; in Chinese. I never hear people pronounce as &quot;Di&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thinking it in other way, it will be too soft and feminine if it's pronounced as &quot;Di&quot;. It supposed to be strong and speak with hatred. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4664" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T09:16:05.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7090" CreationDate="2014-05-30T13:09:48.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many Taiwanese do not discriminate the phoneme pairs like z/zh, c/ch, s/sh. This is because their mother language, Taiwanese Minnan, does not compose of those retroflective sounds like zh, ch, sh. This is not a problem if those syllables carrying these phonemes are embedded in a multisyllabic words, like 阿里山。 Both a-li-shan or a-li-san are OK for local people to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4666" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T13:09:48.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7112" CreationDate="2014-05-30T13:23:50.890" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;他媽的&quot; is a brief form of &quot;他媽的屄(bi)&quot;, where 屄(bi) is a noun, meaning = woman's sex organ (may be offensive for somebody)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the pronunciation of 的 here should be /de/ in neutral tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4666" LastEditorUserId="4666" LastEditDate="2014-06-05T18:30:32.577" LastActivityDate="2014-06-05T18:30:32.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7107" CreationDate="2014-05-30T13:25:51.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;非此即彼 means 非(not)此(this)即（then)彼（that)&#xA;二元论 - binary system&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, &quot;非此即彼&quot; and &quot;二元论&quot; express the same meaning. It seems duplicate. But as said by @zhantongz &quot;binary system&quot;(二元论) is a term too difficult for ordinary people, &quot;非此即彼&quot; is an official expression easier to understand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that's why NY Times translate it like this. It's a bit complex but reasonable:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this can help&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4665" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T13:25:51.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7105" CreationDate="2014-05-30T13:45:50.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a list, you may referred to it and choose some from it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dishes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dishes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some typical dishes are as follows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English Traditional Chinese Simplified Chinese  Pinyin  Notes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baozi   包子  包子  bāozǐ   : steamed buns with fillings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dim sum 點心  点心  diǎnxīn : a staple of Cantonese cuisine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guotie  鍋貼  锅贴  guōtiē  :fried dumplings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jiaozi  餃子  饺子  jiǎozǐ  :steamed or boiled dumplings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mantou  饅頭  馒头  mántóu  :steamed buns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wonton  餛飩 / 雲吞 馄钝 / 云吞 húntún / yúntūn :sphere-shaped dumplings usually served boiled in broth or deep-fried&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Xiaolongbao 小籠包 小笼包 xiǎolóngbāo :soup dumplings, a specialty of Shanghai cuisine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zongzi  粽子  粽子  zòngzǐ  :glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, usually with a savory or sweet filling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sample sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;來一盤(lai-yi-pan)  餃子(jiao-zi)， 麻煩你(ma-fan-ni)。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;給我一籠(gei-wo-yi-long)  小籠包(xiao-long-bao)， 謝謝你(xie-xie-ni)。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我點一份(wo-dian-yi-fen)  餛飩(hun-tun)，有勞你了(you-lao-ni-le)。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4666" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T13:45:50.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7072" CreationDate="2014-05-30T14:36:04.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;給 will never be pronounced bei2. There can't be any confusion here. At least not in the minds of Cantonese speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; are confused is because you seem to assume that the only difference between Mandarin and Cantonese is a few odd sinograms here and there. There's more to it than this. These are two Chinese languages with differences that span grammar, vocabulary, and of course phonology. Why use 給, which is a &quot;foreign&quot;, ie a non-Cantonese word, if you are writing in Cantonese, where you have 俾 and 畀?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese is often used, in a written form, by the government, public announcement and in advertising, at least in HK, when they want to make sure they reach the larger public. I see it every day in the streets, and in government buildings. It is also used online and in texting -- and there's also Cantonese poetry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T14:36:04.043" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7126" CreationDate="2014-05-30T14:42:32.247" Score="1" ViewCount="2223" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm playing an online game on a Chinese server, and I sometimes get disconnected when the VPN gets congested. When this happens, I have to restart the game and re-enter the map, while the rest of my group is probably wondering what I'm doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I explain to my group that I got disconnected from the server?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also seen people complain use 卡 to complain that they're lagging, but I guess it could just as well refer to being stuck. Is there a less ambiguous way to refer to network lag?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2977" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T15:04:21.447" Title="How to say &quot;I got disconnected&quot; and &quot;I'm lagging&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7125" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7129" CreationDate="2014-05-30T14:54:29.137" Score="4" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese Grammar&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am studying many sources for Chinese grammar. I understand that literally these two sentences mean slightly different things. Are there any implications or reasoning for using one versus the other? The literal translations seem equivalent from an English language context (are they interchangeable or am I missing some refinement)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Subject + Adverb of manner + Verb + Adverb of place&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tā jìng jìng de tǎng zài cǎo di shǎng &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他静静地躺在草地上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tā zài cǎo di shǎng jìng jìng de tǎng &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在草地上静静地躺。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.brighthubeducation.com/learning-chinese/42645-mandarin-grammar-how-word-order-is-structured/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T20:11:29.527" Title="Are These Equivalent Grammatical Syntax?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7124" CreationDate="2014-05-30T15:04:21.447" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;掉线了“ means &quot;I got disconnected&quot; in Chinese,the pronunciation is &quot;diao xian le&quot;, and &quot;掉了” in short.&#xA;As for &quot;I'm lagging&quot;, you can say &quot;网络很卡“，the pronunciation is &quot;wang luo hen ka&quot;. Usually a Chinese guy can also easily get your meaning if you express it in &quot;卡”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4667" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T15:04:21.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7125" CreationDate="2014-05-30T15:13:23.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strictly, they are not all the same.&#xA;The second one sounds some more poetic in Chinese.&#xA;But in daily life, you will say the first one to express the meaning,&quot;he lies on the grass quietly&quot;, the second one may make you seems sort of strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4667" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-05-30T15:23:07.793" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T15:23:07.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7125" CreationDate="2014-05-30T15:40:54.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say both sentences mean the same thing, which in English is &quot;he lies on the grass quietly.&quot; However, the slight difference is the emphasis. Since we only need to abide by the S + V + O structure rules in Chinese sentences, so an adverb can literally be anywhere in the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the earlier you put a word in the sentence order, the more emphasis you want to give to it. For example, a time indicator or time adverb would be put in the very beginning of a sentence because there is no conjugation in Chinese verbs and therefore indicating the time tense should better be emphasized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in the following sentences,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他静静地躺在草地上。 focus more on &quot;quietly&quot; but not annoyingly, not anxiously ...etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在草地上静静地躺。 focus more on &quot;on the grass&quot; but not on the bed, not on the beach...ect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他躺在草地上, 静静地。focus more on the action &quot;lying&quot;, but not sitting, not riding ...etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-05-30T18:56:31.373" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T18:56:31.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7125" CreationDate="2014-05-30T20:03:15.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A: 他静静地躺在草地上。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a valid sentence grammatically. The sentence structure is:  &lt;strong&gt;Subject + Adverb of manner + Verb Phrase.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note: &lt;strong&gt;躺在草地上&lt;/strong&gt; is a whole piece in terms of sentence structure. Yes, it contains two parts: verb &lt;strong&gt;躺&lt;/strong&gt; and location complement &lt;strong&gt;在草地上&lt;/strong&gt;, but these 2 parts are at the 2nd level, different from  &lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;静静地&lt;/strong&gt; as they are at the 1st level. That is why we &lt;strong&gt;can't&lt;/strong&gt; say 他在草地上静静地躺, because it is not a fully finished sentence (except in poems though, you know poems have full of unfinished sentences).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I said &lt;strong&gt;躺在草地上&lt;/strong&gt; is a whole piece, also because &lt;strong&gt;躺&lt;/strong&gt; itself strongly demands a location complement. We can replace &lt;strong&gt;躺&lt;/strong&gt; with other verbs which strongly demand  location complement as well, like &lt;strong&gt;走&lt;/strong&gt; 在草地上  or &lt;strong&gt;倒&lt;/strong&gt; 在草地上. But if we replace it with verbs that &lt;strong&gt;don't&lt;/strong&gt; strongly demand location complement, that makes it sounds awkward or foreign, like &lt;strong&gt;听&lt;/strong&gt; 在草地上, &lt;strong&gt;看&lt;/strong&gt; 在草地上, or  &lt;strong&gt;闻&lt;/strong&gt; 在草地上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B: 他在草地上静静地躺。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in section A, &lt;strong&gt;他在草地上静静地躺&lt;/strong&gt; is not a finished sentence. It sounds very foreign. Instead we should say 他在草地上静静地躺 &lt;strong&gt;着&lt;/strong&gt;. The reason I think is that Mandarin language employs a lot 2-syllable words to convey the sense of completeness. So using &lt;strong&gt;躺&lt;/strong&gt; alone as verb in a sentence just gives people a strong sense of incompleteness. This is somewhat similar to the concept of Resolution in western tonal music theory, which means the move of a note or chord from dissonance (an unstable sound) to a consonance (a more final or stable sounding one). So we use &lt;strong&gt;躺着&lt;/strong&gt; to make it complete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C: 他在草地上静静地躺着。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a valid sentence grammatically. The sentence structure is: &lt;strong&gt;Subject + Adverb of place + Adverb of manner + Verb.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note here I use the term &lt;strong&gt;adverb of place&lt;/strong&gt; instead of &lt;strong&gt;location complement&lt;/strong&gt;. The difference is that &lt;strong&gt;adverb of place&lt;/strong&gt; is loosely related to the Verb, not a part of the Verb itself, while &lt;strong&gt;location complement&lt;/strong&gt; is part of the Verb, whose function is to  &lt;strong&gt;complete&lt;/strong&gt; the Verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be careful with this type of sentences: &lt;strong&gt;Subject + Adverb of place + Verb&lt;/strong&gt; as they may not be able to converted to &lt;strong&gt;Subject + [Verb + location complement]&lt;/strong&gt;. For example: &lt;strong&gt;他在草地上看书&lt;/strong&gt; is good, but it really sounds awkward if you say &lt;strong&gt;他看书在草地上&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Focus&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence A &lt;strong&gt;他静静地躺在草地上&lt;/strong&gt; focuses on the action of &lt;strong&gt;躺在草地上&lt;/strong&gt; as it is a whole piece, while sentence C &lt;strong&gt;他在草地上静静地躺着&lt;/strong&gt; focuses on the action of &lt;strong&gt;躺着&lt;/strong&gt; where the location of &lt;strong&gt;草地&lt;/strong&gt; is not part of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Complements (Result / Potential / Direction / Degree / State / Quantity / Location / Time) are a very important feature of Chinese language grammar (See more details here &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese Language Grammar - Complement&lt;/a&gt;), and whether you can use complements correctly determines your level of your Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.P.S English is a &lt;strong&gt;Subject + Verb&lt;/strong&gt; language, while Chinese doesn't have clearly defined Verb in sentences. Actually Chinese is a &lt;strong&gt;Topic + Comment&lt;/strong&gt; language, like 他的个子1米8. &lt;strong&gt;他的个子&lt;/strong&gt; is topic, and &lt;strong&gt;1米8&lt;/strong&gt; is comment. Another example: 他宽额头，高鼻梁，高颧骨，大眼睛。&lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt; is topic, and &lt;strong&gt;宽额头&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;strong&gt;高鼻梁&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;strong&gt;高颧骨&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;strong&gt;大眼睛&lt;/strong&gt; are all comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2014-05-30T20:11:29.527" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T20:11:29.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7130" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7132" CreationDate="2014-05-30T20:05:34.543" Score="5" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Please note that I have re-written this question for clarity.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Subjective Comprehension&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a number of questions asked here on CLSE, I have noticed answers that include responses about how something just doesn't &quot;sound right&quot; in Chinese. Here is an example from a recent answer posted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Strictly, they are not all the same. The second one sounds some more&#xA;  poetic in Chinese. But in daily life, you will say the first one to&#xA;  express the meaning,&quot;he lies on the grass quietly&quot;, &lt;strong&gt;the second one&#xA;  may make you seems sort of strange&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand from an English perspective how subjective the structure of sentence can lead to an awkward sounding phrase. Also as a student, I am observing a number of grammatical rules (which when broken, would be an obvious indication of awkward sounding grammatical structures).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, beyond an obvious break with grammatical rules, what are some ways that I can determine if a grammar structure (sentence, question, or phrase) sounds awkward? I realise that one answer is to have this sense develop over time and with practice, however I am looking for a perspective from native speakers who might be able to give guidance on what makes a Chinese sentence, question, or phrase sound awkward. Examples would be great. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to reiterate that I have many grammar books and websites that discuss proper Chinese grammar and I am reviewing the information provided but these sources lack a cultural perspective, which I believe is most important in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-06-02T14:07:59.753" LastActivityDate="2014-06-02T14:07:59.753" Title="How do Chinese judge the right sound quality (softness, awkwardness, respectfulness (面子), negativity)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7131" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7136" CreationDate="2014-05-30T20:38:53.170" Score="3" ViewCount="434" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Closing a Conversation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was just in a telephone call with a Chinese person and I attempted to say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xiè xiè nín de lái diàn &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢您的来电&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Had I said this in English, the caller would have recognised this as a closing statement (an attempt to end the conversation gracefully). The caller did not discontinue the conversation at this point so I assume my word choice may not have been correct. How might I have closed the conversation using a more appropriate phrase or sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, I've seen CLSE questions about breaking the ice (starting a conversation) but none about how to gracefully close a conversation. I would appreciate any help in this area and I do understand that different regions will have variations (all of which I welcome).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the answers below and feel free to add more. I make use of this in building my grammar and appreciate the efforts very much. I also received this alternative as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;wǒ men gǎi tiān zài tán bā &#xA;我們改天再談吧&#xA;*We'll talk about it another day*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-06-01T06:28:06.773" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T06:28:06.773" Title="Graceful ways to break away from a conversation" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7130" CreationDate="2014-05-30T21:20:21.423" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here I try to give some guidelines, not hard rules for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wrong Word Order&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are not sure in what order to put elements in a sentence, stick to this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Attributive + Subject + Time Adverbial + Place Adverbial + Manner Adverbial + Verb + Complements + Attributive + Objective.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 新来的/那个/同学/昨天/在图书馆/高兴地/借/到了/那本/很有名的/小说。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新来的 － Attributive&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那个 － Attributive&lt;br&gt;&#xA;同学 － Subject&lt;br&gt;&#xA;昨天 － Time Adverbial&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在图书馆 － Place Adverbial&lt;br&gt;&#xA;高兴地 － Manner Adverbial&lt;br&gt;&#xA;借 － Verb&lt;br&gt;&#xA;到了 － Result Complement&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那本 － Attributive&lt;br&gt;&#xA;很有名的 － Attributive&lt;br&gt;&#xA;小说 － Object  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you change the order of them, it is likely to make it sound awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Incompleteness&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't say 他在床上躺, instead say 他在床上躺着. 躺着 has the sense of completeness over just 躺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wrong Usage&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't say 我病, instead say 我(生)病了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't say 我很病, instead say 我病得(很)厉害.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Missing the 2nd part of a phrase pattern&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot phrase patterns in Chinese made of paired words, like 一...就, 不是...而是, 即使...也. Sometimes the stuff going into between may be very long, so don't forget the 2nd part of those patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So don't say the following sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一听到这个令人振奋的消息来了。 (Should say: 我 &lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt; 听到这个令人振奋的消息 &lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt; 来了)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;迟到的人不是他我。 (Should say: 迟到的人 &lt;strong&gt;不是&lt;/strong&gt; 他 &lt;strong&gt;而是&lt;/strong&gt; 我)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即使明天下雨我去。(Should say: &lt;strong&gt;即使&lt;/strong&gt; 明天下雨我 &lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt; 去)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wrong Tones&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one episode of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Are_the_One_%28game_show%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;非诚勿扰&lt;/a&gt;, a Korean girl was asked by the host that where, if ever, on her body she got plastic surgery. She wanted to say 秘密 (secret) but she said 咪咪(a slang for breasts) which made the audience burst out laughing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2014-06-01T18:37:47.017" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T18:37:47.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7133" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-30T21:35:56.370" Score="1" ViewCount="1157" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native English speaker as well as a native Spanish speaker. I speak Spanish to my family members most of the time at home. It didn't really take me too much effort to learn it. So I believe having a environment where the target language is spoken is very crucial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, after making my mind to seriously learn Chinese, the so-called language for the next decades, Is it easier to learn Chinese or to learn Spanish? (I know many people have said Chinese is difficult to learn, but after self-learning it for a few weeks so far, I found it is not as hard as I expected and actually it is interesting to learn though)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4669" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-05-31T00:14:49.280" LastActivityDate="2014-05-31T00:14:49.280" Title="Is it easier to learn Chinese or Spanish?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2014-06-01T21:16:57.307" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7133" CreationDate="2014-05-30T22:24:05.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is actually not hard to learn. People &quot;think&quot; it is hard because they only know 'European language system', they don't understand how those symbol works so they think it is hard to learn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which Chinese are you trying to learn? Cantonese? Mandarin? Mandarin is use all over China and Cantonese is use in Hong Kong and South East China. Mandarin is easier to learn, but Cantonese is the origin language in China.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4481" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T22:24:05.367" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7131" CreationDate="2014-05-30T22:32:55.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your sentence 谢谢您的来电 is technically right to close a conversation. 谢谢您的来电 translates to English is 'thank you for your call'. The caller should end your call, are you sure you pronounced it correctly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese normally won't use '谢谢您的来电' to end a call. We often use an excuse to close the conversation, for example &quot;I have to go now, call you later&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4481" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-05-31T03:12:04.507" LastActivityDate="2014-05-31T03:12:04.507" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7131" CreationDate="2014-05-31T01:40:06.263" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can add some phrases to make it clear, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好的，我知道了。谢谢您的来电。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're in intimate relationship, you can just say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那就这样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-05-31T01:40:06.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7131" CreationDate="2014-05-31T04:57:42.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;IRL or on the telephone you can always say something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不好意思，有点事...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually 比较自觉的人 will know what the deal is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-05-31T04:57:42.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7131" CreationDate="2014-05-31T06:19:40.950" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It usually depends on the situation. If it was a company telling me about a product I might be interested in, and I hear them out, I usually end with 谢谢,我再考虑考虑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if it's one of my my friends, I usually make an excuse such as have to go now, have to sleep, have to eat etc... and add something like 我们哪天接着聊吧, or 回头见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If talking to my parents, I usually say 就这件事, or 没有别的事, etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4532" LastActivityDate="2014-05-31T06:19:40.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7139" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7184" CreationDate="2014-05-31T12:08:57.463" Score="-1" ViewCount="967" Body="&lt;p&gt;孝、孝顺，孝道、孝敬 all talk of filial piety which is a huge part of Chinese language and culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;愚孝 on the other hand means &quot;stupidly filial&quot; and is defined by Taiwans Ministry of Education as, “昧於事理的孝行，如割股醫親之類。” which roughly translates as “filial acts without judgement, things such as cutting off the flesh from one's thigh to make a medication for one's sick parent.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;abc dictionary defines 愚孝 as, “blind devotion to one's parents,” while cc-cedict says, “unquestioning filial piety.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Years ago there was a compilation of works called “二十四孝” (the 24 examples of filial piety (selected by Guo Jujing of the Yuán 元 Dynasty) but many of these, so-called, “exemplars” are considered 愚孝 by today's standards, see:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, in modern times, some stories in The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars are regarded as examples of blind filial piety that should not be learnt from. These stories include: Guo Ju burying his son for the sake of his mother; Wu Meng allowing mosquitoes to suck his blood, believing that they would not bother his parents if he did so; Wang Xiang lying naked on ice in the hope of thawing the ice with his body heat so that he could catch the fish beneath the ice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are also some stories which were heavily criticised and even regarded as contradicting Confucian principles. One example is the story of Cai Shun being rewarded by the Chimei rebels for his filial piety: The story paints the rebels in a positive light when they were actually being disloyal to their country[6] by rebelling against the government. Another example is the story of Laolaizi behaving in a childish manner to amuse his parents: The writer Lu Xun mentioned that Laolaizi's story is an insult to the ancients, and has a bad influence on future generations.[7]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, The Questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was 孝 originally meant to mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At what point does 孝 stop being 孝 and become 愚孝?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 孝 mean today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 愚孝 mean today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T16:51:30.740" Title="filial piety[孝]: what it is and what it isn't(?)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7140" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7141" CreationDate="2014-05-31T20:52:57.613" Score="3" ViewCount="1366" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple Words&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently came across this phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;八字沒見一撇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand each character but the meaning was still lost on me. So I asked someone about this and they informed me that it is somewhat sarcastic reply as if one were to ask you: &quot;how is that matter going...&quot; and that it's meaning might be assessed as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hidden Meaning&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;After some time I still haven't seen one thing happen.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked how do you determine the meaning and the response was that &quot;I've heard similar phrase before&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Questions&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, just as in English it appears that there are many phrases which one can only know  by understanding the back story. Please let me know if this interpretation is correct. I'm interested in learning additional Chinese metaphors if you'd like to share (either a new metaphor, different explanation of the phrase above, or source material where I can read more info about Chinese Metaphors).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Updated Remarks&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the answers below, I have revised my understanding of the metaphor to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;there's no sign of anything happening yet&quot;&lt;/em&gt; (&quot;八字沒見一撇&quot;, Section 9, &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2005439.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;baidu.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned I welcome any further answers to this question, especially ones that lead to discovery of more metaphors. I will use the information to further disambiguate metaphors, idioms, and proverbs (which are three types of common expressions that I am no tracking in my study of Chinese grammar). Thanks for the help in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-06-01T03:36:27.150" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T03:36:27.150" Title="Chinese Metaphor 八字沒見一撇" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7140" CreationDate="2014-05-31T21:15:10.213" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general idea for this idiom is that there's no guarantee for (whatever matter you are referring to) to come to fruition yet, likely whatever it was hasn't even been started. No way. Another way of saying this in Chinese is &quot;(事情)还没有眉目&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 八 (eight) is written with 2 strokes, the first one is 撇 (to the left), and the second one is 捺 (to the right). Think about it this way: for a character with two strokes, the first stroke hasn't be written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colloquially, you may also see the idiom written as 八字沒一撇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found an article on BaiDu that goes into the origins of the idiom (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2005439.htm&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2005439.htm&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have included my translations about the origins part (see BaiDu for original text)&#xA;The original idiom actual refers to the possible engagement between a man and woman. When the couple gets introduced to each other, a fortune teller is invited to see if their birth time/day/month/year (八字) will be harmonious with each other. This is called 发八字. If they are deemed to be compatible/harmonious, the man and woman will officially become engaged. Of course, these terms are not used today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4532" LastEditorUserId="4532" LastEditDate="2014-05-31T21:23:05.620" LastActivityDate="2014-05-31T21:23:05.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7140" CreationDate="2014-06-01T00:00:49.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the Chinese equivalent of a number of English proverbs: &quot;Man proposes, God disposes.&quot;  Or even, &quot;don't count your chickens before they're hatched.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are times when &quot;a lot of activity&quot; will not produce a good result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T00:00:49.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7139" CreationDate="2014-06-01T01:21:44.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A young person helps an old person. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://zidian.kxue.com/zi/xiao16_ziyuan.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zidian.kxue.com/zi/xiao16_ziyuan.html&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;So far, they are different. 孝 is still a commendatory word. But the concept of 孝 has changed over time, and your cited examples (considered as 愚孝) aren't promoted or encouraged by the society.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Filial piety.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“unquestioning filial piety” as you cited.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4358" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T01:21:44.893" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7112" CreationDate="2014-06-01T18:41:34.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 的 has two kinds of pronunciation, De and Di. Different pronunciation is used for different cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 他妈的, the 的 is pronounced like: De, which makes the whole thing: Ta Ma De.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I never hear people say Ta Ma Di.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you didn't know, 他妈的 or 他麻痹(Ta Ma Bi) means Mother F**ker in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4680" LastEditorUserId="4680" LastEditDate="2015-03-17T22:42:58.817" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T22:42:58.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7146" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7147" CreationDate="2014-06-01T18:47:24.707" Score="4" ViewCount="398" Body="&lt;p&gt;麟 is a very complicated word, and the word is in my name. 麟 is a simplified word, but it seems like it didn't even get simplified. Some similar words are: 鳞,磷,璘,嶙,粼,膦,遴,潾 etc. Why are all these word so complicated? Any help is appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4680" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T04:28:16.110" Title="Was the word 麟 simplified?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7146" CreationDate="2014-06-01T21:02:32.280" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;麟 (lin2) literally means female unicorn-like animal, which is an auspicious mythical Chinese animal and is the product of Chinese dragon and cow. 麟 is actually a very good and meaningful Chinese name. It is not that complicated if we decompose the character: &#xA;麟 (lin2) is a typical Phono-semantic compound (形聲): semantic 鹿 (lu4, meaning “deer”) + phonetic 粦 (lin2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your question, 麟 was not simplified. Please note that not every traditional Chinese characters were simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quote from Wiki:&#xA;&quot; Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms. Some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the same pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to one single standardized character, usually the simplest amongst all variants in form. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are thus identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-06-01T21:13:59.777" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T21:13:59.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7146" CreationDate="2014-06-02T02:17:45.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;麟 is actually not simplified. Chinese simplification is an interesting topic but it is usually not regarded as a science, so you might not find scientific and logical answers to many such questions, such as, why are characters simplified in their current way, and why some are not simplified, or why some different characters got merged (as if by mistakes). There indeed are criticisms about them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some criticisms include arbitrary changing meaningful radicals (愛-&gt;爱 removed heart，聖-&gt;圣 changed king to soil), semantically distinct characters got merged (e.g, 后後--&gt;后, 隻只--&gt;只， 發髮--&gt;发), the characters undermine its phonetics (盤--&gt;盘, 廣--&gt;广), and so on. I think personally I stay neutral about these issues, because both have pros and cons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested, you can find more information here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simplified_Chinese_characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2014-06-02T02:17:45.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7149" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-02T06:36:51.893" Score="15" ViewCount="1513" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lost Glyph Origin&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mgSlL.gif&quot; alt=&quot;ji-zdict.net&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奇 ( jī | qí  ) is a character that means &lt;em&gt;strange&lt;/em&gt; but the glyph origin appears to have been lost. At least as far as I can tell after researching offline books, zhongwen.com, and zdict.net ( qí ). The character is composed of (dà) 大 and (kě) 可 but none of my references can explain why the meaning is &quot;odd&quot; (numerically) or &quot;strange&quot; (as in unusual).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just one of the characters that seem to have lost it's history. I know that I could just accept it's meaning and memorise it but I really appreciate the storied history behind each character as a method to discern meaning. Can someone share information on the etymology of the character 奇?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am also interested in how I should deal with discrepancies between Chinese and Chinese-English dictionaries in general (see below for an example). Often, I note that the Chinese dictionary has more information (whose implications I am missing) than Chinese-English dictionaries (is there a better method than just using a source like www.zhongwen.com)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While researching this character I noticed that the Chinese dictionaries have much richer information available than the Chinese-English sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;奇 jī&#xA;①形单的；不成双的（跟“偶”相对）。&#xA;奇偶 | 奇数&#xA;②名〈文〉数目的零头。&#xA;身长六尺有奇 | 奇零&#xA;另见 qí。&#xA;奇 qí&#xA;①形特殊；稀罕。&#xA;奇形怪状 | 奇观 | 奇特&#xA;②形出人意料的；不同寻常的。&#xA;奇遇 | 奇计&#xA;③动惊异。&#xA;不足为奇 | 惊奇&#xA;④副特别；非常。&#xA;奇冷 | 奇痒难忍&#xA;⑤名姓。&#xA;用法说明读 qí，基本义是特殊、稀罕；读 jī，与数目有关，指单数或不成双的。&#xA;另见 jī。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Simplified Chinese Dictionary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a lot of which is quite hard to decipher and contrasted with my Simplified Chinese English Dictionary below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;奇 jī&#xA;A.形容词&#xA;odd&#xA;→ 奇偶, 奇数&#xA;B.名词&#xA;书面语remainder&#xA;六十有奇&#xA;sixty odd&#xA;→ qí&#xA;奇 qí&#xA;A.形容词&#xA;①（罕见）unusual&#xA;奇男子/女子&#xA;remarkable man/woman&#xA;奇松怪石&#xA;unique pine trees and strangely-shaped rocks&#xA;→ 奇耻大辱, 奇迹, 奇妙&#xA;②（出人意料）unexpected&#xA;→ 奇兵, 奇袭, 奇遇, 出奇制胜&#xA;B.动词&#xA;surprise&#xA;→ 不足为奇, 惊奇&#xA;C.副词&#xA;extremely&#xA;奇丑&#xA;very ugly&#xA;奇痒&#xA;be terribly itchy&#xA;→ 奇缺&#xA;→ jī&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hints&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zhongwen.com hints that this may just be a person exhaling in wonder (to imply strange??) but is that a stretch?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/N7Qvn.gif&quot; alt=&quot;ji-zhongwen.com&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ChineseEtymology.com&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese Etymology seems to have very little information on this character (&lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E5%A5%87&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;User Discussion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zdict.net has a user forum (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/wy/5947.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;) in which this character is discussed but I am afraid that I may have missed the gist of the conversation. So any help would be appreciated. The following reference image was shared in a post by user if that is any help. I am unsure of the original source and whether or not this is a composite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XP9Dg.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;user-discussion&quot;&gt;&#xA;Zdict.net &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T09:17:35.773" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T06:22:04.223" Title="What is the glyph origin of '奇'?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7149" CreationDate="2014-06-02T07:45:54.130" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The discussion on zdict basically explains that the Oracle bone script morphed (讹变) into its current form, but this transformation did not follow standard rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original Oracle bone script shows a man riding a horse, which means &amp;quot;to ride&amp;quot; (i.e. what 骑 means today), but when small seal script was developed, the horse morphed into 可, which violates the usual practice of keeping the meanings the same. The character also acquired the meanings of &amp;quot;unusual&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;strange&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pl5gD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲骨文“奇”字，人骑在马上，小篆“奇”字“马”讹变为“可”（“字源字形”栏目），本义跨坐、骑坐，“骑”本字，借为①特殊的、不常见的：奇怪、奇异、稀奇，②出人意料的、令人不测的：奇兵、奇计、出奇制胜，又借为：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◎ jī 单数、与“偶数”相对：奇数、奇偶、奇函数。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T23:05:13.103" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7151" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-02T08:43:36.880" Score="2" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an old way of pronouncing 牠? I remember learning to pronounce it as &amp;quot;tuo&amp;quot; when I was in primary school, which was more than 40 years ago. I know it is pronounced as &amp;quot;ta&amp;quot; now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4683" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-05T23:37:35.920" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T23:37:35.920" Title="Is there an old way of pronouncing 牠?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7151" CreationDate="2014-06-02T12:32:38.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's an old pronunciation. I remembered this pronunciation appeared in a classic poem composed approximately in Tang dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;珠泪纷纷湿绮罗，少年公子负恩多。当初姊妹分明道，莫把真心过于他。仔细思量着，淡薄只闻不好么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The note says the correct pronunciation is &amp;quot;tuo&amp;quot;, which rhymes with &amp;quot;罗&amp;quot;,&amp;quot;多&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;么&amp;quot;. According to the poem's pattern,&amp;quot;他&amp;quot; should rhyme here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern usage, I don't sound &amp;quot;tuo&amp;quot; in any case. &amp;quot;ta&amp;quot; is the only correct pronunciation. In order to rhyme, I'll read some characters with old pronunciations when reading classic poems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a phenomenon is called &amp;quot;古音异读&amp;quot; (lit. special ancient pronunciation), however, while the languages is evolving as time flies, some special pronunciations have been ignored by the public, and thus get lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other examples for &amp;quot;古音异读&amp;quot;. The fomer pronunciation is &amp;quot;modern pronunciation&amp;quot;, and the latter is the &amp;quot;special ancient pronunciation&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可汗 kě hàn vs kè hán&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;莫顿 mào dùn vs mò dú&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;斜 xié vs xiá&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汤汤 tāngtāng vs shāngshāng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骑 qí vs jì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I'm still confused when reading these characters. A typical one is &amp;quot;骑&amp;quot;, when I learned it in a famous verse &amp;quot;一骑红尘妃子笑&amp;quot;, I was taught the correct pronunciation was &amp;quot;jì&amp;quot; which means &amp;quot;a rider on a horse&amp;quot;; however, now in the dictionary, the pronunciation for this meaning is also qí.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-02T13:04:28.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7151" CreationDate="2014-06-02T13:08:19.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't find direct evidence and reference, but according to the book &lt;a href=&quot;http://book.douban.com/subject/1820065/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;字源谈趣&lt;/a&gt;, I think you're right. And for the further explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dH8qs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a picture about Chinese character evolution of &amp;quot;它&amp;quot;. Its original meaning is &amp;quot;snake&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;图（H）是秦代的小篆，是以图（G）的金文为基础发展而来的。与此同时，又讹变出一个图（I）的&amp;quot;也&amp;quot;字（小篆）来，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;也&amp;quot;与&amp;quot;它&amp;quot;，古同音，读tuo1。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And at the Qin Dynasty(from 221 to 206 BC), as shown as picture I, &amp;quot;也&amp;quot; was evolved from &amp;quot;它&amp;quot;, and their ancient pronunciation were both &amp;quot;tuo1&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在近代的初期白话文里，又出现了另一个指物代词--&amp;quot;牠&amp;quot;, 是以&amp;quot;牛&amp;quot;表意，以&amp;quot;也&amp;quot;表音的形声字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但今天&amp;quot;牠&amp;quot;被作为&amp;quot;它&amp;quot;的异体字，又已渐被淘汰，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &amp;quot;牠&amp;quot; appeared from early vernacular in modern times, using &amp;quot;牛&amp;quot; as ideograms, using &amp;quot;也&amp;quot; as phonogram. And &amp;quot;也&amp;quot;'s ancient pronunciation was &amp;quot;tuo1&amp;quot;, so &amp;quot;牠&amp;quot;'s ancient pronunciation shoule be &amp;quot;tuo1&amp;quot; too. And nowadays it's as &amp;quot;它&amp;quot;'s variant character and rarely be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-02T13:08:19.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7154" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7156" CreationDate="2014-06-02T14:53:08.887" Score="1" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Avoid Losing Face ( 沒面子 )&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a student of Chinese I would like always maintain a respectful tone. It can be very easy when speaking a second language to make mistakes that offend others. I would like to avoid such experiences as much as possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally in class, students are taught the basics such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;qǐng wèn 請問 and nín  您&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having these two phrases only, does not appear adequate to someone who wants to begin speaking to Chinese people. I am hoping readers can share additional language experiences, structures, or words that would help me to avoid making the other party (or myself) lose face. Specific grammatical phrases that help soften or smooth over any mistakes would also be helpful (like 對不起, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-06-02T16:30:10.493" Title="How and when to consider 面子 when speaking Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7149" CreationDate="2014-06-02T15:10:01.123" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the 漢語大字典, which has a graphic of the character in various scripts, in some earlier versions the top element of 奇 is written as 立 ‘to stand’.  It further cites an early analysis from the &quot;六書故” (liushu being the theory of 6 types of character composition):  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“一足立也.  別作踦.”  “奇,古踦字.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karlgren’s Analytic Dictionary gives 踦 as meaning “one-legged, halt, lame; single.”  In other words, “standing on one foot” is semantically linked to “strange, odd number,” and the character 奇 originally had both meanings.  It’s also easy to see the “man with one leg” in 奇, if you are looking for ways to memorize this character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking a different tack, both Karlgren and some of the early dictionaries state that 可 is also a phonetic element, although the correspondence is inexact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2014-06-02T15:10:01.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7154" CreationDate="2014-06-02T15:17:19.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A mistake I make often (but sometimes it's kind of fun) is connecting peoples names to bad things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我姓刁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 哦，是刁难的刁，对吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People seem to be kind of offended by this kind of stuff. Try not to connect it to 'bad' or 'negative' 'non-positive' things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: oh yeah - also don't use &lt;code&gt;以小人之心，度君子之腹&lt;/code&gt; with people [that is including the person you are talking to into the saying] even if you think it's a perfect fit for the situation - people will just assume you are calling them a &lt;code&gt;小人&lt;/code&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-02T16:30:10.493" LastActivityDate="2014-06-02T16:30:10.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7158" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7183" CreationDate="2014-06-02T20:11:23.760" Score="1" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;h2&gt;关系&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appears that building strong relationships or guān xì (关系) is very important in Chinese society. Would readers be able to share some scenarios or phrases that would help build such 关系？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar relationships exist for English speakers and take time to build. Some of the most important ideas one needs to express include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trust (信任, 凭信, etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Confidence (信心, et. al.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reliability (可靠, etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dependability (可靠, etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hard-working (勤奋, etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Honesty (诚实, etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some Chinese phrases, fragments, or words that a student would need in order to begin building a network of guān xì (关系) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, one general  sentence I have found is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;néng qǐng nǐ bāng gè máng mǎ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;能请你帮个忙吗?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Could you do me a favor?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reference&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kwintessential, Ltd. (n.d.). Guanxi: The Chinese Cultural Concept. Retrieved June 2, 2014 from, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/etiquette/china-guanxi.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/etiquette/china-guanxi.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-06-03T14:15:01.177" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T06:15:00.740" Title="Chinese phrases to encourage better 关系" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-06-15T09:16:13.957" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7159" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7176" CreationDate="2014-06-02T20:56:36.567" Score="13" ViewCount="12048" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm practicing by reading Game of Throne tweets and it's the names and naming that gets me. Here's the tweet and 5 questions on names and naming conventions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;权力的游戏S04E08。野人袭击鼹鼠村；拉姆斯夺下卡林湾，得到波顿家族合法子嗣的地位；珊莎撒谎消除贵族对莱莎之死的怀疑，小指头提出让罗宾出巡领地；猎狗和艾雅到达艾林谷，却被告知莱莎已去世；乔拉的身份曝光，龙女命令其永远离开；奥柏伦在比武中重创魔山，但魔山笑到最后，小恶魔被判死刑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/alexchen4836/status/473504458500882432&quot;&gt;https://twitter.com/alexchen4836/status/473504458500882432&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小指头 - Littlefinger. Why not 小指?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拉姆斯 - Ramsey? How does this sound like Ramsey Bolton?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;猎狗 - The Hound. How do people come up with this translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;艾林谷 - Eyrie Valley? How does this sound like Eyrie?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小恶魔 - Tyrion. Again, how do people come up with this translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: My bad: 艾林谷 is Arryn Valley. It's the Vale of Arryn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;============================================================&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;野人 - Wildlings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鼹鼠村 - Mole town&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卡林湾 - Moat Calin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;波顿家族 - THe Boltons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;珊莎 - Sansa&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;莱莎 - Lysa (of the Vale)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;罗宾 - Robin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;艾雅 - Arya&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乔拉 - Jorah&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;龙女 - Mother of dragons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奥柏伦 - Oberyn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="3063" LastEditDate="2014-06-04T19:20:05.230" LastActivityDate="2014-08-29T06:00:02.850" Title="权力的游戏 - Game of Thrones names - latest episode - SPOILERS" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7160" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-02T21:21:14.147" Score="2" ViewCount="467" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I were to write &quot;aiyaa, 这是太贵了!“ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wondering how to show exasperation in writing? Or how to write the aiyaa?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4669" LastEditorUserId="4669" LastEditDate="2014-06-02T21:34:44.283" LastActivityDate="2019-08-21T07:07:17.857" Title="How to show exasperation?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7161" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-02T21:31:54.550" Score="8" ViewCount="688" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my research, 目前 and 現在 seem all mean now or present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So native speakers or Chinese advanced learners, is there any difference between 目前 and 現在?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4669" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T03:17:32.697" Title="What is the difference between 目前 and 現在?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7162" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-02T21:46:07.037" Score="2" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wondering where to put a time frequency word in a Chinese sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one of the following sentences is correct? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我每个星期去四次大学 or 我每个星期去大学四次?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4684" LastActivityDate="2014-06-08T13:24:08.230" Title="Which sentence is correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7163" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-02T21:58:38.703" Score="2" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the textbook, I read this: 67.5读作六十七点五.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: &#xA;What's the role of 读作？ Why 读作 is there？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢您！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4684" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T03:51:32.770" Title="How to use 读作 in the sentence &quot;67.5读作六十七点五&quot;?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7163" CreationDate="2014-06-03T00:31:51.427" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can replace 读作 with 'read as'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence can be translated as:&#xA;  67.5 reads as 六十七点五&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T00:31:51.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7162" CreationDate="2014-06-03T00:42:17.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 我每个星期去四次大学 or 我每个星期去大学四次. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T00:42:17.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7160" CreationDate="2014-06-03T01:58:42.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can just say 哎呀，太贵了！ to express the meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T01:58:42.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7161" CreationDate="2014-06-03T02:12:13.457" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;目前=in current condition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在=now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they've just got some slight difference, in most of the time they are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4293" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T02:12:13.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7159" CreationDate="2014-06-03T02:53:41.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of your questions are plainly about transliterations and how they are supposed to sound like English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English also has a lot of transliterations or borrowed words from other languages and we super butcher the original translations, try saying cul-de-sac to a native French person. These sort of translations, like you mentioned above (Ramsey, Eyrie, etc.), are pretty much foreign speakers (in this case Chinese) imitating English as best as they can using their own language - I don't know how 'accurate' you can expect it to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hound 猎狗 is just a direct translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Little finger 小指头 is common usage in daily Chinese dialog, 小指 is must more official, just like man vs male in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tyrion: I've never seen the show but the translation 小恶魔 means little devil - according to Wikipedia he's a deformed dwarf so I guess it's pretty clear why they call him a little devil.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4685" LastEditDate="2014-06-03T08:31:04.603" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T08:31:04.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7160" CreationDate="2014-06-03T02:56:58.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;汗 is also an awesome nonvocal way to express exasperation in written Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CC-CEDICT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 to be speechless (out of helplessness, embarrassment etc) (Internet slang used as an interjection)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could totally write: &quot;汗, 太贵了!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T02:56:58.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7162" CreationDate="2014-06-03T08:38:33.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the former sounds weird. it roughly translates to &quot;I go four times to university every week&quot;. while the latter feels more natural, &quot;I go to university four times a week&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4681" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T08:38:33.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7173" CreationDate="2014-06-03T09:49:00.217" Score="1" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am aware that there are some difficulties in automatic conversion of characters to pinyin, because the same character can be pronounced in different ways depending on the context.  Do these problems still exist if you just want to convert personal names?  Are there any good software tools for that job?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4366" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T13:17:17.183" Title="Characters to pinyin for names?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7161" CreationDate="2014-06-03T10:31:57.083" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pair of words &quot;目前&quot; and &quot;現在&quot; draws parallel to &quot;for the time being&quot; and &quot;now&quot; in English. In many circumstances you can use them interchangeably, but in some cases, &quot;目前&quot; has an additional implication that that the current conditions are subject to change &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;shortly&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. If you want to use a stronger word than &quot;目前&quot; to stress that the situation is volatile, use &quot;暫時&quot; (&quot;provisionally&quot;) instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4086" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T10:31:57.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7171" CreationDate="2014-06-03T13:17:17.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Names are still tricky. There was even a heated discussion recently about the correct pronunciation of a very famous person called 甄嬛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some characters are neither wrong nor right, e.g.: 茜 some people pronounce it xi1 other pronounce it qian4 ... it just depends on their parents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Haven't tired any of these but there's a bunch of different software that will do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中英文姓名批量转换器&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;韦氏港台拼音姓名批量转换器&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but any software will still need people to proofread it &amp;amp; maybe even confirm it with the people themselves...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T13:17:17.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7174" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7175" CreationDate="2014-06-03T14:58:21.173" Score="1" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When to use variations of 那?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那 (nà,nǎ, nèi, núo) has multiple pronunciations. Can someone explain when to use the different sounds? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(images courtesy of www.zhongwen.com)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gTBPm.gif&quot; alt=&quot;nei@zhongwen.com&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lmNXW.gif&quot; alt=&quot;nei-radical@zhongwen.com&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T16:00:26.327" Title="Using variants of 那" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7174" CreationDate="2014-06-03T15:23:17.547" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;那 (nà)&lt;/strong&gt;: that, those &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g 那是什么？What is that?/What are those?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;哪 (nǎ)&lt;/strong&gt;: where, which&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g 你在哪里？Where are you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;那 (nèi)&lt;/strong&gt;: that, those. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same meaning as the first 那 (nà). But in &quot;Internet Slang&quot;, people often write 内(nèi) instead of 那, because 那 is often pronounced as (nà)&#xA;e.g  那个人 That guy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;那 (nuó)&lt;/strong&gt;:【adj】 多,much,many&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is used in archaic Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More explanations about 那 can be found at:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/2193.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/2193.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/26/js/90A3.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/26/js/90A3.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4687" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2014-06-03T16:00:26.327" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T16:00:26.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7159" CreationDate="2014-06-03T16:54:21.797" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I'm Chinese and I'm a big fan of the Game of Thrones. I've read both the English and Chinese version of the novel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Ramsey and Eyrie:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ra-m-sey,  to mimic the &quot;Ra&quot; sound, because there is no such sound in Chinese, we use 拉（La1) instead. Actually a funny story is that there are a lot Chinese dialects in which people pronounce &quot;R&quot; as &quot;L&quot;. One of my friend from Fujian always say 热死了(re4 si3 le1) as le4 si3 le1. This works for the &quot;m&quot; too. Chinese is a monosyllabic language. Almost every word is pronounced as &quot;consonant+vowel&quot;(耳 and other er sound words are the exceptions). So when we meet a single &quot;m&quot; in a name, we always translate it as 姆(mu3）. There is also no sound like &quot;sey&quot; in Chinese. So we translate it into 斯(si1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eyrie follow the same rule because there is no sound like &quot;rie&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Tyrion, he is translated as 提利昂(a translation for the closest sound in Chinese). The &quot;小恶魔&quot; is a translation for his nickname &quot;the Imp&quot; actually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, as a Chinese, I think the translation for the name of characters in the Game of Thrones are pretty good. My favorite translations in the books are the names of the bastards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;River: 河文&#xA;Snow: 雪诺&#xA;Flower: 花佛&#xA;Stone: 石东&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these Chinese name, the first character is the meaning of the name and the second word is a sound mimic. And they read great in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also, what do you think is a better translation for the Hound？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2014-06-03T17:05:10.577" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T17:05:10.577" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7177" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-03T18:49:24.837" Score="5" ViewCount="1596" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does “哩勒公蝦毀” mean? A Taiwanese guy said that to me after I had, accidently, mistyped two words in an idiom I used on him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He also used an expression of surprise (I presume) which went like “蛤？！” (after I said he seemed like a guy whom a conversation would get easily boring with) What does that mean too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4628" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2014-06-06T04:48:01.253" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T17:48:29.850" Title="“哩勒公蝦毀” what does this mean?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;taiwanese&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7177" CreationDate="2014-06-03T19:20:49.883" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase means &quot;What did you say?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="4640" LastEditDate="2014-06-03T23:10:09.030" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T23:10:09.030" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7177" CreationDate="2014-06-03T20:20:30.793" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;哩勒公蝦毀&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence refers to the pronunciation of &quot;What did you say?&quot; in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_Nan&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Min-Nan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哩(ㄌㄧ): You &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;勒(ㄌㄟ): an auxiliary verb &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;公(ㄍㄨㄥ): say&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蝦毀(ㄒㄧㄚ ㄏㄨㄟˇ): what&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;蛤？！&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word equals to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/huh#English&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Huh? Could you speak up?&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. Taiwanese use this word commonly on the Internet because it's the first word choice in Bopomofo input method of &quot;ㄏㄚˊ&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c4EcD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="469" LastEditorUserId="469" LastEditDate="2014-06-03T23:20:18.747" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T23:20:18.747" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="189" CreationDate="2014-06-04T00:35:00.083" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usage of 妳 is very common in Taiwan, but 你 is also okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4692" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-19T15:04:13.860" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T15:04:13.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7007" CreationDate="2014-06-04T00:37:20.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think they are the same. My guess is one is 師 and the other is 帥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4692" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T00:37:20.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7158" CreationDate="2014-06-04T03:04:38.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;关系 has very little to do with language because it works more on a 礼尚往来-system, much like everything in China does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to &quot;earn&quot; some 关系 you must make people feel like they &lt;em&gt;owe&lt;/em&gt; you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 礼 in 礼尚往来 originally stood for 礼节 - looking at it you might even think of 礼貌 or 礼仪 but most people today take this as 礼物.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to earn 关系 then you really need to take the initiative and give some gifts, presents or even money. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to keep 关系 you better make sure you &quot;reciprocate&quot; on every possible occasion, especially: birthdays, births, funerals, weddings, promotions, house warnings. Reciprocation means that whatever you were given before you better give something with greater or (in the absolute least) equal value (but something of equal value will probably be looked upon as somewhat disrespectful and perhaps as an indicator that you're not willing to 'sustain' this 关系 relationship).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(On a side note: this explains China's problem with corruption - too many people owe people favors...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone invites you to dinner - you better invite them back, if someone gives you a &quot;gift&quot; you better give one back (at the appropriate time, of course) - unless you don't care about &quot;keeping up&quot; the relationship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you recieve some stuff you can say something like:&#xA;破费了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you give stuff you can say something like:&#xA;一点心意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T03:04:38.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7139" CreationDate="2014-06-04T06:10:28.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;是(Confirm)是(right thing)非(deny)非(wrong thing)谓之(is)知(smart),&#xA;非(deny)是(right thing)是(confirm)非(wrong thing)谓之愚 &#xA;是：肯定、赞同、承认。&#xA;非：否定、摒弃。&#xA;第二个为形容词性，即&#xA;是：正确的，对的，积极的。&#xA;非：错误的，不好的，消极的。&#xA;总体上翻译为；能够肯定正确的、否定错误的才是智慧的表现。把错的认为是对的、把对的认为是正确的，那就是愚昧的表现。&#xA;孔子 think “仁义礼智信” is the right thing, So if a man doing a wrong thing and think he is do the right for 孝. it's  愚孝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the rule of the right thing changes with the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4693" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T06:10:28.307" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7158" CreationDate="2014-06-04T06:15:00.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Invite him a dinner and let him introduce you some Chinese food, the 关系 of you will be better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4693" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T06:15:00.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7187" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7195" CreationDate="2014-06-04T13:04:11.113" Score="3" ViewCount="1427" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every Chinese New Years I try to remember common expressions associated with huī chūn (揮春). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;賀年的吉利字詞 (Hè nián de jí lì zì cí)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some expressions that I have heard are usually only four characters. I believe that different customs exist depending on region. For example, in Cantonese all of these will sound differently and one can even make up new phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;身体强壮 (shēn tǐ jiàng zhuàng)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;富貴吉祥 (fù guì jí xiáng )&#xA;  etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to add more of these expression to my vocabulary. Could anyone provide some &lt;em&gt;Chinese phrases or source information&lt;/em&gt; covering this topic? I understand that there may be a lot of regional variation and I am interested in learning more about all of these expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(Here are some of the more elegant samples)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;万事平安幸福年，吉祥如意拜年顺。 (wàn shì Píng ān xìng fú nián jí xiáng rú Yì bài    nián shùn)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;人和家顺百事兴，富贵平安福满堂。(rén hé jiā shùn bǎi shì xīng fù guì Píng ān fú mǎn    táng )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;新春福旺鸿运开，佳节吉祥如意来。(Xīn chūn fú wàng hóng yùn kāi jiā jié jí xiáng rú Yì    lái)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;日子红火喜迎门，天随人意福星照。(rì zǐ hóng huǒ xǐ yíng mén tiān suí rén Yì fú xīng    zhào )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;门迎百福福星照，户纳千祥祥云开。(mén yíng bǎi fú fú xīng zhào hù Nà qiān xiáng xiáng    yún kāi)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B3%80%E5%B9%B4#.E4.B8.AD.E5.9C.8B.E5.A4.A7.E9.99.B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-06-07T00:42:51.727" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T00:42:51.727" Title="How to wish people good health, etc during Chinese New Year 揮春 | 春貼 | 門聯、春仔" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;congratulations&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7177" CreationDate="2014-06-04T14:35:32.250" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning of &quot;哩勒公蝦毀&quot; (li lei gong xia hui) is &quot;What are you talking about?&quot;. And &quot;蛤？！&quot; means &quot;What?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one orthography of Taiwanese, the phrase &quot;哩勒公蝦毀&quot; could be written as &quot;汝咧講啥貨&quot; (ru lie jiang sha huo), which literally means &quot;What things are you talking about?&quot; Its Roman transcription would be &quot;lí leh kóng siáⁿ-hòe&quot; (in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pe%CC%8Dh-%C5%8De-j%C4%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;POJ&lt;/a&gt; style).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since most Taiwanese people didn't learn the proper writing standards of Taiwanese at school, they just started using these characters arbitrarily, according to Mandarin homophones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;蛤&quot; is also just selected by the Taiwanese, based on Mandarin homophones. The pronunciation of this character is &quot;hã&quot; (or &quot;hâⁿ&quot; in POJ), of which &quot;ã&quot; means a nasal vowel. Moreover, there is no consensus on the character usage of this term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4668" LastEditorUserId="4668" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T17:48:29.850" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T17:48:29.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7159" CreationDate="2014-06-04T15:49:36.997" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;When translating literatures or films, there is a convention that the personal or place names would not be translated strictly by their original meanings or pronunciations. And the translation would not have a single logic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what translator's thought, but although the meanings of &quot;小指头&quot; and &quot;小指&quot; are similar, &quot;小指头&quot; just sounds more like a name (I don't know why). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;拉姆西&quot; would fit the sound of Ramsey more, but as I said, the transcription in Chinese (especially in literature translation) is somewhat arbitrary. Some may confuse why use 姆 (mu) since there is no vowel after m, but it is unavoidable because Mandarin Chinese doesn't have an &quot;m&quot;-ended sound. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other names, &quot;猎狗&quot; is just the literal meaning of &quot;hound&quot;. And &quot;艾林谷&quot; is another arbitrary example because &quot;Eyrie&quot; is not ended by &quot;n&quot;, a more appropriate translation would be &quot;艾利谷&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't known why China version translated &quot;Tyrion&quot; into &quot;小恶魔&quot;. But zyc answered this. In addition, sometimes the Chinese film subtitle would keep using one name no matter what is actually said from the actor's mouth in the films. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;野人 literally means &quot;wild people&quot;. Modern Chinese is hard to use only one syllable to mention something, maybe that's the reason why they have to add some other Hanzi (which will add more meanings) when translating Western literatures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;鼹鼠村&quot; is a literal meaning of &quot;Mole town&quot;. But &quot;镇&quot; would be fit &quot;town&quot; more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;卡林湾&quot;, the literal meaning of &quot;Moat&quot; is &quot;护城河&quot; or &quot;濠&quot;, but maybe the translator feels that the towers are located near a &quot;gulf&quot; so he/she just translate &quot;Moat Calin&quot; into &quot;卡林湾&quot; which means &quot;Calin Gulf&quot; literally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note [2014-08-29]: Actually &quot;湾&quot; can be used to refer a curved inland waterway in some contexts, but this meaning is rarely used in modern Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;波顿家族&quot; means &quot;Bolton family&quot;, this is because it's rarely in Chinese to use only family name to mention a family. In most occasion would have to add &quot;家&quot; or &quot;家族&quot; (family) to translate something like &quot;The Boltons&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;珊莎, 莱莎, 罗宾, 艾雅, 乔拉 and 奥柏伦 are simply translated by sounds. And &quot;龙女&quot; is actually means &quot;dragon women&quot;. By the way, the Taiwan version just translated &quot;Mother of dragons&quot; by literal meaning as &quot;龍母&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4668" LastEditorUserId="4668" LastEditDate="2014-08-29T06:00:02.850" LastActivityDate="2014-08-29T06:00:02.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7191" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-04T20:18:10.480" Score="2" ViewCount="714" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've learned two question ending: 吗 in 你好吗? and 呢 in 你呢?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my question is When to use ’啦&quot; and &quot;嘛&quot;？They seem to be question ending also, are they common in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4694" LastActivityDate="2021-04-18T23:49:57.437" Title="When to use ’啦‘ and &quot;嘛‘？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7192" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-04T20:23:36.950" Score="1" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to learn common greetings in Chinese. I haven't taken any classes or used any textbooks. I would like to learn, very much! So I would be able to carry on simple conversation with Chinese friends :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4694" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T11:58:52.100" Title="I would like to learn common greetings in Chinese" Tags="&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-06-09T21:55:36.223" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7191" CreationDate="2014-06-04T23:26:52.567" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;啦 is not truly a question ending. Actually 了 is. &#xA;&lt;br&gt; E.g. 你刚才去哪了？ Where did you go just now? &#xA;&lt;br&gt; However Chinese people do like to use 啦 instead of 了 to ask questions. Maybe it sounds cuter? So the example becomes &#xA;&lt;br&gt; 你刚才去哪啦？It's just a verbal use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In question sentences, 嘛 can be used to substitute 什么 as a question ending. E.g. 你在干嘛？What are you doing now? instead of 你在干什么？I cannot think of any question else that ends with 嘛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt; BTW these two characters are also widely used for acting cute...&#xA;E.g. 好了啦！ 干嘛啦！common in girlish talks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4695" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T23:26:52.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7097" CreationDate="2014-06-05T01:43:53.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An informal way to refer to a handsome man in any Chinese-spoken area is &lt;code&gt;男神&lt;/code&gt; (nan shen), which is a common fashion word among younger people. It's especially popular with young &quot;girly girls&quot; who would like to think of a handsome guy as their &quot;prince&quot;. Literally it's translated as &quot;man God&quot; and its English equivalent would be Adonis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="4628" LastEditDate="2014-06-06T15:30:30.737" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T15:30:30.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7187" CreationDate="2014-06-05T07:07:57.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an incredibly broad question; books can be written on the subject. Because of this and I'm not an expert Chinese language user either, I'll only answer using broad generalisations (and exceptions will apply to everything I write here).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;The contents&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the words and phrases commonly used during Chinese New Year:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General well-wishes:&lt;/strong&gt; as an important holiday, universal well-wishing themes can be used. Happiness (如意吉祥), prosperity (財源廣進), health (身壯力健), luck and success (心想事成) are all acceptable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese-specific wishes:&lt;/strong&gt; as the festival is deeply intertwined with Chinese culture, culture-specific well-wishes are also good. Themes that are characteristic of Chinese culture include longevity (壽), harmony/serenity (四季平安) and national/cultural well-wishing (國泰民安).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CNY-specific wishes:&lt;/strong&gt; CNY is known in Chinese as the &quot;spring festival&quot;, so you can use the theme of spring/renewal (萬象更新); CNY is a time of family reunion so there's the theme of family/reunion (家和万事兴); according to traditional Chinese culture, everyone ages together during CNY (as opposed to the Western practice of individual birthdays), so age or birth related themes are sometimes seen; Zodiac-related phrases are also popular, for example this year is the year of the horse, so phrases with a horse (or a homonym) have been popular (马上有钱).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;The forms&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese culture loves symmetry so the most common forms are power-of-two length phrases (4 characters, 2 characters, 8 characters). Couplets are also symmetrical in that the two lines mirror each other. Odd-numbered phrases are rare. Here are the most common forms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Single character:&lt;/strong&gt; by far the most common is &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A6%8F%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;福&lt;/a&gt; (happiness), and sometimes placed upside-down in order to invoke the phrase ‘福’倒了 / 福到了 (the ‘福’ is upside-down / happiness has arrived). Other commonly used single characters include 春 and 壽.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Four characters:&lt;/strong&gt; four is a great number for symmetry so you see this form a lot, especially in chengyu. However, many 4-character 揮春 are not chengyu but simply phrases that are CNY-related.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couplet_%28Chinese_poetry%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Couplets:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; these days, couplets are most commonly used as 揮春. Basically, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%A5%E8%81%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;春贴&lt;/a&gt; are couplets that use CNY-themed phrases. There's a number of rules they have to follow which I won't cover in this answer, but the basic form is two symmetrical lines plus an optional &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A9%AB%E6%89%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;横批&lt;/a&gt; that summarises; the 横批 is typically 4 characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;So what should I use?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although there are few hard and fast rules to follow, if you have to ask then you should avoid coming up with your own! It's somewhat like poetry, creative but it takes a high level of language proficiency to make good ones yourself. Here's my suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Use the most common, general phrases.&lt;/strong&gt; These also tend to be the mass-produced ones. It may seem boring but most people do it anyway so you're in good company. I mean things like the single 福 or 恭喜發財, the ones that are never inappropriate. It's not a love letter, you don't need to impress anyone with your creativity.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tailor to the recipient.&lt;/strong&gt; As all well-wishing goes, personal touch almost always trumps all else. Health/longevity (长命富贵) for the elderly, profit/prosperity (生意兴隆) for entrepreneurs, growth (快高长大) for small children and so on. This is a great way to be creative, but just be careful you understand the phrases and don't commit faux pas (like 早生贵子 for unmarried/bachelors).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Find experts for bespoke phrases.&lt;/strong&gt; Normally this is overkill, but if the occasion is very special (like a wedding, or business opening) and you have to use original phrases, get an expert. Even most native Chinese speakers find this difficult to do, or at least do it well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-06-05T07:07:57.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3858" CreationDate="2014-06-05T09:56:08.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on where this native Chinese comes from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese from mainland China tend to use &quot;中国&quot; to refer to the China including mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Chinese from Taiwan who claim to be only Taiwanese not Chinese, use &quot;中国&quot; to refer to China, a country that Taiwan does not belong to. Chinese from Taiwan who claim to be both Taiwanese and Chinese often use &quot;中国&quot; to refer to the China that the Republic of China used to reign, which is bigger than the current PRC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;中国大陆&quot; is mainland China for Taiwanese. Taiwanese will use &quot;中国大陆&quot; or &quot;内地&quot;（literally inner land） to describe where a Chinese from mainland comes from. They also use these terms in TV news or shows to describe the place where something happened. A Chinese from mainland will also use &quot;中国大陆&quot; or &quot;大陆&quot;（very rarely &quot;内地&quot; which is not proper） to describe where he/she comes from when he/she is talking to a Taiwanese. However, Chinese from mainland will not use &quot;中国大陆&quot; or &quot;大陆&quot; to describe the place where something happened when talking to other Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4502" LastActivityDate="2014-06-05T09:56:08.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7197" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7198" CreationDate="2014-06-05T12:36:25.003" Score="1" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;During test taking I've heard people talking about ji选.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which apparently is pretty much just &quot;guessing&quot; at the answer or as one person told me - just picking which ever answer 'looks' good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what exactly is the 'ji' from ji选?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did it come about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: should be ... 机选&#xA;Means 'computer picked' or 'random'...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-05T12:49:40.790" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T15:02:57.157" Title="Test taking : ji选?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7197" CreationDate="2014-06-05T16:44:33.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was a 随 (sui2) dropped in 随机 （randomly）. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore (随)机选 means &quot;randomly picked&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 'computer picked', It would still be translated as &quot;randomly&quot; because computers pick numbers &quot;randomly.&quot; In this case, 机 could mean 机器 （Machine）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-06-06T15:02:57.157" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T15:02:57.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7177" CreationDate="2014-06-05T17:52:18.330" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a Taiwanese (Min-nan) utterance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pronunciation:&#xA;“哩(li) 勒(le) 公(gong) 蝦毀(siann-hue)?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;translation word by word: &#xA;You    are    saying   what-thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a hot Disney movie song FROZEN - Let It Go.&#xA;Recently, we have a Taiwanese version of it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/23F1iAq__P8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://youtu.be/23F1iAq__P8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at time slot during 1:18~1:21&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a similar sentence (only the subject is different. you --&gt; they)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;subtile:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他們 (Yin) 到底 (dau-de) 在(le) 講(gong) 啥貨(siann-hue)?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;translation in English word by word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;They on earth are saying what-thing?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cut that short segment here for easy reference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/TZmCtU6uzN8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://youtu.be/TZmCtU6uzN8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/24gKE.png&quot; alt=&quot;他們到底在講啥貨&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I have to point out that &#xA;because of lack of standardization of written form for Taiwanese,&#xA;there will be different ways for writing the same utterance.&#xA;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哩(li) 勒(le) 公(gong) 蝦毀(siann-hue)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;v.s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你(li) 在(le) 講(gong) 啥貨(siann-hue)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter is better because those Chinese characters have real meaning to represent those sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former one just use the homonyms, those characters are meaningless in this case, even Chinese native speakers cannot understand the former sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, frankly speaking, the topic sentence in this question is actually not a correct sentence or not a good sentence to represent a commonly used Taiwanese daily sentence!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4666" LastEditorUserId="4666" LastEditDate="2014-06-06T03:35:12.480" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T03:35:12.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6910" CreationDate="2014-06-06T00:53:37.017" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked at some articles about Laozi, Taoism and Tea. What I found was the phrase &quot;the froth of liquid jade&quot; might not be due to Laozi, though there are some English Internet articles saying so. What I found was the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) There is no Chinese literature saying Laozi used the phrase 琼浆玉液 to describe tea. Actually, Laozi did like tea, but it was because of its plain taste and medical feel (not the sensational taste as described by the phrase &quot;the froth of liquid jade&quot;). According to some research article (&lt;a href=&quot;http://cart.ntua.edu.tw/upload/st/200412/200412A03.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://cart.ntua.edu.tw/upload/st/200412/200412A03.pdf&lt;/a&gt;), Laozi was against food/drinks with strong flavors (五味 = 酸sour﹑甘sweet﹑苦bitter﹑辛spicy﹑咸salty) : 茶的少滋味，正符合《老子》：「五味令人爽」的飲食觀點，所謂「五味令人爽」指五味亂口，使口爽傷之意，此一飲食觀點也與《莊子‧天地》篇所說：「夫失性有五…四曰五味濁口，使口厲爽；五曰趣舍滑心，使性飛揚」的旨趣相同。可見老莊以「無為」為貴，在飲食生活中已涵化為去滋味，依本性的養生實踐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) What Laozi commented about tea was a story like this. Laozi was leaving the Hangu Pass, the local officer Yinxi treated him at home with tea, which was the beginning of tea. Laozi said: Those who drink this tea are our disciples. 道经《天皇至道太清玉册》记载：“老子出函谷关，令尹喜迎之于家首献茗，此茶之始。老子曰：食是茶者，皆汝之道徒也。” However, he did not comment on the flavor of tea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) The phrase 琼浆玉液 was first used in the Warring States period (476–221BC): 《楚辞·王逸＜九思·疾世＞》：“从卭遨兮栖迟，吮**玉液**兮止渴。”原注：“玉液，琼蘂之精气。” 战国·楚·屈原《招魂》：“华酌既陈，有**琼浆**些。” But Laozi was generally believed to live in the Spring and Autumn period (771-476BC). So the translation of &quot;liquid jade&quot; 玉液could not be attributed to Laozi, according to known Chinese sources. Rather, &quot;froth of liquid jade&quot; seems to describe a kind of bubbling green tea (Matcha). This method was introduced in Song Dynasty (960–1279, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matcha&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matcha&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the phrase &quot;froth of liquid jade&quot; might not be from Laozi. And, there is no well-known Chinese record showing the quote. It might actually be a mistranslation, due to the famouseness of Laozi in the Western world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to cite some Chinese classics about Tea. You can refer to The Classics of Tea (茶经 by 陆羽, &lt;a href=&quot;http://a2tea.com/luyu/luyu12.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://a2tea.com/luyu/luyu12.php&lt;/a&gt;). It's actually the very book that made tea famous in China itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the tea acquired a symbolic and cultural status due to the Classics of Tea, many poets wrote famous quotes about tea. Here are some of them. Hope they are helpful. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;茶者，南方之嘉木也。(陆羽《茶经》）&#xA;春风解恼诗人鼻，非叶非花自是香。　(杨万里)&#xA;寒夜客来茶当酒，竹炉汤沸火初红。　(杜耒) &#xA;欲将西湖比西子，从来佳茗似佳人。　(苏轼)&#xA;蜀土茶称圣，蒙山味独珍。　　　　　(文同) 　&#xA;长安酒价减千万，成都药市无光辉。　(范仲淹) 　&#xA;黄金碾畔绿尘飞，碧玉瓯中翠涛起。　(范仲淹)&#xA;&#xA;《答族侄僧中孚赠玉泉仙人掌茶并序》 〖唐〗 李白&#xA;尝闻玉泉山，山洞多乳窟。&#xA;仙鼠白如鸦，倒悬清溪月。&#xA;茗生此中石，玉泉流不歇。&#xA;根柯洒芳津，采服润肌骨。&#xA;丛老卷绿叶，枝枝相接连。&#xA;曝成仙人掌，以拍洪崖肩。&#xA;举世未见，其名谁定传。&#xA;宗英乃禅伯，投赠有佳篇。&#xA;清镜烛无盐，顾惭西子妍。&#xA;朝坐有余兴，长吟播诸天。 &#xA;&#xA;《一言到七言诗》 〖唐〗 元稹&#xA;茶。&#xA;香叶，嫩芽。&#xA;慕诗客，爱僧家。&#xA;碾雕白玉，罗织红纱。&#xA;铫煎黄蕊色，碗转曲尘花。&#xA;夜后邀陪明月，晨前命对朝霞。&#xA;洗尽古今人不倦，将如醉前岂堪夸。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="4640" LastEditDate="2014-06-06T15:34:28.623" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T15:34:28.623" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7201" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-06T06:36:28.667" Score="0" ViewCount="651" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://i.solidfiles.net/690a5c4a8c.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://i.solidfiles.net/690a5c4a8c.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really need it as fast as I can, sorry if it's not appropiate to request translations like this, but it's for a relative of mine who really needs it. It's from an age preventing drug, I need to know what it contains, how should it be taken, etc. Thanks to anyone who'll try to help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4700" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T14:45:58.830" Title="Can someone please translate this for me?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-06-09T21:53:14.107" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7201" CreationDate="2014-06-06T08:01:19.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;黄芪: the root of membranous milk vetch (Astragalus membranaceus)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刺五加: manyprickle (Acanthopanax senticosus)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;山药: dioscorea [rhizome]; also called Chinese yam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;淫羊藿: epimedium&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Need to see the instructions inside on how to take it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: says it also contains saponin and crude polysaccharide and it's not good for children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-06T08:15:22.677" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T08:15:22.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7201" CreationDate="2014-06-06T08:16:57.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;and not for children&#xA;(儿童不宜)    。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4693" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T08:16:57.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7192" CreationDate="2014-06-06T08:24:24.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;believe or not, they may say hello.&#xA;If it's some good friend, maybe their nick name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4693" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T08:24:24.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7205" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7244" CreationDate="2014-06-06T09:21:11.830" Score="3" ViewCount="1346" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this comment online the other day:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我只能说大陆的法律能接点地气吗？如果在台湾，这属于通奸罪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a bit confused about the [接＋地气] part. 地气 has some &lt;em&gt;funny&lt;/em&gt; definitions in the following two dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;ABC:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;·climate&#xA;&#xA;·subtle essence that supposedly animates the earth&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Oxford:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;·ground vapour&#xA;&#xA;·temperature&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but really 接＋地气＝?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T21:31:14.753" Title="meaning: 接＋地气＝?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7192" CreationDate="2014-06-06T11:58:52.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;36 phrases to say hello in Chinese - audio in link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesespeak.com/hello-chinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinesespeak.com/hello-chinese/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saying hello&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你好！&#xA;Pinyin: nǐ hǎo！ &#xA;Meaning: Hello. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;您好！&#xA;Pinyin: nín hǎo！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Meaning: Hello. Used when addressing seniors or superiors to show respect.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time-based greetings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;早上好！&#xA;Pinyin: zǎo shang hǎo！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Meaning: Good morning!  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;早安&#xA;Pinyin: zǎo ān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Meaning: Good morning . Literally “Peace at morning”    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;早&#xA;Pinyin: zǎo &#xA;Meaning: Morning!   &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;下午好！&#xA;Pinyin: xià wǔ hǎo&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Meaning: Good afternoon!    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;晚上好&#xA;Pinyin: wǎn shàng hǎo&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Meaning: Good evening!  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;晚安&#xA;Pinyin: wǎn ān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Meaning: Good night &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你好吗?&#xA;Pinyin: nǐ hǎo ma?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Meaning: How are you?   &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;您好吗?&#xA;Pinyin: nín hǎo ma? &#xA;Meaning: How are you? Used when addressing seniors or superiors to show respect.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T11:58:52.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7205" CreationDate="2014-06-06T14:42:14.187" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Baidu encyclopedia:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/859205.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/859205.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;simple translate:&#xA;接地气 is a popular phrase in China since 2012. It means to connect with the low level of society, be near the real daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T14:42:14.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7201" CreationDate="2014-06-06T14:45:58.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;dosage is not mentioned here. you should check a manual inside the box.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's for against fatigue. not for children. it's not a replacement of medic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T14:45:58.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7197" CreationDate="2014-06-06T14:50:21.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can choose both of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;机选 is used as an opposite of 手选, which means to be chosed by hands. Both of these words are used in picking numbers for lotteries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no official fully word for 机选. But it means to use the numbers chosen by the machine (机器) randomly (随机).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T14:50:21.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7162" CreationDate="2014-06-06T14:55:37.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All are right but means a little different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to stress going to college, you may use the 1st one.&#xA;If you want to stress 4 times, you should use the 2nd one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T14:55:37.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7211" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8310" CreationDate="2014-06-06T16:49:14.947" Score="2" ViewCount="919" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English we use 'self-conscious' to mean 'conscious (or worried) about oneself' like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The cameras made her feel self-conscious about her weight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't mention his acne, he's really self-conscious about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries have words like 害羞，难为情的，尴尬 but that doesn't seem to really fit...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T08:55:44.030" Title="Translation: Self-Conscious" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7097" CreationDate="2014-06-06T17:16:56.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;someone is/looks handsome?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwanese Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://soundcloud.com/renyuanlyu/tahenyingjun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;他(ta) 很(hen) 英俊(ying-jun)。&lt;/a&gt;  (click the sentence to hear it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://soundcloud.com/renyuanlyu/tahenshuai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;他 很 帥(shuai)。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwanese Min-nan:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://soundcloud.com/renyuanlyu/yijinendau&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;伊(yi) 真(jin) 緣投(en-dau)。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4666" LastEditorUserId="4666" LastEditDate="2014-06-06T17:38:21.413" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T17:38:21.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7211" CreationDate="2014-06-06T17:57:31.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Japanese, they use the kanji phrase &quot;自意識過剰&quot; to express &quot;self-conscious&quot;. I think it is a good reference. In my opinion, &quot;太過神經質&quot; is perhaps a good translation in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他那樣做不是因為你的關係，請不要太過神經質了。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That he did that thing is not because of you. Please don't be too self-conscious. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4666" LastEditorUserId="4666" LastEditDate="2014-06-07T06:33:02.507" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T06:33:02.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7162" CreationDate="2014-06-06T18:16:52.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我 每个星期 去 四次 大学 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 每个星期 去 大学 四次&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both sentences are OK in modern Chinese.&#xA;I myself prefer the latter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, the word order in Chinese is not that strict.&#xA;So,  the above example sentence can also be as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每个星期 我 去 大学 四次&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每个星期 我 去 四次 大学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大学 每个星期 我 去 四次&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 去 大学 每个星期 四次&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 去 大学 四次 每个星期 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每个星期 四次 我 去 大学 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps there are more possible combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4666" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T18:16:52.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7215" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-06T21:18:44.247" Score="5" ViewCount="3676" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 狗改不了吃屎 mean? I think it is a proverb. Something do to with god?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my research, is it similar to 江山易改，本性难移?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4694" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T00:16:53.870" LastActivityDate="2020-09-24T01:43:54.960" Title="What does 狗改不了吃屎 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7216" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-06T21:26:40.003" Score="7" ViewCount="1088" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 出来 mean in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;真看不出来你是外国人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doesn't 出来 mean &quot;come out of ...&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4694" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-29T14:01:33.820" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T22:45:46.357" Title="What does 出来 mean in 真看不出来你是外国人?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7217" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-06T21:57:53.023" Score="7" ViewCount="1482" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to use 过 and 了? What is the difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are my sentences correct? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天我学习了汉语。Today I studied Chinese. &#xA;我学习过汉语。 I have studied Chinese.&#xA;我学习了三个月中文。 I studied Chinese for three months.&#xA;我汉语学习了三个月了。 I have been studying Chinese for three months. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4703" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T14:01:09.730" Title="How to use 过 and 了?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-06-11T03:03:28.163" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7218" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-06T22:28:11.013" Score="1" ViewCount="1451" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to say &quot;totally it was a good day&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I use 一共 for &quot;totally&quot;?  For example: &quot;一共我有了好天&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4703" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T02:57:59.813" Title="How to say &quot;totally it was a good day&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7218" CreationDate="2014-06-06T23:32:17.020" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally I would express that in Chinese as &quot;今天簡直是太好了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4663" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T23:32:17.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7216" CreationDate="2014-06-06T23:35:13.317" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;看出来 is idiom for &quot;appear to&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so 看不出来 means &quot;appear not to be&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4681" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T23:35:13.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7215" CreationDate="2014-06-06T23:40:49.790" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, similar to 江山易改，本性难移.&#xA;It refers to someone who cannot change their bad habits, like dog cannot change their behaviour to eat shit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can say a thief commit a thievery again and again, then you can say: 這小偷老是偷東西，真是狗改不了吃屎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is used more often in a colloquial language, and less severe than 江山易改，本性难移. When someone uses 江山易改，本性难移 to another person, it is often with the emotion that they have been let down massively, and may even be angry/disappointed with the person. Whereas 狗改不了吃屎 often may just be complaining, but don't really care if they change or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4663" LastEditorUserId="4663" LastEditDate="2014-06-06T23:46:43.940" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T23:46:43.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7216" CreationDate="2014-06-07T02:51:49.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;cannot tell...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here in this sentence, 看不出来 should be comprehended together. 看不出来 equals to 看不出. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4704" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T02:51:49.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7218" CreationDate="2014-06-07T02:55:21.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your &quot;totally&quot; here means 总的 or 总的来说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天，总的来说，还算可以&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I I didn't misread your original sentence means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Altogether today was (actually) alright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The front &quot;今天，总的来说&quot; just means &quot;altogether today&quot; (you can say 总的来说，今天 aswell). If you want the end to sound better than &quot;还算可以&quot; then you can change it to whatever you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T02:55:21.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7218" CreationDate="2014-06-07T02:57:59.813" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese will say “今天真不错！” or &quot;今天真是太棒了！&quot; Of course there are more idioms to express similar feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just FYI, when totally means in total, you can translate totally as 一共. However, when totally means completely, definitely, wholly, which is different from in total obviously, you cannot translate it into 一共. You can use 绝对，真地是，etc. In another scenario, when you use &quot;totally&quot; to show agreement on another person's opinions, for example, &quot;This is a fantastic game.&quot;&quot;Yeah! Totally!&quot; , you can say &quot;当然！&quot;“绝对地！”“没错！”in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4704" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T02:57:59.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7216" CreationDate="2014-06-07T03:04:38.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;h1&gt;出来&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(after a verb, indicates coming out, completion of an action, or ability to discern or detect)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;KEY&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... out (verb complement indicating achievement or completion of a task, e.g., 打出來/打出来 dǎ chūlai &amp;quot;type out&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;hammer out [sth on a typewriter or word processor]&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think KEYs definition here is particularly helpful if we use this to look at:&#xA;看+出来 we have see+out which is the same as 'make out'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 (used after a verb, indicating motion out towards the speaker)&#xA;2 (used after a verb, indicating the completion of an action)&#xA;3 (used after a verb, indicating revealing, detecting, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Oxford&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表由隐蔽到显露 [used after a verb indicating revealing]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出来 has a lot of uses but the general idea is, exactly like the word indicates, coming out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T03:04:38.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7217" CreationDate="2014-06-07T03:17:58.423" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah your sentences are pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 - indicates change in state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过 - indicates something has been done before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看完了 = I finished reading it&#xA;看过 = I've read that before&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems like you have a pretty good grasp already from your sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T03:17:58.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7146" CreationDate="2014-06-07T04:28:16.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;麟 is a simplified character if you asked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should understand Simplified Chinese is developed from the Traditional Chinese for easier learning. Most of uncommon characters are left same as original.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T04:28:16.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7215" CreationDate="2014-06-07T06:59:40.527" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese. The differences between the two phrases are:&#xA;1. 江山易改，本性难移 is used more neutrally while 狗改不了吃屎 is definitely more negative for complaining.&#xA;2. 江山易改，本性难移 is often used in writting, whereas 狗改不了吃屎 is informal and often used in spoken lanaguage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4705" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T06:59:40.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8245" CreationDate="2014-06-07T09:44:05.877" Score="2" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that these two are pretty interchangeable for 'hallway' - at least in the writing I've read before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, though, is there any difference in meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any difference when to use one over the other?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T02:24:45.970" Title="过道/走廊 what's the difference?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="406" CreationDate="2014-06-07T12:37:43.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Contrary to popular belief 'x' in chinese is pronounced as 's' in english not 'sh'. Coming from an ethnic Chinese speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4706" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T12:37:43.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7229" CreationDate="2014-06-07T13:08:17.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;过道 means a passageway that could be either passed through by transportation such as cars or bikes, or by pedestrian. 过道 is more used in a open space. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走廊 is the word for &quot;hallway.&quot;  As the word 走（walk）suggests, it is usually used to mean a passageway in a build that could be walked through.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 走道 also means passageway or aisle that could only be passed through by pedestrian as the word 走（walk）suggests. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T13:08:17.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="406" CreationDate="2014-06-07T13:42:06.740" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For most of our English-speaking students, the rule of thumb to acquire Chinese sounds is listen, imitate and practice, but not to refer to sounds in English that much, which would be confusing and sometimes misleading. After all English sounds and Chinese sounds are quite different in many ways!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One exception of the rule is &quot;x&quot; sound in Chinese, it sounds, in my opinion, exactly the same to the alphabet &quot;c&quot; in English (Note: not the phonetic sound of &quot;c&quot; but the alphabet itself)&#xA;As for &quot;sh&quot; sound, there is not an equivalent in English. Our suggestion is to find a native speaker or a standard Chinese dictionary and listen repeatedly. Research showed that after an average &quot;seven&quot; different kinds of input, the sound should be acquired by the learners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T13:42:06.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7217" CreationDate="2014-06-07T14:01:09.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 is a past tense indicator, working as &quot;-ed&quot; suffix in English. 了 could either be put right after the verb or at the end of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过 is a perfect tense indicator, working as &quot;have + V-ed&quot; in English. 过 could either be put right after the verb or at the end of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T14:01:09.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5329" CreationDate="2014-06-07T14:31:52.500" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;曲折的学习经历&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;an intricate study experience&#xA;a complicated study experience&#xA;a study experience with a lot of twists and turns&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; hard to translate &lt;code&gt;坎坷的学习经历&lt;/code&gt; without become 'negative'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;a bumpy study experience&#xA;a rough bumpy experience&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but these still sound rather negative - the &lt;code&gt;曲折的学习经历&lt;/code&gt; sound a lot more neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T14:31:52.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7236" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7237" CreationDate="2014-06-07T15:50:43.030" Score="14" ViewCount="1017" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing I've been curious about while learning Chinese is the use of 月 in many 汉字 representing anatomical features (for example, 脸， 腰， or 腿).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the etymology of the use of 月 as a radical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4709" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T14:45:35.387" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T10:50:20.777" Title="Why is 月 used when speaking about anatomy?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7236" CreationDate="2014-06-07T16:05:03.380" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 月字旁 was originally '肉' &amp;amp; not '月' - 肉 has the meaning of 肉体 meaning 'flesh' or having to do with the 'human body' so it's often seen with body parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Wikipedia:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肉字旁：臺灣標準中，凡肉字旁的字，都寫作「提肉旁」即&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wqA4w.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;，使其不會與「月字旁」相混。《字形表》中，肉字旁只在字的左旁時才寫作「提肉旁」，在字的右旁時採用首筆豎的方式與「月字旁」區分（「月字旁」在右方時，首筆為撇）。但在下方時，則「肉」與「月」首筆都作豎，兩者會相混。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-11T11:43:15.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7238" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-08T03:35:20.583" Score="2" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;我一個晚上開銷就不只三萬了. What's 了 doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4710" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-06-08T11:13:57.007" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T12:53:33.533" Title="我一個晚上開銷就不只三萬了. What's 了 doing?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7238" CreationDate="2014-06-08T07:57:31.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it is a complete sentence:&#xA;With a 了, it sounds more casual. The speaker may be rich.&#xA;Without 了, it sounds rude, like you are arguing with someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-06-08T07:57:31.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7241" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7245" CreationDate="2014-06-08T10:16:39.437" Score="0" ViewCount="522" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only came up with this idea after I used wechat and VK and found some people from there can speak or are learning the language, while in Australia here I can hardly find any local people learning the language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there more people in Russia/Ukraine learning Chinese? If this is the case, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4395" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T03:17:57.130" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T09:33:06.970" Title="Are there more people in Russia/Ukraine learning Chinese language than other white dominated countries?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7162" CreationDate="2014-06-08T13:24:08.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of the sentences are correct and they have the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;我每个星期去四次大学&quot;, &quot;university&quot; sounds less important to you, just like &quot;我每天去六次厕所 (I go to toilet six times a day)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我每个星期去大学四次&quot; emphasises on the number of times you go to university. &quot;University&quot; sounds more important in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-06-08T13:24:08.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7048" CreationDate="2014-06-08T13:39:09.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Meaning: handsome guy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Frequency: &lt;strong&gt;females&lt;/strong&gt; use this word, males seldom use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A literally handsome guy;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Greeting, commonly used in market;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Humour, to exaggerate the ugliness of a guy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-06-08T13:39:09.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7205" CreationDate="2014-06-08T16:02:55.770" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;接地气 basically means &lt;strong&gt;being banal/up-to-date/practical&lt;/strong&gt;. Another meaning is to &lt;strong&gt;get the essence of earth&lt;/strong&gt;, as in some cases for patients long in bed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;出门接接地气吧，爱光脚的人寿命长。&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chuanxi.com.cn/Article/Content/6509&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A usage of 接地气.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first case, however, 地气=泥土气=土气。土气 is a word we describe sth. to be very banal and village-like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n9lcb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;**例：土气。 《美丽的大脚》剧照**&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;例：土气。 《美丽的大脚》剧照&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use the verb 接 here partly because it is dialectal. But it has a picture-like sense. As we put something on ground, it will 接 (get) the 气 (essence) of 地 (earth).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我只能说大陆的法律能接点地气吗？如果在台湾，这属于通奸罪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can only say: Can laws in mainland &lt;strong&gt;be more practical&lt;/strong&gt;? If in Taiwan, this would be convicted as aduldery!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2014-06-08T16:12:38.787" LastActivityDate="2014-06-08T16:12:38.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7241" CreationDate="2014-06-08T16:29:46.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't comment on the Ukrainians because absolutely have &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; idea what their deal is...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Russia and China have shared a fairly &lt;em&gt;close&lt;/em&gt; relationship over the years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China even has a minority called: &lt;strong&gt;俄罗斯族&lt;/strong&gt; (Russian Minority in China):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;ABC Dictionary&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Russian ethnic minority in China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the Russian nationality, or the Russians, distributed over the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Heilongjiang Province&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KEY, Oxford and CC-CEDICT dictionaries pretty much say the same thing(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has an article called History of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sino-Russian_relations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sino-Russian relations&lt;/a&gt; which says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China and Russia have generally had good relations since 1991.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and links to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Russian_relations_since_1991&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sino-Russian relations since 1991&lt;/a&gt; which says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Diplomatic relations between People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation dramatically improved after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the establishment of the Russian Federation in 1991. The two countries share a long land border which was demarcated in 1991, and they signed a Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation in 2001. On the eve of a 2013 state visit to Moscow by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked that the two nations were forging a special relationship.&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sino-Russian_relations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Geography, residency and politics aside China has also taken many Russians songs and translated the lyrics and &amp;quot;covered&amp;quot; them in Chinese. Take 三套车 for instance - if you listen to it you can distinctly tell it's Russian (it has Russia written all over it!) but it's sung in Chinese!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's that scene in &lt;em&gt;太阳照常升起&lt;/em&gt; with the Russians and the Russian song too - sorry for the ambiguity but you just gotta see it yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point anyway is that -- Russia has made quite a big impact on the Chinese and China hasn't reject them like they have so many others (English abbreviations, like NBA, or words aren't even allowed in Chinese news).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So while there are quite a lot of Russians living in China, a lot have even grown up there - you can see from there relationship that they are quite &amp;quot;connected&amp;quot;. So it doesn't seem like quite a &lt;em&gt;stretch&lt;/em&gt; for Russians to learn Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-08T16:29:46.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8242" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8244" CreationDate="2014-06-08T17:40:01.980" Score="9" ViewCount="12559" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我们&lt;/strong&gt; [wǒmen] and &lt;strong&gt;咱们&lt;/strong&gt; [zánmen] both means: we, but when I should use 咱们， 我们？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2844" LastEditorUserId="19858" LastEditDate="2020-04-12T01:03:11.770" LastActivityDate="2020-04-12T01:03:11.770" Title="Differences between 咱们 and 我们？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8242" CreationDate="2014-06-08T18:26:01.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;咱们&quot; is more like a colloquial usage, especially in northern China(Beijing dialect makes extensive use of it, for example &quot;咱几个&quot;(roughly &quot;we several people&quot;) ， &quot;咱哥俩&quot;(we two brothers).) While &quot;我们&quot; is the general written/spoken form and is commonly used all over China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastActivityDate="2014-06-08T18:26:01.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8242" CreationDate="2014-06-08T21:17:51.570" Score="9" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们&lt;/code&gt; can be used both formally and colloquially across all Chinese speaking regions, while &lt;code&gt;咱们&lt;/code&gt; appears more in spoken language and more in Northern China. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们&lt;/code&gt; may or may not include the listener, depending on the context, while &lt;code&gt;咱们&lt;/code&gt; almost always includes the listener. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although &lt;code&gt;咱们&lt;/code&gt; includes both parties, there can be a strong or even exclusive focus on one party, either the speaker (e.g. &lt;code&gt;瞧咱们的&lt;/code&gt; = &quot;we'll show you how it's done&quot;) or the listener (e.g. &lt;code&gt;咱们不怕&lt;/code&gt; = &quot;let us not be afraid&quot;). This type of usage is very common in Northern China but can be quite unfamiliar/unnatural to other Chinese speaking regions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chiculture.net/0615/html/d16/0615d16.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chiculture.net/0615/html/d16/0615d16.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~pth/pth_passage01.php?passage=99&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~pth/pth_passage01.php?passage=99&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-06-08T21:17:51.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7229" CreationDate="2014-06-09T02:24:45.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For buildings, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2683768.htm?fr=aladdin#4_3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;住宅设计规范(Design code for residential buildings) GB50096-2011&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2．0．13 过道 passage&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　住宅套内使用的水平通道。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2．0．20 走廊 gallery&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　住宅套外使用的水平通道。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the internal transport space, such as the passageway inside the cinema or train, can be said as &amp;quot;过道&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the transport space which is outside the building, independent, covered, can be said as &amp;quot;走廊&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except for buildings, &amp;quot;走廊&amp;quot; can also be used for a narrow strip(corridor) connects two areas. Such as &amp;quot;河西走廊&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T02:24:45.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7161" CreationDate="2014-06-09T03:17:32.697" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;目前 and 现在 have the same meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Formality, 目前 is &lt;strong&gt;far more formal&lt;/strong&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Object, to describe &quot;people nowadays&quot;, use 现在 (i.e. 目前的人 sounds weird). To describe phenomenon (e.g. market price, weather), both are okay.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T03:17:32.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7163" CreationDate="2014-06-09T03:51:32.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Meaning: is read as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. (a number) is read as something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reminder:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't mix it up with 叫做. 叫做 refers to names, 读作 refers to language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T03:51:32.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3858" CreationDate="2014-06-09T04:19:57.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Geographical meaning:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 4 parts: mainland (includes Tibet, Xinjiang and other provinces), Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;strong&gt;Taiwan&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Hong Kong&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Macau&lt;/strong&gt;, 大陆 refers to mainland, which excludes Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People in mainland seldom use 大陆, they use 中国, which refers to mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and sometimes Taiwan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Political meaning:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang think that they are &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; part of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People in mainland think that China includes Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What should you do?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mainland, you should always use 中国, otherwise you will be pissed off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang, you better use mainland when referring mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T04:19:57.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8263" CreationDate="2014-06-09T04:28:57.383" Score="4" ViewCount="507" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any official way to translate Chinese names into English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is of course: surname + name, usually when translated into English why is the same formatting kept?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毛泽东 is usually written Mao Zedong &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is this not more like not translating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take Japanese name translation for instance a name like 黒澤明 (Chinese: 黑泽明/黑澤明) Wikipedia translates his name (English-style) as Akira Kurosawa (first name + last name) but the original japaneae is last name (黒澤) + name (明). I know a lot of other translates still translate Japnese style (surname+name) in English too, especially dictionaries and the like but it seems English-style translations of Japebese names is more prevalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seldom see English-style translations of Chinese names - but why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wouldn't English-style translations of Chinese names be more natural to read in English, especially for those with no background in Sinetic languages? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an official way to translate names, i.e.: order? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T06:44:22.710" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T06:44:22.710" Title="Is there any official way to translate Chinese names into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3780" CreationDate="2014-06-09T04:33:50.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨钝一把刀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pinyin: mo2 dun4 yi4 ba3 dau1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨钝: make something dull.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一: a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把: classifier of knife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刀: knife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T04:33:50.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8249" CreationDate="2014-06-09T04:48:09.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although this answer may be voted down, I have to say it depends on what system you use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In regions using Chinese, people usually use surname-name style because of tradition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T04:48:09.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7191" CreationDate="2014-06-09T05:38:49.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;啦 is similar to 了&#xA;嘛 can mean 什么('what') which is very common in Tianjin(天津) dialect, it is also a casual word that means nothing but make the request more gentle (or sweet, i can't find the proper word in english)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5713" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T05:38:49.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8253" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8255" CreationDate="2014-06-09T06:19:54.237" Score="1" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;While poking around the internet, I came across this sentence from a non-native speaker, which sounded off:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她是朋友比爱人更好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intended meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She is better as a friend than as a lover [for the person saying this sentence].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, my assessment of this - that this isn't correct phrasing - correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, this prompted me to wonder how I would actually phrase such a sentence in Chinese. As a semi-native speaker, I'm familiar with use of 比 and similar words to use in comparison, but I'm not sure what exactly would be suitable here. While searching for a word corresponding to the English &quot;as&quot; (for instance in &quot;as general of the army&quot;), I found 作为, which seems suitable, but I am not sure if I could use it in a comparison, given that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E4%BD%9C%E4%B8%BA/58050&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Nciku examples&lt;/a&gt; are all along the lines of &quot;As [A], [B]&quot; or &quot;[A] as [B], [C]&quot;, where A, B, and C are placeholders for additional &quot;information&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With my current knowledge, I would attempt to phrase it like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她作为（我）朋友比作为（我）爱人更适合。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this usage correct, and if not, how could it be better phrased?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T06:52:24.350" Title="Comparing &quot;as A&quot; and &quot;as B&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8254" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-09T06:35:27.107" Score="4" ViewCount="1989" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, &lt;code&gt;對我嚟講&lt;/code&gt; more or less means &quot;speaking for myself&quot;, for instance, in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;對我嚟講，行政長官選舉唔重要。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Speaking for myself, the chief executive election isn't important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 can also be replaced with other pronouns: e.g. 我哋，佢，佢哋, or by a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is an equivalent expression in Mandarin? I have tried searching in Nciku, but the only thing that came up for me that seemed useful was 作为, which doesn't seem to be used in the same capacity - if I've gotten the correct impression, it's not really used in the same capacity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:23:19.327" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:23:19.327" Title="What is the Mandarin equivalent of 對 XXX 嚟講?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8253" CreationDate="2014-06-09T06:52:24.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your usage is quite right. And you can also say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比起爱人，（把）她作为朋友更合适。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T06:52:24.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8254" CreationDate="2014-06-09T07:10:02.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;对X而言:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Oxford English&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;his promise isn't worth a damn to me&#xA;他的承诺对我而言一文不值&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T07:10:02.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7216" CreationDate="2014-06-09T07:52:08.683" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd translate the phrase 看不出来 as 'can't tell' or 'can't make out', as in 'I can't make out what that says', if there's a sign and you can see the sign (the 看 bit) but not what is written on it (the reading sense of 看 plus 不出来, a negative resultative complement to say that it is not being revealed). In the original sentence you give, it would be best translated into English as 'You really can't tell (or I really couldn't tell) that you're (or you were) foreign.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4255" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T07:52:08.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8259" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8274" CreationDate="2014-06-09T13:17:08.483" Score="3" ViewCount="275" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cantonese has the modal particle: 㗎喇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Canto-Mando Dictionary says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.表示有把握，认可&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.表示说理，警告&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a mandarin equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T04:22:42.523" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T04:22:42.523" Title="Mandarin equivalent of &quot;㗎喇&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8260" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-09T16:15:11.840" Score="2" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does this sentence mean in this hand writing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pT4QI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4457" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T01:48:48.183" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T01:48:48.183" Title="What does this handwritten phrase mean? (Characters identified: 见有广告的他特别高兴)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7216" CreationDate="2014-06-09T16:30:55.120" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;真看不出来你是外国人?&quot; means that you don't look like foreigners. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is better to use &quot;真看不出你是外国人。&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If translated directly,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;真Really&lt;br&gt;&#xA;看不出can't tell&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;是are&lt;br&gt;&#xA;外国人foreigners&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5718" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T16:30:55.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8260" CreationDate="2014-06-09T16:39:37.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was ”见有广告的他特别高兴“, when seeing the commercials, he is especially happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4457" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-07-25T01:35:19.190" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T01:35:19.190" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8249" CreationDate="2014-06-09T19:49:05.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Since my comments were getting long, I will reproduce them here. This probably isn't a complete answer though.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really depends. While names like Wen Jiabao are commonly kept in &quot;Eastern&quot; naming order, names used among personal interactions with &quot;small fry&quot; are sometimes used in the Western order, particularly in a Western context - for instance, in an international school in Asia, 张小明 would probably be referred to (in English, I mean) as Xiaoming Zhang (and probably without the tones and possibly incorrect pronunciation, if it's spoken, depending on the speaker).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in other places (e.g. the BBC, Le Monde, official usage by places that already use Chinese (e.g. Hong Kong, China)) the Eastern order seems to be kept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not very familiar with translated novels and the such, but here's what I know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Names translated from &quot;Western&quot; order are generally transliterated and kept in Western order.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;With names translated from Chinese (or written in English but about China/Chinese), from the examples I looked at so far, Chinese naming order is kept. (I looked at: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scarf_Girl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Red Scarf Girl&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lust,_Caution&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lust, Caution&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Earth&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Good Earth&lt;/a&gt;; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fat_Years&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Fat Years&lt;/a&gt;.) So at the very least, keeping Chinese names in Chinese order doesn't seem to be uncommon. (Does this feel as unnatural? It really depends. To me, even as a native English speaker, it feels more awkward to have the name order Westernised.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Strangely enough, Westernisation of the order of Japanese names is a lot more common. For instance, even the BBC refers to 安倍晋三 as Shinzō Abe and not as Abe Shinzō, and (at the very least) a number of anime subtitles (for anime set in Japan) also seem to Westernise the name order. Meanwhile, Korean names seem to be more likely to be treated like Chinese names in terms of whether or not the name is Westernised.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T19:49:05.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8264" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-09T19:56:28.700" Score="4" ViewCount="2207" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;把被子收起来吧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Translation: Let's put the quilt away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other circumstances, 起来 means to get up but here there is a different meaning, and from the definitions I can't decide which definition is used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;used after a verb indicating beginning and continuation of an action or a state&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;indicating an upward movement&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;after a perception verb expressing preliminary judgement&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;bringing things together &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;THX！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4684" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2014-06-09T21:52:35.970" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T05:31:30.607" Title="What does 起来 mean in this phrase?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8265" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-09T20:11:15.690" Score="17" ViewCount="2366" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference between 愿意 and 肯 in the following sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Are you willing to go to China for work?&quot; being translated to one of the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你愿不愿意去中国工作？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你肯不肯去中国工作？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5720" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T00:17:11.490" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T00:17:11.490" Title="Is there a difference between 愿意 and 肯?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8266" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-09T20:17:08.210" Score="2" ViewCount="735" Body="&lt;p&gt;Differences between 谁都, 哪儿都, 什么都?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I making the following sentences right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyone knows what he does on the weekend.&#xA;谁都知道他在周末做什么.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everywhere he goes he’s trouble.&#xA;他去哪儿都是麻烦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t have anything.&#xA;我什么都没有.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5720" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T15:23:11.737" Title="Differences between 谁都, 哪儿都, 什么都?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8264" CreationDate="2014-06-09T21:06:18.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;來 means &quot;to bring something back&quot;. 收起來 therefore means &quot;to put it back [to its original place]&quot; or simply &quot;to put away&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="541" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T21:06:18.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8265" CreationDate="2014-06-09T21:53:44.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/js/80AF.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the definitions of 肯&lt;/a&gt; is actually 願意. Basically they mean the exact same thing, but in my opinion, 願意 is more formal than 肯.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some might find that 願意 is more positive than 願意, but both can actually be used for a positive meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="541" LastEditorUserId="541" LastEditDate="2014-06-10T05:48:20.527" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T05:48:20.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8265" CreationDate="2014-06-09T22:15:25.600" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general they're about the same. They are actually used to define each other in some dictionaries. Colloquial usages might differ, but in most cases you can safely use 肯 in place of 願意, especially when spoken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a little difference though. While both words mean &lt;em&gt;agreement/acceptance&lt;/em&gt;, with 肯 its acceptance regardless of whether you are happy/willing. In contrast 願意 indicates that its what you want, i.e. there is no unwillingness. So for instance, when exchanging marriage vows, we say 我願意 and not 我肯. The latter would carry an undertone of reluctance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T22:15:25.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8264" CreationDate="2014-06-09T22:21:47.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;起来 doesn't make too much difference. You can say 收被子, and it's perfectly understood. The only (subtle) difference may be that 收被子 is usually said with a more imperative tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5722" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T22:21:47.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8265" CreationDate="2014-06-10T01:16:06.330" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;愿意 and 肯 can be used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;愿意 can be explain as a persons‘ willingness，where as a more precise wording for 肯 is asking or expressing consent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Chinese language, words can be interpreted in reversed order to further understand the meaning of words. 愿意 can also be read as 意愿 which means the will of and initial intent of the person. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肯 can also be used as positive conformation as in 肯定.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5723" LastEditorUserId="5723" LastEditDate="2014-06-10T01:23:34.960" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T01:23:34.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8259" CreationDate="2014-06-10T01:32:31.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;㗎喇 is a combination of multiple Cantonese sentence final particles (SFPs):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;㗎 &lt;code&gt;gaa3&lt;/code&gt; is a contraction of 嘅呀 &lt;code&gt;ge3 aa3&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嘅 &lt;code&gt;ge3&lt;/code&gt; is directly equivalent to Mandarin's 的 &lt;code&gt;de&lt;/code&gt; in meaning and usage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;呀 &lt;code&gt;aa3&lt;/code&gt; is used in Cantonese to soften the tone of a sentence. I don't believe Mandarin has a direct standardized equivalent to it, but some Mandarin speakers do use it in a similar manner.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;喇 &lt;code&gt;laa3&lt;/code&gt; is directly equivalent to Mandarin's SFP 了 &lt;code&gt;le&lt;/code&gt;. Both of these words are actually cognate to one another, ultimately having been descended from 來 (note that this only applies to Mandarin's sentence-final 了; its post-verb 了 &lt;code&gt;le&lt;/code&gt; actually is descended from 了 &lt;code&gt;liǎo&lt;/code&gt;). Mandarin chose 了 to represent this word; written Cantonese isn't very standardized, so people have variously represented it using the characters 喇, 嚹, or 啦.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given this, the Mandarin equivalent could be 的了 &lt;code&gt;de le&lt;/code&gt;. While I noted there was no direct standard Mandarin equivalent for Cantonese's 呀, some speakers do use it. In Mandarin though, it would be attached after 了 rather than after 的; like Cantonese, it gets contracted as well, changing 了 &lt;code&gt;le&lt;/code&gt; to 啦 &lt;code&gt;la&lt;/code&gt;; the final result would be 的啦 &lt;code&gt;de la&lt;/code&gt;, as @Stan mentioned in his comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T01:32:31.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8242" CreationDate="2014-06-10T01:38:28.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们 and 咱们 can be used interchangeably，though 咱们 would less likely be used in formal writings.  Because 咱们 is less formal, it makes the speaker seem more relatable to the person they are talking to (e.g 咱们俩是哥们，we are buddies).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5723" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T01:38:28.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8264" CreationDate="2014-06-10T01:47:35.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 把它 {收,提,拿} 起來&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 站 起來&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 起來&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 1 and 2, 起來 is used as an adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 3, it is used as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4666" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T01:47:35.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8277" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-10T02:15:10.833" Score="1" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a beginner I'd like to learn the most useful word to express the equivalent to English “moment” meaning “a very brief period of time.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found at least three Chinese words and would like to know the difference between them and which I should choose as the most common or important to add to a beginner's small vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;shùnjiān 瞬間&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;shíkè 時刻&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;shíhòu 時候&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2014-06-20T13:26:27.307" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T13:26:27.307" Title="時刻 (shíkè) vs 瞬間 (shùnjiān) vs 時候 (shíhòu) for &quot;moment&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8278" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-10T02:30:51.693" Score="6" ViewCount="1985" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm basing this question on several assumptions, so if they are wrong please say so as an answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Written Chinese is mainly used for Standard (Mandarin) Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mostly other Chinese languages and/or dialects are mainly spoken and not written.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese is probably the other language/dialect most written after Mandarin, and dialect words in Taiwan probably next most.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most other Chinese languages and/or dialects have at least a few words which have no established related word in Mandarin. (This means related by etymology, not just the same meaning.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know in Cantonese there are quite a few characters with the mouth radical, which are used for &quot;dialect&quot; words and not really used in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know there are a few English letters used in some &quot;dialect&quot; words. I've seen &quot;Q&quot; used in Taiwan, &quot;C&quot; and &quot;O&quot; for types of coffee in Singapore, and there's a type of cabbage or vegetable often written &quot;A菜&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If these assumptions are right, here is my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Where can I find some of the most common terms from any other Chinese (Sinitic) languages and/or dialects which do not have a standard hanzi character?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd prefer to find links to lists that already exist, but if that's not possible I could convert this to a community wiki to build a list right here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-02-06T04:15:39.407" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T12:31:56.813" Title="Looking for very common dialect words that have no Standard Mandarin Chinese hanzi characters" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8277" CreationDate="2014-06-10T03:10:20.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of these, only 瞬間 is really equivalent to moment in the sense of a brief period of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;瞬間 means &quot;a very short period of time, an instant&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;時刻 can either mean &quot;the time (of the day)&quot;, e.g. 5pm, or &quot;constantly&quot; (typically as 時時刻刻).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;時候 can mean &quot;time&quot; in the sense of e.g. it's time to go. Alternatively, it can refer to an unspecified period of time, e.g. 小時候 -&gt; when I was little.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a great deal of words that mean &quot;moment&quot; in the sense you're looking for. Here are some of the more common ones: 轉眼 霎時 剎時 剎那 瞬息 片刻 頃刻 一時之間&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is acceptable/common to append -之間 to these (e.g. 轉眼之間/霎時之間) to express the sense of something &quot;happening within a very short period&quot;. Additionally, the character 一 (one) can be prefixed to some (一轉眼/一剎那/一瞬間).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-10T03:20:05.417" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T03:20:05.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8266" CreationDate="2014-06-10T03:15:01.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;谁都: everyone;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪儿都: everywhere;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么都: anything;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the three sentences are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T03:15:01.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8277" CreationDate="2014-06-10T03:28:41.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Meaning:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;時刻: moment; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瞬間: an extremely short instant;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;時候: moment;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To describe &quot;moment&quot;, both 時刻 and 時候 are okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reminder:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;時刻 emphasises &quot;that exact moment&quot;, while 時候 can be used to describe a longer period of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T03:28:41.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8278" CreationDate="2014-06-10T03:49:45.370" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is probably not the languages/dialects that don't have a corresponding Chinese character, but rather regional slang. The A菜 you see is actually 萵仔菜, or &lt;code&gt;ue-á-tshài&lt;/code&gt; in Hokkien. That became became &lt;code&gt;e-á-tshài&lt;/code&gt; which led it to be transcribed back into Chinese as A仔菜 and eventually A菜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is actually a word for Q, but I am not aware of how to type that out on a computer. So have a picture of it instead: &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DdQn2.gif&quot; alt=&quot;the word for Q is 食丘&quot;&gt; (EDIT: This has apparently made it into Unicode as U+296A8, &quot;&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Owing to the dominance of Standard Chinese, characters not in common use in that language tend not to make it into a common computer encoding. So in a sense, the dialectal words indeed do not have a corresponding standard Chinese character. On the other hand, that's more of an issue with the way Chinese works on computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, this phenomenon tends to happen in cases where Sinitic languages/dialect retain words from Old Chinese rather than the more fashionable new words that have taken over in Standard Mandarin. A couple more examples from Hokkien:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gkqMw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;敖 on top of 力&quot;&gt; &lt;code&gt;gâu&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &quot;good at, skilled at, prone to&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d3j5E.gif&quot; alt=&quot;dirty dirty word&quot;&gt; &lt;code&gt;lān&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &quot;male genitalia&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Du218.gif&quot; alt=&quot;in&quot;&gt; &lt;code&gt;in&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &quot;them, her/his&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JqBQi.gif&quot; alt=&quot;tsip/sip&quot;&gt; &lt;code&gt;tsi̍p&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &quot;a taste, to treat to a casual meal&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UZ4v2.gif&quot; alt=&quot;peh　&quot;&gt; &lt;code&gt;peh&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &quot;to climb&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are likely hundreds if not thousands of such characters in common use. There might not be a list per se, but such characters can be found in dictionaries that caters to a specific language/dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; I have a massive blindspot for Taiwanese loanwords.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to being under Japanese rule for five decades at a time of rapid change, Taiwanese had a rather unique opportunity at absorbing Japanese terms. Now, I don't know if we can say such words have no Chinese characters per se. Some of them came with kanji characters already. And naturally, they all have Mandarin equivalents, including some which are &lt;em&gt;transcribed&lt;/em&gt; into Chinese from the same ultimate (Western) source. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Aspirin: &lt;code&gt;a33 sir55 phi55 lin51&lt;/code&gt; - Chinese 阿斯匹林, Japanese &lt;code&gt;アスピリン&lt;/code&gt; (asupirin)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Clear-cut: &lt;code&gt;at3 sa55 lih3&lt;/code&gt; - Chinese 阿莎力, Japanese &lt;code&gt;あっさり&lt;/code&gt; (assari)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Miso: &lt;code&gt;mi55 sooh3&lt;/code&gt; - Chinese 味噌, Japanese 味噌 (miso)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tempura: &lt;code&gt;thian35 pu55 lah3&lt;/code&gt; - Chinese 甜不辣, Japanese 天麩羅 (tempura)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Aspirin, both Chinese and Japanese (and hence Taiwanese) loaned the same word by transcribing its sound. The word for &quot;clear-cut&quot;, on the other hand, it is a Japanese word that has been adopted in Chinese by transcribing its pronunciation - same as for Taiwanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tempura and Miso are both Japanese words that had kanji. But whereas Chinese adopted Miso, it transcribed Tempura in other Chinese characters. And in both cases, Taiwanese follows the Japanese pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether or not one considers them to be Taiwanese words without Chinese characters might be a matter of personal opinion. Compare and contrast with the following Taiwanese terms, which don't have such relationships to their equivalents in Chinese characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Apron: &lt;code&gt;e33 pu55 long51&lt;/code&gt; - Chinese 圍裙, from &lt;code&gt;エプロン&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Butter: &lt;code&gt;ba55 tah3&lt;/code&gt; - Chinese 奶油, from &lt;code&gt;バタ－&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bra: &lt;code&gt;bu33 la51 jia11&lt;/code&gt; - Chinese 胸罩, from &lt;code&gt;ブラジャ－&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Condom: &lt;code&gt;sak5 khuh3&lt;/code&gt; - Chinese 保險套 from &lt;code&gt;サック&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gasolin: &lt;code&gt;29 ga33 soo55 lin51&lt;/code&gt; - Chinese 汽油, from &lt;code&gt;ガソリン&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ice Cream: &lt;code&gt;ai55 sirh3 khu33 lin51 mu11&lt;/code&gt; - Chinese 冰淇淋, from &lt;code&gt;アイスクリ－ム&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bread: &lt;code&gt;phang51&lt;/code&gt; - Chinese 麵包, from &lt;code&gt;パン&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stainless Steel: &lt;code&gt;sir33 ten55 le51 su11&lt;/code&gt; - Chinese 不鏽鋼, from &lt;code&gt;ステンレス&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's possible that this is mirrored in some other dialects/languages. Hong Kong Cantonese comes to mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT2:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After some more research I've learnt of a few Taiwanese words where the proper Chinese character was unknown or disputed or perhaps non-existent. This, combined with long term marginalisation of Taiwanese, resulted in some chaos in terms of how some words were written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I suspected in the comments, however any words that didn't have a character have been matched with one nonetheless. And in 2009 the government made an effort to standardise the writing system. In some cases, supposedly new characters were created; but so far I haven't found truly new ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, here are some words that apparently had no universally agreed upon correct character (prior to 2009, at least:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;bē/buē&lt;/code&gt;: officially 袂, was/is written as , 未&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;gâu&lt;/code&gt;: officially , was/is written as 賢, 爻&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;buaih&lt;/code&gt;: officially 勿愛 squished together, was/is written as 無愛, 覅&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;suí&lt;/code&gt;: officially 媠, was/is written as 美, 水&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;tsia̍h&lt;/code&gt;: officially 食, was/is written as 噍, 吃&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;phah&lt;/code&gt;: officially 拍, was/is written as 打, 扑&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;beh/bueh&lt;/code&gt;: officially 欲, was/is written as 要, 卜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;kah&lt;/code&gt;: officially 佮, was/is written as 及, 甲, 合&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;m̄&lt;/code&gt;: officially 毋, was/is written as 不, 呣, 唔&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;tshù&lt;/code&gt;: officially 厝, was/is written as 茨、戍&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-11T10:26:47.463" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T10:26:47.463" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8265" CreationDate="2014-06-10T05:06:32.547" Score="14" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;願意 and 肯 are &lt;strong&gt;NOT (exactly) the same.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I). 願意 is on the more positively-willing to do side. 意 has 心 in it, so 願意 means that the person is willing to do it from one's heart. It generically carries &lt;strong&gt;positive feelings&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ex: 網球選手 R Federer &lt;strong&gt;願意&lt;/strong&gt; 放棄參加網球賽,因為他的雙胞胎(雙生子)剛出生. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&gt;Tennis player R Federer wishes to give up some tennis games, because his twin sons were born recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(II). 肯 may (or may not) imply a decision &lt;strong&gt;with reluctance, or under pressure, negotiation, push&lt;/strong&gt;, etc. 肯 can carry positive feelings in some case, though it can also be (&lt;strong&gt;a polite manner way&lt;/strong&gt; to speak for one's) &lt;strong&gt;neutral or negative feelings&lt;/strong&gt;. It can also be the cases that one does something with &lt;strong&gt;bitterness&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;pain&lt;/strong&gt; but aims for a delightful outcome or fruits in the end. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ex: 網球選手 R Nadal &lt;strong&gt;肯&lt;/strong&gt; 努力拼網球賽,即使他的身體不能負荷. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&gt; Tennis player R Nadal would like to fight for tennis games, even though his body cannot sustain them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer is very similar to the second part of Semaphore's answer, but I just stress that they are NOT really the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. You may also wish to compare them, 願意 and 肯, with are 寧願, 寧肯. This will be another question though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4335" LastEditorUserId="4335" LastEditDate="2014-06-10T19:24:34.713" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T19:24:34.713" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8308" CreationDate="2014-06-10T05:09:43.353" Score="12" ViewCount="4468" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that with a 被 (bèi) sentence, you are allowed omit the object: S + 被 + (O) + Other elements, e.g. 河里的鱼都被毒死了 (Hé lǐ de yú dōu bèi dú sǐ le) whereas, when using 叫 (jiào) or 让 (ràng,) the object cannot be omitted, it must be included, so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的自行车被小偷偷走了。 (Wǒ de zìxíngchē bèi xiǎotōu tōu zǒu le.) -- &lt;strong&gt;OK&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的自行车被偷走了。 (Wǒ de zìxíngchē bèi tōu zǒu le.) -- &lt;strong&gt;ALSO OK&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的自行车叫小偷偷走了。 (Wǒ de zìxíngchē jiào xiǎotōu tōu zǒu le.) -- &lt;strong&gt;OK&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的自行车叫偷走了。 (Wǒ de zìxíngchē jiào tōu zǒu le.) -- &lt;strong&gt;NOT OK&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的自行车让小偷偷走了。 (Wǒ de zìxíngchē ràng xiǎotōu tōu zǒu le.) -- &lt;strong&gt;OK&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的自行车让偷走了。 (Wǒ de zìxíngchē ràng tōu zǒu le.) -- &lt;strong&gt;NOT OK&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I want to know is, are 叫 (jiào) and 让 (ràng) more colloquial, more spoken, less formal, more Northern, more Southern, or anything different (besides what I just outlined)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If possible, does anybody know what the reason is they exist? Why these variants exist, and why they're slightly different to 被 (bèi)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T13:53:27.490" Title="被 (bèi) vs. 叫 (jiào) vs. 让 (ràng): regional difference? formality difference?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8265" CreationDate="2014-06-10T05:46:45.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe 愿意 is more literary than 肯. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3896" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T05:46:45.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8284" CreationDate="2014-06-10T05:47:45.777" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I am a native chinese speaker, it is difficult for me to answer your&#xA;questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, when talking about formality difference, 被 is more formal than the other two, 叫 and 让. However, it is still very often for us to use 被 in some oral conversation. But I don't know which one among these three is more northern or more southern. I live in the north part of China and personally, I use 让 more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the difference among these three, I think one important point is that 叫 and 让 are more often used when you know who or what is the objective. Just as the examples you give above, we would often say: 我的自行车被偷走了 but rarely say 我的自行车叫小偷偷走了 nor 我的自行车让小偷偷走了, because actually we do not know who is the thief. But when we want to express that some specific person borrows my bike, we would say: 我的自行车让Mike借走了. All in all, there are only slight differences among them in terms of meaning and you can try to use any one in daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more word is that you can also use 给 to express similar meaning, such as 我的自行车给小偷偷走了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5726" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T05:47:45.777" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8284" CreationDate="2014-06-10T06:19:50.747" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;被 is suitable for both formal and informal situations. In contrast 叫 and 让 are more colloquial, more spoken. There's also a regional element in that using 让/叫 in this way is rarely seen in Taiwan, while much more common place in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The words however are not strictly identical. Chinese prepositions are, generally, verbs that has became syntactical expletives when used as prepositions. This means that there could be ambiguity when meanings bleed through, or when it is unclear if the character is intended as a verb or a preposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, 他让小偷打了一拳 could be &quot;he let the thief punch him once&quot;, or &quot;he was punched once by the thief&quot;. That's because 让 can be used to mean &quot;to let&quot;. Similarly, 叫 is &quot;to tell&quot; and 給 is &quot;to give (let)&quot;. So either one of the three would probably be avoided here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 被 instead in that sentence suffers from no such ambiguity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-10T10:14:12.447" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T10:14:12.447" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8265" CreationDate="2014-06-10T07:08:47.447" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;愿意 and 肯 are similar, but not the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Difference:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你肯不肯去中国工作&quot; implies that the event &quot;去中国工作&quot; may be unpleasant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你愿不愿意去中国工作&quot; implies that the event &quot;去中国工作&quot; is pleasant (or at least not unpleasant). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肯不肯 is usually used to describe unpleasant jobs/ missions/ tasks etc.&#xA;愿不愿意 is usually used to describe jobs/ missions/ tasks which are not unpleasant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肯不肯 is a bit strong and harsh. Try to avoid using 肯不肯.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T07:08:47.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8284" CreationDate="2014-06-10T08:58:14.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;as an Chinese, i never heard 我的自行车叫小偷偷走了。 nor 我的自行车叫偷走了。.&#xA;叫 used in this way is somehow like being asked.&#xA;I will never asked a thief to steal my bicycle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5731" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T08:58:14.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8278" CreationDate="2014-06-10T09:10:17.897" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before getting into you assumptions I think it's best if we take a look at a post on Language Log from Victor Mair, a name students of Chinese are probably quite familiar with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=5961&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantonese Novels by Victor Mair&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my estimation, there is far too little genuine topolectal&#xA;literature in China.  Throughout history, nearly everything has been&#xA;written either in one or another style of Literary Sinitic (Classical&#xA;Chinese) or in the national koine / lingua franca vernacular&#xA;(currently known as Pǔtōnghuà 普通话 [in Mainland China] / Guóyǔ 国语 [in&#xA;Taiwan] / Huáyǔ 华语 [in Southeast Asian countries]), i.e., Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish that there were vibrant, vital written forms for Hokkien,&#xA;Shanghainese, Hakka, and many other varieties of Chinese, just as&#xA;there are for Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya / Odiya, and so forth in India.&#xA;Considering the plethora of spoken languages in China, I believe that&#xA;the development of corresponding written languages for at least the&#xA;major varieties would lead to mutual enrichment and invigoration,&#xA;including of the national language.  While there have been some&#xA;sporadic efforts to write Taiwanese / Amoyese, a full-blown literary&#xA;tradition has never developed for that language (see Sino-Platonic&#xA;Papers #89, #92, and #172, as well as the works of Henning Klöter).&#xA;There have also been occasional efforts to incorporate a few words of&#xA;the local language in so-called Shanghainese literature, but it&#xA;usually amounts only to a sprinkling of Wu lexical items in what is&#xA;basically a Mandarin matrix.  The situation for the other topolects is&#xA;even less, with next to none or no written form at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is only in Cantonese that there has been anything approaching true&#xA;topolectal writing.  I suspect that this has been possible mainly&#xA;because of the special sociopolitical conditions that obtained while&#xA;Hong Kong was a colony of the British Empire.  Whatever the reason, I&#xA;am always pleased when I learn of evidence that written Cantonese is&#xA;clinging to life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consequently, I was delighted to learn about a recently published&#xA;novel in written Cantonese, called naam4 jan4*2 m4 ho2 ji5 kung4&#xA;男人唔可以窮 (&amp;quot;A man Ought not Be Poor&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;A Man Must not Be Poor&amp;quot;).  It’s&#xA;interesting that the book originated in a series of posts on the&#xA;popular HK web forum HKGOLDEN (gou1 dang1 leon6 taan4 高登論壇), which is&#xA;part of a computer information portal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unsurprisingly, even though Hong Kong is supposedly a part of China,&#xA;HKGOLDEN is blocked by the Great Firewall in the PRC.  The forum is&#xA;subject to severe hacking, and has periodically had to close for&#xA;repair and maintenance, but when the forum is open it flourishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't been able to find much about the novel in English, but was&#xA;very happy to stumble upon this &amp;quot;Blog of Cantonese Resources&amp;quot; with an&#xA;article entitled &amp;quot; New Wave of Cantonese Literature: HKGolden&#xA;Literature&amp;quot;.  I recommend it heartily for basic information about &amp;quot;A&#xA;Man Must not Be Poor&amp;quot; and several related novels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This page in Chinese is quite informative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This discussion page shows the enthusiasm with which Cantonese&#xA;language literature is welcomed by readers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandy Chan tells me that she has read several chapters of &amp;quot;A Man Must&#xA;not Be Poor&amp;quot; and that it is written completely in colloquial HK&#xA;Cantonese.  She says that the storyline isn't quite her cup of tea,&#xA;but she can see how it &amp;quot;resonates&amp;quot; with what is called din6 ce1 naam4&#xA;电车男 (&amp;quot;train man&amp;quot;) type of guys.  The latter notion derives from&#xA;Japanese densha otoko 電車男 (movie, TV series, novel, manga, etc.),&#xA;which was very popular in Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The din6 ce1 naam4 电车男 / densha otoko 電車男 (&amp;quot;train man&amp;quot;) is akin to the&#xA;zaak6 naam4 / taku otoko 宅男, i.e., otaku おたく/オタク.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong street parlance tends to use gong2 naam4 港男 (&amp;quot;Hong Kong&#xA;man&amp;quot;) these days to denote the same category of Hong Kong men who are&#xA;socially awkward and lacking in accomplishment, yet with a high degree&#xA;of self-esteem. The gong2 naam4 港男's mortal enemy is the gong2 neoi5/2&#xA;(note change in tone from original Mid-low Rising 5 to High Rising 2&#xA;to indicate colloquial pronunciation) 港女 — Mammonish, controlling,&#xA;loud (often foul-mouthed), socially aggressive,&#xA;old-but-still-pretending-to-be-&amp;quot;cute&amp;quot; (kawaii) type of HK woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The duk6 naam4 毒男 (lit., &amp;quot;poison man&amp;quot;) acts in an even more&#xA;introverted fashion than the gong2 naam4 港男 (&amp;quot;Hong Kong man&amp;quot;), to the&#xA;point of being a &amp;quot;weirdo&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Extensive discussion of densha otoko 電車男 (&amp;quot;train man&amp;quot;) and related&#xA;terms may be found in these Language Log posts and the comments to&#xA;them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the relevant entry from the draft manuscript of the ABC&#xA;Cantonese-English Dictionary by Bob Bauer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.hw zaak6 naam4 char 宅男 ps N. clf 個 go3, 條 tiu4 en lit. house male;&#xA;fig.; term was likely orig. borrowed from Jp. into TW. Man. in 2005 in&#xA;connection with the broadcast of the popular Jp. TV drama 電車男 densha&#xA;otoko 'train man'; term is similar in mng. to 毒男 duk6 naam4; sl. see&#xA;also 毒男 duk6 naam4 df nerd, geek, i.e. a young man who barricades&#xA;himself in his room at home and spends most of his time surfing the&#xA;internet on his computer, playing video games, avoiding face-to-face&#xA;interaction and communication with other people, esp., women, and&#xA;neglecting his physical appearance and personal hygiene exchar&#xA;佢面口青青，又奀奀瘦瘦，污頭垢面，成日屈住喺屋企唔出門口，成條宅男咁款 exrom keoi5 min6 hau2 ceng1 ceng1,&#xA;jau6 ngan1 ngan1 sau3 sau3, wu1 tau4 gau3 min6, seng4 jat6 wat1 zyu6&#xA;hai2 uk1 kei5/2 m4 ceot1 mun4 hau2, seng4 tiu4 zaak6 naam4 gam3 fun2&#xA;exeng He's both sickly pale and unhealthily skinny, his hair is dirty&#xA;and his face is oily, he shuts himself up in the house the whole day&#xA;and doesn't come out, he's such a complete nerd&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author's name is sit3 ho2 zing3 薛可正.  It's his pen name and very&#xA;few people actually know what he looks like (the nature of the&#xA;HKGOLDEN forum membership is rather secretive).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sit's tale isn't altogether unique, because you can find many such&#xA;stories on the HKGOLDEN forum, but one of the main differences with&#xA;Sit is that he managed to finish the entire novel within a reasonable&#xA;amount of time.  The stories are written in episodes and it is very&#xA;common for an author to let his tale peter out.  Incidentally, it&#xA;seems as though all the authors of the HKGOLDEN forum novels, at least&#xA;the ones I know about, are males.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandy once listened to a radio interview with Sit, in which he said&#xA;that the story is 70% &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; — meaning that it's not necessarily his&#xA;own biography, but it does contain episodes and occurrences that have&#xA;either happened to him or to people he knows.  It seems that the&#xA;reason Sit has been able to attract so many &amp;quot;train men&amp;quot; followers is&#xA;because he is able to express their sense of helplessness and&#xA;Ineffectualness.  But he writes about other things too, like his&#xA;relationship with his father.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Sit's audience is made up of many gong2 naam4 港男 type guys, he&#xA;isn't writing about them per se, at least his portrayal of the main&#xA;character isn't about gong2 naam4 港男 vs. gong2 neoi5/2 港女 issues, yet&#xA;because his storyline is about the psychological struggle against&#xA;helplessness and ineffectualness, it resonates with many Hong Kong&#xA;men.  Having the story written out in Hong Kong street Cantonese is a&#xA;big reason why the novel has received such disproportionate attention&#xA;on the Hong Kong cultural scene.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandy is also writing a historical romance in street Cantonese, but&#xA;it's not as easy as she thought it would be because she doesn't know&#xA;how to write out some of the slang words, and she gets a headache when&#xA;going over her own draft because she's not used to reading something&#xA;that is written purely in Cantonese.  I wish her luck in her&#xA;novelistic project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should say a few words about the gong2 neoi5/2 港女 phenomenon more&#xA;generally.  Gong2 neoi5/2 港女 is not just about Hong Kong women, but a&#xA;specific kind of Hong Kong women.  The creation of this category has&#xA;something to do with the sex-ratio imbalance in Hong Kong (more&#xA;females than males).  To compound the problem, many Hong Kong men of&#xA;marriageable age prefer to &amp;quot;go north&amp;quot; (i.e., go to the mainland) to&#xA;find their spouses.  Their defense is that mainland ladies are more&#xA;gentle and tender, etc. I suppose it's a matter of personal choice,&#xA;but in doing so they put down HK women (at least that's the way the&#xA;Hong Kong women perceive the situation).  Because many Hong Kong women&#xA;regard themselves as being mentally tougher, more independent, and&#xA;less &amp;quot;scheming&amp;quot; than their mainland counterparts, the actions and&#xA;speech of some Hong Kong men cause tremendous anguish among Hong Kong&#xA;women.  With the passage of time, it is no wonder that gong2 naam4 港男&#xA;and gong2 neoi5/2 港女 developed into oppositional terms as a way to&#xA;address this Thurberesque war of the sexes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it is time for the gong2 neoi5/2 港女 to start writing their own&#xA;Cantonese novels to defend themselves from the aspersions in all those&#xA;written by gong2 naam4 港男.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Thanks to Bob Bauer, Simon Pettersson, and Wicky Tse]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if we take a look at your original assumptions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Written Chinese is mainly used for Standard (Mandarin) Chinese.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mostly other Chinese languages and/or dialects are mainly spoken and not written.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-A common misconception but obviously not the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cantonese is probably the other language/dialect most written after Mandarin, and dialect words in Taiwan probably next most.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Yes there seems to only be actual, complete writing only in Mandarin and Cantonese. Other topolects, like the article mentioned above, are basically Mandarin with sprinklings of topolectical words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Most other Chinese languages and/or dialects have at least a few words which have no established related word in Mandarin. (This means related by etymology, not just the same meaning.)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-This is absolutely true on both fronts (etymology and meaning).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Where can I find some of the most common terms from any other Chinese (Sinitic) languages and/or dialects which do not have a standard hanzi character?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On this front I agree very much with what @Semaphore said in his/her answer. Many times talking about dialects, topolects or Chinese-based languages speakers will very quickly come out with the classic, &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;oh this is only spoken - it can not be written&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; phrase - which is actually just a very ignorant reply. Most of these so-called 'nonexistant' characters can actually be found &lt;em&gt;fairly&lt;/em&gt; easily with some research. An example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四川话 has the word ba4 dan1 (Sichuanese Pinyin): meaning 'bed sheet' - if you ask most people from the Sichuan area they should be able to understand this word (in the correct context, of course), but(!) if you ask them how to write it 99.99% of people do not have the slightest idea how to write it and will probably tell you &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;oh this is only spoken - it can not be written&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;. 成都话方言词典 does, though, have an entry for this word using the following character for ba4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/db8Pi.gif&quot; alt=&quot;ba4&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 单 for dan1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this may seem a little arbitrary - like they may have just made the character up themselves - the same character for ba4 can also be found in 《中华字海》:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6qFGL.png&quot; alt=&quot;zhonghuazihai:ba&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and online at &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/content.asp?word=186161&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea[dot]com&lt;/a&gt;:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pqq7o.png&quot; alt=&quot;zisea online&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of which clearly indicate it's a Sichuanese character!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;So, why?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do natives not know their own language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic answer this that topolects, dialects and all non-standard Chinese languages in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have been suffocated, strangled and slaughtered to the best of the abilities of those in charge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Education Bureau in Hong Kong has claimed that Cantonese is not an official language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Students are not allowed to speak anything other than Mandarin in modern day classrooms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can people expected to know their own languages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T09:10:17.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8284" CreationDate="2014-06-10T09:21:40.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of them can express a passive voice, but there're something different in grammar (let's compare them in English one):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 被：Very normal usage and it's nearly used very frequently, something like the English's passive voice:&#xA;    Subject+&lt;strong&gt;Be+Past Participle&lt;/strong&gt;…… （The bold one's combination means “被&quot;）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 叫 means “by&quot; ONLY：&#xA;    Subject + Be + Past Participle + &lt;strong&gt;by someOne/ect&lt;/strong&gt;（The bold one's combination means “叫”）, this means “让”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all：&quot;给”,&quot;被&quot; can means: &lt;strong&gt;1) by someone/subject 2) Be+Past participle.&lt;/strong&gt; You can use it like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;**XXX 给/被/（可以省略的主语）VVV（行为，不可省略）**&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &quot;让&quot;,&quot;叫&quot; must follow a subject with a verb, both of them cannot be ignored!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; **XXX 让/叫（不可以省略的主语）VVV（行为，不可省略）**&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare them:&#xA;3.1) 我的手机**给**偷了(My phone &lt;strong&gt;is stolen&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.2) 我的手机被(小偷)偷了(My phone &lt;strong&gt;is stolen by a thief&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you CANNOT say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.3) 我的手机让偷了（缺少动词的主题，错误！）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2014-06-11T01:02:59.567" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T01:02:59.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8264" CreationDate="2014-06-10T11:32:32.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's this one: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;used after a verb indicating beginning and continuation of an action or a state&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you said in your question, when attached behind a verb, the phrase 起來 indicates &quot;starting, beginning, about to happen&quot;. In this case, therefore, 把被子收起来吧 means &quot;lets start putting the quills away&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the same manner, 起來 is used in other common phrases to indicate the start of an action. For example, 站起來 means &quot;to stand &lt;em&gt;up&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, whereas 站 by itself only means &quot;to stand. Similarly, 飛起來 means &quot;to lift off&quot;, while 飛 by itself would only mean &quot;to fly&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when on a plane taxing and lifting off, you could say 正要飛起來 (we're taking off). Once the plane is in mid-flight, you'd have to say 正在飛 (we're flying) instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-10T11:47:33.357" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T11:47:33.357" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7238" CreationDate="2014-06-10T12:53:33.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on the conversation context. The difference is too subtle to describe to people from different cultures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is hard to use your sentence directly to build an example. Suppose a client is bargaining/discussing some expense or price with you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When there is no &quot;了&quot;, you are probably just stating the fact. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When there is a &quot;了&quot;, it is likely your tone is dropping during talking, you could be rolling your eyes too. You are indicating the client is too ignorant about the real expense you need and his estimation is way too low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you could say it with a &quot;了&quot; in a tone of something close to &quot;撒娇&quot;, indicating the client should pay a bit more than what he offered. In this case, you could probably or will intentionally choose to use &quot;啦&quot; instead of &quot;了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4502" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T12:53:33.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8284" CreationDate="2014-06-10T14:59:22.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you use &lt;code&gt;叫 (jiào) and 让 (ràng)&lt;/code&gt;, you have to put a &quot;whom&quot; behind. But for &lt;code&gt;被 (bèi)&lt;/code&gt;, it is ok not to have the &quot;whom&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason behind the existence of &lt;code&gt;叫 (jiào) and 让 (ràng)&lt;/code&gt; is probably the casual use of language. When someone uses &lt;code&gt;被 (bèi)&lt;/code&gt;, it sounds very formal, and there is no misunderstanding. But for &lt;code&gt;叫 (jiào) and 让 (ràng)&lt;/code&gt;, they are more relaxing and can, sometimes if the listener is from another region, cause misunderstanding. Try to think about the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我叫他打了。 I was beaten by him.&#xA;我叫他给打了。 I was beaten by him.&#xA;我让他打了。 I was beaten by him.&#xA;我让他给打了。 I was beaten by him.&#xA;我叫他打(电话)了。 I have asked him to call.&#xA;我让他打(电话)了。I have made him to call.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastEditorDisplayName="user5737" LastEditDate="2014-06-11T13:53:27.490" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T13:53:27.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8265" CreationDate="2014-06-10T15:11:50.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't see any major difference in the meanings of these two. They all express &quot;Are you willing to do...?&quot; But I would say that, &lt;code&gt;你愿不愿意去中国工作？&lt;/code&gt; is more formal than &lt;code&gt;你肯不肯去中国工作？&lt;/code&gt;. The latter one sounds like a casual chat between two friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T15:11:50.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8266" CreationDate="2014-06-10T15:23:11.737" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your sentences are correct. &lt;code&gt;谁都&lt;/code&gt; has something to do with people, and therefore &lt;code&gt;everyone&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;哪儿都&lt;/code&gt; has something to do with locations, and therefore &lt;code&gt;everywhere&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;什么都&lt;/code&gt; has something to do with things, and therefore &lt;code&gt;everything&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although you have your sentences correct, I have to say be careful with the affirmative and the negative versions. If you use &lt;code&gt;谁都+没&lt;/code&gt;, then it should be&lt;code&gt;no one&lt;/code&gt;. If you use &lt;code&gt;哪儿都+没&lt;/code&gt;, then it should be &lt;code&gt;nowhere&lt;/code&gt;. If you use &lt;code&gt;什么都+没&lt;/code&gt;, then it should be &lt;code&gt;nothing&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;anything&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T15:23:11.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8297" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-10T16:00:40.903" Score="1" ViewCount="309" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often misread these words and got mistaken between each other:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;旅 = Lǚ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;斿/游 = Yóu&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;施 = shī&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;旋 = Xuán&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;族 = zú&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as each of them doesn't have related phonetic indicator that I can use as clue to remember their pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any tips to remember their pronunciations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-07-24T23:18:42.140" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T02:06:15.510" Title="Tips to remember the pronunciation of these words: 旅，斿，施，旋，族?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-07-27T00:02:29.410" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8249" CreationDate="2014-06-10T16:06:39.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Japan, there is very little situation when people use their full name together. If two are not quite close, they tend to just use the family name. When two are very close, they tend to use the first name. So the order doesn't matter and so they translate the name to a Western way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in China, in most situation, people use their family name and first name together. So they translation followed the way it original be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T16:06:39.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8265" CreationDate="2014-06-10T17:02:21.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's rare to see such an interesting question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;愿意, for the simplified Chinese, there is &quot;心&quot; (heart) contained in each character. If you dig the dictionary, 愿意 has more willingness. Which would suggest that in some cases the person already had a positive thought of the issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 肯 is more reserved, there would be some trade off (or sacrifice) to make the decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, 愿意 stands for the favourable side, 肯 stands for the less favourable side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T17:02:21.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8300" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8302" CreationDate="2014-06-10T17:21:33.680" Score="0" ViewCount="3014" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of my chinese friends always writes this on my notebook at University and laughs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't seem to understand what's so funny about it. any explanation would be fantastic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5742" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T08:29:13.697" Title="What does this mean: 操" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2014-06-13T14:49:02.960" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8300" CreationDate="2014-06-10T17:36:45.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It has multiple meanings. The relevant one here is &quot;fuck&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other meanings of the character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To hold, to grip&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To control&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To train&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To speak in a specified language or accent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T17:36:45.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8300" CreationDate="2014-06-10T17:39:18.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;操&quot; means &quot;fuck&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's usage in Chinese is close to fuck in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps:As a Chinese I can understand him , at hometown you rarely have any chance to say those bad language whenever and wherever you want in public because everyone knows what you are saying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5743" LastEditorUserId="4118" LastEditDate="2014-06-11T08:29:13.697" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T08:29:13.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8249" CreationDate="2014-06-10T18:56:23.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think all translations are based on the pronunciations, both Chinese and Japanese. There are some letters such as &quot;x&quot;, &quot;q&quot; or &quot;zh&quot; in Chinese that western people cannot pronounce which makes you think that it is pretty awkward. I understand that. I have same problem with people from European or Latino American. However, Japanese is really not a good example here. Take your example for instance,  黒澤明 in Japan is not pronounced as hei ze ming, but as Akira Kurosawa. 黒澤明 is just the Chinese characters of his name. It is still basically pronunciation translation. More interestingly, it is not really pronounced as what you thought in English way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5745" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T18:56:23.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="779" CreationDate="2014-06-11T02:27:58.620" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;when 双 is used, it usually means the thing is born/created/made that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when 对 is used, it usually means one match the other in some way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5750" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T02:27:58.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2146" CreationDate="2014-06-11T02:32:59.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;了解 is more like &quot;Known&quot;&#xA;理解 is more like &quot;Understand&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5750" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T02:32:59.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8300" CreationDate="2014-06-11T03:29:10.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the meanings of 操 is fuck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, you can say &quot;fuck your relatives (e.g. father, mother, grandma etc)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Common use:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fuck your &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;mum 操你妈;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;grandma 操你奶奶.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T03:29:10.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7205" CreationDate="2014-06-11T07:30:36.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Additional meanings to all the above sayings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“接地气” is a newly-created fixed phrase in China used to describe some official members should be more pratical and communicate with the common people in their daily work instead of acting in an arbitrary fashion in an office by commanding others to do …… You can use this to describe someone who is doing much more than speaking, someone who is more a practical man than a &quot;meaningless&quot; theorist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example: 作为一个干部，他真**接地气**，能够和群众打成一片。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2014-06-11T07:50:27.347" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T07:50:27.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8284" CreationDate="2014-06-11T07:35:23.677" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer is mostly based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/0b79547302768e9951e73871.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this paper&lt;/a&gt;, adding some of my own experience as a Beijing'er.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Syntax:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;被 can be used without being followed the subject. 让 and 叫 should be followed by the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may sound strange to ears from Southern China, but as a Beijing'er I've heard usages of 让/叫 &lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; the subject. For example &lt;code&gt;我的自行车叫偷走了&lt;/code&gt;, a rare usage but there are people saying it this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ambiguity Issue:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have the same meaning. However, since 让 and 叫 have other meanings and these meanings are actually their primary usages, using those words as the passive particle can lead to ambiguity. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;桌子没叫他搬走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;could be interpreted as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No one asked him to pick up the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No one allowed him to pick up the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The table wasn't picked up by him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让 has similar issue but 被 won't cause ambiguity at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Regional Usage:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让 and 叫 are Beijing/Northern China usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the paper, in spoken language sampled from Beijing drama and cross-talks as well as another effort sourcing from Beijing modern novels, 让 has the most (&amp;gt;40%) appearances among the three, while the other two has similar, lower usage (25%-30%). In written language though, 被 is dominating with &amp;gt;99% usage even in Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The paper also pointed out that the new generation in Beijing (whose parents may have come from different parts of China) tend to use 被 more than the older generation, and they tend to use 被 over the other two when they speak serious matters even in colloquial language. This fact can be seen as an evidence that the 让/叫 usage are indeed dialectal from old Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T07:35:23.677" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8297" CreationDate="2014-06-11T08:38:45.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I suppose the only useful tip is practice :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if a little imagination may help, perhaps I can say a little about 施.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I am sure you noticed these five words have the same &amp;quot;left-portion&amp;quot; and the &amp;quot;upper-right portion&amp;quot; in the way they are written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So take a look at what's left over if we take those portions out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will see a 也. You may think of 也是，couple this 也 to a 是, which pronounces as SHI!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you might be able to remind yourself 施 is pronounced as SHI!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HAHA! :p Anyway don't worry, practice more, then you'll be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4642" LastEditorUserId="23922" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T00:52:42.977" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T00:52:42.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7211" CreationDate="2014-06-11T08:55:44.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I am to translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The cameras made her self-conscious about her weight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拍照让他在意起自己的体重&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't mention his acne, he's really self-conscious about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别提起他的暗疮，他很介意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I suppose you were right, we might not really have a definite word/phrase for its translation, but i'd say it is very close to 介意/在意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4642" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T08:55:44.030" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3846" CreationDate="2014-06-11T09:18:58.793" Score="6" Body="&lt;h1&gt;三八&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comes from &quot;March&quot; (3, 三) &quot;Eighth&quot; (8, 八):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KEY:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;March Eighth (International Working Women's Day)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then evolved into what it means today (stupid, foolish, batty, gossipy, bitchy). It has no relation to 二百五.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;二百五&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规范&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过去银子五百两为一封, 二百五十两为半封, 谐音“半疯”。借指带有傻气、做事鲁莽的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically 250 = 半封 which sounds like 半疯 or half-crazy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;二&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;百度知道&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“二”是河南一带的方言俚语，其来源是“二蛋”简称，“二蛋”的同义语有“二球”、“二杆子”、“二性（这里的“性”读轻声）”，意思均指某人鲁莽爱拼命，或指稍微冒犯即给对方以极不相称的极不必要的数十倍的攻击。一般人们通常会说，“这个人‘二’的很，别惹他”；“那家伙真‘二’，就说他一句掂砖头朝头上砸过去了”。&#xA;  河南方言形容这类行为的说法是“脑子一热，不顾一切”（用河南话念，很押韵合辙）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　我再补充一点，三楼的第二点：“应该是做形容词用。 比如东北常说，你咋那么“二”呢！等等&#xA;  ”之意思正是“二蛋”之意，你咋那么“二”呢！是避讳不雅字眼，完整的应该说“你咋那么二蛋（或二球、二性、二杆子）呢！”也就是出傻气的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　“二性”用来描述人时有时候也可重叠，作“二二性性”，如“那家伙二二性性的，别理他，别跟他一般见识。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　“二”以及它的那些全称词组还有引申义，指某人说话缺乏考虑，口无遮拦，胡扯八道，或满嘴脏话（不分场合的讲脏话），此时有一个专门的词叫“二驣（音”teng，第三声），属于“专有名词”，专用来指说话。如：那家伙是个二驣，说话没边，云天雾地的（这个意思时还有个专门的比喻词叫“老鸹屁”）。再如：她真是个二驣，跟一帮男的说话屌啊屌的，不像个女的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　2.　　2据说是原来人们称呼的250的简称。人们后来觉得叫人家250有些直接了当的辱骂，显得自己多么不文明，没素质，就简化成2了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　二百五的来历&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　二百五的来历日常生活中，人们常把傻瓜或说话不正经、办事不认真、处事随便、好出洋相的人叫做“二百五”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　一说来源于战国故事。苏秦是战国时的一个说客，他身佩六国相印，一时很是威风，但也结下了很多仇人。后来，他终于在齐国被人杀了，齐王很恼怒，要为苏秦报仇。可一时拿不到凶手，于是，他想了一条计策，让人把苏泰的头从尸体上割下来，悬挂在城门上，旁边贴着一道榜文说：“苏秦是个内*，杀了他黄金千两，望来领赏。”榜文一贴出，就有四个人声称是自己杀了苏秦。齐王说：“这可不许冒充呀！”四个人又都咬定说自己干的。齐王说：“一千两黄金，你们四个人各分得多少？”四个齐声回答：“一人二百五。”齐王拍案大怒道：“来人，把这四个‘二百五’推出去斩了！”“二百五”一词就这样流传下来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　还有另一种说法，与推牌九有点关系。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　原来，牌九（旧时一种赌具）中有“二板”（四个点）和“么五”（六个点）两张牌，这两张牌配在一起就是十个点，在推牌九这一赌博活动中，被称为“毙十”。它在牌九里是最小的点，谁都比它大，它什么牌也“吃”不了，所以人们就用“二板五”（二板和么五的简称）这个词来戏称什么事也做不好也管不了的人。时间久了，就把“二板五”叫成了“二百五”。在香港，习惯上又称为“二五仔”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　a:东北方言，常用于形容人或事物愚笨，口语中拥有独特的语意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　b:陕西方言，常用于形容一个人分不清场合，掂不来轻重，说话不过大脑，做事不想后果。如“二怂，二锤子”。例，那个人二得很！&#xA;  或形容自己听到惊人且不能理解的言论时的心理状况，如“我二了”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　c:天津方言，贬意词。常用用于形容人愚笨，弱智的意思。现在多用于彼此取笑的意思（有很大的玩笑成分）。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tl;dr: or don't understand chinese:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. came from topolect&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. shortening of 250   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-18T09:16:48.667" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T09:16:48.667" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8264" CreationDate="2014-06-11T11:27:24.013" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    1. used after a verb indicating beginning and continuation of an action or a state&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would argue that the key word in this sentence is 把 (which means to dispose of something). As such, 起来 indicates the beginning of the 把 action which ends in the object, in this case a quilt, being &quot;stored&quot; away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 and 起来 often collocate. When paired, these words determine the beginning (起来) and the end (把) of a designated action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastEditorUserId="4354" LastEditDate="2014-06-12T05:55:50.010" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T05:55:50.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8313" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8314" CreationDate="2014-06-11T12:55:54.273" Score="8" ViewCount="5876" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ask someone a question, but then realize I already know the answer.  In English, I'd say: &quot;Oh wait, never mind.&quot;  What's 口语 for &quot;never mind&quot; in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5757" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T09:05:17.740" Title="Never mind in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8313" CreationDate="2014-06-11T13:19:48.403" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Such as  :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不用了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;算了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别管了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T13:19:48.403" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8313" CreationDate="2014-06-11T13:20:15.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 没关系 or 沒事.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say &quot;never mind&quot; in general, you have a couple of choices. 算了 or 沒關係 both convey the general idea. 算了 however maybe be perceived as implying some level of impatience. In this specific context, 沒事 also works well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But its mostly fine to use either, or both together as &quot;算了，沒關係&quot; (or &quot;算了，沒事&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-11T13:26:37.800" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T13:26:37.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8316" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-11T14:43:26.400" Score="11" ViewCount="694" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've started to learn independently some Chinese (on printed material mainly) but a friend who has studied the language at University level suggested I learn the radicals as a necessary start.&#xA;A bookseller also had suggested this a while ago and sold me a (lovely) book about radicals (that the bookstore itself, &lt;em&gt;Librairie You Feng&lt;/em&gt; in Paris, printed).&#xA;I will be starting a course soon (not knowing where it will take me) but is this a reality? Should I really try to memorize the 214 basic radicals?&#xA;Thank you for your help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5759" LastActivityDate="2014-06-13T09:05:30.793" Title="Radicals: inescapable?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8316" CreationDate="2014-06-11T15:14:15.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being able to recognise radicals is very helpful; they sort of provide visual cues for what a character mean or sound like (but there's also traps!). That said, I don't know how useful specifically trying to memorise the radicals is. I'd thought you would naturally pick it up after you've learnt a few characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T15:14:15.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8313" CreationDate="2014-06-11T16:03:08.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this scenario , you can say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;先别说,我想我已经知道了.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a benefits to this syntax. It makes someone feel that you have a good relationship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;啊,我领悟了.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very stylish!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5760" LastEditorUserId="5760" LastEditDate="2014-06-11T16:10:02.380" LastActivityDate="2014-06-11T16:10:02.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1740" CreationDate="2014-06-12T00:34:38.157" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are my two favorite browser-based pinyin cheat-sheets:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/pinyintable_vertical.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/pinyintable_vertical.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas the site linked to in the currently top-ranked answer (lost-theory.org - a nice, new find for me, BTW) uses big, lossless .wav files (which also unfortunately seem to include a great deal of background noise), the sites I link to above use compressed mp3s, so I think you'll have a vastly easier time using them on a slow connection. Enjoy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5761" LastEditorUserId="5761" LastEditDate="2018-08-19T11:44:47.183" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T11:44:47.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8316" CreationDate="2014-06-12T00:43:51.277" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel like this question could elicit subjective and open-ended answers, but here goes anyway ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Beijing, one of the classes I had was a dedicated 汉字 (Hànzì, Chinese character) class. In it, we were learning the most common radicals, and some word examples that contain that radical. We learnt how, often, the meaning is conveyed by the radical and the other portion is often a pronunciation component. I found this to be enormously helpful; even without recognising some characters, I could sort of guess at their general meaning and, with the context of the sentence, understand what was going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contrasting this to the general classes I attend at 孔子学院 (Kǒngzǐ Xuéyuàn, Confucius Institute) where they do not teach you any radicals, simply tell you to learn and remember the new words yourself, I notice most classmates struggling to remember &quot;which little bit goes next to the bigger bit.&quot; I found my prior knowledge of some radicals helped me learn the characters quicker than my classmates, and my belief that they are of importance continues to allow me to learn previously-unknown-to-me radicals and characters faster as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They &lt;strong&gt;are&lt;/strong&gt; important. They &lt;strong&gt;are&lt;/strong&gt; necessary to learn. However, whether you specifically set out to learn them first, or if you gradually learn them and get a feel for them as you continue your education ... that part is up to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I, for one, would definitely recommend to keep them in mind, but not necessarily learn 214 common ones before learning any whole characters. I would probably learn a character, figure out what the radical stands for, see if there are other variants (like 心 xīn: heart radical has a couple of different forms) maybe look up a few other characters with that radical, then press on with the next character in your book. Rinse and repeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, there will be certain characters where the radical doesn't appear to provide any understanding of what the character means. That's just how it goes sometimes: you might think it's stupid and it should have [x] radical instead of the [y] radical that it has, but you could say the same of any language really: some bits are just nonsensical, and you just have to remember it but not necessarily understand it (the best lesson my calculus teacher ever taught me: &quot;You don't have to understand it, you just have to know it.&quot; took me from a C to an A.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="3561" LastEditDate="2014-06-12T01:00:12.030" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T01:00:12.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8321" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8322" CreationDate="2014-06-12T04:48:14.660" Score="4" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;The verb &lt;em&gt;shoot&lt;/em&gt; appears often in Chinese international news. But I am unclear about the different words for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;射击 and 开枪 seem to be the firing of a gun and 击中，射中 hitting with a weapon, but could someone clarify the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My dictionary says &quot;hit with missile&quot;. Can any of these words be used for a rocket / missile attack too or are they only applicable to handguns and sporting guns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also wonder why the word 中 is part of these words in the context of shooting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5763" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T21:42:27.967" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T21:42:27.967" Title="verb. &quot;to shoot&quot; (weapon): difference between 射击，开枪， 击中， 射中" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8321" CreationDate="2014-06-12T05:05:22.507" Score="5" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;射击&lt;/code&gt; is &quot;shooting&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;开枪&lt;/code&gt; is &quot;to pull the trigger (on a gun)&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a shooting sport would be called &lt;code&gt;射击運動&lt;/code&gt;, and cover fire is called &lt;code&gt;掩護射击&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;击中&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;hitting&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;射中&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;hitting with a flying object&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It works with a self-propelled missile/artillery shell/arrows etc too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt; is there to to contribute the meaning of a &quot;hit&quot; to the terms. &lt;code&gt;射&lt;/code&gt; without &lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt; is only &quot;shooting&quot;; with &lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt; it becomes &quot;shooting &lt;em&gt;and hitting&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T05:05:22.507" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8323" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8327" CreationDate="2014-06-12T07:59:08.853" Score="3" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of words in Chinese have been shortened into single-syllable, and thus single-character, words. Often times though these single syllable words are not 'clear' enough in speech, in writing though this does not really pose an issue. A second syllable (character) can be added to make things clearer, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已 — 已经&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;易 — 容易&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose we can call these single character words with double character words with same meaning equivalents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can we find a single-characters double-character equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-06-12T13:34:17.390" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T13:12:29.157" Title="Finding the &quot;second character&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8316" CreationDate="2014-06-12T15:16:29.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Inescapable Radicals&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think knowledge of radicals is inescapable as many dictionaries have at least one index organised around radicals and stroke count. I find it easier to learn characters (and related characters) using radicals. These relations between characters assist in overall comprehension and multiply the number of characters one can recognise quickly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at radicals and characters should not (in my opinion) be a separate exercise. I've taken courses designed to study characters and their etymology, which really helped me learn grammar more easily. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt; gives a good online sample of the radicals and how they can be used to access related characters. I would not put off learning either but rather suggest you supplement your coursework by continual self-study of the radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T15:16:29.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8325" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8326" CreationDate="2014-06-12T15:17:11.850" Score="-3" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there was a price for my love, you could never afford it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5765" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-30T13:58:50.287" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T13:58:50.287" Title="Can someone translate sentance from english to chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-06-12T22:23:55.223" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8325" CreationDate="2014-06-12T15:31:05.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally, 如果我的爱有个价钱，那么你永远无法付的起.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, 我的爱是无价的。（My love is priceless）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T15:31:05.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8323" CreationDate="2014-06-12T16:39:48.223" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;已 — 已经&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  易 — 容易&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can look up these word in a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Like 开 (for water) how can I know it's 烧开...I don't know that a dictionary will tell me that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开 is called a resultative complement (结果补语). Unfortunately, there is no easy way to know them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most adjectives can be used as resultative complements. e.g. you can say 水开了 and 烧水, so you say 水烧开了, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But most resultative complements are not adjectives. You have to learn them as collocations. e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看见/看到&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  听见/听到&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  but 闻到 and 想到. 闻见 and 想见 are relatively rare&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  找到/找着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may have to ask the teacher or use Google to find out which one is more common. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you search &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E7%9C%8B%E4%B8%8D%2a%E4%B8%9C%E8%A5%BF%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;看不*东西&quot;&lt;/a&gt; (including the quotation marks) in Google, you can only find 看不见, 看不清 and 看不到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, 到 in 看不到 is a potential complement (可能补语). But in most cases, resultative complements are the same as potential complements. The main difference is that you put 得 or 不 between the verb and the complement. This trick can help you eliminate many false positives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T16:39:48.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8325" CreationDate="2014-06-12T19:24:50.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there was a price for my love, you could never afford it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;若 吾愛 待沽，汝 永難 承擔。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;如果 我的愛 要定個 價錢，你 絕不可能 買得起。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4666" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T19:24:50.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8316" CreationDate="2014-06-13T01:33:26.510" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience, knowing the radicals does help to categorise characters in your head and it's somethign you can hold on to. However, I have no learned them in isolation, each time I learn a new word I make sure to look up the word in the dictionary which mentions the radical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's helpful to learn 200+ radicals off the bat. For one some are not that common, second, some don't have a meaning or the meaning is not straightforward, and third, only by seeing them often will you retain them. Start with simple ones and try to find some words you alraedy know in the dictionary look-up table. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also true that not all dictionaries even use the same radical look-up table, and some dictionaries associate a different radical to a different character I noticed, it's rare but it does happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The importance of looking up words in a dictionary by using the radical look-up table, while still important, has dimished somewhat with the use of technology, you can often copy paste the word and many smartphone apps can recognise characters with the built-in camera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main challenge for me in learning Chinese is staying motivated by having fun, learning radicals in isolation is not fun, after a while you will pick up on them either way, they will end up in your wrist memory from writing the characters, just do what you think is best, as long as you're having fun learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to do things in order of importance, many people are able to read Chinese but can't write it, how important something is is all relative, radicals are a &quot;hook&quot; to character recognition, but you don't need to know them all to read Chinese, it is just handy for dictionaries and to categorise them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5763" LastEditorUserId="5763" LastEditDate="2014-06-13T01:53:29.580" LastActivityDate="2014-06-13T01:53:29.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8323" CreationDate="2014-06-13T02:56:24.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the first case (已 — 已经), you can look it up with a conventional dictionary (辭典) as other commentators mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the second case (易 — 容易), you may try using &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;教育部重編國語辭典修訂本&lt;/a&gt;. It has a feature that allows you to look for phrases ending with a specific character. For example, if you enter &lt;code&gt;^.易$&lt;/code&gt; in the query, you'll be able to look up 容易 in the search result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cons: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The search result may be overwhelming and you still need to do some manual filtering to find out the appropriate phrase.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's made by Taiwan Government, so the vocabulary is limited to Taiwan Chinese only. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2832" LastActivityDate="2014-06-13T02:56:24.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8265" CreationDate="2014-06-13T05:20:37.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 愿意 and 肯 are mostly interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is, if there is little, 愿意 is more active whereas 肯 is a little passive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-06-13T05:20:37.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8316" CreationDate="2014-06-13T09:05:30.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning some written Mandarin through memrise.com, and their approach when introducing a new word, is to explain all the different part first, so you end up learning all the radicals naturally. I think it works better than learning them in isolation, because you can immediately relate to how they could be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="133" LastActivityDate="2014-06-13T09:05:30.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8264" CreationDate="2014-06-13T17:42:40.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This 起来 serves as the resultative complement of 收.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is required because you cannot say “把被子收_吧”. You must specify in what state you want to put the 被子 via the action 收. e.g. 把被子收&lt;b&gt;进屋子里&lt;/b&gt;, 把被子收&lt;b&gt;到柜子里&lt;/b&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say “把被子收走” or “把被子收了”, too. The choices of complements make slight difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some reason, when 起 is not followed by an object, you must put 来 or other verbs or prepositions after it. e.g. it's possible to say 收起被子, but you have to say 把被子收起来. (Some speakers may accept 把被子收起, but it sounds a little stilted and incomplete to me. Another similar particle is 回, which is often accompanied by 去. But 把被子收回 still sounds acceptable to me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the closest definition out of the four is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1. used after a verb indicating beginning and continuation of an action or a state&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 起来 in 收起来 indicates that, after the completion of the action 收, the blanket is in a temporary state such as &lt;em&gt;protection&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;preservation&lt;/em&gt;. It may sound redundant, but is required by the Chinese grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起 can be consider as “to happen/to arise”, which by itself has almost no meaning. But if you look at many similar collocations like 收起, 亮起, 挂起, 升起, 隆起, 突起, etc. It might be related to another meaning, too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2. indicating an upward movement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, don't confuse 把被子收起来 with 收起被子来. The latter means &lt;em&gt;he starts to put the blanket away&lt;/em&gt;, which is extremely unlikely to be used in daily conversations. 收起(了)被子 can express the same meaning in many contexts without 来. I don not know what exactly is the function of 来. But this does not have much to do with your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastEditorUserId="4117" LastEditDate="2014-06-13T18:17:16.523" LastActivityDate="2014-06-13T18:17:16.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8323" CreationDate="2014-06-13T20:01:55.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The words are not &quot;shortened&quot;, but rather, &lt;em&gt;expanded&lt;/em&gt; in modern Chinese. Read some ancient Chinese literature, and you'll find that literally almost every word is single-character. This is Chinese in its purest sense. If you have some feeling for ancient Chinese, then understanding single characters and associating them with multi-character modern equivalents should be a piece of cake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastActivityDate="2014-06-13T20:01:55.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8313" CreationDate="2014-06-15T07:53:08.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;mind&quot; = &quot;心意&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so my best translation &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for &quot;never mind&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is &quot;不要 放在 心 上&quot; , (bu-yao fang-zai xin shang) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. &quot;don't put (or carry) anything in your heart (mind)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;別 掛心&quot;, (bie gua-xin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不 介意&quot; (bu jie-yi)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that, &#xA;I always suggest using '心' or '意' in this case,&#xA;because it catches the meaning of 'mind'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4666" LastActivityDate="2014-06-15T07:53:08.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8338" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8339" CreationDate="2014-06-15T15:11:21.453" Score="3" ViewCount="771" Body="&lt;p&gt;To learn Chinese, I'm going to read the Chinese edition of a book I've already read in English. This is it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.cn/%E9%98%BF%E7%89%B9%E6%8B%89%E6%96%AF%E8%80%B8%E8%80%B8%E8%82%A9-%E5%AE%89%C2%B7%E5%85%B0%E5%BE%B7/dp/B00DA281J2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;www.amazon.cn/阿特拉斯耸耸肩-安·兰德/dp/B00DA281J2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please go into the &quot;See Inside&quot; feature, look at the preview pages, and tell me whether the book is in traditional or simplified Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5780" LastActivityDate="2014-06-17T12:39:14.637" Title="Is this book in simplified or traditional Chinese?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8338" CreationDate="2014-06-15T17:02:57.330" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just looking at the title you can tell it's simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;耸 is the simplified version 聳.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although, technically possible, it's highly unlikely that a book with a simplified title would be &quot;in&quot; traditional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-15T17:02:57.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="242" CreationDate="2014-06-16T05:01:20.420" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;For translating foreign name based on pronunciation, there is a rule, which may be different for mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. You can find some celebrity with the same name, looking it in wikipedia and change it to Chinese version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will be much difficult if you want to choose a Chinese name, not a translation. Choosing name is an art. It is a tough job even for Chinese parents. Your name reflects how well-educated are your parents. And some choice will be unfortunate if sounds like others. For example 甘礼良, which are both very positive characters, however sounds offensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some very elegant choice in my own opinion are, 陆克文 (Kevin Rudd), 卜道維 (David Brown). Since 陆 and 卜 are actual last name in Chinese, and there first name sounds like their english name. Especially 道維 instead of translation 大卫 is a very sophisticated choice, which can only be come up with by someone knows Chinese very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you want a brand new Chinese name instead of literal translation, you should first looking your last name, which should also be a actual last name in Chinese. Do the same for fist name, which should be two characters. Both should be at least non-negative meaning, and try to avoid those with too much or too obvious positive meaning, such as 好/强/帅 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will never go wrong if you can refer to well-educated historical Chinese figure. For example, characters from names of poet in Tang dynasty or wealthy people last century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3132" LastEditorUserId="3132" LastEditDate="2014-06-16T05:08:57.063" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T05:08:57.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3103" CreationDate="2014-06-16T05:18:09.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It think both means restaurant. Someone use 饭店 to refer hotel, I think that's not precise and is little bit old school. Use 酒店 if you mean hotel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3132" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T05:18:09.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8264" CreationDate="2014-06-16T05:31:30.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;code&gt;4. bringing things together&lt;/code&gt;&quot; sounds the most close one to me. However, it's more accurate to take it as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;used after a verb&lt;/strong&gt; (not any verb, usually those involving putting something away e.g. 收，叠，包，藏，躲) &lt;strong&gt;indicating the completion of action or fulfillment of intention&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;very similar to &lt;code&gt;up&lt;/code&gt; as in &lt;code&gt;wrap up the gift&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A rough procedure applicable to most cases:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding &lt;code&gt;Verb+起来&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the verb itself indicates some upward movement physically or metaphorically, then &quot;起来 -&gt; &lt;code&gt;2. indicating an upward movement&lt;/code&gt;&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;physically: 把他举起来 = Lift him up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;metaphorically: 我想不起来了 = I can't recall (his name, my phone number, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the verb is a perception verb, then &quot;起来 -&gt; &lt;code&gt;3. used after a perception verb expressing preliminary judgement&lt;/code&gt;&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这朵花闻起来很香 = This flower smells good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the verb involves putting something away, then &quot;起来 -&gt; &lt;code&gt;4. used after a verb indicating the completion of action or fulfillment of intention&lt;/code&gt;&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;让我们把礼物包起来吧 = Let's wrap up the gift&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Else, &quot;起来 -&gt; &lt;code&gt;1. used after a verb (or adjective) indicating beginning and continuation of an action or a state&lt;/code&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;action: 他们打起来了 = They've started to fight (each other)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;state: 天气冷起来了 = It started to get cold&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The second definition seems the most fundamental one&lt;/strong&gt; from which other meanings have developed. Therefore it's understandable that some dictionaries （e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyu.iciba.com/cizu/10794.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;iciba definition ③&lt;/a&gt;） take &lt;code&gt;我想不起来了&lt;/code&gt; as an instance for the fourth definition mentioned above, leaving the most fundamental definition more physical/pure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4551" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T05:31:30.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="150" CreationDate="2014-06-16T05:35:10.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it has the exactly same meaning as 'fucking', not more offensive or less. It should only be used between people about the same age and who meet each other very often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3132" LastEditorUserId="3132" LastEditDate="2014-06-16T05:44:26.350" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T05:44:26.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8344" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8347" CreationDate="2014-06-16T08:05:35.887" Score="7" ViewCount="1873" Body="&lt;p&gt;While watching a video with Chinese subtitles on a Chinese website, I came across this dialogue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Approximate English gloss (leaving out unnecessary details):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: You're XXX, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: So you know who I am?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line said by B is (no punctuation in the original):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哦 你知道我啊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience (at least as a Cantonese speaker and as someone who has studied Mandarin formally for years), I would normally use 识 (e.g. in 认识, 熟识) to state that I know someone - e.g. 我识了他妹妹十几年 － and would use 知道 in the sense of &quot;to know [some information]&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is using 知道 in the sense in the dialogue correct? I can imagine &quot;你知道我是谁&quot; to be correct, but without the last two characters, I would normally see using 识 to be better usage. But it's completely possible that my usage is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2014-06-18T09:26:05.370" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T21:03:16.737" Title="Can 知道 be used in the sense of &quot;to know someone&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8344" CreationDate="2014-06-16T08:42:58.830" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is correct here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as the difference between &quot;认识&quot; and &quot;知道&quot; here, &quot;认识&quot; means you have met someone before, so you know him/her, and when you meet again you can recognize him/her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;知道&quot; means you have heard something about someone, or known someone's information by someway, but you may never meet him/her before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T08:42:58.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8344" CreationDate="2014-06-16T08:54:15.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, That's right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you just missed the important &quot;哦&quot; word in the dialog for expressing &quot;unsatisfied&quot; （不满） and the complete sentence means &quot;哦， （原来）你（是）知道我（这个人）啊。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4685" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T08:54:15.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8344" CreationDate="2014-06-16T10:55:52.723" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that while 知道 can be used like that correctly, the meaning is not quite the same as 認識 - even though they both translate as &quot;to know (a person)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word you normally use, 認識, is closer to the immediate meaning of &quot;to know&quot; here. It means &quot;to recognise&quot;, or &quot;to have seen before&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, 知道 means &quot;to understand&quot;. So it carries extra connotations beyond that implied by 認識. For instance, &quot;你知道我是谁&quot; often means &quot;You know who I am&quot; with the implication of &quot;You know what my &lt;em&gt;status&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;position&lt;/em&gt; is&quot;. Similarly, &quot;你知道我这个人&quot; (or, I would say, &quot;你知道我啊&quot; in your video) means &quot;You know &lt;em&gt;what kind of person&lt;/em&gt; I am&quot;. That is, you might say &quot;你知道我这个人最喜歡貓&quot; - &quot;You know I love cats&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; use it in a short and curt way to minimise extra connotations, i.e. &quot;我知道他。&quot;, which just says you know him. However, that is a lot less common than for some sort of extra knowledge to be intended (and then conveyed immediately after).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So while you can correctly use it in a sentence, the two phrases aren't quite substitutes for each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-16T11:15:19.917" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T11:15:19.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8348" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8349" CreationDate="2014-06-16T16:27:07.907" Score="4" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many trading system I can offen find a concept call &quot;分润&quot;.&#xA;Is that a &lt;strong&gt;word&lt;/strong&gt; in english equivalent to &quot;分润&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5783" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T17:42:17.307" Title="What is equivalent of &quot;分润&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8348" CreationDate="2014-06-16T17:29:44.507" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sort of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The the generic 分润 just means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;profit-sharing&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, which is also an easily understood, and similarly generic, English term. Alternatively, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;a cut of the profit&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; would also be widely understood, but obviously that's not a single word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might also be able to use the English term &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fee-splitting&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;fee-splitting&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, if you're talking about sharing fees with a referrer for referring a client (typically, doctors or lawyers). In situations of a illegal connotation, the term &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rake-off&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;rake-off&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/a&gt; could be used. Similarly, the term &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/kickbacks&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;kickback&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/a&gt; could be used, but illegality/coercion tends to be implied with that as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you insist on a single word, the generic profit sharing meaning has a word borrowed from French: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tanti%C3%A8me&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;tantième&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. I doubt it's a term with much currency in real life, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-16T17:42:17.307" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T17:42:17.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8265" CreationDate="2014-06-16T18:07:06.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, there is no difference.&#xA;But I usually use the first one because I feel the second one is difficult to pronounce.&#xA;And if there is a wedding, it will be 你愿不愿意嫁给他为妻,而不是,你肯不肯嫁给他为妻.&#xA;I guess 肯 is more casual.&#xA;Don't overthink it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5785" LastEditorUserId="5785" LastEditDate="2014-06-16T18:12:14.627" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T18:12:14.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7205" CreationDate="2014-06-16T21:31:14.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say it's similar to the English phrase &quot;down to Earth&quot;, which is pretty much the literal translation of 接地气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5786" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T21:31:14.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8265" CreationDate="2014-06-16T21:33:59.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;they have the same meaning, although 愿意 is much more frequently used, another way to ask the question is with 想： 你想不想去中国工作 (do you want to work in China)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5786" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T21:33:59.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7159" CreationDate="2014-06-16T21:46:36.493" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't get too hang up on the translations. Chinese translation of English names usually only sounds a bit similar to the actual English names, this is done to make it easier for them to be pronounced. Also there are usually variations in translating English names so they are not official. &#xA;One translation I also don't really understand is 小恶魔 － Tyrion. 小恶魔 means little devil, but in this case I think it's meant reflect the intelligence of Tyrion, sort of like an evil genius. Another reason for this translation is that Chinese people usually like to refer to people by their very distinguishing characteristics, usually physical appearance, so in this case that's where the 小(small, little) comes in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5786" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T21:46:36.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8355" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8359" CreationDate="2014-06-17T09:46:34.213" Score="10" ViewCount="2447" Body="&lt;p&gt;from: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5400/list-of-historical-chinese-currency-terms/5404#5404&quot;&gt;List of historical Chinese currency terms&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;角 (litterally a corner / a horn of an animal) = 毛 (litterally &quot;a feather of a bird&quot;) = 1/10 the main unit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why use 角 and 毛 for, &lt;em&gt;what we might call in American English&lt;/em&gt;, 10-cents?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-28T08:58:30.460" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T08:58:30.460" Title="角/毛 (10 cents) for money: why?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8355" CreationDate="2014-06-17T12:36:18.257" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know how good you are at Chinese, &#xA;you can read this Chinese wikipedia page for more information:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A7%92_%28%E8%B2%A8%E5%B9%A3%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/角_(貨幣)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;毛&quot; is simplified from &quot;毫&quot;, which means little amount.&#xA;In Chinese we have a saying as &quot;一分一毫&quot;, which means very little amount.&#xA;In most part of China, &quot;毛&quot; and &quot;角&quot; are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5789" LastEditorUserId="2257" LastEditDate="2014-06-17T15:19:53.927" LastActivityDate="2014-06-17T15:19:53.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8338" CreationDate="2014-06-17T12:39:14.637" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is in simplified Chinese, you can see this on the bottom part of the page,&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1rMSd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence in the red frame means: &quot;Language: Simplified Chinese&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5789" LastActivityDate="2014-06-17T12:39:14.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8355" CreationDate="2014-06-17T14:57:58.637" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;角 came from 銀角, which was historically a currency that represented a fraction of the silver coin (銀元). 元 came from 圓, a description of the coin's circular shape. A theory for 角's use is that since the basic meaning of 角 is a horn; by extension it came to be used to describe &quot;things that looks like horns&quot;. And from there, &quot;corners&quot; 角落, &quot;angles&quot; 角度, etc. Dividing a circle up like pizza slices creates a &quot;角&quot;; hence, the divisions of one 元 (圓) came to be called a 角.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Carmelos said, 毛 came from a simplification of 毫 - it is the bottom radical of the latter. 毫 in turn comes from one of the traditional Chinese unit for small numbers: 分 厘 毫 絲, corresponding to the modern 10&lt;sup&gt;-3&lt;/sup&gt; (it is still used for millimetres, 毫米/公厘). A theory is that 毛钱 was a type of coinage in the Song dynasty that had very small values, as its name suggests. The term persisted in that meaning of a &quot;small denomination coin&quot;, and thus became synonymous with the modern small 角 coins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-17T20:15:28.130" LastActivityDate="2014-06-17T20:15:28.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8360" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-06-18T02:25:03.483" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-06-18T02:25:03.483" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T02:25:03.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8361" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-06-18T02:25:03.483" Score="0" Body="Use this tag for yes-or-no questions, i.e. that could be answered by &quot;yes&quot; or &quot;no&quot;." OwnerUserId="4680" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-20T02:17:56.217" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T02:17:56.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8313" CreationDate="2014-06-18T12:41:10.770" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没事了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &quot;oh wait, never mind&quot; will be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哦，等等，没事了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T12:41:10.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8323" CreationDate="2014-06-18T13:12:29.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;OMG, your question is even a hard one for some of native Chinese. I have to admit that the concise expression (normally adjective, verb, adverb) in Chinese is the beauty of this language, while really hard to master. If you are capable of understanding some ancient Chinese literature (e.g. poems), you will have the same feeling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, the redundant expression appears after the concise in time. Ancient Chinese tended to use only one character to express what people now use two. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The concept of 同义复词 (synonym compounds) is NOT applicable here because 同义复词 means to use more than one characters that have the same meaning. e.g. 反归取之, where 反 and 归 mean the same thing, &quot;back&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you are facing here is simply a concise expression, I think. I have not found a list for you but maybe this &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/index.php&lt;/a&gt; can help a bit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T13:12:29.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5324" CreationDate="2014-06-18T13:47:13.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure it's just one of those terms that became viral and it's suppose to be synonymous with a car. So the origin cannot predate the invention of automobiles. 加油 is used cause it's sounds better than using the word 加力 and etc... (And 加力 is used to mean something else). And it's often used during competitions, so it's appropriate because drag racing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5794" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T13:47:13.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7112" CreationDate="2014-06-18T19:35:30.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my region, Shandong Province, it's pronounced as tE ma de&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5785" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T19:35:30.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8277" CreationDate="2014-06-18T22:11:24.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many mature Chinese expressions that translates to &quot;moment&quot; as this word have many meanings in English.i.e.马上，一会儿，一下，就. And unlucky for you they are all common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I would recommend you to use the expression &quot;a segment of time&quot;(一段时间) to express the concept precisely at first. because when you say &quot;a segment&quot;(一段), it cannot be misunderstood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some detailed explanations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瞬 have &quot;eye&quot;(目) on the left. think of it as a &lt;strong&gt;blink&lt;/strong&gt;. the right side is its pronunciation, have nothing to do with meaning.&#xA;間 means a gap, a duration, a space.&#xA;so think of this word as your &quot;in a blink of the eye&quot;'s substitute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刻 means to engrave (the right side is a blade, left is its sound). imagine you have a line that is time. you use a knife and point in the middle. that is a 时刻. it's not a period, but a point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;時候 is hard to explain as its a blurry concept, I'll just wait until someone modify my answer. but I would translate this word to &quot;opportunity&quot; or &quot;when&quot; rather than moment, i.e.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你什么时候来？&#xA;When will you come?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你有空的时候来一下。&#xA;Come when you are free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;收获的时候到了。&#xA;The time for harvest has come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5795" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T22:11:24.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8368" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8374" CreationDate="2014-06-19T09:19:00.273" Score="7" ViewCount="2260" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 参观 and 游览. I know they have a similar meaning but are distinct in some ways (i.e. you can 参观 some places and 游览 others)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="141" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T10:27:16.647" Title="What is the difference between 参观 and 游览" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8368" CreationDate="2014-06-19T09:38:45.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First let's look at 游览&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Tuttle Learners&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[compound: 游 play + 览 see]&#xA;  VERB&#xA;  go sightseeing, tour for pleasure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每年很多人去香港游览。 &#xA;  Měi nián hěn duō rén qù Xiānggǎng yóulǎn.&#xA;  Every year many people go to Hong Kong on holiday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;游览者 &#xA;  yóulǎnzhě&#xA;  tourist&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;参观&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Tuttle Learners&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[compound: 参 call + 观 watch, see]&#xA;  VERB&#xA;  visit (a place)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个古迹十分有名, 每天有很多人来参观。 &#xA;  Zhège gǔjì shífēn yǒumíng, měi tiān yǒu hěn duō rén lái cānguān.&#xA;  This historical site is well known. Many people come to visit it every day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在中国的时候, 参观了很多学校。 &#xA;  Wǒ zài Zhōngguó de shíhou, cānguānle hěn duō xuéxiào.&#xA;  I visited many schools when I was in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;ABC&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;visit; tour&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;学生们去参观博物馆。 &#xA;  Xuéshengmen qù cānguān bówùguǎn.&#xA;  The students went to visit the museum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically: they both mean tour but 游览 means like sight-seeing while 参观 means to tour a specific place (tour a factory, tour a museum)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T09:38:45.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8265" CreationDate="2014-06-19T09:44:31.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I rarely say &quot;肯不肯&quot; in spoken language. It is more common in written language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5797" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T09:44:31.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8368" CreationDate="2014-06-19T09:57:17.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, their meaning is similar, but still not identical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;参观&lt;/code&gt; is close to &lt;code&gt;visit&lt;/code&gt;, while &lt;code&gt;游览&lt;/code&gt; is close to &lt;code&gt;travel&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And other than &lt;code&gt;参观&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;游览&lt;/code&gt;'s first word &lt;code&gt;游&lt;/code&gt; impresses some amusing thing, so you can't use it for some solemn places such as memorial or museum. For example, you can say &lt;code&gt;我参观了毛主席纪念堂(Chairman Mao Memorial Hall).&lt;/code&gt;, but not &lt;code&gt;我游览了毛主席纪念堂.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T09:57:17.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8368" CreationDate="2014-06-19T09:59:59.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;参观 is to visit, look around, more formal (I would say not just for fun).&#xA;游览 is for 游客(tourist) to tour, more casual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some museum, you can use both 参观 and 游览. But for example, you can 参观(watch) people do something, but not 游览 them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5797" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T09:59:59.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8373" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8375" CreationDate="2014-06-19T10:06:08.440" Score="5" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese there are these jokes which are delivered as a small riddle followed by the answer. They are often used humorously, with the answer used as an insult. Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哑巴吃黄莲/有苦说不出&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;狗拿耗子/多管闲事&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打灯笼捡粪/找死(屎)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they have a proper name? Where did they come from? Is there any regionality with these, or are they encountered across all Chinese languages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T01:58:09.700" Title="What are these &quot;riddle jokes&quot;?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8368" CreationDate="2014-06-19T10:27:16.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main distinction is that 游览 implies a sense of &quot;to leisurely journey&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the traditional meaning of 游览 is &quot;to go sightseeing&quot; by leisurely &lt;strong&gt;moving around&lt;/strong&gt; while looking at scenery, famous sites, etc; e.g. 我昨天去游览西湖, &quot;I went sightseeing around the West Lake yesterday.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a second meaning of 游览 is to specifically go on a trip to visit a place; e.g. 我要參團去游览故宮, &quot;I am going to join a tour group to visit Palace Museum.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;参观 on the other hand means to look at things &lt;strong&gt;at a specific place&lt;/strong&gt;; e.g. 我想去參觀故宮, &quot;I want to tour the Palace Museum.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second meaning of 游览 may seem like it overlaps with 参观 somewhat. It does, but there's an important distinction in that 游览 implies a sense of journeying (i.e. as a part of a tour group), whereas 参观 doesn't imply that at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're going to a housewarming party, you wouldn't talk about going to 游览 their neighbour's new house. It is perfectly fine to talk about 参观 the house, however. In contrast, a tour group might advertise itself as &quot;taking you to 游览 Hobbiton in New Zealand&quot;. Then once you've arrived, the tour guide might say &quot;next we will 参观 Hobbiton&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If in doubt, use 参观.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T10:27:16.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8373" CreationDate="2014-06-19T10:39:46.750" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;歇后语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;KEY&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;≪xiehouyu≫, witty folk simile (popular witty or humorous simile consisting of two parts, of which the second is the &amp;quot;punch line&amp;quot; and is often left unsaid because the listener is assumed to be familiar with it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have this in English as well:&#xA;•Make like a banana—and split&#xA;•Make like a tree—and leave&#xA;(Although I'm not sure what we call these in English)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a two-part allegorical saying, of which the first part, always stated, is descriptive, while the second part, sometimes unstated, carries the message, e.g. 泥菩萨过河-自身难保 like a clay idol fording a river-hardly able to save oneself (let alone anyone else)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese Wikipedia entry for xiehouyu has a 粤语常见歇后语 and 客家话歇后语 sections - so while some xiehouyu certainly are regional - and every topolect has them -  the ones in dictionaries or that are &amp;quot;well known&amp;quot; will be understandable everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T10:39:46.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8344" CreationDate="2014-06-19T18:06:18.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;when you are really good at a language, you might like most native speakers who aceept any word in any understandble situation. no need to be too serious about the word itself.a language related to a culture. so i can say both are correct base on diffenrent culture background.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5801" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T18:06:18.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8313" CreationDate="2014-06-19T18:14:21.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;哦，我已经懂了。oh, i already know it!  or 没事儿了。 i already figure out it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5801" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T18:14:21.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8382" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8383" CreationDate="2014-06-20T03:00:57.833" Score="11" ViewCount="6286" Body="&lt;p&gt;When disgusted by something people will usually say, 'ew, yuck!' or 'ew, gross.' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an equivalent of 'ew' in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only things I was able to find about it (&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=3Q1C24exVp-_RPGcQbw3Qmy1GEYUtuzWGXJBPnjBzbEyymIVZXyjPJz3K2cgGMNj34P-FcGuXdwGTxzZfaMKtq&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;) - just explain what 'ew' means &amp;amp; when to use it, but I want to know if there is an equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T19:11:26.633" Title="Chinese equivalent of: 'ew'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8382" CreationDate="2014-06-20T05:00:52.983" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;恶(e3) should be the one. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;When feeling disgusted, in Chinese people would say a long 恶(e3), like eee3...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or 恶心（e3 xin1）as an adjective to mean disgusted, which literally means disgusted heart, or in English to have a disgusted heart (feeling) toward someone or something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-06-20T13:03:58.243" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T13:03:58.243" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8313" CreationDate="2014-06-20T05:18:08.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;没关系，不用了。（It's ok now, not need it）is one of the common expressions for never mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people would also double 没事 (not have business or affair), such as 没事! 没事!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T05:18:08.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8344" CreationDate="2014-06-20T05:21:46.453" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;知道 someone is usually to mean &quot;heard of&quot; someone, probably because of his or her fame, but not personally acquainted with whom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认识 would be a better one to mean personally &quot;know&quot; someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T05:21:46.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1298" CreationDate="2014-06-20T05:52:00.433" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below and many other orders are grammatically correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;张先生的男朋友是卖妹妹书的那个人&#xA;张先生的妹妹是卖男朋友书的那个人&#xA;妹妹的男朋友是卖张先生书的那个人&#xA;男朋友的妹妹是卖张先生书的那个人&#xA;&#xA;卖书的那个人是张先生妹妹的男朋友 &amp;lt;- your order&#xA;卖书的那个人是张先生男朋友的妹妹 &amp;lt;- if you allow homosexuality&#xA;&#xA;卖书的张先生是妹妹那个人的男朋友&#xA;&#xA;卖张先生书的那个人是妹妹的男朋友&#xA;卖妹妹书的那个人是张先生的男朋友&#xA;卖男朋友书的那个人是张先生的妹妹&#xA;卖张先生书的那个人是妹妹的男朋友&#xA;&#xA;卖张先生男朋友的书的那个人是妹妹&#xA;卖张先生妹妹的书的那个人是男朋友&#xA;卖妹妹男朋友的书的那个人是张先生&#xA;&#xA;卖书的那个人是张先生妹妹的男朋友&#xA;卖书的那个人是张先生男朋友的妹妹&#xA;&#xA;卖书的那个人是妹妹的男朋友张先生&#xA;&#xA;张先生是卖妹妹书的那个人的男朋友&#xA;&#xA;卖那个人书的是张先生妹妹的男朋友&#xA;卖那个人书的是张先生男朋友的妹妹&#xA;&#xA;卖那个人书的张先生是妹妹的男朋友&#xA;&#xA;卖张先生那个人书的是妹妹的男朋友&#xA;卖妹妹那个人书的是张先生的男朋友&#xA;卖男朋友那个人书的是张先生的妹妹&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5804" LastEditorUserId="5804" LastEditDate="2014-06-20T09:12:06.027" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T09:12:06.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8388" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8390" CreationDate="2014-06-20T07:38:59.070" Score="2" ViewCount="963" Body="&lt;p&gt;A long time ago I heard someone say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;玩火会尿床&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I instantly recognized is very similar to some 'old wives tales' in English. In English there are things like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cracking knuckles gives arthritis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Don't go outside with wet hair or you will catch a cold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Don't swallow gum or it will stay in your stomach for seven years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Don't make silly faces or it will make the silly face permanent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Don't play with fire or you will wet the bed,&quot; seems pretty similar, no?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are Old Wives Tales called in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where can I find a list of similar Chinese old wives tales?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some common Chinese old wives tales?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-22T14:34:01.227" Title="Chinese: Old Wives Tales" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8388" CreationDate="2014-06-20T07:57:25.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These tales are used by adults(usually by grandma?) to prevent kids from doing something stupid. I know two of them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西瓜子吃到肚子里就会长出小西瓜.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;If you eat watermelon seed, little watermelon will grow up from your stomach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃耳屎会变成哑巴.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;If you eat earwax, you will become dumb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T08:05:02.547" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8388" CreationDate="2014-06-20T15:06:13.087" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure we have a saying for &quot;old wives tales&quot;.&#xA;For the ones that works we call them 偏方 (Folk prescription), others are considered as 流言, 谣言 (rumor), 伪科学 (pseudoscience).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of such saying is that you cannot wash your hair during menstrual period.&#xA;Another is that you cannot eat certain food (e.g., orange and seafood) together, otherwise they'll become toxic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find many of them &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guokr.com/group/40/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Though it includes not only Chinese stories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5797" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T15:06:13.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8388" CreationDate="2014-06-20T19:59:18.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;俗语 is often used for adages that aren't necessarily as literary and high-brow as 成语, colloquial proverbs if you will. Not sure if that's what you're looking for in this context. I doubt there is a one-to-one equivalence for &quot;old wives tales&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5811" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T19:59:18.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8394" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8397" CreationDate="2014-06-21T06:56:15.723" Score="4" ViewCount="496" Body="&lt;p&gt;香皂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;KEY&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;scented soap, toilet soap&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肥皂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;KEY&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;soap&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's difference though?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T19:45:00.527" Title="香皂 vs. 肥皂: What's the difference?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8394" CreationDate="2014-06-21T07:20:35.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;香皂 is used for washing face/body, 肥皂 is used for washing clothes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-06-21T07:20:35.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8394" CreationDate="2014-06-21T08:34:00.967" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is exactly as the definitions say. 香皂 is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;scented&lt;/strong&gt; soaps&quot;, while 肥皂 is just generic &quot;soaps&quot;. That is the only difference. 香皂 is abbreviated from 香肥皂, meaning soap with added scents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use either for washing face, body, hand, or clothes, but normally people use 洗衣粉/精 for the latter. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-06-21T08:34:00.967" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8382" CreationDate="2014-06-21T11:48:31.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;诶~~~ 三声 大概读出来是这个意思么~?应该发音差不多的~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5816" LastActivityDate="2014-06-21T11:48:31.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8404" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-21T16:42:47.153" Score="1" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate character on image below?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iOe01.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5821" LastEditorUserId="5821" LastEditDate="2014-06-21T17:15:39.860" LastActivityDate="2014-06-21T17:42:06.360" Title="How to translate character" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-06-22T05:35:38.797" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8404" CreationDate="2014-06-21T17:35:31.077" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 祿 has two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Good fortunes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Government salary (in the imperial Chinese government).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one you'd want to translate it to depends on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-21T17:42:06.360" LastActivityDate="2014-06-21T17:42:06.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8406" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-21T21:59:03.500" Score="11" ViewCount="10618" Body="&lt;p&gt;In European languages there's a phrase you can say when you or a waiter serves food. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;- bon appetit (French/English)&#xA;- buen provecho (Spanish)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does Chinese have a similar phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="37" LastEditorUserId="2929" LastEditDate="2014-06-22T12:52:36.580" LastActivityDate="2014-06-22T15:09:39.600" Title="Equivalent phrase to &quot;Bon Appetit&quot;/&quot;Enjoy (your food)&quot;" Tags="&lt;food&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8406" CreationDate="2014-06-21T22:31:23.900" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The typical phrase spoken when serving food is &lt;code&gt;qǐng màn yòng&lt;/code&gt; (請慢用). It lliterally means &quot;please eat slowly&quot;, but is better translated as &quot;enjoy your meal&quot;, and serves the same function as the French &lt;em&gt;bon appétit&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-21T22:38:20.643" LastActivityDate="2014-06-21T22:38:20.643" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8406" CreationDate="2014-06-22T04:40:55.143" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like Semaphore said 请慢用 is good for very formal circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In less formal circumstances you can say something like 慢慢吃 - which basically has the same meaning. This can also be used among family and friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-22T04:40:55.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8394" CreationDate="2014-06-23T01:53:57.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;香皂 is one type of 肥皂. normally 香皂 is only for cleaning human body when people clean hand and have a bath.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some other type of 肥皂 are clean something else, like cleaning clothes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3292" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T01:53:57.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8373" CreationDate="2014-06-23T01:58:09.700" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's kind of metaphor, but short and well-known. Sometime it's may pointing a issue by referring a similar situation of metaphor. or sometime it used for just emphasizing the point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3292" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T01:58:09.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8382" CreationDate="2014-06-23T02:11:39.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question. Sound could vary depending on the region of China you live in. For Shanghai, it could be “犹(pronounce like English word you)”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T02:11:39.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3103" CreationDate="2014-06-23T02:18:51.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you work for a 餐馆 and they offer accommodation, it's possible you are going to stay in 餐馆。But in general,餐馆 is a sheer place for people to eat and 饭店 probably combine the staying part and eating part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T02:18:51.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8436" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-23T04:55:28.110" Score="9" ViewCount="3197" Body="&lt;p&gt;I notice that the pinyin &amp;quot;h&amp;quot; is in many books just the same as in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I listen to people, some people stress the &amp;quot;h&amp;quot; and there is a tiny gggg, and some gurgling sometimes (hope this is the right word, my native tongue is not English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, is this how it should sound, a pretty pronounced H sound or is it a dialect that I shouldn't pick up and should my H be really clean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5842" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T15:05:04.473" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T15:05:04.473" Title="Pinyin &quot;h&quot; sound, pronunciation" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8313" CreationDate="2014-06-23T09:05:17.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不存在&lt;/strong&gt; is very popular.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;没关系&lt;/strong&gt; is the most use.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;不要紧&lt;/strong&gt; is colloquial way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3116" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T09:05:17.740" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8436" CreationDate="2014-06-23T09:56:29.847" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In standard Mandarin, the pinyin h is pronounced as [x] in IPA, like ch in Scottish English loch -- yes, you're right that there's a tiny g, because [x] is a velar consonant. However, in south China, many simply say [h], although some natural assimilation may happen. For instance, for those speakers, pinyin &lt;em&gt;ha&lt;/em&gt; is [ha] while pinyin &lt;em&gt;he&lt;/em&gt; becomes [xɤ] (if you get [ɤ] right, then [hɤ] simply doesn't work, you would do [xɤ] unconsciously). Therefore [h] and [x] are allophones in this sense, so don't worry about your pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastEditorUserId="3251" LastEditDate="2014-06-23T16:14:52.740" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T16:14:52.740" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8394" CreationDate="2014-06-23T18:57:40.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;香皂 is soap made out of &quot;scented&quot; (香) materials, hence &lt;strong&gt;scented&lt;/strong&gt;  soap. 肥皂 is soap made from fat (肥), hence ordinary soap&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="52" LastEditDate="2014-06-23T19:45:00.527" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T19:45:00.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3359" CreationDate="2014-06-23T19:39:03.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both mean &quot;excessive&quot; but 夸张 is less pejorative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夸张 literally means &quot;long in praise,&quot; and has the connotations of &quot;a little too much.&quot; Think of a glass of water that is filled to &quot;overflowing,&quot; so a little bit spills onto the table. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过分 has the connotations of &quot;over the top,&quot; &quot;crossed the lines,&quot; etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T19:39:03.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="737" CreationDate="2014-06-23T21:57:56.327" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some reasons I'm surprised weren't mentioned above: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Written stroke order is still the primary system for looking up characters in a dictionary! Yes, you can break them down by radicals &amp;amp; composition, but if you don't know  stroke count/order (because you've never written them yourself) you'll likely fail to find what you're looking for. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If you live in China/Taiwan, you will fill out paperwork by hand (bank forms, visa applications, rental agreements, post office, hospital forms, school papers). Even if it's just your name &amp;amp; address you need to know how to write it properly. If you live there and have &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; done this, it's probably because somebody else did it for you.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) If you always &lt;em&gt;write&lt;/em&gt; in pinyin, you probably &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; in pinyin, which isn't 100% accurate for pronunciation and isn't helpful for differentiating new homophone vocabulary. Using Taiwan's Zhuyin phonetic system (BoPoMoFo), you see that &quot;wen&quot; and &quot;lun&quot; actually use the exact same vowel sound, not different ones as shown in pinyin. Do you think seeing 'e' vs. 'u' might subtly affect your pronunciation?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) If you always use computers, you'll &lt;em&gt;rely&lt;/em&gt; on computers. This is tough to avoid as apps like Pleco make real-time look-ups almost effortless, and phones/laptops show a convenient array of options to jog your memory. Convenient, but this also means you're not really literate - you're just good at looking things up (see #1 above); also you're screwed without your gadgets. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Lastly, as has been said, writing by hand has been shown to help with recall. It adds a kinetic component that your brain can hook into for added context. It also forces you to more deeply process the information than you do when merely transcribing. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/taking-notes-by-hand-could-improve-memory-wt/&quot;&gt;Research has shown recall and conceptual understanding isn't as strong with keyboard typing alone.&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All that said, you can always learn to read/write on your own. If you want to focus on speaking &amp;amp; listening, focus on that - those are much harder to do w/o partners &amp;amp; teachers anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...After typing all this, I see the OP was from 2012 :\ Zombie thread necromanc'd to the top of the pile today. Meh, I stand by my opinions - Yes, there's necessity &amp;amp; value learning to write Chinese :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5802" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T21:57:56.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8443" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-23T22:53:55.443" Score="2" ViewCount="2572" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've learned them in Chinese class, but still a bit confused,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看 means see, but what is the difference between 看到 and 看过? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4457" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T01:16:26.130" Title="What is the difference between 看到 and 看过?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8443" CreationDate="2014-06-24T00:38:46.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;看过•To have seen before&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've seen that movie before.&#xA;  我看过那个电影了。 &#xA;  Wǒ kànguo nàge diànyǐng le.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看到•to see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can't see&#xA;  看不到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拐个弯儿就可以看到村子了。 &#xA;  Guǎi ge wānr jiù kěyǐ kàndào cūnzi le.&#xA;  The village will come into view at the next turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-24T00:38:46.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8443" CreationDate="2014-06-24T01:02:51.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's easier if you think of 看 as look rather than see (e.g. 给我看一下: let me have a look.) It does not mean the verb resulted, because you can also not see (it, anything, etc.): 看不到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can think of 看到 or 看见 as see (as in, you're looking and you can see it. The 到/见 is resultative, you have achieved your goal.) e.g. 我看到你的钥匙在桌子上: I saw your keys on the table.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看过 is simply that you have looked in the past, like you have read a book previously (我看过那本书)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another 结果补语 (resultative complement) is 完 (finished looking [reading]) like 我昨晚看完这本书 (Last night I finished reading this book.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of the 完 resultative complement is in 吃完了 (finished eating.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see how these resultative complements work with other things, too, like 听:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听: to listen (but you might not be hearing anything, you're listening out for something)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听到/听见: to hear (you can actually hear something)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听不到: cannot hear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can research 结果补语 (resultative complement) for more information (there are many forms.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-24T01:33:10.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8443" CreationDate="2014-06-24T01:35:52.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;看到&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;see sth at sometime(past, present, future), examples:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我刚才看到奥巴马了.&#xA;I saw the President Obama just now.&#xA;你将会看到太阳升起.&#xA;you will see sunrise tommorrow.  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;看过&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;have seen sth in the past, examples:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我看过电影《星际迷航》.&#xA;I have seen the 'star trek'.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;any question, ask me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3116" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-24T01:35:52.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8448" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8451" CreationDate="2014-06-24T12:28:51.737" Score="6" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend often sends me links from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.duomi.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Duomi&lt;/a&gt; music service. Where does the name come from? 多米 seems to mean &amp;quot;a lot of rice&amp;quot; if I translate it directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3739" LastEditorUserId="3739" LastEditDate="2021-01-15T10:33:01.387" LastActivityDate="2021-01-15T10:33:01.387" Title="What is the meaning of 多米 in the music service?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8449" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-24T13:31:09.167" Score="7" ViewCount="3872" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native English speaker who is learning Mandarin Chinese for the AP Chinese test next year. I stumbled on this &quot;anomaly&quot;, and I would like your help. Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5844" LastActivityDate="2014-06-29T02:53:24.040" Title="Why does 三明治 mean sandwich when 三 means 3, 明 means bright/clear, and 治 means to rule?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8449" CreationDate="2014-06-24T13:42:31.857" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;That 三明治 came from transcribing the English word Sandwich into Chinese. That is to say, it is meant to approximate the &lt;strong&gt;pronunciation&lt;/strong&gt; of the English word. You aren't meant to interpret the individual characters literally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Stan points out, it is sometimes transcribed as 三文治 as well. Historically it has also been written as 三味治, but that's pretty much extinct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-24T14:06:29.840" LastActivityDate="2014-06-24T14:06:29.840" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8448" CreationDate="2014-06-24T13:53:16.110" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess is that it comes from the musical scale DO-re-MI in English.  Googling didn’t turn up a standard way to transliterate this – someone used 豆, which may be closer to the English sound, but the more positive connotations of 多 might have led the person coining the name to opt for that instead.  Anyway, 豆米 sounds like some kind of Taiwanese dessert, not the right fit for a music website! :)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2014-06-24T13:53:16.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8449" CreationDate="2014-06-24T13:56:32.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just a transliteration from &quot;sandwich&quot;, does not have real meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: It's usually called &quot;三文治&quot; in Hong Kong and Macau.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="3305" LastEditDate="2014-06-25T02:27:28.320" LastActivityDate="2014-06-25T02:27:28.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8449" CreationDate="2014-06-24T17:35:59.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding my 2 cents...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;English was not properly pronunced during earlier age where it is not as common in China / Asia region.  People will use similar terms to remember how it's prounced, for e.g.:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;sand-wit-chi&lt;/strong&gt; will be used to remember how sandwiches is prounced, and &quot;sand&quot; sounded similar to &quot;三&quot; and so on.  These terms are then eventually became the item's name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-06-24T17:35:59.043" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8448" CreationDate="2014-06-25T03:26:38.560" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, 山寨 (to bootleg, to rip off, to knockoff, to imitate (as in imitation goods)) is one of the most common things that you will find in China and from Chinese people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance: Pizza Hut (必胜客) has been 山寨ed by a company called 必胜宅 - if you look at the characters there pretty much the same, even the meaning of the changed character is very similar! The products the fake Pizza Hut makes is pretty much the same as Pizza Hut, basically just a knockoff with Pizza Hut stuff. There's tons of similar examples of Chinese-style 山寨ing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虾米 is one of the most popular music services in the Chinese speaking world, at the moment. Why they named their service that, I would assume is just because around the time of their starting 虾米 was a super popular way to say &amp;quot;什么&amp;quot; (What?) - so they just grabbed on to some faddish thing to draw attention to their company.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;多米呢? What about 多米?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well this all comes back to 山寨. If you want to 山寨 something, first, you pick the most popular brand of whatever you want to 山寨 (in this case 虾米) and copy their name. So 虾米 - 多米. The nice thing about 多 here is that their name seems to &amp;quot;one-up&amp;quot; the original - they've made it sound like they are the same as 虾米 but, one, have more (stuff, features, etc.) and, two, are better: 多. All that just from the name alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-25T03:26:38.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8449" CreationDate="2014-06-25T10:12:55.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I couldnt comment because I dont have 50 reputations but I have something i must say so I'll just post an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stumpy Joe Pete:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you are talking about in general, there are times education level and the result of borrowing word is relevant. I know linguists tend to consider more linguistic aspects of things, but this is just life and things aren't perfect. someone made a bad or arbitrary decision and people starting to use it, then it became a standard, such things happen. (hint: what are you typing with? Dvorak?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is not the case. Alex's comment might be a bit offensive, but you should try to respond professionally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;In no way I am saying one is more linguistic than other, that is for linguistic people to debate. I am a native speaker of Chinese, and I am simply commenting which practice I would prefer and why. Borrowing words by sound give new meaning to old characters, this becomes burden of memory and communication when it reaches a certain level. Sounds does not make sense on its own, unless you already know the roots in other language, but a translation by meaning would, to some point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do understand there are many today's common expressions are or partially are translated by sound (such as 苹果 for apple), it is not the case I'm against any of those or more of those. Some stuff are just hard to translate I agree.&#xA;It is simply the case after arguing with people I still have to use this language every day, and I want it to be something I understand more easily if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Alex:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English is common for today's Japanese people. Have you heard them pronouncing it? I think its because the difference in sound is large and whether allowing closed syllables. The fact Chinese is strictly one syllable per character also played some role. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;for the question:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since nobody mentioned it. One possible reason this question is asked is: in mainland China, we strive to use less pronunciation based translations. Examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;奶酪 起司 cheese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;番茄酱 番茄沙司 ketchup(lit. tomato sauce, but we don't use the actual tomato sauce that much so)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;面包片 吐司 toast&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;出租车 的士 taxi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;公共汽车 巴士 bus (for public transport system)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the left ones are what thought to be more &quot;official&quot; &quot;written&quot; &quot;professional&quot; in mainland china.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters are meant to be the meaning of something mostly. We strive to reduce words like 三明治 is because having more translations that are mere symbol of sounds breaks the system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5795" LastEditorUserId="5795" LastEditDate="2014-06-29T02:53:24.040" LastActivityDate="2014-06-29T02:53:24.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8457" CreationDate="2014-06-25T11:05:08.270" Score="3" ViewCount="330" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of them seem to be able to be used to mean instruct. Am I right in saying that you can 嘱咐 and 吩咐 someone to study hard? If so, what is the difference in meaning between these two terms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3805" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T10:03:23.240" Title="What is the difference between 嘱咐 and 吩咐?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8456" CreationDate="2014-06-25T13:04:02.213" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the most basic level they both mean &quot;to tell&quot;, but they are not exactly the same - there is some nuanced differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;吩咐&lt;/code&gt; is closer to English &lt;strong&gt;&quot;to instruct&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. It is often used to describe a superior, or elder, telling their juniors to do something. Thus, it carries the connotation of a verbal command, almost ordering someone to do something. But it is less forceful outright than 命令, &quot;to command&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;嘱咐&lt;/code&gt; in contrast is more even, and thus closer to English &lt;strong&gt;&quot;to ask&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&quot;to urge&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. It is also used to convey concern, although it doesn't necessary carry any connotations of concern by itself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite these nuances, for the most part the meanings are similar enough that they &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; be used interchangeably. That's why you'll also find them listed as synonyms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;他爸媽吩咐他要照顧好妹妹&lt;/code&gt; : His parents &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;told him&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; to take good care of his sister. Alternatively: &lt;em&gt;&quot;instructed him&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;&quot;ordered him&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;他爸媽嘱咐他要照顧好妹妹&lt;/code&gt; : His parents &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;bade him&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; take good care of his sister. Alternatively: &lt;em&gt;&quot;asked him&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;&quot;urged him&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that apart from the meaning of &quot;to tell&quot;, 嘱咐 has a second meaning &lt;strong&gt;&quot;to entrust&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, or &lt;strong&gt;&quot;to charge&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-25T14:13:18.200" LastActivityDate="2014-06-25T14:13:18.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8458" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8459" CreationDate="2014-06-25T22:07:18.063" Score="8" ViewCount="894" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I recently started using my android phone in simplified Chinese mode, to help myself internalize Chinese characters. In my browser window, when I press down on a URL, the &quot;在新标签页中打开&quot; button allows me to open a new tab. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I tried to translate the sentence literally by dictionary definitions, and I came up with this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在新标签页中打开: In new tab page, middle open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why is the 中 (middle) necessary? Without it, the sentence makes sense to me. Could it be functioning as a preposition? If so, then why would I need both 中 and 在 in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5853" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-12T03:57:10.523" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T03:57:10.523" Title="What is the purpose of the 中 in 在新标签页中打开?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8458" CreationDate="2014-06-25T23:07:07.170" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;在&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt; are serving two different functions here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The preposition &lt;code&gt;在&lt;/code&gt; at the start of the sentence indicates &lt;strong&gt;where&lt;/strong&gt; something happens. Meanwhile, the &lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt; here is technically a noun meaning &quot;the inside&quot;, not &quot;middle&quot;. It signifies that the link is opened &lt;strong&gt;on&lt;/strong&gt; a new tab page, i.e. *the inside of a tab page&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taken as a whole, then, the Chinese sentence is actually saying: &lt;code&gt;Open link (打开) at [the position of] (在) a new tab page's (新标签页) insides (中) .&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the &lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt; the sentence would still make enough sense to be understood, but it would sound weird. Generally speaking, when the target of &lt;code&gt;在&lt;/code&gt; is not a location, it is standard to add &lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;裡&lt;/code&gt; etc. For example, &lt;code&gt;住在美國&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;住在公寓裡&lt;/code&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T07:40:21.863" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T07:40:21.863" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8456" CreationDate="2014-06-26T03:39:45.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with @Semaphore,    &lt;code&gt;嘱咐&lt;/code&gt;is more polite and more serious.&#xA;If he says,&quot;Could you...&quot;, he is doing &lt;code&gt;嘱咐&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;If he says,&quot;Do as I command!&quot; he is doing &lt;code&gt;吩咐&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;Examples above are just make it more black and white.&#xA;By the way I'm chinese and my English grammar isn't very good.&#xA;I hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5855" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T03:39:45.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8458" CreationDate="2014-06-26T06:10:19.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;take another example: 在困境中成长, grow up in harsh environment. &#xA;In this case, it doesn't make sense without the &quot;中&quot; word. &#xA;在房间里玩，play inside the room.&#xA;I think &quot;在...中&quot;，&quot;在...里&quot; is like splitting the &quot;in&quot;/&quot;inside&quot; word into two part. The &quot;place&quot; is put in the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5857" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T06:10:19.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8462" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8469" CreationDate="2014-06-26T06:44:02.627" Score="2" ViewCount="2199" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese 稀罕 and 稀奇 are often used negatively to express disdain, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不稀罕你的钱。 &#xA;  Wǒ bù xīhan nǐ de qián.&#xA;  I don't care about your money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你以为我稀奇你的东西？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries often translate it these as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;be of value; &#xA;  be of importance; &#xA;  be appreciated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a better way to translate these?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;due to the number of &lt;em&gt;corrections&lt;/em&gt; I'm getting instead of answers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's some proof that I'm not making this up...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dP69A.png&quot; alt=&quot;xiqi&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T09:12:16.963" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T03:07:48.190" Title="(Better) Translations of: 稀罕/稀奇?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8463" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8468" CreationDate="2014-06-26T07:42:38.013" Score="5" ViewCount="1296" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;duh!&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Advanced English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;duh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Disdainful indication that something is obvious. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;It’s hot in the desert. - Well, duh!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a Mandarin equivalent of 'duh!'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T00:52:44.433" Title="Mandarin Equivalent: &quot;duh!&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8462" CreationDate="2014-06-26T08:09:43.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;稀罕 means don't care, don't think it's a big deal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;稀奇 means not easy to see,rare. so 以为我稀奇你的东西 is not the right way to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5858" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T08:09:43.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8456" CreationDate="2014-06-26T08:24:29.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吩咐 just like the command.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;嘱咐 just like the parents told something to son or ...  kindly&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5859" LastEditorUserId="5859" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T10:03:23.240" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T10:03:23.240" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8448" CreationDate="2014-06-26T08:32:38.273" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't care about 多米, it's just a special noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;think about Youtube or Facebook and it's same to these noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5859" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T08:32:38.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8462" CreationDate="2014-06-26T08:47:37.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;稀罕&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;稀奇&lt;/code&gt; are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb &lt;code&gt;稀罕&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;to value&quot;; using it as a negative therefore express disdain. The translation given of &quot;I don't care about your money&quot; is quite spot on. I assume you aren't asking for a &quot;better&quot; translation for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The adjective &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;稀奇&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;rare&quot;, &quot;unusual&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. It is not grammatically proper &lt;strong&gt;in Standard Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; to use &lt;code&gt;稀奇&lt;/code&gt; as a verb in the ay you did in the question, nor does it carry a connotation of disdain by itself. I'm not sure why your dictionary translated it as &quot;be of importance&quot; but that is clearly wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;稀奇&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;解釋: 稀少、奇特。熊貓長相稀奇，常令看過的人留下難忘的印象。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt; -- 教育部國語辭典簡編本&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that certain dialects (notably Sichuan but perhaps also others) do use &lt;code&gt;稀奇&lt;/code&gt; as a verb. In this case the intended meaning of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;稀奇&lt;/code&gt; becomes &quot;to cherish&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt; It is however a decidedly non-standard usage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T09:16:01.837" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T09:16:01.837" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8463" CreationDate="2014-06-26T09:12:00.497" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;废话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: You know what, a banana without the skin is more tasteful!&#xA;B: 废话。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;废话 is not a good word for kids to imitate, though. And it is rarely used between strangers or to your parents, as it may be impolite/offensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T09:12:00.497" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8462" CreationDate="2014-06-26T09:24:18.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the region where I was born (Xicheng, Beijing), we don't use &lt;code&gt;稀奇&lt;/code&gt; as a verb (I have never heard any). Using &lt;code&gt;稀罕&lt;/code&gt; as a verb sounds also &quot;weird&quot; to me but I do understand the meaning and I have heard some people saying this (but none from my family or my friends around). I think it is more like a local expression from somewhere else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A proper translation of &lt;code&gt;稀罕&lt;/code&gt; can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我很稀罕这镯子 = I like this bracelet very much.&#xA;&#xA;我很稀罕你 = I like you very much&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edited:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some negative usage on &lt;code&gt;稀罕&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A：我很有钱！(I have a lot of money!)&#xA;B：我一点都不稀罕 (I don't care/give a fuck at all.)&#xA;&#xA;A：你的包真好看。(Your bag is really pretty.)&#xA;B：好看？我不稀罕它。你要喜欢你的话，就给你吧。(Pretty? I don't like it at all. I can just give it to you, if you like.)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastEditorDisplayName="user5737" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T13:33:45.940" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T13:33:45.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8458" CreationDate="2014-06-26T14:19:20.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;中 is in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open the link &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; a new tab.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2997" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T14:19:20.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8463" CreationDate="2014-06-26T14:25:13.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there is no equivalent to &quot;duh&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese does have &quot;hmm&quot; and &quot;errr&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2997" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T14:25:13.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8463" CreationDate="2014-06-26T15:31:53.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;咄 (duo1) should be the one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some places of China people also pronounce it as (qü4) to comment on an action perceived as foolish or stupid, or a statement perceived as obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T15:31:53.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8473" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8477" CreationDate="2014-06-26T15:41:20.207" Score="1" ViewCount="300" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;21 Century Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;behavioural art&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;行为艺术&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what on earth &lt;em&gt;behavioural art&lt;/em&gt; is, it sounds like a direct translation from Chinese, if anything. A &lt;em&gt;bing&lt;/em&gt; search didn't show up anything on behavioural art either, google being blocked over here and all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess is that it's the same as performance art but I can't find any evidence to support this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T18:22:22.760" Title="行为艺术：translation?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8473" CreationDate="2014-06-26T15:43:32.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A possible translation for 行为艺术 should be &quot;the arts of behaving&quot; or &quot;etiquette&quot; in English. Here 艺术 means arts of a knowledge, for example, martial arts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T18:22:22.760" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T18:22:22.760" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8475" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8479" CreationDate="2014-06-26T15:58:56.340" Score="9" ViewCount="1121" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would it be correct to use the phrase &quot;在手机”/“在手机上” etc. to express that I am doing something on my phone? For example, could I say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我听音乐在我的手机上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or can 在 only be used for my actual physical location? If so, how would I express this sort of thing? (Phrases like &quot;on the internet&quot;, &quot;on my computer&quot;, &quot;on my phone&quot;, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5867" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-30T14:10:42.957" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T15:52:51.580" Title="Is it correct to say “在手机”？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8475" CreationDate="2014-06-26T16:02:37.577" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is proper to say &quot;在手机”/“在手机上”, &quot;在&quot; doesn't necessarily mean to be at actual physical location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your sentence, a better grammar structure should be 我在我的手机上听音乐。In Chinese there is a tendency to put the location preposition as early as possible. In a sentence, in this case, it is right after the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T19:38:24.920" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T19:38:24.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8473" CreationDate="2014-06-26T16:31:33.800" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The proper translation is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_art&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;performance art&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, because that's what the Chinese name &lt;code&gt;行为艺术&lt;/code&gt; was coined for. Although the &lt;em&gt;literal&lt;/em&gt; meaning of the Chinese name is not quite the same as that of the English name, they refer to the same thing, and therefore should be taken as each others translation: as in fact, they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For evidence I'll cite the English and Chinese references to the &lt;code&gt;行為藝術&lt;/code&gt; / Performance Art of &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.avat-art.org/mediawiki/index.php/%E6%9D%8E%E9%8A%98%E7%9B%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taiwanese artist Lee Ming Sheng.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mlsh.mlc.edu.tw/mediafile/741/news/19/2012-11/2012-11-12-9-52-32-nf1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Reference:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TS2Vi.png&quot; alt=&quot;chinese&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0415602939&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English Reference:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YYJrJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;english&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T16:36:40.090" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T16:36:40.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6386" CreationDate="2014-06-26T18:45:17.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word I would use is &quot;unavoidable.&quot; (Could not be avoided.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T18:45:17.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8475" CreationDate="2014-06-26T19:28:49.173" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your sample sentence should be &quot;我在我的手机上听音乐&quot; as ChineseHulu.com said.And you actually SHOULD not omit the word &quot;上&quot; in this sentence,or it would be a little bit weird to native Chinese people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在...上&quot; is a preposition phrase.It can be used on representational target like:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在操场上 -- on playground&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在沙发上 -- on sofa&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it can be used on abstract target like&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在手机上 -- on cell phone&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在电脑上 -- on computer&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在网络上 -- on internet&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually we Chinese won't omit &quot;上&quot; if we use this phrase on abstract target or express specific position relation.So these sentence should not omit this word:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我正在手机上玩游戏 -- I'm playing game on cell phone.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我想在电脑上看电影 -- I wanna watch movie on computer.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我通常在网络上聊天 -- I usually chat on internet.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;男孩在沙发上跳着 -- The boy is jumping on the sofa.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if we use this phrase to express the location where something happened,not focusing on the position relation.We can omit this word:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;男孩们在操场上玩 or 男孩们在操场玩 are all ok.(Boys are playing on the playground.)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you wanna express something happened on the specific location but it's a large area.You MUST omit the word &quot;上&quot; and the phrase thus turn into another single word preposition phrase &quot;在...&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我在上海工作 -- I'm working in Shanghai.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我在苏州旅游 -- I'm traveling in SuZhou.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apologize for my English.Hope you will get it all... :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5869" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T19:28:49.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6386" CreationDate="2014-06-26T19:30:56.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 相关词 is too vague in this context&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Grammatically, I would say &quot;double negative&quot; &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Another similar term is&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;能  vs 不能不&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5870" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T19:30:56.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8463" CreationDate="2014-06-26T19:37:30.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you wanna reply with blame:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;废话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't wanna break your relationship with the other one,you can use the word:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;呵呵&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It gives hint to the other one that &quot;It's a stupid question but I choose to stay as stupid as you.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5869" LastEditorUserId="5869" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T20:03:13.617" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T20:03:13.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8462" CreationDate="2014-06-26T20:00:30.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;你以为我稀奇你的东西&quot; may only be ok in Shanghai or southeastern China.And usually be spoken in local dialect like &quot;侬以为我稀奇侬额物事?!(Nong Yi Wei 'Wo Xi Qi Nong-E Me Zi?!)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I suggest you replace the &quot;稀奇&quot; with the word &quot;稀罕&quot; in this sentence because &quot;稀罕&quot; is used as verb more often.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(Yeah,&quot;稀罕&quot; can be used as adjective that express the same meaning as &quot;稀奇&quot; in northern China but rarely used nowadays. e.g.:这琉璃瓶当年可是个稀罕物儿 -- The glass bottle is rare stuff at that time.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for answering your question:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The translation of these two words (that represent there meaning nowadays):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;稀奇:[adj.] Rare&lt;br&gt;&#xA;稀罕:[verb.] Care&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5869" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T20:00:30.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8344" CreationDate="2014-06-26T21:03:16.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;认识&quot; means &quot;acquaintance.&quot; That is to know someone by having met them. &quot;知道&quot; refers to &quot;knowledge.&quot; That is, someone you may &quot;know&quot; someone by reputation, but have never met.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T21:03:16.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8475" CreationDate="2014-06-27T01:36:58.797" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am doing something on my phone ? Just translate 我在玩手机&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我听音乐在我的手机上。” It is EngChinese. Chinese should be 我在用我的手机听音乐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在&quot; Can be used in both location (在北京 , in Beijing) and preposition (在看书, Reading).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5874" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T01:36:58.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5243" CreationDate="2014-06-27T01:44:12.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase &lt;strong&gt;了结一桩心事&lt;/strong&gt; is quite nice here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了结 can be used to mean closure, like mentioned in the question (&quot;getting explanation on death of a loved one.. etc.&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; &lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt; both define it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了结一桩心事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;take a load off one's mind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a quick baidu search turns up some example usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;退个党真麻烦,不过总算了结一桩心事。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了结一桩心事,转眼看见另一桩心事。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;订单填完,了结一桩心事。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to emphasize, feeling good after getting some, &lt;em&gt;closure&lt;/em&gt; this is not a bad way of doing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T01:44:12.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8458" CreationDate="2014-06-27T02:26:01.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;在新标签页中打开&quot; by itself is not a good translation of &quot;open in a new tab&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;于新标签页开启&quot;, or better &quot;于新页开启&quot;, is more neat (though being less &quot;modern&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] &quot;在 (place) 中 (action)&quot; / &quot;在 (place) 裡 (action)&quot; is a common translation of &quot;(action) in (place)&quot;.  It is one of the proper ways to order the ideas in Chinese language construct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;于&quot; in &quot;于新页开启&quot; (or in traditional Chinese characters, &quot;於新頁開啟&quot;) is a classical usage (aka &quot;文言文&quot; classical Chinese literary).  And usually we omit &quot;中&quot; when using &quot;于&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] &quot;tab&quot; means &quot;标签&quot; in most cases; but in the case of &quot;open in a new tab&quot;, it means a new page inside the same browser window.  Hence, it should be translated as &quot;页&quot;.  The term &quot;新标签页&quot; is unnecessarily clumsy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] To me, &quot;打&quot; sounds too violent, especially when we have a more elegant translation &quot;开启&quot;, which also have the meaning &quot;to start something&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T02:26:01.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5243" CreationDate="2014-06-27T02:38:28.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;恍然大悟 &amp;lt;= you understood something finally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;善始善终 &amp;lt;= you have a good start and a good end of a non-trivial task&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;松了口气 &amp;lt;= relief&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;释然     &amp;lt;= .... um .... also relief .... but written in a literal manner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如释重负 &amp;lt;= get rid of some heavy responsibilities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大彻大悟 &amp;lt;= understood some great big ideas, changing your attitude/thought/life in a good way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰释前嫌 &amp;lt;= settled a serious misunderstanding or even quarrel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T02:38:28.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8475" CreationDate="2014-06-27T02:55:05.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say &quot;我**正**在用我的手机听音乐.&quot; instead of &quot;我在用我的手机听音乐.&quot; because &quot;正在&quot; is a more complete way to express the continuous tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if &quot;my&quot; is not the main idea in the context, I think we can say &quot;我正在用手机听音乐.&quot;  It is because cell phone is kinda personal device and it is not likely let others have possession simply for music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T02:55:05.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8462" CreationDate="2014-06-27T03:07:48.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, &quot;稀罕&quot; carries a sense of &quot;disdain&quot;. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我唔稀罕你尐錢!&quot; (Your money means nothing to me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;邊個稀罕你尐錢呀?!&quot; (Who cares about your wealth? / Your money means nothing to nobody! / Your money does not mean anything to anybody!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T03:07:48.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5796" CreationDate="2014-06-27T03:39:20.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;奶&quot; in &quot;師奶&quot; means a respected madam (夫人) in a family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;師&quot; means that she is a good model for other women.&#xA;(又《玉篇》範也。敎人以道者之稱也。《書·泰誓》作之師。《禮·文王世子》出則有師。師也者，敎之以事而喻諸德者也。又《玉篇》象他人也。《增韻》法也，效也。《書·臯陶謨》百僚師師。《傳》師師，相師法。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence we had the term &quot;馬應彪師奶&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T03:39:20.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8492" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8497" CreationDate="2014-06-27T03:42:04.260" Score="4" ViewCount="902" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am creating a Chinese game where you are working with the Triads. I am looking for a list of Chinese equivalent names for the 黑社会 (triads).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like (source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://mafia.wikia.com/wiki/Ranks,_Titles_and_Positions_In_The_Mafia&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://mafia.wikia.com/wiki/Ranks,_Titles_and_Positions_In_The_Mafia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Boss&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Consigliere&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Soldier&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triad_%28underground_society%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triad_(underground_society)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I want to keep the names as colloquial as possible... such that I can reference someone who is superior to someone else&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like, one dialog section would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Go talk to 李大哥, tell him I sent you.&quot; &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Some more context:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's say my game is already in the context of the triads. And, everyone in the community is affiliated with the triads. And let's say a pawn is asked to go talk to someone, sent by one of the senior triad members. How can I reference that senior member?&#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2014-06-27T03:49:34.217" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T12:43:36.477" Title="What are the different colloquial terms for Chinese mafia positions?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8492" CreationDate="2014-06-27T04:22:24.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;老大 is for boss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小弟 is for subordinate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T04:22:24.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5722" CreationDate="2014-06-27T04:37:04.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;米血&quot; is glutinous rice in chicken blood.&#xA;Q is chewy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, the original characters of &quot;煙韌&quot; is possibly ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;!Original characters of &quot;煙韌&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jQC6q.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T04:37:04.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8475" CreationDate="2014-06-27T05:44:45.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;在手机&quot; it self has no appropriate meaning.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;It's weird that it appears alone.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&quot;我在我的手机上听音乐。&quot;is not common too. &lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&quot;I'm online&quot;    &lt;code&gt;&quot;我在线&quot;&lt;/code&gt;is correct by commonly used.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&quot;我在用我的手机听音乐&quot;&lt;/code&gt;is correct.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Also you can say&lt;code&gt;&quot;在手机里面有很多个应用程序&quot;&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5855" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T05:44:45.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6575" CreationDate="2014-06-27T05:51:44.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try the following websites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.asia/attachments/school/canchars.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.asia/attachments/school/canchars.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinapage.com/language/suyu/gdfy/gdfymain.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinapage.com/language/suyu/gdfy/gdfymain.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and cross-check the results with the ancient meaning of the characters by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T05:51:44.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8492" CreationDate="2014-06-27T06:07:18.453" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A problem I think you're going to run into: mafia groups usually have their own terminology that &lt;em&gt;normal&lt;/em&gt; people don't know - and normally wouldn't be used outside of the group. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyhow I found this on Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Triad structure&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VX32g.png&quot; alt=&quot;wiki&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I found this comment online that should help you out a lot - I'm assuming your Chinese is good enough to understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;香港三合会部有一定的组织结构和清代三合会的内八堂和外八堂类似。传统的组织结构可分为四个职级八个职位：（1）第一职级是山主（大路元帅），其数字代码为“489”。这三个数字之和为对，暗喻“洪”字，洪为“三八甘一”，其手势为左手的拇指、中指、尾指出，掌心向身。（2）第二职级为副山主（二路元帅）。该职级还包括先锋、香主等职位。其数字代码为“438”，这三个数字之和为15，暗喻纪念三合会前、中、后五祖。其手势为左手拇指和尾指伸直，掌心向身。（3）第三职级包括白纸扇、红根和草鞋三个职位。白纸扇一般充当军师之职。其数字代码是“415”，源于“4&#xA;  x 15＋4”，合八卦之数，暗喻足智多谋。其手势是屈左手食指，其余指伸直，掌心向身。红棍负责执行“家法”，其数字代码是“426”，源于“4&#xA;  x 26＋4”，合108之数，暗喻梁山泊好汉。其手势是拇指、食指和中指伸直，掌心向身。“草鞋”负责联络事宜，数字代码为“432”，源于“4&#xA;  x&#xA;  12＋4”，合132之数。暗喻西鲁故事少林寺替清朝打西域的寺僧。第四职级是普通会员，包括正式入会的四九仔和尚未参加入伙仪式的蓝灯笼。现时的三合会组织结构略有变化，出现了增数和坐馆之名号，“先锋”和“香主”之名号则很少使用。一般来讲，现时三合会组织大多实行“坐馆制”，坐馆表面上是中层领导，但由于是行动层和执行层的头目，总理帮中一切口激性事务，掌握着帮中的实际权力。坐馆之职一般必须具有“红根”资格才能担任。擅数是协调坐馆管理帮中财务等重大事宜的主要头目，一般多由具有白纸扇资格的职员充当。&#xA;  　　香港三合会组织内部流传着三合会诗句和暗语等，一般现时很少使用，三合会诗句包括风诗、流诗、宝诗、印诗和表露所属之三合会堂的招牌诗。香港黑社会的暗语主要是从内地三合会沿袭下来，经过一百多年的演变，这些暗语经过香港三合会的修改，再加上广州话、潮州话等的音韵，已形成具有香港特色的黑帮语言。各个黑社会组织都有自己的暗语。例如老歪指和字系，尖顶指全字系，无下巴指同字系，条四指14K等。暗语使用范围涉及生活中的不同层面。就连十个数字也有自己的称谓。它们分别念作：1（流、朱），2（月、雷），3（汪、旺），4（则、线），5（中、乍），6（晨、龙），7（星、吉），8（张、爆），9（崖、湾）和10（足、寸）。&#xA;  　　澳门黑社会组织的开山鼻祖是成立于十九世纪的“友谊馆”、“友乐馆”和“利卢馆”等社团。对鸦片走私和非法“苦力”贸易的插手与操纵，是澳门黑社会产生的罪恶根源。“友谊馆”相传是华籍工头林阿发等人创立。主要是为了防止华工内部纷争和外部欺侮。规定凡加入“友谊馆”将受到保护，同时将工资收入的十分之一缴交会费，否则予以解雇。不久，另一由洋人撑腰的华人工头陈光仿效“友谊馆”建立“友乐馆”。“友谊馆”和“友乐馆”各自不断扩充势力，从事各种非法活动，沦为地道的黑社会组织。至民国建立前夕，澳门相继出现了“利卢”、“同义”、“家义”、“友和”、“消义堂”、“含义”、“联英社”等黑社会组织。&#xA;  　　北洋军阀的连年混战，日本帝国主义的入侵和国民党发动的内战，造成国内老百姓流离失所，在一定程度上为澳门黑社会的发展提供了可乘之机。至五十年代初期，澳门黑社会组织比较活跃的有“崇肇”、“友联”、“联义”、“罗梁”、“词义”、“黄馆”等，人口超过1．5万。1956年香港黑帮“双十暴动”后许多香港黑社会头面人物被递解到澳门。其中14K、水房及“和胜义”等香港黑社会成员不久便在澳门成立组织。日后经过血腥的搏杀后成为现时澳门黑社会的重要帮派。六十年代中期，澳门相继出现了一些新的堂口，例如在大三巴一带出现的“三巴堂”、新桥附近出现的“新义”等。七十年代，由于澳门经济支柱的赌业的繁荣，使得黑社会犯罪猖撅泛滥。1978年初，葡澳政府颁布《管制黑社会法》，加强对黑社会的打击。到了八十年代，澳门黑社会“过江龙”（外来）和“陀地友”（本地）不断拼杀；特别是“文革”期间来自大陆的大圈仔充当了狠角，手段残忍。据保守的统计，八十年代中期，澳门黑社会组织成员约有1．4万人。其中14K约有4千人，水房约有3千人，和胜义约有2千人。进入九十年代，前期黑社会组织活动相对平缓，从1996年下半年开始，澳门黑帮的均势被打破，黑社会势力围绕赌场利益的争夺不断。由1996年澳门黑帮“14K”、“水房”、“和胜义”和“大圈帮”组成四联公司与香港黑帮‘“和胜和”、“联公乐”等为争夺赌场利益开始，逐渐演变为近年来澳门本地两大黑帮“14K”与“水房”之间的及“14K”与吴伟势力之间的厮杀。&#xA;  　　目前，澳门主要的黑帮有14K、水房、和胜义、大圈帮、福建帮和吴伟势力。现时“14K”势力受到沉重打击，坐馆尹国驹和一批14K人员于1998年5月被捕。1999年11月尹国驹被澳门高等法院判处15年监禁，同时被判刑的还有黄达豪、陈成良、黄蕴华、林王燕p&#xA;  14K骨干。同月，陈月波、叶锦添、吕伟雄3名14K骨干被判监禁。14K许多骨干成员被判被抓或在逃，使得14K处于群龙无首的状态。水房是近几年黑帮争斗中最大的受益者。现任坐馆是吴X根，实权由赖X生（水房赖）控制。以吴X根为首的水房成员近1000人，主要集中于青洲、筷子基、新桥区，对澳门北区也有较大的控制权。经济来源主要是走私、搬迁、物业管理以及在赌场“叠码”，放高利贷等。以赖X生为首的水房成员约2（X人，掌握着“水房”大部分赌场利益，经营有多家公司，经济实力雄厚。“水房”与“14K”的矛盾冲突，实际上是赖X生势力与“14K”的矛盾冲突。大圈帮是澳门黑帮最好勇斗狠的帮派。1998年底，在葡澳政府的打击下，头目谭X活和骨干马X那、张X谷、陈X华等纷纷外逃。1999年5月，其行动组组长叶成坚在内地被抓。目前大圈帮人马分成三胜势力：一是原行动组骨干黄X雄（马刀）一伙投靠了“湖南帮”头目梁X（盲忠）旗下；二是在地产商吕X光赌厅从事“看场”的原谭X活手下；三是形成以谭X活胞弟谭X良为首的势力。‘’和胜义”一向和14K关系较好，在1998年反黑行动中受到较大打击，其头目江X良（石歧良）于1999年7月被澳葡法院判处6年监禁。吴伟是具有香港14K背景的澳门赌场经营人，其拥有的人马在澳门是一支不可忽视的势力，总部设在新。纪酒店。1997年8月，吴伟为了赌场利益，邀请了香港的14K、新义安、和合图及公乐等成员对付澳门14K。在&#xA;  1998年江湖大战中，吴伟势力曾陷于空前的困境，不但在澳门被&#xA;  14K夺去多间赌厅，而且在内地的投资也很不理想，例如在国内投资的“芙蓉花园”因资金不足而“烂尾”，在江西投资的伯爵香烟销路一般。1999年下半年后生意转好，致力扩展赌场生意。福建帮一直是很令澳门警方头痛的帮会，和台湾帮关系较好。福建帮通过开办企业，参与赌场生意，建立了一定的经济基础。在警方的打击下，福建帮近年活动趋于平静，一些活跃骨干王X勇（福建勇）、吴X林（福建林）、吴X峰（肥仔峰）等纷纷潜回内地。&#xA;  　　澳门黑社会组织根据组织内部的紧松程度可以分为三种类型：（1）紧密型。它们大都依据洪门的组织形式创立而成，有严格等级及相关制度。是一种以犯罪为常业的具有破坏力、规模较大、存续时间较长的稳定组织。例如：14K、水房、和胜义。（2）半紧密型。指以公开、半公开或合法的体育团体等形式出现，内部有的也仿效洪门的组织结构成立的黑社会组织。例如，成立于&#xA;  1937年的“联义”（体育会）、成立于&#xA;  1932年的“罗梁”（体育会）、成立于1950年的“利庐”（体育会）。（3）松散型。指黑社会组织内部没有严格的组织结构，大都是以血缘或籍缘为联络纽带。例如，福建帮、湖南帮等。澳门主要的黑社会组织内部组织结构和香港三合会基本相同，也可以分为山主、副山主、红根、白纸扇、草鞋、普通会员等职级。除上述职级外，尚有“亚公”、“大哥、大佬、顶爷”之称谓。所谓“亚公”是指高一辈份的大哥，而“大哥、大佬、顶爷”是指无特别指明职务的领导人。澳门黑社会成员除了从事贩毒、走私、操纵淫业等犯罪勾当外，围绕澳门的博彩业，从事由博彩业衍生的叠码、放数、看场、收保护费等行业是其主要营生手段。此外，黑社会组织极力向警界、市政、立法机关甚至内地的政府机关渗透，寻求支持和保护，物色代言人，澳门不少有势力的人士和黑社会组织有着紧密的关系。这是澳门黑社会组织猖撅的根本因素。&#xA;  　　四 　　港澳黑社会组织对大陆的渗透开始于八十年代初期。从渗透主体来看，香港黑社会组织是最早潜入大陆的黑帮之一。早在&#xA;  1981年，深b；l就发现有香港的“14K”、“水房”、“和胜和”、“新义安”和“老东”等组织的成员进入该市活动。在珠海，1982年在拱北口岸发巩有澳门黑社会组织渗透活动，之后逐步扩大至香洲、湾仔、前山、南屏、唐家和斗门等地。八十年代，港澳黑社会组织对内地的渗透无论是从成员数量上，还是从渗透地域上都是小规模的，一开始基本上是组织成员的个人行为，而且成员大都是普通会员，很少有大哥级的人物入境。从渗透的区域上看，港澳黑社会由于地缘、亲缘的关系各有侧重，港澳黑社会组织大都向珠江三角洲渗透，一般香港黑社会成员主要向深圳、惠州、广州、佛山等地渗透，而澳门黑社会成员主要潜入珠海、江门、中山一带活动，台湾黑社会则主要向闽南三角地带和上海等地输出。一般是以旅游观光、探亲访友、投资办厂等名义进入内地，大都是企图建立据点发展组织，也有部分成员是直接入境进行暴力犯罪。进入九十年代，港澳黑社会基本熟悉了内地市场。开始了有计划、有组织的罪恶输出，不少黑社会组织都把内地视为“新大陆”，纷纷建立固定的据点，许多大哥级人物也忙着考察内地市场，而且被渗透区域也开始变得多元化。不断向南北发展势力，极力向内地城市渗透，海南的海口、三亚，浙江的宁波、温州，山东的青岛，辽宁的大连等沿海城市都先后成为黑社会组织渗透的重点。同时，长沙、南昌等大批内陆城市也成为其垂涎之地。&#xA;  　　港澳黑社会对大陆的渗透具有很强的暴力性和侵财性，或勾结内地不法分子和不法势力。或自设炉灶，形成一股罪恶的地下势力，对渗透地的社会秩序，人民生命财产安全有着极大的危害。从形式上看，其涉嫌的违法和犯罪行为可归纳为以下12种：（1）看场、强索保护费；（2）走私；（3）贩毒；（4）经营赌业、地下钱庄、放债收数；（5）绑架勒索；（6）有组织的诈骗；（7）组织偷（私）渡；（8）有组织的盗窃、抢劫犯罪；（9）组织、强迫、教唆他人吸毒；（1）雇佣他人从事杀人。伤害犯罪；（&#xA;  11）非法经营色情业、讨债业；&#xA;  （1）为争夺地盘而进行火并等。值得注意的是港澳台黑社会组织在大陆除了从事不法勾当外，有的已在内地投资经营，并有一定的经济实力，其投资一般都是资金周转快、利润高的行业，例如，娱乐业、餐饮业、房地产业等。现仅以深8；1为例说明，目前港澳黑社会组织在该市投资的基本情况是，香港方面：（1）“新义安”头目向X波等人经营罗湖区新豪江新胜会酒吧；（2）“新义安”红根刘X参股经营罗湖区“2000”的士高；（3）“新义安”、“和胜和”成员参与经营“大富豪夜总会”；（4）“新义安”成员“赛仔雄”、“和胜和”成员周X、“14K”成员“肥仔余”等人以“灯头”方式参与经营福田区新水晶宫的士高；（5）“和胜和”头目“阿泽”等参与经营福田区CIXb的土高；（6）“新义安”成员忻X明等参与经营福田区天域的土高；（7）“14K”成员“高佬强”等参与经营福田区“哥斯拉”的士高；（8）“14K”成员陈X华经营龙岗区平湖卡拉OK；（9）“14K”成员马X川在罗湖投资经营18区卡拉OK；（1）“新义安”头目向x强在南山区开设永盛音像公司；门回）“福义兴”成员陈x在罗湖区经营海州大酒店。澳门方面：“14K”成员“老玩顺”等人以“灯头”方式参与经营福田区新水晶的士高。&#xA;  孔萍萍&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T06:07:18.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8492" CreationDate="2014-06-27T08:56:18.020" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am talking about mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We call the leader/master 大哥, which means BIG BROTHER. not 哥, not 哥哥, not 大哥哥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the outside people, we usually call those subordinates 小哥, you see 小哥 usually charge the shops on the street for &quot;protection&quot;. Not 小哥哥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What the boss call subordinates, I do not know, Im not Big Brother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3725" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T08:56:18.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8475" CreationDate="2014-06-27T09:01:50.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a friend,she speak more like&quot;我在我手机听歌”，but actually is &quot;我在我手机上听歌”，in Chinese phrase,prep is most use,In my opinion,this is practicing your listening.Hard to explain in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5886" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T09:01:50.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8501" CreationDate="2014-06-27T09:55:15.880" Score="0" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;i have translated these 5 sentences with help of google translator is these are correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Hello from XYZ! {0} Your verification code is {1}                       = 你好从XYZ！ {0}您的验证码是 {1}。&#xA;This link of your XYZ Account, click on this link to confirm your email = 这 链接 您 XYZ 帐户, 点击 上 这 链接 至 确认 您的电子邮件.&#xA;Your new password is {0}                                                = 您的新密码是{0}&#xA;confirm your email                                                      = 确认您的电子邮件&#xA;No Reply                                                                = 无回复&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5887" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T11:14:48.970" Title="is google correct translate for me?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-11-05T00:12:54.350" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8500" CreationDate="2014-06-27T11:34:14.720" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;来自XYZ的问候！ {0}您的验证码是 {1}。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这是您的 XYZ 账户链接, 点击此链接确认您的邮箱。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No problem remaining&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5888" LastEditorUserId="5888" LastEditDate="2014-10-28T05:53:33.183" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T05:53:33.183" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8502" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-27T16:54:22.573" Score="1" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am making a chat application , so for number verification I need to make calls (&lt;strong&gt;your verification code is 1234&lt;/strong&gt;) on the number.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I want to know if I called to China in Chinese then how the numbers are pronounced. &lt;strong&gt;Is it the same one two three?&lt;/strong&gt; and then the remaining sentence in chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the xml that is used for calling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot; encoding=&quot;UTF-8&quot; ?&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;Response&amp;gt;&#xA;     &amp;lt;Say voice=&quot;alice&quot; language=&quot;zh-CN&quot; loop=&quot;2&quot;&amp;gt;您的新密码是 1 2 3 4&amp;lt;/Say&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;/Response&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this complete sentence is spoken in Chinese, other than the numbers, is it the correct way to call?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5887" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-13T22:03:06.617" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T22:03:06.617" Title="Numbering for mobile verification call to China in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8502" CreationDate="2014-06-27T17:16:10.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translation for &quot;your verification code is 1234&quot; in Chinese should be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;您的认证码是 一 二 三 四&quot; or &quot;您的认证码是 1 2 3 4&quot; in your code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are pronounced as &quot;yi1 er4 san1 si4 wu3 liu4 qi1 ba1 jiu3 shi2&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are written as &quot;一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-06-27T18:22:27.163" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T18:22:27.163" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8505" CreationDate="2014-06-27T17:22:37.877" Score="6" ViewCount="730" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many loanwords in Chinese have Chinese equivalents?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&#xA;三文鱼 is a loanword, borrowed from English, meaning salmon, but Chinese also has the word 鲑鱼 meaning salmon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there a lot of these kinds of word-sets?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-27T18:54:15.647" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T20:15:22.937" Title="Loanwords with Chinese Equivalents" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8504" CreationDate="2014-06-27T18:31:30.273" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure where you could get an accurate count for &lt;em&gt;how many&lt;/em&gt; there are. Considering that loanwords have been coming into Chinese for thousands of years, it definitely won't be a trivial task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is certainly quite a few, however, &lt;strong&gt;not all of which is current/widespread/universal&lt;/strong&gt;. I'll list some here, and edit more in if I think of any later:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Angel: &lt;strong&gt;安琪兒&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;天使&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bacon: &lt;strong&gt;培根&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;煙肉&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Blog: &lt;strong&gt;博客 / 部落格&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;網誌&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Boycott: &lt;strong&gt;杯葛&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;抵制&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bus: &lt;strong&gt;巴士&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;公共汽車&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bye-Bye: &lt;strong&gt;掰掰&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;再見&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Camera: &lt;strong&gt;開麥拉&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;卡麥拉&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;照相機&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cheese: &lt;strong&gt;芝士 / 起司 / 起士&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;奶酪 / 乳酪&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cream: &lt;strong&gt;克林姆&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;奶油&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Copy: &lt;strong&gt;拷貝&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;複製&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Daddy: &lt;strong&gt;爹地&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;爸爸&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;E-mail: &lt;strong&gt;伊媚兒 / 依妹兒&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;電子郵件&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Engine: &lt;strong&gt;引擎&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;發動機 / 動力機 / 機&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fillet: &lt;strong&gt;菲力&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;柳&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gas: &lt;strong&gt;瓦斯&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;天然氣&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(House) Party: &lt;strong&gt;轟趴&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;聚會&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Index: &lt;strong&gt;引得&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;索引 / 檢目 / 總檢&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Laser: &lt;strong&gt;雷射&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;激光&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Logic: &lt;strong&gt;邏輯&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;理則&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mommy: &lt;strong&gt;媽咪&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;媽媽&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Motel: &lt;strong&gt;摩鐵&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;汽車旅館&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mini: &lt;strong&gt;迷你&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;小&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Party: &lt;strong&gt;派對&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;舞會 / 聚會 / 聯歡會&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Polish: &lt;strong&gt;泡立水&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;蟲膠清漆 / 酒精清漆&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rifle: &lt;strong&gt;來福槍&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;步槍&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Romantic: &lt;strong&gt;羅曼蒂克&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;浪漫&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sardine: &lt;strong&gt;沙丁魚&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;鰛 / 鰯&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sauce: &lt;strong&gt;沙司&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;醬&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sauna: &lt;strong&gt;桑拿&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;蒸氣浴&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Scooter: &lt;strong&gt;速可達&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;輕機車&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shampoo: &lt;strong&gt;香波&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;洗髮精&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shopping: &lt;strong&gt;血拼&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;逛街購物&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Show: &lt;strong&gt;秀&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;節目&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tank: &lt;strong&gt;坦克&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;戰車&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Taxi:  &lt;strong&gt;的士&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;計程車 / 出租車&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tobacco: &lt;strong&gt;淡巴菰&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;菸草&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Typhoon: &lt;strong&gt;颱風&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;颶風&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quduq: &lt;strong&gt;胡同 / 衚衕&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;小巷&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;おばさん: &lt;strong&gt;歐巴桑&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;老太婆&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;おじさん: &lt;strong&gt;歐吉桑&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;老頭子&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;パチンコ: &lt;strong&gt;柏青哥 / 扒金宫&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;彈珠機&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;たたみ: &lt;strong&gt;塌塌米&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;code&gt;疊蓆&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-06-28T19:54:48.340" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T19:54:48.340" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8506" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-28T03:10:16.403" Score="6" ViewCount="4022" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I saw a video on youtube about a guys experience in china. He said that people can often accidentally say swear words if they say the tones wrong. Like the word &quot;ma&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can heard as mother but 'ma' can also be heard as horse in a foul way. Is there any pinyin/character combinations that I should be careful to write or say wrong/all together? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for swear words, do they use the same character they use for the word or is it written differently? Also maybe describe a experience that you accidentally said a swear word in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5889" LastEditorUserId="133" LastEditDate="2014-07-02T11:45:21.633" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T01:06:59.037" Title="Accidentally Saying Chinese Swear Words" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;swearing&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8506" CreationDate="2014-06-28T03:51:02.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gotta be careful with &lt;code&gt;cao&lt;/code&gt; - if you say it with a 4th tone you will only be saying one thing, and it's totally a swear word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;ma&lt;/code&gt; I'm not totally sure how it would become a &quot;curse word&quot; - sure 'mom' could turn into 'horse' and that would be offensive but the only thing that could be considered is 4th tone &lt;code&gt;ma&lt;/code&gt; which, actually, means to curse, to swear or to berate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T03:51:02.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8509" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-28T13:09:02.983" Score="1" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ran into a book talking about the difference of pronouncing 翁 in Mainland China and Taiwan differently. But it is still confusing to me. My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference of pronouncing 翁 in Mainland China and Taiwan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to pronounce 翁 in Mainland China and Taiwan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4457" LastEditorUserId="4457" LastEditDate="2014-06-28T13:16:01.573" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T13:26:31.890" Title="How to pronounce 翁 in Mainland China and Taiwan?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8509" CreationDate="2014-06-28T13:26:31.890" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This concerns a mid-back vowel pair of [ɤ]/[o] (in IPA symbol), where [ɤ] is unrounded and [o] rounded. In today's mandarin in China, it's unrounded; in taiwan, it is sometimes rounded and sometimes unrounded, depending on the preceding consonant. If the preceding consonant is labial then pinyin o is the rounded [o], otherwise the unrounded [ɤ]. The Taiwanese pronunciation was also the older mandarin pronunciation and can still be heard in many regions' accents in China, but not in today's standard mandarin any more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T13:26:31.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8511" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-28T13:43:11.490" Score="10" ViewCount="5115" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 看 and 见 both mean &quot;to see&quot;. But they are used differently in different words. Like 看书 看电影...etc. and 见面 见识...etc. (Or do Chinese people say 见书 见电影 or 看面 看识?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a rules to use them differently?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4457" LastActivityDate="2021-01-12T07:31:52.777" Title="When to use 看 and 见？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8512" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8740" CreationDate="2014-06-28T14:19:51.957" Score="3" ViewCount="936" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of Mandarin's biggest characteristics is its tones. Other Sinitic dialects/topolects aren't any different: Cantonese, Hakka, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any toneless Sinitic dialects/topolects? (Japanese?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-08-01T19:48:53.540" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T04:54:34.890" Title="Toneless Sinetic Dialects/Topolects" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8511" CreationDate="2014-06-28T14:34:27.130" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Classical Chinese, 见 describes the action that you get visual information. It implies the result, but has no duration. 见 is more like &lt;em&gt;to see&lt;/em&gt;, 看 is more like &lt;em&gt;to look (at)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese, you probably will not use 见 as a verb. Instead, you say 看见, which consists of a verb 看 and a particle 见. In Classical Chinese, we say 不见, but in modern Chinese, we say 看不见 (cannot see) or 没看见 (did not see) depending on the context. 见 serves as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complement&quot;&gt;result complement&lt;/a&gt; of 看 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 看 in 看书 and 看电影 does not mean &lt;em&gt;to perceive with the eyes&lt;/em&gt;. You'd better take them as collocations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;见 can be used as a verb when it means &lt;em&gt;to see/meet someone&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;to see something unusual and widen one's knowledge&lt;/em&gt;. For example, 见客人, 见世面, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;见面 (to meet) literally means &lt;em&gt;to see someone's face&lt;/em&gt;. 见识 literally means &lt;em&gt;to see and then to know something&lt;/em&gt;. But I think dictionaries will simply list them as compound verbs, because you cannot guess their idiomatic meanings from their literal meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, 看 and 见 either have different grammatical functions (verb vs particle), or have totally different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T14:34:27.130" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8511" CreationDate="2014-06-28T14:47:24.697" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;They don't both mean &quot;to see&quot; exactly. Actually, both have multiple meanings, some but not all of which overlaps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possible meanings of 看:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To observe&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To view (in appreciation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To visit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To (visually) estimate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To be treated by a doctor&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a particle, it conveys the sense of &quot;give it a try&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possible meanings of 見:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To have seen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To visit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To meet (in the sense of to receive a guest)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To meet (in the sense of bumping into someone on the road)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a noun, views, opinions, understanding&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you might have noticed, the usages of 看 tend to involve being &lt;strong&gt;focused on the act of looking&lt;/strong&gt;. In contrast, 見 tends to be used in situations where &lt;strong&gt;looking is not the focus&lt;/strong&gt; of the activity. The &lt;strong&gt;difference in focus&lt;/strong&gt; would be a clue, though not an absolute rule, for you to decide which one to use in a given phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Turning to your specific examples: in 看书 or 看电影, the character 看 takes the meaning of &quot;to view, to observe, to admire&quot; in the same sense as &lt;em&gt;enjoying the view&lt;/em&gt; when sightseeing. 見 does not have an equivalent meaning for this usage. Thus, you might say 看風景 (sightseeing), but never 見風景; you could say 看得見風景 (the view is visible) however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the case of 見面, the character 見 is &quot;to see&quot; in the sense of &lt;em&gt;to meet&lt;/em&gt;. Again, 看 does not have a completely equivalent meaning. On the other hand, 看 can be used to mean &lt;em&gt;to visit&lt;/em&gt;. Therefore, you could say 見客 (receive a guest) but not 看客; whereas both 去看朋友 and 去見朋友 (to see a friend) are possible (but 去找朋友 might be more popular than either).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the last one, 見識 uses 見 as a noun in the sense of &quot;a view, an opinion, a understanding&quot;. Again, no equivalent in 看.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2015-06-17T16:40:51.023" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T16:40:51.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8511" CreationDate="2014-06-28T18:14:33.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between these two characters is similar to that of &amp;quot;listen&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;hear&amp;quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;看 emphasizes the action of looking (analogous to &amp;quot;listen&amp;quot;),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;while 见 prefers the result of see (analogous to &amp;quot;hear&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5891" LastEditorUserId="6139" LastEditDate="2021-01-12T07:31:52.777" LastActivityDate="2021-01-12T07:31:52.777" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8516" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-28T18:17:55.430" Score="3" ViewCount="425" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested to learn whether the changes in Hong Kong pronunciation of Cantonese came about, was it because the English in Hong Kong had difficulty understanding the Cantonese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, I have started to learn Cantonese from CDs and found that the word for &quot;I&quot; which I thought to be pronounced something like &quot;gnaw,&quot; always sounded like &quot;no&quot; to me and in my mind set up an expectation of a negative expression; and then I would have to reverse my thinking that it was not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess see where a lot of misunderstanding between English speakers in Hong Kong and the Cantonese speakers might lead the native speakers to alter their speech to be better understood?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I am not a linguist, any answer using terms unique to linguistics will not be helpful to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5892" LastEditorUserId="3529" LastEditDate="2014-07-18T07:56:00.887" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T20:32:47.483" Title="Hong Kong Cantonese variations" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8517" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8518" CreationDate="2014-06-28T19:28:52.307" Score="2" ViewCount="631" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use a program called Sougou, which is very poopular in China I think. Sometimes I use the Microsoft pinyin language option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sougou is very good at guessing my characters based on context, but sometimes I have to click through to find my character, especially when it's character with  ü it seems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is there a standard rule here? Should  ü always be replaced with v in pinyin programs?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What about after the J, Q, X and Y letters where  ü is always implied, should I be hitting V or U on my keyboard?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for the simplistic question, I wish I could understand the sougou documentation, but it's still &quot;chinese&quot; to me. Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5894" LastActivityDate="2014-06-30T09:13:54.407" Title="When do I use V for Ü in Pinyin programs" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8517" CreationDate="2014-06-28T20:08:47.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the past (e.g. 80's to 90's), when the Chinese IME did not implement fuzzy logic, the rule was you should use &lt;code&gt;v&lt;/code&gt; for and only for &lt;code&gt;ü&lt;/code&gt; as you would write on paper. For example for J you should type &lt;code&gt;ju&lt;/code&gt; not &lt;code&gt;jv&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now all the mainstream Chinese IME (MSPY, Sogou, Google Pinyin, etc.) has fuzzy logic built-in and enabled by default. This question isn't much relevant anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T20:08:47.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8517" CreationDate="2014-06-29T02:56:48.540" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A more direct answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;lv&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;nv&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;lve&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;nve&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-06-29T02:56:48.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8504" CreationDate="2014-06-29T03:13:44.750" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Again, I couldn't comment due to not enough reputation so I'm posting an answer here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;del&gt;Romantic: 羅曼蒂克 = 浪漫&#xA;is incorrect.&lt;/del&gt; they are both translated by sound.&#xA;It is said a Japanese (actually a very famous one), Shouseki Natsume (夏目漱石), created the Sino-Japanese word 浪漫(ロマン) from the first moras of romantic（ロマンチック）. While who did it is still debated, it is certain this is a loan word that is translated by its sound then clipped. In Japanese, ロマン is pronounced almost identical to Chinese 罗曼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I must also comment: This question is asking for an endless list. What's the point? Can I create a question that ask for every Chinese characters ever existed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5795" LastEditorUserId="5795" LastEditDate="2014-07-02T14:50:43.487" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T14:50:43.487" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8516" CreationDate="2014-06-29T07:46:15.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't really have much experience in this area myself but a similar question has been asked on 百度知道 before, which was answered as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;香港的粤语不是最正宗的粤语. 毫无疑问,岭南文&#xA;  化中心在广州,最正宗的粤语还是在广州! 香港的&#xA;  粤语有点英语腔.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;香港居民说的是粤语,不过里面很多词都掺到很多&#xA;  英文.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;反正哪里都一样,基本也没多少差别.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;回答楼主,香港的粤语和广东话是一样的,只是前&#xA;  者略带英腔而己,而且话中多多少少有些英语相掺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;香港本地居民说的就是粤语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which says: basically HK-Cantonese isn't much different from Guangdong Cantonese apart from sounding slightly like British accented Cantonese and using lots of English words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the changes are more accental and in loan words (or direct usage of English over Chinese) rather than appeasing the British.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2014-06-30T16:59:59.487" LastActivityDate="2014-06-30T16:59:59.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8523" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8524" CreationDate="2014-06-29T15:19:47.587" Score="3" ViewCount="807" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate 'crack'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To crack ones knuckles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To crack ones fingers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and other joints/bones/etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Supposedly in 四川话 it's 'pi' - I don't know the character, hopefully @Huang can let us know).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2014-06-30T16:19:17.420" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T04:01:51.850" Title="Translations: 'Crack' as in 'Crack Knuckles'" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8523" CreationDate="2014-06-29T15:46:53.607" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This depends on the method used to generate the sound. The actual &quot;cracking&quot; is not generally mentioned when speaking about this phenomena in Chinese. Instead, the act that you perform to get the sound is the focus of the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;cracking your knuckles&quot; would become something like &quot;squeezing your fingers&quot;, which is &quot;捏手指&quot;, 捏 being &quot;to pinch&quot;. As a direct translation, &quot;pinch&quot; doesn't make much sense in English, but just imagine the action of squeezing when pinching two pieces of skin together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese people don't always use this method of cracking fingers, however. Many people choose, instead, to twist their their individual fingers one by one. This has a different term: &quot;掰手指&quot;, &quot;掰&quot; being something like &quot;to twist&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4709" LastEditorUserId="4709" LastEditDate="2014-06-29T15:54:40.630" LastActivityDate="2014-06-29T15:54:40.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8517" CreationDate="2014-06-30T02:58:39.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;V is not used in Chinese as a  consonant (声母), it was used to be ü as a &lt;strong&gt;vowel&lt;/strong&gt; (Chinese called 韵母), like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lv -&gt; 绿&#xA;xv -&gt; 许&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a standard rule here? Should ü always be replaced with v in pinyin programs?&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Yes&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about after the J, Q, X and Y letters where ü is always implied, should I be hitting V or U on my keyboard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When used with JQXY ü is same as u in sogou , it is normal in internet ,  although they are &#xA;different in  textbook.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5874" LastActivityDate="2014-06-30T02:58:39.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8517" CreationDate="2014-06-30T09:13:54.407" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;v is not an Alphabet in official PINYIN system but an International Phonetic Alphabet.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;ǘ&lt;/code&gt; 读&lt;code&gt;愚,于,雨,遇&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;But &lt;code&gt;Sougou&lt;/code&gt; always using what is short for convenience.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;It's the most popular Chinese Input Method in China even Apple set it as default in OSX Mavericks.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I think there are no strict rules,everything based on your own preferences. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5855" LastActivityDate="2014-06-30T09:13:54.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8527" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8529" CreationDate="2014-06-30T18:17:33.453" Score="8" ViewCount="2386" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 非也 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I heard the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this XXX? 非也! It's YYY!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean &quot;Oh my god!&quot; or something others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4680" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-18T20:05:12.480" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T20:05:12.480" Title="What does 非也 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8527" CreationDate="2014-06-30T18:50:29.113" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It basically just means no. 非 is no, 也 is just a modal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5899" LastActivityDate="2014-06-30T18:50:29.113" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8527" CreationDate="2014-07-01T00:38:06.843" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;也 is classified into 虚词(lit. imaginary word) in classical Chinese. 虚词, unlike its counterpart of 实词(lit. real word), doesn't have a meaning, but it's indispensable to some grammatical functions. It can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;express the mood&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Complete a sentence structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Work as an interjection or preposition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;work as a filler to make a sentence satisfy the requirement on the number of characters. This mainly happens to poems.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也 is generally used at the end of a sentence to complete a declarative sentence, so in your case, 非也 means &quot;(it's) not (so)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;generally you won't use this pattern today,  but you can use it in a funny way. As in English, you can say &quot;thy bidding, master&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T00:38:06.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8527" CreationDate="2014-07-01T03:08:48.470" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;非也&lt;/code&gt;sounds like &lt;code&gt;This is not so&lt;/code&gt; or in some context it means&lt;code&gt;Not at all&lt;/code&gt; in classical chinese.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;It is an elegant way of saying &lt;code&gt;not&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5855" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T03:08:48.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8527" CreationDate="2014-07-01T04:01:30.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just like other answers, I'd say it basically means &quot;no&quot; in Chinese, &#xA;but just let you know this word is not popular nowadays. It is a word that used in ancient Chinese. Now it's just 不 for &quot;no&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5900" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T04:01:30.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8532" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8638" CreationDate="2014-07-01T04:27:30.437" Score="2" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin, as everyone probably knows, has four tones: 1st, 2nd, 3rd &amp;amp; 4th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each tone has its own tone mark that represents that tone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1st tone = ˉ (macron)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2nd tone = ˊ (acute accent)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3rd tone = ˇ (caron/háček)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4th tone = ˋ (grave accent)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But these are all just representations of each tones actual 调值 (tone value), i.e.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1st tone = 55&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2nd tone = 35&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3rd tone = 214&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4th tone = 51&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each tone mark is a visual representation of each tones value. Good? Good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the question:&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Do any dialects have tone marks?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese, at least the works that I have seen, is written with pinyin and tone numbers, i.e: &lt;code&gt;gwong2 dung1 waa2&lt;/code&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other topolects are simply written with IPA + tone contour marks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-07-06T13:14:19.197" LastActivityDate="2014-07-11T20:06:54.053" Title="Dialects/Topolects: Tone Marks?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8527" CreationDate="2014-07-01T05:33:03.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this XXX? 非也! It's YYY! = Is this XXX? NO! It's YYY!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5874" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T05:33:03.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8539" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-01T14:00:01.610" Score="8" ViewCount="559" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I see the radical being used in 洗 and 凉 in some books or even sougou. They break it up into a broken radical that looks nothing like it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SRyCQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;example&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it one of those things that are related only to computers and I should just ignore the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/56tbh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5905" LastEditorUserId="5905" LastEditDate="2014-07-01T15:04:22.223" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T14:04:41.297" Title="Why does the radical for water and ice often look so weird" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8527" CreationDate="2014-07-01T15:07:04.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;非也 literally means &quot;not also&quot;. There's an implication that you've given more than one wrong answer in the recent past. OR literally &quot;you should already know the answer to this question&quot;. Or in hip-hop slang, &quot;you ain't know?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非 - means 'not' or 'without'.&#xA;也 - isn't just simply a modal, it means &quot;also&quot; which literally implies a slight 'annoyance' with your question and while it is not generally used in big cities, it is still very much used in villages and the countryside (as I've watched it used on several current Chinese TV shows that center around village life within the past few years).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes Chinese slang really reminds me of so-called Ebonics in the west. There is a 'feigned annoyance' with your mates or buddies that is actually a tool for bonding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5906" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T15:07:04.840" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8506" CreationDate="2014-07-01T15:33:03.953" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think maybe your friend is referring to &quot;ma de&quot;, which literally means &quot;your mother&quot; but colloquially means &quot;f**k&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, there's a slow, drawn out way to say this, which is &quot;maaaa de&quot;, which means &quot;f**k&quot;, &quot;s**t&quot;... but honestly, without the &quot;de&quot; (which sounds like &quot;duh&quot;), no one will misinterpret your meaning (or lack of meaning) by simply saying &quot;ma&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can actually give you a better applied example...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I first arrived in China, I would often find women to be the more accepting of answering questions from lost foreigners than men, so I would often say: &quot;qing wen&quot;, which means &quot;please ask&quot;... which translates to &quot;excuse me, may I ask a question&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you ask this question to a single woman during the evening, &quot;wen&quot; also means &quot;kiss&quot;, so it may sound like &quot;hey, how about a kiss&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the only misunderstanding I've had more than several times before understanding what was going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last experience I've had was complementing others. I often find myself wanting to say &quot;you have a wonderful personality&quot;, or &quot;your personality. good!&quot; using Chinese grammatical structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personality in Chinese is &quot;ge xing&quot; or &quot;ge shing&quot;. However, I often reverse these two characters and say &quot;xing ge&quot; or &quot;shing ge&quot;. Unfortunately &quot;xing gan&quot; means &quot;sexy&quot;. So if I compliment a woman on her personality in front of her peers, it sometimes sounds like I am saying &quot;I think you... sexy! very nice&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Talk about cringeworthy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's my 2 cents...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5907" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T15:33:03.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8506" CreationDate="2014-07-01T15:47:10.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;干(gan4) is another character that could be accidentally said as a swear word in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干(gan4) could mean do as in &quot;gan4 shen2 me&quot; or tree bark as in &quot;shu4 gan4&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 干(gan4) is also the equivalent for &quot;f**k&quot; in Chinese. In our experience, our students usually accidentally say it when slowly pronouncing the compounds such as &quot;gan4 shen2 me&quot; and &quot;shu4 gan4&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T15:47:10.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8539" CreationDate="2014-07-01T15:55:17.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have commented, it is just another font. I would say just ignore it and as a learner, stick to the standard one for now, which is like three short strokes on the left. It would make more sense if we look into the origin of water character in Chinese: 水 (shui3). The pictographic form for 水 (shui3) looks like a river flow, which gradually evolved into the three strokes as the radical form for water character in Chinese: 水 (shui3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T15:55:17.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8504" CreationDate="2014-07-01T16:07:38.117" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to the previous list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bowling: &lt;strong&gt;保龄球&lt;/strong&gt; bao ling qiu &lt;code&gt;滾木球&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Buffet: &lt;strong&gt;蒲飞&lt;/strong&gt; pu fei &lt;code&gt;自助餐&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Calorie: &lt;strong&gt;卡路里&lt;/strong&gt; ka lu li &lt;code&gt;热量单位&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Cartoon: &lt;strong&gt;卡通&lt;/strong&gt; ka tong &lt;code&gt;漫画&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Motor: &lt;strong&gt;摩托&lt;/strong&gt; mo tuo &lt;code&gt;电动机&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sundae: &lt;strong&gt;新低&lt;/strong&gt; xin di &lt;code&gt;水果奶油,冰淇淋&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;T-Shirt: &lt;strong&gt;T-血&lt;/strong&gt; T-xue &lt;code&gt;短袖汗衫, 短袖圆领衫&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Toast: &lt;strong&gt;多士,吐司&lt;/strong&gt; duo shi, tu si &lt;code&gt;烤面包&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Vitamin: &lt;strong&gt;维他命&lt;/strong&gt; wei ta ming &lt;code&gt;维生素&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5907" LastEditorUserId="5907" LastEditDate="2014-07-01T17:18:54.643" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T17:18:54.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="779" CreationDate="2014-07-01T20:18:54.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;双 means pair in the sense of &quot;alike.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对 means &quot;pair&quot; in the sense of &quot;go together. Two rabbits make a good pair, but they're not &quot;alike. (Unless they're twins.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T20:18:54.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8506" CreationDate="2014-07-01T21:39:55.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine used to go to the post office and borrow a pen (bi3) from one of the women who work there. However, she kept asking if the woman had a bi1 (in the first tone), which means a cu*t until a friend noticed what she was saying and told her what it meant.&#xA;And they say shabi, which is pretty offensive, it would translate as stupid c*nt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2700" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T21:39:55.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8506" CreationDate="2014-07-02T05:54:19.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;日&lt;/code&gt; is a swear word getting popular and popular in china these days.. &lt;br /&gt;&#xA;By the hatred for the Japanese..&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;And it's stroke like &lt;code&gt;the circle with a dot&lt;/code&gt; in the center..&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Same meaning as &lt;code&gt;sticking up your middle finger&lt;/code&gt;..&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;It is a very ”powerful” word that doesn't need any help of other words to lead it's meaning.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Like &lt;code&gt;&quot;ri ni ma&quot;&lt;/code&gt;for integrated phrase.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The same applies to&lt;code&gt;二&lt;/code&gt;which means &lt;code&gt;stupid&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;日！&lt;/code&gt;,&quot;f***!&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;二！&lt;/code&gt;,&quot;loser!&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;二货！&lt;/code&gt;,&quot;foolish one&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;你很二&lt;/code&gt;,&quot;you are very stupid&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;足够二&lt;/code&gt;,&quot;stupid enough&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5855" LastEditorUserId="5855" LastEditDate="2014-07-02T06:04:13.607" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T06:04:13.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8506" CreationDate="2014-07-02T05:54:50.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that I'm Taiwanese and I use Traditional Chinese characters. The swear words I type below (sorry!) may look different in Simplified Chinese. Also, China has &lt;strong&gt;way&lt;/strong&gt; more swear words than us that I don't understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...for swear words, do they use the same character they use for the word or is it written differently? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As many people have written above, the three most common swear words look exactly the same as normal words.&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addressing your mother (or nobody's mother in particular) 媽的 (&lt;code&gt;ma1de5&lt;/code&gt;) looks quite harmless. I have said this many times by pure accident because I address other people's mothers with one 媽 contrary to two (媽媽).&#xA;&lt;p&gt;操 &lt;code&gt;cao4&lt;/code&gt; is synonymous with the F-bomb. It is usually pronounced &lt;code&gt;cao1&lt;/code&gt; and used as a verb (to exercise extraneously) or in a phrase like 操場 (&lt;code&gt;cao1chang3&lt;/code&gt;, meaning track field).&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幹 &lt;code&gt;gan4&lt;/code&gt; is used with 幹什麼 &lt;code&gt;gan4shen2me3&lt;/code&gt; and 幹事 &lt;code&gt;gan4shi4&lt;/code&gt;. It's a verb meaning &quot;to do&quot;. The sexual innuendo is the same as the English equivalent. &lt;code&gt;gan4&lt;/code&gt; only becomes a swear word when it's on its own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5908" LastEditorUserId="5908" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T01:06:59.037" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T01:06:59.037" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="116" CreationDate="2014-07-02T08:21:03.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am keen to share my tips with you - colour coding to master tones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the commonality between the below pairs of characters? &#xA;(i) mother 妈 &amp;amp; horse 马; &#xA;(ii) field 田 &amp;amp; sky 天; &#xA;(iii) king 王 &amp;amp; net 网;&#xA;(iv) mother 妈 &amp;amp; sky 天; &#xA;(v) field 田 &amp;amp; king 王; &#xA;(vi) horse 马 &amp;amp; net 网&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hKumK.png&quot; alt=&quot;Chinese Colour Example&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer: The first three pairs of characters share the same spelling in PinYin: (i) ma; (ii) tian; (iii) wang. The following pairs of characters share the same tone: (iv) 1st tone (high); (v) 2nd tone (rising); (vi) 3rd tone (falling-rising). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See more at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesecolour.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chinesecolour.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5909" LastEditorUserId="5909" LastEditDate="2015-09-08T10:29:56.410" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T10:29:56.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8539" CreationDate="2014-07-02T11:37:47.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many glyphs for Chinese characters, for example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/zy/6D17.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Some glyphs for character &quot;洗&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T11:37:47.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8527" CreationDate="2014-07-02T11:48:44.693" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;也 in &quot;非也&quot; does not mean &quot;also&quot;.  It is a modal showing certainty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T11:48:44.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8523" CreationDate="2014-07-02T12:06:50.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, we kept the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/search.php?q=%AD%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;baak1&quot;&lt;/a&gt; but few people know that the original character is simply &quot;迫&quot;.  Unfortunately, &quot;迫手指&quot; is not acceptable in contemporary written Chinese.  (Don't confuse it with &quot;啪&quot; which is pronounced as &quot;paak1&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: To translate &quot;crack one's fingers&quot;, I think we can say &quot;把手指扳得咯咯響&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-07-09T04:01:51.850" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T04:01:51.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8504" CreationDate="2014-07-02T12:31:41.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;During the May Fourth Movement, many terms were &quot;imported&quot; from Japan to enrich the Chinese vocabulary for translation of Western idea.  Not to mention that China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have been different translation for the same English word, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheese = 芝士 (HK) / 起司 (Taiwan) / 奶酪 (China)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Toast = 多士 (HK) / 吐司 (Taiwan) / 烤面包 (China)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, it is very difficult to come up with a definite answer to your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T12:31:41.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8492" CreationDate="2014-07-02T12:43:36.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The terms would be radically different for China or Hong Kong audience.  (But are you sure that you could obtain the approval &quot;to stay&quot; in the China market with triad-related contents?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T12:43:36.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8555" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8557" CreationDate="2014-07-02T14:11:16.027" Score="6" ViewCount="1441" Body="&lt;p&gt;汉化  means becoming more assimilated to Han culture. (like Anglicise means being more assimilated to English culture)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, this has happened many times, e.g. during Khitan Empire, Jurchen Empire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does there exists an English word for this? I am guessining not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3762" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T20:58:45.880" Title="Does there exists an English word for 汉化 ？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8463" CreationDate="2014-07-02T15:42:37.990" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;use 废话,那还用说,很明显啊,很显然啊,when speaking to your buddy.&#xA;嗯,是啊,确实,when speaking to your college or someone in a formal situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5785" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T15:42:37.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8555" CreationDate="2014-07-02T15:45:15.010" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is Sinicization, just look at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization&quot;&gt;English version of 汉化 on Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, you'll find out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5797" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T15:45:15.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8532" CreationDate="2014-07-02T16:46:02.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Judging by the word topolect, I think you are most interested in this:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese#Tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Phonetic realization of Mandarin tones in principal dialects&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;(scroll down to the table with the caption 'Phonetic realization…'). This is how people from different regions will most likely realize the tones when they are speaking mandarin with the &quot;local flavour&quot;, whereas educated people, tv/radio hosts will perhaps strictly stick with the Standard Mandarin, even if they are not from Beijing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dialects have their own tone systems, with a varying number of tones. Unfortunately, phonological material is only available for a very few dialects, e.g. Hokkien, Cantonese, Shanghaiese [if you consider these to be dialects, I think they are languages on their own]. I used to do research on the tone systems of tonal languages, and there are at least two types of notations, the one with numbers describe the pitch, just as the OP demonstrates, and there is another kind of notation which uses &quot;sticks&quot;, like ˥ Mandarin 1st tone, etc. (unfortunately this site doesn't support pasting them, please refer to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_%28linguistics%29#Word_tones_and_syllable_tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;table in this article.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese people, when they are to discuss the tones for any reason, including linguists, will use tone names, that have existed since centuries if not millennia, e.g. 阳平、去声、上声, etc. These are less accurate, since they are not absolute notations of a tone contour and could vary across dialects and regions. A good reference would be this &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AE%98%E8%AF%9D#.E5.9F.BA.E4.BA.8E.E8.B0.83.E7.B1.BB.E7.9A.84.E5.88.86.E5.8C.BA.E6.96.B9.E5.BC.8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;table&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3508" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T16:46:02.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8555" CreationDate="2014-07-02T19:03:23.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word you're looking for is &quot;Sinicize.&quot; The literal meaning is to become &quot;more Chinese.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's generally understood, in this context, that &quot;Chinese&quot; is really &quot;Han.&quot; As far as I know, there is no equivalent word using &quot;Han.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T19:03:23.997" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8555" CreationDate="2014-07-02T20:58:45.880" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen the word 'Hanification' used in The Economist to refer to PRC policies and activities in Tibet and the far west, so that would seem relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5911" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T20:58:45.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8565" CreationDate="2014-07-03T03:22:45.233" Score="8" ViewCount="1122" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/c/149/323114.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;犬子&lt;/a&gt; (literally, dog + son) is an archaic, self-depreciatory term to refer to your son (occasionally it's used to insult other people's sons).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/472/2583&quot;&gt;This answer&lt;/a&gt; raises a question though; who is the dog referred to in the word, the father or son? Both explanations work for the purposes of self-deprecation, and most dictionaries do not answer this question because the word is fixed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T04:29:57.660" Title="犬子: who's the dog?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8561" CreationDate="2014-07-03T03:37:46.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the dog refers to son. Chinese parents called their sons &quot;dog&quot; mostly because they hope their kids can easily grow up as puppys. Depreciatory is also an important reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5913" LastActivityDate="2014-07-03T03:37:46.160" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8463" CreationDate="2014-07-03T03:55:12.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My colleagues often say :&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&quot;嗯哼～&quot;&lt;/code&gt;,&quot;Uh huh&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&quot;显然&quot;&lt;/code&gt;,&quot;obviously&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&quot;然后呢&quot;&lt;/code&gt;,is not in literal meaning &quot;Then what?&quot; ,it means that you have said is not enough,barely nothing. And the speaker doesn't really want you to continue,like you don't have the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5855" LastActivityDate="2014-07-03T03:55:12.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8561" CreationDate="2014-07-03T04:13:19.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did some research, although not very authoritative it still seems quite convincing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=CSPYI_Ms5fl9lF-pOm0C22zvauvScs7tTVgDDGBqmxZVeWBwgVdwvC0Vpd_VORr2PoTodQZSygaRLvfCSei_Qq&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;犬子的叫法到底是怎么来的&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;个人觉得应该只是谦称&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毕竟中国人一直讲究谦虚，不可能见人就称自己儿子是虎子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大概人说虎父无犬子，所以才会有犬子一称来谦虚的说自己的孩子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;网上只说明犬子其中一个意思是指司马相如的小名&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;并没有明确说犬子来自司马相如的小名&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic idea being that the phrase came from: &lt;strong&gt;虎父无犬子&lt;/strong&gt;: lit. lions don't father dogs - or lion father =/= dog son - so in order to be &lt;em&gt;humble&lt;/em&gt; fathers would refer to themselves [seems both father and son] as dogs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems similar to &lt;strong&gt;son of a bitch&lt;/strong&gt; where obviously both the mother and son are being referred to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小犬、豚儿、豚犬 are all referred to as alternatives to 犬子 - I find the 豚字 particularly interesting. (pigs and dogs = sons).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-03T04:13:19.867" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8561" CreationDate="2014-07-03T05:08:04.783" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The dog refers to the son.&lt;/strong&gt; The term 犬子 originally meant &quot;puppy&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【&lt;strong&gt;漢·列仙傳·邗子&lt;/strong&gt;】邗子者，自言蜀人也，&lt;strong&gt;好放犬子&lt;/strong&gt;。時有犬走入山穴，邗子隨入。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So calling one's son 犬子, would have been in essence &lt;strong&gt;referring to a child as &quot;my little pup&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. That was not originally a self-deprecation. Instead, it was a childhood nickname for a famous poet, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sima_Xiangru&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【&lt;strong&gt;漢·史記·司馬相如列傳&lt;/strong&gt;】司馬相如者，蜀郡成都人也，字長卿。少時好讀書，學擊劍，&lt;strong&gt;故其親名之曰犬子&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &quot;puppy&quot; went on to become a literary icon of &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%89%E8%B5%8B&quot;&gt;Han poetry&lt;/a&gt;. As his fame grew, people began imitating him, and started calling their own children &quot;puppy&quot; after Ssu-ma's childhood name. As that practice became more widespread, &lt;strong&gt;eventually 犬子 became a standard deprecation&lt;/strong&gt; for sons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, the answer is that the dog in 犬子 refers to the son. Of course, you could also say that calling your children a puppy &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; implied that you, as their parent, was a dog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-03T05:58:17.293" LastActivityDate="2014-07-03T05:58:17.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8561" CreationDate="2014-07-03T16:39:36.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the dog is meant to describe the son. 犬子 means a boy like a dog. We think dog is not a powerful animal as opposed to tiger or lion. You can get the feeling in this phrase &quot;虎父无犬子&quot;, meaning a father  like a tiger can't have a son like a dog, which is usually used to compliment other person's son and their father. &#xA;On the other hand,  calling your own son 犬子 does imply that yourself is a dog.&#xA;Similar expressions exist like 兔崽子, 小畜生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5785" LastActivityDate="2014-07-03T16:39:36.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8567" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8568" CreationDate="2014-07-03T20:08:08.240" Score="7" ViewCount="1878" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was trying to explain the meaning of the phrase &quot;hang out&quot; to a Chinese friend, and the first thing that came to mind was 一起做什么了, with me intending 什么了 to mean &quot;something&quot;. He seemed to understand what I was trying to say, but I'm pretty sure I didn't speak correctly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This turn of phrase came to mind because I'm pretty sure I have heard someone say 什么什么了 as a placeholder to mean &quot;whatever&quot; or &quot;something&quot;, signifying that the speaker doesn't care what the actual thing is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this expression correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5917" LastEditorUserId="5917" LastEditDate="2014-07-04T13:38:12.040" LastActivityDate="2014-07-04T13:38:12.040" Title="How to Say the &quot;something&quot; in the phrase &quot;Do something&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8567" CreationDate="2014-07-03T21:32:38.160" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;First you were right by using 什么 to mean &quot;something&quot; in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 了 is a past tense indicator, which was not supposed to be there because you didn't hang out yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct way to say “Do something together” in Chinese is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一起做些什么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一起做点什么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-07-03T21:32:38.160" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8567" CreationDate="2014-07-04T02:03:51.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why don't you say &quot;一起去玩&quot; / &quot;一起去走走&quot; / etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no need to stress the phrase &quot;doing something&quot; in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-04T02:03:51.810" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8567" CreationDate="2014-07-04T03:27:14.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;By no meaning of bad,among the friends you can say:&quot;&lt;code&gt;混&lt;/code&gt;&quot;or&quot;&lt;code&gt;泡&lt;/code&gt;&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;“&lt;code&gt;在朋友家混&lt;/code&gt;”,&quot;hang out in friend's place&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;“&lt;code&gt;在酒吧混&lt;/code&gt;”or“&lt;code&gt;泡吧&lt;/code&gt;”,&quot;hang out in the bar&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;“&lt;code&gt;我们今天去泡游泳池&lt;/code&gt;”，&quot;We are going to hang out in the pool&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&quot;&lt;code&gt;晃悠&lt;/code&gt;&quot;also express &quot;hang out&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;“&lt;code&gt;他和朋友在广场晃悠&lt;/code&gt;”，&quot;He is hanging out with friends in the square.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;When you invite friends on the phone,you can say:“今天出来&lt;code&gt;晃晃&lt;/code&gt;？”，or“出来&lt;code&gt;兜兜&lt;/code&gt;？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5855" LastActivityDate="2014-07-04T03:27:14.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8571" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8572" CreationDate="2014-07-04T04:01:26.660" Score="0" ViewCount="3094" Body="&lt;p&gt;A constant feature in all things Chinese is the color (colour, for those yank-challanged among y'all) red. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As common knowledge goes, it is because red is considered to be lucky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T10:04:34.073" Title="Why Is The Color Red Considered Lucky In Chinese Language and Culture?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8571" CreationDate="2014-07-04T04:17:28.910" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here we have an old tale in China, saying that there is a beast called the &quot;Nian&quot; (年獸), and it will only attack people in spring. But it's afraid of all things red.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why Chinese people use many red things in the lunar new year (also in spring). It became a common color represent &quot;lucky&quot; in Chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More information about Nian can be found here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nian&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5919" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-02T10:04:34.073" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T10:04:34.073" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8571" CreationDate="2014-07-04T07:34:39.203" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Red represents fire.  Fire (離卦) in I-Ching (易經) also represents Light, Warmth, Sun, Smart, Talent, Beauty, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, Red is considered a good color (when used properly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-04T07:34:39.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8575" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-04T14:04:02.923" Score="4" ViewCount="500" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to say I want to leave or I want to go home colloquially in the case of we are visiting someone's place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say I'm visiting my auntie, then when it's the time for me to leave, what should I say to her?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it ok to say &quot;姑姑，我先走啊&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I feel 先走 sounds awkward. Is there better colloquial alternative words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastActivityDate="2014-07-05T06:53:17.870" Title="How to say I want to leave colloquially?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8575" CreationDate="2014-07-04T14:28:39.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You've got it dude &lt;strong&gt;先走&lt;/strong&gt; is a great way to express that it's time for you to leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you feel like it's too much you can just say &lt;strong&gt;我走了&lt;/strong&gt; without the whole pomp and circumstance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: if you feel it's too &lt;em&gt;mean&lt;/em&gt; then you can explain why you've gotta go (我走了，已经很晚了) - but shouldn't be a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-04T14:52:19.667" LastActivityDate="2014-07-04T14:52:19.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8575" CreationDate="2014-07-04T15:56:08.523" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;我先走了 is a perfect way to say.&#xA;you can also say,我得(děi)走了; 我要走了;我得(děi)回家了;我还有点事,先走了; 好了,我得(děi)走了;不早了,我先走了;行,我先回去了;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5785" LastEditorUserId="5785" LastEditDate="2014-07-04T16:10:47.887" LastActivityDate="2014-07-04T16:10:47.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8532" CreationDate="2014-07-04T16:06:15.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might be interested to know that for some of the minority (non-sinitic) languages of China with tonal systems, tone letters are used rather than marks or numbers.  Two examples are Zhuang and Hmong (Miao).  Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Northern Zhuang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;na [na24]  ‘thick’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;naz [na42]  ‘paddy field’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;naj [na55]  ‘face’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no letter indicates a rising tone, -z a falling tone, -j a high tone.  There are 6 open syllable and 2 closed syllable tones altogether.  (All of these words have clear cognates in Thai, by the way.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White Hmong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kuv [ku24]  ‘I’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;koj  [ko53]  ‘you’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pos [po11]  ‘thorn’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How confusing this would be depends in part on whether real consonants can appear in syllable-final position or not.  If so, you would have to get used to distinguishing the real ones from the ones just marking tone.  For these two languages, I believe Zhuang has a fair number of final consonants (including stops), but Hmong has very few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t know if this system has ever been applied to a Chinese dialect.  Probably one could do so, because Chinese syllables are not that different from Zhuang and Hmong ones in their basic shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-04T16:06:15.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8523" CreationDate="2014-07-04T20:13:12.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use 压关节,压指头,挤关节,扳指头.&#xA;I am from the north of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5785" LastActivityDate="2014-07-04T20:13:12.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2646" CreationDate="2014-07-04T23:02:50.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 萌 méng, defined as &quot;sprout; bud; germinate&quot; has the connotations of a &quot;baby&quot; plant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another term for &quot;cute&quot; (at least in American English) is &quot;baby-faced.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To liken someone to a 萌 is to refer to him as a &quot;baby&quot; (face), and therefore cute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2014-07-04T23:02:50.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8575" CreationDate="2014-07-05T06:53:17.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say I'm visiting my auntie, then when it's the time for me to leave, what should I say to her?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If at night or afternoon , I will say &quot;天不早了, 我该走了&quot; which it's late that I should leave. It is very normal in north China , especially in countryside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &quot;我有点事, 我该走了.&quot; means &quot;I have something to do, and I should leave&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5874" LastActivityDate="2014-07-05T06:53:17.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8583" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-05T08:46:12.150" Score="3" ViewCount="403" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 一个泡子 really mean ? my teacher had asked our class to do some assignment about our names in chinese and find the meaning too. I use chinese simplified in google translate to find my name. but I do not know how to find the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5925" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T21:07:33.463" Title="What does 一个泡子 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8583" CreationDate="2014-07-05T11:38:15.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could mean quite a few things, I think more context is needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;pàozǐ&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opium bubble&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;light bulb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pond&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;young boy kept by a man for sexual pleasure; a homosexual&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{Changsha dialect} froth, foam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;pāozi&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pool of water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;small lake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;个&lt;/strong&gt; doesn't really make it clear, as it &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; be used as a measure word for bubbles, ponds, light bulbs and even young boys.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-05T11:38:15.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8583" CreationDate="2014-07-05T14:46:57.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Finding the implicit meaning can be sometimes be a tough chore. Instead of just Google Translate you should also look for a Chinese-English dictionary for your computer or tablet (search this website questions/answers for dictionary resources or see this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/3634/tommie-c&quot;&gt;resource if you have a Mac OSX&lt;/a&gt;). I will say that the context is also not clear to me on the question you've asked because the phrase you've provided seems to have no relative common name (i.e. if the phrase you've presented was supposed to reference your name, the characters do not appear to make sense in that context).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked a native speaker and she points out that the typical pattern seen is &quot;一个泡沫&quot; (Yīgè pàomò, 一個泡沫) meaning a bubble as in the bubble a child blows or it can be used in the phrase 经济泡沫 (Jīngjì pàomò, 經濟泡沫) meaning an economic bubble. There are many other resources that show up in answers here on the website, which can help you with individual interpretation of characters but to get the proper context, one should always seek out a native language speaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2014-07-05T14:46:57.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3668" CreationDate="2014-07-05T16:06:19.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For Android, there is Pinyiner (&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.astratech.chinesereader_free&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.astratech.chinesereader_free&lt;/a&gt;) . It works offline, you can even read books, mark new words and create flashcards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5926" LastActivityDate="2014-07-05T16:06:19.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8587" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8616" CreationDate="2014-07-05T20:16:51.587" Score="1" ViewCount="2767" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, thank you to everyone for taking the time to read this question. I am curious whether knowledgeable native speakers could assist me with the following grammar questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am aware of the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://mandarin.about.com/od/grammar/a/sentencestruct.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;rules that apply to Mandarin Chinese Grammar.&lt;/a&gt; I believe the sentence types below apply to both English and Mandarin Chinese languages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NB - These English sentence types are samples pulled from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.english-grammar-revolution.com/sentence-structure.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;English Grammar Revolution website&lt;/a&gt; on sentence structure. They are not meant to be translated but to provide context so that my questions below are understood as they relate to grammar constructions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple Sentence&lt;/strong&gt; - A sentence having one independent clause: i.e. I drink tea. (我喝茶).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Compound Sentence&lt;/strong&gt; - A sentence having at least two independent clauses (joined by either a coordinating conjunction [并列连词] or a semi-colon): i.e. Because he is Chinese so he really likes to eat Chinese food.  (my sample - 因为他是中国人所以他很喜欢吃中国菜)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NB - Coordinating conjunctions glue words, phrases, or clauses together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Complex Sentence&lt;/strong&gt; - A sentence containing a subordinate clause (a group of words that have subject and verb but does not express a complete thought) and an independent clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. I washed the dishes after I ate breakfast. (this is just a sample English complex sentence, not a translation request)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q1: Could someone supply a sample Mandarin Chinese complex sentence here?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Compound-Complex Sentence&lt;/strong&gt; - A sentence that contains at least two independent clauses and at least one subordinate clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. I would have purchased the cheese that you like, but it was too expensive. (this is just a sample English Compound-Complex sentence, not a translation request)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q2: Could someone supply a sample Mandarin Chinese compound-complex sentence here?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q3: Have I missed any major Mandarin Chinese sentence types?&lt;/strong&gt; I do understand that there are many other phrases (conjunctions that I could have displayed) but I am interested in determining the broader category of sentences available in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the following conjunctions can be used to create more complex sentences. Please feel free to share an example or two using some of these in your answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不但。。。而且,&#xA;不过,&#xA;除了。。。以外,&#xA;但是,&#xA;跟,&#xA;还是,&#xA;和,&#xA;或者,&#xA;可是,&#xA;那,&#xA;虽然,&#xA;所以,&#xA;要是,&#xA;因为&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-07-09T01:19:02.933" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T11:25:37.927" Title="Sample Mandarin Grammar (Sentences)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8589" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8591" CreationDate="2014-07-06T09:46:17.740" Score="2" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen &lt;strong&gt;意饺&lt;/strong&gt; translated as ravioli.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously 意饺 = 意大利 + 饺子, but does it only refer to ravioli? There's a lot of different kinds of Italian &quot;dumplings&quot;, no? Can it refer to other things besides ravioli or not?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other stuffed Italian pastas that look like 饺子 have a look: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.foodsubs.com/PastaStuffed.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;agnolotti&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cappelletti&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pansotti&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ravioli&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tortelli (anolini)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tortellini&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tortelloni&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-07T05:22:51.560" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T01:01:44.500" Title="意饺: English Translation?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1055" CreationDate="2014-07-06T09:54:37.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;东西&quot; almost always means &quot;something,&quot; though as Don says you might more gracefully translate it by another word.  And as Jon commented, when it does not mean &quot;something&quot;, then it is pronounced differently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Friends in Taiyuan told me of a conference of Eastern and Western Provinces in China that did not include the (central) province of Shanxi.   They joked on the two meanings by saying &quot;山西不是东西.&quot;  A more careful grammarian could spoil the joke by saying &quot;山西不是东西方。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2014-07-06T09:54:37.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8589" CreationDate="2014-07-06T15:38:08.750" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Far as I know, names such as 意饺 really don't refer to any specifics - instead, they are simply names given to foreign foods that resemble their &quot;chinese counterparts.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饺子 refers to boiled dumplings (note, &lt;em&gt;dumplings&lt;/em&gt; alone refers to, ambiguously, 粽子, 饺子, and 包子) - where a stuffing is wrapped in a layer of dough and boiled in water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, 意大利 饺子 really refers to any food originating in Italy and resembling Chinese boiled dumplings. So far, the only Italian food I think resembles boiled dumplings is ravioli. So &lt;strong&gt;yes, 意饺 does refer to just ravioli&lt;/strong&gt; - until some new Italian food is invented that also resembles Chinese boiled dumplings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, I want to note that terms such as 意饺 really originate from big food industries trying to introduce fancy foreign-ish flavors into the Chinese market, labelling them with fancy names for &quot;marketing&quot; purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; Many of the foods in this link, pointed out by &lt;code&gt;user330506&lt;/code&gt;, could also thus be referred to as 意饺 - far as I know, that is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4520" LastEditorUserId="4520" LastEditDate="2014-07-08T02:05:01.187" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T02:05:01.187" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8592" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8593" CreationDate="2014-07-06T17:45:07.007" Score="1" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XQwQL.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;Is this Chinese?  If so can you tell me what it says in english?  Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5928" LastActivityDate="2014-07-06T18:13:18.590" Title="Is this Chinese? If so can you tell me what it says in english? Thank you" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-07-07T01:09:05.677" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8592" CreationDate="2014-07-06T18:13:18.590" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is Chinese (and it's written in Simplified Chinese). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;苹果&quot; means &quot;apple&quot;; and &quot;帝国&quot; means &quot;Empire&quot;. The whole phrase could be translated as &quot;The Apple Empire&quot; or &quot;The Empire of Apple&quot; into English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4668" LastActivityDate="2014-07-06T18:13:18.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2646" CreationDate="2014-07-07T08:27:18.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;萌&lt;/code&gt;is more than cute or lovely,it performs a way to express the feelings about something is too adorable that you can't resist.&lt;Br /&gt;&#xA;It is like the one you described makes green shoots grow out of your heart.&lt;Br /&gt;&#xA;It is extended by Japanese phrase 萌え。&lt;Br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;萌&lt;/code&gt;'s common usage in chinese phrase: &lt;Br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;萌芽&lt;/code&gt;,&quot;grow up&quot;&lt;Br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;萌生&lt;/code&gt;,&quot;grow out&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5855" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T08:27:18.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8523" CreationDate="2014-07-07T10:16:28.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Crack' in 'Crack Knuckles' is &quot;咔&quot;, which is an onomatopoeia. The pinyin of &quot;咔&quot; is &quot;ka&quot;, sounds just like &quot;crack&quot; for short. So I would translate 'Crack Knuckles' into &quot;把指节扳得咔咔响&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 指节     扳得  咔咔  响&#xA;&lt;br&gt;   Knuckles pull  Crack sound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Means &quot;pull the knuckles, make noise sounds like crack&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5932" LastEditorUserId="5932" LastEditDate="2014-07-07T10:27:02.753" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T10:27:02.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8583" CreationDate="2014-07-07T10:44:33.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;a bubble&quot;. But usually we say &quot;一个泡&quot; instead of &quot;一个泡子&quot;, because &quot;泡子&quot; sounds a bit weird (maybe it's common in some area of China).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &quot;泡&quot; can refer to a soap bubble, water bubble, or blister. Like &quot;I spill some boiling water on my arm by accident, and I got a blister(一个泡) now&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &quot;My little sister is blowing bubbles(吹泡泡) with soap water&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps: &quot;泡&quot; is more often referred to blister on human body&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&quot;泡泡&quot; is more often to soap bubble or bubble gum's bubble.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&quot;气泡&quot; is more often to water bubble (like bubbles in soda water)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5932" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T10:44:33.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8597" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8598" CreationDate="2014-07-07T13:34:33.573" Score="-1" ViewCount="347" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an official (bit of a stretch) translation for 凉虾 (米凉虾) in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia only has a chinese page: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%87%89%E8%99%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;凉虾&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only info I could find is, well, awful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=4UFaBhpD3i8bLCWL06KxJVKZfy0l_8boXKjrxsCTMuz31d2y-9FH5ECcISSGWvJX30C1A9ElB_QxNRCrq1var_&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;百度知道&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;宜昌凉虾英文介绍&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yichang is located in ChuanE throat, it's eating habits and for the length of ChuanE flavor concurrently and colourful happening, and it added some unique features, and feel more exquisite taste delicious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宜昌地处川鄂咽喉，它的饮食习惯便因兼具川鄂风味之长而丰富多彩变化万千，又不觉中添加了一些自己的特色，于是品尝起来感觉更是细腻美味了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cool shrimp, not shrimp, just a kind of solid particles like shrimp of relieving drinks. Cool prawn production process is so simple, is to make the hot MiJiang encounter condensing water shape (form outside image shrimp), confirmed after water can be eaten. Summer's streets are everywhere. Walk tired, I felt hot, drink and fifty cents, refreshing, refreshed...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;凉虾，并不是虾，只是一种固体颗粒象虾仁的消夏饮品。凉虾的制作过程很简单，就是让热的米浆遇冷凝结成水滴状(外形象虾仁)，兑水后即可食用。夏天的街道上随处可见。走累了，觉得热了，喝一杯，五角钱，沁人心脾，神清气爽……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure &lt;em&gt;cool shrimp&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a helpful translation...not to mention the rest that is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: after tommy's answer I did more research and found this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.6eat.com/DataStore/CardExpensePage/415525_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;6eat&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;酒店餐厅菜单英文翻译&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　米凉虾 Rice noodles frozen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but that doesn't seem to be such a great translation either....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-07T14:39:17.863" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T03:12:41.420" Title="Translation: 凉虾 (米凉虾)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8597" CreationDate="2014-07-07T14:29:53.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there an official (bit of a stretch) translation for 凉虾 (米凉虾) in English?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%87%89%E8%99%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;凉虾&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The page you've referenced is talking about a dish of cold shrimp seen in several cities on the mainland. You could just run that page through Google Translate for a pretty clear interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Results of Google Translation show cold shrimp...:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xVlku.png&quot; alt=&quot;Cold Shrimp&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, because this is a dish and I have seen many restaurants make up any number of English names for the same dishes, I doubt that an &quot;official&quot; English translation exists (naturally I could be wrong but I've asked native speakers and they have not been able to clarify further). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Colloquial usage&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Asking a native Chinese speaker about this, she informs me that 凉虾 could also mean &quot;cool a bit&quot; as ha can be used to infer (－下) &quot;a bit.&quot; As in cool off one's temper or even temperature (body) a bit. Because it is colloquial, applications of this interpretation may vary across communities (for example, the colloquialism may not apply to different regions of Mandarin speakers).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sound Inference&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my poorly trained ear I sometimes confuse the sound of &quot;凉虾&quot; Liángxiā with &quot;龙虾&quot; lóngxiā (lobster).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.meishij.net/china-food/xiaochi/hubei/14717.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Meishij Recipe for Cold Shrimp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-07-07T15:58:53.463" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T15:58:53.463" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8589" CreationDate="2014-07-07T19:01:03.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;意饺 doesn't have any real meaning, it's just a name given to a foreign nouns that aren't seen in China (or foreign proper nouns).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, it can be used as an umbrella term to any italian stuffed pasta (because they all resemble dumplings); however there are probably additional characters that can be added to denote a more specific type of pasta&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&#xA;意大利面条 is spaghetti, 面条 is noodles (which is what it resembles)&#xA;while 意大利通心面 is ziti (通心 is macaroni)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T19:01:03.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="150" CreationDate="2014-07-07T19:32:51.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very offensive and strange to talk to strangers or in a formal situation.&#xA;It also depends on users' level of social class I think.&#xA;I never use it to describe something good or when I miss somebody.&#xA;Speaking of that, I never use f..k in English to talk to my friends either.&#xA;I guess it depends on the people's personality.&#xA;I could imagine the gangsters using 他妈的 all the time to address their buddies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But using 他妈的 to describe a pain is really common.&#xA;like if I bump my head, I would say '操,他妈的真疼'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5785" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T19:32:51.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8601" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8602" CreationDate="2014-07-07T19:43:42.447" Score="1" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;We found this charm in a box of buttons, and I'm curious what it means... For all I know it may not be Chinese, but it looks like it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried translating it using the Google Translate app... While it saw the shape of the charm, it was unable to come up with any matching translation. I tried to draw it in manually as well, but it did not recognize my pictogram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not really sure how else to go about trying to figure out the translation myself. (The little roundish thing at the top is just the hanger to put a chain through).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rIw2E.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, if anyone knows this character from a different language, feel free to point that out too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5936" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-07-08T01:56:19.750" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T01:56:19.750" Title="Can someone translate this charm?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-07-08T01:56:47.333" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8601" CreationDate="2014-07-07T20:16:32.413" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like the character for laughter in Chinese 笑'xiao'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3775" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T20:16:32.413" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8603" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8607" CreationDate="2014-07-08T01:55:47.127" Score="3" ViewCount="468" Body="&lt;p&gt;The topic of 劵 vs 券 came up a couple of months ago and I did some Internet research at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I turned up a document about an orthographic reform in China in 1995 which included, among many other tweaks, that these two are now considered variants of the same character in simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More specifically, both characters were already in use with different meanings but 券 was to acquire the meanings of 劵 since 劵 was going to be simplified by merging into 券, thus leaving 劵 as obsolete in simplified writing though they obviously must remain separate in traditional writing and also in simplified writing up to 1995.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But now the topic has arisen again and I can't seem to find the discussions that lead me to the official document last time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would like to ask the experts here how much of this I have right, if I have anything wrong, and can we find the official document detailing this change?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T05:40:06.920" Title="Did 劵 and 券 become variants in PRC/simplified in 1995?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;orthography&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8603" CreationDate="2014-07-08T02:52:39.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Too long for a comment so I'll post this as an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not very official but here's an insight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;百度百科&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果从康熙字典上的字义来看，是不能通用的！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而我们现在的简体字上，经常会看到“劵”与“券”互用，尤其是广东地区。现代简体字，“劵”与“券”是可以通用的，国内的一些新闻报道上也经常将“劵”与“券”同用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems like a case of being interchangeable rather than simplification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;规范词典&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;劵/券&#xA;名 作为凭证的纸片; 票据&#xA;国库券｜优待券｜证券。&#xA;注意 ㊀不读juàn。㊁跟“卷(juàn)”不同。“奖券”“债券”“入场券”等中的“券”不要误写作“卷”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guifan here too lists them as being interchangeable listing it as &amp;quot;劵/券&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;longmans&lt;/strong&gt; (an HK based dictionary)&#xA;劵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;券的異體字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so if this has anything to do with the cantonese speaking areas like Baidu mentioned then HK, etc just view 劵 as a variant of 券.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T03:11:22.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8603" CreationDate="2014-07-08T02:57:40.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/js/52B5.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;劵&quot;&lt;/a&gt; is the ancient form of &quot;倦&quot; (tired).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玉篇 (四庫全書) - &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=54557&amp;amp;page=60&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=54557&amp;amp;page=60&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;集韻 (四庫全書) - &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=9487&amp;amp;page=20&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=9487&amp;amp;page=20&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/js/5238.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;券&quot;&lt;/a&gt; is certificate/ticket/etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玉篇 (四庫全書) - &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=54559&amp;amp;page=35&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=54559&amp;amp;page=35&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;集韻 (四庫全書) - &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=9478&amp;amp;page=154&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=9478&amp;amp;page=154&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are two distinct characters; neither is the simplified form of another,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-07-08T05:21:18.463" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T05:21:18.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8597" CreationDate="2014-07-08T03:12:41.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Tiny rice orzo in light sweet soup&quot; .... um .... doesn't sound sexy at all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For traditional foods, I prefer keeping their original pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T03:12:41.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8603" CreationDate="2014-07-08T03:52:27.210" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No. It became a variant way earlier than that.&lt;/strong&gt; There may well have been a document to that effect in 1995, but it would not have been anything new.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is well established that &lt;code&gt;劵&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;券&lt;/code&gt; were two different &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Seal_Script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;seal scripts characters&lt;/a&gt;, as @HenryHO points out. However, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_Dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Qing Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; linguist &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duan_Yucai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tuan Yu-tsai&lt;/a&gt;'s annotated version of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;Shuo-wen Chieh-Tzu&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【&lt;strong&gt;清·段玉裁·說文解字注&lt;/strong&gt;】鄭云：『劵今倦字也。』據此則 &lt;strong&gt;漢時已倦行劵廢&lt;/strong&gt; 矣。今皆作倦，蓋由與契券從刀相似而避之也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;劵&lt;/code&gt; was the initial &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;clerical script&lt;/a&gt; adoption of the original seal script character. According to Tuan, the visual similarity to &lt;code&gt;券&lt;/code&gt; caused the character to be rewritten as &lt;code&gt;倦&lt;/code&gt; as early as by the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Han Dynasty&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems then the original &lt;code&gt;劵&lt;/code&gt; character was then subsumed into the character &lt;code&gt;券&lt;/code&gt; as a variant clerical script form, either intentionally or by mistake due to their visual similarity. This is supported by the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Song Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; dictionary &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiyun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Collected Rimes&lt;/a&gt;, edited by &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%81%E5%BA%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ding Du&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【&lt;strong&gt;宋·集韻·去聲·願韻&lt;/strong&gt;】契也。&lt;strong&gt;劵別書之&lt;/strong&gt; 書以刀判契其旁，故曰契劵。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which explicitly named them as variants in an official government dictionary, almost 980 years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Therefore, &lt;code&gt;劵&lt;/code&gt; has been a variant of &lt;code&gt;券&lt;/code&gt; for over a thousand years.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;possible&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; earlier reference &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; be in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Southern Liang Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; dictionary &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yupian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jade Chapters &lt;code&gt;(玉篇)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (Note: NOT the Song Dynasty &lt;code&gt;大廣益會玉篇&lt;/code&gt;) by the scholar &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A1%A7%E9%87%8E%E7%8E%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ku Yeh-wang&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【&lt;strong&gt;梁·顧野王·玉篇&lt;/strong&gt;】&lt;strong&gt;契書&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has been cited by the Taiwanese Ministry of Education as the first attested use of &lt;code&gt;劵&lt;/code&gt; as a variant for &lt;code&gt;券&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;If true&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, the use of them as variants would have been as early as a couple of centuries after the Han Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-08T05:40:06.920" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T05:40:06.920" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8603" CreationDate="2014-07-08T04:51:34.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have finally managed to locate the document and the forum thread that lead me to it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/prC1m.png&quot; alt=&quot;Chinese document title page&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.china-language.gov.cn/wenziguifan/managed/003.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.china-language.gov.cn/wenziguifan/managed/003.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;User &lt;code&gt;pts&lt;/code&gt; posted the best comments on the Skritter thread &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=133231713&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;刀/力 recognition&quot;&lt;/a&gt; from November 2011:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;券 [quàn] means tickets or bonds. This one is easy. zdic.net defines 劵 [juàn] as 倦 (tired, exhausted). In the tab 康熙字典, we can find the following:《說文》勞也。《徐曰》今俗作倦。《正字通》與契券之券異。券从刀，此从力。(It is different from the 券 as used in 契券 (carved contract). 券 is related to 刀. This is related to 力.) So, 券 and 劵 are different characters. They have different meanings and pronunciations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Then in the year 1995, mainland China decreed that one should stop using 劵 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.china-language.gov.cn/wenziguifan/managed/003.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.china-language.gov.cn/wenziguifan/managed/003.htm&lt;/a&gt;) . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So, superficially, this is very simply. If one is using simplified characters, just forgets about 劵 and uses only 券 for both 券 and 劵. For those using traditional characters, the distinction should still be clear. Contracts are carved and so requires a knife. 'Tired' is about physical strength. There should be no confusion between them. But in the real world, peoples do not seem to correct themselves and everybody just seem to randomly pick a character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So I don't think that the students will correct themselves if the laoshis are not doing their jobs properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;@DavidChung nciku is correct in pointing out that 券 is a simplified form of 劵, because 券 now does indeed represent both of the traditional characters 券 and 劵. It only failed to also point out that 劵 have a different reading and meaning to 券.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T04:51:34.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8610" CreationDate="2014-07-08T09:07:09.527" Score="5" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;非常抱歉 ， 我们无法提供相关的API进入词库数据库 ，这些是受到版权保护的 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically they can't provide access to the database via API, but I'm wondering why they use 进入, as I thought it was related to physical entrance of a person into a place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen that usually the verb is 访问数据库, but I've never studied Chinese vocabulary related to the IT field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3775" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T04:49:18.817" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T04:49:18.817" Title="Why is 进入 in 我们无法提供相关的API进入词库数据库?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8609" CreationDate="2014-07-08T09:22:50.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;进入 has two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to go in from the outside, e.g. &lt;code&gt;进入大學&lt;/code&gt; &quot;enter the university&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to reach a certain time period or status, e.g. &lt;code&gt;进入夏天&lt;/code&gt; &quot;become summer&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The intended meaning here is the first, &lt;strong&gt;which does not have to be physical at all&lt;/strong&gt;. For instance, one might say &quot;Open the options&quot; in Chinese as &lt;code&gt;进入選項&lt;/code&gt;; literally, &quot;go into the options (menu)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this sentence just means &quot;to go inside the database&quot;, i.e. accessing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that both &lt;code&gt;访问&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;进入&lt;/code&gt; are in fairly common use for describing accessing a database, but with some differences. The former is more technical in nature. The phrase originally meant &quot;to visit&quot;, and it got adopted to refer to accessing databases. For instance, you might speak of &lt;code&gt;写一个访问 Oracle 数据库的程序&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;write a program to access Oracle databases&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, using &lt;code&gt;进入&lt;/code&gt; is more about connecting to, and thus being able to access the contents of, a database. A university library might say &lt;code&gt;點此進入圖書館資料庫&lt;/code&gt; &quot;click here to enter the library catalogue database&quot;, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So generally, you'd use &lt;code&gt;访问&lt;/code&gt; for the technical database access process, while &lt;code&gt;进入&lt;/code&gt; can be used for accessing in a nontechnical sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-08T10:27:19.060" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T10:27:19.060" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8612" CreationDate="2014-07-08T11:31:03.400" Score="2" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;We're getting 地灾 warnings over here...but what is a 地灾?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently it's short for 地质灾害...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;adsotrans&lt;/strong&gt; dictionary defines it, word-for-word, as a geological disaster; which is pretty meaningless because who has ever even heard of a geological disaster?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;规范&lt;/strong&gt; writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;地震、泥石流、地面塌陷、火山爆发等&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I mean, that is super broad and doesn't really tell me much - either there's gonna be an earthquake or a volcano is about to erupt...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a proper translation for 地灾? (natural disaster? perhaps?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and is it really that un-specific?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T02:26:30.207" Title="Translation: 地灾" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8611" CreationDate="2014-07-08T13:15:22.473" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The proper translation is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_hazards&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;geologic hazards&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. It is used to refer to any disaster that result from either human land use or natural &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category%3aGeological_processes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;geological processes&lt;/a&gt;. Consequently, it is quite a large and, yes, unspecific, group of disasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In China, generally speaking it refers to one of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockfall&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Rockfalls&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudslide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mudslides&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landslide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Landslides&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ground subsidences&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinkhole&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sinkholes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Earth fissures&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically geologic hazards can actually refer to many other phenomenons, but these are the ones usually meant when warnings and reports on &lt;code&gt;地灾&lt;/code&gt; are issued. As you can obviously see, these specific disasters revolve around a similar theme. They are especially likely to happen after heavy rain. And so they often get referred to collectively as &lt;code&gt;地质灾害&lt;/code&gt; in the press.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the risk is actually a volcanic eruption, the press would probably spell out &lt;code&gt;火山爆发&lt;/code&gt; instead of being vague by warning of &lt;code&gt;地灾&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-08T13:22:04.893" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T13:22:04.893" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8609" CreationDate="2014-07-08T18:39:28.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, it feels like that sentence is Google translated from English, however i don't feel 进入词库数据库 weird, I always say 进入 database, 进入 host.. I feel that 进入 is like more causal use and 访问 is more official and professional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5899" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T18:39:28.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6575" CreationDate="2014-07-08T21:58:09.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also turn Mandarin lists (of characters) into Cantonese aids by using CantoFish for Firefox. It will also give you Pinyun / Jyutping for the 360 doc mentioned above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, using the characters you can check forvo for audio files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two article that can help out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonesehq.com/blog/7-tips-to-learn-cantonese-fast-for-beginners&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;7 tips for learning Cantonese Fast&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;2) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonesehq.com/blog/the-most-common-words-in-cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The most common words in Cantonese - how to for the suggestion above.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5943" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T21:58:09.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2718" CreationDate="2014-07-09T00:15:18.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some resources for learning Cantonese,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good starter sites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;cantonese.ca&lt;/strong&gt; - This has a good collections of beginner words in&#xA;useful categories.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;cantonesehq.com&lt;/strong&gt; - This site has some tips&#xA;and tricks for beginner and a collection of mnemonics for absolute&#xA;beginners.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best online dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;cantonese.sheik.co.uk/&lt;/strong&gt; - best online dictionary for cantonese learners out there. Includes characters, pinyin, and jyutping.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Audio files:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;forvo.com&lt;/strong&gt; - take the characters from cantodict over to forvo to get audio files. Sometimes there are even multiple.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fun and Games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tilespeak.com/play_tilespeak.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tilespeak&lt;/a&gt; - simple mahjong game that says the words and begins your familiarization with characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;gooddrama.net&lt;/strong&gt; - has some hong kong movies on it. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonesehq.com/cantonese-learning-resources/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;even more...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5944" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T00:15:18.463" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-09T00:15:18.463" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8587" CreationDate="2014-07-09T01:07:32.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt; with answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q0: example of a sample compound sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;o. 她跳舞, 我歌唱.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q1: Could someone supply a sample Mandarin Chinese complex sentence here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;a. 那是**我遇见她的**房子. (adjectival clause)&#xA;b. 我知道**答案是什么**. (noun clause)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q2: Could someone supply a sample Mandarin Chinese compound-complex sentence here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;x. 她跳舞, 我知道**_她跳的_是什么舞**.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(this is partly using o and b)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q3: Have I missed any major Mandarin Chinese sentence types? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, I think the three types (simple, compound, complex) are the major ones.&#xA;Again, compound-complex / complex-compound is just built on compound and complex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(note: I am not able to make the characters &lt;strong&gt;bold&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;em&gt;italic&lt;/em&gt; in the above sentences)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will start with your Q3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think simple, compound, and complex are the three types. You can count compound-complex / complex-compound as a fourth, but it's really building on compound and complex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am inclined to believe that &lt;code&gt;compound sentence&lt;/code&gt; and (&lt;em&gt;some of&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;code&gt;complex sentence&lt;/code&gt; (*) in English tend to be the same thing in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(*) &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependent_clause#Adverbial_clause&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Adverbial_clause&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare this example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I ate breakfast before I washed the dishes. (A)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I ate breakfast, and I washed the dishes. (B)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The distinction between &lt;code&gt;before&lt;/code&gt; (adverb) and &lt;code&gt;and&lt;/code&gt; (conjunction) is not so big in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependent_clause#Noun_clause&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;noun clause&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependent_clause#Relative_.28adjectival.29_clause&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;adjectival clause&lt;/a&gt; are a different story though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;code&gt;noun clause&lt;/code&gt; (and an answer to your Q1), if we consider &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependent_clause#Noun_clause&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; as complex:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I know who said that.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then we have this complex Mandarin sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我知道是谁说的.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note that the addition of &lt;code&gt;是&lt;/code&gt; and the omission of &lt;code&gt;that&lt;/code&gt;, which changes the sentence structure quite a bit. Due to that, I don't know if the Chinese sentence should be counted as complex.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, when you think of &lt;code&gt;adjectival clause&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the house where I met her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be translated to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;那是我遇见她的房子.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably that is what makes you think that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;the sentence types below apply to both English and Mandarin Chinese languages&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a side note, &#xA;I think the classification of simple, compound and complex is more or less based on English, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_clause_structure&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5945" LastEditorUserId="5945" LastEditDate="2014-07-13T11:25:37.927" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T11:25:37.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8611" CreationDate="2014-07-09T02:26:30.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very common seeing shortened and generalized terms in PRC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地震、泥石流、地面塌陷、火山爆发 ... --(generalize)--&gt; 地质灾害 --(shorten)--&gt; 地灾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Making things unspecified is some kind of trend, even in daily context.  For example, people write &quot;建議&quot; instead of 提醒/主張/敦促/呼籲/規勸/勸告/忠告/勸諭/勸阻/警告/告誡/....  and &quot;選擇&quot; instead of 惟有/不如/只好/寧願/寧可/情願/甘願/決意/被迫/故意/....  The more unspecified the harder it is to criticize or make judgements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T02:26:30.207" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8609" CreationDate="2014-07-09T03:02:31.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the original english term is &quot;access&quot;, &quot;存取&quot; is a more IT-like translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T03:02:31.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="150" CreationDate="2014-07-09T06:12:30.547" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since new swearing tag appears thick and fast...&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;他妈的&lt;/code&gt;is already sounds traditional...&#xA;It could come out of a gentleman's mouth,like the essay wrote by the great writer and thinker Lu Xun:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Those who live in China will often have occasion to hear the swear: tamade (他妈的) and others like it. I think the geographical distribution of this phrase is probably as wide as the lands upon which the Chinese have set foot; and I’m afraid the frequency of its use may not be less than that of the polite nin hao ya (您好呀). If, as some have put it, the peony is China’s “national flower”, then this has to be considered China’s “national swear” (guoma 国骂).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quote from &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagehat.com/tamade/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://languagehat.com/tamade/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5855" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T06:12:30.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8609" CreationDate="2014-07-09T06:19:58.737" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;first at all, the 进入 and 访问 are two concepts in IT field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the (进入 == enter or entry) meaning : you can login into a command-line of db.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the (访问 == access) meaning: you can access some data via APIs and you can't control the db.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, I am a developer and i am so glad to help you at next time if you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI, thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5859" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T06:19:58.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8622" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-09T14:40:16.877" Score="5" ViewCount="15011" Body="&lt;p&gt;if tones are so important in chinese as to even distinguish shades of meaning, how can a chinese sing a song? in music every syllable has its own note/tone, so when we sing a song, we must disregard the appropriate tone and apply the musical note to that chinese character... for example we must say &quot;zai&quot;(in...at...) with a falling pitch, but what if the note in the song necessitates us to pronounce &quot;zai&quot; with rising pitch????... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5949" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T02:48:59.407" Title="tones when singing a chinese song?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ClosedDate="2014-07-10T16:28:36.723" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8622" CreationDate="2014-07-09T15:03:56.147" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simple answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sinosplice&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/12/06/tones-in-chinese-songs&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tones In Chinese Songs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I’ve been asked a number of times: if Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, what happens when you sing in Mandarin? Well, the answer is the melody takes over and the tones are ignored. Pretty simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A graphic representation of tones spoken vs. sung in Mandarin [also from &lt;strong&gt;Sinosplice&lt;/strong&gt;]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/auvtA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, though I think, if you listen closely a lot of people are included to sing the tone even though they don't need to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-09T15:12:29.653" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T15:12:29.653" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8622" CreationDate="2014-07-10T02:46:20.843" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's why it is &lt;strong&gt;hard&lt;/strong&gt; writing Chinese lyrics .... rather hard for Mandarin songs (4 tones) .... and &lt;strong&gt;very hard&lt;/strong&gt; for Cantonese songs (9 tones).  And don't forget to maintain the &lt;strong&gt;rhyme&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the tone of a character do not match the tone of song, it is easy to be mistaken as another character.  Experienced singers may tweak the tone slightly as the last remedy.  In most cases, native speakers could deduce the correct character by the term or the whole sentence when listening to such songs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many hymns in Hong Kong were filled with Cantonese lyrics of the wrong tones.  They all sound extremely odd to native Cantonese speakers.  Luckily, the vocabulary used are quite predictable and most people can understand the hymns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People also make jokes through lyrics with deliberate wrong tones.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO84WRnqmlU&amp;amp;t=20&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Mcdull Kindergarden Song&quot; (春田花花幼稚園校歌)&lt;/a&gt; is a good example.  There is even a &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%A5%E7%94%B0%E8%8A%B1%E8%8A%B1%E5%B9%BC%E7%A8%9A%E5%9C%92%E6%A0%A1%E6%AD%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wiki page&lt;/a&gt;.  To translate the first sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們是快樂的好兒童 (written) = We are happy good kids&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鵝-滿-是-快-烙-滴-好耳痛 (sounded) = groose-full-is-quick-sear-drop-very painful ear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Funny, isn't it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T02:46:20.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8626" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-10T02:59:23.047" Score="7" ViewCount="2993" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think the official translation &quot;zhe teng&quot; is a best answer, but I don't know how to translate this word properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5951" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:41:24.780" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:41:24.780" Title="How to translate “折腾” to English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8626" CreationDate="2014-07-10T03:10:47.387" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off &amp;quot;zhe teng&amp;quot; can not be considered a translation of 折腾, and certainly not &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; official translation - it is simply just the pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A translation of 折腾 really depends on the context, and since you didn't provide any context then you can consider the following definitions and sample sentences and see which fits best:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;INFORMAL&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 turn from side to side; toss about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他折腾了好几个钟头才睡着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā zhēteng le hǎojǐ ge zhōngtóu cái shuìzháo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He tossed about in bed for hours before he got to sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 do sth. over and over again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徒工把旧机器拆了又安, 安了又拆, 折腾了好多回。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Túgōng bǎ jiù jīqì chāi le yòu ān, ān le yòu chāi, zhēteng le hǎoduō huí.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The young apprentice again and again took the old machine apart and then put it together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 cause physical or mental suffering; get sb. down&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牙疼真折腾人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yá téng zhēn zhēteng rén.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A toothache can get you down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 spend freely; squander&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没多久他就把那份家产折腾光了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Méi duōjiǔ tā jiù bǎ nà fèn jiāchǎn zhēteng guāng le.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It didn't take him long to squander away his family fortune.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T03:21:44.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8628" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8629" CreationDate="2014-07-10T06:51:45.750" Score="5" ViewCount="756" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry if this is getting too non-language specific, but I think it still has language merits that fit the sites requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国梦 we really &lt;em&gt;don't&lt;/em&gt; need a translation as it's clearly just a play on 美国梦 (the &quot;American Dream), so we have: the &quot;Chinese Dream.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What we do need is a &lt;strong&gt;definition&lt;/strong&gt;. What is the Chinese Dream?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are, of course, certain connotations that come with the American Dream: freedom, prosperity, etc. but I'm at a loss as to what the Chinese Dream means or even denotes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T09:06:16.210" Title="What is the &quot;Chinese Dream?&quot; (中国梦)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2014-09-10T19:44:14.753" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8628" CreationDate="2014-07-10T07:57:29.670" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese Dream is mostly a political slogan of Chinese President &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping&quot;&gt;Xi Jinping&lt;/a&gt;. It's the Communist Party's official vision for China since the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18th_National_Congress_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China&quot;&gt;18th National Congress&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大家都在讨论中国梦，我以为，实现中华民族伟大复兴，就是中华民族近代以来最伟大的梦想&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Everybody is discussing the Chinese Dream. I believe that accomplishing the great revival of the Chinese race, is the greatest dream of the Chinese nation in recent times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt; -- President Xi Jinping, 29 November 2012 &lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, Xi has outlined his plan of Chinese Dream to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Achieving a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moderately_prosperous_society&quot;&gt;moderately prosperous society&lt;/a&gt; by 2021 (the 100th anniversary of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_China&quot;&gt;Communist Party of China&lt;/a&gt;'s founding).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Achieving the dream of the Chinese nation's great revival by 2049 (the 100th anniversary of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China&quot;&gt;People's Republic of China&lt;/a&gt;'s founding), by putting in place the socialist utopia.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, the Communist Party subsequently issued a list of ways in which the Chinese Dream is supposed to differ from the American Dream. Conversely this establishes the definitions of the Chinese Dream to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Achieve national wealth - as opposed to private, personal wealth of American Dream&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Achieve national success - as opposed to the individual success of American Dream&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Limited to Chinese persons - as opposed to American Dream being for foreigners too&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Harmonious joy of the group - as opposed to American individual liberty/happiness&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Based on the depth of history - as opposed to American materialism of now&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Focus on the power of the masses - as opposed to American individualism&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the sake of national glory - as opposed to American belief for individual prestige&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I leave whether to believe any of their ideas for &quot;Chinese Dream&quot; up to you... You can read more about it on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Dream&quot;&gt;wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-10T10:27:01.020" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T10:27:01.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8626" CreationDate="2014-07-10T15:10:07.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with user3306356, it depends on contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me as a native speaker, the one I used and heard the most means &quot;torture or torturing&quot;&#xA;For instance, 您别折腾我了 Literally it means（Please）you stop torturing me. Note: 别...了 is a grammar usage meaning stop doing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T15:10:07.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3668" CreationDate="2014-07-10T23:48:09.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked a friend in 2001, how best to learn Chinese and he pointed me to the Bopomofo phonetic alphabet, and the schools and textbooks that use it.  That alphabet gave me very quickly an unambiguous tool for phonetic reading and writing so i didn't feel so entirely illiterate, it helped me learn pronunciation, helped me 'forget' my western phonetic patterns, gives me a way of typing or writing a word according to how i hear it, and i have been able to find dictionaries and childrens books i can buy where each chinese character has the bopomofo sound spelled out below or beside the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was a great piece of advice for me, and has accomplished more for me than pinyin, the letters of which, when i use them, are constantly reverting in my mind's ear to their western phonetic expressions.  The downside of BoPoMoFo is that it is less available in written form and also it is harder in the US to find a teacher who uses this method.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5954" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T23:48:09.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8633" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-11T06:12:28.063" Score="2" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read some articles Chinese, my question is about above subject, because if I want to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我没喝 (it is wrong)&#xA;我不喝 (it is right)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are there list of verb can be followed by 没(mei3) and 不(bu4)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5957" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T08:22:51.553" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T08:22:51.553" Title="When do we use 没(mei3) and 不(bu4) before verbs in sentences?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;negation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-07-11T19:01:03.187" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8633" CreationDate="2014-07-11T06:36:05.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;没 and 不 are fundamentally different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没 means &quot;didn't&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 means &quot;won't&quot; or &quot;don't&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually your two sentences are perfectly normal Chinese sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没喝 means I didn't drink (it) -or- I haven't drank&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不喝 means I don't want to drink -or- I won't drink&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ADVERB INFORMAL&#xA;  have not or did not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他来没来？——还没来呢。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tā lái méi lái？ —— hái méi lái ne.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Has he come yet?--Not yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 (used before verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs; never before 有) not; won't; not want to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不去。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wǒ bù qù.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm not going. or I won't go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他昨天不来,可是今天来了。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tā zuótiān bù lái, kěshì jīntiān lái le.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He didn't want to come yesterday,but he came today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the deal is: do you want to say haven't (yet), didn't (yet) = 没 -or- won't, don't (want to) = 不. Pretty much any verb can follow 没 and 不 everything just depends on what you want to express.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有 might be the only exception I can think of at the moment but that's been covered here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/247/why-is-%E6%9C%89-y%C7%92u-the-only-verb-that-requires-%E6%B2%A1-while-other-verbs-can-use-%E4%B8%8D&quot;&gt;Why is 有 (yǒu) the only verb that requires 没 while other verbs can use 不?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-07-11T06:52:25.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8635" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8636" CreationDate="2014-07-11T07:05:22.520" Score="5" ViewCount="627" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it okay if I want to say 做完 (finish working)? I have come across 吃完 (finish eating). Is it possible to say finish [doing bla bla] by writing ...完?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... can be filled with 做 or 写, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5957" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T22:04:10.730" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T22:04:10.730" Title="Can I use 完 after any verb to indicate the completion of activities?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;result-complement&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8635" CreationDate="2014-07-11T07:28:19.357" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah totally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;finish (the action of the preceding verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tuttle Learners&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;finish, end&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电影什么时候完？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Diànyǐng shénme shíhou wán?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When will the movie end?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃完&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chīwán&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;finish eating, eat up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃完饭就去开会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ chīwán fàn jiù qù kāihuì.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm going to a meeting as soon as I finish my meal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看完&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kànwán&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;finish reading/watching&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我昨天看完电视已经十二点了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ zuótiān kànwán diànshì yǐjīng shí'èr diǎn le.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was already twelve o'clock when I finished watching TV last night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做完&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zuòwán&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;finish doing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你什么时候可以做完作业？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nǐ shénme shíhou kěyǐ zuòwán zuòyè?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When can you finish your homework?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用完&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yòngwán&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;use up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的钱用完了, 我要到银行去取钱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ de qián yòngwán le, wǒ yào dào yínháng qu qǔ qián.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've used up my money. I'll go to the bank to get some cash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just add it to the end of any verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-11T07:28:19.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8635" CreationDate="2014-07-11T08:34:13.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the verb refers to some actions which last for a very short period of time, e.g. sneezing, we do not use &quot;完&quot; to indicate the completion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-11T08:34:13.387" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8532" CreationDate="2014-07-11T14:00:55.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could look at Tianjin, as close as 120 km from Beijing. The local Tianjin dialect is still exhibiting rather drastic changes to tones and tone changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Drawing from your example, mandarin in Beijing and Tianjin differ in tones according to the following, with TJ accent being much more low-pitched:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1st tone = 55 (BJ), 21 (TJ)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2nd tone = 35&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3rd tone = 214 (BJ), 113 (TJ)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4th tone = 51 (BJ), 53 (TJ)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also have different sandhi rules for tonal changes. Tianjin itself is pronounced Tian3jin1 in TJ. Tone marks, however, would still be identical (just as &quot;pen&quot; is not rendered &quot;pin&quot; in Texas).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pattern repeats itself wherever you go in China. For example, the standard Wu topolect as spoken in Shanghai has differences already within the city suburbs, such as Jiading, and much more so in neighboring cities like Jiaxing, and further more in relatively remote locations such as Hangzhou and Suzhou.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this we conclude that the standard mandarin (普通话) is merely an ideal, a common framework for speakers of countless topolects and dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorDisplayName="user4452" LastEditDate="2014-07-11T20:06:54.053" LastActivityDate="2014-07-11T20:06:54.053" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8506" CreationDate="2014-07-11T14:27:28.690" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A story tells of an ethnic minority student who simply wanted to borrow a pen from a female comrade. Ethnic minorites in China are often as tone deaf as Westerners, and when the guy wanted to borrow a pen (借你的笔 / jie4 ni3 de bi3), it became 借你的屄 (jie4 ni3 de bi1), and the female student got all red in her face pondering the proposal of lending her cunt to that fellow...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The words and tones to look out for are the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cào (肏，操), which means fuck (often heard as 我操, i fuck, simply meaning fuck)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bī (屄，逼), which means cunt (often rendered as 傻屄 or 傻逼 (sha3bi1), meaning stupid cunt)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gàn is not problematic in China, only in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mā de (妈的) is a very mild swear sentence in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-07-11T14:27:28.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8640" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8641" CreationDate="2014-07-12T07:47:07.357" Score="2" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have my oxford and tuttle dictionary in front of me and the radical list has a lot of characters with 八 as it's radical, which means &quot;divide&quot; apparently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But where is this radical in 兰 ，半 ，弟， 单 etc ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it written in mirror in those characters? Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5962" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-04T02:10:40.537" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T02:10:40.537" Title="I can't recognise the 八 radical in many characters" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8640" CreationDate="2014-07-12T09:02:47.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;丷 is a variant of 八, just as 灬 is a variant of 火.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Variant characters are common for radicals, given that they can occur at difference positions within a composite character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-07-12T09:02:47.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6035" CreationDate="2014-07-12T14:55:15.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I too try to find out if I can communicate with my friend in Guangdong in Cantonese via iMessage. The &quot;problem&quot; in the end, is about a &quot;national&quot; language versus a &quot;regional&quot; dialect. This matter goes beyond language. I'm proud of being a native Cantonese speaker and I am equally proud of being able to speak putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) which I learned on my own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5963" LastActivityDate="2014-07-12T14:55:15.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8643" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-12T15:35:12.033" Score="1" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every time I go to a restaurant in Taiwan I say weird weird stuff. They always understand, but I'm sure I'm saying it unnaturally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, occasionally I don't entirely catch what they're asking. Which definitely wouldn't be a problem if I knew what to expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyways, there's only a limited number of things to say like what to call a waiter, (&quot;where do I pay?&quot;, &quot;table for 3, please&quot; and the other things commonly said or heard) can people who know what they're doing post a few below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for helping me not sound like a buffoon!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5964" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-12T16:35:36.397" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T18:14:58.460" Title="Can I have some Taiwan restaurant sentences?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8539" CreationDate="2014-07-13T14:04:41.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can just ignore the difference between print fonts and handwriting font.&#xA;It's in the same way that we don't write the letter 'g' (by hand) like the way we print it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5968" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T14:04:41.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8646" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8649" CreationDate="2014-07-13T22:25:03.727" Score="4" ViewCount="440" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for an expression (maybe a 成语) which can describe the idea of, &quot;I know I have a long way to go, but if I keep trying, I can succeed.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;我的发音还差得远，可是&quot;  Meaning, &quot;My pronunciation has a long way to go, but I will keep working hard at it.&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found this one expression that seems to express it, is it appropriate? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要功夫深，铁杵磨成针&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or perhaps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨杵作针&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please let me know how I can best express this idea in a way that the average speaker can understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T02:07:09.080" Title="成语 or expression for perservering" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8646" CreationDate="2014-07-14T01:30:07.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think most Chinese people would express this with a simple &amp;quot;慢慢来,&amp;quot; which pretty much includes all the elements you're looking for (&amp;quot;I know I have a long way to go, but if I keep trying, I can succeed.&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want something more idiomatic, consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一口吃不成胖子&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 Nothing can be accomplished in one single effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 Rome wasn't built in a day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 lit. you cannot get fat with only one mouthful (proverb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 fig. learn to walk before you run&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not as direct as you might like, seeing as the meaning is more like &amp;quot;nothing can be accomplished &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; quickly, but it will work if you like it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Akin to this we also have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;冰冻三尺，非一日之寒&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;three feet of ice does not form in a single day (idiom); Rome wasn't built in a day&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T01:50:15.853" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8646" CreationDate="2014-07-14T01:50:33.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;只要功夫深，铁杵磨成针&lt;/code&gt; is good, and also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;坚持不懈&#xA;锲而不舍&#xA;水滴石穿&#xA;百炼成钢&#xA;熟能生巧&#xA;精卫填海&#xA;卧薪尝胆&#xA;有志竟成&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T01:50:33.583" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8646" CreationDate="2014-07-14T02:57:06.947" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to @songyuanyao's extensive list, there's a surprisingly large number of sayings that are specifically about &lt;em&gt;succeeding&lt;/em&gt; by persevering:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;勤能補拙&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;日起有功&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;累足成步&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跛鱉千里&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;駑馬十駕&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;功在不舍&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跬步千里&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;事在人為&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有志者事竟成&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;精誠所至，金石為開&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一分耕耘，一分收穫&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;皇天不負苦心人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人一己百&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;九轉功成&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;艱難玉成&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the question's specific context, I would say the first would be the best choice (&lt;code&gt;我的发音还差得远，可是勤能补拙&lt;/code&gt;). But 2-5 can substitute for it quite well too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last two still mean succeeding with hard work, but they'd normally used after the fact, e.g. as &lt;code&gt;畢業時，他的發音艱難玉成，十分標準&lt;/code&gt; &quot;By graduation, his pronunciation became excellent after putting in lots of work&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two you listed (&lt;code&gt;只要功夫深，铁杵磨成针&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;磨杵作针&lt;/code&gt;) are also excellent choices; they are both variations of the same underlying phrase so you can choose whichever you find more pleasing. Other forms include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鐵杵磨成針&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鐵杵成針&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鐵棒磨成針&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鐵杵磨針&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T07:04:05.737" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T07:04:05.737" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="117" CreationDate="2014-07-14T03:49:08.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In recent months there has been a CCTV game show called &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E6%88%90%E8%AF%AD%E5%A4%A7%E4%BC%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;中国成语大会&lt;/a&gt;, where contestants play a game which could be called &quot;&lt;em&gt;chengyu charades&lt;/em&gt;&quot;: contestants form pairs where one must provide spoken hints without saying any character in the chengyu, and the second must guess the chengyu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This show had a precursor: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%97%E5%90%AC%E5%86%99%E5%A4%A7%E4%BC%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;中国汉字听写大会&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Chinese Characters Dictation Competition&lt;/em&gt;, which is very similar to spelling bees: contestants hear a difficult word and must write the correct characters down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both shows contain very advanced Chinese, but if you stick with an easier vocabulary, these games can be very useful teaching tools. You can find these shows on youtube too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T03:49:08.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8652" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8653" CreationDate="2014-07-14T08:39:39.080" Score="4" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that a lot of colloquial English terms are actually seen to be quite &lt;em&gt;formal&lt;/em&gt; or academic in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English we have the term &lt;strong&gt;dynamics&lt;/strong&gt; as in: group dynamics, social dynamics, psychodynamics and sociodynamics. While the specific definition of each term might differ the basic idea of dynamics in each is more-or-less the same. Here dynamics can be used in every day speech with out making the speaker seem like he or she is pontificating or being overly showy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has a few translations for these terms, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;group dynamics = 群体动力学 or 团体动力学&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;sociodynamics = 群聚效应&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't feel comfortable throwing around &lt;code&gt;xxx动力学&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;群聚效应&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese though, for fear of not being clear enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a more basic phrase or terminology that can express this concept without being overly formal/academic? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T12:53:24.453" Title="Colloquial Translation: Dynamics" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8652" CreationDate="2014-07-14T12:53:26.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just use 动力, as in 航空动力, 生命动力 and 社会动力.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T12:53:26.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8646" CreationDate="2014-07-14T13:00:27.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Wang Fei probably would say: 执迷不悔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T13:00:27.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8655" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-14T13:29:15.487" Score="4" ViewCount="1859" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning a little Chinese out of curiosity, and I have a basic question about the language as a whole, rather than a specific technical question about a particular word or character. Sorry if this is too broad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to learn a little spoken Chinese, not the writing system, so I've been seeking out pinyin texts. Let's say I come across a word such as &lt;em&gt;jiǎng&lt;/em&gt; that I don't know. I look it up &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ji%C7%8Eng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;on Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;, and get something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;jiǎng (Zhuyin ㄐㄧㄤˇ)&#xA;&#xA;Pinyin reading of 堿&#xA;Pinyin reading of 桨, 槳&#xA;Pinyin reading of 滰&#xA;Pinyin reading of 獎&#xA;Pinyin reading of 繈&#xA;Pinyin reading of 繣&#xA;Pinyin reading of 膙&#xA;Pinyin reading of 蒋, 蔣&#xA;Pinyin reading of 襁&#xA;Pinyin reading of 講, 讲&#xA;Pinyin reading of 顜&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of those characters seem to have totally different meanings: paddle, salty, reward... so my question is: how do the Chinese manage to communicate orally? Specifically, let's say one Chinese speaker says something to another. If there are 10 different definitions associated with each sound the first person makes, then how can the second person work out what's being said? Am I misunderstanding something, or is it simply that you have to work out which definition is being used from context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use a very specific example, what if a Chinese speaker said &lt;em&gt;jiǎng&lt;/em&gt; to me? I mean what if they actually formed the sound &lt;em&gt;jee-yah-ng&lt;/em&gt; - how could I tell what they meant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5974" LastEditorUserId="5974" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T13:41:22.753" LastActivityDate="2021-02-27T01:13:56.703" Title="Why so many definitions associated with each word?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8655" CreationDate="2014-07-14T14:34:12.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, for the example you have given, besides 讲、奖 and 蒋 I don't think most people will think of any other characters than these when they hear the word jiǎng spoken by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of the other characters you have listed there are either somewhat uncommon or are just a prefix/suffix for other words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's somewhat like it someone just said the word 'which' to you in English without any context - maybe you will know it's 'which' but how can you be sure it's not 'witch'? Or 'for' - how can you know, just by hearing it seperate from other things, if it is, actually, 'for' or 'four'? (Or even 'fore' for that matter!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is impossible to know for sure without some context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even the three characters I listed for jiǎng just now have very, specific, different meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讲 = speak, talk &#xA;奖 = reward, award&#xA;蒋 = the surname jiǎng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even just from hearing jiǎng by itself you can make an educated guess at what the speaker is trying to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T14:52:41.940" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T14:52:41.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8655" CreationDate="2014-07-14T14:37:21.910" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese was once monosyllabic, where one character represented one word. But back then, thousands of years ago, pronunciation for characters was also much more distinct, and still is in certain topolects (like Cantonese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Mandarin, on the other hand, compensates for lack of precision in pronunciation by being polysyllabic, where mosts words are either disyllabic or trisyllabic. There are still monosyllabic words, but they are usually easily comprehensible by context (like 我 and other pronouns).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the characters you list are rather rare, biut let’s consider the common ones. 奖 (獎), as in prize, award, is usually found in compounds such as Nuobei’erjiang (Nobel prize), jiangjin (money award), jiangpai (prize medal) and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This could hardly be confused with 讲, speak, with compounds such as jiangjia (bargain), jianghua (talk), jiangjie (explain) and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could also refer to 蒋介石 (Jiang Jieshi), where 蒋 is a common family name. Context will mostly be evident when names are invoked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your strategy should therefore be to learn compound words. Since you do not want to learn written Chinese, just forget that there are characters, there are only words, and words are usually polysyllabic: women, gongneng, guangchang, gonggong qiche, laobanniang, dalu, mantou, chengyu, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T14:37:21.910" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8655" CreationDate="2014-07-14T14:41:56.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In oral Chinese, it is rarely to use only one character/syllable (almost all of the characters are also single-syllable words) to carry a specific meaning as a word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the syllable &quot;jiǎng&quot; will be used with other character like &quot;jiǎng + huà&quot; (講話; speaking) or &quot;dé + jiǎng&quot; (得獎, receiving an award). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, not every meanings of a syllable are commonly used. For the example of &quot;jiǎng&quot;, actually only about three meanings are commonly used in everyday speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why Chinese have this large amount of single syllable words? There is a theory suggests that the Chinese language, compared to alphabetical systems, is restrained by its own writing system that cannot freely constructs its spelling but have to use one character to represent one syllable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaker so I'm not sure about the difficulties for the non-native speakers. But I think a word (which may combined by several characters) will be easier than a single character for learning and remembering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4668" LastEditorUserId="4668" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T08:03:36.370" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T08:03:36.370" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8659" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8660" CreationDate="2014-07-14T15:14:25.797" Score="2" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's summer time guys the 膀爷s are out on full parade! Although I haven't seen that many females as exhibitionist as the males - there's still a fair share of ladies showing off their midriffs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the female equivalent of a 膀爷?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;膀娘?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;膀婆?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T16:06:32.033" Title="Female Equivalent: 膀爷" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8659" CreationDate="2014-07-14T16:06:32.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure there is one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;膀爷 itself is more common used in the north. A quick search from google, neither 膀娘 nor 膀婆 reach more than a few thousand results, so that may be considered as an evidence that both terms are not widely used. After all, we can find 膀爷 (topless man) in many cities, but I don't think we can find many topless women in any civilized place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5797" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T16:06:32.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8652" CreationDate="2014-07-14T18:14:21.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;group dynamics - 群体互动（行为）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;social dynamics - 社会互动（行为）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;psychodynamics - 心理活动（学）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sociodynamics - 社会动力（学）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T18:14:21.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8643" CreationDate="2014-07-14T18:14:58.460" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm from the mainland. But I think you can use these in Taiwan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where do I pay?: 请问在哪里付钱？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Table for 3, please : 3人用餐，谢谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I have a look at the manu？  ： 我能看看菜单么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you bring something to drink? : 能来点喝得么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T18:14:58.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8663" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8739" CreationDate="2014-07-14T20:10:28.713" Score="2" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing up something in Chinese, and want to write the following (irrelevant information redacted):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do I need to bring XXX? [...] Or I can just bring a photocopy of it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not completely sure what the correct form of &quot;or&quot; is here. It's clear that if this were Cantonese, I would use &quot;定係&quot;, but this isn't a word in Mandarin, and at least intuitively speaking, I wouldn't use &quot;或者&quot; (at least not without a lot of rephrasing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would using &quot;还是&quot; be appropriate (in conveying the same meaning) here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation, with what I believe to be correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我需要带 XXX 吗？[...] 还是只要带影印本吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But using &quot;还是&quot; at the beginning of the sentence feels slightly awkward, if only since the examples I'd been taught in school involved use of it to express a different option &lt;em&gt;within the same sentence&lt;/em&gt;, instead of breaking the options up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T20:15:32.080" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T21:41:58.570" Title="What's the Mandarin equivalent of &quot;定係&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8663" CreationDate="2014-07-15T00:39:12.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No reason to split this into two sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;XXX here we can just call this 原件.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Photocopy is 复印件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since we are asking between two things we would need to use 还是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要带原件还是复印件?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of usages (from a quick baidu search)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面试时的证件是要带原件还是复印件?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去医院生产要带哪些证件? 原件还是复印件??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在在银行卡还需要带身份证复印件吗?还是只带原件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给宝宝上户口要带各种证件的原件还是只带复印件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T00:39:12.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8665" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8667" CreationDate="2014-07-15T00:45:31.383" Score="4" ViewCount="607" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume this would be wouldn't be too hard to calculate with a proper database, but does anyone know the number of unique characters/morphemes used in the 5000, 10000, 30000, etc. most common words? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I heard that 6000 characters covers over 99% of words in modern usage, and assuming that a native's passive vocabulary is around 30000, I conclude that there are approximately 6000 unique characters used in the 30000 most common words (this could be way off).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am curious about these statistics. Preferably, someone has a nice plot showing the relationship between the two, but a few data points would also be appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T14:20:48.320" Title="Number of unique characters in the X most common words?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8666" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8671" CreationDate="2014-07-15T00:48:30.870" Score="8" ViewCount="4154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently been writing a lot of letters in Mandarin and I have several questions regarding the form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese has &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.echineselearning.com/business/business-chinese-597.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;many salutations in letters&lt;/a&gt;. For the most part, is it okay just to use 亲爱? If not, what is most appropriate?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are Chinese letter structures [eg. Name, Address, Date, Recipient, Body, Closing] much the same as English letters?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I usually end my letters:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孔世茂 [My Chinese Name]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this acceptable? What are some other endings for letters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your time!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="472" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-04-06T02:21:48.447" Title="Proper letter writing etiquette" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8665" CreationDate="2014-07-15T03:09:51.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I write a simple script to compute the plot from an old phrase frequency data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GFw9G.png&quot; alt=&quot;plot&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're interested, here is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://pastebin.com/LDWsWzyr&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;raw data&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These data are for Taiwan's traditional Chinese,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but the statistics should be very similar to simplified Chinese.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastEditorUserId="773" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T03:16:15.297" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T03:16:15.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8668" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8669" CreationDate="2014-07-15T05:54:24.373" Score="12" ViewCount="10707" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I want ask someone &lt;em&gt;When will you eat?&lt;/em&gt;, can I use 你吃什么时间 (&lt;em&gt;ni3 chi1 shen2me shi2jian1&lt;/em&gt;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to see sentences using 时候 to ask for the time. What is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5957" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-22T23:03:19.533" LastActivityDate="2016-03-22T23:08:31.990" Title="What is the difference between 时候 and 时间?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8668" CreationDate="2014-07-15T06:18:45.813" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tuttle Learners&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a period of time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;时间不够, 我没做完那道练习。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Shíjiān bú gòu, wǒ méi zuòwán nà dào liànxí. As there&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wasn't enough time, I did not finish that exercise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没有时间写信。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wǒ méiyǒu shíjiān xiě xìn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't have time to write letters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时候&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[compound: 时 time + 候 a certain point in time]&#xA;  NOUN a certain point in time, (the time) when&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;飞机什么时候开？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Fēijī shénme shíhou kāi? When will the plane depart?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他来的时候, 我正在打电话。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tā lái de shíhou, wǒ zhèngzài dǎ diànhuà. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I was on the phone when he came.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时候 = time in general (what time does something happen, times up, duration of time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么时候 can even be translated directly as &lt;em&gt;when&lt;/em&gt; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时间 ＝ THE time (like; what's THE time, THE time in Beijing is..., I didn't have THE time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么时间, on the other hand, is seldom used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence you gave up top, &lt;em&gt;ni3 chi1 shen2me shi2jian1&lt;/em&gt;, is like writing &quot;You eat what the time?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you want to say is something like: &lt;em&gt;你什么时候吃饭&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="5982" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T08:27:37.847" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T08:27:37.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8668" CreationDate="2014-07-15T06:27:55.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you can either use &quot;ni3 shen2 me shi2 jian1 chi1&quot; or &quot;ni3 shen2 me shi2 hou4 chi1&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, &quot;时候&quot; and &quot;时间&quot; are both used to represent some time instant, and &quot;时候&quot; is used more often than &quot;时间&quot; when referring some time instant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are referring to the quality of some time period, you would use &quot;时间&quot;. &#xA;For example, &quot;ni3 chi1 duo2 chang2 shi2 jian1&quot; means &quot;How long do you eat?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are referring to some long time period, especially some time period a long long time ago, you would use &quot;时候&quot;. For example, &quot;zai4 tang2 chao2 de shi2 hou4,...&quot; means &quot;in Tang dynasty, ...&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5981" LastEditorUserId="5982" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T08:36:30.797" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T08:36:30.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8666" CreationDate="2014-07-15T06:55:12.123" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think those are generally fine for normal purposes, especially if you're emailing. Traditional etiquette has substantially declined with email use. 亲爱 is quite a bit more personal than the equivalent English &quot;Dear xxx&quot; though, so you could replace that with just a greeting, e.g. &quot;王先生您好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But since you asked for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;proper&lt;/strong&gt; etiquette&quot;... Here's a brief rundown of the main points for &lt;strong&gt;a &lt;em&gt;proper&lt;/em&gt; Chinese letter&lt;/strong&gt;. Though I've left out some less important sections, so for truly official purposes you'd want to consult a real style guide. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For obvious reasons hardly anyone writes to actual friends or family in such complicated manner, although government agencies / companies/ wedding invitations and other formal occasions still adhere to these styles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;稱謂: Addressing the Recipient&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This section is similar to English letter writing. Use an appropriate title e.g. &quot;President Huang&quot; or &quot;Ms Wong&quot; or &quot;Mother&quot;. Do not include names for elders in your immediate family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;提稱語: Inviting the Recipient to Read&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might think of this as sort of like &quot;Dear &quot; in English, except this comes &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; the recipient's name+title. Choose an appropriate one from below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Parents/Grandparents:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;尊鑒(common)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;膝下(common)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;膝前&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Teachers:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;道鑒(common)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;函丈&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;壇席&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;講座&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;尊前&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;尊鑒&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;賜鑒&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generic elders:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;賜鑒(common)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;尊前&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;尊鑒&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;鈞鑒&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;尊右&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;懿鑒(women only)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fellow students:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;硯右&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;硯席&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;文几&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;文席&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generic equals:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;大鑒(common)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;惠鑒(common)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;台鑒&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;左右&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;足下&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;閣下&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;雅鑒&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Children/Nieces/Nephews:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;知之&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;知悉&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generic juniors:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;鑒(common)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;青鑒&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;青覽&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;入目&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;入覽&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;收覽&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;如見&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;如晤&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;如握&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;如面&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;收覽&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;收閱&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;收讀&lt;/code&gt;,  &lt;code&gt;閱悉&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;知悉&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;見字&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Military officers:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;幕下&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;麾下&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;鈞鑒&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;鈞座&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Politicians:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;勛鑒&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;鈞鑒&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;鈞座&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;台座&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;台鑒&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Educators:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;講座&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;座右&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;塵次&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;有道&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;著席&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;撰席&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;史席&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Buddhist priests:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;方丈&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;道鑒&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;有道&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Taoists priests:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;法鑒&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;壇次&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generic/Christian priests/nuns:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;道鑒&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Married couple:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;儷鑒&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mourning:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;禮席&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;禮鑒&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;苫次&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;矜鑒&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And last but not the least:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Modern Age Catch All Replacement:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;:&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;lt;--- yes, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colon_%28punctuation%29&quot;&gt;a colon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;申悃語: Ending the Letter&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can either pick an appropriate one based on recipient, or based on the nature of your letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reply letter:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;耑肅敬覆&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;耑此奉覆&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;肅函奉覆&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;耑此敬覆&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;匆此布覆&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Congratulatory letter:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬申賀悃&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;肅表賀忱&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;用申賀意&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mourning letter:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;恭陳唁意&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;肅此上慰&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;敬申哀悃&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Thank-You letter:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;肅誌謝忱&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;敬此鳴謝&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;耑鳴謝悃&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Elders:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;謹此&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;肅此&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;肅此上達&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;敬此馳稟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;耑肅奉稟&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Equals:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;專此&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;耑此&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;特此&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;草此&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;耑此奉達&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;匆此布臆&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;特此奉聞&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;草此奉達&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simplification:&lt;/strong&gt; skip this section entirely.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;問候語: Paying Respects&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This follows the previous section immediately. You can pick one based on who the recipient is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Parents/Grandparents:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 福安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;叩請 | 金安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Teachers:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 道安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;恭敬 | 教安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;恭請 | 誨安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 講安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generic elders:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 鈞安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;恭敬 | 崇安&lt;/code&gt;, ``敬頌 | 崇祺&lt;code&gt;,&lt;/code&gt;恭請 | 禔安`&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Equals:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 大安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;順頌 | 台祺&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;敬候 | 近祉&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;順候 | 起居&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;順頌 | 時綏&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Juniors:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;順問 | 近祺&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;即問 | 近好&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;順頌 | 日祉&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Military:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 戎安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;肅請 | 捷安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;肅頌 | 戎祺&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Politicians:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 鈞安',&lt;/code&gt;敬請 | 勛安&lt;code&gt;,&lt;/code&gt;祇請 | 政安`&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Educators/Academics:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;即頌 | 文祺&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;即頌 | 文綏&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 學安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Writers:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 |著安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;順請 | 撰安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Business:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 籌安、順候 | 財安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Traveller:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 旅安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Married Couple:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 儷安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Someone ill:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;恭請 | 痊安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;敬祝|  早痊&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 愈安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;即請 | 衛安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or choose one based on the season/time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Spring:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 春安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;順頌 | 春祉&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summer:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 夏安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;此頌 | 暑綏&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Autumn:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;並候 | 秋綏&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;即請 | 秋安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Winter:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 冬安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;敬頌 | 冬綏&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Morning:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;即頌 | 晨安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;即請 | 早安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Noon:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;此請 | 午安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Evening:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;即頌 | 晚安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generic good day:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;即請 | 刻安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;順候 | 日祉&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;即候 | 時祉&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or based on the purpose of the letter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wedding congratulation:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;恭請 | 燕喜&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;恭賀 | 大喜&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;恭請 | 喜安&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Happy New Year:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;恭賀 | 年禧&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;恭賀 | 新禧&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;即頌 | 歲禧&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mourning:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬請 | 禮安&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;順候 | 素履&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;此候 | 孝履&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;順問 | 苫次&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that these are supposed to be broken int two lines; i.e.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;bala bala bala bala。肅此上達。&lt;strong&gt;敬請&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;福安&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, notice how most of these reuses the same set of perhaps 3-4 phrases for the first half. For these the situation-specific content lies in the second half of the sentence. (the part that comes on a new line). Which means you can mix the first half a bit for variation if you wish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;署名: Sender's Name&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be either personal name, or the family name plus personal name. This should be prefixed with your self-reference, in smaller font. The self-reference should complement with the title of the recipient you used in the first section; i.e. if you used &lt;code&gt;Smith 吾師&lt;/code&gt; to address the recipient, then here you'd say &lt;code&gt;受業 TrustedDeveloper&lt;/code&gt;. Other common ones are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To grandparents:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;孫&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;孫女&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To parents:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;兒&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;女&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To teacher:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;生&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To friends:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;弟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;妹&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;末啟詞: Finish&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This goes directly after your name from the previous section; i.e. on the same line. It is analogous to saying &quot;from &quot; in English. Choose an appropriate one from below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Parents/Grandparents:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬稟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;叩稟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;拜稟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;肅稟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;謹稟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;叩上&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generic elders:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;敬上&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;謹上&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;謹稟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;拜上&lt;/code&gt;、&lt;code&gt;謹肅&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;敬肅&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;敬啟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;謹啟&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Equals:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;拜啟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;敬啟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;啟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;上&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;白&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;謹啟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;謹白&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;手啟&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;手上&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;頓首&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;上言&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;拜言&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Juniors:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;字&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;諭&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;手諭&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;手示&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;手草&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;草示&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, when the letter is a reply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reply:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;復&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;手復&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;謹復&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;肅復&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T11:06:52.100" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T11:06:52.100" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8668" CreationDate="2014-07-15T11:11:17.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你什么时候吃饭 (&lt;em&gt;ni3 shen2 me shi2 hou4 chi1 fan4&lt;/em&gt;) - eat food&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你什么时候回家 (&lt;em&gt;ni3 shen2 me shi2 hou4 hui2 jia1&lt;/em&gt;) - go home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你什么时候 (&lt;em&gt;ni3 shen2 me shi2 hou4&lt;/em&gt;) can be understood as: &quot;to do what&quot; -&gt; at 什么时候 (&lt;em&gt;&quot;shen2 me shi2 hou4&quot;&lt;/em&gt;), 你 (&lt;em&gt;&quot;ni3&quot;&lt;/em&gt;) do what&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, we use 时候 (&lt;em&gt;&quot;shi2 hou4&quot;&lt;/em&gt;) most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在什么时间 (&lt;em&gt;xian4 zai4 shen2 me shi2 jian1&lt;/em&gt;) - What's the time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时间 (&lt;em&gt;&quot;shi2 jian1&quot;&lt;/em&gt;) is just used in the scenario when you want to know the exact time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时间不够了 (&lt;em&gt;shi2 jian1 bu2 gou4 le1&lt;/em&gt;) - the time is not enough&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 时间 (&lt;em&gt;&quot;shi2 jian1&quot;&lt;/em&gt;) is used as noun at most time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5984" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-22T23:08:31.990" LastActivityDate="2016-03-22T23:08:31.990" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8673" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-15T12:24:53.017" Score="2" ViewCount="943" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always wondered about this and never felt the need to ask because I figured I would figure it out on my own. But I can't find an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these games, especially multiplayer games, we people play in the West, use keyboard input. Since Sougou and Google / MS Pinyin IME are strictly OS tailored....how is it done in games? Do they still use Pinyin as input? Does every game have their own program? It sounds like a massive investment. What about messenger apps etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested to know how this is dealt with, maybe a question for people who live in China. Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5985" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T10:50:00.327" Title="How do game and program developers solve the pinyin input problem in their programs" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-07-26T15:04:07.040" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8665" CreationDate="2014-07-15T14:07:54.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious about that &quot;30,000 words for a native&quot; number. HSK lvl 5 at 2,500 words and 1,685 characters is what allows you to read a newspaper. HSK lvl 6, at 5,000 words, is regarded as complete fluency of the Chinese language. There will obviously be people who know many more words, but I don't think when 5,000 words means fluency, that a native would know 30,000, that's a massive amount of words. The literacy rate in China is at 95%, which is still relatively low, I don't think a native knows 30,000 words, maybe around 10,000 if I had to make a wild guess. According to a harvard study the average English speaker knows 12,000 words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5988" LastEditorUserId="5988" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T14:20:48.320" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T14:20:48.320" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8675" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16330" CreationDate="2014-07-15T15:01:34.360" Score="2" ViewCount="1717" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Problem:&lt;/strong&gt; I need to find and compile a list of separable verbs / 离合词.&#xA;Searching the internet I have managed to collect a list of 65 verbs which of course is not enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples of separable verbs / 离合词 are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睡觉，决口，罢工，保险，报名，投资，安心，洗澡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt; Do you know a resource that provides a list of such verbs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5916" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T23:08:19.783" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T23:08:19.783" Title="Is there a comprehensive list of separable verbs (离合动词) anywhere?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;separable-verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8676" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8678" CreationDate="2014-07-15T15:15:21.993" Score="1" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence 很高兴为您服务 (&lt;em&gt;hen gaoxing wei nin fuwu&lt;/em&gt;) breaks down as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;hen  |gaoxing |wei |nin |fuwu&#xA;very |glad    |to  |you |serve&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the usual word order in chinese is Subject Verb Object, and here the object (you) precedes the verb (to serve). Why is it not &lt;em&gt;hen gaoxing wei fuwu nin&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5974" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T16:52:19.530" Title="Why does the usual Verb-Object order seem to have been broken here (很高兴为您服务)?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8677" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8681" CreationDate="2014-07-15T15:26:53.527" Score="3" ViewCount="1872" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Problem:&lt;/strong&gt; Lately I started to get concerned if there are pure transitive or intransitive verbs in Chinese. At first look, there are many verbs that do not require an immediate object/宾语 like &lt;code&gt;睡觉&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;吃饭&lt;/code&gt;. These are mostly called separable verbs/离合动词, these verbs already contain an object &lt;em&gt;within&lt;/em&gt; and can be easily checked by some quantifier insertion: &lt;code&gt;吃一个饭, 洗一个澡...&lt;/code&gt;. Do we call them &lt;strong&gt;intransitive&lt;/strong&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about such verbs as &lt;code&gt;参加, 游泳&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;去, 回, 走&lt;/code&gt;? A noun used after these verbs is considered to be an adverbial of place not an object. It looks like in Chinese such linguisitc property as transitivity / intransitivity heavily relies on verb semantics in constrast to other languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt; Are there transitive / intransitive verbs in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5916" LastEditorUserId="5916" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T21:28:13.593" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T21:28:13.593" Title="Are there transitive/及物动词 or intransitive/不及物动词 verbs in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8676" CreationDate="2014-07-15T15:36:13.577" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usual Verb-Object order depends a lot on the verb used in the sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't see any unusual word order here. 服务 is a verb that requires preposition  为 to be used before an object. This verb is put after indirect object afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我_I (Subject) 很_very 高兴_happy 为_to 你_you (Indirect Object) 服务_serve (Action).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我_I (Subject) 很_very 高兴_happy 跟_with 你_you (Indirect Object) 结婚_marry (Action)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5916" LastEditorUserId="5916" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T16:02:43.997" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T16:02:43.997" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8676" CreationDate="2014-07-15T16:52:19.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我很高兴 + Clause is a common sentence structure. It means &quot;I am glad that ... &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 我很高兴我能为您服务(wo hen gaoxing wo neng wei nin fuwu). I am glad that I can/could serve for you. It can be simplified as 很高兴为您服务(hen gaoxing wei nin fuwu).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(我)很高兴您能来参加我们的婚礼。(wo) hen gaoxing nin neng lai can jia women de hunli. I am glad you are here to attend our wedding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很高兴见到您。hen gaoxing jian dao nin. I am glad to see you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很高兴看到你的进步。hen gaoxing kan dao nide jinbu. I am glad to see your progresses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T16:52:19.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8673" CreationDate="2014-07-15T19:48:10.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question does not belong in Chinese language section, nevertheless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you're talking are Chinese language input tools. There is actually nothing to solve here for game developers. Any game user can use &lt;strong&gt;Google pinyin, Sogou, Baidu&lt;/strong&gt; input tools in a full screen application for Chinese input. A user types Chinese words in pinyin and gets a list of corresponding words. Some games may independently implement different language input switches via os IME API:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Rkif.png&quot; alt=&quot;picture&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Linux machine a user may use &lt;strong&gt;scim, fcitx or ibus&lt;/strong&gt; input tools which work in the similar manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5916" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T19:48:10.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8677" CreationDate="2014-07-15T20:36:43.750" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think &quot;What do you think&quot; is really a suitable question here... So I'll address the question in the title instead (&quot;Are there transitive/及物动词 or intransitive/不及物动词 verbs in Chinese?&quot;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure there are. And I really doubt they are &quot;mostly&quot; separable verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance: &lt;code&gt;他走了&lt;/code&gt; &quot;he left&quot;, or &lt;code&gt;花開了&lt;/code&gt; &quot;the flower blossomed&quot;. There are a large number of such verbs that seems quite clearly intransitive. There are also many that goes both ways like in English. The character &lt;code&gt;吃&lt;/code&gt; for example is &lt;strong&gt;by itself&lt;/strong&gt; also a verb (in contrast to your example of &lt;code&gt;吃飯&lt;/code&gt;), and it can be both intransitive: &lt;code&gt;我吃了&lt;/code&gt; &quot;I ate&quot;, &lt;em&gt;as well as&lt;/em&gt; transitive: &lt;code&gt;我吃派了&lt;/code&gt; &quot;I ate pie&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You claim regarding &lt;code&gt;參加&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;游泳&lt;/code&gt; taking adverbials of place instead of objects seems highly suspect to me. I fail to see what is adverbial about &lt;code&gt;比賽&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;我參加了比賽&lt;/code&gt; &quot;I joined a tournament&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T20:48:01.893" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T20:48:01.893" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8682" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-15T13:02:05.560" Score="1" ViewCount="418" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read an article discussing transition of pictographs for Sun and Moon to hanzi. It raised following questions, but left them unanswered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Original pictographs for Sun is a circle with point in the center. What is the meaning of the point?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There were added two horizontal lines (splitting it approximately in thirds) during the transition of Moon pictograph to hanzi. What is the meaning of those two lines?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've searched through web and I have found some explanations, but they don't seem authoritative enough to me (not to mention doubts I have). For the Sun, the only explanation I've found is that the point means sun spot. As for the Moon, explanation stated that those lines mean cloud covering the Moon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone give me an explanation or recommend a book covering this problems? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5993" OwnerDisplayName="Petr Hrehorovsky" LastEditorDisplayName="user2651" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T23:32:27.237" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T23:32:27.237" Title="日 and 月: Transition from pictographs to hanzi" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8682" CreationDate="2014-07-15T13:36:57.010" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid that an explanation in any book is probably just speculation. The two characters in question have probably been around as long as Chinese characters themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This site&lt;/a&gt; (chineseetymology.org) is a very useful resource for tracing the history of Chinese characters. In particular, it appears that both 日 and 月 were sometimes also written without the extra line, as one would expect from a pictogram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterImages/Oracle/J10000/j15800/j15869.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterImages/Oracle/J10000/j15800/j15869.gif&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterImages/Oracle/J10000/j15800/j15887.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterImages/Oracle/J10000/j15800/j15887.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterImages/Oracle/J10000/j16400/j16449.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;with line http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterImages/Oracle/J10000/j16400/j16449.gif&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterImages/Oracle/J10000/j16400/j16459.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;without line http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterImages/Oracle/J10000/j16400/j16459.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;although 日 without the line is rare. (Check the entries of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E6%97%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E6%9C%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;月&lt;/a&gt; for many more pictures. The history of these characters starts at least some 3000 years ago with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;oracle bone script&lt;/a&gt; found at the bottom of the page.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for interpreting these pictures, 新漢和大辞典 writes the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;月&lt;/h1&gt;  &#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;象形。三日月を描いたもので、まるくえぐったように、中が欠けていく月。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Pictogram. A drawing of a crescent moon, waning as though being hollowed out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;日&lt;/h1&gt;  &#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;象形。太陽の姿を描いたもの。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Pictogram. A drawing of the shape of the sun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, no word about the line in 日.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5990" OwnerDisplayName="Earthliŋ" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T14:35:02.597" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8684" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8686" CreationDate="2014-07-16T03:23:37.013" Score="1" ViewCount="1313" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often see words 来, 到 after a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;wo hui lai le = 我回来了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ta mengdao ni = 他梦到你&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When will we use &amp;quot;lai&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;dao&amp;quot; in sentences after a verb? Is there a list of verbs which can be followed by both of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5957" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T08:25:40.017" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T08:25:40.017" Title="When do we use 来 and 到 after a verb?" Tags="&lt;direction-complement&gt;&lt;complement&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8684" CreationDate="2014-07-16T04:08:22.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(verb complement denoting completion or result of an action)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到 can pretty much follow &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; verb to express that it has been successfully &lt;em&gt;done&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看到 = (can) see&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;听到 = (can) hear&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;闻到 = (can) smell&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来 is noted in &lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt; as being a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;verb suffix&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but the only time I can even think of it being used like this is in the X来X去 construct: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跑来跑去 = running about everywhere&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走来走去 = wandering around&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The example you gave 回来 is a resultative verb - so you might be misinterpreting it here...if anything you'd be more like to see V+出来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T04:41:20.947" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T04:41:20.947" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8673" CreationDate="2014-07-16T10:50:00.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you'd better to know how computer distinguish words end user input.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a general idea,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer could only know true and false, 1 and 0, and all the words would be 1 and 0 in the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English words and Chinese words are the same for the computer basically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have to make computer know what does 'A' mean, and what does '我' mean.&#xA;There are different character encoding tables for almost all of known languages, they help computer to recognize different languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer to wiki: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_encoding&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_encoding&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it can help you.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Regards&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5994" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T10:50:00.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8688" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8689" CreationDate="2014-07-17T04:08:15.020" Score="1" ViewCount="330" Body="&lt;p&gt;So here we have 冫+咸 (or 氵+咸) = 减(減).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;减(減) means something along the lines of reduce/subtract/decrease/diminish or what have you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What has water got to do with this though?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Logically one would imagine 冫 (water) + 咸 (salty) = a reducing of &lt;em&gt;flavor&lt;/em&gt;, thus giving reduce/subtract/etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ShuoWen: (說文解字):&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;損也從水咸聲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese Etymology&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Phonetic Signific, of water 氵水 - can pour out of - decrease&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's the deal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's going on here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T02:03:02.077" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T09:16:22.827" Title="减/減 (Reduce/Subtract/Decrease/Diminish): What's it got to do with water?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8688" CreationDate="2014-07-17T11:24:21.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think both &quot;減&quot; and &quot;咸&quot; exists in the ancient times, but for certain reasons scholars like to use &quot;咸&quot; in place of &quot;減&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;損也,從水,咸聲 == It has the same meaning as '損', water as glyph component, and the same pronunciation as '咸'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 管子·宙合, which was written before the early Han Dynasty, it says &quot;左操五音，右執五味，懷繩與准鉤，多備規軸，&lt;strong&gt;減&lt;/strong&gt; 溜大成，是唯時德之節。 .... &lt;strong&gt;減&lt;/strong&gt;，盡也。溜，發也。 ....&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-17T11:24:21.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1057" CreationDate="2014-07-18T09:18:58.477" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;凭什么” is something similar to &quot;who do you think you are to say i can't do it?&quot; or &quot;you're not qualified to judge me&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3975" LastActivityDate="2014-07-18T09:18:58.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8691" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8693" CreationDate="2014-07-19T10:56:13.027" Score="4" ViewCount="341" Body="&lt;p&gt;阿 sometimes pronounced 'a' sometimes pronounced 'e'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've noticed specific instances for both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any rules as to how to pronounce 阿 in different circumstances/contexts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T13:05:06.130" Title="阿: when is it pronunced 'a' when is it pronunced 'e'?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8691" CreationDate="2014-07-19T11:30:16.793" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;'e' is the older pronunciation and is used to reflect the older pronunciation in some particular words (usually more formal words), such as 阿胶 (ē jiāo, some animal gelatin), 阿房宫(ē páng gōng -- notice that 房 is pronounced páng instead of fáng), 阿谀奉承.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'a' is the modern and default pronunciation, used in translation of foreign names (e.g., Algebria - 阿尔及利亚) as well as some colloquial/informal addresses/names to express familiarity (e.g., 阿爸, 阿伯, 阿花)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may treat 'e' as an irregular pronunciation and memorize irregular words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T11:30:16.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8691" CreationDate="2014-07-19T12:19:50.210" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are rules - it is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; irregular at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two different pronunciations of &lt;code&gt;阿&lt;/code&gt; actually reflect different usages. The original Old Chinese pronunciation of &lt;em&gt;&lt;code&gt;ē&lt;/code&gt; is for using the character as a &lt;strong&gt;verb or noun&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, which is what the character &lt;code&gt;阿&lt;/code&gt; originally meant. In contrast, the later pronunciation of &lt;em&gt;&lt;code&gt;ā&lt;/code&gt; emerged as a &lt;strong&gt;particle&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; with completely different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately most people have became unfamiliar with the older usage, so that the &lt;code&gt;ē&lt;/code&gt; form is usually only seen in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu&quot;&gt;set phrases (成語)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;阿 &lt;code&gt;ē&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt;, meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to pander to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to (unjustly) side with (someone in a dispute)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt; (archaic), meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a hill&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a (geographical) twist/turn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a building&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A surname&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;阿 &lt;code&gt;ā&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;prefix&lt;/em&gt; for names or familial titles, originally meaningless but can carry connotations of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;familiarity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;endearment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;particle&lt;/em&gt; (archaic, superseded by 啊) indicating:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;surprise&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;doubt&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the above shows, the two different pronunciations do not overlap in their usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-19T13:05:06.130" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T13:05:06.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7" CreationDate="2014-07-19T15:27:05.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A per the topic, I think something like &lt;strong&gt;现代汉语规范词典编辑&lt;/strong&gt; would be what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 百度百科:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一、《现代汉语规范词典》中“规范”二字的含义√&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们从不认为书名中没有“规范”二字的就都是不规范的词典，从不认为有“规范”二字的就都是规范的词典。本词典书名中的“规范”二字指的是体现国家通用语言文字法、国家语言文字方针政策的各项现行的语言文字规范标准，即本词典旨在努力全面严格地贯彻执行这些规范标准。这个含义在本词典的三份序言及前言中已经说明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which basically says that they're trying to 'standardize' Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a lot of footnotes throughout the dictionary which emphasize these changes. If you take a word like &lt;code&gt;确凿&lt;/code&gt; for instance, a lot of Chinese people will pronounce this quèzuò, as this is what was taught in schools ten to twenty years ago, but since then the pronunciation of this word has been standardized: 《现代汉语规范词典》has it lised as quèzáo with a footnote saying 凿：不读“zuò”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apple also has 《现代汉语规范词典》available as, it's &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt;, it's CH-CH dictionary on it's iDevices - next to Oxford's CH-ENG dictionary - if that means anything to you as standardization goes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T15:27:05.107" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-19T15:27:05.107" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8675" CreationDate="2014-07-20T18:30:25.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Modern Chinese Dictionary(5th), there are 3400 separable words in chinese. You sure you want to get a list of them?  See the definition from Chinese wiki reference:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/165257&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/165257&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-20T18:30:25.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8696" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8697" CreationDate="2014-07-20T21:17:36.760" Score="15" ViewCount="1205" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out whether an alarm clock 吵醒我， or 叫醒我。 &#xA;I'd like to say the sentence &#xA;my alarm clock woke me up at 5:30 today&#xA;my translation so far is&#xA;今天早上五点半， 我手机的闹钟叫醒了我。 &#xA;Can 叫醒 be done by inanimate objects? Is this construction used in chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T01:44:54.120" Title="Does an Alarm clock 吵醒 or 叫醒？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8696" CreationDate="2014-07-20T21:49:28.447" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, that is fine; it is quite common to use &lt;code&gt;叫醒&lt;/code&gt; with alarms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact you can use both &lt;code&gt;吵醒&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;叫醒&lt;/code&gt; here, although there's a small difference in connotations. It isn't a very strong distinction though, so you needn't be overly concerned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, &lt;code&gt;叫醒&lt;/code&gt; normally means the action was &lt;strong&gt;intended&lt;/strong&gt; to wake you. In contrast &lt;code&gt;吵醒&lt;/code&gt; carries the sense that being woken up is &lt;strong&gt;unplanned&lt;/strong&gt; or unwanted, i.e. some &lt;em&gt;noise&lt;/em&gt; woke you (implying you aren't happy about it). For example, if &lt;em&gt;your neighbours'&lt;/em&gt; alarm woke you, you'd normally use &lt;code&gt;吵醒&lt;/code&gt;. If the hotel's &lt;em&gt;morning call&lt;/em&gt; woke you, that's normally &lt;code&gt;叫醒&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-07-20T21:49:28.447" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8696" CreationDate="2014-07-21T01:44:54.120" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is depend how you what to tell others on the clock.&#xA;If you set the alarm and you like to tell your friend about it, and you mentioned &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need alarm to wake me up then use '叫醒'&#xA;You not intend to wake up but someone accidentally turn on alarm for you then you use '吵醒'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'叫醒' use when you need someone to wake you &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'吵醒' use it when you don't intend wake up but someone/something disturb your sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3975" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T01:44:54.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6014" CreationDate="2014-07-21T03:41:28.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is referred to as the &lt;strong&gt;13th month pay&lt;/strong&gt; :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6005" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T03:41:28.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8700" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8702" CreationDate="2014-07-21T06:50:07.113" Score="2" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across the following construct recently:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X 都不 X 一下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically what I heard was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;痒都不痒一下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Bonus points to anyone who knows where that comes from...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a mandarin construct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can X be replaced with any verb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T07:55:28.120" Title="Construct: X都不X一下, Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8700" CreationDate="2014-07-21T07:31:35.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It appears to be combining the &quot;X 都不 X&quot; form with &quot;一下&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;X 都不 X&quot; roughly means &quot;won't even X&quot;. For example: 看都不看 (won't even look).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding &quot;一下&quot; to the end of a verb simply means &quot;once&quot;. So the combination would be &quot;won't even X, not even once&quot;. The limitation is that &quot;一下&quot; must make sense for the verb; for example with the aforementioned 看都不看, it would be better as 看都不看一眼 (although 看都不看一下 is passable, informally).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T07:31:35.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8700" CreationDate="2014-07-21T07:36:50.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, that's fairly normal. In fact the actual construct here is merely &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;... 都不 ...&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is somewhat more commonly seen with the character &lt;code&gt;連&lt;/code&gt; (&quot;even&quot;) prefixed, i.e. &lt;code&gt;连痒都不痒一下&lt;/code&gt;. Similarly, the counter &lt;code&gt;一下&lt;/code&gt; (&quot;once&quot;) at the end is optional, i.e. &lt;code&gt;痒都不痒&lt;/code&gt;. All three forms express the same meaning of &quot;&lt;em&gt;not even once / not at all&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking all three into account: &lt;code&gt;(optional: 連) [verb] 都不 [same verb] (optional: [single counter for action])&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the counter &lt;strong&gt;does NOT have to be &lt;code&gt;一下&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. So while any number of verbs can be used with this construct way, you should take note to use the appropriate counter for the action. Or alternatively, don't use any at all. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;連吃都不吃一口&lt;/code&gt;: S/he/they wouldn't even take one bite (&lt;code&gt;一口&lt;/code&gt;, lit. &quot;one mouthful&quot;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;連看都不看一眼&lt;/code&gt;: S/he/they wouldn't even look once (&lt;code&gt;一眼&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;one look&quot;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;想都不想&lt;/code&gt;: Without thinking.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-21T07:55:28.120" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T07:55:28.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8700" CreationDate="2014-07-21T07:38:11.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course &quot;X&quot; can be a verb, e.g. &quot;叫都不叫一下&quot; (... you can google for this phrase).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, in Cantonese, we have &quot;仙都唔仙吓&quot; == &quot;don't even have a penny&quot; == &quot;no money&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T07:38:11.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8704" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-21T12:20:23.167" Score="1" ViewCount="607" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that currently people in Chinese would say &quot;很重的味道“。 But I'm wondering if there are any other ways of saying it. &#xA;Could I say &quot;很大的味道 “ or ”很浓的味道“ if I'm referring to something like a hot sauce? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T13:59:55.087" Title="How to say a &quot;strong flavor&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8705" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8712" CreationDate="2014-07-21T12:27:54.937" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that in Chinese we can say &quot;竞选” for campaigning （as in a verb). But, if I wanted to say &quot;campaign&quot; as in &quot;Obama's Campaign&quot; how would I say that? I've seen 竞选活动 in dictionaries。 But， would people say  奥巴马的“竞选活动“？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T14:40:21.827" Title="How do you say the noun form of &quot;Campaign&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8706" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-21T12:38:01.423" Score="2" ViewCount="2924" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;In my opinion, this music is very good&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation indicated by Google, 在我看来, seems rather dodgy to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5867" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T03:42:44.563" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T03:42:44.563" Title="How to say &quot;in my opinion&quot; in chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8707" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-21T12:53:12.867" Score="3" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am often confused with the use of 來 and 去.&#xA;I made a picture synthesizing my current understanding of 來 and 去:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FVIEh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aBAp9.png&quot; alt=&quot;來 and 去&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;去 is used in the context when someone is going far away from A.  &#xA;來 is used in the context when someone is approaching a place (B in the picture).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how to use this when A is talking to B about this? He could say « 我明天去B找妳 ». &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But is context switching allowed? Is A allowed to pretend the reference is B and therefore say « 我明天來 »?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever I've tried this, the other one (native Chinese speaker) told me that it was not correct and that I should rather use 去.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in my two sentences above (in gray), who is this &quot;someone&quot;? Is it always the one who is talking? Or is « context switching » allowed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5863" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T15:33:28.857" Title="Usage of 去 and 來 : is &quot;context switching&quot; allowed?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;direction-complement&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8707" CreationDate="2014-07-21T13:12:54.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are at my place and you want to come to my place tomorrow, you should say 我明天来。Because you are right there where you are talking about. If we are at your place and you want to come to my place, you say 我明天去。Because it's where you are not currently at. Use 来 and 去 based on where you are and where you refer to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T13:12:54.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8709" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8711" CreationDate="2014-07-21T13:17:38.550" Score="3" ViewCount="626" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native english speaker, I've always struggled with the translation of &quot;to enjoy&quot; in to mandarin. I know that a couple of variations involve 享受， or 欣赏. But often the sentences I write using both of those feel unnatural. In this case, how would I say &quot;If I don't sleep well tonight, I won't enjoy traveling tomorrow&quot; &#xA;Could I say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;如果我睡的不够我明天就不会享受我们的旅游&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T23:50:08.403" Title="How to express the word &quot;enjoy&quot;? As in &quot;enjoy traveling&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8706" CreationDate="2014-07-21T13:22:12.570" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;我认为，我觉得，依我看，在我看来，依我之见，etc.&#xA;In your condition both are okay. But in daily life I would say 我觉得 since it's more common and informal.&#xA;窃以为 is an ancient-feel formal word for that , so is 恕我愚见.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T13:22:12.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8709" CreationDate="2014-07-21T13:34:31.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing wrong with 'enjoy' as 享受. You don't feel natural because we don't say it that way. 要是我今晚睡不好，明天的旅行就玩不好/玩不尽兴。we prefer HAVE FUN than ENJOY.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T13:34:31.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8705" CreationDate="2014-07-21T13:40:44.183" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We use 竞选 as noun in your case. 在这次奥巴马的竞选中。The local media prefer using 竞选 than 竞选活动 though both are okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T13:40:44.183" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8704" CreationDate="2014-07-21T13:51:09.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;很大/很重/很浓/很冲 these words are common. 很大 is used for SMELL. 很重 more for TASTE and has a negative feel(A very popular word now in China is 重口, which is somehow similar to HARDCORE).很浓 is used to describe liquid or smell.(It is also used to describe a feeling. 爱意很浓 means love is very strong. 睡意很浓 means very sleepy )As for 很冲 it means the smell/taste is spicy like pepper or mustard(脾气很冲 means hot-tempered),.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastEditorUserId="6002" LastEditDate="2014-07-21T13:59:55.087" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T13:59:55.087" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8714" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8716" CreationDate="2014-07-21T14:28:41.353" Score="6" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out if a common English usage such as the one below is used in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I really &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;verb&amp;gt;&lt;/code&gt; something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I say something like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我非常非常喜欢这首歌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I use this in spoken Chinese? Could it be written this way if it is a more informal context: e.g. a diary? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-11-29T14:27:34.973" LastActivityDate="2015-11-29T14:27:34.973" Title="Can you use &quot;非常非常‘ to emphasize how much you think of something?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8714" CreationDate="2014-07-21T15:01:48.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can say &quot;非常非常&quot; to emphasize how much you think of something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an informal usage, so of course it is ok to be in an informal context like in a diary, not in a formal paper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T15:01:48.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8714" CreationDate="2014-07-21T15:02:52.380" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure. You can even repeat it more times (&lt;code&gt;非常非常非常&lt;/code&gt;) if you want...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the English usage (&quot;really, really&quot;) it isn't something you'd put in formal writings, but its certainly common enough in dialogue or advertisement or blogs/internet posts, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T15:02:52.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8707" CreationDate="2014-07-21T15:13:06.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It might depends on the recipient's location (B in this case) the moment the conversation takes place. For example, consider the below 2 sentences  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) I am coming to your place tomorrow (我明天來妳處)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) I am going to your place tomorrow (我明天去妳處)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both have the same meaning, yet if the recipient is currently away from his/her place, you would use 2) and otherwise 1) is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2014-07-21T15:33:28.857" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T15:33:28.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8709" CreationDate="2014-07-21T17:08:18.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides Fox's correction in his comment, your sentence is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欣賞 would not be the right word to use, however, since you mentioned it in your question. It refers more to a &quot;viewable&quot; enjoyment, like a picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To extend on Sean C.'s answer, a lot of times we don't say 享受 to express enjoyment. A simple example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I enjoy traveling to foreign countries. 我喜歡出國旅遊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how you don't say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我享受出國旅遊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it would sound more like: &quot;I lavish in foreign travels.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6016" LastEditorUserId="6016" LastEditDate="2014-07-21T17:28:10.753" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T17:28:10.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8709" CreationDate="2014-07-21T21:38:09.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While both 享受 and 欣赏 could means enjoyment, there are very few cases they are interchangable. 享受 is more likely oneself's feeling while 欣赏 is more about one's feeling toward others/other things. 欣赏 is mainly use for appreciation / admire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T21:38:09.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8709" CreationDate="2014-07-21T23:50:08.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 享受 and 欣赏 are types of enjoy, and they do have different meanings and should be used in different context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;享受 can be though more of receiving an enjoyment, such as being pampered. It is often used when someone or something allows you to have your enjoyment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欣赏 on the other hand is more of an admiration towards other things. For example, you can admire a piece of artwork, and enjoy the artwork.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your sentence, you picked 享受 correctly, as you are not admiring anything in this context, but simply receiving from the trip/vacation. However, I would use 无法 over 不会. While in English, I won't sounds perfectly fine, in Mandarin, it sounds like you won't because you don't want to. If you said you can't instead of you won't, people will feel you are more polite and relate the cause to the lack of sleep instead of you not wanting to make an effort to enjoy the trip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6018" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T23:50:08.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8722" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8724" CreationDate="2014-07-22T02:36:34.220" Score="5" ViewCount="1171" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm listening to this catchy song and the chorus goes &lt;code&gt;你是我的小呀小苹果儿&lt;/code&gt;. I'm wondering why the 小 is being said twice. Is that just something the artist is doing to play with the language in the song or would you actually say that 小 two times?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzHFD1sEqpE#t=100&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzHFD1sEqpE#t=100&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3214" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-22T11:49:32.907" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T01:31:17.367" Title="你是我的小呀小苹果儿 What is the purpose of the second 小?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8722" CreationDate="2014-07-22T03:29:53.957" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's the same as songs in English - repetition is for rhythm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是我的小呀小苹果儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're my little - little apple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T03:29:53.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8722" CreationDate="2014-07-22T04:12:14.700" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;See this: 我是一只小小小小鸟，想要飞呀飞　却飞也飞不高。&#xA;The purpose of the additional words is to match the rhythm. They don't make sense usually. But in some condition, the are to emphasize the feeling.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/FdjR-AMz50c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://youtu.be/FdjR-AMz50c&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T04:12:14.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8726" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8728" CreationDate="2014-07-22T07:19:19.587" Score="2" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems like I'm not the only one confused about this, the country is coming up with slogans nobody understands. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently there have been a lot of signs put up with things like 中国前进 written on them, but the confusing part:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国好棋!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the same as 好球? Just 棋 and not 球? Good move? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T04:57:08.363" Title="Meaning: 好棋? (Good move?)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8726" CreationDate="2014-07-22T08:04:26.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;中国前进&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国: China&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;前进: move/march forward&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Possible usage: to cheer up the team of athlete representing China in an international sport competition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国好棋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国: China&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;好棋: &quot;good chess&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Possible usage: usually used in games of chess for expressing one's feeling that certain move is a &quot;good move&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;棋, 球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;球: ball&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;棋: chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Possible usage&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The quality of the ball is good&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Used in ball games like football to express one's feeling that an action performed by a football player is of high quality (e.g. scoring)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6006" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T08:04:26.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8726" CreationDate="2014-07-22T08:07:43.680" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes,&lt;code&gt;好棋&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;a good move&quot;; either in chess-style games or, by analogy, &lt;em&gt;anything&lt;/em&gt; related to a contest of strategy (e.g. &lt;code&gt;普京毁了一步好棋&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;Putin screwed up a (previous) good move&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase in question, &lt;code&gt;中国好棋&lt;/code&gt;, is a bit different. That originated from this poster,&#xA;where it is the &lt;em&gt;title&lt;/em&gt; of a poem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;对弈小神童，尚在长成中。游戏无规矩，打闹是常情。但凡说故事，必须中国赢。落子成定局，欢呼轻高音。中国我爱你，年少正青春。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character &lt;code&gt;好&lt;/code&gt; has two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; &quot;good&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt; &quot;to like&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter meaning is the one intended in the phrase ``. So the phrase is saying &quot;&lt;strong&gt;China &lt;em&gt;likes&lt;/em&gt; chess&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (or &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28game%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Go&lt;/a&gt; or generic board games). This can be inferred from the context provided by the poem, the visual emphasis on the &lt;code&gt;好&lt;/code&gt; character, and also because a subject (&lt;code&gt;中国&lt;/code&gt;) precedes it and an object &lt;code&gt;棋&lt;/code&gt; follows it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other possible meaning for the phrase is something along the lines of a &quot;&lt;em&gt;Chinese good move&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. That doesn't fit the poster's context (though you can interpret it as a pun), but the phrase can be used with that meaning too. &#xA;For instance, Chinese chess prodigy 侯逸凡 (Hou Yifan) has talked about the awakening Chinese dragon making a &lt;code&gt;中国好棋&lt;/code&gt; on the chessboard of the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference, the poster:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VZkug.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T08:07:43.680" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8722" CreationDate="2014-07-22T08:30:56.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;just like this in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are my liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle apple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;repeat for emphasize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6025" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T08:30:56.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8722" CreationDate="2014-07-22T09:15:26.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;小苹果 has a lively rhythm. &#xA;The additional 小 avoids prolonging other words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6026" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T09:15:26.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8705" CreationDate="2014-07-22T12:02:49.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can say  奥巴马的竞选活动.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;竞选活动 is referred to the activities in lie to some competitions like elections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this is an example from &lt;strong&gt;dict.cn&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在明年的重选中她参加&quot;竞选&quot;。&#xA;She comes up for &lt;strong&gt;re-election&lt;/strong&gt; next year.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他在&quot;总统竞选&quot;中曾以改革者的姿态出现&#xA;He have project himself as a reformer in the &lt;strong&gt;presidential campaign&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有人说布什因选举大会开得不好以及&quot;竞选&quot;方法不佳而受害。可是即使两者都做得较好，结果也将是一样。我想根本问题也不在于经济。&#xA;Some will say Mr. Bush was done in by a bad convention and a bad &lt;strong&gt;campaign&lt;/strong&gt;. But if both had gone better the outcome would have been the same. And I don't think it all came down to the economy, either.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他将参加&quot;总统竞选&quot;。&#xA;He'll run for the &lt;strong&gt;Presidency&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6005" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T12:02:49.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8732" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8735" CreationDate="2014-07-22T12:28:48.187" Score="8" ViewCount="6909" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that a couple of variation of &quot;coding&quot; or programming are 编程, or 写代码. How would I refer to that person who does the coding/programming? Is it 编程家? or is there a more colloquial way of saying it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-07-10T22:58:55.897" LastActivityDate="2020-04-03T05:47:02.860" Title="What is the Chinese word for 'programmer'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8732" CreationDate="2014-07-22T12:59:48.130" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;程序员 is widely used in China as “programmer”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T12:59:48.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8734" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8736" CreationDate="2014-07-22T13:57:24.727" Score="7" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of the books and materials I've seen talk about the tone sandhi that changes two third tones to a second and a third, as in &quot;你好.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a question about the word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;寶寶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some materials I've seen list this as &quot;bao3 bao3&quot;. Based on the sandhi, I'd assume that this would be pronounced as &quot;bao2 bao3.&quot; However, some materials have the word's pronunciation as &quot;bao3 bao0&quot; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姐姐 is the only other word I remember seeing with this characteristic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a separate sandhi that says that a reduplicated character is always normal tone, neutral tone, that overrides the &quot;3 3&quot; sandhi? Is it a weird exception I just have to memorize? Or is there something else I'm missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4399" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T17:24:31.420" Title="Third tone sandhi: when (if ever) does 3 3 become 3 0 instead of 2 3?" Tags="&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8732" CreationDate="2014-07-22T14:12:13.590" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;编程家&lt;/code&gt; sounds weird. You can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;程序员&#xA;程序猿 (for male)&#xA;程序媛 (for female)&#xA;编程人员&#xA;码农 (junior programmer without future, often used for self-mockery)&#xA;挨踢(IT)民工 (similar to 码农)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-07-11T02:14:39.790" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T02:14:39.790" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8734" CreationDate="2014-07-22T14:30:34.753" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;bao3 bao0&quot; is actually not a third tone sandhi here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is because the tone of second bao3 got neutralized.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually a second character of a two-character word would get neutralized, I would say it is a accent thing that depends on people from different places of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastEditorUserId="4379" LastEditDate="2014-07-22T14:36:44.553" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T14:36:44.553" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8732" CreationDate="2014-07-22T14:34:23.877" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;软件工程师（軟件工程師） should be a good one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T14:34:23.877" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8705" CreationDate="2014-07-22T14:40:21.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;奥巴马的 “竞选活动“ should be good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other one people might say is &quot;造势活动&quot;, which literally means &quot;build power activity&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T14:40:21.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8663" CreationDate="2014-07-22T21:41:58.570" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Split it up to questions, omit the second modal particle &quot;吗&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我需要带 XXX 吗？[...] 还是只要带影印本？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, combine into one sentence, omit the second verb &quot;带&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我需要带XXX, [...] 还是只要影印本？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6028" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T21:41:58.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8512" CreationDate="2014-07-22T22:44:42.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In modern Shanghainese and some other of Wu dialects, the adherence to the five tones has basically diminished in speech (still exists when referring to single characters), and converted into three pitches(low, mid, high).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pitches for the same character, however, do vary through speech. For example, notice how the pitch for character 大's one pronunciation &amp;quot;da&amp;quot; differ from word to word: first the characters, then Shanghainese and corresponding pitch, then meaning, and finally the character's Mandarin Pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;High: 澳大利亚 [O-da-li-ia] {lo-hi-md-md} (Australia) Ao4-da4-li4-ya4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Low: 大世界 [Da-su-ka] {lo-hi-md} (an entertainment venue) Da4-shi4-jie4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mid: 大饼 [da-ping] {md-hi} （large flatbread) da4－bing3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm not using any established romanization system for Shanghainese, instead I just used my own way for this ad hoc purpose.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find the definition to &amp;quot;pitch accent language,&amp;quot; so I can't answer you whether Shanghainese has become one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6028" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T19:48:50.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8722" CreationDate="2014-07-23T01:31:17.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Same as &quot;twinkle twinkle little star...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6029" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T01:31:17.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8561" CreationDate="2014-07-23T03:50:13.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;谦虚的说法，介绍自己的孩子通常用 犬子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《史记·司马相如列传》：“少时好读书，学击剑，故其亲名之曰犬子。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6031" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T03:50:13.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8561" CreationDate="2014-07-23T04:29:57.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely the son. &#xA;虎父无犬子: Eagles do not breed doves. Opp:&#xA;上梁不正下梁歪: Fish begins to stink at the head. (上梁 refers to the father or leader)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T04:29:57.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8732" CreationDate="2014-07-23T04:47:38.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;程序员 is the widely used word. In most company, including the one I'm currently working in, people use 程序 to call 程序员, some kinda in short. 主程: LP/ Chief Programmer.&#xA;A funny version is 程序猿[code monkey]. 猿(yuan2) is gorilla.&#xA;Also, 码农[a programmer who gets low salary],程序媛[female code monkey](媛 means girl).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T04:47:38.637" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8726" CreationDate="2014-07-23T04:57:08.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In that case, it means GOOD MOVE. 好棋(hao3qi2). If you see something like 他好棋, it should be read as (hao4qi2), which means HE IS INTO CHESS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T04:57:08.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8732" CreationDate="2014-07-23T06:45:07.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've also heard 程序设计师 (设计师 = designer, architect).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4033" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T06:45:07.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8747" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-23T09:44:11.630" Score="2" ViewCount="1069" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find it much more sincere to accept compliments and show how grateful I am rather than to belittle myself.&#xA;Therefore I would like to know some phrases in Chinese to accept compliments and show my gratitude rather than overhumbling myself. I &lt;strong&gt;do not&lt;/strong&gt; want to know phrases like 哪裏哪裏.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you accept compliments in Chinese without coming off as really arrogant (taking into consideration that the Chinese culture in general highly values modesty and humility)? Although in the West it is certainly possible to accept compliments and be modest at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. in English we might say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm very happy to hear that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm glad you liked it (for a performance or something like that)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very kind of you to say that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6034" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-07-23T09:52:44.957" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T05:00:10.910" Title="Accepting compliments (without rejecting them)" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8732" CreationDate="2014-07-23T10:01:32.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can say '程序员'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EG：&#xA;程序员总是有着相同的风格&#xA;Programmer alway has same style of wear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5760" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T10:01:32.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8749" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8750" CreationDate="2014-07-23T10:32:53.157" Score="7" ViewCount="1744" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to say a program (as in something a programmer/程序员） finally works! &#xA;Is there a way to translate this &quot;works&quot; into chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I say &#xA;我的代码终于可以了！？ Or is there a way that is more clear what I mean? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-07-23T15:02:13.860" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T23:47:59.650" Title="How do I say that a program (coding) &quot;Works!&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8749" CreationDate="2014-07-23T10:39:27.077" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我的代码终于可以了&lt;/code&gt; is close to &lt;code&gt;My code is ok now&lt;/code&gt;, you can say something more clearly like &lt;code&gt;我的代码终于可以&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;运行&#xA;工作&#xA;跑（起来）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;了！&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-07-23T12:58:57.917" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T12:58:57.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8747" CreationDate="2014-07-23T10:46:14.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is a bit self-contradictory to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the one hand, you asked for responses in keeping with Chinese culture's &quot;highly [valued] modesty and humility&quot;. Yet on the other, you explicitly ruled out a customary phrases doing exactly that. Is there a specific issue you have with &lt;code&gt;哪裡哪裡&lt;/code&gt; or are you rejecting all similar phrases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps there's some misunderstanding here. Phrases like &lt;code&gt;過獎了&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;哪裡哪裡&lt;/code&gt; and equivalent are hardly &quot;overhumbling&quot; or &quot;belittling&quot;. They are in fact simply standard ways of &lt;strong&gt;accepting&lt;/strong&gt; compliments &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; appropriate modesty and humility, as the question asks for. It would not be understood by most people as &quot;rejecting&quot; a compliment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, &lt;strong&gt;you don't &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; to take &quot;modesty and humility&quot; into &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; much consideration.&lt;/strong&gt; To levelly accept compliments without trying to show those virtues, simply use &lt;code&gt;謝謝&lt;/code&gt;, a plain &quot;thank you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can straight up translate English into Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;你喜欢让我很高兴&lt;/code&gt; - I'm glad you liked it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;得到你的夸奖很高兴&lt;/code&gt; - I'm very happy to hear your compliments.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;你太仁慈了&lt;/code&gt; - You're too kind.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T10:46:14.770" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8747" CreationDate="2014-07-23T11:43:32.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a local Chinese, I can tell you that young people are getting more and more simple and straight at your point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Young people (me included :P) tend to use words like &quot;谢谢&quot;、&quot;真的吗?&quot;，etc. But I think you have a misunderstanding on &quot;哪里&quot; and &quot;过奖了&quot;. They don't make any sense literally. They are just old-to-now phrases used for accepting compliments. The wisest guy Zhuge Liang(诸葛亮) always said &quot;略懂,略懂&quot; which means KNOW LITTLE literally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And why are those phrases popular from past to nowadays? Modesty is the stereotype and characteristic of most Asian people. It has become a part of Chinese culture, which people react to compliments that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T11:43:32.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8749" CreationDate="2014-07-23T11:54:46.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“运行”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“通过”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的代码终于可以运行了！&#xA;it's usual way to say so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3030" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T11:54:46.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8749" CreationDate="2014-07-23T11:56:50.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We say 跑起来了(informal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这破程序我改了半天,终于能跑起来了！&#xA;[I worked and worked and worked on that 'piece of code', finally it worked.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T11:56:50.017" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8755" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-23T14:08:40.683" Score="3" ViewCount="582" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I've gotten into the habit of writing in a Chinese diary each night. However, I'd be disappointed if I kept on making mistakes and instead of correcting them, reinforcing them through the diary. Does anyone know of any services that correct Chinese essays? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-28T04:52:02.423" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T04:52:02.423" Title="Is there a website/service that corrects Chinese essays?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2015-02-24T20:28:24.380" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8756" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-23T14:18:28.780" Score="2" ViewCount="1458" Body="&lt;p&gt;In english, we often use the transition &quot;it didn't help that&quot; to indicate that something bad had happened, and that there was another factor that potentially made it even worse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex. He was already very sick from the fever, so it didn't help that he refused to drink soup. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I say, &#xA;他已经因为发烧了感到很弱。 更坏他不让别人给他汤喝？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T13:55:12.573" Title="How do I say &quot;It didn't help that..&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8756" CreationDate="2014-07-23T14:29:34.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply use &quot;还(hai2)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他已经发烧发到很虚弱了，还不肯喝汤。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T14:29:34.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8756" CreationDate="2014-07-23T14:43:56.067" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;“It didn't help that..” could be translated to &quot;更糟的是&quot; （Literally means worse is）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他已经发烧发到很虚弱了，更糟的是不肯喝汤。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T14:43:56.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8749" CreationDate="2014-07-23T15:25:55.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;终于跑了！should be a good one. (Literally means finally - it is - running) In this case, 跑 means a program IS RUNNING, but not ESCAPING.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T15:25:55.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8684" CreationDate="2014-07-23T18:25:09.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's maybe a different way to think about 到. In the context you mentioned, 到 here means to have done said action. The state of the action has been brought into existence; it is now a fact. So think of it more like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看到 = have seen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;闻到 = have smelled&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃到 = have eaten/have tasted&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why in English we say &quot;I can see/smell/taste...&quot;, like &quot;I can taste sweetness.&quot; It's not saying &quot;I am able to taste&quot; but rather my tasting of sweetness is now a fact. 到 can be used with almost any verb in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example of 他梦到你, the 到 here has nothing to do with 你. The 到 here modifies 梦 to say that his dreaming of you (or anything) is a fact. You can't say 他梦來你, since it would not make any sense at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;來(来) is more literal, denoting arrival at your current location. You don't say, 吃來 or 喝來. But you say, 回來 or 走來.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What might be confusing you with 來 and 到 is another use of 到, which also means arrival, but at any location. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我走到市場 -- I walk to the market (the market can be anywhere)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我走來市場 -- I walk to the market (and that is where I am currently)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6016" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T18:25:09.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8774" CreationDate="2014-07-23T19:09:45.177" Score="4" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working with Chinese resumes and I've found 长和能力 as a section title. I tried to translate it using the Google Translate and it says it means &quot;Length and capacity&quot;. Is there any alternative translation, maybe more appropiate taking into account the context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6039" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T18:28:29.763" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T18:28:29.763" Title="I need help with the translation of 长和能力" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8765" CreationDate="2014-07-23T21:22:59.313" Score="1" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been working a bit on writing lately, and I'm trying to figure out how best to translate the classic english statement &quot;The things I do&quot;. For example, I would like to say &#xA;&quot;Sometimes the things I do are actually good for my own future&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I say 有时候我喜欢做的东西对我自己的未来很好。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do people ever say &quot;我做的东西“ or 做的事 ？  or is this a poor translation for what I'd like to say? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T12:25:41.177" Title="How do I say &quot;The things I do&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8764" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8784" CreationDate="2014-07-23T21:30:46.533" Score="4" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always been a bit confused about the order of using 有能力 and I'm hoping someone can clarify. Do people say &quot;有能力 &lt;code&gt;do something&lt;/code&gt;&quot; or &quot;有 &lt;code&gt;do something&lt;/code&gt; 的能力&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, could I say &quot;他没有能力写代码？” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-17T01:50:28.673" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T01:50:28.673" Title="Do people say 有能力 &lt;do something&gt; or 有 &lt;do something&gt; 的能力" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8763" CreationDate="2014-07-23T22:20:02.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;有时做我想做的事其实对自己的前途有利 would perhaps do. Although you could say &quot;做的东西&quot;, it is probably far more common to say &quot;做的事&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T22:20:02.483" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8764" CreationDate="2014-07-23T23:23:02.690" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both is correct. Yay!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think &quot;I'm ABLE to code.&quot; and &quot;I HAVE THE ABILITY of coding.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6028" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T23:23:02.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8756" CreationDate="2014-07-23T23:42:27.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of “他已经因为发烧了感到很弱。 &lt;strong&gt;更坏的是&lt;/strong&gt;, 他不让别人给他汤喝.” (&lt;strong&gt;what was worse&lt;/strong&gt;), you can also translate it literally, such as &quot;他已经因为发烧了感到很弱。 &lt;strong&gt;所以&lt;/strong&gt; 不让别人给他汤喝 &lt;strong&gt;并无裨益&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;没有帮助&lt;/strong&gt;。（&lt;strong&gt;So&lt;/strong&gt;...&lt;strong&gt;didn't help.&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally would put the sentence as “他发烧得很虚弱了, &lt;strong&gt;可还&lt;/strong&gt; 拒绝喝汤。(&lt;strong&gt;however yet&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6028" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T23:42:27.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8749" CreationDate="2014-07-23T23:47:59.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like people already suggested, its good to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的代码终于跑起来了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“跑” as in the sense of &quot;to run&quot; (the program) is a calque from English to Chinese. It's very literal and very easy to understand. Just like &quot;sky craping tower&quot; is loaned and translated literally as “摩天楼” （rub－sky－building）and very much make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6028" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T23:47:59.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8769" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8772" CreationDate="2014-07-24T00:02:13.397" Score="2" ViewCount="1104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did a quick search and have found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;姓名： 约瑟翰 庞麦郎 英文名: Joseeh Punmanlon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it is supposed to be like &quot;Snoop Dogg,&quot; &quot;Buddy Guy&quot; or something like that. But I'm still very curious on if that would have any meaning or cultural reference? Something a non-native Chinese wouldn't understand? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what about the &quot;English name&quot; part, is that just a loose transliteration? If that's the case I'd think &quot;Yosehan Pamelo&quot; to be a better alternative, very &quot;mid-aged-Brooklyn-mafia-member-ish&quot;....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6028" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T18:33:18.643" Title="What does the name of the singer &quot;约瑟翰 庞麦郎&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8763" CreationDate="2014-07-24T00:08:02.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有时候我喜欢做的东西对我自己的未来很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's probably better to use “事” as a general reference to &quot;things&quot; as “东西” will make “做” mean like &quot;make&quot;, and you're missing &quot;&lt;strong&gt;actually&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有时候我喜欢做的事 &lt;strong&gt;其实&lt;/strong&gt; 对我自己的未来很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6028" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T00:08:02.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8769" CreationDate="2014-07-24T00:58:58.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't mean anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a rule for English-Chinese name translation. You can google it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some names might vary from places like Taiwan, Hongkong, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &lt;strong&gt;Madonna&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;麦当娜&lt;/strong&gt; in mainland, &lt;strong&gt;玛丹娜&lt;/strong&gt; in Tawiwan and Hongkong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T00:58:58.337" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8769" CreationDate="2014-07-24T01:10:37.603" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Oh, it is Joe the big wheatman!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Joking aside, Pang Mailang seems to be his real name, while Yuesehan is more like an artistic nickname, like &quot;Joseph&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T01:10:37.603" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8764" CreationDate="2014-07-24T01:32:01.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. So you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他(没)有能力写代码&#xA;他(没)有写代码的能力&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T01:32:01.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8762" CreationDate="2014-07-24T01:34:29.217" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You've asked something &quot;more appropriate taking into account the context?&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking consideration that this being coming from a resume, I hold that this &quot;长和能力&quot; is very likely to be missing a character that would have formed a word with &quot;长&quot;. It is likely to be “长处” （&quot;merit&quot;, &quot;strength&quot; or &quot;advantage; lit. &lt;em&gt;where it's long&lt;/em&gt;), making the whole “长处和能力” (Strength and Abilities), which would make sense for a resume section title. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bad news is that this person misspelled in his resume and you might now like it; but the good news is, I will tell you that “长处” is a very tacit euphemism for a body part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6028" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T01:34:29.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8762" CreationDate="2014-07-24T01:39:06.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does not make sense. Maybe a typo. (from a copy-paste error?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it should be &lt;code&gt;特长和能力&lt;/code&gt; (specialties and abilities).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T01:39:06.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8776" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-24T02:12:15.780" Score="5" ViewCount="542" Body="&lt;p&gt;A while ago I came across this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Shi_shi_shi_shi&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Shi_shi_shi_shi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if there's any more homophonic poems like this? Or even is there a genre?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6028" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T09:59:55.930" Title="The Shi Shi Shi Shi Shi poem?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8776" CreationDate="2014-07-24T03:29:26.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can check out this website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetolearn.com/listen-funny-chinese-tongue-twister-rao4-kou3-ling4-%E7%BB%95%E5%8F%A3%E4%BB%A4-chinese-tongue-twister-samples-twisters-pinyin-english-translation-info-twisters-origin-development-coll/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tongue Twister Examples and Origin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there are example tongue twisters and the origins of tongue twister are explained (in Chinese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://raokouling.911cha.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tongue Twister in Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is another website where examples of tongue twisters are shown only in Chinese. There is no Pinyin for this. I think this is more easier than the one above. The tongue twisters are not that complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6005" LastEditorUserId="6005" LastEditDate="2014-07-24T03:34:47.477" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T03:34:47.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8778" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8779" CreationDate="2014-07-24T04:13:56.977" Score="2" ViewCount="582" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese Etymology (dot org) says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From hand 寸 and plow 辰. Meaning humiliate. (possibly from low level work)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This explanation seems very 牵强 - plowing wouldn't been seen as low level work until very recently one would imagine...and doing plow work is not exactly &lt;em&gt;humliating&lt;/em&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any reasonable explanations for 辰+寸=辱?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T05:27:11.367" Title="meaning: 辱=辰+寸, why? What does it mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8778" CreationDate="2014-07-24T05:18:29.547" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty&quot;&gt;Han Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; linguist &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Shen&quot;&gt;Hsu Shen's&lt;/a&gt; explanation in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;Shuo-wen Chieh-Tzu&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【&lt;strong&gt;清·陳昌治刻本·說文解字&lt;/strong&gt;】辱：恥也。从寸在辰下。失耕時，於封畺上戮之也。辰者，農之時也。故房星為辰，田候也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【&lt;strong&gt;清·段玉裁·說文解字注&lt;/strong&gt;】恥也。心部曰。恥，辱也。此之謂轉注。儀禮注曰。以白造緇曰辱。从寸在辰下。會意。寸者，法度也。而蜀切。三部。失耕時。故从辰。於封畺上戮之也。故从寸。辰者，農之時也。故房星爲辰。說从辰之意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to him, &lt;code&gt;辰&lt;/code&gt; refers to &lt;strong&gt;date/time&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e. for farming; and &lt;code&gt;寸&lt;/code&gt; refers to &lt;strong&gt;laws&lt;/strong&gt; and the judicial system. This explanation draws upon the fact that ancient China, especially under the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_dynasty&quot;&gt;Chou Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; was heavily focused on agriculture. Because various stages of farming (planting, harvesting, etc) was time critical, those who messed up the dates were disgraced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus &lt;code&gt;辱&lt;/code&gt; comes from &lt;em&gt;the judicial humiliation &lt;code&gt;寸&lt;/code&gt; for missing the correct times for farming &lt;code&gt;辰&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. This meaning of &quot;to humiliate&quot; came into currency during the mid-late Chou Dynasty. In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot;&gt;bronze script&lt;/a&gt;, this character had a radical &lt;code&gt;言&lt;/code&gt;, denoting the verbal nature of the humiliation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;strong&gt;it might not have been the original meaning&lt;/strong&gt; for that character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By this I mean we are discussing the &lt;em&gt;ancestor of the ancestor&lt;/em&gt; of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot;&gt;clerical script&lt;/a&gt; character &lt;code&gt;辱&lt;/code&gt;. When traced all the way back to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot;&gt;oracle bone scripts&lt;/a&gt;, the character &lt;code&gt;辱&lt;/code&gt; (or rather, its ancestor) meant &quot;to weed&quot;. Modern scholars have argued that this came from &lt;em&gt;a farming tool (&lt;strong&gt;seashell&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;code&gt;辰&lt;/code&gt; being used by the &lt;strong&gt;right hand&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;又&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/em&gt; The radical &lt;code&gt;又&lt;/code&gt; later mutated into &lt;code&gt;寸&lt;/code&gt; in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_script&quot;&gt;seal script&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This original bone script meaning &lt;strong&gt;developed into the clerical script character&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;耨&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Also, that is where the explanation cited in the question came from. I would guess that at some point, @user3306356's source mixed up the two different lineages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T05:18:29.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8778" CreationDate="2014-07-24T05:27:11.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;辰 means time. 寸 is a unit of length. These are what these means today; and the original meaning are exactly what you've quoted(寸 means thumb to be exact). And the etymology of 辱 actually makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You wouldn't think of it as 牵强 if you take consideration that &quot;to humiliate&quot; doesn't always mean &quot;to insult&quot;, it could also mean to &quot;humble&quot; (oneself), even in today's English. Think that in the ancient time very few people can read or write; when a prestigious scholar bowing down to grow rice himself, that is surly humbling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6028" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T05:27:11.367" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8755" CreationDate="2014-07-24T07:51:33.400" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if there is any, but, I can't find one. Maybe you can post your essay here at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.stackexchange.com&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stack Exchange&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/a&gt;and ask for corrections. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6005" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T07:51:33.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8776" CreationDate="2014-07-24T08:36:29.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's the &lt;code&gt;Tongue Twister&lt;/code&gt; with Chinese, you can look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Chinese/topics/tongue/douying.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this webpage&lt;/a&gt;,there are many interesting tongue twister examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5880" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T08:36:29.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8764" CreationDate="2014-07-24T08:48:37.907" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes,both is correct.but I think &lt;code&gt;他不会写代码&lt;/code&gt; is more naturally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5880" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T08:48:37.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8776" CreationDate="2014-07-24T09:59:55.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers seem to have mistaken what you are looking for...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has a page of &lt;strong&gt;同音文章&lt;/strong&gt; (one-syllable articles or homophonic poems (as you called it)): &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%8C%E9%9F%B3%E6%96%87%E7%AB%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(in case they get deleted here's what they have below)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;侄治痔&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　《侄治痔》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　芝之稚侄郅，至智，知制纸，知织帜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　芝痔，炙痔，痔殖，郅至芝址，知之，知芷汁治痔，至芷址执芷枝，豸至，踯，郅执直枝掷之，枝至豸趾，豸止。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　郅执芷枝致芝，芝执芷治痔，痔止。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　芝炙脂雉肢致郅。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;羿裔熠&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;羿裔熠，邑彝，义医，艺诣。熠姨遗一裔伊，伊仪迤，衣旖，异奕矣。熠意伊矣，易衣以贻伊，伊遗衣，衣异衣以意异熠，熠抑矣。伊驿邑，弋一翳，弈毅，毅仪奕，诣弈，衣异，意逸。毅诣伊，益伊，伊怡，已臆毅矣，毅亦怡伊。翌，伊亦弈毅。毅以蜴贻伊，伊亦贻衣以毅。伊疫，呓毅，癔异矣，倚椅咿咿，毅亦咿咿。毅诣熠，意以熠，议熠医伊，熠懿毅，意役毅逸。毅以熠宜伊，翼逸。熠驿邑以医伊，疑伊胰痍，以蚁医伊，伊遗异，溢，伊咦。熠移伊，刈薏以医，伊益矣。伊忆毅，亦呓毅矣，熠意伊毅已逸，熠意役伊。伊异，噫，缢。熠癔，亦缢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;遗镒疑医&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;伊姨殪，遗亿镒。伊诣邑，意医姨疫，一医医伊姨。翌，亿镒遗，疑医，以议医。医以伊疑，缢，以移伊疑。伊倚椅以忆，忆以亿镒遗，以议伊医，亦缢。噫！亦异矣！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;易姨医胰&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《易姨医胰》 易姨悒悒，依议诣夷医。医疑胰疫，遗意易姨倚椅，以异仪移姨胰，弋异蚁一亿，胰液溢，蚁殪，胰以医。易胰怡怡，贻医一夷衣。医衣夷衣，怡怡奕奕。噫！以蚁医胰，异矣！以夷衣贻夷医亦宜矣！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;于瑜欲渔&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;于瑜欲渔，遇余于寓。语余：“余欲渔于渝淤，与余渔渝欤？”余语与瑜：“余欲鬻玉，俞禹欲玉，余欲遇俞于俞寓。”余与于瑜遇俞禹于俞寓，逾俞隅，欲鬻玉于俞，遇雨，雨逾俞宇。余语于瑜：“余欲渔于渝淤，遇雨俞寓，雨逾俞宇，欲渔欤？鬻玉欤？” 于瑜与余御雨于俞寓，俞鬻玉于余禹，雨愈，余与于瑜踽踽逾俞宇，渔于渝淤。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;熙戏犀&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;西溪犀，喜嬉戏。席熙夕夕携犀徙，席熙细细习洗犀。犀吸溪，戏袭熙。席熙嘻嘻希息戏。惜犀嘶嘶喜袭熙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;饥鸡集矶记&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;唧唧鸡，鸡唧唧。几鸡挤挤集矶脊。机极疾，鸡饥极，鸡冀己技击及鲫。机既济蓟畿，鸡计疾机激几鲫。机疾极，鲫极悸，急急挤集矶级际。继即鲫迹极寂寂，继即几鸡既饥，即唧唧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;狮食豕史&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;狮识豕，豕识狮。始，狮嗜舐豕；豕适。豕时侍狮食柿，狮适。时逝，狮始试豕势。狮舐豕时，适时试噬豕。狮嗜豕时，豕试噬狮。狮嗜豕时，豕适示狮。豕噬狮 时，狮奭。豕始识狮势实势。豕蓍筮，筮示：狮实誓噬弑豕。豕饰失势，事事适狮。时时侍狮。师事狮。试使狮释豕。 是时，豕视虱噬狮，狮拭虱，狮实失适。豕舐狮时，噬虱示狮。豕时时噬虱示狮，使狮适。狮视豕噬虱，狮释。狮始识豕势实是噬虱，豕失势。狮始矢誓弑豕。适 时，豕适噬虱示狮，狮示豕：豕噬虱失实，豕实是试弑狮。狮始施狮式示豕。豕视狮式，豕失屎。狮始噬弑豕。 狮噬食豕势，豕失势，豕逝世。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;适时，十豕驶适。十豕视豕尸，奭。十豕誓师，誓使狮释豕尸事实。狮释：狮食实是柿，食豕是失实。狮视豕是‘士’，豕视狮是‘师’。狮事事适豕，豕失识世事。豕时拭狮豕屎；时施矢石弑狮。适时狮驶，豕施矢石弑狮失事，豕弑豕，豕逝世。狮饰弑豕事实，十豕释，驶逝。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;豕逝世，狮失豕侍。狮食失柿。狮始试食豕尸。狮食豕尸实适。狮始识豕尸实适狮食。是始，狮时时弑豕，嗜食豕尸。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;始，狮视十豕势似狮。时逝，狮始识，十豕势实似豕。视十豕是十尸。适时，狮视十豕适，狮施狮式示十豕。狮恃势噬弑豕。十豕失是豕，十豕驶逝。 狮拾豕尸适市。使絁饰豕尸。狮视市，示市：狮是豕师，豕师事狮。豕视师失食，豕矢誓使师食豕。豕逝世，侍师食豕尸，豕实是‘士’。狮食豕，狮失‘士’，实 狮蚀。是使狮谥豕：‘豕氏’。谥豕‘仕’。狮示市：十豕师事‘豕士’。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;狮时适市，施狮式示市。诗《狮食豕史诗〉示市：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;狮食实是豕，豕食实是柿。时时狮食豕，世世豕食柿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;事实是事实，实事是实事。世视狮食豕，实是事实事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu baike also listed some others: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1756142.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《对联》&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上联：齐妻起棋，齐欺妻气，妻弃七棋。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下联：伊姨移椅，伊倚姨疑，姨遗一椅。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;【吏李立莅】&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吏李立莅，赲逦屴岦峛沥俚黎，立艃漓里叕鲤礼黎，罹沴厉离，俚黎蛎鹂历呖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《季姬击鸡记》&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;季姬寂，集鸡，鸡即棘鸡。棘鸡饥叽，季姬及箕稷济鸡。鸡既济，跻姬笈，季姬忌，急咭鸡，鸡急，继圾几，季姬急，即籍箕击鸡，箕疾击几伎，即齑，鸡叽集几基，季姬急极屐击鸡，鸡既殛，季姬激，即记《季姬击鸡记》。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T09:59:55.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8786" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8788" CreationDate="2014-07-24T14:56:21.503" Score="2" ViewCount="660" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would one say &quot;clean&quot; as in &quot;Clean a city&quot; &#xA;For example, in english we would say. &#xA;&quot;Once a month everyone in Rwanda leaves their house to clean the city&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I say &#xA;&quot;打扫城市“ ”把城市弄干净”？ Or is there  a better way of doing this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T15:51:11.540" Title="How do you say &quot;Clean&quot; as in &quot;clean a city&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8786" CreationDate="2014-07-24T15:50:47.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your best bet is: &lt;strong&gt;清洁&lt;/strong&gt; it's usually used as an adjective like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;clean; sanitary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她的房间整齐清洁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;²Tā de fángjiān zhěngqí qīngjié.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Her room is tidy and clean. -&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But! It's also used frequently as a verb!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In china at the moment a lot of cities even have 清洁城市活动 or 清洁城市日.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T15:50:47.643" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8786" CreationDate="2014-07-24T15:51:11.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could use 清洁城市 or 清潔城市.  打扫 also means clean but it is usually used when cleaning (actually sweeping) happens in a smaller area (i.e. cleaning your place / your room etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T15:51:11.540" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8789" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8793" CreationDate="2014-07-24T16:22:34.173" Score="3" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;For tone-marked Yale, the tone mark goes over the first vowel and then (for tones 4,5,6) an 'h' is placed after the last vowel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about the syllables without any vowels: hm, hng, m, ng ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing place the tone mark over the n and m?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how about the low-level 'h'? For 'm' there is only one place. But for the others, should it go after the 'n' or after the 'g'?  After the 'g' certainly looks better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, maybe because those four syllables only seem to ever exist in tones 4,5 and 6, that we don't need the 'h' at all (because it can be implied).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6046" LastEditorUserId="6046" LastEditDate="2014-07-25T00:31:43.870" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T00:31:43.870" Title="Yale tone marks and low-level 'h' for vowel-less syllables" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;yale-romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8790" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8791" CreationDate="2014-07-24T16:39:38.173" Score="2" ViewCount="4426" Body="&lt;p&gt;I sometimes need to say the equivalent of &lt;em&gt;Sorry, could you repeat that?&lt;/em&gt; I have found one comfortable phrase (for me) to handle this situation but would like to learn other phrases to use in this case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When speaking Cantonese I might say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nei gong matyeh, ting m doh (你講乜嘢, 聽唔到 lit: what did you say, I didn't hear everything)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure that Mandarin and maybe even Cantonese speakers would not say this phrase. But people get my gist as a non-Asian. I'd be grateful for any wisdom shared so that I can communicate this concept better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-03-16T02:35:53.810" LastActivityDate="2016-03-24T02:49:23.220" Title="Could you repeat that?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8790" CreationDate="2014-07-24T16:59:13.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no real special phrase for this situation, unlike English's &quot;I beg your pardon&quot;. Therefore, anything conveying the sense of &quot;please repeat&quot; or &quot;I didn't hear&quot; works. For instance, as is increasingly the case in English as well, normally you could just say &quot;what?&quot;, &lt;code&gt;什麼?&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be a little more preciser, as well as polite / less familiar, you could say &lt;code&gt;對不起, 我沒聽清楚&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;Sorry, I didn't quite catch that.&quot; And then you can ask them &lt;code&gt;可以再說一遍嗎?&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;Could you repeat that?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really, just about any translation of what you'd say in English would work. Since there's no specific phrase, as long as the sentence is grammatically sound and makes sense, you'll be understood just fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-24T17:04:18.993" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T17:04:18.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8792" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8796" CreationDate="2014-07-24T17:37:15.153" Score="3" ViewCount="744" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been on the receiving end of an unexpected gift. Actually I was in a restaurant and the owner (who knows I am learning Cantonese/Mandarin), just gives me some dong gua tong (soup). I didn't order it and the situation made me wonder what is the appropriate phrases for receiving unexpected gifts. I recall that in Cantonese one can say doh je! instead of m goy (or m goy sai) and I think in Mandarin xie xie might suffice but I'd like to ask what other appropriate phrases exists? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure many variations may work but I'd appreciate some more insight if there are phrases which might be more appropriate than others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T04:43:38.927" Title="Appropriate responses to unexpected gift?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8789" CreationDate="2014-07-24T18:31:04.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_romanization_of_Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yale romanization&lt;/a&gt; analyzes Cantonese syllables in terms of an optional initial and an obligatory final (e.g., &lt;code&gt;cheung&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;ch&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;eung&lt;/code&gt;). The tone mark is always placed over the first letter of the final (e.g., &lt;code&gt;chèung&lt;/code&gt;). As you mentioned, &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; is used after the vowel (more accurately the &lt;em&gt;syllable nucleus&lt;/em&gt;) in syllables to denote tones 4, 5, and 6 (e.g., &lt;code&gt;chèuhng&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While &lt;code&gt;m&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ng&lt;/code&gt; in most other cases are considered syllable initials, in these specific cases, &lt;code&gt;m&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ng&lt;/code&gt; are analyzed as syllable finals; they are also the nuclei of these finals. Following the convention with placing the tone mark over the first letter of the final, the marks would thus be placed over the &lt;code&gt;m&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt;, respectively. In the case of &lt;code&gt;hng&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; is considered the initial and &lt;code&gt;ng&lt;/code&gt; is the final, so the tone mark would also occur over the &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You noted that syllables with &lt;code&gt;m&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ng&lt;/code&gt; seem to always exist in tones 4, 5, and 6, so the nuclear &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; may seem redundant, but it is still specified in proper Yale romanization. There are a few cases where such syllables can occur with tone 2 (e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/search.php?q=%CB%ED&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;呣&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/search.php?q=%B6%E2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;嗯&lt;/a&gt;), so in these cases, the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; can make a useful distinction (&lt;code&gt;ḿ&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ńg&lt;/code&gt; vs. &lt;code&gt;ḿh&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ńgh&lt;/code&gt;, where the latter two are possible pronunciations of 五).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T18:31:04.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8794" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-24T19:09:48.123" Score="5" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen 介绍, 简介 and 导语 in news pieces, which labels a one sentence synopsis of the article. Is there any difference between these three? 介绍, 简介 look to be interchangeable, and used commonly like 介绍 person/thing/concept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about 入门, 引导, 导论, 引子? Looking at Baidu hits, they all seem to be used similarly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu hits:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;介绍 100m&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;简介 100m &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;导语 38m&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;入门 100m&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;引导 100m&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;导论 28m&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;引子 18m&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T20:00:41.023" Title="Introduction. What's the difference between 介绍, 简介, 入门, 引导, 导语, 导论, 引子?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8794" CreationDate="2014-07-24T20:00:41.023" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;简介 is actually a short form of 简单介绍, a brief introduction, while 介绍 is introduction.  In this way they are interchangable just as they are in english  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;导语 - 'lead', i.e. the few words you will see at the beginning of a novel.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;入门 - 'getting started', i.e. Macbook for dummies = Macbook 入门&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you get the idea for the rest:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;引导/引子 - 'guide'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;导论 - a more detailed introduction  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T20:00:41.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8792" CreationDate="2014-07-25T02:24:54.227" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you are using the reference &quot;dong gua tong&quot; (冬瓜湯, white gourd soup), I assume the restaurant owner is a Cantonese speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following are some commonly used responses to express your gratefulness from receiving a gift in Cantonese/Mandarin. The last two are not quite suitable in your case. They are generally used when you receive something which is bought by others as presents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;乜咁客氣呀! / 你太客氣了!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That's very generous of you!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多謝晒! / 謝謝你!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thank you!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;乜咁破費呀, 多謝晒! / 要你破費真不好意思, 謝謝啦!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thanks so much for spending money on buying this gift for me!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多謝晒! 我好中意呢份禮物呀! / 謝謝! 我好喜歡這份禮物!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thanks! I really like this gift so much!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, the difference between &quot;唔該&quot; and &quot;多謝&quot; in Cantonese can be summarized as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;唔該&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Used to express your thankfulness towards someone who did something to help you out.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多謝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Used to express your thankfulness towards someone who offered you something without requesting anything in return.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aforementioned difference in Mandarin is not as obvious as it does in Cantonese. You may use &quot;謝謝&quot; in both situations. The phrase &quot;勞煩你了&quot; or &quot;麻煩你了&quot; in Mandarin is similar to &quot;唔該&quot; in Cantonese. &quot;勞煩你了&quot;/&quot;麻煩你了&quot; can be literally translated as &quot;Have you troubled/bothered&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6006" LastEditorUserId="6006" LastEditDate="2014-07-25T04:43:38.927" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T04:43:38.927" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8790" CreationDate="2014-07-25T06:28:10.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;one could also say 请重复, which means &quot;please repeat&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6049" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T06:28:10.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8798" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8800" CreationDate="2014-07-25T06:51:20.697" Score="4" ViewCount="470" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quick question, how would I say &quot;Have you spoken with your parents about me staying at your house yet?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could it simply be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我问一下，关于我在你们家住几天， 你跟你的家庭说了没 ？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or does 关于  sound too formal？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T11:04:29.713" Title="How do I say &quot;Have you spoken to A about B yet?&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8799" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-25T07:04:39.140" Score="3" ViewCount="901" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently， I've been listening to a chinese podcast and in the podcast I heard someone say &quot;中国人常常把谦虚看作一种美德“。  I have also heard the term “叫作” within the podcast - I'm wondering, is there a clear difference between this and 看成／ 教程？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T16:12:35.000" Title="Difference between 看作 and 看成" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8798" CreationDate="2014-07-25T07:14:57.903" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;你跟父母說了我要在你家留宿的事沒有?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question above should suffice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6006" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T07:14:57.903" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8799" CreationDate="2014-07-25T07:59:36.923" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;看作, 看成&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;be seen as&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;叫作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;be said as&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The explanation is only the literal interpretation. Despite of the difference described above, both of them carry similar underlying meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;be comprehended as&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;be classified as&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can dissect the sentence &quot;中国人常常把谦虚看作一种美德&quot; as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国人&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese people&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;常常&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Usually (Always)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;把&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(This one will be discussed later)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;谦虚&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Humility&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看作&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be seen as&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一种&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A kind of&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;美德&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Virtue&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without reordering the phrases, you can come up with the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Chinese people always (*) humility be seen as a kind of virtue.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bet you know the meaning of this sentence. Though it sounds a bit weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In short, the presence of &quot;把&quot; indicates the use of &quot;passive voice&quot; in the above sentence (Humility is always being comprehended as a virtue by Chinese people.).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you are interested in the detailed explanation of the usage of &quot;把&quot;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/Grammar%20exercises/Ba.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; should give you a concrete understanding on this topic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. &quot;教程&quot; means course/tutorial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6006" LastEditorUserId="6006" LastEditDate="2014-07-26T14:48:12.157" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T14:48:12.157" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8808" CreationDate="2014-07-25T08:07:22.543" Score="6" ViewCount="839" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always had some difficulty trying to translate the english &quot;being&quot; as in &quot;being Christian&quot; or &quot;being American&quot;. I'd like to say &#xA;&quot;in the U.S. being Jewish isn't difficult.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I say 我在美国成为犹太人并不难  ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like 成为 in this instance implies becoming - which is not quite what I am trying to imply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="4485" LastEditDate="2014-07-26T00:44:17.953" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T00:44:17.953" Title="How to say &quot;being&quot; as in &quot;Being jewish&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1317" CreationDate="2014-07-25T08:13:16.703" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be quite frank, speaking as a Chinese-Australian, everyone I've met insists that rats and mice are the same creatures&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think the chinese know that the two exist...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They just don't differentiate between them :( &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now. I don't mean to start a debate. But there's a lot to differentiate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rats are more closely linked to us genetically. Rats are actually cleaner than mice, they self groom themselves more often than cats. Infact it's been proven they're smarter than cats and are able to retain more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh. And rats have control over their bladders and choose to wee in one corner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mice don't have any control over their bladder...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it's a myth that rats carry diseases etc.&#xA;Any living organism is a potential host for disease under the right conditions&#xA;Did you know the domestic dog is more likely a carrier of disease than a rat is? &#xA;And it was proven this year that the bubonic plague in Britain was caused by bad hygiene and mouth plaque in humans &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the figures and the distribution of the disease in relation to the rat population, it was impossible for them to pass the disease to so many&#xA;Oh. And there are such things as domestic rats. They're different. They've been selectively bred by humans since the 1600s. Though that may not seem long, they have a life span of 1-2 years.&#xA;Domesticated rats are different to wild ones.&#xA;Just as wolves are different to dogs&#xA;And lions are different to cats&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wouldn't compare a chihuahua to a wolf why compare a domesticated rat to its wild counterpart :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ps. I'm sorry I went off track haha but it had to be said, I have two pet rats and they are the sweetest things. They're like tiny dogs but more loving. They can do tricks as well and are toilet trained. They answer to their names!  They both know how to fetch and bring back balls when I throw them :) they like turning over infront of me so I can scratch their bellies&#xA;They come to me for hugs all the time&#xA;One of them use to sneak into my bed to cuddle with me &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6051" LastEditorUserId="6051" LastEditDate="2014-07-25T08:24:12.273" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T08:24:12.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8798" CreationDate="2014-07-25T08:20:51.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your sentence is OK, except that &lt;code&gt;parents&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;父母&lt;/code&gt;, so you need change &lt;code&gt;家庭&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;父母&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;关于&lt;/code&gt; is necessary in your sentence. Anyway, your sentence is formal as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T08:20:51.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8755" CreationDate="2014-07-25T09:26:21.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stephen.&#xA;I am a Chinese and interested in your Chinese essays..&#xA;Could you POST them or one to me , if i can do anything for help , i will repeat to you .&#xA;you can just post it below , or this is my email : hunter.v.wang@gmail.com &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Looking forward to your essays..&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[You must have 50 reputation to comment]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so , i leave the comment in answer ,sorry;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6052" LastEditorUserId="6052" LastEditDate="2014-07-25T09:45:16.023" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T09:45:16.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8802" CreationDate="2014-07-25T09:43:25.303" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the word you're looking for is &lt;strong&gt;作为&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the capacity, character, or role of; as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;作为你的朋友，我得劝劝你&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As your friend, I have to give you some advice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你作为领导，就要以身作则&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a leader, you should set a good example for others -&lt;em&gt;A Chinese English Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is basically the equivalent of &lt;em&gt;as&lt;/em&gt; in English - which I think is what you're looking for with 'being'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;being Jewish 作为一个犹太人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;being American 作为一个老美&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;being Christian 作为一个基督徒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T09:43:25.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8802" CreationDate="2014-07-25T11:08:19.713" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;being Jewish&quot; can be translated as &quot;身為一個猶太人&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for &quot;In the U.S., being Jewish isn't difficult.&quot;, I would say &quot;猶太人在美國生活大都不錯&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T11:08:19.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8802" CreationDate="2014-07-25T16:28:13.223" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another option for you is &lt;code&gt;当&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我在美国当犹太人并不难。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我在美国当作犹太人并不难。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我在美国作为犹太人并不难。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These all are quite equivalent in saying &quot;Being Jewish in the USA is not hard.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;当&lt;/code&gt; implies a sense of being, filling a role, or acting as something. I do like the aforementioned &lt;code&gt;作为&lt;/code&gt; as well, and it can be used in just about the same way. Personally, I prefer &lt;code&gt;当&lt;/code&gt; because it sounds more active, and &lt;code&gt;作为&lt;/code&gt; feels passive. It's really up to you however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6055" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T16:28:13.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8790" CreationDate="2014-07-26T04:44:50.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the context is informal you could use the following: 你说什么？ Literally translated it means, &quot;You said what?&quot;. However, it figuratively translates to, &quot;What did you say?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6056" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T04:44:50.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8747" CreationDate="2014-07-26T05:00:10.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was studying Mandarin all of my Instructors would always say, &quot;你太客气。&quot;, which means, &quot;You are too kind&quot;.  This would acknowledge their compliment without inferring that the persons observation is incorrect. Also, as was pointed out before, a simple, &quot;谢谢”, would suffice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6056" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T05:00:10.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8799" CreationDate="2014-07-26T16:12:35.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems like the question in the title was never addressed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看作&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;VARIANT OF 看做 kànzuò&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;look upon as; regard as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你把次要问题看做主要问题了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nǐ bǎ cìyao wèntí kànzuò zhǔyào wèntí le.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have taken a minor question for a major one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把别人的困难看做是自己的困难。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā bǎ biéren de kùnnan kànzuò shì zìjǐ de kùnnan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He looks upon the problems of other people as his own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看成&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 take sb. or sth. for; look upon as; regard as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你把我看成什么人了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nǐ bǎ wǒ kàn chéng shénme rén le？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you take me for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把十块的票子看成五块的了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ bǎ shí kuài de piàozi kànchéng wǔ kuài de le.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mistook the ten-yuan bill for a five-yuan one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 be able to see or watch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有会, 电影没看成。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ yǒu huì, diànyǐng méi kàn chéng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a meeting and wasn't able to see the film.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So although the two words are similar and setimes interchangeable but there are still different contexts to consider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T16:12:35.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8815" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8830" CreationDate="2014-07-26T17:24:49.733" Score="2" ViewCount="787" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's a good translation for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;出来混的, 迟早要还的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What comes around, goes around?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T03:10:01.200" Title="Translation; &quot;出来混的，迟早要还的&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8815" CreationDate="2014-07-27T00:22:28.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Guilt will be punished sooner or later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6058" LastEditorUserId="6058" LastEditDate="2014-07-27T00:29:52.770" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T00:29:52.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8824" CreationDate="2014-07-27T00:57:16.473" Score="4" ViewCount="640" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested to see if anyone can help me out. I was talking to a chinese friend and I was trying to give them directions - however, I was struggling saying the simple phrase in english of &quot;Once you pass the fedex, take the next right&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would this  be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你经过Fedex以后， 你马上要右转“  － but I think that this is not quite the meaning I&#xA; am looking for &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T12:40:50.907" Title="How do you say &quot;Take the next right&quot; when giving directions" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8818" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-27T01:11:49.243" Score="3" ViewCount="527" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to explain a situation I was in recently in written Chinese. How would I say &quot;Luckily, right at that time Mark heard my voice&quot; &#xA;Would it simply be &#xA;幸亏， 她正好那时候听到我的声音，马上叫了起来“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for helping out! I'm most interested in how to say &quot;Right at that time&quot; in different contexts &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T21:56:59.267" Title="How do I say &quot;right at that time&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8819" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8826" CreationDate="2014-07-27T01:20:29.033" Score="5" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;The classic question (at least when speaking english) is to ask a child what he wants &quot;to do&quot; when he grows up. Now this &quot;to do&quot; is very vague - and, in a lot of instances, doesn't actually mean &quot;do&quot; (So much as &quot;Be&quot;)&#xA;I'm interested, in Chinese, how is this classic question asked? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it&#xA;&quot;你长到以后想干什么啊？“  or is there  a more natural way to say this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T02:38:09.780" Title="How do you say &quot;to do&quot; When asking a kid what he wants to do when he grows up?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8820" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-27T01:28:14.823" Score="5" ViewCount="2170" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always had a bit of difficulty with statements with the term &quot;whether&quot; in Chinese. In this sentence I would like to say &quot;I asked him whether or not he had met Mark.&quot; - I translated this in my diary as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;只有我跟一个卢旺达人讲了一下 如果他认识不认识Mark &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I use 如果 in this instance? In english there is a murky divide between &quot;Whether&quot; and &quot;if&quot; but I'm not sure if this exists in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T13:34:37.093" Title="How to use &quot;whether&quot; in Chinese - do you need to say 如果？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8820" CreationDate="2014-07-27T01:52:44.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我問他有沒有遇到 Mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;whether or not&quot; can be translated as &quot;有沒有&quot; (depending on the context, of course).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T01:52:44.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8818" CreationDate="2014-07-27T02:00:16.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;right at that time&quot; == &quot;剛好&quot;, &quot;當時&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Luckily, right at that time Mark heard my voice&quot; =&gt; &quot;幸好當時 Mark 聽見我的聲音(呼叫)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T02:00:16.483" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8823" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8828" CreationDate="2014-07-27T02:12:33.920" Score="4" ViewCount="416" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wish to know is there in Chinese language a single word for &quot;無用&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T07:25:40.840" Title="Is there a single word for &quot;無用&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8817" CreationDate="2014-07-27T02:18:47.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;你在 Fedex 那邊拐右&quot; or &quot;你往前走到 Fedex, 再拐右&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Oops, Sorry that I overlooked &quot;the next right&quot;.  Then it should be &quot;你往前走, 在 Fedex 之後的(十字)路口拐右.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-07-27T23:59:02.157" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T23:59:02.157" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8820" CreationDate="2014-07-27T02:28:30.893" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you can't use &lt;code&gt;如果&lt;/code&gt; here. You got the right syntax in there though. What you want is just &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;我问他有沒有见过马克&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;em&gt;&quot;I asked him whether he has &lt;strong&gt;met&lt;/strong&gt; Mark&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. Or, since you used &lt;code&gt;认识&lt;/code&gt; for your translation in the question, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;我问他认不认识马克&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;em&gt;&quot;I asked him whether he &lt;strong&gt;knows&lt;/strong&gt; Mark&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no single &quot;whether&quot; in Chinese; you have to create the appropriate term based on the situation. One way to do this is using the structure &lt;strong&gt;&quot;(verb) 不 (same verb)&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, repeating &lt;code&gt;有&lt;/code&gt; to form &lt;code&gt;有沒有&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &quot;&lt;em&gt;whether (subject) has&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. When the verb is composed of two characters, such as &lt;code&gt;認識&lt;/code&gt;, normally only the first character is used before &lt;code&gt;不&lt;/code&gt;, hence &lt;code&gt;認不認識&lt;/code&gt; for &quot;&lt;em&gt;whether (subject) knows&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, another way of saying &quot;whether is to use &lt;strong&gt;&quot;是否 (verb)&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, using this format, &lt;em&gt;&quot;I asked him whether he has met Mark&quot;&lt;/em&gt; becomes &lt;code&gt;我问他是否见过马克&lt;/code&gt;. Similarly, &quot;&lt;em&gt;whether (subject) has&lt;/em&gt;&quot; becomes &lt;code&gt;是否有&lt;/code&gt;, and &quot;&lt;em&gt;whether (subject) knows&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is &lt;code&gt;是否認識&lt;/code&gt;. Saying &quot;whether&quot; in this style is somewhat more restricted to &lt;em&gt;written&lt;/em&gt; forms of communication, but remains quite current. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-27T13:34:37.093" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T13:34:37.093" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8819" CreationDate="2014-07-27T02:38:09.780" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, there's several way to say it. In addition to what you wrote, you can also use &lt;code&gt;做&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;當&lt;/code&gt;. For example, &lt;code&gt;長大後你想做什麼?&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;你長大後想當什麼?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more formal way, e.g. in essay questions, is to use &lt;code&gt;志向&lt;/code&gt;. For example: &lt;code&gt;你未來的志向是什麼?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T02:38:09.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8823" CreationDate="2014-07-27T02:38:40.217" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends why that thing is considered &quot;無用&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if it is considered redundant, you can say &quot;贅&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T02:38:40.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8823" CreationDate="2014-07-27T02:39:26.430" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;if by 无用 you mean useless and by one word you mean one character then I would recommend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;废&lt;/strong&gt; it has a lot of meanings but specifically here it contains the meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;waste; useless; disused; superfluous in ²fèizhǐ -&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T02:39:26.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8820" CreationDate="2014-07-27T02:47:51.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed, in the given context the phrase &quot;whether or not&quot; need not be translated; for, with respect to the sentence &quot;I asked him whether or not he had met Mark&quot;, to say &quot;我問他認不認識 Mark&quot; suffices. And this is an idiomatic way to &quot;translate&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general the phrase &quot;whether or not&quot; is not to be one-one translated. For instance, the sentence &quot;I do not know whether or not it will rain tomorrow&quot; corresponds in Chinese the sentence &quot;我不知道明天會不會下雨&quot; or less idiomatically &quot;我不知道明天下雨不下雨&quot;. The general rule is obvious now: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let &lt;em&gt;S&lt;/em&gt; be a true subject, let &lt;em&gt;V&lt;/em&gt; be a verb, and let &lt;em&gt;O&lt;/em&gt; be an object for which &quot;whether or not &lt;em&gt;S + V + O&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is considered. If idiomaticness is not rigidly required, and if &lt;em&gt;V'&lt;/em&gt; is the Chinese counterpart of &lt;em&gt;V&lt;/em&gt;, then for &quot;whether or not &lt;em&gt;S + V + O&lt;/em&gt;&quot; to be translated in Chinese it suffices to say &quot;&lt;em&gt;S + V'不V' + O&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, to translate in Chinese the given sentence &quot;whether or not he had met Mark&quot;, where we have replaced &lt;em&gt;S&lt;/em&gt; = he and &lt;em&gt;V&lt;/em&gt; = had met and &lt;em&gt;V'&lt;/em&gt; = 認識 and &lt;em&gt;O&lt;/em&gt; = Mark, by the rule above we have &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;                        S + V'不V' + O = 他 認識不認識 Mark.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope these helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastEditorUserId="5952" LastEditDate="2014-07-27T04:10:26.450" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T04:10:26.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8815" CreationDate="2014-07-27T02:59:16.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say your &lt;em&gt;&quot;What comes around, goes around.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; is a good translation. Another idiom you can use is &lt;em&gt;&quot;You reap what you sow.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; The only small drawback with both is that they don't necessarily imply suffering justice/reprisal for criminal activity, as the Chinese phrase does. I say &lt;em&gt;small&lt;/em&gt; drawback however, because with context that shouldn't generally be a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A non-idiomatic translation could be: &quot;When you lead a life of crime, sooner or later you have to pay your debts.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-27T03:10:01.200" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T03:10:01.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8820" CreationDate="2014-07-27T03:51:57.353" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 是否. 是否认识 = 认不认识. 是否听过 = 听没听过. 是否知道 = 知不知道. You can handle most phrases in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T03:51:57.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8818" CreationDate="2014-07-27T15:10:48.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on the context, 正好 might work for you also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[modif: 正 just + 好 good]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 chance to, by coincidence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我正好那天下午没课, 可以陪她进城。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ zhènghǎo nà tiān xiàwǔ méi kè, kěyǐ péi tā jìnchéng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It happened that I did not have class that afternoon, so I could go to town with her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;em&gt;Tuttle Learners&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is more of a &amp;quot;just as it happens&amp;quot; kind of phrase but that could also totally fit your, &amp;quot;right at that time,&amp;quot; depending on the, specific, context, of course. If you mean in the sentence that mark, just happened to - by chance (maybe you called him many times and on the last try...) heard your voice then 正好 can work here also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T15:10:48.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8834" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-27T21:34:18.977" Score="3" ViewCount="515" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a Chinese TV series &lt;code&gt;敢死队&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDE3MTk4NTA4.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;第11集&lt;/a&gt;).&#xA;it seems hard to understand why the peddler says to the detective (11:05) &lt;code&gt;&quot;what do you call(what is meant by) tired of living, I am looking for someone&quot;&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;&quot;什么叫活腻歪了(northern dialect)&quot;&lt;/code&gt; does not seem to be related to anything before or after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;有一名侦探，从侦缉队总部走出来就跟要进入的小贩碰了面，&#xA;１１：００：侦探：站住&#xA;１１：０１；怎么着 老大&#xA;１１：０２：你小子也不看这什么地方&#xA;１１：０４：就敢往里闯&#xA;１１：０５：小贩：什么叫活腻歪了 我是来找人的&#xA;１１：０８：侦探：找人找谁啊&#xA;１１：１０：小贩：你们伍队张&#xA;１１：１２：侦探：你以为我们伍队长吃饱了撑的（另一个成语性词语／惯用语）&#xA;１１：１３：谁都见啊滚滚滚&#xA;１１：１５：小贩：不是老总&#xA;１１：１６：我可是你们伍队长的亲戚啊&#xA;１１：２０：侦探：伍队长能有你这种穷亲戚 （侦探打量着小贩）&#xA;１１：２３：你蒙谁呢&#xA;１１：２７：小贩：要不（他伸出手给侦探看一块大洋）&#xA;１１：３１：给伍队长捎句话（侦探接受这块大洋）&#xA;１１：３８：捎什么话啊&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idThread=1088168&amp;amp;idForum=48&amp;amp;lp=chde&amp;amp;lang=de&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idThread=1088168&amp;amp;idForum=48&amp;amp;lp=chde&amp;amp;lang=de&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6070" LastEditDate="2014-07-28T05:20:19.417" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T08:41:24.007" Title="reason for saying/asking 什么叫活腻歪了 (what does tired of living mean) in tv series 敢死队：第11集" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8818" CreationDate="2014-07-27T21:56:59.267" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's always the jukuu method: Go to jukuu.com (or youdao or icba) and type in &quot;right at that time&quot; or &quot;just then&quot; or similar phrases. You will see a wide variety of Chinese and English equivalent sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6066" LastActivityDate="2014-07-27T21:56:59.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8852" CreationDate="2014-07-27T22:20:23.997" Score="2" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I'm trying to figure out how to use 丰富 most correctly. I know that youcan say 今天的晚餐很丰富。  But how else could it be used? Could I say “今天过得好丰富？“ in say a written diary? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the help guys!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T23:22:18.383" Title="Can you use 丰富 to describe a day?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8837" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-27T22:51:24.630" Score="2" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out if you ever use 个 when describing distances or weight. For example, people say &quot;十公里“ NOT &quot;十个公里“ － right？ does the same apply for weights? like 公斤？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-28T15:50:37.540" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T15:50:37.540" Title="Do you use 个 when describing distances/weights？" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8837" CreationDate="2014-07-28T00:23:48.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, in general, you shall not use 个 before a unit, no matter what the unit is used for (mass, length,area etc ). 个 is a counter/measure word in Chinese, one of whose functions is to count something, like a unit, so you don't need to put a unit before a unit.&#xA;In some weird scenarios, you may use 个 before a unit.for example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;本文中有几&lt;strong&gt;个公斤&lt;/strong&gt;？ How many occurrences of &quot;kilogram&quot; in the article ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, kilogram itself is treated as a common word instead of a unit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T00:23:48.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8837" CreationDate="2014-07-28T01:48:46.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, in some special cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formally, the construction should be &lt;code&gt;numeral + quantifier + noun&lt;/code&gt;, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你今天打算跑几公里路？&#xA;我打算跑5公里路。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;code&gt;路&lt;/code&gt; can be deduced from the context, it could be omitted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你今天打算跑几公里？&#xA;我打算跑5公里。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in spoken language, it could be transformed to an &quot;odd&quot; construction of &lt;code&gt;numeral + quantifier + noun&lt;/code&gt; further, in which &lt;code&gt;公里&lt;/code&gt; is regarded as a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你今天打算跑几个公里？&#xA;我打算跑5个公里。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你家卧室有几个平方？&#xA;也就10个平方吧。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, this usage is very limited, for example, you can use it for the quantifier &lt;code&gt;斤&lt;/code&gt;, it's unnatural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;鸡蛋你打算买几个斤？&#xA;买5个斤。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T01:48:46.493" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8836" CreationDate="2014-07-28T03:20:04.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;充实is ok.&#xA;eg:今天过得真充实 or 今天真是充实的一天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6069" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T03:20:04.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8834" CreationDate="2014-07-28T03:34:53.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;什么叫活腻歪了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)活腻歪is meaning don't want to live anymore.&#xA;   for example, if you wanna jump into the sea, i will say &quot;you are 活腻歪了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)so, the meaning of '什么叫活腻歪了' is 'what is the meaning of 活腻歪了?'&#xA;   it is a rhetorical question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3)'什么叫活腻歪了 我是来找人的', so, the 小贩 was not wanna die,&#xA;    he just wanna find someone (我是来找人的)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6069" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T03:34:53.690" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8834" CreationDate="2014-07-28T04:02:06.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Same as 找死(court death). Widely used in north-east China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T04:02:06.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8834" CreationDate="2014-07-28T05:46:54.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This part of the conversation doesn't sound natural to me. A rhetorical question like &lt;code&gt;什么叫xyz&lt;/code&gt; is only used after the other person labeled him &lt;code&gt;xyz&lt;/code&gt;. Without a previous line like &lt;code&gt;你是活腻歪了吧&lt;/code&gt;, the usage seems out of the blue and ambiguous. After watching the video, I think what happened is there is something along that line in the original script but got edited out from the final version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A conversation like this should go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你小子是活腻歪了吧？也不看这什么地方，就敢往里闯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 什么叫活腻歪了，我是来找人的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Are you courting death? Look at this place, do you think you can barge your way in?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: What do you mean by courting death? I am simply looking for someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T05:46:54.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8836" CreationDate="2014-07-28T11:41:20.860" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;you're definitely right. But in my opinion 丰富 and 充实 they both mean &lt;code&gt;many&lt;/code&gt;. &#xA;（今天过的好丰富 because you have many different kinds of things to do but not all of them are meaningful, maybe just some of them. However, you have a busy day!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 今天晚餐很丰富 just means today's dinner is plentiful not meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6071" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-28T12:12:34.127" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T12:12:34.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8817" CreationDate="2014-07-28T11:55:22.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you may wanna say &lt;code&gt;穿过Fedex(路)后，下个路口右转。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this is helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6071" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-28T12:40:50.907" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T12:40:50.907" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8836" CreationDate="2014-07-28T15:06:10.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you can't.丰富Should be used for something or some event, but not a day. It will be sounds strange for Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6072" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T15:06:10.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8847" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8848" CreationDate="2014-07-28T15:44:38.837" Score="8" ViewCount="927" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to find some sort of indication as to the differences between these two pronunciations for 说服: shuìfú vs. shuōfú.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to always read it: shuōfú, until I was corrected by a mainlander, who told me it should be shuìfú.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only info I found though says it's a Taiwan thing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4 Taiwan pr. [shuìfú] -&lt;em&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that I'm lost...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T02:53:34.977" Title="说服: shuìfú vs. shuōfú" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8847" CreationDate="2014-07-28T16:27:46.877" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In recent years, Mainland Chinese have officially adopted &lt;code&gt;shuōfú&lt;/code&gt; across the board. If you only wish to be understood and/or conform to current official standards, a sufficient answer is: &lt;strong&gt;just use the &lt;code&gt;shuōfú&lt;/code&gt; pronunciation&lt;/strong&gt;. Everyone will understand what you mean regardless of whether they agree with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a more academic answer: &lt;strong&gt;Strictly speaking, &lt;code&gt;shuìfú&lt;/code&gt; is the correct pronunciation.&lt;/strong&gt; This isn't a Taiwanese thing except in that it has been preserved in Taiwan (older mainlanders would have known it too).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character &lt;code&gt;說&lt;/code&gt; is an exemplary case of a multiple meaning character with multiple pronunciations. These meanings are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; historically interchangeable. Focusing on the relevant definitions at hand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;shuō&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;strong&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;to explain, to tell&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;shuì&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;strong&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;to persuade, to convince&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of &lt;code&gt;说服&lt;/code&gt; is clearly derived from the latter usage. Therefore, it is correctly pronounced &lt;code&gt;shuìfú&lt;/code&gt;. It is still listed as such in many dictionaries. Other examples of the &lt;code&gt;shuì&lt;/code&gt; pronunciation being maintained for this usage are &lt;code&gt;說客&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;a lobbyist; someone trying to sell an idea&quot; and &lt;code&gt;遊說&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;to lobby, to persuade.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qgvAd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Jhq9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately however, languages are living, changing things. It is quite alright to use &lt;code&gt;shuōfú&lt;/code&gt; as the pronunciation even if some people would find it as being &quot;wrong&quot;. They all understand what you mean anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: There's a contention that &lt;code&gt;shuōfú&lt;/code&gt; is the correct pronunciation. The argument is that &lt;code&gt;shuì&lt;/code&gt; means to persuade, but that, supposedly, &lt;code&gt;说服&lt;/code&gt; means to &quot;persuade with reason&quot;. It is claimed that this means &lt;code&gt;shuō&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;to explain&quot;, fits the word's overall meaning better than &lt;code&gt;shuì&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;to persuade&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't find this convincing at all, but that's an alternative angle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-07-28T16:55:11.443" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T16:55:11.443" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8849" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8851" CreationDate="2014-07-28T19:16:28.067" Score="2" ViewCount="305" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a casual conversation, one person didn't know he unwittingly revealed he doesn't like whatever, ice cream. The other person says...&#xA;你无意之中流露出来 which translates to roughly to &quot;You let it slip.&quot; I think.&#xA;So does 你无意流露出来 mean the same thing? The only difference I see compared to the above is the above explicitly references to the subject, ice cream, they're talking about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T03:49:11.637" Title="Is there a difference between 你无意之中流露出来 and 你无意流露出来?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8849" CreationDate="2014-07-28T21:21:08.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &quot;无意之中&quot; means unwittingly, but &quot;无意&quot; means &quot;不是故意的&quot;, that is to say, not intentional. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former means &quot;you let it slip&quot;, the latter focus on you were not intend to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6074" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T21:21:08.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8849" CreationDate="2014-07-28T21:44:22.953" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first one is straightforward - it means showing one's intent unwittingly. The second one is a bit tricky to interpret. It does mean the same thing in the examples you quoted. However, &quot;无意之中&quot; and &quot;无意&quot; are not the same. For example, I can say &quot;他无意上学&quot; (he doesn't intend to go to school) but it is wrong to say that &quot;他无意之中上学&quot;. Note that &quot;他&quot; makes no attempt to hide his intent here. &quot;上学&quot; (going to school) simply doesn't cross his mind.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &quot;之中&quot; means &quot;in the midst of doing someting&quot;. Grammatically, it's present continuous or past continuous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4300" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T21:44:22.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8836" CreationDate="2014-07-28T22:00:10.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;丰富的一天 - an eventful day with plenty activities but you may not get anything positive out of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;充实的一天 - perhaps not as many activities as in 丰富的一天 but you actually get something positive from part-taking in the day's activities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does sound a bit odd to say “今天过得好丰富？“. Perhaps &quot;今天是丰富的一天&quot; sounds better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4300" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T22:00:10.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8849" CreationDate="2014-07-29T09:26:10.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;無意之中流露出来&quot; == &quot;reveal something unintentionally&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;無意流露出来&quot; does not sound right.  &quot;流露&quot; by itself is somehow unintentional already.  We usually say &quot;無意**顯**露出来&quot; (== &quot;unwilling to or intentionally not to reveal something&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-07-30T03:49:11.637" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T03:49:11.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8854" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-29T13:10:04.823" Score="5" ViewCount="567" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out how to say unsurprisingly; I know that  果然 generally implies that you expect that something is going to happen, but in some contexts I'm not entirely sure if it is most appropriate. For example, if  I asked a friend if I could go with him and his family to dinner, I would like to say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;John, unsurprisingly, said &quot;of course&quot;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would this be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John 果然 说 “当然可以”。  or is there a better way to imply this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T08:48:11.607" Title="How to say &quot;unsurprisingly&quot; as in &quot;Someone unsurprisingly did something&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8854" CreationDate="2014-07-29T14:19:04.120" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;果然&lt;/strong&gt; if we want to get all pedantic about this means, like you wrote, 'as expected'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxford defines unsurprisingly as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不足为奇地&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unsurprisingly, she didn't show up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不出所料，她没有出现&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we have two choices: (1)不足为奇, (2)不出所料...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and again defines unsurprising as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不足为奇地&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it is unsurprising that...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;。。。不出预料&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adding a third: (3) 不出预料&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like you mentioned at the beginning though 果然 would work just fine here...along with the three mentioned above (不足为奇, 不出所料, 不出预料) and a host of others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;果真&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一如所料&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;果如所料&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意料之中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;take your pick...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T14:19:04.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="231" CreationDate="2014-07-29T16:07:40.860" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't use 厕所 whilst eating with people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise I don't think people will mind all &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese friend of mine told me to say 大使馆 for the bathroom before, but I bet you can see the joke already....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T16:07:40.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8858" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-29T19:39:37.230" Score="4" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, I celebrated Ramadan with a couple of friends and I was trying to explain what the celebration entailed in my diary. Could I use the term 斋戒 - the translation I found for &quot;to fast&quot; or is 禁食 more appropriate? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example could I say,&#xA;&quot;每逢Ramadan大家都要从早上四点斋戒到晚上六点左右“ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or would it be &quot;从早上到晚上都要禁食”？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T11:32:39.473" Title="Can 斋戒 vs. 禁食 which one is used for &quot;Fasting for ramadan&quot;" Tags="&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8859" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8861" CreationDate="2014-07-29T19:42:35.450" Score="3" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've just learned a new formal word 余 and I'm trying to understand it's placement. I know that roughly it means 多 but in a more formal way. If for example, I was saying &quot;more than 500 people&quot; I think I could say both&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五百多人， &#xA;and&#xA;五百人多 （correct me if I'm wrong on this one) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, could I say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五百余人？ &#xA;五百人余？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-11-19T11:56:23.480" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T11:56:23.480" Title="Can 余 (more than) go after the measure word?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8860" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-29T19:50:32.650" Score="1" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a recent podcast I've been listening to - imandarinpod - the term 为期 was mentioned. It was loosely explained to mean &quot;to last&quot; as in for a period of time. &#xA;I know that we can say something like &quot;回忆为期三天“ - which makes sense. But, in all of the examples of 为期 I've seen it looks like it has been for &quot;intentional periods of time&quot;. Could I say something in the past tense that wasn't expected like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;战争为期十年“? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, how formal is 为期？ Could it ever be used in a regular conversation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T22:52:41.793" Title="How Formal is 为期 (wei2qi1)－ to last？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8859" CreationDate="2014-07-29T20:09:04.360" Score="8" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五百多人 is correct and colloquial.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五百余人 is correct and formal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五百人多 is not correct.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五百人余 is not grammatical in modern Mandarin but contextually valid in ancient Chinese. It may appear a lot in ancient stories written in vernacular language. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T20:09:04.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8862" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8897" CreationDate="2014-07-29T20:45:46.367" Score="2" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always struggled with the proper translation of &quot;Avoid&quot;. Is there a way to best say &quot;avoid going to a place&quot;. For example, if  I wanted to say that &quot; I believe that if I want to embrace chinese culture, I should avoid going to Mcdonalds in China&quot; How would that be said? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could it be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我应该好好避免去那儿“ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T08:56:33.750" Title="How to say &quot;Avoid&quot; as in &quot;Avoid going to a place&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8858" CreationDate="2014-07-29T20:50:00.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;禁食&lt;/strong&gt; - Forbidden to eat or drink. i.e. fasting.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;斋戒&lt;/strong&gt; - This word can have a different meaning according to different religions. For example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Islam - no food or drinks at all  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Christianity - no meat from warmblooded (i.e. fish / shrimps are allowed)  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese Buddhism - no meat / alcohol and certain types of vegetable  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, it depends on the situation where you will use the words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="3512" LastEditDate="2014-08-03T05:35:00.150" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T05:35:00.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8862" CreationDate="2014-07-29T21:17:43.907" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我相信，如果我想要信奉中国文化，我应该避免在中国去麦当劳&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are correct but &quot;好好&quot; is not necessary in the sentence.  &quot;我应该避免去那儿&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2014-07-30T13:54:02.757" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T13:54:02.757" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8860" CreationDate="2014-07-29T22:52:41.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Could I say something in the past tense that wasn't expected like &quot;战争为期十年“?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes you can. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;为期&lt;/code&gt; is originally a V-O phrase, literally,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;为: as, being&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;期: period, deadline&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Putting them together, &lt;code&gt;为期&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;(to be done) by/within (a certain period)&lt;/code&gt;, which implies the limit is intentionally set. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我等你，三年为期。 I'll wait for you for 3 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the phrase 为期 as a whole can also be used as a verb, and with that usage the sense of 'intentionally set time limit' is dimmed. It merely means &lt;code&gt;to last&lt;/code&gt;. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为期三年的等待。A waiting that lasted for 3 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;战争为期十年&lt;/code&gt; is another example for this usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How formal is 为期？ Could it ever be used in a regular conversation?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds formal, but it could be used in regular conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In spoken language, the shorter the sentence is, the more people tend to avoid using formal words. So if &lt;code&gt;战争为期十年&lt;/code&gt; is the whole sentence, it sounds more casual to say &lt;code&gt;战争持续了十年&lt;/code&gt; or even more colloquially &lt;code&gt;战争打了十年&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a long sentence though, it is okay to use formal words if they can shorten the sentence or simplify sentence structure. Because &lt;code&gt;为期&lt;/code&gt; is shorter than &lt;code&gt;持续了&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;在一场为期十年的战争里，...&lt;/code&gt; doesn't sound too much more serious than &lt;code&gt;在一场持续了十年的战争里, ...&lt;/code&gt;. This rule applies to other formal/informal phrases too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T22:52:41.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1623" CreationDate="2014-07-29T22:56:08.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;clause 47: drivers of motor vehicle shall reduce their speed when approaching a pedestrian crossing, and shall bring the vehicle to a full stop where there is a pedestrian crossing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4300" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T22:56:08.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="231" CreationDate="2014-07-29T23:33:44.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;3 other possibilities 解手、&#xA;方便（said to bus driver, on busses w/o restroom, in order to make him/her stop the bus),cf.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTgzNzk0MjQ=.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTgzNzk0MjQ=.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;１５：５２：passenger to bus driver:师傅 到前边停一下&#xA;１５：５４：想方便方便、&#xA;撒尿(urinate)、&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T23:33:44.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8868" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8883" CreationDate="2014-07-30T03:44:40.673" Score="2" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that the 成语 &quot;凤毛麟角&quot; is pretty awesome, and I would like to learn how to use it.  Could you please help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher said I could use it to describe a person who is truly unique, but when I did (as a compliment to someone, who is very unique), they said it was kind of weird. Would you use it to describe an event?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, say you are describing a friend who has truly caring and special personality, can you say, 他真是凤毛麟角&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T07:58:22.083" Title="凤毛麟角 - How to use?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8862" CreationDate="2014-07-30T04:20:15.423" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我認為, 要在中國體會當地文化的話, 就盡量不要光顧麥當勞.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although &quot;應該避免&quot; is a correct translation, I think it is a bit too &quot;westernised&quot; and too &quot;formal&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &quot;信奉&quot; has a sense of &quot;worship&quot; and sounds too heavy in this case.  I prefer saying &quot;體會&quot;, &quot;認真體會&quot; or &quot;全心體會&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-07-31T00:38:04.613" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T00:38:04.613" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8868" CreationDate="2014-07-30T04:32:06.903" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;很多美国人都想去中国，但会说或写中文的人却是凤毛麟角&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many Americans who want to go to China, but few can write or speak Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6081" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-07-30T13:11:38.107" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T13:11:38.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8868" CreationDate="2014-07-30T04:52:18.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;凤毛麟角 is used when somebody has some special skills or talent which is very rare. When you are trying to compliment someone(really has unique skills), it's a good phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6082" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T04:52:18.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8868" CreationDate="2014-07-30T06:12:19.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;@The_Anomaly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you wanna describe &lt;strong&gt;the number of a specific range is very little&lt;/strong&gt;, you can use this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sample:&#xA;虽然我们是中国人，但是如今懂得甲骨文的人是**凤毛麟角了**&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T06:12:19.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8873" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-30T08:07:08.837" Score="5" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I studied Mandarin Chinese in the early 1990's my teacher told me that there is no word for &quot;liberation&quot; because it is not a concept in Chinese culture. She thought for a minute, tried a few Chinese possible words [ I have forgotten them] and said &quot;no, it's not a concept in China&quot;. I think that we were talking about mainly political liberation rather than other types.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was that true then? Is it the case now? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6083" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T09:57:17.763" Title="Is there a Chinese word for liberation?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8873" CreationDate="2014-07-30T11:02:39.127" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your teacher was probably not very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The typical Chinese word for &quot;liberation&quot; is &lt;code&gt;解放&lt;/code&gt;, and it has been used in the same sense of political liberation for many years. Apart from its use in Communist Chinese apparatus (i.e. People's Liberation Army), you also have examples like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;婦女解放運動&lt;/code&gt; - &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_liberation_movement&quot;&gt;women's liberation movement&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;奴隸解放運動&lt;/code&gt; - &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism&quot;&gt;slavery abolitionism&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;民族解放運動&lt;/code&gt; - &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:National_liberation_movements&quot;&gt;national liberation movement&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;巴勒斯坦解放組織&lt;/code&gt; - &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization&quot;&gt;Palestinian Liberation Organisation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, &quot;liberation&quot; can, and has, sometimes been translated using &lt;code&gt;自由&lt;/code&gt; (&quot;freedom&quot;), depending on the context. Examples include the French newspaper &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lib%C3%A9ration&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Libération&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which has occasionally been translated as &lt;code&gt;自由報&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;自由人報&lt;/code&gt;. Similarly, the video game &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_III:_Liberation&quot;&gt;Assassin's Creed III: Liberation&lt;/a&gt; has been translated in Taiwan as &lt;code&gt;刺客教條3：自由使命&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might be because the word &lt;code&gt;解放&lt;/code&gt; may be perceived as carrying revolutionary connotations (which some might want to avoid), which is not altogether dissimilar from the situation in English. This works because often the meaning of &quot;liberation&quot; can be expressed as &lt;code&gt;爭取自由/平等&lt;/code&gt; or equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T11:02:39.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8875" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8876" CreationDate="2014-07-30T14:31:22.820" Score="9" ViewCount="16265" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, one might say &quot;bless you&quot; or &quot;gesundheit&quot; in response to a friend sneezing. Is there a Chinese equivalent? If so, what is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6079" LastEditorUserId="3561" LastEditDate="2014-08-04T06:31:46.703" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T04:10:17.440" Title="What is the polite way to respond to a sneeze in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8875" CreationDate="2014-07-30T15:27:14.957" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia: [which funnily enough has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responses_to_sneezing&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Responses To Sneezing&lt;/a&gt; page]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usual Responses and Notes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;多喝点水 (Duō hē diǎn shuǐ), 一百岁 (yì bǎi suì), 保佑你 (bǎo yòu nǐ) or 长命百岁 (chánɡ mìnɡ bǎi suì); &lt;strong&gt;frequently, listeners do not comment on the sneeze&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Drink more water&quot;,&quot;May you live for a hundred years.&quot;, &quot;bless you.&quot; or &quot;May you live to one hundred years.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sneezer reply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呵呵,不好意思 (bù hǎo yì si)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;He he (No meaning, just smile politely)&quot;,&quot;Excuse me.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tl;dr: &lt;strong&gt;frequently, listeners do not comment on the sneeze&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some info on &lt;strong&gt;Cantonese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usual Responses and Notes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大吉利事. Sneezing in Southern Chinese culture means that someone is speaking ill behind your back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;A great fortunate occurrence.&quot;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sneezer reply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;唔好意思   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Sorry.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T15:27:14.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8877" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8881" CreationDate="2014-07-30T15:49:32.343" Score="0" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;China has a lot of minority groups and each group has its own language, if not a bunch of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What resources are there for learning Chinese minority languages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Naxi Dongba script&lt;/strong&gt; : &lt;a href=&quot;http://sinoglot.com/naxi/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://sinoglot.com/naxi/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-08-01T19:48:55.963" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T19:48:55.963" Title="Resources: Chinese Minority Languages" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8858" CreationDate="2014-07-30T16:35:30.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word you are looking for is 守斋.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CC-CEDICT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to fast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;守 = to observe (sth.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;斋 = fast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In verb form this is the most appropriate word for your sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.takungpao.com/paper/q/2014/0703/2575766.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;number one&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　伊斯兰教徒每年都要按规定守斋一个月，期间由破晓至日落不吃、不喝和不进行房事，每日亦復如是，从而学习忍耐、自律和控制欲望，体验飢饿之苦，并让身体机能有段时间休息。那么穆斯林在每年哪个日子守斋呢？答案是四季都有机会出现。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.ifeng.com/shendu/hqrw/detail_2014_03/19/34924084_0.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;number two&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;平时除了斋月守斋外，每个星期一和星期四，马赫莱卜还要独自守斋。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sports.kankanews.com/glfb/2013-09-15/2732509.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;number three&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;穆斯林球员梅苏特·厄齐尔。9月14日与桑德兰的英超联赛中，厄齐尔完成了阿森纳首秀。厄齐尔是一名虔诚的穆斯林，作为职业球员他无法在斋月正常守斋。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.xinhuanet.com/local/2012-08/19/c_112773027.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;number four&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　上午九点，北京市伊斯兰教协会会长、牛街清真寺大阿訇开始开斋节致辞，随后人们一起做礼拜。开斋节也称肉孜节，是守斋或封斋的结束，按伊斯兰教教义要求，在斋月里，穆斯林要静心寡欲，白天戒绝饮食。斋月期间守斋的穆斯林只在每天日出前和日落后进餐。开斋节是中国境内信仰伊斯兰教的回族、维吾尔族、哈萨克族、乌孜别克族、塔吉克族、塔塔尔族、柯尔克孜族、东乡族、撒拉族、保安族的共同传统节日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=xaKuRfIAYNlBCdEFVqsJt56pE_vPNXEDIAkR1q_mVGJAYDfFZqm1F5_cVtaIGy8kGRe_yivhOgwEr0K4kg0F0K&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;number five&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;斋月,对于穆斯林是一次进行宗教意识锻炼的良机,凡男满17岁、女满15岁的成年穆斯林,每年都要守斋一个月。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-03T11:32:39.473" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T11:32:39.473" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8858" CreationDate="2014-07-30T19:00:42.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;禁食&lt;/code&gt; literally means &lt;code&gt;forbid eating/food&lt;/code&gt;, but the word doesn't specify anything about water. Usually when &lt;code&gt;禁食&lt;/code&gt; is said, water is allowed. To say 'no food no water', you could say &lt;code&gt;禁食禁水&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;斋戒&lt;/code&gt; literally means &lt;code&gt;restrained eating; swear off of (certain food)&lt;/code&gt;. So as @Alex's answer suggested, it refers to different rules based on the occasion. Could be vegetarian, could be no pork, could be no food at all. This word is usually related to religious eating control; for non-religious courses (e.g. for health/medical concerns) I would use &lt;code&gt;限制饮食/控制饮食&lt;/code&gt; instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on that, to answer your questions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Could I say, &quot;每逢Ramadan大家都要从早上四点斋戒到晚上六点左右“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes you could. But you may want to explain what type of food is forbidden in a follow-up sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Or would it be &quot;从早上到晚上都要禁食”？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That would work too, and 'no food at all' is clearly indicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T19:00:42.417" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8877" CreationDate="2014-07-31T08:51:43.833" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out Ethnologue - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ethnologue.com/country/CN/languages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ethnologue.com/country/CN/languages&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For specific information on each Chinese minority language click on &quot;More information&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. for Narua (6b (Threatened). Language of recognized nationality: Mongolian. Sichuan Province speakers assigned to the Mongolian nationality. Language of recognized nationality: Naxi. Yunnan Province speakers officially classified within Naxi nationality), it will lead you to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ethnologue.com/language/nru&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ethnologue.com/language/nru&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For learning, if you click on &quot;Language Resources&quot; you get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.language-archives.org/language/nru&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.language-archives.org/language/nru&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6086" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T08:51:43.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8875" CreationDate="2014-07-31T09:48:10.693" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a general response would be &quot;保重&quot; (take care).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Never heard anyone saying things like: &quot;一百岁 (yì bǎi suì), 保佑你 (bǎo yòu nǐ) or 长命百岁 (chánɡ mìnɡ bǎi suì);&quot;, that would be &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; creepy if I heard that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;多喝点水 (Duō hē diǎn shuǐ)&quot; would be fine, though, it's kinda like saying &quot;保重&quot;, but it would be more likely to say when someone coughing, not sneezing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can add some trailing words like: &quot;保重點&quot;, &quot;保重啊&quot;, &quot;小心點&quot;...etc to be more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5774" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T09:48:10.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8868" CreationDate="2014-07-31T15:08:39.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%87%A4%E6%AF%9B%E9%BA%9F%E8%A7%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt; has many highly rated examples, here are two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;People who stand taller than 1,70 meters are a rarity of rarities there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在那儿身高超过1.70 米的人有如凤毛麟角。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is more specific to your question as it deals with using the phrase with respect to an individual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Women like Huan Shaojun are truly rare. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;世间如桓少君的，真是凤毛麟角，少之又少了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T15:08:39.897" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8884" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8886" CreationDate="2014-07-31T16:43:58.447" Score="2" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in what the exact difference is in usage between 检索 and 找 －  I know that we can saying 检索资料  but I'm wondering if we could &quot;检索&quot; something that is a bit more concrete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, could I say “检索例句“ or would only 找 work in this context? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is  检索 too formal to use in spoken conversation?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks again for all of your help guys! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T07:41:52.640" Title="Difference between 检索 and 找" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8847" CreationDate="2014-07-31T21:55:33.367" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think both shuìfú and shuōfú are correct, but for different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;说服 shuìfú&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is closely related to the word 游说 yoúshuì, which means &quot;lobby&quot;, or &quot;sell an idea to some important persons or decision/law makers&quot; or &quot;try to persuade someone of high social status with your own arguments which may or may not be true.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 说服 shuìfú : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说 takes the same pronunciation and meaning of the 说 in 游说.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;服 means &quot;agree/obey/be convinced.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So together 说服 means 用话劝说别人,使他听从自己的意见 or persuade/convince people to follow your suggestions by putting forward your arguments, which may or may not be true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 国王终于被大臣们说服决定宣战。The King was finally persuaded by ministers to declare a war. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;说服 shuōfú&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is closely related to the word 说教 shuōjiào, which means &quot;preach.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 说服 shuōfú : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说 takes the same pronunciation and meaning of the 说 in 说教.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;服 again means &quot;agree/obey/be convinced.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So together 说服 means 用理由充分的话使对方心服, or &quot;reason someone (usually from same or lower social status) into agreeing with you.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 我们已经说服了大部分同志,但是我认为我们还是说服不了他。We have got over most comrades, but I don't think we can get him over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对于错误的意见，不是压服，而是说服，以理服人。Do not coercion people with wrong views into submission but convincing them by reasoning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他想说服她，可是一看她那倔强的、不易说服的眼睛，他不做声了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2014-07-31T22:06:07.173" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T22:06:07.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8884" CreationDate="2014-08-01T02:25:38.410" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @Stan said, 檢索 is usually used with database(資料庫) or library catalog(圖書目錄).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must have some reference (a catalog, or a list...etc) to be able to 檢索. It's not only formal but more restricted. Whereas 找 can be used very widely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example one would say &quot;在資料庫裡檢索資料&quot;, &quot;在圖書目錄裡檢索資料&quot;, and &quot;在網路上找資料&quot;, &quot;在圖書館裡找資料&quot;, ...etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can search (or find) (找) for information  in any suitable places (or under certain conditions). But you would look up (檢索) for information only in restricted places like database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5774" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T02:25:38.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8884" CreationDate="2014-08-01T02:36:29.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chinese, 检索 always use with &lt;strong&gt;Article&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Periodicals&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;library&lt;/strong&gt;. And sometime we located the word '检索' after them,like &lt;strong&gt;期刊检索&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;strong&gt;图书检索&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;strong&gt;论文检索&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In normal life&lt;/strong&gt; when we want to &lt;strong&gt;find something&lt;/strong&gt;, We use 找,For example, &lt;strong&gt;找东西&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;strong&gt;找朋友&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;strong&gt;找某个地方&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, &lt;strong&gt;找例句&lt;/strong&gt; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5800" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-08-01T05:36:53.560" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T05:36:53.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-01T02:47:12.090" Score="2" ViewCount="1103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Caucasian American with English as my native language.  I want to improve my knowledge of the Mandarin Chinese language.  I found the following question in Modern Chinese Beginner's Course 3, Second Edition (初级汉语课本, 第三版）by 原北京语言学院来华留学生三系:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你哪儿来的这么多书？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose that the more complete question might read as &quot;你是从哪儿来的这么多书？&quot;, with the 是....的 meant to emphasize what would be between  是 and  的 and 从 meaning “from.”  For me now I think the most challenging part of the question is translating 来 into something in the English language and finding that translation of 来 in a simplified-Chinese-character-to-English-language dictionary.  For example my Chinese friend translated the above question as “Where” or “How did you get so many book?” which I changed to  “Where” or “How did you get so many books?”  So that Chinese friend's translation of 来 in this question is “get.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly on &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/Wherever%20did%20you%20get%20that%20idea%203F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this Web page&lt;/a&gt;, I found the translation “Wherever did you get that idea?” for “你哪儿来的那个主意?” showing that someone else translated 来 as “get” in a question including the same structure of 哪儿来的.  But my Chinese dictionary does not include the meaning of “get” for 来.   The only possible definition there which might fit this situation is as a substitute for another verb.  For example, I have heard something like 我来, which according to the situation in which that pair of words is used seems to be intended to mean something like “I'll do it” or “Let me do it.”   So how do I reconcile dictionary definitions with 来 in the above question? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have some more words or characters been omitted in the original sentence?  For example should the more complete question read as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你是从哪儿带来的这么多书？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rrting.net/english/meiju_mp3/228143/Index-4.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this Web page&lt;/a&gt; I found “Where do you come up with that stuff, Ma?” for “你哪儿来的这种想法, 妈?”   If I follow that example to translate &quot;你是从哪儿来的这么多书？&quot;, I arrive at “From where did you come up with so many books?”  But “come up with” seems vastly different than “come” with respect to both meaning and use.   Checking an English-to-Chinese dictionary I found 产生 and 找到 as translations for “come up with.”  Note that neither of these Chinese translations includes 来 within it.  So to translate 来 in 你哪儿来的....？as “come up with” looks like quite a “stretch” to me, but may indicate how hard someone may have been trying to find something in the English language that includes the word “come” as a translation for 来 in 你哪儿来的...?.  Perhaps trying to translate 来 in 你哪儿来的....？ might have been hard for someone else besides myself!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a page on 百度知道, I found “你哪儿来这么大火？”there translated as “Where did your anger come from?”  This translation uses the standard translation of “come” for 来.   Following this example for 你是从哪儿来的这么多书？ I come up with “From where did your so many books come?, which is certainly not a very comfortable way we Americans would phrase such a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found 来源 meaning “source.”  But I have a hard time making any sense with 来源 in 你是从哪儿来源的这么多书？. I can make sense of 你是从哪个来源的带来了这么多书？as meaning “From what source did you bring so many books?”.  But to make that sense I had to add the verb 带来了 and some other things to the original question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I think my basic question concerning 你哪儿来的这么多书? is: How may I reconcile 来 in 你哪儿来的这么多书? with some definition in a Chinese-to-English dictionary?&lt;/strong&gt;  For example, should I take the meaning of a substitute for another verb and have 来 mean “get” in 你哪儿来的这么多书? ?  Or is that dictionary definition and use of 来 as a substitute for another verb only intended for things like 我来 in which 来 means “do” in some form? If so, do I conclude that some dictionaries just don't include an appropriate meaning like &quot;get&quot; in the English language for 来 in &quot;你哪儿来的这么多书?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6092" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-16T18:24:43.630" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T19:00:52.363" Title="English translation for 来 in 你哪儿来的这么多书? compatible with a Chinese-to-English dictionary" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8847" CreationDate="2014-08-01T02:53:34.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below is the situation about the two pronunciations as I know in &lt;strong&gt;Mainland China&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In dictionaries&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese dictionaries, you'll find the pronunciation for 说服 is &quot;shuo fu&quot;, which means persuade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the single character 说 normally should be pronounced as &quot;shui&quot; when it means to persuade or more specifically, to make people agree with your opinion. For example 游说(you shui, basically means to lobby).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you can see the source of the confusion. That is since 说服 means to persuade, and when it means to persuade, why 说 isn't pronounced as &quot;shui&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reasonable explanation I can come up with, although seems a little bit retrospective, is that 说服 as a whole word means to make people agree though talking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm no linguistic, but you can see 说服 as a verb-adverb phrase, in which 说 is the verb, 服 is an adverb stating the result of the action. In this sense, 说 literally means speaking, and 服 means affirmative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can think it as 说(shui) equals 说服(shuofu) in their core meanings. However, nowadays, 说(shui) is often used in a more politically aggressive context and only used in &quot;游说&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In day-to-day use&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In everyday, scenarios, most people I know would use 说(shuo)服, but 说(shui)服 is also acceptable and nobody would confuse them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would pronounce it as 说(shuo)服, in sentences like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我说(shuo)服了他来参加派对。&#xA;  I persuaded him to come to the party. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in certain situations, I would go against the dictionary and say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我会说(shuo/shui)服董事会赶走他的！&#xA;  I will persuade the board to kick him out!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, there are three scnarios that I would use 说(shui)服&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the subject matter is important to me and I really want to win the case.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to make the other party agree with me no matter what, even it means that I would have to &lt;em&gt;distort facts&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;being misleading&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;deceitful&lt;/em&gt; in the argument.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or in a politically aggressive context like the example sentence above.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T02:53:34.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8884" CreationDate="2014-08-01T03:57:47.947" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;检索 is more formal and often used with an abstract object such as information, or abstract information of some objects, such as books (you don't really 检索 the physical existence of the book, instead you 检索 the information of the book, like title, author etc). You can see it as a query.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;找 is simply &quot;to look for&quot;. And it's not very formal since modern Chinese prefers words with at least two characters unless it's proper noun, or in existing collocations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can 检索:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Data&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Books&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Newspaper&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mail&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ads&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't 检索:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Desks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cars&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Coffee&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless you are trying to 检索 their information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But colloquially you can 找 information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary:&#xA;You 检索 to 找 (look for) something by examine their information, e.g. the title of a book, the manufacture of a product, the subject of an article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You 找 simple to look for or seek something. You can see 检索 as a subset of 找&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2014-08-01T07:41:52.640" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T07:41:52.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8888" CreationDate="2014-08-01T05:07:06.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;你哪兒來的這麼多書?&quot; is a common (well, to native Chinese speakers) pattern to rephrase the question &quot;你這麼多書, 哪兒來的?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, we also have similar pattern such as &quot;你邊處嚟咁多錢?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;邊處 = where; &quot;處&quot; is pronounced as &quot;syu3&quot; instead of &quot;cyu3&quot;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/search.php?q=%B3B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/search.php?q=%B3B&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嚟 = come; &quot;嚟&quot; is a common replacement character of &quot;來&quot; when it is pronounced as &quot;lai4&quot; in Cantonese; &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/search.php?q=%A8%D3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/search.php?q=%A8%D3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;咁多&quot; = so much/many = &quot;這麼多&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T05:07:06.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8888" CreationDate="2014-08-01T06:21:40.153" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This problem seem to stem from attempting to map a Chinese character directly to a single English word. &lt;strong&gt;Don't do that.&lt;/strong&gt; Like many other characters, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;来&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; carries multiple meanings, and not all of those meanings have a direct English equivalent. The differences between dictionary meanings and a particular translation don't need to be &quot;reconciled&quot;. Instead, recognise that &lt;em&gt;English may express a specific Chinese idea in multiple ways.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, for this question, some of the major meanings of &lt;code&gt;来&lt;/code&gt; are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt; &quot;to come, to come from&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;since (a point in time)&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt; &quot;to happen, to be imminent&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; &quot;next&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; &quot;approximately, thereabouts&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;adverb&lt;/em&gt; (preceding the verb) &quot;let  do (action described by verb)&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most of the question's sentences, the character &lt;code&gt;来&lt;/code&gt; is usage (1), meaning &quot;&lt;strong&gt;to come from&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. Therefore, you can translate them literally as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;你哪儿来这么大火&lt;/code&gt; - &quot;&lt;em&gt;where did that temper (of yours) come from&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;你哪儿来的这么多书&lt;/code&gt; - &quot;&lt;em&gt;where did so many books (that you have) come from&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;你哪儿来的那个主意&lt;/code&gt; - &quot;&lt;em&gt;where did that idea (of yours) come from&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, obviously the latter two can be alternatively translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;where did you get so many books from&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;where did you get that idea from&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't because &lt;code&gt;来&lt;/code&gt; could also mean &quot;to get&quot;. It is simply another way of expressing the same idea, namely &quot;where did those books of yours come from&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, in &lt;code&gt;我来&lt;/code&gt;, the &lt;code&gt;来&lt;/code&gt; here is usage (6), meaning &quot;let &lt;em&gt;me&lt;/em&gt; do&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence of &lt;code&gt;你是从哪个来源的带来了这么多书&lt;/code&gt; is very much an apparent case of translating an English sentence into Chinese word for word. I would argue that in general &lt;strong&gt;direct word for word dictionary translations are horrible.&lt;/strong&gt;  When translating across such wildly disparate languages, you are much better off first grasping the meaning of the Chinese sentence, and &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; formulating an English sentence &lt;em&gt;from scratch&lt;/em&gt; with the same meaning. And vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-08-01T06:34:07.723" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T06:34:07.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8888" CreationDate="2014-08-01T07:03:42.793" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native Mandarin speaker and I never though 来 was such a complex word before you raised the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really what a explanation compatible with a dictionary, I guess you can understand 来 as its basic meaning &amp;quot;come&amp;quot;. However, the thing about dictionary explanation is that it means &amp;quot;come&amp;quot;, but it doesn't necessarily be translated as &amp;quot;come&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, some Chinese dictionary would explain this meaning as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从另外的地方到说话人这里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From other places to the places where the speaker is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, the better explanation would be from other state to the state of reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sense, a state could be time, location or other concepts such as possession. The state of reference means the state implicated in the context. For example: now, here, current state, expected state etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sense the question is about how so many books come into your possession (or come here if the speaker is at the place where the books are). The tricky part is that in some cases in Chinese 来 can also be used in a fashion similar to have something come or cause something come. So you can see &amp;quot;cause the books come into your possession&amp;quot; is actually a wordy way to say &amp;quot;get the books&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar cases are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来客人了 == 客人来了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here comes the guest == the guest comes here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, because English and Chinese are fundamentally different, it is impossible to translate between the two word-by-word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, 你是哪来的这么多书？is very colloquial, the proper way to say it is 你(的)这么多书是哪儿来的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other trick uses of 来:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给我来个热狗。Give me a hotdog (often used when ordering something.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她来了主意。She got an idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你哪儿来那么多问题？Why did you have so many questions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他又跟我来气。He gets angry with me again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一看见他我就来气。I get angry every time I see him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-02-16T18:02:22.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8868" CreationDate="2014-08-01T07:35:30.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;About How to Use 凤毛麟角&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess you can see it as something you describe the occurrence of something not directly something. And it's better to be used as a sentence adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能够真正理解量子物理的人凤毛麟角。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People who truly understand quantum physics are really rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the meaning of 凤毛麟角 is &amp;quot;as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.&amp;quot; or simply &amp;quot;very rare.&amp;quot; That's why your teacher told you it means unique. However, you should try not to use it to describe particular instance of something. Instead, use it to describe the occurrence or existence of certain type of things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when you used it to describe people you can see why it would be sort of weird:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你真是凤毛麟角。 You are really rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it make sense in English, it's quite uncommon in Chinese because you are describing a particular individual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, this is better:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你这样的人真是凤毛麟角。 People like you are really rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence you are describe the occurrence of people like &amp;quot;you&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason of focusing on the occurrence of something is because the implication of 凤毛麟角 is something extremely hard or even impossible to find or occur. But when you use it to describe a known instance, you've actually already found it, which is short of against the setup of the scene.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Proper Way to Compliment Other People&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to compliment a particular object or person, use following idiom or adjective:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;与众不同、特别&#xA;Both of them can means special in a good way. The first one is an idiom which literally means different from others, but doesn't necessarily be the only one of the same kind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;独一无二&#xA;This means unique or unparalleled. Literally it means the only one and there is no second object or people which is of the same kind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another term to say people are special or different from others is 另类. But it can be in both a good way or a bad way. And some people what consider it offensive without a context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T07:58:22.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8875" CreationDate="2014-08-01T08:13:29.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, there is no such social expectations in China nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in some areas, it may be appropriate to say &quot;长命百岁&quot;(wish you a long life). But again this is very uncommon nowadays. Maybe one would say it when an elderly sneeze or cough. More generally, there wouldn't be a response just to be polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really would like to express concern, you can ask whether they caught a cold or offer some advice such as &quot;It's getting cold, you'd better put on a coat&quot;. However, those responses are not part a prescribed custom. It's part of your conversation and the sneezer will response to your question accordingly with the impression that you meant it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T08:13:29.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8858" CreationDate="2014-08-01T08:16:16.897" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;斋戒 zhāijiè&#xA;动&#xA;①（禁食荤、酒）abstain from meat, wine, etc. [when offering sacrifices to gods or ancestors]&#xA;②（封斋）fast&#xA;斋戒节&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Ramadan&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;禁食 jìnshí&#xA;动&#xA;fast&#xA;禁食三日&#xA;three-day fast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 斋戒 is more common to be used in a religious context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T08:16:16.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8862" CreationDate="2014-08-01T08:32:39.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all the correct translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that if I want to embrace chinese culture, I should avoid going to Mcdonalds in China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我认为如果我想拥抱中国文化的话，我应该避免在中国去麦当劳。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Proper choice of word when translating avoid&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you say avoid doing something, you can alway translate avoid to 避免+Verb(respective verb of the gerund used).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you avoid something bad or dangerous from happening, you can use 避免+Object. For example, you can 避免 accident, risk, danger, problem etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you avoid something or someone so you wouldn't need to face or confront them, you use 回避(people, thing, situation, place)、逃避(problem, issue, punishment, situation)、规避(risk, situation) + Object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Collocations of 避免&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I see you wrote &amp;quot;我应该好好避免去那儿&amp;quot;. The problem with this sentence is the inappropriate adverb “好好” which basically means do something to an praiseful degree. It's very uncommon to say 好好避免。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Common adverb collocations for 避免 is 完全(completely), 尽量(try your best to), 尽可能(as much as possible)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;完全避免 completely avoid ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尽量避免 try someone's best to ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尽可能避免 avoid ... as much as possible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T08:56:33.750" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8899" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8903" CreationDate="2014-08-01T14:16:56.910" Score="3" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been listening to a great mandarin podcast recently called &quot;imandarinpod&quot;. At the beginning of every podcast the host says something like this&#xA;&quot;谢谢大家按时收听我们的节目“。 I've looked up the translation of 按时 （an4shi2） and it comes out to be something like &quot;On Time&quot;. However, I'm not entirely sure if that makes sense in this context (especially since it is a podcast). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone give me an idea of what 按时收听 really means? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T03:17:40.283" Title="What does it mean to 按时收听?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8900" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8901" CreationDate="2014-08-01T14:23:23.850" Score="2" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to figure in what contexts it is appropriate to use the term 留宿。&#xA;Is it simply staying at another person's house for the night (like in english &quot;crashing at someone's place&quot;) or is it a bit more formal than that? &#xA;For example, could I casually tell someone in a new city I am in. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;今天我打算在李雷家留宿？“ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T06:04:50.390" Title="How do you use the phrase 留宿 （liu2su4） （i.e. “To stay over at someone's house&quot;)" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8900" CreationDate="2014-08-01T14:35:05.397" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah it's kind of formal and &quot;old-fashioned&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Expressing 今天我打算在李雷家留宿 more naturally can be 今天我打算住李雷家 or 今晚我打算住李雷家.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天 in this sentence implicitly means 今晚 (tonight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5774" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T14:35:05.397" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8900" CreationDate="2014-08-01T14:57:21.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means to stay over (at someone's place), and it is usually used in written form.  Therefore Marson's correct on using 今晚 instead of 今天:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天晚上我打算在李雷家留宿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T14:57:21.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8899" CreationDate="2014-08-01T15:10:07.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An example of 按时's usage will be like:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;按时服药 - take medicine on time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where 按时 refers to being on time periodically.  In your case, the podcast might be on-air every night at certain time, thus using 按时.  However a better translation for will be:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;谢谢大家准时收听我们的节目&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T15:10:07.777" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8904" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-01T20:44:00.693" Score="4" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do I need 的 for 爸爸 but not for 爸 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;me: So if I said &quot;your father is....&quot;, it would be 你的爸是....&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  me: Right?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  friend: No 的 if you use 爸&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  friend: we say 你爸是。。。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  friend: Or 你的爸爸是。。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastEditorUserId="881" LastEditDate="2014-08-01T21:42:38.770" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T01:04:30.263" Title="When do I need 的?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8904" CreationDate="2014-08-01T20:55:19.217" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;of&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in this case&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你爸是。。。- Your father is...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的爸爸是。。。。 - father of yours is....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T20:55:19.217" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8906" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8911" CreationDate="2014-08-01T21:37:01.537" Score="2" ViewCount="484" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I ran into the word &quot;为难“  which means roughly that someone is in a dilemma／is having difficulty deciding . The sentences that was used as an example was &#xA;离开还是留下， 他很为难。 &#xA;Could some explain the difference between the usage of 为难 and 矛盾？ they seem to have relatively similar meanings in this context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-05T02:46:07.747" Title="difference between 为难 and 矛盾？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8907" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8918" CreationDate="2014-08-01T22:19:01.930" Score="4" ViewCount="496" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a title, I have found to meanings for 自个:  &quot;since a&quot; or &quot;oneself&quot;, what is correct and how to translate it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6090" LastEditorUserId="6090" LastEditDate="2014-08-05T01:24:34.900" LastActivityDate="2014-08-05T01:24:34.900" Title="What does 自个 mean: &quot;since a&quot; or &quot;onself&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8908" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8938" CreationDate="2014-08-01T22:19:13.130" Score="1" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have an idea whether there is a difference in meaning between  近几年  and 这几年？  I have the feeling that  近几年 is more formal - but correct me if I'm wrong!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T05:10:44.947" Title="Is there a difference between 近几年 and 这几年？" Tags="&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2014-08-01T22:38:48.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;ABC dictionary defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;oneself; by oneself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;VARIANTS&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自个儿〔自個兒〕 zìgěr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自各儿〔自各兒〕 zìgěr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Basically it's the same as 自己&lt;/em&gt; - it's just a regional thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what Baidu says, with some example sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【自个儿】zìgěr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;〈方〉自己。也作“自各儿”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例：①不陪了，自个儿玩吧，您。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;②不要客气，就当是自个儿的家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;③躲在门背后头吃馍馍——自个儿哄自个儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;④你自个儿的事，我怎么好插手？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⑤你们自个儿看吧，看中哪个跟我说。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T22:38:48.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2014-08-01T23:47:53.370" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自个儿 zìgěr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pronoun colloquial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;oneself, by oneself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不要只顾自个儿。Don’t just think about yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自个儿 is the a colloquial way to say 自己. On top of my head, I couldn't see any example where they are not interchangeable. The only difference between them perhaps is just that 自己 can be used in formal context while 自个儿 is rather colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally the word is composed with &amp;quot;self&amp;quot; &amp;quot;one&amp;quot; (儿 is just there to mimic the colloquial adjustment of pronunciation). So it's simply means self and one which could be understood as oneself, by oneself, oneself's etc. depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's can be used as a pronoun alone like the example given above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More than often it would follow another noun part, subject or object and etc, to stress that it's object carry out the action alone. This can also make the reference more clear since 自个儿 itself only means oneself buy doesn't specify who the one is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;你自个儿 means &amp;quot;you and oneself&amp;quot;, which in turn means &amp;quot;yourself&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you encountered 自个儿, just keep in mind it means that the object it refers to is finishing the sentence by itself and add appropriate adverb (by adding alone, by oneself) or change the pronoun (you-&amp;gt;yourself) that fits other parts in your translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T23:47:53.370" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8906" CreationDate="2014-08-02T00:18:18.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a nuanced difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;为难&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; means to be &lt;strong&gt;troubled&lt;/strong&gt; over a difficult issue, indicating that the speaker isn't sure what to do and/or cannot make a decision easily. For example, &lt;code&gt;美称对台渔民遇害案感到为难&lt;/code&gt; - &quot;&lt;em&gt;Regarding the (Philippine's) killing of Taiwanese fisherman, the United States (as a friend of both) says it is &lt;strong&gt;caught between a rock and a hard place&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;矛盾&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; means something is &lt;strong&gt;self-contradictory&lt;/strong&gt;, indicating that the speaker is experiencing opposite desires/emotions/feeling/etc. For example, &lt;code&gt;愛情令人感到矛盾&lt;/code&gt; - &quot;&lt;em&gt;Love makes people feel &lt;strong&gt;conflicted&lt;/strong&gt; (between fairytale-romance and reality)&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T00:18:18.387" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8904" CreationDate="2014-08-02T00:22:50.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, we only discuss 的 as of that connects two noun or noun phrases here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second of all, you can say 你的爸爸, but in colloquial use, 的 is often omitted. It's like a contraction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third of all, you can see it as collocation, so there isn't much logic in this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But to make it easier to language learners, you can remember it like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both side of 的 are people. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The left side can be pronoun like 你、我、他, or the person's name like 小明.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The right side is the relative name of another person in relation to the one on the left for example 爸爸(dad), 妈妈(mom), 儿子(son), 老板(boss), 助手(assistant).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such situation it should be safe to omit 的. And in this sense, 的 means of. And in any other situation, don't omit 的 when it connects two nouns although some time it may be acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T00:22:50.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8899" CreationDate="2014-08-02T00:44:06.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;按时收听 literally means to listen on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically as @Alex mentioned 按时+Verb/Verb phrase means do something on time and often used imperatively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since phrases like 按时收听、按时收看 are widely used in broadcasting, Their equivalents would be &quot;stay tuned&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2014-08-02T03:11:55.450" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T03:11:55.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8908" CreationDate="2014-08-02T00:46:34.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;近几年 = the several years near to (implicated:) this year or now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这几年 = these several years. These here often indicate the current year or now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T00:46:34.620" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8904" CreationDate="2014-08-02T01:04:30.263" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just want to correct a misconception here. &lt;strong&gt;You do not &lt;em&gt;need&lt;/em&gt; 的 for 爸爸&lt;/strong&gt;. It is actually quite common to just use &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/?#q=%22%E4%BD%A0%E7%88%B8%E7%88%B8%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;你爸爸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/?#q=%22%E6%88%91%E7%88%B8%E7%88%B8%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;我爸爸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. This can be seen in the title of published books, for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason why you &lt;em&gt;can't&lt;/em&gt; use &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; for the single character &lt;code&gt;爸&lt;/code&gt; is just because of the way the sentence would sound. That probably stems from how the Chinese language did not historically use it the &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; possessive particle. Moreover, remember that that many words were once &lt;em&gt;single characters&lt;/em&gt;, and later morphed into &lt;em&gt;two character&lt;/em&gt; under modern Chinese. In such cases, &lt;strong&gt;using a word's single character variant&lt;/strong&gt; can therefore be reminiscent of classical Chinese. That makes inserting a 的 particle sound rather awkward. In contrast, consider the perfectly acceptable &lt;code&gt;我的家&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;我的碗&lt;/code&gt;, which have not been replaced by two character variants in mainstream usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should probably just consider such things to be irregular/exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T01:04:30.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8899" CreationDate="2014-08-02T03:17:40.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;按時&quot; has (at least) two components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Explicit - according to timetable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Implicit - should be done accordingly for one's own sake&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why we say &quot;按時服藥&quot; (for medicine), &quot;按時進餐&quot; (for meal), etc.  Radio programmes are unlikely to fulfill Point 2.  Hence, as Alex said, we will simply say &quot;準時&quot;, or better, &quot;天天準時&quot; if it is a daily programme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, &quot;天天&quot; emphasizes on repetition whilst &quot;每天&quot; emphasizes on &quot;no skipping&quot;.  e.g. &quot;天天服藥&quot; and &quot;每天服藥&quot; have slightly different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T03:17:40.283" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8906" CreationDate="2014-08-02T03:44:18.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;為難&quot; emphasizes on difficulty in making decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;矛盾&quot; emphasizes on contradiction in thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can feel &quot;為難&quot; because of &quot;矛盾&quot;, but not the contrary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T03:44:18.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2014-08-02T04:09:54.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt; illustrates the different phrases one can put together with the  character  自 (zì). Note that &quot;oneself&quot; and &quot;since then&quot; are valid possible meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lmrvg.gif&quot; alt=&quot;zi&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt; provides many sample sentences for both of these phrases, here are two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She was humming a tune to herself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她自个儿哼着小调。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(note that 從 cóng is simplified here as 从)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He hasn't been home since last year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自从去年至今他未回过家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T04:09:54.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8908" CreationDate="2014-08-02T08:20:44.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are interchangeable and have the same meaning in almost all cases. However, 近幾年 is slightly more genteel and tends to appear in literatures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In daily conversation, we generally say &quot;這幾年&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6100" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T08:20:44.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8854" CreationDate="2014-08-02T08:48:11.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on your context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In daily conversation, &quot;John果然說&quot;當然可以&quot;&quot; is OK and it seems that there's no better way to imply that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In literature or formal speech, however, &quot;果然&quot; is not recommended. I prefer to say &quot;不意外地, John說&quot;當然可以&quot;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6100" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T08:48:11.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8527" CreationDate="2014-08-02T10:26:53.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could either means 'no' or 'neither'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6101" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T10:26:53.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="800" CreationDate="2014-08-02T10:30:38.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means 'Something really rally bad happens'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6101" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T10:30:38.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="714" CreationDate="2014-08-02T10:39:53.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'厲害' could be either 'Well/Good/impressive' or 'serious'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&#xA;'好厲害!' -- 'Impressive/Good/Well done!'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'也病的太厲害了吧' -- 'Well, but, ain't that a kinda serious sick?'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6101" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T10:39:53.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="936" CreationDate="2014-08-02T12:30:09.700" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mair's essay is great but perhaps tl;dr. Here I just give two simple examples to illustrate the absurdity of trying to transliterate every individual character in Chinese - it may sometimes work but not always. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each character can mean very many different things in many different contexts, and when paired together with other characters. The two characters in crisis = 危机 (&lt;em&gt;wēi&lt;/em&gt; + &lt;em&gt;jī&lt;/em&gt;) can BUT need not be transliterated as 危 (&lt;em&gt;wēi&lt;/em&gt;) = &quot;danger&quot; and 机 (&lt;em&gt;jī&lt;/em&gt;) = &quot;opportunity&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Mair notes, 机 (&lt;em&gt;jī&lt;/em&gt;) = &quot;opportunity&quot; is not a very good transliteration in any case, but let's accept it for the sake of argument. It is not however the only possible transliteration. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example #1&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Airplane = 飞机 (&lt;em&gt;fēi&lt;/em&gt; + &lt;em&gt;jī&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where the second character is the same as that for &quot;crisis&quot;. The first character 飞 &lt;em&gt;fēi&lt;/em&gt; is here (appropriately) transliterated as &quot;fly(ing)&quot;. If we insist on transliterating the second character 机 (&lt;em&gt;jī&lt;/em&gt;) in this context again as &quot;opportunity&quot;, then an &quot;airplane&quot; = &quot;flying&quot; + &quot;opportunity&quot;. Which is absurd. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, 机 (&lt;em&gt;jī&lt;/em&gt;) is more appropriately transliterated as &quot;mechanism&quot; or &quot;machine&quot;, so that &quot;airplane&quot; = &quot;flying&quot; + &quot;machine&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example #2&lt;/strong&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Organic = 有机 (&lt;em&gt;yǒu&lt;/em&gt; + &lt;em&gt;jī&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where again the second character is the same as that for &quot;crisis&quot;. The first character 有 (&lt;em&gt;yǒu&lt;/em&gt;) can be transliterated as &quot;there is&quot;. And so again if we insist on transliterating the second character 机 (&lt;em&gt;jī&lt;/em&gt;) in this context again as &quot;opportunity&quot;, then &quot;organic&quot; = &quot;there is&quot; + &quot;an opportunity&quot;. Which is absurd (except to organic food proponents seeking Chinese nuggets of wisdom). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, 机 (&lt;em&gt;jī&lt;/em&gt;) is difficult to transliterate - but if one insists on doing so, perhaps &quot;life&quot; or &quot;substances capable of life&quot; is the best. The word on its own does not quite have a sensible transliteration. So 有机 = &quot;there is&quot; + &quot;life&quot; = Organic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4133" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T12:30:09.700" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="800" CreationDate="2014-08-02T15:06:55.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it means very similar to embarrassing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6104" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T15:06:55.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8927" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8928" CreationDate="2014-08-02T16:34:26.023" Score="4" ViewCount="1385" Body="&lt;p&gt;大家好！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a question that I have often asked my native-Chinese speaking friends, but I have not been satisfied with the answer.  In English, I find myself often saying, &quot;I wish...&quot;  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish I could go to the movies tonight, but I have too much work to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish that I would have thought of that earlier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish I had bought this book at the beginning of the semester.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish I did not have to go to work every day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friends have often given me the translation 希望, but I feel like this is hope.  But I feel like this may not be appropriate for things that cannot come true.  In all the examples above, &quot;I hope&quot; is not accurate.  And if I said, say, &quot;我希望每天不要上班” I feel like I am saying, &quot;I hope I do not have to go to work every day.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I express this &quot;wishful&quot; thinking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T18:48:21.923" Title="How to express: I wish..." Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8927" CreationDate="2014-08-02T17:55:55.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several options that clearly state that it cannot come true:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I wish I could go to the movies tonight, but I have too much work to do.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;本想&lt;/strong&gt;（本来想要）今晚去看电影，但要做的事情太多了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;倒想&lt;/strong&gt;（倒是想要）今晚去看电影，但要做的事情太多了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I wish that I would have thought of that earlier.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;真希望&lt;/strong&gt; 我之前能想到，（现在说什么都晚了。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I wish I had bought this book at the beginning of the semester.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;真希望&lt;/strong&gt; 我一开学就买了这本书，（但当时钱不够啊。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;本想&lt;/strong&gt; 我一开学就买了这本书，（但后来忘记了。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I wish I did not have to go to work every day.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;真希望&lt;/strong&gt; 不用天天上班。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;倒想&lt;/strong&gt; 不用天天上班。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T17:55:55.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="800" CreationDate="2014-08-02T18:22:04.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may read &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/3603374.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/3603374.htm&lt;/a&gt;, it's kind of comprehensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T18:22:04.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="936" CreationDate="2014-08-03T03:52:47.647" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;機&quot; in &quot;危機&quot; means the tendency of occurrence. (說文解字: 機之用主於發。故凡主發者皆謂之機。)  It carries a neutral meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T03:52:47.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8906" CreationDate="2014-08-03T05:48:21.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;为难&quot; -- dilemma. think of the meaning of 难 (difficult).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   -- so you can also replace this word to &quot;很难做&quot;or &quot;很难选择&quot;, for example &#xA;       1.离开还是留下， 他很难选择.&#xA;       2.你不预先告诉我，我会很难做.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;矛盾&quot; -- Being definitely contradictory between two things (think of 矛 and 盾 as the literal meaning of 矛盾)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3173" LastEditorUserId="3173" LastEditDate="2014-08-03T05:55:11.283" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T05:55:11.283" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8932" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-03T06:38:17.527" Score="2" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;信子apparently can mean (snake's)&quot;tongue&quot; but only if 吐 also occurs near it (s. all examples below)  &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.sina.com.cn/s/p/2014-08-03/051130621113.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.sina.com.cn/s/p/2014-08-03/051130621113.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;headline：半夜如厕 小臂粗大蛇 蜷缩地上吐信子&#xA;within text：（１）一条两米长的蛇盘在空调上，嘴里“嘶嘶”吐着红信子……&#xA;（２）不停游动，还吐着红信子&#xA;（３）发现一条两米左右的大蛇正对着自己吐信子。&#xA;iciba has  网络 nobuko (日本女孩的名字)；Hyacinth  and １ example&#xA;它正在用它的巨大的、恐怖的眼睛凶猛地环望四周，鲜红的信子一吞一吐。1. It looked around savagely with its gigantic, mesmerizing eyes bright red tongue hung out, twitching.&#xA;Searching internet for 信子 results in first 100 results all about 风信子 (hyacinth)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T15:11:35.273" Title="信子 meaning &quot;tongue&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8932" CreationDate="2014-08-03T08:17:43.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you are looking for an explanation why &quot;信子&quot; can mean tongue of a snake in some special context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, actually, &quot;信子&quot; of a snake has nothing to do with “风信子”(hyacinth). It is just a conventional phrase when talking about tongue of snake, and this convention is rarely used now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why tongue of a snake is called &quot;信子&quot;? A possible explanation is that tongue is an important thing for snake to detect surrounding circumstance the as most snakes are weak-sighted, and &quot;信&quot; represents &quot;information&quot; in Chinese, &quot;子&quot; is &quot;an item used to do something&quot;, like &quot;锤子&quot;(hammer), &quot;铲子&quot;(spade). Therefore &quot;信子&quot; might mean &quot;a tool for detecting information&quot; for snakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5913" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T08:17:43.057" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8932" CreationDate="2014-08-03T10:25:55.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe 信子 is a colloquial and maybe dialectal word. It appeared in an online news headline doesn't guarantee its formality, since language usage for online news in China is far less regulated than TV news or newspaper. As a matter of fact, I've seen many regional words and network meme being used on Sina news in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the etymology, I couldn't find any authoritative reference, but I &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; the word was deviated from 芯子 which has a similar pronunciation, literally means 'the inside', and is usually used to refer to the wick - the mandrel of any cylinder-shaped object. Looking at the examples from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/37/84630.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ZDic&lt;/a&gt;, 信子 is definitely not exclusively used for snake tongues, but is almost interchangeable with 芯子:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信子 xìn zǐ  1.指装在器物中心的芯子。如蜡烛的捻子、爆竹的引线等。《红楼梦》第四五回：“惟有这斗笠有趣；上头这顶儿是活的，冬天下雪，戴上帽子，就把竹信子抽了去，拿下顶子来，只剩了这个圈子。” 管桦 《山谷中》：“那里倒是没有崩过。就是不好打眼儿放信子。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation: 信子 means the mandrel installed to the center of an object, such as the wick of a candle or the lead wire for a fire-cracker. [Sentence examples snipped]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T10:33:09.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8927" CreationDate="2014-08-03T13:55:22.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know what you mean, but for me, 希望 or 想 are natural and accurate words in Chinese when you explain &quot;I wish&quot;. What confuses you in Chinese is the intonation we use you should pay more attention. &lt;strong&gt;What's different between Chinese and english is Chinese verbs don't have tense&lt;/strong&gt;. Because of the intonation, one word in Chinese can have several different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you use positive intonation like 我**希望**明天是个好天气！(which means I hope it will be a sunny day tomorrow!) It explains the same meaning as I hope...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you use negative intontion like 我**希望**每天不要上班. Other people can understand what you think about is unrealistic. If you want to stress your intonation, you can add 真 or 太 in your sentence.(我真希望每天不要上班or我太希望每天不要上班就好了）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is you could pay more attention to the intonation when your friends speak. And ask him whether a word has other meanings when using up or down intonation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6071" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T13:55:22.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8927" CreationDate="2014-08-03T14:21:44.533" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I think “我本想”，“我本以为”，“我本打算” are the answers to your questions.&#xA;For example, your first sentence:&#xA;I wish I could go to the movies tonight, but I have too much work to do.&#xA;Translations could be:&#xA;我 本以为 我 今晚 能 去看电影，但 我 还有 非常多 的工作 要做。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pay attention that it should be &quot;本来以为&quot;, but we usually say “本以为” for short. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3985" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T14:21:44.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8908" CreationDate="2014-08-03T14:30:57.297" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I would say that your feeling is correct.&#xA;Usually, &quot;近几年&quot; is used in the news - like in newspapers and on the news on TV or  in broadcasts.&#xA;Anyway, they are interchangeable, so don't worry about the usage of them. They have the complete same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3985" LastEditorUserId="9347" LastEditDate="2015-06-24T05:10:44.947" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T05:10:44.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8932" CreationDate="2014-08-03T15:11:35.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;吐信子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;stick out the tongue (of a snake)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 (candle) wick, (firecracker) fuse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 (snake's) tongue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 tongue (as food item)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 {metal} core&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And similarly pronounced 芯子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 fuse; wick&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 forked tongue of a snake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 core&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;搜狗 explains it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蛇的舌头分叉，一般吐出来捕捉外面的信息，如食物，周边环境情况，蛇的视力不好，主要靠舌头来获得信息，所以人们把蛇的舌头称为“蛇信子”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;由来&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;主要靠舌头来获得信息，所以人们把蛇的舌头称为“蛇信子”。用它们的舌头采集周围环境中的气味颗粒。首先它们快速将舌头伸到空气中，然后在将它收进嘴中。在嘴中，它们将舌头的两个小叉子插入位于口腔壁上的洞穴中，这些洞穴就是雅各布森氏器官，这些器官直接通向大脑。尽管蛇的鼻孔也能嗅到气味，舌头和雅各布森氏器官增强了蛇感知气味的功能　。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which basically says that snakes obtain information about the outside world through their tongues so it's their &amp;quot;little messenger,&amp;quot; poetic license and all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T15:11:35.273" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8908" CreationDate="2014-08-03T16:08:52.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;近几年 - recent years&#xA;这几年 - these years&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;recent years&quot; refer to the immediate past. &quot;these years&quot; refer to the past, present and possibly has the implication that it may extend to the immediate future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4300" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T16:08:52.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="936" CreationDate="2014-08-03T16:31:29.977" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;no &quot;危机&quot; doesn't mean danger + oppuntunity. It means dangerous times or crisis. It only means danger (危) + opportuniy (机) when we artifically separate the two words and attempt to interpret each word on its own. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An easy example off the top my head is &quot;小心&quot;. It means &quot;be careful&quot;. It is incorrect to separate the two words and re-interpret their meanings as &quot;小&quot; (small, tiny), &quot;心&quot; (heart). Being careful is not the same as having a small heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4300" LastEditorUserId="4300" LastEditDate="2014-08-03T22:32:23.640" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T22:32:23.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8942" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8949" CreationDate="2014-08-03T21:50:03.337" Score="6" ViewCount="2680" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the major difference between 层 and 楼？ I know that 层 can refer to other things like layers, etc. but I've heard that it could also refer to floors (just like 楼）。  Could I say something like &quot;酒吧的第一层？“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T16:15:50.987" Title="Difference between 层 and 楼？" Tags="&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8943" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8948" CreationDate="2014-08-03T22:18:14.270" Score="2" ViewCount="3738" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I'm trying to figure out how to encourage someone to take a risk/try something new in Chinese. In English we often use the phrase &quot;miss an opportunity&quot; as in &quot;You can't miss this opportunity!&quot;. But how would that translate directly into chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, could I say&#xA;&quot;我不能错过这个机会哦！“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-02-22T22:27:15.477" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T22:27:15.477" Title="How do you use translate “You can't miss this opportunity&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8944" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8951" CreationDate="2014-08-03T22:33:54.060" Score="4" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, in english when describing whether something is friendly for vegetarians or not we say &quot;vegetarian &lt;strong&gt;object_____&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. Is there an equivalent in Chinese? &#xA;For example could you say &quot;素的墨西哥卷“？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T07:55:26.427" Title="How do you describe a vegetarian item? As in a vegetarian burrito?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8942" CreationDate="2014-08-03T22:56:11.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you can, but it doesn't make sense. It seems like you are trying to say &quot;The first floor of the bar?&quot;. Are you trying to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;酒吧是在第一层吗？&quot;  Which means: Is the bar on the first floor?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;酒吧在第一层。&quot; Which means: The bar is on the first floor.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6110" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T22:56:11.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8943" CreationDate="2014-08-03T23:00:30.803" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;That would mean: I would not miss this opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Change the 我 to a 你, and remove the 哦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will result in: &quot;你不能错过这个机会&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6110" LastActivityDate="2014-08-03T23:00:30.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8944" CreationDate="2014-08-04T00:29:21.280" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're on the right track, but don't expect to be completely understood one hundred percent of the time - I've noticed that vegaterian stuff is not exactly a concept in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;素面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;vegetarian noodle dish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have the pattern, like you wrote above just minus the 的, 素 + OBJ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 素墨西哥卷 but I would just say 素卷 for simplicity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T00:29:21.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8943" CreationDate="2014-08-04T00:40:32.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a lovely saying in Chinese that fits here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;机不可失，时不再来&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;don't let an opportunity slip as it may never come again&quot;—opportunity knocks but once&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can just say this phrase to them - it will encourage them to seize the opportunity and do something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T00:40:32.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8942" CreationDate="2014-08-04T01:23:46.377" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically, &lt;code&gt;层&lt;/code&gt; is the measure word  and &lt;code&gt;楼&lt;/code&gt; is the noun being measured. They compliment each other and are not grammatically interchangeable, but the sentences you've heard are results from idiomatic omissions. There are two common situations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 . When we put 层 and 楼 together and an ordinal number before them, they form a noun phrase meaning &lt;code&gt;the N-th floor&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第三层楼 The third floor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This usage can be shortened into 第三层, 三层 or 三楼 (but not 第三楼). (第)三层 is fine for both formal and informal situations, while 三楼 sounds colloquial, otherwise they are completely interchangeable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我家住在第三层楼 = 我家住在三层 = 我家住在三楼 = I live on the third floor (of a building).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酒吧在大厦的第三层楼 = 酒吧在大厦三层 = 酒吧在大厦三楼 = The bar is located on the third floor of the plaza.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 . When we put 层 and 楼 together and a cardinal number before them, they form a noun phrase meaning &lt;code&gt;N stories&lt;/code&gt; and just like in English, this noun phrase is usually further composed into an adjective:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三层楼 Three stories (of a building)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三层楼高 Three-story high&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usages like this can be shortened into 三层, but not 三楼. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个酒吧有三层楼 = 这个酒吧有三层 = This bar has three stories (is a three-story building).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个酒吧有三楼 = There is a 'third-floor' in this bar. This sentence is valid but sounds very contextual, like an answer to questions such as 'I thought it's two-story high. Is there a 3rd floor?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples for 三层高 (adj. phrase):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一栋三层楼高的建筑 = 一栋三层高的建筑 = A building that is three-story high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 一栋三楼高的建筑 sounds unnatural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the subject of the sentence is literally '楼', then it must not be repeated. E.g. replacing '酒吧' and '建筑' with '楼' in above examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这栋楼有三层 = This building has three stories. (这栋楼有三层楼 sounds awkward.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一栋三层高的楼 = A building that is three-story high. (一栋三层楼高的楼 sounds unnecessarily repetitive.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your question,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Could I say something like &amp;quot;酒吧的第一层？“&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. It means 'the first floor of the bar (which sounds like a multi-story building or occupies more than one floors in a building)'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T01:23:46.377" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8943" CreationDate="2014-08-04T02:14:52.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are giving advice, you can also say &quot;勿失良機&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As &quot;勿&quot; here is a way to give advice, you cannot use it on yourself, e.g. it is wrong to say &quot;我今次一定勿失良機&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T02:14:52.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8944" CreationDate="2014-08-04T02:23:02.913" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, we use the prefix &quot;素&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, we use the prefix &quot;齋&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the order is significant too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;素墨西哥卷&quot; implies that the original burrito contains meat and this one is a customized version for vegetarian.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;墨西哥素卷&quot; implies that this vegetarian burrito is original Mexico food.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, as wuyefeibao mentioned, you can add &quot;的&quot; in the phrase; and it is quite interesting in this case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;墨西哥的素卷&quot; == &quot;墨西哥素卷&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;素的墨西哥卷&quot; .... It can be both.  ^_^&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-08-04T07:55:26.427" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T07:55:26.427" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8943" CreationDate="2014-08-04T04:32:46.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use a chengyu &quot;机不可失，时不再来&quot;, which means &quot;Don't lose a golden opportunity&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T04:32:46.383" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8954" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8967" CreationDate="2014-08-04T04:54:37.747" Score="2" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;Been trying to find the rules of tone sandhi in Sichuanese - but not having a lot of luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ASichuanese_Mandarin#Tone_Sandhi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia Talk:Sichuanese Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tone Sandhi&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Great improvements to the original article! Can we get some information on Sichuanese tone sandhi in here? It is quite different from Mandarin (3rd tone goes from 53 to 55, etc.) Also, I am pretty sure that the 1st tone is usually a rising 35 rather than a high 55. It changes to 55 in some words depending on the surrounding tones...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Yeah, Chao lists 1st as 45, but does not discuss sandhi. — kwami (talk) 02:28, &#xA;18 January 2011 (UTC) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems like there should be rules for first tone (55 - changing to 35? 45?) and two fourth tones together (213 + 213) since it's similar to MSM's third tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T16:07:25.013" Title="Tone Sandhi: Sichuanese 四川话" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8955" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8962" CreationDate="2014-08-04T12:29:10.270" Score="3" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zein.se/patrick/3000char.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;table&lt;/a&gt; of characters (about 3000) in which &lt;strong&gt;most popular characters go first&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;Here are first 20:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我的 高的 是的 目的 的确 不    不是 人    在   有   他   这 中 大   来 上 国 自个    到   说 道 子 为 和&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GnSqg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I would like to learn them is this sort/order but I know that it's better to learn a language by phrase examples not just by lonely words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my &lt;strong&gt;question&lt;/strong&gt; is: are there sources for phrase sets in which list of phrases itself &lt;strong&gt;sorted by frequency of usage&lt;/strong&gt; of the characters used? Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6090" LastEditorUserId="6090" LastEditDate="2014-08-05T01:23:08.553" LastActivityDate="2014-08-05T20:37:32.463" Title="Phrases with most popular characters?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8906" CreationDate="2014-08-04T16:11:10.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My experience is pretty limited, and the only way I've heard 为难 use is in the sense of &quot;embarrassed/awkward/in a quandary&quot;. This is being put in a position to make a decision, yes, but can also refer to the embarrassed feeling that might go with it. Am I on the right track?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6066" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T16:11:10.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8958" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-04T18:05:12.083" Score="-2" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to say &quot;How is your little daughter?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6115" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:38:00.070" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:38:00.070" Title="How to say &quot;How is your little daughter?&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-08-06T06:40:36.540" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8958" CreationDate="2014-08-04T18:29:26.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's depends on the context.&#xA;If you are going to meet your old friend you can say &quot;你小女儿怎么样？/你小女儿最近怎么样？/你小女儿近来如何？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T18:29:26.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8960" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-04T19:14:44.297" Score="4" ViewCount="471" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the title, signature and chop from a painted silk screen. I think the upper characters translate as hǎi táng huā [Chinese flowering crab-apple (Malus spectabilis)]. I think the lower characters are the name of a type of bird. Can you please tell me the name of the bird, the name of the artist, or translate the chop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yDDG0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6117" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T05:58:57.300" Title="How should this painting's title, signature and yin (chop) be correctly translated?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8960" CreationDate="2014-08-04T21:04:15.200" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title is 海棠珍禽 - Begonia and rare bird. It's one of the common themes for classical Chinese painting, which I believe is what this title is for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first two characters are Malus spectabilis, however, when Chinese say 海棠 especially in art works, we actually mean 秋海棠 - Begonia grandis, which is an herb instead of a tree. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last two characters are literally 'rare bird'. They are sometimes extended to refer to any rare animal, but in the context of a painting it is referring to a bird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The signature looks like 子兰作 to me, meaning the Zi or Hao of the artist is 子兰. (If you're not sure what Zi or Hao is, think Zi as a secondary given name and Hao as a stage name.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can't see the seal clear enough, best guess is 吴兰之印, indicating the full name of the artist is either 吴兰 or 吴兰之. Since we know the artist's Zi is 子兰, the name ending with 兰 (i.e. 吴兰) is actually more likely than the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-08-06T05:58:57.300" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T05:58:57.300" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8955" CreationDate="2014-08-05T00:08:18.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple answer is: yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a language learning aspect, this way(remembering words) may be boring and result in giving up unless you learn for an important test/exam. If find this boring, try a textbook or an app that let you learn it like a first language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&#xA;The links below contains lists for frequently used Chinese word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The official Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese(2500+1000), this is published in 1988 and discontinued in 2013, since it has only 2500 characters, it may be still useful(covers 99.48% characters in daily use):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyu.iciba.com/zt/3500.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://hanyu.iciba.com/zt/3500.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The official General Standard Chinese Characters(8105):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z6211m4474j19255.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z6211m4474j19255.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The official Commonly Used Hanja(1800), selected by South Korea:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/e1e306649b6648d7c1c74636&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/e1e306649b6648d7c1c74636&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The commonly used characters list for elementary school grade 1-6 students, selected by New Oriental, the largest education group in China:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from grade 1 to 6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.xdf.cn/ynj/201203/1159876.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xiaoxue.xdf.cn/ynj/201203/1159876.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.xdf.cn/enj/201203/1159917.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xiaoxue.xdf.cn/enj/201203/1159917.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.xdf.cn/snj/201203/1159916.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xiaoxue.xdf.cn/snj/201203/1159916.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.xdf.cn/inj/201203/1159915.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xiaoxue.xdf.cn/inj/201203/1159915.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.xdf.cn/wnj/201203/1159914.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xiaoxue.xdf.cn/wnj/201203/1159914.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.xdf.cn/lnj/201203/1159913.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xiaoxue.xdf.cn/lnj/201203/1159913.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastEditorUserId="6105" LastEditDate="2014-08-05T19:02:30.877" LastActivityDate="2014-08-05T19:02:30.877" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8906" CreationDate="2014-08-05T02:46:07.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;為難 means &lt;strong&gt;troublesome&lt;/strong&gt; and&#xA;矛盾 means &lt;strong&gt;misunderstanding/contradictions&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 你的決定讓他很為難. &#xA;It means &quot;Your decision has made him troublesome&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, 他們之間有矛盾.&#xA;It means &quot;They have slight misunderstanding/contradictions between them&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為難 could be the result of 矛盾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6005" LastActivityDate="2014-08-05T02:46:07.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8958" CreationDate="2014-08-05T14:10:41.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Or You may also say something like: 你的小女儿最近还好吗? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English: How is your little daughter lately?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is a more complete sentence and more polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最近 = lately &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6123" LastActivityDate="2014-08-05T14:10:41.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8965" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-05T16:12:06.987" Score="0" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am getting married in a month's time and my Chinese-speaking father has invited some of his Chinese friends to my wedding. He is and his friends are elderly and their English is almost non-existent. I spent a week compiling Chinese wedding invitations to make it a little bit more personal and I was really proud of myself. However this next challenge has proven a bit too much for me: TRANSLATING THE MENU!!!! Can anyone help me with translating the menu please? I've put it all together the way that I think I would say it however I don't know how it sounds written down and to make things harder, I need the Cantonese phrases! T_T&#xA;Thank you! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starter&#xA;開胃菜*(I'm not entirely convinced this is right, 起頭菜 comes to mind but i might have completely fabricated that!)*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxtail in Madeira &amp;amp; horseradish broth &amp;amp; herb dumplings (gluten free without dumplings)&#xA;牛尾在馬德拉和辣根湯及圓子(免圓子為没麵筋) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Braised onion tart, Blacksticks blue cheese, pecans &amp;amp; dressed rocket (v)&#xA;紅燒洋蔥芝士撻及合桃沙律(齋)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Main Course&#xA;主菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confit duck leg with mustard mash, green beans &amp;amp; Savoy cabbage, with honey &amp;amp; clove sauce (gluten free) &#xA;煨鴨腿及芥菜mash*(嘛薯??? haha we call it that but is it right?)*，豆仔和savoy cabbage 及蜜糖丁香醬 (没麵筋)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fillet of sea bass with pommes Anna, spinach and braised leeks with red wine &amp;amp; star anise sauce (gluten free)&#xA;鱸魚及安娜／牛油薯仔(?)，菠菜，燉韭蔥及紅酒和八角汁 (没麵筋)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Butternut squash brulee, black olive crumble, spinach &amp;amp; truffled potato dauphinoise (v) &#xA;南瓜布丁，烏欖, 菠菜，松露奶油薯仔 (齋)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dessert&#xA;甜品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baked lemon cheesecake with ginger &amp;amp; blackcurrant (v) &#xA;焗檸檬芝士蛋糕及薑和黑加侖子(齋)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chocolate and orange parfait with orange compote &amp;amp; praline crunch (v)&#xA;朱古力和橙芭菲及橙果盤和果仁糖(齋) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fruit salad (v) (gluten free)&#xA;水果沙律 (齋)(没麵筋)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6122" LastEditorUserId="6122" LastEditDate="2014-08-05T18:50:44.970" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T18:18:02.447" Title="Translating an English menu" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8965" CreationDate="2014-08-05T19:32:29.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To translate a menu, you may remember:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Each one course is a noun or a phrase, avoid sentence or very long phrase;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Avoid colloquial language, use formal written language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For example: use &quot;無&quot; instead of &quot;沒&quot;. use &quot;開胃菜&quot; but not &quot;起頭菜&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some my translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxtail in Madeira &amp;amp; horseradish broth &amp;amp; herb dumplings (gluten free without dumplings): 馬德拉（馬嗲利 in Cantonese）燴牛尾(or紅燴牛尾)配辣根素丸(除素丸外無谷蛋白)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mustard mash: 芥末薯蓉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Savoy cabbage: 高麗菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's likely that your language environment of Chinese is Cantonese, so I applied traditional Chinese as much as possible, but a few usage may not be the same since I speak Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastEditorUserId="6105" LastEditDate="2014-08-06T18:18:02.447" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T18:18:02.447" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8954" CreationDate="2014-08-05T19:49:49.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D%E8%AF%9D#.E5.8F.98.E8.B0.83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Wiki&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;连读变调现象在四川话口语中十分常见，但各地略有差异，以成渝片为例，大致来说四川话中的变调可以分为4类。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一是重叠词中的变调，一般而言如果组成该重叠词的字声调为阳平或去声，则第二个字变调为阴平（例词：爸爸[pa2pa1]、婆婆[pʰo2pʰo1]、舅舅[tɕiəu4tɕiəu1]、帕帕[pʰa4pʰa1]）；同时，如果组成该重叠词的字声调为上声，第二个字变调为阳平（例词：姐姐[tɕiai3tɕiai2]、板板[pan3pan2]）。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  二是儿尾及儿化词中的变调，如果儿尾名词为阳平，儿尾变调为阴平（例词：娃儿[ua2ɚ1]、瓢儿[pʰiau2ɚ1]）；如果儿化词的最后一个字为阳平，该字变调为阴平（例词：葡萄儿[pʰu2tʰɚ1]、麻雀儿[ma2tɕʰyɚ1]）。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  三是特定字的变调，如“去”、“头”、“面”、“上”等虚词在多数情况下都变读为阴平（例词：下去[sic][saŋ4tɕʰe1]、屋头[vu2tʰəu1]、外面[uai4mian1]、身上[sen1saŋ1]）。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  四是二字词及三字词的第二个字在很多情况下变读为阴平（例词：姑娘[ku2niaŋ1]、经佑[tɕin1iəu1]、院坝[yuən4pa1]、龙门阵[noŋ2mən1tsən4]、明年子[min2nʲian1tsɿ3]）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The phenomenon of tones sandhi in Sichuan colloquial speech is very common, but every place has its own little differences, taking the Chengdu and Chongqing region as an example, Sichuanese tone sandhi can be approximately divided into 4 categories.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  One is the sandhi of overlapping&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; words, generally speaking if the tone of the characters making up the word is a Yang Ping or a Qu, then the second one becomes a Yin Ping (examples: 爸爸 [pa2pa1]、婆婆 [pʰo2pʰo1]、舅舅 [tɕiəu4tɕiəu1]、帕帕 [pʰa4pʰa1]); at the same time, if the tone of those characters is a Shang, the second one becomes a Yang Ping (examples: 姐姐 [tɕiai3tɕiai2]、板板 [pan3pan2])&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The second category is the sandhi of words ending with 儿 and &quot;erhua&quot;, if a noun ending in 儿 has a Yang Ping, the 儿 changes to a Yin Ping (examples: 娃儿 [ua2ɚ1]、瓢儿 [pʰiau2ɚ1]); if a word with erhua ends with a Yang Ping, that syllable changes to a Yin Ping (examples: 葡萄儿 [pʰu2tʰɚ1]、麻雀儿 [ma2tɕʰyɚ1]).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The third category is the sandhi of specific characters, like “去”、“头”、“面”、“上” and other function words, which in many circumstances change to a Yin Ping (examples: 上去 [saŋ4tɕʰe1]、屋头 [vu2tʰəu1]、外面 [uai4mian1]、身上 [sen1saŋ1]).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The fourth category is the second syllable of 2-character and 3-character words, which under many circumstances changes to a Yin Ping (examples: 姑娘 [ku2niaŋ1]、经佑 [tɕin1iəu1]、院坝 [yuən4pa1]、龙门阵 [noŋ2mən1tsən4]、明年子 [min2nʲian1tsɿ3]).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;This means words made with two identical characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T16:07:25.013" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T16:07:25.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8955" CreationDate="2014-08-05T20:37:32.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I needed the same thing, so I sorted the sample sentences on Tatoeba.org and posted some on &lt;a href=&quot;http://donkirkby.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/frequency-flashcards/sentence-rank/output/sentences.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my Google code site&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These sentences are from Tatoeba.org, and they are arranged with the most common characters first. As your vocabulary increases, you should be able to read farther down the list. Hover over the gray box to see the English translation of each Chinese sentence. Some Chinese sentences have a &amp;quot;Speak&amp;quot; link next to them that will play a recording of the sentence. The source code is available at donkirkby.googlecode.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to remember your place, click on one of the &amp;quot;Link here&amp;quot; links and bookmark the page. Those links will also tell you the rank of the rarest character in that sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related project is my set of &lt;a href=&quot;https://code.google.com/p/donkirkby/wiki/ChineseVocabulary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mnemosyne flash cards&lt;/a&gt; for the 500 most common characters and words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-05T20:37:32.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8958" CreationDate="2014-08-06T00:06:42.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, &quot;你細女近來點呀?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;細女&quot; = youngest daughter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;細仔&quot; = youngest son&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T00:06:42.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8965" CreationDate="2014-08-06T00:20:47.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, Congratulations!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starter =&gt; 前菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxtail in Madeira &amp;amp; horseradish broth &amp;amp; herb dumplings (gluten free without dumplings) =&gt; 馬德拉辣根清湯燴牛尾及香草雲吞 (麵筋/麩質敏感人士可免雲吞)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Braised onion tart, Blacksticks blue cheese, pecans &amp;amp; dressed rocket =&gt; 焗洋蔥撻伴藍芝士合桃火箭菜 (素菜)  [I presume that it is one dish with tart, cheese and rocket, right?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confit duck leg with mustard mash, green beans &amp;amp; Savoy cabbage, with honey &amp;amp; clove sauce (gluten free) =&gt; 油封鴨伴芥末四季豆蓉，配蜂蜜丁香汁 (不含麵筋/麩質) [If the sauce is thick, say 蜂蜜丁香醬]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fillet of sea bass with pommes Anna, spinach and braised leeks with red wine &amp;amp; star anise sauce (gluten free) =&gt; 海鱸魚柳伴牛油焗薄薯片、菠菜及燒韭蔥，配八角紅酒汁 (不含麵筋/麩質)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Butternut squash brulee, black olive crumble, spinach &amp;amp; truffled potato dauphinoise (v) =&gt; 南瓜布丁，黑橄欖鬆餅，菠菜，松露奶油焗薯 (素菜) [Hey, do you have a picture of the dish?  I don't have any idea how to translate it.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dessert =&gt; 甜品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baked lemon cheesecake with ginger &amp;amp; blackcurrant (v) =&gt; 黑加侖子檸檬芝士薑餅 (素菜) [Is ginger in the crust?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chocolate and orange parfait with orange compote &amp;amp; praline crunch (v) =&gt; 朱古力芭菲伴蜜餞香橙及碎果仁 (素菜) [I presume that the &quot;orange compote&quot; refer to the &quot;orange&quot; in the parfait&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fruit salad (v) (gluten free) =&gt; 鮮果沙律 (素菜, 不含麵筋/麩質)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-08-06T09:05:25.690" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T09:05:25.690" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8900" CreationDate="2014-08-06T06:04:50.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“留宿” is more usual to be seen in a formal notice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example in a dormitory regulations of a Chinese university you may see:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;禁止男生在女生宿舍留宿(male students are not allowed to stay in a girl's dorm overnight )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T06:04:50.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8927" CreationDate="2014-08-06T18:48:21.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;for something in the past or present, it can be translated to &quot;要是……就好了&quot;&#xA;examples: &#xA;I wish that I would have thought of that earlier.&#xA;我要是早点想到这个就好了。&#xA;I wish I did not have to go to work every day.&#xA;我要是不用每天上班就好了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's kind of like &quot;if only...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for something in the future, you just need to say “我想……”&#xA;example：&#xA;I wish I could go to the movies tonight, but I have too much work to do&#xA;我想今晚去看电影，但是还有好多事情没做呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5997" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T18:48:21.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8973" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8974" CreationDate="2014-08-06T20:46:49.707" Score="8" ViewCount="864" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to sort out the difference between 免费 and 无偿 as adverbs. Would you say 水果店的老板免费送了我六个苹果。 or would it be 无偿送了？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2014-08-06T22:37:13.573" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T20:07:02.663" Title="What is the difference between 免费 and 无偿？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8973" CreationDate="2014-08-06T21:39:42.677" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;免费&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;free of charge&lt;/code&gt;. As pointed out by &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%8D%E8%B4%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, it is usually applied to commercial products or services that normally charge money and now for free as a part of business strategy. E.g. 免费的午餐 (free lunch), 免费试吃 (free sample of food), etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;无偿&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;no compensation&lt;/code&gt;, or 'not asking anything for return'. It is usually applied to non-profit, voluntary activities. E.g. 无偿献血 (blood donation), 无偿社区服务 (community service provided by volunteers), etc. There are usages of &lt;code&gt;无偿&lt;/code&gt; in legal space which &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; be connected with commercial activities, but that's a completely different way of expression in a completely different context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking, '免费给了我六个苹果' means he gave you six apples for customer relationship for reasons like you're a frequent customer or you just make a bulk purchase of other stuffs. '无偿给了我六个苹果' means he gave you six apples out of kindness because you lost your wallet or you're starving. In spoken language, however, their usages are usually mixed and both of your sentences are fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, '送' already implies 'for free'. So '免费送了' is unnecessary repetition but again sounds fine in spoken language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: As the other answer pointed out, 无偿 is almost never used in Hongkong which indicates that the usages can be highly regional. Something to keep in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-08-07T20:07:02.663" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T20:07:02.663" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2673" CreationDate="2014-08-06T22:03:57.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't find the reference now, but I have read that forbidden books in the early Mao era were put in yellow covers after being seized by the police; according to the source, this included both pornographic and ideologically deviant books. I have also seen contemporary Xinhua and other official sources describing banned religious and political texts as &quot;yellow,&quot; so it may be used differently in Danghua. However, it is possible the yellow color was chosen because the color was already associated with deviance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6129" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T22:03:57.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8973" CreationDate="2014-08-07T04:21:15.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;无偿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MOE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;法律上指不得報酬而移轉其物或權利，或服勞務、供勞力而不索求報酬，稱為「無償」。如贈與稱無償行為。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a Taiwanese point of view (MOE), at least, 无偿 is determined by law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some other places it's used with 赠与 to mean &amp;quot;grant&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;outright.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&amp;amp;T&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;land grant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无偿土地赠与&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wúcháng tǔdì zèngyǔ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;outright gift&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无偿赠与&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wúcháng zèngyǔ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;OCE&lt;/strong&gt; also lists this under the English entry voluntary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 (for free)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无偿地 (run, organize, help)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where as 免费 would certainly not involve law and would just, simply, mean &amp;quot;free.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T04:21:15.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8978" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8979" CreationDate="2014-08-07T06:23:08.580" Score="8" ViewCount="443" Body="&lt;p&gt;So it is said that if you find &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; after 怎么, the sentence represents 'How', and if you find &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; after 怎么, the sentence represents 'Why'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How : 你怎么来的？ &quot;How did you come?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why : 你怎么来了？ &quot;Why did you come?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to &lt;strong&gt;more specifically&lt;/strong&gt; see how this can work with &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; and also the difference between them in such cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;EDIT&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; ::&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just can't find how 的 gives the meaning of 'How' with 怎么, since normally 的 implies 'of/conclusive(是-的)' rather than 'How'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you so much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6131" LastEditorUserId="6131" LastEditDate="2014-08-07T21:06:40.613" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T21:06:40.613" Title="怎么.... with 的 and 了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8978" CreationDate="2014-08-07T08:39:02.130" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually &quot;how&quot; is 怎么 and &quot;why&quot; is 为什么，so you can easily know whether people are asking you &quot;how&quot; or &quot;why&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in this sentence, 怎么 is used to express &quot;why&quot; instead of 为什么. This is because, besides wanting to know the reason, the person is expressing his or her surprise. Sometimes people use this to show more surprise than their desire to know the reason.&#xA;你怎么来了？actually means &quot;I'm so surprised that you've come! Maybe you can tell me why.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, 了/的 is the key to recognize &quot;how&quot; and &quot;surprise + why&quot; when you meet 怎么. Sometimes there's 了的 at the end of the sentence and it means &quot;how&quot; because it's ended with 的. Example: 你是怎么把他杀了的 means &quot;how did you kill him?&quot; And when you read a sentence ended with 了， you're sure it expresses &quot;surprise + why&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When listening, however, you can differentiate the two just by hearing the first three characters in the sentences. When expressing &quot;how&quot;, the speaker accentuates 怎么; when expressing &quot;surprise + why&quot;, the speaker emphasizes 你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you read such sentences ended with exclamation marks, you can be sure that the sentences are showing a strong surprise.For example, 你怎么来了！shows a stronger surprise than 你怎么来了？，and 你怎么来的！means &quot;surprise + how&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5997" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T08:39:02.130" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8973" CreationDate="2014-08-07T10:10:47.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, we use &quot;免費&quot; when someone gets something for free, and &quot;無償&quot; when someone does something for free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, we do not say &quot;無償&quot; in Hong Kong.  For example, we say &quot;捐血&quot; instead of &quot;無償獻血&quot;, and &quot;義務工作&quot; instead of &quot;無償社區服務&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T10:10:47.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8983" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8984" CreationDate="2014-08-07T17:06:36.403" Score="3" ViewCount="3345" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to use Jyutping as the input method on Windows 8.1?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6137" LastActivityDate="2016-05-12T05:39:41.763" Title="How to use jyutping as an input method on windows 8.1" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8983" CreationDate="2014-08-07T17:52:49.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try the Cantonese Phonetic IME at &lt;a href=&quot;http://cpime.hk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://cpime.hk/&lt;/a&gt;. I don't know about specific support for Windows 8.1, but it works on prior versions of Windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T17:52:49.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8985" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8987" CreationDate="2014-08-07T18:00:33.793" Score="5" ViewCount="858" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone called me a 废柴码农 after I made a silly mistake.  I suppose it must be something negative but what does it actually means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6138" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T18:28:22.640" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T07:47:55.883" Title="The meaning of 废柴码农" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8986" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8988" CreationDate="2014-08-07T18:16:21.903" Score="4" ViewCount="496" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm &lt;a href=&quot;http://xbrlnexus.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/%E5%A1%9E%E6%8B%89%E6%96%AF-by-betty-who/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;translating an English song in an exercise to learn Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the lyrics is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You can tell&lt;/strong&gt; he means it &lt;strong&gt;by&lt;/strong&gt; the look on his face&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is English expression. A less expressive lyricist might say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You know&lt;/strong&gt; he means it &lt;strong&gt;because (of)&lt;/strong&gt; the look on his face&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I tried these translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你能确定。。。 因为。。。&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can determine... because...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;。。。 就你能确定。。。&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... so you know that...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;can tell&quot; I tried 你能确定  。。。 or 你确定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;by&quot; I tried either 就。。。  or 因为。But 因为 seems like it's causal. Like &quot;the look on his face is why he is serious&quot;. It's the opposite. The look on his face is &lt;strong&gt;effect&lt;/strong&gt;, not &lt;strong&gt;cause&lt;/strong&gt; of his seriousness. The look on his face may be the cause &lt;strong&gt;of your knowing he is serious.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the full sentence I tried:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你看他脸色, &lt;strong&gt;就确定&lt;/strong&gt; 他是认真的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you translate that line? Emphasis on the Chinese translation for &quot;You can tell ... by ... &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other English ways it's used : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;You can tell&lt;/strong&gt; the spaghetti is cooked &lt;strong&gt;when&lt;/strong&gt; it sticks to a wall.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;You can tell&lt;/strong&gt; he's rich &lt;strong&gt;by&lt;/strong&gt; the clothes he's wearing&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;How do you know?&quot; &quot;I can &lt;strong&gt;just tell!&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6139" LastEditorUserId="6139" LastEditDate="2014-08-07T18:38:39.473" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T09:25:17.987" Title="Translation English Expression &quot;You can tell ... by ....&quot;" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8985" CreationDate="2014-08-07T18:58:54.123" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;废柴码农 means something like incompetent programmer. Usually 废柴 is used as a noun, for example, many fans of Man United say Darren Fletcher is 废柴. 码农 is a self-deprecating name for programmers, and its original meaning in Chinese is coding peasant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6141" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T18:58:54.123" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8986" CreationDate="2014-08-07T19:22:55.467" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The corresponding Chinese expression for &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can tell ...by ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一看...就知道...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can tell he means it by the look on his face&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一看他的脸色就知道他是认真的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although for a lyric you probably want something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的神情告诉我他是认真的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;You can tell the spaghetti is cooked when it sticks to a wall.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能粘在墙上的spaghetti才是煮过的spaghetti&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where &quot;You can tell&quot; or &quot;you know&quot; is basically ignored because it won't add anything to the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;You can tell he's rich by the clothes he's wearing&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一看他穿的衣服就知道他很富&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;How do you know? (How can you tell)&quot; &quot;I can just tell!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你怎么知道的？&quot; &quot;我就是知道&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6142" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T19:22:55.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8985" CreationDate="2014-08-07T19:30:57.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an informal, mocking expression used only on the internet. Don't take it seriously or use it in real life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5997" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T19:30:57.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8888" CreationDate="2014-08-07T19:53:05.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.Zhongwen.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt; offers a good example of how Chinese dictionaries are organized. As mentioned in other answers, the important thing to remember is that Chinese characters have multiple meanings (and some of these are implicit rather than explicit). Several meanings for the  character 来 are offered below. Significantly there are many inferred meanings based on the context in which a word is used. I would point out that very often Chinese words that convey a related idea behave in very similar ways to English words when used in differing contexts, for example you mentioned where did something come up with versus the standard meaning of the word come. Well this kind of thing also applies to words in Chinese. The Zhongwen website, as mentioned above (see sample image) produces many words including lai whose change in context or coupled with another word create a different (but valid) related usage of the base word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qTaDN.gif&quot; alt=&quot;lai&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T19:53:05.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8991" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9020" CreationDate="2014-08-07T20:25:11.653" Score="4" ViewCount="376" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I've come upon two words to say &quot;database&quot; － 资料库 and 数据库.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the main difference between two? Which one is used in the context of programming?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the help! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T20:42:33.203" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T20:42:33.203" Title="Difference between 资料库 and 数据库" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8992" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-07T20:27:18.143" Score="3" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been struggling for a while with how exactly in Chinese to say &quot;to found&quot;. Recently, I learned that 创办 could have that meaning? (I.e. 北大是1898年创办的）  - but, I also know that words like 创始 also could mean to found. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I wanted to say something like &quot;Mark Zuckerburg Founded Facebook&quot; - how would that be translated? Would it use 创办？ Or is that only used for time periods? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T22:19:49.020" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T22:19:49.020" Title="How to say &quot;to found&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8993" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8995" CreationDate="2014-08-07T20:29:26.220" Score="3" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am back to the classic 当 vs。 是。 I've heard some people say “这个词也可以是动词” however could  I also say &quot;这个词 也可以当动词“  － if so, which sounds more common/colloquial? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T20:47:03.937" Title="Would you say 当动词 or 是动词?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8991" CreationDate="2014-08-07T20:36:42.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;资料库 means Database while 数据库 means repository&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6138" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T20:36:42.937" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8993" CreationDate="2014-08-07T20:47:03.937" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;当&lt;/code&gt; here means &lt;code&gt;act as; be regarded as; be considered as&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;是&lt;/code&gt; is simply &lt;code&gt;to be&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both words are common and can be used colloquially. In formal/academic context, I'd replace &lt;code&gt;当&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;作&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;当做&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the word is not verb but can be used as a verb, you should say 当, e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在古汉语里，很多形容词都可以&lt;b&gt;当&lt;/b&gt;动词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the word is a verb, you should say 是, e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;服务这个词既是名词，又&lt;b&gt;是&lt;/b&gt;动词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T20:47:03.937" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8991" CreationDate="2014-08-07T20:49:16.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a native speaker, but if you compare the search results on 百度, 数据库 seems to be the more often used term with mySQL, Oracle, SQL Server and the like, the digital programmer techie version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E6%95%B0%E6%8D%AE%E5%BA%93%22&amp;amp;tn=baidu&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;oq=%22%E6%95%B0%E6%8D%AE%E5%BA%93%22&amp;amp;usm=1&amp;amp;pn=50&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E6%95%B0%E6%8D%AE%E5%BA%93%22&amp;amp;tn=baidu&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;oq=%22%E6%95%B0%E6%8D%AE%E5%BA%93%22&amp;amp;usm=1&amp;amp;pn=50&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;资料库 seems to refer to the more analog version of a database although the results returned the word used with iTunes and movie databases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E8%B5%84%E6%96%99%E5%BA%93%22&amp;amp;tn=baidu&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;oq=%22%E8%B5%84%E6%96%99%E5%BA%93%22&amp;amp;usm=1&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;bs=%22%E8%B5%84%E6%96%99%E5%BA%93%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E8%B5%84%E6%96%99%E5%BA%93%22&amp;amp;tn=baidu&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;oq=%22%E8%B5%84%E6%96%99%E5%BA%93%22&amp;amp;usm=1&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;bs=%22%E8%B5%84%E6%96%99%E5%BA%93%22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2305358.htm?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2305358.htm?fr=aladdin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T20:49:16.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8992" CreationDate="2014-08-07T20:49:35.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;建立 is rather common, 创办 would work too, or why not 创建, or even 成立?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非死不可成立于2004年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Facebook是于2004年创建&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T20:49:35.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8985" CreationDate="2014-08-07T21:56:51.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From baidu:&#xA;废柴，起源于粤语，多为骂人的词，随着《废柴兄弟》播出，废柴被衍生为坚持梦想的有（mei）为（qian）青（de）年（ren），其中在剧中的一对废柴许之一和张晓蛟被成为“柴帝”。“废柴”是一种社会现象，表面上看着很废，其实很有才，总有被燃烧的一天。废柴是一个自嘲式的正能量词语，多用于网友的自嘲，预示具有强大潜力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;码农Coding Peasant(s)：一般指从事没有发展前景的软件开发职位，这种职位只能强化职业者在单方面的技术领域技能，学不到新技术，同时也是部分从事软件开发工作人员的一个自嘲的称号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6143" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T21:56:51.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8991" CreationDate="2014-08-08T00:56:02.857" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;数据库&lt;/code&gt; is the standard translation for &lt;code&gt;database&lt;/code&gt; in the context of computer science. It is used very extensively in both formal and colloquial language. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;资料库&lt;/code&gt; is not a computer science terminology and it is a more conceptual term for &lt;code&gt;information bank&lt;/code&gt;, which can be referring to a library, an archive or a computer database.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For computer related terms, Hongkong/Taiwan translations are usually very different, but I am not familiar with them. If that's what you're looking for, you should wait for other answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T00:56:02.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8991" CreationDate="2014-08-08T02:27:47.510" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are different translations for the same word &quot;database&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;数据库 is used in Chinse mainland&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;whereas&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;資料庫 is used in Hongkong, Taiwan etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples could be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E5%9C%B0%E5%8C%BA%E7%94%A8%E8%AF%8D%E5%B7%AE%E5%BC%82%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8&quot;&gt;on Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6145" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2014-08-08T02:54:19.753" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T02:54:19.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8992" CreationDate="2014-08-08T03:00:31.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;創始 is usually used for small shop or brand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;創辦 may used for school or news agency. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;創立 would be normally used for a country or more formal organisation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually we won't say some brand was 創立 於 2004. That's too formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Facebook, you could say &quot;Facebook 於2004年創立 or 成立&quot;. I think it depends on how formal the object is in your mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6146" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T03:00:31.123" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9002" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-08T03:23:01.837" Score="2" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;In english there is a common expression that is &quot;I did (something) as much as I would in (A period of time)&quot;. Generally in this pattern the period of time is a large period of time - and the expression is used to express a sense of being impressed. &#xA;I'm trying to figure out if Chinese has an equivalent expression - or a similar way of expressing the meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, how would I say &quot;I laughed more today than I usually would in a week&quot; &#xA;Could I say:&#xA;&quot;今天我笑得比正常的一个礼拜多“ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T14:46:27.810" Title="I did (Something) as much as I would in (X amount of time)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9009" CreationDate="2014-08-08T03:29:36.713" Score="2" ViewCount="2187" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a while, I've been trying to express a good translation for the english &quot;to reminisce&quot;. Reminisce means, in general, to spend time with friends/family thinking about happy things that had happened in the past. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that 追忆 and  怀旧 are common translations - do they both express this &quot;happy, remembering&quot; meaning? If not, how are they used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T11:29:44.213" Title="追忆 vs。怀旧 how to say &quot;To reminisce&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9003" CreationDate="2014-08-08T04:24:31.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;追 means chase, 忆 means memory. So 追忆 means chase good memory.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;怀 means recall, 旧 means old. So 怀旧 means recall good old days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is closer to &quot;to reminisce&quot;? I personally go with 怀旧. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are normally used in written language. &#xA;追忆 can be used as a verb:  追忆往事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Or a noun: 此情只待成追忆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怀旧 can be used as a adjective: &quot;Hotel California&quot;是一首怀旧金曲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4264" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T04:24:31.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9002" CreationDate="2014-08-08T04:27:31.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You own answer is almost correct. I'd add one character to make sound more natural:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;今天我笑得比正常的一个礼拜**还**多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4264" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T04:27:31.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9006" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9008" CreationDate="2014-08-08T04:36:09.933" Score="2" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to give a presentation to my Chinese class on fair division procedures, and I want to describe the simple method of &quot;you cut I choose&quot;. I think a literal translation would be something like 你分为我选择, but I wonder if there's a colloquial way to say this or some relevant chengyu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T14:54:05.790" Title="Translation of &quot;you cut I choose&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9002" CreationDate="2014-08-08T05:35:59.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A more natural way may be: “我今天**一天**笑的比一个礼拜的还多“. &quot;一天&quot; is added after &quot;今天&quot;,  to compare with “一个礼拜&quot;, so it will be empathized. Similar to &quot;as much as&quot; in original sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6149" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T05:35:59.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9006" CreationDate="2014-08-08T05:50:59.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you simply name it &quot;你切我选&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other names to this method is &quot;我切你选&quot;, &quot;分割与选择&quot;(divide and choose), &quot;切蛋糕问题&quot;(cake-cutting problem)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T05:50:59.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9003" CreationDate="2014-08-08T06:22:45.340" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reminisce doesn't have a &quot;&lt;em&gt;happy&lt;/em&gt; remembering&quot; meaning, nor does it imply spending any time with anyone, friends or family or otherwise. Reminisce only means &quot;to remember, talk, or write about the past (in an indulging way)&quot;. Thinking about &quot;happy things in the past&quot; as the question wanted is more like &quot;to reminisce &lt;em&gt;fondly&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The closest match in Chinese is &lt;code&gt;追憶 / 追忆&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, meaning &quot;to remember past events&quot;. It is similar to &lt;code&gt;回憶&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;追憶&lt;/code&gt; evokes a stronger, more emphatic feel, making it more similar to English's &quot;to reminisce&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, &lt;code&gt;懷舊 / 怀旧&lt;/code&gt; conveys a sense of &lt;em&gt;cherishing the memories&lt;/em&gt;. Its means &quot;yearning for the past&quot;, rather than recalling it, and implies rose-tinted glasses. Note that &lt;code&gt;懷舊&lt;/code&gt; is also a noun, meaning &quot;nostalgia&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another suggestion that can't be used for reminisce is &lt;code&gt;懷緬&lt;/code&gt;, or more correctly &lt;code&gt;緬懷&lt;/code&gt;. It actually means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;imagining&lt;/strong&gt; the past (history, not memory)&lt;/em&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;cherishing the memory&lt;/strong&gt; (typically, of someone who died)&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. For example, &quot;Commemorating my late mother (&lt;code&gt;緬懷天上的媽媽&lt;/code&gt;)&quot;. Rather inappropriate for translating reminisce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What the question really asks for seems to be &lt;em&gt;&quot;to reminisce with friends and family&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. For this sense of the word, a good Chinese option is &lt;code&gt;敘舊 / 叙旧&lt;/code&gt; - literally, &quot;to talk about olden days&quot;. This word is strictly about &lt;em&gt;reminiscing with people&lt;/em&gt;, and works well for situations such as &quot;&lt;em&gt;to reminisce with old friends at the high school reunion&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;code&gt;在高中同學會與老友敘舊&lt;/code&gt;)&quot;. Note that &lt;code&gt;敘舊&lt;/code&gt; can't be used for general thinking, remembering, or writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-08-09T11:29:44.213" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T11:29:44.213" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9010" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9053" CreationDate="2014-08-08T07:33:31.837" Score="4" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;The famous saying &quot;欲成大器， 必先退之&quot; is first said by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Yu&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Han Yu&lt;/a&gt;'s wife, which is the origin of his courtesy name. How to translate this sentense into English though? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first try is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;One should first learn self-effacement before he can achieve something great.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4118" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T19:27:32.193" Title="How to translate the famous saying &quot;欲成大器，必先退之&quot;？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8991" CreationDate="2014-08-08T07:38:49.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No difference, whether in Taiwan or mainland, people can understand you mean &quot;database&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, 資料庫 is more nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3199" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T07:38:49.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9010" CreationDate="2014-08-08T08:25:48.507" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea here is the same as the set phrase: &lt;code&gt;以退為進&lt;/code&gt;, literally, &quot;To advance by retreating.&quot; So a literal translation is &quot;To become a great person, one must first learn to back down / be flexible / compromise / back off / retreat&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I'd suggest something like &lt;code&gt;&quot;True greatness comes after learning when to let go / compromise&quot;&lt;/code&gt; which might be better flowing English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also the below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;懼足下以吾退歸，因謂我不復能自強不息，故因書奉曉，&lt;strong&gt;冀足下知吾之退，未始不為進&lt;/strong&gt;；而眾人之進，未始不為退也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt; &lt;strong&gt;- 唐·韓愈《答侯繼書》&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-08-08T08:32:30.393" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T08:32:30.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9003" CreationDate="2014-08-08T09:29:32.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can say &quot;和XX一起*懷緬*往事&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T09:29:32.230" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9010" CreationDate="2014-08-08T09:36:10.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Modesty is the key to success.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;退&quot; here means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.... 遜讓也。《禮·曲禮》君子恭敬撙節退讓以明禮。《後漢·鍾皓傳》好學慕古，有退讓風。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/kx/9000.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/kx/9000.htm&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-08-08T10:11:00.977" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T10:11:00.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9006" CreationDate="2014-08-08T09:42:10.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In additional to wuyefeibao's suggestion, &quot;分者後取&quot; or &quot;分者後拿&quot; is also okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;分者&quot; == the one who cuts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;後取/拿&quot; =&gt; takes the remaining piece after the other person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T09:42:10.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9002" CreationDate="2014-08-08T09:54:35.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我今天笑得比平时一个礼拜还多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;code&gt;平时&lt;/code&gt; is more proper than &lt;code&gt;正常&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;平时&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;normal times&lt;/code&gt; while &lt;code&gt;正常&lt;/code&gt; simply means &lt;code&gt;normal&lt;/code&gt;, in this situation, &lt;code&gt;平时&lt;/code&gt; would be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6154" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T09:54:35.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9017" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9019" CreationDate="2014-08-08T14:19:33.677" Score="1" ViewCount="477" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a game that has 3 levels of difficulty: &quot;noob level&quot;, mature level&quot;, &quot;mad level&quot;. How can I translate these 3 terms into Chinese? (I don't use &quot;easy&quot;, &quot;normal&quot;, &quot;hard&quot; in my game because they are popular and trivial words. I want to use some 'special words')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6150" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T06:45:39.550" Title="How to translate game difficulty level terminology: &quot;noob level&quot;, &quot;mature level&quot;, &quot;mad level&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9018" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9022" CreationDate="2014-08-08T14:27:41.920" Score="7" ViewCount="2133" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English and in Spanish they say &quot;Gooaaaaaalllll&quot; after a player scores. How do the Chinese say goal? (My poor guess: méééééén ?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6150" LastEditorUserId="6160" LastEditDate="2014-08-08T22:29:07.817" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T09:59:34.583" Title="In soccer commentary, what do Chinese say when a player scores a Goal?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9017" CreationDate="2014-08-08T14:27:44.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Noob level - 菜鸟级别&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mature level - 成熟级别&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mad level - 疯狂级别&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might want to wait for some other answers as people here are creative~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6138" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T14:27:44.863" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8991" CreationDate="2014-08-08T14:31:28.013" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In programming, they are the same, namely database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;資料庫 is mainly used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. 數據庫 is for Mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;Database&quot; comes from &quot;data&quot; and &quot;data&quot; itself means &quot;facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis&quot;. 數據 focuses on numbers and only explains the statistics parts while 資料 encompasses both fact and statistics and is much closer to the meaning of data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;資料庫 is a better translation from above analysis.  You might mind of your target audiences and choose a right word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T14:31:28.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9017" CreationDate="2014-08-08T14:36:11.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;noob level&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新手級&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mature level&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;熟手級&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mad level&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;師傅級&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T14:36:11.167" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9018" CreationDate="2014-08-08T14:38:06.200" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese they say &quot;入波!!!!&quot; (Rù bō)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: In Mandarian they might say &quot;进球啦&quot; (Jìn qiú La)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2014-08-08T14:44:28.863" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T14:44:28.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9018" CreationDate="2014-08-08T14:39:03.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cantonese: we say 入咗 (yup tso) or 入咗喇 (yup tso lar). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T14:39:03.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9002" CreationDate="2014-08-08T14:46:27.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might not use English sentence construction in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, I would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平時成個禮拜笑，笑得都冇今日咁多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using more format construction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平日一周都有笑，然而今日笑得特別多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T14:46:27.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9006" CreationDate="2014-08-08T14:54:05.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, I would explain this way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爲公平起見，你切餅，我揀先，又或者，我切餅，你揀先。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T14:54:05.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9003" CreationDate="2014-08-08T15:03:08.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both words 懷舊 and 追憶 are not the right word for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懷緬 and 緬懷 are better words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would use an expression, say 懷緬昔日樂事 or 緬懷昔日樂事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T15:03:08.103" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8992" CreationDate="2014-08-08T15:14:36.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;創 means &quot;make something new&quot;.&#xA;立 means &quot;erect or found&quot;&#xA;辦 means &quot;make or do&quot;&#xA;始 means &quot;start&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They might mix and emphases on some aspects. 創立 and 創辦 are both right word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mark Zuckerburg Founded Facebook&#xA;Mark Zuckerburg 創立 Facebook&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T15:14:36.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8985" CreationDate="2014-08-08T15:27:25.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;廢柴碼農 means useless coding farmer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;碼農 is a word used in Mainland China. In Mainland China, farmers (農) are lower class and not supposed to be respected.  Describe a programmer as farmer is not respect to your job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;廢柴 is a borrow word from Cantonese. It is to describe a person useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T15:27:25.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2673" CreationDate="2014-08-08T15:53:05.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong, brothel and organised prostitute are illegal. It is not allowed to advertise any trade in sex. Brothels and prostitutes hoisted some large yellow light boxes with some red implicit text on it nearby.  These boxes were finally taken down by police, and they use a pink light instead nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this way, Hong Kong people associates yellow with prostitutes. So do pornography.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T15:53:05.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9018" CreationDate="2014-08-08T16:11:18.643" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, most time it will be  “球进啦” or &quot;进球啦”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part of culture seems don't like too much energy commentary. A famous and interesting case was about &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Jianxiang#The_World_Cup_Commentary_2006_Incident&quot;&gt;The World Cup Commentary 2006 Incident of Huang Jianxiang&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6149" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T16:11:18.643" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8942" CreationDate="2014-08-08T16:15:50.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might need to understand the mean of 層 and 樓.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;樓 is a multi-storey building, usually wider than 塔. It is usually more than two floors. 樓 was rare in ancient China. There are some mentioned in poems like 岳陽樓 and 黃鶴樓.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;層 is a storey of 樓 or 塔 and sometimes we say 層樓 or 一層樓. In an ancient poem, there are two lines of 欲窮千里目、更上一層樓.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we counts storeys, we say 第一層, 第二層 and so on. Or 樓高六層.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The concept of 樓 for storey might be corrupted from 層樓. It is say 一樓, 二樓, 三樓 for location of floor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You say &quot;酒吧的第一層&quot; is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T16:15:50.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9018" CreationDate="2014-08-08T19:34:00.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also, the former Chinese state televison commentator 刘建宏(&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%98%E5%BB%BA%E5%AE%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%98%E5%BB%BA%E5%AE%8F&lt;/a&gt;) created a way to say &quot;Gooaaaaaalllll&quot; - &quot;进啦进啦进啦进啦进啦进啦进啦进啦&quot;, which makes me mute the tv.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T19:34:00.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9033" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9034" CreationDate="2014-08-08T22:53:21.493" Score="3" ViewCount="3348" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my Chinese class we haven't really discussed how to ask people for their number, only business cards &quot;Zhao pian&quot; what would be the proper way to ask a girl for a number? I am thinking &quot;wo keyi you shu&quot; with the vocabulary that I do know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6160" LastActivityDate="2014-11-04T12:50:14.043" Title="How to ask girl for number?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9033" CreationDate="2014-08-08T23:10:01.647" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you want ask number for dating purpose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think this is a Chinese language problem. The difficulty is not how to ask but when to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;number&quot; should be translated into &quot;号&quot; but not &quot;数&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may say &quot;我能留一下你的手机号吗？&quot;(May I take down your phone number?). However, the more popular way in China is to ask their to add your WeChat(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wechat.com/en/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.wechat.com/en/&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T23:10:01.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9033" CreationDate="2014-08-08T23:10:42.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;留个电话 (号码)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lit. leave a phone (number) - but it means the same as 'let me get your number'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电话 means phone but can also mean phone number by extension - 号码 means number as in phone number, house number, etc. but that's optional here (hence the parenthesis above).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'shu' (数) on the other hand - as you wrote above - means number as in 1-10 but cannot be extended to other things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you could say: 美女，留个电话 but maybe you should be asking for their weixin (aka. wechat) instead...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="6149" LastEditDate="2014-08-09T03:58:55.003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T03:58:55.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9033" CreationDate="2014-08-09T00:47:24.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays Chinese girls prefer using WeChat to making phone calls or texting. &#xA;I recommend you to install this popular app and tell Chinese girls &quot;加我微信吧&quot; or &quot;你微信号是多少？我想加你&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5997" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T00:47:24.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9037" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9040" CreationDate="2014-08-09T01:50:28.653" Score="2" ViewCount="335" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I struggle with a common construction in Chinese where I don't know whether I should use the subject twice or not. For example, in the sentence &quot;After I finished talking with her I went to mcdonalds&quot; uses the word &quot;I&quot; twice in english. However, I'm not sure if this is necessary/common in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For that sentence, as an example, I could say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我跟他聊完以后， (我） 就直接去麦当劳。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that 我 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Necessary? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unnecessary but acceptable &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Just kind of awkward &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for all of your help! I know that there are a lot of situations when this happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-08-09T13:07:51.623" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T21:32:53.890" Title="Should you ever repeat the subject &quot;我“ in a sentence?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9038" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9041" CreationDate="2014-08-09T02:03:22.950" Score="2" ViewCount="1510" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I know that chinese has (at least) two common words for &quot;Respect&quot; - 尊敬 and 尊重 . Is there a clear way to divide the two ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if I wanted to say &#xA;&quot;Respect a teacher&quot; &#xA;or &quot;Respect the law&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T10:20:26.353" Title="Difference between 尊敬 and 尊重" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9039" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-09T02:19:06.990" Score="3" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I know that 出生 means to birth or &quot;To give birth&quot;  - but what if I want to casually say that my friend (who is a male) recently had two kids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I say &#xA;他最近生了两个小孩 。 Or does that imply that he physically gave birth to them? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T07:54:08.613" Title="How to say &quot;had a child&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9037" CreationDate="2014-08-09T02:33:51.937" Score="7" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unnecessary.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In spoken language it is acceptable and actually quite common. In written language it should be avoided.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Depends on the context. In your example it doesn't sound awkward at all.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: As pointed out by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/10/1124/11/3275449_71961327.shtml&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;, in Chinese, using the same word again and again is not as awkward as bad repetition in English and sometimes it's the only way to satisfy grammatical requirements. Not directly related but similarly, unnecessary repetitions in general have more appearances in spoken Chinese than in English and sound less awkward. You should not feel bad about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-08-09T03:05:24.897" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T03:05:24.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9038" CreationDate="2014-08-09T03:01:05.797" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;尊重&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;respect; show due regard&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;尊敬&lt;/code&gt; means 尊重和敬仰 - &lt;code&gt;respect and admire&lt;/code&gt; and is focusing on the 'admire' part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese culture, people should 尊重 peers and younger generations; 尊敬 teachers and elder people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the law, the most common word is &lt;code&gt;遵守&lt;/code&gt; which means &lt;code&gt;to observe; to obey; to follow (rules)&lt;/code&gt;. You can also say 尊重 and there's the classical difference of 'respect vs. obedience'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T03:01:05.797" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9039" CreationDate="2014-08-09T04:15:31.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That implies he physically gave birth. On the other hand the meaning is readily discernable, and in a casual environment people could understood it to be a small joke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, I've usually heard it phrased as something along the lines of &lt;code&gt;他的孩子剛出生&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;他老婆最近幫他生了兩個小孩&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T04:15:31.403" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9037" CreationDate="2014-08-09T10:04:38.147" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;跟他聊完以後，我就直接往麥當勞去。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我跟他聊完以後，就直接往麥當勞去。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular sentence, it is really awkward to have two &quot;我&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T10:04:38.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9038" CreationDate="2014-08-09T10:20:26.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;尊敬&quot; is used for something really great.  Say, you may &quot;尊敬&quot; a teenager donating one of his/her kidneys to his/her brother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;尊重&quot; is much more general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T10:20:26.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9045" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9046" CreationDate="2014-08-09T10:55:29.120" Score="1" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 'm' is a pinyin pronunciation. Looking through my dictionaries I've seen it listed in first, second and fourth tones. I can't seem to find the correct accented lower-case 'm's anywhere though...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tone marks are as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1st tone = ˉ (macron)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2nd tone = ˊ (acute accent)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3rd tone = ˇ (caron/háček)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4th tone = ˋ (grave accent)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically what I'm asking is where can I find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lower case m with macron&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lower case m with acute&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lower case m with caron/háček&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lower case m with grave&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T12:49:30.243" Title="Pinyinated 'm' with four tone marks?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9045" CreationDate="2014-08-09T11:37:24.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tones are only applied to wovels. There are no tones associated with consonant &quot;m&quot;, so you have to assume a prefix wovel like &quot;e&quot; before the &quot;m&quot;. Unicode-wise, you can get an accented ḿ but no other variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you see accented &quot;m&quot; in dictionaries, but they are outside pinyin, and also outside unicode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T11:37:24.480" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9045" CreationDate="2014-08-09T12:49:30.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find pinyin for 唔 typed as ḿ and m̀ at en.wiktionary.org and I'm sure they have other examples.  I did not look into how they did it -- is it correct for your purposes?  I know nothing about Unicode.  I suppose if you wanted a LaTeX solution that would be easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T12:49:30.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9049" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9051" CreationDate="2014-08-09T13:16:57.130" Score="2" ViewCount="1367" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Chinese family relative sent me this message (I am not Asian). I need some help deconstructing the message because at times the word sequence or implied idea is lost on me (even when I know most of the grammar rules). So, I have a series of related questions in this post that I hope will help me become a better student of Chinese language. Your patience is appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The original message&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; 點唱機 (Diǎn chàngjī) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;按年份後，當年的流行曲就出來了，一按即點&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;àn niánfèn hòu, dāngnián de liúxíng qǔ jiù chūláile, yī àn jí diǎn &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://thenostalgiamachine.com/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://thenostalgiamachine.com/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate is not that good but delivers the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; jukebox &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By year after year of pop songs came out, a press that point  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My attempt at deconstructing the message with questions (in yellow)&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; 點唱機 (Diǎn chàngjī) - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ok, I get this idea as an electric singing machine but what happens when an idea (like this one - 點唱機) can belong to more than one thing? At least to one who has not heard this word before, could there be other interpretations? When I look at the words I thought of radio (not quite right, has news and talk), music-box (not quite, doesn't sing), etc. Jukebox was at the far-end of my list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;按年份後，當年的流行曲就出來了，一按即點&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;àn niánfèn hòu, dāngnián de liúxíng qǔ jiù chūláile, yī àn jí diǎn &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;àn niánfèn hòu, dāngnián  - not sure how this one means &quot;By year after year&quot;, I see fèn hòu but I don't follow the thread completely. I read àn nián 按年 as something to be contrasted with dāngnián 當年. Although again with (按年), I'm a bit lost on the implicit meaning. What comes to my mind is two ideas of &quot;pushing down + year.&quot; In this case, I'd appreciate some help on this meaning? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, although I can see that 的流行曲就出來了 refers to something popular (流行) came out (出來了), &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But I don't quite understand the notion of songs here. Could someone identify what I may be missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can see that my problems center around my not understanding some of the words such as  &lt;strong&gt;點&lt;/strong&gt;, with a context of to order or request... I still can't find the proper meaning in a dictionary or translation program. Just wondering if the meaning is related to another word that changes it's default meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ak2Gd.png&quot; alt=&quot;點&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-08-09T15:58:54.263" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T15:58:54.263" Title="Help deconstructing parts of 點唱機 - 按年份後，當年的流行曲就出來了，一按即點" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9049" CreationDate="2014-08-09T13:55:04.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a little bit hard to understand. I try to translate it word by word, and hope it can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;點唱機&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;點唱&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;request song&lt;/code&gt;, so literally it means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A machine, if you request a song to it, it will play it for you.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;按年份後，當年的流行曲就出來了，一按即點&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;按&lt;/code&gt; here means &lt;code&gt;click&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;當年的流行曲&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;the popular song of the year&lt;/code&gt;, so literally it means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;When you click the year (such as 1980), &#xA;the popular songs of the year (such as 1980) will be played, &#xA;click to request.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T13:55:04.947" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9049" CreationDate="2014-08-09T14:13:02.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;按&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt;: press) &lt;strong&gt;年份&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt;: year) &lt;strong&gt;後&lt;/strong&gt; (after)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;當年&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt;: that year) &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;possessive particle&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;strong&gt;流行&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt;: popular) &lt;strong&gt;曲&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt;: song)&lt;sup&gt;*&lt;/sup&gt; &lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt; (will) &lt;strong&gt;出來&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt;: appear) &lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;end of action particle&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;adverb:&lt;/em&gt; upon) &lt;strong&gt;按&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt;: press) &lt;strong&gt;即&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;adverb:&lt;/em&gt; immediately) &lt;strong&gt;點&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;verb:&lt;/em&gt; select)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;* note: 流行曲 (流行歌曲) means &quot;pop songs&quot;.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding &lt;code&gt;點唱機&lt;/code&gt;, when you break it down the phrase becomes &lt;strong&gt;點&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;verb:&lt;/em&gt; order [as in ordering a drink at a bar]) &lt;strong&gt;唱&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;noun:&lt;/em&gt; music, song) &lt;strong&gt;機&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;noun:&lt;/em&gt; machine, device). From that, we can deduce it is a jukebox, since you normally can't &lt;em&gt;order&lt;/em&gt; music on a radio or musicbox. It helps to know that radio is &lt;code&gt;收音機&lt;/code&gt; and musicbox is &lt;code&gt;音樂盒&lt;/code&gt;, but unfortunately there's no shortcuts around that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &lt;code&gt;唱&lt;/code&gt; is far more commonly a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-08-09T14:39:58.313" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T14:39:58.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9052" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-09T14:13:31.683" Score="7" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Baxter-Sagart_Old_Chinese_reconstruction&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baxter's Middle Chinese reconstruction&lt;/a&gt; has 拉 as *lop, which surprised me given that the Cantonese reflex is &lt;em&gt;laai1&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other characters with the rime -op such as 合, 答 and 雜 end up with the rime &lt;em&gt;-ap&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;-aap&lt;/em&gt; in Cantonese, so what happened to 拉?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I imagine it's similar to what happened to 內 (MC *nop), but why didn't it happen with other syllables with the same rime?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-08-10T05:51:54.700" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T07:57:56.230" Title="What happened to the Old Chinese coda -p of 拉 in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9010" CreationDate="2014-08-09T15:15:18.877" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;退&quot; means &quot;stepping back&quot;. To achieve greatness, one must know to step back and look at the whole picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;although &quot;退&quot; can be translated to mean &quot;retreat&quot;, &quot;back down&quot; or &quot;compromise&quot; as @Semaphore already pointed out, I tend to think that these are not applicable in its original context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Han Yu's wife said that to Han Yu after he told her that he had failed in his application for a government job. We cannot speak of further &quot;retreat&quot; or &quot;backing down&quot; in a failure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4300" LastEditorUserId="4300" LastEditDate="2014-08-10T19:27:32.193" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T19:27:32.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9054" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-09T15:19:28.880" Score="4" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am thinking of something like &quot;screen caps&quot; term in English. I mean the movie part with a subtitle, as a photo. How can I say &quot;screen caps&quot; / &quot;movie caps&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6164" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:41:00.193" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:41:00.193" Title="How can I say &quot;caps&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9054" CreationDate="2014-08-09T15:25:27.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generic screen caps in Chinese is &lt;code&gt;截圖 / 截图&lt;/code&gt;. If you &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; want to specify it is from a movie, you can add &quot;movies&quot; in front, i.e. &lt;code&gt;電影截圖&lt;/code&gt;, or for videos in general &lt;code&gt;影片截圖&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;視訊截圖&lt;/code&gt;. Usually that is not very necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T15:25:27.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9056" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9057" CreationDate="2014-08-09T21:21:26.177" Score="3" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see the character for evening are wan3 and shang4, but when the word is written in pinyin, the fourth tone disappears from shang and it becomes neutral. I've read the rules of tone change but I don't see anything about this. I see similar things happening on many words. What's going on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T22:43:26.620" Title="Where does the 4th tone go on wan3shang (evening)?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9056" CreationDate="2014-08-09T22:43:26.620" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no simple rule for dropping a final tone, so you would have to learn all those cases by route. Half of them end in 子 (zi), as a diminutive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The further north you go, the more common it is to drop tones. Nevertheless, there are many words that always end in a neutral tone in all variants of Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider 东西, which is pronounced dong1xi, meaning things or stuff. If you pronounce it dong1xi1 it means east-west.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise, 上, 里, 边 and similar postpositions are often softened by a tone drop, as in 晚上 (wan3shang), 东边 (dong1bian), or 哪里 (na2li, with additional tone change).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another category is reduplicated words, like 妹妹 (mei4mei), 姐姐 (jie3jie) and 爸爸 (ba4ba). A word like 小姐 (xiao2jie, tone change) is also softened, although 大姐 (da4jie3) isn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although you could stress the final tone in words like 喜欢, 时候 and 晚上, people would consider it rural or foreign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T22:43:26.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9059" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9060" CreationDate="2014-08-10T01:13:51.537" Score="5" ViewCount="277" Body="&lt;p&gt;There has been some confusion here between different senses of &quot;Putonghua.&quot; So to clarify: article 19 of the constitution of the PRC says &quot;The state promotes the nationwide use of Putonghua (common speech based on Beijing pronunciation).&quot;  Pursuant to this the government supported a huge project to create language standards close to Beijing usage, but deliberately not identical to any specific usage in Beijing.  This went along with the character simplification and the creation of Hanyu Pinyin.  These official standards are tested by the 普通話水平測試 and the HSK.  Many jobs, especially in education and the media require some level on the 普通話水平測試.  The standards have been lightly amended over time.  I am asking about this official Putonghua.  Numerous current and older dialects and usages called Putonghua in other contexts are not my concern now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to find an official statement of the current standard, and I much prefer English for this (I expect it is a fairly long document).  I am especially interested to know what words are officially given erhua.  I am told some are, but not nearly so many as commonly get erhua in daily use in various parts of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not looking for help preparing for the HSK.  That is widely available.  I am trying to find the official standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T19:51:07.567" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T19:53:48.450" Title="Looking for official specification of Putonghua in English" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;erhuayin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9059" CreationDate="2014-08-10T01:56:46.313" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_48dce269010005xu.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;普通话测试 儿化音&lt;/a&gt;: this link shows you a collection of erhua vocabulary useful for Putonghua test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FunIUVtdlqo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;普通话常见儿化字认3&lt;/a&gt;: this link allows you to know what these erhua sound like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5997" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T19:53:48.450" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T19:53:48.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9052" CreationDate="2014-08-10T01:57:48.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The construction ignores the lanaguage changes on various places.  It is for reference only.  The entering tone tends to lose when vowel lenghtens.  When 'a' lengthens to 'aa' the p is dropped. This happened when Old Chinese evolved into Middle Chinese. So do the evolution of Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T01:57:48.200" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9063" CreationDate="2014-08-10T03:44:56.197" Score="5" ViewCount="615" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I'm trying to figure out what is a better way to simply translate &quot;An important month&quot;. For example if I wanted to talk about the month of Ramadan I originally said &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;斋月是穆斯林非常重要的一个月“ &#xA;but a friend (Sean C.) corrected me to say &#xA;斋月是穆斯林非常重要的一个月份“ &#xA;Could someone explain this difference? Does 月 sound incorrect in this instance?  Is there a simple way to think about the two as nouns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-10T15:27:24.190" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T15:27:24.190" Title="Difference between 月 and 月份 for the noun &quot;A month&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9062" CreationDate="2014-08-10T04:18:46.630" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;code&gt;重要的月份&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;重要的一個月&lt;/code&gt; works fine for translating &quot;an important month&quot;. But &lt;code&gt;重要的月&lt;/code&gt; minus the unit of measurement (份/一個) sounds more like you're speaking of the Moon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 月 and 月份 is that the latter is specifying &lt;em&gt;a month of the year&lt;/em&gt;, while the former is more ambiguous: it could refer to the moon, or &lt;em&gt;a month's time&lt;/em&gt;. Thus 月份 could be used standalone but you would normally prefix 一個 to 月, as you did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is perfectly okay to say &lt;code&gt;斋月是伊斯兰最重要的一个月&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect the reason your friend corrected you was because the topic was &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramadan&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ramadan&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditionally (in some parts), 九月 means September in the &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gregorian calendar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, while 九月份 refers to the ninth month of the &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calendar#Modern_Han_Calendar&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;traditional lunisolar Han Calendar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. By extension, he might have felt the ninth month of the &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendar&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Islamic Hijri Calendar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; (which is what Ramadan is) should also be a 月份.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't a matter of grammar, but rather a customary usage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T04:18:46.630" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9062" CreationDate="2014-08-10T04:21:54.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;月&lt;/code&gt; refers to the duration aspect of a month, i.e. one 月 is a time span of 30 days. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;月份&lt;/code&gt; refers to a particular point or period of time in the year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What confuses people is they both can be used to express 'month N of the year' and are completely interchangeable in this usage. E.g. 四月 = 四月份 = April.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But to show the difference, imaging there is a festival called 'jogger's month' when everybody is supposed to keep jogging everyday during the festival. It lasts for about 30 days that's why it's called a month, but it may start at a different point of time every year. In this case, you can say: 慢跑&lt;b&gt;月&lt;/b&gt;每年在不同的&lt;b&gt;月份&lt;/b&gt;举行。去年是在四月(份)，今年将是在九月(份)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the sentence in your question, if I understand correctly, Ramadan is actually the name of a month on Islamic calendar, so both 月 and 月份 are correct. 月份 would give people slightly more hint on it's at the same time every year, while 月 merely indicates the length of the period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some discussions on 月 vs. 月份 as FYI. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1410353&amp;amp;langid=22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1410353&amp;amp;langid=22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.italki.com/question/107868&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.italki.com/question/107868&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T04:21:54.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9052" CreationDate="2014-08-10T07:57:56.230" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The qu4 去  tone class in Middle Chinese is generally understood to derive from an OC suffix –s.  Sagart regards the whole class as deriving from this process (Roots of OC, p. 131). This results in word pairs of plain root and root + s that in Middle Chinese and later differ by tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the –s is applied to a root that ends in a stop, it seems to efface that stop in later developments.  Sagart, citing Baxter, gives these examples (p. 54):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nei4 內  *nups &amp;gt; nwojH  ‘inside’, compare na4 納  *nup &amp;gt; nop  ‘to put in’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dui4 對  *tups &amp;gt; twojH  ‘to answer’, compare da2 答  *tup &amp;gt; top  ‘to respond’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, in both these cases, the final stop has been retained in the second (unsuffixed) word, but has disappeared in the first.  (In Mandarin you don’t see it anywhere, because all final stops are gone.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The –s suffix seems to have had a variety of functions.  Often it seems to form exoactive or causative verbs – as well as Sagart, Schuessler discusses this at length in the introduction to his etymological dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could the Cantonese form of 拉 be the reflex of a word with this suffix, which caused the final stop to be lost?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T07:57:56.230" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9066" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9067" CreationDate="2014-08-10T13:03:47.637" Score="8" ViewCount="1141" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really couldn't understand the meaning of this sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;见面 means to meet, to see&#xA;不见面 means not meet, not see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不见面也有不见面的好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I really couldn't get what it is saying. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6166" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-10T15:26:43.937" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T10:35:18.280" Title="What's the meaning of &quot;不见面也有不见面的好&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9066" CreationDate="2014-08-10T13:26:03.017" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can break this up into three parts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不见面 - to not meet &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;也有 - also has&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不见面的好 -  the good aspect (or benefits) of not meeting&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also benefits of not meeting (or not seeing (each other)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T13:26:03.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9066" CreationDate="2014-08-10T14:22:05.563" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The construct &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;(action) 也有 (same action) 的好&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is a generic way of expressing that the action (which is negative), in this case &quot;&lt;em&gt;not meeting&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, has some upside to it. So this sentence literally means: &lt;strong&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;there's a silver lining to not seeing you&lt;/em&gt;.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems you might have seen this in a list of romantic one-liners; in the original (不见面也有不见面的好，你永远是，我记忆中的样子), it goes on to explain the brighter side of not meeting is: &quot;&lt;em&gt;you will always remain as you are now in my memories.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T14:22:05.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9066" CreationDate="2014-08-10T20:27:00.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;a pretext for being unable to see someone whom you are longing to see. there may or may not be any real &quot;benefits&quot; in not seeing each other as the alleged &quot;benefits&quot; merely serve to provide a certain degree of comfort to a sad reality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;也有&quot; is &quot;yes ... but&quot;. If not seeing each other is a good thing, you would simply say &quot;不见面有不见面的好&quot; (without the &quot;也&quot;). &quot;也&quot; gives away the fact the not seeing each other is bad (sad) and is definitely not something you want, but you try to conceal your true feeling by pretending that it is not as bad as it really is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4300" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T20:27:00.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9066" CreationDate="2014-08-11T02:48:15.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;something or somebody you meet will hurt again,&#xA;so have this sentence, not meet,sometimes good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6175" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T02:48:15.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9071" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9088" CreationDate="2014-08-11T03:53:06.997" Score="6" ViewCount="611" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I've used 关心  consistently with people -  关心别人， 关心我的妹妹，  but can 关心 be used for object or a phrase?? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example for a phrase &#xA;我们关心的应该是房子应该有几间屋子? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example for an object &#xA;吃饭时， 我关心的是调味。 长得怎么样， 我都不管。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T17:35:18.633" Title="Can you 关心 an object?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9072" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9074" CreationDate="2014-08-11T03:56:06.687" Score="5" ViewCount="1174" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a good translation for &quot;strengths&quot; in Chinese? I am trying to say strengths as in 'We should try to improve our strengths, not our weaknesses'. &#xA;I know that 强项 is one phrase that has a similar meaning - is this used? Or is there a better way to translate &quot;strengths and weaknesses&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-11T05:25:44.423" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T03:06:23.897" Title="How to say &quot;A Person's Strength&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9072" CreationDate="2014-08-11T04:17:10.370" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;强项 can definitely be used for strengths - where weaknesses would be 弱项.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;优点和缺点 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yōudiǎn hé quēdiǎn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;merits and demerits; virtues and defects; strong and weak point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also: 长处和短处 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See which you like...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T04:17:10.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9071" CreationDate="2014-08-11T04:24:44.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;VERB&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;care for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;关心国家大事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;be concerned about the major issues of one's country&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;双方共同关心的问题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;matter of mutual concern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You above sentences have some grammatical problems but using 关心 in this manner is no problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T04:24:44.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9071" CreationDate="2014-08-11T07:35:26.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's almost the same as &lt;code&gt;care&lt;/code&gt; in English in terms of its usage.&#xA;You can replace 关心 with care in English too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I only care what it tastes, not what it looks. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I only care about how many rooms inside a house.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我才不关心呢！ Like I cared! &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;关你什么事儿？ Why do you care? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When &lt;code&gt;关心&lt;/code&gt; is used in polite way,  it has more broader meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;谢谢你对我的关心！ here 关心 can be a polite way of saying thanks for your help, but what you actually did might only give him/her a call or chat with him/her, not really &lt;code&gt;taking care of&lt;/code&gt; anything.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6185" LastEditorUserId="6185" LastEditDate="2014-08-11T07:46:26.100" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T07:46:26.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9080" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9083" CreationDate="2014-08-11T07:48:50.147" Score="2" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;My context is an old, untranslated flashcard I've found.&#xA;My guess it means &quot;like a feather&quot;, referring to low weight and/or susceptibility to outside force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are meaningful contexts and according translations for 飘然而至?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2518" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T16:22:37.493" Title="What does 飘然而至 mean?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9080" CreationDate="2014-08-11T07:53:57.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means coming (to you) like by slow flying, flying in the way like feather, snow, or butterfly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not an idiom, usually used in literature:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;至 means come&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;飘然 means “like flying”.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;而 is a linking word.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6185" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T07:53:57.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9039" CreationDate="2014-08-11T07:54:08.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;他最近生了两个小孩 does imply that he physically gave birth to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 他最近有了两个小孩. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6186" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T07:54:08.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9080" CreationDate="2014-08-11T08:06:47.797" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It means &lt;a href=&quot;http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/breeze&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;to breeze (in)&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To examine this in more detail, the phrase &lt;code&gt;飘然而至&lt;/code&gt; simply means &lt;em&gt;&quot;to arrive&quot; in a &lt;code&gt;飘然&lt;/code&gt; manner&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;飘然&lt;/code&gt; has a couple of interconnected meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;very quickly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;unrestrained, unencumbered; carefree&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;flowing loosely&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good overall translation would be &quot;to breeze (in)&quot;. However, the precise translation can be adjusted depending on the context. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;这寒冷的冬季飘然而至&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &quot;The cold winter arrived swiftly.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;凤凰涅槃, 飘然而至&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &quot;A phoenix flies over nimbly.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;绝世美少女飘然而至&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &quot;A peerless beauty breezes in.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;飘然而至的感伤&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &quot;Sentimental sadness sweeps over (me).&quot; &lt;sub&gt;(inspired by @TommieC.'s answer)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-08-11T16:22:37.493" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T16:22:37.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9018" CreationDate="2014-08-11T09:54:05.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normal Version: 球进啦！  /  进啦 ！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Liu Jianhong version： 进啦！进啦！进啦！进啦！进啦！进啦！进啦！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Duan Xuan version: 啊！！球进啦！！球进啦~~~~~！！！！！！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zhan Jun version:贼球进啦！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6186" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T09:54:05.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9080" CreationDate="2014-08-11T13:54:08.703" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A search of my iPhone idioms app (Wise Talk) shows a very closely related phrase. I have noticed that many idioms have regional variations (expressions of similar ideas). &lt;del&gt;and y&lt;/del&gt; Your phrase sounds as if it has a similar meaning &lt;del&gt; is one of the idiomatic variants with the same meaning&lt;/del&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;油然而生 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Meaning: Arising involuntarily, spontaneous, to spring up unbidden (of emotion).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Revised to reflect Semaphore's comment: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... 油然而生 is primarily about emotions, while 飘然而至 can be emotions or&#xA;  motions or events ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW - I have noticed a great many idiomatic phrases that are dissimilar by only one or sometimes two characters. I had wondered why for quite some time and I had chalked this up to simply regional differences but Semaphore's comment has made me realize the need to examine the differences between such similar phrases in more detail as the subtle implications can change when one is used in different contexts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-08-11T14:24:45.060" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T14:24:45.060" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9071" CreationDate="2014-08-11T17:35:18.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;关心 can be used for object.  关心国事 (duplicated with one of the answer here) is an example.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 关心 is only one of the many translation of &quot;care&quot;.  For example you could use the other translation of &quot;care&quot; in below sentence in blanket:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;吃饭时， 我&lt;code&gt;关心&lt;/code&gt;(在意)的是调味。 &lt;code&gt;样子&lt;/code&gt;怎么样， 我都不管&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I cares only about the seasoning (or taste) when I eat, and do not concern about it's appearance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T17:35:18.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9037" CreationDate="2014-08-11T19:31:23.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no different between Chinese and English on the usage of I (我) in this case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) I go to MacDonald after I talk to him&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) I go to MacDonald after talking to him  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6138" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T19:31:23.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9037" CreationDate="2014-08-11T21:32:53.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two repeating 我 is sort of awkward. It is better to omit the first 我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跟他聊完以后，我就直接去麦当劳。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare the same structure in English: after talking with him, I...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4246" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T21:32:53.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9092" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9097" CreationDate="2014-08-11T21:34:02.817" Score="5" ViewCount="1066" Body="&lt;p&gt;As stated in the title, what would be the Chinese equivalent of the popularly-used term (for kids) &quot;Oh BURN&quot;?  I understand it should be used mostly after an insult.  I Googled and found nothing but pictures of burnt stuff...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: yes it is the retort after (or followed by) an insult.  One will normal see this instead: &quot;Ohhhh Burn!!!!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6138" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T18:28:32.300" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T07:52:08.510" Title="Chinese equivalent of &quot;Oh Burn&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9092" CreationDate="2014-08-11T22:05:16.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think you can expect local slang to be readily available in other languages, so you would need to invent it: 燃烧吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T22:05:16.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9092" CreationDate="2014-08-11T22:06:47.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand where you are coming from, I am not sure if the Chinese really have a direct translation but based off what you are saying (Taking a leap of faith here) You are looking for something along the lines of these two things: one translation(Again these are not direct) would be &quot;you got told,&quot; which is 你被告知 &quot;ni bei gaozhi&quot;&#xA;Or the other &quot;that must burn your feelings,&quot; 必须燃烧你的感受 &quot;bixu ranshao ni de ganshou&quot;&#xA;Again I am not completely fluent with the Chinese language but this should help you get an idea of what you are trying to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6160" LastEditorUserId="6160" LastEditDate="2014-08-13T00:25:37.927" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T00:25:37.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9092" CreationDate="2014-08-11T22:13:25.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There really isn't a term in Chinese that will fit the slang.  A slightly different respond might be &quot;应啊&quot; in Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T22:13:25.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9092" CreationDate="2014-08-11T22:17:09.900" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the scenario that a third party witnessed an insult of others two, or someone try to lighthearted fight back a insult, maybe &quot;雷死了&quot;（lei2 si3 le) in Chinese can fit in. &quot;雷&quot; means Thunder.  &quot;雷死了&quot; means someone think it's somewhat funny unbelievable and be shocked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A longer version is &quot;雷得外焦里嫩&quot; (Lei2 De Wai4 Jiao1 Li3 Nen4), which means someone got attached by thunder and lightning, and he got BURNed outside, but inside is still tender (think case of  overfired BBQ...) Maybe a picture can help to explain this situation better (found on internet)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nYXkO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6149" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T22:17:09.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9092" CreationDate="2014-08-12T02:33:03.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it is an English slang responding to insults, I suggest (informal slang too, of course) &quot;頂你呀!&quot; in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Mandarin, I am not sure because I am not a native speaker.  Perhaps people may simply respond with a single &quot;干!&quot;.  Would anyone please correct me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T02:33:03.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9100" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9107" CreationDate="2014-08-12T03:00:55.053" Score="3" ViewCount="645" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested to see if there is a translation for &quot;catch a plane&quot;. I know that 赶不上飞机 is an expression - but could you say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;今天我有很多事。 最要紧的是赶上飞机“ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T07:58:05.367" Title="How to say &quot;Catch a plane&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9100" CreationDate="2014-08-12T03:14:39.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;To catch a plane&quot; is being ready/in position to board a plane on time. I would say &lt;code&gt;赶上飞机&lt;/code&gt; implies you're &lt;em&gt;rushing&lt;/em&gt; to do so. Although it works fine normally, such as in your example sentence, it might sound a bit weird when you have plenty of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more generic equivalent would be something like &lt;code&gt;搭飞机&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;准时搭上飞机&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T03:14:39.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9102" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9122" CreationDate="2014-08-12T05:23:35.563" Score="5" ViewCount="689" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6wc4D.png&quot; alt=&quot;pinyin chart&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here in the south (mainland) ün has a similar pronunciation to the English -ean as in 'wean' or even the -een in 'ween', though it seems like northerners pronounce it more like -uin in 'ruin'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jün, qün, xün, yün like the chart above have completely different pronunciations from lun, dun, tun, kun, qun, hun, zhun, chun, shun, run, zun, cun, sun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Northern pronunciation doesn't seem to differentiate very much between the two though - their pronunciations seem rather &lt;em&gt;close&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I right in my theories?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a reason for these differences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is one considered more &lt;strong&gt;standard&lt;/strong&gt; than the other?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2021-03-15T14:55:45.833" Title="pronunciation: j/q/x/y + ün" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9092" CreationDate="2014-08-12T05:27:50.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most appropriate equivalent in Chinese for &quot;Oh burn!&quot; shall be &quot;Kao !&quot; which is most used and does not necessarily carry too much of the offensive while being able to express the subtle feeling in such a context.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6193" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T05:27:50.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9017" CreationDate="2014-08-12T05:46:25.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Noob level: (新手 / 入門 / 菜鳥) + (級 / 級別 / 模式)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mature level: (高手 / 達人) + (級 / 級別 / 模式)   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mad level: 瘋狂模式 / 地獄模式 / 大師級(級別) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure these translates are nature in Mainland, I'm a Taiwanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3199" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T05:46:25.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9017" CreationDate="2014-08-12T06:45:39.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's see is this creative for you, it's kind of buzzword in the web, it's a bit rude does not meant for offend. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Noob level - 智障/脑残/手残/草泥马/屌丝级别 Intellectual disability/Brain Disfunction/Hand Disfunction/Grass Mud Horse or dump/nobody or loser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mature level -  普通级别 Just normal, nothing special I can think of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mad level - 爱因斯坦/牛顿级别 Albert Einstein/Newton, or any other famous geek that related to your game. Some other great translation would be 牛逼/神马/高富帅(男)/白富美(女)）级别 stunning or Holy shit(the closest I can think of)/God Horse/Tall Rich Handsome(Male)/white rich pretty(Female)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6153" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T06:45:39.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9102" CreationDate="2014-08-12T07:09:39.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually jun/jün can be pronounced the same. it's just matter of writing style. Same case to qun/qün, zhun/zhün, and others. You can get same pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only cases that make difference between u and ü is: nu VS. nü, and lu VS. lü. Most northern can pronounce these correctly. But for many south mainland, nü and lü will be a big challenge. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;nu VS. nü&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;nu , 怒(angry), pronounced like [nu] in &lt;strong&gt;nook&lt;/strong&gt; (also ref /u/ or /u:/ in zoo, noon, noodle -- Thanks great help from @NS.X.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;nü, 女(female), it's hard to pronounce this in English. Found this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DxL8upz7Ug&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; , you can check the pronunciation at 0:50 in the video.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;lu VS. lü&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lu, 鹿lu4, pronounced like [lu] in &lt;strong&gt;Luke&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lü, 驴lü2](donkey), similar to nü. You just change &quot;n&quot; to &quot;l&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A easy way to test this is trying to say &quot;鹿在骑驴子&quot; (The deer is riding the donkey), or &quot;那个女子发怒了&quot; (The women got angry). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6149" LastEditorUserId="6149" LastEditDate="2014-08-12T20:48:12.727" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T20:48:12.727" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9100" CreationDate="2014-08-12T07:58:05.367" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;赶飞机 is ok. you can also say 赶火车(train) or 赶车(car/bus) or 赶地铁(subway)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赶上飞机 is also correct, but it's long and a little bit strange in speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can say 今天我事情很多，还要赶飞机&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6194" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T07:58:05.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9066" CreationDate="2014-08-12T10:35:18.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If someone told you that, you can reply: 我知道，相见争如不见 or 相见不如怀念&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3725" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T10:35:18.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9109" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9113" CreationDate="2014-08-12T13:35:19.503" Score="6" ViewCount="951" Body="&lt;p&gt;青青子衿，悠悠我心。但为君故，沉吟至今&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子，对对方的尊称&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子 implicitly implies the poem is addressing a man. The poem talks about how a lady misses a man. I just wonder if there is a corresponding word for Chinese. (i.e. what would you replace 子 by, if it were talking about a woman?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3762" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T22:58:21.600" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T22:58:21.600" Title="What is the ancient Chinese one-character name for woman like '子’ means man?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9109" CreationDate="2014-08-12T14:20:07.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Re:...if it is talking about a woman?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Seems like this would be 女. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T14:20:07.873" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9109" CreationDate="2014-08-12T14:39:26.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, it is 女.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are books such as 女訓 (Advice for Women) and 烈女傳 (Biographies of Notable Women).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 子 in 青青子衿 explicity referring to the &lt;code&gt;lady's lover&lt;/code&gt; (where the whole sentence means her lover's green collar) , instead of referring to a &lt;code&gt;man&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2014-08-12T14:46:10.477" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T14:46:10.477" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1139" CreationDate="2014-08-12T14:44:27.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following graphics show some differences in usage of 如果 and 要是:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bkffG.png&quot; alt=&quot;ru-guo&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pmQeo.png&quot; alt=&quot;yao-shi&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources (with Sample Sentences):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%A6%82%E6%9E%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%A6%81%E6%98%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T14:44:27.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9109" CreationDate="2014-08-12T17:31:41.797" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The equivalent of &lt;code&gt;子&lt;/code&gt; for women is also &lt;code&gt;子&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【清·張自烈·正字通】子部：女子亦稱子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples from Old Chinese texts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【孟子·告子下】逾東家牆而摟其處子，則得妻，不摟，則不得妻，則將摟之乎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Works of Mencius: &quot;&lt;em&gt;Breaking into your landlord's house and harass the virgin girl gets you a wife; refrain from harassing and you don't get a wife. Does that mean you would do it?&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【詩經·國風·周南·桃夭】桃之夭夭，灼灼其華；之子于歸，宜其室家!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Classic of Poetry: &quot;&lt;em&gt;Forests are green and flowers are red; a girl is marrying, and she'll make her new family happy.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient Chinese, &lt;code&gt;女&lt;/code&gt; either meant &quot;unmarried woman&quot; or &quot;you&quot;. The character for the latter usage became &lt;code&gt;汝&lt;/code&gt;, but is still printed as &lt;code&gt;女&lt;/code&gt; in many modern publications of ancient works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-08-12T17:36:49.633" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T17:36:49.633" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9114" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9119" CreationDate="2014-08-13T04:10:44.733" Score="2" ViewCount="665" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder what are the most common characters used in video sharing websites to specify options for the vide reproduction quality, in particular for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tudou.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2348" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T06:11:30.763" Title="Characters used to specify low/standard/medium/high quality/definition in video sharing websites" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9115" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-13T04:32:22.587" Score="3" ViewCount="418" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard people say this phrase once or twice, in derogatory tone. It sounds like 狗吃连帮 or 狗吃粮帮. Internet search gives no result, but it didn't sound like some local dialect to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I heard people say things like 他们这些人就是狗吃连帮 or　我们得提防着他们点狗吃连帮．Something like these．&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Semaphore,@NS.X.,I heard both people from Tianjin and Shandong say it. Maybe it's a saying that goes in Huabei area, like sayings like 不招人待见 go only in some parts of northern China (but which is now more generally known). I asked those people what they meant by this 狗吃连帮. One says it means 一帮人勾结起来做坏事, but he's not sure how to write &quot;lian bang&quot;. Another says it means 一撮人私底下谋划陷害别人, written as 狗吃连邦. But she's not sure how to interpret 连邦 literally, preferring to view it as a slang that's oral in nature.            &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6199" LastEditorUserId="6199" LastEditDate="2014-08-14T01:04:20.500" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T03:12:10.323" Title="What does 狗吃连帮 mean?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9116" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9121" CreationDate="2014-08-13T05:07:55.573" Score="10" ViewCount="1065" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/4F1A.htm&quot;&gt;会&lt;/a&gt; has two different pronunciations; usually it is huì but in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/108/284018.htm&quot;&gt;会计&lt;/a&gt; it is pronounced kuài. It seems that the latter pronunciation is exclusively used in the &quot;accounting&quot; meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did this one character take on two different pronunciations and meanings? Was it a merger of two different characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T05:29:57.383" Title="Why is the 会 in 会计 pronounced kuài?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9148" CreationDate="2014-08-13T05:28:22.087" Score="5" ViewCount="625" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%84%9D&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ㄝ是注音符号中的韵母之一，字形取自“世”字，发音则取“世”字之韵。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am not seeing how it should be used, and what is the meaning of this. Anyone knows what is the meaning of this, and when it should be used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="180" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T02:49:06.227" Title="What is the meaning of ㄝ?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9117" CreationDate="2014-08-13T05:57:27.213" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki&lt;/a&gt;/ㄝ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;ㄝ是注音符號中的韻母之一，字形取自「世」字，發音則取「世」字之韻。&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;ㄝ is one of the finals in Zhuyin Fuhao, it comes from 世 and has the same final.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T05:57:27.213" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9114" CreationDate="2014-08-13T06:11:30.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For streaming video, it is common to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;低清 (under 480p = 480 horizontal lines)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;標清 (DVD resolution: 480p/576p)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;高清 (720p or above)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Downloadable videos are sometimes marked as &quot;超高清&quot;, which may mean 1080p (or even 4K), or simply a high bitrate 720p encode having excellent quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T06:11:30.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9116" CreationDate="2014-08-13T06:33:49.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are only two meanings of kuài:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To count&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A family name&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All other meanings should be pronounced as hùi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information about the Heteronym in Chinese, you may read&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh&lt;/a&gt;/多音字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T06:33:49.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9116" CreationDate="2014-08-13T07:13:24.247" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Old Chinese, it is generally thought that some words followed regular morphological alternations (which are preserved in a few places in MSM, but &amp;quot;frozen&amp;quot;, i.e., no longer productive). For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Verb/Noun&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;处&lt;/strong&gt; chu3 &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;to dwell&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; / chu4 &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;a place&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;数&lt;/strong&gt; shu3 &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;to count&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; / shu4 &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;a number&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;知&lt;/strong&gt; zhi1 &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;to know&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; / (also &lt;strong&gt;智&lt;/strong&gt;) zhi4 &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;knowledge&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Active/Inactive Verb&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;好&lt;/strong&gt; hao4 &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;to like&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; / hao3 &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;to be good&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;系&lt;/strong&gt; ji4 &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;to tie&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; / xi4 &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;to be connected&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt; kuai4 &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;to bring together&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; / hui4 &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;to come together&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phonetic reconstructions for these alternations generally follow a regular pattern (e.g., voiced/voiceless, 去声/other tone), although specific reconstructions differ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会 is a somewhat odd example, in that the hui4 reading has displaced the kuai4 reading in almost all places except proper nouns and 会计 = accounting. Branner gives the example from Confucius:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;君子以文会友，以友辅仁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The customary reading of 会 in this passage is hui4, but etymologically, it really should be kuai4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My references are taken from Branner's excellent essay, &lt;a href=&quot;https://brannerchinese.com/dpb/publications/Branner_Morphology_Intellectual_History.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;On Early Chinese Morphology and its&#xA;Intellectual History&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;EDIT:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Middle Chinese readings corresponding to &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;hui4&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;kuai4&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; are &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;hwajH&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;kwajH&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Baxter-Sagart_Old_Chinese_reconstruction&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter's notation&lt;/a&gt;; the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/js/6703.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;initials being&lt;/a&gt; 匣 and 見. Based on this, one would expect the MSM pronunciation of the latter to be &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;gui4&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; rather than &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;kuai4&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;. The common Japanese On reading of かい &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;kai&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; (attested earlier as くわい &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;kwai&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;) is actually a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BC%9A#Readings&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;kan-on reading&lt;/a&gt;. According to wikipedia, the k- initial in a kan-on reading could &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Japanese_vocabulary#Chart_of_correspondences&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;correspond to&lt;/a&gt; either a 匣 or a 見 MC initial. In any event, the &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;kai&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; reading is used in both the 'meeting' and 'accounting' meanings, regardless of which MC reading it corresponds to. Some speculate (e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp234_Guaiji_Guiji_Huiji_Kuaiji.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Victor Mair, p31&lt;/a&gt;) that the MSM &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;kuai4&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; may have been influenced by the Japanese &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;kai&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; (i.e., that the etymologically expected &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;gui4&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; was displaced by &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;kuai4&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; when 会计 was re-borrowed from Japanese to mean &amp;quot;accounting&amp;quot;). It is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; the case, however, that the hui4/kuai4 distinction is an artifact of Japanese borrowing--a meaning of &amp;quot;settling accounts&amp;quot; is attested dating back well before the Japanese neologism for accounting (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/blog/46/entry-223-%E6%9C%83-kuai%E2%80%8B/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;halfway down random blogpost quoting from dictionary&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T03:44:56.283" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9102" CreationDate="2014-08-13T07:30:51.013" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;First and foremost, I think it's very dangerous to try to approximate Mandarin sounds with parts of English words, partly because we all pronounce English slightly differently, and partly because some sounds just don't exist in English. There is no &quot;ü&quot; [y] in English, so trying to use English here will just trap students and never really allow them to learn the sound. It also makes answering your question impossible, because no matter which English words you choose, none of them will contain [y].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to straighten out pronunciation in the case of &quot;j/q/x + u&quot;, we need to first look at basic spelling rules in Pinyin. There are two distinct vowel sounds in Mandarin, spelt &quot;u&quot; and &quot;ü&quot;. They are very different, although they look similar, and are mispronounced by a large number of English native speakers. The first is a close back rounded vowel, the second is close front rounded vowel. Don't think of &quot;ü&quot; as being anywhere close to &quot;u&quot; because it isn't; these are two very different sounds in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem (for learners) is that the dots are only written when there is ambiguity, which is only the case for &quot;lü&quot; and &quot;nü&quot;, because &quot;lu&quot; and &quot;nu&quot; also exist in Mandarin. In all other cases, the dots are left out, and we just write &quot;u&quot;. This happens for all syllables starting with j/q/x, so &quot;ju&quot; is really &quot;jü&quot;, &quot;quan&quot; is really &quot;qüan&quot; and &quot;xue&quot; is really &quot;xüe&quot;. There are no &quot;lün&quot;, &quot;zhün&quot; or &quot;chüan&quot; and any such pronunciation is definitely not standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to answer your question, the &quot;u&quot; after j/q/x (and in &quot;yu&quot;, &quot;yun) should be &quot;ü&quot; and is pronounced completely differently than a normal &quot;u&quot;. In IPA, this sound is written [y] or perhaps more accurately as [ɥ] in glides. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other sound, Pinyin &quot;u&quot; (the one that never had any dots to start with), is written in many different ways in IPA depending whom you're asking, but [u] and [ʊ] are the most common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two sounds never overlap (except after &quot;n&quot; and &quot;l&quot; as mentioned above), they are in what's called complementary distribution. This means that deviating pronunciation is less problematic than it might seem at first, because if you get these finals right (i.e. the following vowel sounds), you can get away with other pronunciation oddities, such as mixing zh/ch/sh with j/q/x (which is common), since the former can only be followed by &quot;u&quot; and the latter only by &quot;ü&quot;, listeners will still know what you're trying to say even if you pronounce e.g. &quot;zh&quot; and &quot;j&quot; the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I'm at it, I should also mention that all &quot;un&quot; that aren't preceded by j/q/x are actually &quot;uen&quot;, which makes the pronunciation even more distinct from &quot;jun/qun/xun&quot; (which is just [yn]). How pronounced that &quot;e&quot; is depends on the syllable, the tone and the speaker. It seems to be most prominent for third tones where it's very easy to hear and least prominent in fourth tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding different dialects or regional accents, I'm afraid someone else will have to step in. What I have written above is the standard, but there might be places where people don't pronounce things like that. However, I've lived in Taiwan for many years and have spoken with lots of people from Beijing, and I have not observed the north/south difference you mention. Take this as a personal observation; I haven't done much research into locally accented Mandarin (except the Taiwanese variety, which isn't relevant here).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorUserId="507" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T06:44:30.370" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T06:44:30.370" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9116" CreationDate="2014-08-13T09:38:40.687" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's been said that the word &lt;code&gt;会计&lt;/code&gt; was invented by &lt;code&gt;大禹&lt;/code&gt; near a place call &lt;code&gt;会稽山&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;Both &lt;code&gt;会&lt;/code&gt; here are pronounce &lt;code&gt;kuai4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;会计&lt;/code&gt; mainly follow the pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;会稽山&lt;/code&gt; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many reasons for why one character have two or more different pronunciations, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E5%A4%9A%E9%9F%B3%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;see here if you want to know more reasons&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, it's mainly because people want to use a different pronunciation to show &lt;code&gt;会稽山&lt;/code&gt; is a special place. It often happen in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://big5.hwjyw.com/resource/content/2011/02/21/15266.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6154" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T09:38:40.687" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8763" CreationDate="2014-08-13T12:19:45.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translation as suggested by the OP is not wrong (in that any chinese reading it should be able to understand what he is trying to say) but definitely sounds like a translation. It's &quot;unnatural&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not necessary to specifically say &quot;做的东西&quot; or &quot;做的事&quot;. It is better to simply say &quot;我所做的&quot;. These include all the things that I do - it makes no differentiation between &quot;东西&quot; (a physical item) or &quot;事&quot; (a course of action).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My take &quot;我所做的偶也利于我的未来&quot;. Here &quot;偶&quot; means &quot;sometimes&quot;. &quot;也&quot; tends to reinforce the fact that &quot;not always&quot; and &quot;not all the things I do&quot; are beneficial &quot;利&quot; to &quot;于&quot; my own future &quot;我的未来&quot;, but they do sometimes. &quot;也&quot; also echoes &quot;actually&quot; in the original sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4300" LastEditorUserId="4300" LastEditDate="2014-08-13T12:25:41.177" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T12:25:41.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9126" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9127" CreationDate="2014-08-13T14:13:57.007" Score="5" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example of a case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I was in home walking holding a jar of chocolate candy, I was gonna go to upstairs)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Mom: (She saw me and she called me from behind) &quot;Where did you buy that?&quot;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Me: (I was a bit startled, I turned back and showing up the jar) &lt;strong&gt;What?! This?&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;lt;== I need chinese translation of the bold text.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about &lt;strong&gt;&quot;什么？！这个？”&lt;/strong&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastEditorUserId="3970" LastEditDate="2014-08-13T14:26:48.807" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T14:26:48.807" Title="How to say &quot;this?&quot; interjection in chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9126" CreationDate="2014-08-13T14:23:46.243" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 什么？ 这个？ is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你说的是这个？ (are you talking about this?) to clarify that what they're talking about is in fact the candy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6203" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T14:23:46.243" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9128" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9130" CreationDate="2014-08-13T15:11:16.927" Score="4" ViewCount="1735" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there words for relative pronouns, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The man, &lt;strong&gt;who&lt;/strong&gt; was walking to the shop, was tall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese word for the bolded &quot;who&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6203" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T00:46:34.347" Title="Are there relative pronouns in Chinese" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9128" CreationDate="2014-08-13T15:35:20.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence can be interpret as:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;該名步行到店鋪的男子，身材高大  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where &lt;code&gt;該名&lt;/code&gt; will be 'who' in the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6138" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T15:35:20.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9128" CreationDate="2014-08-13T16:27:31.993" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, when you say &quot;something/someone, who/which has some characters, is abc/is doing xyz.&quot;, after translated to Chinese, usually it will be &quot;some characters的something/someone is abc/is doing xyzor separate to two sentence, &quot;something/someone has some character, (optional: 而且/and) is abc/is doing xyz.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your sample, in addition to @user3919509's answer, you can also say &quot;那个正往店铺走的男子很高&quot;. Since &quot;The man&quot; could be anyone, in this case you want to add &quot;該名/那个&quot;. &lt;strong&gt;In another case, if everybody knows the man, say, we have his name, it will be little different&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, &quot;Tom, who is working in a big company, has two kids&quot;, you can say &quot;汤姆在一个大公司工作，有两个小孩。“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6149" LastEditorUserId="6149" LastEditDate="2014-08-13T17:19:26.907" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T17:19:26.907" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9131" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9132" CreationDate="2014-08-13T18:19:04.260" Score="10" ViewCount="6217" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; difference in meaning between 哪儿 and 哪里? If not, then how did the two different words come to be employed? Does 儿 have a meaning, or is it just a sound? I know that there are many 'redundancies' in language, but I'm interested in original meanings these words may have had, that led to the redundancy, or anything really, that can explain why there are these two distinct words that are seemingly interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, does the same reasoning govern 这儿 and 这里, 那儿 and 那里 also?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3558" LastEditorUserId="3561" LastEditDate="2014-08-14T02:11:29.890" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T03:44:14.513" Title="哪儿 vs. 哪里, Difference in Meaning?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9131" CreationDate="2014-08-13T18:39:29.720" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no difference in meaning. They are not actually all that distinct: both words came from &lt;code&gt;哪&lt;/code&gt;, a &lt;em&gt;generic interrogative character&lt;/em&gt; used for indicating a question. Given an appropriate context (e.g. &lt;code&gt;在哪&lt;/code&gt;), the character expresses the meaning of &quot;where&quot;. Both &lt;code&gt;哪儿&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;哪里&lt;/code&gt; builds upon that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The suffix &lt;code&gt;儿&lt;/code&gt; is generally meaningless, and reflects the northern dialectical tendency for retroflex consonants. That is, when they say &lt;code&gt;在哪&lt;/code&gt; it comes out sounding like &lt;code&gt;在哪儿&lt;/code&gt;, so you are essentially right about it just being a sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Southerners are less likely to curl their tongues like that, so &lt;code&gt;哪里&lt;/code&gt; is a bit more common in the south. The second character &lt;code&gt;里 (裡)&lt;/code&gt; here means &quot;a specific area of space&quot;. Combined the interrogative &lt;code&gt;哪&lt;/code&gt;, this readily becomes &quot;where&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-08-13T19:25:55.197" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T19:25:55.197" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9117" CreationDate="2014-08-13T21:14:03.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1st, Zhu yin is used in Taiwan, Mainland uses Pin yin. &#xA;2nd, It is like phonetics for English, you don't use it normally.&#xA; I guess that's why you don't see it often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5899" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-08-18T02:49:06.227" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T02:49:06.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8888" CreationDate="2014-08-13T22:31:04.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native Chinese speaker, but I learned that 来 means &quot;come&quot;. So I would translate it to something like &quot;Where did you come by those books?&quot; I suppose you could also read it as &quot;Where did those books come from?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6207" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T22:31:04.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9137" CreationDate="2014-08-14T07:14:41.633" Score="2" ViewCount="423" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am native speaker but I haven't yet figured out the exact meaning of 追 as in 追剧 - 'chasing a TV series'. Does it mean 'stay on top', 'catch up' or simply 'actively watch'? In other words,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does it exclusively refer to watching the latest episode on air, or at least keep oneself up to the season? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does it count as 追 if I am watching the past season on DVD in order to catch up and watch the current season? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does it count as 追 if I am watching a series that has already finished? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-08-15T23:56:24.570" LastActivityDate="2014-08-15T23:56:24.570" Title="追 as in 追剧 (chasing a TV series)" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9135" CreationDate="2014-08-14T07:49:42.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;百度百科&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;背景&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;追剧行为的产生是随着周播剧的产生而诞生的。周播剧是每周拍一集更新一集，如美剧《新生活大爆炸》、韩剧《来自星星的你》和网络剧《报告老板》，不能一次性看完就需要每周固定时间来看新更新的剧目。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems to refer to keeping up with a tv show in the sense of watching it every week when it's broadcasted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T07:49:42.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9135" CreationDate="2014-08-14T08:07:53.143" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes. This is exactly what &lt;code&gt;追剧&lt;/code&gt; mean.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We may call actions in last two question as &lt;code&gt;煲剧&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;补番&lt;/code&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a funny name &lt;code&gt;坑&lt;/code&gt; (means 'hole') for the series that have many seasons to watch. When we start watching it, we call it &lt;code&gt;开坑&lt;/code&gt; (start a hole), and the process we watch from the S01E01 to the latest episode, we call it &lt;code&gt;填坑&lt;/code&gt; (filling the hole).&#xA;That a funny saying we are using. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6154" LastEditorUserId="6154" LastEditDate="2014-08-15T01:03:27.643" LastActivityDate="2014-08-15T01:03:27.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9138" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9140" CreationDate="2014-08-14T08:16:42.100" Score="1" ViewCount="336" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background/Context&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been spending a lot of time taking care of my mother-in law recently. Because she is from 台山市 I have been learning some Taishanese. She is 85+ and only eats specific foods. So I spend a bit of time buying extra food at dim sum places. I am not Asian so I am having problems understanding what are some appropriate phrases to explain myself when I am shopping on her behalf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the proper way to explain when one is buying for someone else in this situation? I have used the term ngoi mai (buy to go) but I wonder if someone could give me a couple of more sophisticated alternatives in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also find some of the folks in the restaurant wonder what is going on. How can I explain that I am buying the food to give to my mother-in-law (ngoi mo) but I want to be able to give explanation in Mandarin. The reason is that sometimes I order quite a bit and I can tell the workers are curious. So I would like advice on a couple of Mandarin phrase that I can use to explain the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am currently stumbling through an explanation where I use terms like lao yan yuen (old folks home) to describe where my mom-in-law is staying. All of this is fine but I'd prefer to have one or two sentences that describe the situation (in Mandarin). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any advice on useful Mandarin phrases would be helpful. In this case, I do not have sentences that need translations but I want native speakers to offer an appropriate Mandarin phrase to explain the concepts above and more specifically those below: Again please note, I do not want to sound weird, so I am hoping to find natural sounding alternate phrases (it doesn't have to match the English exactly just the idea needs to be the same).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Me)&#xA;- Hi, I'd like to order some take out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(or in other cases) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(staff, tells me) you order so much food?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Me) I have to order to give to my mother-in-law&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(staff, tells me) where is your mother-in-law?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Me) My mother-in-law stays in the old folks home &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(if other suggested Mandarin phrases might apply, please share)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt the results given by Google Translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（ME） &#xA;- 你好，我想订一些冒了出来 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（或在其他情况下） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（工作人员，告诉我）你订购了这么多菜？ &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（我）我要为了给我的母亲在法律 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（工作人员，告诉我）这里是你的母亲，岳母？ &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（我）我妈妈婆婆留在养老院 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（如果其他建议普通话短语可能适用，请分享） &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-08-14T08:51:52.457" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T10:42:36.943" Title="How to explain this situation in a few Mandarin phrases?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9138" CreationDate="2014-08-14T09:43:38.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to order some take out (suppose you are ordering food A, B and C).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你好，我要一份A，兩份B和三份C，麻煩都給我打包帶走。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why order so much food?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;怎麼買這麼多呢？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to order to give to my mother-in-law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;都是給我岳母買的。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where is your mother-in-law?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你岳母呢？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My mother-in-law stays in the old folks home. I am going to visit her a little later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她在安老院住，我等會兒就去看她。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6006" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T09:43:38.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9138" CreationDate="2014-08-14T09:51:10.707" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Me) - Hi, I'd like to order some take out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你好，我想叫一些外卖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(staff, tells me) you order so much food?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你叫了这么多东西啊？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Me) I have to order to give to my mother-in-law&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我帮我岳母叫的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(staff, tells me) where is your mother-in-law?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你岳母在哪里？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Me) My mother-in-law stays in the old folks home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我岳母住在养老院&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please be noted that there're different expressions in Mandarin for mother-in-law. If you are male, your mother-in-law is 岳母. A female's mother-in-law is called 婆婆. Because you mentioned you call her ngoi mo, she must be your 岳母 or else she would be called gah po.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6209" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-08-14T10:42:36.943" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T10:42:36.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9141" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9143" CreationDate="2014-08-14T11:07:23.187" Score="2" ViewCount="794" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently been listening to MC Hotdog's seminal 2006 hit 《我爱台妹》 I am a little confused by the second and fourth lines of the chorus&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爱台妹，台妹爱我&#xA;对我来说，林志玲算什么&#xA;我爱台妹，台妹爱我&#xA;对我来说，侯佩岑算什么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand 对我来说 as &quot;as far as I'm concerned&quot; but I'm not sure about 算什么. Hotdog loves Taiwanese girls and Taiwanese girls love him, 林志玲 and 侯佩岑 are both &quot;beautiful&quot; Taiwanese celebrities. So what does 算什么 mean here? The idea I had was &quot;As far as I'm concerned, 林志玲 can do what she wants&quot; （because she's a Taiwanese girl) but I'm not sure this is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please help! Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6212" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T14:03:29.063" Title="the meaning of 算什么 in 《我爱台妹》" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9141" CreationDate="2014-08-14T12:20:54.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;算什么 = doesn't amount to anything/is meaningless/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妹 = young girls (definitely wouldn't apply to models or celebrities)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically it's like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lin Zhiling &lt;strong&gt;don't mean nothing to me&lt;/strong&gt; - I love Taiwan girls&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T12:20:54.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9141" CreationDate="2014-08-14T12:33:43.440" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Taiwanese, this song is really famous when I was a child. :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In here 算什么 is a phrase to disparage something. The complete usage of 算什么 is 算是什么.&#xA;(算=&gt;算是)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;算是 can represent &lt;strong&gt;is (a member of) something.&lt;/strong&gt;(but not so sure or you're telling someone who may not know this.) in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;不要這樣捉弄他，這算是一種霸凌 =&gt; Don't make fun of him like that, it could be a kind of bully.&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;A: 王八蛋算是一種髒話嗎? =&gt; Is dickhead a swear?&#xA;B: 當然算! =&gt; Of course, it is!&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I said before, this phrase is going to disparage someone. The main idea of disparaging came from &quot;什么&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, 什么 can treat as &quot;What&quot;. But 什么 also have a negative meaning when you use 什么 to describe a person, which represents &lt;strong&gt;nothing.&lt;/strong&gt; So never use 什么 to a person.(Unless he/she is a d-word in above example.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example for negative meaning of 什么, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;你以為你算什麼東西? =&gt; Who do you thing you are?&#xA;(English is more rational when blaming someone, at least calling that one as a human. In Chinese, they don't even treat you as a human kind)&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 林志玲 and 侯佩岑 are beautiful. And MC Hotdog wants to emphasis that how he loves 台妹, so he says that all he loves is 台妹 despite there comes a real beauty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, all this sentence(对我来说，林志玲算什么) is saying is &lt;strong&gt;To me, 林志玲 is nothing.(compare with 台妹)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6213" LastEditorUserId="6213" LastEditDate="2014-08-14T14:03:29.063" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T14:03:29.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7088" CreationDate="2014-08-14T14:47:11.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;你怎么样？ - How are you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(for a person you just met) - 你是哪里人？ - What province are you from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6203" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T14:47:11.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9146" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9149" CreationDate="2014-08-14T16:01:24.560" Score="4" ViewCount="792" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe this question is better suited for the English Language SE site, but anywho...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V here stands for V-Neck as in: v-neck t-shirt/v-neck blouse/v-neck sweater, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;深 is deep - or more accurately here 'low'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so basically it's a super low-cut v-neck style of clothing - but is there a proper translation for this in English?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T23:01:04.717" Title="Translation: 深V" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9146" CreationDate="2014-08-14T16:25:32.700" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well... 深V is not a formal Chinese word, this word was created by bra-producers.&#xA;Who are trying to emphasis that their bra can help you to squeeze a &lt;strong&gt;cleavage&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, some dress producers who are also making those dresses with very low V-neck revealing females cleavages say that their dresses are 深V too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, in most cases, 深V is the word describing clothes that are able to show the female's chest or cleavage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;深V is female only, if you want to describe male's V-neck cloths, just use V領. Which means V-shape collar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6213" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-06T23:01:04.717" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T23:01:04.717" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9117" CreationDate="2014-08-14T17:08:16.333" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;注音符號 are symbols invented to help kids understand how to pronounce a Chinese word in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before 注音符號 was invented and PingYin were imported, students learn the pronunciation by repeat the teacher's pronounce. 注音符號 has been used for almost 100 year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, the words in Chinese textbooks for elementary school student are remarked by 注音符號. So students can understand how a new word pronounce without parent or teacher. Each symbol represents a pronunciation, with combinations of these symbols(maybe 1 to 3) students can easily pronounce any Chinese word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like this &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kwv2j.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, 注音符號 are not be used in formal article. But several years ago, there are a new usage of 注音符號 invented by youth. This sub-culture are called 注音文(which means article mixed with 注音符號.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 注音文, people use a single symbol to represents a real word which pronounce alike or similarly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most general example is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;我ㄉ背包 =&gt; 我的背包 =&gt; my bag&#xA;拜託你ㄌ =&gt; 拜託你了 =&gt; I beg you.&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to @Graviton's question, ㄝ read(not pronounce, each symbol have its own read and pronunciation, just like alphabets) similar( or you can say just in the same way) to 耶. 耶 is an interjection pronounce Yé, which is used to represent a happy emotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;今晚老闆請大家吃晚餐ㄝ =&gt; 今晚老闆請大家吃晚餐耶 =&gt; Boss buy everyone a dinner tonight.&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 注音文 is not very popular now in Taiwan. Since it's not really professional, and makes you looks like a kid in a social network.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope these can help you. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6213" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T17:08:16.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9146" CreationDate="2014-08-14T18:01:54.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You actually kind of answered your own question: &lt;code&gt;深V&lt;/code&gt; can be translated as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yandy.com/Low-Cut-Mini-Dress-with-Cinched-Ties-on-Sides.php&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;low cut&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. Alternative names for that style are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.missguided.co.uk/dresses/v-neck-dresses&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;v neck&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&quot;deep v&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; as @Sheng-DuanSun suggested, or the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.missguidedus.com/aleena-lace-plunge-neck-puffball-dress&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;deep plunge&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&quot;plunge neck&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe I've also heard it called the &quot;&lt;em&gt;plunge v neck&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-08-14T18:11:55.803" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T18:11:55.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9151" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-15T23:22:58.393" Score="3" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the meaning of this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;荒谬时代要吃得好玩到老经常想母猫。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;荒谬时代 means ridiculous age, i think. &#xA;好玩 means amusing, fun &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But i couldn't understand the whole sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6166" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-16T01:44:14.953" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T13:15:02.433" Title="Translate: 荒谬时代要吃得好玩到老经常想母猫" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9151" CreationDate="2014-08-15T23:37:53.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes from the lyrics of &quot;浅蓝大肥猫&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你活在这样荒谬的时代里 人格通通不要&#xA;只要吃得好 玩到老 想母猫 死得早&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if it's proper to translate the last words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你活在这样荒谬的时代里 = You live in such a ridiculous era;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人格通通不要 = Abandon all your personalities*;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要吃得好 玩到老 = As long as I can eat well and play until old (or say enjoy my life);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*: Per @NS.X. 's advice, &quot;人格&quot; can be translate into personality and characteristic, and might be integrity in this context. Read more about &quot;人格&quot; at: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%BA%E6%A0%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%BA%E6%A0%BC&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastEditorUserId="6105" LastEditDate="2014-08-16T20:39:45.287" LastActivityDate="2014-08-16T20:39:45.287" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9153" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-16T17:15:48.477" Score="0" ViewCount="458" Body="&lt;p&gt;གྷ艈挡宑ᙽ삂暋ğ㳐฀泬飥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried using internet translators (I know, bad idea) but I needed to know what this text says.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6224" LastActivityDate="2014-08-17T04:56:39.763" Title="I found a random file on my desktop, and I need to know what it says in English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9153" CreationDate="2014-08-16T17:56:23.713" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's mojibake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojibake&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojibake&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the same phenomenon is called 乱码 (Simplified Chinese) / 亂碼 (Traditional Chinese) (pinyin: Luàn mǎ, meaning chaotic code), and can occur when computerised text is encoded in one Chinese character encoding but is displayed using the wrong encoding. When this occurs, it is often possible to fix the issue by switching the character encoding without loss of data. The situation is complicated because of the existence of several Chinese character encoding systems in use, the most common ones being: Unicode, Big5, and Guobiao (with several backward compatible versions), and the possibility of Chinese characters being encoded using Japanese encoding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-17T04:56:39.763" LastActivityDate="2014-08-17T04:56:39.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9155" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-17T15:01:14.490" Score="3" ViewCount="483" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out how to say &quot;to leave&quot; as in to leave something behind somewhere. Would you say one, two, or three? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to say “left my bag in the car” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. 丢了我钱包在出租车里&#xA;2. 留了我得钱包在出租车里&#xA;3. 忘了我的钱包在出租车里&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-17T16:17:53.030" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T06:44:32.600" Title="How to ask whether you left A in B" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9156" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-17T15:11:23.593" Score="5" ViewCount="3244" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I've been trying to figure out the proper way to say &quot;chapter&quot; for a long time in Chinese. &#xA;Is this something that depends on a case by case basis? (i.e. a chapter in a novel would be different in a textbook.) Or is there one word that cover all of the different uses? (Or are there multiple?). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-17T16:17:26.620" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T13:42:19.480" Title="What are the different ways to say &quot;Chapter&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9155" CreationDate="2014-08-17T15:23:37.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;把钱包丢/落/忘在了出租车里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use &quot;把&quot; to emphasis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-17T15:23:37.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9156" CreationDate="2014-08-17T15:25:27.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several possibilities, from a dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chapter   ['tʃæptə]&#xA;n.&#xA;1.&#xA;(书、论文或其他著作的)章，节，回&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-17T15:25:27.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9156" CreationDate="2014-08-17T16:11:40.890" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many examples of chapter usage on &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=chapter&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt; here are two common usages I've seen (referring to the chapter by content or number).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Referring to a chapter in a book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{This chapter} focuses on personas and their goals. Other models are considered briefly at  the end of the chapter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{本章} 重点讨论人物角色及其目标，结尾处将简要谈谈其他模型。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage with a number:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more on scrollbars, see {Chapter 21}.&#xA;关于滚动条的更多信息参见 {第21章}。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More samples from Simplified-Chinese English Dictionary&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4QwzX.png&quot; alt=&quot;SCE-Dictionary Samples&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;From CC-Dict:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zhāng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;章&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chapter; section; clause; movement; seal; badge; regulation; order&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;章&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zhāng jié&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;章节&#xA;chapter; section&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;章節&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;juàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;scroll; book; volume; chapter; examination paper; classifier for books, paintings: volume, scroll&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other usages may exist but they get further away from the more common usage of the word chapter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T13:42:19.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9117" CreationDate="2014-08-18T01:27:45.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;ㄝ is not actually a character with a semantic meaning. Instead, it is a phonic symbol based on a system referred to as &quot;zhuyinfuhao&quot;  注音符号. It is not used as a character, but is used to annotate other characters instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ㄝ, according to the Wikipedia article, is a yunmu 韵母, or a vowel, and both its shape and its pronunciation were derived from the character shi 世.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6231" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T01:27:45.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9131" CreationDate="2014-08-18T01:45:10.070" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a specific case where &lt;code&gt;哪里&lt;/code&gt; cannot be replaced by &lt;code&gt;哪儿&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When one is praised or flattered, &lt;code&gt;哪里&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;哪里哪里&lt;/code&gt; is generally considered a proper, polite and humble response in Chinese culture. Its literal meaning is &quot;Where am I? I'm nowhere near as good as you imagine&quot; (although you actually may be that good or even better).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that it is rarely used among close friends and family, but very appropriate for the more formal occasions (e.g., a business meeting, a job interview, a social event, etc.). One simple rule - whenever a handshake with a person is considered appropriate, &lt;code&gt;哪里&lt;/code&gt; should also be considered an appropriate response to that person's compliments (e.g., when you are introduced to someone, you shake hands, and (s)he says something like &quot;Glad to meet you! I heard that you play the piano really well!&quot; / &quot; 幸会！早就听说你弹的一手好琴！ &quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6230" LastEditorUserId="6230" LastEditDate="2014-08-21T03:44:14.513" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T03:44:14.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9155" CreationDate="2014-08-18T05:35:59.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually you say 1. 我钱包拉/丢/忘（在）出租车里了 or 2.我把钱包拉/丢/忘（在）出租车里了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1, '我钱包' equals to '我的钱包'('My wallet') which is the subject and the verb is in passive but'被'is omitted. The grammatical expression could be 我钱包被拉/丢/忘（在）出租车里了，but no one would say out '被'here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2, you use '把' as @wuyefeibao suggested and 我 is the subject, the verb being used in active voice.&#xA;In both cases, the preposition 在 may be omitted, indicating the urgent situation when you're anxious and depressed so you have no mood to speak out every function word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your own translations 1. 丢了我钱包在出租车里 and 2. 留了我的钱包在出租车里 3. 忘了我的钱包在出租车里 are not target-like expressions. In translation 2, 留 is not the same as 忘，丢, implying you intentionally left the bag in the car (because you didn't want to carry it with you, or you wanted to give it a gift to the driver, lol?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6233" LastEditorUserId="6233" LastEditDate="2014-08-18T06:03:54.720" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T06:03:54.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9163" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9164" CreationDate="2014-08-18T06:08:09.380" Score="4" ViewCount="626" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase 順其自然 means trust nature to take its course in Cantonese, and every character makes sense except for 其. Can someone explain its meaning in the phrase? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T06:52:43.720" Title="Can someone explain what the 其 in 順其自然 means?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9163" CreationDate="2014-08-18T06:21:20.147" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;其 is referred to 'it' as in your translation. However, 自然 here does not necessarily mean the literal meaning 'nature'. Instead, it refers to the natural tendency of any subject you're talking about. If you see a child growing as he/she prefers to be rather than pushing him/her to be, 其is the child and 自然 means 'without intervention'. If you let something develop without attempting to change its route, 其 is that thing. In old Chinese, 其 as a personal pronoun is only one of its many senses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's more, it's a Chinese idiom, not just Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6233" LastEditorUserId="6233" LastEditDate="2014-08-18T06:52:43.720" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T06:52:43.720" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9163" CreationDate="2014-08-18T06:27:48.197" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Stan's comment goes, 其 here simply means 'it' and refers to the subject of the sentence where the word 顺其自然 is used. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那件事我们就顺其自然吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For that matter let's just leave &lt;strong&gt;it&lt;/strong&gt; to chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T06:27:48.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9155" CreationDate="2014-08-18T06:44:32.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English &quot;leave&quot; has two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1) Stay something at some place because of carelessness or without notice.&#xA;2) Put something in some place on purpose.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just depends on your real situation contents. (However, I prefer 1th meaning, so I'd say &quot;我不慎把包包落在车里了。&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T06:44:32.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7088" CreationDate="2014-08-18T06:58:10.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you here mean &quot;ice-breaker&quot; is &quot;&#xA;Something that can break the ice while talking in a senario or environment that makes people very stupid or embarrassed. You can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 没和我开玩笑吧？(Are you kidding？！)：Used when you feel ver surprised at something or something very awful that you don't expect to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Invite someone to have a dinner with you (Even if you are not good with someone but you wanna have a talk with him, that's what Chinese people are glad to do).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;strong&gt;if you wanna know something to be used when you wanna start a topic with a man not familiar to you&lt;/strong&gt;, here are some tips:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 可以借个火吗？(If you see the man is smoking, you can say this to have a talk with him for the following things).&#xA;2) 你好，饭吃了吗？(You don't need to invite him/her to have a dinner but just a greeting sentence for your following talk).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T06:58:10.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9168" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-18T09:30:55.443" Score="4" ViewCount="491" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to say the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过了这几十年，中国的经济发展了很多，但是 ［at the expense of]中国的环境。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if the last part of the sentence is how I would say &quot;at the expense of China's environment&quot;; it was more of a literal translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone please help me correctly translate this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T13:24:38.233" Title="How to say &quot;at the expensive/cost of&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9168" CreationDate="2014-08-18T10:04:07.497" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What we often hear nowadays in the news reports or critics is that “这是以破坏/牺牲环境为代价的”. Hence you can see 'at the expense / cost of' can be translated into '以...为代价'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6233" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T10:04:07.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9168" CreationDate="2014-08-18T11:10:48.783" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree with trying to translate English idioms or sentence structures word for word into Chinese. I would suggest that something like this would capture your intended meaning in a more natural way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;这几十年来，中国的经济发展了很多，但却牺牲了自然环境。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This suggests that the environment was &lt;em&gt;collateral damage&lt;/em&gt;. If you wanted to put more emphasis on the extent of environmental destruction as the &lt;em&gt;source&lt;/em&gt; of growth:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;这几十年来，中国牺牲了生态环境，换取经济的快速发展。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T11:10:48.783" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9151" CreationDate="2014-08-18T13:15:02.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned, it might come from the lyrics but it is not completely the same as the original lyrics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lyrics of 浅蓝大肥猫 is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你活在这样荒谬的城市里 规矩通通不要&#xA;  只要吃得饱 睡得好 想母猫 做春梦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which has similar meaning as the sentence in the question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking of the sentence in the question, 好玩 is not the word here. It should be 吃得好 and 玩到老, which means eat well and play until old respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the rest, 荒谬时代 means ridiculous era, 要 means &quot;should&quot;, 经常 means often and 想母猫　literally means &quot;think of female cats&quot;. Therefore the whole sentence becomes &quot;In such a ridiculous era, we should eat well, play until we are old(enjoy life) and spend time thinking of female cats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6235" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T13:15:02.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9168" CreationDate="2014-08-18T15:15:58.840" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Replace the original with the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;..., 可是中國的環境卻付出了很高的代價&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4065" LastEditorUserId="4065" LastEditDate="2014-08-19T13:24:38.233" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T13:24:38.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9168" CreationDate="2014-08-18T15:38:36.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;這幾十年來, 中國經濟長足增長, 卻為此犧牲了自然生態.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to maintain the order of the clauses, you can add &quot;為此&quot; to emphasize/highlight the relation of the economy and the environment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-08-18T23:21:02.407" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T23:21:02.407" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9174" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-18T19:47:50.687" Score="6" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I compiled a list of different words for what we in English generally would translate to &quot;to carry&quot;. Now, the fact that I found them doesn't necessarily mean that they are actually in common usage today. So, which ones of these would you consider to be useful to memorize, and which ones are actually used colloquially? Would you consider the specifications below correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;抱 - bao - to carry (in your arms)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;扛 kang1 - to carry (on your sholder)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;背 bei - to carry (on the back)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;负 fu4 to carry (on one's back)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;挑 tiao1 - to carry (on your shoulder with a pole)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;带 dai4 - to carry&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;顶 ding3 - to carry (on the head)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;提 ti2 - to carry (hanging down from the hand)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;抬 tai2 - to carry (two or more persons)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;挎 kua4 - to carry (slung over arm, shoulder or side)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2493" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T13:51:36.720" Title="Which of these words for &quot;to carry&quot; are actually used?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9156" CreationDate="2014-08-18T22:43:58.733" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a quite few ways to denote a chapter in Chinese. Some of the most commonly seen are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;章, 卷, 回, 篇.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wish, you can easily find examples of their usages here: &quot;www.shuku.net&quot;. For your convenience, here are some links.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;章: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shuku.net:8080/novels/classic/zhongyong.html&quot;&gt;http://www.shuku.net:8080/novels/classic/zhongyong.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卷:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shuku.net:8080/novels/history/csdsgz/sgz.html&quot;&gt;http://www.shuku.net:8080/novels/history/csdsgz/sgz.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because I need at least 10 reputation points to post more than 2 links, I cannot link examples of others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6237" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T22:43:58.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9176" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9179" CreationDate="2014-08-19T05:21:05.450" Score="4" ViewCount="363" Body="&lt;p&gt;氵+ 寅 = 演&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;zisea&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拼音:yan3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;①根据事理推广发挥：推～。讲～（亦作“演讲”）。～义（以史书及传说的材料为基础，增添一些细节，用章回体写成的小说）。～绎（一种推理方法，由一般原理推出关于特殊情况下的结论）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;②依照程式练习：～练。～示。～算。～武。～习。～兵场。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;③不断变化：～变。～化。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;④把技艺当众表现出来：表～。～出。～播。～奏。主～。义～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't really see any reason water would be needed in this character from its above meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese Etymology&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From water 氵水 and phonetic 寅. Original meaning to flow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ShuoWen: (說文解字)&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;長流也一曰水名從水寅聲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Chinese Etymology is not wrong - and I wouldn't be surprised if it is wrong - then how did it go from meaning &lt;em&gt;water&lt;/em&gt; to what it means today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T06:37:36.127" Title="演 ＝ 氵+ 寅 but what's it got to do with water!? How did it get its modern meanings?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9156" CreationDate="2014-08-19T05:24:47.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;cover all of the different uses : 章&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6240" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T05:24:47.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9178" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-19T06:23:01.630" Score="3" ViewCount="321" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read an article which shows this sentence 一本书, and then if want to make it plural, it becomes 书本, so my question is it for all noun and measure word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一首歌 becomes 歌首&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5957" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-21T05:40:33.343" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T05:40:33.343" Title="Combining noun and measure word" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9176" CreationDate="2014-08-19T07:11:56.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.shufaji.com/word-2326.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.shufaji.com/word-2326.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲骨文（水，喻流程）（矢，代军事操练），造字本义：古代军事模拟实战的流程式操练。篆文将甲骨文的“矢”写成“寅”，明确了军事操练的含义。隶书将篆文的成。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the 氵also got another meaning of flow (process flow), so it does mean that process flor for traditional battle(war) training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6153" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T07:11:56.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9180" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9188" CreationDate="2014-08-19T07:13:21.570" Score="1" ViewCount="2009" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know the colloquial chinese translation of &quot;Karma&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The conversation example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bob: She had financial problem for 30 years and never got a decent job besides labor.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Me: I guess it's karma. &lt;strong&gt;&amp;lt;== I need translation of karma in this context.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: the karma here refers to fruit/result of her past karma in buddhism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One day, my dad just lost $5 in his pocket when walking home. My mom heard that and she said &quot;I remember once you took $5 on the street, &lt;strong&gt;so I guess it's karma&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastEditorUserId="3970" LastEditDate="2014-08-20T12:14:49.877" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T16:27:21.773" Title="The translation of &quot;Karma&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9180" CreationDate="2014-08-19T07:16:44.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For 1st sentence: 也許是她自作孽. &amp;lt;- This is an incorrect translation.  Please see Ma Ming's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 2nd sentence: &quot;報應&quot; is a bit too heavy in this case.  We can say &quot;現眼報&quot; (spoken Cantonese) or &quot;眼前報&quot; (written Chinese); &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-08-20T12:32:23.990" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T12:32:23.990" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9180" CreationDate="2014-08-19T07:49:16.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess it's karma！&#xA;我想这就是报应吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karma = 因果报应&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6153" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T07:49:16.823" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9180" CreationDate="2014-08-19T07:57:31.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;在佛教中应翻译为“业”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例如：这就是“业报”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而佛教中的“因”是hetu，“果”是vipaka。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T07:57:31.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9178" CreationDate="2014-08-19T08:14:49.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't work the way you think which means plural noun doesn't come from noun+[measure word]. Actually I doubt that the concept of plural noun applies to Chinese. Instead, to express plural concept, you use numeric description before a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can say 几本书 (several books), 一些书 (some books). 书本 to me is more like a collective noun. Similarly, you say 几首歌 (several songs), 很多歌 (many songs), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6209" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T08:14:49.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9180" CreationDate="2014-08-19T08:49:14.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;@ah_hau's answer has a good generic phrase for the typical English usage (of treating &quot;karma&quot; as some sort of cosmic justice system). It suggests that the woman might have done something evil 30 years ago, and has been suffering misfortune because of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you want to specify that her misfortune is &lt;em&gt;payback for deeds in a previous life&lt;/em&gt;, there's a common phrase you should use. It is specialised for this context: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;上辈子做了什么孽&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, literally, &quot;&lt;em&gt;did some bad karma in a previous life&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the second case, are you saying &quot;it's karma&quot; in the sense that he had the good luck of finding $5 earlier, so losing $5 now is just balancing it out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that's the case, there's a few set phrases you can use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;风水轮流转: &quot;good/bad luck goes around.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三十年河东，三十年河西: &quot;fortune changes&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有得有失: &quot;you get some, you lose some&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有输有赢: &quot;you win some you lose some&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, your sentence could be translated as: &lt;code&gt;你不是在路上捡过五块钱吗? 风水轮流转嘛!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-08-20T16:27:21.773" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T16:27:21.773" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9178" CreationDate="2014-08-19T09:31:41.030" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stop reading that article - it is totally wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The issue is that &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;书&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;书本&lt;/code&gt; are both plural and singular at the same time.&lt;/strong&gt; Which one it is depends solely on the context. For example, it is plural in &lt;code&gt;我常常讀書&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;I read &lt;em&gt;books&lt;/em&gt; often&quot;. In contrast, it is singular in &lt;code&gt;把書放下&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;Put down the &lt;em&gt;book&lt;/em&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can specify plurals, however. How that actually works is that &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;本&lt;/code&gt; is a counter for books (&lt;code&gt;书&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, &lt;code&gt;一本书&lt;/code&gt; meaning &quot;&lt;em&gt;one (volume of) book&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. Therefore, to get plurals, you can use @windrose's example of &lt;code&gt;几本书&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &quot;&lt;em&gt;several (volumes of) books&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is essentially a coincidence that the counter for books can be appended to the character for books to make &lt;code&gt;书本&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Do not assume you can do this with any noun&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T09:31:41.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9178" CreationDate="2014-08-19T09:33:44.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;本&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;书本&lt;/code&gt; is a noun meaning &lt;code&gt;booklet; notebook&lt;/code&gt;, which is completely different from its function as a measure word. Therefore &lt;code&gt;书本&lt;/code&gt; is not the plural form for book, but a general/abstract reference to 'books and notepads'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule of '[noun] + [measure word]' does not exist, very few instances of which could make any sense. 书本 is just one of these rare coincidences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the phrase in your question, 一本书, its structure is a basic pattern for noun phrase: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[count word] + [measure word] + [noun]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To turn it into plural form, you can either increment the count word, e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;两本书 (two books), 三本书 (three books)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or change the measure word from a singular measure word to a collective measure word, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一些书 (some books), 一摞书 (a pile of books), 一套书 (a collection of books)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or replace the [count word + measure word] altogether with a quantitative adjective (phrase), e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很多书 (many books), 大量书籍 (a large number of books)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T09:33:44.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9180" CreationDate="2014-08-19T11:14:04.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我想这就是命吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因果报应 and 造业, 作业 or even 作孽 suggest that she did some bad thing in the past, and you are sneered at her  life. 命 is more neutral and shows some sympathy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4246" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T11:14:04.303" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9190" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-19T13:38:17.677" Score="16" ViewCount="7708" Body="&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1155/what-is-the-rule-for-adjective-order&quot;&gt;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1155/what-is-the-rule-for-adjective-order&lt;/a&gt; for the equivalent question in English. I didn't find any discussion online of the order for multiple Chinese adjectives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching for people asking the equivalent question for English in Chinese, there are some example sentences, for example at &lt;a href=&quot;http://jingyan.baidu.com/article/fedf07371d781e35ac89773b.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://jingyan.baidu.com/article/fedf07371d781e35ac89773b.html&lt;/a&gt; we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;two beautiful new green silk evening dress 两件又新又漂亮的丝绸女士晚礼服&#xA;that hungry, tired, sleepy little match girl 那个饥饿、疲劳、困倦的卖火柴的小女孩&#xA;an old large brick dining hall 一个旧的红砖砌的大餐厅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be seen that the order is slightly different - 新 comes before 漂亮, 小 after 卖火柴,  红砖砌 before 大 as opposed to beautiful before new, match after little, large before brick. Are there standard rules in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="762" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:38:11.437" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T17:37:25.240" Title="What are the rules in Chinese for adjective order when multiple adjectives describe a noun" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9174" CreationDate="2014-08-19T13:51:36.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;扛kang2 not 1  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the most commonly used is 带 (to carry, to bring, to take)&#xA;Sorry, I don't bring the document with me today.&#xA;抱歉，我今天没带这个文件。&#xA;Yesterday I forgot to take my homework to school.&#xA;昨天我忘把作业带到学校了。&#xA;He always carries an ipad to the meeting.&#xA;他总是带ipad去开会。&#xA;No one is allowed to carry a gun in this country&#xA;在这个国家，任何人不能携带枪支。&#xA;Mice carry diseases.&#xA;老鼠携带疾病。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5997" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T13:51:36.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9190" CreationDate="2014-08-19T14:00:38.827" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The adjectives can go in any order as long as they are before the noun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6203" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T14:00:38.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9190" CreationDate="2014-08-19T14:52:46.290" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few general points on the order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;words with &lt;strong&gt;two or more characters&lt;/strong&gt; should be further away than single character words&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;phrases/words &lt;strong&gt;ending in &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; should be further from those without&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;type/class/make/category&lt;/strong&gt; of the described noun should be right next to it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;漂亮的&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; pretty) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;新&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; new) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;丝绸&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;dress' type&lt;/em&gt; silk) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;晚&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;dress' style&lt;/em&gt; evening) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;礼服&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt; dress)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;新的&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; new) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;漂亮&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; pretty) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;丝绸&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;dress' type&lt;/em&gt; silk) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;晚&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;dress' style&lt;/em&gt; evening) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;礼服&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt; dress)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;丝绸的&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; silken) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;漂亮&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; pretty) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;新&lt;/code&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(see note)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; new) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;礼服&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt; dress)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;丝绸的&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; silken) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;漂亮&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt; pretty) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;晚&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;dress' style&lt;/em&gt; evening) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;礼服&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt; dress)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;Note:&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;sup&gt;&lt;em&gt;Avoid putting two single character words next to each other.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;Note Two:&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;sup&gt;&lt;em&gt;Actually, avoid squeezing so many adjectives into a sentence in the first place.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question's example of &lt;code&gt;又新又漂亮&lt;/code&gt; is an entirely different situation. That's because it is using the syntax &lt;code&gt;又 X 又 Y&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-08-19T14:58:34.180" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T14:58:34.180" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9131" CreationDate="2014-08-20T01:48:57.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No difference.Just like no difference between 早餐 and 早饭.Do you understand ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6246" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T01:48:57.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9198" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-20T03:38:02.213" Score="-1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned that two tigers is said &quot;两只老虎&quot; but I wonder how to say &#xA;twelve tigers, twenty two tigers in Chinese.&#xA;Is that 十二只老虎 and 二十二只老虎  or 十两只老虎 and 二十两只老虎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T04:41:17.193" Title="How to say &quot;twelve tigers&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-08-20T07:33:01.770" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9198" CreationDate="2014-08-20T04:32:17.970" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @songyuanyao says &lt;code&gt;十二只老虎&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;二十二只老虎&lt;/code&gt; are correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot use &lt;code&gt;兩&lt;/code&gt; here unless you literally meant to say &quot;12 &lt;em&gt;ounces&lt;/em&gt; of tiger (meat?)&quot;. The reason is that &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;兩&lt;/code&gt; actually means &quot;&lt;em&gt;one pair&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt; That is, &lt;code&gt;两只老虎&lt;/code&gt; is &quot;&lt;em&gt;a pair of tigers&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. Notice that it is specifically &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; pair&lt;/em&gt;; which means you cannot use &lt;code&gt;二十两&lt;/code&gt; to mean &quot;twenty pairs&quot; either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, &lt;code&gt;兩&lt;/code&gt; does get used in bigger numbers. But that's only strictly for &lt;strong&gt;two of&lt;/strong&gt; something&quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一千兩百 - &quot;&lt;em&gt;One thousand and &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; hundred&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;兩百 - &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; hundred&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;兩百兆 - &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; hundred trillion&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, you are saying &quot;&lt;strong&gt;a pair&lt;/strong&gt; of one hundred&quot;, regardless of the rest of the number. This works because 100 is a named number in Chinese (as it is in English). The other numbers this works for are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;千 - thousand&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;萬 - ten thousand&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;億 - hundred million &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;兆 - trillion / million&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...and other ridiculously large numbers that you'll likely never ever encounter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-08-20T04:41:17.193" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T04:41:17.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9190" CreationDate="2014-08-20T10:01:37.770" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid that there is no easy answer to this question. I searched with keywords 汉语+形容词连用顺序 and found an article 《&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xzbu.com/4/view-3178897.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;现代汉语多个形容词定语短语的定语顺序&lt;/a&gt;》discussing exactly the same question. The article mentions that some scholars speculate that there seems to be some kind of rules and they've analyzed different scenarios from various approaches and made explanations but still no affirmative rules could be summarized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take 小白马 as an example which Simon D mentioned in a comment. Why don't we Chinese say 白小马? Why does it become 白色的小马 instead of 小的白色马 if we use 白色 instead of 白? As a native Chinese speaker, I'm amused by thinking of such questions and no doubt a Chinese learner will be confused. But that's part of the fun of language learning, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6209" LastEditorUserId="6209" LastEditDate="2014-08-25T05:50:09.007" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T05:50:09.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9190" CreationDate="2014-08-20T12:37:24.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think we will use so many adjectives in Chinese.  Usually we will use alternative sentence structure to overcome such situations depending on the original English sentence.  For example, for &quot;There are two beautiful new green silk evening dress in the display window&quot;, we may say &quot;廚窗裡那兩套新的綠色絲質晚裝真漂亮&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, &quot;sleepy&quot; is (/can be translated as) &quot;睏倦&quot; in Traditional Chinese, whereas &quot;困倦&quot; means weary.  In Simplified Chinese, &quot;睏&quot; is simplified as &quot;困&quot; as well.  As a result, you need to deduce the meaning of &quot;困倦&quot; by the context of the whole sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit(1): As for the order of adjectives, the general rule is the more specific the nearer to the noun, but those with the form &quot;XXX色&quot; or &quot;XXX的&quot; are put further away; and the quantity is put the furthest.  For example, we say &quot;一朵小紅花&quot; or &quot;一朵紅色小花&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-08-20T23:49:24.023" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T23:49:24.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8888" CreationDate="2014-08-20T19:49:06.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;你哪儿来的这么多书？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 来 is normally translated to &quot;come&quot;. It can still be translated that way here. Just as it's a colloquial usage of &quot;来&quot; that was used in the Chinese sentence, we'll be employing a colloquial usage of &quot;come&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The near literal translation of your sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How come you got this many books?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tone and connotation of the two sentences are also roughly the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The definition of &quot;come&quot; in the above sentence would be roughly equivalent to the definition of &quot;来&quot; in the original sentence. They are both being used as a part of a larger phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你是从哪儿来的这么多书？&quot; is almost a completely different sentence, and not really correct. By adding &quot;是从&quot;, the structure becomes &quot;你是从哪儿 ...&quot;. In this case, you are more seriously asking for the location where the books comes from. Correspondingly, you need to change more to the sentence to make it sound natural. An example would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是从哪儿得到这么多书？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6237" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T19:49:06.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9203" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9204" CreationDate="2014-08-21T04:04:17.160" Score="5" ViewCount="1120" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was trying to find the written representation of the Cantonese word &amp;quot;to make&amp;quot;, pronounced as &amp;quot;jing&amp;quot;, by looking through the alternatives on Google Translate and reading the Mandarin pronunciations.  What better ways are there to find the exact written word for spoken Cantonese words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4046" LastEditorUserId="4046" LastEditDate="2021-01-24T01:00:34.400" LastActivityDate="2021-01-24T01:00:34.400" Title="How can I find the exact written versions of commonly spoken Cantonese words?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9203" CreationDate="2014-08-21T05:20:48.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;广州话方言词典&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2010 Comerical Press&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8,453  (approx.) entries&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a good place to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance the entry for 係&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;係唔係？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是不是？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你係邊個？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是誰？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;係就話係。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是就說是。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 只有（與“至”配搭着用）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;係你佢至服&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有你他才服&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;係噉至好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有這樣才好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not only does it have written Cantonese for the individual words but also example sentences with mandarin translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words without characters are marked with a: □.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&#xA;Edit: and I believe your 'jing' can be found under the entry for &lt;strong&gt;整&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Romanization is a little different: &lt;code&gt;zing2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the 'to make' part of the definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 做&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你qiú想整邊一種花款？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你們想做哪一種款式呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整個公仔畀細路仔玩下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做個小人兒給小孩玩玩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So! If you know the Cantonese pronunciation and, even roughly, know the romanization system it should be pretty easy to: (A) find the written form of your cantonese words and characters and then (B) find the mandarin equivalent - including examples for each. Should be helpful for what you're looking for/to do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&#xA;Edit 3: zing is Jyutping / jing is Yale - is just double checked - the digitalized dictionary I'm using supports both and can switch between the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T07:42:32.367" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9203" CreationDate="2014-08-21T09:23:08.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way is to install a Cantonese input plugin for your computer/phone. I have jyutping (粵拼) installed both on my Mac and Android phone. Works great. I use this to write both in Cantonese and (broken) Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T09:23:08.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9206" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9207" CreationDate="2014-08-21T10:53:27.793" Score="4" ViewCount="3187" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an expression in English of sort of dramatic frustration, but in a very familiar, and almost endearing way.  So, for example, if your girlfriend/boyfriend does something that is kind of unique or strange, but it is very specific to them, you can exclaim, &quot;What am I going to do with you!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is hard for me to explain this expression, and I cannot find a good webpage for it.  But I am looking for a way in Chinese to sort of &quot;mock complain&quot; about something slightly weird that someone you care about does.  Do you have any thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T00:22:48.760" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T00:22:48.760" Title="How to say &quot;What am I going to do with you&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9206" CreationDate="2014-08-21T12:14:26.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is a Chinese expression that almost perfectly matches the English one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我该拿你怎么办&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it is used endearingly, or critically by superiors on inferiors. This also seems to match the English usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know about its etymology; from its close match against English and its contemporaneity (Ngram Viewer shows it &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E6%8B%BF%E4%BD%A0%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E5%8A%9E&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E6%8B%BF%20%E4%BD%A0%20%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%20%E5%8A%9E%3B%2Cc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;appeared in the 80's and began to spike from the 90's&lt;/a&gt;) I suspect it is highly influenced by the English expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T12:14:26.237" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9208" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9210" CreationDate="2014-08-21T15:16:18.480" Score="3" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am confused about the sentence 这是你第一次来中国吗？&#xA;I think I know the correct translation: &quot;Is this the first time you go to China?&quot;&#xA;However, I am confused about the grammatical structure of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would expect that when the structure 这是 (something) 吗？is present, then (something) is a noun phrase. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这是你要的吗？(Is this what you want?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这是你点的菜吗？(Is this the dish you ordered?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要的 (what you want) and 你点的菜 (the dish you ordered) are noun phrases (right?). However, I can't identify 你第一次来中国 as a noun phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 你第一次来中国 is a noun phrase: What is the structure that makes it a noun phrase? Why does it not say 你的第一次来中国? Isn't 次 a measure word? Why can it be followed by a verb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 你第一次来中国 is not a noun phrase, how can it be used with 这是 (something) 吗？?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6256" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-21T17:18:30.477" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T17:18:30.477" Title="What's the grammatical structure of 这是你第一次来中国吗？" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9209" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9232" CreationDate="2014-08-21T15:24:25.310" Score="4" ViewCount="855" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I've been trying to figure out what is the best way to describe the sentence &quot;I went to the store to say hi to the owner&quot;. (Imagine in this context I haven't seen him for a certain amount of time, so I'd like to go in and just quickly say &quot;hi&quot; and then leave)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do people say  “跟他说你好？” &#xA;比如 “我最后决定去跟那个老板说你好。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="6003" LastEditDate="2014-09-02T03:18:36.247" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T03:18:36.247" Title="How to say &quot;Say hi to someone&quot; as a description?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9208" CreationDate="2014-08-21T15:27:35.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply put. There is always S V O structure in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, 这(this) is the S, 是(is) is the V, 你第一次来中国 (your first time coming to China) is the object phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS 你第一次来中国 = 你的第一次来中国. (The 的 in the first sentence got dropped)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4379" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T15:27:35.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9211" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9214" CreationDate="2014-08-21T15:29:00.107" Score="1" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;As always: I appreciate any help provided. Thanks again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Background&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am reading Doraemon (or at least I am trying to read it) and sometimes I can't quite see the character while other times I have an issue with context. In this case, I am just not familiar enough to discern the missing characters (?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what I see so far,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;真年過 (?) 開 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是定一年今好事(?)(?) (EDIT: I think this is 連)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone share the character(s) I am missing based on the image below?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have I missed any other characters in this frame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW - This is from a Doraemon comic book collection that a friend shared with me. Some one explained to me that this character has at times been depicted speaking in Japanese, Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese. As a result there are nuances throughout the series which are regional. If there are any regional variations in meaning that stand out please share.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uK4yV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Doraemon-1-1&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;UPDATES&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Changed the title to better reflect the related questions that I have on this topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Accepted Answers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;繁体:過年真清閒 &#xA;  简体:过年真清闲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;繁体:今年一定是好事連連 &#xA;  简体:今年一定是好事连连 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) I also learned from these answers/comments how the comic should be read (right to left) top-bottom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T23:39:26.517" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T23:39:26.517" Title="Translation Gaps On Comic Conversation : 1" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9208" CreationDate="2014-08-21T15:30:20.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;这是你第一次来中国吗？&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;code&gt;Is this your first time in China?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't consider this a &lt;em&gt;noun phrase&lt;/em&gt; at all...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;第一次&lt;/code&gt; as a whole is an &lt;strong&gt;adverb&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;来&lt;/code&gt; is your &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything else is pretty self-explanatory and you seem to understand the other parts of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact you can use &lt;strong&gt;这是你第一次&lt;/strong&gt; as a set phrase to ask &lt;code&gt;is this your first time xxx&lt;/code&gt; while just adding &lt;code&gt;xxx&lt;/code&gt; at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T15:30:20.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9209" CreationDate="2014-08-21T15:33:16.490" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;“Say hi to someone” in Chinese is just a simple &lt;code&gt;打招呼&lt;/code&gt; (unless you mean &quot;please say hi to so-and-so for me - then it's 问好).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so what you want to say here is: &lt;code&gt;我跟老板打了个招呼....&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T15:33:16.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9211" CreationDate="2014-08-21T15:39:31.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well this is written in traditional so...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FT:&lt;code&gt;過年真清閒&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;JT:&lt;code&gt;过年真清闲&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;ENG: &lt;code&gt;New year's is very idle/leisurely/quiet&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FT:&lt;code&gt;今年一定是好事連連&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;JT:&lt;code&gt;今年一定是好事连连&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;ENG: &lt;code&gt;This year will definitely be filled with one good thing after another&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nothing too regional...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You didn't miss anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-08-23T05:35:49.580" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T05:35:49.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9215" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9216" CreationDate="2014-08-21T16:21:59.397" Score="3" ViewCount="519" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have translated the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那可不一定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It certainly can not be.&lt;/strong&gt; (*Hope this translation is correct)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what I have so far..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三十分（？）從，大（？）會（？）吊（？） 來。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for any help to fill the gaps (?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: This is part of my series of Doraemon comic book questions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RhB2c.png&quot; alt=&quot;Doraemon-1-2&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;UPDATE&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Based on accepted answer this should be..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;繁体: 三十分鐘後，大雄會被吊起來&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Please check out the comments on the answer below for 大雄 (the character's name).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T23:39:05.637" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T23:39:05.637" Title="Translation Gaps On Comic Conversation : 2" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9215" CreationDate="2014-08-21T16:32:11.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;那可不一定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lit. That [is] probably not absolute.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means, That may be not true / the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三十分钟后，大雄会被吊起来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means, After 30 minutes, Nobita will be hung.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4246" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-21T17:18:03.823" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T17:18:03.823" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9217" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9226" CreationDate="2014-08-21T17:00:25.603" Score="1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to say something like &quot;...but my heart belongs to Hong Kong&quot; as a possible response to &quot;where do you live?&quot; So the full context might be &quot;I live in X but my heart belongs to Hong Kong&quot;. Meaning I'd always prefer to be in Hong Kong. Is there a way to say this that does not sound weird in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate gives me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但我的心脏属于香港 (&lt;em&gt;Is this a good way to phrase the idea ?&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am hoping someone can provide a better way to say this (especially if the direct translation sounds awkward).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please feel free to follow-up if any clarification required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T01:15:15.513" Title="How to express this idea in a better way?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9218" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9220" CreationDate="2014-08-21T17:28:20.967" Score="0" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the work that I have done so far. Thank you for any help finding the missing characters (I don't need the translations, per se but just seeing a clear copy of the character would be helpful).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have some problems with seeing some characters in this older copy of a book (the Chinese character is sometimes too dark to distinguish strokes and scanning doesn't help). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are multiple questions because I want to show the work in context. I could break these up into smaller questions but that would not be helpful to other learners (learning conversation) and would unnecessarily clog the website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;四十分鐘後會 (？) 火 (？)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;。。。。(？) 有半個人在&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Also not sure how to interpret the characters on the last panel&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what I have so far:&#xA;&lt;em&gt;(Please let me know if anything is wrong)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是誰在說話？&#xA;  (Who is talking?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;快出來！&#xA;  (Come out!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好可怕！&#xA;  (&lt;del&gt;Awful!&lt;/del&gt; How Scary!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QaSlb.png&quot; alt=&quot;doraemon-1-3&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;UPDATE&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Based on answers, please note the updates. Thanks for the help.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;四十分鐘後會 (？) 火 (？)&lt;/strong&gt; ➾ 四十分钟后会被火烤 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;。。。。(？) 有半個人在&lt;/strong&gt;  ➾ 没有半个人在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Also not sure how to interpret the characters on the last panel&lt;/strong&gt;  ➾ 咚卡咚 (appears to be sounds)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T23:38:16.087" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T23:38:16.087" Title="Character Gaps On Comic Conversation : 3" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-08-25T00:00:23.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9219" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9221" CreationDate="2014-08-21T17:46:14.930" Score="8" ViewCount="15575" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to say &quot;thank you&quot;, I can say 谢谢 or 谢谢你. What if I want to be more specific and say &quot;thank you for (something)&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, suppose I was invited for dinner at someone's place, and I want to write a card to the host on which I say &quot;thank you for inviting me for dinner&quot;, how would I say that? Or how would I say &quot;thank you for the gift&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6256" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-11T14:35:20.403" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T04:42:01.110" Title="How to say &quot;thank you for ...&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9218" CreationDate="2014-08-21T17:51:49.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;四十分钟后会被火烤&lt;/code&gt; (it) will be roasted (by fire) in forty minutes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;没有半个人在&lt;/code&gt; there's not even half-a-person here!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;咚卡咚&lt;/code&gt; onomatopoeia (maybe like 'den den den' or whatever)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the only correction I would make is on your &lt;code&gt;好可怕！ (Awful!)&lt;/code&gt; I would translate this as &lt;code&gt;how scary!&lt;/code&gt; instead...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T17:51:49.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9219" CreationDate="2014-08-21T17:56:57.263" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Same as English just without the &lt;code&gt;for&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢 + what.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;thank you for the gift&quot; = 谢谢 + 礼物 － maybe you would say 你送给我的礼物 or just 你的礼物&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;you for inviting me for dinner&quot; = 谢谢 + 邀请 + 晚餐 - so altogether you would say 谢谢你那天邀请我吃晚饭 (which is for what already happened - seeing as you're writing a card, so obviously you're thanking for the dinner you've already eaten and not just for the invitation for an upcoming dinner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T17:56:57.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9217" CreationDate="2014-08-21T18:23:30.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One possibility would perhaps be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;住在X城但是香港一直在我的心中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T18:23:30.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9203" CreationDate="2014-08-21T18:42:49.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of Cantonese dictionaries online. The one I often use is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CantoDict&lt;/a&gt;. It is volunteer-contributed and is pretty comprehensive. I has both characters and words, and has pronunciation for both Cantonese in Jyutping and Mandarin in pinyin, meanings in English. and you can search based on characters, Jyutping, pinyin, or English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you get the hang of Jyutping, that will be the easiest way to search for something you know how to pronounce in Cantonese but don't know the character for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5978" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T18:42:49.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9217" CreationDate="2014-08-22T00:48:41.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我身處XX, 但仍然心繫香江.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &quot;香江&quot; is a well-known elegant way of saying &quot;香港&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &quot;仍然&quot; is optional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T00:48:41.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9211" CreationDate="2014-08-22T00:51:48.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;過年真清閒 = There is so much leisure time during the New Year Festival.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好事連連 = Good things happening one after another = Good fortune.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-22T09:30:58.943" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T09:30:58.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9217" CreationDate="2014-08-22T01:15:15.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may quote from 关羽（kuanyu） 身在曹营心在汉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can use 身在xx心在港.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another common 1 is 我虽然身在xx但我的心永远属于(or 向着facing) 香港&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6153" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T01:15:15.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9227" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-22T01:53:35.927" Score="2" ViewCount="347" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I've heard the phrase &quot; 为你们服务 “  used in a number of contexts. It seems like a relatively formal phrase, but I'm wondering how widely it could be used. Could I say, for example,&#xA;&quot;我们一下车就有两个人为我们服务“ &#xA;(the example would be at a sporting event with volunteers). &#xA;Is this colloquial? Or would it only work in written, very formal language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T02:24:48.337" Title="How informal can 为 someone 服务 be？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9227" CreationDate="2014-08-22T02:03:30.553" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This totally works colloquially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the most famous slogans in Chinese is: 为人民服务 (Serve the people!) - there is not a single Chinese person who doesn't know this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise you can always 为 XXX 服务, this should be very easily understood by almost anyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: maybe it would just sound a &lt;em&gt;little&lt;/em&gt; pedantic...you wouldn't exactly say that there's two people &lt;em&gt;serving&lt;/em&gt; you in English, though, would you...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T02:03:30.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9227" CreationDate="2014-08-22T02:19:14.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們一下車就有兩個人服務我們.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們一下車就有兩個人招待我們.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or more specifically&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一下車便有兩個服務員招待我們.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(And I think the leading &quot;我們&quot; can be omitted.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Question: is &quot;就有&quot; proper spoken Mandarin?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-08-22T02:24:48.337" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T02:24:48.337" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9219" CreationDate="2014-08-22T03:31:05.637" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the reason and the degree of gratitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone gives you something physical or someone does something for you, you say 謝謝 in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone gives you something physical, you say 多謝 in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone does something for you, you say 唔該 in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone does you a really big favor and you want to express deep gratitude, you can say 勞駕/有勞 in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, if you want someone to do something for you, you also say 請/麻煩 in Mandarin or 唔該 in Cantonese before the requested action, e.g. 唔該借借/請讓一讓 (meaning something like &quot;Please&quot; or &quot;Excuse me&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T03:31:05.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9231" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9294" CreationDate="2014-08-22T04:26:16.880" Score="4" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below are four tonal markings for 四川话:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/clGbt.png&quot; alt=&quot;tonemarks&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oqcpR.png&quot; alt=&quot;firsttone&quot;&gt; with a tone value of 55 (first tone)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wAwfK.png&quot; alt=&quot;secondtone&quot;&gt; with a tone value of 21 (second tone)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a9XvL.png&quot; alt=&quot;thirdtone&quot;&gt; with a tone value of 53 (third tone)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PJPjR.png&quot; alt=&quot;fourthtone&quot;&gt; with a tone value of 213 (fourth tone)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe these are an older form of the tonal markings that can be found today, i.e:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;first tone: ˥ (55)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;second tone: ˨˩ (21)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;third tone: ˥˧ (53)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;fourth tone: ˨˩˧ (213)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which have probably been made obsolete. &lt;strong&gt;Is my assumption correct?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If not what are the differences between these two different tonal markers?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What are these tonal markings called?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can the first type of tonal markings be typed?&lt;/strong&gt; (above are all pngs)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: the second type seem to be called &lt;em&gt;tone letters&lt;/em&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_letter&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_letter&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but they are individually built - unlike the first kind which are morphed into one single &quot;letter&quot;, if you will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;edit 2&lt;/strong&gt;: these are definitely tone letters of some sort...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xGV70.png&quot; alt=&quot;search&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tpK5v.png&quot; alt=&quot;search 2&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched &lt;code&gt;˨˩&lt;/code&gt; in bing and look what get's displayed in the search bar above!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's exactly the same as the second tone picture from above: &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wAwfK.png&quot; alt=&quot;secondtone&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;must be some sort of &lt;em&gt;font&lt;/em&gt; thing going on to display this, in this way... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;third tone works aswell:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R5Pbu.png&quot; alt=&quot;third tone&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and first tone:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pu4SB.png&quot; alt=&quot;first tone&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but fourth tone doesn't really get the same results...&#xA;so what's going on here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-25T08:59:27.697" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T15:49:38.827" Title="What are these tonal markings called?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9209" CreationDate="2014-08-22T05:32:36.743" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it should be say &quot; 我只是去那个店里和老板打了个招呼&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;say &quot;只是&quot; to point the mean of 「just quickly say &quot;hi&quot; and then leave」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6260" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T05:32:36.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9233" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9234" CreationDate="2014-08-22T15:40:06.953" Score="4" ViewCount="428" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning Chinese by reading different texts. I have some problems recognizing some characters in this older copy of a book (the Chinese character is sometimes too dark to distinguish strokes and scanning doesn't help). Here is the work that I have done so far. Thank you for any help finding the missing characters (&lt;strong&gt;I do not need the translations&lt;/strong&gt;, per se but just seeing a clear copy of the character would be helpful). In some cases if I have a question on context I have presented those issues. There are multiple questions because I want to show the work in context. I could break these up into smaller questions but that would not be helpful to other learners (learning conversation) and would unnecessarily clog the website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Title: (missing context)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哆啦 A 梦 ( I think this is supposed to sound-out &amp;quot;Doraemon&amp;quot; but other than A 梦 referencing a dream I am lost of the implied double meaning. )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need some help identifying the missing characters (I can find translations once I can see the characters clearly):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 1&#xA;( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是我: I'm here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;（？）了你一（？）吧&lt;/strong&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哇一: Sound(surprise); wa yi!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 2&#xA;( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是谁：Who are you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从哪里来的：Where did you come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想神什么: （？）not sure of meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 3&#xA;( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为。。。。。为什么会从这裡（？）出来：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一（？）問这么多叫我（？）么回（？）：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 4&#xA;( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（？）了！（？）而言之：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是来（？）你（？）（？）苦（？）的：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KAqtm.png&quot; alt=&quot;doraemon-1-4&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;UPDATE&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Semaphore's answer so it's easier to find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Title&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哆啦A夢 is just a transcription of ドラえもん|Doraemon, there's no meaning to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Panel 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是我: &amp;quot;It's me.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嚇了你一跳吧?: &amp;quot;Did I scare you?&amp;quot; (or more literally &amp;quot;I must have scared you, right?&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missed characters are: 嚇, 跳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Panel 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是誰? 從哪裡來的?: your translations are fine here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想幹什麼: &amp;quot;What do you want (to do)?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missed characters are: 幹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Panel 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為... 為什麽會從這裡跑出來... &amp;quot;H-How did you come out of here...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一次問我這麼多叫我怎麽回答?: &amp;quot;How do you expect me to answer so many questions in one go?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missed characters are: 跑, 次, 麽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Panel 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;算了! 總而言之, 我是來救你脫離苦海的: &amp;quot;Never mind (all that), basically I'm here to save you from your suffering.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missed characters are: 算, 總, 救, 脫, 離, 海&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T23:37:40.617" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T23:37:40.617" Title="Character Gaps On Comic Conversation : 4" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-08-24T23:59:50.267" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9233" CreationDate="2014-08-22T16:09:47.243" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Title&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哆啦A夢 is just a transcription of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doraemon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ドラえもん|Doraemon&lt;/a&gt;, there's no meaning to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Panel 1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;是我&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;It's me.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;嚇了你一跳吧?&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;Did I scare you?&quot; (or more literally &quot;I must have scared you, right?&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missed characters are: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;嚇&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;跳&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Panel 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你是誰? 從哪裡來的?&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;em&gt;your translations are fine here.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;想幹什麼&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;What do you want (to do)?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missed characters are: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;幹&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Panel 3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;為... 為什麽會從這裡跑出來...&lt;/code&gt; &quot;H-How did you come out of here...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一次問我這麼多叫我怎麽回答?&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;How do you expect me to answer so many questions in one go?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missed characters are: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;跑&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;次&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;麽&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Panel 4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;算了! 總而言之, 我是來救你脫離苦海的&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;Never mind (all that), basically I'm here to save you from your suffering.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missed characters are: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;算&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;總&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;救&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;脫&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;離&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;海&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2014-08-22T16:31:35.700" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T16:31:35.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9235" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9236" CreationDate="2014-08-22T19:04:31.513" Score="3" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;While reading a comic book, I have some problems with seeing some characters in this older copy of a book (the Chinese character is sometimes too dark to distinguish strokes and scanning doesn't help).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the work that I have done so far. Thank you for any help finding the missing characters (I don't need the translations, per se but just seeing a clear copy of the character would be helpful).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are multiple questions because I want to show the work in context. I could break these up into smaller questions but that would not be helpful to other learners (learning conversation) and would unnecessarily clog the website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pane 1&lt;/strong&gt; ( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是指我会（？）吊（？）来，和（？）火烤吗：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pane 2&lt;/strong&gt; ( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那些都小事一（？）：-&amp;gt; looks like 香 with a radical&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pane 3&lt;/strong&gt; ( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我回（？）你到老（？）之（？）都不会（？）到大（？）折。：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么！！：What!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pane 4&lt;/strong&gt; ( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是說你能（？）知道一个人的命（？）：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒错！：Yes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pane 5&lt;/strong&gt; ( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你一定想問我为社么知道对不对？：You must know what to ask me for, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊，对。。。：right...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uc5SY.png&quot; alt=&quot;doraemon-1-5&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T23:36:19.387" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T23:36:19.387" Title="Character Gaps On Comic Conversation : 5" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-08-24T23:59:31.060" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9235" CreationDate="2014-08-22T20:32:29.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Panel 1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你是指我會被吊起來，和被火烤嗎？&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;Are you saying I will be strung up and roasted with fire?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missing character: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;被&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;起&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;被&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Panel 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;這些都是小事一樁&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;Those are all no big deal.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missing character: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;樁&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Panel 3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我會讓你到老死之前都不會遇到大波折&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;I'll make sure you meet no major set backs until you die of old age.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missing character: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;讓&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;死&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;遇&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;波&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wrong character: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;回&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;會|会&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Panel 4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你是說你能夠知道一個人的命運&lt;/code&gt;： &quot;Are you saying you can see someone's future?&quot; (or more literally: &quot;know a person's fate&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;沒錯&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;That's right!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missing character: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;夠&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;運&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Panel 5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你一定想問我為什麼知道對不對&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;You must be wondering why I know, right?&quot; (or more literally, &quot;wanting to ask&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;嗯， 對&lt;/code&gt;: &quot;Umm, yes.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wrong character: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;啊&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;嗯&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T20:32:29.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9237" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9239" CreationDate="2014-08-23T01:10:20.487" Score="0" ViewCount="317" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading a comic book to learn more Chinese. I have some problems with seeing some characters in this older copy of a book (the Chinese character is sometimes too dark to distinguish strokes and scanning doesn't help).Thank you for any help finding the missing characters (I don't need the translations, per se but just seeing a clear copy of the character would be helpful).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are multiple questions because I want to show the work in context. I could break these up into smaller questions but that would not be helpful to other learners (learning conversation) and would unnecessarily clog the website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 2 ( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是什么？：What is this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（？）（？）：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 3 ( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一定很好吃!: (It is) Certainly delicious!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（？）: Not sure about the repeated character on the side but guessing its a sound?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 4 ( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我（？）一次吃这裡（？）西。：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 5 ( ? ➜ missing character )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢你的（？）（？）: Thank you for...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/McEwE.png&quot; alt=&quot;Doraemon-1-6&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;UPDATE&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First to restate, thank you to everyone for helping me learn more Mandarin! I hope that asking about unrecognized characters is okay on this site. I am adding the new characters and meanings to my phrase book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below are the accepted answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 2：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;麻薯：&lt;del&gt;potato&lt;/del&gt;? ok, I saw a picture and it looks like roasted rice cakes (aka Mochi or yakimochi)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Turns out this was not so simple. The meaning is a reference to yakimochi - i.e. roasted rice cake. Which is funny in this context. It's a hidden joke by the author ! )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咔咔：you are right, is a sound like kaka&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我头一次吃这种东西：It is my very first time eat something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢你的招待：Thanks for your hospitality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T23:35:25.317" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T23:35:25.317" Title="Character Gaps On Comic Conversation : 6" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2014-08-24T23:59:02.363" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9237" CreationDate="2014-08-23T02:41:55.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;partial answer： pane ３：咔 [kā]，pane ４ 我頭（头）一次吃这種（种）東(东)西 pane ５： 谢谢你的招待  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T02:41:55.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9237" CreationDate="2014-08-23T03:57:09.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pane 2：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;麻薯：potato&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咔咔：you are right, is a sound like kaka&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我头一次吃这种东西：It is my very first time eat something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pane 5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢你的招待：Thanks for your hospitality. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T03:57:09.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9240" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9242" CreationDate="2014-08-23T06:03:41.063" Score="2" ViewCount="552" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone translated this 麻薯 as a &quot;potato&quot; and Google Translate says it's Mochi, If it is a potato, could anyone share what kind? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I tried some research I came up with what looks like a character website (&lt;a href=&quot;http://taiwanmochi.com.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://taiwanmochi.com.tw&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English we have sweet potato, red, white, and other kinds... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate (which I am learning is not reliable) shows this for potato.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Translations of potato&#xA;  noun:&#xA;  马铃薯&#xA;  potato&#xA;  土豆&#xA;  potato, spud&#xA;  薯&#xA;  potato, yam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T07:09:37.070" Title="(麻薯), what kind, if not then what is it?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9241" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9246" CreationDate="2014-08-23T06:47:20.463" Score="5" ViewCount="710" Body="&lt;p&gt;In another answer someone helped me understand the meaning of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今年一定是好事連連&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At that time, I was having trouble getting the context of 連連. But then I saw both 好事連連 (good fortune) and 好运连连 (Good Luck).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I saw these at first I thought of idioms. When double words are put together, is there always a special meaning? Are there any rules to using double words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-08-23T15:56:31.010" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T14:06:20.310" Title="連連 Trying to understand the double word (叠词 or 叠字) usage" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9240" CreationDate="2014-08-23T07:09:37.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;麻薯 or 麻糬 is the transcription of Japanese desert &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mochi/もち&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 薯 means root vegetables.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Most of time it will be potato.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;馬鈴薯 potato&lt;br&gt;&#xA;蕃薯 sweet potato&lt;br&gt;&#xA;木薯/樹薯 cassava&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T07:09:37.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9243" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9245" CreationDate="2014-08-23T15:55:02.587" Score="2" ViewCount="506" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard 不三不四 pronounced (m sarm m sei) in Cantonese. I wonder if Mandarin speakers use this term and in what context? When I asked, someone they supposed that Mandarin speakers might prefer to use something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不知說謂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is correct and could anyone supply sample context? Is there a deeper meaning other than the literal sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some one said the phrase is a bit degrading. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T16:14:17.933" Title="不知說謂, 不三不四 - Meaning In Context?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9244" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9255" CreationDate="2014-08-23T15:59:10.673" Score="4" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other day I heard this guy referring to his 平板电脑 as an &lt;code&gt;iPad&lt;/code&gt; (爱怕德), when it was just some generic tablet computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese contains a lot of genericizations, 可乐 for &lt;code&gt;soda&lt;/code&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this one too, now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-08-12T14:17:54.870" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T14:17:54.870" Title="Has the iPad been genericized in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9243" CreationDate="2014-08-23T16:14:17.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;不三不四 is a perfectly acceptable term in Mandarin &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;IDIOM&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 指人 shady&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;交不三不四的朋友 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;make friends with dubious characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 指言词 neither one thing nor the other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;说些不三不四的话 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;make frivolous remarks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you might be mistaking 不知说谓 for 不知所谓 which 汉语大辞典 defines as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不知道该怎么办, 犹言无计可施。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不三不四 is definitely better though!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T16:14:17.933" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9241" CreationDate="2014-08-23T16:46:31.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;连连 is an &lt;em&gt;adverb&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 repeatedly; again and again; one after another&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他连连摇头。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā liánlián yáotóu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He shook his head repeatedly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 slowly; quietly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;repeatedly; again and again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;连连点头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Liánlián diǎntóu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nod again and again (to show agreement, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;演出结束, 观众连连叫好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yǎnchū jiéshù, guānzhòng liánlián jiàohǎo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the performance, the audience applauded again and again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;over and over again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;连连称好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;keep praising&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;连连得手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;make it again and again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all 叠词 are the same, &lt;code&gt;匆匆&lt;/code&gt; for example is an adjective - &lt;code&gt;潺潺&lt;/code&gt; is ONOMATOPOEIA - there is no rule for this kind of thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T16:46:31.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9190" CreationDate="2014-08-23T17:05:16.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remembered seeing something like this in &quot;Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar&quot; (Yip and Rimmington) and checked it. They have the following order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Possession&#xA;Location&#xA;Time&#xA;Scope&#xA;Numeral + MW&#xA;State or Activity&#xA;Characteristics&#xA;Shape&#xA;Colour&#xA;Material&#xA;Function&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their example is 他鞋架上去年那(一)双穿了又穿(的)破破烂烂的尖头的黑色棉布拖鞋.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checked another grammar book 现代汉语使用语法分析 on Google Books (&lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=A6_NII-r8UMC&amp;amp;pg=PR3#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=A6_NII-r8UMC&amp;amp;pg=PR3#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&lt;/a&gt;) and it has another order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;领属代词&#xA;数量词&#xA;动词结构&#xA;副词&#xA;形容词&#xA;名词&#xA;名词&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples are 朋友送给我的一双从上海买来的非常漂亮的意大利名牌皮鞋 and 老师给我推荐的一本最近出版的非常好用的汉语词典.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="762" LastEditorUserId="762" LastEditDate="2014-08-23T17:17:07.427" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T17:17:07.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9248" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9254" CreationDate="2014-08-23T17:17:48.433" Score="3" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in the usage of the term 离开 as in &quot; to leave&quot;. If, for example, I was traveling with another person on the underground (train) and I left them/we separated (to take different trains) would it be considered&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我离开他？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-23T17:24:36.120" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T05:37:25.870" Title="Can you 离开 a person? (as in physically separate from them?)" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9252" CreationDate="2014-08-23T17:21:35.383" Score="5" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out how I could express that I had a feeling/emotion. and then, after a certain event happend/began I &quot;Quickly forgot&quot; that I had that emotion.&#xA;In english we could say &quot;At the beginning of the date I was really hungry, but after talking with her for a couple of minutes I quickly forgot my hunger&quot; &#xA;Could I say &#xA;&quot;我就快忘了我以前饿的样子。 &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T12:58:56.257" Title="How do you say &quot;I quickly forgot...&quot; (As in an emotion you were feeling)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9248" CreationDate="2014-08-23T17:21:55.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sounds weird. &lt;strong&gt;分开&lt;/strong&gt; is a lot better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence would be 我们分开了 - we split up - and not &lt;em&gt;I left him&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;VERB&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 不聚在一起 part&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人群分开让他通过。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The crowd parted to let him through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 使分开 separate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;分开两个拳击手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;separate two boxers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;政企分开&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;separate government from enterprise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这两件事要分开来解决。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two issues should be dealt with separately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T17:21:55.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9244" CreationDate="2014-08-23T20:51:36.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my Chinese language environment, 可乐 is not for soda, it's for cola.&#xA;Soda is 苏达/苏打 in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the iPad case, maybe it's because iPad holds the market against other competitors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, this is not limited to Chinese. When saying cola, we may assume it to be coca cola, although there is pepsi cola and lots of other colas(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cola_brands&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cola_brands&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T20:51:36.083" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9249" CreationDate="2014-08-23T20:57:35.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you forgot your hunger because of work or study, you can say 废寝忘食, which means you work/study too hard to eat/sleep.&#xA;PS: You can not say 废寝忘食 for a girl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for this sentence &quot;At the beginning of the date I was really hungry, but after talking with her for a couple of minutes I quickly forgot my hunger&quot;, you can say:&#xA;我刚见到她的时候还饿得很，但和她聊了几分钟之后很快就被我抛到脑后了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T20:57:35.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9248" CreationDate="2014-08-23T21:00:22.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems  分开 can be used with preposition／coverb ＂跟＂to refer to who is being left（departed from），but then it may sound more sentimental（？）just as 离开：跟人，物或地方分开： 我跟他分开了&#xA;cf。【 跟她分开 】 【 歌词 】，＂和＂ is also possible：和姐姐分开对约翰来说有好处。&#xA;iciba，has examples of 离开＜某人＞ but only in the sense of 离开（关系亲密的人）&#xA;1. VERB 离开（某处或某人）：我就是受不了要离开我的小女儿。3. VERB 抛下，离弃（配偶）；离开（关系亲密的人）他不会离开你的，你不用担心。要是比尔为了别的女人离开我，我会醋意大发。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T21:00:22.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9248" CreationDate="2014-08-24T05:41:57.123" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, but I probably would use 分开 in your example if I wanted to emphasise the fact that &lt;code&gt;we separated&lt;/code&gt; (and that it was a mutual act). For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们在那个地铁站分开，因为他要去医院而我要去百货商店。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We separated at the train station, because he needed to go to the hospital, but I needed to go to the department store.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But saying &lt;code&gt;离开某人&lt;/code&gt; can also work. For instance, when the separation is more &amp;quot;one-sided&amp;quot; (in terms of how it's described), it makes sense to use 离开. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我离开我妈妈之后，我去了加拿大读研究生院。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After I left my mother, I went to Canada to attend graduate school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the very least, this usage makes sense to me as a semi-native speaker of Chinese. &lt;em&gt;Notice that the connotations of 离开 and 分开 are somewhat different.&lt;/em&gt; Moreover, 分开 wouldn't be used with an object to state &lt;code&gt;A left B&lt;/code&gt; - rather, it would be used to state &lt;code&gt;A and B separated&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could also use &lt;code&gt;离开&lt;/code&gt; in the original setting as well, but mostly in situations similar to the one I described above. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在地铁站离开他之后，我去了百货商店。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在那个地铁站离开我朋友，因为我要去厕所。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &lt;code&gt;我离开他&lt;/code&gt; (as a sentence in itself) sounds odd without any appropriate qualifications to the statement. Moreover, using &lt;code&gt;离开&lt;/code&gt; to state something like &lt;code&gt;我在地铁站离开他，因为我们坐不同的地铁线&lt;/code&gt; sounds odd to me (because the subordinate clause focuses on &lt;code&gt;我们&lt;/code&gt;）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T05:37:25.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9244" CreationDate="2014-08-24T07:41:23.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think in this case, it's true&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;iPad&quot; is more famous, most people (at least in mainland) aren't familiar with digital devices. People maybe don't know what tablet computer is, but they know &quot;Oh it's Apple's iPad&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6194" LastActivityDate="2014-08-24T07:41:23.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9256" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9257" CreationDate="2014-08-24T09:31:12.733" Score="4" ViewCount="519" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; is used after verb or sentence to indicate that something has been finished/done or something has changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; is used in many cases, one of which is to indicate the speaker's modality of certainty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他来了。 He has come. (O)&lt;/strong&gt;  -&gt; 了 needs to be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他来的。 (X)&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; 的 should not be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他现在才来了（X)&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; Now, 了 should not be used in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他现在才来的。He has just come. (O)&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; Now, 的 needs to be used in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently there is some rule that I am missing, which makes me quite confused about how exactly these &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will be really nice if I can tell which one is an appropriate one when I write things in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6131" LastActivityDate="2014-08-24T19:30:37.790" Title="When to use 了 and 的?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9256" CreationDate="2014-08-24T13:01:14.780" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;他（是）现在才来的 is a 是的 construction for emphasis. In this case, 是 is omitted. He has arrived just now, in this very moment!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example: 我是来看病的: I have come to have a health check (rather than just socialize).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他来了 just indicates he has arrived, without emphasis. 了 completes the statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-08-24T13:01:14.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9256" CreationDate="2014-08-24T13:44:43.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Textbooks should stop saying 的 forms past tense sentences.  It does not.  It forms adjectives.  The grammar of 他现在才来的 is not like &quot;he just now has-arrived&quot; with the past tense of &quot;to arrive.&quot;  The grammar is &quot;he is newly arrived,&quot; where &quot;newly arrived&quot; is an adjective modifying &quot;he.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact they should stop talking about past tense in Chinese.  Chinese is aspectual, not tensed.  In those more accurate terms, 了 indicates perfect aspect of 来, while 的 indicates that 现在才来 applies to 他. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I defer to 倪阔乐's expertise in saying the pragmatic force of the adjectival form is to make some point explicit or emphatic.  But I want to make the point that 了 indicates perfect aspect of a verb, while 的 links an adjective to a noun.  They are quite different grammatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both roles occur in the example : 你是怎么把他杀了的 from Ath's answer to  your question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/8978/%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88-with-%E7%9A%84-and-%E4%BA%86&quot;&gt;怎么.... with 的 and 了&lt;/a&gt;.  There the 了 indicates perfect aspect of 杀 (did kill), while 的 indicates that 把他杀了 applies to  你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-08-24T19:30:37.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9259" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-25T04:01:35.583" Score="4" ViewCount="588" Body="&lt;p&gt;The modern colloquial phrase &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/b/15d/353967.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;八竿子打不着&lt;/a&gt;&quot; is used as an adjective to describe &quot;very distant, unrelated&quot;. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是八竿子打不着的事情，怎么能联系上呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It literally means &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%85%AB%E7%AB%BF%E5%AD%90%E6%89%93%E4%B8%8D%E7%9D%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;couldn't hit with even eight poles&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. I can see how this leads to the actual meaning, but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does the eight represent? Eight poles (why)? A unit of measure? A metaphor for &quot;many&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does the hitting with poles signify? Does it represent a specific activity?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/277348.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a few theories&lt;/a&gt; - folk etymologies really - about where this came from, but none are referenced well. The earliest record of this phrase is usually attributed to the novel 飘飞的大雪 by 母国政, which unfortunately does not shed any more light on the origin of this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T15:19:53.607" Title="Explanation for the meaning of 八竿子打不着?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9259" CreationDate="2014-08-25T05:39:00.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, what I heard is another story, but I cannot confirm or verify it. “八(ba1)竿子打不着” MAYBE came from &quot;爬(pa2)竿子打不着“，here 竿子 means ladder, and ”爬竿子打不着“ means &quot;it's too high, you cannot hit it even with a ladder (when you climbed a ladder)&quot;. And since &quot;pa&quot; and &quot;ba&quot; sounds similar, it became &quot;ba&quot; in current version. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6149" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T05:39:00.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9259" CreationDate="2014-08-25T06:33:13.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many cases, a number in an idiom or proverb or colloquial phrase doesn't mean the exact number itself. So you are right to think &lt;em&gt;eight&lt;/em&gt; here means &lt;em&gt;many&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Talk about the hitting activity, you may imagine yourself with a pole under a chestnut tree, to harvest the chestnuts, you have to hit with your pole. But your pole is too short so you hit &lt;em&gt;eight&lt;/em&gt; times but get nothing. As a reference, there's another colloquial phrase involving a pole and hitting: 有枣没枣三杆子, which literally means no matter you see jujubes on the tree or not, just hit three times with a pole (in hope of hitting something by fortune). Similarly, three in this phrase doesn't mean the exact number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6209" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T06:33:13.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9262" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9269" CreationDate="2014-08-25T08:33:45.100" Score="8" ViewCount="591" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is written in Chinese at this location &lt;code&gt;40.449787, 116.548828&lt;/code&gt; on Google maps? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tried using translators. But didn't find any feasible answer for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uG3nN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;This is the image&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used Google translator and wrote these words 于 毛 王 床 and got this translation - Yu Mao king bed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6268" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-05-09T23:39:17.540" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T23:39:17.540" Title="What is written in this satellite photograph? (Characters identified: 忠于毛主席)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9259" CreationDate="2014-08-25T08:43:15.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a word few man knows the source, but all can understand it's meaning.&#xA;八 maybe is actually transformed from 扒 in the real meaning, which means climb by a pole or some what likeness.&#xA;In fact, it's more likely to mean there is no relation between two things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6269" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T08:43:15.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9262" CreationDate="2014-08-25T08:45:33.400" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This means we are loyal to Chairman Mao.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6269" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-08-25T11:10:56.137" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T11:10:56.137" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9259" CreationDate="2014-08-25T09:17:54.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does the eight represent? Eight poles (why)? A unit of measure? A metaphor for &quot;many&quot;?&#xA;A metaphor for &quot;many&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the hitting with poles signify? Does it represent a specific activity?&#xA;It just represent distance very far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“现在有些人，千方百计地寻找在国外八竿子打不着的亲友，想方设法要出去。” means &quot;Nowadays many people want go abroad so that they find friend or relatives a long time without contacts.&quot;&#xA;Therefore, that &quot;relative or friend&quot; are too far to him (who want go abroad), even using a pole has eight times length of a plain pole can not hit &quot;relative or friend&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopes you can understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6271" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T09:17:54.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9241" CreationDate="2014-08-25T10:34:17.913" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When I saw these at first I thought of idioms. When double words are put together, is there always a special meaning? Are there any rules to using double words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a complementary to @user3306356 's answer,&#xA;there are some variations of 叠词 (I couldn't cover all of them, but I will list out some for your reference :) )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1. Verb&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The syntax would be &lt;code&gt;AA(n.)&lt;/code&gt;, for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;吃吃東西&lt;/code&gt; : Eat something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;畫畫圖畫&lt;/code&gt; : Draw something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2. Adjective （BAA）&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually in a form of &lt;code&gt;(n.)aa&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;(adj.)aa&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's consider &lt;code&gt;紅彤彤&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;白雪雪&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;紅&lt;/code&gt; has the meaning of RED, however 彤 in &lt;code&gt;紅彤彤&lt;/code&gt; refers to 丹砂 (a red-color ink), which decorates the adjective &lt;code&gt;紅(RED)&lt;/code&gt; itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;code&gt;白雪雪&lt;/code&gt;, 雪 means &lt;code&gt;snow&lt;/code&gt;, which gives &lt;code&gt;白雪雪&lt;/code&gt; a meaning of &quot;Snowy white&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more than one way to describe a single colour in different context, such as 白茫茫,白皙晢,白花花,白蒼蒼,白皚皚 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;3. Adjective/Adverb （AA / AABB）&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can consider words in form of AA / AABB as 疊詞 as well,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 重重疊疊 (Piles over piles) and 彎彎曲曲 (Curvy, in twist and turns)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;4. Adjective/Adverb （ABAB / ABAC）&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese language, we also consider the form ABAB and ABAC as 疊詞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such as &lt;code&gt;百發百中&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;自由自在&lt;/code&gt;, however most of them are idioms. We often use double words to emphasize the story itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;5. Onomatopoeia&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, 疊詞 are just used as onomatopoeia (word that phonetically imitates the sound itself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;潺潺&lt;/code&gt;, pronounced as 'san san', which imitates the sound of flowing water.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;淙淙&lt;/code&gt;, reads 'cong cong' also refers to the sound of water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Extra&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a famous poem《聲聲慢》by 李清照(Li Qingzhao), a poet from Song dynasty which starts with 14 words of 疊詞, is a masterpeice of double words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;尋尋覓覓， 冷冷清清， 淒淒慘慘戚戚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people tried to translate the lines into English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;尋尋覓覓， I seek in vain, I search in vain; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冷冷清清， Chilled to the bone, all alone; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;淒淒慘慘戚戚。 In pain, in tears, unconsolable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Finally, my answer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, where does &lt;code&gt;好事連連&lt;/code&gt; fall?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;好事&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;Good things&quot;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;連連&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;Again and again&quot; or simply &quot;repeatedly&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's in a (n.)AA format, which means literally &quot;Good things happens repeatedly&quot; (It's really a good fortune).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6272" LastEditorUserId="6272" LastEditDate="2014-08-25T14:06:20.310" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T14:06:20.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9262" CreationDate="2014-08-25T13:48:13.070" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;忠于毛主席&#xA;Zhōng yú Máo zhǔxí&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;忠 means faithful;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;于 is a multi-use preposition which, to me, sounds a bit archaic/formal, and here means &quot;to&quot;, but can also mean &quot;in&quot; or &quot;on&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;毛 is Mao Zedong's surname;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;主席 means &quot;chairman&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this translates to &quot;Faithful to Chairman Mao&quot;. By the way, if you give the correct characters to Google, the translation it gives is &lt;code&gt;Loyal to Chairman Mao&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2015-10-05T09:09:21.073" LastActivityDate="2015-10-05T09:09:21.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9270" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9272" CreationDate="2014-08-25T14:21:26.743" Score="0" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I have a person's name in place of the noun and I am trying to get a better handle on how to interpret this sentence. Would it be for example, Tommie's people predicted? The full context is that this is a chapter in a book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate gives me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;...of people predicted&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or could it be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Predicted (n.) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Context: A Chapter title in the book I am reading:&#xA;哆啦 A 梦的大預言&#xA;Where the first part is just a name of the person in the book..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on comment's; it seems this would then be (n.) predictions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variations of the possessive do not seem to make sense to me in this context. Thanks in advance for any assistance resolving how to interpret this structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T23:34:14.597" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T23:34:14.597" Title="(n.) 的大預言 having trouble making sense of this construct" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9259" CreationDate="2014-08-25T15:19:53.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the 八 here really is just adjective for the length of your imaginary stick(has no literal meaning, just that it's long), meaning that even if you have a long stick, you still can't reach from one to the other, signifying that there are really no relationships between the two things in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4065" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T15:19:53.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9270" CreationDate="2014-08-25T15:31:30.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;的大预言&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;预言 means &lt;em&gt;prophecy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大 means &lt;em&gt;big&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;预言 here most likely is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; plural - hence the whole &lt;em&gt;的大&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: found this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://doraemon.wikia.com/wiki/Chapter_2:Prophecy_of_Doraemon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://doraemon.wikia.com/wiki/Chapter_2:Prophecy_of_Doraemon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a chapter called &quot;Prophecy of Doraemon&quot; maybe it matches up to what you are reading...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EuHaM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T15:31:30.410" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9273" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9282" CreationDate="2014-08-25T15:44:58.200" Score="1" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe the hardest part so far about learning to read Chinese is determining when to read the characters in sequence and when to view them separately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in my recent question on 的大预言 for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a rule that can tell me to interpret which of these ideas separately?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;预言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大预言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T01:10:21.243" Title="Rules on when to read characters in sequence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9274" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9280" CreationDate="2014-08-25T15:53:13.783" Score="3" ViewCount="438" Body="&lt;p&gt;So in a recent answer someone told me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;预言 here most likely is not plural - hence the whole 的大&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which brings to mind a question about other ways of determining plurality. Certainly I've heard of using 們 as in 他們 and I know that 的 acts as a possessive and plurality is then based on the subject (n.)的... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other common plurality indicators?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-08-25T19:40:27.740" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T05:20:17.560" Title="Ways to determine whether a noun phrase is plural" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9275" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9279" CreationDate="2014-08-25T16:29:09.357" Score="8" ViewCount="4681" Body="&lt;p&gt;With traditional Chinese characters it is correct and proper to address a female as “妳”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I have a simple question, I think it's clear I should use the female form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;妳最近好嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But to say &quot;hello&quot;, “你好” feels more like a set phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is simple,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I write &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;妳好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when addressing a female?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or just use the gender-neutral&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="80" LastEditorUserId="80" LastEditDate="2014-08-28T05:30:14.340" LastActivityDate="2014-08-28T13:28:43.423" Title="Should one write “妳好&quot; when addressing a female?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9274" CreationDate="2014-08-25T17:27:38.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure, numerals:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;两个孩子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三个老虎&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;四个城市&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五件衣服&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;六挺机枪&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;七位女性&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十万个为什么&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T17:27:38.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9275" CreationDate="2014-08-25T18:03:25.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is easily answered by a look at any Chinese grammar or dictionary,e.g.  Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington's Chinese a Comprehensive grammar, 外国人实用汉语语法， A Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners 实用现代汉语语法（增订本）（２００１年 北京）only have 你／您 in their lists of personal pronouns. 另外有不少每天都看中文阅读材料的网民阅读本问题头一次和这虚构汉字见了面。在这方面繁和简体之间没有区别。It seems the question has been exhaustively answered before:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/189/how-widespread-is-the-use-of-%E5%A6%B3How&quot;&gt;How widespread is the use of 妳?&lt;/a&gt; widespread is the use of 妳?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As is well known 她 was first used by Liu Bannong in 1920 (1920年9月4日) and thereafter gradually gained general acceptance. What is the history of 妳 though?. A fairly long  article in traditional characters about Liu Bannong &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zwbk.org/MyLemmaShow.aspx?zh=zh-tw&amp;amp;lid=129512&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zwbk.org/MyLemmaShow.aspx?zh=zh-tw&amp;amp;lid=129512&lt;/a&gt; contains 她 ７ times, but makes no reference to 妳. 請問「妳」與「她」的由來及歷史？&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question?qid=1012062907110&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question?qid=1012062907110&lt;/a&gt; says 是民國初年文學界有鴛鴦蝴蝶派用白話寫散文新詩 but zh.wikipedia's article on 鴛鴦蝴蝶派 contains no reference to 妳. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-08-28T13:28:43.423" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9275" CreationDate="2014-08-25T18:17:07.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should I say “妳好“ when addressing a female?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both &quot;you&quot; has the same pronunciation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should one write “妳好&quot; when addressing a female?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both the male and female forms of &quot;you&quot; works, and you can use 您 as a more polite form of &quot;you&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4065" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T18:17:07.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9275" CreationDate="2014-08-25T19:20:28.900" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you can definitely use “妳好“ when addressing female. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However notice that in Chinese there isn't a strict usage defined to differentiate addressing male and female. If you use &quot;你&quot; instead, the reader will not (and probably should not) assume a male is addressed in the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other word, &quot;你好&quot; is perfectly fine to address female without any grammatical concern.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3942" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T19:20:28.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9274" CreationDate="2014-08-25T20:05:54.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interestingly the ways to identify plurality in Chinese are almost the same as in English only except the noun itself doesn't change its form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Count word larger than one: &lt;b&gt;两&lt;/b&gt;只老虎 (&lt;b&gt;two&lt;/b&gt; tigers)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Collective measure word: 一&lt;b&gt;打&lt;/b&gt;啤酒 (a &lt;b&gt;dozen&lt;/b&gt; of beer)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Collective noun (grammatically singular, semantically singular or plural depending on the context): 狼&lt;b&gt;群&lt;/b&gt; (wolf &lt;b&gt;pack&lt;/b&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Degree adverb pertaining to quantity: &lt;b&gt;很多&lt;/b&gt;书 (&lt;b&gt;many&lt;/b&gt; books)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Degree adverb that implies plurality: &lt;b&gt;所有&lt;/b&gt;证据 (&lt;b&gt;all&lt;/b&gt; the evidences)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Plural suffix: 小朋友&lt;b&gt;们&lt;/b&gt; (the kids)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T20:05:54.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9274" CreationDate="2014-08-26T00:57:45.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English we have '&lt;strong&gt;s&lt;/strong&gt;' at the back of the noun to identify it's plural or singular, however it's not apply to Chinese, with the noun itself, we can't tell. So we have to add the quantifier to show it's plural when it come to many.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For quantifier, it should be something like 两个,三间，四条，五把 and etc, measure-words would be the 个, 间, 条, 把 and etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, we just use one car, but in Chinese, we need to add the measure-words : 一辆汽车, different object will have different measure-words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certain measure-words do define the quantity like 一双，(a pair of) 一打(a dozen), 一排(a row of) but not all of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what I mean is with the word &lt;strong&gt;cars&lt;/strong&gt;, we can tell it's multiple cars. However we do not have something like 汽车s &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6153" LastEditorUserId="6153" LastEditDate="2014-08-26T05:20:17.560" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T05:20:17.560" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9273" CreationDate="2014-08-26T01:10:21.243" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is actually no straightforward way except base on your own experience. And this is one of the biggest problem leads to misleading, especially in ancient Chinese. Taking examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confucius Lun Yu （论语）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;民可使由之不可使知之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be understood by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;民,可使由之;不可使知之 -- (The governor) can make use of the people, but cannot let them know the purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;民可，使由之;不可，使知之 -- If people are allowed to do something, let them do it; otherwise, let them know why they are not allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An old funny story in my memory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下雨天留客天留我不留&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下雨天留客,天留我不留 -- As a guest, even the god wants you to stay (in my home) because of the rain, I won't let you stay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下雨天,留客天,留我不?留! -- A rainy day is a day that the guest should stay, should (you) let me stay? Sure!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in modern Chinese, the problem still stay:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们中出了一个叛徒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们 中 出了 一个 叛徒 -- There is one betrayer in us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们 中出了 一个 叛徒 -- We had sexual interaction with a betrayer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4394" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T01:10:21.243" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9274" CreationDate="2014-08-26T04:48:30.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I figured this deserved more than a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another &lt;em&gt;big&lt;/em&gt; indicator of plurality would be &lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt; - 都 means: &lt;code&gt;all&lt;/code&gt; - so obviously it can't be &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; of &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...孩子都... all the kids&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...老虎都... all the tigers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...啤酒都... all the beers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T04:48:30.760" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9287" CreationDate="2014-08-26T05:01:02.183" Score="6" ViewCount="3142" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recall in Mandarin class, my teacher would often discuss an idea about countable nouns. I never really understood how one would easily determine when one is faced with a countable vs uncountable noun. So I did a bit of research and found this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/words/countable-nouns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;site&lt;/a&gt;. I am now trying to verify that the situation works in a similar fashion in Mandarin and more importantly I am interested in one or two Chinese examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DN2qz.png&quot; alt=&quot;uncountable-vs-countable&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally and most importantly, is this idea of countable nouns intertwined with measure words? If so, how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I did a bit more research and ran across an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.italki.com/question/76362&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;italki discussion&lt;/a&gt; where chinese speakers said this does not exist because everything is countable in Chinese. However a search revealed these &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Chinese_uncountable_nouns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;samples&lt;/a&gt;. At this point I don't know who is correct but more insight would be helpful. Did the wiki have it wrong or is the concept mentioned something other than what I've indicated in the title. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IZYsl.png&quot; alt=&quot;wiki-uncountable-nouns&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE 2:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in order to reconcile the apparent differences I did some more research and found the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_noun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;information&lt;/a&gt;. The presence of quantifiers, seem to me, to relate closely to the idea of measure-words, which, I believe is the point my teacher was trying to convey. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U7s09.png&quot; alt=&quot;theory&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE 3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to clarify. I accept the solution offered however this &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%97%B6%E9%97%B4#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;site&lt;/a&gt; still indicates some exception to the rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(countable) time; a measurement of a quantity of time; a numerical indication of a length of time&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F4VSo.png&quot; alt=&quot;exception&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesegrammar.info/general/beginners-basic-chinese-grammar/#Use_measure_words_with_nouns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Info&lt;/a&gt; reports on the relationship between measure-words and nouns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3KbRa.png&quot; alt=&quot;measure-words&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-08-26T14:35:26.843" LastActivityDate="2015-11-28T17:31:50.010" Title="Chinese countable/uncountable nouns (How do they work? Examples?)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9285" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9286" CreationDate="2014-08-26T05:04:03.550" Score="3" ViewCount="276" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;唻&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;唻的解释&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拼音:lai4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呼声。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;【本字提供国家或地区】&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国大陆、中国台湾、日本、韩国、越南&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 唻 not have a simplificated version?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/content.asp?uni=181876&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ZiSea&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/L35kQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;zisea&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;字海&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eRd9Q.png&quot; alt=&quot;zihai&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As this ^ (above) just seems to be listed as a &lt;em&gt;variant&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T08:03:49.203" Title="simplification of 唻?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9285" CreationDate="2014-08-26T05:20:39.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a simplified word, and it is a rare used word. Most people will recognize it only as 哆唻咪(doreme), but now it's replaced mostly by 哆来咪，or even 多来米. &#xA;And the word 口来, though it is said to be simplified version of 唻， in fact this may not be realy a word, it's never used, even can't be inputed by most Chinese IMEs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6269" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T05:20:39.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9284" CreationDate="2014-08-26T05:32:19.103" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is a terribly bad idea learning Mandarin by trying to map grammar from Western languages onto it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no such thing as countable nouns in Chinese, precisely because nouns do not have plurals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, you can make any noun ”countable” by adding a classifier to it： 你要一杯咖啡吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T05:32:19.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1157" CreationDate="2014-08-26T06:16:23.233" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;中东&quot; means &quot;the Middle East&quot;, and &quot;华东&quot; means &quot;Eastern China”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6274" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T06:16:23.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9285" CreationDate="2014-08-26T06:25:05.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8871/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantodict&lt;/a&gt; reports that this is a Cantonese word and is the simplified variant of 嚟 (per Google Translate) &quot;Come out and walk&quot;. I would suggest having a native speaker confirm that meaning. I was able to find the 18 stroke traditional character (嚟) and key it into the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jmtcL.png&quot; alt=&quot;variant&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NRbw7.png&quot; alt=&quot;close-up&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/569F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zdict&lt;/a&gt; has more information on the traditional character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-08-26T07:15:35.170" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T07:15:35.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9284" CreationDate="2014-08-26T08:06:24.893" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese doesn't distinguish countable or uncountable. We have unit word in front of almost every noun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T08:06:24.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9291" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9317" CreationDate="2014-08-26T12:02:57.487" Score="5" ViewCount="1683" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the English alphabet there's a site, FontSquirrel, that provides great free fonts for commercial use, handpicked and tested. I haven't found anything similar for Chinese fonts, the only very good free font and commercial-use OK is Google Noto, but I'd need something more &quot;traditional-looking&quot;, a type of font you'd find in school books. If there isn't anything good for free, I am also OK with purchasing something, but I haven't found online neither a store for Chinese fonts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6275" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T04:00:12.907" Title="Simplified Chinese font easily readable, suitable for documents and OK for commercial use?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9291" CreationDate="2014-08-26T13:51:33.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unsurprisingly the Japanese do this better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fonts.jp/hanazono/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hanazono&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; have an excellent, free, font:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;About Hanazono font&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This font is a free kanji font. The KAGE system&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fonts.jp/hanazono/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, Clipper&lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.jp/projects/hanazono-font/releases/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, FontForge[3]&#xA;  and TTX[4] are used to create this font. All glyphs in this font are from&#xA;  GlyphWiki[5].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;List of included characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This font contains about 90,041 characters (and spaces) defined&#xA;  in ISO/IEC 10646 standard / the Unicode standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's broken up into two files HanaMinA.ttf and HanaMinB.ttf and can be downloaded from &lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.jp/projects/hanazono-font/releases/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Source Forge&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T13:51:33.923" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9291" CreationDate="2014-08-26T14:38:40.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are using Windows (XP, Vista, 7, ....), you can install the Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese Support.  Then you will have fonts like MingLiU, Kai and SimSun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T14:38:40.057" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9231" CreationDate="2014-08-26T15:49:38.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This a well-known issue to do with the &lt;em&gt;rendering&lt;/em&gt; of contour tones in certain computer fonts. The Wikipedia article for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_letter&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tone letter&lt;/a&gt; states that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The contour-tone letters are composed as sequences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &quot;Modifier Tone Letters&quot; block in the Unicode standard (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UA700.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;A700-A71F in Unicode 7.0&lt;/a&gt;), only the level tone letters are provided. Hence any non-level tone letter is created by &quot;smart rendering&quot; capabilities within the program and within the font; it is usually classed as a type of &lt;a href=&quot;http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&amp;amp;id=CmplxRndExamples#3e655409&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ligature&lt;/a&gt;. However, many (or most?) browsers cannot handle them, or only provide some of the ligatures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T15:49:38.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9295" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9299" CreationDate="2014-08-26T16:38:08.253" Score="10" ViewCount="1236" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to have a clarification on this: I know that 倍 means &quot;-times, -fold&quot;, but I don't understand why 一倍 seems to mean &quot;twice as (fast)&quot; in the following sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开车最少比骑自行车快一倍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while we have to use 两倍 in the following sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8是4的两倍。&#xA;X贵两倍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how to tag this question so feel free to change it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3739" LastActivityDate="2014-08-29T20:59:10.447" Title="When to use 一倍 vs 两倍" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9295" CreationDate="2014-08-26T17:12:16.223" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一倍&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tuttle's Learners&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fold, time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个学校的学生人数比我们学校多一倍。(=这个学校的学生人数是我们学校的两倍。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zhège xuéxiào de xuésheng rénshù bǐ wǒmen xuéxiào duō yí bèi. (= Zhège xuéxiào de xuésheng rénshù shì wǒmen xuéxiào de liǎng bèi.)&#xA;The student number of this school is twice as big as that of our school. (—&amp;gt; The student population of this school is twice of ours.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多一倍 is translated, first in Chinese as 两倍 so it's easy to see how confusing this phrasing is! But....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;两倍&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;② [indicating difference in quantity]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这一带水稻产量比小麦高两倍&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The output of rice is three times that of wheat in this area&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两倍 has become &lt;strong&gt;three times&lt;/strong&gt; here(!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;but&lt;/strong&gt;(!) - still from &lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的工资相当于我的两倍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your salary is twice that of mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically you've really got to look at the context to figure out the meaning!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence above&#xA;&lt;code&gt;开车最少比骑自行车快一倍。&lt;/code&gt; the 快 here has the same effect as 多 so it's really saying it's &amp;quot;one time as fast&amp;quot; which is really &amp;quot;twice as fast&amp;quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that makes sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T17:23:10.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9295" CreationDate="2014-08-26T17:21:09.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the more correct way to use 一倍/兩倍 is answered by user3306356 and Caff Huang. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, in most contexts, 快一倍 and 快兩倍 have just same meaning. Because if we use 快兩倍 as &quot;x * 3&quot;, the meaning will be too vague to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we really have to say something larger than two times of a value, such as &quot;A = B * 3&quot;, a more practical way will be &quot;A是B的3倍&quot; instead of &quot;A比B高兩倍&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4668" LastEditorUserId="4668" LastEditDate="2014-08-27T02:42:42.247" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T02:42:42.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9298" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14448" CreationDate="2014-08-26T18:21:25.343" Score="8" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;至关重要&lt;/code&gt; strikes me as a four-character idiom instead of a Chengyu, and it didn't even make an entry on 现代汉语词典 or ZDic.net. However, that couldn't explain the fact that the specific character combination &lt;code&gt;至关&lt;/code&gt; is exclusively used in this phrase, and this phrase has an incredibly high uniformity, in other word variations of this word almost don't exist. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually four-character idioms can be modified to suit the context and people actually do that for colorful speech. But searching 至关 on Google, all results are 至关重要. Searching 至关必要, 至关需要, 至关基本, 至关有效... any possible application yielded zero result. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was unable to find the etymology in any paper dictionary; some online resources (&lt;a href=&quot;http://cy.kdd.cc/A/127/&quot;&gt;link1&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://chengyu.xpcha.com/8d9g1fnnq0c.html&quot;&gt;link2&lt;/a&gt;) suggest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;典故出处 路遥《平凡的世界》第四卷第43章：“这次命运的大决战不仅对她是至关重要的，对所有的同学都一样。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not convinced by it - not just the websites don't look too credible, but the book was first published in 1986 and wasn't popular until it won literary prize in 1991, however, back in the early 90's when I attended school, everyone knew the idiom 至关重要 as a common Chinese word. At that time there was no internet and I don't think that novel could have gotten that popular in such a short time frame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is, what's the real etymology of 至关(重要) and why there is no variations albeit it's commonly used? Was it a 'prescribed' word by some central committee? Did it gain popularity because some famous person or TV commercial used it in a catch phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-08-27T01:36:25.593" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T08:34:53.753" Title="Etymology of 至关(重要)" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9295" CreationDate="2014-08-26T18:59:30.220" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If some words that mean &quot;is&quot; (e.g &lt;strong&gt;是/相当于&lt;/strong&gt; ) are used, then it's literal times. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的速度 &lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt; 我的两倍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your speed &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; twice &lt;strong&gt;as&lt;/strong&gt; mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally you will not say &quot;one times&quot; in this scenario. 你的速度是我的一倍 (Your speed is one times as mine) sounds strange in both English and Chinese. You can just say &quot;你的速度和我的一样快&quot;/ “我们俩一样快&quot; (You are as fast as me). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If other &quot;comparing&quot; words that means &quot;more than&quot;(e.g. A &lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt; B 大/高/快/etc.) show, then it's literal times + 1. Followed one has the same meaning of previous one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的速度 &lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt; 我快一倍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You &lt;strong&gt;are&lt;/strong&gt; one time faster &lt;strong&gt;than&lt;/strong&gt; me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6149" LastEditorUserId="6149" LastEditDate="2014-08-29T20:59:10.447" LastActivityDate="2014-08-29T20:59:10.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9300" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-26T19:18:36.917" Score="5" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know I can order food using phrases like 我(想)要／请给我一份...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how would I exclude an ingredient, e.g. if I don't like garlic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要一份青椒肚片无大蒜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要一份青椒肚片不要大蒜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要一份青椒肚片没有大蒜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would any of those be correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4033" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-08-27T06:41:56.230" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T06:41:56.230" Title="How to exclude an ingredient when ordering food?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;food&gt;&lt;negation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9300" CreationDate="2014-08-26T20:09:27.293" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any of these sentences would be grammatically correct. However&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我要一份青椒肚片不要(加)大蒜&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would be a better and more common usage in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be even better to include the character in the parenthesis, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;加&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means &quot;add&quot; or &quot;with&quot; or &quot;include&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3942" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T20:09:27.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9302" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-26T22:21:02.527" Score="3" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;不然你逛那边的时候，我逛电子商品区.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came across this but none of the dictionary meanings for 不然 seem to fit when it's at the beginning of a sentence. What's the meaning here as are this a common usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1140" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T10:16:03.557" Title="不然 when it occurs at the beginning of a sentence" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9302" CreationDate="2014-08-26T23:10:12.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually 不然 means &quot;otherwise&quot;, but here I think another translate would be &quot;Another choice is...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4394" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T23:10:12.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9291" CreationDate="2014-08-26T23:13:42.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may want to try WenQuanYi bitmap fonts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenq.org/en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wenq.org/en/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4394" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T23:13:42.863" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9302" CreationDate="2014-08-26T23:16:54.307" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;不然&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;otherwise&lt;/code&gt; in a declarative sentence and &lt;code&gt;alternatively; how about&lt;/code&gt; in an imperative sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In spoken language it can begin a sentence to propose 'plan B', which implies a self-evident 'plan A' that is favorable to one party but not the other, and there is no need to talk about it so the speaker jumps to the alternative plan already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不然你逛那边的时候，我逛电子商品区.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Hidden context: ideally we should stick together but we couldn't for some obvious reason, like one person is not interested in the stuff the other person wants to shop, or both of us need to buy something but we're running out of time.) &lt;b&gt;How about this&lt;/b&gt;, I am going to look around for the electronic products while you're shopping in that area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T23:16:54.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9300" CreationDate="2014-08-27T00:56:21.020" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you are speaking Cantonese, you can use &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要一份青椒肚片‘&lt;strong&gt;走&lt;/strong&gt;’蒜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in English it's something like take it off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6153" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T00:56:21.020" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9300" CreationDate="2014-08-27T03:27:43.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我要一份青椒肚片不 &lt;strong&gt;放&lt;/strong&gt; 蒜。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要一份青椒肚片 &lt;strong&gt;别搁&lt;/strong&gt; 蒜。 (more intensive than 不搁)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 放，搁 sounds more natural and navtivelike.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T03:27:43.110" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1157" CreationDate="2014-08-27T03:59:21.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This phrase is invented by European， &lt;strong&gt;east&lt;/strong&gt; means east from  Europe，so the 中东 means middle east from Europe，that is Iraq and some countries ……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is some other words like 中东，eg，近东（seldom used），远东（referred to Korea,the area between China and Japan.),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;远东 is more often replaced by “东亚”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T03:59:21.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9285" CreationDate="2014-08-27T04:21:21.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;rare word,I think it is a variant,though it have a little own meannings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;below from 汉典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◎ 唻 lài&#xA;〈动〉&#xA;(1) 慰劳 [appre ciate sb.sservices and present gifts]&#xA;劳之来之,匡之直之,辅之翼之。——《孟子·滕文公上》&#xA;莫我肯勑。——《诗·魏风·硕鼠》&#xA;贤者勑其材。——《韩非子·主道》&#xA;(2) 另见 lái&#xA;词性变化&#xA;◎ 唻&#xA;唻 lài&#xA;〈助〉&#xA;(1) 〈方〉&#xA;(2) 相当于“呢” [what]。如:你们敲锣打鼓的干什么徕?又相当于“来着”。如:娘是怎么嘱咐你徕,怎么都忘了?&#xA;(3) 相当于“啦” [really]。如:解放前放牛娃可苦唻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T04:21:21.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9275" CreationDate="2014-08-27T04:34:13.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Plz don't do that in formal context.&quot;妳” is deprecated  in mainland China. &#xA;It is originally a good word,but some &quot;非主流” use it with other &quot;火星文&quot; to make  it imply bad feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T04:34:13.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5451" CreationDate="2014-08-27T04:39:46.310" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LXaas.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can translate it to modern Chinese,can't do that in English ,my English is not good- -||&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this Australia?  The text on it is:&#xA;此地名为新入匿，因其势貌利味亚入匿相同，欧罗巴人近方至此，故未审其或为一片相连地方，或为一岛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;try to translate it：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This place is  called 新入匿，because the environment looks like 利味亚入匿，European have just got there，so have not  explored    whether it is a big land or island.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2014-08-28T13:54:24.707" LastActivityDate="2014-08-28T13:54:24.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9284" CreationDate="2014-08-27T06:19:26.280" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers are absolutely correct – it’s not smart to talk about countable and uncountable nouns in Chinese.  However, like many languages, Chinese does have words that express abstract concepts or that are somehow inherently plural.  How are these dealt with in a system where everything must be counted/measured?  Here’s how one grammar explains it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yip and Rimmington’s grammar makes a distinction between &lt;strong&gt;classifiers&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;measure words&lt;/strong&gt;.  The former are used with &lt;strong&gt;common nouns&lt;/strong&gt; like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;刀&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  學生&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  電影   →&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一把刀&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一個學生&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  三部電影  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English equivalents of common nouns don’t need any measure – we just say ‘a knife’, ‘three movies’ etc.  So the classifier seems arbitrary from the point of view of an English native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter (&lt;strong&gt;measure words&lt;/strong&gt;) are used with several other types of noun, which in English would likely be uncountable.  Like in English, to count them they need to be measured, so a measure word of some sort (grouping, dividing, packaging etc) is used.  First with &lt;strong&gt;material nouns&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  空氣  →&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三瓶水&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一口空氣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese also has &lt;strong&gt;collective nouns&lt;/strong&gt;, of which there are two types:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a.  combinations of related words like 父母  ‘parents’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b.  combinations of noun plus measure, like 車輛  ‘vehicles’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those in (a) are not counted as individual items, but can taking grouping or other measure words:&#xA;一對父母  ‘one set of parents’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those in (b) are counted by moving the measure word in the second position to the front:&#xA;一輛車  ‘one vehicle/car’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, there are &lt;strong&gt;abstract nouns&lt;/strong&gt; like 影響  ‘influence’ or 真理 ‘truth’.  These are countable only using the generic 個  or with a ‘type’ measure word like 種 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那個真理  ‘that truth’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這種影響  ‘this type of influence’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to recap, &lt;strong&gt;common nouns&lt;/strong&gt; are like English countable nouns, and (unlike English) they take &lt;strong&gt;classifiers&lt;/strong&gt;.  &lt;strong&gt;Material, collective and abstract nouns&lt;/strong&gt; often correspond to English uncountable nouns.  They can take counting words too, but some grammarians refer to these as &lt;strong&gt;measure words&lt;/strong&gt; to distinguish them from classifiers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another distinction is that material and abstract nouns can be used with 一點  ‘a little’, but common nouns can’t, taking 幾個 or 一些 ‘a few/some’ instead.  Notice that there is a parallel here with English countable/uncountable nouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t think it would be a good idea to teach Chinese noun usage to beginners this way – it’s much easier to understand when you lump classifiers and measure words together.  But if you want to analyze the grammar and see how Chinese handles concepts that aren’t easily counted, you can look at things this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source:  Yip and Rimmington, &lt;em&gt;Chinese:  A Comprehensive Grammar&lt;/em&gt;, pp. 1-6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="3647" LastEditDate="2014-08-27T14:38:53.073" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T14:38:53.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9313" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9314" CreationDate="2014-08-27T10:29:42.750" Score="2" ViewCount="1603" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the purpose of &lt;a href=&quot;https://android.stackexchange.com/q/81178/20449&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; I'd like to know whether the four Chinese characters in the bottom-left corner of the i9250 Samsung battery really mean manufacturing date:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RBWPM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.acebattery.ca/media/catalog/product/cache/4/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/cellbatt/c34.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://cdn.shopclues.com/images/detailed/603/AAA10071071j_1381905850.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.trait-tech.com/uploads/details/T-SSI9250-1__.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; are high-resolution images of the battery, which should be easier to read and confirm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am more than sure whether these four symbols actually mean that, so I only need a confirmation, since I don't know Chinese at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Disclaimer: I understand and full accept FAQ's regulation, claiming, that questions asking for translations are off-topic in this site. I think I did enough prior research. I only need a confirmation, not a translation.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6282" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-10T05:21:47.913" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T05:21:47.913" Title="Do the four Chinese symbols in the bottom-left corner of a Samsung battery mean manufacturing date? (Characters identified: 生产日期)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9313" CreationDate="2014-08-27T10:31:53.097" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it writes 「生产日期」 which means manufacture date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6272" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T10:31:53.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9315" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9328" CreationDate="2014-08-27T15:54:31.073" Score="3" ViewCount="338" Body="&lt;p&gt;I own the Internet domain a84.com. Quite often I get unsolicited inquires from individuals in China asking if I would sell the domain. The inquiries come only from China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if the interest is based on the domain being a three-character &quot;dot com&quot; or if there is some special meaning to the characters &quot;a84&quot; to Chinese people. My only guess is that perhaps those characters are used to enter a Chinese character using a western keyboard -- but that's only a random guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone tell me if there is any significance to the characters &quot;a84&quot; for individuals in China who buy domain names?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6284" LastActivityDate="2014-08-28T05:13:48.670" Title="What does &quot;a84&quot; mean to Chinese people?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9315" CreationDate="2014-08-27T16:16:36.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;84 could mean &lt;code&gt;awesome&lt;/code&gt; (巴适) for Sichuanese people...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could really be anything though...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T16:16:36.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9291" CreationDate="2014-08-27T16:45:16.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After having done several researches and having looked at your answers, I merged them and I finally got to a solution, that I will share.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hanazono is undoubtedly the best free and commercial-use friendly font to display simplified Chinese yet its rendering is not perfect: it often gets blurry on desktop devices, while it's pretty sharp on mobile ones. So I found that the company Dynalab offers great S Chinese fonts for an affordable price (50 dollars), and this seems the best solution for people with a low budget. Their site is also available in English, which is great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the topic also involved Japanese and Korean as we talked about it, I found out that there are some very, very wonderful fonts for these languages, all free and suitable for commercial use. For Japanese we got Aozora Mincho, which renders incredibly on all devices and screen densities, while for Hangul Naver itself developed Nanum Myeongjo, which is excellent on desktops and stunningly perfect on mobile devices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6275" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T16:45:16.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9318" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-27T17:15:36.887" Score="2" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;As part of my learning experience, I am taking the useful advice someone offered and examining the many different tools available to learn more characters. To that effect, I am keying in the characters into a Mac using pinyin. I noticed that there are a number of visually related characters with different meanings. Is this a known phenomenon or just an unusual coincidence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E5%A4%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E5%A4%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;夭&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/G3pJ5.gif&quot; alt=&quot;tian&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k8z1R.gif&quot; alt=&quot;yao&quot;&gt;&#xA;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E5%A4%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;失&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E7%9F%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;矢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QQ50D.gif&quot; alt=&quot;shi&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IPGkM.gif&quot; alt=&quot;shi&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed that the differences are so slight (at least to my untrained eye) that one wonders about the glyph origins and how these visually related characters came to be. Is there a science to these visual relationships or are they random?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDITS:&lt;/strong&gt; Added to the examples with links to &lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E8%BB%8A&amp;amp;submitButton1=Etymology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Etymology&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhongwen&lt;/a&gt; images. However, I am still unsure of whether the development of the characters is related. I also plugged the characters into zdict.net but I am not competent enough to understand whether there is an explanation that might help me answer the main question: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/5929.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/592D.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;夭&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/5931.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;失&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/js/77E2.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;矢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T09:16:13.303" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T09:16:13.303" Title="Comparative Glyph Origins Of (Visually) Close Characters" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9319" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9321" CreationDate="2014-08-27T19:17:14.387" Score="3" ViewCount="419" Body="&lt;p&gt;During my time learning Chinese, I've heard two distinct word orders when referencing the time at which something will occur. For example, I was taught to say 今天我想吃早饭 to talk about 今天, 明天, etc, but I was taught to say 我想八点钟吃早饭 when speaking about a specific time, which seems a rather different word order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the rules surrounding the word order when talking about time in this context? Are both ways acceptable (that is, would 八点钟我想吃早饭 and 我想今天吃早饭 also be okay)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4709" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-31T23:38:05.140" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T23:38:05.140" Title="What are the rules surrounding word order when talking about time (e.g. are 八点钟我想吃早饭 or 我想今天吃早饭 okay)?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;word-order&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9319" CreationDate="2014-08-27T19:44:53.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not an expert in sentence structure, but I believe &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我想今天吃&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;has a more focus on the necessity of eating something &lt;em&gt;today&lt;/em&gt;, where&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;今天我想吃&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;does not have such focus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the case of specific timing, it works the same way. If you add &lt;em&gt;在&lt;/em&gt; (at) to the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我想(在)八点钟吃早饭&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then you are stressing that you want to eat breakfast &lt;em&gt;at 8 o'clock&lt;/em&gt;. On the other hand,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(在)八点钟我想吃早饭&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;does not have such focus. But I have never heard people talk like this way though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3942" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T19:44:53.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9319" CreationDate="2014-08-27T20:37:02.847" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's just the same when it is in english:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;今天我想吃早饭 - Today I want to have breakfast  &#xA;我想八点钟吃早饭 - I want to have breakfast at eight  &#xA;&#xA;我想今天吃早饭 - I want to have breakfast today  &#xA;八点钟我想吃早饭 - At eight, I want to have breakfast &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these sentence make sense and are acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6138" LastEditorUserId="6138" LastEditDate="2014-08-27T20:42:29.303" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T20:42:29.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9295" CreationDate="2014-08-27T20:52:23.570" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Understand that you have an accpeted answer already and it's correct.  I am adding this in hope to make it simple to understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一倍 : 100%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;两倍 : 200%  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are the same.  So when you are saying 快一倍, it means &lt;code&gt;100% faster&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;twice the speed&lt;/code&gt;, which means 200% of the origin speed - 两倍速度.  The confusion comes in because when 一倍 is used, we &lt;code&gt;ADD&lt;/code&gt; the value by itself, while 两倍 we &lt;code&gt;MULTIPLE&lt;/code&gt; the value by 2.  And we all know that A + A (一倍) = 2A (两倍)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T20:52:23.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9323" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9344" CreationDate="2014-08-27T20:53:42.990" Score="2" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;On one comment to a recent &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/7149/%E5%A5%87-is-a-strange-character&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt;, LulalaBoss made reference to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article on Chinese character classification&lt;/a&gt;. When a character is transformed or redefined, is there a comprehensive method to identify when one is dealing with a sound-loan rather than an 形聲 that has changed to a related (presumably more modern) meaning? On the other hand, I see some characters that appear to simply have had newer meanings added to an existing character. I'm curious to understand more about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to discover basic sound-loans (is this even necessary to be aware of in reading/writing/speaking Chinese)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T07:16:10.750" Title="Sound Loans in Chinese" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9324" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9325" CreationDate="2014-08-27T21:32:17.787" Score="1" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very difficult to make out and I don't know for sure if it's Chinese (at least it should be) or some other eastern language. Having it translated to english would really help me out since I need to know exactly what it says.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T6vTq.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having a hard time trying translate it via online means. Any help is appreciated. It's some writting from a dust respirator (like a gas mask) on the front. Ordered from a chinese webstore. The picture is low quality since i had to zoom it in a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6286" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-10T05:20:57.037" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T05:20:57.037" Title="Could someone please translate this small writting for me? (Characters identified: 林盾)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-08-28T02:04:52.623" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9324" CreationDate="2014-08-27T22:15:00.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It says '林盾' - most likely a person's name where 林 (Lin, meaning 'forest') is the last name and 盾 (Dun, meaning 'shield') is the given name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T22:15:00.047" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9318" CreationDate="2014-08-28T02:03:03.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are not much related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The common part in these characters is 大/big, which is the pictograph of front of a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天 is sky, which is represented by the line above the person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夭's original meaning is bending one's neck, represented by a curve on person's head.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's extended meaning is &quot;young&quot;, because young plants are curved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other two are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;矢 is arrow. The top part is head and the bottom part is arrow feather.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;失 is very interesting. It actually comes from 手/hand with a extra stroke.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Something falls out of one's hand -&gt; lose something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastActivityDate="2014-08-28T02:03:03.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9330" CreationDate="2014-08-28T02:34:32.123" Score="3" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;Came across the character 帷 for the first time the other day, in the word 窗帷.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Adstrotrans&lt;/strong&gt; define 帷, simply, as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;curtain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt; define it as a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;bed-curtain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which doesn't really mean much to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 帷 and 帘?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-08-28T07:31:27.307" LastActivityDate="2014-08-29T09:16:04.837" Title="Difference: 帘 vs. 帷?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9315" CreationDate="2014-08-28T04:01:39.133" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For many Chinese, a domain like &lt;code&gt;a84&lt;/code&gt; is easy to type and remember.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, consider that typing English words and phrases is very unnatural for Chinese. Even if the user is familiar with typing (and this aptitude would be low compared to developed nations), they would be accustomed to typing single letters and numbers, depending on their IME. Your average Chinese computer user would be typing sentences using keystrokes like &lt;code&gt;wmyqdmj3b2!&lt;/code&gt;. Typing &lt;code&gt;google&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;stackexchange&lt;/code&gt; would be much harder for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, English aptitude is fairly low in China compared to most developed nations. Rather than trying to remember how to spell an English word, Chinese would find it easier to remember a short sequence of numbers, and letters if they have to. You can see this in some of the most popular Chinese websites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;163&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;qq&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;92&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;12306&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1688&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically we can have Chinese character domain names now, but support is by no means widespread and it takes even more keystrokes to type than simple numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also the numerology factor to consider, but &lt;code&gt;84&lt;/code&gt; is pretty average in that regard (8 is great but 4 is awful).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's an interesting article on this subject here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117608/chinese-number-websites-secret-meaning-urls&quot;&gt;http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117608/chinese-number-websites-secret-meaning-urls&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-08-28T04:01:39.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9327" CreationDate="2014-08-28T05:41:30.713" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll assume you mean &lt;code&gt;帘&lt;/code&gt; as in the simplified Chinese for &lt;code&gt;簾&lt;/code&gt;. In which case, strictly speaking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;帘 / 簾&lt;/code&gt; is a cover for windows woven from &lt;em&gt;bamboo slips&lt;/em&gt; (hence the traditional top radical) or fabric &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;帷&lt;/code&gt; is curtains, in the sense of sides a &lt;em&gt;tent&lt;/em&gt; woven from fabrics.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, they both mean some sort of fabric material that obscures sight, and therefore usages have become mixed up. In this case, the &lt;code&gt;窗&lt;/code&gt; in the word &lt;code&gt;窗帷&lt;/code&gt; specifies its a window curtain, making it the same as &lt;code&gt;帘 / 簾&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditionally, &lt;code&gt;帘&lt;/code&gt; is actually a different character from &lt;code&gt;簾&lt;/code&gt;. It meant &quot;a banner (of an inn or tavern)&quot;, and was flown &lt;em&gt;outside&lt;/em&gt; such establishments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《唐·鄭谷·旅寓洛南村舍》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　村落清明近，秋千稚女誇。春陰妨柳絮，月黑見梨花。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　白鳥窺魚網，&lt;strong&gt;青帘認酒家&lt;/strong&gt;。幽棲雖自適，交友在京華。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because &lt;code&gt;帘&lt;/code&gt; also happens to be the simplified Chinese character for &lt;code&gt;簾&lt;/code&gt;, this difference is not noticeable in a majority of online resources anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, 簾 is what court officials use while 帷 is what common folks use. This is &lt;em&gt;Ancient China&lt;/em&gt; historical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《禮緯》 天子外屛，諸侯內屛，大夫以簾，士以帷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-08-28T05:41:30.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9331" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9334" CreationDate="2014-08-28T08:38:38.913" Score="4" ViewCount="1455" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters in the title are, FWIK, all exclamatory sentence-final particles, though I'm not too sure about ei. So I was wondering what the difference was between the three. Is there a difference in the first place? And if so, what is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T16:56:29.850" Title="啊，诶，喔，哦：compare and contrast" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9275" CreationDate="2014-08-28T11:39:11.133" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;「妳」 was originated from 「奶」or「嬭」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese, we don't have a specific rule for using 「妳」 as a second person pronoun. Note that there is strict rules for using 她／他 for HE/SHE in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In document or official letters, my suggestion is to stick with &quot;你好&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in literature or any other informal situation, you can pick either &quot;你好&quot; or &quot;妳好&quot;, whenever it fits your context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, the Chinese translator uses 「妳」 in the translation &quot;I love &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的心湧起千層情濤，衝向世界的岸邊；我要用淚水的語言，題上她的簽名：『我愛妳。』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6272" LastActivityDate="2014-08-28T11:39:11.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9327" CreationDate="2014-08-28T12:41:58.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese. I think both of them mean 'curtain'. Below are some differences I could think of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帷 is rarely used nowadays. Using 帷 in Chinese sounds like using Shakespearean language in English. A writer may use this character on purpose to make his writing more 'classical', but using this character in everyday language is very weird...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帘 is commonly-used now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 帷 is larger, thicker and more luxurious than 帘 - think of the stage curtain in a theatre or the curtain in a palace. 帘 is more appropriate when you want to describe the curtain in your bedroom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6288" LastActivityDate="2014-08-28T12:41:58.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9331" CreationDate="2014-08-28T21:32:31.697" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;哦 (Ò), I see!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哦 (O), is that really so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喔 (Ō), I see!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诶 (唉, Āi), good heavens!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊 (Á), you are kidding me, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊 (Ǎ), is that really so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊 (À), OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-08-28T21:32:31.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9331" CreationDate="2014-08-29T02:51:42.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mainland Simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊：Oh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the most frequently used word.You can say it exactly the pronunciation of the word.&#xA;and other three words can be used in writing.It's weird in speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哦：Oh well，I see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（Some people will think you don't have interest in what he just said if you response a &quot;哦&quot; &lt;strong&gt;with nothing&lt;/strong&gt;，incoming 哦 will piss him off soon)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喔：1:Oh,2: a cock's crow(literally chicken) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often use it to express accent. e.g. 好，accent edition：好喔。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see it more in old novels。can be replaced by 哎.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-08-29T02:51:42.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9327" CreationDate="2014-08-29T09:16:04.837" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, though there is difference between 帏 and 帘 in there orgin meanings as described above, but 窗帏, 窗帷, 窗帘 are the same thing. Usually people use 窗帘, and 窗帏 more seen in ancient writing or arts. You can use 窗帏 in writing, but if you spoke of 窗帏, others may not understand what you are speaking of at once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6269" LastActivityDate="2014-08-29T09:16:04.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9337" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-30T05:06:53.400" Score="1" ViewCount="482" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that you can say something like &quot;我跟她很熟“。 But can you make someone into a very 熟的人。 &#xA;ex。 &#xA;他们是我在大学最熟的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-08-30T05:25:55.800" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T18:03:29.237" Title="Can you say someone is a ”非常熟的人“？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9338" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-30T05:19:32.597" Score="1" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in the use of 搬  in the case of moving in. Could I say &quot;我帮了我的室友搬一些东西？“ or does it need to be ”帮了她把他的东西搬到他的宿舍里面“ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you simply say 搬东西 ？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="6358" LastEditDate="2014-09-08T20:54:35.393" LastActivityDate="2014-09-08T20:54:35.393" Title="Can you 搬东西？ Or do you need to 搬家？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9339" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-30T05:23:41.183" Score="1" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that there are some basic ways to say &quot; to end&quot; with a common Verb + Object pair. (ex. 吃完饭。 开完会， 等） But， what if it is a verb like 培训？  Or if it is a noun form of 培训 ？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you say “培训完成以后？“ or is there a better way to say this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-08-30T05:31:03.623" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T06:43:51.910" Title="How to say &quot;To end&quot; when the verb is not a simple V + O" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9338" CreationDate="2014-08-30T06:17:59.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it seems you can also say： 我帮我（的）室友搬进来了。or 我帮她搬（一些）东西近来了。&#xA;have been looking for grammatical rules requiring 把-sentence as proposed below and only found the following: 外国人实用汉语语法，５０２页：the 把-sentence must be used when the verbal predicate takes a compound directional complement and an object of place. For example: 老师把新同学带进教室来了。 大夫把那个病人送回家去了。 我们把这几件东西搬上楼去吧。（however in present case object of place seems to be missing，进宿舍楼来 would have object of place）。There also is the following which may be relevant：实用现代汉语语法（２００１年北京）７４７页：１。当谓语动词有两个宾语，一个是表示事物的名词，另一个表示经过动作后事物所在的处所时，事物名词要与介词＂把＂结合放在谓语动词前，表示处所的词语放在谓语动词后，谓语动词与处所词之间还要用一个结果补语或趋向补语。例如：（１）他们把鸡蛋放在桌子上就走了。（２）他把照片递到我面前叫我看。（３）西门豹又叫人把三老扔进了河里。。。。（again， above there is no表示处所的词语）.另一方面＂在线词典＂一共有５０个为＂搬进来＂提供的例句，而其中有以下三个似乎证实用＂把＂字句是必要的，尽管没有表示处所的宾语：&#xA;椅子在花园里,请把它搬进来，请问，要把箱子搬进来吗？，不知道是否可以让孩子们帮我把箱子搬进来.It would seem that if ＊搬东西进来  is changed to 搬进东西来 then it might become acceptable according to Representation of Chinese Grammar with Diagrams 图示汉语语法（ISBN ９７８－７－５６１９－２７９５－３）１１８页 动词 既带复合趋向补语，也带宾语例如：脱下一件衣服来，拿出一个本子来 （当然＊把一件衣服脱下来 及 ＊把一个本子拿出来 很可能违背了 ＂把＂子后面的介引成分应当是说话双方已知的，确有所指的，这个规则。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-09-01T19:52:30.960" LastActivityDate="2014-09-01T19:52:30.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9339" CreationDate="2014-08-30T06:43:51.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just put 完 at the end of the verb will do the job. Examples are as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;培训完之后，我们去吃饭吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;锻炼完之后，我们去吃饭吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冥想完之后，我们去吃饭吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蹲起完之后，我们去吃饭吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T06:43:51.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9337" CreationDate="2014-08-30T06:46:37.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you can. This is 100% correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们是我在大学最熟的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们是我在大学最亲的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们是我在大学最爱的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们是我在大学最恨的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们是我在大学最怕的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T06:46:37.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9337" CreationDate="2014-08-30T06:48:51.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, but a little strange. You can say 他們是我在大學最要好的一群人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6300" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2014-08-30T08:56:22.270" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T08:56:22.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9323" CreationDate="2014-08-30T07:00:59.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me try to answer your question, though I am not a professional in Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems you are talking about the so-called radical-phonetic characters, and you are asking a way to spot them among tons of Chinese characters. I have a trick here for you, since I always use it when I, as a Chinese, don't know the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, you need to be able to know which one is the radical part, normally either on the left side or on the top, e.g. 沐. The radical part here is the &quot;three drops of water&quot;. So that you know, aha this has something to do with water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, the most important, you must be able to pronounce the phonetic part. E.g. 沐's phonetic part is 木, and it is pronounced as &quot;MU&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At last, the rule of thumb is, you just pronounce using the phonetic part! No matter what. 90% you will pronounce it right (maybe the tones need some adjust). If you are wrong, there will be people correcting you, and then you remember next time. :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simple, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples are as follows: 尧 is pronounced [yao 2]. It is the name of an ancient legendary king. But when you see 烧[shao 1], 浇[jiao 1], 饶[rao 2], they don't pronounce as [yao 2], BUT you may discover that they share the common vow. Another example is: 提[ti 2], the right part is 是[shi 4], which has totally a different sound. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-08-31T07:16:10.750" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T07:16:10.750" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9337" CreationDate="2014-08-30T07:32:43.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.“我跟她不熟，我最熟的人是你”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.“谁跟你熟啊！我都不认识你”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.“对,我们是最熟悉的陌生人”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.“熟人好办事，先混熟再说”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T07:32:43.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9347" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9349" CreationDate="2014-08-30T11:54:15.987" Score="5" ViewCount="919" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been studying Chinese for about 9 months now and I am a little confused as to how to rewrite this sentence using the 连。。。。都 structure. I've included what I've done but it just does not seem right. Any help would be great!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在北京住了半年多了，但是还没去过故宫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在北京住了半年多了, 连去过故宫都没有 correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6303" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T12:29:37.660" Title="连。。。。都 structure" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9347" CreationDate="2014-08-30T12:19:10.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The more smooth way is:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他在北京半年多了，连 故宫 都 没有去过？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;连 in this sentence could be omited, but 都 could not be omited if you want to stress your surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;这孩子挑食, (连)鸡蛋也不吃.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The child is particular about food, he doesn't even eat eggs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你(连)看见血都要头晕，怎么能当外科大夫呢？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You faint at the sight of blood, how could you become a surgeon?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6297" LastEditorUserId="6297" LastEditDate="2014-08-30T12:29:37.660" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T12:29:37.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9347" CreationDate="2014-08-30T12:19:45.627" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nope.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在北京住了半年多了, 连故宫都没有去过。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or omit 有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在北京住了半年多了, 连故宫都没去过。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.我学英语十多年了，连电影台词都听不懂。&#xA;&#xA;2.我学了十多年英语了，连小说都看不懂。&#xA;3.我来过这家饭店很多次了，连他们的招牌菜都没吃过。&#xA;4.我认识他3个月了，连他的名字都不知道。&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;（1）这个箱子连大人都提不动，小孩儿就更加提不动了。&#xA;（3）他连这么难的题都会做，真聪明！&#xA;（5）你那么大的人，这么不懂礼貌，连小孩儿都不如。&#xA;（6）他忙得连睡觉的时间都没有。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T12:19:45.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9337" CreationDate="2014-08-30T13:40:06.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's absolutely right in grammar, but you'd better say&lt;code&gt;我跟他很熟&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6304" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T13:40:06.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9337" CreationDate="2014-08-30T15:07:56.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;maybe you can say&#xA;&quot;他们是我在大学里最亲近的人&quot;&#xA;&quot;他们是我在大学里来往最多的人&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6305" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T15:07:56.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9352" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-30T17:25:44.720" Score="3" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;支 usually means support or branch, but here it seems to take on a different meaning.  Unless it means they plan the support they use in their life on money?  I also tried to replace 用支 with 用之 and 用纸， but neither of those seems to make a ton of sense either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现代人，有的在金钱上规划自己一生的用支&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;original document: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bailinsi.net/05wsbl/04wcl/02cswd/05/01/001.asp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.bailinsi.net/05wsbl/04wcl/02cswd/05/01/001.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6292" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T06:39:13.877" Title="What is the meaning of 用支 in this setence?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9352" CreationDate="2014-08-30T17:43:55.837" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;用支 could mean &lt;strong&gt;expense&lt;/strong&gt;， i.e. &quot;所用開支&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The complete sentence means: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some modern people finically planed how they expend in life time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6272" LastEditorUserId="6272" LastEditDate="2014-08-31T06:39:13.877" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T06:39:13.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9337" CreationDate="2014-08-30T18:03:29.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from a Xiangsheng transcript by Guodegang using exactly that form, but in a slightly different context (talking about the audience that arrived).  Some are familiar people, some are not:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;郭：有人认识我们，有人不认识我们。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于：哎，有熟的有不熟的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6th line:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_48aa636801008xqc.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_48aa636801008xqc.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6292" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T18:03:29.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9355" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-30T19:56:20.270" Score="5" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about someone visiting China in the next few months, who does not understand their language? Is there a way to learn common words and sentences with the correct pronunciation quickly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6306" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-09-01T12:13:47.380" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T03:13:35.680" Title="Tourists in China but can not understand Chinese" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9355" CreationDate="2014-08-31T00:34:32.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's difficult for westerners to master the four tones in a few days, but if you have a few months, you can try! It's also difficult to learn how to read Chinese characters, but you can memorize some common words in a few days, such as restaurant, hotel, supermarket, museum, park etc, so that you can know where to go (most places have English signs in Beijing &amp;amp; Shanghai). In Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, you don't need to worry about the language barrier because most young people there can talk with you in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5997" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T00:34:32.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9352" CreationDate="2014-08-31T03:24:58.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that it means &quot;expense&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the character 支 also appears in 支票, or cash, it can refer to money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用支can literally be interpreted as money used, money spent, so an expense;) it is a verb+object compound noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context of the sentence and text it can also makes sense to plan one's life according to expenses. Early in the same phrase the writer uses 金钱 which also means money and sets up the topic for the phrase.Later in the same sentence the phrase 何时成家立业 &quot;have a family and start a career&quot; made me think of buying a house and a car, which are expenses people consider in their long term plans, 长远的规划&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现代人，有的在**金钱**上**规划**自己**一生的用支**，有的在感情上规划自己一生，不但对于何时**成家立业**，甚至所谓传宗接代也都有了**长远的规划**。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6310" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T03:24:58.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9358" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9379" CreationDate="2014-08-31T06:51:13.223" Score="1" ViewCount="2018" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a series of useful phrases from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;, that assist learners in developing conversations and learning new word/phrases. Which of these would be more appropriate for talking to a stranger?  Would I choose a different phrase for a doctor or for a family member? If other phrases are more appropriate please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;謝謝！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Will you speak a little more slowly?&#xA;请你说得再慢一点，好吗?&#xA;&#xA;I am sorry, sir. Can you repeat that more slowly, please?&#xA;对不起，请你再说慢点。&#xA;&#xA;I'm sorry, can you repeat that.&#xA;对不起，您能重复一下吗？&#xA;&#xA;A: Can you repeat that, please?&#xA;甲：请您再说一遍好吗?&#xA;&#xA;Sorry, I don't understand.&#xA;对不起，我没明白。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT: To clarify this question. Please note that I am looking for the situation where one would use one phrase rather than another.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples might be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use phrase x when talking to family members (etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-09-01T14:24:19.510" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T18:42:53.757" Title="I'm sorry I don't understand" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9359" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9368" CreationDate="2014-08-31T07:02:01.363" Score="2" ViewCount="1072" Body="&lt;p&gt;While speaking to Chinese Speakers, I sometimes notice that words are left out of a sentence. I have also read this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/284-contractions-in-chinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;thread&lt;/a&gt; on Chinese Contractions. When longer phrases are shortened in Chinese is this the same thing as a contraction? I know I have heard of this but I cannot seem to recall one at the moment. Are there some common examples of 缩约?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T02:34:17.010" Title="Chinese Contractions (缩约)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9359" CreationDate="2014-08-31T07:10:02.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some examples would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全国人民代表大会 is shortened as &amp;quot;人大&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;超級女聲 is shortened as &amp;quot;超女&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中央電視台 is shorten as &amp;quot;央視&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6272" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T07:10:02.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9361" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9364" CreationDate="2014-08-31T07:13:09.313" Score="1" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm led to believe that 零 has the context of age as in this sentence. I've also heard Cantonese use the sound soy to refer to someone's age (is this the same word).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some other contexts that one might use the word: 零  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他四十有零。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T15:51:55.387" Title="零 in context of age, other uses?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9361" CreationDate="2014-08-31T07:52:43.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;零头/零钱：change(money)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;飘零：wandering&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6299" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T07:52:43.740" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9363" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9365" CreationDate="2014-08-31T15:09:59.000" Score="7" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both the expressions 探望 and 看 are, in an appropriate context, translated as &quot;to visit&quot;. I haven't been able to figure out the difference between the two. When does one use 探望, when does one use 看?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6256" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-09-19T23:57:28.147" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T00:33:25.360" Title="What is the difference between 探望 and 看?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9361" CreationDate="2014-08-31T15:44:21.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;零零舍舍/零舍 - Unexpectedly different / different in a special way, e.g. 零舍好味: unexpectedly delicious / more delicious than others&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;零碎 - quite a few, but small and discrete&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;零件/零部件 - Parts, e.g. 電子零件: electronic parts (not sure how to describe, but「零」in this context kind of has the meaning of &quot;small&quot;, &quot;a lot&quot;, &quot;in a variety&quot;, similar to  「零碎」)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2928" LastEditorUserId="2928" LastEditDate="2014-08-31T15:51:55.387" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T15:51:55.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9363" CreationDate="2014-08-31T16:08:28.223" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;「探望」has a tendency to describe visits which &quot;aims to make somebody happy or feel better&quot;, like visiting a relative/close friend &lt;s&gt;whom you haven't visited for quite a while&lt;/s&gt; (not required), or visiting somebody in a bad situation (e.g. injured/ill). In this case, both「探望」and「看」can be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most other cases, using「看」may be more appropriate, for example: to visit a doctor (due to sickness) (as mentioned by @user58955) (&lt;em&gt;note&lt;/em&gt;, it &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; be correct to say「探望醫生」when you are visiting a doctor to thank one for healing you, for example), to visit an exhibition. There might be exceptions but I can't think of any now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2928" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T16:08:28.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9366" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-01T05:49:30.160" Score="10" ViewCount="1923" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that 东西 translates to &quot;something&quot; in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would like to know, &#xA;can both 一些东西 and 一点东西 be used? If so, what are their differences in meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T12:43:40.727" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T12:43:40.727" Title="Is it 一些东西 or 一点东西?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9366" CreationDate="2014-09-01T06:39:05.687" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 一些东西 and 一点东西 are both OK. 一些东西 means something that the quantity can be either many or less, while 一点东西 means something but not many.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4365" LastActivityDate="2014-09-01T06:39:05.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9359" CreationDate="2014-09-01T12:06:07.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Actually, when you speak really fast, 缩约 is necessary.&lt;p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be more natural to speak 'duo shao qian' as 'duo ao qian'.&lt;p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Accent take a crucial part here. People From south china (e.g., Guangdong) speak quite 'clearly', but we don't think it nice or sweet. In fact, it sounds strange.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When longer phrases are shortened in Chinese is this the same thing as a contraction?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No. Contraction is more about a natural way to speak, while shortening a phrases is something like 'LOL' or 'BTW' in english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Are there some common examples of 缩约?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;知道(zhi dao) -&gt; 'zao'&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不知道(bu zhi dao) -&gt; 'bu dao' -----&gt; here, 'zhi' is missed out because it's kind of hard to pronounce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like 'zh' or 'sh' is more likely to be ignored or simplified as 'z' or 's' in real world. BTW, these contractions are not encouraged especially when your Chinese is not that good. It seems to be cute, but it could be confusing and unpredictable somehow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6316" LastEditorUserId="6316" LastEditDate="2014-09-01T14:00:30.323" LastActivityDate="2014-09-01T14:00:30.323" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9369" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9371" CreationDate="2014-09-01T12:39:38.157" Score="7" ViewCount="1250" Body="&lt;p&gt;够 or 夠 both mean be enough according to my electronic dictionaries.  I was surprised to find one character in my text &quot;Reading &amp;amp; Writing Chinese,&quot; (McNaughton &amp;amp; Li, 1999)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oeByMm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;GOU&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A different character was in my electronic dictionary (夠). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first thought was: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this happen with other characters or is this an error?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I tried typing gou into a different program on the same computer and came up with the second character (having the same meaning).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is right? Are there other characters with this behavior?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T00:44:56.187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T16:33:29.420" Title="够 or 夠 - Two characters, one meaning?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9370" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9376" CreationDate="2014-09-01T13:14:15.877" Score="4" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;良好 is translated as be good, or be well in one of my dictionaries. This is a common closing remark in spoken English. Can 良好 be used in the same context in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;OK, Bye now...&#xA;Take care, be well.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there instances where it might be used in closing an email (or the end of a letter)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If these context are not correct please illustrate a situation where it would be appropriate to use this phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T06:52:48.707" Title="Can 良好 be used as a closing remark?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9369" CreationDate="2014-09-01T13:34:52.220" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;够 or 夠 shared the same meaning and same pronunciation. We called this situation as 異體字(Variant character). In Taiwan or Hong Kong, we use 夠 more frequently than 够. In Mainland China, they use the opposite one more frequent. All of us can understand both words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more about variant character in Chinese, you may refer to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Chinese_character&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Chinese_character&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6318" LastActivityDate="2014-09-01T13:34:52.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9369" CreationDate="2014-09-01T13:50:11.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It happens on many characters.I think you  are learning simplified Chinese,according to your picture,够 is right。If Cantonese or traditional Chinese,use the other one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-09-01T13:50:11.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9373" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-01T15:21:13.330" Score="5" ViewCount="551" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doubt expresses a lack of belief due to insufficient evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suspicion expresses a feeling of belief in the absence of evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I'm not mistaken, the Chinese language does not distinguish the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T18:00:03.117" Title="Does the Chinese language distinguish &quot;doubt&quot; and &quot;suspicion&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9373" CreationDate="2014-09-01T15:30:22.770" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it does&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doubt is 疑问, which can be having question about anything, it is a neutral word.&#xA;and suspicion is 怀疑, usually means suspecting someone has done something wrong, which is usually negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6320" LastActivityDate="2014-09-01T15:30:22.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9375" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9377" CreationDate="2014-09-01T16:22:00.587" Score="1" ViewCount="1991" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where we live I often here the construct 去 + 某某某 + 去了, for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去打牌去了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去上厕所去了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去做饭去了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can this kind of construct be used in Mandarin aswell?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T10:43:59.607" Title="Mandarin: 去 + xxx + 去了?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9370" CreationDate="2014-09-01T16:28:10.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;良好, 令人满意；好。should be translated as good or well without the &quot;be,&quot; then it can be used anywhere good or well are used. I never heard it being used as a closing remark, but under some circumstances, such use is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝你的程序运行良好.--Wish your application runs well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/96755.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/96755.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-09-23T06:52:48.707" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T06:52:48.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9375" CreationDate="2014-09-01T16:45:53.030" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can be used that way, but nobody does that. Most people use one 去. Either before or after is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-01T16:45:53.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9373" CreationDate="2014-09-01T18:03:43.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;疑问 can be used as a grammatical term as in 疑问句 interrogative sentence， iciba besides 怀疑 offers these translations for doubt 疑虑； 未确定， for suspicion besides 怀疑 there is  嫌疑； 疑心；example sentences in e。g。nciku and iciba will allow users to choose the most suitable translation。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-09-01T18:03:43.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9358" CreationDate="2014-09-01T19:22:33.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both five sentences above will be used under talking with strangers rather than people who you actually know. These are very polite expression and are in most case inter-changeable. However, it will be odd to talk to someone who you have already known with that level of politeness. It might work for Professor(s) / leader(s). Talking with friends or family will use more colloquial expression like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;稍微慢一点&quot; &quot;等一下，你说得太快了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastEditorUserId="5839" LastEditDate="2014-09-03T18:42:53.757" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T18:42:53.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8382" CreationDate="2014-09-01T20:38:40.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you live in Taiwan, you are very likely going to hear words like &quot;超。。恶(sounds like &quot;ugh&quot; with third tone)的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2014-09-01T20:38:40.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9381" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9382" CreationDate="2014-09-01T21:42:09.057" Score="3" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;could someone translate a text carved on my bamboo flute? I think it might be a poem :o&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it goes, I took 2 photos in case it's not readible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i6S3U.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4hVqO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also this one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BS4rU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose it might be the creator's name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6322" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T01:01:46.567" Title="Could someone translate text carved on my flute?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9381" CreationDate="2014-09-02T01:01:46.567" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;与史郎中钦听黄鹤楼上吹笛 李白&#xA;一为迁客去长沙，西望长安不见家。&#xA;黄鹤楼中吹玉笛，江城五月落梅花。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation is difficult for chinese poems, for charm will be lost for most times.&#xA;龙秦 is not the author, the author is 李白 the most famous poet wellknown as the poetic genius libai. &#xA;The meaning of this poem is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Demoted to Changsha, look west to Changan but there is no home there. Hearing jade flute play in the Yellow Crane Tower, seeing plums fall at may in Jiangcheng（Wuhan）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6269" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T01:01:46.567" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8834" CreationDate="2014-09-02T01:20:10.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.（形声。从肉，贰（ èr）声。本义：肥）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.同本义 [fat]&#xA;腻，肥也。——《说文》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/276705.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/276705.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;腻了 originally expresses the feeling of having eaten too much fat, i.e. something is good, but one nevertheless wants no more of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;活腻了 expresses similar attitudes towards a comfortable living. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When asked as a question, the tone is like saying, &quot;What's bothering you? Too much money in your pocket?&quot; The understatement is &quot;I will take your money away from you if that is the case.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, &quot;Life has been too good for you?&quot; The understatement is I'll make it hard if that is your complaints.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;活腻了? Directly translated as &quot;fed up with life?&quot; The understatement is what you are doing now is bringing an end to your life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-09-03T08:41:24.007" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T08:41:24.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9384" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9389" CreationDate="2014-09-02T01:42:53.333" Score="11" ViewCount="2171" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, the character for &quot;ice&quot; is 冰, and the radical derived from it is 冫 . I find it a bit weird that the ice radical 冫 is the radical for the ice character 冰 itself (ice + water = ice again?), but I am happy to just accept that. I know a few characters with the ice radical, e.g. 次, 习 or 冷, and that seems perfectly fine to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are a few things that confuse me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Index:Chinese_radical/%E5%86%AB&quot;&gt;Wiktionary list of characters with the 冫 radical&lt;/a&gt; contains the following two characters: 冬, 冭. Where in these characters is the 冫? Are the two lines at the bottom supposed to be the ice radical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) When I look at the entry for 永 in the Chinese dictionary app on my phone (Pleco), then it says that it's radical is 水 and that it has 冫 as a component. This makes no sense to me. If 水 was the radical, shouldn't it be written as 氵? And where is the 冫? I see that 永 differs from 水 by two lines at the top, but is this really supposed to be the ice &quot;radical&quot; 冫? (I it's the 冫 radical, how can 水 be a radical of 永 at the same time?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%86%AB&quot;&gt;Wiktionary entry for 冫&lt;/a&gt; , it says that 冫 is a radical that has been simplified from 氷. What character is 氷? It doesn't seem to be a Chinese character. Is this some ancient form of 冰?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6256" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T04:47:04.533" Title="Confusion about the ice radical 冫" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9384" CreationDate="2014-09-02T02:17:44.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;氷 is just equal to 冰 from pronunce to meaning.  But modern Chinese doesn't use this character, Japanese use it as 冰.&#xA;   永 is made part by 水, so it is considered radicals by 水 （not 冫）, and actually it's orgininal meaning in ancient Chinese is long water or water long in writing sequence, that's how it is contacted with water. And it's meaning transfered to long later, and now it most means forever.&#xA;   冬 radicals by 夂, not 冫，冭 radicals by 冫, I believe it's just a simple character disassembly without meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6269" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T02:17:44.833" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9384" CreationDate="2014-09-02T03:13:23.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to study character's origin, you have to look up references like 說文解字 instead of Wiktionary, which may be incomplete or incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original character of 冰 is 仌. You may look up the original text of 說文解字 &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/bookpiece/001/18878.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;When it is in 冬, it becomes two lines at the bottom as you describe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冫is not simplified from 氷, but 氷 is simplified from 冰, which is a modern variant of old character 仌/冫. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;永 is pictograph of &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/bookpiece/001/111620.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;long running water&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;次 does not have the radical 冫, its radical should be 欠 and the other compound is 二/two/second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T03:13:23.420" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9387" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-02T03:22:21.430" Score="3" ViewCount="447" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to figure what is the best way to describe school cafeteria workers without sounded too formal or too rude (just a normal way of saying cafeteria worker) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;食堂员工” “工人”？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is there a less formal way to imply “worker” in this instance？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T22:19:16.093" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T22:19:16.093" Title="How do you say &quot;Cafeteria Workers&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9388" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9392" CreationDate="2014-09-02T03:28:48.023" Score="2" ViewCount="617" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would love a quick overview of the difference btween 面对 and 应对! In particular, I would love to know what you say if you want to use &#xA;以...的太对来应对/面对 这个问题? Is 应对 or 面对 used&#xA;in this instance? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="6358" LastEditDate="2014-09-09T13:14:47.947" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T13:14:47.947" Title="What is the difference between &quot;面对&quot; and &quot;应对&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9384" CreationDate="2014-09-02T03:32:30.820" Score="18" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Brief Answer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q1. The Wiktionary list of characters with the 冫 radical contains the following two characters: 冬, 冭. Where in these characters is the 冫? Are the two lines at the bottom supposed to be the ice radical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Answer&lt;/strong&gt;: You're right. That's true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q2. When I look at the entry for 永 in the Chinese dictionary app on my phone (Pleco), then it says that it's radical is 水 and that it has 冫 as a component. This makes no sense to me. If 水 was the radical, shouldn't it be written as 氵? And where is the 冫? I see that 永 differs from 水 by two lines at the top, but is this really supposed to be the ice &amp;quot;radical&amp;quot; 冫?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Answer&lt;/strong&gt;: The radical of 永 is 水, but it doesn't have the radical 冫. The top of 永 has nothing to do with 冫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q3. In the Wiktionary entry for 冫 , it says that 冫 is a radical that has been simplified from 氷. What character is 氷? It doesn't seem to be a Chinese character. Is this some ancient form of 冰?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Answer&lt;/strong&gt;: 氷 was the vulgar form of 冰 in ancient China. It's obsolete in China but adopted in Japan nowadays. As @AngelLeliel has pointed out,  冫 is not a radical simplified from 氷, but 仌.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Detailed Answer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very good question, yet, as a native speaker I understand some of the &amp;quot;truth&amp;quot; are controversial. Anyway the facts will be listed here, but you don't have to agree with my subjective opinion :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fact 1.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; 次, 习 have the &amp;quot;ice radical&amp;quot;? No, it's not fine with experts in mainland China or people who use traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;现代汉语词典&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Modern Chinese Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;, which is considered as one of the most popular authoritative dictionary in mainland China), &lt;strong&gt;次&lt;/strong&gt; is indexed under the radical 冫 and the radical 欠. However in &lt;em&gt;中華民國教育部重編國語辭典修訂本&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Chinese Dictionary Revised Edition&lt;/em&gt;, the authoritative one in Taiwan), it is indexed only under 欠.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for &lt;em&gt;Chinese Dictionary Revised Edition&lt;/em&gt; not listing 次 under radical 冫 is 次 has nothing to do with 冰. The ancient character forms of 次 are &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3IkeU.gif&quot; alt=&quot;次&quot; /&gt;from &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NVgzk.png&quot; alt=&quot;次秦简&quot; /&gt;from bamboo scripts of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qin&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5fijr.png&quot; alt=&quot;次甲骨&quot; /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qppgr.png&quot; alt=&quot;次甲骨二&quot; /&gt;from oracle scripts. It is clear that after later oracle scripts, 二 defines the main meaning of 次 as &amp;quot;the second&amp;quot;. &lt;em&gt;说文段注 Duan's Annotation to Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; in Qing Dynasty said &amp;quot;當作从二，从欠。从二故爲次。&amp;quot; (次 should have radicals 二 and 欠. Having the radical 二 thus it's the second.) It is interesting that all major dictionaries haven't put 次 under the 二 radical. Personally I think that's because they all follow the convention of &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplified character &lt;strong&gt;习&lt;/strong&gt; is under the radicals  (乙) and 冫 in the &lt;em&gt;Modern Chinese Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;. However the corresponding traditional character 習 has the radical 羽 (feather of birds). It's clear:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F8Kks.gif&quot; alt=&quot;習&quot; /&gt;from &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wZVAV.png&quot; alt=&quot;習甲&quot; /&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sPjPM.png&quot; alt=&quot;習甲2&quot; /&gt;from oracle scripts, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9kz9L.png&quot; alt=&quot;習楚簡&quot; /&gt;from bamboo scripts of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chu&lt;/a&gt;. However note that &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;'s &amp;quot;从羽从白&amp;quot; (having the radicals 羽 and 白) theory is not true -- there're material evidence from oracle and bamboo scripts proving the bottom part is not 白 but 日. The character just illustrated &amp;quot;birds study flying on a sunny day&amp;quot;, so it meant &amp;quot;study&amp;quot; (opinion from Guo Moruo's &lt;em&gt;卜辭通纂考釋&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you may feel dissatisfied for the way that dictionaries of simplified Chinese classify 次 and 习. However, if you forget the whole story above, it may be the only way you can find it in a dictionary for the simplified character forms. 二 in 次 or feather in 习 have been written as 冫 for a long history as it's more convenient (OK I think some experts may insist my referring to Taiwan's standard glyphs &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9C%8B%E5%AD%97%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E5%AD%97%E9%AB%94&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;國字標準字體&lt;/a&gt; here but let's not go so far if you're not learning traditional Chinese). So if you don't care about the etymology, keep considering 冫 is the radical of 次 and 习 can be a self-consistent theory in your mind. I guess that's what the experts think when they compile the dictionaries for simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fact 2.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; A not-so-exact-but-easy theory &amp;quot;两点冰，三点水，四点火&amp;quot; -- two points denote &amp;quot;ice&amp;quot;; three points denote &amp;quot;water&amp;quot;; four points denote &amp;quot;fire&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's see the original character 仌 for 冰:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DeaOk.png&quot; alt=&quot;仌&quot; /&gt;from bronze scripts, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4BmQk.png&quot; alt=&quot;仌&quot; /&gt;from &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It illustrated the texture on ice, and became two horizontal strokes when coming to clerical scripts:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZWTwl.gif&quot; alt=&quot;冬&quot; /&gt; =&amp;gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3SxOx.gif&quot; alt=&quot;冬&quot; /&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D2ljZ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;冰&quot; /&gt; =&amp;gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z7DOy.gif&quot; alt=&quot;冰&quot; /&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thus when it came to regular scripts, the &amp;quot;two points&amp;quot; under 冬 and 冭 were written as two &amp;quot;down point&amp;quot;, and the &amp;quot;two points&amp;quot; on the left of 冰 were written as 冫, possibly for the aesthetic reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, 氵 came from what 水 was written in bamboo scripts of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qin&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0em6U.png&quot; alt=&quot;河&quot; /&gt;河&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pNPk7.png&quot; alt=&quot;注&quot; /&gt;注&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/domzd.png&quot; alt=&quot;沙&quot; /&gt;沙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a rarely known fact that 氵 appeared in Qin state before the seal scripts became the standard in the early Qin Dynasty:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jtb2t.gif&quot; alt=&quot;河&quot; /&gt;河&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tzdOR.gif&quot; alt=&quot;注&quot; /&gt;注&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XCMHR.gif&quot; alt=&quot;沙&quot; /&gt;沙, the left component is 水 in seal scripts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, as 氵 and 水 stand for the same thing, water, they often shared the same entry of indices in ancient Chinese dictionaries like Kangxi Dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly again, 灬 often stands for 火, fire. 灬 and 火 shared the same entry of indices in Kangxi Dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fact 3.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; 永 has several versions of explanation, but none of them is related to &amp;quot;冫ice&amp;quot;.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M08Ei.png&quot; alt=&quot;永&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文》：“永，長也，象水巠理之長。《詩》曰：‘江之永矣’。”高鴻縉《中國字例》：“按：此‘永’字，即潛行水中之‘泳’字之初文。原从人在水中行，由文人彳生意，故託以寄游泳之意……後人借用為長永，久而為借意所專，乃加水旁作‘泳’以還其原。”《說文新證》：“从｀彳’表示水行，｀卜’形象水巠理，全字象河水流行，巠理衍長之貌。｀卜’形或訛為人形，於是其旁又增象水形的曲筆。＂&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;: &amp;quot;永, long, illustrates the length of a river. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Poetry&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Classic of Poetry&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; says 'The length of the Jiang (river), cannot be navigated with a raft'&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gao Hongjin's &lt;em&gt;中國字例 Examples of Chinese Characters&lt;/em&gt;: &amp;quot;Note: this character 永 is the original character of 泳 that denotes diving and swimming in the water. In the beginning its semantic element is people swimming in the water, the 人 and 彳 parts, so it's borrowed to mean swimming ... later it's borrowed to mean 長永 (permanent, with the same sound), and stuck to this meaning for a long time, so 水 was added making it 泳 to denote the original meaning swimming.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;說文新證&lt;/em&gt;: &amp;quot;彳 denotes moving, 卜 illustrates a river. The whole character illustrates a running river, meaning the view of a long river. The shape of 卜 might be wrongly written as the shape of people 人, so curves are added to illustrate the shape of water.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T07:44:24.967" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9388" CreationDate="2014-09-02T04:09:05.523" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面对=to face. One just passively accepts the event.&#xA;应对=to act on, to respond. One needs to do something in response to the event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T04:09:05.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9387" CreationDate="2014-09-02T04:12:50.093" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 食堂师傅 as an informal way to refer to those cafeteria workers. Actually, you can use 师傅 every time you want to refer to someone with a skill, e.g.修车师傅(bike/car reparation worker). But here 师傅 has nothing to do with Master Shifu in Kungfu Panda. It is not like that Shifu :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T04:12:50.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9388" CreationDate="2014-09-02T08:43:18.807" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, &quot;以。。。的太对(态度)来应对／面对 这个问题 ？&quot;. If you want to stress on the attitude (positive, negative, responsible, etc), you should use 面对. But if you want focus on the action strategy, then it's 应对. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以积极的态度来 &lt;strong&gt;应对&lt;/strong&gt; 这个问题 -&gt; to &lt;strong&gt;handle the issue&lt;/strong&gt; with positive attitude (we should not wait here, it's not the end, let's do something!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以积极的态度来 &lt;strong&gt;面对&lt;/strong&gt; 这个问题 -&gt; &lt;strong&gt;thinking of the issue&lt;/strong&gt; with positive attitude (it's not so bad, we still have chance, let's more focus on the bright side)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面对 is usually used to describe a situation. Here 面 means &quot;facing -&gt; regarding to&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile 应对 is more focus on taking action. 应 means 响应 (respond), 应付(deal with).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://jingyan.baidu.com/article/6b97984d9dadef1ca2b0bfe0.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://jingyan.baidu.com/article/6b97984d9dadef1ca2b0bfe0.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;面对&lt;/strong&gt; 危机我们该如何有效 &lt;strong&gt;应对&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should we &lt;strong&gt;respond&lt;/strong&gt; effectively &lt;strong&gt;(regarding) to&lt;/strong&gt; the crisis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find more similar cases by searching both words: &lt;a href=&quot;http://bit.ly/1nRji4a&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://bit.ly/1nRji4a&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6149" LastEditorUserId="6149" LastEditDate="2014-09-02T17:24:49.590" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T17:24:49.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9375" CreationDate="2014-09-02T10:06:59.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can be used in Mandarin. However it sounds informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4365" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T10:06:59.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9302" CreationDate="2014-09-02T10:16:03.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually &quot;不然&quot; means &quot;otherwise&quot;, and has similar meaning with &quot;否则&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However in this context, I think it means &quot;alternatively&quot;, &quot;or&quot;, and it is better to say &quot;要不然&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4365" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T10:16:03.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9395" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9396" CreationDate="2014-09-02T11:05:00.590" Score="4" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I struggle with how to translate (generally informal) sentences containing the word &quot;get.&quot;  It seems that sometimes you can use 拿， or even 带, but for some reason it feels wrong, or that this is not the best or most common usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I use the very generic English expression: &quot;get&quot; in the context of the following sentence, where it basically means &quot;fetch.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Hang on, I have to go get something from my apartment.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Can you please go get it?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Could you please get the milk from the refrigerator for me?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T09:14:09.077" Title="How to express: Get" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9395" CreationDate="2014-09-02T14:31:29.663" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Hang on, I have to go get something from my apartment.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;等一下，我先回宿舍拿点东西。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Can you please go get it?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你能帮我拿一下么？&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please get the milk from the refrigerator for me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你能帮我从冰箱拿包牛奶过来吗？&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, in fact, we always say &quot;拿&quot;, bring is 带.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6326" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-09-02T15:53:32.550" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T15:53:32.550" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9387" CreationDate="2014-09-02T15:04:08.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, I often call cafeteria workers 大哥 or 阿姨, these sound good, and they feel better than 师傅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6326" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T15:04:08.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9388" CreationDate="2014-09-02T15:18:40.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say there no much difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to find something different:&#xA;面对：face it&#xA;应对：face it and try to solve it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6328" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T15:18:40.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9387" CreationDate="2014-09-03T01:33:50.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For description you may use 食堂/饭堂伙计, buddy in cafeteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伙计 also can be used during order. 伙计,给我一碟XXX。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6153" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T01:33:50.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9400" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-03T08:52:27.583" Score="5" ViewCount="249" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to write this in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Knowledge is a subset of true beliefs.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can't find a proper word for &quot;beliefs.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that 信仰 is faith. Faith has religious connotations; belief is neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T00:01:00.730" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T00:01:00.730" Title="How to translate belief?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9395" CreationDate="2014-09-03T09:14:09.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;取 is exactly fetch, if it means to go for and then bring back (someone or something).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T09:14:09.077" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9400" CreationDate="2014-09-03T09:32:20.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are referring to the meaning of followed picture, maybe you can say  &quot;知识是客观事实和主观认知交集的子集&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E8P5e.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6149" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T09:32:20.807" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8628" CreationDate="2014-09-03T12:07:26.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is mine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   Fresh air;&#xA;   Clean water;&#xA;   Blue sky;&#xA;   Sparkling teeth;&#xA;   Beautiful women, frank and affectionate;&#xA;   Handsome men, frank and affectionate;&#xA;   Magnificent animals in natural habitats;&#xA;   High quality of living;&#xA;   Significant contribution to world's science and technology;&#xA;   Significant contribution to world's philosophy and art.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-09-05T06:23:12.987" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T06:23:12.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9404" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-03T12:39:21.103" Score="5" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;As we all know, 道 is an important concept in classical Chinese, meaning &quot;the way&quot; in the metaphorical sense. It is a central concept in Taoism, but it was also used in Buddhism and Confucianism to designate the proper attitude, habits and behaviour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if the same word was used in classical Chinese translations of the Bible, and it seems it was not. I used John 14:6 as to test that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Jesus answered, &quot;I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E8%81%96%E7%B6%93_(%E6%96%87%E7%90%86%E5%92%8C%E5%90%88)/%E7%B4%84%E7%BF%B0%E7%A6%8F%E9%9F%B3&quot;&gt;classical Chinese version of the Bible&lt;/a&gt; it is translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;耶稣曰、我即途也、诚也、生也、非由我、则无人诣父、&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here comes my question: does 途 here have basically the same meaning as 道, or is there a significant difference between the two terms? Would it be possible to change one into another in this context without changing its meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2014-09-03T16:17:39.193" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T18:54:00.473" Title="道 vs 途 in religious texts" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9405" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9410" CreationDate="2014-09-03T17:04:43.693" Score="3" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;Skepticism, in Bertrand Russell's words, means &quot;it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. &quot; I.e. don't believe until there is enough evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, Newton's laws are supported by experiments, therefore there is sufficient evidence. On the other hand, Marxism was made up by Karl Marx, and before the Soviet Union, there were no systematic experiments, therefore we should be skeptical about Marxism. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When skepticism is translated into Chinese, it becomes  怀疑态度，怀疑论； 多疑癖, which means the practice of suspicion, a tenancy to believe even though the evidence is unclear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-09-03T18:07:13.213" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T05:43:52.007" Title="How to translate skepticism?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9404" CreationDate="2014-09-03T17:40:32.493" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;sometimes it's the same but not all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;say, 道路 and 路途, here they mean the same thing, the way or road.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;however, in the history of China, 道 has more meaning than it appears. as you know, Taoism begins with the discussion of 道. it means the essence of the universe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another example is 道不同不相为谋, here 道 actually means the choice of life. 途 won't express the same meaning. say, 仕途 means the the life as a officer. if you feel the meaning of the word, you can feel that 道 is more likely to stress the choice made by person and 途 will emphasize the thing it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道 can mean morality too. this character is rich. we can discuss it all day long, but 途 won't be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6331" LastEditorUserId="6331" LastEditDate="2014-09-03T18:54:00.473" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T18:54:00.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9407" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9423" CreationDate="2014-09-04T01:26:50.777" Score="18" ViewCount="6651" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I'm a bit confused. All the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高兴 eg 我很高兴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems 高兴 has a connotation of impermanence .. you could be happy right now but unhappy later on. It appears to be the most common, most general form of &quot;happiness&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;快乐 eg 新年快乐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems 快乐 is used in several set phrases, like wishing somebody a happy [festival, birthday, etc.] but isn't used elsewhere&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;愉快 eg 周末愉快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have only heard this used for the above phrase, is it a set phrase for the weekend, and used nowhere else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;幸福 eg 祝你幸福&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幸福 appears to be about long-lasting, forever kind of happiness, in life, in marriage, that kind of thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding of the difference between these is somewhat fuzzy, and I was hoping somebody would be able to clear it up. Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T08:23:43.610" Title="高兴 vs 快乐 vs 愉快 vs 幸福: what's the difference?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9408" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9409" CreationDate="2014-09-04T01:47:13.277" Score="6" ViewCount="474" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me to translate 脚底抹油－开溜 because when I'm using google translate the sentence is so weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6332" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T06:51:04.753" Title="脚底抹油－开溜 translate into English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9408" CreationDate="2014-09-04T02:26:47.640" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If something bad happened, you can &lt;code&gt;脚底抹油&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;put oil on the sole of foot&lt;/code&gt;) , and then &lt;code&gt;开溜&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;start to slip away quickly&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, it means &lt;code&gt;expeditious retreat&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: Here's another statement as &lt;code&gt;脚底抹油 - 溜之大吉&lt;/code&gt;, which has a similar meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-09-04T03:48:51.867" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T03:48:51.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9405" CreationDate="2014-09-04T02:58:48.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are absolutely correct to be skeptical about the translation offered. A more accurate translation for skepticism would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;质疑精神&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breaking it apart,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;质疑&lt;/strong&gt; [zhì yí] means: 提出疑问 (raise a query, be critical minded)&lt;br&gt; &lt;strong&gt;精神&lt;/strong&gt; [jīng&#xA;  shén] means: 意识、思维 (spirit or mindset)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read more about 质疑精神 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E8%B4%A8%E7%96%91%E7%B2%BE%E7%A5%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T02:58:48.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9411" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-04T04:02:30.520" Score="3" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a bit confused on how to use A受的欢迎  in the past tense. &#xA;Would you say &#xA;&quot;可是这家餐厅已经受了所有外国人的欢迎。&#xA;or&#xA;这家餐厅已经收到了所有外国人的欢迎？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for any help in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-09-07T09:44:33.797" Title="how to use 受欢迎 in the past tense?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9412" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-04T04:05:18.857" Score="4" ViewCount="1281" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a bit confused on how to use the expression &quot;The next time&quot; in chinese.&#xA;I originally wrote&#xA;(after going to Kigali for the first he realized there were no ethiopian restaurants) &#xA;于是， 他下次回基加利时， 就决定开这个餐厅。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But my friend told me that  a better way of saying it is &#xA;他再次回基加利时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-09-04T06:00:59.290" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T06:04:15.217" Title="How to say &quot;Next time&quot; in the past tense?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9408" CreationDate="2014-09-04T04:13:04.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This phrase is a Chinese idiom that simply means to escape or to avoid (from negative consequences/liabilities/etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6333" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T04:13:04.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9414" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9419" CreationDate="2014-09-04T04:13:35.537" Score="16" ViewCount="2072" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've realized that I still don't fully understand the placement of &quot;多“  a relatively common word. Can you never place 多 before a measure word? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A friend recently corrected my &quot;四多快美金“ into 四块多美金” but does that apply for all measure word &#xA;比如， 三十多条蛇 should be &quot;三十条多蛇？“ (that doesn't sound right either) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any clarification would be super helpful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T15:59:51.803" Title="Does 多 always come after the measure word？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9412" CreationDate="2014-09-04T04:34:20.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'下次' means in the future. '再次' is better here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6334" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T04:34:20.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9411" CreationDate="2014-09-04T05:32:22.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply use &quot;以前&quot;, if the restaurant is not as good as before:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這家餐廳以前很受外國人(/食客/遊客)歡迎.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T05:32:22.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9405" CreationDate="2014-09-04T05:43:52.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to wiki, we can say 懷疑論 or 懷疑主義.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T05:43:52.007" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9414" CreationDate="2014-09-04T05:53:20.990" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It's correct for&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「三十多条蛇」means &amp;quot;30 something snakes&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「四块多美金」 means &amp;quot;4 point something USD&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say 「百多人」 for &amp;quot;Hundred something people&amp;quot;，「五十多元」 for &amp;quot;Fifty something dollars&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a little special way for talking about decimal point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example 「外面只有三度多」means &amp;quot;It's 3 point something degree outside only.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 「外面有三十多度」means &amp;quot;It's 30 something degree outside.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6272" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T05:53:20.990" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9414" CreationDate="2014-09-04T05:56:24.157" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;多&lt;/code&gt; is used for approximate number, which is one-tenth of the measure unit prior to &lt;code&gt;多&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;四块多美金&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;4.0-4.9 dollars&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;四多块美金&lt;/code&gt; is not correct, &lt;code&gt;多&lt;/code&gt; should be placed after the measure word &lt;code&gt;块&lt;/code&gt; for unit digit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;三十多条蛇&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;30-39 snakes&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;三十条多蛇&lt;/code&gt; is not correct, because the measure unit of &lt;code&gt;蛇&lt;/code&gt; could not be decimal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T05:56:24.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9412" CreationDate="2014-09-04T06:04:15.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;下次&lt;/code&gt; : &lt;code&gt;next time&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;再次&lt;/code&gt; : &lt;code&gt;once again&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You said it's in the past tense, I think &lt;code&gt;再次&lt;/code&gt; is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;于是，当他再次回到基加利时，就决定开这个餐厅。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T06:04:15.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9408" CreationDate="2014-09-04T06:16:51.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's just meaning skip away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6269" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T06:16:51.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9414" CreationDate="2014-09-04T06:36:31.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese A Comprehensive Grammar；２。５。１。。。when the number is associated with a noun or measure and noun,多comes after the number and before the measure or noun: 八十多个人， 三百多张纸 (三十多条蛇)&#xA;多can also be used with single digit numbers up to ten when they occur with standard measures or with temporal nouns, which are de facto measures. In these cases comes after the standard measure and before the noun if there is one:四公升多（汽油），六英里多（路），五年多（时间），两点多（钟），三个多月.(四块多美金)&#xA;somewhat different rule :实用现代汉语语法，１２０页：２。［多］＂多＂表示比前面的数词所表示的数目略多。如＂二十多个（人）＂，＂五百多斤（米）＂。＂多＂的位置以及用法与＂来＂一样：&#xA;A 式：数词（以０结尾）＋＂多＂＋量词（各种量词）＋（名词）&#xA;B 式：数词（以１。。。９结尾及１０）＋量词（表示连续量）＋＂多＂＋名词 &#xA;A Practical Chinese Grammar For Foreigners 外国人实用汉语语法 agrees with Answer 2:８６页：１。表示多于＂十、百，千、万＂等的概数时，＂多＂紧接在整数后边，用在量词或本身带量词性的名词前边。例如：（１）整数（个位数为＂０＂）－－＂多＂－－量词－－（名词）:这双皮鞋要三十多块（钱）。今天食堂买了三百多公斤（肉）。又如：一千多吨（煤）。一万三千多个（人）。（２）整数（个位数为＂０＂）－－＂多＂－－带量词性的名词：马丽二十多岁了。我们三十多年没见面了。又如：三百多天，六十多课。 &#xA;２。表示不满＂一＂的概数时，量词要放在整数和＂多＂之间。例如：（１）整数（个为１－９）－－量词－－＂多＂－－（名词）他们走了两个多小时。十二点多钟他才到家。又如：五分多（钟）一个（多）月，三公斤多（西红柿）二十三块多（钱）（２）整数（个位数为１－９）－－带量词性的名词－－＂多＂：我工作两年多了。今年小明八岁多。又如：五天多，四课多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-09-04T12:59:37.563" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T12:59:37.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9407" CreationDate="2014-09-04T06:41:51.087" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;高兴 means glad, a temporary state of mind. E.g: I'm glad it's sunny today -- 今天是晴天, 我很高兴.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快乐 means happy, and I agree it's the only one in the list that can be used for festivals. E.g. 节日快乐 (happy holiday). 我很快乐 (I'm very happy -- in this case same as 高兴).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;愉快 means pleasant. That's why you see it used with &quot;weekend&quot; -- have a pleasant weekend = 周末愉快. It's less common to say something like 我很愉快.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幸福, I agree, is a deeper kind of happiness for describing a long-lasting state of mind. I am 幸福 because I have my dream job, a lovely wife and two kids; I am 幸福 because I know my parents love me deeply; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my two cents as a native Chinese speaker -- hopefully it helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6333" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T06:41:51.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9388" CreationDate="2014-09-04T06:47:44.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My concise answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面对: to face&#xA;应对: to cope with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6333" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T06:47:44.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9375" CreationDate="2014-09-04T06:53:37.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an informal and redundant way of saying &quot;去 + verb + 了&quot;, or &quot;verb去了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去打牌去了 (informal, redundant) --&gt; 去打牌了 (formal, correct), or 打牌去了(formal, correct).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6333" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T06:53:37.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9427" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9437" CreationDate="2014-09-04T10:04:04.373" Score="3" ViewCount="452" Body="&lt;p&gt;Came across this, old(?), term today:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;劝合不劝散&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick &lt;em&gt;baidu&lt;/em&gt; gives me a lot of variants on this term though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;劝合不劝离&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;劝合不劝分 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;劝和不劝散&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;劝和不劝分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;劝和不劝离&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would imagine anything with 和 would be a more widely accepted variant, than those with 合.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is there a most widely accepted term among the whole 散、分、离 group?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T07:19:25.807" Title="Proper term 劝合不劝散" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9427" CreationDate="2014-09-04T10:38:38.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would like to say,&lt;code&gt;劝合不劝散&lt;/code&gt; ，&lt;code&gt;劝合不劝分&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;劝合不劝离&lt;/code&gt; almost the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; And 合 is the opposite meaning of 离 and 散 .&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Like a couples, we prefer they live together instead of 散 or 离&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6326" LastEditorUserId="6326" LastEditDate="2014-09-04T10:43:49.770" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T10:43:49.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9411" CreationDate="2014-09-04T10:42:31.993" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can also use “从前”，“过去”，“曾经” to indicate the past time, but both imply that the current situation is opposite of the previous. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This restaurant used to be popular among foreigners(,but now is not that popular).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这家餐厅从前很受外国人的欢迎（，但现在已经不那么受欢迎了）。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这家餐厅过去很受外国人的欢迎（，但现在已经不那么受欢迎了）。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这家餐厅曾经很受外国人的欢迎（，但现在已经不那么受欢迎了）。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you want to use &quot;已经&quot; to express &quot;have been&quot;, you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This restaurant has been (very) popular among foreigners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这家餐厅已经很受外国人的欢迎了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6156" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T10:42:31.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9414" CreationDate="2014-09-04T11:25:40.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;多 is based on the words you wanted to talk. You can replace &quot;x&quot; (unknown) with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't always use measure word to depend where to put it in, it is based on how much is it. Normally, it filled up the empty space you were talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for decimals:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三块多 = 3.x (local currency here you are talking about)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十五点八多公斤 = 15.8x kg&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一点二五多公里 = 1.25x km&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for larger number:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一千多单位 = 1xxx unit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十多亿美币 = 1,x00,000,000 (亿 = hundred million)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for both:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一万两千多点五八多公里 = 12xxx.58x km&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十多点多度 = 1x.x degree&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you don't know how much is the number but how large is it (thousand, hundred, million etc), you can use 几 as an unknown (same use as 多, but much wider usage, normally used for asking)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for asking/telling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;那至少要几万元! = that cost at least x0000 (local currency here)! (normally more than 10000)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6342" LastEditorUserId="6342" LastEditDate="2014-09-05T15:59:51.803" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T15:59:51.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9431" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9439" CreationDate="2014-09-04T14:50:43.853" Score="4" ViewCount="421" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read recently in a piece of poetry the sentence  ”从明天起， 我会做一个幸福的人“ － what is the difference between this and, say, &quot;从明天开始？“. Is 起 significantly more formal?  Could I use it in day to day writing? (Say a diary?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2015-10-15T11:23:55.843" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T17:46:00.933" Title="Is 起 too formal to use in day to day writing？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9431" CreationDate="2014-09-04T15:44:35.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 起 in this poetry of Haizi is more rhythmical in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6344" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T15:44:35.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9431" CreationDate="2014-09-04T17:52:10.143" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;从明天起 = &quot;from tomorrow onward&quot;. Its tone is similar to &quot;It's believed that from this day onward the US economy will enjoy a mild boost.&quot; Or &quot;from tomorrow onward I will be an adult.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;从明天开始 = &quot;starting from tomorrow&quot;. Its tone is similar to &quot;Starting from tomorrow I will sleep early and do my laundry.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that makes it clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6333" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T17:52:10.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9434" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-04T18:20:53.660" Score="5" ViewCount="1889" Body="&lt;p&gt;I‘m currently learning how to form the complement of result and what are the translations of some common compound verbs. My book makes this examples:&#xA;• 看完=to finish watching&#xA;• 写好=to finish writing&#xA;• 吃好=to finish eating(with satisfaction)&#xA;• 学好=to finish studying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: why does it use 完 just in the first example and 好 in all the others if the meaning it‘s always &quot;to finish doing smth&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastEditorUserId="4145" LastEditDate="2014-09-04T18:26:04.563" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T06:39:28.663" Title="Complement of result:完 or 好" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9434" CreationDate="2014-09-04T18:52:57.553" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;grammars usually list a number greater than two of 结果补语， taking 外国人实用汉语语法 as an example 动词： 完，见，开，住，着（zhao２），在，到，给； 形容词： 对，错，好，清楚，干净惯，大。 Usually more than one are possible， different choices give different （shades of） meaning（s）。It would seem that in case of the ４ verbs 看，写，吃，学 both 完 and 好 are possible， the English translation need not be restricted to ＂finish＂。&#xA;regarding Answer ２， as quoted above &#xA;A Practical Chinese Grammar For Foreigners p.292 distinguishes between verb-complement of result phrases in which the complements are verbs ( 完，见，开，住，着（zhao２），在，到，给) and verb-complement of result phrases in which the complements are adjectives (对，错，好，清楚，干净惯，大). (The term suffix seems to be somewhat unexpected). Verbs with complements of result can have objects （in which case any difference between 完 and 好 sometimes becomes less obvious）,e.g. 看完（见，好）某东西，写好（完）一封信，吃好（完）早餐（iciba：那天恰逢我的生日，吃完早餐后全体工作人员为我唱了一首小夜曲），学好（完）某课本（iciba：这是门两个学期学完的必修课）。Of course instead of above examples it may be better to use ＂把＂－sentences，e。g。把某事物看完（好），把给妈妈的封信写好（完），把汉语语发课本学（习）好（完）（these phrases could be ended by adding 了） &#xA;好像值得指出的是＂好看＂这短语有个特殊的意义，请看一下现代汉语词典：看好：（１）（事物）将要出现好的势头：旅游市场的前景～｜经济前途～。（２）认为某人或某事物将在竞争或竞赛中占上风：这场比赛，人们～火车头队。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-09-05T01:39:10.823" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T01:39:10.823" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9434" CreationDate="2014-09-04T20:57:33.027" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;完 is a verb complement, while 好 is a completion suffix. They are not identical, and  cannot be used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trivially, 看好 means either look after (kānhǎo), or looking forward to something better (kànhǎo). Here it would be unwise to use 好 as a completion marker, so we always use 看完.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise, 学好 means learn well rather than finish learning (do you ever finish learning, or is it a continuous process throughout life?). 读完 would be more appropriate here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完 is a more unambiguous particle for expressing completion, while 好 is much more versatile. 完 is also more formal, while 好 is more common in vernacular speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T20:57:33.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9427" CreationDate="2014-09-05T04:09:57.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quick googling gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+&quot;劝合不劝散&quot; -&quot;劝合不劝离&quot; -&quot;劝合不劝分&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝散&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝分&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝离&quot; = 698 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&quot;劝合不劝散&quot; +&quot;劝合不劝离&quot; -&quot;劝合不劝分&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝散&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝分&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝离&quot; = 11500&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&quot;劝合不劝散&quot; -&quot;劝合不劝离&quot; +&quot;劝合不劝分&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝散&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝分&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝离&quot; = 10700&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&quot;劝合不劝散&quot; -&quot;劝合不劝离&quot; -&quot;劝合不劝分&quot; +&quot;劝和不劝散&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝分&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝离&quot; = 3160&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&quot;劝合不劝散&quot; -&quot;劝合不劝离&quot; -&quot;劝合不劝分&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝散&quot; +&quot;劝和不劝分&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝离&quot; = 25200&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&quot;劝合不劝散&quot; -&quot;劝合不劝离&quot; -&quot;劝合不劝分&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝散&quot; -&quot;劝和不劝分&quot; +&quot;劝和不劝离&quot; = 32500&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T04:09:57.610" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9434" CreationDate="2014-09-05T06:39:28.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;完 means finish,and 好 means with a happy ending.&#xA;Like 吃完 means just eat up, 吃好 means eat good, but may not eat up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6347" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T06:39:28.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9431" CreationDate="2014-09-05T08:52:30.690" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer directly towards your questions,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is 起 significantly more formal?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it is not. It is commonly used in spoken language, casual writings and formal writings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Could I use it in day to day writing? (Say a diary?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, and it sounds perfectly natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;”从明天起， 我会做一个幸福的人“ － what is the difference between this and say &quot;从明天开始？“. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the other answer suggested, 从明天起 means 'from ... onward; ever since ...' which is making a statement, a bold prediction or an oath for a future &lt;strong&gt;result.&lt;/strong&gt; E.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从明天起我就再也不抽烟了。After today I will never smoke anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从明天开始 means 'starting from tomorrow', which is most commonly used when you're telling an &lt;strong&gt;execution plan&lt;/strong&gt;. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从明天开始我每天少抽一根烟，直到戒掉为止。Starting tomorrow, I'll be using one less cigarette every day until I completely quit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice the difference is very subtle and people use them interchangeably. In situations where the difference really matters, people tend to use more elaborated and explicit way to disambiguate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T08:52:30.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8628" CreationDate="2014-09-05T09:06:16.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the song 《我的要求不算高》 from last year's CCTV spring festival gala articulates some aspects of the chinese dream on a micro level e.g. blue skies, greater healthcare provision, educational opportunities. it's possible to read this as the state-sanctioned limits on individual Chinese dreams as content in the gala is tightly controlled and vetted. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the singer doesn't mention &quot;pushing back against US/Japan hegemony in the south and east china seas&quot; for example, which would be part of the larger Chinese dream. Nothing overly political or structural is included: at the heart of the Chinese dream is the continued leadership of the CCP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;watch here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di-qATFK3WM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di-qATFK3WM&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjY3ODU2NDI4.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjY3ODU2NDI4.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6212" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T09:06:16.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9443" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-05T22:24:55.527" Score="3" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;我走到海滩边，看到一幢房子前有一块写着“旅馆”的牌子.&#xA;I went to the seaside and saw a building with sign in front of it which said 'hotel'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Authentic Chinese with my translation. This is in the past. But there is no 了. Is this a bit like the English historical present? Or is there an explanation to do with aspect? Is my translation using the past a mistranslation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1140" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T10:55:01.500" Title="Use of 了 - when is it necessary?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9443" CreationDate="2014-09-05T23:09:58.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tense in Chinese is inferred from context, there are no grammatical constructs for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 indicates completion, not past time per se.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T23:09:58.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9291" CreationDate="2014-09-06T04:00:12.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arphic has released several free Chinese fonts, and I particularly like the Kaiti style. In Ubuntu, they're available in the package manager; I'm not sure how to get them for other systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T04:00:12.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9355" CreationDate="2014-09-06T04:08:20.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several books that are aimed at travellers with a short time to learn some basic words before they travel. I'm pretty sure I used a book called, &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0835125335&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;I Can Read That&lt;/a&gt; before my second trip to China, and it had things like the characters for man 男 and woman 女 so you can find the right toilet. My big triumph on that trip was that I read a sign that said 天安门, and I recognized that it was pointing the way to Tiananmen square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck on your trip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T04:08:20.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9447" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-06T06:08:17.717" Score="3" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is regarding when 幺 appears in traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the simplified variant of 幺?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked this question on the cantodict forums recently, and one member gave this excellent response:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,129472,129515#msg-129515&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,129472,129515#msg-129515&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's still not clear to me what the answer is.  I'm quite confused why so many online dictionaries seem to give 么 as the answer.  Could it be that simplification in Cantonese is different to simplification in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found over 20 words in ABC Comprehensive Chinese Dictionary where the traditional contained 幺 and the simplified form uses 么. This is a consistent mapping in that dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6046" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T07:19:50.287" Title="Simplified variant of 幺?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9448" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-06T07:38:06.673" Score="3" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a specific term that is usually used to describe live poultry, or live chickens, or any type of live animal, which is for sale in a market and which the customer takes home alive to butcher later?  I wondered if there is a term to distinguish between poultry which is taken home alive, versus poultry which is alive when the customer selects it, but which is prepared for eating at the market and taken home already plucked, gutted, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6350" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T05:14:40.730" Title="live poultry for sale?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9449" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9460" CreationDate="2014-09-06T07:43:09.323" Score="2" ViewCount="931" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I want to explain the word &quot;condescending&quot; in Chinese using a scenario, what can I do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you so much for your attention!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T18:47:48.613" Title="Explaining &quot;condescending&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9447" CreationDate="2014-09-06T08:05:07.013" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;幺 is used formally in the PRC, as in 幺女, 幺妹, 幺三五, meaning &quot;one&quot; or &quot;youngest&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, it is part of the simplified script, but it was never simplified to begin with. It is a standard character. 说文 says: 小也。通俗文曰。不長曰幺。細小曰麼。許無麼字。象子初生之形。子初生，甚小也。俗謂一爲幺。亦謂晚生子爲幺。皆謂其小也。於堯切。二部。凡幺之屬皆从幺。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;康熙字典 also describes this character, and adds at the very end: 俗作么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;么 is therefore an 异体字 that seems to have been normalized within the traditional script, at least as it is used in Taiwan and other locations. It is also used in China, though, as in 么妹. 么 in China is of course the interrogative particles &quot;me&quot; or &quot;ma&quot; in its own right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is 么麼 in traditional, but 幺麽 (or even 幺么) in simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is gonna bake your noodle further: note how the traditional 么 is part of the simplified 麽, whereas the simplified 幺 is part of the traditional 麼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T08:05:07.013" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9449" CreationDate="2014-09-06T08:07:18.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I seriously doubt whether the Chinese have developed this level of sensibility yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation 居高临下 actually means arrogant, overbearing, literally means &quot;like from high to low.&quot; At the core of it is rudeness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, if I'm not mistaken, condescending is not rude at all. It has more to do with the beholder's perception. If the beholder lacks self-esteem, he or she may view the other as condescending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T08:07:18.090" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9448" CreationDate="2014-09-06T09:48:12.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;compare: &lt;strong&gt;活禽&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;{agriculture} live poultry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;鸡肉&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;chicken (as food), chicken meat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;鸭肉&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;duck meat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T09:48:12.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9443" CreationDate="2014-09-06T10:35:47.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that Chinese language is not that rigorous in grammar as in English. You example sentence is definitely okay and readable for a native Chinese speaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no general rule for when to use &quot;了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make your example sentence more authentic, you may say instead:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我走到海灘邊, 看到一棟屋子. 屋前掛著一塊牌子, 寫著 &quot;旅館&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the key is to think in Chinese, rather than translating from English to Chinese. For, if so, then rarely it is idiomatic (I am assuming you pursue idiomaticness). Thus, for your sentence to be idiomatic you must practice to think in Chinese. That will be more helpful than trying to figure out a general &quot;rule&quot; of sentence formulation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wish you all the luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T10:35:47.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9375" CreationDate="2014-09-06T10:43:59.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Such usage is rare in modern generation. Often in spoken Chinese &quot;去打牌了&quot; suffices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T10:43:59.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9388" CreationDate="2014-09-06T10:46:22.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;面對&quot; means &quot;face&quot;; so it simply implies that one does not evade. Yet &quot;應對&quot; is stronger; it implies &quot;面對&quot; and often that one is trying to work solutions out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T10:46:22.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9443" CreationDate="2014-09-06T10:55:01.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“了” really means the suffix of a verb like &quot;-ed&quot; for past tense in English. However, this &quot;suffix&quot; word is usually following some verbs that may last for ages. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃饭 (I'm having lunch)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 吃 is a verb that can last for ages (this isn't a shorted-time verb). So if you wanna explain that the verb comes to an end, just add &quot;了&quot;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃饭了。(I had lunch)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, some verbs with a prepsition like &quot;到&quot;, just also means an end of a verb, such verbs as &quot;走&quot;,&quot;跑&quot;, are &quot;direction-toward&quot; verbs. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我来**到**你面前。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他奔**入**宿舍内。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's also the reason why don't to need &quot;了&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T10:55:01.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9458" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9459" CreationDate="2014-09-06T16:09:08.343" Score="3" ViewCount="363" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the durations of tones in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do all tones have the same exact duration?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other dialects can be noted as examples...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T09:52:53.570" Title="Duration of tones in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9458" CreationDate="2014-09-06T17:17:31.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;T1 = T4 &amp;lt; T2 &amp;lt; T3, which means that T2 and T3 are more complex tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://naccl.osu.edu/sites/naccl.osu.edu/files/NACCL-23_1_06.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://naccl.osu.edu/sites/naccl.osu.edu/files/NACCL-23_1_06.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T17:17:31.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9449" CreationDate="2014-09-06T18:00:47.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can give you a real life scenario that illustrates this.&#xA;Some ten (?) years ago, the government of a certain place tried to pass a law that might infringe on citizens' right. When a high level government official was asked whether more discussions and consultation with the general public was necessary, she said something like this: (sorry I don't remember the exact wording, but it was to the effect) &quot;Do you think taxi-drivers and cleaning ladies will have any interest or contribution to this?&quot; Now if that is not condescension, I don't know what is. Needless to say, there was a huge outrage.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T18:00:47.267" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9449" CreationDate="2014-09-06T18:47:48.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a possible scenario. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A student who is enrolled in an intermediate level calculus course is having some difficulty understanding her most recent lesson. The student asks an older student acquaintance for help, because this other student has taken three calculus courses and is enrolled in an advanced math degree. The second student does help the first student, and explains the lesson clearly. However, he does so in an unpleasant way, reviewing some introductory concepts from algebra such as &quot;what is a variable?&quot; and treating the first student as if she is an intellectual insect. When he is done, he smirks in a self satisfied manner. The first student feels humiliated, because she is not stupid, on the contrary she is an intelligent person; but she has been treated as if she were stupid. She vows that if she needs more math help, she will find a different tutor, because the boy who just helped her was so condescending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6350" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T18:47:48.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9400" CreationDate="2014-09-07T03:37:51.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知識是一種信念, 但信念不必是知識.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thus translate it because of the following reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) A belief is something that is not tested or proved. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Knowledge in natural sciences is something that passes lots of tests. But, it is still to a certain extent a belief; for there is no way to be sure that knowledge in natural sciences will not be disputed by new evidence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, knowledge can be viewed as the collection of tested beliefs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-07T03:37:51.353" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9431" CreationDate="2014-09-07T04:06:18.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For everyday spoken Chinese using &quot;起&quot; is a bit spurious, and using &quot;開始&quot; is natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For written or formal Chinese using &quot;起&quot; is quite okay. Contrarily, using &quot;開始&quot; here gets a bit sloppy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-07T04:06:18.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9411" CreationDate="2014-09-07T04:12:03.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you simply say &quot;這家餐廳受到了外國人的歡迎&quot;, then we understand that this restaurant is possibly still popular for foreigners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you say instead &quot;這家餐聽曾經受到外國人的歡迎&quot;, then we know clearly that the restaurant now is not as popular as it was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-07T04:12:03.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9407" CreationDate="2014-09-07T04:19:40.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quick rule of thumb is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &quot;高興&quot; is reserved for describing the speaker's mentality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The remaining three can be used for describing both the speaker's and the others's mentality. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say &quot;我很高興&quot;, but almost never do we say &quot;他很高興&quot;. Instead, we say &quot;他看起來很高興&quot; (He seems happy). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say &quot;我很幸福&quot;, &quot;我 (usually followed by &quot;的心情&quot;) 很愉快&quot;, &quot;我很快樂&quot;, and it is also legitimate to replace &quot;我&quot; with &quot;他&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-07T04:19:40.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9411" CreationDate="2014-09-07T09:44:33.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides willyang's words, my additions：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;受欢迎&quot; looks like a past tense however most of time &lt;strong&gt;it's just a State&lt;/strong&gt;. So sometimes you don't need to care much about when it happens——Like that in English——Welcomed, just means &quot;the state of someone that is welcomed&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are welcomed here（你来这里很欢迎。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-09-07T09:44:33.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9478" CreationDate="2014-09-07T13:47:50.197" Score="4" ViewCount="458" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to render a song in Chinese from Spanish, precisely &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHS9vwH3mdY&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt; – &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.musica.com/letras.asp?letra=1118833&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lyrics here&lt;/a&gt; –, but I'm not sure how to translate the subjunctives at the start. The beginning reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;May the infinite become starless,&#xA;And the immense sea lose its vastness,&#xA;But the black of your eyes, may it not die,&#xA;And the aroma of your skin, may it stay the same.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought of something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;无边无际可能变成没有星星，&#xA;广大的海洋也来失去广漠&#xA;但希望你眼睛的黑色不死去&#xA;而你皮肤的香气也留一样&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any advice? PS I'm also trying to keep the tune, i.e. keep the translation fitted in the tune, so if you could help me with that and with keeping the rhymes (optional) it would be great. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2017-06-03T15:49:47.300" Title="Subjunctives in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9467" CreationDate="2014-09-07T18:12:10.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry for my bad english first, and it's my ADVICE,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if i translate those Chinese to English, it become like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Infinite may become no stars&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Immense sea lose large too&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But hope your black never dies (which is in your eyes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the aroma of your skin stay the same too&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you trying to tell us that &amp;quot;may&amp;quot; word has the same as the &amp;quot;hope&amp;quot; word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then you should use &amp;quot;但願&amp;quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但願(May) 無窮(the infinite) 變成(become) 無星(starless)，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而(And) 廣大的(the immense) 海洋(sea) &lt;strong&gt;也可能(may)&lt;/strong&gt; 失去(lose) its(它的) vastness(浩瀚無邊),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, I don't understand what's the black thing will in your eyes,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you just want to tell us that black which is about the color,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;die&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;disappear&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; too, and if will become like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;But the&lt;/em&gt; 在你眼中的黑色(black of your eyes), &lt;strong&gt;但願(hope)&lt;/strong&gt; 它(it) &lt;strong&gt;將(will) 永不(never)&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;消逝(die)&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And(而) 你皮膚的香氣(the aroma of your skin), &lt;strong&gt;僅希望(only hope) 那將永不改變(that will never change)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for change some words, so the whole lyrics should be like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但願無窮變成無星，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May the infinite become starless, &lt;em&gt;(But starless with what?)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而廣大的海洋也可能失去它的浩瀚無邊，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the immense sea &lt;strong&gt;may&lt;/strong&gt; lose its vastness &lt;strong&gt;too&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望你眼中的黑色，將永不消逝，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hope that&lt;/strong&gt; black of your eyes &lt;strong&gt;will never disappear&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;(What's the black thing?)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也希望你肌膚上的香氣將永不改變。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Also hope that&lt;/strong&gt; aroma of your skin, &lt;strong&gt;will never change&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; 肌膚 same as 皮膚, but 肌膚 always use on &lt;strong&gt;women's skin&lt;/strong&gt;(softly skin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really dizzy for reviewing my answer, I'm going to rest ..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope that I can help you a little bit ..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6355" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-09-07T18:12:10.467" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9469" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-08T04:37:24.290" Score="13" ViewCount="1179" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/xs/5FEB.htm&quot;&gt;快&lt;/a&gt; is usually used for the meaning of &quot;fast&quot;, but it is also used in the sense of &quot;pleasant&quot; or &quot;happy&quot; - for example, in the words 痛快, 爽快. It seems that both meanings are quite ancient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the morphology, you'd expect this character to originally have the &quot;happy&quot; meaning - it has a 忄 radical - but the &quot;fast&quot; meaning is also very ancient, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;此马虽快,然力薄不堪苦行。——《晋书·王湛传》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did this character pick up two meanings, which are not quite related?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;And yes, 快 also has other meanings.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T02:03:10.313" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T13:52:31.297" Title="快: why does &quot;fast&quot; also mean &quot;happy&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9469" CreationDate="2014-09-08T05:03:09.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a very satisfying answer but anyway:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;說文解字&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喜也。从心夬聲。苦夬切&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;說文解字注&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喜也。引申之義爲疾速。俗字作駃。从心。夬聲。苦夬切。十五部。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice the &lt;em&gt;引申之義爲疾速&lt;/em&gt; from above, happiness &lt;em&gt;extended&lt;/em&gt; to mean fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know exactly the mentality of &lt;code&gt;喜 -&amp;gt; 引申 -&amp;gt; 疾速&lt;/code&gt; but apparently people did think they were &lt;em&gt;related&lt;/em&gt; at one point in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it has to do with &lt;em&gt;俗字作駃&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大汉语词典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;駃&lt;/strong&gt; kuài［1］快马。“参见駃马”。［2］同“快”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Must have been some mix-up somewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-09-08T05:03:09.237" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9471" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9474" CreationDate="2014-09-08T05:09:14.960" Score="1" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested to see if there is a specific translation for &quot;Crowd&quot; as in &quot;crowd at a concert&quot;. To say &quot;We entered the crowd at the concert&quot; would it be 那一群人？ or 观众？ or is there a better way to express this？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T15:49:40.713" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T15:49:40.713" Title="How to say “The crowd” as in a &quot;Crowd in a concert&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9458" CreationDate="2014-09-08T07:23:28.840" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My subjective view is that the first and third tones are quite long, and the fourth is short and abrupt.  The paper by Chang cited in the other answer seems to confirm this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[An] intrinsic durational difference among four Mandarin tones has been noted as early as in Lin (1965), with T3 being the longest, and T4 being the shortest.  An acoustic study by Shen in 1990 confirmed T3 to be consistently longer than T2 when produced in isolation.  (p. 86)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part about isolation is important, though – it’s possible that lengths change in connected speech, and that how they change will shift depending on how fast the person is speaking.  Incidentally, the Mandarin falling tone and the Thai falling tone both have a 51 contour, but they sound quite different, largely because the Mandarin tone is short and the Thai one is not (Thai also has vowel length as a contributing factor.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2014-09-08T07:23:28.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9471" CreationDate="2014-09-08T09:37:08.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes there is. For &quot;crowd&quot; in &quot;the crowd in a concert&quot; we say &quot;聽眾&quot;; for &quot;crowd' in &quot;the crowd in a ball game&quot; we say &quot;觀眾&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-08T09:37:08.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9475" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-08T12:02:10.990" Score="2" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most people will say it is because there are too many homonyms in the Chinese language. But when I realize that homonyms do not bother people very much in oral communications, I begin to question this answer. As a matter of fact, Vietnamese writing system has been successfully romanized. They have a lot of homonyms too, but they are doing fine.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ever since Sejong the Great invented the Korean alphabet in 1446, Korean vocabulary has become a superset of the Chinese vocabulary. In other words,  hangul has no problem with Chinese homonyms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-09-08T12:22:51.270" LastActivityDate="2014-09-08T18:05:29.610" Title="What are the real obstacles of romanizing Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9476" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9477" CreationDate="2014-09-08T12:48:38.340" Score="7" ViewCount="576" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was told by friend who is a native mainland speaker that &quot;最近如何&quot;, or anything using &quot;如何&quot; to inquire about the state of a person, is a very ancient/formal way of speaking. This was quite a shock to me&amp;mdash;I was taught this sentence quite early in my studies as a relaxed way of asking how someone was doing, although I think I learned it from a Taiwanese blog. He suggested using &quot;最近怎样&quot; instead, which he said is much less formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the social context of &quot;如何&quot;/&quot;最近如何&quot; in the mainland? Is it different than in Taiwan? Is it too formal/old to be used among friends? Is &quot;最近怎样&quot; more modern? When should I use which?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4709" LastEditorUserId="4709" LastEditDate="2015-01-26T15:28:52.910" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T15:28:52.910" Title="How formal is 如何 in the context of 最近如何?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;formal&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9476" CreationDate="2014-09-08T13:54:00.683" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, &lt;code&gt;最近如何&lt;/code&gt; is a little formal, while &lt;code&gt;最近怎么样&lt;/code&gt; is much natural and genial. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I think it's OK for a formal social occasion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: When &lt;code&gt;如何&lt;/code&gt; is used in the context for &lt;code&gt;how to do sth&lt;/code&gt; such as &lt;code&gt;如何刻录dvd&lt;/code&gt;, it's normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-09-08T13:54:00.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9467" CreationDate="2014-09-08T15:36:00.750" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree with the translation into English of this use of the subjunctive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure&#xA;&lt;code&gt;May + [SUBJECT] + [VERB in infinitive form]&lt;/code&gt; in English generally implies a type of volitive subjunctive in the Romance languages, where &#xA;the speaker has the authority to wish (or even to will) that something happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here though, I would see the original language construction is as a potential subjunctive, which in English would have &lt;code&gt;[SUBJECT] + may + [VERB in infinitive form]&lt;/code&gt;, which would result in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The infinite may become starless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, &lt;code&gt;though&lt;/code&gt; could precede the subject and introduce the condition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Though the infinite may become starless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is a hint of any volitive or optative subjunctive however, we could replace &lt;code&gt;though&lt;/code&gt; with the construction &lt;code&gt;rather that&lt;/code&gt; before the subject, and keep the subjunctive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Rather that the infinite become starless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, which lacks the distinction of indicative, subjunctive and imperative moods in its verbs, additional indicators of the grammatical mood are required. But they need not be attached to each verb that has the subjunctive in Spanish or to each occurrence of the word &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we establish that this is a potential subjunctive, then the use &lt;code&gt;可&lt;/code&gt; as a monosyllabic verb before the main verb is an adequate literary device; depending on the rhythm, we may want use the diysllabic &lt;code&gt;可以&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;可能&lt;/code&gt; which is a little more common in daily speech and thus a little less elevated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;无穷苍昊&lt;strong&gt;可&lt;/strong&gt;逝星&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;无穷的穹苍里的星星&lt;strong&gt;可能&lt;/strong&gt;消逝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've translated the other vocabulary items differently depending on the style, and have translated &lt;code&gt;become starless&lt;/code&gt; with an equivalent of &lt;code&gt;lose stars&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;the stars disappear&lt;/code&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using &lt;code&gt;虽&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;虽然&lt;/code&gt; in the first clause can reinforce this sense of potentiality if necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;虽&lt;/strong&gt;无穷苍昊逝星 / &lt;strong&gt;虽&lt;/strong&gt;无尽天可逝星&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;虽然&lt;/strong&gt;无穷的穹苍里的星星可能消逝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if we do want to add a sense of the emotional dependency, much as English can add &lt;code&gt;Rather that&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Though&lt;/code&gt; at the beginning before the subject, the disyllabic word &lt;code&gt;宁愿&lt;/code&gt; can begin the sentence, or the similar &lt;code&gt;宁&lt;/code&gt; (in an elevated classically-influenced style) or &lt;code&gt;宁可&lt;/code&gt; (in more common speech) can precede the main verb; these are often followed by &lt;code&gt;也&lt;/code&gt; with a negative verb or a verb of regret or non-volition in the volitional clause (like in Italian and Spanish, but different to English's main clause with &lt;code&gt;than&lt;/code&gt; after a clause beginning &lt;code&gt;rather that&lt;/code&gt;). Such mutually dependent clauses are often a characteristic of Chinese sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;宁愿&lt;/strong&gt;无穷苍逝星 / 无穷苍昊&lt;strong&gt;宁&lt;/strong&gt;逝星 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;也惜&lt;/strong&gt;你瞳乌死去 / &lt;strong&gt;但愿&lt;/strong&gt;你瞳&lt;strong&gt;也不&lt;/strong&gt;亡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;宁愿&lt;/strong&gt;无穷的穹苍里的星星消逝 / 无穷的穹苍里的星星&lt;strong&gt;宁可&lt;/strong&gt;消逝 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;也愿&lt;/strong&gt;你眼孔乌黑&lt;strong&gt;不至&lt;/strong&gt;面对死亡 / 你眼中瞳仁的黑孔&lt;strong&gt;也不要&lt;/strong&gt;死去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that gives you a few more tools to use in your translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2014-09-08T15:44:17.420" LastActivityDate="2014-09-08T15:44:17.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9479" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9494" CreationDate="2014-09-08T15:41:31.190" Score="3" ViewCount="597" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning about 鲁迅 and the picture he&#xA; saw of a man being decapitated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher would switch between 杀头 and 砍头  - is their a large difference between the two? is one more formal? Is there a difference in usage? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for being a bit morbid - but this is helpful! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T06:42:28.920" Title="Is there a difference between 杀头 and 砍头？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9479" CreationDate="2014-09-08T16:00:53.923" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;砍头 is concrete. It invokes the image of hacking with an axe or sword. When it is done with a piano wire, this word is definitely not a good choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;砍，读kǎn，用刀斧等猛剁，用力劈：～柴。～伐。 chop；chop at；hack；hew；shear. Like chopping wood with an axe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/264052.htm?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/264052.htm?fr=aladdin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杀头 is generic and abstract. It does not invoke particular image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杀, 使失去生命. To cause living thing to lose life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/282596/9727885.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/282596/9727885.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-09-23T06:42:28.920" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T06:42:28.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9475" CreationDate="2014-09-08T16:08:41.580" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nong si gangdu va?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Romanizing Chinese would effectively sever the cultural and historical continuity, and it would also be detriment to the many minority topolects that share the same script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would need to romanize not only Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, Min, Sichuanese and so on, but also the many dialects of these regional tongues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, you would completely lose the poetic charm that Chinese characters carry. Chinese culture and language would be much poorer without the characters, as they are a defining element of the culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There used to be a movement for abolishing the characters, since they were perceived as an obstacle to learning. This is no longer the case, and nobody would propose such a reform today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japan has long had not one but two alphabets, but still retains the characters, for the same reasons as stated above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-09-08T16:08:41.580" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9479" CreationDate="2014-09-08T16:14:38.723" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;杀头 = be sentenced to death&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;砍头 = be beheaded&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the old times, death penalty is carried out by beheading, so it is OK to switch between the two words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6288" LastActivityDate="2014-09-08T16:14:38.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9483" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9486" CreationDate="2014-09-08T16:19:43.620" Score="5" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm taking a history class in Chinese and my teacher brought up 四五运动的两个教训 。 Then later on he talked about 启蒙的两个论点 。 I know that roughly 教训 is translated as &quot;lessons&quot; and 论点 is a bit more like &quot;thesis, or arguments&quot; -  but could someone make this distinction a bit more clear? Or are they relatively interchangeable when talking about history? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T16:22:21.197" Title="Is there a difference between 教训 and 论点 ？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9484" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9491" CreationDate="2014-09-08T16:22:24.963" Score="6" ViewCount="321" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I've been reading a bit of 鲁迅 and I've run into the word 凡事 a number of times. Everytime, I see it translated it seems to  mean 所有。 It seems to me that 凡事 is either an older usage or is much more formal - is that correct? As well, are there any ways in which they are used differently&#xA;Ex. Could I say &#xA;&quot;凡事（的）学生都很乖“？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T06:48:42.163" Title="Is there a difference between 凡事 and 所有？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9484" CreationDate="2014-09-08T16:50:59.243" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, a little background: Most of 鲁迅's writings  were done in the middle of 白话文运动--to write with plain Chinese instead of arcane literary Chinese. Unfortunately, 鲁迅's way of using plain Chinese was not as influential as chairman Mao's, most of which actually have Huananese origin. From today's point of view, 鲁迅's &quot;plain Chinese&quot; is rather idiosyncratic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凡事: Under most/all circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凡事，指不论什么事；所有的事。语出前蜀 魏承班 《谒金门》词之二：“愁倚画屏凡事懒，泪沾金缕线。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/3066308.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/3066308.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所有: 整个;全部；一切。有时也指一定范围内的。All, all within a scope.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1006583.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1006583.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-09-23T06:48:42.163" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T06:48:42.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9483" CreationDate="2014-09-08T17:00:12.487" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;教训  [Lesson;Moral]：指从错误或挫折中得到的经验, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lessons learned from past failures and mistakes. It emphasizes the empirical aspect of the origin.&#xA;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/777967.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/777967.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;论点 [argument; proposition] 论述中的确定性意见及论证意见的理由。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does not have to be empirical. It can be anything straight off the dome.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/562734.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/562734.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-09-09T16:22:21.197" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T16:22:21.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9469" CreationDate="2014-09-08T22:30:40.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is just a word with more than 1 meaning; For example in english, the word &lt;code&gt;degree&lt;/code&gt; could be a unit of temperature, an angle measurment, or certain education level.  There is no why -  it has multiple meanings and just the way it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6138" LastActivityDate="2014-09-08T22:30:40.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9476" CreationDate="2014-09-09T02:00:43.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;最近如何&quot; is used by educated people, you will hear which in formal occasions. But if you are in entertaining places or simply walking along a street, then yes, &quot;最近怎樣&quot; will be more frequently heard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This distinction may resemble the distinction between &quot;How do you do&quot; and &quot;How's it going&quot;. Modern young kids seldom use &quot;how do you do&quot; to replace &quot;how's it going&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastEditorUserId="4709" LastEditDate="2014-09-09T14:37:11.603" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T14:37:11.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9483" CreationDate="2014-09-09T02:14:33.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) It is 五四運動, rather than 四五運動.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &quot;教訓&quot; means the lessons or experiences that we have learned; &quot;論點&quot; means an argument. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, they are not interchangeable. Consider the following example: If you left home in a hurry and forgot to have your keys with you, so that when you were back home you found you cannot but have somebody else help out with this problem. This event is exactly a &quot;教訓&quot; for you. Later you argued with the person who unlocked you door and who charged too much by telling him that his peers will never charge so much. You were proposing exactly your &quot;論點&quot; to convince him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, it is clear why they are intrinsically different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T02:14:33.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9484" CreationDate="2014-09-09T02:22:04.197" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) &quot;凡事&quot; means &quot;所有的事&quot;. So it is &quot;凡&quot; that means &quot;所有&quot;, rather than &quot;凡事&quot; itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) In effect, &quot;凡&quot; says more than &quot;所有&quot;, but this distinction is boring and insignificant. I would say this: Logically, &quot;所有的學生都很乖&quot; is equivalent to &quot;凡學生都很乖&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) &quot;凡&quot; has way more meanings and usages than &quot;所有&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might not want to use &quot;凡&quot; to replace &quot;所有&quot; in spoken Chinese, for doing so may very well cause confusion or even give people an impression that you are trying to be cool...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T02:22:04.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9469" CreationDate="2014-09-09T02:38:47.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a note from the 古漢語常用字字典 concerning synonyms for ‘quick, fast’ in Classical Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[辨]  快, 速, 疾, 捷.  這幾個字都有快速的意思.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“&lt;strong&gt;快&lt;/strong&gt;” 表示快速是後起意義, 在上古只做愉快講, 而”快速”這個意義卻常用&quot;速&quot;表示.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;疾&lt;/strong&gt;” 一般比”速”快一些.  “&lt;strong&gt;捷&lt;/strong&gt;” 指動作輕快, 敏捷.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(See under entry for 速)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Note:  I misread this dictionary entry initially - it doesn't mean that 'kuai' occured in a compound with 'su' in CC.  The comments that follow have been edited in this light.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is saying what others have posted - that originally (or in the pre-classical period) 快 meant happy, and only later took on the meaning of fast. It was 速  which did mean ‘fast’ at that early date, which makes sense given the ‘movement’ radical.  I would suggest that the semantic range of 快  may have expanded due to use as an attributive.  For example, speed was a desirable quality in horses, so 快馬  was a horse that made people happy.  Perhaps 速  lost its adjectival role and other words were used to fill in.  An analogous usage in English would be “a goodly pace.” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could see how this would work with 疾 as well.  This character in Classical Chinese meant to be sick – in comparison to 病, 疾 denoted a less serious illness.  If it was used to modify other words in the sense of “a feverish pace” or very fast, a similar semantic shift seems plausible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t think this interpretation necessarily contradicts @Michaelyus’s idea that this is due to 假借borrowing.  This kind of semantic shift is known from many languages, as the English examples I’ve given suggest. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="3647" LastEditDate="2014-09-09T14:23:32.187" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T14:23:32.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9484" CreationDate="2014-09-09T05:24:29.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;凡&quot; means &quot;usual&quot; with a sense of &quot;in most cases&quot;, etc.  It also means &quot;every&quot;, especially when supplemented with &quot;必&quot;, &quot;都&quot;, &quot;皆&quot; etc.  We need to distinguish them by the context of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in supermarket, it says &quot;凡購物滿一百元可獲九折&quot;.  Also, during a wedding, the priest often tell the couple to &quot;凡事忍耐&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, &quot;凡&quot; carries different meanings in the two scenarios.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T05:24:29.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9479" CreationDate="2014-09-09T05:32:05.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;殺頭 is a kind of dead sentence (/punishment) carried out by government officials.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;砍頭 is a way to kill people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. if it is &quot;victim vs gangsters&quot;, you can only say &quot;砍頭&quot; but not &quot;殺頭&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when used as adjectives (&quot;殺頭的&quot; and &quot;砍頭的&quot;), it is okay to switched between them, as said by Opteron and user3306356.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T05:32:05.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9471" CreationDate="2014-09-09T09:29:14.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;听众&quot; and &quot;观众&quot; are two kinds of &quot;audiences&quot;. The word &quot;crowd&quot; itself means &quot;人群&quot; or &quot;众人&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The crowd at a concert&quot; = (听) 音乐会的人群 = 音乐会的听众&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The crowd watching the game&quot; = 看比赛的人群 = 比赛的观众&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore if you want the translation of the word &quot;crowd&quot; I will suggest &quot;人群&quot; or &quot;众人&quot; rather than &quot;听众&quot; or &quot;观众&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6358" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T09:29:14.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9458" CreationDate="2014-09-09T09:52:53.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In real world speeches and conversations you may want to adjust the duration of any specific character, either to make yourself comfortable or to show your stress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;strong&gt;the duration of tones is &quot;undefined&quot; in Chinese pronunciation system&lt;/strong&gt;. As a native speaker, I have &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; been told that tones have exact or relative durations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn't conflict with the fact that in daily uses, characters with a specific tone may have a longer duration average. For example, the third tone is harder than others to pronounce, so you may want to spend a little more time on it if you are talking fast. But please note that duration is not a part of definition of tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6358" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T09:52:53.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9497" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9499" CreationDate="2014-09-10T05:08:24.350" Score="10" ViewCount="1209" Body="&lt;p&gt;So， a teacher explained to me that 究竟 is a more formal way of saying 到底. However, I'm still curious are there any other usage differences between the two? Is 究竟  only used in examples that are relatively “夸张” &#xA;Ex。 你究竟为什么要离开我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2020-05-03T00:45:16.410" Title="What is the difference between 究竟 and 到底 ？" Tags="&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9498" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9500" CreationDate="2014-09-10T05:18:03.980" Score="5" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I read that someone's  额头上有一个伤痕 。   I knew that the sentence literally meant that there was a scar. But then I thought &quot;Why didn't they say &quot;伤疤” or “疤痕”。 All three of these translate to scar in english, is there any simple way to divide them in Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T20:28:33.230" Title="difference between 伤痕， 伤疤 and 疤痕？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9497" CreationDate="2014-09-10T06:21:17.480" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) &quot;究竟&quot; is more formal than &quot;到底&quot;. In everyday spoken Chinese, &quot;究竟&quot; is rarely used. It is used almost only in drama and written Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Well, I would say that the magnitude of &quot;究竟&quot; is equal to that of &quot;到底&quot;. They are all equivalent to &quot;on the earth&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T06:21:17.480" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9498" CreationDate="2014-09-10T06:26:09.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often &quot;疤痕&quot; is reserved for &quot;physical scar&quot;, while &quot;傷疤&quot; and &quot;傷痕&quot; can mean more; they can even mean a mental scar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, being a 疤痕 implies being a 傷疤 (resp. 傷痕); being a 傷疤 (resp. 傷痕) not necessarily implies being a 疤痕.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, please bear in mind that these distinctions are subtle and not dogmatic. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T06:26:09.570" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9501" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-10T07:39:06.273" Score="2" ViewCount="1183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can recognize and translate the 215 radicals. Now, I'm told radicals combine with each other and other characters to make words, and that some radicals denote sound for pronunciation of the word. And that identifying the radical(s) inside the words won't always helps you decode its meaning; it just helps you find the stroke category in a dictionary or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So is mandarin always conveying two meanings (or levels of meaning) at once-- from the radicals and also from the new words that the radicals make when joined?&lt;/strong&gt; Does this notion disappear once you gain fluency? Do you automatically ignore the radicals' individual meanings like they just don't exist? &lt;em&gt;And why is mandarin like this, etymologically speaking?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6364" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T23:14:38.650" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T23:14:38.650" Title="When radicals make words does Chinese convey two layers of meaning all the time?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9498" CreationDate="2014-09-10T08:06:15.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a little difference between 伤痕 and 伤疤, but realy difficult to translate to english for both usually means scar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伤疤 refers to the thing that cicatrizing after wounded, while 伤痕 is the scar left while the wound has been cured, and 疤痕 means the scar left after cicatrizing.&#xA;Of course, both can be translated to scar, and can mean physical or mental scar. In fact, 疤痕 also can be used as mental scar left, like 心上的疤痕难以消除, but it's too formal and awkwardly（别扭）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6269" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T08:06:15.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9501" CreationDate="2014-09-10T08:19:45.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can consider radicals as affix and suffix, and when you see a common english word, most time you will not consider what's the affix and suffix means, because you know the word meaning, only when you consider on the word's source, you will discuss with the affix and suffix, that's same to Chinese. And, when you encounter a word that you don't familiar or recognize, you may guess the meaning by affix and suffix, but you also know, your guess may be wrong if you don't find a real explanation in dictionaries. Same to Chinese, we may guess the meaning and pronoucation of an unfamiliar char by radicals or by itself, but that's may not be correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6269" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T08:19:45.337" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9501" CreationDate="2014-09-10T09:59:26.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very interesting question unfortunately I cannot vote up yet due to a lack of reputation (so I build it up now with a hopefully good answer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My wife's Chinese and that of one of my linguistics professor Vietnamese (read up on their writing system, it's quite interesting!). I'm not studying linguistics, but because of the origins of our wives we often discuss East Asian languages - I try to give you a short resume of what has been talked there and next time I see him, I will ask for some book recommendations if you're interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First and foremost: Chinese radicals do not work any differently than those of Indogermanic words. Thus you can think of this question in your own language: How much are you aware that &quot;obey&quot; originally just meant &quot;to listen (carefully)&quot; when you use it in the meaning of receiving, accepting and carrying out an order or command?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If have undergone tertiary education you may be aware of this origin. It is the same for Chinese. Those who had profound education in such subjects will be more aware than other people. My wife studied something which had no connection to linguistics - and she did not even think that there could be another &quot;radical&quot; meaning behind the words she used. Because of my interest in linguistics she also started reading books on Chinese language history, etymology, etc. And now she suddenly recognises a lot of these meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long story short: If you know that there are several (not only two) layers, you are probably often aware of those &quot;secondary&quot; or &quot;original&quot; meanings. If not, you aren't aware of it. In other words: Chinese are as much aware of the meaning of their radices as we are aware of ours. After all, our writing system reflects them as much as the Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6366" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T09:59:26.623" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9506" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-10T13:43:11.400" Score="5" ViewCount="890" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I type Chinese via a Pinyin IME, I can write &quot;nihao&quot; to get &quot;你好&quot;. Writing out &quot;ni3hao3&quot; is not required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I try to write &quot;ㄋㄧㄏㄠ&quot;, the IME interprets this as &quot;ㄏㄧㄠ&quot;. Basically I'm forced to type out the tone for every single character: &quot;ㄋㄧˇㄏㄠˇ&quot; before the IME will give me &quot;你好&quot;, and I find this too cumbersome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some kind of setting to change this IME behaviour? If there's an IME for Windows that supports this, I be happy to learn about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Side note: I know that Linux Zhuyin IMEs support this &quot;optional tone&quot; behaviour, and I was quite surprised to find that Windows Zhuyin IMEs are so pedantic by default.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6369" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T01:12:27.527" Title="Zhuyin IME setting to make tones optional" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9507" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-10T15:20:57.973" Score="1" ViewCount="1231" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/er7nF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Unknown symbol on my ring. Not sure if Chinese, but I&amp;#39;ve tried all written translations- and still no answer.&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unknown symbol on my ring. Not sure if Chinese, but I've tried all written translations- and still no answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6372" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2014-09-11T08:04:17.710" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T08:04:17.710" Title="What does this symbol mean on my ring?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-09-11T01:48:23.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9507" CreationDate="2014-09-10T15:33:10.990" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;壽 (shòu), longevity. Simplified: 寿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Common words: 长寿, long life; 寿司, sushi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T15:33:10.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9509" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9512" CreationDate="2014-09-10T23:13:59.667" Score="4" ViewCount="1112" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I tell when to use &lt;code&gt;打开&lt;/code&gt; and when to use &lt;code&gt;开门&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese? For example, in the following sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这扇门打开了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个书店开门了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the first sentence use &lt;code&gt;打开&lt;/code&gt; and the latter use &lt;code&gt;开门&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is it necessary to use &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2014-09-11T09:45:45.453" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T10:56:05.930" Title="What's the difference between 打开 and 开门?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9509" CreationDate="2014-09-10T23:44:21.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;打開 (verb-complement) is to open. You can open a door, a window, a book, etc. A common usage is 把 something 打開. &#xA;開門 (verb-object) is to open a door.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T23:44:21.670" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9509" CreationDate="2014-09-11T00:19:16.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;打开， 把器皿或盒子的盖子掀开。它的反义词是“关闭”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To move a cover from closed position. E.g. open a bottle of scotch, open a door.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/72184.htm?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/72184.htm?fr=aladdin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开门, 打开房门。也指敞开门户。表示欢迎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literary translated as &quot;open the door.&quot; Often used as a welcoming gesture. In the case of meaning &quot;business is open,&quot; the door does not have to be literally open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/254067/12526864.htm?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/254067/12526864.htm?fr=aladdin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 [1]放在动词或形容词后，表示动作或变化已经完成：写完了；哭了。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is necessary here to indicate the action is complete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/17367.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/17367.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-09-11T00:26:43.093" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T00:26:43.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9509" CreationDate="2014-09-11T00:20:55.247" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of the example you posted, 开门 is describing the status of the shop. Like the meaning of 'open' and 'closed' signs you could find in most of stores. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打开 in the context of the example you gave is describing the status of the door or anything could be turned on like window, valve or switch. This sentence should be translated to 'This door is open'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because in Chinese a word's meaning may varies according to the context and situation of the sentence. You should remember some combination of noun-adjective or verb-adverb but not just remember the meaning of a single word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6373" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T00:20:55.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9497" CreationDate="2014-09-11T00:52:34.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When used as an intensive, they are synomymous. Both translated as &quot;on earth,&quot; &quot;exactly.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;究竟, 穷尽. literally means &quot;investigate to the end.&quot; It can also be used as a noun which means &quot;outcome,&quot; &quot;final truth.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;究 谋划;研究;探求. Study, investigate. Originally means &quot;exhaust,&quot; &quot;limit.&quot; See &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/15922.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/15922.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;竟,终了，完毕. End, finish. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/20/js/7ADF.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/20/js/7ADF.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/812975.htm?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/812975.htm?fr=aladdin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到底, 直到尽头. Literally means to &quot;the bottom,&quot; &quot;to the end.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/893285.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/893285.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T00:52:34.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9514" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-11T02:51:22.923" Score="6" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect that 太 has a similar function in negatives as 很 does in negative sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some Chinese speakers have corrected some of my negative sentences in include a 太.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 他不高兴 was corrected to 他不太高兴.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How necessary is this use of 太?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is it's function?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1140" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-09-11T03:22:17.113" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T03:48:50.003" Title="Use of 不太 and when is it necessary?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9355" CreationDate="2014-09-11T03:13:35.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A combination of things worked pretty well for me. &lt;strong&gt;As early as possible,&lt;/strong&gt; download &quot;Chinese Lite&quot; phone app. It's free and 6 categories of basic words, phrases, questions and answers are free, including &quot;General Conversation,&quot; &quot;Numbers,&quot; Directions &amp;amp; Places,&quot; &quot;Transportation,&quot; and &quot;Eating Out.&quot; At first, it will seem that the speaker talks way too fast, but if you keep playing them over and over, you will catch on to a few before your departure. &lt;strong&gt;Also download&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;Chinese Radicals&quot; and start learning to recognize the radicals. It's a free game that will test your memory of them with multiple choice answers. Play the game &lt;strong&gt;during your flight&lt;/strong&gt;: learn simple signs that you see around you, like &quot;Exit&quot; (2 stacked mountains + a mouth). &lt;strong&gt;On arrival,&lt;/strong&gt; imitate the sounds of words you'll say a lot (hello, excuse me, tasty). I fell in love with street dumplings, so I learned &quot;Jiao zi&quot; the second day! I think the keys are repetition &amp;amp; imitation, and feeling free to &lt;em&gt;write down your own phonetic clues.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6364" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T03:13:35.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9514" CreationDate="2014-09-11T03:17:51.917" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;太&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;too&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;extremely&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;very&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;他不高兴&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;He's not happy&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;He's unhappy&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;他不太高兴&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;He's not very happy&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;He's a little unhappy&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T03:17:51.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9514" CreationDate="2014-09-11T03:35:51.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just look at any Chinese grammar, e.g. Chinese, A Comprehensive Grammar, 4.3: degree adverbs and complements occur respectively before and after adjectives to indicate the degree or extent to which the meaning is encoded by an adjective is to be ascertained: 这本字典很好。[很degree adverb] 这本字典好得很[得很degree complement]. The presence of these degree adverbs and complements removes any implication of contrast that is latent in an unmarked predicative adjective. If somebody says: 这本字典好, the speaker must be implying that some other dictionary is not as good as this one....&#xA;Other degree adverbs are: 太、更／更加、万分、。。。。 Suspicion regarding function of 太 also is well known fact of Chinese grammar. Maybe it should be added that  不太高兴 (unhappy) is more common than 太不高兴 which latter expression seems to mean &quot;not (very) happy&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-09-11T03:48:50.003" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T03:48:50.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9509" CreationDate="2014-09-11T03:39:39.590" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your examples&#xA;The first sentence &quot;这扇门开打了&quot;, in English means &quot;The window is opened.&quot;&#xA;The second sentence &quot;这个书店开门了&quot;, in English means &quot;The bookstore is on bussiness.&quot;&#xA;And, in the first sentence 开打 means open; in the second sentence 开门 means be bussiness.&#xA;The 了 is necessary for a normal Chinese sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6374" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T03:39:39.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9519" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9520" CreationDate="2014-09-11T03:40:46.770" Score="3" ViewCount="907" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have an idea of how to translate &quot;This story is set in a small town&quot;. I've been looking around but I haven't found a good way to translate &quot;Set in&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-14T00:36:59.747" LastActivityDate="2020-04-14T00:36:59.747" Title="How do you say &quot;A story is set in another place&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9519" CreationDate="2014-09-11T04:46:18.220" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;be set in&quot; = the action takes place there/then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這個故事在一個小鎮中發生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T04:46:18.220" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9509" CreationDate="2014-09-11T05:11:25.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;开门 is short for 打开门。打开 means open。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6375" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T05:11:25.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9501" CreationDate="2014-09-11T09:16:06.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact most Chinese characters consist of a radical, which gives a hint to the meaning, and a purely phonetic part, which was simply chosen for having the same sound. One of my professors who was researching ancient Chinese estimated this to be the case for 98-99% of all characters, although sometimes the phonetic part is somewhat obscure because pronunciation changed a lot over time (&gt;2000 years). E.g. 林 lín is phonetic part of 禁 jìn. Those characters, where the meaning of all graphemes actually contribute to the meaning of the character, are rare in comparison and mostly came from oracle bones already, e.g. 木 mù tree/wood, 林 lín grove, 森 sēn forest. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6378" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T09:16:06.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9519" CreationDate="2014-09-11T10:14:07.763" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.故事发生在某火车站上。....(伊塔洛·卡尔维诺：如果在冬夜，一个旅人；萧天佑译)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.话说梁山泊聚义厅上....(施耐庵：水浒传--第五十一回）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T10:14:07.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9509" CreationDate="2014-09-11T10:56:05.930" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the difference is 1 is physical status of the shop and 2 is functional status of the shop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6379" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T10:56:05.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5955" CreationDate="2014-09-11T16:47:23.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;对不起: Literally means &quot;can't make it right&quot;. Carries the connotation of being in the wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不好意思: Means something like, &quot;that was bad&quot;. Describes the action more than the character of the one saying it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4500" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T16:47:23.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9115" CreationDate="2014-09-12T03:12:10.323" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess it's origin is 勾持连帮，maybe it's a local phrase that only be used in a small  district.&#xA;勾持 may means 勾搭，and be sounded to 狗, 连帮 means to be a group, that's why it's means 勾结起来做坏事. &#xA;Realy never heard of this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T03:12:10.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9519" CreationDate="2014-09-12T07:10:03.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;这个故事发生在一个小镇&lt;code&gt;上&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wanna a complete and natural sentence, this is it. &lt;code&gt;上&lt;/code&gt; kinda finishes the sentence, otherwise it will be considered rather firm and rigid like you emphasize the 'small town' as a location instead of other location. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6381" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T07:10:03.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9530" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9551" CreationDate="2014-09-12T09:20:01.643" Score="3" ViewCount="695" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have come across the song &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vV3u83PldY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;爱人跟人走&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://mojim.com/twy100106x2x8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lyrics here&lt;/a&gt;). I'll give a complete translation attempt of this Hokkien song:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;It's already 3 years since you left me;&#xA;Have you gone away without [ever] turning back?&#xA;[This] really is unexpected.&#xA;My heart is like a hollow turnip.&#xA;&#xA;I couldn't imagine, I couldn't imagine&#xA;You would go away with someone else.&#xA;You didn't care for me, you didn't care for me,&#xA;Who had so deep feelings [for you].&#xA;&#xA;Looking unrestrained was of no effect.&#xA;Someone's youth was very irritating.&#xA;Ah… cruel person,&#xA;I hate that you hate old people.&#xA;With you I will always…&#xA;If the field has no ditch, the water won't flow.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can guess, the problematic part is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;外表漂泊無捨效&#xA;誤人青春上可惱&#xA;啊…無情的人&#xA;恨你是恨到老&#xA;永遠來甲你&#xA;田無溝水無流&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, from searching &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt; I have guessed &lt;code&gt;漂泊&lt;/code&gt; should be in fact &lt;code&gt;飄撇 (飘撇)&lt;/code&gt;, which the reference &quot;translates&quot; to &lt;code&gt;潇洒，帅气，洒脱&lt;/code&gt;, and says is often used to describe young males; also, since the subtitles in the video have &lt;code&gt;BO LANG&lt;/code&gt; and the characters suggest &lt;code&gt;gōo lâng&lt;/code&gt;, I found &lt;code&gt;某人&lt;/code&gt; is pronounced &lt;code&gt;bóo-lâng&lt;/code&gt;. I also know, from the reference, that &lt;code&gt;上&lt;/code&gt; is often used as &lt;code&gt;最…地&lt;/code&gt;, and since the subtitles &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT6MWqmnxWM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; spell it as &lt;code&gt;尚&lt;/code&gt;, which I have seen for this usage of the word, I guessed it might be the right translation. Otherwise it may be translated to &lt;code&gt;Someone in their youth was irritating&lt;/code&gt;. Anyway I think this refers to the &lt;code&gt;rén&lt;/code&gt; with which &lt;code&gt;nǐ&lt;/code&gt; (the &lt;code&gt;àirén&lt;/code&gt;) has gone away. Finally, &lt;code&gt;甲&lt;/code&gt; is often used to spell &lt;code&gt;kā&lt;/code&gt;, a word which the reference spells &lt;code&gt;共&lt;/code&gt; and says means &lt;code&gt;bǎ&lt;/code&gt; (object particle) or &lt;code&gt;gēn&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;hé&lt;/code&gt;, or maybe other meanings I don't remember. With these observations, I came up with the above translation. Now any advice on the other part of the translation is very welcome, as is a transliteration of this with the reference's system. The questions anyway are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are the spelling corrections correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the translation of the reported part correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How does the final proverb-like phrase fit into the song, and connect to the line above which is incomplete as it lacks a verb?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;The following points sum up what @GeorgeChen said in the comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;恨你是很到老&lt;/code&gt; is «I'll hate you till I'm old» or, more literally, «My hating you is hating till I get old»;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;误&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin is &lt;code&gt;waste&lt;/code&gt;; so the phrase in Mandarin would mean &lt;code&gt;Wasting someone's youth is very annoying&lt;/code&gt;; my reference, however, only lists &lt;code&gt;差错&lt;/code&gt;, which is a noun use and therefore not the right one here, and &lt;code&gt;妨害、耽擱、拖累&lt;/code&gt; as translations; &lt;code&gt;tuolei&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;dragging like ball and chain&lt;/code&gt;, therefore decidedly not right here; &lt;code&gt;fanghai&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;to harm&lt;/code&gt;, and could be right here; or &lt;code&gt;dange&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;to delay&lt;/code&gt;; so we shall wait someone who knows Hokkien to tell us which is right; on my side, I'll take &lt;code&gt;waste&lt;/code&gt;, though it's not listed in my reference;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;永远来甲你&lt;/code&gt; makes no sense in Mandarin, but probably does in HOkkien; indeed, &lt;code&gt;kah&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;ka&lt;/code&gt; are prepositions in Hokkien meaning &lt;code&gt;把、跟&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;到，既然，哪会&lt;/code&gt; in reverse order; so would &lt;code&gt;永远来跟你&lt;/code&gt; make sense?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The proverb is translated right, but how does it fit in the song?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm left with the following questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;WHich translation is correct for &lt;code&gt;误&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do I fit the proverb in the song?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do I translate (and possibly complete) that apparently nonsensical phrase of point 3 above?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are the spelling changes I suggested &quot;right&quot;, meaning that I correctly recognized the words used in the song?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2014-09-13T09:27:10.330" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T14:59:23.387" Title="Help translating 爱人跟人走" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9532" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-12T13:56:06.587" Score="4" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think prepositions are tricky in every language. The other day I was trying to figure out how to write correctly : In my garden there are many fruit-trees. The first sentence I thought of was: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在我花园里有很多果树&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I felt there was something wrong. So I put up some other alternatives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我花园上有很多果树&#xA;Or maybe better to cancel &quot;wo&quot;, although the meaning is changing a little. &#xA;花园里有很多果树&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;花园中有很多果树&#xA;在花园中。 。 。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or should I use 上？&#xA;在我花园上有很多果树&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be better to cancel the &quot;you&quot;&#xA;Or even change it with &quot;zhan&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;花园里站很多果树？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So - a simple sentence turned into a riddle. I will appreciate suggestions and explanations why I should use whatever sentence you suggest is better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3174" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T15:03:40.270" Title="The tricky prepositions. . . &quot;in my garden&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9532" CreationDate="2014-09-12T14:26:51.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;在我花园里有很多果树 is the most accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上 means on, on top of. If you use 上 people will think your garden has a roof, and those fruit trees are planted on the roof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/256231.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/256231.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;站 invokes the image of standing on one's feet in a stiff, rigid, upright manner. unless you want to emphasize the upright, honest and steadfast manner of some pine or poplar trees, most garden trees are everything but stiff. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source : &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/259393.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/259393.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T14:26:51.523" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9616" CreationDate="2014-09-12T14:57:29.437" Score="3" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am studying 常用漢字 and I ran across the following meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只得&#xA;只好&#xA;只有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of which were translated with the same English meaning &quot;can do nothing.&quot; What was not given is the context in which one would use one or the other of these phrases. Could someone explain when it is good to use one versus the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T22:35:09.990" Title="只 zhǐ appropriate use in context?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9534" CreationDate="2014-09-12T15:30:46.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;只得, [be obliged to;have to;have no alternative but to] 别无选择，不得不&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们只得照要求的做了。&#xA;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/4174590.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/4174590.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只好 [be forced to;have to;the only alternative is to] 只有;只能. It is a little less formal than 只得.&#xA;河上没有桥,我们只好涉水过去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/163453.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/163453.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有: only. 邮局离这儿只有几步路。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;only when (when followed by 才), to indicate a necessary condition. &#xA;只有依靠群众,才能做好普查工作.&#xA;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/199454.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/199454.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T15:30:46.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9534" CreationDate="2014-09-12T19:42:22.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When expressing the meaning &quot;can do nothing but&quot;, I think there is not much difference among those three words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们只得按照要求去做。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们只好按照要求去做。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们只有按照要求去做。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I think they are basically the same. Note that in &quot;只好&quot;, the character &quot;好&quot; means &quot;能&quot; (can, able), i.e. &quot;只好&quot; is  &quot;只能&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, &quot;只有&quot; has other meanings than &quot;can do nothing but&quot;, like &quot;there's only&quot; and &quot;only have&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6358" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T19:42:22.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9498" CreationDate="2014-09-12T20:28:33.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While all three can refer to a scar, 伤痕 is the only term that can also refer to a relatively fresh wound. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &quot;受害人躺在地上，身上滿布伤痕。&quot; (The victim lay on the ground, his body covered with injury marks.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, the victim is possibly still bleeding, and hurting from the injuries, whereas a person who has 疤痕 or 傷疤 is no longer bleeding or hurting from those wounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T20:28:33.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9539" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-12T21:11:10.113" Score="3" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the symbol in the images a chinese letter, and if it is, what does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yGGYB.png&quot; alt=&quot;image1&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/fbBEIlc.png&quot; alt=&quot;image2&quot;&gt; &#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WJFGh.png&quot; alt=&quot;image3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aV8Il.png&quot; alt=&quot;image4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lyRuZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;imagev&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6oM2S.png&quot; alt=&quot;image6&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6385" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-14T00:20:47.310" LastActivityDate="2020-04-14T00:20:47.310" Title="Is the symbol in the images a chinese letter?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9539" CreationDate="2014-09-13T00:59:48.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It certainly has the feel of a Chinese character, though I don't recognize it as anything modern. At first glance, it seemed to be a smudged/misformed 束. However, upon closer inspection, it could be 䖝, a variant/corrupted form of 蟲(虫) meaning insect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at the entry under a03683-003 on &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/yda/yda03683.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/yda/yda03683.htm&lt;/a&gt;, it seems very similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, there are multiple entries under &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.glyphwiki.org/wiki/twedu-a03683-004&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.glyphwiki.org/wiki/twedu-a03683-004&lt;/a&gt; which bear a strong resemblance to the image you posted, namely u459d-04-var-001 / u459d-14-var-001 and u459d-ue0102 (just search for those entries in your browser).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that Chinese characters have been used in other languages and they have been modified or simplified over time, resulting in these variant forms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5961" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T00:59:48.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9541" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9544" CreationDate="2014-09-13T03:55:57.773" Score="3" ViewCount="2522" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to figure out if Chinese has a similar concept to the idea of &quot;mentor&quot; in english. I know 导师 and 良师 are both options that have been thrown out. But, I'm not sure if they imply the type of relationship that I'm trying to express. &#xA;If anyone has any ideas (or can see a way of expressing that &quot;I am receiving mentorship from someone&quot;). I would really appreciate the help! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T06:25:50.490" Title="How do you say &quot;mentor&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9539" CreationDate="2014-09-13T06:13:39.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;where did you see this character? it looks like it could be the flipped image of the character for &quot;免“ which means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(Min Nan) it is not necessary; there is no need&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%85%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%85%8D&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(flipped image)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SH8aR.png&quot; alt=&quot;image flipped horizontally&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6380" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T06:13:39.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9541" CreationDate="2014-09-13T06:25:50.490" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some words which are all related to the idea you are trying to express with pinyin and approximate English glosses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;曼托爾 [Màntuō'ěr] &quot;Mentor - the actual historical figure from whom the English word 'mentor' is derived&quot; (proper name)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;老師 [lǎoshī] &quot;teacher&quot; (generic, can be distant, but usually intimate)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;師父 [shīfu] &quot;tutor, master, teacher&quot; (usually for something that is practiced)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;師傅 [shīfu] &quot;master worker&quot; (usually manual labor)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;良師 [liángshī] &quot;good teacher&quot; (rarely used in this sense outside the context of 良師益友 as far as I know)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;顧問 [gùwèn] &quot;consultant, adviser&quot; (has the same feel as in English, a bit more distant)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;導師 [dǎoshī] &quot;tutor, mentor, teacher, supervisor&quot; (can be both distant and intimate)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;指導者 [zhǐdǎozhě] &quot;coach, mentor, counselor&quot; (distant)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the whole, it doesn't seem that Chinese has a particular term which is a perfect, exact match to the English sense of &quot;mentor&quot;. However, the one that feels most right to me is 導師 [dǎoshī], given that I have also seen used the related term 導生 [dǎoshēng] &quot;mentee&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;導 [dǎo] means &quot;to guide&quot; or &quot;to lead&quot; with related terms: 指導 [zhǐdǎo] &quot;direction, guidance, supervision&quot;, 教導 [jiàodǎo] &quot;teaching, guidance&quot;, and 領導 [lǐngdǎo] &quot;leadership, leader&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given how &quot;mentor&quot; and &quot;mentorship&quot; are used in English, especially in the business sense, 導師 seems the most appropriate. In which case, you could say, &quot;我受他的指導&quot; [&quot;wǒ shòu tā de zhǐdǎo&quot;] &quot;I am receiving his mentorship&quot;. This would make it seem that 指導者 [zhǐdǎozhě] might be a better choice for &quot;mentor&quot;; however, 指導者 [zhǐdǎozhě] seems more distant than 導師 [dǎoshī], which feels more intimate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5961" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T06:25:50.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9476" CreationDate="2014-09-13T08:34:00.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am Chinese. If you asked me “最近如何”? I wouldn't feel it's formal at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There could be difference between these two in other contexts, but definitely not here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say if you want to write something in letter and want it to be formal. Try &lt;strong&gt;“最近可好”&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6389" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T08:34:00.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9546" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9553" CreationDate="2014-09-13T09:30:55.670" Score="2" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title is all that is necessary, but the following description can give context. I know the phrase, 「心心相印」means something to the effect of &quot;two hearts beating in unison&quot; which might be said of a parent and a child, lovers, or lifelong friends. 星 here, has replaced 心. The two sound very similar, but in what context is this appropriate? Does the meaning change? I saw this variation in this situation: I am friends with a Chinese-Taiwanese female who is an all-around great human. Intelligent, ambitious, industrious, amiable, etcetera. However, I think she might be interested in turning this into a romantic relationship solely because I am Caucasian. She occasionally gives me out-of-the-blue complements about my appearance. Maybe I am looking into it too much and she just wants to be good friends. Recently, she went on vacation and returned with a couple gifts for me. One was a vial of shells and small dried starfish. On the vial was a sticker which read, 「星心相印」. Can this be a friendly gesture or is it certainly romantic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6390" LastEditorUserId="6390" LastEditDate="2014-09-13T14:10:18.650" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T08:02:45.360" Title="What is the difference between 星心相印 and 心心相印？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;taiwanese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9373" CreationDate="2014-09-13T18:00:03.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way it was explained to me was that suspect (in the context you are using it) translates best as 怀疑是 and doubt as 怀疑不是. I don't think it's fair to say the language doesn't differentiate between them just because it considers them to be the positive and negative aspects of the same concept. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6391" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T18:00:03.117" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9548" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9550" CreationDate="2014-09-13T23:15:20.740" Score="12" ViewCount="3211" Body="&lt;p&gt;My daily newsletter contained the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;长江是中国最长的河。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the dictionary, 江 and 河 both mean &quot;river&quot;, but they seem to be used differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I right in assuming that &lt;code&gt;长河是中国最长的江&lt;/code&gt; is wrong (even if we assume that there is a river called &lt;code&gt;长河&lt;/code&gt;)? Is there a semantic difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T13:10:08.183" Title="What's the difference between 江 and 河?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9548" CreationDate="2014-09-13T23:40:06.020" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, they both mean river. But &lt;code&gt;江&lt;/code&gt; only refers to extremely large rivers while &lt;code&gt;河&lt;/code&gt; can be any kind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more than 2000 main rivers in China, only a handful of them are called with &lt;code&gt;江&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;code&gt;长江&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;黑龙江&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;黄河&lt;/code&gt; is the second longest river in China, followed by &lt;code&gt;长江&lt;/code&gt;. Note the &lt;code&gt;河&lt;/code&gt; here is referring to an extremely large river.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use &lt;code&gt;河&lt;/code&gt; in sentence like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我家门外有一条小河。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a small river outside my house.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6389" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T23:40:06.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9548" CreationDate="2014-09-14T03:01:11.300" Score="21" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;江 is mostly used in the South; 河 is mostly used in the North. There are exceptions,  such as 黑龙江, 浏阳河.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Scale. 江 is exclusively for mighty rivers; 河 can be used for both large and small rivers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;All foreign rivers are named with 河.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is no fundamental differences between 河 and 江.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;江 is used for rivers whose banks are steep cliffs; 河 is used for rivers with beaches.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In some classic text, 江 refers to Yangtze river; 河 refers to Yellow River; the other rivers are named with 水, e.g. 渭水&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/20655/8126542.htm#2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/20655/8126542.htm#2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2016-07-21T16:16:05.257" LastActivityDate="2016-07-21T16:16:05.257" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9530" CreationDate="2014-09-14T03:47:45.440" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;愛人跟人走&lt;br&gt;&#xA;my love has gone with someone else&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;離開已經三年後  &#xA;It's already 3 years since you left me;&#xA;你煞有去無回頭&#xA;you gone away without turning back&#xA;真是乎人想抹到&#xA;[This] really is unexpected.&#xA;心肝親像磅心的菜頭&#xA;My heart is like a broken radish&#xA;&#xA;想抹到想抹到&#xA;I couldn't imagine, I couldn't imagine&#xA;你會去跟人走&#xA;You would go away with someone else.&#xA;無彩我無彩我&#xA;You didn't care for me, you didn't care for me,&#xA;感情用這厚&#xA;Who had so deep feelings [for you].&#xA;外表漂泊無捨效&#xA;Looking handsome, natural and unrestrained was of no effect.&#xA;誤人青春上可惱&#xA;wasting people's youth is the most annoying.&#xA;&#xA;啊無情的人&#xA;Ah… cruel person,&#xA;恨你是恨到老&#xA;hate you forever(until I'm old, or until death).&#xA;永遠來甲你&#xA;With you I will never…&#xA;田無溝水無流&#xA;across the line to each other (have a relationship)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;word meanings and notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;無彩:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;無彩: means &quot;in vain&quot;, &quot;uselessly&quot;,  &#xA;the translation above is **meaning translation**,  &#xA;because he don't care about me, so whatever I do, is useless&#xA;the **direct translation** is:&#xA;無彩我無彩我&#xA;waste my, waste my&#xA;感情用這厚&#xA;so deep feelings [for you].&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;煞:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;煞 also means &quot;surprisingly&quot;&#xA;你煞有去無回頭&#xA;you gone away surprisingly without turning back&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;田無溝水無流：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;direct translation ( or literal translation )is:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;If the field has no ditch, the water won't flow. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;metaphor explaining:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;&quot;the field&quot; is like &quot; I &quot;, &quot;the water&quot; is like &quot; you (or he, the one who left her)&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      ditch, in OALD8, the english meaning is:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      a long channel dug at the side of a field or road, to hold or take away water&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      so, &quot;the ditch&quot; is like &quot;the way to contact me&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      &quot;flow&quot; is like &quot;talk to me or touch me&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      so, the whole sentence is:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      if I don't allow you to contact me, you won't have any chance to talk to me or touch me.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;useful online dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=9721&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=%E7%85%9E&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=1&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=1&amp;amp;rowcount=13&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=9721&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=%E7%85%9E&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=1&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=1&amp;amp;rowcount=13&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6393" LastEditorUserId="6393" LastEditDate="2014-09-14T14:59:23.387" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T14:59:23.387" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9546" CreationDate="2014-09-14T08:02:45.360" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no such phrase in Chinese as &quot;星心相印&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as the comment says, there is a song called that and it is definitely a romantic one. It expressed an admiration to the 'one' who gives the singer great comfort and warm feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, the gift is a &lt;code&gt;&quot;star&quot;fish&lt;/code&gt; right?  &quot;star&quot; = &quot;星&quot;, and the shells may look alike with the shape of heart. And I wonder if there is any &quot;星&quot; in any of your names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My point of view, if it is a hand made (or wrote) by herself, it is 100% percent romantic, you have my words. Otherwise if it is only some cheap product(no offense) from a workshop of god-knows-where, than you have to consider if you had misread the signal~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6381" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T08:02:45.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9554" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-14T14:16:28.137" Score="7" ViewCount="554" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example (and I am not sure if this is a good example), if presented the following stone inscription (石鼓文, &lt;a href=&quot;http://art.2222.idv.tw/%E6%9B%B8%E6%B3%95%E8%97%8F%E7%8F%8D/head/%E7%9F%B3%E9%BC%93%E6%96%87/head/%E9%97%9C%E6%96%BC%E7%9F%B3%E9%BC%93%E6%96%87.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;, c. 374 B.C.), could most modern Chinese people understand it (even vaguely)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1M0v9.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This question inspired by &lt;a href=&quot;https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/15452/can-chinese-people-read-the-literature-of-2-500-years-ago-as-easily-as-yesterday/23217&quot;&gt;this Skeptics.SE question&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4133" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:46:46.407" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T07:13:19.513" Title="If Confucius came back to life today and scribbled a message, could most modern Chinese people understand it?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9532" CreationDate="2014-09-14T15:03:40.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply write: 我的花園有很多果樹. or 我的花園種了很多果樹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Now you know why some people wrote Chinglish like &quot;My garden has many fruit trees.&quot; or &quot;My garden grows many fruit trees.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For spoken Mandarin, I am not sure.  :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T15:03:40.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9554" CreationDate="2014-09-14T18:08:26.020" Score="3" Body="&lt;h3&gt;If Cicero came back to life today and scribbled a message, could most modern French people understand it?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well... that depends on how much Latin they studied. The case with modern Mandarin (henceforth MSM) speakers reading Classical Chinese is similar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classical Chinese and MSM share a script (as do Latin and French).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classical Chinese and MSM have shared etymologies for a lot of vocabulary (as do Latin and French).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classical Chinese and MSM have major differences in syntax, pronunciation, etc. (as do Latin and French). If you had no special training, it would be basically unintelligible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classical Chinese carried (and to a lesser extent carries) prestige, and many MSM speakers study it to some degree (ditto with Latin in Western civilization).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T18:08:26.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9558" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9567" CreationDate="2014-09-14T18:25:08.480" Score="6" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there are two third tones in a row, e.g. ni3hao3, the first one is pronounced as a second tone, i.e. ni3hao3=ni2hao3. At least, that's what I was told in a course. What happens with more consecutive third tones, e.g. with wo3 hen3 hao3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="3647" LastEditDate="2014-09-15T02:42:15.960" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T02:42:15.960" Title="Tone three sandhi" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9559" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-14T18:26:47.223" Score="2" ViewCount="709" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I've been reading a short story writting by 丁玲 and I noticed she often used the term &quot;显得&quot; where I would have said &quot;看起来”。 I'm trying to figure out when I should be using 显得 vs. 看起来. It seems like 显得  is more formal, but are there any other distinctions? For example could I say &#xA;&quot;我一看到他， 显得很开心 “ &#xA;or &#xA;” 这个脱口秀显得很好笑“  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the help! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T17:10:34.517" Title="Is there a difference between 显得 and 看起来？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9560" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-14T18:32:28.170" Score="1" ViewCount="483" Body="&lt;p&gt;So，I've recently seen the term 以及 used a number of times in written text. For example, in a short story by 叮咛 I read &quot; 这位总统为国家、政府以及人民贡献了所有的力量，人们很尊敬他。&quot;. Another chinese stack exchange answer asked about the difference between it, 和， and 与 &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/378/what-is-the-difference-in-use-between-%E4%BB%A5%E5%8F%8A-%E5%92%8C-and-%E4%B8%8E&quot;&gt;What is the difference in use between 以及, 和 and 与?&lt;/a&gt; － but， I‘m wasn't entirely satisfied by the answer. One said that 以及 only connects phrases (but that doesn't seem true in the above example). And if it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; true, how is it different from say &quot;还有“ ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢大家！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T16:59:02.827" Title="What is the difference in use between 以及 and 还有" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9571" CreationDate="2014-09-14T18:41:23.743" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I recently learned that 并未 is a formal way of saying 并没有. However, whenever I see it in writing it is always paired with  a two word set. (i.e. 并未解决， 并未提出， 等。 ） Is this a hard and fast rule? I've noted that when pairs of two words are put together it indicates that it is relatively formal. Is 并未 too formal for spoken or common written language? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2014-09-14T21:07:42.687" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T09:48:13.963" Title="does 并未 have to go with a pairing of words?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9561" CreationDate="2014-09-14T19:43:59.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your observation is correct. 并未 is formal and sounds natural only when it's followed by a two-character word (to clarify, these are not two-word sets).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does sound too formal to use in spoken language and common/casual writing. You may want to use 并没有 in your diary or blog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why it doesn't sound natural to pair 并未 with 1-character or 3-character words, I don't believe there is a simple grammatical rule. Linguists tend to explain that using either word formation or prosody rules. Common folks would attribute that to idioms and language sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T19:43:59.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9560" CreationDate="2014-09-14T19:59:53.323" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the primary difference is formality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;以及&lt;/code&gt; sounds formal. It is rarely used in spoken language but acceptable, okay in casual writing and common in formal writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;还有&lt;/code&gt; sounds very colloquial. It's fine in casual writing but should be avoided in formal writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not true to say 以及 only connects phrases. A quick search will give you many good counter-examples. However when it comes to connecting phrases, 以及 does a better job than the other choices. That's exactly where people would use it in colloquial language - connecting short words with 以及 sounds too formal but connecting long words or phrases sounds okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T19:59:53.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9559" CreationDate="2014-09-14T21:36:25.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually &quot;顯得&quot; is more archaic. Almost no occasions have I uttered &quot;顯得&quot; unless I want to emphasize something, and in that case I say &quot;反而顯得&quot;, which is indeed one of the very rare occasions where people would use &quot;顯得&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say that the choice of words varies from author to author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two example sentences are not idiomatic in any case :). The retouching of your first sentence depends upon the context; it is hard to retouch it without further information. The second sentence, however, is easier to be modified. We instead say &quot;這個脫口秀很好笑&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastEditorUserId="5952" LastEditDate="2014-09-15T04:29:46.227" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T04:29:46.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9558" CreationDate="2014-09-14T22:58:51.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &quot;我很好&quot; (wo hen hao), you would definitely go with &quot;3-2-3&quot;. &quot;wo3-hen2-hao3&quot;. Say &quot;很好&quot; first, and then add &quot;我&quot; in the front, without changing the tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6396" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T22:58:51.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9559" CreationDate="2014-09-14T23:45:39.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;显得 sounds a little more formal than 看起来, but both are fine to use in spoken and written contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their meanings though, are not completely the same. Both words can be used to express &lt;code&gt;to seem; to appear; to look&lt;/code&gt;. With this meaning they are interchangeable and the difference is mostly formality:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他显得很憔悴 / 他看起来很憔悴。He looks haggard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But both words can be taken 'literally' - &lt;code&gt;显得&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;(actively) present oneself as&lt;/code&gt; while &lt;code&gt;看起来&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;(passively) be seen as&lt;/code&gt;. When used in this way, they are not interchangeable. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个节目看起来很好笑。&amp;lt;-- 显得 would sound unnatural because people find the show funny, not the show presenting itself as 'funny'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他故意显得很愤怒。 &amp;lt;-- 看起来 is acceptable but 显得 is much better because it is consistent with 故意. The sentence means 'he was trying to make a point by appearing angry'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T23:45:39.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9558" CreationDate="2014-09-15T02:16:51.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The classic sentence for multiple tone 3s is “Old Li buys good wine.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老  李   買   好   酒   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In citation form they are all tone 3s, of course:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lao3   Li3     mai3    hao3    jiu3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which ones change to tone 2?  It basically depends on how fast you are speaking.  If you are speaking slowly and carefully, only the tones that are within a phrase will assimilate.  Here these are “lao Li” and “hao jiu”.  So in careful speech it would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lao2   Li3 mai3    hao2    jiu3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a faster speed, you will have two tone 3s in a row assimilate, resulting in something like 2-2-3-2-3 or 2-3-2-2-3.  And at a really fast speed, all of them except the last will be affected:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lao2   Li2 mai2    hao2    jiu3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information see the linguistics thesis in the link below, starting at the bottom of page 6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://roa.rutgers.edu/files/1063-1209/1063-LEE-0-0.PDF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Vivian Lee MA thesis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T02:16:51.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9568" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9584" CreationDate="2014-09-15T05:15:47.670" Score="3" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there free mp3 resources of all combinations of syllables (1consonnant + 1vowel) in different tones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here an example of syllables:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zein.se/patrick/chinen8p.html#all&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;All Possible Syllables in Mandarin Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6398" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T01:48:33.537" Title="Mandarin chinese: syllable pronunciation training" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9554" CreationDate="2014-09-15T06:37:07.370" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest obstacle is the script; although simple characters are still understandable, the evolution of scripts from seal script (the closest script to modern ones during Confucius's time) involved drastic changes in the appearance of characters. Those unfamiliar with the changes would have a lot of trouble recognising the characters. The shift to simplified characters also adds to the difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SMjRp.png&quot; alt=&quot;seal script (wikipedia)&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if we shifted the goalposts and assume Confucius wrote in modern script (but using 文言文)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Probably not.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because the education systems (PRC, Taiwan, HK, SG) do not seriously touch classical Chinese (文言文) until high school, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschina.usc.edu/w_usci/showarticle.aspx?articleID=17995&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;most Chinese have a middle school education or lower&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, it's not that 文言文 is completely incomprehensible to Chinese. Many people, even if they have not formally studied it, will have encountered limited examples of it through examples such as poetry, chengyu, and even in extra-curricular media (古装剧 - Chinese period dramas - are extremely popular). These often feature 文言文 or at least use some grammatical rules of 文言文. Therefore, most Chinese will be able to recognise the meanings of most phrases in 文言文, although whether that means they can fully understand an unfamiliar passage written in 文言文 is questionable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2014-09-15T07:13:19.513" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T07:13:19.513" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9479" CreationDate="2014-09-15T09:35:52.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;杀头 means to kill a prisoner, the prisoner can be killed by a gun, or lethal injection.  While 砍头 means decapitation only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6274" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T09:35:52.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9561" CreationDate="2014-09-15T09:48:13.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right about &lt;code&gt;并未&lt;/code&gt; being formal, but there are cases where it can go with one word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你心并未死，身亦未老，何以委屈至此？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just made this one up, but it sounds perfectly fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason that you only see it paired with two words is simply because modern Chinese words are often used in the combination with others. Totally the opposite in old days though, that's why the sentence above is OK, it's more like old way of writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it too formal for spoken language? &lt;strong&gt;Yes&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it too formal for common written language? &lt;strong&gt;No&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6389" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T09:48:13.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9572" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-15T09:51:46.890" Score="1" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt;, both &lt;code&gt;綴&lt;/code&gt; (tuè/tè) and &lt;code&gt;共&lt;/code&gt; (kā) can translate from Hokkien (alias Min Nan) to &lt;code&gt;跟&lt;/code&gt;. What is the difference between the two? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T12:15:24.047" Title="Hokkien `綴` vs. `共`: compare and contrast" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9573" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9574" CreationDate="2014-09-15T10:35:36.853" Score="4" ViewCount="9946" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_phonology#Tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; has a tone contour chart for Cantonese with only 6 tones, but the table just below has 9. In fact, the table states 7=1, 8=3 and 9=6. From a historical point of view, there are 9 tone classes in Cantonese. From a practical point of view, does it make sense to distinguish the checked tones or is the only difference between them and their flat equivalents the fact they are carried by syllables with stop codas whereas the equivalents are carried by syllables with other types of codas (none, semivowel /j/ and /w/, nasal codas)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T11:21:37.877" Title="Tones in Cantonese: 6 or 9?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9573" CreationDate="2014-09-15T11:21:37.877" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a practical learner's point of view, treating the checked &quot;tones&quot; as shorter, closed syllables that carry the same tone as as tones 1, 3, 6 (and 2 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changed_tone&quot;&gt;changed tone&lt;/a&gt;) would be enough. In modern Cantonese of the Pearl River Delta, there appears to be little to no difference in pitch between the non-checked and checked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taishanese, one of the checked tones matches to a different tone to standard Yuehai Cantonese. Also in some other non-Yue varieties, checked tones in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi&quot;&gt;tone sandhi&lt;/a&gt; behave very differently to non-checked tones, even if they have the same contour in isolation (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoy_dialect&quot;&gt;Xiamen/Amoy Min Nan&lt;/a&gt;). So it is possible for checked syllables to have different patterns: it's just not a feature of standard Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T11:21:37.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9572" CreationDate="2014-09-15T12:06:00.270" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word tuè/tè in Taiwanese Hokkien is used in contexts where 跟 in Mandarin more explicitly refers to the action of &quot;following&quot;; in the 台灣閩南語常用詞辭典 you can find the word &lt;code&gt;kin-tuè/kun-tè&lt;/code&gt;, as written &lt;code&gt;跟綴&lt;/code&gt;. In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://goo.gl/umekoz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;台文/華文線頂辭典&lt;/a&gt;, a fuller list of words with &lt;code&gt;綴&lt;/code&gt; can be found. Perhaps most indicative of its use is the Taiwanese Hokkien equivalent of &lt;code&gt;跟得上&lt;/code&gt;, which is &lt;code&gt;綴會著 tòe/tè-ē-tio̍h&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The function of &lt;code&gt;共 kā&lt;/code&gt; is more grammatical, and often marks an &quot;additional valency&quot; as expressed on page 23 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ouhzKI8rkZkC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Written Taiwanese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;; in practice this means another verb must follow &lt;code&gt;共 + noun phrase&lt;/code&gt; at some point, for example in that most famous of Hokkien utterances &lt;code&gt;我共你講&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2014-09-15T12:15:24.047" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T12:15:24.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9576" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-15T14:40:27.727" Score="-1" ViewCount="388" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WnU5e.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;**Hi guys, can someone please help me translate this tatto to english? I need your help!**&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have this picture and I know that the last symbol means sentenced, but i don't know what the rest of them are, or even what is the meaning. Please help! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6399" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2014-09-16T03:21:06.517" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T06:42:21.763" Title="Can someone please translate this picture for me? Please i need help!" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2014-09-19T03:24:41.820" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9577" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-15T16:47:15.253" Score="2" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;I‘ve notice that sometimes 给 changes its position in the sentece. Look at these examples:&#xA;• 我发给你一个邮件&#xA;• 我给你发一个邮件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are correct but what different meaning/shadow do they express?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T20:09:13.753" Title="The position of 给" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9577" CreationDate="2014-09-15T17:19:43.153" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sentence 1:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;我发给你一个邮件&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;发给&lt;/code&gt; is its own meaning of &quot;issued/transmitted/sent&quot;, whereas 给 just means give. So the first sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我发给你一个邮件&lt;/code&gt; = I transmitted/sent an e-mail to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sentence 2:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;我给你发一个邮件&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;给&lt;/code&gt; is more of a connection/preposition, like &lt;code&gt;to&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;So, It's more like &lt;code&gt;I to you send an e-mail&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like you said, both are equally correct and used with equal frequency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2014-09-16T18:39:08.697" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T18:39:08.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9579" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-15T17:33:07.387" Score="4" ViewCount="898" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain me exactly when I have to use these two words? &#xA;They are both pronunced &quot;de&quot;, but I found some difficulties understanding why should I use 得 (or shouldn‘t) in some senteceses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地 , to me, seems more like a word used to make another become an adverb, but I‘m not totally sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T22:03:18.797" Title="Explanation usage of 得 and 地" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ClosedDate="2014-09-16T09:15:56.880" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9579" CreationDate="2014-09-15T18:43:52.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesegrammar.info/particles/de-grammar-summary/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Info&lt;/a&gt; provides an excellent write up on the three distinct de particles. See the site for the full article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main points are:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(的) de as the possessor or causing the possessive function:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wǒ de shū&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;my book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是你的书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Zhè shì nǐ de shū.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is your book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(地) de/di as the ly suffix&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;慢慢地&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;mànmande&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;slowly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他很快地吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tā hěn kuài de chīfàn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He eats quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(得) de as a potential complement&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;做得到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;zuò de dào&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;can do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我只有戴眼镜的话才看得清楚。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wǒ zhǐyǒu dài yǎnjìng dehuà cái kàn de qīngchu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can only see clearly if I wear my glasses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATES (per request in comments):&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More on 得. The article further states that this version of de relates to two types of complements: potential complements (which indicate that the attached verb has potential to have the action happen) and degree complements (speaks to the degree/amount that a potential verb may happen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Potential complement&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听得懂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;tīng de dǒng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;can understand (from listening)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(and conversely)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;听不懂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;tīng bu dǒng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;can’t understand (from listening)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Degree Complement&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the basic structure where the verb is followed by a description that includes the degree complements; very well, badly, very tall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(basic structure)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[verb] 得 [description]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(a few more samples)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你说得非常好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nǐ shuō de fēicháng hǎo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You said it very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他做得不好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tā zuò dé bu hǎo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He did it badly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她长得很高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tā zhǎng de hěn gāo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She has grown very tall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beyond it's use as a particle, the article states:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;得 as dé When 得 is pronounced dé in second tone, it’s a verb meaning&#xA;  “to get” or “to acquire”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;得 as děi When 得 is pronounced děi in third tone, it’s a modal verb&#xA;  meaning “must” or “have to”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-09-15T22:03:18.797" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T22:03:18.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9581" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10883" CreationDate="2014-09-15T19:29:39.827" Score="4" ViewCount="1287" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;白头偕老&lt;/code&gt; is a set expression in Mandarin, meaning &lt;code&gt;to get old together&lt;/code&gt;, in a loose translation. I found it in a Hokkien song called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofQeZ1snTPU&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;牵阮的手&lt;/a&gt; (Mandarin &lt;code&gt;牵我的手&lt;/code&gt;, English &lt;code&gt;While you hold my hand&lt;/code&gt;). In the linked video, it is pronounced in a way that sounds like &lt;code&gt;pe̍h-thiô-kai-nóo&lt;/code&gt; making it rhyme with the rest of the lyrics. In a CD I have, though, I hear it pronounced something like &lt;code&gt;pe̍h-thâu-kai-láu&lt;/code&gt;, losing the rhyme. In both cases, the accurate sounds and the tones are reconstructed from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;台湾闽南语常用词辞典&lt;/a&gt;. In fact, in the second one, I am not sure whether to put &lt;code&gt;láu&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;lāu&lt;/code&gt;. I chose the former since it is indicated as &lt;code&gt;文&lt;/code&gt; (literary), whereas the former is indicated as &lt;code&gt;白&lt;/code&gt; (vernacular), and this looks like a set phrase possibly stemming from Classical CHinese, which makes a literary reading seem more appropriate. Anyway my question is: is either of these right? Or is none of these right? And if so, which is the right one? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2020-12-29T20:17:40.753" Title="Hokkien pronunciation of `白头偕老`" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9576" CreationDate="2014-09-15T21:42:00.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;後 - after, or late&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;審判 - judge, or trial (it does not have the mean of sentence)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4394" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T21:42:00.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9576" CreationDate="2014-09-15T22:43:50.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;審判 is made up of two parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;審: going through trial proceedings, also carries the meaning of auditing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;判: issuing a verdict&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two combined means &quot;to judge/ judgement&quot;&#xA;I agree with the comment that there is possibly another character preceeding these three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T22:43:50.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9568" CreationDate="2014-09-15T23:07:08.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like the answer to my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The audio from the second link is better that the first&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uvm.edu/~chinese/pinyin.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.uvm.edu/~chinese/pinyin.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this one is of better quality:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6398" LastEditorUserId="6398" LastEditDate="2014-09-17T01:48:33.537" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T01:48:33.537" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9585" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9586" CreationDate="2014-09-16T00:06:34.140" Score="1" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence I am trying to translate: &quot;Revolution was seen as desperate and dangerous.&quot;&#xA;I am aware of the grammar pattern, sb 把革命视为危险的 for &quot;see as.&quot; However, this usage is incorrect because the object following 视为 needs to be a noun, and the subject is unspecified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6401" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T13:10:02.403" Title="Help translating the phrase, &quot;was seen as.&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9585" CreationDate="2014-09-16T00:26:02.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ended up changing the meaning slightly so I could use 被视为危险的行为, which did not require specifying a subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6401" LastEditorUserId="6401" LastEditDate="2014-09-16T01:48:19.677" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T01:48:19.677" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9587" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9599" CreationDate="2014-09-16T06:54:15.153" Score="5" ViewCount="1697" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, there is limited tone sandhi, mainly about third tones and the tone variations of &lt;code&gt;yi1&lt;/code&gt; (one) and &lt;code&gt;bù&lt;/code&gt; (not). By contrast, Min has sandhi rules for all tones, as illustrated by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi#/image/File:Amoy_tones.svg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this diagram&lt;/a&gt;. So I was wondering: is there any sandhi in Cantonese? And if so, what are the sandhi rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2017-07-09T09:16:22.837" Title="Cantonese sandhi" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9590" CreationDate="2014-09-16T07:11:29.457" Score="1" ViewCount="376" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only meaning of 博眼球 I've been able to come across is the following from a 百度知道 answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;回头率高，吸引人的意思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but is it really that simple, is that all it means? 'An eyeball-turner?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 博 mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where did this word originate from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pictures associated with this word seems to show that it is of a more perverted nature but it is also used in a more normal fashion elsewhere, e.g.: 漳州：商家为博眼球 促销竟请来&quot;毛主席&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T00:39:08.127" Title="Meaning &amp; Etyomology: 博眼球?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9589" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9591" CreationDate="2014-09-16T07:41:46.447" Score="2" ViewCount="677" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got a letter from a new penfriend in Hong Kong, written in 普通话. I think their first language is Cantonese. Mostly the letter uses simplified characters, with the occasional traditional one. It starts by using 尔, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尔最近的工作忙吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then shifts to using 你. So I was wondering about the differences between the two. It looks like for this meaning 尔 is more formal, and the dictionaries I looked at say it’s a formal word when used for “you”. But I’d like to have some examples; the dictionaries don’t give much detail here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-02T07:12:24.613" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T07:12:24.613" Title="Can 尔 (er3) be used instead of 你 (ni3)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9588" CreationDate="2014-09-16T07:50:06.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word &lt;code&gt;博&lt;/code&gt; is usually used with another word &lt;code&gt;得&lt;/code&gt;(or &lt;code&gt;取&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of &lt;code&gt;博&lt;/code&gt; here is also the same as &lt;code&gt;得&lt;/code&gt;, which means &lt;code&gt;get&lt;/code&gt;, or more precisely &lt;code&gt;to get&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you translate it into English, I'd use &lt;code&gt;to attract&lt;/code&gt; instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the whole sentence could be &lt;code&gt;To attract more eyeballs&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6389" LastEditorUserId="6389" LastEditDate="2014-09-16T07:57:11.340" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T07:57:11.340" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9589" CreationDate="2014-09-16T09:48:44.427" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;尔 in traditional chinese is written in 爾. Although it also mean &quot;you&quot;, I believe it's a typo. Because &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尔 is widely used in old chinese. The situation is just like &quot;Thou&quot; and &quot;you&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's rarely use in nowadays daily life no matter in HK, mainland China nor Taiwan. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Instead of simplified Chinese, Hong Kong people usually write in traditional chinese. Sometimes people tried to write in simplified chinese quite some HK people would mix up some wordings. I would rather believed that is a typo if you said your pen friend is come from HK.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When will we use 尔?&#xA;One common example we will definitely use nowadays is 尔虞我诈(or in traditionally chinese is 爾虞我詐). Which is an idiom mean &quot;People cheating and getting advantages of each others&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6318" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T09:48:44.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9592" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9593" CreationDate="2014-09-16T10:00:19.527" Score="1" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;连环夺宝&quot; is a popular game operated by China Welfare Lottery.&#xA;It can be seen in this video: &lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjkyNDczNDI4.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjkyNDczNDI4.html&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard it referred to as &quot;Precious Stones&quot; in English, but this doesn't seem correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate suggests &quot;Indiana&quot; for &quot;夺宝&quot;, which I assume is via the movie Raiders Of The Lost Ark, and the concept is about hunting, or raiding, or acquisition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;连环&quot; presumably refers to sequences of symbols, or chains, or connections?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be an appropriate English translation of the game name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2910" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T10:16:28.850" Title="How to translate &quot;连环夺宝&quot;, the name of a game from China LotSynergy?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9592" CreationDate="2014-09-16T10:16:28.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;夺宝&quot; should be translated separately.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;夺&quot; means win / capture.&#xA;&quot;宝&quot; means treasure.&#xA;&quot;连环&quot; means again and again here. &quot;连环&quot; can also mean chain but not applicable here. &#xA;All together is &quot;Win the treasure again and again&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate suggests that &quot;夺宝&quot; = &quot;Indiana&quot; which is wrong. &#xA;I believe it's because &quot;Indiana Jones&quot; was translated into &quot;夺宝奇兵&quot; in China which the translated name is not a direct translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6318" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T10:16:28.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9585" CreationDate="2014-09-16T10:53:15.813" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;be seen as&quot; can be translated as &quot;被视为&quot;/&quot;被看作&quot;/&quot;被认为&quot;/&quot;在...眼里看来是&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned, there should a noun following &quot;视为&quot;, so we need to add it, however, in some informal situation, like in speaking Chinese, without this noun it's still ok. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some case of English-Chinese translation, it is very common to change passive voice into active voice to indicate the subject by context, which is more close to Chinese language. In the translation below I use &quot;People&quot;(人们) as the subject, which can be changed in the certain context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my translation of &quot;Revolution was seen as desperate and dangerous.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（过去）变革在人们眼里看来是铤而走险的举动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（过去）搞革命被人们视作是铤而走险的举动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（过去）人们认为变革是铤而走险的举动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（过去）人们视搞革命为铤而走险的举动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6156" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T10:53:15.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9589" CreationDate="2014-09-16T13:58:49.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;尔 for 你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's rude to call someone 尔 ancient times.I only see people calling enemy with that.There is another word also means 你 in ancient：汝， doesn't offensive。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because these words are  used by ancients,some times it will be &lt;strong&gt;fun&lt;/strong&gt; to use with &lt;strong&gt;familiar friends&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伊 for 她&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吾/余/予 for 我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;私（meaning of Japanese kanji） for 我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2014-09-16T14:07:28.960" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T14:07:28.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9589" CreationDate="2014-09-16T14:13:08.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;尔 is only used in old Chinese. It is surprising to see someone who uses this word nowadays...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your future reference, there are several words which mean 'you' in old Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尔: implies that the person you speak to is inferior to you. So your boss could use 尔 when talking with you (but not vice versa!) I think your penfriend is actually addressing you in a rude way...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汝: implies that the person you speak to has equal social status to you, or inferior to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;君: implies that the man you speak to is superior to you. Using 君 in old Chinese is like using 您 in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公: implies that the man you speak to is older than you and also much superior to you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6288" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T14:13:08.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9585" CreationDate="2014-09-16T14:21:39.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it is a problem. Because these usage（adj as noun） are quite often seen in 文言文，it also exist in modern Chinese。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至于幽暗昏惑而无物以相之 （幽暗昏惑，形容词作名词，叫人疑惑的地方）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T14:21:39.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9587" CreationDate="2014-09-16T17:37:38.603" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern Cantonese is generally considered not to have &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi#What_is_and_is_not_tone_sandhi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tone sandhi&lt;/a&gt; (in Chinese, 變調, but also more specifically 連續變調), that is to say, changes in the tonal values when in certain phonetic contexts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese does have a phenomenon of lexical &lt;em&gt;derivation&lt;/em&gt; which involves a change of tone, known as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changed_tone&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;變音 or changed tone&lt;/a&gt;; many discussions consider both these tone changes together. This has been dubbed a &lt;em&gt;tonal morpheme&lt;/em&gt; e.g. on page 32 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=D328u70WNgMC&amp;amp;pg=PA32&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tone Sandhi: Patterns across Chinese Dialects&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and a more comprehensive survey can be found in section 1.4.2 (starting page 29) of &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bRCsAgAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. Several triggers exist, including (with the romanisation used being &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyutping&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jyutping&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Contraction: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cqvip.com/qk/87478x/201211/44130232.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;One paper (in Chinese)&lt;/a&gt; specifically puts the trigger for this down to the deletion of &lt;code&gt;一 jat1 /jɐt5/&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reduplication: Especially when followed with the suffix &lt;code&gt;哋 dei2 /tei35/&lt;/code&gt; as well as in onomatopoeia;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Certain classifiers when used as nouns;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dimunitive function, especially with names after the prefixes &lt;code&gt;阿 aa3 /aa33/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;老 lou5 /lou24/&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kinship terms, especially direct vocatives for family members.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &quot;morpheme&quot; generally surfaces as a rising tone /35/, akin to the 陰上 (2) tone. For some select ones, mainly kinship terms, it becomes high level tone /55/ (1); and for others, both parts change, to either /21 _ 35/ (4 _ 2) or /21 _ 55/ (4 _ 1) (e.g. &lt;code&gt;弟弟 dai4-dai2 /tɐi21 tɐi35/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;哥哥 go4-go2 /kɔ21 kɔː55/&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nonetheless, many older papers on Cantonese describe a real tonal sandhi process for the high falling tone (53 in Chao's tone numbers), which was a specific variant of the 陰平 tone (often dubbed tone 1, e.g. in Cantonese romanisation systems). Before other 陰平 tones, the high falling tone would become a high level tone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[53 _ 53|55] ⇒ [55 _ 53|55]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 1982 paper &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/id/78730/UBC_1982_A1%20T74.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The acquisition of Cantonese phonology&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; notes that this had been contested in the 1970s, and questioned the existence of the existence of the high-falling tone in the Cantonese in an infant growing up in Guangzhou during the period. The paper itself shows that by the 1980s, the distinction &lt;code&gt;三 /sa:m53/&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;衫 /sa:m55/&lt;/code&gt; was extinct among the parents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 1997 &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DTtyU2CC-B8C&amp;amp;pg=PA120&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Modern Cantonese Phonology&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; states that the majority of Cantonese speakers in Guangzhou retain the distinction, and also retain the sandhi law (&lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DTtyU2CC-B8C&amp;amp;pg=PA162&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;section 2.10&lt;/a&gt;). But in modern &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bRCsAgAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA27&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;colloquial Hong Kong Cantonese&lt;/a&gt; the /53/ &quot;tone&quot; is only commonly preserved as the principal realisation in certain sentence-final particles, such as 先 or 添, and some contractions; otherwise it is not distinguished from the tone /55/. With the gradual passing of this distinction, the sandhi rule has ended up becoming obsolete as the two tones coalesced into one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2014-09-19T21:36:12.643" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T21:36:12.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9600" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-16T19:45:49.013" Score="4" ViewCount="458" Body="&lt;p&gt;I apologize for my rudimentary Chinese, but I am having trouble finding the translation for &quot;them/they&quot; in Chinese in regards to an entity (and gender neutral).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &#xA;Does the store sell furniture? 这儿个商店卖家具吗？&#xA;No they don't; they only sell stationery. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How will translate &quot;they&quot; in this instance? 他们／她们／它们？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6407" LastEditorUserId="6358" LastEditDate="2014-09-18T06:27:28.927" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T06:27:28.927" Title="What is the word for &quot;they/them&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9577" CreationDate="2014-09-16T20:09:13.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can take it this way, correct me if I am wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 is the subject, 发 is the verb, 一个邮件 is the object.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;给你 is like to you, need to be together&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is like I sent a letter to you == I sent you a letter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5899" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T20:09:13.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9600" CreationDate="2014-09-16T20:34:21.060" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is where a few basic Chinese concepts come in handy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Spoken Mandarin is genderless, written Chinese has Gender expressed in the radicals&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knowledge of radicals will tell you the appropriate &lt;code&gt;Tā&lt;/code&gt; to use&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like using yellowbridge.com for looking up etymology, stroke order, radicals, etc. for each character: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E7%89%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E7%89%A0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;他&lt;/code&gt; The radical, 人, makes this pronoun for &lt;code&gt;him&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;她&lt;/code&gt; The radical, 女, makes this pronoun for &lt;code&gt;her&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;祂&lt;/code&gt; The radical, 示, make this pronoun for &lt;code&gt;God&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;牠&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;它&lt;/code&gt; were merged together. &lt;code&gt;牠&lt;/code&gt; refers to animals, as you can tell by the radical 牛 (cow). And &lt;code&gt;它&lt;/code&gt; refers to inanimate objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;们 men&lt;/code&gt; makes the subject/noun plural. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in the context of your sentence, &lt;code&gt;No they don't; they only sell stationary&lt;/code&gt;, you would use &lt;code&gt;它们&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2014-09-17T14:11:25.093" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T14:11:25.093" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9603" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-16T21:26:20.393" Score="3" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently studying for the HSK1 exam, I can read the vast majority of the required vocab and know the pinyin for most of the words but I am having a lot of trouble understanding the audio on the mock exam audio tracks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally, I would love a website that plays me a short sentence and test my transcription ability, but I can not find any services that offer this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does something like this exist? Or is there something else I can use to practise my (very basic) listening skills?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6403" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T11:24:31.907" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T11:24:31.907" Title="Where can I find resources to improve my listening ability?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-06-17T10:43:51.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9588" CreationDate="2014-09-17T00:50:39.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, 博 and 搏 are the same word in ancient, it means to fight, to confront with another man, and 博眼球 means confront with others to win eyeball（eye-catch instead）, so it means to draw and win attention from others.&#xA;And, if you see 搏眼球，that's correct too.&#xA;Besides, 赌博，here 博 also has the meaning to confront others (or sometime like fate) in the gambling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastEditorUserId="6365" LastEditDate="2014-09-17T00:57:04.980" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T00:57:04.980" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9603" CreationDate="2014-09-17T01:03:46.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, you could do what I did... Watch DVDs with the subtitles off, then watch them again with the subtitles on. It kind of depends on the DVD though -- some have inaccuracies in the subtitles themselves. Also, some DVDs have the subtitles encoded right onto the images. In that case you'll need to resort to looking away or holding up something to block your view of the bottom of the screen the first time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also a lot more interesting than typical test-prep resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4500" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T01:03:46.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="406" CreationDate="2014-09-17T01:29:47.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it helps you get started, think of x as &quot;sy&quot;. The s is a little bit hissy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;sh&quot; your mouth should feel almost the same as when you make an English &quot;ch&quot; sound, but obviously without your tongue involved, so you make the &quot;sh&quot; sound instead. If, in the process, you produce a hint of a whistle through your teeth, even better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 杀 &quot;shā&quot; sounds like &quot;shahh&quot; and feels almost like &quot;chahh&quot;, while 虾 &quot;xiā&quot; sounds like &quot;syahh&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4500" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T01:29:47.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9548" CreationDate="2014-09-17T01:50:14.980" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically they can use as a unit of scale. From biggest to smallest&#xA;洋&gt;海&gt;江&gt;河&gt;湖&gt;湾&gt;溪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;洋(ocean)：比海大的水域&#xA;海(sea)：靠近大陆比洋小的水域&#xA;江(Jiang) basically bigger river)：大河的通称&#xA;河(River)：水道的通称&#xA;湖(Lake)：陆地上聚积的大水&#xA;湾(Bay)：水流弯曲的地方&#xA;溪(creek)：山里的小河沟&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6153" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-09-09T03:56:26.380" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T03:56:26.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9588" CreationDate="2014-09-17T08:02:07.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Get people's attension by some means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It often use as derogatory sence and your example is this type. 博 means get something with please or powerful way， like joked to let people see him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6347" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T08:02:07.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9585" CreationDate="2014-09-17T13:10:02.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;革命曾经被视为一种孤注一掷、铤而走险的行为。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here is only for 30 characters restriction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3725" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T13:10:02.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9600" CreationDate="2014-09-17T22:23:34.417" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translation of &quot;they&quot; depends on what it refers to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use &quot;他们&quot; if you are talking about &lt;strong&gt;a group of people&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use &quot;她们&quot; if you are talking about &lt;strong&gt;a group of females&lt;/strong&gt;. Note that if you are certain that they are a group of females you should always use &quot;她们&quot; instead of &quot;他们&quot;.&#xA;In comparison, if there is at least one male in the group of people, or if you don't know about their gender, you should use &quot;他们&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;祂&quot; I have only seen it when Christian people refer to God. There's only one God so you don't want to say &quot;祂们&quot;. For other gods, we usually use &quot;他&quot; or &quot;她&quot;, depending on if that is a male god or a female god.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;牠&quot; is for animals. However it is seldom seen in modern CHS (Chinese Simplified). Now we use &quot;它&quot; for animals too. It is considered a character in CHT (Chinese Traditional).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;它&quot; is for objects, including animals.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should use &quot;他们&quot; in your example sentence instead of &quot;他们&quot; because actually you are talking about the people in the shop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, they only sell x. =&gt; 不，他们只卖 X。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other special cases you may want to know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When we assimilate some object to a person (拟人, personification), we use the corresponding &quot;他&quot; or &quot;她&quot; instead of &quot;它&quot;. Therefore you may also use &quot;他们&quot; or &quot;她们&quot; in this cases.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For pets, Chinese people don't think they are people - No they are never people. You should always use &quot;它们&quot; for your pets as you do for other animals. Exception happens if you are following point 6.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6358" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T22:23:34.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9613" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-18T15:26:37.413" Score="2" ViewCount="991" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们确信， 在 Mac 的世界中， 你只需放飞自己的想象力。 享受一切**理所应当的美好**。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 享受一切理所应当的美好。translates to: Enjoy all beauty as it should be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence is from here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.sogou.com/mac/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://pinyin.sogou.com/mac/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-8&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;tn=baidu&amp;amp;wd=%22%E7%90%86%E6%89%80%E5%BA%94%E5%BD%93%E7%9A%84%E7%BE%8E%E5%A5%BD%22&amp;amp;rsv_enter=1&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=3&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=342&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;inputT=1040&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Other Examples with 理所应当的美好&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E7%90%86%E6%89%80%E5%BA%94%E5%BD%93%E7%9A%84%E7%BE%8E%E5%A5%BD%22&amp;amp;pn=10&amp;amp;oq=%22%E7%90%86%E6%89%80%E5%BA%94%E5%BD%93%E7%9A%84%E7%BE%8E%E5%A5%BD%22&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;More Examples&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T17:00:02.243" Title="What does &quot;理所应当的美好&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9613" CreationDate="2014-09-18T15:31:42.857" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;享受一切理所应当的美好 = enjoy all the beauty you deserve&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 'beauty' refers to the nice features that Mac and Sogou provide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this expression seems to be a little bit strange. Usually, we do not put the word 理所应当的 before a noun. For example, instead of saying '这是理所应当的美好', one should say '这份美好是理所应当的'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6288" LastEditorUserId="6288" LastEditDate="2014-09-18T15:43:48.957" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T15:43:48.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9559" CreationDate="2014-09-18T17:10:34.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;看起来 - looks&lt;br&gt;&#xA;显得 - appears to be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a sense, they are the same but in different perspective; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他看起来很自信 - he looks very confident - You have a feeling towards him that he is confident&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他显得很自信 - He appears to be very confident - He gives you a feeling that he is confident&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6138" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T17:10:34.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9534" CreationDate="2014-09-18T22:22:55.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me bring you another point here. It is also common that 只 is used to decorate a verb ( 得, 好, 有 ). When this case happens, you can &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; use these three words interchangeably. &#xA;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我只得一百块钱: I only &lt;strong&gt;earn&lt;/strong&gt; 100 rmb.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我只有一个儿子: I only &lt;strong&gt;have&lt;/strong&gt; one son.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我只好(4th tone)这一口: I only &lt;strong&gt;like&lt;/strong&gt; this ( often means some drink&#xA;    or food )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might see similar usages like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我只买了顶帽子: I only &lt;strong&gt;buy&lt;/strong&gt; a hat.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我只会睡觉: I only &lt;strong&gt;know&lt;/strong&gt; how to sleep.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我只睡了3个钟头: I only &lt;strong&gt;sleep&lt;/strong&gt; for 3 hours.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我只卖手机: I only &lt;strong&gt;sell&lt;/strong&gt; cell phones.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我只告诉你: I only &lt;strong&gt;tell&lt;/strong&gt; you ( this secret ).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1101" LastEditorUserId="1101" LastEditDate="2014-09-18T22:35:09.990" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T22:35:09.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9613" CreationDate="2014-09-18T23:34:45.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in this sentence, it's more like &quot;enjoy the beauty as you deserve it&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;of course @Opteron 's translation is right, but the expression is not strange at all from my view as a native Chinese speaker&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meanwhile if we use 这份美好是理所应当的, then this part should be in a separate sentence. we don't have the same grammar as English. if one is trying to connect this part with a previous instead of starting a new one, adjective should be before noun &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6416" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T23:34:45.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9603" CreationDate="2014-09-18T23:39:54.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sexymandarin.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.sexymandarin.com&lt;/a&gt; is suitable for beginners…&#xA;I haven't got anything good for exam preparation but if u wanna learn it in depth it's better to find a native speaker and listen to him speaking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6416" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T23:39:54.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9588" CreationDate="2014-09-19T00:39:08.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;博    gamble for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眼球  eyeballs (here means attention)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;博眼球 compete for attention&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T00:39:08.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9603" CreationDate="2014-09-19T00:45:37.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a big fan of 闲人马大姐. This might be very hard for beginners though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T00:45:37.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9576" CreationDate="2014-09-19T00:48:18.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;秋後審判&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trial in late autumn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is quite close to &quot;Let's wait and see.&quot; or &quot;I will revenge somehow sometime.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T00:48:18.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="406" CreationDate="2014-09-19T01:02:50.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;x: keep your mouth in the position of [i] and send out a breath like you do with [s].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sh: keep your mouth in the position of /r/ (as in &lt;em&gt;right&lt;/em&gt;) and send out that [s]-like breath.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T01:02:50.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9576" CreationDate="2014-09-19T01:27:11.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 秋後審判 is not correct. The custom is 秋后问斩，or 秋后算账， not 秋后审判.&#xA;Without full context, can't determine what's the meaning. Maybe it's just a joke like 先枪毙，后审判（execute you before trial）. You should check another arm if there is 先枪毙 attached. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastEditorUserId="6365" LastEditDate="2014-09-19T06:42:21.763" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T06:42:21.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9613" CreationDate="2014-09-19T03:16:49.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sounds like badly translated Chinese...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「享受一切理所应当的美好」 could be translated from &quot;Enjoy all the beautiful things happened (to you)&quot; or &quot;Enjoy all the beautiful things that you deserved&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Write as 「理所当然地享受美好的一切」sounds more natural to me, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it tells us that 'The things are already be' and 'they are also our expected'. The translation &quot;Enjoy all the beautiful things that you deserved&quot; is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6417" LastEditorUserId="2271" LastEditDate="2014-09-24T17:00:02.243" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T17:00:02.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1317" CreationDate="2014-09-19T03:56:11.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just want to add some points to the brilliant answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rats and mice can be both translated to 老鼠 or 鼠. There is no big difference in common daily usage. If you want to talk about its size just say 大鼠 big mouse or 小鼠 small mouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except 袋鼠 Kangaroo, 仓鼠、沙鼠、白老鼠 or mostly other similar types of animals named with 鼠 can be called 鼠 (as in &quot;dogs&quot; for other dog breeds).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to specifically say a type of 鼠, just say it's full name, e.g. 仓鼠, 沟鼠.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仓鼠 hamsters are common pets in China / HK / TW, but I have never heard other types of 鼠 being a common pet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6417" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T03:56:11.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9448" CreationDate="2014-09-19T04:36:49.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;活禽 or 活家禽 means live poultry, as @user3306356 answered. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichacha.net/search.aspx?q=%E6%B4%BB%E7%A6%BD&amp;amp;p=5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For living animal, it is the name of the animal with 「活」(alive) at the beginning. Such as 活雞living chicken、活鴨living docks、活豬living pigs、活牛living cows. Sometimes 「生」replacing 「活」 can also mean the same thing, e.g. 活豬 = 生豬, but 「生」have the meaning of &quot;born&quot;, &quot;give birth to&quot;. E.g. 母牛生小牛, 母雞生雞蛋, so depends on the context, be careful to use the right word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For plucked, gutted animals, we would say its meat. If you want to say fresh meat, you can say 鮮肉, and specifically 鮮雞肉fresh chicken、鮮豬肉fresh pork、新鮮羊肉fresh lamb/mutton、新鮮牛肉fresh beef, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to say the dead animal, just add 「死」in front, like「活」、「生」. E.g. 死雞、死牛, etc. But we rarely refer their edible meat as dead animal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6417" LastEditorUserId="6417" LastEditDate="2014-09-19T05:14:40.730" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T05:14:40.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9627" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9629" CreationDate="2014-09-19T04:37:16.730" Score="3" ViewCount="2172" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I was writing about my time at a funeral. I am trying to express the situation that I was overwhelmed by emotion so I put my head in my hands. (I.e. I rested my head on my hands). Is there a way to translate this into common spoken chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T15:02:55.603" Title="How do I say &quot;I held my head in my hands&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9628" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-19T04:46:56.850" Score="3" ViewCount="812" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out the most appropriate way to say &quot;light a candle&quot; would it be 点蜡烛  or would 点燃蜡烛 be more commonly heard?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T22:17:43.690" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T22:17:43.690" Title="How to say “to light a candle&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9627" CreationDate="2014-09-19T04:47:38.810" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are referring to &amp;quot;put my head in my hands and cried&amp;quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion would be「抱頭痛哭」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抱: Holding / 頭: Head /  痛哭: Cry badly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you don't stick with &amp;quot;Crying&amp;quot;, you can still use it this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hold my head in my hands as i read his article&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在讀這篇文章的時候，我以手抱頭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6272" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T04:47:38.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9628" CreationDate="2014-09-19T05:10:07.967" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 点蜡烛 is more common as it is more used in daily speaking. 点燃蜡烛 is more formal to me and sounds like written Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I come from HK so I am not sure the usage in other places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6417" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T05:10:07.967" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9627" CreationDate="2014-09-19T06:38:55.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You mean you put your hand above your head? Then that's 以手抚头，表示哀悼.&#xA;Or you put your hand on your forehead? That's 用手贴着前额，表示哀悼.&#xA;Or you cover your face with your hand? That's 用手覆面，表示哀悼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T06:38:55.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3189" CreationDate="2014-09-19T08:46:18.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is a metaphor, a yellow alert for your body conditions.  It means your health is going bad, but can be restored by rest and care attention.&#xA;If it goes to red alert, then your body is in dangerous situation and mostly is about to collapse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T23:52:25.367" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T23:52:25.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="406" CreationDate="2014-09-19T09:11:07.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;for x, put your tongue towards your bottom teeth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for sh, put your tongue towards your top teeth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6422" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T09:11:07.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3189" CreationDate="2014-09-19T09:54:19.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's meaning a warn.The yellow light.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6423" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T09:54:19.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9628" CreationDate="2014-09-19T09:57:42.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;点蜡烛is an imperative sentence&#xA;I like to say 点一下蜡烛，if I ask someone to light the candle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6423" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T09:57:42.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9627" CreationDate="2014-09-19T10:08:57.393" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's your emotion? If you want to express you are shy or embarrassed ,you say 以手掩面。&#xA;If you want to express that you are having a rest,you say 用手托着头or 托着下巴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6423" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T10:08:57.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9639" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9644" CreationDate="2014-09-19T11:27:00.297" Score="6" ViewCount="2071" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the reply to &lt;code&gt;你是什么时候去上班的?&lt;/code&gt;, what does the &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;我是九点去上班的&lt;/code&gt; mean? I think that without the &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;, the sentence makes sense in and of itself, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the meaning is that &lt;code&gt;I start to work at 9:00 am.&lt;/code&gt;..., right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T06:23:59.933" Title="What does the `的` mean in `我是九点去上班的`?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9639" CreationDate="2014-09-19T12:26:57.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here it's a 是 + 的 combo sandwich, where 是 + 的 emphasizes what's in the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我是九点去上班&lt;/code&gt; doesn't &lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt; right - because here 是 and 的 are like bookends with one bookend missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could however just say &lt;code&gt;我九点去上班&lt;/code&gt; which would sound absolutely fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T12:26:57.427" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9627" CreationDate="2014-09-19T15:02:55.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我抱著頭, 百感交集&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I held my head, overwhelmed by emotion&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T15:02:55.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9639" CreationDate="2014-09-19T16:39:17.070" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;These other answers are good, but they're missing the crucial element, which is &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; you have the &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; in that sentence. It's because &lt;code&gt;是&lt;/code&gt;, roughly translated into English as &lt;code&gt;is, am, are&lt;/code&gt;, is a linking verb that is expecting a noun. If you said &lt;code&gt;我是九点去上班&lt;/code&gt; that would essentially mean, &lt;code&gt;I am go to work at nine.&lt;/code&gt; Which, of course, doesn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; takes whatever is before it and turns it into an adjective, thus making &quot;go to work at nine&quot; an adjective. You're probably thinking, &quot;Where's the noun, then?&quot; Well, the noun is implied. That means that &lt;code&gt;我是九点去上班的&lt;/code&gt; translates into &lt;code&gt;I am a go-to-work-at-nine-type of (implied noun)&lt;/code&gt;, or rather, &lt;code&gt;I am a person who goes to work at nine&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make sense? It sounds a little convoluted, but that's what's going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastEditorUserId="2984" LastEditDate="2014-09-19T18:52:48.343" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T18:52:48.343" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="537" CreationDate="2014-09-19T19:38:32.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My mothertongue teacher suggested the following &quot;Pinyin false friends list&quot;. She spoke about the &quot;7+3+5&quot; false friends:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 7 are &lt;code&gt;z c s zh ch sh r&lt;/code&gt;, after which &lt;code&gt;i&lt;/code&gt; is pronounced, she said, as &quot;silence&quot;; this, as I said in a comment, equates to either always /ɨ/ or, more accurately, a trailing syllabic voiced fricative, i.e. &lt;code&gt;zi ci si zhi chi shi ri&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;/tsz̩ tsʰz̩ sz̩ tʂʐ̩ tʂʰʐ̩ ʂʐ̩ ɻʐ̩/&lt;/code&gt;, or one may say &lt;code&gt;ri&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;/ʐʐ̩/&lt;/code&gt;, that varies from speaker to speaker;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 3 are &lt;code&gt;j q x&lt;/code&gt;, after which &lt;code&gt;u&lt;/code&gt; is pronounced like &lt;code&gt;ü&lt;/code&gt; in any case; that is because &lt;code&gt;j q x&lt;/code&gt; are alveolo-palatal, and are thus never used before non-palatal sounds like u; that also explains why &lt;code&gt;z c s zh ch sh r&lt;/code&gt; have the above sounds with &lt;code&gt;-i&lt;/code&gt;: i is palatal, they are not; in fact, what used to be &lt;code&gt;*/tsi/&lt;/code&gt; etc. &quot;collapsed&quot; into modern &lt;code&gt;ji&lt;/code&gt; etc., and so did &lt;code&gt;*gi&lt;/code&gt; etc, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Chinese_phonology#From_Late_Middle_Chinese_to_Standard_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;; this is why &lt;code&gt;Peking&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;Beijing&lt;/code&gt;: it used to be &lt;code&gt;*Beiging&lt;/code&gt; and got Wade-Giles &lt;code&gt;Pei-king&lt;/code&gt;, and lost the &lt;code&gt;i&lt;/code&gt; for &quot;English phonetic representation&quot;; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 5 are &lt;code&gt;ui iu ian üan o&lt;/code&gt;, which are pronounced as &lt;code&gt;uei iou ien üen we&lt;/code&gt; respectively.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I do not agree to the &lt;code&gt;o&lt;/code&gt;. Or rather, it needs specifications. &lt;code&gt;o&lt;/code&gt; by itself is, AFAIK, only present in the 4 characters &lt;code&gt;哦喔噢嚄&lt;/code&gt;, which are interjections and exclamative particles, and which I would pronounce &lt;code&gt;/o/&lt;/code&gt; – I'm not a native though, so this must be taken &lt;em&gt;cum grano salis&lt;/em&gt;, and they &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; sometimes rendered as &lt;code&gt;/wo/&lt;/code&gt;. When &lt;code&gt;o&lt;/code&gt; is a syllable final (e.g. &lt;code&gt;bo po mo fo&lt;/code&gt;, actually those are the only examples, as elsewhere you find &lt;code&gt;uo&lt;/code&gt;) it is usually pronounced &lt;code&gt;/wo/&lt;/code&gt;. Wikipedia has &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Allophones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this table&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Finals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;note three in this one&lt;/a&gt; agreeing with this view. Also, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%BC%82%E6%B3%8A#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Wiktionary entry&lt;/a&gt;, for example, translates &lt;code&gt;-o&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;/-u̯o/&lt;/code&gt;, which is essentially &lt;code&gt;/-wo/&lt;/code&gt;. With this, I think the 7+3+5 rule is a good mnemonic for these spelling-sound discrepancies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Finals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for further reading and comparisons with other Romanizations such as Wade-Giles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also another thing: tone sandhi (Chinese &lt;code&gt;连续变调&lt;/code&gt;). Basically, third tones often change. Base rule: 3+3 -&gt; 2+3, i.e. nǐhǎo is pronounced níhǎo. For sequences, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9558/tone-three-sandhi&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and linked questions. There are also tone variations of &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;不&lt;/code&gt;, which are sometimes marked, but often not marked. For those, if you are not satisfied with &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi#Mandarin_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, I suggest you ask another question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T20:28:12.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9646" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9734" CreationDate="2014-09-19T22:22:47.170" Score="3" ViewCount="737" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across Zhang Shaolin's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VyazYfmmaY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hoi-nam kai-fan&lt;/a&gt; (characters 海南鸡饭, lyrics only in subtitles), a song in Hakka. It is split into three parts. This question concentrates on part 1, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9651/help-translating-%E6%B5%B7%E5%8D%97%E9%B8%A1%E9%A5%AD-2&quot;&gt;part 2 being here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9652/help-translating-%E6%B5%B7%E5%8D%97%E9%B8%A1%E9%A5%AD-3&quot;&gt;part 3 here&lt;/a&gt;. I have trouble translating it. The lyrics from the subs are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;海南鸡饭&#xA;&#xA;最近做歌星讲好难&#xA;唱带翻版好鬼野蛮&#xA;到处看到翻版&#xA;一条街有十几间&#xA;人家赚到笑镭装满几盘&#xA;货又乘补好唔得闲&#xA;唱到半死花百几千&#xA;人家偷做翻版&#xA;蚀到只只改行唔限&#xA;去开一间海南鸡饭&#xA;齐家吃开晓来称赞&#xA;按好嘅生意客仔常照满&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Listening to the video carefully and accurately representing the sounds I hear, and subsequently tweaking the spelling for a &quot;standard&quot; spelling, I got the following transliteration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Hoi-nam kai-fan&#xA;&#xA;Cui kun co ko-sing kong hau nan&#xA;Chong tai fan-pan hau kui ya-man&#xA;Tou-chu khon tau fan-pan&#xA;Yit thiau kai yiu sip ki kan&#xA;Nyin-ka chan tau siau lui zong man ki phan&#xA;Fo yiu cin pu hau m tet han&#xA;Cong tau pan-si fa pak pi chen&#xA;Nyin-ka tiu co fan-pan&#xA;Sit dau cak-cak koi-hong m-han&#xA;Hi hoi yit kan Hoi-nan kai-fan&#xA;Che-ka sit hoi hiau loi ching-can&#xA;An hau ke sen-i hak-cai song cau man&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a possible mandarin rendition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;海南鸡饭&#xA;&#xA;最近做歌星说好难&#xA;唱带翻版好鬼野蛮&#xA;到处看到翻版&#xA;一条街有十几间&#xA;人家赚到笑泪装满几盘&#xA;货又乘补好不得闲&#xA;唱到半死花百几千&#xA;人家偷做翻版&#xA;蚀到个个改行没限&#xA;去开一间海南鸡饭&#xA;全家吃开会来称赞&#xA;很好的生意客人常照满&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;讲 is kong, Hakka standard for &quot;say&quot;; replaced with &quot;shuō&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;笑镭 is pronounced siau-lui; &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt; says &quot;lèi&quot; (tears) is read &quot;lui&quot;, so I guessed this was some sort of misspelling, since I couldn't find any better option; replaced with &quot;xiàolèi&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;唔 is m/ng, a standard Hakka negation; replaced with &quot;bù&quot; in many cases;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;只 can be used as a classifier; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt;, it's cak when classifier and cii when &quot;only&quot;; doubled, it should mean &quot;every&quot;, like doubled classifiers can in Mandarin; replaced with gègè, since I interpreted it as &quot;everyone&quot; = &quot;every person&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;齐家 is che-ka; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt;, 齐 can mean &quot;all&quot;, so this could mean &quot;the whole household&quot;; replaced with 全家;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;晓 is hiau; I have learnt this means &quot;can&quot;, though this meaning is in my reference only under &quot;晓得&quot;; replaced with &quot;néng&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;按 is an; &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt; says 恁 (an) means &quot;very&quot;; replaced with &quot;hěn&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嘅 is ke; my reference spells that 个, distinguished from classifier 個, and says it means &quot;de&quot;; replaced accordingly;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;仔, cai, is a common noun suffix, like 子; after kè it should mean &quot;kèrén&quot;; replaced accordingly;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are some &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9653/strange-pronunciations-in-hakka-song&quot;&gt;strange pronunciations&lt;/a&gt;: 张惠妹 is pronounced with Mandarin pronunciation (save for sh = s), 来 is sometimes pronounced lei instead of loi, 好 and 无 (actually 冇) are hau and mau, and the reference states they should be mo and ho, 两 is lioeng (compare Cantonese loeng).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all that, my attempt would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Hainanese Chicken rice&#xA;&#xA;Lately becoming a song star is, come to speak of it, very hard&#xA;Singing, dealing with very cunning and barbaric pirate versions,&#xA;Everywhere I see pirate versions:&#xA;One road has over ten (pirate version selling) places&#xA;People earn till their smiles and tears fill up a few plates,&#xA;Richnesses (cin-pu?) decidedly can't stay idle&#xA;Sing till half-dead and spend a few thousand money&#xA;And people do pirate versions, stealing.&#xA;I've been nibbled till every profession change is not a limit&#xA;So I go boil a Hainanese Chicken rice&#xA;Everyone eats and can praise&#xA;It's good business, and guests often (cau-man?)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can understand, the problems are many. I will make a few points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The second line doesn't convince me because those two verbs in a row sound odd; is it just Hakka or is my translation wrong?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The part of the people is really mysterious: does it mean people are all poor? Because they earn little, so they have to feed on smiles and tears? Or is there a subject change in the &quot;Chàng dào bànsǐ huā bǎi jǐ qián&quot; line? And what is that &quot;cin-pu&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &quot;nibbled away&quot; line convinces me little, is it right?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the next line saying he gave up singing and switched to cooking or that he prepares the chicken rice to get more income? Or is it just for him?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And again, do the following lines imply the chicken rice is for other people who enjoy it really or is it not? And what is &quot;cau-man&quot;? And is the che-ka interpretation riht? That might mean the rice is for him and family, not for others. But then there is &quot;business&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.syndict.com/hakka/h2m/hk/E58FBB.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Another reference&lt;/a&gt; confirms liap (or rather, liak) means &quot;clever&quot;, i.e. &quot;cōngming&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T16:09:34.330" Title="Help translating 海南鸡饭" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9628" CreationDate="2014-09-20T02:34:39.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;点燃 is sth seems more like &lt;em&gt;light ... to make it burn&lt;/em&gt;. And since candles will not literally be &lt;strong&gt;on fire&lt;/strong&gt; (燃), it is improper to say so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure is like &quot;I &lt;strong&gt;knock&lt;/strong&gt;-ed him &lt;strong&gt;unconscious&lt;/strong&gt;.&quot; (我 &lt;strong&gt;打晕&lt;/strong&gt; 了他。). Literally &quot;I hit him to make him faint&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-09-20T02:34:39.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9479" CreationDate="2014-09-20T06:23:08.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;砍头is the official expression&#xA;杀头 is the civil expression&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6425" LastActivityDate="2014-09-20T06:23:08.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9589" CreationDate="2014-09-20T06:36:27.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;尔 is only used in ancient chinese written language, now we don't say 尔, it only exists in phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6425" LastActivityDate="2014-09-20T06:36:27.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9651" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14587" CreationDate="2014-09-20T09:13:46.777" Score="9" ViewCount="737" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across Zhang Shaolin's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VyazYfmmaY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hoi-nam kai-fan&lt;/a&gt; (characters 海南鸡饭, lyrics only in subtitles), a song in Hakka. It is split into three parts. This question concentrates on part 2, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9646/help-translating-%E6%B5%B7%E5%8D%97%E9%B8%A1%E9%A5%AD&quot;&gt;part 1 being here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9652/help-translating-%E6%B5%B7%E5%8D%97%E9%B8%A1%E9%A5%AD-3&quot;&gt;part 3 here&lt;/a&gt;. I have trouble translating it. The lyrics from the subs are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;海南鸡饭&#xA;&#xA;＊台湾最近叻歌星数不完&#xA;张惠妹称霸哂歌坛&#xA;面对香港四大天王&#xA;还有新一斑&#xA;还有SPICE GIRL外国好鬼出名&#xA;BACKSTREET BOY只只讲晓弹&#xA;看下大马有几只人&#xA;同佢丢争两餐&#xA;自家歌声差人有限&#xA;去开一间海南鸡饭&#xA;人客爱招呼冇态慢&#xA;明星或歌星日日来帮衬&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Listening to the video carefully and accurately representing the sounds I hear, and subsequently tweaking the spelling for a &quot;standard&quot; spelling, I got the following transliteration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Hoi-nam kai-fan&#xA;&#xA;Thoi-wan cui kun liap kuo-sing su put wan&#xA;Zhāng Huìmèi ching-pa-sai ko-than&#xA;Men-tui Heong-kong si thai then wong&#xA;Han yiu sin yit pan&#xA;Han yiu SPICE GIRL woi-kiet hau gui chut-miang&#xA;BACKSTREET BOY cak-cak kong hiau than&#xA;Khon ha Thai-ma yiu ki cak nyin&#xA;Thung-ngiap tiu cang lieung chan&#xA;Chr-ka ko-sang cha ngin yiu han&#xA;Hi hoi yit kan Hoi-nan kai-fan&#xA;Ngin-hak oi cau-fu mao thoi-man&#xA;Ming-sing wa ko-sing nyit-nyit lei pong-cha&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a possible mandarin rendition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;海南鸡饭&#xA;&#xA;＊台湾最近敏歌星数不完&#xA;张惠妹称霸了歌坛&#xA;面对香港四大天王&#xA;还有新一斑&#xA;还有SPICE GIRL外国好鬼出名&#xA;BACKSTREET BOY个个说会弹&#xA;看下大马有几只人&#xA;同业忙争两餐&#xA;自己歌声差人有限&#xA;去开一间海南鸡饭&#xA;客人爱招呼没态慢&#xA;明星或歌星日日来帮衬&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;涯 is actually meant to have a person radical rather than a water radical, but I can't input it on my computer so I used the closest match; it means &quot;I&quot; and is pronounced &quot;ngai&quot;; replaced with &quot;wǒ&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;讲 is kong, Hakka standard for &quot;say&quot;; replaced with &quot;shuō&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;唔 is m/ng, a standard Hakka negation; replaced with &quot;bù&quot; in many cases;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;只 can be used as a classifier; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt;, it's cak when classifier and cii when &quot;only&quot;; doubled, it should mean &quot;every&quot;, like doubled classifiers can in Mandarin; replaced with gègè, since I interpreted it as &quot;everyone&quot; = &quot;every person&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;晓 is hiau; I have learnt this means &quot;can&quot;, though this meaning is in my reference only under &quot;晓得&quot;; replaced with &quot;néng&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;按 is an; &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt; says 恁 (an) means &quot;very&quot;; replaced with &quot;hěn&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嘅 is ke; my reference spells that 个, distinguished from classifier 個, and says it means &quot;de&quot;; replaced accordingly;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;仔, cai, is a common noun suffix, like 子; after kè it should mean &quot;kèrén&quot;; replaced accordingly;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For 叻 (liap), I had to improvise; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%8F%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;, it means &quot;smart, clever&quot; in Cantonese; replaced with 敏;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哂 is sai; I don't remember where, but I seem to have found some site saying a particle &quot;sai&quot; exists with meaning close to &quot;le&quot;; replaced accordingly;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;同佢 sounds like tung-ya; &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt; says 同业 is pronounced thung-ngiab; replaced accordingly;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丢 is tiu; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt;, it means &lt;code&gt;來回奔忙&lt;/code&gt;; replaced with 忙;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That rénkè is Hakka for kèrén, as &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt; states; replaced accordingly;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冇 is mau; the character means &quot;not have&quot;, or anyway the opposite of &quot;yǒu&quot;; that would be 无, only it's pronounced mo according to my reference; replaced with &quot;méi&quot; anyway;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are some &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9653/strange-pronunciations-in-hakka-song&quot;&gt;strange pronunciations&lt;/a&gt;: 张惠妹 is pronounced with Mandarin pronunciation (save for sh = s), 来 is sometimes pronounced lei instead of loi, 好 and 无 (actually 冇) are hau and mau, and the reference states they should be mo and ho, 两 is lioeng (compare Cantonese loeng).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all that, my attempt would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Hainanese Chicken rice&#xA;&#xA;＊Clever song stars from Taiwan lately are countless&#xA;Zhang Huimei has proclaimed himself leader of the stage&#xA;I see the Hong Kong Four Great Kings&#xA;And there's still the new lot:&#xA;There's still Spice Girl, very cunning, foreign and famous,&#xA;BACKSTREET BOY: everyone says he can play,&#xA;I look down and in Malaysia there are a few people;&#xA;My colleagues are always busy fighting for two meals.&#xA;Differently from people, my voice has limits.&#xA;So I go boil a Hainanese Chicken rice&#xA;Guests will say hello and are not so slow:    (oi = yào, and I supposed mau thoi man = bù tài màn)&#xA;They financially help stars and song stars every day.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can understand, the problems are many. I will make a few points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is that interpretation of liap right?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And what about the sai?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is &quot;thung-ngiab tiu co fan-pan&quot; correctly translated?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The last two lines before the #, are they right?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the translation right from # to &quot;cak-cak lei (loi) pong-cham&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;@Stan's comment below reads thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(only know Cantonese but they are similar.)&#xA;1. Not exact. 叻 basically means doing well in something, not necessarily &quot;clever&quot;.&#xA;And it's awful to translate it as 敏 in Mandarin, because the single character 敏 sounds too archaic.&#xA;2. Correct. 哂 is similar to 了 (le). It marks the &quot;perfect tense&quot;.&#xA;3. &quot;同 佢丢 争两餐&quot; here 佢丢 should mean they (like 佢地 in Cantonese).&#xA;4.5. &quot;人客爱招呼冇态慢 明星或歌星日日来帮衬&quot;. Here, I don't clearly understand what 态慢&#xA;means but I catch it as &quot;怠慢&quot; in Mandarin. And 帮衬 means &quot;be his guest&quot;. So this&#xA;sentence means &quot;I like greeting guest and never slight; stars would like to be my guests.&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answers are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;OK. Is there a normal monosyllabic word to translate that liak into Mandarin? I was trying to fit the Mandarin to the tune, so cōngming (assuming it's fine) would be one syllable too long.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;perfect aspect&quot;, rather, but got it :). Note that the character has day radical, not mouth radical. That's a typo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Uh-huh, maybe. Though the plural suffix in Hakka, for what I know, is usually 等 (see 涯等 ngai-ten on the reference - mind the different radical for 涯). However, my reference states 兜 (teu) is a plural suffix, and when combined with 这 it sounds ia-teu. So, since &lt;strong&gt;同…争两餐&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;strong&gt;to compete with … on the market&lt;/strong&gt; (idiom - is it Mandarin or not? How do I render it in Mandarin), the phrase is &quot;With these few [the stars and those in Malaysia] I compete on the market.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and 5. Where is the &quot;would like to&quot; in the Hakka text?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So besides points 4-5, this has become a confirmation question, awaiting a speaker of Hakka to confirm the Cantonese-based suggestions of @Stan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T16:23:46.507" Title="Help translating 海南鸡饭 - 2" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9652" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17589" CreationDate="2014-09-20T09:16:40.873" Score="3" ViewCount="586" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across Zhang Shaolin's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VyazYfmmaY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hoi-nam kai-fan&lt;/a&gt; (characters 海南鸡饭, lyrics only in subtitles), a song in Hakka. It is split into three parts. This question concentrates on part 3, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9651/help-translating-%E6%B5%B7%E5%8D%97%E9%B8%A1%E9%A5%AD-2&quot;&gt;part 2 being here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9646/help-translating-%E6%B5%B7%E5%8D%97%E9%B8%A1%E9%A5%AD&quot;&gt;part 1 here&lt;/a&gt;. I have trouble translating it. The lyrics from the subs are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;海南鸡饭&#xA;&#xA;＃ 涯正宗嘅鸡饭&#xA;唔系客家偏偏出名海南&#xA;人人都知有间龙门星店&#xA;按好吃讲只只来帮衬&#xA;你要嚓最靓鸡饭&#xA;价钱係普普通通讲来好平&#xA;客仔招呼一流&#xA;吃饱又送支牙签&#xA;&#xA;＊＃＃&#xA;&#xA;Ha-ha-ah-ha (两次)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Listening to the video carefully and accurately representing the sounds I hear, and subsequently tweaking the spelling for a &quot;standard&quot; spelling, I got the following transliteration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Hoi-nam kai-fan&#xA;&#xA;Ngai cin-zung ke kai-fan&#xA;M he hak-ka phen-phen chut-miang Hoi-nan&#xA;Nyin-nyin tu ti yiu kan Lung-mun-sing pian&#xA;An hau sit kong cak-cak lei pong-cham&#xA;Nyi oi chat cui liang kai-fan&#xA;Ka-chien he phu-phu-thung-thung kong loi hau phiang&#xA;Hak-cai cau-fu yit-liu&#xA;Sit-pau yiu sung ki nga-cia&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a possible mandarin rendition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;海南鸡饭&#xA;&#xA;＃ 我正宗的鸡饭&#xA;不是客家偏偏出名海南&#xA;人人都知有间龙门星店&#xA;很好吃说个个来帮衬&#xA;你要吃最好鸡饭&#xA;价钱是普普通通讲来好平&#xA;客人招呼一流&#xA;吃饱又送支牙签&#xA;&#xA;＊＃＃&#xA;&#xA;Ha-ha-ah-ha (两次)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;涯 is actually meant to have a person radical rather than a water radical, but I can't input it on my computer so I used the closest match; it means &quot;I&quot; and is pronounced &quot;ngai&quot;; replaced with &quot;wǒ&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;讲 is kong, Hakka standard for &quot;say&quot;; replaced with &quot;shuō&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;唔 is m/ng, a standard Hakka negation; replaced with &quot;bù&quot; in many cases;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;只 can be used as a classifier; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt;, it's cak when classifier and cii when &quot;only&quot;; doubled, it should mean &quot;every&quot;, like doubled classifiers can in Mandarin; replaced with gègè, since I interpreted it as &quot;everyone&quot; = &quot;every person&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;晓 is hiau; I have learnt this means &quot;can&quot;, though this meaning is in my reference only under &quot;晓得&quot;; replaced with &quot;néng&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;按 is an; &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt; says 恁 (an) means &quot;very&quot;; replaced with &quot;hěn&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嘅 is ke; my reference spells that 个, distinguished from classifier 個, and says it means &quot;de&quot;; replaced accordingly;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;仔, cai, is a common noun suffix, like 子; after kè it should mean &quot;kèrén&quot;; replaced accordingly;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;系 and 係 are both he; that is &quot;shì&quot;; replaced accordingly;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嚓 is cat, or the likes; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt;, 擦 means &quot;módòng, kāishì&quot;, i.e. &quot;rub&quot;; supposing a misspelling, I interpreted it like Italian &quot;spazzolare&quot;, which means to eat thoroughly, cleaning out every bit of something; replaced it with &quot;chī&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are some &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9653/strange-pronunciations-in-hakka-song&quot;&gt;strange pronunciations&lt;/a&gt;: 张惠妹 is pronounced with Mandarin pronunciation (save for sh = s), 来 is sometimes pronounced lei instead of loi, 好 and 无 (actually 冇) are hau and mau, and the reference states they should be mo and ho, 两 is lioeng (compare Cantonese loeng).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all that, my attempt would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Hainanese Chicken rice&#xA;&#xA;＃ My actual chicken rice&#xA;Is not Hakka, but always the famous one from Hainan.&#xA;Everyone knows there is a Long-meng-xing-dian&#xA;It's very good to eat, so everyone helps financially.&#xA;If you want to eat the best chicken rice,&#xA;The price is very common, and one may say even rather low.&#xA;Guests look for first quality,&#xA;Eat their fill and leave a toothpick (as a tip).&#xA;&#xA;＊＃＃&#xA;&#xA;Ha-ha-ah-ha (两次)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can understand, the problems are many. I will make a few points. I am going to split this tomorrow, but I really wanted to lay down all the points, so feel free to answer only those related to the first verse if you see this question complete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is that interpretation of chat right?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I know zhāohu is &quot;say hello&quot;, but it was natural for me to &quot;mistranslate&quot; it that way; is it right?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;A translation in a comment reads thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Hainang Chicken Rice&#xA;&#xA;# Ah traditional Hainang Chicken Rice,&#xA;not the place of invention but became famous there anyway,&#xA;everyone knows of the shop selling delicious rice,&#xA;customers enjoys the rice and chatters in the village,&#xA;you can enjoy the best chicken rice,&#xA;the price is reasonable and everyone likes,&#xA;best customer services,&#xA;free toothpicks serving when you're done with your meal,&#xA;&#xA;ha-ha-ha-ha (repeat # excerpt twice) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It ought to be &lt;code&gt;Hainan&lt;/code&gt; as far as I know, not &lt;code&gt;Hainang&lt;/code&gt;. Anyway I gather the following points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;cing-cung&lt;/code&gt; (zhengzong) is &lt;code&gt;traditional&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;old-school&lt;/code&gt;; OK that's right;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;ngai&lt;/code&gt; became &lt;code&gt;ah&lt;/code&gt;; now it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; true that &lt;code&gt;ngai&lt;/code&gt; is also the reading for &lt;code&gt;挨&lt;/code&gt;, but that means &quot;to suffer&quot;; can it be used as an interjection too? And why was it spelt with the standard character for the &lt;code&gt;ngai&lt;/code&gt; meaning &quot;I&quot; then?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The second line I can't understand how it is formulated; maybe it is &quot;Is not Hakka [in origin] but [anyway] became famous in Hainan [which is a Hakka place]&quot;? So &lt;code&gt;chut-miang + place&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;become famous in + place&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;lung-mun-sing-tiam&lt;/code&gt; was translated to &quot;the shop selling delicious rice&quot;; is that a loose translation taking into account that that is the name of a restaurant, probably the one in which the singer &lt;code&gt;开一间海南鸡饭&lt;/code&gt;? Or is it a literal translation? And if the latter, how does that &quot;name&quot; have the translation in it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What happens in the 4th line? I can guess the first part is &quot;It's very good [for people] to eat [the rice] and speak [with others in the restaurant]&quot;, but what about the rest? How does it &quot;code&quot; the translation given, which is &quot;chatter in the village&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Given the translation &quot;enjoy&quot;, I guess my interpretation of &lt;code&gt;chat&lt;/code&gt; wasn't that wrong after all :);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 3rd-to-last line became &quot;the price is reasonable and everyone likes&quot;; &lt;code&gt;phu-thung&lt;/code&gt; translates to &quot;reasonable&quot;, better than my &quot;common&quot;; but &quot;everyone likes&quot;? Was it supposed to be &quot;alike for everyone&quot;, i.e. &quot;similar for everyone&quot;, &quot;without big differences from person to person&quot;? And then why should the price be different from person to person? And otherwise, how is that translation present in the original?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;So &lt;code&gt;cau-fu&lt;/code&gt; is &quot;service&quot;? It does mean &quot;take care of&quot;, so maybe &lt;code&gt;keren zhaohu&lt;/code&gt; does mean &quot;customer service&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The last line is &quot;After you've eaten your fill [they, the customer service] give you toothpicks [for free]&quot;. OK.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 2&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;That &quot;Nyi oi chat&quot; should be &quot;nyi oi cak&quot;, spelt &quot;汝爱摘&quot;, which translates roughly to &quot;你要吃&quot;, I should think, but I'm waiting for confirmation on a fb group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T19:15:02.343" Title="Help translating 海南鸡饭 - 3" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9799" CreationDate="2014-09-20T09:32:54.557" Score="6" ViewCount="519" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have stumbled upon Zhang Shaolin's Hoi-nam kai-fan. I asked three translation questions about it: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9646/help-translating-%E6%B5%B7%E5%8D%97%E9%B8%A1%E9%A5%AD&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9651/help-translating-%E6%B5%B7%E5%8D%97%E9%B8%A1%E9%A5%AD-2&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9652/help-translating-%E6%B5%B7%E5%8D%97%E9%B8%A1%E9%A5%AD-3&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;. THere you find the lyrics and a link to a video, and my translation attempt. This question is to ask about the strange pronunciations that are present in some points of the song. Precisely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;来 should be pronounced &lt;code&gt;loi&lt;/code&gt;, and is sometimes pronounced &lt;code&gt;lei&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;两 should be pronounced &lt;code&gt;liong&lt;/code&gt; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt;, but here it is pronounced &lt;code&gt;lioeng&lt;/code&gt;, with the same sound as Cantonese &lt;code&gt;loeng&lt;/code&gt; (Jyutping being the used romanisation scheme, without tone), save for the extra &lt;code&gt;i&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;歌 should be pronounced &lt;code&gt;ko&lt;/code&gt;, and is pronounced &lt;code&gt;kuo&lt;/code&gt; once and &lt;code&gt;fo&lt;/code&gt; (or rather with a sound like English hard &lt;code&gt;th&lt;/code&gt; where I wrote &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt;) shortly after;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;张惠妹 sounds like it's pronounced the mandarin way (Hakka sounds Cong Fui-moi);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你, in its last occurrence in the last repetition of part three, sounds like it's actually a 系.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone give reasons for these facts? Is the final 你 a typo perhaps? And also, can someone provide me with tone marks (or tone numbers, and naturally an explanation of the contours) for the whole lyrics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T05:27:23.200" Title="Strange pronunciations in Hakka song" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="15" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9628" CreationDate="2014-09-20T09:34:47.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;点蜡烛 is more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;点 means &quot;to light&quot;, 燃 means &quot;to light/ burn&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We need efficient communication in daily life, therefore, 点蜡烛 is okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2014-09-20T09:34:47.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9655" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9658" CreationDate="2014-09-20T09:59:22.437" Score="0" ViewCount="358" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &lt;code&gt;Macintosh&lt;/code&gt; is described as &lt;code&gt;苹果的电脑&lt;/code&gt;, and MacBook series are described as &lt;code&gt;苹果的笔记本电脑&lt;/code&gt;. However, I don't know how to differentiate MacBook Air from MacBook Pro.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apple.com/cn/macbook-pro/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Apple's Chinese page&lt;/a&gt; doesn't describe it, either; it's just spelled as &lt;code&gt;MacBook Pro&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, even if you can spell it in Chinese, such as &lt;code&gt;苹果的笔记本电脑空&lt;/code&gt; (just the illustration purpose's only), should I spell it just as &lt;code&gt;MacBook Air&lt;/code&gt;? In Japanese, when you type it in Japanese instead of &lt;code&gt;MacBook Air&lt;/code&gt;, you give an impression that you're a dumb, and hence the most people just describe it as what Apple does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So which one should I take in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="2600" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T22:27:46.477" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T22:27:46.477" Title="How to differentiate MacBook Air from MacBook Pro in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;proper-nouns&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9298" CreationDate="2014-09-20T10:12:05.083" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I happen to have an &quot;Ancient Chinese Dictionary&quot; at hand. I find out several meanings of 关, they are &quot;bolt&quot;, &quot;fort or customs&quot;, &quot;joint&quot;, &quot;run through&quot;, &quot;involved in&quot;, &quot;inform&quot; and &quot;the driving force system of machine&quot;. I think  &quot;driving force system of machine&quot; can make sense, because this is the most principal  part of machine, it could be extend to &quot;important&quot;. &quot;至&quot; has the meanings of &quot;up to&quot; and &quot;the most&quot;. So, combining &quot;至&quot; with &quot;关&quot;, the meaning is &quot; the most important&quot;. I hope my answer is helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6425" LastEditorUserId="6425" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T13:25:07.490" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T13:25:07.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9655" CreationDate="2014-09-20T10:22:20.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general,we say XXX系列 such as “MacBook 家族的air系列”&#xA;but in most cases,for digital products ，we straight call it in English or transliterate it.For example,we some people call or write iphone 爱疯 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6423" LastActivityDate="2014-09-20T10:22:20.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9655" CreationDate="2014-09-20T11:05:34.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It is okay to say &lt;code&gt;Macbook Air&lt;/code&gt; in between Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;, or you can say &lt;code&gt;苹果的Air电脑&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;苹果的Air系列电脑&lt;/code&gt; if you must. More info:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It seems that mainland Chinese are adapting &lt;code&gt;电脑&lt;/code&gt;, but I want to point out both &lt;code&gt;電腦&lt;/code&gt;(traditional Chinese) and &lt;code&gt;计算机&lt;/code&gt;(simplified Chinese) means &quot;computer&quot;. &lt;code&gt;電腦&lt;/code&gt; is used everywhere while &lt;code&gt;计算机&lt;/code&gt; is only for formal use in mainland China. (&lt;code&gt;計算機&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;计算机&lt;/code&gt; can mean &quot;calculator&quot; in other scenario, so &lt;code&gt;电子计算机&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;电脑&lt;/code&gt; is used to differentiate.) (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2358.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;referecne&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Macintosh&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;麦金塔电脑&lt;/code&gt; or simply &lt;code&gt;麦金塔&lt;/code&gt; in Mainland China. In HK, we called it &lt;code&gt;Mac機&lt;/code&gt;. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/56086.htm?fromtitle=Macintosh&amp;amp;fromid=8310244&amp;amp;type=syn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;reference&lt;/a&gt;) &lt;code&gt;苹果的电脑&lt;/code&gt; only means &lt;code&gt;computer from Apple&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Japanese have &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Katakana&lt;/a&gt; , but Chinese don't.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As you may know, in Chinese we say a &lt;code&gt;laptop&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;notebook computer&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;筆記本電腦&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;笔记本电脑&lt;/code&gt; but we do not translate the &lt;code&gt;Air&lt;/code&gt; into &lt;code&gt;空&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don't know any nicknames for Macbook Air yet like &lt;code&gt;iphone&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;爱疯&lt;/code&gt; though.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6417" LastEditorUserId="6417" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T12:10:15.570" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T12:10:15.570" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9659" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9662" CreationDate="2014-09-20T12:44:42.230" Score="2" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before heading to town to find something to eat, a friend suggested I should be the one driving the 摩托車. I told my passenger it was illegal for me to drive, but they insisted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I drove fast, ran red lights where appropriate (we live in the middle of nowhere), and performed other little stunts that do not endanger the passengers and are not obnoxious to bystanders (I can't stand it when people make their engines roar in public just to impress themselves), but are nonetheless invigorating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My passenger described my driving variously as 很恐怖 and 很可怕. When we returned home I checked my dictionary and both of these words were described as &quot;terrible&quot;. As you may know, this word carries ambiguity in English. Do I drive very poorly (not necessarily scarily), frighteningly (not necessarily without skill), or both?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side-note: The passenger clearly enjoyed it and was laughing without a hint of nervousness, if they seemed seriously frightened I would have driven law-abidingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6390" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T20:49:44.480" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T20:49:44.480" Title="可怕 and 恐怖 are what kind of &quot;terrible&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9660" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9663" CreationDate="2014-09-20T12:45:53.827" Score="3" ViewCount="840" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just wondering since it does seem to me like a more western phrase, in Google translate it comes out as 上规模的1到10, I'm just wondering if there is a more common way to ask someone to rate a particular thing or person in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4155" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T10:27:45.897" Title="Is the phrase &quot;on a scale of 1 to 10&quot; used often if at all?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9660" CreationDate="2014-09-20T13:01:33.597" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To rate something, I would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(要)在十分內打個分數，(我會給六分)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;On a scale of 1 to 10, (I would give it a 6.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在十分內 = Under a score of 10, 要 is just optional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other ways of saying are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;若要评分，我会给...(To give a score, I would give...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;如果要我给分数，我会给...(If I have to rate it, I would give...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not frequent in Chinese to say something like this, comparing to English. That Google translate is definitely wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6417" LastEditorUserId="6417" LastEditDate="2014-09-23T14:03:54.507" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T14:03:54.507" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9659" CreationDate="2014-09-20T13:08:20.727" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It just means frighteningly/terrifying in your situation. Your passenger is just scared by your little stunts (but he/she may be amazed by your moves at the same time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恐怖 and 可怕 do not have the meaning of poorly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6417" LastActivityDate="2014-09-20T13:08:20.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9660" CreationDate="2014-09-21T00:13:55.570" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use it! =) My friends use it too. But we are immigrants who have lived in the USA for many years with fluency in both languages (we use both languages) so not sure if our English might have affected that. But, I remember hearing that phrase when I was little in China as well. We usually don't use the direct translation of &quot;on a scale of 1 to 10&quot;, instead, we would say something like &quot;what score would you rate X?&quot; then we will add &quot;on a scale of 1 to 10&quot; to indicate the score range. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, girls' sleepover (elementary school!):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢陈某某， 不过打分的话， 他只有 7 分。 I like Chen X, but to give a score, he only scores a 7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果给他打分， 你会给他打多少分？ If you are going to give him a score, what score would he get? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 到 10， 10 为最高分， 你会给他打多少分？ 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, what score will he get? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't watch Chinese entertainment shows often so I don't know if I am recalling it correctly, but (I think) you will hear a host saying something like, &quot;please give a score for X person.&quot; --&gt; 请给 X 打分。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6427" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T00:13:55.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9665" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-21T10:38:04.943" Score="6" ViewCount="770" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is about choosing a proper English word for a Chinese phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let there be given the sentence &quot;What is the &quot;定位&quot; in the market of our products?&quot; Then, what are the proper English words for &quot;定位&quot; in the given sense?&#xA;I might just use such as &quot;placement&quot; or &quot;position&quot; for it, but I am really not sure about the propriety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really need your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T16:59:51.570" Title="Proper translation of &quot;定位&quot; to English?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9665" CreationDate="2014-09-21T13:37:04.647" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Typically one would &quot;position&quot; a product in the marketplace. If you are in the act of doing something (process is active now) then the phrase would be &quot;positioning&quot; [a/our/the] product in the marketplace. I would suggest you take a look at your proposed word choice in &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt;. Plugging in the word for &quot;position,&quot; yields the following usages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z94M7.png&quot; alt=&quot;position&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Positioning&quot; on the other hand seems to give something closer to what you want. BTW - Here are some sample sentences, just to be sure (the website has many more).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.  Their segregated positioning subtly and silently indicates that caution should be taken in their use.&#xA;它们相对分离的位置微妙而无声地提示着用户，即使用它们时应该小心。&#xA;-- 来源 -- About Face 3交互设计精髓 好评(14)  差评(0)    &#xA;&#xA;2.  In a fixed-head magnetic disk unit, a support and positioning element for a read / write head.&#xA;在固定磁头的磁盘机中,用于支撑和定位读/写磁头的部件。&#xA;-- 来源 -- 英汉 - 辞典例句  好评(17)  差评(5)    &#xA;&#xA;3.  global positioning system&#xA;环球定位系统,[港]全球定位系统&#xA;-- 来源 -- 英汉 - 翻译样例 - 行业 好评(10)  差评(0)    &#xA;&#xA;4.  The accurate positioning of an entity relative to a reference.&#xA;相对于参考基准把某个实体精确定位。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZdQve.png&quot; alt=&quot;positioning&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T13:37:04.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9667" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9668" CreationDate="2014-09-21T15:33:08.877" Score="1" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;How is &lt;strong&gt;confabulation&lt;/strong&gt; properly translated into Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia doesn't have a corresponding entry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only dictionary I can find this in, LDC English-Chinese Wordlist, just lists &lt;strong&gt;交谈/闲谈&lt;/strong&gt; - which is not nearly specific enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;JSYK, Wikipedia defines confabulation as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In psychology, confabulation (verb: confabulate) is a memory disturbance, defined as the production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive.[1]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; the meaning I'm looking for this this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(psychology) A fabricated memory believed to be true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-09-21T15:51:20.623" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T12:03:54.827" Title="Translation: confabulation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9667" CreationDate="2014-09-21T15:43:52.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;虚构 or perhaps 虚构症 if you want to be clear that it is a diagnosis. 虚谈症 is another option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T15:43:52.627" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9665" CreationDate="2014-09-21T17:01:32.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning of a word is not a word. One need to reflect what a word means before he translates it into another language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a wiki definition in the scope of marketing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although there are so many different definitions of brand positioning, probably the most common is: identifying and attempting to occupy a market niche for a brand, product or service utilizing traditional marketing placement strategies (i.e. price, promotion, distribution, packaging, and competition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positioning_(marketing)#Definitions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positioning_(marketing)#Definitions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T17:01:32.407" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9670" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-21T17:08:25.380" Score="1" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like: 好文, 顶一下, 喜欢, 赞, 支持&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dislike: 踩一下, 太水, 反对&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T04:13:00.030" Title="I keep running into so many different synonyms for like/dislike on Chinese websites. What others am I missing?" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9671" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-21T17:36:52.487" Score="1" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;p&gt;武大郎 is a legendary short man. He runs a shop; and all of his employees are shorter than him. It characterizes an orgnizational phenomenon. I wonder if there is an English saying that means the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T01:11:07.970" Title="How to translate 武大郎开店 into English?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9665" CreationDate="2014-09-21T21:14:33.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think in your given sentence, you can translate &quot;定位&quot; as &quot;role&quot;. To be specific, &quot;定位&quot; means the role you want your products to play in the market (in this sentence). In another words, you can also say &quot;What is the 角色定位 in the market of our products&quot;.&#xA;As a Chinese, I can explain to you considering both grammar and context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If subject is man, then it is related social/mentality state, if subject is a product, then it says, what is targeted customer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, split &quot;定位&quot; into &quot;定&quot; and &quot;位&quot;. &#xA;&quot;位&quot; means &quot;location/place&quot; without doubt.&#xA;For &quot;定&quot;, let us first assume it's a verb. Then &quot;定&quot; means &quot;determine/choose&quot; in this phrase. If we assume &quot;定&quot; is descriptive, then it means &quot;determined/fixed&quot;. In this sense, it means the position/place is determined/chosen (by somebody or whatever).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if &quot;定&quot; is a verb, &quot;定位&quot; will be a phrase used like a verb. It means &quot;determine the location/place&quot;.&#xA;So if &quot;定&quot; is descriptive, &quot;定位&quot; will be a phrase used like a noun. It means &quot;the chosen location/place&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's go back to your question. You asked: what is the &quot;定位&quot; in the market of our products. Here &quot;定位&quot; is a noun. Imagine you are a product manager and you have a new product. When you are designing/promoting your products to the market, the more customers, the better. Then you will think about: what makes a customer buy the product? What is the role of your products to the customers in market? What kind of role will obtain the most customers? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know I am a little too talkative, but I hope I helped!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6428" LastEditorUserId="2271" LastEditDate="2014-09-24T16:59:51.570" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T16:59:51.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9673" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9675" CreationDate="2014-09-22T00:32:49.690" Score="6" ViewCount="858" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are kinds of foods, such as malaxiangguo, that people often suspect a foreigner will not know and will not like. I can say &quot;我吃麻辣香锅&quot; (wo chi malaxiangguo).  Is that the best thing to say?  And I have used both 知道 (zhidao) and 认识 (renshi) to say I know various foods.  I think I have heard both used, but I may be wrong about that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, all have worked, but what is the best way to say this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was not clear enough.  The common case is that I am trying to buy some kind of food and the seller is concerned that as a foreigner I do not know what I am doing and cannot like that kind of food.  Seven years ago in Beijing this could happen if I just started to use the red pepper paste at the table, and 我吃辣 worked as reassurance.  Spicy is a lot more common in Beijing now.  But it happens a lot with 羊杂 of any kind.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the seller asked me a question about whether I knew or wanted the food, of course I would use the same vocabulary to answer. The Chinese grammar of questions and answers is a very good system. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My problem is what to say when the seller is just visibly uncomfortable.  Seven years ago some would rush over to my table as I opened the pepper paste, warning &quot;辣！辣！“  Now if I order, say 肚 (du3, tripe, a normal ingredient in pepper pot soup and hog's maw in Pennsylvania when I was a child, though many Chinese and Americans today do not know it was ever eaten in the US) shop owners often look dubious.  I did not intend that pun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure the advice against using 认识 is correct, and 知道  is not perfect.  But even those poor choices have worked to reassure, which is my goal. I'd just like to say it better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T13:55:26.930" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T13:55:26.930" Title="Can I use &quot;我知道“ to say I know some kind of food?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9673" CreationDate="2014-09-22T00:38:08.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think specificity is always a positive in this type of situation. Instead of saying you know it or know of it, be more specific. How exactly do you know about it? Have you seen it before? Read about it before? Eaten it before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, it all depends on context. Typically, &lt;code&gt;我吃過___&lt;/code&gt; is what askers are looking for. Can you give more information on the context you're talking about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T00:38:08.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9673" CreationDate="2014-09-22T00:56:28.090" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually don't use 我认识 on food, if someone ask you whether you know of some kind of food, if you have eat it once or more, you can say 我吃过那个. or if you ever heard of it, you can say 我听说过，但是没吃过. If you want to eat, you can say 我们可以吃吃, if you don't, just say 我不想吃 or 我不喜欢吃那个.&#xA;If you are on table, and someone show you a kind of food, and ask you do you know it, he may ask you 你知道这道菜是什么吗？Then you can say 我知道 or 我不知道，and 我认识 or 我不认识 can also use here. But, this is not a polite action, man usually don't ask others not close enough for this sentence. Ask for 吃过这道菜没有 is a more common question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastEditorUserId="6365" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T01:14:01.480" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T01:14:01.480" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9671" CreationDate="2014-09-22T01:11:07.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;武大郎 is a single personal sesame cake maker and vender, he had no shop, and he had no employees. He died of murder by his wife, and revenged by his younger brother 武松， this is a famous story written in book 水浒. And 武大郎 is famous for his characteristic of short.&#xA;And 武大郎开店 in the allegorical saying has the explanation ( you can see it as answer for this riddle) of 长子免进（or 高我者不用）, which means He will not hire who is taller than him.&#xA;So this is a metaphore of describe someone being jealous of man of talent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T01:11:07.970" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9665" CreationDate="2014-09-22T01:14:49.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;How are our products positioned in the market?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6429" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T01:14:49.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9670" CreationDate="2014-09-22T04:13:00.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like：鲜花（flowers）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dislike：板砖（bricks）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T04:13:00.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9680" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-22T04:15:11.220" Score="0" ViewCount="805" Body="&lt;p&gt;I&quot;m trying to figure out the best way to translate &quot;representative&quot; as in a &quot;representative in government&quot;. In Taiwan people say 班代, but that doesn't seem like it would translate into other student council's where you aren'ts necessarily voted as a class representative, but rather as a rep as a whole. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T02:21:33.710" Title="How do you say &quot;representative&quot; as in Student Council Representative" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9681" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9682" CreationDate="2014-09-22T04:18:12.263" Score="2" ViewCount="329" Body="&lt;p&gt;I&quot;m trying to figure out how to say to &quot;lose&quot; as in to lose a member of a team or (in my case) a member of a club. For example, how would you translate, &#xA;&quot;this year my school's student council lost a couple of great representatives&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you use the term &quot;输了几个很好的代表？” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T15:49:36.630" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T15:49:36.630" Title="How to say &quot;To lose&quot; as in to &quot;lose a team member&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9681" CreationDate="2014-09-22T05:00:58.810" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;输了几个很好的代表？” means a council gambled with their great  representatives,then they lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;this year my school's student council lost a couple of great representatives&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今年，我们校学生会失去了几位出色的学生代表。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time,We can use 失去 for lost。but 失去 indicates some bad conditions. “What happend? politic conflicts or death”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;add an explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今年，由于涉及到毕业，我们校学生会失去了几位出色的学生代表。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今年，由于毕业的关系，我们校学生会失去了几位出色的学生代表。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited:&#xA;After more consideration,&#xA;I think it is better to use either of the two。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;失去 means something lost which you wish did not.If you were sorry for the reelection ,you could use 失去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2014-09-23T02:05:06.270" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T02:05:06.270" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9683" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9688" CreationDate="2014-09-22T06:29:19.183" Score="11" ViewCount="5083" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both have comparable definitions of &quot;method&quot;, &quot;manner&quot;, &quot;means&quot;, etc. and describe or define a way of doing something.  The phrase 没(有)办法 is often used to deflect responsibility by claiming powerlessness.  Aside from being more common in colloquial speech, does this make 办法 more general?  Anecdotally, 方法 is encountered frequently in instructions.  Does this make 方法 more technical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3202" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T08:21:15.460" Title="What is the Difference Between 方法 and 办法?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9683" CreationDate="2014-09-22T06:54:00.257" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;方法 - Usually we used to express it by giving/request &quot;method&quot; to solve the problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Example : 你用什么方法去解决?　what method do you use to solve it?&#xA;Example : 我觉得这方法不错?  i think this is the good method.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;办法 - Usually we used to express it by giving/request &quot;idea&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Example : 你有什么办法来解决这件事吗？ Do you have any idea how to solve this problem?&#xA;Example : 我有办法！I have an idea! &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6433" LastEditorUserId="6433" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T07:12:28.060" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T07:12:28.060" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9685" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9848" CreationDate="2014-09-22T06:55:16.047" Score="3" ViewCount="658" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Original Question&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although 通过 is the goto expression for passage through or across a space in informal, spoken Mandarin, there are specific alternatives used in more formal, spoken Mandarin as well as in writing.  &lt;strike&gt;This question serves to provide the community with a comprehensive list.&lt;/strike&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;As &quot;comprehensive list&quot; questions are frowned upon on the StackExchange network, this question's purpose shall be to illustrate the classes of ＊过 verbs.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Examples&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通过 to go through something in a general or abstract sense&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;经过 to go past something; &lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;or to pass something&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;透过 through, via, or by way of something&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;穿过 to go through a structure such as a tunnel or hallway&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Consider the sense of piercing or penetration that comes from&lt;/em&gt; 穿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strike&gt;What additional situation-specific alternatives to 通过 exist?&lt;/strike&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;What classes of ＊过 verbs exist?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3202" LastEditorUserId="3202" LastEditDate="2014-10-05T01:02:41.923" LastActivityDate="2014-10-06T04:54:57.187" Title="Differences Between Classes of ＊过 Verbs ( 通过, 经过, 透过, 穿过, etc. )" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9685" CreationDate="2014-09-22T07:22:04.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;2 alternatives in an abstract sense: iciba： 以（介）：例句：他～自学完成了大学全部课程，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;征求（动）：（有关的人或组织的同意或核准）：这问题要～群众，才能做出决定。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T08:52:22.880" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T08:52:22.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9683" CreationDate="2014-09-22T07:39:39.393" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;办法 is simply 办事的方法.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has nothing to do with colloquialism or technicality. Both are common words used in daily speech and writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方法 = method, way or solution&lt;br&gt;&#xA;办法 = method for handling or doing something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the above, it is not hard to see that, 方法 is more generic than 办法. 办法 can only be used on methods that are actionable. 没办法 implies there is no way something can be &lt;em&gt;done&lt;/em&gt;. 没方法 means there is no solution yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the method is &lt;em&gt;non-actionable&lt;/em&gt;, you would have to use 方法. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are the common &lt;b&gt;ways&lt;/b&gt; for a knight to defeat a bishop at the end-game?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  单马胜单士残局有哪几种常见破解&lt;b&gt;方法&lt;/b&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T07:39:39.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9673" CreationDate="2014-09-22T08:41:58.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For saying that you know a food, 我知道 is not quite appropriate — it should be used to say that you know a fact rather than that you are acquainted with something.  (It's equivalent to &lt;em&gt;Je sais&lt;/em&gt; in French, which is not interchangeable with &lt;em&gt;Je connais&lt;/em&gt;.)  However, you &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; say 我知道是辣的 — &quot;I know that it's spicy.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 我知道是辣的 might be interpreted as &quot;I've been warned that it's spicy&quot;, and a concerned host might still have doubts.  If applicable, you could say 我试过 (&quot;I've tried it&quot;) instead, which would end all concerns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2600" LastEditorUserId="2600" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T11:19:45.943" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T11:19:45.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9673" CreationDate="2014-09-22T09:41:05.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well the seller just wanted to know if you have any idea about 麻辣香锅. In this case, the best answer would be &quot;我吃过麻辣香锅, 我知道它是什么样子什么味道&quot;. Here &quot;知道&quot; means that you have the idea. If you haven't had 麻辣香锅 before but you've seen what it looks like, you can just say &quot;我知道麻辣香锅是什么样de (尽管我没吃过)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;认识&quot; here in this case is not quite common to use. Although grammatically it's correct (you could recgonize it and tell difference from others), but here the point is about the idea you have, so better use &quot;知道&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6435" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T09:41:05.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9691" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9697" CreationDate="2014-09-22T09:52:24.810" Score="4" ViewCount="215" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've found the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你是什么时候买的苹果？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm convinced that this sentence should be &lt;code&gt;你是什么时候买苹果的？&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the sentence above require &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; &lt;code&gt;买&lt;/code&gt;? What purpose does it function for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T22:36:24.003" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T00:56:37.827" Title="Why is 的 necessary in 你是什么时候买的苹果?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9683" CreationDate="2014-09-22T10:06:00.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To translate simply, 方法 means &quot;method&quot; / &quot;manner&quot; / &quot;means&quot; (as you said), and 办法 means &quot;solution&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, however, that 办法 only applies to solutions that involve a plan of action.  You cannot, for example, call &lt;em&gt;x = 3&lt;/em&gt; a 办法 to the equation &lt;em&gt;x + 7 = 10&lt;/em&gt;.  Rather, that would be a 答案 (&quot;answer&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2600" LastEditorUserId="2600" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T11:13:38.047" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T11:13:38.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9691" CreationDate="2014-09-22T11:36:50.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We don't put &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; between &lt;code&gt;买&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;苹果&lt;/code&gt; but end of sentence to say &lt;code&gt;When did you bought the apples?&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you can say &lt;code&gt;苹果是什么时候买的？&lt;/code&gt; to express &lt;code&gt;When were the apples brought?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6417" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T11:36:50.620" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9667" CreationDate="2014-09-22T12:03:54.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps &lt;code&gt;虚构记忆&lt;/code&gt; as in &lt;code&gt;fabricated memory&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &lt;code&gt;错构症&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;虚谈症&lt;/code&gt; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://hospital.kingnet.com.tw/library/diagnose.html?lid=2059&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&amp;amp;tl=zh-CN&amp;amp;js=y&amp;amp;prev=_t&amp;amp;hl=zh-TW&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fhospital.kingnet.com.tw%2Flibrary%2Fdiagnose.html%3Flid%3D2059&amp;amp;edit-text=&amp;amp;act=url&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;simplified Chinese&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6417" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T12:03:54.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9691" CreationDate="2014-09-22T13:19:20.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both seem correct。实用现代汉语语法 available free on the web （&lt;a href=&quot;http://book.douban.com/subject/1091176/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://book.douban.com/subject/1091176/&lt;/a&gt;）has&#xA;a section titled ＂是。。。的＂句 pp。７６２－７８４ discussing both possibilities。&#xA;In the introductory&#xA;section 一，＂是。。。的＂句（一）的结构特点 there already are two examples （１），（３）with 的 at the end of the sentence，and two before the object as in the sentence in question， &#xA;（２）我是在预售处买的票。&#xA;（４）今天中午我们是吃的饺子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T13:19:20.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9696" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9698" CreationDate="2014-09-22T14:38:31.243" Score="1" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/posts/9675/revisions&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/posts/9675/revisions&lt;/a&gt; offers &quot;这道菜&quot; to say &quot;this kind of food&quot;.  This looks like a very useful phrase, which I had not seen before (and if I've heard it, it did not stick with me, but that could easily happen).  How widely can you use  这道 for &quot;this kind&quot;?  What kinds of things would it apply to?  Is it informal, slangy, quite formal?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T01:58:31.163" Title="When to use 这道 for &quot;this kind&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9691" CreationDate="2014-09-22T14:44:19.757" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; is used here for past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你(是)什么时候买苹果的？&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; When did you buy the apple?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;你(是)什么时候买苹果？&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; When will you buy the apple?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;你是什么时候买的苹果？&lt;/code&gt; is same as &lt;code&gt;你是什么时候买苹果的？&lt;/code&gt;, but more oral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T14:44:19.757" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9696" CreationDate="2014-09-22T14:55:46.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;this kind of food&lt;/code&gt; seems weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;道&lt;/code&gt; is the measure word for &lt;code&gt;菜&lt;/code&gt; here, so &lt;code&gt;这道菜&lt;/code&gt; just means &lt;code&gt;this food/dish&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-09-24T01:58:31.163" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T01:58:31.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9699" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9706" CreationDate="2014-09-22T16:28:03.063" Score="1" ViewCount="521" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quick question: I heard my teacher recently use the term  但愿 - which apparently means to &quot;Wish that they had/something happened&quot;. The example give was &quot; 他们但愿我也是从湘西来的” &#xA;Is this normally used in conversation? Could I, for example, say &quot;我但愿上哈佛的商学院？”  or does this only refer to things that have happened in the past? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T03:47:28.477" Title="Do people use 但愿 nowadays?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9700" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-22T16:30:09.527" Score="3" ViewCount="837" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently read on jukuu.com “  它使老的观念向新的观念转变。”   This sentence makes sense, but I'm trying to figure out whether it would be much different if I used a term like &quot;概念“ instead of 观念. Is there a clear distinction between the two? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T14:23:11.710" Title="What is the difference between 概念 and 观念？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9700" CreationDate="2014-09-22T22:52:13.990" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Stan's comment is precise enough. To add my own interpret by deconstructing the words,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;念&lt;/code&gt; primarily means &lt;code&gt;idea&lt;/code&gt; with a slight connotation of &lt;code&gt;motivation/intention&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;概&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;brief; summary; abstract&lt;/code&gt;, hence &lt;code&gt;概念&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;the abstract of the idea&lt;/code&gt; =&gt; &lt;code&gt;concept&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;观&lt;/code&gt; is literally &lt;code&gt;view&lt;/code&gt;, so &lt;code&gt;观念&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;the idea as you see it&lt;/code&gt; =&gt; &lt;code&gt;opinion; view&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T22:52:13.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3636" CreationDate="2014-09-23T01:44:00.043" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no Chinese translation for &quot;benefit of doubt.&quot; Few Chinese people realize this. Doubt is an alien concept. There is no Chinese word for &quot;doubt.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An accurate translation should reveal the relation between the lack of evidence and the suspension of judgement. This relation is the essence of the word &quot;doubt.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T01:44:00.043" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9683" CreationDate="2014-09-23T05:47:03.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;方法：method&#xA;办法：solution&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate this way for every context, it'll simply make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6446" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T05:47:03.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2" CreationDate="2014-09-23T05:49:35.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;做：The verb 'do'.&#xA;作：everything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a professional user of Chinese for more than a quarter century I don't know what the character 作 mean independently. So you don't have to either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6446" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T05:49:35.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="470" CreationDate="2014-09-23T05:51:52.000" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;狗：morden and casual&#xA;犬：traditional and formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6446" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T05:51:52.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9699" CreationDate="2014-09-23T06:11:03.937" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;但愿 functions very much like &lt;em&gt;hopefully&lt;/em&gt; in English; it has no subject, the subject is assumed to be the speaker or none in particular. Therefore:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但愿我能上哈佛商学院&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hopefully I can attend Harvard Business School&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is in common use. Although it sounds somewhat formal, it is perfectly fine in spoken and written language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T06:11:03.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2" CreationDate="2014-09-23T07:34:05.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found a topic talking about these two words. It's realy complicated.&#xA;Url is here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z9007m3693j18792.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z9007m3693j18792.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Hard to translate all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T07:34:05.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9680" CreationDate="2014-09-23T08:41:49.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;学生会代表  for Student Council Representative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6441" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-09-25T01:01:57.187" LastActivityDate="2014-09-25T01:01:57.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9699" CreationDate="2014-09-23T08:49:45.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes people still say &quot;但愿”as i hope .&#xA;And &quot;希望”which we use more often in Chinese Speaking means the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6441" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-09-25T01:02:16.923" LastActivityDate="2014-09-25T01:02:16.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="470" CreationDate="2014-09-23T09:04:47.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two words has become no difference in meaning now, just by using in different words.&#xA;In the origin, dog is 犬, and the word 狗 is created later. The difference between them is bigger dogs are called 犬, little dogs are called 狗. And later they are mixed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T09:04:47.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9700" CreationDate="2014-09-23T14:23:11.710" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you use the term &quot;观念&quot;,it means some thoughts deep in one's mind which instruct one's behavior.No matter the thought is right or wrong.&#xA;For example,In Chinese mind,saving money is important,but American may not think so.These are two kinds of thoughts（In this situation,we use Chinese the word&quot;观念&quot;） &#xA;美国人和中国人在储蓄上的观念不同.&#xA;  If you use the term “概念”，it usually means “concept”&#xA;For example,if you have learnd physics,you would have the concept of gravity.You could translate the word “concept” into “概念” in Chinese.&#xA;  I'am Chinese,if I have made any mistakes in English or written something makes you confused,please correct me.I will be appreciate and happy to discuss with you.&#xA;:-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6448" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T14:23:11.710" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9699" CreationDate="2014-09-23T15:04:05.860" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;While both terms express the idea of &quot;hoping&quot;, 但愿 is more for &quot;wishing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但愿我能上哈佛商学院 I wish I could attend Harvard Business School, (but it's a long shot.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望我能上哈佛商学院 I hope I can attend Harvard Business School. (We do not know the speaker's odds of gaining admission from this sentence alone.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example I can think of is 但願人長久，千里共嬋娟, loosely translated as “I wish we will  live long so we can admire the autumn moon at the same time though we may be miles apart from each other.&quot; In this example, how long a person will live is out of the poet's control. He can only wish that it happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T15:04:05.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9713" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-23T15:12:11.533" Score="1" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;I&quot;m trying to figure out the grammar/syntax behind using &quot;整&quot;. I know that it means &quot;Exactly&quot; when used at the end of numbers, but I'm wondering does it come before or after the noun described by the answer? Example&#xA; 1. 三百八整人 &#xA; 2. 三百八人整 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank for all of your help! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T09:52:05.840" Title="How to use 整 as in exactly" Tags="&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9714" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9717" CreationDate="2014-09-23T15:55:36.303" Score="4" ViewCount="1500" Body="&lt;p&gt;太太，奶奶，大姐，阿姨，女士，and many other variations are commonly used to address older women. 小姐 is used to address young women. Would it be a complement or an insult to address a middle aged or elderly woman as &quot;小姐&quot;? I'm in Taiwan here, so we don't have to worry about people thinking we're calling them prostitutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6390" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T06:35:20.733" Title="Refreshing or Rude: addressing an older woman as 小姐" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9714" CreationDate="2014-09-24T00:48:47.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can adress them as 小姐 and 小伙子 only if you are much more older than them. &#xA;You can just call them as 老大娘 and 老爷子, this is a better way of saluting to unknown elders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastEditorUserId="6365" LastEditDate="2014-09-24T01:17:23.997" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T01:17:23.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9714" CreationDate="2014-09-24T01:19:49.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can call middle age women 阿姨, old ladies 大娘，really old ladies 奶奶，&#xA;and call middle age men 叔叔，old men 大爷，really old men 爷爷.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;www.ycchangzhou.com &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6441" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T01:19:49.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9714" CreationDate="2014-09-24T01:31:18.553" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use 女士 with her family name is always safest. e.g. 李女士&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4394" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T01:31:18.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2014-09-24T02:40:34.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;整&lt;/code&gt; should be used after the measure word, so &lt;code&gt;三百八整人&lt;/code&gt; is not correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;code&gt;三百八人整&lt;/code&gt; is weird too. &lt;code&gt;整&lt;/code&gt; is usually used at the end of the phrase to prevent from adding new numbers to change the whole meaning, especially in financial affairs. Such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;三元&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; you can change it to &lt;code&gt;三元五角八分&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;三元整&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; you can't change it to &lt;code&gt;三元整五角八分&lt;/code&gt;, which is wrong expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally &lt;code&gt;三百八人&lt;/code&gt; can't be changed to &lt;code&gt;三百八人零点五人&lt;/code&gt; and so on, so need not to add &lt;code&gt;整&lt;/code&gt; after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW1: It also can be written as &lt;code&gt;正&lt;/code&gt; in financial affairs.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;BTW2: As @user58955 said, &lt;code&gt;三百零八人&lt;/code&gt; is more natural than &lt;code&gt;三百八人&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T02:40:34.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9719" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-24T04:00:58.023" Score="1" ViewCount="1268" Body="&lt;p&gt;Helo All! &#xA;I&quot;m trying to figure out a good translation for &quot;a tight community&quot;. For example, I'm trying to say &#xA;&quot;A tight community is not a means of having a good  student organization, but the end goal of a student club&quot;  － how could I&#xA;express that？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2016-06-19T21:42:22.880" Title="How do you say &quot;A tight community&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2014-09-24T06:05:55.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be more natural to say 三百八十人整(380) or 三百零八人整(308). Since 整 means &quot;Exactly&quot; it is better to use the exact number to be consistent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, 整三百八十人 is also acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6235" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T06:05:55.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9714" CreationDate="2014-09-24T06:35:20.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In china（中国）， don't ever use 小姐 to address them (sales girl, waiters, etc.).They will totally ignore you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Example :  'when you want to purchase something and ask for help from the shop assistance' - 对不起小姐,请问这多少钱？  &#xA;          -'even though we know that in English it is a polite sentence to call someone' - Sorry Miss, may i know how much does it cost?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because for them(china ppl) 小姐 is represented as a &lt;code&gt;Bar Girl&lt;/code&gt;. Therefore, you have to call them as '服务员' .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other country, yes. You can address young women or middle aged woman by calling 小姐， for older ladies 大婶 / 阿姨，oldest ladies 奶奶. That would be more cordial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6433" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T06:35:20.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9722" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-24T07:11:01.643" Score="1" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;食客 were honoured guests living in the houses of kings and princes for free. They had neither property nor rank; and they scarcely ran any errands. They were not even officially employed. They nevertheless belonged to the leisured class. Unlike the Greek civilization which was created by property owners, the best of the Chinese civilization was actually created by these parasites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to the unbelievable worship of busywork in western culture, I am unable to find a translation for 食客 that is also associated with honour and respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-09-24T07:19:17.670" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T12:21:42.443" Title="How to translate 食客 into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9719" CreationDate="2014-09-24T07:28:55.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;团结的社区 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;团结:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[local civil corps]∶唐宋时地方民兵丁壮组织。亦指该类组织的士兵&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[harmony;friendship]∶和睦；友好；安定；团结&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[unite;rally;close]∶联合起来以完成共同目标团结一致&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[aggregate]∶指分散物聚拢成团;聚合 反义词：分裂&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/27127/5038298.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/27127/5038298.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T07:28:55.563" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9722" CreationDate="2014-09-24T08:02:28.860" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe you are talking about 食客/门客 in the ancient Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Periods. Sponger maybe more accurate than parasite.&#xA;But you have missunderstanding about them. They are not honoured guests, their relationship is more like master and indentured worker which means you provider me with what I want, and I will pay back for you when you need. Basicly level, you provider me with food, I will do basic work when you need as to do some basic work for you(though some masters don't need it and just provider free food for nothing). Second one, you provider me with good life and I just pay my life for you. Best one, you provider me with everything I want and I will do what I can to help you by intellectual or asassinate the rival when you are in great danger or oppotunities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some one translate to hanger-on, or retainer, but realy these words can't identify their property. 食客 has the meaning of pay back, they are not just only an attendant. There is no contract to limit them with masters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastEditorUserId="6365" LastEditDate="2014-09-24T08:14:45.867" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T08:14:45.867" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9722" CreationDate="2014-09-24T12:21:42.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quite like &quot;courtier&quot; in the medieval times. 食客 do not need to farm themselves, since their lieges provide them with &quot;food&quot;(remuneration). But in case anything happens, they have the responsibility to solve problems, provide strategic advices and even steal important items, like official stamps, or assassinate for their lieges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is somehow a source of Japanese Bushido.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T12:21:42.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9719" CreationDate="2014-09-24T16:26:35.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First,I would make sure I understand what you want to express.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you mean &quot;A tight community” is one in which students have much communication,much relation to each other and engage in many community acitvities? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If my understanding was right,In Chinese&quot;A tight community&quot; could be expressed as &quot;紧密的团体&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.In Chinese,you could express the whole sentence as&quot;紧密的团体不是实现优秀的学生组织的途径，而是学生组织的最终目标&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'am Chinese,if I have made any mistakes in English or written something makes you confused,please correct me.I will be appreciate and happy to discuss with you. :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6448" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T16:26:35.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9727" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9728" CreationDate="2014-09-24T20:55:16.923" Score="6" ViewCount="1032" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I hear people talk about Tokyo in Mandarin, they always pronounce it as &quot;dōng jīng&quot; because it's written as 东京. Similarly for Osaka and &quot;dà bǎn&quot; (大阪), and other such places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any names for places in Japan where this &lt;em&gt;isn't&lt;/em&gt; done? For example, is Akihabara still called &quot;qiū yè yuán&quot; (秋叶原) or is it better known as just &quot;Akihabara&quot;? Are there any place names in Japan for which the Japanese pronunciation of the name is better known and more commonly used in China than the Chinese one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4050" LastActivityDate="2014-09-27T03:00:10.570" Title="When saying Japanese place names like &quot;秋叶原&quot;, do people always use the respective Chinese pronunciation?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9727" CreationDate="2014-09-24T21:25:20.233" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right. Chinese people read Kanji using their Chinese pronunciations. For Chinese people who don't speak Japanese, they have probably only learned 'tokyo' from the English word and they don't have a clue what 'akihabara' is. The same applies to nouns, proper nouns and names.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T21:25:20.233" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9729" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-25T03:43:15.197" Score="0" ViewCount="574" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I'm not mistaken, this 300 BC Chinese philosophy is strikingly modern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世之所贵道者，书也。书不过语，语有贵也。语之所贵者，意也，意有所随。意之所随者，不可以言传也，而世因贵言传书。Source: 轮扁斫轮 &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/238082.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/238082.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, until one sees the colour red, he will never know what the colour red is. No verbal explanation can take the place of a demonstration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In another example, no one can learn how to swim by just reading a book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder what exactly 意 means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-09-25T04:01:05.567" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T00:26:43.630" Title="What exactly does 意 mean?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9729" CreationDate="2014-09-25T05:40:44.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern translation of colloquial saying considered to be 意义 here, which in english is meaning, sense, ignificance, importance, bearing or something else.&#xA;But ancient words are very abstract, abbreviated, modern meanings can't mean the meaning itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastActivityDate="2014-09-25T05:40:44.647" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9729" CreationDate="2014-09-25T07:16:58.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a programmer it makes me think of a joke: &quot;to understand recursion, you have to understand recursion first&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To know the 意 of 意, maybe it is inappropriate to ask this question in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest synonym I could think of it's: &lt;code&gt;spirit&lt;/code&gt;. which represent fundamental, basic or even simple truth underneath the hood.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;That's the spirit&quot; people often say. And this word also means alcoholic beverage. Why exactly? I do not know but I do know if someone is asking this question he is not getting it, it he? :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6381" LastEditorUserId="6381" LastEditDate="2014-09-25T08:28:50.237" LastActivityDate="2014-09-25T08:28:50.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9680" CreationDate="2014-09-25T15:22:28.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general,&quot;representative &quot; rather as a rep,but he(or she)is recommended(or be voted) by the people(as you say,by the members of the council). However,sometimes,if the student council is from an organization ,like 'student union','representative 'is the leader or  he is in charge of the organization .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6453" LastActivityDate="2014-09-25T15:22:28.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9680" CreationDate="2014-09-26T02:21:33.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;代表 is good enough, no matter in &quot;Student Council Representative&quot; or &quot;representative in government&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;班代 is just short for 班代表, which means representative of class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6417" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T02:21:33.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9646" CreationDate="2014-09-26T02:52:17.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker of Mandarin and I asked someone who speaks Hakka, hope this can help.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. It seems there is a problem with your translation. &quot;唱带翻版&quot; means just &lt;em&gt;pirate versions of tapes&lt;/em&gt;.&quot;唱带&quot; means &lt;em&gt;tapes&lt;/em&gt;. And &quot;翻版&quot; means &lt;em&gt;pirate versions&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. &quot;人家&quot; means &lt;em&gt;other people&lt;/em&gt;. &quot;人家赚到笑&quot; means &lt;em&gt;other people earn a lot by selling the pirate versions of my (the song star's) tapes&lt;/em&gt;. &quot;泪装满几盘&quot; means &lt;em&gt;I (the song star) am very sad because those who sell pirate versions took my money&lt;/em&gt;! Therefore, &quot;人家赚到笑&quot; and &quot;泪装满几盘&quot; should be &lt;em&gt;different sentences&lt;/em&gt; rather than being the same one. The subject of &quot;唱到半死花白几钱&quot; is &lt;em&gt;me (the song star)&lt;/em&gt;. The subject for &quot;人家赚到笑&quot; is &lt;em&gt;other people&lt;/em&gt;. The subject for &quot;泪装满几盘&quot; should also be &lt;em&gt;me&lt;/em&gt; － I am very sad. For &quot;cin-pu&quot; (乘补), I think it means &lt;em&gt;get more tapes in stock for selling&lt;/em&gt;. So &quot;货又乘补好不得闲&quot; means &lt;em&gt;other people can't be idle because the tapes are so &quot;red-hot&quot; and they need to get more pirate versions in stock&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. &quot;蚀到个个改行没限&quot; means &lt;em&gt;all singers are going to do something else (instead of singing) because there are tons of pirate versions and they cannot earn money&lt;/em&gt;. I'm not sure about what &quot;唔限&quot; means because that person didn't explain every word to me and I don't know a lot about Hakka.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4. You are correct for part of this. I - the song star - runs a Hainanese Chicken Rice restaurant &lt;strong&gt;rather than&lt;/strong&gt; just cooking Hainanese Chicken Rice. Other people switched to do something else as well (as he says before), but they might not also run a restaurant.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5. The following line means &lt;em&gt;people eat my food and says it's good&lt;/em&gt;, not &quot;can praise&quot;, it should be &quot;praise&quot;. &quot;cau-man&quot; means &lt;em&gt;full&lt;/em&gt;--&lt;em&gt;my restaurant is full of consumers&lt;/em&gt;. &quot;che-ka&quot; means &lt;em&gt;everyone&lt;/em&gt;, but it means &lt;em&gt;the whole family&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;strong&gt;Mandarin&lt;/strong&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not good on English, so maybe there are some errors... Sorry. At least I tried. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4324" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2014-09-26T16:45:18.590" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T16:45:18.590" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9735" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9736" CreationDate="2014-09-26T04:55:19.640" Score="2" ViewCount="781" Body="&lt;p&gt;我的电脑。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冻结&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;失速&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卡住&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also got - 死机了 and 当机 from another board. Any others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-10-07T09:47:31.660" Title="When your computer freezes/hangs/stalls, stays on same screen, input devices don't work - how do you say that?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9735" CreationDate="2014-09-26T05:35:06.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common one should be &lt;code&gt;死机了&lt;/code&gt;, you can also say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;死了&#xA;不动了&#xA;没反应了&#xA;黑屏了 (got a black screen)&#xA;蓝屏了 (got a MS Windows blue error screen)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T05:35:06.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5662" CreationDate="2014-09-26T06:29:33.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google's Pinyin IME allows you to switch between simplified and traditional characters. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/ime/pinyin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/ime/pinyin/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6457" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T06:29:33.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9735" CreationDate="2014-09-26T06:48:31.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;^_^  I think the answers you provided have been very integrated,  just mostly  we use '死机了' and '卡住了' .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6453" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T06:48:31.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9735" CreationDate="2014-09-26T07:01:27.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most formal/suitable sentence to be used - 当机/瘫痪。 instead of 死了，卡了，挂了,没反应&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;Br/&gt;Best way to translate is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Chinese：我电脑当机/瘫痪了，输入设备操作不了&#xA;English：My computer crashed, input devices is not working.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6433" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T07:01:27.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9740" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9749" CreationDate="2014-09-26T07:22:13.517" Score="7" ViewCount="1230" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always mix up their tones and/or meaning. Do you know a good mnemonic to differentiate the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe there are compound words which contain either character which could help me?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I found 买卖 which I get right tone wise (mai3mai5) and meaning wise (buy and sell) mostly. So I can connect tone and meaning using that. But when writing I still don't know where the 十 goes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4033" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T10:58:15.407" Title="Mnemonic for differentiating 买 and 卖" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9740" CreationDate="2014-09-26T09:04:44.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient times, sellers always wrote a circle or insert a grass on the things to indicate that are on sale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can remember this when you write next time: 卖 has the component 十, meaning seller have things to sell, but 买 has nothing, so he can only to buy something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this was helpful. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6453" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T00:32:18.037" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T00:32:18.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9740" CreationDate="2014-09-26T10:57:46.817" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an image shows the evolution of &lt;code&gt;賣&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;卖&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g8Up5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pay attention to the picture (B), it appeared at the Qin dynasty, and take the &lt;code&gt;買&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;买&lt;/code&gt; as its phonogram part, so &lt;code&gt;賣&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;卖&lt;/code&gt; has the same pronunciation with &lt;code&gt;買&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;买&lt;/code&gt;, and take the word &lt;code&gt;出&lt;/code&gt;(out) at the top of the word, which means &lt;code&gt;sell out sth to get money&lt;/code&gt;. And at Han dynasty, &lt;code&gt;出&lt;/code&gt; became &lt;code&gt;士&lt;/code&gt; (picture (C)), and then at Tang dynasty's cursive script(picture (E)), it was simplified as &lt;code&gt;卖&lt;/code&gt; further, and at last &lt;code&gt;卖&lt;/code&gt; is adopted as the simplified Chinese word of &lt;code&gt;賣&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it can help you to remember the difference between &lt;code&gt;买&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;卖&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: [字源谈趣] Author: 陈政&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-09-26T11:03:40.977" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T11:03:40.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9740" CreationDate="2014-09-26T14:12:23.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not true etymology but I remember that 卖 (mai4, sell) looks like it has 土 on top (tu3, earth), a person stamping on the ground to insist they must sell (with falling tone emphasis). Then  买 (mai3, buy) has more like a third tone mark over it for the customer hesitating &quot;buy?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't like to use a lot of stories like that but for this case of 卖/买 I do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T14:12:23.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9740" CreationDate="2014-09-26T21:35:59.313" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 买进 and 卖出 to reduce the chance of being misunderstood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;买,卖 and 借 are the most bewildering Chinese words in modern commerce. He who can coin some new words and popularize them will be our hero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We just treat '十' as the goods you want to sell ^_^, the character without 十 for buy.&#xA;by the way, when 买卖 is used for verb (i.e. 参与买卖的双方 participants of the dealing), it is pronounced mai3mai5, but when it is used for noun (我这是一个小本买卖, I'm operating a small business), it is pronounced mai3mai (second one have no tone which is pronounced lowly and shortly) even if the pronunciation is possibly not recorded in a dictionary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="2271" LastEditDate="2014-09-29T02:20:22.393" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T02:20:22.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9740" CreationDate="2014-09-27T02:38:39.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, how about this as a mnemonic: &quot;Sell something and get ten dollars.&quot; That might just help you remember the 十 goes on top of &quot;sell&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2014-09-27T02:38:39.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9727" CreationDate="2014-09-27T03:00:10.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just adding a bit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We also use respective Japanese pronunciations when we introduce ourselves in Japan....unless your name contains something really weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-09-27T03:00:10.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9752" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9754" CreationDate="2014-09-27T03:41:49.740" Score="0" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;This slogan or motto is written in Chinese, though it comes from Korea. I have wondered many years what does it mean. Thank you for your help to understand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Chinese_Caligraphy_on_cloth.png&quot; alt=&quot;Cloth Calligraphy from Korea&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Thanks to the answers so far, I have found more information. Here is the University where this motto is promoted in the very old days. It remains displayed there on a small building, which maybe was at the entrance to the university in the old days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mirror.enha.kr/wiki/%EC%84%B1%EA%B7%A0%EA%B4%80#s-3.5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SunKyunKwan University &quot;Tang Pyung Be&quot;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a Korean translation there in the article, however even that is obscure to a modern Korean speaker. I think I will try a Korean translation section too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;周而弗比 乃君子之公心 比而不周 寔小人之私心 / 두루 사귀되 가리지 않음은 곧 군자의 공심(公心)이고, 가려 사귀되 두루치 않음은 바로 소인의 사심(私心)이다.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT 2: The reply in the comment below is reasonably meaningful and thoughtful attempt of translation to English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;All-inclusive but not narrow-minded, this is the selflessness of the gentleman; narrow-minded but not all-inclusive, this is truly the selfishness of the petty man.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6462" LastEditorUserId="6462" LastEditDate="2016-09-26T13:05:09.203" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T13:05:09.203" Title="What is the meaning of this calligraphy?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-12-19T21:51:57.793" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9752" CreationDate="2014-09-27T04:14:13.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;text: 周而弗比 乃君子之公心 比而弗周 寔小人之私意&#xA;for further information search web using it as search term &#xA;in particular try &lt;a href=&quot;http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2729743&amp;amp;s=cdb9ee567562f6388e19096b9c2a9de1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2729743&amp;amp;s=cdb9ee567562f6388e19096b9c2a9de1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-09-27T04:14:13.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9752" CreationDate="2014-09-27T07:23:49.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I am concerned ,this motto is related from Lunyu which from China not from Korea . It is written by Chinese Confusius and his disciples. It's original motto is '君子周而不比，小人比而不周'. I think it is exactly similar to the motto you provide. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;List item&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'周'means : coordinate;harmonize &#xA;[That is to say the person who can in charge or  organize his members perfectly , and he can lead the team on a good way,do the good things.]&#xA;'比'means:  collude;gang with somebody  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is to say,the motto want to tell us, the difference between 君子 and 小人 is whether he has the quality of benevolence. A person of noble character emphasize morality and justice,while 小人 only pay attention to benefit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6453" LastActivityDate="2014-09-27T07:23:49.173" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9755" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9757" CreationDate="2014-09-28T01:04:41.613" Score="0" ViewCount="305" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read the following two sentences today:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我以前在这里踢足球&#xA;现在我在踢球&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what is the difference between the &lt;code&gt;踢足球&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;踢球&lt;/code&gt;? I think both means &lt;code&gt;playing soccer&lt;/code&gt;, but is there any difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2014-09-29T04:01:05.607" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T00:29:41.440" Title="What is the difference between `踢足球` and `踢球`?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9756" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9759" CreationDate="2014-09-28T01:32:22.757" Score="2" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 有一天他会当医生&#xA; 有一天我会当经理&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what does the &lt;code&gt;当&lt;/code&gt; mean? I think this means something like &lt;code&gt;One day she would become a doctor&lt;/code&gt;. However, what kind of nuances does &lt;code&gt;当&lt;/code&gt; include? Is it &lt;code&gt;would be&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;would become&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;possible&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;want to&lt;/code&gt;, or something others? How probable does the author think the noun after &lt;code&gt;当&lt;/code&gt; occur?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T03:26:19.933" Title="What nuance does the `当` represent?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9755" CreationDate="2014-09-28T01:34:50.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have the same meaning on usual---playing football. For &lt;code&gt;踢球&lt;/code&gt;'s &lt;code&gt;球&lt;/code&gt; ,it is the football in general. If we must point out the difference,there is a tiny difference merely to &lt;code&gt;踢足球&lt;/code&gt; is a specific(or definite) statement, that is to say, it is more concrete. &#xA;When you make sentence or want to express play football, both of them are ok.:) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6453" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2014-09-29T10:03:28.943" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T10:03:28.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9769" CreationDate="2014-09-28T01:37:49.997" Score="1" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;話's pinyin is hua instead of wua.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;化's pinyin is hua instead of fua.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see that these two character pronounce differently when we speaks in mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the pinyin of these two character is so weird?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="922" LastEditorUserId="922" LastEditDate="2014-09-28T02:07:20.530" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T13:28:24.483" Title="Why is the pinyin of these two character is so weird?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9756" CreationDate="2014-09-28T01:43:59.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;当&lt;/code&gt; is necessary here, it means &lt;code&gt;work as; serve as; be&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;有一天    他  会    当          医生&#xA;One day   he  will  work as     a doctor.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you see, without &lt;code&gt;当&lt;/code&gt;, the sentence does not make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T01:43:59.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9756" CreationDate="2014-09-28T03:26:19.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general,当 have two usages(and I think the understand you provided is right and integrity,I just need to give you some example) :)&#xA;1.## become, be ## &#xA;我当医生了。 Here,当is represent become, It is the present tense(the tense is related to '了',have nothing to do with 当)&#xA;2## would become, would be ##&#xA;有一天我会当医生.  Cause of '有一天', 当 at here means would become,that is to say,he is not a doctor now,it is a wish,a hope.&#xA;3.## when ##&#xA;当天晴的时候我就去散步。 I will go for a walk when it is sunny.Here,当means when ,it is  a time prep.&#xA;4.## face,confront  ##&#xA;你不该当着他的面责备他。 You should't blame him in front of him.  当 at here is also a prep.&#xA;For the question you asked'How probable does the author think the noun after 当 occur?'   有一天我会当医生。(I will become a doctor one day), the noun(医生or any other jobs) would happen nothing,it is the wish the speaker have, whether his dream could come true is depend on himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6453" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T03:26:19.933" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9761" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9766" CreationDate="2014-09-28T04:26:49.690" Score="4" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 承認 appropriate when describing the following situation? I've known a girl a while and she recently confessed that she liked me. I know &quot;承認&quot; is used for admitting that you have committed a crime or done something else wrong, but liking someone isn't wrong. I imagined Chinese would have a more nuanced word for this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6390" LastEditorUserId="6390" LastEditDate="2015-02-15T09:10:00.783" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T09:10:00.783" Title="承認 for confessing admiration" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9761" CreationDate="2014-09-28T04:58:52.957" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;suggestion：search web using ＂承认钦佩＂ （confess  admiration, of course 承认钦佩 may not be acceptable Chinese）， this seems to show that 承认 can be used in the stated context，。e。g。 Dict。cn。has&#xA;。。。承认我是星球上最美的人,服饰最好的人,最富有的人,最聪明的人 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T04:58:52.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9768" CreationDate="2014-09-28T07:19:50.800" Score="2" ViewCount="1215" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate street smart into Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;n.     城市生活方式、生存能力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but that's can't be right...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;A street smart cop.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;A cop with street-smarts.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T17:13:44.063" Title="Translation: Street-Smarts/Street Smart?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9763" CreationDate="2014-09-28T07:55:39.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;iciba has １ example sentence with 他有都市人的精明劲儿，web search yields &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unsv.com/voanews/words-and-idioms/lessons/152/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.unsv.com/voanews/words-and-idioms/lessons/152/&lt;/a&gt; Lesson 152 - street smart （two-way street）.&#xA;Note that VOA流行美国习惯用语 Lesson １５２&#xA;concerns the noun ＂street smart(s)＂，there also is Lesson ２０ &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unsv.com/voanews/popular-american/lessons/20/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.unsv.com/voanews/popular-american/lessons/20/&lt;/a&gt; for the adjective which seems to indicate that the VOA people were not aware of a simple precise Chinese analog。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-09-28T10:04:32.277" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T10:04:32.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9761" CreationDate="2014-09-28T07:58:04.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possibly, we use '认可' for this scenario. 我的内心已认可了她，我想她就是我要找的伴侣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2271" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T07:58:04.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9761" CreationDate="2014-09-28T08:36:09.357" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;承认 means 'to admit'. It isn't only used when the deed being admitted is wrong or illegal. It can be shameful, embarrassing or simply too shy to admit, which I believe is the situation in your example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although 承认 is fine to use, I think an even better word is 坦白, which means 'to confess'. Just like the English word (and like 承认), it's commonly used for sins or guilt, but it can be used for embarrassment or shyness as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We confessed that we like each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们坦白了彼此喜欢对方。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T08:36:09.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9763" CreationDate="2014-09-28T08:40:33.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that no exact word for it, we can say he is a 百事通。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2271" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T08:40:33.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9763" CreationDate="2014-09-28T09:11:13.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Originally it means empirical wisdom gleaned from the streets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;市井聪明, 街市里积累的智慧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;市井 [street]∶街市,&#xA;    [urban vulgar class]  指城市中流俗之人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/849797.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/849797.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聪明【英译】wise；sensitive clever；smart&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/95047/11119951.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/95047/11119951.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-09-30T03:43:22.113" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T03:43:22.113" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9758" CreationDate="2014-09-28T13:28:24.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you're reading Mandarin pinyin but expecting Cantonese pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese pinyin is like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;化 Jyutping: faa3 / Yale: fa3 &#xA;&#xA;话 Jyutping: waa6 / Yale: wa6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and actually it seems to fit what you were expecting!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T13:28:24.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9740" CreationDate="2014-09-28T17:15:14.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was a child, I used the analogy below to memorize these two characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference between them is &quot;十&quot;, which pronounces Shi2, having the same pronunciation as 食. 食 can link to 食物, which means food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when you don't have any food (十/食 doesn't exist), you have to buy (买) some; When you have some food (十/食 does exist), you can sell (卖) some.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T17:15:14.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9771" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-28T19:48:55.787" Score="1" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know what this says? (My apologies if it is not Chinese). &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Bi5t5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6470" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2014-09-29T00:50:24.093" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T00:50:24.093" Title="Chinese Characters on table from thift store" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-10-06T12:48:50.477" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9755" CreationDate="2014-09-28T20:15:08.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd put it like this. On a character-by-character basis, &lt;code&gt;踢球&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;kick-ball&lt;/code&gt;. Therefore, &lt;code&gt;踢球&lt;/code&gt; should basically mean &lt;code&gt;play a ball game where feet are used&lt;/code&gt;. How many such games do you know? I, for one, only know football. That is why &lt;code&gt;踢球&lt;/code&gt; will be interpreted as football. To be more specific, you add the &lt;code&gt;足&lt;/code&gt;. Then, &lt;code&gt;踢&lt;/code&gt; is taken as &lt;code&gt;play&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;足球&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;foot-ball&lt;/code&gt;. Similarly, I would guess &lt;code&gt;打球&lt;/code&gt; is a general terms for hand-played ball games, literally &lt;code&gt;hit-ball&lt;/code&gt;. Adding a character (syllable) just before &lt;code&gt;球&lt;/code&gt; (e.g. &lt;code&gt;篮&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;basketball&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;排&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;volleyball&lt;/code&gt;) specifies what &lt;code&gt;ball&lt;/code&gt; you are &lt;code&gt;hit&lt;/code&gt;ting. Then again, I'm not a native, so these suggestions need to be taken with a spoon of rice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T20:15:08.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9771" CreationDate="2014-09-28T21:21:18.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Beautiful scene of a lotus pond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;荷塘: lotus pond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/1725417/7633674.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/1725417/7633674.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;秀色: beautiful scene&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/203608/8935087.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/203608/8935087.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T21:21:18.970" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9774" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9775" CreationDate="2014-09-29T02:42:59.843" Score="3" ViewCount="440" Body="&lt;p&gt;张九龄《感遇》之一首：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;江南有丹橘，经冬犹绿林。 岂伊地气暖？自有岁寒心。 可以荐嘉客，奈何阻重深。 运命惟所遇，循环不可寻。 徒言树桃李，此木岂无阴？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请问其中“奈何阻重深”一句怎么讲？“重”应读阳平还是去声？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此诗作者借歌颂丹橘以表自己遭排挤的愤懑心情，表达自己的坚贞不屈。“可以荐嘉客”句“荐”作“赠送”解。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T06:07:39.400" Title="张九龄《感遇》“奈何阻重深”句解／Translation of a sentence in one of Zhang Jiuling's poems" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9774" CreationDate="2014-09-29T04:03:28.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;“可以荐嘉客，奈何阻重深”。这句在说，这个水果是很给朋友们的一件很好的礼品，但无奈路途遥远，不方便。隐含着诗人当前所处的位置远离曾经工作和生活的地方而表现出一种悲伤的心情。“阻重深”，表示路途险阻，“重” chong 一般用在强制“很多的”的情况下，表示有很多的东西（通常都用在表示有困难）包围着我们，在这里强调很困难，比如“需要克服重重险阻，被围困的军队需要突破重重包围圈”。“奈何”表示口语中都是用“无奈”，表示没有办法或很难解决问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外，在诗词和歌曲中，我们经常把一些并列式的词汇颠倒过来，比如“运命”平时都写成“命运”。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2271" LastEditorUserId="2271" LastEditDate="2014-09-29T05:06:04.743" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T05:06:04.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9774" CreationDate="2014-09-29T06:07:39.400" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;重&quot;，应该读chóng 即阳平(2声)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;江南有丹橘，经冬犹绿林。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;江南一带生长着一种奇异的丹橘，经历严冬橘林依然枝叶苍翠，郁郁青青。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;岂伊地气暖，自有岁寒心。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;难道这是因为那里地气和暖使然？原来是这种橘树自有凌寒傲霜的本性。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;可以荐嘉客，奈何阻重深。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;款待贵宾与亲朋，这丹橘作为上好的水果当之无愧，怎奈一路上山高水深，运送它交通不便。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;徒言树桃李，此木岂无阴？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;世人都喜欢栽种桃李，其实这丹橘的果实不但可以款待宾客，而且四季长青，终年绿荫葱茏，哪一点不如桃李呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本诗以橘喻人，诗人借赞颂丹橘，经冬犹绿，是因为有耐寒的本性来比喻自己也有贤人一样的高尚品质，但不被人识，只能抑郁不平。全诗平淡自然，语言温雅醇厚，设喻贴切，抒发胸臆圆转自如，愤怒哀伤不露痕迹，给读者留下了回味与想像的空间，故历来为人称颂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4555" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T06:07:39.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9778" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-29T06:35:34.357" Score="2" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is about the translation of &quot;做學問&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I am asked to translate &quot;做學問&quot;, then I would say &quot;doing research&quot;. But somehow I feel that such translation of mine is insufficient to characterize the spirit of &quot;做學問&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I have to solicit some opinions and ideas on this issue. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T17:19:30.900" Title="&quot;做學問&quot; in English?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9779" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-29T06:37:30.153" Score="3" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is about possible translations of &quot;振聾發聵&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figuratively, this phrase is used to describe someone's article is penetrating and insightful. I know this. Nevertheless, I am seeking after a more succinct, pithy word in English to translate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you so much for your ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-09-29T13:33:35.090" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T13:33:35.090" Title="&quot;振聾發聵&quot; in English?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9699" CreationDate="2014-09-29T07:10:31.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the context contains (long-term) wish, uncertainty, unbelieving, suspicion, we usually use &amp;quot;但愿&amp;quot;. if you use &amp;quot;希望&amp;quot;, it would be still fine in most cases. And &amp;quot;但愿&amp;quot; is indeed more formal than &amp;quot;希望&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;he: 我做的一切都是为了你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;she:但愿吧.(unbelieving, suspicion)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;但愿有情人终成眷属 （wish, formal）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A even more formal one is &amp;quot;惟愿&amp;quot; which literally means exactly the same as &amp;quot;但愿&amp;quot;, but just more formal. You can only find it in poetic words and 文言 nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4067" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T07:10:31.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9779" CreationDate="2014-09-29T10:29:59.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rouse the deaf, enlighten the benighted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先生这番议论, 真可谓之振聋发聩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Xiānsheng zhè fān yìlùn, zhēn kěwèi zhī zhènlóngfākuì.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your arguments, sir, would &lt;strong&gt;make a deaf man hear and a blind man see&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make a deaf man hear and a blind man see is a nice phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lit. so loud that even the deaf can hear (idiom); &lt;strong&gt;rousing even the apathetic&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rousing even the apathetic is nice too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T10:29:59.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9783" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9785" CreationDate="2014-09-29T10:48:04.383" Score="2" ViewCount="6181" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could anyone tell me, what's the meaning of this word: &#xA;高冷?&#xA;Haven't found any translation in the dictionary or any explanations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6478" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T07:33:06.357" Title="What's the meaning of 高冷?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9778" CreationDate="2014-09-29T11:45:02.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;engage in scholarship; do research&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是做学问的人, 不会做买卖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā shì zuò xuéwèn de rén, bù huì zuò mǎimai.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He's &lt;strong&gt;a scholar&lt;/strong&gt; and no businessman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;engage in scholarly work&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是个做学问的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā shì ge zuò xuéwen de rén.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He's capable of &lt;strong&gt;scholarly&lt;/strong&gt; work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt; (Pocket)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;engage in scholarship, do research&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T11:45:02.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9783" CreationDate="2014-09-29T12:45:03.667" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an internet slang, so you can't find it on a normal dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高 refers to 高高在上,高傲, which mean &amp;quot;to be arrogant&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;to have an attitude of looking down upon someone&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷 refers to 冷漠,冷冰冰, which mean &amp;quot;to be indifferent&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;unconcern&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so 高冷 basically means a cold attitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T12:45:03.667" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9783" CreationDate="2014-09-29T15:15:04.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;高 冷 means standing on the fridge (tall and cold )  :p&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6453" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T15:15:04.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9778" CreationDate="2014-09-29T17:19:30.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest &quot;engage in academic pursuit&quot;, as 學問 is what academia is all about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T17:19:30.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9783" CreationDate="2014-09-29T17:24:49.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about &quot;aloof&quot;? In addition to cold and distant, the person also puts him/herself on a higher position than the listener. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T17:24:49.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9783" CreationDate="2014-09-29T23:05:36.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;高冷 is abbreviated from 高贵冷艳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高 means 高贵, which means &quot;noble&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷 means 冷艳, which means &quot;beautiful and not easy to get close&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高冷 is usually used in conversation with friends as a joke. Usually not a bad word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6482" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T23:05:36.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9755" CreationDate="2014-09-30T00:29:41.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;nay guys… 踢球can be an activity of kicking any kind of balls (well?) but 踢足球is specified as playing soccer(or football, depending on if u r a british or 'murican)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6416" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T00:29:41.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6728" CreationDate="2014-09-30T00:32:51.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;well&#xA;literally there is no difference, except 列车 is more of a formal use and 火车 is just of casual speaking style&#xA;talking about 火车 it's literal meaning is fire car coz the old trains are promoted mostly by burning coals&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6416" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T00:32:51.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9652" CreationDate="2014-09-30T00:35:59.277" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hainan Chicken rice would work&#xA;coz this is just a dish of cooked rice and chicken mixing together plus some chicken oil to make it smell good… u could find it in Singapore or other SE Asian countries where there are Chinese, and of course the Hainan province of China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6416" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T00:35:59.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9763" CreationDate="2014-09-30T00:38:52.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;小聪明&#xA;that would work coz this is the closet expression&#xA;市井聪明 could work but it's more of a written style while my answer could used basically everywhere&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6416" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T00:38:52.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9794" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9795" CreationDate="2014-09-30T00:43:36.217" Score="5" ViewCount="13966" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I mean by difference is its grammatical difference. How is Classical Chinese grammatically different from today's Chinese? Is modern Chinese's golden rule similar or equivalent to some rules in Classical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone would lead me to a page or answer that would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6466" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:39:41.393" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T21:18:08.310" Title="What's the difference between Classical Chinese and Modern Chinese?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9794" CreationDate="2014-09-30T05:22:57.490" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is an excerpt from wikipedia, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese_grammar#Grammar&quot;&gt;Classical Chinese Grammar&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Grammar&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Further information: Classical Chinese lexicon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Classical Chinese is distinguished from written vernacular Chinese in&#xA;  its style, which appears extremely concise and compact to modern&#xA;  Chinese speakers, and to some extent in the use of different lexical&#xA;  items (vocabulary).[citation needed] An essay in Classical Chinese,&#xA;  for example, might use half as many Chinese characters as in&#xA;  vernacular Chinese to relate the same content.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In terms of conciseness and compactness, Classical Chinese rarely uses&#xA;  words composed of two Chinese characters; nearly all words are of one&#xA;  syllable only. This stands directly in contrast with modern Chinese&#xA;  dialects, in which two-syllable words are extremely common. This&#xA;  phenomenon exists, in part, because polysyllabic words evolved in&#xA;  Chinese to disambiguate homophones that result from sound changes.&#xA;  Similarly, Chinese has acquired many polysyllabic words in order to&#xA;  disambiguate monosyllabic words that sounded different in earlier&#xA;  forms of Chinese but identical in one region or another during later&#xA;  periods. Because Classical Chinese is based on the literary examples&#xA;  of ancient Chinese literature, it has almost none of the two-syllable&#xA;  words present in modern Chinese languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pronouns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Classical Chinese has more pronouns compared to the modern vernacular.&#xA;  In particular, whereas Mandarin has one general character to refer to&#xA;  the first-person pronoun (&quot;I&quot;/&quot;me&quot;), Literary Chinese has several,&#xA;  many of which are used as part of honorific language (see Chinese&#xA;  honorifics), and several of which have different grammatical uses&#xA;  (first-person collective, first-person possessive, etc.).[citation&#xA;  needed]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Syntax&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In syntax, Classical Chinese is always ready to drop subjects, verbs,&#xA;  objects, etc. when their meaning is understood (pragmatically&#xA;  inferable). Also, words are not restrictively categorized into parts&#xA;  of speech: nouns used as verbs, adjectives used as nouns, and so on.&#xA;  There is no copula in Classical Chinese, &quot;是&quot; (pinyin: shì) is a copula&#xA;  in modern Chinese but in old Chinese it was originally a near&#xA;  demonstrative (&quot;this&quot;); the modern Chinese for &quot;this&quot; is &quot;這&quot; (pinyin:&#xA;  zhè).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Word order&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Classical Chinese word order is often the reverse of Mandarin; for&#xA;  example, Mandarin 饒恕 (pinyin: ráoshù, &quot;forgive&quot;) is Classical 恕饒&#xA;  (Classical Chinese: ŋjew hnjas).&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese_grammar#Grammar&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; [2]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T05:22:57.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9796" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-30T07:27:17.647" Score="2" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;my question is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大声回答 can be changed to 回答得大声 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if I can make other sentences using V+de (得)+Adj become Adj+V ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5957" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T14:48:43.157" Title="how can I change sentence not using 得?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9796" CreationDate="2014-09-30T12:27:56.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;according to iciba and other web sources 大叫、大醉 、大吼（一声 ）、小声 work similarly：高兴得大叫、大叫一声；喝得大醉，大醉上床（note ２ syllables （prosodic feature），i。e。大醉喝 may be unacceptable），气得大吼一声，大吼一声发出了口令；笛子怎样才能吹得小声、小声嘀咕什么、小声问：“你有烟&#xA;吗？＂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the given example 回答得大声 得 is used to link 大声 as a complement of manner，in 大声回答， 大声 functions as adverbial of manner （necessarily before the verb）。 大叫、大吼（一声 ）、小声 can be used similarly，on the other hand 大醉 represents a consequential state，which can occur as complement linked by 得，or occur as adverbial of manner （大醉上床）。Because 大醉 represents the consequential state there is another reason why ＊大醉喝 may be unacceptable 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-09-30T14:48:43.157" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T14:48:43.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9796" CreationDate="2014-09-30T12:40:04.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;得(去声) refers to 'must,have to '&#xA;回答得大声  回答 is V.  and 大声 is Adj. So you can make other sentences using V+de (得)+Adj become Adj+V ,&lt;strong&gt;but&lt;/strong&gt;,a point need to notice, for another example,教室得打扫 and 打扫教室 ,though it is can be exchange ,but their means are little difference, the first one has another meaning that the classroom is dirty and need to clean. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, if the sentence is pronoun+得+ V ,in this condition,you can't exchange like before,for example: 我得去游泳 ,we can't say 游泳我. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6453" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T12:40:04.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9653" CreationDate="2014-09-30T14:53:47.777" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had a second (tenth?) listen, and extracted the sound to an mp3. Then I put this through &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.praat.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Praat&lt;/a&gt;. I noticed something interesting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the first occurrence of 來, around 72 seconds in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;齐家吃开晓来称赞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zgx2P.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the second occurrence of 來, around 121 seconds in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明星或歌星日日来帮衬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kh7T4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;lei&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one is definitely [lɔi], whereas the second one is definitely [lei], and the sonogram confirms it. The second image, with the dense formation in the middle, trailing off into a lighter line is an [ei].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case it could be an influence from Cantonese -- Zhang is from Selangor -- where 嚟 is often pronounced lei.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same around 2mn14 where 来 in 按好吃讲只只来帮衬 is [lei].&#xA;So it seems Zhang alternates freely loi and lei.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 歌 I had a look with Praat at only the first one (最近做歌星讲好难) -- it's getting late here :-) -- but this one is go1. I confirmed it by listening to it isolately, and looking at its sonogram -- it has the same profile as 近 and 讲). But listening to the full sentence it comes out a little weird, as if it were spirantized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll have a deeper look tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ADDENDUM 1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;两 should be pronounced liong according to my reference, but here it is pronounced lioeng --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Seems like it indeed&lt;/strong&gt; As you say, probable influence of Canto.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;张惠妹 sounds like it's pronounced the mandarin way --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Yup&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你, in its last occurrence in the last repetition of part three, sounds like it's actually a 系.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That'd be at 4:41 thereabouts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8pYUO.png&quot; alt=&quot;你 at 281 secs&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you compare this sonogram with the second one, [lei], you see it's kind of similar -- the vowel is basically the same, except it doesn't weaken into [-i]. It's [e:].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare this with the 你 at 4:13:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3K2qS.png&quot; alt=&quot;你 at 253 secs&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No [e:] here. That's a nice [i:], quite long too. That's quite expected as 你 is ngi2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the initial. In the suspicious 你, look at the initial in the sonogram, and compare it with the sonograms of [loi] and [lei], especially the latter. You have very similar patterns, albeit weaker for 你. I believe Zhang kind of reverted to Cantonese [lei]. The [l-] is there but devoiced (the lower dark line at the beginning of [lei] is barely there). I believe it's a voiceless [l], that can be heard as a [h].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ADDENDUM 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding Hakka tones, I used &lt;a href=&quot;http://dylansung.tripod.com/sapienti/hagfa99b.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dr Lau's PinFaa&lt;/a&gt; data to build a dictionary, which I added into &lt;a href=&quot;http://sungnyemun.org/BB/OTMB/?x=%E4%BD%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my own little online tool&lt;/a&gt;. The tone contours are &lt;a href=&quot;http://dylansung.tripod.com/sapienti/haktones.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;from [this page]&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DbmTw.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Hakka tone contours&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-10-01T05:27:23.200" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T05:27:23.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9800" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9808" CreationDate="2014-09-30T23:05:22.960" Score="1" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;The follow is an except from 《水浒传》 第二回. Based on 端王's personality traits, he could have been a Shakespeare or, at least, a Balzac, or, perhaps, under favourable circumstances, a Galileo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder what exactly 门风 in 门风帮闲 means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这端王乃是神宗天子第十一子，哲宗皇帝御弟，现掌东驾，排号九大王，是个聪明&#xA;  俊俏人物。这浮浪子弟门风帮闲之事，无一般不晓，无一般不会，更无一般不爱。&#xA;  即如琴、棋、书、画，无所不通，踢毬打弹，品竹调丝，吹弹歌舞，自不必说。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T05:35:18.147" Title="What exactly does 门风帮闲 mean?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9800" CreationDate="2014-10-01T01:44:01.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;门风，门派的风气。&#xA;The rule of certain 帮派（gang，gaction）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6487" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T01:44:01.040" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9806" CreationDate="2014-10-01T02:50:17.190" Score="5" ViewCount="332" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does it mean when you use &quot;作&quot; as a measure word for people ? for example, in 沈从文‘s 《丈夫》 I read the line 都使这作丈夫的想起了村长同乡绅那些大人物的威风 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 作 different from 位？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-10-03T15:46:08.453" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T15:46:08.453" Title="what does it mean when you use &quot;作“ as a measure word for people?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9803" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-01T02:52:26.717" Score="0" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to figure out a translation for &quot;妇人“ from the story 《丈夫》 by 沈从文. He used 妇人to refer to women， but I'm not sure if  it is ironic that it also means &quot;married women&quot; an accident, or if at the time of writing 1933 妇人 just mean woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于是这妇人就毁了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T12:40:11.557" Title="Does 妇人 mean wife or simply woman？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9803" CreationDate="2014-10-01T03:13:47.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It usually means a female who is older than 30（I mean not a girl or a young woman） and married.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6487" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T03:13:47.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9805" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9814" CreationDate="2014-10-01T03:33:00.597" Score="2" ViewCount="1982" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out what the chinese equivalent of &quot;I do&quot; would be. Is there a phrase that people say in Chinese that represents getting married? Or is there a direct translation for &quot;I do&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-10-03T15:44:41.267" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T15:44:41.267" Title="How do you say &quot;I do&quot; as in when you are about to get married?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9802" CreationDate="2014-10-01T03:33:26.237" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a measure word. It means &lt;code&gt;act as; be&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;作丈夫的&lt;/code&gt; could be translated literally as &lt;code&gt;The people who act as husband&lt;/code&gt;, or just &lt;code&gt;The husband&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T03:33:26.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9805" CreationDate="2014-10-01T03:38:28.797" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我愿意&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has become a fixed idiom for &lt;code&gt;I do&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T03:38:28.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9800" CreationDate="2014-10-01T04:06:14.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;门风&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;code&gt;family customary moral standards and way of life&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;浮浪子弟&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;code&gt;vagrant or unemployed persons&lt;/code&gt;, usually used for the people without a real job, just dawdling/playing everday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;浮浪子弟门风&lt;/code&gt; refers to a life style, just screwing around, never get down to business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;帮闲&lt;/code&gt;, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://club.kdnet.net/dispbbs.asp?id=9139282&amp;amp;boardid=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;code&gt;帮闲者，替别人帮着打发百无聊赖的休闲时光&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;帮&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;help&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;闲&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;leisure&lt;/code&gt;, so &lt;code&gt;帮闲&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;help someone to kill/waste time&lt;/code&gt;, here it means &lt;code&gt;keep company with someone to dawdle and play&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-10-01T05:35:18.147" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T05:35:18.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9811" CreationDate="2014-10-01T09:13:55.350" Score="2" ViewCount="410" Body="&lt;p&gt;How appropriate, in terms of casualness and/or childishness, is &quot;拜拜&quot;? Is it as childish as &quot;Bye-bye&quot; would be in English, or is it more acceptable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case location matters, I'm mainly interested in how it's viewed in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T12:00:07.203" Title="How appropriate is &quot;拜拜&quot;?" Tags="&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;&lt;informal&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9809" CreationDate="2014-10-01T09:46:28.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;is bye bye consider childish? then formal 1 would be : good bye?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拜拜 got another meaning as praying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.123chickensoup.com/Upload/images.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.123chickensoup.com/Upload/images.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and more formal replacement would be : 再见 or 再会 which closer to see you again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6153" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T09:46:28.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9809" CreationDate="2014-10-01T11:27:02.720" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;拜拜 is not casualness and/or childishness,it is a more friendly way to express goodbye ,and majority use between people who have good relation,or see somebody for the first time and build a friendship each other.&#xA;So does it in Taiwan I think:) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6453" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T11:27:02.720" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="511" CreationDate="2014-10-01T15:28:11.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-characters.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinese-characters.org&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;It's simple and clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6488" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T15:28:11.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="511" CreationDate="2014-10-01T17:14:32.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's some sites I've looked up for you.&#xA;Sorry if these are not what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E5%9C%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=國&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhongwen.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zhongwen.com/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://portal.mandarinportal.com/etymology.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://portal.mandarinportal.com/etymology.php&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6466" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T23:24:51.867" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T23:24:51.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9805" CreationDate="2014-10-01T17:19:14.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer this ,we have to trace back to the question asked when proposing/ getting married.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question you should ask a girl is  : &lt;code&gt;你願意嫁給我嗎？&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, if you are proposing to a boy : &lt;code&gt;你願意娶我嗎？&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two different verbs 嫁 and 娶 for &quot;marry&quot; are due to traditional Chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The standard answer to a &lt;code&gt;你願意__嗎？&lt;/code&gt; question would be : &lt;code&gt;是 （YES)&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;是，我願意 （YES,I do)&lt;/code&gt; or simply &lt;code&gt;我願意(I do)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6272" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T17:19:14.603" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9815" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9826" CreationDate="2014-10-02T06:43:09.027" Score="1" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the title says, what's the Mandarin equivalent of the phrase &lt;code&gt;屙尿都屙不伸&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase describes someone who &lt;em&gt;can't do anything&lt;/em&gt;, and is pretty much useless. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An English equivalent might be something like &lt;code&gt;couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery&lt;/code&gt; - and such phrases like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T04:52:23.253" Title="Mandarin Equivalent: 屙尿都屙不伸?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9816" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9852" CreationDate="2014-10-02T06:58:27.253" Score="1" ViewCount="1972" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am aware of 雖然 being used as although, however, I am not sure if it is appropriate for the following example situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;English examples:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Even though&lt;/em&gt; he wore a helmet, he &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; suffered a serious concussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Even though&lt;/em&gt; she got everything she wanted for her birthday, she &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; acted like a brat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Even though&lt;/em&gt; we installed the best security system, the thieves &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; found a way inside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Form:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Even though&lt;/em&gt; [condition x which would usually prevent result y], [subject] &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; [result y].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can &quot;雖然 x 但是 y&quot; be used when the conditions are extreme like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, what form would you recommend?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6390" LastActivityDate="2014-10-06T14:40:20.137" Title="Even though x still y sentence pattern" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9825" CreationDate="2014-10-02T13:07:59.437" Score="11" ViewCount="8409" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been enjoying the book &lt;a href=&quot;http://chineasy.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chineasy&lt;/a&gt; and it make me wonder if it would be possible to read Chinese without knowing how to speak it phonetically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically it might not be &quot;&lt;strong&gt;reading&lt;/strong&gt; Chinese&quot; because you can't read the words out loud.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the question is if you could learn the meaning of most characters and understand them well enough to comprehend Chinese texts? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6488" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-17T04:56:54.900" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T14:00:14.740" Title="Can one learn to comprehend Chinese texts while being unable to read aloud?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9817" CreationDate="2014-10-02T13:18:24.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe so, but It's recommended to learn the pronunciation with it.&#xA; learn the pronunciation you'll regret it if you dont&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6466" LastEditorUserId="6466" LastEditDate="2014-10-02T13:26:11.047" LastActivityDate="2014-10-02T13:26:11.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9819" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9824" CreationDate="2014-10-02T16:19:41.030" Score="4" ViewCount="8315" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, not to look to far ahead. (Okay, not to look to far ahead at all). I'm interested in how to say&quot; Will You marry me&quot; I've read &quot;你愿意嫁给我吗？“    “和我结婚，好吗” and “嫁给我好吗？“ Is there a clear &quot;best&quot; way to say this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-07-25T01:35:23.523" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T07:59:30.293" Title="How to ask someone &quot;Will you marry me&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9809" CreationDate="2014-10-02T17:51:29.790" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;拜拜 is not considered childish, but is more casual than other forms of good-bye.  It can be use on children / friends / even seniors, but should not be use for Clients / business partner / etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-10-02T17:51:29.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9817" CreationDate="2014-10-02T20:45:02.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you can.  Arthur Waley did, and we still owe him gratitude for beginning to open western eyes to Chinese literature.  But that was 100 years ago, before electronics, before air travel, and Waley was a rare genius.  Also Stumpy Joe Pete is entirely right.  Profoundly deaf people can learn to read Chinese.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But won't you say the words to yourself somehow in your head?  Better to learn them as Chinese words.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you can begin by concentrating on reading if you like.  But there are such good digital aids to the spoken language that you really should use them too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2014-10-02T20:45:02.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9822" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-02T22:30:07.067" Score="2" ViewCount="301" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is less cool than I?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6492" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T06:06:48.133" Title="How to say, someone is less (adj) than someone else?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9822" CreationDate="2014-10-02T23:01:17.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;不如 [not up to;inferior to] 表示前面提到的人或事物比不上后面所说的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不如我酷.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2248882.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2248882.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-02T23:01:17.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9819" CreationDate="2014-10-02T23:28:22.243" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;All can be the best way under their particular circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你愿意嫁给我吗？ Very formal, ritualistic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和我结婚，好吗？ 嫁给我好吗？ Bookish. People write that in letters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嫁给我算了 This is what guys (who think they are not up to the standards) say to their long-time girl friends who are still waiting for Mr. Perfect. It's like saying, &quot;I'm not perfect, but don't let prudence ruin the best things in life.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-02T23:28:22.243" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9817" CreationDate="2014-10-03T03:12:02.307" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, this is what Japanese speakers do when they look at a Chinese text – they have some understanding of it since they recognize the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One fundamental problem, though, is that in modern Chinese, the majority of words are made up of two characters.  There are two types of dictionary for Chinese, one that gives character meanings (字典) and one that gives word meanings (詞/辭典).  For reading, you need the latter type.  &lt;em&gt;Knowing the meaning of the characters is not enough to comprehend texts.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One reason for this is that characters have multiple meanings.  For example, the character 節 can mean something like (A) ‘joint, section’, or (B) ‘season, holiday’, or as a verb (C) ‘to restrain, control’.  There are numerous two-syllable words containing the character, and if you’re not familiar with the word, you can’t tell at a glance which meaning applies.  The character can also appear in either position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;環&lt;strong&gt;節&lt;/strong&gt; ‘link’ (meaning A)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;節&lt;/strong&gt;奏 ‘rhythm’ A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情&lt;strong&gt;節&lt;/strong&gt; ‘plot’ A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情人&lt;strong&gt;節&lt;/strong&gt; ‘Valentine’s day’ (meaning B)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;節&lt;/strong&gt;日  ‘festival, holiday’ B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;過&lt;strong&gt;節&lt;/strong&gt; ‘to celebrate a holiday’ B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;節&lt;/strong&gt;省 ‘to save, economize’ (meaning C)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;節&lt;/strong&gt;儉 ‘thrifty’ C&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;節&lt;/strong&gt;育 ‘birth control’ C&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Source:  zhongwen.com]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note the different parts of speech of the last three – having 節 in first position tells you nothing in this respect.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why most people who learn Chinese as a second language spend quite a while building up their active (spoken) knowledge and getting the most common words down before they tackle texts.  Looking at real Chinese texts, it requires substantial background knowledge to even sort the characters into words.  Trying to learn to read first would quickly become overwhelming, unless you have a very unusual mind!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T03:12:02.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9815" CreationDate="2014-10-03T03:19:25.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;吃啥啥不剩; 干啥啥不行.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever (he) eats, (he) leaves over nothing; whatever (he) builds, (he) bungles everything. Used mostly on bureaucrats. When a hierarchical organization grows tall enough, it selects almost exclusively characters like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-10-03T04:52:23.253" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T04:52:23.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9822" CreationDate="2014-10-03T06:06:48.133" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;没有 + 那么 + what you want to compare&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• He is less cool than I&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他 没有 我 那么 酷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• I'm not that cool&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没有那么酷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• I'm not as cool as him &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没有他那么酷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T06:06:48.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9809" CreationDate="2014-10-03T12:00:07.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's childish in Taiwan,at least not in TV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6494" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T12:00:07.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9803" CreationDate="2014-10-03T12:40:11.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can call a married woman “妇人”，but you know ,in my daily life ,I just call anybody who looks in her thirties and more or looks like married “妇人”,and accroding to the modern Chinese dictionary,“妇人”or “妇女”just mean woman who is older than a certain age whether she's not married or not，but acrroding to baidu，“妇人”means married woman in the past. For a writer like 沈从文 and a book written in the old times,“妇人” can have many meanings.I think you must connect the poilt to decide which meaning it is.In your example(I found the original passage),it does means married woman because “丈夫” was mentioned before.But sometimes “妇人” just means woman or an image of those poor women who struggle to live their lives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6494" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T12:40:11.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9831" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9837" CreationDate="2014-10-03T13:07:14.677" Score="7" ViewCount="679" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia article on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language&quot;&gt;Chinese&lt;/a&gt; says that many varieties of Chinese are mutually unintelligible. That is, I can't just learn &quot;Chinese&quot; and speak &quot;Chinese&quot; with anyone living in China or Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the term &quot;Chinese&quot; mean? What makes a variety of Chinese count as Chinese, and what makes a non-Chinese language count as non-Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T15:09:40.320" Title="What does the term &quot;Chinese&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9831" CreationDate="2014-10-03T13:46:24.340" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say, so-called, Chinese is what we would call Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM) but can also include all dialects/topolects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although there should be a standard, it seems that all dialects/topolects (I.e.: any language spoken in China and it's territories - no matter it's origin) can be considered as Chinese &quot;languages&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese, in general, should just be the same as Mandarin. Whereas Chinese languages could include any language spoke in China and all of it's territories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T13:46:24.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9833" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-03T19:03:31.120" Score="5" ViewCount="23543" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 牛逼 &#xA; mean?  Someone gave a presentation on it in my school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone define it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6495" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-10T22:45:21.783" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T06:30:48.573" Title="What does 牛逼 mean? Can anyone define it?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9833" CreationDate="2014-10-03T19:10:08.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means awsome ro kick ass&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很牛逼 he is awsome&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6496" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T19:10:08.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9833" CreationDate="2014-10-03T20:26:59.903" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This word has a very vulgar origin. It literally means cow's sex organ. Paradoxically, I hear it spoken more often among professionals like doctors and professors among themselves. Professional women swear more, and thus speak of it more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牛逼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thriving and formidable. 哈佛是所很 ~ 的大学. Harvard is a thriving and formidable university.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Arrogant, insolent. 没有人敢在那里 ~.  No one dare to be insolent in there. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牛, cow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逼, 屄, female sex organ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/54728.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/54728.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T20:26:59.903" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="511" CreationDate="2014-10-03T21:22:37.300" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;辞源&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the exact book you should refer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4394" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T21:22:37.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9831" CreationDate="2014-10-03T21:45:53.157" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;user3306356 provided a good answer for the language, but you need to know that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;written Chinese&lt;/a&gt; and oral Chinese can be quite different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A Mandarin speaker might say yī, a Cantonese jat1, and a Hokkien chit, but all three will understand the character 一 &quot;one&quot;. -- from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I want to answer more on the Cultural aspect. For Chinese as in Chinese people, that's really complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, the Chinese culture influenced many others such as Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc. so you may see Chinese characters, traditional clothing and buildings in their culture. The modern China split into different &quot;areas&quot; (I can't say country because it surely will stir up a political debate), mainly mainland &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;China&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Taiwan&lt;/a&gt; which ruled by 2 different political parties, the Communist Party from mainland calling itself the &quot;People's Republic of China&quot; and Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party) stayed in Taiwan calling themselves the &quot;Republic of China&quot;. There are also Hong Kong and Macau, I recommend to watch &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piEayQ0T-qA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Are Hong Kong &amp;amp; Macau Countries&quot; on YouTube&lt;/a&gt; for a better understanding. These four areas have different cultures while &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the core is the same&lt;/a&gt;. Most Chinese there use &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; while &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_varieties_of_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dialects&lt;/a&gt;&quot; are also used (some see those dialects as separate languages. Spoken &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cantonese&lt;/a&gt; being one which used by people from Hong Kong, Macau and many from southern China.) There are also &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tibet&lt;/a&gt; and other &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_minorities_in_China&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;minorities&lt;/a&gt;&quot; which got their own dialects/languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;some&quot; (&quot;many&quot; depends on your view) people from Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, they think they are culturally different and should be called differently (e.g. Hongkonger, Taiwanese), so Chinese, AFAIK, are mainly refer to mainland Chinese while it can also refer to ethnic Chinese in some occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6417" LastEditorUserId="200" LastEditDate="2014-10-04T05:25:26.110" LastActivityDate="2014-10-04T05:25:26.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9838" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9868" CreationDate="2014-10-03T22:32:34.733" Score="0" ViewCount="1771" Body="&lt;p&gt;In which parts of China or Asia can you find Hokkien speakers? Also, where can you learn Hokkien Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6466" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T06:22:58.133" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T06:22:58.133" Title="In which parts of Asia do they speak Hokkien Chinese?" Tags="&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="511" CreationDate="2014-10-04T03:30:23.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In terms of the individual 漢字 (characters), there's the classic &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Shuowen Jiezi&lt;/em&gt;) written in the 1st to 2nd century AD, which is the first and the most authoritative Chinese dictionary to attempt to trace the origin and evolution of each character. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shuowen.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;An online version is available here,&lt;/a&gt; or ZDict as mentioned above also contains the Shuowen entry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious drawback is that you need to know how to read 文言文 (classical Chinese). Be aware also that, although traditionally considered the gold standard for Chinese etymology, recent archaeological findings have necessitated new derivations for some characters; the Wikipedia page has a general explanation on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6498" LastActivityDate="2014-10-04T03:30:23.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9840" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9842" CreationDate="2014-10-04T17:05:54.843" Score="2" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference in pinyin between bia and ba in mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed that some of the pin yin is the same pronunciation but some pinyin, for instance, bia, never be used in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="922" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T23:50:20.903" Title="Is there any difference in pinyin between bia and ba in pronunciation?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9840" CreationDate="2014-10-04T19:21:39.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think no word is pronounced &quot;bia&quot; in Mandarin. They actually have very different pronunciation. For example, 爸's pinyin is &quot;ba&quot;. &quot;bia&quot; is more like 比啊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6502" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T23:50:20.903" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T23:50:20.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9840" CreationDate="2014-10-05T02:04:20.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are different. &#xA;ba sounds the same as British &quot;Bar.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bia sounds the same as the last syllable of &quot;Libya.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;biaji biaji 的, used to describe the smacking sound of loud eating, e.g. like ducks eating. There is no written character for this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有人吃东西为什么嘴老biaji 那么响，让人听着好不舒服. Why do some people always smack their mouths while eating? It makes me very uncomfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/27551978.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/27551978.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Spoken Chinese is much richer than written Chinese. Due to the un-alphabetical nature of the Chinese writing system, it is very difficult to absorb these vivid spoken Chinese words into mainstream writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-10-05T03:09:59.387" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T03:09:59.387" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9817" CreationDate="2014-10-05T07:19:11.457" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before learning Cantonese, I used to read a lot of Chinese texts -- and I still do, even Mandarin texts, even though I don't speak Mandarin -- and I'd use the Korean reading of sinograms. For instance, 我是法國人 would be &quot;아 시 법 국 인&quot; / &quot;a shi pǒp kuk in&quot;. So indeed I was able to read (and write) Chinese without being able to speak it... :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T07:19:11.457" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9844" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9846" CreationDate="2014-10-05T21:49:30.680" Score="2" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as the title says. I really have no idea how to translate the word &quot;by&quot; in this sense. It's just a form of grammar I've never even been exposed to, so I wouldn't know where to start. Anyone know how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6401" LastActivityDate="2014-10-06T02:36:36.037" Title="How do I translate, &quot;by pretending that something is real?&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9844" CreationDate="2014-10-05T23:30:40.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I've found similar grammar that I do know how to use: 通过。&#xA;So I've just replaced all instances of this sort of &quot;by&quot; with &quot;through.&quot; Seems to have identical meaning in English, so I'm fine with this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6401" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T23:30:40.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9844" CreationDate="2014-10-05T23:31:34.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;通过假装...是真的的方式&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By pretending the dinner is real, Peter and his friends forgot about hunger.&#xA;通过假装晚餐是真的的方式， 潘和他的朋友们忘掉了饥饿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can take a little liberty:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通过假装用晚餐的方式， 潘和他的朋友们忘掉了饥饿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T23:31:34.517" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9685" CreationDate="2014-10-06T04:54:57.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, &lt;code&gt;过&lt;/code&gt;, by itself, mainly has two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to pass (as a verb), e.g.: 过江(to pass a river)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;mistake (as a noun), e.g.: 大过(a serious mistake)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess in this question you are more interested in the first one and will share my two cents on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see two dimensions for classifying the &lt;code&gt;*过&lt;/code&gt; words of the sort that you mentioned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How &lt;code&gt;to pass&lt;/code&gt; what is to be passed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends on the meaning of the &lt;code&gt;*&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;through it: 通过, 穿过, 透过 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;outside of it and without (or at least not emphasizing) touching it: 经过, 越过, 超过 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;outside of it and touching (or making one feel that it almost touched) it: 扫过, 擦过, 拂过 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How abstractable the word is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Let's ignore literary innovations for this case) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the great majority of the words are mostly restricted to their  space-related literal meaning: 穿过, 越过, 超过, 扫过, 擦过, 拂过 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a few of them can be extended to the time dimension (to &lt;code&gt;pass&lt;/code&gt; a period or an event): 经过, 度过 (note: in modern Chinese, &lt;code&gt;度过&lt;/code&gt; can only mean &lt;code&gt;to pass a period or an event&lt;/code&gt;, its space-related counterpart is &lt;code&gt;渡过&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;some other few of them can be abstracted to mean &lt;code&gt;by means of&lt;/code&gt;: 通过, or &lt;code&gt;to look through something (to observe)&lt;/code&gt;: 透过 as in &lt;code&gt;透过现象看本质&lt;/code&gt; (to look through the phenomena to observe the essence)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After finishing writing the stuff above it suddenly occurred to me that there's another usage of &lt;code&gt;过&lt;/code&gt; that's also relevant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adj. + &lt;code&gt;过&lt;/code&gt;: to be more adj. than&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 好过 (to be better than), 热过 (to be hotter than), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may deem them as being abstracted by nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4551" LastActivityDate="2014-10-06T04:54:57.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9849" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-06T05:43:20.443" Score="0" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do people still use the term &quot;昨晚“？ Is it very 口语？ Could it be used when writing a diary? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence &#xA;昨晚十点我从我的家开始开到纽约。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T22:23:32.137" Title="Do people use &quot;昨晚&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9849" CreationDate="2014-10-06T07:21:09.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E6%98%A8%E6%99%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;昨晚&lt;/a&gt; is a very common word. You can use it in both oral and written Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E6%98%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;昨&lt;/a&gt; here is used as adjective. It means yesterday. However 昨 still has other meanings. 昨 also means past days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨晚 = 昨天夜里 , 昨夜 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use it in all situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/js/6628.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/js/6628.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2014-10-06T07:21:09.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9851" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-06T14:20:00.037" Score="2" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any online dictionary German-Chinese and vice versa that allows user participation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;handedict.de, dormant since 2011, forums down, but allows downloading a wordfile&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dict.leo.org, working, but crummy participation: must ask in forum to have a word added, does not allow downloading a wordfile&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;wiktionary, working, but inconvenient lookup, may compile wordfile from dump inconviently&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No user participation in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chinesisch-lernen.org&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chinalink.de&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2518" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T14:16:57.450" Title="German-Chinese online dictionary" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9816" CreationDate="2014-10-06T14:40:20.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I'm a native Chinese speaker from Mainland China. People from other Chinese-speaking regions or countries may feel different from me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;雖然 x 但是 y&lt;/code&gt; sounds fine to me for all your examples.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, to me the turn embedded in &lt;code&gt;儘管 x 但是 y&lt;/code&gt; sounds a little bit stronger than that in &lt;code&gt;雖然 x 但是 y&lt;/code&gt;. That's why when the conditions are very extreme, &lt;code&gt;儘管 x 但是 y&lt;/code&gt; sounds more natural to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I think neither &lt;code&gt;即使 x 還是 y&lt;/code&gt; nor &lt;code&gt;即使 x 仍然 y&lt;/code&gt; is appropriate for your examples.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A critical difference between a. &lt;code&gt;儘管 x 但是 y&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;雖然 x 但是 y&lt;/code&gt; and b. &lt;code&gt;即使 x 還是 y&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;即使 x 仍然 y&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For group a, x is a statement that the speaker believes to be true, while for group b, x is only a supposition (usually an extreme one).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;儘管&lt;/strong&gt;我們安裝了最好的安防系統，賊還是&lt;strong&gt;進來了&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;→ The speaker believes that the system has been installed and some&#xA;  thief or thieves have found a way inside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;即使&lt;/strong&gt;我們安裝了最好的安防系統，賊還是&lt;strong&gt;會進來的&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;→ The speaker makes a supposition that (EVEN IF) we installed the best&#xA;  security system, and he shows that he believes that still some thief&#xA;  or thieves will find a way inside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Since for group b, x is only a supposition, the sentence below will sound weird:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;即使&lt;/strong&gt;我們安裝了最好的安防系統，賊還是&lt;strong&gt;進來了&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;→ The speaker makes &lt;strong&gt;a supposition&lt;/strong&gt; that (EVEN IF) we installed the&#xA;  best security system, and he shows that he believes that some thief or&#xA;  thieves &lt;strong&gt;have already&lt;/strong&gt; found a way inside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4551" LastActivityDate="2014-10-06T14:40:20.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9853" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-06T17:07:53.943" Score="0" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese characters have two parts, a radical and a phonetic. So different ways to simplify them might include the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Simplify the radical, retain the phonetic. Example: 调&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Simplify the phonetic, retain the radical. Example: 这&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Simplify one or the other of the above, for a character that has only one, but not the other. Example: 车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Substitute a single &quot;character&quot; for both parts. Example: 后&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this roster complete? One way that I haven't seen is that &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; the radical and phonetic are simplified. Is this true, and if so, why might that be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="52" LastEditDate="2014-10-06T17:14:19.787" LastActivityDate="2014-10-07T03:03:41.693" Title="What are ways to create &quot;simplifed&quot; Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9819" CreationDate="2014-10-06T18:06:18.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;嫁 means &quot;to marry a man&quot;. So &quot;你愿意嫁给我吗？&quot;only works if it's the guy who's doing the proposing. If it's the woman proposing, she would say, &quot;你愿意娶我嗎？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a modern world, you know. Can't assume it's always the guy who proposes. Anyways, I hope this will provide a different perspective and possibly some ladies out there might find it useful. Having said that, “和我结婚，好吗?” is probably easier as it works both ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2014-10-06T21:50:12.690" LastActivityDate="2014-10-06T21:50:12.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9851" CreationDate="2014-10-06T23:15:51.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not exactly a dictionary, but if you have individual words you need to find the meaning of quickly, you may want to try this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.reference.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://translate.reference.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have used Chinese-English, and occasionally other languages as well. As with many digital translation devices, the result isn't always ideal, but you can probably use this as an additional reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A word of caution: it does not do idioms well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2014-10-06T23:15:51.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9853" CreationDate="2014-10-07T03:03:41.693" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simplified Chinese page&lt;/a&gt; has a section that outlines all the types already. Quoting it a bit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are four methods used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Structural simplification of characters&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under this method, there are the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Replacing a character with another existing character that sounds the same or similar (e.g. 乾、幹 → 干)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Using printed forms of cursive shapes (e.g. 長 → 长)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Replacing a component of a character with a simple symbol (e.g. 對 → 对)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Omitting entire components (e.g. 習 → 习)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Further morphing a character after omitting some components (e.g. 歸 → 归)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Preserving the basic outline or shape of the original character (e.g. 飛 → 飞)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Replacing the phonetic component of phono-semantic compound characters (e.g. 鐘 → 钟)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Replacing some arbitrary part of a character with a phonetic component, turning it into a new phono-semantic compound character (e.g. 曆 → 历)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Replacing entire character with a newly coined phono-semantic compound character (e.g. 驚 → 惊)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Adopting obscure ancient forms or variants (e.g. 電 → 电)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Adopting ancient vulgar variants (e.g. 陽 → 阳)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Re-adopt abandoned phonetic-loan characters (e.g. 後 → 后)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Derivation based on simplified character components&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is where components that have been simplified are also simplified when they are used as radicals; e.g. 單 → 单 so therefore 彈 → 弹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Elimination of variants of the same character&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 夠 → 够, 豬 → 猪. Note that the goal here is to reduce the total number of characters, which means that sometimes the simplified version has more strokes, e.g. 搾 → 榨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Adoption of new standardized character forms&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 奧 → 奥, 虛 → 虚. These are structurally the same after simplification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information see &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E5%AD%97%E6%80%BB%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E5%AD%97%E6%80%BB%E8%A1%A8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-07T03:03:41.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9735" CreationDate="2014-10-07T06:39:35.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;當機&quot; 的 &quot;當&quot; comes from its Mandarin pronunciation: dang1, which is very similar to the English pronunciation of the word &quot;down&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has been used since the age of punch-card computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-10-07T06:39:35.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9735" CreationDate="2014-10-07T09:47:31.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;死机了&quot; is my best choice as it sounds native.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6443" LastActivityDate="2014-10-07T09:47:31.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9860" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9874" CreationDate="2014-10-07T20:15:53.930" Score="6" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese belongs to the group of languages are isolating, just like English, but even purer. English once was not isolating but possessed flection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the situation with English similar to that of ancient Chinese or the oldest version of Chinese ever known?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T22:57:15.090" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T22:57:15.090" Title="What kind of typology does ancient Chinese belong to?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9860" CreationDate="2014-10-08T02:36:54.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A commonly accepted thesis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Tibetan_languages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sino-tibetan languages&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A hypothesis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den%C3%A9%E2%80%93Caucasian_languages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dené–Caucasian languages&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T02:36:54.113" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9819" CreationDate="2014-10-08T03:29:22.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you made an romantic proposal, then ask for 嫁给我好不好？ This is same for 你愿意嫁给我吗.&#xA;If you are too familiar with each other, and want to do flatly, just say 我们结婚吧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6365" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T03:29:22.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9863" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-08T04:02:07.643" Score="2" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Trying to figure out what is the proper was to say &#xA;&quot;Use something in order to express something else&quot; &#xA;Is it &#xA;通过。。。 表达。。 &#xA;or &#xA;使用。。。。 表达。。。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is actually a third option let me know! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T07:16:37.533" Title="Do people say &quot;使用 。。 表达” or &quot;通过。。。 表达“》" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9864" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-08T04:22:01.563" Score="5" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I say “伤害人” in terms of hurting someone emotionally? Or is there another, better, way of saying this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I'd like to say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;最后还为了伤害他把这个秘密告诉给其他的家人&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that a proper usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-10-08T07:14:08.757" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T00:59:23.577" Title="Can you 伤害 a person emotionally?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9849" CreationDate="2014-10-08T04:22:45.067" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that 昨晚 is not terribly literary but perfectly acceptable in most situations, both spoken and written. In particular, it fits perfectly in a diary entry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨夜 is a more dignified, literary version that would be common in literary writing but out of place in the spoken language. It is also the expression for &amp;quot;yesterday night&amp;quot; in the classical literary language, as in this poem by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Yu_(Southern_Tang)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Li Houzhu&lt;/a&gt;, the &amp;quot;Poet King&amp;quot; of Southern Tang:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虞美人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春花秋月何時了，往事知多少？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;小樓&lt;strong&gt;昨夜&lt;/strong&gt;又東風，故國不堪回首月明中。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雕闌玉砌應猶在，只是朱顏改。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;問君能有幾多愁？恰似一江春水向東流。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T04:22:45.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9864" CreationDate="2014-10-08T04:26:21.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sounds perfectly idiomatic to me. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/4/157/343204.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;One of the definitions 漢典 gives is&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) [wound;injure;damage;prejudice]∶使在精神或感情上受损伤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(to hurt someone mentally or emotionally). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6498" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T04:26:21.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9864" CreationDate="2014-10-08T06:11:13.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your meaning would be understood from context; you're utilizing the secret to cause harm, and abstract concepts typically do not cause physical harm.  Were you to pick up a chair 把椅子 you could clarify the harm as physical 生理伤害.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you considered using &lt;code&gt;来&lt;/code&gt; to convey the meaning of &quot;bringing about&quot; his injury?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最后还&lt;strike&gt;&lt;code&gt;为了伤害他&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strike&gt;把这个秘密告诉给其他的家人&lt;code&gt;来伤害他&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, telling this secret to his other family members &lt;strong&gt;will lead to&lt;/strong&gt; his injury.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more I think about this, the more I dislike the use of &lt;code&gt;给&lt;/code&gt; here.  It feels excessive.  How about this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最后 把 秘密 告诉 其他的家人 来 伤害他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3202" LastEditorUserId="3202" LastEditDate="2014-10-09T01:49:41.767" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T01:49:41.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9838" CreationDate="2014-10-08T08:30:02.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though Hokkien = 福建 or Fujian，a southeast coastal province facing Taiwan. Hokkien Chinese actually means 闽南语 which is originated from south part of 福建, and also commonly used in Taiwan Island, Southeast Asia and many other Chinese societies overseas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact people living in north part of Fujian speak a totally different dialect, which is almost not understandable to Hokkien-speaking Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6516" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T08:30:02.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9869" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-08T09:09:11.417" Score="2" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;聊斋志异 is the title of a famous collection of short stories dealing with the supernatural. What actually do the words the title is made of verbatim mean?  What is the cultural significance of those words and word-combinations so one could understand why the author (pu songling) used to choose them for the title?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T23:47:11.043" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T23:47:11.043" Title="What does 聊斋志异 mean and what is its cultural significance?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9870" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9872" CreationDate="2014-10-08T09:18:52.777" Score="0" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the grammatical analysis of this phrase?&#xA;What are the parts of speech?&#xA;How can the whole sentence be split into smaller logical units?&#xA;Is the title itself a real phrase or real sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T10:03:49.967" Title="how does the immediate constituent analysis of the phrase/sentence 聊斋志异 look like?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9869" CreationDate="2014-10-08T09:41:16.723" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?idx=dict.idx&amp;amp;cond=%E8%81%8A%E9%BD%8B%E5%BF%97%E7%95%B0&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;According to &lt;em&gt;Revised Chinese Dictionary of the Ministry of Education, ROC&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;聊齋為蒲松齡的書房，志異是說記錄一些怪異的事情，借鬼狐之事，抒發對現實政治、社會的不滿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 聊齋 (聊斋) is simply the name of Pu Songling's studio. 聊 could possibly mean &quot;fun&quot; or alternatively &quot;to depend&quot; or &quot;to rely on&quot;. 齋 means a study (as in a room in which one pursues literary endeavours). 志異 (志异) simply means &quot;records of strange happenings&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6498" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T09:41:16.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9870" CreationDate="2014-10-08T10:03:49.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;聊斋志异&lt;/code&gt; is the name of an ancient novel, which is a collection of nearly 500 mostly supernatural tales written by Pu Songling in Classical Chinese during the early Qing Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Stories_from_a_Chinese_Studio&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;聊&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;chat&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;斋&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;room&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;聊斋&lt;/code&gt; is the name of the author's study room/studio.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;志&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;record&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;异&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;strange things&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;志异&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;to record the strange things&lt;/code&gt;, so &lt;code&gt;聊斋志异&lt;/code&gt; is a stories' collection about strange things recorded by the author at his study studio named &lt;code&gt;聊斋&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: &lt;code&gt;聊斋志异&lt;/code&gt; could be shortened as &lt;code&gt;聊斋&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T10:03:49.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9863" CreationDate="2014-10-08T10:17:45.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Theoretically, both of them might be appropriate in specific situation. But most of the time, that can be translated as &quot;用...来表达...&quot;&#xA;For example, “use wine to express romance” can be translated as &quot;用（以）酒来表达（表现）浪漫&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6517" LastEditorUserId="6517" LastEditDate="2014-10-08T12:28:09.690" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T12:28:09.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9860" CreationDate="2014-10-08T14:24:19.890" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two kinds of morphology:  inflectional and derivational.  The first is like English –ed or –s, or case endings in languages like German or Latin.  Adding an inflectional morpheme doesn’t make a new word, but it changes the grammatical function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Derivational morphology, on the other hand, does make a new word.  It might be a different part of speech, like sing &amp;gt; sing-er (verb to noun – person that verbs).  Or it might change the meaning in some other way, like call &amp;gt; re-call.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Linguists who study this believe that Old Chinese did not have inflectional morphology, but it did have derivational morphology.  Here is just one example from Laurent Sagart’s book &lt;em&gt;The Roots of Old Chinese&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*s- prefix changing noun to verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帚  zhou3 (*tuʔ) &lt;em&gt;a broom&lt;/em&gt; →&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;掃  sao3 (*s-tuʔ)  &lt;em&gt;to sweep&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were suffixes, too, such as *-s, but when the tones developed many of these disappeared and were preserved only in a tonal change.  This can explain some tonal differences like the two pronunciations of 好  (tone 3 vs. tone 4 – the tone 4 one originally had an –s suffix.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is really advanced stuff, and I’m not sure if there’s a lot of agreement among the handful of linguists that study it as to exactly what prefixes and suffixes existed in Old Chinese, and what uses they had.  If you’re curious, there’s an exciting new book that just came out on this topic.  It’s called &lt;em&gt;Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction&lt;/em&gt; by William Baxter and Laurent Sagart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T14:24:19.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9875" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9879" CreationDate="2014-10-08T14:44:52.263" Score="2" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a &lt;strong&gt;idiomatic&lt;/strong&gt; translation for ‘phone it in’ in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bolded what I'm looking for above, I'm not looking for things like &lt;code&gt;敷衍了事&lt;/code&gt;, but something more &lt;strong&gt;idiomatic&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case anyone is confused as to what phone it in means, the &lt;strong&gt;Advanced English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;phone it in&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(idiomatic) To fulfill a responsibility with a minimum effort rather than the appropriate level of effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T05:23:20.743" Title="Translation: ‘phone it in’" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9849" CreationDate="2014-10-08T22:23:32.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah, 昨晚 is the short version of 昨天晚上, it is very commonly used still&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6143" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T22:23:32.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9864" CreationDate="2014-10-08T22:26:09.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes 伤害 can be used on emotions and I think your example makes sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6143" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T22:26:09.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9833" CreationDate="2014-10-08T22:29:38.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Urban Dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese word meaning &quot;fucking awesome.&quot; Translated literally, it means &quot;cow pussy.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a complimentary word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6143" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T22:29:38.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9875" CreationDate="2014-10-09T02:34:47.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“敷衍了事” is a right Chinese saying to describe your situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides,you can also say something like “搪塞”，“蒙混过关”…… related to this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T02:34:47.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9864" CreationDate="2014-10-09T03:10:39.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;伤害 is used in both situations because there is no intrinsic difference between emotional injuries and physical injuries. Both are chemical, physical reactions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intentional infliction of emotional distress can often cause worse damage than, say, clubbing someone in the forehead. A skillful abuser, once learned what touches the victim's nerve, can totally ruin the victim's life by simply uttering a few seemingly innocent words. After cousin Bette related to Adeline some seemingly innocent news, Lady Adeline was afflicted by a constant quivering of the head for the rest of her life.(See Balzac &lt;em&gt;Cousin Bette&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T03:10:39.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9881" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-09T03:48:50.917" Score="4" ViewCount="4365" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that in most cases, the two are interchangeable. For example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5919/is-it-%E8%AA%AA-%E8%AF%B4-shu%C5%8D-or-%E8%AC%9B-%E8%AE%B2-ji%C7%8Eng-for-to-speak-a-language&quot;&gt;Is it 說 /说 / shuō or 講 / 讲 / jiǎng for &amp;quot;to speak a language&amp;quot;?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from fixed phrases, when would you use one rather than the other? When is only one suitable? Are there regional differences to this preference and what are they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2014-10-10T03:49:48.367" Title="What's the difference between 说 and 讲?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9864" CreationDate="2014-10-09T03:51:08.377" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a language scholar so may be I am wrong on this, but the &quot;伤害&quot; is probably more often used in terms of hurting someone emotional than physically. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example：in 那英's famous song &quot;一笑而过“ there is one line reads &quot;你伤害了我，还一笑而过&quot;. As the song is probably not about domestic violence, yes, it is perfectly proper to use &quot;伤害&quot; in this way you described. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is actually uncommon to see people use 伤害 as equivalent to physically &quot;hurt&quot; someone. It is too formal, a little awkward, and sounds pretty harsh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伤害 can be used as a noun as the above answer has mentioned the phrase &quot;生理伤害&quot;. In this usage it sounds very formal. So most likely it is used in a legal or medical document. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 伤 alone can be used as a consequence of some action. For example, 他把我打伤了 (He hit me and I am hurt/injured as a result).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence you gave is good and can definitely be understand. But it may help to change the wording a little bit. For example, although can be inferred, the sentence do not have a subject. You can say 最后为了伤害他，他/她/name 还把这个秘密告诉了其他家人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其他家人 sounds a little strange and unspecific. If it is one or two people, you can list them instead (to make the story more convincing and interesting): 他还把这个秘密告诉了 爸/妈/爸妈/奶奶. If it is a lot of people in the family, you can say 他还把这个秘密告诉了 全家所有人. Technically, 告诉了全家 is good enough and it may not be literally every member of the family. But usually you would add 所有人 to emphasize (and the listener/reader would know that 所有人 is most likely not literal here). There is no need to use 其他 as it is implied. (As you can see that us Chinese are not very rigorous when it comes to language. You are generally considered a better writer if you could use less words/characters to convey the same meaning.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6522" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T03:51:08.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9881" CreationDate="2014-10-09T04:46:29.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, both are the same meaning of &quot;speak&quot;. But still have a little difference: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&quot;讲&quot; usually used in oral Chinese,and sometimes it means speak by one person without others' opinion on the topic he talked about&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&quot;说&quot; different from &quot;讲&quot;, it always used in written chinese and refers to many people,they are discussing and expressing their different opinions or one express his opinion with others agree with that.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;讲&quot;--(as a verb) to speak, to give a speech, to say something in a logical way&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;说&quot;--(as a verb) to say, to talk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;说&quot; and &quot;讲&quot; can be tricky, when both 说 and 讲 are interchangeable, 讲 feels a little more colloquial whereas 说 is usually used on formal occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Example: 说谎 = To tell a lie&#xA;         说明 = to explain (literally, say clear). &#xA;         说不定 = perhaps/maybe.&#xA;&#xA;Example when both are interchangeable&#xA;         说话／讲话 = speak/talk&#xA;         说故事／讲故事 = tell a story&#xA;         你说什么？／你讲什么？ = What are you saying?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6433" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T04:46:29.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9881" CreationDate="2014-10-09T05:10:53.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes 说 = 讲, in Chinese, one word may have a lot of different meaning, and a lot of words may have same meaning. &#xA;In normal, 说 like we daily use to speak, 讲 like official statement which more formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6523" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T05:10:53.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9869" CreationDate="2014-10-09T05:19:43.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;聊斋 =&gt; Means people talk about something when they ate enough or in free time&#xA;Use 聊 because the stories in the book is from people's talking.&#xA;Use 斋 because this word in Chinese have two normal means, one is meal, one is the house use to read book or talking about literature.&#xA;志异 =&gt; Means the things sounds strange or weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, that the reason why that called 聊斋志异.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6523" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T05:19:43.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9875" CreationDate="2014-10-09T05:23:20.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;敷衍了事 is pretty idiomatic to me. An alternative which is a bit more formal is 敷衍塞責.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T05:23:20.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9864" CreationDate="2014-10-09T13:56:17.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it's completely right. Emotions can be damaged/hurt too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Background: Native speaker&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2532" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T13:56:17.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-09T20:06:19.260" Score="4" ViewCount="309" Body="&lt;p&gt;vocabulary of classical Chinese, &#xA;explanatory glosses on their usage,&#xA;example sentences, &#xA;semantic difference of similar characters used in modern vernacular Chinese and classical and such alike features if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-12-11T20:51:59.900" Title="what are some dictionaries about vocabulary of classical chinese?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9889" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9891" CreationDate="2014-10-09T20:21:03.643" Score="1" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;it is the title of a some classic literature, &#xA;could you gloss the title itself and maybe give some comment of the meaning of the literature itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T22:11:03.407" Title="what is the verbatim (word for word if possible) translation of the phrase 揚子法言?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9890" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9892" CreationDate="2014-10-09T20:38:53.493" Score="2" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the verbatim meaning?&#xA;What is the meaning of the concept within Chinese philosophy?&#xA;Well i do not know why the algorithm keeps asking about the quality of standards, &#xA;this makes me want to change to another Q&amp;amp;A forum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T22:14:56.323" Title="What is the meaning behind &quot;淵騫&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9889" CreationDate="2014-10-09T22:11:03.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;揚子 is simply the author's name (originally 揚雄, 子 being a respectful address form analogous to 孔子/孔丘, Confucius).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;法言: 言 means speech or word or writings. 法 is a central concept of Confucianism. According to 《爾雅·釋詁》: 法，常也。 It derives from classical ceremonial practices and pertains to social norms and moral philosophy (a bit similar to the Hindu concept of &lt;em&gt;dharma&lt;/em&gt;, which is translated as 法 in Chinese). The work itself is thus a disputation on Confucian philosophy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6498" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T22:11:03.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9890" CreationDate="2014-10-09T22:14:56.323" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are two famous disciples of Confucius. 淵: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-classical.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A1%8F%E5%9B%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;顏淵 (顏回)&lt;/a&gt;、騫: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-classical.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%96%94%E5%AD%90%E9%A8%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;閔子騫 (閔損)&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is common practice in classical Chinese literature to label chapters in a book by the first word of substance, regardless of whether it actually pertains to the central meaning or not. In this case, the chapter begins with a question on the practices of these two disciples of Confucius, and their names are taken to form the chapter name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6498" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T22:14:56.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9893" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9989" CreationDate="2014-10-09T22:36:48.717" Score="1" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;爾 here used as an adverbial suffix of classical Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T22:55:59.097" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T22:55:59.097" Title="Could you give annotated examples regarding the grammar of a sentence in classical Chinese where 爾 is used as an adverbial suffix?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3165" CreationDate="2014-10-10T05:55:11.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们也学学香港吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们也闹一闹吧. 砸他几条商业街，雾霾就没有了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-10T05:55:11.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9898" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-10T13:11:17.530" Score="0" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;i would like to understand how one could with respect to grammar analyse this phrase, for instance by a syntax tree or naming the unique features of wenyan grammar included in this example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T04:49:07.103" Title="could you explain all the grammar which is included in the sentence: 君子務本，本立而道生?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2197" CreationDate="2014-10-10T14:33:38.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What the two entries above said is true.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An addition, however, is that the simplest version, 升, is the only one of the three that can be used as a unit of measurement of liquid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also seen both 升 and 昇 used in mens' names a lot, but 陞, not so much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6533" LastActivityDate="2014-10-10T14:33:38.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9888" CreationDate="2014-10-10T18:33:36.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;康熙字典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古汉语常用字字典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说文解字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;词源&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they are all useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4394" LastActivityDate="2014-10-10T18:33:36.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9902" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9907" CreationDate="2014-10-11T11:26:16.913" Score="2" ViewCount="1502" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to understand the appropriate way to say &quot;reply&quot; or &quot;respond.&quot;  Could you please help me disambiguate the above listed ways of saying &quot;to reply，&quot; and any other that are commonly used?  I assume they cannot be used interchangeably?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The examples that come to mind for every day usage are the following, but please do not necessarily restrict your answer to these examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I'm so sorry I took so long to respond to your message!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;He was not happy with my reply&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;‘Of course!' the man replied!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I waited for a long time, but still no response&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T16:39:55.290" Title="回答 vs. 回复 vs. 回应 vs.答复： What is proper usage?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9903" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9908" CreationDate="2014-10-11T21:01:14.900" Score="1" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm continuously confused on how to best say something is alcoholic. For example, I have heard&#xA;酒精很强， 很有酒精 , But I've also heard &quot;酒量很高“ or ”酒量很大” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone clarify which of these is the most common/which might be bad translations? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T01:51:21.553" Title="How do you say something is &quot;very alcoholic&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9904" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9906" CreationDate="2014-10-11T21:07:17.350" Score="5" ViewCount="1732" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a clear translation for the phrase &quot;Take a gap year&quot; (i.e. take a year off between your last year of high school and college (often for travel, work, etc.))?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T00:00:06.420" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T00:00:06.420" Title="How do you say &quot;To take a gap year&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9905" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-11T21:12:22.987" Score="4" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to figure out how to refer to continents as a concept as opposed to specific continents themselves. For example, I know that the continent of Europe would be translated as 欧洲大陆, or 非洲大陆.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how do I refer to continents as a whole, countable thing. Like &quot;He went to five continents this summer?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-07T09:50:13.380" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T09:50:13.380" Title="How do you refer to continents in the abstract?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9904" CreationDate="2014-10-11T23:15:34.153" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a 'clear' translation because of the culture difference behind it. Chinese people don't take a gap year until very recently and the few who do are still considered rebel by many. It hasn't become that popular yet to have a well-known terminology. In some circles it's just called &lt;code&gt;gap year&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;gap年&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;间隔年&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;间隔年&lt;/code&gt; is probably the best option for now, but you may still want to define or explain it to the audience beforehand. This translation has actually made its entry on &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1637881.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt; and appeared in a book title &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2804451.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;迟到的间隔年&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see how some people still refer to the concept as 'gap year' in discussions like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.douban.com/group/topic/34111494/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, which suggests the Chinese term hasn't got its full popularity yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the verb ('take'), I think the best context-free translation is &lt;code&gt;体验&lt;/code&gt; (to experience). Depending on the context you can also use &lt;code&gt;开始&lt;/code&gt; (to start) or &lt;code&gt;要&lt;/code&gt; (to have). E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He decided to take a gap year after graduation. 他决定毕业后体验间隔年 (formal) or 他决定要个间隔年 (colloquial).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His friends took a gap year right after graduation, but he didn't. 他的朋友们一毕业就开始了间隔年，但是他没有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T19:35:04.393" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9902" CreationDate="2014-10-12T01:28:00.300" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;回答&lt;/code&gt;often used when somebody answer your question, usually face to face.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;回复&lt;/code&gt;often used when they reply you via text or phone.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;回应&lt;/code&gt;is used when you done something, others do another thing in respond.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;答复&lt;/code&gt;is used when you ask question or have some petition to the government or other big agency, you will get a respond from them.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I'm so sorry I took so long to respond to your message!&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;should use &lt;code&gt;回复&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;‘Of course!' the man replied!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;should use &lt;code&gt;回答&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I waited for a long time, but still no response&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;should use &lt;code&gt;答复&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;He was not happy with my reply&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it will mainly rely on the context you are in,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6154" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T01:28:00.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9903" CreationDate="2014-10-12T01:51:21.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per my understanding, &lt;code&gt;alcoholic&lt;/code&gt; has two meanings in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Something) contains or is related to alcohol.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Someone) is addicted to alcohol or is affected by alcoholism.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the first meaning, in Chinese we say &lt;code&gt;含有酒精的&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;酒精含量高的&lt;/code&gt;. E.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Alcoholic drink 含酒精的饮品 or simply 酒精饮品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the second, we use the word &lt;code&gt;酗酒(成性)&lt;/code&gt; (adj.) or &lt;code&gt;酗酒者/酒鬼&lt;/code&gt; (noun).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He is an alcoholic. 他酗酒成性 or 他是个酒鬼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the Chinese phrases in your question,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酒精很强，很有酒精 means #1 but don't sound natural without context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;酒量很高“ or ”酒量很大” means someone is good at drinking. &lt;code&gt;酒量&lt;/code&gt; is not the short form of &lt;code&gt;酒精含量&lt;/code&gt;, but one word meaning 'the ability of a person to hold liquor'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T01:51:21.553" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9904" CreationDate="2014-10-12T04:38:05.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We call it &lt;code&gt;'间隔年'&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese. And there are some books telling stories about the gap year experience of chinese young guys. You can find them on amazon, for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.cn/gp/product/B002OED6QK/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i1_gs9w&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;'迟到的间隔年'&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.cn/gp/product/B002OED6QK/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i1_gs9w&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.cn/gp/product/B002OED6QK/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i1_gs9w&lt;/a&gt;  ('A gap year for being late' translated in English) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6538" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T04:44:44.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9898" CreationDate="2014-10-12T04:49:07.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;S: 君子務本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NP: 君子; VP: 務本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N: 君子; V: 務; N:本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S: 本立而道生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NP: 本; VP: 立; CONJ/AP: 而; NP: 道; VP: 生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N: 本; V: 立; and/adverb: 而 (and then); N: 道; V: 生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternative:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S: 本立而道生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If: (omit); NP: 本; VP: 立; AP: 而; NP: 道; VP: 生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6537" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T04:49:07.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9911" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-12T11:24:52.533" Score="0" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;路过 means to pass through.&#xA;If one searches for images related to this word, one finds pictures of funny or strange situations carrying this word on them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-15T17:13:56.107" Title="what is the verbatim and implied meaning of 路过?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9911" CreationDate="2014-10-12T12:38:39.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is more a internet-word,which means I have read this article picture story etc.to show an unconcerned opion of something,and it's more a humorous way to to show like it or not,I just read/see this,and then I will do my own thing (ie going home)&#xA;And It has much common of 打酱油&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6540" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T12:38:39.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9913" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-12T14:44:48.237" Score="-1" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just got a snap from a friend who moved to Shanghai, and she wrote something in Chinese, which I dont have a clue of what it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uaNYh.png&quot; alt=&quot;image of text&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tentative OCR: 你好我係喜歡派對&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6542" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2014-10-22T19:02:11.637" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T19:02:11.637" Title="Tranlation of a text message (你好我係喜歡派對 ?)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-10-13T04:02:27.997" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9914" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9917" CreationDate="2014-10-12T15:10:54.310" Score="0" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out what ”把握“ actually means （it seems to have a number of meanings that don't align with any translation in english). One sentence, that I thought was interesting was &quot;她的把握全失去了&quot; (referring to an instance where a girl is beginning to have an affair with a guy. What does it mean in this sentence? Does it mean self-control? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another sentence that was used at the end was “可是她现在不同了，她现在是个自主、有把握的女人。 &#xA;“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T15:49:46.700" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T21:20:05.263" Title="Can 把握 mean &quot;self control&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9914" CreationDate="2014-10-12T15:23:58.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Upto this one it means taking control of something and its probability of winning or losing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6540" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T15:23:58.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9913" CreationDate="2014-10-12T15:26:39.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;Hello,I (do) like parties&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6540" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T15:26:39.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9914" CreationDate="2014-10-12T20:00:32.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;把握&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;seize; grasp; hold&lt;/code&gt;. It's rarely used in its literal sense but the metaphorical sense is just that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把握住今天。Seize today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他对成功很有把握。Success is within his seize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To have 把握 in something you need both confidence and ability, although when people say &lt;code&gt;有把握/没有把握/失去把握&lt;/code&gt; they are actually emphasizing on the confidence side, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有把握拿满分。I have confidence in getting full marks in the exam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;失去把握&lt;/code&gt; can also mean &lt;code&gt;lose control&lt;/code&gt;, though not necessary 'lose control over oneself'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your first sentence, &amp;quot;她的把握全失去了&amp;quot;, there are two possible interpretations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She lost her 'seize' (confidence or leverage) in the affair.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She lost her 'seize' (control) over herself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the limited context in your question I am unable to tell which one is it. In addition to the plot, it also has a lot to do with the author's language style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, the second sentence has two possible meanings &amp;quot;她现在是个自主、有把握的女人。&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She has become a woman of determination and confidence (she has general confidence in her own actions and decisions).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She has become a woman of determination and means (she has a lot of levers/maneuvers in the things she does).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That again depends on more context to nail down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T20:09:25.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9918" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-13T00:13:46.030" Score="0" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is anyone willing to help me edit this monologue for grammatical errors? If so, I would really appreciate it. I have chosen the most simple words I know to make performing it easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我下课以后常常去我的实习。 我以后我的实习我有课一遍。 我的最后课六时完毕某些天， 八时其他天。 然后我常常开始我的回家作业。&#xA;至少有一次每个星期我有Amnesty International会议. 这是一个人权组我跟我的男朋友开始。&#xA;如果我有会议，我得回家作业我开始后。 我的奖学金需求五个课，所以我有课每天。 周末，我也很多了学习。&#xA;如果我有时间，我星期五试试玩儿跟我的朋友们，和星期日吃饭跟我的妈妈。 有时我恐怕没有时候。 如实, 我很忙和不能等到休息。 但是，&#xA;我有这些机会是很祝福。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After class I often go to my internship. After my internship I have class again. My final classes end at 6pm on somedays, and 8pm on other days. After, I often start my homework. Every week at least once a week I have Amnesty International meetings. This is a human rights organization that I started with my boyfriend. After I have a meeting, I start my homework. My scholarship requires me to take five classes, so I have class every day. On the weekends, I study a lot. If I have time, I try to go out with my friends on fridays and eat dinner with my mom on sunday. Usually I don't have time. Honestly, I am extremely busy and I can't wait till break. Yet, I am very blessed to have these opportunities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6543" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-31T10:36:25.407" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T10:36:25.407" Title="Critique request for my monologue: 我下课以后常常去我的实习。 我以后我的实习我有课一遍。……" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9919" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-13T00:32:05.120" Score="-2" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is anyone willing to help me edit this monologue for grammatical errors? If so, I would really appreciate it. I have also included the pinyin in case it helps to understand what I meant. I have chosen the most simple words I know to make performing it easier. Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我下课以后常常去我的实习。 我以后我的实习我有课一遍。 我的最后课六时完毕某些天， 八时其他天。 然后我常常开始我的回家作业。 至少有一次每个星期我有Amnesty International会议. 这是一个人权组我跟我的男朋友开始。 如果我有会议，我得回家作业我开始后。 我的奖学金需求五个课，所以我有课每天。 周末，我也很多了学习。 如果我有时间，我星期五试试玩儿跟我的朋友们，和星期日吃饭跟我的妈妈。 有时我恐怕没有时候。 如实, 我很忙和不能等到休息。 但是， 我有这些机会是很祝福。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ xiàkè yǐhòu chángcháng qù wǒ de shíxí. Wǒ yǐhòu wǒ de shíxí wǒ yǒu kè yībiàn. Wǒ de zuìhòu kè liù shí wánbì mǒu xiē tiān, bā shí qítā tiān. Ránhòu wǒ chángcháng kāishǐ wǒ de huí jiā zuòyè. Zhìshǎo yǒu yīcì měi gè xīngqí wǒ yǒu Amnesty International huìyì. Zhè shì yīgè rénquán zǔ wǒ gēn wǒ de nán péngyǒu kāishǐ. Rúguǒ wǒ yǒu huìyì, wǒ dé huí jiā zuòyè wǒ kāishǐ hòu. Wǒ de jiǎngxuéjīn xūqiú wǔ gè kè, suǒyǐ wǒ yǒu kè měitiān. Zhōumò, wǒ yě hěnduōle xuéxí. Rúguǒ wǒ yǒushíjiān, wǒ xīngqíwǔ shì shì wán er gēn wǒ de péngyǒumen, hé xīngqírì chīfàn gēn wǒ de māmā. Yǒu shí wǒ kǒngpà méiyǒu shíhòu. Rúshí, wǒ hěn máng hé bùnéng děngdào xiūxí. Dànshì, wǒ yǒu zhèxiē jīhuì shì hěn zhùfú.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6543" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T08:54:01.907" Title="Help Editing Short Monologue" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-11-13T21:07:08.930" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9920" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-13T01:15:05.257" Score="3" ViewCount="2206" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Related a bit to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/6980/3561&quot;&gt;Difference between 实际, 现实, 确实, and 实在&lt;/a&gt; I guess. Good to link to it for posterity.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的确, 确实, 实在, 真正&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My dictionaries all say that all four can be adverbs with a meaning of &quot;really.&quot; That's not too helpful when you want to know which one you should use in which situation, and which one you can't use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My problem culminated with this question: &quot;没错，这本书__________是我的&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 的确, B： 实在, C： 真正&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they are all adverbs, and all can mean &quot;really,&quot; then in my mind it's a trick question and I can use any. However ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked a native Chinese speaker, and this is the explanation I received:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的确 and 确实 seem to have about the same meaning, both are adverbs and both seem to indicate a confirmation of a state, and rather than &quot;really,&quot; makes more sense as &quot;actually,&quot; e.g. somebody asks you to try this dish, because it tastes good, and you try it, then, &quot;这个菜确实好吃&quot; ~= &quot;This dish &lt;em&gt;actually is&lt;/em&gt; good!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Further to this, my dictionary says 确实 appears to be able to be used as an adjective also ... which wasn't covered in the explanation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实在 can be an adverb or an adjective, and makes more sense if you think of it as &quot;honest(ly)&quot; when you think something is very good or very bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真正 can be an adverb or an adjective, and makes more sense if you think of it as &quot;true/truly&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few areas that I've encountered in Chinese where the &quot;English equivalent&quot; isn't really the same, and there are certain rules and regulations that cover the Chinese word, but don't have the same distinction in English. I feel this is one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see that 的确 will fit in the above question (It's not a mistake, this book actually is mine,) but going by the English explanations, to me, 真正 could fit too (It's not a mistake, this book truly is mine.) Oh, but ... &quot;It's not a mistake, honestly, this book is mine&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anybody shed any light on this? I would &lt;strong&gt;honestly&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;actually&lt;/strong&gt; be &lt;strong&gt;truly&lt;/strong&gt; grateful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-10-15T03:37:44.020" Title="的确, 确实, 实在, and 真正: what's the difference?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9918" CreationDate="2014-10-13T08:20:21.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我下课以后常常&lt;strong&gt;去我的实习&lt;/strong&gt;（去实&#xA;习）。 “here，我的 can be leave out”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我以后我的实习我有课一遍。 do you mean 我实习后都有课 l have lessons after pratice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的最后&lt;strong&gt;课六时&lt;/strong&gt;（六课时）完毕某些天， 八时其他天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然后我常常开始我的回家作业。（然后我常常回家做作业）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至少有一次每个星期我有Amnesty International会议.（我至少每个星期有Amnesty International会议。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是一个人权组我跟我的男朋友开始。（这是一个我跟我的男朋友参加的人权组织）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果我有会议，&lt;strong&gt;我得回家作业我开始后&lt;/strong&gt;。 我得回家后开始做作业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的奖学金&lt;strong&gt;需求&lt;/strong&gt;（要求）五个课（课时），所以&lt;strong&gt;我有课每天&lt;/strong&gt;（我每天有课）。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周末，&lt;strong&gt;我也很多了学习&lt;/strong&gt;（学习了很多）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果我有时间，&lt;strong&gt;我星期五试试玩儿跟我的朋友们，和星期日吃饭跟我的妈妈。&lt;/strong&gt; 我会星期我跟我的朋友们玩，星期日跟妈妈吃饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有时我恐怕没有时候。&lt;/strong&gt; 有时我恐怕没时间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如实, 我很忙和不能&lt;strong&gt;等到&lt;/strong&gt;（得到 ）休息。 cannot wait for having a rest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;i cannot have a rest  ➡️ 得不到休息&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是， 我有这些机会是很祝福。我有这些机会很开心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6453" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T08:20:21.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9919" CreationDate="2014-10-13T08:25:43.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese native student, show me the English original text if possible.&#xA;我下课以后常常去实习。 我以后我的实习我有课一遍(I can't quite understand this sentience)。 我的最后一节课有时六点结束，其它时间八点结束。（it's suggested to state if the time is pm. or am.） 然后（我常常is unnecessary）开始我的家庭作业。 每个星期我有至少有一次Amnesty International会议. 这是我跟我的男朋友建立(we say 建立 instead of 开始 to express the meaning of establish)的一个人权组。 如果我有会议，我得回家作业我开始后(not clear about your meaning)。 我的奖学金需求五个课，所以我每天有课。 周末，我也有很多学习。 如果我有时间，我星期五跟我的朋友们玩，星期日跟我的妈妈吃饭，但是经常没有时间。 确实, 我很忙，几乎没有休息（not quite clear, too）。不管怎么说，我有这个（what机会）机会还是很开心的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6545" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T08:25:43.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9918" CreationDate="2014-10-13T08:33:10.323" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hope this will help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Correction&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我下课以后常常去实习 （ i often go to intern-ship whenever the class is finish ).&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;实习以后我还有一堂课（After the inter-ship i still have a lesson).&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;我的最后一堂课有时会在六点钟结束，而其它天都会在八点钟结束。 (My last lesson will ended at 6 o'Clock sometimes,while others day will ended at 8 o'Clock) .&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;然后我就会开始做作业。（Then i will start to do my homework) .&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;每周至少有一天我都会有个Amnesty International会议. （At least one day a week i will have a meeting of Amnesty International.&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;这组/会议是由我和我男朋友举办/开始，它是关于人权。(This group/meeting is organized/started by me and my boyfriend, It's about human rights.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;如果我有会议，我得回家作业我开始后。// im not sure what you're trying to express here ,perhaps you can translate it to English first and then i will help you to translate it back to Chinese/ &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;奖学金的条件是必须拥有五个科目，所以我几乎每天都有课。(The requirements of scholarships is must have five subjects, therefore i almost have classes everyday. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;周末，我也必须学习。 (Weekend, i have to learn also) &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;如果我有空闲的时间，我会尝试在星期五和朋友一起出去游玩及在星期日与妈妈一起共餐. (If i have free time, i will try to go out and play with friends on Friday, and having meals with mother on Sunday.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;有时我担心我没时间。 (Sometimes I worry that I do not have time).&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;如实, 我很忙和不能等到休息。 // im not sure what you're trying to express here &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;但是, 我觉得这些机会是很庆幸的 。 （However, I feel that these opportunities are very fortunate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6433" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T08:33:10.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9919" CreationDate="2014-10-13T08:41:01.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Correction&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我下课以后常常去实习 （ i often go to intern-ship whenever the class is finish ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实习以后我还有一堂课（After the inter-ship i still have a lesson).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的最后一堂课有时会在六点钟结束，而其它天都会在八点钟结束。 (My last lesson will ended at 6 o'Clock sometimes,while others day will ended at 8 o'Clock) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然后我就会开始做作业。（Then i will start to do my homework) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每周至少有一天我都会有个Amnesty International会议. （At least one day a week i will have a meeting of Amnesty International.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这组/会议是由我和我男朋友举办/开始，它是关于人权。(This group/meeting is organized/started by me and my boyfriend, It's about human rights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果我有会议，我得回家作业我开始后。// im not sure what you're trying to express here ,perhaps you can translate it to English first and then i will help you to translate it back to Chinese/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奖学金的条件是必须拥有五个科目，所以我几乎每天都有课。(The requirements of scholarships is must have five subjects, therefore i almost have classes everyday. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周末，我也必须学习。 (Weekend, i have to learn also) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果我有空闲的时间，我会尝试在星期五和朋友一起出去游玩及在星期日与妈妈一起共餐. (If i have free time, i will try to go out and play with friends on Friday, and having meals with mother on Sunday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有时我担心我没时间。 (Sometimes I worry that I do not have time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如实, 我很忙和不能等到休息。 // im not sure what you're trying to express here &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是, 我觉得这些机会是很庆幸的 。 （However, I feel that these opportunities are very fortunate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6433" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T08:41:01.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9918" CreationDate="2014-10-13T08:41:53.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我下课以后常常去实习。 实习结束之后继续上课。 我的最后一节课有时下午六点结束，有时晚上八点结束。然后开始我的家庭作业。 每个星期我有至少有一次Amnesty International会议. 这是我跟我的男朋友建立(establish or join?)的一个人权组织。 如果有会议，会议结束后才开始家庭作业。 我的奖学金需要五门课，所以我每天有课。 周末，我也学习很多。 如果我有时间，星期五跟我的朋友们玩，星期天陪我的妈妈吃饭，但是经常没有时间。 的确, 我很忙，几乎没有休息。但是不管怎么说，我有这些机会还是心怀感激的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6545" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T08:41:53.477" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9928" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9931" CreationDate="2014-10-13T15:32:44.480" Score="2" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;could you make some annotation with regard to the grammar needed to translate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T05:03:09.540" Title="how do you say in 文言 &quot;I became an eunuch because of the sex and drugs and tang-poems, not because i love the king and his rotten offspring&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9929" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9930" CreationDate="2014-10-13T18:50:11.353" Score="2" ViewCount="617" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word for a food menu is 菜单 &lt;code&gt;Càidān&lt;/code&gt;, sensibly translating as &quot;food list.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what would you call a game menu? I could only think of 选项 &lt;code&gt;Xuǎnxiàng&lt;/code&gt;, but this &quot;options&quot;, which may be a sub item in the game's menu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T19:02:18.917" Title="the word &quot;menu&quot; in the context of gaming" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9929" CreationDate="2014-10-13T19:02:18.917" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;菜单&lt;/code&gt; in Mainland China, &lt;code&gt;选单&lt;/code&gt; in HK/Taiwan are the standard translations for &lt;code&gt;menu&lt;/code&gt; in Computer Software, no matter it's in a game, a line-of-business application or a utility. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Main menu&lt;/code&gt; is translated into &lt;code&gt;主菜单&lt;/code&gt; in Mainland China and &lt;code&gt;主选单&lt;/code&gt; in HK/Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you're right about &lt;code&gt;选项&lt;/code&gt; is referring to &lt;code&gt;options&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;settings&lt;/code&gt; menu, which is usually a sub item in the main menu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching Google for '游戏主菜单' or '游戏主选单' you'll get plenty of examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T19:02:18.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9928" CreationDate="2014-10-13T19:27:55.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;非以王及其腐產而因情酒唐詩為監也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is always a mine field… for example, one could observe that narcotics as we know them have not been very prominent in Chinese culture, at least not before the forced opium trade, so drugs would be wine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T19:27:55.430" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9932" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-13T21:23:29.943" Score="5" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;The last sentence: from &lt;a href=&quot;http://cn.tmagazine.com/culture/20141013/t13adulthood/dual/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://cn.tmagazine.com/culture/20141013/t13adulthood/dual/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now get off my lawn! 只不过离我远点儿!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, &quot;Get off my lawn!&quot; means I'm old and some young kids did something to remind me of that and that I admit that I'm old and say it out of annoyance - Get off my lawn!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could translate it literally, but a native speaker in China would probably have no idea what it means and take the meaning literally. What lawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The NYT translation means get away from me I think, but I don't think it conveys the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could translate it to I feel old, like, 我觉得自己老了, but then you lose the slanginess and history of the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you translate this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-10-15T00:14:01.497" Title="An example of the difficulty of translation: &quot;Now get off my lawn&quot;. How would you translate this?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9932" CreationDate="2014-10-15T00:14:01.497" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree with the translation as it's too literal and totally misses the mark. Your suggestion - 我觉得自己老了 - is better but as you've said, it lacks the tone and nuance of the expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Variations on the phrase &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_kids_get_off_my_lawn!&quot;&gt;get off my lawn&lt;/a&gt;&quot; were once uttered by ageing homeowners at disrespectful youths but has long since morphed into a caricature of generation gaps. The original users of the phrase are unaware of generational differences and think it's the kids that are acting badly, whereas the phrase is used in the opposite sense nowadays - its users are keenly aware of generational differences, of differences in experience and perspective, and are using it to point out this fact. You might replace it with &quot;you (younger people) don't understand&quot;, &quot;times have changed&quot;, and in certain situations, &quot;you should be grateful&quot; and more. The humour in the phrase is that it simultaneously evokes an image of a cantankerous elder futilely railing against inevitable change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there's no way to 100% capture such a meaning and nuance. If I had to offer a translation, I might try 孩子们一边玩去吧 (you kids run along now), but this lacks the humour in the English phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-10-15T00:14:01.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9934" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-15T02:46:34.410" Score="16" ViewCount="2781" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/js/5BB6.htm&quot;&gt;家&lt;/a&gt; is a bit of a joke: it describes a dwelling (宀) for pigs (豕). Why is this strange construction used? Were pigs somehow important for homes in the past?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说文解字 describes 家 as 从宀，豭省聲 - that is, it uses 豭 (jiā) as phonetic. But then this raises the question: why use 豭 instead of the much simpler 叚 (jiǎ)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;何以不云叚聲。而紆回至此耶。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore the author suspects that the character did indeed originally mean &quot;a dwelling for pigs&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;竊謂此篆本義乃豕之凥也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this raises another question: why did a dwelling for pigs come to mean home? By contrast, 牢 (a dwelling for oxen) has come to mean &quot;jail&quot;. Was the choice of animal therefore arbitrary, or were pigs somehow more important in the past - did people keep pigs in the house? - or did having pigs in the house signify something home-like?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-08-14T11:26:35.170" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:29:28.133" Title="家: why is a home a place for pigs?" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9920" CreationDate="2014-10-15T03:33:41.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;when 真 and 正 are together, the meaning should be closer to 正， so it's different with 真的。 For example, Jack喜欢Lucy的真正原因是Lucy有钱， it means the correct reason is Lucy is rich, also it indicts most people think Jack like Lucy because of other reason, and that's incorrect reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6551" LastActivityDate="2014-10-15T03:33:41.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9920" CreationDate="2014-10-15T03:37:44.020" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A.的确&lt;/strong&gt;   is a subjective and strong word to confirm. For your example in question, &quot;没错，这本书____是我的&quot;, if you translate it into English, &quot;Yes it is, actually this is my book &quot;. Do you feel the mood is so strong? In another word, this book is mine, you never get a change to take it away, also &quot;没错&quot; is the key clue and makes this sentence much stronger. Eventually, the correct answer is &quot;的确&quot;！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B.实在&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;Among native Chinese, few people speak &quot;实在&quot; as the meaning of &quot;truly&quot; or &quot;actually&quot;. They more like to use it as adj, not adv. For an example, &quot;这个人很实在&quot; means &quot;This guy is very good and not selfish&quot;.For adv, &quot;实在&quot;+ adj. is much easier for understanding，such as &quot;实在漂亮&quot;. Note: &#xA;&quot;的确&quot;&gt;&quot;实在&quot;, if you don't know which word to use under different circumstance, try to use &quot;的确&quot; instead of &quot;实在&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C.真正&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;There are only few specific phrase which you need to remember, &quot;真正的男子汉&quot;,&quot;真正意义上的&quot; . It is also not as often as used in daily life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, all the key is to consider the situation and environment when you speak, there are always several key points and clue that would be found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: If you want to say &quot;really&quot; in your spoken-Chinese, it is easy to use &quot;真&quot; + any word you want.  &quot;真香&quot;,&quot;真漂亮&quot;,&quot;真性感&quot;,&quot;这本书真是我的&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6550" LastActivityDate="2014-10-15T03:37:44.020" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9911" CreationDate="2014-10-15T17:13:56.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;路过 = I see what happened and I know what you mean, but it has nothing to do with me. Or it may simply means 'who cares?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a way of expressing indifference, usually used when commenting a piece of news on the internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;News: 'Selena Gomez Admits She's Crying: Is It Over Justin Bieber?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comment: 路过&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For another:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;News: 'US unemployment rate has dropped to XXX'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comment: 路过&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6288" LastActivityDate="2014-10-15T17:13:56.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9934" CreationDate="2014-10-16T00:27:11.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my understanding of the Chinese culture, the typical concept of a Chinese &quot;home&quot; means a plot of land, a house, and some pigs or other animals that help support the family. I guess some time in the past the pigs became so important or so significant for a family that the word &quot;home&quot; is named after it. Although the modern &quot;home&quot; has changed since the time when a significant number of Chinese are farmers, the concept and the Chinese character remain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: My guess for the etymology 牢 is that, in comparison to the more ubiquitous pigs, not every home has cows or oxen, and oxen are relatively more aggressive animals. So, as jails are for  aggressive people (kind of), 牢 is for aggressive animals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6554" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T00:27:11.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9864" CreationDate="2014-10-16T00:59:23.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with all the other answers. However, I tend to say no to the question. &quot;伤&quot; can applied to both physical injury and emotional damage, but &quot;害&quot; has the connotation of &quot;murder&quot; or &quot;planned damage.&quot; It is acceptable to say &quot;伤害感情&quot; (hurt our feelings), but I would just use phrases like &quot;伤了我的心&quot; (broke my heart) or &quot;伤感情.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Background: native speaker, lived in China until three years ago, regularly speak Chinese at home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6554" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T00:59:23.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9941" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9958" CreationDate="2014-10-16T03:37:41.760" Score="4" ViewCount="380" Body="&lt;p&gt;腦洞大開 (Simplified: 脑洞大开) seems to be a phrase that's making its rounds in Sinophone online communities (a Google search may be illuminating), although its precise meaning as of yet still eludes me. It seems that different people have been using it to mean very different things. I've observed some using it to mean &quot;thought-provoking&quot;, and others to mean essentially &quot;exceedingly foolish&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I wish to know, however, is if anyone has any idea where the phrase actually comes from. Being a student of mathematics, my obvious idea is the famous exclamation &quot;my brain is open!&quot; by Paul Erdős, the itinerant mathematician who uses the phrase to greet local mathematicians whenever he wanders to a new place. This meaning doesn't really correspond to the usage of the Chinese phrase, but it seems to be a plausible theory of its origin. Could anyone who follows Chinese online communities more closely than I do possibly shed some light on this neologism?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6498" LastActivityDate="2015-01-27T07:27:23.287" Title="Thoughts on the expression 腦洞大開?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9941" CreationDate="2014-10-16T03:48:29.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes from Nao(3)Bu(3) 脑补，which means someone says something very implicitly and you need to figure out the picture in your brain or the actual meaning of it in your brain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so 脑补 can be literally understood as &quot;Fill the holes in your brain&quot; and thus 脑洞大开 means some phrase needs you really working hard in &quot;脑补&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6557" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T03:48:29.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9934" CreationDate="2014-10-16T03:55:55.903" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The origin form of this word 家 comes from 甲骨文 or 金文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and here is some explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;金文家：古家字從 宀從豕；凡祭，士以羊豕，古者庶士庶人無廟，祭於寢（亦食居之所，故從宀），陳豕（已熟者）於屋下也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so the ancient scholars use a goat or pig for a fete in where they sleep and eat (宀), so 家 means put a cooked pig under the house&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that answers your question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6557" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T03:55:55.903" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9944" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10762" CreationDate="2014-10-16T04:49:06.287" Score="3" ViewCount="1723" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to find a good translation for a playlist that you create for yourself (like on itunes or Youtube), but I haven't been able to find one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T15:50:01.300" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T04:26:50.227" Title="how do you say &quot;Playlist&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9945" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-16T04:54:46.023" Score="5" ViewCount="790" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I know that in general we can use something like 叙旧 to mean &quot;reminisce (as if with old classmates). But how would we say something like &quot;nostalgic&quot; as in &#xA;这首歌让我很Nostalgic。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怀旧？ &#xA;舍不得？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;THanks for any help given!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2021-01-11T06:46:04.253" Title="How to expess “nostalgia” in chinese？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9934" CreationDate="2014-10-16T05:07:03.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@coderzelf's answer is probably most accurate, but I'd like to share an anecdote about my humble origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Towards the end of Qing dynasty, Han Chinese from Northern China migrated in waves into Manchuria where land was vast and labours were few. In order to survive the harsh winter, new comers would ask landlords to allow them to share roofs with their pigs. Often times, the hosts would keep the most promising lads. Many of these teens showed remarkable vitality after they grew up and married into their hosts family. By contrast, those who went to cities and hoped to make it in the streets were all frozen hard over night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Northern China was overall very cold. We can imagine how people keep warm in ancient times. I know Vikings shared roofs with cows in Greenland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T05:07:03.330" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9947" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9951" CreationDate="2014-10-16T05:32:56.837" Score="1" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;how to translate &lt;code&gt;shape&lt;/code&gt; as in: to be &quot;in shape&quot; or to be &quot;out of shape&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just &lt;code&gt;健康&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-10-17T22:36:08.933" Title="Translation: &quot;Shape&quot; (as in &quot;in shape&quot; / &quot;out of shape&quot;)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9944" CreationDate="2014-10-16T06:17:25.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is 播放列表 in Chinese, or you can use 歌单.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6559" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T06:17:25.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9947" CreationDate="2014-10-16T06:18:06.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;in shape&quot; can be means having good muscle tone. In Chinese can be translate as &quot;强壮&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;out of shape&quot; can be means skinny / weak people / have a bad physical stamina. In Chinese can be translate as &quot;瘦弱/软弱“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6433" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T06:18:06.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9945" CreationDate="2014-10-16T06:25:17.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than &lt;code&gt;怀旧&lt;/code&gt; or  &lt;code&gt;舍不得&lt;/code&gt; you can use &lt;code&gt;怀念&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;留念&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Example : 我很怀念这首歌&#xA;Example 2 : 这首歌很值得我留念&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6433" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T06:25:17.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9947" CreationDate="2014-10-16T07:13:00.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this situation, &lt;code&gt;shape&lt;/code&gt; can be translated in to &quot;身材&quot;. &lt;code&gt;in shape&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;好身材，健康&quot; &lt;code&gt;out of shape&lt;/code&gt;means &quot;身材走样&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope to help you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6560" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T07:13:00.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9934" CreationDate="2014-10-16T09:04:12.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that's because people feed pigs at home. this place will not move, but people have to go out to plant rice or something, this place they feed pigs is a place they will come back to rest and live, so this is home. &#xA;just guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6561" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T09:04:12.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9905" CreationDate="2014-10-16T09:15:21.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这个夏天他去了五个洲。(闲聊天)/这个夏天他去了五大洲（较官方）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6561" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T09:15:21.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9941" CreationDate="2014-10-16T09:45:27.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a Network buzzwords.always used when someone says something dirty and others will daydream. I'm a little interested in how you know this word, As I know It's only popular in girls who like gay anime :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6561" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T09:45:27.837" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9945" CreationDate="2014-10-16T12:35:47.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;i remember 復古 and thinking of the word actually does give me a nostalgic feeling, so it totally works for me. a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.de/search?q=%E5%BE%A9%E5%8F%A4&amp;amp;num=50&amp;amp;safe=off&amp;amp;client=firefox-a&amp;amp;hs=zh6&amp;amp;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;tbo=u&amp;amp;source=univ&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=dro_VIvnDafY7Aacx4HoBg&amp;amp;ved=0CCIQsAQ&amp;amp;biw=1404&amp;amp;bih=650&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;quick check&lt;/a&gt; shows that 復古 would appear to have rather vitage-ish connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3674" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T12:35:47.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9941" CreationDate="2014-10-16T14:00:40.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Coderzelf's point about the origin of 脑洞 is correct (At least 脑洞 comes from 脑补 is the most accepted view) , but his explanation for 脑补 isn't so accurate. Though sometimes 脑补 is used to express &quot;figure out the actual meaning of something very implicit&quot;, more frequently, this phrase is used for deliberate delusions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possible origin of 脑洞 is it comes from the phrase 脑子进水, which means… er … &quot;out of one's mind&quot;, so 脑洞大开 is sometimes used to express that something is foolish, but notice that this is mainly joking, not ironic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, 脑洞, 脑补, etc. are all new phrases and their meaning isn't completely stable currently, So their meaning may changed in the future. (Does anyone have the newest edition of 《现代汉语词典》 at hand? Has it included these phrases? They are included in some internet encyclopedias though. ) Here's a reference for 脑洞:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.moegirl.org/%E8%84%91%E6%B4%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.moegirl.org/%E8%84%91%E6%B4%9E&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I forgot to mention: Actually there's a tendency to use 脑洞大开 as a joking version of 异想天开. This isn't mentioned even in any internet encyclopedia, but it's true  as far as I can see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2259" LastEditorUserId="2259" LastEditDate="2015-01-27T07:27:23.287" LastActivityDate="2015-01-27T07:27:23.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9945" CreationDate="2014-10-16T14:46:05.403" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If nostalgia means &quot;longing for something past&quot;, the translation I can think of is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这首歌勾起了我的怀旧情绪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2259" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T14:46:05.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9947" CreationDate="2014-10-16T22:35:13.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It all depends on the context. I would suggest using 健康状况(很好/不太好) to express one's general health status (very good/not so good). If you are trying to tell someone to cut down on icecream, use wanglan8498's answer, or the word 体态 (visual status of the body) to encourage one to hit the gym. I think the word &quot;shape&quot; as used here can be roughly translated into 状态, but the connotation of being slightly casual is perhaps lost. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6564" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T22:35:13.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9893" CreationDate="2014-10-17T03:43:57.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Examples for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/js/5C14.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;尔&lt;/a&gt; used as a adverbial suffix:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/e/37/84077.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;莞尔&lt;/a&gt;，an adverb for &quot;smile&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/3/4/9801.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;卓尔&lt;/a&gt;，an adverb for… er… &quot;act extraordinarily&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/7/10e/293197.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;率尔&lt;/a&gt;，an adverb for &quot;act rashly, etc.&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Links above are references for the character and phrases, maybe a little elusive for non-native speakers, but you can have a glance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2259" LastActivityDate="2014-10-17T03:43:57.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9934" CreationDate="2014-10-17T18:47:56.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you can see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E5%AE%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, 家 was already present in 甲骨文 (~3000 years ago) in essentially similar form. Thus 豕 is not an abbreviation for 豭. (edit: though there is a relation. Per dROOOze's answer, 豕 is phonetic in 家, suggesting &lt;em&gt;jia&lt;/em&gt;, and 豭 is a later version of this 豕.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastEditorUserId="3183" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:53:44.730" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:53:44.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9947" CreationDate="2014-10-17T22:36:08.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this content, shape: 狀態  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In shape / In good shape: 狀態良好&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In bad shape / Out of shape: 狀態惡劣  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you're referring to physically In shape / out of shape you could use 體態&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-10-17T22:36:08.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9964" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9965" CreationDate="2014-10-18T01:36:38.260" Score="0" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me by identifying ehat language it is?&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DdDrV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6571" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T02:15:40.273" Title="Recognise language from the image" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-10-22T00:50:26.803" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9964" CreationDate="2014-10-18T02:15:40.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese. &#xA;translation: I think this is important to me and all the Latvian people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6548" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T02:15:40.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9366" CreationDate="2014-10-18T02:29:39.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;一些means &quot;some&quot;, but 一点 means &quot;a little&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6548" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T02:29:39.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9359" CreationDate="2014-10-18T02:34:17.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China, airline names are often shortened. Air China, 中国航空公司, is contracted to 国航. Also some phrases are contracted such as 怎么样(zen ma yang) can be shortened to 咋样(za yang).&#xA;Or &quot;what are you saying 说什么(shuo shen me)&quot; can go to &quot;说啥&quot; (shuo sha).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6548" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T02:34:17.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9366" CreationDate="2014-10-18T04:34:57.350" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say both, but they apply in different situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一些 means a small number of countable things.  Use it when you would say &quot;some&quot; or &quot;a few&quot; in English.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一些蛋糕 &quot;some cakes&quot; is appropriate to talk about three or four cakes in the bakery window.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一些汽水 &quot;some sodas&quot; is appropriate to talk about a few cans of soda on the table.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一些自行车 &quot;some bicycles&quot; is appropriate to talk about some bicycles outside your school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 一点 means a small amount or &quot;a little bit&quot; of a &quot;mass noun&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一点蛋糕 &quot;a little bit of cake&quot; is appropriate to talk about a portion of a single cake.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一点汽水 &quot;a little bit of soda&quot; is appropriate to talk about how much is left in your glass.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is very clear when you try to say 一点自行车 since a bicycle cannot be portioned out &quot;a little bit&quot; at a time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tl;dr To make it easy to remember, if you can count how many you have (apples, kittens, phones, etc.) then use 一些, otherwise, go with 一点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明白了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3202" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T04:34:57.350" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9970" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9971" CreationDate="2014-10-18T10:57:43.580" Score="2" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the common used colloquial translation of &quot;increase in price&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know some of them like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;涨价&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;提价&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;价格上涨&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one do you often use? or if there is better alternative, please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T03:07:47.057" Title="Colloquial translation of &quot;increase in price&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9970" CreationDate="2014-10-18T11:11:04.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often use 漲价!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think the first and third one is really common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you say &quot;the price of the food is increasing this year&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's equal to &quot;食物今年又漲价了！&quot; and &quot;食物今年价格上漲了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6576" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T11:11:04.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9366" CreationDate="2014-10-18T11:15:14.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In math,&#xA;一些東西 is more than 一點東西.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like &quot;some&quot; is more than &quot;a little&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6576" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T11:15:14.167" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9970" CreationDate="2014-10-18T11:17:27.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;涨价 most colloquial; often used as a descriptive word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;提价 colloquial, can be both a descriptive word and a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;价格上涨 formal, descriptive, used by news agencies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T11:17:27.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9974" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9975" CreationDate="2014-10-18T14:04:19.867" Score="2" ViewCount="1647" Body="&lt;p&gt;比如，如果我要翻译：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The temperature in Beijing tomorrow will be in its &lt;em&gt;low/mid/late&lt;/em&gt; 20's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm guessing she's in her &lt;em&gt;early/mid/(high or upper)&lt;/em&gt; 20's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要怎么翻译？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;更新：&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.）一般来说，early/low 等于 20-23, mid 等于 24-26, high/upper 等于 27-29, 可是这不是固定的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.） 我把问题该城更普遍. （I made the question more general.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="3011" LastEditDate="2014-10-19T00:11:09.113" LastActivityDate="2021-01-28T08:02:17.453" Title="怎么用汉语说 ”early/mid/late 20's&quot; 或 “low/mid/high&quot; 20's&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9974" CreationDate="2014-10-18T14:12:56.777" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For early/low 20s&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not very sure about the EXACT ranges (if any) that &amp;quot;early 20s&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;low 20s&amp;quot; refer to in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chinese, you may at least have three options to choose from, according to &amp;quot;how early/low&amp;quot; the range that you intend to express is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;early 20s&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;20多岁&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;20来岁&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;20岁出头&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;low 20s&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;20多度&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;20来度&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;20度出头&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. A &lt;a href=&quot;http://t1.mywtv.cn/content/m/p/content_3314.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;weather forecast&lt;/a&gt; broadcast by CCTV in which &amp;quot;5度出头&amp;quot; was used at 1:01, &lt;a href=&quot;http://t1.mywtv.cn/content/m/p/content_1778.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;another one&lt;/a&gt; in which &amp;quot;20多度&amp;quot; was used at 0:45&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There must be some disagreement among native speakers as to what the exact ranges the expressions above refer to (they are not rigidly defined), but I believe generally one will feel that the range gradually turns narrower from left to right. (e.g. &lt;code&gt;20多岁&lt;/code&gt; → 21 to 25; &lt;code&gt;20来岁&lt;/code&gt; → 20 to 23；&lt;code&gt;20岁出头&lt;/code&gt; → 20 to 22 or even lower）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, the patterns mentioned above are fairly productive in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;multiples of ten + 多/来 + unit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 30多天, 20来吨 (We don't say 32多天 or 25来吨)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;number (it doesn't have to be multiples of ten, but the nuance is a bit tricky, see exmaples below) + unit + 出头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;25米出头(a little bit longer than 25m, &lt;strong&gt;must be shorter than 26m&lt;/strong&gt;, since the scale is 25m - 26m),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;20米出头(a little bit longer than 20m, &lt;strong&gt;can be even longer than 21m&lt;/strong&gt;, since the scale is 20m - 30m).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For late/high 20s&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with Marc that &lt;code&gt;将近30度/岁&lt;/code&gt; or simply &lt;code&gt;近30度/岁&lt;/code&gt; (in literal: near 30) can be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For mid 20s&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with Marc that there may not be a handy phrase for that. However, I think you can alternatively say &lt;code&gt;25度/岁左右&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;25度/岁上下&lt;/code&gt; (in literal: around 25).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4551" LastEditorUserId="4551" LastEditDate="2021-01-28T08:02:17.453" LastActivityDate="2021-01-28T08:02:17.453" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9976" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9985" CreationDate="2014-10-18T19:54:49.767" Score="1" ViewCount="428" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 功亏一貫 mean in English and its origin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what does 貫 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="922" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2014-10-26T18:52:22.790" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T18:52:22.790" Title="What does 功亏一篑 mean and its origin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9977" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-19T00:29:55.947" Score="1" ViewCount="853" Body="&lt;p&gt;比如，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一般上，这个生词是这样用的：。。。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“一般来说，early/low 等于 20-23, mid 等于 24-26, high/upper 等于 27-29, 可是这不是固定的” (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9974/%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E7%94%A8%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E8%AF%B4-early-mid-late-20s-%E6%88%96-low-mid-high-20s&quot;&gt;see here&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些用法都对吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T17:36:15.133" Title="How do I use “一般” in this context?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9978" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9980" CreationDate="2014-10-19T00:45:17.027" Score="4" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;是不是可以说： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在这上下文，这个生词不可以这样用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还有，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You've taken it entirely out of context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或者比如有学生问老师个问题，可是问提不太清楚，老师会回答说：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can you give provide some context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T02:46:36.790" Title="How do I translate &quot;context&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9974" CreationDate="2014-10-19T02:08:09.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In colloquial speech, &quot;20多度&quot; &quot;20来度&quot; &quot;20度出头&quot; are all acceptable. However, one would definitely not expect to see them in formal speech (like a televised weather forecast) or in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, it seems to me that Chinese weather forecasts would probably prefer &quot;20度左右&quot; or &quot;大约20度&quot; (around 20 degrees) to any of these terms. If one insists on finding a translation for &quot;low twenties&quot;, I would say &quot;20余度&quot;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://society.people.com.cn/n/2014/0506/c1008-24983274.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt;, for instance, says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;进入5月，当地气温迅速回升走高，从最高20余度，迅速到达了30度。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;High twenties would probably be &quot;将近30度&quot;. I'm not sure if there even is a phrase corresponding to &quot;mid-twenties&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6498" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T02:08:09.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9978" CreationDate="2014-10-19T02:46:36.790" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Context' stands for the 'environment' / 'background' that an object or event lives in. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It could be translated differently depending on &lt;strong&gt;context&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  它可以依照&lt;strong&gt;语境&lt;/strong&gt;来作具体翻译.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;..  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在这&lt;strong&gt;上下文&lt;/strong&gt;，这个生词不可以这样用。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  / 在当前&lt;strong&gt;上下文&lt;/strong&gt;，这个生词不可以像这样用。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remarks: In modern Chinese '这' rarely appears alone instead of '这儿' '这里' '这样' '此'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;..  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You've taken it entirely &lt;strong&gt;out of context&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你完全&lt;strong&gt;脱离了背景范畴&lt;/strong&gt;. / 你过于&lt;strong&gt;断章取义&lt;/strong&gt;了. /你过于&lt;strong&gt;片面&lt;/strong&gt;了.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can you give provide some &lt;strong&gt;context&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  可以提供一些&lt;strong&gt;相关背景&lt;/strong&gt;吗?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6578" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T02:46:36.790" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9977" CreationDate="2014-10-19T02:54:32.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it's fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一 = over, across all.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;般 = kind, sort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般 = general(ly), usual(ly), normal(ly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6578" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T02:54:32.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9976" CreationDate="2014-10-19T03:02:48.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, it's composed as 功亏一&lt;em&gt;篑&lt;/em&gt; where  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;篑 = container basket in construction  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;功亏一篑 =  Lack of a basketful to build the mount. / Lack of the final straw to break the camel's back (:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6578" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T03:02:48.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9970" CreationDate="2014-10-19T03:07:47.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For reference in Southeast Asia people usually say  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;起价  (:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  价钱又起啦~  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6578" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T03:07:47.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9977" CreationDate="2014-10-19T03:18:57.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;一般上&quot; sounds weird to me. I'd say &quot;一般而言，这个生词是这样用的&quot; or &quot;这个生词一般是这样用的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4551" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T03:18:57.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9976" CreationDate="2014-10-19T04:00:29.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means giving up when project is almost done, e.g. a marathon runner quits only one step before the finish line. Often used to attribute failure to lack of persistence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为山九仞，功亏一篑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Planed to build a nine-ren-high dirt mountain, but abandoned the project before finishing the last basket of dirt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;功：所做的事情, project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;亏：缺少, short of, lack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;篑：盛土的筐子, basket for carrying dirt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/79081.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/79081.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe there is an English translation just as picturesque, but I can't come up with it at this moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T04:00:29.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9976" CreationDate="2014-10-19T10:41:13.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“功亏一篑” in my country means you have done anything but you can't make it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4545" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T10:41:13.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9987" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9988" CreationDate="2014-10-19T21:33:14.390" Score="1" ViewCount="740" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to translate the identification mark on a bottom of a Chinese bowl. I am almost positive the right two characters translate to &quot;Jingde&quot; but I can't seem to be able to figure out the left two characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V7rgB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V7rgB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Image 1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k3Hku.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k3Hku.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Image 2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6583" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T03:32:51.987" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T03:32:51.987" Title="Translate identification mark on a Chinese bowl (Characters identified: 景德鎮製)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9987" CreationDate="2014-10-19T21:39:02.560" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;景德鎮製: Made in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingdezhen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jingdezhen&lt;/a&gt;, the ancient porcelain-making center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the traditional writing order, from top to bottom and then from right to left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6498" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T21:39:02.560" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9893" CreationDate="2014-10-19T23:09:42.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;爾/尔 in Classical Chinese can be used similarly to 然, roughly meaning &quot;thus/so/in such a manner&quot;, changing the word to which it's suffixed into an adverb. Here's an example from Mencius 孟子 we can analyze:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一簞食，一豆羹：得之則生，弗得則死。&lt;strong&gt;嘑爾&lt;/strong&gt;而與之，行道之人弗受；&lt;strong&gt;蹴爾&lt;/strong&gt;而與之，乞人不屑也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempt at a faithful English translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A basket of rice, a platter of soup: with them one survives; without them one dies. When offered &lt;strong&gt;insultingly&lt;/strong&gt;, a vagabond would not accept them; when offered &lt;strong&gt;trampled&lt;/strong&gt;, even a beggar would reject them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we see 爾 modify the verbs 嘑 (to insult) and 蹴 (to trample) to convert them into adverbs that indicate how the food is offered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T23:09:42.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9977" CreationDate="2014-10-20T00:49:38.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As answered by Noir, &quot;一般上&quot; looks a bit weird to me as well, while I'm a native Chinese speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally/Usually, we use &quot;一般来说&quot;, &quot;一般而言&quot; or &quot;通常来说&quot; in this context (right, here is a best practice for &quot;一般来说&quot;)&#xA;(Chinese for my last sentence) 一般来说，在这种上下文环境里我们使用&quot;一般来说&quot;, &quot;一般而言&quot;或者&quot;通常来说&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3985" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T00:49:38.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9934" CreationDate="2014-10-20T14:45:21.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning behind the radicals used for 家, as explained on page 93 of a book titled &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chineasy.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chineasy: The New Way to Read Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;In ancient China, pigs were raised indoors to keep them safe. Pigs in the house then became associated with a bountiful home.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know anecdotal references aren't much, but I'd like to include that my Mandarin language teacher (from Beijing) has also explained the same reasoning, and even passed out illustrations made by another source depicting this explanation. If I find the illustrations later, I'll post them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;EDIT:&lt;/b&gt; Adding info about 牢 liao2, as brought up by OP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning behind the radicals used for 牢, as described by &lt;a href=&quot;http://chineasy.org/basics/set-1/roof/prison.aspx?compound=1831&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chineasy.org&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&quot;The compound for Prison (牢) is comprised of the building block for Roof (宀) and Cow (牛). Cows that were kept in a household were used as beasts of burden. So though the original meaning of this compound was “fold, pen”, it has since extended to mean, “prison” as a noun (監牢) and “firm” (牢固) as an adjective.&quot;&lt;/b&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6059" LastEditorUserId="6059" LastEditDate="2014-10-22T18:53:11.277" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T18:53:11.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9992" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9996" CreationDate="2014-10-20T14:46:11.390" Score="3" ViewCount="927" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I go to my favorite restaurant, I often order the same thing. I order in Chinese and apparently I've become predictable. How can I ask an equivalent (not necessarily equal) phrase of &quot;am I so predictable?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate gives a literal translation that may sound awkward (I'm not sure).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;難道我的預測？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a set-phrase that is often used to express this idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastEditorUserId="3634" LastEditDate="2014-10-20T15:12:15.280" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T19:26:02.277" Title="Am I so predictable?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9992" CreationDate="2014-10-20T15:08:19.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 我點的菜真的是經常一樣嗎？ It means &quot;Am I always ordering the same thing?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Google Translate one translated back to English means &quot;Really, my predictions?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4405" LastEditorUserId="4405" LastEditDate="2014-10-20T17:25:34.957" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T17:25:34.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9992" CreationDate="2014-10-20T16:15:36.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我就這麼好猜嗎？ (Am I so predictable?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有這麼好猜嗎？ (Have I so predictable?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;難道我的預測？   (Maybe my forecast?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We always put 真的 and 是 together, but there's no really answer,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's just an habit(?), so it should be 我點的菜&quot;真的是&quot;經常一樣嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T16:15:36.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9974" CreationDate="2014-10-20T17:46:22.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;early/low: 二十几(度／岁)、二十(度／岁)多一点儿、二十(度／岁)出头、二十一二(度／岁)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mid: 二十五六(度／岁)、二十五(度／岁)左右&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;late/upper: 二十七八(度／岁)、将近三十(度／岁)、三十(度／岁)不到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Note that 左右 means about, which means &quot;may be bigger or smaller than&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Note the position of quantitative word, herein represented by 度／岁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Do not use 二十八九岁 in the last case (or similarly, 二十六七、二十三四、二十四五 for previous cases) unless you are sure that person is exactly 28/29.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T17:46:22.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9992" CreationDate="2014-10-20T18:58:12.540" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers covered the translation part. I am going to give my two cents on the culture side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a set-phrase that is often used to express this idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think so, because traditionally Chinese don't really respond that way. If someone is 'predicting' your order, he's really saying 'I know what you like' as a gesture of intimacy, friendliness or at least, care. A positive response is usually along the line with 'exactly', 'you really know me', 'it's a pleasant surprise that you remembered', etc. I am not quite sure what subtext does 'am I so predictable' convey in English speaking culture, but a verbatim translation in Chinese doesn't sound very positive when used as a response to that 'predicting' conversation. Considering how uniformity, agreement and tacit understanding were valued in traditional Chinese culture, 'am I so predictable' might sound fun or sexy to some listeners, but it might be perceived as rejection, a perverse personality or a bad mood to some other listeners, depending on their social role and culture belief. I am not saying you shouldn't respond that way, just a reminder of how it could be received differently from your intention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some simple, low-key positive acknowledgements:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没错 (exactly)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你猜对了 (your guess is right)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你都记住了 (you remembered!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-10-20T19:26:02.277" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T19:26:02.277" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9997" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-20T19:53:13.547" Score="6" ViewCount="393" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am searching for contractions in classical Chinese.&#xA;for example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;而已 ---contracts-to---&gt; 耳.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Liebe Grüsse an die süsse Teresa!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T22:34:44.483" Title="what are common contractions in classical chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9998" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-20T19:58:37.133" Score="0" ViewCount="461" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question itself is already sufficient in description. Whose brilliant brain had the idea to coerce this nonsensical additional commentary text on us?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T04:08:06.787" Title="What different grammatical uses exist for 而 in classical chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9997" CreationDate="2014-10-20T22:34:44.483" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraction_%28grammar%29#Chinese&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraction_%28grammar%29#Chinese&lt;/a&gt; gives the following (just copied it in):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;諸 = 之乎 (In some rarer cases 諸 can also be contraction for 有之乎. 諸 can be used on its own with the meaning of &quot;all, the class of&quot;, as in 諸侯 &quot;the feudal lords.&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;焉 = 於之 (於之 is never used; only 焉.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;旃 = 之焉 (Rare.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爰 = 于之 (Rare. The prepositions 於, 于, and 乎 are of different origin, but used interchangeably (except that 乎 can also be used as a final question particle).)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;然 = 如之&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;云 = 曰之&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;弗 = 不之&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;勿 = 毋之 (弗 and 勿 were originally not contractions, but were reanalyzed as contractions in the Warring States period.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;耳 = 而已&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;盍 = 胡不 (胡 is a variant of 何.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;與 = 也乎 (Also written 歟.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;邪 = 也乎 (Also written 耶. Probably a dialectal variant of 與.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;夫 = 不乎 (夫 has many other meanings.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;奈何 = 若之何&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5961" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T22:34:44.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10000" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-20T22:42:23.200" Score="2" ViewCount="924" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of translations suggest it's &quot;butter biscuit, but that's not the correct thing I'm thinking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm referring to the filling in bread sold from bakeries that is flaky and sweet, sometimes with raisins in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;does anyone know what the most accurate translation is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6380" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T03:30:06.763" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T01:28:30.990" Title="what's 奶酥 in english?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10000" CreationDate="2014-10-20T22:56:11.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my best knowledge it's Chinese &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puff_pastry&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;puff (pastry)&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sou_(pastry)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sou&lt;/a&gt; (transliteration of 酥). These words are not super accurate translation though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-10-21T01:29:52.030" LastActivityDate="2014-10-21T01:29:52.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9603" CreationDate="2014-10-21T00:02:39.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many websites like PopupChinese or ChinesePod as well as textbooks or HSK practice exams with companion CDs that have beginner appropriate dialogues.  One big list of listening materials is here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.hackingchinese.com/t/Listening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://resources.hackingchinese.com/t/Listening&lt;/a&gt;.  With the online sites you often need to pay additional money for a premium membership in order to download Mandarin only audio dialogues files to your computer (the dialogue only files are better for listening practices than the typical full lessons interspersed with English you can listen to free online).  Once you have a bunch of Chinese audio on your computer it is easy to practice by launching an audio dialogue file (I'd recommend using something like Audacity over a normal mp3 player since it makes it easy to highlight a region of the audio you are having difficulty with and have it play over and over again and also to export snippets to separate files for inclusion into your SRS flashcards) and see if you can transcribe it (you can then often check a dialogue transcript to see if you are correct).  Besides actively listening to dialogues and practice it is good to passively listen to Mandarin dialogues in the background as you do other things in order to improve your listening skills.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3720" LastActivityDate="2014-10-21T00:02:39.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10015" CreationDate="2014-10-21T02:41:36.070" Score="0" ViewCount="631" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would love to learn some more functional Chinese, especially Chinese that will allow me to become self sufficient in my own learning. I have a year of Chinese under my belt, but I am having trouble speaking to Chinese natives/students here in Shanghai. Can you translate the following phrases to me in Chinese and Pinyin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) How do I say this word in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) How do I say this phrase in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) What is the most standard way to say X in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) verb, noun, adjective. Is word X an adjective?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) If I say something unusual or pronounce something unusually, can you do me a favor and correct me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Since I am trying to learn Chinese, can you give me some useful phrases to say in Chinese everyday?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7)How do I use Chinese to say X? Can you provide me an example sentence? Can you use the word in a sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6590" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T18:17:22.327" Title="Some self-sufficient Chinese phrases. Help me?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9998" CreationDate="2014-10-21T03:56:09.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[conj.] (&lt;em&gt;almost&lt;/em&gt;=&lt;strong&gt;while&lt;/strong&gt;) a conj. with slight sense of transition/suppose, can be translated into: and;furthermore;moreover;but also;into the bargain;if;in case;however.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;连&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从古沿用下来的连词,可连接词、短语和分句,表示多种关系 [and;furthermore;moreover;but also;into the bargain;if;in case;however]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;(1)&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;(listing)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;表示并列关系&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;永州之野产异蛇,黑质而白章。—— 唐· 柳宗元《捕蛇者说》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wilderness of Eishu(Yongzhou) produces peculiar snakes, whose skin black and texture white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;(2)&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;(progressing)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;表示递进关系&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;君子博学而日参省乎己。——《荀子·劝学》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kunshi (Junzi) (a noble one) broadly studies and furthermore daily introspect into himself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;(3)&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;(a slight casual relationship)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;表示承接关系&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;余方心动欲还,而大声发于水上。——宋· 苏轼《石钟山记》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was just hesitating to go home, when great sound generates from the waters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;(4)&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;(slight transition)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;表示转折关系&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青,取之于蓝,而青于蓝。——《荀子·劝学》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ao (qin) is taken from Ai (lan), yet bluer/darker than Ai(lan).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;(5)&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;(surmise)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;表示假设关系&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诸君而(如果)有意;瞻余马首可也。——清· 徐珂《清稗类钞·战事类》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You fellows if interested, up-look into my horse's head's orientation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;(6)&lt;strong&gt;(modification, similar to suffix &lt;em&gt;-ly&lt;/em&gt; in English)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;表示修饰关系,连接状语&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吾恂恂而起。——唐· 柳宗元《捕蛇者说》 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I uneasily got up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[pron.] you,your; this&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;〈代〉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;(1) 你;你的 [you;your]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;余知而无罪也。——《左传·昭公二十年》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know you are innocent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;(2) 这样,此 [this]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同是被逼迫,君而妾亦然。——《玉台新咏·古诗为焦仲卿妻作》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same enforced, you being so and I also being.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[aux.]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;〈助〉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;(1)&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;(modification, &quot;as to the extent&quot;)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;表示偏正关系,相当于“之”,“的” [of]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虞之与虢,相恃而势。——《淮南子·人间》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go(yu, ancient country) treating Kaku(guo, ancient country), take reciprocal reliance as the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;(2)&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;(comparison, though sometimes the same positioning can be case 1.6)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;与“上”、“下”、“前”、“后”、“来”、“往”连用,相当于“以”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;形而上者谓之道,形而下者谓之器。——《易·系辞上》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Up to entity is called Tao, down to entity called mechanism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[mod.]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;语气&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;(1)&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;(negative question)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;用于句中,表示反问,相当于“难道”,“岂” [how could;how is it possible]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为仁由己,而由人乎哉?——《论语·颜渊》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To practice kindness is out of oneself, how could it be out of others? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;(2)&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;(exclamation)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;用于句末,相当于“耳”,“哪”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已而已而,今之从政者殆而。——《论语·微子》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finished already, finished already, today's politicians are stupid as such!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ref:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/xs/800C.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ZDIC&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-10-21T03:56:09.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10007" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-21T19:59:42.163" Score="0" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some real problem understanding the semantics behind this word, I would be glad to see how this word was used in classical Chinese in order to get an idea of its original usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T18:03:10.687" Title="Could you give an example of a sentence in classical chinese wherein 爽 is used?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10008" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10010" CreationDate="2014-10-21T23:01:02.763" Score="3" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can &quot; 天空一片蔚藍 &quot; also be  &quot;一片蔚藍天空&quot;? And what's the reason?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could &quot;天空是一片蔚藍&quot; be correct too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also can someone give a good translation? I just translate it as &quot;An azure blue sky&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I might be over thinking it but I really want to know. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just want to add another thing. Another sentence I encounter is &quot;天空一片蔚藍，很漂亮吧&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can we say both &quot;一片蔚藍天空，很漂亮吧&quot; and &quot;天空是一片蔚藍，很漂亮吧&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6593" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-22T01:11:46.350" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T01:11:46.350" Title="Can &quot; 天空一片蔚藍 &quot; also be &quot;一片蔚藍天空&quot;? And translation please?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10009" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-22T01:18:19.267" Score="0" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've done a brief search through CSE, but found nothing too helpful. Are there any online resources that explain the meaning of the radicals followed by some examples in simplified Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T05:25:22.587" Title="Online resources for meanings and examples of radicals in simplified Chinese" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10008" CreationDate="2014-10-22T01:56:18.540" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;天空一片蔚藍&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;天空是一片蔚藍&lt;/code&gt; is sentence, which means &lt;code&gt;The sky is all blue&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一片蔚藍天空&lt;/code&gt; is a phrase, as you said, it means &lt;code&gt;An azure blue sky&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T01:56:18.540" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10008" CreationDate="2014-10-22T04:32:31.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is a sentence with a nominal predicate，e。g。see 实用现代汉语语法 ６６７页 第四节  名词谓语句 （Sentences with nominal predicates）&#xA;（四）描写主语的状况、特征或属性。谓语多是带有形容词或数量词的名词短语。(describing condition，characteristic features or properties，predicate often is an NP (noun phrase) with adjective or measure word)&#xA;other examples (in particular note (4)):&#xA;(1)这个十九岁的姑娘， 高 高 的 个 子， 一 双 眼 睛， 显得很机灵。（描写容貌)&#xA;（２）张大哥 急 性 子， 张大嫂 慢 性 子。 （描写性格）&#xA;（３）桌前 两 三 把 小 沙 发 和 一 个 矮 茶  几 儿。（描写室内状况，陈设）&#xA;（４）日头将没不没的时候，水面  一 片 红 光， 耀眼睛！（描写景色）&#xA;note that this type of sentence is characterized by the absence of the verb 是。Therefore *天空是一片蔚藍 appears substandard to say the least, besides in this type of sentence subject and predicate in general cannot be interchanged, therefore 一片蔚藍天空 appears&#xA;ungrammatical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T04:32:31.727" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9407" CreationDate="2014-10-22T08:23:43.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;幸福是奢侈品，高兴很难得，偶尔快乐，常常愉快，如此人生足矣！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6595" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T08:23:43.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10003" CreationDate="2014-10-22T08:35:06.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here you go. Kudos to @S.Rhee and @nacho.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) How do I say this word in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这  个  词 怎  么  念? &#xA;zhe ge ci zen me nian?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) How do I say this phrase in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这  话   用   汉  语  怎  么  说？ &#xA;zhe hua yong han yu zen me shuo?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) What is the most standard way to say X in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;用    最  标   准   的 普  通   话  怎  么  说   X？ &#xA;yong zui biao zun de pu tong hua zen me shuo X? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) verb, 动词 (dong ci)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;noun, 名词 (ming ci)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adjective. 形容词 (xing rong ci)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is word X an adjective?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;X 是  形    容   词  吗？&#xA;X shi xing rong ci ma?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) If I say something unusual or pronounce something unusually, can you do me a favor and correct me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;如果  我  用词    不当    或   发音   异常，    你 帮    我  改正      一下    好吗？&#xA;ruguo wo yongci budang  huo fayin yichang, ni bang  wo gaizheng  yixia  haoma?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Since I am trying to learn Chinese, can you give me some useful phrases to say in Chinese everyday?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;因为    我   想      学习    中文，     您   讲      给   我  一些   日常用语      好吗?&#xA;yinwei  wo  xiang   xuexi  zhongwen  nin  jiang  gei  wo yixie  richangyongyu haoma?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7)How do I use Chinese to say X? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;用    汉语   怎么   说   X？&#xA;yong hanyu  zenme shuo X?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you provide me an example sentence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;请    给  我  说   个  例句  好吗？&#xA;qing gei wo shuo ge liju haoma?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you use the word in a sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;请   用    这 词  造  个 句  好吗?&#xA;qing yong ze ci zao ge ju haoma?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T08:35:06.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10018" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-22T11:58:49.087" Score="0" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know Chinese use the sequence S O V. I also know place follows time, for instance in these ways: t(ime), p(lace)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;S tp V O&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tp S V O&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;t S p V O&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where do I put further phrases, like adverbial expressions in a Chinese sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-01-01T15:22:50.697" LastActivityDate="2016-01-01T15:22:50.697" Title="Where do I put adverbial expressions and other phrases in a sentence?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10018" CreationDate="2014-10-22T15:24:56.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;adverbial adjuncts (状语) always premodify the predicate which can be a verb, adjective or other predicate. These have to be distinguished from complements (补语）。The latter always postmodify the predicate (verb or adjective) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;quote from 外国人实用汉语语法（ISBN ７－８００５２－０６７－６）第无节 状语 （Adverbial Adjuncts）&#xA;一，什么叫状语（Definition） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在动词谓语前边的状语 （adverbial adjuncts premodifying the verb predicate：状语－－－中心语（动词谓语）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adverbial adjunct ＋ modified word （verb predicate）&#xA;他 昨 天 参加了一个招待会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们 那 边 看看。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他 很 关心大家的健康。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 只 有一本汉语语法书。etc。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在形容词谓语前边的状语：&#xA;（Adverbial adjuncts premodifying adjective predicate）：&#xA;状语－－－中心语（形容词谓语）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adverbial adjunct ＋ head word （adjective predicate）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他 非 常 谨慎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他对人 很 热情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他说话的声音 不 大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在其他谓语前边的状语 （adverbial adjuncts premodifying other types of predicates）：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他 已 经 二十八岁了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天大概十七号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二，状语的语法特点（Grammatical features）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（一）状语一定要在中心语前边 （The adverbial adjunct always precedes the head word）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（三）状语后边常带结构助词＂地（de）＂（The structural particle 地 is often attached to the adverbial adjunct）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T15:24:56.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10020" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-22T17:18:24.857" Score="8" ViewCount="2502" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would I translate &quot;&quot;I know that I don't know&quot; into Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can translate the similar sentence &quot;I know that you don't know&quot; as 我知道你不知道. However, saying 我知道我不知道 sounds strange. What's the best way to translate it? Is there a sensible translation that preserves the grammatical structure in English, which has &quot;I don't know&quot; as the nominalized object of &quot;I know&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T13:15:17.777" Title="How do you say &quot;I know that I don't know&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10021" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10023" CreationDate="2014-10-22T17:22:24.747" Score="3" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hello I'm learning Chinese and I would like to know when I have to use only 听 and when 听力? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6597" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-11T15:52:50.410" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T15:52:50.410" Title="What is the difference between 听 and 听力|?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9977" CreationDate="2014-10-22T17:36:15.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;一般上&quot; is more like Cantonese (that is spoken in the Guangdong province, Hong Kong, and also Malaysia etc). It seldom appears in Mandarin Chinese. If you want to learn the general Chinese, you can forget about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage in the second example is correct. As stated by other people, it means generally (but may not be always true).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4360" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T17:36:15.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10021" CreationDate="2014-10-22T17:38:29.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;听 is a verb, for example 听歌 (listen to a song).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听力 is a noun: the ability to hear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4360" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T17:38:29.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10020" CreationDate="2014-10-22T17:59:34.543" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;我意识到我不知道. I realize that I don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我知道我不了解情况. I know I don't know the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T17:59:34.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10020" CreationDate="2014-10-22T18:00:23.717" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Classical answer: 知之为知之，不知为不知，是知也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T18:00:23.717" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10003" CreationDate="2014-10-22T18:17:22.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;好像缺乏声调标记的拼音使用有限 （it seems pinyin w／o tone marks is of limited use），因为有用于这一目的的在线工具，第一评论作者好像认为把文字转变成拼音是不必要的（怎么还会有使用者不知道这事情？）（as there are online tools for that purpose, author of first comment containing suggestions apparently thought it unnecessary to use some online converter for conversion）以下就请看一眼这种转换的结果：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１ 。 zhège cí nǐ zěnme niàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;２ 。 zhè jù huà yòng hànyǚ (no umlaut) zěnme shuō ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;３ 。 pǔtōnghuà zuì biāozhǔn de fāngfǎ shuō X shì shénme ？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;４ 。 míngcí 、 dòngcí 、 xíngróngcí ，zhège cí shì xíngróngcí ma ？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;５ 。 shuō bù xúncháng de cíjù huò fāyīn yìcháng dehuà ， nǐ néng bùnéng bāng wǒ yīxià ， gěi wǒ gǎizhèng ， hǎo ma ？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;６ 。 yīnwèi wǒ (wǒ could be omitted, since clear from context )xiǎng xuéxí zhōngwén ， nín néng bùnéng jiǎng gěi wǒ yīxiē hànyǚ (no umlaut) cízǔ wèile rìcháng shǐyòng 。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;７ 。 yòng hànyǚ (no umlaut) zěnme shuō ？ néng bùnéng gěi wǒ tígōng gè lìjù ne ？ néng bùnéng zài mǒu jùzi zhōng yòng zhè cíyǔ ？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get the changes (corrections) in answer 1, use online converter again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T18:17:22.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10027" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10034" CreationDate="2014-10-22T19:36:47.653" Score="1" ViewCount="476" Body="&lt;p&gt;我发音得不太准. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does it translate as &quot;My pronunciation is the best/exact?&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 准? Does it depends on the context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6597" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-14T05:08:39.577" LastActivityDate="2015-04-15T04:25:39.413" Title="How to translate: 我发音得不太准" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10028" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10029" CreationDate="2014-10-22T21:31:14.223" Score="3" ViewCount="569" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any way to say that when you write a story, it has to &quot;have a moral&quot;? (i.e. it has to teach you something). Is there a clear translation for that in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-17T01:44:08.807" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T01:44:08.807" Title="How do I say &quot;The story has to have a moral&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10028" CreationDate="2014-10-22T23:04:09.263" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can translate 'moral' as &lt;code&gt;寓意&lt;/code&gt; and thus 'have a moral' as '有寓意' (故事要有寓意). Alternatively, you could say &lt;code&gt;故事要有教育意义&lt;/code&gt; (the story has to be educational).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T23:04:09.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10027" CreationDate="2014-10-22T23:28:34.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我发音得不太准 - My pronunciation is not very accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;准 usually means &quot;standard&quot;, but in this context it means accurate/correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6469" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T23:28:34.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10031" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-23T00:47:05.793" Score="4" ViewCount="1015" Body="&lt;p&gt;To give context, this is the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;永远不能忘记的是北京，因为我在那里住的太久了，仿佛树生了根一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure how to render the last bit. I'm guessing it's saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As if I am a tree, the roots are the same as my life, sown in from&#xA;birth;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm the same as a growing tree and its roots.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure if I'm picking out the right things, I'm reading 仿佛 and 一样 as separate items, or does the sentence construction 仿佛...一样 have a meaning of some kind?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, how to use it, what is the difference between saying just 仿佛，or using 仿佛...一样?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6602" LastEditorUserId="878" LastEditDate="2014-10-23T04:03:49.620" LastActivityDate="2014-10-24T15:02:23.450" Title="How to use 仿佛 properly?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10031" CreationDate="2014-10-23T01:23:37.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;仿佛:    seem; as if ; just like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Example1 : 她工作努力，仿佛不知疲倦似的。 She works hard as if she never knew fatigue .&#xA;Example2 : 无论我提议什么事，她仿佛都不愿干。She doesn't seem to want to do anything i suggest.&#xA;Example3 : 她她如此美丽，仿佛就像个天使。 She so beautiful just like an angel.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6433" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T01:23:37.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10031" CreationDate="2014-10-23T03:12:35.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;@daniel and @user3835327 have provided enough information on the usage of 仿佛. Your understanding of the sentence doesn't seem to be on spot. It says: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...I have been living there for too long, just like a tree rooted to&#xA;  this land (so that we became inseparable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T03:12:35.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10027" CreationDate="2014-10-23T03:47:36.567" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;准&lt;/code&gt; has a lot of meanings according to the context. Usually it means &lt;code&gt;accurate(准确)&lt;/code&gt; but in this case it's &lt;code&gt;标准&lt;/code&gt;, which means &lt;code&gt;standard&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, I think you may want to say &lt;code&gt;我发音发得不太准&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;我的发音不太准&lt;/code&gt; rather than &lt;code&gt;我发音得不太准&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T03:47:36.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10020" CreationDate="2014-10-23T04:23:55.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me &quot;我知道你不知道&quot; and &quot;我知道我不知道&quot; both look funny on paper, but if you are talking to someone with proper context, these sentences are perfectly fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still feel a bit weird, its because the duplicate use of &quot;知道&quot;. Repeated words sound more unnatural in Chinese than in English. In this case, you might want say &quot;我知道我不懂&quot; or &quot;我知道我不了解&quot;, or better yet, &quot;我知道我（在这方面）是无知的&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T04:23:55.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9928" CreationDate="2014-10-23T05:03:09.540" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;余入宫为奴，盖因唐诗酒色。今上昏庸，诸子腐败，皆不足爱也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@倪阔乐's answer looks like a machine translation of the original English text. Ancient Chinese people don't talk like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;情&quot; is emotion, not sex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;腐產&quot; as rotten offspring? Not even close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T05:03:09.540" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10020" CreationDate="2014-10-23T05:48:03.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may say &lt;code&gt;我发现我竟然不知道&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;我发现原来我并不清楚&lt;/code&gt; in a casual conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T05:48:03.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10031" CreationDate="2014-10-23T06:42:46.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;仿佛 is that you feels like, but it's not true;&#xA;一样 is that actually existed and the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6604" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T06:42:46.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5149" CreationDate="2014-10-23T16:28:42.200" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should really try WaiChinese. The software if in beta, but they are able to show you the shape of your spoken tone in real-time. Its awesome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;waichinese.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6608" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T16:28:42.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="488" CreationDate="2014-10-23T16:30:45.707" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should really try WaiChinese. The software if in beta, but they are able to show you the shape of your spoken tone in real-time. Then a teacher will evaluate your pronunciation. Its awesome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;waichinese.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6608" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T16:30:45.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10007" CreationDate="2014-10-23T18:03:10.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;爽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;clear, example:(idioms) 神清气爽&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;wise, example: 兹心不爽，而昏乱百度。——《左传·昭公元年》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cheerful, example: 温豪爽有风慨。——《晋书·桓温传》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;v. make error, example: 女也不爽，士贰其行。——《诗·卫风·氓》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;v. break one's word, example: 郭伋还州，尚不欺于童子； 文侯校猎，宁爽约于虞人。—— 李商隐《为张周封上杨相公启》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6609" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T18:03:10.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10042" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-23T19:35:01.297" Score="1" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning Chinese using Rosetta Stone and i find 99.9% of the stuff that i encounter while learning to be quite logical. In fact this is the first thing in quite a while that doesn't seem to make any sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at the last two images and their descriptions:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u02ux.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;Why does the word 了 follow the verb in the third image, but follows the noun in the fourth image? The situation in both images seems to be the same. And while you're at it, can you explain the word order in the first two images as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6610" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T21:34:54.653" Title="Learning past tense with Rosetta Stone" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-11-10T14:57:07.880" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10042" CreationDate="2014-10-23T21:34:54.653" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 functions both as aspectual and modal particle, in the former case it occurs after the verb, in the latter at the end of the sentence. In images 1,3 the completed aspect of the action is referred to, in images 2,4 了 occurs at the end of the sentence to indicate a change（the emergence of a new situation, change in understanding, opinion,ideas, or action, express urging, advice or reminder (quotation from 外国人实用汉语语法)).&#xA;In fact in case of #2,4 it could occur twice： 我买了一本词典了，她买了药了 to indicate both aspect and change, but instead of using 了 twice (to indicate both aspect and mood (modal particle use)，it often &#xA;(usually, especially in the case of short sentences ?)&#xA;only occurs at the end of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T21:34:54.653" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10031" CreationDate="2014-10-24T15:02:23.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are couple ways to use 仿佛, as well as meaning:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;仿佛 = &lt;code&gt;as if&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;seem&lt;/code&gt; (as provided by user3835327)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仿佛...一样 means &lt;code&gt;seems like&lt;/code&gt;, for example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;仿佛树生了根一样 - Seems like the tree has rooted there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore 仿佛 and 一样 can be used separately, while together they forms a sentence structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-10-24T15:02:23.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10020" CreationDate="2014-10-24T16:44:16.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我明白我不知道/我了解我不知道: I understand i don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3300" LastActivityDate="2014-10-24T16:44:16.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10046" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10047" CreationDate="2014-10-24T19:38:11.247" Score="3" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read these sentences in my Rosetta Stone courses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;请洗洗你的袜子&#xA;请洗一下楼梯&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, why does the first sentence use two &lt;code&gt;洗&lt;/code&gt; consecutively before taking the object? Also, how can I tell when to use one verb and when to use two verbs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally, does the &lt;code&gt;请洗你的袜子&lt;/code&gt; make sense in Mandarin? If that does make sense and is used often, what's the difference between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T01:34:19.663" Title="Why does the `请` take two duplicate words on its verb occasionally (e.g. `请洗洗你的袜子`)" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10046" CreationDate="2014-10-24T20:06:04.137" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;quotation from 外国人实用汉语语法：&#xA;(1) the reduplication of a verb implies a short and quick &#xA;action &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) expresses an attempt or trial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3)expresses a sense of being light and relaxed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the same goes for  [verb] +一下 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请洗你的袜子 seems to make sense in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-10-24T20:06:04.137" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10048" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-24T21:23:05.170" Score="-1" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;the syntax is S V O, &#xA;one can expand this to include phrases about time and place:&#xA;S t p V O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What else can be this SVO structure expanded with?&#xA;How would a maximal structure look like that incorporates all or almost all phrases possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T13:21:09.597" Title="What is a very comprehensive syntax structure?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10027" CreationDate="2014-10-25T00:17:56.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fyi, another way to translate the English is &quot;我音发得不太准&quot;, where you swap the verb and the object so that the verb can be modified by the adverbial phrase that attaches to the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6616" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T00:17:56.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10051" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-25T00:33:10.420" Score="2" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not interested in modern words like telephone, aeroplane, but words that were incorporated into the more frequent used part of the vocabulary from languages different than sinitic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T19:36:13.083" Title="Which non-sinitic languages contributed to the wordstock of common chinese words before 1800?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10052" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-25T00:43:33.857" Score="2" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of different words for many concepts in classical Chinese, &#xA;for instance for the personal pronouns. Due to which circumstances could this happen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T22:55:27.797" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T23:00:54.823" Title="Through which processes became words in classical Chinese that tautological?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10053" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-25T00:55:15.913" Score="3" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know the technical term for this kind of sentences, but obviously there is some fractal vibe to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T06:49:16.133" Title="How is this sentence translated into Chinese &quot;The man, who kissed the woman, who betrayed him with the man, who loved the one, whom nobody knew&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10051" CreationDate="2014-10-25T01:14:35.350" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how you are defining &quot;Sinitic languages&quot;, but I believe that the Manchu and Sibe languages certainly are not Sinitic in any sense of the word. Given that the Manchu people recently ruled over China for a few hundred years during the Qing dynasty, they've definitely left a mark on the vocabulary of Chinese words, especially in the north-eastern dialects but also in the standard language. So that's where I would start looking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an article discussing a few Manchu loanwords in north-eastern Mandarin: &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7502&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7502&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Edit: From the same author, an article on Russian loanwords in the same dialects: &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2921&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2921&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6498" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T01:14:35.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10046" CreationDate="2014-10-25T01:34:19.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Chinese. I hope this will help you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请洗洗你的袜子 is an imperative sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗洗 (the same meaning of 洗一洗/洗一下) is a &lt;strong&gt;united verb&lt;/strong&gt;. It's meaning is &quot;wash&quot;. The same of “洗”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But&lt;/strong&gt;, this wash (洗洗/洗一洗/洗一下) means &lt;em&gt;&quot;Hey, I need you to wash the socks.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; And “请洗你的袜子” is an &lt;strong&gt;ungrammatical&lt;/strong&gt; sentence. Because 洗 always means &lt;em&gt;&quot;Okay, I'm washing them now.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;&quot;The socks are washed.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, I would like to share you a little useful tip:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了/过 followed the verb means the event has been done and these two words can be combined. So “袜子已经洗过了” means &quot;The socks have been already washed.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes we will say “快把袜子洗了”(&quot;Wash the socks quickly&quot;). The 了 here have an implicit meaning of &lt;strong&gt;&quot;the event will BE IN THE PAST&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. It's one of the forms of imperative sentence also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有什么不懂的可以回复，我会尽量解答（If you have doubt about that, just comment below. I will help you as I can.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝你汉语学得愉快！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T01:34:19.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10053" CreationDate="2014-10-25T02:11:47.053" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The words 'who' in this sentence is called '&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_pronoun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;relative pronoun&lt;/a&gt;', the clause introduced by which is called '&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;relative clause&lt;/a&gt;'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A sentence with more than one relative clause is said to contain 'nested relative clauses'. The nesting structure in your sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The man, who kissed (the woman, who betrayed him with (the man, who loved (the one, whom nobody knew))).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There is no relative pronoun or relative clauses in mandarin Chinese.&lt;/strong&gt; There are three common methods to translate such sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Turn each relative clause into a sentence. There will be no more nesting. The sentences will be longer but very clear.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Turn each relative clause into an adjective phrase. There will still be a nesting structure. The sentence is shorter but the nested adjective phrases may be ambiguous. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A combination of #1 and #2 - use #2 for clear and short fragments for brevity and #1 for the rest of the sentence for clarity.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation using method 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;男人亲吻了女人，女人却为了另外的男人背叛了他。那另外的男人也爱上了别的人，是谁却无人知晓。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation using method 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;男人亲吻了那为了一个爱上了无人知道是谁的人的男人而背叛了他的女人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This sentence is practically unreadable but looks fun.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation using method 3 (combination of method 1 &amp;amp; 2):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;男人亲吻了那为了别的男人而背叛了他的女人。那个另外的男人却也爱上了别的人，是谁却无人知晓。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-10-25T02:17:20.973" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T02:17:20.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10053" CreationDate="2014-10-25T05:43:04.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;他亲吻了她。她却为了另一个男人背叛了他。这另一个他却爱着一个局外人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He had kissed her. But She betrayed him for another man. This other man loved an outsider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English attributive clauses are normally broken down into several short sentences as are translated into Chinese. In the reverse order, if something is repeated, we would glue them together into clauses to translate them into English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2014-10-25T05:50:00.170" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T05:50:00.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10053" CreationDate="2014-10-25T06:49:16.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;男人親吻了女人, 而女人卻背叛了男人, 男人還愛著誰, 已經沒有人知道了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The man, who kissed the woman, who betrayed him with the man, who loved the one, whom nobody knew.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6619" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T06:49:16.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10052" CreationDate="2014-10-25T07:32:26.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Synonyms arise when two different topolects or languages are mixed, perhaps as a result of warfare or a political union, but also because of technical innovation, cultural exchange and so on. This happens constantly in all languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for pronouns in classical Chinese, they correspond to a highly hierarchical social order. You would often need to refer to yourself in third person to show respect and to be in line with the Confucian ideal of humility. Even the emperor could refer to himself as 寡人, third person for one of a few select.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then again, if the emperor calls himself 朕 (I), then everyone below him would have to refer to the self using a lesser term, in hierchical order. 在下 is the one beneath the emperor, 我 is the worthless body, 奴才 is the slave, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T07:32:26.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10051" CreationDate="2014-10-25T08:01:02.890" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have the entire stock of Sanskrit buddhist terms that have been incorporated to Chinese, like 菩萨, 佛, 涅盘 and similar terms. 苹果 is also Sankrit in origin, while 葡萄 and other fruits have been picked up along the Silk road.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mongolian words such as 达赖 (as in 达赖喇嘛, where 喇嘛 is Tibetan), have also crept into the langauge through religion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese and Vietnamese have had a lot of exchange throughout the years, but are mostly local.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although Japan has greatly been influenced by Chinese from Tang and onwards, there has also been a large import from Japan to China. Words like 经济 and 社会 do not really make sense in Chinese (component-wise), but are Japanese in origin. A more modern example would be the redefinition of 萌 as a cute young person, like in 萌妹纸.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer to Marc's answer for Manchu and Russian influences; there are quite many loanwords from northern tribes, like 哥哥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T08:01:02.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10051" CreationDate="2014-10-25T14:08:49.960" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;洋人- foreigners&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洋火- match&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洋教士/神父- priest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倭寇- Japanese pirate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;波斯-Persia （the old name of Iran）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西域-the Western Regions (a Han Dynasty term for the area west of Yumenguan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伊斯兰教-Islam&#xA;.etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6622" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T14:08:49.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10052" CreationDate="2014-10-25T14:26:01.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;manners: regard others and show self-abasement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. (incompleted)&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4NMAq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6622" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T14:26:01.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10065" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-25T15:14:37.777" Score="0" ViewCount="474" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read 于 was a preposition, but there were many unrelated translations for it. 之 is as far as I know an object pronoun, like for instance him, her, them but can also mean somthing different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is this expression actually used in classical Chinese? What is its verbatim meaning? Why does the contraction 焉 sound so much different than the two characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T22:54:31.657" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T22:54:31.657" Title="What is the meaning and usage of 于之 and its contraction 焉 in classical Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10066" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-25T15:16:37.700" Score="2" ViewCount="1180" Body="&lt;p&gt;How intelligible is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Old Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; to the speakers of Mandarin Chinese?&#xA;If an Old Mandarin Chinese speaker heard a Mandarin Chinese speaker or vice versa, how fluent would the communication be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6624" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2014-10-25T17:53:26.170" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T01:37:43.803" Title="Old Mandarin vs. Mandarin Chinese?" Tags="&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10066" CreationDate="2014-10-25T15:43:30.587" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This topic is interesting.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Assuming you are referring to &lt;strong&gt;Classic Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; (文言文) as Old Mandarin.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We must be astonished with the intelligence of a person 'speaking' Classic Chinese.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to my humble (sincere) opinion (wish), Classic Chinese has always been &lt;strong&gt;written&lt;/strong&gt; instead of spoken. (: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is actually easy as when we look at the literal spelling of the two words in Chinese itself:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;文言文 (Classical Chinese) = Written language;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  白话文 (Modern Chinese) = Spoken language.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6578" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T15:43:30.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10065" CreationDate="2014-10-25T16:50:15.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My teacher told me that 焉 equals to 于(at) + 之(a kind of pronoun).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与 usually equals to &quot;and&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in &lt;strong&gt;与&lt;/strong&gt;君共饮, the 与 means &lt;em&gt;do sth with sb&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;do sth together&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陈涉少时，尝&lt;strong&gt;与&lt;/strong&gt;人佣耕： (work) for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吾孰&lt;strong&gt;与&lt;/strong&gt;徐公美： Compare with someone/sth else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朝过夕改，君子&lt;strong&gt;与&lt;/strong&gt;之： Agree with ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't all of the uses of 与 because these are common. It's not good for you to have a study about all the uses of one word though some of them are not common because they will confuse you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope these will help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T16:50:15.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10052" CreationDate="2014-10-25T17:03:50.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a thing called 面子 in our Chinese culture. We talk about ourselves in one form of pronouns to show others that &quot;I am humble/modest.&quot; or &quot;I respect you a lot.&quot; Example: 在下、末将 = I.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if we got home, when we talk to our family, we are less restricted and we want to show our rights and power to our sons and daughters, so we use another form of pronouns.Example: 老夫、吾 = I.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope these will help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T17:03:50.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10066" CreationDate="2014-10-25T18:54:03.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the situation is more or less the same in all languages, that the language drifts across generations. Whereas you could easily communicate with Isaac Newton, it would be a little more difficult to do with Shakespeare, and more so with Chaucer. When you get to Richard Lionheart and earlier (say, the times of Beowulf), you can just forget any meaningful exchange of ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Mandarin, you could speak perfectly well with late Qing people, although they would still retain tones that are now forgotten. Going back to Cao Xueqin's time (1700s), you would still be able to discern most of the vernacular used, just like you can read 红楼梦 without too much trouble. But you would get progressively lost talking to Su Dongpo and Princess Wencheng of Tang, they would speak a completely different language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing with Chinese, though, is that you could still exchange ideas in writing with these people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T18:54:03.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10051" CreationDate="2014-10-25T22:23:32.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition, there are a few loanwords from Tocharian such as 蜜. (PS On that theory 蜜 is cognate to the English 'mead').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese#Loanwords&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese#Loanwords&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastEditorUserId="3183" LastEditDate="2014-10-27T19:36:13.083" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T19:36:13.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10072" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10075" CreationDate="2014-10-26T06:02:56.887" Score="5" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any word or short phrase in Chinese that expresses the concept of 'presumptuous' as in 'arrogantly making assumptions about the beliefs or preferences of another person without regard to the possibility of being wrong'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can provide any written examples, even if it is a full paragraph, of authentic articles or literature which uses the concept, it would be most welcome. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea I'd like to translate is: &quot;If I was only allowed to use one word to describe my experience with Chinese, I'm afraid it would have to be 'presumptuous'. I've encountered so many Chinese people who not only assume anyone with white skin automatically would like to have a conversation with them in English, but also that the conversation partner won't mind the conversation being one-sided. Whenever I've been in such a situation, the Chinese English learner tends not only to miss all the important points I wish to express, but also to pretend he did understand them, leaving me no opportunity to clarify. This leaves me feeling very incontent, used, and exhausted by the end. &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've only provided such a long sample of text to be precise, I'm not looking for a translation of a paragraph, only the means of expressing this one  concept. Unless you'd like to translate! Finally please don't make unwarranted assumptions about me or take offense to this question. It's absolutely not meant to insult anyone!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6630" LastEditorUserId="6630" LastEditDate="2014-10-26T06:13:27.063" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T19:57:55.723" Title="The concept of presumptuousness" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10073" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10074" CreationDate="2014-10-26T08:17:52.157" Score="2" ViewCount="414" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching an American TV show with Chinese subtitles on. There was a scene where a character said, &lt;strong&gt;&quot;You haven't seen the last of me, Ms.Ellison.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, and the Chinese subtitle for it was,&lt;strong&gt;&quot;你我还没完呢 Ellison小姐.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. For better context, the character who is speaking, &quot;still believes&quot; that Ms. Ellison committed some murders despite no one believing this.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if there is any &quot;better&quot; translation for &quot;你我还没完呢 Ellison小姐.&quot;? Because I translated it as &lt;strong&gt;&quot;You and I are still not over, Ms. Ellison.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that my translation is close to correct, why isn't there &lt;strong&gt;&quot;和&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, making it as &lt;strong&gt;&quot;你和我还没完呢 Ellison小姐.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also can anyone please confirm that &lt;strong&gt;&quot;呢&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; in this sentence indicates that something is still continuing? Which in this case I guess, indicates his situation/relationship (trying to send her to jail) with her will continue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks, if anything is confusing about what I have written, please let me know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;update&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I think I shouldn't have said &quot;better&quot; translation, I meant if it could have been another possible translation. But thanks to everyone's input, I was able to come to an understanding. It was hard to choose the best answer.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6593" LastEditorUserId="6593" LastEditDate="2014-10-28T22:46:23.427" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T19:09:20.987" Title="Is there a &quot;better&quot; translation for &quot;你我还没完呢&quot;? Why is it &quot;你我&quot; without a possible &quot;和&quot;? And please can anyone confirm the function of &quot;呢&quot; in this one?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10073" CreationDate="2014-10-26T09:13:24.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translation is accurate. 没完 means that there will be a continuation, and 呢 adds to this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translations are not and should not ever be word for word, but adapted to the linguistic context. Chinese is not as wordy as, say, American English, and there is simply no need to sprinkle the text with repeated instances of pronouns (like 我) or words that can be inferred by context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你我 is very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T09:13:24.167" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10072" CreationDate="2014-10-26T09:30:16.950" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The concept of 'presumptuous' as in 'arrogantly making assumptions about the beliefs or preferences of another person without regard to the possibility of being wrong'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The words that fit those descriptions would be 自以为是 (literally 'regard oneself as infallible') or 自作主张 (literally 'presumingly assert/decide'). 自以为是 would work perfectly for translating your paragraph. There is also a colloquial word with similar meaning 想当然 (literally 'assume sth. as a matter of course').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you consider some similar but different concepts, you'll have more word choices. E.g. prejudice (偏见), stereotype (成见), ignorance (无知/愚昧), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T09:30:16.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10077" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-26T14:40:09.920" Score="0" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;My girlfriend has to welcome and accompany a chinese delegation from different governmental institutions and companies, she wants to know if there are any common phrases for welcoming these guests in Mandarin Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6309" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T18:47:59.990" Title="welcoming a chinese delegation" Tags="&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10073" CreationDate="2014-10-26T15:37:24.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你我 is a common way of saying 'you and me', and is sort of a contraction of 你和我. Therefore this translation is correct, and 呢 is something people say after a statement. Like &lt;code&gt;你我还有事儿得干呢&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;which means &quot;You and me still have stuff to do.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6548" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T15:37:24.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10079" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-26T16:32:12.627" Score="2" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;i understand: &#xA;子甫至 - you just arrived a moment ago.&#xA;去 - go.&#xA;乎 - character that makes the sentence a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the role of 乃 in this sentence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T18:28:57.377" Title="What is the function of 乃 in 子甫至乃去乎 ?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10080" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-26T17:02:36.847" Score="3" ViewCount="434" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard classical Chinese had a limited amount of vocabularies compared to modern Chinese. &#xA;How many words one has to learn in order to acquire average reading abilities, disregarding the grammar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T22:52:53.920" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T22:52:53.920" Title="What is the average number of words necessary to read classical Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10080" CreationDate="2014-10-26T17:53:11.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/41331955.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;二十五史的字数是多少？&lt;/a&gt;, most of the classics contain five to six thousand unique characters. 《辽史》(Liao history) contains as few as 4071; 《清史》(Qing history) contains as many as 8080.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《史记》93 BC contains 5122 unique characters;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《汉书》83 AD, 5833 unique characters;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《新唐书》1060 AD, 6346字;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《清史》1927 AD, 8080字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1712.htm#6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt;, the first dictionary 《说文解字》which was finished in 121 AD contains 9353 characters; another one which was created in 1716 AD contains 47035 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Han dynasty's《说文解字》 finished in 121 AD, contains 9353;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Song dynasty's《集韵》(1034AD) contains 53525;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qing dynasty's《康熙字典》(1716 AD) contains 47035;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《中华字海》published in 1994 AD contains 85000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T17:53:11.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10082" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10083" CreationDate="2014-10-26T18:07:09.360" Score="6" ViewCount="1358" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这些狗里有一只穿红色的毛衣&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the &lt;code&gt;里&lt;/code&gt; mean? I think the sentence means something like &lt;code&gt;The dogs wear red sweaters.&lt;/code&gt; But why does it require &lt;code&gt;里&lt;/code&gt; there and what meaning does it add?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm learning about simplified mandarin language, but would like to know if it differs from the traditional in how it is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T04:29:01.713" Title="What does the `里` mean in `这些狗里有一只穿红色的毛衣`?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10082" CreationDate="2014-10-26T18:15:29.460" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &lt;code&gt;one of these dogs wears a red sweater&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;...里&lt;/code&gt; literally means &lt;code&gt;in/among ...&lt;/code&gt;, and it is followed by 有一只, which means &lt;code&gt;there is one&lt;/code&gt;. Hence the whole sentence translates literally as &lt;code&gt;Among these dogs there is one wearing a red sweater&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T18:15:29.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10079" CreationDate="2014-10-26T18:28:57.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;乃, also means 就, which means &quot;about to&quot; in your sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You arrived just a moment ago, and about to go just like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6633" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T18:28:57.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10009" CreationDate="2014-10-26T18:47:44.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zdic&lt;/a&gt;, just type and search. Content rich but entirely simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6633" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T18:47:44.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10086" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-27T00:29:52.603" Score="1" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as i know, adverbs in classical chinese are put right in front of the verb, whereas in English their position is quiet freely. &#xA;for instance: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;並食  = to eat sitting next to each other&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;尽食  = to eat to the fullest&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;独食  = to eat alone&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;复食  = to eat again &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What further adverbs are there? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T08:23:07.037" Title="What are common adverbs in classical Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10082" CreationDate="2014-10-27T00:35:26.980" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Split the sentence as below to make better understanding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些狗里 有一只 穿红色的毛衣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But usually it would be more likely like below in speaking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(在)这些狗里(面) 有一只 穿红色的毛衣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6636" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T00:35:26.980" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10027" CreationDate="2014-10-27T01:31:02.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我 发  音  不太准.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;S  V   O   adverb  &lt;br /&gt;&#xA;“得” is not necessary&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&quot;My pronunciation is not very accurate.&quot; &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;or &lt;br /&gt;&#xA;“I can not pronounce accurately/well”。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;ps.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;的： adjective noun    美丽的花园&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;地： adjective（adverb） verb    大声地唱歌&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;得： verb adverb    吃得很饱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6637" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2015-04-13T01:35:36.723" LastActivityDate="2015-04-13T01:35:36.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10086" CreationDate="2014-10-27T02:26:00.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'As far as i know, adverbs in classical chinese are put right in front of the verb', &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as my knowledge, it's not the case. In classical lecture of Chinese, the position of adverb are very flexible. There is some pattern, but still, very flexible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The trick in classical lecture: there are many order-reverse cases depending on such as what would be addressed more. It makes it hard to understand before you get used to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6636" LastEditorUserId="6636" LastEditDate="2014-10-27T02:53:46.170" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T02:53:46.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10082" CreationDate="2014-10-27T02:59:20.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning is the same in traditional Chinese. In traditional Chinese, the style is different, 里 =&gt; 裡.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6642" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T02:59:20.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10082" CreationDate="2014-10-27T08:05:55.227" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;这些狗 these dogs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;里 among&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有一只 one (there is one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;穿 wear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;红色(的) red (的 means that 红色 is a adj.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毛衣 sweater&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the whole sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;There is one dog among these dogs wear red sweater&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6647" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T08:05:55.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10086" CreationDate="2014-10-27T08:23:07.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;As far as i know, adverbs in classical chinese are put right in front of the verb, whereas in English their position is quiet freely.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this is wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跑的很快 run very fast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;輕輕的開門 open the door softly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we don't really care about grammar actually, sentences structure is not that strictly like English. Most of the rules of Chinese is by experience, and sometimes they are different in different place. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6647" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T08:23:07.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10048" CreationDate="2014-10-27T08:44:43.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You could assemble Chinese as well as English.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pure SVO structure. &#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;淑女 亲吻着 青蛙。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可爱的淑女 偷偷地亲吻着 绿色的青蛙。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蹲在湖边的可爱的淑女 略带羞涩地偷偷地轻吻着 站在荷叶上的绿色的青蛙。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一位蹲在湖边的可爱的淑女 低着头略带羞涩地偷偷地轻吻着 一只站在荷叶上的绿色的青蛙。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then add more parts.&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在一个温暖的午后 一位蹲在湖边的可爱的淑女 低着头略带羞涩地偷偷地轻吻着 一只站在荷叶上的绿色的青蛙。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在一个温暖的午后 一位蹲在湖边的可爱的淑女 穿着连衣裙 头上戴着金灿灿的小皇冠 手上拿着一朵花 低着头略带羞涩地偷偷地轻吻着 一只站在荷叶上的绿色的青蛙。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;More parts with the help of comma and dash in Chinese.&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在一个温暖的午后，蝴蝶在风中翩翩起舞， 一位蹲在湖边的可爱的淑女 穿着连衣裙 头上戴着金灿灿的小皇冠 手上拿着一朵花，在左右旁顾无人以后， 低着头略带羞涩地偷偷地轻吻着 一只站在荷叶上的绿色的——其实我们都知道那是一只被施展了魔法的，从一位英俊王子变成的——青蛙。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I want, I could write a much longger one. :)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6644" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T08:44:43.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10077" CreationDate="2014-10-27T09:32:39.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it better to use &quot;欢迎您的来访！&quot;, it does matter how many people are coming for visit. And can be reused for next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6650" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T09:32:39.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10100" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10130" CreationDate="2014-10-27T10:09:35.133" Score="3" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple sentence in Chinese looks syntactially like this:&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;S t p V O&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;S(ubject),V(erb),O(bject),t(imephrase),p(lacephrase).&#xA;How do i put a further sentence in another sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T02:48:19.993" Title="What are the rules for nested sentences?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10101" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10115" CreationDate="2014-10-27T13:31:39.170" Score="4" ViewCount="447" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a poster referring to the umbrella protests in Hong Kong, there is a Chinese politician depicted in the way of the picture &quot;the scream&quot; by Edward Munch. Next to him is a humanoid banana with googles screaming &quot;&lt;strong&gt;D7689!@#&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. Above him is another oval shaped yellow humanoid like creature with googles parachuting using an umbrella. The lower part of the poster is a black bar with the text: &lt;strong&gt;5000萬「袋住先」&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only know that this is an allusion, that the humanoid creature with googles is a depiction of Jiang Zemin and that the number represents some Chinese sentence that remotely resembles its pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VNDI3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastEditorUserId="3511" LastEditDate="2016-12-12T15:08:16.820" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T05:11:34.063" Title="What is the meaning behind 5000萬「袋住先」and D7689!@#?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10102" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-27T15:58:12.607" Score="1" ViewCount="287" Body="&lt;p&gt;Serial verb constructions are several verbs in sequence constituting one single predicate to describe a whole event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example from Wikipedia: &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;我(I) 坐(sit) 飞机(aircraft) 从(depart) 上海(Shanghai) 到(arrive) 北京(Beijing) 去(travel)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 坐飞机从上海到北京去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-07T10:11:50.617" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T10:11:50.617" Title="Is there a serial verb construction in classical Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10077" CreationDate="2014-10-27T18:47:59.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to be more Chinese style, say &quot;热烈欢迎代表团莅临指导&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4394" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T18:47:59.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10104" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-27T20:47:44.057" Score="1" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is easy to find profanity words for modern Chinese, but I could not find any profanity words for classical Chinese. Even such simple ones as &quot;to fuck&quot;. Please help to promote this knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T22:51:50.747" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T22:51:50.747" Title="What are some profanity words in classical Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10104" CreationDate="2014-10-27T22:36:00.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As to classical Chinese in the strict sense I know no examples.  Going up to 8th century, The poem &quot;To send far way&quot; by Li Bai (701--762), also known as Li Po, contains two lines translated by David Hinton as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We made clouds and rain love our farewell,&#xA;Then nothing but autumn grasses remained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot find the Chinese on line.  The expression is often traced back further to a classical work &quot;Gao Tang Fu/高唐賦&quot; (for which my historical source is &lt;a href=&quot;https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Yu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Yu&lt;/a&gt;) and you can see the original at &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant&lt;/a&gt;/高唐賦.  But that work only sets up a vague association between sex, clouds and rain.  The phrase  &quot;clouds and rain/云雨&quot; for sex seems to owe more to Du Fu's Tang Dynasty poem: &quot; Wu Gorge and more clouds and rain the night,&quot; see &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/130025.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/130025.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For whatever reason, the phrase &quot;clouds and rain/云雨&quot; has come to refer to sex.  It is not a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more, follow the advice of 倪阔乐 above.  I am afraid you will not find what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2014-10-27T23:41:27.933" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T23:41:27.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10106" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10107" CreationDate="2014-10-27T23:46:02.277" Score="4" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有时就连你的父亲也未必信得过，更何况是陌生人。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有时连陌生人你也可以相信，更何况是你的父亲。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The challenging parts for me are &lt;code&gt;也未必&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;连…更何况&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5945" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-26T03:44:41.997" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T03:44:41.997" Title="Help translate these two sentences with 也未必 and 更何况" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10106" CreationDate="2014-10-28T02:35:55.457" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有时就连你的父亲也未必信得过，更何况是陌生人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can't even trust your father, not to mention a stranger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有时连陌生人你也可以相信，更何况是你的父亲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can even trust a stranger, not to mention your father.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;code&gt;even...not to mention&lt;/code&gt; would be a proper translation for &lt;code&gt;连...更何况&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;也未必&lt;/code&gt; is just a word indicate that the sentence is negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6154" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T02:35:55.457" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10108" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-28T06:10:50.637" Score="5" ViewCount="728" Body="&lt;p&gt;男兒當自強 is the title of the main theme in wong feihong, i was told its translation is &quot;a man has to stand one's ground&quot;, i do not know how verbatim this translation is. &#xA;男兒 is man, &#xA;自強 is either &quot;his strength&quot; or &quot;from strength&quot;, i am not sure about it.&#xA;As for 當, i am totally clueless what its meaning is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be a verbatim translation?&#xA;Who can explain the parts in the light of grammar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6662" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T06:24:40.447" Title="What is the meaning of 當 and 自強 in 男兒當自強?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10109" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10111" CreationDate="2014-10-28T06:13:42.627" Score="4" ViewCount="491" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume that scientific discussion in Chinese uses scientific notation, such as 5&amp;times;10&lt;sup&gt;12&lt;/sup&gt;. How would I read such a number aloud?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/147/rules-for-saying-numbers&quot;&gt;rules for saying numbers&lt;/a&gt;, as well as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page it links to&lt;/a&gt;. The closest thing I could find were the large numbers and metric prefixes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I follow the large numbers, then I would guess 五兆, but I'm hoping there's a more general phrase like the way we say, &quot;five times ten to the twelfth power&quot; in English. I found that 乘幂 means exponentiation, so can I say 五倍十二乘幂的十?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-11-01T03:09:52.360" Title="Expressing numbers in scientific notation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10108" CreationDate="2014-10-28T06:24:40.447" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;男兒 is MAN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當 is 應當， which means SHOULD，MUST&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自 means 自己， SELF&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;強 is a verb short for 圖強，here 圖 means FIND WAYS TO DO STH，and 強 means TO BE STRONG.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 男兒當自強 means A man should find ways to make himself strong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6626" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T06:24:40.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10109" CreationDate="2014-10-28T06:27:01.227" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;五 乘以 十的 十二次冪&#xA;Five times 10 to the 12.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6626" LastEditorUserId="3251" LastEditDate="2014-10-28T09:07:34.610" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T09:07:34.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10112" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10113" CreationDate="2014-10-28T06:29:49.497" Score="3" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;信 = to believe.&#xA;得过 = ???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this construction a sentence, a phrase, a verbalphrase or maybe sth. different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6662" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T16:07:07.120" Title="What is the grammatical analysis of 信得过?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10112" CreationDate="2014-10-28T06:44:49.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;信得过 means 'can be trusted/believed/depended upon'. I would actually classify it as a verbal phrase as there are usually more formal ways to express it in writing, such as 可靠 (dependable) or 可信 (believable). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say “他的话是信得过的！” if I wanted to say &quot;His word could be trusted!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6663" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T06:44:49.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10112" CreationDate="2014-10-28T07:39:20.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;信得过&lt;/strong&gt; literally refers to &quot;Trust-worthy &quot;, where 信 = trust, 得过 is an adjective means &quot;able to / worthy&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;他很可信&quot; (He can be trusted) which means the same as &quot;他很信得过&quot; (He is trustworthy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the form &lt;strong&gt;信得过&lt;/strong&gt;, we also say &quot;&lt;strong&gt;買得过&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (worth buying) and even &quot;&lt;strong&gt;嫁得过&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (worth marrying).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6272" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2014-10-28T16:07:07.120" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T16:07:07.120" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10101" CreationDate="2014-10-28T10:23:36.840" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of &quot;D&quot;-&quot;7&quot; is similar to a Cantonese foul phrase (something similar to  fxxking hard).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;689 is a common way to refer to the current Chief Executive (CE) of Hong Kong, because he won the election in 2012 by having 689 electoral votes out of the 1200-person Election Committee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;袋住先&quot; is also a common Cantonese saying.  &quot;袋&quot; here means the action to put something in your pocket, as analogous to &quot;acceptance&quot;.  &quot;袋住先&quot; is to accept something at the time being, with a implicit promise that something better will be offered later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong would probably be having an electoral reform to adopt universal suffrage in 2016 CE election according to the Basic Law (supplemented by elaborated explanations from the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China).  The HK Government is promoting its Beijing-blessed proposal and many famous people are telling the citizens to &quot;袋住先&quot;.  (This is IMO somehow self-contradictory because the proposal is advertised as &quot;universal suffrage&quot; and the Basic Law does not mention any improvement beyond &quot;universal suffrage&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;5000萬&quot;, please refer to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theage.com.au/business/world-business/hong-kong-chief-executive-cy-leung-faces-questions-over-secret-7m-payout-from-australian-firm-20141008-1134yv.html&quot;&gt;http://www.theage.com.au/business/world-business/hong-kong-chief-executive-cy-leung-faces-questions-over-secret-7m-payout-from-australian-firm-20141008-1134yv.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2014-10-29T08:35:23.697" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T08:35:23.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8500" CreationDate="2014-10-28T11:14:48.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;= 你好从XYZ!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the above translation is too wired....&#xA;the right translation is &quot;来自XYZ的问候！&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6664" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T11:14:48.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10112" CreationDate="2014-10-28T12:11:43.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;So if i got it right, 信得过 is a complex verb, wherein 信 is the main verb and 得过 the auxiliary verb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T12:11:43.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10119" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-28T12:49:30.553" Score="9" ViewCount="1220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ve found this sentence between two other sentences in an article about the scholar wang li: &#xA;中国语言学家、诗人。字了一。广西壮族自治区博白县人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand both sentences before and after 字了一, but i am clueless what this particular sentence mean and if it really is grammatically speaking a real sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T02:58:12.073" Title="What is the meaning of the sentence 字了一?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10119" CreationDate="2014-10-28T13:06:02.170" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;字了一&#xA;means&#xA;表字：了一。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表字： Chinese style name; courtesy name (a name traditionally given to Chinese males at the age of 20 (also called 字))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;check&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A1%A8%E5%AD%97&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A1%A8%E5%AD%97&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-mo/%E8%A1%A8%E5%AD%97&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-mo/%E8%A1%A8%E5%AD%97&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T13:06:02.170" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10119" CreationDate="2014-10-28T13:15:32.317" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a good question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;字了一&lt;/code&gt; should be understood as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(and his) &lt;code&gt;字&lt;/code&gt; (is) &lt;code&gt;了一&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thousands years ago, many people in China have a special name besides their first name and last name though nowadays most of Chinese don't have one. And this special name is often described after '字'. For example: &lt;code&gt;刘备，字玄德&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to some reference in Chinese, 字 sometimes can be changed. For example, &lt;code&gt;关羽&lt;/code&gt; was using &lt;code&gt;长生&lt;/code&gt; as his 字 but then changed to &lt;code&gt;云长&lt;/code&gt; (which is mostly known by all Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;字 can be given by a person himself/herself or his/her friends, mentors. While ordinary names were mostly given by the parents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="1042" LastEditDate="2014-10-30T03:28:52.107" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T03:28:52.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10125" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10129" CreationDate="2014-10-28T17:40:19.697" Score="4" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;With playing cards with French faces, ♣♠♥♦ are collectively called &lt;em&gt;suits&lt;/em&gt; in English, &lt;em&gt;Farben&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;&quot;colours&quot;&lt;/em&gt;) in German.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With majiang tiles, what is the collective noun in Chinese for 饼、条、万, a property of 序数牌?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6668" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T22:10:51.917" Title="What is the word in majiang equivalent to suits in cards?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10126" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-28T17:44:54.907" Score="1" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese Syntax is: S V O&#xA;there are different prepositional phrases, for instance:&#xA;p.p. that express a place, time, objective, mean ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do i know the proper order of the different prepositional phrases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6662" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T04:31:17.800" Title="What is the order of different prepositional phrases?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10125" CreationDate="2014-10-28T19:54:40.490" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The measure word for 饼、条、万 is called &lt;code&gt;门&lt;/code&gt;, which literally means 'department; division; faction'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;……序数牌……分“筒子/饼”、“索子/条”、“万子/万”三&lt;b&gt;门&lt;/b&gt;，每&lt;b&gt;门&lt;/b&gt;有序数从一至九的牌各四张。(from &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BA%BB%E5%B0%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative measure word is &lt;code&gt;(花)色&lt;/code&gt;, which literally means color/pattern. 色 is also widely used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When talking about the abstract concept of 'suit' in Mahjong, per my own experience &lt;code&gt;门&lt;/code&gt; is more common, although &lt;code&gt;色&lt;/code&gt; is perfectly fine too. There might be regional differences though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to specific Mahjong terminologies like &lt;code&gt;清一色&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;一色三步高&lt;/code&gt;, those are set phrases in which 色 should not be replaced by 门. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-10-28T22:10:51.917" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T22:10:51.917" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10100" CreationDate="2014-10-29T01:44:20.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Sentence as &lt;strong&gt;S&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may not be such a thing. In English you might want to say &lt;code&gt;That I came out of the closet surprised them all.&lt;/code&gt; While in Chinese you can have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我出柜惊了他们所有人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is normally interpreted as &lt;code&gt;I came out of the closet (and) surprised them all.&lt;/code&gt; Not quite the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Sentence as &lt;strong&gt;O&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plenty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你知道我出柜了。 You know I've come out of the closet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, you can have many layers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你知道他们听说我出柜了。 You know they've heard that I came out of the closet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But use these in moderation. Long sentences are much more frowned upon in Chinese than they are in English. Keep the nested sentences short.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Sentence as &lt;strong&gt;t&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this is what you want, but here you go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在他睡觉时出柜了。 I (while he is sleeping) came out of the closet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在他睡觉的地方出柜了。 I (at the place where he slept) came out of the closet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But let's just talk about verb modifiers in general, OK?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我以迅雷不及掩耳之势出柜了。 I (as fast as a lightning strike at close, and you don't even have time to cover your ears) came out of the closet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is hell of a long phrase in English. Normally you would consider this unidiomatic in Chinese, but here we have only six (or nine, depends on how you count) Chinese characters and it is an idiom from classical Chinese. so the sentence come out just fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Sentence as &lt;strong&gt;V&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I put this at last because I've run out of closet related examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some idioms that look like sentences but can function as verbs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你别王婆卖瓜了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This directly translates to &lt;code&gt;You stop old-lady-Wang-sells-watermelon-ing&lt;/code&gt;, which is to say &lt;code&gt;stop bragging about your goods&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But generally it is very rare. If you create one yourself instead of using idioms, other people may have a hard time understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;How to be idiomatic&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English language has this great right branching ability; clauses or nested sentences are like its second nature. The Chinese language can do a bit of right branching as well, but it is not very good at it. So in most cases if you have an English sentence that has a clause, you want to change its style while you are translating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a bird that sings beautifully.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chinese you want to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有一只唱歌很好听的鸟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how you get rid of the clause and make it a simple noun modifier and stick it to the left of the object with “的”. Or you can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有一只鸟，（它）唱歌很好听。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, you get rid of the clause by making it to two sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T02:48:19.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10082" CreationDate="2014-10-29T04:29:01.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the sentence was written in Traditional Chinese, you might find it easier to understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這些狗裏有一隻穿紅色的毛衣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這群狗中, 有一隻穿紅色的毛衣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in the original sentence, I prefer &quot;中&quot; or &quot;當中&quot; because it is less confusing than &quot;里&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, &quot;紅色的毛衣&quot; here can be simplified as &quot;紅毛衣&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T04:29:01.713" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10126" CreationDate="2014-10-29T04:31:17.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone may guide you to a comprehensive source, but if you want to do prepositioning or left branching, all you need to care about is to make them appear in a logical sense. This basic sense is the same for most languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You put time first, then the location&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You put more prominent attributes first&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There's a big bad wolf. (big is more obvious than bad)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You put what you want to emphasize first&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you give them a quick, short, sharp, shock, they won't do it again...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You prioritize common noun phrases and stick them close&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Python is a good object-oriented programming language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not giving you Chinese examples because in Chinese they are exactly the same. There may be situations I'm missing out. Anyway, you do what you feel right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However there are several situations where &quot;right&quot; is different in English and Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addresses&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我来自中国上海。(I'm not, but you don't know any other city names do you?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English you say &lt;code&gt;I'm from New York, New York.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Date and time&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;牛顿生于1643年1月4日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English you mess up. Is it &lt;code&gt;1-4-1643&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;4-1-1643&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T04:31:17.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10133" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10135" CreationDate="2014-10-29T04:35:09.813" Score="0" ViewCount="308" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got it from a textbook awhile reading about demonstrative pronouns. The textbook translate the sentence as &lt;strong&gt;&quot;So many people have come to attend the meeting.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; Can someone explain why &lt;strong&gt;&quot;這麼些&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; isn't at the front of the sentence, &lt;strong&gt;&quot;開會的人來了這麼些&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;? Is it because it's a quantity complement(I'm new to complements)? Does all sentences containing &lt;strong&gt;&quot;這麼些&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; have it after the verb or at the end of the sentence?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also the sentence &lt;strong&gt;&quot;工作已经做了那麼些&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, which the textbook translated it as &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Much (A lot of) work has been done.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; Again, I have the same questions about &lt;strong&gt;&quot;那麼些&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; as I have for about &lt;strong&gt;&quot;這麼些&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6593" LastEditorUserId="6593" LastEditDate="2014-10-29T05:40:35.887" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T11:42:06.380" Title="Why is &quot;這麼些&quot; at the end of the sentence, &quot;開會的人來了這麼些&quot; ? Is it a quantity complement?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10134" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10136" CreationDate="2014-10-29T05:54:24.490" Score="2" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think 去 in the example below is necessary since 走 already implies, &quot;go&quot;,&#xA;unless the 去 in used as a 介词(preposition).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;去故宫(我)怎么走？ &#xA;How should I go to 故宫？ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also do not think that that sentence is verb-serialized(去+走).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should it be just something like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;故宫我怎么去？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in adavance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6131" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T07:03:18.510" Title="Can 去 be used as a 介词(Preposition)?" Tags="&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10133" CreationDate="2014-10-29T06:23:06.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;這麼些&lt;/code&gt; can be directly translated to &lt;code&gt;this many/much&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;那麼些&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;that many/much&lt;/code&gt;, and like it is in English, it doesn't necessarily mean &amp;quot;a lot&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: How much pizza did you eat?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: This much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: I can see why you are so slim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do want to say &amp;quot;many&amp;quot;, you want to use 這麼多 or 那麼多.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the original sentence, of course they can be put to the front.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;So many people have come to attend the meeting.&lt;/code&gt; should be translated to &lt;code&gt;這麼多人來開會了&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Much (A lot of) work has been done.&lt;/code&gt; should be translated to &lt;code&gt;很多工作已经做了&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, if you use a a quantity complement in Chinese, it usually indicates that you have something else to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This meeting only attracts this many people. Is it organized by baboons? //会议只来了这么些人，组织会议的是狒狒吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That much work has been done. If you change the plan I'll eat you alive. //工作已经完成了那么多，你要是再改计划我就把你生剥了吃掉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum up, &amp;quot;開會的人來了這麼些&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;工作已经做了那麼些&amp;quot; are not accurate translations. Your book is weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T11:42:06.380" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10134" CreationDate="2014-10-29T07:03:18.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right that it's not verb serialization, but 去 is still a verb in this sentence. Instead, 怎么走 is the interrogative adverbial phrase that modifies the V+O 去故宫. Consider the sentence structure of a possible answer to the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我 骑车     去 故宫。&#xA;S  Adv.     V  O &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure needs no explanation. Now replacing the adverbial phrase with an interrogative one, the sentence becomes an interrogative sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我怎么走去故宫？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Invert the sentence for emphasis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;去 故宫 我 怎么走？&#xA;V  O   |S  Adv.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of 故宫我怎么去, it's the inversion of 我怎么去故宫, where the interrogative adverbial phrase is simply 怎么 without a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我 怎么 去 故宫？&#xA;S  Adv. V  O&#xA;&#xA;故宫 我 怎么 去？&#xA;O   |S  Adv. V&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T07:03:18.510" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10137" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-29T13:09:05.067" Score="0" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you look up the characters used to transscribe obama in chinese, you get the following: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;奥 = mysterious  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;巴 = to long for   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;马 = horse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a simple sentence pattern in classical chinese is: &#xA;adv. V O &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to interpret &lt;strong&gt;奥巴马&lt;/strong&gt; as a sentence in classical chinese with this peculiar sentence structure? &#xA;If it is possible, would the translation be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;in a mysterous way longing for a horse&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6513" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T03:47:45.903" Title="if 奥巴马 was a sentence in classical chinese, what would be its meaning?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-11-02T04:35:47.037" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10138" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-29T14:42:51.537" Score="3" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, in Chinese, the adverbial phrase is put right in front of the verb and its purpose is to describe the verb. &#xA;Sentence pattern: S adverbialphrase V O&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the rules to put a grammatically correct adverbial phrase together?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How long can a complex adverbial phrase become?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can a chinese sentence contain more than one adverbial phrase?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T09:37:33.027" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T09:37:33.027" Title="What is important to consider while building an adverbial phrase?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-07-14T03:02:41.390" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10139" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-29T16:09:48.827" Score="4" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ve looked up the words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;托 = to entrust (only one possible meaning, i do not know which one makes   sense)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;业 = enterprise&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;考试 = test&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;必备 = essential&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can make no sense of this sentence, i even can not analyze its parts of speeches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you explain the contained in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T23:58:51.790" Title="What is the translation of 托业考试必备 ?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10139" CreationDate="2014-10-29T16:26:39.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;use iciba：（托业）TOEIC exam required&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T16:26:39.583" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10141" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-29T16:46:41.363" Score="5" ViewCount="534" Body="&lt;p&gt;I browsed randomly through texts written in classical Chinese, and I noticed there were a lot of Chinese characters that were frequent in classical Chinese but never or rarely being present in modern Chinese. &#xA;Some examples:&#xA;吾，爾，而，谐，虞，乎,乃，伊，卿，叟，孰，弥 。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you provide further examples, especially characters which are used lexically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-07T09:45:13.703" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T09:45:13.703" Title="What Chinese characters are rare in modern but common in classical Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10143" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-29T18:12:23.173" Score="0" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you use &quot;which&quot; as a &lt;strike&gt;preposition&lt;/strike&gt; relative pronoun in chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I'm trying to translate：&#xA; There is a cozy tea sitting area in our shop which is in front of the Campbell's farmers market on every Sunday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美週末星期天，在於商店裡，有一場舒適（座位／休息區）；我們的店位於農貿Campbell市場前。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation uses two complete sentences, but I want to make it a sentence followed by the &lt;strike&gt;preposition&lt;/strike&gt; relative pronoun &quot;which is in front of the Campbell's farmers market on every Sunday&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3275" LastEditorUserId="3275" LastEditDate="2014-10-30T00:19:37.360" LastActivityDate="2014-11-03T03:04:16.567" Title="How do you use &quot;which&quot; as a relative pronoun?" Tags="&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10143" CreationDate="2014-10-29T19:59:55.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a matter of word order and using 的:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;位于我们商店前的 (A) 坎贝尔农场市场 (S) 每周日 (T) 有了 (V) 舒适的客厅 (O)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T19:59:55.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10143" CreationDate="2014-10-29T20:01:52.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;confirming answer #1:basic grammar， search web e。g。 for ＂relative&#xA; clause in Chinese＂，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;get e。g。 In Mandarin Chinese, the relative clause is similar to other adjectival phrases in that it precedes the noun that it modifies, and ends with the relative particle de. If the relative clause is missing a subject but contains an object (in other words, if the verb is transitive), the main-clause noun is the implied subject of the relative clause:[24&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T20:01:52.280" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10143" CreationDate="2014-10-29T21:06:48.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;每週末星期天 ，我們位於農貿Campbell市場前&lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;店 裏有一場舒適（座位／休息區）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6675" LastEditorUserId="6675" LastEditDate="2014-10-30T04:14:15.810" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T04:14:15.810" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10152" CreationDate="2014-10-29T22:39:41.583" Score="2" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;What advice for translation could you give in this context,&#xA;how would you translate the following sentences containing adverbials:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I will go to military-school &lt;strong&gt;soon.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I will go to military-school &lt;strong&gt;within the next week&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I will go to military-school &lt;strong&gt;once I have finished studying&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempt on translating (please feel free to correct my mistakes):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;即将&lt;/strong&gt; 去 军校。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;下星期里&lt;/strong&gt; 去 军校。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;比及读完&lt;/strong&gt; 去 军校&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-10T12:04:13.047" LastActivityDate="2020-07-11T01:58:33.560" Title="What should one pay attention to when translating &quot;I will go to military-school [within the next week]&quot; into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10139" CreationDate="2014-10-30T00:42:20.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not agree with S.Rhee. It seems like here it is a name of a book or some TOEIC test preparation reference. Thus, the better translation in English would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Essential for TOEIC&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6676" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T00:42:20.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10137" CreationDate="2014-10-30T01:03:10.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, if it is the way you interpret the characters, you can translate that into a sentence. However, you probably should not say this to an average Chinese user, it would not make any sense to them. Actually, if you would like to interpreted 奥巴马 to any Chinese sentence that makes some sense, it is nearly impossible. I personally do not see an modern Chinese sentence or often-used classical expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, one Chinese character could have many meanings. Here, all three characters have more than the meanings you have mentioned above. Thus you have a much bigger chance to find a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, it is less common in modern Chinese language to use one character for every single component of the sentence. So I would say the better way is to view the sentence the classical way. This has lead to another interesting point. The sentence pattern of classical Chinese are so different from the Chinese we are using now. Thus the chance of you to find a  sentence is even bigger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I actually see a lot ways to interpreted 奥巴马 into a sentence. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奥 - the Southwest corner of a room&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巴 - to stick (v.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;马 - horse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus the sentence could mean &quot;A horse is sticked at the Southwest corner of a room.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6676" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T01:03:10.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10148" CreationDate="2014-10-30T01:10:26.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我即将去军校&lt;/code&gt; is grammatically correct, but &lt;code&gt;即将&lt;/code&gt; sounds too formal. Try this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我很快就要去军校了。 I soon will go-to  military-school le.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that I used &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; which marks the end of what I am saying. Otherwise a listener may expect that you have something more to say. There are subtle uses of &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; that may take pages to explain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a formal form, &lt;code&gt;我即将去军校了&lt;/code&gt; is perfectly fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我下星期里去军校&lt;/code&gt; is understandable. &lt;code&gt;Within&lt;/code&gt; is kind of a formal preposition word in English. In Chinese you may want to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我要在下星期内去军校。 I will at next week within go-to military-school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;在...(以)内&lt;/code&gt; is more idiomatic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我比及读完去军校&lt;/code&gt; -- &lt;code&gt;比及&lt;/code&gt; is an archaic word that is no longer in use. &lt;code&gt;study&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;学习&lt;/code&gt;; It can be &lt;code&gt;读&lt;/code&gt; sometimes, but the context is missing. Anyway:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我一旦学习完就去军校。 I once study finish then go-to military-school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T01:10:26.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10153" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-30T01:21:27.777" Score="3" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks to another question on this forum i learned that the south-western corner of a house has its own name: 奥. I was very surprised of this notion and could not make any sense why there might be necessity for giving corners unique names. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Could you provide an ethymology to make the purpose of naming comprehensible?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are further names for particular places in a house?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T06:29:56.213" Title="What is the origin of giving certain corners within houses own name?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10141" CreationDate="2014-10-30T01:24:18.083" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are people studying this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/statistics/char/list.php?Which=CL&quot;&gt;Classical Chinese Character Frequency List&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/statistics/char/list.php?Which=MO&quot;&gt;Modern Chinese Character Frequency List&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now do your own comparisons because I'm lazy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt; -- I feel less lazy today so I'll give it a shot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For obvious purposes, let't take the first 1000 characters in the classical list and see where they go in the trend. I can't do scripts so I'll do excel. Anyway, here are words that are falling out of favor:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ancient date and time system: 甲乙丙丁, 子丑寅卯, etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ancient bureaucracy: 丞, 诏, 诛, 朕, 卿, 吏, 郡, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some daily words are also fading away: 吾, 汝, 焉, 哉, 勿, 曰, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moral concepts: 孝, 贤, 贞, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hard to categorize: 骸, 淮, 朔, etc. Either the concepts are no longer popular, or there are substitutes that is becoming popular....&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-11-05T09:08:24.983" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T09:08:24.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10156" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-30T02:06:42.967" Score="0" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;臾 (yu2) in classical Chinese means &quot;for a while&quot;. &#xA;I assume &quot;for a while&quot; was not the original meaning this character was associated with in the time when it came, by what mysterious brain activity ever, into this world. &#xA;The oldest depiction of this character seem to be composed of hands reaching for a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;for a while&quot; already the oldest retraceable meaning for this character or is there an older one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bjQHy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i wonder what erich von däniken or david icke would have to tell about this character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T09:18:44.440" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T09:18:44.440" Title="What is the oldest retracable meaning for the character/word 臾?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10156" CreationDate="2014-10-30T02:59:53.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;臾 is actually a verb meaning &quot;to tie up and drag&quot;, hence what the character looked like. But it can be used together with &lt;code&gt;須&lt;/code&gt; as a noun, i.e. as &lt;code&gt;須臾&lt;/code&gt;, to mean &quot;a while&quot;. This practice emerged by the Warring States era and so is just about as ancient as the time the character took definitive shape..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T02:59:53.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10156" CreationDate="2014-10-30T03:03:04.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;臾is used to describe a place too by the meaning of the place is too small:一隅之地 (as a &quot;通假字&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6561" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T03:03:04.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10137" CreationDate="2014-10-30T03:07:12.207" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the &quot;巴&quot; means &quot;to long for&quot; or &quot;to stick&quot;. Really didn't get you guys.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6561" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T03:07:12.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10020" CreationDate="2014-10-30T03:14:43.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe 对，我不知道。/是的，我不知道。&#xA;The first 我知道 is a confirm. So just make signs is enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6561" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T03:14:43.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10137" CreationDate="2014-10-30T03:47:45.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When &lt;code&gt;巴&lt;/code&gt; is used without context, it usually means part of Sichuan province. So &lt;code&gt;巴马&lt;/code&gt; is a horse from Sichuan. &lt;code&gt;奥&lt;/code&gt; is part of a room where you put offerings to your ancestors. So it is probably a cooked horse from Sichuan, put on a table in one of the house corners to please your ancestors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not as funny as @zaolian's answer but anyways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T03:47:45.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10153" CreationDate="2014-10-30T06:29:56.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know of names for other corners of the house, but the southwestern corner is considered traditionally as the privileged site suitable for worshipping deities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《禮·曲禮》 爲人子者，居不主奧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The child does not live in the southwestern corner.&quot; In other words, one should show deference to one's parents by yielding the southwestern corner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6498" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T06:29:56.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10138" CreationDate="2014-10-30T06:58:52.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that you like rules, but soon you'll find that exceptions are the norm. Don't consider the following as rules. They are just examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;How to put them together?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is indeed very flexible, as it is in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;轻轻的我走了。 Quietly I left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我轻轻的走了。 I quietly left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我走了，轻轻的。 I left quietly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2nd is the most common form, but the other two forms give the sentences a poetic touch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice in the last example you put a comma before the adverb, because Chinese is mostly a left branching language. This is how you make a right branch feel natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[rant]Someone may want to criticize my use of 的 and say that I should use 地 or 得 instead. In fact 的地得 is totally indistinguishable in speech, why bother distinguishing them in writing? My example is from the famous romantic poet 徐志摩. I'll listen to you if you write something better than him. Also stop being a grammar communist OK? [/rant]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another form of positioning, &lt;code&gt;V + 得 + adverb&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跑得快，有糖吃；跑得慢，没糖吃。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Run fast and you get candy; run slow and you get candy wrappers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;How long and how complex can it be?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as you like. This is how you stick many adverbs together:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我非常非常非常非常非常非常非常非常非常非常非常非常(gasp)非常非常非常非常非常非常非常非常非常非常非常(gasp)非常非常非常非常非常非常非常非常非常喜欢你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This looks like cheating, but you can have this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们要以十八大提出的解放思想、实事求是、与时俱进、求真务实的精神办好这件事情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We should complete the task with the spirits of the Eighteenth National People's Congress meeting, which includes liberation of the mind, faithfulness to the truth, advancement with the times, and emphasis on pragmatism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still this is but one colossal adverb phrase, not exactly &amp;quot;many&amp;quot; phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;How to do more than one adverb phrase?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 阿桑's song (who died of breast cancer in 2009):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你听寂寞在唱歌，轻轻的，狠狠的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Listen you to the loneliness singing, quietly and ruthlessly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another example, with three adverbial phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乌龟又慢又稳地，一步一步地爬到了树顶上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slowly but surely, step by step, the turtle climbed up to the treetop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T06:58:52.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10156" CreationDate="2014-10-30T07:20:05.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文》：草器也。古象形。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清代段玉裁『說文解字注』：束縛捽抴爲臾曳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;means &amp;quot;tie and draw&amp;quot; (in ancient time, tie grasses)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;After all there are derived meaning,&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《集韵》：臾,善也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;also means &amp;quot;FINE&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/22/js/81FE.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/22/js/81FE.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6272" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T07:20:05.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10102" CreationDate="2014-10-30T08:43:54.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has several categories of serialization. I'll try to provide one example for each. With my lousy word-for-word translations. Note that there is no strict definition of the categories; Even serialization itself don't have a strict definition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Auxiliaries&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 《老子》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;道可道，非常道。 -- Tao can tell, not common tao.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Verbal complements&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one of 元稹's poem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;垂死病中惊坐起 -- Almost dying sickness inside shockingly sat got-up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Coverbs&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 苏轼's 《水调歌头》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我欲乘风归去 -- I want take wind return leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Other cases&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王安石's poem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;明月何时照我还 -- Bright moon what time shine me return.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T08:43:54.890" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9763" CreationDate="2014-10-30T11:23:33.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking maybe 能幹 or 經驗老道 has some similar meaning to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能幹: capable, useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;經驗老道: have abundant experiences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6613" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T11:23:33.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10168" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10179" CreationDate="2014-10-30T16:25:11.187" Score="4" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinasmack.com/glossary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; is the ChinaSMACK glossary. Wondering how outdated it is. Would something more up to date and/or more comprehensive exist, or this is pretty much it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Found &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/47549.htm?fromtitle=%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E6%B5%81%E8%A1%8C%E8%AF%AD&amp;amp;fromid=4463690&amp;amp;type=syn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; from Baidu. Very useful, but not much in the way of explanations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-29T12:40:51.917" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T12:40:51.917" Title="Other than ChinaSMACK, do any other glossaries of acronyms used in Chinese, like PK, ZF, GCD, TMD, JC, etc exist?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;slang&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10169" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-30T17:44:19.617" Score="2" ViewCount="1102" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some time ago I read two Chinese poems and now I can't find the original Chinese version, only the English translation. Maybe you could help me with a link or a title!&#xA;The poems are from The Odes of Confucius:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://theotherpages.org/poems/part2/confucius01.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://theotherpages.org/poems/part2/confucius01.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;Sadness&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sun is ever full and bright,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pale moon waneth night by night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why should this be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My heart that once was full of light&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is but a dying moon to-night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I dream of thee apart,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would the dawn might lift my heart,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;O sun, to thee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Trysting Time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pretty girl at time o’ gloaming&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hath whispered me to go and meet her&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the city gate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I love her, but she tarries coming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shall I return, or stay and greet her?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I burn, and wait.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Truly she charmeth all beholders,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;’Tis she hath given me this jewel,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The jade of my delight;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this red jewel-jade that smoulders,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my desire doth add more fuel,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New charms to-night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She has gathered with her lily fingers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lily fair and rare to see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh! sweeter still the fragrance lingers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the warm hand that gave it me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6678" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-10-31T16:31:11.427" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T16:31:11.427" Title="English translation of The Odes of Confucius (詩經)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10171" CreationDate="2014-10-30T21:27:54.973" Score="2" ViewCount="215" Body="&lt;p&gt;My rough translation is &quot;better not to run than to run and worry about it.&quot; It's the double 的 and 替 that's throwing me off. Is my translation close?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最令人啼笑皆非的是，有关这事的争吵，多是不跑步的替跑步的操心。至于说，顶着雾霾跑马拉松会形成不良的示范，更是无稽之谈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the second to last paragraph in the article below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.ifeng.com/a/20141020/42245256_0.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.ifeng.com/a/20141020/42245256_0.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-11-02T12:39:04.567" Title="Having trouble translating this: 多是不跑步的替跑步的操心" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10170" CreationDate="2014-10-30T23:56:34.203" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not quite; I break this fragment like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;多是&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不跑步的&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;替...操心&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跑步的&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;多是&quot; is a bit tricky too, as in this case it's an abbreviation of &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/3134962.htm&quot;&gt;大多&lt;/a&gt;是&quot;, or &quot;mostly is&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So altogether, it should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;, mostly is those who don't run worrying on behalf of those who run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this direct translation is awkward, so it might be better to rephrase it according to the preceding fragments. Here's my crude attempt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What's most laughable about all this hullabaloo, is that it is mostly coming from non-runners worrying about runners on their behalf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T23:56:34.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10169" CreationDate="2014-10-31T03:06:41.010" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fun fact: Western translators are really good at distorting classic Chinese poems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read through several translation of Chinese poems by various western translators, some of them are quite good actually, but some of the distortions are just baffling.  There was a U.S. poet who didn't know any Chinese, but used the literal translation of some poems, and used her poetic sense to rewrite them. There was another guy who didn't know Chinese but knew some Japanese, then he used a Japanese translations of the Chinese poems to do his translation. Oh you guys are really wonderful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've sifted through all 305 poems and couldn't find the first one. Either because it is made up, or because of some serious alternation of the original meaning. Boy this one is hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second one has the original title of 静女(Quiet Girl) from section 国风·邶风(folk songs from 邶). This also took me some time because the meaning is also distorted to a great degree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;静女&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;静女其姝，俟我于城隅。爱而不见，搔首踟蹰。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;静女其娈，贻我彤管。彤管有炜，说怿女美。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自牧归荑，洵美且异。匪女之为美，美人之贻。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt; Just found the book you've mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/literature/chinese/lute-of-jade/contents.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.  Read some of my old favorites. Now my eyes are bleeding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update again:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My word-to-word translation with grammar stripped. Now you should feel my pain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Quite girl so beautiful, &#xA;let-wait me at city corner.&#xA;Loving(-her) but not seeing(-her), &#xA;(I) scratch head wander hesitantly.&#xA;&#xA;Quiet girl so pretty, &#xA;Give me red flute.&#xA;Red flute have glow,&#xA;(I) Enjoy love its beauty.&#xA;&#xA;(She) from meadow fetch-back reed(-flower),&#xA;Indeed beautiful and special.&#xA;(I'm happy) Not(-because) of it being beautiful,&#xA;(but It's) beautiful girl's present.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you see, the original translation got quite a few things wrong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-10-31T06:51:49.667" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T06:51:49.667" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10169" CreationDate="2014-10-31T06:34:02.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can see the translation of 诗经 (any many other classic pieces) here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/book-of-poetry/zh?en=on&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/book-of-poetry/zh?en=on&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2669" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T06:34:02.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10174" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10175" CreationDate="2014-10-31T07:19:35.223" Score="4" ViewCount="382" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate &lt;code&gt;so much for....&lt;/code&gt; into Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were going to go to a restaurant that you &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; like to eat and when you get there it is close. &lt;code&gt;so much for eating here today&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone says that the weather is going to be really good the next day &amp;amp; then it rains. &lt;code&gt;so much for the good weather&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a good equivalent for for &lt;code&gt;so much for....&lt;/code&gt; in these situations?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T15:17:53.917" Title="Translation: &quot;So much for...&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10174" CreationDate="2014-10-31T08:39:49.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This one puzzled me for quite some time. My high school ESL teacher used to say &amp;quot;So much for today&amp;quot; when she finished a class, then I always took it literally and thought to my self &amp;quot;Yeah, you really taught so much today. I see.&amp;quot; Then one day I saw from somewhere that it means &amp;quot;Today's class is over.&amp;quot; Now it looks like it's not the proper usage, is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I googled and I found Japanese teachers say &amp;quot;So much for today&amp;quot; as well. So much for the proper usage of &amp;quot;so much for&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's difficult to get it right for east Asians because there is no equivalent in Chinese or Japanese. You will need workarounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so much for eating here today. 今天在这里吃不成了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so much for the good weather. 好天气泡汤了。/好天气就到此为止了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, no, no. These translations doesn't work at all. You can do the Chinese with a disgruntled or sarcastic voice if you say it. On paper it's just plain dull.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English, you win again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T08:39:49.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9905" CreationDate="2014-10-31T09:11:53.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese native speaker, if you want to express &quot;He went to five continents this summer&quot;, I will say &quot;他在这个夏天去了五大洲。“Please note that &quot;五大洲&quot; and “五个大陆” are very different. &quot;五大洲&quot; means five commonly recognized continents, including Asia, Africa,Europe... But &quot;大陆&quot; means kind of mainland, for example, &quot;Mainland China&quot; means &quot;中国大陆地区&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hopes to help you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6560" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T09:11:53.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10141" CreationDate="2014-10-31T13:21:24.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on Wang Dingwei's answer, I ran a quick script on these two files.&#xA;Here are the Classical characters that don't appear in the Modern list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;C   Class   Modern&#xA;鐸   4128    ?&#xA;諲   5008    ?&#xA;鞶   5488    ?&#xA;鉷   5516    ?&#xA;鴈   5657    ?&#xA;頔   5672    ?&#xA;褾   5730    ?&#xA;衎   5761    ?&#xA;蟽   5789    ?&#xA;綯   5817    ?&#xA;諴   5851    ?&#xA;禼   5872    ?&#xA;虓   5877    ?&#xA;菶   5892    ?&#xA;醔   5893    ?&#xA;饍   5934    ?&#xA;紞   5962    ?&#xA;鞞   5963    ?&#xA;翾   6004    ?&#xA;臱   6036    ?&#xA;鈒   6045    ?&#xA;耤   6060    ?&#xA;襈   6082    ?&#xA;鉨   6083    ?&#xA;窴   6106    ?&#xA;襚   6133    ?&#xA;韡   6182    ?&#xA;魨   6183    ?&#xA;騑   6193    ?&#xA;黁   6208    ?&#xA;磝   6237    ?&#xA;黓   6245    ?&#xA;黙   6246    ?&#xA;趫   6254    ?&#xA;蒍   6268    ?&#xA;鬷   6278    ?&#xA;睈   6293    ?&#xA;襜   6305    ?&#xA;蒱   6306    ?&#xA;褭   6331    ?&#xA;礩   6386    ?&#xA;韐   6422    ?&#xA;鹢   6444    ?&#xA;磎   6445    ?&#xA;祊   6449    ?&#xA;鷪   6450    ?&#xA;眱   6459    ?&#xA;睟   6486    ?&#xA;纚   6487    ?&#xA;褕   6488    ?&#xA;酅   6489    ?&#xA;衆   6490    ?&#xA;蚃   6498    ?&#xA;羖   6505    ?&#xA;軨   6506    ?&#xA;鄀   6517    ?&#xA;脤   6542    ?&#xA;礶   6543    ?&#xA;薁   6566    ?&#xA;簄   6567    ?&#xA;闬   6582    ?&#xA;醦   6583    ?&#xA;駼   6605    ?&#xA;謵   6623    ?&#xA;餧   6624    ?&#xA;矁   6625    ?&#xA;莋   6626    ?&#xA;矼   6635    ?&#xA;諢   6636    ?&#xA;銛   6637    ?&#xA;釂   6646    ?&#xA;軋   6647    ?&#xA;鄃   6648    ?&#xA;馛   6649    ?&#xA;簝   6662    ?&#xA;繄   6663    ?&#xA;眛   6673    ?&#xA;鸑   6685    ?&#xA;雝   6699    ?&#xA;秏   6717    ?&#xA;禟   6718    ?&#xA;謜   6729    ?&#xA;譊   6730    ?&#xA;褷   6731    ?&#xA;驲   6745    ?&#xA;腯   6762    ?&#xA;碏   6773    ?&#xA;螾   6774    ?&#xA;菻   6775    ?&#xA;蚄   6792    ?&#xA;浈   6793    ?&#xA;齎   6794    ?&#xA;   6795    ?&#xA;禴   6814    ?&#xA;绬   6815    ?&#xA;虸   6816    ?&#xA;饎   6835    ?&#xA;躧   6836    ?&#xA;觷   6837    ?&#xA;芚   6852    ?&#xA;藟   6853    ?&#xA;釴   6854    ?&#xA;膎   6855    ?&#xA;鈮   6856    ?&#xA;髩   6857    ?&#xA;鮧   6872    ?&#xA;盭   6891    ?&#xA;膢   6892    ?&#xA;韎   6893    ?&#xA;鹥   6894    ?&#xA;絇   6905    ?&#xA;讗   6906    ?&#xA;鉶   6907    ?&#xA;顥   6908    ?&#xA;紒   6929    ?&#xA;蒢   6930    ?&#xA;絰   6942    ?&#xA;萯   6943    ?&#xA;謷   6944    ?&#xA;麛   6945    ?&#xA;笴   6964    ?&#xA;絻   6965    ?&#xA;臝   6966    ?&#xA;黈   6967    ?&#xA;鼛   6968    ?&#xA;紥   6969    ?&#xA;駆   6970    ?&#xA;鹴   6971    ?&#xA;纼   6988    ?&#xA;轜   6989    ?&#xA;隮   6990    ?&#xA;飶   6991    ?&#xA;鼟   6992    ?&#xA;銟   6993    ?&#xA;鵶   6994    ?&#xA;箰   7012    ?&#xA;阬   7013    ?&#xA;耠   7014    ?&#xA;錔   7015    ?&#xA;騕   7016    ?&#xA;鬴   7017    ?&#xA;魭   7018    ?&#xA;鮔   7019    ?&#xA;纆   7036    ?&#xA;逴   7037    ?&#xA;睰   7038    ?&#xA;筜   7039    ?&#xA;觾   7040    ?&#xA;醳   7041    ?&#xA;鎡   7042    ?&#xA;鐉   7043    ?&#xA;箙   7057    ?&#xA;耔   7058    ?&#xA;菼   7082    ?&#xA;褘   7083    ?&#xA;韣   7084    ?&#xA;縗   7104    ?&#xA;肵   7105    ?&#xA;詴   7106    ?&#xA;赩   7107    ?&#xA;颣   7108    ?&#xA;鶂   7109    ?&#xA;鼒   7110    ?&#xA;稾   7111    ?&#xA;蒎   7112    ?&#xA;騩   7113    ?&#xA;聓   7114    ?&#xA;睗   7129    ?&#xA;矱   7130    ?&#xA;筤   7131    ?&#xA;荂   7132    ?&#xA;葅   7133    ?&#xA;賵   7134    ?&#xA;鄏   7135    ?&#xA;瀵   7136    ?&#xA;霡   7137    ?&#xA;霿   7138    ?&#xA;韝   7139    ?&#xA;酏   7140    ?&#xA;穨   7141    ?&#xA;鞾   7142    ?&#xA;蒒   7143    ?&#xA;簉   7165    ?&#xA;踶   7166    ?&#xA;铘   7167    ?&#xA;龏   7168    ?&#xA;篘   7169    ?&#xA;镋   7170    ?&#xA;鮸   7171    ?&#xA;繶   7195    ?&#xA;諟   7196    ?&#xA;踳   7197    ?&#xA;鄅   7198    ?&#xA;霃   7199    ?&#xA;馌   7200    ?&#xA;盵   7201    ?&#xA;繦   7202    ?&#xA;艃   7203    ?&#xA;蕆   7204    ?&#xA;魞   7205    ?&#xA;睮   7231    ?&#xA;穠   7232    ?&#xA;罳   7233    ?&#xA;耏   7234    ?&#xA;芣   7235    ?&#xA;蟟   7236    ?&#xA;詶   7237    ?&#xA;醓   7238    ?&#xA;錡   7239    ?&#xA;馺   7240    ?&#xA;鸤   7241    ?&#xA;礧   7242    ?&#xA;緭   7243    ?&#xA;辿   7244    ?&#xA;銇   7245    ?&#xA;紟   7278    ?&#xA;脀   7279    ?&#xA;襮   7280    ?&#xA;讎   7281    ?&#xA;瘃   7282    ?&#xA;髢   7283    ?&#xA;鍰   7284    ?&#xA;睔   7313    ?&#xA;穬   7314    ?&#xA;罛   7315    ?&#xA;翿   7316    ?&#xA;脡   7317    ?&#xA;鋗   7318    ?&#xA;鍭   7319    ?&#xA;鹔   7320    ?&#xA;磧   7321    ?&#xA;荝   7322    ?&#xA;釳   7323    ?&#xA;隇   7324    ?&#xA;縓   7354    ?&#xA;蹛   7355    ?&#xA;鎛   7356    ?&#xA;眴   7357    ?&#xA;藊   7358    ?&#xA;詽   7359    ?&#xA;鮿   7360    ?&#xA;糒   7397    ?&#xA;紑   7398    ?&#xA;臡   7399    ?&#xA;虩   7400    ?&#xA;蚳   7401    ?&#xA;褖   7402    ?&#xA;郚   7403    ?&#xA;雺   7404    ?&#xA;肐   7405    ?&#xA;覸   7406    ?&#xA;鞉   7407    ?&#xA;韠   7408    ?&#xA;飡   7409    ?&#xA;鴋   7410    ?&#xA;稊   7452    ?&#xA;籧   7453    ?&#xA;紿   7454    ?&#xA;蠮   7455    ?&#xA;訿   7456    ?&#xA;遫   7457    ?&#xA;遰   7458    ?&#xA;郥   7459    ?&#xA;郳   7460    ?&#xA;鍉   7461    ?&#xA;麷   7462    ?&#xA;睶   7463    ?&#xA;磵   7464    ?&#xA;箄   7465    ?&#xA;箻   7466    ?&#xA;籟   7467    ?&#xA;訍   7468    ?&#xA;谸   7469    ?&#xA;豽   7470    ?&#xA;靽   7471    ?&#xA;   7472    ?&#xA;眽   7508    ?&#xA;綪   7509    ?&#xA;缼   7510    ?&#xA;腶   7511    ?&#xA;讻   7512    ?&#xA;輹   7513    ?&#xA;桊   7514    ?&#xA;餤   7515    ?&#xA;饦   7516    ?&#xA;鬒   7517    ?&#xA;鵩   7518    ?&#xA;褍   7519    ?&#xA;誗   7520    ?&#xA;鏚   7521    ?&#xA;碹   7522    ?&#xA;葊   7523    ?&#xA;瞶   7553    ?&#xA;箑   7554    ?&#xA;舠   7555    ?&#xA;茒   7556    ?&#xA;訰   7557    ?&#xA;輠   7558    ?&#xA;鄴   2454    ?&#xA;鄪   7559    ?&#xA;闑   7560    ?&#xA;霛   7561    ?&#xA;馹   7562    ?&#xA;鸃   7563    ?&#xA;眡   7564    ?&#xA;萐   7565    ?&#xA;輣   7566    ?&#xA;霙   7567    ?&#xA;霦   7568    ?&#xA;鯌   7569    ?&#xA;繍   7570    ?&#xA;頧   7571    ?&#xA;箎   7612    ?&#xA;籝   7613    ?&#xA;綧   7614    ?&#xA;茪   7615    ?&#xA;蓩   7616    ?&#xA;藂   7617    ?&#xA;虣   7618    ?&#xA;輮   7619    ?&#xA;蔹   7620    ?&#xA;鐕   7621    ?&#xA;飂   7622    ?&#xA;鱐   7623    ?&#xA;稒   7624    ?&#xA;篣   7625    ?&#xA;艔   7626    ?&#xA;蜋   7627    ?&#xA;袎   7628    ?&#xA;酧   7629    ?&#xA;鋘   7630    ?&#xA;骦   7631    ?&#xA;籛   7683    ?&#xA;腒   7684    ?&#xA;苨   7685    ?&#xA;薶   7686    ?&#xA;藋   7687    ?&#xA;虆   7688    ?&#xA;螉   7689    ?&#xA;觕   7690    ?&#xA;謻   7691    ?&#xA;豝   7692    ?&#xA;轙   7693    ?&#xA;靬   7694    ?&#xA;鞂   7695    ?&#xA;鞹   7696    ?&#xA;騂   7697    ?&#xA;鶅   7698    ?&#xA;鷮   7699    ?&#xA;鼲   7700    ?&#xA;礠   7701    ?&#xA;裌   7702    ?&#xA;謳   7703    ?&#xA;邟   7704    ?&#xA;鉟   7705    ?&#xA;飻   7706    ?&#xA;骭   7707    ?&#xA;魹   7708    ?&#xA;鼕   7709    ?&#xA;铇   7710    ?&#xA;簭   7763    ?&#xA;縳   7764    ?&#xA;繘   7765    ?&#xA;荓   7766    ?&#xA;蔕   7767    ?&#xA;謣   7768    ?&#xA;貆   7769    ?&#xA;陊   7770    ?&#xA;籺   7771    ?&#xA;羾   7772    ?&#xA;翏   7773    ?&#xA;艥   7774    ?&#xA;茤   7775    ?&#xA;譒   7776    ?&#xA;趍   7777    ?&#xA;踠   7778    ?&#xA;輙   7779    ?&#xA;輬   7780    ?&#xA;轀   7781    ?&#xA;鞕   7782    ?&#xA;駴   7783    ?&#xA;簖   7784    ?&#xA;魶   7785    ?&#xA;瞾   7845    ?&#xA;笵   7846    ?&#xA;綆   7847    ?&#xA;縰   7848    ?&#xA;罻   7849    ?&#xA;罿   7850    ?&#xA;翽   7851    ?&#xA;艓   7852    ?&#xA;蝃   7853    ?&#xA;諰   7854    ?&#xA;蹜   7855    ?&#xA;蹝   7856    ?&#xA;蹢   7857    ?&#xA;韔   7858    ?&#xA;騵   7859    ?&#xA;齍   7860    ?&#xA;箶   7861    ?&#xA;縌   7862    ?&#xA;莝   7863    ?&#xA;諐   7864    ?&#xA;諕   7865    ?&#xA;跀   7866    ?&#xA;迱   7867    ?&#xA;鞀   7868    ?&#xA;饠   7869    ?&#xA;鸜   7870    ?&#xA;禂   7919    ?&#xA;篹   7920    ?&#xA;簁   7921    ?&#xA;緪   7922    ?&#xA;胏   7923    ?&#xA;膍   7924    ?&#xA;蓻   7925    ?&#xA;袙   7926    ?&#xA;誀   7927    ?&#xA;譣   7928    ?&#xA;鄋   7929    ?&#xA;鉥   7930    ?&#xA;鞙   7931    ?&#xA;鞸   7932    ?&#xA;韇   7933    ?&#xA;駓   7934    ?&#xA;駪   7935    ?&#xA;驒   7936    ?&#xA;驔   7937    ?&#xA;魠   7938    ?&#xA;鵫   7939    ?&#xA;鸐   7940    ?&#xA;綷   7941    ?&#xA;緃   7942    ?&#xA;艅   7943    ?&#xA;艛   7944    ?&#xA;葧   7945    ?&#xA;輄   7946    ?&#xA;迾   7947    ?&#xA;鋄   7948    ?&#xA;雭   7949    ?&#xA;顡   7950    ?&#xA;砅   8024    ?&#xA;硰   8025    ?&#xA;祴   8026    ?&#xA;竁   8027    ?&#xA;箮   8028    ?&#xA;罦   8029    ?&#xA;羋   8030    ?&#xA;耾   8031    ?&#xA;膇   8032    ?&#xA;芀   8033    ?&#xA;蕫   8034    ?&#xA;蚔   8035    ?&#xA;蚼   8036    ?&#xA;衺   8037    ?&#xA;觡   8038    ?&#xA;豻   8039    ?&#xA;貜   8040    ?&#xA;跇   8041    ?&#xA;輷   8042    ?&#xA;轊   8043    ?&#xA;轛   8044    ?&#xA;郰   8045    ?&#xA;鐢   8046    ?&#xA;鞢   8047    ?&#xA;頀   8048    ?&#xA;驓   8049    ?&#xA;鳲   8050    ?&#xA;鷤   8051    ?&#xA;黅   8052    ?&#xA;睌   8053    ?&#xA;矏   8054    ?&#xA;硠   8055    ?&#xA;秪   8056    ?&#xA;窐   8057    ?&#xA;綉   8058    ?&#xA;纊   8059    ?&#xA;羓   8060    ?&#xA;虄   8061    ?&#xA;蜄   8062    ?&#xA;衊   8063    ?&#xA;衵   8064    ?&#xA;賝   8065    ?&#xA;辷   8066    ?&#xA;霌   8067    ?&#xA;颿   8068    ?&#xA;馎   8069    ?&#xA;騳   8070    ?&#xA;鵕   8071    ?&#xA;   8072    ?&#xA;瞤   8073    ?&#xA;瞮   8074    ?&#xA;螱   8075    ?&#xA;馡   8076    ?&#xA;稏   8153    ?&#xA;竫   8154    ?&#xA;簮   8155    ?&#xA;粬   8156    ?&#xA;萭   8157    ?&#xA;蔇   8158    ?&#xA;薉   8159    ?&#xA;蘀   8160    ?&#xA;衃   8161    ?&#xA;詡   8162    ?&#xA;謞   8163    ?&#xA;譺   8164    ?&#xA;跦   8165    ?&#xA;軶   8166    ?&#xA;輤   8167    ?&#xA;轞   8168    ?&#xA;迲   8169    ?&#xA;遻   8170    ?&#xA;邧   8171    ?&#xA;郲   8172    ?&#xA;鄁   8173    ?&#xA;鄎   8174    ?&#xA;醷   8175    ?&#xA;釚   8176    ?&#xA;鈷   8177    ?&#xA;颒   8178    ?&#xA;驐   8179    ?&#xA;鮆   8180    ?&#xA;鰋   8181    ?&#xA;鵙   8182    ?&#xA;   8183    ?&#xA;   8184    ?&#xA;眂   8185    ?&#xA;眻   8186    ?&#xA;矴   8187    ?&#xA;硥   8188    ?&#xA;硿   8189    ?&#xA;碨   8190    ?&#xA;祡   8191    ?&#xA;秄   8192    ?&#xA;笯   8193    ?&#xA;箵   8194    ?&#xA;綇   8195    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9884    ?&#xA;鄥   9885    ?&#xA;鄻   9886    ?&#xA;鈏   9887    ?&#xA;銈   9888    ?&#xA;銖   9889    ?&#xA;鋯   9890    ?&#xA;鍠   9891    ?&#xA;鏌   9892    ?&#xA;閞   9893    ?&#xA;陭   9894    ?&#xA;隒   9895    ?&#xA;隿   9896    ?&#xA;靲   9897    ?&#xA;鞇   9898    ?&#xA;鞈   9899    ?&#xA;韙   9900    ?&#xA;韾   9901    ?&#xA;頲   9902    ?&#xA;飄   9903    ?&#xA;餕   9904    ?&#xA;餰   9905    ?&#xA;饓   9906    ?&#xA;馽   9907    ?&#xA;駩   9908    ?&#xA;駯   9909    ?&#xA;鰝   9910    ?&#xA;鰭   9911    ?&#xA;鱦   9912    ?&#xA;鵃   9913    ?&#xA;鵅   9914    ?&#xA;鵌   9915    ?&#xA;鵛   9916    ?&#xA;鵵   9917    ?&#xA;鶔   9918    ?&#xA;鶞   9919    ?&#xA;鶤   9920    ?&#xA;鷬   9921    ?&#xA;麍   9922    ?&#xA;麙   9923    ?&#xA;黕   9924    ?&#xA;鼵   9925    ?&#xA;謯   9926    ?&#xA;睜   9927    ?&#xA;瞝   9928    ?&#xA;矆   9929    ?&#xA;矠   9930    ?&#xA;磘   9931    ?&#xA;磤   9932    ?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T13:21:24.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10178" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10181" CreationDate="2014-10-31T15:14:11.260" Score="0" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;He spoke so fast, I can't make out the word he said at 2:05:8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在既不能证实,也不能证伪的时候, ???(sounds like li3) ... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5TSmPlXkrY&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;amp;t=2h5m5s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;周孝正：中国社会问题分析&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T15:32:55.487" Title="Help me catch a word" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10168" CreationDate="2014-10-31T15:17:42.103" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As someone involved in chinaSMACK, I wouldn't say the glossary is &quot;outdated&quot; since the terms on there were notable enough in our translations of trending Chinese internet content that we decided they should be added. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is, however, far from comprehensive, precisely because we only tend to add to it as a consequence of the terms we see often &lt;em&gt;while&lt;/em&gt; translating. We don't go out of our way to add to it, since it is meant to serve as a reference to supplement our translated content. For example, if a Chinese netizen comment includes the acronym LZ, we can just leave it as &quot;LZ&quot; in our translation and instead link that &quot;LZ&quot; to its entry in the glossary. We feel this allows to keep some of the form and flavor of the original in our translations, rather than just translating it directly to &quot;original poster&quot; (which is what LZ simply means). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose we don't delete stuff that is no longer as commonly seen (&quot;My dad is Li Gang&quot;) and thus they might seem &quot;outdated&quot; but because we have content that links to those entries, we leave them in and figure they are still notable for &lt;em&gt;having been&lt;/em&gt; popular at a point in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want another resource that is also in English, check out the Grass Mud Horse Lexicon by China Digital Times: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/Grass-Mud_Horse_Lexicon&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/Grass-Mud_Horse_Lexicon&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/Introduction_to_the_Grass-Mud_Horse_Lexicon&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/Introduction_to_the_Grass-Mud_Horse_Lexicon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: CDT is blocked by the GFW in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CDT built this quite awhile after chinaSMACK had its Glossary. It used to use Wiki software (doesn't seem to anymore) and, to be honest, I remember it &lt;em&gt;feeling&lt;/em&gt; more comprehensive than it looks now that I'm revisiting it. I can't post more than two links so look for the search by alphabetical order page as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look through their categorical organization and list of terms, you'll notice a strong emphasis on cataloging terms involving stuff that appears more in circles discussing politics, censorship, and dissidence. This is because of CDT's editorial focus, whereas chinaSMACK tends to focus more on mainstream Chinese internet culture. For example, there doesn't seem to be an entry for 熊孩子 (naughty/unruly kids) though it is currently a common internet slang term both in terms of humor as well as referencing certain social issues involving children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Sorry if it doesn't help if you're looking specifically for &lt;em&gt;acronyms&lt;/em&gt;. Acronyms are often just of the Chinese word in pinyin, and weren't created or used specifically to be acronyms or shorthand but to avoid censorship of certain characters/terms. For example, the use of GCD (共产党) is different in nature than YOLO (You Only Live Once). The latter could be said to be a way of shortening a catchphrase, but the former was designed to avoid filters or searches for the actual Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6684" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T15:17:42.103" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10178" CreationDate="2014-10-31T15:32:55.487" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;……在既不能证实，也不能证伪的时候，&lt;strong&gt;存疑&lt;/strong&gt;。这就是科学精神。……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4358" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T15:32:55.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="480" CreationDate="2014-10-31T17:44:20.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do this with Google Translate. To get downloads in mp3 format, see responses to this &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9163988/download-mp3-from-google-translate-text-to-speech/13823866#13823866&quot;&gt;Stack Exchange question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1155" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:41:53.630" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T17:44:20.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10185" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-31T22:22:05.437" Score="-1" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across a site that is called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt; and holds explanation of characters, but unfortunately no example sentences like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nciku.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;nciku&lt;/a&gt; for modern Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know of any source that contains sample sentences in classical Chinese with annotation about the grammar, if possible in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe a book that fulfils this requirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-07T09:47:17.873" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T09:47:17.873" Title="Are there online sources containing example sentences in classical Chinese with grammar annotations?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10186" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-01T01:18:24.327" Score="1" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;Concerning the use of 得, which in my text below is to always be pronounced using the pinyin romanization “de,” after a verb I am familiar with the structures&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: “Subject verb 得 (adjective transformed to adverb)” like 他跑得快 and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: “Subject verb 得很 (adjective transformed to adverb)” like 他跑得很快,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as well as potential complements like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C: 听得懂 and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D: 办得了 (bàndeliǎo).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the following structures E-H using 得 don't match more general forms of any of the above structures A-D. --Please consider them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E:  她说得不是, in which 不是 （bùshi) in this case is a noun with a different pronunciation from búshì that one might expect if 是 (shì) were otherwise far more commonly used as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;F: 讥笑听话的人不懂对方说得是什么。 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://digchinese.com/en/saying?page=2635&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://digchinese.com/en/saying?page=2635&lt;/a&gt; on the Internet).  After talking with a native Mandarin Chinese speaker I think the meaning of this sentence could be more obvious for a Westerner learning the Mandarin Chinese language with a good Mandarin Chinese-language dictionary if it would instead be written as （某人）讥笑听话的特定人不懂对方说得是什么 or   （某人）讥笑听话的那个人不懂对方说得是什么 or（某人）讥笑听话的人，他不懂对方说得是什么 or （某人）讥笑听话的人。---他不懂对方说得是什么。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G.  …..或是说得是鸟语 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=2&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0CCsQFjAB&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zhangxinxu.com%2Fwordpress%2F2012%2F05%2Fhtml5-speech-x-webkit-grammar%2F&amp;amp;ei=xMlKVKvvA5S3yASP34KIBQ&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNFdv1IUDPNtUUcugEhhTFyA069k4Q&amp;amp;bvm=bv.77880786,d.aWw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=2&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0CCsQFjAB&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zhangxinxu.com%2Fwordpress%2F2012%2F05%2Fhtml5-speech-x-webkit-grammar%2F&amp;amp;ei=xMlKVKvvA5S3yASP34KIBQ&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNFdv1IUDPNtUUcugEhhTFyA069k4Q&amp;amp;bvm=bv.77880786,d.aWw&lt;/a&gt;), with help from a native Mandarin Chinese speaker meaning “perhaps what (he or she?) says is bird's language,” so is nonsense for human beings.  (I understood from a native Mandarin Chinese speaker that this would be very impolite speech because it would be talking about a human being like he is a bird, which he or she is not!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;H.  你说得是什么？ With help from a native Mandarin Chinese speaker I think this means something like “You say what?” or “What do you say?”.  I think this is a very commonly used interrogatory statement among native speakers of the Mandarin Chinese language.  So I think it could be a good, yet short example of the sort of sentence structure I want to discuss here.  Note the difference between this question and the question using 的 instead of 得of 你说的话是什么？.  I suppose that 你说得是什么？and 你说的话是什么？would have the same meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 1: May I regard the above structures E-H as more general forms of the above structures A and B in which a noun or the pronoun （代词）什么following “verb 得”can replace an adverb (副词)  following “verb 得”?  If so, this might be the simplest way for me to accept an understandable “framework” for structures of the forms of A, B, and E-H.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 2: May I consider all of the structures A-H generally as complements (补语) with the cases C and D considered as particular types of complements called potential complements?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6190" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T16:20:20.287" Title="Beyond 习惯 a general “framework” desired for 得's uses in “主语”“动词” 得是什么?, “主语” “动词” 得是鸟语，“主语” “动词” 得 “名词,” et cetera" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10109" CreationDate="2014-11-01T03:09:52.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;OR &quot;五乘以十的十二次方&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Chinese StackExchange complained &quot;Body must be at least 30 characters; you entered 14&quot; Hence this useless filler...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6537" LastActivityDate="2014-11-01T03:09:52.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10174" CreationDate="2014-11-01T04:05:44.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;So much for...&quot; can mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;indicating that one has finished talking about something.&#xA;e.g. So much for Lesson 1. Let's turn our attention to Lesson 2. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--OR--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;suggesting that something has not been successful or useful.&#xA;e.g. So much for that idea!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is noting wrong with the expression &quot;so much for today&quot; in 1. but the host is really asking for a translation for 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question to ask is whether &quot;so much for&quot; carries a sarcastic voice. If so then enough context should be given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In pouring rain, one commented, &quot;So much for the good weather&quot;. 今天天氣還真好啊~&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When expressed with proper tones, it carries a sarcastic voice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, if one travelled miles to eat at a restaurant but only found out that it was closed. &quot;So much for (the idea of) eating here today&quot; would be （決定)來這吃飯還真是個好主意啊~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6537" LastActivityDate="2014-11-01T04:05:44.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10186" CreationDate="2014-11-01T15:52:30.323" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;@user58955 is correct. Example E to H are wrong usages of &lt;code&gt;得&lt;/code&gt;, they all should be &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E. 她说的不是。 What she said is not. (This is a bad example. As you can see in the English translation, something is missing here.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;F. 不懂对方说的是什么。 Doesn't understand what the opponent says.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G. 你说的是鸟语。 What you said is lingua avis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;H. 你说的是什么？ What is it that you said?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pattern is obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's take a look at example A to D:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A. 他跑得快。 He runs fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B. 他跑得很快。 He runs very fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C. 听得懂。 Listen get understood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D. 办得了。 Do get done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice in these 4 examples, &lt;code&gt;得&lt;/code&gt; acts as a connecting device between the verb and the status or result of the verb. Also notice that the weight of the sentence is on the status or result, &lt;code&gt;快&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;懂&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt;. This is how you use &lt;code&gt;得&lt;/code&gt; to form complements. In a sense A, B are only slightly different from C, D in there specific purposes, but the major function is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example A and B -- You wouldn't call the English counterparts complements, do you? But remember I talked about the weights. If the weight is on the modifier, the modifier would be considered as a complement. If you want a non-complementary adverb, you need to use this form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他飞快地跑。 He quickly runs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the weight is on the verb &lt;code&gt;跑&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;飞快地&lt;/code&gt; acts 状语 instead of 补语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example C and D -- There just isn't an English counterpart. This might be why it's confusing you and making you think it's special. It's not. You just have to think the Chinese way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-01T15:52:30.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10190" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10191" CreationDate="2014-11-01T19:03:43.250" Score="3" ViewCount="656" Body="&lt;p&gt;I posted a status on Facebook and 20 minutes later someone else posted the exact same one. Google translate spits out 复印机 for &lt;em&gt;copycat&lt;/em&gt; which looks pretty weird to me (the 机 at the end). Nciku gave me 模仿者 which looks better (the 者 at the end). How can I say something akin to 'copycat' in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6206" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-07T09:48:18.130" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T20:26:23.410" Title="How to say copycat?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10190" CreationDate="2014-11-01T20:07:42.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;模仿者&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;imitator&lt;/code&gt;, which isn't necessarily negative, and is used more for behavior imitation instead of content crib, but I think it is fine to use for your case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For intellectual property plagiarism, the common words are &lt;code&gt;抄袭&lt;/code&gt; (lit. copy and assault) and &lt;code&gt;剽窃&lt;/code&gt; (lit. rob and steal). Both words are formal and strong but the latter one is even stronger. You can say someone is a &lt;code&gt;抄袭者&lt;/code&gt; if he cribbed your exam answer, or &lt;code&gt;剽窃者&lt;/code&gt; if he plagiarized your work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note in Chinese, &lt;code&gt;xx者&lt;/code&gt; usually indicates a behavior pattern or long-term state, while in English &lt;code&gt;-er&lt;/code&gt; form is merely a language tool to convert a verb into a noun and is commonly used for one-time actions. So if you call someone &lt;code&gt;模仿者&lt;/code&gt; it usually means this person always imitates somebody. If it's just this one time, I'd prefer to say '他抄(袭)了我的状态更新' instead of '他是个抄袭者'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW if that person is not a human account, like a robot who cribs status updates and wall posts to look credible, we call them &lt;code&gt;僵尸(账)号&lt;/code&gt; (lit. zombie account), &lt;code&gt;机器人&lt;/code&gt; (lit. robot) or &lt;code&gt;僵尸粉&lt;/code&gt; (lit. zombie follower).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-11-01T20:07:42.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10190" CreationDate="2014-11-02T01:27:52.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;山寨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China is home to copycatters. 中国是山寨之乡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every innovation gets copycatted by China. 每个创新都被中国山寨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example however, &lt;code&gt;抄袭&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;剽窃&lt;/code&gt; are the most accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-02T01:27:52.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10190" CreationDate="2014-11-02T04:44:35.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, I would use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;跟屁虫 [gēn pì chóng]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to the English word &quot;copycat&quot;, it is an &lt;em&gt;informal&lt;/em&gt; noun used to describe a person who imitates, tags along or copies the idea or behaviour of another person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2014-11-02T04:44:35.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9905" CreationDate="2014-11-02T12:02:04.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you use &lt;code&gt;洲&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;大洲&lt;/code&gt;, it is usually in a political or cultural sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;五大洲 He has visited five continents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;洲际导弹 DPRK got ICBM? WTF!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use &lt;code&gt;大陆&lt;/code&gt; to refer continents, you usually emphasize on the geographical sense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大陆漂移 The Tibet plateau is formed by continental drift.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大陆架 The biosphere on continental shelves is easily affected by human activities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;欧亚大陆 Neanderthals roamed the Eurasia continent a hundred thousand years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-02T12:02:04.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10170" CreationDate="2014-11-02T12:39:04.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a chinese, only know a little of English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有关这事的争吵，多是不跑步的替跑步的操心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be explained as(not translated):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;The people who argued that haze(雾霾) may hurts the marathon runer's health is mostly  the poeple who didn't took part in the marathon.(The implication was that: the marathon runer may not care about the haze.)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6688" LastActivityDate="2014-11-02T12:39:04.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10141" CreationDate="2014-11-02T15:46:04.563" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should think about there are two sets of Chinese charaters. In Hongkong, Taiwan and some Chinese communities in the UK, US, traditional Chinese charaters are still used; whereas people on mainland China use simplified Chinese charaters. Here there is a traditional Chinese word, 後, which may mean &quot;behind&quot; and the word 后 means &quot;queen&quot;. In simplified Chinese, 後 is replaced by 后 and hence Chinese in China may not know 後 and think it is an obsolescent word but Chinese in other regions are still using it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6689" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-11-05T09:49:44.673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T09:49:44.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10199" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-02T21:52:52.303" Score="2" ViewCount="550" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; clearly shows the difference in tongue position for forming these consonants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I find that what I'm doing is placing the &lt;em&gt;tip&lt;/em&gt; of my tongue against my lower teeth as directed, but the middle of my tongue is still touching the roof of my mouth, and the air passing between it and the roof of my mouth is being used to form the q, j, and x sounds the same way I would make the ch, j, and sh sounds in English with the tip of my tongue against the roof of my mouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that right, or should I somehow be making the sound somewhere else, like against my teeth, without using the gap between tongue and roof of mouth at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastActivityDate="2014-11-02T22:59:08.583" Title="When making j, x, and q consonant sounds, where in the mouth does the sound get created?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10199" CreationDate="2014-11-02T22:18:46.143" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you're doing it right. The alveo-palatal part of sound (which j/x/q have in common) should be created by the gap between the middle of your tongue and the roof of your mouth, and that's exactly what 'alveo-palatal' means. The difference among j/x/q though, aspiration and frication, are controlled by other part of the mouth, but I don't think that's the core of your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one thing to note though, that you described the tip of your tongue as &lt;em&gt;against&lt;/em&gt; your teeth. Your link says 'the tip of the tongue &lt;em&gt;rests behind&lt;/em&gt; the lower front teeth' which I think is a very accurate description of the right way. It might be just different phrasing but if your tongue is &lt;em&gt;tightly sticking to&lt;/em&gt; your lower front teeth or even &lt;em&gt;exerting&lt;/em&gt;, then you're doing it wrong and the result may sound like lisping due to too little/too much air flowing from the sides of your tongue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-11-02T22:59:08.583" LastActivityDate="2014-11-02T22:59:08.583" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10174" CreationDate="2014-11-02T23:39:21.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my family we say 白. For example, the sentence &quot;so much for eating here&quot; would be 白在这里吃.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6548" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2014-12-07T15:17:53.917" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T15:17:53.917" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10185" CreationDate="2014-11-03T02:55:59.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess that are the senior or junior students' Chinese textbooks &lt;strong&gt;for Teachers&lt;/strong&gt;. You know, Chinese textbooks contains two versions, &lt;strong&gt;for students and for teachers&lt;/strong&gt;, in which the Teachers' book contains the grammar explaination you need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6487" LastActivityDate="2014-11-03T02:55:59.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10143" CreationDate="2014-11-03T03:04:16.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese and Linguistic major graduate student, I guess my answer is suitable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;每周末我们位于Campbell农贸市场前面的商店里都会提供一个舒适的茶座。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;每个周末,我们位于Campbell农贸市场前面的商店都会提供一个舒适的茶座。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either is Ok and I prefer the later one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6487" LastActivityDate="2014-11-03T03:04:16.567" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10205" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-03T20:19:07.640" Score="1" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 及 as a conjungtion for words or phrases with the meaning &quot;and&quot;. &#xA;What meaning does 及 bear here that makes semantically sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-07T09:48:54.890" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T09:48:54.890" Title="What is the meaning of 及 in the compound word 危及?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10206" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10207" CreationDate="2014-11-03T23:02:27.907" Score="8" ViewCount="2882" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are they same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们也都不是学生 - We also all not are students.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们也不都是学生  - We also not all are students.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="823" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:30:06.810" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:30:06.810" Title="Difference between 也都不 and 也不都" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10206" CreationDate="2014-11-03T23:10:55.043" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first sentence means &lt;code&gt;All of us are not students&lt;/code&gt; and the second one &lt;code&gt;Not all of us are students&lt;/code&gt; (thus some of us may have occupations other than students).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都不是 (all not) is full negation and 不都是 (not all) is partial negation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastEditorUserId="3251" LastEditDate="2014-11-04T08:58:00.343" LastActivityDate="2014-11-04T08:58:00.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10205" CreationDate="2014-11-04T00:09:52.223" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;及&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;to reach&lt;/code&gt;. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;及格: to pass a test. Literally 'to reach the bar'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;长发及腰: 'long hair reaching waistline'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;涉及: to involve. Literally 'intervention reaches to'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;提及: to mention. Literally '(the scope of) mentioning reaches to'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;力所能及: within grasp. Literally 'capability that (one) can reach'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-04T00:09:52.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10206" CreationDate="2014-11-04T06:36:08.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;@user58955 Not exactly agree with you &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我们也都不是学生&lt;/strong&gt; - We also all not are students. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it means we are all not students, there must be used in this situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: We are not students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: Yes, We also all not are students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B agree with A and emphasizes the identify of &quot;Students&quot; not others&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我们也不都是学生&lt;/strong&gt; - We also not all are students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the different sentences &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们也不都是学生. If you transfer into English, You should say: We are all not only students&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it have different meanings in Chinese maybe we are all students, or some of us are students and others are not, or We are not only students but teachers or others maybe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;We also not all are students&quot; Means &quot;Not all of us are students&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it is clear for you. Boris&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6698" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-11-04T10:05:57.183" LastActivityDate="2014-11-04T10:05:57.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10210" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10211" CreationDate="2014-11-04T12:07:18.737" Score="2" ViewCount="400" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他有四本书，可是我只有三本。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;, what does the &lt;code&gt;只&lt;/code&gt; mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the sentence reads &lt;code&gt;He has four books, but I have three.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also read the sentence like &lt;code&gt;我只需要一个叉子&lt;/code&gt;, though I cannot get what &lt;code&gt;只&lt;/code&gt; works for in the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that when I looked up &lt;code&gt;只&lt;/code&gt; in my dictionary, it says the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;classifier for birds and certain animals, one of a pair, some utensils, vessels etc&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I don't get what it means. What does it function for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T07:19:48.560" Title="What does `只` mean in `他有四本书，可是我只有三本`?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10210" CreationDate="2014-11-04T12:15:03.927" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Simplified Chinese, 只 is polyphonic. In the sentence, 只 means &lt;code&gt;only&lt;/code&gt;, pronounced zhǐ. The meaning you cited corresponds to another pronunciation, zhī, of the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2014-11-04T12:15:03.927" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10212" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10220" CreationDate="2014-11-04T12:39:35.923" Score="-2" ViewCount="379" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am quiet weak at grammar, i know some basic chinese sentence patterns like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;S P O &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;S t p P O &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;t S p P O &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;t p S P O &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wherein: S(ubject),P(redicate),O(bject),t(imephrase),p(lacephrase)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When i look upon the sentence (from nciku):&#xA;她一向忌讳家人向陌生人提及自己的隐事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i am only sure about identifying &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the subject 她 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the timephrase 一向&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the predicate 忌讳&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i am very unsure about the rest of the sentence, &#xA;could you highlight what are the parts of speech contained in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T03:46:40.783" Title="Could you underline the parts of sentence contained in: &quot;她一向忌讳家人向陌生人提及自己的隐事&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10212" CreationDate="2014-11-04T13:20:09.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems the sentence should be considered as sentence with S-P phrase as object, b/c the predicate verb indicates a mental activity, 忌讳 is similar 知道、希望，认为,.... Often confused with pivotal sentence, which is is similar in construction. It would also be considered a sentence with S-P phrase as object if the verb predicate refers to sense perception like hear,see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S1tpP1(O1), where S1=她,tp=一向,P1=忌讳, (O1)=(S2ppP2O2),S2=家人,pp(prepositional phrase)=向陌生人,P2=提及,O2=自己的隐事,O2 is composed of attributive 自己的 and noun 隐事, seems very similar to English where the object of verb dislike can be a gerund phrase, BTW the whole sentence occurs in nciku as well as iciba with translation  She always resents her family's talking about her secrets to strangers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-11-04T17:37:23.267" LastActivityDate="2014-11-04T17:37:23.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10215" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-04T21:31:06.160" Score="6" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my routine HSK vocab study, I recently came upon the word 保护； to protect. Obviously, it works easily like any other verb in statements simply of protection, but I have no idea how to translate the concept of protecting one party from another. For example, &quot;Our house protects us from cold weather&quot;, etc&#xA;Is there an other word to be used for this purpose, or is there a grammatical construction that uses 保护 for this purpose? Thanks heaps for any help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6702" LastActivityDate="2014-11-04T22:32:36.183" Title="How to say 'protect x from y'?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10210" CreationDate="2014-11-04T21:37:32.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That character can be both a measure word as described in your dictionary, or, when pronounced zhi3, it can mean only, or just. In this case, it is the second, which should make the meaning of your sentences quite apparent. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6702" LastActivityDate="2014-11-04T21:37:32.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10215" CreationDate="2014-11-04T22:06:01.653" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;look up nciku or iciba, in fact iciba 翻译 seems to give a correct translation 我们的房子保护我们免受寒冷的天气， indicating that instead of using a preposition （from） Chinese uses a verb 免受，for more examples just look up iciba， nciku，one more example sentence showing same construction 这样的法规可以保护消费者免受有害或者危险药品的威胁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Talking about HSK，HSK dictionary （汉语水平考试词典）has following entry for 保护：［义１］（动）保卫护理，不使！！受到！！损害 。。。。 indicating use of 不受到 (similar 免受) to translate ＂from＂ in this context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-11-04T22:32:36.183" LastActivityDate="2014-11-04T22:32:36.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10218" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10219" CreationDate="2014-11-04T22:17:45.753" Score="-3" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to write in Chinese: She is an English speaking secretary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My version is: &lt;code&gt;她是英文的秘书。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6703" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-13T14:54:19.783" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T14:54:19.783" Title="How to write in Chinese: She is an English speaking secretary?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10218" CreationDate="2014-11-04T22:30:39.040" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;English speaking - 说英语 / 会说英语:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她是&lt;code&gt;会说英语的&lt;/code&gt;秘书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-11-04T22:30:39.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10212" CreationDate="2014-11-05T03:46:40.783" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dhbCD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;I can do diagramming&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A predicate, by definition, is the whole verb phrase following the subject. You are calling verbs predicates which probably is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time phrase and place phrase are nothing special, they are just verb modifiers. IMO they don't belong to grammatical analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T03:46:40.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10221" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10222" CreationDate="2014-11-05T05:23:04.287" Score="1" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;If people are very fast, or do things quickly, sometimes we will refer to such a person as &lt;code&gt;Speedy Gonzales&lt;/code&gt; in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there similar references for people in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T07:42:33.450" Title="Colloquial Equivalent of: Speedy Gonzales" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10221" CreationDate="2014-11-05T06:45:03.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Speedy Gonzales&lt;/code&gt; as a cartoon character is translated to &lt;code&gt;飞毛腿冈萨雷斯&lt;/code&gt;. Not many Chinese know this cartoon character, but &lt;code&gt;飞毛腿&lt;/code&gt; as a noun can be used to describe people running very fast. It literally means &lt;code&gt;flying hairy legs&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Less frequently seen but still recognizable, you can use &lt;code&gt;神行太保&lt;/code&gt;. It's a nickname for a 水浒 character who is known to be able to run very fast. It literally means &lt;code&gt;miraculously walking prime minister&lt;/code&gt;. In fact his job is the messenger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-11-05T06:57:18.570" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T06:57:18.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10221" CreationDate="2014-11-05T07:42:33.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, if a man does something very fast (without considering the things are done badly or not), you can say him/her is a &lt;strong&gt;急先锋&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if a man is entitled as this phrase, this means he/she does things carelessly (frequently).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T07:42:33.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9763" CreationDate="2014-11-05T16:15:54.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese there's a saying called:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世界仔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning: a person that has street smart, excellent at social skill and dealing with people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T16:15:54.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10227" CreationDate="2014-11-05T19:58:42.577" Score="3" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;This character has in classical Chinese a very common meaning, namely &quot;to take&quot;, like in the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;攜妻子至海岸。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(To take wife and children and arrive at the sea shore).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recognize many characters used in classical Chinese in modern Chinese, but I can not remember having seen this particular one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T22:50:50.053" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T22:50:50.053" Title="Is the character 攜 still used in modern Chinese?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10226" CreationDate="2014-11-05T20:25:56.583" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is a standard character, simplified 携, meaning carry, take along, hold in hand. A common word is 携带 (carry).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T20:25:56.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10185" CreationDate="2014-11-05T20:51:54.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Surely there are plenty of these kinds of books in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a link to several English textbooks&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-best-resources-for-learning-classical-Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-best-resources-for-learning-classical-Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also several online resources... I could make a list but you would probably find a better one by using a search engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zdic.net does have example sentences but as you noted, there is no English gloss. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T20:51:54.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10233" CreationDate="2014-11-05T23:45:07.137" Score="8" ViewCount="1084" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/d/10a/287889.htm&quot;&gt;dictionary definition of 反动&lt;/a&gt; means reactionary, and in the political sense it can also mean someone who is very conservative, as opposed to progressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it seems that this word is being used in a far broader sense, and with strongly negative connotations. For example, take &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/3362380.htm&quot;&gt;this passage&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;近代中国历届反动政府对内政策的出发点都是维护自身统治，推行专制独裁，镇压人民反抗，扼杀进步力量。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that apart from the last of those four points, all could be used to describe any government, reactionary or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/67797.htm&quot;&gt;this passage&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;指反动统治者自己可以胡作非为，老百姓却连正当活动也要受到限制。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which describes unequal law instead of reactionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what meanings does 反动 really have? And (although this one seems obvious) is such usage limited to PRC?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T07:11:34.657" Title="What does 反动 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10229" CreationDate="2014-11-06T00:20:36.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary#20th_century&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;20th century reactionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the twentieth century, proponents of socialism and communism used&#xA;  the term reactionary polemically to label their enemies, such as the&#xA;  White Armies, who fought in the Russian Civil War against the&#xA;  Bolsheviks after the October Revolution. In Marxist terminology,&#xA;  reactionary is a pejorative adjective denoting people whose ideas&#xA;  might appear to be socialist, but, in essence, contain elements of&#xA;  feudalism, capitalism, nationalism, fascism or other characteristics&#xA;  of the ruling class. Reactionary is also used to denote supporters of&#xA;  authoritarian, anti-communist, and régimes such as Vichy France, Spain&#xA;  under Francisco Franco, and Portugal under António Salazar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically it's used on anything or anyone that's against socialism and communism ideals. This meaning lives in the communist circle including several countries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T00:20:36.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9851" CreationDate="2014-11-06T00:42:57.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; allows some degree of user participation. Strictly speaking it's not exactly a dictionary, but you can use it as one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T00:42:57.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10229" CreationDate="2014-11-06T03:07:22.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;正如若干词典会显示那样，＂反动＂ 和 reactionary 一样不限用于马克思主义术语。其实有使用者想提醒大家反动派这个词出现在纳粹党党歌的中文翻译中一共四次并且等于 Reaktion 或者 reactionaries：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同志纵被红色战线与反动派夺命 Comrades shot by the Red Front and reactionaries，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some users would like to point out that 反动派 occurs twice in the Chinese translation of the nazi party's anthem aka the horst wessel song&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T03:07:22.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10229" CreationDate="2014-11-06T04:50:52.973" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;反动 = 反历史潮流而动， means taking the action against the trend of the historical/political movement. The word per se has nothing to do with socialism or communism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context of Chinese politics, the word “反动” most of the time is used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese government to describe its enemies. Basically, 反动派 only means bad guys, evil. Of course, the CCP is the good guy, from its own eyes. You see, this word does not carry any real meaning. It is just a label for all sorts of enemies. You cannot take this word literally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word was used extensively from 50s to 80s. One day, you are part of the people (人民）. The other day, someone could find you did/said something which makes you the enemy of the people. Then, congratulations, you are 反动派 now, and you should be 打倒.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, 反动/反动派 is almost abandoned in public dialog because the political climate has changed in China. And the word just sounds too ideological, too strong, too old, and too stupid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You know, sometimes you have to believe karma. Some people who against the CCP also use the word to describe the CCP. Your two examples happen to be a good fit (maybe not intentionally).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="524" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T04:50:52.973" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10229" CreationDate="2014-11-06T07:11:34.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically or in normal use&#xA;a person or a group of persons Does/do something or says/say some words against current government. From government aspect, they will call that 反动, this word normally comes from government&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6712" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T07:11:34.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10235" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-06T10:01:29.300" Score="2" ViewCount="724" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been learning Mandarin since 6 months ago, but i have problem with my title, could you guys make me clear about the difference between them? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if i have example of sentences like below is wrong:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;很快地吃&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but it i think if I make sentences like below right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;她吃得很快&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because sometimes I was confused when I use &quot;地&quot; and &quot;得&quot; in above sentences, so please kindly help me. Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5957" LastEditorUserId="5957" LastEditDate="2014-11-06T10:07:28.227" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T21:21:45.017" Title="what is difference using of &quot;地&quot; and &quot;得&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ClosedDate="2014-11-07T00:00:43.027" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10235" CreationDate="2014-11-06T12:41:19.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three confusing words in Chinese: &quot;的&quot;, &quot;地&quot;, and &quot;得&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;的&quot;, it is usually used to describe the words following it. The structure is &lt;code&gt;adj. + 的 + noun&lt;/code&gt;, for example, &lt;code&gt;勤劳的妈妈&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;地&quot;, it is usually used to describe the action following it. The structure is &lt;code&gt;adv. + 地 + verb&lt;/code&gt;, for example, &lt;code&gt;积极地回答问题&lt;/code&gt;. So &lt;code&gt;很快地吃&lt;/code&gt; is correct. In a whole sentence, it might be &lt;code&gt;他正在很快地吃苹果&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;得&quot;, it is usually used to describe the action before itself. The structure is &lt;code&gt;verb + 得 + adv.&lt;/code&gt;, for example, &lt;code&gt;回答得很好&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;吃得很快&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6715" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T12:41:19.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10226" CreationDate="2014-11-06T12:51:17.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;携 is widely used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the individual 携, it is official and usually used in written language, but not in spoken language. For example, &lt;code&gt;奥巴马携妻子到...&lt;/code&gt; (Obama takes his wife to ...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 携 also shows in lots of common words. For example, 携带 (carry), 携手 (hand in hand, to collaborate), 提携 (guide and support).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6715" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T12:51:17.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10238" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-06T15:06:28.430" Score="13" ViewCount="1601" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I use  目 in daily conversations or its too archaic and I should use only 眼睛？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about 口 and 嘴巴?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to teach my daughter Chinese with daily Chinese phrases and have dilemma - &#xA;目 is better as radical to explain other complex characters but 眼睛 is something you can talk with real Chinese person about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="823" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T00:56:34.637" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T00:56:34.637" Title="Is 目 suitable for daily conversations, or should I use 眼睛 (and what about 口 and 嘴巴)?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10238" CreationDate="2014-11-06T15:29:50.797" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a quick look at any dictionary will reveal 目 has to be considered a bound morpheme （规范词素、附着词素、粘著语素），i。e。it only occurs&#xA;in fixed combinations with other morphemes, it cannot be used alone, by itself to mean eye. As bound morpheme it certainly is not archaic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T15:29:50.797" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10240" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-06T15:35:36.723" Score="3" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone clarify the different ways of how to say &quot;Something symbolizes something else&quot;? (In a literary sense).&#xA;I know that we could say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;”白色象征纯洁。“&#xA;But could we use 象征 as a noun？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex。 “作者用“白色” 来做象征“  （or is it 比喻？） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I Hope the question is clear. My man goal is to figure out the proper way to describe symbology in literature in Chinese! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T17:07:18.173" Title="How do you say Symbol in a literary sense?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10238" CreationDate="2014-11-06T15:42:04.607" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;In classical Chinese, most of the words only have one character, for example, &quot;目&quot;, &quot;口&quot;, &quot;道&quot; (道路, road), &quot;卒&quot; (士兵, soldier)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the big differences between classical Chinese and modern Chinese is that in modern Chinese, most of the one-character words are replaced by words with lots of characters (usually 2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So both &quot;目&quot; and &quot;口&quot; are not used in spoken language, and only in some special circumstances (explained below), they are used in written language. Attention: although &quot;目&quot; and &quot;口&quot; are not commonly used individually, they appear a lot in the words, for example, &quot;口才&quot;, &quot;目光&quot;, &quot;港口&quot;, &quot;目录&quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;目 is better as radical to explain other complex characters but 眼睛 is something you can talk with real Chinese person about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means in daily conversation, you should use 眼睛 instead of 目, but the knowledge &quot;目 means eyes&quot; can help you to learn other complex things, for example, when you see &quot;睁&quot;, or &quot;盯&quot;, you should know they are related to eye. &quot;睁&quot; means open (eyes), and &quot;盯&quot; means stare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing: if you look at &quot;睁&quot; or &quot;盯&quot;, you will find there is a typical way to construct the Chinese characters. Usually one part of the character shows its meaning, and the other part shows its (potential) pronunciation. &#xA;In &quot;睁&quot;, the left part shows it is related to eyes, and the right part shows its pronunciation is zhēng.&#xA;In &quot;盯&quot;, the left part shows it is related to eyes, and the right part shows its pronunciation is dīng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So both &quot;目&quot; and &quot;口&quot; are not used in spoken language, and only in some special circumstances, they are used in written language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situations to use &quot;目&quot; and &quot;口&quot; individually are extremely rare. Not only the beginners, even the common Chinese people don't use them in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually when some writers want to make their works more comprehensive and variable, they will use &quot;目&quot; or &quot;口&quot;. For example, 这时候她会有种奇怪的感觉,好像自己身上长满了&lt;strong&gt;嘴&lt;/strong&gt;,张大着&lt;strong&gt;口&lt;/strong&gt;,嗷嗷叫着要人喂. (Since 嘴 and 口 mean the same thing, the author uses both of them to avoid repetition.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also since &quot;目&quot; and &quot;口&quot; are words in classical Chinese, using these words can make the articles look more &quot;classical&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6715" LastEditorUserId="6715" LastEditDate="2014-11-06T18:43:35.833" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T18:43:35.833" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10240" CreationDate="2014-11-06T16:17:03.753" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;basically 象征 has lots of meanings, in which you have mentioned two important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;象征 can be used as a verb, and means symbolize or signify. In this case, 象征 uses some concrete things to describe some abstract concepts. In 白色象征纯洁, 白色 is concrete, and 纯洁 is abstract. Another example can be &quot;白鸽象征和平&quot; (The white dove symbolizes peace).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;象征 can also be used as a noun, and means symbol. For example, 青鸟是快乐的象征 (the bluebird is the symbol of happiness). And 作者用“白色”来做象征 usually doesn't appear individually. In common cases, the writer will firstly describe something, at last he will use that sentence. For example, 她的最大特点就是纯洁,而作者用“白色”来做象征. (And here 比喻 cannot be used.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if I have answered your question...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6715" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T16:17:03.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10240" CreationDate="2014-11-06T17:07:18.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;@FengWang 's explanation is basically right, just adding something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a sociology/literature sense, symbol is termed 符号.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T17:07:18.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9763" CreationDate="2014-11-06T17:13:44.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;老江湖(neutral)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老油条(somehow negative)、老浆糊(somehow negative)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T17:13:44.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10235" CreationDate="2014-11-06T21:12:18.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We tend to put some adverbials in front of the verb but others after the verb. It depends on many factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to come up with a reasonable explanation why we say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; (！indicates an imperative sentence, 。 a declarative sentence, and ， an incomplete sentence.)&#xA;快吃！&#xA;快点吃！&#xA;吃快点！&#xA;吃得快。&#xA;吃得很快。&#xA;快吃。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;*快地吃！&#xA;*吃快！&#xA;*吃快。&#xA;*快地吃。&#xA;*吃得快！&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes both are used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他伤心地哭着，&#xA;他哭得很伤心。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, 地 is preferred when the verb is long or followed by something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;?他开心地笑。&#xA;他开心地笑着，&#xA;他开心地大笑，&#xA;他笑得很开心。&#xA;他积极地回答问题。&#xA;*他回答问题得很积极。&#xA;他回答问题很积极。&#xA;他回答问题回答得很积极。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the word that comes after the verb is usually the focus or new information. If you omit the adverbs,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;?他笑。&#xA;?他回答问题。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;do not sound like complete sentences, which means the adverbs probably contain important information. That's why we tend to place them at the end of a sentence. On the other hand,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;吃！&#xA;她吃完了。&#xA;他回答了问题。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are complete sentences, so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;快吃！&#xA;她很快(地)吃完了。&#xA;他积极地回答了问题。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 了 is what makes all the difference--it means a new event has happened, which by itself contains significant information. We may first use 了 to notify a new event, then use 得 to add some details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;她吃完了，而且吃得很快。&#xA;他回答了问题，而且回答得很积极。&#xA;*她吃完了，而且很快地吃。&#xA;*她吃完了，而且很快地吃了。&#xA;*他回答了问题，而且很积极地回答。&#xA;*他回答了问题，而且很积极地回答了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all adverbs/adjectives can appear in both positions, and not all of them need 得 or 地. For example, 快 itself is an adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他快吃完了。 = He almost finished eating -&amp;gt; He is eating.&#xA;快吃。 -- 快 is more like “hurry up” or “come on”&#xA;他轻轻地说，&#xA;他说得很轻。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastEditorUserId="4117" LastEditDate="2014-11-06T21:21:45.017" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T21:21:45.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10210" CreationDate="2014-11-07T05:34:41.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.仅;&#xA;例: 我只有三本书。 I only have three books.&#xA;我只爱你。 I love you only.&#xA;2.量词&#xA;例：我家有一只小狗。 There is a dog in my home.&#xA;一只猫：a cat&#xA;一只老虎：a tiger&#xA;……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6723" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T05:34:41.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10210" CreationDate="2014-11-07T07:19:48.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;「只」means &lt;code&gt;only&lt;/code&gt; or 'just'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他有四本书，可是我&lt;code&gt;只&lt;/code&gt;有三本。He has four books, but I &lt;code&gt;only&lt;/code&gt; have three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6725" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T07:19:48.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10251" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10254" CreationDate="2014-11-07T09:51:52.813" Score="11" ViewCount="589" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my book, there is a pattern for building further adjectives from adjectives.&#xA;If the original adjective is AB (two different characters), its derivation is A里AB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, this pattern was only displayed as an example, but not explained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T16:51:58.057" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T16:51:58.057" Title="What is the difference between 古怪 and 古里古怪?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10251" CreationDate="2014-11-07T11:02:42.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;such as 怪里怪气、古里古怪,it means weird。I don't know more patterns like this, because this is a fixed collocation.&#xA;We use 古怪 in our life more than 古里古怪。&#xA;1.他是一个古怪的人。&#xA;2.这个房间真的古里古怪。&#xA;3.这个房间真古怪。（= sentence #3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw, the derivation A里AB is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6723" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T11:02:42.537" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10218" CreationDate="2014-11-07T11:16:59.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;While the accepted answer is correct, if &quot;English speaking secretary&quot; is a job title or similar, it's enough to use 英文秘书.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See e.g. this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.104.com.tw/jobbank/custjob/index.php?r=job&amp;amp;j=603c44704638415833343c65546639619644c4426585e4023232323233c2d2827563j48&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;job advertizement&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T11:16:59.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10251" CreationDate="2014-11-07T12:35:34.627" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;This pattern, like you mentioned, seems to be referred to as &lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;A里AB&amp;quot;式&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick search came up with the following list of &lt;a href=&quot;http://cidian.911cha.com/jiegou_alab.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;words&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;糊里糊涂hū lǐ hū tú&#xA;怪里怪气guài lǐ guài qì&#xA;流里流气liú lǐ liú qì&#xA;傻里傻气shǎ lǐ shǎ qì&#xA;土里土气tǔ lǐ tǔ qì&#xA;慌里慌张huāng lǐ huāng zhāng&#xA;妖里妖气yāo lǐ yāo qì&#xA;彻里彻外chè lǐ chè wài&#xA;胡里胡涂hú lǐ hú tú&#xA;没里没外méi lǐ méi wài&#xA;秀里秀气xiù lǐ xiù qì&#xA;歇里歇松xiē lǐ xiē sōng&#xA;小里小气xiǎo lǐ xiǎo qì&#xA;打里打外dǎ lǐ dǎ wài&#xA;蹀里蹀斜dié lǐ dié xié&#xA;疙里疙瘩gē lǐ gē dā&#xA;古里古怪gǔ lǐ gǔ guài&#xA;鬼里鬼气guǐ lǐ guǐ qì&#xA;火里火发huǒ lǐ huǒ fā&#xA;楞里楞气léng lǐ léng qì&#xA;啰里啰唆luō lǐ luō suō&#xA;蒙里蒙懂méng lǐ měng dǒng&#xA;噗里噗通pū lǐ pū tōng&#xA;痞里痞气pǐ lǐ pǐ qì&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There also seems to be a couple of studies about this speech pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinadmd.com/file/xtoveraopoczvu6twvazoi6t_1.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;浅谈“A里AB式”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cdmd.cnki.com.cn/Article/CDMD-10319-1011401012.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;现代汉语“A里AB”格式的研究&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but that's all a bit pedantic for our needs...(although you can be sure it is a &lt;strong&gt;set&lt;/strong&gt; pattern)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like you have already explained it pretty clearly as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to my book, there is a pattern for building further adjectives from adjectives. If the original adjective is AB (two different characters), its derivation is A里AB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as for the meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...意义并未改变。例如 ： 马虎， 意思为做事不认真 。变为　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“ Ａ里 Ａ Ｂ式 ” 马里 马 虎 ， 思 同样 为 做 事 不 认 真....&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinadmd.com/file/xtoveraopoczvu6twvazoi6t_1.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;浅谈“A里AB式”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning does not change. For example: 马虎 and 马里马虎 both mean 做事不认真.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AB and A里AB mean the same - with a stronger sound/meaning on the A里AB than the simple AB pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T12:41:13.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10251" CreationDate="2014-11-07T12:56:44.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed, in spoken Chinese of our time, it is SELDOM for native speakers to utter those adjectives. Those appear almost only in Literature and even can be considered pedantic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't say &quot;那個人有點古里古怪的&quot;, but say &quot;那個人有點怪怪的&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would suggest, if your goal is to speak and understand spoken Chinese, against spending time on figuring out the pattern you are studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;. Thanks to the suggestions made, as the OP would see, the present answer by no means serves as a universal one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastEditorUserId="5952" LastEditDate="2014-11-08T01:33:10.670" LastActivityDate="2014-11-08T01:33:10.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10190" CreationDate="2014-11-07T20:26:23.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;复读机&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%8D%E8%AF%BB%E6%9C%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;维基百科页面&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你复读机啊你？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stupid character counter bah&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T20:26:23.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10258" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10308" CreationDate="2014-11-08T14:56:52.660" Score="6" ViewCount="960" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Simplified  强  （12） strokes&#xA;Traditional 強  （11） strokes&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other similar cases in which a more complex form was adopted than the Traditional counterpart?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T07:52:28.607" Title="Why does the Simplified Chinese character 强 have more strokes than its Traditional Chinese counterpart 強?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10259" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10261" CreationDate="2014-11-08T15:31:49.383" Score="0" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;北京城里禁止随便放鞭炮，城里人过春节越来越简单， &lt;strong&gt;哪有农村热闹&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand the last part of this sentence, marked in bold. I guess it's a rhetorical question? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Beijing City banned setting off fireworks, so the city dwellers' celebration of the Spring Festival has become more and more simple. &lt;strong&gt;The city is not as lively as the countryside?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can provide more of the dialogue if necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3739" LastEditorUserId="3739" LastEditDate="2014-11-08T15:39:27.090" LastActivityDate="2014-11-08T16:07:25.710" Title="How to translate 哪有农村热闹？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10260" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10262" CreationDate="2014-11-08T15:42:06.830" Score="3" ViewCount="550" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my textbook 简明汉语语法 the parts after the verb 写 are so called complements, they are strictly differentiated from adverbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both complements are called: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;complement of result 完&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;complement of possibility 得完&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume the meaning of 写完 is &quot;to write (and it is completed)&quot;.&#xA;However, i can not find out myself what the difference to 写得完 is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-08T16:25:04.880" Title="What is the difference between 写完 and 写得完 ?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10259" CreationDate="2014-11-08T16:07:25.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is a rhetorical question, the emphasis is on the lively and noisy fashion the village dwellers can celebrate compared to Beijingers. It is a good way to contrast difference. I would translate it (second sentence only) as &lt;code&gt;'How can you compare that to the lively manner of celebration in the countryside!'&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. My English is not the best, native speakers can put it right, but I think the idea is clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2014-11-08T16:07:25.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10260" CreationDate="2014-11-08T16:13:26.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;写得完: possible to complete writing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;写完: complete writing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginners often learn &lt;code&gt;能+verb&lt;/code&gt; first, but in many cases, &lt;code&gt;verb+得+complement&lt;/code&gt; sounds much more natural when they want to express &lt;code&gt;can/be able to + verb&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware of some languages, e.g. Japanese and sometimes English, that don't always strictly distinguish these two kinds of expressions, but Chinese does. Always keep in mind that 写得完 is &lt;strong&gt;stative&lt;/strong&gt; while 写完 is &lt;strong&gt;dynamic&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastEditorUserId="4117" LastEditDate="2014-11-08T16:19:34.233" LastActivityDate="2014-11-08T16:19:34.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10260" CreationDate="2014-11-08T16:18:40.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if this answer is correct or contributes to your understanding, here is my interpretation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;写完, as you have put it, means some piece of writing is completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;写的完 the stresses the &lt;code&gt;ability&lt;/code&gt; to complete something written. E.g. 这么长的文章你写得完吗？ Are you &lt;code&gt;able to finish writing&lt;/code&gt; such a long article/essay? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you already know 看得懂 where 得 is to emphasize the ability to understand something by reading (able to read and understand). E.g. 这个汉字你看得懂吗？ Can you read this Chinese character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-08T16:25:04.880" LastActivityDate="2014-11-08T16:25:04.880" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10264" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-08T17:43:22.297" Score="0" ViewCount="1442" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a colloquial way to say &quot;A person has changed a lot&quot;? &#xA;For example, I'd like to say &quot;I know she has changed over the past couple of years because of doing stand-up comedy&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be &#xA;&quot;我知道他因为开始Stand－up就变了很多” or is it “有很多变化？” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-11-09T09:07:00.790" Title="How do I say &quot;She's changed a lot&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10264" CreationDate="2014-11-08T18:03:03.987" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any time in doubt about how to put some expression into Chinese, check something like &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她变了很多 in this case would fit. But 她变化很大 would also be OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2014-11-08T18:03:03.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10266" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10280" CreationDate="2014-11-08T20:47:27.877" Score="5" ViewCount="3082" Body="&lt;p&gt;I speak Chinese natively (我讲中文，普通话) but my pronunciation is borrowed from Jiangsu parents, so I was wondering what is the difference between &quot;jin&quot; (今) and &quot;jing&quot; (京)? Is there any difference in identifying such? Once, somebody remarked &quot;haha, your southern ignorance voids your ability to understand the differences of jin/jing,&quot; and so I hope somebody can help me understand this without saying &quot;it's regional&quot; or &quot;it takes practice&quot;. If need be, you can respond in simplified Chinese. Thanks! 多谢!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;: I pronounce &quot;jin&quot; as &quot;JEEN&quot; and &quot;jing&quot; as &quot;JEENg&quot; but the &quot;g&quot; is so slight I can barely notice it. Is there any way to differentiate them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6733" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-11-09T05:27:39.420" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T07:35:23.707" Title="What is the difference in pronunciation between saying &quot;jin&quot; and &quot;jing&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10266" CreationDate="2014-11-08T20:51:45.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Standard Chinese those are two different consonants, much the same as &lt;code&gt;'n'&lt;/code&gt; in [English] 'kin' and &lt;code&gt;'ng'&lt;/code&gt; in 'king'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In IPA the final -ng is transcribed as &lt;code&gt;[ŋ]&lt;/code&gt; while n is &lt;code&gt;[n]&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(By the way I have spent some time in Jiangsu and never noticed that local people would not distinguish these two consonants.)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-09T10:31:38.483" LastActivityDate="2014-11-09T10:31:38.483" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10264" CreationDate="2014-11-09T09:07:00.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would word the sentence something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我知道她之所以跟以前很不一样，是因为做了几年单人相声。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where changed a lot is: &lt;code&gt;跟以前很不一样&lt;/code&gt; - instead of being direct and talking about changed - we're going with a indirect 'very different'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also notice the &lt;code&gt;之所以...是因为&lt;/code&gt; construct. Which would be like saying &lt;code&gt;the reason xxx&lt;/code&gt;....&lt;code&gt;is because xxx&lt;/code&gt;...&#xA;This is a common construct in Chinese and good for explaining things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-11-09T09:07:00.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10270" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10271" CreationDate="2014-11-09T12:41:35.547" Score="3" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this topic has been discussed in quite a few questions post on this site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question concerns the &lt;strong&gt;'authoritativeness'&lt;/strong&gt; of such glyph origins based on the decomposition of characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://lcprichi.hkbu.edu.hk/search/show_word.php?id=644&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孝 (filial piety)&lt;/a&gt; explained in an online etymology dictionary (the choice of character is arbitrary). Where do such interpretations come from? Are they based on older documented sources or are they later interpretations based on individual attempts of imagination and decomposition of a certain character? Are they authoritative in the sense that these explanations are widely accepted or they vary among different sources?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T09:18:01.533" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T09:18:01.533" Title="Glyph origins: are explanations in such dictionaries authoritative or just later vague interpretations?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10270" CreationDate="2014-11-09T15:15:53.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You seem to think the studies are vague or just imaginary. They are not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 人 is the drawing of a man, 山 is the picture of a mountain. The relation is clear and you don't need to be very imaginative to draw the conclusions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same with ideograms in all ideographic languages, the relation of a symbol and its meaning is sometimes dead obvious. Do you call all these interpretations &quot;vague&quot; or &quot;imaginary&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where do such interpretations come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traces of etymology on single characters are seen on earlier classical texts, but the major source is the dictionary 说文解字, which is written in East Han dynasty, 1300 years after the first oracle bones. Later studies are largely based on this dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are they based on older documented sources or are they later interpretations based on individual attempts of imagination and decomposition of a certain character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Early documentation on the etymology of individual characters is scarce. There are individual attempts, probably a lot. The inventor of Chinese (if there is one) didn't leave any documents, so it's probably the only way to go. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fortunately the Chinese writing system is largely ideographic, so the interpretations can't go very wrong. There is a set of general rules called 六书, it is a quite accurate description of the basic principles of creating Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author of 说文解字 haven't seen a single oracle bone, but many of his interpretation can be verified by the later discovered oracle bones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are they authoritative in the sense that these explanations are widely accepted or they vary among different sources?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later scholars have found errors in 说文解字, but it's still largely a credible source.  The study of Chinese etymology is a mature subject. Competing theories on single characters do exist but rarely do you see it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-11-09T15:57:28.523" LastActivityDate="2014-11-09T15:57:28.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10272" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10273" CreationDate="2014-11-09T19:17:13.737" Score="7" ViewCount="3197" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 下来 so far as complement for verbs of motion, e.g. 跳下来，走下来，攀下来，掉下来. In them, the first character of the complement conveys the meaning &quot;downwards&quot;, the second the point of view of the speaker &quot;towards him&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously,下来 in 买下来 has a different meaning than obove, &#xA;how is it used and how is 买下来 different from simply 买 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do these sentence differ in meaning?: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;把这些书&lt;strong&gt;买下来&lt;/strong&gt;.待会送到我家去&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;把这些书&lt;strong&gt;买&lt;/strong&gt;.待会送到我家去&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T20:06:39.660" Title="What is the function of the complement 下来 in 买下来?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10272" CreationDate="2014-11-09T19:48:27.163" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;下来 puts an emphasis on the fact that the action is completed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;雨停下来了。&lt;/code&gt;The rain (has) stopped. （It's over, it's not raining anymore).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们把休假的地方决定下来了。&lt;/code&gt;We have decided where to go on holiday. (The decision is completed, it's done/settled) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;他慌乱平静下来了。&lt;/code&gt;His frenzy calmed DOWN. (May be this is the closest example in English where we use the same directional complement. Once he calmed down, his frenzy was over, so this 'happening' got completed. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's difficult to translate your example sentences in a way that points out the difference, since buying something is an action that is always completed (you either buy something or not). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-10T12:26:55.167" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T12:26:55.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10266" CreationDate="2014-11-09T20:27:56.657" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since final consonants in Mandarin are not as firm as those in, say, Cantonese and English, people who speak Mandarin often relay on vowel quality to distinguish the -n/ng pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-in is of course realized as a front vowel /i/, while -ing often has a tint of back vowel, which someone may find similar to Pinyin i+eng. I think it is perfectly acceptable to pronounce jing as if you were pronouncing jeng (jeng is not proper Pinyin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, final consonants are usually blended into the vowels. When a Mandarin speaker tries to stretch a syllable, they will probably produce a prolonged nasal vowel or rhotacized vowel, instead of a prolonged vowel followed a consonant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastEditorUserId="4117" LastEditDate="2014-11-10T00:22:42.597" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T00:22:42.597" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10275" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10277" CreationDate="2014-11-09T21:29:36.550" Score="4" ViewCount="421" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this sentence:&#xA;她看清进来为何人时，&lt;strong&gt;吓得说不出话来&lt;/strong&gt;。, the second clause looks to me like a nested complement. i analyzed it this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吓得 (说不出话来) --&gt; outer complement&#xA;     说(不出话来) --&gt; inner complement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I right, is this really a nested complement or did i make a mistake and what would be this construction then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T00:01:13.993" Title="Do nested complements exist in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10275" CreationDate="2014-11-09T23:36:59.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right it's an inner V-Comp phrase as Complement in the outer V-Comp phrase, so you can say it is 'nested complements'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this structure has no grammatical significance over a V-Comp phrase with a different type of Complementary part, which can be virtually anything that makes sense. It can be a phrase: Attr, Adv, V-O, V-Comp, V-Adv, or a clause which contains a complete structure which can be otherwise a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-11-09T23:36:59.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10275" CreationDate="2014-11-10T00:01:13.993" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think we should at least distinguish two types of complements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the first type, it is very difficult to insert anything else between the complement and the verb. One way to think of them is to view them as the inflection of verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;✔说得出话 verb + de + complement + object&#xA;✔也说得出话 adverb + verb + de + complement + object&#xA;✘说也得出话 verb + adverb + de + complement + object&#xA;✘说得也出话 verb + de + adverb + complement + object&#xA;✘说得出也话 verb + de + complement + adverb + object&#xA;✔说得出话也(说不清楚)verb + de + complement + object + adverb&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, the complement introduced by 得 has more freedom. We can make up the following grammatical, though by no means usual, sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;✔他 长得 丑得 看得我 吓得 紧张得 说不出话 来&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I interpret this sentence, I tend to think of 得 as a kind of postposition, or a conjunction. For example, I parse the long sentence as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他长得很丑。丑得看起来吓人。我吓得很紧张。紧张得说不出话来。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this way, you can flatten the sentence so that you will not need much short-term memory to be able to understand it. I do not consider the second 得 as inner, rather, I think it is outer, or at least parallel, because the part following 得 sounds more like the main clause. For example, interrogatives and exclamations are allowed after 得.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;✔他 长得 好不好看? interrogative &#xA;✔他 长得 真好看! exclamation&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be demonstrated that adverbs that are normally attached to subjects can be inserted after 得:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;✔她 长得也 很漂亮，穿得也 很漂亮&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In deed, the above &lt;code&gt;verb + 得&lt;/code&gt; structure resembles nouns and verb phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;✔她 读书 很好 verb + adjective&#xA;✘她的读书 很好 dushu is not a noun&#xA;✔她 长得 很漂亮 verb + de + adjective&#xA;✔她(的)长相 很漂亮 noun + adjective&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I do not find it particular unnatural to coordinate these phrases of different classes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;✔她 长得 和 穿着 都 很好 [verb+de] and [noun]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this somehow explains the reason even native speakers do not feel much difference between the following sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;✔他 说得 是什么&#xA;✔他 说的 是什么&#xA;✔他 说的 什么&#xA;✔他 (是)怎么 说的&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T00:01:13.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9888" CreationDate="2014-11-10T01:12:35.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a Classical Chinese to English dictionary, I've heard a professor recommend this: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B0006VZWUQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Mathews-Chinese-English-Dictionary-R-H/dp/B0006VZWUQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the best dictionaries period is in Japanese: 大漢和辞典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T01:12:35.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10272" CreationDate="2014-11-10T02:28:05.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;indicating success， cf。实用现代汉语语法 ５５５页 （下面所有文字都关于＂下来＂）&#xA;５。结果意义（denoting result）（三）：表示完成一件费时、费力、需要克服一定困难的动作行为 （expressing completion of some time consuming，strenuous activity involving certain difficulties）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）一天的重体力劳动干下来，身体好像散了一样，一步也不想走了。&#xA;（２）三年中文学下来，他的进步是明显的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因此有某些使用者建议把＂把这些书买下来＂翻译成＂manage to buy these books＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it seems this meaning may also apply to 2 of earlier answer ＃１, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on the other hand 1,3 of answer ＃１ seem to correspond to (请参考比如说＂外国人实用汉语语法）：&#xA;下来 可以表示动作或状态由动到静，由明到暗，加深程度等逐步变化的过程 expressing the gradual change from an active state to a static state or from brightness into darkness. 例如：天黑下来了。 火车满满停下来了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-11-10T02:38:02.697" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T02:38:02.697" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10266" CreationDate="2014-11-10T07:24:30.123" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Studies have shown that if you grow up in a language environment where speakers do not distinguish between two sounds, your brain will lose the ability to easily perceive the difference between them. A notable example of this phenomenon is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_of_/r/_and_/l/_by_Japanese_speakers&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;inability for most Japanese speakers to distinguish between &lt;code&gt;r&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;l&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jiangsu is an area where the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wu Chinese&lt;/a&gt; dialects are traditionally spoken. The Wu dialects, on the whole, do not distinguish between final nasal consonants such as &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ng&lt;/code&gt;. In many cases, they are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allophone&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;allophonic&lt;/a&gt;, with the consonant that is actually produced being determined by the vowel that precedes it. This is likely the reason why you currently don't perceive the difference between &lt;code&gt;jin&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;jing&lt;/code&gt;, because the two syllables have the same vowel when spoken according to the standard. However, it is possible to train yourself to perceive them as separate sounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being able to produce both the &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ng&lt;/code&gt; sounds is the first step in helping you recognize the difference between them. It may be helpful for you to think of the relationship between the &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ng&lt;/code&gt; sounds as being similar to the relationship between the &lt;code&gt;t&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt; sounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; sound is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_nasal&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;alveolar nasal&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;t&lt;/code&gt; sound is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_stop&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;alveolar stop&lt;/a&gt;, which mean that they are both produced with the tongue touching the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_ridge&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;alveolar ridge&lt;/a&gt;, which is where your teeth meet your gums.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;code&gt;ng&lt;/code&gt; sound is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velar_nasal&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;velar nasal&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt; sound is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_stop&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;velar stop&lt;/a&gt;. They are both produced with the tongue touching the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_palate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;velum&lt;/a&gt;, which is located near the back of the roof of your mouth.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alveolar sounds require that your top and bottom teeth be touching; therefore, when you say &lt;code&gt;jin&lt;/code&gt;, you should end with your top and bottom teeth touching and the tip of your tongue should be against your gum ridge. However, velar sounds are produced with a slightly open mouth, so in order to pronounce &lt;code&gt;jing&lt;/code&gt;, try to end the syllable with your mouth slightly open; your top and bottom teeth should not be touching and the back of your tongue should be against the back of the roof of your mouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you've practice being able to pronounce the two distinctly, keep repeating it to yourself and you should be able to start training your brain to notice the difference when you hear it in speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2014-11-10T07:35:23.707" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T07:35:23.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10281" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10302" CreationDate="2014-11-10T08:25:00.743" Score="2" ViewCount="3092" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) &quot;I lived in Beijing for six months.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in, I was there last year for six months but I am not living there anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, how can I distinguish it from &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) &quot;I have been living in Beijing for six months.&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure the secret lies in 了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answers (which I hope you can correct/confirm):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我在北京住了六个月 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我住在北京六个月&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd appreciate any help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6738" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T23:03:32.200" Title="How to say lived vs. have been living somewhere?" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10281" CreationDate="2014-11-10T09:13:23.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;（１）我在北京住过6个月。我在北京住了六个月 seems ok too&#xA;（２）我已经在北京住了6个月。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as regards word order if 在 follows 住：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我（已经）住在了北京（６个月）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact 在了 seems to be a familiar sequence，also one can find example sentences online with 住在了，iciba immediately produces ３ of them， here is the first： 当他年老的时候他住在了一个群岛上, 远离这里. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case 了 is replaced by 过，it seems the corresponding word order has to be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我住过在北京。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are examples of this on the web （although apparently not in iciba）：住过在大学城，有人住过 在Imerovigli的Shine Hotel吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-11-10T16:24:34.180" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T16:24:34.180" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10285" CreationDate="2014-11-10T17:04:23.193" Score="9" ViewCount="2454" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine You stand in a queue in a super market and you want to let the person behind you in front of you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried to translate it these ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;请，&lt;strong&gt;在我前&lt;/strong&gt; 去 吧   (putting only an adverbial in front of the verb)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;请，&lt;strong&gt;在我前&lt;/strong&gt; 走&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt; 吧   (putting an adverbial in front of the verb and an&#xA;complement after the verb to express the action goes away from me)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;请，走&lt;strong&gt;得在我前&lt;/strong&gt; 吧   (putting only an complement after the verb)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T01:14:06.490" Title="How to say &quot;Please, go in front of me&quot; when standing in a queue?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;direction-complement&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10284" CreationDate="2014-11-10T17:08:44.587" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this situation, I would say &quot;您先请&quot;, which works fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;您先请&quot; means 'after you', which is very polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to say 'Please, go in front of me' in Chinese, you could say &quot;请走在我前面吧&quot;. However, this sounds a little bit strange. Note that you &lt;strong&gt;stand&lt;/strong&gt; in a queue, you don't &lt;strong&gt;go&lt;/strong&gt; in a queue. So &quot;请站在我前面吧&quot; is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6288" LastEditorUserId="6288" LastEditDate="2014-11-10T17:25:26.240" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T17:25:26.240" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10286" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10287" CreationDate="2014-11-10T17:56:18.030" Score="4" ViewCount="369" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read the two sentences that used the word &lt;code&gt;雕像&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;雕塑&lt;/code&gt;, respectively. However, I don't see what's the difference between the two words. When you look it up in a dictionary, both say &quot;it is &lt;code&gt;statue&lt;/code&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is there anything that makes the one different from the other? I'm learning about Mandarin Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2014-11-11T00:56:34.273" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T01:34:59.530" Title="What's the difference between 雕像 and 雕塑?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10286" CreationDate="2014-11-10T19:21:28.533" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 像 character indicates that the sculpture is supposed to resemble a person, it's an &quot;alike&quot; or depiction of someone, 雕塑 may take more vague shapes, abstract sculptures, especially larger ones, etc., including persons of course. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try using Google image search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.hu/search?q=%E9%9B%95%E5%A1%91&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=xw9hVNeFC-qV7AbmnoGoBQ&amp;amp;ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&amp;amp;biw=1366&amp;amp;bih=673#tbm=isch&amp;amp;q=%E9%9B%95%E5%83%8F&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;First term: 雕像&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.hu/search?q=%E9%9B%95%E5%A1%91&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=xw9hVNeFC-qV7AbmnoGoBQ&amp;amp;ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&amp;amp;biw=1366&amp;amp;bih=673&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Second term: 雕塑&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-10T19:27:26.487" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T19:27:26.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10286" CreationDate="2014-11-10T21:08:42.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;雕像 is mostly for human and 雕塑 can be for anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6742" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T21:08:42.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10281" CreationDate="2014-11-11T00:11:48.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am just trying to express in a natural way, I cannot tell you exactly why but it is what I have found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我在北京住&lt;strong&gt;过&lt;/strong&gt;半年。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;最近&lt;/strong&gt;)我&lt;strong&gt;刚&lt;/strong&gt;在北京住满半年。/我&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;在北京住&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;半年。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have just lived in Beijing for 6 months &lt;strong&gt;(and it is so short, compared to what I expected.)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;have been doing&lt;/em&gt; signifies the continuation of a past action.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe what you want to say is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我在北京住了六个月。(I would rather translate it &quot;It was 6 months I lived in Beijing.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我住在北京六个月了。(&quot;It has been 6 months (since) I lived in Beijing.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastEditorUserId="3685" LastEditDate="2014-11-11T00:20:20.130" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T00:20:20.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10286" CreationDate="2014-11-11T01:10:54.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A nuance reveals that 雕像 is a craft, 雕塑 is a art much more valuated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6516" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T01:10:54.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10284" CreationDate="2014-11-11T01:14:06.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;您请先 is OK and cool among young generation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6516" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T01:14:06.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10286" CreationDate="2014-11-11T01:24:59.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I am a Chinese, sorry for my English)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a band in China called (重塑雕像的權利 | Rebuilding The Rights Of Statues）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;雕像：more emphasize it stands for something beyond the statue itself (like history, a kind of spirit, etc). 像 has the meaning 象征(represents). We will definitely call Mao Ze Dong's statue as 雕像，not 雕塑，cause we build statue not because it looks good, it reminds us something back in history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;雕塑：emphasize it's a piece of art. 塑 has the meaning it's made by a artist, not something normal people could easily do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, normally, we use them quite interchangeability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3442" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T01:34:59.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10119" CreationDate="2014-11-11T02:58:12.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;姓 is follow with father, 名 sometime comes with two parts: one is seniority in the family(only one word. means 辈分) and one is given by parent.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;字 is like a adult name. might be given by your parent or your teacher or others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese Culture, only older can call your name and it is very rude to call others name directly. you have to call their 字. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example my favorite character 赵云 and his 字 is 子龙, his master will call him 赵子龙 instead 赵云.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6745" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T02:58:12.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10294" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10296" CreationDate="2014-11-11T07:42:40.927" Score="3" ViewCount="411" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have always struggled with this translation, but have never quite figured it out. How do I translate &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have always been ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have always been an academic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have always struggled with this translation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have always told you to be more mindful of others&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the first one would best be translated as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我从来（都／就）是个 （academic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But using ”从来“ doesn't seem to work quite well for the other two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2014-11-11T21:14:06.107" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T21:14:06.107" Title="How to translate &quot;I have always been&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10294" CreationDate="2014-11-11T08:56:53.820" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have a few options. As @NS.X. pointed out 一直 is a good one, but you can also use &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一向, e.g.我一向很懒。I have always been very lazy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;向来, e.g. 她向来就是个书呆子。 She has always been a bookworm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从来 is more likely used together with 不 or 没 conveying negation, of course that is not necessary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A conjecture of mine: 一直 is often used with a certain beginning in the speaker's mind, which is not always pointed out of course. 自从饭后我一直忙的很。Since dinner I have been very busy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-11T09:41:28.617" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T09:41:28.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10297" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-11T11:20:11.217" Score="2" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I used to listened to this Buddhist stories radio play (&lt;a href=&quot;http://programme.rthk.hk/channel/radio/programme.php?name=pth/kongzhong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;空中结缘&lt;/a&gt;） some time ago. It's aired weekly by RTHK/香港电台 and apart from the recitations from Buddhist scriptures, I think the dialog parts are pretty good for learners of Chinese, the stories are entertaining and there are plenty of them, so I thought I would share the feed link with you:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://podcast.rthk.hk/podcast/pchances.xml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://podcast.rthk.hk/podcast/pchances.xml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(It also has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://programme.rthk.hk/channel/radio/programme.php?name=radio5/chances&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cantonese version&lt;/a&gt;, in case someone is interested).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There was another radio play podcast broadcast by a Singaporean radio station running under the title 麻达一郎 (Mada Yilang, a Japanese name), which was about a Japanese criminal police investigation, also a nice one. Unfortunately it seems to be completely removed from the website (xin.msn.com). Has anyone by any chance &lt;em&gt;heard of it or knows where to download it from&lt;/em&gt; again? I would highly recommend it those who are intermediate learners of Mandarin， if only I still knew where the files are hosted.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are there any good quality Mandarin language radio plays you know of and would recommend it to practice Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;**&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-11T14:36:06.487" LastActivityDate="2016-06-17T10:43:20.563" Title="Are there other similar Mandarin Chinese radio plays?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;practice&gt;&lt;audio&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-06-17T10:43:24.987" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10298" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10299" CreationDate="2014-11-11T12:26:27.087" Score="3" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently making a company database of different Chinese firms and as it is I have to give the English versions of the names translated from traditional Chinese. So I have been wondering about the precise translation of those two  股份有限公司 and 有限公司. As far as I see it any one of those two can be translated as Co. Ltd but if that's so where does 股份 goes? I know the meaning of all of the characters and yet I can't place it all too well. Can you give me some clarification on the matter? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6717" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T12:47:55.023" Title="Differences between 股份有限公司 and 有限公司" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10298" CreationDate="2014-11-11T12:37:03.797" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is legal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有限公司 is a limited liability company (LLC), usually a smaller company.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;股份有限公司 is a public limited company/private company limited by shares (PLC), usually larger companies whose shares (股份) are traded on the stock exchange. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. I am not quite sure what are the equivalent of these two forms in your country (Common law, I suppose). In the Roman law based German and Central European law the first would be &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesellschaft_mit_beschr%C3%A4nkter_Haftung&quot;&gt;GmbH&lt;/a&gt;, latter would be &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktiengesellschaft&quot;&gt;AG&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-11T12:47:55.023" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T12:47:55.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10294" CreationDate="2014-11-11T17:26:43.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;长期以来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have always been feeling pain in both knees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我长期以来两边（儿）膝盖疼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T17:26:43.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10297" CreationDate="2014-11-11T17:56:15.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try 新闻酸菜馆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some reasons, mainland Chinese do not have much existence on podcast, but you can find tons of fine broadcasts on another app, &lt;strong&gt;荔枝FM&lt;/strong&gt; (you have to search in Chinese with that though.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T17:56:15.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10281" CreationDate="2014-11-11T19:07:57.773" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say, as a Chinese, that Chinese language doesn't express tenses as explicitly and clearly as English does in most cases. Your translation of the first sentence(我在北京住了六个月) can be taken in both ways, in which case we figure out the tense by context. Past tense would be a better guess, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To remove uncertainties, you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在北京住&lt;strong&gt;过&lt;/strong&gt;六个月。I lived in Beijing for six months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在北京住&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;六个月&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;。I have been living in Beijing for six months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or for added clarity:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;曾&lt;/strong&gt;在北京住&lt;strong&gt;过&lt;/strong&gt;六个月。I once lived in Beijing for six months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;已经&lt;/strong&gt;在北京住&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;六个月&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;。I have been living in Beijing for six months already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6749" LastEditorUserId="6749" LastEditDate="2014-11-13T20:00:03.017" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T20:00:03.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10303" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10306" CreationDate="2014-11-12T01:50:50.413" Score="4" ViewCount="7080" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm practicing writing short articles in Chinese, but I'm not sure how to say &quot;To conclude&quot; or &quot;In conclusion&quot;. I can't seem to find an appropriate translation. What is recommended?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2020-05-03T12:21:22.223" Title="How to translate &quot;In conclusion&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10304" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10309" CreationDate="2014-11-12T02:24:54.303" Score="5" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English I would write something such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Low paying jobs range from working at McDonald's to driving a bus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or another way to put it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Low paying jobs include anything from working at McDonald's to driving a bus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best way to replicate this in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(No offense implied to anyone working such jobs.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T07:37:47.790" Title="How to translate &quot;range from X to Y&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10303" CreationDate="2014-11-12T02:30:46.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;总之 means something like &quot;in sum&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T02:30:46.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10303" CreationDate="2014-11-12T04:33:09.293" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;总而言之，complete version of 总之，less imperative.&#xA;综上所述，in summary (of the previous narration or evidences).&#xA;以上，very concise and confident way，but use it carefully，more of a meme these days&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6381" LastEditorUserId="6381" LastEditDate="2014-11-12T04:39:15.090" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T04:39:15.090" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10304" CreationDate="2014-11-12T05:18:14.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;range (means 范围 in Chinese in your case)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from ... to (means two boundaries of a &quot;range&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it is &quot;rangeable&quot; for your list items, the two kinds of jobs seem not so good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because they are just 2 instance for &quot;low paying jobs&quot;, not a clarified bound of this range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can set a &quot;paying salary&quot;, if you want to use 'range'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2906" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T05:18:14.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10258" CreationDate="2014-11-12T06:56:34.757" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;强&quot; has quite many variants such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;犟、強、彊 ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;see:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/js/5F3A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/js/5F3A.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, similar phenomenon occurs to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;為(Hongkong) 爲(Taiwan) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact is, for almost every character, it's likely to have a bunch of variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And about the &quot;Simplified Chinese&quot;, it did &quot;Simplify&quot; quantities of characters because none of their variants is simple ( like 為-&gt;为 ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, more than half of the characters were not manually simplified in the last century, since there are very simple format in their variants already. Rather than creating new formats, those simple variants were chosen as standard &quot;Simplified Chinese&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the specific one &quot;强&quot;, after excluding 犟、彊.., it probably was assumed that double '口' is clearer and simpler than &quot;強&quot;, which harder to remember than &quot;强&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6750" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T06:56:34.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10304" CreationDate="2014-11-12T07:25:25.133" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on the situation, you might want to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;低收入职业的种类很多，从麦当劳员工到公交车司机不一而足。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can substitute 不一而足 with 都是 or 应有尽有 or anything that helps to complete the sentence. Examples are abundant in @S.Rhee's link. Or you can somehow reverse it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从麦当劳员工到公交车司机，这些都属于低收入职业。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Funny thing is logically 麦当劳员工 and 公交车司机 don't represent a range. They aren't both end of a continuum, are they? So let's put it another way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;低收入职业包括快餐店员工，公交车司机等很多类型。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do want to represent a range, you can do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;低收入职业包括从快餐店员工到公交车司机的很多类型。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel less than comfortable about the last one. I can't tell why, maybe it's because the sentence is too fat and there is no punctuation..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T07:25:25.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10304" CreationDate="2014-11-12T07:37:47.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Low paying jobs range from working at McDonald's to driving a bus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;從在麥當勞打工到當巴士司機這類的低薪工作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Low paying jobs =&gt; 低薪工作&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;working at McDonald's =&gt; 在麥當勞打工&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;driving a bus =&gt; 當巴士司機&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;range from ... to ... =&gt; 從 ... 到 ...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;... jobs (which are) range ...,  which are =&gt; 這類的&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6751" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T07:37:47.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10311" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-12T07:41:39.170" Score="11" ViewCount="1615" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English I would say &quot;excuse me&quot;. Some possibilities that come to mind are 请让，对不起，不好意思. I believe I have heard someone say &quot;让!&quot; before. Is that considered impolite?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastEditorUserId="3183" LastEditDate="2014-11-12T07:59:50.100" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T07:51:34.123" Title="What is a polite or neutral way to ask for someone to step out of your way?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10258" CreationDate="2014-11-12T07:53:39.670" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My assumption has been that the variant 强 was selected as standard because the right hand side of 強 is not its own character, whereas 强 was perceived as easier to remember because it is 弓＋虽. However, etymologically, 強 = 弘 ＋ 虫, so the character reform committee kind of screwed the pooch in that sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastEditorUserId="3183" LastEditDate="2016-02-08T07:52:28.607" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T07:52:28.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10311" CreationDate="2014-11-12T07:54:25.777" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most polite way is to use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;借过&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;excuse me&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  -&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to sound politer you can add a 一下 on the end: 借过一下.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让 is not super polite, with or without a 一下 but you could still get away using it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple 不好意思 would also suffice but is not as polite as 借过.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T03:51:31.783" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T03:51:31.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10311" CreationDate="2014-11-12T08:00:14.560" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a polite way: &lt;code&gt;请让一下&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;麻烦让一下&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an impolite way: &lt;code&gt;让开！&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T08:00:14.560" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10311" CreationDate="2014-11-12T08:46:59.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;劳驾让一下。&#xA;or&#xA;借光让一下。&#xA;or&#xA;麻烦让一下。&#xA;or &#xA;请让一下。&#xA;You may replace 让一下 with 让一下道，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T08:46:59.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10316" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-12T16:21:47.117" Score="2" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 硕士英语A班 and 工程硕士英语?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to know their exact meaning as Google Translate gives me the same result for both but these words seems to have different meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am supposing is that 硕士英语A班 is masters English class and 工程硕士英语 is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; a class but a whole department or whatever. So I just need to know clear meanings of these two words &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3713" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:41:54.787" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:41:54.787" Title="Difference between 硕士英语A班 and 工程硕士英语" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10317" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10318" CreationDate="2014-11-12T17:02:47.953" Score="5" ViewCount="1165" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know how to say &quot;shin splints&quot; in Chinese.  Shin splints are a fairly common injury for runners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that shin splints are NOT splints that you put on your shin but rather a pain that occurs along the inner edge of the shin bone (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_splints&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried looking up &quot;shin splints&quot;, &quot;splints&quot;, and &quot;splint&quot; on my Android Pleco app but all I got for definitions was &quot;splint&quot; meaning the same thing as a &quot;cast&quot;, or something you put your limb in to support it during recovery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6754" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T17:10:25.213" Title="How to say &quot;shin splints&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10317" CreationDate="2014-11-12T17:10:25.213" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well looks like you should invest in new (Pleco) dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外胫夹 -&lt;em&gt;Zhongshan Medical&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[用作单数] 【病理学】 (田径运动员等患的) 外胫炎,外胫酸痛 [1940∼1945] -&lt;em&gt;21 Century&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu also returns the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;胫前疼痛/外胫夹(Shin splints)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would go with &lt;strong&gt;外胫夹&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T17:10:25.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10316" CreationDate="2014-11-12T18:53:13.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;工程硕士英语 - English for Master Engineering &#xA;硕士英语A班 - English class A for Master (Engineering).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 硕士英语A班 could also be Master (level) English Class A, in a sense of Beginner - Intermediate - Master.  &lt;code&gt;Master&lt;/code&gt; here is referring to the level not a degree&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2014-11-12T21:25:01.917" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T21:25:01.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10303" CreationDate="2014-11-12T19:58:31.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;从此可以看出 is a common alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T19:58:31.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10303" CreationDate="2014-11-12T21:28:26.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;總結來說, (your summary) - In conclusion, (your summary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T21:28:26.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10316" CreationDate="2014-11-13T00:54:54.060" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;硕士&lt;/code&gt; means the college degree in modern Chinese, nothing else, unlike the English word Master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;工程硕士&lt;/code&gt; is Master of Engineering. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;硕士英语&lt;/code&gt; is the English course for a student who is pursuing a master's degree. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;班&lt;/code&gt; is an assembly in which people study and take exams together, usually consisting of 30 or more people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to conclude:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;工程硕士英语&lt;/code&gt; is the English course in a college aimed at Chinese M.Eng students who usually have no more than 5000 English words in command. After the course you'll gain an additional 1000 vocabularies as well as a few reading, writing, and translating skills. It's a class focused on basic English skill, not necessarily related to engineering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;硕士英语A班&lt;/code&gt; is an assembly of M.Eng students taking an English course, this group is labelled as A. There might be B, C, D, etc., but A usually doesn't mean it's better or prioritized; These are just labels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-11-13T05:03:47.100" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T05:03:47.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10323" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10325" CreationDate="2014-11-13T02:30:41.610" Score="9" ViewCount="3215" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm fairly certain I understand how to use 常常，but I don't know if 往往 is used any differently (they both have the same translations). Are there any differences in usage I should be aware of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-02T01:17:40.800" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T01:17:40.800" Title="Difference between 常常 and 往往" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10323" CreationDate="2014-11-13T02:50:01.150" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a footnote for the &lt;strong&gt;往往&lt;/strong&gt; entry in 规范 that says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;注意 跟“常常”不同。㊀“往往”可以指将来发生的事; “常常”一般不用于将来。㊁“往往”的词义跟“往”的各义项都不同; “常常”跟“常”⑥词义接近。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;往往 can be used for future events - 常常 in most instances cannot.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;往往 has nothing to do with any meanings of 往 alone. 常常 has the same meaning as one of the definitions of 常 alone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also a footnote for the 常常 entry describing the difference between 常常 and 通常 that I think is good to mention here, too: (only the relavent part is below)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“常常”多表示在较短的时间内动作行为发生的次数多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常常 mostly describes actions or behavior that occurred repeatedly during a relatively short period of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-11-13T02:58:42.567" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T02:58:42.567" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10323" CreationDate="2014-11-13T04:45:23.410" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically they have the same meanings. Now let's focus on the difference, but first wrap your head in duct tapes in case it explodes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;往往 is usually used with conditions supplied. Without any condition it is usually wrong:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我常常加班。 -- Good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我往往加班。 -- &lt;strong&gt;Wrong&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北京常常下雪。-- Good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北京往往下雪。 -- &lt;strong&gt;Wrong&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北京往往在冬天下雪。-- Good. Notice the constraint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;努力的人常常会成功。-- Good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;努力的人往往会成功。-- Good, maybe better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 往往 can only live in the result, not in the condition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你常常努力，你就会成功。-- 往往 is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你努力，那你往往会成功。-- Good. 常常 is also OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;往往 focuses on the experience of previous observations, 常常 focuses on existing phenomena. This may not matter much depending on the context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;猫往往会把猎物带给主人。 -- It's an observation, a summary, and maybe also a prediction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;猫常常会把猎物带给主人。 -- It's just an observation, but really, no big difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 往往 is used, there is often a slight enhancement of emotion or stress:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我常常加班到深夜。-- A general statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我往往加班到深夜。-- Notice the sense of disapproval.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我常常一加班就头疼。-- A general statement, but...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我往往一加班就头疼。-- The negative sense of 头疼 eludes the difference of 常常 and 往往.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小明常常在班里考第一名。-- A general statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小明往往在班里考第一名。-- Good. Though not negative, it sounds more emotional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小明往往在班里考倒数第一名。-- Good. Negative and emotional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北京常常在冬天下雪。-- A general statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北京在冬天常常下雪。-- Notice although 常常 appeared at different places, it's more of a decorator of the whole sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北京往往在冬天下雪。-- Notice the slight stress. Winter, not spring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北京在冬天往往下雪。-- Snows, not rains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常常 can be used in the subjunctive mood. 往往 can't:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要常常来找我玩哦。-- 往往 is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我建议你常常复习一下。-- 往往 is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常常 can be used in the imperative mood. 往往 can't:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常常来找我玩哦！-- 往往 is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常常复习一下！-- 往往 is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果有时间，就常常复习一下！-- 往往 wrong, even with conditions supplied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the negative form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不常常吹牛。-- 不常常 is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我常常不吹牛。-- 常常不 sounds weird because 吹牛 is an explicit action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我常常不在家。-- 常常不 sounds OK because 在家 is a status.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懒散的人往往不会成功。-- 往往不 is good. It's the only form of negation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懒散的人不往往会成功。-- 不往往 is absolutely wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T08:54:36.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10323" CreationDate="2014-11-13T16:12:22.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both answer from user3306356 and Wang Dingwei are correct, I just want to add a simple explanation on top of their answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常常; things &lt;code&gt;mostly&lt;/code&gt; happens (in present); is supported by evidences from the past.  北京十月常常下雪 - Beijing was always snowing on Oct, therefore we use 常常&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;往往; things &lt;code&gt;will most likely&lt;/code&gt; happens; is supported by forecasting / vision in the future. 努力的人往往会成功 - People who works hard will most likely success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T16:12:22.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10323" CreationDate="2014-11-13T19:53:20.307" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 往往 implies that the statement is made from one's judgment, while 常常 is a more general word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6749" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T19:53:20.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10272" CreationDate="2014-11-13T20:06:39.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your case is among those occasions when 下来 is used to imply that to make the action is to grasp an opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6749" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T20:06:39.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10329" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-13T22:35:43.750" Score="2" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I encountered at an online database for Chinese example Sentences: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在去不去的问题上徘徊不定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far, I understand the elements of the sentences as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徘徊不定 is the predicate of the sentence, made up of the verb 徘徊 (to hesitate) and its complement 不定 (&quot;not determined&quot;), therefore it should mean sth. like &quot;to hesitate without comming to a conclusion&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在去不去的问题上  is the adverbial of the sentence, made up of the preposition 在...上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My problem within the sentence is the part: &lt;strong&gt;去不去的&lt;/strong&gt; 问题, the characters used are very common ones, but nevertheless i do not know what meaning is beeing conveyed by their construction. When I try to translate it verbatimally, i get stuck with: &quot;go-or-not-go-problem&quot;, what is the meaning of this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T23:00:29.843" Title="What is the meaning of 去不去的 as in 去不去的问题?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10329" CreationDate="2014-11-13T23:00:29.843" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your instinct is right: it literally means to go or not to go. So the guy couldn't make up his mind to go (somewhere, need context) or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T23:00:29.843" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10281" CreationDate="2014-11-13T23:03:32.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese people like to make the tenses explicit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;曾&lt;/strong&gt;在北京住&lt;strong&gt;过&lt;/strong&gt;6个月。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;已经&lt;/strong&gt;在北京住&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;6个月了。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T23:03:32.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10332" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-14T00:18:34.070" Score="0" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;amp;v=iW4ZzxuSXbc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;amp;v=iW4ZzxuSXbc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can sort of follow along but there are some words/phrases I'm not clear on.  Here's what I can gather:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天外场的演出分为...展室...和焰火三个部分, 而负责这场表演的团队呢，完全是2008年北京奥运会开幕式的导源的团队。  而在等待的过程当中，各个...的领导人在形势的交谈...看到葡京总统特...外套披在彭丽媛的身上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anybody could help, I'd surely appreciate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers,&#xA;Rachel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T05:42:29.920" Title="What does this Chinese reporter say about APEC and Putin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10332" CreationDate="2014-11-14T00:33:18.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;光艺展示&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;巨型的视频网幕&lt;/strong&gt;，和焰火三个部分。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;光艺展示: Display of light effects&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巨型的视频网幕: Giant video display,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;各个&lt;strong&gt;经济体&lt;/strong&gt;的领导人在&lt;strong&gt;饶有兴致地&lt;/strong&gt;交谈，刚才我们看到普京总统&lt;strong&gt;特地地把一件&lt;/strong&gt;外套披在了彭丽媛的身上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经济体: Economic entity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饶有兴致: With quite some interest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;特地：Specially, with the quality of caring and thoughtfulness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-11-14T05:42:29.920" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T05:42:29.920" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10226" CreationDate="2014-11-14T01:20:24.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“禁止携带易燃易爆物品”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is commonly seen on security checkpoints.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4067" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T01:20:24.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10335" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10336" CreationDate="2014-11-14T11:34:29.913" Score="6" ViewCount="5688" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently come across the phrase 你好啊 and I was curious about its usage. It was in the FSI Chinese course with a meaning of 'How are you?', but I have only heard 你好吗 on other courses and when talking to Chinese speakers on Skype. Is this because 你好啊 is not really used very much in everyday life, or is it because Chinese speakers tend to tailor the way they say things to suit the level of the other person and 你好吗 is more common in text books?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6607" LastActivityDate="2021-04-18T23:55:11.047" Title="你好啊？ or 你好吗？ Which is more common?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10335" CreationDate="2014-11-14T12:07:36.093" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually people just say 你好 because, well, it's just the common way. I don't think there are any reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你好啊 sounds like talking to babies, or if you are greeting someone who is some distance away and you want yourself to be heard. 你——好——啊——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你好吗 is a direct translation of &quot;How are you?&quot; It is only used by Chinese when one really wants to know what is going on with the other, or it may be used with English speakers to make them feel less culturally alienated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-11-16T02:15:26.417" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T02:15:26.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10338" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-14T13:53:07.970" Score="0" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the term &quot;danwei&quot; singular or plural?  Ie, if there are several, is it several danweis or several danwei?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6767" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T14:52:34.467" Title="Usage of &quot;danwei&quot; in english" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10339" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-14T14:32:55.000" Score="5" ViewCount="1504" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do anyone know if it exists a professional English-Chinese and Chinese-English Technical Dictionary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6768" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T08:02:52.920" Title="Technical English-Chinese Dictionary" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10338" CreationDate="2014-11-14T14:52:34.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;looks through Google Books and what not comes up with a few instances of &lt;strong&gt;danweis&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;From Family to Market: Labor Allocation in Contemporary China&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This danwei-based income discrepancy worsened drastically during the reform years as the danweis acquired more autonomous authority in allocating financial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Globalisation and the Chinese City&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Similarly, 'commercial land' refers to the lots occupied by the danweis under the administration of the financial or commercial system (Huang 1997).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;上海新城: 追寻蔓延都市里的社区和身份&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Danweis ('danwei' literally means 'work unit') were cooperative or state-run companies whose members lived and worked communally, and often practiced one ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Chinese Dream: A Society Under Construction&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;15 The new Constitution banned all land transactions and land was allocated to danweis* free of charge. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would totally go with a pluralized &lt;em&gt;danweis&lt;/em&gt; for multiple danweis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T14:52:34.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10339" CreationDate="2014-11-14T15:31:29.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on your comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Technical dictionaries are dictionaries with terminology in the fields of technology and science, in which you can find names that you do not find in &quot;classical dictionaries&quot;, because they are very technical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would highly recommend the &lt;strong&gt;21st Century English-Chinese Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;blurb from Amazon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The English-Chinese dictionary collects more than 70,000 entries. It includes over 10,000 new words. The phonetic is referred to the new edition from U.K. &amp;amp; U. S. Appendix includes the information of five countries: United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia &amp;amp; New Zealand; the military ranks of U.K. &amp;amp; U.S.; international famous companies; chemical elements; punctuation; the usage of numeral, date &amp;amp; time; comparison of metric system &amp;amp; metrology of U.K. &amp;amp; U.S.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;entry-wise I'm not sure why Amazon only mentions 70,000 entries as Pleco calls it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the 280,000-entry 21st Century English-Chinese Dictionary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T15:31:29.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10342" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-15T21:21:07.063" Score="6" ViewCount="1018" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since years ago I have been studying some languages with the major goal of being able to read texts, complex or not, written under them. My native is Portuguese (from Brazil) and nowadays I have no problem reading texts in English, Español, Français or Deutsch. After reading and hearing a lot, through years, my ears got used with the sounds of English and French and I believe that the same will occur, eventually, with German. Spanish is no problem, once this language is very kind of Portuguese and the sounds are very alike.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In another words, my real objective is only reading, but the skills to also hear and speak is kind of automatic. Nonetheless, this reality changed when I tried to do this same strategy to Mandarin Chinese (simplified). After months of struggling, I still cannot even get close to a simple text. Chinese is an entire riddle for me. One of the methods I like to learn a language is the massive use of a dictionary, however, how can I do that to Chinese? I cannot even split a sequence like &quot;辣椒的品种有很多&quot; in particular words. For me it's just a Chinese Wall, without beginning or end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only thing that works for me are those texts intertwined with Pinyin and pre-divided, so a poor mortal like me is able to differentiate one word from another. Nonetheless, these kinds of text are extremely rare to find online. Something that would help me a lot would be manhua (漫画) with pinyin, but reading forums some people said these virtually do not exist. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I'm in a deadlock. I like Chinese and I want to be someday able to read news, romances, scientific books and alike , but I can't find a proper way to study the language (focusing on reading) instead of methods extremely boring (for example, drawing mousehanded hanzi-to-hanzi and after that try to form words and find them in a dictionary, considering that I would be able to organize the characters properly) or then extremely scarce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some method that could help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6771" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T08:48:12.840" Title="Is Mandarin impossible for my goals?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10342" CreationDate="2014-11-15T21:56:01.673" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like you need to delve deeper into the Chinese writing system. It is nothing mystical or complex ordinary Western people cannot learn, it just takes time and some dedication. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose you have a textbook or similar material that is divided into lessons with each lesson introducing a handful of characters and a number of expressions, if not you should get one. I know it is very boring in the beginning to read such sterile sentences like &quot;This is my father./Here is a book.&quot;, etc., but that's the way it is, you need to lay the basics of vocabulary, characters and expressions and some grammar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is unlike any Indo-European language (including those you listed) it has it's own peculiarities, but words are still words in any language, they need to be memorized and practiced. That requires time and patience. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While pinyin is a necessary help to all those who learn Chinese (and to Chinese themselves), it is not something you should rely to much on. Generally, you should avoid using textbooks that give pinyin transcription side-by-side to the Chinese script, because the more familiar Latin script will distract you rather than help you. Pinyin should be given in the vocabulary section of every lesson, but not in the lessons' reader part. I know people who would refuse reading a Chinese script only text, because after a few lessons they were relying so much on reading the pinyin transcripts, that they were simply unable to read the proper characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to build up some vocabulary, learn the words and their characters, their pronunciation and practice them. Reading something in Chinese simply requires you to be able to recognize the words, not only the characters, as you wrote in your question, you need to be able to &quot;parse&quot; a text to tell where each word begins and ends. Sometimes – with new expressions and terms popping up in the media everyday – it's not easy, even for advanced speakers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a good thing to write characters by hand from the very beginning to memorize them. However, it's not necessary, if you find it a burden. If you think this requires too much effort, you can stick with reading only in the beginning and start writing what you have learnt later when you are more familiar with basic concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading your last paragraph, I see that you are highly motivated to learn Chinese. But you should not start with reading to difficult texts, it's a waste of time looking up the vocab character by character and idling half an hour over a single sentence. I have done that, I admit, I thought I would be able to read Chinese comics after I figured out how to look up a character in a dictionary. I wasted hours and hours for this nonsense. Stick with your text book texts, do the exercises, memorize the vocab and you will make progress.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-15T22:14:27.273" LastActivityDate="2014-11-15T22:14:27.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10339" CreationDate="2014-11-15T22:11:06.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mdbg.net/&lt;/a&gt; to translate a number of terms in the theory of differential equations.  Later I checked the translations with a native Chinese mathematician who works in the UK, and he said that they were mostly good.  That's a limited set of evidence, but suggestive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4366" LastActivityDate="2014-11-15T22:11:06.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10345" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10378" CreationDate="2014-11-15T22:34:50.427" Score="1" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;Particularly, intricacies of pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am just starting to learn the language, and what bothers me is that after finally managing to learn proper pronunciations of the language sounds, I may then forget it all if there comes a period of time when I’ll not be able to practice my skills. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if anyone had a personal experience with this—how long of not practising did it take to forget what you have learnt and how easy was recovering the lost knowledge?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6773" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T20:38:17.347" Title="How long a lack of practice does it usually take to forget the intricacies off the learnt Chinese?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;practice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10346" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10347" CreationDate="2014-11-15T22:44:50.783" Score="6" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;The etymology of 的 is described &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E7%9A%84&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Is this resource correct is saying that 勺 is this character's phonetic component? I ask because it doesn't seem to hint at the correct pronunciation at all. 勺 is pronounced &lt;strong&gt;sháo&lt;/strong&gt; while 的 is pronounced &lt;strong&gt;de&lt;/strong&gt;. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2670" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T19:40:30.093" Title="Is 勺 really the phonetic component of 的?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10346" CreationDate="2014-11-15T23:34:39.617" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese has underwent many pronunciation changes since characters were first invented and phonetic components often reflect words as they were pronounced in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt; rather than modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciations of 的 and 勺 were much more similar in Old Chinese. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This link&lt;/a&gt; explains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的 and 勺 had roughly similar pronunciations in Old Chinese; Baxter-Sagart reconstruct 的 as *t-lˤewk, compared with 勺 *m-t-qewk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the that 的 character as originally used means &quot;target&quot; and is pronounced &lt;code&gt;dì&lt;/code&gt; in Modern Mandarin. In modern times, it was borrowed to &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; represent the genitive particle &lt;code&gt;de&lt;/code&gt; (this usage ultimately descends from 之; refer to this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/6007/166&quot;&gt;previous question&lt;/a&gt; for more information).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few other modern Chinese languages still preserve the final &lt;code&gt;-k&lt;/code&gt; in both of these words. For instance, Cantonese has the pronunciations &lt;code&gt;dik&lt;/code&gt; (IPA: /tɪk/) and &lt;code&gt;zoek&lt;/code&gt; (IPA: /t͡sœːk/) for 的 and 勺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T19:40:30.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10342" CreationDate="2014-11-16T02:16:25.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope I agree with Drunken Master, but will be more brief.  You can learn to look up Chinese characters, and you have to if you want to read.  It is worth while to get several kinds of textbooks teaching the language and the characters.  Even electronic look-up aids will not work well if you do not understand character structure, like how to identify a radical, and stroke order.  You need to learn grammar and idiom as well as vocabulary words so you need general textbooks as well as character books and dictionaries.  Comics can be very slangy and not a good starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I taught myself enough German, Italian, Dutch, and ancient Greek to read books in those languages will real pleasure.  Happily I had French in school.  What works is to keep trying.  Of course Chinese is harder for a European than those. But there is a boom in great graded readers.  The very best of them to me are the Chinese Breeze series.  The first one I read seemed to take forever, but I loved the story.  Four years later I have read all they have in print.  Clavis Sinica let me read the famous novella The True Story of Ah Q, plus Mo Yan's Red Sorghum (the 80 page story, not yet the whole book Red Sorghum Clan).  While I have not used it yet, Kindle has built-in Chinese dictionaries available so you can look up characters as you read.  Just do it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2014-11-16T22:07:33.370" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T22:07:33.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10350" CreationDate="2014-11-16T04:25:18.487" Score="2" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to learn Chinese. I have no trouble with pronunciation; I lived in Taiwan when I was young. However, I can't seem to begin. I try to start learning, but I stop, only to try again a week or two later. I feel that I have no structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have the Integrated Chinese materials, as well as all the materials from an older FSI Chinese course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the best ways to practice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Speaking&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Listening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Writing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reading&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should I consider when trying to develop and build a curriculum for myself? Should I use the Integrated Chinese materials or the FSI materials?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6520" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T11:53:33.763" Title="Self-Teaching and Methods of Practice" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10349" CreationDate="2014-11-16T09:51:38.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I admit that I have never used 'Integrated Chinese', so I do not know how useful it is. However, FSI Chinese is IMHO outdated. If it has not been updated in the last 10 years, I would not rely on it. I know it's public domain, free and it comes with plenty of audio material, etc. but it was made ages ago, and language &amp;amp; society has changed in China so much. I used a German text book back a few years ago to learn Chinese, which was originally published in the early/mid 90's and fellow Chinese students used to laugh about some of the expressions, because they are not used anymore. Occasionally you can use FSI's audio material to practice your hearing comprehension, but if you have something more up-to-date, use the latter one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the material in 'Integrated Chinese' is divided into fair amount of lessons, that you can cover within a few days (assuming you learn 1 or 2 hour every day), that's just fine, stick with the curriculum of the book, explore any supplementary material in the back of the book, if there is any (e.g. list of words, characters, table of radicals or pinyin syllables), to make the most out of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a good way actually to begin with the pinyin syllables and to learn what sounds the initials (b-, q-, t- etc.) and finals (-eng, -iang, ou, etc.) represent. As you write, you are already familiar with the pronunciation basics, so it shouldn't be an issue for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next thing I would do is to start with a lesson in the text book and first take a look at all the items in the vocabulary list, make sure you understand them, you do not immediately need to learn them by heart, after having read the reader and done the exercises you will have no problem with them, most text books come with a number of exercises that will reinforce the lesson's core vocabulary and will also repeat the vocab of past lessons.  Occasionally, as you make progress and cover new lessons, you can brush up the vocabulary and grammar structures of earlier lessons, it is always a good idea to repeat, because the more you encounter with things, the more familiar you are with them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practicing speaking would require someone to have conversations with, so find someone who has the time to do this. If you don't have, you can still find a way to exercises yourself, though it's a bit boring. I used &lt;a href=&quot;http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Audacity&lt;/a&gt;   to practice my pronunciation skills. I would load and mp3 file that came with my text book and select a few syllables of speech (you can see waves of the audio visualized in Audacity) and listen to them again and again, trying to make my pronunciation and intonation exactly like the speaker. I used to record myself and listen to it, to check how authentic (or actually bad) my Chinese sounded. It wasn't really exciting but I discovered many of the phonetic aspects of Chinese this way. In case if you have someone to chat with you in Chinese and can help you build experience, you don't need Audacity, it's just an idea for those who really have to learn on their own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for listening, reading and writing, actually if your text book is good enough, you don't really have to make thoughts about them, just work on the curriculum and do all the exercises. If your vocabulary is still not that comprehensive, it is hard to find audio material other than text book audio, because most of the radio plays, TV shows, movies require you to have at least intermediary level to be able to follow the dialogs. Actually learning materials commercially available are quite good and plenty these days, so if you have time and money you could invest in some other material than your text book. As soon as your vocab gets better, you could starting hunting for some real life audio, I used a course designed for Chinese people who wish to improve their Putonhua. Actually you can just &lt;a href=&quot;http://music.baidu.com/search?key=%E6%99%AE%E9%80%9A%E8%AF%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;search for 普通话 as a keyword&lt;/a&gt; and you will find plenty of audio to listen to.  Baidu's audio search is not so user-friendly and I doubt that everything uploaded here is public domain, but as long as you download it for personally use only, you don't need to make thoughts about copyright law. To this Putonghua course you will find the texts on several sites online. I need to search through my old bookmarks in order to find a link to post here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another interesting resource I used to practice hearing was a Taiwanese radio (教育之声） &lt;a href=&quot;http://realner.ner.gov.tw/list.php?linkdir=E%B0%EA%A4%E5/E2%B0%EA%A4%A4%B0%EA%A4%E5-Mp3-128kbs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;show&lt;/a&gt; about Chinese literature/culture, their pronunciation is a bit odd to me, but it's still OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need to warn you to only start listening to these when you already have the core vocabulary, otherwise it's just a waste of time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Writing: buy plenty of paper and good lead pencils to practice. The best paper is that has some lines on it to provide you some orientation, you can buy and print paper specially designed for exercising writing Chinese characters (boxes with diagonals or just boxes without diagonals) that Chinese school children also use to write their home assignments. If you can buy these, use them. If they are not available, use any kind of paper. Do not try to use pens, especially ball point pens, since many of those require you to push them onto the surface of the paper in order to mark the paper with ink. That's not particularly helpful for someone to who is about to learn the basic strokes (撇，横, etc.) to get these look beautifully, these will require you to have something that doesn't need to be pushed that hard, a soft graphite pencil, ideally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can buy character practicing sheets (which come with characters pre-printed in light gray), buy them, they are very useful. Just make sure you know the stroke order. That's quite important. Your textbook should cover this, hopefully.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-16T10:21:37.843" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T10:21:37.843" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10342" CreationDate="2014-11-16T11:12:06.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My experience is primarily with Japanese, which has many similarities but also some differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Colin McLarty indicates, you need to learn how to look up characters by radical and stroke count. Explore different dictionaries! It looks like my daughter took back her Chinese dictionary so I can't compare, but the Japanese-to-English character dictionary I use most has each character listed with words where that character appears as the first character, as the second, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is a bit harder than Japanese, because there are fewer indicators for word boundaries, but there are certain characters that have specific roles in a sentence and give you a clue; any words that you recognize that fit the context are also good indicators and give you a start in breaking up the sentence. Back in the early 1990's, I wrote some software to partition Chinese text into words. The starting point was statistical data on how frequently pairs of characters occur together. You can get a pretty good start by simply knowing common vocabulary -- this amounts to something very similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're going to be doing a lot of lookup. If you're using a paper dictionary, I suggest doing some mods to help speed up lookup. I mark the edges of the dictionary pages with a marker so, without opening it, I can see where each radical's section is found. I fold some tape over the first page and fold over the corner and tape it, so the dictionary opens more readily to the start of each radical's section.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since my memory isn't perfect (far from it!), I also highlight the characters and words I look up. Very often I'm looking up something I've looked up before; this both reminds me of my past lookup, and helps me find it more quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anything to help make the lookup process more efficient will help. Learn the radicals, and how to recognize them in characters (including in their different forms). Personally, I find this to be harder with the &quot;simplified&quot; characters, as it makes them look much less distinct, but the strategy will still be the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate appears to do a surprisingly good job with translating Chinese now. If you paste (or type, if you learn to enter Chinese) some text you're having trouble with into Google Translate, and use your mouse, it will highlight the different phrases and the Chinese text they came from (or vice versa), and also offer you alternate translations. You can use this to help break apart your sentence structure, and give you an indication in where to start your study and investigation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Of course, for learning, you don't want to rely on that, but use it as a launching pad to find what you need to study -- you want to know WHY that's the translation, and how you'd use it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another point: each character tends to bring certain meanings to a word. If you become familiar enough with the characters, you can begin to leverage this to make educated guesses. This isn't very reliable from a translation standpoint, but it can help guide you in identifying words, or in quickly scanning text looking for something relevant, or something perhaps not too hard to dig into. Even though I don't know Chinese at all, and my Japanese vocabulary is limited, I find I can often scan Chinese text to find relevant pieces as a starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your bit of text, I picked out a few characters as guidepoints:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;的 -- I happen to know this usually plays a grammatical role, like a&#xA;possessive.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;品 -- &quot;stuff&quot; or &quot;things&quot; or &quot;goods&quot; or &quot;items&quot; or &quot;articles&quot;.  The exact meaning would depend on what follows.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;多 -- &quot;many&quot;, or &quot;much&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, the first word is often a good starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So based on that, I'd look up 品种, 辣椒, and either 有很 or 有很多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, with zero Chinese vocabulary and only a very vague idea of the structure, it's slow going from there, and I've never put any effort into learning the language. But I hope my experiences encourage you that it's possible to approach the language with limited knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6776" LastEditorUserId="6776" LastEditDate="2014-11-16T11:20:12.773" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T11:20:12.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10342" CreationDate="2014-11-16T11:45:02.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may try the Kingsoft PowerWord, it can be used to translate Chinese word to English and vice versa. I am from Hong Kong and I use it to assist me to learn English. You may download them from following links for browser-plugin version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cp.iciba.com/building_plugin2012.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://cp.iciba.com/building_plugin2012.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The PC version of Kingsoft PowerWord can translate a sentence. It tranlsate &quot;辣椒的品种有很多&quot; to &quot;There are a lot of hot pepper varieties.&quot; which is not a bad translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also consider to learn traditional Chinese first as Simplified Chinese is only simplified in character but become complicated in the whole word-forming system. You may read more in following youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAFlQbE6euc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAFlQbE6euc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, I know traditional Chinese and I undergo no training in simplified Chinese. But I still can read simplified Chinese fluently. I observe the same thing around my friends in Hong Kong which uses traditional Chinese widely. But the reverse case is usually not true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn traditional Chinese in forum, I recommend you to learn them from Taiwan Forum instead of Hong Kong. As spoken language and written language is totally different in Hong Kong and people in Hong Kong tends to communicate by spoken language in forum which is not helpful if your final goal is to be able to understand a book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6777" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T11:45:02.510" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10353" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10356" CreationDate="2014-11-16T11:45:29.467" Score="6" ViewCount="1176" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read the two different sentences, of which one uses &quot;他的太太&quot; and the other uses &quot;他太太&quot;. How can I tell the difference between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;现在他想他的太太。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;现在他想他太太。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is the correct sentence? And why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-04-09T00:45:09.437" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T13:29:35.380" Title="When to use &quot;他的太太&quot; and when &quot;他太太&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10349" CreationDate="2014-11-16T11:53:33.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A story first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Half a year ago, lots of students from PA came to my university and I worked as tutor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One day, I asked &quot;What major you're on here&quot;,&quot;Chinese&quot;,&quot;So all you traveled half of the earth just to learn Chinese?&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then they said they were told by teacher in their university:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The best way to learn a language is to have a native partner. And the best of the best is to be there.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So. rather than to worry about &quot;Where to find videos/vocabulary-sheet/learning sequence&quot;, I suggest you Google websites like &quot;(Chinese) language partner&quot; and register for one. A good partner is anyway better than dead materials.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6750" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T11:53:33.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10355" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10357" CreationDate="2014-11-16T11:57:58.990" Score="4" ViewCount="1277" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read the following phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: 妈妈，我可以和新邻居一起玩吗？&#xA;B: 可以，玩得开心点。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the two sentences above, what does the &lt;code&gt;点&lt;/code&gt; mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: Mam, can I play together with those who moved recently?&#xA;B: Yes, you can. Have a good time.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T14:23:58.097" Title="What does the last `点` mean in `玩得开心点`?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10353" CreationDate="2014-11-16T13:08:32.550" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you want to express possessive relations concerning family members or relatives, you don't need 的. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我妈妈，你爸爸，她男朋友，我们家老大,&lt;/code&gt; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have done some searches with different expressions with and without 的, and I see that this rule is not applied consistently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: There are ambiguous cases, e.g. &lt;code&gt;你们孩子&lt;/code&gt; could mean &quot;You children&quot; or &quot;Your children&quot; (with plural you in both cases, of course). In such cases &lt;code&gt;你们的孩子&lt;/code&gt; would make it clear what the speaker means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2016-05-29T10:51:08.800" LastActivityDate="2016-05-29T10:51:08.800" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10355" CreationDate="2014-11-16T14:23:58.097" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;点 or 一点 means &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;a bit&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like we often use 很 (very) before adjectives and 些 (some) before nouns, we often need 点 just to make the sentence grammatical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you omit 点 saying 玩得开心, it sounds like a declarative sentence, rather than an imperative one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, we say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;快点 hurry up&#xA;小心点 be careful&#xA;慢点 take it easy&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;点 somehow functions like a sentence final particle like 吧, 了, etc. It is just used in certain types of sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T14:23:58.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10353" CreationDate="2014-11-16T21:08:02.100" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The omission of &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; is not limited to family relationships. For the sake of scientific rigor, let's make a list of all the ways we can talk about a broken car:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;*我車壞了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我的車壞了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我們車壞了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我們的車壞了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我轎車壞了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我的轎車壞了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我們轎車壞了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我們的轎車壞了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that the sentences vary between the mono-character &lt;code&gt;我&lt;/code&gt; &quot;my&quot; and the multi-character &lt;code&gt;我們&lt;/code&gt; &quot;our,&quot; as well as between the mono-character &lt;code&gt;車&lt;/code&gt; &quot;car&quot; and the multi-character &lt;code&gt;轎車&lt;/code&gt; &quot;sedan.&quot; Sentence 1 sounds somewhat ungrammatical in my opinion (not so much in Mandarin, extremely so in Cantonese), sentence 3 sounds slightly contrived but is otherwise acceptable, and the rest are okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More fun awaits as we explore non-possessive adjectives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;紅色車壞了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;紅色的車壞了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;紅色轎車壞了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;紅色的轎車壞了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are all valid sentences, although the mono-character adjective &lt;code&gt;紅&lt;/code&gt; &quot;red&quot; seems not favored in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see from our little experiment, there isn't a hard-and-fast rule for &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; is often optional, and its use comes down to what sounds right. The situation is analogous to the confusion English learners have with the articles &quot;a,&quot; &quot;an,&quot; and &quot;the.&quot; The best I can give are rules of thumb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; must be retained in case of ambiguity. As suggested in Drunken Master's answer, both &lt;code&gt;你們孩子&lt;/code&gt; &quot;your children&quot; or &quot;you children&quot; and &lt;code&gt;你們的孩子&lt;/code&gt; &quot;your children&quot; are grammatically correct. The former can also be &lt;code&gt;孩子們&lt;/code&gt; &quot;children&quot; in the vocative: &lt;code&gt;你們孩子得起牀啦！&lt;/code&gt; &quot;You kids have to get up!&quot; &lt;code&gt;孩子們得起牀啦！&lt;/code&gt; &quot;Kids, (you) have to get up!&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; is likely inserted after multi-character adjectives or before multi-character nouns: compare &lt;code&gt;粗枝&lt;/code&gt; &quot;thick branch&quot; with &lt;code&gt;粗大的樹枝&lt;/code&gt; &quot;thick branch.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; can be dropped to help with pacing, and it's often missing from titles and headlines where succinctness is required. Examples are &lt;code&gt;戶外活動急救須知&lt;/code&gt; &quot;first-aid guidelines for outdoor activities&quot; and &lt;code&gt;活動工作人員名單&lt;/code&gt; &quot;list of people who work at the event,&quot; which earn extra points for keeping a two-character rhythm throughout.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are fixed expressions without &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;, such as &lt;code&gt;我/你家&lt;/code&gt; &quot;my/your place (literally home),&quot; &lt;code&gt;我國&lt;/code&gt; &quot;my country (in reference to China, as pointed out by Drunken Master in the comments),&quot; and &lt;code&gt;我方&lt;/code&gt; &quot;my side (in a debate)&quot;. (Note: &lt;code&gt;他方&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;somewhere far away&quot; and not &quot;his side.&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; too many times smells like direct translation from other languages. It was common in the early 1900s when writers were trying out a more &quot;modern,&quot; &quot;analytic,&quot; and &quot;European&quot; style but it's now frowned upon. Here's how you can save on your &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Instead of &lt;code&gt;公共的廚房裏的銀色的烤箱&lt;/code&gt; &quot;silver-colored oven in the communal kitchen,&quot; try &lt;code&gt;公共廚房裏的銀色烤箱&lt;/code&gt;, where &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; connects the two most important components of the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Instead of &lt;code&gt;書本的封面的顏色的色調&lt;/code&gt; &quot;hue of the color of the cover of the book&quot; (an abomination even in English!), consider &lt;code&gt;書本封面顏色的色調&lt;/code&gt;, where all &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; except for the last one are dropped.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or just go with something like &lt;code&gt;香港中國文化研究院&lt;/code&gt; &quot;Hong Kong Academy of Chinese Studies (literally institute for research on Chinese culture in Hong Kong),&quot; as mentioned by Wang Dingwei in the comments; it's pretty unambiguous without a single &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6781" LastEditorUserId="6781" LastEditDate="2018-12-23T13:29:35.380" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T13:29:35.380" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10353" CreationDate="2014-11-16T23:37:56.427" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker of Chinese, here is what I can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When referring to people, we often skip &quot;的&quot;.&#xA;For example, 他太太，他父亲，你女儿...&#xA;When referring to things, we almost always use &quot;的&quot;. Otherwise, it sounds really weird.&#xA;For example, 你的车子，他的学校，他的袜子...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Welcome to contact me for more language questions: andykang151@gmail.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6782" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T23:37:56.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10353" CreationDate="2014-11-17T03:10:34.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As another native Mandarin speaker, &#xA;I think there really isn't any difference between....&#xA;我的车坏了 versus 我车坏了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When in writing however, it's better to use the formal way: 我的车坏了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my case, when speaking, I usually get lazy and try to omit as much as I can without changing the meaning of the sentence, so both of the examples above means the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6785" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T03:10:34.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10363" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10382" CreationDate="2014-11-17T03:32:52.227" Score="3" ViewCount="806" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was confused to find that &lt;code&gt;nar4&lt;/code&gt; is 那儿. I cannot figure out how to reproduce this with a pinyin IME. I type &lt;code&gt;na&lt;/code&gt; and it gets the first character but when I type &lt;code&gt;r&lt;/code&gt; it suggests 人 and refuses to let me combine it with the previous character to get &lt;code&gt;nar4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the second character &quot;silent&quot; here? Do I have to know that character's name / pronunciation and type it in on its own in order to get it via IME?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastActivityDate="2014-11-18T13:35:15.170" Title="Why is 那儿 just one syllable?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10364" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10366" CreationDate="2014-11-17T04:10:35.603" Score="3" ViewCount="793" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way/word to describe three letter color adjectives in Chinese? For example, I know that 绿油油  is one that is used often - is there a way to describe these? Are they a certain type of adjective? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T16:17:47.143" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T16:17:47.143" Title="Is there a formal way to describe three word color adjectives?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10365" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10374" CreationDate="2014-11-17T05:09:42.373" Score="1" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a and if yes what is the maximum number of radicals that can be there in a Chinese Character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6787" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T09:25:07.680" Title="Maximum Number of Lateral Radicals" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10364" CreationDate="2014-11-17T05:10:27.557" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduplication#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;叠词(Reduplication)&lt;/a&gt;. Many 叠词 work as adjectives or adverbs, but you may well see them in other places. There are many forms of 叠词, yours is just one of them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABB: 绿油油, 红彤彤, 美滋滋(Not a color)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AAB: 飘飘然, 呱呱叫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABA: 越来越, 看一看&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AABB: 白白净净, 欢欢喜喜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AABC: 鼎鼎大名, 苦苦相逼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABAB: 考虑考虑, 研究研究&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABAC: 美轮美奂, 载歌载舞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be other forms but I can't think of them by now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for ABB and color only, there are no specific terms, but you can describe it as ABB结构的描述颜色的叠词.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T19:29:02.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10365" CreationDate="2014-11-17T05:27:52.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I0HT3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;see blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_78d0d11d0100rw8b.html&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/181910.htm?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/181910.htm?fr=aladdin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6750" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T05:27:52.180" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10364" CreationDate="2014-11-17T06:08:26.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese A Comprehensive Grammar on p。１５６ mentions&#xA;３ examples， 亮铮铮，胖乎乎，醉醺醺 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while discussing adjective ＋ disyllabic phonoaesthemes ＋ 的 among complements of manner and consequential state：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把杯子擦得亮铮铮的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孩子长得胖乎乎的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那个老头子喝得醉醺醺的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of characterization in terms of phonoaestheme （联觉音组） does not seem to be  universal。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T06:08:26.790" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10369" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10370" CreationDate="2014-11-17T07:03:27.457" Score="4" ViewCount="7580" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese 肚 and 胃 are two quite seperate things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, though, it's mostly just: &lt;em&gt;stomach&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a good way to differantiate between the two in English? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T17:07:18.820" Title="Differentiating: 肚 and 胃 in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10369" CreationDate="2014-11-17T07:31:53.347" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;肚 is belly, 胃 is stomach. So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啤酒肚: Beer belly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肚子疼: Pain in the belly, could be the stomach, but may well be the appendage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大肚婆: Slang for pregnant woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小肚子: The underbelly. Formal: 下腹 or 小腹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肚脐: Belly button.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肚量大: Big-hearted. (Funny, but we also say 心胸宽广.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you read it as &lt;code&gt;dǔ&lt;/code&gt;, it means the stomach of an animal: &lt;code&gt;猪肚&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;牛肚&lt;/code&gt;, etc. Usually edible by Chinese standards. Sometimes you hear &lt;code&gt;肠子肚子&lt;/code&gt; which means &amp;quot;stomach and intestines&amp;quot;. A human stomach is NOT called 人肚.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update，肚子疼 vs 胃疼：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;病人：医生，我肚子疼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;医生：你肚子哪里疼？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;病人：这里。（Points at the left）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;医生：那应该是胃疼咯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 肚子疼 is the pain in the belly area, maybe it's the stomach, maybe not. 胃疼 is more specific, it is the stomach, no doubt about that. Also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女雇员：老板，我肚子疼，今天请个假。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男老板：那你去医院看看吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女雇员：不用的，休息休息就好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case 肚子疼 means &amp;quot;period pain&amp;quot;, and the boss should say things like &amp;quot;好好喝水，多多休息&amp;quot; instead of advising her to go to the hospital.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T08:40:12.753" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10369" CreationDate="2014-11-17T07:59:39.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;肚 is one part of location of your body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Located under diaphragm and above thigh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also describe lots of thing located there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the skin on the 肚　：　肚皮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the hair on the 肚　：　肚毛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;following is a picture of body of one person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　　Ｏ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　／　＼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　 ［＿＿］　＜＝＝＝usually located here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　｜　｜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;胃 is just a organ. I think stomach is talking about 胃.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 胃 is in 肚.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6791" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T07:59:39.033" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10369" CreationDate="2014-11-17T08:04:10.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did not realize that this is a question about &lt;strong&gt;English&lt;/strong&gt;. I should have deleted this answer, but I hope the explanation will help someone anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肚 and 胃 belong to &lt;strong&gt;different registers&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We &lt;strong&gt;almost always&lt;/strong&gt; use 肚(子) to refer to abdomen, belly, stomach, etc. It is also used in &lt;strong&gt;idiomatic expressions&lt;/strong&gt;. It is also used to refer to the middle part of something, especially when something looks swollen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;胃 is occasionally associated with appetites, but it is mostly used in &lt;strong&gt;scientific&lt;/strong&gt; contexts, which unambiguously refers to the stomach organ. Names of diseases, though often heard everyday, never contain 肚. They tend to be more specific to refer to different parts as 胃 (stomach), 腹 (abdomen), 肠 (intestine), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastEditorUserId="4117" LastEditDate="2014-11-17T15:31:41.973" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T15:31:41.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10345" CreationDate="2014-11-17T08:17:34.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Taiwanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have the same problem of English vocabulary lol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, learning English is easier because the most of the newest news are written by English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should find a person to practice it each day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One day an hour or more is better for your learning : ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you can listen some Chinese song. It can help you to remember words faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6791" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T08:17:34.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10365" CreationDate="2014-11-17T09:25:07.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;One&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters can be made up of -or- contain lots of &quot;radicals&quot; but there will only be one that is the &lt;strong&gt;actual&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;radical&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance the character 落 has both 艹 and 氵as components but it's radical is only one: 艹. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters can also have simplified &amp;amp; traditional radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 卡 has a simplified radical of: 丨 and a traditional radical: 卜 - where 丨 is obviously not a simplification of 卜. The aforementioned 落 on the other hand also has simplified and traditional radicals 艹 &amp;amp; 艸 --- where 艹 is just a straight up simplification of 艸.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T09:25:07.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10369" CreationDate="2014-11-17T17:07:18.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tummy is similar to belly, and tummy ache is more commonly used than belly ache. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6797" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T17:07:18.820" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10335" CreationDate="2014-11-17T17:12:18.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like &quot;How are you&quot; in English, those are old fashioned. Unless you write to some one or making a poem? You can just say &quot;吃了没&quot; which is more common and native.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T17:12:18.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10363" CreationDate="2014-11-17T20:32:38.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The basis of 那儿 is from spoken language, and the addition of the 儿 is an example of a phonetic element in Chinese language. The &quot;er&quot; is an approximation of the sound, and is similar in meaning and use to 那里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6799" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T20:32:38.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10345" CreationDate="2014-11-17T20:38:17.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native English speaker, I've found that after leaving China for four years now, my ability to remember tones has been negatively affected. Second, is remembering words. Weirdly enough, having not read much these past years, I never really lost an reading comprehension (though as before I may forget the meaning of a word and/or its pronunciation). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to recover (other than returning to China and speaking with Chinese friends- obviously) is to watch/listen to movies and TV as this triggers those neglected neural connections, that you would be surprised to learn are quite resilient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6799" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T20:38:17.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10335" CreationDate="2014-11-18T09:36:17.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe  &quot;吃了没&quot; is more elder than 你好啊？&#xA;I'm born and raised in China and when I see a friend I just say &quot;Hi&quot; or &quot;Hay&quot;&#xA;They can get it whether they can speak English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6561" LastActivityDate="2014-11-18T09:36:17.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10363" CreationDate="2014-11-18T09:44:27.230" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will elaborate on my comment above, as you wished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason for this behavior of your IME software is that it is configured to make guesses about what you want to type. Since there are so many Chinese characters with the same pinyin initials and finals, it has to. But it also tries to save you from typing, so that you don't have to type out long sequences of pinyin to input something in Chinese. Here's some basic info:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese the Big Rule No. 1 is that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Every character is one syllable and every syllable is one character.&lt;/em&gt; (It's of course not true for 'erhua' 儿, but we'll get to that.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A syllable can be represented with pinyin, where it has an &lt;em&gt;initial&lt;/em&gt; and a &lt;em&gt;final&lt;/em&gt;. (There are some vowel only syllables, of course). An initial is typically a consonant at the beginning of the syllable, while a final is a vowel (single or diphthong), optionally followed by -n or -ng (not all combinations are &quot;valid&quot;, though, check such &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/pinyin-combo.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tables&lt;/a&gt;.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to save you from typing to much you can omit the finals in one or all of the pinyin syllables you are typing out. e.g. You don't have to type: &lt;code&gt;zhongguo&lt;/code&gt; to get &lt;code&gt;中国&lt;/code&gt;, it's enough to type the initials &lt;code&gt;zhg&lt;/code&gt; and you are given a list of options where either &lt;code&gt;这个&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;中国&lt;/code&gt; is the first or second. Since &lt;code&gt;zhg&lt;/code&gt; will not get you 中国 directly, but you have to choose, which takes effort and requires extra key hits (selecting the desired characters via a numeric key, or even browsing a long list of pages of characters), so you decide to refine your tactics and enter the final part of one ot the syllables. Let's say you decide for &lt;code&gt;zhguo&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;(first initial + second full syllable)&lt;/code&gt; which is perfect, because this will very likely get &lt;code&gt;中国&lt;/code&gt; as the no. 1 result and you only have to hit the space bar and you're done. You could also try &lt;code&gt;zhongg&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;(full first syllable + second initial)&lt;/code&gt;, that will also work fine, but will require you to type more, since &lt;code&gt;zhongg&lt;/code&gt; is longer than &lt;code&gt;zhguo&lt;/code&gt;. So I hope you see, what we are doing, optimizing the input process (typing less and faster to get the same characters as by typing out every initial and final). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By now you have probably realized that when you type nar it is interpreted as &lt;code&gt;那人&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;(first full syllable + second initial)&lt;/code&gt; in the algorithm of your IME, that's why you are given this option. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason you think it should be giving you &lt;code&gt;那儿&lt;/code&gt; is that you are not typing the correct pinyin for &lt;code&gt;那儿&lt;/code&gt;. This is a strange phonetic phenomenon of Northern Chinese speakers, especially Beijing and surrounding geographic areas, but it is not found or rarely found in other parts of China, especially in the South. This &lt;em&gt;erhua&lt;/em&gt; final -r is sort of an exception in the Chinese phonology, since the only finals in Chinese are those that end in a vowel (like, -ao, -ua, -ie, etc.) and those that end in -n or -ng (-an, -un, -ang, -iang, etc.) If you check the pinyin table above, there are no syllables that end in -r (except for er, which then again is a full valid syllable). But since Northern speakers retain these final &lt;em&gt;-r&lt;/em&gt;s it gets some sort of representation in writing throug 儿 (er), which in these cases is reduced to an &lt;em&gt;r&lt;/em&gt; sound and also modifies the final of the preceding syllable (this mostly means that final -n and -ng are dropped, like &lt;code&gt;点儿&lt;/code&gt; dian'r --&gt; &quot;diar&quot; [approx.])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So by now, you should have an understanding of this &lt;em&gt;erhua&lt;/em&gt; syllable. I am not qualified to decide whether this is a Northern slang or it is widely accepted in speech in writing in the North (since I have never lived there) but I do know that in the South this &lt;em&gt;-r&lt;/em&gt; is very rarely heard and almost never written. A Southern speaker of Mandarin will use &lt;code&gt;这里&lt;/code&gt;，&lt;code&gt;那里&lt;/code&gt; both in speech and writing instead of &lt;code&gt;这儿&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;那儿&lt;/code&gt; and will simply omit 儿 even in cases where it is a fix part of words (in the North) like &lt;code&gt;点儿&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;事儿&lt;/code&gt;, etc. these are simply 点 and &lt;code&gt;事&lt;/code&gt;, since those &lt;code&gt;儿&lt;/code&gt; absolutely add no meaning to them, let alone the fact that 儿 originally means 'son', so this &lt;em&gt;erhua&lt;/em&gt; use of 儿 is really only a &quot;phonetic stop-gap measure&quot; and IMHO should be avoided in writing for this reason, but also because of the speed of typing. (Type only what you need to type, don't add an extra character which doesn't alter the meaning). So I would say replace &lt;code&gt;那儿&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;那里&lt;/code&gt; and omit 儿 in writing everywhere you can. (OK, if you are a big fan of &lt;em&gt;erhua&lt;/em&gt; and like this because you have lived in Beijing, then it's up to you, but otherwise I don't see any point why one would write like this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really don't know if this amateurish &quot;crash course&quot; is useful to you or not, it is based on my experience using IME software and personal opinion on 'erhua'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-18T10:25:28.243" LastActivityDate="2014-11-18T10:25:28.243" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10363" CreationDate="2014-11-18T13:35:15.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You want to type N-A-E-R to get 那儿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6805" LastActivityDate="2014-11-18T13:35:15.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10364" CreationDate="2014-11-18T23:26:15.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I donot think there is a formal way, but here are more ABB examples if you like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;红灿灿（的太阳）&#xA;红朴朴（的脸蛋）&#xA;黄澄澄（的稻穗）&#xA;黑漆漆（的夜晚）&#xA;白花花（的银子）&#xA;粉嘟嘟（的小手）&#xA;银闪闪（的耳环）&#xA;灰朴朴（的衣裳）&#xA;灰蒙蒙（的天）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually there is another kind of words of the form BBA, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;煞煞白&#xA;墨墨黑&#xA;晶晶亮&#xA;喷喷香&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1101" LastActivityDate="2014-11-18T23:26:15.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10385" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10386" CreationDate="2014-11-19T00:43:54.080" Score="6" ViewCount="514" Body="&lt;p&gt;来 usually means &quot;to come&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence from an online database: &#xA;旱区人民需要我们的帮助来渡过难关&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来 does not seem to me being used in its lexical meaning here, but rather containing a grammatical expression of finality &quot;in order to&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am i wrong, or is this a different usage of it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T03:11:34.533" Title="Can 来 be used as a 虚词?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10385" CreationDate="2014-11-19T02:27:10.713" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt; calls this a &lt;strong&gt;连词&lt;/strong&gt;, which they explain like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conjunction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Liáncí 连词&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A conjunction is a word that joins phrases or sentences together to form a larger sentence or chunk of thought. Some examples include érqiě 'furthermore', suīrán 'although', suǒyǐ 'therefore', jiù 'then' and yàoburán 'otherwise'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's &lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;'s relative entry for 来:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CONJ.(in order) to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唱个歌儿来凑热闹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chàng ge gēr lái còu rènao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sing a song to liven things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some other examples from the &lt;em&gt;A Chinese English Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7 (used between a verbal expression and a verb or between two verbal expressions) in order to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家想办法来解决。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dàjiā xiǎng bànfǎ lái jiějué.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's think of a way to solve the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们得尽一切力量来完成计划。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒmen děi jìn yīqiè lìliang lái wánchéng jìhuà.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We must do all we can to implement the plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你又能用什么理由来说服他呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nǐ yòu néng yòng shénme lǐyóu lái shuōfú tā ne？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what arguments can you use to convince him?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T02:27:10.713" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10388" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-19T02:54:01.833" Score="4" ViewCount="511" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only know that a verb, which is made up of a verb and object, can be separated and further structures can be put between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance: 发愁 , wherein 发 is the verb and 愁 is the object, can be separated and filled with an aspect particle and/or measure word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-发&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;愁 (aspect particle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-发&lt;strong&gt;个&lt;/strong&gt;愁 (general measure word)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-发&lt;strong&gt;过四次&lt;/strong&gt;愁 (aspect particle and measure word for occurences)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What else may be placed in between?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T22:07:39.577" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T22:07:39.577" Title="What can be included in between a separable verb?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10385" CreationDate="2014-11-19T03:11:34.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The summary of 来's usage, as a complement to user3306356's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 来 as a concrete verb, as in &lt;code&gt;奥巴马来北京见维尼熊&lt;/code&gt;, which you already know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Less concrete it is when 来 is used in some verb serializations, as in &lt;code&gt;过来&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;上来&lt;/code&gt;, the main verb is 过 or 上, 来 only functions as an indication of &quot;towards me&quot;. Sometimes 来 is used metaphorically, as in &lt;code&gt;我醒来了&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even less concrete is in &lt;code&gt;让我来问一个问题吧&lt;/code&gt;. You don't literally &quot;come&quot; to ask the question, but 来 grabs your attention and gives you a sense of what is about to come. This falls into the 虚词 category. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example 来 indicates a purpose, and it also falls into the 虚词 category. If you think like a linguist, you can see the relation between &quot;in order to&quot; and &quot;to come&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are even less concrete cases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;这个人三十来岁。&lt;/code&gt;--来 means &quot;about&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一来脑子好，二来动作快。&lt;/code&gt;——来 is put after a number to indicate that you are&#xA;enumerating.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃饭来。&lt;/code&gt;——来 is put after an action to indicate the past present tense. You&#xA;see 来着 more often, but sometimes 来 is also used.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;八月里来桂花香。&lt;/code&gt;——来 means nothing. It's just a 语气助词. You use it to glue things together. It is less common in mandarin, but commonly seen in lyrics and some dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T03:11:34.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10388" CreationDate="2014-11-19T04:10:29.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is what AllSetLearning has to say about &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Separable_verb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;separable verbs&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...until you understand which verbs are separable verbs and how they&#xA;  work, you'll forever be making mistakes with these verbs, even in very&#xA;  basic sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW I think it is a quite decent summary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides 了, 着, 过, and measure words, you can put other things in between if the verb is not &quot;rigid&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some separable verbs are more rigid than others. For example: 发愁, 散步, 聊天, 分手, etc. Notice that the meaning only emerges when the two characters combined together. If you separate them as verb + object it just look weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Less rigid cases include 睡觉, 吃饭, 撒谎, etc. In these cases the verb and noun can be separately used with no problem, so you can say &lt;code&gt;我睡了一个美美的大觉&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;他撒了一个神仙来了都遮不住的谎&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T04:10:29.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10311" CreationDate="2014-11-19T04:33:16.197" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most cases &quot;劳驾&quot; is the proper way: polite, effective and simple. If it doesn't attract the target's attention, you just need to repeat it louder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;让&quot; certainly is impolite. &quot;请让&quot; could be much politer, but still not as polite as &quot;借过&quot;. The reason is that &quot;过&quot; indicates the intent of yourself (I want to pass), while &quot;让&quot; means request to others (You, make way).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;请让我过一下&quot; is better than &quot;请您让一下&quot; for the same reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2890" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T04:33:16.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10392" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-19T07:31:47.837" Score="8" ViewCount="558" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is what the dictionary says about 青:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　1. 深绿色或浅蓝色：～草。～苔。 Dark Blue or light green.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　2. 靛蓝色：靛～。～紫。 Indigo blue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　3. 黑色：～布。～衣。 Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar case is 苍:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　1. 深青色，深绿色：～翠。～天。 Dark blue or green.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　2. 灰白色：～白。 Pale&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like you have to get into the writer's head to know what he means. Are there any rules for these words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if I see a word 青鸟, how do I know if it's blue or black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-21T17:36:23.197" Title="How is 青 and 苍 used in classical Chinese to denote colors?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10393" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10396" CreationDate="2014-11-19T08:57:42.653" Score="4" ViewCount="524" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw 达人 on the title of the following Tawianese video &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eru3weFzRnI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eru3weFzRnI&lt;/a&gt; (very amuzing!) and some other places, and got confused since I already knew 专家 . On the title it refers to an &quot;expert at throwing business cards&quot; (you've got to see it to understand).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3113" LastEditorUserId="3113" LastEditDate="2014-11-20T07:03:50.843" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T07:03:50.843" Title="What is the difference between 专家 and 达人?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10393" CreationDate="2014-11-19T09:11:42.473" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;专家 is more of a scientifically explainable expert, while 达人 is a person often with natural born talent who takes things to a philosophical level. E.g. if it comes to an expert in things like chemistry I would use 专家; on the other hand, someone who is an expert in picking up girls, he is a 达人. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T10:15:29.637" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T10:15:29.637" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10392" CreationDate="2014-11-19T09:53:36.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I can tell the color of the word with 青 almost at once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As 青 is a word of a certain color name between green and blue, most of the word with 青 is described as this color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the word like 青草 or 青苔, it's often means the plant as 草 and 苔. The color of these plant can be determined by last character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of other words like 青 for black in 青布 and 青衣, they are the old usage of word maybe just used in poems. At least in the daily life of mine, I don't used it in that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 青鳥 in your example, it mostly used like the color of 青 itself.&#xA;As the ref of 青鳥, you can take a look at this link &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/5674/5502935.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/5674/5502935.htm&lt;/a&gt; . And I think the hummingbird is just a kind of 青鳥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastEditorUserId="6811" LastEditDate="2014-11-21T01:50:17.520" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T01:50:17.520" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10393" CreationDate="2014-11-19T10:19:07.110" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;专家&lt;/code&gt; is the formal word for 'expert'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;达人&lt;/code&gt; (literally 'achieved person') is first borrowed by Taiwanese from Japanese in no more than 30 years ago and gradually become known to mainland China. Some say the Japanese usage was derived from ancient Chinese, but I don't know if there is a definitive etymology for that. Anyways, it is not a formal word in Chinese (yet) and mostly used in entertainment topics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2453.htm&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2453.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T10:19:07.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10397" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-19T11:33:46.723" Score="4" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apologies to those who are irritated by resource request questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would you recommend to brush up and expand economics and business related vocabulary? Ideally I am looking for something that covers a few hundred terms in the area of &lt;code&gt;business, economics and related topics.&lt;/code&gt; It doesn't need to include pinyin, and a Chinese-German or a Chinese-French list would also fit my needs. The format is irrelevant (pdf, html, txt, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-11-23T05:00:47.140" Title="Any Chinese-English economics and business related vocab list online?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10392" CreationDate="2014-11-19T11:55:57.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.苍 is not a usual color word.  It is often used in idioms or literary texts when it imply colors.&#xA;I don't read many books,I only know two phrases using 苍 for color:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1). 苍天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.  苍天啊,大地啊,是哪位天使大姐替我出的这口气啊.  from a comedy dialog&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2).皓首匹夫,苍髯老贼....from &quot;Romance of the Three Kingdoms&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 皓 苍 mean pale here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.青&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青 has two meanings,in nowaday life,青 is cyan.It is not blue or black ,it is cyan,sometimes 青 is greener than cyan.Just google cyan,and you will know it,but don't google 青,those 青 pictures should be 蓝. You can baidu 青 , the results is almost identical to google's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient or old days ,青 may refer to dark blue mixing dark green. And the result for those color-insensitive people seems like black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you see 青鸟,青草,青whatever, It maybe cyan,dark green,dark blue, But it won't be black.Because 青 has nothing to do with black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T12:19:30.133" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T12:19:30.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10399" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10400" CreationDate="2014-11-19T15:55:23.937" Score="3" ViewCount="3217" Body="&lt;p&gt;We're having trouble figuring out the preferred Simplified Chinese translation for &quot;log out&quot; or &quot;sign out&quot; for a web application we're translating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our third-party translator thinks it's 注销, and an American informant in China who knows the language and the industry well agrees. On the other hand, we have internal Chinese staff  who think it ought to be 登出. To complicate things, it appears that Google uses 退出 for its SC site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a matter of preference, or is one of these better, or are there nuances of meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6814" LastActivityDate="2019-03-06T09:35:43.460" Title="Preferred translation for &quot;log out&quot; or &quot;sign out&quot; (such as a web site): 注销, 登出, 退出?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10399" CreationDate="2014-11-19T16:06:04.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mFSxO.png&quot; alt=&quot;Baidu user account with Log out in green color (bottom of drop down list)&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;退出&lt;/strong&gt; almost everywhere (website, smartphone application, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[apparently the img caption isn't displaying, Baidu uses 退出, as an example]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: &#xA;登出 also means logout, but it is less common (1.7 million) compared to 退出 (124 million results at Google)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;注销 is related to money transfers and means 'write off' or 'cancel'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T16:13:51.943" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T16:13:51.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10399" CreationDate="2014-11-19T16:32:42.130" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term 注销 appeared before the existence of computers, which is the antonym of 注册 (register). As a result, 注销 means &quot;unregister&quot;, i.e. cancel the account. This term is usually used in banks, such as 注销银行账号 (unregister the bank account).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after computers became popular, Microsoft uses 注销 as the official translation of &quot;log off&quot; in its Windows operating system. This usage is absolutely wrong, but this usage is well-known because of the popularity of Microsoft Windows, and becomes gradually accepted by native Chinese speakers, and therefore many people use this &quot;wrong&quot; term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term 退出 also appeared before the existence of computers, which means &quot;exit&quot; or &quot;quit&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term 登出 appeared after the popularity of computers, which is an modern made-up  term intentionally for the Chinese translation of &quot;log out&quot;, because etymologically, 登出 is the antonym of 登入 (log in), although the &quot;more correct&quot; Chinese term for &quot;log in&quot; should be 登录.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a word, the correct term of &quot;log out&quot; should be 退出 or 登出, which is often used in Google and Baidu. 退出 is used more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2014-11-20T03:20:44.030" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T03:20:44.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10402" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10408" CreationDate="2014-11-19T23:21:35.127" Score="-3" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am preparing a toy example for my talk and it would be nice if I had this phrase translated to Chinese (simplified): &quot;the wicked witch of Oz&quot;. Also, it would be nice if you could tell me which words in the English version corresponds to which words in the Chinese (simplified Chinese) translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6821" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T12:27:08.253" Title="a translation request" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2014-11-21T17:54:43.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10303" CreationDate="2014-11-19T23:40:09.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In academic writing, 综上所述 is often used&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6822" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T23:40:09.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10402" CreationDate="2014-11-20T00:16:29.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;奥兹女巫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奥兹(Oz)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女巫(the wicked witch)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6822" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T00:16:29.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10399" CreationDate="2014-11-20T02:29:27.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You'd better use 退出 because it is the popular term used in mainland China where the simplified Chinese is used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;登出 and 退出 have the same meaning to Chinese but the previous one is preferred by Chinese who speak Cantonese like the people in Hong Kong or Taiwan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;注销 is mostly used to un-register an account on a website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6824" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-06T09:35:43.460" LastActivityDate="2019-03-06T09:35:43.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10402" CreationDate="2014-11-20T02:57:02.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it's a toy you may name it &quot;奥兹女巫手办&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6561" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T02:57:02.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10402" CreationDate="2014-11-20T03:17:16.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid the name &quot;the wicked witch of Oz&quot; may be confusing. Baum's original story has &quot;The Wicked Witch of the East (in Oz)&quot; and &quot;The Wicked Witch of the West (in Oz)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oz, or Land of Oz: 奥兹国, 奥茨国、欧茨国、is almost meaningless in Chinese without referencing the common title of the book in Chinese 绿野仙踪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the Wicked Witch of the East dies early in the story, your &quot;the wicked witch of Oz&quot; may be understood as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;绿野仙踪中的西国邪恶女巫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;绿野仙踪: title of the story;&#xA;(中): (dative) in...;&#xA;(的): (genitive) of...;&#xA;西国: the West;&#xA;邪恶: wicked;&#xA;女巫: witch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6537" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T03:17:16.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10342" CreationDate="2014-11-20T03:21:49.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thankful for all answers so far. I learnt a lot from all these perspectives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm ashamed to say that I had been neglecting a very important aspect of Chinese learning: that there are multiple ways of keyboard input, not only 拼音. I like pinyin and it's a great way to learn faster how to pronnounce for people like me, who have almost no direct contact with natives (also for natives themselves), although the problem that pinyin can also have the bad side effect of making one more focused on the Latin characters rather than the hanzi properly, as &quot;Drunken Master&quot; has also stated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the really bad side with pinyin alone to lonely students like me, the ones who want primarily to read instead hearing/speaking, is that, although you can hear a character faster, you simply are put with tied hands when you are faced with a text that doesn't present it. You simply do not have enough vocabulary to immediately recognize the characters in front of you based on its sound, once you don't know the sound and consequently are unable to perform any kind of lookup (you're not like a child who can speak and hear but can't read, you simply know nothing and the text is just a great riddle). It's a horrible blockade because, I think, how can one learn a language if not given the simple opportunity to at least try to study it but through boring decontextualized repetions as trying to memorize over and over again words on ANKI and hoping that, once faced with these words on a real text, you'll remember them? I forget most of words I learn if not exercised in &lt;strong&gt;meaningful&lt;/strong&gt; texts like news or anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, answering my own question, after a long research, I say now that the best way for me is input based on shape instead of sound, and for this aspect I chose Wubi (五笔字型输入法). Incredibly, I could today read a entire book page! Simply because now I know what to search. It took a long time, yes, but constant exercise will improve it, I hope. Wubi is specially meaningful for me because I was since a time practicing hand-written Chinese and so it's much easier for me to find a character based on its shape rather than its sound, consequently the hard task of spliting words is turning out to be less and less mysterious. Alongside with Pinyin, Wubi + Pinyin forms now the perfect combination. I can search what I want - with Wubi - grab its meaning and also the sound - with Pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps a time I'll have enough sound vocabulary to be able to search based on Pinyin alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this answer can also help people in the same circunstances I had been.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6771" LastEditorUserId="6771" LastEditDate="2014-11-21T12:20:51.290" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T12:20:51.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10397" CreationDate="2014-11-20T04:59:52.913" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think these are the somewhat basic terms and you probably will hear them quite often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Listed in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hxen.com/word/changyong/2009-01-04/65060.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hxen.com/word/changyong/2009-01-04/65060.html&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;经济学词汇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;accounting:会计&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;accounting cost :会计成本 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;accounting profit :会计利润 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adverse selection :逆向选择 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;allocation 配置 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;allocation of resources :资源配置 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;allocative efficiency :配置效率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;antitrust legislation :反托拉斯法 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;arc elasticity :弧弹性 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arrow's impossibility theorem :阿罗不可能定理 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assumption :假设 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;asymetric information :非对称性信息 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;average :平均 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;average cost :平均成本 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;average cost pricing :平均成本定价法 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;average fixed cost :平均固定成本 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;average product of capital :资本平均产量 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;average product of labour :劳动平均产量 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;average revenue :平均收益 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;average total cost :平均总成本 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;average variable cost :平均可变成本 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;barriers to entry :进入壁垒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;base year :基年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bilateral monopoly :双边垄断&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;benefit :收益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;black market :黑市&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bliss point :极乐点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;boundary point :边界点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;break even point :收支相抵点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;budget :预算&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;budget constraint :预算约束&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;budget line :预算线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;budget set 预算集&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;capital :资本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;capital stock :资本存量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;capital output ratio :资本产出比率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;capitalism :资本主义&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cardinal utility theory :基数效用论&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cartel :卡特尔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ceteris puribus assumption :“其他条件不变”的假设&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ceteris puribus demand curve :其他因素不变的需求曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chamberlin model :张伯伦模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;change in demand :需求变化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;change in quantity demanded :需求量变化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;change in quantity supplied :供给量变化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;change in supply :供给变化 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;choice :选择&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;closed set :闭集&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coase theorem :科斯定理&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cobb—Douglas production function :柯布--道格拉斯生产函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cobweb model :蛛网模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;collective bargaining :集体协议工资 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;collusion :合谋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;command economy :指令经济 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;commodity :商品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;commodity combination :商品组合 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;commodity market :商品市场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;commodity space :商品空间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;common property :公用财产 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;comparative static analysis :比较静态分析&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;compensated budget line :补偿预算线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;compensated demand function :补偿需求函数 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;compensation principles :补偿原则 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;compensating variation in income :收入补偿变量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;competition :竞争&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;competitive market :竞争性市场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;complement goods :互补品 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;complete information :完全信息&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;completeness :完备性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;condition for efficiency in exchange :交换的最优条件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;condition for efficiency in production :生产的最优条件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;concave :凹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;concave function :凹函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;concave preference :凹偏好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consistence :一致性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;constant cost industry :成本不变产业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;constant returns to scale :规模报酬不变&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;constraints :约束&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumer :消费者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumer behavior :消费者行为&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumer choice :消费者选择&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumer equilibrium :消费者均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumer optimization :消费者优化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumer preference :消费者偏好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumer surplus :消费者剩余&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumer theory :消费者理论&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumption :消费&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumption bundle :消费束&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumption combination :消费组合&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumption possibility curve :消费可能曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumption possibility frontier :消费可能性前沿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumption set :消费集&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumption space :消费空间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;continuity :连续性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;continuous function :连续函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;contract curve :契约曲线 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;convex :凸 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;convex function :凸函数 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;convex preference :凸偏好 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;convex set :凸集 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;corporatlon :公司 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cost :成本 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cost benefit analysis :成本收益分 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cost function :成本函数 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cost minimization :成本极小化 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cournot equilihrium :古诺均衡 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cournot model :古诺模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cross—price elasticity :交叉价格弹性 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dead—weights loss :重负损失 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;decreasing cost industry :成本递减产业 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;decreasing returns to scale :规模报酬递减&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;deduction :演绎法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;demand :需求&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;demand curve :需求曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;demand elasticity :需求弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;demand function :需求函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;demand price :需求价格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;demand schedule :需求表&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;depreciation :折旧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;derivative :导数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;derive demand :派生需求&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;difference equation :差分方程&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;differential equation :微分方程&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;differentiated good :差异商品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;differentiated oligoply :差异寡头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;diminishing marginal substitution :边际替代率递减&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;diminishing marginal return :收益递减&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;diminishing marginal utility :边际效用递减&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;direct approach :直接法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;direct taxes :直接税&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;discounting :贴税、折扣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;diseconomies of scale :规模不经济&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;disequilibrium :非均衡 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;distribution :分配&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;division of labour :劳动分工&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;distribution theory of marginal productivity :边际生产率分配论&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;duoupoly :双头垄断、双寡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;duality :对偶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;durable goods :耐用品 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dynamic analysis :动态分析&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dynamic models :动态模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Economic agents :经济行为者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;economic cost :经济成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;economic efficiency :经济效率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;economic goods :经济物品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;economic man :经济人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;economic mode :经济模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;economic profit :经济利润&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;economic region of production :生产的经济区域&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;economic regulation :经济调节&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;economic rent :经济租金 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;exchange :交换&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;economics :经济学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;exchange efficiency :交换效率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;economy :经济&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;exchange contract curve :交换契约曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;economy of scale :规模经济 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edgeworth box diagram :埃奇沃思图&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;exclusion :排斥性、排他性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edgeworth contract curve :埃奇沃思契约线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edgeworth model :埃奇沃思模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;efficiency :效率，效益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;efficiency parameter :效率参数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;elasticity :弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;elasticity of substitution :替代弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;endogenous variable :内生变量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;endowment :禀赋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;endowment of resources :资源禀赋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engel curve :恩格尔曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;entrepreneur :企业家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;entrepreneurship :企业家才能&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;entry barriers :进入壁垒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;entry/exit decision :进出决策&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;envolope curve :包络线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;equilibrium :均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;equilibrium condition :均衡条件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;equilibrium price :均衡价格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;equilibrium quantity :均衡产量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eqity :公平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;equivalent variation in income :收入等价变量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;excess—capacity theorem :过度生产能力定理&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;excess supply :过度供给&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;exchange :交换&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;exchange contract curve :交换契约曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;exclusion :排斥性、排他性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;exclusion principle :排他性原则&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;existence :存在性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;existence of general equilibrium :总体均衡的存在性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;exogenous variables :外生变量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;expansion paths :扩展径&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;expectation :期望&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;expected utility :期望效用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;expected value :期望值&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;expenditure :支出&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;explicit cost :显性成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;external benefit :外部收益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;external cost :外部成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;external economy :外部经济&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;external diseconomy :外部不经济&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;externalities :外部性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;F &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Factor :要素&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;factor demand :要素需求&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;factor market :要素市场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;factors of production :生产要素&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;factor substitution :要素替代&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;factor supply :要素供给&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fallacy of composition :合成谬误&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;final goods :最终产品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;firm :企业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;firms’demand curve for labor :企业劳动需求曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;firm supply curve :企业供给曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;first-degree price discrimination :第一级价格歧视 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;first—order condition :一阶条件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fixed costs :固定成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fixed input :固定投入&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fixed proportions production function :固定比例的生产函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;flow :流量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fluctuation :波动&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for whom to produce :为谁生产&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;free entry :自由进入&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;free goods :自由品，免费品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;free mobility of resources :资源自由流动&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;free rider :搭便车，免费搭车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;function :函数 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;future value :未来值&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;game theory :对策论、博弈论&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;general equilibrium :总体均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;general goods :一般商品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Giffen goods :吉芬晶 收入补偿需求曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Giffen's Paradox :吉芬之谜 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gini coefficient :吉尼系数 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;goldenrule :黄金规则 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;goods :货物 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;government failure :政府失败 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;government regulation :政府调控&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;grand utility possibility curve :总效用可能曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;grand utility possibility frontier :总效用可能前沿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;H&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;heterogeneous product :异质产品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hicks—kaldor welfare criterion :希克斯一卡尔多福利标准&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;homogeneity :齐次性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;homogeneous demand function :齐次需求函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;homogeneous product :同质产品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;homogeneous production function :齐次生产函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;horizontal summation :水平和&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;household :家庭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how to produce :如何生产&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;human capital :人力资本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hypothesis :假说 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;identity :恒等式&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imperfect competion :不完全竞争&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;implicitcost :隐性成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;income :收入&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;income compensated demand curve :收入补偿需求曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;income constraint :收入约束&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;income consumption curve :收入消费曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;income distribution :收入分配&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;income effect :收入效应&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;income elasticity of demand :需求收入弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;increasing cost industry :成本递增产业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;increasing returns to scale :规模报酬递增&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;inefficiency :缺乏效率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;index number :指数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;indifference :无差异&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;indifference curve :无差异曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;indifference map :无差异族&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;indifference relation :无差异关系&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;indifference set :无差异集&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;indirect approach :间接法 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;individual analysis :个量分析&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;individual demand curve :个人需求曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;individual demand function :个人需求函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;induced variable :引致变量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;induction :归纳法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;industry :产业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;industry equilibrium :产业均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;industry supply curve :产业供给曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;inelastic :缺乏弹性的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;inferior goods :劣品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;inflection point :拐点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;information :信息&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;information cost :信息成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;initial condition :初始条件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;initial endowment :初始禀赋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;innovation :创新&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;input :投入&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;input—output :投入—产出&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;institution :制度&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;institutional economics :制度经济学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;insurance :保险&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;intercept :截距&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;interest :利息&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;interest rate :利息率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;intermediate goods :中间产品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;internatization of externalities :外部性内部化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;invention :发明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;inverse demand function :逆需求函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;investment :投资&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;invisible hand :看不见的手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;isocost line :等成本线，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;isoprofit curve :等利润曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;isoquant curve :等产量曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;isoquant map :等产量族&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kinded—demand curve :弯折的需求曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;L&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;labour :劳动&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;labour demand :劳动需求&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;labour supply :劳动供给&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;labour theory of value :劳动价值论&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;labour unions :工会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;laissez faire :自由放任&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lagrangian function :拉格朗日函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lagrangian multiplier :拉格朗乘数，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;land :土地&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;law :法则 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;law of demand and supply :供需法 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;law of diminishing marginal utility :边际效用递减法则&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;law of diminishing marginal rate of substitution :边际替代率递减法则&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;law of diminishing marginal rate of technical substitution :边际技术替代率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;law of increasing cost :成本递增法则&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;law of one price :单一价格法则&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;leader—follower model :领导者--跟随者模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;least—cost combination of inputs :最低成本的投入组合&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;leisure :闲暇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Leontief production function :列昂节夫生产函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;licenses :许可证&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;linear demand function :线性需求函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;linear homogeneity :线性齐次性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;linear homogeneous production function :线性齐次生产函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;long run :长期&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;long run average cost :长期平均成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;long run equilibrium :长期均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;long run industry supply curve :长期产业供给曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;long run marginal cost :长期边际成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;long run total cost :长期总成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lorenz curve :洛伦兹曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;loss minimization :损失极小化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1ump sum tax :一次性征税&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;luxury :奢侈品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;macroeconomics :宏观经济学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal :边际的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal benefit :边际收益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal cost :边际成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal cost pricing :边际成本定价&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal cost of factor :边际要素成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal physical productivity :实际实物生产率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal product :边际产量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal product of capital :资本的边际产量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal product of 1abour :劳动的边际产量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal productivity :边际生产率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal rate of substitution :边替代率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal rate of transformation 边际转换率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal returns :边际回报&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal revenue :边际收益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal revenue product :边际收益产品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal revolution :边际革命&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal social benefit :社会边际收益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal social cost :社会边际成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal utility :边际效用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marginal value products :边际价值产品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;market :市场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;market clearance :市场结清，市场洗清&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;market demand :市场需求&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;market economy :市场经济&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;market equilibrium :市场均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;market failure :市场失败&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;market mechanism :市场机制&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;market structure :市场结构&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;market separation :市场分割&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;market regulation :市场调节&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;market share :市场份额&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;markup pricing :加减定价法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Marshallian demand function :马歇尔需求函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;maximization :极大化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;microeconomics :微观经济学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;minimum wage :最低工资&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;misallocation of resources :资源误置&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mixed economy :混合经济&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;model :模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;money :货币&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;monopolistic competition :垄断竞争&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;monopolistic exploitation :垄断剥削&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;monopoly :垄断，卖方垄断&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;monopoly equilibrium :垄断均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;monopoly pricing :垄断定价&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;monopoly regulation :垄断调控&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;monopoly rents :垄断租金&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;monopsony :买方垄断&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nash equilibrium :纳什均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Natural monopoly :自然垄断&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Natural resources :自然资源&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Necessary condition :必要条件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;necessities :必需品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;net demand :净需求&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nonconvex preference :非凸性偏好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nonconvexity :非凸性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nonexclusion :非排斥性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nonlinear pricing :非线性定价&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nonrivalry :非对抗性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nonprice competition :非价格竞争&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nonsatiation :非饱和性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;non--zero—sum game :非零和对策&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;normal goods :正常品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;normal profit :正常利润&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;normative economics :规范经济学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;O &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;objective function :目标函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;oligopoly :寡头垄断&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;oligopoly market :寡头市场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;oligopoly model :寡头模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;opportunity cost :机会成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;optimal choice :最佳选择&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;optimal consumption bundle :消费束 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perfect elasticity :完全有弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;optimal resource allocation :最佳资源配置&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;optimal scale :最佳规模&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;optimal solution :最优解&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;optimization :优化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ordering of optimization(social) preference :(社会)偏好排序&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ordinal utility :序数效用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ordinary goods :一般品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;output :产量、产出&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;output elasticity :产出弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;output maximization 产出极大化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;parameter :参数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pareto criterion :帕累托标准&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pareto efficiency :帕累托效率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pareto improvement :帕累托改进&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pareto optimality :帕累托优化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pareto set :帕累托集&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;partial derivative :偏导数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;partial equilibrium :局部均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;patent :专利&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pay off matrix :收益矩阵、支付矩阵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perceived demand curve :感觉到的需求曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perfect competition :完全竞争&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perfect complement :完全互补品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perfect monopoly :完全垄断&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perfect price discrimination :完全价格歧视&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perfect substitution :完全替代品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perfect inelasticity :完全无弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perfectly elastic :完全有弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perfectly inelastic :完全无弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;plant size :工厂规模&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;point elasticity :点弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;post Hoc Fallacy :后此谬误&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;prediction :预测&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;preference :偏好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;preference relation :偏好关系&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;present value :现值&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price :价格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price adjustment model :价格调整模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price ceiling :最高限价&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price consumption curve :价格费曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price control :价格管制&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price difference :价格差别&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price discrimination :价格歧视&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price elasticity of demand :需求价格弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price elasticity of supply :供给价格弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price floor :最低限价&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price maker :价格制定者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price rigidity :价格刚性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price seeker :价格搜求者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price taker :价格接受者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price tax :从价税&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;private benefit :私人收益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;principal—agent issues :委托--代理问题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;private cost :私人成本 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;private goods :私人用品 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;private property :私人财产 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;producer equilibrium :生产者均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;producer theory :生产者理论 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;product :产品 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;product transformation curve :产品转换曲线 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;product differentiation :产品差异&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;product group :产品集团&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;production :生产&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;production contract curve :生产契约曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;production efficiency :生产效率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;production function :生产函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;production possibility curve :生产可能性曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;productivity :生产率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;productivity of capital :资本生产率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;productivity of labor :劳动生产率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;profit :利润&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;profit function :利润函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;profit maximization :利润极大化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;property rights :产权&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;property rights economics :产权经济学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;proposition :定理&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;proportional demand curve :成比例的需求曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;public benefits :公共收益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;public choice :公共选择&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;public goods :公共商品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pure competition :纯粹竞争 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rivalry :对抗性、竞争&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pure exchange :纯交换&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pure monopoly :纯粹垄断&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;quantity—adjustment model :数量调整模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;quantity tax :从量税&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;quasi—rent :准租金&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;R&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rate of product transformation :产品转换率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rationality :理性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reaction function :反应函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;regulation :调节，调控&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;relative price 相对价格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rent :租金&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rent control :规模报酬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rent seeking :寻租&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rent seeking economics :寻租经济学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;resource :资源&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;resource allocation :资源配置&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;returns :报酬、回报&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;returns to scale :规模报酬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;revealed preference :显示性偏好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;revenue :收益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;revenue curve :收益曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;revenue function :收益函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;revenue maximization :收益极大化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ridge line :脊线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;risk :风险&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;satiation :饱和，满足 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;saving :储蓄 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;scarcity :稀缺性 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;law of scarcity :稀缺法则 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;second—degree price discrimination :二级价格歧视 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;second derivative :--阶导数 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;second—order condition :二阶条件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;service :劳务 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;set :集 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shadow prices :影子价格 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;short—run :短期 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;short—run cost curve :短期成本曲线 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;short—run equilibrium :短期均衡 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;short—run supply curve :短期供给曲线 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shut down decision :关闭决策 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shortage 短缺 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shut down point :关闭点 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;single price monopoly :单一定价垄断&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;slope :斜率 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;social benefit :社会收益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;social cost :社会成本 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;social indifference curve :社会无差异曲线 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;social preference :社会偏好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;social security :社会保障 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;social welfare function :社会福利函数 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;socialism :社会主义&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;solution :解&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;space :空间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;stability :稳定性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;stable equilibrium :稳定的均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stackelberg model :斯塔克尔贝格模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;static analysis :静态分析&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;stock :存量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;stock market :股票市场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;strategy :策略&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;subsidy :津贴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;substitutes :替代品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;substitution effect :替代效应&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;substitution parameter :替代参数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sufficient condition :充分条件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;supply :供给&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;supply curve :供给曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;supply function :供给函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;supply schedule :供给表&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sweezy model :斯威齐模型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;symmetry :对称性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;symmetry of information :信息对称&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;T &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tangency :相切&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;taste :兴致&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;technical efficiency :技术效率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;technological constraints ；技术约束&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;technological progress :技术进步&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;technology :技术&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;third—degree price discrimination :第三级价格歧视&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total cost :总成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total effect :总效应&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total expenditure :总支出&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total fixed cost :总固定成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total product :总产量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total revenue :总收益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total utility :总效用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total variable cost :总可变成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;traditional economy :传统经济&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;transitivity :传递性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;transaction cost :交易费用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;uncertainty :不确定性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;uniqueness :唯一性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unit elasticity :单位弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unstable equilibrium :不稳定均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;utility :效用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;utility function :效用函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;utility index :效用指数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;utility maximization :效用极大化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;utility possibility curve :效用可能性曲线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;utility possibility frontier :效用可能性前沿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;value :价值&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;value judge :价值判断&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;value of marginal product :边际产量价值&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;variable cost :可变成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;variable input :可变投入&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;variables :变量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vector :向量 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;visible hand :看得见的手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vulgur economics :庸俗经济学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;W&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wage :工资&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wage rate :工资率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Walras general equilibrium :瓦尔拉斯总体均衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Walras's law :瓦尔拉斯法则&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wants :需要&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Welfare criterion :福利标准&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Welfare economics :福利经学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Welfare loss triangle :福利损失三角形&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;welfare maximization :福利极大化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Z&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zero cost :零成本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zero elasticity :零弹性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zero homogeneity :零阶齐次性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zero economic profit :零利润&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6780" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T04:59:52.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10411" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10413" CreationDate="2014-11-20T06:00:40.293" Score="5" ViewCount="1068" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I want to tell someone they can speak to me in Chinese, how can I say it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你可以给我说用中文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct, and is there any other way to say it, for example using the 把 structure (i.e. &lt;code&gt;你可以把中文给我说&lt;/code&gt;)。 Is this correct???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6738" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-12-10T20:17:21.923" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T16:07:47.727" Title="How to say, “In Chinese&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10417" CreationDate="2014-11-20T06:13:53.237" Score="3" ViewCount="973" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the first translation and publication of the first edition of &lt;em&gt;Grimms' Fairy Tales&lt;/em&gt; into English recently, I've been wondering a lot about Chinese and/or Sinological oral tradition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%A3%E5%A4%B4%E4%BC%A0%E7%BB%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; page doesn't have a lot of information in Chinese, and mostly just talks about Western stuff. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What sort of literature or other things have come about from the practice of oral tradition in China? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the West the works attributed to Homer (Odyssey, Iliad) are particularly notable but what works are Sinologically well(or not)known historically or modernly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T09:29:41.160" Title="Oral Tradition: Chinese Folktales, Sayings, Ballads, Songs, Chants, Etc" Tags="&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10411" CreationDate="2014-11-20T06:34:17.943" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你可以给我说用中文&lt;/code&gt; is a little weird, you can change the order to &lt;code&gt;你可以用中文给我说&lt;/code&gt;. And you could just say &lt;code&gt;你可以说中文&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;你可以用中文说&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你可以把中文给我说&lt;/code&gt; is wrong, it means &lt;code&gt;You could say Chinese to me&lt;/code&gt;, not &lt;code&gt;You could say sth in Chinese&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Chinese&lt;/code&gt; become the object of &lt;code&gt;say&lt;/code&gt; here, not the method. You could say &lt;code&gt;你可以用中文把xxx事情说给我&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T06:34:17.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10411" CreationDate="2014-11-20T07:32:10.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;你能跟我說中文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or any of the following combinations in the same sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;能&amp;lt;--&gt;可以 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跟&amp;lt;--&gt;與 （or 和 or 對）（給 has some regional flavours） &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;說&amp;lt;--&gt;講   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中文&amp;lt;--&gt;漢語&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you insist in using &quot;用&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你能用中文跟我說&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;說&amp;lt;--&gt;對話&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6537" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T07:32:10.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10412" CreationDate="2014-11-20T07:38:52.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Poetry&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;詩經&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To quote wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Confucian school eventually came to consider the verses of the&#xA;  &quot;Airs of the States&quot; to have been collected in the course of&#xA;  activities of officers dispatched by the Zhou Dynasty court... After&#xA;  the officials returned from their missions, the king was said to have&#xA;  observed them himself in an effort to understand the current condition&#xA;  of the common people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6537" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-11-24T09:29:41.160" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T09:29:41.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10412" CreationDate="2014-11-20T08:48:24.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You touched a sore spot, because there really isn't anything in Chinese that's comparable with Homer's work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason, I think, is that in ancient China, history logging is a monopoly business. It's always in the hands of the royal families and their ministers. There might be great story tellers among the common folks, but the literate class just didn't bother to record them down. Or simply, maybe we just didn't have the luck, so no such great artist was born.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But obviously we did have an active oral tradition. Besides 诗经, 木兰辞 is one, 孔雀东南飞 is another, but there is nothing epic about them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxue.com/zibu/zhajia/sanhaijin/shjml.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;山海经&lt;/a&gt;》 for example, recorded myths that trace back to prehistory. These are, however, just short stories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/%E8%81%8A%E9%BD%8B%E5%BF%97%E7%95%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;聊斋&lt;/a&gt;》 is literally folk stories told by men on the street, but again, they are just short stories, and nothing historically important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_King_Gesar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;格萨尔王传&lt;/a&gt;》 is something.. oops, it doesn't belong to the Sinosphere. Similar are some &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/3488511.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some other epics&lt;/a&gt; produced by the minority cultural groups. Anyway, we conquered and ruled them, so they belong to us now. I've even read Korean folk tales when I was young.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding to the oral tradition of the Han ethnicity, we have &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%AF%84%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;评书&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BF%AB%E6%9D%BF%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;快板&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A5%BF%E6%B2%B3%E5%A4%A7%E9%BC%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大鼓&lt;/a&gt;, etc. These things are probably very ancient. Many of them are still pretty much alive. They all tell great poetic stories about the past. 三国演义 and 水浒 are probably of such origins, they are pretty epic to my standards, but not ancient enough to compare with Homer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a deceased elder relative who was in the business of 说书. I used to follow him when I was little. Like Homer he was blind. His instrument was &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89%E5%BC%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;三弦&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%86%92%E6%9C%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;惊堂木&lt;/a&gt;. When he visited a town or village, people would gather at small theaters or open places to hear him talk and sing about the past. Oh the good old days....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-books-14107-1.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中国为什么没有史诗&lt;/a&gt; by 朱光潜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also from this interesting &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guokr.com/question/425694/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;discussion&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gilgamesh: I hunted monsters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rama: I killed the demon king to save my wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gesar: Me too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Achilles: I battled Troy and killed their general with a spear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beowulf: I killed dragons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Siegfried: Me too!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;后稷: I cultivated rice and beans....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ignore those who say &amp;quot;Because Chinese culture is superior!&amp;quot;. They are stupid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T09:07:57.863" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10411" CreationDate="2014-11-20T09:29:48.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a lot of ways to say &quot;Chinese&quot; in Chinese, 中文 is only one of them, and speak may also be translated with an other word, but since context in which you want to use it is clear, there is no need to further complicate this simple sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the sentence itself you want to use, I would go with &lt;code&gt;你可以跟我说中文吗？&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK， there is no part that says &quot;in Chinese&quot; or &quot;using Chinese&quot;, but there is nothing wrong with 说中文, even if there is no &quot;preposition&quot; or similar before 中文.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-20T09:41:40.417" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T09:41:40.417" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10402" CreationDate="2014-11-20T12:27:08.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;邪恶的（the wicked）女巫（witch）奥兹（Oz）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that Oz is only a name so it has many translation versions, such as 奥子，奥兹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6560" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T12:27:08.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10420" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-20T15:50:22.730" Score="3" ViewCount="756" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference in the usage between 惊讶 and 吃惊? I know you can say “令人吃惊“ and “阵脚我吃了惊“. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any way to divide the two? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T14:23:15.803" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T14:23:15.803" Title="Difference between 惊讶 and 吃惊？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10421" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10422" CreationDate="2014-11-20T19:39:12.093" Score="2" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've usually seen in my little Mandarin learning experience, that when people express &lt;code&gt;wait&lt;/code&gt;, they usually use &lt;code&gt;等&lt;/code&gt;. However, I just noticed the following phrase in Sina Weibo:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;请稍候...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know &lt;code&gt;请&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;please&lt;/code&gt;, and I looked up in my dictionary, that &lt;code&gt;稍&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;a little&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;候&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;wait&lt;/code&gt;. So the sentence seems to express &lt;code&gt;please wait a little...&lt;/code&gt;, which is fine in the context (I tried reloading the data, for your information).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's the difference between &lt;code&gt;等&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;候&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2021-01-15T04:31:21.230" Title="What's the difference between 候 and 等?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10421" CreationDate="2014-11-20T20:29:11.223" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;None. They are synonyms, although they also have separate different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;稍等 = 稍候 = wait a minute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等候 = 等 = 候, although 候 is rarely used as a single character with this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T20:29:11.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10423" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-20T21:52:57.610" Score="2" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do we describe the growth of “rights” （or more colloquially in English the &quot;extension of rights' (e.g. the extension of women's rights, etc.)? Is it 女性权利的:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;发展？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;增加？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;提高？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;扩大？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me know what you think is best for the situation! Cheers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-10T22:36:39.747" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T22:36:39.747" Title="How do you describe the “growth／improvement” of “rights&quot; (i.e. 权利）?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10425" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-21T02:28:39.337" Score="8" ViewCount="5159" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dictionary translation is essentially the same. From the example sentences I've looked up, it seems the two can be interchangeable (though I could certainly be wrong). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I was told that 未来 is further in the future than 将来. Is this true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please help differentiate the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T04:42:16.640" Title="What is the difference between 将来 and 未来？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10426" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-21T04:11:14.547" Score="-2" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;I took a few books from a public library; I saw more than 600 different pictograms. What is their official total sum? I never found any way to learn them other than learning them by heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6479" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-09-24T03:35:10.323" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T03:35:10.323" Title="What is the official total sum of all Mandarin pictograms?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10427" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10443" CreationDate="2014-11-21T04:24:00.177" Score="1" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know how to say &quot;a quote&quot; as in a quote from an author/book/piece of writing? &#xA;Do people say 引号， 引文， 引用？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks so much！  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T15:49:57.977" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T15:49:57.977" Title="How do you say a &quot;quote&quot; as in a &quot;quote from a author&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10426" CreationDate="2014-11-21T04:37:18.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zhonghua Zihai (simplified: 中华字海 (1994)) has 85,568 characters; The Dictionary of Chinese Variant Form (traditional: 異體字字典 (2004)) has 106,230 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6537" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T04:37:18.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10425" CreationDate="2014-11-21T04:42:44.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhihu.com/question/22062059&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zhihu.com/question/22062059&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;You can have a look at this link for the first answer which compared 將來 未來 以後 in detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will do some simple translation as followed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The differences between 將來 and 未來 is mainly the differences of the first word. 將 means the time state that sth is going to happen, whereas 未 concentrates more on sth haven't happen yet. 來 is the time state pointing to the speaker himself on timeline. So the meanings of 將來 and 未來 can generate from adding the words together and some deduction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for some inappropriate translation. And I think it would be better if you can understand the original answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T04:42:44.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10425" CreationDate="2014-11-21T06:13:49.250" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was told that 未来 is further in the future than 将来. Is this true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not necessarily:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我将来要买辆车。-- Several years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我将来要成为音乐家。-- Several decades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人类将来会灭绝。-- Several millennia, to be optimistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宇宙将来会热寂。-- Several billion years, probably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases 将来 works as &lt;strong&gt;adverbs&lt;/strong&gt;, it can be used for the most distant future. You can use 未来 in all these examples, but it would sound slightly pretentious. So if you are doing adverbs, 将来 is often be a better choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use 将来 and 未来 as &lt;strong&gt;nouns&lt;/strong&gt;, then it's a different story. Here 未来 do seem to mean a more distant future:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;台湾的未来究竟会怎样？-- Sung by Zheng Zhi-hua.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;教育要现代化，面向世界，面向未来。-- Said by Deng Xiaoping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在不远的将来……-- Idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在遥远的未来……-- Idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing here is 将来 is seldom used as a noun. I could hardly think of an example besides the one above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's talk about &lt;strong&gt;adjectives&lt;/strong&gt;. When you use 未来, you often imply something big or grandeur. 将来 is less so, and sounds slightly less formal. The difference is not big and in many cases you can use them interchangeably:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未来的汽车不需要人驾驶。-- 将来 means the same but sounds more casual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美国是我们将来的合作伙伴。-- 未来 may sound more formal but 将来 is also OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是我未来的妻子。-- 将来 sounds less formal. You want to treat your marriage seriously, so 将来的妻子 is less idiomatic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未来 is used together with another noun to form futuristic concepts, as in &lt;code&gt;未来世界&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;未来城市&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;未来时代&lt;/code&gt;. The 的 can be omitted. The same doesn't apply for 将来. In fact if you want to use 将来 as an adjective, you should always add 的 in between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T04:42:16.640" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10427" CreationDate="2014-11-21T06:51:54.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can come in many forms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孔子曾经说过：“逝者如斯夫。” As Confucius once said...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;引用前主席的一句话：“你们啊，就是思想太简单，有时候幼稚的不行！” To quote the ex-chairman...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;简·奥斯汀在《傲慢与偏见》里写道：年轻土豪都是急着要找老婆的。—— As Jane Austin wrote in her Pride and Prejudice...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T06:51:54.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10423" CreationDate="2014-11-21T08:31:00.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google is your friend. Here are the number of results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;权利的增加&quot; 939,000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;权利的扩大&quot; 539,000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;权利的提高&quot; 333,000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;权利的发展&quot; 91,900&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T08:31:00.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10425" CreationDate="2014-11-21T08:35:25.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I never heard that 未来 is further in the future than 将来. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically they have the same meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The differences are as below: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;将来 is more often used in oral Chinese while 未来 is mostly used in document. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;将来 can't be used a noun while 未来 can. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of 将来 is 你将来就会明白的 which means 'you will understand it in future', where 将来 here is used as a preposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of 未来 is 你有一个很好的未来 which means 'you have a good future' where 未来 here is used as a noun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6824" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T08:35:25.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10420" CreationDate="2014-11-21T08:52:17.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes, there is a way to tell the two apart. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;惊讶 is mostly used as an adjective, like 惊讶的表情 which means 'a surprising face look'. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吃惊 is used as the same as 'be surprised', for example 我吃了一惊 which means 'I was surprised'. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6824" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T08:52:17.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="629" CreationDate="2014-11-21T09:18:07.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an emperor in ancient China, if you don't let your people have enough food to eat, they will rebel against you. So '民以食为天' means in order to rule people, you must let them have the food to eat and this is very important to your rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天 here means very important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of 天 is 人命关天 which means a person's life is very important/valuable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6824" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T09:18:07.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10439" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-21T12:22:19.683" Score="5" ViewCount="1226" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a chengyu dictionary with the following caracteristics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the stories behind the chengyus in englis (or with chinese too), &lt;strong&gt;long&lt;/strong&gt;, not just one or two sentence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;explanation, when and how to use&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;example sentences/conversations (in chinese and english)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;listed in frequency order (optional)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0415776821&quot;&gt;500 Common Chinese Idioms: An Annotated Frequency Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; would be a nice one but with long stories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone know this book please let me know!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3608" LastActivityDate="2015-04-01T05:54:12.683" Title="Chengyu dictionary" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10426" CreationDate="2014-11-21T13:29:31.723" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;the answer to your question turns out to be a complex one. firstly, when we talk about characters (i.e. 'squarish East Asian writing symbols with a certain shape, sound, and meaning'—not a good definition but maybe an understandable one), one has to know &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;that there are (historically speaking) both 'simple' shapes (such as e.g. 馬 ma 'horse') that are really pictographs, and 'complex' shapes (such as 媽 ma 'mother', composed of 女 nü 'female' for meaning and 馬 ma 'horse' for sound);&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;that both the total number of 'simple' shapes and the number of compound characters is open-ended and open to contention.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in my character database i have around 75'000 Unicode codepoints that refer to unique character shapes (and thousands that are repetitions of other codepoints); as @SYK mentions, this figure is too low by the thousands. one has to clearly say that the majority of these characters are historical variants of some other character, others are obscure, dubious, or not attestable other than in dictionaries, and that not more than around 10'000 character shapes constitute the common typographic gamut of modern China, Taiwan, Japan, Jorea, Hong Kong, and Macau.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i've done a graphical analysis on these shapes and presently use a little over 1'622 'simple' shapes to describe the setup of 75'000 characters; i expect something like 100...300 shapes to be still missing from the data, so there would be in the vicinity of 2000 'elementary' shapes in the Chinese script. talking about what is actually in use in the modern world, it's more like 10'000 characters made up from about 800 basic shapes. bear in mind however that what constitutes an elementary shape in this writing system has never been standardized, so each author has their own system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some links to books that demonstrate that you do not have to &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; learn characters one by one and how components can help you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.de/books?id=cJjZAgAAQBAJ&amp;amp;lpg=PT9&amp;amp;dq=learn%20chinese%20characters&amp;amp;pg=PT63#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=learn%20chinese%20characters&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://books.google.de/books?id=cJjZAgAAQBAJ&amp;amp;lpg=PT9&amp;amp;dq=learn%20chinese%20characters&amp;amp;pg=PT63#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=learn%20chinese%20characters&amp;amp;f=false&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.de/books?id=yUdcm5dy7nsC&amp;amp;lpg=PR6&amp;amp;dq=learn%20chinese%20characters&amp;amp;pg=PA5#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=learn%20chinese%20characters&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://books.google.de/books?id=yUdcm5dy7nsC&amp;amp;lpg=PR6&amp;amp;dq=learn%20chinese%20characters&amp;amp;pg=PA5#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=learn%20chinese%20characters&amp;amp;f=false&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3674" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T13:29:31.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10439" CreationDate="2014-11-21T15:31:29.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been using the &lt;strong&gt;Duogongneng Chengyu Cidian&lt;/strong&gt; for a while now, I'll give you two examples of what the entries look like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;鸡飞狗跳 ##&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;解释&lt;/strong&gt; 形容因为恐惧而引起的非常混乱的情况｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;语见&lt;/strong&gt; 《痛史》十三回:“你看前两天那种搜索的样子,只就我们歇宿的那一家客寓,已经是闹得鸡飞狗走,鬼哭神号｡&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;例句&lt;/strong&gt; 这伙少年到处惹是生非,搅得村里鸡飞狗跳｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;近义&lt;/strong&gt; 鸡犬不宁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;反义&lt;/strong&gt; 鸡犬不惊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;辨析&lt;/strong&gt; 鸡飞狗跳和鸡犬不宁,都有“惊慌混乱&quot;的意思｡鸡飞狗跳偏重于混乱得厉害,语义较重;鸡犬不宁偏重于骚扰得厉害,语义较轻｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;望梅止渴&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;解释&lt;/strong&gt; 口渴时想到吃到梅子,流出口水,就不渴了｡比喻用空想或空话来安慰自己或别人｡也作“望梅消渴&quot;｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;语见&lt;/strong&gt; 《水浒传》五一回:“雷横道:‘我赏你三五两银子也不打紧,却恨今日忘记带来｡'白秀英道:‘官人今日见一文也无,提甚三五两银子｡正是教俺望梅止渴,画饼充饥｡'&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;例句&lt;/strong&gt; 如果现在丢开这些基本的书籍不认真苦读,一心想找秘本,只恐望梅止渴,无济于事｡(马南邨《燕山夜话·有书赶快读》)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;近义&lt;/strong&gt; 画饼充饥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;反义&lt;/strong&gt; 把饭叫饥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;提示&lt;/strong&gt; “渴&quot;不要写作“喝&quot;｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;辨析&lt;/strong&gt; 〔参见〕画饼充饥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;典故&lt;/strong&gt; 三国时期,有一次曹操率领军队行军,走到一个没有水的地方,士兵们口渴难忍｡曹操就骗他们说:前面有片很大的梅树林,结了许多梅子,又甜又酸,可以解渴｡士兵们听了,想起梅子的酸味,嘴里顿时流出口水,就不感到渴了｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;VARIANTS&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  望梅消渴 wàng méi xiāo kě&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course not all entries all have 解释, 语见, 例句, 近义, 反义, 提示, 辨析, 典故 and variants but the above should give you an idea of what this dictionary can do. Seems to fit your criteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: or perhaps the stories are not long enough...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T15:31:29.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10427" CreationDate="2014-11-21T15:42:51.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;引号  quotation mark&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;引文  quoted passage (usually in written format, rather than verbal format)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;引用  to quote from some place&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, &quot;quote from an author&quot; should be &quot;作者的引文&quot;, which is the only grammatically correct choice among the three words. However, it seems to be very unnatural for native Chinese speaker. The more native expression should be &quot;作者曾说过&quot; (the author has said).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2014-11-21T16:31:42.613" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T16:31:42.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10392" CreationDate="2014-11-21T16:13:06.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese, 青 stands for cyan, except few legacy words through the ages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classical Chinese, 青 can mean light blue, dark green, indigo, extremely dark green (almost black). The meaning depends on the context. If it is used with 衣 or 布, it means extremely dark green (almost black). If it is used with 紫, it means indigo. If it is used with 草, it means dark green. The meaning is only depends on context and and convention, judging the meaning by experience. The only way for you to understand is to read it again again and again until you feel the meaning is native enough for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苍 is the same, depending on context and and convention, judging the meaning by experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T16:13:06.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10421" CreationDate="2014-11-21T16:28:42.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no differences between 等 and 候. Both means &quot;to wait&quot;. You can also put them together as a word 等候, with the same meaning - to wait.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 候 sounds like the usage in classical Chinese (archaic Chinese), and therefore rarely use as only one single character in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T16:28:42.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10339" CreationDate="2014-11-21T16:50:15.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia is the best. Search the English term in the English Wikipedia, and then click the Chinese Wikipedia link to link to the Chinese entry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T16:50:15.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10439" CreationDate="2014-11-21T19:55:53.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A really good site that I like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/chengyu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/chengyu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the chengyu are well detailed; others, less so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;YMMV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T19:55:53.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10421" CreationDate="2014-11-21T22:07:00.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the purpose of stating &quot;please wait&quot;, 等 and 候 both mean the &quot;to wait&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However they each have other meanings in different context. For example, 等 also means &quot;level&quot; (as in 等級, 等地). 候 also means &quot;to serve&quot; (as in 伺候).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4036" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T22:07:00.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10449" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-22T14:56:45.247" Score="5" ViewCount="490" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;He is too attached to his money and wealth&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;He is very attached to his house&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note: the meaning of &quot;attached to&quot; is closer to the feeling of very hard to letting go of something.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know chinese colloquial translation for &quot;attached to&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checking from google translate, here are some possibilities of the translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;重视 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;贴着 / 贴在 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;附着 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;执着 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;依恋&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爱惜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure which one is more common used for daily conversation, I guess it is either 1 or 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastEditorUserId="3970" LastEditDate="2014-12-02T11:13:17.077" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T19:35:10.750" Title="What is the translation of &quot;attached to X&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10449" CreationDate="2014-11-22T15:51:06.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My best guess would be: &lt;code&gt;迷恋&lt;/code&gt; (mí liàn). There are some other ways to translate attachment (as an emotional affection, not a physical one), but in many cases this attachment is related to a person, not objects, and those translations would be inadequate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他十分迷恋财富与货币. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably not a perfect translation, I hope others will improve it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-22T21:47:09.260" LastActivityDate="2014-11-22T21:47:09.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10439" CreationDate="2014-11-22T17:11:51.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can recommend a book by 馮國超.  My edition is from Taiwan and is simply called 成語故事, but the mainland edition is 中華成語故事, both from 2005 and in two volumes (with illustrations.)  The Taiwan publisher is 代表作國際圖書.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this book, each chengyu has a separate page.  There is a small box explaining the four characters, basically restating the saying in contemporary language.  The main text always begins by citing the source (這則成語出自 “史記 . 趙世家”, for example) and often includes a bit of the original in Classical Chinese.  It then goes on to tell the story in a few paragraphs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This book is in Chinese only.  It provides useful background information, for instance if an ancient state is mentioned in the chengyu, or if the author is a certain Tang-dynasty literatus, it will tell you about them.  It seems to be aimed at high school or college students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2014-11-22T17:11:51.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10452" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-22T19:19:33.797" Score="7" ViewCount="473" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;什么时候&quot; means verbatim &quot;what time&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, when i add 都 (adverb meaning &quot;all&quot;) and 了(particle indicating either change of state or completion), i can not grasp what meaning is conveyed by this phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a sentence structure &quot;都。。。。。了&quot;, that would shed some light on the semantics or some other explanation ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T10:26:39.907" Title="What is the verbatim translation for &quot;都什么时候了&quot; ?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10452" CreationDate="2014-11-22T19:53:40.120" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is used to make a(n angry) comment on how late something has happened. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你看，都什么时候了，你怎么现在才来？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look, how late it is, and you have only arrived now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or simply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这都什么时候了！&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How late!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2014-11-22T19:53:40.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10454" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10651" CreationDate="2014-11-22T20:24:09.163" Score="0" ViewCount="551" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, if someone explains a simple joke that should be obvious they get the nickname &quot;Captain Obvious&quot;, as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Captain_Obvious&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Obvious&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; say. Is there an equivalent expression in Chinese? If so, what is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T08:44:49.323" Title="Chinese equivalent of expression" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10455" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10562" CreationDate="2014-11-22T20:24:49.993" Score="1" ViewCount="820" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that I should add rén (人) after a country. I found these two in the dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;俄罗斯&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;俄国&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one should I use? What would be the difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6842" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T18:00:15.163" Title="How do I say that I'm Russian?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10455" CreationDate="2014-11-22T20:33:38.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我是俄罗斯人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俄罗斯 is more often used to modern Russia, while 俄国 is commonly used to refer to the old imperial or tsarist Russia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check e.g.: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/26403.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/26403.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2014-11-22T20:33:38.037" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10449" CreationDate="2014-11-22T23:21:46.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;他以财为天. Maybe a bit too literary to qualify as colloquial but as a play on a familiar saying, would be understood by most. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6843" LastActivityDate="2014-11-22T23:21:46.843" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10458" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-23T06:17:07.737" Score="2" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;below find dialog of ２ druglords and the brother of one of them 江东和江南兄弟 and  林力华 at the start of part 8 of TV drama 国家形象,&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTA2MDgwNDQw.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTA2MDgwNDQw.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;03:31 includes 拿手 （adjective，adept; expert; good at），&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０３：３９ has 有一手 （&#xA;很有一手 highly skilled 手 measure word for abilities）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;context and gestures might suggest something like indicated translations. Dialog suggests play on word&#xA;手.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;国家形象：第8集 &#xA;两名毒枭，江东与林力华和江冻的弟弟江南之间的对话：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０２：１０：江东：我江东是什么人早晚你会知道的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０２：１４：现在我们是把买卖做成&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０２：１７：靠你来操作你做不成 对吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０２：３４：提到诚意 我对你有诚意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０２：３８：我想看到你的诚意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０２：４１：想看到你真正想加入红动集团的诚意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０２：４５：林力华：我们是合作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０２：４６：江东：是 是 是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０２：４７：合作也罢  假如也罢 不过是个字眼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０２：５２：我想看到你的诚意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０３：０２：林力华：大哥 我再让一步&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０３：０５：你定地点我定时间 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０３：１０：江东：好（江东同林力华握手）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０３：１２：林力华：我先走了（江东拍林力华的背）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０３：２２：江东：江南&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０３：２５：打击一个人的自尊心让人变的软弱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０３：２９：有什么方法最有效&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０３：３１：江南：这我拿手 哥（am I supposed to be an expert on that, is this in my line of expertise，am I supposed to know ?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０３：３３: 按照道上的规矩把他脚筋挑了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;０３：３９：江东：不对  你还有一手 (wrong, do you have another way)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（江东开始大笑并打了江南脸上微微一巴掌，看起来这就让江南有些困惑，他挠了挠自己上唇上的地方）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T07:51:36.567" Title="Translating 2 subtitles (TV drama 03:31 and 03:39)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10452" CreationDate="2014-11-23T07:03:06.333" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;都。。。了 indicates past/completion of an event with an emphasis on time, and sometimes it's equivalent of &lt;strong&gt; don't you see &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都（下午2点）了，你还没吃午饭呐？&#xA;You didn't have your lunch yet? Don't you see it's 2 PM already?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T07:03:06.333" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10454" CreationDate="2014-11-23T07:09:28.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I couldn't think of any generally accepted expression in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, people would just exchange eyes or say something like&#xA;&quot;原来是这样啊，我还没明白呢&quot; in sarcasm. &quot;I didn't get the joke at first place, THANK YOU!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;为了解释清楚，你也是蛮拼的&quot; in sarcasm as well, &quot;You really try hard on explaining to us.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T07:09:28.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10449" CreationDate="2014-11-23T07:48:12.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他执着于金钱。/ 在钱的事上，他简直着了魔。(here I think &quot;be possessed with&quot; is more like the word.)/ 他是个&lt;strong&gt;财迷&lt;/strong&gt;。(See how the Chinese language prefers nouns?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T07:48:12.243" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10458" CreationDate="2014-11-23T07:51:36.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;拿手，&#xA;means good at， skillful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literally means i am very familiar with doing so (just like using my hand).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不对，你还有一手。&#xA;You are better than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternative, 江东 is expecting 江南 think outside the box. 江南 didn't realize that and show confusing expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T07:51:36.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10353" CreationDate="2014-11-23T08:44:19.683" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China, people usually speak 的 very quickly and in a low volume. So in oral Chinese, many people omit 的 in many situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 is often kept in written Chinese, such as newspaper, literature and some other official publications  although sometimes 的 is omitted for convenience. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6847" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T08:44:19.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2673" CreationDate="2014-11-23T14:23:55.583" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditionally, yellow is a respectful color in China. It represents nobility and wealthiness. It is the color of the skin of Chinese, the color of the mother river of China. 1934， yellow was decided as the city color of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The negative meaning was brought in from the Commies. They are against Chinese culture. The &quot;People's Republic of China&quot; was originated from &quot;Soviet Republic of China&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More details in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://duping.net/XHC/show.php?bbs=11&amp;amp;post=1195031&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://duping.net/XHC/show.php?bbs=11&amp;amp;post=1195031&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.21ccom.net/articles/sxwh/shsc/article_2011111949053.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.21ccom.net/articles/sxwh/shsc/article_2011111949053.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6850" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T14:23:55.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10465" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-23T17:22:53.620" Score="7" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be a set of Chinese words that have alternatives (disregarding the traditional/simplified split). For example, &lt;code&gt;借&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;藉&lt;/code&gt;. Within this class of alternatives, however, seems to be a set of semantic puns. Consider, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;strong&gt;蘇&lt;/strong&gt; (/su1/ 'revive') ＝ 更生('live again') → &lt;strong&gt;甦&lt;/strong&gt; (/su1/ 'revive')&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (2) &lt;strong&gt;天&lt;/strong&gt; (/tian1/ 'sky') ＝ 青色的空氣('blue air') → &lt;strong&gt;靝&lt;/strong&gt; (/tian1/ 'heaven')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question: &lt;strong&gt;is there a special term for these kinds of alternatives?&lt;/strong&gt; Ultimately, I'd like to be able to find other such pairs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NB1:&lt;/strong&gt; I'm aware that the alternative in (2) is restricted to a Taoist context.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;NB2:&lt;/strong&gt; I'm also aware of alternatives like &lt;code&gt;妝&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;粧&lt;/code&gt;, but from what I can tell, this specific pair seems to have gone the other way -- the semantic &lt;code&gt;妝&lt;/code&gt; was later supplanted by the phono-semantic &lt;code&gt;粧&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6845" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T07:13:40.453" Title="Semantic Puns and Alternative Hanzi" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10466" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10470" CreationDate="2014-11-23T18:44:10.600" Score="4" ViewCount="969" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm making something to teach students Chinese colors... Let's say they have to match a color to a square- Is it okay to just use 红， 蓝， 紫， etc on each block just as long as they know 色 means color... or does it always need to be paired with 色 (ex: 红色， 蓝色， 紫色, etc...)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T03:59:51.597" Title="Using 色 with colors" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;teaching-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-10-12T00:05:07.053" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10469" CreationDate="2014-11-23T19:39:50.590" Score="1" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three characters are very frequent ones, but nethertheless I find it hard to understand the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastEditorUserId="6673" LastEditDate="2014-11-23T20:57:29.460" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T15:20:25.740" Title="What is the translation for 打出頭?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10466" CreationDate="2014-11-23T20:06:20.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not necessary to pair them with 色. But you can. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just take 红 as an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;红 can be used as a noun and also an adjective. Same for 红色.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6847" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T20:06:20.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10467" CreationDate="2014-11-23T20:55:44.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;出头&lt;/code&gt; has three usages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Its literal/narrow meaning is &lt;code&gt;make public appearance&lt;/code&gt;. A synonym is the Chengyu &lt;code&gt;出头露面&lt;/code&gt;. Its extended meaning is &lt;code&gt;stand out; show off&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It can be used as short for &lt;code&gt;出风头&lt;/code&gt; which exclusively means &lt;code&gt;show off&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It can be used as short for &lt;code&gt;出人头地&lt;/code&gt; which means &lt;code&gt;stand out among peers; become successful&lt;/code&gt;. For this meaning, &lt;code&gt;出人头地&lt;/code&gt; sounds natural but &lt;code&gt;出头&lt;/code&gt; sounds somewhat vengeful.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your context, without having watched the movie, I &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; it is the third meaning 'become successful (in a vengeful tone)'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;打&lt;/code&gt; can be its narrow meaning &lt;code&gt;beat up&lt;/code&gt;, or generalized &lt;code&gt;boxing; kong-fu&lt;/code&gt;, or metaphorical &lt;code&gt;use one's abilities; struggle&lt;/code&gt;. Since it's a Bruce Lee movie I guess it's a mix of the 2nd and 3rd meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as a whole, &lt;code&gt;打出头&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;Struggle and successfully avenge using kong-fu&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: those words and meanings are not exclusive to Cantonese, they are the same in Mandarin, but the formality is different. In Mandarin those words are considered colloquial and in the past it might not be formal enough for a movie title. In the recent years however, movie titles have become less 'literary' and anything is accepted. Admittedly this is a controversial topic that native Cantonese speakers may disagree; I am only speaking from my own perspective as a native Mandarin speaker from Northern China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T20:55:44.067" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10466" CreationDate="2014-11-23T21:09:32.720" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are two key reasons to add or not to add 色:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;色 adds formality especially for shorter (1~2 characters) color words.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;色 can be added or omitted for the prosody of the sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found a good article on this very topic: &lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/7463db8e83d049649b665878.html?re=view&quot;&gt;对外汉语教学中汉语颜色词的构成分析&lt;/a&gt;. A few points taken from/inspired by the article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;色 is necessary if the word itself is not a color, such as 咖啡色 (the coffee color).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'New age' color words should not be suffixed by 色 (my understanding is they are more like proper nouns), such as 土豪金 (the Tuhao golden)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reduplicated color words should not be followed by 色, such as 绿油油 (glossy green).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T21:09:32.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10471" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10474" CreationDate="2014-11-23T21:16:20.937" Score="4" ViewCount="478" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do people use &quot;文学家” normally？ It feels like it could be a correct  word, but no one would say &quot;literarist&quot; on the other hand in english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T15:49:52.107" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T15:49:52.107" Title="Do people say “文学家？”" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10471" CreationDate="2014-11-23T21:51:21.277" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes 文学家 is common. Just search the web and you'll see many results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between English and Chinese is probably due to in English, a 'literarist', if the term exists, would be someone who &lt;strong&gt;studies&lt;/strong&gt; literature, while in Chinese the common understanding/expectation for 文学家 is someone who &lt;strong&gt;creates&lt;/strong&gt; literature, which we call a &lt;em&gt;writer&lt;/em&gt; in English. According to Baidu,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;文学家是在电视编剧、小说、散文、诗歌、戏剧、随笔等方面发表、出版了有一定质和量的作品，且有一定影响力的人。也即是说，文学家就是专门从事文学研究活动的成功人群，以创作文学作品为自己的主要工作的知名人士和学者。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T21:51:21.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10473" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10475" CreationDate="2014-11-24T01:15:52.793" Score="2" ViewCount="2294" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to get the Chinese word with meaning of the phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;endure and move on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has something to do with a break up with a girlfriend and wanting to endure it and move on. I've tried googling it and found the following. (This is also how I found this website.) I just want to know if I got the right translation. Here's what I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忍和想开&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my questions: 1. Is this the right right translation? 2. Do I really need to put the 和 (&amp;quot;and&amp;quot;) in the middle or is there no need for that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest, I'll have it tattooed in my arm. That's why I'm trying to keep it as short as possible, but of course I want to have the correct message of the tattoo. Also, my father is pure Chinese but he was naturalized in our country since 1980's. That's why I want to have it in Chinese characters. (It will add more meaning to the tattoo.) Sadly, I can no longer speak to him and that's why I have to ask this question here, and I didn't study in a Chinese school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6852" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2021-02-15T05:42:53.810" LastActivityDate="2021-02-15T05:42:53.810" Title="What is the Chinese translation for &quot;endure and move on&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10471" CreationDate="2014-11-24T02:30:21.607" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is 文学家 is a &quot;big&quot; term. You call Shakespeare and Mark Twain 文学家, because not only did they create literary works or treatises, they also made deep influences in language and literature. You use 文学家 because you want to emphasize the latter part. This word is reserved to the well achieved. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By comparison, 作家 is a more common term. In fact, anyone with any literary work published could call himself a 作家. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why you get 2.5M hits for 文学家, versus 65M for 作家 in google.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Discussing our favorite authors: &lt;strong&gt;作家&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Talking about Shakespeare's literary achievements: &lt;strong&gt;文学家&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Talking about one of Shakespeare's work: &lt;strong&gt;作家&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;诗人&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Talking about George R. R. Martin: &lt;strong&gt;作家&lt;/strong&gt;. Sorry George, you might want to wait until you're dead.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So people do use 文学家 normally, but not in the sense that it is an ubiquitous term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T02:30:21.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10473" CreationDate="2014-11-24T03:08:55.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's often better to provide the whole English sentence for translation. As divergent as the two language can go, a phrase-to-phrase translation is often less than pragmatic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I can get is &quot;忍受悲伤, 继续前行&quot;. But as Stan said, if you move on, you usually put away your sorrows, or 抛却悲伤 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a phrase from classical Chinese, &quot;隐忍以行&quot;. It is an exact structural match to your phrase. However, it implies endurance for a greater cause than love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T03:08:55.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10473" CreationDate="2014-11-24T03:37:51.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be helpful to provide some context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「節哀順變」 is very close to literally &quot;endure and move on&quot;, but you are most likely to hear this in a funeral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For break up, use 「天涯何處無芳草」 (which means there are always someone somewhere).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6854" LastEditorUserId="6854" LastEditDate="2014-11-24T07:31:44.477" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T07:31:44.477" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10478" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10480" CreationDate="2014-11-24T04:14:58.430" Score="1" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off I'm not really sure what we would call &lt;code&gt;劝ing&lt;/code&gt; in English, it's not &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; exhorting or admonishing as dictionaries would lead people to believe - it's more like actively sticking your nose where it doesn't belong to tell people, who don't really care, what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moral propaganda encourages people to 劝一劝. Complete strangers will approach you on the street to 劝 you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's the deal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 劝ing so common and popular?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T06:14:27.843" Title="Why is 劝ing so common -or- popular in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10452" CreationDate="2014-11-24T04:57:43.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;都。。。。。了 basically emphasize the current state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like 「我都已經開始做飯了，你們怎麼吃零食？」 (I started cooking, how come you are still eating snack?). In this case, cooking is not completed, yet you can still use&#xA;都。。。。。了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In essence, it is same as 「我已經開始做飯，你們怎麼吃零食？」, without 都。。。。。了 (I started cooking how come you are still eating snack?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bear in mind that Chinese normally does not address tense, so the text like it does not necessary mean completion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6854" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T04:57:43.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10478" CreationDate="2014-11-24T05:28:36.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first it did mean exhorting or admonishing in classic Chinese, but gradually the meaning broadened. Now any advice of suggestion could be called 劝.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your parents are having a fight? You 劝 them to stop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A stranger smoking in public? You 劝 him to give up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your student can't form a proper sentence? You 劝 him to learn some grammar.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a process the linguists call semantic shift. Dog used to be a specific canine species, but gradually it becomes canine in general. Bird used to mean &quot;young bird&quot; then it becomes avian of all age. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans are fallible, whether as individuals or as a species.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T05:28:36.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10478" CreationDate="2014-11-24T06:14:27.843" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion,the mean of 劝 is what you said above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why is 劝ing so common and popular?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the reason is the attitude of the person who wanna 劝 you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 劝，the attitude is very soft ,not tough.劝 is neither teach nor order .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the person wanna 劝 you,he tells you something that you may ignore or not get a clear understanding from his kindness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you can make a judgement from what he has said,not must accept what he said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6855" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T06:14:27.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10420" CreationDate="2014-11-24T07:03:05.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the difference between the two is very small.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is a difference ,吃惊 is more used in oral.惊讶 is more used in written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But i am not mean you can't use 吃惊 in written or 惊讶 in oral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Distinguish the two,you will be more professional and careful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6855" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T07:03:05.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10452" CreationDate="2014-11-24T07:53:14.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context ,都 is not refer to &quot;all&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;都...了&quot; represent the level has already too high。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6855" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T07:53:14.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10465" CreationDate="2014-11-24T07:56:27.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to 六書 &#xA;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two kinds of this&#xA;1. 轉注：&#xA;Basically this mean the multiple characters may map in the same mapping if &#xA;1) They are in same radical (category).&#xA;2) They sound similar &#xA;Example: 老 (old) 考 (Originally meant old; deconstructed as 耂 derivative (老字头) of 老 lǎo &quot;old&quot; + 丂 qiǎo (phonetic). Later evolved to mean &quot;deceased father&quot;. Modern meanings of to exam. (From &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%80%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%80%83&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;假借：&#xA;Basically this mean the a character is assigned to more than one senses.&#xA;Example: 蘇 (/su1/ 'revive') ＝ 更生('live again') → 甦&#xA;     云 (Originally Cloud, then become &quot;say&quot;) →  雲 (Cloud)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can search &quot;通同字&quot; or &quot;通假字&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6854" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T07:56:27.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10339" CreationDate="2014-11-24T08:02:52.920" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For software terminology, the practical usages are in the translation memory in software translation management services.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6854" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T08:02:52.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10452" CreationDate="2014-11-24T10:26:39.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;都 ... 了&quot; is a common structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means &quot;... have done&quot; or &quot;it's [time] now&quot; and is always used when the speaker is not satisfied or just angry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) It has a implicit meaning of blame for what you are doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Example:&#xA;    天哪，都八点了你怎么还没去上课？&#xA;    -- Gosh! It's 8 o'clock but you haven't go to school yet?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) But sometimes we also use it when the speaker supposes you did things at a time that is different from your habit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Example:&#xA;    活都干完了还不走？&#xA;    -- Your works have been done but you are still staying here?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that you can omit the &quot;都&quot; in such sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T10:26:39.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10420" CreationDate="2014-11-24T10:32:38.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The similar meaning but the different usages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃惊的 adj. / 吃惊地 adv. / 吃惊 v. (Maybe in fear, feel frighted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惊讶的 adj. / 惊讶地 adv. but no verb form. (Just feel not that common in one's view)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T10:32:38.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10490" CreationDate="2014-11-24T11:55:32.523" Score="6" ViewCount="3988" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is “事出必有因” the most accurate translation for &quot;everything happens for a reason&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, what is it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6856" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-11-05T04:43:06.793" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T04:43:06.793" Title="Is “事出必有因” the most accurate translation for &quot;everything happens for a reason&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10489" CreationDate="2014-11-24T13:30:39.490" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, you could say 无风不起浪,事出必有因.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6857" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T10:14:37.810" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T10:14:37.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10473" CreationDate="2014-11-24T13:38:25.537" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;忍过了，你的人生还得继续&#xA;&quot;忍和想开&quot; seem wired, &quot;and&quot; can translate as &quot;然后&quot;  “忍忍，然后想开点&quot;is better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6857" LastEditorUserId="6857" LastEditDate="2014-11-24T13:49:54.023" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T13:49:54.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10492" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10504" CreationDate="2014-11-24T14:11:37.563" Score="9" ViewCount="540" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been told that 是...的 is used to put emphasis on something, but I'm not sure when or why I should use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6858" LastEditorUserId="6858" LastEditDate="2014-11-24T14:40:08.870" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T19:04:54.660" Title="When should I use the 是...的 construction?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10493" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10577" CreationDate="2014-11-24T14:38:59.617" Score="2" ViewCount="719" Body="&lt;p&gt;What i know: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;甲 is used for enumeration of items or persons in a dialogue, it corresponds to western 1. ,  a) ,  I. ,  X. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;桂林山水 = Landscape of Guilin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天下 = literary expression for whole china or whole world. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What i do not know: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;甲天下&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;桂林山水甲天下&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;桂林山水天下 (would it make sense without 甲 ?) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T13:37:13.930" Title="What is the function of 甲 in 桂林山水甲天下?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10494" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-24T14:40:00.570" Score="1" ViewCount="483" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me decipher these characters? These are on a small red vase with a small &quot;wick&quot; attached to the top.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rmyxb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6859" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T14:36:39.710" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T14:36:39.710" Title="Small Red Vase W/ Chinese on bottom?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10495" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-24T14:42:55.853" Score="3" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most other skills are improving steadily, but my listening is lagging (far) behind. Are there any movies, music or podcasts that can help me with this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6858" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T16:16:41.740" Title="What podcasts/movie/music is good to improve my listening?" Tags="&lt;practice&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-24T14:49:12.913" Score="3" ViewCount="828" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been given a nice set of small white tea set with bamboo motifs and some foreign oriental marks. There is no single English character. I spent the whole morning trying to draw these marks and see if I can find their meaning but no luck so far. Thanks in advance! Jane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lkoPb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;square mark with Chinese characters? It is underneath of 3 cups &quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aJokn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Similar characters but not in square mark - it is underneath of tea pot with lid and other pot with no lid&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V2fez.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Red small mark in circle - on each piece on top or side of them&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K12kp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;THis mark is on 3 cups underneaths of them&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6860" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:27:48.707" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:27:48.707" Title="Some unknown marks: are they in Chinese? If not, what language is it? What do they mean?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16" CreationDate="2014-11-24T15:10:12.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 is often used in the past tense, but should not be confused with 过. 了 implies a recent change that might still be in effect, while 过 is further in the past and is no longer in effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我坐了 I have sat down (and am still sitting)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我坐过 I have sat down (and am no longer sitting)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use it with 太 to put emphasis on something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太冷了 Too cold!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6858" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T15:10:12.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10493" CreationDate="2014-11-24T16:03:53.210" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;甲is the first stem of Celestial or Heavenly Stems. We use 甲 as 第一(NO.1) or 顶级(top). Hence, 桂林山水甲天下 means 桂林山水天下第一。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲天下 means best in the world or No.1 in the world&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anohter example, Lega Serie A is the top football league in Italy, which is translated as 意大利甲级联赛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6847" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T16:03:53.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10496" CreationDate="2014-11-24T16:13:36.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in top picture set of characters looks like 1st column  鹏雅, 2nd column 精瓷, always top to bottom, anyhow googling  鹏雅精瓷 yields as 1st result zhidao.baidu.com with 鹏雅精瓷酒杯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;picture below more clearly looks like 鹏祥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T16:13:36.803" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10495" CreationDate="2014-11-24T16:16:41.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One suggestion is to listen to some old stuff because too many slangs, especially Internet slangs in nowadays movies, TV shows and something else. Even senior native speakers in China cannot understand them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to listen to 成语故事 when I was a kid. I believe you can find tons of them online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6847" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T16:16:41.740" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10501" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10506" CreationDate="2014-11-24T18:44:45.280" Score="2" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;I sang Chinese karaoke last night... went alright... but couldn't sing in tune. I wanted to express this to my Chinese friends.... so I wanted to learn phrases/words related to singing and music, namely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;Sing in tune&quot;, or perhaps &quot;carry a melody&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T05:21:45.373" Title="Singing in tune translation help" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10501" CreationDate="2014-11-24T18:58:12.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sing in [out of] tune&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唱得合调子[不合调子]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T05:21:45.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10493" CreationDate="2014-11-24T18:59:59.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;甲&lt;/em&gt; comes from a Chinese system of ordinals called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_stem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the ten Celestial&lt;/a&gt; can be tracked back to 3000 years ago. it's just a counting system, &lt;em&gt;甲&lt;/em&gt; in the Celestial likes &lt;em&gt;A&lt;/em&gt; in the Alphabet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6861" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T18:59:59.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10492" CreationDate="2014-11-24T21:48:46.540" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is a modified citation of this awesome article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/shi-de-construction&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The 是 … 的 construction in Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;, credit of original article goes to Hugh Grigg (eastasiastudent.net). There are more links around this subject at the bottom of the original article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That article and this answer are published under Creative Commons license &lt;a href=&quot;http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CC BY-NC-SA 3.0&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note not everything with &lt;code&gt;是&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; is a '&lt;code&gt;是 … 的&lt;/code&gt; construction'. This answer speaks specifically to '&lt;code&gt;是 … 的&lt;/code&gt; construction' as that's what the question is about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;是 … 的&lt;/code&gt; construction in Mandarin grammar is very useful to know. It’s used to emphasize a particular detail in a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;是 … 的&lt;/code&gt; construction picks out one of the following kinds of information:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;manner&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;place&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure is common and pretty easy to use and understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Forming a 是 … 的 sentence&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 is placed right before the piece of information you want to draw attention to, and 的 comes at the end of the sentence. Whatever comes immediately after 是 is emphasized. This is equivalent to saying “It was … that …” in English (although English often just uses tone of voice to emphasis).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她是昨天去的。Tā shì zuótiān qù de. It was yesterday that she went.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是跟我朋友出去的。Wǒ shì gēn wǒ péngyǒu chūqù de. It was my friends who I went out with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是在北京学习中文的。Wǒ shì zài běijīng xuéxí zhōngwén de. It was in Beijing where I studied Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Emphasizing different parts of the sentence&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 can be placed at any one of three points in a sentence to draw attention to what comes after it. In the following sentence, for example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我上个星期五跟我女朋友在饭馆吃饭。Wǒ shàng gè xīngqíwǔ gēn wǒ nǚ péngyǒu zài fànguǎn chīfàn. Last Friday I ate dinner with my girlfriend in a restaurant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time, manner or place could be picked out with 是 … 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是上个星期五跟我女朋友在饭馆吃饭的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wǒ shì shàng gè xīngqíwǔ gēn wǒ nǚ péngyǒu zài fànguǎn chīfàn de.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It was last Friday that I ate dinner with my girlfriend in a restaurant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我上个星期五是跟我女朋友在饭馆吃饭的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wǒ shàng gè xīngqí wǔ shì gēn wǒ nǚ péngyǒu zài fànguǎn chīfàn de.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It was with my girlfriend that I ate dinner in a restaurant last Friday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我上个星期五跟我女朋友是在饭馆吃饭的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wǒ shàng gè xīngqí wǔ gēn wǒ nǚ péngyǒu shì zài fànguǎn chīfàn de.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It was in a restaurant that I ate dinner last Friday with my girlfriend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note how in English this involves rearranging all the elements of the sentence, but in Chinese their position is fixed. All that’s needed is to place 是 in front of the part to be emphasized, and 的 at the end of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What you can emphasize with 是 … 的&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Broadly speaking, the 是 … 的 construction emphasizes time, manner or place. This covers a lot of uses though. Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我今天是开车上班的。&#xA;  Wǒ jīntiān shì kāichē shàngbān de.&#xA;  Today I came to work &lt;em&gt;by car&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是用法文写这封信的。&#xA;  Wǒ shì yòng fǎwén xiě zhè fēng xìn de.&#xA;  I wrote this letter &lt;em&gt;in French&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他是在网上发现这个信息的。&#xA;  Tā shì zài wǎngshàng fāxiàn zhège xìnxī de.&#xA;  He found out this information &lt;em&gt;online&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那个故事是我爷爷告诉我的。&#xA;  Nàgè gùshì shì wǒ yéye gàosu wǒ de.&#xA;  It was &lt;em&gt;my grandfather&lt;/em&gt; that told me that story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他是对我感兴趣的。&#xA;  Tā shì duì wǒ gǎn xìngqù de.&#xA;  He &lt;em&gt;was interested in me&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can draw attention to pretty much any information in the sentence using 是 … 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Forming questions with 是 … 的&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also form questions with the 是 … 的 construction. This is done in the usual ways to form questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With 吗&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With a question word&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With verb / negative inversion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你那天是去伦敦的吗？&#xA;  Nǐ nèitiān shì qù lúndūn de ma?&#xA;  Did you go to London that day?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他是给谁打电话的？&#xA;  Tā shì gěi shéi dǎ diànhuà de?&#xA;  Who was it that he phoned?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是不是五月出生的？&#xA;  Wǒ shì bù shì wǔ yuè chūshēng de?&#xA;  Was it in May that I was born?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that with the 吗 question, 吗 comes at the end of the sentence as usual, with 的 just before it (this is probably what you were expecting anyway).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The negative form of 是 … 的&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 … 的 is negated as you would expect, with 不. This is used to draw attention to the fact that something is not the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们不是在巴黎认识的。&#xA;  Wǒmen búshì zài bālí rènshi de.&#xA;  It wasn’t in Paris that we met.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的钱包不是被他偷走的。&#xA;  Wǒ de qiánbāo búshì bèi tā tōu zǒu de.&#xA;  My wallet wasn’t stolen by him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;是 … 的 implies completion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because 是 … 的 emphasizes the details around an action, there is an implication that the action has been completed (so that we can know the details). However, this is just an implication, and not the main function of this construction. 是 … 的 is used to draw attention to extra details of an action, not to indicate its completion. 了 should be used to mark completion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Moving 的&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, 的 is placed at the end of the sentence in a 是 … 的 construction, and this is fine most of the time. However, it can also be placed before the object. The only time this is necessary is when the 是 … 的 construction would result in a sentence with another meaning to the one intended. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是在网上卖衣服的。 Wǒ shì zài wǎngshàng mài yīfu de. I sell clothing online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rather than emphasizing that the clothes are sold online, this sentence ends up saying that the speaker is some sort of online clothing merchant. To avoid this misinterpretation, 的 can be placed before the object:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是在网上卖的衣服。 Wǒ shì zài wǎngshàng mài de yīfú. It was online that I sold&#xA;  the clothes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the sentence has the intended meaning (that the speaker sold some clothes on Taobao or something). The sentence above about studying in Beijing is actually ambiguous for this reason:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是在北京学习中文的。 Wǒ shì zài běijīng xuéxí zhōngwén de. I studied Chinese in Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This could just as well be translated as “I am a Chinese learner in Beijing”, with no emphasis, in which case 的 functions as a particle that converts verb phrase (study Chinese) into attributive (Chinese studying (person)). To avoid this, 的 can be placed in front of the object:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是在北京学习的中文。 Wǒ shì zài běijīng xuéxí de zhōngwén. It was in Beijing&#xA;  that I studied Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the emphasis is clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This situation only comes up occasionally though, so most of the time it's fine to put 的 at the end of the sentence (although you often see it placed before the object anyway).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Omitting 是&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One final thing to note is that sometimes 是 can actually be omitted and the structure is still valid. This can't happen all the time, though. If the subject is a demonstrative pronoun (这 or 那), you have to include 是. If the sentence is negative, you also need 是 (it would sound pretty strange without it). Otherwise, 是 can generally be omitted and the sentence is still valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the sentence is complicated with many parts (e.g. time, manner and place) then 是 will need to be inserted to clarify what’s being emphasized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Not everything with &lt;code&gt;是&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; is a &lt;code&gt;是 … 的&lt;/code&gt; construction!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that just because a sentence uses 是 and 的 doesn’t mean it’s emphasizing something. Far from it, in fact. 是 and 的 are a very common way to attach attributes to things. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这辆车是红色的。 Zhè liàng chē shì hóngsè de. This car is red.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence above is not a &lt;code&gt;是 … 的&lt;/code&gt; construction as described in this article. It's just a bog-standard descriptive sentence. The 是 … 的 construction emphasizes additional information about an action rather than just modifying things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;是 is placed before the part of the sentence you want to emphasize.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;的 is nearly always placed at the end of the sentence. Sometimes it appears before the object.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All the usual question formations can be applied to 是 … 的 sentences.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;是 … 的 is negated with 不.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;是 … 的 implies completion of the action, but shouldn't be used to express this specifically.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;是 can be omitted in some circumstances.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2016-07-14T19:04:54.660" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T19:04:54.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10501" CreationDate="2014-11-25T00:51:52.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Out of tune&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;跑调/走调/走音&lt;/strong&gt;——年纪大了，王菲唱歌也开始走音了。要不我们就叫她跑调天后吧。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;音调不准&lt;/strong&gt;——这架钢琴音调不准，和你唱歌一样。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不着调/不合调&lt;/strong&gt;——你唱歌挺不着调的。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;音准差&lt;/strong&gt;——你唱歌音准太差了。&lt;code&gt;音准&lt;/code&gt; is a professional term.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase 不着调 has later taken a metaphoric meaning to describe an erratic person or deed. 你这人挺不着调的，办事也不着调。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;In tune&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just take the negative forms and you're set:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;着调/合调&lt;/strong&gt;——你唱歌还挺合调的。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;音调准&lt;/strong&gt;——你唱歌音调很准。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;音准很好/不错&lt;/strong&gt;——这架钢琴音准很好，你唱歌音准不错。This is how a music teacher praises you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-11-25T04:28:03.210" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T04:28:03.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10066" CreationDate="2014-11-25T01:37:43.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've searched Youtube for some reconstructed old Mandarin. My background is Jin Dialect and Mandarin, and it sounds no more difficult than Cantonese or Wu dialect to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dialects vary greatly even among modern 官话 of different regions, some can be very different from the standard Mandarin. Usually it takes me one week to one month to understand a different 官话 dialect. The remote rural dialects usually takes longer to grasp. I've seen people struggling with non-native Mandarin dialects for months or years. I've seen people cruising through non-native dialects as if he's in his own backyard. I think it depends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put that aside, if you send me a man from Ming dynasty, I think the biggest blockage to communication is this totally unintelligible modern world. As of the language, it would be an issue in the first week, but if we keep working on it, things should get quite clear after a month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judging by the tone of the old Mandarin, I think it may sound more intelligible to the ears of the 吴 or 粤 people, but I could be wrong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T01:37:43.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10494" CreationDate="2014-11-25T03:34:26.693" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: &lt;strong&gt;乾&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Right: &lt;strong&gt;隆&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top: &lt;strong&gt;年&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bottom: &lt;strong&gt;制&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You read the characters as if you are standing at the center. The order is a bit funny because it's what people in antiquity do. It is read as &lt;strong&gt;乾隆年制&lt;/strong&gt; -- &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Made in the year of Qian Long&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;. Qian Long(乾隆) is an emperor of 清(Qing) dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a form of 篆書. You see a lot of such imprints in antiquities. Take a look at this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pwn8o.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;年|乾|大&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;制|隆|清&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T05:22:41.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10509" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10510" CreationDate="2014-11-25T03:55:26.900" Score="1" ViewCount="3686" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an experienced tourist in China, I know the sentence:你能不能给我（们）相的照吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it gives the desired result-- someone taking a picture of me, for me, with my own camera-- I am not sure of the exact corresponding English translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A)     Can you take a picture &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; me?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    Or,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B)     Can you take a picture &lt;em&gt;of&lt;/em&gt; me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And how can I distinguish between the  two, or add a second object like &quot;Can you take of picture of her for me?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6738" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T04:22:38.820" Title="Take a picture of me/for me (which preposition better translates)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10509" CreationDate="2014-11-25T04:22:38.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'给..照相' means 'take a picture of ..', so your sentence means 'can you take a picture of me'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verbatim translation for 'do [something] for [someone]' is '为..做..', but in your scenario (asking stranger for help), it is more common to say '帮..做..' (help [someone] do [something]), so 'can you take a picture of her for me' would be '你能帮我给她照相吗？'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T04:22:38.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10511" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-25T04:48:59.333" Score="0" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a section of my textbook I recently covered, I came across 3 vocabulary words that are very similar and I'm not sure &lt;em&gt;how&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;when&lt;/em&gt; to use each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;礼仪： protocol/etiquette. The dictionary I have doesn't give too many examples of this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;惯例： convention; usual practice. Ex:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;按照国际惯例;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打破惯例 － break from usual practice/convention&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;规矩： this one is probably the trickiest of the three because there are two definitions: (a) rules of a community or organization; custom; established practice. (b) customary rules of good behavior; social etiquette (which translates to something similar to 礼仪）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example of (a): 按照中国规矩，写信时日期写在最后&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example of (b):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(i) 遵守规矩；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(ii) 这个孩子没有规矩 (this child has bad manners; which seems to mean 礼貌）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm still confused, because they all seem to mean the same: (to follow) some sort of standard etiquette&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T07:41:14.690" Title="What's the difference between 礼仪，惯例，规矩？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10511" CreationDate="2014-11-25T06:53:28.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three wors are all nouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;礼仪 What someone's behavior or words gives others a very good expression.for example ,the man is a gentleman&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example 礼仪之邦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之：的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;邦：国家（country）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;礼仪之邦 ：The people in the country are all gentlemen.（indluding women and children）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;惯例 the activity has already been done in this way for many years,and others' also in this way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惯例 mostly is used to describle activity,not behavior.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;规矩 规矩 mostly is used to describle someone's words and behavior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example,don't make noise in public place. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规矩 describles most people's behaviors should be done like this, not gentleman.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6855" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T06:53:28.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10513" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10516" CreationDate="2014-11-25T11:19:19.700" Score="4" ViewCount="560" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started learning Chinese and want to find some short texts to practice my reading. I've found &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesereadingpractice.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinesereadingpractice.com/&lt;/a&gt; where you can find some interesting posts, but even beginners text are very complex. &#xA;Is there any resources for very basic and elementary Chinese level? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6865" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T09:17:23.387" Title="What is a good resources to read easy Chinese texts?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ClosedDate="2020-04-07T01:25:05.263" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10515" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-25T13:40:45.753" Score="5" ViewCount="610" Body="&lt;p&gt;请客 is a verb-object-verbal phrase (联合词), therefore it is able to seperate both parts and put further structures in between. &#xA;I read I could put 起 in between together with 来 at the end to form a so called &quot;complement&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, all i know that i can build such a structure, for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-分类 --&gt; 分起类来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-吃惊 --&gt; 吃起惊来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-贬值 --&gt; 贬起值来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-游泳 --&gt; 游起泳来 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the problem is, i only know how to build this structure, but i can not find any explanation how the meaning is changed by it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2018-05-03T08:23:25.350" Title="How does inserting 起来 into 请客 as in 请起客来 changes the meaning?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10513" CreationDate="2014-11-25T13:58:51.060" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lingq.com/&quot;&gt;LingQ&lt;/a&gt; has a huge library of texts that generally also include audio. You can read any of the texts you like without paying for a subscription, as long as you don't want to add unknown words to your wordlist (creating LingQs). I have not paid for a subscription and find it to be very useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do want to create a wordlist of the words you don't know for reviewing in Anki or another SRS program, the I would highly recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://lwt.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;LWT&lt;/a&gt;. I tend to import texts from LingQ so that I can take advantage of the huge library. The system is definitely not as polished as LingQ, but it certainly useful. There are a lot of very useful tutorials for how to use LWT to help with Language learning including:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.streetsmartlanguagelearning.com/2012/12/using-learning-with-texts-with-anki-2.html&quot;&gt;Street Smart Language Learning&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fluentin3months.com/learning-with-texts/&quot;&gt;Fluent In 3 Months: Introducing LWT&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mezzoguild.com/2012/07/04/how-to-install-learning-with-texts-lwt&quot;&gt;The Mezzofanti Guild: How To Install Learning With Texts On Your Own Computer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have just started on my own reading challenge and this is how I am doing it, but obviously this is just how it works best for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good place to find reading resources is &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.hackingchinese.com&quot;&gt;Hacking Chinese Resources&lt;/a&gt; and Olle's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hackingchinese.com/extensive-reading-challenge-november-10th-to-30th/&quot;&gt;Reading Chinese Challenge&lt;/a&gt; and associated reading resource &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hackingchinese.com/the-10-best-free-reading-resource-collections-for-learning-chinese/&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6607" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T13:58:51.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10489" CreationDate="2014-11-25T15:04:34.447" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese student,so my expression my not  very appropriate,but I may find a better tranlation from Oxford Chinese dictionary,Everything has a wherefore.&#xA;And 凡事means everthing，事in Chinese means thing or things，we  don't differentiate plural form and singular form with es or  's.&#xA;It seems strange to add 凡 before &#xA;事出必有因，there have some reason.&#xA;无风不起浪，事出必有因 is a saying .&#xA;事出有因 is equal with 事出必有因，事出有因 is a idiom，it's a four character expression,here is the defination from the Oxford Chinese dictionary: Idiomatic expression usually made up of four characters, and containing, within one sentence, a single, complete meaning. Most four character expressions have ancient origins, and their language is often very different from modern Chinese. Four-character expressions are similar to idioms and proverbs&#xA;but whereas these come from vernacular speech, four-character expression have literary origins, Some of the meanings can be understood literally. Others can be understood only in their original context.事出有因 is the former.And same as 事出必有因，we don't add 凡before 事出必有因，because it's a set phrase.If add 凡before 事出必有因 just like you wear a suit and wear slippers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6857" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T15:04:34.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10518" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10523" CreationDate="2014-11-25T15:05:33.563" Score="2" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;送饭上门&lt;/code&gt; is what I have now, but for aesthetic reasons I would like to have a 2 character word. Is &lt;code&gt;送饭&lt;/code&gt; enough on a restaurant flyer (that's the context I am working with) or do I need the whole four character expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T23:28:17.050" Title="What would be the shortest translation for 'Home Delivery' on a restaurant flyer?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10515" CreationDate="2014-11-25T15:37:09.673" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;for meaning change due to 起来 following verb see any dictionary e。g。HSK dictionary （汉语水平考试词典）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In cases shown above verb is a 离合词 which just means that 起来 also is separated，but does not seem to change the generally valid effect of adding 起来 following verb。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起来（５）用在动词后面，表示动作完成，并有聚拢，合并在一起的意思 indicate gathering together or closing）：国家终于统一～了｜他把钱都藏～了 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（６）用在动词后面，表示动作开始，并有继续下去的意思（indicate beginning and continuation of an action）：她开始唱～了｜才说几句就哭～了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（７）用在部分动词后面，表示一种估计，评价的意思（indicate impression，view or estimation）：这个天气看～不会下雨了｜这道题目做～不会很难。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems（６） may apply to all ４ given examples  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T15:37:09.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10493" CreationDate="2014-11-25T16:10:02.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the explanation from about the celestial stem.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_stem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_stem&lt;/a&gt; 甲in桂林山水甲天下means the finest，because 甲 is the fisrt of the ten Heavenly stem(same as celestial stem),so first means the finest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6857" LastEditorUserId="6857" LastEditDate="2014-11-25T16:20:48.870" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T16:20:48.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10515" CreationDate="2014-11-25T16:15:54.200" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This infix -起-来 is usually considered a variation of the suffix -起来, and analysed as having an &lt;em&gt;inceptive&lt;/em&gt; aspect, also called the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inchoative_aspect&quot;&gt;inchoative aspect&lt;/a&gt;. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=I4BMdO-3eiUC&amp;amp;pg=PA91&quot;&gt;sense that it produces&lt;/a&gt; is &quot;starting to do&quot;, &quot;to begin to&quot; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起来 often interacts with 了 to form a particular viewpoint of an &quot;accomplishment&quot; action as having starting in the past, with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ldJkwn1BndkC&amp;amp;pg=PA221&quot;&gt;focus on the start point&lt;/a&gt; rather than as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be contrasted with 着, which does not emphasise the start of the action, but presents the action as one continuous state. Additionally, 起来 is different again from 下去, the latter of &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ldJkwn1BndkC&amp;amp;pg=PA227&quot;&gt;which is often called a continuative&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T16:15:54.200" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10524" CreationDate="2014-11-25T20:11:26.300" Score="4" ViewCount="2200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am able to read quite a few Chinese characters and can recognize most&#xA;of the elements (combinations of radicals and other stroke sequences) which&#xA;make up the 3500 or so or more characters found in Chinese dictionaries, even&#xA;in those cases where I find myself not knowing the pronunciation or meaning of&#xA;the character itself. I am also familiar with some traditional character variants&#xA;for some of such simplified characters. I have acquired such knowledge by going&#xA;through a couple of dictionaries while memorizing some patterns, characters,&#xA;words, and idioms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;However, whenever I come across Chinese calligraphic paintings or any sequence&#xA;of characters which happen to be displayed as though composed with a traditional&#xA;brush I have a hard time reading such artistic compositions. I was wondering whether&#xA;there is an easy way to learn how to read and master these as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also, when Chinese people write characters written with a normal pen or pencil carry&#xA;some differences when compared to those same characters as they appear in a dictionary.&#xA;I would like to be able to read these as well. Where can I learn how to read and write&#xA;these latter characters (as written with a pen or pencil as opposed to with a brush).&#xA;I have once seen a dictionary which lists these alongside the printed versions of&#xA;such characters but I cannot recall the name of the publishing company that printed&#xA;such dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example of a calligraphic writing which I struggle reading, take the following&#xA;brush handwriting on a box of medicinal Chinese tea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UaUEQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UaUEQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite clearly the last character is 茶 (cha2). However, I cannot figure out from&#xA;the picture what the first two characters are. What are they may I ask?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6727" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T15:35:38.140" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T15:35:38.140" Title="How to learn to read Chinese calligraphic paintings (and Chinese handwriting)?" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10518" CreationDate="2014-11-25T21:17:07.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;送餐 will be the appropriate translation for this case. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6872" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T21:17:07.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10522" CreationDate="2014-11-25T21:25:32.470" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really boils down to the very point: your knowledge of characters and especially how familiar you are with them. I have a hard time reading a lot of things handwritten in Chinese, while at other times I notice that I can just spell out all the characters, even if I have never seen a single character from that person. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people have easy to read handwriting, some don't. Obviously that's something subjective, but you cannot do anything about it. What you can do is to practice handwriting a lot yourself and notice how your handwriting shifts from the school kids' stroke-by-stroke pattern to a more sophisticated, mature handwriting, where things start to become more fluid and less accurate. Probably you have a nice handwriting in your own language, whether it be Latin or any other script. And probably your handwriting has matured from a school kids letters to a more elegant and fluent script. This process has subconsciously helped you not only to read your own handwriting but to have a grasp of other people's handwriting, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are three things you can do to make progress:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Write Chinese by han&lt;/strong&gt;d. Write a lot. Try to write faster and faster and observe how your handwriting evolves into something more sophisticated and &quot;calligraphic&quot;. It will not necessarily look &quot;talented&quot; at first, but that doesn't matter. What really matters that you see how your strokes change and become more fluid, until they eventually get &quot;simplified&quot; and even merge.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Install&lt;/strong&gt; some &lt;strong&gt;calligraphic&lt;/strong&gt; looking Chinese &lt;strong&gt;fonts&lt;/strong&gt; on your computer and play around with them. Fire up MS Word or any word processor, set the font size to something larger than 36pts, set the typeface to the installed font and type something. This way you will know what you are typing, since you type it, but you will also see how the characters actually look like in that specific font, sometimes you will feel like &quot;what-the-hecko&quot;, at other times you will immediately recognized the strokes of that specific character. Here is a site to look for some fonts: &lt;a href=&quot;http://font.chinaz.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;font.chinaz.com&lt;/a&gt; (although I think most fonts here are copyrighted protected but uploaded by anyway, be sure to only use fonts for study, you should be on the safe side)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Improve and &lt;strong&gt;expand your vocabulary&lt;/strong&gt;. Many multi-character words have at least one character that is easier to recognize and your vocabulary will help you to make a guess, what the other character(s) could be. Also, the more characters you know, the more likely that you will recognize parts of characters, since character components pretty much repeat all the time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: the characters on the package are 降脂茶. If you don't recognize a character, &lt;em&gt;try to recognize at least a part of it&lt;/em&gt;. E.g. in the second character it is obvious that the left side is 月 (肉) while the bottom-right part of it 日. You can assume that any part of it you can recognize could be the radical, with which you should be familiar, of course. Now &lt;em&gt;try to give an estimate for the unrecognizable part&lt;/em&gt;, how many strokes that could be. Add or take one stroke and you can look it up in a character dictionary, it takes a while but it's not that hard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 降 the tricky parts here are probably the left side and the top-right part, eventually to me it is a recognition process based on the characters and character parts I already now. If you have seen 夅 as a right-side component of any other character (e.g. 逄）then you should be able to recognize it just by observing its shape or if you are advanced by the &lt;em&gt;composing strokes&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-25T22:33:22.093" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T22:33:22.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10525" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-25T21:29:41.890" Score="4" ViewCount="827" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked a native speaker whether these phrases were equivalent in meaning and she said no (although agreeing that they both ultimately do &quot;point&quot; to the same concept). I asked if 年 here is basically a measure word and she said no. Is that right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6873" LastActivityDate="2014-11-26T10:11:30.770" Title="Is there a difference in meaning between 那年夏天 and 那个夏天" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10525" CreationDate="2014-11-25T22:34:38.983" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;年 is not measure word. It is noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那年夏天: the summer of that year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那个夏天: that summer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They both refer to a specific summer, but the first one leaves the context on the year, while the second one solely focuses on the summer. To demonstrate the difference with follow-up questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversation 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那年夏天特别热。It was extremely hot in the summer of that year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪一年？Which year?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北京奥运那一年。The year Olympics was held in Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversation 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那个夏天特别热。It was extremely hot in that summer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪个夏天？Which summer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咱们一起去海边的那个夏天。The summer when you and I went to the seaside together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T22:34:38.983" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10525" CreationDate="2014-11-25T22:53:04.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in 那年夏天  那年 is an attributive （定语）modifying or restricting the noun 夏天， it seems the phrase can be expanded to 那年的夏天， 那个夏天 is without this attributive，instead the noun  夏天 is preceded by the demonstrative pronoun 那，demonstrative pronouns 这，那 like numerals according to grammar rules require measure words，but in the case of 这 and 那 are often omitted，so although 那个年的夏天 seems correct it can be shortened to 那年（的）夏天，and  although when used by itself to refer to a certain  time it seems 个  should not be omitted from 那个夏天，when used  attributively it often is as in 那夏天的台风&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T22:53:04.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10528" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10529" CreationDate="2014-11-25T23:00:38.140" Score="3" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a sentence with a given translation, as follows: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你多与别人就此事沟通。 = You communicate with other people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 多 put into this sentence, it is not mentioned in the translation. &#xA;What would be the difference between the given sentence and the same sentence without the 多?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;多&lt;/strong&gt;与别人就此事沟通    &amp;lt;&gt; 你与别人就此事沟通  ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T02:52:03.623" Title="What is the purpose of 多 in 你多与别人就此事沟通?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10528" CreationDate="2014-11-25T23:15:30.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a polite way to make suggestions, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我建议你多运动。&#xA;I suggest you to do sports/exercises.  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;请你多指教。&#xA;Please give some guidance/opinion.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess, a more proper translation of you example would be: 'You should contact other people about this issue.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T23:15:30.807" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6832" CreationDate="2014-11-26T01:59:17.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;AFAIK, there are at least 4 colours being described as 青: indigo (靛青), deep blue (藏青), cyan (青) and lime/green-yellow (also 青). Because of this ambiguity, it is natural that native speakers from different parts of China understand it differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native from the south (Hong Kong), I use 青色 to describe the lime to green-yellow colour (as in 青草地). This may also be true in other Cantonese-speaking regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, colour of rainbow is commonly described by the locals as 红橙黄绿青蓝紫. Although 红橙黄绿蓝靛紫 can be seen on texts. 藏青 is used by some (older-) locals to describe the colour of a deep blue jacket.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6874" LastActivityDate="2014-11-26T01:59:17.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2673" CreationDate="2014-11-26T02:17:47.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong, the signage of brothels are traditionally yellow. Like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ziteng.org.hk/newsletter/img/m12789da6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ziteng.org.hk/newsletter/img/m12789da6.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other colours are also being used in recent years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nonetheless, I'm not sure when was 黃色 being associated with pornography. The brothels might deliberately choose yellow for reasons explained by 杨以轩, or the use of such signage might have led this association.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6874" LastActivityDate="2014-11-26T02:17:47.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10532" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10535" CreationDate="2014-11-26T02:39:17.853" Score="1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m getting mixed answers to what 一概而论  actually means. What would you translate this sentence as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是， 我们不能将这位作者的观点一概而论。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the only way it can be used? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T15:50:03.687" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T15:50:03.687" Title="What does &quot;一概而论“ mean？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10533" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10534" CreationDate="2014-11-26T03:12:20.860" Score="5" ViewCount="1042" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my little bit of Mandarin experience, I have got that the classifier for &lt;code&gt;房子&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;座&lt;/code&gt;, and also felt that &lt;code&gt;座&lt;/code&gt; is usually used to refer to a building. However, I have just read that &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2306/grammar-for-counting-in-chinese-for-non-native-speakers-of-chinese&quot;&gt;someone here over Chinese Language Stack Exchange&lt;/a&gt; says the classifier is &lt;code&gt;栋&lt;/code&gt;, and so I wonder which should be used to refer to &lt;code&gt;房子&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later I found that the classifier for &lt;code&gt;房子&lt;/code&gt; may include more; in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqr=%E6%A3%9F%7C%E6%A0%8B%5Bdong4%5D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this online dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, it shows &lt;code&gt;栋&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;座&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;套&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;幢&lt;/code&gt;. So I wonder how I can decide which to use and also like to know why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, even if the proper classifier for &lt;code&gt;房子&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;栋&lt;/code&gt;, could I still use &lt;code&gt;座&lt;/code&gt; in that context? Or do they give two totally different meanings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T17:23:08.680" Title="What's the correct classifier for `房子`?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10533" CreationDate="2014-11-26T03:40:59.193" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of them are OK to use to classify 房子, it depends on the type of house itself, which one is considered the more adequate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;幢 is preferred when speaking of large and tall buildings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;栋 tends to be used to refer to buildings that are wide&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;座 is used for buildings that are “stable and steady&quot;, e.g. palace, temple, large mansions (mostly with public purpose)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~pth/pth_passage01.php?passage=115&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese University of Hong Kong&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 套 I have no reference, I suppose it has its own specific set of buildings it can classify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-26T14:59:57.280" LastActivityDate="2014-11-26T14:59:57.280" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10532" CreationDate="2014-11-26T03:48:52.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your sentence translates as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;But we cannot generalize the standpoint of this author.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is most often used together with &lt;code&gt;不能&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;不可&lt;/code&gt; (i.e. in negative sentences, observe the 不 in both cases) or even as a &lt;code&gt;noun&lt;/code&gt;, e.g. 这样的一概而论: &lt;em&gt;Such generalization/This kind of generalization&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-26T06:27:30.077" LastActivityDate="2014-11-26T06:27:30.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10522" CreationDate="2014-11-26T06:08:27.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it seems the difference between 楷写／Regular script writing and 行书／cursive writing is mainly due to 连写（在速记中笔不离开纸地写）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTcwNDEwMTY4.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTcwNDEwMTY4.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;has a more than ６８min video: 行书教程 demonstrating&#xA;行书／cursive writing， &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the right margin users can find additional videos of the same type&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2014-11-26T06:08:27.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10528" CreationDate="2014-11-26T06:14:49.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你多与别人就此事沟通 means you should take more attention to talk with others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你与别人就此事沟通 means you should talk to others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3722" LastActivityDate="2014-11-26T06:14:49.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10525" CreationDate="2014-11-26T06:21:36.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Conversation 1:&#xA;:记得13年吗?  Remember '13? &#xA;:记得,那年夏天特别热   I remember, that year's summer was particularly hot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversation 2:&#xA;:记得13年的夏天吗?  Remember the summer of '13? &#xA;:记得,那个夏天特别热   I remember, that summer was particularly hot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6879" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-11-26T10:11:30.770" LastActivityDate="2014-11-26T10:11:30.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10533" CreationDate="2014-11-26T06:26:17.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in china,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;房子's classifier depend on what it is using for,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like I want to describe my family rooms,i will use 一套房子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if I describe my room, use 一间房子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if I describe some buildings, always 一幢房子，一栋房子, these same meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3722" LastActivityDate="2014-11-26T06:26:17.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10540" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-26T17:06:48.257" Score="1" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried playing this to iOS 7's dictation feature:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6jhgUWBlxQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6jhgUWBlxQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The accuracy was pretty poor at regular speed, I'd say 20%, at best. I tried slowing down the playback speed and it didn't help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone used dictation apps/software to transcribe something like the above with better accuracy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T00:45:59.637" Title="Transcribing native speakers using dictation tools - any suggestions to improve accuracy?" Tags="&lt;transcription&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10541" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10545" CreationDate="2014-11-26T21:55:27.103" Score="4" ViewCount="317" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm often don't which noun to use, but I can think of a verb to describe it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that 吃的 (to eat + 的) means food, so I was wondering if I can use it with other verbs as well, like 洗澡的 (to bathe + 的）can mean bath?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6858" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T02:43:59.837" Title="Can I use a verb+的 construction to imply an item/noun?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10540" CreationDate="2014-11-27T00:45:59.637" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ime.voicecloud.cn/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;科大讯飞&lt;/a&gt; makes the best Chinese dictation engine so far. The accuracy is far better than Siri according to reports. I've tried with their IME. If you speak clearly with a normal speed, the accuracy could reach 90% in many cases, but using it against fast conversations would surely be a frustration. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T00:45:59.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10515" CreationDate="2014-11-27T02:31:55.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in my opinion, &quot;請客&quot; vs. &quot;請起客來&quot; is similar to &quot;do something&quot; vs. &quot;start doing something&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6888" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T02:31:55.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10541" CreationDate="2014-11-27T02:43:59.837" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think most of these verb+的 noun are all following a law that the verb must be a transitive verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;吃的 喝的&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;means something can be eaten or drunk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However for intransitive verbs, they are not able to construct verb+的 nouns, for the reason that there are no passive structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;洗澡的&lt;/code&gt; is a really strange usage. Though it can be used as a transitive verb, the passive structures for bathe is not common to used in daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, verb+的 is a very informal usage that they are mostly only used in oral Chinese. For more formal ways, there are some other words that can be used, like &lt;code&gt;食物 饮品&lt;/code&gt; for food and drinks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T02:43:59.837" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10496" CreationDate="2014-11-27T12:02:11.323" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, they are truly Chinese. From top to bottom：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;鹏雅精瓷&lt;/strong&gt;： “精瓷” is a kind of chinaware, and “鹏雅” is the brand name, I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;鹏祥&lt;/strong&gt;：(the words from left to right) I think it is also the brand name of the plate/tea set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;吉&lt;/strong&gt;：which means “lucky”. I think it is the Chinese character “吉” with a circle around it in the picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;金顺&lt;/strong&gt;：in the picture, the words are upside down with the logo(or some image) in the middle. I think it is also the brand name. “金” means “gold”, while “顺” means (everything goes)smoothly; without a hitch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, in the old times, in the bottom of chinaware, people will write the name of the year of that dynasty, like &quot;大清雍正年制(Made during Yongzheng's ruling years of Great Qing Dynasty)&quot;. In the modern time, the chinaware tea set or wine set are tend to be written on the brand name or factory name on the bottom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correct me if I am wrong :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanings are searched based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.xiaoma.info/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6156" LastEditorUserId="6156" LastEditDate="2014-11-27T12:27:21.620" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T12:27:21.620" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10547" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10548" CreationDate="2014-11-27T15:03:31.080" Score="0" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;I&quot;ve been trying to figure out the tones for the character 论. It seems like it is fourth tone in 讨论. However, in something like 一概而论 I'm not entirely sure. Is this a taiwan/Mainland division? Or is it decided on a word by word basis? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T15:49:43.330" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T15:49:43.330" Title="How to pronounce &quot;论&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10547" CreationDate="2014-11-27T15:46:09.057" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's the 4th in 一概而论, both regions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check. e.g.: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mainland: &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html4/12340.html&quot;&gt;在线新华字典&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Taiwan: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?cond=%A4%40%B7%A7%A6%D3%BD%D7&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;ukey=989037169&amp;amp;serial=1&amp;amp;recNo=44&amp;amp;op=&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot;&gt;教育部重编国语字典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Both URLs point to the '一概而论' entry)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;论 does have a 2nd tone reading, but 论语 seems to be the only where it is used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-11-27T15:51:14.827" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T15:51:14.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10547" CreationDate="2014-11-27T17:14:37.450" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Old Pekin dialect (&gt;50 years ago) pronounce it as &lt;strong&gt;lin(4th tone)&lt;/strong&gt; and that might be influencing some other dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure about the situation in TW, but mandarin standard is &lt;strong&gt;lun(4th tone)&lt;/strong&gt; except for 论语, habitually &lt;strong&gt;lun (2nd tone)&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T17:14:37.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10550" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10551" CreationDate="2014-11-27T18:37:48.627" Score="2" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that you can use 盒 to suggest that there is a collection of the following noun, such as 一盒麻将牌 (a box of mahjong tiles) and I was wondering which other classifiers I can use for a similar effect, for instance a bouquet of flowers or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6858" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T19:14:42.253" Title="What classifier imply a volume?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10550" CreationDate="2014-11-27T19:14:42.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few classifiers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;束 shù: bundle, bouquet; 一束花&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;袋 dài: bag&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;包 bāo: package; 一包烟&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;副 fù: set&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;套 tào: set&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;堆 duī: pile&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;坨 tuó: lump&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;群 qún: group&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;组 zǔ: group, set, lineage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;碗 wǎn: bowl&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;罐 guàn: can, jug, bottle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;壶 hú: pot&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;家 jiā: certain group of people&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;管 guǎn: tube&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;类 lèi: collection of objects&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;笔 bǐ: sum of money; 一笔钱&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;团 tuán: ball, spherical collection&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;股 gǔ: gaseous or liquid flow&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T19:14:42.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10552" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-28T01:49:55.013" Score="2" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that the intensity for the Chinese &quot;but&quot; is 不过》可是》但是》却 and I know that there are other words like this, but I wonder if there is a way to recognise which one has the stronger meaning, without having to memorise it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to clarify, I already know about the &quot;but&quot; words in Chinese. I'm looking for a general rule that applies to words that have the same meaning, but a different intensity/strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6858" LastEditorUserId="6858" LastEditDate="2019-08-30T12:44:32.273" LastActivityDate="2019-09-29T13:02:15.227" Title="Is there a trick to find out the intensity of words with similar meanings?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10552" CreationDate="2014-11-28T03:30:35.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who told you there is an intensity difference there? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你觉得它们不一样，不过我不这么认为。&#xA;你觉得它们不一样，可是我不这么认为。&#xA;你觉得它们不一样，但是我不这么认为。&#xA;你觉得它们不一样，然而我不这么认为。&#xA;你觉得它们不一样，而我却不这么认为。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They sound absolutely the same to my ears. You use different words only because you want it to sound slightly more colorful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: I might be wrong. See discussions in the comments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway it is easy to remember:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不 in 不过: 4 strokes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可 in 可是: 5 strokes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;但 in 但是: 7 strokes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See? The intensity goes up with the strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;却 is a different beast and shouldn't be compared with these three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-11-28T06:47:26.013" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T06:47:26.013" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10454" CreationDate="2014-11-28T06:10:11.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When someone says or explains something obvious to other people, they usually say &quot;显而易见&quot;, which means &quot;it is obvious to everyone&quot; or &quot;it is easy to see&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6894" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T06:10:11.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10547" CreationDate="2014-11-28T10:23:16.333" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;论 ，there are two tones. second tone and fourth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mostly，论 is fourth tone.It is a verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.  一概而论、讨论&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only in the situation of 论语 ，论 is the second tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;论语 is an old book writtern by Confucius‘s students,recording what Confucius said!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6855" LastEditorUserId="6855" LastEditDate="2014-11-28T11:26:32.143" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T11:26:32.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10556" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-28T15:02:54.513" Score="3" ViewCount="381" Body="&lt;p&gt;I stumpled upon this phrase, unfortunately the verbatim meaning was not explained, only how it is used in a sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sentence pattern: 了不得了, sentence. &#xA;(first 了 read as liao2, second 了 as le)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了不得了 expresses, that the following sentence is a serious matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for instance: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了不得了, 你儿子被蛇吃完了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I understand the purpose of this phrase, but i can not understand what the very meaning (ethymology) of this phrase is. Is this phrase modern or classic Chinese, what is the verbatim translation of it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T14:57:48.780" Title="What is the verbatim meaning of the phrase 了不得了?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10547" CreationDate="2014-11-28T15:14:55.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be the 4th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, every &quot;论&quot; has the same meaning is the 4th tone, such as “讨论”(discuss) “理论”(theory). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“论” in the word “论语” is specially the 2nd tone because it doesn't means like that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the 论 is the 2nd tone, it should be in classical Chinese and means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;说得尽(some thing you want to say can be finished)(is always used  when there is so much thing you want to say but you can hardly finish them.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;表达，抒发(Express something you want to.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T09:18:34.430" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T09:18:34.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10556" CreationDate="2014-11-28T15:55:50.790" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's rare to use &quot;了不得了&quot; in Chinese, but using &quot;不得了了&quot;(Bu4 De2 Liao3 Le0) is more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &quot;不得了&quot;(Bu4 De2 Liao3) means that cannot be ignored and even extremely serious/important. The &quot;了&quot;(Le0) at last does not have any real meaning but just a short pause of the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's proper to say &quot;不得了了, 您儿子被蛇吃了!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verbatim meaning of the sentence above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It can't be ignored that, your son have been eaten by a snake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be careful don't confuse &quot;不得了&quot;(Bu4 De2 Liao3) with &quot;不得了&quot;(Bu4 De2 Le0) and &quot;得了&quot;(De2 Le0) and &quot;了不得&quot;(Liao3 Bu4 De2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6896" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T15:55:50.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10493" CreationDate="2014-11-28T16:45:40.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is something called 天干 (Celestial Stems) in China, namely 甲乙丙丁戊己庚辛壬癸. They are just used for literary or terminological alternatives for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Italian Serie A     意大利甲级联赛&#xA;Italian Serie B     意大利乙级联赛&#xA;&#xA;Hepatitis A         甲型肝炎&#xA;Hepatitis B         乙型肝炎 (usually 乙肝 for short)&#xA;Hepatitis C         丙型肝炎&#xA;Hepatitis D         丁型肝炎&#xA;Hepatitis E         戊型肝炎&#xA;&#xA;methane             甲烷&#xA;ethane              乙烷&#xA;propane             丙烷&#xA;butane              丁烷&#xA;pentane             戊烷&#xA;hexane              己烷&#xA;heptane             庚烷&#xA;octane              辛烷&#xA;nonane              壬烷&#xA;decane              癸烷&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, 甲 stands for &quot;number one&quot; or &quot;top one&quot;, extended meaning, &quot;the best one&quot; or &quot;the best&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore 甲天下 stands for 天下第一 (No.1 in the world).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2014-11-28T16:51:07.667" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T16:51:07.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10471" CreationDate="2014-11-28T17:37:39.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;文学家 is often used in Chinese, which stands for very famous persons with great achievement in literature, such as William Shakespeare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作者    author, writer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作家    author, writer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文学家  famous star in literature with great literary achievement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T05:23:29.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10466" CreationDate="2014-11-28T17:45:40.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, &quot;red&quot;, &quot;green&quot;, &quot;yellow&quot; can be used as adjectives or nouns. However, in Chinese, 红 绿 蓝 can only be used as adjectives. For nouns, the 色 suffix in mandatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;The color of the trousers is green.   这条裤子的颜色是绿色。  (noun)&#xA;This is a pair of green trousers.     这是一条绿裤子。/这是一条绿色的裤子。 (adjective)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T17:45:40.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10455" CreationDate="2014-11-28T17:53:03.180" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The official Chinese translation for &quot;Россия&quot; (Russia) is 俄罗斯.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full name of Russia is &quot;Российская Федерация&quot; (Russian Federation), and the official Chinese translation is 俄罗斯联邦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the year 1721 to 1917, the dynasty of Russia was called &quot;Российская империя&quot; (Russian Empire), and the official Chinese translation for that dynasty is 俄罗斯帝国, or 俄国 for short.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, don't use 俄国 unless you really mean the Russian Empire from the year 1721 to 1917.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Russian = the person of Russia = 俄罗斯人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, &quot;I am Russian&quot; should be &quot;我是俄罗斯人&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2014-11-28T18:00:15.163" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T18:00:15.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10563" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-28T23:07:35.097" Score="1" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;Compared to classical Chinese, there are mostly words composed of more than one word/character. &#xA;Especially the subgroup of VO-compoundwords (Verb Object) made from two characters have some special features, like the group of the lianheci. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One subgroup are VV-compoundverbs composed of two characters with similar or near synonyme verbal meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;for instance: 磨 = rub, 蹭 = rub， 磨蹭 = rub.&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is there a specific term for this group of compoundwords?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do they have some special grammar rules unique to them?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T15:35:46.287" Title="What are compound words called that are composed of words with similar meaning?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10563" CreationDate="2014-11-29T01:11:55.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are called &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/315070.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;同义复词&lt;/a&gt; (synonym compounds).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T01:11:55.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10563" CreationDate="2014-11-29T02:55:16.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You've asked an interesting question that the answer heavily depends on the example in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you see 磨蹭 as 'dillydally, stall', i.e. not a simple add-up of the characters, it is 联绵词 (binomes, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%81%AF%E7%B6%BF%E8%A9%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%81%AF%E7%B6%BF%E8%A9%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;). 联绵词 are words consist of two characters that are similar in pronunciation and/or meaning, but the meaning of the word is different from the individual characters (exceptions exist like 蝴蝶). You can find more information in the link. Some examples for verb binomes: 徘徊, 犹豫, 挣扎, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you see 磨蹭 as 'to rub' i.e. rhetorical repetition, it is 同义复词 (synonym-compound, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/315070.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;). Note 复词 means 'phrase' instead of 'word', usually they are created on demand (although idiomatic 'set phrases' exist) and dictionary doesn't list them. This type of phrase has no grammatical significance over other types of phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T02:55:16.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10552" CreationDate="2014-11-29T07:58:13.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the biggest difference between these words is the context. We only use 却 in writing but we will never say 却 in a conversation. Meanwhile, we use 不过 more often than not in speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose 不过》可是》但是》却 sorts by the context. There is no difference of intensity between them.They are unlike &quot;although&quot; and &quot;but&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm really not good at English and it is my first time to visit the website. I don't know if you get my point. You can reply me whenever you get confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6862" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-11-29T11:23:31.430" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T11:23:31.430" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10556" CreationDate="2014-11-29T14:39:04.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No one is sure how it came into being, but it did appear in classic text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First let's talk about &lt;code&gt;了得&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;得&lt;/code&gt; simply means &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;to get&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;. &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; could have several meanings, notably:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To learn, to know&lt;/strong&gt;, as in &lt;code&gt;了解&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To finish, to give up&lt;/strong&gt;, as in &lt;code&gt;了却&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both these two meanings are seen in classic usage of &lt;code&gt;了得&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宋[1] 《朱子语类》卷八：“大凡学者，无有径截一路，可以教他了得。”—— For anyone who is pursuing knowledge, there is no shortcut, that could teach him to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宋 苏轼 《与王定国书》：“某自謫居以来，可了得易传九卷，论语五卷。”—— I've finished 9 chapters of 易传 and 5 chapters of 论语 since I've been demoted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we also have &lt;code&gt;了得&lt;/code&gt; that means &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;extraordinary, remarkable, capable&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; in classical text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唐[2] 李山甫 《游侠儿》诗：“ 荆轲只为闲言语，不与燕丹了得人。”—— It's because of fear of rumors that 荆轲 did what he did[3], not because 燕丹 is a remarkable personality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;了得&lt;/code&gt; is quite an ancient word. I couldn't find the origin of the last meaning, but from the first two meanings, you have someone who &lt;em&gt;learns&lt;/em&gt;, and you have someone who &lt;em&gt;gets things done&lt;/em&gt;, isn't that &lt;em&gt;remarkable&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;了得&lt;/code&gt; also exists in &lt;code&gt;这还了得&lt;/code&gt; as a negative remark on something bad, like saying &amp;quot;How is this for gratitude&amp;quot;, which means no gratitude at all:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《红楼梦》第五十回：“这还了得！他（画图）竟比盖这园子还费工夫了。”——How &lt;strong&gt;unbelievable&lt;/strong&gt;! It takes more time painting the garden than actually building it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;[1] Song dynasty, 960 - 1279 A.D.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;[2] Tang dynasty, 618 - 907 A.D.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;[3] He tried to assassinate 秦始皇, the first emperor of Qin, but failed and was killed.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;了不得&lt;/code&gt; is kind of a negative form of &lt;code&gt;了得&lt;/code&gt;. It is also quite old. Here are also some usage examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Indicates that something bad is happening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宋 庄绰 《鸡肋编》：“ 徐与同官王昌俱访大节，忽言病来。又曰：‘了不得！了不得！且救我。’遂倒仆。”—— This gentleman Xu suddenly caught sick, saying &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;My goodness!&lt;/strong&gt; My goodness! Help me&amp;quot;, then he fell flat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Indicates abundance in quantity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《红楼梦》第九三回：“宝玉喜欢的了不得。” ——宝玉 likes &lt;strong&gt;very much&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a negative form, &lt;code&gt;了不得&lt;/code&gt; was mostly used for bad things. But as time goes by, the boundary seems to have been blurred a bit. &lt;code&gt;了不得&lt;/code&gt; seems to mean &lt;code&gt;了不起&lt;/code&gt; in some cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References from website 汉典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/6/4/8901.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;了得&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/6/13f/309511.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;了不得&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll refrain from the talking about these two because it's going to get muddy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/7/77/120516.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;得了&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/d/142/310808.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不得了&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T14:57:48.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10138" CreationDate="2014-11-29T15:03:30.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It will be much easier for me to explain it in Chinese.QAQ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;What are the rules to put a grammatically correct adverbial phrase together?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;v.+adv./adv.+v.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;run fast 跑得快&#xA;quikly open the door 迅速地打开门&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adv.+adj.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;very good 非常好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same as we use in English.I think most of the rules are the same.&#xA;When we use 地（adv+v）and 得（v+adv）depends on the usage of adverbial.&#xA;We use 得（v+adv）as a supplement to describe verb（补语）.For example,we can say 跑得快（run fast） not 迅速地跑（quickly run）.But we can say 迅速地跑出教室（quickly run out of the classroom）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;How long can a complex adverbial phrase become?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Agree with Answer 1,as long as you like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Can a Chinese sentence contain more than one adverbial phrase?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's easy.Unlike adjective,there are barely any rules.If you can find some ,like direction,depth,etc.Put adverbial phrases in order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adverbial phrases like 现在立刻马上,they are not correct.We can not say it on formal occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6862" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T15:03:30.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10533" CreationDate="2014-11-29T15:12:41.827" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only describe the number of property who owns can use 套：&#xA;Tom has 3套房子 in Beijing. He want to sell one of them for operation cost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6901" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T15:12:41.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10467" CreationDate="2014-11-29T15:20:25.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I'm not sure if you saw that in 枪打出头鸟.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means the gun always shoot the bird which always show off. Elder in family teach children keep low profile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6901" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T15:20:25.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10563" CreationDate="2014-11-29T15:35:46.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you see 磨蹭 alone,磨蹭 is a derogatory term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;快点儿，要迟到了。你还磨蹭什么呢？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you see specific none after 磨蹭, it is a verb.(very rare in Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He stood outside and 磨蹭着双腿.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6901" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T15:35:46.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9833" CreationDate="2014-11-29T16:25:03.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, firstly, congratulation to you that you find a high frequency word in SPEAKING Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will list some different occasions you can use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Describe someone or something is the No.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jobs is 一个牛逼的人. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Question or describe someone who is arrogant and unruly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闯红灯还这么牛逼. or 你牛逼什么？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you know someone did unbelievable things(bad things（illegal or wicked or stupid） but none of your business) and that complex feeling makes you cannot say anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Did you hear that? Sam(a nice guy) beat up the professor in lecture this morning.&#xA;-牛逼.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ps: No one should use it in presentation. You can say it with your sworn friends, because 逼 is&#xA;dirty word in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6901" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T16:25:03.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10518" CreationDate="2014-11-29T23:28:17.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are working for a eatery, &quot;外卖&quot; is more native because you need to get out of the building to bring your customers food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;送餐&quot; usually appears in hotels or somewhere else like that. It's a bit formal because the food is prepared by advanced chefs and they are finely laid out but they are just sent to your room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;送饭&quot; is the worst, I suppose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T23:28:17.050" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10496" CreationDate="2014-11-30T00:20:03.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are all brand names, I suppose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Chinese, I hate these...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in chinas, remember that: &lt;strong&gt;Thinner Is Better&lt;/strong&gt; (Some gorgeous chinas will let the light go through). And the best chinas in China are always produced in 景德镇.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;And notice if you found a bowl with &quot;**朝****年制&quot; on a high price, never buy it. They are forgery.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T00:20:03.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10493" CreationDate="2014-11-30T06:02:23.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient China, sometimes the part of speech of a word will change according to the usage in the sentence or in some special condition. It is called 詞性活用.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;桂林山水甲天下, 甲 originally is used as an adjective,means the first or the best. For example, 甲級(first class). However, in here, 甲 is used a a verb which means 桂林山水is named as the best or the no.1 landscape in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;桂林山水天下 doesn't make sense as it just mean 'landscape of Guilin in the world'. This sentence miss a verb so it can't be a sentence and it doesn't mean anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of 詞性活用 is 孟嘗君客我. 客 is a noun, but in here, the writer used it as a verb. That means 孟嘗君把我當作客人 (孟嘗君 looks me as a visitor.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, in nowadays, Chinese rarely use 詞性活用 in daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope it can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6902" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T06:02:23.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10578" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10581" CreationDate="2014-11-30T10:13:03.310" Score="3" ViewCount="796" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;慢慢来。&#xA;Take your time.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It consists of an adjective and verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 慢慢 is an adjective but used in an adverbal way, I assume that this one below should be the original form of 慢慢来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;慢慢 + 地 + 来。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried googling with that, and found it used many times. (not as many though)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So are 慢慢来 and 慢慢地来 the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6131" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T19:44:24.787" Title="慢慢来 is the same as 慢慢地来？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10578" CreationDate="2014-11-30T11:40:07.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not really, 慢慢来 is much more used in speaking Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;慢慢来, you can do it well, finally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you see 慢慢地来, the 慢慢地 is a adv. of v.(来), so you can only use it when you speak to someone who 来 meet you.(It can also be instead by 慢慢来)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6901" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T11:40:07.050" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10493" CreationDate="2014-11-30T13:37:13.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 甲 means people think something is the best, so the whole sentence means people think the landscape of Guilin is the best of the world, as same as it, also have 洛阳牡丹甲天下. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T13:37:13.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10578" CreationDate="2014-11-30T19:44:24.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Syntactically they are the same.&lt;/strong&gt; 地 following adverb can be omitted in spoken language and in many cases, written language too. In ordinary cases, the omission does not change the meaning or the tone of the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, however, &lt;strong&gt;the meanings are different.&lt;/strong&gt; As the other answer suggested, &lt;code&gt;慢慢地来&lt;/code&gt; is just an ordinary phrase meaning &lt;code&gt;come slowly; proceed slowly&lt;/code&gt;, mostly used in narratives, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他慢慢地来了。He came slowly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the above example sounds lack a point. In real life usage, it is more natural to specify the action verb, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老人扶着拐杖，慢慢(地)走过来了。Supporting himself with a cane, the old man was slowly coming over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, &lt;code&gt;慢慢来&lt;/code&gt; is always used for its metaphorical meaning &lt;code&gt;take your time; take it easy&lt;/code&gt;. It's mostly used as an imperative instead of narrative:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没关系，慢慢来。Don't worry, take your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;慢慢来，小心点。Take it slowly and be careful! (as when someone is moving an antique for you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a situation where 慢慢来 is used in a narrative sentence and interchangeable with 慢慢地来. They are used as adjective or adverbial phrase as opposed to predicative phrase. Note how the following examples are narratives from 3rd person view, although you can use them to make suggestions to the listener just like using imperative sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;感情的事要慢慢(地)来。Love cannot be forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这种类型的工作要慢慢(地)来。This kind of job takes time and patience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T19:44:24.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10582" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-01T01:30:23.800" Score="1" ViewCount="756" Body="&lt;p&gt;After many attempts to understand how the sentence is grammatically structured, I think I'll just ask here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence &quot;我還以為他不走了呢&quot; is from a children's book that was originally in English. I'm confused as to what the function of 還, 了, and 呢 is in this sentence. Is there some kind of sentence pattern?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English translation of it is :I thought he'd never leave.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found there's a &quot;以為...呢&quot; sentence pattern, which is used for denoting a past action that one believed to be true, but turns out to be false. Is there any other function to 呢 in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 了 in this sentence acting as a sentence-end 了 (modal particle) or as a perfective aspect particle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 還 indicate 'unexpectedness' or does it means 'really'? Or does it indicate/mean something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found another sentence pattern, &quot;還...呢&quot;, which is for an action that's still continuing and persisting. It could be translated as &quot;still&quot; added to the sentence. But that doesn't make sense to me for this particular sentence, so I don't think it's relevant in this case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help is appreciated. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6593" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-12-02T06:40:41.873" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T04:07:32.113" Title="What’s the function of 還, 了, and 呢 in the sentence, “我還以為他不走了呢”?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9869" CreationDate="2014-12-01T03:35:20.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;聊斋 is the name of the study room of the author.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;斋 means a small room or house. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;聊 is the name of that house.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In ancient China, a writer usually refers himself with the name of his room or his hometown.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The author 蒲松龄 called himself 聊斋先生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;志异 means to record something weird.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;志 usually is used as a noun such as 日志 (daily record or log), In classic Chinese, sometimes you can use a noun like a verb. So here, it means to record something.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;异 is a adjective means weird. In this case, it is used as a noun that means weird things.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 聊斋志异 means something weird recorded by 聊斋先生 . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6906" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T03:35:20.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9699" CreationDate="2014-12-01T03:47:28.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;但愿&#xA;但 means only.&#xA;愿 means hopefully.&#xA;So 'if only' is the most accurate translation of 但愿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6906" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T03:47:28.477" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10585" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10587" CreationDate="2014-12-01T04:39:48.510" Score="3" ViewCount="436" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker but I don't know the first thing about writing Chinese, on Rosetta stone we were shown 一支笔 and 一只狗, whats the difference and where and when do you use each one? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6903" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:39:11.733" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:39:11.733" Title="Difference between 只,之, and 支?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10582" CreationDate="2014-12-01T05:58:58.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am  a native speaker, but keep in mind that some native speakers suck at grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呢 just adds to the tone and doesn't really mean much, but if left out in some sentences, the sentences would not sound natural. I guess you're right about the “以為‧‧‧呢” sentence pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 here indicates an action done, like the past participle tense. 不走了 means &quot;(decided) not to leave&quot;. Interestingly, 了 can sometimes also function like the present progressive tense, too. For example, 我走了 means &quot;I'm leaving&quot;. Therefore, I think that sentence may also be translated as &quot;And I thought he's not leaving / decided not to leave.&quot; Note that even though 決定 (decided) isn't in the original sentence, I feel that it is not a bad translation because an action done is a decision made anyways, whether or not that decision was made consciously. Anyhow, I can probably explain it better if I know the context well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;還, as you said, indicates 'unexpectedness' in that sentence when paired with “以為‧‧‧呢”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of the “還‧‧‧呢” sentence pattern used for an action that’s still continuing and persisting would be 我還在吃飯呢！ &quot;I'm still eating!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6460" LastEditorUserId="6460" LastEditDate="2014-12-02T09:58:27.600" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T09:58:27.600" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10585" CreationDate="2014-12-01T06:16:21.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;只 is the measure word for boats, birds, some animals, some containers, and one of certain paired things, e.g. 一只船 [yī zhī chuán,] 两只老虎 [liǎng zhī lǎohǔ,] 两只手 [liǎng zhī shǒu.] 只 is also the character for the adverb only/just/merely, when pronounced as [zhǐ.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;支 is the measure word for long, thin, inflexible objects, e.g. 一支香烟 [yī zhī xiāngyān,] 两支笔 [liǎng zhī bǐ.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 is the one that doesn't fit here, because it's not a measure word/classifier, it is the literary equivalent of 的 [de], as well as some other things, usually in a formal context (so you'll find it in 成语 [chéng yǔ,] used in place of an objective noun or pronoun, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See Wikipedia for a pretty big list of classifiers: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_classifiers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_classifiers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="3561" LastEditDate="2014-12-01T06:24:55.173" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T06:24:55.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10589" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10631" CreationDate="2014-12-01T11:58:14.080" Score="0" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese articles I often find these long, never-ending, main-point-less sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance check out these three sentence-paragraphs from &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhangjiangjian.baijia.baidu.com/article/38219&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this news article (&quot;请给90后创业者多一些宽容&quot;)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;尽管随后余佳文在微博上专门发文针对知呼上对其学历、融资额、用户数据等等质疑做了相应回应，但是从舆论上依然负面不断，尤其是与之前马佳佳的炒作放在一起，总的来说给人一种90后创业者“不靠谱”的感觉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;与很多创业项目不同的是，这个被推到风口浪尖的超级课程表团队基本都是出身草根的90后，没有显赫的背景、华丽的学历、光鲜的职业履历，白手起家硬生生从零开始做到成功拿下阿里的风险投资，不管盈利多少、用户多少、融资多少，能走得到这个阶段当属不易。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果真有错，就错在这位90后CEO太过高调，打破了华南地区创业者一向低调务实的传统，更是广东地区的创业者罕有的登上了中国互联网圈子的头条，之前的马佳佳、郝畅、雕爷的案例基本都诞生于京城，很少有外地的案例引起主流互联网圈子的关注。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this just &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt; writing, or is there no such thing as a run on sentence in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T04:17:20.367" Title="Is there such a thing as a run-on-sentence in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10582" CreationDate="2014-12-01T12:30:00.627" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, 不...了 means &quot;not...anymore&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess the sentence should be &quot;I still thought he wasn`t leaving anymore&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2014-12-01T13:59:07.643" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T13:59:07.643" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10591" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10595" CreationDate="2014-12-01T12:49:11.973" Score="1" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've tried to use the transition &quot;similarly&quot; multiple times in Chinese, but I've gotten mixed feedback on how I should say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been told I should say &quot;同样的“ and not 同样  like &quot;John 这几天因为党军的原因不会来上课“ 同样的， Clarence 因为 Navy 的原因也不会来上课”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, however  I wrote &quot;同样的，《丈夫》的婚姻 也有一些性别歧视的因素。&quot;, which got changed to &quot;同样&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone comment on which is preferred?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T15:49:54.660" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T15:49:54.660" Title="How to say “similarly&quot; as a transition?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10582" CreationDate="2014-12-01T12:52:12.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.我还以为他不走了呢！&#xA;2.我还以为他不走了！&#xA;3.我以为他不走了呢！&#xA;4.我以为他不走了。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我还以为他不走了呢&quot; which means&quot;我以为他不走了&quot;can be translated &quot;I thought he'd not leave.&quot;In this sentence,we use&quot;还&quot;and&quot;呢&quot;to emphasize,which as you mentioned,indicated ‘unexpectedness’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;还……呢&quot;means emphasis.It can indicate more than unexpectedness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;-我还没吃过呢!&#xA;-I haven't eat yet.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“了”is a perfective aspect particle.Otherwise,“我还以为他不走呢”could be misunderstanded as &quot;i thought he would never walk&quot;(he would drive).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6862" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T12:52:12.377" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10589" CreationDate="2014-12-01T13:05:19.347" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well,it contains a lot of information in one sentence.In my view,the weakness of this article is paragraphing.The author tried to gather the information in one sentence regardless of paragraph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6862" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T13:05:19.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10048" CreationDate="2014-12-01T13:21:09.597" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll add a bit more into your formula:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S + time + at... + from... + with(someone) + with/using(tool) + to/for(someone) + [把(O)] + V + 了/过/着 + O + 了 + 吗/呢/吧/啊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;主 + 时 + 在 + 从 + 跟/和 + 用/坐 + 给 + [把(宾)] + 动 + 了/过/着 + 宾 + 了 + 吗/呢/吧/啊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's what I've figured out so far. It might not be that accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T13:21:09.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10591" CreationDate="2014-12-01T14:21:26.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, there is no different meaning between 同样的 and 同样 when we use them to connect two sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in my experience, 同样的 is used to connect two short sentences, like your first example. Tom swims well, 同样的, John can swim with three styles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同样 is used start a new sentence. Tom is not rich, but he is really a nice guy. 同样, even John is disabled, but he try his best to take care of himself and help more people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In speaking Chinese, you can ignore this. Because the pronunciation of 的 in 同样的 can speak like the “d” in yard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6901" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T14:21:26.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10596" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10598" CreationDate="2014-12-01T14:37:16.770" Score="4" ViewCount="1423" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please, &lt;strong&gt;don't explain when&lt;/strong&gt; to use 得 or 地. I already know that the grammar difference between them both, which is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V 得 adjective (老师话说得很快。)&#xA;adverb 地 V (老师快快地说话。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also there are many posts on this forum related to the above issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What has been bothering me for a long time is if there is any (tiny) difference in &lt;strong&gt;meaning&lt;/strong&gt; between both sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I use both structures interchangeably &lt;strong&gt;anytime&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他跑步跑得很快。 vs 他很快地跑步。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你字写得很漂亮。 vs 你漂亮地写字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他汉语说得很流利。 vs 他流利地说汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T11:38:21.770" Title="Difference in MEANING (NOT structure) between 得 vs 地" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10596" CreationDate="2014-12-01T16:12:21.653" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, yes. there are some differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example , the differences between 他跑步跑得很快。 vs 他很快地跑步。 &#xA;are exactly differences between &quot;He runs fast!&quot; vs &quot;He is running fast&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他跑步跑得很快 emphasize quickly or fast while &quot;他很快地跑步&quot; emphasize the verb &quot;run&quot;.&#xA;So. if no context, when you say &quot;他跑步跑得很快&quot;, you probably are describing the man's speed, and when you say &quot;他很快地跑步&quot;, you probably mean that he is running or he was running.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is not absolute.you could still say 他正在跑步,而且他跑步跑的很快. It's still correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6909" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T16:12:21.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10601" CreationDate="2014-12-01T18:41:09.930" Score="1" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;A book on function words contains the example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;管他说什么呢， 你不听不就得了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first part is simple: 管他说什么呢 = &quot;no matter what&quot; s.o. says (管 as conjunction). The second part however is unclear to me. Is there some special pattern, complement or whatever contained?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6673" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-12-02T06:36:06.190" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T06:36:06.190" Title="What grammatical elements are contained in the sentence 你不听不就得了?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10596" CreationDate="2014-12-01T20:27:29.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To make appear the semantic difference clearly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他跑步跑得很快 : he runs.. very fast! Likely pointing out he is a very fast runner, an athletic sprinter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很快地跑步 : he is fast going by running. You are pointing out he is fast (running) after something, moving this fast is not expected, he may be late for something, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is structural and contextual. The action of running is qualified (1) or the the fastness is qualified by the way it is done (2). Yet, in real life, the context of what you see in front of you, the general tone, will add the missing information you need, and both structures could be used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;Can I use both structures interchangeably anytime?&quot;... the context help you, and native speakers are NOT grammar teachers. They may themselves use both when faced a single situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3212" LastEditorUserId="3212" LastEditDate="2017-01-13T11:38:21.770" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T11:38:21.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10599" CreationDate="2014-12-01T20:37:53.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The components are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你不听: &quot;you don't listen&quot;, of course.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不就 ... (吗): colloquial element, &quot;isn't just that...?&quot;, &quot;nothing other than...&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(analyzed into 就 + rhetorical question)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得了: colloquial element, &quot;fine with it&quot;, &quot;enough&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put all together:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你不听不就得了(吗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  lit. &lt;em&gt;You don't listen to him, then isn't it just fine?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;&quot;Why don't you just ignore him!&quot;&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;&quot;Is there any problem with ignoring him?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6912" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T20:37:53.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10589" CreationDate="2014-12-02T02:01:42.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is really perfect writing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽管随后余佳文在微博上专门发文针对知呼上对其学历、融资额、用户数据等等质疑做了相应回应，但是从舆论上(余佳文)依然负面不断，尤其是与之前马佳佳的炒作放在一起，总的来说（余佳文）给人一种90后创业者“不靠谱”的感觉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see the whole sentences has one common subject-(余佳文). And you can find associated words are used to combine the short sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know you confused why not divide them into two part at the beginning of 尤其. But if you analysis as follow you may understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly,尽管随后余佳文在微博上专门发文针对知呼上对其学历、融资额、用户数据等等质疑做了相应回应，但是从舆论上(余佳文)依然负面不断. It is a complete sentence。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then,尤其是与之前马佳佳的炒作放在一起. You can find there is no subject. It should be：&#xA;尤其是 (余佳文负面不断这件事) &lt;strong&gt;与&lt;/strong&gt; 之前马佳佳的炒作放在一起. So, the first part cannot be end. It be used as subject of second part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, 尤其是(余佳文负面不断这件事)与之前马佳佳的炒作放在一起，总的来说给人一种90后创业者“不靠谱”的感觉。 The structure &quot;Combined with xxx, I think it is not a good idea.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, how do you think about that. I have to say, it is really professional writing. In China, most student in university cannot reach this level. So, don't care about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6901" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T02:01:42.000" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10591" CreationDate="2014-12-02T02:20:05.500" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest the following&#xA;...的原因不会来上课， Clarence 也同样的因为 Navy 的原因也不会来上课..&#xA;Grammatically, the second sentence seems correct to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同样的 is usually for linkage followed by more description. 同样 means similar, but it a more formal word. I don't see it use in conversations unlike its contrary counter part '不同'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before you start stringing sentences, maybe you should try to improve the vocab first. Free apps like HSK Locker with flashcard and quiz features can help familiarize yourself with the words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6915" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T02:20:05.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10465" CreationDate="2014-12-02T07:13:40.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about 台 and 臺？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;台 is both &quot;simplified&quot; and &quot;alternative&quot;, 臺 is &quot;traditional&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;臺 seems to be the &quot;correct&quot; traditional form for Taiwan, but I've never seen it in reference to Taishan (台山) in Guangdong, even in all references pre-1949, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is it determined in &quot;traditional&quot; usage when to use the one or the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In simplified usage 台 is just used all the time.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6918" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T07:13:40.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10607" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-02T07:17:50.330" Score="8" ViewCount="1805" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 台 and 臺？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;台 is both &quot;simplified&quot; and &quot;alternative&quot;, 臺 is &quot;traditional&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;臺 seems to be the &quot;correct&quot; traditional form for Taiwan, but I've never seen it in reference to Taishan (台山) in Guangdong, even in all references pre-1949, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is it determined in &quot;traditional&quot; usage when to use the one or the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In simplified usage 台 is just used all the time, correct?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6918" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T13:34:21.553" Title="What is the difference between 台 and 臺？" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10608" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10610" CreationDate="2014-12-02T08:48:52.263" Score="2" ViewCount="772" Body="&lt;p&gt;Heard this on TVB: 原地踏步. What does the phrase mean? There's nothing in the Cantonese dictionary for this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T16:19:58.437" Title="What does 原地踏步 mean in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10607" CreationDate="2014-12-02T08:51:06.863" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between 台 and 臺 is that 台 is a 简体字, 臺 is a 繁体字. The meaning of 台 and 臺 is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two kinds of Chinese characters, Traditional Chinese (繁體字) and Simplified  Chinese (简体字).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, people use Traditional Chinese, but in the mainland, people use Simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient China, people used Traditional Chinese. Around 1910, the Simplified Chinese appeared. Then the Chinese mainland use Simplified Chinese, Taiwan kept using Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese is used more often, which is the official language of China. And it is written more easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to determine, people from Taiwan use Traditional Chinese, people from the mainland use Simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, you can study Simplified Chinese first, because both of them can understand Simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In simplified usage 台 is just used all the time, correct?) yes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6855" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-12-02T10:58:27.730" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T10:58:27.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10608" CreationDate="2014-12-02T09:11:12.340" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, 原地踏步 is not a Cantonese phrase, it's just a Chinese phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal meaning is marking time, and it's often used to describe a situation that one doesn't make progress or fall behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;班长命令战士们原地踏步.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The squad leader ordered the men to mark time.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我要么原地踏步直到获得晋升（这看来得是几年以后的事了），要么改变现在正做的事情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could either tread water until I was promoted, which looked to be a few years away, or I could change what I was doing.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T09:19:43.150" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T09:19:43.150" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10607" CreationDate="2014-12-02T10:17:44.793" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In simplified Chinese, both would be 台, easy peasy. Otherwise, things get a little complicated. Sometimes 台 is just an alternative form for 臺, which is the case for Taiwan: you can write 臺灣 or 台灣, both are acceptable, though the former is considered more formal. In the case of 台山, that is the correct name already, so you can't write 臺山 because 臺 is not an alternative form of 台. Also, for place names like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taizhou,_Zhejiang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;台州&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiantai_Mountain&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;天台山&lt;/a&gt;, the pronunciation of 台 is a little different from normal, all the more reason that you can't always choose to substitute 台 with 臺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't be fooled by the Traditional and Simplified Chinese bisection. Only very little Simplified Chinese characters were invented to replace the old ones. Most Simplified Chinese characters were either the archaic but &quot;correct&quot; forms or were simpler variants of the &quot;correct&quot; characters. In fact, many &quot;traditional Chinese&quot; characters are actually much simpler (having fewer strokes) than some of the variants, so 繁體字 is a misnomer, and as for 正體字, what is the &quot;correct&quot; way to write a certain character? Is there a &quot;correct&quot; way to write those characters? Defined by whom? It is not just black and white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is hard, and I think the more I learn about Chinese, the harder it gets. I think the best way to learn when to use 臺 and not 台 and vice versa is to just remember each instance and go by the ones most people use even if that usage is not correct semantically. Occasionally, you may want to consult a reference such as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dictionary of Variants&lt;/a&gt; published by the MOE of Taiwan, in which you'll find that 台 and 臺 are originally two different words with similar pronunciation, but 台 has been borrowed as a substitute for 臺 and has therefore acquired the pronunciation and meaning of 臺. One definition of 臺 is &quot;stage&quot;, and of 台 is (originally) &quot;delight&quot;, interchangeable with 怡. Keep in mind though, that it is just ONE reference, the fact that it's &quot;official&quot; doesn't mean it's always correct or reflects what most people use, even in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6460" LastEditorUserId="6460" LastEditDate="2016-09-27T19:56:29.397" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T19:56:29.397" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10612" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10613" CreationDate="2014-12-02T11:00:09.593" Score="2" ViewCount="5228" Body="&lt;p&gt;Conversation example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Take that box upstairs!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: &lt;strong&gt;Wait.&lt;/strong&gt; (while he is busy doing something else).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to say that &lt;strong&gt;wait&lt;/strong&gt; in conversational Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel 等一下 is too long. If you know Hokkien (Min Nan) language, people can say: tan lah.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think 等啦 has equivalent feel with Hokkien &quot;tan lah&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T12:26:50.550" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T12:26:50.550" Title="How to answer &quot;wait&quot; in a conversation in simple Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10612" CreationDate="2014-12-02T13:23:00.280" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;等一下 is fine, but if you want shorter answers, there are other options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;等等：pretty much the same as 等一下&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;馬上：means immediately, will be there in a moment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the two word answers I can think of right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6460" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T13:23:00.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10612" CreationDate="2014-12-02T14:03:03.533" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may say 稍等. It is more polite than 等等.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6920" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T14:03:03.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10449" CreationDate="2014-12-02T14:09:04.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best choice of word for &amp;quot;attached to X&amp;quot; really depends on the context, but a general one would be 牵绊, though to my understanding it is most often used on intangible or non-specific things and may come off as sounding a bit literary. The meaning of 牵绊 is more towards &amp;quot;being chained or detained&amp;quot; and usually has the connotation of X being a burden to the person as viewed objectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们出家人，并无闲事缠扰，又无儿女&lt;strong&gt;牵绊&lt;/strong&gt;，终日诵经念佛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We monks are not bothered by frivolous matters, nor are we &lt;strong&gt;bound by&lt;/strong&gt; our children, we just chant the Buddhist mantras all day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因此，亲爱的孩子们，要使自己脱离一切事物的&lt;strong&gt;牵绊&lt;/strong&gt;，只将你们的时间奉献给天主。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, dear children, devoid yourselves of all &lt;strong&gt;attachments&lt;/strong&gt; and devote your times only to the Lord.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不要成为他事业上的&lt;strong&gt;牵绊&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't you become a &lt;strong&gt;drag&lt;/strong&gt; to his career.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6460" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T19:35:10.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10449" CreationDate="2014-12-02T16:38:30.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on the whole context and scenarios. If the &quot;X&quot; you are attached to is a positive and good thing like &quot;reading books&quot; or &quot;good, happy moments&quot;, then i would prefer &quot;yi lian&quot; ,&quot;zhong shi&quot;, otherwise, if what you are attached to is bad or negative, i would choose &quot;mi lian&quot;&quot;zhi zhuo&quot;.&#xA;hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6921" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T16:38:30.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10619" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10620" CreationDate="2014-12-03T00:46:36.380" Score="4" ViewCount="1346" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my Chinese class notes these two sentences appear:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是南非人&#xA;and&#xA;我在看节目&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the one use 我是 and the other 我在?&#xA;Is there a rule/guidelines to help me decide which one to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&#xA;Jaco&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4615" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T23:07:32.667" Title="When to use 我是 vs 我在" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10619" CreationDate="2014-12-03T01:06:39.060" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 (verb) means &quot;is, am, are, to be, yes&quot; while 在 (verb) means &quot;at, to be in, to exist&quot;, or is a short form of 正在 (adverb,) which is used to indicate an action in progress. 是 is the confirmation of a state of being, whereas 在 is a confirmation of a location, or indicates that you are in the middle of/in the process of doing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是 (verb) + noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you want to use &quot;I am [x]&quot; where [x] could be a student/a teacher/an old man/a young girl/a lawyer, that's when you use 是. What comes after it is a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 我是留学生。你是哪国人？她是我女朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在 (verb) + place name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where you want to use &quot;I am at [x]&quot; where [x] is a place like Beijing/America/etc., that's when you use 在. What comes after it is a place name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 我在北京学习汉语。你在哪儿？他在美国旅行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;正在/正/在 (adverb) + verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you want to indicate a continuing action &quot;I am currently [x]&quot; where [x] is a verb like reading a book/watching TV/cooking dinner, you use 正在/正/在. What comes after it is a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 我正在看电视。你在想什么？她正做饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="3561" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T01:24:03.027" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T01:24:03.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10619" CreationDate="2014-12-03T02:06:21.447" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我是 means 'I am something', while 我在 in your sentence is the abbreviation of 我正在, which means 'I am doing something'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6928" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T02:06:21.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9833" CreationDate="2014-12-03T02:46:24.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;OMG, awesome, amazing&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6936" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T02:46:24.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10528" CreationDate="2014-12-03T02:52:03.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Means &quot;more often&quot; or &quot;it's better to do sth&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6936" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T02:52:03.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10607" CreationDate="2014-12-03T03:41:11.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Traditional Chinese, 台 and 臺 are two different characters with different meanings, but which have the same pronunciation in Mandarin and other dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Simplified Chinese, there is only the character 台, and no 臺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mapping from Traditional to Simplified is (essentially) many-to-one. Both the Traditional Chinese characters 台 and 臺 are mapped to the Simplified Chinese character 台.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not confuse the Traditional Chinese 台 with the Simplified Chinese 台. Although it is the same glyph, they have different meanings, because the Simplified Chinese 台 could mean Traditional Chinese 台 or Traditional Chinese 臺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Traditional Chinese, Taiwan is written as either 臺灣 or 台灣 (hence in Simplified Chinese it is written as 台湾). However, in Traditional Chinese, Taishan is only written as 台山 (in Simplified Chinese as 台山). From looking at Simplified Chinese, it is impossible to tell that the &quot;Tai&quot; in Taiwan and Taishan have different treatment in Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5978" LastEditorUserId="5978" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T11:00:55.727" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T11:00:55.727" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10589" CreationDate="2014-12-03T04:17:20.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, this is some quite advanced writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And no, there's no such a thing as run-on sentence in Chinese. At least not exactly as in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure used in this article is called 排比(parallelism, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%8E%92%E6%AF%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%8E%92%E6%AF%94&lt;/a&gt;). Parallelism is &amp;quot;a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look carefully, you can identify multiple groups of phrases with similar pattern describing a common subjective/objective:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个被推到风口浪尖的超级课程表团队基本都是出身草根的90后，没有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;显赫的背景、&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;华丽的学历、&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;光鲜的职业履历，&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白手起家硬生生从零开始做到成功拿下阿里的风险投资，不管&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;盈利多少、&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;用户多少、&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;融资多少，&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能走得到这个阶段当属不易。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also consider it phonetically. This kind of structures are usually used in a speech or a debate. Because of those similar structures, when you say it out loud, you'll get nice rhythm, stronger/firmer tone and look more confident in your content in front of your listeners. It helps with getting your ideas across or intimidating your opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People are always looking for patterns in stuff (even when it's not there). Just give it to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6950" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T04:17:20.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10632" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-03T05:18:25.837" Score="2" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually 2 questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Are these sentences all good Chinese?&#xA;2) If they are acceptable Chinese, is there any difference in meaning between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;请问您这个职位缺了多久了？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;请问您这个职位缺多久了？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;请问您这个职位缺了多久？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6964" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T16:10:02.650" Title="请问您这个职位缺了多久了？Can I lose one 了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10632" CreationDate="2014-12-03T05:47:08.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are almost the same, but the first and second sentences keep the last 了, so they are more colloquial. And the third one omits the last 了，so it sounds more serious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 了 sometimes can express a kind of state, for example, 自行车修好了，the bicycle has been fixed. 吃过了，I have already eaten. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the second 了 is a modal particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6965" LastEditorUserId="6965" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T15:28:37.130" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T15:28:37.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10632" CreationDate="2014-12-03T06:04:58.237" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first one is better, just like you are asking somebody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can say any one of those sentence and people can understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, you can say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请问您这个职位空缺了多久了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T08:19:09.233" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T08:19:09.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10635" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10639" CreationDate="2014-12-03T06:36:27.440" Score="3" ViewCount="658" Body="&lt;p&gt;The radical 阜 and its other form 阝, used on the left, supposedly means mound or dam. Looking at image web search hits for 阜 or 阝, I get nothing related to dam or mound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look up the Chinese translation of the words dam and mound, I get 水坝, 大坝, 土丘. None of which even contains 阜 or 阝.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is going on? Are the Chinese trying to fool me? :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6967" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-12-06T04:54:11.357" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T03:43:15.823" Title="Radical meaning vs characters in use" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10635" CreationDate="2014-12-03T06:50:35.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you do, you just have to look further down the results of Google image search (and I wasn't expecting the top most images =.=). However, I don't think 阜 means dam, but it does mean mound, though in 99% cases it would be 土丘 or some other words because 阜 does not appear in conversational Chinese as far as I know. You get images related to ears because 阝 looks like an ear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6460" LastEditorUserId="6460" LastEditDate="2014-12-30T01:47:44.537" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T01:47:44.537" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="755" CreationDate="2014-12-03T08:09:54.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another case: 二两肉. It means 100g of meat here, but not twenty-two (g) meat!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such cases, 两 is used as measurement unit - 50 grams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6973" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-12-05T05:31:41.663" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T05:31:41.663" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="755" CreationDate="2014-12-03T08:18:44.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides meaning &quot;two&quot; and &quot;second&quot;, &quot;二&quot; has another meaning in spoken Chinese, that is &quot;stupid&quot;. For example: &quot;他很二&quot; means &quot;he is stupid&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6975" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-12-05T05:31:05.763" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T05:31:05.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10635" CreationDate="2014-12-03T08:21:46.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you share the context where you encountered this character? I'm almost certain that this character is only used in geographic names nowadays, for example, &lt;code&gt;阜阳&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;阜成门&lt;/code&gt;. This is why you could not find it in modern translations of the words &lt;code&gt;dam&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;mound&lt;/code&gt;, because even most Chinese people would not understand the meaning of this single character &lt;code&gt;阜&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6974" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T08:21:46.403" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="755" CreationDate="2014-12-03T08:26:07.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer of user3408789 seems to be incorrect, or at least, not complete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I live in Shanghai and here, in most cases, 10两=1斤=500g&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When measuring medicine (中药), 16两=1斤 and I am not sure if 1斤 is 500g in this circumstance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6976" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-12-05T05:30:27.023" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T05:30:27.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10641" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10644" CreationDate="2014-12-03T08:38:56.127" Score="1" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some radicals do not seem to be commonly in use for their meaning, but only to convey pronunciation, as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/10635/radical-meaning-vs-characters-in-use&quot;&gt;an answer to this question&lt;/a&gt; and many websearches revealed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that true for many radicals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you share a list, noting which radicals are no longer or rarely used for their original meaning, but just to convey a sound?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6967" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-09-18T19:57:12.920" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T19:57:12.920" Title="Which radicals are used mostly just as phonetic?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10619" CreationDate="2014-12-03T08:42:48.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我是+ n.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;我是&lt;/strong&gt;一个学生:&lt;strong&gt;I am&lt;/strong&gt; a student.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在+ v. &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;我在&lt;/strong&gt;游泳:&lt;strong&gt;I am&lt;/strong&gt; swimming&#xA;我在+ n.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;我在&lt;/strong&gt;家:&lt;strong&gt;I am at&lt;/strong&gt; home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6975" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T08:42:48.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10643" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-03T09:40:25.943" Score="4" ViewCount="8329" Body="&lt;p&gt;Australian politician &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenya_Wang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhenya Wang&lt;/a&gt;, sometimes called Dio Wang, Chinese name 王振亚, has his surname written in English as &quot;Wang&quot;, but it's sometimes pronounced in English as &quot;Wong&quot;. Another Australian politician used &quot;Wong&quot; in an English sentence, and was accused of getting his name wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From an English speaker's perspective, a name written as &quot;Wang&quot; being pronounced &quot;Wong&quot; seems wrong, even by English's ghoti-y standards. Is there an explanation relating to the Chinese language for this, such as how Chinese speakers describe their name in Chinese with Pinyin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally, answers to this should be understandable for someone with no prior knowledge about Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastActivityDate="2021-05-25T09:44:57.393" Title="Why is Zhenya Wang's surname in English &quot;Wang&quot; but sometimes pronounced &quot;Wong&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10641" CreationDate="2014-12-03T10:10:37.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before I say anything I should warn you that I am not a linguist and some of my terminology could be off. Just to share some of my insight as a native Chinese speaker and hopefully you will find it helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there's some information lost in translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're two related, similar but not interchangeable concepts called 偏旁(偏 means partial, 旁 means on the side) and 部首(literally means &quot;section header&quot;). However they are both translated as &quot;radical&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While they are both components of Chinese characters, there are differences. From their literal meaning, you can loosely think 偏旁 as a partially-formed 部首 placing on one side of a character. With that in mind, 部首s are mostly used for classification purpose (as in a dictionary) and 偏旁 are mostly used when talking about character structure and composition (as in this question). But don't worry about that too much, since many native Chinese speakers couldn't tell the difference all the time either. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take 阜 and 阝for example, you can see right away that 阝is a simplified version of 阜, hence it's a partial (偏) form of 阜. You can put it on the left side of a character, as in 阴, 阳. As well as on the right side, as in 邓, 都, 部 (though in this case, 阝is short for 邑 instead). In both situations, they have no contributions to the characters pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;水 and 氵&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;心 and 忄&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;金 and 钅&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum it up, 偏旁s almost never convey phonetic information, while 部首s (in the context of character composition, not for classification) sometimes do. 偏旁s almost always have something directly to do with characters meaning, while 部首s only sometimes and indirectly do. So it's not an exact science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6950" LastEditorUserId="6950" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T18:39:28.867" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T18:39:28.867" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10643" CreationDate="2014-12-03T10:56:57.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wang is the form of 拼音 (Pinyin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wong is the form of 粤语 (Cantonese, Used in Guangdong province and Hong Kong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But The Cantonese style is a little different from Pinyin style, because Hong Kong used to be owned by Britain. British guys want to learn Cantonese more easily so they create the style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that &quot;Cantonese&quot; means &quot;广东的/广东人/广东话 (粤语)&quot;. &quot;Canton&quot; is derived from &quot;广东 (Guangdong)&quot;. They have greatly similar pronunciation, but the Cantonese style is much kinder for English-speaking countries to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if there is somebody who has never learnt about Chinese pronunciation could misread &quot;Wang&quot; more easily (because (s)he might read it in /wæ:ŋ/ but not /wɔ:ŋ/).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, people come from Guangdong or Hong Kong would use Cantonese style more often (because only the people from these place know it's helpful to make their own name easier to let foreigners read and to avoid being displeased).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T10:56:57.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10646" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10649" CreationDate="2014-12-03T12:44:10.993" Score="5" ViewCount="566" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quick question:  Can you 回去 a location? or can you only say 回去 by itself? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“回去 我家乡” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T03:15:45.260" Title="Can you say “回去 ____&quot; （A location？）" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10646" CreationDate="2014-12-03T13:09:42.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would probably only use &quot;回&quot;, more specifically, &quot;回我家乡&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese usually use &quot;回去了&quot; without following a specific location when greeting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6984" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T13:09:42.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10646" CreationDate="2014-12-03T13:16:40.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both work gramatically. Obviously saying 回去 standalone requires context. Examples with a location: 回去香港看父母，回去办公室拿东西。The character 去 can be omitted. For example 回家吃饭 回家乡亲 is neater and more colloqial than 回去家里吃饭 回去家乡探亲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T13:16:40.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10646" CreationDate="2014-12-03T13:18:32.550" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should say 回___去. And usually you can omit 去. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;回家去。/回家。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;回火星去。 /回火星。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're only some subtle differences in tone and emotion depending on the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While some would suggest that 回去___ is grammarly correct, usually it is phonetically strange. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I would prefer 回家去吃饭 over 回去家吃饭. The logic (if there are any) behind this is that both 回家 and 吃饭(or anything you go home to do) can be used standalone. Connecting them with a single 去 sounds smoother than split 回家 and insert a 去 in the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6950" LastEditorUserId="6950" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T15:52:23.507" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T15:52:23.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10646" CreationDate="2014-12-03T13:28:26.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As oloopy answered, you can't say 回去 a location, just use 回 a location, such as 回美国，回家，回北京&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, I think there're 2 use scenarios for 回去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回去了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) it means a state that someone has left current place and already went back to where he/she stays, for example, you and your girl friend attends a party and it's midnight now, she left in advance, when a friend of yours asked where's your girl friend, you can say: 她回去了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) you can add 要 in the start of 回去 to express a future state. Same example, it's 1:00 AM now,  you're tired, but the party continues, so you can tell your friend that 我要回去了.(I'm gonna back to my dorm)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回去 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回去 sometimes means an order/command, you're asking someone to do something. For example, you're going to work and your dog is trying to follow you, you can say to it: 回去！(go back!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6965" LastEditorUserId="6965" LastEditDate="2017-01-09T03:15:45.260" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T03:15:45.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10454" CreationDate="2014-12-03T13:50:17.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually there are no exact equivalent in Chinese. The accepted answer only explained it literally and didn't get the culture background across.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the closest one you can get is 装逼犯. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;装逼 means show off your knowledge that everybody knows. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犯 means prisoner. (People hate 装逼 so much. Some even say that it should be considered as a crime. Hence they call the one who is showing off a 犯)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for Chinese equivalent of &quot;Thank you, captain obvious!&quot;, try &quot;装逼遭雷劈&quot; (If you 装逼, you will get struck by a lightning). Well, we don't show our gratitude to 装逼犯.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is close and the cultural background is similar. But you can not use it everywhere. The problem is that 逼 literally means woman's sex organ so any 逼-related words are considered as swear words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6950" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T13:50:17.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10632" CreationDate="2014-12-03T16:10:02.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Are these sentences all good Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not quite. Structurally they look fine. But you shouldn't use 缺 with 职位. The correct word is 空缺 as the other answer suggested. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;请问您这个职位空缺了多久了？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;请问您这个职位空缺多久了？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;请问您这个职位空缺了多久？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Is there any difference in meaning between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. But there are other differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2nd and 3rd ones are literally the same. Any possible tone differences depend on how you say it. Though it would be easier to say the 2nd one without sounding offensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 1st one is redundant so it's not as good as the other two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6950" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T16:10:02.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10619" CreationDate="2014-12-03T23:07:32.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;English 'be' is a mixture of at least 3 old verbs. That is why it is so irregular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Spanish we have the same situation as Chinese: 'ser' = be, am = 是 and 'estar' = be in a place or situation = 在。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English, sadly, formally lost this distinction, but in reality, it is still there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T23:07:32.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10656" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-04T02:51:29.683" Score="2" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;该品牌汽车以优良的舒适性和安全性赢得了众多车主的喜爱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This brand of automobile uses first rate *comfortness and *safetyness to win many car owner's favour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T04:05:08.940" Title="Looking for a translation of '舒适性‘ and '安全性'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10656" CreationDate="2014-12-04T03:11:29.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;安全性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;safety; safeness -&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;safety, security -&lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would just translate both as &lt;strong&gt;safety&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;comfort&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess you want to try and translate the 性 as accurately as possible but if you look at the definitions above they don't get super &amp;quot;-ized&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;-ness&amp;quot;-y.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T03:11:29.743" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10656" CreationDate="2014-12-04T03:57:37.507" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not very good if left out 性 ,性 means property here.安全性 and 舒适性 refer to the &quot;safe and comfortable property&quot; of the car.It's more proper to use these words in this circumstance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here,the structure is &#xA;该品牌汽车以&#xA;(优良的舒适性和安全性)(noun)&#xA;赢得了众多车主的喜爱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use 优良的安全和舒适 as the noun part here,it is a bit strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6983" LastEditorUserId="6983" LastEditDate="2014-12-04T04:05:08.940" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T04:05:08.940" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10659" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10661" CreationDate="2014-12-04T07:10:22.100" Score="0" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;指挥中心里头的调警是什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;调警 in a Command Center is what kind of policeman?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is its English equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often seen like this: &lt;em&gt;指挥中心调警称&lt;/em&gt;....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2014-12-04T09:57:45.137" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T09:57:45.137" Title="What's a 调警? (In a Command Center (指挥中心))" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10659" CreationDate="2014-12-04T09:42:46.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not noun, not a kind of policeman.&#xA;It is abbreviation of &quot;调度警察&quot; or &quot;调度警力&quot;, which means dispatch police forces, facilities from one site/place to another to support their emergent needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;调度-- dispatch,schedule,coordinate&#xA;警察-- Police&#xA;警力-- Police Force&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;google &quot;指挥中心调警称&quot;, you may see news like &quot;特勤中队接到指挥中心调警称:“blablabla” &quot;, it means that the special service lochus received command saying that &quot;blablabla&quot; from command center to dispatch them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6946" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T09:42:46.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10659" CreationDate="2014-12-04T09:48:33.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Three possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 调警 as an internal police term&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;... 指令通过光纤迅速传递到消防大队、派出所、交警中队等处警单位，提高了&lt;strong&gt;调警&lt;/strong&gt;速度和准确性。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;通过110快速&lt;strong&gt;调警&lt;/strong&gt;处置，成功抓获现行违法犯罪嫌疑人91人、救助群众165人&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, it means &quot;dispatch&quot;(like 911 dispatch).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is rarely used outside of police force. So civilians rarely heard of it and may consider it as a wrong word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2） You split the sentence wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哈尔滨调&lt;em&gt;警用直升机&lt;/em&gt;搜捕三逃犯&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is short for 调用, meaning &quot;make use of&quot;. Because 警用直升机(police helicopter) also has a 用 in it, omitting the 用 in 调用 would make the sentence less redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Short for 调用警力(transfer police force)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;采用异地&lt;strong&gt;调警&lt;/strong&gt;的方式分别从虹桥分局....&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6950" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T09:48:33.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10449" CreationDate="2014-12-04T11:38:23.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;重视 - see somthing/somebody as important (neutral).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;贴着 / 贴在 - physically attached to a object, usually deliberate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;附着 - physicaly attached to an object, may or may not be deliberate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;执着 - obsessed with something/somebodyz often with negative connotation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;依恋 - emotionally dependent on something/somebody&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爱惜 - see something/somebody as important (with affection)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your examples, without context, I'd use 3 and 6 respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T11:38:23.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10612" CreationDate="2014-12-04T12:41:30.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;等等 is as short as it gets, sorry. It doesn't have any hard to pronounce consonents. I mean even &quot;hold on&quot; in english, which is  commonly spoken, has two syllables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T12:41:30.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15" CreationDate="2014-12-04T12:51:14.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;和 means compared to here and 差不多 means similar. You could also have ”和西方人不同的是，中国人认为...“ meaning contrary to westerers, the chinese think...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T12:51:14.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10666" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10679" CreationDate="2014-12-04T19:17:03.530" Score="7" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard the phrase 您高就 without an interrogative rise at the end.  The way it was spoken sounded like a statement, but in context it was more like a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can this phrase be a question?  Or was I misunderstanding how it was being used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would a direct (part of speech) translation be for 您高就？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您- you (second person pronoun, formal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高- high (adj.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就- verb (from classical Chinese ... work? occupation? )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T14:14:42.907" Title="How can the expression &quot;高就&quot; be understood grammatically?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;formal&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10667" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-04T20:00:48.033" Score="1" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another postmark question: I don't know which year it is (perhaps 1918, 1928?). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PnAJf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Kikungshan&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6990" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T07:39:43.833" Title="Chinese Year on a Postmark" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10666" CreationDate="2014-12-04T20:01:47.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you found a better job?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另有高就 is an idiom, and 高就 is a set verb phrase. 就 itself is an extremely versatile construction, here meaning accomplish or perhaps move toward (a higher position).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T20:01:47.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10666" CreationDate="2014-12-04T20:12:27.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first glance, I thought that it's just 高就 which means &quot;promote in work&quot;.&#xA;But according to your explanation, I wonder if it's a polite question asking &quot;&lt;em&gt;Where do you work?&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grammatically, &lt;code&gt;高&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;high(ly)&quot; and &lt;code&gt;就&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;occupy oneself&quot; or &quot;occupy (a position)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Some examples from the first few pages at Google:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我小心问道：“施叔叔，请问您高就？”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;I asked him nervously, &quot;May I ask your profession, Uncle Shi?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  現在的台灣創世神界需要大量的建築人才，(...) 請您高就敝團隊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;Today's Taiwanese Minecraftdom requires massive construction manpower, ... Your commitment to our team would be appreciated!&lt;/em&gt; (jocular)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6912" LastEditorUserId="6912" LastEditDate="2014-12-04T20:45:34.857" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T20:45:34.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10670" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12834" CreationDate="2014-12-04T20:57:31.117" Score="4" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a video I recently watched, the narrator introduced an idea by saying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是不, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone tell me what the best way is to understand this for an English speaker? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: here is one instance. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsFGZ1dyJnc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsFGZ1dyJnc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At 35 seconds, in accord with the subtitles, the narrator says: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是不，一下車我們就..., which is translated, &quot;That's why, as soon as we got out of the car,...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in this case I take it to mean, &quot;for this reason,...&quot; &quot;that's why...,&quot; or the like. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit 2: Correction, it is 这.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3171" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-03-30T06:40:40.097" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T22:55:47.957" Title="Use of “是不, ...” to introduce sentence" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10670" CreationDate="2014-12-04T21:22:15.590" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Need more context of your question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my understanding, “是不” can be used at the end of a Interrogative sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 她长得很美，是不？&#xA;She is beautiful, isn't she?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T21:22:15.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10670" CreationDate="2014-12-04T21:48:16.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;isn't it so? (That something is something.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T21:48:16.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10667" CreationDate="2014-12-04T22:11:25.077" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Guessing here: 18th January 1941, that is Manchuguo year 9 in Jigongshan, occupied Henan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T22:11:25.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10674" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-05T00:59:10.190" Score="1" ViewCount="398" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a user over at another Stack site, for Movies &amp;amp; TV. Someone posted a question there about the film &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looper_%28film%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Looper&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; and a Chinese broadcast that is played for a few seconds during the film. We may be film buffs, but we've certainly been proven to be hopelessly unknowledgeable about about the Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping some of you good folks would be able to lend a hand with this and offer a translation. I'm aware this &lt;em&gt;challenges&lt;/em&gt; the &quot;what's on-topic&quot; a little, as I haven't shown an attempt, but I'm hoping my reasons will allow it. The scene in question &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyf5TTLBpMc&amp;amp;t=2m10s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;can be found here&lt;/a&gt; (it starts at right place):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a few lines of dialogue on the television about &lt;em&gt;The Rainmaker&lt;/em&gt;, but that's all I can understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6996" LastEditorUserId="6996" LastEditDate="2014-12-05T09:17:47.820" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T09:17:47.820" Title="What is being said in this scene from Looper?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10674" CreationDate="2014-12-05T01:21:55.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dialog says: &lt;code&gt;&quot;随着神秘的Rainmaker在中西部的暴乱事件中继续他的帮派战争, ...&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation is : &quot;As the mysterious Rainmaker continues his gang war in the Midwest, ...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6998" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-05T04:54:22.963" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T04:54:22.963" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10670" CreationDate="2014-12-05T02:17:40.163" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Must have been 是不是 I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是不是你刚刚做完的电影有很大的。。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T02:17:40.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10666" CreationDate="2014-12-05T05:38:02.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;您高就 = (请问)您(在哪里)高就？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Direct translation is:&#xA;    May I ask where you work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is in a very formal and polite way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6998" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-05T12:39:54.277" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T12:39:54.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10667" CreationDate="2014-12-05T05:45:38.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hyhmW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's most probably written vertically, right to left:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;七年八月十一 Year 7, Month 8, 11(th day). 1938/8/11 (Year 1 is 1932).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No idea what the 九/9 at the end stands for. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Wang Dingwei says, Henan wasn't part of Manchukuo. So year 7 is probably 1918. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B0%91%E5%9C%8B%E7%B4%80%E5%B9%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;紀元轉換&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-12-05T07:39:43.833" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T07:39:43.833" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10666" CreationDate="2014-12-05T07:11:08.387" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for an exact English translation, the answer is that there isn't one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a tradition in Chinese culture. When you are talking about/to other people, you should butter him/her up by exaggerating his/her achievements, wealth, position and etc. And do the opposite thing when talking about yourself. It's all about being polite (when talking about others) and modest (when talking about yourself).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example conversation may be like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A: 您在哪里高就呢？ (So I heard that you've got an excellent job now. Where is it again? )&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;B: 哪里哪里，不过就是在Google混口饭吃而已。 (Well, I work at Google, just barely getting by.) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A called B's job an &quot;excellent job(高就)&quot;, not necessarily for the literal meaning, but just being polite. And B said that he is &quot;just getting by&quot;(混饭吃/混口饭吃), which is not necessarily true (we all know Google pays a lot) but just being modest.&#xA;The translation above isn't word-by-word. But you get the gist. You can also see that you can't talk to a native English speaker like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在Google高就&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;听说你在Google混饭吃&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While these sentences are grammarly correct, they are simply wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So don't bother with the translation or the grammar. Just understand the cultural difference behind this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are really into grammar, it's something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高(adv. better)就(v. work)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您(在哪里)高就 (Where are you working?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be culturally correct, 高 should be lost in translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6950" LastEditorUserId="6950" LastEditDate="2014-12-05T07:25:41.190" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T07:25:41.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15" CreationDate="2014-12-05T08:19:48.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;和&quot; here means &quot;and&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subject is omitted. Usually it is &quot;This&quot;, &quot;I&quot;, &quot;We&quot;, &quot;My something&quot; or &quot;Our something&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和西方人过圣诞节差不多，这是一个全家团聚的节日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is the same as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們和西方人过圣诞节差不多，这是一个全家团聚的节日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們過年和西方人过圣诞节差不多，这是一个全家团聚的节日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For simplicity, you can understand this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The way of) Our festival and Westerners' Christmas are pretty much the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The omission is pretty common in Chinese languages like Mandarin, Cantonese, Classical Chinese.  The omission part is mentioned before or can be understood by context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classical Chinese : &quot;與你何干？&quot; and &quot;與你把臂同遊。&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese : &quot;同你食飯&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T08:19:48.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10681" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-05T08:39:40.500" Score="5" ViewCount="430" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was listening to this 听力练习 on this beautiful day, staring at the little mountain outside my window.&#xA;莉莉：英子，你不是在一家公司工作吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I, swift as an eagle, think ‘Yingzi, aren't you working for a company?’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英子：是的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I, swift as an eagle, think 'Yes'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英子：5年前，我在公司做秘书，工作强度大，时间长，薪水又不高，挺辛苦的。有了孩子以后，我就辞职了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I, swift as an eagle, think ‘Wait a minute, Lilly just asked if she worked for a company, and Yingzi   said '是的’。 These women are crazy! Yingzi resigned after she had a baby!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go back, listen again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;莉莉：英子，你不是在一家公司工作吗？, 英子：是的。not 英子：没有啊。&#xA;莉莉：英子，你不是在一家公司工作吗？here means ‘Yingzi, weren't you working for a company?’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have looked for and found instances of '是了‘ and '是过’ but I think that the meaning was not to indicate that the given event was somewhere in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们过去是好朋友, 但现在已不再是了. &#xA;整个儿说起来, 我们的日子是过得挺痛快的. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, is it not possible to indicate 'was' or 'were' on '是‘ or '在‘？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-05T12:39:28.017" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T04:31:38.527" Title="Generally speaking, is it not possible to indicate 'was' or 'were' on '是‘？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10681" CreationDate="2014-12-05T12:39:35.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, again, some context would be useful here. However, I'd venture a guess and say that Yingzhi has not lied, and that in responding with an affirmative she was affirming that she was a current holder of a job, and that her description of the harsh working conditions was of her previous job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;莉莉：英子，你不是在一家公司工作吗？, 英子：是的。not 英子：没有啊。 莉莉：英子，你不是在一家公司工作吗？here means ‘Yingzi, weren't you working for a company?’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your interpretation here was not correct, and that Lilly's question meant ‘Yingzi, AREN't you working for a company?’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I could be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ATQ: Chinese depends very much on the context of things, the &quot;上文下理&quot; of a conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7001" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T12:39:35.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10666" CreationDate="2014-12-05T12:46:38.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my considered opinion: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Directly,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您- you (second person pronoun, formal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高- high (adj.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就- achievement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However 就 here comes from 成就 which means achievement. The interrogative turn would thus mean &quot;Where are you achieving (i.e. working and attaining (hopefully!) praise and achievement)&quot;. As for the non-interrogative turn I would consider it just a nuance of chinese formality, which involves giving higher respect and honour to others (thus 高 in this sentence), an often quoted example is the respectable way to ask someone's age (你貴庚? literally &quot;You, (wealthy or prestigious)=honourable, year (taken from the ancient chinese way of year-counting)?&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7001" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T12:46:38.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10489" CreationDate="2014-12-05T15:32:45.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think is 万事皆有因。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;more similars&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苍蝇不叮无缝的蛋。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空穴来风未必无因。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万事皆有原。someone say this is from Buddhist scripture，cant proved  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T15:32:45.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8769" CreationDate="2014-12-05T15:44:03.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I kinda like his name after you give the mixed messages to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think he just a 逗逼。Just check his lyrics, it just sh--.He become pop because of funny, nothing with music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T15:44:03.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10681" CreationDate="2014-12-05T17:11:17.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think about it like this. Let's say we recap this conversation in English, but omit any tenses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;L: Yingzi, be not you working for a company?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Y: Yes, I be. 5 years ago, I be a sectary blah blah. Then I quit.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would have no problem inferring the tense of these sentences, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese language is just like that. It doesn't depend on using different forms of verbs to indicate tense. You just have to infer that information from the context. And put enough information in your sentences for others to grasp your idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may have seen something like 爱过, 爱了 in Chinese but they are not equivalents of &quot;loved&quot; in English. They are just 爱(love) with additional information 过 or 了 to indicate the action of love happened in the past or have been completed. There's no such a thing as past tense (or any tense) of a verb in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This ambiguity makes Chinese language more versatile (and more difficult to learn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6950" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T17:11:17.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10681" CreationDate="2014-12-05T18:29:38.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, without any additional context, I assure you Yingzi misspoke. Lily clearly meant, &quot;Aren't you working for a company?&quot;, with a hint of &quot;I remember you told me you were / I'm sure you are&quot;. If Yingzi has quit, she should answer &quot;I was, but not any more.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest you to not bother too much about this, treat it as an error of the listening exercise, and move on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7003" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T18:29:38.307" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10635" CreationDate="2014-12-06T00:34:54.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunatelly, a character with some meaning doesn't necessarily take that meaning's radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: the word 母亲 (mother) doesn't have the 女 (woman) radical, even though it has a woman's idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's what's happening with the word 土丘. Even though it has a &quot;mountain&quot; meaning, it doesn't necessarily take the mountain radical (阝).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other way around is also true. Even if a character has some radical, it doesn't mean that we can clearly see that radical's meaning nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 阿 (a) or 附 (attach) don't have a clear &quot;mountain&quot; meaning on them, although they have (阝). But they certainly had it when both characters were created back in the days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps you! =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T00:34:54.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10681" CreationDate="2014-12-06T02:43:45.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can imaging how this conversation came into being:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lily: Angela, aren't you working at a company?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Angela: No. I was a secretary there 5 years ago. Tough job. I quit after I gave birth to my baby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translator, being a properly educated Chinese, thought &amp;quot;Isn't this the case where I should give a logical answer to this question? My junior school teacher taught me that.&amp;quot; Then, swift as an eagle, she translated &amp;quot;No&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;是的&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact it doesn't make sense. There are some weird reflections planted to the Chinese ESL learners' brains and they misfire every now and then. It all starts when they encounter this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't smoke, do you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is directly translated to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不抽烟，你抽吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese would think this is Funny. What they will say is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不抽烟吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really don't, you answer with &amp;quot;不啊!&amp;quot;. The same as in English, &amp;quot;No, I don't.&amp;quot; So far so good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then someone decided that there is a better translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不抽烟，对不对？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translating back to English is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't smoke, correct or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really don't, you answer &amp;quot;That's correct!&amp;quot; Similarly, a Chinese will answer &amp;quot;对！&amp;quot; Still good so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The confusion arises when one uses &lt;code&gt;是不是&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;对不对&lt;/code&gt;. In fact they are synonyms in Chinese, so the conversation becomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不抽烟，是不是？—— You don't smoke, correct or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;是的&lt;/strong&gt;，我不抽。—— &lt;strong&gt;Correct&lt;/strong&gt;, I don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then again, English speakers usually don't speak like that, what they normally do is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不抽烟，是不是？—— You don't smoke, do you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;是的&lt;/strong&gt;，我不抽。—— &lt;strong&gt;No&lt;/strong&gt;, I don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why the Chinese think &amp;quot;是的&amp;quot; is equal to &amp;quot;No&amp;quot;. Now the circle is complete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that many Chinese ESL learners didn't go through this kind of reasoning. All they remember is &amp;quot;When you see an answer to a rhetorical questions in English, you translates &lt;code&gt;Yes&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;不&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;No&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;是&lt;/code&gt;&amp;quot;. It becomes some sort of automatic response.  And now it comes to haunt Chinese learners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the original dialog. When Lily is asked &amp;quot;你不是在一家公司工作吗&amp;quot;, it's the same as in &amp;quot;你不抽烟吗&amp;quot;, the negative answer should be &lt;code&gt;不是&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T03:59:07.553" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="365" CreationDate="2014-12-06T04:05:48.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;还不是 can be translated to English literally as isn't.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Actually, sometimes we can add a 吗 to the end of that sentence without changing its meaning like “还不是因为爱吗?”.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So the answer is obvious, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;还不是因为爱 means “isn't it because of love?” or &quot;it is because of love, isn't it?&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In the same way, ‘还不都怪你？’ can be translated as &quot;It's your fault, isn't it?&quot; &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6906" LastEditorUserId="6906" LastEditDate="2014-12-06T17:13:49.863" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T17:13:49.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6325" CreationDate="2014-12-06T09:26:57.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's rare nowadays since most educated Chinese people can speak English more or less. In China, English class starts from junior high school. And it is mandatory for a person to get junior high school education at least. Some parents even teach their kids English in kindergarten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even when people with less English education try to impersonate English speaker, they are actually speaking simple but legit English phrase like &quot;Yes sir. No sir. Madam. Thank you. I love you.&quot;&#xA;I can only recall some expression used in the generation of my grandparents (now 80/90 years old) referring English writing as &quot;豆芽脚脚&quot; (the tail section of beam sprouts).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No offense, but English is not that hard comparing to Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, some people do imitate how foreigners speak Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6950" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T09:26:57.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10693" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-07T01:47:08.887" Score="6" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the role of 都 in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你网上小店都卖什么东西啊？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should  I read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你卖 = you sell&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的小店卖 = your little shop sells&lt;br&gt;&#xA;都卖 = all sell&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你和你的小店都卖 = you and your little shop both sell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, who is the seller??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T09:39:41.530" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T09:39:41.530" Title="What is the role of 都 in 你网上小店都卖什么东西啊？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10693" CreationDate="2014-12-07T01:56:57.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could remove 都 here and the &lt;em&gt;basic&lt;/em&gt; meaning would be the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of 都 in this sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4 (used for emphasis) even -&lt;em&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if we took the 都 out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你网上小店卖什么东西啊？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does your online shop sell?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if we add the meaning from 都 above we get something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What the hell does your online shop &lt;em&gt;even&lt;/em&gt; sell?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T01:56:57.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10681" CreationDate="2014-12-07T02:34:30.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, it is impossible to express the difference you intend just by changing verb form. 是, adjectives, and many other verbs are stative and they do not shift the reference time. We must either use particles like 了 or 过, or temporal adverbs like 以前 to set the reference time to the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dynamic verbs are usually accompanied by particles and auxiliaries like 了, 会, etc, which normally put the time reference to the past or the future. Stative description usually complements dynamic one. I think this is generally true in many languages, so lacking tense is not particularly disturbing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only tricky case might be the counterfactual use of the past tense and when the verb is stative, as in your question. When you say &lt;em&gt;I was working&lt;/em&gt;, you imply &lt;em&gt;I am not working&lt;/em&gt;. In this case, adding contrastive adverbs like 以前, 从前, 本来, etc. can usually convey the same idea. If the adverbs do not work, you can always make the point clear explicitly by saying “，但现在不...了”. It is often common to add 现在 when asking questions like “你现在在哪工作”, “你现在住在哪” etc. even though 现在 is not absolutely necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some explanation of the dialogue: The question asks 不是... implying the speaker might have heard or learnt that somewhere. Because the speaker is trying to recall something from his memory, the listener replies 是的, which merely confirms the information source but does not assert about its availability in the present. She then explains that the situation has changed since &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; (when the observation was made) that it is not the case now. In this case, 不是的 is equally correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This usage might be more or less similar to English &lt;em&gt;tense shifting&lt;/em&gt;. For example, &lt;em&gt;she said she was working ...&lt;/em&gt; may well mean &lt;em&gt;she is working ...&lt;/em&gt; as well as &lt;em&gt;she is not working ...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions beginning with 不是 or 是不是 are often biased towards the positive answer. The speaker just want to the listener to confirm the information. If the information itself is imprecise, but not exactly false, the listener may well reply “是的” first and add an additional clarification. If the question is more neutral, e.g. “你在公司工作吗”, the purpose of asking this question is probably just to know the listener's current state. Although Chinese tense is always unmarked and the past tense interpretation is always an option, answering “在，但现在不在了” is not felicitous, unless in his opinion &lt;em&gt;being working&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;having been working&lt;/em&gt; do not really matter much, or he intends to be amusing, like in &lt;em&gt;“Could you help me?” “I could, but I don't want to.”&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, if the same question were asked in Japanese, both the past and present would be acceptable for a question about the present state, but the answer is usually either in the present or the past depending on the present fact because Japanese past tense generally assumes the opposite case in the present, too. But tense system does not exist in Chinese, so we do have the same assumption.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last comment about 过: there is an odd contrast between 过 and 了. 了 often implies an immediate result of the verb is available, while 过 generally does not. So 门开了 sounds like the door &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; currently open, while 门开过 sounds like the door is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; open, or at the very least the open state of the door is not the immediate result of the opening action the speaker refers to. The same difference apply to 水开了 and 水开过, 有人来了 and 有人来过. But the contrast is not consistent, for example, 吃过 and 吃了 mean pretty much the same thing. Although 了 and 过 can be used with stative verbs, they cannot be used with 是 and 在, which may be due to their special grammatical functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastEditorUserId="4117" LastEditDate="2014-12-07T04:31:38.527" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T04:31:38.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10696" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10698" CreationDate="2014-12-07T02:41:02.097" Score="7" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because this is a relatively recent word, I can't find any etymological information in the sources I'm familiar with. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An old text that I found which uses this word is &#xA;《太平御覽·卷柏》:  氫鱍成性，終無自伸。&#xA;but I have no clue what this sentence has to do with hydrogen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is: why did people decide to pronounce hydrogen as qīng?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T09:01:12.417" Title="What is the etymology of 氫?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10693" CreationDate="2014-12-07T04:36:37.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The seller is “You&quot;. The question can be translated as &quot;What products are you selling in the store you opened online?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Removing 都 would not affect the meaning of the sentence too much. 都 loosely indicates that the addressee of the question, desirably, should attempt to include all categories of products in the answer, instead of only listing a portion of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't agree with this point by user3306356: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot; Now if we add the meaning from 都 above we get something like:&#xA;What the hell does your online shop even sell?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence itself, without tone or context, does not suggest emotions or attitudes of the speaker. It does not necessarily carry the aggressive attitude as quoted above. It could be used by the girl next door with an curious tone, or a casual dude who does not really care about the answer, or even an prospective investor in a business manner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6907" LastEditorUserId="6907" LastEditDate="2014-12-07T04:43:57.663" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T04:43:57.663" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10696" CreationDate="2014-12-07T06:33:22.227" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;氫's pronunciation &lt;em&gt;qīng&lt;/em&gt; comes from 輕.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://sns.kedo.gov.cn/space.jsp?uid=7162&amp;amp;do=thread&amp;amp;id=3673&amp;amp;eventid=90&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;, chemical elements were translated in more descriptive way in the 19th century, and hydrogen was named 轻气 (輕氣) &quot;light gas&quot;. Later, the names were crippled to one character for each, so hydrogen became 轻 (輕). Finally, in 1919, every element was decided to be named systematically, where gases were unexceptionally covered by radical 气. Hence, hydrogen got its character 氫, and inherited 輕's pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your quotation from 《太平御覽》 seems to be an digitalization bug. &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=80658&amp;amp;page=85&quot;&gt;The original text&lt;/a&gt; reads: &lt;strong&gt;屈巻&lt;/strong&gt;成性終無自伸 &quot;curled up by its nature, and never grows straightly&quot;. I doubt there's any occurrence of 氫 outside chemical literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6912" LastEditorUserId="6912" LastEditDate="2014-12-07T09:01:12.417" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T09:01:12.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10693" CreationDate="2014-12-07T06:38:36.913" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;都 is an adverb. The subject is 你(的)小店.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你最近都在做些什么啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你都去过那些地方？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你平时都听些什么样的歌？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你都怎么想的？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 都 is used, the question sounds less specific. The speaker either expects a long or complete list, or expects the listener to elaborate at length or in detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4117" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T06:38:36.913" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10693" CreationDate="2014-12-07T15:50:40.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So is it a bit like: 你在你的小网店里在卖什么都？but somehow the 都 got shoved over?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard 都 being used at the end of the sentence and it should be the same meaning as your original sentence, but where I grew up, I would say the 都 before a verb is more commonly used if not more grammatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7014" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T15:50:40.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10702" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10727" CreationDate="2014-12-08T01:43:47.747" Score="6" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;For browsers unable to display that code point (U+26A3B) as anything other than a box, the question concerns this character: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RYunR.png&quot; alt=&quot;funky character&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;char=%F0%A6%A8%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;char=%F0%A6%A8%BB&lt;/a&gt; - there are quite a few instances of the character's use in poetry since the Yuan Dynasty, and it occurs at least as late as the early Qing Dynasty in the lyrics of Gu Zhenguan (how I got started with it):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;縱閒愁吹墜，不到船。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character is not included in the Kangxi Dictionary, and I wonder whether any definition is available beyond &quot;a kind of boat&quot;.  In some of the examples (e.g. 银夜酌凉蒲萄，琵琶嘈嘈急如泻) it doesn't seem to be a boat at all, perhaps an obscure variant of some other character meaning &quot;drinking vessel&quot;?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know much about scansion of Chinese poetry but am guessing at least it is going to be 3rd/4th tone given its location in the phrases of the cited poetry. A Japanese site (&lt;a href=&quot;http://jigen.net/kanji/158267&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://jigen.net/kanji/158267&lt;/a&gt;) suggests the rather dubious reading of &quot;mò&quot; (I'm assuming that's Pinyin and not some transcription system specific to Japanese) while apparently it is read &quot;khoang&quot; in Vietnamese (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cojak.org/index.php?function=code_lookup&amp;amp;term=26A3B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cojak.org/index.php?function=code_lookup&amp;amp;term=26A3B&lt;/a&gt;).  It seems odd for the character to have such a vague existence: does anyone know how it was pronounced  classically (i.e. what is the 反切) and/or have a reasonably informative gloss?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2014-12-09T23:18:22.643" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T13:43:37.220" Title="How Does One Pronounce/Define the *Chinese* Character " Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10703" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10704" CreationDate="2014-12-08T03:09:47.563" Score="16" ViewCount="2697" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've only ever known tattoo (wénshēn) to be written as 纹身.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was reading an article from &lt;strong&gt;凤凰财经&lt;/strong&gt; yesterday called &lt;em&gt;猪躺着也能挣：一张纹身猪皮值百万&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What struck me, though, were all the comments on the article saying things like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;错别字，不是这个纹，小便没好好读书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文身的文写错了！！好么！！！！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking through &lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Zhongshan Medical&lt;/strong&gt; and even the &lt;strong&gt;Grande Ricci&lt;/strong&gt; they all have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;纹身〔紋/--〕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wénshēn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tattoo / tattooing (MeSH) / Tatouer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(respectively).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MoE and 两岸 have entires for 文身 and note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;亦作「刺青」、「紋身」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seems to be a pattern here, though. MoE and 两岸 are Taiwan-based; 凤凰 is Hong Kong-based.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So where are the complaints coming from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's have a look at &lt;strong&gt;规范&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;动 在人体的皮肤上刺上文字或图案。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;注意 不宜写作“纹身”。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh, there it is. Mainland-based 规范 is not happy with the 绞丝旁 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have my hunches but what's the deal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are some people so insistent that 纹 is wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And who are these people?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T14:12:09.603" Title="Why 纹 is the wrong character to write for tattoo?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10703" CreationDate="2014-12-08T05:06:54.827" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are purists. In the words of Steven Pinker:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...also known as sticklers, pedants, peevers, snobs, snoots, nitpickers,&#xA;  traditionalists, language police, usage nannies, grammar Nazis, and&#xA;  the Gotcha! Gang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinanews.com/cul/2013/02-19/4577167.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;code&gt;纹身&lt;/code&gt; is accepted by a newer version of 《现代汉语词典》 as an alternative form of &lt;code&gt;文身&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-09T02:00:10.510" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T02:00:10.510" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10703" CreationDate="2014-12-08T08:22:59.663" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be &lt;code&gt;文身&lt;/code&gt;. Here &lt;code&gt;文&lt;/code&gt; is a verb, and another example of this usage is &lt;code&gt;文过饰非&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;文身&lt;/code&gt; is a verb-object construction here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &quot;说文解字&quot;, &lt;code&gt;文，错画也&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;interlaced draw&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;纹&lt;/code&gt; is a noun, which means &lt;code&gt;lines; veins; grain&lt;/code&gt;, such as &lt;code&gt;花纹&lt;/code&gt;. So &lt;code&gt;纹身&lt;/code&gt; is not correct, even if it's widely used by modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5e6cba8e0100ucea.html&quot;&gt;“文身”还是“纹身”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-12-08T08:22:59.663" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10703" CreationDate="2014-12-08T10:19:46.823" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In traditional Chinese (Taiwan), we always use &lt;code&gt;紋身&lt;/code&gt;, not &lt;code&gt;文身&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;code&gt;文&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;紋&lt;/code&gt; are nouns in origin, and we verbalize those characters (in Taiwan).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;文&lt;/code&gt;, in verb, means more like &lt;code&gt;to write (a word)&lt;/code&gt;; &lt;code&gt;紋&lt;/code&gt;, in verb, means more like &lt;code&gt;to embroider (a pattern)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could check out the &lt;code&gt;刺青&lt;/code&gt; in wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, 紋身 could be a verb or a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More info:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution&lt;/a&gt; (文化大革命), China had simplified Chinese characters. They use one Chinese character to representative multiple characters. Today, most Chinese doesn't recognize or know the correctly original characters anymore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7021" LastEditorUserId="7021" LastEditDate="2014-12-08T11:32:11.057" LastActivityDate="2014-12-08T11:32:11.057" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10708" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10733" CreationDate="2014-12-08T14:16:20.067" Score="8" ViewCount="1692" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know how Cantonese from Macau differ from HK if there are any? Any slangs or terms used in Macanese Cantonese that is rarely used or heard in HK? Maybe some sinicised portuguese words? What about phonology? Closer to a little bit oldfashioned &quot;classical&quot; Guangzhou pronunciation or to those in HK? Or maybe even some minor differencees in grammar?&#xA;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Sorry for my English. My native language is not English nor Cantonese or Mandarin. Thank again :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7022" LastActivityDate="2016-07-02T09:37:00.817" Title="Macau Cantonese, any differences from HK?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;slang&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10709" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10713" CreationDate="2014-12-08T15:23:35.797" Score="2" ViewCount="1272" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you recommend tool where I can import text and get result list with words according their frequency in text.&#xA;Aim to import Chinese subtitles learn most frequent words and then watch movie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="823" LastActivityDate="2021-05-18T14:56:05.300" Title="Chinese frequency counter text analyser" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10710" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10745" CreationDate="2014-12-08T16:19:26.183" Score="7" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典&lt;/a&gt;, both 鬥陣 (tàu-tīn) and 做伙 (tsò-hué / tsè-hé) mean 一起 (though the former is also explained as 一块儿 and the latter as 結伴、偕同). I was therefore wondering what differences there are between them, if any. Also, how is it that in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFJX3_xji2k&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;流浪到淡水&lt;/a&gt; they are together in the phrase &lt;code&gt;斗阵来做伙&lt;/code&gt;? What does that mean? PS some context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;趁着下昏暗欢欢喜喜&#xA;斗阵来做伙&#xA;你来跳舞    我来念歌诗&#xA;&#xA;Thàn-tio̍h ing-àm huann-huann-hí-hí&#xA;Tàu-tīn lâi tsuè-hué&#xA;Lí lâi thiàu-bú    guá lâi liām kua-si&#xA;&#xA;Profiting of tonight, let us be very happy,&#xA;????&#xA;If you dance, I will read a poem.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: If anyone is wondering, &lt;code&gt;下昏暗 | ing-àm&lt;/code&gt; is a contraction of Min &lt;code&gt;下昏暗 | e-hng-àm&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &quot;tonight&quot;. My reference dictionary doesn't give a spelling for the contraction, so I had to use the uncontracted spelling, but then I had to match the transliteration to the song, which has the contraction. I just came up with a way to spell it: &lt;code&gt;暎暗&lt;/code&gt;. No idea if anyone else has thought about how to spell this contraction in Hànzì yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-06-04T03:08:23.387" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T03:08:23.387" Title="Tàu-tīn vs. tsò-hué in Hokkien" Tags="&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10711" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10712" CreationDate="2014-12-08T17:44:34.560" Score="1" ViewCount="988" Body="&lt;p&gt;I make my homework, but I am not sure in translating of a sentence and would be glad to become an answer from native speakers. The task is to write an answer to a question. The question is: 学经济的人多不多？ I understand it so: Do many people study Economics? And this is the answer, I had written down:学经济多的人。(Many people study Economics.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to answer this way or the meaning is another? Or the meaning of the question is totally another? I would be grateful for your help! Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6703" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-13T14:53:27.620" LastActivityDate="2018-09-14T16:27:10.280" Title="How to translate and answer the question?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10711" CreationDate="2014-12-08T17:59:20.917" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your answer is incorrect. &#xA;The subject of your sentence is 学经济的人 （people studying economics, &quot;study-economics-people&quot;) and your predicate is 多 (many). So putting it altogether:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学经济的人(很)多。 (positive) or 学经济的人不多。 (negative answer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-12-08T20:22:10.600" LastActivityDate="2014-12-08T20:22:10.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10709" CreationDate="2014-12-08T18:50:08.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Boris, try this one: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhongguosou.com/zonghe/cipintongji.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zhongguosou.com/zonghe/cipintongji.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The UI is in Chinese, you may have to figure out how to use it.  I tried it myself. It is not user friendly. But this is the only one I found so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7027" LastActivityDate="2014-12-08T18:50:08.357" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10643" CreationDate="2014-12-08T18:58:12.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, 王 (pinyin = Wang) is pronounced (in Mandarin) as &quot;Wong&quot; (the sound of it). To an english speaker this will not make much sense because Wang does not sound like Wong at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often times people will ask, how do you say your name in chinese? Assuming my surname is 王. I would say it's pronounced as &quot;Wong&quot; (or as close to as that). But still, people will simply say Wang because it is more natural for them (English speakers) to say it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the wrong use of the surname - I would think there are 2 possibilities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 - the person who used it only knew how the name was pronounced and not how it was written so he/she assumed it was written as it sounds and wrote Wong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 - the person who used it was Cantonese and assumed the other person is also Cantonese and use Wong because that's how they write it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How should you pronounce it?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this comes down to personal preference. To me you can say Wang or Wong and I would not care. However, to someone else they might care and correct you on your pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any english speaker meeting someone named Wang, is naturally going to say Wang unless they have so much interaction with chinese people and knows the chinese way of saying it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you want to say the person's name properly in Mandarin, then pronounce it as &quot;Wong&quot;, if you don't care and the other person with surname 王 don't mind, then say &quot;Wang&quot;. It's best just to ask the other person what they want you to pronounce and go from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further more...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zhenya Wang is from Nanjing so the correct chinese way to say/pronounce her name in chinese is &quot;Wong&quot; but I would not expect english speakers to know this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="863" LastEditorUserId="863" LastEditDate="2014-12-08T19:03:13.597" LastActivityDate="2014-12-08T19:03:13.597" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10643" CreationDate="2014-12-08T21:02:53.050" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Pronunciation ≠ Spelling!&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very important to distinguish &lt;em&gt;spellings&lt;/em&gt; from &lt;em&gt;pronunciations&lt;/em&gt;, so I'm using IPA throughout my answer. I don't know how you pronounce &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;wang&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;wong&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, but it's very likely that the closest pronunciation available in your dialect of English is &lt;em&gt;neither of them&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Chinese pronunciations&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm basing my IPA off of the Wikipedia help pages on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IPA for Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IPA for Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Mandarin pronunciation of 王 (ignoring tones) is &lt;strong&gt;/wɑŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;. I'm assuming this is the correct pronunciation of the politician's name.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Cantonese pronunciation of 王 (ignoring tones) is &lt;strong&gt;/wɔːŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Chinese transliterations&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Pinyin (standard transliteration for Mandarin) spelling of 王 is &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;wang&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Jyutping (standard transliteration for Cantonese) spelling of 王 is &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;wong&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;English pronunciations&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;em&gt;many&lt;/em&gt; dialects of English, and they have wildly divergent pronunciations. I'm basing my IPA choices off of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart_for_English_dialects&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this chart&lt;/a&gt;. If you're confused about what the &amp;quot;TRAP vowel&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;CLOTH vowel&amp;quot; mean, see this article on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_set&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lexical sets&lt;/a&gt;. They're by far the easiest way to talk about English vowels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I give the concrete pronunciations for RP (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Received Pronunciation&lt;/a&gt;), GA (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;General American&lt;/a&gt;), and AuE (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Australian English&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;wang&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; is interpreted as having the TRAP vowel (i.e., the same vowel as &amp;quot;bank&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;hang&amp;quot;), then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;RP = &lt;strong&gt;/wæŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;, GA = &lt;strong&gt;/wæŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;, AuE = &lt;strong&gt;/wæŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This pronunciation is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; the correct pronunciation of the politician's name.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some people who are more savvy to transliterations and loan words might approach &amp;quot;a&amp;quot;s in unfamiliar foreign words as being the PALM vowel (i.e., same vowel as &amp;quot;father&amp;quot;). Then &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;wang&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; becomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;RP = &lt;strong&gt;/wäːŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;, GA = &lt;strong&gt;/wɑŋ/&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;/wäŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;, AuE = &lt;strong&gt;/wɑːŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is the best match to the Mandarin pronunciation available in the given dialects.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Almost certainly, &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;wong&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; will be interpreted as the CLOTH vowel (i.e., the same vowel as &amp;quot;long&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;RP = &lt;strong&gt;/wɒŋ/&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;/wɔŋ/&lt;/strong&gt; (free variation?), AuE = &lt;strong&gt;/wɔŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;About &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_low_back_vowels#Cot.E2.80.93caught_merger&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;half of GA speakers&lt;/a&gt; have &lt;strong&gt;/wɔŋ/&lt;/strong&gt; and half have &lt;strong&gt;/wɑŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Almost all of these are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; correct, as they have a rounded vowel. Only the cot-caught merging speakers of GA have a good match to the Mandarin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-08T21:02:53.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10716" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-09T00:18:22.413" Score="2" ViewCount="468" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from a German Chinese forum:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她骂斥道：“好生点嘛！叫你做事，你就三神不挂二神。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: 《饥饿的女儿》，作者：虹影，出版年1997，第一章。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English, ISBN 0-8021-1637-X 1999 : ‘Pay attention,’ she growled. ‘can’t you do anything right?’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'd like to know is what the phrase '三神不挂二神' relates to, how does it come to mean 'unconcentrated'? 神 here is 'mind'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-09T02:27:02.967" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T01:09:49.593" Title="How does ‘三神不挂二神’ come to mean 'unconcentrated' in this sentence?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10716" CreationDate="2014-12-09T01:33:49.367" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;首先，这是一个方言用语（很可能是四川一带某地的方言），并不是汉语常用的规范用语，但用在这部小说里是正确的，反映出了人物所处的地域，正确地体现了人物的性格特征。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“三神不挂二神”，意思的确是“精神不集中，不安心，不专注”，神指的是“精神”，比如“心神不定”，“神智恍惚”等等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其实“三神不挂二神”和汉语中的一个成语“三心二意”是相通的，可以将其视为一种方言变体。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“三神”是古汉语中的习用词，可有很多意思。“三”往往用于实指或虚指数量，如“三元”、“三军”、“再三”，等等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而“三”和其他数目字又常常连用构词，比如“二”或“两”就常常用来搭配构成习语，如“三心二意”、“三长两短”、“三天打鱼两天晒网”等等，这里也是类似的用法，是某地的方言而已。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;i.e.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, this is a dialectal phrase (it's very likely that it is a dialect of the Sichuan province), and is anything but a common standard Chinese phrase, but used in this novel it is proper, it mirrors the area the characters live in, it properly reflects the characters' natural characteristics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, the meaning of “三神不挂二神” is &quot;not concentrated, with mind not set into what one is doing&quot;, 神 indicates the mind, as for example in &quot;心神不定” (uncertain in mind)，“神智恍惚&quot; (with an absent mind, distracted), and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed “三神不挂二神” is related with a Chinese 成语 (saying), “三心二意” (lit. three hearts and two thoughts, i.e. half-hearted, shilly-shallying), you can view it as a dialectal variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“三神” is a common phrase in Classical Chinese, and can have many meanings. “三” (3) is often used to really or figurately mean a quantity, as in “三元” (3 yuan)、“三军” (lit. three armies, i.e. lower upper and middle army)、“再三” (lit. again 3, i.e. over and over again), and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And “三” is often linked with other number characters to form a compound word, e.g. “二” or “两” (2) is often used to pair up [with “三”] and constitute an idiom, as in “三心二意” (lit. three hearts and two thoughts, i.e. half-hearted, shilly-shallying), “三长两短” (lit. three long and 2 short, i.e. unexpected misfortune), “三天打鱼两天晒网” (three days catch fish, two days dry the net, i.e. not persevere in doing something, not do something to the end), and so on, here it is also a similar usage, it's a dialect of some place and that's all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7029" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T01:09:49.593" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T01:09:49.593" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10702" CreationDate="2014-12-09T09:32:05.617" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked around in my college today. The teachers had no idea, but a student just used his mobile. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is gong, first tone, and means 'a bronze drinking vessel'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Got this from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/47075-hard-to-find-character/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/47075-hard-to-find-character/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_n%C3%B4m&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_n%C3%B4m&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a Chữ Nôm meaning 'module' or 'box' (maritime), according to Sky Darmos. He offered these example compounds:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;～船 khoang tuyền – deck (ship)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;～梩 khoang lái – cockpit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;～航 khoang hàng – hold (in a ship)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;～行李 khoang hành lý – hold (in a plane)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I know, this character does not exist in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2014-12-10T13:43:37.220" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T13:43:37.220" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10721" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10725" CreationDate="2014-12-09T12:03:21.950" Score="-1" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to make an app to teach Chinese and prepare people for HSK, but I don't know if there are any rules or regulations that I should adhere to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6858" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T01:03:35.473" Title="Are there any rules or regulations for making a Chinese learning (focused on HSK) mobile app?" Tags="&lt;teaching-methods&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10722" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10724" CreationDate="2014-12-09T12:26:30.607" Score="4" ViewCount="1067" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference between &lt;code&gt;课&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;班级&lt;/code&gt;? As far as I know, both mean &lt;code&gt;class&lt;/code&gt; in school. Some of example sentences I read are below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这个班级上数学课的时候用计算机&#xA;他正在准备历史课的作业&#xA;这是一个高中的班级&#xA;他们正在上法语课&#xA;我的班级是在学习念英文&#xA;我想要教画画课&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might look like that the &lt;code&gt;课&lt;/code&gt; means a class that represents any specific subject, while the &lt;code&gt;班级&lt;/code&gt; means a class in general. First, is this true? And second, is there any difference aside from that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also want to know that, if you want to express &lt;em&gt;&quot;Let's go to the class!&quot;&lt;/em&gt; in Mandarin, which one should I use? And if I use the wrong one, does it still make a reader get the meaning or does it carry completely different meanings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T04:08:35.190" Title="What is the difference between 课 and 班级?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10722" CreationDate="2014-12-09T12:45:10.847" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An interesting difference.  Both have dictionary translations as &quot;class.&quot;  And &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.baike.com/wiki&lt;/a&gt; describes 班级 as &quot;the basic unit of the school.&quot;  But this basic unit is not a class like history class or chemistry class, it is a class like the class of 2016.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grade school and High school classes are organized into much tighter social units than is common in the US. Even at a large university the students in one year of one discipline can be a unit with a class leader 班长 and shared responsibilities for classroom care and social events.  I do not know how widely this is done at Universities today, but I know it is done in some places. And in China, as in Europe, college and university students usually study much more exclusively within their department or research unit than in the US.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Go to class&quot; has the sense of go to history class, not go to the class of 2016.  So it is 上课.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2014-12-09T15:54:27.883" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T15:54:27.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10722" CreationDate="2014-12-09T12:53:40.847" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;班级&lt;/code&gt; is a group of students who started school in the same year and participate in classes together, it's the students themselves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;课&lt;/code&gt; is a unit of the curriculum, that is held by a teacher, professor and is attended by the students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T12:53:40.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10721" CreationDate="2014-12-09T13:01:53.053" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably you should check out the &lt;a href=&quot;http://english.hanban.org/node_8007.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;official website&lt;/a&gt; and see if they impose any regulation on preparatory materials, I guess they don't. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume, to be fair, you won't be able to advertise your app as 'approved', 'official' or 'everything you need to know'. After all, the vocab lists they provide are not sufficient for the test, at least in some levels. Reading texts may contain vocab items that are not listed. And if your app is only a vocabulary trainer, it's quite far from comprehensive, since examinees still need grammar, expressions, writing skills, fast(!) reading skills, hearing comprehension, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T13:01:53.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10726" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-09T23:09:03.403" Score="1" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there good resources for learning Chinese from the ground up with a bias torwards reading and not speaking. For me the ability to read would be much more useful. Pronunciation is the hardest part and it seems like it would be much faster to learn if I could just learn grammar and characters. Is this approach advisable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7036" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T23:09:03.403" Title="Learning to read Chinese but not speak" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-12-10T09:04:41.470" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10702" CreationDate="2014-12-10T03:24:18.073" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that  is a mistake in transcription for 觥 (gong1) because they could look very similar in cursive script. 觥 means drinking vessel and 觥船 means a big drinking vessel, see, e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/5/f0/248556.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/5/f0/248556.htm&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T03:24:18.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10728" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10738" CreationDate="2014-12-10T03:37:57.653" Score="1" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't a translation in the Cantonese dictionary. Is there a way to say &quot;snap judgment&quot; or the equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T07:13:29.493" Title="How do you say &quot;snap judgment&quot; in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10730" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10731" CreationDate="2014-12-10T05:47:44.837" Score="3" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I express that in Chinese?&#xA;Examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I got a feeling that your English is better than my Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I got a feeling that tonight is going to be a good night.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I got a bad feeling about this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I got a feeling that they are going to turn down our proposal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-10T06:22:28.577" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T06:58:25.047" Title="&quot;I got the feeling that...&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10730" CreationDate="2014-12-10T06:58:25.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually Chinese people say &lt;code&gt;我觉得&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;我感觉&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &quot;I feel&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我觉得你的英语比我的中文好。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我觉得今晚一定会很棒。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我感觉他们会否决我的提议。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can use the structurally similar &lt;code&gt;我有一种感觉&lt;/code&gt;. It sounds more lyrical, and is less commonly seen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我有一种感觉，那就是今晚一定会很棒。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我有一种感觉，如果我你逃课的话，老师发现会很生气的。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I got a bad feeling about this&quot; is a different thing. If the thing has not happened, then it's usually &quot;我有一种不祥的预感&quot; or &quot;感觉不妙啊&quot;. Most Star Wars references could be translated this way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T06:58:25.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10666" CreationDate="2014-12-10T14:14:42.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree with all the other answers.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It think the 就 in 就业 should be the same as that in 高就。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;就 gets its meaning from 就近 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;which means to approach or just go(就) towards something nearby(近).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So literally, 就业 means to approach a job =&gt; to find a job or got a job, &lt;br&gt;&#xA; and 高就 means high-paying 就业.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6906" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T14:14:42.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10708" CreationDate="2014-12-10T14:41:20.080" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quick browse on Google Scholar yields a few results. Macau Cantonese appears to be intermediate between Zhongshan Cantonese and Hong Kong Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is only one rising tone derived from Middle Chinese 上聲, which is &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DTtyU2CC-B8C&amp;amp;pg=145&quot;&gt;pronounced closer to the lower one&lt;/a&gt; of Guangzhou and Hong Kong Cantonese. This brings it closer to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiqi_dialect&quot;&gt;Zhongshan Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;However, this high rising tone &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DTtyU2CC-B8C&amp;amp;pg=146&quot;&gt;re-appears&lt;/a&gt; in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changed_tone&quot;&gt;changed tone&lt;/a&gt; even in the Macau version of Cantonese, so the number of contrastive tones remains 6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is no longer the distinction between the high falling and high level tones, much like Hong Kong Cantonese but different from Guangzhou Cantonese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Similar to across the Yuehai region, /l/ is replacing /n/ as an initial.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is the loss of the w-glide after k- and g- and before -o-, like Hong Kong, although that is meant to have started very early. It is already complete in Zhongshan-Shiyi.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cqvip.com/read/read.aspx?id=46092708#&quot;&gt;paper (in Chinese)&lt;/a&gt; points to a difference in the long monophthongs between Macau, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. But there's little indication of how the non-cardinal vowels are different betwee the three.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is meant to be a few sentence-final particles which are particularly well-used in Macau:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The sentence-final particle &lt;em&gt;mo4&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;a href=&quot;http://naccl.osu.edu/sites/naccl.osu.edu/files/45_kuong-i.pdf&quot;&gt;stated&lt;/a&gt; as being &quot;rarely attested in Hong Kong Cantonese...&quot; but &quot;fairly common in Macau Cantonese, especially among older speakers&quot;, and is described as a less intense version of 咩 &lt;em&gt;me1&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I can't access this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jbp/cld/2013/00000004/00000002/art00006&quot;&gt;2013 paper&lt;/a&gt;, but it seems to deal specifically with Macau Cantonese's particles.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally &lt;a href=&quot;http://repository.umac.mo/dspace/bitstream/10692/1365/1/6298_0_07Xi.pdf&quot;&gt;this 2010 review&lt;/a&gt; summarises research on Macao's evolving linguistic situation. It does mention something about the slight influence of Portuguese in loanwords, and the difference in the way English loanwords are employed in Macao vs HK media.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T14:41:20.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10735" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-10T17:33:48.283" Score="4" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know we can negate place, manner, etc. by just placing a 不 before the verbs (prepositions) that introduce the clauses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;不在&lt;/strong&gt;中国工作。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他&lt;strong&gt;不坐&lt;/strong&gt;车去工作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how can I negate time, since it doesn't have a verb/preposition before it?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example: I wake up not at 8am, but at 9am.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Would I have to place a 在 before the time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;不在&lt;/strong&gt;8点起床，我(在?)9点起床。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would this be the only mandatory 在 when we talk about time or are there other situations it's required?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for any help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2014-12-10T19:21:42.020" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T23:31:27.067" Title="How can I negate time and when to place 在 before time?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;&lt;negation&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10735" CreationDate="2014-12-10T19:35:10.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a bit confused by the 在 in your example sentence, since you don't need it there, &lt;code&gt;我不在8点起床，我(在?)9点起床。&lt;/code&gt; Frankly, I wouldn't know what this sentence was supposed to mean, if you hadn't provided a translation. If you want to express that something occures at a certain time of the day, e.g. X o'clock, there is no need for 在, just use X点 or X点钟.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the proper way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我不是8点起床，我9点起床。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不是 can be used for such cases, to negate a certain aspect and then to point out the correct aspect immediately afterwards. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不是骑车上班，我坐出租车上班。 I do not ride the bicyle to work, I take a taxi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I can still recall the first time I had learned this 不是 structure and I was confused by it since it sounded odd to me. To get an idea of the difference between 我8点不起床。 and 我不是8点起床。, you have to understand that the first sentence simplay &lt;em&gt;negates the whole statment,&lt;/em&gt; while the latter sentence &lt;em&gt;negates only the aspect&lt;/em&gt; that is immediately after 不是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The given translation in this answer is an example of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Uses_of_%22shi..._de%22#The_Classic_.E6.98.AF.E2.80.A6.E2.80.A6.E7.9A.84_Construction&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;是...的&amp;quot; pattern&lt;/a&gt; for emphasizing a particular aspect of a phrase. It is not specific to time; for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不是跟朋友吃晚饭的，我是跟爸爸妈妈吃晚饭的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't eat with &lt;em&gt;my friends&lt;/em&gt;, I ate with my &lt;em&gt;parents&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T23:31:27.067" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10735" CreationDate="2014-12-10T22:01:16.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may certainly use 在 to reference time, and you can negate it thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不是在八点起来，而在九点才起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do need to use 是 though, otherwise 不在 will take on the meaning of existence or location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, using 没 is more common: 八点还没起来，而九点才起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases you are not negating time itself, but the action taking place at a certain time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is logical, in any language, even in your example, as you just make a trick with word order. Your &quot;not&quot; still references your action of waking up, not the time itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Search, and you will find instances of 不在 + time: 为什么世界杯不在八点放？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my mind, this is rather ungrammatical, though, or a short form of 不是在.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T22:01:16.133" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10728" CreationDate="2014-12-11T01:43:43.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a Cantonese phrase equivalent to it. Usually we just use a sentence like &quot;唔好咁快下结论&quot; to express the idea of &quot;Don't make a snap judgement&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7043" LastActivityDate="2014-12-11T01:43:43.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9888" CreationDate="2014-12-11T20:41:09.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would really recommend you focus mainly on Chinese-Chinese resources if you want to learn Classical Chinese, since it minimizes the distortion of the concepts and you'll learn a lot more Mandarin Chinese simply by exposure and seeing connections between classical characters and modern phrases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Mr. Su notes, I've found the most useful Classical Chinese resources to be the 康熙字典 for individual characters, and the 辭源 for two-character+ phrases/allusions.  These two sources have done a lot of pre-selection against the definitions in other classical dictionaries, such as 說文解字, so save you a lot of time.  To ease the burden of looking things up in 康熙字典, I strongly recommend the &quot;康熙字典Pro&quot; iPad app (which I use daily - can one say &quot;手不釋iPad&quot;?): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you can use handwriting interface to input characters with non-obvious radicals&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you can tap on unfamiliar characters in the definition (which is going to happen a lot!), pivot to their definitions, and then backtrack instantly to the parent definition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it includes pinyin pronunciations so you don't have to guess (as in paper versions) at the modern pronunciation from 反切&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're going to want every advantage you can get when tackling with this stuff, so don't shy away from new technology: if some enterprising Chinese company wants to make an iPad version of 辭源 I'd imagine there's a market for that, as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At present the only Chinese-English dictionary somewhat useful for Classical work is Mathews' Chinese-English dictionary.  However it is seriously out of date and I remember it contains many innacuracies.  The as-yet unpublished &quot;A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9004284117&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Students-Dictionary-Classical-Medieval-Handbook/dp/9004284117/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1418329348&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;keywords=9789004284111&lt;/a&gt;) may be worth your consideration: given the pedigree of the authors I would expect it to be much more dependable from the philological and formal linguistic perspectives.  I'm not sure it makes sense to organize a dictionary for a non-spoken language like Classical Chinese according to anything other than radical and stroke, though - why organize according to Pinyin that's only meaningful for modern Mandarin Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2014-12-11T20:51:59.900" LastActivityDate="2014-12-11T20:51:59.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="306" CreationDate="2014-12-12T02:02:57.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It isn't something specific to China. You know China rarely comes out with something original. The west has it long before China and is probably more powerful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The UK have something called Python Rocket. The news called it a &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hightech-edge.com/python-rocket-mine-sweep-clearing-system/6718/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Python Rocket Mine Sweeping Vehicle&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rocket system is called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine-clearing_line_charge&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mine-clearning Line Charge&lt;/a&gt;(MICLIC or MCLC for short). In the US it is probably named as &quot;M58 MCLC&quot;, M58 being the tank. The Wikipedia page also says India has a similar system of which the name is along the line of &quot;MCLC vehicle&quot;. Russia has something similar called &quot;Meteorit Mineclearing System&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would probably call it &lt;strong&gt;Rocket Mine-clearing Vehicle&lt;/strong&gt;, but both Frank and Mr's translations are fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-12T04:25:05.143" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T04:25:05.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10693" CreationDate="2014-12-12T09:03:39.543" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;都 here carries a similar meaning as &quot;usually&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e., &quot;What goods does your mini online shop sell usually?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T09:03:39.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10501" CreationDate="2014-12-12T09:25:36.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you mean that you cannot follow BOTH the tone of the music AND the Mandarin tone strictly at the SAME time, I'd say it's &lt;em&gt;normal&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply sing the lyrics by glide, vowel and the &lt;em&gt;musical&lt;/em&gt; tone.  It will be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T09:25:36.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10710" CreationDate="2014-12-13T15:21:46.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though &quot;鬥陣&quot; and &quot;做伙&quot; roughly mean the same thing, there are subtle differences in between these two phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I would say &quot;做伙&quot; is more at &quot;be a friend&quot;, whereas &quot;鬥陣&quot; is more at &quot;together&quot;. This explains why they appear in the song interesting you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless,&#xA;in everyday speaking nearly nobody would deliberately differentiate one from another. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T15:21:46.050" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10746" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10748" CreationDate="2014-12-13T19:15:48.420" Score="2" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was going through some papers and I'm stuck on this 热浸. Each dictionary says it means &quot;hot dipping&quot;, but how can i hot dip a parked car, please help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8051" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T13:30:40.357" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T13:30:40.357" Title="What does 停车期间热浸 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10746" CreationDate="2014-12-13T19:40:40.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Figuratively speaking, the short time you have before being immersed into a rather hot bath of zinc or other fluid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T19:40:40.933" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10746" CreationDate="2014-12-13T20:16:27.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;this seems relevant （&lt;a href=&quot;http://exa-china.com/key-off--soak.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://exa-china.com/key-off--soak.html&lt;/a&gt;）:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其中一个最极端的恶劣工况叫做“停车”或者“热浸”，这是指汽车在发动机很热的情况下很快停车，因为没有了冷却气流，发动机舱内的零件温度会升高。(1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you are getting this sentence here (&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinabidding.mofcom.gov.cn/govmain.jhtml?method=detail&amp;amp;channelId=205&amp;amp;docid=223065243&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinabidding.mofcom.gov.cn/govmain.jhtml?method=detail&amp;amp;channelId=205&amp;amp;docid=223065243&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;测定由于昼夜温度波动、停车期间热浸和城内运转所产生的污染物 (2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct translation for the concept in (1) should be &quot;hot soak&quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://esa21.kennesaw.edu/activities/smog-cars/doe-veh-pollutants.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://esa21.kennesaw.edu/activities/smog-cars/doe-veh-pollutants.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully (2) is the correct context.  In general it would be good to include at least the entire parent sentence, so we can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T20:16:27.740" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10749" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-13T23:13:36.680" Score="10" ViewCount="1867" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could choose 由 or 被. Why should I choose 由? Are there any good reasons for this choice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这件事 _______ 公司负责。My girlfriend immediately said 由， but she couldn't say why.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the answers below about 被 only being used with the perfective, if I change my sentence thus, is 被 then ok?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这件事 _______ 公司负责了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2014-12-14T23:35:15.920" LastActivityDate="2016-02-21T16:23:21.763" Title="Why should I use 由 here and not 被?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10749" CreationDate="2014-12-14T00:43:52.617" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you want to emphasize the responsibility, 由______负责。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由 has the meaning of 原由（reason）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some bad things may caused by 公司, or it is none business of the person, but 公司 hope to take responsibility. choose 由.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you want to emphasize the source or origin, 由 他 开始 count off. scandal 由 华尔街日报 report&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other situations, you can choose 被&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这件事 被 公司解决。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6901" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-14T12:02:10.363" LastActivityDate="2014-12-14T12:02:10.363" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10749" CreationDate="2014-12-14T08:22:57.680" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how your Chinese level is like now, but it's always useful to know that &lt;code&gt;被 (A) B&lt;/code&gt; isn't the counterpart of &lt;code&gt;be B-ed (by A)&lt;/code&gt;, because Chinese language lacks the notion of &lt;em&gt;passive&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The true meaning of &lt;code&gt;被 A B&lt;/code&gt; construction is, literally &lt;code&gt;receive A('s) B-ing&lt;/code&gt;, or more practically &lt;code&gt;let A do B to oneself&lt;/code&gt;. There are two more things I have to explain about the phrase, that is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It conveys a connotation of &quot;done unexpectedly&quot;, in most cases, &quot;unwelcome&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的蛋糕都被他吃了！ &lt;em&gt;I got all my cake eaten by him!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It always requires verbs to be perfective (~ become meaningful by the end of the action), because what's important is the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NG&lt;/strong&gt; 不要被他跑！ &lt;em&gt;(???)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;OK&lt;/strong&gt; 不要被他跑了！ &lt;em&gt;Don't let him run away (from us)!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;OK&lt;/strong&gt; 不要被他跑掉！ &lt;em&gt;(same as above)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your question, why you can't use 被 here is mostly because it trespasses #2. The bare verb 负责 isn't perfective by its own (it has effect &lt;em&gt;while&lt;/em&gt; the responsibility is taken).&#xA;But it doesn't seem to make sense even when you change it to perfect, either: &lt;code&gt;这件事被公司负责了&lt;/code&gt; could be valid only in some situation that, say, you're dying to take charge of something for some reason, but it ends up the company has taken it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, &lt;code&gt;由 A B&lt;/code&gt; is a formal expression also partially corresponds to passive in English, literally reports &lt;code&gt;B realizes from/via A&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;be B-ed by A with its initiative&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6912" LastEditorUserId="6912" LastEditDate="2014-12-14T08:45:03.027" LastActivityDate="2014-12-14T08:45:03.027" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10753" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10755" CreationDate="2014-12-14T12:00:42.267" Score="1" ViewCount="5440" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many languages have uppercase and lowercase forms. English for example has lowercase &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; and uppercase &lt;code&gt;A&lt;/code&gt;. Letters written in uppercase are known as being capitalized. Chinese, also, does have a form of &lt;em&gt;&quot;capitalization&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Numbers for example are considered to have &lt;strong&gt;lowercase&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;uppercase&lt;/strong&gt;, uppercase numbers zero to ten including the following common characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;零、壹、贰、叁、肆、伍、陆、柒、捌、玖、拾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other forms of capitalization, or uppercase, exist in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-12-14T15:19:29.350" Title="Capitalization in Chinese" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10753" CreationDate="2014-12-14T12:18:29.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those are numerical variant characters used on checks and similar document in order to prevent falsification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no such thing as cased characters in Chinese, although case of course occurs when using Pinyin for transliteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also realize that ”uppercase” is the original form of Roman characters, whereas the minuscules were later added for easier reading. The term case comes from the literal cases where the printed types were stored: majuscules in the upper, minuscules in the lower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-12-14T12:18:29.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10753" CreationDate="2014-12-14T15:19:29.350" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides One to Ten and 整(正) you've mentioned, there are also 佰(百), 仟(千), 圆(元). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/680862.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;page&lt;/a&gt; also have some other funny numerical characters, such as 廿 as 20, 卅 as 30, and 皕 as 200. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-12-14T15:19:29.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10749" CreationDate="2014-12-14T20:57:36.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;被 has historically only been used for unwanted or negative actions, like 他被杀了. This is because 被 also means 遭遇 or catastrophe in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if modern usage permits 被 as a general passive marker, 由 is more adequate for the reason given above. It is more neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-12-14T20:57:36.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10757" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10759" CreationDate="2014-12-14T22:05:02.660" Score="7" ViewCount="540" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character &lt;code&gt;瞓&lt;/code&gt; is a Cantonese character meaning &quot;sleep&quot;. It is pronounced &lt;code&gt;xùn&lt;/code&gt; in mandarin and &lt;code&gt;fan3&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese. I was wondering how two so different pronunciations (I would expect &lt;code&gt;xun&lt;/code&gt; to match &lt;code&gt;syun&lt;/code&gt; or similar and &lt;code&gt;fan&lt;/code&gt; to match &lt;code&gt;fen&lt;/code&gt; or similar) came into being. I did some research. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9E%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; has pronunciations &lt;code&gt;mén, mèn, shuì&lt;/code&gt; for Mandarin and &lt;code&gt;fan3&lt;/code&gt; for Cantonese. mdbg.net has &lt;code&gt;xùn&lt;/code&gt; on the main display, but opening the dictionary entry (clicking on the character) reveals &lt;code&gt;shuì&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;fan3&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/262844.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike baidu&lt;/a&gt; has &lt;code&gt;fèn&lt;/code&gt;, which finally matches the Cantonese. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2684/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CantoDict&lt;/a&gt;, however, has &lt;code&gt;kùn&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;fan3&lt;/code&gt;, and states the origin is 困, which in Cantonese means &quot;sleepy&quot;, plus three other very different meanings, according to CantoDict, but is pronounced &lt;code&gt;kwan3&lt;/code&gt;. So the Cantonese sound is definitely &lt;code&gt;fan3&lt;/code&gt;, but the Mandarin sound? THe &lt;code&gt;shuì&lt;/code&gt; pronunciation suggests a pronunciation loan induced by meaning. The other pronunciations seem totally unrelated. &lt;code&gt;fèn&lt;/code&gt; matches the Cantonese sound, but the origin of the character is pronounced &lt;code&gt;kùn&lt;/code&gt;, curiously matching the CantoDict Mandarin sound of this character. So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How was it pronounced in older times (i.e. Middle Chinese)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How did the pronunciations come into being?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which is the correct Mandarin sound?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there are more, how did they come into being? Were there semantic loans at any point?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Could &lt;code&gt;xùn&lt;/code&gt; be a misspelling of &lt;code&gt;kùn&lt;/code&gt;? It is given by baike in several instances, though.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Could &lt;code&gt;mén, mèn&lt;/code&gt; be distortions of &lt;code&gt;fèn&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope I was clear. My info on this character is very messy :).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary has since updated its pronunciations to fèn-fan3. The original mén/mèn/shuì were added by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Rukhabot&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rukhabot&lt;/a&gt; in an edit dated 22:30, 18 August 2012, and removed by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Suzukaze-c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Suzukaze-c&lt;/a&gt;'s 05:30, 22 September 2015 revision. I wonder where that bot got those pronunciations…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2019-01-24T17:38:29.687" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T17:38:29.687" Title="Character 瞓: where did the pronunciations come from?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10749" CreationDate="2014-12-15T01:34:07.230" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;the problem may be that the A被B C and A由B C are superficially similar but grammatically completely different.  A由... seems like more a topic-comment structure for me, with A being the topic and &quot;由B C&quot; being the comment &lt;em&gt;about&lt;/em&gt; the topic, not anything performed &lt;em&gt;on&lt;/em&gt; the topic. 被 is conceptually linked to A - it is A having something done to it - whereas 由 is linked to B and C, and A is separate: again, a lot like topic/comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个问题被他解决了. ： &quot;this problem was solved by him.&quot;  straight up passive.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个问题由他(来)解决 ：&lt;strong&gt;(as for)&lt;/strong&gt; this problem, (it should be) him to solve it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这个问题由他解决了&quot; completely fails the Google test, i.e. there's not a single usage example on the Internet, even though 被 is 100% ok.  This may be because the 由 construction is an example of a different kind of Chinese grammar structure, and therefore 由 is not like 叫/让/other stand-ins for 被.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T10:21:17.193" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T10:21:17.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10757" CreationDate="2014-12-15T04:42:28.080" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;How was it pronounced in older times (i.e. Middle Chinese)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't found a record of 瞓 in classical Chinese, but since 瞓 and 训 are both read as &lt;code&gt;fan&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese, I'll take 训 instead. It is read &lt;code&gt;qhuns&lt;/code&gt; in reconstructed Old Chinese that is before the 1st century B.C.  In Middle Chinese it is pronounced as &lt;code&gt;hyonh&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;How did the pronunciations come into being?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean &lt;code&gt;瞓&lt;/code&gt;, it is obvious that it's created after &lt;code&gt;训&lt;/code&gt; as a phono-semantic character or 形声字. the &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin &lt;code&gt;xun&lt;/code&gt; comes from &lt;code&gt;qh&lt;/code&gt;, then to &lt;code&gt;hy&lt;/code&gt;, then to &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt;. The &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese &lt;code&gt;fan&lt;/code&gt; might have come into being along the &lt;code&gt;qh -&amp;gt; hy -&amp;gt; h -&amp;gt; f&lt;/code&gt; route. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Which is the correct Mandarin sound?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瞓 isn't a Mandarin word. The dictionaries say it's &lt;code&gt;fèn&lt;/code&gt; and it comes from Hokkien or Cantonese. &lt;code&gt;fèn&lt;/code&gt; is an approximation of the sound in the dialects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;If there are more, how did they come into being? Were there semantic loans at any point?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean more of &quot;dialectic words&quot; that don't exist in Mandarin such as 瞓, there are quite a few. They exist because there are no counterparts in Mandarin or rather classical Chinese, so people have to make new characters for these words. I don't think semantic loan happened here, but it does involve borrowing existing characters to make new ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Could xùn be a misspelling of kùn?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not misspelling. See answers to question #1 and #2. &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; shift is possible. Similar is the case in western languages where the hard &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; (read &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt;) shifts to a soft &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; which sounds similar to the Chinese &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Could mén, mèn be distortions of fèn?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not impossible: &lt;code&gt;m -&amp;gt; w -&amp;gt; v -&amp;gt; f&lt;/code&gt;, For example, in Chinese we have &lt;code&gt;没(m) 无(w) 否(f)&lt;/code&gt; all mean no. But regarding to your question, we need to know who uses the sound &lt;code&gt;men&lt;/code&gt; and when it is used. In most online Chinese dictionaries 瞓 is pronounced as &lt;code&gt;fèn&lt;/code&gt;, I didn't found any references to &lt;code&gt;men&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T05:18:11.023" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T05:18:11.023" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10760" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10761" CreationDate="2014-12-15T07:18:26.310" Score="2" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;So there is a Chinese saying,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有钱能使鬼推磨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have money, you can make the devil push the millstone for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right after the verb 有，the other verb 能+使 comes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that also considered verb serialization? because I've never seen the next verb with 能(can/could) in verb-serialized sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6131" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T06:01:47.057" Title="有钱能使鬼推磨, is this verb serialization?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10760" CreationDate="2014-12-15T09:13:24.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;why not?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;连动句 Sentences with Verbal Constructions in Series。（兼语句 pivotal sentence） are of the type&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subject + predicate_1 + (object_1) + Predicate_2 + (object_2)， &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;object_1 being subject of predicate_2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If predicate_1 originally is some common verb it can be preceded by a modal verb without violating the above structure,in given example predicate_1 is modal verb (能） ＋ verb （使）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The １st predicate can be 有 （i。e。 does not have to be of type 请、要求、使） and pivotal sentences can of course be strung together， resulting in more than ２ predicates。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it were 某人 有钱能使鬼推磨，then  more clearly it would be of type &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;subject（某人）＋p＿１（有）＋o＿１（钱）＋p＿２（能使）＋o＿２（鬼）＋p＿３（推）＋o＿３（磨）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T09:35:35.730" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T09:35:35.730" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9944" CreationDate="2014-12-15T17:20:48.987" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;播放列表 and 歌单 are both okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's been translated as 播放列表 for long because of the early version of Microsoft Windows Media Player and other old players. You can tell that 播放列表 is directly translated because “play“ means 播放 and “list“ means 列表。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 歌单， 单 is equal to 列表， and 歌 means the music that you wanna listen to. While in Chinese, 歌 mostly refers to the music with lyrics and that might be too narrow in meaning for there mignt be classical music without lyrics in your playlist. That's why I prefer 播放列表 to 歌单. The former has the more exact meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays the people who listen to the music without lyrics are much less than people who listen to 歌， so 歌单 is also widely accepted and used by the public and sometimes replaces 播放列表. What's more, the word 歌单 is much shorter than 播放列表. I guess that also makes it more popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6517" LastEditorUserId="6517" LastEditDate="2018-12-19T04:26:50.227" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T04:26:50.227" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10768" CreationDate="2014-12-16T05:23:25.550" Score="13" ViewCount="2276" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed a lot of people have trouble differentiating between 收 and 受.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both their pronunciations and meanings are &lt;em&gt;similar&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to differentiate between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What tricks and tips are there to remember when to use which? (Instead of the other.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T20:14:22.370" Title="Differentiating between 收 and 受" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10757" CreationDate="2014-12-16T08:00:33.150" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Wang Dingwei notes in his answer, 瞓 is a phono-semantic character that uses 訓 (also pronounced &lt;code&gt;fan3&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese) as the phonetic component to represent the word &lt;code&gt;fan3&lt;/code&gt; in its meaning of &quot;sleep&quot;. However, 瞓 is a character that was invented in recent times. The phonetic 訓 was chosen because it happens to have the same pronunciation in modern Cantonese, but that does not mean that the historical phonological analysis of 瞓 should be the same as 訓.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your CantoDict source mentions that the origin of the word is actually 困, and this is indeed the correct origin. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/kx/56F0.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《康熙字典》&lt;/a&gt; mentions that &quot;tired and weary&quot; is among its definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;又瘁也，倦極力乏也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 睏 was sometimes used in order differentiate it from the other meanings of 困. The modern Cantonese pronunciation of 困 is &lt;code&gt;kwan3&lt;/code&gt; rather than &lt;code&gt;fan3&lt;/code&gt; though, so how did it end up getting its current pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;fan3&lt;/code&gt;? It turns out that it is the result of regular sound change from Middle Chinese, and in fact it's the &lt;code&gt;kwan3&lt;/code&gt; reading that is the exception.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare the following words, all of which have an &lt;code&gt;f-&lt;/code&gt; initial in modern Cantonese but had a /kʰu-/ initial in Middle Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;苦 MC: /kʰuo/ &gt; C: &lt;code&gt;fu2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;堀 MC: /kʰuet/ &gt; C: &lt;code&gt;fat1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;快 MC: /kʰuai/ &gt; C: &lt;code&gt;faai3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;寬闊 MC: /kʰuan kʰuat/ &gt; C: &lt;code&gt;fun1 fut3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside, Mandarin retained the MC /kʰu-/ initial (pinyin: &lt;code&gt;ku-&lt;/code&gt;) essentially unaltered (cf., &lt;code&gt;kǔ&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;kū&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;kuài&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;kuān kuò&lt;/code&gt;, respectively).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;困 was pronounced /kʰuən/ in Middle Chinese. 《康熙字典》 mentions that 困 has the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;fanqie&lt;/a&gt; 苦悶切, so by analogy it should have the same initial as 苦 and should be read as &lt;code&gt;fan3&lt;/code&gt; rather than &lt;code&gt;kwan3&lt;/code&gt; in modern Cantonese if the sound changes were consistent. However for some reason its literary pronunciation in modern Cantonese happened to preserve the older /kʰu-/ initial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given this, the answers to your first three questions should actually be analyzing 困 rather than 訓:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;How was it pronounced in older times (i.e. Middle Chinese)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned previously, 困 was pronounced /kʰuən/ in Middle Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;How did the pronunciations come into being?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese &lt;code&gt;f-&lt;/code&gt; came from Middle Chinese /kʰu-/. MC /kʰ-/ had at one point become /h-/ somewhere in the course between MC and Cantonese. /h-/ initial words that did not have a /-u-/ medial remained /h-/, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;開 MC: /kʰai/ &gt; C: &lt;code&gt;hoi1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看 MC: /kʰan/ &gt; C: &lt;code&gt;hon3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可 MC: /kʰa/ &gt; C: &lt;code&gt;ho2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;客 MC: /kʰɐk/ &gt; C: &lt;code&gt;haak3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;肯 MC: /kʰəŋ/ &gt; C: &lt;code&gt;hang2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;口 MC: /kʰəu/ &gt; C: &lt;code&gt;hau2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, those with the medial (i.e., /hu-/) underwent a further change to become &lt;code&gt;f-&lt;/code&gt; in modern Cantonese, as previously noted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside, the /kʰ-/ to /h-/ shift is not an unusual sound change. A similar shift happened in the Germanic languages (e.g., compare Latin &lt;em&gt;canis&lt;/em&gt; vs. English &lt;em&gt;hound&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;cor&lt;/em&gt; vs. &lt;em&gt;heart&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;centum&lt;/em&gt; vs. &lt;em&gt;hundred&lt;/em&gt;, etc.; see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm%27s_law&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grimm's Law&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Which is the correct Mandarin sound?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is simply the pronunciation of 困 in Modern Mandarin, which is &lt;code&gt;kùn&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your remaining three questions are in regards to the character 瞓 itself rather than the actual word that &lt;code&gt;fan3&lt;/code&gt; was derived from (困). Because it's a character that was invented to represent dialectical pronunciations, it's hard to determine how the other &quot;Mandarin&quot; pronunciations came about without additional references to where they were found, as Wang Dingwei mentioned in his answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T08:20:27.830" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T08:20:27.830" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10763" CreationDate="2014-12-16T10:14:36.410" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;收 ： Accept， ask for &#xA;受： be given&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This shop accepts cash only.&#xA;This award is given to the hero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T10:14:36.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10763" CreationDate="2014-12-16T12:23:16.000" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;收 is an active action; 受 is a passive action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8071" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T12:23:16.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10420" CreationDate="2014-12-16T12:30:20.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;惊讶 emphasises more on the state after being surprised/shocked.&#xA;吃惊 emphasises more on the process when being surprised/shocked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8071" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T12:30:20.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10763" CreationDate="2014-12-16T16:43:35.107" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may see the definitions of these two characters on zdic.net (maybe you already know), an online dictionary which is convenient for looking up the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I think (subjectively) the main difference of these two characters is that 收 emphasizes the action of receiving, gathering or reducing, and 受 emphasizes the finish of receiving an action, which is something sort of similar to the perfect tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess that your doubt comes from distinguishing 接收 from 接受? In some sentenses these two words are almost the same, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他接受了这份礼物。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他接收了这份礼物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I still feel that there is a tiny differece as I said above, 接收 puts more significance on the action of receiving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another differece may be that, 收 is usually used with &quot;concrete&quot; things like gift, data, signal, while 受 is usually used with abstract things like suggestion, training, offer, and only some &quot;concrete&quot; things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reference&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;收 on zdic.net&#xA;www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/6536.htm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受 on zdic.net&#xA;www.zdic.net/z/16/js/53D7.htm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastEditorUserId="2484" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T18:43:49.550" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T18:43:49.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10769" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-17T01:34:02.980" Score="8" ViewCount="3234" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese word meaning &quot;to be&quot;, written as 係 (Jyutping: hai6) sounds similar to the Japanese word はい (&quot;hai&quot; in various Romanizations). Both words are used to answer &quot;yes&quot; or &quot;it is correct&quot; to yes-no questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Japanese Wikipedia article on Cantonese contains &lt;a href=&quot;http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BA%83%E6%9D%B1%E8%AA%9E#.E7.B9.8B.E8.BE.9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a sentence&lt;/a&gt; I find interesting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「係」は肯定の返事にも用いられ、日本語の「はい」の語源という説もある。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the second part of that says that there is a theory that 係 in Cantonese is the source of the はい in Japanese. However, the article does not provide any sources for this statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is this theory documented anywhere? And what are the details of this theory?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is this theory plausible?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the source of the Cantonese word 係 (meaning &quot;to be&quot;, ignoring the other meanings of that character) in Middle Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the source of the Japanese word はい?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it possible that they share a common source?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;related: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Are-the-Hais-in-Japanese-and-Cantonese-related&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.quora.com/Are-the-Hais-in-Japanese-and-Cantonese-related&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5978" LastEditorUserId="5978" LastEditDate="2015-11-12T03:25:53.287" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T03:25:53.287" Title="Are the Cantonese word 係 and the Japanese word はい related?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10770" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10785" CreationDate="2014-12-17T01:51:34.387" Score="2" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any convenient list of all of these characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of such characters being:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Hokkien (Min) &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%AA%9C%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (which is the pronoun 'them/they/theirs')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese/Hakka/Gan &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BD%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;佢&lt;/a&gt; (which is the pronoun 'he/him/his').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese particle &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;尐&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wiktionary.org/zh/%E5%95%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;啲&lt;/a&gt; (apparently there is some debate on what the correct character for this should be), which is frequently rendered simply (and rather bizarrely) as 'D'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4133" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T00:01:31.897" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T00:01:31.897" Title="List of Chinese characters not used in Mandarin/putonghua" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10775" CreationDate="2014-12-17T04:25:07.473" Score="2" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would you say, &quot;Don't let price interfere with your happiness&quot; in Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After asking a few Cantonese speakers, there were still no conclusive answers but a few suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)冇俾價錢影響你快樂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)冇俾價錢影響你選擇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3)冇俾價錢影響你情緒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of these seem right. What's the right way to say this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context: we were eating dinner with a friend, and she wanted to order something at the restaurant, but it cost $1 more than normal. Even though she really was craving the dish, she chose something cheaper in order to save $1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2014-12-17T20:09:29.700" LastActivityDate="2015-01-18T07:32:27.790" Title="How would you say, &quot;Don't let price interfere with your happiness&quot; in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9539" CreationDate="2014-12-17T10:13:50.940" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this image on Walt Disney's tie in a picture of him.  It is not a Chinese character, rather the letters S, R and T, according to : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.quora.com/Saving-Mr-Banks-2013-film/What-is-the-logo-mark-on-Walt-Disneys-tie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.quora.com/Saving-Mr-Banks-2013-film/What-is-the-logo-mark-on-Walt-Disneys-tie&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8078" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2014-12-18T22:18:25.253" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T22:18:25.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9539" CreationDate="2014-12-17T15:42:59.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The flipped version @ljk provided somehow reminds me of the character 兔 (rabbit), even it doesn't looks like one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-12-17T15:42:59.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10763" CreationDate="2014-12-17T17:49:14.320" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to answers above, here is a tip if you don’t feel uncomfortable with homosexuality. In informal language 受 can be used as a noun meaning &quot;bottom&quot; in gay terms, as opposed to 攻(&quot;top&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can see that 受 is passive compared to 收, e.g., 受到攻击-&gt;be under attack, 受伤-&gt;be injured, 受挫-&gt;suffer a setback, 受骗-&gt;be deceived, 收获-&gt;harvest, 收养-&gt;adopt, 收购-&gt;purchase, 收银员-&gt;cashier (customers would be delighted if the cashier didn't ask them for money^_^). The two characters can be even combined to one word 收受 implying the subject is active and/or passive during the process (收受贿赂-&gt;demand, receive or agree to accept bribes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this will help and please forgive me for any mistakes in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Added at the request of Mr. Ho (14/12/20):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage of 攻/受 is borrowed from Japanese ACG(Anime, Comics &amp;amp; Games), where it's known as 攻め/受け or seme/uke (not sure the spelling is correct because I don’t know Japanese). Here are some explanations from Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;MPAA &amp;amp; 广电总局 WARNING:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The web pages have been rated &lt;strong&gt;Not-safe-for-work-and-do-Not-view-it-in-the-presence-of-your-children&lt;/strong&gt; for nudity and sexuality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seme and uke in Yaoi: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi#Top_and_bottom_or_seme_and_uke&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi#Top_and_bottom_or_seme_and_uke&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slang in Chinese gay culture:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_China#Slang_in_contemporary_Chinese_gay_culture&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_China#Slang_in_contemporary_Chinese_gay_culture&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related widely used slang word 基友 (literally gay-friend) is worth mentioning. It denotes a close male friend of a guy regardless of his (or his friend's) sexual orientation, for example, 我要去参加一个基友的婚礼-&gt;I’m going to attend a good friend’s (the groom) wedding. However, some “genuine” gay men may consider the word offensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8082" LastEditorUserId="8082" LastEditDate="2014-12-20T07:01:14.143" LastActivityDate="2014-12-20T07:01:14.143" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10771" CreationDate="2014-12-17T18:16:57.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) 唔好俾價錢影響你嘅樂趣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) 唔好俾價錢減低你嘅樂趣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;answer 1) should be correct, but I listed answer 2) because it is more common to refer &quot;&lt;code&gt;interfere with happiness&lt;/code&gt;&quot; with its meaning of actually &quot;&lt;code&gt;reducing the happiness&lt;/code&gt;&quot; in cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-12-17T18:16:57.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10776" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-17T19:21:58.677" Score="4" ViewCount="481" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他出商店去了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他从商店出去了。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is only the second sentence right? I knew that when we use a directional complement, we could put the object in the middle between the two verbs. So why do I have to use 从 in this sentence to make it grammatically correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T00:07:01.387" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T00:07:01.387" Title="Why is 他从商店出去了 correct but 他出商店去了 incorrect?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;direction-complement&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10776" CreationDate="2014-12-17T22:12:18.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;出 and 去 are both verbs, you can't use both as separate entities. 出去 on the other hand is a resultative verb, you can't break it up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从 (from) is here a preposition indicating direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar expression would be 他到哪儿去了, where 到 (where/to) is the corresponding preposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-12-17T22:12:18.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10769" CreationDate="2014-12-17T22:55:42.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely a false cognate. You would think that such basic words as yes and no are native rather than foreign loan words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;はい has thus always basically been written in some form of kana, and when Chinese characters have been used exclusively, it may have been rendered phonetically with such a character. For various reasons, 係 is not a good classical candidate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2014-12-17T22:55:42.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10776" CreationDate="2014-12-17T23:04:23.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a sentence structure that is commonly seen nowadays.  For example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他买苹果去了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他到美国去了  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means that (he) performed (some action) and he's gone doing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, he gets out of the shop and he's gone doing it.&#xA;他出商店去了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the catch here is to determine if the question is asking if &lt;code&gt;出去&lt;/code&gt; can be used separately (which we can't), or if it's just a sentence structure where &lt;code&gt;出&lt;/code&gt; is the action (exiting).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-12-17T23:04:23.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10780" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10782" CreationDate="2014-12-18T02:51:08.333" Score="3" ViewCount="1230" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading the book &lt;em&gt;Born for Love&lt;/em&gt; at the moment and came across the following passage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In all great religions, for example, there’s an equivalent of the Golden Rule, a summary of moral teachings that suggests that considering how you would want to be treated in the same situation is a good guide to doing the right thing. From the biblical “Love thy neighbor as thyself” to the Taoist “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss,” to the Islamic “None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself,” and the Talmudic “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taoism is obviously has Chinese roots, so I was trying to find this &lt;em&gt;maxim&lt;/em&gt;, if you will, in Chinese. To no avail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything I have found just seems to be English references back to the same (mis?)translated quote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a &lt;strong&gt;proper&lt;/strong&gt; original quote of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in Chinese? And what is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&#xA;Supposedly it's from: 太上感应篇....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T14:26:14.333" Title="Translation: Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10776" CreationDate="2014-12-18T03:21:14.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;出商店去了&lt;/code&gt; is fine with proper context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other answers have pointed out that &lt;code&gt;出去&lt;/code&gt; is an inseparable verb. I don't think it's the case. Instead, you use &lt;code&gt;出&lt;/code&gt; as a single verb and use &lt;code&gt;去了&lt;/code&gt; as a complementary. This matches the &lt;code&gt;Verb Phrase + 去了&lt;/code&gt; structure, as in &lt;code&gt;钓鱼去了&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;吃午餐去了&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when there is &lt;code&gt;出&lt;/code&gt; in the verb phrase, people usually expect the &lt;code&gt;出 + Optional Place + VP + 去了&lt;/code&gt; structure, as in &lt;code&gt;出钓鱼去了&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;出公司吃午餐去了&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;出商店去了&lt;/code&gt; would sound a bit incomplete in such context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then again, we have &lt;code&gt;出差去了&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;出国去了&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;出门去了&lt;/code&gt; etc. &lt;code&gt;出差&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;出国&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;出门&lt;/code&gt; are established verbs, so these phrases fit the &lt;code&gt;VP + 去了&lt;/code&gt; category. &lt;code&gt;出国&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;出商店&lt;/code&gt; are too similar in structure, though the latter is not an established word, it is still natural if we mentally consider it it as &lt;code&gt;VP + 去了&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would imagine the following dialog:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Woman: Have you seen my husband? He wears a green hat. 看见我老公了吗？他戴一顶绿色的帽子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Girl: Yes, but he just went out of the store. 看见了，不过他刚刚出商店去了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not ungrammatical to my taste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T03:31:44.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10780" CreationDate="2014-12-18T03:34:04.057" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;見人之得，如己之得；見人之失，如己之失。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original text is here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://book.bfnn.org/books/0477.htm&quot;&gt;http://book.bfnn.org/books/0477.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T03:34:04.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10769" CreationDate="2014-12-18T05:57:30.107" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Japanese &lt;a href=&quot;http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%AF%E3%81%84&quot;&gt;wiki page&lt;/a&gt; mentions that the claim is a &quot;folk theory&quot; that is &quot;denied by academics&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative etymology for Cantonese hai6 comes from 系/繫. I don't have this book, but apparently Jerry Norman suggests this in &lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt; (1988). This word had a very early meaning of 'to be connected', was used as a copula in later texts, and the phonological evidence is certainly not lacking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize the wiki article, はい is thought to come from either 拝, a courteously used Sino-Japanese word, or a corruption of similar words such as &quot;ai&quot; and &quot;ei&quot;. It is only attested from the Edo period onwards, which is very recent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the relative isolation of Japan in the past few centuries, the word would have had to travel from Japan into rural Chinese villages in the past 100 years or so. Even if this did happen, it would likely have been heavily documented by various sources. The Chinese-internal etymology is much simpler and I personally see no reason to believe the Japanese etymology without further evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastEditorUserId="3064" LastEditDate="2014-12-18T06:04:34.717" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T06:04:34.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10770" CreationDate="2014-12-19T04:59:28.423" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only online dictionary database I can find is 《新华字典》. It is a Microsoft Access database containing 20823 characters. You can run a query on the database and search for &quot;方言&quot; in the &quot;xiangjie&quot;(详解) column. There are shortcomings however, 20823 characters may not be comprehensive enough, and it usually doesn't tell you which dialect the character is used in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can download the dictionary database file &lt;a href=&quot;http://db.myds.cn/download/xhzd.zip&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Cantonese, there is a convenient list circulating around called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.asia/attachments/school/canchars.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;粤语字打法大全&lt;/a&gt;. Wikibooks also has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikibooks.org/zh/%E7%B2%B5%E8%AA%9E/%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97/%E7%B2%B5%E8%AA%9E%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;character list&lt;/a&gt; but there is no definition of meanings. You can find more if you search 粤语字 online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T04:59:28.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10009" CreationDate="2014-12-19T05:25:22.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=radicals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;mdbg.net's radical section&lt;/a&gt;. The first charachter on each individual radical's page is always the character the radical comes from followed by the radical itself (if they're different), followed by anywhere from a couple to several hundred charachters with that radical in simplified and traditional. Clicking on a charachter on any of the radical page takes you to the dictionary which shows the character in both simplified and traditional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this was helpful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8056" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T05:25:22.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10771" CreationDate="2014-12-19T07:05:16.113" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;咪俾個價錢掃你興啦!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;咪 = 唔好 = Don't&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;俾 = allow / let&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;個&quot; .... It sounds more natural with this quantifier&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;價錢 = price&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;掃你興 ~= 減低你嘅樂趣 ~= 影響你嘅樂趣 = interfere with your happiness&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;啦&quot; .... It sounds more natural with this interjection&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T07:05:16.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10728" CreationDate="2014-12-19T07:13:29.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;唔好咁武斷&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a well-known saying for the 70s generation or earlier, but much less for the 80s generation and onwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T07:13:29.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10789" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10882" CreationDate="2014-12-19T10:04:58.537" Score="4" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was going through the &lt;em&gt;四川方言词典&lt;/em&gt; the other day and came across this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Lz8U.png&quot; alt=&quot;0.1.0&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h8YeS.png&quot; alt=&quot;0.1.1&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...and my transcription...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冲起屁——[股]   cong1 qi3 pi4——[gu3]    这是歇后语的一种特殊格式。这种歇后语的“引”和“注”合起来是一个完整的四字格词组, 运用时, 只说“引”, 不说“注”。但说话人的意思只在“注”上。“引”和“注”无意义联系, “引”仅起带出“注”来的作用。 ▷小弟冲起屁[屁股]上尘得有月照纱[“窗”, 谐“疮”]。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is this specially formatted type of xiehouyu called?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What other examples of this type of xiehouyu are there?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2018-08-11T05:05:59.170" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T05:05:59.170" Title="Specially formatted Xiehouyu: What are they? What others are there?" Tags="&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10770" CreationDate="2014-12-19T17:49:39.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/masterlist.htm?action=cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cantodict&lt;/a&gt; has a list of 265 spoken Cantonese charachters...some are used in Standard Chinese, but with completely different meanings when used in dialect. As for the other dialects...I too am at a loss for resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8056" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T17:49:39.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10791" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10794" CreationDate="2014-12-19T20:04:25.963" Score="0" ViewCount="710" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am used to hearing phrases like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我住在这儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say &quot;I lived here [before]&quot;, however, it seems you can't use 了 at all:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以前我住在这儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this not &quot;以前我住了在这儿&quot;? Is there a formal reason why 了 is inappropriate to use here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4709" LastActivityDate="2014-12-24T09:26:24.940" Title="Why is there no 了 in 以前我住在这儿" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10791" CreationDate="2014-12-19T22:37:54.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 is a particle for completed action, similar to the perfect tense in English. Your sentence is in the simple past tense with no special emphasis on completion, or finishing of an action, so 了 is not necessary here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare these two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以前我住在这儿。&#xA;I lived here before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在这儿住了五年了。&#xA;I have lived here for 5 years (already).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T22:37:54.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10791" CreationDate="2014-12-19T23:15:36.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This will not answer your question but shed some light to the mystery of the 了 particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;了 does not mean past tense. It denotes **CHANGE**.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;以前我住在这儿。&lt;/code&gt; &#xA;This sentence points out no change. It only says that once you were living there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your friend calls from the kitchen: 吃饭了！ &#xA;This one points out a change, namely that we are ready to eat the meal. It is not past tense, it's in the present, but a change has occured, so wo use 了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;行了！&lt;/code&gt; &#xA;You can use this sentence to say 'Fine with me!'. There is absolutely no past tense here, it just says that I have made up my mind, so now we have a change from the previous undecided situation to one with a resolution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;别吵了！  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stop quarreling! Here you see, an imperative really has nothing to do with past tense, yet there is a 了 in the sentence because the speaker orders the ones he/she speaks to, to make a change from quarreling to silence.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T23:15:36.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10795" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-19T23:30:02.687" Score="2" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;IT企业的电子商务也在1999年开始起步。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you translate '开始起步'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-04T02:15:50.930" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T02:15:50.930" Title="How to interpret 开始起步 in IT企业的电子商务也在1999年开始起步?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10795" CreationDate="2014-12-20T05:03:53.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford English to Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Start Out&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 (begin to do sth.) 开始起步&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起步 if we look at it literally it means &quot;pick up&quot; + &quot;feet&quot; (steps really but that doesn't sound as good).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it usually gets translated as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• start&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• begin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• In French it's translated as débuter, which also means start or begin but looks like the English debut.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So here's where you're confused&lt;/strong&gt; it looks like we have 开始 + 起步 as start + start, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if we take the literal translation of 起步 from uptop we could translate it like &lt;em&gt;&quot;began to pick up its feet&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going off of the French inspiration I would love to translate it as &lt;em&gt;&quot;made its debut&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, which sounds a lot better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dunno if I'm cutting too much out but I would translate the entire sentence &lt;strong&gt;IT企业的电子商务也在1999年开始起步&lt;/strong&gt; as &lt;em&gt;eCommerce also made its debut in 1999&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-12-20T05:03:53.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10797" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-20T08:38:38.733" Score="1" ViewCount="359" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translation of Der Prozess (审判）by Franz Kafka contains the following sentence 他凝视着她的头发；她那头微微发红的头发梳得很整齐，中间分开，脑后束成一个堕云譬（apparently a misprint of 髻）corresponding to：＂He looked at her hair in front of him, parted, bunched down, reddish and firmly held in place＂。 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7849/pg7849.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7849/pg7849.html&lt;/a&gt;（Vor sich sah er ihr Haar, geteiltes, niedrig gebauschtes, fest zusammengehaltenes, rötliches  Haar &lt;a href=&quot;http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/der-prozess-157/5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/der-prozess-157/5&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: is there a good reason, why the translation uses the name of the particular hairstyle 堕云髻 instead of simply translating the part &quot;bunched down, and firmly held in place&quot; more literally？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;搜索一下＂堕云譬＂会直接导致＂审判 弗朗茨·卡夫卡 著＂。首先得指出的是＂譬＂好像是个讹字必须以＂髻＂字取代。搜索一下＂堕云髻＂也会说明指的是女子的某发型而&#xA;还有其他的包含＂云髻＂两个字的发型名字，即＂流云髻、随云髻、垂云髻、飞云髻、朝云近香髻＂，等等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另一方面该句子似乎相当于 He looked at her hair in front of him, parted, bunched down, reddish and firmly held in place。就是说＂脑后束成一个堕云髻＂差不多理应相当于bunched down（niedrig gebauscht）即＂向下聚（束）成一串＂。问题就是，有没有更接近原文的翻译。其实按某些使用者看，可以把＂hair，bunched down,and firmly held in place＂翻译成＂在脑后紧紧系向下聚（束）成一串（髻）的头发＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T15:54:21.450" Title="Why use name of particular hairstyle 堕云髻 （low cloud bun？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10798" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10802" CreationDate="2014-12-20T14:17:31.270" Score="3" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading the following lyric (詞) of Nara Singde (納蘭性德), set to the tune 念奴嬌, where rhyming characters are enclosed in parentheses according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://longyusheng.org/cipai/cipai102.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this reference&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怕見人去樓空，柳枝無恙，猶掃窗間(月)。&#xA;無分暗香深處住，悔把蘭襟親(結)。&#xA;尚暖檀痕，猶寒翠影，觸緒悲(切)。&#xA;愁多成病，此愁知向誰(說)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am confused about how the rhyme is supposed to work for 說, since it quite clearly (at least to me) has its ordinary meaning &quot;to speak&quot; (shuo1) but seems to be read closer to yue4: and 仄聲.  However every reference source I can find, including classical references, indicate that whenever it is read as yue4 it is strictly as an equivalent character to 悅, &quot;to delight in/be delightful&quot; (e.g. 不亦說乎).  Its third standard reading - shui4 - doesn't make sense semantically and also fails the rhyme pattern. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is - is the reconstructed &quot;old&quot; pronunciation of 說&amp;lt;-&gt;&quot;speak&quot; closer to yue4 or anything else that would explain why the rhyme is permissible here?  Or, is it &quot;ok&quot; in lyrics to play fast and loose with the pronunciation/semantic rules, so that this character can be pronounced as 悅 but still somehow keep its semantic meaning of shuo1?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More generally, are there any good reference works concerning these technical issues of Chinese poetry/lyric scansion to which a kind friend can direct me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2014-12-20T14:42:36.027" LastActivityDate="2014-12-21T03:34:22.240" Title="How Should I Pronounce the Character 說 In This Lyric?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10797" CreationDate="2014-12-20T15:51:36.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translator is being too clever. He forgot that there is no reason that Miss Bürstner would wear an ancient Chinese hairstyle. The word 堕云髻 is misused here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be that the translator subconsciously wanted to show off his knowledge about hairstyles, which obviously have failed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This translation is done by 曹庸, one of the best translators from the past generation. Translation is hard work. It shouldn't be surprising to see even the best translators make mistakes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-12-20T15:51:36.383" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10800" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-21T02:39:19.017" Score="2" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在，中国网民总数已经超过美国人口总数，但美国网购人数占其全部人口的75%，中国则只有25%左右，而且，中国网购消费者年均消费额仅为美国消费者的1/5。于刚认为，这&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;差距， 更是中国电子商务的潜力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is '是‘ in 这是差距 working as a 量词？Or should I read 'this is a disparity'? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-22T00:15:27.390" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T00:15:27.390" Title="Is 是 being used as a measure word in this sentence?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10800" CreationDate="2014-12-21T02:48:21.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a measure word. Just the usual meaning of &quot;be&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2014-12-21T02:48:21.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10798" CreationDate="2014-12-21T03:34:22.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTU5ODE3MzYw.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt;. This lady tried to use the pronunciation &lt;code&gt;que&lt;/code&gt; to rhyme with other &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; endings. It's a lyric by 柳永. The second paragraph goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;多情自古伤离别，更那堪，冷落清秋节！&#xA;今宵酒醒何处？杨柳岸，晓风残月。&#xA;此去经年，应是良辰好（或“美”）景虚设。&#xA;便纵有千种风情，更与何人说！&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that it's not exactly &quot;古音&quot;. She just sang in Mandarin and borrowed the 说 sound from somewhere else. I don't know where she borrowed it, but it's a bit strange. The rhyme seems to be working in modern 吴语, 粤语 and some other vernaculars, but none of them uses a plosive consonant. IMO if we read in Mandarin and try to rhyme, it's probably best to read it as &lt;code&gt;xue4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, mandarin sucks when you try to read classical poems. We can use workarounds for vowels. As for the tones, there is nothing we could do..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/880497.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;词林正韵&lt;/a&gt; is a good starter's book for rhymes in classical poems. It tells you what rhymes with what, but it doesn't tell you how they pronounce. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-12-21T03:34:22.240" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10803" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10826" CreationDate="2014-12-21T06:07:59.200" Score="3" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's here! The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.brill.com/products/reference-work/students-dictionary-classical-and-medieval-chinese-0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese&lt;/a&gt; dictionary is finally out!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13722&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Language Log&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of the people associated with this dictionary are excellent scholars, so I'm sure that it will be reliable and of the highest quality.  Naturally, I am pleased that it is arranged alphabetically by Pinyin and has a radical plus stroke order index.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is like a dream come true for me, since I myself — starting over a quarter of a century ago — tried to organize the compilation of such a dictionary, and even arranged for the late Gilbert L. Mattos to prepare several hundred entries, and I also enlisted the help of Paul Kroll.  I am so happy that Professor Kroll has gone forward with this project and created this wonderful tool.  Certainly every student and scholar with a serious interest in premodern China will want to own a copy for him/herself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a major event in the history of Western Sinology.  I have not yet seen the dictionary with my own eyes, but from the description on the Brill website and from my familiarity with the work of the contributors over the past fifty years, I am sure that this dictionary will immediately become an essential tool for all Sinologists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Hat tip Petya Andreeva]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where leoboiko in the comments says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the transcription is… well… the MC for 寵 chŏng is given as trhjowngX. Is it one of those transcriptions where Roman letters are used as digraphs for various sounds, or merely abstract symbols for the various known relationships? While I sympathize with the linguistically sound reasons to do that, I can't help but fear that it will confuse nonlinguists (like the Baxter/Sagart reconstruction, available online, which a lot of random people on the net seem to have mistaken as literally phonetic – and I can't blame them, honestly). Of course, we should be technical and precise and conservative in proposing hypothetical reconstructions; but hey, we live in a typographically rich era; do we really need to represent tones and such as Roman capitals? (Compare Kroll's MC for zhuǎn, trjwenX, with Schuessler's, tjwänᴮ.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if I re-read the previous paragraph, I feel like the dictionary I'm looking for is just Schuessler. Since we already have Schuessler (albeit for a limited lexicon), Kroll et al's should work great as a complement. We're focusing on what's missing, but if we look instead to what's present, the sample entries are rich and bountiful in semantics, interpretations, nuances, and specialized meanings (medical, biological, Buddhist etc.). Dated locus classicus and other philological data will be missed, but I know I've wanted something just like Kroll's since forever – especially as a Japanese scholar with no knowledge of modern Chinese languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How does the medieval transcriptions of Chinese work?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How would one go about pronouncing something like &lt;em&gt;trhjowngX&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do, aforementioned, Kroll and Schuessler differ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T12:45:09.950" Title="Medieval Chinese Pronunciation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10804" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10805" CreationDate="2014-12-21T07:07:02.760" Score="-5" ViewCount="531" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want my girlfriend name tattooed in Chinese but unable to know how to write it in Chinese calligraphy. The name is HALDER(pronounced as HALDHER), can someone please let me know how it is in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8095" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:29:00.230" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:29:00.230" Title="How to write this in chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2014-12-22T02:32:30.133" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10804" CreationDate="2014-12-21T07:45:24.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;哈尔德  simply google &quot;HALDER&quot;, resulting in e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/HALDER?renovate=633415&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/HALDER?renovate=633415&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-12-21T08:02:47.503" LastActivityDate="2014-12-21T08:02:47.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10808" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-21T19:39:41.177" Score="0" ViewCount="983" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you kindly help me translate and/or identify english name for this plant/dish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.foodreport.cn/nutrition.php?action=view&amp;amp;id=228&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.foodreport.cn/nutrition.php?action=view&amp;amp;id=228&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nipic.com/show/1/55/5740675k344c9c09.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.nipic.com/show/1/55/5740675k344c9c09.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8096" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T08:54:09.887" Title="Help me please to identify this Chinese plant/dish?" Tags="&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-08-03T08:11:18.303" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10808" CreationDate="2014-12-21T20:02:35.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's difficult to translate names of Chinese dishes into English, because of the huge differences between Chinese and Western cuisine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dish featured on the page is called: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;凉拌贡菜&lt;/strong&gt; (liangban gongcai), &#xA;character by character: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;凉 cold&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;拌 to toss (salad)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;贡 to tribute&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;菜 dish&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's basically a salad that is served cold. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main ingredient is known as &lt;strong&gt;贡菜&lt;/strong&gt; (gong cai) in Chinese, which is sometimes also written as 'gong choi' or 'yamakurage' (Japanese name). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I am wrong, do correct me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: There are some nice photos out there on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/fotoosvanrobin/6662196739/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dish&lt;/a&gt; (gongcai salad) and on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/gongcai,magnoliopsida/Interesting&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;cultivation of gongcai&lt;/a&gt;, as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2014-12-22T08:54:09.887" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T08:54:09.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10811" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-21T23:44:24.750" Score="3" ViewCount="834" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I say &quot;my wife baked these for me&quot;, where &quot;these&quot; can be cookies, pie, etc? In English I can use &quot;make&quot; or &quot;bake&quot; as the verb. Would I use 烘? When referencing one's own wife, is 太太 appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8098" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T16:37:51.863" Title="How do I say &quot;my wife baked these for me&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10811" CreationDate="2014-12-22T00:06:00.320" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我太太为我烘烤了这些&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emphasizing on my wife. Usually, you can just use 烤 and leave the 烘. Actually my wife have never said 烘 when it comes to baking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="863" LastEditorUserId="863" LastEditDate="2014-12-22T00:12:18.573" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T00:12:18.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10811" CreationDate="2014-12-22T01:56:45.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might say &quot;这(些)是我太太给(为)我烤的&quot; or &quot;我太太烤的&quot;, but had better not just say &quot;我太太为我烤了这些&quot; in most situation. For &quot;bake&quot;, &quot;烤&quot; and &quot;做&quot; are both okay. In a polite way, &quot;Wife&quot; can be translated as &quot;太太&quot; or &quot;爱人&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Word order is the biggest difference between English and Chinese. Most of the time &quot;这些&quot; should come first in Chinese sentences. More colloquially, &quot;这些&quot; can be abbreviated to &quot;这&quot; and &quot;给&quot; can replace &quot;为&quot;. You can even omit &quot;这些&quot; if you were pointing at the bread when you said the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're no grammatical mistakes in &quot;我太太为我烤了这些&quot;, but Chinese people hardly speak like that because this sentence doesn't seem complete and the word order seems a little strange (an awkward expression/translation). Here's a way to make it better —— &quot;我太太为我烤了这些面包/饼干&quot;. The sentence can be regarded complete when you add the specific thing and doesn't seem so strange any more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, I recommend you use &quot;这(些)是我太太给(为)我烤的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6517" LastEditorUserId="6517" LastEditDate="2014-12-22T02:18:57.357" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T02:18:57.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10811" CreationDate="2014-12-22T02:14:26.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oral:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.我老婆为我做的.&#xA;2.我妻子给我烤的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做 means make ,老婆 or 妻子 means wife.    为 means for     给  means for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rustic&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.我家那人给我做的.&#xA;1.我家那口子给我做的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;somebody's 家那人 or somebody's 家那口子 means  wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;cultured&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.我太太为我烘烤的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太太:wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;written:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.我妻子为我做的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.我妻子为我烘烤的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;conservative nerd&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.内人炙之.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.此鄙人贱内为在下烘烤.&#xA;内人 means wife.   为 means make. 之 means these or those. 炙:bake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鄙人 means  I    .贱内 means wife . 此:  this  在下 means  I (me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2014-12-22T02:42:12.703" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T02:42:12.703" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10816" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10819" CreationDate="2014-12-22T03:50:28.783" Score="2" ViewCount="3157" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like having pretty acrylic nails:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mwJgZs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;my nails&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roughly once a month, I need to get a refill.  (Basically, they take the color off, and fill in the part of the nail where it's grown out, and paint them again.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my last visit to China, I attempted to get a refill, except (a) my Chinese didn't seem up to the task (I typically listen to intermediate level on ChinesePod, but this is a specialized topic), and (b) the lady didn't seem to have the appropriate equipment.  I managed to get my nails done, but it wasn't the same as what I've had previously in Western countries (instead, they just painted over them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How can I ask for a nail refill?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've just learned the words 假指甲 (fake nails) and 美甲 (manicure).  But I suspect a translation of &quot;refill&quot; will not give me what I'm after.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T11:07:38.697" Title="How do I ask for a refill for my acrylic nails?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10817" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-22T03:58:17.670" Score="2" ViewCount="732" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this word 熱鬧 (In this case, it means very crowded, noisy, lively) in an exercise and it tells me to change it into English. But I can't really find a suitable and precise word to describe this (the three meanings combined).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence: 這個熱鬧、繁華的城市背後，是一大群生活在貧窮線之下的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6774" LastEditorUserId="6774" LastEditDate="2014-12-22T04:24:49.087" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T04:24:49.087" Title="What is the translation of 熱鬧?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10817" CreationDate="2014-12-22T04:14:31.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to 21 Century &lt;strong&gt;renao&lt;/strong&gt; is an English word borrowed from the Chinese 熱鬧:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;n. “热闹”；(文娱、体育、业余爱好等)热闹有趣的活动 [借用汉语拼音 rènào(热闹)] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so that should fit &lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt; what you're looking for but....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that's not satisfactory enough consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lively&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bustling&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;busy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;thrilling&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;exciting (excitement)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;noisy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T04:14:31.400" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10816" CreationDate="2014-12-22T08:52:10.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Refill &lt;strong&gt;修补&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saw this talking about gel nails, but the concept should be the same:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rainbownails.com.hk/blog/tutorial/gel-nails-faq&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;H.K. Gel Nails F&amp;amp;Q&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...要注意在啫喱甲Refill(修补)过程中...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I have a hunch that acrylic nails are called 水晶甲 but I could very well be wrong....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-22T11:07:38.697" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T11:07:38.697" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10824" CreationDate="2014-12-22T09:12:18.010" Score="1" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently read the word “同乡” (i.e. person who lives in the same village as you). I'm trying to figure out if it is something that people say.&#xA;Could I say&#xA;在飞机上我竟然认识一位同乡？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, how is it used today? (If at all)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-22T09:37:59.783" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T10:17:15.113" Title="How common is the phrase “同乡”?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10821" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10823" CreationDate="2014-12-22T09:29:55.570" Score="3" ViewCount="650" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out two things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is 刻苦 still commonly used in China? Is it colloquial? For example, could I say “他那一年刻苦的学西班牙文” &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it is used, are there any clear differences with “认真”? Or are they pretty close synonyms?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-15T20:01:27.297" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T20:01:27.297" Title="Do people use 刻苦 nowadays?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10841" CreationDate="2014-12-22T09:39:08.093" Score="3" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;So， over the past hours, I‘ve been trying to figure out the proper usage of 延长。 I know that it refers to extending a period of time, but I'm trying to think about ways to use it (exact collocation) &#xA;Could I say &quot;延长到 （XX 时间） “ &#xA;ex。 &#xA;比如说， 我们在医院等者， 我可不可以跟我旁边的人说 ”医生刚刚跟我说， 我们要等的时间回延长到两个多小时“ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, how else could it be used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stephen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T01:44:45.247" Title="How can you appropriately use “延长”？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10821" CreationDate="2014-12-22T09:49:50.367" Score="10" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yes 刻苦 is still commonly used in colloquial language.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“他那一年刻苦地学西班牙文” is grammatical. In spoken language it sounds more natural to say “他那一年学西班牙文学得很刻苦” .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;刻苦 is 'hardworking' while 认真 is 'take seriously'. They are idiomatically used together ('认真刻苦'), but they are not synonyms. Actually you can say things like '他很认真，但是不够刻苦' meaning he is taking it seriously enough but he needs to devote more time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T09:49:50.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10820" CreationDate="2014-12-22T10:09:17.810" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;同乡 is common in formal language. In spoken language, 老乡 is the preferred word especially in Northern China and it is an informal word. People from Southern China may choose 乡亲 or 乡里. (Reference on this regional difference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%8C%E9%84%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colloquial:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On the airplane I met someone who came from the same hometown. 在飞机上我遇见一个老乡/乡里/乡亲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is a Shanxi Townsmen Association in Beijing. 在北京有个山西同乡会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it's the name of an association, which should be formal, 同乡 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T10:09:17.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10820" CreationDate="2014-12-22T10:17:15.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;同乡 in oral Chinese is not as commonly used as 老乡. As they're all mean people from same area. (Most means hometown)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In written Chinese,  同乡 is still used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同乡 is also used in a phrase 同乡会, like 福建同乡会, which means a organization of people from a same place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T10:17:15.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10803" CreationDate="2014-12-22T12:45:09.950" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Middle Chinese starting from the Sui dynasty (with the Qièyùn, 切韻, published in 601 CE) actually documented its phonology. These are called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rime_table&quot;&gt;rime tables&lt;/a&gt;, and break down each character pronunciation into groups by tone and by final. These were employed by scholars in both reciting and composing verse. Using the fanqie 反切 spelling would also have aided scholars in pronouncing characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the compiling of the Qieyun's pronunciations means that it is unlikely to have been one single system of pronunciation from the outset. It was a group of scholars, who appear to have come from &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RGW4jhsUF6EC&amp;amp;pg=PA135&quot;&gt;both northern and southern dialect backgrounds&lt;/a&gt;, who helped compile the Qieyun. Hence some contest that, much like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Chinese&quot;&gt;General Chinese&lt;/a&gt; would come to be, the Qieyun system was a diasystem across several dialects. Other see it as the general koine of Sui China as spoken among the educated elite across the nation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kroll seems to have employed the Baxter transcription of Early Middle Chinese as based on the Qieyun. The monograph that outlines this transcription comes from his &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_XJRT43MXRgC&amp;amp;pg=PA27&quot;&gt;A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. He does say that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The notation I introduce here is not intended as a reconstruction; rather it is a convenient transcription which adequately represents all the phonological distinctions of Middle Chinese while leaving controversial questions open. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The transcription system &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baxter&amp;#39;s_transcription_for_Middle_Chinese&quot;&gt;itself&lt;/a&gt; seems to be fairly pronounceable; whether I would distinguish it from several other finals is another question. That transcription above, trhjowngX is composed of the initial trh-, and the final -jowngX. The initial corresponds to a retroflex aspirate stop (not affricate). The final is an open final of the mixed third division in the Middle Chinese rising tone. I'd personally go for something like [ʈʰjowŋ˩˥] if I &lt;em&gt;had to&lt;/em&gt; give some kind of idea of its 'original pronunciation'. But it's not something that is recommended!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one used in Schuessler's work is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlgren%E2%80%93Li_reconstruction_of_Middle_Chinese&quot;&gt;Karlgren-Li&lt;/a&gt; reconstruction, although with a different convention for notation of the tones, the glottal stop, the e, i and w medials, and a modification of the &quot;strong palatal medial&quot; in fourth division chongniu. The actual differences between the Baxter and the Karelgren-Li(-Schuessler) are significant, but are structurally similar, based as they are on the Qieyun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T12:45:09.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10827" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10833" CreationDate="2014-12-22T15:20:37.873" Score="4" ViewCount="379" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to translate lyrics for 步步惊心 intro song.&#xA;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj8kElvozBY&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj8kElvozBY&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一眼之念 一念执着 - My Chinese friend told me that meaning is &#xA;&quot;I fall in love with you from first look&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一眼之念 - 1 look - I am missing. This is clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you explain second part? Are there some grammar rule for this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="823" LastActivityDate="2014-12-24T06:14:48.303" Title="一眼之念 一念执着 meaning" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10827" CreationDate="2014-12-22T18:52:26.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;执着 means 'be attached to; stubbornly pursuit'. In the context of love affections it can be understood as 'obsession' or 'complex'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一眼之念 It's just one look but I started longing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一念执着 It's just one time of longing but it has become my obsession.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T18:52:26.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10827" CreationDate="2014-12-23T09:14:19.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一眼之念&lt;/code&gt; is an imitation of the structure &lt;code&gt;一A之B&lt;/code&gt;. The structure usually works in the way of &lt;code&gt;noun(B) of a noun(A)&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一面之缘 Fate of an encounter&#xA;一饭之恩 Kindness of a meal-offering&#xA;一国之君 King of a nation&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I don't think &lt;code&gt;一眼之念&lt;/code&gt; is a particularly good imitation. Because it would be interpreted as &lt;code&gt;Longing of one look&lt;/code&gt;, and like the English expression I've used, it is similarly unidiomatic and ambiguous. However, it's pointless to blame a pop song for being ungrammatical, and it's easily understood if we put it into context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一念执着&lt;/code&gt; is a shortened way of saying &lt;code&gt;一种执着的念想&lt;/code&gt;. In English it would be &lt;code&gt;An obsessed longing&lt;/code&gt; or we could use a coma and write &lt;code&gt;A longing, obsessed&lt;/code&gt;. In Chinese it could also be &lt;code&gt;执着一念&lt;/code&gt;. You asked about grammar, but in fact you can do all sorts of word play and ignore most of the grammatical restrictions in Chinese poems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to sum up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一眼之念 A longing, result of one look&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一念执着 A longing, obsessed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not as beautiful as @NS.X.'s interpretation, but it might be closer to the original meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-23T09:32:55.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10834" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10838" CreationDate="2014-12-23T11:11:49.220" Score="1" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read that there are a couple of different ways to say &quot;World's fair&quot; including &quot;世界博览会&quot; &quot;世博会“ or “万博”。 Would anyone like to comment on common these terms actual are？ Is saying 世纪博览会 in conversation too formal？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers guys，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-15T20:08:38.063" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T20:08:38.063" Title="How to properly say &quot;World's fair&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10835" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10840" CreationDate="2014-12-23T11:18:47.397" Score="2" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I recently learned 吸收 can be used abstractly. Looking around example sentences we have &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吸收知识&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吸收A的思想&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吸收B的信念&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吸收A的经验&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two questions: &#xA; 1. How common are these collocations? How colloquial? &#xA; 2. Could these collocations be used in an active way? For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我去台湾的原因是吸收知识。 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这个暑假在脸书实习我计划尽量吸收这个公司的知识。 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the guidance guys! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-24T04:21:28.120" LastActivityDate="2014-12-24T04:21:28.120" Title="What abstract things can you 吸收？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10843" CreationDate="2014-12-23T13:07:27.873" Score="2" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;How did 殊, as in: 特殊、殊技、殊荣、殊勋、殊遇、殊遇 come to have it's meaning of &lt;code&gt;special&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歺(歹)+朱 paint out a rather, more, grim meaning if anything...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;說文解字&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;死也。从歺朱聲。漢令曰：“蠻夷長有罪，當殊之。”市朱切&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did 殊 get to mean special (in a good way)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T02:03:33.733" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T02:03:33.733" Title="殊: Why 歺(歹)+朱? How did it get to mean special (in a good way)?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10837" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10850" CreationDate="2014-12-23T13:11:43.893" Score="4" ViewCount="636" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this sentence from a text book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你吃午饭了没有？&#xA;Have you had lunch yet?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the 了 have to be right after the verb 吃 though?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你吃了午饭没有？ &#xA;Have you had lunch yet? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learned that 了 with verb represents tense, only when 了 is with verb.&#xA;However in the sentence given the 了 is after object of 吃, which is 午饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吃（Verb) + 了 + 午饭（Noun) = Past tense, Correct.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吃 (Verb) + 午饭（Noun) + 了 = &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; Past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that the text book should've used the first one to indicate the past tense, unless the text book has some error, because it does say something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你吃午饭了没有？ ： PAST TENSE&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I wrote some comments under, I think I should make an additional edit here again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of articles about the usage of 了 I've read many times since I started learning Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm not really curious about what 了 works here, but whether the translation of 了 is correct or not because this one looks quite suspicious to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it is NOT correct to consider it a completion of a specific action, when 了 is used at the end of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it is correct to consider it a completion of a specific action, when 了 is used next to the verb and only next to the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From that understanding, I believe it is NOT correct to translate 你吃午饭了没有 into &quot;Have you eaten lunch?&quot; because 了 is not used next to the verb, rather at the end of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I right about it? or is there anything I am missing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6131" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-16T00:14:56.383" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T10:11:59.370" Title="吃午饭了, should 了 be right after 吃？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10834" CreationDate="2014-12-23T13:19:33.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世界博览会（英语：Universal Exposition, World's Fair），又称国际博览会及万国博览会，简称世博会、世博、万博，是一个具国际规模的集会。参展者向世界各国展示当代的文化、科技和产业上正面影响各种生活范畴的成果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically just full term vs. 简称.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世界博览会 get's shortened to 世博会, 世博&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万国博览会 get's shortened to 万博&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's some quick data from baidu: (baidu hits, you know...like g-hits)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世博会: 百度为您找到相关结果约94,100,000个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世界博览会: 百度为您找到相关结果约41,300,000个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万博: 百度为您找到相关结果约68,900,000个 (but seems to have a lot of different meanings)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万国博览会: 百度为您找到相关结果约2,710,000个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;国际博览会: 百度为您找到相关结果约51,800,000个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世博会 is obviously your best bet. (that's what everyone was calling it when it was in Shanghai...09(?))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going around saying 世纪博览会 instead of 世博会 would be like someone going around saying the World Wrestling Entertainment instead of WWE or National Football League instead of NFL...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-23T13:19:33.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10835" CreationDate="2014-12-23T17:41:46.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Gao Weiwei mentioned, only 吸收知识 is common.  &lt;code&gt;吸收 - to absorb&lt;/code&gt;:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;吸收知识 = Absorbing knowledge&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(yea why not!)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;吸收A的思想  = Absorbing A's mind / ideas / thought &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(think we should use 'accept' instead of 'absorb'?)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;吸收 B的信念 = Absorbing B's belief &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(same as above)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;吸收 A 的经验 = Absorbing A's experience&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(While 吸收经验 is actually a common phase; 吸收 someone's 经验 isn't, basically we &lt;code&gt;gain&lt;/code&gt; experience instead of absorbing someone's experience, which sounds like you're eating their brain..)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2014-12-23T17:41:46.150" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10822" CreationDate="2014-12-23T19:34:40.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usage 我们的会议延长了两个小时 is correct. When you want to say something was extended by [the extra time period], you use 延长(了)[time period]. If you want to say till what time something will be extended to, you use 延长到[time/date] or 延长至[time/date].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因运动员旧伤复发需要及时治疗，球赛将延长一个小时。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to the athlete's suffering from an old injury that requires timely treatment, the match will be extended by one hour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Correction&lt;/strong&gt;: boarding time is &lt;strong&gt;postponed&lt;/strong&gt; rather than extended. Notice the Chinese word for &lt;em&gt;postpone&lt;/em&gt; is 延后 not 延长.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飞机误点了，登机时间将&lt;strong&gt;延后至&lt;/strong&gt;下午三点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The plane is late: the boarding time will be &lt;strong&gt;postponed to&lt;/strong&gt; 3pm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6460" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T01:44:45.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10835" CreationDate="2014-12-24T01:50:38.397" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically anything that can be absorbed as nutrients, literally or figuratively. Yours are just a few examples, we can have more!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A plant may absorb the essence of the nature, or &lt;code&gt;吸收日月精华&lt;/code&gt;, and become a genie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A political party may want to attract and invite the best people to join. Mao Zedong wanted more learned people in CCP, so he wrote 《&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.marxists.org/chinese/maozedong/marxist.org-chinese-mao-19391201.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大量吸收知识分子&lt;/a&gt;》. Now CCP is still trying to 吸收入党积极分子 in colleges, companies, and danweis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Search 吸收 for book titles and you get plenty:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有吸收力的心灵 A spongy heart?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;清末民初民間儒教對主流儒學的吸收與轉化 Absorption of mainstream Confucianism&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;早期天台学对唯识古学的吸收与抉择 Absorption of certain academic topic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三十天吸收三十年專業能力 Absorption of certain abilities&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人力资源吸收与选拔 Absorption of human resources&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;技术吸收型对外贸易战略研究 Absorption of technology&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国吸收外资30年 Absorption of capital investment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;知识的吸收与创造 Absorption of knowledge&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A company may completely buy off another and it's called &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/3925746.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;吸收合并&lt;/a&gt;, in which case the company being bought is likely to be dissolved and will no longer function as an entity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a criminal offense called &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xyzlove.com/Noun/ffxsgzckz.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;非法吸收公众存款罪&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;. You illegally collect people's money and do your secret stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think I'm finished, but let's just stop for a while. Your two examples are not colloquial because, well, you wouldn't say these in English, would you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I come to Taiwan to absorb knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I joined Facebook as a summer intern to absorb their knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same reason, if it's personal, and if it's casual talk, the word &lt;code&gt;absorb&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;吸收&lt;/code&gt; will sound too fancy. You usually say &lt;code&gt;to learn&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;to study&lt;/code&gt; in such occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contrary to @Alex's opinion on &lt;code&gt;思想&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;思想&lt;/code&gt; can also be &lt;code&gt;吸收&lt;/code&gt;-ed. &lt;code&gt;吸收&lt;/code&gt; is an active activity&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;. You would need to provide the specific topic for &lt;code&gt;吸收&lt;/code&gt; though, as in &lt;code&gt;吸收儒家思想&lt;/code&gt;. On the other hand, I can't think of any example in which &lt;code&gt;信念&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;吸收&lt;/code&gt;-ed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are just my opinions. Have I mentioned that opinions can also be absorbed? 也许吸收了我和别人的意见以后，你会形成一个更完整的看法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;1. Sorry, running out of vocabs.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-24T03:30:23.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10836" CreationDate="2014-12-24T03:28:29.153" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't found any reference on it, so I come out with my own ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Rebus_.28phonetic_loan.29_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Phonetic loan&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. In the beginning the ancestors created the character 殊, but the same sound also means &quot;special&quot; to them. The ancestors are as lazy as us, so instead of creating a new character, they borrowed the character 殊 to fill the blank. This is not as likely as my next speculation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Amelioration&lt;/strong&gt;, a form of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;semantic change&lt;/a&gt; in which a word's meaning is changed from bad to good:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Originally &lt;code&gt;殊&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;to put to death&lt;/code&gt;, which is an &lt;code&gt;extreme&lt;/code&gt; measure, hence &lt;code&gt;very&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;overly&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;殊&lt;/code&gt; puts life to death, hence &lt;code&gt;different&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it gets to &quot;very&quot; and &quot;different&quot;, there is no way to prevent it to mean &lt;code&gt;special&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This, I think, is probably the case. For comparison, the English word &lt;code&gt;dead&lt;/code&gt; could also mean &lt;code&gt;very&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;completely&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;exactly&lt;/code&gt;, all positive meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-24T03:34:08.333" LastActivityDate="2014-12-24T03:34:08.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10822" CreationDate="2014-12-24T03:47:28.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;延长 is most used in written or formal situation. In oral Chinese, we always use 再 or 多 or 还 + some time to express a estimated time period would be extended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formal: 由于设备故障，本次航班的登机时间将延长半个小时。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oral: 设备坏了，航空公司多给了半个小时的登机时间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formal: 议题太多，本次会议将延长至4点结束。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oral: 老婆，会还没开完呢，还得再等一个小时才结束，到4点散会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8060" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-24T03:47:28.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10837" CreationDate="2014-12-24T09:12:51.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;will, I search both in Baidu(A Chinese Search Engine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃了午饭 :12,700,000 answers&#xA;吃午饭了 : 8,890,000 answers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in my way , I think 吃午饭了 is the right answer.&#xA;It's not about grammar,it's about language habits.&#xA;PS:sorry for my poor english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6879" LastActivityDate="2014-12-24T09:12:51.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10791" CreationDate="2014-12-24T09:26:24.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1st,you can't say 以前我住了在这儿.&#xA;but you can say 以前我住在这儿,以前我住这儿,以前我住过这儿,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;compare this: 以前我住&quot;了&quot;这儿.(wrong) , 以前我住&quot;过&quot;这儿.(right)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it must be Language habits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6879" LastActivityDate="2014-12-24T09:26:24.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10853" CreationDate="2014-12-24T09:59:31.210" Score="3" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a clear difference between 剧本 and  脚本？  I know that   剧本 can also be the more formal “screenplay”。 But beyond that I'm not sure if there is a difference &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-15T20:05:29.493" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T20:05:29.493" Title="Difference between 剧本 and 脚本？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10837" CreationDate="2014-12-24T16:34:33.010" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, &#xA;“吃午饭了” is usually used for &quot;someone&quot; to ask &quot;someone&quot; to have a lunch. Besides, it also can be meant that you already ate the lunch. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While &quot;吃了午饭 ” just mean that you already ate the lunch. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, there is no such thing like &quot;吃了午饭没有“ It should be &quot;你吃午饭了吗？” The &quot;吗” is used for asking something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8113" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-16T00:14:13.923" LastActivityDate="2018-03-16T00:14:13.923" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10852" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10854" CreationDate="2014-12-25T02:05:48.957" Score="2" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Lao She's novel Rickshaw Boy, the protagonist works at place called &quot;人和厂“.  To be very literal that is people's unity shop, in contrast to the protagonist's individualism.  But two thirds of the way through he notices the shop has changed its name to the homophone &quot;仁和厂“ and &quot;he wondered why that was.&quot;  .The new name could be rendered humane unity shop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would most people in China who are not thinking about this particular book say the two names mean about the same thing?  Is there a striking difference between them?  Or would the contrast be up to the author to describe?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following Wang Dingwei's suggestion I see baike.baidu.com/view/581178.htm just says 天时地利人和 means &quot;opportune&quot; as the necessary time place and people come together.  It seems to me that 仁和 cannot share that meaning, but I am not sure.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Commentators say that when Lao She wrote this novel he rejected his earlier support of Confucian ideals, which he now considered badly individualistic.  The novel also condemns capitalism as individualistic.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do 人和 and 仁和 relate to political slogans of the 1930s?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2014-12-25T13:47:44.247" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T14:35:07.623" Title="Difference between 人和 and 仁和" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10848" CreationDate="2014-12-25T03:14:09.157" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;剧本 and 脚本 are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剧本 is just like a novel, telling the actors and directors what the story is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脚本 includes more detailed and technical information of every section or frame such as shot lengths, scene lens, mapping, background music and so on. When you get 脚本, you'll feel like watching an edited film. 脚本 are mostly for directors and camera operators during the film shooting and the film cutters in later period edit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In animated movies, 剧本 and 脚本 are nearly the same. And mostly we use 脚本.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Wang Dingwei mentioned， 脚本 means SCRIPT in computer programming. BASH, Python, Ruby,  Nuva are all scripting languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6517" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T03:14:09.157" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10852" CreationDate="2014-12-25T04:05:39.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are not quite the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人和 is a reference to 天时地利人和, where 和 means &quot;harmony&quot; rather than &quot;unity&quot;. So it means &quot;people in harmony&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仁和 is &quot;humane and harmonious&quot;, both are good social and personal qualities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference isn't that important if we take it out of context. They are all positive words that fit well for a company name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update. In answer to your last question: No. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The naming style is quite common in 1930s. It might serve as a sarcastic device -- A company bearing such a beautiful name are acting so evil. But even this would be an over-interpretation. Every company wants a good name. If I am writing a 1930s novel, no matter what I believe, I would use the same naming styles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-25T14:35:07.623" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T14:35:07.623" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10852" CreationDate="2014-12-25T04:43:55.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer contains spoilers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the novel when Xiangzi saw the new name, the shop had been sold by its former owner Four Liu(&quot;刘四爷&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The meanings of &quot;仁(benevolence)&quot; and &quot;人(a man, a person)&quot; are different while they share the same pronunciation. The author use the two different characters to show the shop has changed hands. Actually it has little to do with the different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8114" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-25T05:20:39.537" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T05:20:39.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10856" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10931" CreationDate="2014-12-25T07:48:02.947" Score="2" ViewCount="345" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Grand Ricci&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wǒ (or ě)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When is 我 pronounced as ě?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Haven't even able to find any &lt;em&gt;examples&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T01:55:34.387" Title="When is 我 pronounced ě?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10857" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-25T08:18:10.617" Score="2" ViewCount="341" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are Chinese taught in school how Chinese characters are formed (mainly phono-semantic compounds) or do they just bruteforce remember them? At least I know Japanese people don't learn phonetic parts of Chinese characters in school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8116" LastEditorUserId="11374" LastEditDate="2020-09-27T08:46:28.017" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T08:46:28.017" Title="Is knowing how Chinese Characters are formed common knowledge?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10858" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10859" CreationDate="2014-12-25T11:24:28.520" Score="0" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I read a story that said “于是他让弟子们搭起大棚”。 I translated this roughly to &quot;ordered the kids to set up a tent&quot;. But this had me confused.  Isn't 帐篷 also tent? And can't you also 搭起帐篷？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 帐篷 and 大棚？ If they are very similar, when is used while the other isn't? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T19:55:06.957" Title="Difference between 帐篷 and 大棚？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10858" CreationDate="2014-12-25T12:00:56.850" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;大棚 could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Commonly short for 蔬菜大棚, a &lt;strong&gt;warm house&lt;/strong&gt; for growing vegetation, usually very large. &#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YPlQe.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;蔬菜大棚&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;sometimes, a tent-like structure, not fully enclosed, often used as a &lt;strong&gt;mobile kitchen&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;dining area&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aLxHp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;路边摊大棚&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帐篷 is more of a closed tent which has a roof and has cloth walls all around it. It's built for people to &lt;strong&gt;sleep in&lt;/strong&gt;. Campers and refugees may reside in 帐篷s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;大帐篷&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XC83E.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;大帐篷&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;小帐篷&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hcL0P.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;小帐篷&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-25T12:17:04.117" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T12:17:04.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10856" CreationDate="2014-12-25T12:58:19.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;陕西方言里面有这种读法， 比如电视剧《武林外传》里的老板娘谈到自己的时候就说 ě&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8117" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T12:58:19.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10857" CreationDate="2014-12-25T13:10:12.607" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a textbook excerpt from the first grade, isn't it cute?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bSXU1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;六书&lt;/a&gt; is taught in 6th to 9th grade in mainland China, so I think the answer is yes. Good teachers often tell you how the character is constructed so that you remember it more easily. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for phono-semantic characters, you don't really need a teacher to tell you about that. When you learn the characters 中 and 钟, it's obvious that they are related. Next time you see a character like 种, you would expect it's pronunciation is similar. It's just too intuitive. You observe the rule and apply them, with or without a teacher's help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's a bit like verb tenses in English. You observe the basic rules, you apply them to new words, then it fails because you meet an irregular verb, then you'll have to remember it. As time passes you observe that even irregular verbs have some regularities, then you try to apply your observations to new words, but they also fail at times. Chinese is like that, but messier...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-25T14:38:10.813" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T14:38:10.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10862" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10863" CreationDate="2014-12-25T23:08:39.857" Score="1" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;So， recently I bumped into the word “捞” － which， as I've seen translated － means “to grab from a liquid。 （Somewhat similar to “ladel&quot;) I  thought this looked like a really useful verb, but I wanted to clarify a little. &#xA;Is 捞 only used for grabbing something out of liquids？ &#xA;If you are grabbing something out of the water is there a difference between 捞 and 拿？ （Does 捞 imply a bowl like structure like “Ladel”？） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T00:07:32.497" Title="Difference between 捞 and 拿？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10862" CreationDate="2014-12-26T00:26:48.910" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is 捞 only used for grabbing something out of liquids？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could also be used metaphorically. You can 捞好处, 捞钱, 捞名声, 捞官职, etc. In this usage, 捞 implies selfishness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you are grabbing something out of the water is there a difference between 捞 and 拿？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's common to see a foreign language having specific words for something that's not so specific in your native tongue. In English you &quot;wage war&quot;, but in Latin and other languages you simply &quot;do war&quot;. Like &quot;wage&quot; for wars, 捞 is more colloquial when it comes to grabbing from water. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（Does 捞 imply a bowl like structure like “Ladel”？）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any tool could be possible, a bowl, a fishing net, or even bare hands, as long as it does the job. 捞 doesn't imply anything specific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T00:26:48.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10868" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10869" CreationDate="2014-12-26T06:12:51.107" Score="2" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some examples of 莫逮 found in Classical texts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三國志．卷二十一．魏書．王粲傳：「昔伯牙絕絃於鍾期，仲尼覆醢于子路，痛知音之難遇，傷門人之&lt;strong&gt;莫逮&lt;/strong&gt;也。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《南齐书·周盘龙传》&#xA;形甚羸訥, 而臨軍勇果, 諸將莫逮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《宋史•朱弁传》:“叹马角之未生,魂销雪窖;攀龙髯而莫逮,泪洒冰天。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《荀子·尧问》&#xA;楚莊王 謀事而當羣臣莫逮, 退朝而有憂色。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming here &lt;strong&gt;莫&lt;/strong&gt; is of the whole 没、不，勿 nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;逮&lt;/strong&gt; as a classical text can only be dài (or dì) but definitely not dǎi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we go with dài we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Gu Hanyu Da Cidian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;①及;到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;②逮捕。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Students Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 come to, reach a point in place or time; extend to, up to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a measure up (to standard), be equally matched; catch up to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b when, by the time of; until; keep on till.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 nab, seize; apprehend, arrest; attain, acquire, obtain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a seize the moment for, catch the chance of; take advantage of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we go with the (very unlikely) pronunciation of dì then it would mean something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Gu Hanyu Da Cidian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;娴雅貌。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;莫 has a ton of other meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逮 has other meanings, not mentioned here, aswell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the best way to interpret 莫逮 in these classical texts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the best translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T09:05:53.800" Title="Meaning of 莫逮 in Classical texts?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10868" CreationDate="2014-12-26T09:05:53.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;昔伯牙絕絃於鍾期，仲尼覆醢于子路，痛知音之難遇，傷門人之莫逮也。 Means a person lost his(her) bosom friend, he (she) is so sad, and not one can acquaintance him(her) like the past friend.So the 莫逮 here is can not be comparable to something(someone), 莫 means can not, 逮 means can be comparable to something(someone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T09:05:53.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10870" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-26T09:53:40.300" Score="1" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I was trying to understanding what 民谣 exactly means. I know that it is often translated as &quot;Folk Rhyme or Ballad&quot;. This implies to me that it is an old, traditional song. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently saw a sentence, however,  that confused me. It was &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;至今南阳仍有“冬至不端饺子碗，冻掉耳朵没人管”的民谣。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean that that sentence is part of a song? &#xA;What does 民谣 actually mean?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T15:16:44.407" Title="Are 民谣 Songs? Or are they saying?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10871" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-26T10:06:10.203" Score="2" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been learning Mandarin since beginning of this year. I also learn from song. Then today I read some lyrics from song. I read some sentences : &quot;我看不清楚&quot;, then I just think why it should be like that, not like this : &quot;我不看得清楚&quot;, and then from this context (&quot;我看不清楚&quot;), can I make sentences like this : &quot;我睡觉不太好&quot; ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5957" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T07:00:35.773" Title="grammar sentences" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10871" CreationDate="2014-12-26T10:20:03.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我看不清楚&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;I can't see clearly&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;我不看得清楚&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;I don't see clearly&lt;/code&gt;, which is a little weird, seems like someone doesn't see something clearly deliberately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我睡觉不太好&lt;/code&gt; is okay, means &lt;code&gt;My sleep quality is not good&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T10:20:03.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10870" CreationDate="2014-12-26T11:47:23.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If saying 民谣，in chinese mind means the song from Ancient times or among of the people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above u said means , that is a Lyrics comes from 民谣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8123" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T11:47:23.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10870" CreationDate="2014-12-26T11:49:26.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence it means saying or expression but it would only be used this way in a few regions. The standard meaning is indeed (traditional) folk song. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6488" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T11:49:26.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10875" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-26T11:55:37.310" Score="3" ViewCount="438" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some situations, it is not clear to me when to use a direction complement or a location (destination) complement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, I read from a book that the sentence &quot;衣服都装进箱子里去了&quot; is correct. This sentence has a direction complement. Could one also use a location complement and say &quot;衣服都装到箱子里了&quot;. And if yes, what is the difference in meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example where one uses a direction complement is &quot;他搬进城里来了&quot;。 Is &quot;他搬到城里来了&quot; with a location complement also correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, what confuses me is that in the sentence &quot;气球升到天上去了&quot;, one uses a location complement. Could one also use a direction complement &quot;气球升上天上去了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your help in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8124" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T12:25:35.593" Title="Usage of direction and location (destination) complements (衣服都装进箱子里去了 vs. 衣服都装到箱子里了)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;direction-complement&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10875" CreationDate="2014-12-26T12:25:35.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first example:&#xA;“衣服都装进箱子里去了” and “衣服都装到箱子里去了”&#xA;has the same meaning and is both OK.&#xA;The only difference I think is the former one indicates the action(put in) but the latter one emphasises on the state of the clothes.I am not sure because these two are almost the same in daily use and nobody will notice the difference between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the third example:&#xA;You can use a direction complement.&#xA;“气球升到天上去了” /“气球升上天了”&#xA;However native speakers do not use “气球升上天上去了”.&#xA;Because the meaning of “天上” contains both location(天) and direction(上).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6838" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T12:25:35.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10870" CreationDate="2014-12-26T14:37:02.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;民谣 could be the following things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;民间歌谣 or rhymes of the folks. Chinese 歌谣s don't have to carry tunes, but they usually do rhyme, or at least carry some tonal quality which makes them sound good. They usually carry some sort of folk wisdom. Sometimes they are also called 民谚 or 谚语.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Regional folk songs. They are created and sung by common folks, and they do carry tunes. More often they are called 民歌.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Short for 独立民谣 or Indie Folk, the music genre becoming popular since 1990s. It's probably the most common usage nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somewhat related: 儿歌 and 童谣 are 歌谣 for kids, they don't have to carry tunes, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your example, it's clearly just a saying, not part of a song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T14:37:02.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10880" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-26T14:51:18.633" Score="1" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=16703&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This Language Log post&lt;/a&gt; is an entertaining discussion of some possible explanations for an unidiomatic English phrase, &quot;Suffered We Protect They&quot;, that &lt;a href=&quot;http://liuzhou.co.uk/wordpress/2014/12/12/liuzhou-s-w-a-t/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;has appeared&lt;/a&gt; on some Liuzhou SWAT posters.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal assumption is that they were &quot;trying to say&quot; something like &quot;we [the police] suffer to protect them [the people.&quot;  Assuming that this meaning is the correct one, what do some native Chinese speakers (beyond Dr Mair's graduate students) think about any Chinese versions (conceptual or otherwise) of this sentiment the folks coming up with this poster might have been working off of before they reworked it into English.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found that my Chinese sadly rarely escapes sounding like a foreigner wrote it; too many constructions betray the clear influence of English grammar and writing, to the point that it's often easy to tell what English I'm &quot;working off of.&quot;  It possible for any native Chinese speakers here to &quot;reverse engineer&quot; what the original Chinese version might have been of this fairly problematic English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T15:13:36.433" Title="What's the Most Likely Chinese Version of this Odd &quot;Chinglish&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10880" CreationDate="2014-12-26T15:13:36.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I gotta say this guy hit the nail on the head (bold-ed is my own):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;8&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I thought it may come from Chinese that &quot;有困难找警察&quot; (if you meet troubles, please ask the police for help). I thought &quot;we&quot; in this slogan referred to the police, &quot;they&quot; referred to the people who is in trouble. &lt;strong&gt;This slogan may mean &quot;we will protect you with all our effort&quot; (危难时刻 我们在您身边 At the risky second, we are by your side).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The poster clearly says &lt;strong&gt;危难时刻 我们在您身边&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese above the English, and that's usually how Chinese posters (or, so called, propaganda) work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With, obviously, some &lt;em&gt;poetic license&lt;/em&gt;, if you will....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T15:13:36.433" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10789" CreationDate="2014-12-26T17:56:58.483" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's called &quot;缩脚语&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 2 different definitions of xiehouyu:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;《辞海》：歇后语是熟语的一种。多为群众熟识的诙谐而形象的语句，运用时可以隐去后文，以前文示意，如只说“围棋盘里下象棋”，以示不对路子；也可以前后文并列，如“芝麻开花－－节节高”。&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;《中国语言文字大百科全书》&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;歇后语：指说话的时候把一段常用词语故意少说一个字或半句而构成的带有幽默性的话语。通常有两种。1.原始意义的歇后语，指把一句成语的末一个字省去不说，也叫“缩脚语”。如《金瓶梅》里来旺媳妇说“你家第五的‘秋胡戏’”，就是用来影射“妻”，因为“秋胡戏妻”是有名的故事、剧目。也有利用同音字的。如称“岳父”为“龙头拐”，影射“杖”字，这里代替“丈”。2.扩大意义的歇后语，在北京叫俏皮话，是指可以把一句话的后面一半省去不说。如“马尾拴豆腐”省去的是“提不起了”。有时候也利用同音字。如“外甥打灯笼－－照旧（舅）”。&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first definition of xiehouyu (like what you see in wikipedia) doesn't include &quot;缩脚语&quot;.&#xA;The second one is broader and recognizes &quot;缩脚语&quot; as one type of xiehouyu（&quot;原始意义的歇后语&quot;）.&lt;br/&gt;Actually I'm not familiar with &quot;缩脚语&quot; because the first definition is widely acknowledged by common people. But by searching the Internet I found that &quot;缩脚语&quot; has a long history and not only exists in 四川方言, it can be found in many other dialects like 上海方言、吴越方言、山东方言、粤语. I'm a mandarin speaker so I don't know whether they are still in use today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found many examples on the Internet. Some examples I found are too long or complicated so I didn't paste them here. You can search &quot;缩脚语&quot; and look for them yourself.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;古文：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;“拿那雌雄宝（剑）插在我杨柳细（腰）边”（元-施惠《幽闺记》第九出）&lt;br/&gt;“君子之交淡如（水）”、“醉翁之意不在（酒）”（明-冯梦龙《古今谭概》）。&lt;br/&gt;“你权做个撮合山主亲的月下老（人），俺两个衔环……”（明-无名氏《女真观》第三折）&lt;br/&gt;“七大八（小）、七青八（黄）、七孔八（窍）、七张八（嘴）”（隐指“小黄窍嘴”，清-褚人获《坚瓠集》）。&lt;br/&gt;“一帖发丧药下去，这汗还止得住哩？不由的十生九（死）了。” （古人有时讳说“死”，西周生《醒世姻缘传》第二回）&lt;br/&gt;“号啕痛（哭）”（《醒世姻缘传》第二回、《金瓶梅》七十六回）&lt;br/&gt;“下马威（风）”（《醒世姻缘传》第二回）&lt;br/&gt;“踢天笼（井）”（&quot;笼&quot;谐音&quot;弄&quot;，即踢天弄井，《聊斋俚曲集·俊夜叉》。&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;粤语：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;广东有一种著名饮料：茅根竹蔗水。而广东人又俗称“钱”为“水”，于是，当有人说“茅根竹”时，大家便意会这是“借水”（借钱也，因“蔗”与“借”同音）。 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上海方言：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;广东人骂别人呆笨时，会称人家做“猪头丙”，这“猪头丙”一词，是改自上海俗语“猪头三”的。上海俗语“猪头三”，也是一句缩脚语，全句是“猪头三牲”，即指被骂的人，是“牲”（畜生）也。（而“三牲”，本是敬神祭品的三色，即猪头、雄鸡和青鱼，统称为“猪头三牲”。）&lt;br/&gt;上海缩脚语还有如“七勿搭（八）”，“金卫陶（姜）”（谐音僵）、“敲钉转（脚）”、“天官赐（福）”、“坑三姑（娘）”、“么二三（四）”（谐音屎）、“甲乙丙（丁）”（谐音盯，意为盯梢尾随）&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吴越方言：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;苏州话“格（搿）块猪肉浪子丑寅弗少”，“子丑寅”隐指“毛”（“卯”的谐音。谑称。）最有意思的是南部吴语区温州的俗语雅说，他们把司空见惯的“水”，叫做“青山绿”；把“轻”（用于指责有人轻佻――轻薄、不庄重时）说成“云淡风”。&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8114" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T17:56:58.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9581" CreationDate="2014-12-27T02:26:14.120" Score="6" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;nóo&lt;/code&gt; vs. &lt;code&gt;ló&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two are both for literary pronunciation. Since &lt;code&gt;白頭偕老(白头偕老)&lt;/code&gt; is a traditional Chinese idiomatic expression (成語 Chengyu), we tend to pronounce it in the literary way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between these two might be in the sub-dialect aspect. I'd pronounce it as &lt;code&gt;pe̍h-thâu-kai-ló&lt;/code&gt; since it's easier for me to pronounce. But I reckon that &lt;code&gt;pe̍h-thiô-kai-nóo&lt;/code&gt; is considered more sophisticated and authentic generally.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;láu&lt;/code&gt; vs. &lt;code&gt;lāu&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are indeed two common pronunciations for &lt;code&gt;老&lt;/code&gt;. But I humbly argue that these two are not very likely to be used in this particular context &lt;code&gt;白頭偕老(白头偕老)&lt;/code&gt; (at least in my neighborhood).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have recorded a clip saying &lt;code&gt;pe̍h-thâu-kai-ló&lt;/code&gt;, so you can cross-check with the CD that you mentioned above. Go to &lt;a href=&quot;https://instaud.io/4lG&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;pe̍h-thâu-kai-ló&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; if you don't mind my Donald Duck voice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hokkien has many sub-dialects, so sometimes people (like myself) might need to be more open-minded about &quot;what is the right way to say a certain word?&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note and reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My parents are from the northern part and the middle part of Taiwan. They use Hokkien(Min Nan) as their first spoken language.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The singer in the music video is from southern part of Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I use Mandarin as my first spoken language.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8129" LastEditorUserId="8129" LastEditDate="2014-12-27T02:52:31.203" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T02:52:31.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10856" CreationDate="2014-12-27T04:47:21.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some regions in northern China, for instance, Shanxi Province, &quot;我” is pronounced as ě. In fact, there is no point in learning this sort of pronunciation, for it is merely applied in dialect. And in these dialect systems, not only “我”, scores of Chinese characters' pronunciation and intonation are changed(compared to Mandarin), which is difficult for most people, including the Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8130" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T04:47:21.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10885" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10887" CreationDate="2014-12-27T12:56:39.527" Score="3" ViewCount="1405" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a question-response practice, the question is &quot;你暑假要去旅游吗&quot;? Why is the right response &quot;我还没决定&quot;, not &quot;我还没打算&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T14:54:47.420" Title="What is the difference between &quot;我还没打算&quot; and &quot;我还没决定&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10885" CreationDate="2014-12-27T13:23:35.833" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the narrow sense of a q&amp;amp;a practice, I would say that by saying ‘我还没打算’ you are not answering the question &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; you want／are going to travel (你暑假要去旅游吗), while 我还没决定 (I haven't made up my mind yet) is a very clean answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还没打算 is like 'I didn't plan (the trip) yet'. Also, compare this answer to something like: '暑假我没有计划' (I have no plans for the summer holidays).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8132" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T13:23:35.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10885" CreationDate="2014-12-27T15:08:23.237" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;打算&quot; is equivalent to &quot;plan&quot;, and &quot;我还没打算&quot; is usually used in following forms: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我还没打算 去旅游&quot;, &quot;我还没打算 吃饭&quot;, &quot;我还没 这种 打算&quot;, &quot;我还没打算 to do something&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4140" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T15:08:23.237" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10885" CreationDate="2014-12-27T17:11:42.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我还没有“打算” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you mean  I have no  plan/idea(打算)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“打算” in this sentence be a noun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but in chinese “打算” usually be a verb!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8134" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T17:11:42.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10870" CreationDate="2014-12-27T17:21:44.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;民谣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;could be a music style&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&#xA; could be a a short story or a  sentence &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in your situation , tales&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8134" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T17:21:44.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10885" CreationDate="2014-12-27T17:29:25.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think &quot;我还没打算&quot; is absolutely wrong; both responses are fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我还没打算&quot; does sound a little unnatural/ambiguous because the question is suggesting a plan and a spot-on response should acknowledge it by saying &quot;I'll consider&quot; or &quot;I have decided&quot; or &quot;that's not the plan&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By responding with &quot;我还没打算&quot; (I don't have a plan yet), it is unclear whether it means &quot;I don't have a plan for the summer yet, so travel is an option&quot; or &quot;I don't have a plan for travel yet&quot;. Either way it's not a straight-forward answer to the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can say &quot;我还没有&lt;b&gt;这样的&lt;/b&gt;打算&quot; (I don't have &lt;em&gt;such&lt;/em&gt; plan yet), then it becomes clear - &quot;I don't have plan to travel yet&quot;. This response sounds natural and is actually commonly heard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, saying &quot;我还没决定&quot; implies &quot;I have already thought about travel before you ask, but have not decided yet&quot; which is usually used in a follow-up conversation. The semantic is also clear and answer the question well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2014-12-27T17:34:30.933" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T17:34:30.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10871" CreationDate="2014-12-27T18:11:53.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As something complementary to songyuanyao's answer, 我睡觉不太好 seems a little strange. If you use 睡觉 as a verb like what you do in 我看得不清楚, where 看 is a verb too, it's more reasonable to say 我睡不好觉 or simply 我睡得不好 with 得. Intuitively, I think that you say 我睡觉不太好 is most likely at the time when you report something to a doctor, where 睡觉 is a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T18:11:53.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10885" CreationDate="2014-12-27T18:12:08.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“我还没打算“ literally means &quot;I do not have intentions yet.&quot; &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;“我还没决定“ literally means &quot;I have not decided yet.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone asks you if you are going on a trip for vacation, and you don't actually know if you are going or not, both are logically true. However pragmatically:&#xA;The former means that you are currently not planning to do so, though the situation may change in the future. In that, you are expressing something like &quot;Not for now, though I may.&quot; in which you mean that you have decided not to go on a trip given the current circumstances, although this decision may change.&#xA;The latter means that you have no specific answer to the question. In that, you are expressing something like &quot;Maybe, maybe not.&quot; in which each situation has an unknown probability of happening, and you have no decision at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact both answers are correct and practical. However, 打算 as a verb means &quot;to plan&quot;, so the sentence may as well be interpreted as &quot;I have not planned yet.&quot;, which can be further extended to &quot;I have not planned on trips in my holidays yet.&quot;, which is not what you mean and doesn't sound natural (I believe that this is the reason it is wrong) since 打算 as a verb is most often accompanied by an action you are (perhaps not) planning to do. To make it clear that 打算 is a noun, simply add a determiner: &quot;this&quot;. “我还没有&lt;strong&gt;这个&lt;/strong&gt;打算“ would more precisely mean that &quot;I do not have &lt;strong&gt;these (such)&lt;/strong&gt; intentions yet.&quot; Also, since it means that the situation is temporary, it may sometimes sound more natural if you add &quot;temporarily&quot;: “我&lt;strong&gt;暂时&lt;/strong&gt;还没有&lt;strong&gt;这个&lt;/strong&gt;打算“.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8137" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T18:12:08.827" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10885" CreationDate="2014-12-27T18:19:50.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the conversation you provided, I guess that when the guy in the exercise asks you 你暑假要去旅游吗, she/he probably knows that you have already planned the trip, or already had the idea in your mind. So she/he is asking for your final decision, therefore 决定 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in my opinion, 我还没打算 should also be correct, where you could say 还没这个打算 as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T18:19:50.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10871" CreationDate="2014-12-27T18:56:49.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我看不清楚 is literally &quot;I see (not clearly).&quot; = &quot;I see blurrily.&quot; &lt;BR/&gt;&#xA;我不看得清楚 is literally &quot;I don't (see clearly)&quot; = &quot;I can(have the ability to) see clearly but I don't(decided not to).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 不 modifies whatever word is &lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt; it. In the former, correct example, it modifies 清楚, so that means that the person sees in a way that is opposite to 清楚. In the latter example which might as well be true though with a different meaning, 看 is modified, so that means that the person did not see. The 看 was also modified by 清楚, indicating that the person did not see clearly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, ability and action are most often expressed clearly: when you can't do something you normally say that you can't, unless answering to a specific question such as &quot;Did you do it?&quot;; you normally only say that you don't when you can do it but do not actually happen to do it, probably because you decided not to do it, or perhaps it is a command asking you not to do it, though such a command should more adequately use 别 in place of 不.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As implied by the paragraph right above this, 我不看得清楚 would most likely mean that the person, though having the ability to see clearly, doesn't want to or decided not to do so(if you need contexts, perhaps a horror movie may serve well). Also, contracting the 得 may sound more natural: 我不看清楚.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notes:&lt;/strong&gt; I know when to contract the 得 but I currently cannot describe how. Maybe it is just based on experience, but I am encountering a similar situation in Korean, so this might have some linguistic mechanisms behind it -- so spoken to suggest to you that you will be able to pick this 得 up over time and that it won't be too hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我睡觉不太好 is correct(I guess), and almost perfect: 我睡得不太好. Here, I removed the 觉 because most often 睡 alone is sufficient to correctly express &quot;to sleep&quot;. It sounds more natural to contract the redundant part of the word if the first character in the word already bears a same and unambiguous meaning (some characters have more than one commonly used meanings making the characters alone seem ambiguous so they need extra characters to specify which meaning the speaker is referring to). Besides removing the 觉 I also added the 得. Again in this aspect, I can only help you with the notes above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8137" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T18:56:49.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10858" CreationDate="2014-12-27T19:55:06.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, 棚 is a canopy, so 大棚 is a &quot;large&quot;(whatever size that means) canopy.&#xA;帐 is a tent while 篷 is the piece of cloth covering the camp. With the modularity of Chinese words, 大棚 and 帐篷 can have many variations in meaning, but you'll know which is which by identifying if something is more like a canopied structure or a tent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8137" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T19:55:06.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10856" CreationDate="2014-12-27T21:08:19.997" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have explained, ě is currently used in certain nonstandard dialects. You might be interested to know that ě is the expected pronunciation based on the regular sound changes that connect Mandarin to the Middle Chinese pronunciations recorded in rhyming dictionaries. Compare these words: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我: Mand. wǒ, MC nga, rising tone,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   餓: Mand. è, MC nga, departing tone,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   蛾: Mand. é, MC nga, level tone,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which had the same initial and vowel but different tones. The pronunciation wǒ is not expected purely from the historical evidence of old dictionaries. I'm not certain where it came from, but it could have been influenced by words such as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吾: Mand. wú, MC ngu, level tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I've written so far isn't enough to prove anything, but hopefully it provides more context. Another interesting question might be &quot;Why is 我 pronounced wǒ?&quot; It appears to be a slang usage that became standardized because of the political and economic power of the regions it's used in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T21:08:19.997" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10885" CreationDate="2014-12-28T04:22:54.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually as a Chinese, I think &quot;我还没打算&quot; is OK in practical use. Then I asked 5 of my classmates and they think the same . &lt;br/&gt;However, they also mentioned there might be a little difference that &quot;我还没打算&quot; means &quot;I haven't think of it (at all)&quot;, while &quot;我还没决定&quot; shows that you have thought of it but haven't decided whether to travel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8114" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T04:22:54.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10885" CreationDate="2014-12-28T05:20:04.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should be able to see the difference between 打算 and 决定 better with the following question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Q: 你暑假想要做什么?&lt;br&gt; What do you plan to do during the holidays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 我还没做任何&lt;b&gt;打算&lt;/b&gt;。&lt;br&gt; I haven't make any plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 我&lt;b&gt;打算&lt;/b&gt;去旅游，但还没&lt;b&gt;决定&lt;/b&gt;去哪里。&lt;br&gt; I plan to travel, but haven't&#xA;  decide where to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your practice question, because 旅游 has been proposed by the asker as a &lt;em&gt;specific&lt;/em&gt; plan for the holiday, 决定 would be an appropriate answer if the answerer has thought about it but not come to a decision. It is &lt;em&gt;not wrong&lt;/em&gt; to use 打算 if the answerer has not even entertained that idea of travelling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, without further context, there is no way to tell whether the answerer has considered how to spend his holiday to know which would be the &quot;correct&quot; response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T05:20:04.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10902" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10910" CreationDate="2014-12-28T08:34:09.863" Score="1" ViewCount="508" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best understanding and (English) translation of &lt;strong&gt;空无&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佛教语。谓一切事物从因缘生，唯心所造，了无自性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《维摩经菩萨行品》: &amp;quot;观於空无而不舍大悲。&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt; of religious, if you will, concepts in here that I just can't seem to wrap my mind around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt; dictionary defines it as &lt;code&gt;unreality&lt;/code&gt; in English, but I'm not finding anything to do with unreality + Buddhaism. Which leads me to believe that &lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;'s definition is more akin to &lt;strong&gt;汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt;'s second definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;指虚无之境。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which we don't need to discuss, here, at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T02:59:39.000" Title="Understanding/Translating: 空无" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10862" CreationDate="2014-12-28T13:23:19.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;捞 has the sense of purposeful,such as 打捞,捞好处, well, 拿 is just a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastEditorUserId="6904" LastEditDate="2014-12-30T00:07:32.497" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T00:07:32.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10885" CreationDate="2014-12-28T14:27:10.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;没决定 = hesitate&#xA;没打算 = don't have such a plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(决定 or 打算) + 没(not)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8145" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T14:27:10.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10902" CreationDate="2014-12-28T14:43:01.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;空 means “empty”，无 means “not exist” ，“空无”的常识性（non philosophical）理解就是 nothing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那个unreality应该是philosophical interpretation，it means 不真实的，虚幻的，phantom，可以理解为“空无” related the real world, which is closed to meaning of &quot;空无“ in 佛教。Nothing for the real world, but also has something in the phantom meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8087" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T14:43:01.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10885" CreationDate="2014-12-28T14:54:47.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me summarize so it can show whether I really understand. (If not, please correct me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In practical use (real life), both are fine. But &quot;我还没打算&quot; might be ambiguous, since different listeners might interpret it differently. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;我还没决定&quot; is more direct to answer the question. In a test when both exist, &quot;我还没决定&quot; is preferred as &quot;correct&quot; response. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you very much for all your help! 谢谢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T14:54:47.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10870" CreationDate="2014-12-28T15:06:13.987" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;//Folk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, My english is Not great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In china, 民谣 is 民歌, ancient folk music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such as 安塞腰鼓 (安塞(AnSai) of Drum(chinese)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhXQ7-aBUPc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but, the word(民谣), also of the world music(folk).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;such as Neofolk(新民谣), Deathfolk(死亡民谣), Apocalyptic Folk(天启民谣), Blackfolk(黑民谣), Popfolk(流行民谣), 弹指唱(playing acoustic guitar of easy melodic)&#xA;E.T.C.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;www.xiami.com/genre/detail/gid/16&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Young people of chinese, 民谣(Folk),generally for 弹指唱;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8145" LastEditorUserId="8145" LastEditDate="2014-12-28T15:16:44.407" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T15:16:44.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10908" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10911" CreationDate="2014-12-28T20:28:30.787" Score="-1" ViewCount="986" Body="&lt;p&gt;since there is a wide range of &lt;strong&gt;letters&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese  language , I need your &lt;strong&gt;best offers&lt;/strong&gt; on &lt;strong&gt;spelling (pronounce)&lt;/strong&gt; these words by use of only &lt;strong&gt;Chinese  Characters&lt;/strong&gt; in its &lt;strong&gt;most accurate&lt;/strong&gt; form ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the spelling in English is like this :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;fereydoon shekofte&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and you can listen to &lt;a href=&quot;http://vocaroo.com/i/s1H2nZQkYF4X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the original voice here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I need these characters for calligraphy too!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3899" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T06:19:02.870" Title="How to spell these words in Chinese alphabets?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ClosedDate="2014-12-29T09:24:28.047" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10902" CreationDate="2014-12-28T23:50:44.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you mean 虚空无形 concepts of Buddhism. Basically Buddhists say, nothing exists, even emptiness. It is not possible to grasp the non dual nature of duality with a logical mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you read The Platform Sutra of 惠能 you will understand more. Or the Diamond Sutra.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fodian.net/world/6th_sutra.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.fodian.net/world/6th_sutra.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fodian.net/world/platform_sutra_yampolsky.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.fodian.net/world/platform_sutra_yampolsky.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T23:50:44.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10902" CreationDate="2014-12-29T01:34:03.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Emptiness and Nothingness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now lets dissect the definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谓一切事物从因缘生，唯心所造，了无自性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;从因缘生 -- 因 is the inner reason, 缘 is the outer reason, the two combined together, meaning the Ultimate Reason, is the cause of everything. Hence 一切事物从因缘生. You might want to think of it as dialectic reasoning, and you can do that.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;唯心所造 says that everything is created by the Heart, the thinking device. It's idealism stripped to the bone. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;自性 is the quality or essence of existence itself, since everything is caused by Reason and created by Heart, their Essence is null. Simply put, they don't Exist, hence 了无自性.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even with a worldview like this, Buddhists still hold the Great Compassion, hence 观於空无而不舍大悲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you ask what is Reason, what is Heart, and what is the Essence of Existence. The Buddha picks up a flower and smiles, and suddenly you reach Enlightenment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you don't, in fact it's one of Buddha's disciples that does. I have friends struggling with these for decades, but still haven't reached anything remarkable, and I daresay, it's a complete waste of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for translation, it depends on what you are translating. If you translate Buddhism classic texts, it's better to use Sanskrit words. If you translate a novel, or some random article with Buddhism references, use the capital like I did, or like Roger Zelazny did in his novel &lt;em&gt;Lord of Light&lt;/em&gt;. It's a great book by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-29T02:59:39.000" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T02:59:39.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10908" CreationDate="2014-12-29T05:02:02.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;弗里顿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fereydoon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fereydoon, Fereydoun or Ferydoon (Persian: فریدون) may refer to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ferydoon Zandi_百度百科&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姓名：&lt;strong&gt;弗里顿&lt;/strong&gt;·赞迪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T05:02:02.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10908" CreationDate="2014-12-29T06:19:02.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese , I think it make no sense to spell this voice in Chinese Characters. And even if you give the spelling , I don't think I can understand what it is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beside, don't use Chinese Characters to spell any other language's voice unless there is a usage of oral speaking in Chinese.Just write what it is and explain it in Chinese in &lt;code&gt;()&lt;/code&gt;. Like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Blockquote（这个英语单词表示引用的意思）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And are you looking for Chinese Name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8141" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T06:19:02.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="553" CreationDate="2014-12-29T15:00:07.293" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese have a device called &lt;strong&gt;起承转合&lt;/strong&gt;. First you &lt;strong&gt;start&lt;/strong&gt;(起) narrating on some topic. Then you &lt;strong&gt;continue&lt;/strong&gt;(承) to develop the topic with added material. Then you &lt;strong&gt;turn&lt;/strong&gt;(转) the narrative, either by seeking different aspects, or creating conflicts and resolving them. Finally you &lt;strong&gt;conclude&lt;/strong&gt;(合) the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often it goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(起) New study shows that spanking is bad for children...&#xA;(承) The study is conducted by Harvard and it goes like... &#xA;(转) Some may say &quot;I was spanked as a child, and I turn out to be fine.&quot; They are wrong because...&#xA;(合) So it's better not to spank our children...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also work in poems and songs. Here is a modern example, a song by by 张玮玮, titled 《织毛衣》 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(起)我深深地爱着你&#xA;(承)你却爱着一个傻逼&#xA;(转)傻逼却不爱你&#xA;(合)你比傻逼还傻逼&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This idea has its classic roots, so we can see it being used in classical poems as well. For example, 《登高》 by 杜甫, my all time favorite:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(起)风急天高猿啸哀，渚清沙白鸟飞回。&#xA;(承)无边落木萧萧下，不尽长江滚滚来。&#xA;(转)万里悲秋常作客，百年多病独登台。&#xA;(合)艰难苦恨繁霜鬓，潦倒新停浊酒杯。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's rather akin to the Hollywood &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;three-act structure&lt;/a&gt;, where you plan the plot, develop the plot, reach the climax, then draw the happy ending. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that it's just one of the common devices that could be used on any type of writing. As for scientific theses, I think most of them try to follow western standards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-30T00:56:11.433" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T00:56:11.433" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1777" CreationDate="2014-12-29T15:28:39.827" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/AA%E5%88%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; has this to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「AA」是「Arithmetic Average」的縮寫。意思是「算術平均」。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「AA」是「All Average」的縮寫。意思是「全部平均分擔」。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「AA」是英文「Acting Appointment」的縮寫。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no citation or whatsoever, so these could all be wrong...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2930.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;百度&lt;/a&gt; also has something to say. Despite the total lack of structure, there is an interesting excerpt from the article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chamber's English Dictionary的解释，AA，aa或者a.a.的意思是：(in prescriptions,&#xA;  etc) in equal quantities of each). Origin: Late Latin &quot;ana&quot;, from&#xA;  German, again。意即：（在处方中）各以等量。来自拉丁文ana，起源于德语，“再次”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This fits quite well, but then it leaves me wondering why a remote medical term would become popular in a different sense..  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2014-12-30T00:41:19.530" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T00:41:19.530" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10915" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10917" CreationDate="2014-12-29T15:41:19.770" Score="1" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say you've read a poem by William Shakespeare. You liked it very much so you remembered it by heart. Now you can recite it, i.e., read it aloud from your memory, or, you can write it down accurately without checking up the source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an English word or phrase to describe the latter action? In Chinese we have a word called 默写 that does the job. It functions both as a verb and a noun. If I were to translate it into English, what is the colloquial way to express it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've asked this question in the English Learners forum but I didn't seem to get what I wanted. Someone suggested &lt;code&gt;quote&lt;/code&gt; but it could be either speaking or writing. Maybe the idea of 默写 as a learning mechanism simply doesn't exist in the west?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T01:11:30.233" Title="Colloquial way to express the concept of &quot;默写&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10915" CreationDate="2014-12-29T18:38:09.753" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate it as &quot;write from memory&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老師要學生把這首詩默寫一遍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The teacher made the students write out the poem from memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T18:38:09.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10915" CreationDate="2014-12-30T01:06:05.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes for @monalisa, 'write from memory' is good. I would like to add another option too ..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An idiomatic expression for this would be &quot;learn by heart&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I owe everything to a system that made me learn by heart till I wept. As a result I have thousands of lines of poetry by heart. I owe everything to this.&quot; - George Steiner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, an example from an english.se answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The director told me to learn my speech by heart. I had to go over it many times before I learned it by heart. (TFD)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/a/139383&quot;&gt;https://english.stackexchange.com/a/139383&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to exactly cover what you're after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please write down the poems by [x] that you have learnt by heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; one small addendum--American English uses 'learned' where British (and by extension International English I believe) uses 'learnt', that's why I use learnt, and the english.se example uses 'learned'. Just in case that was an area of confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:38:11.437" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T01:11:30.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23" CreationDate="2014-12-30T01:30:08.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that Americans usually say &lt;em&gt;I'm very good&lt;/em&gt; while the more reserved and humble&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; British people usually just say &lt;em&gt;I'm fine&lt;/em&gt;, but in essence they are the same. What I mean is that 我很好 can be translated as &lt;em&gt;I'm very good&lt;/em&gt;, or more rarely, &lt;em&gt;I'm very fine&lt;/em&gt;, too. But since this is so common an expression, adding the word &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; usually doesn't change the meaning one bit, so it is left out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contrary to what you said, 我好 can be used, but it is about (but not) as terse and impolite as the one word reply 好 when spoken to strangers. 我很好 is the standard form because it's a perfect three-letter reply to the three-letter greeting 你好吗？, it sounds good to the ears and also shows a kind of courtesy and respect to the one greeting you that you are willing to speak more than the one or two word alternatives I've mentioned above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to emphasize that you feel &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; good, you could say 好极了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1. Please bear with my stereotypical distinction for the sake of making an argument.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6460" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T01:30:08.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10919" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10922" CreationDate="2014-12-30T03:51:32.447" Score="7" ViewCount="3664" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always wondered how to translate the word &quot;江湖&quot; in a context such as that in Du Mu's poem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;落魄江湖载酒行,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   楚腰纤细掌中轻。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/18510001.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This link&lt;/a&gt; clearly explains what 江湖 means, but &quot;underworld&quot; isn't particularly good English even in a 武侠小说 context (and in the quote above it makes it sound like Du Mu was carrying wine with him around in hell) : has anyone come up with a better way to get across this word in English, or is it just one of those concepts that defies easy (succinct) translation?  How do you suggest translating the word, in the above couplet for example?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning the Rules of Engagement, I'm really not asking for someone to do my homework for me; rather curious to know whether anyone has a solution to a problem that's bugged me for a while now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-09T10:06:29.830" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T06:32:57.163" Title="How to Translate 江湖?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10919" CreationDate="2014-12-30T04:12:14.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I originally wrote a comment that said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;it could easily just be translated as &lt;em&gt;the world&lt;/em&gt;, in fact &lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt; notes that 江湖 is &lt;em&gt;the whole-wide world&lt;/em&gt;; if you want something more ghetto you could say something like the streets----&lt;em&gt;(and in the quote above it makes it sound like Du Mu was carrying wine with him around in hell)&lt;/em&gt;: why not try something like &quot;on the streets with a 40&quot; (oz, of course).... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is, again, proven by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;百度百科&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/154720/10219120.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;遣怀（杜牧诗作）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　（2）江湖：旧时泛指四方各地。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四方各地, so pretty much, everywhere -or- the world -or- the whole wide world, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;闯荡江湖&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;流落江湖&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;闯江湖&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走江湖&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;江湖未静，不可让位&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;浪迹江湖&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;落泊江湖&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other contexts will result in different translations, though, I would imagine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2014-12-30T04:23:33.217" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T04:23:33.217" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2718" CreationDate="2014-12-30T04:55:58.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try out &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantoneease.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantoneease.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Just type the Chinese Characters in Traditional Chinese. The reading will be displayed along with tone contour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8149" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T04:55:58.450" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-12-30T04:55:58.450" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10919" CreationDate="2014-12-30T06:26:10.110" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Took me a while to find a translation of the poem, by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witter_Bynner&quot;&gt;Witter Bynner&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;With my wine-bottle, watching by river and lake &#xA;For a lady so tiny as to dance on my palm, &#xA;I awake, after dreaming ten years in Yangzhou, &#xA;Known as fickle, even in the Street of Blue Houses.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks as if the translator didn't really get it, but in this poem &quot;rivers and lakes&quot; should be appropriate. The poet was writing about his ten years in 扬州, where there were plenty of rivers and lakes. You could imagine him riding on a vessel, with a drinking vessel in his hand, watching girls dance and wasting himself away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the extended meaning, oh boy that's hard. 金庸 has a book titled 笑傲江湖, when translated to English, it becomes &quot;The Swordsman&quot;, &quot;The Legendary Swordsman&quot;, &quot;The Smiling, Proud Wanderer&quot;, and &quot;Laughing in the Wind&quot;. It looks like everyone is spending their best effort to try to avoid translating 江湖. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess people doing this because they thought they are &lt;strong&gt;translating up&lt;/strong&gt; to a more prestigious language. They try to avoid anything that's slightly less comprehensible to an English reader, lest he gets offended by a few unrecognizable loanwords and throws the book away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's hardly the problem. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Nicoll&quot;&gt;James Nicoll&lt;/a&gt; once said this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that&#xA;  English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow&#xA;  words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways&#xA;  to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English cares not a bit about its purity, so I would suggest that we defile it a little more by translating it as &quot;Rivers and Lakes&quot;, or even &quot;Jiang Hu&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;江湖 is a world. It's a vastness of turbulence. It's a world where people obtain their loafs at the peril of their lives. It's the world where hermits bide, where wanderers ride, where swordsmen stride, where clans collide... It's like Dungeons and Dragons sans magic and monsters. Now, describe it with an existing English word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T06:26:10.110" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10923" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10924" CreationDate="2014-12-30T10:31:31.403" Score="2" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just picked up &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.brill.com/popular-religious-movements-and-heterodox-sects-chinese-history&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Popular Religious Movements and Heterodox Sects in Chinese History&lt;/strong&gt; by &lt;em&gt;Hubert Seiwert (In collaboration with Ma Xisha)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and was kind of caught aback by the idea of &lt;em&gt;Confucian messianism&lt;/em&gt;. Here's what the book says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=Xg-gcQq1TGQC&amp;amp;pg=PA20&amp;amp;lpg=PA20&amp;amp;dq=confucian%20messianism&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=2Ip_S-QmNs&amp;amp;sig=VWaciXAIIwWegQ8kdM26thVLfaQ&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=ZmWiVJzQFYTwoATZmYGoDg&amp;amp;ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=confucian%20messianism&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Google Books Page 20&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; of the book:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One of these elements, which gave Han Confucianism a particular&#xA;  religious flavour, was the expectation of a sage-emperor who would&#xA;  realize the coming of a new era in which the world will enjoy peace&#xA;  and prosperity. These ideas were not confined to the Confucians of&#xA;  the New Text School but were widespread among different schools of&#xA;  the Former Han. Especially the fangshi 方士 (“master of recipes,” “magicians”),&#xA;  who were closely related to the Huang-Lao teaching, promoted&#xA;  the idea of a golden age that would be inaugurated by an emperor&#xA;  who responds to the cosmic order by enacting the proper rituals and&#xA;  cultivating his personality.10 Confucian scholars of the Former Han&#xA;  shared these ideas. They seem to have been inspired by a prophecy&#xA;  already alluded to in the Book of Mencius, namely the appearance of a&#xA;  sage every five hundred years who would transmit the true teaching&#xA;  and thereby restore order to the world.11 The Han emperor Wudi&#xA;  apparently referred to this tradition when he deplored the fact that for&#xA;  five hundred years the erudites had not been able to bring back the&#xA;  principles of the ancient kings.12 Wudi regarded himself as the one&#xA;  who should reinstall the cosmic order and become the sage-emperor&#xA;  preordained by Heaven. This is the background of the various ritual&#xA;  measures that he enacted during his reign.13&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The expectation of a sage-emperor who would bring about the&#xA;  ideal state of the world that supposedly had existed in high antiquity&#xA;  occupied the thought of the New Text scholars. It was this same&#xA;  expectation on which Wang Mang relied when he styled himself as&#xA;  the fulfilment of this expectation. Thus, the historical and political&#xA;  theories of Former Han Confucianism contained an element that could&#xA;  properly be called Confucian messianism. This Confucian messianism, of&#xA;  course, was intimately related to the belief in prophecies and omens popular with the New Text School. Following the failure of Wang Mang’s rule it lost much of its appeal and was eventually suspended.&#xA;  After the Han, messianic expectations no longer played a prominent&#xA;  role within the Confucian tradition.14&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10 Cf. Anna K. Seidel, La divinisation de Lao Tseu dans le Taoïsme des Han (Publications&#xA;  de l’École Française d’Extrême Orient; 71), Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient,&#xA;  1969, p. 25.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11 Mengzi yizhu 孟子譯注, 盡心章句, xia, Beijing: Zhonghua&#xA;  shuju, 1960, vol. 2, p. 344.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12 Hanshu 漢書, by Ban Gu 班固, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962 (1975), j. 56, p.&#xA;  2496.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;13 Cf. E.B. Ord, State sacrifices in the Former Han dynasty according to the official histories,&#xA;  Ph.D. thesis, University of California, 1987, pp. 112 ff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mengzi talks of 尧 and 舜 a lot throughout &lt;em&gt;盡心章句&lt;/em&gt; - I would imagine it has something to do with this...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What exactly is the &lt;strong&gt;prophecy&lt;/strong&gt; being spoken of here, i.e.: &lt;em&gt;the appearance of a sage every five hundred years who would transmit the true teaching&#xA;and thereby restore order to the world&lt;/em&gt; in the original Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is there a name for this, so-called, prophecy? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is the Chinese for the &lt;em&gt;sage-emperor&lt;/em&gt;? (圣王 &lt;em&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;?&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/em&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is entailed in &lt;em&gt;the idea of a golden age that would be inaugurated by an emperor who responds to the cosmic order by &lt;strong&gt;enacting the proper rituals&lt;/strong&gt; and&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;cultivating his personality&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What did Wudi (武帝) do during his reign that is considered to fit into this prophecy? E.g.: &lt;em&gt;Wudi regarded himself as the one who should reinstall the cosmic order and become the sage-emperor preordained by Heaven. This is the background of the various ritual measures that he enacted during his reign.13&lt;/em&gt; (this question might be off topic for this site, sorry.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T16:34:38.577" Title="Confucian Messianism, Mencius, etc" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10923" CreationDate="2014-12-30T12:11:17.980" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From 《孟子·公孙丑下》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;孟子去齐。充虞路问曰：「夫子若有不豫色然。前日虞闻诸夫子曰： 『君子不怨天，不尤人。』」 曰：「彼一时，此一时也。&lt;strong&gt;五百年必有王者兴&lt;/strong&gt;，其间必有名世者。由周而来，七百有馀岁矣。以其数则过矣；以其时考之，则可矣。夫天未欲平治天下也；如欲平治天下，当今之世，舍我其谁也？ 吾何为不豫哉！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mengzi was a very boastful person. I think the prophecy (actually more of a theory) &lt;code&gt;五百年必有王者兴&lt;/code&gt; was something he made up to elevate himself to the savior (the One) of his time. He further talked about this prophesy of the 500 year cycle in 《孟子·尽心下》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;由尧舜至于汤，&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;五百有余岁&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;，若禹、皋陶，则见而知之。若汤，则闻而知之。由汤至于文王，&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;五百有余岁&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;，若伊尹、 莱朱，则见而知之；若文王，则闻而知之。由文王至于孔子，&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;五百有余岁&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;，若太公望、散宜生，则见而知之；若孔子，则闻而知之。由孔子而来至于今，百有余岁，去圣人之世若此其未远也。近圣人之居若此其甚也，然而无有乎尔，则亦无有乎尔！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mengzi listed the following nine sage emperors (圣王): &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Yao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yao&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Shun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Shun&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu_the_Great&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yu&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_of_Shang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tang&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Wen_of_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wen Wang&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Wu_of_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wu Wang&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhou Gong&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kongzi&lt;/a&gt; (素王) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mencius&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mengzi&lt;/a&gt; himself (舍我其谁).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is entailed in &lt;em&gt;the idea of a golden age that would be inaugurated by an emperor who responds to the cosmic order by &lt;strong&gt;enacting the proper rituals&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;cultivating his personality&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know the exact source(s) it is referring to, but again in 《孟子·滕文公下》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天下之生久矣，&lt;strong&gt;一治一乱&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of &lt;code&gt;一治一乱&lt;/code&gt; is simple: a period of peace and prosperity follows (and predates) a period of war and chaos. Whenever a new dynasty is established, the new ruler would employ theories such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E4%BA%94%E5%BE%B7%E7%B5%82%E5%A7%8B%E8%AA%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;五德终始说&lt;/a&gt; to claim his righteousness to reign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bear in mind that China had just experienced &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Jing_of_Han#The_Rebellion_of_the_Seven_States&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a period of war&lt;/a&gt; in Jingdi's (the father of Wudi) time and was constantly under threat from neighboring forces, so whatever Wudi did, the prophesy was used to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Wu_of_Han#Solidifying_power&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;solidify his power&lt;/a&gt;. The use of the prophesy, however, was not limited to the rulers. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sima_Qian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sima Qian&lt;/a&gt; employed the 500 year theory to express his ambition in his autobiography 《太史公自序》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;先人有言：「自周公卒 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;五百岁&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 而有孔子。孔子卒后至于今 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;五百岁&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;，有能绍明世，正易传，继春秋，本诗书礼乐之际？」意在斯乎！意在斯乎！小子何敢让焉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice his tone of voice was basically the same as that of Mengzi: in the present age, 500 years after Confucius (or Wen Wang before him), who else other than the Grand Historian is capable of producing something big and everlasting?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see the profound influence the 500 year theory had on later Chinese intellectuals in poems such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;梅花重压帽檐偏，曳杖行歌意欲仙。後 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;五百年&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 君记取，断无人似放翁颠。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by the Song poet &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_You&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lu You&lt;/a&gt;, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;满眼天机转化钧，天工人巧日争新。预支 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;五百年&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 新意，到了千年又觉陈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by the Qing poet &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Yi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhao Yi&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6460" LastEditorUserId="6460" LastEditDate="2014-12-30T16:34:38.577" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T16:34:38.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10811" CreationDate="2014-12-30T16:37:51.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say:这是我妻子为我做的。&#xA;And when referencing one's wife,you could say:你老婆，你妻子 or 你爱人，but 你老婆 is common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8153" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T16:37:51.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10927" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10930" CreationDate="2014-12-30T21:17:57.077" Score="-1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to think of a 4-word 成語 that means &quot;my/your desires have been granted&quot;&#xA;but I can't remember or think of one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3999" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T00:26:44.907" Title="How to translate &quot;desires have been granted&quot;" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10928" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-30T22:04:40.533" Score="1" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;虹影  饥饿的女儿 Ying Hong - Daughter of the River  has the sentence 雨下得人心烦百事生，看不到雨停的希望。（google 烦百事生）。Howard Goldblatt＇s translation reads：The effect of the rain is despair that you'll ever see the end of it. How to explain 烦百事生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2015-01-01T18:19:08.973" Title="Explaining 烦百事生 in 雨下得人心烦百事生" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10928" CreationDate="2014-12-31T00:17:48.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can not find 烦百事生. &quot;雨下得人心烦百事生，看不到雨停的希望。&quot; should be read as 雨下得//人心烦//百事生，看不到雨停的希望。 It means that the rain make me so upset(人心烦), everything goes wrong(百事生), I don't know when the unpleasant rain stop.(看不到雨停的希望)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastEditorUserId="6904" LastEditDate="2014-12-31T02:56:51.263" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T02:56:51.263" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10927" CreationDate="2014-12-31T00:26:44.907" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Best fit: 如愿以偿 or 得偿所愿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some alternatives might be 心想事成, 万事如意, 梦想成真. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe there are still others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T00:26:44.907" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10856" CreationDate="2014-12-31T01:18:20.113" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got email from grandricci.org:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The pronounciations you point out are presently not in use, indeed.&#xA;  They had been included in the dictionary fifty years ago by the first&#xA;  team because they were recognized by old dictionaries of that time or&#xA;  by the fanqie 反切 indicated in the Kangxi cidian. From a linguistical&#xA;  point of view, they are not wrong. But as they are not in use, in&#xA;  later editions of the Dictionary, the Association Ricci will have to&#xA;  make a choice between delete them or indicating their linguistic&#xA;  status.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2015-01-07T01:55:34.387" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T01:55:34.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10932" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10945" CreationDate="2014-12-31T01:36:13.930" Score="2" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;今日&quot; or &quot;今天&quot; more appropriate to use when speaking Singaporean Mandarin? Is it different than the one that is used in writing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8157" LastActivityDate="2015-01-01T10:55:08.443" Title="&quot;Today&quot; in Spoken Singaporean Mandarin" Tags="&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10932" CreationDate="2014-12-31T02:57:05.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;今天 is both the right answer for speaking and writing in modern society.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今日 is more in drama of old time story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8160" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T02:57:05.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10710" CreationDate="2014-12-31T05:24:26.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand it, in this sentence, 斗阵 more likely to mean &quot;let's (do something) together&quot; and 做伙 means &quot;get together&quot;.&#xA;So it can be directly translated to &quot;let's get together together&quot;. But the second together is  redundant so &quot;let's get together&quot; makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8161" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T05:24:26.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10935" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-31T07:08:00.807" Score="4" ViewCount="571" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just wondering whether the phrase 老虎机 (slot machine) sounds and is written the same in all Chinese dialects, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin, &#xA;Wu Chinese, &#xA;Min Chinese, &#xA;Cantonese, &#xA;Jin Chinese, &#xA;Xiang  Chinese, &#xA;Hakka Chinese and &#xA;Gan Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any slang phrases to say &quot;slots&quot;, &quot;slot machine&quot;, &quot;one armed bandit&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://slotmachine77.com/chinese-slot-machine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://slotmachine77.com/chinese-slot-machine&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8163" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-12-31T12:11:33.933" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T10:01:30.197" Title="Is the phrase &quot;slot machine&quot; 老虎机 the same in different Chinese dialects?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10936" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-31T07:14:23.860" Score="2" ViewCount="353" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do Chinese use different language dialects on the Web? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. Mandarin, Cantonese, Min Chinese, Xiang  Chinese, Hakka Chinese, Gan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there difference how people in China are looking for stuff on the web? Do they type it in their local dialect or use standard Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jev&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8163" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2014-12-31T12:12:27.930" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T07:33:12.740" Title="The most used Chinese dialect on the Web?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10938" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-31T14:49:55.697" Score="2" ViewCount="708" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她的宝宝和小猫一样可爱 (I never ran into a sentence like the one until recently.)&#xA;她的宝宝像小猫一样可爱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: Are these two sentences exchangeable? Or, what is the difference between &quot;和...一样&quot; and &quot;像...一样&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modifying my question:&#xA;When comparing two unlike things, &quot;像一样&quot; is used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it also semantically and grammatically correct to use &quot;跟/和/同 一样&quot; when comparing two unlike things? (My gut feeling tells it is not correct. But I cannot find any explicit explanations of the difference between these two patterns in all my textbooks.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-01-02T07:28:41.647" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T06:42:55.207" Title="What is the difference: &quot;和小猫一样可爱&quot; and &quot;像小猫一样可爱&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10938" CreationDate="2014-12-31T16:52:38.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;和。。。一样 seems equivalent to 跟。。。一样， and concerning the difference between 像（象）。。。一样 and 跟。。。一样，＂外国人实用汉语语法＂（５７８页） has this to say：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（五）＂象＂和＂跟。。。一样＂。&#xA;＂象。。＂ may also occur before 一样 to form the pattern 象。。。一样， indicating the resemblance of two things while 跟（和）。。。一样 shows that the two things are the same， not only similar。 （it seems 和 can also be replaced by 同 （depending on the region））。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would seem therefore that 和。。。一样 expresses， if not sameness （equality） at least a higher degree of similarity。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No complete agreement between different textbooks。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The １００６ pp。book 实用现代汉语语发 chapter ６，  section １，subsection １ A 跟 B 一样 does not even mention A 像 B 一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cf。pp。８３３－８３６。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;。。。 ＂A 跟 B 一样 ＋ 形容词／动词＂ 表示 A 在哪一方跟 B 一样 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例如： １。这个字的声调跟那个字的声调一样。２。这间屋子跟那间屋子一样大。３。她跟我一样喜欢孩子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;。。。&#xA;＂跟。。。一样＂作状语，后面也可以加＂地＂，特别是所修饰的成分是一个短语时。例如： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１。他会跟我们一样地想念祖国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;。。。。The remaining topics in this section  could possibly be illustrated by the following points and examples。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;读跟写一样需要下功夫。他的意见跟我的意见不一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表示事物、形状异同的除＂跟。。。一样＂以外，还可以用＂跟。。。相同＂。否定式是＂跟。。。不同（不相同）＂。例如：这个零件跟那个零件的形状相同。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果要表示两种事物或形状相似，可以用＂跟。。。相似（近似、类似），＂跟。。。差不多＂等。例如：&#xA;这个故事的情节跟那个故事相似。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂跟＂也可以换成介词＂与＂、＂和＂、＂同＂等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese A Comprehensive Grammar has just ２ paragraphs concerning 跟 and 象 functioning as comparative coverbs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１１。１２。６。３ Comparison &#xA; 象：similar to：她象她妈妈一样固执。她象爸爸一样不喜欢吃鱼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跟：compared with：这个学期的功课跟上学期一样多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2014-12-31T23:51:21.993" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T23:51:21.993" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10940" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-31T19:48:23.440" Score="3" ViewCount="474" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually I end up saying &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我并非/不是以中文为母语的人,(...so please forgive my mistakes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any way to avoid the awkward-seeming &quot;以中文为母语&quot; construction here but still get this point across, without saying something totally different like &quot;I'm a foreigner&quot; - there are other situations where I really do need to be referring to the specific level of Chinese language capability.  It's obvious that I'm not, but I still feel the need to say something along these lines for politeness' sake, from time to time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T03:53:15.087" Title="What's the Least Awkward Way To Say &quot;I am Not A Native Chinese Speaker&quot; In Chinese?" Tags="&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10938" CreationDate="2014-12-31T20:30:18.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;和/跟...一样 is colloquial variation of 像...一样. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their meanings are the same but the former ones are less formal (only used in spoken language) while the latter one can be used in both formal and informal situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T20:30:18.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10936" CreationDate="2015-01-01T00:04:02.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the web, standard Chinese is widely used. Simplified Chinese is used by Mainland china; Traditional Chinese is used more frequently in places like Taiwan. But the two speak the same way, so it doesn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another trend is that more and more sentences are created by young guys on the internet, and the sentences are widely spreading on the web, so that only young people often browsing Chinese language internet can know what it means. And these sentences often make old people confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8172" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-01-02T07:30:31.853" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T07:30:31.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10943" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-01T00:10:35.287" Score="0" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从商品类别来看，网购用户指出主要集中在服装配饰、护理美容、消费电子及家居家装这四大领域的产品上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to interpret '家居家装'? What does it actually mean or include? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T01:52:56.250" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T01:52:56.250" Title="How to interpret 家居家装 in ...在服装配饰、护理美容、消费电子及家居家装这四大领域的产品上?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10932" CreationDate="2015-01-01T10:55:08.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has a good overview on the distinctive features of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singaporean_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Singaporean Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;. In Singapore's context, there is nothing unique pertaining to the usage of &quot;今日&quot; and &quot;今天&quot;. 今日 is more formal and is used more often where today means &quot;nowadays&quot; while 今天 is usually used where today means &quot;this present day&quot;, both in speech and writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following examples demonstrate the difference in usage for these similar words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在&lt;b&gt;今日&lt;/b&gt;的西方社会，同性恋已不再是罪错。&lt;br&gt; Homosexuality is no longer viewed as a crime&#xA;  in today's western society.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;今天&lt;/b&gt;的天气真好！&lt;br&gt; Today's weather is great!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2015-01-01T10:55:08.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10936" CreationDate="2015-01-01T13:02:20.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can certainly see examples of major dialects like Cantonese/廣東話: &lt;a href=&quot;http://weshare.hk/pandoracfrance/articles/1116298&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://weshare.hk/pandoracfrance/articles/1116298&lt;/a&gt;.  I think there is a special IME for entering characters specific to Cantonese, to answer your question about typing it in their dialect.  I would think Taiwanese (or 閩南話) would have some web presence as well but don't know for sure. Consider looking in non-obvious places if you're interested in more examples: frequency of dialectical usage in Chinese porn, for examples, is noticeably higher than in more &quot;acceptable&quot; contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part of the difficulty in answering this question is that, from my non-professional-linguist perspective, written forms for many Chinese dialects seem so close to written &quot;standard&quot; Chinese that it's hard to tell them apart, when reading, from variations within &quot;standard&quot; written Mandarin, with maybe the exception of the appearance of some more classical particles (ex 莫 instead of 不要, 汝 instead of 你) in contexts where they wouldn't ordinarily show up in Mandarin.  Also most presence of dialectical phrases in written Chinese on the Internet, that I've seen, seem to be sprinkled throughout standard Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of 網絡語 (Internet speak) ref'd by yorelog being a dialect is interesting!  Any trained linguist willing to discuss that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2015-01-01T13:28:49.140" LastActivityDate="2015-01-01T13:28:49.140" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10938" CreationDate="2015-01-01T15:38:30.207" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In daily spoken language, these two sentences express the same thing (lovely). But there is some tiny difference. 和…一样 emphasizes the comparison, it's something like the expression &lt;em&gt;as ...&lt;/em&gt; in English or &lt;em&gt;tan...como...&lt;/em&gt; in Spanish. 像…一样 emphasizes the trope, it says A is similar to B so that A shares the feature &quot;lovely&quot; with B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2015-01-01T15:38:30.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10943" CreationDate="2015-01-01T16:48:32.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;居 means to live, 装 means to decorate. 家居家装 in this sentence means the commodities or services related to furnitures, home-use devices, interior design and domestic decoration, that is, things you have to spend money on before you move into your new house.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2015-01-01T16:48:32.227" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10949" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10979" CreationDate="2015-01-01T17:33:32.270" Score="3" ViewCount="355" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently bought the book &lt;em&gt;ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese&lt;/em&gt; in an effort to get minimally smart about old phonology. But the #1 character I'm curious about, with regard to old poems, is 兮 - Mandarin &lt;code&gt;xi1&lt;/code&gt; - and it's missing from the dictionary! Which is weird, because the character is seen ALL the time in classical poetry, especially very old poetry from Jin all the way back (I believe) to 诗经, and appears to be used phonologically as an interjection like &quot;oh!&quot; or &quot;ah!&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know what the reconstructed Old Chinese pronunciation of this character is? Alternately, does it sound radically different (perhaps, at least subjectively, more like an exclamation &quot;should&quot; sound like) in dialects other than Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-01-02T07:26:55.407" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T15:00:33.510" Title="What is the Old Chinese Pronunciation for the Character 兮?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10928" CreationDate="2015-01-01T18:19:08.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;雨下得人心烦百事生 should be splitted as 雨/下得/人/心烦/百事生, which in plain language means that the rain is going on, making people feel annoyed and remember other annoying things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下 means raining, 下得 starts a complement which states the effect brought by the long lasting rain. 心烦 means to feel bad. 百事生 literally means many things happen, but here it means to cause somebody to recall bad things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, in my opinion, 百事生 acts as a complement of 心烦. I'm not sure about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2015-01-01T18:19:08.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10951" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-02T01:01:33.143" Score="2" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone explain how to pronounce 太监 in China and Taiwan? I've heard it be &lt;code&gt;tai4 jian1&lt;/code&gt; as well as seen it (in Pleco) as &lt;code&gt;tai4 jian4&lt;/code&gt;！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T17:46:25.350" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T17:46:25.350" Title="How do you pronounce “太监” in Mainland China?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10952" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10956" CreationDate="2015-01-02T01:12:13.413" Score="1" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is very specific, but I was looking for a translation for standing/stagnant water (context: mosquitoes), but found out it `死水｀(if that's incorrect though, someone please kindly notify me). However, a new question popped up. What is the verb used for handing 死水？ In English, I would say something such as &quot;get rid of&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="3011" LastEditDate="2015-01-02T01:34:45.700" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T22:52:19.707" Title="Do I use “扔掉” or “倒掉” to expressing getting rid of 死水？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2473" CreationDate="2015-01-02T01:28:23.327" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my first post, I hope the community isn't too harsh on me &amp;gt;_&amp;lt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've come across some translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other posts are certainly correct in that &amp;quot;I wonder&amp;quot; is probably best translated as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想知道 。。。 ＝ I wonder ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想知道（什么／为什么／如何） ＝ I wonder (what/why/how)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不知道是否 ＝ I wonder if/I wonder whether or not/I don't know if...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are some other ways to express this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我奇怪他怎么不来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it means, &amp;quot;I wonder why he didn't come.&amp;quot; If &amp;quot;wonder&amp;quot; has a direct translation, I would say &amp;quot;奇怪&amp;quot; would be it, at least according. Because of the use of &amp;quot;奇怪“ it emphasizes something strange/unusual could have occurred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我寻思会不会下雨 = I wonder if it will rain or not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but &amp;quot;寻思&amp;quot; implies pondering, thinking over, which may be too dramatic when applied to weather.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/strong&gt; At least colloquially, using &lt;code&gt;知道&lt;/code&gt; is probably best, but there are many translations!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T01:28:23.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10951" CreationDate="2015-01-02T02:44:34.430" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When 监 is in the forth tone, it usually refers to a specific government department. For example 国子监 was the education department, 钦天监 was the calender department, 太监 was the department of 内务, i.e., affairs of the royal family. Then gradually people start to use 太监 to refer to the specific occupation, or people who belong to the department. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then &lt;code&gt;监&lt;/code&gt;'s meaning as a government department is died out in modern Chinese, so people begin to map it to the ubiquitous &lt;code&gt;jian1&lt;/code&gt;, which is technically wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also at least in Mandarin, there is a tendency that when a noun consists of two characters, the second character would be read as 轻声 or the &quot;light tone&quot;, so what you normally hear is &lt;code&gt;tai4jian0&lt;/code&gt;. There is also a tenancy that when a character is read as the light tone, people automatically thinks that it should be the first tone. This might also contributed to the shift from &lt;code&gt;jian4&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;jian1&lt;/code&gt;. But as NS said in the comments, it could probably be just my imagination...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;jian1&lt;/code&gt; might be technically wrong, but there are already enough people using it to make it an acceptable pronunciation, only that the dictionaries hasn't been updated yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for you, if you are taking exams, use &lt;code&gt;jian4&lt;/code&gt; for now, otherwise use whatever you like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2015-01-02T06:02:49.893" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T06:02:49.893" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10952" CreationDate="2015-01-02T02:52:52.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;死水&lt;/code&gt; usually refers to the water size of a pond or lake. You probably want to use &lt;code&gt;积水&lt;/code&gt; instead. Then you can say &lt;code&gt;清除积水&lt;/code&gt;, for example &lt;code&gt;清除房屋和院子里各处的积水&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T02:52:52.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10952" CreationDate="2015-01-02T03:02:46.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 清除 is a good choice as answered by Wang Dingwei.&#xA;By the way, since 死水 can also mean water or even liquid that is not fluid. And it's often used to reference the dirty water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T03:02:46.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10940" CreationDate="2015-01-02T07:29:20.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;中文 is the language, and we speak in 普通話 (Mandarin), 廣東話 (Cantonese), etc.  You'd better say &quot;我的母語不是普通話&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T07:29:20.627" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10936" CreationDate="2015-01-02T07:33:12.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If &quot;the Web&quot; includes social media, especially chat apps like WeChat, I'd wager Cantonese has a large presence, as people in HK will use a mixture of Standard Written Chinese and Cantonese, the younger the people, and the more casual the conversation, the more Cantonese words will pop up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T07:33:12.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10961" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-02T18:01:37.933" Score="4" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditionally, a person may be addressed by taking account of the person's gender, age relative to the speaker, familial relationship to the speaker, and whether or not the person is on the mother or father's side of the family tree. For example, 外婆 (wài pó) can only refer to the mother's mother, and 外公 (wài gōng) can only refer to the mother's father. In contrast, 奶奶 (nǎi nai) and 爷爷 (yé ye) can only refer to the paternal grandmother and grandfather, respectively. The terms related to the family become complicated when you add all your brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, and cousins. Of course, shortened forms of address may be used, emphasizing the importance of the relationship/kinship over the individual's personal given name. In addition to that, people unrelated to the family are also addressed according to gender and age. 妹妹 (mèi mei) and 弟弟 (dì di) may be used to address any girl or boy who is younger than you, as well as your own familial brothers and sisters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Okay. Now, let's say you are acting as interpreter for a Chinese-speaking family or writing a novel about a contemporary Chinese-speaking family. In either case, would these terms be translated literally, or would the given names be used instead to sound more natural in English? Or maybe the pinyin transliteration would be used instead of the actual characters to get a feel of what they said?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somewhat related: I am aware that some TV portrayals of Jewish families (&lt;em&gt;Arthur&lt;/em&gt; TV series) will use the term &quot;Bubba&quot; for a female character, who means and is likely the grandmother of a person. &lt;em&gt;Bubba&lt;/em&gt; is presumably the transliteration of the Yiddish term. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3108" LastEditorUserId="3108" LastEditDate="2015-01-02T18:12:39.333" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T00:07:31.180" Title="Is there a way to translate terms related to the family?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10962" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10982" CreationDate="2015-01-02T19:33:51.983" Score="1" ViewCount="494" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to say &quot;After +Verb&quot; in daily conversation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;After eating my candy, I will go there&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;After he saw you were coming, he left&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;After she found the book, she called me&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the focus here is the &quot;After&quot; word. I know 后 is usually used for this case. But I wonder whether there are other alternatives?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-01-03T11:56:08.053" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T03:17:34.820" Title="How to say &quot;After +Verb&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10963" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10970" CreationDate="2015-01-02T19:52:04.887" Score="2" ViewCount="549" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他给她买来了一个戒指。&#xA;He gives her a ring that he bought.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume that this sentence should need 的 before &quot;a ring that he bought&quot; to be modifying, as below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他给她买来了'的'一个戒指。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think 的 is somewhat omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know what rule can be generalized from this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance, and also Happy new year!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6131" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-06-21T23:55:32.147" LastActivityDate="2015-06-21T23:55:32.147" Title="When to omit the modifying 的？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10962" CreationDate="2015-01-02T20:17:42.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;（somewhat intelligent） use of iciba translate will provide the answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在…以后， can be shortened to 。。。后 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e。g。 在吃我的糖果以后，我会去那里，吃我的糖果后，我会去那里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other possibilities exist，especially if something happens immediately after &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当他看到你来了，他离开了 （as he saw you were coming he left）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T20:17:42.617" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10962" CreationDate="2015-01-02T20:36:17.613" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;'After' can be expressed with 以后 placed after the clause:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃完糖果以后，我去那里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence can be translated using an 'after', e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他看到你来以后，他离开了。But it would sound 'more natural' if you dropped it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他看到你来，就离开了。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-01-03T11:15:49.850" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T11:15:49.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10963" CreationDate="2015-01-02T21:12:53.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;他给了她一个他买的戒指 (he gives her a ring that he bought) seems grammatical，but may sound strange， maybe one could also say 他作为礼物买了一个戒指给她 （he bought a ring for her as a present）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for the following cf。外国人实用汉语语法：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the attributive， verb＋的， 的 generally can not be omitted，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;examples：讨论的问题，旅行的人都来了，请的客人都到了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;exceptions exist with 的 optional ；我看见过游行队伍 （some dissyllables modifying dissyllables）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2015-01-03T00:42:42.697" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T00:42:42.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10952" CreationDate="2015-01-02T22:52:19.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;扔掉 - an action of &lt;code&gt;throwing&lt;/code&gt; away.  You can't grab water and throw it, so it's not suitable&lt;br&gt;&#xA;倒掉 - to &lt;code&gt;pour&lt;/code&gt; out / away.  It make sense to use 倒掉, but a common way will be what most other answer suggested - 清除 - to clean up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also stagnant water = 积水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T22:52:19.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10968" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10977" CreationDate="2015-01-03T01:51:28.177" Score="1" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm talking to a friend about something, and she's only presenting one side. So I want to ask about the other side and say, &quot;there are always two sides to every story.&quot; What's the best way to say this in Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兩全&#xA;兩頭蛇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those don't seem right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-13T04:05:49.847" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T04:05:49.847" Title="(Cantonese) How to say there are always two sides to a story?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10961" CreationDate="2015-01-03T02:47:59.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you may want to look at the English translation of the greatest Chinese family novel of them all - Story of the Stone (aka 紅樓夢) - for a sense of what kind of compromises can be made in English without at all compromising fidelity to original, while avoiding the horrors that attend peppering novels with footnotes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would probably never want to use personal names instead of titles unless it was so in the original. However it probably is acceptable to go with &quot;Aunt&quot; instead of &quot;paternal/maternal aunt&quot;, for example, in English unless it would somehow be impossible to figure out the more precise relationship from context in the novel. Meimei (non-literal variety) are harder- since theres more intimacy implied maybe it would be ok to switch to personal names. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for interpreting - good luck. I have a hard time remembering one word for cousin in Chinese, let alone four or five.:P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T02:47:59.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10963" CreationDate="2015-01-03T03:04:02.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他给她买来了一个戒指。&#xA;He gives her a ring that he bought.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence emphasizes &lt;strong&gt;the event of buying her a ring&lt;/strong&gt;. To be concise, you may say &quot;他给她买了个戒指。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他给她买来了'的'一个戒指。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence sounds weird, I think &quot;他给她买的戒指&quot; is better. This sentence emphasizes &lt;strong&gt;the person who bought the ring&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4711" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T03:04:02.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10968" CreationDate="2015-01-03T05:53:09.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 凡事都有两面性 is okay. 凡事=任何事=everything. 任何事物都应该从正反两面考虑。有其利，必有其弊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4140" LastEditorUserId="4140" LastEditDate="2015-01-03T06:00:15.840" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T06:00:15.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10973" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-03T05:57:01.470" Score="4" ViewCount="485" Body="&lt;p&gt;Prepositions are always a fun part to learn of a language. Right now, I'm running into the difficulty of trying to describe &quot;On My Phone&quot;. I've heard people say &quot;手机上“ but, after Baiduing I also know that you can say stuff like &quot;手机里的照片“。 Could anyone give their opinion on which is more commonly used and/or any differences in usage? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar &lt;code&gt;question&lt;/code&gt; was asked &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/8475/is-it-correct-to-say-%E5%9C%A8%E6%89%8B%E6%9C%BA&quot;&gt;Is it correct to say “在手机”？&lt;/a&gt; here and the answer used “手机上” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 我正在手机上玩游戏&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could this have been switched to 手机里?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T14:00:22.370" Title="How to say “On the phone” （手机里 vs. 手机上）" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10974" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-03T05:59:57.190" Score="5" ViewCount="1265" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know to say to a person how old they are you can say &quot;你多大&quot; or &quot;你几岁&quot;. But, how could you express &quot;how old is this building?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you say &quot;这楼有几年的历史？&quot; Or would that only be used for something grand like 故宫?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-01-04T05:07:21.620" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T20:04:26.983" Title="How do you ask how old a building is?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10974" CreationDate="2015-01-03T07:07:57.487" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're correct that 历史 is too splendid a word for an ordinary office building. Besides, you cannot put it together with 几年 without humor, because the question word 几 usually stands for a small, namely one digit number. (几十年 or 几百年 is acceptable.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: It's a universal fact in Mandarin that you should use 多少 for asking a truly indeterminate number of anything.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;How old is this building?&quot; would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这楼有多久了？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这楼盖了有（多久／多少年）了？ &lt;em&gt;(How / How many years) old is this building &lt;strong&gt;since it's been built&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; #2-1: 有多少年 doesn't seem as much approvable as 有多久. In fact, none of them exactly mean &quot;how old (a thing) is&quot;. The former is &quot;how many years it has&quot;, and the latter, &quot;how much time lapse it has&quot;. Using the former alone has a risk to meet with &quot;How many years of &lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt;?&quot; kind of response, depending on the context. At least, I prefer this to that, and moreover prefer the second example to the first.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can also imagine I'd ask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;这楼多少年盖的？&lt;/s&gt; &lt;em&gt;In what year was this building built?&lt;/em&gt; (See better solution in 杨以轩's answer)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这楼什么时候盖的？ &lt;em&gt;When was this building built?&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; #2-2: Here you can see that I ran into another difficulty since Chinese doesn't really have a casual question word exactly equivalent to &quot;what year&quot;. In this sense, 杨以轩's choice is far better than mine, and what is more, he seems to be a realtor.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6912" LastEditorUserId="6912" LastEditDate="2015-01-07T13:03:37.767" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T13:03:37.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10973" CreationDate="2015-01-03T07:40:15.253" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;手机上&lt;/code&gt; describes the act is observed by something from outside of the cellphone through the screen. I guess most of the humanity will do this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;手机里&lt;/code&gt;, in contrast, suggests something is really inside the phone, e.g. in memory, storage etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &lt;code&gt;手机里的照片&lt;/code&gt; &quot;pictures (stored) on the phone&quot; and &lt;code&gt;手机上的照片&lt;/code&gt; &quot;pictures (found) on the phone&quot; may indicate the same thing. But if you'd say &lt;code&gt;我在手机里玩游戏&lt;/code&gt;, I must assume you're a relative of Siri.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6912" LastEditorUserId="6912" LastEditDate="2015-01-04T09:04:23.293" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T09:04:23.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10968" CreationDate="2015-01-03T12:00:17.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 另有內情 &lt;code&gt;ling6 jau5 noi6 cing4&lt;/code&gt; fits the bill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T12:00:17.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10968" CreationDate="2015-01-03T13:37:13.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a Cantonese word per se, but you can use the good old &lt;code&gt;兼听则明&lt;/code&gt;, which means &quot;Listening to both sides of a story makes Jack a bright boy.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A complete form would be &lt;code&gt;兼听则明, 偏信则暗&lt;/code&gt;. The latter part means &quot;Believing only one side of a story makes Jack a dumb git.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T13:37:13.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10949" CreationDate="2015-01-03T15:00:33.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is already a good discussion going below the original question. I'll just strip the Wiktionary link and put it down here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wiktionary.org/zh/%E5%85%AE#.E6.B1.89.E8.AF.AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wiktionary.org/zh/%E5%85%AE#.E6.B1.89.E8.AF.AD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;字   Mandarin  MiddleChinese  OldChinese  Cantonese&#xA;兮   xī        hej            /*ɡˁe/      hai4       &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Japanese   Korean   Vietnamese&#xA;kei        hyey     hề&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the consonant is along the line of &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;, something down the throat, unlike &lt;code&gt;xi&lt;/code&gt; which is in the mouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I don't agree with Phil on &quot;兮 is nothing but a punctuation&quot; and &quot;Dialects were totally unintelligible so people had to write to each other even if they met face-to-face&quot;, I agree with him that a standard classic Chinese dialect didn't really exist. There could be many ways to read 兮 in ancient times, especially the vowel, although it's thought to be &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;, I wouldn't be surprised if it was shifted to &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;o&lt;/code&gt; or any strange diphthongs in a local dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T15:00:33.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10981" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-04T02:17:05.910" Score="1" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;虹影 饥饿的女儿&#xA;Hong Ying, &quot;Daughter of the River&quot; has this sentence: &lt;code&gt;&quot;不行，这样也不对，你耳朵生翅膀了，总听不见我的话？&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated by Howard Goldblatt (ISBN 0-8021-1637-X) as: &#xA;&lt;code&gt;&quot;No，that's not right either. Do you have wings on your ears? Is that why you never listen to me?&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question is about meaning of 耳朵生翅膀了 &quot;have wings on one's ears,&quot; i.e. how do these wings prevent Daughter of the River/ 饥饿的女儿 from listening&#xA;to her mother, do they block the sound? One user suggested that wings on ears make them (the ears) fly away, which of course would also affect listening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as is known to this user &quot;having wings on one's ears&quot; does not seem to be a common expression with some conventional meaning in English, does 耳朵生翅膀 &#xA;have some conventional meaning in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This user can only think of one common expression, 不翼而飞 involving wings and flying referring to disappearance without leaving a trace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本问题是关于 ＂你耳朵生翅膀了＂ 这句话的意思。更准确来说如何该翅膀会防止女儿听妈妈说话的（使她听不见其母亲的话）。指的是遮住（屏蔽）声音吗？按某使用者看讨论中的翅膀可能使耳朵飞走去的而飞走的耳朵当然是听不见妈妈说什么话的。＂你耳朵生翅膀了＂有没有什么传统（习惯）的意思能说明妈妈对女儿的责备呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-01-04T04:18:55.867" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T20:06:21.350" Title="Conventional meaning of (你)耳朵生翅膀(了)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10962" CreationDate="2015-01-04T03:17:34.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can give the example of &lt;code&gt;very natural&lt;/code&gt; translation：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;After eating my candy, I will go there&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃完糖就走。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;After he saw you were coming, he left&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他看到你来了之后就走了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;After she found the book, she called me&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她找到这本书后叫了我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, there is difference between &lt;code&gt;After&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;后&lt;/code&gt;. Chinese will add another word to explain the time accurately, for example , the &lt;code&gt;就&lt;/code&gt; shows I will do it immediately after that.In some case , cause &lt;code&gt;就&lt;/code&gt; explain the causation between two things, so the &lt;code&gt;后&lt;/code&gt; can be omitted, just like the first translated sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8141" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T03:17:34.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10981" CreationDate="2015-01-04T04:12:40.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not an idiom that exists to a wide population, otherwise you should have already found other references online, which I haven't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You know it's a good metaphor when you see one. If it leaves you wondering, it's probably not that good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's possible that the mom was kinda annoyed so she uttered gibberish. It's also possible that the author was bluffing: she invented random idioms to mess with your brain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T04:12:40.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10981" CreationDate="2015-01-04T04:32:51.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's saying &lt;em&gt;fly away&lt;/em&gt;, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese also contains similar expressions such as: &lt;strong&gt;长(了)腿&lt;/strong&gt; (grew legs) or &lt;strong&gt;长(了)脚&lt;/strong&gt;  (grew feet) to mean &lt;code&gt;跑了&lt;/code&gt; (ran away) like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baidu.com/link?url=RgWlXecykDzeyNwbAhKFapGcfT7PnNmjo_eEKxiFajmeNpoPmS5ENSvep-29d-wfM-fWs_mJtPvnsZsSGE2c_q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;垃圾总是不翼而飞,难道自己长了脚?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baidu.com/link?url=stoiG0z8eHWg1J0yiYmnSRT7nynynBKy6UpQS9fBXqGaIQt2Omeubonx6Xe8xKHLr3mtPixf7tnWm8-EqRIIT7Z_MeI38rqjCxyRHqzhpEK&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;垃圾跑进墙缝中 难道长了脚?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baidu.com/link?url=Fyv1j3Zp5BLlsYEtT6K_zyox0aMVY-YdP1jqHLpUxdYdMU463DTejv89PyoHKwbvKxD86FkuTyw-7F6de5Ayo8Mn8rvLc0zNG6pJwzyfQcS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;难道鞋子长脚了吗?&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would imagine the author was going for the same idea here and is just substituting &lt;code&gt;生翅膀&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;长脚&lt;/code&gt; (because ears can't exactly 'run away'(?), if that makes any sense at all...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T04:32:51.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10985" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-04T08:13:02.713" Score="2" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence I'm having trouble figuring out is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这些行动是积极的，值得肯定，对于减少烟毒有一定的意义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding &lt;code&gt;值得肯定&lt;/code&gt; does it mean it's worth acknowledging as a positive action ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;code&gt;一定的意&lt;/code&gt; does it mean has some significance？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it helps to provide more context for the sentence, the following sentence is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但要看到，要减少烟毒，光靠社会的力量是不够的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T13:47:01.890" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T13:47:01.890" Title="What do 肯定 and 一定 do in 这些行动是积极的，值得肯定，对于减少烟毒有一定的意义?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10974" CreationDate="2015-01-04T08:24:41.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to broccoli forest's answer, you may use &lt;b&gt;屋龄&lt;/b&gt;[wū líng] to refer to the age of a building.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这楼的屋龄有多久？&lt;br&gt; What's the age of this building?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;买屋龄老旧的房子再大翻修，还是买新成屋比较好?&lt;br&gt; Is buying an old house and renovating&#xA;  extensively better, compared to buying a brand new house?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to inquire about the exact year, you can use &lt;b&gt;年份&lt;/b&gt; to get yourself understood:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这楼是什么年份建的？&lt;br&gt; Which year was this building constructed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T08:24:41.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10987" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-04T08:37:51.737" Score="6" ViewCount="1311" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Pleco, &lt;code&gt;恐怕&lt;/code&gt; has 2 definitions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;fear; dread; be afraid of&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;perhaps; probably; maybe&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second definition is what I am struggling with. I was taught that it is similar to &lt;code&gt;也许&lt;/code&gt;, but in using &lt;code&gt;恐怕&lt;/code&gt; other reasons must first be stated. For example, in a conversation between two people, person A states some causes for a certain event, then person B may say &lt;code&gt;恐怕，［another reason]&lt;/code&gt;. Is this accurate? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if not, I'm not too confident in my understanding of it. Could someone please give a comprehensive explanation? Also is 恐怕 used more in certain parts of China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2015-01-09T00:13:47.783" Title="How to correctly use 恐怕" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10985" CreationDate="2015-01-04T08:42:02.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence is : 这些行动是积极的(These actions are positive), 值得肯定(worthy of recognition),对于减少烟毒有一定的意义。(have certain significance to reduce the smoke toxicity).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 肯定 means recognition by people or society.比如 他的事迹得到了社会的肯定。&#xA;There is &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; 一定的意 in Chinese&#xA;一定的意义 means certain significance.比如 你的建议对我有一定的价值，我会好好想想。(Your suggestions has some certain value for me, and I will think over it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastEditorUserId="6904" LastEditDate="2015-01-04T09:05:51.080" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T09:05:51.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10987" CreationDate="2015-01-04T08:49:29.280" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 恐怕 has two ways to use it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[I’m afraid] be worrid somthing 恐怕我的小狗不行了。(I am afraid my dog can not make it(on the point of death)).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[perhaps;maybe] as same as maybe 恐怕他今天不来了。(He may not come today)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T08:49:29.280" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10987" CreationDate="2015-01-04T09:49:06.783" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You use 恐怕 to (politely) address a negative point. It could be a fact that's already happened, or it could be something that's about to happen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You get up late, so you text your manager and say 我恐怕今天要迟到了 in fear of disappointing your boss.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your friend talks about conspiracy theories, and you say 恐怕事实不是这样吧 so that your opinion become less offensive.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are a chess expert and you're watching a game. You say 白棋恐怕要输了 out of sheer modesty. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You talk about weather and say 明天恐怕要下雨了 because, well, nobody likes raining.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T09:49:06.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10991" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10993" CreationDate="2015-01-04T14:07:07.490" Score="1" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;Related: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/10923/4136&quot;&gt;Confucian Messianism, Mencius, etc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still going through &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.brill.com/popular-religious-movements-and-heterodox-sects-chinese-history&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Popular Religious Movements and Heterodox Sects in Chinese History&lt;/strong&gt; by &lt;em&gt;Hubert Seiwert (In collaboration with Ma Xisha)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and came across the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=Xg-gcQq1TGQC&amp;amp;pg=PA32&amp;amp;lpg=PA32&amp;amp;dq=%22people%20with%20upright%20eyes%20will%20arrive%22&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=2IqRM5IdNx&amp;amp;sig=2rm4ZpeU52RpYE8rmHSGXSlXEys&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=h0epVL63G4KvoQSgkoHABQ&amp;amp;ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%22people%20with%20upright%20eyes%20will%20arrive%22&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Books&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This coming disaster was expressed in the prophecy that &quot;people with upright eyes will arrive,&quot; which probably means an invasion of demonic forces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;22 Hanshu, j. 26, p. 1312.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hate, hate, hate doing backwards-translations but I'm having trouble finding the &lt;em&gt;original&lt;/em&gt; Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's the original Chinese for the sentence: &lt;em&gt;&quot;people with upright eyes will arrive&quot;&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My previous question listed the specific version of &lt;em&gt;hanshu&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12 Hanshu 漢書, by Ban Gu 班固, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962 (1975), j. 56, p. 2496.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm having a hard time finding the '62 (or '75) version of &lt;em&gt;hanshu&lt;/em&gt;, any help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-01-05T05:05:06.667" Title="Translation: &quot;people with upright eyes will arrive&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10987" CreationDate="2015-01-04T14:23:52.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I would say &quot;恐怕&quot; is used most frequently in the context where the speaker expresses his belief that something he does not wish to happen might happen. For example, the coach of L.A. Lakers may say &quot;恐怕 Kobe 不能再打籃球了&quot;, i.e. &quot;I am afraid Kobe will not be able to play basketball anymore&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, like in English, &quot;恐怕&quot; sometimes can be used to express conceding attitude. For instance, we may say &quot;恐怕你在這點上是錯的&quot;, i.e. &quot;I am afraid you are wrong in this point&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T14:23:52.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10991" CreationDate="2015-01-04T14:42:05.723" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Excerpt from 《汉书》卷二十六《天文志》：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　哀帝建平元年正月丁未日出时，有著天白气，广如一匹布，长十余丈，西南行，讠雚如雷，西南行一刻而止，名曰天狗。传曰：“言之不从，则有犬祸诗妖。”到其四年正月、二月、三月，民相惊动，讠雚晔奔走，传行诏筹祠西王母，又曰“&lt;strong&gt;从目人当来。&lt;/strong&gt;”十二月，白气出西南，从地上至天，出参下，贯天厕，广如一匹布，长十余丈，十余日去。占曰：“天子有阴病。”其三年十一月壬子，太皇太后诏曰：“皇帝宽仁孝顺，奉承圣绪，靡有解怠，而久病未廖。夙夜惟思，殆继体之君不宜改作。《春秋》大复古，其复甘泉泰畤、汾阴后土如故。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从 == 纵 == upright. As for who 纵目人 really was or were, there are a few hypotheses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;蜀人&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most prominent reference of 纵目 is related to &lt;a href=&quot;http://xuewen.cnki.net/CJFD-SKXB200802006.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蜀人&lt;/a&gt;. It's said that either their first emperor, or the people themselves, were in possess of 纵目:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有蜀侯蚕丛,其目纵,始称王。——晋 常璩 《阳国志·蜀志》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蜀之先称王者,有蚕丛、柏濩、鱼凫(蒲泽)、开明。是时人萌,椎髻左衽,不晓文字,未有礼乐” ——西汉 杨雄 《蜀王本纪》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then strange &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9D%92%E9%93%9C%E7%BA%B5%E7%9B%AE%E9%9D%A2%E5%85%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bronze masks&lt;/a&gt; unearthed from 蜀 area, current 四川 province. And they do possess extraordinary eyes. First, they are slightly larger to the east Asian standard, second, they are eerily protruded like that of a crab or shrimp.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/71lJp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's probably that 蜀 people, being in a different ethnicity group, did have somewhat different eye shapes, or they do strange makeups of tattoos around their eyes. But I don't think 汉书 is referring to 蜀人 here, because 蜀 was already part of Han dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;道教神祗&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 西王母 was mentioned, it is possible that it was a reference to some evil deity, who would come and wreak havoc among the people, or some good deity who serves 西王母, and would come and save the people from suffering. We cannot know for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a Taoism deity called &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%8C%E9%83%8E%E7%A5%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;杨戬&lt;/a&gt;, who is said to have 纵目:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二郎为蚕丛之后，故其目纵。——道书《灌江备考》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杨戬 belongs to the good side, and he is also said to be 西王母's nephew. These were later stories, we really don't know originally what it was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tales about 杨戬 was first prominent in 蜀 area, then spread all over the country. Late depictions of 杨戬 shows him with one extra eye placed vertically between eyebrows. Early references doesn't seem to mention anything specific about his eye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;不知道&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found the two theories utterly implausible. If you see a man with an extra vertical eye in the middle, you would immediately think &amp;quot;three eyes!&amp;quot; instead of &amp;quot;vertical eye!&amp;quot; If it's a rumor about an invasion you would call them by race. If it's about deities then they ought to have names instead of a nickname.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I observe is an alien invasion. They might be scary monsters that look like this:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kF8zV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-01-05T05:05:06.667" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10963" CreationDate="2015-01-04T15:00:43.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence &quot;He gives her a ring that he bought&quot; can be translated as: 他给她他买来的一个戒指。&#xA;This translation is grammatical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他给她买来了'的'一个戒指 is ungrammatical with the following mistakes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;he&quot; cannot be omitted in the translation. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;了&quot; doesn't indicate past tense. It emphasizes &quot;action completion&quot;. But the emphasis of &quot;that he bought&quot; is actually on who bought it. So &quot;了&quot; should not be there. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorUserId="8126" LastEditDate="2015-01-04T15:12:25.213" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T15:12:25.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10995" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10997" CreationDate="2015-01-04T15:06:10.463" Score="4" ViewCount="1384" Body="&lt;p&gt;Baidu &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/206468978.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;defines&lt;/a&gt; it literally as &quot;not directly engaging with [someone/thing] when talking, rather talking with no person in mind.&quot;  I'm curious whether it can be close to how we say in English, &quot;[two parties] are talking past each other&quot; and or simply &quot;talking to yourself&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples I've dredged up that illustrates some different usages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lady.163.com/14/0717/18/A1CIQ2ER002649P6.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Two sides&lt;/a&gt; - &quot;not directly engaging with each other&quot;: 张馨予在微博大发感慨...15分钟后，前男友李晨也发了条微博：“What should I do？”(我该怎么办？)两条微博一前一后，不免让网友浮想联翩，纷纷猜测：“这是隔空喊话吗？...”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lianhezaobao.net/a/dny/2014/1228/4806.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Two sides&lt;/a&gt; - &quot;talking past each other&quot;?:  中越海上问题高度复杂敏感，隔空喊话只会引发民意波动,双方应全力避免...要靠协商对话管控分歧和矛盾。（fairly significant omissions here, but I don't think it violates the logic)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://opinion.china.com.cn/opinion_30_109830.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;One side&lt;/a&gt;  - &quot;talking to thin air&quot;?: 日本首相安倍晋三自上台以来，一直在隔空喊话：“日本对话的门从来都是敞开着的，我们盼望与中国、与韩国举行首脑会谈，哪怕是在国际场合的走廊见一面也行”。乍听起来，真有一股非见不可的感觉。可细一琢磨，却如同嚼蜡，根本不是那么一回事。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Seems to be the usage explained in Baidu. I can't think of a pat-ter way to translate &quot;not directly engaging with each other&quot; though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In (2), the Baidu sense seems collapse, since they're not really talking to each other at all. So it almost seems as if it could be translated &quot;China and Vietnam should stop talking past each other in [their independent] efforts to stir up public opinion&quot; - is this the correct interpretation, or if not, what does the phrase mean there? I'm not even sure that's the right way for me to be using &quot;talking past each other&quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In (3), what exactly is Prime Minister Abe doing?  This sort of sounds like the whole &quot;talking to thin air&quot; thing from the Baidu definition, but it doesn't make sense to translate this way into English, and you can't say Abe is &quot;talking to himself&quot; like a crazy person, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2015-01-04T21:09:08.047" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T21:09:08.047" Title="What is the Correct Sense of 隔空喊话 in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10995" CreationDate="2015-01-04T16:03:23.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the closest phrase in English is &quot;send a message&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your examples:&#xA;First one is &quot;are they sending messages to each other?&quot;&#xA;Second one is &quot;should avoid sending such messages&quot;&#xA;Third one is &quot;keep sending messages&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T16:03:23.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10995" CreationDate="2015-01-04T16:14:50.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the examples you provided:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two parties seem to respond and talk to each other but actually not. They say something one after another which looks as if it's on topic, but in fact the things are attached to the same topic literally.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Express some opinion that can lead the consensus, or just talk to the public related to one party itself, without condisering the other and the two-party conversation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pretend to express something but actually not have that in mind, not sincere. Or 说空话.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's not easy to find an accurate English counterpart. It's something like only seemingly talk to the other party but with some purpose (involved in other topics, or even be malicious) in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastEditorUserId="2484" LastEditDate="2015-01-04T16:36:13.427" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T16:36:13.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10987" CreationDate="2015-01-04T16:42:30.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;恐怕 is used to express possibility but:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you know that the thing you are talking about can happen with a relatively high probability.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the thing you are talking about is usually not good for the two parties in the conversation, or at least you think it would be bad to the other. For example, you would say 恐怕麻烦要来了。(We probably have troubles.) 恐怕你这次不能如愿以偿了。(Maybe you cannot do as you wish this time.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you can use 恐怕 to express that you are sort of helpless that you may fail to stop the bad thing from happening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastEditorUserId="2484" LastEditDate="2015-01-04T16:59:10.583" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T16:59:10.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5117" CreationDate="2015-01-05T06:01:28.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;懂得 here means &quot;to have understood&quot;. 懂 means &quot;to understand&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8195" LastActivityDate="2015-01-05T06:01:28.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11006" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-05T09:23:13.313" Score="5" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a Cantonese restaurant in Mountain View, CA called Fu Lam Mum -- the characters are clearly 富臨門.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 門 has always had a -n final, in any topolect I know of, and back to MC and OC &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Baxter-Sagart_Old_Chinese_reconstruction&quot;&gt;according to Baxter's reconstruction&lt;/a&gt;. Therefore this must be a sound change (assimilation at a distance) in a daughter language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In what topolect, if any, does 門 have an -m final? Being a Cantonese restaurant in the US, I'd suspect Taishan, but that's just a guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T12:16:57.610" Title="In which Chinese topolect might 門 be transcribed as &lt;mum&gt;?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9851" CreationDate="2015-01-05T12:44:52.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try this one: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.godic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.godic.net/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;(hope it helps)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="534" LastActivityDate="2015-01-05T12:44:52.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11008" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-05T22:56:05.473" Score="3" ViewCount="607" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone was asking about this in a German Chinese forum. Now I too would really like to know what 水 is here! The author is from 重庆， maybe it is dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他一向说话算话，没有水过我，起码在这之前，他没有过，一定是他明白自己做的丑事——用那么一本诲淫的书，公然引诱一个处女，现在不好意思了，被我逮住了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: 《饥饿的女儿》，作者：虹影，出版年1997，第九章（3）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation is: the main character of the book is meeting her history teacher for the first time outside a hospital, he doesn't show.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So maybe 没有水过我 is 放鸽子 but how does 水 come to mean that??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In German it was translated as cheat = verschaukeln. The original questioner also mentioned 过水 www.zdic.net/c/7/1d/44699.htm 2， which I would loosely translate as 'he never fucked me about before'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English from Howard Goldblatt: Always a man of his word, he'd never said one thing to me when he meant the other, at least not till now. He must have been ashamed of what he'd done - giving a virgin a dirty book like that - and knew that I'd seen through his little game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-01-05T23:03:56.963" LastActivityDate="2020-04-03T17:29:02.883" Title="What is the meaning of 水 in this text?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11008" CreationDate="2015-01-05T23:04:26.447" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cqwb.com.cn/cqwb/html/2008-11/02/content_113218.htm&quot;&gt;dialect&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　水最大的特点是没有根基，喜流动。好个重庆城，山高地不平。水就更容易流动。天上一下雨，地上流成河。雨过天晴，刚才还流得像河一样的雨水，便不见了踪影。那雨水流到长江嘉陵江中，也不会停止脚步，继续流动，浩浩荡荡，汹涌澎湃，汇于朝天门外，奔向朝阳升起的东方。在重庆方言中，“水”的这种特性得到引申，得到凸现。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　“水”就是说话不算数，就是办事不牢靠。这事“水”了，就是说这事没有办好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-01-05T23:04:26.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11008" CreationDate="2015-01-06T00:15:05.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From context, we can guess the meaning of 水,他一向说话算话，(He always speak count)没有水过我(did not cheat me).So, 水 here means cheat or let someone down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水 also has a meaning of did not doing something well, such as 这把游戏太水了(I did not play the game well).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T00:15:05.577" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11011" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-06T03:07:18.940" Score="4" ViewCount="3323" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both seem to be question particles. What's the difference between them (in meaning &amp;amp; usage)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8194" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T01:26:31.120" Title="What is the difference between &quot;吗 (mǎ)&quot; and &quot;么 (ma)&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11012" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11013" CreationDate="2015-01-06T03:50:48.780" Score="2" ViewCount="431" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll provide some context that leads me to suspect this. I am the American born son of Overseas Chinese who were born and raised in Myanmar. The dominant household language ended up being a mixture of the Taishanese variant of Cantonese and Burmese, but I still have limited exposure and understanding of standard Cantonese. I took Mandarin in college and spent a year living in China and I'm not sure what kind of accent I accquired when speaking Mandarin, but it isn't quite American and it isn't quite the stereotypical image of an Hong Konger speaking Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyways, I heard 啦 in Taishanese A LOT growing up and I don't know if this is element is also common in standard Cantonese, but I have heard Malaysians speaking English and inserting 啦 to the end of things. One of my habits when speaking Mandarin is to insert &quot;southernisms.&quot; I think I subconciously gain a sense (maybe a false one) of comfort and fluency when I say &quot;哪里&quot; instead of &quot;哪儿&quot; and I even will say ridiculous things like “马马虎虎&quot; because it vaguely reminds me of the sing-song in Cantonese. There's been moments too where I had to refrain from saying stuff like 冇 or 喺唔喺? to people who CLEARLY spoke Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So do southerners actually say 啦 with any greater frequency? I've never heard Singaporean Mandarin, but does that include a lot of 啦? Is this a real thing where southerners take something that sounds equivalent in their native dialects and sprinkle it into their 普通话 or am I an odd one? My real, personal question then sounds something like -- is it viable for me to add 啦 to the end of many sentences? I understand 啦 to be a bit of a suggestion, sort of like 吧 except I never heard people on the Mainland say 啦 with the frequency they say 吧. BUT if I were to do this, would I sound extremely strange to say things like “我们去吃饭啦” or “你说啦”？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T02:32:26.890" Title="Do Southern Chinese speakers have any greater propensity towards using 啦 than Northern Chinese speakers?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;accent&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11012" CreationDate="2015-01-06T04:35:12.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So do southerners actually say 啦 with any greater frequency?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. Cantonese people and their excessive usage of 啦 is already a widely known stereotype.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've never heard Singaporean Mandarin, but does that include a lot of 啦? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The standard dialect used in news broadcasters are quite similar to Mandarin in China. 啦' s usage in daily speech may vary, depending on your background.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this a real thing where southerners take something that sounds equivalent in their native dialects and sprinkle it into their 普通话 or am I an odd one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a real thing. Not just southerners, everyone in the world has a natural tendency to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it viable for me to add 啦 to the end of many sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excessive usage of 啦 in Mandarin is like excessive usage of &quot;You know&quot; in, you know, English, It's, you know, kinda annoying. While I applaud the usage of dialectical phrases in Mandarin, using 啦 excessively is only an indication that your Mandarin needs improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Would I sound extremely strange to say things like “我们去吃饭啦” or “你说啦”？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not really strange because most people know too well how a southerner would speak. Still, it's better to use &quot;我们去吃饭了&quot;, &quot;我们去吃饭吧&quot;, and &quot;你说呢&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T04:35:12.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11011" CreationDate="2015-01-06T08:08:08.347" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are different in tone side, for example when you ask some one if have dinner, you can use 你吃晚饭了吗? or 你吃晚饭了么? Both are OK, because it's not strong sense of doubt, just ask, not a question style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can not use 么 in 你拿得出证据证明他的清白吗? In the sentence &quot;你拿得出证据证明他的清白吗?&quot; has a style of you have to give me the answer, and mostly you can not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, mostly, you can use 吗 and 么,but with the strong tone, especially rhetorical question you can just use 吗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T08:08:08.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10973" CreationDate="2015-01-06T08:22:30.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both is not make senses. &#xA;我在手机里玩游戏 (I'm playing games in the HP) and &#xA;我在手机上玩游戏. (mean you stand on the phone and play game) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could just say 我在玩手机里的游戏。(I'm playing HP's games).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3975" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T08:22:30.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11011" CreationDate="2015-01-06T09:26:59.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;么(ma)同&quot;吗&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is saying &lt;code&gt;么(ma)&lt;/code&gt; is equal to &lt;code&gt;吗(mǎ)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you said the simple usage of &lt;code&gt;么(mē)&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;吗&lt;/code&gt;, there is some difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;么&lt;/code&gt; usually explain the &lt;code&gt;not strong sense&lt;/code&gt; of doubt, and &lt;code&gt;吗&lt;/code&gt; is little stronger. But the level of doubt sense is often depended on volume, if you speak loud , &lt;code&gt;么&lt;/code&gt; can be stronger than &lt;code&gt;吗&lt;/code&gt; in some condition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And more, there are some other different usages, for example , people say &lt;code&gt;干什么&lt;/code&gt; rather than &lt;code&gt;干什吗&lt;/code&gt;, and there is network language &lt;code&gt;干神马&lt;/code&gt; which has the same meaning of &lt;code&gt;干什么&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8141" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T09:26:59.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11017" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14854" CreationDate="2015-01-06T11:52:56.473" Score="5" ViewCount="789" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching for songs as exercises of translation from Chinese, I came across &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mF0f7dWqig&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;kam-thung sim&lt;/a&gt;, the Hakka version of 感动天感动地. Unfortunately, there were no characters (well, except for those that are the mandarin original placed with Karaoke lighting over the video of the Hakka song, most inappropriate), so I commented on the video (Mick Gorro is my name there) and Va Vang replied, posting the following characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一開始偭到，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      愛情本等就恁容易&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      所以冇真真想起&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      恁樣放落心去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      結果［有］一斷心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      []看到汝搭撈佢&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      正識到原來愛情&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      毋系講愛就得矣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      &lt;br&gt;&#xA;      感動天感動地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      做麽感動不到汝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      明明愛情就冇結果&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      做麽呃死死等到老&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      感動天感動地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      做麽感動不到汝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      希望自家想作一下&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      結果騙徠儕&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, I added a couple to match the song. I couldn't really understand this, so I understood what I could and let this go, up till I remembered about it after being added to the Facebook Hakka:Verse group. I posted on it, and we came to the following spelling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一開始涯緬著&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      愛情本等就恁容易&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      所以涯無真真想起&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      恁樣放落心去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      結果涯有一斷心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      涯看著汝佮倒佢&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      涯正識著原來愛情&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      毋系講愛就得矣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      &lt;br&gt;&#xA;      涯感動天感動地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      做麽感動毋著汝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      明明愛情就無結果&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      做麽死死等到老&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      涯感動天感動地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      做麽感動毋著汝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      希望自家曉做一下&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      結時涯騙單儕&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      &lt;br&gt;&#xA;      涯所毋愛翻？去想汝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      試著雅？毋愛翻來同去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      ？？？單儕在阿里&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      每日？？偏偏？毋著汝&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forget the last part for the moment. This translates to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At the start I thought&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      Love is originally very easy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      So I don't really remember&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      How [I] put [you] in [my] heart&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      As a result I have a broken heart&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      [And] I see you going back to him&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      I've just found out love&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      Is not like just saying I love you is fine&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      &lt;br&gt;&#xA;      I move heaven and move earth,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      Why can I not move you?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      It's clear that love [will] have no result&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      Why (si-si ten to lo = sixintadi perhaps?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      I move heaven and move earth,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      Why can I not move you?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      Hoping I would do something&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      I ended up deceiving myself&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not too sure about the translation of &lt;code&gt;结时&lt;/code&gt; as &quot;in the end&quot; (whence &quot;I ended up deceiving&quot;), and above all &lt;code&gt;死死等到老&lt;/code&gt; is most uncertain, but this is all just for completeness. The question here is about the extra bit. Va Vang completely failed to provide characters, so I tried transcribing the sounds, getting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ngai sho m ai fan sai hit shiong ngi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      Shi dao nga shi m oi fan lai tong hi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      Am ting e kan sat s toi a li&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      Mui nyit mei shi pien pien vs tou n do ngi&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guessing that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;hit&lt;/code&gt; was actually &lt;code&gt;hi&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;sho&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;shiong&lt;/code&gt; were phonetic variants of &lt;code&gt;so&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;siong&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;ai&lt;/code&gt; was supposed to be &lt;code&gt;oi&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;shi dao&lt;/code&gt; was &lt;code&gt;chi to&lt;/code&gt;, as &lt;code&gt;o&lt;/code&gt;-&gt;&lt;code&gt;ao&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;au&lt;/code&gt; is a common variation and &lt;code&gt;t&lt;/code&gt;-&gt;&lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; is an effect of singing, and &lt;code&gt;shi&lt;/code&gt; might have been &lt;code&gt;chi&lt;/code&gt; with me not hearing the initial plosive onset;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;sat s toi&lt;/code&gt; was actually &lt;code&gt;sa tshoi&lt;/code&gt;, with the &lt;code&gt;tsh&lt;/code&gt; being misheard as &lt;code&gt;t s t&lt;/code&gt;, and being the initial of &lt;code&gt;choi&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;at&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;sa&lt;/code&gt; being the end of &lt;code&gt;tan-sa&lt;/code&gt;, alone;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;vs tou n do ngi&lt;/code&gt; was a bad mishearing of &lt;code&gt;ng co ng to nyi&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I reached the following characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;涯所毋愛翻？去想汝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      試著雅？毋愛翻來同去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      ？？？單儕在阿里&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      每日？？偏偏(？毋著汝)-&gt;毋做毋到汝&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I won't provide a translation as holes are abundant. I just observe that 涯＝我，毋＝不，爱＝要，翻＝再次，汝＝你，试着＝试到，单侪＝孤单，阿里＝这里，毋做毋到汝 is a very wild and potentially meaningless guess which would mean 不做不到你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all that, the question is the following: what does that part say? How do I spell it in characters? How do I pronounce it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any corrections on the translation of the rest is very welcome, and a full transliteration with tones is worth a +1 :).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Little extra:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Here's the facebook post:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://m.facebook.com/groups/158381100868371?view=permalink&amp;amp;id=854070744632733&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://m.facebook.com/groups/158381100868371?view=permalink&amp;amp;id=854070744632733&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-08-17T11:38:42.453" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T11:55:11.163" Title="Hakka song &quot;kam-thung sim&quot;: character approximation and translation required for a part" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11018" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11019" CreationDate="2015-01-06T12:56:13.927" Score="7" ViewCount="1879" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 着 the same as 著? Can I interchange them, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;這位着名的歌手的名字是__&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 這位著名的歌手的名字是__&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(put a name in &quot;__&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6774" LastActivityDate="2018-11-03T01:39:24.813" Title="着 vs 著? Is it the same" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11018" CreationDate="2015-01-06T14:04:37.793" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;So here's a wrap up of the comments above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 is a Simplified Chinese only† character, so you won't find it in Traditional Chinese dictionaries, unless they explicitly list them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?idx=dict.idx&amp;amp;cond=%26%2330528%3B&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;教育部重编国语辞典&lt;/a&gt;. (找不到, because there is not such character in Traditional Chinese) &lt;em&gt;I assume that OP uses Traditional Chinese because of the 這 used in the example sentences.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;† &lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: *As @Stan pointed out above, 着 is used even outside of Mainland China, as a folk alternate form of 著, but it is not considered correct, at least in Taiwanese usage. However it is a proper form as 'zhe' in HK. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, we have 着 in Simplified Chinese where it corresponds mostly to the 著 character that is found both in Traditional and Simplified Chinese. The subtle, yet important difference is that when 著 is distinctively read 'zhù', it is written in both variants as 著 and in this case it doesn't correspond to 着. So 著名 is 著名 even in Simplified Chinese. In other cases - with different readings, like, 站著 (Trad.) corresponds to 站着 (Simpl.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My theory is that some Simplified Chinese users are not aware of this use case and assume a 100% Simplified-Traditional correspondence between the two characters or even automatic ('character-by-character') machine transliteration could have contributed to the wrong assumption that 著名 can be written as 着名. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2015-01-06T17:22:13.037" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T17:22:13.037" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11020" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-06T20:55:51.800" Score="0" ViewCount="382" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://m.imgur.com/i7FcLqc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://m.imgur.com/i7FcLqc&lt;/a&gt; This is from the top of a container my friend found at work. I was wondering if someone could do a quick, easy translation. I tried to draw it in Google translate, but it didn't make any sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8206" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T23:31:31.623" Title="Can someone translate this for me?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-01-07T04:11:30.300" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11020" CreationDate="2015-01-06T21:11:07.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;一本萬利 in Traditional characters (as in your image) or 一本万利 in Simplified Chinese, the writing goes from top right to bottom left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The expression means &quot;small capital, huge gain/profit&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-01-06T23:31:31.623" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T23:31:31.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11020" CreationDate="2015-01-06T22:39:38.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah, gf agrees 一本万利 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一 = 1&#xA;本=本钱=starting money&#xA;万= a lot&#xA;利 = gain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you believe that, you will believe anything! Money for nothing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T22:39:38.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11023" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12042" CreationDate="2015-01-07T00:06:45.650" Score="3" ViewCount="3568" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know the following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know how to pronounce (and perhaps also spell with Chinese characters) the standalone letters of the English alphabet in Chinese. I am particularly concerned about letters appearing in vitamins. For example, how would I pronounce something like vitamin &quot;B3&quot; (other vitamins take other letters), without recurring to its scientific name, if at all possible?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I tend to see the same characters used for transliterating personal and place names, but there seem to be quite a lot of them and I cannot find a list anywhere. In this case, I would like to know whether there is a list of English/foreign language syllables, and what the mapping for transliterating these into Chinese characters/syllable is, if such a fixed transliteration mapping exist.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6727" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T21:45:41.680" Title="How to transliterate and pronounce English letters in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11023" CreationDate="2015-01-07T01:24:35.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.Vitamins is &lt;code&gt;维他命&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese , it's just the transliteration from English, you can get it from &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com.hk/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;q=%E7%BB%B4%E4%BB%96%E5%91%BD&amp;amp;tl=zh-CN&amp;amp;total=1&amp;amp;idx=0&amp;amp;textlen=3&amp;amp;client=t&amp;amp;prev=input&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;google&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;B3&lt;/code&gt; is equal to &lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;三&lt;/code&gt;, you can simply pronounce &lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt; in English and &lt;code&gt;三&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese. All name consists of &lt;code&gt;letters&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;number&lt;/code&gt; can be pronounced like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Personal and place names's transliteration is usually complex , but for foreign pronunciation, it's no need to change it, just explain where are you from and everyone will get it. For Chinese pronunciation I think you know better than me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8141" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T01:24:35.897" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11023" CreationDate="2015-01-07T01:26:28.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Standalone letters are just written as the letters. Pronunciations vary in the level of verisimilitude to the English (e.g., C might be xi1 or [si]).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Transliterating foreign (or even just English) words in Chinese is not mechanical, and there is no unified standard. Sometimes a name will differ between HK, the Mainland, and Taiwan (e.g., Mainland Obama=奥巴马 vs Taiwan Obama=欧巴马). I believe on some other question someone linked some (official???) guidelines used by some Chinese news source.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T01:26:28.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11006" CreationDate="2015-01-07T02:04:32.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not Toishanese, which does have the -n sound for 門。 In Cantonese, &quot;mun4&quot; (Jyutping). In Toishanese, which doesn't have an official transliteration system that I know of, I would transliterate it something like &quot;moen&quot; or &quot;moeen&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6918" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T02:04:32.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12020" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12022" CreationDate="2015-01-07T05:22:49.670" Score="0" ViewCount="408" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia's &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_traditional_Chinese_medicines&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;List Of Traditional Chinese Medicines&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Human penis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Li Shizhen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;the human penis is not a drug&#xA;—[8]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Human penis is believed under TCM to stop bleeding, and as with other TCM medicines, the basis for belief in its therapeutic effects is anecdotal and not based on the scientific method; Li Shizhen, author of the greatest pharmacological work in pre-modern China, the Bencao Gangmu materia medica, objected to use of human penis, but cited the anecdotal evidence and included it in the Bencao Gangmu, which is still a standard reference today.[8][26]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Apparently human penis is listed in the &lt;em&gt;Bencao Gangmu&lt;/em&gt;, what is the original text?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T05:46:59.207" Title="Translation: Human Penis (Traditional Chinese Medicine)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12020" CreationDate="2015-01-07T05:22:49.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人势&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From an online &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongyibaodian.com/bcgm/renshi-2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;excerpt&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（《纲目》）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【释名】阴茎。时珍曰︰人阴茎，非药物也。陶九成《辍耕录》载︰杭州沈生犯奸事露，引刀自割其势，流血经月不合。或令寻所割势，捣粉酒服，不数日而愈。观此则下蚕室者，不可不知此法也。故附于此云。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【主治】下蚕室，创口不合（时珍）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T05:22:49.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12020" CreationDate="2015-01-07T05:46:59.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;欽定四庫全書本《本草綱目》卷五十二 (&lt;em&gt;Bencao Gangmu&lt;/em&gt;, vol. 52)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8oIjd.png&quot; alt=&quot;Page89&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GheM3.png&quot; alt=&quot;Page90&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T05:46:59.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12023" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12024" CreationDate="2015-01-07T08:06:35.097" Score="8" ViewCount="651" Body="&lt;p&gt;Example sentence 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他的汉语能力已经达到了HSK 11级左右的程度。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他貌似30岁上下年纪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 左右 sounds more natural (to me) in 1 and 上下 in 2, we can interchange them and the two sentences would still be correct and have the same meanings as before (tell me if I'm wrong). What dictates when to use 上下 and when to use 左右?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6460" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T06:54:33.077" Title="Is 上下 always interchangeable with 左右?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12023" CreationDate="2015-01-07T08:31:20.993" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mostly,上下 and 左右 have the same mean when you describe something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you describe something high or low(mostly abstract things,like level), you can use 左右,比如 他的水平很高，有十级左右了。Abstract things usually use 左右, like level, time(十分钟左右,how long is your own feel). And &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; say 十分钟上下.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you describe something big or small,young or old(mostly you can tell by eyes) you can use 上下,比如，他看起来有十岁上下.But, you can also say, 他看起来十岁左右.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, they are quite similar, just remember how people say and use in that way is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastEditorUserId="6904" LastEditDate="2015-01-07T08:56:20.723" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T08:56:20.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10974" CreationDate="2015-01-07T20:04:26.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can say informally:&#xA;这楼多老了？&#xA;how old is the building.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这公寓多少年前盖的呀？&#xA;How many years ago did people build this apartment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;formally you can say:&#xA;故宫建成多久了？&#xA;how long have it been since 故宫 was completed.&#xA;Anwser: 故宫始建于1420年。&#xA;Gugong was built in 1420&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9207" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T20:04:26.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11006" CreationDate="2015-01-07T23:33:05.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say it is a local Hongkong final consonant drift n-&gt;m, as 10300 Googool results for 屯门 (Tuenmun / Tuenmum) would indicate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://church.oursweb.net/church.php?pkey=816478&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://church.oursweb.net/church.php?pkey=816478&lt;/a&gt; (Tuen Mum alliance church)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CektDpGGXWQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CektDpGGXWQ&lt;/a&gt; (Light rail at Tuen Mum ferry pier)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-tw.facebook.com/ourinteriorsltd/photos/a.122323427797946.13546.122300641133558/122323507797938/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh-tw.facebook.com/ourinteriorsltd/photos/a.122323427797946.13546.122300641133558/122323507797938/&lt;/a&gt; (Marina Garden, Tuen Mum)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://johnblog.phychembio.com/?tag=tuen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://johnblog.phychembio.com/?tag=tuen&lt;/a&gt;-mum屯門 (Tuen Mum(屯門) | John Chan Photography)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hkims.org/activities_Calendar.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://hkims.org/activities_Calendar.html&lt;/a&gt; (屯門共修 7 - 9pm Tuen Mum Group Sitting)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry to say I do not speak Cantonese, but such drifts in consonants/wovels are not unheard of. Across East Asia, there is a certain mux between l/r, and Beijing vernacular has a spectacular w-&gt;v drift that is similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T23:33:05.787" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10973" CreationDate="2015-01-08T14:00:22.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question, I have a short answer for this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在玩手机游戏 - Very commonly said&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在手机上玩游戏 - Less commonly said&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在玩手机里的游戏 - Less commonly said&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在玩手机上的游戏 - Less commonly said&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在手机里玩游戏 - Almost nobody says this&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T14:00:22.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12039" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12043" CreationDate="2015-01-08T22:52:34.603" Score="1" ViewCount="309" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you translate &quot;melee&quot; (as in close  hand to hand combat)? I keep getting translations such as &quot;collection of diamonds or diamond fragments&quot;, 碎钻. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also gotten  &quot;乱斗&quot;, but this means attacking in disorderly fashion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-01-09T04:36:12.040" LastActivityDate="2015-01-09T07:23:11.233" Title="translation for &quot;melee&quot; in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12040" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-08T22:55:40.280" Score="1" ViewCount="500" Body="&lt;p&gt;女：海尔已经为应对金融危机做好了哪些准备？&#xA;男：海尔应对金融危机的具体思路主要是三个方面：一是产品创新，要为用户提供解决问题的方案；二是商业模式创新，要实施零库存下的即需即供；三是机制创新，要建立人单合一的自主经营体。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm struggling a bit with this last one, can you please help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;机制创新，要建立人单合一的自主经营体 (营体=运营体系？ 单=单位？？）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mechanism?? innovation, must set up 人单 united 的 independent business system&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-01-09T02:41:20.070" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T12:14:32.247" Title="What exactly does this 人单合一的自主经营体 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12039" CreationDate="2015-01-08T23:17:10.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;混战 (hùnzhàn)...........................................&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T23:17:10.967" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11023" CreationDate="2015-01-08T23:46:22.310" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the transliteration of each letter into Mandarin Chinese, just follow the list below, written in pinyin with Chinese characters where possible. Some pinyin combinations may not exist in Mandarin at all though, so I will give approximate &lt;em&gt;IPA&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;English transliterations&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A : ei 诶 &lt;em&gt;/ei/&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B : bi 比 &lt;em&gt;/pi/&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;C*: xi 西 &lt;em&gt;/ɕi/ or /si/&lt;/em&gt; || &quot;sei&quot; &lt;em&gt;/sei/&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;say&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;D*: di 弟 &lt;em&gt;/ti/&lt;/em&gt; || dei &lt;em&gt;/tei/&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;E : yi 一 &lt;em&gt;/ji/&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;F : &quot;e-fu&quot; &lt;em&gt;/efu/&lt;/em&gt; where the &quot;u&quot; is often only pronounced lightly producing a pronunciation of approximately &lt;em&gt;/ef/&lt;/em&gt; as pronounced in English. Note that the &quot;fu&quot; is most often pronounced with the neutral(zeroth/fifth/light) tone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G : ji 计/鸡 &lt;em&gt;/t͡si/&lt;/em&gt; similar to Z&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;H : ei-chi &lt;em&gt;/eit͡sʰɨ/&lt;/em&gt; where the &quot;ɨ&quot; is often only pronounced lightly producing a pronunciation of approximately &lt;em&gt;/eit͡sʰ/&lt;/em&gt; &quot;age&quot; as pronounced in English&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I : ai 哀 &lt;em&gt;/ai/&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;I&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;J : &quot;zhei&quot; &lt;em&gt;/t͡sei/&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K : &quot;kei&quot; &lt;em&gt;/kʰei/&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;K&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;L : &lt;em&gt;/el/&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;L&lt;/strong&gt; note that this letter is most often pronounced with the second(rising) tone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;M : em &lt;em&gt;/em/&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;M&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;N : en 恩 &lt;em&gt;/ən/&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;O : ou 欧 &lt;em&gt;/oʊ/&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;P*: pi 批 &lt;em&gt;/pʰi/&lt;/em&gt; || pei 胚 &lt;em&gt;/pʰei/&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;pay&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Q : &quot;ki-ou&quot; &lt;em&gt;/kʰiou/&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;R : &lt;em&gt;/aɻ/&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;R&lt;/strong&gt; note that this letter is most often pronounced with the second(rising) tone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;S : &quot;e-si&quot; &lt;em&gt;/esɨ/&lt;/em&gt; where the &quot;i&quot; is often only pronounced lightly producing a pronunciation of approximately &lt;em&gt;/es/&lt;/em&gt; &quot;as&quot; as pronounced in English&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;T*: ti 梯 &lt;em&gt;/tʰi/&lt;/em&gt; || &quot;tei&quot; &lt;em&gt;/tʰei/&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;U : you 优 &lt;em&gt;/joʊ/&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;yo&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;V : wei 微 &lt;em&gt;/wei/&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;way&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;W : da-bo-liu 大播柳 &lt;em&gt;/tapuo'lioʊ/&lt;/em&gt; I do not know how to describe the tone for this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;X : &quot;eg-si&quot; &lt;em&gt;/eksɨ/&lt;/em&gt; where the &quot;i&quot; is often only pronounced lightly producing a pronunciation of approximately &lt;em&gt;/eks/&lt;/em&gt; &quot;ax&quot; as pronounced in English&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Y : wai 歪 &lt;em&gt;/wai/&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Z : ji 计/鸡 &lt;em&gt;/t͡si/&lt;/em&gt; similar to G&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except where noted, the tone is either the first(high) tone or the fourth(falling) tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Indeed many words are transliterated from a small set of Chinese characters. However, there is not rule for transliterating any word and thus all those you have seen are just a convention which can be learned by experience, i.e. you'll just have to read more of those words in order to guess a more probably (and never exactly) correct transliteration of a word. Here's a tip: technical fields aside, most transliterations choose more &quot;pleasant&quot; sounding characters, e.g. 德 &quot;virtue&quot;(positive) over 得 &quot;obtain&quot;(neutral) and 布 &quot;cloth&quot;(neutral) over 不 &quot;no&quot;(negative) and 怖 &quot;terror&quot;(negative). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8137" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T23:46:22.310" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12039" CreationDate="2015-01-08T23:53:15.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;近战 - close combat&#xA;肉搏 - battle of flesh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9217" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T23:53:15.817" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12040" CreationDate="2015-01-09T00:05:30.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose the 硬体 is correct and is not a typo of 营体.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;机制创新 where 创新 is used as a noun. As in many other languages including english, putting two nouns together modify one of the nouns to be related or pertain to the other. Here, it means 创新 pertaining to the 机制, which means innovation in mechanisms(as in business systems, protocols, bureaucracy structure, etc. whatever abstract structure in business).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人单合一 where 人 is person, and 单 short for 单位 is unit. 单位 has long been used to mean the company/organisation that one works for. Therefore 人单合一 would mean unity of organisations and employees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;硬体 hardware is often used as a metaphor to refer to infrastructure, instruments and production systems. This is only used in industry, social development(and thus politics), business and related fields.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, the whole sentence roughly means: &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;三是机制创新，要建立人单合一的自主硬体 &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&quot;Third is the innovation of *mechanisms, to construct infrastructures/production systems that can bring unity in the organisation and its employees.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8137" LastActivityDate="2015-01-09T00:05:30.163" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10987" CreationDate="2015-01-09T00:13:47.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;恐怕 is especially convenient to translate. It corresponds directly to English &quot;I'm afraid&quot;. It can have whatever meaning just as its English counterpart. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It can be used to reject something while expressing regret or the&#xA;reluctance to reject. E.g. when rejecting an invitation to an event:&#xA;&quot;I'm afraid I will need to attend a company meeting.&quot; == &#xA;“恐怕我得出席公司的会议。”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To indicate a fact while expressing disgust&#xA;&quot;I'm afraid you will not be able to live much longer.&quot; == “恐怕您活不久了。”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8137" LastActivityDate="2015-01-09T00:13:47.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12046" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-09T01:18:50.043" Score="1" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two sentences &quot;他也算是我省的名人&quot; and &quot;他也算是我省份的名人&quot;, is the second sentence wrong? If it is wrong, why? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorUserId="8126" LastEditDate="2015-01-09T01:29:05.393" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T13:14:39.697" Title="What is the difference between 省 and 省份?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12040" CreationDate="2015-01-09T01:55:19.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cqn.com.cn/news/zgzlb/diqi/292479.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, it should be &lt;code&gt;三是机制创新，要建立人单合一的自主经营体。&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;机制创新&lt;/code&gt; : &lt;code&gt;innovation of mechanism/system&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;人&lt;/code&gt; : &lt;code&gt;staff/employee&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;单(订单)&lt;/code&gt; : &lt;code&gt;order&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;user needs&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;人单合一&lt;/code&gt; : &lt;code&gt;integrating order with personnel&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;Every order is in the charge of one staff. Futher more integrating staff with user, make staff to achieve self-worth by creating value for users.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;自主&lt;/code&gt; : &lt;code&gt;autonomous/independent/self-determination/self-leading&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;经营体&lt;/code&gt; : &lt;code&gt;operation unit&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;自主经营体&lt;/code&gt; : &lt;code&gt;(to make every staff one) independent operation unit&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For whole sentence,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thirdly, mechanism innovation, set up independent operation unit, which integrating order with personnel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=h7jwRkiMalbXg-d4cRbIAxfp77yBAVQ1bR40YmB15Z-XCO8nYEHlG-dGsR306qzcBAkSoqddD6vevnuHN9fF1q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;人单合一双赢模式&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-01-09T03:18:32.967" LastActivityDate="2015-01-09T03:18:32.967" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12046" CreationDate="2015-01-09T03:07:22.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, it's OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: &lt;code&gt;省份&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;province&lt;/code&gt;, but it can't be used with specific names. For example we can say &lt;code&gt;山东省&lt;/code&gt;, but not &lt;code&gt;山东省份&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples: (from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fantizi5.com/ciyuzaoju/zj23292.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.fantizi5.com/ciyuzaoju/zj23292.html&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1、辽宁是中国的一个省份。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2、有些工作地点遥远，在另一个省份。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3、并不奇怪的是，这些省份都位于中国较富裕的东部。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4、开始的时候，我向其他省份的亲戚朋友们询问，或者向他们传达我的信息。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5、但是，瓶颈已经出现了，一些省份报告说电力短缺，并且煤的库存量很低。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;6、有些省份报道了用电短缺和煤炭低库存的现象。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;7、在2004年总统选举中，该家族帮助她赢得了在这一省份的绝大多数选票。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;8、在荷兰的12个省份中，每个省都会有一双特别设计的木屐鞋。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;9、有报道说今年在沿海省份中因为劳动力短缺和工人要求提高工资，工资也大幅上升。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;10、在中国的一些省份，其比例史无前例的达到了130比100。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;11、我和妻子住在不同的省份。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;12、中国政府压低了煤油和其他自然资源的价格，牺牲了内地出产这些资源的省份的利益，造福了使用这些资源的沿海出口商。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;13、在收到卫生部的进一步信息之前，世卫组织将发布详情，以表格显示所有24例的发病日期、结果和省份。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;14、在2007年，中国最北部的省份黑龙江报告了夏季干旱，这几乎是闻所未闻的事情，通常这时候是汛期。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;15、其中许多城市位于远离北京和上海的欠发达的内陆省份。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;16、在接下来的四天时间里我们要穿越五个省份，游历其中的三个。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;17、在改革税制中，你们和下面的省份没有遇到任何比较强烈的对抗吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;18、我们已呼吁其他省份的人们加入进来。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;19、但是俄罗斯方面没有作出回应，并且一直在轰炸格鲁吉亚这个要求分离的省份周边的一些地区。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-01-09T03:07:22.407" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12039" CreationDate="2015-01-09T03:22:14.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In gaming terminologies in Mainland China, 'melee' is commonly translated into 近战 when it is opposed to 'ranged attack' (远程). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;混战 usually means 'free for all'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Iciba example (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/melee/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/melee/&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Weapons come in two basic categories: melee and ranged.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  武器分为两大类: 近战和远程.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blizzard post on WOW (&lt;a href=&quot;http://wow.178.com/201308/170793503906.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wow.178.com/201308/170793503906.html&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Range/Melee Inequality&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  近战远程如何平衡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2015-01-09T03:30:20.683" LastActivityDate="2015-01-09T03:30:20.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12046" CreationDate="2015-01-09T04:04:00.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A common way to say it should be &quot;他也算是&lt;strong&gt;我们省&lt;/strong&gt;的名人&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我省 is an established idiom, meaning &quot;our province&quot;. It's a formal word and is often used in government reports and political agendas. Similar phrases include 我国, 我县, etc. You don't see normal people use them often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;省份 usually refers to one or several provinces in relation to the whole country, so you usually don't use it with a personal pronoun, like 我的省份, 我们省份, 你们省份, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you google 我省份, all you find is the funny 我省份证, which should be 我身份证 of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2015-01-09T04:17:35.470" LastActivityDate="2015-01-09T04:17:35.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12046" CreationDate="2015-01-09T15:23:17.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on a simple induction on my daily uses, it seems to me that 省 is mostly used to reference a specific province, while 省份 is used for a general  province or the concept itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是一个贫穷的省份。(This is a poor province.) 省份 can be used since we are talking about one province (considering the indefinite article in the English translation may be helpful?), and 省 is OK as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在我们省有很多 IT 公司。(In our province there are lots of IT companies.) 省份 would be strange if it was used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are not sure when speaking or writing, using 省 will be OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2015-01-09T15:23:17.903" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12053" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-09T23:50:51.770" Score="2" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们最大限度地利用现有港口条件运货。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I should treat 最大限度地 as one word, namely 'maximally‘. Does that fit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rough draft; not good English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We maximally exploit current harbour conditions transport goods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Final interpretation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We make maximum use of the currently existing harbour conditions to transport goods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-27T04:12:16.223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T04:12:16.223" Title="How should I interpret 最大限度 in 我们最大限度地利用现有港口条件运货?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12040" CreationDate="2015-01-10T00:11:34.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Got this from another forum, originally from Baidu,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人单合一（双赢模式):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“人”即员工，“单”是用户需求,不是狭义的订单。“人单合一”即让员工与用户融为一体。而“双赢”则体现为员工在为用户创造价值的过程中实现自身价值。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T00:11:34.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12053" CreationDate="2015-01-10T00:20:07.727" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We exploit the current harbour conditions transport goods to the largest extent.&#xA;Here &quot;to the largest extent&quot; means 最大限度地.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T00:20:07.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12056" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-10T01:32:34.450" Score="5" ViewCount="1263" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read a very interesting book called '&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XORD7ODG2NUC&amp;amp;pg=PA356&amp;amp;dq=zarrow%20chee&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=rXuwVMb4G5HaaoGYgIgN&amp;amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;China in War and Revolution&lt;/a&gt;' about the period from 1900-1949 in China. I am curious about the meaning of the word 'chee' in the passage below. I don't speak Chinese (at all) and the author doesn't give the character in any case, sorry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After the Japanese were defeated and the civil war was under way the&#xA;  CCP faced the possibility of counter-revolution. At least in some&#xA;  areas, in spite of all attempts to soften rural elite opposition over&#xA;  the preceding years, landlords greeted early discussions of coalition&#xA;  government and a return of the Guomindang with glee. One landlord told&#xA;  one of his workers. “Heh! Still pressing us to pay grain tax. Fuck&#xA;  you. Chee! The Guomindang armies will be here in a minute. Gonna cut&#xA;  your little prick off! Chee!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: the quote is cited to ... where it appears exactly as Zarrow rendered it, still saying 'Chee'. In Esherick's article, it's cited to &lt;em&gt;Guanyu Yangjiagou de tudi wenti, 1946&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I googled &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; title and it comes up with &lt;em&gt;Yangjiagou de tudi wcnti” (On the land problem in Yangjiagou, 9 August 1946, Mizhi Archives, permanent juan 4.&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ib-sEZzxkb4C&amp;amp;pg=PA84&amp;amp;lpg=PA84&amp;amp;dq=Guanyu+Yangjiagou+de+tudi+wenti,+1946&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=9EQWEzteqt&amp;amp;sig=sS0e_s--cl8xXyzMDaTIZ3-Wvck&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=201KVfj5EuPR7QaVrYG4Cg&amp;amp;ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=Guanyu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ib-sEZzxkb4C&amp;amp;pg=PA84&amp;amp;lpg=PA84&amp;amp;dq=Guanyu+Yangjiagou+de+tudi+wenti,+1946&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=9EQWEzteqt&amp;amp;sig=sS0e_s--cl8xXyzMDaTIZ3-Wvck&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=201KVfj5EuPR7QaVrYG4Cg&amp;amp;ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=Guanyu&lt;/a&gt; Yangjiagou de tudi wenti%2C 1946&amp;amp;f=false&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, can't go much further really. Chee! I mean, Ciao!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9222" LastEditorUserId="9222" LastEditDate="2015-05-06T17:31:50.563" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T17:31:50.563" Title="What does 'chee' mean in the following quote?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12057" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12163" CreationDate="2015-01-10T01:34:26.240" Score="5" ViewCount="2860" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that 喜不喜欢 and 喜欢不喜欢 have the same meaning, but in a sentence, which would look more appealing or make more sense in the sentence? In other words, which one is grammatically correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9216" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T13:28:24.030" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T13:28:24.030" Title="Which do I use: 喜欢不喜欢 or 喜不喜欢?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12058" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12059" CreationDate="2015-01-10T01:57:08.683" Score="2" ViewCount="2386" Body="&lt;p&gt;Right now I am taking Mandarin 1 in Brooklyn Tech. From my understanding, 号 and 日 both mean &quot;day.&quot; I took it upon myself to check Google Translate and find out what they both mean for confirmation. I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;号: Day of the month; number&#xA;日:Day; Date; sun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the difference? Can I use both terms in one sentence?(As in I could replace one with the other) Or are they more different than similar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9216" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T00:18:26.277" Title="What is the difference between 日 and 号?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12058" CreationDate="2015-01-10T02:28:32.340" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;日 is the more formal way to say &quot;day&quot; like you are speaking with a businessman/businesswoman. 号 is more casual to speak with friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9216" LastEditorUserId="9216" LastEditDate="2015-01-10T02:56:37.423" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T02:56:37.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12058" CreationDate="2015-01-10T02:40:58.857" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note: I use trad.Chi so 號 is the same as 号&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you talk about a date, you can use 號 when you are talking casually with people, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天是幾多號？&#xA;  今天是十五號。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 日 when you're writing (eg. diary or notes) or saying something formal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;十二月八日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both has the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[!] If you use them for other meanings, they are totally different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6774" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T02:40:58.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12057" CreationDate="2015-01-10T02:51:45.647" Score="-8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; helped me with this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the comment above, 喜不喜欢 and  喜欢不喜欢 are the exact same. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally Translated into English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;Do you like beer?&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;    &amp;lt;========== Can be translated with both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你喜不喜欢啤酒? Do you like beer?&#xA;你喜欢不喜欢啤酒? Did you like beer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For some reason the second one was inputting &quot;&lt;strong&gt;did you like beer?&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;,but that's how Google is&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9216" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T02:51:45.647" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12057" CreationDate="2015-01-10T06:38:33.133" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China I hear far more commonly 喜不喜欢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically if you have a two character word with that construction, you would use it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜不喜欢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过不过分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;便不便宜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3496" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T06:38:33.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12064" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12065" CreationDate="2015-01-10T07:14:49.067" Score="3" ViewCount="670" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;虽然是坑爹了，但是认错态度很好。&#xA;(He got his father in trouble, but it's good for him to admit his bad attitude.)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see the verb 认错 a VO verb(verb-object).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So shouldn't it be something like this as follow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;虽然是坑爹了，但是认他的态度的错很好。（认 Object(his bad attitude) 错）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I gave my Chinese friend this sentence with the verb separated, but she said that sounds a  little weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know what I am missing here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you so much in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6131" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T18:33:55.590" Title="When not to split up the VO verb?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12064" CreationDate="2015-01-10T07:34:34.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I think that the sentence should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;虽然是坑爹了，但是认错态度很好。&#xA;(He made some mistake, but he had good attitude for admitting his mistake.)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坑爹 means did something wrong, it's none of his father's business,or you can say 他做了不靠谱的事，但是认错态度很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, 认错态度 means has a good attitude for admitting one's mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;对于历史，日本没有好的认错态度。&#xA;（For history, Japan do not has a good attitude for admitting its mistake ） &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastEditorUserId="6904" LastEditDate="2015-01-10T07:42:01.710" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T07:42:01.710" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12064" CreationDate="2015-01-10T17:56:53.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;（Taking for granted that VO－verb means the same as 离合词。） Putting any object as attributive in between the ２ characters （把宾语插在离合词两字中间充当定语）is not the only way of dealing with objects，probably not even the most common way。Some typical examples of object as attributive in between：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;婆婆住了四个多月的院。 今天我跑了两个小时的步。这对中年夫妻是去年复的昏。那伙匪徒又绑了谁的架。The attributive in-between case includes attributive w/o 的：你妈给我留了什么话没有？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this method may not be available， except for very simple attributives like 什么，例句：他认什么错 (see 他认了什么罪？ below)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;aThe other more common way seems to be fronting object with a preposition as adverbial adjunct （用介词把宾语提到前面充当状语，这些介词包括“和、给、为、向、跟”等）e.g.他们很有礼貌地向我们行礼。可以请你为我们照一张相吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;６ of preceding examples are from &lt;a href=&quot;http://forum.swissinfo.ch/viewtopic.php?f=73&amp;amp;t=36685&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://forum.swissinfo.ch/viewtopic.php?f=73&amp;amp;t=36685&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂现代汉语离合词用法词典＂does not include ＂认错＂ but has ＂认真＂ and ＂认罪＂：Examples of 离用法 （excluding well known 了，过，着 in between， only last 例句 may be relevant）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认真：＂认＂后带补语：人家开玩笑的，你怎么就认起真来&#xA;了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认罪：＂认＂后带补语：他就没认过一次罪。&#xA;＂罪＂提到＂认＂前：他连罪都不认，怎么能说他态度好。&#xA;＂罪＂前带定语：他认了什么罪？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2015-01-10T18:33:55.590" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T18:33:55.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12071" CreationDate="2015-01-10T18:35:06.753" Score="1" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;I stumbled upon this 成語：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;如入鮑魚之肆久而不聞其臭。&#xA;it's like staying in a fish market and getting used to the stink    &#xA;long exposure to bad surroundings or bad company accustoms one to evil ways    &#xA;(source of translation: pleco dict)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: what is the grammar of the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 入...之 a connecting structure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user9215" LastEditorUserId="16557" LastEditDate="2017-03-05T23:35:58.430" LastActivityDate="2017-03-05T23:35:58.430" Title="成語 with 鮑魚, grammar structure?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12069" CreationDate="2015-01-10T19:40:58.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如{[(入&amp;lt;鮑魚之肆&amp;gt;)久]而[不(聞&amp;lt;其臭&amp;gt;)]}。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like {[(having entered &amp;lt; a market of fish &amp;gt;) for long time] hence [can't (smell &amp;lt; its stink &amp;gt;)]}.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The root level is V-O '如...' (it's like ...), 如 is the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then 入鮑魚之肆久而不聞其臭 is Phrase-Conj-Phrase '...而...' (... hence ...), where 而 is the conjunction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;入鮑魚之肆久 is S-V, where 入鮑魚之肆 is 'V-O as Subject', 久 is the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 入鮑魚之肆, 入 is the verb (to enter), 鮑魚之肆 is noun phrase as the Object. 之 means 'of', 鮑魚之肆 means 'market of fishes'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T19:40:58.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12057" CreationDate="2015-01-11T02:37:14.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaker, so I'd like to answer your question here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;actually, they are both rightly used as 喜不喜欢 or 喜欢不喜欢。But in daily life, people prefer to use the simpler one, namely 喜不喜欢， and it sound more orally, while 喜欢不喜欢 sounds more normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are similar to the usage of &quot;好不好看vs好看不好看&quot;，“漂不漂亮vs漂亮不漂亮”.But if you want sound more native, choose the former ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9226" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T02:37:14.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12073" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-11T04:01:58.567" Score="0" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please let me know if you can tell me what this means. I posted a pic of the mug too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e18zg.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Nc1pC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9227" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-01-11T05:23:18.853" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T05:23:18.853" Title="What does this mean? It is on the bottom of a strange coffee mug" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-01-11T06:46:00.560" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12073" CreationDate="2015-01-11T04:29:53.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters are &quot;悠游三国喜神方&quot;. Proof link &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.searchtmr.com/details?trqi=41db614f8ac73c56&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三国 (Three Kingdoms) refers to the story of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Romance of the Three Kingdoms&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.07073.com/yrsg/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;悠游三国&lt;/a&gt; (leisurely visit the Three Kingdoms) is an online game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/c/6d/109364.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;喜神方&lt;/a&gt; (happiness god's way) is a concept from old Chinese's belief in luck. When the almanac says one shouldn't travel, there are methods to find &quot;happiness god's way&quot; following which one may travel without getting the ill luck. I believe in your phrase, 喜神方 refers to that method (maybe it's a ceremony in the game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put them together, 悠游三国喜神方 means 'the method to understand happiness god's way (so one may travel without getting bad luck) in the online game You You Three Kingdoms'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T04:29:53.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12075" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12081" CreationDate="2015-01-11T23:58:04.760" Score="6" ViewCount="3859" Body="&lt;p&gt;They seem to mean the same thing, but I've seen 有意思 quite a few times in my books, and never 有趣. When is 有趣 used and why (especially in comparison with 有意思)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T17:25:27.420" Title="Is there a difference between 有趣 and 有意思?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12075" CreationDate="2015-01-12T01:30:08.613" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;有趣 - fun&#xA;有意思 - interesting&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To break the vocabulary literally, we have 有/趣 and 有/意思. The word 有 carries the meaning similar to &quot;there is something&quot; or &quot;it has something&quot;. 趣 can be interpreted as &quot;fun&quot;. 意思 can be translated to &quot;meaning&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, these two vocabularies can be broken down literally as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;X有趣 - there is fun in X / X is fun&#xA;X有意思 - X is interesting&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6006" LastEditorUserId="6006" LastEditDate="2015-01-12T09:54:19.107" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T09:54:19.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12075" CreationDate="2015-01-12T03:16:25.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many conditions, they have same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;这个人真是有意思&lt;/code&gt; This in many conditions means this people makes you unhappy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;这个人真有趣&lt;/code&gt; This is normally express someone is funny.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8141" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T03:16:25.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12075" CreationDate="2015-01-12T06:39:06.063" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;有趣 means it is something makes your happy.&#xA;有意思 means it is something meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, it is quite depending on the whole sentence or even the paragraph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9235" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T06:39:06.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12057" CreationDate="2015-01-12T10:36:55.923" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;A不AB&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;AB不AB&lt;/strong&gt; pattern that widely used in Chinese,  and &lt;strong&gt;A不AB&lt;/strong&gt; is sort of just a shorten expression of &lt;strong&gt;AB不AB&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;AB&lt;/strong&gt; should be &lt;em&gt;verb.&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;adj.&lt;/em&gt;. it means : Will you or not do something(when AB is &lt;em&gt;verb.&lt;/em&gt;) or Are you or not AB(when AB is &lt;em&gt;adj.&lt;/em&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜欢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;变态&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讨厌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;优秀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9238" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T10:36:55.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12040" CreationDate="2015-01-12T12:14:32.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;strong&gt;人单合一&lt;/strong&gt; is just a slogan created from no where, by the &lt;em&gt;Haier&lt;/em&gt; company, If you are not planning to pursue a job opportunity from this company, figuring this &lt;strong&gt;&quot;人单合一&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;'s meaning out is just waste of time :-) I think this comes out from the pacific word &lt;strong&gt;天人合一&lt;/strong&gt; which have a very deep philosophical meaning first used by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_(book)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhuangzi&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is my spoken language, I don't even know what it means before searching the internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9238" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T12:14:32.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12075" CreationDate="2015-01-12T15:30:37.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mostly,有趣 means something or someone is really funny.&#xA;比如,他是一个有趣的人(He is a funny man.) &#xA;你有什么有趣的故事分享吗?(Do you have any funny story to share?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And,有意思,some time means the same meaning of 有趣 as something is attractive.&#xA;比如,这个游戏很有意思(The game is very interesting).You can also say &#xA;这个游戏很有趣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when someone use 你这样有意思吗? (Do you think it's appropriate to do[be] that?) Here 有意思 means &quot;it's not appropriate&quot;. Or 真他妈有意思! (It's f***ing funny, HaHa!) Here 有意思 means &quot;someone ro something give me sh**&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people say 有意思, you should tell the context and tone.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T15:30:37.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12075" CreationDate="2015-01-12T17:25:27.420" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me these two words don't differ too much. Maybe the only thing is 有意思 seems a little little little casual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T17:25:27.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12083" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12087" CreationDate="2015-01-12T19:31:04.910" Score="2" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always assumed that you use 面熟 for people because they have a face (面). However, I recently heard a native speaker use 眼熟 about a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are the two phrases fully interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, what are the subtle differences (which I'm apparently missing)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3360" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T02:06:58.320" Title="What's the difference between 眼熟 and 面熟?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12083" CreationDate="2015-01-12T19:39:10.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They can be used interchangeably. If there has to be some subtle differences, 眼, eye, we see by eyes; when we look at people, we usually first look at their faces. 面.thus 面熟 in particular refers to 'people are familiar'. NS.X explains the differences well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9239" LastEditorUserId="9239" LastEditDate="2015-01-13T02:06:58.320" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T02:06:58.320" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12056" CreationDate="2015-01-12T22:32:56.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would guess that may have simply been chi4 &quot;赤&quot; (red), since &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%85%B1%E5%8C%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;赤匪&lt;/a&gt; (red bandit) was an derogatory term used by the KMT for the communists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9242" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T22:32:56.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12086" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12089" CreationDate="2015-01-12T23:00:26.300" Score="6" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the title indicates, I'd like to know the proper way of writing Pinyin for idiomatic expressions that contain names. Should those names be capitalised? Some dictionaries say that they should (Pleco for instance), but after asking two native speakers who both said that they typically aren't capitalised, I also think it's reasonable that they are treated as words or expressions today and shouldn't be capitalised even if they originally refer to names. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徐娘半老&#xA;&quot;xúniángbànlǎo&quot; or &quot;Xúniángbànlǎo&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杞人忧天&#xA;&quot;qǐrényōutiān&quot; or &quot;Qǐrényōutiān&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-01-14T13:54:34.623" LastActivityDate="2015-01-14T13:54:34.623" Title="Should names in idiomatic expressions be capitalised?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12083" CreationDate="2015-01-12T23:03:50.553" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are not fully interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 面熟/脸熟, 面/脸 are nouns for 'familiar what'. 面熟/脸熟 means 'familiar face'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 眼熟/耳熟, 眼/耳 are functioning as adverbs for 'how is it familiar'. 眼熟 means 'looks familiar', 耳熟 means 'sounds familiar'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, 面熟/脸熟 are mostly used for people, 眼熟/耳熟 can be used on anything that you can look at or listen to. For a familiar face, either one is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T23:03:50.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12086" CreationDate="2015-01-13T01:13:07.713" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Long long ago when I was learning pinyin, none of teachers taught us write any capitalization pinyin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And pinyin is used to mark the pronunciation of Chinese words , and after you graduated from primary school, you won't use pinyin no longer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So , my opinion is that, any pinyin is lower-case and each of them should be separated by space like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;徐娘半老 &quot;xú niáng bàn lǎo&quot;&#xA;  杞人忧天 &quot;qǐ rén yōu tiān&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just remeber , pinyin mustn't be used in formal condition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8141" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T01:13:07.713" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12086" CreationDate="2015-01-13T01:50:16.400" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pinyin is never an established written language. We have a standard, 《&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2292589.htm?adapt=1&amp;amp;fr=aladdin&amp;amp;bd_source_light=1701851&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉语拼音正词法基本规则&lt;/a&gt;》, but no one actually bothered to learn it. In short, it treats pinyin as if it is a romanized language. You follow what's correct in English. However, 成语 is so special that it has individual chapters for it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;结构上可以分为两个双音节的，中间加连接号。&lt;/strong&gt; 例如： fēnɡpínɡ-lànɡjìnɡ（风平浪静） àizēnɡ-fēnmínɡ（爱憎分明） shuǐdào-qúchénɡ（水到渠成）&#xA;yánɡyánɡ-dàɡuān（洋洋大观） pínɡfēn-qiūsè（平分秋色） ɡuānɡmínɡ-lěiluò（光明磊落）&#xA;diānsān-dǎosì（颠三倒四）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;结构上不能分为两个双音节的，全部连写。&lt;/strong&gt; 例如： cénɡchūbùqiónɡ（层出不穷）&#xA;bùyìlèhū（不亦乐乎） zǒnɡ’éryánzhī（总而言之） àimònénɡzhù（爱莫能助） yīyīdàishuǐ（一衣带水）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to this, we may need to add hyphens inbetween 徐娘半老 and 杞人忧天 when they are written as pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then it also says this about property nouns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;专有名词成分与普通名词成分连写在一起的，是一般语词或视为视为一般语词的，首字母小写。&lt;/strong&gt; 例如： ɡuǎnɡɡān（广柑） jīnɡjù（京剧）&#xA;ējiāo（阿胶） zhōnɡshānfú（中山服） chuānxiōnɡ（川芎） zànɡqīnɡɡuǒ（藏青果）&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;zhāoqín-mùchǔ&lt;/strong&gt;（朝秦暮楚） &lt;strong&gt;qiánlǘzhījì&lt;/strong&gt;（黔驴之技）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the text is confusing you, you can look at the last two examples. When a property noun is part of a 成语, it doesn't need to be capitalized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then it also has this to say about 成语:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;辞书注音需要显示成语及其他词语内部结构时，可按词或语素分写。&lt;/strong&gt; 例如： chīrén shuō mènɡ（痴人说梦） wèi yǔ&#xA;chóumóu（未雨绸缪） shǒu kǒu rú pínɡ（守口如瓶） Hēnɡ-Hā èr jiànɡ（哼哈二将）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a suggestion specific to dictionaries, you separate them and properly capitalize the property nouns, in order to display the internal structure of a 成语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer your question: If you aren't writing a dictionary, you should do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;徐娘半老 xúniáng-bànlǎo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;杞人忧天 qǐrén-yōutiān&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T13:17:34.537" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12090" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12107" CreationDate="2015-01-13T02:18:37.707" Score="1" ViewCount="859" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whats the difference between the usage of 个, 只, 张, and 条? I know that 个 is used for counting fruits and 只 is for counting animals but what should each counting word be applied?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9232" LastActivityDate="2015-01-14T15:40:53.270" Title="Whats the difference between the usage of 个, 只, 张, and 条" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10582" CreationDate="2015-01-13T03:09:31.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“不...了” means &quot;not anymore&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不+verb+了&quot; &#xA;example: “我不吃了” means &quot;I don't want to eat anymore&quot;.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不+adj+了&quot;&#xA;example: “我不饿了” means &quot;I am not hungry anymore&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For “不走了”, it actually has two different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;scenario one: You and your friends were hiking. After a two-hour walk, you felt tired and decided to have a rest. One of your friend asked:&quot;你怎么不走了？&quot;（Why do you stop walking?）(In this case, &quot;我不走了&quot; means &quot;I don't want to walk any more&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;scenario two: Your friend got a work offer from a company in New York and he was planning to leave this Monday. On Monday morning, he came and told you:&quot;我不走了.&quot;(I'm not leaving/I decide to stay) (In most case, 我/他/她+不+verb+了 means I/he/she was doing something, but now I/he/she don't/doesn't want to do it anymore. But in this case of &quot;不走了&quot;, it doesn't mean &quot;leaving&quot; has happened. It just means I/he/she was planning to leave but now decide to stay. )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我以为他不走了” means &quot;I thought he's not leaving&quot;&#xA;“我还以为他不走了” means &quot;I thought he's not leaving (but now I realize that he is leaving)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我还以为他不走了呢&quot; has the exact same meaning as &quot;我还以为他不走了&quot;. You can just ignore the nuance between these two sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9230" LastEditorUserId="9230" LastEditDate="2015-01-13T04:07:32.113" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T04:07:32.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7177" CreationDate="2015-01-13T05:41:49.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;What the hell are you talking about?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes will use&quot;哩勒公蝦小&quot; It will more impolite. Because 蝦小 can means WTF&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9245" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T05:41:49.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12093" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12094" CreationDate="2015-01-13T09:04:51.937" Score="1" ViewCount="341" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for another retrograde translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the excerpt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;美国有一个心脏病之父，他一生开过，开胸开一万多人。他，美国的心脏科医生都知道，尊称他为心脏病之父。他死掉以后呢，在他的墓碑上面，刻了......了一句话在上面：“世界上，治疗心脏病最好的方式就是不要开刀。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This obviously comes from English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's the original English quote of: &lt;code&gt;“世界上，治疗心脏病最好的方式就是不要开刀。”&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T09:32:41.547" Title="Translation: “世界上，治疗心脏病最好的方式就是不要开刀。”" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-01-28T01:44:52.813" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12093" CreationDate="2015-01-13T09:32:41.547" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The epitaph is &lt;em&gt;probably&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I would like to think that I've left the world of cardiovascular surgery better than when I found it. That would be a suitable epitaph.&quot; — C. Walton Lillehei, 1995.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;em&gt;materials&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/100/13/1364.full&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;C. Walton Lillehei, the “Father of Open Heart Surgery”&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. This article proves Mr. Lillehei has the title &quot;心脏病之父&quot;, and he is an American.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ctsnet.org/book/soth/front_rev.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;State of the Heart: The Practical Guide to Your Heart and Heart Surgery&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. This book quotes what he said as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LTCKP.png&quot; alt=&quot;epitaph&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;However I cannot find that epitaph on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&amp;amp;GRid=6952&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;his tombstone&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DoG0o.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Lillehei&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the statement &quot;在他的墓碑上面，刻了...&quot; seems not true.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T09:32:41.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12095" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-13T11:09:58.230" Score="3" ViewCount="694" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate &quot;红烧肉&quot; to a foreigner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The braise in soy sauce meat？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9246" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-01-14T13:55:27.370" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:39:03.873" Title="Help to translate &quot;红烧肉&quot; to a foreigner" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12095" CreationDate="2015-01-13T11:55:19.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've eaten and cooked this dish many times before, and either &quot;soy-braised pork&quot; or &quot;pork braised in soy sauce&quot; would be how I would describe it to an English-speaker (the '肉' in this dish refers to pork, normally pork belly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="42" LastEditDate="2015-01-15T12:53:28.457" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T12:53:28.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12095" CreationDate="2015-01-13T12:00:11.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard translation is &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_cooking&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;red cooked&lt;/a&gt;&quot; in English; but this is not the most common way it is presented in overseas Chinese restaurants. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Culinary terms (around the world) are known for being difficult to translate (cf. French &lt;em&gt;macaronage&lt;/em&gt;), and so a calque / loan translation / 意译 strategy is usually used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 烧 in a culinary sense does &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; translate to English &lt;em&gt;burn&lt;/em&gt;: the connotations of &lt;em&gt;burn&lt;/em&gt; in English are not appreciated in cooking, and so the more usual &lt;em&gt;cook&lt;/em&gt; is employed instead. When a loan translation is established, many related languages may adopt the same strategy. E.g. Spanish uses &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocci%C3%B3n_roja&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;cocción roja&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, across languages they might not use the same correspondence: some French sources use &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_shanghaienne&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;braisé en rouge&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. This is a more explanatory translation, and it is this method that is most usual in restaurants even where English is spoken. &lt;em&gt;Braised in soy sauce&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;Braised&lt;/em&gt; + (meat) + &lt;em&gt;with/in soy sauce&lt;/em&gt;, or even &lt;em&gt;Soy-braised&lt;/em&gt; uses a slightly more well-understood collocation, that of &lt;em&gt;braising&lt;/em&gt;, and mentions the main ingredient used in the sauce. This is therefore more transparent to the diner. It has now become semi-standard in the catering industry in overseas Chinese restaurants in English-speaking communities, whereas &quot;red-cooked&quot; is a specific jargon-like term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is possible to use a phonetic rendition / 音译: there are plenty of references to &lt;em&gt;hongshao&lt;/em&gt; in English Internet media. Although this is not the main way that 红烧 is known, many examples from Japanese (&lt;em&gt;sushi&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;sashimi&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;yakitori&lt;/em&gt;) and Korean (&lt;em&gt;kimchi/kimchee&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;bibimbap&lt;/em&gt;) cuisine have been adopted this way. This has become the premier accepted translation for the related 叉烧, which is &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Char_siu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;char siu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; in English, borrowed through Cantonese and with the transcription done in a non-standard British-based orthography.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T12:00:11.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12098" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-13T16:49:39.277" Score="8" ViewCount="2194" Body="&lt;p&gt;Forgive any ignorance on my part - I am a beginner, studying Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &quot;Apple&quot; in Mandarin is &quot;苹果&quot; (píngguǒ), then I guess in Cantonese it is also &quot;苹果&quot;, though no doubt pronounced completely differently. In Mandarin, two characters normally means a two-syllable word. Is this the case in Cantonese? Does every Cantonese word have the same number of syllables as its corresponding Mandarin word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for any insight...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Steven@Montreal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9248" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T06:14:28.893" Title="How Cantonese and Mandarin writing can be identical" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12098" CreationDate="2015-01-13T21:24:40.030" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, Cantonese is rarely written. In the few places where Written Cantonese is used, yes, each syllable is always one character (though for some words, like 乜嘢、唔好、即係, people often say multiple characters together so fast that it may sound like one syllable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each Chinese character has a defined pronunciation in Cantonese (sometimes a character has multiple pronunciations in different contexts), and there are often certain predictable patterns between the Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciations of the same character. And the pronunciation of a word is simply the pronunciation of each character concatenated. That means that if you take a word written in Mandarin, and read it literally in Cantonese, it will be pronounced with the same number of syllables as in Mandarin, and moreover the pronunciation will be based on the Cantonese pronunciation of each character, which is often somewhat related to the Mandarin pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, that may not be the way that that thing is usually said in Cantonese. In such cases, the way that people usually say that thing in Cantonese is considered a &lt;em&gt;different word&lt;/em&gt;, and in Written Cantonese is written with different characters (which may or may not be the same number of characters that Mandarin uses). These are basically &lt;em&gt;vocabulary differences&lt;/em&gt; between Mandarin and Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many commonly-used verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, will have different vocabulary between Mandarin and Cantonese. But if you consider all words overall, the number of differences is small, and most words will be the same in Mandarin and Cantonese (as in written with the same characters, though the pronunciation of those characters will still be different). The vocabulary for &quot;apple&quot; is not different between Mandarin and Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5978" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T21:24:40.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12100" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-13T22:26:52.443" Score="3" ViewCount="411" Body="&lt;p&gt;Odd question, perhaps, but I'm stumped.  I know that to say 'as fast as you can' you can say 尽可能快, but what about for other adjectives?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you were to say 'Squeeze my hand as hard as you can,&quot; how would that be translated properly into Chinese?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2015-02-24T11:44:30.650" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T11:44:30.650" Title="How would you translate &quot;hard&quot; in &quot;squeeze my hand as hard as you can&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12100" CreationDate="2015-01-13T22:36:39.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The adverb/adjective you're looking for is '紧' (tight), which is commonly used for squeezing, seizing or grabbing something especially hands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Squeeze my hand as hard as you can' can be translated into '抓住我的手，越紧越好' or '尽可能紧地抓住我的手'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T22:36:39.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12100" CreationDate="2015-01-13T22:58:08.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;尽你所能把我手握紧。 'Squeeze my hand as hard as you can。‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T22:58:08.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12100" CreationDate="2015-01-14T09:13:34.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what kind of &lt;code&gt;squeeze&lt;/code&gt; you mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean &lt;code&gt;抓&lt;/code&gt;, you can say &lt;code&gt;抓好我的手，越紧越好！&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean &lt;code&gt;捏&lt;/code&gt;, you can say &lt;code&gt;捏住我的手，越紧越好！&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We seldom say &lt;code&gt;尽可能地抓住&lt;/code&gt; ... it's very weird in daily speaking Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2015-01-14T09:13:34.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12095" CreationDate="2015-01-14T14:27:54.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me build on the answers above:  &quot;Hongshao pork&quot; sounds exotic, I expect it sounds good to most Anglophone Americans who like Chinese food but very few will know what it is.  &quot;Red cooked pork&quot; is less exotic, maybe sounds more delicious to more people. &quot;Pork braised in soy sauce&quot; is the clearest brief description although most Americans do not really know what &quot;braised&quot; means.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One general rule, &quot;pork&quot; already sounds delicious to most Americans (Anglophone or not).  To appeal to true pork lovers you could specify &quot;pork belly&quot; if you are using pork belly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-01-14T15:38:21.547" LastActivityDate="2015-01-14T15:38:21.547" CommentCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-01-14T14:27:54.350" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12106" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12109" CreationDate="2015-01-14T15:32:02.660" Score="4" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shiing-shen Chern, 陈省身 (1911--2004), is a famous geometer.  When taking about him with Chinese people who do not study math and have not heard of him, how can I best describe which characters 陈, 省, and 身 these are?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yellowbridge has many two-word phrases with 省 and I guess 反省 would be relevant.  But I am not confident whether it would be a good way to explain it.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess 身体的身 would work well for 身.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would 普通的陈 work to say it is the most common name Chen?  Would it sound polite?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not think I could draw any of these on my hand well enough for anyone to understand! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T05:48:04.800" Title="How to describe 陈省身's name" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12090" CreationDate="2015-01-14T15:40:53.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Roughly speaking, the &quot;role&quot; of the quantifiers such as &quot;個&quot; or &quot;張&quot; in Chinese resembles that of the prepositions in English. Therefore, like learning prepositions in English requires one to naturalize oneself to all the variants, to properly manipulating Chinese quantifiers requires no more than developing a &quot;feeling&quot;, possibly by listening and speaking with careful observation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, &quot;個&quot; can be regarded as a generic quantifier, which means that you need not worry about that saying &quot;個&quot; will lead to any confusion. Saying &quot;個&quot; would just sound unnatural to a native ear. Thus, if you are unsure of which quantifier is a correct one, then you may just happily use &quot;個&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use &quot;隻&quot; in a context such as &quot;一隻牛 (a cow)&quot; or &quot;一隻狗 (a dog)&quot;. And yes, &quot;隻&quot; is usually followed by the name of a certain sort of animals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use &quot;張&quot; in a context such as &quot;一張紙 (a piece of paper)&quot; or &quot;一張餅 (a pancake)&quot;. This quantifier is for most of the time followed by the name of a thin object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use &quot;條&quot; in a context such as &quot;一條定理 (a theorem)&quot; or &quot;一條蟲 (a worm)&quot;. It is usually reserved for describing an object of a thin, long form. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2015-01-14T15:40:53.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12106" CreationDate="2015-01-14T16:11:58.143" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;耳东陈 (er3 dong1 chen2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反省的省 (fan3 xing3 de5 xing3) or 省察的省 (xing3 cha2 de5 xing3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;身体的身 (shen1 ti3 de5 shen1) or perhaps more adequate 捨身的身 (she3 shen1 de5 shen1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some common surnames, watch &lt;a href=&quot;http://kid.chinese.cn/rhymes/article/2011-02/23/content_229522.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2015-01-15T05:48:04.800" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T05:48:04.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12106" CreationDate="2015-01-14T17:51:32.823" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest just explaining the origin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曾子曰：「吾日&lt;strong&gt;三省吾身&lt;/strong&gt;：為人謀而不忠乎？與朋友交而不信乎？傳不習乎？」——《論語·學而》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The philosopher Zeng said, &amp;quot;I &lt;strong&gt;daily examine myself on three points&lt;/strong&gt;: whether, in transacting business for others, I may have been not faithful; whether, in intercourse with friends, I may have been not sincere; whether I may have not mastered and practiced the instructions of my teacher.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&amp;quot;Xue Er&amp;quot; in &lt;em&gt;The Analects&lt;/em&gt; (Confucianism). Translated in English by James Legge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you can say something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陈是耳东陈，省身是「(吾日)三省吾身」的「省身」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Chinese &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; at least know the idiom &lt;code&gt;三省吾身(sān xǐng wú shēn)&lt;/code&gt;, if not, it's an opportunity to teach them :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS for pedants&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;: yes, yes, I know 陈 is not composed of 耳 and 东: 耳 should be 阜/. However in common saying, people just say so and everyone can understand!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-01-14T17:51:32.823" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12098" CreationDate="2015-01-14T18:57:14.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very similar to Canadian English vs New York vs Tennessee vs Scottish vs Irish, South African, Australian, even Indian. Yes they can be written down and formally they will be very similar but informally, and in speech there are many possible variations, slang, grammatical distinctualities etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2857" LastActivityDate="2015-01-14T18:57:14.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12111" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-15T03:04:39.303" Score="1" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;I already knew that 平均 means &quot;average&quot;, 均匀 means &quot;even&quot; or &quot;evenly distributed&quot;. But how to distiguish these two phrases? Can you give me some examples? Thanks a lot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8194" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T09:25:37.863" Title="How does 平均 differ from 均匀?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12112" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-15T03:08:57.063" Score="1" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;The agent says the customer should insure all risks, he wants normal insurance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Agent: 万一货物出了问题，就有可能因为投错了险而无法得到赔偿，那麻烦就大了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I imagine '投了险' is short for '投保了保险' and I thought '错‘ is an adjective for ‘险’ (= take out 了 (the wrong) insurance), such that I really have '投保了错的保险’. But 外语教学与研究出版社, FLTRP, in their wisdom have written '投错了险'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I push the 了 back a space and write '投了错的险‘, or is 投错 somehow a word??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-01-18T16:24:39.773" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T05:54:25.433" Title="Why is the 了 here after 错 not after 投?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12112" CreationDate="2015-01-15T03:50:06.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In '投错了险', '错' is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; an adjective to '险', it is a sumplement to '投'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'投了错的险' is also correct. In this case, '错' &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; an adjective to '险'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T03:50:06.777" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12098" CreationDate="2015-01-15T06:06:43.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin and Cantonese are related languages that share common ancestry (generally believed to be &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt; roughly 1000 years ago). The biggest perceived difference between them since they diverged is their phonology (i.e., how words are pronounced), but there are also differences in their vocabulary and grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your example of 苹果 is actually one where both the vocabulary choice and pronunciation actually didn't diverge much between Mandarin and Cantonese. Using &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;IPA&lt;/a&gt; to more accurately compare the pronunciation, you can see that 苹果 is pronounced very similarly in both:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mandarin: &lt;code&gt;/pʰiŋ kuɔ/&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;: píngguǒ)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese: &lt;code&gt;/pʰɪŋ kʷɔː/&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyutping&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jyutping&lt;/a&gt;: ping&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt; gwo&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is similar to how English and German (which are similarly related) have the same &quot;word&quot; for apple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English: &lt;code&gt;/ˈæpl/&lt;/code&gt; Apple&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;German: &lt;code&gt;/ˈapfəl/&lt;/code&gt; Apfel&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese writing system is somewhat unique in that characters generally represent words that are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;cognate&lt;/a&gt; among the different varieties of Chinese. Contrary to the notion that characters represent abstract ideas, instead Chinese characters generally represent the &quot;words&quot; that share a common origin (this isn't strictly true, but that's outside the scope of this discussion).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give a basis of comparison, if English and German were also written with a morphemic writing system, the word for apple could conceivably be written using the same &quot;character&quot;. Words that are cognate in both languages but where pronunciation has diverged further would also be written using the same character (e.g., English &quot;tooth&quot; &lt;code&gt;/tuːθ/&lt;/code&gt; and German &quot;Zahn&quot; &lt;code&gt;/tsaːn/&lt;/code&gt;). Coming back to Chinese, 物 is an example where Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciations diverged more significantly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mandarin: &lt;code&gt;/u/&lt;/code&gt; (Pinyin: wù)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese: &lt;code&gt;/mɐt/&lt;/code&gt; (Jyutping: mat&lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pronunciation isn't the only difference between them though. There's the common assertion that Mandarin and Cantonese are written identically but differ when pronounced. This isn't really true because the have also diverged in their vocabulary and grammar as well. Because modern written Chinese was standardized to be based on Mandarin, Cantonese speakers actually read and write in Mandarin (even though they may pronounce each character in the Cantonese reading). If they actually were to write the way they speak, the result would be different. This is a situation known as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diglossia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;diglossia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, the third-person pronoun in Mandarin is 他 &lt;code&gt;/tʰä/&lt;/code&gt; (Pinyin: tā). This word is also pronounced very similarly in Cantonese: &lt;code&gt;/tʰaː/&lt;/code&gt; (Jyutping: taa&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;); however, normally Cantonese speakers use a completely different word as their third-person pronoun, which is pronounced &lt;code&gt;/kʰɵy/&lt;/code&gt; (Jyutping: keoi&lt;sup&gt;5&lt;/sup&gt;). Because it's a different word altogether, it's represented using a different character, 佢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This Wikipedia link describes more about the diglossic situation in Cantonese, along with a more extensive example: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diglossic_regions#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diglossic_regions#Chinese&lt;/a&gt; It also mentions the situation when the written standard was based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Classical Chinese&lt;/a&gt; rather than Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2015-01-15T06:14:28.893" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T06:14:28.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12115" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12117" CreationDate="2015-01-15T07:52:58.320" Score="4" ViewCount="2189" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The man who moves a mountain starts by carrying away small stones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/64564-the-man-who-moves-a-mountain-begins-by-carrying-away&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;reportedly&lt;/a&gt;) a quote from the Analects of Confucius. I have tried looking for 山 in the whole &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E8%AB%96%E8%AA%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikisource text&lt;/a&gt; and found the following occurrences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;季氏旅於泰山。子謂冉有曰：「女弗能救歟？」對曰：「不能。」子曰：「嗚呼！曾謂泰山不如林放乎？」三之七&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子曰：「臧文仲，居蔡，山節藻梲。何如其知也。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子謂仲弓曰：「犁牛之子，騂且角；雖欲勿用，山川其舍諸？」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子曰：「知者樂水，仁者樂山。知者動，仁者靜。知者樂，仁者壽。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子曰：「譬如為山，未成一簣，止，吾止也！譬如平地，雖覆一簣，進，吾往也！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;色斯舉矣，翔而後集。曰：「山梁雌雉，時哉時哉！」子路共之，三嗅而作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公山弗擾以費畔，召，子欲往。子路不悅，曰：「末之也已，何必公山氏之之也。」子曰：「夫召我者，而豈徒哉？如有用我者，吾其為東周乎！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of these seems to match the given translation. So what is this quote? Is it a fake? Or is it really from Confucius, and if so, what is the original? And as an extra, what do these quotes mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T09:13:38.453" Title="Confucius quote: what's the original?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12111" CreationDate="2015-01-15T08:38:37.790" Score="8" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if i have 10 apples , i give you 5 and keep the another 5 myself , it called &quot;平均&quot;;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RSopf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here &quot;picture 1&quot; is called “均匀”, while picture 2 is called “不均匀”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vDj2z.png&quot; alt=&quot;“均匀”&quot;&gt; [picture 1]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tT6Kw.png&quot; alt=&quot;“不均匀”&quot;&gt; [picture 2]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6052" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2015-05-10T09:25:37.863" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T09:25:37.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12115" CreationDate="2015-01-15T09:13:38.453" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;譬如为山未成一篑 is talking about &lt;strong&gt;making&lt;/strong&gt; a mountain rather than moving a mountain. It tells about the importance of perseverance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another Confucian classic, 《荀子》 has 积土成山风雨兴焉 in the article &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/247920/5757498.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;劝学&lt;/a&gt; meaning you accumulate earth and &lt;strong&gt;make&lt;/strong&gt; a mountain then the local climate will change. Again, the same moral, but not told by Confucius himself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet another classic but is about Taoism, 《列子》, has &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/29280/5755144.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;an article&lt;/a&gt; talking about a silly old ram thought he could punch a hole in a dam -- A silly old man thought he could &lt;strong&gt;move&lt;/strong&gt; a mountain with a 1000 year plan, and eventually he did in his life span, because the Sky God helped his clan. This is, again, all about the same thing, perseverance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, it is probably fake. At least we can tell it's not from the Analects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the meanings of these quotes, you can find the Chinese translation of 论语 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gushiwen.org/guwen/lunyu.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. For more detailed explanations of each quote, google is your friend. Search one of the quotes and you'll get plenty of answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T09:13:38.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12118" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12120" CreationDate="2015-01-15T12:31:06.567" Score="2" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;电视说今天很晴朗，不过下午下雨了。&#xA;电视上说今天的天气会很晴朗，今天一整天都很晴朗。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the first sentence not use &lt;code&gt;上&lt;/code&gt; but the second sentence does? Is there any difference between &lt;code&gt;电视&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;电视上&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the meaning is the same - i.e. both mean &quot;The TV says...&quot; or &quot;According to the TV...&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2015-01-20T11:09:37.523" Title="What is the difference between 电视 and 电视上?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12119" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12144" CreationDate="2015-01-15T13:02:41.550" Score="1" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;本身明明长患上丑还说[...]那鸣一个惨呀!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;长患 should be 长相 and 鸣 should be 叫, but they appear too many times that the possibility of them being typos is close to nil.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...]以是在贬低他人的时辰就出格不留人情，以是咱们见到这类人时可以绝不夷由地上往打。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, normally we would say 于是 instead of 以是, 时候 instead of 时辰, 毫不犹豫 instead of 绝不夷由, and I think 格外 instead of 出格. I don't even understand what's 上往打: is 上往 上前?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但是不管曩昔几多年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know Cantonese makes extensive use of 几多, but other sentences don't look like they're Cantonese. And isn't 曩昔 archaic? The reason I find this article so funny and interesting is that it is so colloquial, yet at the same time so archaic or formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最厌恶掉臂及男子体面的女人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What? 掉臂? As in &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/7333658.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;自在&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;眼望着本身岁数一点点年夜了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you really use 年夜 as a verb like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;碰着如许的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sounds rather formal and archaic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course I am not endorsing these statements or anything, just saw them somewhere on the internet and find them amusing. Are these sentences written in some dialects/topolects or an unusual form of standard Chinese? Or are they internet slang?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6460" LastEditorUserId="6460" LastEditDate="2015-01-17T18:02:15.823" LastActivityDate="2015-01-18T07:30:59.400" Title="Is this funny way of saying things some dialect?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12118" CreationDate="2015-01-15T15:32:52.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, as a native speaker, I would say there is no rigid rule for the usage under consideration. Both sentences precisely express what you would like to express.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, they are identical in meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T15:32:52.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12118" CreationDate="2015-01-15T16:12:57.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both sentences are correct, and they are the same.&#xA;I would say the slight difference between them is that first sentence more colloquial than second one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they are in English should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;TV said ...&#xA;TV show/display ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9259" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T16:12:57.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3827" CreationDate="2015-01-15T19:24:17.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember reading somewhere that it's a pictograph of the steam  or vapor 气 coming from boiling rice 米. But here's what wiktionary says about its etymology:&#xA;Original form of 餼／饩 (&quot;to present rice as a gift&quot;), which is from the same source as 乞 (&quot;to endow, to beg&quot;). Current meaning came from phonetic loan. Cognate with 愾／忾 (&quot;anger, hatred&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9260" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T19:24:17.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12119" CreationDate="2015-01-15T19:32:46.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;长患 (cháng huàn) means having an unfortunate fate since a long time, here the particular fate of being ugly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest of your concerns are rather standard wordings, although not the most common ones. A word like 时光 would indicate topolect (Wu), but only with different pronouns (阿拉 instead of 咱们). It could of course be a minor Mandarin dialect, or just internet slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上往打 is a bit peculiar, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T19:32:46.043" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12111" CreationDate="2015-01-15T22:57:57.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Case 1:  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The average age of gamers is 22&lt;br&gt;&#xA;游戏玩家的平均年龄是22&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You cannot use 均匀 here but only 平均&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Case 2:  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This painting's color is evenly distributed&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这幅画的颜色分布均匀&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You cannot use 平均 here but only 均匀  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Conclusion:&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will say &quot;average&quot; is one of the result / statistic of a distribution, where &quot;evenly distributed&quot; is one of the many ways to distribute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2015-01-16T15:21:25.810" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T15:21:25.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12095" CreationDate="2015-01-16T03:56:58.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Cocowalla I'm an American and on a anecdotal basis, I can tell you that I had no idea what braising is until I went to China. My American friends were likewise confused. I would actually say that some Americans might be turned off by describing something with &quot;belly&quot; -- for whatever reason, I think Americans are very turned off by dishes that explicitly name organs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my friends refused to order &quot;pork belly&quot; even though she loves eating 红烧肉 when nobody tells her what it is (her command of Mandarin is also atrocious for a person who's lived there for two years). On another occasion, I tried to get a friend to eat 大肠 once and they were horrified when I told them what it is. On balance, I might just unfortunately keep the most stereotypical American expats as company. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thought on American cooking terminology is that dishes describe cooking method but not much else in regards to seasoning, sauce, etc -- grilled salmon, fried fish, baked chicken. My purely observational thought is that Chinese cooking uses a lot of blended sauces that American English is not really equipped for. For example, I usually just call 叉烧 &quot;Cantonese BBQ Pork&quot; to other Americans when that isn't really accurate or descripitive considering it typically involves marinating/roasting, honey, rice wine, hoisin sauce, and lots of sugar. But &quot;BBQ&quot; is a very easy way for my friends to conceptualize it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T03:56:58.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12100" CreationDate="2015-01-16T04:06:23.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;吃奶劲儿&lt;/code&gt; is sometimes used in Beijing. It may sound funny, but &lt;code&gt;吃奶&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;drinking milk&lt;/code&gt;, right? Babies used a lot of strength to suck on the breast to get their milk, and so this is used to convey the meaning of substantial strength. So you could say &lt;code&gt;用吃奶劲儿抓我的手&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6548" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T04:06:23.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12127" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12132" CreationDate="2015-01-16T04:24:36.050" Score="7" ViewCount="777" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I lived in China, I was often corrected for using grammar improperly or translating too literally. I don't think I ever learned a good response to this. I usually wanted to be courteous and convey that I understood and would use the correction in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My response was usually &quot;喔，知道了!&quot; which I think of as &quot;Got it!&quot; but I think this feels a little brisk and unappreciative of what the person is saying. If I interpreted it literally, I would definitely think saying something like “I know!&quot; is a little rude in English and might even indicate I'm disinterested in learning how to speak Mandarin properly. Does that phrase have any of that connotation for native speakers or is that just English? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also thought about saying &quot;是这样吗?&quot; or “是那样吗?&quot; but I actually have no basis in knowing whether Chinese people say anything like this other than people in my family's dialect (Taishanese) saying this to roughly express &quot;Oh really? That's how it is, huh?&quot; Thinking back to my time in China, I almost feel that &quot;是这样吗?&quot; is a little skeptical and would be taking the person's correction for granted. On a grammatical basis, I am also not sure if the 吗 is needed or if I should even add &quot;这样的&quot; to the phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then later, I saw a video on the internet that used &quot;原来如此&quot; but the context was a comedy video so I don't even know if this is something people actually say in normal situations. It was translated as &quot;So that's how it is&quot; which is actually rather perfect for what I want to convey. Can anybody tell me how that phrase is usually used? I have learned 原来 before but I'ven ever seen 如此 and I have a hunch that it's derived from classical words/definitions, but I really don't know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically I'm looking for a phrase that conveys these feelings:&#xA;1. &quot;Thanks for correcting me, I appreciate it&quot;&#xA;2. &quot;Oh, I didn't know that before, I'll try to use it like that from now on&quot;&#xA;3. Emphasizing the recent REALIZATION aspect of it, so that I might continue to mess up because I may not grasp their correction instantly -- again, I got the feeling people thought I was not at all conscientious about correcting myself, but I basically had a hard time showing people that I was still TRYING -- which is why 知道了！doesn't sound good to me because that sounds like I'm declaring INSTANT grasp of a correction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2020-06-02T13:21:15.917" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T13:21:15.917" Title="Phrases to acknowledge being corrected in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12100" CreationDate="2015-01-16T04:37:35.277" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;用最大的劲握住我的手。&#xA;squeeze my hand： 握住我的手&#xA;as hard as you can：最大的劲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9264" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T04:37:35.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12129" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32555" CreationDate="2015-01-16T04:41:59.463" Score="1" ViewCount="1295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not Chinese, and know very little of the language, but I was born in China since my parents happened to live there at the time, and somebody gave me a Chinese name, which, unfortunately, I do not completely remember all the details of. Here is what I remember:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Without the tones (I don't know what they are), my name is &quot;dong hua&quot; and I have a nickname &quot;dong dong&quot; (is nickname the right thing to call it?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I remember there being a double meaning, one meaning &quot;winter flower&quot; since I was born in January, and another that had to do with being born in Shandong province.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I remember there was a sort of joke/phrase about me that was something like &quot;dong dong di di yo da du du&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anybody fill in the missing details for me? I'm especially interested to know if anybody is able to reconstruct what the characters of my name might be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9263" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T15:52:40.827" Title="What is my name?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12129" CreationDate="2015-01-16T04:51:09.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;your name could be:&#xA;冬花 冬:winter 花:flowers.&#xA;Shandong province 山东, 东 east,pronounced same as 冬:winter&#xA;I guess, you are a girl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9264" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T04:51:09.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12127" CreationDate="2015-01-16T05:37:30.467" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would simply add 謝謝你 at the end to soften the tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我明白了，謝謝你。 I understand now, thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原來如此，謝謝你。 Ah, so that's how it is, thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;喔，知道了&quot; can sound a little brisk and abrupt depending on your tone of voice. Adding 謝謝你 helps, but I would altogether use a different verb 明白, which is closer in meaning to &quot;I understand now&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T05:37:30.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12127" CreationDate="2015-01-16T05:57:22.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;感谢您的改正 / 多谢赐教（old maner, only use this in writing) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;从今谨记教诲（This one likes answering to the master's teaching， &quot;I would deeply remember your instructions from now on.&quot;) / 洗心革面，痛改前非（You made a big mistake/crime, and now you want to correct it from now on.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这个问题对我来说很棘手，难免再犯错。 （This is a hard question for me, not sure if I can solve this again.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T05:57:22.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12129" CreationDate="2015-01-16T06:53:59.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1st.clue:dongdong&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The possible common names are 东东,冬冬.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No one use 东冬,or 冬东. It is weird using different characters that have same pronounciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you was born in January,probably 冬冬,especialy when your family have no relation to shandong province. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shandong province 's short name is 鲁(lu3). When Chinese give baby name like this,they always use the province's short name.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2nd clue: hua&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Common character is  花 or 华.&#xA;Since you are a boy.I think it is 华.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3rd clue:dong dong di di yo da du du&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wrong.....  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and we still don't know your formal name...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冬华  have more sense based on clues,but 东华 is a more common name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 东 and 华 means China.东 could also stand for 山东,though it is rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T06:53:59.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12100" CreationDate="2015-01-16T07:42:54.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Squeeze my hand as hard as you can. I have a more oral way to say this in Mandarin， and that is  尽可能的攥紧我的手。&#xA;Squeeze my hand should be translated into&quot;攥紧我的手”&#xA;&quot; hard&quot; in this sentence shouldn't be translated directly, but be translated with the phrase&quot; as hard as&quot; as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I.e.as soon as possible should be translated into&quot;尽可能快”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9266" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T07:42:54.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12100" CreationDate="2015-01-16T10:00:47.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;可以翻译成：使出全身的劲捏我的手&lt;br&gt;&#xA;hard : 就是用力的意思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T10:00:47.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12129" CreationDate="2015-01-16T11:00:14.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the language laboratories here in Fangshan (ie my girlfriend):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dongdong didi .......you.. da.. dudu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东东......弟弟.........有..大.....肚肚！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dong little brother has a big stomach!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肚子 = stomach 肚肚 = childrens language&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dongdong is just doubled up to match didi which is 'little brother'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-01-16T11:30:42.340" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T11:30:42.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12111" CreationDate="2015-01-16T21:37:41.843" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;suppose you have 2 apples, your brother has 4, so, you guys 平均 have (2+4)/2=3&#xA;but it is not 均匀, if you have 3, your brother has 3 too, then it is 均匀.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9264" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T21:37:41.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12139" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12140" CreationDate="2015-01-17T03:14:27.627" Score="3" ViewCount="1526" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the Chinese word (/ what are the Chinese words if more than one) used to describe the Chinese lanterns which the Chinese use to celebrate (Chinese) New Year (those that go flying up in the air once they are lit and the fire inside them starts to burn) and which have become so popular throughout the world and commonly used virtually everywhere to celebrate such an event?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it &lt;code&gt;灯笼&lt;/code&gt;, the common Chinese word for lantern found in Chinese dictionaries, or is it something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6727" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T22:58:06.857" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T22:58:06.857" Title="What is the Chinese word for a Chinese lantern?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12139" CreationDate="2015-01-17T04:49:44.027" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;灯笼&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;lantern&lt;/code&gt; in the general sense, that is, a portable lighting device or mounted light fixture used to illuminate broad areas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hot air balloon you described is '&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_lantern&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;sky lantern&lt;/a&gt;', which is called &lt;code&gt;天灯&lt;/code&gt; (sky lantern) or &lt;code&gt;孔明灯&lt;/code&gt; (Kongming Lantern) in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/82ysn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-01-17T04:49:44.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12141" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-17T17:35:35.513" Score="5" ViewCount="701" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English word accent, as in the flavor of one's speech, is typically translated as 口音 or 腔调. What is the difference between these two Chinese expressions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9272" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-01-19T10:48:32.887" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T10:48:32.887" Title="Chinese words for &quot;accent&quot;" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;accent&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12141" CreationDate="2015-01-18T00:27:31.190" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 口音 refers more to your natural accent. 腔调 is more like RP， more of a concious effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-01-18T00:27:31.190" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12141" CreationDate="2015-01-18T03:15:18.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have London accent, it means, you have London 口音. it is nature.-----&#xA;If you talk like a manager, it means, you have manager 腔调, i.e. you want to command others, you have no accent, but you have 腔调.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9264" LastActivityDate="2015-01-18T03:15:18.450" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12119" CreationDate="2015-01-18T07:30:59.400" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我在网上找了一下，你提到的这篇文章标题是《死都没人爱的9种女人》，事实上它有“正常中文”版本的原文：&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/18AjL.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其实还可以搜索到一篇内容十分类似的文章《十种汉子该暴挨，你属于那一种？》，前者应该只是把后者内容当中的“男人”替换成了“女人”。而后者2006年左右就出现在网络上了，这种类型的文章作为段子实在是很过时。现在的大多数网民应该都不会觉得这篇文章有趣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qd10q.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至于你提到的这种“奇怪的中文”的版本，确实网上可以搜索到：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IYbWk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这应当是通过某种类似于在线翻译的方式由电脑自动转换的，在网上还可以搜索到一些类似风格的文章。我不清楚这些网站在转载时进行这种转换的原因。不过显然这并不是为了有趣，也不是标准汉语的特殊形式，也不是所谓网络语言。应该说，就是网络上的一种信息垃圾。不用去深究，也不要把它作为学习中文的参考。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8114" LastActivityDate="2015-01-18T07:30:59.400" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12145" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12146" CreationDate="2015-01-18T12:27:24.517" Score="1" ViewCount="1880" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for a colloquial Chinese translation of the English: &lt;strong&gt;Couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presents an example of a minimally simple project that the person or group described is presumed unable to accomplish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;(UK, Australia, New Zealand, vulgar, slang, idiomatic) Is unable even to organise a project that requires no planning; is incompetent.  [quotations ▼]&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Synonyms&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;couldn't organise a two-ticket raffle&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;couldn't organise an orgy in a brothel&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;couldn't organise a bun fight in a bakery&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;couldn't pour water out of a boot&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What phrases are there in Chinese to express this kind of incompetence, i.e.: unable to organize something that doesn't involve any planning?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Specifically talking about someones organization skills, of course.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-01-20T04:19:59.270" Title="Translation: couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery, etc" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12145" CreationDate="2015-01-18T14:18:09.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;昏庸无能 is very close.&#xA;it means:&#xA;have no ability to do even a very simple project.&#xA;have no management skill to manage a team.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9264" LastActivityDate="2015-01-18T14:18:09.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12112" CreationDate="2015-01-19T09:28:35.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“投错了险” is an informal expression.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is generated from the phrase: &quot;买保险“.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the evolution chain: &quot;买保险” →“买错保险”（negative form，“错”here is a &quot;verbal complimentary&quot;, which showing the result of an action &quot;买”。）→“买错了保险”加上了tense particle “了”→“买” can be accepted when to be replaced by &quot;投” in a context of a casual email. &quot;保” of “保险” can be omitted too in this context.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;le&quot; has to be put after &quot;complimentary&quot;. So, 投了错的险 is wrong.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;why people use ＂投” instead of &quot;买”？ In recent years, more and more people changed idea of buying insurance for accidents to a type of investment. And &quot;investment&quot; in Chinese is “投资”。 So some people say &quot;投保险“。—— I personally don't like it. This just shows how people become careless about the use of words instead of using innovative new words. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6360" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T09:28:35.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10940" CreationDate="2015-01-19T12:18:38.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A rather concise way:&#xA;&quot;中文不是我母语&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="838" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T12:18:38.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12145" CreationDate="2015-01-19T12:29:59.773" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;一事无成This may seem a little different from what you want when translated directly,which is 'haven't done anything meaningful'.But,it is often used to describe a pernson who can't accomplish even the easiest assignment.I believe it's a pretty close one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9280" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T12:29:59.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12145" CreationDate="2015-01-20T04:19:59.270" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese only have the plain and dry &quot;组织能力差&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for translation, there is a direct translation with a few touch-ups:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就算带一群酒鬼到酒坊里，他也没能力组织到让大家喝个痛快。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Added 酒鬼 because the Chinese is a less bibulous people, at least on paper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A direct translation is good in this case because there is no comparable idioms exist in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2015-01-20T04:19:59.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12151" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12152" CreationDate="2015-01-20T07:23:13.717" Score="2" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between: 耳膜 and 鼓膜?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently they both check out to eardrum in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉语大辞典, even, defines 耳膜 as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;耳中鼓膜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can 鼓膜 be used in other places then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T04:44:09.687" Title="Meaning/Usage/Translation: 耳膜 vs. 鼓膜?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12151" CreationDate="2015-01-20T07:56:32.947" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dictionary takes extra caution and says it's the membrane in the ear, because 鼓膜 literally means &quot;drum membrane&quot;, which might be taken by someone as the membrane on a real drum. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In real usage, however, 鼓膜 is just the eardrum. The membrane on a drum instrument, or the drum head, is called 鼓皮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2015-01-20T07:56:32.947" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12118" CreationDate="2015-01-20T11:09:37.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both sentences are correct, with no big difference. That 上 means &quot;on&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电视说... - The TV says...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电视上说... - &lt;strong&gt;On&lt;/strong&gt; the TV it says...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-01-20T11:09:37.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12127" CreationDate="2015-01-20T11:30:27.800" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You shouldn't worry about the 知道了 sounding rude as the English equivalent &quot;I know! (you don't need to tell me that)&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That 了 there indicates a change of situation, so it's not quite &quot;I know&quot;, but &quot;I know &lt;strong&gt;now&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To soften the tone, you could add a 才 before it. 我才知道了! (Just now I got to know it!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I really tend to hear Chinese using 原来 to express that idea more often:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;原来是这样！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原来如此 sound a bit too formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-01-20T11:30:27.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12156" CreationDate="2015-01-20T22:13:54.547" Score="3" ViewCount="548" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the first questions in my book is 你家有几&lt;strong&gt;口人&lt;/strong&gt;？ But the book highlights the word &quot;人口&quot; as people. Why does it change? Is it because 口 is the measure word for 人? Could you say 三口人口? When do you use each form?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9285" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T03:42:10.013" Title="Why does the order of 人口 change?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12155" CreationDate="2015-01-20T22:42:52.437" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right that 口 is one of the measure words for 人, but 人 (people/person) and 人口 (population) are two different words. The word 人口 is mostly used for the population of a city or a country instead of a household.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 几口人 (how many 'units' of people), 三口人 (three 'units' of people), but not 三口人口 (three 'units' of population). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-01-20T22:42:52.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12155" CreationDate="2015-01-21T00:16:56.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你家有几口人? means &quot;How many members in you family&quot;.Here &quot;口&quot; is a counting unit.Why use &quot;口&quot;? I guess because Chinese think hunger breeds discontentment.(民以食为天). And &quot;几口人&quot; is oral word, mostly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人口 means the numbers of perple which include the unit &quot;个&quot;.Mostly, it's written word or official word, such as &quot;人口普查&quot; or &quot;人口调查&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you cann't say 三口人口 or 几口人口 because there are two counting units. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T00:16:56.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10940" CreationDate="2015-01-21T03:53:15.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you think you cannot get your meaning across,you can append &lt;code&gt;我中文说的不太好，请见谅。&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;我不太会说中文。&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, it not necessary, we can simply understand the fact that you are a foreigner from your accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8141" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T03:53:15.087" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12159" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-21T08:33:51.860" Score="0" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's from Taylor's song&lt;em&gt;Enchanted&lt;/em&gt;.I need an answer as close to it as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9280" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T09:28:31.703" Title="How to say &quot;Your eyes whispered:'Have we met?' &quot;in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-01-22T01:52:42.123" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12159" CreationDate="2015-01-21T09:28:31.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quick &lt;em&gt;baiduing&lt;/em&gt; revealed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/link?url=1Z7GIWhVnKswwcjFImS50XJU3FVuTJg9j9N4Ocw4Z2XELGsTRRNrgpyQOuUKx4s7NRWyVG-kVgjfDuvCqzYKwsQI3NRy0zA6mugCdIZXZoq&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wenku (Baidu)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Your eyes whispered &quot;Have we met?&quot; 你的眼低于呢喃，我们是否曾经遇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=m5MmatL_sKxHmcxMH1HBnk6NcAIVM8L4vXOIjbaE_W0TLBon5puITTLh01D2yKLUxOBeqe4N0oMoUBjHoWgw2a&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhidao (Baidu)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Your eye's whispered &quot;have we met?&quot; 你的眼睛悄悄向我传达着“我们以前见过吗”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1382754971&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tieba (Baidu)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你迷人双眼像是在低语“我们曾否见过面？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Your eyes whispered &quot;have we met?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://music.baidu.com/search/lrc?key=%E9%AD%94%E6%B3%95%E5%A5%87%E7%BC%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Music (Baidu)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Your eyes whispered &quot;have we met?&quot; / 你眼低语：“我们见过？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...lot's of translations online, take your pick...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T09:28:31.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12057" CreationDate="2015-01-21T13:20:25.217" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese speakers like 4-beat rythm better, so you should be using 喜不喜欢 most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2514" LastEditorUserId="2514" LastEditDate="2015-01-22T16:34:24.337" LastActivityDate="2015-01-22T16:34:24.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9506" CreationDate="2015-01-21T14:55:35.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At least on Windows 7 you can configure the New Phonetic IME to not require tones, although you will still need to press the space bar to separate characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go to Control Panel - Region and Language - Keyboards and Languages - Change Keyboards&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Choose the New Phonetic IME and click Properties&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On the Advanced tab, switch the &quot;Toneless&quot; option to ON&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2514" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T14:55:35.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12151" CreationDate="2015-01-21T15:16:04.570" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;耳膜and 鼓膜 refer to same thing.&#xA;膜，membrane。耳膜，get its name from the position of it. 鼓膜，get its name from its way of working--like the leather cover of a drum.&#xA;《高级汉语词典》：耳膜：鼓膜。&#xA;and translation to&#xA;耳膜：eardrum；&#xA;鼓膜: tympanic membrane. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6360" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T15:16:04.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12112" CreationDate="2015-01-21T18:31:03.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you imagined &quot;投了错险&quot; is grammatically right and be able to be understand by every Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &quot;投错了险&quot; is the form spoken by us Chinese everyday. It is nothing to do with your understanding of each word's role, but just word turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And obviously, you translated &quot;take out the wrong insurance&quot; word by word, turn by turn. That's the reason why you think it should be translated like &quot;投了错险&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot translate the sentence form a language to an other language word by word, turn by turn. Each language has its word turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, at the time that written Chinese and spoken Chinese are using different grammar (it's not much long time ago, just about 100 years), &quot;投错险&quot; would be a wildly received form in written Chinese (though there were no insurance industry in China at that time). And literally, it means &quot;take out the wrong insurance&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;投了错的险&quot; is also grammatically right but little hard to be understood. And the best form is &quot;投了错的保险&quot;. In the phrase &quot;投了错的险&quot;, &quot;险&quot; might be thought of &quot;dangerous&quot; firstly because the verb &quot;投&quot; is too far away from it, and people might be not able to connect the verb &quot;投&quot; with the noun &quot;险&quot; immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;投错&quot; is a phrase which means &quot;take the wrong ...&quot; at the most time, but not a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus. It don't think a Japanese would confuse &quot;银行&quot; and &quot;很行&quot;. Because &quot;bank&quot; in Japanese also is &quot;銀行&quot; -- the same to Chinese -- just written in traditional Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="828" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T18:31:03.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12172" CreationDate="2015-01-22T08:38:30.073" Score="5" ViewCount="566" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm always hearing the pronunciations jiào and xiào being used interchangeably by native speakers for the character: 酵.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's the deal?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is there a standardized pronunciation for 酵?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's the history behind the different pronunciations?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or is it just a case of 四川人生得憨?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2021-02-15T21:43:04.373" Title="酵: jiào vs. xiào" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12171" CreationDate="2015-01-22T09:18:06.360" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standardized pronunciation is &quot;jiào&quot;, it not &quot;xiào&quot; in the word &quot;发酵.&quot; But in south of China, like Taiwan, people read it as &quot;xiào&quot; which is not standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that because of the two pronunciation is so similar that people always read it as &quot;xiào&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发酵 means 有机物由于某些菌或酶而分解称“发酵”。能使有机物发酵的真菌称“酵母菌”。亦称“酵母”、“酿母”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T06:15:47.923" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T06:15:47.923" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12173" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-22T11:21:46.033" Score="0" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between these pairs of words? My book doesn't give a clear distinction between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果 - 要是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必须 - 要&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;报名 - 注册&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;查 - 检查&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;读书 - 看书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastEditorUserId="4145" LastEditDate="2015-01-22T11:52:15.970" LastActivityDate="2015-01-25T15:28:06.423" Title="Difference between these words" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-01-28T02:20:56.393" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12173" CreationDate="2015-01-22T13:29:23.183" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;如果 - 要是: almost same, 如果 formal language, 要是 oral language.----&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必须 - 要: 必须 is &quot;must&quot; very strong, 要 is &quot;shall&quot; not strong.----&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;报名 - 注册 same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;查 - 检查 same, 查 is a short one of 检查&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;读书 - 看书  same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9264" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2015-01-23T00:47:18.503" LastActivityDate="2015-01-23T00:47:18.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12173" CreationDate="2015-01-22T17:06:58.423" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are similar terms just as their english counterparts:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果 - In case&lt;br&gt;&#xA;要是 - If&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必须 - Necessary&lt;br&gt;&#xA;要 - Need / require&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;报名 - Sign up&lt;br&gt;&#xA;注册 - Register  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;查 - Check / Search&lt;br&gt;&#xA;检查 - inspection&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;读书 - Reading (in terms of Studying)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;看书 - Read a book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-01-22T17:06:58.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12176" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12180" CreationDate="2015-01-22T19:53:48.643" Score="3" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the best ways to translate &lt;code&gt;For all you know&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all you know, she could be lying to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In response to a friend getting upset that her friend isn't picking up her phone, I respond, &amp;quot;For all you know, something could have happened.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A neighbor sends us some vegetables and I tell my wife, &amp;quot;We better wash them first, for all we know, they could be covered in pesticide&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-01-28T02:27:14.413" Title="How to translate &quot;For all you know&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-05-10T09:27:05.160" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10439" CreationDate="2015-01-22T23:01:57.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are thousands of chengyu, so I think we need to narrow down what you're using this for. If it's to employ in daily usage because you are learning Mandarin and want to come across as more authentic, I would recommend looking at HSK lists as those are likely to contain the most frequently used chengyu by the majority of Mandarin speakers. There are loads of them on the internet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found a website you might like: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetimeschool.com/zh-cn/articles/list/cheng-yu-stories/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinesetimeschool.com/zh-cn/articles/list/cheng-yu-stories/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched 学习中文成语 and clicked on the first link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, it's not a physical book, but it does hit some of the characteristics you specified. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if using the language is your goal, I would steer away from rote memorization and use something like Chinesepod.com or slow-chinese.com so you can learn the language in a dialogue and remember the dialogue. That is what works best for me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3787" LastActivityDate="2015-01-22T23:01:57.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12176" CreationDate="2015-01-23T00:10:13.247" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Agree with StumpyJoePete. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As we all know = Everybody knows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all you know = You don't really know for sure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Damian Siniakowicz's suggestion will work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We better wash the vegetables first, for all we know, they could be covered in pesticide&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们还是先把蔬菜洗一下，说不定有農藥呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple more suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们还是先把蔬菜洗一下，誰知道有沒有農藥呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们还是先把蔬菜洗一下，可能有農藥呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-01-23T00:10:13.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12171" CreationDate="2015-01-23T00:50:35.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agress with @zoosuck, the standardized pronunciation is jiào. but in different dialect like Sichuanese people use xiào&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example: 发酵, 酵母片, 发酵了以后的葡萄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9297" LastActivityDate="2015-01-23T00:50:35.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12176" CreationDate="2015-01-23T01:34:16.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just found this interesting &lt;a href=&quot;http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=477816&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;discussion&lt;/a&gt;. It offered a definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This expression [for all you know] can be used in any context where the speaker wishes to convey that the listener is failing (deliberately or otherwise) to consider all the possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And some paraphrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;it wouldn't be surprising if&#xA;it would make sense to think&#xA;You have no knowledge that would disprove that&#xA;As far as you're concerned, it is entirely possible that&#xA;You might very well assume that&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All typical English style phrases that defy direct translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没准, 说不定, 谁知道 are all good, but the style is a bit off because the &quot;you&quot; part is omitted. So I propose this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For all you know, she could be lying to you.&#xA;  你也说不准, 也许她对你撒谎了呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;for all I know -- 我也不敢肯定.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;for all we know -- 我们都说不准.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes it might be better to drop the pronoun and just use 说不准 and alike, depends on the situation and mood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2015-01-23T11:01:55.800" LastActivityDate="2015-01-23T11:01:55.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12176" CreationDate="2015-01-23T07:12:13.597" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For all you know, she could be lying to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听你所见,她可有在骗你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6879" LastActivityDate="2015-01-23T07:12:13.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12185" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-23T13:04:28.953" Score="5" ViewCount="913" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a retired computer science professor who helps Chinese graduate students master English. The students have a good background for reading and writing scientific papers but struggle with their teaching assignments. In all fairness, we're a Southern university with students who have no experience with non-Southern accents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This semester I'm starting a new tack, which is to use games, especially tongue twisters, to find those sounds that the students have the most trouble with. Some English phonemes are well-known to be difficult but I find different students have trouble with different combinations of phonemes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question/request is this. I would like to find a list of Chinese words that contain correct English phoneme sounds. For example, one of my students is struggling with the &quot;w&quot; sound in &quot;wood&quot;; she's very frustrated because her name is Wu. I discovered looking at Chinese phonemes &quot;w&quot; is sometimes silent which is exactly the problem she's having: she wants to say &quot;ood&quot; and not &quot;wood&quot;. Ditto for &quot;would&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My goal is to make a table with (1) the English phoneme (2) a Chinese word that contains the English phoneme and the Pinyin version (so I can read it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;I have put together a google group with my attempt to set up my own answer. You can see is at &lt;a href=&quot;https://groups.google.com/d/forum/cupronunce&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://groups.google.com/d/forum/cupronunce&lt;/a&gt;.  The basic approach is to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find a site that had English with the IPA listed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find a site that had IPA to Pinyin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find a site that had Pinyin to Mandarin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We know that it's a partial function each way, so the missing links are the parts to concentrate on fixing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any comments gratefully accepted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9306" LastEditorUserId="9306" LastEditDate="2015-01-25T21:18:56.200" LastActivityDate="2015-03-28T00:05:08.707" Title="Chinese Words that Accurately Reflect English Phonemes" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12185" CreationDate="2015-01-23T15:34:44.083" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not think that such a list exists. If it did, Chinese-speaking learners of English would never need to struggle with the pronunciation of their new language. Let's say we have a List E, which contains all the phonemes in English (whichever variety you choose), and another List C, which contains all the phonemes in Chinese (again, whichever variety you choose). Where E and C overlap, these are the phonemes that students will not likely have problems.  It's the part of E that is outside of C that your students need to tackle, and this is precisely the part where you cannot find Chinese words that contain those phonemes. The reverse is true for English-speaking learners of Chinese, that is, they tend to struggle with the part of C that is outside E. This is also why second-language speakers tend to have accents. They are trying to find a native sound that matches the new language sound, and where none exists, they approximate as much as they can, resulting in a distinct accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2015-01-24T17:55:43.547" LastActivityDate="2015-01-24T17:55:43.547" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12195" CreationDate="2015-01-25T10:08:06.003" Score="4" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;p&gt;When trying to describe what specific character one is talking about, people often use the following method:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;AB的A/B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;包: &lt;code&gt;书包的包&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宇: &lt;code&gt;宇宙的宇&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is this &lt;em&gt;thing&lt;/em&gt; (method(?)) called?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How can one know what the most common word is for a certain character? (i.e.: if I want to tell someone that the charcater I'm talking about is 冰, how can I know what word (perhaps even &lt;em&gt;chengyu&lt;/em&gt;) is clearest to describe it?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are there any lists that contain these types of &lt;em&gt;combinations&lt;/em&gt;? Preferably the most common?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How can people learn to know these for when others are describing their own names or other things?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-01-31T04:13:22.790" Title="Describing Characters: AB的A/B" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12189" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12190" CreationDate="2015-01-25T10:13:39.137" Score="0" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am prepairing to my Chinese exam and have a doubt in using of 有 in describing of things in loction. Could you please correct my word order and explain 有-Usage rules? &#xA;The task for me is to translate the answer, using 有.&#xA;The question:哪里有中国地图？&#xA;My variant is: 他哪里有中国地图。 Or is it possible to say: 那里他又中国地图。(There, with him there is the Chinese map.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same problem is by: 哪儿有市场？ And my variant of the answer is: 公园这儿有市场。(Here, with park there is a market/).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be glad to get your help! Thank you!&#xA;Best wishes, Oksana&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6703" LastActivityDate="2015-01-25T16:11:07.363" Title="What is the right word order?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12189" CreationDate="2015-01-25T11:09:24.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Locations should use 在:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;市场在哪儿？ / 市场在公园里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise, a means for obtaining something is sometimes required:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国地图哪儿买的？ / 中国地图在那家书店买的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去哪儿找中国地图？ / 可以在图书馆找到中国地图。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-01-25T11:09:24.680" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12171" CreationDate="2015-01-25T15:02:52.710" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is a Polyphonic word, like English, there are so many Polyphonic words in Chinese too.&#xA;here are some other common used Polyphonic words: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.maxmandarin.com/lesson.php?lesson=wordlesson10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.maxmandarin.com/lesson.php?lesson=wordlesson10&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9264" LastActivityDate="2015-01-25T15:02:52.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12173" CreationDate="2015-01-25T15:28:06.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;要是&#xA;[yào shi]&#xA;if ； suppose ； in case&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果&#xA;[rú guǒ]&#xA;if ； in case ； in the event of ； supposing that ； in the event&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉语词语 词目：要是 拼音：yào shì 近义词：要是——如果 基本解释 [in case;if] ——用在偏正复句的偏句中，表示假设，相当于“如果”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9264" LastActivityDate="2015-01-25T15:28:06.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12189" CreationDate="2015-01-25T16:11:07.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q: 哪里有中国地图？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A1: 他那里有中国地图。&#xA;A2: 他那儿有中国地图。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, &quot;哪里&quot; is for question, we could use &quot;那里&quot; to answer the location of something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那里他有中国地图： Incorrect order for &quot;那里&quot; and &quot;他&quot;, &quot;他那里&quot; is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有-Usage rules in your case is pretty straight forward, it normally put in-front of the object that you are mention. But for some cases, you could let your sentence starts with 有, for example, 有个中国地图在他那里 (There is a Chinese map with him.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9312" LastActivityDate="2015-01-25T16:11:07.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12194" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-25T17:07:51.063" Score="1" ViewCount="481" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen both of them used as &quot;to explain&quot; or &quot;to interpret&quot;, but I am not sure if there are differences in connotation or anything else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9313" LastActivityDate="2015-01-28T03:10:48.417" Title="What is the Difference Between 讲解 and 解释?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12188" CreationDate="2015-01-25T21:22:46.583" Score="7" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;defining character by common compound word&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there are frequency lists for both words and characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wenlin, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Mandarin_Frequency_lists&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Mandarin_Frequency_lists&lt;/a&gt; 等等&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In practice, one just uses a common and distinct word, not necessarily the most common word (书记 in the case of 书)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-01-25T21:22:46.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12194" CreationDate="2015-01-25T23:55:50.457" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both can function as noun or verb. The basic difference is that 讲解 is &quot;oral explanation&quot;, or &quot;to explain orally&quot;, whereas 解释 simply means &quot;explanation&quot; or &quot;to explain&quot;, and can be oral or written. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老師在課堂上講解得很清楚。 “The teacher explained (it) very clearly in class.&quot; (orally)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老師在課堂上解釋得很清楚。 “The teacher explained (it) very clearly in class.&quot; (presumably orally, but not spelt out)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;課本第十頁解釋得很清楚。 ”Page 10 in the text book explains (it) very clearly.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-01-25T23:55:50.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12197" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12209" CreationDate="2015-01-26T00:55:03.400" Score="4" ViewCount="329" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering whether there is a commonly accepted rule about the word order of co-existing adverbs in a sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the following sentences, 果然，昨天，直接，从学校 are adverbs. Which of the following 3 sentences is(are) correct?&#xA;1. 他果然昨天直接从学校去了图书馆 &#xA;2. 他昨天果然从学校直接去了图书馆。&#xA;3. 他昨天果然直接从学校去了图书馆。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:34:59.163" Title="The word order of co-existing adverbs in a sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12171" CreationDate="2015-01-26T02:06:00.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;酵 pronounced as jiào.&#xA; it is a pictophonogram, the left part telling the meaning, the right &#xA; part telling pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孝, xiào, filial piety, is a very important character for Chinese. All &#xA; Chinese know it. So when the first time they saw a new character 酵, &#xA;their first instict is to read it as xiào. actually, it should be read &#xA; as jiào.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by the way, 孝 is the look of a child or young child supporting his &#xA; father or other senior generations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6360" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T02:06:00.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12200" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-26T05:10:25.067" Score="6" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to understand the difference in distribution between the alveolar consonants s, ts, tsʰ and the alveolo-palatal consonants ɕ, tɕ, tɕʰ in Cantonese. One source told me that the postalveolars are only used before i, y, and œ and alveolars everywhere else. I listened to a few sound clips to see if this was true and I found some conflicting evidence in these examples. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凈 [tsɪŋ]&#xA;傷 [sœːŋ]&#xA;坐 [tɕʰɔː] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any set of rules that fully describes where sound is used? Also, how much variation is there among individual speakers? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T14:28:57.080" Title="Difference between alveolars and alveolo-palatals in Cantonese" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12194" CreationDate="2015-01-26T11:25:35.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;讲解 = 讲 + 解. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally, 讲 means to talk, speak, and say, etc, and 解 means to solve, understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;解释 = 解 + 释. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;释, as far as I know, its' more like a Buddhism word which means to explain some profound idea and guide you to understand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, when you mean someone tell you something orally, you may use the former one if you are saying &quot;Somebody explained something to me orally&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The later one can be used in a wider range of situations since it does not limit the way you've been explained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3932" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T11:25:35.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12200" CreationDate="2015-01-26T12:51:33.200" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In essence, palatalisation of the alveolar fricative and affricate consonants occurs before front rounded vowels /y/, /œ/ and /ɵ/, with the effect strongest with /y/. It is weakly palatalised in front of /œ/ and /ɵ/, to much less of an extent than Mandarin Pinyin j-, q-, x-; however, there is some variation among speakers. See Matthews &amp;amp; Yip (2014) &lt;em&gt;Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bRCsAgAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA474&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;page 474&lt;/a&gt;, as well as &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&amp;amp;lr=&amp;amp;id=uys1QNq4t-AC&amp;amp;pg=PA88&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; from Zee (1997).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It &lt;em&gt;used&lt;/em&gt; to occur with the front unrounded vowel /i/ as well: see the entry of palatalization in &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&amp;amp;lr=&amp;amp;id=DTtyU2CC-B8C&amp;amp;oi=fnd&amp;amp;pg=PA545#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bauer &amp;amp; Benedict (1997)&lt;/a&gt;, so I'd imagine some of the older generation would preserve this form of allophony. I'm not sure if there's anything in the literature as to variation in this part of diachronic Cantonese phonology!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2015-01-26T14:28:57.080" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T14:28:57.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12194" CreationDate="2015-01-26T19:18:03.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in addition to @monalisa 's answer,&#xA;You can also use 解释 when you want to give a reason or excuse to something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 我今天上课迟到了, 因该向老师解释一下迟到的原因. (I'm late for school today, I should explain the reason to my professor.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9297" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T19:18:03.740" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12194" CreationDate="2015-01-26T19:33:23.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;讲解 has an emphasis on the person whom does the explaining&#xA;解释 is more strightfoward just explaining &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T19:33:23.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12197" CreationDate="2015-01-26T22:30:50.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@S.Rhee What confuses me is that I don't see any rules in terms of the adverbials placement in a sentence. Not quite as you said &quot;according to the general principle of modifier before modified head word it has to precede at least one other 状语&quot;, I know 他昨天直接果然从学校去了图书馆 isn't correct either. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T22:30:50.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12207" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-27T02:01:59.580" Score="6" ViewCount="1286" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is what I'm thinking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不得不&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pm. &quot;cannot but, have to&quot; this seems colloquial, and the fact that dictionaries think of this as a set phrase/fixed expression makes me think so. Also feels like the &quot;can't help but&quot; of 忍不住.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;必须&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adv. &quot;must, have to&quot; this feels to me like it might be formal, is that right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;只好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adv. &quot;have to, have no choice but, be forced to&quot; this sounds begrudging, like you have to or must, but don't really want to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;应该&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;aux. &quot;should, ought to, must&quot; I think I usually hear this more often to mean &quot;should, ought to&quot; and not really as must, but I'm not that sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anybody clarify where I'm right and where I'm wrong in my thinking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks muchly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T07:05:30.390" Title="不得不, 必须, 只好, 应该: what's the difference?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12208" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12214" CreationDate="2015-01-27T04:13:30.717" Score="0" ViewCount="1202" Body="&lt;p&gt;English has &lt;code&gt;take the weight off your feet&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;cop a squat&lt;/code&gt; as a colloquialisms meaning &lt;code&gt;take a seat&lt;/code&gt;. I've heard Canadian-French has the expression &lt;code&gt;to grab some wood&lt;/code&gt;, or more literally &lt;code&gt;to pull oneself a log&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;tire-toi une bûche!&lt;/strong&gt;) meaning to take a seat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What colloquialisms exist in Chinese to ask/tell someone to take a seat? (if any(?))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-01-28T02:31:13.267" LastActivityDate="2015-01-28T02:31:13.267" Title="Colloquialisms: &quot;(Please) Take a Seat&quot;" Tags="&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12197" CreationDate="2015-01-27T07:23:10.503" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a more complete discussion of adverbial order, see ＂实用现代汉语语法＂, page 524：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;２。除了大部分副词以外，限制性的状语按下列顺序排列：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）表示时间的状语；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（２）表示语气以及在分句之间起关联作用的状语；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（３）表示目的、依据、关涉、协同的状语；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（４）表示处所、空间、方向、路线的状语；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（５）表示对象的状语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;果然 belongs to （２），thus it should come second after（１）time adverbial， more examples of（２）, adverbials （in fact adverbs） expressing mood （语气）：难道、岂、究竟、偏偏、索性、简直、大概、莫非、到底、原来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;直接 may be counted among the majority of adverbs （大部分副词）not included above which should be immediately in front of the verb （or adjective predicate）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a more complete discussion see the quoted grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the relative position of (1) and (2), according to &lt;em&gt;Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar&lt;/em&gt; p.148, adverbials indicating mood or tone are interchangeable in position with time expressions, thus confirming some of the comments above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T01:34:59.163" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:34:59.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12207" CreationDate="2015-01-27T10:57:47.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most parts you think are exactly correct. And there is a few advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;不得不&lt;/code&gt; is used more often in writing than oral. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;只好&lt;/code&gt; is almost equal to &lt;code&gt;have no choice but&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;只能&lt;/code&gt; is similar to &lt;code&gt;have to&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;只好&lt;/code&gt; in many conditions do not have &lt;code&gt;force&lt;/code&gt; meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8141" LastActivityDate="2015-01-27T10:57:47.047" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12208" CreationDate="2015-01-27T17:21:28.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no colloquialisms equivalent of 请坐 in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Best I can think of are: 请入座, 请坐吧, 坐下吧, 入座 In ancient china, the&#xA;  emperor would say 赐坐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9297" LastActivityDate="2015-01-27T17:21:28.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12208" CreationDate="2015-01-27T18:18:10.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;briefly , in chinese there are two words with the same pronouciation , &quot;坐&quot; and &quot;座&quot; . 坐 means &quot;to sit&quot; and 座 means &quot;seat&quot; ( notice the common structure ) . and the word 请 ( as of modern use ) means &quot;allow me let you do xxx&quot; in a polite manner .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so 请坐 is literally &quot;allow me let you sit down&quot; but is generally interpreted as &quot;please sit down&quot; . and 请就座 is literally &quot;allow me let you move yourself approaching some seat&quot; i.e. &quot;please take seats/a seat&quot; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;more often in daily conversations we say 请坐 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a typical usecase 请就座 is , when the speaker is host of some gathering , and plural people are entering through a door , the speaker may say 请就座 after greeting them . this sounds more formal .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both terms are used not affected either for lower class speaking to higher class , or for higher class speaking to lower class .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;though syntactically by 请坐 the we assume the listener(s) is(are) close to the seat(s) and by 请就座 we assume the listener(s) is(are) away from the seat(s) , this is not usually a big factor of how we determine which phase to say .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8102" LastActivityDate="2015-01-27T18:18:10.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12208" CreationDate="2015-01-27T23:14:39.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/7/8b/153253.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;歇脚&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, lit. &quot;rest one's feet&quot;. Usually this word is used when someone has been on their feet for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-01-27T23:14:39.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12207" CreationDate="2015-01-28T01:34:00.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不得不 - implies there is some awful consequence if you do not do it&#xA;必须 - has something to do with comply to rules or policies&#xA;只好 - informal&#xA;应该 -  this is the most different one, the notes in your OP is 100% right about it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2015-01-28T01:34:00.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12176" CreationDate="2015-01-28T02:27:14.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;天知道 is also ok&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;For all you know, something could have happened.&quot;&#xA;說不定發生了一些事情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;We better wash them first, for all we know, they could be covered in pesticide&quot;&#xA;還是先洗洗，天知道有沒有農藥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastActivityDate="2015-01-28T02:27:14.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12194" CreationDate="2015-01-28T03:10:48.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;講解, 說明 are more commonly used when your explanation is to teach something.&#xA;解釋 is more similar to &quot;explain&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for example, if a wife is angry at her husband, he can say 聽我解釋, but not 聽我講解 or 聽我說明.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastActivityDate="2015-01-28T03:10:48.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12221" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12224" CreationDate="2015-01-28T05:38:04.527" Score="7" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Cantonese speaker. I found that we have to change the tones of some words, when used in particular phrases. But I don't know why. It seems that it doesn't follow any &quot;rules of changing tone&quot; like those in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example is 蘭, which is pronounced as &quot;lan4&quot;. But in 荷蘭(Holland), it's pronounced as &quot;lan1&quot;. And similarly for 欄 in 果欄, 士 in 的士. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone give some more examples and explain why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Another example, 鞋 usually pronounced as &quot;hai4&quot;. But in 拖鞋 it is pronounced as &quot;hai2&quot;. However, in 皮鞋, it becomes &quot;hai4&quot; again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Another example, 壺 usually pronounced as &quot;wu4&quot;. But &quot;wu2&quot; in 水壺，茶壺 etc. Yet &quot;wu4&quot; again when you say 一壺茶.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: 下 ha6, but ha2 in 鄉下．&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastEditorUserId="9326" LastEditDate="2015-01-28T07:37:56.183" LastActivityDate="2015-01-28T15:20:41.000" Title="Why the change in tones of the words in some phrases?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12222" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-28T06:20:53.327" Score="0" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;实行24 小时工作制。车队利用夜间进行运输，及时&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;卡车卸货，保证在18个小时内完成整个运输过程。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it must be ‘把’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-01-28T06:40:53.933" LastActivityDate="2015-02-08T03:45:06.723" Title="What is the function of in this 为 sentence?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12221" CreationDate="2015-01-28T15:20:41.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;粵語的聲調變化分成連續變調與變音 (morpho-phonemic change)。主要發生在複詞或疊字詞，一般來讀低音域（主要是低降調）的第二音節會轉為高昇調。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1) 連續變調：不發生語意或文法上的改變:  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家人稱呼，如：爸爸（baa4 baa1）、媽媽（maa4 maa1）、弟弟（dai4 dai2）、太太（taai3 taai2）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2) 變音：會發生語意或文法上的改變: &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i) AAB型疊字詞，如：立立亂（laap6 laap2 lyun6，雜亂的)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ii)名詞作為容器量詞使用時保持原來的聲調，如：一盒朱古力（jat1 hap3 zyu1 gu1 lik1，一盒巧克力）vs 呢個盒（ni1 go3 hap2，這個盒子）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like what you mentioned is explained in the last example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the origin:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B2%A4%E8%AF%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B2%A4%E8%AF%AD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-01-28T15:20:41.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12225" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12236" CreationDate="2015-01-28T15:23:27.153" Score="2" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a pretty specific situation, so I hope you can help me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9329" LastActivityDate="2015-01-31T03:46:34.303" Title="Greeting in an Email Autoresponse: 您好， 亲爱的 or something else?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12226" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-28T15:48:28.543" Score="3" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to find someone that will help me take words that are spoken in Spanish, such as Hola, and represent the sounds made by hola in Chinese Pinyin so someone who doesn't speak Spanish could speak a few words of greeting etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also like to have some help doing the same from English into Pinyin and Pinyin into English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9330" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:29:38.187" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:29:38.187" Title="I need help translating &gt;how&lt; a word would be spoken" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12225" CreationDate="2015-01-28T17:22:05.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To business client its best to use &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;尊敬的客户(or person's lastname followed by 小姐/女士/先生):&#xA;   您好!&#xA;   (Content)&#xA;&#xA;   再次感谢您对我行一贯的支持与厚爱.&#xA;   (or 再次感谢您给我们提供沟通交流的机会，祝您家庭幸福，年年安康！)&#xA;   谢谢!  &#xA;&#xA;&#xA;                                           (Your name, Company)    &#xA;                                                     2015年1月 &#xA;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To family and friends you can use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;亲爱的姐姐:&#xA;    你最近好吗?&#xA;    (Content)&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;                                                     爱你的弟弟&#xA;                                                     2015年1月&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尊敬的 is formal, (used in email response to your boss, elder)&#xA;亲爱的 is less formal, if you know the client you are responding to, you can use 亲爱的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9297" LastEditorUserId="9297" LastEditDate="2015-01-28T17:39:48.483" LastActivityDate="2015-01-28T17:39:48.483" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12228" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-29T05:44:51.033" Score="6" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/6216.htm&quot;&gt;或&lt;/a&gt; is used today for the meanings &quot;or&quot;, &quot;either&quot;, &quot;maybe&quot;, and &quot;perhaps&quot;. Historically, it had the meaning of &quot;region&quot;, and it is this meaning that characters like 國 and 域 derive from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This original definition is reasonable given its composition; it has the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagger-axe&quot;&gt;dagger-axe&lt;/a&gt; radical (戈), and according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/sw/6216.htm&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;, it signifies someone guarding territory:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从囗从戈，以守一。一，地也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, it's unclear how this character could get its modern meaning. How did this evolution take place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T06:49:01.530" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T02:04:08.790" Title="或: how did &quot;region&quot; become &quot;either&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12228" CreationDate="2015-01-29T06:41:22.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have did some researches about the word &quot;或&quot;&#xA;Modern meaning of this word are &quot;or&quot;, &quot;either&quot;, &quot;maybe&quot; and perhaps (或许)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;弌 means taking the &lt;strong&gt;weapon&lt;/strong&gt; (戈) and &lt;strong&gt;patrol around&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;囗 means &lt;strong&gt;country&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;boundaries&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, combination of this 2 words means taking the weapon and patrol around your country/boundaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;边境巡逻，遇到敌情，具有不确定性，故本字在读音为时，表示一种“或然性”、“概然性”的概念，由此从实词转为虚词，衍生出“或许”、“或者”这一类表示“不能肯定”的词汇。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While you patrol around your country, you have no idea when the enemy will strike. So it happens you have a feeling of uncertainty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This uncertainty evolve into the use of this word &quot;或&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Maybe later the enemies will strike?&quot; Who knows &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9331" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T06:41:22.647" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5451" CreationDate="2015-01-29T09:51:18.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hNp6T.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the left text on the sea is :&#xA;firangian(佛郎机人, used to be what Chinese call spainish and portuguese) chamber of commerce used to pass this sea by vessel and see parrot's land, however, they didn't stop there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the right text on the sea is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;big waves all the year here and giant 鳄鱼(originally means crocodiles but I think here just means big fishes) as big as a giant vessel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the left text on the land is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;parrots' land : this land have lots of parrot so name it parrots' land.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the right text on the land is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this land yields spice and 椒（would means chili or pepper）but the residents here are sly so should not do trading with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this part should not be a strong evidence of Chinese found Australia. Now we know the south of Africa is Antarctica, that should not yields parrot or spice. I guest this part is ether Australia or somewhere in south America, only this place could possiblely yield parrot and spice. south America is more likely since it's parrot and spice is famous. portuguese and spanish was likely to reach somewhere of Agentina by wind mistakenly but still though they was heading southward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9333" LastEditorUserId="9333" LastEditDate="2015-01-29T10:14:10.743" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T10:14:10.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12231" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-29T13:39:17.623" Score="-4" ViewCount="1337" Body="&lt;p&gt;I received this letter from my crush. Please help me translate this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/thxtK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HfXlk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5mbKT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9334" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2015-01-29T22:27:04.423" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T22:27:04.423" Title="Can someone translate this chinese letter?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ClosedDate="2015-01-29T22:25:04.463" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12228" CreationDate="2015-01-29T15:51:20.470" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;without implying that the classical explanation is necessarily correct, worth noting that 康熙字典 thinks 或 was the original single character for 惑, before the latter character was introduced. Not hard to see how the grammatical usages of 或 could have evolved while it still also meant 惑. Or the other way around, the grammatical function could have been original, from which the meaning of 惑 is easily derived.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2015-01-29T19:45:49.457" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T19:45:49.457" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12231" CreationDate="2015-01-29T16:07:36.810" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First I have try my best reenter all the words, although the grammar was very bad.&#xA;I try my best to translate to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I only translate what I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS&lt;/strong&gt;: Sorry for the bad English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;只是我亲爱的(your name here)到，&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dear lovely (your name here) only,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这是我们的一年的今天。我是们整个作出这一年在一起我们的漂亮非常第一次。你极其最了不起的人，我知道。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today is our first anniversary. We did it very beautiful for the first time. You are the most wonderful man, I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你可以总是把一个巨大的微笑在我的脸上没有每第二次尝试即使我跟你只是花似乎使我更快乐和甚至爱你这么多的更多。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You always put a big smile on my face with first try although you and me was just (flower)?? seems to make me happier and even love you so much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这是我们一年的今天。我们取得了一整个美丽年在一起我们第一次。你非常的最了不起的人，我知道。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today is our first anniversary. We obtain a beautiful year for our first time together. You are a very wonderful man, I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;没有甚至尝试只是陪你每分每秒似乎让我更快乐，甚至爱你更快乐多，你可以总是把我的脸上露出大大的微笑。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even no trying just accompany you every second seems to make me happier, even love you more, You can always make my face show a big smile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你的吻是真的可爱，你给最好的拥抱。我真的不想过要失去你，它的想法是最可怕的事情。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your kiss was truly cute, you gave the best hug. I really never though of losing you, It's idea was the most frightening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;没有言语和行动将永远能够描述你是我的最爱。我过于欢喜欢喜要能够说你属于我。人们说没有人是完美的但对我来说你是完美的婴儿。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nothing will be able to describe you are my favorite. I am over joy to say you belong with me. People say no one is perfect but for me you are the perfect baby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我幸福和幸运的女孩要做你的情人在这整个世界。你特别的吻是最好的。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a lucky girl with happiness to become your lover in this world, your special kiss was the best. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;还记得我们曾从小计划我们的关系。肯定你那可爱的故事可能已经忘了。我想再次提醒你。要记住这个故事&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still remember we had plan our relationship since young. I am very sure you had forgot that cute story of yours. I want remind you again.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们共享相同的饭盒和矿泉水瓶。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We share the same lunch box and water bottle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你玩我的头发。你故意推着我，也爱会迫使你。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You play my hair, push me purposely also love to force you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们庆祝我们的生日在一起，消减我们的蛋糕在一起，一起享受。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We celebrate our birthday together, cut our cake and enjoy it together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;如果任何一个女孩来给你做你的朋友，我告诉她 你是我的男朋友说请让别人替你的朋友。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If any girl came to be your friend, I tell her you are my boyfriend please ask others to be your friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我完成你的家庭作业。现在作为扩展顺便说一下我们的成长过程。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I finished your homework. Now for expand meanwhile talk about our growth process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;但我们仍然是好朋友，你却像一个不同的女孩。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we are still friends, you are like a different girl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;在这一天，你在骗上给那女孩一把ak步枪。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This day, you lie to the girl on an AK rifle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;所以你跟我说清，心里很难过。那么这就是我们的出发点。然后我们似乎喜欢彼此&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so correct with me, felt very sad. This is our starting point, and we seem to like each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你可以写我一篇论文&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can write me a paper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;现在我们已经进入大学,你一直和我想要在其他大学第二个大学中&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we had enter University, You've been at other universities, and I want a second university.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;握住我的手，然后你说你爱我，我也爱你，甚至在我的手上的一个吻。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hold my hand, and you say you love me, I love you too, even kiss on my hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;现在我们常做的事情。那么我们的研究就是它已释放它。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we often do. So our study is that it has been released it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;然后你会回来到勒克瑙返回然后有一天你把我叫到一些东西。然后上午你要嫁给我和医管局会在说话。然后你带我回家迎接他的父母去叶片。收养我你父母那边但你母亲_被剥夺。然后我们去我家问他的妈妈对爸爸找出关于你的所有第一生气 但我说服每个人往往都同意，然后做我们好的婚姻。你做你的妻子再次感到_许多天后，我们发现你的父母在附近集镇。他们看见那离，我们让他们感到伤心哭泣那么你看到的喉咙。然后很高兴我除了，然后我们开始生活乐趣。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very complicated, I had tried my best to understand but I failed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我今天，爱你胜过我爱过你昨天&#xA;&#xA;每分钟都给你带来靠近一点&#xA;&#xA;新的感情开始在我的心为你&#xA;&#xA;希望我在你的身边不是英里&#xA;&#xA;只是为了把你抱在我怀里，并告诉&#xA;&#xA;你我爱你，我希望我能在附&#xA;&#xA;近的时候你感觉悲伤，或只是&#xA;&#xA;抱着你，如果你是悲伤和忧郁&#xA;&#xA;给你一些安慰和爱过你关心你&#xA;&#xA;与您，看日落，在悬崖上跳海的，在&#xA;&#xA;那里和你在一起直到第二天太阳升起&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, I love you more than yesterday. Every minutes will bring you closer, new feelings in my heart starts for you, Hope you not miles away from me. Just want to hug you in my arms and tell you I love you, I hope I can be your side when you felt sad or just hug you, if you are sad and gloomy, I can comfort you love you care you. watch the sun set with you on the cliff, be with you till next morning when the sun rise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;“我爱你这么多我__”&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I love you so much&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;“你的小天使”&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Your angel&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;仙人&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9331" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T16:07:36.810" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12225" CreationDate="2015-01-30T07:41:32.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplest and safest way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;您好，&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your email auto response included name(from email or etc): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Franjo Tušek， &#xA;             您好，&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9331" LastEditorUserId="9331" LastEditDate="2015-01-31T03:46:34.303" LastActivityDate="2015-01-31T03:46:34.303" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5779" CreationDate="2015-01-30T08:08:34.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, N and L are often mutually mixable.  For example, nian2 年 could be like nien or lien.  So when a Canto speakers tries to say it, it could be like nlian2.&#xA;Another classic example is 你 which may be nei or lei.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Even more classic is when someone is from 湖南 and we hear they are from 荷兰 but perhaps linguistically HuNan Hua and Canto are similar mixing their Ns and Ls.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some cheats for tones like Second tone in Mandarin nearly always is 4th tone (lowest) in Cantonese like 平 or 层. But of course there are tone sandhis like for 楼 (I read that in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/962279260X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;book by Kataoka and Lee&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9339" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-01-30T12:48:43.070" LastActivityDate="2015-01-30T12:48:43.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12188" CreationDate="2015-01-30T08:48:57.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always tell other people that Chinese is in fact a descriptive language. We do not make a new name for everything, but rather describe what it is. I just took human anatomy and had some fun explaining this to my classmates. For example skull is 颅（头）骨, which literritly head bone; sternum is 胸骨, which is chest bone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the question. I'll say this method is called describing. This method is particularly useful when you try to describe homophones characters. Just like saying &quot;sail as in sail boat&quot; to differentiate sail from sale. I guess the easiest way to come up what combination to use is to go by the first definition given in the dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3222" LastActivityDate="2015-01-30T08:48:57.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12240" CreationDate="2015-01-30T10:17:37.407" Score="6" ViewCount="740" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know much about Chinese military history, but I do see this character appearing on historical uniforms (fictitious or actual)  worn by soldiers in movies, some are set in the Qing dynasty some are earlier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a tradition of using 勇 in military context? What connotations does this have? Or do you have anything you could contribute concerning this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-01-30T13:37:09.750" Title="勇 character on soldiers' uniforms in movies" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12239" CreationDate="2015-01-30T13:37:09.750" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is more of a history question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勇 is short for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/ee/244177.htm&quot;&gt;乡勇&lt;/a&gt;, which roughly means &quot;militia&quot;. They are temporary soldiers recruited from the local population in times of need, and are usually disbanded soon after. Soldiers wearing 勇 on their uniforms was a Qing dynasty thing though; they stood in contrast to the elite &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Banners&quot;&gt;Banner Armies&lt;/a&gt; and the professional &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Standard_Army&quot;&gt;Green Standard Army&lt;/a&gt;, both of which could be lifetime occupations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In movies, you might see Qing soldiers wearing uniforms with either 兵 or 勇 written on it. Those with 兵 would probably be from the Green Standard Army, which was usually employed as a police force, although theoretically Bannermen could be wearing this uniform as well. Those with 勇 would be the militia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, 勇 would be of inferior quality to 兵. There is also a connotation of loyalty - as 勇 are raised by local authorities, they tend to be less loyal to the Imperial regime than their local masters. Things were different during and after the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion&quot;&gt;Taiping rebellion&lt;/a&gt;, where the 勇 were transformed into a standing army called the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiang_Army&quot;&gt;Xiang Army&lt;/a&gt;. The fact that these soldiers were - like their 勇 predecessors - loyal only to their own commanders would foreshadow the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_Era&quot;&gt;Warlord Era&lt;/a&gt;, where many of the warlord armies could trace their origins back to various Xiang armies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further information here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://history.sina.com.cn/bk/mqs/2013-12-18/145264781.shtml&quot;&gt;http://history.sina.com.cn/bk/mqs/2013-12-18/145264781.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-01-30T13:37:09.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12243" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12265" CreationDate="2015-01-31T02:51:05.950" Score="5" ViewCount="4052" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the course of a conversation in (American) English, I often respond to casual observations and statements using a neutral phrase such as &quot;Oh, interesting&quot; &quot;Oh, I see&quot;  or &quot;That's cool.&quot; I've realized that I have never been able to translate this and I often find myself using variations of 真的吗？是吗？to acknowledge what is being said.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Hey, I saw Mary at the store yesterday.&quot; 诶, 我昨天在超市见了Mary! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Oh, cool. How was she?&quot; Umm...Uhh...真的吗? 他怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm basically looking for a phrase to respond to mundane things like &quot;I started taking guitar lessons&quot; or &quot;I saw that movie yesterday&quot; because at least for me, the rhythm of the conversation feels awkward without it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does just saying 真的吗？是吗? work for this? Because I feel like saying this over and over again makes me look a super skeptical person, disbelieving that somebody could possibly buy eggs at the grocery store or see that guy at the bank. Because I don't feel like 是吗 and 真的 translates feel of English phrase &quot;oh really?&quot; does it? Is there a colloquialism that is just as versatile as the English saying &quot;Oh, that's interesting.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would want to translate &quot;cool&quot; as a way of expressing that I have some fleeting interest in the conversation. Somebody has translated the slang word &quot;lame&quot; as “没趣&quot; for me... so does it follow that cool is &quot;有趣&quot;? I've seen 趣 in th 对 + Object + 感兴趣 structure, but can you colloquially describe somebody as 有趣 or an activity as 有趣 as well? And could I say it in this way in the situation above? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T05:51:39.083" Title="What is Mandarin's conversational equivalent of English's &quot;How interesting!&quot; or &quot;That's cool&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12243" CreationDate="2015-01-31T03:57:45.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could say: &#xA;那好啊&#xA;不错嘛&#xA;OR&#xA;你艳福不浅啊（这是开玩笑了。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-01-31T03:57:45.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12188" CreationDate="2015-01-31T04:13:22.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the tasks of Chinese language class in China for the Chinese kids is called  组词，and the other one is 造句.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Means &quot;putting together compound-words&quot; and &quot;making sentences&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first task is to answer your question. For example，in a homewrok, it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请用“组”组词。要求5个词。&#xA;答案：组织，分组，组成，组队，第一组。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-01-31T04:13:22.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12185" CreationDate="2015-01-31T04:25:40.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it might be better to separate the two languages in practice. One is that there may not exist the apple to apple comparisons of the two spoken systems. And secondly, even if there are some sounds that could show similarities, those probably are not good indications but instead trouble makers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To improve English, it is better to mimic the sentences, not the words, and definitely do not try to correct it phoneme by phoneme with IPA. It just does not work.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-01-31T04:25:40.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12253" CreationDate="2015-01-31T08:29:50.793" Score="8" ViewCount="1527" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &quot;几点&quot; and &quot;什么时候&quot; seem to mean &quot;what time?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two examples that contain &quot;几点&quot; or &quot;什么时候&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们什么时候开会？ (My interpretation: &quot;When is the meeting?&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;现在几点? (My interpretation: &quot;What time is it?&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is there a way I could have found the answer to this question without asking someone? For example, maybe there is a website where I could search for instances of a word or phrase in a set of Mandarin sentences that have English explanations. I could see a pattern in usage by looking at enough examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I meant to ask, &quot;Is there way I can find an answer to a question of this type without asking someone?&quot;, where the type of question is &quot;Is there are difference between [Mandarin word/phrase 1] and [Mandarin word/phrase 2]?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9348" LastEditorUserId="9348" LastEditDate="2015-01-31T15:52:02.923" LastActivityDate="2018-03-07T02:54:48.287" Title="Is there a difference between &quot;几点&quot; (jǐ​diǎn) and &quot;什么时候&quot; (shén​me​shí​hou)?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12249" CreationDate="2015-01-31T08:51:14.513" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;几点 means &quot;what time?&quot; (~&quot;what o'clock?&quot;, if you need to put it that way), the answer is supposed to be something like 八点。 (At 8 o'clock, etc). (几 generally asks for or points to any number up to ~10 and 点 is among other meanings: o'clock.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么时候 is a general &quot;when?&quot;, you can answer this question with anything that marks the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way you could have found the answer: this is so basic, if you have a decent Standard Chinese text book, you should have encountered these expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-01-31T08:51:14.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12243" CreationDate="2015-01-31T09:07:28.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;是吧 is less interrogating and is frequently used. Vary with 哦 and similar interjections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd use 有意思 for interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I really wanted to say cool, I'd say 牛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-01-31T09:07:28.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12249" CreationDate="2015-01-31T15:13:20.803" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;几点，as the 点 word implies, requires that your answer include a specific time, expressed in with reference to the clock, as in &quot;five thirty pm&quot; “ten minutes past six&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么时候 is less specific, as 时候 means any time or period of time. Your answer can also be given just as if asked with 几点, but it can be anything else which bears sufficient information for answering your question, such as &quot;tonight&quot;, &quot;just now&quot;, &quot;two hours later&quot;, &quot;when my brother reaches home&quot;, &quot;just before I sleep&quot;. Beyond the scope of 几点, 什么时候 extends beyond the limit of the day. Therefore, your answer can also be &quot;two weeks ago&quot;, or &quot;near the end of the year&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When asking questions, 什么时候 is a more flexible word, suitable for asking most questions, especially if your answer cannot be an exact time, e.g. &quot;before I sleep&quot; in the case that you don't sleep exactly the same time everyday. However, if you need the exact time, such as that of a meeting/event, 几点 would serve you better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8137" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-07T02:54:48.287" LastActivityDate="2018-03-07T02:54:48.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12222" CreationDate="2015-01-31T15:36:02.080" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;为 means &quot;for&quot;, as most people know. In this case,  &quot;for&quot; is used as in &quot;unload the cargo for the truck&quot;. This usage is slightly less orthodox, but still makes quite some sense if you take it as a personification, treating the truck as if it has a mind, but cannot unload the cargo by itself, so you need to unload the cargo for it. This usage appears because everyone handles objects in their mind differently, and there are people who are used to this sort of personification, as demonstrated when someone consoles an object if the object falls from their hands or a table (mostly kids as adults don't express their thoughts as much. I cannot be sure, but this may be related to empathy). This kind of usage is further proliferated by human interactions in the society, where people tend to be affected and pick up others' language usage patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8137" LastActivityDate="2015-01-31T15:36:02.080" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12255" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12259" CreationDate="2015-01-31T16:07:29.720" Score="7" ViewCount="411" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I ask a stranger for directions or other information I begin with 请问.  It is especially important for me to use some opening phrase since people do not expect a foreigner to speak Chinese to them, and my accent is far from great.  But I wonder if many Chinese speakers actually use this themselves.  Is it polite? formal? old-fashioned?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would something else be better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-01-31T16:58:08.737" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T13:56:37.950" Title="Prefacing questions with 请问" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12256" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12268" CreationDate="2015-02-01T16:19:53.230" Score="3" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between those two? For instance, in a sentence like &quot;你们赶紧/快走吧&quot; can I use both indiscriminately? What are the particular conditions that make me prefer one rather than the other? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T01:42:16.963" Title="Which one to choose: 赶紧 or 快?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12256" CreationDate="2015-02-01T17:03:57.280" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the usage of the sentence &lt;code&gt;“你们赶紧/快走吧”&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes you can use both indiscriminately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only different between “赶紧” and “快” in the sentence above is the number of words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;赶紧&lt;/code&gt; means you have to do it now&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;快&lt;/code&gt; got other usage but one of them is same as &lt;code&gt;赶紧&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, if I have to use &lt;code&gt;快&lt;/code&gt; in the above sentence it would be like I'm shouting &lt;code&gt;快走吧！！&lt;/code&gt; shorten the number of sounds I have to pronounce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I will use &lt;code&gt;赶紧&lt;/code&gt; in the above sentence it would be like I'm talking gently &lt;code&gt;你们赶紧走吧&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9331" LastActivityDate="2015-02-01T17:03:57.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12255" CreationDate="2015-02-01T17:12:40.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before I want to ask a stranger, I will try to get their attention first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saying &lt;code&gt;您好/你好&lt;/code&gt; (Hello/Hi) before starting my question, then &lt;code&gt;对不起打扰了,请问&lt;/code&gt; or just &lt;code&gt;请问&lt;/code&gt; (Excuse Me) and followed by the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;您好,请问附近的医院是往哪个方向？ &#xA;嘿，打扰了，请问附近的医院是往哪个方向？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9331" LastEditorUserId="6165" LastEditDate="2015-02-03T13:56:37.950" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T13:56:37.950" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12256" CreationDate="2015-02-01T22:37:42.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In you question, there is not much difference. In other situations, 快 is more often used, for example, 时间过去的很快。我们快到家了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-01T22:37:42.040" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5796" CreationDate="2015-02-02T01:57:39.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct word for 師奶 should be 司奶：&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B8%AB%E5%A5%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B8%AB%E5%A5%B6&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;司 = responsible for&#xA;奶 = milk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient time, there were title like 司马、司徒、司空、司寇、司农。 For example 马 is horse and 司马 was equivalent to today's Defense Ministry, so 司奶 mean a person responsible for milk. In modern day, I think it is not polite to call a woman 司奶, especially young professional lady, since nowadays women have many responsibilities, not only milk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9356" LastActivityDate="2015-02-02T01:57:39.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12226" CreationDate="2015-02-02T08:18:45.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can help you with this.  This process is called &quot;transliteration&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example.  &quot;Hola&quot; would be &quot;哦啦&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9357" LastActivityDate="2015-02-02T08:18:45.193" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12256" CreationDate="2015-02-02T16:50:23.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are excerpts from &lt;em&gt;The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;,which is authority of the Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First，We talk about the discussion of answer above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though 'fast' and 'past' can be translated respectively as 快的 and 过去的, in Chinese, no expression like 时间过的真快.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4KSoA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The explanation of 的&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/j9D4v.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The explanation of 的 Part 2&quot;&gt;&#xA;As the dictionary says in Interpretation 3: 的 used &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;after a predicate verb to emphasize the perpetrator,time,place or method and the usage is only legal in past tense.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 得，in interpretation 3: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;used after verb or adjective to express the result or extent.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/S5qG9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The explanation of 得&quot;&gt;&#xA;If we directly translate the sentence into English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;时间  过      得  真        快&#xA;Time passed     really   fast&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得 has no corresponding translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Noticeably, both of them is light tone in the circumstance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In addition , in some ROC period or earlier literatures we can see they used 的 instead of 得.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Okay,let's talk about 赶紧 and 赶快.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TIvNZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The explanation of 赶紧&quot;&gt;&#xA;They both are adverb, the prior means seize the opportunity &lt;strong&gt;firmly&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;without any delay&lt;/strong&gt; and the later means to seize the opportunity,&lt;strong&gt;speed up&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In an emergency, we use 赶紧 more, such as 赶紧走！(Go quickly!),赶紧加工（Accelerate the process of machining）.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In some situations we also use 赶快: 赶快，否则你会迟到！（Hurry up, or you'll be late!），赶快上车（Get on quickly）。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WLSzS.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The explanation of 快&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bit confusing, actually, there are no so many differences between them. Often one can be replaced by the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9359" LastActivityDate="2015-02-02T16:50:23.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12255" CreationDate="2015-02-02T18:21:57.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese people often use this expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The old-fashioned method is much more complex. In ancient China, there are lot of form of addresses like modest words, taboo words, circuitous words and prefixes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A comment mentioned 年轻人 你好 , I do &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; recommend to say something like this to a young man especially if you are young. Because improper usage makes you like an old man, talking to a little child, they'll feel offended.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, if you are old enough , it's safe and even makes the atmosphere more relaxed.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;One mentioned 嘿(hei,hey)，it's only safe to foreigner to say. Chinese won't use the word to start a conversion between strangers in real life except for somebody just wanted to draw one's attention in a direct way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today in China, apart from the answers, different regions in China have different expressions.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你好(Nihao) is too ordinary for a foreigner. We can use some &lt;em&gt;regional expression&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In most part of China especially northeast we can call a man 兄弟（XiongDi,brother）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In most part of China like Shandong we can call a man 师傅(ShiFu,master worker)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In JiangXi，GuiZhou we can call a man 老表(LaoBiao,cousion)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In SiChuan, ChongQing we can call a man 哥子(GeZi,brother)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc.....&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you talk to a female, remember not to call she 小姐(XiaoJie),though in formal occasion we use the expression to refer to a young girl.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because in recent years the word attached another meaning which means &lt;strong&gt;pro sti tute&lt;/strong&gt;. &#xA;We'd better to make them sounds younger if you are not certain about her name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A madam you can call her 大姐（Dajie，   elder sister）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A girl you can call her 姑娘（GuNiang）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An old lady you can call her 大妈(Dama)， also can be 大娘(DaNiang) but not so universal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, we can call a young man 帅哥（ShuaiGe，Handsome guy），a girl even a madam（MeiNv，beautiful girl） around China.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In GuangDong here is a pair of expression has the same meaning: 靓仔（cool guy），靓女（cool girl）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the expressions above, you can start a talk without saying 你好：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;帅哥，西湖该怎么走？（Guy，how can I get to the West Lake ?）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  师傅，你知道哪里有加油站吗？（Master worker，do you know where is the gas station?）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  美女，你能帮我看看这个字怎么读么?(Beautiful girl,will you (please) help me find out how to pronounce the word? )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important thing is speak naturally, if you speak not fluently, it's embarrassing to repeat many times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9359" LastActivityDate="2015-02-02T18:21:57.037" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12243" CreationDate="2015-02-02T20:14:07.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for things like &#xA;”I started taking guitar lessons&quot; or &quot;I saw that movie yesterday&quot; you can say 嗯，感觉怎么样？（Oh， how do you like it?) to show your interest in the conversion.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Then they may say,不错（well）、一般（average）、糟（bad）,and now you are taking control of the conversion. You can comment on their response with few words and talk on something else.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对...object...感兴趣=be interested in ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If the object is somebody then it's a different matter:you have the tendency to love him/her.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有趣 seems not so native， people often say 有意思 instead. This show that they feel something is interesting. Besides, they say 搞笑 instead of 滑稽 or 有趣 when something is funny. They also say 太扯了 to say something is so ridiculous or amusing.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Some short expressions in English are widely accepted, such as good,what,cool,okay.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cool can be translated into many Chinese，but it rarely has connection with 有趣. More often it's 帅 or 牛。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 有趣 to describe an activity as well a person.But here is one point：if you use it on somebody,you have to make it clear that you are saying he or she is humours rather than ridiculous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not repeat one sentence over and over again, that just implies your mind has gone miles away from the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9359" LastActivityDate="2015-02-02T20:14:07.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10388" CreationDate="2015-02-02T21:01:59.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different structure phrase or word has different usage.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;发愁 is a compound （合成词） ，more specific, it can be classified as 动宾结构（ verb-object word group）。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;we can use degree verbs to break the structure: 发尽愁，发完愁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also， some adjectives can modify 愁：发无用（的）愁，发莫名（的）愁。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If we insert a 的 between them , the word will become a 偏正短语，愁 is the central word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9359" LastActivityDate="2015-02-02T21:01:59.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10388" CreationDate="2015-02-03T01:41:24.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difficult thing for an English speaker (or one in a similar situation) to understand Chinese sentences is that there is no clause (subclass sentence) in Chinese. For example, the above sentence: 他撒了一个神仙来了都遮不住的谎，if we could mimic it in English sentence style, it might be like this: 他撒谎, 那个谎话（that），一个神仙来了都遮不住。The lie is so big that even a supernatural being cannot cove it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This type of sentences could go even crazier. 他撒了一个神仙来了都遮不住的,有史以来都没有听说过的，走遍全世界也找不出来的弥天大谎。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My comments on &quot;他撒了一个神仙来了都遮不住的谎&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遮不住, is little bit too much deep for people here, but I wish I am wrong by saying it. This phrase means &quot;unable to do&quot;, it may come from青山遮不住，毕竟东流去. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T01:41:24.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12256" CreationDate="2015-02-03T01:42:16.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;赶紧 is an adverb and modifies the verb that follows it. It has the meaning of &quot;hurry up to do something&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For examples, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赶紧走  hurry up and go&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赶紧吃  hurry up and eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赶紧跟她道歉 hurry up and apologise to her&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快 in you example sentence functions as an adverb. It has the meaning of &quot;do something quickly.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们赶紧走吧 &quot;Hurry up and go&quot; and 你们快走吧 &quot;go quickly&quot; means essentially the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the word 快, in other contexts, can also be an adjective, which you can modify using 很，太，非常, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;時間過得很快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;時間過得太快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;時間過得非常快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you cannot do the same with 赶紧. This usage of 快 is very different from 赶紧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T01:42:16.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12269" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-03T02:17:00.280" Score="-4" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sentences that are not capable of being either true or false are called nonsense, e.g. &quot;quadruplicity drinks procrastination&quot; or &quot;Socrates is a man is a man&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to say &quot;The Chinese language is incapable of conveying Western philosophy; dialectical materialism is actually nonsense in Chinese.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best I can do is this: &quot;汉语无力承载西方哲学；辩证唯物主义用汉语讲没有意义。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it doesn't seem to scratch where it itches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2015-05-12T19:45:23.457" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T19:45:23.457" Title="How to translate &quot;nonsense&quot; into Chinese with precision?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12228" CreationDate="2015-02-03T03:46:00.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tuan Yu-Ts'ai (段玉裁, 1735-1815), a scholar of the Empire of Ch'ing (大清), wrote a book 說文解字注, namely Annotated 說文解字. He made a note on 或. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;邦也。邑部曰。邦者，國也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;It is a state. 域, 邑, 邦, 國 are synonym. My Note : Ancient states were not bounded by borderline as today. Ancient people gathered and built fortified habitats and became city-states later. Between city-states there were vast pieces of unclaimed lands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;葢或國在周時爲古今字。古文衹有或字。旣乃復製國字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;There was no character 國 in ancient world. Only character 或 existed at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以凡人各有所守。皆得謂之或。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;The place and act of people defense are called 或.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;各守其守，不能不相疑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;People of different places defense their own. They can't trust each other wholly.  It is doubt 疑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The outline of evolution of 或:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;或 by its sharp means that people pick up weapons and defense a place.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;或 describes the act, and the place people defense. Later refers to a city-state. (It is the origin of character 國 and 域, city-state / state / country / empire and territories)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;或 describes the distrust between city-states.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Distrust is doubt and uncertainty, the later meanings of 或. (It is the origin of 惑, doubt, puzzled, fooled)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With doubt and uncertainty, there comes the meaning of &quot;maybe&quot; of 或.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With &quot;maybe&quot;, there comes the meaning of &quot;or&quot; of 或.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All evolution happened few thousand years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T03:46:00.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12269" CreationDate="2015-02-03T04:05:22.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Cantonese speaker. From my understanding, sense is 合情合理, 通情達理, 合乎情理. The word 通, 情, 理 is more native word to describe sense. On the contrary, nonsense is 不合情理, 不通.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;dialectical materialism is actually nonsense in Chinese.&quot;, my Cantonese word is&#xA;&quot;唯物主義辯證法，用唐文講，係講唔通嘅。&quot;. Retranslate it to Chinese, &quot;唯物主義辯證法，唐文而言，是無法講通。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T04:05:22.747" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11018" CreationDate="2015-02-03T04:28:42.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although there is an accepted answer, it is better to write another to clarify it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 is an variant form of 著. But 著 has too many pronunciations and meanings. So they are functionally separated in two words, 著 and 着. Not all 著 can be written as 着.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong the distinction of 著 and 着 is very clear and they are never mixed up. Cantonese 著 pronounces tsu3 and 着 pronounces tsoek9, an entering tone word (入聲).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;著 is about prominent, writing, says, 著名, 名著, 著作.&#xA;着 is about wearing, benefit, chess move. 着衫, 衣着, 得着, 着數, 一着.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着, a particle of Written Mandarin Chinese, 看着.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T04:28:42.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12151" CreationDate="2015-02-03T04:44:09.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;鼓膜 is a medical terms, translated from Western world. It is seldom said in casual conversation.  Say 耳膜 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T04:44:09.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12249" CreationDate="2015-02-03T05:05:34.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;几点 means &quot;what time?&quot;, you need to answer time, i.e. 2 o'clock, 2:30. ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么时候 is a general &quot;when?&quot;, the answer might be: this morning, tomorrow afternoon, last winter, ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9264" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T05:05:34.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12279" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12289" CreationDate="2015-02-03T06:05:26.273" Score="2" ViewCount="1420" Body="&lt;p&gt;The context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Want to get lunch on Saturday?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: Don't count on me. My game may last until 1 PM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Several suggestions were offered for how to say, &quot;Don't count on me&quot; in Cantonese, but none seemed right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here were three suggestions, but none had the right connotation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;無遇我&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;無依賴我&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;無問我&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the right way to say, &quot;Don't count on me&quot; in Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T21:40:58.283" Title="How to say &quot;Don't count on me&quot; in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12207" CreationDate="2015-02-03T06:22:09.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;不…不… is more likely a language structure. There are 不能不，不想不，不好不 as well，they all mean have to do sth. and all of them are emphasizing that I originally not mean to do but under the circumstance I must do.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不得不离开我的家乡去打拼。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  （I have to leave my hometown to make a living)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不能不说他的作品非常好。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  （We have to say his work is fantastic)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谁做生意不想不赚钱？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  （Anyone who is a businessman doesn't want to make money?)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他是我的老师，我不好不答应他.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  （As he is my teacher，it seemed not so well to refuse him）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必须，adverb.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;（1）It's reasonable for you have to do sth.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;学习～刻苦钻研（(I/We) must study hard)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)Stress the imperative mood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;明天你～来（You must come here tomorrow)    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;应该 is a auxiliary verb.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(1)take for granted.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;~爱护公共财产。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (We should protect public property.)   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（2）estimate sth. must be...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天出门早，～不会迟到。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Leaving home so early today, I won't be late.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只好，adverb. have no choice but.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我等了他半天他还没回来，～留个条子就走了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  （Waited for him for such a long time, I had no choice but to leave a note and then walk away）  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some parts maybe confusing to understand, this is a common issue for starter. The more usage you know about a word or phrase, the easier for you to know about the whole system and how it works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9359" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T06:22:09.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12281" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-03T07:25:46.600" Score="6" ViewCount="2685" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 华裔 a term that means an ethnically Chinese person born and raised abroad? What about 2nd generation? Does it apply to, say, American born Chinese, Chinese-Canadians, Chinese-Australians, Chinese-Singaporeans, Chinese-Vietnamese etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It obviously does not apply to Chinese born and raised in mainland China. But does this term apply to people born and raised in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or let's say you are a Uyghur 维吾尔族 living overseas - do you identify as 华裔 Or 华人?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe depends on political view and not the etymology of the word...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, how is 华裔 different from 华侨 or even 华人?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9339" LastEditorUserId="42" LastEditDate="2015-02-03T13:46:44.887" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T19:34:25.577" Title="Does 华裔 mean 'overseas Chinese'?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12255" CreationDate="2015-02-03T07:56:50.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also use &quot;麻烦问一下&quot;, which means &lt;code&gt;Excuse me&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9362" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T07:56:50.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12279" CreationDate="2015-02-03T08:11:52.327" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I presume that you mean &quot;Don't count me in.&quot;.  In this case, you can say, &quot;唔使預我&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;使&quot; here is pronounced as &quot;sai2&quot; (i.e., same as 洗)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;唔使 = don't / no need&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;預我 = expect (/ prepare for) my presence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: If it is possible that B will or will not go, we usually say &quot;我未必來到&quot;, where &quot;來&quot; is pronounced as lai4 (黎) and &quot;到&quot; is pronounced as dou2 (倒).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit2: A bit old-fashioned way is to say &quot;唔好預實我喇.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;唔好 = don't&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;預實我 = expect my confirmed presence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;喇 = (simply an interjection)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2015-02-04T02:40:34.287" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T02:40:34.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12281" CreationDate="2015-02-03T08:35:06.127" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;华裔：华夏族的后裔，但大多数指华侨在侨居国所生并取得侨居国国籍的子女&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华侨：尚未加入外籍的中国公民，但长期居于国外；包括已取得居住国永久居民身份者，仍保留本国公民身份&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华人：属于中华民族的人的泛称&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华人： All Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华侨： Chinese Live overseas but no citizenship&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华裔： 华侨's children, get the citizenship&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taiwanese, Hongkongese, Macanese, called 同胞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Uyghur living overseas, you can call him 华人, if you dont know his identity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6637" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T08:35:06.127" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12269" CreationDate="2015-02-03T12:24:52.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I were you, I would write your sentence A as B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 汉语无力承载西方哲学；辩证唯物主义用汉语讲没有意义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 汉语因为受到本身的限制，无法完整地表达西方哲学的某些概念；比如：辩证唯物主义这个汉语词汇就没有正确地表达出它的原本的哲学意义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Sentences that are incapable of true or false are called nonsense&quot; in Chinese would be,&#xA;一句话如果不能够被判断真伪，那么这句话就没有任何的意义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比如说，桌子上有负一个苹果。没有人能明白它是对是错。&quot;负一&quot;用来指认苹果的个数，没有任何意义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, the way you express a idea is really related to more factors than just meaning. I do not see very much when people use &quot;nonsense&quot; in their discussion. And it is also true that Chinese people do not use  没有任何的意义 when they 平等地讨论问题。We usually give the other side some room to think about our opinion. That is why in my suggestion, I use, 完整地, 某些, 比如, 正确地, 原本的, etc. which are some flexible and restricting words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T12:24:52.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12281" CreationDate="2015-02-03T13:14:17.763" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 裔 indicates consanguinity, the relationship by blood or by a common ancestor. It is usually used as 族裔. The other most related word is  同胞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;侨 is specially used for living in places other than that when one is born.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We need to be very cautious when use those words in west countries because those topics are very much related to indicating races. Let's focus at the original meaning of a Language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T13:14:17.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12255" CreationDate="2015-02-03T13:32:42.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are already many suggestions to you, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you really worried about &quot;since people do not expect a foreigner to speak Chinese&quot; then I will give you a way to say it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose there comes a  年轻人, you could approach to him and say, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In English) Hello, do you speak Chinese?&#xA;and then,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In Chinese) Ni Jiang Zhong Wen Ma?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There will be a very short time of silence, and then LOL both of you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T13:32:42.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12249" CreationDate="2015-02-03T13:51:53.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ABC Chinese-English Dictionary, &quot;Dian3&quot; is &quot;of time&quot;, and, &quot;Shi2Hou4&quot; is &quot;a point in time&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of the usage,  &quot;Dian3&quot; is Noun, same as &quot;Shi2Jian1&quot;, for answering &quot;What it is&quot;. And &quot;Shi2Hou4&quot; is adverb, for answering &quot;when to do it&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ABC Dict is by John DeFrancis. I like it very much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T13:51:53.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12279" CreationDate="2015-02-03T17:37:49.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer has been edited:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no direct translation since the term &quot;Don't count on me&quot; in Cantonese is used in a sense of &quot;don't rely on me&quot; instead of &quot;do not make decision base on me&quot;.  Here's an alternative:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In oral: &quot;唔好預我一定黎&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唔好預我: Don't expect me&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一定黎: to come for sure  (黎 is a slang for come, the formal word is 到)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now you have told people you will come but it's not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2015-02-05T21:40:58.283" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T21:40:58.283" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12290" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-03T18:26:25.140" Score="12" ViewCount="6647" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between all these five words? They mean all &quot;to do&quot;, they're driving me crazy! &#xA;I write some example sentences with some of them (hoping that's the right one), just to understand if in some cases they are interchangeable:&#xA;我还有几件事要办，得先走了。&#xA;他是搞计算机的，有问题可以问他。&#xA;我的手机让弟弟给弄坏了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your help, I'd be so grateful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T20:53:54.890" Title="Differences: 干，办，做，搞，弄" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12290" CreationDate="2015-02-03T21:46:23.487" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;我还有几件事要（办/做）are basically carry the same meaning, which is official&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还有几件事要（干）I would say this is less formal that the top one, but you can use it in most of the occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是搞计算机的 here this 搞 = 从事于（engaged in）computer business or industry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but sometimes 搞 can express negative meanings like 他把工作搞得一团糟 he screwed his work, we usually use this as a fixed collocation: 搞得一团糟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弄 usually means casual and sometimes carries bad meanings, for example：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他马上就要弄好了，不要急。casual&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弄坏了 you can see this phrase as a fixed collocation, means broke something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9364" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T21:46:23.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12290" CreationDate="2015-02-03T22:44:19.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Differences: 干，办，做，搞，弄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh no! My God!!! (我的妈呀!!!). This is the very question that drives even a native Chinese craze. For another question on 的，得，地, you can probably ignore it and that will not damage anything. But this one, oh, it would kill you at once if you abuse them at the right time and the right place. I am warning you that there are dirty (sx) stories of them everywhere, especially 干 and 搞. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, there is no official answer to this question. In spoken language, it may very depend on the custom of different places. In written, it depends on the style of the article.  For example, some authors intentionally offset the meaning of one of the words, just to amuse the reader or emphasize some characters. &#xA;Therefore, we'd better stay in the middle to be safe. One may want to say the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干事情（任何事情）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;办公事（正式的办公室的事情）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做工作（动手做的事情）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;搞卫生（动作比较大的）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弄坏了东西（需要技术，但是没有这个技术）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-02-04T12:02:09.137" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T12:02:09.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12293" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-03T22:59:50.340" Score="2" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to figure out how to write &quot;In which country do you eat dinner?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know I need 你 (you), 哪 (which(which is my vocabulary word)), 个 (measure word), 国 (country), 吃 (eat), and 晚饭 (dinner). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just don't know in what order I should put the sentence! For example, should I put 你 before 哪? Tell me if any of these two following sentences are correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你吃晚饭哪个国吗?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;哪个国你吃晚饭？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9216" LastEditorUserId="23334" LastEditDate="2020-01-27T08:47:27.053" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T08:47:27.053" Title="How do I properly place each character in &quot;in which country do you eat dinner?&quot;" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12290" CreationDate="2015-02-03T23:02:46.767" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;汉语动词３８０例 ９０页：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干／搞／弄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;一、干&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１。今天大家干得真不错。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;动词＂干＂的意思是做某事／The meaning of 干 is to do some task，如～活儿、～家务事等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;２。他干翻译工作干了几年了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂干＂在这儿的意思是担任某种职务或从事某种工作／Here 干 means to be engaged in some work or to be in charge of something，如～队长、～设计工作等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;二、搞&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１。他搞这种工作很有经验。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;动词＂搞＂是表示做某事的意思／搞 means to do or carry out something，如～卫生、～家务、～计划等。＂干＂也可表示这种意思，通常可以互换，但＂搞＂所含的意思更广一些，＂搞＂可以代替一些不容易具体说出的动作／干 and 搞 are sometimes interchangeable，but 搞 has a wider range when referring to certain actions difficult to describe concretely， 如搞对象、搞运动等。＂干＂则不能代替／In these cases， 搞 cannot be replaced by 干。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;２。他朋友是搞体育工作的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂搞＂在这儿的意思是从事某方面的工作／Here 搞 means to be engaged in a certain type of work，如～生产、～革命等。主要区别是，＂干＂还有担任某种职务的意思，＂搞＂则没有／The difference between 干 and 搞 is that 干 implies taking some post， while 搞 does not。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;３。他搞到了两张足球票。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂搞＂在这儿指设法取得／Here 搞 indicates to manage to get，如～水、～钱、～汽车等。＂干＂不表示这种意思／干 has no such meaning。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;三、弄&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１。他家里弄得很整洁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;动词＂弄＂是表示做某事的意思／弄 means to do something，如～饭、～菜、～卫生等。＂弄＂和＂搞＂都可以代替一些不容易具体说出的动作，这时它们所带的宾语有时不相同，需要注意区别／Both 弄 and 搞 can be used to refer to actions difficult to describe concretely， but sometimes their objects are different，如弄孩子、弄电器、搞恋爱、搞运动等词组中的＂弄＂和＂搞＂分别有照料、修理、进行、参加等不同含义，弄 in ～孩子、～电器 means to take care of and repair， respectively；搞 in ～恋爱，～运动 means to engage in，and to take part in。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;２。他弄着了一套新房子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂弄＂在这儿是设法取得的意思／Here 弄 means to manage to obtain，如～车、～票、～护照等。＂搞＂也表示设法取得的意思，可以跟＂弄＂互换。＂干＂不表示这种意思／In this case，弄 and  搞 are interchangeable，but 干 cannot be used here。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;３。他喜欢弄花儿养鸟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂弄＂在这儿的意思是摆弄、玩弄花草或宠物等。＂弄＂有时含有贬义／Here 弄 refers to playing with something carelessly or playing a trick，如～手段等。＂搞＂、＂干＂都不表示这种意思／It is sometimes derogatory。Neither 搞 nor 干 has such a meaning。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T01:56:50.623" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:56:50.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10961" CreationDate="2015-02-04T00:07:31.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The kinds of relative terms vary from region to region.  Same term might have different context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here illustrates classical terms and region terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Grandfather (Father side)&#xA;Classical/祖父&#xA;Cantonese/亞爺&#xA;Mandarin/爺爺&#xA;&#xA;Grandfather (Mother side)&#xA;Classical/外祖父&#xA;Cantonese/公公(higher tone in second character)／亞公&#xA;Mandarin/外公&#xA;&#xA;Grandmother (Father side)&#xA;Classical/祖母&#xA;Cantonese/亞嫲&#xA;Mandarin/奶奶&#xA;&#xA;Grandmother (Mother side)&#xA;Classical/外祖母&#xA;Cantonese/婆婆(higher tone in second character)／亞婆&#xA;Mandarin/外婆&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note : 亞公 and 亞婆 is also a general term to the elderly man and woman in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin 奶奶 refers to father's mother but in Cantonese it refers to husband's mother. Great difference!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use pinyin, it will limit to Mandarin practice, not representing Chinese in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just translate to English counterpart and ignore the details of Chinese context unless it hurts understanding. You can always write a short clause to clarify. Say, My grandfather, that is my father's father, .... OR in writing, give a footnote to explain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T00:07:31.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12058" CreationDate="2015-02-04T00:18:26.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 號 was introduced when Westerner came to the city of Canton and applied only to Western calendar. 號 is the day number of Western month.  It is never applied to Chinese calendar. Only 日 is used in Chinese calendar. 日 is also applied to Western calendar in written form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四月十六號. It must be 16th April in Western calendar.&#xA;四月十六日. It is 16th April in Western calendar or the 16th day of 4th month of Chinese calendar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T00:18:26.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12293" CreationDate="2015-02-04T02:45:27.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which country do you eat dinner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你去哪个国家吃晚饭？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-02-04T13:40:06.407" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T13:40:06.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10388" CreationDate="2015-02-04T03:10:48.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q：发愁 , can be separated with an aspect particle and/or measure word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发了愁,发个愁,发过四次愁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What else can be put in between?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are most often used sentences as examples to your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为了儿子上学的事情，他妈妈&lt;em&gt;发了很大的愁&lt;/em&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从小到大，他妈妈为教育他，不知&lt;em&gt;发了多少愁&lt;/em&gt; 呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把邻居家的小孩儿打伤了，要赔几千块钱。他妈妈正为这事儿&lt;em&gt;发着愁&lt;/em&gt; 呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家里吃没得吃，穿没得穿，她老伴儿又死的早，她有着&lt;em&gt;发不完的愁&lt;/em&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都失业三个月了。什么时候才能找到工作啊？我都&lt;em&gt;发死愁&lt;/em&gt; 了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T03:10:48.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12302" CreationDate="2015-02-04T03:11:17.250" Score="12" ViewCount="559" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between ，and 、 as they appear in some texts, like in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/man-in-the-world-associated-with&quot;&gt;this passage&lt;/a&gt; of the Zhuang Zi (end of the second part):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是萬物之化也，禹、舜之所紐也，伏戲、几蘧之所行終，而況散焉者乎！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it like comma and semicolon? Or one is used for enumerations, or what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T23:16:46.760" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T23:16:46.760" Title="What's the difference between ，and 、" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12299" CreationDate="2015-02-04T03:22:11.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;、&lt;/code&gt; is used for enumerations. &lt;code&gt;，&lt;/code&gt; is the counterpart of &lt;code&gt;,&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9365" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2015-02-04T04:16:47.180" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T04:16:47.180" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12301" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12303" CreationDate="2015-02-04T03:23:29.893" Score="-2" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like I said in the title I would really like to know if anyone knows where to find the original characters that gave to the modern one their loaned meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9351" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T10:51:35.750" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T10:51:35.750" Title="Does anyone known a source where find from which characters the modern one borrowed their loaned meanings?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12299" CreationDate="2015-02-04T03:27:25.183" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q： The difference between ，and 、&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;，(逗号， Dou4 Hao4) is similar to what it is for in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;、(顿号，Dun4 Hao4) is to give a list of same type of things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &#xA;我喜欢吃苹果、香蕉、橘子、等等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If in English, it would be also a comma.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-02-04T03:34:38.017" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T03:34:38.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12301" CreationDate="2015-02-04T03:54:12.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually we use 《辞海》 to look up all the meanings of a character. I'm not sure if you have it at hand. However I searched the online resources and found a website could meet your requirement, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8060" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T03:54:12.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12293" CreationDate="2015-02-04T11:31:34.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, I would translate this in to &quot;你在哪个国家吃晚饭？&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9367" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T11:31:34.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10722" CreationDate="2015-02-04T16:28:51.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/class&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/class&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4a.  A group of students who are taught together, usually at a regularly scheduled time and in the same subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4c.  The subject material taught to or studied by such a group: found the math class challenging. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;班级 is 4a.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;课 is 4c.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T16:28:51.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5593" CreationDate="2015-02-04T18:19:34.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read the original question and the posts. I think they are very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to look at the questions from the following aspects, since the original question involved multiple concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Tone change when there are two consecutive tone-3 syllables. It is the first syllable that changes to tone-2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你好, Ni3 Hao3 -&gt; Ni2 Hao3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孔子, Kong3 Zi3 -&gt; Kong2 Zi3 (古代先师，子=教授)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老子, Lao3 Zi3 -&gt; Lao2 Zi3 (古代先师，子=教授)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Tone change to neutral (tone-5 or tone-0) when there are (a) -Er2, (b) -Zi3, (c) duplication, means the syllable is followed by 儿, 子, or repeating itself, such as 姐姐, 爸爸. In this case, the second syllable becomes (tone-5 or tone-0). The first syllable does not change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;椅子, Yi3 Zi3 -&gt; Yi3 Zi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本子, Ben3 Zi3 -&gt; Ben3 Zi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老子, Lao3 Zi3 -&gt; Lao3 Zi (爸爸，粗话的说法)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*But 孔子, 老子 is not in this category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T18:19:34.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12197" CreationDate="2015-02-04T19:39:29.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;从 A 去 (了) B, is the normal order. 直接从, and 直接去 is the same. 果然 and 昨天 should show as early as possible, even before 他. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A funny way is the following dialog:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &quot;他昨天直接从学校去了女朋友家.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &quot;果然!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T19:39:29.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12279" CreationDate="2015-02-05T01:58:26.850" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your situation, the most colloquial and natural expression that I can think of is &quot;我嚟得就嚟” （If I can come, I will.) The speaker is not committing, nor is s/he ruling out coming. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another expression closer to &quot;don't count on me/ don't rely on me (to do something, not necessarily joining the speaker for lunch)&quot; is &quot;唔好旨意嗮我。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T01:58:26.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12313" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-05T02:40:53.043" Score="2" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;The subject is ‘跨国公司进入一个新的市场’ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第三是企业的标准化阶段，与全球远作相结合的阶段。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think '相‘ is '互相‘&#xA;My guess is 远 works with 作:远作 = ‘remotely do'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third stage is company standardization stage, mutually(互相） combining with （company）global operations stage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T03:13:40.610" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T03:13:40.610" Title="Why is 远 in ...与全球远作相结合的阶段?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12222" CreationDate="2015-02-05T03:05:05.843" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't want to make you Chinese people blush, but I have often found that the logic of Chinese is more penetrating than English. In this particular case, in English we simply say 'unload the truck', which is actually ambivalent, albeit easily understood within the context of a given situation. If the truck were the cargo, we could also say the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has 为卡车卸货 for at least 2 reasons. 1 is to passivize, because the truck is not doing anything, 2 is to indicate the fact goods are taken from the truck, not the truck as cargo is unloaded from another vehicle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say here '为‘ is 'for' is not correct, in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T03:05:05.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2704" CreationDate="2015-02-05T03:22:41.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    王安石的“&lt;b&gt;桂枝香&lt;/b&gt;”用粤语来读十分完美：&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    登临送目，&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;正故国晚秋，天气初肃。&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    千里澄江似练，翠峰如簇。&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    征帆去棹残阳里，背西风，酒旗斜矗。&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    彩舟云淡，星河鹭起，画图难足。&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    念往昔，繁华竞逐，&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    叹门外楼头，悲恨相续。&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    千古凭高对此，谩嗟荣辱。&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    六朝旧事随流水，但寒烟衰草凝绿。&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;    至今商女，时时犹唱，后庭遗曲。&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9356" LastEditorUserId="9356" LastEditDate="2015-02-06T01:54:43.700" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T01:54:43.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12155" CreationDate="2015-02-05T03:42:10.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 3 words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人, for both people (plural), person (single).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,  屋里有一个人，院子里有五个人。Use 个 measure word in colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;口 is the measure word for 人 (和猪)。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,  我爷爷家有六口人，养了两口猪，一匹马，三头牛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人口， for population report。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,  人口统计。Also，城市人口，家庭人口。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T03:42:10.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12313" CreationDate="2015-02-05T03:51:46.313" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It must be 与全球运作相结合的阶段。&#xA;远作，there is no this compound word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T03:51:46.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12320" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12342" CreationDate="2015-02-05T12:53:17.237" Score="1" ViewCount="1049" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=cc-cedict&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; I can download the CC-CEDICT database, which backs the MDBG project's web site, as an CSV file. Personally, I am a fan of the great work of the MDBG project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I am evaluating dictionaries for a project which creates statistics for 普通话 texts like counting frequencies of words, characters, radicals, etc. The MDBG database maps characters to the 214 Kangxi radicals similar to the Kangxi dictionary, while the 新华字典 defines only 189 radicals. So, as input for the tool I'd prefer a database with specific 新华字典 contents or else the algorithm will count hits for radicals that don't exist in the 新华字典.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody know whether there is a &lt;strong&gt;legal&lt;/strong&gt; resource available for download for the 新华字典 and/or the 现代汉语大词典, similar to the CC-CEDICT database?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any hint would be highly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9368" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-02-08T18:54:08.047" LastActivityDate="2015-02-08T18:54:08.047" Title="新华字典 as CSV download available?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10342" CreationDate="2015-02-05T13:09:34.320" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is Mandarin impossible for my goals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. It is impossible. It needs a tremendous of time that you just do not have. It is like that you make a car yourself from steel sheets and rubber blocks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese Han Zi cannot be self-studied. It has been proved in history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need tools that (a) translate HanZi to Pinyin or something similar, and (b) a dictionary based on ABC. Search ABC dictionary, and try translate of Google.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T13:09:34.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9817" CreationDate="2015-02-05T13:35:03.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you could learn the meaning of most characters and understand them well enough to comprehend Chinese texts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you could.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters, Han4 Zi4, are just a system of signs. To remember a sign, we need to: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Remember its shape, in whatever way you like to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Give it a name to call it, either for communication with others or talk to yourself inside. The name is another sign in sound form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Know the meaning. It has been given by the author of the book that you are reading. If you are the author, you can use any sign for any meaning, but you then need to tell your reader about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as you get those, you are good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say, you can call 树 as tree, call 玫瑰 as rose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there comes a issue called grammar. I have to stop at here for short.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T13:35:03.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12313" CreationDate="2015-02-05T14:21:12.453" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;远作 is a misspelling. 远 is far. It should be 运作: operation. 运does not work along, it is like a root, you must combine it with some other words.&#xA;Ex: &#xA;运动 = sport, exercise&#xA;运输 = transportation&#xA;运转 = operation specifically for machines. &#xA;运河 = canal &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can tell from these examples that 运 is strongly related to something moves. When it is used in 远作 operation, it is used in an abstract way to emphasize the &quot;movement&quot; in an operation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, another root explanation for 远 is luck.&#xA;Ex: &#xA;运气 = luck&#xA;命运 = destiny &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9375" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T14:21:12.453" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12324" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12327" CreationDate="2015-02-05T17:51:24.253" Score="2" ViewCount="3319" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me understand how to say &quot;that&quot; in the following uses? Please provide pinyin in your answer, since my characters aren't so good :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He is the one THAT I saw. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's the one THAT I want. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They said THAT they would come.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T01:22:16.260" Title="&quot;that&quot; in Mandarin joining clauses or sentences?" Tags="&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12324" CreationDate="2015-02-05T18:54:35.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't need to use a relative pronoun in this case. The 的 construct serves as a prenominal adjectival phrase replacing the English concept of the relative pronoun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He is the one that I saw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他是我看見的（人）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tā shì wǒ kànjiàn de (rén).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It's the one that I want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;它是我想要的（東西）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tā shì wǒ xiǎng yào de (dōngxi).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last case isn't the same - &quot;that&quot; in this case is a way of highlighting an indirect quotation, and actually isn't grammatically necessary in English at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;They said (that) they would come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他們說他們會來。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tāmen shuō tāmen huì lái.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5808" LastEditorDisplayName="user5808" LastEditDate="2015-02-05T19:34:05.330" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T19:34:05.330" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12324" CreationDate="2015-02-05T19:22:14.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fact is that there is no Clause in Chinese grammar. The choices for you are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Separate to two sentence and use conjunction words. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is the one THAT I saw&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&gt; I saw him. He is the one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&gt; Wo3 Jian4 Dao4 Ta1 Le. Ta1 (Jiu4) Shi4 (Na4 Ge4) Ren2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Change to adjective or adverb, depends on the meaning of the sentence. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the one THAT I want. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&gt; It is the expected thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&gt; Zhe4 Shi4 Wo3 Xiang3 Yao4 de Dong1 Xi1. de is most used for adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Use :&quot;&quot; or just : for what it said. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They said THAT they would come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&gt; They said : they would come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&gt; Ta1 Men2 Shou1 Guo4 : Ta1 Men2 Hui4 Lai2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-02-06T01:22:16.260" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T01:22:16.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12324" CreationDate="2015-02-05T19:30:03.460" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word &amp;quot;that&amp;quot; in your third example actually doesn't introduce a relative clause. Rather it's being used as a subordinating conjunction. In this situation, the word &amp;quot;that&amp;quot; is generally optional in English, and it also is similarly omitted in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They said [that] they would come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们说他们会来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Tāmen shuō tāmen huì lái.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Relative clauses generally describe a noun or noun phrase (known as the antecedent). In Chinese, while 的 &lt;code&gt;de&lt;/code&gt; is often used to indicate possession, it more generally is used to link a description to a noun or noun phrase, and thus can similarly be used to introduce a relative clause. When the noun or noun phrase being described is understood in context, it is omitted, leaving simply &lt;code&gt;description + 的&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at your first example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is the one that I saw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relative clause is &amp;quot;I saw&amp;quot;, which is simply 我看见 &lt;code&gt;wǒ kànjiàn&lt;/code&gt;. In English the noun being described cannot be omitted when &amp;quot;that&amp;quot; is used to introduce the clause, which is why the word &amp;quot;one&amp;quot; appears to serve as the placeholder. In Chinese, it can be omitted, so &amp;quot;the one that I saw&amp;quot; ends up being simply 我看见的 &lt;code&gt;wǒ kànjiàn de&lt;/code&gt;, thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is the one that I saw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是我看见的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Tā shì wǒ kànjiàn de.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If instead there was a specific noun, such as &amp;quot;person&amp;quot; instead of &amp;quot;one&amp;quot;, you would have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is the person that I saw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是我看见的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Tā shì wǒ kànjiàn de rén.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Applying the same principles to your second example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the one that I want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它是我想要的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Tā shì wǒ xiǎngyào de.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT - Addendum:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in English the noun being described can be omitted if you instead use a relative pronoun to introduce the relative clause rather than using the word &amp;quot;that&amp;quot;. So instead of &amp;quot;He is the one that I saw&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;It's the one that I want&amp;quot;, you could say &amp;quot;He is who I saw&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;It's what I want&amp;quot;. The former have what are known as &lt;em&gt;bound&lt;/em&gt; relative clauses while the latter have &lt;em&gt;free&lt;/em&gt; relative clauses. The word &amp;quot;that&amp;quot; can only be used in bound relative clauses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just wanted to add this note to let you know that when you see a free relative clause, you can translate it to Chinese similarly, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like what he sees. (i.e., I like the one that he sees.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢他看见的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Wǒ xǐhuān tā kànjiàn de.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T22:04:19.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12329" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-05T21:35:29.587" Score="1" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this online, and I'm not really sure how it can be translated to english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;灵 = spirit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;术 = technique/surgery&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think it would either be spirit technique, or spirit surgery, but neither makes sense in terms of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt it is AP/Magic power, because that's 魔术 and not 灵术.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T12:19:09.063" Title="What would a good gaming translation for 灵术 be?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12331" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-05T23:28:35.753" Score="1" ViewCount="5128" Body="&lt;p&gt;Research:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In here, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;amp;ion=1&amp;amp;espv=2&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8#q=how%20to%20say%20never%20in%20mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;amp;ion=1&amp;amp;espv=2&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8#q=how%20to%20say%20never%20in%20mandarin&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;It says that to say never, you say, &quot;Cónglái méiyǒu&quot;, but another website, which is this one, &lt;a href=&quot;http://eteacherchinese.com/Chinese-Dictionary/never-0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://eteacherchinese.com/Chinese-Dictionary/never-0&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;says that you should say, &quot;cónglái méi&quot;, so, how do you say 'never' in Mandarin Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9337" LastEditorUserId="9337" LastEditDate="2015-02-05T23:33:48.483" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T02:53:19.270" Title="How to say 'never' in Mandarin Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12329" CreationDate="2015-02-06T01:26:16.120" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;just a magic associated with spirit,you can consider it as AP/magic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9379" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T01:26:16.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12334" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-06T01:37:19.180" Score="2" ViewCount="362" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any kanji that could be used to say afro and/or fro in traditional Chinese? If not, what about simplified Chinese? What are the characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9380" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T21:51:52.993" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T21:51:52.993" Title="Is There A Way To Say &quot;Fro&quot; (as in afro/fro) In Traditional Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12334" CreationDate="2015-02-06T02:11:53.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese“爆炸头”&#xA;Traditional Chinese“阿福羅頭，爆炸頭”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8200" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T02:11:53.823" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12334" CreationDate="2015-02-06T02:56:59.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to &quot;爆炸頭”, you can also say &quot;爆炸裝&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T02:56:59.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12331" CreationDate="2015-02-06T03:33:20.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: as a native speaker, I recommend the first one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use the first one in almost all scenarios ant it would sound okay. The second one is more commonly used with in a sentence before the verb, but if &quot;Never&quot; is the full response of a question, the first one would be better. I think this is because the second one is the shortcut for the first one, but in as a sentence itself, it would sound a bit unnatural to me, not that it is wrong or others won't understand you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T03:33:20.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12329" CreationDate="2015-02-06T03:43:42.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 术 here means manoeuvre or skills. &#xA;And 灵 could either mean spiritual or infernal (because, you know, after something dies, its spirit wanders to infernal world).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically it's a skill or manoeuvre that consumes, rely on, operate on, or related to spiritual power/entity or nether world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native English speaker, so you'd have to find the appropriate English word for that yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-02-09T00:00:13.310" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T00:00:13.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12331" CreationDate="2015-02-06T03:47:02.077" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is seldom a one-on-one word translation that will work in all contexts. &quot;从来没有 | cónglái méiyǒu&quot; or &quot;从来没 | cónglái méi&quot; works if you're talking about something that has never happened up to the present time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我从来没学过中文. (Wǒ cónglái méi xuéguò Zhōngwén - I have never learned Chinese.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to talk about the future, as in &quot;something will never happen&quot;, you need a different expression altogether. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他永远不会来. (Tā yǒngyuǎn bù huì lái - He will never come.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my suggestion is, if you're looking for a word meaning, at least provide a context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2015-02-12T14:22:23.230" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T14:22:23.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12281" CreationDate="2015-02-06T03:56:04.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;华裔 is basically Chinese descents, for example like Chinese Americans. It is often used to refer Chinese people who are citizen of other country by means other than naturalisation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华侨 is used to refer Chinese people who were born in China but lives overseas as residents or citizen by naturalisation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T03:56:04.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12320" CreationDate="2015-02-06T08:29:35.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, there is no &lt;strong&gt;legal&lt;/strong&gt; source to download both of them.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;More specific, they're content of copyright. The Commercial Press has made great effort to ban online version to protect its interest. So you can hardly find the website which is providing PDF or other format.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there's another way, but you'd pay a little money(~$2). Visit the greatest online market in China, Taobao(Taobao.com), search for the sellers who provide the  electronic version book finding service. You can ask them on &lt;em&gt;Ali Wangwang&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, there are no latest version(6) available and most of downloadable are in PDF format. Some claim they're, but actually not. You may try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newasp.net/soft/15927.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, it contains a mdb database which is 100MB, it's easy to convert it into CSV. &lt;strong&gt;I haven't&lt;/strong&gt; tested whether it is the content of 现代汉语词典, because I'm using Linux OS.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For 新华字典, there are too many apps named as the name. You can search for some android app, unpack apk installer, often you should find a large file in it, and often it's in SQLite 3 format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the methods I mentioned above are not tested, you'd better carefully try them.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I also tried to find such files but I gave up because it's hard to deal with, both in legal and technology.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I finally selected an alternative, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;HanDian&lt;/a&gt;. They provided a series of contents and tools for free. Part of them can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://pan.baidu.com/share/home?uk=906246372&amp;amp;view=share#category/type=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Though it's chm format, but to organize the content just a matter of extract and regexp, no any OCR or any other things involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9359" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T08:29:35.093" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12343" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12344" CreationDate="2015-02-06T20:13:48.743" Score="1" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a more formal way to say 氆氇?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的衣服上掉了饼干渣，氆氇一下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are some biscuit crumbs on your shirt,  get them off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4680" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T08:11:39.990" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T08:11:39.990" Title="Is there a more formal way to say 氆氇?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12343" CreationDate="2015-02-06T20:27:12.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;掸一掸 Dan3 Yi1 Dan3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A special tool for it is 鸡毛掸子 Ji1 Mao2 Dan3 Zi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T20:27:12.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12343" CreationDate="2015-02-06T20:39:25.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;氆氇（pǔlu 〖藏pulu〗）是藏族人民手工生产的一种毛织品，可以做衣服、床毯等，举行仪礼时也作为礼物赠人。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think native speakers would say this word. &quot;get them of&quot; simply means 弄掉它们. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9365" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T20:39:25.730" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12343" CreationDate="2015-02-06T21:47:49.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;给/把 construction with 掉 as the resulting &quot;disposal&quot; condition is probably the most natural yet neutral way to express this. E.g. 给它们抖掉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may want to also refer to the action on the clothes rather than on the crumbs, which would allow a more specific direct object. E.g. 把衣服抖一下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T21:47:49.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12348" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12351" CreationDate="2015-02-08T21:43:45.253" Score="3" ViewCount="449" Body="&lt;p&gt;The verb 有 can be used to form a sentence in a way of comparisons of equality as follows. (as ~ as)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天有昨天热。Today is as hot as yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他没有你细心。He is not as careful as you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From looking at them, it seems to me that Mandarin uses a phrase (noun+adjective) as one word, for example in the above two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天-热 (hot as yesterday)&#xA;你-细心(careful as you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I getting it correct? If yes, can I do the make-up-new-word thing when I speak English in Mandarin too as long as it fits well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or this is not a good catch at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you all in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6131" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T00:17:13.853" Title="The usage of 有 in comparisons" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12348" CreationDate="2015-02-08T22:39:46.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;今天和昨天一样热 is better according to my friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but the negative '他没有你细心。' is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-02-08T22:39:46.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12329" CreationDate="2015-02-09T01:12:21.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without knowing the full context, my best guess is that 灵术 means &lt;strong&gt;spirit magic&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When translating, especially between unrelated languages like English and Chinese, there is often a lack of one-to-one correspondence between words. This is why when you look in a dictionary for the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/js/672F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;English definition of 术&lt;/a&gt;, you get multiple options like technique/surgery. However, when this character is paired with others, it can also take on the meaning of &lt;strong&gt;magic&lt;/strong&gt;. This works the other way around too; when you try to translate &lt;em&gt;magic&lt;/em&gt; to Chinese, you get multiple options as well, like 魔术 (magic as in magicians) or 魔法 (magic as in Harry Potter).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You probably won't find &quot;灵术&quot; in a dictionary. Since your context is video games, it's most likely that this is a constructed word for a specific type of magic, which usually have the &quot;X术&quot; form. To demonstrate, here are some other &quot;X术&quot; words that are specific types of magic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A6%96%E8%A1%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;妖术&lt;/a&gt;, lit. &quot;supernatural magic&quot;, often translated as &quot;sorcery&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B7%AB%E8%A1%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;巫术&lt;/a&gt;, lit. &quot;witch magic&quot;, translated as &quot;witchcraft&quot; or &quot;black magic&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/25566/16389719.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;通灵术&lt;/a&gt;, lit. &quot;communicate with spirits magic&quot;, sometimes translated as &quot;necromancy&quot;. Note that &quot;ouija board&quot; in Chinese is 通灵板.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BB%99%E6%9C%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;仙术&lt;/a&gt;, lit. &quot;divine magic&quot;, translated as &quot;theurgy&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, there are many &quot;X术&quot; words that have nothing to do with magic, such as 医术 (medicine) and 武术 (martial arts). This goes back to traditional Chinese culture, especially Taoism where there is no clear distinction between the natural and supernatural, and that many physical phenomena also have supernatural links, like the concept of &lt;em&gt;qi&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T01:12:21.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12348" CreationDate="2015-02-09T01:14:36.727" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When use &lt;code&gt;有&lt;/code&gt; in comparison: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In positive way you can use 今天和昨天一样热(Today is as hot as yesterday) or 今天有昨天那么热 instead of 今天有昨天热.Because it's more normal expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In negative way you can use &lt;code&gt;他没(有)你(那么)细心&lt;/code&gt; which will omit character &lt;code&gt;有&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;今天没(有)昨天(那么)热&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's better to add 那么 in comparison to emphasize comparison.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T01:14:36.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12334" CreationDate="2015-02-09T01:55:43.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the question has been misunderstood. Do you want the syllable 'fro' or the name of the hairstyle? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think the syllable 'fro' can be represented in Chinese. You might approximate with 'folo' = '坲咯‘, 'afro' could then come out as 'a fo lo'='啊坲咯‘.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no syllable 'fro' or 'flo' in Chinese. I am often very amused when I see Chinese representations of English words. Makes you wonder what the Chinese are hearing. Does 'jia na da' sound like 'Canada'? Just came across this one, guess what it is: 'ying te er'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then again, Chinese tones are a book with seven seals for me. 'hao' always sounds like 'hao' to me, whatever tone the exasperated teacher tries to teach me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-02-09T02:23:46.803" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T02:23:46.803" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12348" CreationDate="2015-02-09T03:07:53.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is better to see the whole picture of comparison than just one case, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us see how to say: A = B, A &gt; B, and A &amp;lt; B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天和昨天一样热。Today is as hot as yesterday. 这个和那个一样+adj。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天比昨天(还要)热。Today is hotter than yesterday. 这个比那个(还要)+adj。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天没有昨天热。Today is less hot than yesterday. 这个没有那个+adj。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except the above, there are many alternatives. Sometimes, you can simply insert 不，没，but many times you can not do so because Chinese do not work as a &quot;LOGIC&quot; robot. For example, Chinese people do not say 今天有昨天热。But then do say: 今天有昨天热吗？I do not know why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-02-09T03:14:07.120" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T03:14:07.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12354" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12356" CreationDate="2015-02-09T13:59:12.993" Score="11" ViewCount="18944" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following famous sign which appeared in some supermarket in China:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/InzwKm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;chinglish - fuck-vegetables&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;why 干菜类 was mistakenly translated to Fuck Vegetables instead of Dried Vegetables? Is there any hidden meaning in it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinalert.com/2010/09/24/chinglish-fuck-vegetables/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinglish: Fuck Vegetables&lt;/a&gt; at Chinalert (a centralized collection of the best and worst about the Chinese)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9392" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-04-30T14:49:49.320" LastActivityDate="2021-03-03T20:01:28.833" Title="Why 干菜类 was mistakenly translated to Fuck Vegetables?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12354" CreationDate="2015-02-09T17:10:07.683" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;In traditional Chinese, 乾 means &quot;dry&quot;, 幹 means &quot;to do&quot;, and has the slang meaning of &quot;f**k&quot;. Both words are simplified to 干.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T17:10:07.683" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12354" CreationDate="2015-02-09T17:16:26.133" Score="12" Body="&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003205.html&quot;&gt;GAN: Whodunnit, and how, and why?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Victor Mair sent in further analysis of a common but spectacular mistranslation, discussed in earlier LL posts: &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/003202.html&quot;&gt;A less grand Chinglish&lt;/a&gt;&quot; 5/30/2006, which dealt with a button labelled &quot;dry fry&quot; in Chinese and &quot;fuck to fry&quot; in English; and &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/002915.html&quot;&gt;Engrish explained&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, which discussed a menu item reading &quot;Hot and spicy garlic greens stir-fried with shredded dried tofu&quot; in Chinese, but &quot;Benumbed hot vegetables fries fuck silk&quot; in English, 3/11/2006. Victor's note follows. ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The translation of GAN as &quot;fuck&quot; is fairly ubiquitous in China. There are complications, of course, since GAN1CHAO3 on the sign I wrote about must mean &quot;dry fry,&quot; with GAN1 in the first tone, whereas GAN meaning &quot;fuck&quot; probably derives from GAN4 (&quot;to do&quot;) in the 4th tone. This latter word, furthermore, is written with an entirely different character in the traditional script (幹), though GAN1 and GAN4 have both collapsed into the same three-stroke calendrical graph in the simplified script (干). Furthermore, the actual sign from which I took this example has an arrow next to the GAN1CHAO3 / FUCK TO FRY which seems to be pointing to a button that you're supposed to PUSH to start the frying. Still, if naughty people are intentionally producing these risque, nonsense translations, then the double entendre of GAN1/4 (&quot;dry / fuck&quot;) must be taken into serious consideration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These sites show how widespread the mistranslation of GAN1/4 as &quot;fuck&quot; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.flickr.com/photos/xiaming/70761148/&quot;&gt;http://www.flickr.com/photos/xiaming/70761148/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cameraontheroad.com/?p=1010&quot;&gt;http://www.cameraontheroad.com/?p=1010&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pangea.stanford.edu/~pvermees/chinglish/index.html&quot;&gt;http://pangea.stanford.edu/~pvermees/chinglish/index.html&lt;/a&gt; (select &quot;Fuck the price&quot; in the radio box).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=P14329_0_6_0_C&quot;&gt;http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=P14329_0_6_0_C&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Just google {&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;amp;q=Chinglish%20fuck&amp;amp;btnG=Google%20Search&quot;&gt;Chinglish fuck&lt;/a&gt;} and you'll get a lot of results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am trying to make sense of how this phenomenon actually came about. It seems that the twenty or so different meanings of the three-stroke calendrical graph that is used to write GAN1/4 (a total of three distinct graphic forms in the traditional script -- &lt;a href=&quot;http://cgibin.erols.com/mandarintools/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl?word=%E4%B9%BE&amp;amp;searchtype=trad&amp;amp;where=start&quot;&gt;乾&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://cgibin.erols.com/mandarintools/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl?word=%E5%B9%B9&amp;amp;searchtype=trad&amp;amp;where=start&quot;&gt;幹&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://cgibin.erols.com/mandarintools/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl?word=%E5%B9%B2&amp;amp;searchtype=trad&amp;amp;where=start&quot;&gt;干&lt;/a&gt; -- all reduced to one -- 干 -- in the simplified script) in Chinglish have all collapsed into the single meaning of &quot;fuck&quot;. Wherever that graph occurs, Chinglish speakers will translate it as &quot;fuck&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is an extremely bizarre situation, because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. normal Chinese-English dictionaries do not even give this definition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. the widespread rendition of GAN1/4 as &quot;fuck&quot; in all sorts of situations where other translations are called for occurs on restaurant menus, official notices, and so forth, and it is not likely that the proprietors would intentionally want to insult or embarrass their patrons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Who's telling the menu-makers and sign-painters to write &quot;fuck&quot; for GAN1/4? They probably don't even know English and probably don't know much Chinglish either. How did this get started? (Perhaps somebody was being intentionally mischievous.) And how did it become such a common phenomenon? That's the real mystery. How is this horrible mistranslation continuing to spread and not being caught by the tens of millions of Chinese who do speak good English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm deeply interested in the linguistic mechanics and the sociolinguistics of this baffling phenomenon. It is almost beyond belief that GAN1/4 as &quot;fuck&quot; proliferates when there are so many other good translations available in different contexts. You'd think that at least they'd write &quot;do&quot; everywhere, or that people who do know English would tell the proprietors to hurry up and change the offending word so as to avoid further embarrassment!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Guest post by Victor Mair.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Update -- Brendan O'Kane wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hi - long-time listener, first-time caller.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've been living in Beijing and working as a free-lance translator for some time now. It's pretty common for clients to take a text, hand it off to a (cheaper) Chinese translation company, and then pass it on to me to 'edit' - a lower-paid gig - and so I've seen quite a lot of this kind of thing. My guess, with the disclaimer that Prof. Mair has forgotten more than I'll ever know about Chinese, is that someone ran the Chinese 干炒 in the example in your blogpost, and the menu posted on &lt;a href=&quot;http://rahol.com/&quot;&gt;rahoi.com&lt;/a&gt;, through a machine translation program, perhaps Jinshan Kuai Yi or something of the sort, with the offending results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can someone verify that there is a common Chinese-English MT program that maps GAN to &quot;fuck&quot;? That would explain a lot, if it's true. The puzzle then would become why outraged customers have not forced a modification of the software... ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Posted by Mark Liberman at May 31, 2006 05:31 AM &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T17:16:26.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10073" CreationDate="2015-02-09T19:09:20.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best translation of &quot;You haven't seen the last of me, Ms.Ellison.&quot;, should be 你还不知道我的厉害呢, 这位小姐！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你我还没完呢 is ok. It means, 你,我还没(查)完呢 =&gt;我还没(查)完你呢. But it is not very close to the original. &quot;I haven't finished my work to deal with you yet&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 这钱我不会给你的 =&gt; 这钱, 我不会给你的 =&gt;我不会给你这钱的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can not add &quot;和&quot; here because the first word is actually object and just be moved forward. In other cases, add &quot;和&quot; is ok. 你我都要好好工作 &amp;lt;=&gt; 你和我都要好好工作.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T19:09:20.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12360" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12363" CreationDate="2015-02-09T20:11:22.853" Score="2" ViewCount="3163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was recently traveling in Zhongshan and Hong Kong and noticed that my limited Chinese allowed me to read Starbucks beverage sizes to a useful, if not complete extent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(underscore replaces a character I don't recall)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tall: 中_&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grande: 大_&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Venti: 较大_ or 巨大_, I believe. Not certain of the first character.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the final character in these sizes? I recognized that these basically said &quot;medium something&quot;, &quot;large something&quot;, and &quot;larger something&quot;, but I was unable to read the final character of the sizes (same one for all three) and have been unable to find a picture of it online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any correction or confirmation on venti's first character would be appreciated too. Bonus points for obscure sizes like &quot;short&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9395" LastActivityDate="2015-02-11T23:50:23.497" Title="Chinese Starbucks Sizes" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12360" CreationDate="2015-02-09T20:51:06.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;号 or 號, that is my guessing. Pronounced as Hao4. The left part of tradition character 號 is the simplified character 号.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T20:51:06.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12360" CreationDate="2015-02-09T21:03:41.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't speak for Starbucks in Hong Kong, but for all Starbucks in mainland China (including Zhongshan), as far as I know there is no Chinese translation for the cup size on the menu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eKbnx.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The photo is blurry but you can still see the column headers contain two rows: 1st row is Italian/English 'tall', 'grande', 'venti' and the 2nd row is capacity in ML).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they're reading it out in Chinese, both 杯 (cup) and 号 (size) make sense. E.g. 中杯 or 中号.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 'venti', both 较大 and 巨大 are correct in meaning but sound unnatural. The most natural one to say is 特大 (extra-large).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T21:03:41.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12360" CreationDate="2015-02-09T21:06:23.080" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.starbucks.com.cn/menu/drink-hot-03.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Starbucks webpage&lt;/a&gt;, I figure it's 杯 /bei/， meaning &quot;cup&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Short: 小杯 /xiǎo bēi/ (small cup)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tall: 中杯 /zhōng bēi/(medium cup)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grande: 大杯 /dà bēi/ (large cup)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Venti: 超大杯 /chāo dà bēi/ (extra large cup)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="9395" LastEditDate="2015-02-09T22:20:28.990" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T22:20:28.990" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1055" CreationDate="2015-02-10T02:33:30.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Read this answer... it explains the reason in great detail, but it's too long to post here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically buying something from the east town/something from the west town... eventually it just became buy something (east/west).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://gbtimes.com/life/hello-china-97-things&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://gbtimes.com/life/hello-china-97-things&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh, and there's a cute video at the bottom too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9396" LastActivityDate="2015-02-10T02:33:30.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12366" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12368" CreationDate="2015-02-10T09:41:51.697" Score="-2" ViewCount="535" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the different between 不好意思 and 对不起？ Where should I use which?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9400" LastActivityDate="2015-02-10T10:05:52.123" Title="What's the different between 不好意思 and 对不起？" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-02-10T22:20:11.417" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10722" CreationDate="2015-02-10T09:54:10.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the differences between Chinese and American (though I'm not sure where you live) educational system is responsible for your confusion.&#xA;It seems that in the US,students go to different classrooms in different periods,and your classmates may vary too.But in east asia,every student belongs to a group called 班级.Unlike in the US,a 班级 has only one schedule.PE,math,science,art,a 班级 stays together as a basic unit.Therefore,every classmate is always in the same class.&#xA;In conclusion,课 means class like math,Chinese,art,while 班级 stands for this gruop of people.&#xA;Also,in east asia,every 班级 has its own classroom.Unlike American students who put their belongings in lockers,we put our stuffs in our classroom.Most of the time,we stay in our classroom,and some teachers like Math or English just come. Our classroom is like our home during schooltime.&#xA;Sorry for my poor English,hope I've answered your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9399" LastActivityDate="2015-02-10T09:54:10.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12366" CreationDate="2015-02-10T10:05:52.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;不好意思 is similar to &quot;excuse me&quot;,when you're not really doing something wrong.&#xA;For example,you can say &quot;不好意思，请问厕所在哪里?&quot;(Excuse me,where is the bathroom?)&#xA;In this case,you're simply apologize for disturbing others.This phrase is commonly used when talking to unfamiliar people,in order to act polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不起 is like &quot;sorry&quot;,when you actually do something wrong.&#xA;For example,you can say&quot;对不起，我弄坏你的笔了&quot;(Sorry,I broke your pen)&#xA;In this case,you actually do harm,so you apologize for your mistake.&#xA;This phrase is mostly used when you want to show others your apology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9399" LastActivityDate="2015-02-10T10:05:52.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12369" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12370" CreationDate="2015-02-10T12:14:18.597" Score="1" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen the word &lt;code&gt;熟肉&lt;/code&gt; associated with TV Series'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pizJW.png&quot; alt=&quot;熟肉&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's a &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; English translation?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-02-10T12:53:29.467" Title="Meaning/Translation: 熟肉 [TV Series]" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12369" CreationDate="2015-02-10T12:53:29.467" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This appears to be file sharing jargon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;熟肉 means the video &lt;strong&gt;has Chinese subtitles&lt;/strong&gt;. This is in contrast to 生肉 (raw meat), which means the video has no Chinese subtitles, that it is in its original format. I guess the meanings allude to the fact that meat is usually consumed cooked, and that if it is raw (has no subtitles), it cannot be consumed easily. Why use this specific analogy I have no idea; jargon can often have strange origins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise, for jargon it is hard to find good references for them. There is a blog post here which defines the term in a footnote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://catalyst.uw.edu/gopost/conversation/swelland/334740&quot;&gt;https://catalyst.uw.edu/gopost/conversation/swelland/334740&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a Baidu Zhidao (similar to Yahoo Answers) question here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/203271518.html&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/203271518.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-02-10T12:53:29.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12371" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12372" CreationDate="2015-02-11T01:39:42.693" Score="1" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;chin&lt;/em&gt; seems to be translated as both 下巴 and 頷. Is there absolutely no difference? Is one more common than the other? I find it strange that there are two translations for so many words in Chinese, especially for specific words like chin that have little ambiguity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look up pictures for the word 頷, I see more medical pictures, for 下巴, more regular pictures. Is 頷 something more concrete than chin? My dictionary says just &quot;chin&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9402" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T21:47:33.543" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T21:47:33.543" Title="What's the difference between 下巴 and 頷?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12371" CreationDate="2015-02-11T01:59:53.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For modern Chinese, 下巴 is more commonly used in the daily life for the meaning of jaw or chin. Whereas 頜 is often used in medical words, like 下頜骨.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Ancient Chinese, 頜 is more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;頷、頤,頜也。南楚謂之頷,秦晉謂之頜。頤,其通語也。――《方言》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ref: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/269020.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/269020.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastActivityDate="2015-02-11T01:59:53.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12375" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12378" CreationDate="2015-02-12T02:39:29.763" Score="4" ViewCount="4176" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently see this word in a Chinese tv drama show. It seems degradative and refers to a man who is deceiving, but what does it exactly mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9405" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T08:58:24.280" Title="What does 小白脸 mean?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-06-19T03:43:46.010" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12375" CreationDate="2015-02-12T02:45:46.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try this dictionary, I think it is very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://linedictionary.naver.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/fae7cffb07e44298b0d516e985195bac&amp;amp;ts=0.06006506485385843&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://linedictionary.naver.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/fae7cffb07e44298b0d516e985195bac&amp;amp;ts=0.06006506485385843&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T02:45:46.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12377" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12379" CreationDate="2015-02-12T03:24:56.077" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this means 'double the sales volume', but 翻 can mean 'turnover' as in 'sales volume' or 'double'. '一番‘ seems to mean 'twofold'. I'm a bit confused. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;。。。在未来十年内实现销售额翻一番， 。。。maybe = ...double the turnover in the next ten years ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which word is 'double'??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T12:43:41.527" Title="How much more is '翻一番‘" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12375" CreationDate="2015-02-12T03:27:16.333" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;an attractive young man, adonis&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;gigolo, toy boy &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/165815/11056067.htm&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/165815/11056067.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://emuch.net/html/200507/105329.html&quot;&gt;http://emuch.net/html/200507/105329.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hjenglish.com/new/p104009/&quot;&gt;http://www.hjenglish.com/new/p104009/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-02-12T03:33:59.293" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T03:33:59.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12377" CreationDate="2015-02-12T03:45:32.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here &lt;code&gt;翻&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;multiply&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;番&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;time;fold&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;翻番/翻一番&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; *2(double)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;翻两番&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; *4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;翻三番&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; *8&lt;br&gt;&#xA;... ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T03:45:32.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12375" CreationDate="2015-02-12T04:13:00.193" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;小白脸 is a negative nickname for those who has knowledge or educated. It is from 白面书生. 白面 is saying that this person do not do labor work in the farm and not exposed under sun light, therefore, the face is white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is traditionally used by people who can not read and write, but still look down those who can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;小白脸，凭着两片子嘴，看了几本甚么书，就连升三级&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T04:13:00.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12381" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-12T04:38:02.730" Score="3" ViewCount="215" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do both of them mean &quot;location&quot; or &quot;site&quot;, or is there something that sets them apart? Thank you in advance! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9313" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T06:33:22.943" Title="what is the difference between 现场 and 地点?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12381" CreationDate="2015-02-12T07:13:11.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;地点 = location, while 现场 = being present at a location &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地点 normally describes a precise location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现场 describes the fact that some one is in a place. That place can be a precise location or an area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请告诉我地点。&#xA;Please tell me the location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在现场，请告诉我具体地点。&#xA;I am here, please tell me the exact location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="194" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T07:13:11.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12375" CreationDate="2015-02-12T08:20:22.217" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am Chinese.&#xA;Simply, This word is just say the young men didn't want to work and rely on rich women.Those men always have pretty faces. So call them 'white face men'.&#xA;In China, people consider white face is a symbol of pretty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9408" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T08:20:22.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12354" CreationDate="2015-02-12T08:24:40.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This translation is just a mistake of English understanding.&#xA;干 in China has many meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could mean either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fuck&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dry&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;do&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;damn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;work&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9408" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2015-10-06T11:52:22.950" LastActivityDate="2015-10-06T11:52:22.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12375" CreationDate="2015-02-12T08:58:24.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我可以用中文回答吗哈哈？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就是不出去工作，靠女人工作养活自己的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9410" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T08:58:24.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12331" CreationDate="2015-02-12T09:06:57.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;从来没有 and 从来没 are the same thing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9410" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T09:06:57.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12388" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12389" CreationDate="2015-02-12T10:29:14.990" Score="3" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have come across &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/f3jfKkedxO8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this song&lt;/a&gt; recently. I understand practically all of it. My question is specifically about one word. At a certain point, the lyrics go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;二項要選擇啥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;台灣閩南語常用詞辭典&lt;/a&gt;, a better spelling is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;兩項欲選擇啥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pronunciation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nn̄g hāng beh ?-? siánn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Of the two which should I choose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm concerned with is &quot;choose&quot;. The given characters, according to the above dictionary, are pronounced &lt;code&gt;suán-ti̍k&lt;/code&gt;, but listening to the song, I hear more like &lt;code&gt;sng-tia&lt;/code&gt;. I did some research, and I found &lt;code&gt;摘&lt;/code&gt;, pronounced &lt;code&gt;tiah&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;揀選&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. &quot;choose&quot;. However, I found nothing close to &quot;choose&quot; with a reading close to &quot;sng&quot;. So I tried to look up any word close to &lt;code&gt;sng-tia&lt;/code&gt;, and found &lt;code&gt;痠疼&lt;/code&gt;, read &lt;code&gt;sng-thiànn&lt;/code&gt;, which could well fit here, were it a verb rather than an adjective. I subsequently looked on &lt;a href=&quot;http://minhakka.ling.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;minhakka.ling.sinica.edu.tw&lt;/a&gt;, finding &lt;code&gt;算 | sǹg&lt;/code&gt;. So possible guesses are &lt;code&gt;算疼 | sǹg-thiànn&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;endure suffering&quot;, or &lt;code&gt;算摘 | sǹg-tiah&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;think of choosing&quot; or similar. I found two lyric links, &lt;a href=&quot;http://mojim.com/twy100285x1x1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[1]&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kuwo.cn/yinyue/71309/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[2]&lt;/a&gt;, which both spell it as the video's subs, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.666ccc.com/lrc/21/21001.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a third one&lt;/a&gt;, which just won't load on my computer, but I expect it to spell it the same way. So in the end, what is this word? Does it mean &quot;choose&quot;? Otherwise, what does it mean? How is it spelt and pronounced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a bonus, can you confirm &lt;code&gt;to&lt;/code&gt; on its own is equivalent to &lt;code&gt;tó-uī | 叨位&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. means &quot;where&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;To add context, here are the full lyrics in Dictionary-suggested spelling with transliteration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;若無分開我不知&#xA;Nā bô hun-khui guá m̄ tsai&#xA;我有遮愛你&#xA;Guá ū tsiah ài lí&#xA;心像海水湧來湧去&#xA;Sim tshiūnn hái-tsúi íng lâi íng khì&#xA;想你無停止&#xA;Siūnn lí bô thîng-tsí&#xA;萬萬也想袂到&#xA;Bān-bān iā siūnn buē kàu&#xA;愛你遮爾深&#xA;Ài lí tsiah-nī tshim&#xA;回頭的路愈離愈遠&#xA;Huê-thâu ê lōo lú lī lú hn̄g&#xA;愛的終站佇佗位&#xA;Ài ê tsiong-tsām tī tó-uī&#xA;&#xA;天啊問天啊何必折磨我&#xA;Thinn--ah mn̄g thinn--ah hô-pit tsiat-buâ guá (tsiat!?!?)&#xA;欠你偌濟怎會還袂煞&#xA;Khiàm lí guā-tsuē tsuánn ē hîng buē suah&#xA;愛你也苦無愛也苦&#xA;Ài lí iā khóo bô ài iā khóo&#xA;兩項欲選擇啥&#xA;Nn̄g hāng beh suán-ti̍k siánn&#xA;啥人知影只有天啊&#xA;Siánn-lâng tsai-iánn tsí-ū thinn--ah&#xA;&#xA;指示我&#xA;Tsí-sī guá&#xA;指示我該對叨位行&#xA;Tsí-sī guá kai tuì tó-uī kiânn&#xA;我的幸福終站佇佗啦&#xA;Guá ê hīng-hok tsiong-tsām tī tó--lah&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's a possible Mandarin rendition with English translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;如果沒分開我不知&#xA;If we hadn't parted, I don't know&#xA;我有這麼愛你&#xA;If I'd have loved you so much&#xA;心像海水湧來湧去&#xA;My heart surges up and down like the water of the sea&#xA;想你不停止&#xA;I think of you without stopping&#xA;萬萬也想不到&#xA;I absolutely couldn't imagine&#xA;愛你這麼深&#xA;I'd have loved you so deeply&#xA;回頭的路越離越遠&#xA;The way behind me, the more I leave, the further it is&#xA;愛的終站在哪裡&#xA;Where is the final stop of love?&#xA;&#xA;天啊問天啊何必折磨我&#xA;Heaven, I ask heaven, why do you torture me?&#xA;欠你偌濟怎會還袂煞&#xA;How much do I owe you? How could I not yet have finished paying?&#xA;愛你也苦無愛也苦&#xA;If I love you I suffer, if I don't, I also suffer&#xA;兩個要選擇什麼&#xA;What should I choose of the two?&#xA;誰人知道只有天啊&#xA;Who knows? Only heaven&#xA;&#xA;指示我&#xA;Point out to me&#xA;指示我該對哪裡走&#xA;Point out to me whither I should go?&#xA;我的幸福終站在哪兒啊&#xA;Where is the final stop of my happiness?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yep, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.666ccc.com/lrc/21/21001.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the third lyric site&lt;/a&gt; spells it 選擇 both on the right and on the left. It is a three-column site with the first two columns having the lyrics once each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-08-07T12:31:47.437" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T12:31:47.437" Title="Correct spelling of Min word" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12388" CreationDate="2015-02-12T11:59:26.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right, it means 'choose', and the difference of pronunciation, (as a Taiwanese I think it) is due to the song. (The elongation of that note.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So both &lt;code&gt;suán-ti̍k&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;sng-tia&lt;/code&gt; are fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9411" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T11:59:26.857" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12377" CreationDate="2015-02-12T12:43:41.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did some study on this. Here is my two cents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;番, Fan1, is a measurement word for a piece of sheet, for example, paper, gold sheet, or land. 金薄十万番, 吏以纸万番赆之, 一番江水一番鱼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;番，when used in calculation，means the base number. There are 2 cases: 加番，翻番. For example, if the area of a piece of paper is 100 square centimeters, then 一番 = 100 (cm^2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加1番=100+100, 加N番=100+N*100. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翻1番=100*(1+1)=200,翻2番= 翻1番 and 翻1番 again. (100*(1+1))(1+1)=200*2=400, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加 means to put in another piece of paper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翻 means to turn the paper to the other side, like turn over a page of a book. So it means double.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked a couple of online dictionaries, there are for sure some misleading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T12:43:41.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12381" CreationDate="2015-02-12T22:25:11.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;现场 scene eg. crime scene 犯罪现场&#xA;地点 location or address&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9365" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T22:25:11.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12392" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12395" CreationDate="2015-02-13T03:51:38.890" Score="7" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;We (me and my parents) always say: &quot;上厕所&quot;, and: &quot;上卧室&quot;, ect.&#xA;We (me and my parents) always say: &quot;下厨房&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally my house has the kitchen at the top floor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4680" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T08:01:25.893" Title="Why always go up or down?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12371" CreationDate="2015-02-13T05:26:48.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well 頷 isn't used in modern Chinese.Some people don't even know what it means.&#xA;So just use 下巴.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9399" LastActivityDate="2015-02-13T05:26:48.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12392" CreationDate="2015-02-13T07:55:27.260" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;上 as a verb could mean &quot;go to&quot; (i.e. could be replaced with 去 without change in meanings) and &quot;ascend/board&quot; which could be understand as go up onto since the floor of vehicles are generally higher and require a upward movement. Anyway, in phrases such as 上卧室, 上 just means &quot;go to&quot;. In 上厕所, 上 could mean &quot;go to&quot;, but more often it contains the meaning of actually using the toilet. So it is possible for a person 去厕所 but not 上厕所, but most of the time such distinction wouldn't be made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 下 as a verb, it means &quot;go down to&quot; physically or figuratively. In 下厨房, 下 contains a figurative meaning of &quot;get down to the work&quot;, so if you are just getting something from the kitchen you wouldn't say 下厨房 and you could say 下厨房 for meaning of &quot;go to the kitchen and cook&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上 and 下 are also used to distinct the start and end of certain activity, such as 上课、下课、上班、下班. In such scenarios, 上X could also be used for the time points during such activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, these two are pretty hard to master via a clear set of rules. You're just gonna have to get familiar with as many patterns as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-13T07:55:27.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12381" CreationDate="2015-02-13T08:09:44.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;现场 is a 地点, more specifically, it's a specific 地点. You can understand it in this way: think 地点 as the word &quot;location&quot; or &quot;site&quot; or &quot;scene&quot;, in English, you normally wouldn't just say &quot;site&quot; or &quot;location&quot;, you have to define it with an article, so it would be come &quot;the location/site&quot; or &quot;a location/site&quot;. Now, you could think 现场 as &quot;the site/scene&quot;. See the transition here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's way you can use 地点 in a unspecific context, but you can only use 现场 in a more specific context. For example 犯罪现场, means &quot;crime scene&quot;, not necessarily &quot;THE crime scene&quot;, but still you need to define 现场 with crime. Or the specification may be implicit in the context. For example &quot;I arrived at 现场(the site)&quot; here 现场 is specific to whatever place the speaker is talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All this is because of the character 现 which means present, now, current, which are little bit similar to the function of &quot;the&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-03-12T23:01:19.337" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T23:01:19.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12392" CreationDate="2015-02-13T14:34:50.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;上 and 下, the original meaning is up and down, as adverbs. They are very frequently used as verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) The original meaning, for example, 上山砍柴，下河捞鱼。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) The social level, for example, 上得了厅堂，下得了厨房。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) The begin and end, for example,  上课，下课，上车，下车。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) The geometric sense as in map, for example,  北上，南下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) To participate, for example,  教练让他上场，他受伤下来了（球场）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(6) Sometimes 上 and 下 are used independently, not in the opposite meanings.&#xA;for example,  这个贼被众人拿下了（a final ending）。我上不了手啊（can not help and participate）。你叫我打她，我下不了手啊（can not do it）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(7) As in slang, 大哥，咱们今天就下手吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(8) &quot;上 for going to somewhere&quot; has a meaning of in a hurry.  上厕所，上医院，should be this type.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(9) As a normal verb meaning &quot;go&quot;, 上 is used only, but not 下. for example, 你上哪儿去？上北京，上广州，上朋友家去，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上卧室 is case (9), and 下厨房 is case (2). They cannot be compared from the same angle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="4680" LastEditDate="2015-02-15T08:01:25.893" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T08:01:25.893" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12398" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12419" CreationDate="2015-02-13T16:28:51.490" Score="4" ViewCount="2048" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because 左 and 右 are so similar in the shape, I am wondering how do you learn and remember them? I need a good method to teach. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2021-05-03T00:40:01.040" Title="How do you learn and remember 左 and 右?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12398" CreationDate="2015-02-13T19:20:16.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned it had something to do with what you do with your hands, the only one I can recall right now is how I differentiate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are working (工) you hold a ruler in left hand and draw with your right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastActivityDate="2015-02-13T19:20:16.480" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12398" CreationDate="2015-02-13T22:35:27.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;左 looks like it has an &quot;I&quot; in it.  I in the alphabet is closer to L (left obviously)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;右 looks like it has an &quot;O&quot; in it.  O in the alphabet is closer to R (right obviously)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9339" LastActivityDate="2015-02-13T22:35:27.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12402" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12455" CreationDate="2015-02-13T23:52:52.340" Score="5" ViewCount="743" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any character with radical 月 that has a meaning of 月 (not 肉)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I can find is 期，阴，and 胜，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T21:06:05.303" Title="Is there any character with radical 月 that has a meaning of 月 (not 肉)?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12402" CreationDate="2015-02-14T00:59:47.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to find them is to get a dictionary and look under 月. Or you can find one on line. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check this out: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/kxbs/z99m90j222.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/kxbs/z99m90j222.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many of the characters are quite obscure, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-02-14T00:59:47.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12404" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-14T03:26:47.497" Score="1" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had this sentence: 麦当劳一直执著地坚持着浓浓的美式风格。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate '执著地坚持着‘ as 'stubbornly persist in'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was told, '执着‘ has a positive sense, whereas '固执‘ has more of a negative sense of 'persisting even though you know it is wrong to do so'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you agree?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T14:22:46.417" Title="The difference between 执著 and 固执" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12293" CreationDate="2015-02-14T05:00:00.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm also not sure what the original english phrase means, but normal phrase order has the subject first , followed by time, place and then verb+adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your sentence is &quot;IN which country you eat dinner?&quot; the sentence should be 你在哪个国家吃晚饭？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9413" LastActivityDate="2015-02-14T05:00:00.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12406" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-14T05:06:14.097" Score="3" ViewCount="1031" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does one translate &quot;generic&quot; brand. I've come across several translations: &lt;code&gt;通用牌子&lt;/code&gt;， &lt;code&gt;一般的牌子&lt;/code&gt;，&lt;code&gt;杂牌&lt;/code&gt;。 But none of them really demonstrate a generic brand. The first one just means common, the second one implies average, and the last one means inferior. In the United States, for example, you have a brand name product, and often a generic product branded under a store's name. Another example would be generic brand prescription drugs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the proper translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T21:46:34.203" Title="What is the translation for &quot;generic brand&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12404" CreationDate="2015-02-14T05:23:02.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;He/She is right. 执着 is more positive,like &quot;persistent&quot; or &quot;Never give up,never surrender!&quot;&#xA;While 固执 stands for &quot;stubborn&quot;,you can use it to describe annoying kids who just refuse to eat carrots...something like that.&#xA; However,sometimes (less commonly) 固执 can have positive meaning too. It really depends on the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9399" LastActivityDate="2015-02-14T05:23:02.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12398" CreationDate="2015-02-14T09:19:11.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're a bricklayer you hold your square bricks in your right hand, you hold a level or ruler in your left.  The 口 is your brick, the 工 is your level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-dlj.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9414" LastActivityDate="2015-02-14T09:19:11.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12404" CreationDate="2015-02-14T14:17:28.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;McDonald's has been firmly insisted on a strong American style&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with determination, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dedicated, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;persistently, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not use 'stubbornly persist in'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-14T14:17:28.060" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12410" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12411" CreationDate="2015-02-14T16:05:01.917" Score="6" ViewCount="718" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a East Asian preparing to celebrate the Lunar New Year and have found this piece of decoration. The Chinese character on it is, I'm pretty sure, a Traditional one, literally full of strokes and pretty calligraphic. I've tried looking up this character in our most reliable &lt;em&gt;Han&lt;/em&gt; dictionary (from Traditional Chinese characters to our language), but failed (partly because it's a &lt;em&gt;Han&lt;/em&gt; dictionary). Particularly, I've researched (groups of) radicals of 辵 (辶) and 宀 in the dictionary (and failed, as mentioned).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm here to seek help. What is this character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VaD9y.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Photo of character&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9417" LastEditorUserId="311" LastEditDate="2015-02-15T05:44:46.727" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T05:44:46.727" Title="An unknown Traditional Chinese character on a decorative piece for Lunar New Year" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12410" CreationDate="2015-02-14T16:18:04.543" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not likely you'll find this in any dictionary because it's a conglomeration of four characters: 招財進寶 &quot;attracting money and treasure&quot;. See if you can find them. Hint: there is one part that is shared by two of the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-02-14T16:18:04.543" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12413" CreationDate="2015-02-14T18:45:20.067" Score="20" ViewCount="1660" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example there are characters such as 熵 which as far as I know only means one thing - in this case entropy - and which have to have been deliberately added by some person or organization. An earlier example is the character 逛, which according to evidence in manuscripts of Dream of the Red Chamber was added to the language fairly recently, in the 18th century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: who / what at presently decides what new characters get added to the language? If we were to petition some one or thing to get the 招財進寶 rebus added to the language as an actual character, who would we petition? And do new characters added to the language have to have a pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T19:47:01.700" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T19:47:01.700" Title="How do new Chinese characters get added to the language?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12412" CreationDate="2015-02-14T20:29:46.443" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;国务院, or the State council, decides formally on official characters, for example characters for new chemical elements (like 钐), species (like 鳤) or physical properties, like your example 熵.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the decisions in China are made just like they are in the rest of the world, that is, they adapt to actual usage. Some characters go, some come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a character becomes popular, the government will most likely incorporate it into the 通用规范汉字表 (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2013-08/19/content_2469793.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2013-08/19/content_2469793.htm&lt;/a&gt; for the last edition of 8105 characters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Names like 喆 (Zhé) and 淼 (Miǎo) are now part of the official standard, although they have of course existed all the time. There is also the classical example of premier 朱镕基, where 镕 was not part of the standard. This is fairly common in China, as odd name characters exist in abundance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes existing characters are modified to contemporary usage, like 囧, but is mostly slang and will often not make a permanent mark in dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-02-14T20:29:46.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12404" CreationDate="2015-02-15T02:17:03.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;执着 = persistent, 固执 = stubborn. Most of the times 执着 is a good word, 固执 is a bad word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so if you write &quot;麦当劳一直执著地坚持着浓浓的美式风格。&quot;, you are implying they should keep their American style, so it's a compliment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you write &quot;麦当劳一直固执地坚持着浓浓的美式风格。&quot;, you are implying they shouldn't keep their American style, so it's criticism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And my translation would be &quot;McDonald has always been persistent in keeping the American style&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-02-16T04:37:45.740" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T04:37:45.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12402" CreationDate="2015-02-15T02:20:43.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditionally when we come to radical, we write ⺝ for moon and ⺼ for meat. But those modern fonts are terrible and distinct nothing. The characters under 月 are very limited, and it give meaning from moon, says 期, 望, 朔 are related to moon phase and 朦, 朧, 朗 are related the observation of moon and 朝 is the position of moon. Some of them is degenerated 舟, says 服, and 朋 is degenerated 貝.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T02:20:43.460" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8527" CreationDate="2015-02-15T02:36:38.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A phrase ending with 也 expresses certainty and short conclusion. 是也, 知也, 愛也, 未之有也. This phrase usually comes after another phrase, like question or statement. Say &quot;不好犯上，而好作亂者，未之有也。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非 means negative. 非也 can be translated to &quot;No&quot; or &quot;Certainly not&quot; when it is answering question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T02:36:38.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8527" CreationDate="2015-02-15T02:36:40.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;非也，is a old chinese language. it's used long time ago. it mean &quot;No&quot;; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9418" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T02:36:40.240" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12412" CreationDate="2015-02-15T02:38:41.273" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the point of view of computing, rather than linguistics, character sets are standardized and revised by committee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the PRC, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GB_2312&quot;&gt;GB2312&lt;/a&gt; character set standard has evolved into &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBK&quot;&gt;GBK&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With the arrival of GBK, certain names with characters formerly unrepresentable, like the &quot;róng&quot;(镕) character in former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji's name, are now representable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 1995, China National Information Technology Standardization Technical Committee set down the Chinese Internal Code Specification (汉字内码扩展规范), Version 1.0, known as GBK 1.0, which is a slight extension of Codepage 936. The newly added 95 characters were not found in GB 13000.1-1993, and were provisionally assigned Unicode PUA code points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;… and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GB_18030&quot;&gt;GB18030&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some characters used by ethnic minorities in China, such as Mongolian characters and Tibetan characters (GB 16959-1997 and GB/T 20542-2006), have been added as well, which accounts for the renaming of the standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, which use traditional characters, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big5&quot;&gt;Big5&lt;/a&gt; has long been used as the standard.  It is named after the consortium of five Taiwanese companies that developed it.  However, various software makers developed their own variants of the original standard.  In addition,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cantonese uses many archaic and some colloquial Chinese characters that were not available in the normal Big5 character set. To solve this problem, the Hong Kong Government created the Big5 extensions Government Chinese Character Set in 1995 and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HKSCS&quot;&gt;Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set&lt;/a&gt; in 1999. The Hong Kong extensions were commonly distributed as a patch. It is still being distributed as a patch by Microsoft, but a full Unicode font is also available from the Hong Kong Government’s web site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both standards are being supplanted by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode&quot;&gt;Unicode&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Character_Set&quot;&gt;ISO 10646&lt;/a&gt;.  The evolution of the Unicode standard is driven by the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_Consortium&quot;&gt;Unicode Consortium&lt;/a&gt;, whose members include software companies and government organizations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2600" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T02:38:41.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12398" CreationDate="2015-02-15T02:41:29.267" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did some research, but all I can find is that both 左 and 右 are actually the same symbol that denotes hand but reversed horizontally in ancient times. This symbol basically formed the top part of the character, which now pointed at same direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was in kindergarten, my teach used to help us to remember them by telling us 右 has a 口 in it, so it's the hand you use to hold chopsticks and eat since at the time left-hand dominance was considered to be corrected. That's why in China, you almost would not see people write or hold chopsticks with their left hand even it's their dominate hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T02:41:29.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12420" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12426" CreationDate="2015-02-15T09:06:27.170" Score="0" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example sentence:&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;雖然&lt;/strong&gt;當我們在一起的時候有時候我不常常說話、而且我可能正顏厲色、我要讓妳知道我很開心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Intended meaning:&lt;/em&gt; Although when we are together sometimes I don't talk very much, and also my face may be solemn, I want to let you know I am happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a specific order? My second guess would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當我們在一起的時候&lt;strong&gt;雖然&lt;/strong&gt;有時候我不常常說話、而且我可能正顏厲色、我要讓妳知道我很開心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6390" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T23:22:26.310" Title="What is the order for 雖然 and 當…的時候 when used in the same sentence？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12406" CreationDate="2015-02-15T14:56:02.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's the translated definition of &quot;generic&quot; in Oxford Advanced Leaner's English-Chinese Dictionary  (7th Edition).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 shared by, including or typical of a whole group of things; not&#xA;  specific 一般的；普通的；通用的: &lt;br/&gt;·‘Vine fruit’ is the generic term for currants&#xA;  and raisins. * vine fruit是有核和无核葡萄干的通称。&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;2 (of a product, especially a&#xA;  drug 产品，尤指药物) not using the name of the company that made it&#xA;  无厂家商标的；无商标的: &lt;br/&gt;·The doctor offered me a choice of a branded or a generic&#xA;  drug. 医生让我选择用有商标的还是没有商标的药物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the second meaning, maybe &quot;generic brand&quot; can be translated as “无商标的品牌”, but it sounds a little weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8114" LastEditorUserId="8114" LastEditDate="2015-02-15T15:30:30.170" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T15:30:30.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12331" CreationDate="2015-02-15T18:27:25.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我永远不会... would mean: I will never...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You use that when you would never do something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex. 我永远不会玩足球。 （Translation: I will never play soccer.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9387" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T18:27:25.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12420" CreationDate="2015-02-15T22:51:30.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From your English I would get this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although， when we are together， sometimes， I don't talk very much and also，my face may be solemn, I want to let you know I am happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽管有时候，我们在一起时，我不说话而且看起来很严肃，但是你必须知道，我心里很高兴跟你在一起&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T22:51:30.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12420" CreationDate="2015-02-15T23:22:26.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a specific order for 雖然 and 當...的時候? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, I do not think there is a specific order for 雖然 and 當...的時候&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A way to see the reason is that , you can insert commas in the sentence and see that 當...的時候 is a adverb clause, and 雖然... is a conjunction word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 雖然, 當我們在一起的時候, 有時候我不常常說話, 而且我可能正顏厲色, 我要讓妳知道我很開心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 當我們在一起的時候, 雖然(,)有時候我不常常說話, 而且我可能正顏厲色, 我要讓妳知道我很開心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) 當我們在一起的時候, 有時候我不常常說話, 而且我可能正顏厲色。 雖然這樣, 我要讓妳知道我很開心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雖然這樣 is a way to connect a subordinate clause in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a order for 雖然...但是...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雖然媽媽總是批評你，但是她還是很愛你的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T23:22:26.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12427" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12433" CreationDate="2015-02-16T00:46:29.200" Score="6" ViewCount="1427" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking on Commercial Press' 现代汉语词典 we have the following definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别人 - 人称代词。指自己或某人以外的人：&lt;em&gt;~都同意，就你一人反对&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人家 - 人称代词。指自己或某人以外的人;别人：&lt;em&gt;~都不怕，就你怕&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, they are pretty much the same. Are there any subtleties between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:34:03.210" Title="Difference between 别人 and 人家" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12428" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12430" CreationDate="2015-02-16T02:19:42.170" Score="3" ViewCount="6319" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 他, 她, and 它?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know when you use one and when not to. It seems pretty basic language because I hear 他, 她, and 它 everywhere in Chinese language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anything else would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9387" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-02-16T21:01:52.133" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T21:01:52.133" Title="What is the difference between 他, 它, and 她" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12427" CreationDate="2015-02-16T02:23:05.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think of 别人 as &quot;other people&quot;, and 人家 as &quot;everyone else&quot;. Only one thing I can think of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这事情你别弄了，让&lt;strong&gt;别人&lt;/strong&gt;把做完了吧。(Translation: Forget about doing this job/chore/whatever, let &lt;strong&gt;someone else&lt;/strong&gt; do it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, you can see that 别人 means &quot;someone else&quot;, and cannot be replaced by 人家.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6110" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T02:23:05.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12428" CreationDate="2015-02-16T03:07:55.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I am a native speaker, but I am neither a professional linguist, nor have I received any sufficient grammar training beyond high school Chinese, so please take a grain of salt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“他” would be “he” in English， “她” would be “she” and “它” would be “it&quot;. We use it exactly like that in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a mnemonic device: the left component of &quot;她” is “女字旁”， which is an indication that the word is related to female.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9386" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T03:07:55.717" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12428" CreationDate="2015-02-16T03:28:01.613" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;她 is &quot;she&quot;,female only.&#xA;While 他 refers to both male and female. But sometimes 他 may only stand for male.&#xA;In English,when you're not sure one's gender,you have to say &quot;He or she is....&quot;.But in Chinese you can simply use 他 to include both male and female.&#xA;Please note,unlike &quot;it&quot; in English,它 is only used to indicate non-living objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9399" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T03:28:01.613" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12427" CreationDate="2015-02-16T03:30:58.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://qkzz.net/article/b732750b-9839-43c2-af2f-be71e83d0481.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a dedicated comparison between this two words in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both &amp;quot;人家&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;别人&amp;quot; have follow meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refer all other people except self or someone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refer all other people except people in talk.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &amp;quot;人家&amp;quot; has more meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refer to Me. (the speaker)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从前陪人家看月亮时，叫人家小甜甜，现在新人换旧人了，叫人家牛夫人 [Formerly, when  you kept me company watching the moon, you called me sweetie. Now new love has replaced the old; you call me Madam Niu] （Me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们一家人吃饭，没有人家 (without me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们一家人吃饭，没有别人 (without others)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refer to specific person.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在他忙着追求鲍小姐,当然分不出工夫来。人家终身大事,比赌钱要紧得多呢. (specific to refer he)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since &amp;quot;人家&amp;quot; has more meanings, so sometimes to make it more clear to use &amp;quot;别人&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这件衣裳也只配他穿,别人穿了,实在不配。 （if here change to &amp;quot;人家&amp;quot;, then it's harder to know whether it refer to &amp;quot;Me&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;others&amp;quot;. ）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &amp;quot;别人&amp;quot; is more formal when used for same meaning as &amp;quot;人家&amp;quot;. And notice only use &amp;quot;人家&amp;quot; to refer &amp;quot;me&amp;quot; only you are close to person you are speaking to (usually used by girl).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, &amp;quot;人家&amp;quot; sometimes can also mean &amp;quot;living house&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个地方很偏僻，没有人家。 (without people lives here. ^___^)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3931" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:34:03.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12427" CreationDate="2015-02-16T04:09:38.850" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;别人 means others, 人家 can mean others or &quot;I/me&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别人 always means other people, that is to be used to refer to people that's not part of the current context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人家 could mean the same thing. The difference is that 人家 could be used to denote a specific group of other people, i.e. &quot;THE others&quot; or simply &quot;They/He/She&quot;, or even &quot;it&quot;, which 别人 is mostly used to denote unspecific general others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, in some settings 人家 could be used to denote &quot;I/me&quot;. This is more commonly used by females or children, often to increase the level of feminine or cuteness when trying to make a requests or complaints. And in some regions the latter usage could be quite common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人家 could also be used sarcastically to refer to people who you think are pretentious by implying they think they are so cute and nice that they would call themselves 人家 but they are not actually that nice or cute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the two sample sentences, &quot;人家&quot; and &quot;别人&quot; could be used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人家都同意，就你一人反对&#xA;It could mean &quot;They all agrees, you are the only one doesn't&quot; in the context that a group of people negotiating something and &quot;you&quot; are the only one that has a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could also mean &quot;Everyone WOULD agree, you are the only one doesn't&quot; in this context 人家 means people other than you, but not necessarily real people who are involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you can use 别人 to archive same effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-02-16T04:50:47.443" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T04:50:47.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12428" CreationDate="2015-02-16T04:29:55.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trying to use linguistic slangs: 他 is the masculine gender third person, i.e &quot;he/him&quot;; 她 is the feminine gender third person i.e &quot;she/her&quot;; it for non-human third person, i.e &quot;it&quot;&#xA;In Traditional Chinese, there is also 妳 for feminine gender second person, Simplified Chinese doesn't normally distinguish the gender for second-person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in Chinese, do not use 它(&quot;it&quot;) for babies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 她/他 for animals, pets. Nations, lands, ships are often referred to in feminine gender when speaking figuratively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, the masculine gender are used for default, unknown and mixed genders like it is used to be in English in which it is common to use &quot;she or he&quot; to refer to unknown gender. In Chinese the form of 他或她 (he or she) are not very common but acceptable if the speaker what to stress gender equity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When personification, 她、他 can be used for objects that are not human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T04:29:55.120" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12427" CreationDate="2015-02-16T14:17:16.367" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In brief, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A. 人家 is a old school word than 別人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B. 人家 has many meanings, including the meaning of 別人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;別人 means all people except you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人家 has many different meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the same as 別人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.q.:你穿這樣 人家會覺得你很奇怪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Girl or woman can use this word represent herself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.q.:人家想要吃蘋果 你卻買香蕉給我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Point a specific people.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.q.:人家王先生早就畢業了 你卻還在唸大學&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, I seldom hear people say 人家.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6791" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T14:17:16.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12404" CreationDate="2015-02-16T14:22:46.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;執著(执着) should focus on some thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;固執(固执) use to describe someone's characteristic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We would say 王先生執著於賺到一百萬元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We would NOT say 王先生固執於賺到一百萬元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in other words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We would say 王先生的個性很固執&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We would NOT say 王先生的個性很執著&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6791" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T14:22:46.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12427" CreationDate="2015-02-16T16:29:50.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any subtleties between them? Yes, even if the two words are the same or similar in many ways, let us concentrate on the differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 别人 is used in formal context, but 人家 is informal. 别 has a definition of &quot;the other part&quot;. The 人 in 别人 could be anything 任何实体, not just people. For example, the Chinese government always say that, 台湾问题是我们的内政，不关别人的事。Here 别人 implies other country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 人家 could be I (myself), in this case, 别人 is not a choice and not exchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T16:29:50.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12428" CreationDate="2015-02-16T16:56:06.190" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 他, 它, and 她?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, you can exchange 它 and 她 to 他, but not always right inversely. Basically, 他 is inclusive. In the stories for children, 他 is used for animals. In most cases, if you do not have to use 她, always use 他 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 我们今天要选一个组长,他必须有五年的工作经验.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must not write, 我们今天要选一个组长,她必须有五年的工作经验. Since 她 is exclusive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T16:56:06.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12440" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12442" CreationDate="2015-02-16T17:11:50.217" Score="3" ViewCount="1808" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are the Chinese characters really pictorial?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a discussion &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Mandarin-Chinese-language/What-are-the-basic-differences-from-a-laymans-point-of-view-between-the-Chinese-language-script-and-word-formation-and-any-other-Indo-European-languages-like-English-Are-the-Chinese-characters-really-pictorial&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt;. What is your opinion? Please see the link and come back to give your insight. To be specific so that the question would be able to survive, please provide some good examples with your answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real question behind the issue is that &quot;Is it possible to have a language that is really pictorial or ideograph without any sound indication?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-02-16T17:32:04.443" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T16:29:50.773" Title="Are the Chinese characters really pictorial?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12440" CreationDate="2015-02-16T17:50:45.007" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My answer is YES, but only for Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;look at these video&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRi4uDCOHfQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRi4uDCOHfQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc3SftYcors&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc3SftYcors&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_NCdH5BscE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_NCdH5BscE&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;.&#xA;.&#xA;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The path of from picture to word is only presented in the Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are learning it and you have a teacher, you can ask it &quot;how this word came from&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Teacher may told you the story. This is the fastest way to learn Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6791" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T17:50:45.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12440" CreationDate="2015-02-16T20:12:12.290" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Chinese writing certainly has an early origin in logograms, but so does the Latin alphabet we use – the &quot;A&quot; is actually an ox head, tilted 90 degrees, and borrowed from the first Sumerian cuneiform script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since classical times, only a few percent of the Chinese language retains such logograms, while the vast majority (+90%) of characters are phonetic compounds, essentially a rather large and fuzzy alphabet with functional elements as hinting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;几 might be a table, but 叽, 饥 and 肌 haven't got much to do with a table, but are used phonetically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T20:12:12.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12443" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12444" CreationDate="2015-02-16T21:35:02.123" Score="1" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are speaking, but want to emphasize that you would write 她 rather than 他 at a certain point, how do you do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know ways to say the person you are talking about is a woman, as 倪阔乐 suggests.  I wondered if there is a way to indicate that the word you are saying would be written 她 without just saying so.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A history article at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.harvard-yenching.org/cultural-history-of-the-Chinese-character-ta&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.harvard-yenching.org/cultural-history-of-the-Chinese-character-ta&lt;/a&gt; points out that the hundredth birthday of 她 is coming up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the time the character first entered use several other neologisms were coined to indicate women:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“女界(women’s world/women),” “女英雄(female hero),” 国民之母(mother of the citizen),” “女国民” (female citizen), and “英雌 (heroic female).” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But again, each of those comes out and says woman or mother explicitly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-02-16T23:43:04.207" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T05:25:01.367" Title="How do you specify 她 in speech?" Tags="&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12443" CreationDate="2015-02-16T21:52:46.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;By context. Originally there were no gender specific pronouns, but 他 was used for he, she and it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Western languages influenced Chinese in this regard, although Chinese have earlier also had a rather complex system of honorific pronouns (like 朕).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A feminist discussion in the Western world of today concerns the default usage of &quot;he&quot; and related prnouns (and similar in other languages), which is said to &quot;discriminate&quot; women. But essentially, &quot;he&quot; is just the neutral pronoun, just like 他, whereas &quot;she&quot; and 她 are later linguistic extensions to denote sex or gender.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In essence, the Chinese have managed to describe gender/sexus by context since ancient times, without resorting to auxiliary pronouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, you could say 她那个女人, or 美丽的她 and similar construtcs to emphasize sex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T21:52:46.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="117" CreationDate="2015-02-16T22:00:33.223" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Download this game: &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/cn/app/cheng-yu-lian-lian-kan-peng/id623700913?mt=8&amp;amp;ign-mpt=uo%3D4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/cn/app/cheng-yu-lian-lian-kan-peng/id623700913?mt=8&amp;amp;ign-mpt=uo%3D4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its a Mandarin version of Word Trivia! Its fun and exciting, very challenging and its free!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9428" LastEditorUserId="9428" LastEditDate="2015-02-16T22:09:06.837" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T22:09:06.837" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12446" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-17T01:26:28.287" Score="9" ViewCount="1592" Body="&lt;p&gt;这个问题我找不到解释， 希望哪位高手可以帮下 ^^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学生想说 I have a question, 常常会说成 &quot;我有问题.&quot;&#xA;我会教他们用 “我有个问题” 或者 “我有一个问题。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原因是听到 “我有问题”的时候， 我的第一联想就是 “我脑子有问题。&quot; 可是我语法上面解释不来也查不到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在我自己都快糊涂了。 所以我想问：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1） “我有问题” 是正确的吗？ 我左看右看都觉得是错的。 可是百度上却有人怎么用。 求解释。&#xA;“我有问题” 可以用的情况下为：&#xA;我有问题想问你。&#xA;你有问题的话， 去问老板。 (不过这句话， 我个人还是比较喜欢用 “如果你有任何问题的话， 去问老板”）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 在百度上也常常看到 “你有问题吗？”， 如果我的话， 我会想用 “你有没有什么问题？”。 但是这句话只要不从贬义的角度来看的话， 是没有什么问题的。 你是怎么看待这句话的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这问题也发表在另一个语言论坛上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English version&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我有问题&quot; vs &quot;我有个问题&quot; - Grammar explanation if possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find an answer to this question, so I hope someone here will be able to help out ^^&#xA;Students often say, &quot;我有问题&quot; when they want to say &quot;I have a question.&quot;&#xA;I will have them use &quot;我有个问题&quot; or &quot;我有一个问题&quot; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is because when I hear &quot;我有问题&quot;, my immediate thought is &quot;我脑子有问题&quot; (I have some &quot;mental&quot; problems). But I can't explain this phrase in term of grammar, nor can I find an explanation online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You know how sometimes when you keep on digging into the basic things, you end up confusing yourself? (Or maybe that is just me -_-). Anyways, now I am confused. So I want to ask:&#xA;1) &quot;我有问题&quot; is this correct at all? It sounds wrong no matter how I look at it. But, people use it on Baidu. Explain please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I know that &quot;我有问题&quot; is corrected (with no ambiguity) when used in the following sentences:&#xA;我有问题想问你。&#xA;你有问题的话， 去问老板。 ( Just a personal preference, I prefer to say “如果你有任何问题的话， 去问老板”）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) I see a lot of &quot;你有问题吗?&quot; on Baidu. If it were me, I'd prefer to say &quot;你有没有什么问题？“ But this sentence is fine with me as long as I don't view it from a negative perspective. What is your opinion on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&#xA;Cross posted on a different language forum. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6427" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T03:18:50.213" Title="求解释: &quot;我有问题&quot; 和 &quot;我有个问题&quot; 中英 | Chinese &amp; English" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12446" CreationDate="2015-02-17T02:12:25.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我有问题&quot;: &quot;I have problem.&quot; It's a wrong way of saying &quot;I have a problem with ...&quot; It simply means &quot;I'm problematic&quot; or &quot;I, as a person, has problem mentally/physically/verbally etc.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我有个问题&quot;: &quot;I have a problem/question.&quot; This simply is putting across a statement to another party seeking help or simply stating that I have issue or question on hand and I would like to put forth for help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9430" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T02:12:25.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12446" CreationDate="2015-02-17T05:14:43.407" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's actually very common to say “我有问题”, and indeed it would cause ambiguity without contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's because 问题 could be both &quot;question&quot; and &quot;problem&quot;. The ambiguity can only be cleared within the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although ambiguous usage should be avoided when it's likely to create confusion (actually, eliminating ambiguity in sentences is a vey common practice on language classes in China, but it's not a very strict grammar requirement), this kind of situation is very common in Chinese because the language is an Analytic Language which depends heavily on contexts where English depends more on the inflection of words and grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This reminds me another similar situation when I was learning English. I thought &quot;I'm hot&quot; in English technically could mean &quot;I feel hot&quot;, but it seems that to avoid ambiguity, most people probably would say &quot;it's hot&quot; or &quot;I feel hot&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-02-18T04:38:27.923" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T04:38:27.923" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12443" CreationDate="2015-02-17T05:25:01.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Native speaker. agrees with 倪阔乐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking from experience, there is no common way to stress the gender in Mandarine without significantly change the style of speaking (e.g. nobody would use 伊人 or 红颜 in everyday conversation and those two words are not limited to females). That's why when my friends told me stories about another person I don't know, I would have to interrupt and ask the gender if that concerns me. Also not very formally, my friends and I would just say “女她” to quickly insert this piece of information into the conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T05:25:01.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12243" CreationDate="2015-02-17T05:30:51.400" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;有点儿意思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not everybody say that, but this is the closest thing we got. And it could express from mildly interesting to generally interesting depending on how you carry it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like in English you can say &quot;interesting&quot; plainly or you can say &quot;'innntresting&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it's also a catch phrase used by some Mandarine comedians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T05:30:51.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12451" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12457" CreationDate="2015-02-17T05:36:47.097" Score="2" ViewCount="836" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone offered two options for saying &quot;mental strength&quot; in Cantonese, but neither seems quite right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here were the two options suggested:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 腦力&#xA;2) 精神腦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the right way to say &quot;mental strength&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2015-02-17T21:36:37.793" LastActivityDate="2015-02-23T20:11:18.273" Title="腦力 the way to say &quot;mental strength&quot; in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12243" CreationDate="2015-02-17T05:51:39.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use &quot;酷&quot; this words to represent &quot;that's cool&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酷 is the same meaning of cool. Actually, 酷 is created from cool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the pronunciation of 酷 is the same as cool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone is do something really amazing, you can say 很酷吶.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this is old school, but it still work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now in Taiwan, we would say &quot;這麼屌&quot; (it means &quot;such a dick&quot;) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;屌 is not a formal word, but we usually use when we talk to friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:小王昨天在吉他比賽拿到第一名&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B:很酷吶!他不是才練二天?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B:這麼屌?他不是才練二天?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the words &quot;oh really?&quot;, you can use &quot;真的假的&quot; to represent it, no matter bad or good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.q.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:昨天小王用吉他演奏一首歌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B:真的假的?小王不是才學三天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:昨天小王被汽車撞到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B:真的假的?他還好吧?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6791" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T05:51:39.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12440" CreationDate="2015-02-17T05:59:24.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For so many things there are so many pure theoretical models like pictorial language, micro kernel operating systems or complete democracy. But in reality what works better are often hybrids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese sure has its pictorial aspect but it also uses many other approaches since its comes a long way to what it is today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @倪阔乐 pointed out, latin letters also have pictorial origins, but I don't think Indo-European languages count as pictorial languages since the letter doesn't carry meaning today even though its form was inspired by things in reality. Where Chinese characters commonly do (but not always) although some of those pictorial components have gone through heavy revisions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when I was reaching for another question, the one about left and right, if found out the top part of 左 and 右 comes from the shape of hand which used to be the same symbol of 又. The 工 and 口 are added later and the top parts were revised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems to me the question about whether or not Chinese is pictorial really depends on your definition of being pictorial. It is pictorial if you consider whether or not the construction of the character or basic meaning unit of the language have a visual root connect to its meaning. It is not if you consider whether or not if it is as pictorial as ancient Egyptian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-02-17T06:11:52.330" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T06:11:52.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12402" CreationDate="2015-02-17T13:56:24.953" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;@OmniBus &quot;those modern fonts are terrible and distinct nothing&quot;—you may despise modern fonts all you like, but when you pick up any calligraphy collection (書法字典) you will find abundant evidence that you'll have to extend your despisal to such names like 王羲之, 歐陽詢, 唐太宗 and so on, as they did &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; make those distinctions. Also, where the typographic distinction is today made between the different origins of the shape 月, it can be attributed to the influential Kangxi Dictionary of 1716; now, that very dictionary starts with an Imperial Preface which was penned by an eminent member of the Hanlin Academy and, as such, also has 'model character' (Modellcharakter). That writing style is a very orderly Regular script, is full of abbreviated and variant forms, and completely disregards the distinctions between the different origins of 月! This is a fact that most people conveniently gloss over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to think myself that those fonts / writing styles that do distinguish between the different origins of what today is mostly indistinguishable from 月 are more 'correct'; however, i've since changed my mind. 俞佩琳 has argued extensively and convincingly in his 1989 book 《中文字序學》 that efforts to distinguish between the different origins of 月—which goes back to earlier forms of 月 itself and 肉, 舟, and 丹—have been made at several points in Chinese history (most notably the Tang and Qing dynasties), were misguided, and have failed. In modern times, the ROC Ministry of Education tries to promote a 'correct' form of writing along these lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The efforts were and are misguided because modern writing (Kaishu style) is not equal to ancient writing (Seal script and Clerical script); it has evolved and replaces many older forms with simpler equivalents. It is also misguided because the calligraphic means used to make the distinctions—using two horizontal strokes that connect to left and right, or else two short horizontal strokes with gaps on the right, or else two dots, or else a dot and and upward stroke—are not very obviously connected to the outlines of 月, 肉, 舟, and 丹, but arbitrarily chosen expedients. The differences are visually minuscule and hard to remember. In fact, the distinction seems to be objectively difficult; 俞佩琳 adduces many examples that clearly demonstrate that even the editors of the 《五經文字》—the first work that embarked on this particular strain of resurrecting correct forms modeled on Seal script—get it plain wrong in many cases! Clearly, if they can't do it, how could the average writer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the reforms could have caught on if the reformers had decided to resurrect 肉, 舟, and 丹 to their full forms in characters like 前, for which we could write ⿱䒑—but then 䒑 is an abbreviation too! In this case, it stands in for 止, so we should really be writing ⿱止. But wait a moment, 刂 is really short for 刀, right, so the 'correct' way to write 前 is, indeed, ! Then again, at least the Small Seal form that is quoted in the Shuowen does not have a 刀; instead, it corresponds to 歬 (be it said that the Small Seal characters as we have them today may not be entirely the original ones, as we do not have an original copy of the work; also, the Shuowen, valuable as it is, contains many known erroneous Seal characters and wrong interpretations of correct forms). It's easy to see where this leads, namely more—many, many more—variant forms. But the pertinent point here is that those who insist on writing 前 with a double-dotted 月 have picked out a pet peeve, a 'perceived historical mistake' that they try to correct, leaving other, equally obvious developments untouched, with no clear reason why (in this case) 舟 should be restored but not 止. If i wanted to describe this with the most flattering terms, i'd call it hyper-correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this is really the problem with trying to revive seal characters in modern writing forms: one may deplore that many useful distinctions in the old characters have been lost in modern script (Wieger's Chinese Characters is almost exclusively dedicated to this cause), but one the other hand, trying to do so would radically change thousands of Chinese characters as we know them today. Just to distinguish 月, 肉, 舟, and 丹 (and a few other components) is a rather arbitrary choice; in fact, many, many distinctions have been lost—or rather, at some point in history that &lt;em&gt;predates the Qin dynasty's unification of the script&lt;/em&gt;, purposefully been thrown overboard when the Clerical script was developed. The entire program in the development of Clerical script (and, later, of Regular script) was to simplify Seal characters by simplifying single strokes and writing simpler outlines where possible (about Clerical script antedating Qin Small seal characters &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF5vPRD8uIA&quot;&gt;there's an interesting video in Chinese&lt;/a&gt;; this view is somewhat novel as the relevant bamboo and wood slips were only unearthed during the last century).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This, by the way, is how people came to write 人 as 亻 when occurring on the left hand side; before that was started, there was no such distinction. So when resurrecting old character forms, one should, once more, go all the way and stop distinguishing 人 and 亻! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is interesting to see how the afore-mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/M0001/mu/f5.html&quot;&gt;ROC MOE also falls short in its efforts to promulgate a purportedly more 'correct' from of writing&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ideographer.com/articles/article.php?aid=70&quot;&gt;as has been commented on the web&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;國字標準字體嚴格區分在小篆中有區別的部件，但有些做法似乎並不一致而令人疑惑。例如「月」字旁與「肉」字旁在楷書中已經合流，都寫做「月」，而國字標準字體則是特別規定代表「肉」字的「月」要將中間兩橫寫成點與挑（見右圖），以示區別（這種做法也有討論空間）。然而，「朝」、「服」等字的「月」字旁其實也不是「月亮」的「月」，而是「舟」字，古代印刷體有將中間兩橫寫為兩點的，以便與「月」保持區別，但是國字標準字體卻完全不區分「舟」字旁與「月」字旁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What sets apart the MOE 'standard' forms from other sources is the surprising fact that it &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; distinguishes 肉 and 月, but the 月-like component in 青 is still written with two horizontals; thus, the singular distinction they do make appears ever the more arbitrary, artificial, and hard to justify. Moreover, in both the Regular and Song typefaces, 月 is written with a slanting, not a straight initial stroke where it appears in the bottom part of a character (as in 青, 膏); checking this against classical samples of calligraphy shows this is wrong—月 should appear as ⺝ when in bottom position. Incidentally, ⺝ is also how 月 is written in &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; the preface &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; the main part of the Kangxi dictionary! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside, the Song typeface that is depicted e.g. on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/M0001/sungti/as30.htm?open&quot;&gt;http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/M0001/sungti/as30.htm?open&lt;/a&gt; is incredibly ugly and should definitely &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; be used as an exemplar for what Chinese characters should look like. To be clear: the typeface is proportioned so poorly and its technical defects are so blatantly obvious that any book on the subject of Chinese typefaces, character forms or Chinese fonts should warn against its use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To this one could add that as for 朋, both &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E6%9C%8B&quot;&gt;chineseetymology&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/kx/670B.htm&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt; agree that the shape 月 here originated from something different altogether (and it's not 貝, although it still could depict cowrie shells on a string). Writing 朋 with the two-dotted form of 月 makes it look like 朋 was derived from ⿰舟舟, which is patently wrong according to this data. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's even worse, when you research character origins, you often get conflicting views. For example, for 胜 the Shuowen says 从肉生聲; another source has 从力朕声 (with 朕 being traced back to ; note that关 is actually ⿱䒑大, from older ⿱火廾), and there is a variant  which the Kangxi Dictionary comments as 古文勝(胜)字, so according to which source you want to trust, you end up with 月 originating in either 肉 or 舟. Likewise, 朝 is variously explained as 从倝舟聲 and as 从日在草中从月. The pretty thought-out device of distinguishing four forms for what had once unambiguously become 月 in the Regular style of China's most renowned calligraphers is at the very least insufficient—many more forms are needed because (1) there are more than four sources for modern 月, and (2) some characters are analyzed differently by different authorities, so we need at least one more form to indicate all cases of doubt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3674" LastEditorUserId="3674" LastEditDate="2015-02-17T21:06:05.303" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T21:06:05.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7236" CreationDate="2015-02-17T14:21:43.377" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The distinction sometimes made between the different origins of what today (and has been so for thousands of years) is indistinguishable from 月 is entirely misguided, artificial, and continues to fail. Blatantly, the Ministry of Education tries to prescribe a somewhat boiled-down version of the 'Original Sin' (that was started during the Tang dynasty and taken up again by the editors of the Kangxi dictionary) and they &lt;em&gt;fail&lt;/em&gt;. Read more about this in my lengthy answer here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/12455/3674&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/12455/3674&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the OP more constructively in broad terms: When Clerical script developed from Seal script sometime before the First Emperor of Qin, the goal was to find a way of writing that was easier and faster. Consequently, many rounded strokes were simplified to straighter lines, many components were written with a simplified outline, and some components were given an abbreviated form when appearing as a 'side-element' (偏旁); this is why we today have such forms as 氵 for 水, 亻 for 人, 灬 for 火 and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the latter case, some components that differed in Seal script were written with the same abbreviated form as a side-element, and this happened to 月, 肉, 舟, and 丹 (and some others, it would seem) that ended up as 月. Likewise, 舌 and two other components were confounded (or unified, depending on your point of view), which is why the readings of 活, 括 etc are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; from 舌 (活 is explained as '从水,昏声'—no mention of 舌); 入 and 人 were not distinguished; 灬 sometimes goes back to 火 and sometimes to something entirely different (as in 馬 and 熊), and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3674" LastEditorUserId="23116" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T10:50:20.777" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T10:50:20.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12451" CreationDate="2015-02-17T15:28:03.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could also say 精神力/精神力量.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;腦力 is literally correct, but 精神腦 is absolutely wrong, where it means something like 'mental brain'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:  Sentence like &quot;You have dealt with a lot of adversity. You are clearly very mentally strong.&quot; could be translated into:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你面對/戰勝好多逆境, 明顯有強者的心態  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面對: facing&lt;br&gt;&#xA;戰勝: won&lt;br&gt;&#xA;逆境: adversity&lt;br&gt;&#xA;明顯: clearly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;強者的心態: the mental of a strong person  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence instead of saying a person is mentally strong; It is convey as a strong person's mentality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another close definition you could use is willpower - 意志力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2015-02-23T20:11:18.273" LastActivityDate="2015-02-23T20:11:18.273" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12458" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-17T19:30:46.430" Score="-2" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone translate this for me?&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://scontent-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/t31.0-8/s720x720/10974374_10152955924554724_1100767706294002363_o.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;vase&quot;&gt;&#xA;I need a translation for the bottom of this vase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9432" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-02-18T05:42:34.493" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T05:42:34.493" Title="Translation needed for Chinese vase" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-02-20T00:21:32.453" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12458" CreationDate="2015-02-17T20:08:52.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, first we have to recognized what is written as it is not a very good writing...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think what is written is from right to left (in simplified Chinese):&#xA;甲辰&#xA;东湖刻于&#xA;台湾&#xA;It means&#xA;these words are engraved in the year JiaChen which is a year counting by the Chinese Era, &#xA;at the East Lake, &#xA;in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4305" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T20:08:52.640" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12458" CreationDate="2015-02-17T22:18:08.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on some help from mona lisa, the reading seems to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甲辰，秉瑚（秉湖？）刻於臺*灣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the Jiachen year, Binghu carved (these words) in Taiwan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Binghu&quot; is presumably the given name of whoever made the vase.  &quot;Jiachen&quot; is a permutation of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagenary_cycle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;sexagenary cycle&lt;/a&gt;, so it's hard to say how what exact date that corresponds to.  Most likely it refers to 1964 based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%94%B2%E8%BE%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this table&lt;/a&gt;, but if it's supposed to be older, then keep on subtracting 60 years until the answer makes sense.  (yes, that's really how it works) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;* The orthography of the 臺 character is strange: is that a hint about when it might have been written, maybe? I'm kind of curious about the odd writing style...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2015-02-17T22:25:10.570" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T22:25:10.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12451" CreationDate="2015-02-18T00:18:45.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not good to take things out of context. Try to explain what you mean by 'mental strength', then translate that. Do you mean 'great intelligence, intellectual prowess' or 'a robustness of character which helps the person deal with any problems in an unperturbed way'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former may be 天才, the latter you could approach from 四大皆空 or 波澜不惊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当然以后需要翻译用粤语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T00:18:45.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12462" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-18T06:25:50.363" Score="1" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;I couldn't  find any translation in my dictionaries. Though. In context it seems to mean 'always'?! &#xA;这孩子老在班上捣蛋。&#xA;Is this correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T06:40:26.950" Title="How does one best translate 老在 into english" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12462" CreationDate="2015-02-18T13:48:06.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;老 is an adjective, means old. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It then be used as an adverb, long time, always, since old means long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 这孩子老捣蛋。商店里老有人偷钱包。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在班上 is a adverb phrase means location, where to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T13:48:06.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12446" CreationDate="2015-02-18T18:29:32.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An actual situation is this,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师问,谁有问题?&#xA;学生答,我有问题.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is perfectly Ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T18:29:32.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12465" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12466" CreationDate="2015-02-18T23:47:23.847" Score="0" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;On my Chinese dictionary, there are a few characters that I don't know what it means. It says: 商务印书馆. I want to know what it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9387" LastActivityDate="2015-02-20T01:38:16.400" Title="Dictionary meaning required" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-02-21T14:19:43.500" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12465" CreationDate="2015-02-19T00:32:23.580" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quick &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.ca/search?q=%E5%95%86%E5%8A%A1%E5%8D%B0%E4%B9%A6%E9%A6%86&amp;amp;biw=1093&amp;amp;bih=545&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=wi7lVPSNIsj0oAS8-YD4Bg&amp;amp;ved=0CAcQ_AUoAA&amp;amp;dpr=1.25&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google&lt;/a&gt; search told me this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;商务印书馆 is the first modern publishing organization in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your dictionary is probably published by 商务印书馆.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zbNPk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;pic&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4680" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T00:32:23.580" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12468" CreationDate="2015-02-19T03:48:46.990" Score="2" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, we have the generic word 'building': as in &quot;That building across from the book store&quot;. Here the speaker does not know or does not care to state the kind of building it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an equivalent generic noun in Taiwan Mandarin? I feel that people will say something like: &quot;書店對面的那一棟/家/間&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionary gives 建筑, but this seems uncommon to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9435" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T06:32:27.190" Title="Generic word for a building" Tags="&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12467" CreationDate="2015-02-19T06:32:27.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In terms of meaning, 建筑 is the sweeping term for all kinds of buildings. But its tone is too formal or technical for daily usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In daily usage you could just use the counter word and omit the actual noun like your example in 那一棟/家/間. Or you can use 楼 for buildings more than one story of 房子 for one story buildings. But like I said those are as sweeping as you could get in Chinese if you insist using a noun here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T06:32:27.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12465" CreationDate="2015-02-19T06:36:14.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's the name of the publisher of the dictionary. Xin Hua Zi Dian (新华字典) by 商务印书馆(literally: Commercial Press/Publishing/Printing Company) is the standard dictionary or at least the recommended dictionary by education ministry for schoolers in Mainland China. It's like what Webster dictionary is in the U.S. or Oxford dictionary is in the U.K.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-02-20T01:38:16.400" LastActivityDate="2015-02-20T01:38:16.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12462" CreationDate="2015-02-19T06:40:26.950" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;老在 is not a word. It's an adverb followed by a preposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老 means always or constantly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在 is just a preposition, here it would be 'on' to go with 班上(the class)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's: This kid always create troubles on the class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T06:40:26.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12471" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-19T10:59:52.797" Score="0" ViewCount="341" Body="&lt;p&gt;My young niece, whose birthday is in principle coming up at the end of the month (Feb 29), is named 润润. When I look it up in Google Translate, it returns “wet”.  Other dictionaries show the same thing, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-names.net/word/%E6%B6%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;even a guide that is specific to names&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this have some other meaning such as an idiom or context-specific usage, or is it a pretty sound, or what?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, how is it properly pronounced? I hear a short vowel sometimes like the word “in”, but also seems to sound very close to “run” more often.  Given that English is tone deaf, what at least is the best American English sound to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(They are in Kunming, Yunan. I don't know the differences between college Mandarin and local Yunaneese, but that's another question.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9436" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-11-20T23:45:07.473" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T23:45:07.473" Title="What is the meaning and translation of my niece's name?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2015-03-05T05:34:34.183" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12471" CreationDate="2015-02-19T23:38:29.670" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah, Reechen is right, more like 'ru in' said quickly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ask a Chinese to say 'under' and they will often say 'wunder', because 'u' is 'wu' when followed by a consonant in Pinyin, which is Chinese sounds written with Roman letters. The combination of phonemes 'g wu n' often seems to produce a sound like 'g win' or 'gwu in' in some speakers. It is pretty hard for anyone to say 'rw' or 'r wu n' so I suppose that is why it comes out a bit like 'rin' sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ask a Chinese to say 'wood' and their lips will get tangled and produce a sound like 'ud'. I like doing that with my girlfriend! 'What's it made of?' Until she hits me of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;滚 is written in Pinyin 'gun' but is pronounced 'gwun'. It means something like PFO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;利润 (lirun) means profits. 润 can also mean embellish, so together maybe 润润 is 'a profitable embellishment for our lives'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't read too much into names though. I know a girl called 杨一， so her first name as we see it is '一‘ = ’yi' = 1。'Your the one for me.'!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T23:38:29.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12474" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12489" CreationDate="2015-02-20T00:52:37.310" Score="3" ViewCount="32163" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lots of sites highlight the most popular new year greetings in Mandarin. What are the most popular ones for Cantonese, ideally categorized by usage (e.g., family, business, health, kids, parents, seniors)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the most popular ones for the year of the sheep/ram/goat?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T04:51:14.300" Title="What are the most popular new year greetings in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12474" CreationDate="2015-02-20T00:58:51.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Here are some ways to say happy new year (in Mandarin and Cantonese):&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新年快乐 / 新年快樂 Happy New Year in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'New Year happiness!'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin: Xīnnián kuàilè /sshin-nyen kwhy-ler/&#xA;In Cantonese: San1-nin4 faai3-lok6 /sen-nin feye-lor/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新年好 / 新年好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'New Year goodness!' (like &quot;Good day.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin: Xīnnián hǎo /sshin-nyen haoww/&#xA;In Cantonese: San1-nin4 hou2 /sen-nin haow/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过年好 / 過年好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Pass the New Year well!'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin: Guònián hǎo /gwor-nyen haoww/&#xA;In Cantonese: Gwo3-nin4 hou2 /gwor-nin haow/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Here are some new year greetings (in Mandarin and Cantonese):&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;恭喜发财 / 恭喜發財&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Happiness and prosperity!'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin: Gōngxǐ fācái /gong-sshee faa-tseye/&#xA;In Cantonese: Gung1-hei2 faat3-coi4 (Kunghei fatchoy) /gong-hey faa-chwhy/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;步步高升 / 步步高陞&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'step-by-step high promotion' — A steady rise to high places! — &quot;on the up and up&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin: Bùbù gāoshēng /boo-boo gaoww-shnng /&#xA;In Cantonese: Bou6-bou6 gou1-sing1 /boh-boh goh-sshin /&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;I have to admit that I didn't find many either.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4680" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2015-02-20T17:00:19.817" LastActivityDate="2015-02-20T17:00:19.817" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12471" CreationDate="2015-02-20T01:53:18.833" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably it is because it was a leap year (闰年). 闰 and 润 have same pronunciation, which is similar to English word 'ruin' (even the tone is the same) but shorter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闰 means intercalation and 润 means moist, smooth literally and nurturing, nourishing/nourished prosperity and affluence figuratively. 润 is often a good word and commonly used in people and organization names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-11-20T23:44:29.843" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T23:44:29.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12207" CreationDate="2015-02-20T04:53:06.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不得不have to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只好=can only/have to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;应该=should&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必须=must&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-20T04:53:06.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12480" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12484" CreationDate="2015-02-21T00:07:19.937" Score="2" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;We all know and love Engrish- hilariously bad English sometimes produced by native Chinese speakers. But is there an equally pat Chinese phrase to describe the converse- the weird, pitiable attempts at correct Chinese made by the benighted 老外? Seems only fair that there would be...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2015-02-21T01:08:36.130" LastActivityDate="2015-02-21T03:10:28.677" Title="What's the Chinese Converse of English &quot;Engrish&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12481" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12482" CreationDate="2015-02-21T00:14:56.587" Score="2" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of  &quot;唐乐乐睁开眼睛，看着头上陌生的天花板。&quot; What would be the meaning of the phrase &quot;唐乐乐&quot;? While I understand the rest of the sentence perfectly, this bit makes no sense to me. &#xA;Thanks for any help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6702" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-02-26T00:56:59.973" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T00:56:59.973" Title="What does 唐乐乐 mean?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12481" CreationDate="2015-02-21T00:39:55.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's the name of the person who opens her/his eyes to stare at the unfamiliar ceiling above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唐: family name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乐乐: given names&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-02-21T00:39:55.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12480" CreationDate="2015-02-21T03:10:28.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there's a sweeping term for that and I don't think the word Engrish is actually a term either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But here is something might humour you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伦敦音: London accent. It's actually from a 相声(Chinese Stand-up comedy) piece. Basically means the way of English speaker trying to say Chinese but can not get the rhyme and all the tones right. And to add humour effect, both 伦 and 敦 are pronounced in flat tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-21T03:10:28.677" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12446" CreationDate="2015-02-21T11:49:25.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the most important thing is to consider your CONTEXT. Because &lt;code&gt;我有问题&lt;/code&gt; is just a too general saying. It would indicate many different meanings in different situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean your student wants to ask you a question. I think &lt;code&gt;我有个问题&lt;/code&gt; is much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2015-02-21T11:49:25.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12486" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-21T21:23:25.887" Score="3" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;《饥饿的女儿》虹影 著 ch. 2, sect. 4 has the following text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;在学校, 最蔫的男同学对我也没兴趣&lt;/code&gt;, is translated by Howard Goldblatt as: &lt;code&gt;&quot;even the most mischievous boys in class showed little or no interest in me&quot;&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is this possible given the meaning of the adjective 蔫, e.g.: iciba: &amp;lt;形&gt; (精神不振) listless; spiritless; droopy. In the present context it seems &quot;mischievous&quot;&#xA;in fact would make better sense than &quot;listless&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-02-25T14:12:14.023" LastActivityDate="2015-02-25T14:12:14.023" Title="How can 蔫 be translated as &quot;mischievous&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12486" CreationDate="2015-02-21T21:36:58.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently it can mean something like &amp;quot;mischievous&amp;quot; in old Beijing dialect, ex &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/4019836.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蔫坏&lt;/a&gt;:又称“蔫儿坏”，老北京方言，也称“蔫土匪”。意思是不声不响的动坏心思、做坏事，在别人面前却是一副正人君子的模样。通常形容那些背地里使坏的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also see &lt;a href=&quot;http://qoofan.com/a/337340.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for an explanation of 蔫 in a Tianjin dialectical context: 这个[“蔫溜儿”的]“蔫”，就是玩儿阴的，暗中进行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T14:01:24.793" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12474" CreationDate="2015-02-22T00:13:56.393" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong, the two most popular greetings in Cantonese are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;恭喜發財&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;新年快樂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure about other Cantonese-speaking areas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T00:13:56.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12474" CreationDate="2015-02-22T02:23:50.280" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few suggestions for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恭喜發財 gung1 hei2 faat3 choi4 新年快樂 san1 nin4 faai3 lok6 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- All purpose happy new year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;身體健康 san1 tai2 gin6 hong1 龍馬精神 lung4 ma2 jing1 san4 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- Mostly for older people (and health-conscious people), wishing them good health.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快高長大 faai3 gou1 jeung2 daai6 學業進步 hok6 yip6 jeun3 bou6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- For children and students respectively, wishing them grow tall quickly, and make good progress in school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;步步高升 bou6 bou6 gou1 sing1 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- Suitable for working people, business associates, etc., wishing them advancement in their career. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜氣洋洋 hei2 hei3 yeung4 yeung4 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- Also a general purpose wish for happiness. Since this is the year of the sheep, some people choose this one because of the 洋洋, a play on the word 羊 &quot;sheep&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2015-02-22T03:01:55.623" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T03:01:55.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="117" CreationDate="2015-02-22T02:41:51.473" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;During Chinese New Year there is 猜灯谜 also called 射虎台。The idea is to deduce people, places, etc from phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a 青少年学生-level example from this web page: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4a43c9370100zf31.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4a43c9370100zf31.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase is 燕姿顿觉终日闲。The answer is 孙悟空。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“燕姿” is 孙, because &quot;孙燕姿&quot;, Stephanie Sun, a Singaporean singer&#xA;well-known in east Asia's Chinese language pop music scene.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“顿觉” is 悟。Self-evident once pointed out. :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;”终日闲” is 空。 Ditto.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be quite tough. I can't do most of these myself. :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the general topic, I recommend heartily this book 中华趣味语文:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://e.jd.com/30014365.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://e.jd.com/30014365.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(No affiliation. It's the first link from DDG.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9450" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T02:41:51.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12331" CreationDate="2015-02-22T02:53:19.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;绝不 or 绝对不会 or 绝对不干&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 绝 more closely conveys the sense of &quot;never&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9450" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T02:53:19.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12486" CreationDate="2015-02-22T12:45:58.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;蔫 read Niān, is a adjective, means 枯萎, withering, or withered. That a flower does not stand vividly due to less watering is said 蔫了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It, by itself, has no negative meaning at all. It just indicates the status of a plant. Due to the fact that when a plant or a flower withers, it bends down its &quot;head&quot;, the word is used to a person who does not active or talktive in peer group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, in a long distance, there is a combination of two words 蔫坏, withered and bad, means a person who does not talk often but inside thinks negatively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, 在学校,最蔫的男同学对我也没兴趣, it does not have the negative meaning of 坏. My perception of the sentence is that &quot;not even the least competitive boy has a little feeling on me&quot;.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-02-23T11:53:57.433" LastActivityDate="2015-02-23T11:53:57.433" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12493" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12494" CreationDate="2015-02-22T15:53:04.437" Score="3" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am translating a document that looks like an official introduction of a company maybe to be placed on their website or marketing material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the document, the first sentence starts with the name of the company, then later on they refer to the company as &quot;we&quot;, ex. We are a strong competitor in used equipment market.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally think &quot;We&quot; is not appropriate on official marketing material, so is the direct translation 我们 and would like to change to 本公司 or even just use the name of the company in place of the pronoun.  Or since they are using &quot;we&quot;, means it's not really written that seriously, it's ok to just translate as 我们？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the correct thing to do in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7014" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T17:51:14.177" Title="Translation of &quot;we&quot;, pronoun in official company introduction material" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12493" CreationDate="2015-02-22T17:51:14.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My answer would be yes, you can use 我们 because it's the most formal way of saying 'we'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9387" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T17:51:14.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12495" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-22T22:03:25.673" Score="4" ViewCount="358" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching Blur's new music video, which includes a recipe for ice cream with instructions in Chinese.  (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp1ks7PTzng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp1ks7PTzng&lt;/a&gt;)  At 3:03, the recipe says '将奶黄放入一个大，浅且可置于冷冻库的容器'.  I don't really understand how to translate this part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, how would you translate ‘即可离火'?  This is in the recipe at 2:59.  Does it mean something like 'immediately take away from the heat?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T00:29:01.493" Title="What does 且 mean by itself?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12495" CreationDate="2015-02-22T23:25:34.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't help that the comma is wrong.  It should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...大、浅且可以...的容器&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place it in a large, shallow &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; (且) able to be...container.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T23:25:34.867" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12499" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-23T03:01:53.337" Score="1" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had this sentence which was a bit difficult for me to understand at first because of the name + 他们. I understand it now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;郭高林他们决心用实际行动证明自己。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions is, can I write it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;郭高林 的 他们决心用实际行动证明自己。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-02-25T07:11:28.683" LastActivityDate="2015-02-25T07:11:28.683" Title="Can I use 的 between the name and 他们" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12499" CreationDate="2015-02-23T04:05:34.343" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No; in this context 的 is acting as a possessive, e.g. &quot;我的心&quot; means &quot;my heart&quot;, and &quot;郭高林的心&quot; means &quot;Guo Gaolin's heart&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们 means &quot;they&quot; or &quot;them&quot;, so it makes no sense to possess this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase 郭高林他们 means something like &quot;Guo Gaolin et al.&quot; or &quot;Guo Gaolin and co.&quot; Note no possessives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, if you want to use 的 you would have to transform the phrase into a possessive, for example 郭高林的小组 (Guo Gaolin's group) or 郭高林的团伙 (Guo Gaolin's team).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-02-23T04:05:34.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12499" CreationDate="2015-02-23T04:05:39.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 should not be use between name and 他们。&#xA;When you use name + 他们， it means the name you mentioned is a member in the group of people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the expression '郭高林+的+他们' represents 他们 is owned by 郭高林. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6620" LastActivityDate="2015-02-23T04:05:39.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12495" CreationDate="2015-02-23T12:08:47.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For your first question, &lt;code&gt;且&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;and&lt;/code&gt;. There are many good answers above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your second question, &lt;code&gt;即可离火&lt;/code&gt;, it means &lt;code&gt;as long as .... you can take it away from heat&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;即&lt;/code&gt; indicates when some condition reaches, you should/can do something. It may vary in different situations. I just watched the Youtube video and I think it means &quot;as long as you can scratch a clear path on the surface of the custard, you should take it away from the heat&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2015-02-23T12:08:47.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12495" CreationDate="2015-02-24T03:00:33.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here 且 = &quot;and&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here 即 means &quot;就&quot; as an adverb. &quot;即可离火&quot; means &quot;Then (即) okay （可) to take away from heat.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3931" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-02-26T00:29:24.137" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T00:29:24.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12505" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12519" CreationDate="2015-02-24T13:48:29.833" Score="2" ViewCount="342" Body="&lt;p&gt;Overwhelm is a difficult word to deal with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen &lt;code&gt;难不倒&lt;/code&gt; translated as &lt;code&gt;wouldn't have overwhelmed&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;XX&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;劳力&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;大&lt;/code&gt; as something's power being overwhelming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxford has&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;难以忍受的 (heat, pressure)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;难以抑制的 (feeling, sorrow, interest)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two sound very much like direct English translations than proper Chinese, and not very accurate either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;难以忍受 sounds more like &lt;em&gt;unbearable&lt;/em&gt; than overwhelming, while 难以抑制 sounds more like uncontrollable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take these three examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It was a bit overwhelming to say the least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The work seemed very overwhelming at first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The situation made me feel overwhelmed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can we translate overwhelming here in a nice colloquial way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T01:50:26.980" Title="Translation: 'Overwhelm'" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12505" CreationDate="2015-02-24T19:23:44.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.起码(at least)也是有点(a bit)过分 (overwhelming)了。&#xA;2. 起初工作看上去让人有些不知所措。&#xA;3. 那种情况让我觉得压力非常大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overwhelming in Chinese could often mean the pressure is so big that someone feels hard to keep head above water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4704" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T19:23:44.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12505" CreationDate="2015-02-24T23:35:31.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Funny you should mention 'hard to keep their head above water' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'overwhelm' = 'over + whelm' and 'whelmen' is Middle English for 'turn upside down' and later had the meaning 'submerge completely'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 'overwhelmed' in the example sentences above means 'too much' or 'cannot cope' 'very difficult' why not translate that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was a bit overwhelming to say the least.&#xA;这对我来说有点太多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The work seemed very overwhelming at first.&#xA;首先，这工作似乎太难了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation made me feel overwhelmed.&#xA;我无法驾驭这种情况。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T23:35:31.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12495" CreationDate="2015-02-25T03:24:19.217" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;将奶黄放入一个大，浅且可置于冷冻库的容器 means 'put the custard into a huge, shallow container (and) which can be put into a freezer'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here 且 means &lt;code&gt;and&lt;/code&gt;(而且).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another useage 且 means 'just', such as 且行且珍惜(just cherish what you have at the moment) here 且 means just.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即可(离火) means you can do something when something happen as soon as possbile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such as: &#xA;1. 当油热了，即可离火 (When the oil is hot, you can turn off fire right now[She suggest you do it right now]).&#xA;2. 开袋即食 (Open the bag, you can eat it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即 has a meaning of you can do something with a hint do it now(as soon as possible).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastActivityDate="2015-02-25T03:24:19.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12509" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-25T09:44:40.893" Score="2" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the TV drama &lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjQ4NDM1ODQ4.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;追捕 第3集&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梁队 (梁志群队张) and 鲁队 (鲁炼) are in 贺局's office discussing the case, and at 27:54 梁队 says to 鲁队: &lt;code&gt;甭给我来这个哩哏楞&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Dialog especially of the police officers consists mainly of Beijing dialect, which although not in dictionaries  often is explained elsewhere on the Internet, which seems not to be the case with 哩哏楞 although it occurs in the names of many Internet pages.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-02-25T12:22:24.607" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T01:38:49.260" Title="Translating &quot;哩哏楞&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12509" CreationDate="2015-02-25T11:05:57.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://fangyan.yjba.net/html/shandong/536.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; it's defined as 装糊涂，办事敷衍. Other places define it as 閒扯 but then it's prefixed with 扯. Based on the limited context above I would go with &quot;Don't play dumb with us&quot; or maybe &quot;Stop bullshitting us&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-02-25T23:54:16.130" LastActivityDate="2015-02-25T23:54:16.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12509" CreationDate="2015-02-25T12:12:57.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a kind of dialect, means &lt;code&gt;blandishments&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;sweet words&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哩格儿楞&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  在人们的对话中，常会听到这样的话：“你少给我来这个‘哩格儿楞’！”意思是你别给我花言巧语、油嘴滑舌。其实这个俗语是近年由北京传来的，也算是准河北方言——现在在河北各地都能听到人说这个词。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  该词源于京剧票友在清唱时，对唱腔开始前的“板头”和唱腔中间的“过门”曲调，往往以口舌代乐器，唱作“隆格哩格儿楞”，有的“过门”曲调委婉，绕来绕去，所以人们就把“哩格儿楞”来比喻某些人的花言巧语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hbqnb.com/news/html/Localism/2007/326/07326319BC2AI1FI8CEGK79G7FK7.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;少整哩格儿楞&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-02-25T13:09:45.720" LastActivityDate="2015-02-25T13:09:45.720" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12512" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12514" CreationDate="2015-02-25T21:52:22.283" Score="2" ViewCount="484" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for a &lt;strong&gt;colloquial&lt;/strong&gt; way to translate: &lt;code&gt;to say the least&lt;/code&gt; into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hujiang.com/ciku/to_say_the_least/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hujiang&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to say the least的意思是： 至少可以这样说,退一步说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至少可以这样说,退一步说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英语句子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The logic of this was weird to say the least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至少可以说，这个逻辑推理是奇怪的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;...sounds weird to me....&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next example sentence omits the phrase completely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chorus is very catchy to say the least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;副歌部分很容易上口。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the examples of &lt;em&gt;至少可以说&lt;/em&gt; that I found through &lt;em&gt;Baidu&lt;/em&gt; just seem to be translations of English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What colloquial/natural ways are there to express &lt;em&gt;to say the least&lt;/em&gt; in Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-02-25T23:39:43.177" Title="Translation: &quot;To Say The Least&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12512" CreationDate="2015-02-25T22:23:13.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Word for word translations are not always available or desirable. 至少/起码可以说 works, but is foreign in scope. What you want is a phrase that catches the essence of it, like 说得好听, or 毫不夸张地说, or perhaps 坦率地说. 退一步说 is fine, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shorter and more to the point equivalents are 说少 and 少言之.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打折扣地说 and 轻描淡写 both mean &lt;em&gt;understatement&lt;/em&gt;, which is another way of phrasing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-02-25T22:23:13.113" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12512" CreationDate="2015-02-25T23:39:43.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The one on my mind is “不说别的，（至少/光是）...”. 至少 for positive statements, 光是 for negative ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The logic of this was weird to say the least. 不说别的，光是逻辑就很奇怪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chorus is very catchy to say the least. 不说别的，至少副歌很容易上口。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-02-25T23:39:43.177" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12515" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12526" CreationDate="2015-02-26T00:56:35.310" Score="5" ViewCount="456" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both words have the same pronunciation, and cdict and some other dictionaries list them as variants of each other. I note that when I try to type it on Google Pinyin Chinese IME, 複習 comes up and 復習 isn't even an option, but 複習 is listed as the &quot;variant&quot; form. Relatedly, in Japanese, it's written 復習 and 複習 isn't accepted as a variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference in nuance between 復習 and 複習, and what caused the variant forms to begin with? Why hasn't the character choice been standardized?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5808" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T18:54:29.583" Title="Is there a difference between 復習 and 複習?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12515" CreationDate="2015-02-26T01:23:17.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Native Simplified Chinese user, no expert on Traditional Chinese. But according to what I found, both of them are OK, in Taiwan Traditional Chinese at least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked it up in a Traditional Chinese online dictionary (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?idx=dict.idx&amp;amp;cond=%BD%C6%B2%DF&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?idx=dict.idx&amp;amp;cond=%BD%C6%B2%DF&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;imgFont=1&lt;/a&gt;) published online by Ministry of Education (Republic of China i.e. Taiwan) which states both are ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also came across a post on Taiwanese BBS (&lt;a href=&quot;http://forum.fashionguide.com.tw/post_list.php?topic_id=684363&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://forum.fashionguide.com.tw/post_list.php?topic_id=684363&lt;/a&gt;). The OP of the post was asking the same question in Chinese, so it's a common confusion among native speakers too! Most replies consider 複習 as the correct one. And one of the comments explains that 複 denotes repetition and 復 denotes going back. But ultimately they referred the dictionary above as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Japanese, the Kanji for review/revision is 復習 (according to Wisdom Japanese-English dictionary preinstalled on Mac OS X).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-02-26T02:24:51.423" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T02:24:51.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12517" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-26T01:29:46.523" Score="2" ViewCount="904" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have: &lt;code&gt;哪里呀，我也是没办法，摸着石头过河罢了！&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &lt;code&gt;摸着石头过河&lt;/code&gt; 'tapping in the dark'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, I don't know how, I'm still tapping in the dark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-02-26T12:58:38.743" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T20:48:49.583" Title="What is the meaning of 摸着石头过河" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12509" CreationDate="2015-02-26T01:38:49.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;27:54 梁队 says to 鲁队: 甭给我来这个哩哏楞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;27:54 Captain Liang says to Captain Lu: Don't bullshit me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;27:54 Captain Liang says to Captain Lu: Save that crap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;27:54 Captain Liang says to Captain Lu: Cut to the chase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the translation are possible, but the wording really depends on the context and the emotion of and relation between the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哩哏楞 basically is often used to denote off topic talking or behaviour that doesn't make a point or simply the perfunctory. Some times &quot;来(这/这个/这套)哩哏楞&quot; can be replaced by verb 扯淡.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To understand the meaning, you can understand the word as sweeping onomatopoetic for the sound of humming instrumental part of traditional operas, and now used to denote all non-essential or off-topic or perfunctory talking or behaviour that may seem that the speaker was talking but actually they did't say anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T01:38:49.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12505" CreationDate="2015-02-26T01:50:26.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker who is learning English, I have the same problem. And I don't think there is word in Chinese similar to overwhelming. The solution I came to is change the expression completely depending on the context. So here are my tries for the examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It was a bit overwhelming to say the least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;再怎么说，这也有点太多/过分/严格了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This translation really depends on what the subject is. If it is something too much, use 太多, if it is something too went too far use 过分, if it is some overwhelming requirement use 太严格.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The work seemed very overwhelming at first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一开始这个工作可能有点难以应付/这个工作可能压力很大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The situation made me feel overwhelmed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这情况让我压力很大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.S:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar as overwhelming, I couldn't find the word in English for 过分 in sentence like 你太过分了!.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;you went too far!&quot; or &quot;you are way cross the line here!&quot; but both of them seemed too civilised for the original tone since the Chinese one can be yelled out at a raging scolding tone and contains strong personal opinion but both the English version seem to be too fact based.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T01:50:26.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12517" CreationDate="2015-02-26T01:59:51.977" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about the phrase &quot;tapping in the dark&quot; because my limited English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 摸着石头过河 basically means try to do something via trials and errors. So my translation would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, I have no idea, I'm still learning while doing it/I'm just trying to do what I can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T01:59:51.977" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12521" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12523" CreationDate="2015-02-26T05:46:29.593" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;Refer to the sentence &quot;I have two dogs that catch anything I throw except those too heavy&quot;.&#xA;If we are to translate the sentence into Chinese, we may say &quot;我有兩隻能接住我丟的任何不是太重的東西的狗&quot;, which is awkward. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think the above is okay, simply construct another sentence with a long clause, say the sentence &quot;Find a thing that looks like a tree but not a tree, that smells like a dog but not a dog, and when I throw which then which bounces off&quot;. Then it is difficult to find an idiomatic Chinese version of the sentence (I am a native Chinese speaker).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I am after a general way to translate such sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T06:38:20.447" Title="Translation problem" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12522" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-26T05:54:57.750" Score="10" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_opera&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Peking Opera&lt;/a&gt; has a distinct pronunciation, that is at first similar to Mandarin, but to astute listeners, certain characters appear to have alternate or even non-Mandarin pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take certain passages in &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/1648982/13870761.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;三家店&lt;/a&gt; for example (listen for yourself in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM0KsDlGb70&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将身儿来至在大&lt;strong&gt;街&lt;/strong&gt;口 (jiai)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尊一&lt;strong&gt;声&lt;/strong&gt;过往宾&lt;strong&gt;朋听&lt;/strong&gt;从头 (shen, pong, tin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一不是响马&lt;strong&gt;并贼&lt;/strong&gt;寇 (bin, ze)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二不是歹人把&lt;strong&gt;城&lt;/strong&gt;偷 (chen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杨林与我来&lt;strong&gt;争&lt;/strong&gt;斗 (zhen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因此上发配到&lt;strong&gt;登&lt;/strong&gt;州 (den)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舍不得太爷的恩&lt;strong&gt;情&lt;/strong&gt;厚 (qin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实难舍&lt;strong&gt;街&lt;/strong&gt;坊四邻与我的好&lt;strong&gt;朋&lt;/strong&gt;友 (jiai, pong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the differences in pronunciation seem consistent, as if it is a formal part of Peking Opera instead of embellishments by the singers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is this true - there is a formal set of pronunciation rules for Peking Opera, analogous to a dialect? Where did this come from, was it based on one or many dialects, and if so which ones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T02:30:46.340" Title="Is there a &quot;Peking Opera dialect&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12521" CreationDate="2015-02-26T06:25:24.043" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am too a native Chinese speaker. In this situation if you don't want to sound too foreign, I suggest you make a good use of comma and pronouns and other explicit and implicit conjunctions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have two dogs that catch anything I throw except those too heavy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有两只狗，只要不是太重，我扔什么它们都能接着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Find a thing that looks like a tree but not a tree, that smells like a dog but not a dog, and when I throw which then which bounces off&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;找个东西，看着像树不是树，闻着像狗不是狗，然后我一扔，它能弹起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference here is that comma in English only denotes pause, clauses are still have to be connected by conjunctives. In Chinese, you can use comma connect two independent clauses without any special grammatical devices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-02-26T06:38:20.447" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T06:38:20.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12521" CreationDate="2015-02-26T06:32:24.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;I have two dogs that catch anything I throw except those too heavy&quot;. is none too good English, try: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I have two dogs that catch anything I throw, as long as what I throw is not too heavy.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then put that in Chinese. Chinese is not my strong point, I'd rather leave that to you! Maybe '我有兩隻能接住我丟的任何，只要不是太重的東西的狗' Isn't that too many 的s？？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T06:32:24.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12522" CreationDate="2015-02-26T06:48:50.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Beijing opera was not invented in the capital, but was largely imported from Anhui and other parts of the country, and then it evolved with further influences from other regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certain pieces may therefore retain local accents, like Jiang-Huai (江淮官话) above, although the music itself makes it possible to just twist and distort the syllables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T06:48:50.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12515" CreationDate="2015-02-26T07:31:29.183" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: The correct form is 複習. The following details the history regarding the two characters to explain why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 複 and 復 are pronounced exactly the same in modern Mandarin Chinese with the exact same tones (&lt;code&gt;fù&lt;/code&gt;) and are both written as 复 in Simplified Chinese, they originally had different pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;複 was pronounced with an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_(phonetics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;unvoiced&lt;/a&gt; initial consonant in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (ca. 600), &lt;code&gt;/pjuk/&lt;/code&gt;, while&#xA;復 had a voiced initial consonant, &lt;code&gt;/bjuk/&lt;/code&gt;. Because both words ended with the final consonant &lt;code&gt;/k/&lt;/code&gt;, they belonged to a class of words having a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checked_tone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;checked tone (入聲)&lt;/a&gt; in Middle Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_change&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pronunciation shifts&lt;/a&gt; happened during the transition to Late Middle Chinese (ca. 1000):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilabial_consonant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bilabial consonants&lt;/a&gt; &lt;code&gt;/p/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;/b/&lt;/code&gt; followed by the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semivowel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;glide consonant&lt;/a&gt; &lt;code&gt;/j/&lt;/code&gt; became &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labiodental_fricative&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;labiodental fricatives&lt;/a&gt; &lt;code&gt;/f/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;/v/&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A distinction in voicing of initial consonants lead to a phonemic split in Middle Chinese tone categories. Each tone category was split into &quot;upper&quot; 陰 and &quot;lower&quot; 陽 registers, with words having unvoiced initials in the former and those with voiced initials in the latter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Later on, the voicing distinction ends up disappearing†, resulting in &lt;code&gt;/f/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;/v/&lt;/code&gt; merging into &lt;code&gt;/f/&lt;/code&gt;, but the aforementioned tonal distinction remained.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the end of Late Middle Chinese, this resulted in 複 having a pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;/fuk/&lt;/code&gt; with a 陰入 tone and 復 having a pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;/fuk/&lt;/code&gt; with a 陽入 tone. In fact, because modern Cantonese retains all the tones of Late Middle Chinese, it maintains this same distinction between these two words; compare 複 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/sound/fuk1.wav&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;fuk1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; vs. 復 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/sound/fuk6.wav&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;fuk6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The transition from Late Middle Chinese to modern Mandarin underwent a few more sound changes, the most significant of which was the loss of the final consonants that denoted checked tone words (such as the final &lt;code&gt;/k/&lt;/code&gt;). Because of this, the checked tone as a category was completely lost, and many of its words ended up being redistributed into the other tones in an unpredictable manner. In modern Mandarin, both of these characters ended up with the Mandarin fourth tone, resulting in their modern pronunciation, &lt;code&gt;fù&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct word should be 複習, and its evidenced by the way the word is pronounced in Cantonese, &lt;code&gt;fuk1 zaap6&lt;/code&gt;. In fact if you instead say &lt;code&gt;fuk6 zaap6&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese, you'd actually be referring to a different word, 復雜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why their meanings are so similar, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=nIvqAC7FNBQC&amp;amp;lpg=PP1&amp;amp;pg=PA246#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt; actually lists them under the same etymon. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt; used to be more derivational, with affixes resulting in slight differences in meaning. In this case 複 is reconstructed with an Old Chinese pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;*pruk&lt;/code&gt; while 復 is reconstructed with the &lt;code&gt;*m-&lt;/code&gt; prefix: &lt;code&gt;*mpruk&lt;/code&gt;. This prefix is believed to have originally indicated a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causative&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;causative&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volition_(linguistics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;volitional&lt;/a&gt; meaning (複 'repeat' vs. 復 'cause to repeat', see &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=K6Q-BAAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA54&amp;amp;lpg=PA54&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction&lt;/em&gt;, pp. 54-5&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this process is no longer productive in modern Chinese, it often surfaces in pairs of words that have similar meanings but different tones or initial consonants. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/9874/166&quot;&gt;This previous Chinese StackExchange answer&lt;/a&gt; gives another example. In many cases, many of these words may have merged back together and ended up with the same pronunciation as is the case with 複 and 復 in modern Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;複 OC &lt;code&gt;*pruk&lt;/code&gt; &gt; EMC &lt;code&gt;pjuk&lt;/code&gt; &gt; LMC &lt;code&gt;fuk&lt;/code&gt; &gt; Mand. &lt;code&gt;fù&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;復 OC &lt;code&gt;*mpruk&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;*m-&lt;/code&gt; + 複) &gt; EMC &lt;code&gt;bjuk&lt;/code&gt; &gt; LMC &lt;code&gt;vuk&lt;/code&gt; &gt; Mand. &lt;code&gt;fù&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're interested in reading more about how modern Chinese pronunciations developed, take a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Chinese_phonology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Historical Chinese Phonology Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;† As an aside, the voicing distinction actually remains in the modern &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wu varieties of Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (of which &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghainese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shanghainese&lt;/a&gt; is one). I'm not very familiar with Wu Chinese, but I believe the pronunciation of 複 and 復 ends up being something like &lt;code&gt;/foʔ/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;/voʔ/&lt;/code&gt;, respectively, in many of those dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T18:54:29.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12515" CreationDate="2015-02-26T10:36:46.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing exactly the meanings of the words &quot;複&quot; and &quot;復&quot; is a key to a solution of your problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;複&quot; has a meaning of &quot;double&quot;. For example, &quot;複數&quot; means &quot;complex number&quot;, because a complex number can be loosely viewed as a pair of real numbers. So &quot;複習&quot; means &quot;study or learn again&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;復&quot; has a meaning of &quot;re-&quot;. For instance, &quot;復查&quot; means &quot;re-check&quot;. Thus &quot;復習&quot; also means &quot;study or learn again&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, since both &quot;複習&quot; and &quot;復習&quot; can mean &quot;study or learn again&quot;, it follows that they are virtually equivalent in meaning, so that they can be used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope the above lines help you out with your problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T10:36:46.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12528" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12529" CreationDate="2015-02-26T19:39:00.877" Score="-2" ViewCount="4772" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need help writing this on my computer, so I can Copy/paste and if its possible, whats the meaning of it, thanks alot guys! here is the image:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gHN2o.png&quot; alt=&quot;chinese characters&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9470" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T20:04:06.800" Title="I need to write some chinese characters to copy paste" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-02-27T02:33:59.003" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12528" CreationDate="2015-02-26T20:04:06.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q版主题手办-莉娜-B款&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;Q版 (Cute Version) &#xA;主题 (Theme) &#xA;手办 (not sure about this one, maybe manual) &#xA;莉娜 (a name: Lina) &#xA;B版 (B Version)&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9297" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T20:04:06.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12517" CreationDate="2015-02-26T20:36:51.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The literal translation of this idiom is something along the lines of, &quot;feeling stones while crossing a river&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;摸 — &lt;em&gt;mō&lt;/em&gt;, to feel or grope.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;着 — &lt;em&gt;zhe&lt;/em&gt;, a particle denoting an action in progress. When combined with the previous character, you get 摸着, meaning &quot;(currently) feeling&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;石头 — &lt;em&gt;shítou&lt;/em&gt;, stone(s).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;过 — &lt;em&gt;guò&lt;/em&gt;, which has a few different meanings but here means &quot;to cross&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;河 — &lt;em&gt;hé&lt;/em&gt;, river.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figuratively, what it means is &quot;to figure things out as you go along&quot;, as if you were wading through a river by feeling the stones on the riverbed with your feet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give an example, my understanding is that this phrase was often used to describe the economic policy of Dèng Xiǎopíng (邓小平), who was the leader of China after the death of Máo Zédōng (毛泽东). He &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.chinesehour.com/?p=815&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;used it&lt;/a&gt; to describe the sort of experimental, gradual reforms that brought China to the economic position it's in today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your phrase (哪里呀，我也是没办法，摸着石头过河罢了) is a bit difficult to translate without context, but it seems to mean something like, &quot;There's nothing I can do about it either, I'm just figuring things out as I go along, that's all.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9471" LastEditorUserId="9471" LastEditDate="2015-02-26T20:48:49.583" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T20:48:49.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12531" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-27T00:39:24.347" Score="2" ViewCount="853" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DZ3sW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bought this sword online.  No idea what it says.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9474" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T00:39:24.347" Title="Can anyone translate? Etching on the sword" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-02-27T14:58:16.123" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12522" CreationDate="2015-02-27T02:30:46.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is because they want to make the sound a little bit louder, because in the past there is no electric amplifier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example, the changes are (1) from &quot;ng&quot; to &quot;n&quot;, so that the nasal coda is lighter. (2) push vowel from &quot;e&quot; to &quot;a&quot; &quot;o&quot; because the mouth opens wider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T02:30:46.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3845" CreationDate="2015-02-27T04:05:05.690" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, thanks to Congliu's experiment. And I think this is a very interesting question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this research called &lt;em&gt;The Dynamic Statistics and Comparison of the Stroke Counts of Simplified and Traditional Chinese Characters&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;ftp://ftp.cs.sjtu.edu.cn:990/gshulun/%B7%A2%B1%ED%C2%DB%CE%C4my_published_papers/%BC%F2%BB%AF%D7%D6%D3%EB%B7%B1%CC%E5%D7%D6%B1%CA%BB%AD%CA%FD%B5%C4%B6%AF%CC%AC%CD%B3%BC%C6%D3%EB%B1%C8%BD%CF.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ftp://ftp.cs.sjtu.edu.cn:990/gshulun/%B7%A2%B1%ED%C2%DB%CE%C4my_published_papers/%BC%F2%BB%AF%D7%D6%D3%EB%B7%B1%CC%E5%D7%D6%B1%CA%BB%AD%CA%FD%B5%C4%B6%AF%CC%AC%CD%B3%BC%C6%D3%EB%B1%C8%BD%CF.pdf&lt;/a&gt;) on Shanghai Jiao Tong University's website. I'm not sure about how serious the research was, but I think it can bring some insights to the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their findings are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Among 3479 high-frequency TC characters, TC characters have 2.19 (30%) more strokes than SC characters. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For another 1128 random TC characters, the difference is 6.69 strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if we can set an average stroke speed, SC is definitely faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;THOUGHTS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a surprise. Intuitively, Simplified Chinese should be faster since speed its one of its purpose and it was achieved by trim down the strokes in the characters. And it is very understandable that TC users may find SC repelling. I'm a SC user (I'd like to use TC, but I think I'd better do it by formal training rather than just use the TC function in the IME which may lead to subtle misuse). But if I were a TC user, I probably would frown when I see SC as well since some of the characters I tried hard to learn had been trimmed down without inconsistently and they just look awkward. Also it would be easier to criticise something new (relatively). But process of simplification lost some of the characters origin and tradition is a fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are two sides of the story. Indeed the SC was part of the Soviet political scheme. However, I think it did benefit the population in less literal area to become semi-literal quickly. I mean, for the speed of China's economy, those people really don't have the time the differentiate the four ways to write character 茴 (look it up， it's called 茴香豆的茴字的四种写法, it's famous criticism on Chinese characters by Lu Xun). Now think about another fact: for years, college students were required to pass CET English test to graduate in Mainland China, which has been lifted just recent year. Facing a huge illiterate population who resides in poor areas, SC did help to smooth the process for making them to read and write at least and make time to learn English as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this question got me to think about the current situation for SC. Today, most of us Chinese, like the rest of the world, use computers, cellphones more than ever. Personally, I only actually write when I want to practice my handwriting. Pinyin really helped in this aspect, so the writing speed in production environment seems to be less an issue. If we start switching back to TC characters now, speed wouldn't be a big problem for economy (And most people in economically developed part can read most TC). And for schoolers, they have and should spend the time to learn each characters closely. But on the other hand, TC might be too complex for displays, especially in small sizes. And SC has become part of the history and reality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are my personal thoughts about the SC v.s TC issue. I know that my thought is inconclusive regarding which one is better issue. But I think it will just become part of asian history. It doesn't make any more sense than arguing which one is more correct between Japanese Kanji and Chinese Characters except in terms of politics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-02-27T05:30:04.460" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T05:30:04.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12406" CreationDate="2015-02-27T13:43:29.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read through the wikipedia article. although with the idea grasped, I have never found such &lt;em&gt;market phenomenon&lt;/em&gt; in my life. So while you may after all translate this into Chinese, don't expect to make all people understand immediately. Because there may not be corresponding &lt;em&gt;concept&lt;/em&gt; in their mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to live in Shandong, China and later moved to Hubei, China. I can say both my household knowledge and my sense of the Chinese language align with common people from northern and central China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best recommendation from me, is go for “一般” and always have it followed by a brief explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8102" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T13:43:29.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12495" CreationDate="2015-02-28T00:29:01.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;1. 既高且大。尚且。况且。moreover&#xA;2. 苟且偷安。姑且。for the time being, for now&#xA;3. 城且拔矣。年且九十。 about to, will soon (pre-verb)&#xA;4. 且走且说。also (post-subject)&#xA;5. 这双鞋且穿呢！long last,durable&#xA;6. 且说。mostly used in Chinese literature&#xA;7. 姓。a surname &#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9297" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T00:29:01.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12537" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-28T00:49:45.920" Score="1" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the following text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最好在创业之前对你所要做的事情做一个梳理，包括注册公司的流程、选址之类的事情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 做一个梳理 mean? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it must be 'make a list'??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T06:01:52.060" Title="What is the meaning of 做一个梳理" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12538" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12540" CreationDate="2015-02-28T00:55:21.373" Score="6" ViewCount="1359" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose I want to make up a story featuring an &lt;em&gt;unimportant&lt;/em&gt; Chinese character. How do I give the name, so it sound like Chinese, but do &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; carry too much particular meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, the Chinese character is neither the protagonist nor the antagonist, and has a minimal characteristic. Neverthless, a name is still needed. What I want is a name that sound like &lt;em&gt;annonymous&lt;/em&gt;, while still consisting of a first name and a last name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like &quot;Charlie&quot; for English and &quot;Ivan&quot; for Russian, I want the name to imply Chinese nationality, especially when heard by foreign people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't want the name as a pun, because thus will limit the target audience to some native language the pun originated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both genders may be considered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although statistics are out there on name distribution among the population, I am still interested how those names sound like when some foreign people hear it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also please do not come up with names &quot;Madam Three&quot;, &quot;Mister Four&quot;, and &quot;Five&quot; alike. They are too &lt;em&gt;made up&lt;/em&gt; that real parents would never name a child as such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is this exact question phrased in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给鬼子讲故事的时候儿，如果提到某个华夏人龙套，起什么名字好？名字要常见。不带特殊含意。要让鬼子听上去有华夏色彩。要有名儿有姓儿。在鬼子一般印象里，华夏人都叫什么？还有，这年头儿没人给自己家孩子起名儿阿猫阿狗的，甲乙丙的，又不是大商朝（笑）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8102" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-02-28T20:33:21.263" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T04:57:23.037" Title="Placeholder name for a Chinese person targeting foreign audience, ie. John Doe equivalent" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12537" CreationDate="2015-02-28T01:04:52.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;梳理 has two basic ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Oxford&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;VERB&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TEXTILES&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;card&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将羊毛梳理成毛线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;card wool into thread&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 整理 &lt;strong&gt;comb&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梳理思路&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;organize one's ideas&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In line with the second meaning of comb -or- organize:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;KEY&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 {figurative} organize, analyze (data, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;strong&gt;organization&lt;/strong&gt; fits pretty well for your sentence here, especially because later in the sentence it mentions &lt;em&gt;流程&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;选址&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically we have 做一个梳理 = Do some organization&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T01:04:52.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12538" CreationDate="2015-02-28T01:28:51.093" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;张三&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is pretty much the Chinese equivalent of John Doe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's the well known phrase &lt;strong&gt;张三李四&lt;/strong&gt; which means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;any Tom, Dick, or Harry (&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;any man in street (&lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;张三&lt;/em&gt; is the first part of the phrase and you could totally use it as a name. &lt;em&gt;李四&lt;/em&gt; like-wise would also work; there are two other names: &lt;em&gt;王五&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;赵六&lt;/em&gt; that are mentioned in this word: &lt;strong&gt;张三，李四，王五，赵六&lt;/strong&gt; which again means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 four proverbial names&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 Tom, Dick and Harry (&lt;em&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any of those four could actually be options to you. With 张三 being the most well known followed by 李四, leaving 王五 and 赵六 as the two least unlikely candidates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;大名&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is another name that might work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally meaning &lt;em&gt;big&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;name&lt;/em&gt;. It is often used as a Chinese name in learning Chinese langauge texts for foreigners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T04:57:23.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12537" CreationDate="2015-02-28T03:03:44.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;make a list&quot;, yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梳理 is a compound word of two verbs, 梳 and 理, which just repeat each other. They both are actions of combing hair or cut hair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梳理 is used for a more abstract meaning that include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To keep things neat and tidy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sort things out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To arrange in a certain way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make a to do list&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To prioritize tasks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make it organized &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T03:03:44.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12537" CreationDate="2015-02-28T06:01:52.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can understand it as making a list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梳理 as a verb in this setting means &amp;quot;organising ideas&amp;quot; (Oxford EN-CN). Apparently making a list is one way to do that. Since &amp;quot;organising ideas&amp;quot; might sound awkward in the sentence in English, it's perfectly okay to say &amp;quot;make a plan&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;make a list&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;prioritise&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;think it though&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;tease out&amp;quot; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides &amp;quot;make a list&amp;quot;, I think &amp;quot;sort out&amp;quot; would sound quite alright here as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最好在创业之前对你所要做的事情做一个梳理，包括注册公司的流程、选址之类的事情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before starting your own company, you'd better sort out what you need to do first, including stuff like registration procedures, location and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T06:01:52.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12538" CreationDate="2015-02-28T06:19:47.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The traditional way is to use 甲、乙、丙、丁... which are ten in total. You can also prefix it with 男/女 to indicate gender as 男甲 (man A), or titles like 学生甲 (student A), 路人甲 (passer-by A).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make it more like a name use 张三、李四、王五、赵六. Those are common one but it's not carved in stones. You can make up your own as well e.g. 王二. And the number often indicates the person's seniority among his or her siblings. For the oldest one, use 大 instead of 一.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern times especially when telling stories, 小明 is quite common for a boy or young man. 小红/小芳 etc are common for girl or young woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it doesn't bother you too much to come up with a surname, there would be more choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can make up names like 小+surname for a young person 老+SURNAME for a old person.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can also use surname with other common ways titles to indicate different people, e.g. 张大爷(Uncle张)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can use 大+SURNAME as well, often for characters who are physically large or socially respected.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There would be more choices in regional dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many news reports where person's name involved are preferred to be anonymous, most would use SURNAME+某 or make up a name using method above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T06:19:47.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12544" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12557" CreationDate="2015-02-28T12:40:05.560" Score="6" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some novels seem to say that in village life (or within a hutong) poorer children often had no personal given name.  Some characters in realistic seeming novels are known only by family name and birth order and have no other name.  But I have only seen this in novels and I wonder if it really happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Europe even into the 20th century some people had no family name but were known only as say &quot;Nathan's son John&quot; where Nathan was literally the father and not a family name.  On the other hand, in places where childhood mortality was high, many children would not be named until they reached a safe age of 10 or 12 years.  Such a child might be called &quot;The oldest Jones girl&quot; or &quot;the middle Jones boy&quot; but I do not think it was ever so organized as &quot;Jones one, Jones two....&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many good sources discuss highly developed Chinese customs of having personal names and public names, and changing these over a lifetime, in well-off families. I have not found good historical sources for naming practices among farmers or the poor.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Were some people in the past actually known just by names like 张三?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-03-01T15:57:30.333" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T00:54:40.123" Title="Did some people only have names like 张三?" Tags="&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12406" CreationDate="2015-02-28T20:52:53.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the comments and other answers already suggested, the concept of 'branded product' and 'generic brand', and the distinction between them, are not familiar to most Chinese people, hence there isn't yet a widely accepted term for 'generic brand'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the translations covered by comments and other answers are correct but each of them are more or less ambiguous upon first hearing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;非专利药 may be mistaken as the drug is not patented.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;无商标药 may be perceived as the drug isn't certified for commercial use.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一般/通用药物 may sound like the drug is for 'common use'/general purpose.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one with least ambiguity, IMHO, is &lt;code&gt;非品牌药&lt;/code&gt; which is also the most literal ('non-branded drug'). You may want to follow it with a brief explanation depending on the audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T20:52:53.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12544" CreationDate="2015-03-01T02:19:59.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah, it is. 三 usually is the birth order of his parents' children. For example, If you are the 2nd child, maybe it is 张二. So, it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3030" LastActivityDate="2015-03-01T02:19:59.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12548" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-01T04:03:41.657" Score="2" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does the phrase 尽量准备充分一些 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence: 并非每个人都适合创业，但有想法的人可以大胆去做，尽量准备充分一些。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As much as possible prepare ample a little&#xA;尽量准备充分一些&#xA;Should I prepare a little, or a lot??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T02:21:58.843" Title="How am I supposed to understand 充分一些？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12548" CreationDate="2015-03-01T04:18:41.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First: &lt;strong&gt;充分&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like the definition &lt;em&gt;ample&lt;/em&gt; is slightly misleading, although it could be translated this way in specific contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 to the full; as fully as possible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;充分利用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fully utilize; make full use of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxford actually translates, what most translate as ample, as &lt;strong&gt;abundant&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second: &lt;strong&gt;一些&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxford&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 略微 [placed after an adjective, indicating a slight change in degree]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请走慢一些&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please walk more slowly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we can think of an &lt;strong&gt;一些&lt;/strong&gt; suffix as &amp;quot;a little more....blah blah blah&amp;quot;, it is adding to whatever is already there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一些&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;em&gt;and some&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we have &lt;strong&gt;充分&lt;/strong&gt; + &lt;strong&gt;一些&lt;/strong&gt; = a little more abundant (-or- a little more ample, if you really want to use ample) -or- with 准备 in mind: &lt;em&gt;to prepare a little more fully&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now &lt;strong&gt;尽量&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KEY:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to the best of one's ability; as far as possible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽量准备充分一些 = you should prepare a &lt;em&gt;whole&lt;/em&gt; lot (&lt;strong&gt;more&lt;/strong&gt;), as much as you possibly can&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-01T04:18:41.360" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12550" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12551" CreationDate="2015-03-01T04:31:12.283" Score="1" ViewCount="6209" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know an English sentence cannot be translated into Chinese word-by-word. So is there a idiomatic way to express the same meaning of &quot;We had a lot of fun&quot; in Chinese? (The context-- someone said this to a party host when he is about to leave the party: Thank you for having us. We had a lot of fun.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;had&quot; is in past tense. So the Chinese equivalent needs to indicate this too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2015-03-01T04:46:59.550" Title="What is the Chinese way to say &quot;We had a lot of fun&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12550" CreationDate="2015-03-01T04:46:59.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Past tenths aren't as explicitly stated a lot of times in Chinese as they are in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, your question &lt;code&gt;We had a lot of fun&lt;/code&gt; could easily be translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我们今天晚上玩得很开心&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we + tonight + play + very + happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and (assuming that you're not going to parties during the daytime) that would be a perfectly idiomatic, grammatical sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here &lt;strong&gt;玩得很开心&lt;/strong&gt; would be the equivalent of the English &lt;em&gt;had a lot of fun&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: 玩 here would &lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt; a lot better er-ized: that is to say 玩儿 and not just 玩.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-03-01T04:46:59.550" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12552" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12754" CreationDate="2015-03-01T05:29:28.640" Score="4" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often run across the word 奇蹟 in simplified texts written just like that: &lt;code&gt;奇蹟&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twent.chinayes.com/Content/20140422/kiuvg0712tp0w.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yes&lt;/a&gt; has an article entitled: &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;【上帝之子】全美票房创18亿台币奇蹟&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an excerpt also with said writing (emphasis is mine): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;全台湾预售票票房告捷 各地要求映演声不断&#xA;  此生必看圣经电影【上帝之子】（Son of God）不但在美国上映至今已创下十八亿台币票房&lt;strong&gt;奇蹟&lt;/strong&gt;，在台湾，藉着教会的支持，电影还未上映亦已有近两百万的包场及预售票票房成绩，更因观众的要求，陆续增加各地映演戏院，目前全台上映戏院包括台北信义威秀影城、欣欣秀泰影城、今日秀泰影城、板桥秀泰影城、新竹巨城威秀影城、台中Tiger City威秀影城、台南大远百威秀影城、高雄大远百威秀影城、花莲秀泰影城以及台东秀泰影城等十家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinatimes.com/cn/realtimenews/20150104000011-260408&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;China Times&lt;/a&gt; also has an article entitled: &lt;code&gt;飞机失事 女孩奇蹟逃脱残骸敲门求救&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and excerpt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;根据英国每日邮报报导，一架私家小飞机周五坠落在美国肯塔基州地区，机上5人中有4人丧生，但1名7岁女孩&lt;strong&gt;奇蹟&lt;/strong&gt;生还，自行走出坠机现场，跑到陌生人家敲门求救。机上罹难者除了小女孩的父母，还有她的9岁姊姊与一名14岁表哥。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蹟 has been simplified to 迹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The writing of 奇迹 is, still, far more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is then, why do some still insist on writing 奇蹟 in simplified texts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2015-03-21T13:08:50.330" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T20:48:40.370" Title="Why 奇蹟 (and not 奇迹) In Simplified Texts" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12553" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12554" CreationDate="2015-03-01T09:31:39.720" Score="2" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to tatoeba translation of &quot;Is there anything you want to buy?&quot; is &quot;想要买什么东西吗？&quot; Is there use of 什么 and 吗 in one sentence? If there is not how can I translate&quot;Is there anything you want to buy?&quot; better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%E6%83%B3%E8%A6%81%E4%B9%B0%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88%E4%B8%9C%E8%A5%BF%E5%90%97%EF%BC%9F&amp;amp;from=und&amp;amp;to=und&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%E6%83%B3%E8%A6%81%E4%B9%B0%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88%E4%B8%9C%E8%A5%BF%E5%90%97%EF%BC%9F&amp;amp;from=und&amp;amp;to=und&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8094" LastActivityDate="2015-03-01T10:47:37.760" Title="Translation of &quot;想要买什么东西吗？&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12553" CreationDate="2015-03-01T10:47:37.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 吗 is a modal to make the question more polite. Its also grammatically correct to say just 你要买什么? which directly translates as What do you want to buy? But it is a bit brusque.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9478" LastActivityDate="2015-03-01T10:47:37.760" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12555" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12556" CreationDate="2015-03-01T15:46:42.810" Score="5" ViewCount="469" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is as the title. The sentence is: 如果她来了，请你连忙告诉我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct sentence is &quot;如果她来了，请你马上告诉我&quot;. Why? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2015-03-01T16:19:30.050" Title="Why is &quot;连忙&quot; wrong in the following sentence?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12555" CreationDate="2015-03-01T16:19:30.050" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;连忙 and 赶忙 cannot be used in the imperative, although 立刻, 马上 (and also 赶快 and 赶紧) can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, 连忙, 赶忙 denote something that happens fast (now), while 立刻, 马上 denote something that is about to happen (soon).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See 连忙 as present tense, and 马上 as the future tense, if you will. Imperatives then belong to future actions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-03-01T16:19:30.050" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12544" CreationDate="2015-03-01T19:33:54.050" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Were some people in the past actually known just by names like 张三?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. It is the official name of some people, not just one. Some female even names as 张三妹. Bu the way 刘三姐 is a very famous movie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张三, 李四, etc. are not nicknames, they are real names, they are also used as a &quot;any one&quot; placeholder, as in the answer of other question. For example, 你到那儿去，认识谁是张三，谁是李四啊. Going to that far, you do not know whom to contact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Add more: (How are those names now?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My father has a very close relative who is 李四 officially. He would be 80 or 90 now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On my mom side, there are two brothers having names 大水, 二水. The man 大水 was born the year of a huge flood. It is smart to use 大 for big/huge and also for the first son. In Chinese 老大 means the eldest son. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ha, you will see, 老大 is the head of an criminal gang. Haha, again, you understand the joke, Xi DaDa. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, check out sons of 赵紫阳, from 赵大军 to 赵五军, (at least five). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-03-03T00:54:40.123" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T00:54:40.123" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12560" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12561" CreationDate="2015-03-01T23:18:02.480" Score="4" ViewCount="2013" Body="&lt;p&gt;Preferably an idiom just as picturesque and succinct. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the original meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The expression 掩耳盗铃 comes from a story about a person who decided to&#xA;  steal a bell. However, the bell was too heavy to carry and the thief&#xA;  decided to break it into pieces. He was afraid the sound would attract&#xA;  attention, so the thief blocked his ears and continued to smash the&#xA;  bell believing that as long as he could not hear the bell's sound no&#xA;  one else could either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T12:42:19.087" Title="How to translate 掩耳盗铃 into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12560" CreationDate="2015-03-01T23:25:39.347" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Oxford, CC-CEDICT, A Chinese-English dictionary all use the following idiom to define 掩耳盗铃:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(to) bury one's head in the sand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Free Dictionary defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bury one's head in the sand and hide one's head in the sand; have one's head in the sand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fig. to ignore or hide from obvious signs of danger. (Alludes to an ostrich, which is believed incorrectly to hide its head in a hole in the ground when it sees danger.) &lt;em&gt;Stop burying your head in the sand. Look at the statistics on smoking and cancer.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like-wise Oxford Pocket also has:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(to) bury one's head in the sand like an ostrich&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not a perfect match, per se, but it's a pretty close English idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-02T00:01:56.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12562" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-02T12:32:52.557" Score="1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading this in an online dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;别把这天的彩虹, 放在明天的天空&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can translate it word by word but is it a saying/quote?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9495" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-30T23:46:27.873" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T00:54:54.827" Title="What does 别把这天的彩虹, 放在明天的天空 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12562" CreationDate="2015-03-02T13:00:11.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;别把这天的彩虹放在明天的天空&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not a well known saying. Maybe a quote from somewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't put this day's rainbow in tomorrows sky. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever that means!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-02T13:00:11.057" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12560" CreationDate="2015-03-02T14:55:51.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blocking your own ears does not hide the sounds of your stealing a bell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my own translation. Please comment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-03-02T14:55:51.097" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12565" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12576" CreationDate="2015-03-02T23:53:08.350" Score="8" ViewCount="1122" Body="&lt;p&gt;Especially in the sense of stingy, miserly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 小气 and 小器?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember being told that one is more &quot;&lt;em&gt;correct&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, than the other, but I can't quite recall which.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The search results I've seen are just people giving their own opinions rather than citations or anything of the like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what's the deal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-03-04T23:50:52.610" Title="Difference: 小气 vs. 小器?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12566" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-03T01:40:51.367" Score="3" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;Talking about 王嘉廉， I have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他经常到客户不听取意见，并受到了很大的启发。电脑界最大的弊端是仅靠技术为驱动力，科技人员从不聆听客户的需求。如果有人愿意听取客户的意见，必定会有很大的发展机会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I‘m pretty sure that '意见' is 'complaints' here, but I suppose it could just as easily be 'ideas' or 'suggestions'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any way to be sure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-30T23:44:24.380" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T21:34:31.407" Title="Which meaning of 意见 in used in 他经常到客户不听取意见 and 如果有人愿意听取客户的意见?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12566" CreationDate="2015-03-03T01:52:55.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here it means &lt;code&gt;suggestions&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;code&gt;新汉英大辞典&lt;/code&gt;:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;意见 [yì jian]&#xA;1.&#xA;（看法或想法） idea; view; opinion; suggestion:&#xA;a clash of opinions;&#xA;意见冲突&#xA;make suggestions for revision;&#xA;提出修改意见&#xA;2.&#xA;（反对或不满意） objection; differing opinion; complaint:&#xA;I have a lot of complaints about her.&#xA;我对她很有意见。&#xA;If there is no objection, the agenda is adopted.&#xA;如果没有意见， 议程就通过了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: &lt;code&gt;客户不&lt;/code&gt; should be &lt;code&gt;客户部&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T01:52:55.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12566" CreationDate="2015-03-03T03:01:32.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听取意见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;listen to opinions or suggestions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;对 xxx 有意见&lt;/code&gt; is the most likely construct where 意见 would mean complaints or objections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很有意见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hěn yǒu yìjian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;strongly object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意见很大 is also a likely variant for complaints or objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be very unlikely to hear 听取意见 used for complaints though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T03:01:32.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12565" CreationDate="2015-03-03T09:04:55.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the former means more like &quot;selfish&quot;, and the latter means &quot;small household utensils&quot;, we Chinese use it to descrip someone who can't understand others with even a small thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, sometimes, &quot;小气' can be &quot;小器&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9498" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T09:04:55.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12565" CreationDate="2015-03-03T10:49:43.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Beijing's FLP C-E dictionary,  小气 and 小器 are considered identical. 小气 is described as stingy/miserly or narrow-minded, while 小器 is described as equivalent to 小气, without an explanation of its own.&#xA;Using a smaller dictionary (Oxford Concise EC-CE), 小器 is not listed. To me this implies that 小器 is less common. I discussed this with two friends of mine who are formally educated in Chinese and they also think both words are the same, although interestingly one of them considered 小器 as the older word.&#xA;Finally in &quot;Standard Chinese Dictionary&quot; the entry for 小器 is also &quot;see 小气&quot; with the added comment that in modern times generally 小气 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore it would be that 小气 is in modern usage while 小器 is less common today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9478" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T10:49:43.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12572" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12573" CreationDate="2015-03-03T11:26:01.123" Score="9" ViewCount="1988" Body="&lt;p&gt;The possessive particle 的 is often dropped when I see an expression like this, especially when referring to a family member (such as in this case). Which is more natural in casual conversation and are both correct by grammatical standards?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9282" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T00:17:50.283" Title="Is 我妈妈 or 我的妈妈 more natural?" Tags="&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12572" CreationDate="2015-03-03T21:26:40.363" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, when you are talking about family, close friends (我朋友) or a group that you are part of (for example 我班), you don't use 的. They are both grammatically correct, but it is more natural to skip it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9495" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T16:53:10.563" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T16:53:10.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12572" CreationDate="2015-03-03T21:49:50.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In casual conversation, you can even drop the second 妈 in most cases. So you can just say 我妈 without any problems. In fact, it sounds even more natural. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9441" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T21:49:50.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12572" CreationDate="2015-03-04T03:58:53.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese is a bit complicated. It may get dropped in different situations. Here are some examples for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我（的）妈妈是个老师&lt;/code&gt; - sometimes can be dropped&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我妈妈的同学是个老师&lt;/code&gt; - better be dropped&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我妈妈同学是个老师&lt;/code&gt; - not so good, not recommended&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;“那是谁的手机” “我妈妈的。”&lt;/code&gt; - should be always dropped&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="1042" LastEditDate="2015-03-05T09:42:26.307" LastActivityDate="2015-03-05T09:42:26.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12565" CreationDate="2015-03-04T08:38:34.900" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today they are interchangeable as long as they mean &quot;miserly&quot;. 小器 predates 小氣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In The Analects, Chapter 3 (論語 ‧ 八佾) (4th-3rd century BC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;子曰：管仲之&lt;b&gt;器小&lt;/b&gt;哉。或曰：管仲儉乎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Confucius says &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guan_Zhong&quot;&gt;Guan Zhong&lt;/a&gt; is miserly, but someone asks if he is frugal?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it make sense that 小器 means miserly? Yes and no because &quot;miserly&quot; and &quot;frugal&quot; are not identical. But 小器 also means narrow-minded or intolerant as if he has small &quot;capacity to contain&quot; (器) different opinions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Dream of the Red Chamber (18th century), Cao Xueqin used 小器 and 小氣, both meaning miserly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chapter 40, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不送些玩器來與你妹妹，這樣&lt;b&gt;小器&lt;/b&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;You didn't give those toys to your sister. So miserly&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chapter 67&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我又不是兩三歲的孩子，你也忒把人看得&lt;b&gt;小氣&lt;/b&gt;了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I'm not a child of 2-3 years old. You are mistaken that I'm miserly&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it make sense that 小氣 means miserly? Yes and no because 小氣 also means petty, narrow-minded and frivolous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Da_Cidian&quot;&gt;漢語大詞典&lt;/a&gt;, 小器 and 小氣 are synonyms. In &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciyuan&quot;&gt;辭源&lt;/a&gt; (1908), which focus on etymology and classical Chinese, only 小器 is listed as entry with the definition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小器——吝嗇。同‘小氣’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小器, miserly, same as 小氣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many modern dictionaries, 小器 is omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, today you can safely use either 小氣 or 小器 (miserly), either 氣度 or 器度 (tolerance). Only 小氣 (simplified: 气) is more modern. Thus, in &lt;b&gt;modern&lt;/b&gt; colloquial 小氣鬼 (a scrooge), 氣 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6537" LastEditorUserId="6537" LastEditDate="2015-03-04T23:50:52.610" LastActivityDate="2015-03-04T23:50:52.610" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12562" CreationDate="2015-03-04T12:39:19.027" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;别把这天的彩虹放在明天的天空&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't take today's rainbow and put it on tomorrow's sky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should mean something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are happy now, it doesn't mean you will still be happy in the future.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If things are good now, it doesn't mean they will still be in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or simply:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Things change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-03-04T12:39:19.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12562" CreationDate="2015-03-04T18:13:00.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my personal opinion. For me, this sentence shares the same meaning as a much more famous quote 今朝有酒今朝醉, which tells you to enjoy your life when you can. Or say we should live for today, but not for tomorrow.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Ach, thanks to @S.Rhee, it might be a bad interpretation to understand this quote and 今朝有酒今朝醉 here. &#xA;Considering the fact that this quote is mentioned in the 尝试 page on Baidu Baike. It might be reasonable to read it as &quot;do it now&quot; or &quot;try it now&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9441" LastEditorUserId="9441" LastEditDate="2015-03-04T18:44:37.923" LastActivityDate="2015-03-04T18:44:37.923" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12579" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-04T20:58:49.880" Score="3" ViewCount="526" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to explain to a Chinese penpal that certain word and phrases in English carry a negative connotation and so shouldn't be used in specific situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to say &quot;that phrase is very negative&quot; (as in lacking in optimism or positivity). Google translate gives the word &lt;code&gt;negative&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;消极&lt;/code&gt;, but looking 消极 up in a Chinese to English dictionary tells me it means &quot;passive&quot;, which isn't at all what I'm going for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the right word to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9502" LastActivityDate="2015-03-04T22:12:05.927" Title="How do I say that something is &quot;negative&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12579" CreationDate="2015-03-04T21:39:32.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/negative&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;iCIBA&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone is a negative person, or has a negative attitude, then they are &lt;code&gt;消极 (xiāo jí)&lt;/code&gt;, or  &lt;code&gt;悲观 (bēi guān)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say that a word has a negative connotation, you use &lt;code&gt;负面含义 (fùmiàn hányì)&lt;/code&gt;, literally, &quot;downside meaning&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to S.Rhee for pointing me to iCIBA, where I was able to find the answer to my own question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9502" LastActivityDate="2015-03-04T21:39:32.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12579" CreationDate="2015-03-04T22:12:05.927" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider: &lt;strong&gt;贬义词&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;derogatory term; pejorative -(ABC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;derogatory term; expression of censure -(A Chinese English Dictionaty)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两岸 lists a defintion with some examples of these 贬义词:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;帶有否定、厭惡等感情色彩的詞（與「褒義詞」相對）。如「昏庸」、「卑鄙」、「討厭」等。也作「貶詞」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and an example of usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘爱情’二字在他的特别词典里是个贬义词, 跟‘贪污’、‘盗窃’、‘资本主义’等词语一样的难听。 -(周克芹 《许茂和他的女儿们》第四章)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-03-04T22:12:05.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12572" CreationDate="2015-03-05T02:32:04.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you wish to put emphasis on possession, then you should keep 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Aw Qirui Guo's Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“那是谁的手机” whos phone is that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“我妈妈的” my mother's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be careful to say 妈妈 and not just 妈 here, especially if the owner of the phone is someone else's mother...haha.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我妈 sounds relative more mature and probably more common&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我妈妈 sounds more cutesy and can sound a bit childish, but more polite &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(These are relative comparisons. Their difference is not very big.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9390" LastEditorUserId="9390" LastEditDate="2016-09-11T19:49:28.907" LastActivityDate="2016-09-11T19:49:28.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12572" CreationDate="2015-03-05T04:17:03.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We drop 的 in any structure where the relationship can be clearly inferred. It also serves to highlight the relation there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我媽媽&#xA;我朋友&#xA;我孩子&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and so on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a rule of thumb, &quot;don't do it if you have to rethink&quot;.&#xA;As a note, dropping it is a no-brainer for familial and personal relations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3963" LastActivityDate="2015-03-05T04:17:03.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12585" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12587" CreationDate="2015-03-05T08:04:25.973" Score="3" ViewCount="644" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;probably&quot; in Chinese as in: &quot;probably we will start having lessons next month&quot;......can you use 可能 or 有可能? Can you give me an example of where these are placed in a sentence and how they are used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9495" LastEditorUserId="9495" LastEditDate="2015-03-05T10:47:32.547" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T02:29:14.413" Title="How do you say &quot;probably''?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12585" CreationDate="2015-03-05T09:53:36.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For &quot;Maybe‘ in Chinese we can say 可能，或许,也许&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.You use it as abverb to modify the whole sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably, You don't like him, you just like his money. &#xA;或许,你喜欢的不是他这个人，而是他的钱。 &#xA;Maybe you are right！也许,你说的对！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.You use it before verbs to modify the verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You probably get pregnant! 你可能怀孕了！&#xA;Maybe you forget your promise! 你或许忘了你的誓言吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9504" LastActivityDate="2015-03-05T09:53:36.907" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12585" CreationDate="2015-03-05T16:55:35.523" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们下个月肯定开始上课. 100%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我们下个月开始上课. 90%  as the base.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们下个月很可能开始上课. 80%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们下个月有可能开始上课. 70%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我们下个月可能开始上课. 50% as a middle base for not sure.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们下个月好像不能开始上课. 40%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们下个月不太可能开始上课. 30%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们下个月不可能开始上课. 20%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我们下个月肯定不能开始上课. 0%&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, the Chinese is really messy, isn't it? Those numbers are just for reference, please do not take it too much seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-03-06T02:29:14.413" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T02:29:14.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12592" CreationDate="2015-03-05T16:55:57.840" Score="6" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some examples of sentence 了 that indicate future action which (seems to) have a 要 omitted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我（要）走了，拜！ - I am going to leave, bye!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know context usually helps with the issue of time and, apart from that, 我走了 is a pretty common sentence that everyone knows it's an about-to-happen action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If I have any other sentence 了 &lt;strong&gt;without any context&lt;/strong&gt;, for example, &quot;我去中国了&quot;, is there a chance that a native listener can think it's a future action with an omitted 要 as in &quot;我(要)去中国了&quot; or does the listener definitely knows it's always a past action?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T02:44:21.347" Title="How to spot (if possible) if a final 了 is part of an omitted 要 in a 要...了 construction or simply a past information?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12588" CreationDate="2015-03-05T17:13:50.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a future action, there must be 要, 就要. It means &quot;it is the time to do it&quot;, not exactly future action. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For true future sense, say 将要.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key is more in 要 than in 了. 他去中国了 verses 他要去中国了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are the speaker, keep it for safety. Say, 他已经去中国了 versus 他就要去中国了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-03-06T02:44:21.347" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T02:44:21.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12588" CreationDate="2015-03-05T18:40:38.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 in &quot;我去中国了&quot; &lt;strong&gt;does not emphasize it is a past or future action in absent of context&lt;/strong&gt;.  Consider the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我去年去中国了&lt;/code&gt;  - I went to China last year&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;我明年去中国了&lt;/code&gt;  - I will go to China next year  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are legit and 了 changes depend on the content, althought a native speaker will say:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我去年去了中国&lt;/code&gt;  - I have been to China last year&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;我明年(要)去中国了&lt;/code&gt; - I have to go to China next year  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2015-03-05T20:05:20.620" LastActivityDate="2015-03-05T20:05:20.620" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12591" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-05T19:38:00.223" Score="4" ViewCount="1661" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't quite get the difference between and relationship of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;vernacular Chinese&lt;/a&gt; to literary Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that &quot;literary Chinese&quot; does not represents sounds, the way an alphabet does, so it is difficult to use it for anything that must be spoken, like a play or a movie script. Therefore, there are &quot;vernacular Chinese&quot; variants that are deliberately designed to be spoken. My understanding is that the current version of &quot;Mandarin&quot;, the standard Beijing language, is such a vernacular variant that was adopted early in the 20th century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean that the &quot;Mandarin&quot; currently used is completely different from the Mandarin used during the Qing dynasty prior to 1900?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, does this mean that students essentially have to learn two different languages: the current vernacular plus the older Qing Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about older texts, like say the language of the Palace Encyclopedias of the 16th and 17th centuries? Were these basically the same as Qing Mandarin or a different language altogether?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, how does &quot;Classical Chinese&quot; tie into this? Are the Palace Encyclopedias consider classical Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9509" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T03:24:01.460" Title="What is the relationship between vernacular and literary Chinese?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12588" CreationDate="2015-03-05T20:56:22.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking to the questions,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我走了 is a pretty common sentence that everyone knows it's an about-to-happen action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyone knows it &lt;strong&gt;can be&lt;/strong&gt; an about-to-happen action &lt;strong&gt;in the right context&lt;/strong&gt;. Without any context, however, it still strikes me as a past action as in &quot;讲座你听完了么？&quot;&quot;没有，我走了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;without any context&lt;/strong&gt;, ... , is there a chance that a native listener can think it's a future action &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is no context at all, there is no way a native listener think &quot;我去中国了&quot; is a future action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-03-05T20:56:22.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12591" CreationDate="2015-03-05T22:33:34.983" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you call &quot;literary Chinese&quot; is actually classical Chinese, a rather static language that evolved 2500 years ago and has since been used as a model language in education, rituals and other rather fixed events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classical Chinese is therefore akin to Latin in Europe, actually covering approximately the same time span and the same usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can pronounce classical Chinese the same way you pronounce contemporary spoken/written Chinese in any time, but it will differ from time to time since the spoken language changes continuously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will likely have no problems talking to Abe Lincoln in English, and perhaps also not conversing with Adam Smith or Isaac Newton, but might get into some problems understanding Shakespeare, and even more so Chaucer. The time you get to Beowulf, you are completely lost, not to mention the time of Britannia under Roman rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the same with Chinese. Qing Mandarin has some peculiar differences compared to contemporary Mandarin, like an additional tone and some now lost vowel varieties, but essentially it would be easy to converse with Qing people, all the way back to Cao Xueqin in the 1700s. Then it would become progressively harder, and you would eventually wind up in Middle Chinese and older varieties, which are incomprehensible to most modern ears. Actually, Cantonese is more akin to older Chinese, just like Swedish/Danish is more akin to Old English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Students in China learn some classical Chinese, mainly poetry and some chengyu, and there is also a lot of classical expressions used in costume drama TV series covering imperial times. It is a heritage that is nurtured, but most people in China cannot (since the imperial education was abolished) actually understand more advanced classical Chinese, like ancient texts. Only specialists know how to decipher it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-03-05T22:33:34.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12594" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-06T00:29:00.043" Score="6" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does one type the radical 辶 using the standard method of entering 拼音 (as opposed to, for example, 五笔)?  (Typing &quot;chuo&quot; does not seem to bring this choice up on Windows using Microsoft Pinyin, though it does when I try this on Google Translate.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, is there an easy way to type radicals which themselves do not exist as individual characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2341" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T13:01:58.503" Title="How to type 辶 using 拼音" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12594" CreationDate="2015-03-06T01:18:21.403" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;you need to identify the prototype of radicals.for your example，the prototype of辶is走，the ptototype of 扌is手，草for艹，水for氵，冰for冫......，then you just type the prototype and find the radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9511" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T01:18:21.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12594" CreationDate="2015-03-06T01:34:55.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Microsoft's Chinese IME is probably not your best choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;搜狗's IME displays &lt;code&gt;辶&lt;/code&gt; by typing &lt;code&gt;chuo&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same is true of iOS's and OS's IMEs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Radicials seem to have pinyin names as well, these pinyin in general should be able to type up the radicals: for example &lt;code&gt;讠&lt;/code&gt; can also be typed up by inserting the pinyin &lt;code&gt;yan&lt;/code&gt; into any IME (Microsoft not included, probably).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fliXj.png&quot; alt=&quot;万能五笔&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lxinj.png&quot; alt=&quot;万能五笔-拼音&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="2271" LastEditDate="2015-03-06T13:01:58.503" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T13:01:58.503" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12594" CreationDate="2015-03-06T02:51:32.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;辶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got it from &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/?hl=en#zh-CN/en/%E8%BE%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;translate.google.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just hand or mouse write it, and I do not need to remember anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T02:51:32.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12591" CreationDate="2015-03-06T03:17:49.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between vernacular Chinese and literary Chinese is all about written form. It has nothing to do with spoken language (mandarin or other dialects). Therefore we should say vernacular written form and literary written form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact is that the literary written form is not for a natural human language at all. It is just for the official documents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The vernacular written form is what we call the written form of Chinese language, and it was there in civil society for a long time before the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Culture_Movement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;New_Culture_Movement&lt;/a&gt; in 1920. It was used by normal people for at least 600 years. But it was not used in official documents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since after 1920, literary written is used as official written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-03-06T03:24:01.460" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T03:24:01.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12600" CreationDate="2015-03-06T07:58:23.397" Score="1" ViewCount="357" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;comics are so popular in Japan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Google Translate, the word &quot;popular&quot; doesn't translate to Chinese as &quot;有名&quot;. It translates as &quot;受欢迎&quot; I am confused about which one is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漫画在日本很有名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漫画在日本如此受欢迎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8094" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-15T21:37:30.990" LastActivityDate="2020-05-15T21:37:30.990" Title="Which one is correct, &quot;有名&quot; or &quot;受欢迎&quot; for translating &quot;comics are so popular in Japan&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12599" CreationDate="2015-03-06T08:51:43.897" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here it should be &quot;受欢迎&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;有名&quot; means famous, well-known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T08:51:43.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12601" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-06T14:04:33.360" Score="2" ViewCount="328" Body="&lt;p&gt;毛虫，肉虫，２ kinds of caterpillar， Wikipedia and 百度百科 both state that larvae of butterflies come in two varieties, 肉虫 and 毛虫 (in that order: 幼虫的形状多样，有肉虫，也有毛虫。), and there are plenty of pictures of both types, but 肉虫&#xA;cannot be found in any online dictionary and is not even in 现代汉语词典，also while Wikipedia has an entry for 毛虫, there is none for 肉虫, 百度百科 has a very short one not even mentioning that 肉虫 are larvae of certain adult forms of animal (butterflies), in fact the editors are aware of the shortcomings of their article and call for assistance in writing up a more complete article. Any explanation for the above? Wikipedia's article on butterflies mentions only one type of larvae, caterpillar, are there different English words for the two types? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-15T21:35:16.830" LastActivityDate="2021-04-13T01:57:18.330" Title="Are there different English words for the two types of caterpillar 毛虫 and 肉虫?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12602" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12703" CreationDate="2015-03-07T01:17:12.720" Score="6" ViewCount="3236" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many questions on this site concern various modern slang/dialect usages that require fairly extensive (and sometimes still unsuccessful) searches through the web.  Every time I think about these questions, I wonder about whether, if I were a Chinese person dealing with similar weirdnesses in English, I would find &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.urbandictionary.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Urban Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; very useful (I find it useful even as an English-speaking person dealing with all the weirdnesses of English).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does such a crowdsourced &quot;database&quot; of colloquial Chinese usages exist on the Internet?  Is there any such good one-stop online place to do searches on Chinese slang?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T01:39:10.293" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T01:39:10.293" Title="Is There A Chinese Version of Urban Slang Dictionary?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;slang&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12603" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12604" CreationDate="2015-03-07T04:36:05.113" Score="4" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;South China Morning Post (SCMP) ran an article recently called: &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1730459/online-slang-found-its-way-leaders-speech&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Online slang that found its way into leader's speech&lt;/a&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article said (emphasis is my own):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Online slang that found its way into leader's speech&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Use of trendy term proves a hit with internet users but baffles one official translator&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Premier Li Keqiang has caught the attention of mainland internet users with his use of the popular online term &quot;self-willed&quot; during his work report to the National People's Congress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Addressing the need to cut red tape, simplify administrative procedures and delegate authority to lower levels of government, the premier said yesterday that &quot;those with power must not be self-willed&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The remark became an instant hit with the online community, who shared it countless times.&#xA;  For all the latest news from China’s parliamentary sessions click here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;People's Daily's Weibo account quoted a source with knowledge of the drafting of the report as saying that Li had personally added the term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is rare for casual internet expressions to find their way into the central government's work report, which is usually crafted with great care into formal language by a dedicated team of advisers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Self-willed&quot; has been a popular expression among mainland internet users since last year. They use it to refer sarcastically to the spoiled and wilful behaviour of the rich.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Its popularity appears to trace back to a news story about a rich man who voluntarily transferred about half a million yuan (HK$630,000) to a group of fraudsters, even though he knew they were operating a scam, because he was interested in seeing how much they could swindle out of him.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;During a press conference for the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on Monday, spokesman Lu Xinhua also used the term &quot;self-willed&quot; to refer to the public's firm stand on fighting corruption and the pursuit of the next big &quot;tiger&quot; - or corrupt top official.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lu's translator, apparently surprised by the turn of phrase, had to confirm with Lu exactly what he had said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Improvising and under great time pressure she initially translated it as &quot;capricious&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lu is seen by many as a pioneer in his use of trendy internet catchphrases to brighten up the otherwise stiff annual parliamentary sessions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the &quot;self-willed&quot; word in Chinese here that they are referring to?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-03-07T05:45:11.140" Title="Backwards Translation: &quot;Self-Willed&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12603" CreationDate="2015-03-07T05:45:11.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;任性 (caprice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The internet slang 任性 is short for expression 有钱就是任性 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%9C%89%E9%92%B1%E5%B0%B1%E6%98%AF%E4%BB%BB%E6%80%A7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;), which refers to the phenomenon that rich people make &amp;quot;capricious&amp;quot; decisions because they can afford to make up any negative consequences with money, and sometimes they deliberately make poor decisions only as a setup to show off their power of wealth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another common variation of this phrase is 有钱，任性.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A popular English translation for this expression is &amp;quot;rich is bitch&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;rich as a bitch&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the usage in Li's work report, here is a reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2015-03-07/115431579527.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2015-03-07/115431579527.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“任性”从去年开始成为内地网民的流行语。他们用这个词来讽刺富人的娇生惯养和随性而为。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;据香港《南华早报》网站3月6日报道，李克强总理在全国人大会议上作政府工作报告时使用网络流行语“任性”，引起内地网民的关注。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谈及简政放权时，李克强5日表示，“有权不可任性”。此话立刻引发网络热议，被网民无数次分享。&#xA;　&#xA;《人民日报》微博称，报告起草组负责人透露，这句表述是李克强亲自加入报告里的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“有权不可任性”3月5日占据中国各大新闻网站的头条，成为多数媒体解读李克强政府工作报告的醒目标题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-07T05:45:11.140" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10388" CreationDate="2015-03-07T15:45:02.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the original post gave some very good examples of what can go between a the verb and object in the verb-subject structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To generalize, you can put something in between the verb-object structure to modify the verb, something to modify the object, or both. For simplicity's sake, let's call them adverb and adjective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the original examples, you have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发了愁, 了 modify the verb (let's call this adverb), you mean [发了]愁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发个愁, 个 modify the object (let's call this adjective), you mean 发[个愁]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发过四次愁, 过 and 四次 modify the verb and object respectively, you mean [发过][四次愁]. 过 is serving as an adverb, and 四次 is serving as adjective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can only put adverb (compound structure that acts like an adverb is also being called an adverb here) directly behind the verb, and the adjective (like-wise for adjective) directly in front of the object. You cannot reverse this order. They also have to be adverbs that can naturally go behind a verb or adjectives that can naturally go in front of the adjective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you cannot put 正在 behind the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you can say this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发过了无数次大大小小的愁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way to interpret that would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发  [[过][了]] [[无数次][大大小小的]]     愁.&#xA;verb  adverb       adjective      subject/noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only addition to the above is that you can also add interrogatives that can come after a verb, and/or before a noun into the structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发谁的愁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发什么愁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么 can both go after a verb and it can come before a subject. So the second example can be interpreted in two different ways depending on context (why [are you] trouble? and what troubles [you]?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6237" LastEditorUserId="6237" LastEditDate="2015-03-08T02:16:02.660" LastActivityDate="2015-03-08T02:16:02.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12606" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12653" CreationDate="2015-03-07T18:06:45.190" Score="3" ViewCount="1158" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone please explain me how and when to use these expressions? Is there any difference between the two of them? Is it something like &quot;see you later/see you there/see you soon&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-15T21:32:09.353" LastActivityDate="2020-05-15T21:32:09.353" Title="How and when to use 不见不错 vs. 不见不散?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12607" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-07T21:01:29.560" Score="4" ViewCount="1605" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've got an upcoming Chinese listening exam this coming Wednesday but I don't really know what to do apart from repeating the set of ten or so listening tests we have to practice from online. They're all short dialogues some with multiple choice answers and some where you have to fill in blanks in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But really I'm seeking some general advice for listening. Does it really just come down to practice? For example is there a technique for those questions where you have a lengthy dialogue and five or so questions to answer (the recording gets played twice, and normally it is impossible at my rather low level to fill all the answers in first time around)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry if this sounds vague. But I do struggle especially on those types of tests; normally I either get fixated on one line but then don't listen to the rest of the dialogue in that moment. I'm wondering, given it is repeated, it is better to JUST listen on the first time and then answer on the second? But that seems risky too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9522" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T06:45:36.953" Title="Advice for Chinese listening exams?" Tags="&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12607" CreationDate="2015-03-07T22:36:42.237" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you learning for the tests, or are you learning for real?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Listen to Chinese radio. Fill your phone with audio books (librivox, tingbook). Watch movies. Immerse yourself, and you will find that those ridiculous tests are too simple for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-03-07T22:36:42.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12606" CreationDate="2015-03-07T22:46:57.087" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;不见不错 is gobbledigook. 不见不散 means that you will in fact agree to meet someone, that you are really committed to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See you later is 再见 or 回头见.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-03-07T22:46:57.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12606" CreationDate="2015-03-07T23:55:45.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;不见不散, not see not walk, &quot;wait for me， don't leave&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不见不错 is not an everyday phrase. Maybe it is meant to mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;见不到也没事,  &quot;If you don't see me (there) don't worry.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-07T23:55:45.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28368" CreationDate="2015-03-08T11:37:51.930" Score="3" ViewCount="1940" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese-Chinese dictionary api or database available?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to include it in an &lt;a href=&quot;http://readmersion.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;app&lt;/a&gt; I am developing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By &quot;Chinese-Chinese&quot; I mean that if you look up a word in Chinese you get a Chinese definition, not an English definition of a Chinese word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a word dictionary and/or a character dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer a database or even a flat text file, but a web api might work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2287" LastEditorUserId="2287" LastEditDate="2015-03-09T02:03:29.767" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T22:31:49.410" Title="Is there a Chinese-Chinese dictionary api or database available that I can use in my own app?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12601" CreationDate="2015-03-08T21:57:02.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's quite easy to distinguish between 毛虫 and 肉虫. 毛 means furry, and 肉 means meaty. If a caterpillar looks &quot;furry&quot;, it's 毛虫. Otherwise, it's a 肉虫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is a 毛虫:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5cMR5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;毛虫&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this one is 肉虫:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nKNEf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;肉虫&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6519" LastActivityDate="2015-03-08T21:57:02.623" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12607" CreationDate="2015-03-08T22:28:54.233" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Listening is indeed mostly a matter of practice and there is little you can do if you have an exam next week. Improving listening ability takes a lot of time and short-term cramming won't help. I'm going to separate this answer into two parts: one short-term and one long-term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short-term&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the short run, you can do a few things to improve your chances of passing, such as making sure that you are very familiar with the test format, but it seems you have already done this (the online practice tests).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest problems with trying to pass listening tests that are actually above your level is that it's very hard to concentrate when you lose several words each sentence. Try to focus on what you do understand and don's zone out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make sure you read the questions &lt;em&gt;in advance&lt;/em&gt; so you know what you're listening for. Take notes if the dialogues are long. If you can't write in characters fast enough, I suggest writing in English. You don't want to waste mental effort on writing notes and thereby miss the next sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Long-term&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's talk about listening ability in general (which won't help you pass this exam, but should help you pass the next). The first goal is to figure out what your weak link is. Simply knowing that you don't understand the audio isn't good enough. What causes it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lack of phonological awareness&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lack of vocabulary&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lack of listening speed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is about understanding syllable and word structure, including being able to separate all possible syllables, tone combinations and so on. Can you map the sounds you hear to the words you have learnt? If you mistake certain sounds for other sounds, you need to sort this out first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second isn't really about listening, but I think it's still one of the main reasons why it's hard to pass at least standardised proficiency exams. They don't (only) use the words you've learnt in your textbook, so you will encounter tons of near-synonyms you aren't as familiar with. The solution is to study &lt;em&gt;broader&lt;/em&gt; rather than deeper. Study more material at or below your current level. Not more advanced stuff, just more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third problem is speed and it's common for all except those who take immersion very seriously. Even if you can map all sounds and know all the words, the audio might simply be too quick for you to understand. It's not enough to be able to understand a word, you need to be able to do it &lt;em&gt;fast&lt;/em&gt;. The only way of increasing speed is to listen &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt;. If it takes you two seconds to remember what a word means, the voice will be halfway into the next sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to practise, what to improve&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should obviously study differently depending on which of the above is your main problem, but simply listening more will improve all three areas described above. Vocabulary is somewhat different, but listening more will expand your vocabulary too. Make sure you always have Chinese audio easily available. Listen when you drive, walk, cook, exercise, fall asleep, brush your teeth, wait for the bus and shop for groceries. It will be demanding in the beginning, but you will soon get used to it. You will be richly rewarded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you want more advice, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hackingchinese.com/listening-strategies-an-introduction/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;I have written a series of articles dealing with listening ability&lt;/a&gt; (I hope it's okay to link like this, it's simply way too much to write here, but still very much on-topic).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorUserId="507" LastEditDate="2016-08-09T06:45:36.953" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T06:45:36.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12615" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-08T23:41:44.670" Score="1" ViewCount="2282" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand how a complex 比 structure would be like. Specially when it comes to comparing actions I get quite lost. Could anyone check if I got the patterns right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A 比 B + adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我比你高。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I am taller than you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A 比 B + adjective + quantity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我比你高5厘米&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I am 5 centimeters taller than you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A 比 B + adjective + intensity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我比你高多了 / 我比你高一点儿&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I am a lot taller than you / I am a bit taller than you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A 比 B V 得 + adjective + intensity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我比你来得早多了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I come a lot earlier than you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A 比 B V 得 + adjective + quantity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我比你来得早5分钟&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I come 5 minutes earlier than you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A (V) O 比 B V 得 + adjective &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; A (V) O V 得 比 B + adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(学)中文比你学得多 / 我(学)中文学得比你多&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I study Chinese more than you)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A （V） O 比 B V 得 + adjective + intensity &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; A （V） O V 得 比 B + adjective + intensity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(学)中文比你学得多多了 / 我学中文比你学得多一点儿 / 我(学)中文学得比你多多了 / 我学中文学得比你多一点儿&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I study Chinese a lot more than you / I study Chinese a bit more than you)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A （V） O 比 B V 得 + adjective + quantity &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; A （V） O V 得 比 B + adjective + quantity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(学)中文比你学得多四个小时 / 我(学)中文学得比你多四个小时&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I study Chinese 4 hours more than you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T02:42:46.743" Title="How do I make complex comparison structures with 比?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12617" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12619" CreationDate="2015-03-09T07:25:25.023" Score="1" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;机制 is often translated, simply, as: mechanism(s), and often quite ridgidly so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially if we look at definitions of a word like &lt;strong&gt;应急机制&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 emergency response mechanism(s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 contingency mechanism(s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take for instance the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国驻俄罗斯大使馆闻讯后立即启动应急机制。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emergency response mechanisms were started immediately by the Chinese Embassy in Russia after learning of what happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Weird&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What better ways are there of translating 机制?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T00:24:51.030" Title="Translation: 机制 (better translations)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12618" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-09T07:26:03.097" Score="4" ViewCount="1882" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the same spirit as my &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12594/how-to-type-%E8%BE%B6-using-%E6%8B%BC%E9%9F%B3&quot;&gt;other question&lt;/a&gt; about how to type certain radicals, I would like to know how to type strokes themselves.  I would like to be able to type all the strokes listed on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Stroke_(CJKV_character)#/Use_in_computing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; page.  Unlike radicals, however, to the best of my knowledge, not all of these strokes have a pronunciation associated to them (well, maybe if you allow more than one syllable, e.g. heng2zhe2zhe2gou1), and so I don't even know where to begin to try to input these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2341" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T05:55:59.793" Title="How to type strokes?" Tags="&lt;input-methods&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12617" CreationDate="2015-03-09T13:56:23.233" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is more of a question about semantic fields in English than in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/109/285244.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原指机器的构造和工作原理。生物学和医学通过类比借用此词，指生物机体结构组成部分的相互关系，以及其间发生的各种变化过程的物理、化学性质和相互关系。现已广泛应用于自然现象和社会现象，指其内部组织和运行变化的规律。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally referred to the structure and operational principles of machines. (The fields of) biology and medicine borrowed this word by analogy to refer to the inter-relationships between the structural components of living organisms, as well as to the various physical and chemical processes therein. It has now been extended in use to natural and social phenomena alike, referring to their laws of internal organisation and operational variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that in more recent uses of bureaucratic Chinese, it has extended further to certain social &amp;quot;structures&amp;quot; that perform some kind of operation, something that can be created and implemented at will. This context is rarely one where the English word &lt;em&gt;mechanism&lt;/em&gt; is used. Rather, the English language generally prefers to use the word &lt;em&gt;procedure&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国驻俄罗斯大使馆闻讯后立即启动应急机制。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On learning what had happened, the Chinese Embassy in Russia immediately set up emergency response procedures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T13:56:23.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12618" CreationDate="2015-03-09T14:08:19.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wubihua input method. You can find this on older chinese phones hardware keys, or with a software keyboard on smartphones. It consists of just 5 buttons, each representing a basic stroke type. You tap them in the order of writing and suggestions of the most likely character come up. My personal favourite is multiling keyboard on Android. I have no idea how to input this on windows or mac. I only use the pinyin based microsoft chinese ime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9532" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T14:08:19.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12615" CreationDate="2015-03-09T21:03:56.937" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我说汉语比你说汉语说得更好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A V O) 比 (B V O) (V 得 adv intensity)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Complex enough?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T21:03:56.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12599" CreationDate="2015-03-09T21:06:42.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「&lt;code&gt;有名&lt;/code&gt;」是指很多人都知道他/她/它的名字，但不一定喜欢他/她/它。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「&lt;code&gt;受欢迎&lt;/code&gt;」是指有人喜欢他/她/它，对于他/她/它的到来感到高兴。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的两个翻译都不是特别确切。我认为比较好的是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漫画在日本很流行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;流行的意思是目前已经有很多人喜欢他/她/它了，而且越来越多的人开始喜欢他/她/它。不仅突出了现在，还强调了趋势。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3939" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T21:06:42.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12623" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12625" CreationDate="2015-03-09T21:26:57.293" Score="9" ViewCount="3070" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see this word popping up on Weibo and Taobao. It's not written with any character, but spelled out in Pinyin. What does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the annals:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mc4qk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T01:40:55.667" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T01:40:55.667" Title="What does 'duang' mean in 'online Chinese'?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;slang&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12623" CreationDate="2015-03-09T21:47:41.227" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ModL1vD1A7U&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ModL1vD1A7U&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means cool, damn or whatever you want it to mean. Informally, the character is 成 over 龙, that is after the innovator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T21:47:41.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12623" CreationDate="2015-03-09T22:58:30.123" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/duang-how-jackie-chan-helped-780040&quot;&gt;http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/duang-how-jackie-chan-helped-780040&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Citation, with explanation of the word in bold:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Think that your hair is looking particularly good today? In Chinese&#xA;  popular culture, it's looking &quot;duang.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A Chinese phrase that came out of nowhere, &quot;duang&quot; has taken the&#xA;  Internet by storm, even though many don't really know its origins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We do know where &quot;duang&quot; started though. It was Hong Kong action star&#xA;  Jackie Chan, who in 2004 was featured in a shampoo infomercial, where&#xA;  he spread his hands and described how his sleek dark locks would&#xA;  simply &quot;duang&quot; after a scrub with Bawang organic shampoo. &lt;strong&gt;A useful&#xA;  way of translating the word is as &quot;boing,&quot; in the sense of &quot;bouncy and&#xA;  vibrant,&quot; or even &quot;ta-da!&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A parody video making fun of the old commercial recently hit the web,&#xA;  making the word a social media trend. It's been widely interpreted as&#xA;  &quot;cool,&quot; and the word resurfaced again recently after Chan posted it on&#xA;  his Weibo page. It has become to Chinese slang what Kim Kardashian's&#xA;  rear end is to U.S. popular culture. It's breaking the Internet as&#xA;  Chinese pop stars are called &quot;duang pretty&quot; and the like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Although it's a long way from featuring in a dictionary, it's been&#xA;  used millions of times on the Chinese social network Weibo and has&#xA;  been looked up 1.5 million times on China's biggest search engine,&#xA;  Baidu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In case you're &quot;duang confused,&quot; you just need to know that&#xA;  &quot;everyone's &quot;duang-ing&quot; and it's great&quot; or &quot;This is so duang hot&quot; are&#xA;  the kinds of comments you see on the Weibo social network these days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There have also been numerous mash-up videos, and apparently during&#xA;  the visit of Britain's Prince William to China last week, he was&#xA;  greeted by some people saying &quot;duang, duang,&quot; because the English&#xA;  gentry look is seen as cool in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T22:58:30.123" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12615" CreationDate="2015-03-10T02:42:46.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All sentences are very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我比你来得早多了 is good. But it also can be, 我来得比你早多了. It is for adverbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for adjectives, you cannot do that. 我比你高5厘米 (correct), but 我高比你5厘米 (not right). An alternative could be: 我的身高超过你5厘米. Here you do not use 比 explicitly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T02:42:46.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12627" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-10T03:01:42.463" Score="1" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just checking: the following is not at all bad Chinese, or is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自主研发力量的薄弱，在某种程度上制约着民族游戏产业的发展。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose I could also write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;薄弱的自主研发力量，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either way I seem to have 'weak strength' or 'strength's weakness', which I suppose would need to be 'lack of strength' or some such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T00:52:07.927" Title="Is this a typical Chinese way of saying 'lack of strength'?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12627" CreationDate="2015-03-10T05:02:53.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both expressions (the one you quoted and the one you wrote) are perfectly fine in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;薄弱 vs 'lack of' is a typical difference between language/culture mindsets. You can replace 薄弱 with 缺乏/缺失, which also sounds natural, but implies 'completely missing' to Chinese listeners. 薄弱 is the Chinese way to say 'somewhat/partially lack of'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T05:02:53.537" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12627" CreationDate="2015-03-10T05:30:46.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what the author want to emphasize.&#xA;In a sentence like &quot;XX的XX&quot;, people are likely to pay more attention on the rear part. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9534" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T05:30:46.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12618" CreationDate="2015-03-10T05:55:59.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sougou input method. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;If you know the name of the stroke:&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just input the name of that stroke, you could find it on the suggestion banner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;If you don't know the name:&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You could try to input &quot;u&quot; firstly and see following the guide info&#xA;on the banner.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Right click the input method choose &quot;表情&amp;amp;符号&quot;(smiley&amp;amp;symbols) -&gt; &quot;特殊符号&quot;(specials) -&gt; 中文字符.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Right click the input method choose &quot;扩展功能&quot;(Add-ins) -&gt; &quot;手写输入&quot;(Handwriting), then draw the stroke on the board. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, I just search online and copy/paste if I need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9534" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T05:55:59.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12632" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12639" CreationDate="2015-03-10T07:51:19.437" Score="3" ViewCount="952" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would be the difference between two of them? Is the first one used at all? My teacher says I should prefer the last one to be understood and to avoid confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6842" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T00:51:22.077" Title="Difference between 中饭 and 午饭" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12632" CreationDate="2015-03-10T08:01:30.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;午饭 is used more in writing and formal than 中饭. Certainly you can use 中饭 in your writing and people won't get confused with which one you use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9537" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T08:01:30.690" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12634" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-10T08:41:51.080" Score="3" ViewCount="829" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got the following sentence from Chinese pod: &#xA;对不起，我今天真的要扫你的兴了，我不能去。&#xA;The translation provided goes like this:&#xA;Sorry, today I'm going to take the wind from your sails, I can't go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though I feel a little bit uncomfortable with it, wouldn't it be better to translate these three Hanzi with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;really have to?!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T09:59:05.737" Title="How best translate 真的要 in to english" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12634" CreationDate="2015-03-10T09:04:18.060" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can use 'for real' as 真的要, as it have the meaning for really or actually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T09:04:18.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12634" CreationDate="2015-03-10T10:55:38.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would have thought &quot;真的要&quot; means &quot;really have to/want/will&quot; but I just Googled it.  Most of the uses I found could translate 要 as must or want to or as indicating a future action.  But in many of them you could just as well take the whole phrase 真的要 to mean &quot;really.&quot;  And on some web pages it really does just mean &quot;really,&quot; like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://game.163.com/15/0211/10/AI5QNQUN00314OSE.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://game.163.com/15/0211/10/AI5QNQUN00314OSE.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The example seems to me ambiguous between &quot;I really must,&quot; and &quot;I'm really going to&quot; and just &quot;really.&quot;  It depends on whether you take 真的 as one phrase modifying 要扫你的兴了, or take 真的要 as modifying 扫你的兴了.  It looks to me like both are possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-03-10T14:41:21.873" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T14:41:21.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12634" CreationDate="2015-03-10T11:25:14.630" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, I'm really going to turn you down today. I can't go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a emphasis that the person saying is serious, it's not a joke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9538" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T11:25:14.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12617" CreationDate="2015-03-10T11:30:29.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;中国驻俄罗斯大使馆闻讯后立即启动应急机制。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An emergency response &lt;strong&gt;system&lt;/strong&gt; was started immediately by the Chinese Embassy in Russia after learning of what happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What better ways are there of translating 机制? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;system&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T11:30:29.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12632" CreationDate="2015-03-10T15:34:19.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually I think in northern China we never use 中饭. I come from Hebei province and I had never heard this word until I came to college in Guangzhou. It seems that 中饭 exists only in southern Chinese dialects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9540" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T15:34:19.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12611" CreationDate="2015-03-10T19:53:57.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you might get this kind of database from some publication press if you are lucky, but it seems to be not an easy way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I didn't find any database or flat text with Open Source License from the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But here is a website which is quite clean and neat. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to look up a single Chinese character(字), and the request link seems quite tidy. I tried 好 and it showed &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/597D.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/597D.htm&lt;/a&gt; ,where &lt;code&gt;597D&lt;/code&gt; is exactly the UTF-8 code of 好. So you may use this as a breaking point to implement your dictionary function. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if your app is for commercial purpose, please don't forget reading the license of this website before using it ;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun coding!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9540" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T19:53:57.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12599" CreationDate="2015-03-10T20:56:27.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;popular&quot; has a few meanings in English.  So it really depends on the context how you translate this word to Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if John is the most popular English teacher in the training center, he is &quot;最受欢迎的英语老师&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, if some music is popular and &lt;strong&gt;you need to emphasize&lt;/strong&gt; it is for ordinary people other than professionals, the music is &quot;通俗音乐&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry I know I'm not answering your question but hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9544" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T20:56:27.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12632" CreationDate="2015-03-10T23:07:31.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Read those loudly, continually. It is better than remembering single word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早饭，午饭，晚饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开饭啦，吃早饭啦，吃午饭啦，吃晚饭啦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我正在吃早饭，我正在吃午饭，我正在吃晚饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你吃过早饭了吗，你吃过吃午饭了吗，你吃过吃晚饭了吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃过早饭了，我吃过吃午饭了，我吃过吃晚饭了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BUT， we say, 早中晚三顿饭. For example，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们早中晚三顿饭都在学校吃。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（I hate to tell this, but it is true.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-03-11T00:56:12.697" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T00:56:12.697" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12617" CreationDate="2015-03-11T00:24:51.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think since you've already understand what 机制 means, how to translate it is just a matter of choice of word in the target language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native English speaker, but I think depending on the wording preferences, it could be 'scheme', 'plan', 'system', 'policy', 'procedures'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would translate 应急机制 to 'Emergency Response Scheme' since 'Scheme' means &lt;i&gt;a large-scale systematic plan or arrangement for attaining some particular object or putting a particular idea into effect&lt;/i&gt; in Oxford Dictionary. I think it's more appropriate for a social mechanism involving people and consciousness where 'mechanism' is more appropriate for systems involving just components that are inanimate or considered as inanimate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T00:24:51.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12634" CreationDate="2015-03-11T00:30:56.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;真的: really&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要: here means have to (since it's short of apologetic, not just the intention of further action(will))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the translation would be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sorry. I really have to let you down. I can't go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then let's brush it up with a touch of the emotion which might had been left out from the translation. It would be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sorry. I'd (really) have to let you down. I can't go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T00:30:56.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12627" CreationDate="2015-03-11T00:52:07.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) 自主研发力量的薄弱 = weakness of independent research and development competence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 薄弱的自主研发力量 = weak independent research and development competence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of them are acceptable. From a grammar point of view, (I'm a native speaker, but my Chinese grammar got rusty after I learned English) both of them are 偏正短语 (modified phrase?). 偏正短语 consists two parts, one could be considered the object (or subject? I'm not really sure what to call it here) of the phrase and the other part that modifies it. The object is the main part of the sentence which means if you remove the modifier, the sentence is still grammatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in many situations like this question, the modifier and the object can be converted back and forth. So it's more a speaker's choice. For example you can consider which of the two you want to emphasise. The first one emphasise 'weakness', the second one emphasise 'R&amp;amp;D competence'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T00:52:07.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12623" CreationDate="2015-03-11T03:48:51.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following what 倪阔乐 mentioned, here is a helpful visualization for how the newly formed pseudo-character looks like:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sN66j.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;duang&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T03:48:51.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1106" CreationDate="2015-03-11T09:34:57.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;瞧您说的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to Translate: Look what you say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means: he does not want to directly deny what you have just said, but he feels your remark is a little inapproriate. He does not support what you say and feels that what you say make him embarrased. He used this phrase only to indicate some implied intentions, such as he wanted you to realize your remake is improper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9547" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T09:34:57.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12632" CreationDate="2015-03-11T09:55:50.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The same meaning, all Chinese people should know the meaning of 午饭, most Chinese people should know the meaning of 中饭, so you can speak any words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9547" LastEditorUserId="9547" LastEditDate="2015-03-12T05:12:57.500" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T05:12:57.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12634" CreationDate="2015-03-11T09:59:05.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;really want to do something :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. I really want to kiss you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9547" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T09:59:05.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12599" CreationDate="2015-03-11T10:18:35.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should use 流行&#xA;漫画在日本很流行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;流行 - most people like that and easy to understanding or do it, usually it be used to describe the behavior or things ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有名 - most people know that, not sure like that, usually it be use to describe someone, event or place ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受欢迎 - most people like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope useful for understanding ... :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9547" LastEditorUserId="9547" LastEditDate="2015-03-12T05:11:51.800" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T05:11:51.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1106" CreationDate="2015-03-11T19:43:56.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;等着瞧吧 (you'll see, just wait and see, just you wait, rest assured, etc.) appears to be widely used, iciba has many example sentences containing this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兔子，等着瞧！Russian: Ну, погоди!, Well, Just You Wait! is a Soviet/Russian animated series produced by Soyuzmultfilm. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%85%94%E5%AD%90%EF%BC%8C%E7%AD%89%E7%9D%80%E7%9E%A7%EF%BC%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;兔子，等着瞧！&lt;/a&gt;is the logo of each episode and the line pronounced by the wolf after his wicked designs have come to nothing. 本剧的标志，每集的最后狼说的 “Ну, Заяц, ну погоди!&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T01:57:52.957" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:57:52.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12606" CreationDate="2015-03-11T21:50:53.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;不见不错 - there doesn't seem to be a reference to this phrase to be found... perhaps you could indicate where you saw this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不见不散 - used to indicate a firm commitment to an appointment, in the sense that if we don't see [不见] each other then we will not leave/scatter [不散] (i.e. keep waiting). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it is to another person and you want to make sure the other person&#xA;waits for you then it means &quot;don't leave before I get there&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are indicating that you'll be waiting for the other person&#xA;then it means &quot;I am not leaving until I see you&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it is to a group of people then it means &quot;no one's going anywhere&#xA;until we all get there&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastEditorUserId="2725" LastEditDate="2015-03-11T22:01:06.340" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T22:01:06.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12560" CreationDate="2015-03-11T22:20:30.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No exact translation or idiom comes to mind, but I think a good expression/phrase would be to '&lt;strong&gt;create a false sense of security&lt;/strong&gt;'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The expression '&lt;strong&gt;bury one's head in the sand&lt;/strong&gt;' suggests that one is aware of the danger but simply chooses to ignore or hide from it although the perceived level of risk/danger remains the same to the person, whereas when you create a false sense of security (whether you are consciously aware of it or not) then you do believe that the level of risk/danger has been reduced, as the person in the story did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T22:20:30.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12655" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-11T22:40:49.500" Score="5" ViewCount="419" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had this 填空。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我国与其他国家_____ 同时起步，在这一项目上有一定的实力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could choose  似乎，几乎，将近，曾经&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't see much difference between 几乎 and 将近， I am told 几乎 is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I there a definite, palpable reason for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T14:27:34.097" Title="Why should I choose 几乎 over 将近？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="167" CreationDate="2015-03-12T00:00:27.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can look at the question from a number of different aspects:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reading &amp;amp; Writing&lt;/strong&gt;: as discussed, if you know Chinese then learning Kanji won't have such a high steep learning curve. However, having to deal with other writing systems makes it more difficult. If you know Japanese then it is easier to move to just one writing system.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Speaking &amp;amp; Listening&lt;/strong&gt;: as discussed, the difficult part of speaking in Chinese is the different tonal accentuation so moving from Japanese to Chinese would be considered more difficult.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Grammar&lt;/strong&gt;: since the grammar structure are different, it is difficult to say, but in general Chinese has the more loose grammar structure so some people may find it more difficult to learn, whereas the grammar structure is much more defined for Japanese. This is to the extent that people who know Korean and pretty much pick up Japanese grammar due to their similarity.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Expressions and idioms&lt;/strong&gt;: This wasn't really mentioned in most of the answers, but I think understanding one language gives you a lot of insight into the nuances and cultural significance of the other language, of which there are significant overlap but also subtle differences (you can also compare this to Korean).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Diversity&lt;/strong&gt;: Due to the geographical and cultural diversity of Chinese speakers, the language has come to develop two major writing systems (simplified and traditional) as well as a large number of related dialects and variations (Cantonese, Hokkien, etc). I would assume that if you learn standard Japanese there is less problem with communicating with other Japanese speakers compared to learning Chinese and being able to communicate with other Chinese speakers. This might also make learning Japanese a little bit easier compared with Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T00:00:27.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12655" CreationDate="2015-03-12T00:34:58.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;将近 is used in conjunction with an amount or a time point, but not with another entity with the same attribute. See the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她短短一个月突然暴瘦到将近 80 斤。(Correct! &quot;80 斤&quot; is an amount)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他一直工作到深夜将近 1 点。(Correct! &quot;1 点&quot; is a time point)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我和他将近一样高。(Wrong! &quot;他&quot; is neither an amount nor a time point, but another entity. Should use 几乎 here)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6519" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T00:34:58.293" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12655" CreationDate="2015-03-12T05:43:35.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我国与其他国家_____ 同时起步，在这一项目上有一定的实力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让我来试试解释一下这道填空题，这几个选项“&lt;em&gt;似乎，几乎，将近，曾经&lt;/em&gt;”主要用作修饰&lt;strong&gt;同时&lt;/strong&gt;，如果我们不填任何选项，那么这句话也是完整的，是一个(因为...所以...)句型，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;因为&lt;/strong&gt;我国与其他国家同时起步，&lt;strong&gt;所以&lt;/strong&gt;在这一项目上有一定的实力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;几乎&lt;/em&gt; - 表示差不多的意思。基本上来讲，'几乎同时'也就是'同时'的意思。所以下面这句话读起来没问题，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;因为&lt;/strong&gt;我国与其他国家&lt;strong&gt;几乎&lt;/strong&gt;同时起步，&lt;strong&gt;所以&lt;/strong&gt;在这一项目上有一定的实力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;将近&lt;/em&gt; - 表示快要的意思。'将近同时'离'同时'还有一段距离，还未赶上其他国家。所以下面这句话读起来不符合逻辑，还未赶上人家，怎么就有一定的实力了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;因为&lt;/strong&gt;我国与其他国家&lt;strong&gt;将近&lt;/strong&gt;同时起步，&lt;strong&gt;所以&lt;/strong&gt;在这一项目上有一定的实力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;似乎&lt;/em&gt; - 表示看起来像的意思。'似乎同时'表示不肯定，所以下面这句话也是有问题的，不肯定是不是同时起步，怎么就有一定的实力了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;因为&lt;/strong&gt;我国与其他国家&lt;strong&gt;似乎&lt;/strong&gt;同时起步，&lt;strong&gt;所以&lt;/strong&gt;在这一项目上有一定的实力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;曾经&lt;/em&gt; - 表示以前的意思。'以前同时'起步，也有可能没赶上，所以不一定有实力。下面这句话也是有问题的，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;因为&lt;/strong&gt;我国与其他国家&lt;strong&gt;曾经&lt;/strong&gt;同时起步，&lt;strong&gt;所以&lt;/strong&gt;在这一项目上有一定的实力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will try to add English version later ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9547" LastEditorUserId="9547" LastEditDate="2015-03-18T14:27:34.097" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T14:27:34.097" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12659" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12664" CreationDate="2015-03-12T07:43:32.840" Score="6" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen ​摺 (almost intentionally I would assume) written in numerous simplified texts, especially with the word ​&lt;code&gt;摺叠​&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one example (emphasis is my own):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://m.zjol.com.cn/mzjol/details.html?newsid=020533282&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;浙江在线 《以“色”诱人 专属定制》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;浙江在线·住在杭州网3月3日消息 一方飘逸的丝巾，&lt;strong&gt;摺&lt;/strong&gt;叠间营造出许多迥异的情调，变幻出万种风情。不同颜色、不同戴法，搭配出多少不同的你，或端庄秀丽、或热情奔放、或甜美娇人，让你摇曳生姿，变的生动而魅力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grand Ricci seems to like this simplification too, it contains an entry for ​摺叠​ but none for 折叠.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guifan has the following footnote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;注意 “摺”简化为“折”, 但在“摺”和“折”意义可能混淆时, 《简化字总表》规定仍用“摺”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which doesn't totally clear things up, really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What reason would 摺 be used in simplified texts as opposed to 折?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is this a regional variant? (i.e.: TW/HK vs. Mainland, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Where would 折 and 摺 have different meanings? (Like mentioned in Guifan?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-03-12T18:55:31.713" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T20:22:59.103" Title="Why ​摺 in Simplified Texts and not 折?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12632" CreationDate="2015-03-12T12:37:57.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;中饭 and 午饭 both refer to &lt;code&gt;lunch&lt;/code&gt;. But as the answer mentioned, they are different in the environment you use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;午饭&lt;/code&gt; is more formal than &lt;code&gt;中饭&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;午饭&lt;/code&gt; can be used both in spoken and written Chinese. But &lt;code&gt;中饭&lt;/code&gt; is used in spoken Chinese and mostly in dialect in southern China. As I come from southern Jiangsu(江苏) province, we never say &lt;code&gt;午饭&lt;/code&gt; in our conversation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see more here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;午饭 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/8/da/213242.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/8/da/213242.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中饭 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/d/13d/304410.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/d/13d/304410.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T12:37:57.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12560" CreationDate="2015-03-12T12:42:19.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answer from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/9/13c/302569.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zdic.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;plug one's ears while stealing a bell;deceive oneself as an ostrich that buries its head in the sand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T12:42:19.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12662" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-12T18:18:40.223" Score="2" ViewCount="305" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do they both mean &quot;to add&quot;, or is there some other context that I don't understand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9313" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T22:27:19.733" Title="Difference Between 加 and 添" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12662" CreationDate="2015-03-12T18:31:08.117" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You drive to a gas station to &quot;加油&quot;.  We don't say &quot;添油&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you add some firewood to a campfire, we usually say &quot;添柴&quot;.  If you say &quot;加柴&quot;, if still makes good sense, but does not sound as natural as &quot;添柴&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, the character &quot;添&quot; is usually used with other characters, like &quot;增添&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although &quot;&quot;增添&quot; and &quot;增加&quot; have the same meaning, they're not fully interchangeable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9544" LastEditorUserId="9544" LastEditDate="2015-03-12T18:37:35.990" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T18:37:35.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12659" CreationDate="2015-03-12T19:56:53.157" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;折 is not a simplified character. 摺 just happens to be a rarer character that means the same thing, namely to fold (v), or folder (n).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;折 is here much more versatile, and has additional connotations, such as break, lose, die, act, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we have words such as 打摺 (fold), which is obviously not the same as 打折 (make a discount).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T19:56:53.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12662" CreationDate="2015-03-12T22:27:19.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as in English, there are situation where the same meaning is present with different words.  For example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1 + 1 = 2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We said &lt;strong&gt;1 plus 1 equals to 2&lt;/strong&gt;, or we can say, while not as common, &lt;strong&gt;1 add 1 equals to 2&lt;/strong&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now take another example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Add more oil to the pan &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;using &lt;strong&gt;plus&lt;/strong&gt; on above sentence will be arguable.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now a third example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Our family have a new member!&quot;  (a new born)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in a sense, a new family member is 'add' to the family, however either 'add' or 'plus' will fit into the sentense.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now back to your question, both 加 and 添 means &quot;to add&quot;.  There are times where they are interchangeable - Mangoyogurt's answer actually provides some sort of negative example - &quot;加油&quot; and &quot;添油&quot; are both valid where 添油 is more commonly used in ancient times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the first example: &lt;code&gt;1 + 1&lt;/code&gt;, we will say &quot;1 加 1&quot; but never &quot;1 添 1&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For our last example (new family member as a new born), we will say 添丁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good example for these 2 words:  the word &quot;Additive&quot; in Chinese is 添加劑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that gives you a sense on these 2 words' usage and their meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T22:27:19.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12659" CreationDate="2015-03-13T18:14:47.400" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese sense, 折 and 摺 are completely different words with different pronunciation. 折 (tsit8) means &quot;split&quot; and &quot;break&quot; while 摺 (tsip8 or tsap8) means &quot;fold&quot;. They are not interchangeable.  In the evolution of Mandarin they converge to sound zhé finally, and people get confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastEditorUserId="6158" LastEditDate="2015-03-14T19:41:49.923" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T19:41:49.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12668" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12669" CreationDate="2015-03-13T23:19:51.953" Score="6" ViewCount="3812" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's used like 'so so' in English. Like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;问题：你觉得怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回答：马马虎虎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I correct in this?&#xA;Are there other ways to use it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6858" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T02:01:55.957" Title="How is 马马虎虎 used?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12668" CreationDate="2015-03-14T00:11:56.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;马虎 means careless, casual, perfunctory, etc.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So-so mean neither good nor bad, in between.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Example on how to use 马虎:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Question: 为什么你的数学考试打分呢么差？ (Why is your score so low on your math test?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Answer: 我马虎了。 (I was a bit careless.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;马马虎虎 can be shortened to 马虎 in some cases, as shown in the example above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4680" LastEditorUserId="4680" LastEditDate="2015-03-14T00:56:39.800" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T00:56:39.800" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12659" CreationDate="2015-03-14T03:55:22.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the dictionary in my phone, 折 have two meanings. One is pronounced Zhe2, which means to break or fold something, this is same as 摺. The another one is pronounced she2 means having been broken, which is not the same as 摺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there is a note saying that when there might be confusion use 摺 according to the simplified Chinese character chart even though it has been simplified as 折.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Buy the way, it seems 摺 can only be pronounced as zhe2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T03:55:22.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12673" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12677" CreationDate="2015-03-14T13:38:23.780" Score="4" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the etymology of 白族?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the name 白族 indicate that the people of that ethnicity literally look like they have white skin and/or clothes, or is it meant to be a metaphor, with the colour white being associated with being civilized, as claimed by Wikipedia at &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bai_people&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bai_people&lt;/a&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastActivityDate="2015-03-15T00:50:02.303" Title="Etymology of 白族" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12673" CreationDate="2015-03-14T15:26:52.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Crackers&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白族自称“白子”、“白尼”、“白伙”，汉语意为“白人”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly enough, &lt;em&gt;白子&lt;/em&gt;, can refer to albinos or albinism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白人 on the other hand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 {anthropology} white person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 Caucasian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 the whites&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 {dialect} (like báidīng 白丁) the common people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 a commoner (in former times, referring to people without official rank or academic degree)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6 non-government-related people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7 sb without political party affiliation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, basically just whitey or commoner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm gonna call bluff on anything associated with being civilized, it seems &lt;em&gt;white&lt;/em&gt; would stand for the opposite if anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白族 they're just the &lt;em&gt;crackers&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T15:26:52.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12675" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-14T15:31:05.190" Score="3" ViewCount="652" Body="&lt;p&gt;不能实现梦想的人都有一个共通之处，那就是：想要一样东西，却怎么也不愿意为之付出&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not understand the usage of 之 here. What does 之处 and 为之付出 mean? Thank you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-03-15T07:24:32.820" LastActivityDate="2015-03-15T08:52:55.947" Title="How is 之 used in these sentences?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12675" CreationDate="2015-03-14T16:33:13.363" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The former 之 is equivalent to 的, but more often used than 的 when followed by a single character that would otherwise be expressed in a two-character word. In this case, it is followed by 处, which means “place” 地方 and by extension “aspect” 特征. Thus, the first part of the sentence means word-by-word &quot;People who cannot realize their dreams are the same in one aspect(characteristic),&quot; or more in more appropriate English &quot;Those who fail to realize their dreams have one thing in common,&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter 之 has a different meaning, as is common in classical Chinese (文言). It is the third person pronoun in the objective case, meaning that it should only be used in place of 他/她/它 when the thing in question is the object of the sentence, much like &quot;him&quot; instead of &quot;he&quot; in English. Therefore, 为之付出 means to &quot;pay effort for it&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;More examples of 之 as a third person objective pronoun&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;授&lt;strong&gt;之&lt;/strong&gt;以渔 (classical) &quot;Teach &lt;strong&gt;them&lt;/strong&gt; with fishing&quot; = &quot;Teach &lt;strong&gt;them&lt;/strong&gt; the art of fishing.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;将&lt;strong&gt;之&lt;/strong&gt;磨碎 “grind &lt;strong&gt;it&lt;/strong&gt; into chunks/powder/etc&quot;, equivalent to 把它磨碎， note that 将 is always used instead of 把 before 之.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有过则改&lt;strong&gt;之&lt;/strong&gt; (proverb) &quot;Have a fault, then change &lt;strong&gt;it&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; = &quot;If you made a fault, mend &lt;strong&gt;it&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;投我以桃，报&lt;strong&gt;之&lt;/strong&gt;以李 (proverb) &quot;Give me with peaches, return &lt;strong&gt;them&lt;/strong&gt; with plums&quot; = &quot;They give me peaches, I return &lt;strong&gt;them&lt;/strong&gt; the favor with plums.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8137" LastEditorUserId="8137" LastEditDate="2015-03-15T08:52:55.947" LastActivityDate="2015-03-15T08:52:55.947" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12673" CreationDate="2015-03-14T19:25:33.577" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s unclear why the Bai people of Yunnan call themselves “Bai.”  The history of the various ethnic groups in Southwest China is quite obscure, and there’s a degree of arbitrariness to the official categories, which date from the 1950s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other groups which are sub-divided by color on the basis of their dress, like the Miao – there are White, Blue, Flower Miao etc.  But that’s not what’s going on here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One fact that’s possibly relevant is that with one of the other prominent ethnic groups in Yunnan and Sichuan, the Yi, society was based on a caste system where the dominant, aristocratic group was “Black”, and the subservient commoners were “White.”  According to a 1997 paper by Pan Jiao in the journal &lt;em&gt;Inner Asia&lt;/em&gt;, this distinction wasn't based on skin color, but the Yi believed that the aristocrats had “hard bones” and others (there were also slave groups) did not.  White Yi had to pay tribute to their Black masters and perform labor duties and military service.  Black and White Yi didn’t intermarry, and the system was only brought to an end in the 1950s under the Communists.  Regarding the Bai (who of course are not now considered part of the Yi ethnicity,) there are other Yi subgroups living in proximity to them, like the Nosu or Nasu, whose name means “black.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, some Chinese historians of the region point to a distinction in the historical records between the 白蠻  and 烏蠻  (white and black southern barbarians.)  The Baiman seem to have lived in the Western Cuan area between Kunming and Dali, and the Wuman in the Eastern Cuan area (eastern parts of Yunnan.)  The Baiman generally had more advanced agricultural techniques than the Wuman, which would line them up with the current Bai &lt;em&gt;minzu.&lt;/em&gt;  For more on this, see Steven Harrell, “The History of the History of the Yi,” the section called “Ma Changshou’s account of Yi history,”  p. 84 and after, esp. p. 87 (link below.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's probably wise to treat the name of this ethnic group as simply a name, and not make any claims regarding its etymology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.th/books?id=WChrSv86uIsC&amp;amp;pg=PA84&amp;amp;dq=harrell%20china&amp;#39;s%20ethnic%20frontiers%20history%20of%20the%20yi&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=xogEVZPTJM2zuATC0YBA&amp;amp;ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=harrell%20china&amp;#39;s%20ethnic%20frontiers%20history%20of%20the%20yi&amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;The History of the History of the Yi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastEditorUserId="3647" LastEditDate="2015-03-15T00:50:02.303" LastActivityDate="2015-03-15T00:50:02.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12675" CreationDate="2015-03-14T20:11:26.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;之 has many use cases, these two are used to denote a property and an&#xA;article like &quot;it&quot;, or &quot;that&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal translation for these 2 4-character phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;共通之处 -- something in common / somewhere in common&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;共通 &quot;common&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;之 (in which)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;处 thing / places&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;为之付出 devote for it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;为之 &quot;for it&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;付出 &quot;devotion&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of &quot;共通之处&quot;, &quot;之&quot; seems to contribute no meaning and can&#xA;be removed, since &quot;共通处&quot; could be used to mean also the same&#xA;thing. This can happen sometimes when the speaker/writer is just&#xA;adding the character as a structure support, and/or maybe to&#xA;disambiguate.  Since 4-character idioms are very commonly used like&#xA;units of sentence making.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4036" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T20:11:26.533" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-03-14T20:11:26.533" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12659" CreationDate="2015-03-14T20:22:59.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had the impression that both 折 / 摺 mean &quot;to fold&quot;, but 折 means &quot;to fold only once&quot;, while 摺 only means &quot;to fold only more then once&quot;. i.e. one-fold vs multi-fold. (In both verbal and noun context)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think that they are simplified/traditional variants to each other -- but I have less knowledge in this part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4036" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T20:22:59.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12680" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12741" CreationDate="2015-03-15T16:58:15.727" Score="1" ViewCount="1392" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/743/whats-the-difference-between-%E5%AD%A6-and-%E5%AD%A6%E4%B9%A0&quot;&gt;the thread on 學 vs. 學習&lt;/a&gt;， and I have a slightly related question. In English, the words &quot;learn&quot; and &quot;study&quot; are somewhat interchangeable, but also fairly distinct, in that there is a distinction between the meaning of the words learn and study, with the implication that one studies something in order to learn it, and that one who has learned something has in a way completed studying it. I'm am guessing the same distinction can be made in Chinese, and I'm wondering how that is done.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&#xA;唐納文在紐約市上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T04:35:02.360" Title="&quot;Learn&quot; vs. &quot;Study&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12681" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12683" CreationDate="2015-03-15T22:09:35.937" Score="6" ViewCount="495" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们要怎么去机场？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation given is &quot;How do we get to the airport?&quot;, but since 怎么 can also mean &quot;why&quot;, can this sentence also be translated as &quot;Why are we going to the airport?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm probably missing something which makes this a silly question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastActivityDate="2015-03-27T21:44:09.940" Title="Is the sentence &quot;我们要怎么去机场？&quot; ambiguous?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12681" CreationDate="2015-03-15T22:23:52.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no silly questions, just pedants! On good authority I have it, that if you want to say why are we going, you will use '我们为什么去机场？‘ 或者 ‘我们为什么要去机场？’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们要怎么去机场。 How will we get to the airport?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-15T22:23:52.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12681" CreationDate="2015-03-15T23:58:48.050" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaker.  This sentence is not ambiguous to me at all.  Here the &quot;怎么&quot; clearly means &quot;how&quot; to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you switch &quot;要&quot; and &quot;怎么&quot;，then the sentence will be like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们怎么要去机场？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here &quot;怎么&quot; means &quot;why&quot;.  This sentence sounds to me like that you have a guest coming by train but your boss asks you to go to the airport to pick him up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9544" LastActivityDate="2015-03-15T23:58:48.050" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12680" CreationDate="2015-03-16T04:07:42.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'learn' comes from an old meaning of 'follow a track, find a track' from a word related to German 'Gleis' = (train) track. 'learn = get knowledge, study'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Latin 'studium' study, application, originally comes from studere meaning 'be diligent'. From 1300 it has the meaning 'apply oneself to the acquisition of learning'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How much difference can there be between 'learn' and 'study'? They may appear in different phrases, but I can't see any fundamental distinction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T04:07:42.117" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12685" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12737" CreationDate="2015-03-16T04:22:15.633" Score="5" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a similar question here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9888/what-are-some-dictionaries-about-vocabulary-of-classical-chinese&quot;&gt;what are some dictionaries about vocabulary of classical chinese?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I think my question is a little different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance if I want to find the classical equivalent of &lt;code&gt;您/你&lt;/code&gt; what kind of resources are available (dictionary (hopefully!) /references/etc.) that would return: &lt;code&gt;汝&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise, &lt;code&gt;我&lt;/code&gt; would return something like &lt;code&gt;吾&lt;/code&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A reverse classical-dictionary, is kind of what I'm looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What options are available? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T11:18:36.290" Title="Resources: Modern Chinese -&gt; Classical Chinese (Dictionary/References/etc.)" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12686" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-16T06:55:15.597" Score="3" ViewCount="1138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to learn to say &quot;I love you too&quot; in the Hokkien dialect, as my boyfriend's from Taiwan, and I would like to surprise him. But I can't find the way to say it online, and I've heard him pronounce it something like, &quot;Wo ai lu.&quot; I think the Mandarin way is to say, &quot;Wo ai ni,&quot; and &quot;Wo ye ai ni,&quot; but I'm not sure. Can anyone answer me? I would like the characters, but also the romanization. And for this, as I wasn't clear before, I actually mean for the Hokkien, as it's no surprise to him I know kind of how to say the Mandarin. I'd like the romanization so I can say it to him. But I would also like to be able to write it, since we may take classes together, and we've been known to write notes to each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9568" LastEditorUserId="9568" LastEditDate="2015-03-16T07:18:14.720" LastActivityDate="2015-04-15T10:20:36.747" Title="What's the way to say &quot;too/also/as well&quot; in Taiwanese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12381" CreationDate="2015-03-16T07:49:39.310" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;地点 is a place where something is or could be located.&#xA;现场 is the place where an action or event occurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9569" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T07:49:39.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="743" CreationDate="2015-03-16T08:14:59.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;学 is gaining knowledge or skill.&#xA;习 is to do practice.&#xA;学习 is to study something, it can be converted to a noun to mean the behavior of studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9569" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T08:14:59.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12686" CreationDate="2015-03-16T09:28:00.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You'll find that the Taiwanese (Hokkien) dialect is very similar to mandarin, except that the intonation and pronunciation varies in a subtle way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The writing should be exactly the same, unless you want to write it in a way that reflects the actually sounds (as they do sometimes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我愛你 (góa ài lì)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tip: I think góa is a little bit difficult to pronounce, so you might just try to say 'wa' instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T09:28:00.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12686" CreationDate="2015-03-16T10:01:51.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three words corresponding to Mandarin &quot;也&quot; in Taiwanese Hokkien. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;也 &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=184&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=%E4%B9%9F&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=2&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=1&amp;amp;rowcount=11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;iā&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;亦 i̍k&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嘛 &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=10417&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=%E4%B9%9F&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=2&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=1&amp;amp;rowcount=11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;mā&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that in colloquial Hokkien, 也 is used exclusively in co-ordinated constructions, of the form &quot;也 X 也 Y&quot;, which isn't what you want here. It is 嘛 that you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T10:01:51.513" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12691" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-16T10:24:27.677" Score="2" ViewCount="1588" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is embarrassing, but let's face it. It is a problem caused by Chinese grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A white horse is not a horse. -- false, but no paradox.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White horses are not horses. -- false, but no paradox.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White horse is not horse -- English grammar forbids this expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This example illustrates how language can help clear thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T09:00:30.753" Title="Can the famous paradox 白马非马 be translated into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12691" CreationDate="2015-03-16T10:44:00.350" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{philosophy} &amp;quot;a white horse is not a horse&amp;quot; (paradoxical claim by the philosopher Gōngsūn Lóng 公孫龍/公孙龙, 320-250 BCE, in his &amp;quot;White Horse Dialogue&amp;quot; where he tries to establish a conclusion contrary to common sense)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;a white horse is not a horse&amp;quot; is quite paradoxical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_a_white_horse_is_not_a_horse&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When a white horse is not a horse&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When A White Horse Is Not A Horse (Chinese: 白馬非馬; pinyin: Báimǎ fēi mǎ; Wade–Giles: Pai-ma fei ma; literally: &amp;quot;white horse not horse&amp;quot;), also known as the White Horse Dialogue (Chinese: 白馬論; pinyin: Báimǎ Lùn; Wade–Giles: Pai-ma Lun; literally: &amp;quot;white horse discourse&amp;quot;), is a famous paradox in Chinese philosophy. Gongsun Long wrote this circa 300 BCE dialectic analysis of the question &lt;em&gt;Can it be that a white horse is not a horse?&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_a_white_horse_is_not_a_horse&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; also contains the following, which is quite similar to the question that you pose about the difficulty of translation into English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Difficulties of interpretation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The syntax, semantics, and logic of the White Horse Dialogue are ambiguous in the Classical Chinese original and thorny in English translation: for example, in Chinese, 白 (or bai, and so on) has the characteristic of a verb, in English. Thus, to translate, the term bai ma is more precisely rendered as the phrase &amp;quot;be white horse&amp;quot;, or as referring to a &amp;quot;being white horse&amp;quot;. In the Chinese context, color attributes are verbal rather than adjectival, whereas &amp;quot;horse&amp;quot; is nominal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese bai ma fei ma 白馬非馬 syntactically hinges upon the negative fei 非 &amp;quot;not, is not; no, negative; oppose; wrong&amp;quot;. The Classical construction &amp;quot;A fei B&amp;quot; &amp;quot;A非B&amp;quot; can ambiguously mean either &amp;quot;A is not a member of the class B&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;A is not identical to B&amp;quot;.[2] Interpreting this equivocation fallacy, A.C. Graham says this &amp;quot;white horse&amp;quot; vs. &amp;quot;horse&amp;quot; paradox plays upon the ambiguity of whether &amp;quot;is&amp;quot; means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Is a member of the class (x)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Is identical to (x)&amp;quot;[2]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, the expression &amp;quot;a white horse is not a horse&amp;quot; is ambiguous between &amp;quot;a white horse is not identical with a horse&amp;quot; (true, because &amp;quot;white horse&amp;quot; is more specific than &amp;quot;horse&amp;quot;), and &amp;quot;a white horse is not a member of the set of horses&amp;quot; (obviously false). The Advocate in the dialogue is asserting that &amp;quot;a white horse is not [identical with] a horse,&amp;quot; while the Objector is interpreting the Advocate's statement as &amp;quot;a white horse is not [a member of the group of] horses.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An illustration of the alternative uses of &amp;quot;fei&amp;quot; may be found in the widely known &amp;quot;Happiness of Fish&amp;quot; dialogue in Zhuangzi (17, tr. Watson 1968:188-9). Huizi says &amp;quot;You're not a fish [子非魚] — how do you know what fish enjoy?&amp;quot; (denying that Zhuangzi is a member of the class of fish) and Zhuangzi replies &amp;quot;You're not I [子非我], so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?&amp;quot; (denying that the individuals Huizi and Zhuangzi are identical).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond the inherent semantic ambiguities of Baima fei ma, the first line obscurely asks ke hu 可乎 &amp;quot;Can it be that …?&amp;quot;. This dialogue could be an attempted proof that a white horse is not a horse, or a question if such a statement is possible, or both. Van Norden suggests &amp;quot;that the issue is not whether it is always true that 'a white horse is not a horse,' but whether it is possible for it to be true.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative interpretation is offered in Feng Youlan's History of Chinese Philosophy (translated in 1952 by Derk Bodde):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking, names or terms are divided into those that are abstract and those that are concrete. The abstract term denotes the universal, the concrete term the particular. The particular is the denotation, and the universal the connotation, of the term. In western inflected languages there is no difficulty in distinguishing between the particular ('white' or 'horse') and the abstract ('whiteness' or 'horseness'). In Chinese, however, owing to the fact that the written characters are ideographic and pictorial and lack all inflection, there is no possible way, as far as the form of individual words is concerned, of distinguishing between abstract and concrete terms. Thus in Chinese the word designating a particular horse and that designating the universal, 'horseness,' are written and pronounced in the same way. Similarly with other terms, so that such words as 'horse' and 'white', being used to designate both the concrete particular and the abstract universal, thus hold two values.[3]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are no contemporary histories of Chinese philosophy that subscribe to Fung's interpretation. Other philosophers and sinologists who have analyzed the dialogue include Hansen;[4] Graham;[5] Thompson;[6] Harbsmeier;[7] and Van Norden.&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_a_white_horse_is_not_a_horse&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T11:14:38.970" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12693" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-16T12:13:01.400" Score="2" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;他说，当公司总经理从他身旁经过时，总会不时地赞美他“你扫的地真干净“。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems I have 总 ‘always‘ and 不时 ‘occasionally' or 'often' together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the 总经理 always or occasionally laud said sweeper? Or is it 'on all occasions'??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T02:09:44.497" Title="What do 总 and 不时 mean here together?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12693" CreationDate="2015-03-16T13:31:07.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to consider &lt;strong&gt;总会&lt;/strong&gt; together:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;be bound to; be inevitable; be sure to happen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总会 + 不时 = be sure to + often = he is bound to frequently.../he is sure to often...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC calls 总会, here, a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Verb Phrase&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dòngcí Cízǔ 动词词组&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This includes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(i) descriptive predicates that do not behave as stative verbs, e.g., ǎirán ‘amicable; amiable’, as well as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(ii) phrases and longer chunks containing a verb that are not fixed expressions, e.g., bǎiláibǎiqù ‘sway; waver’, áidào tiānhēi ‘bear up until nightfall’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T13:38:57.053" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12691" CreationDate="2015-03-16T14:28:52.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One can of course be ambiguous in any language. As Wikipedia states, the equivocation here comes from conflating &quot;being an element of&quot; and &quot;being identical to&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can one equivocate like this in English? I'll posit a few examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Could it be that being a white horse is not being a horse?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This turns it into verbal noun phrases, making the two concepts a bit fuzzier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Could it be that the white horse is not the horse?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This uses a quirk of the English article &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; to produce the generic, abstract meaning. But I agree it's a little awkward. If you stress the second &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt;, a new interpretation is formed (Is the white horse the &quot;standard/ideal/best&quot; horse?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T14:28:52.313" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12572" CreationDate="2015-03-16T15:55:42.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;*我妈-very natural&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*我妈妈-natural&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*我的妈妈-formal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*我的母亲-very formal &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9571" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T15:55:42.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12668" CreationDate="2015-03-16T16:01:00.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;*Q: How's your exam?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;问：你考得怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;答：马马虎虎吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*马虎-形容一个人做事很不小心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9571" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T16:01:00.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12698" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12701" CreationDate="2015-03-16T19:07:18.783" Score="5" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today Victoria Beckham &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/victoriabeckham/status/577387418359324672&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tweeted&lt;/a&gt; it. But is this reverse form (as opposed to 北京，你好) correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-03-19T05:17:15.020" Title="Is 你好，北京 grammatical?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12700" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12705" CreationDate="2015-03-16T22:26:00.480" Score="4" ViewCount="2907" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the phrase &quot;一下儿&quot; can be appended to a verb to indicate the action takes short time or less effort, for example &quot;看一下儿&quot;. However, some verbs cannot be appended by &quot;一下儿&quot;, since the sentence won't make sense, such as &quot;我去学校踢一下儿足球&quot;. So my question is: what types of verbs cannot be appended by &quot;一下儿&quot;? Is there a rule for it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give you more examples, it is correct to say 我借一下儿你的会员卡, but it is wrong to say &#xA;我还一下儿你的会员卡. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T11:02:27.557" Title="When to use &quot;一下儿&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12698" CreationDate="2015-03-17T01:12:51.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are correct!!&#xA;你好，北京 is more like a casual greeting, e.g. Hello World! :D&#xA;北京，你好 is more like a greeting with a touch of respect, because you address the name first. Examples are, 张老师，你好 (Teacher Zhang, hello).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T01:12:51.100" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12700" CreationDate="2015-03-17T01:17:40.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;一下儿 here indicates a brief period or relaxed and casual manner of an action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去学校踢一下儿足球 -&gt; For a while&#xA;我借一下儿你的会员 -&gt; For a while&#xA;我想亲你一下 -&gt; Relaxed and casual manner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to &quot;我还一下儿你的会员卡&quot;, it sounds weird because it can neither fall into &quot;for a while&quot; nor &quot;relaxed and casual manner&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5737" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T01:17:40.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12602" CreationDate="2015-03-17T01:28:21.700" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;there is a Chinese version of UD: zh.urbandictionary.com &amp;amp;&amp;amp; China Smack's glossary: www.chinasmack.com/glossary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China Digital Times also has a list, I'll update with that later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/sensitive-words-series/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CDT: Sensitive Words Series&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-01-26T15:24:04.483" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T15:24:04.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12693" CreationDate="2015-03-17T01:38:47.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question 5 was: 清洁工为什么要和小偷搏斗？ Answer C: 公司经理经常夸奖他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总会不时 = 经常。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T01:38:47.623" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12700" CreationDate="2015-03-17T01:40:13.270" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English it's correct to say &quot;I'll borrow your membership card for a little while&quot;, but wrong to say &quot;I'll return your membership card for a little while&quot;. Why? Since the membership card belongs to you, the action of returning results in something long-term or permanent, and &quot;returning for a little while&quot; makes no sense. The same is true for the two sentences in Chinese. The reason why &quot;一下儿&quot; can be appended to one verb and not the other isn't about grammar, but semantics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2015-03-17T04:47:06.023" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T04:47:06.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12668" CreationDate="2015-03-17T01:55:22.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaker of Northeastern Chinese origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;马马虎虎&quot; can also be used when you are trying to be modest.  For example, if someone praises you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Friso, 你的中文讲得好棒啊！&quot; （Friso, your spoken Chinese is so good!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you may reply with a smile, &quot;马马虎虎，马马虎虎。&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People will interpret it as you're being modest, and they usually like a response like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9544" LastEditorUserId="9544" LastEditDate="2015-03-17T02:01:55.957" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T02:01:55.957" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12693" CreationDate="2015-03-17T02:09:44.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I don't like the Chinese sentence in your question, because I consider it poorly organized. It sounds to me like being said by a janitor who didn't receive much education.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you translate &quot;总是&quot; into &quot;always&quot;, I'm sure you'll get confused. If you translate &quot;总是&quot; into &quot;regularly&quot; or &quot;usually&quot;, it reduces the confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese are likely to overuse the word &quot;总是&quot;。For example, in the last month, Xiao Zhang was late for work for 16 days out of the 22 work days.  Then his boss may complain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最近小张总是迟到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We all know there were at least 8 days that Xiao Zhang came to work on time.  So logically &quot;总是&quot; is not appropriately used in this scenario. However, most Chinese native speakers speak this way, and it is one of the language habits that confuse Chinese learners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully my post doesn't cause more confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9544" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T02:09:44.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12708" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12739" CreationDate="2015-03-17T05:18:13.430" Score="0" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have always ever known 节期 as jiéqī.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;festival season&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犹节日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;festival season&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently though I've heard 节期 pronounced as jiéqí and it threw me off guard a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking through my dictionaries though I saw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Grand Ricci&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jié qí&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Période, temps de fête; fête.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's the deal of the differences in pronunciation of 节期?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's the history of 节期's pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T02:43:25.383" Title="节期: jiéqī vs. jiéqí" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12691" CreationDate="2015-03-17T11:47:56.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should say 白马非驫, (biao1, all horses). Chinese does have a plural form for horses. Therefore this is not a paradox. It was a historical mistake. A paradox needs to have a clear definition in its language but contradict only in its logic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see that, yes, 白马 is 马, a white horse is a horse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;马非驫, a horse is not a herd of horses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T11:47:56.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12700" CreationDate="2015-03-17T16:04:50.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一下儿 could be used for a short time or a less important matter. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你到我们家来一下儿好吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please come over my home?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天不舒服, 你和老师说一下儿好吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please tell our teacher that I do not feel very well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, it is not necessary to translate it word by word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T16:04:50.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12713" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-17T21:18:14.247" Score="1" ViewCount="377" Body="&lt;p&gt;辣椒对我们饮食的影响是否就到此为止呢?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of &quot;wei zhi&quot; in this sentence puzzles me. In some contexts it means &quot;until,&quot; but I think the sentence basically means, &quot;Does the influence of hot peppers on our diet end here?&quot; I think the author intends a rhetorical question--to convey the idea that the influence of spicy foods is growing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this seem right? Thanks for any insights. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3171" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T02:45:04.987" Title="A question about use of 为止" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12713" CreationDate="2015-03-17T22:37:48.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You were right!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到此为止 = to this be stop(ped) = call it a day, stop here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T22:37:48.720" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12715" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-17T23:40:50.123" Score="-1" ViewCount="1285" Body="&lt;p&gt;I met a young lady the other day who told me her name was &quot;Jinyin&quot;.&#xA;That is how it's pronounced, but not necessarily how it's spelled.&#xA;In fact, I don't think that's how it is spelled at all.&#xA;Could someone tell me what would be the English spelling of this name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9578" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T00:24:21.317" Title="How would you spell this Chinese name?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-03-18T11:28:13.810" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12715" CreationDate="2015-03-17T23:54:49.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Was she pretty? Can you get me her telephone number?! Haha!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it is 金云 = jin yun = gold cloud (yun can sound like yin sometimes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金莹 = jin ying = gold shiny gem&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe she has a surname in front of this name, which she didn't mention, or maybe her surname is 金 = jin = gold (surnames come first in Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T23:54:49.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12715" CreationDate="2015-03-17T23:55:03.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jinyin is a valid pair of 2 syllables in Pinyin (the official Mandarin transcription) composed of jin + yin. Take into consideration, that you might have misheard one or both finals, so Jingyin, Jinying or even Jingying is possible. (the -n and -ng finals are pretty close to each other and one might occasionally confuse them). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually some Westerners also might confuse the j- and q- initials, so a name beginning with Q- is also possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next time you meet hear, ask her to spell her name in Pinyin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. I wouldn't bother trying to make a guess on the meaning or the characters of the name, there are so many possibilities. Ask her to write it down. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T23:55:03.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12715" CreationDate="2015-03-18T00:24:21.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese has many homophones, so it's difficult to know the exact words if you just know the pronunciation without the context. For a girl name, Jinyin probably is 金银 or 谨茵. You'd better ask her how to spell her name next time. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9569" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T00:24:21.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12713" CreationDate="2015-03-18T02:45:04.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is better to learn &quot;到此为止&quot; as one compound word.  For example, 今天的会议就到此为止吧. The meeting of today ends right now. &quot;到此为止&quot; implies that there may be more issues but will be handled next time. It is somehow different from 今天的会议开完了. The meeting of today completed now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also it is better to learn &quot;是否就到此为止呢?&quot; also as a whole phrase. This question implies its answer, such as, &quot;显然不是!&quot; Instead of a question, it is a way to emphasize the answer. In English, &quot;Are these all of the problems? No, definitely not.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also mentioned &quot;until&quot;. That is a different usage. Such as &quot;直到...为止. For example, &quot;我们不能回家，直到把这个题目做完为止. We will not go home until the project is completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T02:45:04.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12720" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14640" CreationDate="2015-03-18T05:17:48.853" Score="4" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for something authoritative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is the origin of the 不让[能]踩门槛 phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Earliest usage? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T12:22:08.220" Title="Origin: of the phrase 不让[能]踩门槛" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12685" CreationDate="2015-03-18T08:09:26.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well actually we also use &quot;我&quot; in classical Chinese.&#xA;For example: 《曹刿论战》：“齐师伐我。”&#xA;And as for 汝, it is not equivalent to 你/您.&#xA;Sometimes 君 is also used to refer to 你/您.&#xA;Therefore it's very hard to find such a dictionary that convert everything to classical Chinese and even if it exists it may not be correct.( And I guess there is no such a dictionary.)&#xA;You may try to read more classical Chinese articles to get familiar with the way people write or simply ask a Chinese to translate for you. There is no standard way of translation. It depends on how you manage your sentence in classical Chinese.&#xA;The most simple way is to find a sentence expressing the same thing as what you would like to say and pick out the words you want.&#xA;Even Chinese people study classical Chinese by reciting the passages first,so referencing to an existing passage is very important. Hope this can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9579" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T08:09:26.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12691" CreationDate="2015-03-18T09:00:30.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gongsun_Long&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Gongsun Long&lt;/a&gt; (3rd century BC) is a logician in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Names&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;School of Names&lt;/a&gt;. His famous paradox highlights the difference between an entity (&quot;name&quot;) and all collective attributes of that entity, effectively introducing the concept of &quot;set&quot;. In logic, ancient or modern, a set and all members (attributes) of that set are not the same. Without distinguishing them, the ambiguity exists in any language -- Chinese or English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplest interpretation of 白馬非馬 (A white horse is not a horse) would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A white horse is not a set of horse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;set of horse&quot; can of course be an empty set and the statement is clearly true as a white horse &lt;b&gt;belong to&lt;/b&gt; a set of horse instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of courses there are a number of different explicit interpretations based on the same idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A white horse set is (clearly) not a horse set&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two sets do not overlap completely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a set need not to be restricted to merely counting members vs. counting groups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A (real) white horse (that you can ride on) is not an abstract name of a horse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The statement that &quot;A white horse IS a horse&quot; already assumes &quot;a horse&quot; as abstract. It goes without saying in every language, Chinese or English. Similarly, I can easily say &quot;A horse does not exist&quot; because clearly all that exist are real horses (that I can ride on), and I cannot ride on an abstract calling of a horse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Gongsun Long went a little deeper. In the original of his thesis,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;馬者，所以命形也；白者，所以命色也。命色者非名形也。故曰：「白馬非馬」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Horse, is a name of form; White, is a name of color. To name a form is not to name a color. Thus, a white horse is not horse&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, besides &quot;set&quot; vs. &quot;members&quot; and &quot;concrete&quot; vs. &quot;abstract&quot;, all names (abstract or not) and all their attributes can be of different set (of description) (i.e. of form or of color)... ad infinitum. With this in mind,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A white horse (who lives in the domain of form AND color) is (clearly) not the horse (who (merely) lives in the domain of form)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6537" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T09:00:30.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12680" CreationDate="2015-03-18T12:11:13.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do think they have different connotations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;學 has a more passive tone (you could even 'accidentally' learn something)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;學習 implies an active effort&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9583" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T12:11:13.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12700" CreationDate="2015-03-18T15:28:28.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, the sentence &quot;我去学习踢一下儿足球。&quot; is right. I often use this expression and I am a Chinese. The phrase &quot;一下儿&quot; is equivalent to &quot;for a while&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9585" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T15:28:28.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12730" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12732" CreationDate="2015-03-18T19:28:13.753" Score="1" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English one way to ask which option is the right one is by using whether:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Could you tell me, whether you are a student, teacher or visitor?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would this be realized in Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-03-19T04:34:34.543" LastActivityDate="2015-03-19T04:34:34.543" Title="How to ask for a given choice of options?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12730" CreationDate="2015-03-18T22:36:08.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;请问，您是学生，老师，还是来参观的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请问 = May I ask&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T22:36:08.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12730" CreationDate="2015-03-19T03:30:38.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, the answer would be &quot;A，B还是C？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9590" LastActivityDate="2015-03-19T03:30:38.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12698" CreationDate="2015-03-19T05:17:15.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;你好，北京&quot; is usually said by one come to Beijing the first time becaurse Beijing is a new friend to him. However, &quot;北京，你好&quot; is usually used by one has lived in Beijing for many years and he treats Beijing as his old friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9590" LastActivityDate="2015-03-19T05:17:15.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12681" CreationDate="2015-03-19T08:51:31.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think some are confused between making sentence with &quot;怎么&quot; and &quot;怎么样&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;怎么&quot; should means &quot;why&quot; and &quot;怎么样&quot; should means &quot;how&quot;.&#xA;The structuring of the sentence is thus very important, else it would be a &quot;broken sentence&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;怎么我们去机场？ - Why do we go to airport? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们怎么去机场？ - Might sound correct as &quot;How do we go to the airport?&quot;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;but&lt;/strong&gt; in actual fact it should be structure as &quot;我们怎么样去机场？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because of fast pronouncation of this sentence, which makes it sound like &quot;我们怎么去机场？&quot; or &quot;我们怎样去机场？&quot;. Thus in a long run, people tend to say so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9592" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-03-19T09:13:04.507" LastActivityDate="2015-03-19T09:13:04.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12685" CreationDate="2015-03-19T20:00:11.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://fanyi.baidu.com/#zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://fanyi.baidu.com/#zh&lt;/a&gt; can do this - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Set 中文 as your source language&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Set 文言文 as your destination language&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Let hilarity ensue&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It returns “汝&quot; for ”你&quot;, but doesn't suggest alternates such as “子&quot;/”君&quot;/&quot;卿&quot;, which is weird since “汝” seems the &quot;least classical&quot; of all of those. Interestingly it does return &quot;君&quot; for “您&quot; which seems appropriate.  Translations of anything longer than a few words seem to be train wrecks, which isn't surprising given 文言文's terseness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know of any print dictionary that does this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-03-19T20:00:11.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12685" CreationDate="2015-03-20T00:26:52.373" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you should reference this website:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.cn/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_3/477-3660655-0519157?__mk_zh_CN=%E4%BA%9A%E9%A9%AC%E9%80%8A%E7%BD%91%E7%AB%99&amp;amp;url=search-alias%3Daps&amp;amp;field-keywords=%E5%8F%A4%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E5%B8%B8%E7%94%A8%E5%AD%97%E5%AD%97%E5%85%B8&amp;amp;sprefix=%E5%8F%A4%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%2Caps%2C248&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.cn/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_3/477-3660655-0519157?__mk_zh_CN=亚马逊网站&amp;amp;url=search-alias%3Daps&amp;amp;field-keywords=古汉语常用字字典&amp;amp;sprefix=古汉语%2Caps%2C248&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is just a book write in Chinese which was used for a reference when I was in school. Hope you can benefit from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9373" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-17T11:18:36.290" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T11:18:36.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12708" CreationDate="2015-03-20T02:03:16.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct answer to this question is in the comment (by @neubau) of the question, not in the form of an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess I reiterate it here so other people would know it has been answered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the pronunciation, the standard tone for 期(period of time, date) in Mainland China is the 1st tone and in Taiwan it is the 2nd tone. (Any mainlander who watched Taiwan TV shows when they were young would be accustomed with the Taiwanese pronunciations of words like 期(qí)待, 期(qí)許)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notes:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;As a native speaker, I've never come across the word 节期. So I looked it up and the common definition of it is 犹节日 an in turn 犹节日 seem to be a term for some kind of cultural (Jewish maybe?) holiday. But I'm not sure it's the name of a specific holiday or festival or a general term of such occasions (same of the sample sentences I saw imply the latter). Maybe somebody has more knowledge on this could add some comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-03-20T02:43:25.383" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T02:43:25.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12681" CreationDate="2015-03-20T04:15:06.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ambiguity that I see in the expression 我们要怎么去机场？is to do with what it is that the person is asking for, and normally this would be revealed in the context of the conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But on the basis of the text by itself, I think it still means &quot;How do we/How are we going to get to the airport?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is not so clear whether the person is wanting to know the path/direction or if they want to know the means by which you'll get to the airport (e.g. by car or train).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T04:15:06.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12680" CreationDate="2015-03-20T04:35:02.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read the post on 學 vs. 學習, and I think one of the answers that was downvoted actually gave a pretty good speculation that agrees with my thinking and also one of the answers provided already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, I think learning/學 is a more inclusive term (as is often the case in Chinese when there is less characters) that does have a passive quality about it, although you still have to make a conscious effort if you want to learn something. Therefore I am inclined to say that learning is the generic term you use for acquiring knowledge or information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Study/學習 is a more specific term that describes how this knowledge or information is acquired. The character 習 indicates practice or repetition that can become a habit or ritual if you want to interpret the meaning literally. However, you can also look at it as acquiring knowledge through a more structured or formalized way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can say that I am learning Chinese without implying how you are acquiring knowledge about the Chinese language, whereas if you say that you are studying Chinese, it means that you are going through a specific process or method to acquire the knowledge. Of course, you can say that you are learning Chinese in many different ways (studying at a class being one of them), but if you say that you are studying Chinese in many different ways then you are probably taking classes, doing language exchange, doing research, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to look at it is that you can learn a lot of Chinese by being in China as a result of being immersed in the right environment, whereas it means something different when you say that you can study a lot of Chinese by being in China (unless you are referring to the fact that there are many schools or classes you can enrol in).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T04:35:02.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12720" CreationDate="2015-03-20T05:15:07.527" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You already checked out the Great God 百度， Knower of All Things??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/131761825.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/131761825.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忌踩门槛这一风俗始&lt;strong&gt;于先秦时期&lt;/strong&gt;, 那时臣子门出入君主的门户时，不能踩着门槛，只能侧身进出，区分地位尊卑。这也是后世不踩门槛表示尊重的来源。另外，在过去，门槛的木枋与房梁正顶的主枋取自同一根木方枋。正梁有镇宅护平安的“效用”，门槛自然也具备护宅镇家的“功能”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-03-20T05:29:44.767" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T05:29:44.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12743" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-20T05:21:17.893" Score="5" ViewCount="322" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4E3C.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;丼 is an ancient variant of 井&lt;/a&gt;, which means &amp;quot;well&amp;quot; (as in the water kind). What's curious is that the former seems to also mean &amp;quot;bowl of food&amp;quot;, at least in some dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;English&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;bowl of food&lt;/strong&gt;; well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%BC#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Noun&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;variant of '井'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;bowl of food&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sound of something falling in a well. Ref: 《集韻》：「丼：投物井中聲。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Throwing or littering something to lower position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, this definition survives in Japanese, where 丼 is pronounced &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donburi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;don&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did the character get such a seemingly-unrelated definition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T06:48:36.707" Title="丼: why is &quot;well&quot; also &quot;bowl of food&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12743" CreationDate="2015-03-20T08:59:18.397" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This guy &lt;em&gt;gdfsljz&lt;/em&gt; made a post in the zdic forums I think it quite enlightening &lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.zdic.net/forum.php?mod=redirect&amp;amp;goto=findpost&amp;amp;ptid=19183&amp;amp;pid=668447&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;丼 ［汉字资料］&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;粤方言中，此字则解释为粤语中dump的正字。贵州苗族中，有格丼（bong）一地，是苗语中圣地的意思。由于丼字是冷僻字，为了便于宣传，当地政府已将其改为格凸。字典解释[编辑本段]辞海：其一念 jǐng/ㄐㄧㄥˇ，即井字的古字；其二念 dǎn/ㄉㄢˇ，即东西投到井里的声音。语源由来辞典（日本）：丼とは、食物を盛る茶碗より厚手で深い陶制の钵。どんぶり钵。また、どんぶり钵に入れた料理。（大意为：盖饭、比盛食物的碗更深的陶制钵。 丼钵，丼另外放进丼钵的菜。）字源考究[编辑本段]中文丼字来源篆体，因华北平原土厚井深，站在井口俯视，黑洞幽邃，唯见天光投影，圆圆一点。若无这个亮点，那就是没水的涸井，丼了。 日文里，丼字是来源江戸时代，说「悭贪屋（けんどんや）」是一家充满着单份的饮食东西的店，这里使用的钵叫做「悭贪振り钵（けんどんぶりばち）」，于是就把这种钵简称为され「どんぶり钵」（比盛食物的碗更深的陶制钵）。悭贪指吝啬，贪得无厌的的这种意思，所以在「悭贪屋（けんどんや）」吃「どんぶり钵」，可以引申指那些为人又吝啬又欲望深的家伙。日文字典中同样解释说：汉字「丼」是「井」的本字，字面意思为向深井中投入物体时产生的拟音词，日文中采用「丼」作为どんぶり的中文写发更进一步表示了「大碗钵」（的深）。丼与井[编辑本段]《说文解字注》第五篇下的「丼」字小篆，中间有一点，显示《说文》认为「丼」 为井字的初形。《说文》对  的解释为 ：「八家为一  ，象构韩形。…古者伯益初作井 。」， 并认为中间那一点  「象罋」。然而，在李孝定(1965)编纂的《甲骨文字集释》内 ，甲骨文皆作「井」，中间没有一点。在已知的卜辞中，此字皆用于「井方」、「帚井」等处，都没有用来指涉水井。至于周代的金文，根据周法高(1982)编纂的《金文诂林》与 《金文诂林补》，就区分为「井」与「丼」两形。井字在很多地方可以通假作「刑」或 「型」，也用来作为地名或人名。「井」和「丼」两字截然有别，但都找不到一种用法是指涉「水井」的。根据全广镇(1989) 《两周金文通假字研究》（页205 ）与吴其昌(1991) 《金文世族谱》（卷二页五至六、卷一页十八至十九），中间有一点的「丼」，皆与姜姓之奠 (郑)    氏有关 ，例如  壶之「丼公」、  鼎之「丼叔」。中间无一点的井字，与「邢」字相通 ，受封者是周公之后，为姬姓 ，例如麦鼎之「井侯」。虽然在甲骨文卜辞与钟鼎铭文中，都找不到作为水井之用的井字，但是《说文》也确指「丼」字是「井」字的初形。我们还不知道 ，究竟是在周代分化为二字，或是水井的「丼」在甲骨文里本来中间就有一点 ，只是因没有用在地名或人名上，所以才未在卜辞中留下记录。如果是后者，那有可能「井」字的原义就是「效法」或「规范」 ，并由此引申出「阱」、「刑」、「型」等字。 丼字如果是从井字衍申而来，本来或许是写作「丼」，从水从井。此字见于甲骨文，但不见于《说文》，在后来的《集韵》与《玉篇》中，此字解作「小水」，或假借作「阱」。可能是再由「丼」简化作「丼」，中间那一点并非如《说文》所说的是「象罋」。这只是个猜想，目前还没有直接的证据来证实或否证。 日本盖饭的来历[编辑本段]曼谷王朝自1728年在湄南河东岸另辟新都建朝至今，湄南河曼谷西岸一段就被统称为吞武里（Thonburi ）地区，就像上海的浦东一样。曼谷王朝之前，泰国处于有着中国血统的郑王（King Taksin）统治下的吞武里王国时代。据说那个时候，吞武里王国出口了很多瓷器到日本。盛盖浇饭用的盖碗往往来自吞武里王国，所以日本人就把盖碗饭叫成了Thonburi饭。由于日语人发音常常T、D不分的缘故，Thonburi 在日本人口中成了Donburi，后来又简称为Don了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it comes from Japanese, the Japanese meaning of the character was, seemingly, originally to do with food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite a messy history, really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T08:59:18.397" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12745" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12748" CreationDate="2015-03-20T09:21:21.107" Score="2" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我去要出租车&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of &quot;要&quot; in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9495" LastEditorUserId="9495" LastEditDate="2015-03-20T09:44:18.590" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T22:26:36.363" Title="Translation of &quot;要&quot; in &quot;我去要出租车&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12745" CreationDate="2015-03-20T09:57:38.900" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm chinese and I don't quite understand you sentence. My guess is that it is supposed to be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去叫出租车 （I'm going to call a taxi）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps in some local tongue they use 要 and 叫 interchangeably in this occasion, but this is by no means standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9601" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T09:57:38.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12747" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12760" CreationDate="2015-03-20T15:46:22.687" Score="2" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I keep seeing parts of &lt;strong&gt;modern&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;duilian&lt;/em&gt;'s made of one 成语 + three random characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like: &lt;code&gt;国泰民安 + 增财富&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How did &lt;em&gt;duilian&lt;/em&gt; evolve to this level? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2018-10-04T16:47:07.677" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T16:47:07.677" Title="Why Have Modern *duilian*'s become 成语+3 Random Characters?" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12745" CreationDate="2015-03-20T22:26:36.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;要 has a meaning of &quot;request&quot;, &quot;ask for&quot; etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T22:26:36.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12749" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12753" CreationDate="2015-03-21T00:38:54.900" Score="1" ViewCount="1220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning Chinese now, and we've been introduced to Chinese characters as 'pictograms'. I understand the logic behind some characters, like &lt;code&gt;口 mouth&lt;/code&gt; to and &lt;code&gt;人 person&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, what about complex characters? For example: &lt;code&gt;吃 to eat&lt;/code&gt; consists of &lt;code&gt;口&lt;/code&gt; to indicate that this character is related to the mouth, but what about the remaining right-side of the character? What is the logic (if any) in those strokes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leaves me to wonder about countless other characters like &lt;code&gt;礼物 gift&lt;/code&gt;. It seems very hard to remember all of these characters, especially since the their strokes are seemingly mostly without logic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9604" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T00:27:00.187" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T00:27:00.187" Title="Logic behind the strokes of complex characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12749" CreationDate="2015-03-21T01:02:46.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are general guidelines listed in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_order#General_guidelines&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stroke order&lt;/a&gt; article at Wikipedia. Even still, there are varying standards (also noted by that same article) on what is considered the &quot;correct&quot; stroke order. The article goes into further detail on some of the differences, but practically speaking, the guidelines should generally serve you well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T01:02:46.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12749" CreationDate="2015-03-21T01:14:32.847" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can look in zhongwen.com for character analysis. I've heard they may not always agree with other experts, but I like it. Just click search and put the pinyin in the box, it gives you a break down of most characters.&#xA;The 'logic' may be lost in history!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T01:14:32.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12700" CreationDate="2015-03-21T05:48:04.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most cases,it's like &quot;一会儿&quot; in Chinese.They both mean that you are going to do something for a short while or are used to make the conversation sounds natural,don't really mean anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9605" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T05:48:04.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12749" CreationDate="2015-03-21T05:58:11.627" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters can be broken up into a number of categories, only one of which are pictograms like you described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;象形字, or pictograms, are simple characters like 日, 山, 口 that are visual &#xA;representations of the words that they mean.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;指事字, or simple ideograms, are simple characters like 上 and 下 which are visual representations of more abstract concepts, like up or down.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;会意字, or compound ideograms, are characters that are combined of multiple parts that represent more abstract meanings, like 休 (person + tree = rest)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;假借字, or rebus characters, are characters that had their meanings significantly changed since Classical Chinese and are now used for completely different meanings. Many of these characters were originally pictograms or simple ideograms, but now have different meanings. Examples are 自 which used to mean &quot;nose&quot; but now means &quot;self&quot; and 北 which used to mean &quot;back&quot; but now means &quot;north.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;形声字, or phono-semantic compounds, are the most numerous types of characters in modern Chinese. These characters are comprised of two sections - phonetic and semantic. The character you asked about, 吃, is an example. 口 is the semantic section - it tells that the character's meaning has something to do with the mouth. 乞 is the phonetic part - pronounced qi3, it means &quot;to beg&quot; and is used as a rough guide to the pronunciation of the character. These guides aren't 100% accurate, as the characters often predate phonetic changes in the language.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answers your question - eventually, as you delve into further study, you'll learn about radicals and other deconstructions of Chinese characters which will hopefully demystify the system more for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read more about the classification of Chinese characters &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters&lt;/a&gt; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5808" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T05:58:11.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12552" CreationDate="2015-03-21T20:20:17.813" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;迹 is not a simplification of 蹟. 迹 is a simplification of 跡, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蹟 is a &lt;strong&gt;variant&lt;/strong&gt; character of both. It can be used in either script, as one pleases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T20:20:17.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12749" CreationDate="2015-03-21T20:21:42.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think we can name the parts of Chinese characters as &quot;suffixes&quot;, which are also called &quot;radical&quot;, such as &quot;left-fix&quot;, &quot;right-fix&quot;, &quot;top-fix&quot;, and &quot;bottom-fix&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not think they have meaning. They do not. Those suffixes only have some  information of categories. It is not as strictly logical as in math. It is just about right. For example, 林，树，杆，梁，柴 are of the kind of 木 (wood).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other part may (or may not) have information of sound. It may be the same sound or the same final of pinyin. And it is not always make the similar sense, not logic, not math.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think we'd better say they are 指类指韵，not 指意指音。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the situation of Chinese written system. You may want to put most of your time in speaking and write as pinyin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T20:21:42.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12756" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-22T00:06:57.323" Score="3" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have:&#xA;厂里组织了几次丰田生产模式的培训，她逐渐了解了精益生产模式。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The online dictionaries I use don't give 精益 as a word, but I'm pretty sure it means 'optimum' here. I find '精益求精‘ roughly 'always trying to improve' but I don't think that is the meaning here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any tips please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T07:43:28.437" Title="What does 精益 mean" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12756" CreationDate="2015-03-22T00:43:49.553" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, 精益生产 is simply the translation of &lt;i&gt;lean&lt;/i&gt; in &lt;i&gt;lean manufactureing&lt;/i&gt;. So it means what ever &lt;i&gt;lean&lt;/i&gt; means in the terminology, which can also be translated as 精实生产.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think 精益 is a standard word (at least not a common one) except when used in 精益求精 and MBA terminologies like 精益生产、精益创业.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 精益求精, you can understand 精 as the quality of being perfected, fine or exquisite. 益 means &quot;even more&quot;. 求 as pursuing. So rather literally, the phrase can be roughly understood as &quot;pursuing perfection even more when it's already perfect&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-03-22T00:50:00.003" LastActivityDate="2015-03-22T00:50:00.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12764" CreationDate="2015-03-22T02:45:30.770" Score="8" ViewCount="1447" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my understanding, both hold the meaning of &quot;already happened long ago&quot;. What are the nuances though? Are they interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;早已&lt;/strong&gt;打定主意了。 (He made up his mind long ago.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;早就&lt;/strong&gt;搬走了。 (He moved out long ago.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T20:43:56.007" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T20:43:56.007" Title="早已 and 早就: what's the difference?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12700" CreationDate="2015-03-22T03:12:32.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say all the usage of &amp;quot;一下(儿)&amp;quot; in the examples given in the question are legit. My dictionary (Modern Chinese Dictionary came with Mac OS X) doesn't say any there is any special cases for the usage of 一下 after a verb. And my personal experience as a native speaker suggests the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First let me try to further explain the usage of &amp;quot;一下(儿)&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One can understand 下 as a standard quantifier or measure word for actions. In Chinese high school, English teachers would often teach the student the difference between instant verbs and continuous verbs. I'm not sure whether these concepts are legit in English grammar of not, but I'll borrow the two here. Normally for instant verbs such as to kiss(亲) or to kick(踢), 一下 could be easily understand as one execution or instance of the corresponding action. For other verbs such as to eat(吃) or to run(跑), it might be hard to determine the extend of the action. But when one see such action as an activity, then they can be quantified. For example eat as an activity could be from the start to the finish of a meal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, quantifiers are commonly used in an ambiguous manner to increase their flexibility. In the same way 一下 turned to a figurative expression of the carry out of an action or activity casually, or with mild effort or interest, for a little while, or just do something a little bit, and some times just to make the voice more informal or approachable. Basically it's express the less in some characters of the instance of the action or activity, be it time or effort or other possible aspects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as a native speaker, I couldn't think of any situation that is to wrong to add 一下 after a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's look at the two examples in the questions that are doubtful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去学校踢一下儿足球。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will go/went to the school to play some/a little football.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 踢足球 is obviously the activity of playing football not the action of kicking the ball. So it could be treated as the same way as a instant verb. Thus the usage are acceptable and legit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还一下儿你的会员卡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I return your membership card.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage of 一下 is also legit here but the sentence does sound awkward. The reason for that is although it is a grammatically correct sentence, it doesn't make much sense. The problem here is that it's a declarative statement without any indication of grammar aspect or tense. If you rip 一下 out of this sentence, it would become the sentence below and still feels weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还你的会员卡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, remember this is a sentence not a modified noun phrase. The intention of this sentence is hard to deduce without context. It would be something like &amp;quot;I return your membership card&amp;quot;. So you can see even in English it sounds a bit weird. Normally it should be something like：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;还(一下)你的会员卡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I &lt;strong&gt;came to&lt;/strong&gt; return your member ship card.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the point is that it's correct but because there isn't a common situation to use such construction in real life, it sounds weird and this has nothing to do with the usage of 一下. It's definitely a correct sentence in theory and in certain contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-22T03:12:32.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12747" CreationDate="2015-03-22T04:13:35.340" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This observation is merely coincidental. The first 4 characters need not come from classical Chinese idiom (成語), and the remaining 3 are by no means random.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couplet_(Chinese_poetry)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Couplet (Duilian)&lt;/a&gt; has specific rules. The linked article has a list of requirements and its etymology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the cliché duilian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天增歲月人添壽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春滿乾坤福滿門&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;天增歲月&amp;quot; is not a recognized chengyu, but means &amp;quot;As heaven attains greater age&amp;quot;; &amp;quot;人添壽&amp;quot; is not random but has to relate to it, meaning &amp;quot;people enjoy longer years&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, a line of 7 characters is common but it is not a requirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the famous (but modern (19th century)) couplet in &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%90%E9%83%BD%E6%AD%A6%E4%BE%AF%E7%A5%A0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Temple of Zhuge Liang&lt;/a&gt; in Chengdu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能攻心則反側自消從古知兵非好戰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不審勢即寬嚴皆誤後來治蜀要深思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also meet the requirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wAxhp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Duilian&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6537" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-22T04:13:35.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12761" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-22T05:08:20.920" Score="0" ViewCount="533" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;格兰仕空调生产车间负责人走过生产线时，看到以为一位工人正在抬起手臂取零件，她愣了愣，想：“这个动作有没有可能改进一下呢？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她愣了愣， 想  = 'she suddenly thought', 'she, with a start, thought'  Is that the meaning of '愣了愣‘？？ Or is it 'staring at him, she thought, '&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T19:31:36.160" Title="What is the meaning of 愣了愣" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12767" CreationDate="2015-03-22T12:00:51.290" Score="4" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several linguistics-oriented scholars, most notably Dr Mair, have recently noted the growing trend in written Chinese discourse towards &quot;digraphia&quot; - the dual use of Pinyin and Chinese characters as sort of a protomorphic kanji+katakana-esque ensemble.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious, and de-facto standard, explanation for this growing phenomenon is the difficulty of writing/remembering characters such as 喷嚏 relative to the simplicity of writing &quot;pen ti&quot;.  However I am curious concerning phenomena such as the following (from the package of a present sent to someone around CNY):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nAso0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zTjEC.png&quot; alt=&quot;slightly clearer detail on the tone marks&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where &quot;xin1 yi4&quot; is the pinyin for 心意 - incredibly basic characters for which the &quot;too difficult&quot; explanation simply doesn't apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is going on here?  How is the Pinyin+Character combination perceived by native Chinese speakers?  Is the inclusion of pinyin a stab at some sort of additional sophistication somehow conveyed by the inclusion of roman letters? Is it an aesthetic effect (e.g.: it makes for an &quot;interesting mix&quot;)?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should 老外 interpret the &quot;effect&quot; of such combinations of Pinyin and characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2015-03-22T14:15:37.843" LastActivityDate="2015-03-22T20:35:37.320" Title="What is the Socio-linguistic Function of Mixing Pinyin and Characters Together By Adult Native Chinese Writers?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12761" CreationDate="2015-03-22T14:48:38.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;愣 is used pretty common in Chinese in a couple of ways. In this situation, the lady 她 could be a little bit &lt;strong&gt;shocked, amazed, and surprised&lt;/strong&gt;. That kind of feeling made her to stare at the scene for a moment.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-03-22T14:48:38.250" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12758" CreationDate="2015-03-22T15:21:27.727" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;早已 and 早就 are different. They can be exchangeable in practice and may or may not have the same meaning. But their grammar structure are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples-1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他搬走了.(He moved) (To answer what happened to him?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他已经搬走了.(Since he moved, he is no longer here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他早已经搬走了.(1) (Since he moved, he is no longer here. That happened long time ago.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他早已搬走了.(same as 1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples-2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他搬走了.(He moved)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他早搬走了.(He moved)(That happened long time ago.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他早就搬走了.(He moved)(I am sure that happened long time ago.) (How come you do not even know it ??? )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早已 has the basic meaning of 已经. The combination logic is the 早 is used to modify 已经.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早就 has the basic meaning of 早 as adverb to modify the verb 搬走. 就 is to emphasize and to be very sure about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-03-22T15:21:27.727" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12762" CreationDate="2015-03-22T20:04:05.423" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 训读 (this jargon comes from Japanese) phenomenon is rare in Chinese, but it does exist, e.g. 廿 may be pronounced as èr shí (二十), 圕 as tú shū guǎn (图书馆), 哩 as yīng lǐ (英里). Doesn't that happen in English? Many people pronounce &quot;etc.&quot; as &quot;and so on&quot;, &quot;i.e.&quot; as &quot;that is&quot;, &quot;e.g.&quot; as &quot;for example&quot;. Traditionally, the function of 训读 in Chinese is to make difficult characters easier to pronounce and understand, but pinyin is rarely used in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently pinyin used for &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;non-standard&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 训读 in Chinese becomes popular, especially on the Internet, possibly inspired by the Japanese ACG (animation, comic, game) culture. &lt;strong&gt;It often suggests the deep, hidden meaning behind the apparent Chinese characters.&lt;/strong&gt; The example in your post, 回家(xīn yì), suggests &quot;coming home is a present (心意) for your parents&quot;. You can also find some funny examples like &quot;丧(gan)心(de)病(piao)狂(liang)&quot; -- it ostensibly reads &quot;frenzied, crazy&quot; but in fact the writer shouts out &quot;干得漂亮, good job!&quot; in his mind -- the effect is comical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, the reason why pinyin is chosen for denoting the implication may be obvious:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It can be easily distinguished from the Chinese character, so it doesn't disturb Chinese people reading the Chinese characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To a Chinese eye, pinyin is &quot;hidden&quot; at the first glance, so it is suitable for expressing the &quot;deep&quot; meaning behind those characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2015-03-22T20:35:37.320" LastActivityDate="2015-03-22T20:35:37.320" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12768" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12769" CreationDate="2015-03-23T03:37:25.857" Score="1" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yet another sentence where I know all the words but can't work out the correct meaning!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one of my textbooks I have a series of phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;给我礼物 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;给谁的礼物&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这是给谁的礼物？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would I be correct in translating these into English as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Give me a present&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Give who a present&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whose present is this?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember learning something last semester about sentences where the verb can come before the subject in order to emphasise the action and have a suspicion that this might be relevant but can't seem to use that idea to translate the phrases/sentences in a way which is convincing to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your help in advance,&#xA;Andrew&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9609" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T01:48:05.173" Title="What is the meaning of 这是给谁的礼物？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12768" CreationDate="2015-03-23T03:47:38.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally, following Chinese syntax: This is give who(m) 的 present. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English: Who is this present for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would say 1 and 2 are correct, but 3 might be better as above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T03:47:38.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12772" CreationDate="2015-03-23T05:15:25.093" Score="4" ViewCount="914" Body="&lt;p&gt;There doesn't really seem to be a clear &lt;em&gt;standard&lt;/em&gt;, if you will, of how things are abbreviated in Chinese. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;中华人民共和国人力资源和社会保障部&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;人社部&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;(传染性)&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;非典型肺炎&lt;/code&gt; -&gt;  &lt;code&gt;非典&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So: How are abbreviations determined in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2018-10-04T16:46:49.320" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T16:46:49.320" Title="How are abbreviations determined in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;abbreviations&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12771" CreationDate="2015-03-23T06:01:57.340" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In whatever way that makes it convenient. There are probably endless different techniques used if one bothers looking for examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation is analogous to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym&quot;&gt;acronyms&lt;/a&gt; in Western languages. If you read that wiki article you'll find a huge list of examples and techniques used. Sometimes it's taking the first letters of words (&lt;strong&gt;N&lt;/strong&gt;orth &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;tlantic &lt;strong&gt;T&lt;/strong&gt;reaty &lt;strong&gt;O&lt;/strong&gt;rganization). Or the first few letters (&lt;strong&gt;Ge&lt;/strong&gt;heime &lt;strong&gt;Sta&lt;/strong&gt;ats&lt;strong&gt;po&lt;/strong&gt;lizei). Sometimes even numbers are used (K9, 3M). Sometimes it's whatever the creators think is cool (GNU).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中华人民共和国人力资源和社会保障部&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 中华人民共和国 is highly redundant, so remove.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人力资源和社会保障部&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is actually 4 words, 人力资源, 社会保障, 部. Words like 和 are redundant so remove. Take the first character of each word and voila:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人社部&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 非典型肺炎, it's a bit unusual. There are two words here, but the 非 modifies 典型 so you can't remove it without changing its meaning. So the best you can do using common techniques is &quot;非典肺&quot;. From there it's easy to simply drop the 肺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T06:01:57.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12773" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-23T06:26:42.610" Score="3" ViewCount="4368" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have checked a number of websites, and although most agree about the main countries that use traditional and simplified Chinese, I am not sure about countries where there are mixed populations of Chinese speaking people. I would like to know which ones are definite and which ones are probably in the grey area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I can gather:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Traditional: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Simplified: China, Singapore&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both or uncertain: Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T12:34:42.267" Title="Is there a definitive list of countries that use traditional chinese and those that use simplified chinese?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12774" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12775" CreationDate="2015-03-23T07:40:04.817" Score="6" ViewCount="4436" Body="&lt;p&gt;I realize that the English word &quot;creepy&quot; is a slang with many different meanings. I'm referring to the way someone might describe unwanted sexual advances. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;That guy over there staring at me is kinda &lt;strong&gt;creepy&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not trying to shame anyone, I simply teach a social swing dance class (in Chinese), and I'm trying to show what moves to avoid so as not to &quot;creep out&quot; your partner.  This goes for both men and women.&#xA;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Don't slide your hand all over your partner's arm, it feels a little &lt;strong&gt;creepy&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;When you spin a girl, make sure to let go at the right time and don't drag your hand around around her waist because it's &lt;strong&gt;creepy&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've asked around, but all I got was &quot;猥琐&quot; and &quot;恶心&quot;, which sound so serious to me.  The English word is a little more euphemistic.  &lt;strong&gt;Is there a more lighthearted way to say &quot;creepy&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9593" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T02:09:28.857" Title="What's a good word for &quot;creepy&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12774" CreationDate="2015-03-23T07:43:50.377" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your context, you may want to say the move 令人不舒服 or 令人不自在 (makes people feel uncomfortable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T07:43:50.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12774" CreationDate="2015-03-23T11:48:21.553" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;adj. creepy: Meaning &quot;having a creeping feeling in the flesh&quot;. Would you really dance with such a one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The words 流氓 and 色狼 spring to mind, but may be too harsh for your situation. I think the Chinese would not behave improperly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T11:48:21.553" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12774" CreationDate="2015-03-23T13:21:24.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;猥琐&quot; and &quot;恶心&quot; maybe are not so serious than you first look. many girls and boys say these two words in an innocuous manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8102" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T13:21:24.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12774" CreationDate="2015-03-23T14:52:18.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally i think '诡异' is the best translation. You can describe somebody or something is 诡异 refers to kind of wierd. It is not a serious word even little bit funny in daily conversations. &#xA;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9614" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T14:52:18.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12782" CreationDate="2015-03-23T19:02:56.627" Score="0" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was listening to one of my favorite Chinese songs, 口是心非 (duplicity) by 张雨生, and there's a line in the chorus that says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;于是爱恨交错人消瘦 &lt;strong&gt;怕是怕&lt;/strong&gt;这些苦没来由 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) what does x 是 x mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) what does it mean in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) what are other similar examples using this structure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2015-03-24T15:08:41.030" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T12:58:53.553" Title="口是心非 歌词 : “怕是怕” What does &quot;x Shi x&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12773" CreationDate="2015-03-23T19:42:40.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hate to be pedantic, but Hongkong and Macau are not countries, but administrative regions within China. Furthermore, Taiwan’s status is a bit blurred because of the one China principle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your question, Chinese is not official language in Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia, so the issue boils down to actual usage, which is mixed and differs by generations. Same with Chinese communities in the West, where the complex script is more common, though. Japan also uses a simplified script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only China (minus Hongkong and Macau) and Singapore use simplified officially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorUserId="3183" LastEditDate="2016-02-08T12:34:42.267" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T12:34:42.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12771" CreationDate="2015-03-23T21:16:04.063" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found that a good reference for this is the Wikipedia entry on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;simplified chinese characters&lt;/a&gt;. In particular, in the section under methods of simplification, you'll find four different methods listed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Structural simplification of characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Derivation based on simplified character components&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elimination of variants of the same character&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adoption of new standardized character forms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you'll find examples for each of the methods as well, but I won't bother repeating the contents here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T21:16:04.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12779" CreationDate="2015-03-23T21:36:33.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) what does x 是 x mean? Here the verb1 + 是 + verb1 is a common pattern used to emphasize the verb or to build up to the next part of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) what does it mean in this context? In this context it can be translated to &quot;(what I am) afraid/scared is being afraid/scared of these pain/suffering without a reason/cause&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) what are other similar examples using this structure? You can basically use this pattern on any verb, such as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 气什么? What are you angry about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 气是气在你的无知! Angry, I am angry about your naivety/ignorance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 等什么? What are you waiting for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 等是等你准备好! Waiting is waiting for you to get ready! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T21:36:33.077" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12773" CreationDate="2015-03-23T22:29:01.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is not an official language of Malaysia, but there are many Chinese-education schools and they use simplified Chinese exclusively. All newspapers and official documents also use only simplified Chinese. I think the change from traditional to simplified Chinese happened in the 80s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9478" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T22:29:01.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12768" CreationDate="2015-03-23T22:30:00.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it is not possible to just build an expression without changing the meaning of the rest of the sentence. I would translate these into English as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Give me (a/the) present (给我礼物)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A/the present to give to who? (给谁的礼物)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is a present to give to who? (这是给谁的礼物)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was the expressions that you intended:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Give me a present (给我礼物)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Give who a present? (给谁礼物)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whose present is this? (这是谁的礼物)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T22:30:00.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12786" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12787" CreationDate="2015-03-24T01:13:20.793" Score="1" ViewCount="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;How should I read this: ,形成了年产数百万吨的强大产能。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it: A ,形成了  (年产数) 百万吨的  强大产能。or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B ,形成了年产  (数百万吨的)  强大产能。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe '数百万‘ = 'several million', but I think '年产数‘ could be 'annual production figure'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-03-24T02:09:06.010" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T02:09:47.420" Title="What belongs together here '年产数百万顿的'?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12786" CreationDate="2015-03-24T01:26:09.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be B. If you want to use &lt;code&gt;年产数&lt;/code&gt; as a phrase, it shoule be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;形成了年产数为数百万吨的强大产能&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;形成了年产数达到数百万吨的强大产能&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: &lt;code&gt;顿&lt;/code&gt; should be &lt;code&gt;吨&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T01:26:09.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12768" CreationDate="2015-03-24T01:48:05.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am Cindy, a native Chinese teacher from iChineseLearning.&#xA;This would be the correct translation:&#xA;1. 给我礼物  - Give me (a) present.&#xA;2. 给谁的礼物 - Whom is (this) present for?&#xA;3. 这是给谁的礼物？ &#xA;The third sentence actually has the same meaning as the second one. It just put an emphasis on 这 (this).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions, you can raise your question at here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichineselearning.com/learn/ask-a-question.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ichineselearning.com/learn/ask-a-question.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9618" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T01:48:05.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12700" CreationDate="2015-03-24T01:56:06.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Cindy Li, a native Chinese teacher from iChineseLearning. Hope my answer will help you!&#xA;一下 after a verb can have a number of uses, but let me try explaining the simplest and most obvious use for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can translate 一下 as &quot;a bit/ a short while&quot;. It's often added to the verb to make the verb sound less serious, less formal (and if use appropriately, you'll sound more polite).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First take some examples in English:&#xA;Compare &quot;I'll read&quot; with &quot;I'll have a read&quot;, &quot;Taste it!&quot; with &quot;Have a taste!&quot; you'll see that by adding &quot;have a&quot;, the language sound less serious, less formal. &#xA;Similarly, if you add 一下 to the verb 说 (say) or to 休息, you'll have the following:&#xA;说= say/ speak vs 说一下 = have a word (about something).&#xA;休息= rest vs 休息一下 = have a rest.&#xA;So the ones with 一下 sound a bit less stiff, less formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope the above has given you some idea, but ask again if you're still not quite sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9618" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T01:56:06.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1827" CreationDate="2015-03-24T02:11:55.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese teacher. I believe this would be a useful resource for you to learn &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichineselearning.com/learn/chinese-idioms/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese idiom&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many interesting idioms with video stories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9618" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T02:11:55.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12774" CreationDate="2015-03-24T02:23:42.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it feels a little creepy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有点儿尴尬, 有点儿不自在, 有点儿冒犯人家, 有点儿过了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can add 可能会 to be even lighter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可能会有点儿尴尬, 可能会有点儿不自在, 可能会有点儿冒犯人家, 可能会有点儿过了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T02:23:42.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12794" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12796" CreationDate="2015-03-24T03:44:46.393" Score="1" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading a web novel, and it states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;“大約是失敗就懷孕之類的任務吧……” &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does &quot;懷孕&quot; mean or represent in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-03-24T04:59:44.683" LastActivityDate="2015-04-13T01:03:33.643" Title="What does it mean by &quot;失敗就懷孕&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12794" CreationDate="2015-03-24T04:45:26.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;之類&lt;/strong&gt; = this kind/this type&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt; = clause: if xxx 就 (then) xxx&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;失敗&lt;/strong&gt; = fail / failure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;懷孕&lt;/strong&gt; = pregnant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;任務&lt;/strong&gt; = task&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the kind of task where failure results in pregnancy = if we fail we're screwed &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T04:45:26.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12794" CreationDate="2015-03-24T06:25:22.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not judging OP's taste of literature, but stories like this would ruin your grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, the conversation is between a group of MMO players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part of the story here is 凫水囡囡 (ID of a player) wants to do a &amp;quot;task&amp;quot; 任务 which requires a five player team. So he/she, I assume it's a he but she is also possible as this could easily be that kind of story, added four other players in to the group. Those four are supposedly all females as the story called them MM (a online slang for chicks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the part of the lines in question come up after they were added and before 凫水囡囡 tells them why &amp;quot;he&amp;quot; added them. Below are a rough line by line translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将四个MM一一拉入队伍内，也没有说为什么，顿时一个个都惊奇不已的像是好奇宝宝了(。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding four chicks into the team without any explanation got everybody as surprised as curious babies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;林小舞：“唔，盟主你要对我们做什么，我刚才正帮一秒英雄那小子做一个任务呢！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lin Xiao Wu: &amp;quot;Oh, chief/boss/master, what are you gonna do to us, I was just helping Yi Miao Ying Xiong with a job!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凫水囡囡：“肯定是有任务了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fu Shui Nan Nan: &amp;quot;I got a job, of course.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;林婉儿轻笑：“猪头，到底什么任务啊？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lin Wan Er smiled: &amp;quot;Pighead, what kind of job?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东城月嘻嘻笑：“大约是失败就怀孕之类的任务吧……”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dong Cheng Yue laughed: &amp;quot;Basically the kind of job that will knock you up if failed&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我无语：“东城你这颗想怀孕的心真是让无数少男伤透心了，你好歹也是女神级的姑娘啊，一定要多多矜持啊！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was speechless. &amp;quot;Dong Cheng Yue, how many boys hearts you wanna break with your obsession with knocking-up (or maybe &amp;quot;getting knocked up&amp;quot;, don't really know the character). After all you are a goddess level girl. You ought act more conservatively!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东城月又无赖了：“那人家只好不孕不育了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dong Chang Yue become shameless again: &amp;quot;Then, I have to go barren.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I native speaker, I don't really know what do they mean. But as far as I can tell. The character named Dong Cheng Yue is seen to be horny by &amp;quot;Me&amp;quot;, and she seem to always say stuff relating to sex. So the phrase might be literally getting pregnant (suggesting the task is hooking up) or just figuratively (suggesting the task is significant), or maybe a little both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me it's just a bunch of MMO players joking around or maybe with some sort of flirtation. Anyway, as far as Chinese the language/culture concerns, 失败就怀孕 isn't really a thing. So you can just try to interpret in anyway you want as if it were written in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T23:31:01.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12794" CreationDate="2015-03-24T08:39:06.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;according to the context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;婉儿轻笑：“猪头，到底什么任务啊？” 东城月嘻嘻笑：“大约是失败就怀孕之类的任务吧……”&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time, in our concept, 懷孕(pregnant) means one man should take responsibility for one woman, aka marry her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, this means that &quot;東城月 want to play a joke to some man, and she wants to imply the man she love him.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6791" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T08:39:06.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12700" CreationDate="2015-03-24T11:02:27.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;一下&quot; mostly emphasize &quot;I'll be back soon&quot;or&quot;I'll not let you wait for a long time&quot;,it's necessary to use &quot;一下&quot; when you borrow something or you can say&quot;能把你的……借给我吗&quot;. And other times it's same as &quot;一会儿&quot;.&#xA;You shouldn't say&quot;还一下&quot;,just like you shouldn't say &quot;I'm giving your book back to you&quot;.&#xA;I think someone use like &quot;我去学校踢一下儿足球。&quot; is just some people's hobby and it means nothing....I just say&quot;我去学校踢足球了&quot;. When you use here &quot;一下“　it sounds like you just want to have a try.&#xA;PS:Maybe people live in beijing add&quot;儿&quot;,but I usually say “一下”　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9621" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T11:02:27.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12771" CreationDate="2015-03-24T11:16:12.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;中华人民共和国人力资源和社会保障部 -&gt; 人社部 ，this emphasize the meaning.&#xA;but (传染性) 非典型肺炎 -&gt; 非典 maybe emphasizing the serious of the ill,this one actually doesn't obey any concrete rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9621" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T11:16:12.833" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12809" CreationDate="2015-03-24T11:25:40.110" Score="2" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw some various types of Chinese altars in some chinese countries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Altar that hanging on wall (I suppose this is altar for sky god): &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/ripi/3969597088/in/set-72157622488573560&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.flickr.com/photos/ripi/3969597088/in/set-72157622488573560&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Earth deity altar (usually put on ground level): &lt;a href=&quot;http://thaiworldview.com/hongkong/newterritories/jpg/img733.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://thaiworldview.com/hongkong/newterritories/jpg/img733.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Table altar: &lt;a href=&quot;http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Okyt6PnpVYg/UTNTRH3kmBI/AAAAAAAAFbc/9bg9ZsX4CrE/IMG_1667_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Okyt6PnpVYg/UTNTRH3kmBI/AAAAAAAAFbc/9bg9ZsX4CrE/IMG_1667_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know the mandarin words for those kind of altars if they are any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3970" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-03-26T07:06:52.317" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T07:06:52.317" Title="What are the mandarin words for these Chinese altars?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12758" CreationDate="2015-03-24T11:27:26.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;But why do I think they are all the same?Maybe &quot;早已” is used more often in the past time and it sounds more literary.They are not so different now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9621" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T11:27:26.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12758" CreationDate="2015-03-24T13:21:05.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;早已 is more formal. It is seldom used in modern Cn Lang. In general, it brings you negative emotion. (Something/Somebody has gone/disappeared/left)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早就 has some deeper meaning such as pride, regret, impatient, etc. It broadly used in modern Cn Lang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我早就把早餐做好了 - I have cooked our breakfast already. [PRIDE]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他早就去世了 - He has been dead already. (I missed him so much.) [REGRET]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早就做完了 - It is done already (and I don't want to talk about it any more since I have things to do. I have no time talking with you). [IMPATIENT]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T13:21:05.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12806" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12807" CreationDate="2015-03-24T23:32:15.443" Score="0" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;娃哈哈连续十余年领跑中国饮料行业，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I keep seeing 余年 = one's remaining years, but I'm pretty sure 十余年 means 'for the last ten years', not the (10 remaining) years ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not as if 娃哈哈 only has 10 years left, or is it??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T00:24:01.797" Title="What is the meaning of 十余年 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12806" CreationDate="2015-03-25T00:24:01.797" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;十余年 means more than ten years but less than twenty years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Oxford Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;余 (2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C. 数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;over&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;20余人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  twenty-odd people&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有百余人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  There are over a hundred people.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Modern Chinese Dictionary&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;余 (2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) [数] 表示整数之外的零头，相当于“多”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;二十余人&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically, when 余 follows a number, it often indicates the remainder over the smallest unit (个、十、百、千、万...) of the round number it follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;十余 = 1十+余&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the round number is 十(10)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;∵ the unit of the round number is 十(10^1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;∴ 余 &amp;lt; 十(10)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;∴ 10 &amp;lt; 十余 &amp;lt; 20&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;两百余 = 2百+余&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the round number is 2百(200)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;∵ the unit of the round number is 百(10^2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;∴ 余 &amp;lt; 百(10^2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;∴ 200 &amp;lt; 两百余 &amp;lt; 300&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The construction pattern: XXX (专注/引领) YYY ZZZ(余) 年 is a common usage among slogans and promotional materials. XXX is often the name of a company, YYY is the industry or business the company is in and zzz is the time it has been doing the business. This is generally to show that the company has a long history in the business and has a lot of experiences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;IBM专注商业计算200年&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T00:24:01.797" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12802" CreationDate="2015-03-25T01:54:07.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, you can call all of them as 神位 which means place of god.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are referring to the facilities offering the places,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Altar that hanging on wall (I suppose this is altar for sky god): &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;龛 as @user3306356 mentioned, means small box used as altar. you describe them as  神龛，佛龛 ..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.Earth deity altar (usually put on ground level):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;personally , 龛 is also suitable for this , thought they are of different size.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.Table altar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;供桌 a table for offering sacrifices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6620" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T01:54:07.637" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12474" CreationDate="2015-03-25T11:07:56.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cantonese and Chinese new year greetings are actually written the same. The only difference is about the accent. Here are some of the most popular new year greetings.&#xA;心想事成 (xīn xiǎnɡ shì chénɡ) - Whatever you dream of comes true.&#xA;万事如意 (wàn shì rú yì) - Everything goes your way.&#xA;六六大顺 (liù liù dà shùn) - Everything goes smoothly.&#xA;年年有余 (nián nián yǒu yú) - May there be surpluses every year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese New Year Greetings for Wealth&#xA;恭喜发财 (ɡōnɡ xǐ fā cái) - May you be happy and prosperous.&#xA;财源广进 (cái yuán ɡuǎnɡ jìn) – Money and treasure comes to you from multiple directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9618" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T11:07:56.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5144" CreationDate="2015-03-25T11:36:52.080" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Saying 喂 is like saying &quot;Hi...&quot; when you answer a phone in Chinese. The following are some common phrases that can used to answer a phone.&#xA;喂，你好。 wéi, nǐ hǎo.&#xA;Hello.&#xA;小王在吗? xiǎo wánɡ zài mɑ?&#xA;Can I speak to Xiao Wang?&#xA;对不起，你打错了。 duì bù qǐ, nǐ dǎ cuò le.&#xA;Sorry, you made a wrong call.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this is a good place to know more &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichineselearning.com/easy-chinese/phrases.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;simple Chinese phrases&lt;/a&gt; in different life situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichineselearning.com/easy-chinese/phrases.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ichineselearning.com/easy-chinese/phrases.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9618" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T11:36:52.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12813" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12816" CreationDate="2015-03-26T06:50:50.517" Score="3" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;宴席 and 筵席:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I know what both words mean&lt;/strong&gt;, and I think it's quite funny they have similar pronunciations with quite similar meanings (give or take on both).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do the two words have similar origins?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any historical connections?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宴 Middle Chinese: &lt;em&gt;‘enH&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;筵 Middle Chinese: &lt;em&gt;yen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be easy to assume they don't have much connection based on their Middle Chinese pronunciations. Quite peculiar anyhow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T22:14:36.020" Title="Any historical connection between 筵席 and 宴席?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12815" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-26T21:48:01.297" Score="0" ViewCount="401" Body="&lt;p&gt;My daughter was put up for adoption in China, Guangxi province in 2004. I then adopted her. Her Chinese name is Jin Yan Fa. What does her name mean? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9631" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T21:06:25.570" Title="Birth name question" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12813" CreationDate="2015-03-26T22:14:36.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, there are no similar origins or any historical connections between these two words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;宴 means 宴请 here. It's a verb. And the word 宴席 is also a modern Chinese word widely used in our daily life.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;筵 means 竹席. You can find it's composed with 竹 on top, so apparently it is a noun. 筵席 is more or less too formal and ancient for daily use. I will never use it except the old saying 天下没有不散的筵席.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your analysis is also reasonable. It seems just a coincidence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9540" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T22:14:36.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12815" CreationDate="2015-03-27T06:59:40.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fa as last name in Chinese is super rare. I can only think of one Chinese character 法 (Fa, 法正 was a guy from three kingdoms period, as an example)at the moment. So I really doubt Fa is the last name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jin has a common last name character 金, which is super common in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yan as a character in given name, could probably be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for girls:&#xA;妍(nice, classy),艳(beautiful, not popular among educated Chinese people),燕(the bird swallow, and the image of swallow give to Chinese people, kinda different than what american perceive swallow),颜(basically means good face),嫣(the impression of a beautiful girl smiling).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for boys:&#xA;研,闫,严,岩,炎,彦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fa as a character in given name is usually for boys. And most of them are pretty low class, which can be 发(to be rich)，法(law)，伐(conquer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not trying to stereotype things, but since guangxi is poor province and she was put up for adoption, I would say her Chinese parents are probably not very well educated and her name would probably be 金艳发.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sorry if anyone gets offended by my comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9634" LastActivityDate="2015-03-27T06:59:40.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12818" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-27T07:55:12.470" Score="2" ViewCount="249" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, putting 化 after a word often seems to have the same effect as the suffix -ize in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have: 公司在全国建立了进150家分公司，兴建了百万平方米的现代化厂房，形成了年产数百万吨的强大产能。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I translate '兴建了百万平方米的现代化厂房', 'modernize' or 'modernization' do not make much sense. I would like to simply use 'modern'. Dictionaries tell me '现代化‘ means 'modernize' or 'modernization'. Am I missing something here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兴建了百万平方米的现代化厂房&#xA;'built 1 million square metres of modern factory space,'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T06:13:18.547" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T06:13:18.547" Title="What does 现代化 ('modernize') mean in ...兴建了百万平方米的现代化厂房...?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12818" CreationDate="2015-03-27T08:51:09.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'现代化厂房' actually means '现代化的厂房'.&#xA;The '的' is usually omitted when the adjective is followed by a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9636" LastActivityDate="2015-03-27T08:51:09.167" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12818" CreationDate="2015-03-27T13:04:15.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally translated, 现代化 is &quot;modernised&quot;. Actually I think the construction of Adj+化 in Chinese is actually mimicking the construction created by -ize in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering only the language aspect, I think 现代化 means the same as 现代(adj.) does. If there is any difference, 现代化 might implies a process of transforming something to be modern, hence &quot;modernized&quot;. But in many of its modern usage it is does not. For example, I don't think the sentence in this question implies that those factories or plants were not &quot;modern&quot; but become &quot;modern&quot; by renovation or upgraded equipment. I feel they were built to modern and simply are modern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This lead to my other point. I think 现代化 is overused in modern Chinese. You see 现代化 was a widely used propaganda term in the context of stimulating industrial and economy growth in the history of PRC. The proper term are &quot;four modernisations&quot;, which basically equalised to &quot;better&quot; in the eyes of public. Nowadays, everything is already quite &quot;modern&quot;, so there seldom be a &quot;modernisation&quot; process happened to an object described as 现代化的. Most of the time, they are just modern. However, we still see the world quite often, mostly in official speeches or promotional materials.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what is the best way in English that can capture this subtleness, and it's now become more or less a style thing. So in most of the cases, 现代化 = 现代 unless you want to give it an official or tone that relate people to that ideology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-03-27T13:04:15.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12818" CreationDate="2015-03-27T16:43:30.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use modern. No need to use modernized, as that would imply that it was old-fashioned before and went through a makeover, which the Chinese context does not imply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9639" LastActivityDate="2015-03-27T16:43:30.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12761" CreationDate="2015-03-27T16:52:03.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;愣了愣 literally means she &lt;em&gt;froze for a split second&lt;/em&gt; (usually due to amazement, but can be a result of other reasons).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9639" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-03-29T11:32:14.927" LastActivityDate="2015-03-29T11:32:14.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12681" CreationDate="2015-03-27T21:44:09.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position of 要 is very important to understand this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们要怎么去机场？--&gt; We 要(will) 怎么(how) to going to the airport?&#xA;-We already decided that we will go to the airport. So &quot;怎么&quot; can only be explained as how.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们怎么要去机场？--&gt; We 怎么(why) 要(will) go to the airport?&#xA;-&quot;怎么&quot; questions the willingness of going to the airport.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when it comes to 我们怎么去机场？ You need contexts to understand the meaning. Or for oral language you can distinguish them by the stress: stress on 怎么 itself means how, on airport means why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9640" LastActivityDate="2015-03-27T21:44:09.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12826" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12828" CreationDate="2015-03-28T09:13:08.613" Score="0" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to say in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Today part of the blue subway line is not in operation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should it be 在操作? Or another word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastActivityDate="2015-03-28T14:40:27.370" Title="How to say: subway line is not in operation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12826" CreationDate="2015-03-28T14:07:41.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is true that operate means &quot;操作&quot; in Chinese. But in this context, it should be translated into:&#xA;“今天蓝色地铁线部分&lt;strong&gt;停止运营&lt;/strong&gt;。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9647" LastActivityDate="2015-03-28T14:07:41.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12826" CreationDate="2015-03-28T14:40:27.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;今天部分蓝色地铁线路中止/暂停运行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Operation has a lot of similar meanings. But 操作 is not appropriate here since it's usually used with machines or computers. For a subway line, 运行 is much better because 行 means moving. 运营 is OK but it's usually used for companies or long term activities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in Chinese there is no predictive so you need to add a predicate like 停止、中止、暂停.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9640" LastActivityDate="2015-03-28T14:40:27.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12758" CreationDate="2015-03-28T17:06:13.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two words are the same meaning.Both mean something are already end in long time. But '早已' is used in written form more often.And ‘早就' sometime sub mean：complain something doing too late.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你怎么还不走？他早就走了。tell him keep up quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你怎么现在才来？他早就走了。You are too slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;物是人非，我们的感情早已不能回到从前。Written form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9408" LastActivityDate="2015-03-28T17:06:13.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12830" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-28T17:18:43.747" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a financial term, and I'm hoping for the most professionally used term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capital Stacks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A description of the totality of capital invested in a project, including pure debt, hybrid debt, and equity. The stack is described as containing the most risk at the top, traveling down the stack to the position with the least risk. Higher positions in the stack expect higher returns for their capital because of the higher risk. Lenders and equity stakeholders are highly sensitive to their position in the stack. Typically, the stack is arranged as follows. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9649" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:41:30.110" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:41:30.110" Title="Can someone translate &quot;capital stacks&quot; to Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12830" CreationDate="2015-03-28T18:22:40.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found it in a bilingual ppt on real estate finance. It shows capital stack means 资本结构, but as I know, English financial terms are often translated to different Chinese terms by different people, so this may be not the only one correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;source: 中美房地产开发和金融比较/Real Estate Development and Finance in China and U.S.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/cf8b56313968011ca30091b8.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/cf8b56313968011ca30091b8.html&lt;/a&gt;, page 62,63.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9640" LastActivityDate="2015-03-28T18:22:40.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12832" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12833" CreationDate="2015-03-29T00:17:40.953" Score="1" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is not precisely about language, but really more cultural. It is about Journey to the West/西遊記. I am doing my Chinese homework, which is to summarize the chapter of 西遊記 where 唐僧 et al. need to get the real banana leaf fan from the Iron Fan Princess to put out the fire to cross the fire mountain. I'm confused about one aspect of the plot. Is it 孫悟空 or 豬八戒 who takes the appearance of 牛魔王 in order to get drunk with 鐵扇公主 and get the real fan?  According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Journey_to_the_West_characters#Bull_Demon_King.2C_Princess_Iron_Fan_and_associates&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the English-language Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, it is 孫悟空. However, I thought in class the professor said it was 豬八戒.  So I'm a little confused.  Thanks in advance for any clarity, and sorry if this question not being specifically about language is inappropriate for this forum.  -紐約市唐納文上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9565" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T09:51:08.830" Title="Journey to the West / fire mountain" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12832" CreationDate="2015-03-29T02:00:33.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sun Wukong disguises himself as Bull Demon King to deceive Princess&#xA;Iron Fan and takes away her Banana Leaf Fan. The real Bull Demon King&#xA;visits Princess Iron Fan, who then realises she has been tricked. Bull&#xA;Demon King disguises himself as Zhu Bajie to trick Sun Wukong and&#xA;retrieves the fan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiexingcun.com/Xiyou/01/mydoc061.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;novel&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好大圣，即现本象，将金睛兽解了缰绳，扑一把跨上雕鞍，径直骑出水底。到于潭外，将身变作牛王模样，打着兽，纵着云，不多时，已至翠云山芭蕉洞口，叫声：“开门！”那洞门里有两个女童，闻得声音开了门，看见是牛魔王嘴脸，即入报：“奶奶，爷爷来家了。”那罗刹听言，忙整云鬟，急移莲步，出门迎接。这大圣下雕鞍，牵进金睛兽；弄大胆，诓骗女佳人。罗刹女肉眼，认他不出，即携手而入。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The splendid Great Sage then reverted to his original form, untied the&#xA;golden-eyed beast, leapt into the carved saddle, and rode straight up&#xA;from the bottom of the water. Once out of the pool he made himself&#xA;look like the Bull Demon King. Whipping on the beast he set his cloud&#xA;moving and was soon at the mouth of the Plantain Cave in Mount&#xA;Turquoise Cloud.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Open up!” he shouted, and at the sound of his voice the two servant&#xA;girls inside the gates opened them for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking him for the Bull Demon King they went in to report, “Madam, His&#xA;Majesty's come home.” At the news Raksasi quickly neatened her hair&#xA;and hurried out on her little lotus feet to meet him. Climbing out of&#xA;the saddle the Great Sage led the golden-eyed beast inside. He was&#xA;bold enough to try to deceive the beauty, whose mortal eyes failed to&#xA;see who he really was as she led him inside, hand in hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T09:51:08.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10670" CreationDate="2015-03-29T09:43:34.387" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I checked the video at 35&amp;quot;, it's 这不, not 是不. I don't think there is 是不 to start sentences with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, you can understand 这不 as a shortened version of 这不是嘛(isn't it [so]) which is rhetorical and means 是这样的(it is [so]).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In speaking, I think its function is just something to get listeners attention by marking the start of a point or narration. I don't know any expression in English that is quite the same as 这不. But I think there are some possible flexible translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这不, 一下车我们就直奔XXX&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we went straight to XXX after getting off our cars.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it can be translated to ‘so‘, or 'that's why' (like they did in the subtitle of the video) because the content before that was saying the city had a long history, considering which so they went to the museum first. However, 这不 doesn't really indicate causality in general, it's just a casual piece of word to connect sentences which can be interpreted in many ways. Some times it would be better translated as 'now' or 'here'. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 他怎么还没到?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where is he (literal: Why hasn't he arrived?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 他这不来了么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Now/look) Here he comes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's standard Mandarine, it feels more a northern (Beijing/Hebei at least) dialect to me. The whole video is narrated in such style to be more approachable, I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T22:55:47.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12761" CreationDate="2015-03-29T13:05:56.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;hesitate a little bit&quot; because of surprise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8061" LastActivityDate="2015-03-29T13:05:56.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12818" CreationDate="2015-03-29T14:42:25.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it helps me sometimes to think of &quot;X化(的)Y&quot; as &quot;an X form of Y&quot;. A &quot;modern form/kind of factory&quot;, or 西方化的思维- &quot;a western form of thinking.&quot; This can be an alternate to lazily translating everything as &quot;...ized&quot; which can easily be either hard to understand or completely incomprehensible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-03-29T14:42:25.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12838" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12839" CreationDate="2015-03-29T16:59:50.080" Score="1" ViewCount="1438" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a Chinese translation of the Swahili word &lt;em&gt;kianga&lt;/em&gt;, which has the following meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;burst of light&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;burst of sunshine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;clear up (after rain)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ray of sunlight after rain&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;clearing up (of the weather after rain)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://kamusi.org/define?headword=kianga&amp;amp;to_language=371&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://kamusi.org/define?headword=kianga&amp;amp;to_language=371&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there words in Chinese that convey an image similar to &lt;em&gt;ray of sunlight (or clearing up) after rain&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest I have come with Google Translate is &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/%E6%9A%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;暘&lt;/a&gt;, but that does not capture the &quot;after rain&quot; aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation is for a name or logo; something short and poetic would be preferrable over a long and literal expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9654" LastEditorUserId="9654" LastEditDate="2015-03-30T21:46:49.263" LastActivityDate="2015-03-31T20:47:58.667" Title="Translation for &quot;ray of sunlight after rain&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12838" CreationDate="2015-03-29T17:22:52.970" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about 霽光? As in the Song Dynasty poem: 一夕輕雷落萬絲，霽光浮瓦碧參差。(&quot;after a night's worth of distant thunder and myriad raindrops / then the light after the rain shines shimmeringly on the blue-green roof tiles&quot;) Not sure there's a single character for this but can check 康熙 (standard classical dictionary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;霽 as a single character refers to the clearing of clouds/rain, but I don't think carries a strong connotation of &quot;light&quot; by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2015-03-29T17:32:23.990" LastActivityDate="2015-03-29T17:32:23.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12840" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12841" CreationDate="2015-03-29T20:57:45.117" Score="4" ViewCount="870" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading some web novels, and I noticed that once in a while there's ** double asterisk in the middle of a sentence, but I have no idea what they represent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; **的挑釁&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-03-29T21:21:25.303" Title="What meaning does ** (double asterisk) have in chinese?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12840" CreationDate="2015-03-29T21:21:25.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as in the prude American culture, it is a kind of abominable censorship of certain expletives, like 狗日的 (fucking), 他妈的 (fucking), 我肏 (fuck), 我靠 (fuck) etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-03-29T21:21:25.303" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12842" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12843" CreationDate="2015-03-29T22:25:34.700" Score="4" ViewCount="899" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using my dictionary and some research, I've found that there seems to be three words for &quot;hacker&quot; in Chinese. 黑客，骇客，and 红客. The first two look to just mean &quot;hacker,&quot; while the third is a word for the implicitly state-supported private citizen in the PRC who hacks foreign enterprise out of nationalism. But does anyone know how to describe the verb for what these people do? My dictionary says to simply use 黑 or 骇, but what of the specific grammar cases when I need a two-syllable verb? Surely there's a better verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: After further searching, perhaps 侵入 would work? It seems to be a word with military connotations for &quot;invade,&quot; but apparently can also mean to &quot;gain unauthorized access.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9657" LastEditorUserId="9657" LastEditDate="2015-03-29T22:35:31.437" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T03:18:33.180" Title="What is the verb for &quot;hacking&quot; (as in computing) in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12842" CreationDate="2015-03-29T23:08:16.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;黑&lt;/strong&gt; is the verb you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;被黑了&lt;/strong&gt; is the common phrase form of &amp;quot;been hacked&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you feel &lt;strong&gt;黑&lt;/strong&gt; is too ambiguous you can add an object behind it to turn it into a VO (verb object) phrase: 黑电脑, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively Oxford suggests:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 COMPUTING, COLLOQUIAL&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;窃取&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to hack secret data from computers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从计算机里窃取机密资料&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I would just go with 黑 in this day and age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-29T23:08:16.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12838" CreationDate="2015-03-29T23:31:59.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;雨过天晴&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;雨过天青&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although quite transparent in it's meaning and long in length, is actually a set idiom and has meanings similar to that of the English you are looking for both literally and figuratively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the sun shines again after the rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;after gloom comes brightness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example sentences from a Chinese idiom dictionary says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨过天青, 一道彩虹挂在半空中｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which basically translates to: &lt;em&gt;after the rains stopped the sun came out, there was a rainbow hanging there in the middle of the sky.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-29T23:31:59.553" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12846" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12889" CreationDate="2015-03-30T03:43:38.127" Score="10" ViewCount="865" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is question about synonymous homonyms in Chinese, in particular, two-character words with same sound, tone. &lt;em&gt;Edit: to keep the question simple and broad, I am using the word &quot;homonym&quot; in a non-technical way and the requirement of same-tone is dispensable.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if the immense number of Chinese speakers and limited number of sounds/tones frequently leads to the formation of synonyms based on a speaker's misapprehension of the origin of a word. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;邮轮 and 游轮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They both are defined in some dictionaries (for example the Yabla on-line dictionary, in which the second occurs in the phrase 'Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines' ) as &quot;cruise liner&quot; or &quot;ocean liner.&quot; I suspect that, while an educated speaker would have an opinion about most of these occurrences, it's basically an unavoidable consequence of the structure of the language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar pressure exists in English, for example, to simplify spelling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems likely to me that this has been the subject of a lot of discussion somewhere and I wonder if someone knows of a paper or article on the subject? &#xA;Of course comments/answers also welcome. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also if there are other examples of this situation that would interest me too. Thanks.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, in case this is not clear: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the song &quot;No House No Car,&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;保养, &quot;to take care of,&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the subtitles given as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;包养&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example I relaxed the requirement of same-tone, as the two first characters do not bear the same tone. And the following: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浇注, &quot;to cast [metal]&quot; and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浇铸, same tones same meaning, more or less. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3171" LastEditorUserId="3171" LastEditDate="2015-04-03T10:20:25.883" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T17:50:20.557" Title="Two-character homonyms with same meaning" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12847" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-30T10:37:44.483" Score="2" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to write a short story and I want to give it both an English and a Chinese title. I can read a little bit of Chinese, but unfortunately I was unable to properly translate the title myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English title would be &quot;The Ghost Town's Beauty&quot; - referring to the town's beauty (not a beauty, as in beautiful woman).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would &quot;鬼城美&quot; be a correct translation? If not, how could you translate the title? It would be fine if it ends up sounding a little like a world play - so that it isn't obvious whether its referring to the town's beauty or a beautiful person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9662" LastActivityDate="2015-06-06T03:09:14.427" Title="How can I translate &quot;The Ghost Town's Beauty&quot; into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12848" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-30T13:35:44.903" Score="3" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the context: 我于是去了这家餐厅，点了一盘蘑菇菜心，果然好吃。我对服务员说: 我再次要一盘。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence &quot;我再次要一盘&quot; is wrong. But &quot;我再要一盘&quot; is correct. Can anyone explain why? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-03-31T04:03:11.740" LastActivityDate="2015-03-31T04:03:11.740" Title="再次 and 再: are they different?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12848" CreationDate="2015-03-30T13:59:36.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我再次要一盘 is &quot;I want the dish again.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我再要一盘 is &quot;I want another one.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's one of those things that you can say it and people would know what you mean. But it just sounds off. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9663" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T13:59:36.577" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12848" CreationDate="2015-03-30T15:46:13.040" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我再次要一盘 should exist in 陈述句&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我再要一盘 should exit in 祈使句&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you are asking the waiter, it's 祈使句.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T15:46:13.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12838" CreationDate="2015-03-30T15:55:06.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;雨霁初晴, it's common and easy to understand. Your reader won't need a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T15:55:06.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12758" CreationDate="2015-03-30T16:11:25.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To your specific question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早已 is more literal. It existed in classical poems, e.g., &quot;小荷才露尖尖角，蜻蜓&lt;strong&gt;早已&lt;/strong&gt;立上头&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早就 is more verbal. It is widely existing in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, there is no difference in meaning, unless you are studying classical Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spiting the words, 已 and 就 are just like the relationship between 早已 and 早就, one is more literal while they other is more verbal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As other combinations like 已经, 早已经, these are already off topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastEditorUserId="5741" LastEditDate="2015-05-19T10:08:45.980" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T10:08:45.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12853" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-30T20:53:25.263" Score="1" ViewCount="770" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;我习说中文一起我的朋友&quot; the correct way to say &quot;I practice speaking Chinese with my friend&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9608" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:41:05.713" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:41:05.713" Title="Is this the correct way to say &quot;I practice Chinese with my friend&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12853" CreationDate="2015-03-30T21:22:07.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nope. The correct statement is: （我）跟我的朋友一起练习说汉语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because Chinese is an SVO language, and we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 subject 1 (S1)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跟 conjunction (&amp;amp;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我的朋友 subject 2 (S2)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一起 adverb (A)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;练习 auxilliary verb (aux)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;说 verb (V)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;汉语 object (O)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Syntax: S1 &amp;amp; S2 A aux V O&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T21:22:07.410" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12848" CreationDate="2015-03-30T22:14:07.630" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When the 再+ verb, normally, we dont use the 次.&#xA;Let's look the sentence again， “我再要一盘”， here “要” means want， is a verb，so, just use 再+verb. If you say: “我再次要一盘”， weird, but not wrong, we can understand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9668" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T22:14:07.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12848" CreationDate="2015-03-31T02:45:30.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer by  Camila Ting Chen is close. We don't use 再次 in an present &lt;em&gt;active&lt;/em&gt; sentence. We use 再次 with some perfectness or passiveness. Such passiveness is not necessarily related to the conjunctive 被 however. A simple rule is when we can say 再 alone, say it alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我再次来到这家餐厅。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我时隔数年再次遇到一位朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这盘菜再次被我吃掉了。 while this sentence is not logical at a first glace, it sound good in this specific situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8102" LastActivityDate="2015-03-31T02:45:30.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12846" CreationDate="2015-03-31T06:28:05.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without sounding too technical, a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;homonym&lt;/a&gt; appears to mean 'of the same sound' (homophone) and/or 'of the same form' (homograph), but the common usage of the word &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/homonym&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;homonym&lt;/a&gt; is to mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one of a group of words that share the same spelling and pronunciation but have &lt;b&gt;different&lt;/b&gt; meanings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, a 'synonymous homonym' is an oxymoron. From your description, you're looking for alternative but equally acceptable form of any 2-character Chinese word where either form would mean the same thing? If that's the case, then all of the simplified rendition of traditional characters in a word would fit the definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More specifically, you could skip all those simplified characters that were 'invented' (or 'reinvented' from cursive form of Chinese writing) but focus on those that are borrowed from other traditional characters, but often seen in a simplified form of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The followings would all fit your definition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;油輪 &amp;lt;--&amp;gt; 油轮 (both mean oil tanker)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is probably not what you're interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遊輪 &amp;lt;--&amp;gt; 游轮 (both mean cruise ship)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is probably not interesting, either. 遊 and 游 have distinct meanings and usage (due to their different radicals) but the difference is only observed in traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鞦韆 &amp;lt;--&amp;gt; 秋千 (both mean a swing (seat))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is only borderline interesting, because the former is simply not in use in simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you might be looking for the following synonymous pairs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勅令&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;敕令 (simplified: 勅令&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;敕令)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;復蘇&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;復甦 (复苏&amp;lt;--&amp;gt; ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;版本&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;板本 (版本&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;板本)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;指摘&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;指責 (指摘&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;指责)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;風頭&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;鋒頭 (风头&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;锋头)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鍛鍊&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;鍛煉 (锻鍊&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;锻炼)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小器&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;小氣 (小器&amp;lt;--&amp;gt;小气)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will leave their English definition to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6537" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-03-31T16:19:21.220" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12838" CreationDate="2015-03-31T10:09:11.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you wanna say that the clouds disappeared  and the rain stopped. 晴 must be the answer. (天晴了) But if you wanna say a beam of light projects, it should be 射. (云层间射出一道阳光)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2015-03-31T10:09:11.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12838" CreationDate="2015-03-31T20:47:58.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a direct translation..  Sounds okay to me.&#xA;雨後的一道陽光&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9676" LastActivityDate="2015-03-31T20:47:58.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12860" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-31T23:32:06.287" Score="1" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;某酒类品牌的成功，在于它紧紧抓住都市文化的特点，将产品创新同城市文化、都市人怀旧心态紧密结合，大大提升了酒的档次，创造了酒的新概念。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, no often, I get confused with Chinese, especially when sentences use 将 or 把。I rewrote the part I am not sure of. Did I catch the meaning properly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将产品创新同城市文化、都市人怀旧心态紧密结合&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Change to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;产品创新紧密结合了城市文化和都市人的怀旧态度，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-04-01T10:11:50.370" Title="What are the arguments of 结合？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9831" CreationDate="2015-04-01T06:05:08.413" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are making it a bit complex. Chinese is a language that Chinese people speak. The standard Chinese is called mandarin or 普通话。Besides mandarin, there are many dialects in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9624" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T15:09:40.320" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T15:09:40.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12860" CreationDate="2015-04-01T08:22:50.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would explain the usage of 将 like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将 + Object + AdverbialPart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AdverbialPart = InfiniteVerb + ResultOfAction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The AdverbialPart is often in the form of sort of a perfect aspect of the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: eaten = 吃掉, where 吃 is the basic form of the verb, and 掉 means the action has finished, i.e. perfect aspect. And most basic way to construct it is adding 了 behind the action. Which will give us 把/将XX吃掉/了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, some words themselves can be used to express perfect aspect or you can say their perfect forms are the same as their original forms. 结合 is one of those. So you can say Subject + 把/将 + Object1 + 和 + Object2 + [相] + 结合&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your change to the sentence, I think it's alright, but there might be some subtle difference that I will try to illustrate with following translations in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将产品创新同城市文化、都市人怀旧心态紧密结合&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...combined product innovation tightly with urban culture and metropolis dwellers' nostalgic mentality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;产品创新紧密结合了城市文化和都市人的怀旧态度&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Product innovation combined urban culture and metropolis dwellers' nostalgic mentality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you see, the subject and object have changed during the transform. Product innovation was one of the object, or I'd say the primary object of the combination action. And in the transformed sentence, it became the subject. It became &amp;quot;combinor&amp;quot;, but not necessarily &amp;quot;combined&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the arguments of 结合 is a list of objects which can be separated by &amp;quot;、&amp;quot; and other parallel conjunction such as 和、与、以及.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;结合&amp;lt;Object1&amp;gt;、&amp;lt;Object2&amp;gt;、 ... 和&amp;lt;ObjectN&amp;gt;。&#xA;&#xA;把&amp;lt;Object1&amp;gt;、&amp;lt;Object2&amp;gt;、...和&amp;lt;ObjectN&amp;gt;结合。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also same as in English, 结合 could be either active or passive action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-01T10:11:50.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12864" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-01T12:10:12.590" Score="3" ViewCount="563" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is an idiom/phrase/saying that describes aiming for high achievement or success but not forgetting one's roots? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like 展翅高飞 and 饮水思源 combined&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9681" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:22:18.383" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:22:18.383" Title="What is an idiom that describes aiming for high achievement or success but not forgetting one's roots?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1759" CreationDate="2015-04-02T07:02:20.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a really good website that highlights the difference (in characters between dialect and Mandarin): &lt;a href=&quot;http://phonemica.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://phonemica.net/&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;You can listen to a speech and read the verbatim Cantonese and equivalent meaning (a translation of sorts) in Mandarin subscript.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some characters are unique to Cantonese that are more oral fillers. Some are Cantonese slang that have a Mandarin equivalent. This website has a great comparison and Canto Pinyin too!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://phonemica.net/entry?mid=543746312bd553930782aac7&amp;amp;story=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://phonemica.net/entry?mid=543746312bd553930782aac7&amp;amp;story=0&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;It's also a wonderful linguistic map of China that anyone can edit and upload to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9339" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-04-04T18:45:41.400" LastActivityDate="2015-04-04T18:45:41.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12868" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-02T08:46:42.987" Score="6" ViewCount="1773" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been using these interchangeably, until today I was corrected, being told that one &quot;参加活动”， not &quot;参与活动“. I then looked up the definition, but it wasn't too helpful. How do I know when to use which?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T06:47:29.310" Title="What is the difference between 参加 and 参与？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12873" CreationDate="2015-04-02T14:16:38.400" Score="1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is my native language but this is the first time I heard about this term.  What does it means?  It's used in a sentence as follow:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我的三个小美人，不要怕，只要你们乖乖听话，用心服侍我大脚，有你们享得福  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it actually means to take good cares of his feet (like literally)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-03T06:47:04.513" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T06:47:04.513" Title="What exactly does 服侍我大脚 means?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12871" CreationDate="2015-04-02T20:47:01.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rongshuxia.com/chapter/bookid-5909417-chapterid-77641.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.rongshuxia.com/chapter/bookid-5909417-chapterid-77641.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, it literally means that the speaker wants three cats to stroke his feet. Perhaps he is barefoot, and it would feel great to have smooth cat fur caressing the feet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T20:47:01.177" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12874" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12875" CreationDate="2015-04-03T02:47:39.747" Score="7" ViewCount="7594" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think probably every metro system around the world has to have an audio announcement warning passengers to stay away from the train's doors as they're closing. Here in New York, a pre-recorded voice phrases it this way:　&quot;Stand clear of the &lt;em&gt;closing&lt;/em&gt; doors, please.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong MTR's announcement is given three times: in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. Working backwards, the English is similar to New York's, but worded slightly differently: “Please stand &lt;em&gt;back&lt;/em&gt; from the doors.&quot; The Mandarin took me a little while to deduce, but I am fairly confident it is this: &quot;請不要靠近車門&quot; / &quot;qing buyao kao jin chemen&quot; / something like &quot;please do not lean near the vehicle doors.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my question to you is this: What is the Cantonese?  An audio file is linked at the end of this post. It seems to be one less syllable than the Mandarin, which is what I find surprising.  I don't know Cantonese Romanization conventions, so I apologize in advance for butchering this, but it sounds to me as something like：Sing ge kao gen sa mon.  That makes me think it is basically a different pronunciation of 請__靠近車門, but what in Mandarin is rendered as 不要 is condensed in Cantonese into just one syllable.  Is that right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the audio. The announcement starts about 15 seconds into the 30-second clip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://startsandfits.com/audio/MTRdoors-mp4.mp4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://startsandfits.com/audio/MTRdoors-mp4.mp4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for any clarity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9565" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T09:13:08.050" Title="Subway door announcement mystery" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12874" CreationDate="2015-04-03T02:55:01.877" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word you are looking for is 勿:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;請勿靠近車門 &lt;code&gt;cing2 mat6 kaau3 gan6 ce1 mun4&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyutping&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jyutping romanization&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage of 請勿 (&quot;Please don't&quot;) is considered formal or literary in Cantonese, so it's not typically heard in common speech, but you'll often see it on signs or in public announcements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Just wanted to also add that your deduction of the Mandarin is exactly correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2015-04-03T03:00:44.807" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T03:00:44.807" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12876" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12893" CreationDate="2015-04-03T05:27:04.503" Score="1" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;会~的 explains the future event that will happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;她肯定会很高兴的。&#xA;She will be (very) happy.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that 的 a collaboration of 会~的?(很 does NOT mean 'very', like 我很好)&lt;br&gt;or just associated with the adjective 高兴？ (很 does mean 'very')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you so much in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6131" LastEditorUserId="6358" LastEditDate="2015-04-07T19:36:57.393" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T19:36:57.393" Title="In &quot;会很 &lt;adj.&gt; 的&quot;， is 很 meaningless?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12876" CreationDate="2015-04-03T06:08:03.357" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know exactly what do you mean by &quot;meaningless&quot;, but the sentence would definitely sound weird without “很”. (I wouldn't really use the word &quot;meaningless&quot;, because basically every character in Chinese comes with a certain &quot;meaning&quot;, no?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“的” is necessary in this constellation with “会”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;她肯定很高兴。&#xA;She is for sure very happy.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;她肯定会很高兴的。&#xA;She would for sure be very happy.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say the first sentence is less common compared to the latter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9685" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-04-03T07:00:40.150" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T07:00:40.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12878" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12879" CreationDate="2015-04-03T06:51:04.707" Score="2" ViewCount="550" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a definitive list of ABB colors, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;绿茵茵&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;红彤彤&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure there's tons of these, green has, for instance, apart from the &lt;code&gt;绿茵茵&lt;/code&gt; written above, &lt;code&gt;绿油油&lt;/code&gt; as well as many others (I would assume).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lists I've found online are usually pretty poor, i.e.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;绿油油、黄澄澄、白茫茫、紫盈盈、黑乎乎、红通通、亮晶晶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and that's about it...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there a definitive list of ABB colors?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="6358" LastEditDate="2015-04-07T15:24:59.380" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T15:24:59.380" Title="Definitive list of ABB colors" Tags="&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12878" CreationDate="2015-04-03T08:15:16.390" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a small research project, we can combine a few of those lists and then expand the result in collaboration. This then becomes the definitive list of ABB colors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;红扑扑, 红彤彤, 红通通, 红艳艳, 红通通, 红赤赤, 红光光, 红灿灿, 红殷殷&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;绿油油, 绿莹莹, 绿生生, 绿茸茸, 绿汪汪, 绿茵茵, 绿森森&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;白皑皑, 白花花, 白茫茫, 白蒙蒙, 白生生, 白嫩嫩&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;灰沉沉, 灰溜溜, 灰蒙蒙&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黑沉沉, 黑洞洞, 黑糊糊, 黑茫茫, 黑蒙蒙, 黑黢黢, 黑黝黝, 黑压压, 黑漆漆, 黑生生&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;乌溜溜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;青幽幽&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;碧澄澄&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黄灿灿, 黄澄澄, 黄乎乎&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;金灿灿, 金煌煌, 金闪闪, 金亮亮, 金晃晃&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蓝晶晶, 蓝盈盈, 蓝幽幽, 蓝湛湛, 蓝隐隐, 蓝莹莹, 蓝汪汪&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;紫乌乌, 紫莹莹, 紫茵茵, 紫盈盈, 紫通通, 紫微微, 紫灿灿, 紫葳葳&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;粉扑扑, 粉嘟嘟&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My small contribution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;绿葱葱&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;红呼呼, 红润润&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;灰渌渌, 灰塌塌&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;碧油油&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蓝瓦瓦&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T08:15:16.390" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12880" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-03T11:07:30.687" Score="0" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is Easter in England, and 清明节 in China. Is this a coincidence, or are these festivals actually one and the same moon related ancient celebration?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-17T01:45:41.197" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T01:45:41.197" Title="Is 清明节 actually Easter?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2015-04-09T02:19:53.780" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12868" CreationDate="2015-04-03T13:02:34.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;参与，亦作“参预”或“参豫”。预闻而参议其事；&#xA;参与，also as “参预” or “参豫”. Listen something and talk about something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;参加。指的是以第二或第三方的身份加入、融入某件事之中。&#xA;参加 means join in something as a part of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, mostly, 参与 has a meaning of organize some people and plan something,&#xA;it often has a mean of initiative, such as:&#xA;他参与了此次军事行动的谋划工作。(Which means he is one of the commanders.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 参加, which is just join in something as a guest or [third] part people, such as:&#xA;他参加了此次军事行动。(Which means he may be just a soldier.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, we often say : 这个事情我不参与. means do your own business, I don't care about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastEditorUserId="6904" LastEditDate="2019-01-03T06:47:29.310" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T06:47:29.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12882" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12884" CreationDate="2015-04-03T13:18:14.447" Score="2" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;xxx 也是道上的人物...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does &quot;道上&quot; mean something like &quot;a good and legal path&quot; while &quot;道下&quot; (not sure if even this is a word) means &quot;the illegal ways&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T04:27:25.350" Title="Does 道上的人物 represent anything special?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12880" CreationDate="2015-04-03T13:34:25.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;清明節 (Ching Ming) is not Easter. Its origin is 'Cold Food Festival' where people do not cook their food with fire and usually go visit their tombs of their ancestor. Ching Ming, apart from being a festival, is also a traditional solar term (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_term&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_term&lt;/a&gt;) with the date varies sightly before and after the 5th of April every year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9688" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T13:34:25.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12882" CreationDate="2015-04-03T13:36:51.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here &lt;code&gt;道&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;黑道&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;黑社会&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;underworld&lt;/code&gt;). So &lt;code&gt;xxx 也是道上的人物&lt;/code&gt; means xxx is the member of some underworld organization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;道下&lt;/code&gt; is not a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T13:36:51.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1759" CreationDate="2015-04-03T13:54:12.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think by 'written Cantonese', you are probably referring to 'written Chinese'. Cantonese is a form of Chinese used mostly in southern China and its decedents, apart from Mandarin which has become an official spoken language in China in the mid 20 Century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese shares a lot of words and vocabularies with Mandarin but has also a lot of words unique from Mandarin partially due to its long history (of over 2000 years). &quot;Give / To give&quot; is 給 as written in modern Chinese, but should be 俾 as written in Cantonese, because 給 is pronounced as kup7 (7th tone, a short-version of 1st tone, in the Cantonese 9-tones system), while 俾 is pronounced as bei2 (2nd tone). No one will use 給 in a normal Cantonese conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, less than a hundred years ago, Chinese was still written mostly written in the classical/old Chinese form (without the boundary of the dialects but definitely add another level of difficulty to learn), unlike today which is written mostly according to the 'official spoken' Chinese. This movement of writing Chinese (more or less) in a form how Chinese is spoken began only in the 1910s. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0%E6%96%87%E5%AD%B8%E9%81%8B%E5%8B%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0%E6%96%87%E5%AD%B8%E9%81%8B%E5%8B%95&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9688" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T13:54:12.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12880" CreationDate="2015-04-03T14:42:38.077" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both festivals revolve around the spring equinox. 清明节 falls 15 days after the spring equinox, whereas Easter falls on the first sunday after the first fullmoon after the spring equinox.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Christianity here just superimposed their own myth (the carpenter on the cross) onto the existing Jewish passover, and the Jews in turn just superimposed their myth (the exodus from Egypt) onto then existing premosaic traditions in West Asia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清明节 is also a redevelopment of 寒食节, although these festivals are more original than any of the Easter traditions. In Taiwan, 清明节 has unfortunately been politicized to commemorate the death of the nationalist dictator 蒋介石.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let’s just say that both festivals celebrate the coming of spring, that is the essence of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorDisplayName="user4452" LastEditDate="2015-04-04T08:01:00.243" LastActivityDate="2015-04-04T08:01:00.243" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12868" CreationDate="2015-04-04T00:18:11.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides above answer, in oral Chinese, they don't have much difference. You can use either one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9409" LastEditorUserId="4680" LastEditDate="2015-04-04T03:04:56.153" LastActivityDate="2015-04-04T03:04:56.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12888" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12892" CreationDate="2015-04-04T09:25:43.280" Score="1" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have stumbled upon &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3N-XHqPwdM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;一天到晚游泳的鱼&lt;/a&gt; by Zhāng Yǔshēng. There are bits in which he sings but there are no subs. I would like to know what he is singing. Below, I'll identify the spots and try to guess myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4:49-4:52&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;La la la ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4:52-4:57&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cong bu jue bu ting liu    从不觉不停留&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:05-5:08&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;na na cang hai duo (me) liao kuo    沧海多（么）辽阔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:09-5:12&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zai ye bu neng hui shou    再也不能回首&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:21-5:23&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;qing yuan ? ? you    情愿？？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:24-5:27&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;qie chong mei you jin tou    ？？没有尽头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:36-5:38&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;? ? ? ? di qiu    ？？？？地球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:40-5:43&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cong lai bu xiang hui tou    从来不想回头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help me figure out the rest?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS Is there a more appropriate tag for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Please, please, please&lt;/em&gt; look at that video before answering. If I give precise time lapses, I expect you to follow them and listen, not paste parts of the lyrics that &quot;it looks like&quot; are the missing part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, the only answer present now helped me figure out 5:36-5:38:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bu wen tianchangdijiu    不问天长地久&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the rest is still not figured out, even 5:24-5:27, which is definitely &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; what it seems to be, namely 爱情没有尽头. Perhaps 却情没有尽头. Or perhaps 倔强没有尽头.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2015-04-04T16:57:43.957" LastActivityDate="2018-09-09T08:52:42.157" Title="What is he singing?" Tags="&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12846" CreationDate="2015-04-04T09:56:13.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;We call these words &quot;异形词&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definition from Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;异形词，是指在普通话书面语中并存并用的同音（指声母、韵母和声调完全相同）、同义（指理性意义、色彩意义和语法意义完全相同）而书写形式不同的词语。例如：“笔画”和“笔划”、“按语”和“案语”、“唯一”和“惟一”等等。实际的使用当中，除了书写的差异之外，它们还有使用频率的不同，但是一般不会造成误解。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&#xA;中华人民共和国教育部和国家语言文字工作委员会2002年3月31日发布试行了《第一批异形词整理表》。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&#xA;在繁体中文里面，异形词现象也是存在的。而汉字简化并没有完全消除这些现象，所以从繁体中文中继承也是异形词的主要来源之一。&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a link for 《第一批异形词整理表》: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.cn/20011228/3015609.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.edu.cn/20011228/3015609.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there is 《264组异形词整理表（草案）》 as a supplement : &lt;a href=&quot;http://dwz.cn/FR5gW&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dwz.cn/FR5gW&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To look for papers on this subject, just search &quot;异性词&quot; on google scholar or other databases and you can find plenty:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WBsWi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8114" LastActivityDate="2015-04-04T09:56:13.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12890" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12894" CreationDate="2015-04-04T13:03:07.230" Score="-3" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not even sure if its chinese (I'm sorry if I'm offending someone, I'm not in touch with Chinese). I'd like to know what it means or at least some words/part of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ljFtm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;pic&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9689" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T00:00:34.197" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T00:00:34.197" Title="I need this image translated" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-04-06T04:06:42.250" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12888" CreationDate="2015-04-04T16:16:50.913" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;沧海多么辽阔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再也不能回首&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要你心里永远留我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一天到晚游泳的鱼啊鱼不停游&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一天到晚想你的人啊爱不停休&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从来不想回头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不问天长地久&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为我的爱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为我的爱覆水难收&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鱼儿鱼儿鱼儿水中游...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From your pinyin it looks like that's the part you are missing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-04-04T16:16:50.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12888" CreationDate="2015-04-04T17:49:02.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is really difficult to catch what he is signing in background. And actually don't seems to follow the original order of the lyric&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4:44 魚兒魚兒魚兒慢慢游 (I think he join in the later half in this line)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4:48 游啊樂悠悠 (not in original lyric)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4:52 從不覺不自由 (not in original lyric)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:05 滄海多麼遼闊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:09 再也不能回首&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:21 只要你心里有我 (original guess, guessing first 4 characters)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:21 情海护佑我 (Sounds 90% correct)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:24 這情没有尽头 / 這就没有尽头 / 情就没有尽头 (The last 2 sounds more accurate) (not in the original lyric)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:35 不問天長地久&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5:40 從來不想回頭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe someone have good ears can double, triple check :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="2263" LastEditDate="2015-04-05T21:08:16.980" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T21:08:16.980" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12876" CreationDate="2015-04-04T21:13:29.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just trying to put down user330635's comment down as an answer, since wasn't sure the other answer addressed the question correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;她肯定会(很)高兴的。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of the word 很 is to indicate the degree of the adjective 高兴.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;She will be (very) happy.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without it the sentence just suggest that the person will be happy, but we do not know if she will be mildly pleased or extremely pleased about something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2015-04-04T21:13:29.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12890" CreationDate="2015-04-05T00:22:31.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &lt;code&gt;可爱&lt;/code&gt; means lovely, adorable.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;Women are meant to be loved so should be lovely.&lt;/code&gt; is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the word &lt;code&gt;可爱&lt;/code&gt; can be split into two words: &lt;code&gt;可&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;爱&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;可&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;... can ...&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;... be able to ...&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;In most of the time, &lt;code&gt;可&lt;/code&gt; implies passive voice and is not used solely.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;爱&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;love&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;Therefore, &lt;code&gt;可爱&lt;/code&gt; can also mean &lt;code&gt;can be loved&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;is able to be loved&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;This meaning implies that the woman is not easily reachable. Examples of not reachable: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the woman in USA and the man in China and they cant move to each other&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the woman hate the man&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the woman is dead&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So another meaning (evil) of this sentence is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Women are meant to be loved. Do not love her. She will never love you&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5895" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T00:22:31.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12895" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12900" CreationDate="2015-04-05T00:24:33.790" Score="1" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I understand this sentence correctly, but the 4th comma puzzles me. Is it necessary??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在当当网，“创新”是全方位，而俞渝就像心脏一样，源源不断地把创新的血液，输送到企业每一个环节。&#xA;I think this is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在当当网，“创新”是全方位，而俞渝就像心脏一样，源源不断地输送创新的血液到企业每一个环节。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T03:48:25.833" Title="Why did they write a comma here?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12896" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-05T01:34:23.807" Score="1" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the phrase discussed in the title of this question on the 海贼王 manga (One Piece).  I have not found this phrase anywhere else, and have put this on other forums without much success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T03:20:38.850" Title="Need help with 你们不是向着我的吗？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12896" CreationDate="2015-04-05T02:05:44.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am pretty sure that it's a translation typo. There is no verb in this sentence. It probably should be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你们不是想着我吗？&lt;/code&gt; Meaning: &lt;code&gt;Don't you miss me?&lt;/code&gt; or maybe: &lt;code&gt;Hyahyahya, didn't you all miss me after this long time??&lt;/code&gt; Depends a bit on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the context of the story? Is it when some bad guy gives a surprising visit or something like that? Then my answer is probably correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9685" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T02:05:44.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12898" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-05T02:10:55.300" Score="0" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this in an article, and then looked it up on the internet.  From what I see, it appears to be playing pranks on people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-04T15:53:41.117" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T15:53:41.117" Title="What does 整人 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12895" CreationDate="2015-04-05T02:37:47.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think both sentences are correct in sense but the first one is much more structured, thus easier to read. My mother tongue is (Swiss-)German and I inherently tend to construct rather monstrous sentences and avoid the use of commas as you just did. But fact is, that cases like the sentence from 当当网 are much more comfortable to read and sound more authentical at the same time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I dare to say that Chinese basically don't like long constellations of words that are complicated to analyze, but of course they like complicated characters to express a certain meaning. If you take any Chinese poem as an example, many of them would be very hard to understand in terms of their meaning, but most of them are very well structured in terms of grammar and visual aspects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This answer is based on pure personal experience and not on official grammar rules or such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9685" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T02:37:47.563" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12895" CreationDate="2015-04-05T02:47:03.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your first sentence, the 4th comma is indeed unnecessary. This is what I would write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在当当网，“创新”是全方位，而俞渝就像心脏一样，源源不断地把创新的血液输送到企业每一个环节。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your second sentence is grammatically correct, but using the 把 construction is much more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T02:47:03.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12895" CreationDate="2015-04-05T02:52:38.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first reason probably is the last part is too long for readers to understand the meaning in a short time. &#xA;The second possible reason is the focus of the sentence (normally it need to combine the meaning and purpose of whole paragraph or article). By adding a comma there, they are focusing on the how innovative Dangdang is, and the innovations are everywhere in the company. &#xA;Also there is third possible reason. The comma is mainly for the person who will give a speech based on the article. It will remind the speaker where should be a pause and make the listener easier to accept the meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9691" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T02:52:38.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12898" CreationDate="2015-04-05T02:57:49.117" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It actually has 2 meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one mean fool somebody or make jokes on somebody. For example, when you want to sit down, and I pull the chair away which makes you sit on the ground directly. This action can called 整人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another meaning is more serious. If a person A does not like another person B, A will do a lot of bad things on B in order to embarrassed B. For example, it can happen in a company. If A does not like B, A will treat bad on B and force B leave the team or the company. It is also called 整人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9691" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T02:57:49.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12896" CreationDate="2015-04-05T03:01:25.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, it can be a real sentence in oral Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;向 can become a verb. It has 2 possible meanings based on the situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First one mean &quot;face to ..&quot;. The sentence can become &quot;are you all facing to me?&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other meaning &quot;are you on my side&quot;/&quot;don't you support me&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your case, I think it probably be the second meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9691" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T03:01:25.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12898" CreationDate="2015-04-05T03:10:01.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'整人'means to make a trick to somebody,but normolly it is a little bit negative. Perhaps '整人'can make somebody unhappy,but others laughing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In another meaning, '整人'means to harm someone by means which are under the table.It's totally a bad behavior.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9692" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T03:10:01.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12896" CreationDate="2015-04-05T03:20:38.850" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is certain that this sentence means 'why don't your guys stand by me as you did before？'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9692" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T03:20:38.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12895" CreationDate="2015-04-05T03:48:25.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to add a '的'after'全方位','全方位'is a noun and '全方位的'is a adj.It doesn't make sence if the word '的' is missing.&#xA;In addition，you'd better add a '的' afer '企业',because '企业' is a adj here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9692" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T03:48:25.833" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12882" CreationDate="2015-04-05T04:09:33.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here,道 means the way people earn their living.It's 白道 if the way is legal and 黑道 if the way is illegal,and 道上的 is a adj phrase which only be used to describe someone  having background of gangdom.&#xA;We don't use 道下的，but you can use the phrase 守法的 if you want to describe person who earn his living legally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9692" LastEditorUserId="9692" LastEditDate="2015-04-05T04:27:25.350" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T04:27:25.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12876" CreationDate="2015-04-05T05:00:52.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;很 is a adv which be used to describe the level of adj word.You can say 很快，means very fast.It is  equal of very.&#xA;会，in some conditions, means be sure to,equalling the word will.&#xA;的 is a affix in Chinese.It can be added after a noun to construct a adj.For example,we can say 布的 to describe something made by cloth,but in oral Chinese,的 is omited normally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9692" LastEditorUserId="9692" LastEditDate="2015-04-05T05:18:32.200" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T05:18:32.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12847" CreationDate="2015-04-05T05:15:17.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'spirit' : 精灵，鬼魂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'ghost': 鬼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the 'beauty' in your title refers a person, the best title I can figure out is &quot;鬼城美人&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are refer to a beautiful town, I think &quot;鬼城之美&quot; is better.&#xA;BTW, 'death' is a not proper word for the title, it means really death, kind of terrific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9693" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T05:15:17.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12847" CreationDate="2015-04-05T06:35:38.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;鬼镇风光 / 鬼镇美景&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gost town : 鬼镇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By beauty, I suppose you mean good view of the town.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9694" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-05T10:54:43.880" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T10:54:43.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12847" CreationDate="2015-04-05T06:39:44.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about 空城幽影。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is more artistic。 鬼城美 sounds like a Japanese name,there are many expressions like  鬼**，**美 in Japanese using Kanji,but **之美 is China-esque.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other names for fun:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空城血泪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鬼镇丽人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鬼镇美（word play：鬼真美）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情陷鬼城&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幽灵小镇的美学研究&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欲海死城&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幽灵小镇的美学研究 is my favourite。 ：）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T06:39:44.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12868" CreationDate="2015-04-05T07:25:39.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion,it is very difficult to identify the way how to use 参加 and 参与. It is the same as the preposition in English. Having no reason, if you don't  do it as it should be, it's wrong.The only way to use it correctlly is to remember all the way to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9692" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T07:25:39.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12868" CreationDate="2015-04-05T11:20:42.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, sometimes I can find that there are some subtle differences related to emotional feelings between these two words, “参加” often tends to be more neutral in meaning, if you are not sure what kind of feeling you'd like to express on something, you can simply use “参加”, but if you want to express some relatively stronger feelings, whether positive or negative, you may consider using “参与”, take a look at these examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我昨天&lt;strong&gt;参加&lt;/strong&gt;了班上举办的活动。&#xA;I took part in the party of our class yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;被指控&lt;strong&gt;参与&lt;/strong&gt;抢劫活动的有张三，李四和王五。&#xA;Zhang San, Li Si and Wang Wu have been accused of involving in that robbery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T11:20:42.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12915" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-05T12:08:18.513" Score="1" ViewCount="353" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been on multiple sentence bases and have found words such as 胡言乱语，词不达意。。。But is there another, better term?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-04-19T15:34:39.793" Title="How to say &quot;gibberish&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12915" CreationDate="2015-04-05T13:10:08.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;if I do this translation, I would say 一派胡言 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9696" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T13:10:08.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12864" CreationDate="2015-04-05T13:31:25.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;心存高远意守平常好听点，I don't know why I have to type at least 30 letters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9696" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T13:31:25.483" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12918" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12919" CreationDate="2015-04-05T13:54:30.843" Score="3" ViewCount="638" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hanzi has some underlining when dealing with foreign names, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the rules regarding Hanzi underlining?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: Would I underline 中国 in a text that includes underlining? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-05T14:45:02.170" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T07:37:16.307" Title="Hanzi Underline Rules?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12918" CreationDate="2015-04-05T15:31:26.153" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;This page and it's Chinese version might help: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_name_mark&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Proper name mark - Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, we do not use underline as a punctuation in modern simplified Chinese writing. But in a passage (maybe classical Chinese texts) where underline is used, 中国 should be underlined according to the rules. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8114" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T15:31:26.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12815" CreationDate="2015-04-05T21:06:25.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Guangxi province borders Guangdong province where cantonese dialect dominates. Some area of Guangxi speak cantonese. In Disney's movie Mulan, Mulan's family name is Fa which is the cantonese pronunciation of 花 (flower). Is Fa your daugher's last name? This is not a direct answer to your question but we need some more information to help you out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7027" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T21:06:25.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12921" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12928" CreationDate="2015-04-05T22:52:23.423" Score="1" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to accurately translate an abstract use of &quot;saw.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: the Korean War saw fighting between America and the PRC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朝鲜战争看到了美国与中华人民共和国之间的战斗。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I have no idea if that sentence is correct or not, but it demonstrates what I'm trying to get at. Is this an acceptable use of &quot;saw&quot; in Chinese? Is there another word to demonstrate this abstract use? Or do I need to find a more concrete way to say this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9657" LastActivityDate="2015-04-06T03:48:38.720" Title="Chinese use of abstract &quot;saw?&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12922" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-05T23:14:08.830" Score="1" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was on the internet, and I found this slogan 我待国足如初恋.  Does this mean &quot;I treat national soccer like first love?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-04-06T03:16:58.833" Title="What is the meaning of this?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12922" CreationDate="2015-04-06T00:07:23.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without too much context, it is probably &quot;I treat the national soccer team like my first love.&quot; As many have expressed in the forum, the more context you can provide, the better a translator can do. But I think you've got the gist of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-04-06T00:07:23.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12925" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-06T01:57:53.817" Score="1" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's 以灾难结局, and that people will understand that.  However, is there a more authentic term or is this it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T07:32:18.303" Title="What's &quot;ended in a disaster&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12922" CreationDate="2015-04-06T02:18:25.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means we love our soccer team , look forward to the team can win in the next game just like we met the team for the first time with enthusiasm ,although it always lost games and breaks our heart. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9699" LastActivityDate="2015-04-06T02:18:25.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12922" CreationDate="2015-04-06T03:16:58.833" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's the second half of internet phrase “XX虐我千百遍，我待XX如初恋” (XX has hurt me a thousand times, but I still regard it as my first love.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of 国足, it's a way to show the unconditional support for the national soccer league.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-04-06T03:16:58.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12921" CreationDate="2015-04-06T03:33:30.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you need 'witness' = ‘见证’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朝鲜战争见证了美国与中国之间的战斗。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-04-06T03:33:30.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12921" CreationDate="2015-04-06T03:48:38.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From your sentence and according to the Chinese grammar, yours isn't a right saying. &quot;朝鲜战争&quot; is an object of no life, which cannot have organs to &quot;see&quot; or &quot;sense&quot;.  We can say this better below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;透过&lt;/strong&gt;朝鲜战争&lt;strong&gt;我们&lt;/strong&gt;看到了美国和中国之间的战斗。(We see the REAL battle between China and USA &lt;strong&gt;through&lt;/strong&gt; the Korean War).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, the sentense you mentioned above has missed a subject. And it's ONLY used in the oral Chinese. We also have such things (This also occurs in English sometimes):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水壶开了！(The kittle is boiling).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实际上，是水壶的水开了（In fact, it's the WATHER in the kittle boiling!）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种省略了许多主语和其他谓词的语法被成为“主题句”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2015-04-06T03:48:38.720" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12930" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-06T07:19:03.140" Score="-2" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm in a need of this product and I can't seem to find what this nameplate means anywhere. I'm looking for a name of the manufacturer or something that point me to that.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SEgcw.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AS44J.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9701" LastActivityDate="2015-04-06T08:25:48.733" Title="What is the translation of this nameplate?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-04-07T06:47:24.087" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12930" CreationDate="2015-04-06T08:25:48.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's &quot;卸荷阀&quot; in Chinese. It means &quot;Unloading Valve&quot;. There's no manufacturer information on your picture. Perhaps you can search 卸荷阀 on taobao.com to find more clues. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9703" LastActivityDate="2015-04-06T08:25:48.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12932" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-06T11:24:38.010" Score="0" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;女子700万买下学位房学区调整致算盘落空.  I looked the words up individually using MDBG and also used Google Translate to get a general idea, but it still didn't make any sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T11:47:01.363" Title="What does this headline mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12933" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-06T17:40:21.330" Score="3" ViewCount="13637" Body="&lt;p&gt;中学&#xA;seems to be both terms for middle school (junior high school)&#xA;and&#xA;high school (senior high school).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how does 高中 and 初中 relate to these words also?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/f9a933f7897246cb984b10f7c24a40d3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/f9a933f7897246cb984b10f7c24a40d3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Describes it as middle school&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/20524e88708646beb309d96176102585&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/20524e88708646beb309d96176102585&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Describes it as high school&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;maybe it depends on the region (China, HK, America, etc) where you attend school?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9339" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T09:03:16.057" Title="中学? middle or high school" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12933" CreationDate="2015-04-06T19:22:42.793" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;初中 is the last three years of the nine year compulsory education. 高中 is high school or gymnasium. 中学 comprises both of them, altogether six years of middle school (as opposed to primary school and higher education).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-04-06T19:22:42.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12932" CreationDate="2015-04-06T21:34:59.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Woman's plan to buy 7 million-dollar-house in a school district fails&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9708" LastActivityDate="2015-04-06T21:34:59.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12937" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-06T23:16:16.673" Score="1" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know it is not easy to say why which 量词 should be used when, but this one seems strange to me. Why did the author choose ‘支’？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开发出中国第一支儿童营养液，。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;支 is normally for 'pens,guns, army divisions, songs and compositions.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the liquid is in a bottle, which may be long and thin??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T05:45:40.010" Title="Why did the writer use 支 here？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12938" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-06T23:46:55.557" Score="1" ViewCount="849" Body="&lt;p&gt;黑著臉, Directly translating it, it would be &quot;blacking his face&quot;, so is it something like &quot;his face went dark&quot; (Not even sure if that means anything or is proper in english).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could it also be something like &quot;his face was replaced with a scowl&quot; or something similar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T07:35:40.133" Title="What would 黑著臉 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12938" CreationDate="2015-04-07T00:40:38.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means someone is not happy about things that are going on, it can be a disapprove to the decision other people made, anger about people's comment, behavior. &#xA;黑 in this phrase describes a negative mood in one's face, as if someone is so mad at something, his/her heart begin beating faster, his/her face turns into a dark color than usual. Similarly you may see红着脸(flushed with fever or success or pride)， 绿着脸(bad stock market or unhappiness)，青着脸(angry or discontent about something). Other than color, there are also 板着脸，绷着脸，拉着脸，蒙着脸 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9709" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T00:40:38.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12938" CreationDate="2015-04-07T00:53:14.133" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Great God 百度, who knows all, has:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;板着脸&#xA;显示出一种不开心或不满意的申请&#xA;不明白欢迎来追问!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T00:53:14.133" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12933" CreationDate="2015-04-07T02:22:50.473" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, the year 1 to year 6, which pupils normally attend at age 6, are considered elementary or primary education. Primary education is compulsory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondary level education is generally considered 中学. 中学 is the overall term for year 7 to year 12 education (normally, in certain times or regions it could be 1 year shorter or longer). And the first three years (year 7 to year 9) are called 初中 and the rest are called 高中. And 初中 is part of compulsory education as well. But 高中 is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that the usage of term &quot;middle school&quot; and &quot;high school&quot; are not quite consistent in all English speaking regions. For example &quot;high school&quot; in Australia includes the education from year 7 or 8 to year 12. And in the U.S, high school often means year 10 to year 12 and year 7 to year 9 are often called junior high or middle school. And in the UK, the definition varies by constituent country as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, 初中 is often translated to middle school. It's in the official English names of many middle schools. 高中 is often translated to high school. If a school offers both levels of education, it's often called just a high school (e.g. Beijing No. 4 High School).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So all you need to know is that there are two tiers in the secondary education in China. The first one, normally three years are 初中, the second tier is 高中, and combined they are 中学. Regarding how to translate it, it really depends on your audiences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another thing that should be noted. That is even though 中学 is often translated as &quot;High School&quot; which literally can be translated back to &quot;高校&quot; (since High=高, School=校). However this is totally wrong. 高校 is short for 高等学校 or 高等教育学校, which means higher education schools which often are the insinuations (universities) that provide tertiary education, not secondary education.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-04-10T09:03:16.057" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T09:03:16.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12937" CreationDate="2015-04-07T05:45:40.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the container(bottle) of it is like a stick. We use 支 to describe all the stick-like things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe I should post a pic here to help you understand what I'm talking about:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mpdsf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;A sample of 营养液&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T05:45:40.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12932" CreationDate="2015-04-07T06:13:40.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a concept which may be unfamiliar for you non-Chinese. 学区 is the area which covers a part of residential areas and the school which have responsibility to it have to receive the students in it unconditionally. 学位房 means a house in a 学区.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have properties in a 学区, your kids are allowed to join a school without exams and complicated procedures. Since everyone wants his kid to join a better school, wealthier guys tries to buy a house in the 学区 which a better school is responsible for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the price of houses in these better area are always high. So it cost her 700万(=7 million Chinese Yuan). But the area of that 学区 was adjusted by government, so her kids are not allowed to join the better school. That's why 她的算盘落空了(her plan has failed). And that's the interest point of this news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T06:13:40.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12938" CreationDate="2015-04-07T07:35:40.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;汉语大辞典&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;黑&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6 脸色阴沉, 严厉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沙汀 《困兽记》十七&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的语调逐渐流畅起来；但他忽然间&#xA;住了嘴, &lt;strong&gt;黑着脸&lt;/strong&gt;一蹦站起来了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;阴沉&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cloudy; overcast; gloomy; sombre&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;严厉&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;stern; severe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黑脸 = stern gloomy looking face&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 着 inductions the action of happening, turning, changing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tuttle Learner's&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(used after a verb to indicate the action or state is going on)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above is far from comprehensive but it will suffice for our needs here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the example from above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的语调逐渐流畅起来；但他忽然间&#xA;住了嘴, &lt;strong&gt;黑着脸&lt;/strong&gt;一蹦站起来了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tone of his voice gradually softened, but then all of a sudden he stopped talking, his face went black (a gloomy solemness came over his face), and he jumped to his feet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's entires for &lt;strong&gt;黑脸&lt;/strong&gt; without the &lt;strong&gt;着&lt;/strong&gt; same meaning just without the action:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;大汉语词典&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 脸色阴沉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欧阳山 《高干大》第五章&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;﹝高生亮﹞在 南沟 串了三天, 受尽多少闲气, 看尽多少黑脸, 还是不顶事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古华 《丝竹园歌女》八&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但后来就皱眉头, 就黑脸, 就瞪眼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;两岸&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 臉色陰沉；陰沉的臉色。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他一生氣就～，怪嚇人的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受盡多少閒氣，看盡多少～，事情還是沒有辦成。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T07:35:40.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12948" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-07T07:55:02.397" Score="1" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wondered what the meaning is in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also there are other different types in printing, like Graph ruled, wide ruled. If I can call them &quot;蓝边&quot;  &quot;图纹&quot;  and &quot;宽边笔记本&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9696" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-22T00:11:01.493" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T00:11:01.493" Title="How to say &quot;a blue-ruled Olympic Exercise notebook&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12949" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12956" CreationDate="2015-04-07T11:16:15.033" Score="0" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese friends brought us zongzi from China. I copied ingredients from two packs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pack 1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;桃豆蜜枣粽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;糯米，饮用水，蜜枣，鹰嘴豆，白砂糖，食品植物油。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;红枣桂圆粽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;糯米，饮用水，花生，红枣，桂圆，白砂糖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pack 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蛋黄鲜肉粽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;糯米，饮用水，猪肉，咸鸭蛋黄，酿造酱油（含焦糖色），白砂糖，食用盐，白酒，味精（含谷氨酸钠）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;红绕排骨粽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;糯米，饮用水，猪排骨，猪肉，酿造酱油（含焦糖色），白砂糖，红绕调科［味精（含谷氨酸钠）白砂糖，酱油，食用盐，麦芽糊精，乳糖，水解植物蛋白，食用香科，酵母抽提物，香辛科，食品添加剂（焦糖色，阿斯巴甜（含苯丙氨酸），红曲红）］食用盐，白酒，味精（含谷氨酸钠）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, why are there two lists of ingredient on each pack? I though those plastic bags contained one dumpling each, yet there are two ingredient lists. Anyway, supposing (but not granting) I copied the characters correctly, I have problems translating this. Here's my attempt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pack 1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chickpea candied date dumplings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Glutinous rice, drinkwater, candied dates, chickpeas, white sugar, edible vegetable oil (is this right?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Red date and dragon eye dumbplings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Glutinous rice, drinkwater, peanuts, red dates, dragon eyes, white sugar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pack 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yolk and fresh meat dumplings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Glutinous rice, drinkwater, pig meat, salted duck yolk, fermented soy sauce (contains caramel color - that right?), white sugar, edible salt, white wine, MSG (contains MSG).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hongrao (?) pork chops dumplings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Glutinous rice, drinkwater, pork ribs (are there actually bones in here?), pork, fermented soy sauce (contains caramel color - that right?), white sugar, hongrao diaoke [MSG (contains MSG), white sugar, soy sauce, edible salt, maltodextrin, lactose, hydrolyzed plant proteins, edible aromas (right?), yeast choutiwu, xiangxinke, food additives (caramel color, aspartame (contains phenilalanine), hongquhong)], edible salt, white wine, MSG (contains MSG).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from «is this right?», my points are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is that 食品植物油? More precisely, what does that &quot;shípǐn&quot; add to the vegetable oil?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is 焦糖色? &quot;jiàotáng&quot; would be &quot;caramel&quot;, but &quot;sè&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the difference between 味精 and 谷氨酸钠? In particular, it seems like wèijīng is not actually &quot;monosodium glutamate&quot; but some kind of more general term.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is 红绕? Is it a toponym?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why is 排骨 translated to &quot;pork ribs&quot; if it means only &quot;ribs&quot;? And does this mean there are actually bones in the dumplings or just the meat off the ribs?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are 食用香科?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does 调科 mean? Does it exist on its own or is it just some food name together with 红绕, i.e. 红绕调科 is some food often shortened to just 红绕?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does 抽提物 mean?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are 香辛科?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;红曲 would mean &quot;red food dye&quot;, but what's with that extra 红 at the end? What does this mean?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T21:03:40.237" Title="Ingredients of zongzi" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12932" CreationDate="2015-04-07T11:47:01.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;女子700万买下学位房学区调整致算盘落空&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有一个女子，花了700万，买下了一个学位房。后来学区进行了调整，导致她的算盘落空了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A women bought a house with 7 million yuan. That house was in a good school district then. But late on, recently, the school district adjusted, and this house  changed to another school district. Her calculation is no longer valid.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T11:47:01.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12951" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-07T12:07:07.977" Score="2" ViewCount="1743" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both mean medium, so they are probably the same.  Are they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T09:17:08.627" Title="What's the difference between 载体 and 媒介？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2015-04-07T13:04:37.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually they are the same thing. FYI，if 载体carrier is something, Media媒介 is everything. &#xA;whole meaning on media: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/media.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/media.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;carrier, mostly means practical channel like radio, newspaper, internet,etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in this point the meaning are the same,  means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, that reach or influence people widely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9696" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T13:04:37.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12953" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-07T14:36:03.300" Score="3" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;兩個月前，我其實在立法會內曾就膠袋問題提出質詢，因為我們有一次 到沙灘和路邊的郊野公園去，看見那情況感到很恐怖。 I looked it on MDBG but didn't get anything of important meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T03:06:23.600" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T03:06:23.600" Title="Why is 就 used in ...我实际上在立法会内曾就胶袋问题提出质询...?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12953" CreationDate="2015-04-07T15:07:51.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt; calls this a 介词 (converb) and defines it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;with regard to; concerning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the examples they use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就A 来说 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Jiù A lái shuō&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;with regard to A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就A 而言 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Jiù A ér yán&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;with regard to A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就膠袋問題提出質詢 = as for the inquires raised in regard to the problems with the pastic bags&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T15:07:51.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12955" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12999" CreationDate="2015-04-07T19:45:27.103" Score="2" ViewCount="676" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am confused about the Chinese equivalent of &quot;Do you go with him&quot;. The sentence is a so-called yes/no question by many textbooks and grammar books. Using the VA-not-VA(Verb Adjective) to compose this question, I think it should be 你跟他一起去不去？But native Chinese people say: 你跟不跟他一起去？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;跟&quot; is a preposition, not a verb or adjective. Why is the VA-not-VA also applicable to preposition? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, why is 你跟他一起去不去 wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2015-04-07T20:27:50.167" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T13:15:22.717" Title="Why is 跟他一起去不去 wrong but 跟不跟他一起去 right" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12949" CreationDate="2015-04-07T20:09:56.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;First of all, why are there two lists of ingredient on each pack? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no clue. It doesn't make sense if there is only 1 zongzi in each pack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What is that 食品植物油? More precisely, what does that &quot;shípǐn&quot; add to the vegetable oil?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be 食用 (edible).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What is 焦糖色? &quot;jiàotáng&quot; would be &quot;caramel&quot;, but &quot;sè&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;色 means color/pigment/dye. 酿造酱油（含焦糖色）can be interpreted as 'fermented soy sauce (caramel-colored)'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What is the difference between 味精 and 谷氨酸钠? In particular, it seems like wèijīng is not actually &quot;monosodium glutamate&quot; but some kind of more general term.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MSG is the main ingredient for 味精 but not necessarily the only ingredient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What is 红绕? Is it a toponym?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be 红烧 (red-braised).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Why is 排骨 translated to &quot;pork ribs&quot; if it means only &quot;ribs&quot;? And does this mean there are actually bones in the dumplings or just the meat off the ribs?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese the 'default' meat is pork. Most 'body part' words like 排骨 (ribs), 肘子 (elbow), 口条 (tongue) refer to those of pork if the type of meat is not explicitly called out. In the detail ingredient list, however, you can see 猪排骨 is used for clarity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the description alone it is unclear whether the bones are excluded. Usually it is stated more clearly, something like 猪排骨肉 (meat from pork ribs) or 猪排骨(去骨) (pork ribs(without bones)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What are 食用香科?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be 食用香料 (edible flavors).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What does 调科 mean? Does it exist on its own or is it just some food name together with 红绕, i.e. 红绕调科 is some food often shortened to just 红绕?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be 调料 (seasoning/condiment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;8&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What does 抽提物 mean?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Extract/essence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;9&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What are 香辛科?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be 香辛料 (spices).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;红曲 would mean &quot;red food dye&quot;, but what's with that extra 红 at the end? What does this mean?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;红曲 refers to the mold (monascus purpureus) and 红曲红 (monascus red) refers to the red dye extracted from the mold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the translation right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from the open issues above, the translation is generally right. One thing is in English you don't need to say 'edible' in a food ingredient list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T20:09:56.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12957" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12966" CreationDate="2015-04-07T20:28:14.480" Score="5" ViewCount="813" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like Dr. Seuss' Wickershams and Wockets; Final Fantasy's Bandersnatches and Moogles; or Dr. Who's Daleks and Chronovores, English works of fiction (most commonly fantasy) often contain fictitious creatures and races with creative names that aren't found in the average dictionary. However, while authors describing their new worlds in English are able to throw together new words quite freely, Chinese authors can't exactly draw up new Chinese characters and expect anyone else to be able to read and understand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As seen in many translated works, many of these created names can be represented in Chinese phonetically ('Dalek' becomes '戴立克'), and sometimes the Chinese name of the new creature is created from its description (Harry Potter's 'basilisks' become '蛇怪', literally calling it a snake monster). This allows for the words to be represented in Chinese writing, but is there any way for a Chinese author to create an original word that isn't literal or spelt out the same way as foreign words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2978" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T07:36:58.387" Title="Are authors of Chinese fantasy novels able to create names for fictional creatures/races?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12949" CreationDate="2015-04-07T21:03:40.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd just like to add to the already comprehensive answer given by NSX with my guess as to why there are two ingredient lists. I think the same bag is probably used to package two different kinds of zongzi. If my guess is right, one of the two zongzi names should be highlighted, or have some kind of marking to indicate which of the two it is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T21:03:40.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12955" CreationDate="2015-04-07T21:42:17.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;跟 is a verb, it means ”follow”. In this context, it is a coverb, and the conclusion follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: see &lt;a href=&quot;http://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/133290/3/FullText.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/133290/3/FullText.pdf&lt;/a&gt; page 11, &lt;em&gt;1.6.2.1 Incapability to occur in A-not-A question&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A-not-A is a type of question in Chinese that elicits either an affirmative or negative answer as shown by the question structure (Li and Thompson, 1981). The formation of the A-not-A construction is regarded as a property of verbs in Li and Thompson’s grammar (1981:172,182). Some scholars employ this criterion to contrast verb and preposition and examine whether coverbs are verbs or prepositions (Chao, 1968, Eifring, 1995, Chen, 2002). Chao (1968) is not very explicit in his description of the property of A-not-A, but he mentions that the coverb construction in (9) is better analyzed as a V-not-V series, which shows that he regards A-not-A as a property of verbs. Prepositions do not usually function as the centre of predicate and therefore, prepositions do not occur in the A-not-A construction (Chao, 1968).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorDisplayName="user4452" LastEditDate="2015-04-07T21:58:51.057" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T21:58:51.057" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12960" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12961" CreationDate="2015-04-07T22:24:05.340" Score="1" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand what it means, ([I] really overpraised him or something), but I can't figure out a good english translation of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has the meaning of &quot;overlooking&quot; or &quot;looked up&quot; or something, but I can't find the correct word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T15:42:12.573" Title="An English equivalent of &quot;還真是抬舉他了&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12960" CreationDate="2015-04-08T01:16:07.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a kind of ironic meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about  'You're overdoing the praise a bit there, aren't you?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T01:16:07.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12962" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12963" CreationDate="2015-04-08T04:11:00.270" Score="4" ViewCount="1020" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm helping answer &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29444803/does-a-google-maps-coordinate-map-to-the-same-location-in-baidu-maps&quot;&gt;several&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15448149/googlemaps-gps-location-is-always-offset-in-china&quot;&gt;questions&lt;/a&gt; on StackOverflow &lt;a href=&quot;https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/141542/what-causes-the-gps-offset-shift-in-china&quot;&gt;and GIS.SE&lt;/a&gt; regarding the unique coordinate system used in China, and its interaction with Baidu Maps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While trying to machine translate the &lt;a href=&quot;http://developer.baidu.com/map/jsdemo.htm#a5_2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Map coordinates conversion API&lt;/a&gt;, I have these two strings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;google坐标转成百度坐标 - Convert Google coordinates into Baidu coordinates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;原始坐标转成百度坐标 - Convert ??? coordinates into Baidu coordinates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand what the second description refers to. The &quot;real&quot; GPS coordinates (WSG-84), or the &quot;original&quot; i.e. approved by the State Council &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China#Coordinate_systems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GCJ-02 coordinates&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google uses WGS-84 coordinates, so I'm inclining to believe the second option, but I see no reference to GCJ-02.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9712" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:41:53.630" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T06:39:20.580" Title="Google, &quot;heavenly&quot;/&quot;original&quot; and Baidu coordinates" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12962" CreationDate="2015-04-08T06:21:28.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's seems to be GPS coordinates (WGS-84).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, Google uses WGS-84 coordinates, but Google map uses State Council GCJ-02 coordinates in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;google坐标转成百度坐标 : GCJ-02 TO BAIDU(GCJ-02 + BD09)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;原始坐标转成百度坐标 : WGS-84 TO BAIDU(GCJ-02 + BD09)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnblogs.com/jz1108/archive/2011/10/11/2207245.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;百度地图API详解之坐标系转换&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnblogs.com/zhaohuionly/p/3142623.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GPS坐标换算为百度坐标&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://malagis.com/baidu-map-coordinate-transformation.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;百度地图坐标转换（gps google 百度坐标相互转换）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-04-08T06:39:20.580" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T06:39:20.580" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2015-04-08T07:11:01.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have different meanings but in practical they are used interchangeable especially about mass media.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;載體, from its sense, it is holder and container.&#xA;媒介, it is an agent that allows two or more parties interact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T07:11:01.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12925" CreationDate="2015-04-08T07:25:21.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;More native way is 災難收場.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;～收場：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;喜劇收場&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;悲劇收場&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;混亂收場&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way is 大災難結局, for some big ending in drama and film.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大～結局 ：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大團圓結局&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In writing, it could be 災難結尾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;～結尾：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;歡喜結尾&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might use other words like 災難收尾, 災難而終.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T07:25:21.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12957" CreationDate="2015-04-08T07:36:58.387" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is true that, compared to Chinese, English (and related languages) have an advantage in its alphabet and rules of pronunciation, such that you can easily make up new words by creatively arranging letters. Certain letters and syllables can evoke different feelings or cultures, which gives authors tremendous creative flexibility, and is exploited by great &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_creators&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;conlangers&lt;/a&gt;. The Chinese analogy is usually not possible, as readers can't figure out how to pronounce it, plus it would be a huge hassle for typesetting, which explains why you almost never see made-up Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not that it never happens though; as Stan mentioned it used to be done for mythical creatures, for example the characters in the famous &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qilin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;麒麟&lt;/a&gt; (a sort of chimeral-unicorn-deer creature) are almost never used for other words. More recently, some netizens created a character for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12623/what-does-duang-mean-in-online-chinese&quot;&gt;Jackie Chan / Duang thing&lt;/a&gt;, but since it's impossible to type it, who knows whether that will stick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, what Chinese authors can do is creatively combine known characters to create new words. Although this is a far cry from the flexibility afforded to made-up English words, the fact that Chinese is disyllabic means most characters typically have many meanings, which makes the meaning of fictional words ambiguous, and it is this special ambiguity that can add flavour to those words. For example, the fictional sword &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%80%9A%E5%A4%A9%E5%8A%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;倚天剑&lt;/a&gt;&quot; has multiple translations and meanings, without it being clear which one is right. 倚 could mean rely or close to, 天 usually means heaven but could also be a metaphor for royalty. Therefore, you could variously translate the sword as &quot;Heavenly Sword&quot;, &quot;Heaven Reliant Sword&quot;, or &quot;Royal Sword&quot;, &quot;Sky-scraping Sword&quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T07:36:58.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12918" CreationDate="2015-04-08T07:37:16.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, it is taught in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but rarely used in mainland China currently. During the early days of the Republic of China (ROC), a new set of punctuations was introduced in writing and printing. The traditional Chinese is written vertically and a straight line is drawn on the left side of proper noun. For those names of books, a wavy line is drawn instead.  For horizontal writing, a line is drawn under a proper noun. Its function is similar to the capitalisation of proper nouns in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T07:37:16.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12968" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12970" CreationDate="2015-04-08T08:37:30.997" Score="1" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;I'd rather be a dick than a swallower&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pretty straightforward. I tried to solve it by using google translate and what little of Chinese language knowledge I've got but I'm still not sure about it. Do I use the &quot;yǔqí-bùrú&quot; structure, and is it ok to use verb + 者 for swallower?  Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9329" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T11:23:00.693" Title="Translating a sentence" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2015-04-08T11:17:00.357" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这可能有习惯用语的成分在里面，通常：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;声音以空气为媒介传递，而较少说声音以空气为载体。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;通灵师（从事迷信活动并获得报酬的人）的肉体可以作为现世（the alive world)与彼岸（the dead world)联系的媒介，而较少说通灵师的肉体是某载体。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;信息传输以电磁波或光波为载体，而较少说信息传输以电磁波为媒介。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;磁带作为信息的载体，而较少说磁带作为信息的媒介。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蜜蜂充当了花粉授粉的媒介，而较少说蜜蜂充当了授粉的载体。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以认为，载体是一种媒介物，因此媒介的范畴通常要宽泛一些，但考虑到一些习惯用法因此实际上并不绝对。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="152" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T11:17:00.357" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12968" CreationDate="2015-04-08T11:23:00.693" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Uh...This sentence is not very polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can use  the &quot;yǔqí-bùrú&quot;（与其-不如） structure when you use Chinese to state &quot;A than B&quot; at some time. But I think another similar structure is more widely used and maybe more correct for this sentence:&quot;bǐqǐ-gèng&quot;（比起-更）or &quot;yǔqí-gèng&quot;(与其-更).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English: &lt;em&gt;I'd rather be a dick than a swallower&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese: &lt;em&gt;&quot;bǐqǐ&quot; to be a swallower, I &quot;gèng&quot; would like to be a dick&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's ok to use verb + &quot;者&quot; for swallower, but since &quot;dick&quot; shows up after &quot;swallower&quot; in Chinese, you'd better describe &quot;swallower&quot; more clearly like &quot;dick-swallow&quot;+&quot;者&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And since maybe you don't understand the culture difference between English and Chinese. I would like to give you another statements to help you translate this sentence better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared with being a dick-swallower, I would rather to the one whose dick is swallowed by others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared with being a man who swallow other's dick, I would rather to be a man who let others swallow his dick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9714" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T11:23:00.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12971" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-08T12:08:23.523" Score="1" ViewCount="642" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that for sentences such as &quot;this is a port that has been closed for 20 years&quot; I could use 的 or start another phrase.  Is it this way for &quot;which&quot; as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T14:38:13.627" Title="What's &quot;that&quot; and &quot;which&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12971" CreationDate="2015-04-08T12:19:23.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is.&#xA;In Chinese, dependent sentences are not so common, and most phrases could be used as adj. with '的'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &quot;这是一个已经关闭了20年的港口&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, you could also start another sentence to describe the meaning in 'which' clause, which could be separated by comma.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外，你也可以用另外一句话来表述'which'从句中的意思，这一句跟前一句可以用逗号分开。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3076" LastEditorUserId="3076" LastEditDate="2015-04-08T14:38:13.627" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T14:38:13.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12973" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-08T14:12:53.650" Score="4" ViewCount="580" Body="&lt;p&gt;True or False Question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classical Chinese,&#xA; “之” is usually used as a possessive pronoun (attributive), “其” is usually used as a subject, and “彼” is usually used as an object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a.       True b. False&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the statements about the “其” and “彼” are true. I'm not sure about the statement regarding “之”. I don't think &quot;possessive pronoun&quot; and &quot;attributive&quot; are equivalent. It's quite true that 之 can be used as a possessive marker (e.g.,美国之音).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9715" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T10:25:59.267" Title="Is “之” usually used as a possessive pronoun (attributive) in Classical Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;particles&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12974" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-08T14:27:02.560" Score="0" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have already looked this word up in mdbg, and have found nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T22:27:47.633" Title="What is 佈施? I found it on a bilingual blog" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-04-16T13:58:13.030" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12960" CreationDate="2015-04-08T18:07:31.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;An acceptable translation will be &quot;(You) overestimated him/her&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="2263" LastEditDate="2015-04-09T15:42:12.573" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T15:42:12.573" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12974" CreationDate="2015-04-08T22:27:47.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess you might want to tag it as religion (or move it to religion section in SE) as this is a question more related to buddhism than chinese language.  From this &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E5%BA%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;布施&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;指把自身所擁有或所知道的施予他人。除了財物的布施 (財布施) 外，還包括佛法的傳揚 (法布施) 和信心的給予 (無畏布施)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll try giving a simple explanation:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means to give / donate all you have / all you knows (your knowledges) to others.  Other than giving out all your wealth, it includes spreading of buddhism and giving others confident.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T22:27:47.633" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12977" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-09T01:14:25.663" Score="2" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm putting together an email campaign and have a headline in Traditional Chinese. In terms of formatting, is it acceptable to center the headline? Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9717" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T05:54:56.740" Title="Should I center a headline written in Traditional Chinese?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12978" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-09T01:27:04.997" Score="1" ViewCount="4075" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know what does this phrase mean in English. Please explain it with some example sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9718" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T22:17:08.250" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T22:17:08.250" Title="Could you help me explain the meaning of &quot;顺其自然&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2015-04-16T13:56:15.543" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12978" CreationDate="2015-04-09T01:40:54.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I am a Chinese, so I think I can have a try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;顺&quot;, means let it be, or just like the song from the movie &lt;em&gt;Froze&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;let it go.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;其&quot;, means itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;自然&quot;, means what it means to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, put it together, it means, just let it be what it should be, do not intervene. It usually used to comfort someone who just failed something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9719" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T01:40:54.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12980" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-09T01:43:34.900" Score="1" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;首次在天空中被人目击不到两年之后，中国新型“空警”-500预警机已经加入现役。“空警”-500预警机可以同时对470公里范围内的60多架飞机进行跟踪。“空警”-500“空中预警与控制系统”(AWACS)看起来更像是美国的空中预警机(其上部有圆形雷达穹顶)，但体积小一些，由运-9四引擎涡轮螺旋桨飞机(类似于美国的C-130)搭载。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know what the first sentence means, but what I am getting from this passage is that the AWACS is slightly smaller than the 空中预警机 and needs transporting by another vehicle, but a search on google images shows that it is an independent jet.  This is from sina.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-04-09T01:49:32.370" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T05:07:32.230" Title="Help understanding this passage" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12973" CreationDate="2015-04-09T01:54:57.660" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classical Chinese, &quot;之&quot; has the following meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.It means &quot;的&quot;, it turns the former words into adjective or adverbial for the later word. It's just for pronunciation. e.g.,缓兵之计, 不速之客, 莫逆之交&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.It means &quot;of&quot;. &quot;美国之音&quot; means &quot;音&quot; of &quot;美国&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.possessive pronoun. &quot;等闲视之”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.It means &quot;go to&quot;. &quot;吾欲之南海&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information, you can check &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=2sp6_iYtk-9kfFVbuhQ7eZM_a02PVvlilwySzWuQHCmGKN5GWlxIH7A7mizchaqFkOUZtKqJw5LC3L48VxqFC_&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9719" LastEditorUserId="9719" LastEditDate="2015-04-09T02:14:18.780" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T02:14:18.780" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12955" CreationDate="2015-04-09T02:03:47.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me explain it in another way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;跟他一起去不去&quot; means you are not sure about going(去) or not, but with him(跟他一起), maybe you will(去), or not(不去).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;跟不跟他一起去&quot; mean yes you are definitely going(去), but with him or not -- that depends, maybe you will go with others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9719" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T02:03:47.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12948" CreationDate="2015-04-09T02:47:08.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A blue-rules notebook 蓝横格本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rule, 横格&#xA;grid, 方格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T02:47:08.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12984" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12989" CreationDate="2015-04-09T03:07:14.957" Score="4" ViewCount="341" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several answers on this site suggest addressing a woman as  大姐 but that seems wrong for a professor speaking to a woman student.  To be clear, by professor here I mean a university professor speaking to a university student.  The term professor in English is more specific than 老師 in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation would be speaking to a student in class, or in office hours, or when meeting them on campus, when it is not a student that I have worked closely with.  In the US I normally address students in this situation as Mr or Ms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be best to use the student's full name with no title?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the difference between teacher and professor, in both US usage and UK, see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/13187/whats-the-difference-between-teacher-and-professor&quot;&gt;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/13187/whats-the-difference-between-teacher-and-professor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I almost left out any mention of not using 小姐.  It now well known that this is not good on the mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:38:11.437" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T05:02:48.073" Title="How should a professor address a woman student?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12984" CreationDate="2015-04-09T03:45:21.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should address her by her name. either full name or first name. Calling anything other than that makes it extremely weird. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9721" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T03:45:21.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12984" CreationDate="2015-04-09T03:46:23.847" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think called her full name or just 同学 is okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T03:46:23.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12980" CreationDate="2015-04-09T03:58:52.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;AWACS is abbreviation of Airborne Warning and Control System and it's just a control system that need to be set on a jet. &#xA;空中预警机 is an independent jet that has AWACS on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T03:58:52.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12984" CreationDate="2015-04-09T04:05:12.927" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few different ways depending on how well the prof knows her and how formal the situation is. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张玲玲 full name: all purpose, not too formal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玲玲 given names only: if s/he knows her quite well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, however, that if her given name consists of just one syllable/character, then usually full name is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张玲玲同學 full name + address term: formal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张同學 family name + address term: formal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女生 is not used as an address term. Use this when you want to say, for instance, &quot;I have ten female students.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2015-04-10T05:02:48.073" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T05:02:48.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12977" CreationDate="2015-04-09T05:54:56.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, we always do that in email.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9719" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T05:54:56.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12980" CreationDate="2015-04-09T06:10:08.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hope I didn't make too many mistakes! Makes a change from my text book!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;首次在天空中被人目击不到两年之后，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the first time in the air in 2 years, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国新型“空警”-500预警机已经加入现役。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China's new type of 'sky patrol' early warning aircraft has joined active service.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“空警”-500预警机可以同时对470公里范围内的60多架飞机进行 跟踪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 'sky patrol'-500 early warning aircraft can simultaneously track more than 60 aircraft within a radius of 470 Kilometers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“空警”-500“空中预警与控制系统”(AWACS)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Sky patrol'-500 airborne early warning and control system (AWACS) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看起来更像是美国的空中预警机，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;resembles the American airborne early warning system &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(其上部有圆形雷达穹顶)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(whose upper section is a circular radar dome)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但体积小一些，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;however, the dome is somewhat smaller,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由运-9四引擎涡轮 螺旋桨飞机&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aeroplane is powered by 4 Yun-9 turboprop engines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(类似于美国的C-130)搭载。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(similar to the American C-130) transporter aircraft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T06:10:08.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12984" CreationDate="2015-04-09T08:19:10.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In what situation do you want to address her?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, just use full name and no title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the student is much younger than you, sometimes you can call her &lt;code&gt;小&lt;/code&gt;+&lt;code&gt;her family name&lt;/code&gt;. For example, if her name is &lt;code&gt;陈婷婷&lt;/code&gt;, you may call her &lt;code&gt;小陈&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T08:19:10.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12993" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13013" CreationDate="2015-04-09T09:06:54.890" Score="2" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;What different terms for money have there been throughout history?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;孔方兄&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;上清童子&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time period used too would be nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T01:48:24.470" Title="Different terms for money throughout history" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12993" CreationDate="2015-04-09T09:34:46.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;阿堵物 -&quot;that stuff&quot;-was popular during the 晉 period and remained a literary way to refer to money. Source: 世說新語. Interestingly I think a close variant of 阿堵 to mean &quot;that&quot; is still used I believed in 閩南語？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T09:34:46.900" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12995" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30989" CreationDate="2015-04-09T09:36:46.200" Score="6" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't fiugure out suitable mnemonic for 御. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does someone has a good idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-08-07T13:14:02.273" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T09:03:30.653" Title="Mnemonic or Glyph Origin for 御" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12995" CreationDate="2015-04-09T10:45:33.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stop driving carriage at noon.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Va3I7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm boring...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope you can figure it out....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explanation really hurts,my English very bad,now I feel my brain'RAM overflowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;御 originally means 'driving a carriage'. This carriage need two people to fire up just like the one in the  picture . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be broken down into several parts：彳，卸。&#xA;If you  think 卸 is still too complex,then break it down to  午，止，卩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;彳：There are a lot of character involve it,this component means 'two people' or '行'.&#xA;卩： imagine a  nodding horse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't continue to explain, I see that &quot;blue screen&quot;. Sorry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2015-04-09T11:14:49.667" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T11:14:49.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12998" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-09T13:07:05.973" Score="1" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have 在大家面前 and 在公共场所。It is for the sentence &quot;I don't want to say this in front of everyone.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T01:48:05.260" Title="How to say &quot;in front of everyone&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12955" CreationDate="2015-04-09T13:25:20.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese prepositions are also verbs. For example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在: to be (at) (verb), at (preposition)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;跟: to follow (verb), with (preposition)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;给: to give (verb), to, for (preposition)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For that reason, they do carry their verb features even when acting as prepositions. And for what I've seen since I started studying Chinese, the first verb is always the one that's negated and that's inserted in the V/A-not-V/A structure. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;在不在&lt;/strong&gt;中国学中文？/我&lt;strong&gt;不在&lt;/strong&gt;中国学中文。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他&lt;strong&gt;跟不跟&lt;/strong&gt;妈妈一起吃饭？/他&lt;strong&gt;不跟&lt;/strong&gt;妈妈吃饭。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你&lt;strong&gt;给没给&lt;/strong&gt;女朋友打电话？/我&lt;strong&gt;没给&lt;/strong&gt;女朋友打电话。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他&lt;strong&gt;想不想&lt;/strong&gt;去看电影？/他&lt;strong&gt;不想&lt;/strong&gt;去看电影。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你&lt;strong&gt;比不比&lt;/strong&gt;他高？/我&lt;strong&gt;不比&lt;/strong&gt;他高。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你&lt;strong&gt;把没把&lt;/strong&gt;书带来？/我&lt;strong&gt;没把&lt;/strong&gt;书带来。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;(if there are any mistakes in my examples, I'd appreciate if a native speaker could point them out)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the &quot;prepositions&quot; are always negated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may negate other parts of the sentence, but the &quot;neutral&quot; negation is always negating the first verb in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps. Cheers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2015-04-10T13:15:22.717" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T13:15:22.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12998" CreationDate="2015-04-09T15:06:10.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;formal one: 众目睽睽之下&#xA;normal one: 在大家面前 / 在大家都在的时候 (If you know the guys around you, else: ) 在这么多人面前 / 在这么多人在的时候&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence: 我不想在大家都在的时候说这种话(If you know the guys around you, else: ) 我不想在这么多人面前说这种话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T15:06:10.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13002" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-09T15:13:07.077" Score="1" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;哦，您原来跟齐天大圣一个姓埃我爸差点晕倒。。&#xA;I found this on &lt;a href=&quot;http://m.zol.com.cn/xiaohua/detail45/44743.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://m.zol.com.cn/xiaohua/detail45/44743.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T15:53:32.480" Title="What does this line mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12984" CreationDate="2015-04-09T15:13:24.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can call their name directly or just call them 同学 if their names are unknown for you. These're the most safe option all the time. We, Chinese, are used to it and it's not embarrassing. Also, if you are a professor in a university, they call you 教授 most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, 小姐 or 大姐 are in the danger zone of Chinese Language. Abuse of them may cause some problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T15:13:24.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12980" CreationDate="2015-04-09T15:39:24.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be a introduction to the &quot;“空警”-500预警机&quot;, it's a type of military alert aircraft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;首次在天空中被人目击不到两年之后，中国新型“空警”-500预警机已经加入现役。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;told us it had been tested for two years before been equipted by PLA and unavoidably been exposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“空警”-500预警机可以同时对470公里范围内的60多架飞机进行跟踪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's able to track 60 separate aircrafts within 470 km.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“空警”-500“空中预警与控制系统”(AWACS)看起来更像是美国的空中预警机(其上部有圆形雷达穹顶)，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The AWACS(The same meaning: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_early_warning_and_control&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;AEW&amp;amp;C&lt;/a&gt; System) makes it look like one that made in US since there is a rounded shell that contains radar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但体积小一些，由(类似于美国的C-130)搭载。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, its size is smaller than the US one and its carried by the plain &quot;运-9四引擎涡轮螺旋桨飞机&quot; which looks like C-130.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T15:39:24.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13005" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13010" CreationDate="2015-04-09T15:48:41.013" Score="3" ViewCount="548" Body="&lt;p&gt;I live in the US but have friends I see in China, some of whom have one-character given names (that is &quot;first&quot; name in English usage, &quot;second&quot; name in Chinese usage).  I know that often people avoid using a one-character given name by itself since it lacks weight, as said by monalisa at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12984/how-should-a-professor-address-a-woman-student/12989#12989&quot;&gt;How should a professor address a woman student?&lt;/a&gt;.  So where a close friend might call 曾國藩 just 國藩, an equally close friend would call  张扬 by the full name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it seems that sometimes in conversations and in e-mails, Chinese people do call a friend by a one-character given name.  Am I mistaken to believe that?  Or is it just because the people I know have mostly worked and studied some in the west and they often use English in their work? Or is it something that only very close friends would do? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T04:17:01.357" Title="When do people use a one-character given name alone?" Tags="&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13002" CreationDate="2015-04-09T15:53:32.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我爸是个医生。有一次，我爸给一个病人看玻那个病人问:请问您尊姓大名？我爸说:姓齐。那个病人说：哦，您原来跟齐天大圣一个姓埃我爸差点晕倒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real name of 齐天大圣 is 孙悟空 (one of the major characters in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;西游记&lt;/a&gt;) so its family name is 孙, but the patient misinterpreted, he think his family name is齐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe I could translate it in EN:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My father is a doctor. Once he met a patient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The patient: &quot;What's your name, sir?&quot;(very formal/serious tone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My father: &quot;My family name is 齐(qi)&quot; (We won't call one's first name&#xA;  if we're not familiar to him in general for regard)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The patient: &quot;Wow, your family name is the same as&#xA;  齐(qi)天(tian)大(da)圣(sheng)'s!&quot;(surprised tone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My father nearly passed out at that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T15:53:32.480" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13005" CreationDate="2015-04-09T16:17:12.880" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can duplicate that character (if you are really familiar to him/her). Even you can do that the same with three-char names. For example, 曾國藩, you can just call her 藩藩. You can find it if one's name have a char that pronounces the 1st, 2nd or 4nd tone, you can do duplication. For example, 张扬: 扬扬.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note 1: Some pronunciation should be changed, otherwise it will be weird for locals:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2nd tone: The second char should pronounce as the 4th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3rd tone: Won't be used in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4th tone: The second char should pronounce as a lower tone than the first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note 2: Some Pinyin combination won't be used to duplicate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3rd tone: Won't be used in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note 3: Never be confused with the meaning of the duplicated word, you will never write them onto the formal papers right? or, you can find for some char with positive meanings to replace them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you should ask to your friends first, they may be interested in it, LOL.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastEditorDisplayName="user6617" LastEditDate="2015-04-10T04:17:01.357" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T04:17:01.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12984" CreationDate="2015-04-09T16:18:18.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I basically think if the social status and age are higher than other person's, it will be appropriate if you call him/her the full name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@monalisa has already given a very full answer based on the situation. I just want to add a very rare case. There are several two character Chinese family names, such as 司马，令狐，皇甫 etc. Actually, I always have one classmate whose family name has two character. In this case, you won't call him/her such as 司马相如同学 in formal situation. It is a little bit cumbersome. You can call him/her 司马同学，相如同学 in formal. And in informal situation, you can call him/her 司马, 司马相如 or 相如。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also be aware of this: if someone's name is 令狐冲，令狐 is his family name and 冲 is his given name. You can call him 令狐同学 in formal way, and call him 令狐，令狐冲 in informal way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One rule in thumb, never call other person in a single character, such as 冲， unless you are lovers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9724" LastEditorUserId="9724" LastEditDate="2015-04-09T16:28:45.523" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T16:28:45.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13009" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13011" CreationDate="2015-04-09T16:47:02.730" Score="2" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an ad for Cathay Pacific posted in downtown Boston. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/31789321@N03/16882394887/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.flickr.com/photos/31789321@N03/16882394887/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It reads: &#xA;波士頓至香港&#xA;不停站&#xA;每周四班&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am surprised by two things in this ad copy that I think might be wrong.  First, shouldn't &quot;至&quot; be &quot;到&quot;?  Second, since this ad uses traditional characters (as seen up top in the part I didn't get in the photo), shouldn't &quot;周&quot; be &quot;週&quot;?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for any help and clarity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Nawen &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9565" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T17:30:40.027" Title="Is this ad wrong? Or, is my understanding wrong (quite possible)" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13005" CreationDate="2015-04-09T16:57:01.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For one character given name, I won't write only his/her given name in a letter in Chinese unless we are in a relationship. But in English, that is very normal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I have several very close friends whose given names are one character. But I  won't call them given name in Chinese. On the contrary, if I mention him/her in English, I will use his/her given name directly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And one thing I can tell you, I have two character given name. In China,  only my parents or my elder female relatives will call me my given name. My close friends call me nickname. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9724" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T16:57:01.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13009" CreationDate="2015-04-09T17:30:40.027" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 至 and 到 mean &lt;code&gt;to&lt;/code&gt;, but 至 is often used in written Chinese, so it's not a mistake, 周 and 週 are both correct in traditional Chinese, mean week, but we don't use 週 in Simple Chinese, even everyone can understand it &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9725" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T17:30:40.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12998" CreationDate="2015-04-09T19:02:01.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;公開 is probably the shortest way to capture what you want to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不想公開講這些話。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't want to say this in public/ in front of everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T19:02:01.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12993" CreationDate="2015-04-10T01:41:05.743" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;泉     战国&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;邓通   汉&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;货泉   汉&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;白水真人 汉&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;阿堵物 南北朝&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;孔方兄 晋&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;青蚨 -&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上清童子 唐&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没奈何 宋&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=8nckMIY7wka27HkNc4-j47iyrF5Qhn5dTPw3kjYrDeLFnxzlNPkaK2IEdWSlf5t4xGegFG2_-Q5rIJc9vHBjca&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;不动尊&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;袁大头 民国&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大团结 1949之后&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;毛爷爷 当代&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ref &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_640089030100louv.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9719" LastEditorUserId="9719" LastEditDate="2015-04-10T01:48:24.470" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T01:48:24.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12998" CreationDate="2015-04-10T01:48:05.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't want to say this in front of everyone&#xA;= 我不想在大家面前说这个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9729" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T01:48:05.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13024" CreationDate="2015-04-10T02:36:55.573" Score="15" ViewCount="53541" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, formal emails, e.g. emails to a professor, often start with &amp;quot;Hi&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Hello&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Dear&amp;quot; followed by the receiver's name (and title, if applicable). The ending is usually &amp;quot;Best&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Regards&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Sincerely&amp;quot; followed by the writer's name. Does Chinese have similar constructs? Or does it have more/less strict rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T05:57:08.757" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T05:57:08.757" Title="What is the formal/polite way to begin and end an email in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;&lt;formal&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13016" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13020" CreationDate="2015-04-10T02:50:07.630" Score="4" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;As titled. They seem to be made up of the same two components: 羊 and 君. As such, are they interchangeable? Or do they have different usage regardless?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T20:39:47.537" Title="What is the difference between 群 and 羣?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13015" CreationDate="2015-04-10T03:21:34.843" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will give you a example, explanation in the brackets, see if it's useful to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this is a email I sent to my client, I think this format is kind of formal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  孔经理：(he's a manager, and his family name is Kong, it's impolite to call    somebody's name in a formal letter)&#xA;&#xA;  blablabla&#xA;&#xA;  此致(this word means &quot;I finish my word here&quot; or &quot;this is the end of this letter&quot;, you should always use this word as an ending word in a personal letter or )&#xA;&#xA;  My name&#xA;&#xA; 2015.xx.xx&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it's helpful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此致&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9729" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-04-10T04:58:34.330" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T04:58:34.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13016" CreationDate="2015-04-10T03:41:04.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BC%82%E4%BD%93%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;异体字(variant Chinese character)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their meaning and pronunciation are same, only different in shape. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, &lt;code&gt;群&lt;/code&gt; is most orthodox and known as orthodox characters(&lt;code&gt;正字&lt;/code&gt;), &lt;code&gt;羣&lt;/code&gt; is the &lt;code&gt;异体字&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T03:41:04.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13016" CreationDate="2015-04-10T03:44:53.523" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/js/7FA3.htm&quot;&gt;羣&lt;/a&gt; is an archaic variant of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/js/7FA4.htm&quot;&gt;群&lt;/a&gt;. That is, although they mean the same thing, you would use 群 nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, 羣 appears to have been the &quot;correct&quot; version in the past, and at some point 群 took that place:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms&quot;&gt;Three Kingdoms&lt;/a&gt; politician by the name of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Qun&quot;&gt;陳羣&lt;/a&gt;, whereas the identically named &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_(1912%E2%80%9349)&quot;&gt;Republican&lt;/a&gt; politician &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%99%88%E7%BE%A4_(%E6%B0%91%E5%9B%BD)&quot;&gt;陳群&lt;/a&gt;, use different characters in the last name.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/kx/7FA4.htm&quot;&gt;The Kangxi dictionary entry for 群&lt;/a&gt; states that it is a &quot;vulgar variant&quot; (《五經文字》羣，俗作群。), so the transition was at least between Qing and Republic of China.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T03:44:53.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12978" CreationDate="2015-04-10T04:26:59.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't say let it go express the same idea here. Let it go kind of means fully express yourself the way you are, while 顺其自然 describes a future state, to let things happen naturally, accept whatever coming along the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my suggestion: Let it be. As in Beetle's &lt;em&gt;Let it be&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9709" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T04:26:59.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12980" CreationDate="2015-04-10T05:07:32.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The AWACS is a system, carried by a jet, since this jet is fully served as a carrier of this warning system, we can refer this jet as a airborne warning and control system too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I figure what made you confused is that AWACS mean a system and a jet at the same time in paragraph you quoted, just to know that 系统(system) can be a concept, an idea, a theory, or an object.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear, let's take a look at this paragraph again: &#xA;首次在天空中被人目击不到两年之后，中国新型“空警”-500预警机(&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;code&gt;a jet with the warning system&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;)已经加入现役。“空警”-500预警机(&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;code&gt;a jet with the warning system&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;)可以同时对470公里范围内的60多架飞机进行跟踪。“空警”-500“空中预警与控制系统”(AWACS)(&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;code&gt;a jet with the warning system&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;)看起来更像是美国的空中预警机(&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;code&gt;a jet with warning system&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;)(其上部有圆形雷达穹顶)，但体积小一些(&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;code&gt;空警-500 jet is smaller than the US jet with the warning system&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;)，由运-9四引擎涡轮螺旋桨飞机(类似于美国的C-130)搭载。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9709" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T05:07:32.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13015" CreationDate="2015-04-10T08:10:28.250" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The traditional Chinese letter is very complex.It has many honorifics that vary greatly for different receivers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But today,most people's traditional education is insufficient to write these letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For email,people tend to write simply and practicably。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Habitual formation。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Y7dJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;                                                &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;周老师：&#xA;    您好！&#xA;    我是Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, &#xA;sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna a...&#xA;    这个Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, &#xA;sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna a...&#xA;    敬祝！&#xA;安康！&#xA;&#xA;                                                       学生 Jacob  敬上&#xA;                                                       2015.04.10&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;陈英俊先生 道鉴&#xA;    去年入先生门下，承蒙恩师言传身教，宿愿得偿。中文潦草，敬启夫子。&#xA;     。。。。。。&#xA;     。。。。。。。。&#xA;     。。。。。。。。。。。&#xA;&#xA;    敬请&#xA; 教安 &#xA;                                                        授业  张三顿首&#xA;                                                        乙未 二月廿二&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2015-04-10T16:09:42.250" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T16:09:42.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13025" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-10T09:30:54.770" Score="5" ViewCount="915" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你為什麼打我？ 是沒梗了嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering what 沒梗 means in this context. I know the literal translation is  'no stem', but I'm sure there should be an idiomatic meaning to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9416" LastEditorUserId="9416" LastEditDate="2015-04-10T09:45:03.083" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T02:38:43.820" Title="Meaning of '沒梗'?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13025" CreationDate="2015-04-10T09:58:09.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;梗&lt;/code&gt;, the point ( of joke ), &lt;code&gt;没梗&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;There's no points, not funny&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: &lt;code&gt;梗&lt;/code&gt; is a wrongly used word, even it's widely used nowadays (especially at Taiwan). It should be &lt;code&gt;哏&lt;/code&gt;, which often used for &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/786/4072&quot;&gt;相声&lt;/a&gt;, means the funny thing, the punch line, the point of laugh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1439412199&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1439412199&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T15:37:45.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12978" CreationDate="2015-04-10T12:27:56.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichineselearning.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;online Chinese tutor&lt;/a&gt; at iChineseLearning. Hope my answer will help you.As for your question:&#xA;顺其自然 is a Chinese idiom which literally means &quot;(let things) follow the natural way.&quot;&#xA;顺 has the meaning of &quot;to follow, to obey&quot;&#xA;其 is traditional Chinese, has the same meaning as the modern Chinese phrase &quot;他的，她的 or 它的&quot;.&#xA;自然 is nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe this example can best tell its meaning:&#xA;我们已经努力了，能不能通过考试，只能顺其自然了。&#xA;translation: We have tried our best. Whether we can pass the exam，just let nature take its course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9733" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T12:27:56.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="786" CreationDate="2015-04-10T12:31:20.767" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;相声 or the cross talk is like a talk show, usually performed by 2 people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9733" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T12:31:20.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13025" CreationDate="2015-04-10T12:33:28.877" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in @songyuanyao's answer, &lt;code&gt;梗&lt;/code&gt; is a common typo of the word &lt;code&gt;哏&lt;/code&gt;. In fact, you can barely find the correct usage &lt;code&gt;哏&lt;/code&gt; in some Chinese-speaking communities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word originally meant &lt;code&gt;funny, amusing&lt;/code&gt;, but then, as @songyuanyao mentioned, it became a technical term in &lt;code&gt;相聲&lt;/code&gt;. To help you understand better, &lt;code&gt;相聲&lt;/code&gt; are most similar to standup comedies in English, except it's usually played by two people. &lt;code&gt;哏&lt;/code&gt; can be understood as a joke that is often implicitly presented in a speech. Note that the joke here can refer to as a particular word or phrase that is only humorous in a certain context as well as a standalone joke. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to your example, the second sentence can be translated to &lt;code&gt;are you out of jokes?&lt;/code&gt;. A possible instance of your example would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ａ：「你每次都打人，有沒有什麼新招啊？」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ｂ打Ａ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ａ：「你為什麼打我？ 是沒梗了嗎？」&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &quot;You always hit others, can you do any better?&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B hits A.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &quot;What? You out of jokes? Is that the best you got?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T12:33:28.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13030" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13049" CreationDate="2015-04-10T15:06:13.350" Score="3" ViewCount="4751" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please help, I'm not getting this, 听来我不懂! Could you please use examples in your answer? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9734" LastActivityDate="2016-08-14T02:18:44.187" Title="What is the difference between 看来， 看起来， and 看出来 ？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13031" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13035" CreationDate="2015-04-10T15:34:00.147" Score="4" ViewCount="5120" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Or are there really that many that I'm asking a dumb question?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've started learning traditional characters first and once I gather the knowledge of around 2000-3000 characters I was thinking of learning the simplified versions of the words I know, and in order to make an Anki list I was wondering if there's one comprehensive list with all the different words/characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;謝謝!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9735" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T22:47:20.627" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T22:47:20.627" Title="Is there one complete list showing Traditional characters in Simplified?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13031" CreationDate="2015-04-10T17:46:08.347" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's one &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sayjack.com/chinese/simplified-to-traditional-chinese-conversion-table/&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; with 2580 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9416" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T17:46:08.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13031" CreationDate="2015-04-10T19:25:59.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For your purpose, instead of learning from a huge list of word pairs, you can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://opencc.byvoid.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;OpenCC&lt;/a&gt;. It allows you to convert between simplified and traditional Chinese. One big advantage of learning with this tool is that you can also learn different word-choices among the Chinese-speaking communities, e.g. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T19:25:59.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13037" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13042" CreationDate="2015-04-10T20:22:48.673" Score="4" ViewCount="1104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this phrase recently in a post online. The whole sentence is &lt;code&gt;人生得一知己足矣&lt;/code&gt;. I think &lt;code&gt;人生得一知己&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;getting a BFF(?) in one's life&quot;. (The only meaning of the word &lt;code&gt;知己&lt;/code&gt; that I know of is BFF, but please correct me if I am wrong!) What does &lt;code&gt;足矣&lt;/code&gt; mean? Is it a phrase or is it two separate words that just happened to be together in this example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, is this a phrase used in classical Chinese? The sentence structure looks different from modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T00:03:50.027" Title="What does the phrase &quot;足矣&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13038" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13040" CreationDate="2015-04-10T20:40:13.933" Score="3" ViewCount="1134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard my Chinese-speaking friends asking each other &lt;code&gt;吃飽了嗎？&lt;/code&gt; several times when they are done or almost done with their own meal. And I have wondered, &quot;Why would they ask others such question? Would it not imply that they are rushing others to eat faster?&quot; I feel that the question indicates impatience and can be rather offensive, especially to those with a slower pace. Nonetheless, I tend to believe that the question has other implications. As such, is it really intended to rush others to eat faster?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T14:13:28.127" Title="Why do people say &quot;吃飽了嗎&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13038" CreationDate="2015-04-10T21:00:50.680" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It has more of an 'are you satisfied?' feel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9416" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T21:00:50.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13038" CreationDate="2015-04-10T21:35:24.883" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;When asking a Chinese person &quot;are you full&quot; when eating a meal its like asking &quot;are you enjoying your meal?&quot; The host will be happy if he knows you are full.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when someone says 你吃飽了嗎？ to you when not eating a meal. it means &quot;Are you stupid?&quot; or &quot;Are you crazy?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9297" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T21:35:24.883" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13038" CreationDate="2015-04-10T22:37:13.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is nothing more than a sympathetic gesture. The more general 吃饭了没有？ just means ”how ya doing?”, ”are you alright?”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T22:37:13.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13037" CreationDate="2015-04-10T23:35:32.147" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;足矣 means (lucky) enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the whole sentence means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;knowing a person who understand you (soul mate? I think) in one's life is enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Implicit meaning: many people won't have even one soul mate all his/her life. When you have one, you are lucky enough. So please appreciate it and don't ask for more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T23:35:32.147" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13037" CreationDate="2015-04-10T23:46:01.477" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about '在世界上有一个好朋友够了‘？ Although it seems 知己 does not exactly match 好朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence is actually 人生得一知己足矣，斯世，当同怀视之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Got this from 百度：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase was written by 鲁迅 for 瞿秋白。Its meaning is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要有一个充分理解自己的真朋友就可以了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 知己 = 一个充分理解自己的真朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-04-11T00:03:50.027" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T00:03:50.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13044" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-11T00:08:43.010" Score="4" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is as the title. The English equivalent is: There is a middle school in our village.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the correct one is &quot;我们村里有一所中学&quot;. But I think adding 在 at the beginning is also okay. So I am surprised when someone told me &quot;在&quot; shouldn't be there. Can anyone explain why? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T00:27:56.777" Title="Is 在我们村里有一所中学 incorrect?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13030" CreationDate="2015-04-11T00:13:54.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, 看来=看起来=it seems. You may replace one by the other in most cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 看(起)来是我赢了比赛。 It seems I won the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看出来=figure out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 你怎么看出来谁是罪犯？ how did you figure out who is the criminal？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T00:13:54.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13044" CreationDate="2015-04-11T00:17:26.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们村里有一所中学 = 在我们村里有一所中学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of them are correct. Adding &quot;在&quot; makes it a bit more formal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T00:17:26.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13044" CreationDate="2015-04-11T00:27:56.777" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, &quot;在我们村里有一所中学&quot; is the equivalent Chinese expression of &quot;There is a middle school in our village.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the equivalent English expression of &quot;我们村里有一所中学&quot; should be &quot;Our village have a middle school.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在我们村里有一所中学&quot; often used in written language, if you mean spoken language, &quot;我们村里有一所中学&quot; is more often used than &quot;在我们村里有一所中学&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2896" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T00:27:56.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13048" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13050" CreationDate="2015-04-11T01:11:44.000" Score="2" ViewCount="1654" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading a description of a web novel, and it said something about &quot;禦姐/御姐&quot;, and I'm wondering what does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it is describing females, but what would be a good english translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T06:05:12.397" Title="What does &quot;禦姐&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13030" CreationDate="2015-04-11T01:26:25.657" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously, this is a tricky one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know these three phrases have some same words and looks no differences for foreigner, but they are very different! If I give you one example for each phrase, you still will get confused when you meet a different one, so I'm gonna show you how to fishing instead of just give you a fish, in another word, master those three 'bastards'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看来: mean looks like or seems. This phase usually stand for an &lt;strong&gt;quick and dramatically&lt;/strong&gt; attitude change, like it or not doesn't matter. Example: &quot;I told you so (我告诉过你).&quot; the other person most likely say &quot;looks like you are right. (看来你是对的)&quot;  despite that he/she didn't want to admit it. Or he/she admit it after learned by his/her own experience, example: &quot;the lung exam show there are cancer cells in there, looks like I should quit smoking. (肺部检查显示那里有癌细胞，看起来我应该戒烟)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看出来: mean figure out, get some results. I give you some thing, some entity, some person, some question, some being, some creature, some machine, you look &lt;strong&gt;closely&lt;/strong&gt;, study, research, do stuff, and I come back, ask you &quot;你&lt;strong&gt;看出来&lt;/strong&gt;什么门道儿了吗？(Did you &lt;strong&gt;figure out&lt;/strong&gt; something yet?)&quot;, it means I want get some results, some answers from you, those information go in and through your brain, you process them, and you need to produce something, give some &lt;strong&gt;output&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看起来, mean (it/he/she/thing) looks like or seems. When use this phrase, it means whatever the subject or object is, it usually not taking too much effort, or &lt;strong&gt;no need to get a closer look&lt;/strong&gt;, or a deep digging, the answer is easily observed from the appearance of object or direct message from the subject/matter. Example: &quot;It &lt;strong&gt;looks like&lt;/strong&gt; our suspect's get away car just get away without him.&quot; &quot;&lt;strong&gt;看起来&lt;/strong&gt;我们嫌疑犯的逃脱车没带他就跑了。&quot; and there is one more, in the US movie/television show, when a cheating scene get caught, the character usually say &quot;it(thing) is not what it looks like.&quot; you shouldn't translate or express in Chinese with &quot;这(件事)并不是&lt;strong&gt;看起来&lt;/strong&gt;的那样。&quot;, because this is better &quot;这(件事)并不是&lt;strong&gt;看上去&lt;/strong&gt;的那样。&quot;, there you go, you just learn another one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, by the way, you really should register a stackexchange account!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2896" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T01:26:25.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13048" CreationDate="2015-04-11T01:44:16.323" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a loan word from Japanese Kanji word &quot;御姉&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's wildly used in ACG subculture. ACG is short for Anime (not animation), Comics (Manga actually) and Games. Now it has become ACGN with the addition of &quot;Light Novel&quot; which holds similar market niche in Asia like Twilight does in western.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, in those subculture, popular characteristics of &quot;ideal&quot; image of Asian girls are cuteness and petiteness. &quot;御姉&quot;, in contrary, is used to describe females that can be characterized as sexy, mature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To gain a more vivid impression, you can google pictures for 御姐/御姉 and compare the result with the result of 蘿莉/ロリ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;!! Warning !!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just know these stuff based on my intellectual curiosity. Don't blame me if people call you a pervert if you keep saying these stuff to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-06-11T06:05:12.397" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T06:05:12.397" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13025" CreationDate="2015-04-11T01:58:59.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's due to the popularity of banter style conversations. You can understand 梗 as materials or punch lines. More generalised, it could mean an effective response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a more natural translation for 没梗 would be along the line of &quot;out of stuff&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full sentence would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Why did you hit me! Are you out of stuff!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in a confrontational conversation, parties are supposed to battle with each other with their debate skills. However when on party that is out of stuff and cannot come up with an effective response, the party may escalate the situation to physical confrontation which is considered stupid. By the way, I'm not taking about this as a Chinese culture thing, it's universal human behavior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Banter&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in the bullshitting (扯淡) part of our modern Chinese culture, an interactive bullshitting conversation session should be refreshing, interesting and enjoyable. Each party is supposed to bring up something interesting, novel or clever, otherwise the bullshit is just bullshit. Now more and more day to day conversations are adopting this style, especially among close friends and online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-04-12T02:38:43.820" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T02:38:43.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12978" CreationDate="2015-04-11T02:02:39.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;顺其自然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let things evolve following its natural ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's similar to &quot;let it be&quot; or &quot;see how it goes&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T02:02:39.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13053" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13054" CreationDate="2015-04-11T02:18:03.260" Score="4" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;xxx翻起了短信&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that 翻 can mean flp, cross, etc. So does the phrase mean &quot;flipping through messages&quot; or &quot;crossing through messages&quot;, aka &quot;deleting messages&quot;? Could it also mean &quot;replying to messages&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T03:48:29.783" Title="What does &quot;翻起了短信&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13053" CreationDate="2015-04-11T03:48:29.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Filpping through text messages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9742" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T03:48:29.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13055" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13056" CreationDate="2015-04-11T05:21:47.037" Score="2" ViewCount="330" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only translation I can find has to do with strings...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I heard this phrase when someone was speaking about 四川菜, is this related to 火锅？ Is this phrase a joke of sorts about the Sichuan dialect ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Haha, Thank you for your answer(s) : ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9734" LastEditorUserId="9734" LastEditDate="2015-04-11T05:43:51.857" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T10:10:51.337" Title="What is the meaning of 串串儿？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13055" CreationDate="2015-04-11T05:33:37.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Read 串 then 串儿, a bit like 麻辣烫 on sticks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uf1tv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;串串儿&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T10:10:51.337" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12973" CreationDate="2015-04-11T06:16:53.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;So you're asking if it's possessive in Classical Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is certainly possessive. I learned that 之 is a classical way to say 的, making it a possessive particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example sentence would be 父母之爱 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I've seen examples like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自知之明, which to me indicates it is attributive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However if you're asking whether or not 之 can function as a pronoun - the answwer is yes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand possessive to mean that an object &quot;own's&quot;  a characteristic or another object. e.g. 我的肚子 (it's MY stomach). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand &quot;attributive&quot; to mean that a quality ( e.g.快）is associated with the object or subject (e.g. 兔子） ＝ 快的兔子。 ( in this example the quality fast, is attributed to the rabbit) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hahaha, hope that helps. Not sure about 其 or 彼.... :S&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.我聪明之老师 (杨老师） &#xA;2. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php?word=%E4%B9%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php?word=之&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;3. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/c56e6059137441a99d708c56ab0515d1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/c56e6059137441a99d708c56ab0515d1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9734" LastEditorUserId="9734" LastEditDate="2015-11-30T02:11:01.133" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T02:11:01.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13058" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-11T07:40:55.190" Score="4" ViewCount="2735" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching the new Daredevil show and noticed this bit.  I was hoping somebody might be able to explain what the elderly lady is saying...Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the clip:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJlop7mkvt4&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJlop7mkvt4&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a second clip of her:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS_pwIum-3o&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS_pwIum-3o&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastEditorUserId="6763" LastEditDate="2015-04-11T07:50:57.010" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T00:00:48.417" Title="What does this woman say in Chinese? (From the new Daredevil tv show)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13059" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-11T10:14:20.667" Score="0" ViewCount="572" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would I say &quot;I thought this would look good&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am specifically looking for the word corresponding to &quot;I thought&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9745" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:23:50.753" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:23:50.753" Title="&quot;I thought this would look good&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-04-20T01:50:06.450" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12973" CreationDate="2015-04-11T12:19:38.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;assuming that &quot;possessive pronoun&quot; means &quot;his/hers&quot; then no, the closest 之 gets is 的, which never functions as a noun.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T12:19:38.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6726" CreationDate="2015-04-11T12:29:41.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;The word “我很好” means “I am all right”. “是”is a verb（“动词”）which is&#xA;equivalent to &quot;is&quot;,&quot;am&quot;,&quot;are&quot; in English. When most Chinese students&#xA;including me learn English at very start,they tend to translating&#xA;the sentence word by word,e.g.&#xA;&#xA;I    am      fine&#xA;wo3  shi4  hen3 hao3&#xA;我   是     很   好&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9747" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T12:29:41.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13059" CreationDate="2015-04-11T13:27:47.240" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: I overlooked the simplified Chinese tag. Now adding simplified chinese version back&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume your sentence have a [hidden context]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought it would look good [but it turns out to be awful]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case I would translate it as:&#xA;我以為那會好看(Trad.)/我以为那会好看(Simp.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To divide it word by word then reverse translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(我)(以為)(那)(會)(好)(看)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I)(thought)(that)(would)(good)(look)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate suggested the translation 我認為這會好看(Trad.)/我认为这会好看(Simp.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if I reverse translate this back to Eng I would say it is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(我)(認為)(這)(會)(好)(看)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I)(&lt;strong&gt;think&lt;/strong&gt;)(this)(would)(good)(look)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 认为 and 以为 is not focused on tense, but in tone and assertiveness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认为 : think, with a sense of confidence in oneself (a.k.a. belief, assert)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以为 : wrongly thinks (a.k.a. thought)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9749" LastEditorUserId="9749" LastEditDate="2015-04-11T14:07:26.877" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T14:07:26.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13038" CreationDate="2015-04-11T14:13:28.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It simply implies kind of a care to you.If you say you're already full,that means you enjoy this meal and want no more.Sometimes,when you say you are full,it implies that you can do other things concentratedly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9750" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T14:13:28.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13059" CreationDate="2015-04-11T14:19:20.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我曾认为这会很好看&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;曾(céng)&quot; means in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9719" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T14:19:20.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13065" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13068" CreationDate="2015-04-11T15:46:47.497" Score="2" ViewCount="481" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;修煉體係&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would an English translation for that be? Google says &quot;Taoism&quot;, but that doesn't sound right, although it may be very slightly correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could only think of &quot;Qi practicing&quot; or &quot;Spirit practicing&quot;, but would there be any better ones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, would &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;修真&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T16:54:09.700" Title="English Equivalent of &quot;修煉&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13066" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13071" CreationDate="2015-04-11T15:56:51.390" Score="3" ViewCount="1056" Body="&lt;p&gt;One friend advised that after a meal it is more polite for a guest to say &quot;我吃好了&quot; than &quot;我吃飽了.&quot;  That makes sense but I suppose it could depend on context.  Searching the two phrases on Google I see they are about equally common.  I did not find a clear pattern of different usages for the two on line, but it was not easy to compare because they are also used in Japanese and many of the webpages are about Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How different are these phrases in ordinary usage? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course 好 in 吃好 is a result complement which does not necessarily mean anything was &quot;good.&quot;  But do Chinese speakers hear it as suggesting the meal was good?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar usage in English is &quot;well and truly,&quot; which does not mean anything was done well, only that it definitely was done.  In fact this idiom usually occurs with things that are not good: &quot;I am well and truly baffled/tired/stuck.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese result complement 好 is obviously not like that.  It does not suggest that something was a problem!  But does 吃好 suggest the meal was good?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-04-11T19:15:29.713" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T06:54:51.843" Title="&quot;吃飽了&quot; versus &quot; 吃好了&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13066" CreationDate="2015-04-11T16:09:23.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that &quot;我吃飽了&quot; is &quot;I'm full now&quot; while &quot;我吃好了&quot; is &quot;I'm done eating now&quot;, so saying that you're done would be more polite compared to saying that you're full&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T16:09:23.723" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13065" CreationDate="2015-04-11T16:54:09.700" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt; has two definitions for 修炼:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;practice asceticism&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;practice self-cultivation (esp. of a Taoist)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;self-cultivation&lt;/em&gt; has a nice ring to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;修真&lt;/strong&gt; on the other hand means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{Taoism} cultivate true virtue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;修炼 has quite a wide range of meanings one of which is the same as 修真: 修行.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;修真 only really has one meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it might be interchangeable in some cases, the context is really important here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T16:54:09.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12973" CreationDate="2015-04-11T17:17:46.197" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;之 is a common way to say ‘him/her/it’ in classical Chinese.  It’s usually in the object position, not the subject one though:  殺之 ‘kills him’;   由之  ‘from it’.  The use like modern Chinese 的 is different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其 is actually a possessive pronoun, as in 其妻  ‘his wife’.  More generally, it substitutes for ‘noun + 之’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;彼 can be used as a third-person pronoun in either subject or object position, but mainly it is a demonstrative (‘this’ or ‘that’).  There are other words that work the same way and appear as pronouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of this is based on the section on pronouns in Edward Pulleyblank’s ‘Outline of Classical Chinese’, esp. pp 79-80.  You can find it on Google Books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T17:17:46.197" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13058" CreationDate="2015-04-11T18:51:11.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1, 是人的手，永远是人啊，他人的先驱(身驱）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is human's hand, It is always human, Another people's body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2， 这个人他是出货给自已，还是把你们弄成大傻瓜？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The man he shipped goods to himself, or to fool(make) you into idiot?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excuse my English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9752" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T18:51:11.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13066" CreationDate="2015-04-11T19:47:49.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese speaker. No, Nothing is relating to meal was good, just you are done, you are full. no more eating. When Chinese greet they always say: Have you eaten yet? Yes, I did. 你吃饭了没有？吃了。 好 not really means good, just as done in some phrases.做好了,写好了,安装好了。 you make sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And they are same meaning, interchangeable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9752" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T19:47:49.907" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13072" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-11T21:35:14.153" Score="2" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;現代修真&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a type/category of novel, but what does it mean in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;現代&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is basically modern, but what would  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;修真 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mean in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 修真 means &quot;Cultivating True Virtue&quot;, it doesn't seem to fit too well, so what would the English translation be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T23:24:12.973" Title="What does &quot;現代修真&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13072" CreationDate="2015-04-11T22:59:44.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;百度 has lots of books under 现代修真小说完本, they seem to be about immortals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;修真 seems to be a Taoist phrase, '道教中，学道修行，求得真我，去伪存真为“修真”。' I think you're pretty close with 'cultivating the truth / the true reality / the true self'。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-04-11T23:24:12.973" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T23:24:12.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13058" CreationDate="2015-04-12T00:00:48.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;有些人的手，永遠是染著他人的鮮血，會冷的。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people's hands are always bathed* in the blood of others. They get cold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;這些人，他是偷貨給自己的，還是把你們弄成大傻瓜？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did these people steal the products for themselves, or did they turn you guys into idiots?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;code&gt;染 = to dye&lt;/code&gt;, but, in the context &lt;code&gt;染著(someone's)鮮血&lt;/code&gt;, the more accurate translation would be &lt;code&gt;bathed in the blood&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, in my opinion, this woman's pronunciation is not accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T00:00:48.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13075" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13078" CreationDate="2015-04-12T00:14:53.187" Score="3" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;As titled. I saw this lyrics with the sentence,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;為什麼全世界的戀我都失一遍？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the structure, it looks like the word itself is a noun.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If it is, what does it mean?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I only know the word &lt;code&gt;戀愛/恋爱&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T02:06:13.507" Title="Is &quot;戀&quot;/&quot;恋&quot; a word by itself?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13075" CreationDate="2015-04-12T01:08:20.027" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes.  but this case it's an inversion of 失戀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T01:08:20.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13075" CreationDate="2015-04-12T02:06:13.507" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, it is not a standard way. Apparently, it is a complain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;失~lose, 戀~love。失戀~fall out of love. The word itself has a vt+noun structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to understand it from the basic form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為什麼我失戀了？Why I fell out of love?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One can definitely add adj to a noun(戀). (just for explanation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為什麼我失(全世界的)戀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now add adv to vt(失). (just for explanation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為什麼我(都失一遍)全世界的戀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then change order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為什麼全世界的戀我都失一遍？ Why I fell out of each love all over the world? The singer wants to deliver a strong discourage for being a loser in love in this song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T02:06:13.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13079" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-12T02:13:14.040" Score="1" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't really catch the meaning of this sentence. It was only given as an example of the use of 统统， I have no more context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无论是谁，到新公司后，原来档案都要统统装进铁皮柜，从头干起。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter who, after arriving at a new firm, (your ) original files all (will) all be stored in a steel locker, you (can/must/should) start anew.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is '铁皮柜‘ some kind of slang for '计算机‘？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are '原来档案‘？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T07:58:04.757" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T07:58:04.757" Title="What does ...原来档案都要统统装进铁皮柜，从头干起... mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13080" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13085" CreationDate="2015-04-12T03:05:59.613" Score="4" ViewCount="678" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, when writing a formal email, one would sometimes use &lt;code&gt;appreciate/grateful&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;apologize&lt;/code&gt; in place of &lt;code&gt;thank you&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;sorry&lt;/code&gt;, respectively. Is there any such alternate words/phrases in Chinese for &lt;code&gt;謝謝&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;對不起&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, how can the following be rephrased in a formal tone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對不起現在才回覆您。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;謝謝您的幫助！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T22:43:46.397" Title="The formal version of &quot;謝謝&quot;, &quot;對不起&quot;, especially in an email?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;formal&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13080" CreationDate="2015-04-12T03:28:57.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can write &lt;code&gt;非常感谢...但很抱歉...&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9755" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T03:28:57.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13079" CreationDate="2015-04-12T03:36:40.590" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;铁皮柜 = iron file cabinet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原来档案 = original files&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无论是谁，到新公司后，原来档案都要统统装进铁皮柜，从头干起。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter who it is that leaves and goes to a new company, after they've left the original files will all be thrown into an &quot;iron&quot; file cabinet and work will need to start again from the top.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T03:36:40.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13079" CreationDate="2015-04-12T03:39:38.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;'铁皮柜‘ is a metal filing cabinet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'统统' is for emphasis. In this case, it is ALL the files, with no exception. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare these two sentences, which are identical except for '统统'. Their meanings are basically the same, but the first one is more emphatic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无论是谁，到新公司后，原来档案都要统统装进铁皮柜，从头干起。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无论是谁，到新公司后，原来档案都要装进铁皮柜，从头干起。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter who it is, when one enters the new company, one starts anew, with one's original files (hinting past history) stored away. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is only one subject in this sentence, it's the one who enters the new company, the one whose files are put away, and the one who has to start anew.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2015-04-12T15:09:57.723" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T15:09:57.723" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="67" CreationDate="2015-04-12T04:25:39.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;find a Chinese native speaker Nanny!, like me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9756" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T04:25:39.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13080" CreationDate="2015-04-12T04:29:50.040" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alter words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢：多谢，感谢，谢恩（古代臣子百姓对君王说的）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不起：抱歉，有愧，歉仄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As your case, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對不起現在才回覆您。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;謝謝你的幫助！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rephrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（非常）抱歉现在才回复您。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（十分）感谢您的帮助！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9707" LastEditorUserId="9707" LastEditDate="2015-04-12T04:42:00.190" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T04:42:00.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13088" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13091" CreationDate="2015-04-12T05:06:58.007" Score="3" ViewCount="1012" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard this phrase from some Chinese-speaking stranger. I assume it's related to farewell since the stranger was waving hand to someone else, but what does it mean exactly? Is there a certain context in which this phrase is used? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is this a dialect? It looks different from the Chinese I have learnt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-12T08:41:04.713" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T09:11:14.867" Title="What is the meaning of &quot;拜了个拜&quot;？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13089" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13101" CreationDate="2015-04-12T05:30:03.413" Score="2" ViewCount="1825" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I have learnt, for each Chinese word with more than one character, its meaning is formed from that of each character which it comprises. However, I cannot understand how the meaning of &lt;code&gt;保重&lt;/code&gt; is formed this way. I thought that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;保 = to protect&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;重 = important&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what would &lt;code&gt;保&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;重&lt;/code&gt; mean for this word? How does it go from &quot;to protect the important one&quot; to &quot;take care&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-09T07:05:59.793" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T07:05:59.793" Title="Why &quot;保重&quot; means &quot;take care&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13090" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13092" CreationDate="2015-04-12T06:42:25.237" Score="4" ViewCount="647" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've encountered this word online. If you google &quot;神逻辑&quot; (with quotes) you'll find mostly instances where it's used as a standalone noun. Anyone know what it means, and maybe its origin/the explanation behind it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9758" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T07:46:05.920" Title="What does 神逻辑 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13088" CreationDate="2015-04-12T07:15:45.943" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;拜了个拜 derives from 拜拜 by treating the first 拜 as a verb and the second 拜 as the object of the first 拜 and then adopting the verb+(quantity)个+object pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拜拜 is just a loan word from English bye-bye and mean the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拜了个拜 is just a novel usage of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2015-04-12T08:03:31.827" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T08:03:31.827" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13090" CreationDate="2015-04-12T07:46:48.787" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a slang heavily used in online communities. I am not certain when it started. It means &lt;code&gt;perfect logic&lt;/code&gt;, usually in a joking sense. Interestingly enough, it is also a sarcastic expression often used to accuse someone of his/her peculiar, erroneous logic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A common instance of each would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sarcasm&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ａ：「我开会没有迟到，老板应该要给我加薪。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I was not late for the meeting. The boss shall give me a raise?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ｂ：「这是什么神逻辑？」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;What kind of ('perfect') logic is that?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Compliment&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ａ：「如果老板不给我加薪，我钱会不够用；钱不够用，会买不起工具；买不起工具，就做不好工作；做不好工作，公司就会赔钱。所以老板一定会给我加薪。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;If the boss does not give me a raise, I will not have enough money to use; without enough money to use, I cannot afford the tools; without the tools, I cannot do my job well; (if) I cannot do my job well, the company will make a loss. Therefore, the boss will certainly give me a raise.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ｂ：「我服了你的神逻辑。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I have nothing to comment on your perfect logic.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-04-20T07:46:05.920" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T07:46:05.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13088" CreationDate="2015-04-12T08:12:02.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it can simply translated into &quot;Had a goodbye&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other examples: &quot;冲/洗了个藻&quot; -&gt; &quot;Had a shower/bath&quot; &quot;洗了洗手&quot; -&gt; &quot;Had a hand washing&quot;, &quot;睡了个觉&quot; -&gt; &quot;Had a sleep&quot;, &quot;吃了个饭&quot; &quot;Had a meal&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nah, I don't think it's a dialect, more like to be an oral expression, very uncommon in written language, this kind of expression usually come with an attitude of not a big deal, and most likely he/she is in a good mood or at least not bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2896" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T08:12:02.500" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13094" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13467" CreationDate="2015-04-12T09:47:34.540" Score="3" ViewCount="2171" Body="&lt;p&gt;鸽子 is used interchangeably for both &lt;em&gt;dove&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;pigeon&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to differentiate between the both of them in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Even&lt;/strong&gt; 白鸽 which I would totally imagine would mean dove, both &lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt; just define it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;pigeon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T15:25:48.957" Title="Differentiating Between Dove And Pigeon In Chinese" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13095" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13096" CreationDate="2015-04-12T10:20:31.743" Score="4" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;At &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyNNvgW1dSg&amp;amp;lc=z13jt1khfxr4zzw0k225sjfzzyn1hhebs04&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyNNvgW1dSg&amp;amp;lc=z13jt1khfxr4zzw0k225sjfzzyn1hhebs04&lt;/a&gt;, someone wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看完電影後整晚都在蕊屁OST&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another person wrote in reply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;+1 瘋狂蕊批&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does &quot;蕊屁&quot; mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9761" LastEditorUserId="9761" LastEditDate="2015-04-12T22:59:31.773" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T22:59:31.773" Title="What does &quot;蕊屁&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13095" CreationDate="2015-04-12T11:01:13.200" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;蕊屁&lt;/code&gt;==&lt;code&gt;repeat&lt;/code&gt;, you can think it's a kind of transliteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T11:01:13.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13097" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13099" CreationDate="2015-04-12T11:39:05.237" Score="13" ViewCount="469" Body="&lt;p&gt;The beginnings of Sino-American relations date back to the late 18th century (e.g. the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_China_Trade&quot;&gt;Old China Trade&lt;/a&gt;). When did the Chinese begin to refer to America (or the US) as 美國/美国? Were there alternative names referring to America/US?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T10:43:33.917" Title="What is the first attested use of 美國/美国 in the sense of 'America' in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13089" CreationDate="2015-04-12T12:02:39.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is an ancient word for modern use.In ancient word &quot;保重&quot; came from &quot;保重啬神&quot; in Taoism and means &quot;Keep healty&quot;.It become a popular word but nobody care the original reference in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9762" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T12:02:39.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13097" CreationDate="2015-04-12T13:42:38.450" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;There were more than 10 names for USA in history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;亚墨利加国&lt;/code&gt;, after 1776;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;花旗国&lt;/code&gt;, after 1784;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;咪唎坚国&lt;/code&gt;, after 1784;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;咩哩干国&lt;/code&gt;, after 1820;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;亚美利加兼合国&lt;/code&gt;, after 1833;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;弥利坚国，即育奈士迭国&lt;/code&gt;, after 1836;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;美理哥国&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;美理哥合省国&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;美理哥兼摄邦国&lt;/code&gt;, 1838;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;亚美利格合省国&lt;/code&gt;, 1844;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;亚美理驾会邦国&lt;/code&gt;, 1844;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;亚美理驾合众国&lt;/code&gt;, 1844；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;米利坚合众国&lt;/code&gt;, 1848;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;大亚美理驾合众国&lt;/code&gt;, 1858;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;大美联邦&lt;/code&gt;, 1861;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;大美国&lt;/code&gt;, 1901;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;美利坚合众国&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;code&gt;美国&lt;/code&gt;), after 1902;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;美利坚合众国&lt;/code&gt;, determined in 1913;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.doc88.com/p-6061843173768.html&quot;&gt;“美利坚合众国”译名的由来&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T13:42:38.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13088" CreationDate="2015-04-12T14:02:51.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;拜了个拜&quot; has the almost same meaning with &quot;拜拜&quot;(bye-bye), and the word &quot;了个&quot; in it is just to make it sounds funny, not &quot;had a&quot;, though in normal cases it's indeed translated into &quot;had a&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...This pattern is now popular in Chinese slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9763" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T14:02:51.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13089" CreationDate="2015-04-12T14:07:53.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is true that this word originally comes from 《晋书·夏侯湛传》：“方将保重啬神，独善其身。”&#xA;But we use it in situation of farewell. 珍重 is heavier than 保重。 珍重包含了珍惜cherish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;保 是保住，保持，守 。 keep， reserve probably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重 has two tones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;zhòng 是分量较大，与“轻”相反。 large amount or heavy. opposite with light. 很重，举重。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chóng means again. doubled. 重复，重播。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the phrase 保重 is zhòng. In my appoint: strong power. strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it make sense? (&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html5/z39m31j146490.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9752" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-05-09T02:02:28.833" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T02:02:28.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13102" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-12T16:11:02.073" Score="3" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宗門&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context of ancient China times, and in a fantasy novel, where people collect disciples for martial arts and whatnot. Would xx sect be better or xx school? Or even xx faction instead of those two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T18:26:34.460" Title="Sect vs School for &quot;宗門&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13094" CreationDate="2015-04-12T16:46:20.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I have a question? What are the terms ABC and KEY?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most countries define the pigeon and dove's difference is gray and white. As to me a Chinese too. I don't know why Americans like to use dove in the love poems and songs, and A dove usually is white. AS a Chinese, We commonly use words 鸽子，白鸽，灰鸽，信鸽，家鸽，原鸽 &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%B8%BD%E5%B1%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;鸽属&lt;/a&gt; mail pigeon, domestic pigeon etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We just can find them in the cities and televisions. We eat them in soup and restaurant. and we don't seriously distinguish them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned above, Probably dove is smaller than pigeon. Because they are in same family. Probably they are same thing just symbolizing the peace. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Referred to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.proz.com/forum/teaching_and_learning_languages/28738-dove_vs_pigeon_how_to_explain_the_difference.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.proz.com/forum/teaching_and_learning_languages/28738-dove_vs_pigeon_how_to_explain_the_difference.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9752" LastEditorUserId="9752" LastEditDate="2015-04-12T18:32:05.203" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T18:32:05.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13102" CreationDate="2015-04-12T18:26:34.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;宗门 is a buddhist term, the more general word is 教派 or 宗派. If your setting is buddhist, as most martial art is, then you should most likely use buddhist concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise people tend to use 家 to categorize different schools. Sect and faction are more narrow concepts, just as in English, and can have negative connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T18:26:34.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13105" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13106" CreationDate="2015-04-12T18:58:35.070" Score="6" ViewCount="827" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have learnt to use both zhuyin and pinyin for spelling out the pronunciation of a character. As far as I know, the two systems serve the same purpose and are interchangeable in terms of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.erva.nl/zhuIn-hanIn.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;syllables&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As such, why would there be two standards? Does each have a specific context/setting in which they are used? Which one is more popular in general?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-04-12T22:48:28.190" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T22:48:28.190" Title="Zhuyin (bopomofo) vs Pinyin" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13105" CreationDate="2015-04-12T19:12:17.440" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zhuyin is commonly encountered in Taiwan and Taiwan-centric overseas communities.  Not sure about its prevalence in other overseas communities a la Singapore, but I've found zhuyin easier to use with vertical text Chinese as is printed commonly in Taiwan and elsewhere, and suspect Zhuyin/bopomofo/bpmf would be more popular in those regions due to the better compatibility with vertical text.  If you want to use the many excellent classical chinese training materials printed in Taiwan you'll need to be able to read bpmf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also suspect you'd find that typing bpmf is slightly faster than Pinyin because it uses single symbols for sounds like &quot;eng&quot; that require multiple keystrokes in the Pinyin case. And I personally find Zhuyin aesthetically less disruptive ;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2015-04-12T21:07:11.580" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T21:07:11.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13066" CreationDate="2015-04-13T00:48:02.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;(The following explanation is based on the language habits of my hometown, close to Beijing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slang evolution: 吃饱了撑的没事干 -&gt; 吃饱了撑的 -&gt; 吃饱了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning: Too full (or have eaten too much) and have nothing to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It implies one have extra energy, which further implies one has spend this extra energy on unnecessary stupidity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 他看到你的古董花瓶很破旧，就当作垃圾给扔了。He tossed your antique vase as a piece of garbage, thinking it was broken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他吃饱了撑的没事干，动我的东西做什么？&#xA;Has he eaten too much and had nothing else to do? Why did he care about my stuff? (Direct response)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他吃饱了撑的吗？Has he eaten too much? (Most common, semi-direct response)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他今天吃的很饱吧？He must have eaten too much. (Indirect response, sarcasm)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃饱了Can also be used to insult or play jokes on people obscurely, which is mostly the case between close friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 吃饱了 can be used in such way, many people, especially waiters/waitresses, would avoid saying it to eliminate misunderstandings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4067" LastEditorUserId="4067" LastEditDate="2015-04-13T06:37:34.977" LastActivityDate="2015-04-13T06:37:34.977" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12794" CreationDate="2015-04-13T01:03:33.643" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe, it is only a joking for 不成功便成仁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 仁 has the same pronunciation as 人...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9765" LastActivityDate="2015-04-13T01:03:33.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13079" CreationDate="2015-04-13T01:39:44.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is only a traditional saying to describe a situation that some workers &quot;discriminate against&quot; other because of ages (Maybe they are elder than them), experiences (Maybe the working period is longer than theirs)..... So when you hear this sentence, you are told that you are FORBIDDEN to &quot;倚老卖老&quot;. And you are just a runner who stands on the same line where the others are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2015-04-13T01:39:44.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13110" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13111" CreationDate="2015-04-13T04:32:43.257" Score="5" ViewCount="1947" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that &lt;code&gt;同事&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;colleague&lt;/code&gt;, but I have seen &lt;code&gt;同儕&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;同僚&lt;/code&gt; used in similar context. Below are random examples of each I found on google:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在同儕關係中彼此地位平等、較能相互學習。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由於他過度地自負，同僚們不喜歡他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these words interchangeable? If not, how do their meaning differ? In what context is each word used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-05-21T12:01:57.490" Title="&quot;同儕&quot; vs &quot;同僚&quot; vs &quot;同事&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13110" CreationDate="2015-04-13T05:48:15.410" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;同事 is the most common, plain one. it simply means people you work with or people in the same company as you do. It could be used no matter it is a everyday conversation, a quite formal business meeting or a HR policy notice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同儕（同侪） means peers or fellows. Strictly it should be used to refer people in the same generation of you, i.e. siblings or cousins. Nowadays, it is often used in the workplace or other contexts when a sense of fraternity is preferable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同僚 also means colleague. But it's more often used in politic settings in the old times. Nowadays, it can be used in the workplace in general but I feel such usage is more common in Taiwan or Hong Kong than the mainland. Personally, it feels it's more appropriate for two managers call each other that than two interns do. Or you can say this one is more fancy than 同事.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, there is another word 同仁 which equals to 同人 also means colleague.  They mean to refer the people who share something in common with you professionally. E.g. works in the same company or occupation. And it is a respectful term with a sense of fraternity. But it more often to be used as a collective term for a group of people rather than a specific person. So 一个同仁 is not very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-04-14T01:46:16.967" LastActivityDate="2015-04-14T01:46:16.967" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13112" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13113" CreationDate="2015-04-13T15:16:36.890" Score="5" ViewCount="387" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese Idiom for &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Refute somebody with his own argument&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought this is not quite the same as &quot;self-contradictory&quot; 自相矛盾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9715" LastActivityDate="2015-04-13T16:04:19.987" Title="Chinese Chengyu (Idiom): Refute somebody with his own argument" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13112" CreationDate="2015-04-13T16:04:19.987" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe 以子之矛，攻子之盾 is the answer, I couldn't find another alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/95735.htm&quot;&gt;Description on Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2015-04-13T16:04:19.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13114" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-13T16:29:30.743" Score="7" ViewCount="554" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Dao De Jing (道德經), part 12:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;五色令人目盲 // Five colors make a man blind&#xA;五音令人耳聾 // Five notes make a man deaf&#xA;五味令人口爽&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a problem with translation of the third line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Five flavours make the mouth feel well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems proper, but it doesn't make sense, and moreover, on ctext.org it is translated contrary. The third line should also be negative. Where am I wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9771" LastEditorUserId="5982" LastEditDate="2015-04-14T03:55:46.470" LastActivityDate="2015-04-14T15:46:15.207" Title="道德經 (Dao De Jing): 「五味令人口爽」 translation" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13114" CreationDate="2015-04-13T17:07:51.793" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;爽 = 爽傷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/6864170.htm&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/6864170.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五味令人口爽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Five flavours will hurt the mouth (taste buds?) Too much flavourful food will gradually erode your ability to taste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/344826.htm&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/344826.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-04-13T17:07:51.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13114" CreationDate="2015-04-13T17:11:41.443" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The overall meaning of the three is to suggest that the emperor shall not bathe in the wealth he possess and neglect the voice of his suffering people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in @huotuichang's comment below, this phrase does not only apply to emperors, although it might have originally been used to refer to emperors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll explain each with their literal translation and connotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五色令人目盲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Five colors blind your eyes.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Five colors&lt;/strong&gt; refer to the treasures and jewelries. The various colors of luxuries shine to blind the eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五音令人耳聾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Five notes make one deaf.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Five notes&lt;/strong&gt; refer to the pleasing music pieces. While one enjoys the melodies being played, he is not able to hear the crying of his people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五味令人口爽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Five flavors make one loses taste.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Five flavors&lt;/strong&gt; refer to the tasteful foods and drinks. &lt;strong&gt;口爽&lt;/strong&gt; means losing one's taste. If one eats such foods daily, he will eventually lose his taste and will not be able to swallow the foods of the poor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-14T13:50:59.713" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13120" CreationDate="2015-04-13T21:35:03.773" Score="9" ViewCount="2478" Body="&lt;p&gt;I randomly saw this character on the blog a while ago and saved a image of it as shown below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AscxQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Some Complex Character&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this even a character? If so, what does it mean? When is it used? What was the origin of it? How do you pronounce it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I apologize for throwing lots of questions. Any help is appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T20:33:51.013" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T20:33:51.013" Title="A Complex Chinese Character" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13117" CreationDate="2015-04-13T22:06:28.410" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually not one character, but a stylistic conglomeration of the characters in the phrase &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%8B%9B%E8%B2%A1%E9%80%B2%E5%AF%B6&quot;&gt;招財進寶&lt;/a&gt;, meaning &quot;ushering in wealth and prosperity&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters 財 and 寶 end up being represented with the same 貝 component in this &quot;character&quot;. While the left side of 招 (扌) and the right side of 財 (才) are technically not the same component, they look similar enough to be represented with the same component here as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2015-04-13T22:06:28.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12973" CreationDate="2015-04-14T02:15:46.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;True and false.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When talking about possessive or attributive, 之 is not a pronoun. It is an auxiliary word similar to &quot;of&quot; which is categorised as preposition in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an auxiliary word, it could connect both possessive and attributive modifiers with the subject they modify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the The Standard Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese&#xA;Copyright © 2010, 2012 Oxford University Press and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing, Co., Ltd&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;③助&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. 用在定语和中心词之间，构成偏正短语，表示领属或修饰关系。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Translation: Used between modifier and subject to construct possessive or attributive modified phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赤子之心 | 大旱之年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Translation: heart of patriot | year of grate drought&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. 用在主谓短语的主语和谓语之间，使它变成偏正短语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Translation: used between the subject and predicate of a subject-predicate phrase and convert it to a modified phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;影响之深远出乎预料 | 速度之快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Translation: The far reach of the influence is beyond expectation | the quickness of speed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c. 与后面的单音节语素结合，构成名词或名词性短语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Translation: Combined with the following single syllable element to construct noun or noun phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之后 | 之类&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Translation: afterwords (maybe it should be the descendants here?) | the alike&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wrote the above translation. They may sound very odd in English because those are meant to demonstrate the construction of the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question is concerning usage 3-a and 3-b. And I'd say it is more common to see 之 use to connect possessive modifiers than attributive. But it doesn't seem to be a very drastic gap. Maybe it's just because there are more alternatives for attributive constructions. E.g. 美人 (beautiful people), it's a quite basic construction and there is no need to interpolate it to 美之人 unless the author has some special needs like matching sentences or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And according &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/42455.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/42455.htm&lt;/a&gt;, in Classic Chinese 之 can be used for both as well. So whether one usage is more &quot;usual&quot; than the other is really a statistical issue. And I don't know any such statistics. But according to the examples on the aforementioned page, possessive usage seemed to be slightly more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="4267" LastEditDate="2015-04-15T03:02:20.760" LastActivityDate="2015-04-15T03:02:20.760" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13117" CreationDate="2015-04-14T06:05:13.487" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Welcome more questions Thomas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very good answer above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a Spring Couplet 挥春/揮春. 招財進寶 is an auspicious saying to wish families more wealth and treasure. Chinese paste this on the front door or wall before the Chinese New Year. And they renew it annually. Some companies hope like this lucky saying so they paste it too. Besides, &quot;福&quot;(fu) is very popular too. Every family would paste it upside down on their doors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the pronunciation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;招財進寶 zhāo cái jìn bǎo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9752" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-08T07:22:03.153" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T07:22:03.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13121" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-14T13:26:27.467" Score="4" ViewCount="277" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence 送上 means what?? I think is means 'send = 送 to attend = 上(a series of lectures) = 一场讲座' but maybe it is just 送给？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;据报道，某石油化工公司前不久举办了一场心理知识讲座，为近百名员工送上了一把找到工作快乐和取得成功的“心灵钥匙“。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-04-15T05:12:28.920" Title="What is the meaning of 送上 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13121" CreationDate="2015-04-14T13:39:09.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;送上&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cjkware.com/search?query=%E9%80%81%E4%B8%8A&amp;amp;option=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;KEY&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ v ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◊ deliver (to a superior)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◊ present (to a superior)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◊ send (wishes, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;送上了一把.......钥匙&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;send/deliver/present - a - key&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you could, as you suggested, even replace &lt;strong&gt;送上&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;strong&gt;送给&lt;/strong&gt; here (meaning wise, not grammatically).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-15T03:58:17.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13121" CreationDate="2015-04-14T13:48:32.060" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;送上，送给 both means send. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two differences：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.送上 is more polite。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in different sentence structure。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a.   为 someone 送上 something。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b.   送给 someone  something。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence equals to ... ... 送给近百名员工一把找到工作快乐和取得成功的“心灵钥匙“。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;reply to the comments.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心灵钥匙 is a description of 讲座，it is a metaphor.&#xA;This lecture is the 心灵钥匙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;examle&#xA;学校组织了一次军训活动，为广大师生送上了一次军旅体验。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;军训活动 is the 军旅体验。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2015-04-15T05:12:28.920" LastActivityDate="2015-04-15T05:12:28.920" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13114" CreationDate="2015-04-14T15:46:15.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To make long story short, 爽=错 in ancient Chinese. It is a negative word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You still see it in modern Chinese such as 爽約, break the appointment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or 屡試不爽，attempts many times without failure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry I cannot help you with the translation. But it is a negative word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-14T15:46:15.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13121" CreationDate="2015-04-14T20:02:00.233" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;送上 - send&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;送上 is usually used in situation where things are delivered humbly / 'with a heart'.  You will use 送上 when sending a gift or a blessing for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;送给 - send to&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it means 'sending to', in most cases it is followed by the person / party receiving the 'thing' being sent.  I.e. It is not practical to use in your example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I believe it is a term in conjunction with &lt;code&gt;收下&lt;/code&gt;, as a term used by the receiver of the things you have just 送上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-04-14T20:02:00.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13126" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13127" CreationDate="2015-04-14T20:58:42.930" Score="2" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have three case scenarios here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這是一點心意，請你收下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please accept this (gift/money as an) appreciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我請你吃飯吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me treat you a meal!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;加入我們的團隊吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Join our team!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, in the first case, rejecting the offer is rude by any mean/for any reason. Nonetheless, in the second and third cases, many factors, other than personal will, can play a significant role in the decision of whether to accept the offer. For instance, one may have already planned out his schedule of the day and cannot allot time for socializing. Yet, it seems to be rude to directly reject the offer regardless of the reason. Is there a proper way to reject these offers, especially when the person who gives the offer is more superior in terms of age or social status? What are some possible replies to these offers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, if I have any improper cultural statement(s), please point it out!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-04-15T02:56:12.967" LastActivityDate="2015-04-15T02:56:12.967" Title="Appropriate way to reject an offer" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13126" CreationDate="2015-04-14T22:40:19.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;List your good points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning instead of outright &lt;em&gt;rejecting&lt;/em&gt; this person's offer, you say, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;I already have such and such already,&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; you get the picture. Emphasize that you are very well off, no need for gifts and such. So if someone offered a gift to you, you could say, &quot;Thank you, but I have a lot of &lt;em&gt;such and such.&lt;/em&gt;&quot; And the good ol' &quot;I'm on a diet&quot; works well on Chinese too :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9781" LastActivityDate="2015-04-14T22:40:19.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10935" CreationDate="2015-04-14T23:45:06.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is written the same in basically every dialect of Chinese, but pronounced in a very wide variety of ways. It is called &quot;tiger machine&quot; because it, indeed, eats up your cash :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9781" LastEditorUserId="9807" LastEditDate="2015-04-18T10:01:30.197" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T10:01:30.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13129" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-15T01:08:05.487" Score="4" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've tried to translate the first part of the song The final countdown, can you correct me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We're leaving together&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我們離開一起。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But still it's farewell &lt;br&gt;&#xA;但是，還有告別。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And maybe we'll come back&lt;br&gt;&#xA;可能我們來到這兒一邊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To earth, who can tell &lt;br&gt;&#xA;在世界，誰知道&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I guess there is no one to blame&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我想沒有怪一個人 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;We're leaving ground (leaving ground)&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 我們起飛 （起飛）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Will things ever be the same again &lt;br&gt;&#xA;東西可以是就像以前？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's the final countdown... &lt;br&gt;&#xA;這是最後倒計時&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The final countdown &lt;br&gt;&#xA;最後倒計時&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ooh oh &lt;br&gt;&#xA;噢噢&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We're heading for Venus (Venus) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;我們去到金星（金星）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And still we stand tall&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我們仍然在站&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Cause maybe they've seen us &lt;br&gt;&#xA;因為可能這個人看看我們&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And welcome us all (yeah) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;而歡迎我&lt;br&gt;&#xA;With so many light years to go &lt;br&gt;&#xA;有多光年&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And things to be found (to be found) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;找多東西&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm sure that we'll all miss her so &lt;br&gt;&#xA;我知道我們想念她&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's the final countdown... &lt;br&gt;&#xA;這是最後倒計時&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9782" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T00:25:04.403" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T00:27:46.267" Title="Translation from English to Chinese of the song &quot;The Final Countdown&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13130" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13145" CreationDate="2015-04-15T01:36:11.490" Score="3" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;北京话里有个单字动词，表示给食物（比如刚煮熟的面条、蔬菜等）过冷水。华北其他地区可能也说。请问这是哪个字？以前经常听人说，现在记不清了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a single-character verb in Beijingese Mandarin, meaning to submerge food (like boiled noodles, vegetables, etc.) in cold water. It is possibly used in other parts of Northern China as well. May I know which word is this? I used to hear it a lot but forgot what it exactly was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T04:06:21.230" Title="一单字动词，表示给食物过冷水，是哪个字？ / a single-character word meaning to submerge food in cold water" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13129" CreationDate="2015-04-15T01:45:37.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We're leaving together&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我們一起离开&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But still it's farewell&lt;br&gt;&#xA;但这仍是告別&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And maybe we'll come back&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我們或许会再回来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To earth, who can tell&lt;br&gt;&#xA;回到地球——誰能知道？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess there is no one to blame&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我觉得不怪任何人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We're leaving ground (leaving ground)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我們这就起飛 （起飛）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will things ever be the same again&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一切还会照旧吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the final countdown...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這是最後倒計時&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final countdown&lt;br&gt;&#xA;最後倒計時&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ooh oh&lt;br&gt;&#xA;噢噢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We're heading for Venus (Venus)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我們去往金星（金星）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And still we stand tall&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我們仍然挺立&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cause maybe they've seen us&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因為或许他们见过我們&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And welcome us all (yeah)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;而歡迎我们（耶）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With so many light years to go&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有这么多光年要经过&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And things to be found (to be found)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这么多事物去找寻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure that we'll all miss her so&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们一定都会那么想念她&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the final countdown...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這是最後倒計時&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T00:27:46.267" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T00:27:46.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13129" CreationDate="2015-04-15T04:02:23.870" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since your own translation is in Traditional Chinese, I used the same.&#xA;Besides, my translation is context-based (or I tried to make it that way), so some words are not literally translated. In case you want to learn more, further explanation is provided below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;We're leaving together&#xA;我們（要）一起離開&#xA;But still it's farewell &#xA;但這依然是離別&#xA;And maybe we'll come back&#xA;或許我們會再回來&#xA;To earth, who can tell &#xA;到地球上，誰能預料到？&#xA;I guess there is no one to blame&#xA;我想不該怪誰&#xA;We're leaving ground (leaving ground)&#xA;我們（將要）離開地面（離開地面）&#xA;Will things ever be the same again &#xA;一切還會像以前一樣嗎&#xA;It's the final countdown... &#xA;最後的倒數開始了...&#xA;The final countdown &#xA;最後的倒數&#xA;Ooh oh &#xA;噢噢&#xA;We're heading for Venus (Venus) &#xA;我們正往金星前進（金星）&#xA;And still we stand tall&#xA;而我們仍然堅挺&#xA;Cause maybe they've seen us &#xA;因為或許他們已經看到我們&#xA;And welcome us all (yeah) &#xA;且歡迎我們（是啊）&#xA;With so many light years to go &#xA;儘管有這麼多光年要走過&#xA;And things to be found (to be found) &#xA;還有這麼多事物去探索（去探索）&#xA;I'm sure that we'll all miss her so &#xA;我相信我們都會這麼想著它&#xA;It's the final countdown... &#xA;最後的倒數開始了...&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們（將要）一起離開&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;將要&lt;/code&gt; is added to better visualize the moment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;誰能預料&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal translation is &lt;code&gt;誰能告訴&lt;/code&gt;, but such translation does not make sense in Chinese. Besides, in this context, tell translates to &lt;code&gt;預料&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一切還會像以前一樣嗎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Things = &lt;code&gt;東西&lt;/code&gt;, but in this context, the meaning is probably (every)thing, which translates to &lt;code&gt;一切&lt;/code&gt;. Using &lt;code&gt;東西&lt;/code&gt; itself as the subject does not make sense anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最後的倒數開始了...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;It's the final countdown&lt;/code&gt; here implies that the countdown has started, hence the phrase &lt;code&gt;開始了&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而我們仍然堅挺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Stand tall&lt;/code&gt; does not literally mean &lt;code&gt;standing tall&lt;/code&gt; but rather &lt;code&gt;being brave and proud&lt;/code&gt;. As such, &lt;code&gt;堅挺&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;堅強&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;挺立&lt;/code&gt; are some more appropriate words here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;還有這麼多事物去探索&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;to be found&lt;/code&gt; literally means &lt;code&gt;被找到&lt;/code&gt;, but, in my opinion, it's probably more natural to say &lt;code&gt;去探索&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;to seek/search for&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我相信我們都會這麼想著它&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;sure&lt;/code&gt;, in this context, means &lt;code&gt;相信&lt;/code&gt;; &lt;code&gt;her(female)&lt;/code&gt; translates to &lt;code&gt;它(nonliving)&lt;/code&gt; because in Chinese, people usually don't use &lt;code&gt;her&lt;/code&gt; to refer to, say, Earth, country, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-04-15T12:55:28.143" LastActivityDate="2015-04-15T12:55:28.143" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10027" CreationDate="2015-04-15T04:25:39.413" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why don't you just say &quot;I have accent&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9441" LastActivityDate="2015-04-15T04:25:39.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13136" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13137" CreationDate="2015-04-15T07:33:40.673" Score="4" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;A long time ago a Northeastern friend of mine showed me how to write ‘ber lou’ using 汉字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘ber lou’ being the northeastern equivalent of 额头.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have since forgotten how ‘ber lou’ was indeed written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How is the Chinese Northeastern word for 额头: ‘ber lou’ written in 汉字?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T00:21:35.613" Title="How To *Write* The Northeastern ‘ber lou’?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13136" CreationDate="2015-04-15T07:43:55.107" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Was it this?????&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十日九不见，入山见大虫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1s6og.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1s6og.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2559827202&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2559827202&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/759607485&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/759607485&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T00:21:35.613" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T00:21:35.613" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13138" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13144" CreationDate="2015-04-15T20:47:57.310" Score="10" ViewCount="1609" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on my recent observation, most people use &lt;code&gt;&quot;&quot;&lt;/code&gt; to enclose a quote and use &lt;code&gt;《》&lt;/code&gt; to enclose the name of a book (or a movie?). However, since I began my Chinese study, I have been learning to use &lt;code&gt;「」&lt;/code&gt; as the quotation marks and &lt;code&gt;﹏﹏&lt;/code&gt; as the mark to enclose the name of a book (I do not know what the mark is called or how to find an example of it). As I remember, the textbooks I used were from Hong Kong, and all the texts use &lt;code&gt;「」&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;﹏﹏&lt;/code&gt; in place of &lt;code&gt;&quot;&quot;&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;《》&lt;/code&gt;, respectively. I have also read/studied some texts which use &lt;code&gt;〖〗&lt;/code&gt; for book name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As such, which style is correct in an academic/professional writing? Or is it merely different practices for Traditional and Simplified Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-04-16T00:38:06.883" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T16:03:04.220" Title="Quotation Marks (&quot;&quot;) and Angle Quotation Marks (《》)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13139" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13140" CreationDate="2015-04-15T20:58:02.657" Score="4" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have two versions of Harry Potter (book 1) in mandarin chinese. Although the translation are mostly the same. There are enough difference to make me wonder if one is better than the other. By better I mean, is one either more accurate to the original or is one more suitable for someone reading their first full novel in mandarin. I can follow them both just fine. But I would if someone could provide insight on which translation is best.  This is the first full novel that I'm reading and I don't want to invest a lot of time into a book that's not considered a good translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Original&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Harry woke early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight.&#xA;“It was a dream,” he told himself firmly. “I dreamed a giant called Hagrid came to tell me I was going to a school for wizards. When I open my eyes I’ll be at home in my cupboard.”&#xA;There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.&#xA;And there’s Aunt Petunia knocking on the door, Harry thought, his heart sinking. But he still didn’t open his eyes. It had been such a good dream.&#xA;Tap. Tap. Tap.&#xA;“All right,” Harry mumbled, “I’m getting up.”&#xA;He sat up and Hagrid’s heavy coat fell off him. The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, Hagrid himself was asleep on the collapsed sofa, and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.&#xA;Harry scrambled to his feet, so happy he felt as though a large balloon was swelling inside him. He went straight to the window and jerked it open. The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who didn’t wake up. “The owl then fluttered onto the floor and began to attack Hagrid’s coat.&#xA;“Don’t do that.”&#xA;Harry tried to wave the owl out of the way, but it snapped its beak fiercely at him and carried on savaging the coat.&#xA;“Hagrid!” said Harry loudly. “There’s an owl —”&#xA;“Pay him,” Hagrid grunted into the sofa.&#xA;“What?”&#xA;“He wants payin’ fer deliverin’ the paper. Look in the pockets.”&#xA;Hagrid’s coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets ”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excerpt From: J.K. Rowling. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.” iBooks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translation #1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“哈刮第二天早上很早就醒来了，虽然他能感觉到已是天亮了，却仍然把眼睛闭得紧紧的。&#xA;&quot;那是个梦，&quot;他非常确定地对自己说，&quot;我梦见了一个名叫哈格力的巨人，他告诉我我将进入一所学校学习魔法，当我睁开眼的时候，我便会呆在家中的橱柜里了。&quot;&#xA;突然，有一阵很响的敲击声。&#xA;&quot;那是帕尤妮亚姨妈在敲门了。&quot;哈利想。他的心在下沉，但是他仍然紧闭双眼，因为那实在是个太美妙的梦了。&#xA;啪、啪、啪。&#xA;&quot;好了，&quot;哈利咕哝着，&quot;我就起来了。&quot;&#xA;他坐起来，哈格力的大外套从他身上滑落下来。小屋子里立刻充满了阳光，暴风雨已经过去，哈格力自己在一张折叠式的沙发上睡着了，“一只猫头鹰用爪子拍打着窗户，嘴里还叨着一份报纸。&#xA;哈利慢慢爬起来。他感到非常开心，就好像有一只大气球在他体内膨胀似的。&#xA;他径直走到窗户前面，猛地推开它，窗外那只猫头鹰便扑了进来，把报纸放在了熟睡的哈格力的头上，然后它振动着翅膀，停在地板上，开始啄哈格力的外衣。&#xA;&quot;不许这样。&quot;&#xA;哈利尽全力想把猫头鹰赶走，但是猫头鹰粗暴疯狂的用它的尖嘴啄哈利，并且不断地啄着那件外套。&#xA;&quot;哈格力，&quot;哈利大声叫喊，&quot;这儿有只猫头鹰……&quot;&#xA;&quot;付钱给他。&quot;哈格力在沙发里咕嗜着。&#xA;&quot;什么？&quot;&#xA;&quot;他为我们送了报纸所以要拿报酬，看看口袋里。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excerpt From: 罗琳, J.K. “哈利波特与魔法石.” epub掌上书苑, 2010-04-11. iBooks. &#xA;This material may be protected by copyright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translation #2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第二天一大早哈利就醒了。他明明知道天已经亮了，可还是把眼睛闭得&#xA; 紧紧的。&#xA; “这是一个梦，，，他确定无疑地对自己说，“我梦见一个叫海格的巨人，他来对我说，要我进一所魔法学校。等我一睁眼，我准在家里，在碗柜里。”&#xA; 突然传来一阵啪啪的响声。&#xA; “又是佩妮姨妈在捶门了。，，哈利心里想，他的心一沉。可他没有睁开眼，因为那个梦实在太好了。&#xA; 啪。啪。啪。&#xA; “好了，”哈利嘟哝说，“我这就起来。”&#xA; 他坐了起来，海格的厚外衣从身上滑了下来。小屋里充满了阳光，暴风雨已经过去了。海格睡在坍塌的沙发上。一只猫头鹰正用爪子敲打窗户，嘴里衔着一份报纸。哈利感到特别高兴，仿佛胸中揣着的一个气球渐渐鼓起来，使他飘飘欲仙了。他径直走到窗前，用力推开窗户。猫头鹰飞了进来，把报纸扔到海格身上，但他还是没有醒。猫头鹰扑腾着翅膀飞到地上，开始抓海格的外衣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抓。” 是猫头鹰用它的利喙朝哈利猛啄过去，之后又&#xA; 哈利摆手想让猫头鹰走开，可去抓海格的外衣。 有一只猫头鹰一一，，&#xA; ‘‘海格r哈利大声喊道，‘‘这里 即地说。&#xA; “把钱付给它。”海格在沙发里哼哼唧，&#xA; “什么？” 袋里找找。，，&#xA; ‘‘它要你付送报费。你在外衣&#xA; 海格的外社面除了口袋，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no copyright infringement intended. Just asking for educational purposes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3342" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T02:50:52.947" Title="Which Harry Potter Translation is better" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13139" CreationDate="2015-04-16T00:31:25.557" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short Answer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both translations preserved most of the meanings in the original text. (Some by mistake and some deliberately dropped/altered for the smoothness of the overall context) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For learning purposes, I would recommend the first one for its relative formality. If you are just reading for fun, the second one is more relaxing with its colloquial and conversational nature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Further Explanation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If I made a incorrect comment on any of the translation, please point it out. Thanks!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Translation Comparison&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is a list of some obvious examples sentences, where the left is from the first translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很早就醒来了 vs 一大早哈利就醒了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一大早&lt;/code&gt; is unlike to be seen in academic/professional writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那是个梦 vs 这是一个梦，，，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of ellipsis (I am not fond of the commas in place of &lt;code&gt;…&lt;/code&gt; though) in a quote is informal yet vivid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我便会呆在家中 vs 我准在家里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &lt;code&gt;准&lt;/code&gt; is used in conversations to mean &lt;code&gt;肯定、一定&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很响的敲击声 vs 啪啪的响声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, using &lt;code&gt;啪啪&lt;/code&gt; to represent the actual sound is more vivid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Not-so-important) Error Picking &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two translations have the following errors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;学校学习魔法 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, from &lt;code&gt;school for wizards&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;school to learn magic&lt;/code&gt;...&lt;code&gt;魔法學校&lt;/code&gt; is much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;折叠式的沙发上睡着了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Collapsed&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;坍塌&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Foldable&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;折叠式&lt;/code&gt;. Although this detail is rather trivial to story progression and the plot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哈利感到特别高兴 ... 使他飘飘欲仙了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translator dropped the &lt;code&gt;scrambled to his feet&lt;/code&gt; and added these to sentences to emphasize his happiness... Perhaps creativity has been overly presented here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;抓。” 是猫头鹰... (till the end)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not know what happened from here for the second translation. This part on is a bit chaotic, but otherwise it can be a good translation.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T00:31:25.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13138" CreationDate="2015-04-16T01:14:21.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the Traditional, but in Simplified , &lt;code&gt;“”&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;《》&lt;/code&gt; is the formal way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8141" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T01:14:21.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13142" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13143" CreationDate="2015-04-16T01:34:18.907" Score="5" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;遵命&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's said from a person of lesser position to a person of higher position, ie from soldier to general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be a more &quot;casual&quot; way of translating it into English other than &quot;As you wish&quot;, because &quot;as you wish&quot; sounds like something that is said to royalty and whatnot, rather than a soldier to general (as an example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-04-19T09:12:30.230" Title="Any &quot;casual&quot; translation for 遵命?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13142" CreationDate="2015-04-16T02:00:44.580" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, there are plenty of &quot;casual&quot; translations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a military setting,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Yes, Sir.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Roger that.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Copy that.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Affirmative.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Note that the later three have the same implication as that of &lt;code&gt;遵命&lt;/code&gt; but is more accurately translated to &lt;code&gt;收到&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a even less serious setting, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Will do.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Sure.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will edit when I have thought of more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T02:00:44.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13138" CreationDate="2015-04-16T02:16:54.510" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In mainland:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are just two styles： ‘’ “” ,「」『』.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former are borrowed from western countries, the usages in Chinese are identical with English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter,「」 and 『』 are from Japanese. Although they are not so often used as the former, but they are definitely acceptable. In fact, Some people claims we should only use 「」『』 for quotation, because they are more suitable for Chinese character. They mean visual effects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;﹏﹏ is used in ancient texts acting likes 《》, they are for books, movies,songs and other specified names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To 〖〗 ,don't know it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The names of frequently used marks：&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“” 引号，‘’ is 单引号，“” is 双引号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「」 is called 直引号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《》 书名号，专名号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——  破折号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;；分号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;…… 省略号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;， 逗号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;。 句号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;？ 问号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;！ 感叹号 or 惊叹号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may find that in some technical writings, the 。 is  replaced by . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2016-05-04T16:03:04.220" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T16:03:04.220" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13130" CreationDate="2015-04-16T02:21:21.587" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;拔（pronunciation only. Not sure how to write.）。&#xA;e.g. 面条放冷水里拔一下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;焯是过热水。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T02:21:21.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10935" CreationDate="2015-04-16T02:28:54.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you probably can call it &quot;赌博机&quot;. It is not a slang but people would understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T02:28:54.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13142" CreationDate="2015-04-16T02:32:06.673" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;at your command&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(ignore: 30 characters patch)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T02:32:06.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13139" CreationDate="2015-04-16T02:43:04.117" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer the second one since the first one is too prim in my opinion. As a story, especially Harry Potter, the second translation is closer to the original in the sense of writing style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. The owl then fluttered onto the floor&#xA;t1 它振动着翅膀，停在地板上&#xA;t2 猫头鹰扑腾着翅膀飞到地上&#xA;t1 sounds like the owl is some sort of robot. t2 just sounds much better since a bird can 扑腾翅膀, and they normally don't 振动翅膀. It is ok if you use 震动, but birds are not vibrators. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So they both accurate enough, but I'll buy the second translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastEditorUserId="9737" LastEditDate="2015-04-16T02:50:52.947" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T02:50:52.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13117" CreationDate="2015-04-16T03:35:51.553" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;For people to understand better...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DgkPE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;zhao&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jE9Cu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;cai&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zayfh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;jin&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zm6F7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;bao&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T03:35:51.553" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13129" CreationDate="2015-04-16T03:40:45.130" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just for fun，I translated to 文言文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We're leaving together&lt;br&gt;&#xA;与子同去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But still it's farewell&lt;br&gt;&#xA;顾是诀别&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And maybe we'll come back&lt;br&gt;&#xA;或可归来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To earth, who can tell&lt;br&gt;&#xA;于斯海内，焉能知晓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess there is no one to blame&lt;br&gt;&#xA;无以为怨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We're leaving ground (leaving ground)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;飘然而去（飘然而去）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will things ever be the same again&lt;br&gt;&#xA;复如昔乎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the final countdown...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;终之时也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final countdown&lt;br&gt;&#xA;时乎终哉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ooh oh&lt;br&gt;&#xA;呜呼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We're heading for Venus (Venus)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;同去太白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And still we stand tall&lt;br&gt;&#xA;复高驻之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cause maybe they've seen us&lt;br&gt;&#xA;盖见于彼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And welcome us all (yeah)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;喜迎吾等（幸哉）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With so many light years to go&lt;br&gt;&#xA;穿行两界&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And things to be found (to be found)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;寻秘发奇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure that we'll all miss her so&lt;br&gt;&#xA;众固念之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the final countdown...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;终之时也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T00:26:29.820" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T00:26:29.820" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13151" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13161" CreationDate="2015-04-16T07:06:36.540" Score="1" ViewCount="626" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across a few, very poor, literal translations for the English, “there's more than one way to skin a cat”:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;给猫剥皮不止有一种方法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（谚）达到目的的方法不止一种&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;到达目标的设施多得很。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What colloquial equivalents exist for this phrase? (which basically means: &lt;strong&gt;there's more than one way to do something&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-04-19T07:24:59.257" Title="Translation/Colloquial Equivalents: “There's More Than One Way To Skin A Cat”" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13151" CreationDate="2015-04-16T09:26:50.340" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about this I found: 不要因为不能马上成为某事物的专家而失望. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or this: 有多于一种的方式&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or this:     达到目的的办法多得很。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-04-16T10:08:43.800" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T10:08:43.800" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9560" CreationDate="2015-04-16T16:59:02.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;还有 sometimes (not always) gives the listener an impression, or means, that you forgot to mention something before and suddenly you remembered it, or that you don't think those are important. But in most situations, it's just a matter of formality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9786" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T16:59:02.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13154" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13164" CreationDate="2015-04-16T19:30:16.103" Score="4" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I remember, the phrase was used in response to a certain scenario. Unfortunately, as I tried to look it up on Google, all I find is &lt;code&gt;drying out&lt;/code&gt;, which is certainly not the meaning I am looking for. Thus, my take is that this phrase is probably a slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, I am not familiar with Simplified Chinese so I could be wrong, but this slang phrase seems to exist only in Traditional Chinese. Among the search results in Simplified Chinese, all I see is &lt;code&gt;干掉&lt;/code&gt;, which means &lt;code&gt;to kill/eliminate&lt;/code&gt;, but as far as I know, &lt;code&gt;乾&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;dry&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I assume it is a slang phrase used in colloquial context. But apart from the &lt;code&gt;drying out&lt;/code&gt; definition, what could it mean? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it might be in response to some joke. The context was something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;uh...乾掉了...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's all I could remember... Any help is appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to @sonyuanyao's comment, this phrase is often used in Taiwanese TV show and possibly means &lt;code&gt;not funny&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;embarrassing&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-04-17T04:57:02.490" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T09:54:27.597" Title="The slang(?) phrase &quot;乾掉了&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13154" CreationDate="2015-04-16T21:16:55.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe it is &quot;干掉了&quot;? It could means literally to eliminate / get rid of / to killed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. (from some webpage):   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们的早餐，馒头太好吃了，已经干掉了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We have 'elimiated' (as in eaten) the steamed bun in our breakfast because it is too good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T21:16:55.857" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13151" CreationDate="2015-04-17T00:04:57.447" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the simplest way to say it, colloquially and informally, is&#xA;&quot;辦法多得是&quot;&#xA;&quot;總有辦法的&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are speaking in Cantonese, then these two phrases mean exactly what you intend to say:&#xA;&quot;實有計既&quot; or &quot;唔止一條路&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A less direct yet more formal translation is:&#xA;辦法總比困難多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or a logical inversion could be:&#xA;不可能解決不了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9795" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T00:04:57.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13151" CreationDate="2015-04-17T02:29:11.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;条条大路通罗马&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if there is something as bloody as &quot;skin a cat&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T02:29:11.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2015-04-17T02:36:12.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 媒介 refers to the environment. Say A and B are both in the air/space/water/etc, here the air/space/water/etc is 媒介. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If A gives B something through C, then C is 载体.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T02:36:12.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13151" CreationDate="2015-04-17T02:39:30.030" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;各施各法 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each person does (it) his own way. It comes from a longer phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;八仙過海，各施各法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is about eight fairies in Chinese mythology. When they needed to cross the ocean, each did it his/her own way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-19T07:24:59.257" LastActivityDate="2015-04-19T07:24:59.257" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13154" CreationDate="2015-04-17T04:11:09.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you remember where you heard about it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people are drinking, they cheer, and they often say &quot;bottom up&quot; which is 干gān掉了 or 我干gān了 你随意 or something is drying, 苹果时间放长了就给干gān掉了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you refers 干gàn掉了, it may mean some food have been eaten up, ex 我干掉了一盘菜, or something have been get rid of，ex 昨晚我们组又干掉了一个项目&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me know what do you think !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9707" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T04:11:09.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13154" CreationDate="2015-04-17T04:27:14.053" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;乾 and 幹 are both the traditional Chinese characters and can translated to a same simplified Chinese character 干. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幹掉了 is a slang means to kill or get rid of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乾掉了 just means something is vaporised or dehydrate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T04:27:14.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13154" CreationDate="2015-04-17T09:54:27.597" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think is a slang in Taiwan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乾掉了 mean something is turning into boring(usually use after someone say a not funny joke) or the situation that people don't know what to say or react to it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just meet someone new to you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;after greeting, you don't know what to say to him, and so does he&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this embarrassed situation can be said &quot;乾掉了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you are holding a show and after talking a joke&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you are waiting crowd to laught&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but there's no one laughing, and a embarrassed silence appear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can say &quot;this show 乾掉了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6647" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T09:54:27.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13080" CreationDate="2015-04-17T10:02:47.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should use &lt;code&gt;您&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;謝謝你的幫助！&lt;/code&gt;, not &lt;code&gt;你&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That will be more polite&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6647" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T10:02:47.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13097" CreationDate="2015-04-17T11:18:13.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before that, the name apparently stuck from Mateo Ricci's (Li Zhizao and Zhang Wentao) map. As you can see on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lib.umn.edu/bell/riccimap#viewer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;map&lt;/a&gt;, first name tagging was purely phonetical, drawing from &quot;America&quot;, which in turn was taken from Americo Vespuccio instead of from Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón, whose name as discoverer of the continent was used to name a single country only: Colombia) for diverse reasons, including the &quot;Black Legend&quot; that other colonial powers spread against Spain's preponderance at the time.&#xA;Noticeably enough, Spain's name was also different in Jesuit Mateo Ricci's map, being read &quot;XiBaNiYa&quot; (西把你亞) instead of current &quot;XiBanYa&quot; (西班牙), with a character ('亞') other than the &quot;tooth&quot; ch. ('牙'), but homophonous, apparently to indicate its southern location and homeland character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9801" LastEditorUserId="9801" LastEditDate="2017-11-24T10:43:33.917" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T10:43:33.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13151" CreationDate="2015-04-17T12:14:16.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;别在一颗树上吊死&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not have to hang on just this one tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T12:14:16.547" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13136" CreationDate="2015-04-17T13:48:09.460" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dialect characters (方言字) exhibit great variation in the way they are written. The same character can have different meanings and even wildly different pronunciations between different varieties of Chinese, as they are not constricted by the regular developments from Middle Chinese. Even characters taken for granted in Standard Mandarin exhibit variation (e.g. 走、嘛).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence characters for dialect characters are often established and legitimised by lexicographers in dialect dictionaries, whereas those in common use are often subject to lack of standardisation and even of recognition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I looked up Yin Shichao (尹世超)'s 《哈尔滨方言词典》 &lt;em&gt;Harbin Dialect Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;, published in late 1997. On page 317 there is the following entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[錛兒頭] pər˦ t’ou˨˦ = [錛兒娄(頭)] pər˨˦ lou(t’ou˨˦) 前突的前額 || 錛，也作奔，另見 pən˥˧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, other characters are used: the one represented by the breakdown &quot;十日九不见，入山见大虫&quot; seems to interpreted to several different lexemes: the one above for forehead, and another referring to wolves, and another for stupidity. All of the expressions, to my southern ear, sound particularly northern and dialectal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T13:48:09.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13169" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13182" CreationDate="2015-04-17T20:07:47.090" Score="4" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#Ethno-linguistics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; on the 匈奴 gives a literal translation as '&lt;code&gt;fierce slaves&lt;/code&gt;'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did 匈 mean '&lt;code&gt;fierce&lt;/code&gt;' in former times? What is the etymology of this character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T06:49:49.513" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T06:49:49.513" Title="What is the original meaning of 匈 (besides &quot;chest/breast/thorax&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13169" CreationDate="2015-04-17T22:34:02.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;凶 seems to mean fierce. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/51F6.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/51F6.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;勹 means wrap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'wrap up something fierce' Your raging spirit??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9799" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T22:34:02.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13171" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-17T22:58:38.143" Score="4" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese transcription of foreign names and countries often results in long words that (in my opinion) stick out from the native lexicon significantly. &#xA;There is general agreement that Mainland Mandarin is a stress-timed language, which means that some syllables are shorter than others. This is made most clear by the use of neutral tone in polysyllabic words such as 朋友. &#xA;I would like to know if, from your experience, whether the neutral tone or shorter syllables occur in longer loanwords and transliterations such as 布拉德・彼特 (Brad Pitt), 斯洛伐克 (Slovakia), 阿司匹林 (Aspirin).&#xA;Thank you for your input&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9805" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T03:10:06.723" Title="Query about tone and stress in Mandarin foreign transcriptions/loanwords" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;&lt;transcription&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13172" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-17T23:40:13.753" Score="1" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is '脱产培训‘ the opposite of '在岗培训‘ that is to say ’off the job training' compared to 'on the job training'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T00:09:20.237" Title="What is the meaning of '脱产培训‘？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13172" CreationDate="2015-04-18T00:09:20.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not exactly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to 现代汉语规范词典 / The Standard Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese&#xA;Copyright © 2010, 2012 Oxford University Press and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing, Co., Ltd. and 牛津英汉汉英词典 / Oxford Chinese Dictionary&#xA;Copyright © 2010, 2013 Oxford University Press and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;脱产 tuōchǎn&#xA;  [动]脱离原来从事的直接生产岗位，担任非生产性工作或专门学习；也泛指脱离原来的工作岗位，担任其他工作或专门学习。&#xA;  基层干部大都不脱产 | 脱产进修&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;脱产 tuōchǎn&#xA;  [动]&#xA;  be released from one’s regular work to take on other duties&#xA;  脱产进修&#xA;  go on block release&#xA;  脱产学习&#xA;  be given study leave&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In real life, 脱产培训 could mean both quitting your job and take a training or suspending your work duties and take a training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume off the job training means a training you take not as part of your job. And a on job training is a training as part of your job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for 脱产培训, if you quit your job and take a training, it certainly is an off-the-job training. But not all off-the-job trainings are 脱产培训 since you can have a job at day and take some personal training at night which should still be counted as off-the-job training even you have a regular work duty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if your normal duties are suspended and be provided a training opportunity by your company, the training still counts as 脱产培训 but not off-the-job training. Because the training is part of your job, it is on-job-training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bit confusing. To sum up, 脱产 concerns more about whether or not your are released from production, i.e your primary duty, not whether or not it is related to your job or organisation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T00:09:20.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13174" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13175" CreationDate="2015-04-18T01:55:53.400" Score="1" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard of this game &quot;three card brag&quot;  - didn't quite catch the name? Also - is there a place that states the rules that you could reference me to? 多谢 ：） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢中国的纸牌游戏！ 特别斗地主。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9734" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T23:29:10.000" Title="What is the name (in 普通话) of a card game known as &quot;three card brag&quot;?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13174" CreationDate="2015-04-18T02:25:30.777" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_card_brag&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_card_brag&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'brag' meaning exaggerate, pretend you have really good cards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晓云说了是‘炸金华‘=&#xA;Xiaoyun said it is ‘炸金华‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-04-18T23:29:10.000" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T23:29:10.000" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13117" CreationDate="2015-04-18T02:44:39.247" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're called 合文! (combined characters ) or 合书！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2915764.htm&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2915764.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;( Good question - I was also curious about this a while back ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;：） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9734" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T02:44:39.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13171" CreationDate="2015-04-18T03:10:06.723" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't agree that &quot;Mainland Mandarin&quot; is a stress-timed language. Where did you get the &quot;general agreement&quot;? In addition, I think that Mandarin is Mandarin. The difference between &quot;Mainland Mandarin&quot; and &quot;Taiwan Mandarin&quot; is smaller than British English and US English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your question. Even the words/names are translated from other stress-timed language, one reads them character by character in a steady pace (so called syllable-timed). 布拉德・皮特 reads as 布/拉/德・/皮/特, not 布/拉德・/皮特 or something else. But since many educated Chinese know English very well, they may mix English words in directly when they speak. Nowadays, when one use a standard way to say, for example, 布拉德・皮特, it sounds OK but a bit out of fashion. So people, especially young people prefer to use Brad Pitt instead of 布拉德・皮特. Here the words are already English, not Mandarin or Chinese any more. 朋友 reads as 朋/友. Both characters take the same time to pronounce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't trust websites, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/mandarin-chinese-language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;. In the comment you already see it's full of mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T03:10:06.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13178" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-18T03:49:45.950" Score="1" ViewCount="397" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence before he said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般企业更多雇用的是员工的双手和双脚，而不是员工最有价值和创造力的部位--大脑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面对这一业界难题，我们公司看到的不是两难，而是有机结合。&#xA;Next sentence:(this is from my fltrp text book, so I assume it is good 汉语）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们在雇用员工双手的同时也雇用了员工的大脑，让员工不仅用手工作，而且用心用脑去工作。&#xA;How should I interpret '有机结合‘？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-04-20T22:54:37.703" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T03:02:21.183" Title="What is the meaning of '有机结合‘ here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13179" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13181" CreationDate="2015-04-18T04:14:27.230" Score="5" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, Cantonese has its associated characters. But as I searched for Taiwanese characters, I only find the pinyin system to indicate the pronunciation of words, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;遮雨 &lt;strong&gt;jia-hōo/lia-hōo&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there characters for Taiwanese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-04-18T12:56:52.613" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T08:25:03.000" Title="Characters for Taiwanese" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;taiwanese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13178" CreationDate="2015-04-18T04:21:09.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you may already know, &quot;结合&quot; means combination. &quot;有机&quot; in this sentence means the combinations goes vary well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;有机&quot; is a vary interesting words, it always means the change is not physical one, but a chemical one. It means something new is created by the combination, not just put them together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9719" LastEditorUserId="9719" LastEditDate="2015-04-18T04:28:28.983" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T04:28:28.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13179" CreationDate="2015-04-18T07:24:46.947" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how well it's implemented but you can check this out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E8%87%BA%E7%81%A3%E9%96%A9%E5%8D%97%E8%AA%9E%E6%8E%A8%E8%96%A6%E7%94%A8%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;台湾闽南语推荐用字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;台湾闽南语推荐用字&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;台湾闽南语推荐用字为台湾闽南语书写系统的汉字建议用字表，实施单位为中华民国教育部。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;简介&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;台湾闽南语推荐用字于2009年9月中发布完700个字，并发布于教育部国语推行委员会（国语会）&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E8%87%BA%E7%81%A3%E9%96%A9%E5%8D%97%E8%AA%9E%E6%8E%A8%E8%96%A6%E7%94%A8%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;的网站，免费供一般社会人士与学生等下载运用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;台湾官方以4年时间整理的用字，第一批闽南语推荐用字于2007年5月30日颁布，共有300字&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/pages/detail.aspx?Node=3682&amp;amp;Page=25954&amp;amp;Index=9&amp;amp;WID=C5AD5187-55EF-4811-8219-E946FE04F725&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;， 2008年5月1日公布第2批100字&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/700iongji_1031222.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;， 2009年10月2日公布最后一批300字&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/pages/detail.aspx?Node=3682&amp;amp;Page=25954&amp;amp;Index=9&amp;amp;WID=C5AD5187-55EF-4811-8219-E946FE04F725&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;。这700个字基本上已经标准化了台湾闽南语用字。未来如果有需要再增加推荐用字的话，国语会会再补。&#xA;  国语会选字标准&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;选用字之时，国语会的标准如下&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/FileUpload/3677-15601/Documents/300iongji_960523.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;6&lt;/a&gt;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;使用本字：台湾传统闽南语文所用汉字多为传统用字，例如“山”、“水””、“天”。偶尔，台湾闽南语用字与古汉语一致，例如“箸”（筷子）、“沃”（浇）、“行”（走）、“走”（跑）、“倩”（雇用）、“晏”（晚）、“青盲”（失明）、“才调”（本事）等。&#xA;      训用字（训读字）：若是台湾闽南语本字不清楚，而现代标准汉语用字接近台湾闽南语字音与字意，则采用训用字，例如“戆”（gōng）、“挖”（óo/ué）、“会”（ē）等。&#xA;      借音字：若是台湾闽南语本字不清楚，再加上现代标准汉语用字不接近闽南语字意，而民间习惯使用音接近之字，则采用借音字，例如“嘛”（mā，也）、“佳哉”（ka-tsài，幸亏）、“磅空”（pōng-khang，隧道）等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现况上也配合台湾每县市1到3位乡土语言指导员，来帮助台湾闽南语的语言政策并藉以研发乡土语言等课程发展。&#xA;  台湾闽南语常用词辞典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2008年10月17日公布《台湾闽南语常用词辞典》（试用版），收录一万六千个常用闽南语词汇及单音字&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/700iongji_1031222.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;7&lt;/a&gt;。2009年10月国语会有计划出版《台湾闽南语常用词辞典》。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;用字举例&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U2toL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Srnr6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;问题与建议&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2011年在教育部召开公听会检讨首部官方版闽南语辞典时，桃园社区大学刘志鸿表示，发布的七百个推荐字当中的四百多字有待商榷，有争议的用字不宜贸然推行到学校教学及编成辞典。例如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;意为贫穷人的“散凶（散乡）人”、“散赤（散食）人”、“瘦呷（瘦吃）人”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而台中市海洋台语文研究学会理事长林绍良则认为，至少有一成要检讨修订，举例：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蚂蚁非哺乳类动物，“狗蚁”建议应作“蚼蚁”；&#xA;     “公公、婆婆”依传统古汉字应写成“唐官、唐家”。&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/pages/detail.aspx?Node=3682&amp;amp;Page=25954&amp;amp;Index=9&amp;amp;WID=C5AD5187-55EF-4811-8219-E946FE04F725&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;9&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can download the following pdfs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/FileUpload/3677-15601/Documents/300iongji_960523.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;台湾闽南语推荐用字（第1批）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/FileUpload/3677-15601/Documents/100iongji_970501.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;台湾闽南语推荐用字（第2批）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/FileUpload/3677-15601/Documents/300iongji_3rd_990915.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;台湾闽南语推荐用字（第3批）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MoE's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/pages/detail.aspx?Node=3682&amp;amp;Page=25954&amp;amp;Index=9&amp;amp;WID=C5AD5187-55EF-4811-8219-E946FE04F725&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;department of lifelong education&lt;/a&gt; also has a bunch of downloadable pdfs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;臺灣閩南語推薦用字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;臺灣閩南語&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/minkalaok_970501.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;卡拉OK正字字表&lt;/a&gt;及內&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/minkalaokintro_970501.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;容說明&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;臺灣閩南語&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/700iongji_1031222.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;推薦用字700字詞&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;臺灣閩南語推薦用字隨手冊&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/book-one-sided-1031222.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(1)&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/book-two-sided-1031222.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(2)&lt;/a&gt;、字卡&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/card-one-sided-1031222.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(3)&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/card-two-sided-1031222.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(4)&lt;/a&gt; 及&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/userguide.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;製作說明(5)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/book-one-sided-1031222.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;手冊單面列印&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/book-two-sided-1031222.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;手冊雙面列印&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(3) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/card-one-sided-1031222.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;字卡單面列印&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(4) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/card-two-sided-1031222.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;字卡雙面列印&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(5) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edu.tw/userfiles/file/iongji/userguide.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;製作說明&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T07:24:46.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13169" CreationDate="2015-04-18T07:54:38.257" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;匈&lt;/code&gt; is the ancient character of &lt;code&gt;胸&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;chest/breast&lt;/code&gt;. And I can't find any other original meaning of it besides this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“胸”的古字 [bosom;chest]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  匈,膺也。——《说文》。字亦作胷、作胸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the explanation of &lt;code&gt;胸&lt;/code&gt;, it's a later character for &lt;code&gt;匈&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从肉,匈声。本作“匈”,胸是后起字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;匈奴&lt;/code&gt; is just the transliteration from the name of an ancient nationality in North China, has nothing to do with &lt;code&gt;fierce slaves&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/xs/5308.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;匈的解释&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/22/xs/80F8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;胸的解释&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.guoxue.com/article.php?articleid=18246&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;孙健：说说“匈奴”这个词的起源&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-04-18T09:13:20.437" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T09:13:20.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12207" CreationDate="2015-04-18T09:37:57.027" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a chinese ， I  guess that there is barely no difference between 不得不 and 必须 in my daily life when I use them.But 只好 and 应该 ,they are different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9808" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T09:37:57.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12207" CreationDate="2015-04-18T12:47:02.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One sentence help you memorize them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你应该弄懂它们，虽然不是必须的，否则遇到它们的时候，你不得不查字典，不然，你只好向别人请教了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should figure out that the differences between them,although you are not obliged to do that, otherwise when you need them, you have to check dictionary, or you would have no choice but to ask someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T12:47:02.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13185" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13186" CreationDate="2015-04-18T15:32:47.037" Score="8" ViewCount="827" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very rarely will you see a Japanese name in Chinese without 汉字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What rules are there for translating Japanese names into Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take for instance the name Yoshi (よし) 汉字 include: 与四、与志、与子、与士、与司, just to name a few (and there are, like, a million different variations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What standards are there when translating Japanese names that may/may not have 汉字 equivalents?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2015-04-18T18:03:21.730" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T18:56:56.870" Title="Standards: Japanese - Chinese Name Translations" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13185" CreationDate="2015-04-18T18:56:56.870" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Kanji with Chinese character counterpart&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia (ref 1) implies this is the majority case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Japanese names are usually written in kanji, which are characters usually Chinese in origin but Japanese in pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When translating these names, the kanji characters are directly converted to their Chinese counterparts. It's not always 1:1 though, like both 沢(kanji) and 澤(kanji) map to 泽(Chinese character).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Kanji without Chinese character counterpart&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia (ref 1):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sometimes, a Japanese name includes &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#Kokuji&quot;&gt;kokuji&lt;/a&gt;. These kanji resemble Chinese characters but originate in Japan and do not have Chinese pronunciations. For example, the word komu (込) has no Chinese reading. When words like this are encountered, usually the rule of &quot;有邊讀邊，沒邊讀中間&quot; (&quot;read the side if any, read the middle part if there is no side&quot;) applies. Therefore &quot;込&quot; is read as &quot;rù&quot; which is derived from 入.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This paragraph implies these kokuji are not translated, instead, Chinese pronunciations are 'invented' for reading. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, the Zhihu Q/A (ref 3) suggests&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果出现了中文没有对应汉字的情况，会基于汉字意思或者字形接近的原则来补一个汉字。例如：冴羽りょう，就有寒羽良的翻译。因为さえ这个词也有寒冷的意思。但，如果按照严格的翻译规则，应该翻译成讶羽獠。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice we see all different methods being used even in formal occasions (like broadcast and newspaper). No single rule is strictly followed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Hiragana and katakana in names&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From real life cases we know this is the place with the most flexibility. One thing I'm sure is the hiragana or katakana have to be translated into Chinese characters, but methods may span 'best guess' kanji conversion, direct paraphrasing, contextual paraphrasing, transliteration (rare), etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in ref 3, when it comes to ACG (Anime, Comics and Games) or any fictitious names, it's free translation. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;音译&#xA;  例如：アラレ　→　阿拉蕾（原词为放在拉面里面的小号膨化颗粒）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;按读音填补汉字&#xA;  例如：ナルト　→　鸣人（原词为拉面上面放的鱼饼，常画有粉红色的螺旋图案）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;意译&#xA;  例如：ピッコロ　→　短笛（就是乐器短笛的意思）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;根据人物角色特点进行的完全颠覆式翻译&#xA;  例如：野比のび太　→　康夫（原文翻译，用填补汉字的方式应为野比延太或野比伸太）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For real person's names I believe 'best guess' kanji conversion is the most common method, with which there is still a lot of flexibility (or say lack of standard) like you said in your question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. '沢尻 エリカ' (Japanese actress) does not have kanji for her given name and used to be translated as '泽尻 绘里香' as 'best guess kanji'. Later the actress herself picked '泽尻 英龙华' (which has the same pronunciation) as the 'official' kanji name (reference &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%BE%A4%E5%B0%BB%E8%8B%B1%E9%BE%8D%E8%8F%AF&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, for Yoshi in your question, I believe the most common 'best guess' kanji is 吉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_name&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_name&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhihu.com/question/20423517&quot;&gt;http://www.zhihu.com/question/20423517&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T18:56:56.870" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13187" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13196" CreationDate="2015-04-18T21:30:38.457" Score="5" ViewCount="531" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't find the difference between 生气 and 愤怒.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxford Dictionary says &lt;em&gt;angry&lt;/em&gt; means 生气, but I found 愤怒 in the online dictionary. Both have more than 20 million hits on Google, both have pictures of angry people, and nowhere am I able to find if they have a different meaning or if using one or the other is preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9810" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T21:50:18.597" LastActivityDate="2021-02-13T10:09:43.607" Title="Difference between 生气 and 愤怒" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13080" CreationDate="2015-04-18T21:57:17.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the above answers are right. If you want to be VERY FORMAL in a written letter, you can use ancient expressions. Taiwanese still use them nowadays in formal letters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ancient ways to express gratitude in written letter: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;承蒙关注，特此感谢。承蒙关照，不胜感激。请接受我的谢忱。费神之处，不胜感激，来示读悉；十分感谢。厚情盛意，应接不遑，切谢切谢。劳神为谢。费神之处，泥首以谢。感荷高情，非言语所能鸣谢。承赐忠言，心感何极。承蒙谆谆忠告，铭感铭感。承蒙见教，获益甚多。承示诚挚之言，佩其感甚。顷得惠函并照片种种，感谢之至。备荷关照，铭五内。承蒙惠赠，忠心感谢。前承馈赠……，倾感不胜。承蒙存问，不胜感谢；如此厚赠，实深惶涑。日前既荷盛钱，复蒙躬送，感谢无既。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ancient ways to express apology in written letter: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惠书敬悉，甚感盛意，迟复为歉。惠书已悉，因为琐务，未即奉答为歉。久未通信，甚以为歉。久稽回答，幸原谅之。奉读惠书，久未作复，甚以为歉；数奉台函，未暇修复，抱歉良深。音问久疏，实深歉疚。惠书早日收到，因事纷繁，迟至今日奉复，甚歉。所询之事，目前尚难奉复。关于……之事，一时无以奉闻，歉甚。托付之事，未能尽如人意，尚请多多包涵。前言……，因事繁忘却，歉甚愧甚。杂务缠身，故托付之事延误至今方作复，歉甚。疏失之处，请少垂宽恕之情。前事有负雅意，十分抱歉，尚希恕之。前事有逆尊意，不胜惭愧，万望海涵。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, these are not supposed to be used in speaking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9811" LastEditorUserId="9811" LastEditDate="2015-04-18T22:43:46.397" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T22:43:46.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13189" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13315" CreationDate="2015-04-18T22:16:26.680" Score="8" ViewCount="547" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen these three characters forming the &quot;same&quot; words (I cannot think of a better way to phrase this), such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;惡夢 vs 噩夢 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;惡運 vs 噩運 vs 厄運 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I tried googling for the difference, I find different opinions on their meaning/usage – some argue that they are interchangeable; others claim that they are slightly different. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhihu.com/question/20016153&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Below&lt;/a&gt; is what I thought to be the best explanation I have found by far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;噩: 不祥.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  厄: 灾难.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  恶: 恶劣.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不祥不一定就会发生灾难, 但灾难必定是不祥的, 而这两者都很恶劣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the explanation still sounds rather vague to me. In explicit, how do these characters differ in meaning/usage? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-04-28T09:47:38.040" LastActivityDate="2015-04-28T18:19:56.250" Title="&quot;惡&quot; vs &quot;噩&quot; vs &quot;厄&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13190" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-18T22:39:20.823" Score="2" ViewCount="321" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's the end of the second chapter of Dao De Jing. I try to make sense:&#xA;是以不去 therefore it's not lost, doesn't go away. &#xA;夫唯弗居? Can anybody help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9780" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T13:11:22.263" Title="夫唯弗居，是以不去 What&quot;s the meaning of the first 4 characters?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13187" CreationDate="2015-04-18T22:51:06.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first, 生气，would mean angry in the colloquial sense. 愤怒 is a little more strong, and is not usually used in normal speech. You would say, 我生气了. 愤怒鸟 however, means Angry Birds in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9781" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T22:51:06.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13187" CreationDate="2015-04-19T04:00:30.020" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In terms of degree of anger, &lt;code&gt;憤怒&lt;/code&gt; is higher &lt;code&gt;生气&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of context, &lt;code&gt;生气&lt;/code&gt; is usually used in colloquial context, whereas &lt;code&gt;憤怒&lt;/code&gt; is usually used in formal context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another term you may be interested in is &lt;code&gt;抓狂&lt;/code&gt;, which is a colloquial term with degree of anger higher than &lt;code&gt;憤怒&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kids.yam.com/joke/article.php?cid=general&amp;amp;id=170025&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is an interesting joke that can hopefully help you understand better.&#xA;I have quoted below the key phrases that denote the difference (forgive the offensive language used):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;生气&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「X的，神經病。你去死好了！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;F***ing psycho, go to hell!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;憤怒&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「你欠扁是不是？妈的，要是再打来，给我试试看！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;You want some beef? F***, I dare you call again!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抓狂&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「他妈的！去你老母！你娘卡好！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;F*** your mom!&amp;quot; (three variations with the same meaning)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-19T04:00:30.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13190" CreationDate="2015-04-19T05:29:00.433" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nannuo gave a nice explanation. But there are some of the details I don't agree with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems 夫 is 发语词 to me. Normally one doesn't relate it to anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夫唯弗居 =&gt; 唯弗居 =&gt;  Only contributing without taking credit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以 means &quot;because of&quot;. 是以 = 以是 = because of it/this/the reason/something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去 = leave （vanish is also good.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是以不去 =&gt; 以是不去 =&gt; Because of the reason above, it (the credit of your contribution) never go away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastEditorUserId="9737" LastEditDate="2015-04-19T21:25:55.333" LastActivityDate="2015-04-19T21:25:55.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13190" CreationDate="2015-04-19T05:40:06.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;夫唯弗居，是以不去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夫:发语词。no actural meaning。 can be translate to &quot;so&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弗：does not，never&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唯：only，just&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;居：possess (merits) (regard contribution as merits。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是以：therefore&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不去：does not lose。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;（So）Just because does not possess（merits） ，therefore never lose it。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2015-04-19T05:46:39.330" LastActivityDate="2015-04-19T05:46:39.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13142" CreationDate="2015-04-19T09:12:30.230" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an everyday context could be something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I'm on it&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Right away&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or perhaps in a more authoritative context an example could include&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;At your service&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2395" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-19T09:12:30.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5678" CreationDate="2015-04-19T09:49:01.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only times I've ever needed to use 师傅 is to address taxi drivers rather than calling them 司机 (driver), it sounds better as a respect kind of thing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the taxi context, I guess by calling 师傅, you are referring to person behind the wheel as the person who gives you guidance (to where you need to go) rather than a 司机 which may imply a someone who follows your orders&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, 师傅 is someone who you want to listen to, 司机 is someone who listens to you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2395" LastActivityDate="2015-04-19T09:49:01.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12915" CreationDate="2015-04-19T15:34:39.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;胡说八道 hu2 shuo1 ba1 dao4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a 四字词 which means to talk rubbish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6436" LastActivityDate="2015-04-19T15:34:39.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13203" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-19T15:40:46.437" Score="1" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a word which is used to describe the situation when demand for some goods are so high that sellers cannot satisfy it. It usually leads to rapid growth of prices and crowds in shops, even up to fights among buyers, 好像，抢购、轰涌对吗？In Russian, it is ажиотаж. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9752" LastEditorUserId="9685" LastEditDate="2015-05-04T06:59:05.417" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T03:36:19.713" Title="Is there a word to describe &quot;more demand than offer&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13204" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13216" CreationDate="2015-04-19T18:23:01.740" Score="2" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;p&gt;I overheard a Chinese man speaking over the telephone on the London underground last night. At one point he made a buzzing sound which in the context of his call I understood to be a word or at least a form of communication. If I was to write down the sound it would be a non-pinyin &quot;ZZZZzzzzzZZZ&quot; with the different cases a poor attempt at representing the variation in tone over the length of the sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Chinese (Shandong) wife was with me and she believed that it was a word from what she calls (in English) 'local language' which she means to be any of China's non-standard Mandarin dialects or other languages excluding Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After he finished the call we started a conversation because he was surprised to hear me speaking Chinese.  He told us he was from Shanghai. I didn't think at the time to ask him about that sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My wife believes it was a word from Shanghainese dialect but doesn't know the meaning. I believe this may be a word because I think I have heard similar sounds in a conversation between 2 Chinese people long ago before I knew any Chinese at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is this sound actually a word with a meaning from Shanghainese dialect? Or from any dialect at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9814" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T20:29:42.030" Title="Does Shanghainese have a buzzing sound &amp; what does it mean?" Tags="&lt;shanghainese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13205" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-19T22:42:52.523" Score="1" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you please tell me how to translate &quot;提高技能技术&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both &quot;技能&quot; and &quot;技术&quot; seem to mean skill, but &quot;技术&quot; also means technology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9799" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-20T15:24:37.833" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T16:04:50.657" Title="What Does '技能技术' Mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13206" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-20T02:08:37.187" Score="0" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently it means &quot;domestically produced fixed-wing amphibian aircraft&quot; but I can't find this on any dictionary.  Can you break it down for me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T15:57:58.577" Title="What does 国产地效船双船 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13209" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13212" CreationDate="2015-04-20T09:02:34.097" Score="1" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recent &quot;puns&quot; are showing a big change in pronunciation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;神马 [play on 什么 | me -&gt; mǎ]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;妹纸 [play on 妹子 | zi -&gt; zhǐ]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;歪果 [play on 外国 | wài -&gt; wāi &amp;amp;&amp;amp; guó -&gt; guǒ]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;肿么 [play on 怎么 | zěn -&gt; zhǒng]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have (quite big!) changes in tones and changes in actual 'sound' pronunciation (pinyin, if you will).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does pronunciation matter that much any more?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it easier to be understood these days with poor pronunciation? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are people more accustomed to &quot;accents&quot; and variants in pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-10-16T10:11:26.600" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T19:04:59.467" Title="Is pronunciation as important as it used to be?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13205" CreationDate="2015-04-20T09:35:36.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can translate it to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;improve skill level&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;enhance technical ability&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9816" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T09:35:36.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13205" CreationDate="2015-04-20T10:43:50.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E6%8A%80%E6%9C%AF%E6%8A%80%E8%83%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E6%8A%80%E6%9C%AF%E6%8A%80%E8%83%BD&lt;/a&gt; , &quot;技術技能&quot; means &quot;technical skill&quot; (.... a typical example of piecemeal translation ....).  &quot;技術&quot; is commonly used as an attributive noun, e.g. &quot;技術人員&quot; (technical staff) and &quot;技術支援&quot; (technical support)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, &quot;技術&quot; is seldom used as an attributive noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, there are two possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &quot;技能技術&quot; is &quot;技能和技術&quot; with &quot;和&quot; omitted.  Thus, we can translate it as &quot;techniques and skills&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) It is a typo of &quot;技術技能&quot;.  In such case, we should translate it as &quot;technical skills&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2015-04-21T02:45:57.933" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T02:45:57.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13209" CreationDate="2015-04-20T11:41:28.017" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My observation is that there is a trend in the internet that some people, especially the youths, intentionally alter the &quot;Han Zi&quot; expression of some frequently used words. It is a way they make fun of their text and want to be more attractive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is not because the tone in the language is less important or has any change. It is simply a technical issue. Most of the PinYin input systems in computers and smart phones do not request a tone input. Instead, the screen may display a list of homophones to choose. This provides a chance for the youths to play with different characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While most of the &quot;experiments&quot; are wrong, a few of them indeed makes sense. For example, &quot;什么都是浮云&quot; （什么金银财宝对于人生来讲，都是过眼烟云，不值一提）was changed to &quot;神马都是浮云&quot;. It has an apparent meaning that the shape of a horse in the sky is actually cloud. But the readers still are able to connect it to its original meaning.      &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2017-10-16T10:00:43.900" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T10:00:43.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13138" CreationDate="2015-04-20T12:37:43.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will recommand you to refer to this file,   &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.moe.gov.cn/ewebeditor/uploadfile/2012/06/01/20120601102833791.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;General rules for punctuation&lt;/a&gt;,which is the Chinese official reference to the use of punctuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user9817" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-04-20T20:39:22.353" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T20:39:22.353" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13206" CreationDate="2015-04-20T17:21:07.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;ground effect vehicle(GEV) 地效飞行器&#xA;catamaran 双体船&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ground effect catamaran&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9819" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T17:21:07.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13215" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-20T20:28:38.907" Score="3" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this the correct way of saying &quot;she is taking a bath while listening to music&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她一边洗澡，一边听音乐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9608" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T18:28:20.060" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T18:28:20.060" Title="Usage of 一边 (doing things simultaneously)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13204" CreationDate="2015-04-20T20:29:42.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;是 (the copula) is pronounced /z̩/ in Shanghainese. The negative (often written as 伐, though for phonetic reasons only) is pronounced like &quot;vah&quot;. So one often hears zzzvuhzzz in the middle of Shanghainese conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T20:29:42.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13217" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13222" CreationDate="2015-04-20T21:04:36.390" Score="7" ViewCount="1891" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I have learned, one should address a waiter or waitress as &lt;code&gt;先生&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;小姐&lt;/code&gt;. However, I have also seen the case (I believe it was in a drama) of addressing them as the general term &lt;code&gt;服務生&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;服務員&lt;/code&gt;. As far as I know, calling a waiter or waitress literally by &lt;code&gt;waiter&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;waitress&lt;/code&gt; in the States is not so common and not preferred by some people. Is this the same for Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what is the proper way to get the attention of a waiter or waitress when, say, the restaurant is too noisy or the waiter/waitress is too far away?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T19:52:37.583" Title="Proper way to address a waiter or waitress" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13218" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13223" CreationDate="2015-04-20T21:13:04.537" Score="4" ViewCount="287" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are so many ways to say &quot;tiny&quot; it seems. What is the most common way to say &quot;tiny&quot; to something, as in size, an object. Like a tiny insect, or tiny butterfly. Small in English, is still relatively large compared to tiny.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been looking through dictionaries and online, I have found the words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;微, 微小 and 极小   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these the most common ways to say tiny? Which other should I consider using?  Which is the most common one? Any differences in meaning? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;极小 seems to be more for buildings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9820" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2015-04-21T06:35:38.093" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T08:17:18.293" Title="What is smaller than 小" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13217" CreationDate="2015-04-20T23:01:16.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here in Nanjing I mostly just hear ‘服务员’ but the '务‘ gets swallowed, so it comes out as '服员‘。Seems a bit abrupt, but I've never seen anyone take offence at this, so it must be acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T23:01:16.577" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13218" CreationDate="2015-04-21T00:36:15.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on what context you would have, you can use the following words or idioms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;微乎其微，忽略不计。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丝毫不差，分秒必争。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鸡毛蒜皮，蝇头小利。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;细微末节，防微杜渐。　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差之毫厘，失之千里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千里之堤，溃于蚁穴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can just say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很小很小，非常非常小，小的呀几乎看不见，给你个十万倍的显微镜也看不见。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T00:36:15.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13217" CreationDate="2015-04-21T01:53:17.013" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I have learned, the most proper and respectful is to use 服务员. There are many people that find 小姐 not appropriate or too traditional, I met several people who feel that 小姐 has some sexist note. The same goes for 美女 that many people use but not everyone feels comfortable to hear. 帅哥 for male 服务员 is less a problem as long as they are at the same age or younger and people definitely get served more quickly if they use this expression. After all you wouldn't use 美女 on somebody that is obviously older than you. Not to forget about the term 阿姨 that is a term of respect for a woman that is older than you, though not common in a restaurant, but you sure can use it in a small street noodle store (along with 叔叔 for male) where it can get more personal. I myself also often just use 你好 to address a service person. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9685" LastEditorUserId="9685" LastEditDate="2015-04-21T02:09:09.270" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T02:09:09.270" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13218" CreationDate="2015-04-21T02:04:19.977" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to &lt;code&gt;微&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;微小&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;极小/極小&lt;/code&gt;, you can also consider &lt;code&gt;渺小&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;細小&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;微型&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;迷你&lt;/code&gt;. There are too many words/idioms for &lt;code&gt;tiny&lt;/code&gt;, but these are the more common ones I can think of that are applicable in your context. Below is the explanation of each:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;微&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context you intend to use it in, &lt;code&gt;微&lt;/code&gt; seems to be colloquial, e.g. &lt;code&gt;微翅膀&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;微触角&lt;/code&gt;. Note that you should not say &lt;code&gt;微的翅膀&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;微的触角&lt;/code&gt;; it would not make much sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;微小&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is smaller than &lt;code&gt;微&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;小&lt;/code&gt;, and is probably the most commonly used word for &lt;code&gt;tiny&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;極小&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This translates to &lt;code&gt;extremely small&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;minimal&lt;/code&gt;. It either implies that the object is one of the smallest among the likes or simply emphasizes/exaggerates the tiny aspect of the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;渺小&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is tiny as well, but it can also imply the insignificance of the object. For example, &lt;code&gt;渺小的翅膀&lt;/code&gt; can mean &lt;code&gt;the trivial wings&lt;/code&gt;. Be careful with the possible connotations of this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;細小&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is tiny and thin, which is probably a good word for antennas, i.e. &lt;code&gt;細小的触角&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;微型&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This literally translates to &lt;code&gt;tiny form/mode/model/version&lt;/code&gt;. As such, it is usually used when there is at least one larger version to compare with, e.g. &lt;code&gt;微型翅膀(the tiny wings)&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;巨型翅膀 (the huge wings)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;迷你&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a load word from English, as you may have realized – &lt;code&gt;mini&lt;/code&gt;. It is almost always used in a colloquial context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2020-06-23T08:17:18.293" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T08:17:18.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13215" CreationDate="2015-04-21T02:19:14.353" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;“一边。。。一边。。。” is a very useful structure. It can also be simplified as “边。。。边。。。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 他一边吃饭一边看书。她边走边唱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T02:19:14.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12743" CreationDate="2015-04-21T03:34:23.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Well&quot; and &quot;The sound of something thrown into a well&quot; are the original Chinese meaning of &quot;丼&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of &quot;Bowl of food&quot; is adopted from Japan, though such usage is rare outside Japanese restaurants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T03:34:23.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13247" CreationDate="2015-04-21T03:37:09.137" Score="7" ViewCount="4560" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes people ask me how to say 上火 in English and I tell them I don't know. I tell them people don't really have the concept of 上火 in America, let alone the term. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how would you succinctly explain the meaning of 上火 in English? And what do Westerners say when they get the same symptoms that Chinese people call 上火?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9823" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T15:16:48.000" Title="Do Westerners 上火?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13226" CreationDate="2015-04-21T04:24:29.980" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A general (and vague) term I could think of is &quot;Common inflammatory symptoms due to Yi-Yang Imbalance&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There can be 實火 and/or 虛火 in 心、肝、脾、肺 and/or 腎 occurring in different combinations and levels.  I do not know if there is any specific English term describing all cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2015-04-21T06:56:17.023" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T06:56:17.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13217" CreationDate="2015-04-21T06:30:18.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may see 小二 in classical Chinese novels, or 伙计 in small restaurants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T06:30:18.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13209" CreationDate="2015-04-21T06:42:44.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are invented on the internet, and mostly used on the internet. Indeed, they are written but not spoken on the internet, thus I think there is no change in the pronunciation, for example, the pinyin of 歪果 is still wāiguǒ and not wàiguó.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T06:42:44.677" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13230" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13234" CreationDate="2015-04-21T07:04:47.980" Score="0" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend asked me about the character in this picture:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AeYZ7.png&quot; alt=&quot;???&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He said it's a map, and that part looks like a lake with rivers as its branches, so he thought it's a lake name. I've tried to search it in Google but found nothing of those two characters combined. Using Google Translate, the closest is 九洚 read as Jiǔ Jiàng (said Google Translate), but searching for Jiǔ Jiàng only resulted in other character read the same. Anyone knows what is that? Any lake with that name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9825" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:41:44.340" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:41:44.340" Title="What does 九洚 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12207" CreationDate="2015-04-21T07:05:30.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不得不: literally, &quot;cannot but,&quot; as in &quot;I cannot but admire your talent.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必須: &quot;must,&quot; as in &quot;By regulation, you must submit your form in triplicate.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只好: &quot;can only&quot; or &quot;be left only to,&quot; as in &quot;Having lent my car to my father, I can only walk home.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;應該: &quot;should,&quot; as in &quot;If you want to succeed, you should practice more.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9824" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T07:05:30.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13226" CreationDate="2015-04-21T07:08:18.167" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;suffer from excessive internal heat&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;seems to be the &lt;em&gt;standard&lt;/em&gt;. ABC, A Chinese-English Dictionary, CC-CEDICT, KEY and Oxford all translate it this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's oxfords example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他鼻子流血, 准是上火了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His nose is bleeding. He must be suffering from excessive internal heat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for English I'm pretty sure we would just specifically complain about whatever problem it is that we have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;suffer from excessive internal heat (with such symptoms as constipation, conjunctivitis and inflammation of the nasal and oral cavities)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Inflammation can often feel itchy, we would probably complain of itchy ears, swollen throats, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T07:39:33.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13230" CreationDate="2015-04-21T07:33:18.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;九泽&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;zdic&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.九州的湖泊。《书·禹贡》：“九川涤源，九泽既陂。” 孔颖达 疏：“九泽，九州之泽。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.特指北方的湖泊。《淮南子·时则训》：“北方之极，自九泽穷夏晦之极，北至令正之谷。” 高诱 注：“九泽，北方之泽。夏，大也。晦，暝也。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.古代的九大湖泊。《周礼·夏官·职方氏》泽、薮并称，其名称及位置如下： 扬州 ： 具区 ； 荆州 ： 云梦 ； 豫州 ： 圃田 ； 青州 ： 望诸 ； 袞州 ： 犬野 ； 雍州 ： 弦蒲 ； 幽州 ： 貕养 ； 翼州 ： 杨纡 ； 并州 ： 昭馀祁 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.泛称深渊湖泊。 晋 王齐之 《萨陀波仑赞》：“龙潜九泽，文明未接。” 宋 曾巩 《一鹗》诗：“势疑空山竭九泽，杀气已应太白高。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently refers to a bunch of different lakes or types of lakes, take your pick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grand Ricci says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Géogr. hist.) Jiu ze : autre nom 昭余祈 Zhao yu qi, marécage qui était situé au sud-ouest du district de 祈 Qi, au 山东 Shan dong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another name for 昭余祈 swamp in Qi, Shandong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T07:52:25.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13230" CreationDate="2015-04-21T08:04:15.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zidian.eduu.com/detail/6907.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zidian.eduu.com/detail/6907.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It pronounces féng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;部首：氵部&#xA;拼音：féng&#xA;注音：ㄈㄥ&#xA;笔画：10笔&#xA;郑码：vrCI&#xA;四角号码：   37154&#xA;笔顺编号：4413541112&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;基本字义&#xA;浲&#xA;féng&#xA;古同“漨”，水名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浲&#xA;hóng&#xA;大水。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笔画数：10；&#xA;部首：氵；&#xA;笔顺编号：4413541112&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastEditorUserId="9807" LastEditDate="2015-04-21T08:09:21.913" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T08:09:21.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13226" CreationDate="2015-04-21T09:21:04.173" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may find the word &lt;strong&gt;heatiness&lt;/strong&gt; useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, here is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.benefits-of-honey.com/heaty.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; explaining what heaty and cooling food is. Westerners should then be able to visualize what 上火 means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6006" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T09:21:04.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13178" CreationDate="2015-04-21T19:10:13.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there are two things that appear irrelevant or sometimes even opposite to each other, and you managed to couple or combine them with effort, and the coupling or combination produces beneficial effects, you may say you get &quot;有机结合&quot; of the two things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We also use &quot;有机结合&quot; to describe a successful application of a technology in some certain field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9544" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T19:10:13.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13237" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-21T21:15:05.907" Score="4" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;師祖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in heads of martial schools, or masters of martial schools. I suppose &quot;founder&quot; can do, but it doesn't sound right. &quot;Elders&quot; is taken by another word, and &quot;master&quot; only seems to work for a specific master, so I don't think that's right either. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-06-10T18:12:15.387" Title="In novels, what would be a good english translation for &quot;師祖&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13238" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-22T01:03:08.957" Score="1" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;By &quot;手中法訣&quot;, I mean where their hands are rapidly moving in certain patterns in a special movement, but I don't know what's it called (if there's a name for it) nor how to say it english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-06-10T18:28:16.310" Title="What would be an english translation for &quot;手中法訣&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13257" CreationDate="2015-04-22T01:08:47.353" Score="11" ViewCount="666" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is hopefully a fun question that is a little bit off the standard path. It's meant to elicit a light conversation but nevertheless one that illuminates fundamental characteristics of Chinese as a written language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: Twitter, which was designed with English speaking users in mind, has a limit of 140 characters per tweet, to enforce a certain brevity and effectively encourage the development of a continuous stream of new content. One advantage of Chinese is that, in Twitter, you can convey a LOT more information in 140 characters than you can in English! But just how much more? My question, and again of course this is purely in the realm of hypothetical, is: How many characters would Twitter have allow if it wanted to let English-language users convey as much information as Chinese speaking users now enjoy? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To go back to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12874/subway-door-announcement-mystery&quot;&gt;my earlier thread&lt;/a&gt; about the Hong Kong subway's warning about not standing in the way of a train's closing doors, in Chinese (Cantonese), it is: &quot;請勿靠近車門&quot; and in English is: &quot;Please stand back from the doors.&quot; Almost magically, the two spoken languages, independently developed over the course of centuries on opposite sides of the planet, share precisely the same level of economy: Each announcement is just six syllables long. But there is a big disparity in the economy of the written languages. English consumes 27 written characters (and five spaces) to convey what Chinese says with just six characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to extend this one random example into the world of Twitter character limits, where spaces between words do count against your limit, that's roughly five times more characters in English than in Chinese. Therefore, Twitter would have to raise its character limit to 700 characters for English language tweets to match a 140 character limit on Chinese language tweets. Or, looked at another way, Twitter would have to reduce the limit on Chinese language tweets to 28 characters to match the existing 140 character limit on English language tweets. Obviously this is not scientific or even remotely rigorous. Perhaps studies have been done on this question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a final disclaimer, I hope it is clear from this question that I am making NO normative judgment about whether one writing system is in some way &quot;better&quot; than another. All written languages have their inherent beauty, and all should be celebrated for that. I'm shedding those thoughts here for a focus purely on the mathematics of information-conveyed-per-character, and nothing more. Also, I'm not suggesting that Twitter ever would, should, or even could have separate limits for separate tweets based on the type of language being used, especially since any one tweet can draw from multiple languages. The thing about Twitter is just meant to serve as a proxy for the underlying question of how many characters Chinese generally uses in comparison to English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T01:53:38.833" Title="Thought Experiment: Twitter Character Limits" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13178" CreationDate="2015-04-22T03:02:21.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;有机 literally means organic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English word &amp;quot;organic&amp;quot; have several meanings/usages. 有机 equals to (most of) them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 relating to or derived from living matter: organic soils.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Chemistry relating to or denoting compounds containing carbon (other than simple binary compounds and salts) and chiefly or ultimately of biological origin. Compare with inorganic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 (of food or farming methods) produced or involving production without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or other artificial chemicals. organic farming. organic meat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 Physiology relating to a bodily organ or organs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Medicine (of a disease) affecting the structure of an organ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 denoting or characterized by a harmonious relationship between the elements of a whole: the organic unity of the integral work of art.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• characterized by gradual or natural development: the organic growth of community projects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't say for meaning (3), but 有机 is the same as organic in the rest three of organic's meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of 有机 in the example in organic meaning 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T03:02:21.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13239" CreationDate="2015-04-22T03:04:30.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short Answer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Undefined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Long Answer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To fully support my opinion, There are a few points I would like to clarify:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would say &lt;code&gt;請勿靠近車門&lt;/code&gt; is one of the outliers of the norm of microblogs (Twitter and Weibo are both microblogging services). More often, you would see colloquial sentences in Twitter and Weibo. There are two many variations in the colloquial context to convey the same meaning; Besides, some users are accustomed to certain usages that do not comply with standards of the written language – the number of characters used becomes indefinite thereby. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The number of characters in Chinese and that in English of the same meaning are not proportionally related. In fact, Chinese does not necessary use less characters than English to convey the same meaning – particularly true for Chinese phrase and their English acronym equivalent. For instance, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「順道一提」 vs &quot;btw&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「我的天啊」 vs &quot;omg&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, Chinese generally uses less characters, but my point is that I do not think it is possible to model such relationship.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I think the solution to your mathematical problem is too complicated, if not unsolvable, because of the numerous variables in the equation.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a site note, I think most users post in less than 30 characters for Chinese, so technically that is probably a trivial concern for the purpose of encouraging brevity in a microblogging service.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T03:04:30.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13209" CreationDate="2015-04-22T03:14:47.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Prononciation still matters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see those informal puns as new words. And they are associated with certain pronunciations even though they have same meanings as the words the derived from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In translation, there is a basic rule of preserving the content and intent of the source message. This is the same for processing a message in same language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means 什么 still reads as &quot;shen me&quot;. If somebody says shen ma, it should be transcript as 神马 not 什么. However in real life there some times are additional step (or intentions of the receiver of the message) a person would take based on personal references by converting them back and forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me make a hypothetical but rather common example. Say a uptight person A is taking to his or her funny friend B. A always uses 什么, B always uses 神马. And even B is quoting A， B still substitute all &quot;什么&quot; with &quot;神马&quot;. But if you let B write it in an essay, he still writes 什么. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this doesn't mean the the pronunciation, which in my opinion is a basic aspect of a language, has changed. Rather, it is the higher level aspect, which could be generally called &quot;usage&quot;,  of the language has changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I don't think it pronunciation isn't important anymore, its just the usage and manipulation of the languages is more various than stricter to the dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T03:14:47.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13243" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-22T03:34:19.723" Score="22" ViewCount="27638" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always see 哈哈, 呵呵, 嘻嘻, and 嘿嘿 in WeChat, QQ, etc, but I don't really understand the subtle differences between them and when to use them appropriately, especially 呵呵. I use 呵呵 myself now, but I'm not sure I'm using it correctly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9823" LastEditorUserId="9823" LastEditDate="2015-04-23T01:57:13.637" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T11:38:41.317" Title="What is the difference between 哈哈, 呵呵, 嘻嘻, and 嘿嘿?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13243" CreationDate="2015-04-22T03:34:19.723" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm taking my answer primarily from &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=xae3NPcYPevHHdcWcwd1gQ7PU5vl2TYxgv5EJqi3jIC6GOL7cojkABS2c37e_xUK_CC5fkcxpcoegKUgYKwNL_&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this 百度知道 post&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;呵呵&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Hehe&lt;/em&gt; is the most general laugh, indicating perhaps just a smile. Its meaning is the most vague and in some situations can imply an embarrassed, self mocking, or even sarcastic laugh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;（Update: note the added caution that @shellbye gives in his answer about the meaning of this one. I suggest you keep observing its usage before using it too freely yourself.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;哈哈&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Haha&lt;/em&gt; has the clearest meaning. It's a great big happy laugh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;嘻嘻&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Xixi&lt;/em&gt; is mostly (but not exclusively) used by females and conveys a sense of mischievousness and lightheartedness. In certain situations it can even have an air of 撒娇. &lt;em&gt;Xixi&lt;/em&gt; is perhaps something like &amp;quot;hee hee&amp;quot; in English. (I spell it &amp;quot;hee hee&amp;quot; and not &amp;quot;he he&amp;quot; so as not to confuse it with 呵呵.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;嘿嘿&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Heihei&lt;/em&gt; is a mischievous or cunning laugh and is used more by males. It can also be an honest laugh, though, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other links&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=ZW_3HcTu-5pxDc1tPX_QpZmCQ4ViKRutMx1VvXILIy75xNB2UVg-9FSm_SFXBhMhKTswgfBfLynzTSXL0pcqka&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;呵呵 嘻嘻 哈哈 什么意思&lt;/a&gt; (amusing example)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=JeZHmVQ7lLqYGTWRQq7Qym1eA1PawG0q1I1xLqjBhwu5tH--bobqpEdp6bFiDTUgLPN48SECLFnNyl6UEY8M0q&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;哦呵呵和哈哈 嘻嘻意思一样吗？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/82210930.html?qbl=relate_question_0&amp;amp;word=%B9%FE%B9%FE%BA%C7%BA%C7%CE%FB%CE%FB%BA%D9%BA%D9&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;呵呵好还是哈哈好还是嘿嘿好还是嘻嘻好？&lt;/a&gt; (longer explanation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9823" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T16:15:13.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13226" CreationDate="2015-04-22T03:55:41.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 上火 roughly means light infections of bacteria. Especially those cases with symptoms which make people feel &quot;irritable&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually people prefer not to treat 上火 with anti-bios/medicines/herbs, but leave it to the body immune system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may want to learn 着凉 as well. The meaning is similar but refers to the infections when people feel cold/powerless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastEditorUserId="9737" LastEditDate="2015-04-22T15:47:06.263" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T15:47:06.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13243" CreationDate="2015-04-22T04:23:05.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you mentioned Wechat and QQ in the question, I'd say in a normal chat, there is no significant difference among 哈哈, 嘻嘻 and 嘿嘿. Normally when you chat online, your partner express his/her happiness via these words. Suragch gave a nice explanation of these words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 呵呵 is something different. I mean there are some implicit meanings recently. When you chat with Chinese young people, you may want to know the implicit meaning. 呵呵 = Well...OK/WTF. It really depends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, your close friend showed off something to you but you think it makes no sense or is stupid. Here you can reply 呵呵。By replying 呵呵, your friend understands your thought and it won't cause any bad effect to your friendship. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a simple conversation for you to understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 知道吗，我用手纸做了一个金字塔。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 呵呵。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T04:23:05.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13226" CreationDate="2015-04-22T05:06:35.323" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker, and my father practices Chinese Traditional Medicine, though I'm no expert on the matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I can gather, 火 is not a real thing, i.e it has no substance, rather than a general, collective and abstract terms for a set of human body reactions or symptoms commonly found when got a cold or infection. It often includes inflammation, irritation, bleeding, sore throat etc. Basically the symptoms when one's immune systems acting up. For that matter, I think westerns do 上火.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In China, the term is widely used among the general public even for those people who don't believe in CTM. And it is used when, as mentioned before one's immune systems is acting up no matter what the reason is. It could be caused by the invasion of external bodies like allergens, the reaction of external environments (e.g. 着凉), the accumulation of other conditions (e.g. abusive drinking or smoking), or simply a false alarm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is 上火 is often be used in such a manner as if it is the cause of something. However, it is actually the result, i.e. symptom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T05:06:35.323" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13239" CreationDate="2015-04-22T05:51:53.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's revisit why Twitter imposed the &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20160912180558/https://support.twitter.com/articles/13920&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;140 character limit&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We like to keep it short and sweet! It also just so happens that 140 characters is the perfect length for sending status updates via text message. The standard text message length in most places is 160 characters per message. We reserve 20 characters for people's names, and the other 140 are all yours!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Message_Service#Message_size&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SMS&lt;/a&gt;, characters in Chinese must be encoded using the 16-bit UCS-2 character encoding, which leads to the maximum individual short message size of 70 16-bit characters. To account for &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BC%99%E5%B0%94%E5%B7%9D%E6%89%8E%E6%9C%A8%E8%8B%8F%E4%BB%96%E5%B0%94%E5%8F%AA%E5%A4%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;unusually long (sur)names&lt;/a&gt;, 10 characters should be reserved for people's names, so I argue that Chinese microblogging services should limit posts to &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/60#.E5.9C.A8.E4.BA.BA.E7.B1.BB.E6.96.87.E5.8C.96.E4.B8.AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;60&lt;/a&gt; characters because Confucius said 「六十而耳顺」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In reality, Chinese microblogging services like Sina Weibo all have the rather lax 140 character limit inherited from Twitter. If Twitter were to beef up its character limit to let English language users convey as much information as Chinese speaking users now enjoy, I would say &lt;strong&gt;500 characters is a good choice&lt;/strong&gt;. The answers in this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1685/how-does-english-to-chinese-translation-affect-magazine-layouts&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt; indicate that pro translators can express 1 English word in about 1.5 Chinese characters, and this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.trincoll.edu/~crypto/resources/LetFreq.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt; gives the average length of an English word to be 4.5 letters, so 140 Chinese characters translate to 140 / 1.5 × (4.5 + 1) = 513 English characters (letters plus space between words).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when it comes to internet languages, English has an advantage because it has contractions/abbreviations (e.g. &lt;em&gt;srsly&lt;/em&gt; instead of &lt;em&gt;seriously&lt;/em&gt;) and can usually do without some articles (e.g. &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt;). It is worth noting that Chinese netizens often like to write in both Chinese and alphanumeric characters. Sometimes this reduces character count (OL vs 白领女性), but other times it has the opposite effect (1024 vs 顶/推). So I would wager that one can probably cram more English words in fewer characters if they take the shortcuts. Hence the 500 character approximation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6460" LastEditorUserId="6460" LastEditDate="2017-07-13T01:53:38.833" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T01:53:38.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13243" CreationDate="2015-04-22T06:30:46.523" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;呵呵&quot; means something different in online chat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, &quot;呵呵&quot; is as simple as &quot;哈哈&quot;，“嘿嘿” when I even used it a lot in online chat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, &quot;呵呵&quot; become the best choice when you do not know how to reply to someone's message. So this is where things goes wrong about &quot;呵呵&quot;. When someone keep talking to you, and you reply nothing meaningful but &quot;呵呵&quot;, sooner or later, he or she become boring about the words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At last, a picture changed everything. It show below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ir29v.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ever since the picture got famous on Internet, people stop using it as its usual meaning but means something different. Sometime it's a joke, sometime it is offensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, &quot;呵呵&quot; was the top 1 of of &quot;the most hurting words in online chat of 2014&quot;. Full list shows below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.呵呵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.哦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.嗯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.对不起，我去洗澡了/吃饭了，回聊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.有意思吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.随便&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.纯表情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9719" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T06:30:46.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13243" CreationDate="2015-04-22T06:58:00.470" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;check the table. This picture says everything.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e1s1P.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T06:58:00.470" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13251" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-22T08:22:06.867" Score="-1" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;你好！我是美国人, 我做在中国 一年 也学习中文一年。我想 to continue with 我的中国学习. 现在 我能 rate my 中国口语 level as intermediate, 拼音 and 汉字 beginner level. I have not formally 学习 the language. 我的 method for learning thus far as just been purely immersion，听， 说遍, and using body language, like an infant. But 我能 carry on conversations 每天 quite well. But 我 feel like 我不是 growing anymore. 例如, lately I've been getting involved in coversations with topics 我 am unfamiliar with. So 我没有 the words to express my opinions, nor am I able to 听懂 the opinions of others. Also, 我看不懂汉字。我能 type more 汉字 than 我可以明白, simply 因为我知道这个拼音. The only reason 我知道 more 拼音 is 因为 of the 发音 of the words. so when I type 拼音 into my computer or 手机, 我 说一遍 the word in my head and that’s how 我知道 what to type. 然后 eventually that‘s how 我学习 to read some of the 汉字 better, 因为 would make mistakes when 我不知的哦 the differece, 例如, between 汉字 and 汉子. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what should I do to start improving more? I'm not so worried about 我的 speaking level 现在, my pronunciation is great and I know that my conversational level will improve once 我知道 more words and 他们的 usages. So would learning more 拼音 be the best route for 我 to take at this point? What is the best resource for that? 我有这个 Mandarin versions of Rosetta Stone, I only used it a few times when I first arrived 这里 but never kept up with it 因为 the only thing 学习 from it 挡住 was how to say water(水) haha. Oh, I should also mention that 我的 Chinese 是 local dialect（山东）and not standard Chinese. I don't mind switching to learning standard now. 谢谢 so much for your help!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9833" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T22:14:02.683" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T22:14:02.683" Title="Where to start/continue my learning?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-07-15T22:11:46.367" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13251" CreationDate="2015-04-22T15:07:35.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can 考虑 signing up for the 汉语水平考试. There are 六 different levels. 你 might start with 三级 or 四级. 每个 level is 差不多 twice the 难度 as the previous one. Having a 考试 to 准备 for is good 动力. You 也有一个 deadline to keep you on track. I 考的时候 learn了很多 new words. 你还可以 use Anki's HSK 记忆卡片. They are 很 useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第二， reading 小说 really helped 我的词汇 and 阅读 ability. 小说比 children's books 好多了，因为儿童书's words are not as useful to 日常生活. Find a 对 you 感 interesting 的 novel. 如果 you're interested in the content 的话, then its easy to 继续. Don't 查 every 生词 in your 词典， just 查 the 新 words that you 经常遇到 and are important for 掌握ing the 主要 meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Add oil to your 学习！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9823" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T15:07:35.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13251" CreationDate="2015-04-22T15:35:17.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dare(!) to speak in every possible situation with your Chinese friends, using the words that you have learned so far. If you don't know a word or an expression, your friends are likely to help you out. Practising your oral skills will make you improve very fast at your level, because it also gives you a better clue at the moment when you look at some advanced grammar book. If I got you right, your stay in China is limited, so make the best out of it – you will learn nowhere better Chinese than in China. It helped myself to attend part time Chinese class, where I can approach the language in a more structured way (and you will improve your writing skills of course!). But always continuing &quot;street style&quot;, dare to express yourself, do mistakes and learn from others, write Chinese with your friends in Wechat or QQ, pick up your phone using &quot;喂，你好！&quot;, this way it is also less possible to lose the passion and fun to actually starting to master a foreign language. Moreover you will be up to date with slang and contemporary expressions. Good luck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9685" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T15:35:17.073" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13206" CreationDate="2015-04-22T15:45:19.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;first, it is not 国产地效船双船+试飞. It should be 国产地效船+双船试飞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, if you want to add 双船 to 国产地效船 as a phrase, you should go with 国产地效双（体）船.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T15:45:19.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13205" CreationDate="2015-04-22T16:04:50.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say you play shooting games. Your character has a skill to stun your opponent for 2 seconds. The skill is 技能. You can level up or improve your skill. Now you want to use your skill to take down your opponent. The whole process is measured by your 技术. Your opponent may play better than you when he has a better 技术. Your 技能 may or may not enhance your 技术. To improve your 技术, you'll need a lot of practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your question. 提高技能技术 means &quot;level up the skill and improve the proficiency (you may find a better word)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T16:04:50.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1645" CreationDate="2015-04-22T18:06:41.547" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5gvxr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=ThlU_fl6ylo5awXgQY_QLL2NYRmeD9ZHiRjEt2oqtgK-L4bfOw00p1TIxv2mX1icHkOHHWeXq14VBdK8dCZ6jK&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;biáng 56 strokes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as in biangbiang面, specialty noodles that can be easily found on the streets of Xi'an.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some would say it isn't a real word (even though it refers to a real food).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xJkuK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some would say there are characters with more strokes (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=bIbtqTX4lnHYcdF_ZCeKqRVaD3d7MVo_D_4082I9-lCRQERm-qZbwVK0TpwsvAr3lvAP8og8SbqTQkbl2OBX_K&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;and they would be right&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o35XF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some would say that this character doesn't count because the question asks for the simplified character (and there is a simplified version of biang).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zHsGN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I argue that for the Chinese language learner in mainland China, the 56 stroke biang is the most complex character you will likely come across in real life. Most Chinese language learners who stay in China for any length of time will probably make it to Xi'an. And if you are in Xi'an one of the things &amp;quot;to do&amp;quot; is eat biangbiang面. The noodles are famous because of the character. And the character is famous because of its complexity. So you will commonly find even the unsimplified version there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is ambiguous, but this is the least ambiguous answer I can give.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9823" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-23T01:33:39.223" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13239" CreationDate="2015-04-22T21:28:59.293" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, if Twitter were to play fair, I think they would restrict Chinese users to 46 characters, since there are 3 bytes / UTF-8 encoded Chinese character, and only 1 byte / English letter.  Alternately, in terms of number of bytes, the right comparison is probably between 140 characters of Chinese and 420 characters of English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the differences in the three:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Please stand back from the doors&quot;  (English) (1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請勿靠近車門                             (Modern Chinese) (2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勿近車門                                  (Classical Chinese) (3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's interesting to think about these things in terms of the Shannon Entropy, the basic concept in information theory.  You might want to read up on the theory if you're interested in exploring the observation more deeply.  If you take a &quot;symbol&quot; to refer to a byte (256 possible values or &quot;meanings&quot;) of data and assume UTF-8 encoding for (2) and (3), then E(1) = 3.8 , E(2) = 3.5 , and E(3) = 3.3: so &quot;information content&quot; of a series of bytes-as-symbols actually drops as you move from English to Classical Chinese.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as you note, a character in Chinese maps to a meaning. So let's map each of the meanings to a series of symbols and calculate the entropies.  Also rewrite (1) as &quot;Please don't move near the car doors&quot; to make it easier to compare the mappings across languages (byte-wise E for this rewrite is 3.7):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Please don't move near the car doors.&quot; -&gt; &quot;A B C D E F G&quot;   (1) = 2.5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;請勿靠近車門&quot; -&gt; &quot;ABCDFG&quot; (2) = 2.6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;勿近車門&quot;      -&gt; &quot;BDFG&quot; (3) = 2.0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in this case the information content of (2) increases over (1), due to the repeated inclusion of spaces in (1). (3) remains lowest, but I think this would change using less formal MC: actual sentences, instead of terse &quot;sign language&quot;.  These trends would accelerate with longer texts and almost certainly the classical Chinese version would quickly become the most &quot;entropic.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would it do so?  Because I believe a statistical analysis of English v Modern Chinese v Classical Chinese would find that the first two incorporate far more repeated semantic symbols than Classical Chinese.  An interesting thing to consider is the problem of error correction, which becomes a concern when concerning codings.  You might want to think about how much repetition is present in English versus modern Chinese versus classical Chinese, and why that is: I would argue that Classical Chinese is minimally repetitive and maximally entropic, in the sense that Classical Chinese uses the bare minimum of symbols necessary to convey a thought. Contrast with English or even Modern Chinese, both of which have repetitive characters (spaces in English and words like &quot;the&quot;/&quot;an&quot;, symbols like 的/个 in Modern Chinese , the far greater frequency of compound-character words in MC ex 绵羊／山羊 instead of 羊) that help preserve the meaning of a message in transmission. It would be interesting to consider any connection between this minimal repetitiveness might have with the thesis that comes up from time to time about how it's impossible to be &quot;precise&quot; (or &quot;scientific&quot;) in Classical Chinese.  Anyways, in human languages, preservation of the message entails the addition of extra words (just think how verbose English law is - there's a reason for that); in formal codings, preservation of the message entails the addition of extra bits.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are just some random thoughts that might help you think of ways to begin quantifying the differences in &quot;consumption of symbols&quot; you note in Twitter feed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2015-04-22T22:08:16.017" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T22:08:16.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13258" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-23T01:22:13.453" Score="2" ViewCount="644" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's used in respect for talking to a superior and respectfully, so is there even an english equivalent for it or is it just a special title used for Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-04-23T05:56:39.143" Title="Any english equivalent for &quot;前輩&quot; or &quot;晚輩&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13258" CreationDate="2015-04-23T02:22:16.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would just use 'sir'. A friendly, colloquial way to address an old man is 'old fella'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你叫我‘前辈 ’, 我已经觉得像史前原人的遗骸了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you call me 'old fella', &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-04-23T02:22:16.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13258" CreationDate="2015-04-23T02:37:23.333" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe there is no English equivalent, but there are some equivalents that I know of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Senior/Junior&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;older/younger in age or higher/lower in rank.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bob is the senior developer in our team.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bob 是我們團隊裡最資深的程序員。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;James is 5 years my junior. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;James 比我小五歲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Being a senior, I shall take the duty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作為最資深的人，我應該要拿下這份職務。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Predecessor&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;person who has a job/position prior to another.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Larry, the new coach of Mickey (I made this up), is way more experienced than his predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;米奇隊的新教練Larry比他的前輩（之前的教練）有經驗多了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the subtle difference between predecessor and senior – predecessor has to be someone that &lt;strong&gt;pre-existed&lt;/strong&gt; in the setting, whereas senior is someone that &lt;strong&gt;co-exists&lt;/strong&gt; in the setting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-23T02:37:23.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13261" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13323" CreationDate="2015-04-23T05:33:23.017" Score="-1" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to practice more Chinese listening and I like WoT, so it seems a good idea to watch WoT broadcasts at twitch. Did anybody have a WoT specific world list to prepare for it in advance? Or in general, a place where there are special world lists for various topics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3608" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T07:44:57.563" Title="Word list for World of Tanks" Tags="&lt;word-lists&gt;&lt;games&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13262" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13266" CreationDate="2015-04-23T05:45:45.163" Score="2" ViewCount="452" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sportsmen use some phrases to encourage themselves during the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what do Chinese sportsmen usually say when they win the score?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in &lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODc4NTQ5MjQ=.html?from=y1.2-1-98.3.1-1.1-1-1-0-0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt; at 5:40, Ma Lin cried something like: &quot;chu!... fa!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I hear 'dui' which I suppose most likely corresponds to &quot;对！&quot;, is it also used to encourage themselves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2015-08-06T19:31:20.660" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T19:31:20.660" Title="What are the common phrases in sports when you win the score?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13258" CreationDate="2015-04-23T05:56:39.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When addressing a young man, you may say just that: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Young man, could you please help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9799" LastActivityDate="2015-04-23T05:56:39.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13264" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-23T06:25:17.953" Score="5" ViewCount="505" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference in meaning between 应变能力 and 适应能力 in this sentence？ If so, can you please try to explain it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公司领导人认为，在未来十年的商战中，最重要的武器是应变能力、适应能力和创新能力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-07-18T05:30:06.143" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T05:30:06.143" Title="What is the difference in meaning between 应变 and 适应 here？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13264" CreationDate="2015-04-23T06:50:36.067" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;应变&lt;/code&gt; is a short form of &lt;code&gt;适应/应付 变化&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;应变能力&lt;/code&gt; means the capacity of adapt to the change (of environment). The key point is how to deal with the change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;适应能力&lt;/code&gt; means the capacity of adapt to the environment, the key point is how to adapt to the existing environment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-04-23T07:28:55.970" LastActivityDate="2015-04-23T07:28:55.970" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13262" CreationDate="2015-04-23T12:40:43.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Either saying &lt;code&gt;加油&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;加油加油&lt;/code&gt; in a faster speed is a way to express the encouragement to oneself or the others. Also &lt;code&gt;哈（hà）&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;耶（ye, Enligh word Yeah）&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;呵（hè）&lt;/code&gt; can express the excitement when you win the score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, &quot;chu&quot; and &quot;fa&quot; are just sound and no specific Chinese characters for the meaning you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9537" LastActivityDate="2015-04-23T12:40:43.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1645" CreationDate="2015-04-23T15:17:32.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BE%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia does name a champion&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;龘（漢語拼音：dá/tà；注音符號：ㄉㄚˊ/ㄊㄚˋ；粵拼：daap6）字是現時Big5碼編碼當中筆劃最多的一個字，筆劃達48劃（大陆标准48画）。這個字亦是中華民國一般字典中筆劃最多的一個字。除此，該字也是全世界所有常用語言中，極為少見筆劃相當多的雙音節單字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this is by no means a 'simplified' character... or is it? If you absolutely want to write it in simplified style, you'll find that ⿱龙⿰龙龙 is not in Unicode, so you'd be forced to use 龘 anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3674" LastActivityDate="2015-04-23T15:17:32.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13268" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13283" CreationDate="2015-04-23T17:21:26.427" Score="4" ViewCount="2042" Body="&lt;p&gt;In every language I know, the expressions for saying someone does not need to do something are often used to say they had better not do it.  Suppose I want to tell someone in an e-mail, in Chinese, that they do not need to do something and I really just mean they do not need to.  They can if they want.  What is a good way to say that without implying they should not do it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am concerned specifically with the difference between &quot;don't need to&quot; and plain &quot;don't&quot;.  I might want to say &quot;You don't need to bring snacks to the party&quot; without anyone thinking I mean &quot;Don't bring snacks to the party.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case, I do not want to suggest the person &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; bring snacks.  It is fine if they bring snacks.  I would even like that.  But they are not required to bring snacks.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-04-24T14:50:26.947" LastActivityDate="2015-04-25T04:37:36.267" Title="How to say &quot;you don't need to.&quot;" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13268" CreationDate="2015-04-23T18:51:50.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally &lt;strong&gt;不用&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.你不用担心。 You don't need to worry/Don't worry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不用说。 You don't need to say./Needless to say....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不需要&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.你不需要这么早起床。 You don't need to get up so early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不需要药。 You don't need medicine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不必&lt;/strong&gt; (which is kind of odd or archaic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.你不必再谢他了。You don't need to thank him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;无须&lt;/strong&gt; (which is also very formal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.无须细说。No need to talk about the details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-04-23T18:51:50.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13270" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-24T00:47:24.903" Score="3" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know what 嫂子 means literally, but is there an alternative meaning for it? For example, it's like a &quot;title&quot; I suppose when a person doesn't know their name and just calls them that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastEditorUserId="9376" LastEditDate="2015-04-24T00:53:42.293" LastActivityDate="2015-04-25T05:08:39.543" Title="A translation for &quot;嫂子&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13270" CreationDate="2015-04-24T01:42:11.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The alternative meaning you might be looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 朋友的妻子 wife of one's friend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hanyu Da Cidian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 已婚妇女的泛称。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;a general term for married women&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《红楼梦》第六回&#xA;  劉姥姥 便説：‘原是特來瞧瞧嫂子, 二則也請姑太太的安。’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-24T01:58:58.000" LastActivityDate="2015-04-24T01:58:58.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13273" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-24T06:02:22.387" Score="4" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have 首先&lt;strong&gt;得弄&lt;/strong&gt;清楚我们需要什么。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see 得弄清楚 is a fairly common combination of words. Is 得弄 one word or 2 words here? Should I read de nong or dei nong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I translate the sentence to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'First we &lt;strong&gt;need to&lt;/strong&gt; find out what we need.', or rather &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'First we &lt;strong&gt;should be&lt;/strong&gt; clear about what we need.', or &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'First we &lt;strong&gt;should make&lt;/strong&gt; clear about what we need.'  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which of 1,2 or 3 do you prefer, or would you rather suggest something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this sentence: 希尔得弄个清楚。= Hill had to find out for certain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T03:10:51.740" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T03:10:51.740" Title="Is 得弄 one word or two in 首先得弄清楚我们需要什么?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13273" CreationDate="2015-04-24T06:09:08.440" Score="10" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;得 : got to / must / have to &lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; / &lt;em&gt;need&lt;/em&gt; / &lt;em&gt;should be&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;弄清楚 : &lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;make clear; figure out&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得 is read děi when it means must/have to/need to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate &lt;code&gt;首先得弄清楚我们需要什么。&lt;/code&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We first need to figure out what we need.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T10:18:45.737" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T10:18:45.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13275" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13276" CreationDate="2015-04-24T06:16:14.413" Score="3" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/2125.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;些&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xiē&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【名】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[方言]：们〖-s〗——表示复数的词缀。如:婆娘些；娃儿些；老师些&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although marked as dialect (read: topolect), I'm curious to know if this usage is ever &lt;em&gt;acceptable&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;found&lt;/em&gt; in MSM (Modern Standard Mandarin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-24T08:23:07.753" Title="Does “些” Work As A Suffix (Ever) In Mandarin Similar To “们”?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13275" CreationDate="2015-04-24T08:15:03.067" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's only for some dialects in somewhere SiChuan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在表示某类人时，成都人还爱用“些”作词尾，并将其读作[?i44]，音同“西”。例如：老师些，学生些，家长些，娃娃些，娃儿些，大人些，伙子些，姑娘儿些，女娃子些，男娃子些，儿娃子些，大娃娃些，小娃娃些，男人些，婆娘些，老头儿些，婆婆些，孃孃些，姆姆些，演员些，导演些，干部些，代表些，警察些，军官些，兵兵儿些，队员些，运动员些，贼娃子些，歹徒些，等等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ref : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ct17.com/bbs1/dispbbs.asp?boardid=1&amp;amp;Id=307&amp;amp;page=6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.ct17.com/bbs1/dispbbs.asp?boardid=1&amp;amp;Id=307&amp;amp;page=6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-24T08:23:07.753" LastActivityDate="2015-04-24T08:23:07.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13268" CreationDate="2015-04-24T08:25:06.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Don't&quot; means forbidden in Chinese. And normally with &lt;strong&gt;strong emotion&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't = 禁止 (forbid), 不许 (not allowed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't smoke in toilet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Not need to&quot; is normally with &lt;strong&gt;less emotion&lt;/strong&gt;. It could be treated like suggestions or advices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Not need to&quot; &#xA;= 何必 (why push yourself to this circumstances)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你何必这么执着&#xA;You don't need to push it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= 无须 (something or action is not necessary )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你无须担心考试成绩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't need to worry about the exam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= 干嘛 (oral daily use, it actually gives negative suggestion. &#xA;It is NOT a question, just a advice)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你干嘛这么拼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't need to fight so hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9855" LastActivityDate="2015-04-24T08:25:06.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13278" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13279" CreationDate="2015-04-24T09:01:40.047" Score="3" ViewCount="2951" Body="&lt;p&gt;Until recently, I have known the meaning of this word as described on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%82%B2%E5%AC%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt; page. I thought it is used to refer to people, particularly female, who are cold on the outside and hot, as in intimate, on the inside; I assumed that it is a compliment. Then, I read it in the following context and was confused:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一定要傲嬌炫富？xxx看看那些溫良恭儉讓的貴婦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The negative connotation of word is pretty obvious and probably does not have the meaning described in the wiki page. What does this word mean then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, is this a formal word? I supposed it is only used in colloquial context, but I have seen it various times on the news. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-26T14:50:46.983" Title="The real meaning of &quot;傲嬌&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13278" CreationDate="2015-04-24T09:58:30.280" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;傲嬌 is a word from Japanese animation and just used in the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;傲娇指的是这样一种性格：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表面上对陌生人/喜欢的人很冷淡或趾高气昂，即展现出“傲”的一面，而一旦关系突破某一好感度/耻度界限后，或者遭遇某种契机(特殊事件)的时候，就会突然变得害羞、娇俏可人，即表现出“娇”的一面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ref : &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.moegirl.org/%E5%82%B2%E5%A8%87&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zh.moegirl.org/傲娇&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At most time, a person who is 傲嬌, means he/she is 傲 at first and then 嬌 when he/she met someone he/she link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your context, I think it's a not standard usage of this word and may just means 傲 only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-26T14:50:46.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13270" CreationDate="2015-04-24T22:38:22.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sister-in-law, who (she) is your brother's wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a broader usage, people call a male friend of similar age as brother, Ge1 Ge1, and call his wife as Sao3 Zi. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A male person avoids to use Jie3 Jie3 or Mei4 Mei4 to call a female of purely friendship, since Jie3 Jie3 or Mei4 Mei4 may be used for their lovers. But a young girl may not like to be called as Sao3 Zi, since Sao3 Zi is more suit for a married lady.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-04-24T22:47:45.673" LastActivityDate="2015-04-24T22:47:45.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13264" CreationDate="2015-04-24T22:51:34.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;最重要的武器是应变能力、适应能力和创新能力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a good composition because here 应变能力 and 适应能力 have exactly the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-04-24T22:51:34.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13268" CreationDate="2015-04-25T04:37:36.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 用不着. It is not so strong as the formal words. But people will understand that you really don't need them to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 你用不着带零食到聚会上来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-25T04:37:36.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13270" CreationDate="2015-04-25T05:08:39.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well you are partially right. 嫂子 can be used to call someone, but it is not a prefix. It is similar to the word &quot;bro&quot;. When you use it, you need to know/see the husband of the lady. Using 嫂子 properly can bring you closer to the couple. Don't use it when you see or know the lady's husband is obviously younger than you (it doesn't matter whether the lady is younger than you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-25T05:08:39.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13285" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13286" CreationDate="2015-04-25T09:39:03.443" Score="4" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would be the difference between 你认识不认识他？ and 你认不认识他？ Are they the translated with the same &quot;Do you probably know him?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6842" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2020-04-29T02:01:43.517" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T14:15:25.403" Title="Questions with multi-syllable verbs, e.g. 你认识不认识他？ vs. 你认不认识他？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13285" CreationDate="2015-04-25T09:54:05.080" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically they have the same meaning, but the former is a little more formal. And in spoken language the latter is often used because the former twists the tongue a little bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="23334" LastEditDate="2020-04-29T06:10:41.030" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T06:10:41.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13287" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-25T19:29:46.637" Score="7" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;When is it appropriate to use 一言难尽? Please supply a scenario where this would be a good reply. I have found this in my dictionary but I want to make sure I use in in the correct context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2015-04-26T06:45:41.390" Title="When to use 一言难尽" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13288" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-25T20:46:35.043" Score="2" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;these are to last lines of the third chapter of Dao De Jing.my question to the first line: Is the first 為 used in another meaning than the last one. I know what is 無為. Should I translate it: by 無為, there is no untreatment? sorry, if my translation is silly:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9780" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T16:20:08.217" Title="為無為， 則無不治 translation of Dao De Jing" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13288" CreationDate="2015-04-25T23:25:23.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;為無為：以無為的方式去做，即以順任自然的態度去處理事物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;無為(more detailed):不做任何違反自然規律、有損道德規範、違反社會法則，有害眾生的事.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation From Old Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以順任自然的態度去處理事物，那麼天下就無所不治了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then translate it to English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not translate 順任自然 into &quot;Do anything you want.&quot; OR &quot;Do nothing&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;Do anything you should.&quot; OR &quot;Do anything you believe it's correct&quot; is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3436" LastActivityDate="2015-04-25T23:25:23.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13287" CreationDate="2015-04-25T23:52:56.623" Score="5" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Example 1：&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;老大，我听说你以前生意做地很好呀，怎么现在混得这么惨？&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“兄弟，这件事真是一言难尽，我们找个地方喝两杯，容我慢慢跟你讲”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Note:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 一言难尽 when the situation is worse than before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;strong&gt;生意做地很好&lt;/strong&gt; to &lt;strong&gt;混得这么惨&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Example 2:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;老李，好多年没见你了，上次同学聚会听说在经济危机的时候，你在股市赔了一大笔钱，你后来是怎么东山再起的？&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“唉，一言难尽啊，那个时候和媳妇起早贪黑批发蔬菜，打拼了好几年才把赔的钱赚回来”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Note:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have you found the change of situation in this example? It's pretty difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;strong&gt;赔了一大笔钱&lt;/strong&gt; to &lt;strong&gt;东山再起&lt;/strong&gt;  is getting &lt;strong&gt;better&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why I'm still using that? Because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is from &lt;strong&gt;原来不需要那么格外辛苦的赚钱（上下文分析，赔钱之前）&lt;/strong&gt; to &lt;strong&gt;起早贪黑工作(赔钱之后)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(I'm a native speaker, which means the grammar I use is more descriptive)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3436" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-25T23:52:56.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13287" CreationDate="2015-04-26T02:30:53.247" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you use Facebook, you may know the relationship status &lt;code&gt;It's complicated&lt;/code&gt;; the Chinese version is &lt;code&gt;一言難盡&lt;/code&gt;. That said, the phrase is &lt;strong&gt;intended&lt;/strong&gt; be used whenever the situation &lt;strong&gt;is complicated&lt;/strong&gt;, in a &lt;strong&gt;good way&lt;/strong&gt; or in a &lt;strong&gt;bad way&lt;/strong&gt;. On the other hand, despite its intended usage, people often use it for certain feelings or thoughts in disguise, such as when they simply do not feel like sharing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll give some sample scenarios, in addition to that in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/13290/9722&quot;&gt;@Shiji.Jiang's answer&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Situation is literally complicated&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「你怎麼在這？你不是去美國了？」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Why are you here? I thought you went to the States.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「我本來是要去啊！一言難盡啊。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I was going! It's complicated.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;I'm not in the mood&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「怎麼啦？看起來心情不太好的樣子。是他（她）嗎？」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;What's wrong? Ain't looking good. Was it him(her)?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「別提了，一言難盡啊。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Forget it, it's complicated.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Note that the context can be family relations, friendships, marriage, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;I can't tell you that!&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「你們的產品是怎麼做出來的啊？教教我吧！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;How do you make this thing you're selling? Teach me!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「這一言難盡啊，我也說不清楚。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It's complicated; I can't explain it well.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-04-26T02:30:53.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13292" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-26T02:58:18.293" Score="4" ViewCount="540" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;企业通过以上两张表格可以了解到目前员工最需要什么方面的培训，然后可以有针对性地给员工补充“能量”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of '有针对性' with '地' here confused me. It seems to say '(have relevance)ly give', 'relevant' or 'relevantly give', either of which is awkward in English but obviously not in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This bit is confusing me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然后（企业）可以 &lt;strong&gt;有针对性地&lt;/strong&gt; 给员工补充“能量”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Afterwards company can &lt;strong&gt;(have relevance)ly&lt;/strong&gt; for employee supplement (all?) “abilities”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My rewrite:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然后（企业）可以给员工有针对性的（培训），而这样补充他的“能量”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Afterwards (the) company can give (the) employee relevant (training), and in this way supplement his “abilities”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does my rewrite catch the Chinese meaning properly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T22:48:22.900" Title="What is the meaning of 有针对性地" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13292" CreationDate="2015-04-26T03:25:09.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;能量 = energy (as in 正能量 &lt;em&gt;positive energy&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;针对性 = focused/directed/&lt;strong&gt;personalized&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;补充 = add&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You've certainly got the general idea right but 针对性地 is not necessarily 培训.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-04-26T03:25:09.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13292" CreationDate="2015-04-26T03:51:14.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;有針對性地&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;focusedly/targetedly/specifically&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, it means that the &quot;thing&quot; (omitted in the context but is very likely the training) that &quot;supplements abilities&quot; is focused/targeted/specific to what kind of training employees need, i.e. what abilities employees lack, therefore need to be trained on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your rewrite makes perfect sense, except that &lt;code&gt;員工&lt;/code&gt; more likely refers to all the employees instead of a specific one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-26T03:51:14.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13296" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13297" CreationDate="2015-04-26T04:34:08.393" Score="5" ViewCount="951" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; after a verb means a completion or termination of a certain action, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;吃飽了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (I am) full.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;開始了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (It) has started.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;不動了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (It) is not moving anymore.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;忘不了&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;喝不了&lt;/code&gt;? Is &lt;code&gt;不了&lt;/code&gt; an expression, or does each character have a specific meaning in this context? How would &lt;code&gt;忘不了&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;喝不了&lt;/code&gt; be translated? (I suppose it would not be &lt;code&gt;I have not forgotten yet&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;I have not drunk yet&lt;/code&gt;...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-12-14T12:24:47.803" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T12:24:47.803" Title="Meaning of &quot;不了&quot; in &quot;忘不了/喝不了/...&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13296" CreationDate="2015-04-26T04:37:07.243" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E4%BA%86&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; here is read liǎo which means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to finish / to achieve / variant of 瞭｜了 / to understand clearly   -&lt;em&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thus &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E4%B8%8D%E4%BA%86&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;unable to / without end -&lt;em&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忘不了 = can't forget / unforgettable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喝不了 = can't drink / undrinkable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-04-26T04:37:07.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13296" CreationDate="2015-04-26T04:37:30.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“不了” in this context is pronounced &quot;bu4liao3&quot; and means &quot;to be unable to&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;比如说：&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃不了 unable to eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忘不了 unable to forget&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9685" LastEditorUserId="9685" LastEditDate="2015-04-26T04:39:50.787" LastActivityDate="2015-04-26T04:39:50.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13287" CreationDate="2015-04-26T06:45:41.390" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, you would start with &quot;It's a long story, ...&quot; when somebody asks you about a complicated event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, you start with &quot;一言难尽&quot; in this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="808" LastActivityDate="2015-04-26T06:45:41.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13288" CreationDate="2015-04-26T21:56:53.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the first 為 used in another meaning than the last one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have the same &lt;strong&gt;literal meaning&lt;/strong&gt; of 'action', but very different &lt;strong&gt;connotations&lt;/strong&gt;. Since you already know what 無為 is, you know the connotation of the word is much deeper than the sum of the two characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to translate it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By acting the non-action, nothing can't be treated/ruled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-04-26T21:56:53.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1031" CreationDate="2015-04-27T15:20:24.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;通常 implies a habit, an action always true.我通常九点钟上床。(always )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常常，经常refer to an action frequently happens. (often )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9865" LastActivityDate="2015-04-27T15:20:24.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13305" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13309" CreationDate="2015-04-27T19:10:12.790" Score="5" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I have learned, or I remember I have learned, &lt;code&gt;悲哀&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;悲傷&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;哀傷&lt;/code&gt; all mean sadness and are interchangeable. However, as I remember, I have read &lt;code&gt;悲傷&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;哀傷&lt;/code&gt; in academic/professional writings, but not the word &lt;code&gt;悲哀&lt;/code&gt;. On the other hand, I have barely seen &lt;code&gt;悲傷&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;哀傷&lt;/code&gt; used in colloquial context, such as on social networking sites. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it the case that &lt;code&gt;悲哀&lt;/code&gt; is preferred in colloquial context; while &lt;code&gt;悲傷&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;哀傷&lt;/code&gt; are preferred in formal context? Or, if I was wrong, do they actually have different meanings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-04-28T02:11:38.883" LastActivityDate="2015-04-28T08:06:03.040" Title="Formality of &quot;悲哀&quot; as opposed to &quot;悲傷&quot; and &quot;哀傷&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;formal&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13305" CreationDate="2015-04-27T21:46:25.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that is the case. 悲哀 is perhaps used more often, which gives the feeling that it is less formal.. But if you asked me, I would say they are interchangeable and convey the same feeling.&#xA;On the other hand. Some might say they differ in severity. 哀伤 悲伤悲哀 decrease in degree of sadness. But the difference is so subtle and subjective that I don't think its worth learning. Unless of course you want to be an expert in Chinese literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9386" LastEditorUserId="9386" LastEditDate="2015-04-27T21:56:11.127" LastActivityDate="2015-04-27T21:56:11.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13305" CreationDate="2015-04-27T23:40:20.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me tell you, 悲伤 is pure sadness and can be used widely, 哀伤 also means sadness but usually be used in poems and essays for emphasis, 悲哀 is a little bit sadness but more showing pity or regretful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9873" LastActivityDate="2015-04-27T23:40:20.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13308" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13312" CreationDate="2015-04-28T07:52:49.360" Score="6" ViewCount="13963" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard a few Hongkongers saying &lt;code&gt;seven&lt;/code&gt; in a similar, likely identical, context. I assume they are addressing a person because when they say it, they make the &lt;code&gt;L&lt;/code&gt; hand gesture. I could be wrong, but my intuition is that &lt;code&gt;seven&lt;/code&gt; is a slang in Cantonese and means something like loser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did I guess it right? If not, what is the slang meaning of &lt;code&gt;seven&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese? Or is it just a random joke?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T16:47:17.203" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T16:47:17.203" Title="The slang meaning of &quot;Seven/七&quot; in Cantonese" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13305" CreationDate="2015-04-28T08:06:03.040" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;“哀伤” is usually a noun, while “悲伤” and “悲哀” are usually adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“哀伤”, “悲伤” both could mean &lt;em&gt;severe&lt;/em&gt; sadness, and are often used in the context that one has lost someone he loved or something he valued.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;任何语言都无法形容他失去亲人的&lt;em&gt;哀伤&lt;/em&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No words could describe the sorrow of losing his family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刚刚失去亲人的他看起来十分&lt;em&gt;悲伤&lt;/em&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having lost his family, he looks very sad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though “悲哀” could mean sadness in some context (like on a funeral), it mostly means “pitiful”, and is more often used to describe things rather than emotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人，失去了梦想，是多么&lt;em&gt;悲哀&lt;/em&gt;的事情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How pitiful it is, when one loses his dreams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你为了金钱丧失了尊严，我真为你感到&lt;em&gt;悲哀&lt;/em&gt;！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You lost your honor for money. I feel sorry for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9874" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-04-28T08:06:03.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13310" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13313" CreationDate="2015-04-28T09:06:17.867" Score="6" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;What exactly is a 棒棒机?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it's a simple, ordinary kind of cell phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it the same as the English: &lt;em&gt;burner&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What constitutes a 棒棒机?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What equivalent phrases do we have in English?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-04-29T21:36:07.377" Title="Translation/Meaning: 棒棒机" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1031" CreationDate="2015-04-28T09:21:13.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;通常 means &quot;usually&quot;, or &quot;for most of the times&quot;. It is used to describe things that would probably happen when certain circumstances are met. But the thing it describe doesn't necessarily happen in a high frequency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常常 and 经常 could both describe things that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;has a high possibility to happen when certain circumstances are met. The possibility may be higher than expected or average, but isn't necessarily so high as to be called &quot;for most of the time&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;happens in a high frequency.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the choice is sometimes a matter of grammar. (I'll explain this later in the examples.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt; Since &quot;通常&quot; is for &quot;most of the time&quot;, it is often used with &quot;但是(but)&quot; to show that there are exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 [经常, 常常] 锻炼身体。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“通常”这个词 [常常, 经常] 和“但是”一起使用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我锻炼身体之后，[通常] 会去洗个澡。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗澡水 [经常, 常常] 过热。 （过热 means overheating, so it is one word.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗澡水 [常常] 太热，让我很不舒服。 (太热 are two words, 太 (too) 热(hot) )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗澡水 [常常] 不是太冷，就是太热。 （不是太冷，就是太热 is a long phrase）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of 经常 (jīngcháng) has a stronger stress than 常常 (chángcháng).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when people use 常常, the stress is more often in the phrase that follows it, while when using 经常, the stress is more often put on the syllable “经” rather than on the others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 经常 are usually followed by a word (or a idiom that counts as a verb).&#xA;While 常常 could be followed by longer ones like a phrase or a clause, because the stress is not yet used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in some informal contexts, people don't care the difference very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9874" LastEditorUserId="9874" LastEditDate="2015-04-28T09:31:43.127" LastActivityDate="2015-04-28T09:31:43.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13308" CreationDate="2015-04-28T14:45:12.937" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a foul character, usually pronounced as &quot;cat6&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original character is &quot;&quot;, which means &quot;scrotum&quot;.  On the contrary, in modern slang uses, it refers to the penis in a flaccid state, and commonly written as &quot;&quot; or &quot;柒&quot;.  The implied meaning is thus &quot;useless&quot;, &quot;stupid&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people tweak the pronounciation from &quot;cat6&quot; to &quot;cat1&quot; (hence, &quot;七&quot;/&quot;柒&quot;) to avoid speaking the foul character directly.  Other alternatives like &quot;sat6&quot; (實) are also used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2015-04-28T23:59:56.380" LastActivityDate="2015-04-28T23:59:56.380" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13310" CreationDate="2015-04-28T16:09:58.223" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Burner&lt;/code&gt; is not equivalent to, and not related to, &lt;code&gt;棒棒机&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;棒棒机&lt;/code&gt; implies the form of the mobile phone – a phone that takes the shape of a cuboid, usually with rounded corners and/or edges.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Burner&lt;/code&gt; implies the use case of the mobile phone – a phone quickly disposed (burned) and replaced.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English equivalent you are looking for is a &lt;code&gt;bar/candybar/slab/block&lt;/code&gt; phone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information, you can refer to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_factor_%28mobile_phones%29&quot;&gt;wiki page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-28T16:09:58.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13310" CreationDate="2015-04-28T17:59:40.623" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;棒棒机 can refer to a category of smaller phones (usually the more rugged kind), typically used to refer to older model phones, particularly the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_factor_%28mobile_phones%29#Bar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;bar&lt;/a&gt;-style phones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some areas of China, most notably the Sichuan area, they refer to 棍子 (cane) as 棒棒. It's likely that this has some relation to the naming. In other words, 棒棒机 can be referred to as an &quot;old person/style&quot; phone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also 棒棒糖手机 which is used to refer to a specific model of LG &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_factor_%28mobile_phones%29#Flip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;flip phones&lt;/a&gt;. It's also worth noting that Android 5 &quot;Lollipop&quot; is referred to as 棒棒糖 as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in some countries in Asia, smartphones are only now starting to gain popularity. The flip phone is still somewhat popular amongst consumers over there. China and Samsung for still seems to be have a love affair of sorts with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.phonearena.com/news/Samsung-produces-high-end-Android-flip-phone-for-China-Mobile_id56264&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;flip phone&lt;/a&gt;, so as far as to release an Android flip phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can refer to &quot;burner&quot; phones as 隐私手机 (privacy cellphone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2015-04-29T21:36:07.377" LastActivityDate="2015-04-29T21:36:07.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13189" CreationDate="2015-04-28T18:19:56.250" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you know? 厄 is a 象形字, a pictogram. It is said that about 4 percent of the characters in the Chinese are derived directly from individual pictograms, but most of the characters are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digmandarin.com/four-main-types-of-chinese-characters.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pictophonetics&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厄 is akin to 困厄 or 遭遇困境, such as &quot;being between a rock and a hard place,&quot; or being in difficult situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's not much to say about 恶 really. In my opinion, it pertains to 凶恶 stuff, usually brought on as a consequence of one's own actions (akin to &quot;karma&quot;) that unrelated to one's fortune (运程).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;噩 is as other have described in the comments an adjective meaning 惊人的 or 可怕的; basically something frightening or shocking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2015-04-28T18:19:56.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13316" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13317" CreationDate="2015-04-29T15:32:51.937" Score="2" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;What resources are available for translations (well English equivalents) of Chinese &lt;strong&gt;星官&lt;/strong&gt; (constellations) &lt;strong&gt;星名&lt;/strong&gt; (stars)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;宦者&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 星官名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How -or- where can I find the English equivalent for this constellation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;皇位&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 指星名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How -or- where can I find the English equivalent for this constellation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An (extremely comprehensive) star/constellation dictionary would be awesome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What resources are available?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-04-29T18:29:06.700" Title="Translation Resources: Star/Constellation Names" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13316" CreationDate="2015-04-29T18:29:06.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E8%A5%BF%E6%98%9F%E5%90%8D%E5%B0%8D%E7%85%A7%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;中西星名对照表 on wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; has ~1000 star names and is good enough for common astrophiles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't read the book but it is said &lt;a href=&quot;http://book.douban.com/subject/25760319/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《中西对照·恒星图表1950.0》&lt;/a&gt; has more than 3000 star names, which might be the extremely comprehensive dictionary you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-04-29T18:29:06.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13318" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13319" CreationDate="2015-04-30T02:53:47.710" Score="3" ViewCount="1243" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that &quot;機車&quot; is motorcycle and it is also used as a slang word, but I was unsure of its meaning. Thus, i checked &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chtoen.com/%E4%BD%A0%E5%A5%BD%E6%A9%9F%E8%BB%8A%E7%9A%84%E8%8B%B1%E6%96%87%E6%80%8E%E9%BA%BC%E8%AA%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;, and I was confused by its ambiguity when translated to English, as listed below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;indecisive&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;temperamental&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;fickle/flaky/capricious&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;stubborn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;demanding&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;jerk&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is jerk the English equivalent of &quot;機車&quot;? If not, is there an English equivalent? What was the origin of this slang meaning? I cannot find any correlation between &quot;motorcycle&quot; and any of the meanings listed...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-01T16:00:00.277" LastActivityDate="2015-05-01T16:00:00.277" Title="Origin of the slang &quot;機車&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13318" CreationDate="2015-04-30T06:53:14.840" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a Taiwanese slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;機車：在台灣有時會用來形容人難以相處，作為一種罵人用語。由來為台灣閩南人中，部分人士對於令人不滿&#xA;      的人會以粗俗詞語「欠姦」（閩南話）來形容，甚至以「膣屄」（閩南話，發音類似「機掰」）取代「欠姦」，&#xA;      但由於感到不雅或故意作為玩笑，起於民國80年代的學生族群，有一些人「機……」第一個音發出後，第二個&#xA;      音改接「車」而成為「機車」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ref : &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A9%9F%E8%BB%8A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia of 機車&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-04-30T12:48:23.963" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T12:48:23.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13320" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-30T07:14:33.100" Score="2" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure this sentence is referring to '2 car families', but I'd like to check. How should I interpret ‘二次购车’ here？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe they are talking about second hand cars, or families that have previously bought a car and are replacing it???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;越来越多的中国人步入二次购车的行列，市场细分化程度越来越高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（As）More and more Chinese people are joining the ranks of the 2 car families, the market is becoming more and more subdivided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-25T11:22:16.003" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T11:22:16.003" Title="Does 越来越多的中国人步入二次购车的行列 talk about second cars or second-hand cars?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13320" CreationDate="2015-04-30T07:24:51.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this means 'purchasing the 2nd car of a family'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second hand cars are always translated as 二手车.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T07:24:51.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13320" CreationDate="2015-04-30T07:32:10.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, ‘二次购车’ might not refer to '2 car families', it would be 'previously bought a car and are replacing it' as you said in most cases, but I'm sure that it is not 'second hand cars', since 'second hand cars' is translated as '二手车'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, this sentence may translate as 'More and more Chinese people are buying cars for the second time , the market is becoming more and more subdivided.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6890" LastEditorUserId="9866" LastEditDate="2015-04-30T13:32:03.300" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T13:32:03.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13261" CreationDate="2015-04-30T07:44:57.563" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't play this game, so I could not guarantee the correctness, I just search it for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maps (&lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2088067025?see_lz=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2088067025?see_lz=1&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;01_卡累利阿_karelia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;02_马林诺夫卡_malinovka&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;03_坎帕尼亚_campania //已变为幼儿园专用图&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;04_锡墨尔斯多夫_himmelsdorf&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;05_普罗霍洛夫卡_prohorovka&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;06_安斯克_ensk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;07_拉斯威利_lakeville&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;08_鲁别克_ruinberg&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10_湖边的角逐_hills&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11_穆勒万卡_murovanka&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13_埃勒斯堡_erlenberg&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14_齐格菲防线_siegfried_line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;15_科马林_komarin//已不再出现&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;17_慕尼黑_munchen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;18_海岸争霸_cliff&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;19_小镇争夺战_monastery&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;22_黑暗沼泽_slough//已不再出现&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;23_韦斯特菲尔德_westfeld&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;28_沙漠小镇_desert&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;29_埃尔哈罗夫_el_hallouf&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;31_阿拉曼机场_airfield&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;33_北欧峡湾_fjord&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;34_斯特拉斯福_redshire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;35_荒蛮之地_steppes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;36_费舍尔湾_fishing_bay&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;37_胜利之门_caucasus&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;38_极地冰原_mannerheim_line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;39_雅尔塔_crimea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;42_钢铁丛林_north_america&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;44_里夫奥克斯_north_america&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;45_洲际铁路_north_america&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;47_寂静海岸_canada_a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;51_香格里拉_asia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bullets(&lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2909880430&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2909880430&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HE，榴弹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AP,穿甲弹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;APHE，穿甲榴弹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;APC，被帽穿甲弹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;APBC，风帽穿甲弹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;APCBC，被帽风帽穿甲弹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;APCR/HVAP，复合硬芯穿甲弹（字面翻译),次口径超速穿甲弹（常用名）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;APCNR，复合非硬芯穿甲弹（字面翻译），常用名未知，求高手指点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;APDS，次口径脱壳穿甲弹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;APFSDS，次口径尾翼稳定脱壳穿甲弹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HEAT，破甲弹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HESH，碎甲弹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may also help you. h.t.t.p://tieba.baidu.com/p/1857248247 (sorry I don't have enough reputations to post more links)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6890" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T07:44:57.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13320" CreationDate="2015-04-30T14:51:01.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's definitely not second hand car, since that would be translated as '二手车'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can simply interpret it with 'buying a second car'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't have to be replacing their old cars either. Many of them are doing this just to be able to drive everyday, because in some big cites of China , there are policies prohibiting cars on road for one weekday if they have certain last plate digit. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-04/03/c_13236082.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-04/03/c_13236082.htm&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9880" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T14:51:01.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13325" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-30T14:58:35.857" Score="1" ViewCount="3469" Body="&lt;p&gt;天地不仁，以萬物為芻狗 that's Dao De Jing Chapter 5, &#xA;I give a try: heaven and earth are not benevolent (I understand)&#xA;萬物 all the creatures 為 act  芻狗 grass dogs? dogs playing on grass? dogs made of grass?&#xA;What to you think?&#xA;is my translation of the second line in the right direction?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9771" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-02-08T01:35:48.663" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T23:20:22.500" Title="the meaning of &quot;grass dogs (dogs of grass)&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13325" CreationDate="2015-04-30T15:21:44.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;刍狗&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;straw dogs (used as offerings in ancient sacrifices, brought in with pomp but thrown away afterwards)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天地不仁, 以万物为刍狗；圣人不仁, 以百姓为刍狗。(《道德经》) &#xA;  tiāndì bù rén, yǐ wànwù wéi chú gǒu ； shèngrén bù rén, yǐ bǎixìng wéi chú gǒu. (《Dàodé Jīng》)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs; the sage is ruthless, and treats the people as straw dogs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;person/thing discarded after use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T15:21:44.370" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13288" CreationDate="2015-04-30T16:07:56.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;無為&quot; is an adjective describing the action (&quot;為&quot;)&#xA;or it can be an adverb describing the way of acting/performing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A clumsy translation I could think of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a person is able to harmonise his actions with the Nature such that no one can realise them, there is nothing he cannot accomplish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2015-04-30T16:20:08.217" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T16:20:08.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13325" CreationDate="2015-04-30T16:15:14.350" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;刍狗&lt;/code&gt;, is made of grass and used as sacrificial offering, metaphor for humble or useless things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;天地不仁，以万物为刍狗&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;heaven and earth, i.e. the nature, is not benevolent and partial, it treats all things on the earth the same and fairly&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It just reflects the ideology of &lt;code&gt;道家&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;code&gt;taoists&lt;/code&gt;); &lt;code&gt;顺其自然&lt;/code&gt;(let nature take its course, don't intervene too much).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.haosou.com/doc/6641911-6855725.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.haosou.com/doc/6641911-6855725.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.haosou.com/doc/5377628-5613764.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.haosou.com/doc/5377628-5613764.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-02-08T01:35:51.113" LastActivityDate="2018-02-08T01:35:51.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13329" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-30T19:30:13.410" Score="3" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;该声明对东盟一些成员国长期以来在南海的大规模填海造地和军事建设活动不置一词。&#xA;I am having trouble with 对...不置一词。 So apparently, the sentence translates to, &quot;This statement is not saying anything to stuff the ASEAN member nations have been doing for a long time.&quot;  However, the article was about how the Chinese were against other countries doing stuff in their territories. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is &lt;code&gt;对...不置一词&lt;/code&gt; used here? Does it have a different meaning in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastEditorUserId="9685" LastEditDate="2015-05-02T22:55:17.903" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T20:52:40.710" Title="Why is 对...不置一词 used like this?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13330" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-30T20:41:09.577" Score="3" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;作者首先提到了中国 媒体对于西方世界民主制度的一贯批判手法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The writer first mentions that the Chinese media have always been critical of one thing in the Western World’s democracies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't get &quot;一贯批判手法.&quot;  I suppose it means the last part of the English translation, but I don't get it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-01T21:54:26.223" LastActivityDate="2015-05-01T21:54:26.223" Title="Help to understand this phrase?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13330" CreationDate="2015-04-30T21:21:45.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some issues with your translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;一贯（的）&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;typical/consistent&lt;/code&gt;, not &lt;code&gt;one thing&lt;/code&gt;. In this sentence, &lt;code&gt;一贯批判手法&lt;/code&gt; could be translated as &lt;code&gt;typical/consistent criticism&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The original sentence focused on the criticism itself instead of the phenomenon of &quot;the Chinese media being critical of democracies&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO, a better translation would be,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The writer first mentions &lt;strong&gt;typical criticism of&lt;/strong&gt; the Chinese media on the Western World’s democracies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T21:21:45.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13329" CreationDate="2015-04-30T22:28:31.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked up '不置一词‘ in iciba. It says 'not to speak a single word, keep silence, not make a comment'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T22:28:31.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13333" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-30T22:58:35.503" Score="4" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of '声‘ in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;近2/3的进口车也大幅降价;而2004年、2005年和2006年，车市降价&lt;strong&gt;声&lt;/strong&gt;已经是此起彼伏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T00:55:36.583" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T00:55:36.583" Title="What is the meaning of 声 in ...车市降价声已经是此起彼伏?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13334" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-01T00:12:15.930" Score="3" ViewCount="904" Body="&lt;p&gt;I work at a medical call center. Many Asians will call in asking for a translator so we can schedule their appointments. Most of them will understand when I ask, &quot;which language, Cantonese or Mandarin?&quot; But I feel sometimes they did not understand what I'm saying. They will just say &quot;Chinese&quot;. Is there a better way to ask which language they speak? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9886" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-05T14:18:05.423" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T14:18:05.423" Title="Asking &quot;which language do you speak?&quot; on the phone" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13333" CreationDate="2015-05-01T00:39:57.060" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;声(Sound)&quot; is metaphorical in this sentence, &quot;车市降价(Automobile market price drop)&quot; cannot actually produce a sound, so it implies that there are potential of market price drop, &lt;strong&gt;because&lt;/strong&gt; we are hearing &quot;此起彼伏(Wave after wave)&quot; of the &quot;sound&quot; that automobile market price is going to drop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also to mention, &quot;此起彼伏(Wave after wave)&quot; usually describes something that produce waves/has up and downs, so &quot;声&quot; is required or it doesn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2015-05-01T00:39:57.060" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13336" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-01T01:52:46.143" Score="3" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;然后该文作者笔锋一转，接着就指出了中国这种民族主义自豪情节的另一个方面.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then, the author of this article accurately points out another aspect of this Chinese nationalistic pride.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought &quot;自豪&quot; alone is good enough, because it says pride, not &quot;pride plot.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-05-01T22:06:19.733" Title="Why is 情结 used here?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13334" CreationDate="2015-05-01T02:57:55.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost all  Chinese can understand mandarin,even though they can't speak it correctly.&#xA;You may say Which &quot;fangyan（dialect）&quot; do you speak?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2015-05-01T05:49:43.627" LastActivityDate="2015-05-01T05:49:43.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13336" CreationDate="2015-05-01T03:51:54.670" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;情节&lt;/code&gt; is a common typo here. It should be &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E6%83%85%E7%B5%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;情结&lt;/a&gt;. It means &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_%28psychology%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;complex&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, &lt;code&gt;自豪情节&lt;/code&gt; refers to &lt;code&gt;emotions, memories, perceptions, and wishes in the personal unconscious organized around pride&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other common usage of the word &lt;code&gt;情结&lt;/code&gt; include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;恋母情结/恋父情结&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oedipus complex. The complex that surrounds the child's desire to have a sexual relationship with the parent of the sex that adheres to their sexual orientation (mother or father)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;处女情结/处男情结&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The complex that surrounds the desire of dating a virgin, i.e. being the one to take his/her virginity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-01T22:06:19.733" LastActivityDate="2015-05-01T22:06:19.733" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13339" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13340" CreationDate="2015-05-01T08:57:33.347" Score="4" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any Chinese langauges (topolects/dialects) that have multi-syllablic readings for single Characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like, Japanese for instance has a lot of multi-syllablic readings for single Characters e.g:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;者&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;もの (mono)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do any Chinese language(s) have this feature?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2021-05-04T19:59:21.743" LastActivityDate="2021-05-04T19:59:21.743" Title="Chinese Languages With Multi-syllabic Readings Of Single Characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13339" CreationDate="2015-05-01T10:19:41.230" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest to your idea are the contracted characters, most of them created during the 20th century. Some examples include&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;圕 tuan1, short for 图书馆&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;瓩 qian1, short for 千瓦, kilowatt, (where the thousand/kilo part is actually wrapped right to the 瓦 character for aesthetic or 'economic' reasons, despite the fact that the multiplier of quantities always comes first), or&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;兙 shi2, short for 十克, decagram (same story as 瓩)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;浬 li3, short for 海里, nautical mile, yet another contraction.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other similar characters have not yet made into the Unicode tables, so you won't find them online. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's important to point out that these are modern day contractions owing to the nature of all language users: trying to be &lt;em&gt;economical&lt;/em&gt; in writing. These characters popped up for the same reasons like the dollar sign ($), or the the copyright sign (©) and so on, they are pure abbreviations to save the writer from having to write out multiple characters. I think it's hard to accept them as real multisyllabic characters, mainly because they tend to have a monosyllabic reading, too.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-05-01T10:19:41.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13325" CreationDate="2015-05-01T17:05:25.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;刍狗 ：dogs made by straws（for sacrifice purpose）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仁 means favour（prefer）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;many people think 仁 means &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ruth&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ruth&lt;/a&gt; which often appears in Confucius‘s quotes，that's not true。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天地不仁 。。。means heaven and earth don't favour anything，they treat humans and straw dogs in the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圣人不仁。。。 means kings don't favour some of their people more than others，they don't meddle in their affairs。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-06T23:20:22.500" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T23:20:22.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13330" CreationDate="2015-05-01T21:43:22.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一贯=typical, 批判=critical, 手法=method. I think &quot;one thing&quot; is not a correct translation for 一贯, 一贯 should be considered as whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2015-05-01T21:43:22.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1031" CreationDate="2015-05-01T21:52:34.583" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;通常=typical, usually&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;经常 and 常常=often/frequently&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I dont know the difference between 经常 and 常常, in most cases they can be replaced by each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2015-05-01T21:52:34.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13344" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13345" CreationDate="2015-05-02T06:10:08.053" Score="15" ViewCount="1151" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I remember, &lt;code&gt;虎&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;鼠&lt;/code&gt; are standalone nouns, meaning &lt;code&gt;tiger&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;mouse&lt;/code&gt;, respectively. However, it seems that &lt;code&gt;老虎&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;老鼠&lt;/code&gt; are more commonly used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is &lt;code&gt;老&lt;/code&gt; used as a prefix for &lt;code&gt;虎&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;鼠&lt;/code&gt;? Why do we use &lt;code&gt;獅子&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;老獅&lt;/code&gt;? Does it imply that &lt;code&gt;tiger&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;mouse&lt;/code&gt; are &lt;strong&gt;old&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;experienced&lt;/strong&gt;? What was the origin of such usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-12T05:16:16.837" LastActivityDate="2016-12-03T09:07:13.697" Title="What does &quot;老&quot; in &quot;老虎&quot; and &quot;老鼠&quot; mean" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13344" CreationDate="2015-05-02T06:10:08.053" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; Also refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/22023/9722&quot;&gt;Aminopterin's answer&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/22030/9722&quot;&gt;Travis Hu's answer&lt;/a&gt; for more insights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After some research, I found two reasonable explanations. But, IMHO, the two should be compiled as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;老&lt;/strong&gt; is a prefix that is added to make &lt;strong&gt;虎&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;鼠&lt;/strong&gt; easier to pronounce; besides, it implies that people respect &lt;strong&gt;虎&lt;/strong&gt; and fear &lt;strong&gt;鼠&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two explanations as follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Affix for smooth pronunciation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Classical Chinese era, texts were concise and some, if not most, of the words were one-character words. Yet, in colloquial context, people prepended/appended affixes to make the words easier to pronounce. These &amp;quot;new&amp;quot; words then became widely accepted and conventional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some common affixes and their associated words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;子(suffix)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;獅子、兔子、鴨子、猴子、鏡子、桌子、椅子、房子、筷子、刀子...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lion, rabbit, duck, monkey, mirror, table, chair, house, chopsticks, knife...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;老(prefix)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老虎、老鼠、老鷹、老師...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tiger, rat, hawk, teacher...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;頭(suffix)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甜頭、苦頭、舌頭、骨頭、石頭、木頭...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sweetness, suffering, tongue, bone, stone, wood...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Affix with connotation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &lt;code&gt;老&lt;/code&gt;, apart from &lt;code&gt;aged/experienced&lt;/code&gt;, has the implicit, figurative meaning of &lt;code&gt;respected&lt;/code&gt; because people respect elderly so as to comply with the social value. That said, people prepended &lt;code&gt;老&lt;/code&gt; on the ones they respect. This is why &lt;code&gt;老虎&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;老師&lt;/code&gt; are named the way they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;老鼠&lt;/code&gt;, on the other hand, has various interpretations. Some state that it fits to literal meaning of &lt;code&gt;老&lt;/code&gt; – &lt;code&gt;old&lt;/code&gt;. According to the &lt;code&gt;Compendium of Materia Medica(本草綱目)&lt;/code&gt;, a medical book, rats have the longest life span. Such misunderstanding came from the impression that rats have a high&#xA;rate of reproduction and have been around people back then for the longest time.&#xA;Some argue that the &lt;code&gt;老&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;老鼠&lt;/code&gt; implies the cunning characteristics of rats. This interpretation can also be applied to &lt;code&gt;鷹&lt;/code&gt;. The rest argue that people chose &lt;code&gt;老&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;老鼠&lt;/code&gt; to imply their fear toward rats and that rats are not easy to deal with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to why &lt;code&gt;獅&lt;/code&gt; is named &lt;code&gt;獅子&lt;/code&gt; but not &lt;code&gt;老獅&lt;/code&gt;, the reason is intuitive – to avoid conflicting pronunciation with &lt;code&gt;老師&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T17:39:12.917" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13347" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13348" CreationDate="2015-05-02T12:37:52.823" Score="2" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for synonyms of everyday words, and I realized many of these &quot;complicated words&quot; are used in Chinese literature. Is there a name for this group of words? For example, we sometimes read 蓦然 in books which is actually just 猛然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9681" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-03T22:37:46.510" LastActivityDate="2015-05-03T22:37:46.510" Title="Chinese literature vocabulary" Tags="&lt;literary-chinese&gt;&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13347" CreationDate="2015-05-02T13:04:47.180" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way is: 书面语 . See &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B9%A6%E9%9D%A2%E8%AF%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B9%A6%E9%9D%A2%E8%AF%AD&lt;/a&gt; for more information&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-05-02T13:04:47.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13452" CreationDate="2015-05-03T00:47:25.867" Score="9" ViewCount="634" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many have compared the differences in standard (news broadcaster) accents in of Taiwan 國語 and PRC 普通话 to the differences in British and American accents.  What linguistic factors have contributed to the divergence in these accents (particularly, what has caused Taiwanese-accented Mandarin to sound noticeably different) and when did this divergence become noticeable?  Did the divergence begin/accelerate following gradual relaxation of KMT rule in Taiwan in the 1980s?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some clarifying points to hopefully save this question from being closed as too broad:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am focusing on &quot;standard&quot; speech of CCTV/NTBS news anchors - which doesn't differ as much within either country (i.e., the speech of any two news anchors within either PRC or Taiwan will not diverge as much as the speech of any two people in the larger populations), yet is is notably different between either country (i.e., the speech of a news anchor from PRC and another news anchor from Taiwan will consistently diverge, likely in predictable ways).  The difference is particularly obvious when CCTV4, for example, includes snippets from Taiwanese news outlets narrated in speech that differs markedly from that of the PRC anchors.  A stab at cross-strait comity that ironically brings to mind the gap.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My interest is that since KMT pushed 國語 repressed use of 台语 as part of a political agenda following their retreat to Taiwan, one would think that they would have used news broadcast speech as a tool to advance this political agenda, in a similar way as the PRC does now (in the PRC case, perhaps more a desire for linguistic unification than oppression, per se).  Given the origin of KMT from Mainland (admittedly, many parts of Mainland), I would like to know whether the speech Taiwan news anchors of 40-50 years ago is (a) markedly different from the speech of modern Taiwan news anchors ; (b) if so, was it more similar then to the speech of modern PRC news anchors ; (c) if so, when did the divergence begin. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One alternate possibility to a growing divergence over time wrt news anchor speech is that from the beginning, in Taiwan, the KMT came up with a different conception of what standard 国语 should sound like, and that standard, enforced from the getgo, was already divergent from what is currently spoken by news anchors in the Mainland.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was simply not around when all of this was/not taking place, so am curious to hear from folks who were.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2015-05-03T12:11:08.293" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T17:01:26.090" Title="How Recent Is the Divergence In Taiwan- and PRC-Accented Mandarin Speech?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13350" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13351" CreationDate="2015-05-03T02:18:18.917" Score="-2" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this message on my Android phone. I tried to translate it using OCR tools and Google translate. But there's one symbol I can't find anywhere: it looks like &quot;ṔA&quot; (the 4th symbol at the top from left to right). Missing that symbol messes up the whole translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RfDpY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10894" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-19T06:05:24.660" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T06:05:24.660" Title="Can't translate this particular symbol (Character identified: 启)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13350" CreationDate="2015-05-03T02:25:56.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;启, means 'start' or 'boot' in this scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10895" LastActivityDate="2015-05-03T02:25:56.503" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13352" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-03T15:09:10.073" Score="2" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;我分管该公司研究部大消费组6个消费类行业。&#xA;I'm in charge of 6 consumer industries of the research department in this company. I don't understand 大消费组.  It seems to be redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 大消费组 used here? What does it mean in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-04T11:43:24.283" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T11:43:24.283" Title="Why is 大消费组 used here?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13352" CreationDate="2015-05-03T15:22:19.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think you should omit it. It's something like &lt;strong&gt;Big Consumption Team/Division&lt;/strong&gt; in the research department. It denotes the Team &quot;I&quot; &lt;strong&gt;work in&lt;/strong&gt;, whereas &lt;code&gt;消费类行业&lt;/code&gt; denotes the target industries &quot;I&quot; &lt;strong&gt;work on/am in charge of&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the sentence should be,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am in charge of 6 consumer industries of the Big Consumption Team in the research department of this company.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-05-03T15:22:19.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13356" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-04T01:31:29.647" Score="1" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;由于二手车市场准新车越来越多，加上价格原因，特别是二手车保值率的提高与稳定，使得交易日趋活跃。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 准新车 mean 'nearly new cars'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-29T08:31:07.247" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T08:31:07.247" Title="What is the meaning of 准新 in 由于二手车市场准新车越来越多...?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13356" CreationDate="2015-05-04T02:53:05.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, I think so. And it's just like someone who has just bought a new car and doesn't want keep it anymore, selling it on the secondhand market. Then the car he sold can be called “准新车”. “准” in Chinese always means nearly but not exactly. For instance, “准老婆” means your girlfriend and she is very likely to marry with you in the near future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10900" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T02:53:05.137" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13203" CreationDate="2015-05-04T03:09:45.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be &quot;蜂拥”， rather than &quot;轰涌”. And you can call the goods which is very popular &quot;抢手货&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10900" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T03:09:45.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13350" CreationDate="2015-05-04T05:04:01.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;strengthen self-running (management) ability，accelerate cellphone 30%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;self-running management totally upgrade，deeply free spaces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ROOT-Management more intelligent ，Accurately judge （APP's） permissions(or &#xA;authority,I don't know which one is being used)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw,I think these 手机管家（XX助手，XX管家，XX卫士） are just occupy your space,slow your phone,steal your contacts and records。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T05:04:01.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13360" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13368" CreationDate="2015-05-04T05:10:53.587" Score="6" ViewCount="2363" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering what is the polite way to address elderlies I do not know. Take the following context for example. Perhaps I visit a store and there is an elderly woman running the register and I would like to ask for help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3723/using-%E8%80%81%E5%A4%B4-%E8%80%81%E5%A4%B4%E5%AD%90-when-speaking-to-other&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; and I think it may be related but I just wanted to clarify. Is it proper to say 老奶？and 老爸?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2386" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T20:50:00.270" Title="What is the polite/proper way to address elderly whom I am not familiar with?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13088" CreationDate="2015-05-04T09:42:19.000" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;拜拜&quot; comes from the English word &quot;bye-bye&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;拜了个拜&quot; is actually a joking form of &quot;拜拜&quot;, which actually isn't &quot;correct&quot; in Chinese grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This expression got popular from a Chinese translation for a sentence in Japanese comeday animiation (日和动漫). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The guy tried translating a sentence into &quot;不是吧！&quot; (This must be kidding me!).&#xA;But he found it doesn't fit the lips movement in the animation, so he added 2 syllables, and makes &quot;不了个是吧！&quot;. &quot;了个&quot; here doesn't have any meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is interesting, there is a English phrase &quot;bye-and-bye&quot; that fits it perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9874" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T09:42:19.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13292" CreationDate="2015-05-04T15:30:36.073" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;然后（企业）可以有针对性 地 给员工补充“能量”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you may have known, in Chinese adding double quotation mark to word indicates it(the word) means something &lt;strong&gt;beyond its literal meaning&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能量's literal meaning is energy.&#xA;In your case, 能量 means the &lt;strong&gt;skills&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;abilities&lt;/strong&gt; that employees need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然后（企业）可以有针对性 地 给员工补充“能量”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Literal Meaning&lt;/strong&gt;: Afterwards company can &lt;strong&gt;refill&lt;/strong&gt;(补充) the &lt;strong&gt;energy&lt;/strong&gt;(能量) for employees &lt;strong&gt;accordingl&lt;/strong&gt;y(有针对性地).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Employees are not machines so they don't actually need to refill energy to perform better. They need more skills or abilities. The way to give someone skills or abilities is to train them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the &lt;strong&gt;actual meaning&lt;/strong&gt; of the sentence is： Afterwards/Then company can &lt;strong&gt;give training&lt;/strong&gt; (补充“能量”) to its employees accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this answer helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10902" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T15:30:36.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12898" CreationDate="2015-05-04T15:36:27.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Long story short, I think you got it right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;整人&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;playing prank on people&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is most common way to understand it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10902" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T15:36:27.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13364" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13365" CreationDate="2015-05-04T20:43:48.597" Score="12" ViewCount="625" Body="&lt;p&gt;Examples include 房东 or 财东 and 东道, respectively. What is the etymology behind this additional meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T22:09:29.680" Title="How come 東/东 has a second meaning 'owner/master' or 'host'?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13364" CreationDate="2015-05-04T21:05:15.087" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;東: 主人。由於古時主位在東，客位在西，所以稱主人為「&#xA;　　東」。如：「房東」、「店東」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation: In ancient times, the host was seated to the east and the guest to the west, so the host was called &quot;East&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reference:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra01875.htm&quot;&gt;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra01875.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I have also heard it is because the Sun rises from the east, thus east is seen as the 'emic', or the 'theme'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="507" LastEditDate="2015-05-04T22:09:29.680" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T22:09:29.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13366" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-04T22:40:06.613" Score="0" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;执行总统或国家情报总监指出的其它与影响国家安全情报相关的职责&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation is,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;to carry out the other responsibilities that are related to the national safety intelligence that are indicated by the president or the Director of National Intelligence.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-05T01:01:59.230" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T01:01:59.230" Title="Is my translation right?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13366" CreationDate="2015-05-05T01:01:05.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @S.Rhee has pointed out, and IMHO, below are some issues with your translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;影响&lt;/strong&gt; translates to &quot;affect/influence&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;安全&lt;/strong&gt; in this context translates to &quot;security&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;职责&lt;/strong&gt; translates better to &quot;duties/obligations&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The second &quot;that&quot; modifying clause should modify &lt;strong&gt;职责&lt;/strong&gt;, not &lt;strong&gt;国家安全情报&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more accurate translation might be,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;To carry out the other &lt;strong&gt;duties&lt;/strong&gt;, as indicated by the President or the Director of National Intelligence, that are related to &lt;strong&gt;influencing&lt;/strong&gt; the National &lt;strong&gt;Security&lt;/strong&gt; Intelligence.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T01:01:05.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13360" CreationDate="2015-05-05T05:49:50.683" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For an elderly woman, 大妈，大娘，大婶，阿婆，老奶奶 -- what's best really depends on what they are using locally and the age difference between you and the person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can always just say: 您好, if you are not sure what word to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10910" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-05-05T10:20:06.143" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T10:20:06.143" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6858" CreationDate="2015-05-05T11:16:35.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many sentence-ending particles in Chinese. Among them 呢 and 吗 are the most commonly used ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The particles 呢 (ne) and 吗 (ma) are very commonly used in both written and spoken Chinese. Check out the similarities and differences between the particle words呢 (ne) and 吗 (ma).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both 吗 and 呢 are used at the end of a sentence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both 吗 and 呢can be used to form questions. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both of them are pronounced in neutral tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Differences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吗 is used to turn statements into yes-no questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;zhè shì tú shū ɡuǎn&#xA;这是图书馆。&#xA;This is a library.&#xA;&#xA;zhè shì tú shū ɡuǎn mɑ？&#xA;这是图书馆吗？&#xA;Is this a library?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;呢 is mostly used to turn statements into queries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;fànɡjià le, nǐ wèishénme bù chqu wán’ér ne？&#xA;放假 了，你 为什么 不 出去 玩儿 呢？&#xA;It’s holiday time. Why not go out for fun?&#xA;&#xA;wǒ jiào lǐqiánɡ, nǐne？&#xA;我 叫 李强，你呢？&#xA;My name is Li Qiang. What about you?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to know the details of the usage of 吗， you can read this quora post: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesewords.quora.com/Usage-of-Chinese-particle-%E5%90%97-ma&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinesewords.quora.com/Usage-of-Chinese-particle-%E5%90%97-ma&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9624" LastEditorUserId="9685" LastEditDate="2015-05-05T20:17:24.040" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T20:17:24.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6858" CreationDate="2015-05-05T17:05:08.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two usage of 呢&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;1.exclamatory sentence&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;example:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;他还在睡呢!(He is still sleeping!)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;我还没完成呢!(I haven't finish this yet!)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;2.interrogative sentence&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;in this case, use of 呢 usually soften the question a bit&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;example:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;a.你在干什么？&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;b.你在干什么呢？&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;a and b both means &quot;what are you doing?&quot;, but b is more slightly&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;edit:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;one more usage is to mark the sentence(usually very short, or part of a sentence) as a question(sorry I can't find a proper way to describe this more accurate)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;example:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;1.车呢？(where is the car?)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;2.他人呢？(where is him?)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;3.我在学中文，你呢？(I'm learning Chinese, what about you?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastEditorUserId="9887" LastEditDate="2015-05-05T17:12:05.053" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T17:12:05.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13360" CreationDate="2015-05-05T17:37:10.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;老奶 and 老爸 is improper.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;老奶 is not used at all. It should be 老奶奶(for elder female, typically old enough to be a grandma, because 奶奶 means grandma).&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;老爸 is usually refering to your father, I think it work as &quot;old man&quot;, when talking about someone with no relationship, maybe 大叔 is better.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;note: 爸 typically means father, only in some dialect it also means father's brother.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;example:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;二爸 means father's brother(2nd eldest)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;四爸 means father's brother(4th eldest)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;but you can ignore this, in official mandarin this is not used.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;a simple list:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;male：大哥(whose age like your brother's), 大叔(whose age like your father's), 大爷(whose age like your grandpa's)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;female：大姐(whose age like your sister's), 大婶/阿姨(whose age like your mother's),大妈/大娘(whose age like your grandma's)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T17:37:10.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13273" CreationDate="2015-05-05T17:45:15.667" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;2 words.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;in this case, 得=have to, 弄=make&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;example:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;1.我们首先得吃饭.(we have to eat first)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;2.我要把这个问题弄清楚.(I gonna make this problem clear)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;and the pronunciation is &quot;dei nong&quot;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;translation 1 is what I prefer, but 2 and 3 are also acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T17:45:15.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13360" CreationDate="2015-05-06T00:58:20.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;never use 老奶/老爸!&#xA;老奶奶 is ok if she is really old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10917" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T00:58:20.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13377" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13386" CreationDate="2015-05-06T01:31:25.003" Score="3" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;眉如點倉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眉 - Eyebrow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如 - Like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;點 - Dots&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倉 - Granary/Sea/etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So his eyebrows were like ...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not too sure what it really means. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2015-05-06T05:46:00.933" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T05:46:00.933" Title="What does 眉如點倉 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13379" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13383" CreationDate="2015-05-06T02:25:51.910" Score="-1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe I have a carved stamp but do not know the translation..And information would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gKgD6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Stamp base&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C5xF5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;side&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ne9fx.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;top&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10919" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-06T04:54:33.097" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T04:54:33.097" Title="Translation help please" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-12-15T03:57:18.623" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13334" CreationDate="2015-05-06T03:09:39.487" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia:&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese language&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chinese Listeni/tʃaɪˈniːz/ (汉语 / 漢語; Hànyǔ or 中文; Zhōngwén) is a group of related but in many cases mutually unintelligible language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So technically, Chinese is not one language but a group of them and asking &quot;which language, Cantonese or Mandarin?&quot; is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when people say &quot;I speak Chinese&quot;, it really means &quot;I can speak one of the languages of China&quot; -- it could be Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese or other dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So maybe a better way to ask is: &quot;Do you speak any Chinese language?&quot; And after they confirms, you clarify by asking: 国语吗？ or 普通话吗？ (&quot;Is it Mandarin?&quot;) Most would say yes even if they speak more dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not think asking where they are from or what dialect they speak is a good idea. Because you would get so many different answers that add more confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10910" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T03:09:39.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13292" CreationDate="2015-05-06T03:28:16.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usage of XX性 and XX地 is deeply influenced by English. '针对' itself is a verb. It is weird to convert it to adj by adding -性 or to adv by adding -地. Yet I understand such usage is popular nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And therefore I do think '有针对性' is awkward also in Chinese. '针对' should be used as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;企业可以针对员工的需要給予培训&#xA;Company can provide trainings to employee targeting/according to their needs.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2319" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T03:28:16.520" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13203" CreationDate="2015-05-06T03:36:19.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;供不應求 - literally 'supply/not/satisfied/demand'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;僧多粥少 - idiom, not enough congee for the monks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2319" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T03:36:19.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13379" CreationDate="2015-05-06T03:36:31.480" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;the stamp says 乾隆年制&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乾隆 (Qianlong) is an Emperor from Qing Dynasty &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Emperor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Qianlong Emperor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;年(Nian):year, time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;制(Zhi):made&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10910" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T03:36:31.480" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13377" CreationDate="2015-05-06T03:39:58.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;点仓 is a famous mountain。&#xA;Chinese traditional literature usually compares female's eyebrows to mountains,&#xA;like,眉如远山抹黛，not real mountain，but in the Chinese traditional paintings。&#xA;I can't imagine what it looks like too，：）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T03:39:58.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13292" CreationDate="2015-05-06T04:00:06.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, I tend to translate it as &quot;specifically&quot;. It's a bit hard here to translate it literally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;企业...的培训，然后可以有针对性地给员工补充“能量”。&#xA;....., then it can help the employees improve the skills which they are specifically lacking of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T04:00:06.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13377" CreationDate="2015-05-06T04:19:33.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;点仓 is in Yunan province. It has 19 mountains.&#xA;Here is its wiki page &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8B%8D%E5%B1%B1_%28%E5%A4%A7%E7%90%86%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;苍山 (大理)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眉如点仓 means the eyebrows are thick, dark, long -- imagine you look at mountains from distance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think not lots of mountains can be used to describe eyebrows. 眉如五台，眉如泰山 would look very weird :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10910" LastEditorUserId="10910" LastEditDate="2015-05-06T04:34:11.017" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T04:34:11.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13387" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13388" CreationDate="2015-05-06T08:55:48.340" Score="3" ViewCount="1154" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Long time no see&quot; is 好久不见 in Mandarin. I would be inclined towards adding a 了 at the end. Would that be all right? And in that case, what does the 了 add?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-06T09:52:48.040" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T18:44:12.873" Title="好久不见＋了＝OK or wrong? What does the &quot;le&quot; add?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13387" CreationDate="2015-05-06T09:44:58.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically speaking, 好久不见 and 好久不见了 are both acceptable; &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; completes the implicit meaning of &quot;no see&quot; as &quot;have not seen&quot; but can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO, the two are more or less interchangeable and it is merely a personal preference of which to use (I prefer the later as well). Nevertheless, from my experience, people usually use the former in relatively formal context. As to myself, I use &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; as a modal particle in this context, as in &quot;Sigh/Wow/Damn, it's been long&quot;. I feel that it somehow extends or emphasizes the feeling at the moment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a side note, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_time_no_see&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;long time no see&lt;/a&gt;&quot; is commonly believed as originated from Chinese-speaking communities in the States, i.e. it is seen as Chinglish (Please forgive my language).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T09:44:58.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13387" CreationDate="2015-05-06T10:12:33.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Means long time no see,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the &quot;le&quot; doesn' make any sense, 是语气词&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;语气词是表示语气的虚词，常用在句尾或句中停顿处表示种种语气。常见的语气词有：的、了、么、呢、吧、啊。语气词：附着在词语、句子末了，表示语气。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the &quot;le&quot; doesn't make any sense, it's a modal word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modal words are auxiliary words showing tone, often used at the end of a sentence or in the middle at a pause to show all kinds of tone. Among common tone words there are: de, le, me, ne, ba, a. Modal word: attached to the end of a word or sentence, showing tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6175" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2015-05-06T17:22:45.463" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T17:22:45.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13390" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-06T13:52:40.730" Score="5" ViewCount="11065" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in if a child does something good, their parents might say &quot;I'm so proud of you&quot; or &quot;Mum is so proud of you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only word in the dictionary I seem to be able to find for pride seems to be about self-pride （eg. 自豪).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#auto/zh-CN/mum%20is%20so%20proud%20of%20you&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; translate pride as 骄傲 but I always thought that 骄傲 kind of had negative connotations like of someone being a bit arrogant or vain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="288" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T02:55:58.050" Title="How do you say &quot;proud of you&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13292" CreationDate="2015-05-06T15:30:53.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about &quot;…provide tailored training to help employees mitigate their weakness...&quot; &quot;Personalized&quot; is a good translation too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-06T17:24:46.557" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T17:24:46.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13390" CreationDate="2015-05-06T15:32:29.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;骄傲 is completely correct, you can use 骄傲 in this situation, it won't bring any negative connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some situations, 骄傲 really means arrogant, for example, &amp;quot;This guy is so 骄傲&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;这个人很骄傲&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below statements fulfill &amp;quot;Mum is so proud of you&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈为你感到骄傲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈为你感到自豪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈为你感到光荣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be more emphasize, you could use &amp;quot;无比&amp;quot;，it is like incomparable, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈为你感到无比骄傲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈为你感到无比自豪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈为你感到光荣无比&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9312" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T15:32:29.063" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13390" CreationDate="2015-05-06T15:58:17.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of ways to say that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;以你為榮&#xA;引以為榮&#xA;引以自豪&#xA;與有榮焉&#xA;光宗耀祖&#xA;吐氣揚眉&#xA;光耀門楣&#xA;家山有福&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These above-mentioned words illustrate the idea of pride but each has its own idiomatic usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;媽媽以你為榮。&#xA;有子如此，為母引以自豪。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T15:58:17.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13390" CreationDate="2015-05-06T18:42:48.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Mum is so proud of you&quot;.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;媽媽 (Mum) 真是 (is so) 以你為榮 (proud of you)。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;媽媽真是以你為榮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10927" LastEditorUserId="10927" LastEditDate="2015-05-06T18:47:52.027" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T18:47:52.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13387" CreationDate="2015-05-06T18:44:12.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As othera have already pointed out, 了doesn't have explicit meaning. It's an exclamation 叹词 marking a statement. There are also exclamation words that mark excitement (啊 呀 呢 吧 啦) or question (吗 呢). Note some words can be used in a question or a statement depending o the tone you said it with… If you are not yet confused at this stage, here are two examples to play with:&#xA;我们很久没见了呢！ - long tiime no see!&#xA;我们多久没见了呀？- how long has it been?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T18:44:12.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13349" CreationDate="2015-05-06T19:09:42.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think its more or less like the diversity of US english and UK english.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;The grammar of Chinese language is almost the same, sometimes you can not find significant difference of using Chinese language between official speech from PRC and Taiwan.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;When it come closer to daily life, the diversity of language will become bigger and significant. That's because the locale and culture development are different for more than 50 years, the vocabularies involved for daily speaking is different.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;But as I know, it's just like the language diversity in different area of the same base culture, people from PRC and Taiwan can communicate to each other, but when they get into more detailed and localized topics, more explanation of vocabulary will be needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10927" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T19:09:42.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13399" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13407" CreationDate="2015-05-06T20:13:35.183" Score="0" ViewCount="556" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often use the word 察覺, which, I believe, corresponds to 發現 in colloquial context, meaning &amp;quot;to realize&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I recently encountered the word 覺察 in a similar context as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小偷覺察屋子裡有人，就從後門逃走了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thief realized there was someone in the house, then slipped away from the back door.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If my translation above is correct, are the two words interchangeable? Or do they have different meaning/usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T17:44:31.830" Title="Difference between 察覺 and 覺察" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13400" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13402" CreationDate="2015-05-06T20:16:59.157" Score="0" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't understand what she say at 0:38&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.allocine.fr/video/player_gen_cmedia=19551143&amp;amp;cfilm=145804.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.allocine.fr/video/player_gen_cmedia=19551143&amp;amp;cfilm=145804.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anybody know? &#xA;It's not the mandarin language, am i right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10928" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T20:45:33.783" Title="Anybody know what she say in this song?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13399" CreationDate="2015-05-06T20:37:45.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the two are the same thing. However, I've never used 覺察 in any context in my life as a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10929" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T20:37:45.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13400" CreationDate="2015-05-06T20:45:33.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds like a dialect of the Chinese language. I think she's singing &quot;驕妹子，驕妹子驕&quot;, &quot;細(小)妹子，細(小)妹子細(小)&quot;，which can be translated literally to &quot;proud girl, proud girl proud&quot; &quot;little girl, little girl little&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10929" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T20:45:33.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13360" CreationDate="2015-05-06T20:47:37.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;most&lt;/strong&gt; polite/proper way varies among different regions, as shown in each of the other answers. Here are some tips that I know of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you know the dialect in that region, it would be best to address the elderly with the associated word, e.g. 阿公, 阿嬷(mà) in Taiwanese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since an elderly (whether male or female) is usually concerned with age, it would be safer to address the elderly as younger than his/her age if you find the age ambiguous in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/13373/9722&quot;&gt;@Doubble22's simple list&lt;/a&gt;. Again, beware that the list differ among different regions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generally speaking, the way you address an elderly may imply the degree of friendliness you are expressing. 先生/小姐, or simply 您好, are formal, polite, and applicable to all age group, but it more or less leads to a relatively &quot;distant&quot; interaction; 爺爺/奶奶 and the likes show more friendliness but again, an elderly is usually sensitive to age. This hence becomes a choice of which would outweigh the trade-offs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T20:47:37.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13399" CreationDate="2015-05-07T01:51:19.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your translation is right.These two words are of the same meaning and interchageable, but we are used to using 察覺 in our daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10931" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T01:51:19.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13390" CreationDate="2015-05-07T02:55:58.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;I'm so proud of you&quot; In this sentence, &quot;proud&quot; being translated to 自豪 is absolutely right, and 骄傲 is also OK. &#xA;In most situation 骄傲 expresses negative connotations, such as &quot;He is very 骄傲&quot;, which means he is over proud of himself(自己骄傲). Here subject and object are the same person.&#xA;While &quot;sb is proud of him（别人为他感到骄傲）&quot; can express positive meaning. Subject and object are different person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10931" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T02:55:58.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13406" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13421" CreationDate="2015-05-07T03:50:04.753" Score="1" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am under the impression that Chinese multi-character words form their meaning from that of the characters that form these words. (Let me know if I am mistaken!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that 不得已 means &quot;to have to&quot;.&#xA;But consider each character, as described on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8D%E5%BE%97%E5%B7%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;不, &quot;not&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;得, &quot;particle to connect verb with modifying clause/to have to&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;已, &quot;already/then/to stop&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do these three characters form the meaning of the whole expression? Or is there no rule to this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, my understanding is that 得 (dė) is a particle, yet 得 (děi) means &quot;to have to&quot;. That said, would the pronunciation of 得 in this expression be &lt;code&gt;děi&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-08T00:38:30.107" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T18:14:50.537" Title="How is the meaning of 不得已 formed?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13399" CreationDate="2015-05-07T03:58:33.467" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although both mean &quot;to become aware of&quot;, I feel there is still subtle difference in terms of which action happens first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;觉察 is from 觉 to 察: you suspect something first, then observe some facts that supports the suspicion. For example, 突然教室里很安静，我觉察到原来大家都走了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;察觉 is from 察 to 觉: you observe first, then draw a conclusion about something. For example, 我抬头左右看了一圈，察觉到大家都走了。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one happens first, 察 or 觉, can indicate some difference. Usually we use 察觉 because people often draw conclusions after observing the facts. But when 觉察 is used, the emphasis is on the suspicion or cautiousness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that it is also possible to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;觉而不察: to suspect but not to examine &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;察而不觉: to observe the facts but not to realize/understand&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10910" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-07T04:48:49.193" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T04:48:49.193" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13406" CreationDate="2015-05-07T04:19:17.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;得 also means 可以 (allowed, permitted), such as 不得吸烟(no smoking)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不(bù): not&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得(dé): allowed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;已(yǐ): to stop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so &lt;code&gt;not allowed to stop [something]&lt;/code&gt; becomes &lt;code&gt;[something] must happen&lt;/code&gt; becomes  &lt;code&gt;to have to&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10910" LastEditorUserId="10910" LastEditDate="2015-05-07T06:19:00.010" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T06:19:00.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13409" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13415" CreationDate="2015-05-07T04:21:50.840" Score="3" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How Many Characters Are There Where The Radical Is The Same As The Main Component?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=E686&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;字海网: &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pa3mo.png&quot; alt=&quot;o&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=2767F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;字海网: &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TtUZ3.png&quot; alt=&quot;o&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is definitely answerable as there are only a certain amount of radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T17:36:01.470" Title="How Many Characters Are There Where The Radical Is The Same As The Main Component?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13406" CreationDate="2015-05-07T06:32:36.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;不得已 can be considered as a word, just like the single English word, so there is no rule to this.&#xA;And here the pronunciation of 得 in this expression is &quot;de &quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10931" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T06:32:36.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13411" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-07T06:36:59.647" Score="2" ViewCount="719" Body="&lt;p&gt;（那件衣服可不是我洗的）我洗衣服很干净的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone try to explain to me the function of 的 at The end the sentence &quot;我洗衣服很干净的&quot;?&#xA;Shouldn't it have been “我衣服洗得很干净”. Does “我洗衣服很干净的” follow any pattern/structure?&#xA;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-07T15:37:56.740" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T14:53:01.923" Title="The usage of 的 at the end of the sentence" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2015-05-15T17:41:12.903" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13412" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-07T07:24:08.267" Score="6" ViewCount="875" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is calling a homosexual person 同性恋 rude, offensive, or a slur? My dictionary translates it simply as &quot;homosexual&quot; but then in the usage examples gives &quot;fairy,&quot; which is definitely a slur in English (&quot;reclaiming&quot; aside). Are the usage example translations wrong, or what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢大家！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10933" LastActivityDate="2015-05-13T05:32:48.603" Title="Is 同性恋 considered a slur?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13412" CreationDate="2015-05-07T08:54:52.247" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The expression of “同性恋” in Chinese, I think, is too formal and is hardly used in Chinese spoken language. In Chinese slang, some may use &quot;同志&quot;（which originally means comrade or like-minded or congenial people in China）to euphemistically refer to homosexual persons. In reality, influenced by English, we youngsters in China directly use gay or lesbian more frequently, rather than a Chinese word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8130" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T08:54:52.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13409" CreationDate="2015-05-07T15:10:05.673" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quick perusal of my database gives me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;u-cjk/6299      抙  ⿰扌手&#xA;u-cjk/726a      牪  ⿰牜牛&#xA;u-cjk/72be      犾  ⿰犭犬&#xA;u-cjk/73cf      珏  ⿰王玉&#xA;u-cjk/8aa9      誩  ⿰言言&#xA;u-cjk/8e00      踀  ⿰足&#xA;u-cjk-xa/3908   㤈  ⿰忄心&#xA;u-cjk-xb/201a7    ⿰亻人&#xA;u-cjk-xb/23c99    ⿰氵水&#xA;u-cjk/9342      鍂  ⿰金金&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(considering only Unicode code points). I tested against the RegEx &lt;code&gt;氵水|礻示|⺬示|釒金|钅金|王玉|忄心|竹|讠言|言言|冫氷|扌手|足|⻗雨|爫爪|亻人|火灬|犭犬|牜牛|飠食|食|饣食&lt;/code&gt;, which may be incomplete. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In related news, a search for &lt;code&gt;水水|示示|金金|王王|玉玉|心心|竹竹|手手|足足|雨雨|爪爪|人人|火火|犬犬|牛牛|食食&lt;/code&gt; brings up, amongst others, these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;u-cjk/4ece      从  ⿰人人&#xA;u-cjk/6c9d      沝  ⿰水水&#xA;u-cjk/708f      炏  ⿰火火&#xA;u-cjk/73a8      玨  ⿰王王&#xA;u-cjk/7958      祘  ⿰示示&#xA;u-cjk-xa/3e5c   㹜  ⿰犬犬&#xA;u-cjk-xb/225f0    ⿰心心&#xA;u-cjk-xb/22a92    ⿰手手&#xA;u-cjk-xb/24519    ⿱爪⿰爪爪&#xA;u-cjk-xb/24934    ⿰玉玉&#xA;u-cjk-xb/25d12    ⿱竹⿰竹竹&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some of which may violate your expectations about how to correctly write characters, as the usual positional variants are not used in these forms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3674" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T15:10:05.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13409" CreationDate="2015-05-07T17:36:01.470" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose you are looking for a list of such characters in Simplified Chinese. There is probably more, but here you go. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notes&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I added extra lists just for completeness. Feel free to add to it!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By &quot;non-radical&quot; I mean the identical parts are not a radical themselves. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Top-bottom Radical Pair&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;炎、多、昌、二、亖、畕、仌、歨（not 走）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Left-right Radical Pair&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;林、双、从、朋、赫、竝、孖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Top-down Non-radical Pair&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;出、哥、爻、串&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Left-right Non-radical Pair&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;囍、吕、二、羽、兢、非、弱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Three-character/radical Words&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;淼、鑫、焱、垚、森、众、磊、品、晶、羴、鱻、犇、厽、惢、掱、聶、姦、畾、尛、孨、毳、蟲、麤、猋、骉、龘、赑、轟、矗、嚞、芔、歮、雥、叒、皛、馫、靐、飍、飝、刕、譶、毳、劦、舙、厵、灥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Four-character/radical Words&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;燚、朤、茻、叕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T17:36:01.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13420" CreationDate="2015-05-07T17:42:46.547" Score="3" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is as titled. Per my understanding the &quot;以后&quot; in &quot;回家以后&quot;, &quot;从此以后&quot;, etc. is a preposition. So I am surprised the textbook says 以后 is an adverb here. Can anyone find a grammar book, dictionary, or any kind of documents to prove the textbook is correct?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-07T18:10:51.117" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T11:02:47.850" Title="Is the word &quot;以后&quot; in &quot;回家以后&quot; an adverb?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13417" CreationDate="2015-05-07T18:10:12.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese has a number of &lt;strong&gt;post-positions （后置介词）&lt;/strong&gt;, instead of pre-position in English. But I have not seen an expert using this term. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A preposition or post-position （介词） is a word that requests a noun （介词宾语） to form a phrase （介词短语）. This &lt;strong&gt;phrase&lt;/strong&gt; could be used as an adverb （介词短语作状语）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 他们是&lt;strong&gt;工厂的&lt;/strong&gt;工人. They are workers &lt;strong&gt;of the factory&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;strong&gt;桌子上&lt;/strong&gt;有一本书. There is a book &lt;strong&gt;on the table&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, for the phrase &quot;of the factory&quot;, &quot;of&quot; is positioned before &quot;the factory&quot;; therefore, it is called a preposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, for the phrase &quot;工厂的&quot;, &quot;的&quot; is positioned after &quot;工厂&quot;; therefore, it should be, I think, called a post-position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your question, for the phrase &quot;回家以后&quot;, &quot;回家&quot; is a noun, which is formed from the verb &quot;回&quot; and its object &quot;家&quot;. &quot;以后&quot; is a post-position. It is not an adverb here because it requests the noun &quot;回家&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;以后” can be used as an adverb by itself. For example, 我&lt;strong&gt;以后&lt;/strong&gt;会还给你钱. I will give you money back &lt;strong&gt;later&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another example in which &quot;然后&quot; is used as a conjunction to connect two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我回家，然后会给你打电话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are just my two cents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastEditorUserId="9346" LastEditDate="2015-05-08T11:02:47.850" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T11:02:47.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13417" CreationDate="2015-05-07T18:49:16.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;after returning home&quot; is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.taiwantestcentral.com/Grammar/Title.aspx?ID=115&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;adverb phrase&lt;/a&gt;. &quot;After&quot; is the preposition as you said. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10929" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T18:49:16.087" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13417" CreationDate="2015-05-07T20:36:08.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't find a resource to cite from, but here's what I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some grammar textbooks, whether Chinese or English, words like this are referred to as a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepositional_adverb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Prepositional Adverb&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, or words that are &lt;em&gt;very similar in its form to a preposition but functions as an adverb&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not certain about this, but some say that 以後（后） is one of the &lt;strong&gt;post-positions&lt;/strong&gt;, which corresponds to prepositions in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider 以後/after in the following sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;以後(after) as a preposition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好了以後，記得打給我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Call me after(when) you're done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;After&amp;quot; as an adverb.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will arrive soon after.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我馬上到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;以後 as an adverb. (?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以後，我會再打給你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the future, I will call you again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T00:51:46.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13406" CreationDate="2015-05-07T23:30:37.113" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;the usage is classical and shows up at least as far back as mencius: 吾豈好辨哉？吾不得已也。Here the meaning is quite literally &quot;I cannot (不) achieve/obtain (得) an end (已)&quot; to my argumentativeness. In other words, i have no choice but to argue. You might compare it with the much more colloquial 不得不.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way be careful about the whole multi-character words thing. Some (not I) would insist that they are mere syllables, the characters accidental byproducts of the spoken language. Better comparison would be with a language composed entirely of words like &quot;counterproductive&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T23:30:37.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13423" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-08T06:40:45.123" Score="3" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't quite see what 侧面 is doing in this sentence; any tips please? I'll include the previous sentence for clarity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天，杨先生的银行存款很少，绝大部分都用来投资股市，一年下来，收益远远高出利息。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实际上，市民理财概念的变化，&lt;strong&gt;侧面&lt;/strong&gt;反映了金融市场在入世以后逐渐与国际接轨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I add 他的 or 市民的 or 杨先生的？  Such as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实际上，市民理财概念的变化，&lt;strong&gt;他的侧面&lt;/strong&gt;反映了金融市场在入世以后逐渐与国际接轨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他的侧面&lt;/strong&gt;反映了金融市场在入世以后逐渐与国际接轨。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;his profile reflects the gradual integration of the (domestic) financial market into the international arena following China's entry into the WTO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is that all wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T06:51:05.000" Title="What is 侧面 doing in ...侧面反映了金融市场在入世以后逐渐与国际接轨?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13423" CreationDate="2015-05-08T07:00:08.333" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;实际上，市民理财概念的变化，侧面反映了金融市场在入世以后逐渐与国际接轨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;侧面 is used to &lt;code&gt;市民理财概念的变化&lt;/code&gt;, the sentence can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;实际上，市民理财概念变化的侧面反映了金融市场在入世以后逐渐与国际接轨。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It just say you can indicate something from something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8141" LastEditorUserId="8141" LastEditDate="2015-05-08T07:19:05.607" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T07:19:05.607" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13423" CreationDate="2015-05-08T07:29:28.417" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, 侧面 is not noun but adverb, 侧面反映 = &lt;em&gt;indirectly&lt;/em&gt; reflected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T07:29:28.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13426" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15906" CreationDate="2015-05-08T09:14:07.847" Score="7" ViewCount="1216" Body="&lt;p&gt;As someone who's more or less a native Cantonese speaker, I've noticed that &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; speakers from mainland China (&lt;em&gt;from Cantonese speaking areas&lt;/em&gt;) sound &quot;weird&quot;, in that I could clearly notice a difference between them and Hong Kong speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I can't find a video on YouTube of some examples, but I know of Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong who attribute this to &quot;鄉音&quot;. (I have most definitely seen something of the sort on some Hong Kong news channels before, but it's difficult to locate any specific clips.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there anything that &lt;em&gt;generally&lt;/em&gt; characterizes these deviations from the sort of Cantonese that might be spoken by Hong Kongers or is the potential &quot;鄉音&quot; influence impossible to generalize?&lt;/strong&gt; (Some link to another analysis on the internet could also come in handy.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/8516/5714&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; would seem relevant, but the difference I'm interested in is more of the difference between a &lt;em&gt;subset&lt;/em&gt; of mainland speakers and other Cantonese speakers. For what it's worth, I have not seen the same differences among Chinese American Cantonese speakers with family from mainland China, and I know of mainland Chinese who essentially speak &quot;properly&quot;. I am also not sure if this is a non-native speaker problem, particularly in areas like Shenzhen where Mandarin might be more heavily used. But at the very least, note that I am interested in non-standard pronunciation among some mainland Chinese in Cantonese speaking areas, and not, say, a Beijing Mandarin-speaker who knows some Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T14:51:43.777" Title="How is non-standard Cantonese spoken by some mainland Chinese speakers different from &quot;standard&quot; pronunciation?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;accent&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13426" CreationDate="2015-05-08T09:53:46.840" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit: Sorry that I misunderstood the question.  I thought Maroon was talking about non-native Cantonese speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most native Mandarin speakers have trouble handling the rising (上聲) and departing tones (去聲) in Cantonese.  It is because Cantonese further differentiates them into high-rising (陰上), low-rising (陽上), high-level (陰去) and low-level (陽去).  (Please refer to &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%9B%E8%81%B2#.E7.8E.B0.E4.BB.A3.E6.96.B9.E8.A8.80.E5.A3.B0.E8.B0.83.E5.AF.B9.E7.85.A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%9B%E8%81%B2#.E7.8E.B0.E4.BB.A3.E6.96.B9.E8.A8.80.E5.A3.B0.E8.B0.83.E5.AF.B9.E7.85.A7&lt;/a&gt; for the exact tone contours.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also have difficulties pronouncing checked tones (入聲) as they are also absent from Mandarin.  And, again, there are three levels of checked tones (陰入, 中入 and 陽入), making it even more difficult to manage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2015-05-08T11:27:21.103" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T11:27:21.103" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13428" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13429" CreationDate="2015-05-08T17:52:26.200" Score="3" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;When studying Chinese, I've often found that there are &lt;strong&gt;different ways&lt;/strong&gt; to say the &lt;strong&gt;same thing&lt;/strong&gt;, for example using a verb with a &lt;em&gt;directional complement&lt;/em&gt; rather than a verb with &lt;em&gt;resultative complement&lt;/em&gt; or a &lt;em&gt;simple sentence structure&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was told that the choice (prefering a directional complement over a base sentence structure) is due to a &lt;strong&gt;change in focus&lt;/strong&gt;, thus with a directional complement the main event within the sentence is a movement taking place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if I have these sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(说话人在上海)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;1. 我妹妹到上海来了. [using the directional complement]&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;2. 我妹妹来上海了. [using the simple sentence structure]&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;3. 我妹妹来到上海. [using the resultative complement]&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there &lt;strong&gt;any differences&lt;/strong&gt; between these three sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I was told that the third one is wrong, but why exactly is it? Couldn't it be interpreted as a &lt;em&gt;resultative complement&lt;/em&gt; where 来 is the main verb and 到 indicates the result of arriving at a place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10944" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-08T20:42:47.253" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T00:15:18.210" Title="Forming sentences with resultative and directional complements" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;direction-complement&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13428" CreationDate="2015-05-08T18:19:15.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are indeed differences. I will mostly give a discussion of in the example you gave since I'm really not competent enough to talk about the complements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In (3), we have &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/entry/a50a43170921447dbb71b7f2d907c6fd&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;来到&lt;/a&gt;, which means that 我妹妹 must have &lt;em&gt;arrived&lt;/em&gt; (or is arriving). (Notice that the lack of a 了 means that without more context, I cannot infer whether or not this is in the past tense.) In any case, there's a slight difference between this and &quot;my sister &lt;em&gt;came&lt;/em&gt; to Shanghai&quot;: we can still mean &quot;arrived&quot; by &quot;come&quot;, but the connotations should be noted.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In (2), we have 来 ... 了, which merely indicates to me that 我妹妹 must have come to Shanghai. There could also be connotations of arrival, again dependent on context. There could also be connotations, because of the 了, that 我妹妹 has now left 上海. (As an aside: I would group 了 with the verb, instead of separating them.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Like (2), (1) feels ambiguous. I could read 到上海来了 as &quot;has come to Shanghai&quot;, and like in (2) it could be that the sister has &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; come to Shanghai (so has arrived), or merely &quot;she has come to Shanghai&quot; in a more general sense. However, unlike the other two, (1) gives me the sense that Shanghai isn't just some intermediary stop for 我妹妹 because of the placement of 到. The other two can be slightly ambiguous in this respect.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-05-09T00:15:18.210" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T00:15:18.210" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13430" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-08T20:42:54.260" Score="0" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two seem to involve lots of colloquial Chinese and I want to know where I can learn it.  I want to focus on the Beijing/Tianjin dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T06:11:42.377" Title="What are some good resources for 相声 and 小品?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13431" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-09T01:36:35.977" Score="8" ViewCount="3229" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the rules for using commas （， 逗号） and periods （。 句号） in Chinese? In English I'm fairly confident of when to use commas and when to use periods. I learned in school what run-on sentences were and how to fix them with appropriate punctuation or conjunctions. The punctuation rules in Chinese are obviously different, though. Commas are used much more frequently. When I write in Chinese now, I also make liberal use of commas, but I don't know when a period would be more appropriate. Are there any objective punctuation rules to follow? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar (but different) questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/128/is-the-usage-of-european-punctuation-acceptable-in-chinese-writing&quot;&gt;Is the usage of European punctuation acceptable in Chinese writing?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/532/when-was-punctuation-introduced-into-chinese&quot;&gt;When was punctuation introduced into Chinese?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12299/whats-the-difference-between-and&quot;&gt;What&amp;#39;s the difference between ，and 、&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/517/when-are-and-and-other-brackets-used&quot;&gt;When are &amp;quot;《&amp;quot; and &amp;quot; 》&amp;quot; and other brackets used?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9823" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T02:11:08.490" Title="What are the rules for using commas and periods in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13432" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-09T04:20:19.937" Score="3" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;Listening to this text, it sounded like 当属 is a word. I can find lots of examples of 当属 acting like a word, but dictionaries don't seem to regard 当属 as a word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I simply replace 当 with 是 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...其中中国人感触最深的&lt;strong&gt;当属&lt;/strong&gt;汽车进入家庭给我们带来的种种便利以及它给中国人的生活带来的改变。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-09T08:52:58.040" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T10:17:38.453" Title="Can I replace 当 with 是 in this sentence" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13432" CreationDate="2015-05-09T06:00:24.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No,you can NOT. &quot;当属&quot; IS a word. &quot;当&quot; means &quot;should&quot;; &quot;属&quot; means &quot;是&quot; (&quot;be&quot;) here; &quot;当属&quot; means &quot;should be&quot;. Moreover, &quot;是属&quot; is not a valid word in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9515" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-09T06:24:22.610" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T06:24:22.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13432" CreationDate="2015-05-09T06:33:16.643" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;当属 is an abbreviation of 应当属于, which means should be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;应当 means should, 属于 means be/is (of which the original meaning is belong to. Here maybe you can interpret it as attribute to? I'm not sure.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can say 当属 or 应当是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6838" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-09T08:48:23.607" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T08:48:23.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13432" CreationDate="2015-05-09T08:29:11.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 当 has multiple meanings. 当 itself mean 'when' or 'to hold a position' (as in 当之无愧). It could mean 'should' when pairing with 应~ or 該~. 仅当 means 'only if'. When pairing with other words, it seems that 当 does not carry any particular meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your context, I think the whole '当属' could be replaced with '是'. It is 'should be' in a very certain sense, similar to '非XX莫屬' (could not be anything else but XX).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps. The word 令 should be added to the first sentence 其中令中国人感触最深的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2319" LastEditorUserId="2319" LastEditDate="2015-05-10T10:17:38.453" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T10:17:38.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13436" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13469" CreationDate="2015-05-09T09:47:07.633" Score="-3" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E7%99%BE%E5%BC%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;百强&lt;/strong&gt; (MDBG)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;top 100 (e.g. top 100 towns) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.popupchinese.com/tools/adso&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Adsotrans&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;top one-hundred&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cfdict.fr/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CFDict&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;top 100&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cebu Pacific calls themselves a 百强企业 on their advertisements&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蓝润集团 calls themselves 百强蓝润 on their advertisements&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fortune Five Hundred translates as 五百强, I can't imagine that Cebu or Lanrun would make the &lt;em&gt;Fortune 100&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What's the scope of 百强?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top one hundred -of- &lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T20:34:44.317" Title="百强 specification?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13436" CreationDate="2015-05-09T12:26:41.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm fairly sure just like in English it means top 100 of ANY list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, Lanrun is top 100 in the housing industry in China: &lt;a href=&quot;http://house.baidu.com/sc/scan/0/5986738501256011448/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://house.baidu.com/sc/scan/0/5986738501256011448/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T12:26:41.960" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13436" CreationDate="2015-05-09T12:29:27.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;百强企业 means top 100 enterprises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10951" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T12:29:27.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13432" CreationDate="2015-05-09T12:37:10.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;当属, the meaning is &quot;would be&quot; something..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T12:37:10.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13436" CreationDate="2015-05-09T13:32:02.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;(#)强 means top (#) of any possible kind of list.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But apparently 五百强 became an expression to also express Fortune Five Hundred. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9685" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T13:32:02.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13431" CreationDate="2015-05-09T14:03:08.137" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is a bit broad. If you want to know the exact rules of when to put 句号 or 逗号, then you better go study some grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I try to explain in an understandable way the fist rule of how I approach proper use of commas and points in Chinese sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, I also feel very confident in English grammar rules and I originally thought that in Chinese the rules for commas don't differ so much. But often Chinese people asked me why I would always use so many 句号 (。). So in a first step, I started to remove 90% of the points and add commas instead, which proved to be much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently Chinese people don't use 句号 to finish what I would call a sentence but instead to finish what I would call a paragraph / a block of sentences containing the same subject. Commas basically serve to separate two sentences as I would call them. As an example here part of a letter that I wrote to search for a university supervisor:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我叫罗宾逊，来自瑞士人，毕业于瑞士联邦理工大学电子系。// &quot;Who am I?&quot; (2 commas, 1 point)&#xA;&#xA;我计划今年夏天能够在上海交通大学开始读研究生。&#xA;// &quot;What are my plans for the future?&quot; (0 commas, 1 point)&#xA;&#xA;目前我在找一名导师，当我在电气工程系网站看到您的资料时，&#xA;我觉得我的学术兴趣与您的研究方向非常符合，而且读完您的传记后，&#xA;我看得出您有丰富的经验，这让我很想认识您。&#xA;// Summary of why I write this letter (5 commas, 1 point)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: You will also barely see 句号 in short messages, just because most short messages accord to one broad subject. Like here the subject is &quot;Tonight's dinner&quot;: “你什么时候回家，跟要跟我一起吃饭吧，8点多开始做饭，先还要去菜市场买东西呀，来不来”. And of course because people are also just lazy to write points. I know.. who care's about grammar in a short message?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9685" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T14:03:08.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13431" CreationDate="2015-05-09T16:39:11.610" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think using Chinese punctuation by following English punctuation rules is acceptable, but native Chinese readers may find it a little bit strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not necessary to use a period &lt;code&gt;。&lt;/code&gt; to separate every pair of SVO sentences. When you want to put many related components/sentences together, you can just use commas &lt;code&gt;，&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are going to talk about another topic or another step, use a period to end the current sentence and start a new sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, be brave in using commas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;使用中文标点符号时，简单地说，不要太过拘泥，只要将相关的句子成分放在一起，再用逗号隔开即可；对于无关的成分，采用句号隔开。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation: In general, be brave in using Chinese punctuation. If some blocks of a few sentences are related, use commas to connect them together. If some other blocks are not related to the former blocks you are talking about, use a period to separate these two topics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然很多时候要同时表达时间、地点、人物、起因、经过、结果，句子会变得比较长，但是这些成分都是一起的，有联系的，所以仍然可以使用逗号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though sometimes your sentence gets very long because you need to put when, where, who and how altogether, be brave to use commas because these components are, still, connected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正确地使用逗号可以让句子的意思更加清晰并充满节奏感，正确地使用句号可以让段落更有层次感。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use commas correctly, your sentences will become clear and have rhythm. If you use periods correctly, the whole paragraph will be perfect in terms of grammatical structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10952" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-10T02:11:08.490" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T02:11:08.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13444" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-09T22:07:09.553" Score="0" ViewCount="1295" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below are just 2 example sentences for the general format '[phrase]地给[noun][verb][phrase]'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他十分坦率地给我讲了他的故事. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他很不情愿地给了我帮助.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This type of sentence is very common in Chinese. I would like to know if, generally speaking, it is acceptable in Chinese to replace '给' with '替' or '为'.  If you are Chinese, would you find that acceptable in most, if not all, cases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-12T22:13:11.950" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T22:51:52.397" Title="Can I replace 给 with 替 or 为？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13292" CreationDate="2015-05-09T22:48:22.900" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was too long for a comment, so I'm putting it here for Lai, just for balance, it is a contra-argument:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~性 and ~化 seem to have a similarity here in their flexibility as descriptors, but I don't know that I would classify something as an adjective solely based on its ability to function as a descriptor. Just like in #47, we see noun+noun pairs with the same relationship but we don't call those nouns adjectives for it. I think that in #41, we have someone willfully eschewing practical knowledge in favour of ideological &quot;anti-anglicization&quot;. It's perfectly normal for a verb+性 to occur, regardless of its supposed influence from English. 溶解性，擴散性，歧視性，爆發性，刺激性... I have trouble thinking of them but just because they're not everyday words doesn't make them not words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T22:48:22.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13446" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13448" CreationDate="2015-05-10T00:09:18.710" Score="0" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is few English translations for 吃窩邊草?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot think of one formal or casual translation...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="922" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T20:05:23.047" Title="What is few English translations for 吃窩邊草?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13444" CreationDate="2015-05-10T00:17:57.623" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. The words have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at your first sentence:&#xA;他十分坦率地[给]我讲了他的故事 : He openly told me his story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we were to replace 给 with 替:&#xA;他十分坦率地[替]我讲了他的故事: He openly told his story for me (implying that I was supposed to be the one telling the story).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we were to replace 给 with 为:&#xA;他十分坦率地[为]我讲了他的故事: He openly told his story to me for my sake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general I'm not too sure how you got the idea that they are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T00:17:57.623" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13446" CreationDate="2015-05-10T00:24:07.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you mean like 兔子不吃窝边草?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, you could try something like &quot;Don't bite the hand that feeds you&quot; or &quot;Don't foul your own nest.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colloquially (and if you want a phrase with more profanity) &quot;Don't shit where you eat&quot; is common and could be used instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, a proverb like &quot;People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones&quot; is pretty intuitive as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-05-12T20:05:23.047" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T20:05:23.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="544" CreationDate="2015-05-10T00:38:51.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I actually think these two sentences are slightly different. The first sentence has its emphasis on &quot;住&quot;, for example, in the context &quot;我不在上海上学，我在上海住。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence has its focus on the residing place. For example, the context is 他住在哪里？他住在上海。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the context, you decide which sentence to use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T00:38:51.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13446" CreationDate="2015-05-10T00:52:51.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;百度 has 兔子不吃窝边草 which they translate as 'A villain doesn't harm his neighbours.' Not sure quite what that means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think in a love/sex aspect, it may mean, 'You should not have an affair with your neighbour, or you will be discovered.' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-05-10T01:02:15.450" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T01:02:15.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13444" CreationDate="2015-05-10T06:39:34.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope this can give you a tiny help. ( how to use color-level layout?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, They can't be replaced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xxx地(openly) It is a phrase of adverb. 给(verb) literally means give, for XXX  In This Case: 他十分坦率地&quot;给&quot;我讲了他的故事. He openly/honestly told his story for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it replaces 替： the meaning will be different. 替 includes subbing meaning, as preposition can be used as same as 为，给. doing sth for somebody 替我倒一杯茶。to pour a cup of tea for me.&#xA;In Your Case: 他十分坦率地&quot;替&quot;我讲了他的故事.here should be verb, He honestly subbed me to telling his story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If It replaces 为: It usually will mean for..., to.... original: in order to. due to. etc. &#xA;In Your Case：&#xA;    他十分坦率地为我讲了他的故事. It makes sense that means He honestly told his story for me in my sake.&#xA;    他很不情愿地为我帮助. It isn't coherent, but makes sense. He reluctantly did me a favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some sentences: 她为我写了一封信。 She wrote a letter for me.&#xA;她替我去考试。 She subbed me to take a test (Verb). she took a test for me (preposition)&#xA;她给我一个吻。 She gave me a kiss. &#xA;她给我做菜。  She cooked up foods for me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;not all translations are for XXX in sentences. their meanings are similar. When you understand literally meaning you will make sense differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, According the context, you would easily understand which one is verb which one is preposition. when it is used for verb, it translates as original meaning. When it is used for preposition. it translates as doing sth for somebody. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9752" LastEditorUserId="9752" LastEditDate="2015-05-10T14:44:35.660" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T14:44:35.660" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13349" CreationDate="2015-05-10T17:01:26.090" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, until around the 1990s, the spoken language in official sources were very similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Famous singers like Teresa Teng spoke pretty much like people from China nowadays. Here's an example of an interviewee from those earlier days: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWEcZvhfnzA&amp;amp;hd=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWEcZvhfnzA&amp;amp;hd=1&lt;/a&gt; (There's a great quote about how Teresa Teng's songs brought comfort for those miserable mainlanders!). There's a lot more stuff from those earlier days you can search via youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a couple of important factors as to why they diverged.&#xA;1) The northern parts of Taiwan are its political/economic center and early on home to most of the refugees from Mainland China. Because of this, they strongly emphasized standard Mandarin as a sign of status/power etc. However, on the other hand, southern Taiwan has always been home to Chinese variants different from the mainland due to the influence of the people who were there before the KMT came to power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Until the 1990s, the KMT strongly enforced a 国语运动 (presumably the 国语 back then was similar to how mainland Chinese is now). This meant if you were at school, in public, in meeting involving more than 3 people and you were found to be using a (&lt;em&gt;gasp&lt;/em&gt;) non-国语 language, you would be heavily punished (3000-10000 元).  (Here's wikipedia on this: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%9C%8B%E8%AA%9E%E9%81%8B%E5%8B%95&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%9C%8B%E8%AA%9E%E9%81%8B%E5%8B%95&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) In the 1990s the DPP started to gain traction in south. They advocated a Taiwanization movement. They wanted to have a Taiwan distinct from China. This meant no more 国语运动 and allowing for more of the Chinese variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, I would say that Taiwanese variant of Chinese has always had some amount of difference from the mainland. However, because of various political reasons, those variants were never heard publicly. In some aspects, they were suppressed. But with the rise of a more tolerant government and the Taiwanization movement, Taiwan wanted to carve out a distinct variant of 国语, and thus we now have quite a big difference between the mainland and Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T17:01:26.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13453" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-11T00:46:02.923" Score="0" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;欧盟委员会曾经宣布，将暂时维持对中国皮鞋的反倾销税措施。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I write： ‘欧盟委员会宣布了‘ or ‘欧盟委员会宣布过‘，or even ‘欧盟委员会曾经宣布过‘instead？ I mean, is it a past tense marker here, or does it mean 'once'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T02:43:46.633" Title="What is the role of 曾经 in this sentence?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13453" CreationDate="2015-05-11T02:06:59.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;曾经 can be described as a sign of perfect tense and like the meaning of 'ever'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;欧盟委员会曾经宣布 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be translated as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The European Commission has announced ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence you wrote &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;欧盟委员会宣布了 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is like a the present/past tense sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The European Commission announced ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas other two sentences are fine for this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastEditorUserId="6811" LastEditDate="2015-05-12T02:43:46.633" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T02:43:46.633" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13453" CreationDate="2015-05-11T03:45:12.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;'曾经' means 'once' here. This word is used when you talk about some situation that has occurred or has been experience before. I don't find this case weird at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'宣布过' is similar to '曾经宣布', actually '曾经宣布过' is also good here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'了' is different. It stresses on the fact that some action or behavior has been finished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, there's no 'tense' in Chinese. You may say that these words are related to the past, so the sentences that have them are usually translated into past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6358" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T03:45:12.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13456" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-11T04:37:09.847" Score="-1" ViewCount="397" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though I myself am a native Chinese speaker, up to now I still have not yet figured out an appropriate explanation of the phrase &quot;working knowledge&quot; to any one that is not highly educated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difficulty vanishes when the person I am talking to is sufficiently educated so that I can use examples to hint him and then he will immediately get what I am trying to say. But for a person who is not that educated, say a junior-high or high-school student, the example approach fails. So in this case I have to precisely characterize the essential meaning of the phrase &quot;working knowledge&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T10:55:06.997" Title="What is a proper explanation of &quot;working knowledge&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13456" CreationDate="2015-05-11T09:09:13.227" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;bruce lee i think you mean 'practical knowledge'. meaning useful knowledge or limited understanding&lt;br&gt;&#xA; yes that's right, working is in theory a 'practical toil' that ought to feed you at the end of  the day ,as in work for your peanut butter or in your case you'll understand 'hard labour' better or you could say a 'grasp' of optical physics/Optics' before you can focus your camera onto the stars now get back to work or learning so you can practice what' you've learned &#xA;Capish ?? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10961" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T09:09:13.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13456" CreationDate="2015-05-11T10:48:25.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often find, in such situations, it helps to find a different phrase with the same meaning. How about you translate 'working knowledge' to 'a fair/reasonable grasp of' then put that in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is really not my strong point, but maybe:&#xA;I have a working knowledge of maths.&#xA;I have a reasonable grasp of maths.&#xA;我掌握数学得不错。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or something similar with '合理‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-05-11T10:55:06.997" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T10:55:06.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13459" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13493" CreationDate="2015-05-11T11:34:10.610" Score="7" ViewCount="2126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm already well acquainted with erhua (儿化) in putonghua, essentially appending 儿 to the ends of words (or reading it when 儿 isn't written, as sometimes people do with 花 or 八点 etc). Many of these words are infact standard in putonghua, as in 这儿, and 花儿 and so on, and erhua's usage is seen mainly in Beijing. Southern speakers often have replacements for these, such as a simple 花 for 花儿, and 这里 for 这儿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In northern dialects, this is sometimes taken further, to words such as 事儿, 板儿砖, and even 明儿 sometimes to replace 明天.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leads me to ask specifically how accepted erhua is. As a key element of the Beijing dialect, it's often seen on TV, and although not used as much in formal broadcasts, it is heard in words such as 这儿, as mentioned before. How do most speakers perceive erhua? Is it viewed as just dialectal differences, and non-standard, or is it more to the extent of being slightly more prestigious than other dialects (though obviously not truly standard and formal putonghua)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any native speakers who can try explain their sentiments towards erhua, and the opinions they draw from a speaker who uses it more than average?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T18:09:02.637" Title="Chinese views on Erhua" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;erhuayin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13399" CreationDate="2015-05-11T13:30:04.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my eyes, they are synonyms, but I prefer to use 觉察 in writing and 察觉 in daily life personally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9818" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T13:30:04.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13444" CreationDate="2015-05-11T19:39:44.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are not interchangeable.  The latter two have fairly narrow meanings in that kind of context: 替 means &quot;on behalf of&quot;; it could be translated as &quot;for,&quot; but only in constructions where it clearly means &quot;on behalf of,&quot; as in &quot;He did my work for me.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為 wèi means &quot;for the sake of&quot;; again, it could be translated as &quot;for,&quot; but only in constructions where it means &quot;for the sake of,&quot; as in &quot;She took care of the financial matters, for my peace of mind.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;給, on the other hand, has a whole slew of meanings, only one of which is &quot;for.&quot;  More generally, it can be used simply to indicate the indirect object of a verb, especially (but not exclusively) when that object is the &quot;recipient&quot; of something.  That is more or less the way it is used in your example sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9824" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T19:39:44.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="167" CreationDate="2015-05-11T21:29:33.197" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can throw in my personal experience here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is, without doubt, much easier to learn one and then the other. I learned Japanese before I learned Chinese, having studied for about 2 years before properly taking up Chinese (before that point I toyed with the idea and did some research, but never anything serious or long-term). The areas it's has helped are, to me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;strong&gt;Writing Hanzi&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanase uses &quot;kanji&quot; (漢字) for roots of nouns and verbs, which it imported from China around 1500 years ago. You say kanji are &quot;derived&quot; from Chinese characters. Most of them are actually exactly the same. A small number follow simplifications nearly the same as on the mainland, and a very small number have simplifications unique to Japan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By learning Japanese, I already knew about 1000 hanzi when i switched to Chinese. The simplifications were easy to get my head around because they conformed a lot to simple rules (with a few exceptions), and I easily also picked up traditional characters, as Japanese deviates from 繁字体 a lot less than the mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My main complaint from other people about Chinese is hanzi (and grammar close behind). I already started Chinese with a big character library, and I've never had a problem with them. A lot of beginner Chinese vocabulary is just common sense, and this very much makes at least beginner level learning very easy to adapt to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, it's worth noting that the stroke order is pretty different between the two languages, and I've often been commented on by my Japanese teacher that I have bad stroke order when I'm just using the Chinese stroke order (and even then, the mainland has a different stroke order to Taiwan).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &lt;strong&gt;Vocabulary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Around 60% of Japanese words are 漢語[1], which is about 18% of speech[2]. This is comparable to how knowing Latin makes it easier to learn most European languages, all of which take some 20% of their words (usually more) from Latin roots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning Japanese doesn't teach you a lot of fundamental vocabulary, but it's usually not impossible to figure out basic Chinese words' meanings. The technical language relates much more closely, in words such as 特別行政区、日本、and even 4 character proverbs such as 一日千秋. A lot of &lt;em&gt;modern&lt;/em&gt; technical Japanese is more Anglicized, so not as easy to follow Chinese roots, however, but a lot of the slightly older or scientific terminology is very alike, and relatively easy to make the switch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you come to learn what characters mean by knowing Japanese equivalents. As mentioned already, verbs like 走る mean &quot;run&quot;, contrasted with 走 in chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) &lt;strong&gt;Pronunciation&lt;/strong&gt; (All dialects)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these loanwords from Japanese, they also take (primarily) middle Chinese pronunciations of the characters. 漢字 &quot;kanji&quot; from &quot;hanzi&quot;, 我慢 &quot;gaman&quot; from &quot;ngaman&quot; and so on. Japanese is much more complicated because it loans so much more from different areas and regions of China, so converting to exclusively one dialect is much easier (and there are far fewer pronunciations per character). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing to note is that these pronunciations tend to be from middle chinese, seen as an ancestor to most dialects. Mandarin nowadays is a totally different language, but still resembles the sounds they once had, and the rules make it easy to guess how a chinese character sounds in &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; dialect, knowing even just one Japanese pronunciation. It doesn't help so much with tones though, but nothing really prepares you for those unless you know another Chinese dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples include: /k/ in Japanese is very often /h/, or /j/ in words that used to be /k/ in Mandarin (like Pe&lt;strong&gt;k&lt;/strong&gt;ing -&gt; Bei&lt;strong&gt;j&lt;/strong&gt;ing), long vowels usually reflect -ng finals in Chinese. I have a longer post about these on Japanese Stack Exchange[3]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) &lt;strong&gt;Languages get easier the more you know&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more languages you know, you tend to pick them up a lot faster. You get familiar with the type of grammatical structures any language &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; have, and just get your head around thinking in a different tongue to your native one. After learning Japanese and Chinese, Korean has quite simply been the easiest language I've ever learned, due to the ~60% vocabulary similarity, and near 90% grammar similarity to Japanese and Chinese. Even when I tried my hand at Russian, that was way easier too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not just me; most people who are at least trilingual have similar experiences. I don't think I need to cite this one so much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A long list, but pretty much why I think it's easier to learn one then the other. Because of the direction of loanwords though, I think Japanese to Chinese is much easier than Chinese to Japanese. I also have found a similar in switching to Korean that it's much easier after knowing other Asian languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Japanese_vocabulary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Japanese_vocabulary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] A study from 国立国語研究所 (National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/24174/apparently-unrelated-%E9%9F%B3%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF/24180#24180&quot;&gt;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/24174/apparently-unrelated-%E9%9F%B3%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF/24180#24180&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:43:48.687" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T21:47:50.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13463" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13464" CreationDate="2015-05-12T08:25:27.567" Score="2" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help with the last part of this text. I put the section title and the whole paragraph, so you might be able to decipher it. I can't see what they are saying. 2 other times people here have said 'that is weird text', but it comes direct from my Business Chinese book, it was not written by me! Is it bad Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;促进中国制鞋业成长。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欧盟鞋类反倾销对中国鞋的直接影响&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;压力主要体现在皮鞋出口数量与金额上。曾有数据统计显示，维持反倾销税的一段时间内，中国对欧盟的鞋类出口增幅明显下降，单价却显著上升，但上涨的部分又被不断上涨的成本抵消。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;单价却显著上升，&#xA;the unit price however clearly increases, (because of the anti-dumping tax, I suppose)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I can't figure this part out. How does it relate to the above?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但上涨的部分又被不断上涨的成本抵消。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but  increase price part again by the non-stop increase of (production) costs equal to/counteracted,  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-23T23:43:54.503" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T23:43:54.503" Title="What is the meaning of the last phrase here? 但上涨的部分又被不断上涨的成本抵消" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13463" CreationDate="2015-05-12T10:21:27.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's go through this part piece by piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;压力主要体现在皮鞋出口数量与金额上 = The pressure is mainly seen in the number and price of exports. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曾有数据统计显示 = Statistics have shown clearly that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;维持反倾销税的一段时间内，中国对欧盟的鞋类出口增幅明显下降 = after maintaining the anti-dumping law for some time, the growth rate of China's shoe exports has a noticeable decline. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;单价却显著上升 = However, the price of the shoes kept increasing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So up till now, we have one part that is increasing (the shoe price) and one part that is decreasing (the growth rate of the shoe exports).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's look at final part:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 2 nouns phrases that we need to figure out.&#xA;上涨的部分 = The part that is growing. As we noted above, this is the price of the shoe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不断上涨的成本 = The ever increasing costs of making/exporting the shoe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then it becomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但 [上涨的部分] 又被 [不断上涨的成本] 抵消&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抵消 means &quot;canceled out&quot; and &quot;又被&quot; means &quot;have been&quot; and 但 means &quot;but.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then putting all this together it means:&#xA;Yet, the growing price is being canceled out by the rising costs of making/exporting the shoes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T10:21:27.313" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13465" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-12T11:55:59.460" Score="6" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking into the Chinese dictionary I have on my phone, I noticed that 我是 (I am) is listed as a word, while I as a non native speaker would consider this to be two separate words. Whether or not 我是 is listed as a word in dictionaries seems to be rather random since a few other dictionaries don't have it, but it got me thinking about the general state of words in Chinese. This is of course a heated debate even in languages with explicit spaces between their tokens, but I want to believe this is even a larger problem in languages such as Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess a few of my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do Chinese people generally agree upon how a sentence should be segmented into its compounds?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is a 词 different from a word in any sense?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do even native Chinese generally split characters into words (词), or is the concept of words something we have forced into Chinese because it makes sense in western languages?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2493" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T07:38:40.737" Title="Are there large discrepancies between what Chinese consider to be words?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13465" CreationDate="2015-05-12T15:50:45.793" Score="5" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Q: Are there large discrepancies between what Chinese consider to be words?&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. It is very clear what is a word and what not. A word can consist of one or more characters. Thus, a single character can be either a word by itself or is part of a polysyllabic word. Like in every other existing language, a word does officially either exist or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q: Do even native Chinese generally split characters into words (词), or is the &#xA;concept of words something we have forced into Chinese because it makes &#xA;sense in western languages?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can split a word into a character, but not a character into a word. If your question is, if Chinese was influenced by western languages to have polysyllabic words then the answer is &quot;no&quot;. The reason why they do, is because there is not enough monosyllabic words to accurately describe every possible meaning. Nowadays words often consist of two or three characters (or even more). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example:&#xA;While “书馆” can be a &lt;em&gt;&quot;teashop with performance by story tellers&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;&quot;private school (in former times)&quot;&lt;/em&gt; , or also &lt;em&gt;&quot;library (of classic texts)&quot;&lt;/em&gt; it is clear that “图书馆” is a &lt;em&gt;&quot;library&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. Obviously, the more characters, the more accurate the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q: Is a 词 different from a word in any sense?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“词” means word and can, as mentionned above, consist of one character or more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q: Do Chinese people generally agree upon how a sentence should be &#xA;segmented into its compounds?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. As mentionned above, there is clear grammar rules on how to construct a sentence. Nevertheless, people might have a different sense of choosing words to express their meanings. The result will be one less and one more beautiful sentence. But if a linguist checks both sentences, either of them can be grammatically correct or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9685" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T15:50:45.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13094" CreationDate="2015-05-12T19:58:12.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think most people distingish them these way:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pigeon - 鸽子 - larger in size and not necessary white&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8RnqS.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dove - 白鸽 - smaller in size and mostly white&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dqhpt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although some may disagree as these 2 terms are interchangable in most situation / definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T19:58:12.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13468" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13470" CreationDate="2015-05-12T20:14:56.877" Score="3" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他的花心只是为了成为备胎中的战斗机.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has something to do with a guy being a spare tire, but what about &quot;fighter jet?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2015-05-13T03:50:12.227" LastActivityDate="2015-05-13T18:36:25.363" Title="What does 战斗机 in this line mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13436" CreationDate="2015-05-12T20:34:44.317" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;百强 means top 100.  The name 百强蓝润 is just to emphasize they are being on top 100&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10974" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T20:34:44.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13468" CreationDate="2015-05-12T20:38:44.230" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;fighter jet&quot; is something originally from an ad that was popular many years ago:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;波导手机，手机中的战斗机 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ad aims to emphasize the extent to which their cell phones are more superior than others (fighter jets are much faster than normal jets). It had repeated many times for a long period, so many people got to know it very well. Since then, &quot;fighter jet&quot; is also used in other cases, such as the case you mentioned &quot;备胎中的战斗机&quot;. Here it means &quot;the best spare-tire among all the spare-tires&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2015-05-13T18:36:25.363" LastActivityDate="2015-05-13T18:36:25.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13329" CreationDate="2015-05-12T20:52:40.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;对..不置一词 literally means to 'not place a word on...'.  As Pedroski suggested, it means to not making a comment (or even a word) about the incident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10974" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T20:52:40.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13459" CreationDate="2015-05-12T20:59:33.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Beijng dialect is not putonghua at all. As a northern people, I don't like Beijing dialect personally. To me it just sounds too soft and one of the reason that I believe is erhua. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formally, in putonghua, one should remove erhua as much as one can. For example, when you read text in putonghua, if you don't see 儿 explicitly, then you should not add it. But if you read it in Beijing dialect, you can add as many as you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest you not to use Beijing dialect outside Beijing. In other northern dialects, erhua may happen differently. Using putonghua normally won't bring you any trouble in communications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T20:59:33.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13444" CreationDate="2015-05-12T21:27:38.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grammar only:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case， &quot;他十分坦率地给我讲了他的故事&quot;. We can trim it, then we have &quot;他给我讲故事&quot;. You see it ends with &quot;讲故事&quot; (vt+noun). You can also change the order: &quot;他讲故事给我&quot; to make it &quot;vt+noun to someone&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很不情愿地给了我帮助 can be trimmed as &quot;他给我帮助&quot;. You see it ends with &quot;帮助&quot; (noun). It is the object of 给 and 给 is vt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case 1, if you replace 给 with 替 or 为, then the grammar is OK but the meaning may be changed. Using 为 is OK because you change &quot;to someone&quot; to &quot;for someone&quot;. But if you use 替 here, the meaning is changed to &quot;instead of someone&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case 2, you cannot replace &quot;给&quot; with other characters since normally if you changed vt, you changed the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T21:27:38.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13476" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13477" CreationDate="2015-05-13T02:37:24.453" Score="5" ViewCount="675" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, 所 has the following meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a place, as in 派出所 (police office).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a counter, as in 一所科學中心 (a science center).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a passive voice indicator that pairs up with 被（為）, as in 被（為）愛所糾纏 (tangled by love).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a conjunction, as in 所熟悉的環境 (environment &lt;strong&gt;that&lt;/strong&gt; I am familiar with).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; as Master Sparkles mentioned in the comments, 所 in the third and fourth context above also intensifies the association between the preceding noun and the verb that follows it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the following sentence,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望我的回答能有所幫助（貢獻）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully, my answer can be of some help/contribution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;none of the above meanings is appropriate. Besides, I thought that the sentence would be the same without 所, as in,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望我的回答能有幫助（貢獻）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As such, what is the meaning of 所 in the &amp;quot;有所...&amp;quot; construct? Or is it simply redundant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T09:53:20.123" Title="Meaning of 所 in &quot;有所...&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13476" CreationDate="2015-05-13T02:37:24.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the answer myself but thought it might be helpful to others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, 所 is not redundant; in this construct, it precedes a verb to refer to the object being acted upon by the verb. Nonetheless, in the example, 所 &lt;strong&gt;may&lt;/strong&gt; be  optional because each of 幫助 and 貢獻 can be a noun or a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the sentence has different literal translation with 所&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望我的回答能有&lt;strong&gt;所幫助（的事物）&lt;/strong&gt;。(幫助 as a verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully, my answer can have &lt;strong&gt;something that it has helped&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and without 所&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望我的回答能有&lt;strong&gt;幫助&lt;/strong&gt;。(幫助 as a noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully, my answer can have &lt;strong&gt;some help&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but may imply the same meaning of being &lt;strong&gt;helpful&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other examples of this usage&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有所謂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;謂 = 說. This phrase literally means &amp;quot;have something that it says&amp;quot;, and it implies that the subject matters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as Master Sparkles suggested, 謂 also has a classical meaning of 意義, and in this context it would be translated as &amp;quot;have something that it means&amp;quot;, or simply &amp;quot;it means something&amp;quot;. Since I can't find a trusted source to disambiguate at the moment, I will leave both explanations here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這件案子有所謂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This case matters (has something that it says).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;各取所需&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;需 = 需要. This idiom/chengyu means that each person takes what he or she needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為了生存，我們要各取所需。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To survive, each of us should take what he or she needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;所向無敵&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敵 = 抵擋. This idiom/chengyu literally means that the direction in which power (or whatever the subject is) is applied cannot be blocked, and it implies that the subject has overwhelming power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這把矛所向無敵！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This spear is unstoppable (penetrates through anything).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T00:32:20.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13333" CreationDate="2015-05-13T04:43:27.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, 声 is short for 对……的呼声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呼声 (cry; voice)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A possible translation in this sentence could be,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;车市&lt;strong&gt;对&lt;/strong&gt;降价&lt;strong&gt;的呼声&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The car market's call for a price cut&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10977" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-13T14:46:59.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13476" CreationDate="2015-05-13T05:17:45.927" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you had said, 所 is not redundant. But to me, &quot;有帮助&quot; and &quot;有所帮助&quot; doesn't have that much differences, especially when you are in an oral conversation with Chinese people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your explanation for &quot;有所謂&quot;, the translation for &quot;这件案子有所谓&quot; is &quot;This case matters.&quot; You are correct. But I don't think that it has the meaning of &quot;has something that it says&quot;. Yes, &quot;謂 = 說&quot;. However, the literal meaning of this is not strong when you say &quot;有所谓&quot;. When hearing about &quot;有所谓&quot;, please just take it as &quot;matters&quot;, and just forget about its literal meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10978" LastActivityDate="2015-05-13T05:17:45.927" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13412" CreationDate="2015-05-13T05:32:48.603" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, &quot;同性恋&quot; is the direct meaning of homosexual. However, it is quite difficult for Chinese people to say this directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an old saying in Chinese, called &quot;不孝有三，无后为大&quot;. Here, it says that having no children is the worst thing for a person. If you have no children, then it's impossible for you to show filial obedience to your parents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it is almost impossible for homosexual people to have their own children (I mean children with DNA relationships). Thus, a lot of Chinese people, especially old people, regard homosexual as a thing that cannot be said. So if you say that someone is &quot;同性恋&quot;, then some people will regard this as slur. But to some other people (like me), this is not slur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say someone is &quot;玻璃&quot;(the original meaning is just glass), then it means that this person is homosexual. I have to say that this is a slur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people use &quot;基佬&quot; to refer to gays these years. But this word is common only in young people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you are talking to Chinese people, you have to consider whether they can accept homosexuals or not. If you think that they cannot accept homosexuals, it's better avoid these topics with them. It might cause unhappiness between you guys. But if you think they can accept homosexual, then it's okay to use &quot;同性恋&quot; directly, and I don't think that they will consider it as a slur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10978" LastActivityDate="2015-05-13T05:32:48.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13481" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13483" CreationDate="2015-05-13T12:45:33.020" Score="6" ViewCount="1750" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know of many words to insult people and call them stupid, but a majority of them are incredibly offensive. There are more polite phrases, such as 真笨, which I've seen used within families (as a plain 真笨啊！）, but nothing which seems the right level of formality for the context in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, the nearest equivalent of what I'm looking for would be along the lines of &quot;fool&quot;, but not quite as strong as &quot;imbecile&quot;. Something you can use in a formal situation, but something that won't incredibly offend the listener; more a &quot;silly you&quot; with a higher register of formality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure which words match this closely, if any exist. What words are closest to this meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorUserId="10955" LastEditDate="2015-05-14T12:53:44.693" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T00:03:56.813" Title="Ways to politely insult somebody's intelligence in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13481" CreationDate="2015-05-13T14:27:15.507" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;笨蛋 and 傻子 both mean fool or idiot and may be put in this category. Depending on &quot;how&quot; you say it, it can be non-insulting but clearly expressing the &quot;sillyness&quot; of the counterpart. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9685" LastActivityDate="2015-05-13T14:27:15.507" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13481" CreationDate="2015-05-13T20:25:22.380" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if there is a way to politely insult someone's intellect, that almost seems like an oxymoron to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;糊涂&lt;/code&gt; (silly) is the only expression I can think of that doesn't stigmatize the addressee too much. But I would under no circumstance apply it to my boss or my in-laws or a teacher or anyone with whom one has to be respectful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 你这么糊涂! How silly of you!&#xA;Also: &lt;code&gt;糊涂虫&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;傻 is still somewhere between 'silly' and 'fool'. A mother could reply to the naive questions of her child with 傻孩子！ (Silly kid!). &#xA;&lt;code&gt;别犯傻！&lt;/code&gt; (Don't be silly) is another way to use it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;傻瓜&lt;/code&gt; would a bit stronger, but between peers could be still acceptable, but I would only use it if it is clear that I am not really meaning it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;胡说！ can used if you think someones says something stupid. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By contrast &lt;code&gt;混蛋&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;笨蛋&lt;/code&gt; are more verbal and far more insulting. You can see and hear movie protagonists spitting and yelling this at each other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE: 二货 is another non-offensive way to call someone &lt;em&gt;silly&lt;/em&gt;, e.g. 二货朋友 &lt;em&gt;a silly friend&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-08-10T07:45:12.297" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T07:45:12.297" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13484" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-13T23:18:06.533" Score="6" ViewCount="2909" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to know if there are dictionaries (online or books) indicating the equivalent of Vietnamese syllables into Chinese characters. I do not search for Vietnamese to Chinese translations, but rather a cross-reference between Vietnamese quốc ngữ and Vietnamese chữ nôm.&#xA;Well, it's not really Chinese specific but I'm not sure where to put this question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3226" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T13:05:53.957" Title="Dictionary for Vietnamese to Chinese characters" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13481" CreationDate="2015-05-14T01:51:08.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have to say that this depends on the situation the words appear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a mother said &quot;你真笨&quot; to her own child, or call her child &quot;小笨孩&quot;/&quot;小笨蛋&quot;, with a nice smile on her face, then it is not insulting. But if you see a boss said &quot;你真笨&quot; to an employee with a anger face, then in this situation it is a kind of insulting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost all Chinese words that seems insulting can be non-insulting in some situations, and almost all Chinese words that seems good can be insulting in some other situations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the first comment in your question, Henry HO said that you can say &quot;你真神&quot;. &quot;神&quot; usually means god, or someone that is really good at something. But if you say &quot;你真神&quot; when you want to insult somebody's intelligence, then the meaning changed into the opposite. It is similar to say &quot;You are really GOOD at doing this&quot; when you want to say somebody is not good at doing this at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think it is really hard to say which word is similar to &quot;fool&quot; or &quot;imbecile&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10978" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T01:51:08.700" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13481" CreationDate="2015-05-14T09:15:12.473" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;你脑袋长在屁股 means Your brain is located at your butt&lt;br&gt;&#xA;树多必有枯枝，人多必有白痴 means If there are lot of trees, there must be a deadwood; If there are a lot people, there must be an idiot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a native chinese speaker so I know a lot. If you want more just comment below :3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8193" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T09:15:12.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13459" CreationDate="2015-05-14T09:42:22.703" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disagree on FortCpp's answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surely Beijing dialect is not putonghua, none dialect is considered as putonghua if you put it this way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say Beijing dialect is very close(if not the most) to putonghua. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the question, erhua is part of the putonghua standard, no question about that. For instance, &lt;code&gt;&quot;小孩&quot;&lt;/code&gt; sounds (really) strange without a &lt;code&gt;'儿'&lt;/code&gt;, in fact even if &lt;code&gt;'儿'&lt;/code&gt; is not appear in the reference, you should pronounce it unless you're from Taiwan or something :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't tell you the grammar rules but cases like above are not rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opinion is, avoid using erhua in general and &lt;strong&gt;pay attention to those cases that must have it&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6381" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T09:42:22.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13484" CreationDate="2015-05-14T10:17:02.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After more googling, I didn't really find any book reference materials, but I did find really good online tools that give me exactly what I wanted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the handy look up tool of the Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nomfoundation.org/nom-tools/Nom-Lookup-Tool/Nom-Lookup-Tool&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.nomfoundation.org/nom-tools/Nom-Lookup-Tool/Nom-Lookup-Tool&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the equivalent tool from a site about learning chữ nôm &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chunom.org/pages/ime/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chunom.org/pages/ime/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chunom.org doesn't give out its reference materials, but it's maybe based on an older version of the Nom Foundation database as it returns less results sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3226" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T10:17:02.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13459" CreationDate="2015-05-14T10:37:32.107" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is different from place to place, and there is no standard. Normally, it won't appear in official announcements, laws, scientific publications, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is widely used in daily life. For native Chinese, when we move from one place to another, even if it is nearer, we still need time to get use to it, at the same time when we get use to the local accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, it is crucial to understand some specific words which has totally different meaning after 儿化. For example, 白面儿 means drug, not 白面 which is flour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10987" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T10:37:32.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13411" CreationDate="2015-05-14T11:14:00.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To perform the meaning in the given context below sentences would be useful: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.我衣服洗得很干净   (100% perfect correct, native chinese , popular sentence )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.我衣服洗得很干净 (的)/(滴)/(啦)/(哟)/(呐)/(呀)  etc...&#xA;  ( only to emphasize, no additional meaning. )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.我洗(过)(的)衣服很干净  (native, perfect,popular )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;衣服洗&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;很干净 (native,perfect,popular, 4 is the full sentence of 1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5.我洗衣服/很干净的  ( olny a bit weird but most ppl understand)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.我洗衣服(的过程)是很干净的 (native,perfect,popular, 6 is improvement of 5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you only want a shortcut, following the most popular way native speaker says will be more useful than researching on Chinese grammars stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10988" LastEditorUserId="10988" LastEditDate="2015-05-14T11:19:32.640" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T11:19:32.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13459" CreationDate="2015-05-14T11:25:38.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most native Chinese will resort &quot;儿&quot; sound to Beijing dialect.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The tail sound &quot;儿&quot; didn't add any additional meaning to the meaning&#xA;in most cases.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With or without a &quot;儿&quot; only differs in the slight Emotion variations&#xA;towards the listeners, which is quite subjective.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10988" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T11:25:38.957" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13484" CreationDate="2015-05-14T11:49:02.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary lists the vietnamese pronunciations for every chinese character they have info on (at the bottom of every page under the &quot;Vietnamese&quot; heading).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that, the Nom Foundation database is good for converting vietnamese words to chu nom by sound, though you'll need to know enough characters to know what you're picking, which you also gave reference to yourself. It's a good resource, but limiting if you're trying to input into a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all Chu nom are in unicode, though, so finding them can be challenging. The Nom foundation gets around it by using images, and is probably your best resource, but isn't as detailed on things such as meaning and usage (for which wiktionary has an advantage).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorUserId="10955" LastEditDate="2015-05-14T20:31:34.263" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T20:31:34.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13495" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-14T13:50:55.580" Score="1" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen this expression in a few texts, including news articles, but it does not seem to be commonly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few examples of context: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;...第二舰队变牛了以后调到了第二舰队当先任参谋...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;高考报志愿：盘点改名后变牛的10所大学&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;为什么很多人说读《毛泽东选集》就变牛了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10989" LastEditorUserId="10989" LastEditDate="2015-05-15T01:45:13.090" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T04:12:21.477" Title="What does bianniu 变牛 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13481" CreationDate="2015-05-14T14:27:50.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你的脑袋是什么做的？or 脑袋进水啦？&#xA;There's also a rhyme in Cantonese 头大无脑，脑大长草 haha&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T14:27:50.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13497" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13498" CreationDate="2015-05-14T14:31:45.690" Score="5" ViewCount="5980" Body="&lt;p&gt;I googled a bit on it and found different explanations. Some says it just depends on the region and dialect. But my text book explains that as a rule of thumb 几岁了 should be used for kids before 10 years old, and for other cases 多大了 is Ok. Could you please provide some more explanation on it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6842" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T09:52:00.050" Title="Difference between 几岁了 and 多大了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13497" CreationDate="2015-05-14T15:11:50.193" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your textbook is right. But usage might vary. 几 generally means few, the convention that its maximum is 10, that's why you can not ask someone looking older than 10 你几岁？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you could ask a little boy or girl 你多大？, that's not wrong, but do not ask an adult 你几岁/您几岁？, this wouldn't be appropriate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only context when 几岁 could apply to adults is 50几岁 (fifty something of age) and, of course, 30几岁,40几岁 and so on. Here 几 only refers to the 'something', the unknown few years someone is older than 50, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T15:11:50.193" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13495" CreationDate="2015-05-14T15:26:51.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without context, I would guess that this probably means &quot;to become more awesome&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;牛&quot; has a slang meaning of &quot;awesome&quot;. &quot;变&quot; here probably means &quot;to become more [...]&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4709" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T15:26:51.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13495" CreationDate="2015-05-15T00:56:54.883" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually, we use the word to express that one wants to become more capable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10993" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-15T02:54:34.780" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T02:54:34.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13495" CreationDate="2015-05-15T03:54:48.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;牛 is Internet slang. It means awesome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure but I heard it because cows (The real meaning of 牛 is cows or ox.) are hard-working and strong so in China they use 牛 to call someone or something awesome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I said China because it is only used in China. In Taiwan, they don't know it (I am not sure about Singapore, Hong Kong, Macao, ...etc. But I guess they do not understand either).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10911" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T03:54:48.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13495" CreationDate="2015-05-15T05:03:08.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;...第二舰队变牛了以后调到了第二舰队当先任参谋...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me this sentence seems a little bit strange. I guess there is a name of the person before this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, then the sentence means that: After the second fleet becomes stronger, someone was transferred and become the chief of staff there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;改名后变牛的10所大学&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation: 10 College became elite school after changing their names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;为什么很多人说读《毛泽东选集》就变牛了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation: Why many people say that you will become smarter/sharper after reading &quot;Selected Works of Mao Zedong&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can see that in these sentences, “变牛” means becomes stronger. The exact meaning might change according to the specific situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10978" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T05:03:08.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13430" CreationDate="2015-05-15T06:11:42.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get these on Youtube by searching the actor/actress's name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, search &quot;赵丽蓉&quot; &quot;巩汉林&quot; will give you a lot of good 小品, and search for &quot;马三立&quot; for 相声 with Tianjin dialect. If you want 相声 with Beijing dialect, you can search &quot;郭德纲&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10978" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T06:11:42.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13497" CreationDate="2015-05-15T14:30:02.703" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;几, when used in declarative sentence, means several, as @DrunkenMaster pointed out, using it on quantities larger than 10 feels odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this rule, when used in questions, is very relaxed. So you will see the following questions all the time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人有几颗牙齿? How many teeth do humans have&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;美国有几个州? How many states are there in the US&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course, 你几岁了 can be and is used all age. Asking 你几岁了 and getting 13 back is perfectly normal and accepted. Also asking 你多大了 and getting 5 back is also normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The important difference is 你几岁了 is less formal than 你多大了. So adults of same age/status can easily ask 你几岁了 to each other, even in their 80s, but you'll see it less used when asking people with higher status.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T14:30:02.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13411" CreationDate="2015-05-15T14:53:01.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, 干净 is an adjective, so 很干净 can't be used to modify the action 洗衣服.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我洗衣服很干净&#xA;Orally OK, but feels little bit odd. Adding 的 is good practice. Here 的 links 干净 to 衣服&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我洗衣服很费水/很卖力/很勤快&#xA;This is normal, as 费水 etc describes 洗衣服. Adding 的 on the end is also fine in the sense @S.Rhee pointed out&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我洗的衣服很干净&#xA;Normal as well. 干净 describes 衣服. Adding 的 is also fine as well&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T14:53:01.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13506" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-15T20:10:45.867" Score="-2" ViewCount="594" Body="&lt;p&gt;这也是人之常情。毕竟嘛，世人都知道，王爷从小就想娶冷王妃，好不容易抱得美人归，那个时候一定是喜不自胜，金风玉露一相逢便胜却人间无数.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't understand &quot;金风玉露一相逢便胜却人间无数.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T21:58:30.047" Title="What is the meaning of the last part of this passage?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-05-22T17:44:26.880" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13507" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-15T20:34:35.880" Score="2" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;重生之妙手医心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't get this because of &quot;妙手医心.&quot;  What does it mean?  A wonderful hand and a doctor's heart?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大哥这种生物，少惹为&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is &quot;少惹为?&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;魔天记&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it &quot;devil's diary?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T16:44:07.050" Title="Help with some book titles" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13508" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13515" CreationDate="2015-05-15T20:41:32.247" Score="1" ViewCount="2620" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per the answers to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/554/which-expressions-should-i-choose-to-say-thanks-for-your-help/&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, it is clear that you can say 辛苦了 to express gratitude for someone else's help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But suppose you are working or studying, and somebody else (who is not related to the effort you are making) passes by and tells you ¨辛苦了，辛苦了¨. Clearly that's not an expression of gratitude, but an acknowledgement by this person that you are working hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'd like to know an idiomatic English expression for this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2514" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T18:37:29.107" Title="English equivalent for 辛苦了 when the speaker is not the person being helped out" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13507" CreationDate="2015-05-15T21:52:40.883" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;妙手: &lt;em&gt;magic hands&lt;/em&gt; is a metaphor for skilled person (painter, writer, doctor, etc). There is a phrase '妙手仁心' &lt;em&gt;magic hands and kind heart&lt;/em&gt; which is used to praise good doctors. '妙手医心' means the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少惹为: you're missing a character, it should be 少惹为好 er 少惹为妙, meaning &lt;em&gt;the less provocation the better&lt;/em&gt;. The whole sentence means &lt;em&gt;better not provoke the boss&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;魔天记: 魔 generally means &lt;em&gt;devil&lt;/em&gt;, 天 means &lt;em&gt;sky or heaven&lt;/em&gt;, 记 means &lt;em&gt;diary or story&lt;/em&gt;. Without reading the book (suppose it is a book), the exact meaning of 魔天记 isn't clear even in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T21:52:40.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13506" CreationDate="2015-05-15T21:58:30.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;金风玉露一相逢便胜却人间无数 is a quote from the poem 《鹊桥仙·纤云弄巧》 by Song dynasty poet 秦观.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is actually two lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;金风玉露一相逢&#xA;便胜却人间无数&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's parse them separately:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;金风玉露一相逢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has three parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;金风 = golden wind &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;玉露 = jade dew &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一相逢 = upon meeting once&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line means something like: upon encountering (each other) in the golden wind and jade dew.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;便胜却人间无数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;便 = With that&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;胜却 = be greater than&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人间 = humanity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;无数 = innumerable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this line means something like: with that (their experience) surpassed the experience of countless people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So together the line means (translated more loosely): Upon meeting each other under the golden evening wind and amongst the pure white dew, they shared an experience that others would never understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T21:58:30.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13508" CreationDate="2015-05-15T22:12:33.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a good way to phrase this would be to say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Wow you seem to be working hard.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Working hard I see.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T22:12:33.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13508" CreationDate="2015-05-15T22:56:36.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here're 3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're really hard at it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're up to your ears in it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slogging like a good one I see!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-05-16T02:55:31.957" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T02:55:31.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13513" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13514" CreationDate="2015-05-16T03:52:18.970" Score="2" ViewCount="652" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bought some 甘梅地瓜 (gān méi dì guā), or just 地瓜 (dì guā), and this is what I got:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6tVsHm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;甘梅地瓜&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They seem to be sweet potato fries.  I'm wondering how 甘梅地瓜 translates into &quot;sweet potato fries&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google indicates that 地瓜 means &quot;sweet potato&quot;, although I always thought that was 红薯 (hóngshǔ).  I'm not familiar with 甘梅, and Google translates it to &quot;Gan Mei&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T11:09:53.500" Title="How does 甘梅地瓜 mean sweet potato fries?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13513" CreationDate="2015-05-16T04:03:56.947" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;甘 = sweet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梅 = plum&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地瓜 = sweet potato&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the photo, &quot;Fried Sweet Potato with sweet plum powder&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Thanks for others' correction.... 地瓜 may also mean other types of potato or other taro, depending on the region.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2015-05-16T11:09:53.500" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T11:09:53.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13508" CreationDate="2015-05-16T06:19:53.397" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;辛苦&lt;/code&gt; in itself means &lt;code&gt;'to toil, to work hard'&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;辛苦了&lt;/code&gt; does not translate as &lt;code&gt;&quot;Thank you for working hard for me!&quot;&lt;/code&gt;, it does not necessarily express gratitude for something that directly benefits the speaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider e.g. the following: a friend of yours who studies abroad returns home to your village and you meet him at the station, you can greet them with &lt;code&gt;路上辛苦了吧！&lt;/code&gt; This could mean &lt;code&gt;&quot;That must have been an exhausting journey!&quot;&lt;/code&gt;, it doesn't mean &quot;Thank you for taking this hard journey to see me.&quot; Or you could translate this as &quot;You've come a long way.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another situation, you visit some relatives and they ask you about your job. You tell them all kinds of things you do at work, you do your own tasks, you write report for your boss, you take phone calls, you supervise other people's work, you do this, you do that, etc. Your relatives could praise you with 你工作太辛苦了！ &quot;You are working so hard!&quot;, just to praise your merits as a hard-working person. Your work will probably not benefit them at all, nevertheless, they praise your work ethic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third situation. You see your neighbors being busy in their garden, you ask them: &lt;code&gt;辛苦了，忙什么？&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;&quot;Wow, what are you so busy with?&quot;&lt;/code&gt;. Your neighbors work won't benefit you too much, but you can be polite and show them that you admire their diligent nature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if the situation makes it clear, that the speaker is benefited by the other person's work, the phrase can have a direct reference to this. E.g. a friend shows you around in their hometown, you can thank them: &lt;code&gt;你陪我太辛苦了！ 谢谢！&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;&quot;You must be tired for taking me around, thank you!&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T06:19:53.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13508" CreationDate="2015-05-16T07:53:12.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;Thank you for your hard work&quot; have the core meaning of &quot;辛苦了&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10927" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T07:53:12.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13513" CreationDate="2015-05-16T09:15:58.593" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like Henry Ho explained, 甘梅地瓜 does not mean sweet potato fries. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, 地瓜 may not mean sweet potato; it can be taro (山芋) too, depending on different regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10999" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-16T09:19:06.040" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T09:19:06.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13476" CreationDate="2015-05-16T09:38:07.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;所 does not mean something here. It is used in Classical Chinese to clarify that the sentence is passive. Then, it is used in Modern Chinese to look formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10999" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-16T09:53:20.123" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T09:53:20.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13497" CreationDate="2015-05-16T09:52:00.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't agree with what your textbook claims to be the rule of thumb – although the rule technically applies, the common practice, as suggested in other answers, is that 几岁了 and 多大了 are applicable to all ages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few things to keep in mind when asking for age:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Beware that many adults are concerned with age. If you ask what's the minimum age that defines such &quot;adults&quot;, I would say it varies. My take is that 25-year-old and above are generally concerned with age.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you have to ask, do it with manners, especially in a formal setting. For elders (say 65 and above), a good question would be &quot;请问您今年高寿？&quot;. For older people (say 40 to 64), a good question would be &quot;请问您今年贵庚？&quot;. Otherwise, simply ask &quot;您几岁了？&quot; or &quot;您多大了？&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Forget about the above rules &lt;strong&gt;IF&lt;/strong&gt; you know the person you're asking is not conservative or traditional or is not nearly strict about courtesy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T09:52:00.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1915" CreationDate="2015-05-16T10:16:37.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;ID: 编号  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Process: 程序  &lt;br&gt; &#xA;Food category: 食品类别  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Standard: 标准  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Frequency (as in how many times per day or every how many hours): 频率  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Min. Value: 低标   &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Max. Value: 高标   &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Food Correction (or Corrective Action): 改正措施 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Check List Item Caption: 清单项目标语 (标题 is title)  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Question Group: 问题组  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Template: 模板   &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Repeat Observation: 重复观察？  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Policy: 规章制度 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Order index: 订购类别 &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10999" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T10:16:37.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13521" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-16T14:28:46.493" Score="4" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am aiming to have a short translation, so it would be preferred that it isn't too long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have &quot;Merely so&quot; right now, but it doesn't sound too right in English and the meaning doesn't seem to be sent across as well either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that a translation could be &quot;So you are only like this&quot; but I would like to have a shorter translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T04:14:36.933" Title="A good English equivalent for &quot;不過如此&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13521" CreationDate="2015-05-16T15:05:21.280" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no 100% 1:1 translation, so how you translate this expression will heavily depend on the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want to fly abroad on holiday, but the airport is closed. You can express your discontent with &lt;code&gt;坐飞机去旅游原来不过如此。&lt;/code&gt;&quot;So much for taking the plane to go on holiday!&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;code&gt;...也不过如此&lt;/code&gt; form, that is used often. E.g.&#xA; &lt;code&gt;最多再有几分钟, 也不过如此.&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;&quot;Only a matter of a few more minutes, that's all.&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this can also have the meaning &quot;like a ....!&quot;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;皇宫也不过如此吧！&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;&quot;It's like a palace!&quot;&lt;/code&gt; (lit. Even the imperial palace can not keep up with this). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T15:05:21.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13508" CreationDate="2015-05-16T18:37:29.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;That was tough&quot; or &quot;impressive work&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T18:37:29.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13524" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13528" CreationDate="2015-05-16T18:59:10.973" Score="0" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;i am learning new i have a couple of questions about a text&#xA;1：收完白菜，老山羊把自己种的白菜送给他们&#xA;2：山羊收下白菜&#xA;1:what 收完 exactly is translated into-what about 把自己 can you tell me the grammar and exact translation &#xA;2:what exactly 收下 mean?&#xA;please explain the grammar of themif any&#xA;thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11002" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T20:03:25.037" Title="meaning of 把自己 and 收下 and 在地里 and some translations" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13525" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-16T19:22:09.347" Score="2" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我廢了你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can roughly translate to &quot;I'll waste/break/ruin you&quot;, but that doesn't sound too accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What &quot;廢&quot; sounds like is kindof like &quot;crippling&quot; yet less severe than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I can tell, it sounds like extreme, violent damage yet nothing as permanent as crippling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-10-12T05:48:46.457" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T05:48:46.457" Title="English translation for &quot;廢&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13525" CreationDate="2015-05-16T19:35:27.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;废 is slang for beat up, to hurt someone badly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T19:35:27.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13524" CreationDate="2015-05-16T19:36:59.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;收完: complete harvest&#xA;收下: receive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T19:36:59.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13524" CreationDate="2015-05-16T20:03:25.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;收&lt;/code&gt; means (among other things) &lt;code&gt;to harvest&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;完&lt;/code&gt; is used to indicate that the &lt;code&gt;action is completed&lt;/code&gt;, finished. So&#xA;&lt;code&gt;收完&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;to finish the harvest&lt;/code&gt;, or as @倪阔乐 put it, to complete the harvest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly &lt;code&gt;说完&lt;/code&gt; means to finish what you want to say. &lt;code&gt;说完了没有？&lt;/code&gt; &quot;Is that all you have to say/Are you finished (talking)?&quot;. Grammar books usually discuss this &lt;code&gt;完&lt;/code&gt; verb complement, so try to use them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;把&lt;/code&gt; is another particle you have to look into. If used, the sentence order is changed. The object of action follows immediately after this particle, thus it gets more emphasis. Consider e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我在吃午饭。&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;I am having lunch.&lt;/code&gt; &#xA;&lt;code&gt;我把午饭已经吃完了。&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;I have finished eating my lunch.&lt;/code&gt; (Just to use the &lt;code&gt;完&lt;/code&gt; again in combination with &lt;code&gt;把&lt;/code&gt;). Notice that &lt;code&gt;午饭&lt;/code&gt; is pushed to the left of the sentence. This is an important particle and sentence structure that you have to understand. Again, consult your textbook or grammar reference for more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;code&gt;收下&lt;/code&gt;, it simply means &lt;code&gt;to receive&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;to accept&lt;/code&gt;. E.g. &lt;code&gt;收下名片&lt;/code&gt; to receive a business card or &lt;code&gt;请收下这个&lt;/code&gt;... Please accept this..., &lt;code&gt;收下礼物&lt;/code&gt; to receive gifts/presents.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one more example sentence that uses &lt;code&gt;把&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;收下&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;请把它作为一件礼物收下。&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Please accept it as a gift.&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;把&lt;/code&gt; is immediatelly followed by the object &lt;code&gt;它&lt;/code&gt; (it)&#xA;&lt;code&gt;一件礼物&lt;/code&gt; a gift (one piece of gift, I hope you know what a classifier is)&#xA;&lt;code&gt;作为&lt;/code&gt; as ...&#xA;&lt;code&gt;收下&lt;/code&gt; accept&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T20:03:25.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13525" CreationDate="2015-05-16T22:16:37.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;废 is a slang, and as NS.X mentioned, &quot;waste&quot; is a pretty good translation, as in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'mma waste you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nonetheless, IMHO, 废 doesn't necessarily mean waste. Other meanings include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What you thought it is, &quot;to cripple&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;To destroy (life, job, etc)&quot;, as in &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我废了你（的人生）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'mma destroy your life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T22:16:37.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13521" CreationDate="2015-05-17T00:36:12.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You really need to put the context in which this is said to achieve a good interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;iciba: 最多再有几英里, 也不过如此. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也不过如此. = that's all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T00:36:12.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13531" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13534" CreationDate="2015-05-17T00:59:27.720" Score="2" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一根弦的傻子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I see, &quot;An idiot with one root/string?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really understand where the meaning would be taken from. Would an English equivalent be something like &quot;An idiot with only one brain cell&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T22:29:33.343" Title="When describing an idiot, &quot;一根弦的傻子&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13531" CreationDate="2015-05-17T01:23:01.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means a stubborn person, who clings to just one idea , who is incapable or unwilling to consider other points of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bit like 'a one track mind' without the sexual connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-05-17T01:29:53.527" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T01:29:53.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13531" CreationDate="2015-05-17T03:33:15.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Pedroski has explained, 一根弦的傻子 or 脑子一根弦 refers to those who clings to one idea. 一根弦 can be interpreted as &amp;quot;single-minded&amp;quot;. But note that it is not necessarily a derogatory term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the following sentence,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一根弦的傻子，也能熬出头。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A single-minded fool can eventually survive from the nights and succeed as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一根弦 implies that the &amp;quot;fool&amp;quot; is determined and strong-willed and will not give up on what he/she has been pursuing for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T03:33:15.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13531" CreationDate="2015-05-17T03:50:59.333" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes from a hidden metaphor to describe a person's brain as complex clockwork or musical instruments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一根弦 means a person is stubborn, overly rigid, inflexible, unchangeable, one-track minded, even narrow-minded, hard to convince, or hard to work with.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar phrase: 一根筋，死心眼/实心眼。A brain has many 弦 or 筋，while a heart has many 眼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Famous 一根弦 people：Forrest Gump&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10910" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-17T05:46:18.810" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T05:46:18.810" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13535" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13536" CreationDate="2015-05-17T11:41:48.980" Score="0" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;i need a simple translation and a couple of questions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.小白兔回到家里，种上了菜籽&#xA;兔给白菜浇水&#xA;please translate the whole text and please tell me what does &lt;code&gt;给&lt;/code&gt; in the second line above mean and what exactly &lt;code&gt;种上了&lt;/code&gt; mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.兔把山羊送的白菜拿回家里&#xA;translate above please and what does &lt;code&gt;拿&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; in the above mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.他天天不干活儿，饿了就吃山羊送的白菜，白菜很快就吃完了&#xA;simple clear translation please&#xA;thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11002" LastEditorDisplayName="user9817" LastEditDate="2015-05-19T10:00:21.820" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T10:00:21.820" Title="whole text translation and grammar point of 的and给" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13535" CreationDate="2015-05-17T12:27:53.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 1st sentence really looks like consisting of 3 parts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;小白兔回到家里&lt;/code&gt;，The white bunny returned home, &#xA;&lt;code&gt;种上了菜籽&lt;/code&gt; grew vegetables&#xA;&lt;code&gt;兔给白菜浇水&lt;/code&gt; The bunny watered the plants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;给&lt;/code&gt; in itself means to give, but in many cases, just as here, it is used as a &quot;preposition&quot; that marks the benefited person of an action. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我给你看看。&lt;/code&gt; I show you/I let you have a look. (&quot;I give you a look. &quot;)&#xA;&lt;code&gt;我给你带来了一本书&lt;/code&gt;。I brought you a book. (&quot;I brought a book to give it to you.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2nd sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;兔把山羊送的白菜拿回家里&lt;/code&gt;。To understand this sentence, you need to take it apart. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;山羊送的白菜 means the cabbage that is/was presented by the goat as a present. It is a structure that has 4 parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 山羊 the goat&#xA;(2) 送 to give (as a present) or to send&#xA;(3) 的 attribute particle&#xA;(4) 白菜 cabbage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole structure is constructed like this: WHO + ACTION + PARTICLE + OBJECT (affected by the action). E.g. &lt;code&gt;姐姐买的茶&lt;/code&gt; the tea that was bought by elder sister. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;拿回&lt;/code&gt; is another thing you need to learn, it is a verb with directional complement, it means take and return (home). A verb is essentially complemented by another verb to show the direction of the movement/action. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is really no point learning these particles and complements the hard way. Get a grammar reference and work yourself through the examples and the drills. It is a lot easier than trying to translate some easy looking sentence with a dictionary. It is too confusing the way you are trying to do this.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3rd sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他天天不干活儿，饿了就吃山羊送的白菜，白菜很快就吃完了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He idled his days away, when he was hungry, he just dined on the cabbage given to him by the goat, and soon the cabbage was all eaten up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was a wrong character in the 3rd sentence, I suppose it is 饿 not 饯.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-05-17T17:29:43.857" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T17:29:43.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13535" CreationDate="2015-05-17T14:04:54.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a cool story! Hope it doesn't turn nasty later!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他天天不干活儿，&lt;strong&gt;饯&lt;/strong&gt;了就吃山羊送的白菜，白菜很快就吃完了  You should have written '饿‘ not ’饯‘&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.他天天不干活儿，&lt;strong&gt;饿&lt;/strong&gt;了就吃山羊送的白菜，白菜很快就吃完了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He lazed around every day, hungry, he ate the cabbage that the goat gave him, which was soon gone. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So he turned to darstardly deeds to fill his wicked stomach! The goat never knew what hit him, he was dead before he ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T14:04:54.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13538" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-17T22:22:26.163" Score="3" ViewCount="2247" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me with these? I don't quite understand the topic-comment structure, and I have been trying to look it up but I can't find any good explanation with examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to change the following sentences so that they reflect the “topic-comment” structure. Can someone help me with these or just explain and send me on the right track?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.1 你复习昨天的语法了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.2 你买飞机票了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.3 你们都喜欢喝中国茶吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.4 瑞典人都喜欢去日本吗？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.5 你不习惯这儿的天气吗？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9608" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:55:03.123" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:55:03.123" Title="&quot;Topic-comment&quot; structure" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13525" CreationDate="2015-05-17T22:23:46.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Changing the order makes more sense. 我废了你 = 我 make 你 废了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll make you crap. Something like that. It just likes the ancient Chinese grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T22:23:46.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13531" CreationDate="2015-05-17T22:29:33.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other people give nice explanations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just want to add something to the discussion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一根弦=一根筋=单细胞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes used to describe people who never turns back until runs into an impassable barrier. In Chinese, 不撞南墙不回头。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T22:29:33.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13538" CreationDate="2015-05-17T23:18:56.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;None of your sentences are theme-rheme examples. Topic-comment structure is characterized by defining what is talked about, then what we have to say about that thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very simple example would be: 人多, or &lt;em&gt;as for people, they are many&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more regular example: 水果，我最喜欢香蕉, first introducing fruits as the topic, then elaborating on it. As for fruits, I prefer bananas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also use temporal or spatial topics, such as: 今天我没洗澡 (as for today, I didn't take a shower) or 在宿舍里有很多漂亮的女孩儿 (as for the dorms, there are many pretty girls).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T23:18:56.553" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13538" CreationDate="2015-05-18T02:37:41.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, the topic-comment structure puts the &lt;strong&gt;topic&lt;/strong&gt; you want to focus on in the beginning of a sentence, optionally followed by a comma, and the &lt;strong&gt;comment&lt;/strong&gt; you want to make about the topic right after.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Dejavision has mentioned, in all of your examples, the topic &lt;strong&gt;can be&lt;/strong&gt; the object. (see note below) Thus, moving the object to the beginning would change the structure to topic-comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天的语法，你复习了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飞机票，你买了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国茶，你们都喜欢喝吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日本，瑞典人都喜欢去吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这儿的天气，你不习惯吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Note&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This trick does not always apply. The topic can surely be a subject as well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這隻筆，顏色很好看。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for this pen, the color is good-looking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這隻筆 is both the subject and the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Depending on the context, the same sentence may have more than one potential topic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following example with possible context in parentheses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（我知道美国大家都喜欢去。至于）日本，瑞典人都喜欢去吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I know that everyone likes going to the States.) As for Japan, do all Swedish like going there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（我知道很多亚洲人喜欢去日本。至于）瑞典人，都喜欢去日本吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I know that many Asians like going to Japan.) As for Swedish, do all of them like going to Japan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two questions have different topics, thus different context, but are asking the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T02:37:41.643" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2015-05-18T07:39:00.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;just like English, Chinese language's words and expressions are used in circumstances and may link to different aspects as the context changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;载体 is more related to carrier, bearing something on it, holder of something, while 媒介 is more related to medium, pipe, conducting something, or the intermediate interface between things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;载体: [used more in circumstances related to material or things or physical constructs. more as a carrier]&#xA;媒介: [used more in circumstances related to human, social, media, and interpersonal relationships. more as an interface]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11007" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T07:39:00.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13465" CreationDate="2015-05-18T08:52:06.153" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi Jimmy let me try to add some flavor to the answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Q1: Do Chinese people generally agree upon how a sentence should be segmented into its compounds?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes and No. Internet youngsters would disagree upon the normal segmentation of words and even use wrong characters to represent an added meaning to the original word, example:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我要和你生猴子&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I wanna give birth to monkeys with you&quot;. But it actually means &quot;I wanna have babies with you&quot;, to represent the worship of the author by commentors. &quot;猴子&quot;monkey has a similar sound like &quot;孩子&quot;child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;普大喜奔&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is actually a compound internet word meaning “普天同庆，大快人心，喜极而泣，奔走相告”, consisting of 4 成语 words(Chinese Idioms with traditional roots) to mean the extreme thrill one feels about some tremendously great news, each meaning &quot;Worth celebration by all people under Heaven&quot;, &quot;Making people feel very joyful, usually after the resolution of some very bad matter&quot;, &quot;So happy that I wanna cry out&quot;, and &quot;Such a great news that I wanna spread it around all over the streets&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, these words are not generally used in official circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Q2: Is a 词 different from a word in any sense?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes and No. In Modern Chinese language (taking root from Ancient Chinese language, emerging from Yuan Dynasty's everyday life, taking shape in 1800s with heavy influence from western languages, words, constructs, and even grammar, and formalized to be its current shape in 1900s), most of the Chinese 词 could have very good correspondence in western languages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However in Ancient Chinese works or the very popular usage of them as 成语(Chinese idioms with traditional roots) in modern Chinese, we could see the segmentation of 字 as 词 much smaller than in everyday modern Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;审时度势&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a Chinese Idiom meaning to 审视(inspect, examine) 时局 (time, era) and 度量 (gauge, measure) 形势 (circumstance, context), and the whole Idiom means an attitude one takes within a complex circumstance, which stresses more on taking thorough considerations before taking wise actions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as you could see, more and more new internet idioms are being invented and circulated as the culture in China evolves, many of these taking direct root from 成语 (such as 普大喜奔), and most of them using smaller segments (one character) as 词 to shape a compound 词.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Q3: Do even native Chinese generally split characters into words (词), or is the concept of words something we have forced into Chinese because it makes sense in western languages?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes and No. Within the Chinese language itself there is a long history of moving from shorter words (1-character words) to longer words (2,3,4-character words). And the shaping of modern Chinese language is directly and heavily influenced by western languages to use western-origin compound words. Many of these words are firstly translated by Japanese scholars into Chinese compound words in Japanese language, then brought back to China. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;物理 化学&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;each meaning physics and chemistry. Literally they mean &quot;the principles(理) of things(物)&quot; and &quot;the study (学) of transformation(化)&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personal thoughts: &#xA;as for me a native Chinese, I found the distance between grammars of Chinese and Japanese is larger than the distance between grammars of Chinese and English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And more as I dive into the histories of the evolution and formation of cultures and languages, more I found the current versions of our cultures(western or eastern) all take influences from each other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese language construct of &lt;code&gt;character-word constructs&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;字词构造&lt;/code&gt; make it very good as as future-oriented platform for cultures, subcultures and efficiency of communication to evolve and prosper. It is neat, yet meaningful. As long as one has mastered the basics of Chinese, non of the world's mysteries would be hidden to him/her in the shape of an 'unknown pronunciation' of an unknown word. True wisdom lies within the small fabrics of Chinese words, feeding the whole culture ecosystem with the hidden intelligence all the participants have contributed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;思路&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this word means the ways one have used in thinking about the solution of a problem or puzzle. Teachers would ask students: '你解这道题的思路是什么？'(How do you solve this puzzle?) A colleague may praise your plan and initiative as &quot;思路不错！&quot;(Nice plan! Well thought!) This is a very commonplace word in Chinese, however it literally means 'the way of thought', English equivalent being &quot;train of thought&quot; or &quot;stream of thought&quot; or &quot;line of reasoning&quot; or &quot;path of reasoning&quot;. Quoting wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The term &quot;train of thoughts&quot; was introduced and elaborated as early as&#xA;  in 1651 by Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan, though with a somewhat&#xA;  different meaning (similar to the meaning used by the British&#xA;  associationists):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;By Consequence, or train of thoughts, I understand that succession of&#xA;    one thought to another which is called, to distinguish it from&#xA;    discourse in words, mental discourse. When a man thinketh on anything&#xA;    whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it&#xA;    seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds&#xA;    indifferently. — Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, The First Part: Of Man,&#xA;    Chapter III: Of the Consequence or Train of Imagination&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yes, 你的思路是什么? A hidden wisdom lies deep in the language itself without being discovered before one starts to think about exactly how people would think, the succession of ideas and nodes in the neural network, and the vivid transmission of concentration from one node in the word-sense network to another, a path leading from the starting of a maze till the end of it, and a bridge linking the different aspects of existence itself and cutting through the darkness and mist of unknowness. 思路, is the exact word people could use to denote our thinking mechanism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;similar expressions are '思绪'(threads/strings of thought, similar in meaning to 思路, but stresses more on sentimental feelings or thoughts) or '思潮'(waves of thought, to describe the massive spread and expansion of thoughts within people and society)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11007" LastEditorUserId="11007" LastEditDate="2015-05-19T07:38:40.737" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T07:38:40.737" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13545" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13547" CreationDate="2015-05-18T20:13:33.507" Score="8" ViewCount="956" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;众人回头观望，而这一看不要紧，所有人都是不由大吃一惊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to an online dictionary, &quot;不要紧&quot; means &quot;not important&quot;. How does the sentence make sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The group looked back and that look was not important. Everyone couldn't help but be shocked greatly?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T09:34:42.913" Title="What does &quot;不要紧&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13535" CreationDate="2015-05-18T21:48:33.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 上 in 种上了 is a resultative complement, which shows the action has reached the desired result. So it could just be translated as &quot;planted&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给 is a preposition which means &quot;to/for&quot;. 给白菜浇水 could be translated as &quot;watered (to) the cabbage&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿 means &quot;to take&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we have a 的 after a verb, it means &quot;that&quot;. So the translation there would be &quot;the rabbit took to his house the cabbage &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; the goat gave him&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T21:48:33.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13545" CreationDate="2015-05-18T21:55:58.007" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;不要紧 has two meanings (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E4%B8%8D%E8%A6%81%E7%B4%A7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E4%B8%8D%E8%A6%81%E7%B4%A7&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Doesn't matter; not a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Seemingly not a problem but ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it is the second meaning. The logic behind the sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;众人回头观望，而这一看不要紧，所有人都是不由大吃一惊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The group looked back. This seemingly trivial action lead to a surprising finding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T21:55:58.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13545" CreationDate="2015-05-18T23:15:41.647" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My spin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【什么事发生了.】【然后】众人回头观望，而这一看不要紧，所有人都是不由大吃一惊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Something happened][Afterwards] Everyone turned and looked, but that didn't mean much, people are easily startled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T23:15:41.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13550" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-19T00:20:29.520" Score="5" ViewCount="2666" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's pretty hard to tell the differences between these three words, and here's the dialogue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你现在在干什么？&#xA;B: 我正在做作业。&#xA;A: 你怎么还在做作业呀！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you help me to understand and remember these words? Thanks a lot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9718" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T07:44:12.007" Title="What are the differences in usage and nuances between 现在，正在 and 还在？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13550" CreationDate="2015-05-19T00:34:02.060" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;现在: Now&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你现在在干什么？: What are you doing now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;正在: Currently&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 我正在做作业。: I am doing homework.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正在is this sentence can be translated to doing something at this particular moment, in English you just add ing at the end for currently doing something, but in Chinese you don't have this, so you use 正在 to express doing something now. 我正在做...becomes &quot;I am doing...&quot;, or 我正在读...becomes &quot;I am reading...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;还在: Still&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你怎么还在做作业呀!: You are still doing homework?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还pronounced &quot;hai&quot; instead of &quot;huan&quot; in this sentence means still doing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还在看书：Still reading, 还在这里: Still here...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also to mention, 还 can also be pronounced &quot;huan&quot;, as in 还钱: Pay debt, 还给我: Give it back, it means to return something, but that's a different context itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess to make it clearer, sometimes you don't really need to add 现在 or 正在，you just say &quot;你在干什么？What are you doing?&quot;, or &quot;我在做作业。I am doing homework.&quot;, it sounds more friendly like when you are talking to a friend. 你现在在干什么？sounds more like when your boss or teacher would ask haha.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2015-05-19T00:47:43.253" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T00:47:43.253" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13552" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-19T01:24:23.993" Score="4" ViewCount="648" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't quite get the last part of this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;专家：这个问题不能一刀切。对于东部的企业，因为起步较早，有一定产业规模和资金积累，所以调整产业结构，提高技术含量，不断向产业链的高端提升是发展趋势的要求。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I rewrite the last bit thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不断向产业链的高端提升是发展趋势的要求。= 发展趋势的要求是不断向产业链的高端的提升。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发展趋势的要求是不断向产业链的高端的提升。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;develop trend 的 demand is non-stop to supply chain 的 high-end 的 increase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= the development trend is towards an ever increasing luxury car market.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2021-04-30T01:00:25.080" Title="What is the meaning of ...不断向产业链的高端提升是发展趋势的要求?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8734" CreationDate="2015-05-19T01:49:32.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember having the same question a few years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I heard people saying 姐姐 as &quot;jie3 jie&quot; and 等等 as &quot;deng2 deng&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher told me that only family members got a 3-0 combination, while the other cases (like verbs) it would be always 2-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other family member I remember is 奶奶 &quot;nai3 nai&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T01:49:32.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13554" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13556" CreationDate="2015-05-19T02:27:03.723" Score="8" ViewCount="444" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there are some words in which the use of neutral tone distinguish them the word from their non neutral equivalent, like：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东西 - dong1xi1 - from east to west&lt;br&gt;&#xA;东西 - dong1xi - thing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虾子 - xia1zi3 - shrimp hatch&lt;br&gt;&#xA;虾子 - xia1zi - shrimp&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also know erhua most of the time is just an accent thing and doesn't make much difference on the word's meaning. But are there any erhua-ed words that have a different meaning from the &quot;erhualess&quot; word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any list with these neutral/non-neutral and erhua/non-erhua (if they do exist) pairs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-17T01:56:46.647" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T01:56:46.647" Title="Neutral tone and erhua (儿化) working as a word distinguisher" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;erhuayin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13554" CreationDate="2015-05-19T02:45:18.493" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://beijingsounds.com/2008/01/does-the-beijing-r-mean-anything/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Does the Beijing-R mean anything?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I happened to have lunch the other day with some university students, a couple of Guangdongers and a Shanghainese, in one of those Rolex-Louis Vuitton malls that clutter central Beijing, the kind where shopgirls outnumber customers 23 to 1 on gleaming floor after floor of luxury goods, until you get to the food court and find yourself breathing into your tablemate’s ear, close enough to eat the shrimp out of his chopsticks and surrounded by wàidìrén [外地人, outsiders, i.e. people from outside Beijing] shouting order numbers and bussing tables. Astoundingly, we found seats for the whole group, and as the conversation turned to language, (inevitable if you lunch with syz), I asked if they’d been trying to learn any běijīnghuà [北京话, Beijing dialect] while going to school here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I was rewarded with looks of confusion. Yeah, of course they felt like their pǔtōnghuà [普通话, standard Mandarin] was improving. But were they actually learning běijīnghuà?! Of course not. All běijīnghuà really means anyway, they said, is that you have to juǎn shétou [卷舌头, curl your tongue] when you’re speaking pǔtōnghuà.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is typical. Non-Beijingers describe the pronunciation of the natives as tongue-twisting, and it’s pretty literally right. The Beijing retroflex is somewhat like the American Midwest R as in “car”; it gets tacked onto and into words and certainly isn’t suited to everyone’s second language tongue. (Listen to this post for some good examples)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The general perception among outsiders is that it’s just a way of speaking. It doesn’t really mean anything. HOWEVER, my two experts for today’s post, one six and one sixty-ish, say it ain’t so. There are words you can say with or without the Beijing-R (commonly called érhuàyīn 儿化音 or érhuàyùn 儿化韵), but often the different pronunciations really mean something different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As a bonus, in one of the examples today, tāngr 汤儿, the Beijing-R fuses with an /ng/, turning it into a truly sublime consonant. Even the spelling /ngr/ doesn’t quite do it justice, because the /r/ is so thoroughly mixed in with the /ng/ that it really becomes it’s own special sound. When Dr. Seuss talked about the letters after Z, I’m sure this is what he had in mind. In fact: I’ll isolate it just so you can hear the two right next to each other, first tāng then tāngr:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But back to our story. The érhuàyīn 儿化音 really does change things. In the first example it’s an actual difference in meaning: tāng 汤 and tāngr 汤儿 simply refer to two different liquids. The former means broth/soup, while the latter is the liquid that comes with your non-soup dishes, something cooked out of the meat or vegetables that you might spoon onto your rice. Sauce / gravy, perhaps, but incidental — not consciously made for the purpose of being sauce by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the second example we get more of a qualitative difference, and I’d probably concede, as an academic might say, that this research would need to be replicated for us to have full faith in the findings. Still, it’s amusing and observant that the six-year-old thinks wán [play] is something you do the way the authorities want you to do it, while wánr [play] is actually playing and having fun. My guess is that this reflects what she perceives to be a difference in register – based on where she hears wán versus where she hears wánr. Because she’s growing up with Beijingers, the only place she hears wán is at school where they’re reading 玩 and the teacher is telling them to pronounce it wán because that’s how you’re “supposed to” say it. Her interpretation: wán is what you’re supposed to do; wánr is what you really do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Exhibit 1: tāng v. tāngr, 汤 v 汤儿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Six: tāngr gēn tāng bù yíyàng yīnwèiwei tāngr shì cài lǐ de, tāng shì zhǔ tāng de tāng. [burp*]&#xA;  汤儿跟汤不一样因为汤儿是菜里的，汤是煮汤的汤。&#xA;  Tāngr is not the same as tāng because tāngr is in the dish, tāng is like the making soup kind of tāng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;tāngr jiù shì nèigè cài lǐ de nèi zhǒng tāngr. Ránhòu tāng jiù shì hē tāng de nèi tāng.[laughing]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;汤儿就是那个菜里的那种汤儿。然后汤就是喝汤的那汤。&#xA;  Tāngr is that kind of tāngr that’s in a dish. And tāng is the kind of tāng you eat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wǒ yào gē tāngr. wǒ yào hē tāng.&#xA;  我要搁汤儿。我要喝汤。&#xA;  I want to put on some sauce (tāngr). I want to eat soup (tāng).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sixty: yàoshi shuō “tāngr” jiù shì chǎo cài de chǎo biǎndòu de nèilǐtou de “tāngr”.&#xA;  要是说”汤儿”就是炒菜的炒扁豆的那里头的”汤儿”。&#xA;  If you say tāngr it really is from frying vegetables or frying beans [for example], the kind of sauce (tāngr) that’s in there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nà jiù shì … xīhóngshì jīdàn tāng, yígè rénr yī wǎn.&#xA;  那就是 [unclear]。西红柿鸡蛋汤，一个人儿一碗。&#xA;  Then it really is …. tomato egg soup (tāng), one bowl for each person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Six: duì, huòzhě xīhóngshì jīdàn xiǎo miàn tiáor tāng.&#xA;  对，或者西红柿鸡蛋小面条儿汤&#xA;  Right, or tomato egg soup with little noodles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[note from syz: informant’s favorite soup, hence the enthusiasm]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Exhibit 2: wán v. wánr, 玩 v. 玩儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Apologies for low volume of questions, but you don’t want to use them as a speaking model anyway because they’re syz, the non-native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wánr shì shénme?&#xA;  玩儿是什么?&#xA;  What is “wánr”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wánr shì zhēteng&#xA;  玩儿是折腾&#xA;  “wánr” is playing crazy/running around&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nà wán shì shénme?&#xA;  那玩是什么?&#xA;  Then what is “wán”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wán shì zuò nèr wánr xiǎodōngxi&#xA;  玩是座那儿玩儿小东西&#xA;  “wán” is sitting there playing with some little thing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nǎyīge hǎo?&#xA;  哪一个好?&#xA;  Which one is better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wánr hǎo&#xA;  玩儿好&#xA;  wánr-play is better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;shéi shuō wánr hǎo?&#xA;  谁说玩儿好?&#xA;  Who says “wánr” is better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wǒ shuō wánr hǎo&#xA;  我说玩儿好&#xA;  I say “wánr” is better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nà nǐ lǎolao ne?&#xA;  那你姥姥呢?&#xA;  Then what about Grandma?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lǎolao shuō wán hǎo&#xA;  姥姥说玩好&#xA;  Grandma says “wán” is better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nà wèishénme nǐ juéde wánr hǎo?&#xA;  那为什么你觉得玩儿好?&#xA;  Then why do you feel that “wánr” is better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;yīnwèi wánr hǎo wánr!&#xA;  因为玩儿好玩儿！&#xA;  Because wánr-play is more fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Let’s raise one up for Beijing Sounds’ first realtime belch&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-05-19T04:49:47.210" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T04:49:47.210" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13554" CreationDate="2015-05-19T03:11:10.250" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there any erhua-ed words that has a different meaning from the not &quot;erhualess&quot; word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, many, categorized as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nominalization (convert to noun), e.g. 盖 (to cover) -&gt; 盖儿 (lid), 尖 (pointy) -&gt; 尖儿 (tip)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Generalization, e.g. 眼 (eye) -&gt; 眼儿 (hole), &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Derivation, e.g. 白面 (white flour) -&gt; 白面儿 (drug)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Word simplification by replacing the last character with 儿, e.g. 把手 -&gt; 把儿 (handle), which is different from 把 (to hold).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Changing tone, e.g. 脸蛋 (cheek, neutral tone) -&gt; 脸蛋儿 (cheek, loving tone)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any list with these neutral/non-neutral and erhua/non-erhua (if they do exist) pairs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not aware of any. I am curious to see a comprehensive one, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T03:11:10.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13525" CreationDate="2015-05-19T03:49:35.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about &lt;code&gt;I'll tear you (up).&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;废&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;disable sb.&lt;/code&gt; here, so &lt;code&gt;tear up&lt;/code&gt; may be an appropriate expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T03:49:35.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13545" CreationDate="2015-05-19T07:13:22.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a subtle comparison here, which makes the sentence more emotion intensive. it means &quot;The fact that people turn their eyes is not important, what matters is that the thing that people are looking at is really amazing and people do get amazed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can paraphrase it into “不看不知道，一看吓下跳。”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11015" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T07:13:22.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13565" CreationDate="2015-05-19T14:56:13.640" Score="2" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 未長未短 grammatically correct (in classical Chinese)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hainan-today.com/2012/201201/web/201201_28.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hainan-today.com/2012/201201/web/201201_28.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;uses “未長未短”:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但与大门前的“翻天覆地”相比，作为景区主体之一的“雨林谷”变化却“含蓄”许多，景观还是两年前的样子，没多没少，游览路线也依旧如故，&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;未长未短&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but it's written in modern Chinese.&#xA;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(How about &quot;如意金箍棒复得, 未长未短&quot;? How about “路线依旧如故, 未长未短”? Are these grammatically correct?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9715" LastEditorUserId="9715" LastEditDate="2015-05-19T15:14:11.853" LastActivityDate="2015-05-20T02:27:46.437" Title="Is 未長未短 grammatically correct (in classical Chinese)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12758" CreationDate="2015-05-19T16:54:14.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two words are the same meaning.&#xA;早已 often use in written when 早就 often used in spoken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11018" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T16:54:14.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8734" CreationDate="2015-05-19T17:24:31.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;30 姐姐，奶奶，好好学习，姥姥  and many other   AA words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &#xA;23  等等再走，款款都好看，走走停停，朵朵都好看，跑跑步&#xA;because&lt;br&gt;&#xA;等等 is short for 等一等&#xA;走走 is short for 走一走&#xA;跑跑 is short for 跑一跑&#xA;款款 is short for 每一款&#xA;朵朵 is short for 每一朵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when a word AA is short for A一A or 每一A 。it takes 23&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11018" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T17:24:31.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13550" CreationDate="2015-05-20T01:55:22.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Generally, “现在” means NOW; &quot;正在&quot; means NOW DOING SOMETHING; &quot;还在&quot; means STILL BE DOING SOMETHING;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here's a technique in understanding those words:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key in understanding the words is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;在&quot; AFTER “现在” in the first sentence and that IN the words “正在” and &quot;还在&quot; is equal to the progressive tense in English. &quot;现在&quot;(NOW), “正”(NOW/CURRENTLY), “还”(STILL) are all adverbs for modifying &quot;在&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我在做作业&quot; is equal to “I'm doing my homework”. &quot;正&quot; is a WEAK emphasis. It lays emphasis on NOW DOING. In fact, &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;正&lt;/strong&gt;在做作业&quot; can also be translated as &quot;I'm doing my homework&quot; since the emphasis is weak. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6517" LastEditorUserId="6517" LastEditDate="2015-05-20T02:02:57.433" LastActivityDate="2015-05-20T02:02:57.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13561" CreationDate="2015-05-20T02:27:46.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is yes, especially in written. It's kind of “&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;文言文&lt;/a&gt;” so may hardly be seen in oral speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;游览路线也依旧如故，未长未短&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here “未长未短” means &quot;it is neither longer nor shorter than before&quot;, in other words, &quot;its (the route's) length is not changed&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's read the whole sentence again and you will be clearer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但与大门前的“&lt;strong&gt;翻天覆地&lt;/strong&gt;”相比，……，景观还是两年前的样子，&lt;strong&gt;没多没少&lt;/strong&gt;，游览路线也依旧如故，&lt;strong&gt;未长未短&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“未长未短” actually act the same role as “没多没少”, both of them means &quot;things not changed&quot;. Conversely, “&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%E7%BF%BB%E5%A4%A9%E8%A6%86%E5%9C%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;翻天覆地&lt;/a&gt;” means &quot;things changed significantly&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如意金箍棒复得, 未长未短&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Great sentence if you want to say 金箍棒完好无损。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9537" LastActivityDate="2015-05-20T02:27:46.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13552" CreationDate="2015-05-20T03:23:42.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are confused about 产业链的高端, is that right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may be translated as &lt;code&gt;high level of supply chain&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think he want to express that the companies should become the creator, not just the manufacturer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6811" LastEditorUserId="6811" LastEditDate="2015-05-20T04:40:37.337" LastActivityDate="2015-05-20T04:40:37.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13550" CreationDate="2015-05-20T05:31:30.323" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A1: 你现在在干什么？ B: 我正在做作业。 A2: 你怎么还在做作业呀！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Frank is correct to say, the 2nd  在 A1 and the 在  in B and A2 has become a particle equivalent to 'ing', except, of course, it sits in front and not behind the word it acts upon. '在干' and '在做'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know any Spanish, it is easier to understand. There are 2 verbs for 'be' in Spanish, namely 'ser = be' and 'estar = be in'. 'estar' gets used like '在'. However Spanish has a gerund comparative to the English 'ing', usually formed by adding a 'd' to the verb stem, whereas Chinese does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你现在在干什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: ¿tu ahora estás(zai) haciendo que?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¿you now be-in making/doing what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-20T05:31:30.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13552" CreationDate="2015-05-20T10:00:30.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you're confused because you're equating 高端 with the English word &quot;high end.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think a much better translation would be &quot;one of the best.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And your sentence will become:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不断向产业链的&lt;em&gt;高端&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;提升&lt;/strong&gt;是发展趋势的要求。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translating this you could say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;always working &lt;strong&gt;towards&lt;/strong&gt; becoming &lt;em&gt;(one of) the best&lt;/em&gt; suppliers is necessary for development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-05-22T22:31:38.037" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T22:31:38.037" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13569" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-20T14:26:18.840" Score="3" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can “未” modify descriptive adjectives (in either classical or modern Chinese)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've previously asked about the correctness of the phrase &quot;未長未短&quot;, but I think 長 and 短 are used as verbs (instead of adjectives) in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/13561/is-%E6%9C%AA%E9%95%B7%E6%9C%AA%E7%9F%AD-grammatically-correct-in-classical-chinese&quot;&gt;Is 未長未短 grammatically correct (in classical Chinese)?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9715" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T03:56:55.507" Title="Can “未” modify descriptive adjectives?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13569" CreationDate="2015-05-20T18:40:46.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;未=not yet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it would be safe to use with verbs. For example, 未来=(the time which has) not come yet=future. 未知=not known yet. I don't think you can use it with adjs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-05-20T18:40:46.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13569" CreationDate="2015-05-20T20:40:03.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, definitely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Disclaimer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I am not nearly as proficient in classical Chinese, so my answer is limited to modern Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO, 未 is more commonly seen in formal context and is often used with 曾 or 從, as in 未曾 or 從未.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;單純的你，&lt;strong&gt;未曾憂鬱&lt;/strong&gt;過。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're such a simple person; you'&lt;strong&gt;ve never been depressed&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人生自古以來，&lt;strong&gt;從未順利&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the ancient times, life (of a human) &lt;strong&gt;has never been smooth&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the adjectives act similarly to a verb, as suggested by WangYudong above. I don't think 長 and 短 are verbs per se.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;FYI, as FortCpp explained below, adjectives in such construct may actually be verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-21T18:40:52.970" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T18:40:52.970" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13569" CreationDate="2015-05-21T06:51:37.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can “未” modify descriptive adjectives？ I think so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把油画平放以防止未干的颜料流动。未干的颜料 not (yet) dry paint&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那家公司已被卖掉，具体售价未公开。未公开 not public&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T06:51:37.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13574" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13582" CreationDate="2015-05-21T07:35:31.707" Score="2" ViewCount="672" Body="&lt;p&gt;jDictionary Advanced English Dictionary defines guilty pleasure as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;guilty pleasure&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(idiomatic) Something that brings pleasure but is considered taboo, unadvisable or lowbrow. &amp;quot;For the renowned sushi chef, eating fish sticks drowned in tartar sauce was a guilty pleasure.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not looking for things like: 罪恶的快感.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hoping there's something more idiomatic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T16:07:48.590" Title="Idiomatic Translation: Guilty Pleasure" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13550" CreationDate="2015-05-21T07:44:12.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;现在:means right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正在：means be doing something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还在:after doing something for some time and  still doing the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6175" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T07:44:12.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13577" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-21T07:52:14.293" Score="0" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 许多 and 很多？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have learned that 许多 can't be used as predicate yet in this sentence it seems to have a predicative function&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他觉得妻子虽然老了许多 但仍很美丽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:27:34.280" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:27:34.280" Title="What's the difference between 许多 and 很多？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-05-22T17:41:23.957" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13577" CreationDate="2015-05-21T07:54:37.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's almost the same. both means a lot, very much..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6175" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T07:54:37.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13577" CreationDate="2015-05-21T10:13:00.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;许多 usally in written, and 很多 usually in speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11027" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T10:13:00.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13580" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-21T12:29:16.577" Score="5" ViewCount="2781" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 于是 and 所以? How and when are they interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:30:12.937" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:30:12.937" Title="Difference between 于是 and 所以" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13580" CreationDate="2015-05-21T17:37:25.090" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be helpful to look at them in ancient Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于=from，是=这=here (the point). So 于是=from here (or conclude from the point).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以 is not so straight forward. 以=according to/depend on/use something for some purpose/etc. 所 indicate something is passive.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example AAA所以BBB = BBB depends on AAA/BBB becomes what it is now is due to AAA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So clearly, 于是 is used to derive. 所以 is used to retrieve the reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in modern Chinese the difference is not so significant. Please read S.Rhee's comment for the details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastEditorUserId="9737" LastEditDate="2015-05-22T02:22:51.613" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T02:22:51.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13574" CreationDate="2015-05-21T20:02:47.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about 恶趣味? Literally &amp;quot;an evil interest&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the renowned sushi chef, eating fish sticks drowned in tartar sauce was a guilty pleasure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对于一位有名望的寿司师傅，吃着配上塔塔酱的鱼柳条是种恶趣味。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other interesting translations include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;罪快乐. It takes the pronunciation of 最快乐 (happiest) to imply that it's the happiest, yet a &amp;quot;crime&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;罪乐感. It derives from 罪恶感 (guilt) to imply that it's a guilt which makes one &amp;quot;happy&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T20:02:47.790" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13580" CreationDate="2015-05-21T23:43:24.463" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;there's a blog post with examples about just this question here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://speakupchinese.tumblr.com/post/115029397455/suoyi-vs-yushi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://speakupchinese.tumblr.com/post/115029397455/suoyi-vs-yushi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To quote, it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以 introduces the outcome, just as in English where we use ‘therefore’, ‘as a result’ or ‘so’.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... Moving on to 于是. This is used to place emphasis on the chronology of two connected happenings: A –&gt; B, in continuation. Often it’s used in recounting past events or a story, and translates best to ‘thereupon’, ‘as a result’, ‘consequently’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6570" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T23:43:24.463" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13574" CreationDate="2015-05-22T02:18:41.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found these on douban.com, maybe they are helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;偶尔纵欲&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;暗爽&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9799" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-05-22T07:15:56.100" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T07:15:56.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12756" CreationDate="2015-05-22T06:21:18.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;精益&lt;/code&gt; is not &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; one word. It is actually a combination of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;精&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, meaning &quot;&lt;em&gt;pureness&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;益&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, meaning &quot;&lt;em&gt;benefit&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, i.e. profit.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Combining the two gives us something like &quot;purely beneficial (to the bottom line)&quot;. This is similar enough to the &quot;lean manufacturing&quot;'s idea of &quot;no unnecessary frills&quot; to serve as a translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since &lt;code&gt;精益生产&lt;/code&gt; is an established (more or less) translation for &quot;lean manufacturing&quot;, 精益 can be considered a noun and an abbreviation. But the above breakfown is where the root of the translation comes from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is different from the phrase &lt;code&gt;精益求精&lt;/code&gt;, where &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;精&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;&lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;em&gt;high quality&lt;/em&gt;&quot; and &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;益&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is an adverb meaning &quot;further more&quot;. That is, &quot;already &lt;em&gt;high quality&lt;/em&gt; but seeking &lt;strong&gt;further&lt;/strong&gt; improvements&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2015-05-22T07:43:28.437" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T07:43:28.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13586" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-22T10:14:16.693" Score="3" ViewCount="1781" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to learn the Chinese language using ChineseSkill for Android. There are some sections / steps within the lesson that ask me to translate the English sentence to Chinese, but I don't have a Chinese keyboard. When I input something so I can pass the step, it shows the expected answer and there it has shown how I should have typed the sentence in. For example &lt;code&gt;nǚ&lt;/code&gt; is typed in with &lt;code&gt;nv3&lt;/code&gt;. There is a Pinyin chart within the program but I couldn't figure out how to encode the symbol. I don't want to use websites or online tools because I don't want to leave the program as it also gives score based on time and it keeps running. Is there some sort of table or chart for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11030" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-08-22T18:24:52.840" LastActivityDate="2015-08-22T18:25:28.590" Title="How to type chinese using an English keyboard?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13574" CreationDate="2015-05-22T15:56:22.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;罪恶的快乐 or 带罪恶感的快乐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 罪恶的快乐 is used in this article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/15/0301/14/11843203_451727066.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.360doc.com/content/15/0301/14/11843203_451727066.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared to 罪恶的快感, I think 罪恶的快乐 is slightly less ambiguous. 带罪恶感的快乐 is not ambiguous but lengthy. In Chinese, shorter sentences are preferred. Some ambiguity can be resolved by context. A slight criticism is in Chinese, precision cannot be achieved without accepted gramatical tools (functional words).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;罪恶的快感 = the pleasure of being guilty (similar to 完美犯罪的快感，快乐杀人)&#xA;For example: &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.udn.com/godzillahome/20539898&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://blog.udn.com/godzillahome/20539898&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;罪恶的快乐 = the pleasure mixed with some guilty feeling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="4640" LastEditDate="2015-05-22T16:07:48.590" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T16:07:48.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13552" CreationDate="2015-05-22T16:19:34.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;should be 发展趋势的要求是不断向产业链的高端提升 rather than 发展趋势的要求是不断向产业链的高端&lt;del&gt;的&lt;/del&gt;提升&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;here 高端 is not adj, it's noun. Like@biubiubiu mentioned, it means &quot;Upper level(of chain)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T16:19:34.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13507" CreationDate="2015-05-22T16:44:07.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answer from @NS.X is good enough. But I think you may need a little more background :)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;These books are all online-novel, in China it's kind of industry, writers need to type 3000-5000 or more characters per day-so you can imagine the quality...&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;And their title, sometimes it's just simply add cool characters together(天,地,神,魔,龙,etc) or replace some characters from proverb. They dont have actual meaning in classic Chinese. So if you are trying to translate, better use their concept rather than literally meaning.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Hope this may help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T16:44:07.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13590" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13592" CreationDate="2015-05-22T18:03:54.953" Score="5" ViewCount="11217" Body="&lt;p&gt;If pandas are from China and in Chinese they are called 熊猫 (&quot;bear cat&quot;), where did the word &quot;panda,&quot; as seen in most western languages, come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-05-19T07:00:15.327" LastActivityDate="2020-12-06T20:42:33.000" Title="Where did the word &quot;panda&quot; come from?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13591" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-22T18:46:03.267" Score="0" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;please translate the text below&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他有见兔正给山羊来送白菜&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我自己种的。只有自己种，才有吃不完的菜。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;青菜萝卜吃个饱&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i have a little confusion in these sentences and about 自己 exact translation in second sentence &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the 个 in sentence 3 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11002" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-06-22T05:18:44.490" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T05:49:53.590" Title="simple translation of simple text and question about 个 and 自己" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13590" CreationDate="2015-05-22T20:51:47.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;a href=&quot;http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/Why-is-the-panda-called-so/articleshow/2225965.cms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; answers your question..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why is the panda called so?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The origin of the name panda is the Nepalese word 'nigalya ponya', which means 'eater of bamboo'. As used in the West, it was originally applied to the red panda, to which the giant panda was thought to be related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until its relation to the red panda was discovered in 1901, the giant panda was known as the mottled bear (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or partly-coloured bear. In Chinese, the giant panda is called the 'large bear cat'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;— Mayank Lavania, recd via e-mail&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI, below is the red panda. I didn't know until now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ToYLq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For people interested in the origin of 熊貓, check this &lt;a href=&quot;http://melances.pixnet.net/blog/post/161391068-%E6%98%AF%E7%86%8A%E8%B2%93%E9%82%84%E6%98%AF%E8%B2%93%E7%86%8A%EF%BC%9F%E5%88%86%E9%A1%9E%E7%9A%84%E6%AD%B7%E5%8F%B2%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog entry&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9722" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T05:27:34.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13444" CreationDate="2015-05-22T21:57:41.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, Yes. For your example, No.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;给 can work as verb(give) or preposition(for/by)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Example:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;他给了我帮助。(He give me some help)--your example 2.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;他给我买了些吃的。(He buys some food for me)--your example 1.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;他给狗咬了一口。(He is bitten by a dog)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;It looks confusing?&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;A 给 B something: A give B something. Verb(give)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;A 给 B do something. Preposition(for/by)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;1.If A is doing, it's &quot;for&quot;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;2.If B is doing, it's &quot;by&quot;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;替 also has 2 meanings: &quot;instead of&quot; and &quot;for&quot;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;It's highly depend on context.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;A过生日，我替A买了礼物。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;A is celebrating his birthday, I brought some gift for A&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;B过生日，A有事不能去，我替A买了礼物。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;B is celebrating his birthday, but A can't attend, I,instead of A, brought some gift.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Even for native speaker, it's hard to tell which meaning is used without context.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;为 is much simpler-&quot;for&quot;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;A过生日，我为A买了礼物。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;A is celebrating his birthday, I brought some gift for A&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;It's easy to understand your example 2 is using 给 as verb so the replacement is wrong.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;for example 2, 给 and 为 can be interchanged, but 替 will cause ambiguity.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;edit: like @Fortcpp mentioned&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;给 is more like &quot;to&quot;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;为 is more like &quot;for&quot;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;So there may be some different, slightly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastEditorUserId="9887" LastEditDate="2015-05-22T22:03:36.337" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T22:03:36.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13591" CreationDate="2015-05-22T23:11:00.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This old rabbit/goat story is an allusion to North Korean politics， right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1。他有见兔正给山羊来送白菜。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He saw the rabbit give the goat a cabbage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2。我自己种的。只有自己种，才有吃不完的菜。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I planted them myself. If you grow your own veggies then you will always have enough to eat.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit 2。 '我自己种的‘ could be written '这棵白菜是我自己种的‘，Chinese likes to shorten sentences. I'm not paranoid, I know they do it just to confuse poor me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我自己种 = I myself plant = I planted (them) myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自己 = self, myself, yourself, themselves, depending on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3。青菜萝卜吃个饱 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm full up with chop-choi and carrots. (this must be Kim Jong Un, the 胖子)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃个包 = eat a fill = eat until you are full&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-05-23T00:42:44.467" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T00:42:44.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13586" CreationDate="2015-05-22T23:43:36.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where are you? If you buy your phone in China, it will come with Chinese input! I use ibus IM on my laptop, it's good. There is probably a version for Android.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-08-22T18:25:28.590" LastActivityDate="2015-08-22T18:25:28.590" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13596" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-23T00:25:58.857" Score="0" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;工艺鞋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this refers to some kind of decorative shoes which are actually never worn, but I'm not sure. Why would you want to buy shoes you never wear?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T06:12:58.373" Title="Can someone please tell me what 工艺鞋 are？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13569" CreationDate="2015-05-23T03:56:55.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original text is 游览路线也依旧如故，未长未短。Here 长 and 短 are verbs. The tour routes are same as before, not (become) longer, not (become) shorter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think in grammatical analysis, there is no syntactic difference in Chinese verbs and adjectives (only semantic difference). You can think 未 as always modifying verbs, because all Chinese adjectives are grammatical verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T03:56:55.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13495" CreationDate="2015-05-23T04:12:21.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;牛 ＝ 牛B ＝ 牛B哄哄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not a good word, but widely used to represent &quot;good, awesome, terrific&quot; with some negative denotation sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gradually, the negative meaning has diminished. 牛 = fucking awesome, hot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T04:12:21.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13521" CreationDate="2015-05-23T04:14:36.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不过如此 ＝ not a big deal; it's just like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T04:14:36.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13600" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13602" CreationDate="2015-05-23T09:01:05.397" Score="5" ViewCount="1106" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the translingual section, Wiktionary mentions that the Chinese character &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%92%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;蒙&lt;/a&gt; has a variety of meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to cover&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ignorant&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;suffer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fourth hexagram of the I Ching&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mongolia - radical composition becomes 'grass(land) family'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a surname&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are meanings 2 (or any other meanings) and 5 considered related?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that meaning 5 having a radical composition of grassland family would suggest not, but I don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also once read in a discussion on so-called &quot;Mongolian beef&quot; someone &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/7184137-post14.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;claim&lt;/a&gt; (without any references) that in Chinese, &quot;Mongolian&quot; can mean stupid, or just used as a derogatory term:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;First no offense to anyone, esp. people from Mongolia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mongolian in Chinese can either mean  a. people from Mongolia b. not&#xA;  smart, retarded&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If someone is called a &quot;mongolian doctor&quot; it means that his medical&#xA;  practice is sub-par at best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I believe in the case of mongolian beef, it simply means untasty beef&#xA;  - in a twisted sense of chinese humor. Although as a Chinese, I find mongolian beef actually not &lt;em&gt;tasty&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, would I be correct in concluding any association between Mongolia and stupidity isn't because of Down Syndrome? The Chinese edition of Wikipedia has an &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%94%90%E6%B0%8F%E7%BB%BC%E5%90%88%E7%97%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article on Down Syndrome&lt;/a&gt;, and it mentions 「蒙古症」and「蒙古痴呆症」, but says that &quot;国际人&quot; is more common (though that doesn't sound particularly politically correct to me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T06:50:23.880" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T06:50:23.880" Title="Is the Chinese character &quot;蒙&quot; being associated with Mongolia and ignorance coincidence?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;swearing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13601" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-23T10:04:17.223" Score="1" ViewCount="530" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 特色, 特殊, and 特别？&#xA;Can you please show me some examples?&#xA;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:28:19.203" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:28:19.203" Title="Difference between 特色, 特殊, and 特别?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13600" CreationDate="2015-05-23T10:38:18.087" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;亚 means inferior, hence Asia is an inferior continent? No, it has to do with approximating sounds with characters, and of the six available for ”meng”, 蒙 was perhaps considered most appropriate, for the reason you hint (home of grassland). Note that it was the invading Mongol Yuan dynasty who created the Mongol empire from nomadic tribes such as Xianbei and Xiongnu, and the character is if not coined by the dynasty at least propagated and established by it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The association between Mongolia and Down’s syndrome has nothing to do with character, but is all about similarity in appearance. Chance had likely everything to do with choosing Mongolian features rather than any of the others in the region.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Mongolian doctor is a barefoot doctor, unskilled people who practiced basic medicine in the early People’s republic, not just in Mongolia but in all of China, althugh they were more common in the more undeveloped regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the same reason, people can use Mongolian as derogatory term, pointing to the more unsophisticated rural habits on the countryside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T10:38:18.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13603" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13605" CreationDate="2015-05-23T10:44:24.893" Score="1" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just out of curiosity, if your name consisted of words which exist in an English dictionary, would you translate it as you would those words?  Or would you translate it letter-by-letter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I used to work with someone called Lance Fox, would that be 矛狐狸?  I know a Matt Brown, would that be 亚光褐色? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11034" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T11:38:23.343" Title="How would you translate a name consisting of dictionary words?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13601" CreationDate="2015-05-23T10:48:57.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;特色 is foremost a noun, and can be used to describe a specialty of some sorts, often associated with a region: 龙井茶是杭州西湖的特色。Note that 特殊 is rarely used this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as most Chinese words, it can also take on other functions, such as: 西湖龙井茶的特色泡法。Here, 特殊 can also be used, as a stative verb or an adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国特色社会主义, or socialism with Chinese characteristics, is another example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;特别 is more of an adverb, as in 我喜欢音乐，特别是摇滚乐 or as in 我特别关注她的看法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T10:48:57.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13603" CreationDate="2015-05-23T10:56:01.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The norm is to make it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) similar in sound&#xA;b) follow Chinese naming conventions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and optionally also choose characters with a relevant or good meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But just as authors can choose pen names such as 矛盾 and 莫言, a westerner can pick a name by your criteria. 矛狐狸 is rather elegant in this perspective, but would be considered a nickname, since 矛 is not a family name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T10:56:01.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13603" CreationDate="2015-05-23T11:38:23.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The last name Fox is translated 福克斯 as in the Fox Channel. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lance is 兰斯 (like 兰斯‧阿姆斯特朗, the athlete)。So most likely, your name is translated as 兰斯‧福克斯。That's what happens if a news reporter would translate the name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are talking about choosing a Chinese name based on your original name, you can go by your taste or preference. To make it sound more like Chinese, you can pick a last name with 1 character, and a given name with 1 or 2 characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would think Fox is best translated to the surname 傅 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%82%85%E5%A7%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%82%85%E5%A7%93&lt;/a&gt;)，Lance，could be translated to 矛、枪、戈、戟 by meaning, or pick something close to the phonetic translation 兰斯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;傅兰斯 would be fairly good to me. If you want to go deeper into Chinese-fying it, you might consider 傅戈. Other combinations don't go very well (傅矛，傅枪，傅戟)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T11:38:23.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13610" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-23T14:09:37.967" Score="8" ViewCount="2073" Body="&lt;p&gt;What syllables rhyme in modern Mandarin, according to the native speakers? I'm looking for some rules or rhyme tables. I have found some, but I'm confused by the fact that 韵 may both mean &quot;rhyme&quot; and &quot;the final of a syllable&quot;, so I'm not sure how to find out which finals actually rhyme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. Does &quot;yan&quot; rhyme with &quot;huan&quot;? How about &quot;qi&quot; and &quot;ci&quot;? &quot;Hun&quot; and &quot;wen&quot;? That's the kind of questions I would like to answer. Note that I'm not asking whether their finals are pronounced the same, but rather whether native speakers of Mandarin consider them to rhyme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T08:49:55.907" Title="Rhyming in modern Mandarin" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13610" CreationDate="2015-05-23T14:57:24.100" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rhyme tables are called 押韵表, and they follow standard mandarin pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, qi and ji (di, ni, bi, xi, yi, li, mi) rhyme, but not qi and ri (zhi, chi, shi, ci).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yan rhymes with anything -an, and also -ian, -uan, -üan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorUserId="28" LastEditDate="2015-05-26T23:17:20.777" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T23:17:20.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13612" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-23T15:24:29.657" Score="0" ViewCount="453" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have &quot;commanding badge&quot;, but it doesn't sound too well. It there a specific name for the actual &quot;令牌&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: In the context of history/novels&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastEditorUserId="9376" LastEditDate="2015-05-23T17:42:28.433" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T03:01:28.753" Title="English equivalent of &quot;令牌&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13613" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-23T15:58:55.833" Score="1" ViewCount="995" Body="&lt;p&gt;之间 means between (no more than 2), so these are acceptable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我和他之间&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们之间 (between us two)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not acceptable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;学生们之间&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中间 means among (more than 2), so this is acceptable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;学生们之间&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this isn't:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我和他之间&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand the difference between 之间 and 中间，is the above right? Moreover are 中间 and 中 the same（我们中（间））？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-08-14T02:08:23.237" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T04:40:57.480" Title="What's the difference between 之间 and 中间?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13614" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-23T16:17:04.390" Score="1" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;They all seem to have the same meaning. What's the difference between them? Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:29:47.713" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:29:47.713" Title="What's the difference between 确实, 的确, and 实在?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-06-05T07:04:00.320" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13610" CreationDate="2015-05-23T17:17:39.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The easiest and quickest way is to look up the pinyin (the original character based pinyin which is called 注音符號, which is still in common use in Taiwan).  Words with the same 韻母 with the same tone are rhymes.  The difficulty comes in when pinyin transcribe 注音符號 in the Latin Alphabet. For example Wu and Yu are transcribe by two different 韻母 but both end in u in the Latin Alphabet.  Some words has only 聲母 but no 韻母, examples are ci, si, zi (they are rhymes if the tones are the same), the i are not the same i as in bi, di, ji, li, mi, ni, pi, qi, ti, yi, xi) which has the 韻母 i, in addition, they are not the same i as in chi, shi, zhi) which also has only 聲母 but no 韻母.&#xA;The second question concerns rhyme in modern Mandarin is harder to answer since pronunciation changes.  Mandarin is adapted mainly from the dialect in BeiJing in 1932 and retained as the standard in 1949.  PRC calls Mandarin PuTongHua and ROC calls Mandarin GuoYu.  If you compare the dictionaries there will be minor differences PuTongHua and GuoYu went on slightly different path since 1949. So the most recent dictionary will give the correct modern Mandarin pronunciation.&#xA;A dictionary I use is 新华字典 XinHua ZiDan, the 1990 edition ISBN 7-100-00042-4/H.16 (there are probably newer one in the market now).  I like this because it is organized by PinYin but also included 注音符號.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11036" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T17:17:39.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13612" CreationDate="2015-05-23T17:28:29.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some contexts, like Computer Science, it can mean 'token', e.g. 令牌环 is 'token ring'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T17:28:29.640" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13613" CreationDate="2015-05-23T18:50:09.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me，中间could also means between(no more than 2) while it could also mean Among if you are talking about more than 2 objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like 我和他中间 is perfectly fine to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 中间 seems to emphasize on &quot;right in the center between two objects&quot;.&#xA;while 之间 just says &quot;anywhere between two objets&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7012" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T18:50:09.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13614" CreationDate="2015-05-23T20:13:41.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the level are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的确很帅 = He is very handsome, indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他确实很帅 = He is very handsome, indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他实在是帅 = How handsome he is!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11037" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T20:13:41.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13620" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13621" CreationDate="2015-05-23T20:38:49.460" Score="3" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term 汉奸 probably only works for Han Chinese traitors, but what about other '汉's?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T06:06:04.080" Title="Can you apply 男子汉 and 女汉子 to non-Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13620" CreationDate="2015-05-23T21:07:54.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure, look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA9Dr7M2hlc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA9Dr7M2hlc&lt;/a&gt; for an example, Mongolian 乌兰托娅 singing about 汉子. While 汉 is the dominant ethnicity, in general it just means man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T21:07:54.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13622" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-23T21:45:18.243" Score="0" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;水善利萬物而不爭&lt;br&gt;&#xA;處衆人之所惡&lt;br&gt;&#xA;故幾於道。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;居善地&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hello, it's from the eighth chapter of Dao De Jing.&#xA;I have translated it to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;the highest good is like water&#xA;the good virtue of water serves all, but without fighting&#xA;it takes place (所) that all people hate&#xA;**the best place (residence) - the earth (the lowest place)**&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you correct me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zbigniew&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9780" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-05-24T06:19:51.683" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T12:44:19.067" Title="Earth is a good place?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13612" CreationDate="2015-05-24T00:35:30.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This '令牌敲响‘ is confusing. Possibly, the author was thinking of, or referring to a metal plate similar to a cymbal, maybe hanging on a string, which could be hit with a stick to produce a sound. The old guy hit it to drive out the demons. Sure would drive me crazy! 'Out out damn spot!'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate '令牌‘ as 'badge of authority', or maybe here 'cymbal of authority'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T00:35:30.157" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13620" CreationDate="2015-05-24T00:36:06.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can you apply 男子汉 and 女汉子 to non-Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally the 汉 in those words mean 'man of Han dynasty', however, today that connotation is completely gone. You can apply these words on people with any nationality or ethnicity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T00:36:06.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13612" CreationDate="2015-05-24T03:40:34.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if an equivalent existed in western military history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A general would issue a 令牌 when a subordinate needs to act with the general's authority. For example, you'd need a 令牌 from a city's garrison commander to have the gates opened for you at night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ESevG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11039" LastEditorUserId="11039" LastEditDate="2015-05-24T14:48:13.700" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T14:48:13.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13622" CreationDate="2015-05-24T04:30:41.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your text is missing some punctuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上善若水。水善利万物而不争，处众人之所恶，故几于道。&lt;strong&gt;居，善地&lt;/strong&gt;；心，善渊；与，善仁；言，善信；政，善治；事，善能；动，善时。夫唯不争，故无尤。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation of the explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; The highest virtue is like water. Water benefits all while not competing, situating itself where others loath to go (low, wet areas), thus it is close to the ideal. One's home should be wisely located; one's emotions and thoughts should be calm and deep; toward others one should be kind and faithful; speech should be trustworthy; one should be diligent in performing the duties of a political office; when undertaking tasks one should make full use of assets and abilities; one should know how to seize an opportunity and take action. Only by not competing with others, can one avoid grudges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.daodejing.org/8.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.daodejing.org/8.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;第八章  [原文]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上善若水①。水善利万物而不争，处众人之所恶②，故几于道③。居，善地；心，善渊④；与，善仁⑤；言，善信；政，善治⑥；事，善能；动，善时⑦。夫唯不争，故无尤⑧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[译文]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最善的人好像水一样。水善于滋润万物而不与万物相争，停留在众人都不喜欢的地方，所以最接近于“道”。最善的人，居处最善于选择地方，心胸善于保持沉静而深不可测，待人善于真诚、友爱和无私，说话善于格守信用，为政善于精简处理，能把国家治理好，处事能够善于发挥所长，行动善于把握时机。最善的人所作所为正因为有不争的美德，所以没有过失，也就没有怨咎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[注释]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;①上善若水：上，最的意思。上善即最善。这里老子以水的形象来说明&quot;圣人&quot;是道的体现者，因为圣人的言行有类于水，而水德是近于道的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;②处众人之所恶：即居处于众人所不愿去的地方。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;③几于道：几，接近。即接近于道。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;④渊：沉静、深沉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;⑤与，善仁：与，指与别人相交相接。善仁，指有修养之人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;⑥政，善治：为政善于治理国家，从而取得治绩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;⑦动，善时：行为动作善于把握有利的时机。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;⑧尤：怨咎、过失、罪过。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[引语]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在上一章以天地之道推及人道之后，这一章又以自然界的水来喻人、教人。老子首先用水性来比喻有高尚品德者的人格，认为他们的品格像水那样，一是柔，二是停留在卑下的地方，三是滋润万物而不与争。最完善的人格也应该具有这种心态与行为，不但做有利于众人的事情而不与争，而且还愿意去众人不愿去的卑下的地方，愿意做别人不愿做的事情。他可以忍辱负重，任劳任怨，能尽其所能地贡献自己的力量去帮助别人，而不会与别人争功争名争利，这就是老子“善利万物而不争”的著名思想。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[评析]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老子在自然界万事万物中最赞美水，认为水德是近于道的。而理想中的&quot;圣人&quot;是道的体现者，因为他的言行有类于水。为什么说水德近于道呢？王夫之解释说：&quot;五行之体，水为最微。善居道者，为其微，不为其著；处众之后，而常德众之先。&quot;以不争争，以无私私，这就是水的最显著特性。水滋润万物而无取于万物，而且甘心停留在最低洼、最潮湿的地方。在此后的七个并列排比句中，都具有关水德的写状，同时也是介绍善之人所应具备的品格。老子并列举出七个&quot;善&quot;字，都是受到水的启发。最后的结论是：为人处世的要旨，即为&quot;不争&quot;。也就是说，宁处别人之所恶也不去与人争利，所以别人也没有什么怨尤。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《荀子·宥坐》记载了孔子答第子子贡问水的一段对话：&quot;孔子观于东流之水。子贡问于孔子曰：君子之所以见大水必观焉者，是何？孔子曰：夫水，偏与诸生而无为也，似德。其流也埤下，裾拘必循其理，似义。其洮洮乎不屈尽，似道。若有决行之，其应佚若声响，其赴而仞之谷不惧，似勇。主量必平，似法，盈不求概，似正。淖约微达，似察。以出以入，以就鲜洁，似善化。其万折也必东，似志。是故君子见大水必观焉。&quot;在此处，孔子以水描述了他理想中的具备崇高人格的君子形象，这里涉及到德、义、道、勇、法、正、察、志以及善化等道德范畴。这其中的观点与道家有显而易见的区别，但也有某些相似之处。可以此段引文与《道德经》第八章参照阅读。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11039" LastEditorUserId="11039" LastEditDate="2015-05-24T05:07:37.917" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T05:07:37.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13596" CreationDate="2015-05-24T06:12:58.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, to be frank, I am afraid you can not find this &quot;工艺鞋&quot; directly in Chinese dictionaries, so you can take this word as a definition which is not very clearly defined. I have searched on line I can show you several pics, they are all called &quot;工艺鞋&quot;. However, as you can see, slippers, sandal, boots.... and from manmade to machine made.....  so you can imagine &quot;工艺鞋&quot; basically they are 'shoes'. If you wanna define it more precisely, they are  artistic temperamental shoes. I hope this can help you. I am not an English native speaker, but I tried my best. cheers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1iK4Y.png&quot; alt=&quot;工艺鞋01&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bBT0d.png&quot; alt=&quot;工艺鞋02&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Eott5.png&quot; alt=&quot;工艺鞋03&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4urWC.png&quot; alt=&quot;工艺鞋04&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F5pKq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;工艺鞋05&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cmTM1.png&quot; alt=&quot;工艺鞋06&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hS2OW.png&quot; alt=&quot;工艺鞋07&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2If01.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;工艺鞋08&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11040" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T06:12:58.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13614" CreationDate="2015-05-24T06:34:59.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;确实&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) adj. correct and true; &quot;确(correct; exact)&quot; + &quot;实(true; real)&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) adv. correctly and truely.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;的确&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) adj. = 确实; no doubltable.&#xA;2) adv. indeed&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;实在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) adj. honest; dependable&#xA;2) adj. truely existed&#xA;3) adv. in fact, really and truely&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11040" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T06:34:59.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13586" CreationDate="2015-05-24T07:02:32.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;try to use &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Pdbl10NONMOFN1S2hLcGc5cTQ/view?usp=sharing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sougou pinyin for Windows(exe)&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for Linux use &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Pdbl10NONMMlpCdHJCRWhLQnM/view?usp=sharing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sougou pinyin for 32bit Linux(deb)&lt;/a&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Pdbl10NONMWU1razJYU2FvZE0/view?usp=sharing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sougou pinyin for 64bit Linux(deb)&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Pdbl10NONMY3M3dTUzRVM1eFU/view?usp=sharing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sougou pinyin for Mac OS(dmg)&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Pdbl10NONMaDhsMWllQUNHSWc/view?usp=sharing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sougou pinyin for Android (apk)&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11040" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T07:02:32.150" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13612" CreationDate="2015-05-24T10:22:52.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, it seems to be more of an amulet of sorts used by Daoists in rituals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you might try something like 'mystical/magical pendant/amulet'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T10:22:52.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13613" CreationDate="2015-05-24T12:06:15.347" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there's a couple more important distinctions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中间 is used for when talking about the &lt;strong&gt;physical&lt;/strong&gt; location being in the center/between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ie. You would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;箱子的&lt;strong&gt;中间&lt;/strong&gt;有个人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之间 is used when &lt;strong&gt;abstract&lt;/strong&gt; things are in the center/between. This applies to things like numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ie. You would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们之间没有爱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a specific example of how the two words have a different meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们中间有障碍。 : There are (physical) obstacles between us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们之间有障碍。 : There are (mental) obstacles between us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T12:06:15.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13634" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-24T12:32:09.783" Score="6" ViewCount="2163" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 只 and 才?  When should I use 只 and when 才?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you give me some examples please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T14:06:07.253" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T14:06:07.253" Title="What's the difference between 只 and 才？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13622" CreationDate="2015-05-24T12:44:19.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;居善地，心善淵，與善仁，言善信，正善治，事善能，動善時。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;河上公注：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;居善地： 水性善喜於地，草木之上，即流而下，有似於牝動而下人也。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;心善淵： 水深空虛，淵深清明。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;與善仁： 萬物得水以生，與虛不與盈也。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;言善信： 水內影照形，不失其情也。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;正善治： 無有不洗，清且平也。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;事善能： 能方能圓，曲直隨形。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;動善時： 夏散冬凝，應期而動，不失天時。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer the explanation given by &quot;河上公&quot;.  &quot;居善地&quot; is to nourish the place it stays/lives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T12:44:19.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13620" CreationDate="2015-05-24T13:36:57.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;汉 has different meanings in these phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 汉奸，汉 stands for the ethnicity (or probably the nationality), but in 男子汉 and 女汉子，汉 or 汉子 means masculinity.  I am not sure of the relation between these two meanings, but they are surely different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6697" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T13:36:57.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13620" CreationDate="2015-05-24T14:17:44.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;男子汉 means a manly guy, a strong man, or a courageous fighter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammar doesn't seem natural in Chinese. It actually originated in a foreign language and borrowed to Chinese. Here is some text about its origin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;据考证称呼成年男子为男子汉起源于汉武帝时代，众所周知自汉高祖刘邦白登被围后，西汉政权对北主的匈奴一直采取的和亲战略，因此匈奴人对汉人十分瞧不起，到武帝时期经过前几代皇帝的休养生息，西汉国力强盛，士卒训练有素，在汉武帝的命令下，西汉军队在卫青、霍去病两位将军的带领下，与北方的匈奴展开了激烈的战争，经过数次大战终于打败了强大的匈奴，当时的汉朝军队士兵战斗力强悍，在对战中经常以一敌二或敌三，死战不退，一扫有汉以来匈奴人对汉人的蔑视态度，因此从那时起匈奴人对汉朝士兵的称呼即为“汉儿”、“男儿汉”，此称呼后来传回中原，风靡一时，后来人们逐渐对成年男子即用男子汉称呼。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be used for people of any ethnicity in China (not just 汉族，but also 满族、蒙古族, etc). So foreigners can also use the word without any problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T14:17:44.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13640" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-24T15:05:10.803" Score="1" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我真佩服&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that &quot;佩服&quot; means admiration/respect, but would there be any direct word for &quot;佩服&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given &quot;我真佩服&quot;, I understand that it could be something like &quot;I have a lot of admiration&quot;, but more or less, it sounds a bit off. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also know that there may not be any direct English translation, but would there be any word better than &quot;admiration&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T18:28:39.077" Title="Any direct English equivalent for &quot;佩服&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12758" CreationDate="2015-05-24T15:39:19.547" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;早已 is more formal and is mostly used in written. &#xA;Sometimes we may also use the phrase 早就已经, which is pretty much like the combination of 早已 and 早就.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11045" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T15:39:19.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13640" CreationDate="2015-05-24T16:21:54.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a verb, so &quot;admire&quot; is spot on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T16:21:54.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13399" CreationDate="2015-05-24T17:44:31.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tzu的回答不是很准确，现代汉语中经常把意思相近的字组合一起作为一个词语，表达近似的意思，属于词法中的“联合结构”。古代汉语中“觉”和“察”是有区别的，但以此来解释现代汉语是不妥当的，事实上，这两个词是同义词，基本可以通用。&#xA;我是一个汉语言文学专业的中国人，不小心来到这里，大家关照。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11047" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T17:44:31.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13333" CreationDate="2015-05-24T17:53:56.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;其实很复杂，这里的“声”表达了降价的趋势、动作，甚至关于汽车降价的新闻和舆论的复合意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11047" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T17:53:56.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13333" CreationDate="2015-05-24T18:26:58.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you know what this sentence as a whole is talking about? 近2/3的进口车也大幅降价-- nearly 2/3 of imported cars are getting price drops&#xA;;而2004年、2005年和2006年---this is fairly obvious, just those 3 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 声，usually associated with voices and sound, would reasonably be &quot;the CALL(声） for price drop for car market&quot;, or &quot;the rumor/voice of price drop ...&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11048" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T18:26:58.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13646" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13647" CreationDate="2015-05-24T19:35:21.453" Score="4" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only things I found about it is its vietnamese reading &quot;khuôn&quot; and that it is used in  (meaning &quot;face&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DQVQU.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9351" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-05-24T19:59:47.373" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T07:41:11.417" Title="Does anyone know the meaning of this character ()?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13646" CreationDate="2015-05-24T20:21:35.327" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Nom Foundation has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nomfoundation.org/nom-tools/Nom-Dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lookup tool&lt;/a&gt; that might give a clue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f8gCi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I don't understand which entry belongs to which character, or what the relationship among the characters is (Han Nom was less standardized than Chinese Hanzi, so some of the 4 shown here might even be distinct variants), my best guess based on the expressions is &lt;code&gt;'mold/mould'&lt;/code&gt; as in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molding_%28process%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;molding/moulding&lt;/a&gt; (or the derived meanings like 'shape/pattern'). The 木 radical might also support the meaning, since molds tended be made from wood in earlier times (additionally, the Mandarin Chinese equivalent for mold/mould is also based on the 木 radical: 模 [mó/mú]).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: If the two-character expression used in your description is transliterated as 'khuôn mặt' (literally &quot;face shape&quot;), I guess the character in the title means 'shape'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-05-26T07:41:11.417" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T07:41:11.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13640" CreationDate="2015-05-24T22:48:27.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about these words from a thesaurus?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我真的佩服他。 I really adore/glorify/idolize/venerate/worship/esteem him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T22:48:27.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13640" CreationDate="2015-05-24T23:28:46.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;appreciate&quot; should be the right word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say the first meaning, &quot;to be grateful or thankful for&quot;, of the word is not related. But 2nd and 4th meanings are good matches. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/appreciate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/appreciate&lt;/a&gt; for the meanings that I mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if one can apply it to somebody. Correct me if I were wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastEditorUserId="9737" LastEditDate="2015-05-24T23:34:26.197" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T23:34:26.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13654" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-25T10:38:04.290" Score="6" ViewCount="4521" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;生命诚可贵 爱情价更高 若为自由故 二者皆可抛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it means &quot;life is expensive, but love is even more so.  However, both are not as good as freedom.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T00:00:46.380" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T00:00:46.380" Title="What does 生命诚可贵 爱情价更高 若为自由故 二者皆可抛 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13654" CreationDate="2015-05-25T11:02:27.060" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a little different from yours at the latter half of the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Life is dear, love is dearer. Both can be given up for freedom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the poem written in 1847 by the Hungarian poet &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1ndor_Pet%C5%91fi#Poetry&quot;&gt;Sándor Petőfi&lt;/a&gt;. Here is the original:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Szabadság, szerelem!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  E kettő kell nekem.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Szerelmemért föláldozom&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Az életet, Szabadságért föláldozom Szerelmemet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the translation by &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/41436.htm&quot;&gt;殷夫&lt;/a&gt; in 1929, which adopted Chinese classic five-character poem style, but not totally faithful to the original text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;生命诚可贵，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  爱情价更高。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  若为自由故，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  二者皆可抛。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another translation by &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/575815/10240576.htm&quot;&gt;孙用&lt;/a&gt; in 1957:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自由，爱情！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我要的就是这两样。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  为了爱情，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我牺牲我的生命；&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  为了自由，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我又将爱情牺牲。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another translation by &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1044858.htm&quot;&gt;兴万生&lt;/a&gt; in 1991:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自由与爱情！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我都为之倾心。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  为了爱情，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我宁愿牺牲生命，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  为了自由，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我宁愿牺牲爱情。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Liberty and love&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  These two I must have&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  For love, I will sacrifice my life&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  For liberty, I will sacrifice my love  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-05-26T02:31:50.233" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T02:31:50.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13613" CreationDate="2015-05-25T11:16:29.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree Ringil's answer, and I wanna add some inner meaning.&#xA;try to feel following sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们中间有奸细。 : There is a spy among us(/There are spies among us). (but not me.....)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们中间有坏人。 : There is a jerk among us(/There are bad guys among us). (but not me......)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们之间有障碍。 : There are (mental) obstacles between us.(You and me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们之间没有爱。 : There is no love between us.(You and me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朋友之间要互相帮助。: One must help your friends when he's facing some difficulties.(I agree, and I will do this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so when you are trying to express some information that you will emotionally and subjectively agree with, we often use &quot;之间&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when you are trying to express some truely existed, objective and you strongly confirmed (after inferentially considering), we may use &quot;中间&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to feel the atmosphere when you are talking, if you wanna be closer to the person you are talking with, use &quot;    &quot; which one? if you can answer it, I think you may understand what I want to explain..&#xA;Hope it will help you...cheers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11040" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T11:16:29.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13048" CreationDate="2015-05-25T11:48:54.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not show some pics?&#xA;What I have shown following they all called 御姐/御姉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have such kinds of characteristics( for my opinion ):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Weekdays/Working day, they take official uniforms, always in black color.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make up obviously, slightly smokey eyes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deadly hot when they wearing pajamas, their bodies must be sexually perfect.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In animation/cartoon/manga, they are always very cool, cannot be getting closed, with good kongfu or killing skills as well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yMgXz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;01&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NIzUq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;02&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KZO0D.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;03&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UmqOF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;04&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fyZHV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;05&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/odO6P.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;06&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VPPgW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;07&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11040" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T11:48:54.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13646" CreationDate="2015-05-25T12:03:28.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is Vietnamese-only CJKV Characters, it is created by Vietnam. Meaning is :&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/khu%C3%B4n&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;shape, pattern, mold&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11040" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T12:03:28.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13661" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-25T14:14:38.167" Score="-2" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;参与联合国教科文预算管理委员会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Google translate said &quot;UNESCO participation in the budget management committee.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T14:36:16.433" Title="How accurate is this Google translate?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13661" CreationDate="2015-05-25T14:36:16.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the original Chinese sentence, &lt;code&gt;联合国教科文预算管理委员会&lt;/code&gt; is an whole, which refers to the &lt;code&gt;budget management committee of UNESCO&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And one more mistake, Google translate &lt;code&gt;参与&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;participation&lt;/code&gt; ,which is of noun form. Actually, here in the Chinese sentence, &lt;code&gt;参与&lt;/code&gt; is a verb, and the object is the committee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user9817" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T14:36:16.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13654" CreationDate="2015-05-25T22:28:14.667" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is that really an old Chinese saying?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生命诚可贵 爱情价更高 若为自由故 二者皆可抛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Life is precious, love's worth more, but for freedom both would I abandon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sounds like someone who wants to be a very lonely old man! Although, maybe its not from someone who wants a divorce, but a soldier before the battle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-05-25T23:04:35.727" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T23:04:35.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13664" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-25T23:05:04.240" Score="5" ViewCount="2075" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an intermediate grasp of mandarin and would like a Chinese-Chinese dictionary.  One where I input Chinese characters and it returns me a Chinese definition.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I am using GoldenDict and have tried to find one like it with no luck.  All I find is other language-Chinese or Chinese-other language dictionaries.&#xA;Thanks in advance!.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11053" LastActivityDate="2016-11-12T23:06:40.827" Title="GoldenDict Chinese-Chinese Dictionary?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="4" ClosedDate="2016-11-13T16:05:49.397" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13640" CreationDate="2015-05-25T23:24:39.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, &quot;佩服&quot; is showing one person respects somebody or worship somebody. It is a humble expression while is not equal to &quot;admire&quot;. Well, you know it is Chinese instead of English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11054" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T23:24:39.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13666" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-25T23:26:16.397" Score="3" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do they mean by '铅笔附件‘ and '配套件‘？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'铅笔附件‘ maybe: the box that the pencils come in? Or the lead in the pencil, in case it contains harmful chemicals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宁波检验检疫人员提醒文具出口企业，要重视铅笔附件和配套件的安全性能。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T23:18:54.860" Title="What is the meaning of 附件 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13666" CreationDate="2015-05-25T23:36:21.863" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It just means that some widgets or accessories for pencil. &quot;附近&quot; and &quot;配套件&quot; make a general reference. More time they won't be indicate what certain things they are. So don't think too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11054" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T23:36:21.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6802" CreationDate="2015-05-26T01:39:36.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think the above rule is accurate. 您 is a singular pronoun. 这 and 那 are also pronouns. They cannot be attached &quot;们&quot; to indicate plural forms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T01:39:36.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13654" CreationDate="2015-05-26T02:21:28.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a poem which is translated by 殷夫 from Petogfi's &quot;freedom and love&quot;.&#xA;The English version is here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Freedom and love&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These two I must have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For love, I will&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;sacrifice my life;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For liberty, I will&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;sacrifice my love&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11049" LastEditorUserId="1042" LastEditDate="2015-05-26T04:31:39.080" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T04:31:39.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13673" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-26T03:21:24.783" Score="2" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;Specifically regarding its use to mean someone who is 'bent'? Someone who likes someone of the same-sex or is at least suspected of it? Does it include bisexuality? Is it polite or rude, subtle or overt? And when did you first start seeing this word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11057" LastEditorUserId="11057" LastEditDate="2015-05-26T03:45:04.310" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T02:37:01.450" Title="How would you describe the meaning of 弯 wan1?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13673" CreationDate="2015-05-26T03:28:17.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's referring to homosexual recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends on the context. The word itself doesn't contain any offensive information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T03:28:17.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13620" CreationDate="2015-05-26T06:06:04.080" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;男子汉 means a man whose body or inspire is strong and who has no fear to face the difficulties.But the word&quot;女汉子&quot; means different.First of all, it is a word about the girl,and second, it means the girl acts like a man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11058" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T06:06:04.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13676" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13684" CreationDate="2015-05-26T08:23:53.417" Score="3" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;浜 (&lt;strong&gt;bīn&lt;/strong&gt;) seems to be a very common character in the names of pandas. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爱浜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;良浜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;樱浜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;桃浜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;梅浜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;永浜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雄浜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just to name a few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why Is 浜 (&lt;strong&gt;bīn&lt;/strong&gt;) Used So Much In Panda Names?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-02-29T22:14:28.820" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T22:14:28.820" Title="Why Is 浜 (bīn) Used So Much In Panda Names?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13673" CreationDate="2015-05-26T09:56:52.280" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the context, like CEO of Apple Cook admit he is bent in public media, may just state one truth, The word itself doesn't contain nay offensive information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but if you are angry, and quarrel with someone, then you said the person is bent, then the guy will become crazy, it's really hurt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6175" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T09:56:52.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13666" CreationDate="2015-05-26T10:00:10.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you buy the hand phone, so the 附件 include, charger, earphone, these things called 附件.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6175" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T10:00:10.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13680" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13681" CreationDate="2015-05-26T20:07:04.947" Score="9" ViewCount="533" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently bought an old manual of how 詞 (classical lyric) are supposed to be &quot;filled&quot;.  The pages look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eikK0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;欽定詞譜&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Naturally am curious about the meaning of the circle symbols next to each characters and suspect they are related to classical &quot;平／仄&quot; phonology.  Indeed ◯ seems associated exclusively with 平声 and ● appears to refer to anything &lt;em&gt;but&lt;/em&gt; 平声: specifically 去／入／上声.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I am baffled about the significance of ◒ and ◓.  Analysis of some 菩薩蠻 lyrics indicates that the half-symbols, intuitively enough, mean that either 平/not-平 is allowable in that position in the lyric. For example, the first line of such a lyric has the pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◒◯◓●◯◯●,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the following are legal tonal groups (based on a pull of some 词 and conversion of the lyrics to classically defined tonal categories):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平平入入平平入&#xA;or&#xA;去平平去平平去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case what is the difference between ◒ and ◓?  Since baidu-ing &quot;circle things AND classical poetry&quot; has not proven fruitful, so thought I would ask for help here.  What are those &quot;circle things&quot; even called, properly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T21:57:56.740" Title="What do the Symbols ◒ and ◓ Signify In Old Chinese Poetry Books?" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13680" CreationDate="2015-05-26T21:57:56.740" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems to be &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B8%85%E6%BF%81%E9%9F%B3#.E6.BC.A2.E8.97.8F.E8.AA.9E.E7.B3.BB&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;清浊音&lt;/a&gt;, with ◒、◓ representing 次清、次浊. There are no tones in old Chinese, so it can't be 平／仄, but the way the tones emerged can well be heavily related to the voice of the consonant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T21:57:56.740" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13614" CreationDate="2015-05-27T02:47:55.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;实在 can also mean 'realistic' in the sense of a person being down to earth and practical.  A sentence like 那姑娘好实在，对男人的要求就是有车有房。is also possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11064" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T02:47:55.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13612" CreationDate="2015-05-27T03:01:28.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd translate it as insignia, or token of command.  The modern use of a 令牌 is in one time passwords as a translation for &quot;security/autentication token.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11064" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T03:01:28.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13676" CreationDate="2015-05-27T05:58:45.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are not so popular in China. However, a lot of pandas are born in Japan, where they are named with the character 浜. It's probably due to the name of the Shirahama zoo (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.aws-s.com/en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Adventure World&lt;/a&gt;, 白浜野生动物园, アドベンチャーワールド) where they are born.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="17462" LastEditDate="2020-02-29T12:44:50.333" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T12:44:50.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13664" CreationDate="2015-05-27T06:02:32.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can access many authoritative dictionaries here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新华字典，康熙字典，说文解字，书法字典，词语字典，成语词典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tool.httpcn.com/Zi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://tool.httpcn.com/Zi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For beginners, you may find this one useful and easy to understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zd.chinesehelper.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zd.chinesehelper.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also want to mention some online dictionaries from Taiwan, which I used before those from mainland China are available online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spps.tp.edu.tw/dict.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.spps.tp.edu.tw/dict.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="4692" LastEditDate="2015-05-27T16:20:35.490" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T16:20:35.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13610" CreationDate="2015-05-27T06:18:15.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I don't think yan and huan rhyme, but yan and xuan do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think their endings can be written in IPA as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yan - ɛn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;huan - ɑn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xuan - ɛn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only the last vowel and following coda count as 韵, the [u] in huan and the [ɥ] in xuan don't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T06:18:15.600" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13687" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-27T08:43:39.893" Score="2" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;To say something or someone is the best or most we use 最, but how about second, third, fourth best/most etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He's the second most expensive player in football history.&#xA;He kept the third most clean sheets in the Premier League this season.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What structure should be used to express these ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11065" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T05:41:46.260" Title="How do you 'second best'?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13687" CreationDate="2015-05-27T08:47:25.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Second: 第二[名]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third: 第三[名]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for second sometimes you will see 次 or 亚 like: 次好、次优、亚军&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T08:47:25.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13664" CreationDate="2015-05-27T08:56:58.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vdisk.weibo.com/s/B_bStAhCUdVo-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;高级汉语大词典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The file name says that it is a &lt;em&gt;stardict&lt;/em&gt; but it's compatible with GoldenDict.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not very comprehensive but the entries are rather extensive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;劣&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;liè&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;〈动〉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;认为不好 [have a low opinion of; think lowly of] 以为不及 [inferior]&#xA;  成以其小,劣之。――《聊斋志异·促织》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2)&#xA;  劣下(低能;低下);劣弟(在平辈或朋友间表示自谦的称呼);劣丈(在世交中,长辈对晚辈表示自谦的称呼)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(3)&#xA;  顽皮;乖巧 [naughty]。如:劣相(乖僻);劣角(乖劣,顽皮);劣缺(乖戾,狠毒,顽劣)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(4)&#xA;  强;美 [strong;fine]&#xA;  论着雄心力劣牙爪,今日也合消,也合消封妻荫子,禄重官高。――元·尚仲贤《三夺槊》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(5)&#xA;  暴烈,不驯服 [viollent]。如:劣性(暴烈性格);劣彆(倔强;固执)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;liè&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;〈形〉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1)&#xA;  (会意。从力,从少。这是合并两个字的意思而构成的会意字。本义:弱;小)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2)&#xA;  同本义 [weak;small]&#xA;  劣,弱也。――《说文》&#xA;  寿命长短,骨体强劣,各有人焉。――曹植《辩道论》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(3)&#xA;  又如:劣马(瘦弱的马;又指烈性马);劣弱(衰弱;懦弱)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(4)&#xA;  少,不足 [few]&#xA;  夫德劣故用兵,犯法故施刑。――《论衡》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(5)&#xA;  不好;低劣,与“优”相对 [bad; evil]&#xA;  优劣异名。――《论衡·气寿》&#xA;  必能使行阵和睦,优劣得所。――诸葛亮《出师表》&#xA;  羸牛劣马。――《齐民要术·养牛马》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(6)&#xA;  又如:劣性(恶劣的品性);劣缺(不好,恶劣);劣衿(品行恶劣的生员)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T08:56:58.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5731" CreationDate="2015-05-27T10:35:47.833" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Old post, but those answers make the language hobbyist in me cry, so... &#xA;Are you willing to pay for the privilege? If you are, I recommend Complete Cantonese from Teach Yourself, Basic Cantonese from Routledge, Colloquial Cantonese, and if you want something fun to start with then the Berlitz Cantonese phrasebook with CD. And a heads up, you want something fun to start with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basic and Colloquial don't have Chinese characters but the Berlitz phrasebook does, Teach Yourself can escalate a tad too quickly for my taste but it's pretty comprehensive, so between them there's enough overlap and different strengths to give you a reasonable course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Berlitz into Basic into Colloquial into Teach Yourself would be the easiest order in my opinion, though Berlitz into TY could work. I started with TY and wouldn't recommend it unless you felt like a challenge, though you'll likely progress a little slower even if you do. Each chapter introduces vocabulary, the next chapter uses it, and they stop translating into English after a few chapters; hence why the other books go first. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also go Berlitz into Basic/TY, or Berlitz into Basic, into Colloquial/TY, as using TY along with Colloquial would be much nicer and you'll have a reasonable foundation to build on. It will still be challenging, just not 'lead weights strapped to the ankles while swimming over the Mariana Trench' challenging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You obviously don't need to buy them all at once, so it shouldn't cost too much in money up front. Just time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11067" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T10:35:47.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13610" CreationDate="2015-05-27T14:11:15.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This should be sufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Finals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Finals&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't really need to learn 注音, &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt; matches &quot;real&quot; pronunciation quite well. The only changes for convenience are the merging of three different &lt;strong&gt;i&lt;/strong&gt; sounds (jqx-zcs-zhchsh), that any word with pinyin &quot;w--&quot; is really the equivalent &quot;u--&quot; sound without an initial, and that any word with pinyin &quot;y--&quot; (but not yu, which a distinct initial) is really the equivalent &quot;i--&quot; sound without an initial. Then several finals are shortened under pinyin when they do have an initial: iou(you) is shortened to &lt;strong&gt;iu&lt;/strong&gt;, uen(wen) is shortened to &lt;strong&gt;un&lt;/strong&gt;, uei(wei) is shortened to &lt;strong&gt;ui&lt;/strong&gt;. Therefore: &lt;strong&gt;[]iu&lt;/strong&gt; in fact rhymes with &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;[]un&lt;/strong&gt; rhymes with &lt;strong&gt;wen&lt;/strong&gt;, and &lt;strong&gt;[]ui&lt;/strong&gt; rhymes with &lt;strong&gt;wei&lt;/strong&gt;. Finally, &lt;strong&gt;[]uo&lt;/strong&gt; is equivalent to &lt;strong&gt;[]o&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastEditorUserId="620" LastEditDate="2015-05-29T08:49:55.907" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T08:49:55.907" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5731" CreationDate="2015-05-27T15:08:44.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Make friends with Cantonese and talk with them every day. It is a direct and effective way. Speaking Cantonese need to think in Cantonese instead of Mandarin. Mandarin can't make you understand Cantonese at all. Cantonese evolved from ancient Chinese but Mandarin was influenced by Tungus deeply. Though them use the same Chinese characters but their pronunciation are different at all. I think Mandarin even is not Cantonese's cousin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11054" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T23:13:34.897" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T23:13:34.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13687" CreationDate="2015-05-27T19:07:27.820" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ignore the translation for &quot;Most/Best&quot; if it's not the top one&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;He's the most expensive player in football history&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;他是足球历史上最贵的选手&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;He's the second most expensive player in football history&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;他是足球历史上第二贵的选手&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;He's the third most expensive player in football history&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;他是足球历史上第三贵的选手&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;You can find it's using &quot;第二贵&quot; instead of &quot;第二最贵&quot;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;In Chinese when talking about &quot;最&quot; it usually referring only the top ONE. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastEditorUserId="9887" LastEditDate="2015-05-28T13:59:08.437" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T13:59:08.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2537" CreationDate="2015-05-27T19:14:28.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grammar is explained by @BertR very well, but your question has an error...&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;It's 君命 not 军命.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;君命 means order from Emperor.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;军命 means military order.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T19:14:28.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13614" CreationDate="2015-05-27T22:14:57.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你确實帥 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= 你實在帥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= 你的確帥 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= you really handsome &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= you are handsome &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= you actually handsome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No big difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I come from China, trust me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T22:14:57.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6802" CreationDate="2015-05-27T22:41:29.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我每天和我的同学&lt;strong&gt;们&lt;/strong&gt;一起写作业。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有很多要好的同学。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【們】Means &quot;s&quot; in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Delete &quot;們&quot; is fine:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我每天和我的同学一起写作业。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我每天和我的同学們一起写作业。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11069" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T22:41:29.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13444" CreationDate="2015-05-27T22:51:52.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;他十分坦率地给我讲了他的故事. Okay&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他十分坦率地替我讲了他的故事. Okay&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他十分坦率地為我讲了他的故事. Okay&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很不情愿地给了我帮助.okay&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很不情愿地為了我帮助。wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很不情愿地替了我帮助。wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when u are wondering 給 or 替 or 為, &#xA;Choosing 給。&#xA;I come from China.Trust me:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11069" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T22:51:52.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13676" CreationDate="2015-05-27T23:11:44.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This 浜 is not a Chinese character. It is a Japanese character. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An'an, Jiajia，Tuantuan, Yuanyuan. Chinese panda names almost always use doubled characters. They're cute!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MFnRd.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastEditorUserId="17462" LastEditDate="2020-02-29T12:42:51.293" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T12:42:51.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13666" CreationDate="2015-05-27T23:18:54.860" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case,&#xA;铅笔附件 ~ 配套件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w7Mse.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;Mobile phone  accessories (eg, headphone, ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= mobile phone 附件 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= imobile phone 配套件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T23:18:54.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13702" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-28T01:57:15.300" Score="1" ViewCount="587" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sure it's not good, but what does 吃瘪 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德国人的克星其实是Siri，只有Siri能让德国人吃瘪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Germans' bane is Siri, only Siri can make Germans 吃瘪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T16:39:14.690" Title="What is the meaning of 吃瘪?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13702" CreationDate="2015-05-28T03:06:24.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine something sharp cut through a basketball, as a result, the air in that ball was gone and the ball became “瘪”. Also “瘪” can be used to described a person, e.g. “他营养不好，身体干瘪” means &quot;He looks not that healthy and excessively slim&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When saying someone “吃瘪”, it is similar to the usage above. It means someone was frustrated probably because he was treated unfairly and couldn't even defended himself. That person looks like the basketball as we said above. In Chinese, you can not only “吃” food, but also “吃” something else, e.g. “&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1529128.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;吃亏&lt;/a&gt;”、“&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%83%E8%B1%86%E8%85%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;吃豆腐&lt;/a&gt;”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another Chinese idiom I think is equivalent to “吃瘪” is “&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wiktionary.org/zh/%E5%95%9E%E5%B7%B4%E5%90%83%E9%BB%83%E9%80%A3%EF%BC%8C%E6%9C%89%E8%8B%A6%E8%AA%AA%E4%B8%8D%E5%87%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;哑巴吃黄连，有苦说不出&lt;/a&gt;” (Hint: “黄连” is a kind of herb which is bitter).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, here “瘪” is pronounced as &quot;biē&quot; not &quot;biĕ&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what the context of your sentence is. I guess the reason why Siri make Germans “吃瘪” is her awkward or ridiculous AI response? If I'm correct, I will translate the sentence to &quot;only Siri can make Germans hesitate or be unable to make a response&quot;. &quot;Well... seriously?&quot; To my knowledge, I can't find an English word to replace “吃瘪”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9537" LastEditorUserId="9537" LastEditDate="2015-05-28T10:11:56.110" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T10:11:56.110" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13704" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-28T03:16:43.303" Score="4" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence, what does 上的 mean?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国历史学上的夏、商、周属于考古学上的青铜时代。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translated it as &quot;Archaeologists know the Xia, Shang and Zhou collectively as the Bronze Age.&quot;  I think I have the gist of it, but I don't understand how 上的 is functioning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11070" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T05:09:11.877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T05:11:38.673" Title="上的: What is it function in 中国历史学上的夏、商、周属于考古学上的青铜时代?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13704" CreationDate="2015-05-28T03:21:45.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can be roughly translated to &quot;in&quot; in English. 夏商周 in history belongs to the bronze age in archeology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上 here means based on some theory / academic field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T03:21:45.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13704" CreationDate="2015-05-28T03:38:04.050" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have made a wrong pause in the sentence…… &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be &quot;中国历史学上的|夏、商、周|属于|考古学上的|青铜时代。&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is &quot;in Chinese history&quot;. &quot;in Chinese history&quot; = &quot;中国历史学上的&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11054" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T05:11:38.673" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T05:11:38.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13709" CreationDate="2015-05-28T06:15:33.857" Score="1" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where is the correct place of 都 in this sentence, before or after time definition? Is there a rule for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德国人今天不工作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6842" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-05-28T09:23:24.987" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T09:23:24.987" Title="Place of 都 in a sentence meaning all" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13707" CreationDate="2015-05-28T06:24:56.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just after ‘德国人今天‘ Why are they so lazy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-05-28T06:33:04.253" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T06:33:04.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13707" CreationDate="2015-05-28T06:27:10.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;都 is an adverb, so it should go before the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;德国人今天都不工作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.. means all Germans aren't working today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Time) Subject (or time can go here) (adverb) verb (object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time can go either before or after the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastEditorUserId="3561" LastEditDate="2015-05-28T06:41:37.047" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T06:41:37.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13704" CreationDate="2015-05-28T06:52:49.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;历史上&lt;/code&gt; means 'in history'.&#xA;The full sentence translates as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties in Chinese history all belong to the Bronze Age in archeology. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;历史上最大的帝国&lt;/code&gt; The largest empire in history&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T06:52:49.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12572" CreationDate="2015-05-28T07:08:02.113" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我的妈妈：for those at the elementary school age&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我妈妈：for those at the junior high age&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我妈：for those at the senior high age&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11073" LastEditorUserId="9722" LastEditDate="2015-05-28T15:15:42.240" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T15:15:42.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13702" CreationDate="2015-05-28T09:15:35.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;吃瘪&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;be beaten; acknowledge defeat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxford&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;be humiliated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KEY&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;admit defeat, concede&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德国人的克星其实是Siri，只有Siri能让德国人吃瘪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Germans nemesis is actually Siri, only Siri can upstage the Germans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T09:15:35.227" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="549" CreationDate="2015-05-28T09:25:06.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a modern copywriting guide for Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文文案排版指北 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/sparanoid/chinese-copywriting-guidelines&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/sparanoid/chinese-copywriting-guidelines&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4476" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T09:25:06.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13715" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13716" CreationDate="2015-05-28T13:34:54.723" Score="7" ViewCount="704" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two terms are broadly speaking translations of &quot;world&quot; (世界), and &quot;international&quot; (国际). Recently, I've been reminded that &quot;international&quot; in English can be used to mean &quot;many nations&quot; rather than &quot;every nation&quot;, such as in the case of the EU, which is an international body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In making a database of information on various countries in Chinese, I've been unsure when to list data under 世界 and when to list it under 国际. For instance, if I were to have a map of GDP &lt;strong&gt;country by country&lt;/strong&gt;, which would that be? If I were to instead have a global average of poverty across &lt;strong&gt;all countries&lt;/strong&gt; as a single number, would that simply be under 世界?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like a simple question, but I'd like to clear up the difference in nuance between these two words in my mind. Also, what differences are there between 国际's  meaning, and the English nuances behind &quot;international&quot;, if any?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T00:27:59.640" Title="When to use 世界 and when to use 国际" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13715" CreationDate="2015-05-28T13:51:57.167" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess you just use them the same way as in English.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Look at e.g. this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=*%E5%9B%BD%E9%99%85*&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;list&lt;/a&gt;:&#xA;Everything that uses 国际 translates as 'international'. Similarly in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=*%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C*&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;list&lt;/a&gt; everything that is 世界 translates as 'world'.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A map that shows all the countries and their GDP (as a choropleth) would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;世界GDP分布图&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of a poverty average, I think you would rather use global poverty or &lt;code&gt;全球减贫&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2019-04-22T00:27:59.640" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T00:27:59.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13717" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-28T14:15:52.090" Score="1" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think to learn a language including Chinese, you would need to first learn the fundamentals, such as the vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar. After that, native speakers go their own way to develop into a more proficient speaker/writer/communicator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This process takes time and results are uncertain (maybe). Any suggestions about more effective ways to improve Chinese for beginner and intermediate levels?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T15:05:45.323" Title="What's the best way to improve Chinese after mastering the fundamentals?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13715" CreationDate="2015-05-28T14:34:28.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Start with some wikipedia definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杰里米·边沁于1789年首次使用了国际这个词。今天这个词主要有以下两个意义：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;涉及到多个国家或者其公民的事物，比如国际条约。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;作为形容词国际也常用来表示超出一个国家的国界的事物，比如国际水域。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世界：人类文明所有一切的代称。在许多场合下，也以全球、环球（寰球）、寰宇（环宇）、国际、万国等词作为代称，通常指人类现今所生活居住的地球。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the GDP case, I think 世界各国GDP列表 would be better. 世界 might mean the world as a whole, so adding 各国 would be more precise. Nonetheless, omitting it might sound fine too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T14:34:28.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12572" CreationDate="2015-05-28T15:45:07.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there is another 的 to follow immediately, eg 我妈妈的，我朋友的, then definitely no 的 after 我, otherwise it is mouthful. If there isn't, then it's usually ok to say 我的妈妈.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw 我的妈呀 is idiom meaning OMG, don't drop 的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T15:45:07.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13702" CreationDate="2015-05-28T16:39:14.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;吃瘪 usually should be applied to some great/powerful/strong/good people/things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance in your sentence, 德国人吃瘪。As we all know German is famous for their technologies. They produce best cars, machines, etc. They should be able to use Siri without difficulties. BUT they cannot. Here you use 吃瘪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also implies &quot;what a surprise&quot;, &quot;they should not lose but they are forced to lose&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T16:39:14.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13722" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-28T17:05:38.543" Score="0" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence I'd like to say is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Yes, it does involve the idea that the face of death brings out the best and the worst in people, yet other themes are involved.&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This translates to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“对，它蕴含着死亡会揭示人们的最好和最坏的方面的含义，但是本故事也有别的内涵。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you use &quot;主题&quot; instead of &quot;内涵&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastEditorUserId="10955" LastEditDate="2015-05-29T10:26:34.537" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T10:26:34.537" Title="Are &quot;主题&quot; and &quot;内涵 interchangeable?&quot;" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13724" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-28T17:44:37.347" Score="-1" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;我同意这样的观点，但是这是否代表别的宗教人物也是一样的吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English:  I agree with your statement, however is it possible that they could have represented different famous religious figures?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translated the English into lang-8, and a native corrected it this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8119" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T19:18:46.377" Title="Is this an accurate translation?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13722" CreationDate="2015-05-28T18:47:22.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;主题 = 'main topic'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;内涵 = 'meaning/connotation'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, the &lt;em&gt;topic&lt;/em&gt; of a conversation is often very different from the &lt;em&gt;meaning&lt;/em&gt; of the same conversation. The same applies to Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T18:47:22.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13722" CreationDate="2015-05-29T04:04:42.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;主题 is a more direct thing, however, 内涵 is more implicit.&#xA;For example, if a person make a speech, he may try his best to make the audience clear with his 主题 of the speech but for one sentence of his speech, there might be some 内涵 hidden in it which the audience may not understand if they only focus on the literal meaning of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10900" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T04:04:42.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13724" CreationDate="2015-05-29T08:15:12.403" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your translation seems incorrect.&#xA;I would translate it into:&#xA;I agree with your point of view, however is that mean other religious figures are the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11075" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T08:15:12.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12572" CreationDate="2015-05-29T10:03:11.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other answers are right, but I will note that 的 is not only usually dropped for personal relationships, but &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; situation where 1. indicating the possessor is needed; 2. the possessed object is unique up to each person. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. 我房间里没有暖气&#xA;&#xA;2. 我国今年经济增长率为百分之十二&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T10:03:11.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13715" CreationDate="2015-05-29T14:02:33.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.世界=world&#xA;Can be used as sustantive and adjetive.&#xA;国际=international&#xA;Can be used as sustantive and adjetive. But mostly should be used as adjetive.&#xA;2.世界 is more common and popular, is widely used in everyday life.&#xA;国际 is used in some special occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11077" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T14:02:33.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13717" CreationDate="2015-05-29T16:22:08.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for everyone's comments. I think I got some answer to this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To improve Chinese beyond intermediate level, one can &quot;use the language in context&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Single-person activities include&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reading Chinese in cartoon book with a topic you are interested in or familiar with&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Watch Chinese drama/movies or translated drama/movies with Chinese voice/subtitles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play Chinese RPG games in which you would see how the language is used in practice, and how people with different social status address each other.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Switch your phone or computer to Chinese language, and you can learn some new words and sentences. (though I think this one is intermediate level).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Multi-person activities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Talk and interact with other learners or native speakers.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T16:22:08.913" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13724" CreationDate="2015-05-29T19:18:46.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try this,&#xA;我同意你的論點，但他們能夠代表其他不同宗教的知名人物嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More colloquially,&#xA;我認同你說的，但你怎麼知道他們能代表所有不同宗教的人物？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tweaked the wordings a bit, but the semantics should be the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6586" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T19:18:46.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13704" CreationDate="2015-05-29T19:38:20.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;__ 上的 can be translated into different word under different context, but the general idea is that it confines or narrows our discussion. ...上 means on the topic of ... or in the sense of ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;考古學上的發現 - archaeological findings&#xA;生物學上的實驗 - biological experiments&#xA;物質生活上的快樂 - material happiness&#xA;精神上的體驗 - spiritual experience&#xA;理論上而言 - theoretically speaking&#xA;基本上 - tasically&#xA;金錢上的報酬 - monetary reward&#xA;科技上的發展 - technological advancement &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use ...上的 especially when talking about some subject of study or science. You insert pretty much anything that is a field of science or study before 上的：文學上的、科學上的、哲學上的、心理學上的、物理學上的、化學上的、地質學上的、地理學上的......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6586" LastEditorUserId="6586" LastEditDate="2015-05-30T11:22:22.830" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T11:22:22.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13717" CreationDate="2015-05-29T19:51:54.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have one suggestion, and one suggestion only&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Stay exposed to real Chinese used in real life and learn through real life settings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm currently a freshman at a college where many non-native speakers come to learn Chinese. And after several language exchange opportunities, I found that even though the Chinese program at my college is one of the toughest, many of them struggle make themselves understood in a intuitive way. Chinese's grammar isn't that strict but it's also subtle enough that it's gonna be really wired if you use some word wrong. So my suggestion is that no matter how to do it, be constantly exposed to Chinese to develope this instinct. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&#xA;I'd assume simplest way is make some Chinese friend or even come to a Chinese speaking country &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6586" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T19:51:54.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13704" CreationDate="2015-05-29T19:59:39.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can regard &quot;A 上的 B&quot; as &quot;B in the field of A&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This may help you understand how the sentence is organised and find a proper translation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;技术上的问题=Problem in the field of technique=technical problem.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T19:59:39.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13687" CreationDate="2015-05-29T20:08:45.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 伯,仲,叔,季 or 孟,仲,叔,季 to mean first,second,third,forth. These terms come from the ordering of siblings. The first set of 伯,仲,叔,季 is the ordering of male sibilings and 孟,仲,叔,季 is the of the female siblings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that these terms are quite formal. And the original meaning of ordering of siblings is also outdated (it's like some old time Chinese custom where you have everyone's place in family hierarchy specified)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 成語, 伯仲之間, means that two are equally matched. It means literally &quot;between the oldest brother and second oldest brother&quot;.&#xA;e.g. 今年NBA決賽的兩隊真是伯仲之間啊！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in your case, @Doubble22's answer is most appropriate. 第+number+adjective is most common expression here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit#1: Also, 冠,亞,季,殿 is more common. It's widely used to refer to first place, second place, third place, and forth place in some competition. The person who got first place, second place, third place, or forth place is call 冠軍,亞軍,季軍,殿軍.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit#2: Also in a exam or test, first place, second place, and thrid place  is 狀元, 榜眼, 探花. The origin is these are the title given to the first place, second, third in 科舉考試 (if you pass this test you get to become an government official)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another fun thing is that you can say someone is 名落孫山 if and only if he fail at . The origin of this 成語 is that in the time of 科舉, a guy named 孫山 is the one who passed the test with worst score. So if you're behind him you've failed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6586" LastEditorUserId="6586" LastEditDate="2015-05-30T05:41:46.260" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T05:41:46.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13737" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13738" CreationDate="2015-05-30T00:40:04.963" Score="0" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this sentence still acceptable if I replace 均 with 都？ Or to put that another way, have I got the meaning of 均 here correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发达国家对产品生产等整个过程&lt;strong&gt;均&lt;/strong&gt;需符合环保要求。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发达国家对产品生产等整个过程&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt;需符合环保要求。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T01:18:25.967" Title="Can I replace 均 with 都 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13737" CreationDate="2015-05-30T01:18:25.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you are correct. In this context, both &lt;code&gt;均&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;都&lt;/code&gt; mean &lt;code&gt;all&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;均&lt;/code&gt; slightly indicates the variety of the processes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;均需&lt;/code&gt; is formal and usually used in writing or lectures. &lt;code&gt;都要&lt;/code&gt; would be one of the informal equivalents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10910" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T01:18:25.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13673" CreationDate="2015-05-30T02:37:01.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;gay&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;not straight&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;不直&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;弯&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first heard this word a few years ago. It is often used by younger people.  It is a slang and should not be used in any formal situation. Like any slang, it can be rude or not depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not believe it has any sexual reference though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10910" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T02:37:01.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13740" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-30T04:55:27.340" Score="0" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;当年，《中华人民共和国商标法》刚一通过，美国的《读者文摘》就立即为其中文文版《读者文摘》注册，并得到了相关部门的批准。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does ‘刚一通过’ mean (a law) just passed through parliament , or in this case, the Peoples Congress in Beijing and ratified?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T10:13:40.087" Title="What is the meaning of 刚一通过 here please?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13740" CreationDate="2015-05-30T05:49:59.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here, “the law 刚一通过&quot; is a colloquial/informal expression. It means the law is passed / enacted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刚: just&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一: once, immediately&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通过: passed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="4640" LastEditDate="2015-05-30T05:55:37.230" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T05:55:37.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13742" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13744" CreationDate="2015-05-30T05:56:25.617" Score="4" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;Request for (at least) 2 loanwords, transliterated, from separate languages meaning the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Horrible example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;埃默拉尔德 - English transliterated loanword for emerald&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;祖母绿 - Arabic transliterated loanword for emerald&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other examples exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-05-30T08:20:56.300" LastActivityDate="2015-05-31T06:25:54.977" Title="Transliterated Loanwords From Two Seperate Languages Of The Same Thing" Tags="&lt;loanwords&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13742" CreationDate="2015-05-30T06:06:43.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For different translations:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cement: 水门汀、水泥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Internet: 因特网、互联网&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vitamin: 维生素、维他命&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sacramento: 沙加缅度、三个馒头 :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bourgeoisie: 布尔乔亚、资产阶级&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;From different languages, actually, there are many, if you count Japanese and Cantonese.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Florence: 翡冷翠、佛罗伦萨 (Italian, English)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;metaphysics：形而上学（日）、玄学（中）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;evolution: 进化(日）、天演（中）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;philosophy: 哲学（日）、理学（中）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bus: 巴士（粤）、公共汽车（汉）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Japanese translations won over most early Chinese translations in these words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="4640" LastEditDate="2015-05-30T06:51:38.117" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T06:51:38.117" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13742" CreationDate="2015-05-30T06:30:09.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only think of names, if that's acceptable.&#xA;Biblical names can have different transliterations/renderings in Chinese, perhaps because Christianity was introduced by different language speakers to China, so there are a few names that have multiple transliterations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;摩西 (Protestant) - 梅瑟 (Catholic) - Moses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;桑拿 - 三温暖 (TW) - Sauna, both are transliterations, but the different origin is probably unlikely. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE2: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咖啡 - 咖逼 - coffee (English/French) and (Indonesian) kopi.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE3: 锡兰 (Ceylon, Tamil) - 斯里兰卡 (Sri Lanka, Sanskrit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE4: &#xA;珠穆朗玛 (Tibetan) vs. 额菲尔士峰 or 埃佛勒斯峰 (English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-05-31T06:25:54.977" LastActivityDate="2015-05-31T06:25:54.977" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13742" CreationDate="2015-05-30T07:51:07.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some right on my mind, I am sure you can find much more down this avenue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现代 (Japanese word) - 摩登 (English transliteration)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;触媒 (Japanese word) - 催化剂 (English paraphrasing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漫画 (Japanese word) - 卡通 (English transliteration) not exactly the same but very similar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Early 1900 transliterations gradually replaced by Japanese words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;电话 (Japanese word) - 德律风 (English transliteration)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;科学 (Japanese word) - 赛因斯 (English transliteration)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;民主 (Japanese word) - 德谟克拉西 (English transliteration)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you consider the common names of organisms you'll get a lot more. If you consider common and scientific names together you'll get even more. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;曼珠沙华 (Common name, Sanskrit transliteration) - 彼岸花 (Nickname, Japanese word) - 红花石蒜 (Scientific name, Latin literalization)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T07:51:07.460" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13740" CreationDate="2015-05-30T10:13:40.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;刚一&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ADV. (副词)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just when; as soon as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 to be just about to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 to have just started to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KEY&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as soon as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当年，《中华人民共和国商标法》刚一通过，美国的《读者文摘》就立即为其中文文版《读者文摘》注册，并得到了相关部门的批准。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At that time, just when the &amp;quot;Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China&amp;quot; was passed &amp;quot;Reader's Digest&amp;quot;, as American company, immediately registered the Chinese version of it's publication (读者文摘) and received approval from all relative departments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T10:13:40.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13747" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13752" CreationDate="2015-05-30T11:34:34.837" Score="8" ViewCount="688" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always been a little wary of talking about the future in Chinese using the character 會,  my early teachers made it ambiguous or demanded that I use a 的 at the end of every 會 sentence, but then other times I don't hear them use it. I've gotten a lot of mixed signals. Normally I add on the future time or say 要 instead whenever possible. Even though no one has told me I'm wrong when I use it, I feel like I'm doing something wrong when I use 會 to talk about the future. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, today I went back into my more basic textbook and started making flashcards, but this time I decided all the definitions would come directly from a Chinese dictionary. The English translation for the context of 會 that I was searching for in this case was &quot;will&quot;. The related definitions were as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(副詞)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;１能、能夠。如：「我會游泳」、「只要努力，理想一定會實現。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;２可能。多用於疑問語氣。如：「他會來嗎？」、「會不會是他回來了？」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was no certainty of the future at all. Does it really just mean &quot;能&quot; or &quot;可能&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I'm not mislead, I think this revealed a reality about Chinese thinking to me. No one actually knows if something &lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt; happen. We can only say that it's possible that it will happen. &quot;Will&quot; is so definite, confident, it's 100% sure. Either that or this is a bad dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can 會 directly be used to mean &quot;will&quot;? (As a 副詞)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If 會 &lt;em&gt;does mean&lt;/em&gt; &quot;will&quot; could &quot;我會游泳&quot; potentially mean both &quot;I will swim.&quot; and &quot;I can swim.&quot; depending on the context? (Of course, if so, there are ways to convey the meaning less ambiguously, but I want to use this question to find out if I am using the word correctly.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If 會 &lt;em&gt;doesn't mean&lt;/em&gt; &quot;will&quot; how do I say with the confidence of English that something shall occur in the future (using natural sounding conversational Chinese)?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6390" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T03:23:04.043" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T03:53:02.930" Title="&quot;I will,&quot; &quot;I can,&quot; &quot;I will (probably)&quot; A fundamental problem with 會" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13748" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-30T11:51:37.173" Score="1" ViewCount="338" Body="&lt;p&gt;After some searches here and there, why does &quot;叱吒&quot; translate to &quot;rebuke&quot;? Could it also mean something like &quot;being at the top of [location]&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T09:51:35.083" Title="What does &quot;叱吒&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13749" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-30T13:08:14.090" Score="1" ViewCount="736" Body="&lt;p&gt;My book says that this structure is used to express the change of something, and it gives me this example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他脸色由白而红&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think I didn't understand this structure really well. When should/shouldn't  I use it? For example, can I say 由星期日而星期一有一天? If so, what's the difference between this sentence and this-&gt; 从星期日到星期一有一天?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you please give me more example and more information about this structure? &#xA;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T00:17:08.940" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T00:17:08.940" Title="What does this pattern (由 … 而) mean, exactly?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13749" CreationDate="2015-05-30T13:41:17.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;由 is &quot;from&quot;/而 is &quot;and then&quot;. 由X而Y is used to described a continuous evolution (verb Y) from one state (noun X) to another.  Per your own example it is an evolution from being white to turning red (红 is being used as a verb here).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how you inserted the verb 到 in your second sentence: you would need to add “至&quot; in the first sentence to make it roughly comparable (though it seems weird to say 而至 here, though perhaps only because the register is too formal).  In that case, X is 星期一 and Y is 至: 星期二 can't be repurposed as a verb like 红 can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T13:41:17.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13747" CreationDate="2015-05-30T14:20:10.603" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes, fx, 他会来吗？是的，他会来。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes,it depends on the context.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;we use extra word to express the confidence, fx.'一定'，‘必然’。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11079" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T03:25:35.007" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T03:25:35.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13753" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-30T16:57:22.967" Score="2" ViewCount="479" Body="&lt;p&gt;My book says the &lt;code&gt;有 … 才有&lt;/code&gt; structure is the same as &lt;code&gt;只有 … 才&lt;/code&gt;, but it doesn't give me any examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are the following both equivalent and correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有他才知道怎么解决这个问题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有他才有知道怎么解决这个问题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, how should I use &lt;code&gt;有 … 才有&lt;/code&gt; and what does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:39:55.987" Title="What does this structure (有 … 才有 …) mean?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13748" CreationDate="2015-05-30T17:37:27.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translations on internet are not very accurate. I will give the best translations of 叱咤 and 叱咤风云 below. :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word chì zhà can be written as 叱吒 or 叱咤, but not 叱诧 (chà）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally, it means 大声吆喝、呵斥 (shouting loud and powerfully)。It is often used in the idiom 叱咤风云。It means 怒斥之声,令风云失色。形容轰动一时的人物。(Thundering voices out-powered roaring storms. It describes a phenomenal and influential character.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="4640" LastEditDate="2015-05-30T17:44:57.240" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T17:44:57.240" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13756" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-30T18:51:57.173" Score="-1" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bumped into &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/EtaAureaTrashTelevisivoItaliano/videos/394269790781469/?fref=nf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt; on Facebook. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gazzetta.it/Sportlife/Tempo-Libero/27-05-2015/toto-cutugno-che-canta-italiano-ma-cinese-via-paolo-sarpi-video-1101000094193.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is the same video outside Facebook so everyone can see it. It is an Italian song, &amp;quot;L'Italiano&amp;quot; (The Italian man), sung in a Chinese version by an Italian singer, with what is like the worst pronunciation I ever heard for Chinese. The subs read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me sing&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because I'm proud of it&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm Chinese&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A true Italiano.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good morning Italia gli spaghetti al dente&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And a partisan for president&lt;br&gt;&#xA;with the car radio always in the right hand&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And a canary on the window&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Good Morning Italy with all you artists&lt;br&gt;&#xA;With too much America on the manifests&lt;br&gt;&#xA;With the songs, with love, with the heart&lt;br&gt;&#xA;With more women and fewer and fewer nuns&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Good morning Italia, good morning Maria&lt;br&gt;&#xA;With eyes full of melancholy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Good morning God&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You know I'm here too&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me sing with the guitar in hand&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Let me sing a song slowly slowly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Let me sing because I'm proud of it&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm a Chinese person, a true Italiano&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;La la la …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me sing with the guitar in hand&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Let me sing a song slowly slowly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Let me sing because I'm proud of it&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm a chinese person, a true italian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me sing&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because I'm proud of it&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm a chinese person&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A true Italiano&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I left the bits that are sung in Italian as they were in Italian. If anyone is willing to turn this code block into a block quote while keeping the linebreaks in place &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; avoiding huge line spacings, they are very welcome to do so. I did not manage that. I shared this video on Facebook saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His pronunciation is simply AWFUL :).&#xA;[Tag to a Chinese friend] 你明白他唱着什么吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friend answered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我只听懂几句：我感到自豪，我是中国人。这真的Italiano？对吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that help, here is what I have figured out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让我发现唱歌吧&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为我感到自豪&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是中国人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这真的Italiano。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早安Italia, gli spaghetti al dente.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一个？？有一个真相总统&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早安Italia？？？书家们&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早安Italia，早安Maria&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早安神父&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你知道我也存在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啦啦啦…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让我发现唱歌吧    ［］&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我发现唱一首过慢？？的歌曲&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我发现唱歌吧    因为我感到自豪&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是中国人    却真的Italiano&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让我发现唱歌吧&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为我感到自豪&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是中国人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;却真的Italiano&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some remarks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That fāxiàn sounds terribly out of place, so what does it mean? Is it correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That Italiano line is uncertain. zhēn de is pretty certain, but is it shì? zhè? què? Something else?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shūjiāmen is absolutely uncertain, half invented in fact. Is it right?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The last two full lines are uncertain, because in the end I did not re-listen to the second one because I was convinced I wouldn't gain anything that way. Are they correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the guòmàn right? What are the two missing characters?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Obviously lots of pieces are empty because I could only guess a few syllables here and there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I tried googling the lyrics, but all I could find were the Italian lyrics and possibly an English translation, but I want to know what he is singing in Chinese. Can anybody help? Thx.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the last answer reminded me of this, I tried to transcribe the sounds I heard in a very rough Pinyin, and got:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rang wo faxian chang ge ba &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yin we wo gan dao zi hao &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wo shi zong guo ren &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Qie zhen de Italiano &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Zao wan Italia gli spaghetti al dente &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yi ge yang guo you yi ge yan xiang zhong tong &lt;br&gt;&#xA;You shou jiu xian na zhe yi su qi shen yi shang &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Bi shen dian gu dan chang zai chuang kou shang &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Zao wan Italia gen ni yi su jia men &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Gen hai ma tai guo mei guo lai de si wen &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Gen ge qu, gen yi xin, gan ai xing &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lo me nu yu wei lai wei shao siu nu &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Zao wan Italia, zao wan Maria &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ni de shen chong man you chou de yan shen &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Zao wan shen fu &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ni zhi dao wo gen cun zai &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Rang wo fa xian chang ge ba &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Na zhe zhi kui ta zi ta &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Rang wo fa xian gan chang yi shou wan man ting liu de ge qu &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Rang wo fa xian chang ge ba &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yin wei wo gan dao zi hao &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wo shi zong guo ren &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Qie zhen de Italiano &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;La la la &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Rang wo fa xian chang ge ba &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Na zhe zhi kui ta zi ta &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Rang wo fa xian gan chang yi shou wan man ting liu de ge qu &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Rang wo fa xian chang ge ba &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yin wei wo gan dao zi hao &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wo shi zong guo ren &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Qie zhen de Italiano &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that, I tried filling some holes, and got:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让我发现唱歌吧 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为我感到自豪 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是中国人 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;这真的Italiano。 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早安Italia, gli spaghetti al dente. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;一个 yang guo 有一个真相总统 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;右手就先拿着一 su qi shen yi shang &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Bi shen dian 孤单唱在窗口上 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;早安Italia跟你艺术家们 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;跟还嘛太过美国来的斯文 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;跟歌曲，跟你心，跟爱情 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lo 美女有越来越少修女 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;早安Italia，早安Maria &lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的深充满忧愁的眼神 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;早安神父 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;你知道我也存在 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦… &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我发现唱歌吧 拿着 zhi kui ta 自弹 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我发现敢唱一首 wan 慢 ting liu 的歌曲 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我发现唱歌吧 因为我感到自豪 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是中国人 却真的Italiano &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我发现唱歌吧 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为我感到自豪 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是中国人 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;却真的Italiano &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the &amp;quot;que zhen de Italiano&amp;quot; are &amp;quot;shi zhen de Italiano&amp;quot;, as suggested in comments, but it really sounds like a &amp;quot;que&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;qie&amp;quot;. Also, I think &amp;quot;jiu xian&amp;quot; should be &amp;quot;zǒngshì&amp;quot; (总是, always). And, those &amp;quot;gen&amp;quot;'s (gen gequ gen ni xin gen aiqing) really sound like &amp;quot;ka&amp;quot;. Perhaps &amp;quot;Lo&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;duō&amp;quot; (多). &amp;quot;wan man&amp;quot; = 慢慢, &amp;quot;ting liu&amp;quot; = 停留, though it sounds out of place. Any help in finishing this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I posted on Facebook asking all my Chinese friends for help, and one suggested 发现 should be 放声.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After relistening and doing some more Wiktionary search, here is what I think I have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让我放声唱歌吧&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为我感到自豪&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是中国人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;却真的Italiano。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早安Italia, gli spaghetti al dente.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一个 ya guo 游击队员像总统&lt;br&gt;&#xA;右手总是拿着一 su qi shen yi shang&lt;br&gt;&#xA;⸢Bi she niao⸥(金丝鸟?) 孤单唱在窗口上&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早安Italia跟你艺术家们&lt;br&gt;&#xA;跟还 ma 太多美国来的斯文&lt;br&gt;&#xA;跟歌曲，跟爱心，跟内心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;⸢Lo me⸥(多么?) 女（又？）越来越少修女&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早安Italia，早安Maria&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的深充满忧愁的眼神&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早安神父&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你知道我也存在&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我放声唱歌吧&lt;br&gt;&#xA;拿着只贵的吉他&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我放声敢唱&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一首过慢平语的歌曲&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我放声唱歌吧&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为我感到自豪&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是中国人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;却真的Italiano&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦啦啦啦啦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦啦啦啦啦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦啦啦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦啦啦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦啦啦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦啦啦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦啦啦啦啦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦啦啦啦啦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦啦啦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦啦啦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦啦啦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啦啦啦啦啦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我放声唱歌吧&lt;br&gt;&#xA;拿着只贵的吉他&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我放声敢唱&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一首过慢平语的歌曲&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我放声唱歌吧&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为我感到自豪&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是中国人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;却真的Italiano&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我放声唱歌吧&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为我感到自豪&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是中国人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;却真的Italiano&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could that be 跟还嘛太多美国来的斯文?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess &amp;quot;qi shen yi shang&amp;quot; is 汽车音箱, another bad translation because &amp;quot;autoradio&amp;quot; is not just the speakers as this would make it mean in Chinese. We are left with figuring out the classifier which sounds like &amp;quot;su&amp;quot; that the lyrics are using here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classifier is probably 副, making the line 右手总是拿着一副汽车音箱.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Italiano line might be 就真的Italiano or 真正的Italiano. Jiù seems out of place, and his lips don't seem to close to a /u/ (jiù would be read by him as joo), and the clear j-sound excludes shì and què, and zhè feels strange, so I'm going for 真正.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T23:22:00.983" Title="Lyrics required" Tags="&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13749" CreationDate="2015-05-31T01:02:00.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think '由星期日而星期一有一天.' is good Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从星期日到星期一只有一天。or 从星期日到星期一就是一天。is a strange thing to say anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about these examples of 由 。。而 from iciba?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;臭氧由氧气和紫外线发生反应而产生。Here ‘由发生-而产生‘ might be 'made of, produced by'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家鸡是由东南亚原鸡演变而来的。Here  由-而来 might be 'comes from'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As well as 'from' mentioned by Master Sparkles above, 由 is also a passvisor, which in English may be represented as 'by'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而 is complicated, its simplest use is 'and'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine the following dialogue on a Saturday evening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不能等。我不要等。现在给我吧！&#xA;从星期日到星期一只有一天，你耐心等吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-05-31T01:29:03.897" LastActivityDate="2015-05-31T01:29:03.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13761" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13762" CreationDate="2015-05-31T04:29:36.460" Score="1" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need some help with something. I am trying to find the word for oil paint. Artist oil paint, like the stuff Winsor &amp;amp; Newton makes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can not find the exact word. 油彩 is the closest I can find, but I'm not sure if this is actually the physical paint or the painted canvas itself. Also, I would like to know what these other words mean, and their differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;油漆&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;涂料 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;油彩&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know 油 refers to oil， but I don't understand the differences. It doesn't really help that &quot;paint&quot; is both a verb and noun, and my dictionary doesn't distinguish between the two senses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone explain the differences please, or give other popular words I should use? Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11082" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T21:38:03.173" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T21:38:03.173" Title="What is the difference between 油漆, 涂料 and 油彩 please?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13761" CreationDate="2015-05-31T05:19:56.657" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;油画: oil paint (the artwork or 'painted canvas')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;油画颜料/油性颜料: oil paint (the painting material)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;油彩: grease paint (the painting material, for artwork or cosmetics)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水彩: water color&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;颜料: paint (materials in general, usually refers to that for artworks) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;涂料: paint/coating (materials in general, usually refers to that for industrial purposes such as painting a house)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;油漆: oil-based paint (usually refers to that for industrial purposes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-05-31T05:19:56.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13775" CreationDate="2015-05-31T06:35:48.567" Score="0" ViewCount="738" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a movie with both English and Chinese subtitles (important).&#xA; On my blog &lt;a href=&quot;http://bymyselflearning.blogspot.fr&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://bymyselflearning.blogspot.fr&lt;/a&gt; you can see that I've already collected a few ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basic idea: displaying the Chinese movie, a sketchpad and a dictionary together, side by side, can really help the learner if the dialogues are rather simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11083" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-28T04:50:51.060" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T04:50:51.060" Title="Looking for a Chinese movie or anime with easy dialogues" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-06-02T03:19:21.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13634" CreationDate="2015-05-31T12:34:18.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;All these explanations come from:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/%E6%89%8D-%E5%8F%AA-%E5%B0%B1-to-emphasise-small-amounts.1921000/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/%E6%89%8D-%E5%8F%AA-%E5%B0%B1-to-emphasise-small-amounts.1921000/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  《&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;只&quot;&#xA;If you use 只(only), that means the amount is little. It's just an objective description.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;才&quot;&#xA;...you'll see that used in the sense of &quot;more than expected&quot;, 才 follows the amount or time; [b]&#xA;and if 才 precedes the amount or time, the amount or time has the sense of &quot;less than expected&quot;. [a]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.a 从这里到邮局才三分钟 (才 precedes the amount of time)&#xA;1.b 车开了三十分钟才到。(才 follows the amount of time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.a 我们去玩儿了两天，才花了一百块 (才 precedes the amount of money )&#xA;2.b 我一共花了三百块才买到这个。(才 follows the amount of money)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And I would add for example 2b :&#xA;we can also consider that 才 precedes the amount of purchased goods (这个) so the meaning is also &quot;less goods than expected&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wordreference, same link again :&#xA;《 However, if we look at the word 只, usage is possible in the following manner:&#xA;从这里到邮局只需要三分钟 -- need to add in words like 需要, 用.//&#xA;我们去玩儿了两天，只花了一百块。》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;more objective, less feelings&#xA;.&#xA;Beware , concerning the other sentences,    只买  只到 would not be correct. &#xA;It's definitely  才买  才到  .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;frequently used :&#xA; 只有 the amount is little&#xA; 只是 the level is low&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11083" LastEditorUserId="11083" LastEditDate="2015-05-31T21:52:14.597" LastActivityDate="2015-05-31T21:52:14.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13765" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-01T01:43:51.453" Score="2" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is 征 here please? I guess it is either 征求 or 征集。Would either fit the bill? Maybe 征名 is a word？ I think it is really '征集名字‘。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The background is, 兰州的‘读者文摘’ had to change the name of their magazine, because the American '读者文摘‘ had already registered that name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;编辑部马上行动，在杂志上刊登了&lt;strong&gt;征&lt;/strong&gt;名启事。征名启事刊出后，读者的来信如雪片般飞来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Editorial Department took swift action, they published an announcement in the magazine, calling for/soliciting (new) names for their publication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any chance 征 could be 征询 的‘征’？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-06-01T03:28:09.647" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T05:11:26.470" Title="What is the meaning of this 征 in this sentence please" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13765" CreationDate="2015-06-01T01:55:13.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your guess is right. It means 征求 or 征集。In English, it means &quot;Call for&quot;, and here it is &quot;call for names&quot;. The dictionary definitions are close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 征询, 征询 = 征求、询问. However, it is usually used to ask for opinions. The word 征 in 征询 is indeed the same though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="4640" LastEditDate="2015-06-01T03:04:18.323" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T03:04:18.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13765" CreationDate="2015-06-01T02:25:50.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;征集 is the correct meaning. Usually it's used in an ad to solicit suggestions and votes from the audience/readership/viewership to choose a name for something. Put &quot;征名&quot; into baidu image search for many examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11039" LastEditorUserId="11039" LastEditDate="2015-06-01T03:19:32.603" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T03:19:32.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13765" CreationDate="2015-06-01T05:11:26.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My wife's first name, so I think I need to say something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally, Zheng means (1) &quot;go on a journey&quot; (foot + distant place). Later, which also naturally relates to kind of &quot;military service&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I GUESS, the nature of this kind of forced &quot;service&quot; later make Zheng extend its meaning to a noun (2) tax;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later as noun and verb frequently were used interchangeably, Zheng became a verb for taxing/collecting-tax, so Zheng has a third meaning (3) Collect/go-to-collect;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then ZhengXun most probably appeared later, the word Zheng here is only related to an action of &quot;go&quot;. You see it is still somehow related to the original meaning, however, its original meaning is weaker and weaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Most of the Chinese characters lost their original meanings. Some however still keep them (Zheng is one of these). Still some may have multiple meanings from the very beginning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mostly, people don't care the original meaning, but for me, they are still helpful, especially, when you use it as your name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="684" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T05:11:26.470" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13769" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-01T06:55:59.217" Score="1" ViewCount="3333" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain me the comparison structure 像 … 似的?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why in this sentence there is 得 after 红？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他脸红得苹果似的 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Couldn't I have said this instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他的脸红像苹果似的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a pattern/scheme that I can follow, so that it is clearer to me?&#xA;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T00:17:03.833" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T00:17:03.833" Title="How to use 像…似的?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13769" CreationDate="2015-06-01T07:24:14.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;得&quot; is often used after adjectives in Chinese language. Because &quot;红&quot; is adjective, so there is &quot;得&quot; after &quot;红&quot;. For example, &quot;她们两个人好得像一个人似的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9798" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T07:24:14.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13769" CreationDate="2015-06-01T07:58:05.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;得 is a particle, it links a verb to a following adverb. So you have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他-脸红-得-苹果-似的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He-blush-得-apple-seems like 的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He blushed red as an apple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We will leave aside the fact that some apples are green! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T07:58:05.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13772" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13810" CreationDate="2015-06-01T08:42:47.537" Score="2" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;55 and 45 are 调值 or tone values.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Sichuanese first tone is sometimes 55, like mandarin (high &amp;amp; flat), and sometimes a rising 45.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sichuanese: When Is First Tone 55 Vs. 45?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T07:59:56.830" Title="Sichuanese: When Is First Tone 55 Vs. 45?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13704" CreationDate="2015-06-01T09:48:32.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence &quot;中国历史学上的&quot;, &quot;上的&quot; means &quot;in the scope&quot; of previous mentioned domain. In your case, &quot;中国历史学上的&quot; means &quot;in the scope of Chinese Historiography&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this is only the translation of the meaning. Depending of the context, it could be translated in a better way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T09:48:32.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13748" CreationDate="2015-06-01T09:51:35.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;叱吒&quot; is original describing a sound that somebody yells angrily and loudly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are phrases &quot;叱吒风云&quot; / &quot;叱吒樂壇&quot;, to translate, I would suggest &quot;to get rocked in sth.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6272" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T09:51:35.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13763" CreationDate="2015-06-01T09:54:57.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would highly recommend &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/Cpspc7it3SY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;小蝌蚪找妈妈&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. It's short with a meaningful story for kids. The conversation is simple and slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T09:54:57.730" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13776" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-01T09:59:29.950" Score="5" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't use 地 after the adjective if the adjective is monosyllabic (so 他慢地走 isn't acceptable). Then why in this sentence is there 地 after a monosyllabic adjective?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他很慢地走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it because I can use 地 if there is 很 before the adjective ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-10-20T01:54:54.297" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T01:54:54.297" Title="他很慢地走: why there is 地 if the adjective is monosyllabic?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13753" CreationDate="2015-06-01T12:21:35.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both mean the first part is the necessary (under many situations, also sufficient) condition of the second part. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有A才有B means only if A &lt;strong&gt;exists&lt;/strong&gt;, then B &lt;strong&gt;exists&lt;/strong&gt;. Here 有 has real meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有A才B means only if A then B. Here 有 does not have its real meaning, but is part of the conjunction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有国才有家 (Only if the nation exists, does family exist)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有有国，才会有家 (same meaning, grammatically correct, but rarely seen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有国，才有家 (wrong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T12:21:35.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13778" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-01T12:41:23.470" Score="0" ViewCount="302" Body="&lt;p&gt;A 不如 B+object+verb+得+adjective&#xA;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;玛丽不如保罗法语说得流利&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 不如 B+Verb-object+verb+得+adjective&#xA;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;玛丽不如保罗说法语说得流利&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these two patterns correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some say it's correct, some says it's wrong, I'm so confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you please tell me the different patterns of using 不如 to make comparisons?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T00:17:01.307" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T00:17:01.307" Title="What Different Patterns Are There To Make 不如 Sentences？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13776" CreationDate="2015-06-01T13:00:09.410" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Darlin' who is teaching you this stuff? I hope you are not paying too much!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say: 她很慢地走。or 她慢慢地走。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better might be: 她在很慢地走。 or 她走得很慢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Goodnight, Miss Chestnut!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-06-02T12:48:18.950" LastActivityDate="2015-06-02T12:48:18.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13778" CreationDate="2015-06-01T16:37:10.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your question has nothing to do with &lt;code&gt;不如&lt;/code&gt;. The point is &lt;code&gt;法语说得流利&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;说法语说得流利&lt;/code&gt;. The former's emphasis is &lt;code&gt;法语&lt;/code&gt;, while the latter's one is &lt;code&gt;说法语&lt;/code&gt;. Here's a nuance of the sentence's sense.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T16:37:10.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13753" CreationDate="2015-06-01T16:53:45.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;有A才有B&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;B's existence=true when A's existence=true,here 有 works as &quot;existence&quot;&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;只有A才B&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;B=true when A=true,here 只有 works as whole, means &quot;only when&quot;&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;The difference is : 有A才有B focus on &quot;existence&quot; while 只有A才B is not(Although you can add existence as a condition)&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;example:&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;有(水)才有(鱼).&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;existence of (fish) =true when existence of (water) =true.&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;existence(condition)=水  existence(result)=鱼&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;只有(有水)，才(有鱼).&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;(existence of fish)=ture when (existence of water)=true. &lt;BR&gt;&#xA;condition=有水=existence of water, result=有鱼=existence of fish&lt;BR&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T16:53:45.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13776" CreationDate="2015-06-01T18:07:53.913" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can't use 地 after the adjective if the adjective is monosyllabic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a grammatical rule. This is an idiomatic rule and mostly for prosody concerns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the following expressions are grammatically correct. Only some sounds more natural than the others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他慢地走 &amp;lt;- sounds unnatural&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他很慢地走 &amp;lt;- sounds fine but not idiomatic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他慢慢地走 &amp;lt;- sounds fine and idiomatic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T18:07:53.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13783" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13790" CreationDate="2015-06-01T20:18:18.837" Score="12" ViewCount="2328" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the character 乐, it has two readings in Mandarin. In pinyin, yue4 and le4 (plus other readings I take are literary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other dialects too, there seem to be 2 distinct forms. In cantonese, lok and ngok. In Min Nan, lok and gak. Wiktionary actually lists 3 pronunciations for these dialects.&#xA;This is even reflected in Japan and Koreas' loaned pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are clearly 2 distinct readings of this character. My question is &lt;strong&gt;at which point did these pronunciations begin to become distinct&lt;/strong&gt;? Due to the loan into Japanese and Korean, I take it could be quite some distance back in time, but the reconstructed Old Chinese pronunciation has only one apparent form (albeit this may be a mistake).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps there is no clear answer, but the etymological history of when these readings diverged is my point of interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2015-06-02T17:28:08.250" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T06:21:09.317" Title="乐 Le and Yue: When did they diverge?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13785" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13787" CreationDate="2015-06-01T22:20:31.400" Score="3" ViewCount="2217" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to learn Chinese from books, online tutorials, but mostly from Rosetta Stone. I'm just starting, so there's still a lot I'm probably not understanding - so I don't know if I'm even asking this question right...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know how to take pinyin text with tone marks, and translate it into either English, or Chinese characters (which I could then Google-translate into English). I have found things like the &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.pinyin&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Pinyin Input&lt;/a&gt; on Android, but you just type letters without tone marks, and it shows you a bunch of choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I don't know the Chinese characters at all, I don't know which to pick - and the input doesn't work if I type the tone mark myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if I type &lt;code&gt;ma&lt;/code&gt;, I get the characters &lt;code&gt;马&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;吗&lt;/code&gt; - one means &quot;horse&quot;, and ones means something else - one of them is &lt;code&gt;mǎ&lt;/code&gt; and one is &lt;code&gt;ma&lt;/code&gt;, but I have to go through about 4 steps to figure out which is which, so if I'm trying to translate even a simple sentence, it takes forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a good tool, app, website, etc., which would help me here? I'm really open to just about any solution on the web, or mobile, or on Windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11088" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T22:59:49.157" Title="Pinyin to Chinese characters" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13785" CreationDate="2015-06-01T22:44:54.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is why you have to learn the actual characters first, and read and write in the actual characters. Pinyin helps indicate the pronunciation, nothing more. There is no tool that can help you distinguish between hundreds of characters equally represented by one string of Roman letters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T22:44:54.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13785" CreationDate="2015-06-01T22:48:12.870" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest that you shouldn't do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters cannot be faithfully constructed backwards from a tone+syllable combination -- the mapping only goes one way (and even then, sometimes characters have multiple pronunciations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, as you know, 馬 is generally pronounced &lt;code&gt;ma3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;code&gt;ma3&lt;/code&gt; could also reference the characters 碼 (number), or 獁 (mammoth). Without context, you do not know to which I am referring if I simply write &lt;code&gt;ma3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you amass a vocabulary, you will start to notice patterns that will give you an intuition for which character is meant by the English pinyin, with or without tone markings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following two Pinyin sentences are equally comprehensible to someone with a beginning Mandarin level, as the context far dominates tone markings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ni shi bu shi wo de pengyou&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ni3 shi4 bu2 shi4 wo3 de5 peng2you5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reader would assume:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是不是我的朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, soon, you will not find it useful to use tone markings when typing Pinyin. Because it is a hassle to type, and any IME worth its salt will give you the contextually correct characters. This is probably the reason such converters don't exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest you focus your efforts instead on learning more vocabulary and reading as much as possible. The false answers from your Pinyin IME suggestion will become obviously incorrect in your eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-02T13:37:20.437" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13785" CreationDate="2015-06-01T22:52:42.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You kind of hit a snag without knowing Chinese characters (hanzi), because there are so many homophones in chinese, especially without tones. In your example of 吗 and 马, they both have different tones which you don't type at all, and actually typing ma for me gives about 15 different characters to choose from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, even words like 终止 and 中止 sound identical &lt;em&gt;with&lt;/em&gt; tones, so you only distinguish them in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best IME I can think of, so that it will 9/10 pick the right characters &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; you is &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.sogou.com/mac/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;sogou&lt;/a&gt;. There's other software you can use, but none of it's as accurate. If you really insist on software that uses English, google's IME is okay, but nowhere near as good as sogou (they actually had a legal incident in the past for plagarizing sogou's database).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With any IME, sometimes you can't tell which character's right, and for this, I advise &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page&lt;/a&gt;. Search the character, and it'll give you the meaning of that character, to help you pick out the one that's right. This also jumpstarts your character learning, which you'll need to do one way or another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sympathetic to you as a learner, based off the nature of chinese typing. You'll need to learn the characters one way or another, but everyone has to start from the bottom up! It's a long process, and one that requires many hundred (or even thousand) wiktionary searches by this method, but you'll make progress eventually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T22:52:42.093" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13753" CreationDate="2015-06-02T02:30:41.027" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't just replace 只有…才… with 有…才有… literally. It doesn't work that way. You could say&quot;只有他才知道怎么解决这个问题&quot; with 只有…才…, and you can also say &quot;有他才有解决这个问题的方法&quot; with 有…才有…&#xA;It's the same meaning, two different sayings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11090" LastActivityDate="2015-06-02T02:30:41.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13783" CreationDate="2015-06-02T05:50:47.133" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did some research. Here is what I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 樂 first meant music instruments, pronounced 'ngok'（逆角切）. In Japanese, it is がく［楽］(gaku).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The meaning happy '悦/樂' first had the same pronunciation 樂 as in 音樂. This was probably the case in 战国 (周朝)，because according to《爾雅·釋詁》(written after BC 476), 悦: 樂也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) In 唐韵 （written in 732 AD, 樂 meaning happy is pronounced 'lok' (盧各切). So the pronunciation changed between 周 and 唐, which is a long time (~1000 years). To cut the time shorter, we can look at Japanese, which borrowed a lot of Chinese characters between the 3rd - 5th century. In Japanese, ［楽］meaning happy is pronounced らく [raku]. So we know the 'lok' sound formed before 500 AD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The timeframes map into the distinction between Old Chinese and Middle Chinese. Old Chinese 上古汉语 was used until the 3rd century and Middle Chinese 中古汉语 starts from the 3rd century. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using this terminology, we can say this distinction is in Middle Chinese but not Old Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, Old Chinese is considered to be very regular -- characters with the same component sound the same, and one character has only one pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I guess the problem is solved. It seems that mathematical abstractions can help in reasoning and discovery! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. there could be a small difference in Old Chinese that led to larger difference in Middle Chinese. Old Chinese had double consonants. Later, double consonants are systematically dropped, and some words had consonant A and some with B. According to 韵典网 (ytenx.org/dciangx/dzih/%E6%A8%82)，樂's Old Chinese pronunciation was /ŋraːwɢs/, or transliterated as &quot;ngrawgs&quot;. It had double consonants ŋ and r, so some words became ŋok, some became lok (r and l are the same), and some became ŋaw. The two meanings music and happy might had slight differences in Old Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="4640" LastEditDate="2015-06-04T08:23:50.183" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T08:23:50.183" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13792" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-02T12:45:30.883" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this text from my book. I thought 建设 means 'build, construct', by association maybe 'develop', but I can't figure out what it is doing in the second sentence. I put the 3 sentences for context. Any tips out there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't much care for 'use for copyright building'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽管在网络上播放电视剧，电影的盗版现象仍然存在，但人们的版权意识已经越来越强。目前，优酷网融资的几千万美元中，超过一亿元人民币将用于版权建设。悠视网则表示正在筹备一个版权基金，基金规模达十几亿元人民币，主要用于购买影视版权。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-02T17:21:19.780" Title="What is the meaning of 建设 here？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13792" CreationDate="2015-06-02T17:21:19.780" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should really think of it like &quot;establishing&quot; given the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目前，优酷网融资的几千万美元中，超过一亿元人民币将用于版权建设 =&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently, out of the 10s of millions of USDs that Youku has financed, over 100 million RMBs are being used to establish copyright protection [for their videos].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-06-02T17:21:19.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13785" CreationDate="2015-06-03T00:32:50.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should buy a beginners 'learn Chinese' book, like HSK 1 thro 3. It will have pinyin typed above the characters, with the tone marks. Even Chinese children have pinyin in their books. Whatever input method you are using, you can then start typing characters, and so familiarize yourself with typing Chinese. Internet translators are notoriously bad. I have a children's version of 'Journey to the West', it is still hard work for me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9799" LastActivityDate="2015-06-03T00:32:50.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13769" CreationDate="2015-06-03T03:59:48.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;得 is a particle that introduces the complement of state. It is used after verbs or adjectives, and roughly means &quot;in a way that&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他脸红得像苹果似的。His face became red 'in a way' that it looked like an apple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't take the 得 off the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-06-03T03:59:48.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13778" CreationDate="2015-06-03T04:07:13.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question here isn't too much about the 不如 pattern, but about 得.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When using 得 in the structure S + (V) + O + V + 得 + complement, you can drop the first verb. So both structures you used are right, whether using 不如 or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-06-03T04:07:13.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13797" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-03T05:49:32.550" Score="1" ViewCount="2336" Body="&lt;p&gt;I never understand the difference between these three words, and nobody has never been able to explain it to me. I searched about it on many books, and websites, but I just didn't get it. Can you please try to explain it to me? Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T16:38:56.287" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T16:38:56.287" Title="What's the difference between 确实, 的确, and 实在?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-06-03T14:59:09.147" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13797" CreationDate="2015-06-03T07:59:28.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;loredana castagna 你很实在，“What's the difference between 的确，确实 and 实在” 这个 的确（确实）是个比较难解释的问题。 而我也是个实在人，的确（确实）在认真回答你的问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11099" LastActivityDate="2015-06-03T07:59:28.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13797" CreationDate="2015-06-03T08:48:37.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's first focus on their usages as adverbs. Adjective meanings are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A. As adverbs, 的确 and 确实 are the same. They mean 'indeed': without any question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;used in response to a statement that is regarded as doubtful or surprising&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;used when making a statement that adds to or strengthens a previous statement&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;A: 你会给朋友推荐这本书吗？B: 没错，我(的确／确实／真的)会给朋友推荐这本书。&quot; （A: Would you recommend this book to your friends? B: Yes, I will indeed recommend this book to my friends.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B. As an adverb, 实在 means really/very: — used to refer to what is true or intensive (the latter is not in 的确／确实):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;without question or doubt&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;to a great degree&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can say &quot;实在漂亮&quot;. It just means really/very beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, to say 'in fact or indeed', you can use any of 的确, 确实 and 实在. But to mean 'really / very', you can only use 实在.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &#xA;After watching the movie, I think it is indeed a good one. 看完电影以后，我觉这(的确／确实／实在)是部不错的电影。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After I won a free movie ticket, I was really really happy. 赢得了免费的电影票，我实在是太高兴了. (but not 的确／确实)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps a bit. As adjectives, they are also different but less subtle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="4640" LastEditDate="2015-06-03T08:58:09.950" LastActivityDate="2015-06-03T08:58:09.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13803" CreationDate="2015-06-03T10:37:14.257" Score="3" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to translate this&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E9Rer.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to Google Translate it :&#xA;三屰戈巳市&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it didn't give me any satisfying translation.&#xA;I don't know if I typed it wrong or if Google Translate simply doesn't know what it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11100" LastActivityDate="2015-06-03T11:00:30.243" Title="What is the English translation for this picture" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13802" CreationDate="2015-06-03T10:48:33.613" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You typed it wrong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's &lt;code&gt;三戦呂布&lt;/code&gt;， means fight with &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BC_Bu&quot;&gt;呂布&lt;/a&gt; for three times. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a story also called as &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E4%B8%89%E8%8B%B1%E6%88%B0%E5%91%82%E5%B8%83&quot;&gt;三英戰呂布&lt;/a&gt;, comes from the famous historical novel named &lt;code&gt;三国演义&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms&quot;&gt;Romance of the Three Kingdoms&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-06-03T11:00:30.243" LastActivityDate="2015-06-03T11:00:30.243" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13804" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-03T13:52:21.247" Score="3" ViewCount="516" Body="&lt;p&gt;印章 appear all over chinese works, especially in the past. Most noticeably in documents relating to business and arts, companies and individuals would use seals in place of signatures. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern China, how commonly used are these in opposition to western-style handwritten signatures? Celebrities obviously have handwritten autographs, and many institutions do still use 印章 to authorize or mark documents associated with them, but how likely is a common person to use one? In legal documents, do people require 印章 (as Japan does), or are written signatures accepted? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under which scenarios is each used, and how commonly are either seen in modern China (both the mainland and Taiwan, which I take are different in how much they still use seals).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T08:10:42.433" Title="How widely used are 印章 compared to signatures?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13805" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-03T05:14:46.250" Score="5" ViewCount="2952" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have observed, from subtitled movies, that there seems to be an expression [tɔdʒe] in Cantonese meaning, approximately, &quot;thank you&quot;. In Standard Lhasa Tibetan as represented by Nawang Nornang, the Tibetan expression meaning &quot;thank you&quot; is [tɔɔdʒe] (tones omitted, vowel qualities approximate). As far as I know, in Mandarin, &quot;thank you&quot; is [çieçie] (&lt;em&gt;xiexie&lt;/em&gt;). This raises a few questions that I hope someone can answer. First, is it correct that there are significantly (phonologically) different expressions for &quot;thank you&quot; in Mandarin and Cantonese (我不會說中國話). &lt;em&gt;All&lt;/em&gt; of my experience with Cantonese comes from movies. Second, if in fact Tibetan &quot;thank you&quot; is similar to the Cantonese version of &quot;thank you&quot; and not Mandarin, is there an explanation for why Tibetan would be more similar to Cantonese than to Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6726" LastEditorUserId="2600" LastEditDate="2015-10-14T03:21:00.067" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T10:45:39.107" Title="&quot;Thank you&quot; in Tibetan, Cantonese, and Mandarin" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13804" CreationDate="2015-06-03T14:14:16.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Organizations often use 印章 while signatures are used personally.&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;If you are representing an organization, 印章 usually are required, but signature is acceptable for a person representing himself. &lt;BR&gt;&#xA;Example:&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;A bank is providing a loan to me, on the contract there will be bank employee's signature, bank's 印章 and my signature, this is acceptable.&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;Of course, if you have a personal 印章, you can use it with your signature, that's fine.&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;PS: This is in mainland China, not sure the what the situation is in Taiwan&lt;BR&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2015-06-03T14:14:16.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13805" CreationDate="2015-06-03T18:53:15.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tibetan has no immediate relationship to Chinese, but there are many loan words. Most of these were introduced when Old Chinese was still dominant, namely when China became involved with Tibet from Tang and onward, with buddhist missionaries and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese also retains a lot of features from Old Chinese. It's a matter of geography, Tibet and Guangxi/Guangdong being quite far away from the Mandarin epicenter in the Northeast. Wu also retains a lot of features from older Chinese, but was independantly separated from the northeastern influence quite some time ago, and has also been somewhat influenced by Japanese (again due to geography).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-06-03T18:53:15.143" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13772" CreationDate="2015-06-04T06:59:11.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you are talking about 成都话, the first tone (阴平) follows the following rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) The regular case for the first tone is 45. When you are reading a single character, you should use 45.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) When the character is part of a phrase or a sentence, it may change. Specifically, when a first tone character A is preceded by another first tone character B, A is changed to 55. For example, 区分 is pronounced qu(45) fen(55).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, the default tone values for the second tone (阳平), the third tone (上声) and the fourth tone (去声) are 21, 42 and 13, respectively. These are used when you read a single character. When they are combined with other characters, the following rules are followed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) If a second-stone character is followed by any other characters, its tone value is changed to 22 (from 21). For example, 可以 should be pronounced ke(22)yi(42). Still, when you hear recordings, you may not hear the flattening. So I feel this rule is not strict. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) If a third-tone character is followed by any other characters, its tone value is changed to 44 (from 42). For example, 口音 should be read as kou(44)yin(55) by this rule. However, when listening to recordings, again I hear something like kou(43)yin(55). The falling tone is reduced but is still discernible. Further, the first tone of 音 is also read as 55 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find the above pronunciation yourself in the video: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtauJBczNwA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtauJBczNwA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, I think there are two forms of tone values. One is the standard form, and another is a reduced form used in compound words. It should just come naturally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The origin Chinese reference for this is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成都话中，&lt;strong&gt;阴平&lt;/strong&gt;、阳平、上声、去声的调值分别为&lt;strong&gt;45&lt;/strong&gt;, 21, 42, 13。在单读一个字时，音调遵循以上所列。但在词汇与语句中连读时，会有一定规律的变调。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一个阴平字之前一个字读阴平时，本字变调为55。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个阳平字之后有任何字时，本字变调为22。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个上声字之后有任何字时，本字变调为44。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%90%E9%83%BD%E8%AF%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%90%E9%83%BD%E8%AF%9D&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastEditorUserId="4640" LastEditDate="2015-06-04T07:59:56.830" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T07:59:56.830" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13811" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-04T07:56:54.553" Score="2" ViewCount="563" Body="&lt;p&gt;十分 is an adverb used just as 非常, but while 十分 can be negated (不十分), 非常 can't. (不非常 is unacceptable.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the explanation given by my book, which also gives me these sentences as examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不十分聪明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他十分不满。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不十分满 --&amp;gt; NO他不十分满意 --&amp;gt; OK&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this last sentence (他不十分满) wrong, if the book said I can negate 十分？And why do I need to say 满意 to use 不十分?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10932" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-10T07:03:38.887" Title="How does 十分/不十分 work？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;&lt;negation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13811" CreationDate="2015-06-04T08:16:53.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不满 is a single word. It means unhappy or unsatisfied. It cannot be separated into 不 + 十分 + 满. It's like you can't say &quot;un-very-happy&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不满意 is a phrase, 不 + 满意 = not satisfied. It can be modified by 十分: 不 ＋ 十分 + 满意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T08:16:53.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13811" CreationDate="2015-06-04T10:49:41.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should not say '不非常‘ or '不十分‘。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better: '不是非常。。。‘ or '不是十分。。。‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9799" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T10:49:41.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13811" CreationDate="2015-06-04T11:45:27.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'不十分' simply doesn't work. It's strange, it's weird, it's not native.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T11:45:27.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13816" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-04T12:29:07.527" Score="3" ViewCount="6981" Body="&lt;p&gt;土豪 [tǔ háo] seems to be a popular Internet slang term in the last couple years. The idea that I get is that it is a rich person who flaunts their money and is somewhat snobbish or spoiled. Is this right? Is there a more concise way to express this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I checked &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/search?q=%E5%9C%9F%E8%B1%AA&amp;amp;keyfrom=dict.index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Youdao Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; it gave &quot;local tyrant&quot; as the definition. Apparently there is more than one meaning. Where does this word come from and how did it get to be a description for a spoiled rich person?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9823" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T15:31:28.610" Title="What is a good English translation of 土豪?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13818" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13825" CreationDate="2015-06-04T14:29:21.703" Score="3" ViewCount="21440" Body="&lt;p&gt;In WeChat, QQ, text messages, and the like, it is common to see 哦, 噢, and 喔 used to express an acknoledgement that the other person has said something. They all seem fairly close equivalents to the English &quot;Oh&quot; to me. In my personal experience in Mainland China, I would say the frequency of use is in the order that I listed them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know, in common usage, are they interchangeable? Are there subtle differences between them? In a more strict grammatical sense, is one more correct than the others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; I am not asking how these characters are used at the ends of sentences. I am asking about their meanings when used alone. This question is different than the previous question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9331/%E5%95%8A-%E8%AF%B6-%E5%96%94-%E5%93%A6-compare-and-contrast&quot;&gt;啊，诶，喔，哦：compare and contrast&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9823" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T06:30:58.520" Title="How to write &quot;Oh&quot; in Chinese （哦，噢，喔）" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13811" CreationDate="2015-06-04T14:37:08.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;他十分不满&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He is very unsatisfied.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他不十分满&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He is not very ...full?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The problem is the usage of 满.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不满=unsatisfied&lt;br&gt;&#xA;满意=satisfied&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But only 满 usually means full/completed/filled&lt;br&gt;&#xA;so 他不十分满 is wrong, how could a man get filled? (perhaps beer?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他不十分满意 is OK, meaning He is not very satisfied&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T14:37:08.060" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13816" CreationDate="2015-06-04T14:50:08.150" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;nouveau riche&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nouveau+riche&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Free Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One who has recently become rich, especially one who flaunts newly acquired wealth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(often plural) a person who has acquired wealth recently and is regarded as vulgarly ostentatious or lacking in social graces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adj&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;of or characteristic of the nouveaux riches&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe 土豪 originates from 土豪金, but I could be wrong. I'll update later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T14:50:08.150" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13818" CreationDate="2015-06-04T18:31:35.880" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the nomenclature of mainland China but here in Taiwan:&#xA;All these are used when replying someone. Like when you say &quot;Yeah?&quot;, &quot;Is that right?&quot;, &quot;Okay.&quot;, &quot;Alright.&quot;, &quot;Got it.&quot;, etc. in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;哦&lt;/strong&gt; usually conveys a sense of questioning, as if you're surprised by something someone told you. But wether it's doubt or suspicion depends on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;噢&lt;/strong&gt; is more like when you hear something disappointing, anticlimactic, or just saddening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;喔&lt;/strong&gt; simply shows acknowledgement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI: Beware using 喔. In dating or picking up girls, 喔 is a big no-no. It kinda gives someone a sense that you don't want to continue/participate in this conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I talked about these all in the context of messaging apps or texting. And all three of these are used genrally in reply to someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6586" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T18:31:35.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13822" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-04T22:53:36.893" Score="5" ViewCount="387" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the beginning of the Analects, Confucius writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;學而時習之， 不亦說乎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate it as &amp;quot;to learn and take time practising,&#xA;is it not said? (spoken)?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet everywhere it is translated as &lt;em&gt;pleasant&lt;/em&gt;. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9780" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2020-10-08T19:58:35.247" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T19:58:35.247" Title="Why is 說 translated as &quot;pleasant&quot; in Confucius's Analects?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13822" CreationDate="2015-06-04T23:30:13.487" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's used here as a stand-in for the character 悅, which probably did not exist yet. From the Han Dynasty 說文解字: 說者今之悅字.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of this is 優 as in 學而優則仕: originally 優 was a stand-in for 餘.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T23:30:13.487" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13822" CreationDate="2015-06-05T03:53:48.090" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;說 is the original 悅, they mean the same thing. It's only because in different times, different character may be used to represent the same thing. This situation of different character used is called 古今字. Check &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%A4%E4%BB%8A%E5%AD%97&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;(Chinese Wikipedia).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To back this up, consult (清)段玉裁《說文解字注》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;説釋也。説釋卽悦懌。説悦釋懌皆古今字。許書無悦懌二字也。説釋者，開解之意。故爲喜悦。釆部曰。釋，解也。从言。兑聲。儿部曰。兑，説也。本周易。此從言兑會意。兑亦聲。弋雪切。十五部。一曰談説。此本無二義二音。疑後增此四字。别音爲失䑔切。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as to &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; it's 說, it's because when you explain something (說釋-&gt;說明解釋) to someone, he or she will be happy because the you resolve (開解) their question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Master Sparkles, I don't think call it stand-in word is appropriate since it's just the correct usage at that time. (Sorry I can't comment so I have to reply here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6586" LastEditorUserId="6586" LastEditDate="2015-06-05T04:01:59.477" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T04:01:59.477" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13818" CreationDate="2015-06-05T07:50:23.113" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;i'm Chinese. these words are the same word, means exactly the same thing. It's just when we use QQ, some people use 噢 instead of 哦。kind of a personal preference. For example, I always use 哦, never 噢。in chinese, 其实没有什么区别，只不过是个人打字的习惯而已，呵呵。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11106" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T07:50:23.113" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13811" CreationDate="2015-06-05T08:00:05.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it is kind of too formal or something, in daily life, people will not say things like &quot;他不十分聪明&quot;, people will say &quot;他不是很聪明&quot;。&quot;不满&quot; is a word, short for &quot;不满意&quot;, so you can say &quot;他十分不满&quot;, again, in real life people will usually say &quot;他很不满&quot;。I don't think you need to nail the grammar down that precisely. Just get used to what people will usually say, forget about the book, its hard to remember all the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11106" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T08:00:05.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13804" CreationDate="2015-06-05T08:10:42.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i'm native speak and talk from personal experience. 印章 is an old word, only appropriate for ancient seals. In modern language, it's called 印。when you print a seal on paper( my bad English ), it's called 盖章。people barely use seals. for example if you are going to buy a mobile phone SIM card (3G or 4G), just sign a couple papers with your name, and you're done. By the way it's called 签字 or 签名。in other words, if you just getting services for yourself just sign. If you're representing some company, you'll need to 盖章。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11106" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T08:10:42.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13778" CreationDate="2015-06-05T08:20:14.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;usually people say the first one. But I don't think the second is wrong. I'm native speaker so I have no idea about the grammar. I can give examples. 我不如你有钱(I don't have as much money as you do)。我不如你。(you're better than me)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11106" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T08:20:14.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13761" CreationDate="2015-06-05T08:23:59.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;from my experience as native speaker. I don't know about what 油彩 exactly means. But 油漆 means something you paint on your wall at home or to the outside of the buildings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11106" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T08:23:59.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13822" CreationDate="2015-06-05T15:38:56.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;說 indeed means 悅 here, but the more puzzling question is &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; you can use one to stand-in for the other. Almost all true &quot;borrowed characters&quot; (假借字, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%81%87%E5%80%9F%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;list&lt;/a&gt;) we know of are &quot;root versions&quot; compared to the eventually created word, which this is not, even though a &quot;兌&quot; could have been possible here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the more likely explanation is that they are in fact the same character. But the two phonemes are &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; different in modern Mandarin, making it difficult to explain how the sound diverged. I've wondered about this problem myself for a while; I eventually found this page (in traditional Chinese) which provided a much more comprehensive argument, and it turns out there is in fact a plausible series of phonological shifts that can explain the divergence (see table in second section).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tglin.idv.tw/essay/essay_lang57.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.tglin.idv.tw/essay/essay_lang57.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This theory would corroborate the view that the two meanings actually originated from one character (in pre-Han Chinese), and are not distinct characters. The reason why these meanings overlapped in one character would be hard to discover conclusively, but the one provided by RexYuan certainly sounds plausible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastEditorUserId="620" LastEditDate="2015-06-05T15:55:07.013" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T15:55:07.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13831" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-05T17:14:49.803" Score="3" ViewCount="670" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;台灣都嘛是做小成本人文電影&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;I was wondering how 嘛 is used in this sentence.&#xA;I think the sentence could be translated as something like &quot;Taiwan only makes low-cost movies about the humanities.&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9416" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T09:42:25.367" Title="Meaning of 嘛 in this context?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13831" CreationDate="2015-06-05T19:17:00.393" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;嘛 has 2 functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first translates as showing something's obvious, much like an &quot;of course&quot; would on the end of sentences in English. An example would be 「你的妹妹很漂亮嘛」if you're taking it as obvious their little sister is pretty (I assume you're using 繁字體). Clearly not the case here, as your example is in the middle of a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second function is to signal a topic for emphasis. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大熊貓嘛，孩子們都很喜歓。Pandas ah, children all like them&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘛 is used to provide emphasis. In this case, &quot;台灣都嘛&quot; emphasizes that &quot;As for Taiwan, it makes nothing but low cost movies about the humanities&quot;. It's not a perfect translation, but as with all particles, finding an English equivalent isn't always easy, or possible. If you know any Japanese, the particle は can be used for similar effect in many sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most importantly, 嘛 is emphasizing 台灣都. It marks it out as a topic, and is a small break in the sentence, like a comma in English. You could take your example sentence as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;台灣都嘛、是做小成本人文電影&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which we can take in English as along the lines of &quot;Taiwan, it just makes low cost humanities movies&quot; or maybe better &quot;Ah, Taiwan, it just makes low cost humanities movies&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorUserId="10955" LastEditDate="2015-08-11T09:42:25.367" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T09:42:25.367" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12847" CreationDate="2015-06-06T03:09:14.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;鬼城之美&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese language attach great importance to the symmetry of the number of words and sentences. They think words with even number characters is more beautiful, also a sentence with two sub-sentences with the same number of characters is more beautiful than a long single sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;your own translation is good enough but as the flexibility of the forms of Chinese (the nouns and adjectives look just the same), your translation can also be comprehended as a sentence (The Ghost Town is Beautiful). So add a 之 can also make it clear that this is a noun phase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11114" LastActivityDate="2015-06-06T03:09:14.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13831" CreationDate="2015-06-06T05:49:46.193" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;i try my best to the 嘛 meaning. it is actually a combination of little complication. i try to segregate them for you. but when in use, it should somehow combine all those factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there are a few situations:&#xA;1) a situation where out come is resulted from common knowledge. similar to english 'too',  'also', plus some emotional biased sense, emphasized or decimated level of magnitude in term of conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&#xA;WU:&quot;my sister is pretty&quot; -- 我姐姐很漂亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AMABO:&quot;my sister is also very pretty too. -- 我姐姐&lt;strong&gt;嘛&lt;/strong&gt;很漂亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WU:&quot; google is a big company&quot; -- 谷歌是一间大公司。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AMABO：&quot; intel is also a very big company, too.&quot; --英特尔&lt;strong&gt;嘛&lt;/strong&gt;也是一间很大的公司。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(hidden emotion, can be, your item is very good, but my item is also as good or better. or your item is bad, but my item is also as bad or worse.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) it derived meaning to similarity, or comparatively to, or like, to some assumed common known sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;++我妈妈嘛是女的。 --my mother is also woman.（hidden: which is similar to yours and maybe others)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;++他嘛脾气不好。 -- he is also a bad tempered guy. (hidden: which compare to know body having bad tempered)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so 台灣都&lt;strong&gt;嘛&lt;/strong&gt;是做小成本人文電影 is in this category.&#xA;-- taiwan is also making low cost movies。 （ hidden common sense: as compare to japan making low cost blue movie.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) a begging words to please to try something as a result of togetherness.&#xA;-- :wanna meal? ++ 吃饭吗？&#xA;xx :no thanks.  ++ 不吃。&#xA;-- : come'on, lets do it. ++ 吃&lt;strong&gt;嘛&lt;/strong&gt;。。。&#xA;xx ： ok.  ++ 好吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;( as a result, they do meal together.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xx : 这个我不会做。。。 --: i dunno how to do this.&#xA;++ : 再试一下&lt;strong&gt;嘛&lt;/strong&gt;。   --: try again please ~~~.&#xA;( hidden: beg to try as myself or other people also trying as in situation 2 for common knowledge)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- 吃一下&lt;strong&gt;嘛&lt;/strong&gt;。++ lets try to taste of the food.&#xA;(hidden: no harm to try, so please try.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11115" LastActivityDate="2015-06-06T05:49:46.193" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13836" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-06T10:38:13.393" Score="2" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even though my dictionary regards them both as a shampoo, I wonder if 洗发剂 is more a conditioner for the hair and 洗发水 more a regular watery shampoo? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference? Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11117" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T21:00:54.503" LastActivityDate="2015-11-25T21:06:40.450" Title="洗发剂 and 洗发水 difference" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13836" CreationDate="2015-06-06T11:40:21.913" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some more:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗发水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗发剂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗发液&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗发露&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗发乳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗头膏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗发精&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗发液&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗发香波&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They all mean shampoo. If there is any difference, that might be frequency or regional preferences. The last one is a loanword (香波)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-06-06T11:45:39.373" LastActivityDate="2015-06-06T11:45:39.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13836" CreationDate="2015-06-06T18:35:59.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. They are the same. They are both for shampoo. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Conditioner is 护发素。 Conditioner is not intended for cleaning hair so it is not related to 洗 or any character with a similar meaning.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;PS, If you want, you can even create your own word for shampoo as long as it makes some sense. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example, you can say 洁发剂, which you can't find in any formal dictionary. But most people will still be able to get your meaning. It sounds a bit strange and likely makes people think you want some special kind of shampoo though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6906" LastEditorUserId="6906" LastEditDate="2015-06-06T18:41:45.033" LastActivityDate="2015-06-06T18:41:45.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13836" CreationDate="2015-06-06T22:52:38.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to add to Drunken Master's impressive list, mdbg also has 润肤乳 as body shampoo and 洗发粉 as shampoo powder. I've never seen shampoo powder!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conditioner they have as 'protect hair milk 护发乳‘， among others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-06T22:52:38.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13840" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-06T23:04:53.487" Score="2" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在說什麼？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是又被變種狂牛攻擊喔了喔？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm what the second sentence means. It translates literally to something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you been attacked by a mutant mad cow again?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm sure that's not the actual meaning. I was thinking it might have something to do with mad cow disease, but that doesn't seem quite right either....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9416" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-07T09:23:33.820" Title="Meaning of 狂牛 in this context?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13841" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-06T23:11:53.390" Score="1" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know nothing at all about the law, so I don't know how 相邻权 might be translated in English. ‘neighbours law' doesn't seem very jurisprudent! Any tips please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;近年知识产权案件逐年上升，案件类型也从单纯的著作权，商标权和专利权向其相邻权转变，案件涉及的领域也更加广泛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a few rereads, I come to the conlusion '向其相邻权‘ is not a law or a right, it just means '(and) to their related laws' Is that right? I'm a bit slow off the mark this morning!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-06-07T00:18:04.307" LastActivityDate="2015-06-07T01:13:24.660" Title="What is the meaning of 相邻权？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13841" CreationDate="2015-06-07T01:13:24.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;著作权的&quot;相邻权&quot; is not 'related laws' but 'related rights'. Related laws is 相关的法律。It is not the same as 相邻权 of real estates. I think the Chinese term might be a bit hard to understand, because 相邻 means adjacency not related. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese definition&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;著作权(知识产权)的相邻权或邻接权，是表演者、录音录像制作者和广播企业对其节目、录音录像制品所拥有的权利，这一权利主要通过1961年10月26日的《关于表演者、唱片制作者和广播组织的国际公约》(罗马公约)， 1971年10月29日的《保护唱片制作者防止唱片被擅自复制公约》(唱片公约) 以及1996年12月20日由世界知识产权组织制定的《表演和录音制品条约》进行调整。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;English explanation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purpose of related rights is to protect the legal interests of certain persons and legal entities who contribute to making works available to the public; or who produce subject matter which, while not qualifying as works under the copyright systems of all countries, contain sufficient creativity or technical and organizational skill to justify recognition of a copyright-like property right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/intproperty/909/wipo_pub_909.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/intproperty/909/wipo_pub_909.pdf&lt;/a&gt; (Page 16)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-06-07T01:13:24.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13840" CreationDate="2015-06-07T01:18:46.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;狂牛 means a mad cow or a cow with the mad cow disease. But I don't know what is the meaning of such a sentence. It could literally mean being attacked by a mad cow. Or something related to being mad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-06-07T01:18:46.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13840" CreationDate="2015-06-07T09:23:33.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context &quot;你是又被變種狂牛攻擊喔了喔？&quot;, it is basically just a metaphor for &quot;are you out of your mind?&quot;, not that a mad cow really exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11121" LastActivityDate="2015-06-07T09:23:33.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13816" CreationDate="2015-06-07T09:29:29.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;土豪&quot; used to mean super rich people but without a good education. Nowadays however, in China we basically called every person who bought something slightly fancy &quot;土豪&quot; without any extra meaning, just for fun. So next time when your friend bought a pair of Air Jordan, you can called him &quot;土豪&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11121" LastActivityDate="2015-06-07T09:29:29.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13846" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13865" CreationDate="2015-06-07T10:07:18.780" Score="12" ViewCount="503" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;商数&quot; is usually translated as &quot;quotient&quot; in both its mathematical and common usage forms (eg in &quot;智商&quot;/intelligence quotient, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intelligence+quotient&quot;&gt;which is in fact an actual quotient&lt;/a&gt;.). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the etymology of &quot;商&quot;, and why was it used to describe fractional numbers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8054" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T06:49:10.970" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T06:49:10.970" Title="What is the etymology of &quot;商&quot; in &quot;商数&quot;" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13769" CreationDate="2015-06-07T15:53:49.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, 得（it is read softly as &quot;de&quot;）is a structural auxiliary word. It is used behind adjective for indicate the relationship between &quot;he's face' &quot;and &quot;the apple&quot;. &#xA;For another example like this condition:&#xA;她的笑容美得像花。( Her smile is sweaty, flower is also beautiful, and if you want to get them together,to build a relationship, you need use 得 connect them.)     Wish to help you:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6453" LastActivityDate="2015-06-07T15:53:49.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13816" CreationDate="2015-06-07T16:44:50.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;土豪&quot; is used to describe rich people with low taste or education. &quot;豪&quot; means rich. &quot;土&quot; is a synonym of &quot;俗&quot;. &#xA;In my opinion, &quot;nouveau riche&quot; is the best translation of &quot;土豪&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to google, the definition of &quot;nouveau riche&quot; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;noun:&#xA;people who have recently acquired wealth, typically those perceived as ostentatious or lacking in good taste.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;adjective:&#xA;relating to or characteristic of the nouveau riche.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9365" LastEditorUserId="9365" LastEditDate="2015-06-07T16:53:08.133" LastActivityDate="2015-06-07T16:53:08.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13849" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-07T17:38:34.163" Score="1" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;This one &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12918/hanzi-underline-rules&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is similar, but doesn't quite answer what I am asking here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I have a name + title (as in 张老师) how would the underlining work? Would I have to underline the whole word (&quot;&lt;strong&gt;张老师&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;) or just the name part (&quot;&lt;strong&gt;张&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;老师)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about compound words (like 中国画)?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I have a feeling that underlining compound words (even only the name) would make the text loaded of underlining info (&quot;&lt;strong&gt;中国&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;画、&quot;&lt;strong&gt;汉&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;语、&quot;&lt;strong&gt;越&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;剧、&quot;&lt;strong&gt;中&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;餐、&quot;&lt;strong&gt;英&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;文、etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2015-06-08T03:13:55.770" Title="Name underlining (whole word or just part of it?)" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13850" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13851" CreationDate="2015-06-07T18:09:47.040" Score="4" ViewCount="987" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;腦門子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would be forehead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;黑線&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is black lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean something like &quot;veins popping on his forehead&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T16:24:04.483" Title="What does &quot;滿腦門子的黑線&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13850" CreationDate="2015-06-07T20:54:58.270" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not popping veins, but cold sweat for frustration or helplessness, usually as a response to something completely out of the line or out of the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_iconography&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Parallel vertical lines with dark shading over the head or under the eye may represent mortification, fatigue, or horror. If the lines are wavy, it may represent disgust. A far cuter way to represent frustration/mortification is (mainly for female/ young female characters) they tend to puff out their cheeks while their line is delivered in a gruff voice, an elongated 3 showing puffed lips to show that puffed look more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CUaPK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Popping vein is visualized and then character-ized as '头上一个大大的&lt;strong&gt;井&lt;/strong&gt;字'.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MAC4Y.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2015-06-07T21:02:20.280" LastActivityDate="2015-06-07T21:02:20.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13849" CreationDate="2015-06-07T21:09:51.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For compound words, the whole word is the proper noun and should be marked as a whole. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Text full of underlining is proper but may look crowded, in which case there are typographical optimizations you can apply, such as increased line height and character padding, or use bold instead of underlining for the markup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-06-07T21:09:51.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13849" CreationDate="2015-06-08T03:13:55.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First we use your example “张老师”.  It's ok and necessary to underline 张,because here,老师represents a wide range(there are many many teachers yes?), 张 is a limitation of 老师, it means  not other teacher, but 张老师. (Become refer in particular )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many similar circumstance in Chinese words and vocabulary. Like your example,中国画, 中国is the scope limitation of 画，not other country's 画,but here you only want to point 中国的画.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In 'Chinese language' chapter vocabulary , in this similar context ,老师，画，and the rest of your example 剧（we can also use it to create word like 京剧，豫剧，昆剧，平剧 and so on);&#xA;语(汉语，英语 …)；&#xA;餐（中餐，美餐，快餐…);&#xA;文(英文，中文，俄文…)&#xA;老师，画，剧，语，餐，文，can be seen a affix, the underlining work you want to do is necessary when you would like to point something in concrete.&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Wish to help u.   :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6453" LastActivityDate="2015-06-08T03:13:55.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13856" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-08T04:47:12.607" Score="2" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look up 当作 it says something like 'treat as, regard as, look upon', however, from what I can see, it only gets used in combination with 把 or 被。&#xA;Is this 把 a word with meaning, or a particle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it at all possible, lets say, to rewrite &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别把我当作外人。 with the form '当作我‘ and not use '把’？ Maybe '别当做我为外人。‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't treat me as an outsider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T17:53:02.853" Title="Can 当作 ever be used with a direct object behind it?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13856" CreationDate="2015-06-08T06:50:44.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No you cannot do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please always use 把 or 被.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把: take&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;被: be taken as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别把我当作外人: &#xA;Don't take me as an outsider&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我被当做了外人: &#xA;I'm taken as an outsider&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11125" LastActivityDate="2015-06-08T06:50:44.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13856" CreationDate="2015-06-08T09:02:52.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in the context 把 serves the same purpose as 将, which are both prep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 is usually used together with 当作, 把A当作B means treat A as B.&#xA;Such as:&#xA;&quot;do not treat me as an out-sider&quot; - 别把我当作外人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However you can actually use 当 without 把, such as:&#xA;别当我傻-do not think I am stupid.&#xA;别当我不知道你做了什么-do not think I do not know what you have done.&#xA;Though this usage of 当 is more colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11127" LastActivityDate="2015-06-08T09:02:52.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13856" CreationDate="2015-06-08T09:54:31.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To make this simple..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;别把我当作外人&#xA;&#xA;別当我为外人&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally we don't say &quot;&lt;code&gt;別当作我为外人&lt;/code&gt;&quot;, just because we need an opposite B  after &lt;code&gt;当作&lt;/code&gt;, so it could be like &quot;&lt;code&gt;treat 我(A) as 外人(B)&lt;/code&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we see “&lt;code&gt;把&lt;/code&gt;”，it's more like an emphasis on Whom, &quot;&lt;code&gt;Don't treat *Me* as outsider&lt;/code&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11129" LastEditorUserId="10995" LastEditDate="2015-06-09T17:53:02.853" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T17:53:02.853" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13831" CreationDate="2015-06-08T10:15:04.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just like a sound to make the sentence more vivid in oral Chinese speaking, it's like, we can use &quot;hmm, ah...&quot; to express different feelings in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11129" LastActivityDate="2015-06-08T10:15:04.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13818" CreationDate="2015-06-08T10:21:49.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;哦 Usually express the feelings to understand something and get to know something first time, or unexpectedly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;噢 More surprisingly and deeper feelings than 哦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In real speak, different pitch is used to reflect different feelings, could be surprise, sad, or painful, same as English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喔 It sounds like &quot;WOW&quot;, not &quot;Oh&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you should use “噢”, when its &quot;Oh&quot;..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11129" LastEditorUserId="11129" LastEditDate="2015-06-08T10:29:00.387" LastActivityDate="2015-06-08T10:29:00.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13862" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13864" CreationDate="2015-06-08T15:03:10.270" Score="2" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to write a sentence with the phrase &quot;eliminates the need to do sth...&quot; and have gotten as far as “消除作sth..的————”, any suggestions? I don't think 需要or必须are very good choices because they are usually placed near the beginning of the sentence...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11131" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T16:17:34.720" Title="A noun version of &quot;need&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13862" CreationDate="2015-06-08T15:44:58.873" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest 避免作sth..的需求&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;消除 doesn't feel right for the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11039" LastEditorUserId="11039" LastEditDate="2015-06-09T16:50:39.897" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T16:50:39.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13862" CreationDate="2015-06-08T18:17:36.943" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;(1) A排除对B的需求 - A eliminates the need for B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) A消除对B的需要 - ditto&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't forget to use 对 as 'preposition'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-06-08T18:17:36.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13846" CreationDate="2015-06-08T22:12:27.807" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not an easy question. But I think here is an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It originated from the Chinese water clock or clepsydra in the ancient time (刻漏 or 漏壶, &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/41631.htm&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/41631.htm&lt;/a&gt;). 刻漏 or 漏壶 was a leaky water container, where the water level represents time. 商 was originally the scale plate on this type of water clock. The scale first had 100 grades (later 120 grades). So it roughly meant 'percentage' at some point and then the word 商数 or 商 began to mean 'quotient'. Because its ancient meaning (a scale plate on a water clock) is definitely deprecated, it is hard to see why 商数 means quotient. It has nothing to do with dividend or business numbers. :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some reference is below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《集韵·阳韵》：“商,刻也.”《正字通·口部》：“商乃漏箭所刻之处.”《仪礼·士昏礼》解题引郑玄《目录》：“日入三商为昏.”贾公彦疏：“商为商量,是刻漏之名.故《三光灵曜》亦日入三刻为昏.”准此,可以断定,商之本义是古代滴漏上计时的刻度.商的其他字义皆由此引申而来.《说文》：“漏以铜受水,刻节,昼夜百刻.”《汉书·哀帝纪》：“漏刻以百二十为度.注：“旧漏昼夜其百刻,今增其二十.”可知刻箭上的度数有以百为率.每支刻箭一百度,每一度都是相等的,等于说把一支刻箭用一百来除,得出每一度的长度,这就叫商.算术中除法运算的得数叫商,是由漏箭的刻度引申而来.《广雅·释诂》：“商,常也.”《广韵·阳韵》：“商,常也.”常即经常,恒定不变,其义来自漏箭的刻度是一个恒定的常数.做生意,做买卖叫商,如“商品”、“商业”,此义也由商为漏箭刻度引申而来.《广雅》：“商,度也.”《汉书·沟洫志》：“能商功利”.颜师古注：“商,度也.”商有度量义,商量义,人与人之间的买卖关系要遵守等价交换的原则,交换双方都要度量对方货物的价值与己方货物的价值是否相当,所以,商又用为商业、商品、商人,仍为漏箭刻度的引申义. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://zuoye.baidu.com/question/6b86ea97bf3190c0c06615f0b9c852cb.html?fr=iks&amp;amp;word=%B3%FD%B7%A8%BD%E1%B9%FB%CE%AA%CA%B2%C3%B4%BD%D0%C9%CC&amp;amp;ie=gbk&quot;&gt;http://zuoye.baidu.com/question/6b86ea97bf3190c0c06615f0b9c852cb.html?fr=iks&amp;amp;word=%B3%FD%B7%A8%BD%E1%B9%FB%CE%AA%CA%B2%C3%B4%BD%D0%C9%CC&amp;amp;ie=gbk&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4640" LastActivityDate="2015-06-08T22:12:27.807" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13850" CreationDate="2015-06-09T01:06:32.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is '满脸黑线', but I think it just means 'scowling' because someone said/did something dumb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Too much praying can get you a black mark:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gowister.com/islam-answer-1488.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.gowister.com/islam-answer-1488.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and here are some astrological aspects: &lt;a href=&quot;http://askastrologer.com/articles/Forehead-reading.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://askastrologer.com/articles/Forehead-reading.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T01:06:32.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13867" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-09T02:17:49.537" Score="0" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tzwrj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pls help me to translate this thnk you &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11133" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T04:28:09.937" Title="can you help me translate this ??" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2015-06-09T18:49:50.220" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13868" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-09T02:52:37.960" Score="2" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this definition for 公示：指政府机关或团体下达的指示、通告等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and this sentence: 卡拉OK版权费征收标准的公示一出，老板和消费者对此都有不同的反应。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the copyright-fee levy standard for Karaoke (bars) was 公示'published'(??), bosses and customers reacted differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe 'enacted'， ‘enforced’?? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T19:27:05.753" Title="What would be the English for 公示？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13867" CreationDate="2015-06-09T04:28:09.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4fbe5af80100nf1c.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;【古诗英译】王之涣《凉州词》   译/晚枫&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凉州词&#xA;王之涣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黄河远上白云间，&#xA;一片孤城万仞山。&#xA;羌笛何须怨杨柳，&#xA;春风不度玉门关。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lyrics to Liangzhou Tune&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by Wang Zhihuan&#xA;tr. Rhapsodia_晚枫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Yellow River riseth up far into clouds so white,&#xA;An isolated city on mountains standeth sky-high.&#xA;The flute is futile the weeping willows tune here to blow,&#xA;In that beyond the Jade-gate Pass spring breezes never go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第二版（12月12日）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Yellow River riseth far into clouds white,&#xA;Atop a mountain standeth a lone fort at height.&#xA;Should the piccolo pick the willow tune to play?&#xA;Since over the Yumen Pass spring breeze reacheth nay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经过这一番讨论，现在根据新的认识，拿出第三版，望各位批评：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Yellow River reaches up to touch clouds white,&#xA;A lone fort sets far against the high mount in sight.&#xA;The weeping willow tune the flute needs not to play,&#xA;For yond the Yumen Pass spring breeze won’t make its way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第四版 Dec 15 2010&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Yellow River reaches up into clouds white,&#xA;A lone fortress and a high mountain far in sight.&#xA;The weeping willow tune the flute needs not to play,&#xA;For yond the Yumen Pass spring breeze won’t make its way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T04:28:09.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13868" CreationDate="2015-06-09T05:14:32.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;make known to the public&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;notify (the public)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;inform (the public)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;proclaim [e.g. a state organ; this doesn't fit your context]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;release (information)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to display (information)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or simply: announce [as in the comment above]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T05:14:32.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13868" CreationDate="2015-06-09T08:27:49.820" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;公：public；示：notify&#xA;so, put these characters together, 公示means “to notify the public about some events or public decision” or &quot;something that publicly notifies the population about some events&quot; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, to your question, 公示 is a noun, &quot;一出&quot;is a verb means &quot;release&quot;. And in your case, 公式was translated as &quot;standard&quot; which makes sense, because industry standard made by some public organization can be seen as &quot;something that notify the public about some public decision&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11135" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T08:27:49.820" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13856" CreationDate="2015-06-09T13:48:38.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My answer is not directly relevant to this question. But it would be good practice for you to learn &quot;把字句&quot; and &quot;被字句&quot;. In China, these are offered as fundamental Chinese courses in primary school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T13:48:38.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13016" CreationDate="2015-06-09T20:39:47.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both the same.  群 is more pleasing in shape and 羣 is more difficult to write to fit into the square space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11137" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T20:39:47.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13237" CreationDate="2015-06-09T20:42:16.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're going to go with a romanization of the English such as &quot;sifu&quot; you should probably go with standard Pinyin (i.e. Shizu）, rather than some other lesser-used romanization system like Wade-Giles or Yale. Perhaps &quot;Grand Masters&quot; of &quot;Founding Masters&quot; might work well in English. The term seems to be plural (although I have no context) so make sure you use the plural form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11131" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T20:42:16.100" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13875" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13876" CreationDate="2015-06-09T21:26:43.747" Score="2" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to translate a research paper into Mandarin Chinese and I was hoping I could get some insite on proper footnote placement around punctuation. For example， if I'm trying to footnote twice in a sentence, should I place the footnote before or after the standard Chinese periods and commas (i.e. 什么什么，1什么什么。2) or should I place it before the punctuation (i.e. 什么什么1，什么什么2。)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, If I have multiple footnotes, how should they be separated? with a comma, as in English (i.e.什么什么1，2，3 ）? (along those lines, should I use full-sized punctuation in that instance or is western punctuation cleaner (i.e. 什么什么1,2,3?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I apologize for all of the &quot;什么什么&quot; action in there， its proprietary and I can't share any of the actual content.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11131" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T22:14:43.513" Title="Punctuation and Footnotes in Mandarin Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13875" CreationDate="2015-06-09T22:14:43.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use numbers in square brackets, before punctuation, separated by &quot;、&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么什么[1]、[2]。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more detail, search baidu for 脚注格式.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11039" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T22:14:43.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13237" CreationDate="2015-06-10T16:49:36.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, I don't think they really worship the founder as we do. &#xA;I would recommend two ways to show the seniority and hierarchy of 师祖.&#xA;1. Mask his name. Like Voldemort, everyone calls him &quot;the one who cannot be named&quot;. You can figure out    A shorter version &#xA;2.use his name to name some important things. Say Newton's law&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11140" LastActivityDate="2015-06-10T16:49:36.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13850" CreationDate="2015-06-10T16:58:12.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It describes a situation where you don't know how to respond. Include but not limited to embarrassment and unexpected dramatic change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11140" LastActivityDate="2015-06-10T16:58:12.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13850" CreationDate="2015-06-10T16:59:16.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its to signal disbelief or even disgust at something that just happened&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11141" LastActivityDate="2015-06-10T16:59:16.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13238" CreationDate="2015-06-10T17:41:41.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, what you are saying doesn't even exists in Chinese. &#xA;Chinese magic emphasis ritual and 心法口诀. It never specifically mention any gesture. Let alone a combination of multiple gestures.&#xA;So your translation is determined by what magic system you use.&#xA;If your system is based on naruto. I think you already got the answer.&#xA;If your system is based on western magic. The I think &quot;spell&quot; is the word you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11140" LastActivityDate="2015-06-10T17:41:41.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13237" CreationDate="2015-06-10T18:12:15.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It feels like you are talking more about 掌门 or 掌门人 when you are referring to the master of a school of martial arts which is something more like &quot;Head&quot; (as in headmaster), leader or even chief。 Of course this is more of a translation in the context of a martial art sects/schools but can also be informally interpreted as someone who is in charge of an organization (such as CEO or government leader).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11141" LastActivityDate="2015-06-10T18:12:15.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13238" CreationDate="2015-06-10T18:28:16.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Over here, I'm taking an educated guess here but I think you may be focussing on Chinese Taoism/Taoists or something that focusses on &quot;fairy/divine/immortal&quot; (仙) where there is an element of magic/Taoist spells being involved that are composed of rituals, symbols and hand movements. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A less literal translation would be &quot;invocation&quot; as in the invocation of a spell or magic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11141" LastActivityDate="2015-06-10T18:28:16.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13640" CreationDate="2015-06-10T20:42:12.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Admiration works well but you can also use respect, so in the context of what you earlier stated: 我真佩服, you can see it as &quot;I have a lot of respect&quot; which could also work&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11141" LastActivityDate="2015-06-10T20:42:12.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13884" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13885" CreationDate="2015-06-10T21:34:38.273" Score="2" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;My best scientific dictionaries have all crashed, and in any case they may not have this word either. I'm looking for a Chinese translation of the word &quot;&lt;strong&gt;upregulate&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;up-regulate&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the process of increasing the response to a stimulus; &lt;em&gt;specifically&lt;/em&gt; : increase in a cellular response to a molecular stimulus due to increase in the number of receptors on the cell surface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another dictionary combined with some okay-ish judgement seems to think it's &quot;上调&quot; or possibly &quot;上调作用&quot; but I'd love some feedback to see if you guys think I'm on the right track.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11131" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T18:12:35.907" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T18:12:35.907" Title="How to say &quot;upregulate&quot; in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13884" CreationDate="2015-06-10T22:28:58.723" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;上调&lt;/code&gt; is the most common equivalent. In your description you are using the wrong character (凋, the radical is different).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: to add credibility to my answer and provide some examples, I have added some use cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some usages in abstracts: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;School of Life Sciences, Peking University:&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bio.pku.edu.cn/teacher_dis.php?cid=146&amp;amp;&amp;amp;teaid=9&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;上调&lt;/strong&gt;巨噬细胞的一些信号分子&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;upregulating some signaling molecules of macrophages&quot; &lt;em&gt;(text at the end of the article)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chinese Journal of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology:&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cjbmb.bjmu.edu.cn/CN/abstract/abstract19052.shtml&quot;&gt;骨形态发生蛋白2通过Smad途径&lt;strong&gt;上调&lt;/strong&gt;Osterix的表达&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Bone Morphogenetic Protein 2 Upregulates Osterix Expression Through Smad Pathway&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Same source:&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cjbmb.bjmu.edu.cn/CN/abstract/abstract19100.shtml&quot;&gt;BPH-1通过分泌PGE2&lt;strong&gt;上调&lt;/strong&gt;前列腺间质细胞ERRα的表达&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Prostaglandin E2 Mediates the Upregulation of ERRα Expression with BPH-1 Condition Media in Prostatic Stromal Cells &quot;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;(You can find many other use cases in this journal.)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Journal of Shanghai Jiaotong University (Medical Science Edition):&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xuebao.shsmu.edu.cn/CN/abstract/abstract10194.shtml&quot;&gt;IL-21&lt;strong&gt;上调&lt;/strong&gt;IL-17的表达在Graves病中的意义&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Significance of IL-17 upregulation by IL-21 in patients with Graves disease&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;调 is the keyword that denotes regulation, thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;regulatory mechanism&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;a href=&quot;http://life.ecnu.edu.cn/s/159/t/445/5e/b8/info89784.htm&quot;&gt;调控机制&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;(see Chinese abstract on the linked page)&lt;/em&gt; in this context.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下调 (&lt;code&gt;downregulation&lt;/code&gt;) denotes the opposite of 上调 (&lt;code&gt;upregulation&lt;/code&gt;).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also comes as &lt;a href=&quot;http://d.wanfangdata.com.cn/Periodical_swhx200905013.aspx&quot;&gt;调节&lt;/a&gt; which is to regulate in a general sense (whether up or down, not specified), used in the context of biochemistry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-06-11T05:59:55.210" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T05:59:55.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13884" CreationDate="2015-06-11T02:13:51.677" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think you will have to rewrite upregulate to something like 'increase reactivity'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The process of increasing the response of a cell to a stimulus is known as 'increasing the reactivity of the cell'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence could be translated thus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;增加细胞对刺激反应的过程称为‘增加细胞反应性‘。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 'upregulate' becomes '‘增加细胞反应性‘.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T02:13:51.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13884" CreationDate="2015-06-11T04:18:41.813" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;according to this article:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ptt.cc/man/Biotech/D93F/D7BE/D983/M.1113811339.A.257.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.ptt.cc/man/Biotech/D93F/D7BE/D983/M.1113811339.A.257.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;upregulate can be translated to &quot;表現量增加&quot; especially refer to &quot;基因表現量&quot; as the certain cell status like Heat-shock or starvation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11143" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T04:18:41.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13884" CreationDate="2015-06-11T04:37:56.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, &quot;凋&quot; needed to be pointed out due to the fact that it's incorrect, the right one is &quot;调&quot;, them may look like, but they either have the same meaning (definition) nor the pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, upregulate seems to me is a combined words of &quot;up&quot; and &quot;regulate&quot;, so, it wouldn't be violate any linguistic rules to translate into &quot;上调&quot; or more detailed &quot;向上调节&quot; since it is a combine word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may help if you give me the specific domain or field which your &quot;upregulate&quot; comes from, but, I think upregulate equivalent to &quot;turn up&quot; or &quot;increase&quot; won't be a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2896" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T04:37:56.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2015-06-11T05:14:07.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between &quot;载体&quot; and &quot;媒介&quot; in Chinese is equivalent to the difference between &quot;Carrier&quot; and &quot;Medium&quot; in English. So, you pretty much can figure this out immediately after I told you that, if your English is well enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2896" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T05:14:07.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13890" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-11T09:35:00.467" Score="0" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading a webnovel and i stumbled upon this and i am confused about the meaning of the phrase.&#xA;Does this mean he is thinking in his heart? There is a quote before this by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11146" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T16:14:28.007" Title="What does this mean &quot;封不觉心中这么想着&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13890" CreationDate="2015-06-11T09:43:23.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;封不觉 thought in mind.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese language prefers that the heart thinks, not the brain thinks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11143" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T09:43:23.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13890" CreationDate="2015-06-11T12:14:21.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If 封不觉 is not his name, then it means 'Feng (just) can't help thinking (like this)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If his name is 封不觉， then it means 'Feng Bujue thinks like this.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T12:14:21.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13640" CreationDate="2015-06-11T18:28:39.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Admire&quot; is very off here. 佩服 has an interpersonal aspect; &quot;admire&quot; is uni-directional, often explicitly so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context that you're describing, there is no direct equivalent, but &quot;bowled over by [person]&quot; is very similar in meaning; and &quot;I take my hat off [to you]&quot; is also a possible expression depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T18:28:39.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13898" CreationDate="2015-06-11T18:57:01.357" Score="0" ViewCount="476" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I could say something like &quot;differing opinions/perspectives/thoughts/etc.&quot; I'm wondering if I could somehow say this with one word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11151" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T14:05:26.423" Title="Is there a single English word equivalent that means 人各有志?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13897" CreationDate="2015-06-11T19:13:17.750" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't think of a single word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase for the meaning you're describing is &lt;em&gt;De gustibus non est disputandum&lt;/em&gt;, or sometimes colloquially &quot;to each his own&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not however the literal meaning of 人各有志. The most analogical word is &lt;em&gt;aspiration&lt;/em&gt; in English; e.g. &quot;each man has his own aspiration&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="620" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T19:13:17.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13868" CreationDate="2015-06-11T19:27:05.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you know 告示. I think 公示 is the official version of 告示. So I think 公示 = official bulletin (or something similar).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the whole sentence should be:&#xA;After the official bulletin for copyright-fee levy standard for Karaoke was publicized, bosses and customers reacted differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T19:27:05.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13816" CreationDate="2015-06-12T01:00:13.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The derogative term 'new money' is somewhat appropriate, although perhaps not familiar to everyone. It used to describe a wealthy person who made their money later and was not from the landed gentry. For example, in the movie Titanic, the large American woman called Molly Brown was described as 'new money' by Rose's mother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11065" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T01:00:13.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13897" CreationDate="2015-06-12T02:07:55.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;人各有志 I think is 'everyone has ambition' or, as Yang says, 'aspirations', but in English this cannot be condensed. How would you run 'everyone' into 'has ambition'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;De gustibus non est disputandum = 'There is no accounting for taste.' but 'each to his own' has that sentiment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T02:07:55.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13897" CreationDate="2015-06-12T02:50:12.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;人各有志 is a idiom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will simply use &quot;Our paths depend on what we want.&quot; or &quot;Diversities among us creates possibilities.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11143" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T02:50:12.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13903" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13904" CreationDate="2015-06-12T04:46:05.307" Score="1" ViewCount="966" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to ask my boss permission to move forward with a project.  I am sending him an email, but I'm not sure how to close the email.  I understand that it is common to wish health and happiness, etc. (See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/13015/what-is-the-formal-polite-way-to-begin-and-end-an-email-in-chinese&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; question), for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;敬祝！安康！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;祝你一切都好！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would like to also convey my appreciation if he seriously considers my ideas. Is there also a way to say something like, &quot;Thank you for your time&quot;, or &quot;Thank you for your consideration&quot;? Is &quot;谢谢您的考虑&quot; something people say?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9593" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T16:21:37.513" Title="How to end an email asking for permission from my boss in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;formal&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13903" CreationDate="2015-06-12T05:18:10.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=DzxzHB-URGXf51zLAeCGYVxZa2exXbt-e9DujDkv7gzuqTde8tGH7vERdM0sU4ZXqNappxdCSW7Kh0Gjh7wWQa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;敬上&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;书信&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古代用于书信结尾的敬语或谦词，表示对收信人的尊敬。现多见于日语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用法：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;......（正文）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xxx（写信人）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敬上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've received many messages set-up this way. &amp;quot;Thank you for your time&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Thank you for your consideration&amp;quot; are very English-isms, you're best just to go with the Chinese way to do things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T05:18:10.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13906" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-12T05:43:38.910" Score="1" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;The exact sentence I'd like to translate is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The general consensus is that most people consider Southerners to be friendly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One stereotype that Southerners have is that they are friendly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know you can use &quot;总的来说“ to mean &quot;Generally speaking&quot;, or &quot;In general&quot;, but I really want to convey the stereotype aspect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T23:33:39.030" Title="How to say &quot;The general consensus is&quot; or &quot;In general, most people consider&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13906" CreationDate="2015-06-12T05:52:09.577" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;use 刻板印象 (stereotypes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们有南方人都很友善的刻板印象/我們有南方人都很友善的刻板印象. ( We have the stereotype that... )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11143" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T05:52:09.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2718" CreationDate="2015-06-12T05:54:52.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its probably too late but try CJK Viewer, an Android app that romanizes Chinese to Cantonese. Copy and paste any Chinese text articles from the web and learn to read Cantonese through Jyutping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.imxiaowoo.cjkviewer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.imxiaowoo.cjkviewer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11154" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T05:54:52.013" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-06-12T05:54:52.013" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13862" CreationDate="2015-06-12T07:38:38.207" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;use 需求 is better &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example: “需要从源头上消除代写论文的需求” from  新华网&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11156" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T07:38:38.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13906" CreationDate="2015-06-12T07:47:53.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence is... strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The general consensus is that most people consider Southerners to be friendly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means: the consensus is NOT about &quot;Southerners are friendly&quot;, but about &quot;most people consider this and that&quot;. Or did I understand it incorrectly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;General consensus&quot; can be translated as &quot;普遍共识&quot;, but this is too official, often used in government documents or the news. Also, this is a noun, not a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Orally, people say 人们普通(一般)认为 this and that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it's &quot; 人们普通认同 '大多数人都认为南方人很友善' &quot;. :-D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or it's &quot;人们普通认同南方人很友善(的看法)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence means different. It's more objective and seems to be stating the fact. So it's &quot;南方人的普遍特征是他们很友善&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2826" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T07:47:53.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13912" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-12T10:23:08.980" Score="2" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the classic Xiangsheng &lt;a href=&quot;http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/xhfk/2012-01/27/c_122621010.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《賣布頭》&lt;/a&gt;, they mention various ways the street peddlers sing (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/6/150/334184.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;吆喝&lt;/a&gt;) about their wares, among them the textiles merchants sell a kind of black fabric called &quot;德国青&quot;. Here is the exchange:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  甲：他們吆喝的德國青，黑色（shai）的。&#xA;  乙：黑的。&#xA;  甲：那真叫黑，吆喝這味兒。&#xA;  乙：您學一學。&#xA;  甲：」（拍了一下）哎，這塊吆喝，吆喝賤了就是不打價啊。」&#xA;  乙：是嘍。&#xA;  甲：「說這塊德國青，這塊怎麼那麼黑，您說怎麼那麼黑？」&#xA;  乙：還是…我知道怎麼那麼黑啊？&#xA;  甲：「氣死張飛，還不讓李逵，氣死了唐朝的黑敬德（dei）呀」&#xA;  乙：不錯。&#xA;  甲：「怎麼那麼黑，在東山送過碳，西山挖過煤呀，又當過兩天的煤鋪的二掌柜的吧。還真正是德國青啊，真正的德國染兒，真正是德國人製造這塊布兒的」。&#xA;  乙：是嘍。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this, I gather it's some kind of high quality German black fabric or made using black dye. What exactly is it? I didn't find anything useful by searching for &quot;German black fabric&quot; or &quot;德国青&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T03:23:16.703" Title="What is 德国青? 德国青?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="116" CreationDate="2015-06-12T13:00:47.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use my fingers whenever I say the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tone 1 -- index finger&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tone 2 -- middle finger&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tone 3 -- ring finger&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tone 4 -- pinky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tone 5/neutral tone -- thumb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also use color-coding, just as the others have shared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11159" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T13:00:47.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13897" CreationDate="2015-06-12T13:02:24.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably a variation on concur... like &quot;unconcurring&quot; or something like &quot;incongruent&quot;, but it would depend more on the context. Do you have more of the sentence that you can show me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11131" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T13:02:24.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13897" CreationDate="2015-06-12T14:05:26.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there's an idiom in English as such. If you have to translate it, perhaps &quot;pursue your own dreams&quot; would be the closest. There is however a common saying &quot;don't live somebody else's life&quot;, which gets the gist of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T14:05:26.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13906" CreationDate="2015-06-12T14:23:42.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider &lt;strong&gt;舆论&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOUN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;public opinion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;制造舆论&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fabricate public opinion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;国际舆论&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;international opinion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舆论导向&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;direction toward which people's opinion is guided&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加强舆论监督&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;strengthen measures to ensure that the correct orientation is maintained in public opinion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舆论哗然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there is a public outcry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们进行宣传, 为他们的候选人造舆论。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They used publicity to prepare public opinion for their candidates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T14:23:42.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13816" CreationDate="2015-06-12T15:31:28.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ha this is a challenging translation. On Twitter etc. people say &quot;rich douchebag&quot;, which means a rich,  arrogant and obnoxious person. For example there are various blogposts with titles such as &quot;University XYZ is full of rich douchebag kids&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T15:31:28.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13918" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13932" CreationDate="2015-06-12T15:31:54.607" Score="0" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on a translation that requires an &quot;e.g.&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an example: &quot;The way we cook food (e.g. baking or frying techniques) leads to different health consequences despite using he same ingredients.&quot; What would be the best way, in your opinion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like &quot;做饭的方式（像烘焙或油炸）发生不同的健康后果。&quot; comes to my mind, bit is that professional/correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11131" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T05:58:06.623" Title="”e.g.“ and &quot;i.e.&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13912" CreationDate="2015-06-12T15:45:11.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best I can find is that jet (lignite), an extremely black stone, may have been powdered and used as a dye. Natural jet is found in Germany and if you are a native English speaker you may have heard the term &quot;jet black&quot; in reference to the deep black color of the stone. It may also just be the ancient Chinese version of &quot;jet black&quot;, being used as an adjective in this case to describe the color of the fabric.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11131" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T15:45:11.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13918" CreationDate="2015-06-12T16:03:39.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;同樣的材料用不同的料理方式（例如烘培或油炸），對健康有不同的影響&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11160" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T16:03:39.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13890" CreationDate="2015-06-12T16:14:28.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading two.&#xA;This mean how is he thinking in his heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11160" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T16:14:28.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13862" CreationDate="2015-06-12T16:17:34.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;需求；需求量&#xA;“需求”虽然有一个“求”，但它可以也经常被作为名词。“需要”实际上也可以做名词。比如说：&#xA;“你有没有考虑到我的需要！”&#xA;“把人民的需要放在第一位(Not the case for the commies tho...)”&#xA;需求更多被放在比较正式的场合。比如做调查时“消费者的需求”。&#xA;Don't doubt it. I'm native Chinese haha^^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11161" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T16:17:34.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13903" CreationDate="2015-06-12T16:21:37.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Never got a job but, can't you include your concern in the text of the mail?&#xA;Like&#xA;我这个项目发展到现在，做得很好。不知你是否认为现在是继续发展这个项目的好机会？&#xA;祝好&#xA;xxx...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11161" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T16:21:37.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13925" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13966" CreationDate="2015-06-12T16:30:05.837" Score="9" ViewCount="1725" Body="&lt;p&gt;Beginning textbooks say 很好 means &quot;very good,&quot; but soon add that 很 is usually just there to balance the phrase and does not really mean &quot;very&quot; in this context. S.Rhee's comment cites a much fuller explanation of this grammatical point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can 很好 be used, for example, to simply say a young student's behavior is &quot;good enough&quot; without saying &quot;really good&quot;?  For comparison I think of the French phrase &quot;assez bon&quot; which a dictionary will say means &quot;good enough,&quot; but in fact it is a criticism meaning &quot;hardly good at all.&quot;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually grammarians have a concept of dubitative particle, for a word that makes a superficially affirmative sentence express doubt.  The French &quot;assez&quot; often does this.  I wonder if 很 does this in Chinese, by highlighting that you have not said 非常 or 真的 or other things you could just as easily say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do know that when people say 你普通话说得很好 it is a compliment, not an implied critique.  But of course when they say it to me it is merely kind, not true at all, and it never means 真的好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23/question-about-%E5%BE%88%E5%A5%BD&quot;&gt;Question about &amp;quot;很好&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; deals with this phrase but only in the context of a greeting and reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T01:48:55.797" Title="What is the nuance of 很好?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13925" CreationDate="2015-06-12T17:25:13.420" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;很 has a particular auxiliary function which is that it makes adjectives (形容词) capable of being used as predicates. You use it, if there is no 不，真 or 太 as adverb before the adjective. &#xA;In this case, 很 does not intensify the meaning and should usually not be translated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天大家都很累。– Everybody is tired today.&#xA;[NOT 今天大家都累。]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很忙。– I am busy. &#xA;[NOT 我忙。]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的问题很复杂。– Your question is complex.&#xA;[NOT 你的问题复杂。] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-06-12T17:49:16.883" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T17:49:16.883" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13918" CreationDate="2015-06-12T20:00:42.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest you replace 发生 with 会导致&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate e.g. to 像 is fine. You can use 譬如, 例如, 诸如, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. = 即, 就是, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T20:00:42.210" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13906" CreationDate="2015-06-12T23:33:39.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general consensus is that most people consider Southerners to be friendly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人们普遍认为南方人很友好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T23:33:39.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13811" CreationDate="2015-06-13T01:12:54.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you replace &quot;不十分&quot; with &quot;不太&quot;, the whole sentence will be much better, we rarely use &quot;不十分&quot;. Consider below sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) 他不十分滿意&#xA;b) 他不太滿意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grammatically both are correct, but we usually say &quot;B&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry a bit off topic, here's the answer to your question: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why &lt;code&gt;他不十分滿&lt;/code&gt; is incorrect?&#xA;&quot;不滿&quot; is a feeling. It means not satisfied, but if you use &quot;他不十分滿&quot;, the word &quot;滿&quot; will be another meaning, &quot;滿&quot;means full, the whole sentence's meaning will be: &lt;code&gt;He's not very full&lt;/code&gt; (not very full here doesn't mean he's hungry). It doesn't make any sence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why &lt;code&gt;他不十分滿意&lt;/code&gt; is correct?&#xA;&quot;滿意&quot; is a feeling, it means satisfied, so if you add &quot;不十分&quot;in the front, the meaning will be &quot;he's not satisfied&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to conclude, &lt;code&gt;滿意&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;滿&lt;/code&gt; are two different words and have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9777" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T01:12:54.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13912" CreationDate="2015-06-13T03:23:16.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a side note, &quot;青&quot; is not simply cyan in old Chinese text.  It is a collective term, which may be 綠 (green)，藍 (blue)，碧 (light-er blue)，蒼 (deep-er blue)，or even 黑 (black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;青出於藍&quot; means that the dye &quot;青&quot; (indigo) is produced using plant called &quot;靛藍&quot;.  On the other hand, &quot;青衣&quot; is clothes of dark color in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That explains why they say &quot;中國黑青通用&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T03:23:16.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13931" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13938" CreationDate="2015-06-13T04:05:13.200" Score="1" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;English typo corrections work kind of like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yeah, it's really food&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where an asterisk marks a correction from the above line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What Notations Are There For Typo Corrections In Chinese Texts?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T23:34:29.543" Title="Notations For Typo Corrections In Chinese Texts" Tags="&lt;notations&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13918" CreationDate="2015-06-13T04:10:00.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you put your example in brackets in the middle of your sentence, it's perfectly enough to use only 例.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...（例烘焙或油炸）...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 例 stands as an abbreviation for 例如, and as a single character comes close to 'e.g.' or i.e. than the full expression. I see that everybody comes up with 例如, but that's not an abbreviation, so it corresponds more to the full expression &quot;for example&quot;, than &quot;e.g.&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, you can also use 如 as a single character the same way. Here are two example usages for both characters in the same &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%90%B5%E9%81%93%E8%BF%B7#.E5.88.86.E9.A1.9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;(scroll down a bit to get to them)&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;训练用之铁路模拟器（&lt;strong&gt;例&lt;/strong&gt;：日本埼玉县的铁路博物馆中的铁路模拟驾驶台馆藏，与JR训练用之模拟驾驶台大致相同）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;铁路车辆（&lt;strong&gt;如&lt;/strong&gt;：冷气平快车）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the colon (冒号), it is not necessary to use.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-06-13T05:58:06.623" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T05:58:06.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13936" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13937" CreationDate="2015-06-13T10:23:59.393" Score="1" ViewCount="449" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你在哪儿?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你在哪儿呢？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or in general: When do you use ne and what does it indicate apart from &quot;and you? / what about you?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9323" LastEditorUserId="9323" LastEditDate="2015-06-13T10:51:26.117" LastActivityDate="2015-06-14T17:43:04.407" Title="When do you use 呢 ？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13936" CreationDate="2015-06-13T11:13:45.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;strong&gt;Reciprocal question&lt;/strong&gt;: You return the question you have just been asked. It is not limited to you or the other person taking part in the conversation, you can extend your question to 3rd persons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲：今天怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乙：我有点累。你呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲：我很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乙：你哥哥呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲：他也很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2） Related to 1) it has a &quot;&lt;strong&gt;What about&lt;/strong&gt;....?&quot; meaning. E.g. you see everybody in your office being handed over some gift. Everyone else is cheerfully distracted, and they overlook the fact that you didn't get anything. You can call attention to your situation with 我呢？ &quot;What about me?!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) If not at the end of a question, its role is in &lt;strong&gt;amplifying&lt;/strong&gt; a statement, often with a slight undertone of discontent:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妹妹：姐姐，你在楼下做什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姐姐：我在打电话呢。I am making a phone call. [Can't you see?/Why do you ask?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) It can be used to mark &lt;strong&gt;continuous tense&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还在看书呢。I am still reading. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The previous example is actually also using the 呢 in the same sense, except that in the context it is also amplifying the perceived obviousness of the action, too.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) You can use it to express &lt;strong&gt;contrast&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小明家他们以前什么都没有。可是现在呢，发财了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there is at least one other use case of 呢, I cannot recall. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T11:13:45.810" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13931" CreationDate="2015-06-13T23:34:29.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8zekO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the notations for corrections in text. What you are asking for is No.4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9365" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T23:34:29.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2015-06-13T23:52:33.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;just write the word on google, then type definition after example: run definition   Then a big box with the definition will appear, usually the first one shows what part of speech it is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11166" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T23:52:33.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13940" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-14T02:57:05.007" Score="3" ViewCount="791" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just the other day, I heard this '一孕傻三年'. Does anyone have an inkling as to why Chinese people think this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9799" LastEditorUserId="11466" LastEditDate="2015-08-05T14:18:14.030" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T14:18:14.030" Title="Why do Chinese people say 一孕傻三年？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13936" CreationDate="2015-06-14T17:43:04.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you could use both, but using 呢 is I guess a shorter version, like if you asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你叫什么名字？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我叫王家明。 你呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我叫大卫。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it could also go like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你叫什么名字？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我叫王家明。 你叫什么名字？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我叫大卫。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I don't think there really is a &quot;rule&quot; of when you use it or don't use it. But maybe I'm wrong, I'm only a Chinese 1 student.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11055" LastActivityDate="2015-06-14T17:43:04.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13943" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13944" CreationDate="2015-06-14T17:48:41.510" Score="4" ViewCount="3166" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is probably a stupid question, but I'm just curious. Does 非常 express something to a greater degree than 很？ That's probably not the way to word it, but like let's say you use 非常好。Would that be &quot;good&quot; to a greater degree than 很好？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11055" LastActivityDate="2019-11-23T03:28:38.573" Title="Is there a difference between 非常 and 很?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13943" CreationDate="2015-06-14T18:20:58.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are different, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非常 literally means 'not common/uncommon', thus extraordinary (&quot;out of ordinary, un-ordinary&quot;, just like 非常), exceptional, very, etc.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很 means 'very, quite'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, 非常 is stronger in the meaning than the simple 很. Just like you wrote, 非常好 is above 很好 in degree. One of the reasons perhaps is that 很 does not always mean very is that sometimes it is only inserted before an adjective to make it &quot;predicate-capable&quot;. In such cases 很好 simply means &quot;good&quot;, not &quot;very good&quot;. This has just just been discussed a day ago. Check this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/13925/what-is-the-nuance-of-%E5%BE%88%E5%A5%BD&quot;&gt;question for details&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23/question-about-%E5%BE%88%E5%A5%BD&quot;&gt;related question&lt;/a&gt; about answering to 你好吗？ with 很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-06-14T19:40:45.487" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13945" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-14T19:50:57.650" Score="5" ViewCount="921" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Unihan database some Chinese characters &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanzidb.org/character-list/multiple-simplified-variants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;have multiple simplified variants&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example the Chinese character 鍾 have 2 simplified variants: 钟 and 锺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How it could happen? What is the origin of such situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11172" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T06:48:54.433" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T08:56:06.727" Title="Why do some Chinese characters have multiple simplified variants?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13945" CreationDate="2015-06-15T01:39:05.157" Score="11" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Traditional to Simplified is many-to-one, &lt;em&gt;right&lt;/em&gt;??&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;em&gt;almost&lt;/em&gt; the case that each Traditional character maps to exactly one Simplified character (possibly itself). This is certainly the mental model that most people have about simplification, and it's not far from the truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Alas, there are exceptions.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguities_in_Chinese_character_simplification&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;favorite references&lt;/a&gt; on this topic lists out ambiguities in simplification. The &amp;quot;2 to 1&amp;quot; cases at the bottom covers the cases when a single traditional character has multiple simplified characters (Also check out the crazy special case!). In all the 2-to-1 cases, it seems that a semantic distinction (possibly also present in pronunciation) is reflected in the written form of the simplified (but not the traditional). Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;徵&lt;/code&gt;⇄&lt;code&gt;徵(zhǐ)&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;征(zhēng)&lt;/code&gt; (archaic name for a pentatonic tone vs to conquer)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;畫&lt;/code&gt;⇄&lt;code&gt;画&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;划&lt;/code&gt; (to draw vs. to plan)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two of the four entries in the hanzidb list you provided are accounted for by that Wiki page (as well as several others that the hanzidb list left out). I don't know how the list was created, so I'm speculating a bit more in addressing the others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;锺 - 曾作“鍾”的简化字，后停用。&lt;/code&gt; Previously served as the simplification for &lt;code&gt;鍾&lt;/code&gt;, but it is no longer used. Unrelated to this specific character, there are actually a whole bunch of simplified variants that resulted from a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_round_of_simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;failed 2nd round of simplification&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Obsolete_Simplified_121.svg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Some&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Obsolete_Simplified_005.svg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;of&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Obsolete_Simplified_023.svg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;these&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Obsolete_Simplified_008.svg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;are&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Obsolete_Simplified_051.svg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;really&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Obsolete_Simplified_073.svg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;crazy&lt;/a&gt; (but most aren't in unicode).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;願 -&amp;gt; 愿&lt;/code&gt; (the second one doesn't render for shit, so here's an image &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oreYo.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oreYo.png&quot; alt=&quot;Alternate simplification of 願&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://glyphwiki.org/glyph/u2b5b8.50px.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;glyphwiki.org&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;  .) This is also a weird simplified variant that ultimately became obsolete. I'm surprised it's in unicode at all, to be honest.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, another note. There are also what Unihan refers to as &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-variant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;z-variants&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;, meaning typographic variants of characters. Both the Wiki page and the hanzidb list have (correctly) left these out. They aren't very interesting, but sometimes cause issues when you're doing data processing of CJK text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;說&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;説&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;莊&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;荘&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T08:56:06.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13948" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13952" CreationDate="2015-06-15T04:58:07.697" Score="2" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that &quot;滄桑&quot; is &quot;huge changes&quot;, but how can a voice be described as that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With some googling, I am guessing (pure guessing) that &quot;滄桑&quot; means &quot;aged/old&quot;, but how did &quot;huge changes&quot; turn into that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-06-15T08:48:47.060" Title="What kind of voice is &quot;滄桑的聲音&quot; describing?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13943" CreationDate="2015-06-15T08:15:32.213" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Agree, 非常is stronger than 很,there is emotional emphasis when we say 非常.&#xA;For example, if we say 他是个非常好的人，it means &quot;he is a very good man&quot;;if we say 他是个很好的人，simply equals to &quot;he is a good man&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11175" LastActivityDate="2015-06-15T08:15:32.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13948" CreationDate="2015-06-15T08:48:47.060" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be exact, &lt;code&gt;沧桑&lt;/code&gt; doesn't just mean &lt;code&gt;aged/old&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;沧桑&lt;/code&gt; comes from the idiom &lt;code&gt;沧海桑田&lt;/code&gt;, as you understand, it means &lt;code&gt;huge changes (in a long time)&lt;/code&gt;. And &lt;code&gt;沧桑的声音&lt;/code&gt; means a kind of voice, which can make you feel that he/she has experienced many things changed, e.g. many vicissitudes of life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-06-15T08:48:47.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13943" CreationDate="2015-06-15T09:13:04.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two characters are very close in meaning. But the &quot;非常&quot; is a little higher than &quot;很&quot; For example, “很难” in English means &quot;very difficult&quot; and &quot;非常难&quot; means “extremely difficult”.  - A Chinese teacher from hanbridgemandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11155" LastActivityDate="2015-06-15T09:13:04.837" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5273" CreationDate="2015-06-15T13:53:08.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really think this has a lot to do with the culture. The feeling of 委屈 is almost non-existent or very minimal in western cultures. In Chinese culture the feeling of 委屈 is common. It always get magnified to a point that people may become extremely distraught or even commit suicide because they don't dare to raise their voices and fight back.....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11176" LastEditorUserId="11176" LastEditDate="2015-06-15T14:05:58.257" LastActivityDate="2015-06-15T14:05:58.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13943" CreationDate="2015-06-15T14:51:30.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add a point, this is used to denote the highest degree in their 4 point feedback form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;非常不同意&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不同意&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;同意&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;非常同意&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3963" LastActivityDate="2015-06-15T14:51:30.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13956" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13957" CreationDate="2015-06-15T23:47:29.443" Score="1" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xr5NY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;My grandfather Found this during WWII. Would love to know what it says&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My grandfather found this during WWI, would love to know what it says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11181" LastEditorUserId="11181" LastEditDate="2015-06-15T23:58:33.060" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T04:55:09.710" Title="Can someone translate this for me? It's a family heirloom" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2015-06-16T07:11:10.847" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13956" CreationDate="2015-06-16T04:55:09.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with songyuanyao. But I want to add some more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right column is 天朗氣清. It should be the title of the paint. 天朗氣清 = clear(朗) sky(天) and fresh(清) air(氣).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The left column should be (I think) 五峰山樵. 五峰山 = a mountain in China. woodman = 樵. It is the pen name of the author. But I could be wrong since googling it gives nothing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T04:55:09.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13179" CreationDate="2015-06-16T08:25:03.000" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters are divided into traditional Chinese and simple Chinese. Simple Chinese is used in the mainland China and traditional Chinese is used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Before the People's Republic of China, traditional Chinese are also used in mainland China. But after the foundation of People's Republic of China, simple Chinese are set for increasing literacy. As for 遮雨，it is used in Taiwan and mainland China at the same time. Because, some simple and traditional Chinese are same. For example, 書 → 书 the first one is the traditional and the second one is simple. The tradtional characters are more complicated than simple ones. I am a Chinese teacher from hanbridgemandarin and hope my answer can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11155" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T08:25:03.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13805" CreationDate="2015-06-16T11:05:29.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two phrases in Cantonese meaning thank you and they are actually used differently. One is '多謝' and the other is '唔該'. Roughly speaking, '多謝' can be used when you receive gifts or help from others while '唔該' is used only when someone helps you but not when you receive gifts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning your second question, I don't think that you should conclude Tibetan is more similar to Cantonese than to Mandarin just because of one single example. Just like nearly all languages in the world have a phrase pronounced as 'ma ma' and means mother while you won't say that they are all similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5861" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T11:05:29.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13960" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-16T14:53:52.447" Score="2" ViewCount="2352" Body="&lt;p&gt;嘚瑟 [dè·se] (usually written 得瑟 in my limited observation) is apparently 东北方言. I've seen a couple dictionaries/explanations that say it means to &quot;show off&quot;. I hear this word fairly frequently, but I haven't really grasped its full meaning yet. Is it just &quot;show off&quot; or is there a more subtle usage to it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing a search in my WeChat 朋友圈 for 得瑟 gave me the following example. (Skip to the last line if the context is not important)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一男的微信上摇一摇，摇到一美女，聊天:“小姐，你真漂亮，请问你是做什么工作的？” 女说：“我是干服务工作的。” 那哥们欣喜地说：“啊，我多想成为你的顾客！请问你在哪里上班？” 女说：“我是在火葬场给尸体化妆的，你啥时候来？”…….. 献给那些一见到女的就&lt;strong&gt;得瑟&lt;/strong&gt;的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, &quot;show off&quot; doesn't really seem to make sense here. Or does it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9823" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T21:23:30.043" Title="Meaning and usage of 得瑟（嘚瑟）" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13960" CreationDate="2015-06-16T15:38:09.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Show off is one meaning. As far as I know, it can also mean being cocky/arrogant. Can also be used in a joking way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11184" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T15:38:09.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13960" CreationDate="2015-06-16T18:00:40.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the core of the meaning is &lt;strong&gt;overly expressive with gallantry or proudness&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the most common usages are when guys showing off in front of girls, it can be used in other contexts as well. For example if someone keeps talking proudly about some small deed to his friends, they may react with '你今天怎么这么嘚瑟？', which could be a neutral question, or '你嘚瑟个什么劲儿？', which is a slightly negative critique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T18:00:40.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13960" CreationDate="2015-06-16T21:23:30.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It used to be quite local in the northeast, but now gets used all over the places. It can mean showing off, attracting attention deliberately, and/or doing something without considering the impact. It's an informal but quite popular word now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11185" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T21:23:30.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13964" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13977" CreationDate="2015-06-16T21:32:25.320" Score="15" ViewCount="946" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my understanding, both mean &quot;account&quot;, as in a bank account or online account. 账户 also appears to be the more common (100M search results) compared to 帐户 (about 50M results). What is the difference, if any, between their usage and meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To boot, they have the exact same pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-15T23:59:07.493" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T14:33:58.987" Title="What's the difference between 帐户 and 账户?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13925" CreationDate="2015-06-17T01:48:55.797" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I made mention of this on my answer to a different question here (which I'll repeat here for your benefit): &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/890/166&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/890/166&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, adjectives in Chinese do not need to have 很 to be used predicatively (and thus 很 is not be considered a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copula_(linguistics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;copula&lt;/a&gt;); however the lack of 很 gives the implication of contrast by default. &lt;em&gt;Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar&lt;/em&gt; by Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington explains it in this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The presence of these degree adverbs and complements removes any implication of contrast that is latent in an unmarked predicative adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If somebody says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;这本字典好。 &lt;strong&gt;zhèi běn zìdiǎn hǎo.&lt;/strong&gt; This dictionary is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the speaker must be understood to be implying that some other dictionary is not as good as this one. In fact the degree verb 很 &lt;strong&gt;hěn&lt;/strong&gt; 'very', unless it is emphasised, does not really mean 'very', and its integration into adjectival predicative is more often than not to counteract an implication of contrast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T01:48:55.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13964" CreationDate="2015-06-17T01:56:33.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today we recommended to use &lt;code&gt;账户&lt;/code&gt; if it is about money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;贝&lt;/code&gt; mean &quot;money&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;巾&lt;/code&gt; mean &quot;paper&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11160" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T01:56:33.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13964" CreationDate="2015-06-17T08:49:45.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;账&quot; has something with money. For example, you open an account in bank, you should use &quot;账号&quot;。“帐”was once used before 1990s. But the new laws rule that &quot;账&quot; is used when it related with money. But in many cases, people always don't know the difference between them. And they use both of them sometimes. 帐 is related with cloth. For example, &quot;帐篷&quot; means &quot;tent&quot; and is made of cloth. By the way, I am a teacher from han bridge mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11190" LastEditorUserId="11190" LastEditDate="2015-06-17T09:58:06.120" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T09:58:06.120" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13969" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-18T02:39:50.700" Score="0" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;问(wèn) ask&quot; and &quot;吻(wěn) kiss&quot;&#xA;我可以问你吗？ wǒ kěyǐ wèn nǐ ma? It means &quot;Can I ask you?&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我可以吻你吗？ wǒ kěyǐ wěn nǐ ma? It means &quot;Can I kiss you?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please give me more examples?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11191" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T20:27:39.530" Title="Are there any Chinese phrases that have embarrassing meanings if their tones are mispronounced?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-06-19T15:32:12.280" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13970" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-18T06:07:34.930" Score="1" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any equivalent or similar prefixes or nicknames for 阿 or 小 (added in front of a name in Chinese) in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9416" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-06-18T06:11:19.453" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T06:51:50.677" Title="Prefix equivalents in English?" Tags="&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-06-23T20:12:24.023" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13970" CreationDate="2015-06-18T06:21:13.557" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a universal prefix equivalent to 小 or 阿. Certainly you can add 'Little', but that's not a prefix, but an adjective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the West, nicknames follow different patterns, mainly using the first syllable of the full name and adding an &lt;code&gt;[i]&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;em&gt;-ie&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;-y&lt;/em&gt; or similar):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. John --&gt; Johnnie, Andrew ---&gt; Andy, Lisa ---&gt; Lizzy, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other countries have similar fashions, adding &lt;em&gt;-(e)tte&lt;/em&gt; [French], &lt;em&gt;-chen&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;-le&lt;/em&gt; [German, with some regional differences], &lt;em&gt;-ito&lt;/em&gt;,&lt;em&gt;-ita&lt;/em&gt; [Spanish] &lt;em&gt;-ka&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;-ška&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;-čka&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;-ek&lt;/em&gt;, (Czech and other Slavic with different spellings).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some nicknames are completely different from the formal given name, e.g. Richard --&gt; Dick. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-06-18T06:51:50.677" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T06:51:50.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13972" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13974" CreationDate="2015-06-18T07:11:37.677" Score="2" ViewCount="382" Body="&lt;p&gt;Was reading &lt;a href=&quot;http://m.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=49915&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Unicode 8.0 Brings 7,716 New Characters Including 36 New Emoji and 5 Skin Modifiers&lt;/a&gt; on iClarified, the article also mentioned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5,771 new ideographs for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What Does Unicode 8.0 Mean For Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-07-09T08:53:40.527" Title="What Does Unicode 8.0 Mean For Chinese?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13973" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13975" CreationDate="2015-06-18T08:08:36.887" Score="4" ViewCount="353" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard from a classmate of mine that 哪里 is not used much among Chinese nowadays like in following dialog:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的汉语很好!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪里, 哪里!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it true that it's considered formal? Are there other expressions that could be used and have the same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6842" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-29T15:08:39.933" Title="哪里 as an answer" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13972" CreationDate="2015-06-18T08:17:21.400" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I think I just wrap this up in a proper answer instead of some comments with links.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, there are &lt;a href=&quot;http://unicode.org/versions/Unicode8.0.0/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;two major changes&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;9 new characters were added to the  CJK Unified Ideographs block.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A new block called 'CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E' with 5762 ideographs was added to Unicode. You can &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/Unicode-8.0/U80-2B820.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;find these here&lt;/a&gt; (.pdf file). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters from the first page of the file:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CsOlg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJK_Unified_Ideographs#CJK_Unified_Ideographs_Extension_E_.28projected.29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, in the early stages of the new standard version, &#xA;&lt;em&gt;CJK-E was originally intended to include another 16,000+ characters not present in CJK-C. However, in May 2007 the Republic of China (Taiwan) withdrew 6,545 personal name usage characters deemed no longer in use,in May 2013 China withdrew 6 characters, and many others were later withdrawn or moved to CJK-F (projected), so the current version includes 5,762 new characters. CJK-E including 5,762 Han characters will be new in Unicode 8.0.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJK_Unified_Ideographs_Extension_E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; that will document these, but most browsers fail to display the characters yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE: &lt;a href=&quot;http://fonts.jp/hanazono/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanazono&lt;/a&gt; supports CJK Ext. E. Download the font &lt;a href=&quot;http://iij.dl.sourceforge.jp/hanazono-font/62072/hanazono-20141012.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;from here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-07-09T08:53:40.527" LastActivityDate="2015-07-09T08:53:40.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13973" CreationDate="2015-06-18T10:52:41.130" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Oral conversations have gotten more colloquial. At time you will see people mixing formal and colloquial patterns, especially online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the same etiquette as if you would express if someone were to praise you, as a general rule you will probably thank them (&quot;you flatter&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪里 is typically used to show one's humility/modesty (in formal situations), particularly when one is praised by others. You can use 一般 as a similar expression to express one's modesty. 一般般 is typically only used to refer to oneself (individually), orally and more colloquially (typically used by younger people). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你今天打扮得很漂亮！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 哪里哪里 一般般&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to different cultural etiquettes between those from the West vs those from the East, Chinese people tend to be shy when praised by others, so traditionally their will respond 哪里 instead of saying &quot;thank you,&quot; as most Westerners would. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in addition to showing modesty you can use it as a negator, to deny something just mention:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你有很多漫画！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 哪里 你哪儿的比我还多！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a bit less harsh sounding the if you negate it with something like 不是的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally 一般 by itself can be used to refer to things that are so-so/average -- neither good or bad. Typically the tone is neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T10:52:41.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13964" CreationDate="2015-06-18T15:16:49.427" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;账户&lt;/code&gt; is the correct form, and &lt;code&gt;帐户&lt;/code&gt; is a common typo seen a lot in online services. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;账&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;账本&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;books&quot;, and &lt;code&gt;记账&lt;/code&gt; is the action of &quot;accounting&quot;. The word &lt;code&gt;账户&lt;/code&gt; means a &quot;bank account&quot;, and is also used as &quot;online account&quot; nowadays. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;帐&lt;/code&gt; has meanings related to cloth, like &quot;mosquito net&quot;(蚊帐) or &quot;tent&quot;(帐篷). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. There is no entry for &lt;code&gt;帐户&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;em&gt;The Standard Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11193" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T15:16:49.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13969" CreationDate="2015-06-18T20:21:01.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These below are not exactly embarassing, but nonetheless funny words that have different meanings when pronounced with different tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看書 (read book) kàn shū / 砍樹 (chuck wood) kǎn shù&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;湯水 (soup) tāng shuǐ / 糖水 (syrup/sweet soup) táng shuǐ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;號碼 (number) hào mǎ / 好嗎 (okay?) hǎo ma&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大人 (adult) dàrén / 打人 (beat somebody) dǎ rén&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;火車 (train) huǒchē / 貨車 (truck) huòchē&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;好帥 (handsome) hǎo shuài / 好衰 (mean) hǎo shuāi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;美麗 (beautiful) měilì / 沒理 (unreasonable) méilǐ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;妻子 (wife) qīzi / 棋子 (chest piece) qízi &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;梨子蛋糕 (pear cake) lí zi dàn gāo / 李子蛋糕 (plum cake) lĭ zi dàn gāo / 栗子蛋糕 (chestnut cake) lì zi dàn gāo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;搭便車 (hitchhiking) dā biàn chē / 大便車 (stool vehicle) dà biàn chē / 打扁車 (flatten a car) dă biăn chē&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;杯子 (cup) bēi zi / 被子 (quilt) bèi zi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;禿子 (bald guy) tū zi / 兔子 (rabbit) tù zĭ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;消化 (digest) xiāo huà / 笑話 (joke) xiào hua&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;珠子 (bead) zhū zi / 柱子 (pillar) zhù zi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;進攻 (attack) jìn gōng / 進貢 (tribute) jìn gòng&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;歌星 (singer) gē xīng / 個性 (personality) gè xìng&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;獅子 (lion) shī zi / 柿子 (persimmon)shì zi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大官 (high official) dà guān / 大罐 (big can or pot) dà guàn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;司機 (chauffeur) sī jī / 四季 (four seasons) sì jì&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;相思 (lovesick) xiāng sī / 相似 (similar) xiāng sì&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;通信 (send letters) tōng xìn / 痛心 (broken-hearted) tòng xīn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;包紙 (wrap) bāo zhĭ / 報紙 (newspaper) bào zhĭ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;推銷 (sell) tuī xiāo / 退燒 (reduce fever) tuì shāo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;搬家 (move home) bān jiā / 半價 (half price) bàn jià&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;兵士 (soldier) bīng shì / 病逝 (die with illness) bìng shì&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;徒弟 (apprentice) tú dì / 土地 (land) tŭ dì&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;留條 (leave a note) liú tiáo / 柳條 (wicker/willow) liŭ tiáo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;研習 (learn) yán xí / 演習 (rehearsal/drill) yăn xí&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;涼台 (veranda) liáng tái / 兩台 (two sets) liăng tái&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;零錢 (change money) líng qián / 領錢 (receive money) lĭng qián &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;圖畫 (picture) tú huà / 土話 (dialect) tŭ huà &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;竹蓆 (bamboo mat) zhú xí / 主席 (chairman) zhŭ xí &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;完了 (finished) wán le / 晚了 (late) wăn le &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;毒氣 (poisonous gas) dú qì / 賭氣 (pique) dŭ qì &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;飛機 (aircraft) fēi jī / 肥雞 (fat chicken) féi jī / 匪機 (bandit plane) fěi jī&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;支援 (support) zhī yuán / 職員 (staff) zhí yuán / 只願 (only desire) zhĭ yuàn / 志願 (volunteer) zhì yuàn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few more on the web:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hellouk.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=90874&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hellouk.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=90874&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://susanfat.mysinablog.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&amp;amp;articleId=4444909&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://susanfat.mysinablog.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&amp;amp;articleId=4444909&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8199" LastEditorUserId="8199" LastEditDate="2015-06-18T20:27:39.530" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T20:27:39.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13980" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13993" CreationDate="2015-06-18T21:53:01.743" Score="0" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;web-project&quot; is an idea of complete service on the web, e.g.: some news site, personal website, facebook, twitter...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 'web' is most likely '网络' should be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is 'project'&#xA;'计划' does not suit, cause it sounds more like 'organization of network, network configuration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'工程' makes the phrase as a name of specialization 'Network Engineering'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any right ideas, please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2015-06-19T00:25:55.563" LastActivityDate="2015-06-21T05:49:47.683" Title="How to translate &quot;web-project&quot; into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13940" CreationDate="2015-06-18T22:56:15.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I don't have enough reputation to comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not only in Chinese culture, it's called &quot;baby brain&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/pregnancy-week-by-week/expert-answers/baby-brain/faq-20057896&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/pregnancy-week-by-week/expert-answers/baby-brain/faq-20057896&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6380" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T22:56:15.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13940" CreationDate="2015-06-19T02:48:19.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means that pregnancy makes a woman sutpid and forgetful. In western culture, there is an equivalnent words &quot;baby brain&quot; which means the pregancy or early motherhood can harm a woman's memory and ability to think. As a local Chinese han bridge teacher, many of my colleagues who give birth to baby often told me “一孕傻三年” when they forget something and do something in wrong way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11190" LastActivityDate="2015-06-19T02:48:19.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13980" CreationDate="2015-06-19T03:31:39.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you can use 项目. And for web I don't know I think 网络 sounds more like networks/internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11196" LastActivityDate="2015-06-19T03:31:39.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13984" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13985" CreationDate="2015-06-19T08:25:13.363" Score="-2" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need this translated urgently. I'm sorry if you're tired of such questions, but I tried to draw the kanjis in two sites, to find them by radicals, to use a OCR program, but nothing helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/0wyAWSW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;halp&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11197" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-12T00:18:15.960" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T00:18:15.960" Title="What does the box say?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-06-20T05:06:17.210" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13984" CreationDate="2015-06-19T08:38:18.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The photo is upside down, rotate it by 180 degrees to view it correctly.&#xA;The writing goes from top right to bottom left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can only type Simplified characters, but they are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first column (right hand side): 贺 保加利亚欧洲工业大学成立五周年&#xA;The second column (left hand side): 中国 中南民族大学 赠&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation is roughly this: Congratulations on the 5th anniversary of the founding of the European Polytechnical University, Bulgaria; Bestowed by South-Central University for Nationalities, China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how you should read it, the first 'line' is marked with blue, the second with red. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the Wikipedia page on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Central_University_for_Nationalities&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the South-Central University for Nationalities&lt;/a&gt;. It is different from another Chinese university known as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_South_University&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Central South University&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v147u.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-06-19T08:58:09.993" LastActivityDate="2015-06-19T08:58:09.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5675" CreationDate="2015-06-19T23:04:32.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me try to answer the Cantonese IME's available. I don't have official answer of which is the most popular ones because we use Changjie as well as Cantonese. I am listing the best ones, hopefully these are what people use most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the best third party IMEs are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cpime.hk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantonese Phonetic IME 廣東話拼音輸入法&lt;/a&gt; － It has Jyutping, Sidney Lau, LSHK, and Yale variation. The website is somewhat outdated (only lists support up to NT4) but I've used the Sidney Lau version (the phonetic scheme most familiar to daily Hong Kong people) for my Windows 7 machine without problem. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/8983/how-to-use-jyutping-as-an-input-method-on-windows-8-1&quot;&gt;Some reports it works on Windows 8.1&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.info.yahoo.com/service/keykey.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yahoo KeyKey 奇摩輸入法&lt;/a&gt; - Yahoo discontinued this IME in 2013 but released it to &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/yahoo/keykey&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;opensource&lt;/a&gt;. It is mainly a Mandarin/Changjie IME but Cantonese input dictionary can be installed too. &lt;a href=&quot;http://tatmingstudio.blogspot.com/2013/10/windows-81.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Someone&lt;/a&gt; has done a great job compiling all the information and installers up to Windows 8.1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-input-tools/mclkkofklkfljcocdinagocijmpgbhab&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Input Tools&lt;/a&gt; - If your IME need is for website only and don't mind sticking to Chrome, use this one. EXCELLENT implemention with live vocabs and shorthands. For example, try &quot;jljw&quot; and you will get 佔領中環 as the first entry. This official &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwp5TwYGsnw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; has more information.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantoneseinput.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Online Cantonese Input Method 網上廣東話輸入法&lt;/a&gt; - Web-based input if you are not using chrome.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-06-19T23:04:32.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13988" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-19T23:33:10.067" Score="2" ViewCount="508" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a document of all common hanzi (ideally both traditional and simplified) and their complete stroke orders? I have one for wubihua, but it fails to distinguish between, for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hs 丁 in reality h.sg&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hs 丅 in truth h.s&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;despite a flick at the bottom of 丁 but not 丅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been looking for such a document so that I can analyse characters en masse, but haven't had any luck so far. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1715/wubihua-traditional-chinese-open-source-index&quot;&gt;Wubihua / Traditional Chinese / Open-source index&lt;/a&gt; yieded good answers for wubihua, but taken more generally to all hanzi, does such a document exist with complete stroke order definition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for more of a plaintext document (or excel or similar) with a list. I know there are lots of images for stroke orders for learning characters, but I've been unable to find a file with a list of characters and their stroke &amp;quot;code&amp;quot;, so to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T10:42:52.860" Title="Documentation of all hanzi and their stroke order" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13989" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-20T00:21:03.607" Score="2" ViewCount="322" Body="&lt;p&gt;A while ago I ran into a friend of a friend on the street I said 您好，大姐. (She is two year older than me, 28). She gave me a strange look like she was taken back by what I said so I was wondering: Should have I said 大姐， 您好 instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not really sure how to order greetings properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11110" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-06-22T00:32:59.957" LastActivityDate="2018-11-10T03:57:01.103" Title="Which is the right order 您好，大姐 or 大姐, 您好?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13989" CreationDate="2015-06-20T09:57:57.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2534/addressing-women-as-%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90-in-northern-china&quot;&gt;Age/gender nuances aside&lt;/a&gt;, either is fine. I'd like to point the context you worded you greeting it what got you those looks. You're in part mixing formalities with colloquialism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because you are merely an acquaince, calling her 大姐 can be a bit too personal. unless the person you are greeting is in the business heading a gang or mafia (which you might be a member). It's a bit like saying to a person you've just been introduced to as &quot;Pleased to meet you, big sis.&quot; This can come off as being overly friendly or as if you are pleading for something by lowering your stature to them (like in a gang).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the true difference between &lt;em&gt;{Greeting} + {Subject}&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;{Subject} + {Greeting}&lt;/em&gt; is what you wish to invoke/acknowledge first. If you want to acknowledge a person you would say their name first, and then follow with a greet. This will come off as being more personal (or overly polite; mockingly). However, if I wanted to emphasize the greeting as if I was pleased/happy to meet them as a person, I would use the greeting first. Think of it as if you forgot the name of the person and still wanted to greet them properly. Of course, this may vary by the region, dialect, and personal preference (of both parties), but you can still use as a starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were better acquainted with this &lt;em&gt;女士&lt;/em&gt; (used like &quot;Ms.&quot;), such as if they are you senior in some capacity that you spend sometime with, it might be alright as a sign or respect or as a joke, but it's rarely alright otherwise. If I were to go up to you (haven't just met) and said &quot;heeeey, big bro (大哥), wassup?&quot; How would you feel?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wanted to address an audience of your peers you can address them (i.e. asking for a request) as &quot;大哥大姐们.&quot; By doing so you would be humbling yourself, making usage in this context appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be safe, if you've just recently met them, leaving off the title is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 小姐 &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; be acceptable, it's best to avoid using it in mainland China as it can be inferred as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;slang term&lt;/a&gt; for &quot;prostitute&quot; or a title addressing wait staff (amongst other things), by means of tonal inflections or other indications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T09:57:57.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5675" CreationDate="2015-06-20T09:59:43.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll just dump words, and put all data at the end to support my claims as much as I can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mainland&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common input editor by far on the mainland is pinyin input. Sougou, Windows or Mac's native IME, google's IME (which had an incident of plagiarizing sougou's database), QQ Pinyin, Baidu pinyin etc. For people not satisfied by regular Quanyin (whole) pinyin, there's Shuangpin (double pin), in which you only type 2 keys for any character, the initial consonant and final section (e.g. Lai = L + L, as L maps &quot;L&quot; in the initial position, and &quot;ai&quot; in the final position). This is the one I use, as I like speed and efficiency in typing, and I'm willing to remember the positions of the finals on the keyboard (which most people find slightly harder). With a good IME, like sougou, there's no doubt that this is the fastest input method, with only 2 strokes for any character, or 4 for 2-character compounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is by far the most common. After this, some specialist typists like to input by stroke, for which the most common on the mainland is Wubixing. This inputs by shape of characters. For instance, 胡 is D(古) + E(月). The steep learning curve deters most people, though, and truthfully it's not faster than Shuangpin. However, it's possibly the only input method on the mainland that maps every character uniquely, so as long as you don't make typos, you'll never need to choose characters from a dropdown list. Also, most 2字 compounds are mapped to 4 keystrokes (first 2 of each 字).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, on phones, quite a few people like to use Wubihua (not our previous wubixing). Users type the strokes of the character in question from 横，竖，撇，捺，and 折. Some people take this out and just draw characters on their touchscreen, and others just stick to pinyin all the time.&#xA;Truthfully, I dislike pinyin input on phones, because either the keys are too small on the keyboard (and I miss, then have to backspace and retype, or deal with a list of fuzzy characters to choose from), or are 3x4, which just makes the list of characters to choose from way too big for me. On smartphones, somehow just writing the characters (or using stroke input) seems to be the fastest (unfortunately, considering the effort needed to use either of these)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Taiwan&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common IME for computers here is Zhuyin fuhao（注音符號）, also known as bopomofo. This uses the taiwanese phonetic alphabet for chinese to input characters, tones included. It doesn't map 1:1 with pinyin, and tones remove ambiguity (and need to type space), so it's probably slightly faster than Quanpin. On phones, people sometimes use a traditional variant of wubixing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for shape input, Cangjie （倉頡）is common, and to a lesser extent Dayi (大易). Cangjie is much more common, and Dayi has the inconvenience of using up number keys to type, so that the numbers aren't easily accessible. I've only ever used Cangjie, so can't talk about dayi. Cangjie is generally pretty slow. It's got as steep a learning curve as wubihua, but characters take up to 5 keys to type, whereas wubi manages most in 3, at most 4. Also, it's not that tolerant of typos. Shape inputs are becoming less common in daily life.&#xA;For those not happy with Cangjie's steep learning curve, there's sucheng（速成）, which only takes 2 stroke inputs from cangjie and tries to figure out the character. But, this involves a really long dropdown list, and while a few people use it, it's really not worth your time if you're trying to type anything quickly (or at all, really). Wubihua only types simplified chinese (usually, though there are ways to), so isn't used at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hong Kong&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong kong use Cangjie like Taiwan for stroke inputs, with dayi being uncommon, but again not totally unused. Cangjie is probably the most common IME overall in HK. Other common ones are phonetic, though these are far less widespread. The old romanization system of cantonese is used, but also Jyutping, which takes a more modern approach, and is developed by the linguistics society of HK. It excellently matches the sounds of cantonese with the latin alphabet, and the IPA (International phonetic alphabet). Its use isn't widespread, but there are some IMEs which intake phonetics in HK, though these are far less common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more for all, but generally these are the most common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For linux, compatibility really limits usefulness. Few of the major IMEs are designed for linux, though Google and Sougou have come out with adaptations. If using linux, these are your best bets (though I take it that not many people use Linux -- less than 1% of all computer users, and probably at most 2% of people on Stack Exchange actually use it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources and Statistics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dashan on IMEs: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.quora.com/What-is-your-preferred-method-to-input-Chinese-on-a-computer-Why&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.quora.com/What-is-your-preferred-method-to-input-Chinese-on-a-computer-Why&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baike on IMEs (ZH): &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E8%BE%93%E5%85%A5%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E8%BE%93%E5%85%A5%E6%B3%95&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sina tech report, probably the most valid to back up my claims (ZH): &lt;a href=&quot;http://tech.sina.com.cn/mobile/n/2014-05-09/09199368867.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://tech.sina.com.cn/mobile/n/2014-05-09/09199368867.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unable to find any raw data regarding percentages of use in each, though by looking through forums these are generally the most commonly mentioned (with the exception of Dayi, and phone input methods which people generally don't talk about as much).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorUserId="10955" LastEditDate="2015-06-20T10:06:52.330" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T10:06:52.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13988" CreationDate="2015-06-20T10:42:52.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked around, and it doesn't seem to be a complete, freely available resource for stroke orders. There is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Stroke_Order_Project&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikimedia commons project&lt;/a&gt; for creating stroke order for CJK characters, but it is far from finished (please contribute!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found &lt;a href=&quot;http://dragon-char.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/dragon-char/dragon-data/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this resource&lt;/a&gt; from Dragon Character Training, an old PalmOS application, which seems to contain some character stroke order data, but I had some trouble figuring out how to extract stroke order from the character data. It should be possible, though, since an included script can animate character stroke orders. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish you best of luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2493" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T10:42:52.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13980" CreationDate="2015-06-20T12:51:41.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At least in Taiwan, we use 專案. As for the web part, we simply say Web, or 網站, if you insist a Chinese name. So a web project would be a Web 專案 or a 網站專案. Same goes for other projects, such as an iOS 專案 for an iPhone app, an Android 專案 for an Android app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're working on a project, you could say that 你在做專案.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Project management&lt;/a&gt; corresponds to &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A1%B9%E7%9B%AE%E7%AE%A1%E7%90%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;專案管理&lt;/a&gt;. As an aside, a project manager is called a 專案經理 or a 專案管理員.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that, as @SodaPop suggested, in China they call it &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%A1%B9%E7%9B%AE%E7%AE%A1%E7%90%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;項目&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6586" LastEditorUserId="6586" LastEditDate="2015-06-21T05:49:47.683" LastActivityDate="2015-06-21T05:49:47.683" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13980" CreationDate="2015-06-20T14:43:36.320" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Web project&quot;, is typically a technical or engineering phrase which can be translated as &quot;网站&quot; OR &quot;网站工程&quot; OR &quot;网站项目&quot; in Chinese.&#xA;All of them are OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;网络&quot; is not appropriate here, which stands for &quot;Networking&quot; in most cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T14:43:36.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13995" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13996" CreationDate="2015-06-20T21:14:46.810" Score="3" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had thought 重复 means to repeat something over and over, and only today saw the word 重覆 used in a context where it seems to have the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 重覆 and 重复?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3999" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T21:31:07.210" Title="What's the difference between 重覆 and 重复?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13995" CreationDate="2015-06-20T21:31:07.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;重覆 is traditional whereas 重复 is simplified. There is no difference in pronunciation or meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T21:31:07.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13997" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14050" CreationDate="2015-06-21T05:21:48.803" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't often see a lot of foreign bands names translated but came across this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://music.163.com/#/artist?id=78230&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;网易云音乐&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心灵蒙蔽合唱团&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third Eye Blind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How Did Third Eye Blind Get Translated As 心灵蒙蔽合唱团?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;合唱团 means chorus, does it not, they're certainly not a chorus either...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T16:40:01.507" Title="How Did Third Eye Blind Get Translated As 心灵蒙蔽合唱团?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13999" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14077" CreationDate="2015-06-22T02:21:41.083" Score="18" ViewCount="1672" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that 两 is used instead of 二 when dealing with quantities of two. However, my question is - why? What are the historical reasons behind this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%85%A9#Chinese&quot;&gt;Wikitionary&lt;/a&gt; but it only had historical information for when 两 is used to mean the &quot;tael&quot; unit － not for its definition of &quot;two.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9347" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T09:37:35.590" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T01:12:49.823" Title="Why is 两 used for quantities of two rather than 二?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2471" CreationDate="2015-06-22T09:02:29.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;@BillyChan's answer is pretty good. This is just an additional thought. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a difference in intention and perception about the word 老外. What I mean is, what a Chinese speaker intends or means by the use of this word, and how the foreigner listener often perceives it are two different things. Although it may be mildly impolite, most Chinese people do not use it with any ill will, but commonly as an informal term expressing surprise or curiosity at seeing a foreigner who looks different than they do. However, western foreigners generally perceive it as a derogatory term, taking it to mean an outsider, someone who doesn't belong (and never will), or even taking it to mean a freak or monster. The difference between intention and perception can be quite large at times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This difference is also reflected to some extent by the Baidu and Wikipedia articles you quoted. Although both are &quot;politically correct,&quot; the Baidu definition was probably written by a Chinese person and thus emphasizes the more neutral (and even respectful) origin of the term. The Wikipedia article on the other hand was probably written by a Westerner and thus emphasizes a certain sense of being an outsider or different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term 老外 is a good reminder that learning Chinese is more than learning grammar and vocabulary. It is also about learning culture. And as our cultural perceptions gradually gets closer to Chinese speakers' intentions, I think we will find 老外 to be a more neutral term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9823" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T09:02:29.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14002" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-22T09:56:03.287" Score="2" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an exchange I saw in a WeChat group today:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;李xx： 请大家为28号投票！&#xA;A： 谢谢您，李老！ 【抱拳】【抱拳】&#xA;B： 谢谢您，老李！ 【偷笑】&#xA;A： “李老”是尊称，“老李”是称呼！&#xA;C： 【强】&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm fairly familiar with the usage 老X as a term of address. And I gather that X老 is a much more respectful term. I guess my question is, when would I ever actually use X老? I seem to recall hearing a story a long time ago about a foreigner trying to use X老, but the old man being addressed was &quot;too young&quot; and the effect was awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/78/%E5%B0%8F%E7%8E%8B-%E5%92%8C-%E8%80%81%E7%8E%8B-how-to-determine-which-to-use&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;小王&amp;quot; 和 &amp;quot;老王&amp;quot; how to determine which to use?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1037/what-is-a-good-form-of-address-for-a-male-friend-who-is-too-old-to-be-%E5%B0%8F-too-you&quot;&gt;What is a good form of address for a male friend who is too old to be 小, too young to be 老, and too humble to be called 大?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/13360/what-is-the-polite-proper-way-to-address-elderly-whom-i-am-not-familiar-with/13376#13376&quot;&gt;What is the polite/proper way to address elderly whom I am not familiar with?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9823" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T00:02:04.817" Title="What is the difference between 老X and X老 as a term of address?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14002" CreationDate="2015-06-22T10:37:20.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an explanation: In the case of people with good moral standing and high reputation (德高望重), you can add 老 after their surname, this is a very respectful (很恭敬的) address.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Screenshot from a book on &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.hu/books?id=PO1mAwAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PT66&amp;amp;lpg=PT66&amp;amp;dq=%E5%A7%93%E5%90%8E%E8%80%81%E5%AD%97&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=rN69QBfLRW&amp;amp;sig=hu50pOR04eUt4GYZwltg6gHH18E&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=RuKHVYGvKsa07Qa0h5_wBA&amp;amp;ved=0CDkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%E5%A7%93%E5%90%8E%E8%80%81%E5%AD%97&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Books&lt;/a&gt;. The relevant, very short sentence touching your question is highlighted (sorry, not very professional, but legible). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SI15d.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another &lt;a href=&quot;http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:svgao1Hc0TgJ:gz.eywedu.com/21cnjy/TS013024/0013_ts013024.htm&amp;amp;client=ubuntu&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;gl=hu&amp;amp;strip=1&amp;amp;vwsrc=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt; explaining this (mentioning scientists, statesmen, old teachers as the circle to whom you can apply this): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;对德高望重的老科学家、老政治家、老教育家、老文学家，可以在姓之后加“老”字，以表示尊重。如“郭老”、“‘钱老”、“徐老”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-06-22T10:58:18.940" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T10:58:18.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14006" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14008" CreationDate="2015-06-22T16:17:47.977" Score="2" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;亲传弟子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how to say it words, but I believe that they are disciples that get things personally passed down by their master and they have a very close relationship with them. However, is there any specific word that can describe it in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: In terms of Chinese Wuxia novels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastEditorUserId="9376" LastEditDate="2015-06-22T16:45:06.540" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T17:09:24.913" Title="What is a &quot;亲传弟子&quot; and how would you say it in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14006" CreationDate="2015-06-22T16:39:59.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have checked a few sources, in many cases it is just &lt;code&gt;disciple&lt;/code&gt; without any adjective. &lt;code&gt;Personal disciple&lt;/code&gt; is used in some cases, and sometimes &lt;code&gt;direct disciple&lt;/code&gt;, like @leo4jc pointed out. &lt;code&gt;Immediate disciple&lt;/code&gt; is another variant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my deleted answer, without knowing the context, I wrote 'dharma heir' (Buddhism), but that doesn't apply to wuxia, of course. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-06-22T17:09:24.913" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T17:09:24.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14006" CreationDate="2015-06-22T16:47:47.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about &quot;Direct Disciple&quot;, I remember that's how people used to describe my Wushu Master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8199" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T16:47:47.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13999" CreationDate="2015-06-22T19:28:30.170" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might be what you are looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/1700.html&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/1700.html&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两, or 兩:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;双。用于鞋娄〖two〗&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一两棕鞋八尺藤,广陵行遍又金陵。——唐·戴叔伦《忆原上人》  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's used as &quot;pair&quot; along with describing shoes.  Noted that this is more a usage than the origin of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T19:28:30.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14010" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14012" CreationDate="2015-06-22T20:39:38.623" Score="4" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I understand the meaning of 怪獸 - Monster, it does not seems to be a word used in ancient time.  Moreover, it seems to be related to Japanese culture (kaij).  Is this term originate from Japan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10974" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T21:25:35.730" Title="Origin of word / term - 怪獸?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13989" CreationDate="2015-06-22T20:56:22.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The order doesn't matter. You shouldn't call her 大姐. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 大姐 when you see someone who is significantly older than you (10+ years for ladies). Since 大姐 sounds old to women. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please consider using her name. Or just 你好. Don't use 您好 unless you didn't know her before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, she is not your friend but you've talked before:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You: 你好，xxx。还认识我吗？我是xxx。(Please introduce yourself immediately. Since if you don't and she doesn't remember you, you are considered strange).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T20:56:22.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14010" CreationDate="2015-06-22T21:25:35.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although the current usage of 怪兽 is dominated by the Japanese 'kaiju' concept, the word is probably not a Japanese creation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sima_Xiangru&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sima Xiangru&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%8F%B8%E9%A6%AC%E7%9B%B8%E5%A6%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;司马相如&lt;/a&gt;) used it in one of his works, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/%E5%B0%81%E7%A6%AA%E6%96%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;封禅文&lt;/a&gt; (2nd century BC):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;然后囿驺虞之珍群，徼麋鹿之&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?cond=%C3%7E&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;ukey=-1835515889&amp;amp;serial=1&amp;amp;recNo=15&amp;amp;op=f&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;怪兽&lt;/a&gt;，䆃一茎六穗于庖，牺双觡共抵之兽，获周馀珍、放龟于岐，招翠黄、乘龙于沼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The modern word 怪兽 was probably reintroduced into Chinese by Japanese filmmaking, as this word only shows up in Chinese after the late 1930s, which coincides with the emergence of the Japanese kaiju movies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E6%80%AA%E5%85%BD&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E6%80%AA%E5%85%BD%3B%2Cc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Ngram&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiju&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lw1Ga.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T21:25:35.730" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14013" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-22T23:01:07.203" Score="2" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;This chapter is talking about ways to get out of your Contract of Employment without paying a penalty (违约金）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My book quotes 《北京市劳动合同规定》第三十五条&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（四）用人单位未依法为劳动者缴纳社会保险费的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I translate this, it seems to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(4) (If) The employer illegally pays Social Security for the employee.&quot; which is a bit crazy, and cannot be the intended meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can get out of your Contract of Employment if the employer does not pay the legally required Social Security contributions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a mistake in the Chinese? I only see one negative here ‘未’ and it seems to be attached to '依法‘，and not negating '缴纳‘. There seems to be a negative missing，or does '未‘ somehow also have scope over '缴纳‘？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T01:14:06.833" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T01:14:06.833" Title="Is 用人单位未依法为劳动者缴纳社会保险费的, from a Contract of Employment, ambiguous?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14020" CreationDate="2015-06-23T06:08:11.853" Score="0" ViewCount="1875" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am making a word list of Chinese words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Column 1: simplified Chinese word&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Column 2: traditional Chinese word&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Column 3: word meaning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Column 4: pinyin pronunciation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I am looking for a keyboard for my Android 4.4.2 device which will allow me to insert all of this (in particular both simplified and traditional characters using the pinyin IME, and a third ASCII-like mode that will allow me to enter all four pinyin diacritics above the letters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-09-18T19:56:56.863" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T19:56:56.863" Title="Best Android keyboard for inserting pinyin, simplified, and traditional characters" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-07-26T23:54:24.757" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14021" CreationDate="2015-06-23T07:22:05.017" Score="0" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for poems about ungratefulness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Found some recommendations on 百度知道 under the question: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/536331948.html?device=mobile&amp;amp;ssid=0&amp;amp;from=844b&amp;amp;uid=0&amp;amp;pu=usm@0,sz@1320_2001,ta@iphone_1_8.1_3_600&amp;amp;bd_page_type=1&amp;amp;baiduid=B0DC14BD4CFD809A8478494C15B38C6D&amp;amp;tj=www_normal_1_0_10_title&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;关于自己忘恩负义的诗词&lt;/a&gt;; especially the poem《氓》- wondering what else is out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What poems are there about ungratefulness?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-06-23T11:28:46.867" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T18:57:59.807" Title="Poems About Ungratefulness" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13989" CreationDate="2015-06-23T07:57:05.413" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both orders is ok. It has nothing to do with order but something with &quot;age&quot;. When you called her 大姐，she may think she is very old in your eyes. Next time, when you meet her, you can say 美女，你好 or 美女，去哪儿? 您 usually is used someone is very old (more than 50 years old) and respectable. So I think you should not only learn Chinese but also learn some culture and square more time to chat with a Chinese friend. As a teacher from han bridge mandarin, I hope my answer can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11190" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T07:57:05.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14017" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14113" CreationDate="2015-06-23T08:17:14.220" Score="1" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hello everyone I hope you can help me with a translation. I am looking for a Cantonese teacher (or speaker for that matter) in my area and I want to post a notice. I have asked and received a translation on a different site but I would really appreciate a second opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cantonese Teacher Wanted!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am learning Cantonese and I would really need a teacher. I am&#xA;  willing to pay. If you know Cantonese and are willing and able to&#xA;  teach please contact me. Basic level of English or Romanian required.&#xA;  If you need help with either of these two languages I can help you as&#xA;  well. Phone Number : xxx...; E-mail : xxx...;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;聘用廣東話教師&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;本人正在學習廣東話並且需要一位教師。若果你對廣東話有一定的認識以及懂得教學的話，敬請聯絡本人。&#xA;  本人願意付學費。要求教師有基本英文或羅馬尼亞語的智識。若果閣下希望在這兩種語言得到幫助，本人也可以提供幫助。 本人聯絡電話:xxx...;&#xA;  本人聯絡電郵:xxx...;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11213" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-10T17:47:14.960" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T10:08:28.320" Title="Translation verification for a notice" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14018" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14019" CreationDate="2015-06-23T12:08:10.437" Score="1" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across these two words in a picture-book. Are  枕头 and 垫子 the same kind of pillow or are they different kinds of pillow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T12:20:44.897" Title="枕头 versus 垫子, are these different?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14018" CreationDate="2015-06-23T12:20:44.897" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;枕头(Zhen Tou) is the pillow which is on your bed. That's the only meaning of that word.&#xA;However, 垫子(Dian Zi) usually means a mat or pad which you are sitting on. Or means some pad could be put under a glass cup, for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3985" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T12:20:44.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14014" CreationDate="2015-06-23T13:23:11.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend Google Pinyin which I use everyday: &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.pinyin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11193" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T13:23:11.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14015" CreationDate="2015-06-23T18:57:59.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This one about forgetting the help which you once relied on to succeed. More readings: &lt;a href=&quot;http://pedia.cloud.edu.tw/Entry/Detail/?title=%E5%BE%97%E9%AD%9A%E5%BF%98%E7%AD%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;教育百科&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question?qid=1510090107723&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;奇摩知識&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;筌者所以在魚，得魚而忘筌；蹄者所以在兔，得兔而忘蹄；言者所以在意，得意而忘言。&#xA;  《莊子·外物》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in fable prose as well, 《中山狼傳》is a pretty good one. As a matter of fact, 《紅樓夢》once quotes 《中山狼傳》to describe ungratefulness. More readings: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shiciwang.org/18752.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;詩詞網&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1282198.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;百度百科&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E3%80%8A%E4%B8%AD%E5%B1%B1%E7%8B%BC%E4%BC%A0%E3%80%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;互動百科&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question?qid=1005040908753&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;奇摩知識&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;子系中山狼，得志便猖狂。金閨花柳質，一載赴黃粱。《紅樓夢》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8199" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T18:57:59.807" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14022" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-23T20:31:27.350" Score="2" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to translate this sentence but there are a few points I'm puzzled on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;市场调查部就最近为针对Quest公司在市场策略上对'以客户为主以雇员为本'所作出的调整而拟定的方案发表了分内整和外扩的两个方面的建议，其目的为促使本公司在相应策略上能够与时并进，从而得到市场竞争力的提升.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the best I've been able to translate myself:&#xA;The market research department, regarding Quest Company's newest market strategy, the produced 'Customer First and Employee-Based,' adjusted and drafted plan, has issued a double-aspect suggestion of [.....] and outward expansion, the aim of which is to impel the company's coordinating strategy to keep up with the times, and as a result can attain a rise in market competitiveness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Four questions I have on certain words and phrases in the original Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What does '就' mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What does '为针对' mean?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What does '分内整' mean?  (Something about doing one's part?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What does '其目的为促使本公司在相应策略上能够与时并进' mean?  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you very much for your help, if you are able to help me.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;--Rachel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T06:22:50.603" Title="Is this Chinese sentence grammatical? I'm unsure about a few words and phrases" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14023" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14038" CreationDate="2015-06-23T21:45:39.733" Score="1" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;坏 is obviously bad/broken, and 问 is ask. So, does that mean 坏坏的问道 means something like &quot;asked spoiledly&quot; or something similar? There is no need to translate it since I'm just looking for the explanation, but if it's not too much trouble, then please do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T23:31:33.887" Title="What does 坏坏的 mean in &quot;坏坏的问道&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14024" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-23T21:49:11.913" Score="3" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is most likely not a direct translation for &quot;逆天&quot; which means &quot;breaking common sense&quot;, but I'm just curious if there is a single word that can represent that phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T19:01:49.047" Title="A single English word equivalent for &quot;逆天&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14025" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14026" CreationDate="2015-06-23T22:58:10.420" Score="3" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is Chinese for a money belt?  I mean the kind of linen or silk packet on an elastic band that you wear under your clothes, to hold money. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese manufacturers often offer them online as &quot;cash money holiday belts&quot; but I have not found a bi-lingual cite with the original Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-06-23T23:11:18.253" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T23:28:47.957" Title="Chinese name for a money belt" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14025" CreationDate="2015-06-23T23:28:47.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's called [防盗|贴身|隐形] (小)腰(带)包.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking for any one of these terms on &lt;a href=&quot;http://s.taobao.com/search?q=%E9%98%B2%E7%9B%97%E8%85%B0%E5%8C%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taobao&lt;/a&gt;, you'll see how it is commonly referred to:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CfiSq.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T23:28:47.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14023" CreationDate="2015-06-24T00:27:39.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 坏 is usually bad/broken, and 问 is ask. However, if boys want to play tricks on girls, for example, boys ask the girls 'have you ever heard some strange noises from your parents' room?' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this scenario, we can say the boy 坏坏地问道：“ have you ever heard some strange noises from your parents' room？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11210" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T00:27:39.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14024" CreationDate="2015-06-24T08:45:07.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is hard to find a eqivalent word in English. Because in different Chinese context, there are different meanings. For example,他的能力逆天了 means &quot;he is very capable&quot; but in some context, it means unconscionable. I (a teacher from han bridge mandarin) hope my explanation can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11190" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T08:45:07.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14030" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14051" CreationDate="2015-06-24T09:36:19.637" Score="8" ViewCount="1830" Body="&lt;p&gt;They all mean &quot;otherwise&quot;, and beyond that 要不 is more colloquially used I'm not sure how they differ in usage or meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2493" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T19:24:21.200" Title="What's the difference between 否则, 要不, 不然, and 要不然?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14002" CreationDate="2015-06-24T14:26:46.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;X老&lt;/code&gt; is used to show respect to old person who usually has a high social/academic status.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;老X&lt;/code&gt; is used like &lt;code&gt;Mr.X&lt;/code&gt; as a prefix to given name, which shows closeness in an informal condition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11193" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T14:26:46.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14024" CreationDate="2015-06-24T14:53:02.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's normally used between teens and the meaning is &quot;pretty great&quot;. For example, if you have a great performance in your study, your classmates will say &quot;太逆天了&quot; which means you are pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11225" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T14:53:02.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13973" CreationDate="2015-06-24T15:09:17.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a kind of modest answers as the Chinese prefer to be modest. It means NO but the truly meaning is like &quot;Thanks, I can still do it better.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11225" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T15:09:17.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14034" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-24T19:14:09.983" Score="4" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;We are trying to solve &lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/25215/3437&quot;&gt;a minor mystery over at Japanese.SE&lt;/a&gt;: I found a multifunction printer/scanner/copier/faxer that had the following instruction label on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8mCprm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;instructions on a multifunction printer/scanner/copier/faxer device&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Curiously, the last two lines are &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; in Japanese. The first one, 原稿面上向き &lt;em&gt;genkou-men ue-muki&lt;/em&gt;, means something like &quot;document face-up&quot;; and the second one, 送信面上向き &lt;em&gt;soushin-men ue-muki&lt;/em&gt;, means something like &quot;the side you want to send face-up&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/25215/#comment54625_25215&quot;&gt;User Earthliŋ's suspicion&lt;/a&gt; is that one of these lines was supposed to be in Chinese, &lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/25215/#comment54680_25215&quot;&gt;perhaps as 原稿面向上&lt;/a&gt;. From the perspective of the device manufacturer, that certainly seems reasonable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a linguistic basis, though, does that seem plausible? Does either of the two Japanese lines resemble what a Chinese device would use to indicate &quot;face up&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note: my knowledge of Chinese is virtually nil.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3281" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:43:48.687" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T19:39:20.657" Title="How would one write &quot;face up&quot; (e.g. as an instruction on a copier)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14034" CreationDate="2015-06-24T19:19:59.177" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Face up&quot; in Chinese is &lt;code&gt;面朝上&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BNZ6H.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place your card face up on the table, please. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请把你的牌&lt;code&gt;面朝上&lt;/code&gt;摊在桌子上。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面向上 is also OK. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EHce0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the Japanese alternatives, perhaps the first one would be more intelligible in Chinese, but with 上 at the end of the expression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-06-24T19:40:52.227" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T19:40:52.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14036" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-24T21:21:55.830" Score="4" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had a friend who said there is a slight difference in the two phrases.  But I don't see any difference between the two expressions.  Could anyone explain it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&#xA;Rachel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T05:35:05.803" Title="最后吃的菜 or 吃最后的菜？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14037" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14042" CreationDate="2015-06-24T22:42:55.033" Score="4" ViewCount="949" Body="&lt;p&gt;People at the Hebei museum, and my friends, and Baidu &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/606163.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/606163.htm&lt;/a&gt; all agree that 青龙白虎 means &quot;Dragon and White Tiger.&quot;  (I capitalize because these name specific folk animals.) When I asked at the museum whether it means the dragon is green they could not see why I would ask that.  So I suppose 青龙 is a traditional name that just means dragon and not green.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone here tell me if that is right? And can anyone explain a reason for it?  Or is it just the kind of thing can happen with traditional names in any culture?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, on line a lot of people translate it as Azure Dragon.  I know 青 has several more meanings than the western green/grun/vert.  So maybe just plain Dragon is not a good translation of 青龙.  But I do not know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-06-25T00:47:09.403" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T17:59:09.223" Title="Does 青龙 not really mean Green Dragon?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14023" CreationDate="2015-06-24T23:31:33.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Asking around, I get the message that  坏坏的问道 means something like 'he asked with a smirk', but the exact translation will, as always, depend on the context. Put some more context for a better result! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is related to 坏笑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T23:31:33.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14037" CreationDate="2015-06-25T01:02:20.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would always think 青龙 is a bluish dragon. But it seems that google images makes greener than I thought: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%E9%9D%92%E9%BE%99&amp;amp;tbm=isch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com/search?q=%E9%9D%92%E9%BE%99&amp;amp;tbm=isch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole thing comes from 青 taking on a number of different meanings in older texts. It ranged from blue to green to black. Realistically, the word could mean any shade in between, but in this specific case it isn't going to be black because of the existence of 玄武 (玄 is black). The reason I say blue is because it was the first meaning attached to the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/27/xs/9752.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/27/xs/9752.htm&lt;/a&gt; （key part is 本义:蓝色).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your question, I suspect either &quot;Dragon&quot; or &quot;Blue-Green Dragon&quot; would be okay. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-06-25T16:50:05.450" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T16:50:05.450" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14036" CreationDate="2015-06-25T01:58:06.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to put these statements in their context to be certain of their exact meaning. Without further context, I would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最后吃的菜 = the (very) last dish(es) I ate (of a meal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃最后的菜 = the last dish(es) (of a meal which) I am eating/I haven't eaten yet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T01:58:06.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14036" CreationDate="2015-06-25T02:45:51.953" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最后吃的菜 = 最后吃的(that you eat last) + 菜(dish/food);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;so, 最后吃的菜 = &quot;the dish that you eat last&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;最后吃的菜&quot; is a noun phrase and it is &quot;菜&quot; essentially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吃最后的菜 = 吃(eat) + 最后的菜(the last dish / the leftovers)；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;so, 吃最后的菜 = “eat the last dish / leftovers”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;吃最后的菜&quot; can be regared as an imperative sentence and it means &quot;eat something&quot;. If you put a subject at the beginning of it（&quot;我吃了最后的菜&quot;/“我要吃最后的菜”，etc.）, it would be easier to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6517" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2015-06-27T00:14:20.243" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T00:14:20.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14037" CreationDate="2015-06-25T05:23:24.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;青龙 should be translated as &lt;code&gt;'Azure (or Green/Blue) Dragon'&lt;/code&gt;, that is the accepted translation for the mythological context. (Check some dictionaries, Pleco or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E9%9D%92%E9%BE%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CEDICT&lt;/a&gt;, they all use Azure Dragon, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Dragon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, and this Wiki article on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Symbols_%28China%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Four Symbols&lt;/a&gt;, too.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would 青 mean nothing here? You can argue if it is blue, green or azure, but it is a color. Perhaps the people who translated 青龙白虎 as 'Dragon and White Tiger' just got confused about the different equivalents of 青 (blue, green, black) and left it out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Wikipedia is not authoritative for you, you can try a site colon search on Google with &lt;code&gt;site:edu 青龙&lt;/code&gt; . This will search for 青龙 on the websites of American universities. You can see that most of these sources will give the translation as either Blue, Green or Azure Dragon. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are still looking for some evidence, there are some books written on (or inspired by) Chinese mythology with the title bearing your expression:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H2qO8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rnPl4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nC6uK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-06-25T06:44:51.637" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T06:44:51.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14043" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14044" CreationDate="2015-06-25T06:57:06.653" Score="5" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;弗 means dollar (as in USD, $) in both Korean and Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Korean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;불&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[弗] a dollar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japnese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ドル&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dollar (from Dutch, orig. an abbr. of ドルラル; also written as 弗) (see also: ドルラル)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grand Ricci says that 弗 fú is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6 (Écon. – Fin.) Car. empl. pr le symbole $ : dollar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the pronunciation of the dollar symbol in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't seen any other acknowledgement of 弗 fú having anything to do with US Dollars in any other dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can 弗 Mean Dollar In Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T14:27:45.183" Title="Can 弗 Mean Dollar In Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14043" CreationDate="2015-06-25T07:18:58.013" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BC%97&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;, the possible meanings of 弗 are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;as negation (as in, 不 and 否 for &quot;no&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;gust of wind&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;writing brush&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no mention if it can mean dollar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, in Japanese, the possible meanings are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fluorine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the dollar sign ($)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason of the dollar sign is because of the similarity of the sign itself (弗 vs $).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Repurposed for its visual similarity to the dollar symbol $. This reading is ultimately a borrowing from Dutch dollar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7033" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T07:18:58.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14043" CreationDate="2015-06-25T08:59:22.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese usually use 美元 as dollar. For example, 14 dollar is 14 美元. I never saw Chinese use 弗 refered to dollar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11214" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T08:59:22.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14047" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14048" CreationDate="2015-06-25T10:57:36.433" Score="2" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 俯卧撑 (fǔwòchēng) and 伏地挺身 (fúdìtǐngshēn) apparently mean &quot;pushup&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=pushups&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;according to MDBG&lt;/a&gt;. Google Images doesn't give me a clue as to how these terms are different. Are they exactly the same? Are they regional variations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="98" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T15:09:48.157" Title="What is the difference between 俯卧撑 and 伏地挺身?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14047" CreationDate="2015-06-25T11:40:01.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;俯卧撑 is more commonly used in Mainland Chinese Mandarin, 伏地挺身 in Taiwanese Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Baidu Baike &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/151130/5402681.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;俯卧撑&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俯卧撑（英文：push-up；Press-up。中国大陆称作俯卧撑，中国台湾地区称作伏地挺身，港澳地区称作掌上压）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 俯卧撑 gives more results, probably this the preferred expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you search for both expressions on TW domains (with &lt;code&gt;site:tw [expression]&lt;/code&gt;) on Google, 伏地挺身 gives roughly 4 times more results than 俯卧撑. On PRC domains (site:cn), the situation is opposite, 俯卧撑 is roughly 10 times more common than 伏地挺身. Of course many Chinese and Taiwanese sites use other domains than .cn and .tw, this is just to illustrate the regional difference on a limited set of websites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T15:09:48.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2919" CreationDate="2015-06-25T15:18:51.893" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Canny and selfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例句：英国是世界上最鸡贼的国家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9365" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T15:18:51.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13997" CreationDate="2015-06-25T16:06:53.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would think it's a mistranslation.  合唱团 means chorus, where 乐队 means band.    As why it's called / translated as &quot;心灵蒙蔽&quot;:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;心灵 - soul / spirit.  As eyes are called windows of the soul, 心灵 is&#xA;  used insteads of 眼.  Also see Ampersand's comment for connotations on&#xA;  third eye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蒙蔽 - clouded / covered.  Nothing's wrong here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the direct translation - 第三只眼失明乐队 doesn't sounds quite right (I laughed reading it), 心灵蒙蔽乐队 might be a more valid translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: thanks to leo4jc, &quot;瞎心眼樂隊&quot; is even more catchy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2015-06-25T16:40:01.507" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T16:40:01.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14030" CreationDate="2015-06-25T20:51:54.313" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;否则 is often time more formal and comes across as more strongly worded (directly admonishing the listener). Much like saying &quot;you need to do X, &lt;em&gt;otherwise/if not,&lt;/em&gt; Y &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; happen (as a consequence).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g., 今天你必须来参加会议，否则后果自负&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要不 comes across as the softest (has the same as either/or, in the same manner as a suggestion), but it might the nuance of sounding as if one is being admonished, depending on the context. Much like saying &quot;you (either) need to do X, &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; Y might happen.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g., 今天你必须来参加会议，要不老板会生气的 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, note that 要不 is (more commonly) used to as a way to directly or indirectly ask the listener for consent (based on the context it's used). Seeing the 吧 typically will indicate that this is a suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g., 一个人看电影没意思，要不我们俩一起去看吧. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不然 is often used when you want to assert a matter of fact (typically in a neutral manner), the manner of speaking is probably somewhere between 否则 and 要不 in terms of strength. Much like saying &quot;you need to do X &lt;em&gt;otherwise&lt;/em&gt; Y might happen.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g., 今天你必须来参加会议，不然老板会生气的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要不然 is a about the same as 要不, but in a bit stronger tone than 要不. Much like saying &quot;you need to do X， &lt;em&gt;or otherwise/or else&lt;/em&gt; Y might happen.&quot; In my opinion, 要不然 can be used interchangeably with 要不, but only in when used in the context of &quot;otherwise.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g., 今天你必须来参加会议，要不然老板会生气的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T20:51:54.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13973" CreationDate="2015-06-26T07:49:19.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a polite way of speech, and it doesn't meaning the people indeed think his Chinese is so so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11231" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T07:49:19.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14054" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14055" CreationDate="2015-06-26T12:05:57.730" Score="0" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I see from google, &quot;管卡&quot; is some sort of metal clamp? Would the phrase mean something like &quot;the two of them passed through many small &lt;em&gt;mechnisms&lt;/em&gt;&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T12:34:03.987" Title="What does &quot;二人要通过许多小的管卡&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14054" CreationDate="2015-06-26T12:34:03.987" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shouldn't that be 关卡 = checkpoints, barriers？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二人要通过许多小关卡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 people must pass through many barriers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some kind of fun sports competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T12:34:03.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13999" CreationDate="2015-06-26T14:12:08.803" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a calligraphic perspective, the character 两 represents two people (人人) attached to some kind of vehicle or container. Thus it depicts a more accurate description of two objects or subjects, in opposition to 二 which has a purely numeric meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the phonetic point of view, it also sounds better, as it is harder to misunderstand its meaning when in a sentence. Remember that in the north of China it is very common to add the sound 'er' (儿) at the end of words or sentences, such as in &quot;你去哪?&quot;. But the composite sound &quot;Liǎng&quot; is much less frequent. It is easy to imagine lots of other misunderstandings that could occur in different words, such as &quot;erzi&quot; (&quot;儿子&quot;=&quot;one child&quot;, whilst &quot;二子&quot;=&quot;two children&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9801" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T14:12:08.803" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14043" CreationDate="2015-06-26T14:27:45.183" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone will use 刀 for dollar because of the pronunciation, but 弗 is not used as $.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T14:27:45.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14058" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14080" CreationDate="2015-06-26T15:52:08.197" Score="4" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the average Chinese woman approaching the age of 27-30, getting married is a fairly high priority, and a large motivating factor to this is the cultural pressure of avoiding becoming a 剩女, or leftover woman. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word is used often enough in news articles and television when talking about girls who are nearing this tragic fate, but when, if ever, would a person specifically refer to someone directly as a 剩女? It's obviously not a compliment, but in regards to culture in Mainland China, could it ever be used jokingly (你今年都25岁了，快会变成剩女吧)? Or when concerned about a friend's future (你现在不年轻了，你要快点结婚，不然变成剩女)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when, if ever, can someone explicitly refer to someone as a 剩女? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2978" LastActivityDate="2015-06-28T00:22:13.637" Title="When is it appropriate to use 剩女?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14024" CreationDate="2015-06-26T19:01:49.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;OP( overpowered ) is pretty good I think!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T19:01:49.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14030" CreationDate="2015-06-26T19:24:21.200" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me clarify it a bit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;否则. 否=not(negative), 则=then. 否则=if not then. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;要不然(要不 and 不然 are simplified forms of it). 要不=要是不=if not. 然=like this/that. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there are almost no difference. You can switch one by another in modern Chinese. 要不然 is weaker than 否则 in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T19:24:21.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14036" CreationDate="2015-06-26T19:30:41.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say you went to a nice restaurant for a nice meal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case 1: you had the meal, course by course. In this case 最后吃的菜=(吃)最后的菜=dessert&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case 2：you left in the meal for some reason. In this case 最后吃的菜=the dish you didn't finished. (吃)最后的菜=dessert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T19:30:41.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14034" CreationDate="2015-06-26T19:39:20.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are correct. In Chinese, we normally use 正面向上. 正面 refers to the side with useful content. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原稿面 and 送信面 are both 正面.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T19:39:20.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14063" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-26T20:53:28.970" Score="4" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient daoism, we see both 圣人 and 神人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first appears frequently in Dao De Jing, being translated as sage, saint, wise or sensible person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second appears in Zhuangzi (4.6), being translated as &quot;spiritual person&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe both have the same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T02:47:05.753" Title="What's the difference between 圣人 and 神人 in ancient daoism?" Tags="&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14058" CreationDate="2015-06-26T21:27:19.817" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Id say spinster old maid, or bachelorette as a joke maybe, but it doesn't quite fit the context... there's no comparable word because we don't necessary have the same societal pressure applied in the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11131" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T21:27:19.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14065" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14075" CreationDate="2015-06-26T23:19:20.087" Score="4" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;《齐桓公伐楚盟屈完》，出《左传》僖公四年，原文节此：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;”昔召康公命我先君太公曰：‘五侯九伯，女实征之，以夹辅周室。’”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个“实”字当何以训？“实”常见的释义里，大概只有“真正、真确”还强通文意。但看到《康熙字典》里“实”又有“具數”一义：“又具數也。《史記·始皇本紀》使黔首自實田。《註》謂令民自具頃畝實數也。”用来训此“实”，是否得当？有更好的解释吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T21:44:26.867" Title="How to understand &quot;实&quot; in this context? ”五侯九伯，女实征之“（《齐桓公伐楚盟屈完》）之&quot;实&quot;字何以训？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14058" CreationDate="2015-06-26T23:41:34.837" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, it is usually offensive to call someone 剩女 in the face, even when joking. Of course there might be exceptions, for example, a senior family member may possibly use the word 剩女 to urge a child to prioritize marriage, but even in this case the person referred to may feel offended. My advice is to use other expressions that are more euphemistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T23:41:34.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14067" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-26T23:49:06.390" Score="2" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the role of 清楚 in this sentence? Could they have written '核实得清楚‘ = 'verify clearly' or does ‘清楚‘ somehow work with '拖欠‘ = verify (the property) is clear of arrears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose it doesn't affect the meaning much either way. I just had a feeling it might not be a straightforward '核实（得）清楚‘。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The choices I see are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;核实清楚 verify clearly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清楚拖欠 be clear of arrears &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;女：在签订二手房买卖合同时，一定要注意签订书面合同，核实清楚物业费、水费、煤气费‘电话费等与房屋有关的费用是否存在拖欠，在合同中要注明卖方迁出户口的期限，要注意保留好收据。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-07T01:26:07.317" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T01:26:07.317" Title="What is the role of 清楚 in 一定要注意签订书面合同，核实清楚物业费、水费、...?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14063" CreationDate="2015-06-26T23:55:25.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, Daoist texts tend to use 圣人, 神人, and sometimes also 至人 interchangeably to refer to a person who has understood Dao. Example: 至人无己，神人无功，圣人无名。（《庄子》）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have to differentiate them, 圣人 is a person of perfect moral character and learning, and 神人, literally an immortal, is a person who has become free from worldly cares through understanding Dao. However I don't think such differentiation is generally necessary when studying Daoist philosophy, and possibly not intended by the philosophers when writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T23:55:25.380" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14067" CreationDate="2015-06-27T00:12:02.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;清楚 here is resultant complement for 核实 instead of adverbial, so the literal meaning is 'verify clear' (verify towards a clear result, think 'make clear') instead of 'verify clearly'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have to insert 的/地/得, it should be 得 i.e. 核实得清楚, but that changes the sentence from imperative to declarative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's really just a figure of speech to emphasize 核实, as opposed to carry some actual meaning. The previous sentence '一定要注意...' is similar in that regard, by using 一定 to emphasize 注意. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2015-06-27T02:09:24.323" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T02:09:24.323" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14067" CreationDate="2015-06-27T00:15:07.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right, 清楚 is used to modify 核实 and not 拖欠. &quot;Be clear of arrears&quot; is not “清楚拖欠” but &quot;无拖欠&quot;. However, adding 得 to 核实清楚 is not appropriate, since this sentence is an imperative, and 得 would make the sentence sound like a declarative statements, as in &quot;being able to verify clearly.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T00:15:07.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14063" CreationDate="2015-06-27T02:47:05.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's look at some references to the two to see the difference. Here's an early reference from Zhuangzi, Chapter 1, 内篇：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;至人无己，神人无功，圣人无名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or in translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The perfect man is without self, the holy man is without achievement, the sage is without name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To quote from Baidu:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;早期道教经典《太平经》就将神仙分为六等：一为神人...五为圣人，。并称：“神人主天...圣人主治百姓。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To paraphrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The early Daoist text Taiping Jing classifies various beings into 6 classes: First is the holy man...5th the sage. The holy man holds up the heavens...the sage holds up the common people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a difference in scope and the initial state of being. The 神人 is a being who is born perfect. They don't need to achieve anything to reach the Dao. The 圣人 is someone who worked to achieve the Dao. They are a person who can help others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T02:47:05.753" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14013" CreationDate="2015-06-27T05:47:16.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;未 actually attaches to 缴纳. 依法 is an adverb here that also attaches to 缴纳, and mostly still an adverb in other places, meaning a certain interest, requirement or enforcement is specified in and/or supported by national law. It's related to but not &quot;legal,&quot; which corresponds to 合法. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This whole sentence can be translated into the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(When) The employer fails to pay social insurance for the employee, which is required by law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I have not been trained in law settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9651" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T05:47:16.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14065" CreationDate="2015-06-27T06:01:58.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;没有出处支持，但这里是从「确实，实在」（副词）衍生出「（一定）要」的意思，才好讲通吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9651" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T06:01:58.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14065" CreationDate="2015-06-27T12:30:32.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an expansion from 《史記》·《齊太公世家》that clarifies: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「『東至海，西至河，南至穆陵，北至無棣，五侯九伯，實得征之。』齊由此得征伐，為大國。」 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this expansion, 實 means &quot;truly&quot;/&quot;legitimately&quot; (實) authorized to (得) launch expeditions (征) against them (之): launch expeditions against them with actual authority.  So &quot;legitimately&quot; might be your best single word for the apparent function of 實 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;實 as 的確 makes some sense in the expanded version, but still doesn't make sense as 的確 in the abbreviated form you cite in the 春秋左傳; so I would take that 實 as an abbreviated form of 實得, and gloss the original shorter phrase as &quot;legitimately [authorized], go on the expedition&quot; .  It would be interesting to interpret 實 as &quot;具備&quot;(權力) but I can't find any clear evidence for that reading.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples of the 實得 usage would be useful: I'm having trouble finding other instances of this combination.  It's worth noting that the above interpretation works quite well for the only other similar usage of 實 I can find, also from 《春秋左傳》·《昭公三十年》:「靈王之喪，我先君簡公在楚，我先大夫印段實往，...」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Other Examples&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some additional examples of uses we can use to examine the problem.  Based on searches from ctext.org.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《覲禮》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天子設斧依於戶牖之間，左右幾。天子袞冕，負斧依。嗇夫承命，告於天子。天子曰：「非他，伯父實來，予一人嘉之。伯父其入，予一人將受之。」侯氏入門右，坐奠圭，再拜稽首。擯者謁。侯氏坐取圭，升致命。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems useful because the gloss as 確實 seems even more strained than the example you have provided.  Here it seems to mean &quot;May the Royal Protector [伯父] come here under authorization, so that We may congratulate him...&quot; and then the Royal Protector comes in (I think - not sure what 侯氏 is, maybe one clan/surname/氏 of the 諸侯?).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《周語中》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;王召士季，曰：「子弗聞乎，禘郊之事，則有全烝；王公立飫，則有房烝；親戚宴饗，則有肴烝。今女非他也，而叔父使士季實來修舊德，以獎王室。唯是先王之宴禮，欲以貽女。...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I.e., the Royal Uncle [叔父, again, whatever] has dispatched 士季 to come &lt;em&gt;under orders&lt;/em&gt; to renew old good will, in order to favor the Royal House.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other examples of &quot;實來&quot; in canon where it's not so clear it isn't simply meaning &quot;really came&quot;. The advantage to the above selections, particularly the second, is that it's a real stretch to translate it as something like &quot;X dispatched Y to actually visit...&quot; - it just doesn't make very much sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="7016" LastEditDate="2015-07-01T21:44:26.867" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T21:44:26.867" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14037" CreationDate="2015-06-27T17:31:52.253" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/14042/11224&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Drunken Master&lt;/em&gt;'s explanation&lt;/a&gt; is plausible and makes sense: 青 may have been left out from the translation due to the fact that it could have 3 or 4 color meanings (it is preferable to omit a word when in doubt of its meaning, specially if it risks changing the whole title's meaning).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I just wanted to add that the title may indirectly refer to other thing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;青 may also mean &lt;strong&gt;young&lt;/strong&gt; (from 青年 qīngnián = youth), and actually according to a &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00D0VP34E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Characters Roots book&lt;/a&gt;, the original meaning of the character was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;the color when things began to grow&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, again and indirectly, it cannot only represent youth, but ingenuity and being naïve as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;opposing to the White Tiger (白虎), without any ambiguity, it may indirectly remind of the white hair of a wise old person.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the title may reflect a deeper meaning than the direct one transmitted by the colors...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This idea gets particularly interesting because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.academia.edu/7455227/The_origin_of_Green_Dragon_%E9%9D%92%E9%BE%99_and_White_Tiger_%E7%99%BD%E8%99%8E_icons_as_architectural_elements_at_traditional_Chinese_temple_%E5%BA%99_%E5%BB%9F_entrance_at_Java_island_&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dragons also symbolize masculinity and &lt;strong&gt;virility&lt;/strong&gt;, Yang 陽 element&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which may refer to the young days of Tu Ming, the Taoist monk from the story, and as he evolves, the symbol that represents better his older self is the:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.academia.edu/7455227/The_origin_of_Green_Dragon_%E9%9D%92%E9%BE%99_and_White_Tiger_%E7%99%BD%E8%99%8E_icons_as_architectural_elements_at_traditional_Chinese_temple_%E5%BA%99_%E5%BB%9F_entrance_at_Java_island_&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tiger 虎: Known as the king of beasts, used as &lt;strong&gt;masculinity&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;valor&lt;/strong&gt; symbol; fierce and &lt;strong&gt;decisive&lt;/strong&gt; nature.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By this we can deduce the whole point of the book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0595125751&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tu advances not only in his practice, but also in his understanding of life and love as he falls under the spell of five unforgettable women unequaled in religious literature. In the exciting conclusion, he &lt;strong&gt;experiences an epiphany that redefines what it means to attain the highest knowledge&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I.e.: from a &lt;em&gt;young&lt;/em&gt; viril &lt;em&gt;Dragon&lt;/em&gt;, Tu Ming becomes a wise &lt;em&gt;white&lt;/em&gt; old &lt;em&gt;Tiger&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11224" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T17:59:09.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13999" CreationDate="2015-06-27T18:53:12.700" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The historical reason behind it is kind of surprising though. From a &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00D0VP34E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Characters Roots book&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bQhnV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;两 liang etymology&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The earlier form [of the character] looked like &lt;strong&gt;a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/yoke&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;yoke&lt;/a&gt; and a pair of saddles&lt;/strong&gt; of a &lt;strong&gt;two-horse carriage&lt;/strong&gt;. The initial meaning was &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;double&lt;/em&gt;. It was also a unit to count vehicles and written as &lt;strong&gt;辆&lt;/strong&gt; later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is why we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%BE%86&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;一辆车  ―  yī liàng chē  ―  a car (from Wiktionary)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where you notice in 辆 that there is the 车 character, meaning car, at the left side of the 两 character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume its usage became a practical one, since as in many languages (including English), you can be more specific when you are referring to a &lt;strong&gt;pair&lt;/strong&gt; of objects by using 两, instead of two objects using 二.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a particular example: 二炮 (Èr pào) refers to the &lt;em&gt;Second Artillery&lt;/em&gt; and 两炮 (liǎng pào) means &lt;em&gt;two guns&lt;/em&gt;. So, would you request two guns from your commander or a full regiment?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11224" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T18:53:12.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14078" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14079" CreationDate="2015-06-27T19:18:13.033" Score="3" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n38D7DCDtbk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n38D7DCDtbk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://southworks.com/blog/2009/06/21/the-cookie-experiment/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://southworks.com/blog/2009/06/21/the-cookie-experiment/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So,when Liu Anting refers to &quot;然後三個三個分成小組&quot; does she mean something along the lines of &quot;And then into three small groups of three?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曾經做過這樣的一個實驗 - 他們將一大群大學生招集起來之後 - 然後三個三個分成小組&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They once performed this sort of experiment - [After] they formed a large group of university students - then they divided them into three groups of three&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my understanding of 分成 correct? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3438" LastActivityDate="2015-06-28T00:28:43.270" Title="meaning of &quot;然後三個三個分成小組&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14078" CreationDate="2015-06-27T21:40:25.447" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;X 个 X 个分成小组 means to divide something into groups of X. So 三个三个分成小组 means to divide these students into groups of 3. But the number of groups is not necessarily 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The expression &amp;quot;X 个 X 个&amp;quot; is something like giving an example of arrangement, or the manner to process a bunch of things, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把这些苹果两个两个放在一起。    # two apples together&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把这些苹果一个一个洗干净。    # wash the apples one by one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-06-28T00:28:43.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14058" CreationDate="2015-06-27T22:13:42.580" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you use this to refer to your close friend, she would probably not get angry with you. But in other cases it seems a little offensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well I think this is the &quot;dark side&quot; of the traditional culture. As you said, girls get married mainly at that age, and Chinese parents usually get worried about their daughter's marriage when they grow up. So &quot;being left&quot; may be thought as a sign of &quot;unable to marry&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However nowadays girls tend to emphasize the freedom of when to get married. They also want to fight for their own career and independency. Therefore the traditional parents' concepts are less welcomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, Chinese media or websites use this word because this is likely from the Internet, and they just want to catch up with the young people's culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to conclude, if you use this words in a talking with a very close friend, and in a context that is not emphasizing the traditional concept, it's just OK. But it's better not use it even if the audience does not care about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just my own opinion. Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastEditorUserId="2484" LastEditDate="2015-06-28T00:22:13.637" LastActivityDate="2015-06-28T00:22:13.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14013" CreationDate="2015-06-28T00:12:24.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is only one main verb 缴纳 and 未 negates it. Both 依法 and 为劳动者 are adverbs that add information to the verb, and they go before the verb. Depending on how much you wish to convey about the verb, you can have the following affirmative and negative sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用人单位缴纳社会保险费 / 用人单位未缴纳社会保险费&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用人单位为劳动者缴纳社会保险费 / 用人单位未为劳动者缴纳社会保险费&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用人单位依法缴纳社会保险费 /用人单位未依法缴纳社会保险费&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用人单位依法为劳动者缴纳社会保险费 / 用人单位未依法为劳动者缴纳社会保险费&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;依法 is not a verb and is not negated by 未. There is no ambiguity here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wish to say &quot;The employer illegally pays Social Security for the employee&quot;, you will say something like 用人单位違法为劳动者缴纳社会保险费。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;違法 against the law&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;依法 according to the law&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-06-28T00:12:24.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14082" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14096" CreationDate="2015-06-28T03:02:39.220" Score="5" ViewCount="1615" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many free online tools that can convert Traditional Chinese characters to Simplified Chinese characters. However, most of them don't look at context to provide an accurate translation; they just use a table to convert each character one at a time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's my assumption that established, for-profit companies have invested more and can translate more accurately between Traditional and Simplified Chinese. I have access to the following tools and want to know if any is more accurate than the other:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;OS X 10.10 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://support.apple.com/kb/PH11036?locale=en_US&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://support.apple.com/kb/PH11036?locale=en_US&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google Translate (&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://translate.google.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Microsoft Word (still trying to figure out if it works on Mac, but I do have Office on Windows available if needed)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my assumption correct, or do these services just convert each character individually without accounting for differences? Are there other tools that are better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11237" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T02:22:27.857" Title="Comparison of tools for converting traditional to simplified Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14083" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-28T12:29:40.510" Score="-2" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read about &lt;a href=&quot;http://qr.ae/7b8UIl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this saying&lt;/a&gt; today and I am wandering how can I translate this into Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;reading novels, you live a thousand times, but only once otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2015-06-28T20:12:11.697" Title="How to translate this old saying into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-06-29T03:08:04.127" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14083" CreationDate="2015-06-28T20:12:11.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just for reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你会在小说阅读中获得一千次生命，而非仅有一次。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2015-06-28T20:12:11.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14085" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-29T04:03:16.907" Score="1" ViewCount="854" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to find a suitable translation for the word immediately. The dictionary has all of these words (I limited it to 4 in the title but there are over 10 results from what I can see). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone list the top 3 most commonly used ways to express the idea &quot;immediately&quot; and describe the differences between each? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T02:03:20.937" Title="&quot;Immediately&quot; 立即, 即時, 立刻, 馬上 etc" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14085" CreationDate="2015-06-29T14:26:29.067" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;立即 立刻 are similar and common for your answer. They are focus on something should be done as soon as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即時 is subtlely different than these above. In most case, this word is used for something just happen in the very seconds ago. For example 即時新聞 (latest news).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;馬上 is same as 立即 立刻 but a oral word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2015-06-29T14:26:29.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13973" CreationDate="2015-06-29T15:08:39.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;还好吧&#xA;没有啦&#xA;哪有啊&#xA;is oral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪里哪里 is too formal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11243" LastActivityDate="2015-06-29T15:08:39.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14085" CreationDate="2015-06-29T16:22:07.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;without delay 即刻﹐馬上&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;將食物烹調十分鐘後即刻上桌。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一收到他們的傳真﹐就馬上回信。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;very soon before or after something 立即﹐立刻&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那個嬰兒剛出生就立刻被別人領養了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;very near to something  緊靠著&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他就住在緊靠我們家樓上的那個公寓。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;immediately involved/concerned/affected etc -very closely involved etc in a particular situation 直接&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這個決定將通知所有直接相關人員。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11160" LastEditorUserId="11160" LastEditDate="2015-06-30T01:32:00.247" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T01:32:00.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14089" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14091" CreationDate="2015-06-29T17:51:33.983" Score="4" ViewCount="488" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say the &lt;strong&gt;difference&lt;/strong&gt; in this context: the difference between 4 and 6 is 2. It is 区别?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3608" LastActivityDate="2015-06-29T18:03:06.663" Title="How do you say Difference between?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14089" CreationDate="2015-06-29T17:59:40.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, 'difference' is 差额. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4和6之间的差额是2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-06-29T17:59:40.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14089" CreationDate="2015-06-29T18:03:06.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, &lt;code&gt;difference&lt;/code&gt; should be translated as 差額 or simply 差.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;四和六的差額為二&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if I have the freedom to not translate &lt;code&gt;difference&lt;/code&gt; as noun but verb, I would simply say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;四和六相差二&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8199" LastActivityDate="2015-06-29T18:03:06.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14092" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14094" CreationDate="2015-06-29T19:42:12.217" Score="10" ViewCount="4886" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my question, almost every program, TV Show, movie...&#xA;everything has subtitles, one reason could be that there are many different accents in different provinces but I don't really find that convincing, because that happens in every language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know the real answer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11150" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2021-01-02T20:39:27.070" LastActivityDate="2021-01-07T02:51:01.033" Title="Why do Chinese people always use Chinese subtitles?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14092" CreationDate="2015-06-29T21:44:08.090" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are not just different accents in different regions.  There are different spoken languages, using essentially the same written language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And on this point, very distinctive English accents such as Jamaican or deep country accents from Appalachia are sometimes subtitled on American English language television.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="25227" LastEditDate="2021-01-07T02:14:40.657" LastActivityDate="2021-01-07T02:14:40.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14092" CreationDate="2015-06-30T01:41:34.410" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are Chinese-language-only reasons like the many mutually-unintelligible dialects/topolects, the huge difference between spoken and written Chinese languages, but this doesn't explain why subtitling is ubiquitous, even when the entire show is in perfect Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because subtitles are somewhat required under PRC state authorities, so there are a few other benefits/purposes for subtitling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It improves literacy; according to OECD standards of literacy, China has about 80% literacy rate, meaning there are large sections of the populace that are illiterate. SLS (same language subtitling) has been shown to improve literacy, and apart from China this is also done in parts of India for the same reason.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It makes it easier to understand regional colloquialisms, as the subtitles will replace them with Mandarin versions. For example, the Cantonese &amp;quot;nei hai bin dou&amp;quot;, instead of being shown as &amp;quot;你喺邊度&amp;quot;, will be subtitled as &amp;quot;你在哪里&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is more accessible to deaf viewers. Note that most other countries provide optional closed captions for this purpose.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It pushes Mandarin/putonghua hegemony, national unity and so on.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is all enforced by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Administration_of_Press,_Publication,_Radio,_Film_and_Television&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SAPPRFT/SARFT&lt;/a&gt; (the equivalent of FCC, but much more powerful) under something called the &lt;em&gt;Language Law&lt;/em&gt;. It is constantly evolving, and only really became prominent around the late 90s I believe. This is why if you look at older TV shows, they may not have subtitles. This state organ enforces many other things like requiring Mandarin proficiency for TV presenters, standardised Mandarin terminology, quotas for types of shows deemed less beneficial like reality-TV, historically-inaccurate dramas etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="25227" LastEditDate="2021-01-07T02:14:04.570" LastActivityDate="2021-01-07T02:14:04.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14085" CreationDate="2015-06-30T02:03:20.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You, bring me the paper immediately.&#xA;你 立刻 把那堆纸给我。&#xA;I immediately understood what he said.&#xA;我 马上 就明白了他说的。&#xA;She immediately slapped him.&#xA;她 瞬间 甩了他一巴掌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11140" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T02:03:20.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14082" CreationDate="2015-06-30T02:22:27.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tools followed the following rules to convert different language with their database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;idiom. e.g.心想事成&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;famous people and things. e.g.乾隆&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there are the same pronunciation of adjective. e.g.乾燥&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;one by one characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Traditional and simplified Chinese are special&lt;/strong&gt;, they have the same pronunciation of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But some words and expressions are different, and tools won't translate for that. e.g. Traditional:計程車 = Simplified:出租车or的士,but you won't get the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So followed the following rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;famous people and things. e.g.乾隆 &amp;lt;-&gt; 乾隆,周杰倫 &amp;lt;-&gt; 周杰伦&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there are the same pronunciation of adjective. e.g.乾燥 &amp;lt;-&gt; 干燥&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;one by one characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above are my experience, i am a programer and i am taiwanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11160" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T02:22:27.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8571" CreationDate="2015-06-30T04:34:44.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is probably no one reason why red is considered lucky.  But one thing that would encourage it is that China has long had good sources of deep red mercury based pigments.  In the ancient world, east or west, strong colored dyes and pigments were hard to find, and people liked them.  In the Mediterranean world look at the history of Royal Purple made from certain snails (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taoist and other ancient Chinese practices associated red mercury ores with blood, and associated the ores and mercury itself with long life. These things were rare enough be valuable but common enough in China to become standard things.  And the red mercury compounds are easily made into dyes and pigments-- unlike the green and other colors of jade for example.    I do not say this had to make red the color of good luck, but it did make red a natural candidate for that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T04:34:44.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14100" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14112" CreationDate="2015-06-30T05:19:42.503" Score="1" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book《&lt;em&gt;蜀籁&lt;/em&gt;》writes the word &lt;code&gt;逗猫惹草&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;猫惹草&lt;/code&gt; and also contains many other usages of &lt;code&gt;&lt;/code&gt; where &lt;code&gt;逗&lt;/code&gt; would normally be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逗 in Sichuanese is read &lt;code&gt;dou&lt;/code&gt; in the first tone (tone value: 55).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逗 in theory should be read &lt;code&gt;dou&lt;/code&gt; fourth tone (tone value: 213).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; in both Mandarin and Sichuanese would be &lt;code&gt;dou&lt;/code&gt; first tone (tone value: 55, unless anyone disagrees about the Mandarins tone values).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逗 does fit the meaning for tease/play with/provoke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; according to 字海 just means 轻言, not really a valid estimation of what &lt;code&gt;dou&lt;/code&gt; in the first tone (tone value: 55) should mean in Sichuanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is  An Acceptable Form Of 逗 In Sichuanese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or did the book just make it up?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T07:16:18.720" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T07:16:18.720" Title="Is  An Acceptable Form Of 逗 In Sichuanese?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14101" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21202" CreationDate="2015-06-30T12:13:15.363" Score="12" ViewCount="5735" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to provide SVG, or at least GIF stroke order diagrams on my website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a database similar to the Japanese &lt;a href=&quot;http://kanjivg.tagaini.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;KanjiVG&lt;/a&gt;, but for Simplified and Traditional hanzi?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, is there a free or paid repository of stroke order diagrams in GIF or some other format?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2676" LastActivityDate="2018-02-03T13:34:25.637" Title="Stroke order database" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14102" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14159" CreationDate="2015-06-30T12:35:43.087" Score="4" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to use a Braille keyboard to input chinese with the pinyin input method? How could a blind user ever be able to choose the right character combination if they cannot see it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The words could be read out in sound, but what about homophones (just think about proper people and place names and other examples)? So the sound could also include a description of the characters so as to allow the user to choose the correct homophone. But this would make things a bit slow.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What if besides being blind, the user is also deaf?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;So, perhaps a braille feedback (output) device could be attached to another USB port to somehow enable user selection. I really don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T08:26:21.080" Title="Braille and Chinese Input" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14101" CreationDate="2015-06-30T12:41:49.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is the Wikimedia Commons &lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Stroke_Order_Project&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stroke Order Project&lt;/a&gt;. It's a great resource with images and animations for many simplified characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also try generating your own diagrams and animations using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lri.fr/~dragice/strokefanning/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stroke Fanning&lt;/a&gt; application, which is backed by stroke order data from &lt;a href=&quot;http://zdt.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ZDT&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/chinese-dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;YellowBridge&lt;/a&gt; is my preferred online dictionary, and it has stroke order animations for almost everything I've ever searched for. I presume they own the copyright for these, so you couldn't just stick them on your website, but you could create your own diagrams or animations using them as a reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="42" LastEditDate="2015-06-30T13:56:11.907" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T13:56:11.907" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14104" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14107" CreationDate="2015-06-30T12:45:12.970" Score="2" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an example I want to translate &quot;electronic document workflow system &lt;strong&gt;development and support&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation word by word: 'development' is 发展 and 'support' is 支援&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But googling of 发展和支援 does not give any results at all that could mean the word pair is wrong. Can anyone prove/disapprove my idea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T14:27:11.257" Title="How to say &quot;development and support&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14104" CreationDate="2015-06-30T13:01:54.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I have apparently skipped the domain in which you wish to use the expression. In technical context, development is 开发 not 发展, the latter is economic or similar. So the expression is 开发与支援.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use another conjuction that is more appropriate for formal written language: 与.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase you are looking for is: 发展与支援. With double quotes (&quot;) this gives ~24.6k search results on Google. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually the 和 variant gives more results than the one I have quoted, but for the name of an institution, book title, or other formal usage 与 is more appropriate. In spoken language your version is OK, too. The translations for 'development' and 'support' are correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-06-30T14:27:11.257" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T14:27:11.257" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14106" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-30T13:44:48.083" Score="6" ViewCount="398" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Analects, chapter 4,&#xA;「吾日三省吾身&#xA;為人謀而不忠乎？&#xA;與朋友交而不信乎？&#xA;傳不習乎？」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate it: Master Ceng said: everyday I check three things in myself:&#xA;do I plan my behavior without loyalty? do I make friends without confidence/trust (or deserving confidence - sincerity)? &lt;strong&gt;do I propagate (disseminate) the Practice&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;James Legge (who is extremely competent in it) translates the last lines differently: &lt;strong&gt;whether I may have not mastered and practiced the instructions of my teacher.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I wrong that 傳 is about dissemination?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9771" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2015-06-30T23:47:28.573" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T23:47:28.573" Title="meaning of 傳 in 傳不習乎?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14104" CreationDate="2015-06-30T13:47:51.453" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;开发与技术支持&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;开发&lt;/strong&gt; is development as in &lt;em&gt;software development&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;技术支持&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;em&gt;technical support&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;支持&lt;/strong&gt; by itself means support.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;seems to be a common enough paring, here's two examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/slO4a.png&quot; alt=&quot;1&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R8KoO.png&quot; alt=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess you could also just say &lt;strong&gt;开发与支持&lt;/strong&gt; if you wanted to cut out the whole &quot;technical&quot; part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T13:47:51.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14106" CreationDate="2015-06-30T15:02:04.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there're two comprehendings. The point is &lt;code&gt;曾子&lt;/code&gt;'s identity, as a student of &lt;code&gt;孔子&lt;/code&gt;, or as a teacher (when he became elder) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically I prefer to James Legge's translation, here &lt;code&gt;曾子&lt;/code&gt; is supposed to be a student, and &lt;code&gt;传&lt;/code&gt; means (the things) &lt;code&gt;teached&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;passed on&lt;/code&gt; from the teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think when &lt;code&gt;曾子&lt;/code&gt; said these words he has become a teacher by himself, your understanding is reasonable too, even thouth I think it's more accurate to translate &lt;code&gt;传&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;teach&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;pass on&lt;/code&gt;, so the whole sentence should be &lt;code&gt;Do I think twice and practice to check my thought/knowledge before I pass on them to others&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zuoye.baidu.com/question/4b32b7acd221aa80c5a7d57957e1f244.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;“传不习乎”啥意思?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.hfyhjy.com/xucf/2014/07/30/%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%8C%E5%88%99-%E6%9B%BE%E5%AD%90%E6%9B%B0%EF%BC%9A%E5%90%BE%E6%97%A5%E4%B8%89%E7%9C%81xing%E5%90%BE%E8%BA%AB%EF%BC%9A%E4%B8%BA%E4%BA%BA%E8%B0%8B%E8%80%8C%E4%B8%8D%E5%BF%A0/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;第二则 曾子曰：“吾日三省(xǐng)吾身：为人谋而不忠乎？与朋友交而不信乎？传不习乎？”（《学而》）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: Some additional remarks about the translation of the first two sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;为人谋&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;plan&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;do&lt;/code&gt; sth for others.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;忠&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;elaborate&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;try one's best&lt;/code&gt; here.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;信&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;to be credible&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-06-30T15:13:16.943" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T15:13:16.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14106" CreationDate="2015-06-30T16:29:37.250" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;id=89607&quot;&gt;朱熹四書章句集注&lt;/a&gt; 「傳，謂受之於師。習，謂熟之於己。」 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;傳&lt;/code&gt; means what you've received from your Master. James Legge's translation seems right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8199" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T16:29:37.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14110" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14111" CreationDate="2015-07-01T03:26:36.793" Score="2" ViewCount="363" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does this mean: ?&#xA;It's in traditional form, because that is what appeared when I copied and pasted an emoji from Gmail into Gchat. I don't have a traditional dictionary, so I looked up what I figured should be the simplified version: 艹 on top of 领. Can anyone help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10933" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-07-01T15:51:49.237" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T15:51:49.237" Title="What does this character mean? " Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14110" CreationDate="2015-07-01T03:50:11.733" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it &lt;code&gt;䕘&lt;/code&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/baLod.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《集韻》同苓。又良郢切，音領。草名&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiyun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jiyun&lt;/a&gt;, same as &lt;code&gt;苓&lt;/code&gt;. And pronounced as &lt;code&gt;良郢切&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. &lt;code&gt;領&lt;/code&gt;. (&lt;code&gt;良郢切&lt;/code&gt; means the combination of the initial consonant of &lt;code&gt;良&lt;/code&gt; (liang) and the vowel of &lt;code&gt;郢&lt;/code&gt; (ying), i.e. &lt;code&gt;l&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;ing&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;ling&lt;/code&gt;. It's grass' name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/12/kx/4558.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/12/kx/4558.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苓&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;líng ㄌㄧㄥˊ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　1. 指“茯苓”。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　2. 古书上说的一种植物。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　3. 古同“零”，零落。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;poria cocos&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a kind of plant in ancient books&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;same as 零, withered and fallen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T15:21:54.893" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14100" CreationDate="2015-07-01T13:45:58.400" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to a post on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.zdic.net/thread-30741-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zDic Forum&lt;/a&gt; for that character from 2010, it is a topolect character (despite its rather mysterious pedigree in the Kangxi Dictionary). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I couldn't find it in the 《成都方言詞典》 Chengdu Dialect Dictionary, nor a lexeme corresponding to it. On consulting the 《四川方言詞典》 Sichuan Dialect Dictionary from 1986, I only find it represented with the character 逗 dou&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; (which is also repeated as a 多音字 for dou&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I posit that it may appear in certain 川剧 libretti, but otherwise it may be that the author simply went through Kangxi to look up rare characters of that pronunciation to use. Nonetheless, the semantic shift from 輕言 to 逗引 is not inconceivable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T13:45:58.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14017" CreationDate="2015-07-01T14:43:34.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot for your help! I thought I should post the final version of the notice here. Cheers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聘用廣東話教師&#xA;本人正在學習廣東話並且需要一位教師。如果你對廣東話有一定的認識以及懂得教學的話，敬請聯絡本人。&#xA;本人願意付學費。要求教師有基本英文或羅馬尼亞語的知識。如果閣下希望在這兩種語言得到幫助，本人也可以提供幫助。&#xA;本人聯絡電話:xxx&#xA;本人聯絡電郵:xxx&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11213" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T14:43:34.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14114" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14115" CreationDate="2015-07-01T15:57:35.867" Score="4" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen both 滑鼠 (huá shŭ) and 鼠标 (shŭ biāo) used as translations for &quot;computer mouse&quot;. Are there differences in meaning, and which is more commonly used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T14:28:24.537" Title="Differences between 滑鼠 (huá shŭ) and 鼠标 (shŭ biāo)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14114" CreationDate="2015-07-01T16:01:14.877" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both refer to the physical mouse device. Which translation to use depends on where you are using the term. In Mainland China 鼠标 is used whereas in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other places 滑鼠 is more preferred. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BC%A0%E6%A0%87&quot;&gt;維基百科&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8199" LastEditorUserId="8199" LastEditDate="2015-07-01T17:33:10.877" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T17:33:10.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14116" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14123" CreationDate="2015-07-02T01:34:56.410" Score="5" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone point me to an online resource that lists characters by classification? I.e., I'm looking for a list of characters that are generally considered pictographs / complex and simple ideographs / meaning-sound (phono-semantic) / borrowed / etc.  I have been Googling but not finding anything.  For many characters, I can take an educated guess, but it would be great to get the input of a consensus opinion from the Web.   Thanks in advance for any help!!&#xA;-唐納文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9565" LastActivityDate="2015-07-03T15:20:04.880" Title="Character classification by type" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14118" CreationDate="2015-07-02T06:08:56.750" Score="4" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a picture I have found on flickr, taken in an outdoor museum in South Korea. &#xA;I can only recognize the 1st, 3rd and 4th characters: 寶X山房. 寶 is probably not the variant written on the wooden board, but it's the same character. What is the 2nd character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original high resolution image is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/koreanet/17076171307/in/dateposted/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rMWEt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT： My best guess is 丁, but why this odd curvy shape when the rest of the characters are rendered fairly standard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-07-02T06:17:45.803" LastActivityDate="2015-07-02T08:35:11.607" Title="Interpretation of second character" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14117" CreationDate="2015-07-02T06:59:39.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like it is indeed 丁. The Flickr link mentioned the photo was taken at 茶山草堂. With that information, I was able to find &lt;a href=&quot;http://huanqiu21.blog.163.com/blog/static/186285415201182103713744/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;another site&lt;/a&gt; with a photo of the same doorway indicating that it says 寶丁山房.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know the specific reason why the character is stylized in this way, though 茶山 refers to the pen name of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeong_Yak-yong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Joeng Yak-yong (丁若鏞)&lt;/a&gt;, so it could be in reference to his surname, 丁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2015-07-02T06:59:39.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14117" CreationDate="2015-07-02T08:29:20.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_7f09352f0100yxc1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this blog&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://cluster1.cafe.daum.net/_c21_/bbs_search_read?grpid=1KcCH&amp;amp;fldid=JnFm&amp;amp;datanum=194&amp;amp;openArticle=true&amp;amp;docid=1KcCHJnFm19420110130230935&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;that&lt;/a&gt; are correct, these four characters are indeed 寶丁山房, penned by the famous Korean calligrapher &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jeong-hui&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kim Jeong-hui 金正喜&lt;/a&gt; in memory of 丁若鏞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters on this wooden board look like 隸書 calligraphy to me. Please compare with the 隸書 section in the calligraphy samples of &lt;a href=&quot;http://shufa.supfree.net/raky.asp?zi=%B1%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;寶&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://shufa.supfree.net/raky.asp?zi=%B6%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;丁&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://shufa.supfree.net/raky.asp?zi=%C9%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;山&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://shufa.supfree.net/raky.asp?zi=%B7%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;房&lt;/a&gt; respectively. It seems like Kim is being creative with the 丁 character here. I don't know much about Kim's style but thanks to this &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=FjlwAwAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PT139&amp;amp;lpg=PT139&amp;amp;dq=%E9%87%91%E6%AD%A3%E5%96%9C%20%E6%9B%B8%E6%B3%95&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=ZrjWdoXdla&amp;amp;sig=ZOTX2VSmBGmyBLUpF0bEPNsJfsY&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=heaUVbugG8OoogSH4JQQ&amp;amp;ved=0CDQQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%E9%87%91%E6%AD%A3%E5%96%9C%20%E6%9B%B8%E6%B3%95&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;google books search&lt;/a&gt; I found out a bit more about his creative style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cyNwx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8199" LastEditorUserId="8199" LastEditDate="2015-07-02T08:35:11.607" LastActivityDate="2015-07-02T08:35:11.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14116" CreationDate="2015-07-02T13:16:30.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;An exhaustive list may not exist, but you can take the Wikipedia article as a starting point, and then googool further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-07-02T13:16:30.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14116" CreationDate="2015-07-02T15:22:50.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a list (and only kind-of machine parseable): &lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E5%95%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E5%95%A5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2015-07-02T15:22:50.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14122" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14161" CreationDate="2015-07-03T02:47:33.770" Score="3" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 1986 edition of《四川方言词典》has the following entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R8ZqP.png&quot; alt=&quot;乐山的大佛——老石人&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乐山的大佛——老石人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lo2 san1 ni1 da4 fu3——nao3 si2 ren2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乐山大佛距今已有一千多年历史, 所以是“老石人”。谐“老实人”。 ▷你以为他是～嗦? 他才阴倒不老实。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佛 is given the pronunciation of fu3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2014 edition of the same dictionary gives 佛 the pronunciation fu2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/note: this dictionary is riddled with errors(!)/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Logically I would have assumed the pinyin to have been written &lt;code&gt;fo2&lt;/code&gt; - which is pretty much how it is pronounced, as far as I can tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《四川方言词典》has &lt;code&gt;fu3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;fu2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are Either &lt;code&gt;fu3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;fu2&lt;/code&gt; correct pronunciations for 佛 in 四川话?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T08:41:06.940" Title="Pronunciation Of 佛 in 四川话" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14116" CreationDate="2015-07-03T14:16:35.343" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I strongly recommend an online dictionary &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;It may be the most professional online Chinese dictionary even for native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For every entry, you can refer to the section &quot;字形分析&quot; to know the classification of the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the character 强 is classified as compound ideographs (会意), which is shown in the picture:&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1DKiJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary also collect contents from 《康熙字典》 and 《说文解字》, you can also learn the origin and example sentences of each entry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6363" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-07-03T15:20:04.880" LastActivityDate="2015-07-03T15:20:04.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14157" CreationDate="2015-07-03T19:11:21.837" Score="3" ViewCount="796" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我正在穿上毛衣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, can you rephrase it as the following?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我正在穿毛衣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can rephrase it as such, is there any difference between &lt;code&gt;穿&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;穿上&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他正在脱衣服。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why don't you say it as possibly &lt;code&gt;脱下&lt;/code&gt; but &lt;code&gt;脱&lt;/code&gt;? In other words, why do you have to use the particle when expressing &lt;code&gt;putting on&lt;/code&gt;, but not when expressing &lt;code&gt;putting off&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T06:46:24.490" Title="What is the difference between 穿 and 穿上?" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14125" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14134" CreationDate="2015-07-03T22:41:33.200" Score="4" ViewCount="4118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on &lt;strong&gt;Debian Wheezy Linux&lt;/strong&gt;. I've seen some posts using pinyin tone marks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I was wondering if I can do that in Linux (Debian Wheezy). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How can I configure it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11167" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-27T13:26:11.553" LastActivityDate="2015-09-04T10:37:55.077" Title="Can I type pinyin in Debian Linux?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14125" CreationDate="2015-07-04T01:58:48.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try this to see if it's helpful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/input-pinyin-tone-marks-ubuntu/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/input-pinyin-tone-marks-ubuntu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2015-07-04T01:58:48.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14127" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-04T14:14:52.090" Score="3" ViewCount="421" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;去以六月息者也。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hello it's Zhuangzi Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease, first chapter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question:&#xA;Does he rest for six months or in June. Is Chinese the same in both cases? Does 者 mean &lt;strong&gt;he&lt;/strong&gt; who goes for rest for six months?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9780" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-07-05T02:11:03.853" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T06:05:36.387" Title="six months or in June" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14128" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14136" CreationDate="2015-07-05T02:10:06.223" Score="2" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most dictionaries (&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;/&lt;em&gt;A Chinese-English Dict&lt;/em&gt;) claim that 噗/扑 are &lt;strong&gt;variants&lt;/strong&gt; of each other, while giving 扑 as the simplified form of 撲.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Liang'an seems to say that 扑 is the simplified version of 噗. [This seems wrong].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hanyu Da Cidian offers another alternative: 噗嗵.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;百度知道 has the following question: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=pGp0fb8MOBze9Ahi4o7ZdlG-_gQA34Vw7akSQGk7hIAX0gQW4IQ76gIB7RXAM7SyFIAn5X11eSO0DtmlusClPK&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;扑通与噗通的区别&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扑通一声跪下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;噗通一声跪下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请路过的大侠给指条明路&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the best answer having been chosen as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扑通形容动作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;噗通形容声音&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another answer claimed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;都是拟声词，但形容跪下一般用扑通，因为有滑稽、贬义的效果，还用在有物体向下落的时候，比如球落水扑通一声。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;噗通则用在中性的语句中，比如“噗通一声，瓶盖开了” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and lastly another reply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扑通不是声音大姐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;噗通才是声音大姐 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure where the claims that 扑通 is not onomatopoeia are coming from, as it seems to be widely accepted that it indeed is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can Anyone Clarify Things A Bit: What's The Difference Between 噗通 and 扑通?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T13:43:19.797" Title="噗通 PK 扑通: What's The Difference? If Any?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14129" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-05T03:50:52.200" Score="1" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was pointing at a thundercloud and saying that lightning may strike, and my Chinese friend said a 4-syllable phrase that meant that it happened just as I finished talking about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know this phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11264" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T17:25:16.113" Title="phrase for &quot;It happened just as you finished talking about it&quot;" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14127" CreationDate="2015-07-05T04:02:20.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;a general explanation: the bird flies 6 months without stop until arrives nanhai. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="468" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T04:02:20.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14129" CreationDate="2015-07-05T04:05:38.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一语成谶 (yī yǔ chéng chèn)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Iciba: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E4%B8%80%E8%AF%AD%E6%88%90%E8%B0%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;一语成谶&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="468" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-07-05T07:25:05.630" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T07:25:05.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14128" CreationDate="2015-07-05T04:07:30.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;no much difference. this one is better: 噗嗵.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="468" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T04:07:30.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14127" CreationDate="2015-07-05T12:33:32.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, although both a phrase like &quot;six months&quot; and the word &quot;June&quot; contain the characters 六 and 月, there will often be a measure word if we are talking about a specific quantity of months (i.e. in the &quot;six months&quot; case), the same way there will be a measure word for something like &quot;six cats&quot; (&quot;六只猫&quot;) or &quot;six books&quot; (&quot;六本书&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, it should be &lt;em&gt;generally&lt;/em&gt; possible to distinguish between &quot;June&quot; (&quot;六月&quot;) and &quot;six months&quot; (&quot;六个月&quot;). (月 uses the word 个.) However, in this case, given the 去以, &quot;six months&quot; reads better (&quot;the past six months&quot; instead of &quot;the past June&quot;), at least to me &lt;em&gt;as someone who does not know the context&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;So I can only give you the &quot;general&quot; case of whether one can distinguish between what is essentially &quot;the Xth month&quot; and &quot;X months&quot; in Chinese (i.e. yes)&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/14135/5714&quot;&gt;vermillon's answer&lt;/a&gt; resolves the question of why I'd still presume &quot;six months&quot; here -- it's simply a classical Chinese thing I wasn't aware of (and it does read better).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your assessment of 者 (as something to the effect of &quot;he who&quot;) appears to be correct. As seen in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/example?query=%E8%80%85&amp;amp;origin=entry&amp;amp;ref=%23%2Fcnen%2Fentry%2Faa2928e14b524f69bfde62d56f07f877&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;these dictionary examples&lt;/a&gt; (note: the dictionary definitions itself are sometimes very unhelpful or downright probably wrong, but the examples should be fine), 者 can be appended to some sort of descriptor (whether one that takes the purpose of an adjective or a verb) to mean &quot;the individual(s) who&quot; or the such. For instance, 受害&lt;strong&gt;者&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;the individual(s) who were harmed&quot;, and 第三&lt;strong&gt;者&lt;/strong&gt; is &quot;[those of a] third party&quot;, and the webpage gives the example &quot;他猛击&lt;strong&gt;进攻者&lt;/strong&gt;。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure about the exact translation given the 也 which I'm having difficulty accounting for, but things otherwise sound fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T13:20:35.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14125" CreationDate="2015-07-05T13:10:41.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can install ibus and ibus-pinyin (there's also google pinyin but I personally prefer ibus-pinyin) or scim. Scim is more the historical software, but ibus is definitely better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will probably have to restart (!), but then there's about no configuration: at most, you learn the shortcuts to switch between input methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10901" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T13:10:41.303" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14127" CreationDate="2015-07-05T13:16:31.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Others have already answered the question, but you should also note that at the time the Zhuangzi was composed, there was no such thing as &quot;June&quot;. There was a 6th month, but it's the 6th month of the Chinese calendar, whose months shouldn't be translated as Jan/Feb/etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the comment about classifiers, the question is about Classical Chinese and 六月 was the way to say six months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10901" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T13:16:31.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14128" CreationDate="2015-07-05T13:34:39.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I see it is that 噗通 is neutrally describing the &amp;quot;plonk&amp;quot; sound when you drop something into a liquid, while 扑通 describes something &lt;em&gt;going&lt;/em&gt; &amp;quot;plonk&amp;quot; into a liquid (there are other uses of these characters to describe other sounds). Generally, one is an action, the other is a sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the 2nd one is an action of &amp;quot;going plonk&amp;quot; (to phrase it inelegantly), it could be used comically to describe somebody falling into a pond, for instance. But, I wouldn't say that it's usage is connected to something being comical all or even most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contrary to what one of your sources says, 噗 and 扑 are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; variants of each other, and 扑 is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; the simplified form of 噗 (it's the simplified form of 撲). It just so happens that the two are interchangeable in this one word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though this difference exists, most people seem not to distinguish between them because they sound the same and are so similar in meaning. Many people will just use 扑通 all the time, especially on a computer when sifting through 扑通 and 噗通 is a pain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To back up my claim with google:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;扑通: 969,000 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;噗通: 639,000 results (and most of them a K-drama)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;噗嗵: 74,000 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T13:43:19.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14114" CreationDate="2015-07-05T14:28:24.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only people in china will uses 鼠标, Taiwan and Hong Kong are common uses 滑鼠.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11265" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T14:28:24.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14138" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14140" CreationDate="2015-07-05T20:50:56.460" Score="16" ViewCount="1024" Body="&lt;p&gt;乒乓 is the modern word for ping pong, based around onomatopoeia (and similarity to 兵 for phonetic element) and, as some people claim, shape. I was wondering if this shape explanation is true, or little more than a folk etymology of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is to say, are 乒 and 乓 (or one of them) used in words (or on their own) other than in &quot;乒乓&quot;? The easiest way is to see if these were ever used in classical chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they are true historical characters, what did they mean before? Are there any words which still use them now other than in ping pong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite a diverse question, but interesting to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T06:48:13.733" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T06:48:13.733" Title="Are 乒 and 乓 used in classical chinese?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14138" CreationDate="2015-07-05T21:06:54.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;乒 is onomatopoetic, like bang! or crack! 乓 is a complementary character to 乒, to denote 乒乓 table tennis, ping pong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are not used in classical Chinese. 乒 may be used in older vernacular texts, but all modern usage is about table tennis, if zdic.net and Wenlin are to be trusted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T21:06:54.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14138" CreationDate="2015-07-06T02:37:22.917" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The earliest texts with 乒乓 I can find is vernacular novels of Ming dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《西遊記》 &lt;em&gt;Journey to the West&lt;/em&gt; as an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如此二三日，又聽得後宰門&lt;strong&gt;乒乓乒乓&lt;/strong&gt;，磚瓦亂響。——Chapter 10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他掄槍舞劍，一擁前來，照行者劈頭亂砍，&lt;strong&gt;乒乒乓乓&lt;/strong&gt;，砍有七八十下。——Chapter 14&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;乒乒乓乓&lt;/strong&gt;，好便似殘年爆竹；潑潑喇喇，卻就如軍中炮聲。——Chapter 16&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“乒” and “乓” are used together as onomatopoetic in history. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6363" LastEditorUserId="6363" LastEditDate="2015-07-06T13:02:04.413" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T13:02:04.413" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3" CreationDate="2015-07-06T06:34:11.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I calculated the character frequencies for the Chinese Wikipedia. You have to check if this text corpus is representative for the texts you want to process. You can find the resulting frequencies &lt;a href=&quot;http://git.io/hanzifreq&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and the code being used &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/czielinski/hanzifreq&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11268" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T06:34:11.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14142" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14146" CreationDate="2015-07-06T07:59:33.720" Score="5" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 含饴弄孙 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's its origin, what sort of contexts is it usually used in and also how popular an idiom is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does not seem to appear in any regular Chinese-English dictionary I've found, and the Chinese idiom guides seem pretty cryptic about this (to me anyway).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9583" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T13:24:01.543" Title="What does 含饴弄孙 mean?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14143" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-06T10:25:41.457" Score="0" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between all the different available kinds of rat and mices, like shǔ, lǎo shǔ, Xiǎo lǎo shǔ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can 鼠 be used alone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 小家鼠 the proper word to mean a nice little mouse in a colloquial sentence (e.g. not in a scientific essay)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="11269" LastEditDate="2015-07-06T10:40:18.007" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T01:07:23.310" Title="Mices and rats: differences between shǔ, lǎo shǔ, Xiǎo lǎo shǔ, etc" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14144" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-06T11:46:49.523" Score="0" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two sayings available on-line, each with various explanations.  One is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文无第一 武无第二 (in culture there is no first, in war there is no second)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And one is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文无第二武无第一  (in culture there is no second, in war there is no first)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does one of these have an earlier origin? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2015-07-09T02:10:30.893" Title="Two contrasts between 文 and 武, culture and war" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14143" CreationDate="2015-07-06T12:51:36.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answers to the related question indicated by Krazer (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/1317/11269&quot;&gt;How to distinguish between rat and mouse in Chinese?&lt;/a&gt;) are quite explicative:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1331/11269&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1331/11269&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1330/11269&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1330/11269&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1516/11269&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1516/11269&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, summing up: in common language, do not make distinction among &quot;rat&quot; and &quot;mouse&quot;; use 老鼠 for both. 鼠 indicates an animal with a little head and long tail; it should not be used alone, but together with other morphemes to form words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T07:21:33.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14142" CreationDate="2015-07-06T12:56:46.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a popular idiom that describes the leisure life of elderly people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://approachinese.com/dict/zh2en/%E5%90%AB/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;含&lt;/a&gt;: keep something in mouth&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://approachinese.com/dict/zh2en/%E9%A5%B4/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;饴&lt;/a&gt;: syrup / candy / suger&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://approachinese.com/dict/zh2en/%E5%BC%84/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;弄&lt;/a&gt;: play with&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://approachinese.com/dict/zh2en/%E5%AD%99/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;孙&lt;/a&gt;: grandson&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this idiom means to play with grandchildren with candy in mouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also check its Chinese explanations at &lt;a href=&quot;http://approachinese.com/dict/zh2en/%E5%90%AB%E9%A5%B4%E5%BC%84%E5%AD%99/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;含饴弄孙&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hán yí nòng sūn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;含饴弄孙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【近义】天伦之乐&lt;br&gt;&#xA;【释义】含着糖逗小孙子玩。形容晚年生活的乐趣。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;【出处】《后汉书·明德马皇后纪》：“吾但当含饴弄孙，不能复知政事。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;【用例】佳儿佳妇，吾将～，不复理家政矣。（清·淮阴百一居士《壶天录》）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The links in my answer point to an online Chinese English dictionary, which has usage examples that extracted from China Central Television (CCTV) news. You can see the most fresh examples of the words you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6363" LastEditorUserId="6363" LastEditDate="2015-07-06T13:24:01.543" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T13:24:01.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14150" CreationDate="2015-07-06T15:54:18.117" Score="4" ViewCount="1738" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have encountered the following sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以前人们住这样的房子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在人们住这样的房子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do these sentences NOT use &lt;code&gt;住在&lt;/code&gt;? I have learned that &lt;code&gt;住&lt;/code&gt; takes &lt;code&gt;在&lt;/code&gt; in order to take the location noun after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe is it a chance that &lt;code&gt;住&lt;/code&gt; carries completely different meanings from  &lt;code&gt;住在&lt;/code&gt;, and the both are grammatically correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T10:38:50.297" Title="When to use 住在 and when to use just 住?" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14155" CreationDate="2015-07-06T16:02:56.193" Score="2" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have encountered the following sentences in my textbook, which use &lt;code&gt;背会&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还没背会这篇文章。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天不背会这篇课文就不回家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what does &lt;code&gt;背会&lt;/code&gt; mean? The textbook seems to say it means &lt;code&gt;memorize&lt;/code&gt;, but of all the dictionaries I have and from the result I googled, it seems that there is no word registered as &lt;code&gt;背会&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone can clarify it...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T04:55:01.997" Title="What is the meaning of 背会?" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14148" CreationDate="2015-07-06T17:26:23.213" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;会 - in this context, it is translated as &quot;can&quot;, &quot;be able to&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;背 - in this context, it is translated as &quot;remember&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;背会 can be used as 会背, which both are the same, if that makes more sense to you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11274" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T17:26:23.213" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14147" CreationDate="2015-07-06T21:49:36.500" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaker. We say &quot;住这样的房子&quot; or &quot;住在这样的房子里&quot;. These two are both correct, and they mean the same thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;住在这样的房子&quot; sounds wrong to me.&quot;住这样的房子里&quot; may be correct but sounds weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you may have already known, the time &quot;以前&quot; or &quot;现在&quot; do not affect the form of the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11276" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T21:49:36.500" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14144" CreationDate="2015-07-06T21:56:18.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I knew &quot;文无第一 武无第二&quot; when I was very young. However, I have never heard of &quot;文无第二 武无第一&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11276" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T21:56:18.753" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9729" CreationDate="2015-07-07T00:26:43.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To best understand the meaning of a word, it's best to first understand the context in which it is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意 can generally mean idea, concept, meaning, thought, to think, wish, intention, will, to expect, to anticipate, etc. which is quite a lot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 意 is not usually used singly. It is most often used together with another word, which probably helps add depth to the actual meaning. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心意，情意，如意，天意，醉意，满意；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意义，意气，意念，意思，意味，意料。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o0UhZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Zhang&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being a 武侠迷, I can best relate &quot;意&quot; to the classic novel《倚天屠龙记》. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a particular scene, a 100 year old martial arts expert 张三丰 was imparting his newly conceived, and interestingly slow-motioned swordplay 太极剑 to his grand disciple, 张无忌. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the words below were exactly how &quot;意&quot; was used to illustrate the essence of 太极剑:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张三丰传给他的乃是“剑意”，而非“剑招”，要他将所见到的剑招忘得半点不剩，才能得其神髓，临敌时以意驭剑，千变万化，无穷无尽! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11277" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T00:26:43.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14153" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14163" CreationDate="2015-07-07T01:09:56.973" Score="7" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Dalang&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wu Dalang&lt;/a&gt;, a character in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Margin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Water Margin&lt;/a&gt;, which takes place during the Song dynasty, sold steamed buns called &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/166976.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;炊饼&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;. These buns were originally called 蒸饼:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凡以面為食具者，皆謂之餅，故火燒而食者呼為燒餅，水淪而食者呼為湯餅，籠蒸而食者呼為蒸餅。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E9%A3%B2%E9%A3%9F%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96%E5%8F%B2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But were renamed to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_taboo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;avoid&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Renzong_of_Song&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Emperor Renzong's&lt;/a&gt; first name, 祯.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_taboo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Naming taboos&lt;/a&gt; are common; for example the first month was renamed from 政月 to 正月 and its tone changed from zhèng to zhēng on account of Qin Shi Huang's given name 政. But in this case, 祯 (zhen) and 蒸 (zheng) are not homonyms in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How were 祯 and 蒸 pronounced during the Song dynasty? Were they homonyms? Or were they considered close enough anyway?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T10:54:57.977" Title="Were 蒸 and 祯 homonyms?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;middle-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14147" CreationDate="2015-07-07T01:29:55.450" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the difference is the focus of the sentence. I'll give an example of what I mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我住这里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The natural breakdown of this in speech would be like:&lt;code&gt;我住 - 这里&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The focus is on the action of you living here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我住在这里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the natural breakdown of the sentence is like: &lt;code&gt;我 - 住在 - 这里&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This breakdown is a bit different. The &quot;you&quot; is separated by the gaps in sentence from the action of living here. I think it puts greater emphasis on the &quot;you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To go back to the original question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;以前人们住这样的房子&#xA;&#xA;现在人们住这样的房子&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The important part of these sentences isn't the people themselves, new or old, but the fact that they live in a certain type of house. And so, I think it makes more sense to use 住 instead of 住在.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T01:29:55.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14148" CreationDate="2015-07-07T04:55:01.997" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;背会 and 会背 are not the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;背会 verb + result, memorize/recite it until you know it (by heart)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会背 auxiliary verb + verb, able to recite from memory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还没背会这篇文章。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still have not learned this essay by heart yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天不背会这篇课文就不回家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I won't go home until I've learned this text by heart today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T04:55:01.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14127" CreationDate="2015-07-07T06:05:36.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It helps to look at some of the translations available, which are not authoritative, but are suggestive. Burton Watson, for example, translates: 'He beats the whirlwind and rises ninety thousand li, setting off on the sixth-month gale.&quot; Thus he takes 六月 as the sixth month, and 息 as the &quot;breath&quot; of the sixth month, which can be a very gusty time of year.  Watson's interpretations are not usually original, though it is often difficult to figure out who he is following. Using this interpretation, the 者 is probably NOT 'he-who' but makes explicit that the peng uses the winds of the sixth month as its means (instrument) for departing.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T06:05:36.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14124" CreationDate="2015-07-07T06:46:24.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;穿 and 穿上 are usually like English 'wear' and 'put on'.  The sentence 我正在穿上毛衣 means 'I am putting on a/the/my sweater'; I think this is quite unambiguous.  The sentence 我正在穿毛衣 is a little bit odd (to me), but can be interpreted as 'I am wearing a sweater'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;穿上 is an action, which has a beginning, middle, and end. 穿 is often a state, if you like, with no beginning or end.  Not always of course: for example, in imperative sentences like 趕快穿衣服! &quot;Hurry up and get dressed!&quot; the 'hurry up' makes the non-stative meaning clear. You don't HAVE to use 穿上 to mean 'put on' then, but it helps make the action/state distinction explicit.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脫 'to remove (clothing)' is unambiguously an action to begin with, so it doesn't need a resultative ending to disambiguate it.  脫下 is possible of course; to me it emphasizes both completion (clothes no longer on me) and a more detailed process. One example: I might use 脫 for removing shoes, 脫下 for a suit (jacket and pants).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T06:46:24.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="54" CreationDate="2015-07-07T07:09:02.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think for Chinese it doesn't matter sheep or goat for them no difference. As for other cultures like me cannot eat Goat but can eat sheep. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11280" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T07:09:02.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14102" CreationDate="2015-07-07T08:26:21.080" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had a student in Taiwan who was blind, so I've had a chance to work with this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are articles on Chinese Braille in both the English and Chinese  Wikipedias if you haven't read them yet. It is a spelling (phonetic) method, not character based. Blind Chinese students are not taught regular character forms. Braille in Taiwan is basically zhuyinfuhao; mainland China has two different systems, neither of which is identical to pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My student learned to type on a Braille keyboard in order to be able to read her own typing; she was not used to trying to produce typed work for seeing people, but this was over 15 years ago. At the time, it was a struggle to even set up a usable computer system for her.  We eventually bought JAWS by Scientific Freedom, which our school's president had to personally approve; damn expensive.  Unfortunately, this didn't resolve most of the Chinese problems, only the English ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All else failing, for homework the student worked with tutors who gave me her typed answers in Chinese characters, not zhuyinfuhao; different tutors had different ways of getting the student's input into characters, and there were many typos, for which I did not take off points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For mainland China, I suspect that the students there are also probably trained to type in one of the two Braille systems, NOT in pinyin, so that they might need to learn pinyin and pinyin keyboards before they could produce even pinyin output.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I poked around, but found no links to software or drivers for this specific purpose. I did find an interesting article: &quot;A preliminary study on instructional design of Chinese input method for blind students&quot; which discusses some of these problems. It is available online and might give you some leads. If I find anything more in the future, I'll post back here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Education for the blind (and deaf) in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China requires great willpower and dedicated teachers. If you're one of them, my respects and best wishes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T08:26:21.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13264" CreationDate="2015-07-07T09:15:31.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;應變 is a response to an emergency, or something unexpected, as in 中央災害應變中心 National Disaster Response Center. 變 here is not 變化， but 事變. &#xA;應變能力 is emergency or incident response capability.  One sees this in cyber security a lot, also in the American FEMA agency.  It has nothing to do with &quot;adaptation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T09:15:31.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14122" CreationDate="2015-07-07T10:20:17.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried the 漢語方言大辭典, and there are many places with the fu pronunciation in the southwest mandarin area, for example 佛豆 (= 蠶豆, fava bean) is pronounced fu tou in 畢節; 佛瓜 (瓠瓜 gourd) is pronounced fu gua in 自貢, etc. Not really surprising; 弗 is fu in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T10:20:17.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14147" CreationDate="2015-07-07T10:38:50.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Agree with @Zack. Unfortunately it seems to me there is no clear cut rule here, you'll have to learn by heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我住北京 vs 我住在北京  both are fine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我住城市/乡村 vs 我住在城市/乡村 first is natural, second is tiny bit less common, but just fine as well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我住高楼大厦 vs 我住在高楼大厦 as in the example, second sounds wrong, although everyone can understand you mean 我住在高楼大厦&lt;strong&gt;里&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T10:38:50.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14153" CreationDate="2015-07-07T10:54:57.977" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;An excellent resource for answering questions like this is 漢字古今音資料庫 at &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/ccr/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/ccr/&lt;/a&gt;.  Unfortunately it doesn't have Song or Yuan reconstructions, but it does list the 攝, which is a Song era classification. 祯 was in 梗攝, and 蒸 was in 曾攝 so they shouldn't have been complete homonyms.  The difference, however, was probably in the vowel, not the final nasal -ng.  The modern zhen for 祯 is a post Song change; some of the 梗 words kept -ng, some changed to -n, but it's unclear when or how it happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T10:54:57.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14164" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14165" CreationDate="2015-07-07T11:07:55.807" Score="0" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm in China and would like to buy a stylus for the tablet I aquired a week ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to explain to several stalls at a secondhand electonics market in Guangzhou today what I needed and nobody understood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the word for 'stylus' in the sense used with touchscreens is 触控笔 (chùkòngbǐ) but there are different kind of styli for use with different kinds of touchscreen and the wrong type will not work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would I ask a seller if they sell the type of stylus I want to use with a capacitive touchscreen device? (The kind of screen an iPhone uses.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T11:55:24.043" Title="What should I call a capacitive touchscreen stylus in Standard Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14164" CreationDate="2015-07-07T11:55:24.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan it's called a 電容式觸控筆; maybe if you tell them you need i-phone 專用的觸控筆 they might get the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T11:55:24.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14166" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14167" CreationDate="2015-07-07T16:04:01.293" Score="2" ViewCount="398" Body="&lt;p&gt;喂 is used to answer the phone, but is it accepted over text? If not, is there an alternative to 你好 that's in common use (informally, like &quot;hi&quot;, &quot;hey&quot;, or &quot;yo&quot; in English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 嗨 widely accepted in China, or would I come off as too English by using it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T05:12:53.957" Title="Is it appropriate to use 喂 by text?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14166" CreationDate="2015-07-07T16:52:35.273" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mostly  wei  can be used when you answer the phone , while it's too oralize to use over text. But someti&#xA;mes you can see it like this：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他正在打电话：“喂？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不耐烦的说道：“喂，哪位？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer it is better to use 你好 or 您好 as a alternative word. (Actually I use 您好 cause It's polite to when you talking or writing.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to write a letter or email , adding a adj. word such as 尊敬的 can be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 嗨 is accepted in China and it is normal in the big city, most of people know the means of ‘hai’ ‘hei’ and use it frequently(like me...wave to the other so that he can see you.) , But If you lived in the countryside , 您好 is a better way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11283" LastEditorUserId="11283" LastEditDate="2015-07-07T17:15:32.593" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T17:15:32.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14166" CreationDate="2015-07-07T23:38:43.500" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We recommend that you use &quot;你好&quot; or “您好” instead of &quot;嗨&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T23:38:43.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14169" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14173" CreationDate="2015-07-07T23:48:59.327" Score="3" ViewCount="3945" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia lists &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_honorifics#One.27s_own_family&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;many honorifics&lt;/a&gt; for one's own family, but I don't see any for one's own (living) mother or father. How would an adult write the equivalent of &quot;Dear Mom&quot; or &quot;Dear Dad&quot; in an email? Does &quot;亲爱的妈妈&quot; sound childish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T05:54:53.443" Title="Email salutations for mother / father" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14129" CreationDate="2015-07-08T00:53:12.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, it is &quot;話口未完&quot; wa6 hau2 mei6 yun4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, perhaps &quot;話還沒說完”，hua4 hai2 mei2 shuo1 wan2, but then it is five syllable, not four.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T00:53:12.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14169" CreationDate="2015-07-08T01:11:54.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are always a child in mother's eyes,So ... childish is acceptable .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use it to your close friend :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;亲爱的苏：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;亲爱的阳：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11283" LastEditorUserId="11283" LastEditDate="2015-07-08T17:29:14.777" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T17:29:14.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14144" CreationDate="2015-07-08T03:04:37.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I stress the meaning already given to the words 文 and 武. According to them and trying to explore the hidden sense of the two statements, I think the sentence only makes sense on its first formulation(文无第一武无第二), the second one looks like a slightly rhetoric and pro-war interpretation.&#xA;In fact as 文 is a matter of self-personal and gradual improvement that you only are able to porsue  if you are prepared to accept that there is no definite or best way (无第一). All attempts and little steps are useful to progress into. So, it's a painful process of continuous improvement, plain of multiple attempts and fails (a trial an error method) which, despite all the difficulties you find, you must be ready to proceed in its search, without never knowing when and if you are reaching the end (无第一). &#xA;On the contrary, fighting 武 is a more objectif thing in which you must make use of means at yours disposal to achieve, in that real moment, the goal and the aspired target- victory; giving your best in a life-and-death struggle, because there will be not a second chance (武无第二).&#xA;If you try to imagine a noun after the numeral of that sentence, like“way”or &quot;opportunity” perhaps you can clarify its meaning:文无第一(道路/机会)武无第二(道路/机会).Huli&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11287" LastEditorUserId="11287" LastEditDate="2015-07-09T02:10:30.893" LastActivityDate="2015-07-09T02:10:30.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14169" CreationDate="2015-07-08T05:10:55.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Screenshot of an example letter written to one's parents from &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0521785650&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Using Chinese&lt;/a&gt; by Yvonne Li Walls and Jan W. Walls:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fFbbI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Using Chinese&lt;/em&gt; is a very useful book, it covers many topics text book usually skip, like proper names, geographic names, numerals, fractions, formal and informal letters, names of holidays, and many useful expressions (invitations, apologies). I am not affiliated with it, I just simply think it is a book that covers many questions that pop up during learning Chinese and it saves you from having to research them on your own. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-07-08T05:28:52.903" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T05:28:52.903" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36" CreationDate="2015-07-08T08:17:30.610" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to have a quantitative answer you can look at the commulative character frequencies of larger Chinese text corpora. If compiled a list of the most common Chinese characters &lt;a href=&quot;http://git.io/hanzifreq&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (using &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/czielinski/hanzifreq&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this code&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There you can see that if you know the 100 most common characters, you can recognize one third of the characters on Wikipedia. If you know the most common 500 characters, you can read two thirds, with 1000 characters 83% and with 2000 characters 94%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These numbers differ of course depending on the text corpus and the numbers quoted here are valid for the Chinese Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11268" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T08:17:30.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14122" CreationDate="2015-07-08T08:41:06.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm living in Zigong, Sichuan now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no fixed pronunciation of many characters among Sichuan. When mentioned 佛山(A city in Guangdong), young people may say fo2, because Mandarin was spoken in more and more occasions. When referring to a local place, food, ancient things, people prefer to speak fu2 (佛教,大佛,牛佛烘肘).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, experts thought Pinyin has many defects, such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's designed for Mandarin, zh ch sh and cacuminal actually only apply to Mandarin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's designed to take place Chinese Characters in the special days(A 'great' people proposed that), but failed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some pronunciations are confusing, especially for foreigners.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it's not scientific to speak 四川话 in Pinyin. Maybe Wade–Giles system is a better choose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In daily practice, 佛 is spoken as fo2.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四川话 cannot be simply expressed by Mandarin or a book, so it's normal for dictionary to be riddled with errors.&#xA;In different context pronunciations differ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9359" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T08:41:06.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14129" CreationDate="2015-07-08T09:16:25.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;May be 恰逢其时（Something happened right you are doing something.）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9359" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T09:16:25.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14129" CreationDate="2015-07-08T11:30:39.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not easy guessing what that phrase is without knowing whether it is Mandarin or Cantonese. In Cantonese it could be the colloquial 一講曹操 referring to 一講曹操，曹操就到. Its English equivalence is &lt;strong&gt;speak of the devil&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm not sure if in Mainland/Taiwan Mandarin whether people just use the first half as 方說曹操 or 一講曹操 etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/41778/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Reference 1: 一講曹操，曹操就到&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://weijinrenwu.baike.com/article-190731.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Reference 2: 說曹操，曹操就到&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8199" LastEditorUserId="8199" LastEditDate="2015-07-08T17:25:16.113" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T17:25:16.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14178" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14182" CreationDate="2015-07-08T12:16:08.527" Score="1" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wo shi 2002 nian nian de&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(this above, I understand, is a date of birth)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yinwei wo bu tai dong yingwen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baoqian wo zhi kan de dong DL San ju&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A person showed for me with &quot;DL&quot; and never see this example into a romanization)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wojia you yang gou&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11290" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T15:52:31.663" Title="I cannot understand the subject exacly of this phrase (DL used in romanization)" Tags="&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-07-11T10:22:46.300" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14179" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-08T15:03:13.573" Score="4" ViewCount="672" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard a number of Cantonese speakers use N (pronounced like the English letter) to designate some sort of unspecified quantity, for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我 N 年前去过。(Approximately &quot;I went there some years ago.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When did such a usage first come up? Does it have anything to do with the standard &lt;em&gt;mathematical&lt;/em&gt; usage of &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;, and does it also appear in other languages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T17:12:49.247" Title="When did the usage of &quot;N&quot; to indicate some unspecified quantity come up?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13717" CreationDate="2015-07-08T15:05:45.323" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many young people in  China use the APP like QQ or WeChat chat on the Internet,so you can find someone to be your friend.It is a funny way to learn Chinese.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Cwe12.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;APP QQ and WeChat&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4569" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T15:05:45.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14179" CreationDate="2015-07-08T15:28:58.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hm, in Mandarin people will say things like &quot;聽了N次&quot;, meaning an unspecified but large number of times. I've heard this since at least the 1980s in Taiwan. I wonder if your example is an extension of the same idiom?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T15:28:58.437" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14178" CreationDate="2015-07-08T15:52:31.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我是2002年生的 or 我是2002年来的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为我不太懂英文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抱歉我只看得懂第三句&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我家有养狗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your second &quot;nian&quot; in the first sentence may be sheng (生，meaning born) or lai (来，meaning came)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with songyuanyao that &quot;DL&quot; may very well be &quot;di&quot;. &quot;Di San ju&quot; is &quot;第三句&quot; which means &quot;the third sentence&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11276" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T15:52:31.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14179" CreationDate="2015-07-08T17:11:40.153" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you suspected, &lt;a href=&quot;http://zuoye.baidu.com/question/cb3514c4941b68aea972f0e708714d37.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;it is thought to come from the mathematical usage&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么“N”可以代表“很多”的意思?例如N多次,N多个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why can &amp;quot;N&amp;quot; have the meaning &amp;quot;a lot&amp;quot;? For instance, N-times, N-of-them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为数学上的数列一般都用第N项代表任一项,可知无穷大的一项.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because in math, sequences usually use &amp;quot;the nth term&amp;quot; to represent any term, including unboundedly large ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/59786/5074542.htm?fr=iciba&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Another (perhaps more reputable) source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...n在代数中表示很多，如从1开始到2,到3,..., 到n。因此在口语中n经常用来表示特别多，例如“买了n多电话卡”...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...in algebra, &amp;quot;N&amp;quot; signifies &amp;quot;a lot&amp;quot;, as in &amp;quot;from 1, 2, 3, up to N&amp;quot;. Because of this, in colloquial speech, &amp;quot;N&amp;quot; often is used to express &amp;quot;very many&amp;quot;, as in &amp;quot;to buy sooo many telephone cards&amp;quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T17:11:40.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14179" CreationDate="2015-07-08T17:12:49.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for Cantonese, I had my junior high in Hong Kong during the 80's. I could remember as early as '83 and '84 did we start to say it in school. Etymologically it is 100% mathematical. :) A perfect example of mixing English into the daily Cantonese usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stress is on &lt;strong&gt;N&lt;/strong&gt; when you say it, to emphasis the &amp;quot;countless many&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我打了N次電話都無人接聽！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我睇咗「大時代」N次，次次都咁好睇。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N年前這裡還是一片農地。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T17:12:49.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14185" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14187" CreationDate="2015-07-08T18:32:19.850" Score="6" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;E.g. as in 中华 or 华语, and other similar words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-07-09T02:37:34.717" Title="When was 华/華 first used as a reference to China?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13945" CreationDate="2015-07-08T18:48:47.830" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, but the simplified words actually are different.(Please don't argue, I'm Chinese and speak Mandarin fluently.)  Their Pin Yin might be spelled the same, but they mean different things and are pronounced differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those of you who don't know what Pin Yin is, it's basically a spelling of the pronunciation of a character in English letters and four different accents to represent &quot;tones&quot; of a word..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To read more about Pin Yin, go on this website: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sorry it's Wiki, but I couldn't find anything better than that.  So not everything on that website is accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11294" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T18:48:47.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14185" CreationDate="2015-07-08T18:54:15.907" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 春秋左傳 (722/468 BCE). &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/chun-qiu-zuo-zhuan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/chun-qiu-zuo-zhuan&lt;/a&gt; has the statement 楚失華夏.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Huaxia used to denote tribes that later became the Han people, and later the term shifted to symbolize China. Hua is the beautiful clothes worn by the Chinese, xia is for the grandness of the culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「中國有禮儀之大，故稱夏；有服章之美，謂之華。」《春秋左傳正義》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huaxia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia: Huaxia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%8E%E5%A4%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;維基百科：華夏&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%8E%E5%A4%8F%E6%97%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;維基百科：華夏族&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xia_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia: Xia Dynasty&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%8F%E6%9C%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;維基百科：夏朝&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;維基百科：中華&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorUserId="8199" LastEditDate="2015-07-09T02:37:34.717" LastActivityDate="2015-07-09T02:37:34.717" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13264" CreationDate="2015-07-08T20:04:45.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the catch here is the 'time frame' of the changes:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take your sentence, 在未来十年的商战中，最重要的武器是应变能力、适应能力, and some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;case 1:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Assume the company never used the new cloud service - everyone's saving stuff on their local computer.  The new cloud service will be introduced to the company, where everyone has a chance to start learning about it.  In this&#xA;  case, your capability to adapt the changes - 适应能力 - is required.  You are not required to act immediately, but to slowly adjust to the new system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case 2:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Assume the company is a logistic company, where a huge shipment being delivered is&#xA;  lost due to an accident happened last night.  You, as the manager, has to prepare the shipment from another office, thus fulfilling the delivery.  In this case, your 应变能力 is required.  You have to act/ react immediately. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both cases describe a changes where one happens over the years and the other one happens all of a sudden.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T20:04:45.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13264" CreationDate="2015-07-08T20:38:03.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in fact 应变 is the combinaison of 应 and 变.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;应 means 应付 which means: deal with, manage&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;变 means 变化 which means: change&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 适应 just means adapt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11295" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T20:38:03.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13264" CreationDate="2015-07-09T01:15:59.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;应变能力 and 适应能力 look similar, but they do not have the same meaning. 适应 has to do with adapting to a more or less static environment, for example, if you move from one part of the world to another, you need to adapt to the climate of your new home and you need 适应能力. 应变, on the other hand, introduces an element of unexpectedness. 应变能力 is your ability to react/ respond to (usually unexpected) change in the environment. In your example sentence, the company needs both 应变能力 and 适应能力.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2015-07-09T01:24:54.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-09T01:24:54.587" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14192" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14193" CreationDate="2015-07-09T04:23:36.547" Score="4" ViewCount="1471" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of a font that supports the unicode CJK extensions c, d, e? If you have such a font, do you know if it works with the MySQL utf8mb4 character set?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-07-22T02:55:41.310" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T02:55:41.310" Title="Fonts for Unicode CJK extensions C, D, E" Tags="&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14192" CreationDate="2015-07-09T05:10:30.833" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://fonts.jp/hanazono/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanazono&lt;/a&gt; fonts (HanaMinA, HanaMinB) have full support for all 3 extensions and include 96k+ glyphs. Here is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://jaist.dl.sourceforge.jp/hanazono-font/62073/glyphlist.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;glyph list&lt;/a&gt; (.pdf, 500 pages).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Babelstone Han&lt;/a&gt; claims to support all glyphs in Extension D, but only has partial support for C (37.1%) and E (19.5%). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the &lt;a href=&quot;http://iij.dl.sourceforge.jp/hanazono-font/62072/hanazono-20141012.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;download link&lt;/a&gt; (25.7MB) for &lt;em&gt;HanaMinB&lt;/em&gt; (which supports these extensions). And here's a screenshot of a word processor with HanaMinB.ttf installed, displaying random glyphs from CJK Ext. E. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9NEci.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-07-09T08:52:30.963" LastActivityDate="2015-07-09T08:52:30.963" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14195" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-09T18:47:13.067" Score="1" ViewCount="3265" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for some medium level Chinese books to read. Most of the books I can find in Chinese are aimed at more fluent speakers or for the very beginners but I'd like somewhere in between. Ideally the book would have Chinese and Pinyin, or English as well, but any recommendations are welcome! Thank you! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11303" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T10:29:46.630" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T12:21:35.417" Title="Chinese/English/Pinyin Books For Young Adult Readers" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;reading&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14196" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14199" CreationDate="2015-07-09T23:20:58.820" Score="2" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at old Kunqu opera the other day and was interested by the fact that the singers seemed to be pronouncing 也 as &quot;yi&quot; instead of &quot;ye&quot;, for example in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/sAj9FgdRmK8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/sAj9FgdRmK8&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;好天气也 (00:12)&#xA;好困人也 (14:50)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both instances sound like yi, not &quot;ye3&quot; as in Mandarin (it also struck me as such in a different recording, which I can't find online right now).  Since the pronunciation in Kunqu is supposed to be based on an old form of Suzhou dialect, I'm curious whether 也 can still be pronounced like &quot;yi&quot; in more modern forms of that dialect, and if so - does Suzhou dialect include some sound like &quot;yi&quot; that happens to be used as a termination particle?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, it might be an intriguing case of a supposed signature of Classical Chinese - using 也 to terminate a clause -  being present in vernacular Chinese as well.  Of course, I might simply not hearing that it's actual &quot;ye3&quot; in the above, in which case apologies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T03:40:34.753" Title="What Possible Pronunciations of 也 exist in Suzhou Dialect?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14195" CreationDate="2015-07-10T01:49:22.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try books from the chinese Wuxia genre which discusses adventures with martial arts and kung fu fighting and is generally aimed for young adult to the early adult years but can also be enjoyed by a general audience. These books usually have some more in-depth content in them but are usually suitable for medium-level readers and are pretty interesting too. I believe you can find pinyin versions for them too as they're very popular in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/wuxia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/wuxia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11141" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T01:49:22.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14198" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14265" CreationDate="2015-07-10T03:19:48.780" Score="2" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm quite fond of the phrase 少块肉, as in &lt;code&gt;又不会少块肉&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;能少块肉吗？&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What synonyms of 少块肉 exist in Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T15:23:32.873" Title="Synonyms of (不会)少块肉?" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14196" CreationDate="2015-07-10T03:40:34.753" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zhang Jiqing singing Kunqu, always a pleasure to listen to.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 也 here is the sentence final particle.  It's used quite differently in vernacular literature in the Ming-Qing than it is in classical literature, where it's almost like a copula. The references from 漢語大辭典 are talking about the use of 也 as a loan character for 匜, which is pronounced yi.  This is common in bronze inscriptions ca. 500 BC or earlier, and has nothing to do with the 也 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for pronunciation, after listening to the 2 examples several times, I'd have to say that it's still diphthongized, just like in standard Mandarin. The Kunqu pronunciation is not actually Suzhou 土話. It's like the pronunciation in Peking opera, in the sense that it preserves older facets of Mandarin, but has a definite southern flavor to it. One part of this flavor is that a number of diphthongs are much less like two vowels and are more like a single vowel with a coda, so that the -e coming after i- is less conspicuous; this is strengthened by the fact that its a sentence final particle.  Anyway, I'm sure that its a 也 in these two places. The subtitles are accurate, just copied from the libretto.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T03:40:34.753" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14200" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-10T06:51:19.123" Score="5" ViewCount="1744" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am experimenting with an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/seal.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;online seal generator&lt;/a&gt;, the text I have entered is 一千五百 and I have noticed that the characters go first from top right to bottom right, then &lt;em&gt;from bottom left to top left.&lt;/em&gt; Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nrgT1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T21:03:17.240" Title="Writing direction on seals" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14198" CreationDate="2015-07-10T08:31:35.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;不妨 or 无妨 come to mind, surely there are others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T08:31:35.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14195" CreationDate="2015-07-10T10:26:54.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kindle books in Chinese, and Clavis Sinica texts, already have pinyin and English available as electronic look-up.   Both formats have a good variety of things already available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, even a low-tech computer user like me can learn to make Kindle files, or Clavis Sinica files, from pretty much any Chinese text you find on-line.  So you can use this to read classic poets, or 20th century works now in the public domain like The True Story of Ah Q, or any number of things archived on various sites on line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can make such a book, or shorter article, out of pretty much any Chinese text on-line.  Note this kind of file conversion is legal when the text itself free to reproduce.  Pirated texts of works under copyright are another matter. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-07-10T10:35:31.330" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T10:35:31.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14204" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14207" CreationDate="2015-07-10T12:16:50.510" Score="2" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should the particle 的 be omitted among nouns that refer to other nouns, such as phrases like &quot;the plot of the film&quot;, &quot;the head of a giraffe&quot;, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-25T19:39:08.813" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T19:39:08.813" Title="的 with nouns which classify other nouns" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14205" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14491" CreationDate="2015-07-10T12:26:35.423" Score="4" ViewCount="620" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many government positions in Taiwan have typing speed requirements.  In Taipei city job announcements I've found which mention this requirement, the minimum runs from 40-60 characters a minute. This is not that far from the US.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://jobs.ca.gov/job/typingcertification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;California's state government&lt;/a&gt;, for example, requires a minimum of 40 words/min.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do government positions in mainland China have typing speed requirements? If so, what are they? Are inputting methods set, or can you choose your own? Are there official certificates and certification agencies or do have to take a test every time you apply. I haven't been able to find such job announcements so far, so if you have suggestions about finding these I would be especially interested.  If you know about Hong Kong or Singapore, I would be equally interested. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-01T12:48:28.100" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T12:48:28.100" Title="Job requirements for typing Chinese" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;&lt;transcription&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14204" CreationDate="2015-07-10T12:44:27.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The particle 的 ties two nouns closely. For instance, 電影的情節 (the plot of the film) emphasizes the plot of a film but that 電影情節 is about the plot and the film which is loosely connected and the meaning of each noun is stressed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9517" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T12:44:27.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14204" CreationDate="2015-07-10T13:59:50.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can rephrase it in the genitive case, no. The film’s plot, the giraffe’s head, etc. Then use 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you have a more complicated sentence, you can and should omit all but the last 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The plot of the film of the giraffes: 关于长颈鹿（的）电影的情节。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T13:59:50.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14208" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-10T14:34:30.430" Score="4" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm looking for an very interesting and in-depth history podcast, in Mandarin, for native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's doesn't have to be about Chinese history, or any particular place or period. Any recommendations are very much appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11308" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-07-10T14:53:42.610" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T15:02:32.707" Title="What's the Mandarin equivalent of the Hardcore History podcast?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14209" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14272" CreationDate="2015-07-10T14:49:26.137" Score="2" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;啰 seems to be the simplified version of 囉 these days, but....these are two examples from 《四川方言词典》circa '87 that I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cF1gZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;要飞啰&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mr5zD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是乌梢蛇打店——长客&lt;strong&gt;囉&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most the entries I've seen in these 八零后 books have all been written &lt;em&gt;囉&lt;/em&gt; and I just assumed it was a later simplification but obviously &lt;em&gt;啰&lt;/em&gt; as a character also existed at the same time!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's The Difference Between 啰 And 囉 In Old(er) Texts?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...seems like there is no difference between the two nowadays...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0ZWWr.png&quot; alt=&quot;ok&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“～囉”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EVZd8.png&quot; alt=&quot;hi&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拐啰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the most crazy of them all:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7t3Td.png&quot; alt=&quot;ha&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at the top:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;涮啰 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the def:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;涮囉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-07-18T05:44:48.103" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T05:44:48.103" Title="啰 vs. 囉 in Old Texts" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14208" CreationDate="2015-07-10T14:51:58.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The BBC was running a podcast a few years ago, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02pcb35/episodes/downloads&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;20th Century China&lt;/a&gt;. It's in Mandarin and has 35 episodes in total. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/leVgX.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;RTHK hosted another Mandarin language show, but not as in-depth as you might would like, rather bite-sized: &lt;a href=&quot;http://podcast.rthk.hk/podcast/item_epi.php?pid=31&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中国历史小档案&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CCxJA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you speak Cantonese, they have more detailed shows on Chinese history, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://podcast.rthk.hk/podcast/item_all.php?pid=155&amp;amp;lang=zh-CN&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;神州五十年&lt;/a&gt;. Check their &lt;a href=&quot;http://podcast.rthk.hk/podcast/list_audio.php?lang=zh-CN&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;podcasts list&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-07-10T15:02:32.707" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T15:02:32.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14169" CreationDate="2015-07-10T15:08:02.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Email nowadays is quite informal, like sms. I never use any salutation to family members&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I write paper birthday cards to them in which I start with 爸爸 or 妈妈 (depending on whose birthday it is)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T15:08:02.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14212" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14215" CreationDate="2015-07-10T18:40:15.177" Score="4" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;粘 can be read as either &quot;nian&quot; or &quot;zhan&quot;, but in both way it can be translated as &quot;sticky&quot;, so what is the difference?&#xA;In other words what should I take in mind, when reading a text , in order to understand which pronunciation I should use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T03:51:37.993" Title="The two pronunciations of 粘" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14213" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14264" CreationDate="2015-07-10T19:03:22.760" Score="3" ViewCount="614" Body="&lt;p&gt;I checked &lt;a href=&quot;http://tw.18dao.net/%E6%88%90%E8%AA%9E%E8%A9%9E%E5%85%B8/%E5%A4%A7%E9%96%8B%E5%A4%A7%E5%90%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; out, but I couldn't really understand the meaning behind it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;形容文思跌盪，放得開，收得攏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean good introduction, and good conclusion or something similar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T04:54:25.063" Title="What does &quot;大开大合&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14212" CreationDate="2015-07-10T19:23:01.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Originally, you had two separate characters (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/20/js/7C98.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/29/js/9ECF.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;links&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;粘 = zhan1 = (v.) to stick&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黏 = nian2 = (adj.) sticky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage distinction still remains, but it is now acceptable to use &lt;code&gt;粘&lt;/code&gt; for either word. Unihan &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=%E7%B2%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lists the characters as semantic variants&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T19:23:01.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14212" CreationDate="2015-07-10T19:24:04.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was taught at class, that &lt;em&gt;zhan&lt;/em&gt; is the reading when 粘 is used as a &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt;, 'to stick, to glue'; the more common reading &lt;em&gt;nian&lt;/em&gt; covers almost all the other cases, when its used as an &lt;strong&gt;adjective&lt;/strong&gt;, 'sticky'. But I think this is not entirely correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://zidian.qihaoming.com.cn/zd/zi_16255ec.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;long list&lt;/a&gt; with &lt;em&gt;compound words&lt;/em&gt;. In most cases the reading is &lt;em&gt;nian&lt;/em&gt;, in some cases &lt;em&gt;zhan&lt;/em&gt;. Try to see if you can find a rule. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, the Taiwanese Education Ministry's dictionary only lists &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?cond=%D6%DF&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;ukey=423706689&amp;amp;serial=1&amp;amp;recNo=1&amp;amp;op=f&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;nian&lt;/a&gt; as reading. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T19:24:04.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14212" CreationDate="2015-07-11T01:34:21.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a native Chinese perspective:&#xA;粘(zhan) = 粘 (nian1) = to glue, to stick = verb.&#xA;粘(nian2) = 黏 (nian2) = sticky = adj.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although 黏 is more used in written, while 粘(nian2) is more oral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11311" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T01:34:21.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14218" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-11T08:12:36.410" Score="2" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hur (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ex%2017%3A12&amp;amp;version=ESV;CUVMPT;CNVT&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ex. 17:12&lt;/a&gt;) in the Bible is translated as &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%B7%E7%8F%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;户珥&lt;/a&gt;. Does anybody know for sure how to pronounce 户珥 in Cantonese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;珥 has &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/search.php?q=%D2%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;two variants&lt;/a&gt; (Jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nei6 餌, 鈮, 膩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ji6 二, 樲, 潩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just wonder which one should be used for 户珥. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8199" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T14:25:49.530" Title="Cantonese Pronunciation of 户珥 (Hur)" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14219" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14223" CreationDate="2015-07-11T08:22:03.610" Score="2" ViewCount="603" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of intensifier in Chinese, like 很，真，挺，非常，相当，极为 ，太，and recently I found out about 蛮.&#xA;So how can I use them effectively?&#xA;In particular I want to compare the differences in degree of intensity.&#xA;I obviously forgot to mention other intensifiers, if possible, please add them in your answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T18:35:29.303" Title="Comparing intensifiers" Tags="&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2015-07-11T08:58:03.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very interesting! Both semantics and syntax mixed up in here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;載體 is a noun.  It is the thing which moves a to b; definitely a new sounding word, yet I found one example from 1965!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In biology, such as virology or genetic technology, 載體 is a &quot;vector&quot;, so we have words like 病毒載體 viral vector, for which there is a Chinese wikipedia article.  It is also used in transportation, and the example from 1965 refers to a rocket &quot;carrier&quot; for a satellite where a stage failed to separate. It is a term of art, and this already makes it very different from 媒介.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are important differences in meaning as well. Here is an example where 媒介 works and 載體 doesn't:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒有第三國為媒介，日本政府仍舊能夠以其他方法將上述態度通知俄國...&#xA;Even without a third country as an intermediary, Japan can still still express its views to Russia by other means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nothing is being carried, so 載體 doesn't work. Here 媒介 means to act as intermediary, not as a carrier. Here is another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人與神交往，就以血作為媒介&#xA;When men and gods interact, they do so through the medium of blood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is talking about the use of sacrificial blood to communicate with gods. There is no &quot;intermediary&quot; here, but 'blood' is clearly an intermediate mechanism or means for the communication. &quot;medium&quot; fits here, but 載體 doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike 載體, 媒介 can also be a verb. Here is an example that took some time to find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蜜峰因採蜜而媒介了花粉，動機還不是由於自私.&#xA;Honey bees convey pollen through collecting honey (?) and their motive is by no means selfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;載體 is impossible here. Perhaps we could translate this as &quot;convey&quot;?  It can also be used for more abstract ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;資訊網最新的網路交易市場功能，更為國內廠商媒介了三萬多個商機&#xA;The information network's latest online exchange market functions has also introduced over 30,000 business opportunities for domestic manufacturers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here &quot;媒介&quot; is really close to its original &quot;matchmaker&quot; sense. Anyway, an interesting contrast.  Good question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-07-11T09:17:08.627" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T09:17:08.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14218" CreationDate="2015-07-11T09:49:23.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an on-line audio version of the Cantonese bible. This chapter is at &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wordproject.org/bibles/big5/02/17.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://wordproject.org/bibles/big5/02/17.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I think I heard ji6, but I was pretty lost at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T09:49:23.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14229" CreationDate="2015-07-11T09:55:33.417" Score="1" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;from《四川方言词典》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4XtvL.png&quot; alt=&quot;example one&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;解&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jiai3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally, I just figured it was a topolectical reading but then I found this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_625b19d10102v26k.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“解”的准确读音是“jiai”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最近发现仍然有人把“解”读为“jie”，他们的根据是现代的字典和词典，但是，他们不知道现代的字典和词典是根据“汉语拼音方案”，“方案”中“e”是戴帽的，不是“e”。实际上，“方案”的意图是用“e”代表“e”“ai”两个音（这种做法其实是有问题的）。如果“方案”真的想让大家把“解”读成“jie”，那么它就太没有道理了，因为古今汉语都不是这样读的，而是读成“a”或“ai”韵。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above blog post is also tagged as &lt;em&gt;汉语拼音方案&lt;/em&gt; so it certainly is not talking about anything dialectical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's the deal about 解 read as &lt;code&gt;jiai&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T11:58:17.460" Title="解 Read as Jiai?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14219" CreationDate="2015-07-11T10:14:51.317" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很 - very&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;真 - really&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;挺 - pretty&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;非常 - &gt;= very, &amp;lt; extremely&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;相当 - quite&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;极为 - extremely&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;太 -  too&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These words are describing a 'level'.&#xA;挺 = 蛮 = 比较 &amp;lt; 很 &amp;lt;= 非常 = 特别 &amp;lt; 极为&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太 is somehow special, means it is much more than you expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鞋太大：The shoes are larger than your size, regardless of whether your feet are large or small.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm answering this question by my sense as a native Chinese speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蛮 is not that commonly or widely used in north China. (but people all can understand), maybe southern Chinese prefer to use it. And I believe it is widely used in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3436" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2020-05-14T18:35:29.303" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T18:35:29.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14198" CreationDate="2015-07-11T10:20:26.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;把烟熄了，少抽一支又不能少块肉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把烟熄了，少抽一支又不能死。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把烟熄了，少抽一支又不能怎样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把烟熄了，少抽一支没什么损失。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3436" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T10:20:26.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14218" CreationDate="2015-07-11T10:31:13.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rvPfS.png&quot; alt=&quot;pronunciation&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Woo6-yi5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;户珥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this &lt;a href=&quot;http://download.jw.org/files/media_magazines/69/w_f-lp-2_e-Csl_CHS_20140215.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pdf&lt;/a&gt; pg. 14 户珥 is pronounced Woo6-yi5 (Jyutping should be something like: Wu6-ji5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T14:25:49.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14226" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-11T10:44:32.473" Score="2" ViewCount="561" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anybody can explain me the reason why:&#xA;-we don't say 每个年 but 每年? and, on the contrary,&#xA;we must say 每个月 and not 每月?&#xA;-Is there somethig to do with the fact that sometimes we must use 全 (全身)instead of 整个 while we must say 整个身体 and don't 全身体?&#xA;Thanks (Húli)&#xA;PS/Afterwards I have introduced some changes on my previous post in order to clarify it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11287" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T04:20:24.560" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T04:20:24.560" Title="个 ge usage plus 每 mei" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14226" CreationDate="2015-07-11T11:04:45.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule is: 天, 日, 年 do not take 个 as counter word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一天，三天，每天, 每日&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一个星期，一个礼拜, BUT: 一周 goes with no counter word. All of these mean 'one week'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一个月，五个月, BUT: 一月 is January, not 'one month'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一年，每年&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-07-11T11:10:54.920" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T11:10:54.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14226" CreationDate="2015-07-11T11:27:08.513" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason is that 天, 日, 周, 年 are themselves counter words / classifiers (so they don't need an extra one), while 星期, 礼拜, 月 are not classifiers and therefore require a classifier, which happen to be 个 for the all of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that although 月 is listed with the ones that require a classifier, it's quite frequent to hear 每月 as well (which I believe makes sense since we already have a classifier for day, week and year).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10901" LastEditorUserId="10901" LastEditDate="2015-07-12T06:19:40.940" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T06:19:40.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14222" CreationDate="2015-07-11T11:38:22.187" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you'd ever seen Mathews' Chinese-English dictionary (rev. American ed. Harvard UP, 1957 and a million pirate editions), this would ring a bell. &quot;Chiai&quot; goes back to the OLD National Pronunciation system of 1920 and can also be found in a system used by the missionaries of the China Inland Mission, of whom &lt;a href=&quot;http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mathews-robert-henry-7519&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;R. H. Mathews&lt;/a&gt; was one.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The revision of Mathews dictionary was done by Y. R. Chao in 1943, in gross violation of Mathews' copyright, but there &lt;em&gt;was&lt;/em&gt; a war on at the time. Chao has a note on these quirks in his introduction to the revision. According to Chao, the 1920 system was &quot;an eclectic system&quot; put together by a government committee in 1920, and &quot;took features of Central dialects into consideration.&quot; The 1920 system was replaced in 1931, right after Mathews dictionary was published, by a new system which is &quot;practically a straightforward adoption of the pronunciation of Peiping.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Peiping pronuciation (whoops, I mean Beijing), has a sort of dissimilation of medials and diphthongs, such that you don't get u-u or i-i combinations; apparently this was not true of some of the dialects that went into the 1920 pronunciation stew. Other characters written &quot;chiai&quot; include 街、介、戒、皆 and most of the characters that use them as phonetics.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I might add that Mathews contributed greatly to my confusion over Mandarin pronunciation. Apparently some people at an obscure diploma mill in Cambridge MA still use it. But as for why this is popping up now in China, color me puzzled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T11:38:22.187" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14222" CreationDate="2015-07-11T11:58:17.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't usually use 'thy' instead of 'you', you should read 解 as 'jie' but not 'jiai'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11311" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T11:58:17.460" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14226" CreationDate="2015-07-11T23:16:49.997" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese, I never say 每个年, but i do say 每月 sometimes (for abbrev). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I never say '整个身' or ‘全身体', I do say 全身(describe physical) or 整个身子(describe physical) or 整个人(describe mental more)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全身湿透了(wet through)，整个身子都受伤了(injured everywhere)，整个人都不好了(not feeling well).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;correct：一天(one day, whole day, depends on context)，每天(everyday)，一日(one day)，每日(everyday)，一个晴天(a sunny day)，一个星期天(a Sunday)，一星期天(the whole Sunday, '一' means 'whole' in this case),一星期(the whole week),一年（whole&#xA; year），一个闰年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wrong: 一个天，每个天，一个日，每个日，一个年（maybe correct in some case），一晴天（this one could be correct in some rare case）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some case: 纸上写着一个年(字)。&#xA;我们不知道失去了母亲的他这一个年是怎么过的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rare case: “我当时就纳闷了，这一晴天，他打着伞干嘛” this maybe happens in Chinese crosstalk (xiangsheng) or talk show.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I don't suggest you to memorize those things as rules. because there are toooooo much. Even though you use the wrong one, you are still correct from the perspective of descriptive grammar, as long as we can understand what are you talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3436" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T23:16:49.997" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14233" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14238" CreationDate="2015-07-12T01:05:32.153" Score="1" ViewCount="1091" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm aware of the construct: 一首歌曲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what's the difference between the following 声音 constructs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一张音乐&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一曲音乐&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一段音乐&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-07-12T01:27:26.143" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T08:07:08.953" Title="Measure words for music" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14234" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14235" CreationDate="2015-07-12T01:17:17.707" Score="2" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the list of diacritics used to denote the seven Cantonese tones (in pinyin or similar notation)? Is there a standard (or even, more common) convention?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="2600" LastEditDate="2015-10-14T03:21:05.600" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T03:21:05.600" Title="Alternative notations for Cantonese tones" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14234" CreationDate="2015-07-12T03:27:32.983" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Common romanization systems for Cantonese are Jyutping, Cantonese Pinyin, and Yale.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyutping#Tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jyutping&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_Pinyin#Tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cantonese Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;, tones are represented with numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_romanization_of_Cantonese#Tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yale&lt;/a&gt;, tones are either indicated with tone marks coupled with -h, or with numbers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;1   high-flat   55  sī  sīn     sīk&#xA;1   high-fall.  53  sì  sìn&#xA;2   mid-rising  35  sí  sín&#xA;3   mid-flat    33  si  sin     sik&#xA;4   mid-falling 21  sìh sìhn&#xA;5   low-rising  13  síh síhn&#xA;6   low-flat    22  sih sihn    sihk&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T03:27:32.983" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14200" CreationDate="2015-07-12T04:00:34.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is correct. It is called 竖排. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11311" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T04:00:34.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14233" CreationDate="2015-07-12T08:07:08.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一张音乐 is short for 一张音乐专辑 (a music album) or 一张音乐CD （a music CD), etc., in which cases the noun at the end of the expression is flat (LP disc, CD) and can take 张 as classifier.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一曲音乐 is a 'tuneful' of music or a 'melody-ful' of music, is also translated as 'a piece of music', I am just guessing but this could mean a piece of music which consists of at least one melody or theme, i.e. a length enough to unfold the melody or theme, or maybe longer.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一段音乐 is a piece of music, whatever that means in English or Chinese, usually a complete piece or a complete section of a larger opus.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@S.Rhee mentioned 场 which is a classifier for concerts if it is used in connection with music, e.g. 一场音乐会.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T08:07:08.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14241" CreationDate="2015-07-12T12:21:12.690" Score="4" ViewCount="10997" Body="&lt;p&gt;In company, or at someone's house, how might I say &quot;That dish looks delicious?&quot; or &quot;That looks good&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My inclination is to say 那看起来好吃, or maybe 那看地好吃, but both seem like too much of a direct translation. How might a Chinese person express that thought?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11315" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T10:03:29.040" Title="How to say &quot;That looks delicious&quot;" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14240" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14246" CreationDate="2015-07-12T12:26:56.550" Score="1" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wodering about the correct, or natural, way to say &quot;could you please add some sugar to my coffee?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My unnatural-sounding way would be 在我的咖啡可以加糖吗, but I feel like a Chinese speaker is unlikely to use 可以 in that direct of a way, and it seems like I need some word to indicate that I actually want it &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; my coffee. Any advice would be apprciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11315" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T02:08:43.897" Title="Correct/natural way to say &quot;在我的咖啡可以加糖吗？&quot;" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14239" CreationDate="2015-07-12T12:34:48.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;这桌菜看样子很好吃。The food served (&quot;tableful of food&quot;) looks delicious. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;食物看起来很不错。The food looks great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually there is nothing wrong with 看起来 and 好吃. &#xA;If you would like to show off your skills, use a chengyu, &lt;a href=&quot;http://wenda.tianya.cn/question/05b80a66f56dff43&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here's a list&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T12:34:48.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14242" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14248" CreationDate="2015-07-12T13:04:08.287" Score="3" ViewCount="974" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is quite simple, how it is possible that 德行 means two completely opposite things?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And when facing this character, how can I know what it means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T08:12:56.047" Title="德行：moral integrity or disgusting?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14242" CreationDate="2015-07-12T13:47:53.937" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;德行 can represent the combine of 品德 and 行为。&#xA;Mostly discriminate the completely opposite things using the pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dé xíng : the normal pronunciation express moral integrity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dé xing : if 行 read &quot;xing&quot; the light pronunciation.express a kind of look down ,about disgusting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6855" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T13:47:53.937" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14240" CreationDate="2015-07-12T13:57:18.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;能给我的咖啡加点糖吗 or 可以给我的咖啡加点糖吗 &#xA;Could can be translated in 能 or 可以。and place the begin of the line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6855" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T13:57:18.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14240" CreationDate="2015-07-12T14:04:13.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another option: 请给我的咖啡里放一点糖。, or if the sugar comes in lumps or cubes: 请给我的咖啡里放一块糖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T14:04:13.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14240" CreationDate="2015-07-12T14:20:57.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be more natural to say 「請幫我的咖啡加點糖。」or more directly 「請幫我加點糖。」(if you're pointing at your coffee, it'll be more natural)。 If you say 「在我的咖啡可以加糖吗？」, it sounds like you're asking if it is suitable to add sugar to your coffee. As a native Chinese speaker, this is my advice.&#xA;e.g. Could you please add more salt to this dish? Thank you. &#xA;     幫我把這道菜加點鹽，謝謝。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11316" LastEditorUserId="11316" LastEditDate="2015-07-13T00:58:20.457" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T00:58:20.457" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14242" CreationDate="2015-07-12T14:59:21.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In actuality, the word 德行 is seldom used in daily conversation (my experience as a native speaker of Chinese). e.g. 德行出眾 The word 德性 reads &quot;xing&quot; indeed. However, 德行 reads in an opposite way. When you see the word 德性 only, it means neither bad or good character. However, when it is seen in a sentence, it usually refers to bad personality traits. It is usually used in this way: 我最討厭你這副德性了！ (I really dislike how you behave now.) This word usually means bad characteristics when it is used in sentences, but it can also have a positive meaning sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11316" LastEditorUserId="11316" LastEditDate="2015-07-13T00:56:31.900" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T00:56:31.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14242" CreationDate="2015-07-12T15:47:59.667" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ROC (Taiwan) &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;教育部國語辭&lt;/a&gt; is a very useful resource, and often has good examples. Here's what it says for 德行:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 仁慈的行為 humane behavior: Honglou Meng: 倘或日後咱們遇見了，那時我又怎麼報你的德行。 If we meet another day, How can I repay your kind deed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 諷刺或鄙視讓人產生惡感的儀態或行止 used to mock or sneer at despicable behavior or deportment: 他那副爛醉的德行，令人討厭 His drunken hijinks were disgusting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德性 is a little more complicated, but still similar. Skipping the first meaning, it has:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 道德品性 moral character: from Rulin Waishi 這位小姐，德性溫良，才貌出眾 The young lady has a kind and gentle nature, and is both beautiful and talented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 (same as 德行 2):  瞧他那副猥猥瑣瑣的德性，就知道做不了什麼大事 One look at that nerdish face and you know he'll never amount to anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So both words have a 'straight' use and a 'sarcastic' use.  Context determines which is which.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Postscript:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of other answers below note that there is another pronunciation. I've never heard this in Taiwan, but I have now found a reference in the Pinyin Chinese-English Dictionary, which says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;déxing (xing=輕聲): &amp;lt;方&gt; disgusting; shameful; 那個家伙真德行. That fellow is really disgusting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the PY Dictionary regards this as a dialectal usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-07-15T08:12:56.047" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T08:12:56.047" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14249" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-12T16:36:11.020" Score="6" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the proper translation for &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I'm looking for a phone charger&quot; (any charger, I just need to charge my phone)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I'm looking for the phone charger&quot; (the specific charger, I seem to have misplaced it)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 我找充電器 likely to be understood as 1) or 2)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11317" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T04:28:05.970" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T04:28:05.970" Title="Definite and indefinite noun after 找" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14250" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14251" CreationDate="2015-07-12T21:20:13.910" Score="1" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have two books displaying different meannings for characters that look the same to me: What is the difference (if any) among the character for &quot;bèi&quot; (shell, money) and &quot;jiàn&quot; (to see)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T21:46:52.687" Title="written characters: bèi vs jiàn" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14250" CreationDate="2015-07-12T21:32:01.880" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look more carefully, you can see that the last stroke is different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;贝 bèi ends with a 捺 nà stroke.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;见 jiàn ends with a 竖湾钩 shùwāngōu, a 'hook'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.clearchinese.com/chinese-writing/strokes.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this list&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-07-12T21:46:52.687" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T21:46:52.687" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14249" CreationDate="2015-07-12T21:53:14.683" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, there isn't much of a direct, one-to-one mapping of phrases to English phrases with determiners, particularly when &quot;the&quot; is used in more &lt;em&gt;general&lt;/em&gt; ways. Examples abound in constructions like &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;The&lt;/strong&gt; Flowers of Evil&lt;/em&gt; (恶之花) or &quot;The Brothers Grimm&quot; (格林兄弟). However, these have additional qualifiers &quot;恶之&quot; or &quot;格林&quot; that specify which flowers or which brothers we are talking about, so naturally we would use &quot;the&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at an example without any qualifiers then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我今天去了便利店。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Since different convenience stores abound&lt;/em&gt;, I wouldn't expect the speaker to necessarily be referring to a &lt;em&gt;specific&lt;/em&gt; one (particularly without the addition of 那) or alternatively, to &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; one (without 一间). I would assume &quot;a convenience store&quot; if the speaker was recounting his afternoon in another district, whereas I would assume &quot;the convenience store&quot; if the speaker was talking about walking around the block around his apartment. &lt;strong&gt;So context really matters.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Similarly, in the case with 找充電器, it's a bit unclear without context.&lt;/strong&gt; At your home, I would expect 我找充电器 to indicate that you are looking for &lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt; phone charger (so &quot;the charger&quot;). At someone else's home or in say, a shopping mall or cafe, I might expect this more to mean &quot;I'm looking for &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; charger.&quot; unless there is only one charger and you've misplaced it, because I'd be more likely to assume that you want to &lt;em&gt;borrow&lt;/em&gt; a charger. In such a setting, I would expect something like &quot;我的充电器&quot; or &quot;你借给的充电器&quot; to indicate that you are looking for &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; charger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T21:53:14.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14242" CreationDate="2015-07-12T22:04:50.207" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's the English analogy that's confusing. 德行 is neither 'moral integrity' or 'moral deceit', instead, it means 'moral quality' which can be used for both positive or negative contexts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used positively it usually accompanied with other positive words such as '德行好', while negative usages can be '德行' alone. This is pretty much like 'attitude' in English, you'd say someone has a good attitude (good is explicit), or simply 'watch your attitude' (bad is omitted).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T22:04:50.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14240" CreationDate="2015-07-13T02:08:43.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you can say like this&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; 可以给我的咖啡加点糖吗? &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11319" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T02:08:43.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2784" CreationDate="2015-07-13T03:03:15.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example 柠檬泡水 = lemon water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not very right, in Chinese when it comes to water like lemon water we don't use &lt;code&gt;泡水&lt;/code&gt; we simply use &lt;code&gt;柠檬水&lt;/code&gt;. So&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lemon water = 柠檬水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11321" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T03:03:15.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14256" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14257" CreationDate="2015-07-13T06:45:58.437" Score="7" ViewCount="1471" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some troubles in distinguishing written characters 曰 yuē (to speak) and 日 rì (sun). Although they singularly look different on computers (maybe yuē look a bit wider, while rì is taller), I find it almost impossible to distinguish them when they appear in composite characters, or even alone in handwritten texts. Is there some difference I cannot catch that I should pay attention to? Do their writing differ in stroke order?&#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As pointed out in some answers and comments, there are other sets of characters that look very similar. Among them: 口 kǒu​ (mouth) and 囗 wéi​ (enclosure); 人 rén (person) and 入 rù (to enter), 千 qiān (thousand) and 干 gān (stem), 已    yǐ (stop) and 己 jǐ (self)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="11269" LastEditDate="2015-07-14T06:21:01.093" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T06:36:23.290" Title="written characters: yuē vs rì" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14256" CreationDate="2015-07-13T06:58:00.323" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was secretly expecting this question. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In handwritten and calligraphic realization, these characters can be tough to distinguish, although the context will help you a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In printed text, the middle 横 héng stroke in 曰 is not touching the right side of the character, in 日 the middle stroke is entirely through, at least in most fonts. If not, it is only the width of the character that can give you a clue and the context, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Needless to say, 曰 is not very common today, it is mostly used in Confucian text, like 子曰, &quot;The Master said...&quot;. So most of the time you see these characters in modern texts, chances are it is 日 and not 曰.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stroke order is the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-07-14T06:36:23.290" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T06:36:23.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14256" CreationDate="2015-07-13T07:33:43.120" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, especially in print form, as @Drunken Master explained, &lt;code&gt;日&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;曰&lt;/code&gt; are hard to distinguish, but in the classic writing style, the main difference is not that &lt;code&gt;日&lt;/code&gt; is thin, and &lt;code&gt;曰&lt;/code&gt; is fat, the point is the top-left corner is seal or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;日&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;sun&lt;/code&gt;, and there's no gap on the sun. &lt;code&gt;曰&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;say/talk/speak&lt;/code&gt; (by mouth), so the lower half of &lt;code&gt;曰&lt;/code&gt; indicates &lt;code&gt;mouth&lt;/code&gt;, and the top horizontal stroke is separate, indicating the sound and breath.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here're some examples of &lt;code&gt;曰&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JRnLb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;曰(甲骨文)&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XaDbt.gif&quot; alt=&quot;曰(古陶文)&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zy5oh.gif&quot; alt=&quot;曰(篆书)&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and some examples of &lt;code&gt;日&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VQkye.gif&quot; alt=&quot;日(甲骨文)&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/78d6S.gif&quot; alt=&quot;日(古陶文)&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2w6zz.gif&quot; alt=&quot;日(篆书)&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_88a3f8e70101fbm7.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;“日”与“曰”的区别&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://images.gg-art.com/dictionary/dcontent.php?word=%D4%BB&amp;amp;sub1.x=0&amp;amp;sub1.y=0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;曰的解释&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://images.gg-art.com/dictionary/dcontent.php?word=%C8%D5&amp;amp;sub1.x=0&amp;amp;sub1.y=0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;日的解释&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-07-13T07:41:12.287" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T07:41:12.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14256" CreationDate="2015-07-13T08:42:10.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;曰 is fatter than 日. You can distinguish them depending on the text where they appera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日 means day，生日， 星期日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曰 means say.曰 almost appearonly  in the text of 子曰. 子 means the person 孔子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wanna experss 我说，你说， you shouldn't use 曰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6855" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T08:42:10.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14256" CreationDate="2015-07-13T09:53:08.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;曰 is wider and shorter than 日.As to the 横 in the middle, the difference is not always obvious since we have different styles of writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T09:53:08.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14239" CreationDate="2015-07-13T10:03:29.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That dish looks delicious. 那个菜看起来很好吃。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That looks good.  那个看起来不错。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T10:03:29.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14263" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14273" CreationDate="2015-07-13T10:30:40.963" Score="6" ViewCount="1008" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the suggested pattern on paper to learn handwriting?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the web, I've found many kind of paper, such as those named &lt;code&gt;九宫格 jiǔgōnggé&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;米字格 mǐzìgé&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;田字格 tiánzìgé&lt;/code&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've got a book of chinese characters in which some characters are displayed on a &lt;code&gt;九宫格 jiǔgōnggé&lt;/code&gt; pattern while other characters are on a &lt;code&gt;米字格 mǐzìgé&lt;/code&gt; pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder which one should be preferred (if any), or if different characters suit better on certain patterns. Which paper is used by children at school, for example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-27T12:44:23.743" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T12:44:23.743" Title="What is the suggested pattern on paper to learn handwriting?" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14213" CreationDate="2015-07-13T11:34:21.533" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means that the usage of every word is in the person's control. Having an outstanding command of the language, the person knows where to conclude the article and how to put all of the inspirations in. In addition, the person also has a lot of ideas, making the person usually write a lot in a short period of time (also in good quality). As a native speaker, this is my interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11316" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T11:34:21.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14198" CreationDate="2015-07-13T15:23:32.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;sometimes we use &quot;死不了&quot; in similar situations. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 别抽烟了，忍一忍，死不了。&#xA;2 不用担心，死不了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this can be of some help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T15:23:32.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2784" CreationDate="2015-07-13T20:24:12.507" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can think about this word as cook, for example, cook water, when you said cook tea, it is 泡茶.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11329" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T20:24:12.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14263" CreationDate="2015-07-13T23:30:57.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest go ahead try them all by yourself, it vary from people to people. But same as @Stan said it is just helping you to have a better sense of positioning each stroke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I want to mention that it only works well if you have a sample showed in a similar pattern and you try to make it looks the same way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think about what you would do to an English handwriting practice paper for English, it's actually the same idea. You need to firstly actually know where you should write on it, and then practice. And the eventual goal is no longer need it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2415" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T23:30:57.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14263" CreationDate="2015-07-14T01:35:53.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was in the elementary school (1999-2005), our class use 田字格 for most case， sometimes 米字格， never used 九宫格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3436" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T01:35:53.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14269" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-14T02:58:57.313" Score="2" ViewCount="788" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You still have a long way to go, wish you have a memorable secondary school career&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's my translation to Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;來日方長, 希望你有個難忘的中學生涯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if it is correct to use 來日方長 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9777" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-07-14T04:57:42.903" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T05:18:54.403" Title="Is this a correct usage of &quot;來日方長&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14269" CreationDate="2015-07-14T03:38:52.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's based on your intention. &lt;code&gt;来日方长&lt;/code&gt; usually used for the two situations, if you want to tell sb that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There's still time to do sth  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Need not to hurry in doing sth now&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现代汉语词典（第五版）：&lt;code&gt;未来的日还很长，表示事有可为，或劝人不必急于做某事。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-07-14T05:18:54.403" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T05:18:54.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14269" CreationDate="2015-07-14T05:02:02.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;来日方长&quot; is similar to &quot;take your time&quot;&quot;no hurry&quot;. And we do not use &quot;来日方长&quot; a lot in spoken Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T05:02:02.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14209" CreationDate="2015-07-14T05:03:06.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may be a failure of editing. 啰 is actually discussed in the 1986 &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E5%AD%97%E6%80%BB%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jianhuazi zong biao&lt;/a&gt;. According to the 1986 zong biao, 罗 was included in the first list of simplified characters, but 囉 was not. The 1986 zong biao deletes 囉, and makes 啰 its official replacement &quot;by analogy&quot;. Your dictionary seems to fall right in this period. Could be the entry you cite with 囉 was written before the 1986 list came out, and the entry with 啰 was done after. Or perhaps both were originally 囉 and in the editing they did after completing the dictionary, they missed the one entry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T05:03:06.513" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14263" CreationDate="2015-07-14T05:07:23.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used 田字格 when I was in elementary school and tried 九宫格 when learning calligraphy. For daily handwriting, I suggest 田字格。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T05:07:23.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14169" CreationDate="2015-07-14T05:54:53.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To use “亲爱的爸爸” or &quot;亲爱的妈妈&quot; has nothing to do with being childish.  In Chinese culture, we don't directly express our love for parents,especially people born before 1980. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T05:54:53.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13747" CreationDate="2015-07-14T06:00:11.937" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have encountered a fundamental, and very complex, problem for English and Chinese speakers who are trying to understand each other. Two things to remember here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, English 'will' is a very complicated word, with many shades of meaning, which usually go under the linguistic label of &quot;modality&quot;.  Compare &quot;Will you shut up?&quot;  &quot;I'll save you, Nell!&quot;  &quot;It will be a cold day in hell when this Ghul rises again.&quot; etc.  Chinese of course has no &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; way of expressing all these different meanings. It just doesn't pack all these meanings into a single vocabulary item.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, Chinese is a tenseless language. Many people object to this claim, but it is so.  Let's take your example &quot;I will swim tomorrow.&quot;  On the English side, note that this is not in the same category of events as &quot;The sun will rise tomorrow&quot; in terms of certainty. Chinese as a language requires you to take account of things like this. So you need to have something more in mind here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say, for example, that you are too busy to go swimming today, so you tell your friend &quot;I will swim tomorrow.&quot; One way to say this (I believe) is simply 我明天才去游泳, which I think emphasizes your intention to do something more important today, or perhaps 我明天再去游泳, which, maybe, indicates that you think it is already too late to swim today.  The point is that neither of these uses ANY modal verb. This is impossible in English, because English really does need a tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could say that the Chinese sentences do not indicate certainty, but does the English here? To me, no. Not like &quot;The sun will rise tomorrow.&quot; It indicates your plan to do something in the future, which is always a (relatively) uncertain thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T06:00:11.937" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14276" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-14T07:06:00.637" Score="2" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;The entrance examination for universities in mainland China includes a Chinese section. I'm looking for three things about this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) A source for questions that have been asked in previous years. For my purposes, the older the questions the better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) An official source describing the structure of the exam, including number and types of questions, and scoring methodologies, (machine scoring, hand scoring, who does scoring, under what conditions). I'm especially interested in guidelines for scoring composition questions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) results on the Chinese section, including scoring percentiles, and minimum for acceptance at various schools; especially interested in seeing these broken down by province.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this doesn't get shot down as overly broad! Thanks for any help you can give.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T13:13:22.590" Title="Resources for the Chinese section of the Gaokao?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;academic&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14277" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-14T07:15:19.697" Score="0" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a program for google drive (or for a PC, perhaps a word plugin or something like grammarly), so that I can highlight chinese text and have a bubble show up with a dictionary translation. This would be great for Chinese learning, and I'm not even sure if such a plugin for an android app with dictionary plugin exists. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T07:23:54.793" Title="Fast dictionary lookups while reading text" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14277" CreationDate="2015-07-14T07:23:54.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try converting the document to HTML, load it in Firefox or Chrome and use PeraPera Chinese (for &lt;a href=&quot;https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/perapera-kun-chinese-popup-tra/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Firefox&lt;/a&gt;, for &lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/perapera-chinese-popup-di/hlcddplhfenagbaipfjhhcjmebhkkaif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chrome&lt;/a&gt;). I haven't used Word for a long time, but I do remember it has an option to quick review a .doc or .docx as HTML, or similar. If not, just export it as HTML, and you can use Perapera in your browser displaying the document.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T07:23:54.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2670" CreationDate="2015-07-14T08:35:23.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker. It's normal that your Chinese characters writing is sloppy at the beginning of learning. As a native learner, it's also difficult to smoothly write Chinese characters which is same with the characters on the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion for you is to &lt;strong&gt;practice again and again&lt;/strong&gt; and then &lt;strong&gt;learn writing characters by heart&lt;/strong&gt;. You need to write it according to its stroke order. If you have much time, you can &lt;strong&gt;write characters following a copybook&lt;/strong&gt;. However, you should know the correct stroke order at first. Hope my answer will help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11325" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-07-14T20:08:06.757" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T20:08:06.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14280" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14281" CreationDate="2015-07-14T15:41:47.510" Score="5" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've looked for this question on the site but can't seem to find it. I'm interested in learning Chinese, well, Cantonese specifically, and I want to focus on both the written and spoken components. But from what I've read, the standard for written Chinese is Mandarin, regardless of dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this understanding correct? I.e., that a variety of dialects use written Mandarin as the standard for the written component of the language, but differ only in pronunciation and word preference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11334" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-27T12:42:01.720" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T18:26:41.217" Title="Is it correct to say the standard for written Chinese is Mandarin, regardless of dialect (e.g. Cantonese)?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14280" CreationDate="2015-07-14T17:20:59.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends. To the best of my knowledge, the &lt;em&gt;formal&lt;/em&gt; written form of Cantonese is pretty much identical to that used by Mandarin, excepting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Differences in usage (e.g. 玉米 v.s. 粟米 for &quot;corn&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Usage of traditional v.s. simplified characters, although &lt;em&gt;this is only an issue in that Hong Kong / Macau, which are Cantonese-speaking use traditional characters&lt;/em&gt;, whereas Mainland China does not. (Taiwan uses some form of the traditional system as well). So there may be some discrepancy in learning materials.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, sometimes people will write more &quot;informal&quot;, &quot;spoken&quot; Cantonese that will not really be identical (and not just for vocabulary reasons) to written Mandarin. For example, there is a song from the McDull franchise titled as 落街冇錢買麵包 (approximately &quot;going onto the street, [had] no money to buy bread&quot;). 落 (instead of 下) is just a Cantonese usage difference, but 冇 instead of 沒有 is a more &quot;informal&quot; or &quot;vernacular&quot; usage that I have never seen in any explicitly &lt;em&gt;formal&lt;/em&gt; context. Your mileage may vary as to whether this sort of thing counts as a &quot;word preference&quot; difference; I would not because this isn't like the case of having different words for &quot;corn&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, and perhaps more explicitly, sometimes characters like 喺, 係 (e.g. in 我係香港人 instead of 我是香港人, but which can also be used to indicate assent in a way that doesn't really exist in Mandarin), or 唔 (e.g. 唔明白 instead of 不明白) are used &lt;em&gt;informally&lt;/em&gt;: I have probably seen such usage on platforms such as Facebook before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, the basic grammatical structure is still similar (in the sense that things like word order are still mostly the same, but I wouldn't call this only &quot;pronunciation and word preference&quot; differences, since this isn't just about &lt;em&gt;words for object X being different in Cantonese and Mandarin&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So yes, the &quot;standard&quot; written form should be identical with the exception of pronunciation and word preference to that of Mandarin, but I would really hesitate to say the same thing of the &quot;informal&quot; written forms that can often be found in more informal venues, such as on the internet.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-07-14T17:28:13.113" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T17:28:13.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14282" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14283" CreationDate="2015-07-14T17:38:24.603" Score="4" ViewCount="520" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I hear people from Southern China address other people using 生, e.g. 唐生 for 张国荣's lover 唐鹤德. I looked it up in the dictionaries and searched online but didn't found any explanation on the usages. Here are my questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does it mean? Is it short for/related to 先生 or 小生?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What gender/age/profession do you use it for? Is it exclusively used for young male? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it regional? (Personally I have never heard of it in Northern China.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it formal or colloquial?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T20:32:29.850" Title="Address people using 生 (e.g. 唐生)" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14282" CreationDate="2015-07-14T17:53:47.993" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, 先生 can be shortened to 生 when attached to a family name. It is used for adult male, all ages and is used orally, not written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T17:53:47.993" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14284" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-14T22:06:57.103" Score="0" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have 2 的s in my text which are confusing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;可以明确&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;是实习生与企业间不是劳动关系，。。。“&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;我九月份进&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;这家公司，老板说前面几个月是作为实习期的。“&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1. I think '的‘ nominalizes, but I'm not sure what it nominalizes. Maybe there is a ‘所’ understood and unspoken, '(所）可以明确的‘ = （that which） （we) can be sure of'。I don't really think '明确的‘ or '可以明确的‘ are nouns, neither in English nor in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2. I can't see what 的 does. Nothing? Or is there a missing 是 ‘我是九月份进的这家公司’？Or is it just for the rhythm of speech? Or can I rewrite as '这家我九月份进的公司，‘? That doesn't seem right! Maybe '这家我九月份进的公司的老板说，‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T10:30:46.850" Title="What are these 2 的s doing here?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14284" CreationDate="2015-07-14T22:31:07.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I feel this sentence is weirdly constructed and sounds very strange, but the 的 is used like the English word &quot;what&quot;. So, 可以明确的 is like: what is certain is that&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is an implied 是 in the second sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T22:31:07.330" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14284" CreationDate="2015-07-14T22:59:12.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is certain is that apprentice and company is not a contract of employment...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 functions as the second 'is' above, such that one can omit the object &quot;fact&quot; &quot;What is certain is (the fact that) apprentice and company is not a contract of employment...&quot;. This sentence is a bit colloquial and hence the grammar here may appear strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(About) this company I enetered in September, my boss said the first few months are for training.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: The first 的 emphasis &quot;This company&quot; is the subject or topic of discussion, and &quot;Entered in September&quot; is merely a descriptor or adjective-phrase (的 has the ability to convert most clauses/words before it to adjective).  的 also serves as a rhythm of speech particle so that if omitted it won't sound natural, unless you replace it with “了”,i.e. “我九月份进了这家公司”. This results in a sentence that instead of emphasizing the company is in question, I is put as the subject and the time (September) is emphasized as the important information. As in &quot;I enetered this company in September (I am the subject topic, and the important thing is the time I enetered this comapany). Further to OP's post, OP asked what if one writes &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;九月份进的这家公司&quot;, this put even more emphases on the fact that &quot;I started in September&quot; as important information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second 的 shortens the more correct but cumbersome sentence structure:&#xA;&quot;前面几个月是实习期的几个月&quot;. Again this is a bit colloquial and it is not uncommon for the grammar to seem a little bit informal.&#xA;I would personally however said &quot;老板说前面几个月是实习期&quot;, which is more compact and grammatically sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11335" LastEditorUserId="11335" LastEditDate="2015-07-16T10:30:46.850" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T10:30:46.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14282" CreationDate="2015-07-15T00:09:41.053" Score="7" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;生 Short for 先生 in Cantonese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;先生 is gender neutral in Chinese, however most people use it as the Chinese version of &quot;Mr.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Profession that is associated with 先生 is teachers (still used very often in the 80s and 90s.  But thanks to the Communists such elegant term is abolished and people have started to call teachers as 老師 even in Cantonese). So if your Chinese teacher was a lady, you could still call her X生.&#xA;As a side note, anyone who is well respected in any profession can be called 先生.  Again, this is rarely the case in Cantonese speaking regions in the last 10 to 20 years.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;生 is only used in Cantonese, though 先生 is not.  However, 先生 is often replaced, erroneously, by 老師 in China.  Often times, you hear someone being called 老師 even though he does not teach.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Calling someone x生 is often used formally.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was taught Chinese in the 90s, students were told to address someone in 先生 if we couldn't figure out the gender by the name.  Some people might get offended by this nowadays.  A sign of deterioration of Chinese skills.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Updated 7/22/2015&#xA;To address a follow up question:&#xA;The other answer says it's not used when it is written However, x生 is used formally in conversations. For example, employees address their CEO as x生. Some insist that x生 can be written. Widely accepted in e-mail and text messages when addressing your client, actually, if the other person is in Hong Kong or a Cantonese speaking person as well. How many of these rules for letter writing in grammar school 30 years still apply today in e-mails?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11336" LastEditorUserId="11336" LastEditDate="2015-07-22T20:32:29.850" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T20:32:29.850" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14284" CreationDate="2015-07-15T00:38:43.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;2nd sentence: If I am to use English grammatical terms to explain this, &quot;我九月份进的&quot; would be a restrictive relative clause that describes &quot;这家公司&quot; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我九月份进的这家公司，老板说...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The company that I entered in September; the boss said that ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better still: The boss of the company that I entered in September said that ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1st sentence: 的 also connects a relative clause to the main noun, but it's a bit more complicated because the noun that is being modified is omitted, or understood. It really is something like 可以明确的&lt;strong&gt;東西&lt;/strong&gt; 是... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以明确的是...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing that is certain is that ... or, as one of the answers indicates, What is certain is that ...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T00:38:43.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2534" CreationDate="2015-07-15T02:28:13.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit: this post assumes you are using these words when addressing women in person. If you are simply talking about women rather than to them, then 女生，女孩，姑娘 etc are what you want， 女生 being the safest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小姐 is neutral when it follows a person's surname and means &quot;Miss ___.&quot; Otherwise, addressing someone as 小姐 would typically only occur in formal situations when addressing young women. One example might be on an airplane when flight attendants address passengers. This use is similar to 先生. That being said, when addressing strangers/getting their attention, 美女 is the preferred term to use in mainland, especially for the younger generation (靚女 in 廣東）. Use it in places of business when calling a clerk, waiter, etc. when you don't know the employee's title. It can be used between persons of the same or opposite gender and sounds simply casual and friendly rather than inappropriate. 帥哥 is the male equivalent and is a word any male can expect to hear in just about any social situation as well (it does not imply flirting on its own).  姑娘 does not work for the situation you're describing as it's reserved for people on more intimate terms (often between girls jokingly referring to the other as 姑娘) and would sound a bit cheeky and out of place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Addressing 姐： Don't use this unless you can say with some certainty they are significantly older than you (let's say 7+ years) or you are on good terms with them and have already established how you think about each other agewise. This word can cause some bad feelings because you're making the listener feel old. The gender of the speaker and listener also matters. 大哥 is used between males without much regards to age (just more of a &quot;bro&quot; than anything), but for a male to address a female as 姐 implies an age gap of up to a generation and creates some distance. Not to mention age is a somewhat more sensitive topic for women. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: for women age 40 and on, 阿姨 becomes a safe option (and 美女 consequently becomes less appropriate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11337" LastEditorUserId="11337" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T22:19:39.137" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T22:19:39.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13940" CreationDate="2015-07-15T02:41:21.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion ,孕傻三年 because mothers takes more attention on their baby , so they are seeming stupid and forgetful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11339" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T02:41:21.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2534" CreationDate="2015-07-15T03:22:04.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;小姐&quot; is not such a dangerous work, haha. Just try to avoid using it in places like clubs,hotel etc. Because &quot;小姐&quot; will arouse bad associations in such places. By the way, “美女” is becoming more popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T03:22:04.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14284" CreationDate="2015-07-15T20:25:03.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1 - 可以明确的(matter) - (the matter) that one can see clear is...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2 - 我（是）九月份进的 (it's part of a 是...的 structure) - I entered on September...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T20:25:03.843" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14280" CreationDate="2015-07-15T22:34:03.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Standard Written Chinese is the written form of Mandarin, and is the only form of written Chinese in widespread use. People speaking all forms of spoken Chinese, including Cantonese speakers, Hokkien speakers, etc., all learn to write in Standard Written Chinese, i.e. they all learn to write the way Mandarin speakers speak (for better or worse).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There exists a fairly complete system of &quot;Written Cantonese&quot; (and to a lesser extent also written representations of Hokkien), which writes the way that Cantonese speakers speak, but it is practically never used in ordinary life by Cantonese speakers, and even many native Cantonese speakers may not understand some of the characters in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5978" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T22:34:03.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14294" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-16T02:50:10.720" Score="0" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence, but I'm not sure what '变现‘ means. I think it's 'assets', but baidu has 'realize' and 'liqidate'. Is '变现‘ an abbreviation for a longer phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三是租赁行业，利用虚假身份证明，骗取汽车租赁公司汽车进行倒卖变现;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三是租赁行业，&#xA;The third kind is the rental car industry,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;利用虚假身份证明&#xA;(they) use fake IDs,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骗取汽车租赁公司&#xA;(to) cheat rent-a-car companies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汽车进行倒卖变现;&#xA;car carry out resell at profit, realize cash/profit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they then sell the car to get cash. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T03:35:54.600" Title="What is the meaning of 变现？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14294" CreationDate="2015-07-16T03:35:54.600" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;变现 is a word by itself, not abbreviation, but it literally means 变成现金 (convert (assets) into cash), usually for the purpose of liquidation or realization, so commonly translated into 'liquidate' or 'realize'. The translation for the sentence in your question is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T03:35:54.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36" CreationDate="2015-07-16T08:34:43.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese teacher from iChineseLearning. Hope my answer will help you. If you are a beginner, you need to learn it from learn characters. In addition, the grammar is the most vital part of Chinese learning, if you want to speak fluency. The intermediate Chinese grammar is for those who have mastered at least 600 Chinese words and related grammar knowledge. You will enhance on the grammar knowledge and explore the new. After this, you will be able to communicate in Chinese on topics of life, study and work in a relatively fluent manner. So learn Chinese grammar &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-grammar.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese-Grammar&lt;/a&gt; is necessary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11325" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T21:51:25.960" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:51:25.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14297" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-16T08:53:33.200" Score="4" ViewCount="456" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/7/13c/302078.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;洗尘&lt;/a&gt; refers to the traditional Chinese custom of holding a banquet to welcome visitors from afar. However, the literal translation is &quot;to wash dust&quot;, which has nothing to do with eating, and I'm also not sure about the connection to travelling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where did this phrase come from? Is it referring to accumulation of dust on travellers' clothes, and washing dust is simply part of the welcoming ritual? Or is it something else entirely?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T11:00:40.503" Title="洗尘: why is a welcome banquet &quot;washing dust&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14297" CreationDate="2015-07-16T09:10:40.373" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;洗尘&quot;usually used with&quot;接风&quot;，like &quot;接风洗尘&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's come from &#xA;明（Ming Dynasty）·凌蒙初(a scholar and offical)《二刻拍案惊奇》第26卷：“虽也送他两把俸金，几件人事，恰好侄儿也替他接风洗尘，只好直退。”（classical Chinese）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone go far,we say &quot;一路顺风&quot;（I wish you a happy voyage），so when visitors come from afar we sad&quot;接风&quot;,and after long travel with wind(顺风),there must be dust on visitors。&#xA;so we say &quot;接风洗尘&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;送人走时通常说一路顺风，接人时正好就接着这一股风把人接到，所以叫接风！刮风必然会粘上满身的尘土，所以，接风的同时把客人身上的尘土洗掉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11346" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T09:10:40.373" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14301" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-16T09:26:54.087" Score="5" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Qing dynasty novel &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanchang_Xianxing_Ji&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;官場現形記&lt;/a&gt;, there is &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E5%AE%98%E5%A0%B4%E7%8F%BE%E5%BD%A2%E8%A8%98/%E7%AC%AC007%E5%9B%9E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this passage&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三荷包接過看時，只見上面開的是：清牛湯、炙鰣魚、冰蠶阿、丁灣羊肉、&lt;strong&gt;漢巴德&lt;/strong&gt;、牛排、凍豬腳、橙子冰忌廉、澳洲翠鳥雞、龜仔蘆筍、生菜英腿、加利蛋飯、白浪布丁（10300620）、濱格、豬古辣冰忌廉、葡萄乾、香蕉、咖啡。另外幾樣酒是：勃蘭地、魏司格、紅酒、巴德、香檳，外帶甜水、鹹水。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is a menu for a Western-style banquet. It seems that many items are based on older styles of transcription, for example 豬古辣冰忌廉 (chocolate ice-cream) would be 巧克力冰激凌 in Mandarin today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What kind of food is 漢巴德 referring to? It seems vaguely similar to &quot;hamburger&quot;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://tastespirit.com/p/23645.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; thinks so too - &quot;估计是汉堡&quot;, but I'm not sure. Can anyone confirm, or find another source?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T10:37:16.547" Title="What kind of food is 漢巴德? (from 官場現形記)" Tags="&lt;loanwords&gt;&lt;transcription&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14297" CreationDate="2015-07-16T09:40:33.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;尘&quot; literally means dust, it can also be comprehended as &quot;exhaustion&quot;“bad luck” the traveler brings with him or her. “洗尘“， get rid of exhaustion, bad luck and all the negative feelings and stuff. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T09:40:33.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14297" CreationDate="2015-07-16T10:28:41.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《通俗编·仪书》：“凡公私值远人初至，或设饮，或馈物，谓之&lt;strong&gt;洗尘&lt;/strong&gt;。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means to 'welcome' someone who &lt;code&gt;take a long way&lt;/code&gt; here. Since there is a long way on the road, there might be dust on the clothes and you must be tired. So it's not about eating. Eating is just a way to express &lt;code&gt;welcome&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say '我摆了一桌宴席，来为你&lt;code&gt;洗尘&lt;/code&gt;' as well as '我举办了个舞会，来为你&lt;code&gt;洗尘&lt;/code&gt;'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;洗尘&lt;/code&gt; usually used with &lt;code&gt;接风&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;接风洗尘&lt;/code&gt;. They have the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then why &lt;code&gt;接风&lt;/code&gt;？ Someone come towards you, the wind reaches you first, right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11347" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-07-16T11:00:40.503" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T11:00:40.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14301" CreationDate="2015-07-16T10:31:17.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A hilarious passage.  My edition says 漢巴德牛排 (no comma), if that's correct it's some kind of beefsteak; in the wine list there's a 巴德, could be related, beef steak with a wine based sauce? The article suggests port for 巴德, why not bordeaux? All guesses on my part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the other dishes also look mangled: 澳洲翠鳥雞 the Australian kingfisher chicken surely should have a comma before chicken. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you get a complete translation, please put it up here!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T10:31:17.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14305" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14306" CreationDate="2015-07-16T11:13:02.800" Score="4" ViewCount="1601" Body="&lt;p&gt;I encountered this multiple choice question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这件事情说__________简单，做__________难&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where among the choices there are: 过来，起来，下来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always thought that their meaning was the same, but in this case the right answer is 起来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's the difference between them? What do they actually emphasize in this specific case and in more general sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-27T12:38:58.063" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T19:53:17.790" Title="Differences between: 过来, 起来, 下来" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;direction-complement&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14305" CreationDate="2015-07-16T12:25:44.590" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;过来 means &quot;come over/ come here&quot;, 坐过来 means &quot;sit over here&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下来 means &quot;come down/ get down here) 坐下来 means &quot;sit down&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起来 if used by itself, means &quot;get up/ stand up&quot;, also carries a sense of &quot;direction.&quot; when used in a combo like &#xA;说起来 (when being talked about) 做起来 (when being worked on) it carries a meaning of &quot;being brought up&quot; or &quot;being initiated.&quot; In this case, its usage is not necessarily indicative of &quot;direction.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all three can be used by themselves or in a combo like the examples i give.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11348" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T12:25:44.590" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14305" CreationDate="2015-07-16T16:04:21.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这件事情说__________简单，做__________难&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer should be 起来， 说起来容易，做起来难。&#xA;起来： is some kind of start doing something.  The original meaning of 起来, is &amp;quot;stand up&amp;quot;, the first character &amp;quot;起&amp;quot; = stand up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过来，起来，下来。&#xA;the &amp;quot;过&amp;quot; =  come&#xA;&amp;quot;下&amp;quot; = down&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when you have done something, you may say, 这事情做下来还挺花时间的。&#xA;So &amp;quot;起&amp;quot; is a sort of opposite to &amp;quot;下&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11349" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-27T12:37:09.910" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T12:37:09.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14309" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-17T02:53:36.330" Score="1" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence below, but I don't really know how to deal with 产生。Any suggestions? I have basically ignored it. 1. was my first attempt, then I wrote 2., which I prefer. Does that agree with the sense of the Chinese sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;求职者一定要先确认自己签订的劳动合同是否具备产生法律约束力的条件。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The job seeker should definitely first check for himself, whether or not the employment contract he is about to sign has legally binding conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The job seeker should definitely first check for himself, whether or not the employment contract he is about to sign is legally binding. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-09T14:41:16.400" Title="How should I deal with 产生 in this sentence?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9581" CreationDate="2015-07-17T18:30:35.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When using the literal pronunciation totally like reading Classical Chinese, it might be &amp;quot;Pi̍k thiô Kai ló&amp;quot; (Zhangzhou dialect) or &amp;quot;Pi̍k thôo Kai nóo&amp;quot; (Quanzhou dialect.)  It seems that ló/nóo and thiô/thôo only differ in accents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11357" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-12-29T20:17:40.753" LastActivityDate="2020-12-29T20:17:40.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2747" CreationDate="2015-07-17T19:18:31.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Similar to Hokkien, there are many Hakka dlalects in Canton and Taiwan. The 1st large dialect which is used in public announcements in Taiwan called Sixien (Siyen or Xi ien, which means &quot;four counties (near Meixian, Guangdong)&quot;) is similar to dialects in Meizhou area. They are classfied to Yuetai (Canton-Taiwan) dialect. However, Hong Kong Hakka is not in Yue-tai dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11357" LastEditorUserId="11357" LastEditDate="2015-07-17T19:24:28.833" LastActivityDate="2015-07-17T19:24:28.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14312" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-17T19:51:45.683" Score="5" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;怀疑 means (1) to doubt, and (2) to suspect. This seems to lead to some confusing translations. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我怀疑这张百元钞票是假的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;could have two very different translations. If I use &quot;to doubt&quot;, then it would translate to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I doubt this 100 yuan bill is fake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning that you think it's real. On the other hand, if I use suspect, it would translate to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I suspect this 100 yuan bill is fake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning you think it's most likely fake. These are nearly complete opposite meanings! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't believe my understanding of the word is wrong b/c I've heard it used in both contexts (though I may indeed be wrong), but how am I to know when definition is being applied?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2015-07-17T20:58:30.550" Title="Clarifying usage and definition of 怀疑" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14312" CreationDate="2015-07-17T20:15:04.847" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First we will deal with the origin (English):  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;doubt is, in a sense, &lt;code&gt;questioning something&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;suspect is, on the other hands, &lt;code&gt;distrusting something&lt;/code&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;back to your example, you can identify the 2 sentences like this:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I doubt (this 100 yuan bill is fake)    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thus you are questioning the bill's...&quot;fake-ness&quot; which implies you think it's real  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I suspect (this 100 yuan bill) is fake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thus you are distrusting this bill, thinking it's fake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, to the translation:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我怀疑这张百元钞票是假的&#xA;is definitly the second explanation - &lt;strong&gt;I suspect this 100 yuan bill is fake&lt;/strong&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way to express &lt;strong&gt;I doubt this 100 yuan bill is fake&lt;/strong&gt; would be:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我对这张百元钞票是假的有怀疑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this gives you an idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2015-07-17T20:58:30.550" LastActivityDate="2015-07-17T20:58:30.550" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14315" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-17T21:25:02.677" Score="1" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen &quot;today&quot; translated in several ways: &quot;今日&quot;, &quot;今天&quot;, &quot;本日&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they all official words?&#xA;What's the difference among them? Are those words more or less interchangeable in common language?&#xA;Are there any other expressions?&#xA;Are there so many ways to indicate &quot;yesterday&quot; and &quot;tomorrow&quot;?&#xA;Can you provide examples?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar question (and useful answers) have already been provided at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/10932/11269&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Today&amp;quot; in Spoken Singaporean Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T20:09:21.777" Title="many ways to say Today" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14315" CreationDate="2015-07-18T00:08:16.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, we say 今天 mostly. I have never heard of 本日 personally. 今日 should only be used in a formal setting like a newspaper or a TV program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11276" LastEditorUserId="11276" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T21:01:09.320" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T21:01:09.320" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14315" CreationDate="2015-07-18T00:41:34.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;3 is not many! Can only think of 2 for yesterday and tomorrow! Maybe you know these songs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天/昨儿个，我的所有困难好像都不在了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明天/明儿个 你是否仍将爱我？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T00:41:34.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14319" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-18T03:00:19.340" Score="3" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is this 某 after the names? Could it be some kind of rank in the Air Force? Listening to the mp3, it sounds like 'mao' not 'mou' to my ear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陈某和刘某都曾在空军部队。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T09:04:51.430" Title="What is this 某 doing after the names?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14319" CreationDate="2015-07-18T03:23:00.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not rank related. Family name is Chen and Liu, Mou is just kind of omission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11361" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T03:23:00.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14319" CreationDate="2015-07-18T05:17:36.963" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It indicates that the given name is unknown or intentionally hidden. 'A certain Chen/Liu', 'a Mr. Chen/Liu', 'a Ms. Chen/Liu', etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of women 氏 can be used, or was used historically, when only her maiden family name was recorded, e.g. Mao Zedong's paternal grandmother is quoted in Wikipedia as 罗氏, which simply means 'née Luo'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-07-18T09:04:51.430" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T09:04:51.430" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14276" CreationDate="2015-07-18T06:16:12.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;2015年高考真题：&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/topic/2015gaokao_zhenti&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wenku.baidu.com/topic/2015gaokao_zhenti&lt;/a&gt; 不过需要下载分。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2015年高考真题、答案和其它资源：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eol.cn/html/g/gkst/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.eol.cn/html/g/gkst/&lt;/a&gt; 可以直接下载，但是需要在论坛里多找找。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;历年高考作文：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gaokao.com/guangdong/gdgkzw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.gaokao.com/guangdong/gdgkzw/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;另外，请善用百度站内的搜索（百度文库禁止GoogleBot访问）：&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/search?word=2015%B8%DF%BF%BC+%CA%FD%D1%A7+%BA%FE%B1%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wenku.baidu.com/search?word=2015%B8%DF%BF%BC+%CA%FD%D1%A7+%BA%FE%B1%B1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;附部分题目：&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;2015 Essay Prompt Guangdong: 2015年广东卷作文题&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;阅读下面的文字，根据要求作文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　看天光云影，能测阴晴雨雪，但难逾目力所及；打开电视，可知全球天气，缺少了静观云卷云舒的乐趣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　漫步林间，常看草长莺飞、枝叶枯荣，但未必能细说花鸟之名、树木之性；轻点鼠标，可知生物的纲目属种、迁徙演化，却无法嗅到花果清香、丛林气息。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　从不同的途径去感知自然，自然似乎很“近”，又似乎很“远”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　要求：1，自选角度，确定立意，自拟标题，文体不限&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　2，不要脱离材料内容及含义的范围&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　3，不少于800字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　4，不得套作，不得抄袭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2014 Essay Prompt Guangdong: 2014年广东卷作文题&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;阅读下面的文字，根据要求作文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　黑白胶片的时代，照片很少，只记录下人生的几个瞬间，在家人一次次的翻看中，它能唤起许多永不褪色的记忆。但照片渐渐泛黄，日益模糊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　数码科技的时代，照片很多，记录着日常生活的点点滴滴，可以随时上传到网络与人分享。它从不泛黄，永不模糊，但在快速浏览与频繁更新中，值得珍惜的“点滴”也可能被稀释。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　要求：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　1、自选角度，确定立意，自拟标题，文体不限。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　2、不要脱离材料内容及含义的范围。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　3、不少于800字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　4、不得套作，不得抄袭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2015 Math Hubei 2015年湖北数学卷 出自&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/%E4%B9%9D%E7%AB%A0%E7%AE%97%E8%A1%93#.E5.8D.B7.E7.AC.AC.E4.BA.94.E3.80.80.E5.95.86.E5.8A.9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《九章算术·卷第五　商功》&lt;/a&gt;第（一五）题&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今有阳马，广五尺，袤七尺，高八尺。问︰积几何？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Discussion: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guokr.com/question/605347/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.guokr.com/question/605347/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10952" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T06:16:12.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2670" CreationDate="2015-07-18T07:21:29.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can practice handwriting on a copybook. Though some thinks that the writings in a copybook is not true Chinese calligraphy, copybooks are enough for handwriting practice. Beginners usually start from writing Zhengkai (正楷). After mastering Zhengkai, you can practice semi-cursive script (行书). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember to choose a right pen for you and turn on enough light in your room. When you use a copybook, slowly sketch every character on the translucent paper. You may spend on average 10 seconds on each character. Pay attention to the speed and press when you draw each stroke. The speed and press of each stroke vary. Sometimes your pen can puncture the paper because of the press.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you finish writing on the translucent paper, &lt;strong&gt;find a blank sheet of paper&lt;/strong&gt; and copy each word onto it. Try to follow the shape of each character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample Zhengkai script written by Tian Yingzhang: (正楷)!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_6b6b5e4f010184nd.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nKtn0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;X&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a calligraphy work by an AcFun member:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2401958503&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CasGN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;X&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sometimes he wrote on his tablet:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wyark.png&quot; alt=&quot;X&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample semi-cursive script writing by Pang Zhonghua: (行书)&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CcJcu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;X&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a calligraphy work by Qian Peiyun: (行书)&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dtTPJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;X&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10952" LastEditorDisplayName="user10952" LastEditDate="2015-07-18T07:30:50.083" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T07:30:50.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14324" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14411" CreationDate="2015-07-18T07:28:56.073" Score="1" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;We already have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese?rq=1&quot;&gt;Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/118/useful-resources-for-learning-taiwanese?rq=1&quot;&gt;Useful resources for learning Taiwanese?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2718/resources-for-learning-cantonese&quot;&gt;Resources for learning Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2639/resources-for-learning-shanghainese&quot;&gt;Resources for learning Shanghainese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/305/resources-for-learning-classical-chinese&quot;&gt;Resources for learning classical Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia: Southwestern Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; has to say about it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Southwestern Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 西南官话; traditional Chinese: 西南官話; pinyin: Xīnán Guānhuà), also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 上江官话; traditional Chinese: 上江官話; pinyin: Shàngjiāng Guānhuà), is a primary branch of Mandarin Chinese spoken in much of central and southwestern China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, most parts of Hubei, the northwestern part of Hunan, the northern part of Guangxi, and some southern parts of Shaanxi and Gansu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Varieties of Southwestern Mandarin are spoken by roughly 200 million people. If removed from the larger &amp;quot;Mandarin Chinese group&amp;quot;, it would have the 6th-most native speakers in the world, behind Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi, and Bengali.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a language with so many speakers there seems to be very little resources for learning such a language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as &lt;strong&gt;dictionaries&lt;/strong&gt; go I'm aware of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yOwnAAAAMAAJ&amp;amp;q=%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80%E8%AF%8D%E8%AF%AD%E6%B1%87%E9%87%8A&amp;amp;dq=%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80%E8%AF%8D%E8%AF%AD%E6%B1%87%E9%87%8A&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0CCEQ6AEwAGoVChMIqdeq6JPkxgIVjlmOCh3fGQB-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;四川方言词语汇释&lt;/a&gt;》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=2&amp;amp;ved=0CCUQFjABahUKEwjOrZuhk-TGAhXGUo4KHWWzA2o&amp;amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%2Fabout%2F%25E6%2588%2590%25E9%2583%25BD%25E8%25AF%259D%25E6%2596%25B9%25E8%25A8%2580%25E8%25AF%258D%25E5%2585%25B8.html%3Fid%3Dm90nAAAAMAAJ&amp;amp;ei=Uv-pVc68F8aluQTl5o7QBg&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNHF_j2ttdq99INc1tSKfyu3RYjpmw&amp;amp;sig2=gFyLxYlQZLp6j9-dK5Yywg&amp;amp;bvm=bv.98197061,d.dGY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;成都话方言词典&lt;/a&gt;》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8.html?id=p-C6AAAAIAAJ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;四川方言词典&lt;/a&gt;》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=Ds8SAQAAMAAJ&amp;amp;q=%E6%88%90%E9%83%BD%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8&amp;amp;dq=%E6%88%90%E9%83%BD%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0CCMQ6AEwAWoVChMI1fjJu5PkxgIVWI-OCh0FtQTD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;成都方言词典&lt;/a&gt;》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/%E8%9C%80%E7%B1%9F.html?id=mGMKAAAAMAAJ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蜀籁&lt;/a&gt;》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《四川方言词语汇编》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What resources are available for learners of Southwestern Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T14:28:34.667" Title="Resources For Learning Southwestern Mandarin (西南官话)" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2670" CreationDate="2015-07-18T13:00:24.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is normal. Note that handwritten characters should &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; look the same as characters on the computer screen in square typefaces, even for (and especially for) Chinese calligraphers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning some calligraphy will be tremendously helpful IMO, if you have the time. In China, students usually start with 红模子(a sheet of paper with red characters printed on it ,to be traced over with a brush by students learning calligraphy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/INWd1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;a sheet of paper with red characters printed on it ,to be traced over with a brush by students learning calligraphy&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;before going on to practicing after 颜真卿、柳公权 and other well-known calligraphers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T13:00:24.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14276" CreationDate="2015-07-18T13:13:22.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) As @biubiubiu mentioned, the 五年高考·三年模拟 series (in the student community known as “五·三”) is an excellent and authoritative source for past gaokao exams. I don't think there are official resources including complete gaokao exams, and the typical source for students in China are non-official publications like 五·三.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The structure and guidelines can be found in the 高考考试说明 published annually by every provincial education bureau. They vary from province to province, but are similar to a large extent. To my knowledge these publications are usually distributed to gaokao test-takers every year and not often found in commercial bookstores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) When I was in high school in Beijing, I vaguely remember being given a book containing the gaokao and admission results from the previous year, in the year I was preparing for gaokao. Many local Beijing newspapers have extensive reports on such information in the weeks following gaokao as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T13:13:22.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14330" CreationDate="2015-07-18T15:05:23.540" Score="3" ViewCount="2638" Body="&lt;p&gt;小確幸 is a newly popular word in Taiwan. It supposedly comes from a Japanese novel. Is this right? If so, who was the author, and what was the book? Does anyone have any suggestions for a translation? (I would like translations with some specific basis.) If you are from Taiwan, would you feel this word is appropriate to use? In what context? If you are from mainland China, are you familiar with this word? How widely known or used is it there?  Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-07-19T06:47:38.437" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T08:27:39.723" Title="Meaning and origin of 小確幸" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14328" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-18T15:58:22.143" Score="2" ViewCount="724" Body="&lt;p&gt;What exactly does it mean to 占人家便宜？ Are there other ways of using 占便宜？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My general understanding is that it means to get the better or others, but I'm never sure when or how to use it properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T06:34:13.577" Title="What does it mean to 占便宜？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14328" CreationDate="2015-07-18T16:12:06.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;占便宜 means &quot;to take (unfair) advantage (at other people's expense)&quot;, &quot;to profit at others' expense&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T16:12:06.670" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14327" CreationDate="2015-07-18T16:18:42.237" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;小确幸&lt;/code&gt; is borrowed from Japanese &lt;code&gt;小確幸&lt;/code&gt;, which is created by the Japanese novelist &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%91%E4%B8%8A%E6%98%A5%E6%A8%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;村上春树&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Haruki Murakami&lt;/a&gt;) in his collection of essays &lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B2%E3%83%AB%E3%83%8F%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9%E5%B3%B6%E3%81%AE%E5%8D%88%E5%BE%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ランゲルハンス島の午後&lt;/a&gt; (兰格汉斯岛的午后, Afternoon in the Islets of Langerhans). In Japanese, it means &lt;code&gt;小さいけれども、確かな幸福&lt;/code&gt;, you can translate it as &lt;code&gt;little but certain happiness&lt;/code&gt; same as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%8F%E7%A2%BA%E5%B9%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%95%E3%81%95%E3%82%84%E3%81%8B%E3%81%A0%E3%81%91%E3%82%8C%E3%81%A9%E3%80%81%E5%BD%B9%E3%81%AB%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A4%E3%81%93%E3%81%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;村上春樹の造語「小確幸」（しょうかっこう）は本作品の原題 &quot;A Small, Good Thing&quot; に由来する。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;a href=&quot;http://kanicha8an.tumblr.com/post/112315150306&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (it seems to be a replay to a question from some reader by 村上春树)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;そうですね、レイモンド・カーヴァーのいうところの『ささやかだけれど、役にたつこと』を大事にしていきたいですね。僕流にいえば「小確幸」です。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;村上春樹拝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【是啊，Raymond Carver所说的这种&quot;a small, good thing&quot;, 想要一直珍惜下去呢。用我的话来说就是&quot;小确幸&quot;.】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that &lt;code&gt;小確幸&lt;/code&gt; derived from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-small-good-thing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;A Small, Good Thing&lt;/a&gt;, which is an award-winning story written by the American short story writer and poet &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Carver&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Raymond Clevie Carver Jr.&lt;/a&gt;, so might translate it as &lt;code&gt;A small, good thing&lt;/code&gt; as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://twilog.org/sheepman_bot/date-141012&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (it seems come from a conversation between 村上春树 and his fans), and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.douban.com/group/topic/37778998/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (the 2nd comment), &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（小確幸は）「しょうかっこう」です。英語ではsmall, solid happinessです。略してSMASOLIHAP「すまそりはっぷ」です。言いにくいですね。やはり日本語の「しょうかっこう」の方がいいな。&#xA;  【村上朝日堂「スメルジャコフ対織田信長家臣団」】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;村上春树 translate it as &lt;code&gt;small, solid happiness&lt;/code&gt; by himself, and &lt;code&gt;SMASOLIHAP&lt;/code&gt; for short.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here is a passage from 村上春树, it explains the sense of &lt;code&gt;小确幸&lt;/code&gt;, maybe could help you to understand how to use it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;生活の中に個人的な「小確幸」（小さいけれども、確かな幸福）を見出すためには、多かれ少なかれ自己規制みたいなものが必要とされる。たとえば我慢して激しく運動した後に飲むきりきり冷えたビールみたいなもので、「うーん、そうだ、これだ」と一人で目を閉じて思わずつぶやいてしまうような感興、それがなんといっても「小確幸」の醍醐味である。そしてそういった「小確幸」のない人生なんて、かすかすの砂漠のようなものにすぎないと僕は思うのだけれど。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【要找出生活中自己的&lt;code&gt;小确幸&lt;/code&gt;的话，多少需要一些类似自我约束的东西。比如自我忍耐激烈运动之后喝的清凉的冰镇啤酒，一个人闭上眼睛不知不觉地嘟囔出&quot;嗯，对了，就是这个&quot;的感觉，不管怎么说都是&lt;code&gt;小确幸&lt;/code&gt;的精髓。而且没有这种&lt;code&gt;小确幸&lt;/code&gt;的人生，我觉得不过就是干巴巴的沙漠罢了。】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.haruki-m.com/meigen/uzumaki.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.haruki-m.com/meigen/uzumaki.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%95%E3%81%95%E3%82%84%E3%81%8B%E3%81%A0%E3%81%91%E3%82%8C%E3%81%A9%E3%80%81%E5%BD%B9%E3%81%AB%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A4%E3%81%93%E3%81%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ささやかだけれど、役にたつこと&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_54589b000102dwtp.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;小确幸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/213814271.html?qbl=relate_question_0&amp;amp;word=%C9%FA%BB%EE%D6%D0%B5%C4%D0%A1%C8%B7%D0%D2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;小确幸 原文&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.douban.com/group/topic/37778998/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;村上的“小确幸”和我的“小确幸” / 林少华&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-07-20T02:54:09.777" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T02:54:09.777" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14331" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-19T04:08:22.887" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I understand the first part of this sentence, but sometimes Chinese surprises me completely, so I'd like to check. The text discusses 2 pilots who quit their jobs. Have I read it correctly, or completely wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;见两人去意已决，航空公司提出，10年间公司每年都送他们出国学习，分别花去培训费84.9万元和112.8万元。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;见两人去意已决 = see 2 people go-idea already decide &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= Seeing that the 2 pilots had already decided to go,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe better '见‘ here means 'being aware, aware, realizing, understanding'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really like the way Chinese can do this '去意‘, so condensed, so direct, if I understand it correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T04:08:27.823" Title="What is 去意 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14332" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14333" CreationDate="2015-07-19T10:34:15.987" Score="8" ViewCount="707" Body="&lt;p&gt;I encountered a misunderstanding today due to my poor Chinese language skill. What could I have done better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was standing in a German hospital and a native Chinese asked me if I wanted tea or coffee - both being offered by a third party, namely the hospital nurse, coming with a tray. I opted for coffee. She expressed the assumption that I didn't like drinking tea, so I felt forced to clarify what politeness would otherwise have kept me from saying. Tea (mostly Chinese tea) is very important for my family and  I delight in its preparation. I wanted to make clear that I can drink mediocre coffee but not mediocre tea. I used Chinese, to avoid the hospital people understanding the criticism of the tea. I said &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不喝這種茶（就是用茶包泡的茶）。對我來說茶不只是一個飲品而已，就是一個生活方式。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But she understood the exact opposite of what I meant. Only after saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我習慣了喝不怎麼樣的咖啡，就不能習慣喝不怎麼樣的茶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;did I manage to convey my message. What were my mistakes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2015-07-20T09:13:35.020" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T09:13:35.020" Title="Expressing &quot;tea is not just a drink&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14332" CreationDate="2015-07-19T11:34:35.637" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your Chinese counterpart got confused because you mentioned the importance of drinking tea as part of your lifestyle, yet refusing the tea she offered. Your subsequent clarification on your preference to drink mediocre coffee rather than mediocre tea helps clear the air.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could have expressed it unambiguously in this manner:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我对喝茶比较讲究，咖啡就好。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I am more particular with my tea; coffee will do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To further elaborate, then you say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;茶不只是一种饮品，对我而言，是一种生活方式。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T11:34:35.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14022" CreationDate="2015-07-19T13:04:44.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1: I’d read the 就 as a filler, because I’ve seen it written many times, also in texts with political or economic background.&#xA;It could also imply that what happens in this sentence is a consequence of what has been mentioned earlier in the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2: I read 为 and 针对 as separate words, but 为 and 而 belonging together: To get a certain result, you take certain measures. You could read the 为 as 为了, “in order to”, if that makes it clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3: You should read 发表了 分 内整 和 外扩 的两个方面 的建议: [the proposition] expressed suggestions concerning the separation of the two aspects of keeping the company in order internally, and expanding externally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4: 其目的为促使本公司在相应策略上能够与时并进: (simplified) translation: ...its goal being to urge this company to strategically keep up with the times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note: This Chinese sentence should not be translated into one English sentence.&#xA;Please also note that neither Chinese nor English are my native language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastEditorUserId="11341" LastEditDate="2015-07-20T06:22:50.603" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T06:22:50.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14335" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-19T17:09:03.310" Score="2" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;须发皆张&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;须 - Beard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发 - Hair&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;皆 - All&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张 - Spread/Open up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was directly translated, it would be something like &quot;[someone's] beard and hair all spread open&quot;, but what does that even mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't really imagine how the person would look, so would the person have hair and a beard that stood up, like how someone would after their hair was affected by static electricity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T18:34:28.320" Title="What does &quot;须发皆张&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2534" CreationDate="2015-07-19T17:27:47.563" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have posed this question to dozens of Chinese people. I think that copying their responses is against the community regulations, but I have observed several things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;女生&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this is always identified as Taiwanese it was never identified as offensive and was the best practical solution for me, because I could always point to my Taiwanese family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;姑娘&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seemed second best. Almost everyone called it provincial, but only few rejected it, claiming the Japanese used it discriminatingly. The rejectors were Notherners though. From 太原 and 北京。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;美女&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many older traditional people see this as very bad Chinese, but a connection to prostitution was only once explicitly stated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;小姐&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While many people defended it, this was criticised as relating to prostitutes more than any other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These results are  very different from what I thought when younger, namely: 姑娘 is the normal term and a girl might even use it talking about herself to people of equal status. 小姐 is the young miss from a noted family. 美女 is absolutely not a standard address and indicates intimate interest when used as one. I am very curious to know if this reflects the thinking before the cultural revolution, or just my world. I have created a question here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14337/%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90-and-similar-terms-before-the-cultural-revolution&quot;&gt;小姐 and similar terms before the cultural revolution&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T18:49:21.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14337" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14347" CreationDate="2015-07-19T17:42:42.323" Score="5" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have listened to a lot of controversy about the modern usage of 小姐 and similar terms. Here I just want to know whether what I thought as a child reflected the usage prior to the cultural revolution. The suspicion that it may be so is based on (my inferior understanding of) 崑曲 and on movie adaptations of 金庸。 in particular, my incomplete recollection suggests that the maidservant in 崑曲 frequently called the noble miss 小姐， while the miss never used the term for the maidservant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I thought was:&#xA;姑娘 is the normal term and a girl might even use it talking about herself to people of equal status. 小姐 is the young miss from a noted family. 美女 is absolutely not a standard address and indicates intimate interest when used as one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case this does not reflect the usage prior to the cultural revolution, but merely its portrayal in later works - like 射雕英雄傳 - I am very interested in evidence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2015-07-19T18:02:00.760" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T07:34:02.500" Title="小姐 and similar terms before the cultural revolution" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14022" CreationDate="2015-07-19T17:47:05.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Okay .... [takes a deep breath]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 in regard to the&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BLANK1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方案 plan,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;市场调查部 the Marketing Survey Department&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发表了 presented their&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BLANK2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;建议， suggestions;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其目的为  the goal of their suggestions is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;促使 to ensure that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本公司 THE COMPANY,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在相应策略上, as far as the relevant strategies are concerned&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能够 is able to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与时并进， keep pace with the times&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从而 and thus&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;提升 市场上的竞争力 increase their competitiveness in the market&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BLANK 1 describes a plan which was&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最近 recently&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拟定 formulated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 in order to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;针对 take account of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所作出的调整 the adjustments made&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在市场策略上 to marketing strategies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;of/by Quest公司,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对' specificially --&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以客户为主 customers as the key&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以雇员为本' employees as the base,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的方案 THAT plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BLANK 2 describes how the suggestion includes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;分 dividing the plan into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两个方面的 two parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;内整 internal consolidation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和 and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外扩 external expansion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In answer to the other parts of the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the sentence grammatical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This sentence should be taken outside and shot.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 就 mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Acc. to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?cond=%B4N&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;ukey=673120434&amp;amp;serial=1&amp;amp;recNo=61&amp;amp;op=f&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;教育部國語辭典&lt;/a&gt; 就 here is a preposition (coverb) that means: 依照。 如：「就事論事」、「就原來的規畫加以調整。」 I often translate as in regard to; this is an old habit, but surely other translations (based on?) would work too.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 為針對 mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;為 is a coverb that means in order to, 針對 is verbish creature that means to direct toward, to take into consideration. 國語辭典 gives a nice example: 「為了節省時間，請大家儘量針對問題來討論。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does '分内整' mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You've divided it wrong, its 分 | 内整 和 外扩 (两个方面)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does '其目的为促使本公司在相应策略上能够与时并进' mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;hopefully looking at the literal translation above will help answer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T02:48:48.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14335" CreationDate="2015-07-19T17:59:34.887" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;言未訖，只見關公口開目動，鬚髮皆張，操驚倒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before he had finished speaking, he looked at Lord Guan and saw: &#xA;His mouth was open, his eyes were starting,&#xA;His beard and hair were all bristling and crackling!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cao Cao was petrified with fear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T17:59:34.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14340" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14342" CreationDate="2015-07-19T19:59:19.523" Score="0" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen the phrase 自力更生 used to mean self-reliance, but am confused by what the function of the last 2 characters is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11206" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T20:38:23.737" Title="What does &quot;更生&quot; in &quot;自力更生&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14341" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14346" CreationDate="2015-07-19T20:17:26.730" Score="2" ViewCount="825" Body="&lt;p&gt;In all Cantonese romanization systems I could find, tone 4 is labelled the falling tone.  However according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freehongkong.net/cantonese-pronunciation-cantonese-tones/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.freehongkong.net/cantonese-pronunciation-cantonese-tones/&lt;/a&gt; Cantonese does not have a falling tone.  The author of that page has renumbered the tones so his tone 6 corresponds to tone 4.  He describes this tone as &quot;bottom flat&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When listening to people pronounce words in tone 4, I can clearly hear it as falling.  Is there any truth to the author's claim?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11206" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T03:03:39.773" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T03:56:16.890" Title="Does Cantonese have a falling tone?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14340" CreationDate="2015-07-19T20:38:23.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;更生 means on its own to revitalize, or to revive. In this context, 自力更生 idiomatically means &quot;revitalize through our own efforts&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of its usage is in the communist saying &quot;独立自主、自力更生&quot;. iCiba translates this as &quot;build socialism independently and with the initiative in our own hands and through self-reliance&quot; (which I find awkward, but it gets the point across). Ultimately, 更生 states that you're revitalizing something, in this case a country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T20:38:23.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14315" CreationDate="2015-07-19T20:51:06.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;今日:&#xA;Tends to be poetically used rather than day-to-day. It is still used, but usually in literature such as poetry, set phrases rather than on its own (like 今日晚间), or written documents and names (such as 今日新闻). It's used, but it's really not the most common choice of word for people on the mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天:&#xA;The most common; used in regular speech in modern Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本日:&#xA;I've only ever seen this used in Japanese, actually. 本日 is pronounced ほんじつ (honjitsu) in Japanese, and is a formal word for &quot;today&quot;, but it's never used in casual speech, only formal occasions such as in business. After a google search, it seems to be used in Chinese sparingly, and matches the pattern of 本年，本月，本日, but I've never seen it used in Chinese before today, only Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in reality I'd say there are only 2 that are actually used, and even of these, 今天 is the only one you really need to be using unless you have a reason not to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T20:51:06.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14315" CreationDate="2015-07-20T00:13:45.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;今天&quot; we use this most often, and when you put it with &quot;晚上&quot; you can say &quot;今晚&quot; which means this evening.&#xA;&quot;今日&quot; is more used in written Chinese and you can see this in newspaper, Tv programs. For example many TV channels in China have programs like &quot;今日新闻&quot;“今日热点”.&#xA;As to &quot;本日&quot;, I rarely hear this. But we use “本” on formal occasions sometimes, for example “本公司” “本人”&quot;本店&quot; which refers to &quot;our company&quot;&quot;myself&quot;“our store”. Hope this can be of some help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T00:13:45.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14345" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14383" CreationDate="2015-07-20T05:26:51.763" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1976840339&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;怎么在四川说话居然还会听不懂了&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宜宾话和很多四川其他地方的话有代沟的，比如去字，宜宾读kei成都以南大多读ji以北读qi网上读qie&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;广安人表示也都kei&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呵呵，就是，克耍。有些字眼他们真的不懂了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mala.cn/thread-37062-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;宜宾方言&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;出克：外出&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;克&lt;/strong&gt; seems to be the substitute character for &lt;code&gt;kei&lt;/code&gt; but is there a REAL character for this word? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T16:42:10.793" Title="Character: “Kei” For “To Go” (去) In Sichuanese" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14341" CreationDate="2015-07-20T06:18:49.373" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Standard Cantonese's 陽平 tone is definitely pronounced with a falling contour (21). &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=QWNj5Yj6_CgC&amp;amp;ots=0pP2_i-4zu&amp;amp;pg=PA144#v=onepage&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Modern Cantonese Phonology&lt;/em&gt; by Robert S. Bauer, p. 144&lt;/a&gt; appears to acknowledge, but did not find, a low-level contour for this tone though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For the Mid-Low Falling tone both Yuan (1983:181) and Zhan (1985:168) also recognized a variant low level contour of &lt;code&gt;˩11&lt;/code&gt; in addition to the mid-low to low falling contour of &lt;code&gt;˨˩21&lt;/code&gt;. However, analysis of the Mid-Low Falling tone contours produced by speakers in this study has not found such a low level variant contour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~francisa/Articles/Francis-etal_JPhon08.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Perceptual learning of Cantonese lexical tones by tone and non-tone language speakers&quot; by Francis et al. (2008)&lt;/a&gt; also measured the contours of the fundamental frequencies of each tone, and a definite falling contour was seen. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cantonese_tones.svg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This figure from Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; reproduces the contours found in that paper (refer to the line for tone 4, 時):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cantonese_tones.svg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iBLWs.png&quot; alt=&quot;Cantonese tones&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would try to avoid using the romanization scheme advocated in your link. It appears to reorganize the tones to make them appear more systematic than how they are actually pronounced. While that may help with learning the tones, it may introduce more confusion later, especially since it goes against the numbering scheme that all of the other Cantonese romanization schemes use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2015-07-20T06:28:45.827" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T06:28:45.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14337" CreationDate="2015-07-20T07:34:02.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically I think you are right, but it's a pretty complicated story. There is more than one use of 小姐, including title, term of address, and general noun. I think most of the discussion, including your comments, has been about the general noun, so I'll limit myself to that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, 小姐 could indeed mean 娼妓、歌女. This use goes back to at least the Song dynasty, according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?cond=%A4p%A9j%20&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;ukey=-1223770042&amp;amp;serial=3&amp;amp;recNo=2&amp;amp;op=f&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;教育部國語辭典&lt;/a&gt;  I have no idea if this use still exists. If it does, I'm willing to bet it's very limited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you say, 小姐 can also be a rich family's daughter. This goes back at least to the Ming dynasty (教育部國語辭典 again). It is still very common, I'm sure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This obviously can have some negative connotations. I don't know how long ago this started, but it's not recent; for example, in 茅盾's 1926 novel  幻灭, there is this sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她和王、赵二女士本是一月二日就到了汉口的。那时，她自觉满身是勇气，满眼是希望。她准备洗去娇养的小姐习惯，投身最革命的工作。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here 女士 is the general noun, 小姐 is little miss rich, and 娇养 is of course not good. I'm sure 小姐 here is not a prostitute!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You prefer 姑娘 as a general noun for a young woman, yes? But 姑娘 does not appear in 茅盾's book. Instead he uses 女士. My father-in-law was like you; he used 姑娘, and he was from 山東. It may be a northern thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A note about Taiwan, which other people seemed uncertain about. In Taiwan, 小姐 is the standard form of address to a woman, young or even middle-aged, when you don't know her name.  You talk to the waitress, the bank teller, the woman who answers the phone, anyone who you don't know her name or status, and this is the word; it is the female equivalent of 先生 in ordinary conversation. It is the only polite general noun I know of.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You said 美女 doesn't work for you. Same thing in Taiwan: 美女 is a beautiful woman; a looker, a knockout.  If you call a woman 美女, you'd better know her pretty well.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T07:34:02.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14327" CreationDate="2015-07-20T08:14:38.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, it was a term related to 文青 (abbr of 文藝青年; literary and artistic youths) bacause it's from the work of Haruki Murakami that is famous in Taiwan. However now it's also a ironic term for those who just persue their own happiness instead of facing the present social problem or being competitive. [eg. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.businessweekly.com.tw/KBlogArticle.aspx?ID=8015&amp;amp;pnumber=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.businessweekly.com.tw/KBlogArticle.aspx?ID=8015&amp;amp;pnumber=1&lt;/a&gt; &quot;只要能養活2,300萬人就好！害死台灣的「小確幸」思維&quot; (from Business Weekly)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11357" LastEditorUserId="11357" LastEditDate="2015-07-20T08:27:39.723" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T08:27:39.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14349" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-20T09:06:47.390" Score="2" ViewCount="747" Body="&lt;p&gt;What Chinese idioms or sayings (哪条成语或者俗语) can be used to express the following?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything can be appreciated, when its own context is taken in consideration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T05:24:15.893" Title="Chinese words for &quot;everything can be viewed from a positive side&quot;" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14350" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14353" CreationDate="2015-07-20T11:07:06.293" Score="4" ViewCount="789" Body="&lt;p&gt;While lying in the hospital, I am thinking about 唐詩。 Particularly about this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   多情卻似總無情， &#xA;　　惟覺樽前笑不成。 &#xA;　　蠟燭有心還惜別， &#xA;　　替人垂淚到天明&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I can more or less understand it, but I have no idea what 惟覺 means. My incomplete and ugly translation (only for showing I don't come here without trying) is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Full of, affection, yet appearing unconcerned,&#xA;.... Laughter does not come out, in front of the wine cups&#xA;Candles, too, have a heart and grieve in parting,&#xA;They cry till dusk in people's stead.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a word play with 燈芯?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T09:01:51.667" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T09:01:51.667" Title="What does 惟覺 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14350" CreationDate="2015-07-20T11:48:02.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means 只覺得- &quot;I just feel unable to be happy even when presented with a drinking glass.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T11:48:02.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14350" CreationDate="2015-07-20T12:04:51.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;惟 is auxiliary word, used at start of sentence, to make it read better, especially in a poem or idiom. My own understanding is that it emphasises the sentence a bit as well, since it normally means &quot;only&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;覺 means &quot;feel&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First two sentences mean: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Feelings are too strong to express out and it appears there are no feelings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One feels that one can't even make up a smiley face when drinking (at the leaving party)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T12:04:51.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14350" CreationDate="2015-07-20T12:20:23.670" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think  無情 is not &quot;unconcerned&quot;, especially with the 總 there; more like &quot;as if there had never been anything between us&quot; (好像我們彼此從來沒有過半分戀情)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惟覺 = 只覺，但覺 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a little bit like German doch, indicates an attitude, very hard to express in English. a little bit 無奈, perhaps? resigned sorrow; but put that in a translation and its spoiled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Now that we're sitting with wine glasses in front of us, I find that I can't even manage a smile.&quot;  Just a sentence, not poetry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that 心/芯 is the pun intended.  But since wick and heart are not homonyms in English, I'm stuck.  A truly tough poem to translate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T12:20:23.670" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14350" CreationDate="2015-07-20T13:41:20.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sounds like Leonard Cohen in Chinese! Da du anscheinend im deutschen Krankenhaus weilst, hab' ich es verdeutscht, jedenfalls, versucht!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多情却似总无情，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentimental, but seemingly heartless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentimental, doch gefühlskalt erscheinend,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惟觉樽前笑不成&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;only finding solace in the bottle will not do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trost nur aus der Flasche bringt es nicht,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蜡烛有心还惜别&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the candle, considerately, still burns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Die Kerze, rücksichtsvoll, brennt noch， &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;替人垂泪到天明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;substituting my tears till daybreak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ersetzt meine Tränen bis der Dämmerung.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gute Besserung!&#xA;Get well soon!&#xA;早日康复！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T13:41:20.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14350" CreationDate="2015-07-20T16:55:47.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;惟覺 are two words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惟 is short for 惟有 - only&lt;br&gt;&#xA;覺 is short for 感觉 - a feeling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《赠别》- 杜牧&lt;br&gt;&#xA;多情却似总无情，唯觉樽前笑不成。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;蜡烛有心还惜别，替人垂泪到天明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempt to translate the poem:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Passionate but seems always emotionless.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Even with a goblet in front would not help bring any laughter.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Candle has heart, reluctant to part.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Weeping till dawn - for the separated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="878" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T16:55:47.770" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-07-20T16:55:47.770" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14356" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14365" CreationDate="2015-07-20T17:16:40.093" Score="4" ViewCount="1681" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to say &quot;This dog,&quot; you'd say, &quot;这只狗&quot;. If you want to say &quot;This thing,&quot; you'd say, &quot;这个东西&quot;. If you want to say, &quot;This much,&quot; you'd say, &quot;这么多&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the reasons for the 只 and the 个, but what does the 么 really mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T06:38:49.070" Title="What is the meaning of 么?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14356" CreationDate="2015-07-20T18:49:55.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;么 means ”small”, and is cognate to 幺 (yāo: one, insignificant). The full confusion will be understood by how 麽 and 麼 are used in Taiwan and the mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T18:49:55.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14358" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-20T20:19:22.743" Score="2" ViewCount="492" Body="&lt;p&gt;怎么用见怪不怪? 请给我一个例子。谢谢！&#xA;Could I use this idiom do describe another culture that once seemed foreign? Also, does the idiom have good or bad connotations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11373" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T02:05:35.443" Title="In what context would I use 见怪不怪?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14358" CreationDate="2015-07-20T21:02:26.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means 'to get used to something unusual', 'to get to bear something unbearable'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E8%A7%81%E6%80%AA%E4%B8%8D%E6%80%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;iciba.com&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在警队呆了40年后，我对什么都见怪不怪了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 40 years in the police, nothing shocks me anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-07-20T21:15:06.907" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T21:15:06.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14358" CreationDate="2015-07-21T00:09:08.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt; uses the word &lt;em&gt;inured&lt;/em&gt;, which should give you an idea of the negative connotations attached to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;not be surprised by anything unusual&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对腐败见怪不怪, 腐败就难以根除。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we become inured to corruption, we won't be able to wipe it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Adsotrans&lt;/strong&gt; defines it as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; to be totally jaded&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is a good way of understanding the feelings behind 见怪不怪.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example sentence from a Chinese Chengyu dictionary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的行为开始令人觉得怪异,但时间一长,人们也就见怪不怪了｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His behavior made people feel most peculiar, but after a while, everyone stopped seeming to notice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T02:05:35.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14356" CreationDate="2015-07-21T04:06:43.123" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Agree to Drunken Master, just a suffix here.&#xA;怎～。这～。多～。什～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has no meaning, just sounds better.&#xA;I think &quot;so much&quot; is closer to &quot;这么多&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11368" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T04:06:43.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14363" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-21T05:12:27.167" Score="3" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Hanyu Wailaici Cidian (Dictionary of Chinese Loanwords), &lt;em&gt;bóshì&lt;/em&gt; (博士) with the modern sense &quot;doctor&quot; is derived from the Japanese &lt;em&gt;hakushi&lt;/em&gt;, which in turn is of &quot;Ancient Chinese&quot; (古代汉语) origin. I'm aware that the Japanese have coined many terms to translate Western concepts, many of which are actually ancient Chinese terms that are assigned new meanings. But I'm puzzled with the concept of &quot;Ancient Chinese&quot;. What kind of Chinese was that? Was it &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt;, or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt; as Wikipedia suggests? I doubt that a disyllabic word like 博士 was coined during the times of these languages, because I've read that they were highly monosyllabic. Also, Middle Chinese was only spoken around the 10th century and earlier, so what are later stages of Chinese called? Is it possible that the Japanese employed words like 博士 or 文化 from those stages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11377" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T17:30:02.473" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T20:50:58.507" Title="How is 古代汉语 defined?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;&lt;middle-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14356" CreationDate="2015-07-21T05:40:47.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 这么多 it can mean a very generic measuring &quot;much&quot; with 多 meaning a counting &quot;numerous&quot; (for counting countable and uncountable things). So you are really saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How (much) numerous?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T05:40:47.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14356" CreationDate="2015-07-21T06:23:32.107" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;么 has lost most of its lexical meaning in modern usage, but it appears to have originally been derived from the word 物, meaning 'thing'. &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=wOPArZVCk-wC&amp;amp;ots=pqrkaAWm6z&amp;amp;pg=PA119#v=onepage&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt; by Jerry Norman, pp. 119-20&lt;/a&gt; makes mention of the etymology of various modern words featuring 么:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In an insightful article, Zhāng Hùiyīng (1982) has shown that &lt;em&gt;shénme&lt;/em&gt; 什么, the standard modern word for 'what', comes from &lt;em&gt;shí wù&lt;/em&gt; 什物 (MC &lt;em&gt;źjəp mjuət&lt;/em&gt;). This form (in a number of different phonological shapes) makes its first appearance in the Tang dynasty. &lt;em&gt;Shí wù&lt;/em&gt; 什物 originally meant 'vessels, household utensils, things (of various sorts)'. The development of a interrogative meaning 'what' from a meaning 'thing' finds a parallel in modern Italian, where &lt;em&gt;cosa&lt;/em&gt; 'thing' is also used to mean 'what'. ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Regarding 'how'...] In the late Tang and Wudai periods, a different form begins to be found; it consists of the verb &lt;em&gt;zuò&lt;/em&gt; 作 (MC &lt;em&gt;tsuo-&lt;/em&gt;) plus one of several variants of the morpheme meaning 'thing, what' discussed in relation to the origins of modern &lt;em&gt;shénme&lt;/em&gt; 什么 ... In the Wudai period, a fusion word &lt;em&gt;zěn&lt;/em&gt; 怎 (from an earlier &lt;em&gt;*zěm&lt;/em&gt;) based on these forms appears for the first time. It is this fusion form that is directly ancestral to the modern &lt;em&gt;zěnme&lt;/em&gt; 怎么 'how'. &lt;em&gt;Zhème&lt;/em&gt; 这么 'in this way' and &lt;em&gt;nàme&lt;/em&gt; 那么 'in that way' were probably analogically based on this form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The article by Zhāng Hùiyīng 张惠英 referenced in that excerpt refers to an article entitled 释「什么」in《中国语文》1982年第4期, pp. 302-5. I wasn't easily able to obtain a copy of that article though.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;MC in that excerpt refers to how the words were pronounced in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (ca. 600-1000 AD).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it's interesting that 么 in these words was derived from a word meaning 'thing', it's essentially a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bound_morpheme&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;bound morpheme&lt;/a&gt; that is no longer &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_(linguistics)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;productive&lt;/a&gt; and can't be used on its own. In effect, its modern usage doesn't have any particular meaning in practice. In many ways, it could be considered a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranberry_morpheme&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;cranberry morpheme&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T06:38:49.070" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T06:38:49.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12381" CreationDate="2015-07-21T06:33:22.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're wanting to use the two, others' explanations are correct, and here are some tips to add to the picture. 地點 is a somewhat formal word that is used nearly interchangeably with most other words for &quot;place,&quot; though it is rarely used in casual conversation. You'll typically encounter it in literature and news, that is, written mediums. It sounds very &quot;dictionary&quot; in tone: &quot;某個地點&quot; is a common example you'll see. Encyclopedic, scientific sounding writing will prefer 地點 over some of the &quot;place&quot; alternatives for its formality.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;現場 is not very related in meaning as others have made clear. It requires some context around it usually, as you'll see an example given was not just any scene but a &quot;crime scene.&quot; Using 現場 without some matching context that specifies the &quot;scene&quot; it's referring to is uncommon. A great word to know for 現場 is 現場直播. Literally has a &quot;live stream/on the air&quot; kind of meaning but also is used as slang for PDA (public display of affection). I find this makes this word hard to forget.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11337" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T06:33:22.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14328" CreationDate="2015-07-21T06:34:13.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;便宜&lt;/code&gt; has 4 meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1)便宜&#xA;  bian4yi2&#xA;  [convenient] 便当,合宜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2)便宜&#xA;  pian2yi&#xA;  [small advantages] 小利益&#xA;  得点儿小便宜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(3)便宜&#xA;  pian2yi&#xA;  [let sb. off lightly] 使某人得到宽恕&#xA;  不能便宜了他&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(4)便宜&#xA;  pian2yi&#xA;  [cheap] 花费很少,尤指与现行价格或实际价值相比较时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2nd is related to &lt;code&gt;占便宜&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;占便宜&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;zhan4 pian2yi&#xA;(1)[gain extra advantage by unfair means]∶用不正当的方法,得到非分的好处&#xA;(2)[advantage]∶比喻有优越的条件.example:他个子高,打篮球占便宜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;占人家便宜&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;In my opinion it has 2 meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[take some thing/profit dosnot belong to you]因为他给你算错账，所以你是占人家便宜了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[some sort of molestation towards a woman]不要因为姑娘漂亮就占人家便宜。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you passively see or touch a women also can called &lt;code&gt;占人家便宜&lt;/code&gt;. 他只是想扶她一下，没想到却扶到了胸上，占了人家便宜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11368" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T06:34:13.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13999" CreationDate="2015-07-21T16:03:40.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a native speaker, but I am answering, because I feel the previous answers explain the development of the character 兩 and not why it become popular. &lt;strong&gt;Native speakers please correct me. My knowledge is very limited&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Armfoot has already explained the advantage of having different words for &quot;pair&quot; and ordinal &quot;two&quot;. It remains to show why 兩 replaced 二 even in cases where it does not mean pair. From watching 武俠連續劇 it appears that in the past expressions like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;二位姑娘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;were the norm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My naive hypothesis&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the development of vernacular Chinese 個 become the most common measure word. People felt that 兩個 was smoother to articulate than 二個。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be absolutely clear, even for me it is trivial to say 二個，二個，二個。But 兩個 seems smoother. Just like the 一 in 一個 shifts to second tone for better flow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T22:29:51.943" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T22:29:51.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8516" CreationDate="2015-07-21T20:32:47.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To OP user5892,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong Cantonese is very different from mainland Cantonese as the two regions have been separate for at least 160+ years. Little exchanged happened, especially when Communists party gained control of mainland China and sealed itself off from the rest of the world since the 1940's. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong served as the most significant port for trade in Asia and the West.  As a British colony it was the center of trade amongst Britain, British colonies. Hong Kong's language became the fastest evolving language in the world (perhaps still is) as the largest port in the Eastern hemisphere and perhaps the world. Vocabulary from different parts of the world seeped in and integrated into the local language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A trip I took at one time into mainland Cantonese area gave me trouble communicating with the locals. The difference in Hong Kong Cantonese and Mainland Cantonese was vast enough that every few sentences need clarification. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Language reflect the development of the society and Hong Kong cantonese reflected the unique culture that exists in Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11382" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T20:32:47.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14363" CreationDate="2015-07-21T20:50:58.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;古代汉语 is everything that is not 现代汉语. More precisely, we have 上古汉语 (Old Chinese: Oracle bones, Warring states, Qin; Classical Chinese: Spring and autumn, Han）, 中古汉语 (Middle Chinese: Tang, Song) and 近代汉语 (mostly late Qing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;博士 was coined in the Warring states period, according to zdic.net. Disyllabic words have always existed, although the ideal used to be monosyllabic word characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T20:50:58.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14349" CreationDate="2015-07-22T06:08:59.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;凡事多往好的方面想。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by Zedong Mao （毛泽东）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11385" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T06:08:59.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14374" CreationDate="2015-07-22T07:25:40.467" Score="2" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because of one of the languages I grew up with, I have a strong desire to avoid using 我, especially when something follows that could constitute praise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am always conscious that my language skill and brush writing are terrible, but everyone seems to expect that I have some skill. Especially in such context I want to use a word that indicates I am aware of my shortcoming. Until now I usually chose 不才。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, in a lot of set phrases I use 在下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在下以為&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在下的意思是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在下陸迪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that there are many alternatives. My 茶友 used 鄙人， my Cantonese friend always uses 某人 and I have seen 本人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please elaborate on which one I should use, ideally with examples? I don't care if these all sound extremely old fashioned, as long as they don't sound 虛偽。But my low skill is apparent, so 虛偽 should not be a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are differences for men and women, please teach me those, too. I especially want to know about the men, because most of my friends are ladies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T14:05:57.577" Title="Comparing forms of humble self reference" Tags="&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14349" CreationDate="2015-07-22T12:52:13.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to offer songyuanyao's suggestion(s) in a comment as an actual answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;塞翁失马&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (or)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  塞翁失马，焉知非福&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason being that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To a native English speaker, the OP's description perfectly matches the English expression &quot;Every dark cloud has a silver lining&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At least some online dictionaries offer this Chinese phrase and this English phrase as equivalents of each other.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese is explained well &lt;a href=&quot;http://qr.ae/RGfQO7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;by Moyu Ge on Quora&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Near China's northern borders lived a man well versed in the practices of Taoism. His horse, for no reason at all, got into the territory of the northern tribes. Everyone commiserated with him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Perhaps this will soon turn out to be a blessing,&quot; said his father.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After a few months, his animal came back, leading a fine horse from the north. Everyone congratulated him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Perhaps this will soon turn out to be a cause of misfortune,&quot; said his father.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Since he was well-off and kept good horses his son became fond of riding and eventually broke his thigh bone falling from a horse. Everyone commiserated with him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Perhaps this will soon turn out to be a blessing,&quot; said his father.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One year later, the northern tribes started a big invasion of the border regions. All able-bodied young men took up arms and fought against the invaders, and as a result, around the border nine out of ten men died. This man's son did not join in the fighting because he was crippled and so both the boy and his father survived.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cidianwang.com/cy/s/saiwengshimayanzhifeifu19928.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;cidianwang&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chengyu.xpcha.com/7f0g89e5rtx.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;xpcha&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://qr.ae/RGfQO7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;quora&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-07-22T13:53:05.410" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T13:53:05.410" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14372" CreationDate="2015-07-22T14:05:57.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to use 謙稱 with &lt;em&gt;accuracy&lt;/em&gt;, you'll have to learn how to use 尊稱 too! You can't have the yin with the yang. Learning all this is a big job, with not much payoff, except a reputation for nice writing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're determined to try, be wary of all internet stuff; I found one sort of okay thing from Hong Kong's Civil Service Bureau &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.csb.gov.hk/hkgcsb/ol/news/no31/p05_8.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also books on 應用文 in Taiwan; these focus on various types of 'applied writing': letters, invitations, minutes, notices, etc. They include a lot you probably don't want to mess with.  There are a few old handbooks of letter writing I've seen around, look for titles like '尺牘大全'. I know of ONE book in English: &quot;Business and correspondence Chinese : an introduction&quot;, by Liang, Haft, and Mulder. Good luck on finding it. There is also a technical study by 曹湘洪: 当代汉语私人书信称谓, 起始及结束语社会语言学硏究 alas, for sociolinguists, not epistolarians. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, most modern writing that tries to use 謙稱/尊稱 winds up sounding like an American actor in a British costume period piece. If you just want to have fun, go ahead, just be aware you might wind up sounding even funnier than you want to.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also feel that in this case, Wikipedia is not a reliable source. The article on Chinese Honorifics mushes together generic terms with highly specific terms, all taken from dynasties randomly scattered across Chinese history, throws up etymologies without any sources, and ends by explaining that to use 老子, meaning &quot;I, your dad&quot; is a way of &quot;referring to oneself as superior&quot;; hence, &quot;when used towards a person less well known or on formal occasions, both terms are considered to be incredibly rude.&quot; Yep, Chinese are pretty subtle people...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T14:05:57.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13999" CreationDate="2015-07-22T17:27:22.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use 两for easier pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10952" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T17:27:22.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14376" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-22T20:25:25.087" Score="0" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google Translate outputs for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;兄弟鬩牆，二&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the following: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Clash between the brothers.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it is naive to try machine translation for guessing the meaning, but can somebody help me get Chinese counterpart for the word Clash in the source phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE: here are two texts containing this phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;熱血時報|大香港早晨(347)湯家驊退黨辭職 早過公民黨執政/田氏兄弟鬩牆，二少望脫離大哥陰影/梁文道挑機撩筆戰，陶傑以「不回應」去「回應」/國泰服務澳牛化？&lt;a href=&quot;http://t.co/qWS7mBNd76&quot;&gt;http://t.co/qWS7mBNd76&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;【大香港早晨】第347集：湯家驊退黨辭職 早過公民黨執政/田氏兄弟鬩牆，二少望脫離大哥陰影/梁文道挑機撩筆戰，陶傑以「不回應」去「回應」/國泰服務澳牛化？節目連結&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11390" LastEditorUserId="11390" LastEditDate="2015-07-23T19:45:03.330" LastActivityDate="2015-07-23T19:45:03.330" Title="Clash of brothers?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14376" CreationDate="2015-07-22T20:37:47.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;阋墙 is a bit bookish. 冲突 is more common to describe a clash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T20:37:47.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14376" CreationDate="2015-07-22T20:42:19.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;兄弟之战 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.igg.clashoflords2tw&amp;amp;hl=zh-TW&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Clash of Lords&lt;/a&gt; goes by the name 领主之战, so 之战 is acceptable or even preferrable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T20:42:19.620" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3373" CreationDate="2015-07-22T21:59:46.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am Chinese. I can feel some mistakes in the previous answers &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Sentence-final particles can be very hard to English speakers, because they never exist in English.&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;我们去吃饭吧 - Normal suggestion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们去吃饭啦 - To inform(the listener is excluded. May be past aspect), with some little sense of happiness. Equivalent to 了啊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们去吃饭喽 - More happiness, even some exciting, comparing to 啦. Present aspect only&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们去吃饭耶 - feel very happy about the (going to) dining&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only long-term immersion can make you master these sentence-final particles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11391" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T21:59:46.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14380" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-23T04:23:23.510" Score="0" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard pronunciation of this is nèiróng. However, I often hear (and sometimes myself pronounce, especially when speaking quickly) it as nèiyǒng (perhaps closer to a neutral tone on yong). Is this part of a larger phenomenon? Are there any similar sound changes in other words, where the second character's consonant is &quot;softened&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4204" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T01:53:48.437" Title="Pronunciation of 内容" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14381" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14410" CreationDate="2015-07-23T05:24:33.530" Score="1" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.docin.com/p-738260200.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;邛崃方言&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hMN8F.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hMN8F.png&quot; alt=&quot;niang1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character used here to represent ‘niang’ is 娘 but that obviously can't be the etymologically correct character for the above meanings (i.e.: what, how, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Etymologically Correct Character For The Sichuanese ‘niang’ Meaning &quot;What&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-07-25T06:46:52.503" Title="Etymologically Correct Character For The Sichuanese ‘niang’ Meaning &quot;What&quot;" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14381" CreationDate="2015-07-23T07:10:33.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a partially supported theory. I hope someone comes up with better evidence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The closest translation of &lt;code&gt;什么&lt;/code&gt; into 成都话 is &lt;code&gt;啥(子) = sa˩˧ tsɿ˥˧&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I believe that the &lt;code&gt;娘&lt;/code&gt; in question is actually &lt;code&gt;哪&lt;/code&gt; in a certain context. For evidence, I give the following example. &lt;code&gt;怎样&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;哪个样(子) = naŋ˥˧ ko˩˧ iaŋ˩˧ tsɿ˥˧&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't have the foggiest clue why &lt;code&gt;哪&lt;/code&gt; is only in some circumstances pronounced &lt;code&gt;naŋ˥˧&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My source is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://vdisk.weibo.com/s/cUXWC5uPRE9X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;freely&quot; available copy&lt;/a&gt; of 汉语方言词汇. Note that it's not searchable and is therefore somewhat tedious to use. I don't speak any variety of 四川话 and I have not found corroborating resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2015-07-23T07:10:33.303" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14345" CreationDate="2015-07-23T07:14:13.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Claw says, 去 &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; the historical character for it. This could come from 文白异读, that is, literary/colloquial readings. That would make sense, because colloquial readings are often either more innovative, or are a throwback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option would be borrowing it from another variety, e.g. Cantonese &lt;em&gt;keoi&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11398" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2015-07-24T16:42:10.793" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T16:42:10.793" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14384" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14719" CreationDate="2015-07-23T07:15:39.860" Score="1" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate 'operational' and 'strategic' in Chinese?&#xA;The best match I've found is '操作' and '战略', but would they be correct in a phrase like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Operational and strategic business decisions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Context the word pair to be used in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;BI can be used to support a wide range of business decisions ranging from operational to strategic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2015-07-24T05:44:47.060" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T05:26:04.257" Title="Translate 'operational' and 'strategic' in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="746" CreationDate="2015-07-23T07:24:56.133" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zombie thread!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Wu dialect (in Zhejiang), this is pronounced as an almost exact transliteration of 'cigar' (like pinyin xiega, but with a short vowel on the first syllable). Several other transcriptions are also from Wu, coming through the Shanghai foreign port, such as &lt;em&gt;jacket&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11398" LastActivityDate="2015-07-23T07:24:56.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14384" CreationDate="2015-07-23T08:34:48.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by &quot;operational&quot;.  I've often heard a distinction made between &quot;strategic&quot; and &quot;tactical&quot; decion-making.  If you are looking for that kind of distinction, 操作 may not be a good choice. One way I've heard people try to express it is 策略 and 戰術. It doesn't feel very natural to me, but in some cases it might work: 布局要有策略，進攻要有戰術 or something like that.  Have you tried looking in 孫子兵法? Bet he has some way of expressing this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-07-23T10:58:44.433" LastActivityDate="2015-07-23T10:58:44.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14384" CreationDate="2015-07-23T17:56:19.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks to @S.Rhee, I've found an answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;作战 - operational (in context of time)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;战略 - strategic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it was mentioned by @MasterSparkles 作战 has military tingle, so perhaps it's not good to use in business context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2015-07-24T05:42:02.260" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T05:42:02.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14388" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14398" CreationDate="2015-07-23T20:38:39.643" Score="0" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have got the following text labelled as negative. Could you please point to what would (lexically, syntactically) contribute to negative emotion here? Is it sarcastic in any way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;#LE CREUSET#全球獨家發售首個粉紫色花形琺瑯鑄鐵鍋-只限於國泰航空之「非凡精選」府上送貨服務中獨家發售&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11390" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T01:22:04.120" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T01:22:04.120" Title="What contributes to negative emotion / sentiment in this example?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2015-07-24T20:50:59.660" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14384" CreationDate="2015-07-23T20:42:50.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a business context, 作战 seems inappropriate for &amp;quot;operational&amp;quot;, unless you are really wanting that military tinge.  I would suggest 业务 as a counterpoint to 战略 as in the following from &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E6%88%98%E7%95%A5%E7%AE%A1%E7%90%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/战略管理&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;业务层战略着眼于企业中某一具体业务单元的市场和竞争状况，相对于总体战略有一定的独立性，同时又是企业战略体系的组成部分。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An operations-level strategy focuses on the market and competitive status of a certain, specific operational unit within the enterprise, and has a certain indepdence vis-a-vis an overall strategy, while at the same time forming a part of the enterprise's strategic apparatus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-23T20:42:50.750" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14390" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-23T21:21:54.773" Score="1" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a meet you (singular), I say &quot;你好&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I meet you (plural), shall I say &quot;你们好&quot;, instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T03:17:13.400" Title="Say hallo to many people: 你好 or 你们好?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-07-24T06:33:33.490" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14390" CreationDate="2015-07-23T21:39:18.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;大家好 is more common, methinks. 你好 is more for personal interaction, and not very common in group settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-07-23T21:39:18.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14380" CreationDate="2015-07-24T01:33:08.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, initials can be affected by what comes before and after them. One example is the secondary voicing that occurs when the normally voiceless stops of Mandarin come between two vowels; for example, 爸爸 baba, written in close IPA transcription, supposedly should be /paba/, rather than /papa/.  The second bilabial stop comes between two vowels and as a result becomes voiced.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, however, this does not seem to be the case. r- is one of the retroflex initials; to pronounce it as IPA /j/ means it has lost its retroflexion, so you are alternating between retroflex and non-retroflex.  This is not a regular phonetic process in Mandarin. Instead, many guanhua dialects do not have the retroflex initials; these speakers learn them later, and are prone to drop them in a variety of situations.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also the case in the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan （台灣國語）, and I tend to drop retroflexion  myself, especially if I am talking fast, as you describe. I don't think it really matters if you drop it occasionally, as long as you can still remember which words have r- and which words have y- to begin with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T01:33:08.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14380" CreationDate="2015-07-24T01:53:48.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't agree wpt's answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker and most of people won't pronounce &lt;code&gt;nèiyǒng&lt;/code&gt; unless you speak very very very fast(this phenomenon will happen on many many Chinese words). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for mandarin, it is considered as non-standard pronunciation, you should avoid such pronunciation in formal condition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in my hometown and many other places, people speak dialect will have such pronunciation. They can not pronounce retroflex correctly cause they have speak &lt;code&gt;r&lt;/code&gt; as other pronunciation for many years. Even they do know the correct pronunciation, the habit let them not pronounce &lt;code&gt;r&lt;/code&gt;. And this maybe also change some other characters' pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At last, the pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;r&lt;/code&gt; could be many changes. For example, the &lt;code&gt;热&lt;/code&gt;'s pronunciation is &lt;code&gt;rè&lt;/code&gt;. But in &lt;code&gt;Shaanxi dialect&lt;/code&gt;, it becomes &lt;code&gt;nè&lt;/code&gt; not &lt;code&gt;yè&lt;/code&gt;. But the mandarin's pronunciation must be &lt;code&gt;rè&lt;/code&gt; regardless of how dialect pronounce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8141" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T01:53:48.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14390" CreationDate="2015-07-24T03:17:13.400" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may also use: 诸位好！or 各位好! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be more, Chinese has a lot of ways to express things!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T03:17:13.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14395" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-24T04:30:45.360" Score="1" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to translate this in the context of 基腐头条, I understand the meaning - the 基 is referring to gay (men) and 腐 is a shortened version of 腐女, 'rotten girls' or 'females interested in gay culture.' It is just hard to find a succinct translation that provides all of this cultural context... Suggestions?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11057" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-14T01:28:00.487" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T01:28:00.487" Title="How would I translate the two morphemes 基腐 together?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14395" CreationDate="2015-07-24T04:54:05.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't believe an established, succinct English translation exists yet. I would try to translate as 'BL &amp;amp; Fandom' or 'BL &amp;amp; Fans'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 基, I would prefer to use words like Boy Love/&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yaoi&lt;/a&gt; over gay/homosexual to convey the romantic and fantasized view of male homosexual in 腐 culture. I also couldn't find any better translation for 腐女 than BL fans. Hence 基腐 can be shorted to 'BL &amp;amp; Fans'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T04:54:05.143" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14395" CreationDate="2015-07-24T06:45:05.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an article in Wikipedia called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fag_hag&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;fag-hag&lt;/a&gt; that has a number of phrases you might consider. Apologies if this reference is offensive; sounds quite insulting to me too, but that's what the Wikipedia article is titled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T06:45:05.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14388" CreationDate="2015-07-24T08:09:44.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The text seems to describe this pot:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Xm95.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Xm95.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to second Ringil's suggestion that your source considers such pots stupid, and so the source takes the text to be sarcastic.  It is a semantic issue rather than lexical or syntactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-07-24T08:24:55.417" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T08:24:55.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14399" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-24T08:46:01.153" Score="1" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my text I have 2 sentences with 属地化。‘属地化管理’ is a phrase which can be easily found in 百度。 Does it have more connotations than 'regional management'? '属地‘ seems to mean 'dependency', as in a region which is dependent on a geographically separate area, such as a colony， so it has more meaning than '地区‘ or '区域性’. Is it ok to translate '属地化‘ just as 'regional'？ I suppose 'regional management' implies an overarching 'central management'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于是我们开始按照全新的属地化原则来管理海外市场， 也就是说，我们每到一地， 除了财务管理有集团外拍人员控制外，市场建设和网络维护人员均从当地招聘产生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;属地化的人才建立以后，集团的市场开拓出现了怎样的局面？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于是我们开始按照全新的属地化原则来管理海外市场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, we began to manage our overseas markets according to the new 'regional management principle', ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;属地化的人才建立以后&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After having set up regional personnel,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T12:13:26.213" Title="How should I translate 属地化？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14399" CreationDate="2015-07-24T10:23:44.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an article on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E5%B1%9E%E5%9C%B0%E5%8E%9F%E5%88%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;属地原则&lt;/a&gt; at 互动百科. It seems to be some variation of the territoriality principle, but that's public international law, and I've found several places where it's used to talk about regional versus national authority. Hard to say how to translate if Chinese has adapted a word to its own purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Dang! Second paragraph got chopped off, added below; also a comment on the correct translation given in the comments above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you add a 化 -ize, 属地化 would apparently mean something like 'territorialize', definitely no colonial implications though. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2474826.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;属地化管理&lt;/a&gt; article at 百度 gives a bunch of odd definitions, including the transfer of geological surveys from the State Council to the provincial level, or the transfer of &amp;quot;family management&amp;quot; responsibilities to local authorities for the &amp;quot;mobile population&amp;quot;.  None of this fits in very well with the examples given, which all involve overseas business.  Would &amp;quot;territorially based management&amp;quot; work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Localized management&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As  user3306356 notes above, &amp;quot;localized management&amp;quot; is the correct translation. Quite interesting; &amp;quot;Localized management&amp;quot; on google leads to articles on control  of white-tailed deer, sinus and prostate problems, and apparently some kind of server-network controls. &amp;quot;Localization management&amp;quot; is mixed up with these, but that's all about translating stuff for international businesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When &amp;quot;localized management&amp;quot; in a business context does turn up, most of the references are to Chinese sources.  This looks like a case where Chinese has managed to establish a new usage in English. Can anyone find &amp;quot;localized management&amp;quot; in business that is not from China based sources?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T12:13:26.213" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14401" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14402" CreationDate="2015-07-24T11:00:14.920" Score="12" ViewCount="1038" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, in the middle of a sentence if data is being left blank (such as an unknown date, or a name to be filled in at a later time), commonly you see ???, ___ (underscore(s)), or -- to mark this. You can see examples in books such as Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, where the year is always indicated as 18--, hiding the last two digits. In Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal (although not the most formal example of language), your rival was called ??? until you named him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Japanese and Korean, 〇〇 (or simply 〇 at times, though this is easy to confuse with 0 in Japanese) is used to mark &quot;something&quot; in that place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, what is/are the most common ways to suggest that data is missing or incomplete?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorUserId="10955" LastEditDate="2015-07-25T16:45:31.710" LastActivityDate="2015-07-25T16:45:31.710" Title="How are blanks indicated for placeholders in Chinese (like ???)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14401" CreationDate="2015-07-24T12:22:41.627" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally putting XX is fine unless formal. People use that a lot orally. X is usually pronounced as 叉, but can vary based on region.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formally and also very commonly for missing name is using 某. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王某 (someone with surname 王 and one-character given name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王某某 (someone with surname 王 and two-character given name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;某某/某某某 (very general, someone with unknown name, no implication on length of name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For dates, if exact year is unknown or of no importance, you say 19世纪 (19th century), 19世纪80年代 (1880s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T12:22:41.627" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14388" CreationDate="2015-07-24T12:33:28.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way of using quotation mark is to indicate special meaning, which can be &quot;to mean the opposite&quot;, sarcastic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way of using quotation mark is to emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The text wanted to emphasis and your machine might have taken it to mean &quot;the opposite&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T12:33:28.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14401" CreationDate="2015-07-24T14:50:56.970" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;□ (white square) is used to indicate that some characters are missing or unrecognizable. Each white square correspond to one such character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pep.com.cn/xiaoyu/jiaoshi/study/jszy/bdfhyf/xqh/201012/t20101202_980977.htm&quot;&gt;虚缺号的用法&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11354" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T14:50:56.970" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14405" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14406" CreationDate="2015-07-24T18:36:22.587" Score="4" ViewCount="978" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an ABC and I find myself often using 好多. I was talking to my dad yesterday and I noticed that I said it, but something just didn't seem right. Is this correct or does it not make any sense? I'm used to saying this and I'm not sure if I picked it up from my parents. Could it pertain to a certain dialect/region? My parents are from Sichuan and I know some things are said differently there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been taking Chinese courses for a college requirement and I know 很多 is definitely correct. I'm just curious if they are similar/interchangeable or if 好多 isn't correct Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11352" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T14:11:37.973" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T14:11:37.973" Title="What is the difference between 好多 vs. 很多?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14405" CreationDate="2015-07-24T19:09:08.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;好 may be used with the meaning of 很. The difference is that it's more colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: myself =P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T19:09:08.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14405" CreationDate="2015-07-24T23:08:46.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I generally agree with Enrico, but I think in general using 好 like this has more of an implication of being impressed than 很.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, “她吃了好多肉” has an implication of being impressed with the amount, but I don't read that so much in ”她吃了很多肉“, it's more like a statement. I suspect this feeling is quite cultural, so it may vary area by area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4709" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T23:08:46.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14381" CreationDate="2015-07-25T06:37:22.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a better link to the article that is quoted above in &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_841e7ae70102v684.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; on Sina Blog, which will let you search the whole article in your browser. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article mentions the use of 合音字 in Qionglai and related Sichuan dialects, i.e. one character writing two syllables. Examples the author gives include “不晓” 写作 “表”，and “那样” 写作 “浪”.  Possibly 娘 is simply a 合音字 for the interrogative form 哪样. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-07-25T06:46:52.503" LastActivityDate="2015-07-25T06:46:52.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14324" CreationDate="2015-07-25T09:03:47.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Michaelyus's answer to a similar question (link in the comments above) is still very useful.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A general resource that unfortunately may be hard to find now is the 現代方言音庫, a series published by the 上海教育出版社 in the mid 1990s.  This series consisted of a thin booklet titled XX音檔 (usu 100-150 pages) and a good quality cassette for each dialect. The series eventually covered 40 plus dialects, including 成都，貴陽，and 昆明, and the booklets were often written by well-known experts; for example, 成都話音檔 was written by the late 崔榮昌，who did much important work on 四川 dialects. In addition to characters, pronunciation is given in IPA, which I found &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One problem there may be in making a list of resources for 西南官話 is that it includes a large range of sometimes pretty different dialects.  For example, the varieties spoken in Hubei are sharply different to my ears from 成都 and 昆明.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-07-25T09:09:32.743" LastActivityDate="2015-07-25T09:09:32.743" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14395" CreationDate="2015-07-25T12:40:00.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The thing that came to my mind was &lt;code&gt;fangays&lt;/code&gt;. Maybe its my gaming background, but it could be appropriately slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-07-25T12:40:00.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13999" CreationDate="2015-07-25T14:51:14.773" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learn Chinese Grammar 3 Time of a Day&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/wJMoZj3as8g&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/wJMoZj3as8g&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For detail, you can check through youtube link&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;二 &amp;amp; 兩&#xA;二&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a)  102&#xA;b)  332&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a)  20&#xA;b)  200&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a)  第二&#xA;b)  三點二&#xA;c)  二分之一&#xA;兩&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a)  兩千&#xA;b)  兩萬&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c)  兩個人&#xA;d)  兩隻手&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e)  兩半兒&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f)  兩兄弟&#xA;g)  兩姐妹&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兩 &amp;amp; 二&#xA;1.  二斤 / 兩斤&#xA;2.  二尺 / 兩尺&#xA;3.  二圓 / 兩圓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11411" LastActivityDate="2015-07-25T14:51:14.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14415" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-26T04:02:24.643" Score="2" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is '做得较出色‘ good Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems to me that it means that something is outstanding, remarkable, or it is not, in which case it is commonplace. I suppose this begs the question 'Where does remarkable begin?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-09-24T18:19:49.093" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T18:19:49.093" Title="Is it correct to say '较出色‘?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14416" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14426" CreationDate="2015-07-26T06:55:56.410" Score="5" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the economic observer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;前两个背离可以理解为经济结构调整过程中，产业结构优化&lt;strong&gt;等&lt;/strong&gt;优势逐步显现&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, 等 means either wait or it is either used to end a list of objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence is also quite technical itself, so it's possible that the reason I didn't understand this sentence lies in another word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T12:23:56.230" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T12:23:56.230" Title="What does 等 mean in ...产业结构优化等优势逐步显现?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14419" CreationDate="2015-07-26T07:07:46.737" Score="1" ViewCount="816" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between:&#xA;总&#xA;总监&#xA;总统&#xA;总裁&#xA;董事长&#xA;主任&#xA;领导&#xA;老板&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They can all be translated as president,  chairman or boss. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only know that 总统 is the president of a country, while 老板 is used in small firms and 领导 is a generic term for boss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T14:46:20.213" Title="总监，总统，总裁 and other similar words" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14405" CreationDate="2015-07-26T08:46:31.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translated to English, 好多 means 'so much', while 很多 means 'very much' or 'a lot'.   In the case of 好多 vs 很多, I've actually had no trouble just using whichever one sounds more like what I wanted to express translated  in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like Chris said, I would use 好多 when the amount is stunning/overwhelming/impressing/exceeding expectations. It doesn't have to be that much, just more than you thought there'd be, more than you'd like there to be, or more than you imagined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 很多 can also be used in many situations where one might say 好多, just as there are many times 'so much' and 'very much'/'a lot' are interchangeable, and I don't think it matters that much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the main difference is just the connotation. For example, when you say 'I drank so much' vs 'I drank a lot', 'You got so much' vs 'You got a lot', or 'Thanks so much' vs 'Thanks a lot', though the meaning is the basically the same, there's still a sort of difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess as far as correct goes, if you're talking then it just depends on if it matches what you wanted to say. If you're translating, and you have to write 'so much' but used 很多, though, I think it'd seem off and might be marked wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pertaining to regions, I have no idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm also an ABC, or maybe I should be called an ABT because my parents are both from Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11413" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T08:46:31.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14417" CreationDate="2015-07-26T13:02:56.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're really confused, and often changes meaning according to the context. Here're my opinions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;总统&lt;/code&gt; is the most clear one here, as you said, means &lt;code&gt;the president of a country&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;董事长&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;chairman of the board&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;总裁&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;president&lt;/code&gt;), according to my experience, usually used for the CEO of a large company, which has a number of subsidiaries. BTW, &lt;code&gt;总经理&lt;/code&gt; is often used for CEO too, but usually for a small or one-tier company.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;总监&lt;/code&gt; is used for a chief officer of certain field, such as &lt;code&gt;技术总监&lt;/code&gt; (CTO).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;主任&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;主管&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;director&lt;/code&gt;, usually used for the people who are primarily responsible for an organization or department. Such as &lt;code&gt;财务主管&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;financial executive&lt;/code&gt;), &lt;code&gt;教务主任&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;dean of students&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;领导&lt;/code&gt; is a generic salutation for your superior, immediate or non immediate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;老板&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;boss&lt;/code&gt;) is a generic salutation too, usually used for the top of your company, such as &lt;code&gt;总经理&lt;/code&gt; (CEO).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-07-26T14:46:20.213" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T14:46:20.213" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14324" CreationDate="2015-07-26T14:28:34.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;tudou: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tudou.com/v/G-62lx3uMtk/&amp;amp;resourceId=0_04_05_99/v.swf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tudou: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tudou.com/v/Ll_7-tcOHIU/&amp;amp;resourceId=0_04_05_99/v.swf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Transcript&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本文限於成都城区中派音系，敬请期待兼容成都与四川盆地各县市现代方音的四川话拼音方案。正文基本选自《成都话音档》录音。文中拼音的加粗字體為聲調和韻母等同普通話有明顯區別的部分。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一、语音&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.1 声母&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b [p] 帮bāng 巴bā 不bû &#xA;p [p'] 滂pâng 怕pá 扑pû &#xA;m [m] 明mîn 妈mā 木mû &#xA;f [f] 非fēi 奉fóng 胡fû&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d [t] 端duān 大dá 达dâ&#xA;t [t'] 透tóu 他tā 托tô &#xA;l [l~n] 南兰lân 腊lâ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;z [ts] 资知zī 照záo&#xA;c [ts'] 雌cî 彻cê 穿cuān&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;s [s] 苏书sū 生sēn&#xA;r [z] 日rî 热rê 人rên&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;j [tɕ] 精jīn 见jián 积jî &#xA;q [tɕ'] 清qīn 溪qī 七qî &#xA;n [ȵ] 泥疑nî 捏niē（文读niê）&#xA;x [ɕ] 希西xī 昔xî&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;g [k] 高gāo 狗gòu 各gô &#xA;k [k'] 敲kāo 口kòu 可kò&#xA;ng [ŋ] 熬ngâo 藕ngòu 我ngò&#xA;h [x] 好hào 后hóu 合hô&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;〇　衣yī 鱼yû 五wù &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.2 声母比字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)　酒=九jiù　清=轻qīn　鲜=掀xuān&#xA;2)　怒=路lú　恼=老lào　南=兰lân&#xA;3)　你nì≠李lì　女nǜ≠旅lǜ　牛niû≠流liû&#xA;4)　呼=夫fū　胡=扶fû　虎=府fù　戶=富fú&#xA;5)　资=知zī　疵=痴cī　思=诗sī&#xA;6)　鹅=俄ô　饿=卧ngó　艾=爱ngái&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.3 韵母&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i (空韵) [ɿ] 子zì 池cî 日rî &#xA;i [i] 基jī 西xī 一yî &#xA;u [u] 布bú 古gù 屋wû &#xA;ü [y] 居jū 徐xû 玉yú&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;er [əɻ] 而êr 耳èr 二ér&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a [a] 巴bā 大dá 杀sâ &#xA;ia [ia] 家jiā 霞xiâ 鸭yâ &#xA;ua [ua] 瓜guā 花huā 袜wâ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;o [o] 波bō 歌gō 说sô &#xA;io [yo] 略liô 族qiô 育yô&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e [e] 北bê 热rê 客kê &#xA;ie [ie] 别biê 踢tiê（文读tî） 爷yê &#xA;ue [ue] 郭guê 括kuê 获huê &#xA;üe [ye] 绝juê 缺quê 月yuê&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ai [ai] 拜bái 街gāi 鞋hâi&#xA;iai [iai] 阶jiāi 谐xiâi 延yâi &#xA;uai [uai] 乖guāi 怀huâi 外wái&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ei [ei] 悲bēi 批pēi 肥fêi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;uei [uei] 堆duī 雷luî 水suì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ao [au] 包bāo 桃tâo 咬ngào（文读niào）&#xA;iao [iau] 表biào 巧qiào 小xiào&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ou [əu] 头tôu 首sòu 欧ngōu&#xA;iou [iəu] 柳liù 秋qiū 柚yóu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;an [an] 般bān 谈tân 安ngān&#xA;ian [ian] 边biān 田tiân 年niân&#xA;uan [uan] 团tuân 川cuān 欢huān&#xA;üan [yan] 泉quân 选xuàn 员yuân&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;en [ən] 崩bēn 恩ngēn 生sēn&#xA;in [in] 丙bìn 清qīn 心xīn&#xA;uen [uən] 昆kūn 春cūn 文wên&#xA;ün [yn] 君jūn 旬xûn 荣yûn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ang [aŋ] 帮bāng 场câng 康kāng&#xA;iang [iaŋ] 良liâng 想xiàng 央yâng&#xA;uang [uaŋ] 双suāng 黄huâng 旺wáng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ong [oŋ] 朋pông 孔kòng 翁ōng&#xA;iong [yoŋ] 穷qiông 兄xiōng 蓉yông&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.4 韵母比字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 族屈雀qiô　俗蓄学xiô　育约yô&#xA;2) 客kê≠课kó　核hê≠河hô　额ngê≠鹅ô&#xA;3) 锅gō≠郭guê　桌zô≠拙zuê　货hó≠获huê&#xA;4) 些xī≠歇xiê　携xī≠邪xiê≠鞋hâi　接jiê≠街gāi　姐jiè≠解jiài&#xA;5) 贫平pîn　民明mîn　今京jīn&#xA;6) 奔崩bēn　盆彭pên　森生孙sēn　针争尊zēn&#xA;7) 郡窘jùn　群琼qûn　允永yùn&#xA;8) 迫pê≠培pêi　墨mê≠梅mêi&#xA;9) 阔kuê≠逵kuî　或huê≠回huî&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.5 声调&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) ā 阴平45　专zuān 开kāi 天tiān 三sān&#xA;2) â 阳平31　陈cên 唐tâng 寒hân 月yuê&#xA;3) à 上声53　古gù 口kòu 好hào 五wù&#xA;4) á 去声213　近jín 厚hóu 抗káng 害hái&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四个声调的五度调值参考自http://photo.renren.com/photo/277665350/album-385379739?frommyphoto&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.6 声调比字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阴平和阳平：之zī≠织zî　衣yī≠一yî　沙sā≠杀sâ&#xA;阳平和上声：谷gû≠古gù　蜀sû≠暑sù　甲jiâ≠假jià&#xA;阳平和去声：作zô≠坐zó　握ô≠卧(ng)ó　葉yê≠夜yé&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.7 变调&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阳平叠字後字近似阴平：瓶瓶ㄦ　盆盆ㄦ　壳壳　雀雀&#xA;去声叠字後字近似阴平：棍棍　洞洞　棒棒　柜柜&#xA;上声叠字後字近似阳平：本本　桶桶　米米　姐姐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前字阳平後字近似阴平：头髮　核桃　钥匙　喉咙&#xA;前字去声後字近似阴平：薄荷　四季豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.8 文白异读词比较举例&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下　文xiá ～降，～午　白há 等一～，去一～&#xA;解　文jiài 讲～　白gài ～开&#xA;敲　文qiāo 推～　白kāo ～门&#xA;锯　文jú ～子　白gé ～一刀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.9 儿化词举例&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凉粉ㄦliângfèr　杯杯ㄦbēibēr　娃娃ㄦwâwer　花生米ㄦhuāsēnmìr　蛐蟮ㄦqûsér&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.10 发音练习&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;声母&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泥牛nîniû　扭捏niùniê　研究niānjiú&#xA;恩爱ngēnngái　雁鹅ngánngô　肮脏ngāngzāng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;韵母&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唱歌cánggō　科学kōxiô　委屈wèiqiô　教育jiáoyô &#xA;北京Bêjīn　压迫yápê　来去lâiqié（去字文读qú）　集体jîtì　国家guêjiā　收获sōuhuê &#xA;解放jiàifáng　世界síjiái&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;声调&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阴阳上去Yīn Yâng Sàng Qú　非常美丽fēisâng mèilí　英雄好汉yīnxiông hàohán　巴蜀锦绣Bāsû jìnxiú&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二、常用词汇（暂略）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三、构词法举要（暂略）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四、语法例句&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Làgó? Ngò sí Lào Sān.&#xA;1) 哪个？我是老三。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lào Sí nān? Tā zénzái gēn yî gó pôngyòu sô dào huá lī.&#xA;2) 老四喃？她正在跟一个朋友说倒话的（文读dî）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā hâi méiyou sô wân â?&#xA;3) 她还（文读huân）没有说完啊？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hâi méiyou. Dáyô hâi yòu yî hēr jiú sô wân lò.&#xA;4) 还没（文读mû）有。大约还有一下ㄦ就说完了（文读liào）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā jiàng màsáng jiú zòu, zâgó zénmen jiù lò hâi zái wûtôu lē?&#xA;5) 他讲马上就走，咋个这门久了还在屋头呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nì zòu lèr qié? Ngò dáo cēn hòutôu qié.&#xA;6) 你走哪ㄦ去？我到城後（文读hóu）头去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zái lēr, bû zái zēr. / ... lálì ...... zélì.&#xA;7) 在那ㄦ，不在这ㄦ。／在那里，不在这里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bû sí lá yángzì zú, yáo zé yángzì zú.&#xA;8) 不是那样子做，要这样子做。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tái dō lô, yóng bû dào lámen dō, zìyáo zénmen dō jiú góu lô.&#xA;9) 太多了，用不倒那门多，只要这门多就够了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zégo dá, lágo xiào, zé liànggó làyîgó hào (yî) dìr?&#xA;10) 这个大，那个小，这两个哪一个好(一)点ㄦ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zégo gàn (bì) lágo hào.&#xA;11) 这个赶(比)那个好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zéxī fângzì môde láxī fângzì hào.&#xA;12) 这些房子莫得那些房子好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zé jú huá yóng Cêndū huá zâgó sô?&#xA;13) 这句话用成都话咋个说？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā jīnniân hào dá suísú lô? / ......&#xA;14) 他今年好大岁数了？／他今年好多岁了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pá yòu sānsî sángxiá lô. / ...... lâiwàng lô.&#xA;15) 怕有三十上下了。／怕有三十来往了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zégó dōngxī yòu hào zóng?&#xA;16) 这个东西有好重？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yòu wùsî jīn zóng ó.&#xA;17) 有五十斤重哦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lào dêqì bû? / ......&#xA;18) 㧯得起不？／㧯不㧯得起？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ngò lào dêqì, tā lào bûqì.&#xA;19) 我㧯得起，他㧯不起。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ngénsí bû qīn ô, zóng dê liân ngò dōu lào bûqì.&#xA;20) 硬是不轻哦，重得连我都㧯不起。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nì sô dê hào hào, nì hâi huí sô dìr sázì lē?&#xA;21) 你说得好好，你还会说点ㄦ啥子呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ngò zuìbā bén, ngò jiàng bû yîn tā. / ......&#xA;22) 我嘴巴笨，我讲不赢他。／我讲他不赢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sô lò yî dáo, yóu sô yî dáo. / ..... yî huî ......&#xA;23) 说了一道，又说一道。／讲了一回，又讲一回。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qìn nì zái sô yî dáo.&#xA;24) 请你再说一道。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bû zào lò, kuái dìr qié.&#xA;25) 不早了，快点ㄦ去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zéher hâi zào, dèn háher zái qié mâ. / Zé zén ...... gó yî zén ......&#xA;26) 这下ㄦ还早，等下下ㄦ再去嘛。／这阵还早，过一阵再去嘛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cî lò fán zái qié yáodê bû?&#xA;27) 吃了饭再去要得不？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mánmer cî, bûyáo huāng. / ...... zâojî.&#xA;28) 慢慢ㄦ吃，不要慌。／不要着（文读zô）急。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zó dào cî bì zán dào cî hào xī.&#xA;29) 坐倒吃比站倒吃好些。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā cî lò fán lò, nì cî lò fán mēiyòu? / ......&#xA;30) 他吃了饭了，你吃了饭没有？／他吃（了饭）了，你吃了（饭）没有？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā qié gó Sánghài, ngò mēi qié gó. / Tā dáo ...&#xA;31) 他去过上海，我没去过。／他到过上海，我没到过。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lâi wên házì zé dò huā xiāng bû xiāng.&#xA;32) 来闻下子这朵花香不香。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gē ngò (yî) bèn sū. / Lá bèn sū gē ngò.&#xA;33) 跟（文读gēn）我(一)本书。／拿本书跟我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ngò ngénsí môde lá bèn sū.&#xA;34) 我硬是莫得那本书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nì gēn tā sô. / Nì gē tā jiàng. / Nì duí tā jiàng.&#xA;35) 你跟他说。／你跟他讲。／你对他讲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hàosēn zòu, bûyáo pào. / Hàohàosēnsēn ......&#xA;36) 好声走，不要跑。／好好声声走，不要跑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Xiàoxīn bán dào lò pâ bû qìlâi.&#xA;37) 小心跘倒了爬不起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yīsēn hàn nì dō suí hēr. / ...... kún hēr.&#xA;38) 医生喊你多睡下ㄦ。／医生喊你多睏下ㄦ。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cîyān cîcâ dōu bû zùn.&#xA;39) 吃菸吃茶都不准。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yān hô câ, ngò dōu bû xìhuān.&#xA;40) 菸和茶，我都不喜欢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bû guàn nì qié bû qié, hûnsún ngò sí yáo qié lī.&#xA;41) 不管你去不去，横顺我是要去的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ngò jiúsí yáo qié. / ... yîdín ......&#xA;42) 我就是要去。／我一定要去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nì sí làyî niân lâi lī?&#xA;43) 你是哪一年来的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ngò sí qiân niânzì dáo Bêjīn lī.&#xA;44) 我是前年子到北京的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jīntiān kāihuí làgó dāng zùxî?&#xA;45) 今天开会哪个当主席？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qìnkê. / Qìn cî tâng. / Qìn cî xìjiù. / Bán zāodái. / Nì yáo qìn ngò ó.&#xA;46) 请客。／请吃糖。／请吃喜酒。／办招待。／你要请我噢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yîbiān zòu, yîbiān bài. / ......&#xA;47) 一边走，一边摆。／边走边摆。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yuê zòu yuê yuàn, yuê bài yuê dō.&#xA;48) 越走越远，越摆越多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bà lágo dōngxī lâ gē ngò. / ...... lào gē ...&#xA;49) 把那个东西拿跟我。／把那个东西㧯跟我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yòuli dífāng bà táiyâng jiáozô rîtôu.&#xA;50) 有的地方把太阳叫作日头。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nì guíxín? Ngò xín Wâng.&#xA;51) 你贵姓？我姓王。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nì xín Wâng, ngò yè xín Wâng, ngòmen liànggó dōu xín Wâng.&#xA;52) 你姓王我也姓王，我们两个都姓王。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nì xiān qié mâ, ngòmen dènher jiú lâi.&#xA;53) 你先去嘛，我们等下ㄦ就来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nì cîbûcî yân? / ......&#xA;54) 你吃不吃菸？你吃菸不？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nì rénbûrén dêdào lágó rên? / ......&#xA;55) 你认不认得倒那个人？／你认得倒那个人吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ngò mèi huîlâi dōu jiándào nì.&#xA;56) 我每回来都见倒你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zé jián sí hào fāng rên.&#xA;57) 这件事好方人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nì bû xín jiú gáo yî pêr.&#xA;58) 你不信就较（文读jiáo）一盘ㄦ。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ngò jiàng lī díérlī yîdiàn jí dào mēiyòu?&#xA;59) 我讲的第二的一点记倒没有？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā duí rên zìyòu lámen hào lò.&#xA;60) 他对人只有那门好了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五、长篇语料&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BÊFŌNG Gēn TÁIYÂNG&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北风跟太阳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yòu huîzì, Bêfōng gēn táiyâng zái lēr zēn làyîgólī bènsí dá.&#xA;有回子，北风跟太阳在那ㄦ争哪一个的本事大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zēn gólâi zēn góqié jiúsí fēn bû cû gāongài.&#xA;争过来争过去就是分不出高矮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yîher lúsáng lâilò yîgó gànlú lī, &#xA;一下ㄦ路上来了一个赶路的，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā sēnsáng cuāndào yîjián hóu dáyī.&#xA;他身上穿倒一件厚大衣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tāmen liànggó xiān jiàng hào lò, &#xA;他们两个先讲好了，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kán làgó lêngóu xiān jiáo zégó gànlú lī tôxiá tālī hóu dáyī, &#xA;看哪个能够先叫这个赶路的脱下他的厚大衣，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jiú suán làgólī bènsí dá.&#xA;就算哪个的本事大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bêfōng jiú zànjínlī cuī qìlâi, xiàodê bû, &#xA;北风就撍劲的吹起来，晓得不，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tā cuī dê yuê xiōng, lágó gànlú lī bà dáyī gò dê yuê jìn.&#xA;他吹得越凶，那个赶路的把大衣裹得越紧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hóulâi lê, Bêfōng môde fâ lò, jiú zìhào suánlò.&#xA;後来呢，北风莫得法了，就只好算了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gó lò yîzén, Táiyâng góng cûlâi lò.&#xA;过了一阵，太阳贡出来了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā hòpiàopiàolī yî sái, lágó gànlú lī màsáng jiú bà lá jián hóu dáyī tô lò.&#xA;他火熛熛的一晒，那个赶路的马上就把那件厚大衣脱了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zé zénzì Bêfōng zìdê rénsū, &#xA;这阵子北风只得认输，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tāmen liànggó zōngjiān hâisí Táiyâng lī bènsí dá.&#xA;他们两个中间还是太阳的本事大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;附：声韵调的音节改写规则&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儿化韵母按四呼分别为er ier uer üer，如猫ㄦmēr，鸡ㄦjīr，花ㄦhūr，圈ㄦqūr&#xA;i、u、ü和以三者之一起首的韵母，在零声母後的改写方式与普通话标凖汉语拼音相仿，如衣yī 丫yā 因yīn 乌wū 威wēi 迂yū 冤yuān 晕yūn&#xA;ü和以ü起首的韵母在j q x後改写为u，如居ju&#xA;iou uei uen ier uer üer在非零声母後省略主元音，如牛niû，归guī&#xA;在不方便输入输出修饰字母的场合，阴平、阳平、上声、去声依次可用1~4在音节末尾编号代替修饰符号，比如山盟海誓sanmonghaisi1234，打电话da3 dian4hua4&#xA;音节的界限在必要情况使用隔音符号(')隔开，如西翁xi'ong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(≧▽≦)/(≧▽≦)/(≧▽≦)/(≧▽≦)/(分割线)/(≧▽≦)/(≧▽≦)/(≧▽≦)/(≧▽≦)/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;参考文献&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;侯精一主编；崔荣昌编写；萧娅曼发音 方舟解说. 成都话音档. 上海市：上海教育出版社, 1997&#xA;表情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T14:28:34.667" CommentCount="5" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-07-26T14:28:34.667" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14421" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-26T16:53:12.310" Score="4" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;当一个小儿子在哭泣而妈妈为了让他睡觉就拿他上来而用胳膊轻轻的动他,这用汉语叫什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a young child is crying and the mother in order to make him sleep takes him up and gently move him with her arms, what do you call that in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS If there is anything to improve in the Chinese version, please tell me. I know the title should be informative but to make it more informative I would practically have had to put the question in the title, or cause ambiguities with English translations like &quot;rock&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-07-27T05:02:34.443" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T05:23:25.817" Title="How do you say &quot;rock a baby to sleep&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14421" CreationDate="2015-07-26T23:36:58.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This translation of 'Rock a bye baby' from 百度 gives 'the cradle will rock' as '摇篮就会摇摆'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宝宝的摇篮在树枝上，当风吹起时，摇篮就会摇摆。当树枝断裂，摇篮就和宝宝都掉下来了抓住宝宝和摇篮叻。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;摇 or 摇摆 should convey the message of 'move something back and forth'. I think it is more Chinese to say '抱着宝宝哄‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to why the English put their babies in treetops to sleep, your guess is as good as mine!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Did I get the question wrong? Do you want to formulate the question properly? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当一个小儿子在哭泣而妈妈为了让他睡觉就拿他上来而用胳膊轻轻的动他,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈把哭闹的孩子抱在怀里轻轻的摇晃,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-07-27T03:19:02.753" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T03:19:02.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14421" CreationDate="2015-07-26T23:53:22.143" Score="3" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Tentative answer: 搖&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is not very clear to me. It seems that the request is for a word which unambiguously indicates that the mother is holding the baby in her arms and rocking it.  I don't think there is such a word in Chinese.  My first choice for the action of rocking a baby would be 搖, but like English 'rock' this is ambiguous as to how the rocking is done. Here are English and Chinese examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;媽媽輕輕地搖著寶寶。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The mother gently rocked her baby.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both the English and Chinese examples, the baby could be in the mother's arms, or in a cradle. I think the only way to clarify this in Chinese is to add a descriptive phrase. One possibility is to add the word 抱; this is the standard word for holding something in one's arms. If you use this, you will need to think a bit about how babies are held.  If you have the baby in front with its head resting against your chest, this is called 抱在懷裡. If you hold the baby with its head resting on your shoulder and one arm under its bottom, this is &lt;em&gt;probably&lt;/em&gt; just 抱, so for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;媽媽抱著寶寶輕輕地搖著.  The mother gently rocked her baby, (its head resting on her shoulder)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;媽媽把抱寶寶抱在懷裡輕輕地搖著.  The mother cradled the baby in her arms, gently rocking it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are trying to fit words to a song, try verb reduplication. 抱啊抱, 搖啊搖, etc. This how people actually talk to babies when they are trying to get them to sleep, or anyway this is how I did it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;A caution for interpreting&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing to be careful about: English 'rock' refers to a semi-circular motion; Chinese 搖 is not limited to this, and sometimes just means 'to shake'. However, in English, to &lt;strong&gt;shake&lt;/strong&gt; a baby is usually taken as crossing a very dangerous line, and might even be taken to mean that one is unfit to care for a child. If you ever interpret in a court case involving something like this, be careful!! You cannot take the word 搖 to &lt;strong&gt;automatically&lt;/strong&gt; mean 'shake vigorously'!  You must explain to the court participants how the Chinese works and specifically ask in Chinese how the child was held and what degree of force was used; do not unfairly prejudice the judge or jury against the Chinese speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My own feeling is that Chinese takes as conventional the sense that 搖 is appropriate for the baby.  Sometimes inexperienced children do it with too much enthusiasm, and the usual correction is 搖輕一點!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T05:23:25.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14421" CreationDate="2015-07-27T00:22:21.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;哄&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example from 21century dictionary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It took the mother half an hour to get the baby off to sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;母亲花了半个小时才把婴儿哄睡着了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the full phrase is &lt;strong&gt;哄睡着&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T00:22:21.540" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14315" CreationDate="2015-07-27T10:36:29.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;今朝 is another way to say today. Nowadays it's only used in local dialects. But this poem is very famous: 今朝有酒今朝醉，明日愁来明日愁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T10:36:29.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14416" CreationDate="2015-07-27T11:14:16.443" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer belongs to Stan. Since he is not able to post, I'll write it up for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the phrase 产业结构优化等优势, the word 等 indicates that 产业结构优化 is just one of several 优势.  The word 等 does not require several items to be listed before you use it; instead, it can illustrate one of a range of possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translating this into English, I might try using a 非限定子句 'non-defining relative clause': &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The first two divergences can be interpreted as a gradual manifestation of competitive advantages, &lt;strong&gt;such as&lt;/strong&gt; optimized industry structure.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NS.X explains in the comments above that 背離 is some sort of investment jargon for the word &quot;divergence&quot;.  Be wary of my translation; I can't understand the technical side of the article at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T11:14:16.443" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14427" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-27T16:11:57.473" Score="2" ViewCount="36645" Body="&lt;p&gt;I realize that it is fairly easy to Google it &lt;em&gt;but&lt;/em&gt; I'd never know how to pronounce it. Are there any audio recordings out there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11417" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-10-11T15:51:57.517" LastActivityDate="2021-04-30T14:26:11.387" Title="How do you say &quot;Do you speak Chinese?&quot; in Mandarin and Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14416" CreationDate="2015-07-27T16:58:37.147" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Um... IMO, as a native speaker, I think the closest definition to 等 in the previous sentence in English might be &quot;and so on&quot;. It is exactly the second case which you mentioned previously: used to end a list of objects. Although there isn't an explicit &lt;em&gt;list&lt;/em&gt; here, this sentence is still correct because it's a common practice in China to use 等 to end up a redundant and unrelated list, even if it cannot be syntactically called a &lt;em&gt;list&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an examples: &#xA;我和小明等（人）均年仅18岁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this help. ;D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11418" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T16:58:37.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14429" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-28T01:24:39.953" Score="0" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found these 2 example sentences, with English translations, for 持续。They are very different in meaning. Are both ok?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;高温天气持续了几天。 The hot weather went on for some days. 持续 = continued&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这足以持续到周末。It is enough to go on the weekend. 'go when?' 'on the weekend'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2., 'go on' does not really belong together, nor is there any sense of 'continue to do sth'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T07:35:17.697" Title="Can 持续 have these 2 meanings?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14429" CreationDate="2015-07-28T02:17:40.613" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. It seems you understand the first sentence pretty well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the second sentence, I think you're confusing &lt;code&gt;持续&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;足以&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;足以&lt;/code&gt; is the word that means &quot;enough&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这足以持续到周末 = This is enough to &lt;strong&gt;last&lt;/strong&gt; until the weekend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key here is that &lt;code&gt;持续&lt;/code&gt; indicates a persistence, something that continues on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T02:17:40.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14341" CreationDate="2015-07-28T04:45:42.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to @Claw's answer, Standard Cantonese used to have (and I heard in some dialects still has) TWO falling tones (and thus a total of 7 tones). This is still acknowledged in modern-ish dictionaries like the one published by CIHK. The former tone #2 was a high-mid falling tone, akeen to Hakka's fourth tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-07-29T03:56:16.890" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T03:56:16.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14433" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14435" CreationDate="2015-07-28T06:23:38.247" Score="3" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of my dialectical dictionaries takes &lt;strong&gt;tone value 21&lt;/strong&gt; and compares it to Mandarin's neutral tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same tone, coincidentally enough, had been described in the same way to me by a local native speaker (i.e.: &lt;strong&gt;tone value 21&lt;/strong&gt; - Mandarin's neutral tone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it's logical to me, it does seem like a little bit of a stretch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese's fourth tone (at least according to jyutping) is also tone value 21, think 唔 m4 (meaning 不). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't seem to find any information talking about tone values with the neutral tone, I guess because it's not considered a tone to begin with. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;does Mandarins neutral tone have any tone values associated with it?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if so, does it differ by region?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;is it reasonable at all to say that tone value 21 is equivalent to Mandarins neutral tone?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T07:10:53.037" Title="Mandarin Neutral Tone: Tone Value?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14433" CreationDate="2015-07-28T06:59:29.517" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The neutral tone doesn't have a fixed value; it's phonetic realization is largely &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Neutral_tone&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;determined by the preceding tone&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also called fifth tone or zeroth tone (in Chinese 轻声 [輕聲] qīng shēng, literal meaning: &amp;quot;light tone&amp;quot;), neutral tone is sometimes thought of as a lack of tone. It is associated with weak syllables, and thus usually comes at the end of a word or phrase, and is pronounced in a light and short manner. The pitch of the neutral tone depends almost entirely on the tone of the preceding syllable. [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First ˥   ˨ 2 玻璃  bōli    glass   ˥.˨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second ˧˥ ˧ 3 伯伯  bóbo    uncle   ˧˥.˧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third ˨˩  ˦ 4 喇叭  lǎba    horn    ˨˩.˦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fourth ˥˩ ˩ 1 兔子  tùzi    rabbit  ˥˩.˩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T06:59:29.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14433" CreationDate="2015-07-28T07:10:53.037" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Neutral&quot; tone is not really a tone, and shouldn't be used for comparison with lexical tones.  Jerry Norman (&lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt;, p. 148) calls syllables with neutral tone 'weakly stressed syllables' to avoid just this misundertanding:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The term 'neutral tone' implies that weakly stressed syllables are a kind of 'fifth tone'. From both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective this is misleading. Unlike the four basic tones, weakly stressed syllables cannot be pronounced in isolation; when an element which normally has weak stress is cited in isolation, as for example when a teacher of grammar discusses a certain particle like &lt;em&gt;le&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;ba&lt;/em&gt;, it must be supplied with a tone (usually a first tone).  Moreover, the phonetic value of a weakly stressed syllable is determined almost entirely by the tone of the preceding syllable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last sentence is the basic problem.  &quot;Neutral tone&quot; is not a fixed tone value at all, but changes depending on the syllable in front of it.  Describing something as being like Mandarin's 'neutral tone' thus gives you no basis for comparison at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Norman's book &lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt;, Cambridge UP, 1988) is a reliable, standard, resource for such basic technical points as this.  CUP is expensive; look for used copies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T07:10:53.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14429" CreationDate="2015-07-28T07:29:13.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I am a native Chinese speaker. And I have been speaking English for working purpose several years.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 2 is a typical &lt;code&gt;Enginese&lt;/code&gt; (English-styled Chinese). Allow me to invent this non-existing word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the English version should look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;这足以持续到周末&lt;/code&gt;  -&gt; &lt;code&gt;This can last until the weekend.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is &lt;em&gt;over translation&lt;/em&gt; to put &lt;code&gt;enough&lt;/code&gt; in the middle for &lt;code&gt;足以&lt;/code&gt;. A single &lt;code&gt;can&lt;/code&gt; is good enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(BTW, enjoy your journey learning Chinese... It's concise, elegant, and flexible... Sometimes too flexible...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="631" LastEditorUserId="631" LastEditDate="2015-07-28T07:35:17.697" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T07:35:17.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14427" CreationDate="2015-07-28T08:40:14.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'll just tell you the pinyin for the mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你说中文吗？ (Do you speak Chinese?)&#xA;ni2 shuo1 zhong1 wen2 ma?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if you want to be specific:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你说普通话吗？ (Do you speak Mandarin?)&#xA;ni2 shuo1 pu2 tong1 hua4 ma?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the pinyin of Cantonese is very complicated. It has 6 tones and a lot of weird symbols and stuff so I'll just give you the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你係咪講中文架？ (Do you speak Chinese?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-07-30T07:32:21.800" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T07:32:21.800" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14427" CreationDate="2015-07-28T09:41:34.943" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mandarin&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你会说汉语吗？ (Ni3 hui4 shuo1 han4 yu3 ma5) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or polite form: 您会说汉语吗？(Nin2 hui4 shuo1 han4 yu3 ma5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, you can say 中文 (zhong1 wen2) instead of 汉语. That is not the big question here, but rather that you have to include 会, which underlines that you ask if the person you are speaking to, &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; speak Chinese or not. Only asking 你说汉语吗？ is not sufficient, it means &quot;Do you use Chinese (in general)?, e.g. 你家里说中文吗？ Do you speak Chinese at home? (what is being asked is not the ability, but the fact if Chinese is spoken or not.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cantonese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你識唔識講中文啊? (Nei5/Lei5 sik1 m4 sik1 gong2 zung1 man4 aa3, I am using Jyutping here, but Yale is a similar transcription). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to ask &quot;Do you speak &lt;strong&gt;Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;?&quot; in Cantonese, you ask &lt;strong&gt;Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; (中文), not Cantonese. I really don't understand why one would think Cantonese is not Chinese. So ask for 中文 not 廣東話. If you want to ask if someone specifically can speak &lt;strong&gt;Cantonese&lt;/strong&gt;, then use 廣東話.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) The Mandarin text uses simplified characters, as most Mandarin speakers use these, the Cantonese question uses the traditional ones, as most Cantonese speakers who are familiar with writing Cantonese are Hongkongers, who use traditional characters, but simplified characters are used by Cantonese native Mainland Chinese who can read and write Cantonese or at least have some experience with it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) The Cantonese pronunciation is difficult to transcribe, there is a difference between Mainland Cantonese and Hong Kong Cantonese, e.g. 你 begins with 'l-' in &quot;lazy speech&quot;, i.e. casual Hong Kong Cantonese, but 'n-' is a more formal, &quot;proper&quot; sound, especially used in the Mainland. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) The word &quot;Chinese (language)&quot; has many equivalents in (Mandarin) Chinese, all differ in some way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;汉语, the language of the Han&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中文, the (written) language of the Chinese civilization &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;华语, Chinese as the language of Overseas Chinese, whether Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, or any other dialect, as contrasted to the non-Chinese languages, like English, Malay or Thai, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国话, less used, means &quot;the (spoken) language of China&quot;.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;国语, (&quot;national language&quot;), i.e. Mandarin Chinese, this expression is mostly used outside the PRC&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;普通话 (&quot;general language&quot;), also Mandarin Chinese (or sometimes called Standard Chinese), this word is used in the PRC, which promotes Mandarin Chinese and discourages speaking dialects in public. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;官话 (&quot;official language&quot;), Mandarin Chinese, this word has historic connotations, the Ming and Qing-dynasties, under which the Northern dialects gained the status of official language of the administration and the &quot;Mandarins&quot;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-07-28T11:12:05.017" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T11:12:05.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14440" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14442" CreationDate="2015-07-28T19:13:02.260" Score="4" ViewCount="851" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed that in modern Chinese there's a lot of loanwords that are translated in multiple ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;激光 vs 雷射 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;互联网 vs 因特网&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally one version will sound similar to the English pronunciation and one uses native words to mean the same thing as the original word. In my experience, the native word is usually preferred/more prestigious. This is very unusual in comparison to Japanese, which heavily prefers using the English/foreign loanword instead of the native equivalent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any reason for this? Or maybe this is just my imagination?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-07-28T20:47:45.773" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T04:55:01.003" Title="Modern loanwords in Chinese" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14440" CreationDate="2015-07-28T23:51:06.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three ways to translate a loanword: by its meaning, by its pronunciation or by both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking your example 互联网 vs 因特网, 互联网 is by its meaning (inter/inter-connected=互/互联, net=网); 因特网 is by both of its pronunciation and meaning (in=因, ter=特, net (by meaning)=网&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My feeling is that when in the early stage of introduction of a loanword, it's more likely to be translated by its pronunciation(or by both of the meaning and pronunciation), because not a lot of people in China knows about it. And it will be translated by its meaning when the loanword gets popular. Still using the 互联网 and 因特网 as an example, I remember when I heard of the internet (around mid-1990s; I was born 1980s...) , it's all translated into 因特网. And now 互联网 is everywhere. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do feel translating by meaning is more formal. As you will probably see loanword translated by its meaning e.g.互联网 more in the newspaper than other places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more reason of the translation difference that I could think of is depended on where you are, Taiwan, Hong Kong or mainland China. I've never been in HongKong, but I somehow have an impression that People/Press tends to use loanword than native translation (because most people in HongKong speaks English/better English than mainland Chinese?). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11423" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T23:51:06.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14440" CreationDate="2015-07-29T00:13:22.530" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;互联网 and 因特网 may be different things - &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1706.htm#9&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;internet&quot; vs &quot;Internet&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coming up with loanwords isn't a standardised practice; in the beginning you'll have separate groups coming up with different words, but over time the need to communicate will encourage people to start using the same one. Take LASER for example; since it was invented in the US, there were many Chinese loanwords - some out of use ones include 光的受激辐射放大器, 光量子放大器, 莱塞. In this case, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qian Xuesen&lt;/a&gt; came up with the 激光 word, and since he was so well respected in PRC, everyone there used that. Due to the political situation at the time, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E9%9B%B7%E5%B0%84&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taiwan continued to use 雷射&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These days it's more likely that loanwords will converge quickly, since science and commerce are so open and interconnected. But earlier in history, this process could take a long time. One notable example is the Qing-dynasty loanwords for the US president. The concept was very foreign, of a supreme leader that is elected by peers for a limited term; historian &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Spence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jonathan Spence&lt;/a&gt; counted up to 100 different versions, with words like &lt;a href=&quot;http://industry.imextrade.ru/review/kaleidoscope-of-culture/loanwords-and-cultural-exchanges/?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;伯理玺天地&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T00:13:22.530" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14443" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-29T00:50:29.707" Score="9" ViewCount="1415" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm so confused about this two phrases, I think they can be used interchangeably in most circumstances, but here's the examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们两个长得一样。&#xA;Why can't we say 他们两个长得同样? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈点了一杯咖啡，我也一样。&#xA;Why can't we say 妈妈点了一杯咖啡，我也同样?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他认识我，同样，我也认识他。&#xA;Why can't we say 他认识我，一样，我也认识他?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like my head is going to explode! Could you please give me some detailed explanation? I'd be extremely grateful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9718" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T22:42:10.580" Title="What's the difference between 同样 and 一样" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14443" CreationDate="2015-07-29T01:49:09.080" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;問得好!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some differences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;syntactic difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一樣 can be a predicate (謂語).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;同樣 is only used as a modifier 修飾語, i.e. in front of a noun and connected with 的 (adjectival) , or in front of a verb phrase, or sentence (adverbial). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;semantic difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一樣 same (identical)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;同樣 same (equivalent)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think these will account for your examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他们两个长得同样:  V得 here requires a predicate, so 同样 is bad.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;妈妈点了一杯咖啡，我也一样: here 一样 is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-verb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pro-verb&lt;/a&gt; (not proverb) which resumes the predicate 点了一杯咖啡; 同样 can't do that.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他认识我，同样，我也认识他: here 同样 is an adverbial; it means 'in the same way'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, that (I think) shows the semantic difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在美國看到同樣的情形: I saw the same (equivalent) situation in America.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a little less sure on this one, but I don't think it has to be an exactly identical situation; just one that strikes me as fundamentally equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, nice examples, and good careful thinking!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-07-29T22:42:10.580" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T22:42:10.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14440" CreationDate="2015-07-29T05:00:59.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first, people don't fully understand the meaning of a concept, or the theory behind it. But they need a word to represent it. So that's why loanwords usually come out by pronunciation. Once people fully understand the meaning, they may come up with a version of their own expression. But whether that version can prevail depends on the social status of the nation, and the nature of the race.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, Japan had sought knowledge and fortune from the China Tang &lt;code&gt;唐&lt;/code&gt; dynasty. So it is not strange that many things were borrowed from China, even the Japanese language &lt;code&gt;Kanji&lt;/code&gt; is borrowed from Chinese in both writing form and pronunciation. Then by the end of 19th century, Japanese turn to west civilization. And they even wanted to &lt;em&gt;mentally&lt;/em&gt; leave Asia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of the admiration for the west civilization, loanwords were considered kind of superior to the native ones in Japanese. That's why most loanwords are kept by pronunciation in Japanese. But Chinese tends to absorb foreign culture and &lt;code&gt;adapt&lt;/code&gt; it into their own culture. That's why loanwords are treated differently between two cultures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(BTW, I have to say, though the whole Japanese culture is kind of a &lt;code&gt;loan-culture&lt;/code&gt;, sometimes they DO make &lt;code&gt;their own versions&lt;/code&gt; of some well known facts. Such as the Potsdam Proclamation, the war crimes they committed during WWII, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="631" LastEditorUserId="631" LastEditDate="2015-07-29T07:42:05.920" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T07:42:05.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14349" CreationDate="2015-07-29T05:17:25.287" Score="-1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天无绝人之路 - God will always leave a way out for you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;车到山前必有路 - You will always find a path no matter how high the mountain looks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天塌下来有高个子顶着 - It's up to the tall guys to worry if the sky falls.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These phrases are all idioms. And they well expressed the meaning of your English sentence. Literally, they reveal THE positive side in a hopeless or emergency situation, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="631" LastEditorUserId="631" LastEditDate="2015-07-29T05:24:15.893" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T05:24:15.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14036" CreationDate="2015-07-29T05:35:05.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The last dish you eat (最后吃的菜) may not be the dish that is served last (最后的菜).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="631" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T05:35:05.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9298" CreationDate="2015-07-29T08:34:53.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It appears in the form 至關緊要 as well as 至關重要, so possibly related to the antonymous phrase 無關緊要 (unimportant or irrelevant).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The MOE's &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?idx=dict.idx&amp;amp;cond=%B5L%C3%F6%BA%F2%ADn&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;國語辭典&lt;/a&gt; gives an example of 無關緊要 from the novel 鏡花緣 (&quot;Flowers in the Mirror&quot;), which is 清中葉 (early 19th cent.)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The claim 至關重要 comes from Lu Yao (1949-1992) is ridiculous; I found an example from the United Daily News (聯合報) in 1951! If I find anything earlier, I'll add it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T08:34:53.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14440" CreationDate="2015-07-29T09:23:49.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One reason is that Chinese is more diversified than Japanese in terms of topolects and dialects. 碧池, 沙发, 雷达 and so on may not be pronounced the intended way in other tongues than Mandarin, and so the terms become meaningless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason would be linguistic pride. Iceland is another country that takes great care to form their own words rather than using foreign-sounding loanwords.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T09:23:49.950" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14451" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14454" CreationDate="2015-07-29T18:59:05.077" Score="0" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;事情一开始进展得很顺利，但后来我们遇到了困难&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the meaning of the sentence, but I don't understand what is &quot;一&quot; doing in there? Could it be dropped? Would it change the meaning? Is it a part of the &quot;一开始&quot; as a phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T17:13:26.747" Title="What is &quot;一&quot; doing in &quot;事情一开始进展得很顺利，但后来我们遇到了困难&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14440" CreationDate="2015-07-29T19:06:53.613" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will try to put my two cents in, from a more psychological perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is largely a semantics-based writing system. Phonetically transcribed loan words are relatively easy to coin, but difficult to comprehend, unless the reader also understands the language from which the words come. When a new concept is introduced into the language, it's easiest to just do a phonetic translation. Two words, from a century ago, come to mind readily: 德謨克拉西 (phonetic) vs. 民主 for democracy and 塞恩斯 (phonetic) vs. 科學 for science. When the two concepts are understood and accepted into the culture, then 民主 and 科學 are definitely much easier to comprehend by the average Chinese reader. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best kind of translation is, of course, a term that captures the sound as well as the meaning. An example is 黑客 for hacker. Not only is the sound very similar to the original English word, the Chinese characters also evoke an image of some outsider lurking in the dark. Other notable examples of phonetic translation making their way into the language also involve clever choice of characters that evoke certain emotions or atmospheres. I am thinking of words like 浪漫 and 幽默. I am sure there are a lot of others, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am no expert on the Japanese language, but I understand that loan words are written in katakana, a different set of symbols. In other words, the presence of the katakana already signifies to the reader that it is a loan word. So from a psychological point of view, it's easier for the reader, and perhaps this is one of the reasons for the relative ease of retaining phonetically transcribed loan words in Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T19:06:53.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14415" CreationDate="2015-07-29T19:15:23.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Someone)做(something)做得较出色 is perfect Chinese.&#xA;较出色 can be translated into relatively outstanding &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Chinese tend to be modest when compliment someone related to them. So it is common to hear the boss praises his subordinate 做得较出色 or a mother praises her son 做得较出色 in front of a third party.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is perfectly fine if you remove the &quot;较&quot; which as user3306356 pointed out &quot;It's more formal (较 vs. 比较). 较 means relatively or comparatively&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. if you hear 较出色, someone/something probably is pretty outstanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11423" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T19:15:23.370" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14451" CreationDate="2015-07-29T19:31:25.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;一 in this construction has the meaning of ”once”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Once the business got started it was very successful, but later on we encountered difficulties.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example: 一看他的样子就知道他是个骗子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T19:31:25.307" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14456" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-30T02:17:04.573" Score="0" ViewCount="193" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I know what this '中国面孔' means, but sometimes Chinese surprises me completely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同时，也说明西门子这样一个跨国公司，已经开始选择完全的中国面孔来拉近和中国的距离。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已经开始选择完全的中国面孔来拉近和中国的距离&#xA;(Siemens) has already begun to select only Chinese nationals, in order to narrow the gap with China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国面孔 = Chinese faces = Chinese nationals ?? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-07-30T09:43:08.263" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T07:18:03.420" Title="What is the meaning of '中国面孔'?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14456" CreationDate="2015-07-30T03:19:01.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've searched some sentences on Baidu, they all mean &lt;code&gt;Chinese nationals&lt;/code&gt; in the context, i.e. &lt;code&gt;localization&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西门子高管出现首张中国面孔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西门子中国没有职位上的‘天花板’,从CEO,到业务总裁,越来越多的中国面孔跻身西门子高管团队,我的责任就是让有能力有经验的本土化员工迅速成长起来,担纲西门子中国以至全球的重任。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: I can't find your sentence exactly on Baidu, but I found this, which used the word &lt;code&gt;本土&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;localization&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西门子这样一个跨国公司，已经开始选择完全的本土脸孔来拉近和中国的距离。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cdwb.com.cn/html/2010-12/24/content_1146806.htm?lwjcldxufrsrpcvx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西门子高管出现首张中国面孔&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.163.com/10/0812/08/6DSEL9PJ00014AED.html?f=jsearch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;程美玮:西门子中国没有天花板&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wenzhouglasses.com/html/news/401979.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西门子本土化&amp;quot;模板&amp;quot; 用本土人管理上海业务&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T05:24:26.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14440" CreationDate="2015-07-30T04:55:01.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My 2 cents: Loanwords translation could simply depend on whether you are in PRC or in Taiwan. In Taiwan, phonetic translation seems a fashion. I'm not sure if it is another coincidence that Taiwanese culture is closer to Japanese culture. In old PRC, translation by meaning is easier to remember. Nowadays, with more people knowing or interested in English, translations that capture both meaning and sound will likely win. Other than 黑客， 奔驰 （mercedes-benz) and 优山美地 (Yosemite) are a couple of other examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11429" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T04:55:01.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14451" CreationDate="2015-07-30T04:58:24.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe there is a subtle difference between 一 in 一开始 and 'once'. I feel that 一 emphasizes more about what is happening at that moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11429" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T04:58:24.587" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="746" CreationDate="2015-07-30T07:36:27.570" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A thread worth reviving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word cigar came into English (and most other European languages) from Spanish.  I don't really think it's possible to say which one Chinese got it from, based just on phonetics.  Carol Benedict's book on tobacco in China, &lt;em&gt;Golden-Silk Smoke&lt;/em&gt;, notes that &quot;Filipino tobacco leaf and hand-rolled tobacco products began to flow to markets in Australia, California, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Southern China&quot; in the 1820s and 30s (page 134), so Spanish is a real possibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Benedict doesn't have much to say about Chinese words for tobacco products. The phrase 雪茄煙 does appear in the late Qing novel 二十年目睹之怪現狀.  This was serialized sometime between 1903 and 1908 ( don't have the exact dates here), and published in book form in 1909.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The claim that Xu Zhimo (1897-1931) invented the word 雪茄 is thus obviously impossible (he was precocious yes, but not &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; precocious).  I'm sure it goes back well into the 19th cent. It seems to me that both Yue and Wu dialects could easily have produced the form 雪茄 as a transcription of cigar; I would be interested to know if anyone can think of a reason that would exclude one or the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T07:36:27.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14462" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14470" CreationDate="2015-07-30T07:48:10.527" Score="0" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;io9&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are five acknowledged tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and (slightly more controversially) umami. For awhile now, researchers have suggested the existence of a sixth taste: fat. Now, a new study has researchers saying they may have finally isolated it—and they’ve given it a name: oleogustus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;oleogustus&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese news media is usually written in English with a parenthetically explanation something along the lines of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;oleogustus(在拉丁语中意思是脂肪味)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is there an official translation yet?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I'm only expecting it to be something like 脂味.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T22:41:39.290" Title="Is there an official translation for oleogustus, yet?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14464" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-30T10:03:54.353" Score="6" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know how long 麻醉 and 麻药 have been compounded to mean anesthesia and anesthetic respectively.  What is the approximate date of the origin of those two Chinese words?  Are their origins relatively recent or relatively remote?  Is there a reference site online that has this information or a reference in book form?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11432" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2015-07-31T05:44:34.463" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T05:44:34.463" Title="When did the words 麻醉 and 麻药 first appear?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14451" CreationDate="2015-07-30T14:02:45.123" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here, 一 should not be parsed by itself, but instead put together with 开始 to form the phrase 一开始, which means &quot;at the beginning&quot; or &quot;initially&quot;. So the correct translation would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事情一开始进展得很顺利，但后来我们遇到了困难&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the beginning, everything was going smoothly, but later we encountered difficulties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some more examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一开始，我不喜欢她。后来，我爱上了她。 At the beginning, I didn't like her. Later, I fell in love with her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一开始以为你很笨，后来发现其实你很聪明！ Initially, I thought you were dumb, but later I discovered that you are actually very smart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps! Happy learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11435" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T14:02:45.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14464" CreationDate="2015-07-30T14:27:35.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you're looking for how Chinese translated the technical terms, which according to the OED were invented by Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1846.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has early claims for anesthetic compounds a couple of thousand years before this, going back to the hoary Hua Tuo.  Wikipedia's article on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_general_anesthesia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;history of general anesthesia&lt;/a&gt; has a few things about him. There is more in the article on the Japanese doctor &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanaoka_Seish%C5%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hanaoka Seishū&lt;/a&gt;, reputedly the first person to perform an operation using general anesthesia. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these articles represent Wikipedia at its least reliable (look at the references), and in any case are not about the medical practices which Holmes christened in the 19th century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the comment from 倪阔乐 above mentions, the word ma-yao appears in Shui-hu-chuan (late 16th cent.) as a name for a general type of drug that is probably something like knock-out drops. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shui-hu-chuan calls the ma-yao in question 蒙汗藥 meng-han-yao, a drug which also appears in plays from the Yuan dynasty (13th cent). People who get dosed with 蒙汗藥 usually wind up as steamed meat buns in shops run by people you would not like to meet in a dark alley. Despite the claims of various dictionaries, I would not call this an anesthetic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say that this is a difficult question, not an easy one. You will have to hunt around in early accounts for yourself, and this could be tough. The book &lt;em&gt;Anesthesia: Essays on its history&lt;/em&gt; has a chapter by S. Yong called &quot;History of Modern Anesthesia in China&quot;. Alas, it's only 3 pages long.  Clearly there's a lot to be done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T14:27:35.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14451" CreationDate="2015-07-30T15:06:47.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tend to understand 一开始 as a whole, which means &quot;at the beginning&quot;. You can omit the 一 in most situations without changing the meaning much. However, adding 一 (which alone could be interpreted as &quot;once&quot; or &quot;as soon as&quot;) puts an emphasis on “beginning”, giving a hint that the speaker might later want to compare it with how things are like &quot; in the end&quot;, or to emphasize something happened very early.  Also, in some sentence structures, it may not be so obvious whether  开始 should be parsed as the verb &quot;to begin&quot; or &quot;in the beginning&quot; at the first glance, whereas 一开始 invokes no such ambiguity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally use 一开始 much more often than 开始.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T15:06:47.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14415" CreationDate="2015-07-30T15:17:58.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;较出色 is a somewhat formal expression, which is mostly seen in official or semiofficial documents. It literally means &quot;relatively outstanding&quot;. That is to say: it is not of the top tier, but a bit better than expectation. If it is used in a student's grade report, I think it roughly corresponds to A- or B+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T15:17:58.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14451" CreationDate="2015-07-30T17:13:26.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I somehow feel 一开始 is a bit earlier than if you use 开始 in term of time in the example &quot;事情一开始进展得很顺利，但后来我们遇到了困难&quot;. So I tend to translate 一开始 as &quot;at the very beginning&quot; vs &quot;at the beginning&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11423" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T17:13:26.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14462" CreationDate="2015-07-30T21:48:37.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脂肪味&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2015/7/323886.shtm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://news.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2015/7/323886.shtm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2015/0729/c70731-27376218.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2015/0729/c70731-27376218.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baike has an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E8%84%82%E8%82%AA%E5%91%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; on it too, but that seems to be related to an earlier US finding related to the gene CD36.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, your suggestion of &lt;code&gt;脂味&lt;/code&gt; appears to be the &lt;a href=&quot;http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20150727-00000090-it_nlab-sci&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;preferred&lt;/a&gt; Japanese translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T22:41:39.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14464" CreationDate="2015-07-30T23:55:05.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hua Tuo's (c. 140–208)innovative anaesthetic mafeisan 麻沸散 &amp;quot;cannabis boiling powder&amp;quot; is a long-standing mystery. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Tuo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Tuo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;麻沸散 claimed to be the first sort of anaesthetic, probably combined with surgical analgesia by acupuncture when in surgical practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even the mystery lasts long, I would say neither the 麻醉 or 麻药 is a recent concept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11423" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T23:55:05.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14472" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-31T03:34:12.957" Score="3" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;'afford' in its meaning of 'can pay for' is not so easy to locate in Chinese. There doesn't seem to be one word. 'can't afford' is fairly easy: '买不起‘。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have this in my text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;..., 既满足了自己买车的愿望，又能承受得起燃油费用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;承受得起 = afford ?? This 得 is its use as a particle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T23:18:06.960" Title="Is this the way to say 'afford'?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14472" CreationDate="2015-07-31T03:52:01.740" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your text (&lt;code&gt;承受得起&lt;/code&gt;) is fine. And also could use &lt;code&gt;负担得起&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;can afford&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you said, it's easy to say &lt;code&gt;can't afford&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;~不起&lt;/code&gt;, and the opposites in Chinese is &lt;code&gt;~得起&lt;/code&gt;, and then you could use this form for more verbs according to the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-07-31T09:26:01.313" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T09:26:01.313" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14472" CreationDate="2015-07-31T06:50:54.277" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;承受得起 here could loosely be translated as &quot;afford&quot;, but also as &quot;to bear the burden of sth&quot;, as in 承受负担. Like you said, 得 is an adverbial particle. The opposite is 不.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Afford has several different connotations and usages in English. Here are examples of the most common ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't afford (to buy) this house. 我买不起这个房子。&#xA;I can't afford (to pay) your wages. 我付不起你的工资.&#xA;I can't afford (to accept) this outcome. 我承担不起这个结果.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11435" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T06:50:54.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14475" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14580" CreationDate="2015-07-31T07:47:55.753" Score="0" ViewCount="594" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's 汉典's rendition of :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tZkWX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tZkWX.png&quot; alt=&quot;hadian&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; according to 四川方言词语考释 dictionary means 板着(脸).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=2B60F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;字海&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【字海】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;该字暂无解释！希望有识之士提供！ (&amp;quot;This character doesn't have an explanation yet! We hope someone who knows to add one!&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/b2/js/2B60F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;暂无解释，欢迎补充。(&amp;quot;There is no definition for now, you're welcome to add one.&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does Mandarin Ever Use This Character? If So, In What Context, With What Meaning?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T05:40:28.550" Title="Is  ever used in the Chinese language? And what does it mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14476" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14478" CreationDate="2015-07-31T13:12:23.573" Score="13" ViewCount="1976" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you leave a shop, you often hear the shopkeeper saying something like &quot;man dianer a&quot;, which sounds like 慢点儿阿 (something parents say to their kids to get them to walk more slowly [even if they never listen]).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's quite possible I'm mishearing what they're saying.  It really is an everyday thing to say, and I've heard it in lots of different and unrelated shops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-09-16T07:41:08.730" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T15:10:18.880" Title="Why do people say 慢点儿阿(&quot;man dianer a&quot;) when you leave their shop?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14476" CreationDate="2015-07-31T13:33:12.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard 慢走 plenty of times and 慢点儿 seems very similar. It’s just a polite thing to say that means something like 一路平安. They don't literally mean to walk slower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T13:33:12.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14476" CreationDate="2015-07-31T14:41:58.110" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;慢走&lt;/code&gt; is a polite thing to say usually used for someone who is leaving, has two implicit meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't want you to leave, so please leave slowly, so I can stay a little longer with you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't hurry, take care.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;慢点儿&lt;/code&gt; has the same meaning, but not as formal as &lt;code&gt;慢走&lt;/code&gt;, and sounds more affable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T05:57:01.200" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T05:57:01.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14476" CreationDate="2015-07-31T16:09:45.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You were totally hearing it right. It is &quot;慢点儿啊&quot;. Sometimes people may rush and get into trouble, so don't rush, take it slow and you will get back safely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would assume you heard this in the northern part of China. It's not just shops, people would say the same to their guests when they leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it's just a saying, being polite. Like in the UK, people would say &quot;You all right?&quot;, that's just like Chinese say &quot;吃了没?&quot;. Do they really care about your well being or your empty belly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T05:59:23.317" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T05:59:23.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14405" CreationDate="2015-07-31T16:28:14.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 好多 has more personal feelings to it, while 很多 sounds more objective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you want to express something amazing, you would use 好多. 好多好多狗狗，好可爱哦！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to describe a fact, you go with 很多. 这里有很多狗狗。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T16:28:14.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14476" CreationDate="2015-07-31T17:22:30.813" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You heard it right and all above answers are correct. But I'll just translate 慢点儿啊 in this context (as a lot more cases) as &quot;take care&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11423" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-02-24T06:21:25.970" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T06:21:25.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14472" CreationDate="2015-07-31T23:18:06.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you may make it simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;afford=承担，承受&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cannot afford=不能承担&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I canot afford the gas cost=我不能承担汽油的费用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不起&quot; is not a must in most cases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, you can translate &quot;cannot afford&quot; to 不能承担 or 承担不起. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;得起/不起&quot; is really something related to &quot;can/cannot&quot;, not &quot;afford&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;得起/不起&quot; is a bit wider than &quot;can/cannot&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 玩不起, 输不起, 伤不起 or 惹不起, 不起=definitely cannot + massive side effect if it happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T23:18:06.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14483" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-01T00:32:13.803" Score="1" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this in my text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在绿色、环保已成为全社会共识的大背景下， 。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘背景下’ says to me ‘under a background' which seems odd. I would rather locate things 'in front of' a background.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I change '背景下‘ for '背景前‘ or '背景前面‘ and still win the 'Impeccable Chinese Prize' ？？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T02:26:47.317" Title="Can I change this '下‘ for '前面‘？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14483" CreationDate="2015-08-01T00:55:21.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. The grammatical pattern is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在x下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means &quot;with x as true/under&quot;. An example would be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在共产党的统治下，中国变强了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the sentence means something like (though it's kinda hard to translate this semi-literally without sounding very weird): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With a green and environmental world as the consensus background for&#xA;  society...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-01T02:26:47.317" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T02:26:47.317" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14483" CreationDate="2015-08-01T01:53:20.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &lt;code&gt;下&lt;/code&gt; should be used for an &quot;abstract background&quot;, such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在全球气候变暖的背景下&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  在当时的社会背景下&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  在互联网时代背景下  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;前&lt;/code&gt; is usually used for a &quot;concrete background&quot;, such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;办公室背景前歪着头拿着报纸的商务男士&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  灰色背景前的蝴蝶图片&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如何在移动的背景前拍摄静态人物&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-08-01T02:23:06.413" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T02:23:06.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14486" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14642" CreationDate="2015-08-01T05:21:02.813" Score="1" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I actually want a tongue twister for practice.  But I want one that could be a Chinese sentence. Is the following at all acceptable as way to say &quot;This is the 'seek truth through facts' rock&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这就是实事求是的石.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By that I mean the rock on the Renmin University campus with the motto 实事求是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On line I find nearly this, but always with 石额 or some other noun complement to 石.  Can I possibly do without that, or is 石 too much of a bound morpheme to allow that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-08-01T06:38:16.070" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T01:53:54.513" Title="The grammar of 实事求是的石" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14486" CreationDate="2015-08-01T06:41:53.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's okay grammatically, but not very challenging. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;粗俗書生私下心想，「石上書寫『實事求是』四字似是敘寫世上數億心上思想，實屬喜事!」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-08-01T06:49:56.983" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T06:49:56.983" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14456" CreationDate="2015-08-01T07:18:03.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am from China, and I was surprised to find Chinese Language forum at stackexchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面孔 is not equal to English word “Face&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已经开始选择完全的中国面孔来拉近和中国的距离 means (Siemens) employ Chinese citizens in  the top of company, let local people to manage local business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you may not notice that before 中国面孔 there is a adjective 完全的 which means total/complete. So, you can describe a Asian people as 中国面孔,like 那个人是中国面孔（That man has a Chinese face)中国面孔, but in fact , He may be a Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's all right, because 中国面孔 means someone looks like a Chinese people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11441" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T07:18:03.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14501" CreationDate="2015-08-01T09:06:53.567" Score="1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the earliest usage of 力不从心?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The earliest I've seen is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《後汉书·西域传》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今使者大兵未能得出, 如諸國力不從心, 東西南北自在也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anything earlier than 后汉书? 445 is, apparently, the given year for completion of 后汉书.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-02T05:57:58.367" Title="Earliest usage of 力不从心?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14489" CreationDate="2015-08-01T10:04:09.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nope. I just look up the Chinese Idiom Dictionary, and I just find out the same answer. But be aware of this, 后汉 is not the same as Han Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, I am a native Chinese speaker and passion about history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you are messing Simplified Chinese with the original version Chinese.Yeah, 後 is what I am saying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11442" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T10:04:09.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14205" CreationDate="2015-08-01T12:36:07.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some things that I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bjshy.gov.cn/Item/64056.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.bjshy.gov.cn/Item/64056.aspx&lt;/a&gt;:&#xA;Beijing Shunyi district in a job related to labor disputes: &gt; 70 WPM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ghj.fuzhou.gov.cn/ghjzwgk/rsxx/201504/t20150414_890668.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ghj.fuzhou.gov.cn/ghjzwgk/rsxx/201504/t20150414_890668.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Fuzhou city/countryside planning: ~60 WPM&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mohrss.gov.cn/SYrlzyhshbzb/fwyd/sykaoshi/zyhgjjgsydwgkzp/201401/W020140124568664734613.doc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mohrss.gov.cn/SYrlzyhshbzb/fwyd/sykaoshi/zyhgjjgsydwgkzp/201401/W020140124568664734613.doc&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security: &gt; 90 WPM for Chinese, &gt; 220 Letters/min for English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gzjd.gov.cn/jdwsjb/xxgk_phoneweb/xxgkml_phoneweb/tzgg_phoneweb/qt_tzgg_phoneweb/20141104/detail-273178.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.gzjd.gov.cn/jdwsjb/xxgk_phoneweb/xxgkml_phoneweb/tzgg_phoneweb/qt_tzgg_phoneweb/20141104/detail-273178.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Guangzhou Liwan District Public Security Bureau:&gt;50WPM&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems in general 50 WPM is kinda the minimum. And most places want more. I didn't find any info about certification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T12:36:07.947" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14492" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14493" CreationDate="2015-08-01T16:59:39.280" Score="2" ViewCount="446" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have come across a couple of Cantonese words transliterated in Jyutping which had * in the tone number. For example, on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CantoDict&lt;/a&gt;, the word &lt;code&gt;广东话&lt;/code&gt; is transliterated as &lt;code&gt;gwong2-dung1-waa6*2&lt;/code&gt;. What does that asterisk mean? Is it some form of sandhi?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="2600" LastEditDate="2015-10-14T03:21:09.220" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T16:53:33.177" Title="Asterisks in Jyutping Cantonese" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14492" CreationDate="2015-08-01T17:37:46.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not standard Jyutping, but CantoDict uses the asterisk to indicate a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changed_tone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;changed tone&lt;/a&gt;. In your example, &lt;code&gt;waa6*2&lt;/code&gt;, the standard citation tone for 话 is 6, but when pronounced in the word, 广东话, its tone changes to a rising tone, so it is denoted with a &lt;code&gt;*2&lt;/code&gt;. A note at the footer of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1620/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the definition page&lt;/a&gt; indicates this convention:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, CantoDict uses a unique &quot;asterisk (*)&quot; convention, to show readings such as &lt;code&gt;jyu4*2&lt;/code&gt;. For more information please see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/essays/tones.htm#cantodict_tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CantoDict Tone Conventions&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum: Since you mentioned sandhi, I just wanted to note that Cantonese changed tones is different from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tone sandhi&lt;/a&gt;. This previous answer explains in further detail: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/9599/166&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/9599/166&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T18:17:32.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14494" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-01T17:50:06.527" Score="3" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look online, translation for 投胎 is 'reincarnation'. It suits phrases like 投胎转世 but often does not feel quite right in other context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你急什么，赶着去投胎?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure if anyone would laugh if you translate it into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'What's the hurry, on the way to reincarnate?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;投胎 is one of the steps, an action, of the entire reincarnation process. But I'm short of proper English word or simple phrase here. Also hope it's a fun question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11429" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-05T03:30:10.430" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T03:30:10.430" Title="What is the best translation for 投胎?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14494" CreationDate="2015-08-01T18:44:53.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;What's the hurry? Wanna get to your next life so soon?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think no matter what one does, some thing will be lost in translation because of the huge difference between Chinese and English in beliefs and world views. My aim is to retain some of the light-heartedness and, as much as possible, gloss over the unpleasantness of dying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T18:44:53.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="537" CreationDate="2015-08-01T19:39:05.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even if the pronunce is &quot;ü&quot;, the pinyin is always &quot;u&quot; after: &quot;j&quot; &quot;q&quot; &quot;x&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a (cruel!) mnemonic doggerel for this rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小淘气 (xiǎo táoqì) &quot;the little brats&quot;&#xA;见了鱼眼 (jiàn le yǔyǎn) &quot;saw the eyes of a fish&quot;&#xA;就挖去 (jiù wā qù) &quot;and took them out&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T19:39:05.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14494" CreationDate="2015-08-02T01:47:57.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might say 你急什么，赶着去投胎? if you are annoyed with someone who is shoving you getting on the metro, or to a car driver who is hooting impatiently, more as a threat. In that context you might say in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'What's the deal, you looking for trouble, need your face rearranged?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt you would actually send them to their next life, bad karma!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-02T01:47:57.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14498" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-02T02:29:59.463" Score="2" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国加入世界贸易组织后，国内的汽车行业与汽车市场运行环境发生了前所未有的改变。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes in colloquial English we say 'shift' to mean 'sell'. Is '运行环境‘ something like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;运行环境 maybe 'sales environment' or ‘turnover' (交易额） ??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T09:14:25.807" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T09:14:25.807" Title="What is this 运行 in ...国内的汽车行业与汽车市场运行环境发生了前所未有的改变?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14498" CreationDate="2015-08-02T02:54:45.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should think of &lt;strong&gt;运行&lt;em&gt;环境&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;conditions&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; in which they can &lt;strong&gt;maneuver/operate&lt;/strong&gt;.&quot; 运行 means operate and 环境 means environment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the sentence means like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After China entered the global market, the conditions in which the domestic auto industry and auto market operate underwent changes that have never happened before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-02T12:14:52.520" LastActivityDate="2015-08-02T12:14:52.520" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14498" CreationDate="2015-08-02T05:11:56.170" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;国内的汽车行业与汽车市场运行环境发生了前所未有的改变 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This segment I would probably translate as &quot;The domestic automobile industry and the operating environment of the automobile market underwent unprecedented changes.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;国内的 domestic&#xA;汽车行业 automobile industry&#xA;与 and&#xA;汽车市场运行环境 operating environment of the automobile market&#xA;发生了 happened/underwent&#xA;前所未有的 unprecedented&#xA;改变 changes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11435" LastActivityDate="2015-08-02T05:11:56.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14489" CreationDate="2015-08-02T05:57:58.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the most useful resources for checking this sort of thing is the huge database from Academia Sinica (中央研究院), &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanji.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;漢籍電子文獻&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The earliest instance in 漢籍 is just what you cite, 後漢書西域傳, but 漢籍 also lets you look at the context, which can sometimes give a more precise date.  It turns out this line is attributed to 廣武帝, in 廣武二十一年. This would be A.D. 46-7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Works such as &lt;em&gt;Shi ji&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Han shu&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;San guo zhi&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Hou Han shu&lt;/em&gt;, and so on, often incorporate early original documents; if you want to date something, this can be very helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also can't help feeling that this expression is related to the famous line 七十而從心所欲 in the Analects. 從心 is 從心所欲, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-08-02T05:57:58.367" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14502" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14503" CreationDate="2015-08-02T06:16:44.963" Score="2" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard that the current lunar year (for most of 2015) is sometimes called in English the Year of the Goat, Year of the Ram, or Year of the Sheep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also heard that the reason for the different translations is that the hanzi for the year is &quot;羊&quot;, which can cover all three options. Is this true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is the term &quot;羊&quot; ambiguous, or is it merely unambiguously referring to  a larger-scale &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;taxon&lt;/a&gt; than a single species?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T20:21:19.027" Title="Is &quot;Year of the Goat/Ram/Sheep&quot; due to the Chinese language?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14502" CreationDate="2015-08-02T06:48:55.287" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese 羊 is more an equivalent to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprinae&quot;&gt;Caprinae&lt;/a&gt; subfamily than to a single species inside this subfamily, to which both the sheep and the goats belong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-08-02T06:48:55.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14505" CreationDate="2015-08-02T13:51:52.960" Score="5" ViewCount="1412" Body="&lt;p&gt;Standard Cantonese has six tones, Minnan, spoken primarily in Taiwan and Fujian, has five to seven; and so on down to Mandarin, based on the Beijing dialect, which has only four.  (I don't count neutral &quot;tone&quot;, as it is conditioned by its environment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any dialects that have fewer than four? Examples of pronunciation would be very helpful, as would any references in the scholarly literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Postscript:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry! In asking the question I should have considered the difference between &quot;phonetic&quot; tones and &quot;phonemic&quot; tones.  Different analyses can come up with different tone inventories and different numbers of tones. Thanks for the clarifying comment below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-08-03T08:25:29.450" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T14:34:04.857" Title="Which dialect of Chinese has the fewest tones?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14504" CreationDate="2015-08-02T13:57:55.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure, but probably the Shanghai dialect (上海话), which is said to have only two tones or rather pitch accents: &lt;a href=&quot;http://wu-chinese.com/zanhei/pitch.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;low and high&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-08-02T13:57:55.033" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14506" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14510" CreationDate="2015-08-02T14:46:06.650" Score="-6" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the great search for plane debris currently taking place in La Reunion island, a metal has been found with what seems to be Chinese written on it (it &lt;strong&gt;might&lt;/strong&gt; be a plane debris, but nobody can be sure of that), but I can't find what it means :&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UE7cw.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UE7cw.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you help me ?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;EDIT : Full photo for context : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.clicanoo.re/IMG/jpg/-19054.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.clicanoo.re/IMG/jpg/-19054.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11100" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T08:22:53.047" Title="What does it mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-08-05T19:43:28.293" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14507" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14513" CreationDate="2015-08-03T04:05:20.717" Score="2" ViewCount="1143" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is kind of a two-part question: 1) If you say &quot;你如何喜歡你的菜?&quot; are you asking, &quot;how does the food taste to you&quot; or &quot;how do you prefer your food to be cooked&quot;? To me it seems that if you are asking the first question it would be better to say &quot;你的菜怎麼樣&quot; and if you are asking the second question you should say &quot;你如何喜歡你的菜&quot;. Or is it basically the same question either way?&#xA;2) Is there a difference between 如何 and 怎麼樣 in either meaning or usage? I feel like there is but I can't quite define what it is. (If the second part of this question is to broad, I'm happy just getting an answer to the first part.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11452" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T12:03:12.867" Title="Use of 如何 versus 怎麼樣" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14507" CreationDate="2015-08-03T04:20:59.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.Do you like this dish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你觉得这道菜怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 2 would normally not be asked in China I'm told, unless maybe you have servant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How would you like this dish prepared?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您要我怎么做这道菜？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T04:20:59.257" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14507" CreationDate="2015-08-03T08:08:35.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;你如何喜歡你的菜?&quot; more sounds like &quot;What makes you like your food?&quot;. We rarely say that. I prefer Pedroski's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如何 and 怎麼樣  are nearly the same. When you ask 2 &quot;how&quot;s, you can use 怎么样 for the first question, 如何 for the second one. Such as: &quot;How about this cell phone? And how about its quality?&quot; = &quot;这个手机怎么样？质量如何？&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11368" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T08:08:35.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14506" CreationDate="2015-08-03T08:22:53.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a crashed aluminum kettle. It wrote 宜兴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11368" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T08:22:53.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14504" CreationDate="2015-08-03T14:34:04.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arguably 东干语 is an example, which has only three tones. The first and the second one in mandarin is merged. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungan_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungan_language&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T14:34:04.857" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14494" CreationDate="2015-08-03T17:47:49.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;code&gt;你急什么，赶着去投胎?``投胎&lt;/code&gt;is a metaphor to mean &quot;die&quot;. It's usually used when people are pushing you to a limit that you felt so annoyed and you started to curse-&quot;(What's the hurry)Stop it. Go hell(to get the reincarnation)! &quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11423" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T17:47:49.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14507" CreationDate="2015-08-03T18:15:04.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel &lt;code&gt;你如何喜歡你的菜&lt;/code&gt;was machine translated for &quot;How do you like you dish?&quot; where &quot;how&quot; can be translated to either 如何 or 怎么样. As Drunken Master pointed out, 如何 is a bit formal and are more likely to be used in written, while 怎么样 are usually used in speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first thought of 你如何喜歡你的菜 was &quot;How do you like your dish to be cooked?&quot; as I just ordered my steak. And, medium rare please...:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11423" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T18:15:04.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14514" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-03T20:29:19.777" Score="1" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's Analects chapter 10&#xA;when the master comes to a country does he ask about the government? and then: 抑與之與?&#xA;the last 與 is probably the ending particle. &#xA;抑 means to restrain to restrict. The first 與 is preposition indicating passive tense?&#xA;is the Master stopped from asking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9780" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T06:27:46.903" Title="the Master is stopped from investigation?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14514" CreationDate="2015-08-03T20:44:07.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add some context:&#xA;「夫子至是邦也，必聞其政，求之與？抑與之與？」&#xA;this is where OP's quote coming from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;求之與？抑與之與？&#xA;求之與？ is basically saying &quot;do you seek it yourself(perhaps doing some investigative work) to obtain the information&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抑與之與？&#xA;is saying &quot;or you just hear(hear to believe) what other people are saying&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T20:44:07.020" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14498" CreationDate="2015-08-03T20:46:17.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 运行环境 is a typo here.&#xA;should had been &quot;运营环境&quot; which then would not only make more sense but also make it easier to translate. (operating environment or something close to it&#xA;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T20:46:17.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14502" CreationDate="2015-08-03T22:40:47.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a northerner, an inner-Mongolian, we consume lamb (OMG, is lamb from sheep? Or from a goat or a Ram?) as our primary meat. I feel when we say 羊, it always means sheep, otherwise we would have said 山羊. And Ram is rare in China, so I don't think 羊 means Ram often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is going to be interesting if from a southerner's perspective that 羊 means 山羊 by default because there are more goats in their region. Then I will guess it's the Year of the Goat for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also interesting why there is not a common term (that an intermediate English speaker like me would know) to describe &lt;code&gt;the Caprinae subfamily than to a single species inside this subfamily, to which both the sheep and the goats belong&lt;/code&gt;. I mean, no matter Huskies or Chiwawas or bulldogs, they are all dogs; bull/ox/buffalo are all cows; why on earth there is no term for Sheep/Goat/Ram?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11423" LastEditorUserId="200" LastEditDate="2016-07-31T20:21:19.027" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T20:21:19.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14519" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-03T23:23:10.803" Score="1" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the meanings I find for '予以 = give, grant' I can't really see what it is doing here. Maybe the Chinese is '予以推进 = give/produce advancement'， but 予以 may also mean 'impose' I believe. Maybe the sense is 'force advancement'??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李记者：您认为我国在发展“低碳经济“方面，可能会采取哪些政策措施予以推进。&#xA;吴先生： 我国在推进“低碳经济”时，。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which policy/political measures do you think it is possible to adopt to advance China's  'low carbon economy'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit：Just got a suggestion: Can I replace '予以‘ with '帮助‘？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit again:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is not clear to me from your comments is: Is 予以 a particle or a word with meaning, or both at  the same time? In wpt's example sentence below, I see no unavoidable reason to interpret '表扬‘ as a verb. It can equally be considered a noun and  予以 just means give. Why invoke special properties for 予以？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有特殊貢獻者應予以表揚&#xA;have special contributors should give praise.&#xA;There are special contributors (who we) should give praise to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-08-05T02:14:41.113" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T03:52:51.997" Title="What is this 予以 doing in my sentence?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13481" CreationDate="2015-08-04T00:47:59.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You intend to insult someone. So how about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你是为了看起来显得高才带着脑袋的么？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Do you bring your head with you only to look taller?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That works for me every time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11455" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-07T02:17:28.270" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T02:17:28.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14143" CreationDate="2015-08-04T01:07:23.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most conditions, Chinese Mandarin doesn't divide &quot;rat&quot; and &quot;mouse&quot;, but 鼠 and 老鼠 can mean different creatures. 鼠 means various of mouse-like creatures, like voles, hamsters, guinea pigs and so on, while 老鼠 only means rat, that grey little creature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps, I learned these from an online lesson I was taking, it's the ECL(eChineseLearning), they have got a free trial, and basically that's why I enroll their classes. Just for your consideration if you want to learn Chinese systematically, visit at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.echineselearning.com/free-trial/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.echineselearning.com/free-trial/&lt;/a&gt; for a free trial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11455" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T01:07:23.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14519" CreationDate="2015-08-04T02:40:41.343" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;予以 is a conjunction-like thing that is something like English &quot;as a means of&quot;, &quot;for purposes of&quot;, and is often used in officialese to keep things comfortably vague. Use it when you are writing a report to your boss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Postscript:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer works when 予以 occurs between two verb phrases.  I would call the phrases I used 'functional equivalents', not literal translations.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Shawn's answer notes, 予以 sometimes occurs between noun phrase and verb. In this case, you will have to translate a different way. Here is another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有特殊貢獻者應予以表揚&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Those who have made special contributions should be recognized.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammar used here is literary Chinese, and the original meaning of 予以 as 'give + indirect obj marker' is very clear.  The subject is the direct object, hence in English, the whole thing is passive. Many native speakers don't really know how to use this type of literary construction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T06:59:04.103" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T06:59:04.103" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14519" CreationDate="2015-08-04T02:52:12.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;予以照顾 makes you put the object before the predicate, like 我对她予以照顾. Without the 予以, you should put the object after 照顾, like 我照顾她. Besides 予以照顾 is more formal than just 照顾. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11455" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T02:52:12.963" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14498" CreationDate="2015-08-04T04:56:09.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;运行&quot;is a action,it means all the actions of &quot;汽车市场&quot;.include :&quot;研发&quot;&quot;销售&quot;&quot;创业&quot;&quot;资金筹集&quot;&quot;跨国贸易&quot;......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11456" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T04:56:09.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14526" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-04T05:49:09.830" Score="4" ViewCount="3383" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Mandarin teacher told us “星期四见” to say &quot;see you on Thursday.&quot; How would I say &quot;see you this weekend&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“这个周末见” or “末见这个周”? Or something else entirely? This is being used to end a letter, so I don't need to throw in a “你” right? I'm a bit confused as to whether the verb should come first or last.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11457" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T12:09:08.873" Title="How to say &quot;see you this weekend?&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14527" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14530" CreationDate="2015-08-04T05:52:02.890" Score="6" ViewCount="2085" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any open software that adds a second line of pinyin to a line of characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e.: converting “你好” to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nǐhǎo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Converting to ni3hao3 would be fine to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open, namely, so that I can tinker with the pinyin to fit my needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T16:27:56.843" Title="Open Software Two-Line Add Pinyin To Characters" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14526" CreationDate="2015-08-04T05:58:14.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should be &lt;code&gt;这个周末见&lt;/code&gt;, or just &lt;code&gt;周末见&lt;/code&gt;, don't say &lt;code&gt;末见这个周&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, no need to throw in a &lt;code&gt;你&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T06:04:36.997" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T06:04:36.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14529" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14532" CreationDate="2015-08-04T07:06:09.020" Score="1" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are they used interchangeably or do they really have separate uses? I keep getting confused between the three. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11458" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T11:14:23.907" Title="what's the difference between 会, 可以, and 能?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-08-04T16:53:54.377" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14527" CreationDate="2015-08-04T07:21:39.533" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's needless to point out that you do realize that [hanzi --&gt; pinyin] is not a straightforward function, because of the ambiguous relation of characters and pronunciation (多音字).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Character by character rendering is a very simple way, but will leave you with many false pinyin syllables and/or multiple options.&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.branah.com/chinese-to-pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This site&lt;/a&gt; gives all the different pinyins of a character in parentheses, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;INPUT: 你好&#xA;OUTPUT: nǐ[hǎo hāo hào]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So any decent approach would require a &lt;em&gt;lookup in a  multi-character&lt;/em&gt; word dictionary. If there is nothing online that comes close to this, you could download the latest &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=cc-cedict&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CEDICT&lt;/a&gt; file, remove all but the Traditional, Simplified and the Pinyin fields and use Python/awk, grep to write a script to bulk lookup Chinese words and output the results to a file or similar. Would not be that complex, although you would still need an 'algorithm' to identify &lt;em&gt;word boundaries&lt;/em&gt;, otherwise just use 'brute force' to look up all the different matching entries in CEDICT. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the application context or purpose of what you would like to do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(I am adding this as an answer because it's too long for a comment and also because of the URLs)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some users have recommended the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypinyin.readthedocs.org/en/master/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pypinyin&lt;/a&gt; module which claims to support 多音字. I have run a test of &lt;code&gt;pypinyin&lt;/code&gt; against the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=cc-cedict&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CEDICT&lt;/a&gt; dictionary file, which is human compiled by many users and is the largest open source Chinese dictionary and is used by many apps (including &lt;code&gt;Pleco&lt;/code&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Test results:&#xA;The &lt;code&gt;CEDICT&lt;/code&gt; file contains over 113k entries (compiled over many years and continuously updated). For each entry in the &lt;code&gt;CEDICT&lt;/code&gt; file I have compared the pinyin transcription against the output for the Simplified character expression of the pypinyin module. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have accounted for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;differences in pinyin transcription&lt;/em&gt;, like 'ü' vs. 'v'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;transcriptin of &lt;em&gt;儿&lt;/em&gt; ('er' vs. 'r') in erhua expressions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;upper- and lowercase&lt;/em&gt; pinyin transcriptions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;some obvious errors in the &lt;code&gt;CEDICT&lt;/code&gt; file (missing pinyin) or whitespace and · (middle dot) and comma usage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be fair, I have also excluded all the &lt;em&gt;single character&lt;/em&gt; &lt;code&gt;CEDICT&lt;/code&gt; entries from the test, because it's impossible to give the correct &lt;code&gt;pinyin&lt;/code&gt; for a 多音字 without any context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first round, with excluding the single character entries, I run the test for 100.169 entries with 9471 mismatching pairs (&lt;code&gt;CEDICT&lt;/code&gt; &amp;lt;--&gt; &lt;code&gt;pypinyin&lt;/code&gt;).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, I analysed the the results and realized that &lt;code&gt;pypinyin&lt;/code&gt; has a somewhat contradictory policy on &lt;em&gt;tone sandhis&lt;/em&gt;, it accounts for the change of 不 and 一 (e.g. in 不在) but not for 3rd tone + 3rd tone words, like 小姐. So I decided to exclude 不 and 一 to drill further deeper (and thus also excluded some cases where pypinyin was incorrect for some other reason than the tone sandhi notation). In the case of 不 and 一, marking tone change is a matter of opinion (but should be done consequently, not as in &lt;code&gt;pypinyin&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 2nd round, I had 97.196 entries to test and got 8968 mismatching pairs.&#xA;After scrolling through the list of mismatching results, I came to the conclusion that &lt;code&gt;pypinyin&lt;/code&gt; has &lt;strong&gt;no support for the neutral tone&lt;/strong&gt; (5), e.g. 什么 (shén me) is *shén mé for &lt;code&gt;pypinyin&lt;/code&gt;. Final 子, like in  位子, are given as 3rd tone. Similarly, 儿 is always incorrectly er2, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other most common error is &lt;strong&gt;incorrect tone&lt;/strong&gt;, other than those neutral syllables. These include (among others):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;们 *men2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;发 in 黑发 *hei1 fa1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;禁伐 is incorrectly *jin1 fa2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;近几年 *jin4 ji1 nian2, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Incorrect initials&lt;/strong&gt; make up another large group:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;调 tiao vs. diao&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;朝 chao vs. zhao &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;重 chong vs. zhong, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;传 chuan vs. zhuan, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;弹琴 *dan qin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;厦门 *sha men&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;社长 *she chang, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also many elementary words are given with &lt;strong&gt;incorrect pinyin&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;音乐 is *yin le in &lt;code&gt;pypinyin&lt;/code&gt; (my &quot;favorite&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鱼露 is incorrectly *yu luo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;卡 as *qia in almost all cases, like 卡拉OK * qia la OK&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;柏林  as *bai lin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;落下 *la xia&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have noticed in some cases that the &lt;em&gt;Taiwan Mandarin&lt;/em&gt; pronunciation is favored by &lt;code&gt;pypinyin&lt;/code&gt;, but the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypinyin.readthedocs.org/en/master/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;doc pages&lt;/a&gt; do not comment on this, which is obviously another issue, since users do have to know what to expect as output. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all this, &lt;code&gt;pypinyin&lt;/code&gt; has obvious shortcomings that make it unsuitable for professional use (you have to manually check every word to eliminate hard to spot errors) and also for building dictionaries or other material targeted at beginners. Even &lt;code&gt;HSK&lt;/code&gt; level 2 or 3 expect most of the examples noted above to be used correctly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am considering to create a Python lib that uses the CEDICT file to transcribe Chinese characters to pinyin. My only concern is that the CEDICT file also contains inaccurate pinyins, so first I would need a reliable source to update incorrect pinyins in CEDICT. If anyone knows about such a file or API, please leave a comment.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-08-08T19:28:53.153" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T19:28:53.153" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14527" CreationDate="2015-08-04T11:04:50.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many tools, commercials, open sources, free tools or online services  can do this job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what are you gonna do, so it's hard to pick one for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some that ease to use:&#xA;online service&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pth.linqi.org/pyzd_biaozhu.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://pth.linqi.org/pyzd_biaozhu.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese font with pinyin:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyinok.com/pyhzk.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.pinyinok.com/pyhzk.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;free tool:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.putonghuaworld.com/computer/100604/100604_0101.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.putonghuaworld.com/computer/100604/100604_0101.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pro open source tool list:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.oschina.net/project/tag/446/pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.oschina.net/project/tag/446/pinyin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: You can find this feature in the appropriate edition of Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T11:04:50.240" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14529" CreationDate="2015-08-04T11:14:23.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have pretty similar meaning and almost interchangeable in daily conversation but there are subtle differences between these three words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可以 means you can do something&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;能 is used when you want to emphasise you have the ability to do something&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;会 means you are not only able to do it but do it proficiently&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我可以说中文 I can speak Chinese (probably not very well and maybe not willing to speak Chinese)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我能说中文 I am able to speak Chinese (I'm not those people who completely don't understand Chinese)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我会说中文 I can speak Chinese proficiently (probably you can speak Chinese fluently and you're willing to speak Chinese)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this will be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11461" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T11:14:23.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14519" CreationDate="2015-08-04T11:44:00.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you would better treat 予以 as 把, 被 kind of word.  You can not replace it with 帮助 simply, it is a very complex sentence particle, does not mean any actual things, just for structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried to replace it with 帮助, but the result is odd. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;记者：您认为我国在发展“低碳经济“方面，可能会采取哪些政策措施帮助(我国)推进(于彼)。 吴先生： 我国在推进“低碳经济”时，。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, 予以 help you imply object and object complement, both of them are in subordinate clause and omitted.&#xA;The revised one is right for grammar but very uncomfortable. Thank you for this question, I've never realize this word have such powerful quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T11:51:24.533" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T11:51:24.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13481" CreationDate="2015-08-04T12:47:16.697" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你天真的可爱.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;You are naively lovely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(with a smile) personally.  Conventional arms so people won't get angry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的智商该充值了.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;You need to put money on your IQ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的智商明显余额不足.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Your IQ balance is apparently insufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T02:16:18.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14535" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14617" CreationDate="2015-08-04T14:20:33.420" Score="6" ViewCount="790" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bought a figure of a taoist wise some years ago, and in all these years I have been unable to decipher the tiny seal (1cm x 1cm) under the figure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an important figure in my life and I would be extremely thankful if somebody could help me to understand the meaning of the text. The figure is holding some kind of receptacle (a bowl) in his hand and has a cloud carved on his back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been looking at the dictionary to decipher the characters under 林, and the most similar characters I have found are ji 己, and qiǎo 丂… but I am not sure if these can be the correct ones… I guess it is very difficult to &amp;quot;translate&amp;quot; a proper name…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WvBIJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WvBIJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The seal&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xbi7m.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xbi7m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;seal&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lLQGk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lLQGk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The figure&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uAKPl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uAKPl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Enhanced drawing by @Daniel Cheung&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: found clearer picture of seal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q64FP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q64FP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11462" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T01:31:48.603" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T01:31:48.603" Title="The meaning of a Chinese inscription found under a little sculpture" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14526" CreationDate="2015-08-04T15:41:14.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As stated in another answer, it should be 这个周末见 (which emphasizes that it is &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; weekend) or 周末见.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;末见这个周 is incorrect, because it breaks up &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%80%B1%E6%9C%AB#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;周末&lt;/a&gt;: the characters comprise the word for &quot;weekend&quot; and must be together. So it must be that 周末 and any qualifers (here possibly 这个) must be &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; 见.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; imagine 你 being thrown in as an object, but it is unnecessary and may sound awkward &lt;em&gt;unless&lt;/em&gt; part of a larger phrase like in &quot;周末见你啦&quot; (which would appear to work, at least in Cantonese). But this would also change the emphasis of the phrase: 周末见 would suggest that meeting again is a mutual act, whereas the addition of 你 might suggest situations such as the speaker visiting the listener.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T18:04:40.090" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T18:04:40.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14475" CreationDate="2015-08-04T16:10:40.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just like English, Mandarin uses only few thousand words for day to day communication.(including news paper and such) This word is not being used currently and it would be hard to start using it since its not included in regular Chinese character set on computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T16:10:40.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14535" CreationDate="2015-08-04T20:10:27.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Chinese seal usually follows the format of XX之印 “The Seal of XX” or XX制印 “The was made by XX” (where XX is a name). This seal follows the latter format. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The top part probably is the name of the seal maker and the upper part of the top-right character is 林. The bottom two characters are most likely to be &quot;制印&quot;, meaning &quot;made the seal&quot;. Will complete this answer after finding out/confirming all the characters on this seal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seal carving dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E8%BB%8A&amp;amp;submitButton1=Etymology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E8%BB%8A&amp;amp;submitButton1=Etymology&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11423" LastEditorUserId="11423" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T22:58:13.093" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T22:58:13.093" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13940" CreationDate="2015-08-04T21:59:16.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even though baby brain or &quot;momnesia&quot; is often reported by pregnant women, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.webmd.com/baby/features/memory_lapse_it_may_be_pregnancy_brain&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;webMD&lt;/a&gt; states: &quot;Pregnancy does not change a woman's brain even though some women don't feel as sharp as usual when they're pregnant.&quot;&#xA;Even &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3029080/Baby-brain-DOESN-T-exist-Tests-reveal-pregnant-women-new-mothers-suffer-no-decline-leading-scientists-declare-condition-mind.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this news article&lt;/a&gt; says US researchers claim &quot;momnesia&quot; is a sort of made-up excuse for common forgetfulness. You can read them more since it seems to give other reasons why baby brain actually occurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, I've been living in China for 5 years and have heard that Chinese phrase come up around pregnant Chinese mothers. Right now I'm visiting my family in the US, and every time my brother's pregnant wife randomly tweaks out over forgetting something or being slow, I remember what those Chinese said and I blurt out 一孕傻三年. I think she's just under lots of stress and bodily changes, and stress can cause lots of problems on its own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11463" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T21:59:16.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14542" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14581" CreationDate="2015-08-04T22:42:22.067" Score="1" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found the following two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他们正在演奏传统音乐。&#xA;这是一个传统的玩具。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the former not use &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; but the latter does? I know you can remove &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; if you express family's relation as stated in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/10353/when-to-use-%E4%BB%96%E7%9A%84%E5%A4%AA%E5%A4%AA-and-when-%E4%BB%96%E5%A4%AA%E5%A4%AA&quot;&gt;other question&lt;/a&gt;, but this is not the case here...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any other rule to remove &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T13:54:42.417" Title="Why not include &quot;的&quot; in &quot;传统音乐&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14542" CreationDate="2015-08-05T01:46:52.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can put '的‘ in between '传统‘ and '音乐‘。 That would not be wrong, but normally (traditionally??) Chinese people just say '传统音乐'。I'm told it sounds strange to say '传统的音乐‘。 Maybe internally it is considered a compound noun made from 2 nouns 'tradition' and 'music', not an adjective-noun construction, but that is just a guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T01:46:52.620" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14331" CreationDate="2015-08-05T03:11:04.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you are exactly correct!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去意 means 去 的 意思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is exactly &quot;the decision to go&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are also understanding 见 the right way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many condensed and direct words you see are used as regular words in old Chinese. Many are not used in modern oral Chinese, but definitely a lot in wr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6676" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T03:11:04.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14309" CreationDate="2015-08-05T03:19:15.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;求职者一定要先确认自己签订的劳动合同是否&lt;strong&gt;具备产生法律约束力的条件&lt;/strong&gt;。Let us first simplify the latter half of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;求职者一定要先确认自己签订的劳动合同是否&lt;strong&gt;具备条件&lt;/strong&gt;。What kind of 条件 does it 具备？&lt;strong&gt;产生法律约束力的条件&lt;/strong&gt; - the condition that leads to legally binding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you literally translate &quot;产生&quot;, it means &lt;em&gt;produce&lt;/em&gt;. Which would make sense to extend its meaning to &lt;em&gt;lead to&lt;/em&gt;. So if I am translating your sentence, I will do it this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Job seekers should definitely first check for themselves, whether or not the employment contract he is about to sign leads to the condition of legally binding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6676" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T03:19:15.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14548" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-05T05:31:35.120" Score="0" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;5万元左右的经济型小车，无疑是为广大工薪阶层量身打造的代步车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Costing roughly 50 thousand Yuan, a small, economical car is, without a doubt, the most suitable vehicle for the salaried classes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I could write 最合适的代步车 instead of 量身打造的代步车， is that correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T23:33:57.910" Title="Can I substitute 合适 in place of 量身打造？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14535" CreationDate="2015-08-05T05:53:39.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ni idee que dice el sello, pero lo he cambiado por el negativo, de esa manera quizás más fácil leerlo, porque estos son los caracteres.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No idea what it says, but I changed the image for itś negative, this way it may be easier to read, because these are the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F3QBo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F3QBo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T05:53:39.017" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14507" CreationDate="2015-08-05T12:03:12.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel that what you are asking is pretty much the difference between 怎么 (colloquial for 如何) and 怎么样. The difference is that 怎么 is used in a verbal predicate sentence, and 怎么样 for an adjectival predicate sentence:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;怎么&lt;/strong&gt;喜欢你的菜？How do you like your dish?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的菜&lt;strong&gt;怎么样&lt;/strong&gt;？ How is your dish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just change 怎么 to 如何 and you have the same result in a more formal way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T12:03:12.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14526" CreationDate="2015-08-05T12:09:08.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To say &quot;see you [anytime]&quot; is just &quot;[anytime] 见&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明天见 see you tomorrow&lt;br&gt;&#xA;周四见 see you on Thursday&lt;br&gt;&#xA;周末见 see you this weekend&lt;br&gt;&#xA;明年见 see you next year&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2016年见 see you on 2016&lt;br&gt;&#xA;etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T12:09:08.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14542" CreationDate="2015-08-05T12:25:35.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually, when you have a noun marking the characteristic of another noun, it usually doesn't take 的, since 的 many times expresses possession。Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国 X  茶 Chinese tea (the tea's feature is being Chinese).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;中国 的 茶 &quot;Tea of China&quot; (the tea belongs to China, it isn't necessarily Chinese. Maybe it's Japanese tea and China bought a load from them, so now it belongs to China)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T12:25:35.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14548" CreationDate="2015-08-05T19:13:22.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As lots of the comments have said, Yes, you can make the substitution, but that probably doesn't mean that you should.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context is obviously an advertisement. It has psychology meanings between the lines. Using words like &quot;Only for you&quot; meant to make the targeted audience felt that they are special.  Of course, we do not really think a 50K RMB car is ONLY made for a special one, neither a $100K customised Tesla, unless it's the so-called Golden Rolls Royce (2.85 billion RMB). But everyone wanted to feel like being THE ONE, and that's why you probably should not replace 量身打造 with 最合适的代步车.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11423" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-05T20:36:29.713" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T20:36:29.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14554" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-05T19:53:36.223" Score="1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, in an orchestra one might say that one's chair position is &lt;code&gt;2nd Violin, 5th chair&lt;/code&gt;. The 2nd Violin part is easy to say: &lt;code&gt;第二小提琴&lt;/code&gt;. But the 5th chair part is troubling. My question is the Chinese way to say &lt;code&gt;X&lt;/code&gt; chair where &lt;code&gt;X&lt;/code&gt; is larger than 2?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've asked a number of native Chinese speakers but they were also stymied. I'm aware that 1st chair and 2nd chair are 首席 and 副首席.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: What I mean by &lt;code&gt;chair&lt;/code&gt; is a ranking of skill within the section. It is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; very related to the row. An example &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1st row contains 1violin-1stchair, 2v-1c, 1v-2c, and 2v-2c)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=6444&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=6444&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-05T21:22:53.540" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T21:57:56.130" Title="Chinese word for X chair in a musical group when it isn't 1st or 2nd chair" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14554" CreationDate="2015-08-05T20:34:42.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;2nd try: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichacha.net/%E7%AC%AC%E4%B8%89%E6%8E%92.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;我坐在小提琴组的第三排.&lt;/a&gt;  I sat in the third row of violins…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-08-05T20:53:53.843" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T20:53:53.843" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14554" CreationDate="2015-08-05T21:57:56.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can just use 第X席. E.g.2nd violin 5th chair 第二小提琴手第5席. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You rarely saw it probably because if the x&gt;2, they probably do not feel that proud. And no matter 第3席 or 第9席, even the 副首席 does not mean too much to the non-expert audiences (in China)--the spotlight is only on the 首席第一小提琴手.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11423" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T21:57:56.130" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14527" CreationDate="2015-08-05T22:48:09.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Python's &lt;code&gt;pypinyin&lt;/code&gt; module does what you want.  Check it out at &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pypinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pypinyin&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I highly recommend taking Python's &lt;code&gt;antigravity&lt;/code&gt; module for a spin as well, it's a real trip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T22:48:09.393" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14559" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-05T22:56:36.267" Score="-2" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 是 here without a following 的 seems a bit odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国目前是新车和降价车轮番上市，使准备买车的消费者不知如何选择。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see that 轮番 means 'one after another' but I get the sense of 'flooding the market'. Is that correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国目前是新车和降价车轮番上市，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At present the Chinese car market is flooded with new, low priced cars,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T23:41:25.413" Title="Does this 中国是 。。轮番上市 mean 'flooding the market'?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14560" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-05T23:32:24.030" Score="8" ViewCount="461" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quick question: Is &quot;一“ in 一线城市 first or second tone?&#xA;If it is first tone, is this because it is being used as a number?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stephen &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-08-06T07:49:35.533" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T07:12:21.533" Title="Is &quot;一“ in 一线城市 first or second tone?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14548" CreationDate="2015-08-05T23:33:57.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the difference between 量身打造 and 最合适的 is that, 量身打造 means this car was designed according to 工薪阶层's requirements and financial conditions, car manufacturers 量身打造 this type of kind to make it 最合适的 for 工薪阶层.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a car is 量身打造的 for someone, it is also 最合适的 for him/her, while if a car is 最合适的 for someone, it's not necessarily made to measure his/her needs or financial condition, it's just happen to be 最合适的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9709" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T23:33:57.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14560" CreationDate="2015-08-05T23:37:17.427" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;一 is First tone here, meaning first class, the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples: 一等奖, first prize; 第一, first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9709" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T23:37:17.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14559" CreationDate="2015-08-05T23:41:25.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. A decent translation for &lt;code&gt;轮番上市&lt;/code&gt; would be &lt;code&gt;flooding the market&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国目前是新车和降价车轮番上市，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;should probably be translated instead as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At present the Chinese car market is being flooded with both new and low priced cars,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T23:41:25.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14560" CreationDate="2015-08-06T01:35:01.347" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;一线&lt;/code&gt; has two kinds of tones, and two corresponding meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;yi1 xian4&lt;/code&gt; (1st tone), means &lt;code&gt;front line&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;1st line&lt;/code&gt;, such as &lt;code&gt;一线城市&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;first-tier city&lt;/code&gt;), &lt;code&gt;亲临一线&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;一线队&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;yi2 xian4&lt;/code&gt; (2nd tone), means &lt;code&gt;a gleam of&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;a ray of&lt;/code&gt;, such as &lt;code&gt;一线光明&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;一线生机&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, before the word with 4th tone, &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; should be pronounced as the 2nd tone (&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_a5aba2ea01019o3v.html&quot;&gt;“一”的音变&lt;/a&gt;), such as &lt;code&gt;一样&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;一辈子&lt;/code&gt;. But if it is used as ordinal, should use its original tone (the 1st tone), such as &lt;code&gt;第一名&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;第一线&lt;/code&gt;. Note in this case &lt;code&gt;第&lt;/code&gt; could be omitted, but still should keep its original tone (the 1st tone). So if &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; is used as the meaning of &lt;code&gt;第一&lt;/code&gt; (the 1st), it should always be pronounced as the 1st tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gzu521.com/campus/article/qualification/200609/106883.htm&quot;&gt;试析“一”声调的读法&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_a5aba2ea01019o3v.html&quot;&gt;“一”的音变&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baidu.com/link?url=2JBmsFhMGAZQG7qRBih5RbtFwOtEQ_la_p-Yagybp1Vm2nHWUnqmmG9yeAmmzP4g7m_UD8JDcSFLs_INQqQreVxe9CcjPafjKxvZBafu-sS&amp;amp;wd=&amp;amp;eqid=d09badd0000055a10000000355c405ff&quot;&gt;“一”的变调&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T01:17:34.877" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T01:17:34.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14566" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14569" CreationDate="2015-08-06T05:31:52.830" Score="2" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a copy of《四川方言词语汇编》published in 1987. Unlike most modern dictionaries organized alphabetically (A-Z) by pinyin, this dictionary is organized:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黑白韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挥堆韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;湖图韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;堤西韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狮子韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青城韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开排韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;豪陶韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空同韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;侯头韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骆驼韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二耳韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;八大韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天先韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;堂廊韵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and each 韵 is then split up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仄声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and those are then split up again:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阴平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阳平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To complicate matters even more: each sections words are determined by the last word (or pronunciation, for that matter) in a given word/phrase/expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first word in 黑白韵/平声/阴平 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;be2 be1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蛋白。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奶娃儿吃点蛋黄黄算了，吃白白要饤到。（饤，读丁，指积食）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then the following word is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;善人伯伯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;san4 ren2 be2 be1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;旧时乞丐讨钱时对男性施者的称呼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why would a dictionary be organized this way?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T06:28:26.203" Title="韵/声 Dictionary Organization: Why?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14567" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14571" CreationDate="2015-08-06T06:16:13.850" Score="4" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an authoritative etymological reference for characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like all books I'm reading about Chinese characters have their own explanation. To me, all of them seem reliable, but I wonder if a studied, documented and accepted reference exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note (distinction from possible duplicate questions): this question is NOT about the etymology of words (for this, look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/511/11269&quot;&gt;What etymology dictionaries are available?&lt;/a&gt; ), but of &lt;strong&gt;characters&lt;/strong&gt;; more, I'm not really interested in availability of dictionaries, but about the existence of somehow officially recognized studies about the evolution of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T10:51:39.123" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T10:51:39.123" Title="Etymological character reference" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-08-07T03:54:20.013" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14514" CreationDate="2015-08-06T06:27:46.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;word by word translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夫子　the master (our teacher)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;至　　arrives&lt;br&gt;&#xA;於　　at&lt;br&gt;&#xA;是　　this (=a；indefinite, i.e. any or a certain)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;邦　　state,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;也　　clause marker (here marks as temporal clause: when)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When our master arrives in a state,&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必　　certain to (modal verb)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;聞　　hear about&lt;br&gt;&#xA;其　　its (= the country)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;政　　government (i.e. how well is it governed)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;he is sure to learn whether it is well-governed&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;求　　seek (=ask about)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;之　　it (=knowledge of the government)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;與　　interrogative particle (=呢/嗎）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Does he seek out this information?&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抑　　or (=還是)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;與　　give (=be given)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;之　　it (=knowledge of the government)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;與　　interrogative particle (=呢/嗎）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Or do people [just] give him this information (without him even asking)?&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T06:27:46.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14566" CreationDate="2015-08-06T06:28:26.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese phonology is organized according to initials (声母), finals (韵母), and tones (声调). This is a satisfactory phonological description of Chinese languages/dialects; it's not that different from a more granular description which broke apart finals into glides, vowels, and codas. I can only speculate as to &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; they decided to do it this way--perhaps that the scholars were &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qieyun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;describing the categorical distinctions of a dialect group&lt;/a&gt; led them to describe sounds in terms of representative characters for contrastive categories rather than descriptions of the specific phonetic realization. In any event, that's how they did it. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;fanqie system for indicating pronunciation&lt;/a&gt; is a great example of describing phonetics in terms of characters representative of categories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many modern texts on 方言 are directed at linguistically inclined people, and they rely on the background knowledge of that general classification scheme. Also, since most modern 方言 descend from Middle Chinese, using the Guangyun system is pretty convenient at unambiguously talking about the phonology of a given 方言. This is especially common with tones. I have read a whole lot of &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%9B%E8%81%B2#.E7.8E.B0.E4.BB.A3.E6.96.B9.E8.A8.80.E5.A3.B0.E8.B0.83.E5.AF.B9.E7.85.A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;charts like this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This background knowledge goes beyond just &quot;linguistically inclined people&quot;. I know some school children learn pinyin initial-by-initial and then final-by-final. The 注音 system used mainly in Taiwan (also known as Bopomofo, after the first few initials) is organized into initials and finals, though they also break out the -u- and -i- medials (e.g., huang = (h)(u)(ang)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, to your original question. Why in the hell would a dictionary be organized this way? I can't say I entirely know. A few thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There isn't a standard romanization for Sichuanese that is taught in schools, the way standard pinyin is for MSM.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;方言 books (that don't suck) tend to be written by linguists and use traditional linguistic terminology.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese books are usually aimed at Chinese people, after all, so they tend to use Chinese characters rather than romanizations. I will say that I sure as hell prefer a traditional-Chinese-phonology approach over a &quot;I haphazardly attempt to transcribe a language using Mandarin&quot; one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T06:28:26.203" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14560" CreationDate="2015-08-06T07:21:22.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;一线城市 is the first tone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule number 1: If &quot;一&quot; is for &quot;order&quot;, then it is the first tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 一线天， is the second tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule number 2: If &quot;一&quot; is for &quot;quantity&quot;, then it is the second tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, in oral Chinese,  sometimes rules above are not always right, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 一辈子， usually ppl use second tone for that, because that can give this word a special emotion (for complaining something.)  It is very similar as you are saying this: &quot;I have been working on this sh*t job for my whooooooole life&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11475" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T07:21:22.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14567" CreationDate="2015-08-06T08:19:49.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you are talking about the origin and evolution of characters, as opposed to the origin and evolution of the words they represent.  These two are complementary, but not identical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Analyzing characters and tracing their forms from the oracle bones through Zhou bronzes on into the forms used over 2000+ years of dynastic history is a huge job, and there is no standard work that covers all of this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard dictionaries such as 漢語大字典 are not specialist works, and will have gaps and weaknesses that you must be careful of, just as the OED is not an authoritative source for tracing the indo-european roots of English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rather than look for something that gives you random explanations chosen from unspecified sources, I would recommend that you read Qiu Xigui's book 文字學概要. This has been translated into English as &lt;em&gt;Chinese Writing&lt;/em&gt; by Mattos and Norman, and is the best book on the subject in English, by far. This will help you to better &lt;em&gt;understand&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;evaluate&lt;/em&gt; the claims you read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you get through that and really want to try reading Chinese works, the Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 of Xu Shen 許慎 remains &lt;strong&gt;the&lt;/strong&gt; indispensible work on the origins and analysis of Chinese characters, and the starting point for all studies of Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qing dynasty studies of the Shuowen are indispensible adjuncts to raeding Shuowen.  The Shuowen jiezi gulin 說文解字詁林　of Ding Fubao 丁福保 is the most convenient compilation of Qing research. This is pure classical Chinese, with a huge number of special terms and idiosyncratic written forms. I don't think there is a version of this in simplified characters. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)  It does &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; include all Qing dynasty work on the Shuowen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Analysis of the original forms of characters also demands knowledge of oracle bone, bronze vessel writing, and the bamboo and silk works that are regularly excavated by archaeologists.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several dictionaries of the oracle bones and bronze characters, but many of these are simply compilations of forms (organized under Shuowen's classification system!), and don't have the kind of explanations you are looking for.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is less on the Warring States materials that are now a large and important field of research; there are one or two textbooks I believe, but I'm not familiar enough with this area to recommend anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A number of journals, such as 考古 and 中央研究院歷史語言研究所集刊 publish research articles on Chinese characters that try to analyze and identify unfamiliar forms in new works.  These articles regularly overturn long-accepted explanations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Archaeological document finds are also a major topic for Ph.D. dissertations, both in China and Taiwan.  It generally takes a while for new discoveries and theories from these to work their way into the current literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of this reply is that character etymology and evolution is a very large area where important work that revises earlier ideas is frequently published. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is one work that can be totally relied on to always have the most current information.  In addition, there are many cases where interpretations are still sharply disputed, so any claims about forms, meanings, or readings should specifically state whose views they are following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-08-06T08:41:08.133" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T08:41:08.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14572" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-06T10:37:51.337" Score="1" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;My translator (Pleco) says that &lt;strong&gt;乐&lt;/strong&gt; is pronunced as &lt;strong&gt;le&lt;/strong&gt;. However, 音&lt;strong&gt;乐&lt;/strong&gt; seems to be pronunced as yīn&lt;strong&gt;yuè&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? Is it possible to know if a character has different sounds depending on the context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3522" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T10:37:51.337" Title="Why some characters have different sounds?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2015-08-07T03:53:59.680" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14560" CreationDate="2015-08-06T16:27:37.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2045/pronunciation-of-%E4%B8%80-in-%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%AA?rq=1&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;  about the pronunciation of &quot;一&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be simple, in &lt;code&gt;一线城市&lt;/code&gt;， &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; is used as an &lt;strong&gt;ordinal number&lt;/strong&gt;, so it is the first tone. Here &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; means first.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; is used as a &lt;strong&gt;cardinal number&lt;/strong&gt;, its prononciation varies in function of the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11477" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T16:27:37.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14574" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14575" CreationDate="2015-08-06T16:40:27.137" Score="0" ViewCount="514" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that Havard has an excellent East Culture Research center but what about the teaching of Chinese there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11477" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T03:15:24.703" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T03:15:24.703" Title="What is the textbook used to learn Chinese in Havard and MIT?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-08-08T06:27:48.533" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14574" CreationDate="2015-08-06T19:23:09.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming you're asking about introductory level stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;MIT: For complete beginners: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cheng-tsui.com/browse/integrated-chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Integrated Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources: &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.mit.edu/gsl/syllabi/21G.101-Syllabus.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://web.mit.edu/gsl/syllabi/21G.101-Syllabus.pdf&lt;/a&gt; (Fall 2013)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For people who have some level of speaking ability: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0300141173&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Learning Chinese: A Foundation Course in Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; (a book made by MIT instructors) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0231125550&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;A Primer for Advanced Beginners of Chinese, Simplified Characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.mit.edu/gsl/syllabi/21G.107-Syllabus.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://web.mit.edu/gsl/syllabi/21G.107-Syllabus.pdf&lt;/a&gt; (Fall 2015)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Harvard: Complete beginners: Also &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cheng-tsui.com/browse/integrated-chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Integrated Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Couldn't find any info on heritage learner's textbook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://harvardcoopbooks.bncollege.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/TBWizardView?storeId=52084&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://harvardcoopbooks.bncollege.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/TBWizardView?storeId=52084&lt;/a&gt; and searching for &lt;code&gt;Fall2015 Chin E 1 01&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T19:23:09.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9740" CreationDate="2015-08-07T05:00:34.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm still bad at remembering the characters but I have a mnemonic for remembering the tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I associate tone 2 with questions / asking and tone 3 with doubt but also any kind of cyclic or repeated back-and-forth motion. Tone 4 I associate with commands. So 2 and 3 can be symbolized by a question mark &lt;strong&gt;?&lt;/strong&gt; and 4 can be symbolized with an exclamation mark &lt;strong&gt;!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;买&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;strong&gt;mai3&lt;/strong&gt; - to &lt;strong&gt;buy&lt;/strong&gt; - do I really want to buy it?? It's expensive. But I want it. Vacillating over the decision is tone three.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;卖&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;strong&gt;mai4&lt;/strong&gt; - to &lt;strong&gt;sell&lt;/strong&gt; - Sell! Sell! Sell! Sell the thing, get the commission, make money, just sell it. That's tone four.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the 十 or 土 two on the top is the &quot;caching!&quot; dollar sign popping up in the eyes of the person selling something and making their profit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2018-08-28T23:02:50.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T23:02:50.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14560" CreationDate="2015-08-07T07:12:21.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder about the idea that yi is read first tone here because it is an &quot;ordinal.&quot;  According to Chao Yuen Ren's &lt;em&gt;A Grammar of Spoken Chinese&lt;/em&gt; (p. 568):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In lexical compounds with stressed yi as 'one', it does not have the tone sandhi, resulting in the 4th or 2nd tone, but always has the 1st tone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples of lexical compounds ('words' and 'chengyu') where yi certainly does not mean first.  It seems to me that yi is first tone in most of these, but I am not a native speaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一刀兩斷&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一毛不拔&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一股作氣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一目了然&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一經&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一路&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T07:12:21.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14578" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14579" CreationDate="2015-08-07T08:02:50.460" Score="1" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a friend sends me a photograph of a vase, saying &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是朋友的，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and some months later presents it saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我朋友的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;should I then usually assume, that the friend became a girlfriend/boyfriend (like in modern German), or is it normally unrelated to this difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T21:50:58.223" Title="Are there differences between 朋友 and 我朋友 in modern Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14578" CreationDate="2015-08-07T11:12:59.317" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In common context, the are literally the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can say the latter one shows 5% percent more friendship. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since in Chinese we often omit some obvious verbs, we can get the following equation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我朋友的 = 是我朋友的 ~ 是朋友的&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically they are different just like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;tell the difference between : &#xA;&#xA;Q: where do you get this chair?&#xA;A: it's from my friend  /  from friend&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People may argue about their difference. &#xA;But As a Chinese, I would like to consider 我朋友的 and 是朋友的 the same thing under common context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6750" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T11:12:59.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14475" CreationDate="2015-08-07T11:41:22.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the explanation is that Chinese is not only written but spoken, and a lot of characters, while used in idiomatic daily speech, don't really have a formal written counterpart. If you ask locals to actually write this character out, most likely they'll write &lt;em&gt;a commonly used character with the same pronunciation&lt;/em&gt;. However, language experts who wrote the dictionary insist on assigning a formal written form to each character out there, and they recognize the fact that this character has a totally separate meaning than the commonly used surrogate character, thus they likely invented this new character just to represent this idiomatic sound. This is a common phenomenon if you browse through modern Chinese dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T11:41:22.870" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14542" CreationDate="2015-08-07T11:55:39.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The words &quot;的&quot; for adjectives or &quot;地&quot; for adverbs are optional. e.g. 快速上升 = 快速地上升 (ascend rapidly), 聪明人 = 聪明的人 (clever man). Ancient Chinese didn't have these conjunctions/sometimes used other conjunctions(e.g. 然). You might treat the version without these conjunctions as a bit more formal/written, but that's not always the case. Either version is perfectly understandable/acceptable to people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T11:55:39.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14578" CreationDate="2015-08-07T13:23:43.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fact that 我朋友 is mostly identical to 朋友 simply mostly has been addressed by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/14579/5714&quot;&gt;the other answer&lt;/a&gt;. But it's worth noting that unlike in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Freund&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;German&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%8B%E5%8F%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;朋友&lt;/a&gt; is generally simply used to mean &quot;friend&quot; regardless of qualifier: if one wanted to explicitly say girlfriend or boyfriend, one would use 女朋友 or 男朋友. This isn't to say that the category of 朋友 can't include such individuals, but I would tend to read 我朋友 as just &quot;friend&quot; (with possible room for ambiguity).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 我朋友 and 朋友 is then about the same as that between &quot;my friend&quot; and &quot;a friend&quot;, when used in a context such as that of the above. The dropping of 我 makes sense largely because this is &quot;spoken&quot; in the first person (so the 我 is implied even if it doesn't come up later) and because it clearly refers to someone the speaker knows. (This is similar to how in English, in the first person, &quot;a friend&quot; could be said to be short for &quot;a friend &lt;em&gt;of mine&lt;/em&gt;&quot; in &quot;a friend gave it to me&quot;.) In other cases such as in the second person, when &lt;em&gt;whose&lt;/em&gt; friend it is is clear, there still could be conceivably a similar omission, but I'm not sufficiently convinced of their grammaticality or &quot;correctness&quot; to put examples down here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise (and this is quite clearly not the scenario you are dealing with), 朋友 could be referring to any generic &quot;friend&quot; or &quot;friends&quot;. (Note that English is similar in this regard.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T19:20:15.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13664" CreationDate="2015-08-07T14:22:38.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to suggest an online dictionary to you (it also has an offline version which can be used with GoldenDict and be found in pdawiki, a famous Chinese Mdict forum), for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.net/hydcd/106017o.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.guoxuedashi.net/hydcd/106017o.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important advantage of the website is that you can browse the corresponding page in the photocopy of the dictionary（汉语大词典）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that the dictionary is originally written in traditional Chinese and the simplified version is (both online and offline) just transformed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, 词典 is different from 字典. 词典 contains the definition of words, and 字典 contains the definition of characters. I think 词典 is more suitable for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11482" LastEditorUserId="11482" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T14:34:59.770" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T14:34:59.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6106" CreationDate="2015-08-08T07:42:24.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;临时 (臨時) = Temporary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;及时 (及時) = in time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T07:42:24.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8985" CreationDate="2015-08-08T07:47:55.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wong,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;廢柴 usually used to describe someone who is a &quot;rubbish&quot;, a weak person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word is very common in Hong Kong,&#xA;it is not a foul language, but not polite&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T07:47:55.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9092" CreationDate="2015-08-08T07:52:08.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Oh burn&quot; is equivalent to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呀!燒著了!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;噢!燒著了!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;噢!燃燒吧!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it has many ways to describe in chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T07:52:08.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9651" CreationDate="2015-08-08T08:51:22.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Cantonese and I can read the lyrics, great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are mistakes in the song lyrics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;海南鸡饭&#xA;&#xA;＊台湾最近叻歌星数不完&#xA;张惠妹称霸哂歌坛&#xA;面对香港四大天王&#xA;还有新一斑 &amp;lt;-- should be 班&#xA;还有SPICE GIRL外国好鬼出名&#xA;BACKSTREET BOY只只讲晓弹&#xA;看下大马有几只人&#xA;同佢丢争两餐&#xA;自家歌声差人有限&#xA;去开一间海南鸡饭&#xA;人客爱招呼冇态慢 &amp;lt;-- should be 怠慢?&#xA;明星或歌星日日来帮衬&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;海南鸡饭&#xA;&#xA;台湾最近红的歌星数不完&#xA;张惠妹称霸了歌坛&#xA;面对香港四大天王&#xA;还有新一班&#xA;还有 SPICE GIRL 外国好有名&#xA;BACKSTREET BOY 每个人都說他們会弹&#xA;看下大马有几个人&#xA;和他们争两餐(not a proper saying in M​​andarin?)&#xA;自家歌声和人差有限&#xA;去开一间海南鸡饭&#xA;招呼客人无怠慢&#xA;明星或歌星天天来光临&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English translation (not literal for every single character, just the meaning):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Hainan Chicken Bowl&#xA;&#xA;There are uncountably many recent outstanding singers in Taiwan&#xA;A-Mei* dominated the music industry&#xA;To confront the 4 kings** in Hong Kong,&#xA;there are a group of new comers.&#xA;And there are the Spice Girls which are very famous abroad&#xA;Everyone say the Backstreet Boys can play instruments&#xA;We take a look at Malaysia, there are a few of them (singers)&#xA;We compete against them for daily meals&#xA;Local singers (and international singers) only has limited ability difference&#xA;We'll go open a Hainan Chicken Bowl (restaurant)&#xA;We'll serve the customers with no slacking&#xA;Celebrities and singers come every day.&#xA;&#xA;* A famous female Taiwanese singer&#xA;** The so called &quot;best&quot; 4 male singers in Hong Kong&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the song is pretty weird, just my personal opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="11486" LastEditDate="2015-08-08T09:10:44.147" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T09:10:44.147" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14588" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-08T12:51:22.867" Score="3" ViewCount="948" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the etymology of &quot;嗨&quot;? Is it used because it sounds like the English word &quot;Hi&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried looking it up, but Wiktionary doesn't have any etymology information in either the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%97%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;English&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%97%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese&lt;/a&gt; edition, and it's not listed in Wiktionary's category &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Chinese_terms_derived_from_English&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese terms derived from English&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T10:51:42.567" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T10:51:42.567" Title="What is the etymology of &quot;嗨&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14588" CreationDate="2015-08-08T13:12:03.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is an onomatopoeic interjection expressing sigh (like 叹), surprise (like 咦), doubt and so on. The additional meaning of &quot;hi&quot; is considered slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T13:12:03.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1518" CreationDate="2015-08-08T15:57:31.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;继承&quot;可用来重用代码, 多个相关的类中的共同行为只定义一次, 不同的行为则在这些类中分别实现.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In computer English, some words are always translated to specified Chinese character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;define -- 定义&#xA;implement -- 实现&#xA;instantiate -- 实例化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T15:57:31.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="511" CreationDate="2015-08-08T18:18:13.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnrenfroe/outlier-dictionary-of-chinese-characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnrenfroe/outlier-dictionary-of-chinese-characters&lt;/a&gt; this project on Kickstartes sound interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3608" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T18:18:13.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14592" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14593" CreationDate="2015-08-08T20:52:21.167" Score="5" ViewCount="2324" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference between 树 (shù) and 木 (mù), in the meaning of &quot;tree&quot;, or they are interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T19:02:39.633" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T10:49:54.527" Title="Tree: 树 (shù) vs 木 (mù)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14592" CreationDate="2015-08-08T21:17:34.057" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;树 more often means tree in modern language, while 木 usually means wood, as in 木板 (plank) or 木材 (timber).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An olive tree is 橄榄树, while a birch is 桦木. Most trees are 树, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T21:17:34.057" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14588" CreationDate="2015-08-08T23:23:30.663" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;口 + 屮 + 水 + 母 = mouth + sprouting  plant + 3 points water + woman&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit： Forgot the 三点水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/zy/55E8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/zy/55E8.htm&lt;/a&gt; has a nice old version, you can see the woman clearly. Quite what the significance of her having a plant for a head is escapes me， （maybe someone here knows) and the representation of her bosom leaves a lot to be desired!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some old versions of 海 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E6%B5%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E6%B5%B7&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zdic has as number 1 meaning 象声词, so I presume that is its main use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-08-09T03:25:20.627" LastActivityDate="2015-08-09T03:25:20.627" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14588" CreationDate="2015-08-09T01:11:47.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't call 嗨 onomatopoeic, since it doesn't seem to be imitating any particular sound. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the Ministry of Education's &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?cond=%5E%B6%D9%24&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;國語辭典&lt;/a&gt;, 嗨 is an interjection that expresses discouragement, regret, surprise, etc. It is sometimes written as 咳, (in this sense also read hai, not ke). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This use goes back to Yuan dynasty drama.  It can also be used in chanting sort of expressions such as 嗨唷, which is what everyone was yelling when I was on the tug-of-war team.  Acc. to 國語辭典, this use can also be found in Yuan dynasty plays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike some dictionaries, 國語辭典 does specifically mention the use of 嗨 as 音譯 for English Hi.  This use must be quite modern.  Acc. to the Oxford English Dictionary, the use of 'hi' as 'a word of greeting' (=hello) is primarily North American in origin, apparently late 19th cent. I wouldn't be surprised if 嗨 = Hi, was a post WW2 innovation in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-08-09T01:11:47.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14596" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-09T03:20:16.443" Score="10" ViewCount="10905" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm just reading a book about China and Chinese customs from Heike Barai. She says that Chinese only has around 300 different syllables, whereas modern German has about 10 000 and I suppose English is about the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does Chinese really only have 300 syllables? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-09T07:51:53.210" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T16:00:17.930" Title="How many syllables does Chinese have?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14596" CreationDate="2015-08-09T06:02:10.577" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to this could well depend on the specific language meant by &quot;Chinese&quot;. For instance, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_phonology#Sounds&quot;&gt;Cantonese&lt;/a&gt; supposedly has over 600, which isn't surprising because of larger variation of vowels and the presence of more ending consonants. (I am unsure as to whether this figure takes tones into account.) &lt;strong&gt;I will assume that this is about 普通话, since that seems to be generally taken as a default.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;普通话 is easier to assess, because pinyin charts with all possible pinyin combinations are easily available, and &lt;em&gt;generally&lt;/em&gt; a syllable simply corresponds to a &lt;em&gt;distinct&lt;/em&gt; combination pinyin. (I am not sure if different tones count as distinct syllable combinations -- the estimates would appear to be really off if they were, so I am not going to take those into account.) Thus, I copied &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_table&quot;&gt;this table&lt;/a&gt; into Microsoft Excel and deleted all syllables that were either duplicated or that do not, in my memory (from formal Mandarin lessons), appear in 普通话, with some cross-checking by typing pinyin combinations I was suspicious about into &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com&quot;&gt;this online dictionary&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The result I'm currently getting is 408. This is slightly higher than the number your book reports, but in line with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Syllables&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt; So 300, at least for Mandarin (which would make the most sense as an object of discussion), is probably a slight underestimate, particularly if the writer is thinking of something towards the lower end of the 300's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-09T06:12:22.243" LastActivityDate="2015-08-09T06:12:22.243" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14596" CreationDate="2015-08-09T06:07:43.103" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Maroon points out in a comment, you have to say which dialect you are asking about.  This answer is for Standard Chinese, aka Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also depends on what sort of stuff you include. Counting the distinct lines in the syllable index of the Pinyin Chinese-English Dictionary, I get 420 &quot;lines&quot; but this includes some very marginal stuff such as tei, kei, den, etc. This does &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; include any of the rhotacized syllables, where a suffix -er merges with the syllables and produces many distinctive syllables.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most important, however, this figure ignores the four lexical tones of Mandarin, which is definitely not the right; tones are distinctive in Mandarin, so syllables with different tones are different syllables.  The distribution of tones and syllables is skewed, however; not every syllable has all four tones.  A rough approximation is about 1200 distinct syllables.  Again, there will be many marginal cases.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All this does not use any sort of phonemic analysis which could perhaps reduce the number of syllables, depending on what phonological theories or notation you adopt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Chinese is not so syllable poor as you might expect.  Japanese and Hawaiian, for example, have far fewer distinct syllables than Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-08-09T06:07:43.103" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10423" CreationDate="2015-08-09T06:45:17.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;女权的发展 and 女权的提高 would make sense depending on what you are trying to describe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女权的发展 - development of women rights&#xA;女权的提高 - rise of women rights&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming you are seeking for rise of women rights? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2015-08-09T06:45:17.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14596" CreationDate="2015-08-09T06:57:19.073" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;I took the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=cc-cedict&quot;&gt;CEDICT&lt;/a&gt; file and wrote a script on it. The file has &lt;em&gt;113k dictionary entries&lt;/em&gt;, so it covers a very large portion of the Chinese vocabulary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;strong&gt;1522 different pinyin syllables&lt;/strong&gt; in CEDICT, when you &lt;strong&gt;distinguish tone numbers&lt;/strong&gt; (like, ma1, ma2, ma3, ma4, ma). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do &lt;strong&gt;not care about tone&lt;/strong&gt; numbers, you'll get &lt;strong&gt;413 syllables&lt;/strong&gt; (ma, mo, mi, etc.) Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://pastie.org/10338968&quot;&gt;full list&lt;/a&gt; alphabetically sorted. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These results include &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=p%3Am&quot;&gt;m2 and m4&lt;/a&gt; (呒, 呣 [interjections]).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE: Of course, you can argue whether 'ging' and 'fiao' are Mandarin pinyin syllables or not, but they are in the CEDICT file and my answered is based on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-08-11T16:00:17.930" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T16:00:17.930" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14588" CreationDate="2015-08-09T13:12:08.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried looking for sources trying to find where 嗨 was to represent an English word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 2003 &lt;a href=&quot;http://old.cflac.org.cn/chinaartnews/2003-10/24/content_1098379.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; from an &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/194956.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;apparently&lt;/a&gt; notable Chinese arts newspaper complains about TV hosts using 嗨 to mean the English word &lt;code&gt;high&lt;/code&gt;, as in exhilarating:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;近来，常常听到主持人用“嗨”这个字。。。令观众和听众只能朦胧地意会 (Recently, I've heard a lot of TV hosts use the word 嗨...it causes the listeners to only be able to guess at what the host means).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the article notes that much of the audience is probably unfamiliar with the word, the origin of 嗨 to mean &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt; English word must have been before 2003, but not that much before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 2004 &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.sina.com.cn/cl/2004-11-05/10254150406s.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hi（嗨），苏珊 (Hi, Susan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which helps support my previous conjecture about the timing of the meaning of 嗨 to mean &lt;code&gt;hi&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the term more commonly use to say &lt;code&gt;hi&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese is &lt;code&gt;嘿&lt;/code&gt;, but some time in the 90s or so, the word 嗨 started being utilized due to how similar it sounds to the English word &lt;code&gt;hi&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also on another note, in addition to what wpt said, 嗨哟 is used like heave-ho and according to Wikipedia it was used in some old songs that provided the basis for &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E4%B8%9C%E6%96%B9%E7%BA%A2_%28%E6%AD%8C%E6%9B%B2%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;东方红&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-08-09T13:12:08.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14309" CreationDate="2015-08-09T14:10:19.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you didn't get the sentence components completely right in your translations. The rough separation of components should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;求职者/一定要先确认/自己签订的劳动合同/是否具备/产生法律约束力的/条件。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Job seekers/must confirm first/the labor contracts signed by (them)selves/whether have/legally binding power-generating/conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put it in normal order of English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Job seekers must confirm first whether the labor contracts signed by themselves have conditions which generate legally binding power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;自己&quot; means not &quot;check for himself&quot; but a part of &quot;自己签订的劳动合同&quot;, e.g. labor contracts signed by himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;产生&quot; here serves as a connection between &quot;conditions&quot;(条件) and &quot;legally binding power&quot;(法律约束力). It modifies &quot;conditions&quot; to mean those are conditions that generate &quot;legally binding power&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastActivityDate="2015-08-09T14:10:19.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14309" CreationDate="2015-08-09T14:41:16.400" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;产生 makes this sentence more strict. I think it has the same meaning with 求职者一定要先确认自己签订的劳动合同是否具备法律约束力, ignore 产生 and 条件 simultaneously may be easier to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11495" LastActivityDate="2015-08-09T14:41:16.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10919" CreationDate="2015-08-09T23:15:34.503" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;江湖 is not just a world. In the context of most poetry and other literary works (excluding novels) by ancient educated people, 江湖 contained meaning of &quot;out of the central government's or emperor's control or sight&quot;, and sometimes &quot;far away in the large world&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g&lt;br/&gt; Famous quote from 范仲淹's 《岳阳楼记》&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;居&lt;strong&gt;庙堂&lt;/strong&gt;之高则忧其民，处&lt;strong&gt;江湖&lt;/strong&gt;之远则忧其君&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &lt;strong&gt;庙堂&lt;/strong&gt; here means &quot;temples and halls&quot; and actually refers &quot;the central government around the emperor&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike most countries, the ancient Chinese government made a system &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;科举&lt;/a&gt;, which let educated people to have titles by passing through district/nation wide contests, and get provided by the government for his whole life. So educated men especially the elites of them, have two choices of their life, either stay away and live a free life in 江湖, or join the political system, the power hierarchy in 庙堂.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In recent 500 years (guessing, I am not a historian) 江湖 gained meaning of underworld. Basically no matter where one lives or works, if he/she is connected to local and/or especially remote underworld forces, he is in 江湖. Take Game of Thrones for example, Eddard Stark who rules far away from the King, but resides himself only in the power system and hence he is not in 江湖. By contrast, Varys and Baelish, who work beside the throne, have lots of connections in outside the political system (&quot;little birds&quot;, brothels) and hence they are also in 江湖. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4067" LastEditorUserId="4067" LastEditDate="2015-08-10T06:32:57.163" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T06:32:57.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5733" CreationDate="2015-08-10T01:58:15.833" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wang Li (王力) in his 漢語史稿 (p. 532) lists 對象 as one of the many words that modern Chinese borrowed from Japanese; in this case, acc. to Wang, 對象 taishō was itself a Japanese translation for English &quot;object&quot;, a case of 來自西洋，路過日本.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of 對象 to mean &quot;steady romantic interest&quot;, &quot;possible marital partner&quot; probably came later, through the sort of transmogrification that these borrowed words often undergo.  English has a similar sort of idea, when we speak of &quot;the object of one's affections&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a note, this seems to be a typical &quot;neo-Chinese&quot; word; a Japanese word that was created based on the semantics and morphology of Chinese formatives, so there's no reason one can't analyze it the same way: 對 = direct (attention, activity) toward, 象 = phenomena: the phenomena I'm directing my attentions or efforts toward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T01:58:15.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13831" CreationDate="2015-08-10T16:28:20.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect this may be an example of &quot;Taiwan style Mandarin&quot; 台灣國語.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Minnan dialect, 嘛是 = 也是 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=10424&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=%E4%B9%9F&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=2&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=1&amp;amp;rowcount=11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;教育部臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典&lt;/a&gt;); this is also used in an emphatic form 攏嘛是 to mean &quot;without exception&quot;, where 攏 = all (都).  Put into Mandarin, it's equivalent to phrases like 都是這樣, or 專門做這種事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rather than use 攏 long to write this Minnan expression however, some people write 都嘛是, using the Mandarin equivalent of 攏. In effect, it combines a character for a Mandarin particle with a character for a Minnan particle to form a phrase that, if read, would be read in the Minnan dialect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sort of mixing of Mandarin and Minnan characters is now fairly common in Taiwan.  Look up 都嘛是 and see what you get, it's almost all from or about Taiwan. (Some seems to be from Fujian, so some Minnan speakers there may have adopted this form as well)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-08-10T23:08:28.137" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T23:08:28.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14578" CreationDate="2015-08-10T21:50:58.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your case, I cannot tell much difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following are some use cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to refer &quot;particular people&quot;, use 我朋友. If you want to to refer &quot;some people&quot;, 朋友 and 我朋友 are both OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not much difference in this context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我要去找朋友玩了。√&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我要去找我朋友玩了。√&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I am going to hang out with friends.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I am going to hang out with my friends.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we use 我朋友 when introducing people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;这是我朋友John. √&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;这是朋友John. x&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;John是我朋友。√&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;John是朋友。 x&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess it is also quite the similar in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;This is friend John.√&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;This is my friend John. x&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you want to emphasize its meaning, 我朋友 is&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;usually&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;better.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To express your anger or worry,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你打碎的花瓶是我朋友的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is better than&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你打碎的花瓶是朋友的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to comfort the guy who broke the vase, you probably want to de-emphasize the meaning of it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Alice: 我打碎的花瓶是谁的啊？ Bob:是朋友的，不用担心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is slightly softer than&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Alice: 我打碎的花瓶是谁的啊？ Bob:是我朋友的，不用担心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4067" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T21:50:58.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14620" CreationDate="2015-08-11T02:15:31.887" Score="6" ViewCount="754" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Chinese, but I'm having trouble translating this to Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Are you still married to Mary? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never asked this before, but someone asked me if I know the Chinese translation of this. Please help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the Chinese translations I can come up with sounded wrong, e.g. 你還跟 Mary 有婚約嗎？ It sounded like you are expecting them to divorce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to get my answer off on hold here. For those who had voted me on hold, I first need to say I'm sorry for whatever reason, but if I really did find a fine translation elsewhere, I wouldn't have tried it on the StackExchange community platform.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, here are the utmost incorrect translations from the sites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你還在為結婚瑪麗？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Are you still for marriage Mary?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Iciba:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你还和玛丽结婚了吗？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Have you still married Mary?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="11486" LastEditDate="2015-08-12T01:58:11.857" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T08:32:24.187" Title="&quot;Are you still married to Mary?&quot; How to translate this?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14610" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-11T02:18:57.007" Score="0" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你是第幾任總統/校長？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a Chinese. Like the title suggests, I struggle to translate this into English. I struggled to find a translation for &quot;任&quot;. Please help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T15:44:04.787" Title="你是第幾任總統/校長？How to translate this into English properly?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2015-08-11T16:08:45.337" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14611" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-11T05:24:54.143" Score="2" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国经济以往都是什么样的发展模式?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to translate it: China's economy used to use what kind of expansion method?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以 can be 'use' and '往‘ can be 'to' in English, so that ‘used to' and '以往’ seem to be one and the same expression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is the Chinese sense of '以往‘ more just 'use(d) in the past', '往‘ having the meaning 'past', not 'to' and 'used to' just fits conveniently?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T06:06:59.023" Title="Are used to and 以往 really the same?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14610" CreationDate="2015-08-11T08:52:53.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a bit awkward isn't it? ‘You are the how many'th President? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest a rewording to something like (my Chinese is not good): 有多少总统您前？ That can easily be translated as 'How many Presidents have there been before you?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9799" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T08:52:53.500" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14613" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14615" CreationDate="2015-08-11T09:20:43.073" Score="3" ViewCount="7233" Body="&lt;p&gt;anyone know common usage of Tradtional Chinese fonts for website?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have come up with this list after a bit of Googling, but not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;微軟正黑體, Microsoft JhengHei&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新細明體, PMingLiU&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;細明體, MingLiU&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11507" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T09:11:56.657" Title="Tradtional Chinese fonts for website" Tags="&lt;fonts&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14613" CreationDate="2015-08-11T09:50:53.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have checked a few random news sites from HK and Taiwan, here are some examples of defining the &lt;code&gt;font&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;font-family&lt;/code&gt; property:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;font-family: PMingLiu, mingliu, &quot;細明體_HKSCS-ExtB&quot;, &quot;Ming(for&#xA;  ISO10646)ExtB&quot;, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;font: 18px/1.7 &quot;Microsoft&#xA;  YaHei&quot;, &quot;Verdana&quot;, &quot;Arial&quot;, &quot;PMingLiU&quot;, &quot;sans-serif&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;font: 15px/24px Simsun;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;font-family: &quot;宋体&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;font-family: &quot;Microsoft YaHei&quot;,&quot;微软雅黑&quot;,&quot;黑体&quot;,&quot;宋体&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;font: 12px/1 Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,&quot;宋体&quot;,sans-serif;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;font-family: &quot;Microsoft yahei&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, most sites (at least news sites) rely on &lt;strong&gt;system fonts&lt;/strong&gt;. The key here is that the visitors of these websites come from HK or Taiwan, etc. and the web designer can &quot;safely&quot; assume that the visitor will have support for at least one of the fonts (installed on their system). If not, Chinese language OS-s (whether Windows, OSX or Linux) will typically have at least one font that supports CJK glyphs, so their browser has a &lt;strong&gt;fallback font&lt;/strong&gt; in case none of the listed font-family values can be mapped to a system font. On Linux, even if your system is not in Chinese, you most likely have a fallback font that support CJK characters, on my Ubuntu in Firefox it's Droid Sans Fallback that the browser uses, as my computer currently has almost no CJK fonts installed. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you plan to design a website that uses Chinese text, you should prefer &lt;strong&gt;sans-serif&lt;/strong&gt; fonts over serif fonts, as the latter ones do not look nice when the font-size is small. Most Chinese websites actually do so.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are planning to use English (Latin character text) and Chinese, make sure that you &lt;strong&gt;put the English&lt;/strong&gt; (Latin character) &lt;strong&gt;font to the front of you font stack&lt;/strong&gt;, otherwise you will end up with those fonts not displaying at all. The reason is that most Chinese fonts have support for Latin characters, but those Latin glyphs usually do not look very nice. So if you want your English text to be set in Roboto and your Chinese in PMingLiu use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;font-family: Roboto, PMingLiu;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here is an article in English on &lt;a href=&quot;http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/the-complete-beginners-guide-to-chinese-fonts--cms-23444&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this topic&lt;/a&gt;, it is worth at least skimming, to see if there is something you could use. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are some Chinese web fonts (similar to Google Fonts), but this is still experimental and not so wide spread.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To be on the safe side, define a variety of fonts in your stack, with listing the ones you prefer before the other ones. You shouldn't be afraid of listing 6-7 different fonts, your CSS line is just a few bytes, so this will not bloat your code by modern standards. Also, you can see from the above examples that some font names are typed out in Chinese, which might trick you, if the font is saved under a pinyin name, so you can type out both the Chinese and the pinyin spelled name as separate declarations to be fully covered, e.g. &lt;code&gt;font-family: ..., &quot;黑体&quot;, &quot;HeiTi&quot;, ...&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a font cannot be found, your browser will just move on to the next one in the stack, it's not gonna break. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You should never use Windows fonts only, not everyone is on a Windows computer, infact most people now browse the internet on a smartphone or tablet, which are typically running an OS other than Windows. These devices are unlikely to have Windows fonts installed (mostly because of copyright issues). Android devices usually have &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_fonts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Droid Sans Fallback&lt;/a&gt; to display Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can not just assume that &quot;OS takes care for everything&quot;. Probably you have a preference for a certain font, which makes your site look good, but that is not necessarily the font your browser will pick by default. There are many odd looking Chinese fonts that you want to avoid, so look around on a few websites, use the Developer Tools module of your browser and check what fonts are being used, how font stacks are defined.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example: Viewing what fonts are used for a certain piece of text in Firefox (Rules tab):&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7v7QI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7v7QI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;... and what fonts actually display (in my case I don't have any of those fonts installed; Fonts tab):&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F0upj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F0upj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also check a number of websites about what Chinese fonts are installed by default on certain operating system, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typefaces_included_with_OS_X#System_fonts_up_to_10.7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;OSX&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typefaces_included_with_Microsoft_Windows&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Windows&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/a/29384237/4592067&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:41:53.630" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T09:11:56.657" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14613" CreationDate="2015-08-11T10:09:38.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it is a proper question for this site, but I do web developing as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The reality&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you know, Chinese fonts are not easy to make because we have thousands of characters, so we only have a few fonts. &lt;strong&gt;The most used fonts are PMingLiU(serif), Microsoft JhengHei(san-serif) and image font for headings like in Apple's website.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;How I would implement&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We do not use web font because who would want to download a 30MB file? Different PC uses different names for fonts so it's best to do &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;font-family: &quot;微軟正黑體&quot;, &quot;Microsoft JhengHei&quot;, &quot;Microsoft JhengHei UI&quot;, “微軟雅黑”, &quot;Microsoft YaHei&quot;, &quot;Microsoft YaHei UI&quot;, sans-serif;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is to ensure they load the font. Also, &lt;strong&gt;you can treat MingLiU as a fallback for PMingLiU.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;How Microsoft does it&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;font-family: &quot;Microsoft JhengHei UI&quot;,&quot;Microsoft JhengHei&quot;,Pmingliu,&quot;Segoe UI&quot;,&quot;Segoe UI Web Regular&quot;,&quot;Segoe UI Symbol&quot;,&quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;,&quot;BBAlpha Sans&quot;,&quot;S60 Sans&quot;,Arial,sans-serif;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above is copied from Outlook.com in Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Other than Windows 7+&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Windows XP or older do not have the sans serif 微軟正黑體, only PMingLiU. Windows default Chinese font in browser is PMingLiU, serif. While Mac uses sans serif font by default, HeiTi TC and HeiTi SC. In short:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Windows XP-: No sans-serif TC font&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mac OSX: Uses sans-serif for TC and SC Chinese in Unicode &amp;amp; GBK &amp;amp; Big5 charsets.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Linux Ubuntu: Uses sans-serif for TC and SC Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the above have PMingLiU or similar serif Chinese font installed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="11486" LastEditDate="2015-08-11T10:16:00.953" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T10:16:00.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14535" CreationDate="2015-08-11T11:16:39.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've managed to find something based on Meruemu's answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;尸(刂/攵)  林&#xA;?          ?&#xA;&#xA;製    印&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QSmbx.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QSmbx.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cB6u4.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cB6u4.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Top-Left Discussion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the top-left glyph has a similarity to this: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HvlQk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HvlQk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (廠), mostly the bottom-left part and the right radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the top-left glyph has a similarity to this: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/paIMJ.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/paIMJ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (居), the left part is mostly the same. I wonder, could the top left glyph be the Simplified Chinese character &quot;剧&quot;? The Traditional Chinese glyph is: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/swLtH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/swLtH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. Or in seal font: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w4eB7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w4eB7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. Isn't it an exceptional similarity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Top-Right Discussion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The glyph looks like: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LYuDr.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LYuDr.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (梵)&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KMEeo.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KMEeo.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (楚)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Seal I've Drawn&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought the original drawn picture hasn't capture every detail of the seal so I've decided to draw one from the image given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The photo of the one I've drawn&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ehb6u.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ehb6u.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Digitally enhanced&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7gg8y.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7gg8y.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="11486" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T05:22:39.730" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T05:22:39.730" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14618" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14619" CreationDate="2015-08-11T11:26:22.063" Score="1" ViewCount="1256" Body="&lt;p&gt;What derogatory terms are there for mainlanders in Hong Kong Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know there are a lot of terms that start with 北 but I'm not sure of specific ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-15T07:39:05.833" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T07:39:05.833" Title="Hong Kong Cantonese: Derogatory Terms For Mainlanders" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14618" CreationDate="2015-08-11T11:36:17.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The one with 北 could be 北姑 or 北佬. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many other derogatory terms for Mainlanders, including:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;阿燦&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;表叔, 表姐&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;强国人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;皇虫, 蝗虫&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainland_Chinese#Names_2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/3cl8xq/derogatory_slang_towards_foreigners/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.cncurrent.com/on-the-use-of-derogatory-terms-in-hong-kong/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T11:36:17.643" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14609" CreationDate="2015-08-11T14:30:41.320" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can see you've tried at least one or two things, and it's a tricky question so I'll give it a shot.  Remember, courtesy is everything in a forum like this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that 'to be married' is an adjectival form in English, and there is no corresponding adjectival form in Chinese. That means you can't get a word for word translation. Instead, you will have to rephrase the sentence, perhaps drastically, in order to get the information you want,  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rephrasing takes practice. It's not always easy to find other ways to say what you want to. One way to do this is to treat the process as an English exercise. Look up all the words in a regular bi-lingual dictionary.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the Oxford Advanced Learner's English Chinese Dictionary, I look up married. The definition gives 結婚的, 己婚的, then lists phrases that use this sense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a married man   己婚男子&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a married woman 己婚女子&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a married couple 一對夫婦&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last one is the solution you want, since your sentence can be rephrased in just this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are you and Mary still a married couple?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你跟瑪麗兩個人還是夫婦嗎?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not 100% the same syntactically as 'Are you still married to Mary', but the sense is almost identical I think. Asking this in Chinese I'm sure will get the information you want, without any strange semantic or social mismatches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-08-11T15:00:54.023" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T15:00:54.023" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14610" CreationDate="2015-08-11T15:44:04.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just looked up English StackExchange. Turned out someone has asked this already: &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/77222/how-do-you-convert-the-sentence-george-washington-was-the-first-president-to&quot;&gt;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/77222/how-do-you-convert-the-sentence-george-washington-was-the-first-president-to&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a list of possible questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What number president are you?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is your position in the order of presidents?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the ordinality of you in the sequence of presidents?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They should answer an ordinal number as answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:38:11.437" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T15:44:04.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14542" CreationDate="2015-08-11T23:42:49.447" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们正在演奏传统音乐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means they are playing &quot;traditional music&quot; as a type of music, more along the lines of &quot;jazz&quot; or &quot;hip hop&quot; or &quot;baroque&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是一个传统的玩具。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When expressed this way, the meaning is closer to &quot;a toy which is traditional&quot;.  &quot;Traditional&quot; is more emphasized here.  It's not just &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; toy, it's a &#xA;&lt;em&gt;traditional&lt;/em&gt; toy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11511" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T23:42:49.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14611" CreationDate="2015-08-12T00:41:38.117" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;以 here means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用在方位词前，表明时间、方位、方向或数量的界限：以前。以内。（from &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/2706.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;在线新华字典&lt;/a&gt;）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a way it is similar to &lt;em&gt;-wards&lt;/em&gt; suffix, as in &lt;em&gt;backwards&lt;/em&gt;, in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;往 means &lt;em&gt;past&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以往 literally means &lt;em&gt;before this point of time, 'past-wards'&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T00:41:38.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14627" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-12T02:24:02.503" Score="2" ViewCount="676" Body="&lt;p&gt;A : &quot;Do you like to eat Durian?&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B : &quot;No not really&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A : &quot;Yeah, I guess it's really an acquired taste&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2395" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T11:25:47.503" Title="How to say something is &quot;an acquired taste&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-08-13T06:52:25.327" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14628" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-12T03:04:23.887" Score="0" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how to interpret 向学 in these 2 sentences。I think that 向 and 学/学习 work together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 小张一心向学,厉志要成为一名科学家。'一心向学' = 1 mind to study = single-mindedly (to) study??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) is from iciba and they give the translation as: Xiao Zhang works very hard to be a scientist.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 最后搬到了学校附近，看到孟子向有礼貌的人学习礼仪，他的妈妈才满意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看到孟子向有礼貌的人学习礼仪 = see Mengzi from have manners people learn etiquette = saw that Mengzi was learning etiquette from people with good manners&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do 向, 学习 work together? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seem to have 2 different meanings in English 1) to study and in 2) learn from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T06:15:49.617" Title="Do 向 and 学 or 学习 work together here？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14629" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-12T03:09:12.697" Score="3" ViewCount="604" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here &quot;干货” means something useful, informative rather than &quot;dehydrated goods&quot; or &quot;dry goods&quot;, which basically means some informative materials or knowledge... I've consulted this question from many of my English teachers yet neither of them were getting the point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some alternative answers (yet not the most suitable word/phrase) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like &quot;real shit&quot; (sounds rude)&#xA;Like &quot; real stuff&quot; (not an idiomatic&#xA; expression?)&#xA;Some even recommends this word &quot;bone&quot; which is unique to drugs field( means high purity drug)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still doubt about it. &#xA;Could someone give me a better translation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11285" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T09:50:47.950" Title="Could anyone give a proper English translation to &quot;干货”？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14628" CreationDate="2015-08-12T03:17:36.903" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) 一心向学, means single-mindedly study. Here, 向 means 'towards', or 'head for', or 'point to'. 学 is a noun here, means 'study'. The phrase is a Chinese Idiom (成语), and the usage is kind of classic Chinese (文言), a little different and simplified from the modern usage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &lt;strong&gt;向&lt;/strong&gt;有礼貌的人&lt;strong&gt;学习&lt;/strong&gt;礼仪. 向 somebody 学习 something, means learn something from somebody. 向 means 'towards' here too. The meaning is like, turn to somebody, and you learn something (from him).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for my poor English and I wish I made that clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11466" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T03:17:36.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2286" CreationDate="2015-08-12T03:27:28.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wechat.com/zh_TW/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wechat&lt;/a&gt; for you, the most popular social platform in China, where you can chat with your Chinese friends, browse their daily life state etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have the same experience with you, I worked in China for half a year and now I'm back to US. I have been learning Chinese with &lt;strong&gt;Hanbridge Mandarin&lt;/strong&gt; for the past month or so, and I can already see a huge improvement in language ability. They offers the online teaching with the native teachers face to face using the virtual classroom, this is a great way to go immerse myself whenever possible and learn Chinese well when I'm not in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11231" LastEditorUserId="11231" LastEditDate="2015-08-12T03:37:12.843" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T03:37:12.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14627" CreationDate="2015-08-12T04:01:26.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;how about 不吃不知道，一吃真奇妙 / 吃了忘不了 / 越吃越上瘾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10910" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T04:01:26.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14627" CreationDate="2015-08-12T06:31:38.057" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the best answer is &quot;青菜萝卜，各有所爱“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11513" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T06:31:38.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14627" CreationDate="2015-08-12T07:50:58.590" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English expression &lt;em&gt;acquired taste&lt;/em&gt; refers to the nature of the taste being perhaps unpleasant on first taste, while one becomes habituated to like it through exposure, hence the &lt;em&gt;acquiring&lt;/em&gt;. I would prefer a rendition such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可能需要慢慢地适应。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要慢慢来才会欣赏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An idiom can be appropriate as a pithy reply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一回生，二回熟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T11:25:47.503" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14629" CreationDate="2015-08-12T09:27:25.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;干货&quot; recently becomes a &quot;Internet words&quot; means evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When somebody talking about rumor without any evidence, some other may ask like this &quot;来点干货&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually he is asking evidence like pictures, references or so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2541" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T09:27:25.090" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14637" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-12T11:00:49.163" Score="0" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the lid of the barrel（桶）  it says '不可偷看‘ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have the sentence：人很好奇，走过来弯下腰把脑袋伸到桶里探个究竟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;探 = explore, 究竟 = outcome, result&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;探个究竟 = 'take a look' or 'see what happens' or both OK?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T21:51:38.287" Title="What does 探个究竟 actually mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14637" CreationDate="2015-08-12T11:01:49.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;To see what/how it is&quot; or &quot;take a look&quot; as you may say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 究竟 has a similar meaning to &quot;what it is&quot;, and 探 here means can mean &quot;look&quot;, so I would say &quot;To see what it is&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="11486" LastEditDate="2015-08-12T15:54:56.533" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T15:54:56.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14637" CreationDate="2015-08-12T11:24:57.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding about &lt;code&gt;探&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;究竟&lt;/code&gt; is quite right, I just add some additional information about &lt;code&gt;个&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;个&lt;/code&gt; has no specific meaning here, usually used between verb and complement for emphasizing, such as &lt;code&gt;笑个不停&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;吃个饱&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;探个究竟&lt;/code&gt; doesn't just mean &lt;code&gt;take a look&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;see what happens&lt;/code&gt; here, it describes how curious people are about the content in the barrel vividly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-08-13T02:12:53.983" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T02:12:53.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12720" CreationDate="2015-08-12T15:32:02.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if my answer is absolutely right. &#xA;There is a famous book named Di-Zi-Gui (弟子规）from Confucianism（儒学）. You know, Confucianism was prevailing for a long time in China. As I know, Di-Zi-Gui is a book to teach children moral precepts and standards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《弟子规》：“勿践阈，勿跛倚，勿箕踞，勿摇髀……” &#xA;The first one is 勿践阈&#xA; 勿 means 'don't 不能',践 means ‘踩’，阈 means ‘门槛’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't know if this is the earliest usage. From my memory, I was told by my grandparents that 门槛 means all the trouble and setback in our life，we better walking cross the trouble instead of stepping right onto (踩到）the trouble. So that is what we usually do in temples--不踩门槛，跨过门槛。&#xA;I hope this is helpful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11517" LastEditorUserId="11517" LastEditDate="2015-08-13T12:22:08.220" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T12:22:08.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14611" CreationDate="2015-08-12T16:30:08.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to add a Chinese idiom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;长此以往&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;长 means 'for a long time', 此 means 'like this' &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Here, 以往 doesn't mean past, it means in the future &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;So 长此以往 means &quot;If something is like this for a long time in the future&quot; (something bad will happen) &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;e.g.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;他不喜欢运动，长此以往，他会变得不健康。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;He doesn't like exercise, he would be unhealthy if he keeps doing this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Good luck learning Chinese!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11517" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T16:30:08.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14486" CreationDate="2015-08-12T16:43:54.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try this to challenge your tongue.&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;四是四，十是十；十四是十四，四十是四十&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck with your tongue!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11517" LastEditorUserId="11517" LastEditDate="2015-08-13T01:53:54.513" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T01:53:54.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14643" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14646" CreationDate="2015-08-12T19:57:23.677" Score="7" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried search engines and Wikipedia articles on the history of audio recording, in English and Chinese, but couldn't come closer to this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the oldest known recording of anyone speaking (Mandarin) Chinese? Is it available online?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-12T06:08:17.560" LastActivityDate="2020-07-12T06:08:17.560" Title="What is the oldest known Chinese audio recording?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;audio&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14609" CreationDate="2015-08-12T21:09:19.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, if you want to ask someone (person A) the question &lt;code&gt;Are you still married to Mary?&lt;/code&gt;, that means that you already suspect person A's relationship with Mary is not very good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that, why not ask something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你和玛丽现在还好吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T21:09:19.490" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14629" CreationDate="2015-08-12T21:22:28.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;干货&quot; means solid, useful, practical and concise information with no fluff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11520" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T21:22:28.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14643" CreationDate="2015-08-12T22:16:03.387" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fred Gaisberg of EMI made the first Chinese audio recordings 1903-03-18/1903-03-27 in Shanghai.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ0KBEz23j4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ0KBEz23j4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://vimeo.com/100191126&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://vimeo.com/100191126&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.recordingpioneers.com/docs/GAISBERG_DIARIES_2.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.recordingpioneers.com/docs/GAISBERG_DIARIES_2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/resources/detail/378&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/resources/detail/378&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T22:16:03.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14627" CreationDate="2015-08-13T00:24:00.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find it is hard to translate it in a single cinese word. A few words for you to consider: （a taste you need to） 领略/领会/体会/体悟/尝试/熟悉/浸淫？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11423" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T00:24:00.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14648" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-13T05:40:40.150" Score="0" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not seen the film or read the book， I can't judge. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this 霸 just a name, or does 霸王 really mean 'the tyrant king'？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T05:56:58.400" Title="In 霸王别姬 is 霸 just a name?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14648" CreationDate="2015-08-13T05:48:31.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can be a &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%9C%B8%E7%8E%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;general term&lt;/a&gt;, i.e. not a proper name, but it is/was often used to refer to a certain historic person called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiang_Yu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Xiang Yu&lt;/a&gt;. So 霸王 will not translate as &quot;King Ba&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;霸王是指比一般王还强盛的君王，时常是文人雅士对项羽的尊称。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More references:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu Baike:  &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/72575/5122187.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;霸王&lt;/a&gt;（汉语词语）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;霸王，古时指霸和王，也用来尊称霸主，特指西楚霸王项羽，或者比喻非常蛮横的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition Baidu Baike lists &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/72575.htm?force=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;12 entries&lt;/a&gt; in total for this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-08-13T05:54:48.283" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T05:54:48.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14648" CreationDate="2015-08-13T05:55:00.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;霸王 is used as a name for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiang_Yu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Xiang Yu&lt;/a&gt;, a famous warlord of the late &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Qin&lt;/a&gt; era, and this play is a straight-up usage of this name - it describes Xiang Yu bidding his concubine farewell. Other usages of the word &quot;霸王&quot; is usually in reference to him; for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ce&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sun Ce&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Tong_(Water_Margin)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhou Tong&lt;/a&gt; both have the nickname of &quot;小霸王&quot; due to their martial prowess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the character 霸 in 霸王 is not a name; it simply takes its &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/27/js/9738.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;actual meaning of &quot;hegemony&quot; or &quot;tyranny&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. Thus 霸王 is translated as &quot;hegemon-king&quot;, &quot;king-of-kings&quot; and so on. It describes a king that, unlike normal kings, has dominion over other kings without being an emperor. This is exactly what Xiang Yu was when he claimed the title 西楚霸王.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T05:55:00.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14648" CreationDate="2015-08-13T05:56:58.400" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this situation (霸王别姬), 霸王 usually means a king who is stronger than other kings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T05:56:58.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14611" CreationDate="2015-08-13T06:06:59.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;以往 have similar meaning as 以前, which both means &quot;in the past&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舊時 also means &quot;in the past&quot; (but the time is older)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T06:06:59.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14637" CreationDate="2015-08-13T06:10:16.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;探个 means to explore, inspect something,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;究竟 means the reasons behind something / the truth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T06:10:16.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14628" CreationDate="2015-08-13T06:15:49.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may say 向學 = eager to learn / study&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;學習 = learn / study&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T06:15:49.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="737" CreationDate="2015-08-13T15:37:21.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters is the most beautiful calligraphy. It would be awesome if you could write it using a Chinese brush.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Being able to write them helps you remember them better. Many Chinese characters have the same pronunciation (in pinyin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11522" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-12-24T13:55:22.907" LastActivityDate="2020-12-24T13:55:22.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14637" CreationDate="2015-08-13T21:51:38.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Previous answers have explained well. I just want to add a few notes for the word “究竟”.&#xA;This word does not only mean the result or just what happened. It goes beyond that and means what actually happened. Or what is the very natural of something. &#xA;It does not represent the outlook or appearance of something, it points to the deepest truth and usually a fundamental reason.&#xA;In your example, the sentence means the man looking into the barrel not only for what happened but also why if possible. The second tier meaning is hidden inside the word 究竟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11140" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T21:51:38.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14657" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-13T23:14:00.287" Score="1" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't figure out what 贴 is doing here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国革命先行者孙中山综合了西式服装与中式服装的特点，设计出了一种直翻领有袋盖的四贴袋男用套装，定名为中山装，此后几十年，中山装大为流行，成为中国男子喜欢的标准服装。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘四贴袋‘ is 贴 a 量词 here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T01:26:56.663" Title="What is the function of 贴 in 四贴袋？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14657" CreationDate="2015-08-14T01:26:56.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;贴 in 四贴袋 is not measure word but adjective, meaning &lt;em&gt;pasted&lt;/em&gt;. It describes the appearance of the pocket is like it's pasted/patched on the suit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 贴袋 is used as noun, you can use any measure word that's applicable to a pocket. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这件衣服上有四&lt;strong&gt;个&lt;/strong&gt;贴袋。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in your example, 四贴袋 is noun-as-adjective (数词+名词短语做定语), in which situation there should not be measure words in between, and strictly speaking, 四 here is not nominal number &lt;em&gt;four&lt;/em&gt; but tuple nomenclature &lt;em&gt;quad&lt;/em&gt;. Some other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三轮车 three-wheel(ed) vehicle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多功能全自动洗衣机 multi-function automatic washing machine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四贴袋男用套装 four/quad-patch pocket men's suit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T01:26:56.663" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14476" CreationDate="2015-08-14T11:55:46.927" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's also some kind of subtle joke, since when counting the money paid for the goods at the counter, the shopkeeper may realize that the customer is getting away having paid less than what was expected, so in that case it would be said say something like: &quot;Slowly! Slow! Where are you going?&quot; (even if the situation was the opposite). It is also a way to get eh customer to take a second look at the merchandise and therefore to gain an additional opportunity to make an extra last-minute sale. This kind of tongue-in cheek humour is tipical in bargain-intensive environments where prices are not fixed but negotiated, and shops cluttered with shelves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9801" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T11:55:46.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14660" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14661" CreationDate="2015-08-14T14:47:10.283" Score="2" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a very robust deck of Anki flash cards I've been using to build vocabulary. But sometimes I get stuck when new grammatical constructs are shown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The deck says 你想走的时候就走吧。 is translated &quot;Go when you want, ok?&quot; which clause is 时候 part of?&#xA;&quot;Whenever you want to go, immediately go okay?&quot; or &quot;You want to go, whenever immediately go, okay?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what resource(s) is best for building familiarity with these various transformations (or grammatical structures)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11533" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T15:33:33.960" Title="Breaking a sentence into grammatical structures" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14660" CreationDate="2015-08-14T14:59:57.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;的时候&lt;/code&gt; is an interesting way to construct time markers in Chinese, it means &lt;em&gt;&quot;when (something happens...)&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, the whole 6 characters in 你想走的时候 are part of the ...的时候 construct, which matches your first translation, i.e. &lt;em&gt;Whenever you wish to go, just go.&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Anytime you want to go, just go.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, the best resource to train your &quot;parser&quot; is just reading a lot, text books for the most part. And sometimes breaking up a sentence can be hard, that's normal, but the more experience you have, the better you will be at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-08-14T15:33:33.960" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T15:33:33.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14662" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14663" CreationDate="2015-08-14T15:10:52.670" Score="1" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 你想走的时候就走吧。 it seems 的就 is supposed to be taken as the verb.  At my current knowledge level, I wouldn't know how to match those two together and recognize 时候 as modifying the verb.  How can I learn to match these up?  Is there a collection of rules that I should learn?  Or is it just by doing lots of reading and asking questions about stuff I don't understand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11533" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T15:19:50.390" Title="Verbs of two words" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14662" CreationDate="2015-08-14T15:19:50.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;就 here means ”just”. &lt;em&gt;When you want to go, just go.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 is very versatile, and has many uses. but this is the basic meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 is not related to 就 here, but to 时候. 的时候 means ”when”, ”the time when”, ”the time of (something)”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T15:19:50.390" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14664" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14665" CreationDate="2015-08-14T15:22:42.087" Score="2" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that &quot;宝藏&quot; can mean &quot;underground mineral deposits&quot;, but it can also mean &quot;treasures&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is this: In addition to the two definitions above, can &quot;宝藏&quot; also mean a location that stores treasures, such as a &quot;treasure trove&quot;? Or is that definition only restricted for something like &quot;宝库&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason being is that since &quot;宝&quot; is treasure, and &quot;藏&quot; is hide, I get the feeling that it is &quot;hiding the treasure&quot;, aka. a place to hide treasure, meaning a treasure trove. Or perhaps it just means &quot;the treasure that should be hid&quot;? Quite unsure on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T22:28:30.880" Title="The meaning of &quot;宝藏&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14664" CreationDate="2015-08-14T15:45:09.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;藏 has two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;as a verb (cáng), it can mean &lt;em&gt;to hide, to conceal&lt;/em&gt;, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;as a noun (zàng), it can mean &lt;em&gt;depository&lt;/em&gt;, such as 宝藏 (bǎozàng).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course the two meanings are related. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get an impression what this word means, search for 宝藏 on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.hu/search?q=%E5%AE%9D%E8%97%8F&amp;amp;num=100&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMIjseGjPaoxwIVwmsUCh3vgA0K&amp;amp;biw=1366&amp;amp;bih=673&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Image search&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&amp;amp;ps=1&amp;amp;ct=201326592&amp;amp;lm=-1&amp;amp;cl=2&amp;amp;nc=1&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;word=%E5%AE%9D%E8%97%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu Image search&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-08-14T15:51:15.077" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T15:51:15.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14666" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14667" CreationDate="2015-08-14T16:46:12.867" Score="7" ViewCount="451" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a pic I took in HK today&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/epfeU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the 刄 + 丶 char? In&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;堂飲2 xxxxxxx 28元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing its similar to mainlands 两, for alcoholic drink sizes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried zisea &amp;amp; zdic to no avail...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: is it this: ? &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/84/wy/20090.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/84/wy/20090.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;It's the closest thing I can find&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T03:25:09.790" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T03:25:09.790" Title="What character is 刄 + 丶?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14666" CreationDate="2015-08-14T17:03:05.410" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is indeed a variant of 两. You can see it listed here in the &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants&lt;/em&gt; 《異體字字典》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?educode=A00284&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?educode=A00284&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NCKI8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NCKI8.png&quot; alt=&quot;A00284&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why they've chosen to write it this way, I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T17:03:05.410" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14664" CreationDate="2015-08-14T22:28:30.880" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about this from iciba?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;温莎城堡确实是名副其实的古物宝藏。They translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Windsor Castle is quite literally an antique treasure trove. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There you go, 'treasure trove'! God shave the Queen!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T22:28:30.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14669" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-14T23:42:55.817" Score="2" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;关键是减少烟民数量，要实现这个目标，光靠医生的劝导是不幸的，还需要国家采取措施鼎力支持。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look up 鼎力 I get 'your kind help' or 'thanks for your help'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above sentence, I think it just means 'help', or are there other connotations? Could I change it for '帮助‘？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit after reading wpt's answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还需要国家采取措施鼎力支持。= also the state needs to adopt strongly supportive measures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鼎力 here 'strongly' is that about right??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-08-15T00:25:59.287" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T00:25:59.287" Title="What does this 鼎力 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14669" CreationDate="2015-08-15T00:04:08.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Acc. to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?cond=%5E%B9%A9%24&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;教育部國語辭典&lt;/a&gt;, a 鼎 ding was originally a cooking pot with three feet (there were also 方鼎 with four feet), and in the Minnan dialect the word ding is still used for cooking pot. Later, however, ding came to describe the &lt;a href=&quot;http://catalog.digitalarchives.tw/item/00/0c/c6/c1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;massive cauldrons&lt;/a&gt; used in ritual ceremonies during the Zhou dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word ding has many connotations derived from this sense, such as 傳國的寶器 a precious vessel passed on as a symbol of royal authority, or 比喻三公、宰相、重臣等高位 a metaphor for the highest authorities of the state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?idx=dict.idx&amp;amp;cond=%B9%A9%A4O&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;鼎力&lt;/a&gt; is a very formal literary phrase that means 'with strong support', and is used in idioms like 鼎力相助, 鼎力玉成. It doesn't have to be 'state', support but it does imply that the support comes from powerful or influential persons, and is thus a flowery sort of compliment in the idioms above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T00:04:08.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14671" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14739" CreationDate="2015-08-15T14:00:36.443" Score="3" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;p&gt;焗 was an uncommon character in Taiwan 20-30 years ago, limited mostly to Cantonese restaurants, and it was an unusual type of cooking.  The MOE 國語辭典&#xA;gives this description of &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?cond=%D6K&amp;amp;pieceLen=50&amp;amp;fld=1&amp;amp;cat=&amp;amp;op=&amp;amp;imgFont=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;焗&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用鹽或淨沙下鍋炒熱，再將食物用紗布等包好，埋入熱沙或熱鹽中，蓋緊鍋蓋，利用慢火燜熟&#xA;put salt or clean sand in a wok and heat, then wrap food in cloth and bury it in the hot salt/sand; cover the wok and allow heat to cook the food until done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is fairly close to what I remember eating from that period. Now, however, 焗烤 refers to a kind of baked cheese dish, where the dish is covered with cheese, then put in the oven and baked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know where the original method came from, or the origin of the word 焗? Was it actually a Cantonese style of cooking? And how did it evolve into baked cheese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T10:51:46.227" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T10:51:46.227" Title="What is the origin and meaning of 焗烤" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;food&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14673" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-15T15:19:44.380" Score="2" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;强横实力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/149/323036.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt;, 强横 means &quot;brutal and unreasonable&quot;, which does make sense. However, at the end of the line, it also adds &quot;describes a &lt;strong&gt;person&lt;/strong&gt; like that&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if it is used as a description for something like strength which isn't something that is living, how would it make sense then? I mean, how can &quot;strength&quot; be &quot;unreasonable&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that doesn't work, would something like &quot;overwhelmingly strong&quot; work as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Somewhat related, but does 強橫 &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; have a negative implication, similar to perhaps &quot;savage&quot; or &quot;uncontrolled&quot; rather than a neutral &quot;strong&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastEditorUserId="9376" LastEditDate="2015-08-15T15:55:40.460" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T07:04:03.080" Title="What does &quot;强横&quot; mean when it is used to describe an inanimate things?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3806" CreationDate="2015-08-15T22:35:34.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if you still want answers, since this is so old. I start with PY only in their textbook (I wrote my own for first year). But you can put posters of things with characters around the room too. When I begin teaching characters, I first teach the strokes (find them in characters, write them), then radicals (about 60-70 starting with the pictograms, find them in characters, write them), then characters for things we can say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some students really appreciated the radical approach, others didn't. I believe it makes good pedagogical sense. Another option is to start introducing characters they are saying, but also teach the radicals for those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11541" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T22:35:34.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14676" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14677" CreationDate="2015-08-15T22:51:42.760" Score="5" ViewCount="721" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are cases in which &quot;to be&quot; is translated with 是 ( shì ), while in some other cases it seems not to be translated at all.&#xA;When should 是 ( shì ) be used? When omitted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here some examples:&#xA;我很好&#xA;wo hen hao &#xA; I am very well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是英国人&#xA;wǒ-shì-yīng-guó-rén&#xA;I am English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wo hen kuai le&#xA;我 很快乐&#xA;I'm happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 25 岁 了&#xA;Wǒ èrshíwǔ suì le&#xA;I'm 25 years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disambiguation 1: I landed in a similar question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/10492/11269&quot;&gt;When should I use the 是...的 construction?&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;Note that it addresses the usage of 是 and的 !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disambiguation 2: This question has been marked as oossible duplicate of: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/6726/11269&quot;&gt;Why is (是) shi4 dropped in this sentence：&amp;quot;我很好&amp;quot;?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed the subject is similar. I think that this question is more General, while the other targets a specific case (I was not able to find it before posting my question!). To be noted that some answers are quite similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T10:27:54.090" Title="When &quot;to be&quot; should be used? When omitted?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14676" CreationDate="2015-08-16T00:07:21.893" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;是 in the first context is only used to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Noun1 是 Noun2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You never say 我是很好, because 好 isn't a noun. You can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是美国人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是男孩子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是李红&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because all those relate one noun to another. In the case of 我25岁了, 25 years old isn't a noun, it's a state, and so we don't use 是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a simple summary, 是 only relates 2 nouns to each other. If it's not a noun, don't use 是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find more info and examples &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/ASGUN7RX#Structure&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, which I find is a good site for beginners to learn chinese, and gives lots of examples to help you understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T00:07:21.893" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14678" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-16T01:05:49.050" Score="1" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;他是‘业余作家‘。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您在白天应酬、工作之后，晚上是怎样进入写作状态的，您晚上休息不了多长时间吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have  I got this right, seems she is asking the question in reverse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您晚上休息不了多长时间吧？ = How long do you sleep at night?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His answer is '我大概一天睡四到五个小时。‘ but her question says 'how long can't(不了） you rest'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-08-16T09:23:05.633" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T09:23:05.633" Title="How to interpret 休息不了多长时间吧？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14679" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-16T01:50:37.390" Score="0" ViewCount="589" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned that the equivalent to &quot;bon appetit&quot; in Chinese is &quot;慢慢吃&quot; (perhaps also &quot;请慢用&quot;). This is a polite thing to do in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But since it literally means &quot;eat slowly&quot;, I'm wondering if some Chinese might interpret it literally when coming from a complete stranger. Especially if they are actually eating quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I think twice before using this phrase with strangers to attempt to be polite?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2015-08-16T02:31:33.817" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T15:50:11.653" Title="Could saying &quot;慢慢吃&quot; to a stranger cause offence?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14679" CreationDate="2015-08-16T02:01:48.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a polite expression, not liable to cause offence, something like 'enjoy your meal'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T02:01:48.833" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14678" CreationDate="2015-08-16T02:11:51.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;实际上，仅仅翻译一个意思即可，譬如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have only little time to have a test, do you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这句话在中文中的意思是略带否定含义的，问话者的态度表明那个人几乎没有时间休息。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T02:11:51.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14678" CreationDate="2015-08-16T02:17:06.033" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;您晚上休息不了多长时间吧 is between interrogative and rhetorical. It means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(I reckon that) you don't have much time for sleep at night, do you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a strong suggestion for the answer, yet an answer is expected to complete the dialog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Word by word translation is like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You are unable to rest for long time at night right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T02:17:06.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14683" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-16T02:48:40.623" Score="2" ViewCount="1168" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very early in the process of learning Chinese as a foreign language we are taught:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我是好 is incorrect because 是 is only used before nouns and 好 is not a noun.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我很好 is the correct way to say the former&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很 literally means &quot;very&quot; but in this type of usage doesn't have this literal meaning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很 isn't always used between a noun and an adjective&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This naturally results in some foreign learners thinking of 很 as some kind of special equivalent to &quot;to be&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when should we use 很 and when should we omit it? In some other places in Chinese grammar we use some character with monosyllabic words and omit it with bisyllabic words. I'm not sure if that's the case here though since I'm sure I've seen 很 used with both monosyllabic and bisyllabic words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T10:56:04.653" Title="When should I use &quot;很&quot; before an adjective?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ClosedDate="2015-08-16T15:51:49.513" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3806" CreationDate="2015-08-16T03:18:57.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When teaching people who already speak any Chinese language or dialect, pinyin first. (These days literacy in China is so close to 100% this is likely only with children or elderly rural people.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When teaching people who do not speak any Chinese language or dialect teach &lt;strong&gt;pronunciation&lt;/strong&gt; first. Introducing pinyin too early leads to pronunciation based on English spelling rules and is extremely difficult to unlearn. (Or similar the students speak some other language that uses a Latin alphabet.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are teaching in Taiwan or with Taiwanese materials or with motivated students, consider teaching Zhuyin Fuhao at the same time as pronunciation. Zhuyin is more phonetic than pinyin and doesn't look like English so doesn't lead to English-like mispronunciation habits. In this case you can introduce either characters or pinyin next. Pinyin will not hurt after the students are already used to Chinese pronunciation and Zhuyin and it's good to know it. (Unmotivated students may be resistant to having to learn the Zhuyin letters.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the unlikely case that you are teaching people who only need to pass an exam with no oral test, or who insist they are only learning to read, and do not wish to learn spoken Chinese, then teach Pinyin and characters together.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the unlikely case that you are teaching people who do not speak any Chinese language or dialect or any language that uses a Latin alphabet, then teach Pinyin and pronunciation together and then move on to characters.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;• Learning a phonetic writing system is easier than learning a character-based system • Pinyin and Zhuyin fuhao are both much more phonetic than English spelling • Zhuyin is even more phonetic than Pinyin but is less well known, except in Taiwan where it is known and used by everybody • Pinyin spelling rules are very different to English spelling rules because Chinese pronunciation is very different to English pronunciation • For people who already speak Chinese, pinyin is a great fit. Even if standard Mandarin is not their native form of Chinese • For people who do not speak Chinese at all, pronunciation is of the utmost importance and the key to fluency. Much more than in English • For English speakers, Chinese pronunciation is very difficult but pinyin looks a lot like English. This leads to most of the bad pronunciation of Chinese by English speaking learners • Most literate native speakers of Chinese are unaware of the problems foreign learners run into when trying to learn pinyin before or along with pronunciation. Most English speakers who want to learn Chinese are also unaware of this.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T03:18:57.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14679" CreationDate="2015-08-16T03:52:52.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually you would say &quot;bon appetit&quot; at the beginning of the meal. Same applies in Chinese: you can say either 慢慢吃 / 请慢用 / 请 / 慢用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only time it might cause confusion is when you say it during the middle of the meal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T03:52:52.557" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14673" CreationDate="2015-08-16T06:19:26.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;zdic says 强横: 骄横跋扈;强硬蛮横。亦指这样的人.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;亦指这样的人 is not very clear. I suspect what it means is that in addition to functioning as a modifier (brutal and unreasonable), 强横 can also function as a nominal by itself (a brutal and unreasonable person). It doesn't give an example of this, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;强横 refers to a type of person, or perhaps actions or policies that people implement.  I don't think it could refer to something inanimate, or even an animal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zdic glosses 横 as 'unreasonable'. 横 refers to someone who goes straight ahead without following a road or path (reason or morality).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also don't think 强 really means strong here; it is more like the 强 in 強盜 'robber'.  The MOE 國語辭典 defines this sense of 强 as 橫暴.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, 强横 is never going to be neutral, just like 霸道 or 講理 are not neutral. Someone who is 强横 is a bad guy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-08-16T06:44:32.073" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T06:44:32.073" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14679" CreationDate="2015-08-16T07:50:00.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;慢 generally has positive connotations of being deliberate, such as 慢走, &quot;walk slow&quot;, which is commonly said before someone departs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11546" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T07:50:00.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14688" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14696" CreationDate="2015-08-16T08:19:59.903" Score="4" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a freely available list of geographical entities, like cities, provinces (in China and abroad), names of rivers, mountains, etc.? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for something like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.geonames.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GeoNames&lt;/a&gt;, but it doesn't have to be that feature rich. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to use this for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Named-entity_recognition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;named-entity recognition&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T15:46:46.483" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T11:53:26.637" Title="Large List/DB of (Mandarin) Chinese Geographical Names and Entitites (for NER)" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;&lt;proper-nouns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14683" CreationDate="2015-08-16T10:56:04.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.It is common for &quot;很&quot; to be used before both monosyllabic and disyllabic adj. But when these types of adj./adv. are used, the front &quot;是&quot;are always omitted. For example，我很优秀（I am excelent）, 我的国家很强大（My country is powerful). This mechanism covers most  of the context. But you may use 我是很优秀，or 我的国家是很强大。It is not grammatically incorrect,but you will hold a tone of sarcasm (or at least a serious tone),so there's smaller chance to use this format . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the speaker uses 我是很好,我是很优秀 or 我的国家是很强大。He/She wants to express the determined tone to the recipient,in which he/she consolidates his/her authority,or against others' questioning for the most of the cases. In other words,he/she is boasting or even be conceited about the advantages of his/her or his/her contry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11547" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T10:56:04.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1042" CreationDate="2015-08-16T12:34:33.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are all experts on chinese culcure. But allow me to add some comment. Another Chineses expression regarding 吃我豆腐 is 占我便宜,which also means taking advantage of me. But in the contemporary era, girls use 吃我豆腐 to expecially describe some one touched her boobs. Because they bear great similarities in both appearance and feel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11547" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T12:34:33.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14691" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14697" CreationDate="2015-08-16T12:39:28.297" Score="3" ViewCount="436" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese equivalent of the colloquial English term, &quot;like a boss?&quot; Not an  &lt;em&gt;literal&lt;/em&gt; translation but an equivalent thereof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9863" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T07:28:52.290" Title="English slang translation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14692" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14698" CreationDate="2015-08-16T13:51:55.120" Score="1" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English Wiktionary lists &quot;谐仿&quot; (xiéfǎng) &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/parody&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;as a translation for the English word &quot;parody&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my other dictionaries don't list it and also my friends here in China say they don't know it, not even as a seldom-used technical word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Wiktionary also lists &quot;戏仿&quot; xìfǎng, which is definitely a word so not asking about that.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So could it be a bogus entry in Wiktionary, is it out-dated or just used in a non-Mandarin language or dialect? What's the story?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T19:02:18.317" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T09:49:58.150" Title="Is &quot;谐仿&quot; an actual word in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14692" CreationDate="2015-08-16T14:34:19.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;百度：谐仿是指对原作品的嘲弄， &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;baidu: 谐仿 is at original work make fun of,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;parody is pretty good!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9799" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T14:34:19.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14688" CreationDate="2015-08-16T15:50:40.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After some research into this I found this website: &lt;a href=&quot;http://docs.bosonnlp.com/ner.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://docs.bosonnlp.com/ner.html&lt;/a&gt;. If you set up an account on their website, you can use their NER functionality (because you need an API Token. I tried their Python example &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import json&#xA;import requests&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;NER_URL = 'http://api.bosonnlp.com/ner/analysis'&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;s = ['对于该小孩是不是郑尚金的孩子，目前已做亲子鉴定，结果还没出来，'&#xA;     '纪检部门仍在调查之中。成都商报记者 姚永忠']&#xA;data = json.dumps(s)&#xA;headers = {'X-Token': 'YOUR_API_TOKEN'}&#xA;resp = requests.post(NER_URL, headers=headers, data=data)&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;for item in resp.json():&#xA;    for entity in item['entity']:&#xA;        print(''.join(item['word'][entity[0]:entity[1]]), entity[2])&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And got back: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;郑尚金 person_name&#xA;成都商报 product_name&#xA;姚永忠 person_name&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it seems they have a 500 daily request limit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing some more research, they seem to have a &lt;a href=&quot;http://bosonnlp.com/dev/resource&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;publicly&lt;/a&gt; available list of names they use for their text comparison (The link is under 命名实体数据). That might be what you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T15:50:40.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14691" CreationDate="2015-08-16T17:24:06.847" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest I can think of is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;霸氣外露&lt;/code&gt; (bà qì wài lù)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;霸气侧露&lt;/code&gt; Bàqì cè lù&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a proverb but nowadays commonly used as a slang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastEditorUserId="11542" LastEditDate="2015-08-17T11:03:17.617" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T11:03:17.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14692" CreationDate="2015-08-16T18:20:08.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The story as far as I can tell is that 戲仿 is the original Chinese term for this sort of literary game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The practice was not that common, but it was not unheard of either. The mid-Qing novel 鏡花緣 has a whole chapter describing games involving complicated parodies (chapter 87: 因舊事游戲仿楚詞　即美景詼諧編月令). The games involved a lot of drinking, and I had a lot of trouble following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words such as 諧仿 (or 諧擬, another candidate) are all later inventions, mostly the creations of academics who are trying to translate Western literary history, concepts, and theory into Chinese.  Chinese Wikipedia is now 戲仿, after a struggle with 諧仿 some years ago. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer 戲仿, since I'm interested in Chinese literature, and 戲仿 actually was used in poem titles by some poets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: this is the best known parody in Taiwan (there are many, many versions, only the last line is always the same:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;窗外蟬聲叫  Outside the windows the cicada sings&lt;br&gt;&#xA;疑似下課鐘  I thought it was the end of class bell&lt;br&gt;&#xA;抬頭看黑板  I lift up my head and look at the blackboard&lt;br&gt;&#xA;低頭思便當  I lower my head and think of my lunchbox  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(lunchboxes are round and made of stainless steel)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T18:20:08.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14699" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14701" CreationDate="2015-08-16T22:36:43.240" Score="9" ViewCount="2530" Body="&lt;p&gt;Vietnamese is a language that used to use Chinese characters, but doesn't use them in everyday language nowadays. Are they still taught in school?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastEditorUserId="200" LastEditDate="2015-08-16T22:44:44.977" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T12:23:03.357" Title="Are Chinese characters taught in school in Vietnam?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14699" CreationDate="2015-08-16T23:46:04.177" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are Chinese language courses in many schools across Vietnam, just as in the West or any other country that has recognized the need for L2 Chinese speakers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you are asking about education in the old &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_n%C3%B4m&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nôm&lt;/a&gt; script as part of the mandatory national curriculum, the answer is no. Nevertheless, there is growing interest in the old writing system, research work and computer support got better in the last couple of years and there are voluntary evening &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avA4nxwZMzU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;classes&lt;/a&gt; and similar, attended by young and old who are curious to know how it works. But ask a random ordinary Vietnamese whether they know any Nôm or Chinese characters and the likelihood of that is very low. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you would like to find out more about the Hán-Nôm script visit &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nomfoundation.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-08-17T12:23:03.357" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T12:23:03.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14703" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-17T06:53:46.450" Score="3" ViewCount="501" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to say, &quot;She's so full of life&quot;. This is to mean she's energetic, she lively, exuberant, loves to live life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came across two idioms: 生气勃勃 and 生机盎然, but from the examples I've read, 生机盎然 seems to be used to describe nature more often than people. If neither of these are good translations, what would be more suitable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T07:54:33.027" Title="How would one translate &quot;full of life?&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14703" CreationDate="2015-08-17T07:09:48.847" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;code&gt;活力&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;vitality&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;energy&lt;/code&gt;), such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;充满活力&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  活力四射&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T07:09:48.847" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14703" CreationDate="2015-08-17T07:30:24.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think neither of the idioms you propose works for people.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A common word is (很)活潑, usually translated 'lively' but used mostly to describe someone's personality, with characteristics such as outgoing (外向) optimistic (樂觀), etc. If you want a chengyu-like expression, there is 活潑可愛, but it is not as widely applicable as 活潑 by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An antonym tfor 活潑 would be 沉穩, soft-spoken, reserved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean someone with a lot of energy and spirit you could try 精力充沛. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility is (很)熱情; this is can indicate both enthusiasm and  warmth; being friendly to others, and enthusiastic about life's opportunities. Be careful with this, though, because it sometimes means 'passionate' as in romantic matters too. 熱心 is perhaps safer, though less, um, passionate.  If you want a chengyu-like expression there is 滿腔熱情.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-08-17T07:39:56.947" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T07:39:56.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14699" CreationDate="2015-08-17T07:49:53.447" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. At school we only learn the meanings of basic Sino-Vietnamese syllables, not the Chinese logograms. For example we learned that &lt;em&gt;tử&lt;/em&gt; means a child or die, but most people don't know that those are different characters (死, 子 and many more), and of course they don't know how those characters are written in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I know before the unification a few characters are actually taught in high school but they're not taught anymore. There are some proposals to introduce about 100 basic Chinese characters to the syllabus again but most people go against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may want to read these&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Do-most-Koreans-and-Vietnamese-know-the-hanja-h%C3%A1n-t%E1%BB%B1-for-their-own-names/answer/L%C6%B0u-V%C4%A9nh-Ph%C3%BAc&quot;&gt;Do most Koreans and Vietnamese know the hanja/hán tự for their own names?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080731101802AAy4ljN&quot;&gt;Do Vietnamese still use Hán tự (HanZi/ Hanja /Kanji) besides Quốc ngữ alphabet?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3122" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T07:49:53.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14709" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14710" CreationDate="2015-08-17T08:15:47.983" Score="11" ViewCount="1076" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, when the English has an indefinite article (&quot;a&quot;, &quot;an&quot;), the Chinese translation has a numeral (&quot;一&quot;, yī).&#xA;So, for example, &quot;I want to buy &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; ticket&quot; sounds like &quot;I want to buy &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; ticket&quot;.&#xA;Sometimes the article in Chinese is just dropped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is there a distinction between a singular indefinite article and a unity numeral?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to distinguish between a &quot;vague&quot; quantity (e.g.: &quot;I want &lt;strong&gt;an&lt;/strong&gt; ice cream&quot;, meaning that &quot;I feel like having something fresh to heat&quot;) and an exact quantity (e.g.: &quot;I want &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; ice cream&quot;, in the sense that &quot;I want one and exactly one ice cream&quot;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the article and/or the numeral should be omitted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-08-17T20:13:06.553" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T20:13:06.553" Title="Indefinite article vs numeral: use of &quot;一&quot; (yī)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14709" CreationDate="2015-08-17T09:37:44.003" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think ice cream is probably not the best example to demonstrate this, since it comes in many forms and some are counted as &lt;em&gt;one ice cream&lt;/em&gt; (e.g. those that are attached to a stick), others as &lt;em&gt;some ice cream&lt;/em&gt; (those that come in a huge platic box and you need to create portions and serve them to your family members). So I'll use a different example, something that is fully countable, 毛衣 (sweater or pullover).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to say that you would like to buy a sweater, in Chinese you have three options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我想买毛衣。No classifier/measure word, no number, just the bare &lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt;. In this case the number of the sweaters is fully indefinite.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我想买件毛衣。No number, only the &lt;em&gt;measure word + noun&lt;/em&gt;. Here 一 is dropped for the sake of brevity, but tacitly you always mean one item. This is the best way to use if you would like to say &quot;a sweater&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我想买一件毛衣。&lt;em&gt;Number + measure word + noun&lt;/em&gt;. This corresponds the best to &quot;one sweater&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T09:37:44.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14709" CreationDate="2015-08-17T10:03:20.163" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a lot that could be said here, but the basic problem is that Chinese just doesn't have articles, either definite or indefinite.  Chinese is not the only language like this.  Japanese and Latin don't have articles either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the difference between English and Chinese in its simplest form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He is student.   Not possible.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He is a student. Possible&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他是學生。      Possible&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他是一個學生。   Possible&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to produce a BAD sentence like (1) in Chinese? No. So we can't really say that in Chinese sometimes the article is dropped.  There is no article, so nothing has been dropped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very confusing to English speakers. My solution is to give up. Don't ask why, just accept it, and don't use 一個 as a substitute for 'a'. Using your example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I want an ice-cream.  (vague)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I want one ice-cream  (precise)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think vague/precise captures all of the differences here, but let's be pragmatic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is what you say to a friend to suggest that you go into the ice-shop and buy something.&lt;br&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is what you say to the guy at the counter. &lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does this work in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5' 我想吃冰淇淋.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;6' 我要一個冰淇淋.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were to say 5' to the clerk, it would be a bit odd, I think. The clerk mumbles under his breath 廢話! 6' produces the desired result. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were to say 6' to your friend, not odd, perhaps, but on a bad day it is possible your friend would think you were trying to buy an ice cream from her (跟我要沒有用), or telling her to go get you one (自己去買吧!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pragmatics is thus very important in interpreting the lack or provision of a numeral in front of a noun.  That's all there's room to write here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T10:03:20.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14712" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14716" CreationDate="2015-08-17T11:48:02.423" Score="3" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often eat this as part of my lunch:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T81aFm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T81aFm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Is this &amp;quot;mantou&amp;quot;?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question&lt;/em&gt;: Is this still mántóu (馒头) or should I call it something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far I've called this mantou without any real issues, but it seems different to the usual mantou (which have a smooth surface).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2015-08-23T02:02:03.753" LastActivityDate="2015-08-23T02:02:03.753" Title="Is this textured bun still &quot;mantou&quot;?" Tags="&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14712" CreationDate="2015-08-17T12:14:08.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;这是花卷，不是馒头。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;https://www.google.com/search?q=花卷&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;tbm=isch&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2541" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T12:14:08.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14679" CreationDate="2015-08-17T14:02:35.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's all about &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;when&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; you say it. If you say it before the person starts to eat, it's just a polite way to say &quot;enjoy your food&quot;. If you say it when he/she already started, it could sound like you are correcting the way he/she eats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T14:02:35.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14671" CreationDate="2015-08-17T14:40:46.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;焗&quot; is a style of cooking where you cook the food with surrounding heat, facilitating the ingredients to permeate the food. Actually it can be with or without water (vapor) AFAIK, there's not such a strict line. Then, when exposed to western &quot;baking&quot; cooking style, people just extended the word to indicate such a style in &quot;焗烤&quot;, which is not exactly the same as a Chinese cooking method. You'd have to understand that in China the distinction between cooking methods is really vague and one word can actually encompass several things. For example, what exactly is &quot;炒&quot;? There can be various styles of &quot;炒&quot;, with or without liquid. But people just collectively call it &quot;炒&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T14:40:46.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14712" CreationDate="2015-08-17T14:46:26.277" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese mostly call it &quot;花卷&quot; in daily life but you might regard it as a variant of &quot;馒头&quot; as well, if you apply the concept of &quot;馒头&quot; broadly. It's just that it more usually comes with some flavoring compared with 馒头 which can be plain. Apparently there's a Wikipedia entry for it &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_roll&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_roll&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T14:46:26.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14709" CreationDate="2015-08-17T17:57:16.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers have mostly covered the issue , but I wanted to give my take on it, particularly since I stated I would in the comments and since one of my ideas hasn't quite been covered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, it's important to note that there isn't much of a direct, one-to-one correspondence between articles in English and &quot;articles&quot; in Chinese. There are a number of things that could be translated as articles, but this often depends on context. &lt;strong&gt;Moreover, there &lt;em&gt;isn't&lt;/em&gt; a distinction between what could be construed as the indefinite article and the numeral use of 一.&lt;/strong&gt; Note that this is similar to the case in some European languages. For example, &lt;em&gt;Je voudrais un sandwich.&lt;/em&gt; in French translates to &lt;em&gt;I would like a sandwich.&lt;/em&gt; However, since &lt;em&gt;un&lt;/em&gt; is used (instead of, say, &lt;em&gt;deux&lt;/em&gt;, which means &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt;) it also indicates that the speaker wants &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; sandwich.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, in Chinese, if I say 我要一本书, I indicate that I need &lt;em&gt;a book&lt;/em&gt; with the 一, probably in the sense that I'm only looking for a specific book. (I am saying &quot;probably&quot; because there are one or two cases I'm trying to sort out, but which I'm convinced are probably irrelevant here.) Further interpretation requires some context, so I'll move on to explain, since your second question will be addressed then anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Partly to finish addressing means of distinguishing between indefinite articles and numeral use and partly  to address your second question, I'll show that the implied meanings really depend on what you're trying to convey &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; the context. For example, let's look at the following):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No &quot;article&quot;: e.g. 我想喝茶。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some quantity specified / article present: e.g. 我想喝一杯茶。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see here that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The first &lt;em&gt;tends&lt;/em&gt; to address the &lt;em&gt;general idea&lt;/em&gt; of drinking tea, whereas the second is more specific and suggests a specific quantity in mind (e.g. here, only &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; cup of tea).&lt;/strong&gt; (See below for when this might not hold.) Thus, saying something like 我喜欢喝啤酒 would be correct, whereas 我喜欢喝一杯啤酒 would sound incorrect. This isn't as big a problem for other verbs and other scenarios, where more specification might be expected. (e.g. 我喜欢每个星期三去酒吧喝一杯啤酒 is fine, if only because there's a specific context stated.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The first would be unsuitable for scenarios where a specific quantity might not be already implied.&lt;/strong&gt; (If I say 我想买钢琴 to a seller, it might still be expected that I'm only buying &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; piano. However, if I said 我想买面包 to someone selling bread, it would be too vague, since it wouldn't be surprising for me to buy more than one piece/bag/loaf.) Conversely, saying that to my friend would be fine. (e.g. I can say something like 我去超级市场买面包 -- which is also a bit of a general statement -- instead of 我去超级市场买&lt;strong&gt;一袋&lt;/strong&gt;面包, although the latter still works.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T17:57:16.177" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14200" CreationDate="2015-08-17T21:03:17.240" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general principle is from top to bottom, from right to left, but the format can be very flexible. For a four-character seal, there are 6 ways to arrange the characters (see picture). Seal calligraphers normally pick the arrangement that is most aesthetically pleasing, depending on how the character is written &amp;amp; number of strokes per character, etc. The only exception I'm aware of is for 4-character seal, the 2nd format in the picture breaks the right-left rule but that particular one has a particular name called 回文布排 ie &quot;anti-clockwise&quot; that is for 4-character seal only. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;picture taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shufazidian.com/shuji/article.php?acid=21&amp;amp;arid=41&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.shufazidian.com/shuji/article.php?acid=21&amp;amp;arid=41&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uwdVs.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uwdVs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11555" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T21:03:17.240" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14384" CreationDate="2015-08-17T21:21:59.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the most appropriate translation for &quot;operational&quot; is 运营. for example, “the day-to-day operational aspect of the business” can be translated as 公司每天运营方面。。。or for example Chief Operating Office is commonly translated as 首席运营官&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11555" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T21:21:59.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14720" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-18T00:34:37.887" Score="-2" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;This text is talking about 甲型H1N1流感疫情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女：那么我们应该作哪些准备？&#xA;男：抓紧疫苗研制是重中之重。然而，在没有有效的疫苗之前，提高大众的健康意识和公共卫生意识是最有效的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: added a bit to make it clearer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit again: A friend told me to rewrite it thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抓紧时间研制疫苗是重中之重。I think that definitely gives a sense of urgency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important thing is to hurriedly develop a vaccine. ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That gives me 抓紧 = hurriedly. Acceptable?? Or are there nuances here that I am missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-08-19T01:19:01.863" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T01:19:01.863" Title="How to translate 抓紧 here？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14720" CreationDate="2015-08-18T01:59:19.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Pinyin Chinese-English Dictionary, produced by a huge committee at the 北京外語學院 headed by 吳景榮, is a good resource for this type of idiomatic usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PYCED says '抓紧: to grasp firmly; to pay close attention to' and gives as an example: 必須抓紧糧倉 'We must pay close attention to grain (supplies).'  抓紧 literally means to hold tightly, but is now used mostly in this metaphorical sense.  I don't think it automatically implies it should be done 'hastily'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T01:59:19.747" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14712" CreationDate="2015-08-18T07:38:39.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stones~&#xA;This is huā juǎn(花卷），not mántóu (馒头).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a website teach your how to make huā juǎn.You may DIY if you have time~ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://thewoksoflife.com/2014/03/chinese-scallion-rolls/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://thewoksoflife.com/2014/03/chinese-scallion-rolls/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11561" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T07:38:39.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14723" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14724" CreationDate="2015-08-18T08:53:23.317" Score="2" ViewCount="591" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my travels I sometimes get athlete's foot and my medicine for it is now running out while I'm in Guangzhou.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see there are several Chinese terms for this condition. It's always difficult to know which is regional or old fashioned or too technical or has the wrong connotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would I be OK using the wording &quot;香港脚药&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's an attempt to say &quot;athlete's foot medicine&quot;. But there might even be a more specific general term for such medicine or even some brand name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2016-06-19T14:23:37.940" Title="Words for shopping for medicine for athlete's foot in mainland China?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14723" CreationDate="2015-08-18T09:45:18.933" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's usually called as &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/36527.htm?fromtitle=%E8%84%9A%E6%B0%94&amp;amp;fromid=251021&amp;amp;type=syn&quot;&gt;脚气&lt;/a&gt; in spoken language, so you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有治脚气的药吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AFAIK, &lt;code&gt;达克宁&lt;/code&gt; is a famous brand of &lt;code&gt;脚气霜&lt;/code&gt;, but I'm not sure whether it suits your case or not. So it's better to make a research before using it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T09:45:18.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14725" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14737" CreationDate="2015-08-18T13:05:13.393" Score="1" ViewCount="915" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen them used interchangeably, but I was wondering if there is a significant difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6858" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T22:45:31.490" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T05:39:25.033" Title="What is the difference between 汉语 and 普通话?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14679" CreationDate="2015-08-18T15:50:11.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically you can use it whenever you want to say enjoy the meal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most common use is by waiters. In Chinese dining, dishes are served in turn, not all in one go. So waiters say 请慢用 every time they bring a new dish to your table, no just right before you start. Same applies if you are cooking for your guest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also used when you need to leave the party early. When you are leaving, even if people are about to finish the meal, you can still say 我先走一步，你们慢慢吃 (I'm off, you guys enjoy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T15:50:11.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14727" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14728" CreationDate="2015-08-18T16:18:57.657" Score="3" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you guys and gals clarify how you use Email as noun and verb please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My textbook uses 电子邮件 as a noun and 发电子邮件 as a verb (send an Email). I have also found 伊妹儿 in a dictionary, which looks like transliteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is transliterated version used only as a noun or as a verb as well?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which one of them is used in general?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6842" LastEditorUserId="6842" LastEditDate="2015-08-18T16:36:06.363" LastActivityDate="2020-12-21T00:44:24.497" Title="Email as noun and verb" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14727" CreationDate="2015-08-18T16:32:26.150" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess you should avoid 伊妹儿 (that almost looks like a girls' name or person name). &lt;strong&gt;电子邮件&lt;/strong&gt; is the preferred and widely used term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need a verb to express 'to send an e-mail', use 发 with 电子邮件:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. &lt;code&gt;请给我发个电子邮件&lt;/code&gt;。 Please send me an e-mail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-08-18T16:57:57.400" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T16:57:57.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14729" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-18T17:26:08.680" Score="6" ViewCount="9997" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anybody know where to find the most recent HSK test materials, especially the &lt;strong&gt;vocabulary lists&lt;/strong&gt; to download?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have checked the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanban.org/tests/node_7486.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;official site&lt;/a&gt;, but the 资料下载 'button' doesn't work&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE: Found it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the downloads (audio samples, .PDFs, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetest.cn/userfiles/file/HSK/HSK-2012.xls&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;vocab list&lt;/a&gt;) are on a different domain: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetest.cn/godownload.do&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chinesetest.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE2: Actually there used to be a PDF which contained the corresponding pinyins, not only the words/characters themselves. Does anybody know where could that file be found?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-08-18T17:40:08.507" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T09:33:09.343" Title="Hanban/HSK Official Website Resources Download" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14729" CreationDate="2015-08-18T17:28:30.110" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the 资料下载 is a title only; those below the title are the actual links&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T17:28:30.110" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14725" CreationDate="2015-08-18T23:08:15.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a pretty good rundown of the differences: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yoyochinese.com/blog/Learn-Mandarin-Chinese-what%E2%80%99s-difference-between-zhongwen-hanyu-putonghua-guoyu-and-huayu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.yoyochinese.com/blog/Learn-Mandarin-Chinese-what%E2%80%99s-difference-between-zhongwen-hanyu-putonghua-guoyu-and-huayu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11564" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T23:08:15.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14727" CreationDate="2015-08-19T00:08:21.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think some people also just say &lt;code&gt;发个email。&lt;/code&gt;电子邮件 though is definitely used more than the transliterated version. I'm not sure it's used more than just the English word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T00:08:21.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14735" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-19T07:07:40.973" Score="-3" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些发明都要归功于他在实践中留心观察，细心发现。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 留心，细心 and 用心 all have much the same meaning of 'careful, attentive'. I understand 留心观察 as 'carefully observe', but I don't like 细心发现 as 'carefully discover'. How can you 'carefully discover'? That makes no sense in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I interpret 细心 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T19:02:26.347" Title="How should I translate 细心 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14735" CreationDate="2015-08-19T08:39:32.507" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;细心&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;认真&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;earnestly&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;seriously&lt;/code&gt;) more than &lt;code&gt;小心&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;carefully&lt;/code&gt;) here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;留心&lt;/code&gt; (and &lt;code&gt;用心&lt;/code&gt;) here means more to &lt;code&gt;pay attention to&lt;/code&gt; or to be &lt;code&gt;not absent minded&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T19:02:26.347" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T19:02:26.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14725" CreationDate="2015-08-19T11:54:54.693" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;“&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD&quot;&gt;汉语&lt;/a&gt;” is a general scope of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language&quot;&gt;Chinese language&lt;/a&gt;, it is spoken in several countries including China. “&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8F%BE%E4%BB%A3%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E6%BC%A2%E8%AA%9E&quot;&gt;普通话&lt;/a&gt;” is the modern name of “&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8F%BE%E4%BB%A3%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E6%BC%A2%E8%AA%9E&quot;&gt;现代标准汉语&lt;/a&gt;”(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese&quot;&gt;Standard Chinese&lt;/a&gt;), it can be considered as the “official dialect” of “汉语”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the difference is the scope. Most Chinese speak “汉语”, but not all of them speak “普通话”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T11:54:54.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14671" CreationDate="2015-08-20T08:10:01.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;焗 as used in Cantonese means &quot;to bake&quot; in the most general sense of the word. The method of baking you quoted in your question appears to describe specifically to how the Hakka/Cantonese dish 鹽焗雞 (&quot;salt-baked chicken&quot;) is prepared, rather than the meaning of 焗 in general, which is simply a method of cooking by surrounding heat. For instance, the word for &quot;oven&quot; in Cantonese is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/3463/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;焗爐&lt;/a&gt;. The word can also be used to describe baked cheese dishes for the simple reason that they are baked in an oven.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character itself appears to be a relatively recent invention since it does not appear in dictionaries such as 《康熙字典》. It was invented by adding the 火 radical to the character 局, which shares the exact same pronunciation in Cantonese (&lt;code&gt;guk6&lt;/code&gt;). As for the etymology of the word, I found several sources indicating that it historically should be written 焅, which does have &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1d/kx/7105.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;an entry in 《康熙字典》&lt;/a&gt; that cites definitions referring to dry or hot air:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《說文》旱氣也。《廣韻》熱氣也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Cantonese usage, the word can be used similarly to refer to hot and stuffy air. The meaning &quot;to bake&quot; was probably a logical extension of this original meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?3,64937,64976#msg-64976&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;post on a forum&lt;/a&gt; that quotes an entry in 《追本窮源：粵語詞彙趣談》 with more details:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“焅”今通作“焗”，本義是“熱氣”，就是指酷熱的意思。“焅”解作烹調方法，在宋代的書籍已有記載。現在“焅”也解作烹調方法，有兩種含義：（１）利用蒸氣使密閉容器中的食物變熱。例如：“焅飯”；（２）密閉式的烘烤。例如：“焅番薯”、“鹽焅雞”、“芝士焅龍蝦”。其中“芝士焅龍蝦”是西菜。看來“焅”這種烹調法是宜中宜西的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;由於“焅”的本義是“熱氣”，故引申為天氣悶熱，如說：“今日成攝氏三十八度，天氣好焅。”（“今天氣温接近攝氏三十八度，很悶熱。”）另外，空氣不流通，令人窒悶也可稱“焅”，如說：“間房冇開窗，焅死啦！”（“房間不開窗，悶死了！”）又“焅”有“強迫”、“被迫”的意思。例如：“佢唔鍾意食椰菜花，唔好焅佢食。（“他既然不喜歡吃椰菜花，就別強迫他吃了。”）“個股市係咁跌，焅住要斬倉。”（“股市指數不斷下滑，被迫要結算。”）“焅”在前句解作“強迫”，後句解作“被迫”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the benefit of the general audience, here's my own English translation of the entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;焅, now commonly written 焗, originally meant &quot;hot air&quot;, referring to extreme heat. Its usage to describe a cooking method is attested by Song Dynasty records. 焅 as a cooking method now includes two meanings: (1) using steam in a sealed vessel to heat food, for example, &quot;baked rice&quot;; (2) sealed baking, for example, &quot;baked sweet potato&quot;, &quot;salt-baked chicken&quot;, &quot;cheese-baked lobster&quot;. Of these, &quot;cheese-baked lobster&quot; is a Western dish. 焅 can be seen as appropriately describing both Chinese and Western cooking methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From 焅's original meaning of hot air, its meaning is extended to hot and muggy weather, for instance: &quot;Today will approach 38°C, the weather is very muggy (焅).&quot; In addition, it can be used to describe the effect of air in a room that is stuffy and not well ventilated, for instance: &quot;The room's windows haven't been opened; it's suffocating (焅死)!&quot; Also, 焅 can mean &quot;to compel&quot; or &quot;to be compelled&quot;, for instance: &quot;He doesn't like cauliflower; don't compel (焅) him to eat it.&quot; &quot;As the stock market continues to fall, I'll be forced (焅) to liquidate.&quot; 焅 in the former example was used to mean &quot;compel&quot;, and in the latter used to mean &quot;be compelled.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T08:17:04.380" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T08:17:04.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14740" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14743" CreationDate="2015-08-20T08:30:09.420" Score="3" ViewCount="1303" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hello I have been learning Mandarin for only a few weeks, although an issue has been bugging me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It concerns combining words together to make a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example I have heard that a correct sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有一个会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I have learned that the correct word for 'meeting' is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会议&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why has the 议 been dropped? Am I allowed to say this?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有一个会议&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that characters get dropped all the time in sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浸泡 gets changed to 泡 in sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;货物 get changed to 货 in sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兔子 gets changed to 兔 in sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I obviously realise that context is very important in Mandarin. I could not go up to my friend and ask what does '兔 tu' mean, in the same way that I could ask what does '兔子 tuzi' mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why not just use 兔子 in all sentences. It is only one extra syllable! Has it just been dropped to be said quicker? Am I allowed to not drop it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I say: 今年是兔子年 instead of the standard 今年是兔年 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just find it a little confusing as I need to learn the standard word (usually two characters) and then learn how to use it in combination (drop one character).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question! I have only been learning for a few weeks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11569" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T19:02:10.490" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T19:02:10.490" Title="Confusion when words are combined" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14740" CreationDate="2015-08-20T08:37:47.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are just short forms of words. Chinese people don't like to say that many syllable in casual conversation. Of course you can say 我有一个会议 but it will sound more formal to the others. And the 今年是兔年 example when you say 兔子年 it feels very weird because its kind of like a habit now and people just got used to it. That's what we call 約定俗成&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually these 2 syllable words are kind of &quot;new&quot;. In the past when people still use &quot;old Chinese&quot; these 1 syllable words are common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T08:37:47.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14727" CreationDate="2015-08-20T08:41:29.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;伊妹兒 is just a translation of the word email. The pronunciation (pinyin: &lt;code&gt;yī​mèir&lt;/code&gt;) is very similar to email. But avoid it when writing stuff. I think it's just for informal conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-12-21T00:44:24.497" LastActivityDate="2020-12-21T00:44:24.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14740" CreationDate="2015-08-20T09:24:38.177" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to what @Sweeper has mentioned: there is a natural &lt;em&gt;tendency in Chinese to minimize the number of characters&lt;/em&gt; in compound words, e.g. 北京大学 becomes just 北大 in colloquial language. This is akin to abbreviations in other languages, e.g. California Institute of Technology vs. Caltech. But this point is only distantly related to your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To focus more on your exact question, you need to understand that 子 in &lt;strong&gt;兔子&lt;/strong&gt; is just a &quot;suffix&quot; that you can use to build a myriad of things, like 勺子，筷子，儿子，包子 and so on. In itself 子 has a very abstract meaning and therefore you &lt;em&gt;omit&lt;/em&gt; 子 in 兔子 &lt;em&gt;when you build a compound&lt;/em&gt; like 兔年. The 兔 character already carries the proper meaning in itself alone, so there is no need for a redundant extra character. If I say that 子 is &quot;redundant&quot;, you might as why on earth do we just use 兔子 instead of 兔. The reason is that &lt;em&gt;modern Mandarin has a comparatively low number of possible syllables&lt;/em&gt; to work with, and therefore a &lt;em&gt;huge number of homophone&lt;/em&gt; words, which make mutual understanding in oral communication quite hard sometimes. To solve this problem, modern Mandarin combines characters, in many cases of identical meaning, to build words that point to &quot;simple&quot; things like 街道 (street), &lt;strong&gt;浸泡&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;货物&lt;/strong&gt; are other examples of this. In other cases, it will use 子，儿 (erhua final 'r') or 头 like in 花儿 (flower) or 石头 ([a piece of] stone). In yet other cases a &quot;prefix&quot; like 老 as in 老师 or 老虎 will come in handy, or repeating the character, e.g. 哥哥. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as soon as these two-syllable, &quot;simple&quot; words are combined with other ones, things start to get &quot;economical&quot;, i.e. omit characters you don't need to express compound things. This is why we say 兔肉 instead of *兔子肉, 虎爪 (tiger claw) instead of *老虎爪, 大哥 (elder/st brother) instead of *大哥哥. The three character variants are just too long, the two character ones express the same meaning, and are therefore preferred.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might now ask, if you can omit according to you own judging and sense. The answer is rather no. You really need to learn these things as vocabulary items, because you can shorten 火车站 to 车站 [which could refer to a railway station among others] but you cannot shorten 地铁站 to 铁站 or 地站. In this case all the two characters of 地铁 are need to express &quot;subway&quot;, so omitting characters does not apply here. On the other hand 港口 (harbor, port) becomes just 港 in compounds like 港水 (harbor water) or 海港 (sea port) and not 港口水 or 海港口.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE: OK, 铁站 or 地站 might work in some cases, especially when they are part of another compound expression, but 地铁站 sounds more standard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T09:43:02.797" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T09:43:02.797" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14744" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14745" CreationDate="2015-08-20T12:20:17.250" Score="4" ViewCount="585" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm attempting to translate a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notary_public&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;notarial certificate&lt;/a&gt; to Chinese, but it contains this curious sentence at the start:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/q/22400/39857&quot;&gt;According to ELU&lt;/a&gt;, this is basically a fancy salutation, like &amp;quot;to whom it may concern&amp;quot;, but because this is so formal, and possibly carrying legal weight, I'm reluctant to translate it simply. Is there a suitably proper Chinese translation of this phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for fun, I tried Google and Baidu's machine translations, which were so hilarious I had to share:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google: 要所有人都为之这些礼物要来，问候&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu: 给所有这些礼物的人，问候&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T12:20:17.250" Title="How can I translate &quot;To all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14744" CreationDate="2015-08-20T12:20:17.250" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence construction has roots in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Common Law&lt;/a&gt;, and indeed some care should be taken when translating it in full. For example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/a/22406/39857&quot;&gt;one of the answers in the ELU link&lt;/a&gt; notes that &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;these presents&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Presents&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;legal term for &quot;this document&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the phrase itself, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%88%E5%88%A9%E7%89%B9%E8%A8%B1%E8%AD%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Wikipedia has a handy footnote&lt;/a&gt; about the phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这两句都有两个to而且合乎文法，关系代名词whom前面写to是老式文法，现代英文关系代名词一般直接接在all后面，to移至动词come后方，“To all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting”即“To all whom these presents shall come to, Greeting”，come to意为‘涉及’，presents意为‘文件’，“To all whom these presents shall come to, Greeting”意为‘致本文件所涉及之诸位，各位好：’；‘致本文件相关各方，大家好：’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can translate using:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;致本文件所涉及之诸位，各位好&#xA;or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;致本文件相关各方，大家好&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:38:11.437" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T12:20:17.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14746" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14748" CreationDate="2015-08-20T15:18:24.513" Score="2" ViewCount="1507" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm speaking about for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他很6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To mean: He's very pro/skilled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen this a lot, but I don't quite see what the origin of this comes from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:44:08.810" Title="What is the origin of the slang term 6?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14746" CreationDate="2015-08-20T15:33:23.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess it comes from the &lt;em&gt;dialectal pronunciation&lt;/em&gt; of 牛 which has the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E7%89%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;slang meaning &quot;awesome&quot;.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T15:33:23.567" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14746" CreationDate="2015-08-20T17:52:59.153" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's homophonic of 溜, which means &lt;em&gt;proficient, smooth (in doing something)&lt;/em&gt; in Nothern dialects. Note it doesn't imply a top degree of mastery. It's more like &lt;em&gt;nice&lt;/em&gt; instead of &lt;em&gt;pwned&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of number 6 first appeared in online games, then spread to internet contents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples for the original word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他爬树很溜（儿）。He's good at climbing trees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他说的很溜（儿）。He gave a fluent speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One reference I can find: &lt;a href=&quot;http://hs.tgbus.com/wenda/201410/20141002121649.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://hs.tgbus.com/wenda/201410/20141002121649.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T17:52:59.153" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14749" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-20T23:48:56.290" Score="0" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence at the beginning of a short 听力练习。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就一般心理活动而言，人们并非总是喜欢被别人称赞的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心理 = mental, psychological 活动 = activity, action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Together 心理活动 just means 'mental movements'? = thoughts? Is that the meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就一般心理活动而言， = My general thoughts on this matter are, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T09:53:10.047" Title="What is the meaning of 心理活动 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14749" CreationDate="2015-08-21T00:24:13.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right about 心理 and 活动 and 心理活动.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key to understand this sentence is 就...而言, which means &lt;em&gt;with regards to/in terms of/based on&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就一般心理活动而言 = With regards to the general psychological process, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verbiage is not very precise in Chinese. My understanding is 'general' here refers to people in normal mental state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence means 'From psychological standpoint, (normal) people are not accepting praise at all time'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2015-08-21T00:30:14.643" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T00:30:14.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14725" CreationDate="2015-08-21T05:39:25.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;中文 = 汉语 = （普通话 + other dialects of 汉语）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There 56 ethnic groups in China. 汉语 is the language of ethnic group 汉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You ask a guy looks like a foreigner， &quot;do you speak 汉语/中文?&quot;.  Either is ok. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You ask a guy looks like from a different ethnic group, &quot;do you speak 汉语?&quot;. Here 汉语 is more appropriate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You ask a guy who looks really uneducated and speaks a weird dialect, &quot;do you speak 普通话?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T05:39:25.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14692" CreationDate="2015-08-21T05:45:43.423" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese with a graduate degree, I claim I have never seen that word before.&#xA;But I can guess that it literally means a humorous imitation. &#xA;There is no specific context I can give you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(谐) humor (仿) imitate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T05:45:43.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14749" CreationDate="2015-08-21T09:53:10.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;心理活动 = something you are thinking or feeling at the moment you come across something, which you don't tell other people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sample can be translated to : with regard to the personal feeling, not all people like being praised all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T09:53:10.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14592" CreationDate="2015-08-21T10:00:19.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;树 = tree, 木 = wood or wooden.&#xA;Pretty much the same usage as in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastEditorUserId="11269" LastEditDate="2015-08-21T10:49:54.527" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T10:49:54.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14760" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-21T13:00:36.210" Score="0" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I may appear in my company's marketing materials that will cater to a more international base and it was requested that I simply say &quot;thank you&quot; in Mandarin in a way directed at our Chinese client base. I have some experience in the language and I did live in China, but I am not sure what what would be the most appropriate way to say &quot;thank you&quot; to clients. I remember seeing promotional ads for cell phone service and they always seemed to feature much more formal honorifics and courtesy than the spoken language (consistently having &quot;您好&quot; at the beginning of blurbs). Should I lend a more formal tone for this kind of thing or would a consumer base expect a colloquial tone? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I myself was thinking of saying 非常感谢 for my part just so I could have more than two words to say (it literally may be a video of people just saying thank you in different languages) -- but I was not sure if that would seem awkward or inappropriate in the context of a client facing thank you video. Are there any other commonly said thank you expressions in this context or am I overthinking it when a simple 谢谢 suffice? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2015-08-22T01:06:02.893" Title="What is the most commonly used way to say &quot;thank you&quot; in Chinese promotional and marketing materials?" Tags="&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11017" CreationDate="2015-08-21T15:15:02.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;結時涯騙單儕 mean 都是我騙自己 in Chinese. It can be translated like &quot;just deceiving myself&quot;. 結時 is just Hakka tone for speak out, not really a word in this song. You can translate the Chinese word that sentence in the YouTube video. That Chinese sentence can translate nearly&#xA;But 做麽死死等到老 is correct, not 卻還死心塌地. 做麽死死等到老 means 就這麼死死等到老. It can be translated like &quot;waiting you persist until the end&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That last part that Hakka pinyin is..&#xA;&quot;老豆七嘎mu'ooei勾敻里&#xA;試懂呀西雅翻來同起&#xA;萬其一單色在阿里&#xA;每日惦惦敻刀里&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That song is sung like 粵語 (Cantonese) a little bit. Maybe it's different how they speak Hakka in different countries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11579" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2015-08-30T01:43:42.140" LastActivityDate="2015-08-30T01:43:42.140" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14825" CreationDate="2015-08-21T15:24:40.450" Score="3" ViewCount="336" Body="&lt;p&gt;KEY defines &lt;strong&gt;磨洋工&lt;/strong&gt; as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;slack off on the job, goof off&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洋 is often associated with foreign things, especially Euro-American (欧美). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are foreigners lazy in the eyes of Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T15:35:26.543" Title="磨洋工 Why 洋(?)工? Lazy Foreigners?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14764" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-21T22:40:05.080" Score="2" ViewCount="680" Body="&lt;p&gt;The little text I'm listening to has a poetic style. So I presume this is a poetic useage of 淘。Think it just means 'buy'. Is that right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;。。, 有很多特色的小商品店，可以淘一些特产带回家。Something like 'can fish up a few souvenirs to take home.'？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-08-21T23:50:41.037" LastActivityDate="2015-08-22T01:34:12.640" Title="Does this 淘 just mean 买？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14764" CreationDate="2015-08-22T00:35:22.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No it's not 买.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在线新华字典：&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/8604.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/8604.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;淘 táo &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用水洗去杂质：淘米。淘金。淘汰。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it means &lt;em&gt;(find valuable by) washing away impurities&lt;/em&gt;. When people say 淘东西 like in your example, it's referring to the treasure-hunting aspect rather than the activity of trade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;可以淘一些特产带回家 You can hunt for some souvenirs of your liking to take home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-08-22T00:35:22.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14760" CreationDate="2015-08-22T01:06:02.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;谢谢,感谢,非常感谢,深深感谢 all work. Whether you should lend a more formal tone depends on what you're promoting/marketing, and who your target audience is. Trying to sell exclusive membership to a country club to rich retired people, for instance, will be very different from trying to sell computer games to teenagers. Generally speaking, the four-character phrases are more formal, and 谢谢 is the least formal among the four. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-08-22T01:06:02.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14764" CreationDate="2015-08-22T01:34:12.640" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a modern slang for 买.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;淘 comes from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taobao&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;淘宝网 (Taobao)&lt;/a&gt;, a very popular Chinese online shopping site, similar to eBay or Amazon. Although its name does literally mean &amp;quot;searching for treasure website&amp;quot;, where 淘 means &amp;quot;searching&amp;quot;, 淘 has become a verb that first meant &amp;quot;to buy on Taobao&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;to buy online&amp;quot;, and then to mean &amp;quot;buy&amp;quot; in general. This is similar to how &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_(verb)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;google&amp;quot; has become a verb&lt;/a&gt; meaning &amp;quot;to search online&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it's new slang, you won't find dictionaries attesting to this usage, but if you search for &amp;quot;淘东西&amp;quot; you'll find plenty of examples, such as this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想在55淘东西要睁大了慧眼喔~跟风需谨慎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(where 55 refers to 55bbs.com, a different shopping site to Taobao)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以海淘东西到新西兰吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(where 海淘 means &amp;quot;to buy overseas&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-22T01:34:12.640" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14771" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-23T03:02:10.047" Score="3" ViewCount="1309" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a collector. I collect sentences which I find interesting or exemplary for certain syntactical structures. I just stumbled over another example of this structure, so I thought I would ask the question here. These are some of my 'to infinitive' collection. There seems to be a remarkable similarity between this use of 去 + verb and the English to + infinitive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this more apparent than real? Maybe this is only Modern Chinese, under  foreign influence. Can this kind of structure be found in Old Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does Chinese have a 'to infinitive'? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(these are not all complete sentences, just the bits I saved) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如何去尽责&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;理解为&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;爱别人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有专门&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;学这方面的知识&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可能是错过了真正&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;生活的机会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用自己的行动做表率，&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;影响自己的子女和整个社会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just thought I'd throw this in, 4 去s in one short text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人们把老师比作“春雨”，把学生比作“春苗“，春苗需要春雨&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;浇灌。老师就如那绵绵的春雨，用丰富的知识&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;开启学生的智慧，用优秀的人格&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;培育学生的品德，用无私的奉献精神&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;熏陶学生的心灵。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-08-25T04:10:42.240" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T04:10:42.240" Title="Is '去+verb' similar to 'to infinitives' in English?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14771" CreationDate="2015-08-23T05:15:29.147" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: this answer may well be slightly incomplete.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage of &lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt; that can be translated to 去 is the case only in specific settings. For instance, in English, &lt;em&gt;I like to read books&lt;/em&gt; is grammatically correct. However, the Chinese equivalent would be 我喜欢看书: there is no addition of something like 去 before the verb (i.e. 看). &lt;strong&gt;Thus, at the very least, there is no one-size-fits-all equivalent to the English infinitive and to the structure you mentioned.&lt;/strong&gt; Now, it's also true that infinitives aren't necessarily used in identical ways across languages (e.g. English sometimes uses the gerund where French might use the infinitive), so I'll move onto a discussion of the structure you suggested itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at an instance of the structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们约了在商场去看电影。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(We planned to meet at the shopping mall to see a film.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here, both 去 &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; the English &lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt; essentially serve as a marker to indicate cause.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;Because&lt;/em&gt; we're going to see a film, we planned to meet at the shopping mall. (Similarly, we could express the same idea in Chinese as: 为了看电影，我们约了在市场.) This is also the case in English, where &lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt; is being used as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/to#Preposition&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;preposition&lt;/a&gt;. This is also the case in your example of 用自己的行动做表率，去影响自己的子女和整个社会.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at some other examples, however, to check if that assessment is sufficient. I apologize for the poor quality of the glosses I provide -- but it's also just hard to come up with something better without more context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;理解为去爱别人 reads as something like &lt;em&gt;understanding in order to love other people&lt;/em&gt;. So 去爱 seems to mean &lt;em&gt;to love&lt;/em&gt; in same sense of the English infinitive (with &lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt;, in that case). (Similar example, modified from the dictionary: 我命令他们去调查这件事 -- I ordered them to investigate the matter.) &lt;strong&gt;So in some cases, 去 does serve as the &lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt; part of the infinitive in the most traditional sense.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, 有专门去学这方面的知识 reads as &amp;quot;experts who go study ...&amp;quot;, and there, 去 is used in a way similar to how it appears in something like 我现在去做功课, or in LINE Dict's &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/example?query=%E5%8E%BB&amp;amp;origin=entry&amp;amp;ref=%23%2Fcnen%2Fentry%2Feb333b4df82d46f4a0dee118b3a81120&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt; of 他去找报纸了. &lt;strong&gt;Here 去 essentially serves the same purpose as &lt;em&gt;go&lt;/em&gt; in the English &lt;em&gt;go do something&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So the &lt;code&gt;去 + VERB&lt;/code&gt; combination should not be interpreted as a parallel to the &lt;code&gt;to + infinitive&lt;/code&gt; structure in English, since it doesn't always work that way.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Perhaps it's best to drop the idea of a Chinese infinitive (at least for modern Chinese), because of the lack of Chinese verb inflections -- the idea of an infinitive often involves the idea of it being an uninflected form, and Chinese isn't &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_language#Degrees_of_synthesis&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a synthetic language&lt;/a&gt; by most formulations -- and the failure of English constructions to necessarily correspond consistently to Chinese ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-23T05:15:29.147" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14773" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14820" CreationDate="2015-08-23T06:16:49.777" Score="2" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U5V4P.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U5V4P.png&quot; alt=&quot;baidu&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's Baidu doing with all these crazy characters everywhere?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems kind of meaningless to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T07:58:26.880" Title="What's Baidu doing with all these crazy characters everywhere?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14762" CreationDate="2015-08-23T15:30:56.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here I think that the meaning 'slacking off' comes primarily from the word 磨, which sometimes has this meaning. Here are couple of examples from the MOE 國語辭典: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨功夫　　比喻做事緩慢拖延，消耗時間 to work slowly, to delay, to waste/kill time&lt;br&gt;&#xA;磨咕　　　拖延時間 to delay&lt;br&gt;&#xA;磨撐　　　耽擱拖延 to delay&lt;br&gt;&#xA;磨賴　　　慢吞吞﹑不打緊 slow, unimportant&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as for 洋, this is not necessarily 'foreign' per se, so much as 'to an extreme or silly degree':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出洋相　　to make a fool of oneself&lt;br&gt;&#xA;發洋財　　to make an outrageous amount of money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;putting the two together, it suggests the super shirker, the worker on the eternal lunch break. It's funny that Baidu attributes it to the workers who built the Peking Union Medical College. In any case, I doubt that it has anything to do with the excessive demands of foreigners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-08-23T15:30:56.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14775" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14776" CreationDate="2015-08-23T23:37:55.330" Score="0" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was a word a friend mentioned which meant something to the effect of &quot;wow&quot; or &quot;amazing&quot; or &quot;impressive&quot; and the english pronunciation was similar to &quot;pang&quot; but I cannot be 100% certain.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese/Sichuanese phrase that sounds like &quot;pang&quot; used to describe excitement? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(or perhaps if my memory is really hazy, it sounded like &quot;bang&quot; or &quot;pong&quot; or something like that)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11591" LastActivityDate="2015-08-23T23:51:10.303" Title="Phrase to describe &quot;wow&quot; or &quot;amazing&quot; (sounds like 'pang')" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14775" CreationDate="2015-08-23T23:51:10.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Know nothing at all of Sichuanese, but maybe you mean 棒 bang in it's sense of 'great, wonderful'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;linedict: 我认为这部电影非常棒！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;iciba:wow might be 哇：我想：“哇，多好的主意呀。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-23T23:51:10.303" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13613" CreationDate="2015-08-24T02:47:36.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;之间 - in, during&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中间 - middle, center&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11595" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T02:47:36.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14773" CreationDate="2015-08-24T03:01:06.653" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those crazy characters is actually meaningless for native Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find baidu use a web technique that use character encoding to simplify their development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pUoMM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pUoMM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DQHoS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DQHoS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Through the web tools,I find the icon is used  '\e601' for the Bai,and '\e602' for du ,'\e603' for 百科.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is not the problem of baidu, maybe caused by some other extensions or softwares. Or maybe your brower do not support the technology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suggest you change a browser(NOT IE) to find whether the problem still occured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11594" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T03:01:06.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13613" CreationDate="2015-08-24T04:40:57.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;之间： Logically in between.&#xA;中间： Phasically in between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T04:40:57.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14166" CreationDate="2015-08-24T05:12:53.957" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most cases 喂 means that you want to remind him it's not right to do things like this. It's pronounced as wei4, not wei2 in a phone call.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3653" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T05:12:53.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2646" CreationDate="2015-08-24T05:22:08.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just a Japanese word. Chinese cartoon/manga/anime/game/ACG fans borrowed it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many modern words in Chinese come from Japanese, such as &quot;物理&quot; and &quot;化学&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T05:22:08.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14384" CreationDate="2015-08-24T05:26:04.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those two words typically come up together in a business context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;operational  运营的&#xA;strategic  战略的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remind: these are only in a business or similar context. In others, the translation does subtly change a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T05:26:04.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14691" CreationDate="2015-08-24T08:20:55.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;大大&quot; or &quot;大神&quot; is the slang which means the people is the master like a god.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6751" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T08:20:55.637" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14786" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-25T00:53:57.820" Score="2" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;p&gt;将会 (&lt;em&gt;Jiāng huì&lt;/em&gt;) means 'will' and for its opposite meaning ('won't') I have seen 不将会 and 将不会.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference here? Is one preferable to the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="11224" LastEditDate="2015-09-17T16:00:44.113" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T16:00:44.113" Title="What is the negative of 将会？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14786" CreationDate="2015-08-25T02:41:38.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;negative of 将会 = 将不会 negative of 将。。。 = 将不。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;将在这里举行 &#xA;  将不在这里举行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;将做详细说明 将不做详细说明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastEditorUserId="3728" LastEditDate="2015-08-25T06:08:53.200" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T06:08:53.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14786" CreationDate="2015-08-25T03:01:02.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;不将会&lt;/code&gt; is not correct. You can say &lt;code&gt;将不会&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果你使用这种药物，你的所有症状将会消失。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如果你不使用这种药物，你的所有症状将不会消失。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you can just say &lt;code&gt;不会&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;won't&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果你不使用这种药物，你的所有症状不会消失。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T03:01:02.057" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14691" CreationDate="2015-08-25T07:28:52.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't mind carrying some informal words and be really &quot;native&quot;, you can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;吊diao爆了&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 吊 is a little &quot;obscene&quot; as it refers some male reproductive organ but it's pretty commonly used on internet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally translated: &quot;It's so big that it looks like it's gonna explode.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It actually means:&quot;That's so cool, like a boss!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T07:28:52.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14790" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14792" CreationDate="2015-08-25T08:54:16.417" Score="14" ViewCount="11843" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 太阳 (tài yáng) and 日 (rì) for &quot;sun&quot;?&#xA;Are they used in different contexts or are they interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T18:06:54.780" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T18:06:54.780" Title="Usage of word &quot;sun&quot;: 太阳 (tài yáng) vs 日 (rì)" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14790" CreationDate="2015-08-25T09:17:42.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word used in modern Chinese is nearly always 太阳. In nearly all cases where in English you would use the word &lt;code&gt;sun&lt;/code&gt; you can use 太阳. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only exception I can think of is 向日葵, which means &lt;code&gt;sunflower&lt;/code&gt;. There may be some other compounds words or derivative words (solar) that use 日 instead of 太阳, but I think generally, it would be would be pretty safe to use 太阳.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日 in modern Chinese means &lt;code&gt;day&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;daytime&lt;/code&gt; or a &lt;code&gt;certain date/time&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T09:17:42.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14790" CreationDate="2015-08-25T09:19:14.470" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;日 both means &lt;em&gt;sun&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;day&lt;/em&gt; (and is short for &lt;em&gt;Japan&lt;/em&gt;, etc.), but the most common meaning of 日 is &lt;em&gt;day&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;daytime&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E. g. :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每日 every day, daily&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;日志 journal, log&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;昨日 yesterday&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;日报 daily (paper)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and many-many more.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only examples I can think of where 日 denotes &lt;em&gt;the Sun&lt;/em&gt; and not &lt;em&gt;day&lt;/em&gt;/&lt;em&gt;daily&lt;/em&gt; are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;日出 (rì chū) sunrise&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;旭日 (xùrì) rising sun&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;烈日 (lièrì) scorching sun &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;红日 (red) sun&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the &lt;em&gt;day&lt;/em&gt; meanings are derived from the &lt;em&gt;sun&lt;/em&gt; meaning, as 日 originally denoted the Sun since earliest times. But the meaning later shifted toward &lt;em&gt;day&lt;/em&gt;/&lt;em&gt;daily&lt;/em&gt; and as you can see most compounds with 日 now translate as something with &lt;em&gt;day&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太阳 on the other hand unambiguously refers to &lt;em&gt;the Sun&lt;/em&gt; as a celestial body, both in scientific and everyday usage. In compounds it sometimes translates as &lt;em&gt;solar&lt;/em&gt; but I think that is no surprise for an Italian [if my guess is correct]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="11269" LastEditDate="2015-08-25T09:44:16.870" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T09:44:16.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14794" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14803" CreationDate="2015-08-25T09:55:18.397" Score="6" ViewCount="629" Body="&lt;p&gt;In rhymes, is only the &lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt; of syllables concerned (see: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/13610/11269&quot;&gt;Rhyming in modern Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;), or also the &lt;em&gt;tone&lt;/em&gt; is somehow involved?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T00:02:47.610" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T10:48:35.873" Title="Rhyme and tones" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14795" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-25T10:28:17.043" Score="0" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can somebody suggest any traditional (possibly simple!) poetry for beginners, something that could be easily learnt by heart, just to help memorization of pronunciation and practicing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I'm not looking for learning resources that could be somehow &quot;volatile&quot;, but for well-known classics in literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe there are suitable poets studied by children at primary school...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="11269" LastEditDate="2015-08-28T13:52:28.333" LastActivityDate="2015-09-06T09:24:10.607" Title="Simple poetry for beginners" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14794" CreationDate="2015-08-25T10:47:55.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only the sound matters. For example, the famous Tang dynasty poem 《清明》by 杜牧:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清明时节雨纷纷， &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;路上行人欲断魂 。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;借问酒家何处有？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;牧童遥指杏花村。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second and fourth lines rhyme but have different tone (2 vs 1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-08-25T11:00:54.997" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T11:00:54.997" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14790" CreationDate="2015-08-25T11:54:23.193" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to offer a slightly different perspective from the other answers, and suggest that the most important difference between the two is that 太陽 is a free word, whereas 日 is a bound morpheme, i.e. it cannot appear as an independent word.  Think of 太陽 as 'sun' and '日' as sol-.  Of course they are not word for word identical with the English forms, but the basic concept is, perhaps, somewhat similar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't agree that 日 is more common as 'day' than as 'sun'; it is pretty much parallel with 月, which is both 'month' and 'moon', and it's really quite difficult to say which is more common.  The morphology of 'moon' is also somewhat similar to 'sun' in Chinese, except that 月 is free when it means 'month'. whereas when it means the celestial body, it is bound, and you need the form 月亮. (Correct me if I'm wrong!) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, 日 was both sun and day. (天 was originally different from 日, consisting of two things: 一日and 一夜.) How 太陽 became the word for 'sun' is an interesting question. In a large number of dialects, especially in northern China, the word for sun is still 日頭. It seems that 日 kept its meaning as sun pretty much unchanged in these dialects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太陽 seems to have been an astrological term for 'sun', with the moon identified as 太陰. Why did 太陽 win out and supplant 日 and all its variants, while 太陰 lost out completely? I'll award 5 *'s to the lexico-mane who can answer that one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T11:54:23.193" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9646" CreationDate="2015-08-25T15:31:34.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chong Sau Lin's Hakka is a bit different from standard (Meixian) Hakka. In particular, [ɛu] is replaced by [iau] or [iu].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) As others have said, 唱带 means music tapes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 镭 &lt;em&gt;lui&lt;/em&gt; = 钱 &lt;em&gt;cen&lt;/em&gt; (money) in Malaysia/Singapore, derived from duit, the Dutch coin, through Malay. There isn't a Chinese word for it, so they use 镭 for the sound. Then it makes more sense: 人家赚到笑，镭装满几盘。Other people earning till they laugh (i.e. laughing to the bank), money filling plates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;em&gt;cin-pu&lt;/em&gt;, they used the wrong word. It should be 尽补, i.e. keep restocking. Then 货又尽补好唔得闲 means they keep restocking, no time to idle. If you listen to his 炒面 &lt;em&gt;cau men&lt;/em&gt; song, &lt;em&gt;cin&lt;/em&gt; appears in 尽加凳 &lt;em&gt;cin ga den&lt;/em&gt; (keep adding chairs).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) 蚀 is a fantastic word, it combines the meaning of 食 and 失 with are both also &lt;em&gt;sit&lt;/em&gt;. Meaning, the pirate sellers &quot;eat&quot; the profits, and the singers &quot;lose&quot; the money. So 蚀到只只改行唔限 would be losing (money) till everyone changes industry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) 去开一间海南鸡饭 means open a shop to sell Hainanese chicken rice, i.e. 去开一间店卖海南鸡饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) 齐家 literally means whole house, but is extended to mean everybody, i.e. all the customers. I believe zau-man is 招满, meaning customers come and fill the whole place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd translate it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Lately, being a singer is so hard&#xA;All those barbaric pirated music sellers&#xA;Everywhere i see pirated copies&#xA;One street has ten-plus stalls&#xA;Those people laugh to the bank, money filling their plates&#xA;They keep restocking, don't even have time to idle&#xA;I sing till half dead, spend over a hundred thousand dollars&#xA;Other people steal and make pirated copies&#xA;Singers lose money till all of them change jobs without limit&#xA;Go open a Hainanese chicken rice shop&#xA;Everyone comes to praise after eating&#xA;Such a good business, customers often fill the whole place&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11603" LastEditorUserId="11603" LastEditDate="2015-08-25T16:09:34.330" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T16:09:34.330" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14795" CreationDate="2015-08-25T16:07:20.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.3kid.net/ertong/tangshi-sanbaishou.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.3kid.net/ertong/tangshi-sanbaishou.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;has many for you to choose from; here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;咏鹅&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-骆宾王&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鹅，鹅，鹅，&#xA;曲项向天歌。&#xA;白毛浮绿水，&#xA;红掌拨清波。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;春晓&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-孟浩然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春眠不觉晓，&#xA;处处闻啼鸟。&#xA;夜来风雨声，&#xA;花落知多少。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;登鹳雀楼&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-王之涣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白日依山尽，&#xA;黄河入海流。&#xA;欲穷千里目，&#xA;更上一层楼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastEditorUserId="11625" LastEditDate="2015-08-27T21:31:18.737" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T21:31:18.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14125" CreationDate="2015-08-25T16:22:33.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned by vermillion, various IME's include this functionality. But there are other ways of doing this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way could be with a script similar to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/65443-chinese-pinyin-entry/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this one for windows Autohotkey_L&lt;/a&gt;. However, Autohotkey is not available for Gnu/Linux, so this would need to be reworked. A good text expansion app for Gnu/Linux is &lt;a href=&quot;https://code.google.com/p/autokey/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;AutoKey&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made &lt;a href=&quot;https://gist.github.com/anonymous/2ff1bfe75a71583dfeef&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;an example&lt;/a&gt; that can be imported to AutoKey. Since AutoKey supports auto capitalization with text expansion, i removed the case duplicates present in the above sample. Not tested extensively, but works-for-me (tm). I'm using Kubuntu 11.04 and installed the gtk version of AutoKey. From within AutoKey GUI, select File / Import to pull in this example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Newer versions of AutoKey lack an import function. Import can be achieved by saving above example to /home/username/.config/autokey/autokey.json. Subsequently launching AutoKey results in import. Rename to avoid overwriting existing AutoKeys. Data from any compatible .json file will be merged with existing AutoKeys. Note that there are issues with AutoKey and Xubuntu 14.04.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Made an &lt;a href=&quot;https://gist.github.com/anonymous/1b35822732436f9056ef&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ibus-tables tone-marked pinyin entry method&lt;/a&gt;. Because ibus chinese IME on my system doesn't allow for tone marked pinyin entry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally figured out that one needs to install ibus-m17n to get access to tone based pinyin entry under Chinese layout (sudo apt-get install ibus-m17n). This is better than the ibus-tables approach as it doesn't have the annoying pop-up window while typing pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ibus-m17n zh-pinyin.mim handles this well. However, whenever you type a v it puts a ü. Other than that you can type normally in English and switch to pinyin just by adding numbers. So i &lt;a href=&quot;https://gist.github.com/anonymous/8278bab2912ce5d776ff&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;changed it by adding a fifth tone&lt;/a&gt;, the neutral tone. If v is typed, v is displayed. If u5 is typed (or u:) then ü is displayed. If you want this functionality, after backing up /usr/share/m17n/zh-pinyin.mim, place the above file in it's place and restart ibus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another approach, unfortunately restricted to working within LibreOffice or OpenOffice is to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyinjoe.com/pinyin/pinyin_macro.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;use a macro&lt;/a&gt; (scroll down to OpenOffice subtitle). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11604" LastEditorUserId="11604" LastEditDate="2015-09-04T10:37:55.077" LastActivityDate="2015-09-04T10:37:55.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9651" CreationDate="2015-08-25T16:23:46.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have enough reputation to comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Hakka i usually hear 靓 &lt;em&gt;liang&lt;/em&gt;, first time seeing 叻 &lt;em&gt;liak&lt;/em&gt;. Could use 靓 i guess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11603" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T16:23:46.507" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14794" CreationDate="2015-08-25T17:56:09.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese poems involve some complicated concepts, which can be written for a big book. In general, both sound of syllables and tones concern. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it could be very different from modern Mandarin, depending on the characters. In addition, both sound and tones could be different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now here's the short (but far away from complete) story:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Traditional poems have to be written with severe discipline, most characters should follow one certain tone family according to the poem format. Only some of them are free.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are two general tone family: 平 and 仄 ze4。(level tone and oblique tone)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most first tone and second tone Mandarin characters are of level tone family. While most of the other two are of oblique tone family.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But there are too many exceptions... due to long history of Chinese, the tone continue changing over time. Only refer to professional tools or books can we tell if one character is an exception. (btw, actually there are five tones used in traditional poems, but you don't need to know another long story.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally we can talk about sounds or syllable rhymes. There are dozens of sound families/groups, and each character belongs to one family. Generally you can use characters to rhyme from only one family in one poem. (But in @Ringil's answer there is an acceptable exception.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Usually characters from one family share the same vowel/final（韵母）.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be careful about syllable rhymes. The count of these families is much more than Mandarin finals. So even if two character have the same final in Mandarin, it could belong to different sound families.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And again, some character's final have changed over time...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Even in Chinese history, poems from diffenrent dynasty have some little differences in rhymes...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But don't panic! None of the above is neccesary to enjoy poems, though knowing more about sounds and tones could help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At last, If you can read Mandarin, I strongly recommend Professor &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Li_%28linguist%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;王力&lt;/a&gt;'s master piece: 《诗词格律》(Poem Discipline). It is not a big book, but the very essential part of traditional poems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T10:48:35.873" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T10:48:35.873" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14806" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-25T23:07:45.830" Score="0" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;A strange old 听力 from a bygone era it seems, but this 通过让座者时 is holding me up, I can't get a handle on it. How is it meant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到电影院看电影，观众应尽早入座。如果自己的作为在中间，应当有礼貌地向已就座者示意，请其让自己通过。通过让座者时要与之正面相对，切勿让自己的臀部正对着人家的脸，这是很失礼的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请其让自己通过。 ask him let self/one pass&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This next bit, I can't quite fathom how it is meant in Chinese. Is 让 here 'let' or 'by' or both? Is the 座者 the person seated, or the one who wants to get to his seat? The more I listen, the more confused I get! Help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通过让座者时 = pass let seated (person) time =  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通过让座者时 = pass by seated person time = as you pass by the seated people, (show 'em your face and not your arse,) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe this '通过让座者时' can be written '通过让的座者的时‘？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could one of you perhaps rewrite it in a clearer fashion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T15:38:24.937" Title="What is this 让 in this text?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14808" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14811" CreationDate="2015-08-26T00:20:29.073" Score="3" ViewCount="7168" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't find a dictionary translation of the word &quot;post&quot;. For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Did you see what I &lt;em&gt;posted&lt;/em&gt; on Facebook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Have you seen my &lt;em&gt;post&lt;/em&gt; on my Moments (Wechat)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do they say in northern China? (Colloquially)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="3011" LastEditDate="2015-08-27T19:48:00.733" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T22:48:49.620" Title="How to say &quot;post&quot; as in &quot;post something online&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14810" CreationDate="2015-08-26T00:37:25.367" Score="2" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I translate the &amp;quot;passionate&amp;quot;? Synonyms would be hot, romantic, fiery, and so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two of them are passionate lovers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are very passionate in bed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She gave him a passionate kiss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've come across &lt;code&gt;热情&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;多情&lt;/code&gt;，but I'm not entirely sure if those are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T04:14:59.220" Title="How to translate &quot;passionate&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14809" CreationDate="2015-08-26T01:15:17.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;热情：enthusiastic, warm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多情：affectionate, loving&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;热情 is fine, but 热恋 (fiery love) is better for your sentences. An alternative is 激情 which literally means &lt;em&gt;passionate&lt;/em&gt; with a sense of excitement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two of them are passionate lovers. 他们是&lt;strong&gt;热恋&lt;/strong&gt;中的情人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are very passionate in bed. 他们在床上充满&lt;strong&gt;激情&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She gave him a passionate kiss. 她给了他一个&lt;strong&gt;热情&lt;/strong&gt;的吻。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T01:15:17.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14808" CreationDate="2015-08-26T01:21:31.900" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Colloquially people use 'PO' (mostly in Southern China), 发, 贴, 放, or any verb that has a similar meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formal translation would be 发布 or 发表.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did you see what I posted on Facebook? 你看见我在Facebook上&lt;strong&gt;PO&lt;/strong&gt;的东西了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where did you post it? On WeChat Moments. 你&lt;strong&gt;发&lt;/strong&gt;在哪了？微信朋友圈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T01:31:26.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14808" CreationDate="2015-08-26T01:24:23.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you see what I posted on your Facebook? = 你看到我在你的QQ空间上的留言了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did you see what I posted on Facebook? = 你看到我在QQ空间上发表的说说了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T01:24:23.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14806" CreationDate="2015-08-26T01:30:49.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe this usage of 让座者 is very inaccurate. It is referring to the people who lets you past. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I couldn't think of a clear and succinct phrase for the same meaning. None of 让位, 让路, etc. sounds right. If rewrite the phrase I would simply go with 其他观众.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;通过&lt;strong&gt;其他观众&lt;/strong&gt;时要与之正面相对，……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T01:30:49.833" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14815" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14818" CreationDate="2015-08-26T02:52:34.963" Score="0" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was trying to figure out the characters for Sapporo, the Japanese beer, the other day and found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;七宝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;was one of the translations for it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My initial reaction was to search 「七寶」 in my Japanese dictionary, which returned nothing(!); searching 「七宝」 though returned&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;しっぽう, しちほう【七宝】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the seven treasures (gold, silver, pearls, agate, crystal, coral, lapis lazuli)&#xA;  noun, の-adjective&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;cloisonne ware (abbreviation) (see also: 七宝焼)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I figured Japanese would use 「寶」 over 「宝」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in Hong Kong Sapporo is called 「七宝」 and not 「七寶」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really get it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does 「宝」 have its own history separate from 「寶」?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T00:24:57.260" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T00:24:57.260" Title="Does 宝 have its own history separate from 寶?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14809" CreationDate="2015-08-26T04:14:59.220" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From iciba: 马勒也因为其轰轰烈烈的婚外情而出名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;轰轰烈烈的婚外情 passionate extra-marital affairs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T04:14:59.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14815" CreationDate="2015-08-26T04:25:30.197" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/2816/stan&quot;&gt;Stan&lt;/a&gt; hinted at, 宝 is a Japanese &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjitai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shinjitai&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; character. It is also a simplified Chinese character, but that's coincidental.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this fact isn't so well known, but PRC aren't the only ones that performed simplification to Chinese characters - it is merely the most well known and widespread. Japan attempted their own simplification process, but theirs was less extensive and less radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, to the uninitiated, it may seem that Japanese Kanji is identical to Traditional Chinese. But there are simplified forms that are not as simple as PRC's Simplified Chinese, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;廣: (Shinjitai: 広), (Simplifed Chinese: 广)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And those that have been simplified differently, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;圓 (Shinjitai: 円), (Simplified Chinese: 圆)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And forms that happen to be the same; 宝 is an example but so are 台 and 国.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the two simplification systems happened independently, may simplified characters are based on cursive forms so it's no surprise that there are many characters that are the same between the two systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T04:25:30.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14815" CreationDate="2015-08-26T07:19:36.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, I think you might misunderstand the true meaning of Sapporo beer. To be frank, if you put this question on &quot;Japanese Language&quot; category, you may get better answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sapporo is a city of Hokkaido (State? maybe) of Japan, Chinese character is &quot;札幌&quot;。 Sapporo (Full name is &lt;em&gt;Sapporo Breweries&lt;/em&gt;) is a beer maker as well, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapporo_Brewery&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt;. And &quot;七宝&quot; is one of the beer product's name. this is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sapporobeer.jp/news_release/0000010068/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pic&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Therefore, Sapporo IS NOT '七宝'.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is '七宝'？ According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Life_Sutra&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Infinite Life Sutra&lt;/a&gt;, '七宝' are seven different treasure: gold, silver, Veluriyam（Pali）, quartz, Tridacninae, coral, agate.&#xA;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Sutra&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lotus Sutra&lt;/a&gt;, '七宝' are: gold, silver, agate, Tridacninae, Veluriyam（Pali）, pearl, ruby.&#xA;For Sapporo beer, '七宝' is an abbreviation of '&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ikiya.jp/crest/warituke/sippou.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;七宝文様&lt;/a&gt;', a traditional texture of Japan. It is used on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sapporobeer.jp/news_release/0000010068/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pic&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now we can turn to your question '宝' and '寶'; This is easier. As you can see, '寶' is much more difficult than '宝', for simplifying the character, Chinese/Japanese people just reset it... for the evolution of this character, since 200-300 AC, we have '宝' and '寶' both. see this:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v3bRB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v3bRB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tip: The time series on the pic is not very exactly...:&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11040" LastEditorUserId="11040" LastEditDate="2015-08-26T07:34:53.237" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T07:34:53.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14773" CreationDate="2015-08-26T07:44:12.657" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;That's a web development technique, the icon font&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you see is meaningless text. This is actually a web development technique. &lt;strong&gt;They are attempting the use a custom designed &quot;font&quot; to display icons instead of the weird characters.&lt;/strong&gt; However, when the icon font failed to load, your browser then attempts to display the &quot;text&quot; with a fallback font, generally: &quot;Arial&quot;, &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, &quot;PMingLiU&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So instead of &lt;code&gt;梜&lt;/code&gt;, you should see an &lt;code&gt;chevron to the right&lt;/code&gt;. That's because they filled the font with icons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example of such font: &lt;a href=&quot;https://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Font Awesome&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Can I use icon fonts to write a passage?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Icon fonts are only meant for graphical displays, not readable font. You cannot type a paragraph with the icon font, they would probably all be icons (for you to decipher ;) ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Why did they use icon font, why not pictures?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is because modern font is vector graphical. That means you can scale they up or down and they will not get pixelized. That is great for devices with high quality displays. Also, because loading a font means you can change its color and the pack will still be smaller than an image pack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="11486" LastEditDate="2015-08-26T07:58:26.880" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T07:58:26.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14762" CreationDate="2015-08-26T09:29:54.067" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/86386.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, 磨洋工 is originally means a process to optimising the bricks and tiles, especially for the foreigner's constructions. This process takes a lot of time but not produce much difference with the layout.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But over time, the meaning changes to wasting time on non-important things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 磨 means 打磨(sanding and burnish), 洋工 means foreigner's construction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11289" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T09:29:54.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14762" CreationDate="2015-08-26T11:16:52.290" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the answers so far are from people who have never done construction work.  I have.  I take the same story from Baidu as cited by Drunken Master and kxxoling.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The process of smoothing (磨) the bricks does not only take a lot of time.  More importantly, it is easy for workers to relax and stretch out the time by simply not pushing very hard as they do it. That way they all get paid more for doing easier work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The boss whether foreign or Chinese can immediately see how many bricks someone is carrying, or how many they lay.  And he knows what to expect for such routine work.  He cannot as well see how hard people are trying as they grind bricks smooth -- or tell how quickly a given wall should be ground smooth.  Especially a foreign contractor or top boss will not know what to expect for this novel process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The story concerns workers on a well-funded foreign construction project (洋工), in Beijing, and the funders were willing to spend lots of money to get it &quot;一丝不苟&quot; perfect, as &lt;a href=&quot;http://ybkk.blog.sohu.com/301356259.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ybkk.blog.sohu.com/301356259.html&lt;/a&gt; expresses it. That blog has pictures and adds other details of the building.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I take the point to be that &quot;polishing bricks on the foreign building&quot; became proverbial for taking it easy on the job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-08-26T15:35:26.543" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T15:35:26.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14826" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="43256" CreationDate="2015-08-26T14:55:26.840" Score="9" ViewCount="404" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working through the HSK vocab lists, and sometimes I find it hard to remember if a character should be pronounced with the neutral tone or with the citation tone. &#xA;It would help if I knew when it's important, and when it isn't; if I knew when &quot;getting it wrong&quot; could lead to confusion. &#xA;For instance, I believe 结实 can be pronounced jie1shi5 or jie1shi2, with two different meanings depending on whether 实 is stressed or not (&quot;solid; sturdy&quot; or &quot;to bear fruit&quot;), so here the neutral tone seems to be important. Whereas with 姑娘, it doesn't seem to matter whether 娘 is pronounced niang2 or niang5. &#xA;Still, I believe there are also cases where getting it wrong with using/not using the neutral tone could make it harder to be understood, even if there is no ambiguity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;东边,西边 and 里边: it seems most dictionaries give the second character as&#xA;bian5 rather than bian1. But if you were to say li3bian1 rather than&#xA;li3bian5, could that make it harder to be understood?  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;欺负 to bully: qi1fu5, not qi1fu4    &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;时候 shi2hou5, not shi2hou4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;云头: yun2tou2, not yun2tou5; cloud. Here there seem to be more words ending in 头 that are pronounced xxxtou2 than words pronounced xxxtou5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The section &quot;Second-syllable Stress&quot; in &lt;a href=&quot;http://carlgene.com/blog/2010/07/variant-pronunciations-in-mandarin/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this blog post&lt;/a&gt; has some bearing on this topic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps what I'm looking for is guidance about characters commonly used as suffixes with the neutral tone, but that also can occur as suffixes with one of the other tones. For example, 子,头 and 边. Also perhaps there are some rules of thumb or some &quot;gotchas&quot; that could be helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware this topic is related to variant pronounciations, regional accents and dialects; it seems to be quite tricky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2015-08-26T15:03:20.120" LastActivityDate="2021-04-06T18:04:34.883" Title="words where it is important to distinguish between the neutral tone and the citation tone" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14808" CreationDate="2015-08-26T17:27:40.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Post mean a lot of things in this certain context. So we use many words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When use as a verb, it means 发/贴&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When use as a noun, it means 帖子/评论/留言/状态 &lt;i&gt;Name changes with certain platfrom&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11136" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T17:27:40.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14828" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14830" CreationDate="2015-08-26T21:52:20.437" Score="0" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;Full sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们可真是兵器谱排行榜第一位，够贱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did some googling, and it seems like &quot;兵器谱&quot; is a leaderboard for fictional weapons? I have absolutely no clue what this means in relation to &quot;够贱&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.17k.com/chapter/493239/11339020.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastEditorUserId="9376" LastEditDate="2015-08-26T22:16:48.007" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T01:03:54.857" Title="What does &quot;兵器谱排行榜第一位&quot; mean/represent?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14828" CreationDate="2015-08-27T00:54:02.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a Chinese pun-like joke known as 歇后语. What they have in common is two parts, where the second part is a homophone of the expected answer to the first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, &quot;够贱&quot; is supposed to sound like the true answer to &quot;兵器谱排行榜第一位&quot;. That may not be obvious at first, and I think this joke was told poorly, but my guess is that &quot;兵器谱排行榜&quot; actually refers to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteen_Arms_of_Wushu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Eighteen Arms&lt;/a&gt;, of which there are four that are considered the &quot;best&quot; (四大兵器), which includes the 剑 or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;double-edged straight sword&lt;/a&gt;. So &quot;够贱&quot; is a homophone of &quot;够剑&quot;, or &quot;as good as Jian&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a proper translation might be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You really are the first among the weapons - as good as Jian (so &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/js/8D31.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;despicable&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the joke working because &quot;jian&quot; sounds the same as &quot;despicable&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problems with this joke are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There's no well-known list known as 兵器谱排行榜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Of the lists that are well known, such as the 四大兵器, although 剑 ranks highly, it doesn't rank first&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T00:54:02.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14828" CreationDate="2015-08-27T01:03:54.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Baike says: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/583158/7042173.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;兵器谱&lt;/a&gt; is a fictional ranking of the best weapons and their users. I think in this context, it's a very sarcastic comment. The speaker doesn't really think these guys are very skilled. That's why he says &lt;code&gt;够贱&lt;/code&gt;, which indicates what he really feels. If we give the full context of the quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宋青峰，白云飞，刘逍遥，你们三个是柳至尊的狗腿子不成，他都不来追我，你们跟过来干屁，你们可真是兵器谱排行榜第一位，够贱！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see the speaker is saying these 3 guys don't even pass muster as lapdogs for 柳至尊. And then the speaker says something along the lines of: &lt;code&gt;wow you guys are really the best (ranked in the leaderboards), just kidding you guys are despicable&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T01:03:54.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14833" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-27T01:53:37.560" Score="4" ViewCount="454" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had the phrase '巧夺天工‘ in my text, so I 百度 it. 百度 explains it thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;专指人工的精巧胜过天然制成,形容技艺十分高超。, which is clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, they say '巧夺天工‘ comes from &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古代成语，“微妙在智，触类而长，玄通阴了，巧夺造化。” and that is more difficult for me to follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subtle wisdom, ????, ????, timely seize good fortune.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you fill in the ???? please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;When a problem seems intractable, rearrange the problem. This 古代成语 is very cryptic and not easily amenable to translation. Could you tell me please, if my conversion of it to a more modern Chinese captures the meaning of the 古代成语?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;微妙在智（的人），2. 触类而长，3. 玄通阴了，4. 巧夺造化&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.精神满腹的人，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;通过研究一件事情，演绎出类似事情的工作方法，&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;从而了解大自然的神秘运作，&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;然后巧妙地控制自然（造化）。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2015-08-27T21:55:34.053" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T21:55:34.053" Title="How to interpret the explanation of '巧夺天工‘？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14806" CreationDate="2015-08-27T01:53:50.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That hearing is simply wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It actually meant to mean that you shall go ahead with your front (not your butt) facing the already seated people when you have to pass by them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hearing, however, described them as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;让座者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the people who give the seat to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T01:53:50.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14835" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22267" CreationDate="2015-08-27T02:57:05.303" Score="4" ViewCount="1170" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a couple of iOS apps that support Sichuanese TTS (text-to-speech):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;川话达人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;语音合成助手&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I can tell it's all from a company called &lt;a href=&quot;http://dev.voicecloud.cn/msc/help.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;讯飞&lt;/a&gt;, but I'm not totally sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an open source Sichuanese TTS available? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An offline Sichuanese TTS that doesn't need to download the audio each time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-02-20T08:04:44.823" Title="Open source Sichuanese TTS (语音合成?)" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14833" CreationDate="2015-08-27T03:28:19.193" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/6/f3/250095.htm&quot;&gt;触类而长&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;语出《易·系辞上》：“引而伸之，触类而长之，天下之能事毕矣。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  意指掌握一类事物知识或规律，就能据此而增长同类事物知识。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Master the knowledge and regular patterns about one particular class of things, and then increase the knowledge about the same class of things.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words whose meaning is similar：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/6/152/339210.htm&quot;&gt;触类旁通&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/e/151/336185.htm&quot;&gt;举一反三&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/e/172/385826.htm&quot;&gt;问牛知马&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/b/103/278231.htm&quot;&gt;闻一知十&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/10/1210/00/1868430_76637360.shtml&quot;&gt;晋·郭璞《葬书》考及白话解&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;code&gt;玄通阴了&lt;/code&gt; seems to be a typo, should be &lt;code&gt;玄通阴阳&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;微妙在智，触类而长，玄通阴阳，巧夺造化。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/4/13f/309079.htm&quot;&gt;玄通&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.谓与天相通。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2.暗中相通。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/4/152/338288.htm&quot;&gt;阴阳&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;古代哲学概念。古代朴素的唯物主义思想家把矛盾运动中的万事万物概括为“阴”、“阳”两个对立的范畴,并以双方变化的原理来说明物质世界的运动&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;玄通阴阳&lt;/code&gt; should mean &lt;code&gt;connected, interlinked with the nature&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. &lt;code&gt;grasp the laws of nature&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-08-27T04:14:28.313" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T04:14:28.313" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14833" CreationDate="2015-08-27T11:58:03.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a Chinese-English dictionary will be helpful to you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 汉英词典(第3版), it explains 巧夺天工 as &quot;wonderful workmanship (or superb craftsmanship) excelling nature &quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also explains 阴阳 as “1.【哲】 (in Chinese thought) yin and yang (the two opposing principles in nature, the former feminine and negative, the latter masculine and positive)     2. ancient Chinese astronomy (esp. the study of the movements of the celestial bodies)”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I'd like to point out that many Chinese idioms are derived from allusions or some words in classical Chinese literature, so a specific dictionary will help you when dealing with Chinese idioms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11482" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T11:58:03.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14826" CreationDate="2015-08-27T12:22:56.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know how to answer your question, maybe the suggestions below will help you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, it seems that 这位姑娘 with niang2 is serious, but 小姑娘 with niang5 is rather relaxed. At least, I prefer to use niang5 in my daily life (but I think the word 姑娘 is less used than 女生, because the word 姑娘 sometimes makes people embarrassed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the 边 in 东边 is  pronouced mostly as bian2, and 东边 with bian5 is mainly used with 儿, that is, 东边儿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11482" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T12:22:56.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6394" CreationDate="2015-08-27T15:21:05.900" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually, when we say &quot;一定&quot; under this circumstance, it sounds like the speaker is inferring something, so when you try to express the truth that you've learned Chinese for 10 years, and your Chinese proficiency is pretty high, you are not inferring this truth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you say that your friend has been learning Chinese for 10 years, and you think his Chinese must be(一定) pretty good! In this case, for something you're not really sure but you just think it should be, use &quot;一定&quot;。  However, when you say I've learned Chinese for 10 years, and I'm confidently proficient in Chinese, you are actually showing off that your Chinese is really good! So you use &quot;当然&quot; to show that you're fully confident with you Chinese proficiency and you're proud of that and cannot wait to show off your Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11624" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T15:21:05.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14806" CreationDate="2015-08-27T15:38:24.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;让座者, if we put these characters in English order, it should be “者 who 让座”， the person who give you his seat for kindness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so “让座” is a very considerate, polite, decent behavior in China, especially on the bus or any other public transportations, or in other public places like movie theater, restaurant, if you find someone who needs a seat, such as the woman pregnant, parents with their 3-year old child on shoulders, the elder people who have trouble with their moves of legs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, as a Chinese, though &quot;XX者&quot; is not pretty well aligned with the grammar, however, we create such word just for convenience, to name those people who did &quot;XX&quot;, for example, 肇事者 means someone who caused an traffic accident, 旁观者 means someone who stand around some business and only watch the business on-going for fun or curiosity without any desire to get inferred with this business. 开发者 means the one who develop something(usually a software).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, verb+者/商/人 means the guy/company or cooperation/person who carry out the action described by this verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11624" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T15:38:24.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14790" CreationDate="2015-08-27T15:47:04.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, I feel 日 is usually used in ancient Chinese or modern Chinese vocabularies from the old days, we use 日 in modern Chinese is because in some cases, we want to simplify the word, like 日光浴，basically means tanning, 日光 means sunshine, and 阳光 means sunshine too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you say 太阳 in modern Chinese, in most cases, you're exactly fine. however, if you use 太阳 for everything related to sun, that will be too nerdy and scientific...  for example, we usually use 太阳光 when we write some technical articles about analysis on radiation of sunlight, in this case, we may use 太阳光 for sunlight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11624" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T15:47:04.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14844" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-27T20:36:01.307" Score="2" ViewCount="694" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope this isn't inappropriate, but neither of my two dictionaries had a proper translation. The closest one was &lt;code&gt;性交&lt;/code&gt;, but to my understanding, that's the same meaning as &lt;code&gt;上床&lt;/code&gt;. I'm looking for a word that will describe the physical action, whether sexual or not. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He celebrated by humping the air&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The guy at the club kept humping my leg on the dance floor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-29T10:53:42.643" Title="How to translate &quot;hump&quot; or &quot;humping&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14844" CreationDate="2015-08-27T23:20:23.080" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What're you doing, translating erotic stories? How about 抽插？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The guy at the club kept humping my leg on the dance floor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在俱乐部舞池的地板上那个家伙不停地在我脚上抽插着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A slap in the face is called for!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T23:20:23.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14846" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14847" CreationDate="2015-08-28T00:13:06.143" Score="0" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between these three words to mean unfortunately?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, which one is the most appropriate for this sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;My distant relative: &quot;what is your job?&quot;&#xA;&#xA;Me: &quot;Unfortunately, my job is confidential.&quot;&#xA;可惜(的是)我的工作要保密&#xA;不幸(的是)我的工作要保密&#xA;遺憾(的是)我的工作要保密&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastEditorUserId="3064" LastEditDate="2015-08-28T02:14:17.690" LastActivityDate="2015-08-28T02:14:17.690" Title="Difference between 'unfortunately'： 不幸 可惜 遗憾" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14846" CreationDate="2015-08-28T02:07:28.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;可惜我的工作要保密: It express your willingnes can't be fulfilled because of irresistible or uncontrolable force, such as discipline,weather etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不幸我的工作要保密: 不幸 always relates to death, wounding or very bad things, its use is inappropriate in this context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遺憾我的工作要保密: It doesn't emphasize on your wilingness, but it express your sorrow on the consequnece it caused to other person. in this context, it depends on what may be caused by the confidentialily nature of your job&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不幸的是，我的工作要保密: same as item 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-08-28T02:07:28.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14849" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-28T09:46:27.183" Score="1" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好久没有看望萧乾老人了，怕干扰他翻译和写作，怕影响他休养生息，但心里却常惦念着他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 好久没有看望萧乾老人了, = 萧乾好久没有看望老人了， but I'm not certain and I don't know why I think this. Is there a rule of syntax being followed here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could it be read '老人很久没有看望萧乾了，'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think '怕干扰他翻译和写作' means '萧乾怕干扰自己的翻译和写作工作，‘ but I suppose it could be '老人怕干扰他。。。‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who does ‘看望，怕，休养生息， 惦念‘？Is that clear from this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-28T10:04:56.957" Title="Who wants to visit whom?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14849" CreationDate="2015-08-28T09:51:50.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is the author of this article who hasn't visited 萧乾老人 for long time. the subject is omitted by the author&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老人 is a respective form of address for elderly people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-08-28T09:51:50.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14849" CreationDate="2015-08-28T09:56:34.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Who does ‘看望，怕，休养生息， 惦念‘？Is that clear from this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, but the subject is ommitted here, let's restore it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(我)好久没有看望萧乾老人了，(我)怕干扰他翻译和写作，(我)怕影响他休养生息，但(我)心里却常惦念着他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is verbose indeed, so it's natural to ommit it, especially in the writing at the view of first person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;萧乾老人&lt;/code&gt; is the object of &lt;code&gt;看望&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;the aged named 萧乾&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-08-28T10:04:56.957" LastActivityDate="2015-08-28T10:04:56.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14852" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14853" CreationDate="2015-08-28T12:18:53.057" Score="3" ViewCount="559" Body="&lt;p&gt;and now for a weibo post&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;咱们四川流行的“头上开小花”发卡已经火到国外了，还在岛国推特排行榜登上了第一，分分钟过万转……十一区网友有的表示“灰常萌应该引入动漫里”，还有的表示“大叔带上格外喜感想嫁”，当然最多的回复是“看来我已不懂时尚”[笑cry]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm told 岛国 is either TW or HK, but how can I know which it is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;what is 岛国 referencing?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-08-30T13:35:33.387" Title="Which country is 岛国?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14852" CreationDate="2015-08-28T13:19:05.090" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;岛国&lt;/code&gt; is used for Japan in most cases (especially on net), usually as a satirical usage (especially on net again). e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们叫日本岛国叫韩国棒子，那外国人叫我们什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? I believe it's because among many geographical island countries, Japan is the nearest and biggest one, and having the most close relationship with China. Whether the relationship is good or bad, and how it changed and changes, Japan is the one China and Chinease most care about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.japohan.net/archives/7288&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a Japanese's introduction about this alias:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国人は確かに日本のことを「島国」と言ったりします。そして日本を「島国」と呼ぶときは、多くの場合において侮蔑的な意味合いを持ちます&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;中国人确实有时候将日本称为&quot;岛国&quot;。而且大多数时候带有侮辱的含义。&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;(&lt;code&gt;Chinese people do call Japan as&lt;/code&gt;岛国&lt;code&gt;sometimes, and contains insult meaning in most cases.&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here're some other (more formal) names for Japan: &lt;code&gt;倭国&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;东洋&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;东瀛&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;扶桑&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-08-30T13:35:33.387" LastActivityDate="2015-08-30T13:35:33.387" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11017" CreationDate="2015-08-28T13:58:07.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has been an immense effort. I posted on Youtube, Hakka Verse (Facebook) and here, and no posting got me a complete answer. Va Vang (now vugh va, impossible to notify) provided the first characters for the part I reported for completeness. Then I posted on Hakka Verse, and we improved the spelling for that. Then I posted here, and after waiting for ages I got Li-ting's answer. Now I clearly cannot accept that answer since it doesn't fully answer me, as I am left with characters that make little sense to me, and even the admin of Hakka Verse can't make sense of them. What the answer says has helped me, in that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It confirmed (more or less) my interpretation of &lt;code&gt;kiet-sii&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It more or less confirmed my idea that &lt;code&gt;si-si ten to lo&lt;/code&gt; is near to &lt;code&gt;sixintadi&lt;/code&gt; in meaning, implying a persistent wait, which lasts till the singer gets old (&lt;code&gt;to lo&lt;/code&gt;), though he objected to my translation of &lt;code&gt;co-mai&lt;/code&gt;; I have to reject that objection on the basis of Hakka Verse experience;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He confirmed some of my guesses for the characters of the part this question is all about.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me now update you about my experiments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yesterday evening, looking for a way to crack the &lt;code&gt;nga shi&lt;/code&gt; (which Li-ting spells &lt;code&gt;呀西&lt;/code&gt;, a way that makes no sense to me and seems just a phonetic approximation), I found 时 means &amp;quot;time&amp;quot; and is &lt;code&gt;shi2&lt;/code&gt; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://minhakka.ling.sinica.edu.tw/bkg/bkg.php?gi_gian=eng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minhakka's 客英大辞典&lt;/a&gt;. It is pretty strange that the same character is pronounced &lt;code&gt;sii&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;kiet-sii&lt;/code&gt; first and &lt;code&gt;shi&lt;/code&gt; after, but I have no better guess for this. I have to suppose 时 is a &lt;code&gt;多音字&lt;/code&gt; and is pronounced &lt;code&gt;shi&lt;/code&gt; for &amp;quot;time&amp;quot; and &lt;code&gt;sii&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;kiet-sii&lt;/code&gt;, which basically means &amp;quot;in the end&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I previously cracked the first line as 涯想毋愛翻再去想汝, &amp;quot;ngai siong m oi fan-cai hi siong nyi&amp;quot;, keeping my guesses and adding that &amp;quot;siong&amp;quot; was misheard as &amp;quot;sho&amp;quot; because I didn't hear the final nasal, and that fan-cai was read &lt;code&gt;fan-tsai&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yesterday evening I looked for ting or thing, to no avail; same for bam; so I resorted to guessing a mishearing was at play here, and looked for ban; well, van, because that's how they spell it at Minhakka; I found 万，换，湾, and maybe another possibly suitable &lt;code&gt;van&lt;/code&gt;; then I looked for tin, and found that it means &amp;quot;to bear, to endure&amp;quot;; so I guessed that &amp;quot;ban tin&amp;quot; meant &amp;quot;enduring lots [of sufference]&amp;quot;, and that the &amp;quot;e&amp;quot; was actually &amp;quot;ge&amp;quot;, the possessive particle; this led me to &amp;quot;万tin个单侪在阿里&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;I, enduring lots of sufference, alone here&amp;quot;, linking to the last line; unfortunately, Minhakka has no char for &amp;quot;tin&amp;quot;, and hakka.dict.edu.tw doesn't even have that tin; I &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/groups/writehakka/permalink/924855414254361/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;am waiting for spelling suggestions&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The last line I haven't yet tried guessing; well, we are left with that &amp;quot;mei shi&amp;quot;, which I don't know how to interpret or spell, and which Li-ting doesn't even have in his chars.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summing up, I have the following lyrics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一開始涯緬著&lt;br&gt;&#xA;愛情本等就恁容易&lt;br&gt;&#xA;所以涯無真真想起&lt;br&gt;&#xA;恁樣放落心去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;結果涯有一斷心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯看著汝佮倒佢&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯正識著原來愛情&lt;br&gt;&#xA;毋系講愛就得矣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯感動天感動地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做麽感動不著汝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;明明愛情就無結果&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做麽死死等到老&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯感動天感動地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做麽感動不著汝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;希望自家想作一下&lt;br&gt;&#xA;結時涯騙單儕&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯想毋愛翻再去想汝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;試著雅時毋愛翻來同去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;萬tin个單儕在阿里&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每日？？偏偏轉著汝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Jit khoi-si ngai mian to&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Oi-chin pun ten chiu an jung-ji&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So-ji ngai mo cin-cin siong-hi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;An-nyong piong lok sim hi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Kiet-ko ngai jiu jit thon sim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai khon to nyi kak-to ki&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai cang chi-to nyen-loi oi-chin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;M he kong oi chiu tet nyi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai kam-thung thien kam-thung thi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Co-mai kam-thung m to nyi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Min-min oi-chin chiu mo kiet-ko&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Co-mai si-si si ten to lo&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai kam-thung thien kam-thung thi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Co-mai kam-thung m to nyi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hi-mong chi-ka hiau co jit-ha&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Kiet-sii ngai phien tan-sa&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai siong m oi fan-cai hi siong ngi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Chi-to nga si m oi fan lai thung-hi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ban tin kai* tan-sa choi a-li         *Pronounced &amp;quot;ke&amp;quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mui nyit mei si phian-phian con to nyi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;At the start I thought&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Love when it starts is very easy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So I don't really remember&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How [I] put [you] in [my] heart&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As a result I have a broken heart&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[And] I see you going back to him&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I've just found out love&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is not like just saying I love you is fine&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I move heaven and move earth,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Why can I not move you?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's clear that love [will] have no result&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Why do I wait so persistently till I get old?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I move heaven and move earth,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Why can I not move you?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hoping I would do something&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I ended up deceiving myself&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't want to love you again&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I know I don't want to spend my time with you again&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Here alone, suffering a lot,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Every day (mei shi) I constantly come back to you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am awaiting confirmation on my guesses for lines 2-3 of the hard bit, and am not sure about the last line, besides the hole. The idea of &lt;code&gt;惦&lt;/code&gt; might be a good one: &amp;quot;每日mei shi惦惦转着你&amp;quot;, Every day I remember of you or think of you, though there are too many &amp;quot;verbal prepositions&amp;quot;, I mean, 转 and 着 can both serve the function of result complements (ex &amp;quot;翻译转&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;翻译成&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;想着你&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;想到你“）, but both together seem far-fetched. A way to fix the 时 controversy is to spell that 结事, which Minhakka would read kiet-sii, and interpret it as typically Hakka, and a &amp;quot;tone&amp;quot; word, in Li-ting's terminology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I notified the fb group of this answer, and Dylan Whs commented suggesting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反正：横正；横掂 in any case&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vang cin ~ ban tin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;横正涯单儕在那位&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每日每時點點想到汝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This certainly solved the mysterious &lt;code&gt;bam ting e&lt;/code&gt;, getting &lt;code&gt;bam ting&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;vang-cin&lt;/code&gt;, similar to &lt;code&gt;bang-tin&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;ngai&lt;/code&gt;, transformed to &lt;code&gt;nge&lt;/code&gt; in singing, the ng of which seemed to stick to the tin making it ting. The substitiution of &lt;code&gt;choi a-li&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;choi a-bui&lt;/code&gt; I would reject since it doesn't match what I hear. &amp;quot;mui shi&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;mei shi&amp;quot; is also some problem. But then, responding to my comment posing these problems, he said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just guesses ;')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I will go back to my choi a-li and keep my doubts on &amp;quot;mei shi&amp;quot; alive but adopt that as a temporary solution while waiting for a better option. With that, the problematic part became:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;涯想毋愛翻再去想汝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;試著雅時毋愛翻來同去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;横正涯單儕在阿里&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每日每時偏偏想著汝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai siong m oi fan-cai hi siong ngi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Chi-to nga si m oi fan lai thung-hi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Vang-cin ngai* tan-sa choi a-li         &lt;em&gt;Pronounced &amp;quot;ban-tin nge&amp;quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mui nyit mui si&lt;/em&gt; phian-phian con to nyi   *&amp;quot;Mei shi&amp;quot; waiting for better alternative&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I think I won't think of you anymore&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I know I won't use my time to go with you again&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In any case I'm here alone,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And every day, all the time, I constantly think of you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I also rejected the &amp;quot;點點&amp;quot; and the spelling of to, but accepted siong as more matching what I hear than my con.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Final Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friend just posted &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9js2Eb6haw&amp;amp;sns=fb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this other video&lt;/a&gt;, and with the help of that I think I finally cracked everything. Here is the lyrics from the new video:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一开始涯缅着&lt;br&gt;&#xA;爱情本等就恁容易&lt;br&gt;&#xA;所以涯无真真想起&lt;br&gt;&#xA;恁样放落心去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;结果涯有一断心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯看着你佮着佢&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯正知道原来爱情&lt;br&gt;&#xA;毋系讲爱就得宜&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯感动天感动地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做么感动毋着你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;明明爱情就无结果&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做么死死等到老&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯感动天感动地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做么感动毋着你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;希望自家晓做一下&lt;br&gt;&#xA;结果涯骗单侪&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一開始涯緬著&lt;br&gt;&#xA;爱情本等就恁容易&lt;br&gt;&#xA;所以涯无真真想记&lt;br&gt;&#xA;恁样放落心去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;结果涯有一短信&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯看着你佮着佢&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯正知道原来爱情&lt;br&gt;&#xA;毋系讲爱就得矣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯感动天感动地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做么感动毋着你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;明明爱情就无结果&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做么死死等到老&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯感动天感动地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做么感动毋着你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;希望自家晓做一下&lt;br&gt;&#xA;结果涯骗单侪&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯想毋爱翻再去想你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;想着涯心毋爱翻同去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;万正系单侪在阿里&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每日每时偏偏想着你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯感动天…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which, aided by Minhakka, I transliterated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yit khoi-chí ngâi m(i)én tò&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Òi-tshîn pún-tén tshiù àn yûng-yì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Só-yi ngâi mô cin-cin sióng-khí&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Àn-nyòng piòng lo'k sim hì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Kiet-kwó ngâi yìu yit thon sim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngâi khòn tò nyî kak tò kî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngâi càng chì-tò nyên-lôi òi-tshîn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;M hè kóng òi tshiù tet-nyî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngâi kám-thùng thien kám-thùng thì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsò-mài kám-thùng m tò nyî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mîn-mîn òi-tshîn tshiù mô kiet-kwó&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsò-mài sí-sí tén teu ló&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngâi kám-thùng thien kám-thùng thì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsò-mài kám-thùng m tò nyî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hi-mòng tshìi-ka hiáu tsò yit-hà&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Kiet-kwó ngâi phièn tan-sâ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yit khoi-chí ngâi m(i)én tò&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Òi-tshîn pún-tén tshiù àn yûng-yì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Só-yi ngâi mô cin-cin sióng-khí&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Àn-nyòng piòng lo'k sim hì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Kiet-kwó ngâi yìu yit thon sim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngâi khòn tò nyî kak tò kî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngâi càng chì-tò nyên-lôi òi-tshîn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;M hè kóng òi tshiù tet-nyî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngâi kám-thùng thien kám-thùng thì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsò-mài kám-thùng m tò nyî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mîn-mîn òi-tshîn tshiù mô kiet-kwó&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsò-mài sí-sí tén teu ló&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngâi kám-thùng thien kám-thùng thì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsò-mài kám-thùng m tò nyî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hi-mòng tshìi-ka hiáu tsò yit-hà&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Kiet-kwó ngâi phièn tan-sâ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngâi sióng m òi fan-tsài hì sióng nyî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sióng tò nga sim m òi fan thûng-hì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Vàn-cìn hè tan-sâ tshoi a-li&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mui-nyit mui-shî phien-phien sióng to nyî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngâi kám-thùng thien…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: pún-tén means &amp;quot;of course&amp;quot;, and vàn-cìn is half made-up and should mean &amp;quot;anyway&amp;quot;. Vàn-cìn is naturally based on the suggestion by Dylah Whs, but modified in the first character since Minhakka wouldn't give anything but fán for 反 followed by 正.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Final version&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came back to this song in the context of &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.it/2017/08/all-chinese-songs-i-have-met.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this blog post&lt;/a&gt;, where you can find the song with &amp;quot;correct&amp;quot; spelling and Mandarin glosses for all Hakka words as Ruby text (Furigana-like, if you know what that means), plust a full translation. I decided to modify Dylan Whs's suggestion to &lt;code&gt;万阵系 | vàn-chìn hè&lt;/code&gt;, so it matches what I heard better, and the spelling of &lt;code&gt;vàn-chìn&lt;/code&gt; matches the meaning, more or less (better than before). And it's nice to know that the choice of &lt;code&gt;hè&lt;/code&gt; was one I also made in the past :). I also thought about that &amp;quot;hit&amp;quot; mishearing: could it be &lt;code&gt;迄 | hit | to reach unto&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;汔 | hit | to shed tears&lt;/code&gt;? Time to hear from Hakka Verse again! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T11:55:11.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14855" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-28T18:55:23.980" Score="-2" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry the pic is not clear, I got this tattoo over 15 years ago, I did a lot of research before hand when getting it, but now I can't for the life of me remember what it is. I know the symbol on the bottom is &quot;Love&quot; . I am planning on getting it touched up since it as faded.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K37iP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K37iP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11633" LastActivityDate="2015-08-28T19:33:41.450" Title="What does this mean symbol mean" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-08-29T12:31:03.293" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14855" CreationDate="2015-08-28T19:27:55.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could have shown a little more research effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters are 愛 ai and 需 xu. Ai means love, xu means need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could read it right to left and get xu'ai, &quot;need love&quot; (verb + object), or you go left to right and get ai xu, which I'd read as two single words &quot;love and need&quot;. I'm sorry to say that in both cases, it doesn't make much sense to me. It could, of course, be a transliteration of a name or something similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastEditorUserId="11341" LastEditDate="2015-08-28T19:33:41.450" LastActivityDate="2015-08-28T19:33:41.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14857" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-29T00:03:00.560" Score="0" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;通过网络写作，很多年轻的写手冒了出来，然后重新回归到传统的出版方式出书，这是好事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many young writers emerge on the internet and later turn to more traditional forms of book publishing, which is a good thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 冒了出来 means 'emerge', but later it says '重新回归到传统的出版方式‘ If they emerged on the internet, they can't return to traditional book publishing, because they were never there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 冒出来 is 'emerge', I'd have to set 回归 not as 'return， regress' but 'turn to'， so maybe there is some other meaning for '冒出来‘ here？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-10-10T00:26:26.867" Title="What does 冒了出来 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14852" CreationDate="2015-08-29T07:52:44.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;岛国 means Japan. In China, many young people do not call Japan 日本, they call Japan 岛国. because Japan is an island and its area is small when comparing with China. And it may reflects young Chinese does not respect the Japan or it is just kidding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11636" LastActivityDate="2015-08-29T07:52:44.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14844" CreationDate="2015-08-29T10:53:42.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;thrust&lt;/strong&gt; as in &lt;em&gt;hip thrust&lt;/em&gt; is often translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冲刺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hip thrust for instance can be translated as 臀部冲刺. A movement that is pretty similar to the “humping the air”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dog humping their owners can be translated as 爬. Which might be more appropriate for the guy at the club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-08-29T10:53:42.643" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14860" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14861" CreationDate="2015-08-29T15:58:33.660" Score="3" ViewCount="1897" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_surname#CITEREFEconomist1995&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; (reference 5), there are about 3,100 chinese surnames that are in current use.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is there a downloadable resource that include those?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11638" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T18:39:19.790" Title="Where can I find a list of existing Chinese surnames?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14860" CreationDate="2015-08-29T18:07:43.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E5%A7%93%E6%B0%8F%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wiki&lt;/a&gt; page listed around 1,000 surnames. Origins and history of some of the surnames were provided as well.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://expirebox.com/download/d90bbb9516bd90aa9ccfdf718d6abdf9.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is another list I find with 3257 surnames. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11639" LastActivityDate="2015-08-29T18:07:43.203" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14852" CreationDate="2015-08-30T07:49:31.123" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any country that is geographical islands can be called 岛国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On internet, 岛国 is more likely used to refer Japan. It &lt;strong&gt;DOES NOT&lt;/strong&gt; imply any disrespect. The fact is people want to say things in a funny way. 岛国动作片is used to refer Japanese porn. People call porn 动作片(action movie) because it is indirect and ambiguous and hence funny. The same applies to 岛国。Since this slang &quot;岛国动作片&quot; was invented, 岛国 has become more adopted to represent Japan. &lt;strong&gt;IN A FUNNY WAY&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly we call Beijing 帝都 (Empire Capital), China 天朝(Heavenly/Celestial Empire). Not because people are arrogant, but because it is funny and we want to laugh at ourselves (or to be politically sarcastic).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We also call USA 美帝 (imperialsm USA), the term that is usually used by government media. So it sounds funny to use formal term in casual talk. Many my friends in Singapore call Singapore 坡县(Singapore county), which i dont know the background (i guess it is to refer Singapore's small territory and similarity to china). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People on internet from any country want to raise laughter from audience, don't we?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4067" LastEditorUserId="4067" LastEditDate="2015-08-30T13:27:54.593" LastActivityDate="2015-08-30T13:27:54.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14864" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14869" CreationDate="2015-08-30T10:14:05.047" Score="2" ViewCount="1420" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看在孩子的分上，夫妇二人没有离婚。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the phrase above, what do they mean?&#xA;Neither is found in a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence is said to translate to &quot;The pair would not divorce because of the children&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11314" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2015-08-31T18:32:30.067" LastActivityDate="2015-08-31T18:32:30.067" Title="What is the meaning of 看在 and 分上?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14865" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14868" CreationDate="2015-08-30T18:22:34.323" Score="3" ViewCount="688" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first I thought I could use 听起来, but if I'm not mistaken this is only used for actual sound, not &quot;you just told me your dad is back from the hospital, it sounds like he's getting better each day&quot;. (My version: 听起来你的爸爸越来越好，太棒了！)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about 看起来? Some of the meanings given by the dictionary are &quot;gives the impression that&quot; and &quot;looks as if&quot;, is 看起来 reserved for actual physical appearance or can it be used in the context above?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastActivityDate="2015-08-30T22:52:44.940" Title="What is the phrase for &quot;sounds like&quot; as in &quot;it sounds like your dad is getting better&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14864" CreationDate="2015-08-30T18:43:35.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would parse this as 看, look, 在, at, preposition (or result complement), 孩子, kids, 的, possessive particles, 分, separation, 上, a postposition forming a &quot;prepositional sandwich&quot; with 在. So literally, I would translate it to &quot;Looking on the side of the children&quot;, which I would then render more loosely as &quot;for the children's sake&quot;. So neither of those should be single words, they should both be two words, &lt;code&gt;kàn zài&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;fèn shàng&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then again, this is just my two cents, and I'm neither an expert, nor someone who's ever seen these two character combinations before, nor a mother-tongue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2015-08-30T18:43:35.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14867" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-30T18:53:13.983" Score="4" ViewCount="837" Body="&lt;p&gt;Classical Chinese (Wenyan) diverges sharply from modern varieties, as any student of classical texts will note whether foreign or native Chinese. Wenyan has a long written history, but is there evidence that it ever matched spoken forms of Chinese rather than minimalist meanings? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With some 8,000 characters in modern usage, even if you count the 22,000 or so in Unicode, this is only a fraction of any language's vocabulary, even older ones. Also, certain characters never being used alone in modern words, or even in Japanese, which modeled its character usage off wenyan, gives at least hints that, even if classical chinese loosely reflected spoken chinese, there has &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; been divergence between in and spoken Chinese. Furthermore, for such a large geographical area, there have been several dialects. Do any of these match wenyan? (Putonghua is modelled on Beijinghua and northern dialects, but even then there are slight divergences)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any evidence to confirm or refute that wenyan ever truly &lt;em&gt;matched&lt;/em&gt; (rather than simply being very close to) how Chinese was spoken in history?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T11:17:28.740" Title="Is there strong evidence that Classical Chinese was ever spoken?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14865" CreationDate="2015-08-30T22:52:44.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Drunken (programming) Master is right. These 2 from iciba:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It &lt;strong&gt;sounds like&lt;/strong&gt; a wonderful idea to me, does it really work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;听起来&lt;/strong&gt;这个主意很不错，真的能行吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His rhetoric &lt;strong&gt;sounds like&lt;/strong&gt; the death rattle of a fading leadership.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的慷慨陈词&lt;strong&gt;听起来&lt;/strong&gt;像是一个衰落的领导层垂死的挣扎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also have examples of 听上去。It's a great site for finding example sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-08-30T22:52:44.940" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14864" CreationDate="2015-08-31T02:54:09.993" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;看在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 be for the sake of ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看在你爸的面子上, 我原谅你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kànzài nǐ bà de miànzi shàng, wǒ yuánliàng nǐ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the sake of your father's face, I forgive you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;份上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Guifan&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 名 情分; 情面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看在老人的份上, 我不再跟他计较。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(口语中也说份儿上。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which basically translates to &lt;em&gt;feelings, sensibilities, affections&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for the sake of, for sb.'s/sth.'s sake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC ENGLISH&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wèile ( ... de lìyì) 为了(…的利益) ; kànzài ... de fèn shang 看在…的份上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We must do this for the sake of the children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为了孩子,我们必须做这件事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wèile háizi, wǒmen bìxū zuò zhè jiàn shì.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now we have our 看在…的份上 construct meaning roughly the equivalent of &amp;quot;for the sake of, for sb.'s/sth.'s sake&amp;quot; where 看在 means &amp;quot;for the sake&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;份上&amp;quot; means feelings or sensibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can stick anything in the middle for the &amp;quot;who's&amp;quot; sake/sensibilities/feelings/etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples: (from Oxford)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for God's sake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看在上帝的分上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for Pete's sake!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看在老天的份上！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for heaven's sake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看在上帝的份上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-31T03:03:00.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14857" CreationDate="2015-08-31T03:53:32.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;here 冒出来 means &lt;strong&gt;to be known by broad public&lt;/strong&gt;. the way they made them popular is by posting blogs on the web, which is considered to be a trendy way of publish. Howerver, some publisher may think it's better to compile all their blogs into one book, and if the authors of the blog agrees, then the auter is to be said RETURN to the traditional means of publish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One xample, during a marathron, a runner emerged from the bush and joined the group in the halfway. after he was caught by the referee, he was aksed to return to the starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-08-31T03:53:32.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16409" CreationDate="2015-08-31T05:06:38.030" Score="4" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for a reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently 'hou' (pronunciation roughly similar to '候') means eat in Sichuanese, at least in some dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;hou饭&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;出去hou&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;hou东西&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;hou()&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;hou酒&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've gone through about nine different dictionaries to just find a simple reference for this word, but with no luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A wild guess is it would be this character: 餱 but I have no way to prove that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-11-01T15:58:04.957" Title="Reference: 'hou' in Sichuanese meaning 'to eat'" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14864" CreationDate="2015-08-31T09:03:33.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;People I ask agree with user3306356 it's '看在 。。。的份上' which means 'because of'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bit more info I got: There is a saying 《不看僧面看佛面》 《不看僧》 means 《不看在僧的份上》and 《看佛面》means 《看在佛的份上》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not for the sake of the monk, but for the sake of the Buddha. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9799" LastEditorUserId="9799" LastEditDate="2015-08-31T09:19:17.247" LastActivityDate="2015-08-31T09:19:17.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14873" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-01T00:12:15.593" Score="2" ViewCount="666" Body="&lt;p&gt;This text is talking about 应试教育 versus 素质教育。In this sentence the last phrase is a bit unclear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;应该说已经推动了应试教育向素质教育的转变，但是这个转变非常艰难，是一个痛苦的漫长的过程，我们不能太着急。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries say ‘着急’ means 'worry, feel anxious' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们不能太着急。I'd like to translate this as 'we shouldn't expect quick results' or 'we shouldn't fret'. Does that catch the Chinese meaning??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-09T01:41:01.110" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T07:23:29.010" Title="What does 着急 mean in 我们不能太着急 in the context of exam-oriented education (应试教育) versus all-round education (素质教育)?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14873" CreationDate="2015-09-01T00:26:05.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest: &quot;We shouldn't rush the process&quot; since it's a long and painful process you're talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T00:26:05.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14873" CreationDate="2015-09-01T01:16:24.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'着急' is not worry, the text is talking about 应试教育 versus 素质教育, the transition from 应试教育 to 素质教育 is a long hard process, so we must be patient and follow the basic education rules to make this change. In this text, '着急' means impatient, short-tempered. As the saying goes A watched pot never boils.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11641" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T01:16:24.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14873" CreationDate="2015-09-01T02:22:32.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;应该说已经推动了应试教育向素质教育的转变，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line does not have a subject. It looks like a typical bad use of Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但是这个转变非常艰难，是一个痛苦的漫长的过程，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's saying this change is very difficult and it needs a long and painful duration to be accomplished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们不能太着急。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, we'd better not  &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;push it forward too hard / jump the gun / be too hasty / act in haste / go off at half cook / advance too quickly.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 着急 here does not mean  'worry, feel anxious'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it's more referring to the probable unwise actions and behavior that is caused by your worry and anxiety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T02:22:32.707" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14877" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-01T04:06:03.417" Score="2" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;Forgive me for the newbie question. I've just begun learning about proper word order in Chinese sentences, and I was lead to believe that the &quot;How&quot; of the main verb in the sentence should always come before the verb itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was looking at the translation of &quot;The Beautiful Rabbit&quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesereadingpractice.com/2015/03/05/the-beautiful-rabbit/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinesereadingpractice.com/2015/03/05/the-beautiful-rabbit/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says the word order in chinese for the correct translation of &quot;His eyes were red, like a pair of rubies.&quot; is &quot;It's eyes were red, like a pair of rubies.&quot; (它的眼睛红红的，像一对红宝石)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shouldn't the word order in Chinese be &quot;His eyes, like a pair of rubies, were red.&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11646" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T23:03:23.383" Title="Word order question. Describing a rabbit's eyes" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14877" CreationDate="2015-09-01T04:33:07.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &quot;His eyes were red, like a pair of rubies&quot;, &lt;code&gt;His&lt;/code&gt; maybe &lt;code&gt;他的&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;它的&lt;/code&gt;. From the native speakers' view, I think the word order is &lt;code&gt;His eyes were red and like a pair of rubies.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11641" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T04:33:07.220" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14867" CreationDate="2015-09-01T11:17:28.740" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think doubts about Classical Chinese having ever been a medium of oral communication are quite appropriate. There are several things to consider: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One, the fact that the characters are relatively few is not so troublesome as they designate morphemes rather than words. Language has but a few sounds, a number of ways to combine those sounds phonotactically into clusters and rhimes, a fair number of morphemes made up from combinations of these, a wide field of words made up from morphemes, and an endless variety of sentences that consist of words and the syntactic constructs they enter into. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there is a limit to how many distinct signs an individual can handle, so if you go and invent a script of whatever type, chances are that when someone puts you to the test, you will only be able to reproduce so many of them—hundreds maybe, thousands even, but likely not tens or hundreds of thousands distinct graphical signs. Therefore, observing that Classical Chinese uses less than ten thousand signs tells use more about the human mind in general than the Chinese language in particular. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that language (speech) is an innate capability of humans, but writing is a later, culturally acquired skill, we should also think it likely that people are ordinarily much better at the former than they are at the latter, meaning that if the plan of your script means to invent one distinct graphical sign for each morpheme (which is the case in Classical Chinese to a certain extent, as there may be up to roughly a thousand distinct pictorial signs), you'll likely end up with a repertoire that has less signs than your speech has morphemes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two, all scripts are defective when compared to the speech that they record. Whether you look at Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mayan writing, the Phoenician consonantal alphabet, or Arabic, you will always note that they leave out aspects of speech (e.g. vowels) that writers of the Latin alphabet take for granted. Writing in Latin letters also leaves out quite a few things like intonation, mood, facial expression and so on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, it looks like the classical inscriptions of China, while born by speech, as it were, are condensed, concentrated notations that are reduced to the essential parts, a bit like a map will omit many details of the territory, or beacons in the sea only mark the essential points for navigation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, it may be a misconception that two or three thousand years ago, anyone who expressed themselves using the medium now subsumed under the title of Classical Chinese spoke the same language. It is a misconception similar to thinking that today, someone who writes literary German, English or Arabic will also speak like that, and that all writers of one or the other of these literary forms of expressions will be able to converse without hindrance. To the contrary, many writers of German, Arabic, Greek or modern Chinese use that medium essentially like a more-or-less foreign language. We should not assume it was all that different in ancient China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW there are (as of Unicode V8) around 80'000 distinct Chinese characters encoded in Unicode, with many thousands more known that remain unencoded. No-one in history ever knew or used all of these at any point in time, and no single dictionary collects all of them; rather, it is what many hundreds of millions of people have managed to come up over the course of thousands of years. When you look at the number of characters used to write particular pieces of literature, you will invariably find that classical and modern literature alike can make do with but a few thousand characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3674" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T11:17:28.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14880" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-01T13:49:50.910" Score="0" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a lot a gramma points/words in chinese similar to english&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生日/ birthday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爸爸的笔 / dad's pen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like know if it's a radom linguisitic fact or if it could have a chinese influence on english or an english influence on chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it is not a simple question but maybe there is studies(thesis...) about that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11371" LastEditorUserId="11371" LastEditDate="2015-09-01T13:52:14.780" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T15:36:43.377" Title="Chinese vs English" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2015-09-04T09:42:55.763" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14881" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14886" CreationDate="2015-09-01T14:12:35.377" Score="0" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;遞&lt;/strong&gt; is most commonly used, nowadays, to mean &amp;quot;to pass&amp;quot; -or- &amp;quot;to give&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the definition of its simplified counterpart &lt;em&gt;递&lt;/em&gt; given on &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/htm/90/9012.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;①传送，传达：传～。投～。～送。～交。～眼色（以目示意）。呈～国书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;②顺着次序：～补。～变。～增。～减。～升。～降。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;③古代指驿车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can only see 遞 (辶 + (厂 + 虎)) as &lt;em&gt;the walking tiger factory&lt;/em&gt;, which I'm sure is quite absurd, but even &lt;em&gt;虒&lt;/em&gt; is defined, on &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/htm/86/8652.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea&lt;/a&gt;, again, as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“委～”古书上说的一种似虎有角的兽。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which case we have 遞 = 辶 + 虒, or &lt;em&gt;the moving sī&lt;/em&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why is 遞 (meaning to give, to pass) = (辶 + (厂 + 虎))?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Etymology?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T06:49:40.610" Title="Why is 遞 = (辶 + (厂 + 虎))?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14877" CreationDate="2015-09-01T14:28:40.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps with reference to this thread&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/10138/what-is-important-to-consider-while-building-an-adverbial-phrase?rq=1&quot;&gt;What is important to consider while building an adverbial phrase?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and this poem from 徐志摩: 再别康桥 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zybang.com/question/e5aff358dc399f30ba35792594fb77e9.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zybang.com/question/e5aff358dc399f30ba35792594fb77e9.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we might also use the following word order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;紅紅眼睛的它，眼睛像一对红宝石。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;should one wish to wax poetic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9799" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T14:28:40.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14880" CreationDate="2015-09-01T15:28:56.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For 爸爸的笔 / dad's pen, it's not coincident. In linguistics, most languages sentences are in the form of Subject + verb + object. Chinese and English are not genetically related to each other, but they have the same sentence form grammatically. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 生日/ birthday, I really can't comment on the universal aspect this in sense, as I only understand 3 languages, Chinese, English and Malay. In Malay, it's called &quot;Hari Jadi&quot; which literally means &quot;Day Birth&quot;(In Malay language noun comes first and adjective second). Therefore, I think most languages have some form of &quot;Day&quot; and &quot;Birth&quot; phrases to describe &quot;Birthday&quot;. Not just Chinese and English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11648" LastEditorUserId="11648" LastEditDate="2015-09-01T15:36:43.377" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T15:36:43.377" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14884" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-01T16:13:30.147" Score="1" ViewCount="905" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was browsing through the Taiwanese version of apple.com. When I was checking out the iPad Air 2 section, one of the image showed the iPad keyboard with some characters that I have never seen before. Are they Chinese or Japanese? From what I have learned, they are not in hiragana and katakana scripts. And also, what is their meaning? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dJ8Yz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dJ8Yz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11648" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-09-03T10:10:08.703" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T23:51:39.780" Title="Weird Chinese Characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14884" CreationDate="2015-09-01T16:17:53.770" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are Bopomofos (注音符号): &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia, Zhuyin fuhao, Zhuyin or Bopomofo is a system of phonetic notation for the transcription of spoken Chinese, particularly the Mandarin dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6358" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T16:17:53.770" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14881" CreationDate="2015-09-01T17:01:21.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/sw/905E.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;说文解字：更易也。从辵虒聲。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, 遞=辵+虒, it's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineselearner.com/writing/characters/pictophonetic.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pictophonetic character&lt;/a&gt; which original meaning is &quot;to alternate&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning radical(形旁) 辵 carries the basic meaning &quot;to walk one moment and stop the next&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sound radical(声旁) 虒 only indicates the pronunciation of 遞(dì).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11650" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T17:01:21.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14871" CreationDate="2015-09-01T17:07:10.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Sichuanese. I guess it's the word '喝' and the pronunciation is more like 'ho' which means &quot;to drink&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11650" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T17:07:10.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-02T03:00:33.323" Score="4" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the sad story of a little piece of gold that wants to shine but can't, so it 哭泣着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小石头也想：“是金子在哪儿都发光。” 于是他日夜吸收天地之精华，把自己沖涤得闪闪发亮，终究又被脏东西所掩盖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;终究又被脏东西所掩盖。in the end by dirty things 所 covered up &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should I do with 所 here？？ Just ignore it? Maybe it means 'all covered up'??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T12:43:18.860" Title="What is this 所 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14888" CreationDate="2015-09-02T03:35:34.603" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/xs/6240.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/xs/6240.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;◎ 所 suǒ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;〈助〉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) 表示结构 [used before a verb or a V-C construction together with 被 or&#xA;  为 to indicate the passive voice]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For translation, you could just ignore it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;In the end covered up by dirty things again.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T03:35:34.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14871" CreationDate="2015-09-02T03:59:58.013" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_502f95d6010171cq.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_502f95d6010171cq.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吃饭是总称。“喝饭”是吃饭过程中某一具体动作。把米放进锅里煮成的叫做饭，再用勺子盛进碗里，端起来同喝水相似，故曰“喝”（我们这里都这样说）。说“吃”也可，反正都是送进嘴里。喝粥可以，喝饭就不行了？您说呢老大姐？再细分的话，一顿饭就有两种说法，一般食用固态食物时说“吃”，如吃馒头，吃菜等。食用液态食物时说“喝”，如喝粥，喝饭，喝汤等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们当地俗语就是把“吃饭“说成是“喝饭”，看来我是孤陋寡闻了。这让我想起四川方言中的一种说法，四川方言将“抽烟”说成吃烟，将“喝水”说成“吃水”，川人还说 吃茶，吃酒，吃汤，吃奶，看来四川人把所有进嘴的东西都叫吃，不管是液体固体还是气体，倒也省事。不仅四川话将喝水说成吃水，南方有些省份也将喝水说成“吃水”，如江西瑞金沙洲坝的红井旁就立有“吃水不忘挖井人”的碑，当然碑上的“吃水”应该是“用水”之意，大于高于一般的“吃水”,上海人也说吃烟吃水的，仔细想来，烟和水怎么能吃？“吃”这个动词有一个食物在嘴中的咀嚼过程，而喝却是直接进喉咙，吃烟？把烟放在嘴里咀嚼，那不成了异食癖吗？吃水？水是液体，进入嘴里它也不会让你有咀嚼的机会呀！所以烟只能是抽或者吸，水只能喝不能说吃，喝饭也好，吃烟吃水也罢，都得服从语法，从语法角度看，它们都是有语病的，即动宾搭配不当，在这一点上，普通话最为准确，写文章当以普通话为准，除非文章的特殊需要。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6105" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T03:59:58.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14877" CreationDate="2015-09-02T15:02:16.847" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct that an adverbial precedes its verbal head,  but here it is not a problem of word order, but one of &lt;strong&gt;sentence structure&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a subject-predicate type Chinese sentence, there can be many predicates that come one by one, as long as they share the same subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雪花大如棉桃，小似柳絮，纷纷扬扬，铺天盖地。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Snowflakes, as big as cotton and as small as willow catbins, were falling down heavily, covering the world with a cloak of snow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subject here is 雪花(snowflakes) and it is followed by four phrases as predicates. In this kind of sentence, any (but not all) of the predicates can be absent without destroying the sentence structure, but once the subject is absent, the structure is destroyed (or the sentence sounds like a riddle).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The order of these predicates: we cannot tell which predicate &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; come first. This depends on the content of each of them (they may follow some spatial, logical,  temporal or other orders). Length may also be a consideration: a longer, more structurally complicated phrase is usually put at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your question, the structure is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S:它的眼睛 + P:(P1:红红的 + P2:像一对红宝石)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Predicate P2 is both longer and more complicated, and is less logically related to the subject itself: being red is an inherent attribute of the eyes themselves, but being like rubies is not the eyes' attribute but a description we made about them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, to help you identify structures (between a predicate or adverbial-head structure), remember that in the latter case the head must be present, while any of the predicate can be absent.  Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's eyes were red. 它的眼睛红红的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's eyes were like a pair of rubies. 它的眼睛像一对红宝石。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but in 他快樂地笑 (He laughed happily) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*他快樂地。He happily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他笑。He laughed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4428" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T15:02:16.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14892" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-02T15:52:53.003" Score="2" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that &quot;underground palace&quot; can be a translation of &quot;地宮&quot;, but I'm not too sure on the &quot;correct&quot; translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seeing some pictures on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E5%9C%B0%E5%AE%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;baike&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;underground palace&quot; doesn't really seem to fit what the pictures depict.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I see, I think that something like &quot;underground maze&quot; would suit it better, stemming from &quot;迷宮&quot;. However, with the English translation of &quot;underground palace&quot;, should the &quot;palace&quot; then not be taken literally as a &quot;palace&quot;? I'm a bit confused since from the pictures, &quot;地宮&quot; seems to be more like an &quot;underground tomb&quot; than a &quot;palace&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-09-13T08:22:49.880" Title="What is the English for &quot;地宮&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14892" CreationDate="2015-09-02T16:15:21.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without the context its kind of hard to know which definition you're looking for, but &lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt; gives us two definitions with explanations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOUN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 地下陵墓 tomb chamber&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Underground tomb/mausoleum&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 地下藏经室 underground shrine housing Buddhist relics&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Buddhist sutras collection room&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T16:15:21.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14892" CreationDate="2015-09-02T16:16:46.600" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;how about tomb palace? it is indeed a tomb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T16:16:46.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14877" CreationDate="2015-09-02T23:03:23.383" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... the &quot;How&quot; of the main verb in the sentence should always come before the verb itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is correct if &quot;how&quot; is referring to the adverbs. In Chinese, adverbs are placed before verbs, unlike in English they can be either before or after.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It's eyes were red, like a pair of rubies.&quot; (它的眼睛红红的，像一对红宝石)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing with this sentence that makes it easily mistaken is there are two verb clauses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;were red. (是)红红的&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;like a pair of rubies. 像一对红宝石&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure is quite obvious in its English version. But in the Chinese version, copula 是 is omitted before adjective 红红的, making it ambiguous to learners or even native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, #2 is not &quot;how&quot; or adverbial for #1, but another verb clause. The order of the two verb clauses should be dictated by the semantics, not syntax or grammar. Since one clause is direct description and the other is analogy, there is no right or wrong on the order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T23:03:23.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14896" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-03T00:36:56.370" Score="0" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;This little text is talking about the importance of 人脉关系. If you want to be successful, you should make a lot of friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(in brackets added by me, not in the original text)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（如果你）多结交能认同你的做法、想法和才华的朋友，他们一定会为你带来好运。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often wonder about the scope of 的 when it is used to indicate a preceding descriptive phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the adjectival phrase for 朋友 is [能认同你的做法、想法和才华]. I don't think 结交 comes under the scope of the second 的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take away the adjective and we have '多结交朋友‘ 'make friends with a lot of friends' which seems a bit contradictory. If they are friends, there is no need to make friends with them. If they are not friends, then they are just 人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the Chinese text ok?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-09-07T06:41:53.810" Title="Is it possible to 结交朋友？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14896" CreationDate="2015-09-03T01:05:50.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is a bit like when you say &lt;code&gt;I can't say nothing&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If it is already nothing, of course you can't say it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So both &lt;code&gt;I can't say nothing&lt;/code&gt; and 『多结交朋友』are just convention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6906" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T01:05:50.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14896" CreationDate="2015-09-03T02:59:12.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This Chinese text is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◎ &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/3/152/337240.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;结交&lt;/a&gt; jiéjiāo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[take up with] 与人交际往来,联络友谊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, &lt;code&gt;结交&lt;/code&gt; means get close to someone, contact and communicate to improve the relationship. Becoming friends is just the result of &lt;code&gt;结交&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In another way, &lt;code&gt;结交&lt;/code&gt; is not just &lt;code&gt;making friends&lt;/code&gt;. In the following sentence it's hard to say &lt;code&gt;结交朋友&lt;/code&gt; for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清 纪昀 《阅微草堂笔记·滦阳消夏录四》：“实则布散徒党，结交婢媪，代为刺探隐事，以售其欺。”&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;茅盾 《昙》二：“父亲是早已想利用她来结交权贵，姨太太又乘机构煽，他们都顶着礼教的大帽子来坑害她。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T02:59:12.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14795" CreationDate="2015-09-03T08:24:29.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;夜宿山寺&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;危楼高百尺，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;手可摘星辰。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不敢高声语，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;恐惊天上人。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;静夜思&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;床前明月光，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;疑是地上霜。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;举头望明月，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;低头思故乡。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10952" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T08:24:29.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14795" CreationDate="2015-09-03T12:22:00.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here I answer my own question, summing up the best answers arrived so far, with a basic collection of classical poets. As asked, the goal is not to provide a complete list, but to supply a starting point for beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_Binwang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;骆宾王 (Luò Bīnwáng)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meng_Haoran&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;孟浩然 (Meng Haoran)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Zhihuan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;王之涣 (Wang Zhihuan)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;李白 (Lǐ Bái)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;杜甫 (Dù Fǔ)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Shen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;李紳 (Li Shen)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond the question itself, interested people can find some examples below (I decided to report them so that they can be used as hints for researches on the net). In particular, 李白's &lt;strong&gt;静夜思&lt;/strong&gt; seems to be one of the most famous, known by all Chinese speakers since childhood and reported very often around the web. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;咏鹅&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骆宾王&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鹅，鹅，鹅，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曲项向天歌。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白毛浮绿水，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;红掌拨清波。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;春晓&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孟浩然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春眠不觉晓，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;处处闻啼鸟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夜来风雨声，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;花落知多少。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;登鹳雀楼&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王之涣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白日依山尽，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黄河入海流。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欲穷千里目，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;更上一层楼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;夜宿山寺&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;危楼高百尺，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;手可摘星辰。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不敢高声语，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恐惊天上人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;静夜思&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;床前明月光，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;疑是地上霜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;举头望明月，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;低头思故乡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Jìng yè sī&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chuáng qián míng yuè guāng，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yí shì dì shàng shuāng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Jŭ tóu wàng míng yuè, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Dī tóu sī gù xiāng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[quiet] [night] [think]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;[bed] [front] [bright] [moon] [light]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;[suspect] [is] [ground] [on] [frost]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;[raise] [head] [look] [bright] [moon]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;[lower] [head] [think of] [old] [home village]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="11269" LastEditDate="2015-09-06T09:24:10.607" LastActivityDate="2015-09-06T09:24:10.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3224" CreationDate="2015-09-03T13:33:19.320" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One example is the character 么.&#xA;This is pronounced &lt;strong&gt;me&lt;/strong&gt; in simplified Chinese (traditional: 麼), and pronounced &lt;strong&gt;yāo&lt;/strong&gt; in traditional Chinese (simplified: 幺).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for example:&#xA;「那是什么？」&#xA;would be a sentence in simplified Chinese (&lt;strong&gt;nà shì shénme?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;What is that?&lt;/em&gt;, traditional: 「那是什麼？」).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While: 「我的妹妹是老么」 would be a sentence in traditional Chinese (&lt;strong&gt;wǒde mèimei shì lǎoyāo&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;My sister is the youngest in the family&lt;/em&gt;, simplified: 「我的妹妹是老幺」).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="837" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T13:33:19.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1428" CreationDate="2015-09-03T14:35:51.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;多到幾咁嚴重&quot; is sometimes simply a verbal form of &quot;嚴重地多&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such context, you can translate the sentence as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can conjecture that the number of criminal cases is seriously high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T14:35:51.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14905" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-04T00:58:09.290" Score="0" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I look up 本质 I get English meanings like 'essence, nature， innate character', esoteric stuff like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学习必须讲究方法，而改进学习方法的&lt;strong&gt;本质目的&lt;/strong&gt;，就是要提高学习效率。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 本质 here actually means 主要， 最初 and 本质目的 is 'primary aim'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I use 主要 here instead of 本质 and not affect the original meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T15:42:15.300" Title="How to interpret 本质 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14905" CreationDate="2015-09-04T02:14:59.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;本质 here means &lt;em&gt;root; ultimate.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本质目的 = end goal. You can also say 根本目的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence sounds fine but isn't the best example to demonstrate usage, because it's kind of obvious. A better example might be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;商业活动的本质目的是盈利。The end goal for any commercial activity is making profit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-09-04T02:14:59.183" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13426" CreationDate="2015-09-04T04:29:35.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, HK's Cantonese is not the standard of Yue Chinese. The standard is in Guangzhou (and around, like Foshan). Second, there are many many dialects of Cantonese, and you could say that every village has its own variation. Even places like Panyu or Dongguan have their own dialect, and they are not so easy to understand. Tones are different, some vowels too. My favorite example is the local name of Dongguan, where 東 is pronounced somewhat akin to 登: dang1 gun2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With migrations, it is now sometimes harder to find real local people, but there are still plenty around. And even my HK friends blink like deers in the headlights when faced with such people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taishanese people are spread around Guangdong, and speak both Taishanese and standard Cantonese, the way, more or less Sicilian people speak Sicilian and Italian. Taishanese is funny in the sense that it &lt;em&gt;feels&lt;/em&gt; like Cantonese, but most of the time what you can hear is static.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hakka people in Huizhou, Meizhou and around speak Cantonese quasi-natively, at least the older folks, but again they sound &quot;off&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, you'll find in Guangdong a very large contingent of Guangxi people. When Shenzhen was first started, Guangxi people rushed there -- Guangxi is so poor and desolate that anywhere else sounded like a good deal to the locals... East Guangxi people speak a &lt;strong&gt;strange&lt;/strong&gt; variant of Cantonese. The vowels are off, the tones seem random, they nasalize every second syllable, but somehow it's vaguely understandable. You might have heard Guangxi people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-06-01T14:51:43.777" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T14:51:43.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="936" CreationDate="2015-09-04T07:38:16.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does 危機 really mean both crisis and opportunity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes or No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, when Chinese saying this word with no second thought, we don't imply the meaning of opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you still can &quot;interpret&quot; this word separately to mean both crisis and opportunity, to show a positive attitude, since 危 mean crisis and 機 can roughly mean opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11659" LastActivityDate="2015-09-04T07:38:16.093" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15909" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15910" CreationDate="2015-09-04T09:40:02.953" Score="3" ViewCount="308" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 阅兵 has been used a lot the last couple of days, for obvious reasons, mostly for one specific &lt;em&gt;activity&lt;/em&gt;. Dictionaries define as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E9%98%85%E5%85%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to review troops&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cjkware.com/search?id=%22%E9%96%B2%E5%85%B5%2F%E9%98%85%E5%85%B5%2Fyu%C3%A8b%C4%ABng%22&amp;amp;query=%E9%98%85%E5%85%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;KEY&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;◊ review troops &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/5/160/359767.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[military review;review troops] 即检阅车马兵员装备等&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but these don't &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; fit...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.com/news/world/asia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;BBC Asia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/l57wW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/l57wW.png&quot; alt=&quot;bbc&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;calls it a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;parade&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and a &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;war show&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What exactly does 阅兵 mean/translate as?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[we're talking about the &quot;parade&quot;/&quot;show&quot; here]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-09-04T10:40:28.667" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T07:37:34.523" Title="What exactly does 阅兵 mean/translate as?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15909" CreationDate="2015-09-04T11:14:15.170" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally I think BBC is a good place to learn English. As &quot;阅兵&quot; is a pretty big event recently, you can see it on news in most English speaking countries. So, just take a look of a news title from BBC: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-34125418&quot;&gt;China military parade commemorates WW2 victory over Japan&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Military parade&quot; looks good to me. However, if you are one of the officials, then you are in a different position. You would call it &quot;review troops&quot;. But for outsiders like us, it's an event, a &quot;military parade&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastActivityDate="2015-09-04T11:14:15.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14892" CreationDate="2015-09-04T16:49:50.293" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you talk about games there are many games named that as &quot;Dungeon&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11664" LastActivityDate="2015-09-04T16:49:50.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15914" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15915" CreationDate="2015-09-04T18:47:24.353" Score="1" ViewCount="697" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If everything goes as planned, we should have a successful journey.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope everything goes as planned tonight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, I'm wondering if there's an idiom for this. If not, what's a more eloquent way of saying this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's usually used colloquially?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T23:05:46.933" Title="How to translate &quot;If everything goes as planned...&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15914" CreationDate="2015-09-04T19:15:47.423" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;假若一切顺利...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If everything goes according to plan (=smoothly)... E.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望今晚一切都顺利举行。&#xA;I hope everything goes as planned tonight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or of course you can apply a literal translation, like 希望今晚一切都按计划进行。&#xA;But I think 顺利 is better, native way to express this in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-09-04T19:15:47.423" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15916" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15918" CreationDate="2015-09-05T00:39:11.907" Score="3" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not safe to drink from PVC pipes, because PVC can leak poisons into the water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fracking can cause toxic chemicals to leach into ground water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation I found was &lt;code&gt;滤去&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;滤&lt;/code&gt; means to filter, so I'm not sure if that's the proper translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-03-14T00:32:54.880" Title="How to translate &quot;leach&quot; (as in &quot;toxic chemicals leach into ground water&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15917" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15919" CreationDate="2015-09-05T03:26:25.083" Score="3" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't figure out how to translate this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;对我来说，北方人的口音和语速makes it difficult for me to understand them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the best way to say this without losing any of the above meaning and structure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="23334" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T16:01:18.787" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T16:01:18.787" Title="How to translate: “对我来说，北方人的口音和语速 {makes it difficult for me to understand them}&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15916" CreationDate="2015-09-05T12:31:38.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look at what Chinese website say about fracking, you can see for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wap.cnpc.com.cn/system/2015/06/09/001545481.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PetroChina&lt;/a&gt;: 　　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;报告认为，水力压裂可能出现的危险在于在压裂过程中可能出现液体溢出，压裂直接渗透到地下水资源中以及对废水的不当处理和排放等方面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So CNPC uses &lt;code&gt;渗透&lt;/code&gt; to say that the chemicals get into the ground water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your other example regarding &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cbda.cn/html/jczixun/20140404/39411.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PVC&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　生物污染主要是由于管材氧渗透和透光使管内的水介质滋生细菌；化学性污染主要来自于管道接触材料的渗透。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again they use &lt;code&gt;渗透&lt;/code&gt; to indicate how the chemicals/bacterial get into the water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: As the comments note, some other ways you  might say this could include &lt;code&gt;渗入&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;进入&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-09-05T12:31:38.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15917" CreationDate="2015-09-05T13:46:39.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pattern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] makes it [adj] for me to [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use any of the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] 使得我 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] 让我 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] 弄得我 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] 搞得我 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对我来说，北方人的口音和语速makes it difficult for me to understand them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对我来说，北方人的口音和语速让我很难明白他们在说什么。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-09-05T14:10:11.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14888" CreationDate="2015-09-06T03:11:12.020" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As to the meaning and 所, I agree with songyuanyao. just want to say something about how to use this 所 in Chinese.&#xA;1 所 is more used in written Chinese and classic Chinese.&#xA;2 In daily conversation we use “被“.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-09-06T03:11:12.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15917" CreationDate="2015-09-06T03:16:09.407" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;对我来说，北方人的口音和语速 makes it difficult for me to understand them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This translation sounds more like English grammar. Chinese people will say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;对我来说，北方人有口音，语速很快，很难听明白。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could be of some help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-09-08T05:54:45.017" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T05:54:45.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15914" CreationDate="2015-09-06T03:20:56.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If everything goes as planned.&#xA; 如果一切按计划进行.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In daily conversation, we use &quot;如果一切顺利&quot; more often. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(假若 is more often used in written language and is quite formal.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-09-06T03:20:56.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14795" CreationDate="2015-09-06T03:42:43.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try this one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《悯农》 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唐.李绅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;锄禾日当午，&#xA;chú hé rì dāng wǔ, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汗滴禾下土。&#xA;hàn dī hé xià tǔ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谁知盘中餐，&#xA;sheí zhī pán zhōng cān,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;粒粒皆辛苦。&#xA;lì lì jiē xīn kǔ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-09-06T03:42:43.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15926" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-06T06:18:20.957" Score="2" ViewCount="1229" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of you will have noticed that I post a lot of questions regarding translations.  In general, I believe this is a good exercise, but I've come to realize that in many cases, Chinese people don't speak like how I speak Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I speak Chinese, &lt;em&gt;particularly&lt;/em&gt; with more complex subjects or simply subjects I haven't been exposed to, I often have to rely on a &quot;translation box&quot; in my head. I have to think of how I would say it in English, then translate it. With simpler and more everyday speak, I've learned to mimic what native speakers say, and so in that sense, I've picked up a more natural way of speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm beginning to grow quite weary of this strict translation. Part of this is my vocabulary, but I would like to speak more naturally. The issue is, if I don't rely on a strict translation, I don't know how else to express myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some ways I can learn to speak more naturally like a native speaker? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2015-09-07T06:51:53.650" Title="How to speak more naturally / like a native Chinese speaker" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-09-08T16:42:15.790" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15926" CreationDate="2015-09-06T11:19:03.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two aspects you should pay attention two. The first one is, try to mimic Chinese people. The best way to do this is to use movies. Watch one sentence at a time and mimic the sentence of the speaker. The second one is, try to put your emotion in. Watch Chinese speakers and try to pay attention to the language they use when they want to express a specific emotion. The best place to start doing this is practising how to swear!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11672" LastActivityDate="2015-09-06T11:19:03.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13634" CreationDate="2015-09-06T11:25:51.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;只 is equivalent to &quot;only&quot;, a small amount. You would use it to say something like &quot;I have only five bucks&quot;, &quot;he's only two years old&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才 is used if you have to have a minimum amount. Examples: &quot;you must be this tall (or taller) to ride&quot;, &quot;you have to wait three minutes (or longer)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11672" LastActivityDate="2015-09-06T11:25:51.867" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15917" CreationDate="2015-09-06T15:56:37.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A English to Chinese translation of your sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對我來說，北方人的口音和語速使我難以聽懂他們的談話內容。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the sentence sounds very translated. A more Chinese way can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我聽不大懂北方人在說什麼，因為他們有口音，語速也比較快。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I don't understand the northern Chinese very much, because the northern men have accents, and they speak quicker.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence I give is closer to the Chinese thinking. Note that in your sentence, you use &lt;code&gt;北方人的口音和语速&lt;/code&gt; as the subject. However, it sounds unnatural to have subject other than &lt;code&gt;我&lt;/code&gt; when you are &lt;em&gt;talking&lt;/em&gt; about your feeling. (but it would be OK if your sentence is to be &lt;em&gt;written&lt;/em&gt; down)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11674" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T05:54:36.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15930" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-06T19:11:15.463" Score="-1" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where can I find a complete list of albums and songs by 邓丽君? I would like to access these for free or purchase all of them including the lyrics in simplified and traditional Chinese. I would like to store these on my phone and as mp3s and repeat-play any given song via an Android app. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2015-09-07T00:03:59.553" Title="Complete list of albums and songs by 邓丽君。" Tags="&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-09-07T11:52:16.327" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15930" CreationDate="2015-09-06T19:21:27.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a list of songs / album by 邓丽君 with link&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://music.baidu.com/artist/1091/song&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://music.baidu.com/artist/1091/song&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you won't be able to listen to the songs if you visit this link outside of China. (You can still copy the song name in Chinese and search elsewhere)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastEditorUserId="11542" LastEditDate="2015-09-07T00:03:59.553" LastActivityDate="2015-09-07T00:03:59.553" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14896" CreationDate="2015-09-07T06:41:53.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I'd like to say that &lt;code&gt;多结交朋友&lt;/code&gt; can not be translated directly into &lt;code&gt;make friends with a lot of friends&lt;/code&gt;. Instead is should be translated into &lt;code&gt;make a lot of friends&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;结交&lt;/code&gt; here is equals to the word &lt;code&gt;make&lt;/code&gt; in phrase &lt;code&gt;make friend&lt;/code&gt;. &#xA;So it's OK to say &lt;code&gt;多结交朋友&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11677" LastActivityDate="2015-09-07T06:41:53.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15926" CreationDate="2015-09-07T06:51:53.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question equals to &lt;code&gt;How could a Chinese speak more naturally / like a native English speaker&lt;/code&gt;. When I was learning English, someone gave me two hints. Now I'd like to translate them to you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;About the grammar. Forget your mother language, do not try to every English sentence directly into Chinese. Think as Chinese people do, then you'll speak in the way they do.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;About the accent. Watch Chinese movies, talk with native speakers. Just mimic the way they speak.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11677" LastActivityDate="2015-09-07T06:51:53.650" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14888" CreationDate="2015-09-07T07:13:01.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;被...所覆盖&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;covered by ...&lt;/code&gt;. It has a revered order with English. So you can consider that &lt;code&gt;被&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;所&lt;/code&gt; together are used as &lt;code&gt;by&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11677" LastActivityDate="2015-09-07T07:13:01.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15935" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15936" CreationDate="2015-09-07T12:21:47.993" Score="3" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen that both 串 and 丳 are supposed to mean &quot;skewer&quot;. Which one is more regularly used? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other common use cases for 丳?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11672" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T18:13:08.653" Title="串 vs 丳: which one is used more often for &quot;skewer&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15935" CreationDate="2015-09-07T12:37:31.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Judging by the image results on Google&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.hu/search?q=%E4%B8%B2&amp;amp;num=100&amp;amp;client=ubuntu&amp;amp;hs=9gx&amp;amp;channel=fs&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMIzv-xovfkxwIVQsAUCh3GmwNk&amp;amp;biw=1366&amp;amp;bih=673&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt; [串&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.hu/search?q=%E4%B8%B3&amp;amp;num=100&amp;amp;client=ubuntu&amp;amp;hs=v1c&amp;amp;channel=fs&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0CAgQ_AUoAmoVChMI_-nOpPfkxwIVibMUCh3K7w3h&amp;amp;biw=1366&amp;amp;bih=673&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;丳]&lt;/a&gt;,  and Baidu&lt;a href=&quot;http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&amp;amp;ipn=r&amp;amp;ct=201326592&amp;amp;cl=2&amp;amp;lm=-1&amp;amp;st=-1&amp;amp;fm=result&amp;amp;fr=&amp;amp;sf=1&amp;amp;fmq=1441629349903_R&amp;amp;pv=&amp;amp;ic=0&amp;amp;nc=1&amp;amp;z=&amp;amp;se=1&amp;amp;showtab=0&amp;amp;fb=0&amp;amp;width=&amp;amp;height=&amp;amp;face=0&amp;amp;istype=2&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;word=%E4%B8%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt; [串&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&amp;amp;ps=1&amp;amp;ct=201326592&amp;amp;lm=-1&amp;amp;cl=2&amp;amp;nc=1&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;word=%E4%B8%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;丳]&lt;/a&gt;, 串 is more commonly used as skewer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-09-07T12:37:31.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15935" CreationDate="2015-09-08T02:24:29.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese I can tell you that we barely use &lt;code&gt;丳&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11677" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T02:24:29.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15917" CreationDate="2015-09-08T02:37:15.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplest way is:&#xA;对我来说，北方人的口音和语速&lt;code&gt;让我很难听懂&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11677" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T02:37:15.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14888" CreationDate="2015-09-08T08:15:54.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;tl;dr&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;被 is for passive. 所 creates a relative clause, which is usually not translated in full, because it would look very clumsy. Instead, 被 and 所 used together are usually translated simply as a passive construction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;long answer&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic answer has already been provided by songyuanyao: &lt;em&gt;bèi&lt;/em&gt; 被 and &lt;em&gt;suǒ&lt;/em&gt; 所 form a passive construction. I will add a source and try to explain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the Chinese language has changed a lot over time, certain aspects of grammar and the usage and function of certain structures and words has remained the same in principle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Writing about passive constructions with 爲 (which in modern Chinese is replaced bei 被 or 將), Edwin G. Pulleyblank points out in &lt;em&gt;Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar&lt;/em&gt; (p. 37):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In later Literary Chinese, from about the beginning of the Hàn&#xA;  dynasty, this construction takes on a new form, in which &lt;em&gt;suǒ&lt;/em&gt; 所 is&#xA;  inserted in front of the embedded verb. That is, &lt;em&gt;wéi sān jūn&#xA;  huó&lt;/em&gt;[sic] 爲 三 軍 獲 [meaning: being captured by the three armies] would&#xA;  become &lt;em&gt;wéi sān jūn sǔo huó&lt;/em&gt; 爲 三 軍 所 獲. As we shall see, &lt;em&gt;suǒ&lt;/em&gt; 所 is&#xA;  the regular substitute for the object of a verb in a relative&#xA;  clause when this is coreferent with the head of the clause. The noun&#xA;  after &lt;em&gt;wéi&lt;/em&gt; 爲 continues to be its indirect object, not the subject of&#xA;  the relative clause, since it is never followed by &lt;em&gt;zhī&lt;/em&gt; 之 as a mark&#xA;  of nominalization and since it takes the object pronoun &lt;em&gt;zhī&lt;/em&gt; 之 rather&#xA;  than the possessive pronoun &lt;em&gt;qí&lt;/em&gt; 其 as its pronoun substitute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in passive constructions with bèi 被, a suǒ 所 can be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 所 do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It replaces the object of a verb and alters its position in the sentence to stand in front of it.&#xA;In your case the verb is 掩蓋.&#xA;The object of 掩蓋 would be gold. In other words, 所 creates a relative clause that could be translated as “that which is covered”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that the subject of your main sentence is still 他, standing for 金子, the piece of gold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Pulleyblank explains, the noun 髒東西 after the passive marker is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; the subject of the relative clause, but the indirect object.&#xA;That means, we cannot directly translate to “that which the dirt covered”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then in the next section (p. 37f):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In its new form we must therefore construe our sample sentence as ‘You&#xA;  will be for the Three Armies what [the Three Armies] capture.’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With both wéi 爲 and wéi suǒ 爲 所 the agency may be left unexpressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, we’d first analyse [他/金子]被脏东西所掩盖 as “[It/The gold] will be for the dirt, what the dirt covers” and then transform it into an English sentence which more elegantly expresses that meaning: “Eventually, the poor piece of gold ended up being covered in dirt... Again!”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastEditorUserId="11341" LastEditDate="2015-09-08T12:43:18.860" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T12:43:18.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6329" CreationDate="2015-09-08T10:37:40.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personalized one-on-one lessons and asking your Chinese friends to correct you. Repeat, repeat, repeat, it's the most effective way to speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also use colours to &quot;print&quot; tones in my memory: see &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesecoloured.blogspot.sg/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chinesecoloured.blogspot.sg/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dWXrV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dWXrV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5909" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T10:37:40.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14905" CreationDate="2015-09-08T16:05:42.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate it as &quot;essential&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Essential/本质/根本&quot; is like you peel an onion. &quot;Ultimate/终极&quot; is like you go along the way and reach somewhere eventually. &quot;Primary/主要&quot; is like you have a few rocks and you want the biggest one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well the onion example may be inappropriate because there isn't a core and it's always the same when you peel it, but nothing pops into my mind at the moment...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say &quot;essential&quot; is like you peel a chestnut. Hmm this is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2826" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T16:05:42.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14892" CreationDate="2015-09-09T13:49:20.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we go along the definition found in the Baike link you provided:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;...为安放死者棺椁的地方。... &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then we could probably use &quot;&lt;strong&gt;burial chamber&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; as used in similar structures inside a pyramid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sketch showing pyramid interior structure: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ancient-egypt.org/_v3d/topography/giza/khefren/map3d.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ancient-egypt.org/_v3d/topography/giza/khefren/map3d.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, it seems to me that the literal translation of &quot;underground palace&quot; is a valid and quite poetic rendering in English and might be better in certain contexts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5840" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T13:49:20.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15946" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-09T15:38:20.983" Score="2" ViewCount="382" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他是一个不负责的人，（要／想） 当我们的经理。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is the right optative verb to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11685" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-04T01:24:53.767" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T01:24:53.767" Title="In 他是一个不负责的人，（要／想） 当我们的经理, does it matter if I use 要 or 想?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13634" CreationDate="2015-09-09T16:10:10.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;He has 3 apples, but I just 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他有3个苹果，但我“才”1个。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;他有3个苹果，但我“只有”1个。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“才” is stronger than “只”，“才”1个 means that you hope you can get more apples. “只有”1个 just says you have one, with no other meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11686" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T14:05:22.563" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T14:05:22.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15953" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15954" CreationDate="2015-09-10T20:49:27.057" Score="4" ViewCount="2252" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am hoping for a word that, when spoken, is short in duration.  In English, I would say &quot;success&quot; or &quot;passed&quot; or &quot;good&quot;.  In Chinese, I would say....?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I say, &quot;Chinese&quot;, I realize there are multiple dialects.  Mandarin is probably a safe bet, except I understand the region where I'll be using the phrase is (according to Google) predominantly Cantonese.  A word that is the same in both would be awesome, if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course I can find Google's translations and spoken tools exist for those translations, but I have no idea if the literal translations work in context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11690" LastActivityDate="2015-09-11T17:38:25.490" Title="Chinese word for &quot;passed&quot; in the sense of &quot;the test was successful&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15953" CreationDate="2015-09-10T21:25:37.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Speaking as both a Mandarin and Cantonese speaker, I've seen 合格 used before (in some description of drug testing results, literally labelled as &lt;strong&gt;检验&lt;/strong&gt;结果) to describe successful outcomes, when there is presumably an issue of passing a specific standard. Such a scenario would be similar to what you are looking for, since I am getting the impression that you are looking for something that conveys a successful result (rather than passing in the sense of passing an exam, where &quot;success&quot; is poorly defined).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;合格 is also used more generally generally to mean &quot;pass&quot; (in the sense of exceeding some &quot;mark&quot;), for instance, in 他这次考试终于合格 (loosely translated as &lt;em&gt;This round of exams, he finally achieved a passing mark.&lt;/em&gt;). This would be the most obvious word that comes to mind. However, do note that 合格 only means something &lt;em&gt;equivalent&lt;/em&gt; to &quot;pass&quot; in the relevant contexts. 合格 isn't a transitive verb; rather, it's normally classified as an &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/6726/5714&quot;&gt;adjective&lt;/a&gt; (and one that can also take on other meanings, such as &quot;eligible&quot; or &quot;qualified&quot; -- see &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/entry/2ed8634c48f54a53928d1efd3f808404&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). So it works, but the exact wording of the sentence it's used in won't be a word-for-word translation of the English equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other words that could be used, albeit with different connotations. For instance, 达到 means &quot;to reach&quot;, so it can be used, for example in 达到我们的标准 (&lt;em&gt;to reach our standards&lt;/em&gt;). However, it is not as concise, in that you need additional information to quality your statement to make sense, and alone (without &lt;em&gt;our standards&lt;/em&gt; or the such), it doesn't mean &quot;pass&quot; per se.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My usual &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantonese-focused Chinese dictionary&lt;/a&gt; also lists a couple other choices, such as 過關 (in simplified characters, 过关). However, these aren't as appropriate: many of the other choices were either focused on exam-type scenarios, which are generally inappropriate in the context of the tests you speak of, and the most relevant meaning of 過關 is to pass a certain stage, which is also inappropriate (since it assumes some sort of passage of time and sequence of trials).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-09-11T17:38:25.490" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15946" CreationDate="2015-09-11T05:28:02.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence &quot;他是一个不负责的人，（要／想） 当我们的经理&quot;, there is difference between &quot;要&quot; and &quot;想&quot;. &quot;要&quot; may mean &quot;will&quot; (将要), while &quot;想&quot; means &quot;want&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastActivityDate="2015-09-11T05:28:02.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15935" CreationDate="2015-09-11T05:36:06.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;skewer  英 [ˈskju:ə(r)]&#xA;    美 [ˈskjuɚ]&#xA;n.  串肉杆; 烤肉叉子; 叉状物; 针状物;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丳&#xA;读音: [chǎn]&#xA;部首: 丨 五笔: KKJK&#xA;释义: 烤肉用的铁扦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;串&#xA;读音: [chuàn]&#xA;部首: 丨 五笔: KKHK&#xA;释义: [chuàn]1.多个同类东西连贯在一起&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the first time to see &quot;丳&quot;. It's clear that &quot;丳&quot; is more exact to the meaning of &quot;skewer&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastActivityDate="2015-09-11T05:36:06.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15957" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15964" CreationDate="2015-09-11T09:36:35.793" Score="0" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for any sort of story/fable, poem/epic, phrase/chengyu that expresses that life is meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the hope that life is meaningful&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the conviction that life is actually meaningful&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the desire that life will become meaningful&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;or any variation&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just hoping that it will be something that &lt;strong&gt;most people will be familiar with&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-09-12T12:06:01.073" Title="Poems/Phrases: Life is meaningful" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15957" CreationDate="2015-09-11T11:07:14.283" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about this:&#xA;天生我材必有用，千金散尽还复来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11677" LastActivityDate="2015-09-11T11:07:14.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15960" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-12T01:52:44.657" Score="4" ViewCount="510" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/09/why_drivers_in_china_intentionally_kill_the_pedestrians_they_hit_china_s.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Driven to Kill - Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, it's claimed that there's an adage in Chinese of “It is better to hit to kill than to hit and injure.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this adage exist, and in what contexts is it typically used (that is, is it used in the context of driving, or mainly in other contexts)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastEditorUserId="200" LastEditDate="2017-05-06T05:12:12.860" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T05:12:12.860" Title="Does Chinese have an adage saying “It is better to hit to kill than to hit and injure”?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15957" CreationDate="2015-09-12T02:43:26.567" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;日出东海落西山，愁也一天，喜也一天&#xA;长风破浪会有时,直挂云帆济沧海&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11697" LastActivityDate="2015-09-12T02:43:26.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15960" CreationDate="2015-09-12T05:40:14.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this is directly translated from the English or not but:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;撞死比撞伤强&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宁撞死毋撞伤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宁撞死 勿撞伤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would go with the last one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's this Sina article from '06&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;交通肇事潜规则：宁撞死毋撞伤？&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.sina.com.cn/s/2006-12-24/123010849978s.shtml?from=wap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.sina.com.cn/s/2006-12-24/123010849978s.shtml?from=wap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Talking all about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for context, like the title of the article says above its really just a &quot;unwritten&quot; traffic &quot;rule&quot;. I haven't seen it used in other contexts but I'm sure you could draw an illustration, especially just by tacking a -般 on the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-09-12T06:27:16.303" LastActivityDate="2015-09-12T06:27:16.303" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15957" CreationDate="2015-09-12T12:06:01.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a more modern poem, perhaps you might be interested in 面朝大海春暖花开.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. There's quite of bit of irony here as 海子 committed suicide shortly after writing this poem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-09-12T12:06:01.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14857" CreationDate="2015-09-13T08:12:41.777" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;we usually use 回归 in two ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;you tried to finish a task in different ways, but you failed, eventually you have to go backwards to the traditional way to do it. （你最终回归到传统的方式去完成某事。）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;HongKong's return to China.（香港回归到中国。）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, you cannot 回归北京, you can say 我明天回北京， but you cannot say 我明天回归北京。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11701" LastActivityDate="2015-09-13T08:12:41.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14892" CreationDate="2015-09-13T08:22:49.880" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that crypt is what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11701" LastActivityDate="2015-09-13T08:22:49.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15969" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-13T10:19:53.590" Score="3" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;凡购买XX出版社的图书，如有缺页、倒页、脱页者，本社发行部负责调换&quot;, does this translation &quot;The house will be liable to replace book(s), should any missing, reversing and loosing pages be found in the books published by XX Publishing House&quot; make any sense to you? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11703" LastActivityDate="2015-09-13T13:09:31.507" Title="Proper translation of &quot; 倒页、脱页&quot;？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15969" CreationDate="2015-09-13T11:57:40.697" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 倒页 means upside down pages. Check out this result from Baidu Image: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IESRq.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IESRq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;倒页 &quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you surmised, 脱页 refers to the pages falling out. Check out this result from Baidu Image:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hb5Wg.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hb5Wg.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;脱页&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the translation should probably have &lt;code&gt;loose pages&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;loosing pages&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-09-13T11:57:40.697" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15969" CreationDate="2015-09-13T13:09:31.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It makes sense. The publisher would give you another copy of the book if there is any missing pages(缺页) and upside down pages (倒页). In the sentence, it also mentioned 脱页, which a bit different from 缺页, 脱页 means the page is not &quot;connected&quot; to the book and 缺页 means the page is literally gone, not even &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2015-09-13T13:09:31.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15946" CreationDate="2015-09-13T22:00:23.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually &quot;要/想&quot; are both OK, it depends on what you mean in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess you mean he is not responsible, &quot;but&quot; he wants to be the manager, in which case I suggest you use &quot;想&quot;； if you mean he will be, use &quot;要&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, adding a “但” in front of “要/想” can better express the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11708" LastActivityDate="2015-09-13T22:00:23.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15974" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15982" CreationDate="2015-09-14T04:58:14.613" Score="3" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have searched for the word &lt;strong&gt;notable&lt;/strong&gt;. It means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;worthy of notice 值得提起&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;widely known and esteemed 被广泛所知或者受人尊敬的&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;strong&gt;notable user&lt;/strong&gt; in my context may be the second choice. But how can I translate it into a readable or short phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was trying the &lt;strong&gt;著名用户&lt;/strong&gt;, but it is a little bit strange. Is there a better way to translate this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Add more context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;### Notable users&#xA;&#xA;- [GitLab](https://github.com/gitlabhq/)&#xA;- [Vim Markdown](https://github.com/plasticboy/vim-markdown/)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastEditorUserId="3706" LastEditDate="2015-09-14T14:23:38.037" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T04:03:11.537" Title="How can I translate &quot;notable user&quot; into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15975" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15976" CreationDate="2015-09-14T13:10:16.677" Score="2" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any reason why 勿忘我 seems to be used more?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are there specific scenarios or reasons why you would say 不忘我 or 别忘我 instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2015-09-14T13:38:23.143" Title="When to use 勿忘我 vs 不忘我 vs 别忘我" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15975" CreationDate="2015-09-14T13:20:20.840" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are 3 major reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;勿忘我&lt;/code&gt; is kind of idiom that everyone use it. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We barely use &lt;code&gt;不忘我&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;别忘我&lt;/code&gt; because they have some grammar issues. Instead, &lt;code&gt;不要忘了我&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;别忘了我&lt;/code&gt; are the right expression.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;勿忘我&lt;/code&gt; much better than the other two from perspective of literature.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11677" LastEditorUserId="11677" LastEditDate="2015-09-14T13:38:23.143" LastActivityDate="2015-09-14T13:38:23.143" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15992" CreationDate="2015-09-15T06:45:34.880" Score="10" ViewCount="640" Body="&lt;p&gt;Korea and Japan seem to have a week system that looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Monday 月曜日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tuesday 火曜日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wednesday 水曜日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thursday 木曜日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Friday 金曜日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saturday 土曜日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sunday 日曜日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China apparently used to be the same as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E6%98%9F%E6%9C%9F&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;星期&lt;/a&gt; wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老黄历的值日星君就是曜日。日曜日是星期日，月曜日是星期一，火曜日是星期二，水曜日是星期三，木曜日是星期四，金曜日是星期五，土曜日是星期六。中国在民国成立后改称星期，其中的“星”字便是指这七曜，但在日本、韩国和朝鲜仍沿用曜日名称。台湾日治时期由日本引进星期制，因此亦使用七曜，但战后由中华民国统治后改成星期。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why did China opt for 星期 over 曜日? (esp. since the whole 七曜 is rather Chinese, after all.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T02:51:04.347" Title="Why did China opt for 星期 over 曜日?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15979" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15981" CreationDate="2015-09-15T09:06:48.650" Score="3" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking about a mnemonic for 令, and my wife mentioned that in former times the emperor's orders were written on tablets called 箭牌. However, I cannot find any information about this word, and the Google image search does not yield any tablets. How are these tablets referred to in Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I now that there's also 诏书, but this seems to relate more to orders written on paper. Am I right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to find a translation or even the right word by googling &quot;emperor order tablet &quot;, but nothing showed up. As I'm not a native English speaker: Am I missing the right word? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11672" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T13:21:19.387" Title="箭牌 vs 诏书: emperor's decree" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15977" CreationDate="2015-09-15T10:13:07.250" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://big5.huaxia.com/wh/zsc/00098624.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt;, in 1905, 袁嘉谷 was ordered by Emperor 光绪 to head a division meant to compile and translate textbooks in a standard way. As part of this, they encountered a problem with things not having a consistent name; one of these was the name for the unit of one week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the Chinese 曜日 did happen to correspond to the Western idea of one week, 袁嘉谷 and his colleagues thought it was annoying to say and thus changed it to 星期: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但袁嘉谷感到不順口，使用起來不方便，與同事們商量後，將一週稱一星期，以“星期日、星期一……星期六”依次指稱周內各日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T10:13:07.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15979" CreationDate="2015-09-15T13:21:19.387" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are talking about &lt;code&gt;令牌&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;诏书&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;令牌&lt;/code&gt; is something like badge. It doesn't have any order on it, but just used to identify the person who carry it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;诏书&lt;/code&gt; is orders written on paper, bamboo or something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11677" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T13:21:19.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15974" CreationDate="2015-09-15T14:29:34.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that 知名用户 sounds natural, but I don't know in what context it is used, and what it really refers to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11718" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T14:29:34.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14673" CreationDate="2015-09-15T14:33:57.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;强横 as a noun referring to a brutal persion is an old Chinese expression. In modern Chinese, it often is used as a modifier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11718" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T14:33:57.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15935" CreationDate="2015-09-15T18:13:08.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;串 is the one Chinese speak and use everyday. And the other character is not used at all. Even as a Chinese ,I can't recognize the character in the first time. And this is the first time I see the character.therefore, 串(chuan) is the right answer.  And I don't know how you get to know 丳, but in our daily life, we can't see this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11636" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T18:13:08.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14860" CreationDate="2015-09-15T18:39:19.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5mNU6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;i upload the first 100 surname in China &quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, this is a ranking of the first 100 surname in China in 2007.&#xA;I think it is very useful if you can learn the first 50 surname, just two rows. By the way ,my surname is 周, which is the 10th popular in China .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11636" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T18:39:19.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14786" CreationDate="2015-09-15T18:43:59.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually we don't use 不将会 in daily life.because it is too wired. Even we rarely use 将不会 the expression, we feel more comfortable if you just use 不会 to tell us that you won't do something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11636" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T18:43:59.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13964" CreationDate="2015-09-15T18:57:08.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is very interesting.because i have do the same exercise to identify these two phrases:账户 and 帐户. Because we have similar test in college entrance examination.(高考)&#xA;There are differences:&#xA;贝 is something about money. You may ask why. Because Chinese think people in ancient age use shell as medium to exchange food or other things. That means 贝 is related to money. So if you see something which is related to money ,账户 is used. And in other situation ,we use 帐户.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11636" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T18:57:08.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14014" CreationDate="2015-09-16T06:40:02.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many of the keyboards available have loads of bloatware, ads and require an incredible amount of permissions on your phone. They sometimes come in installed sizes of nearly 100 Megabytes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why I suggest another option: &lt;strong&gt;Multiling O&lt;/strong&gt; Keyboard. It&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;needs next to zero permissions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has swiping&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is free of cost and free of ads (albeit not open source)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;supports more languages and modes than any other keyboard I’ve seen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is about 0.3 Megabytes + language support in size&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is SUPER customizable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;of course supports Trad/Simp, pinyin with tone marks etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Via an (admittedly slightly clumsy) web interface, you can create your own layout, define the number of rows / fields of keys, function of long presses, basically every single functionality of everything.&#xA;Once past the initial setup, it’s a big step up from heavily bloated (yet working) apps like Swype or TouchPal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like to tinker with things, try this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2015-09-16T06:40:02.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14786" CreationDate="2015-09-16T07:38:41.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would like to make some add-up&#xA;1 将会 both 将 and 会 mean will, and we rarely use this in daily conversation. We sometimes use this in very formal articles such as news,documentary etc. For example: 新技术将会给我们的国家带来更多的活力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 The negative form of 将会 is 将不会。 For example：这个产品将不会出现在我们的网站上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope  this could be of some help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-09-16T07:38:41.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15974" CreationDate="2015-09-16T07:48:10.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;notable user: widely known user   知名用户、名人用户&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;notable user：esteemed user    尊贵用户&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope this could be of some help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-09-16T07:48:10.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14857" CreationDate="2015-09-16T08:01:07.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1 冒出来 literally means to pop up, to suddenly appear. In this context, it means to become popular. For example：最近几年冒出来了很多互联网公司，他们的增长速度让人吃惊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 回归  here it  means come back to former situation. For example: 他们的心情最终会回归平静的。   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-09-16T08:01:07.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15977" CreationDate="2015-09-16T08:57:34.640" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to this question is quite complicated, there is a whole website devoted to this subject &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cjvlang.com/Dow/dowchin.html&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shrinking things down as short as possible, the idea of seven day periods within a calendar based primarily on months came from the West into China, possibly more than once. During the Tang dynasty, it was taken up in China for use in astrology. For the percentage of the population who were not astrologers, it was not an important or widely known idea, and by the Ming dynasty, it was simply an odd factoid in astrological treatises. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the same &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cjvlang.com/Dow/dowjpn.html&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt;, the Japanese got the idea of the seven day period through Buddhist sources in the early 800s. Both the Chinese and Japanese thus got this idea, either directly or indirectly, through Western Buddhist or Manichaean sources, which identified the days with the sun, moon, and five planets, the 'seven luminaries' 七曜. Unlike China, the astrological use remained popular in Japan, but was limited to astrology until Japan decided to adopt the Western system of weeks as part of its calendar reform in 1876. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The seven-luminaries names of the seven days thus continued to be used in Japan because they had a continuous history.  In China, the whole thing was forgotten until they were reminded of the idea when Westerners starting setting up extra-territorial concession across China in the second half of the 1800s. The concessions naturally used weeks to regulate both work schedules and religious worship, particularly the Sabbath. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems clear that libai 禮拜 'worship' as the name for a week originated some time in this period; there is a very interesting article by 張書華 called 西制東漸：試探“星期制”於清末上海之傳布 which describes the spread of the week throughout China, a spread in which Shanghai played a leading role.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yuan Chia-ku 袁嘉谷 was the Qing official who was supposedly responsible for coining the name xingqi 星期 'a stellar period' for the week in the last years of the Qing dynasty, but it was not until the Republic of China was declared that the Western calendar was adopted and the 'week' became a part of Chinese time-keeping.  Even then, the use of libai remained much more common than xingqi, until the dawn of the People's Republic in 1949.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to say that Yuan's objection to the use of the Tang era names for the days of the week doesn't seem that unreasonable to me. If we had to go through a major calendrical reform (heaven forfend), would you like to have a new system of days set up named after the Buddhas of the seven heavens?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-09-16T08:57:34.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15993" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15996" CreationDate="2015-09-16T13:19:28.063" Score="2" ViewCount="1293" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two have the same meaning which is &quot;conveniently&quot; but I'm not sure if there is any difference in using these two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11725" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2015-09-17T02:24:13.297" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T03:40:41.797" Title="What is the difference between 随手 and 顺便？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15993" CreationDate="2015-09-16T14:16:28.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;顺便 seems to imply a inclusive relations, e.g. 我顺便回家 'I 顺便 go home', in which 'go home' is located in a bigger event unuttered. 顺手, by contrast, relates to immediacy, e.g. 我顺手关门'I 顺手 close the door.' However, it also sounds OK if we speak 我顺便关门, and the sentence *我顺手回家 sounds very bad. This asymmetrical accepted replacement indicates that to some degree their usages overlap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11718" LastActivityDate="2015-09-16T14:16:28.930" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15995" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15997" CreationDate="2015-09-16T15:41:01.340" Score="7" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;When learning how to write, I had always assumed that the lower component of the left component 䏍 of 能 was just a lower variant of 月.  A couple of days ago, however, I decided to look it up, and I found that, at least according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E4%8F%8D&quot;&gt;YellowBridge&lt;/a&gt;, it is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; a variant of 月, but is in fact a lower variant of 肉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Okay, fair enough.  But then I looked-up 青, and I found that, also according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E9%9D%92&quot;&gt;YellowBridge&lt;/a&gt;, the lower component here is indeed a lower variant of 月.  When I found this out, I figured there would be a subtle, but noticeable difference, between the two (for example, similar to the differences between 己 and 已, or between 口 and 囗, etc.), but after looking at the characters in detail using YellowBridge's &quot;Strokes&quot; tab, I really could not see any noticeable difference between the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it indeed the case that the lower component of 䏍 is different from the lower component of 青?  If so, what is the visual cue to look for to tell the difference between these two components?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2341" LastActivityDate="2015-09-18T12:22:35.750" Title="Bottom component of 青 and 䏍" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15993" CreationDate="2015-09-16T19:02:27.157" Score="5" Body="&lt;h1&gt;How should 顺便 be used?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;顺便 does not mean &amp;quot;conveniently&amp;quot; per se. One can say, 从我家去地铁站很方便, but one &lt;em&gt;cannot&lt;/em&gt; say 从我家去地铁站很顺便.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rather, as stated by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/11718/shudong&quot;&gt;Shudong's&lt;/a&gt; answer, 顺便 implies that the action is part of a larger set of events. Moreover, this action is something of an &amp;quot;afterthought&amp;quot;, something we &lt;em&gt;might as well&lt;/em&gt; do because it's convenient (&lt;em&gt;as a result of the larger context&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/strong&gt; For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天我去见我导师，顺便去大学图书馆借本书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today I'm going to see my advisor, so I might as well stop by the university library to borrow a book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/entry/fefe53a0e07d4524a9587f7cf91f9732&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;These dictionary suggestions&lt;/a&gt; of &amp;quot;on the way&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;by the way&amp;quot; can thus also be more appropriate than &amp;quot;convenient&amp;quot;, although they are rather lacking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;on the way&amp;quot; suggests some sort of ordering that may be inappropriate (since that would imply that whatever is &amp;quot;on the way&amp;quot; comes before the more important event). (For instance, in my example, it's possible that I might go to the library &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; seeing my advisor; there's nothing to suggest otherwise.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;by the way&amp;quot; doesn't give us the full picture. I would translate 顺便问一下 more closely as &amp;quot;while I'm at it, I might as well ask&amp;quot;, even if &amp;quot;by the way&amp;quot; &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; work as a &lt;em&gt;gloss&lt;/em&gt; of the &lt;em&gt;entire&lt;/em&gt; phrase (once an appropriate verb -- here which should be related to speaking -- is added to 顺便).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;What is the meaning of 随手?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;My dictionary&lt;/a&gt; gives &amp;quot;at one's convenience&amp;quot; as the definition for 随手. This can work for an approximate gloss, although &amp;quot;carelessly&amp;quot; (or words with the same connotations) tend to fit more the scenario consistently. For instance, using examples taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/example?query=%E9%9A%8F%E6%89%8B&amp;amp;origin=entry&amp;amp;ref=%23%2Fcnen%2Fentry%2Ff1a3a03efe914e9381522291e4b67012&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;废旧电池即使没有了使用价值也不可&lt;strong&gt;随手&lt;/strong&gt;乱丢，因为它们会污染环境！&lt;em&gt;Old batteries can't be discarded &lt;strong&gt;casually&lt;/strong&gt; even when they are no longer useful, because they'll pollute the environment!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;at one's convenience&amp;quot; still works, because &amp;quot;at one's convenience&amp;quot; would imply a certain lack of care.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;护林人&lt;strong&gt;随手&lt;/strong&gt;扔下的一个烟头居然引燃了这场森林大火。&lt;em&gt;A [cigarette butt] left &lt;strong&gt;in passing&lt;/strong&gt; by a forest ranger could have caused the forest fire.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;at one's convenience&amp;quot; definitely doesn't work here. Nor does &amp;quot;conveniently&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &amp;quot;carelessly&amp;quot; still fails as a translation in cases like 请随手关门 (&amp;quot;please close the door on your way out&amp;quot;). There are similar examples in the source I linked to. &lt;strong&gt;Given all this, it would seen that there's no one-size-fits-all translation for 随手. However, we can at least deduce that it is used for actions that can be done with a lot of convenience, which is also why &amp;quot;carelessly&amp;quot; is sometimes a good fit.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Moreover, 随手 is restricted to actions that involve the hands.&lt;/strong&gt; For instance, we cannot say 随手问. (As pointed out by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/798/ns-x&quot;&gt;NS.X.&lt;/a&gt;, there is also &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/entry/0e50dd5a4d0a4dffbb1fed80cd40ea1f&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;随口&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/entry/da4f273297c1476e89a9c376ad3269d5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;顺口&lt;/a&gt;. As with 随手, 随口 tends to only be used for the relevant body part, here things related to &lt;em&gt;speaking&lt;/em&gt;, although it can be more consistently interpreted as &amp;quot;careless&amp;quot; than 随手 can be. While 顺口 can mean something like &amp;quot;flowing&amp;quot; even if a similar lack of restraint can be implied in the right contexts, it also is restricted to things that might involve some sort of speech.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;So what's the difference?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;随手 does not imply that the related action is connected to a larger set of things.&lt;/strong&gt; The example sentences with 随手 would still make sense &lt;em&gt;out of context&lt;/em&gt; if I removed the unrelated clauses, whereas a sentence with 顺便 must be at least &lt;em&gt;be understood&lt;/em&gt; to fall within a larger framework. (I can say 我顺便去图书馆借本书, but it's understood that I am also going to do something else because of the use of 顺便.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;conveniently&amp;quot; is a poor fit as a direct translation for both terms, for the reasons I described above. &lt;strong&gt;In terms of clearly connoting convenience, 顺便 does a slightly better job, but it can only be used in specific scenarios.&lt;/strong&gt; Moreover, the convenience aspect when 顺便 is used may be a bit more dependent on context than when 随手 is used -- it's convenient for me to go to the library &lt;em&gt;because&lt;/em&gt; I'm already meeting my advisor, whereas it's almost always convenient to simply throw batteries in the trash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Finally, 顺便 can generally be used for any types of actions, whereas 随手 cannot be.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T03:40:41.797" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15995" CreationDate="2015-09-17T01:15:26.490" Score="17" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Brief Answers&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it indeed the case that the lower component of 䏍 is different from the lower component of 青?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes&lt;/strong&gt; in the etymology sense (the lower component of 䏍 is 肉, and the lower component of 青 is 丹), but it's not necessary to distinguish them in your hand writing – though, maybe some teachers, especially those in Taiwan, encourage you to do so – you will soon see the problem: 月 can denote five different components; in practice no one would distinguish all of them in the hand writing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If so, what is the visual cue to look for to tell the difference between these two components?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In order to reflect the etymology of characters, some fonts distinguish the two components. However, so far, to the best of my knowledge, no font can distinguish the five different components denoted by 月.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, they are sharply distinguished in seal and older scripts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;More Information: Five Different &quot;Forms&quot; of 月&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;月 (Moon).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Seal script: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RO9Ui.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RO9Ui.gif&quot; alt=&quot;月&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kangxi Dictionary: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ONwDb.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ONwDb.gif&quot; alt=&quot;月：康熙&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Taiwan MOE standard: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6V0XZ.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6V0XZ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;月：台标&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;肉 (Meat). There is an ideogram coded in Unicode for this special 月, &lt;code&gt;⺼&lt;/code&gt; (Note: this special ideogram can only stand for 肉, but &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; stand for other meanings. The entry for 朕 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?searchChinese=1&amp;amp;zi=%E6%9C%95&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yellowbridge&lt;/a&gt; says &quot;... boat 舟 (replaced by ⺼)&quot; – that's a mistake). Example: 能&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Seal script: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BItOV.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BItOV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;能&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kangxi Dictionary: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rZ6yU.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rZ6yU.gif&quot; alt=&quot;能：康熙&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Taiwan MOE standard: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7SwGE.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7SwGE.gif&quot; alt=&quot;能：台标&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;舟 (boat). Example: 前 (歬 is an old variant form to reflect the seal script)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Seal script: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XvGKB.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XvGKB.gif&quot; alt=&quot;前&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kangxi Dictionary: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O2w07.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O2w07.gif&quot; alt=&quot;前：康熙&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Taiwan MOE standard: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MjX0z.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MjX0z.gif&quot; alt=&quot;前：台标&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;丹 (well). Example: 青 ( is an old variant form to reflect the seal script; 靑 is coded in Unicode to reflect 丹, though chaotically not all of characters with a variant component can be coded.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Seal script: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2UydK.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2UydK.gif&quot; alt=&quot;青&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kangxi Dictionary: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dB0Hf.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dB0Hf.gif&quot; alt=&quot;青：康熙&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Taiwan MOE standard: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fUiBN.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fUiBN.gif&quot; alt=&quot;青：台标&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;贝 (shell). Example: 朋 (two strings of shells)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Oracle script:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SxAMr.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SxAMr.png&quot; alt=&quot;朋&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kangxi Dictionary: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hfKbL.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hfKbL.gif&quot; alt=&quot;朋：康熙&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Taiwan MOE standard: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aa0oc.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aa0oc.gif&quot; alt=&quot;朋：台标&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2015-09-17T01:25:48.377" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T01:25:48.377" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16000" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-17T13:42:44.293" Score="1" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the Chinese phrase that means 'building blocks of society'? 积木 literally means blocks but it sounds weird in context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9681" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-09-17T19:00:52.400" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T11:06:21.103" Title="Building blocks of society" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16001" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16006" CreationDate="2015-09-17T15:33:38.577" Score="1" ViewCount="1200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard 一直走(&lt;em&gt;Yīzhí&lt;/em&gt;) and 往前(&lt;em&gt;wǎng qián&lt;/em&gt;)走, but it seems the online translators prefer 一直往前走(&lt;em&gt;Yīzhí wǎng qián zǒu&lt;/em&gt;) or 一直向(&lt;em&gt;xiàng&lt;/em&gt;)前走 (if we're going forward)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the above which are the most commonly used and in which contexts? And how many other ways can we get the same meaning (even replacing 走 by other verb)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11224" LastActivityDate="2015-09-18T01:52:31.797" Title="In how many ways can we say &quot;go straight ahead&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;direction-complement&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16002" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-09-17T15:43:24.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most basic (and common) form of direction complement is formed by a verb and 来 or 去:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Verb + 来 or 去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position of the speaker defines the direction. If the action moves towards the speaker or comes closer in any way, 来 is used. If the action moves away from the speaker or becomes more distant in any way, 去 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other phrase forms using direction complements are referenced in &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Direction_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11224" LastEditorUserId="11224" LastEditDate="2015-09-17T21:02:18.993" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T21:02:18.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16003" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-09-17T15:43:24.730" Score="0" Body="A complement that describes the direction of a verb. [Verb + 来/去], [到 + place + 来/去] [Subject + verb + direction complement + object], [Subject + 把 + object + verb + direction complement] among other forms are related to this context." OwnerUserId="11224" LastEditorUserId="11224" LastEditDate="2015-09-17T21:02:26.807" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T21:02:26.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16004" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16005" CreationDate="2015-09-17T16:41:28.507" Score="3" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a thought that the following 2 words’ meaning is exchanged:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1) 射&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) 短  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, I am not saying I AM CORRECT or I want to make changes to these words, it is merely a discussion where I think this forum is about (‘to discuss the finer points of the Chinese Language’).  It's merely for fun and knowledge anyways and I want to know other's thought on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s the argument:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(original):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;射 -  shoot&lt;br&gt;&#xA;短 -  short  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(My thought):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;射 - short. 身+寸 – body + inches, doesn’t that imply a body that’s only inches long, aka short?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;短 - shoot. 矢+豆 – an arrow on a bean, kind of implying the action of shooting an arrow with accuracy?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could be wrong by defining my arguement only destructing the word into parts and take their meaning, ignoring simplified Chinese / all other method of forming a word.  Any thought?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T19:03:16.060" Title="The word 射 vs the word 短" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16004" CreationDate="2015-09-17T19:03:16.060" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;射 was originally written 䠶, that is a body and an arrow, giving the meaning shooting. But 身 is here a phonetic component, which just happens to also have a symbolic sense. 寸 is just how the original 矢 has been distorted in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;短 is actually an arrow 矢 shot into a 豆, which is not a bean but some sort of vessel. Why it means short is unknown, but we can note that another word for short, 矮, also contains 矢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T19:03:16.060" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16001" CreationDate="2015-09-18T01:52:31.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;一直走 / 往前走 / 一直往前走 / 一直向前走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q1) From the above which are the most commonly used and in which contexts?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一直走 = keep walking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;往前走 = walk straight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一直往前走 = keep walking straight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一直向前走 = keep walking straight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any of the above is understandable if your context is to help people with direction. Note that 一直走 / 往前走 are a bit short and lack a bit of politeness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q2) how many other ways can we get the same meaning (even replacing 走 by other verb)?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;直走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;向前走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case of car, replace 走 by 开 (short hand for 开车 [Driving]）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一直开&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;往前开&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一直往前开&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一直向前开 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case of bicycle, replace 走 by 骑 （short hand for 骑车）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一直骑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;往前骑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一直往前骑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一直向前骑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastActivityDate="2015-09-18T01:52:31.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16007" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16009" CreationDate="2015-09-18T08:13:22.687" Score="3" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I got this entry in my copy of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.cn/%E6%88%90%E9%83%BD%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80-%E9%A9%AC%E9%AA%A5/dp/B00D3CSCRU/ref=sr_pyc1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1442563798&amp;amp;sr=8-1-pinyin&amp;amp;keywords=chengdufangyan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;成都方言&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PtRkX.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PtRkX.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;扌笨&quot; ben ①蘸调料：紧倒～（佐料），不嫌咸了嗦？ ②扳动，扯拉：猴子逮到绳绳儿架势～。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried looking for this &quot;扌笨&quot; character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did a &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zslf.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea.com 两分 search&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OJRz9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OJRz9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with no results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic 字典 笔顺&lt;/a&gt; search of &quot;12131431412341&quot; (扌 = 121 笨 = 31431412341)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sIgDt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sIgDt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with no results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think that this 马骥 is any sort of academic, of any sort, seeing as the dictionary (if you can call it that) doesn't even have any sort of tones markings or notations at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe this character was just completely made up by the editors?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T02:09:36.477" Title="Any record of a &quot;扌笨&quot; character anywhere?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15995" CreationDate="2015-09-18T10:46:27.650" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just adding this to the already answered question to point out a few pertinent things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) the question of whether the 月/⺝ as seen in e.g. 能青育 and so on is really 'the same' or 'different' can be answered on many levels; on some levels, those components are the 'same' (because they 'look the same'), on other levels, they are 'different' (because they historically originate from distinct elements).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) to further complicate matters, 月 may be considered a calligraphic variant of ⺝ (just as 戶户戸 may be considered just different ways of writing 'the same').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) to further complicate matters, what in modern script looks like 月 and similar has its roots in at least four or five elements that were considered different in Seal script, but thrown together in Clerical script (and hence Normal script), namely 肉月舟丹, as detailed by @Stan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) to further complicate matters, a few select properties of modern Chinese writing have, over the centuries, become the pet peeves of many a self-perceived savior of Chinese writing. I've written about those in some length in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/12456/3674&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/12456/3674&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/12455/3674&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/12455/3674&lt;/a&gt;, which you may want to peruse. Long story short: (a) if you want to follow the ROC MOE in distinguishing those four 月 forms in your handwriting, do so for fun and profit, but (b) be warned that your writing will &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; contain endless numbers of 'historically wrong forms'—this is inevitable, because Normal script is at its very heart a 'simplifying' form of the Seal script. Lastly, do keep in mind that (c) it's difficult enough to decide on the 'correct' contemporary forms of characters—to decide where characters have their origin and why is sometimes much harder. Thus, blunders in etymology have been and will be committed, so someone's 月 traced back to 舟 will be someone else's 月 traced back to 肉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) Even those dictionaries that over the centuries served as the models for how to differentiate the four kinds of 月 correctly did not manage to keep their typography free of errors. Frankly what I don't get is why they propose to write the abbreviated forms at all and then go and distinguish four variants with long horizontals, short horizontals, a dot and an upward stroke, and two dots—which is really cumbersome. They should rather go all the way and write  or similar instead of 前 (or indeed 歬, if you insist on the Shuowen form), i.e. resurrect all the old forms from their 'corrupted' modern abbreviations, viz. 䒑▶止, 刂▶刀, 月▶舟.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3674" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-09-18T12:22:35.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16007" CreationDate="2015-09-19T02:01:49.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker of sichuanese,  I strongly suspect there is or has been such a character. Obviously this character follows the rule of 形声 and I believe it's coined by the editors or researchers. In my ordinary life, I also pronounce that sound when I express these meanings and speak in Sichuanese, but when it comes to writing, I use other &quot;standard&quot; characters. For example, 拌 for the first and 挣 for the second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, maybe the correct character is 拌 and the standard pronunciation is changed to ben4 in Sichuanese. For example, in Sichuanese, we say dia1, meaning to hold something vertically or to lift something. The pronunciation dia 1 even doesn't exist in standard Chinese. Wikipedia shows the correct character is 提.  I'm not a linguist, but this could happen to ben 4 as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2015-09-19T02:09:36.477" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T02:09:36.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16010" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-19T05:39:33.520" Score="3" ViewCount="1955" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know it is referring to Shanghai, and Baidu has a handy explanation of its origins &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/1353406/10221125.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, but how would you translate it? &quot;The Mystic Capital&quot;? &quot;The Devilish Capital&quot;? &#xA;In the theme of 帝都 to describe Beijing as the &quot;The Imperial capital&quot; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11057" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T08:21:55.940" Title="How would you translate 魔都 in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16010" CreationDate="2015-09-19T06:36:26.490" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;code&gt;Demon City&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;魔都&lt;/code&gt; (used for &lt;code&gt;上海&lt;/code&gt;) came from the novel &lt;code&gt;魔都&lt;/code&gt; written by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Dfu_Muramatsu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;村松梢風&lt;/a&gt; in 1924, and according to wikipedia, the novel's name is translated as &lt;code&gt;Demon City&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that you don't have to translate &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/26/js/90FD.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;都&lt;/a&gt; into &lt;code&gt;capital&lt;/code&gt;, because it means &lt;code&gt;big city&lt;/code&gt; too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;● 都&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　1. 大都市：～市。～会。通～大邑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-09-25T06:24:12.850" LastActivityDate="2015-09-25T06:24:12.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16013" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16014" CreationDate="2015-09-19T19:47:16.437" Score="0" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上千苹果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that mean &lt;em&gt;exactly one thousand apples&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;over a thousand apples&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;roughly a thousand apples&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;up to a thousand apples&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T03:35:43.270" Title="What does &quot;上千&quot; + [something] mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16013" CreationDate="2015-09-19T19:56:07.380" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Over a thousand. An equivalent is 千余苹果.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T19:56:07.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16016" CreationDate="2015-09-19T21:45:54.850" Score="3" ViewCount="825" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not entirely sure what is suppose to follow 是否. For example, I'd like to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I wasn't know (or wasn't sure) if you heard me clearly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this is how it should be translated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没确定你是否听清楚出我刚说的话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm also curious if this is correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没确定你是否听到了我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should the above be properly translated? And, more importantly, how do I use 是否 in general?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-09-20T03:04:14.280" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T03:04:14.280" Title="How to use correctly use 是否?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16015" CreationDate="2015-09-19T22:00:53.807" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;是否 roughly maps to &lt;em&gt;whether&lt;/em&gt; in a yes-no interrogative sentence or clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your sentence, you should use 不知道 or 不确定 instead of 没确定. 没确定 means &lt;em&gt;haven't confirmed yet&lt;/em&gt;. Also 听得清 (could hear) is more polite than 听清了 (have heard). If the context allows, it is more natural to omit 我说的话.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wasn't sure if you could hear me clearly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不确定你是否听得清(我说的话)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General usage of 是否 is pretty straight-forward. You can check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://dj.iciba.com/%E6%98%AF%E5%90%A6-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Iciba&lt;/a&gt; for examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T22:00:53.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16017" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-20T01:03:12.717" Score="3" ViewCount="998" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's a good idiomatic way to tell a Chinese speaker that something is a 'work in progress' - as for example, &quot;my Chinese language skills are still a work in progress'. Would it be similar to ‘还在进行的努力’ or is there a more idiomatic way to express the idea that I still need to do more work to complete my language skills? Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3438" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T11:57:30.257" Title="How to describe something as a 'work in progress'" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16017" CreationDate="2015-09-20T02:32:09.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;my Chinese language skills are still a work in progress&lt;/code&gt;, it seems you are a beginner of Chinese, so this can be translated into &lt;code&gt;我的中文(汉语)还需要继续努力去学&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;work in process&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if translated into Chinese directly, that is &lt;code&gt;还在进行的工作&lt;/code&gt;, in Chinese &lt;code&gt;工作&lt;/code&gt; means the &lt;code&gt;job&lt;/code&gt;, that is the most important meaning, and there are some other meanings, but in English, all the thing you are doing can be describe as &lt;code&gt;工作&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;work&lt;/code&gt;.So, in Chinese the &lt;code&gt;work&lt;/code&gt; of &lt;code&gt;work in process&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;the level of you Chinese&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;the process of your Chinese learning&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to sum up, it can be translated into &lt;code&gt;我的中文(汉语)还需要再接再厉&lt;/code&gt;, and  &lt;code&gt;work in process&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;工作还在继续&lt;/code&gt;, but in practical, you should know what the exactly the &lt;code&gt;work&lt;/code&gt; is. Chinese Language is not a language that with strict language grammar, just enjoy it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11641" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-09-20T03:01:17.727" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T03:01:17.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15974" CreationDate="2015-09-20T04:03:11.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the given context, It seems you are referring to a list of users who are using your project on GitHub, and you only want to mention a few of the &quot;well known&quot; users&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, I would use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;知名用户&lt;/code&gt; or  &lt;code&gt;知名使用者&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T04:03:11.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16017" CreationDate="2015-09-20T04:17:30.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a good question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In situation where someone asks you about the progress of your language skill, you can say &lt;code&gt;还在学&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;还在努力&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;还在用功&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exception:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a CV, sometimes we use &lt;code&gt;work in progress&lt;/code&gt; to describe a current position, In such case you can write &lt;code&gt;在读&lt;/code&gt; if the position is academic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T04:17:30.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16021" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-20T11:47:22.537" Score="-1" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing this on a gift for someone and I need to be sure the Chinese characters are correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11739" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T11:55:45.440" Title="I need to write the English boys name &quot;Jules&quot; in Chinese." Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-09-20T17:43:53.740" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16021" CreationDate="2015-09-20T11:55:45.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jules---朱尔斯,that's it,every time you need to check out a Chinese name,you can go search www.baidu.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9605" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T11:55:45.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="695" CreationDate="2015-09-21T06:22:11.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very important as It's a part of the learning process, learning &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/chinese-language-course/chinese-characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese characters&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; without the strokes order makes things more difficult. I believe nowadays schools in China still teach stroke orders, but many people write purely on computers now using PinYin, making it less important. For people typing with WuBi the stroke order is crucial. If you want to know more about Chinese writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11743" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T06:22:11.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14673" CreationDate="2015-09-21T07:04:03.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't see it reasonable to put 强横 in front of 实力 (strength, power), for 强横 is nearly always used to describe a PERSON, not an inanimate thing. The examples used by NS.X. and wpt are all from ancient contexts, and this word is used as a noun, meaning &quot;something that is strong and brutal&quot;. This usage is very common in thousands of years ago, not today. &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;In today's context, the following expression are used: &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;他很强横。(He is quite rude and unreasonable.)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Thus 强横 is only used to modify a person. &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;And, as you can see from the translation, 强横 is definitely negative, even more negative than its ancient meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T07:04:03.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1773" CreationDate="2015-09-21T07:19:02.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China, native Jewish people are not recognised as an ethnic group, but are categorised as Han and Hui people. Few of them believe Judaism. Thus there is no short word for Kosher in Chinese. Food produced in China seems to have no interest in Kosher certification, so it does not have an official name. The translation &quot;符合犹太教规的&quot; is the only proper translation I heard ever. &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;However, Islam is quite common in China for centuries, and the word 清真 for halal is widely used. You can search Wikipedia for &quot;中国犹太人&quot; to know more.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; I have searched Wikipedia and found there ARE short words for Kosher, but not quite widely spread.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;可食&lt;/strong&gt;(literally &quot;edible&quot;)/&lt;strong&gt;洁食&lt;/strong&gt;(literally &quot;clean food&quot;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Although it may seem a bit offensive to Chinese people (mostly non-Jewish) as it implies that non-Kosher foods are dirty or not edible, you can use them if there is no other alternatives.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="11744" LastEditDate="2017-05-08T08:52:34.800" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T08:52:34.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15909" CreationDate="2015-09-21T07:37:34.523" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;阅兵 should be always translated into &quot;Military Parade&quot;. Period. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T07:37:34.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14703" CreationDate="2015-09-21T07:54:33.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A somewhat colloquial translation occurs to me:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;她真是精气神儿十足。(She's quite lively. )&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Where 精气神儿 is a colloquial word, loosely for &quot;life&quot;, and 十足 is the translation for &quot;full of&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T07:54:33.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16000" CreationDate="2015-09-21T09:51:05.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I may suggest 基石 for the best answer...for now. However, it may be different if you provide more context, as 基石 is not something like parts, but more like a whole foundation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T09:51:05.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16000" CreationDate="2015-09-21T11:06:21.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Building block&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 child's toy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;积木&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 figurative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(basic element)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;基础成分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the basic building blocks of matter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;物质的构成要素&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;构成要素 seems to be the winner here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Results for 社会 + 构成要素 on baidu give us a bunch of different sentences that use this pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;什么是社会?它的构成要素有那些?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;第三章 社会及其构成要素&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;论社会的构成要素&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...理解中国人的心理与行为_中国传统社会的构成要素(上)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T11:06:21.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16031" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-21T15:57:43.367" Score="0" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;Serveral chinese characters sound extremely similarly to me, not only because of their vowel's tone, but, often, also because of their starting consonants.&#xA;For example, I find it's very difficult to notice the difference among 彡, 山, 摻, 芟, 惉, 沾, 傹, 治安, etc.&#xA;I found several tables where characters are sorted by number of strokes (chinese dictionaries), piyin (chinese dictionaries for foreigners), by frequency (resources for beginnerds), by category (books for beginners), etc.&#xA;What I cannot find is a table where words are sorted by sound similarity (piyin is a kind of), so that beginners can be warned about similarity traps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What shall I look for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I'm not asking for resources, but for tips on what kind of resources a beginner should look for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attempt to improve my question, after Aurus Huang's answer.&#xA;It's noticeable that, for example, Spanish have difficulties in distinguishing the sound (vowels) of &quot;jeep&quot;, &quot;cheap&quot;, &quot;ship&quot;. In the same way, usually English speakers cannot distinguish Italian's double consonants (think of English's &quot;regatta&quot;, from Italian's &quot;regata&quot;, or &quot;benvenuTTo&quot; instead of &quot;benvenuto&quot;), or Russian's &quot;ы&quot;, &quot;й&quot;, &quot;и&quot;. This kind of errors arize mostly because some sounds do not exist in their mother language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, back to the question, I'm looking for something that says: &quot;Warning: be careful, the following Chinese words have quite similar sound: don't make confusion!&quot;. This may be quite specific according to the learner's mother language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T01:33:13.583" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T11:42:26.907" Title="What kind of resources should a beginner look for to help with similarly pronounced words?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16032" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-21T20:17:21.213" Score="2" ViewCount="523" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I know for certain words, such as &lt;code&gt;不对&lt;/code&gt;, the fourth tone changes, but I believe 不 may be a special case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some words such as  部队 seem uncomfortable to pronounce if I strictly follow 4th and 4th tones, but saying words such as 汉字, don't feel as uncomfortable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a general rule (or at least a general rule with a few exceptions), for pronouncing double fourth tone words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T15:46:04.767" Title="How to pronounce words with double fourth tones?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16032" CreationDate="2015-09-21T21:18:18.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 不 is a special case. Other consecutive fourth tone morphemes are all pronounced (事件, 现在, 俱乐部), unless the word formed itself is a special case where the tone of the last morpheme is neutralized (看见, 用处, 味道).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T21:18:18.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15946" CreationDate="2015-09-22T02:16:01.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what meaning you want to express. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;If the man will supposedly be your manager, use 要. However, I feel this expression is slightly unnatural. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;If the man is eager to be your manager (although he lacks sense of responsibility), use 想. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;And...if thinking in a typical Chinese way, this sentence may come out of a test paper...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I recommend 想, for it seems to be more &quot;optative&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T02:16:01.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14475" CreationDate="2015-09-22T02:23:27.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I never seen any Mandarin Chinese use this character. And from your question, this character may belong to Sichuanese dialect. Both Sichuanese and Cantonese have characters that are only used by themselves and do not appear in Mandarin Chinese. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;From the meaning you looked up, this character means &quot;with a straight face&quot;. The right half of the character means &quot;face&quot;, and the left half &quot;horse&quot;. A horse's face is long and straight. (Interesting enough that it nearly resembles(?) the same meaning in English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-11-21T04:13:24.493" LastActivityDate="2015-11-21T04:13:24.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16036" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-22T04:05:46.677" Score="0" ViewCount="945" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say 'home is where the heart is' in traditional Chinese characters?&#xA;Is this correct?: 家是哪裡的心臟是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11737" LastEditorUserId="11737" LastEditDate="2015-09-22T04:14:27.097" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T15:36:45.620" Title="How do you say 'home is where the heart is' in traditional Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16036" CreationDate="2015-09-22T08:04:26.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;心在哪裡，家就在哪裡。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is a direct translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T08:04:26.920" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10513" CreationDate="2015-09-22T09:17:23.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're after short, current affairs reading, also try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.decipherchinese.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Decipher Chinese&lt;/a&gt;. Plenty of articles throughout the week, with some graded as HSK1.  All free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also an app so you can practice reading while on the move with it's dictionary built in, audio etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9583" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T09:17:23.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16041" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-22T10:13:57.377" Score="4" ViewCount="458" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the main ways to express opinion in Chinese? I know there are some verbs used for this, like 想, 觉得 and 认为. What are the difference between them when expressing opinion? (I know they also have alternative meanings but I am only interested when used to express an opinion or a thought.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11748" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T00:12:10.633" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T00:20:52.300" Title="What are the difference between e.g. 想, 觉得 and 认为 when expressing opinion?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16017" CreationDate="2015-09-22T11:57:30.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;just say &quot;还在修炼中”， this sounds humorous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11630" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T11:57:30.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16041" CreationDate="2015-09-22T15:25:54.987" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe it's the same as in English:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想 - I think (that) xxxxxxxx&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我相信 - I believe (that) xxxxxxx&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我觉得 -&#xA;  I feel (that) xxxxx&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will hold to explain how to use each of these in English as you should have an idea already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T15:25:54.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16041" CreationDate="2015-09-23T01:57:30.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three verbs have the quite the same meaning. Actually, you can use either of them as an equivalence.&#xA;If you are really keen to the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;想- just like, &quot;I think&quot; &#xA;觉得 - I think things should be what I thought in mind, but not very sure&#xA;认为 - I believe things should be what I thought&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11753" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T01:57:30.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16031" CreationDate="2015-09-23T07:17:33.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you had problems noticing the difference between &amp;quot;sheer&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;cheer&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;jeep&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;cheap&amp;quot;? If not, then your problem is solved. For European people, it is strongly recommended that they read articles with Pinyin (literally &amp;quot;Spelled Pronunciation&amp;quot;). &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Why characters are not relevant to their pronunciations? Chinese has so LONG a history that pronunciations have been changed for dozens (if not hundreds) of times. Even a Chinese can't figure out why 工(gong, &amp;quot;work&amp;quot;) represents the pronunciation of 江(jiang, &amp;quot;river&amp;quot;). Logically it should be, but it is not! Then Pinyin was invented to represent the pronunciation of characters. We only need to accept the fact and remember it. Leave the questions to linguists. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;One more thing: You can find quite a lot of texts with Pinyin in children's books. Chinese textbooks of Grade 1 or 2 in primary schools also help. (Confucius said, you should not feel ashamed to learn from people inferior to you. ;-))&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;  I mean the difference of &lt;strong&gt;consonants&lt;/strong&gt;, not vowels. Vowels in Mandarin Chinese is quite easy to distinguish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="11744" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T11:42:26.907" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T11:42:26.907" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16036" CreationDate="2015-09-23T07:24:26.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a few different ways to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aurus Huang already suggested &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;心在哪裡，家就在哪裡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://fanyi.baidu.com/?aldtype=85#en/zh/home%20is%20where%20the%20heart%20is&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt; gives us:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;心之所在即為家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/139455691.html?qbl=relate_question_0&amp;amp;word=home%20is%20where%20the%20heart%20is&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu Zhidao&lt;/a&gt; question also gives a lot of examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;心中向往的地方就是你的家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;家是心之所在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;心所在的地方是家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;but my absolute favorite, and honestly the best translation of this phrase has got to go to&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;心所向，家所在。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T07:24:26.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16048" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-23T08:09:49.783" Score="6" ViewCount="795" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese learner and as everybody else I'm puzzled by the &lt;strong&gt;verbal&lt;/strong&gt; aspect &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt;. My research into the subject gave such results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; belongs to &lt;strong&gt;a class&lt;/strong&gt; of perfective aspect markers just as many other    markers 过, verb duplication, RVC (verb resulative aspect) etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; is a &lt;strong&gt;existential aspect marker&lt;/strong&gt; (aka factual, aka actuality marker, aka reality marker). In other words &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; marks what really happened or 100%&#xA;going to happen. That's why you can't negate it with &lt;code&gt;没&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the classical test for comprehension would be to translate following phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃饭&lt;/code&gt;. (I'm eating). No questions here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃完饭&lt;/code&gt;. Is this unacceptable? The idea here is to tell that &quot;I completed eating process but it is not real in some sense.&quot;  Looks like this is a part of a bigger sentence in future tense, in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃饭了&lt;/code&gt;. (&quot;Now I eat!&quot; or &quot;I will eat now!&quot;). No questions here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃完饭了&lt;/code&gt;. &quot;Now I've eaten and completed the &quot;meal eating&quot; i.e. the plate is empty!&quot; I can't feel much difference between this sentence and (8).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃了饭.&lt;/code&gt; (Uncompleted sentence. &quot;I ate.&quot;). So this states that eating took place, but no result of it is mentioned. But native spekers say that the sentence is not complete and something is missing. Why is this the case?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃了饭了&lt;/code&gt;. (I &lt;em&gt;was&lt;/em&gt; eating, you know! Don't give me another plate!) Negation:  &lt;code&gt;但是没吃完&lt;/code&gt; (Negation is acceptable since it's negation of 完 and not of 了. (We do not negate that food eating took place, we negate that it was completed.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃完了饭&lt;/code&gt;. I have eaten and completed the action of eating. Just a fact with now connection to anything. Negation: &lt;code&gt;但是没吃完&lt;/code&gt; (unacceptable) since I just stated that 完 was actualized (了)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃完了饭了&lt;/code&gt;. (I have eaten and completed the action of eating by now.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;By the way: &lt;code&gt;我吃了饭&lt;/code&gt; is not complete to most Chinese natives but &lt;code&gt;他当了兵&lt;/code&gt; is absolutely complete. The difference here, I guess, is inside &lt;code&gt;吃&lt;/code&gt; (stative) and &lt;code&gt;当&lt;/code&gt;(resultive) verbs. Any comments on that?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any comments on the difference between (4) and (8) sentence would be much appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Please, don't tell me that &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; is about completion of a verb (it is not as &lt;code&gt;过&lt;/code&gt; is about as much completed actions as &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; is).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-09-24T03:35:19.237" LastActivityDate="2021-02-18T00:46:40.470" Title="To 了 or not to 了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16032" CreationDate="2015-09-23T15:46:04.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, they do feel uncomfortable to pronounce, but they are indeed pronounced two 4th tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except the 不 case, in which it changes to 2nd + 4th.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T15:46:04.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16048" CreationDate="2015-09-23T15:55:24.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alexander's answer, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/posts/16050/revisions&quot;&gt;as it currently stands&lt;/a&gt;, is slightly at odds with my thoughts on the matter and also doesn't comment on some thoughts I have on the grammar, so I will write an answer. &lt;strong&gt;For the most part, &lt;em&gt;when your sentences are grammatically correct&lt;/em&gt;, you have the right interpretation. However, you seem to missing some grammar / usage information.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Firstly, 了 should generally be placed directly after the relevant verb when used as a marker, so 7-8 are flat-out wrong. The same is true of 完, as in such scenarios it modifies the verb.&lt;/strong&gt; I cannot simply fix the issue by writing 吃了完. Using &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; 完 and 了 as modifiers is inappropriate, from a grammatical perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Now, it's possible that you're using 了 as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence-final_particle#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sentence-final particle&lt;/a&gt; that works as an intensifier.&lt;/strong&gt; This is why 3-4 and 6 can sound correct and would give the translations you give; were 了 intended to merely be a marker for the verb here, they would be incorrect.&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now secondly, 我吃完饭 (2) sounds a bit incomplete without either 了 at the end (used in more of the &quot;sentence-final particle&quot; fashion) or additional context (see my example at the end of the paragraph). &lt;strong&gt;However, note that usage of 完 to indicate completion &lt;em&gt;is not&lt;/em&gt; only restricted to actions taken in the future.&lt;/strong&gt; An online dictionary gives &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/example?query=%E5%AE%8C&amp;amp;origin=entry&amp;amp;ref=%23%2Fcnen%2Fentry%2F23b2d2562e134beba029996113817a6e&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;examples&lt;/a&gt; such as 我们刚刚吃完晚饭 (&lt;em&gt;we've just finished eating dinner&lt;/em&gt;; do note that the &quot;just&quot; is because of 刚刚), and I can confirm as a semi-native speaker that these, or something like 我吃完饭，现在去做功课了 (&lt;em&gt;I've finished the meal and am now going to do my homework.&lt;/em&gt;), sound fine to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, 我吃了饭 (5) (&lt;em&gt;I have eaten&lt;/em&gt;) is not wrong, although it sounds a bit dry without additional context (e.g. 我刚才吃了饭，现在不饿). This has already been addressed in Alexander's answer, so I will omit a more thorough discussion here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Here, I should note that your negation of (6) (&lt;em&gt;I have eaten&lt;/em&gt;) does not sound correct. If someone asked me 你吃了饭吗？, which is essentially the same sentence modified into a question and my answer was &quot;no&quot;, the response I would give would be 我没有吃饭 (&lt;em&gt;I haven't eaten&lt;/em&gt;) or 我未吃饭 (&lt;em&gt;I haven't eaten yet&lt;/em&gt;). What you write as 但是没吃完 (which I presume should instead be 但是没有吃完 or 但是未吃完) negates 吃完饭. (The English parallels to this, &quot;I have eaten&quot; as opposed to &quot;I have finished eating&quot;, should make this clear.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T22:18:00.710" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16048" CreationDate="2015-09-23T18:28:21.260" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question, but it's hard to deal with all the issues your examples raise in just one answer: the complexity of this thing is really staggering.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One important thing I think you are missing is that there are TWO kinds of le. This is a frequently made point; one place you can read more about this is Li and Thompson's book, Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar.  Their discussion is not the last word, but it's well presented and worth reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short: the -le that comes after the verb is one thing: this is perfective -le.&#xA;The le that comes at the end of the sentence is another thing: Li and Thompson call this 'currently relevant state'. It would take &lt;em&gt;way&lt;/em&gt; too much space to go over both of these here. I think a lot of your post is about the idea of perfective, so let's take that one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Li and Thompson define 'perfective' in terms of the idea of boundedness. I found this useful because it identifies a common element in sentences where -le is often used.  -le says &quot;there is a boundary here&quot;, where some event or activity ends.  For this to make sense, you have to fill in what that boundary is (very abstract, I know; sorry). What sort of things can make a boundary? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) quantifying something. There's a number in there somewhere. I'll show you how this works in a minute. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) definite. Often this means the object is definite, so that its &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; particular event that's over. Try adding zhe- na- etc. to your objects and you should be able to get the feel of this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) the verb is &lt;em&gt;inherently&lt;/em&gt; bounded. Verbs like 'die' are like this, the verb demands that you mark it as bounded, if you don't it sounds--illogical. &quot;To die&quot; is the end of something by its nature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) one event in a sequence. In this case, after adding the -le to mean 'this ends', we simply look after it to see what comes next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why example 5 does not sound complete.  adding the -le after chi means that the chi-fan activity has stopped (maybe finished, maybe not), and something else is happening.  But what?  You have to put the following activity in, or people will say &quot;...and?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, however, you add a number, you will find you get a different response:&#xA;Ta chi-le san-wan fan is bounded by the number. The three tells you when the activity stopped.  There is nothing incomplete about this sentence at all.  The number supplies the boundary that -le promises you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hmm, didn't answer most of the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T18:28:21.260" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16013" CreationDate="2015-09-23T18:37:44.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the magnitude of thousands. If I see descriptions like this, they usually exaggerate a bit for the effect, so my understanding would be more like &quot;oh, its up to 1000, maybe in the 800-900 ballpark.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&#xA;Ok 上千 literally means &quot;the figure can reach thousand&quot;. But again, such expression are more commonly used to emphasize the magnitude, so expect exaggerations.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastEditorUserId="6762" LastEditDate="2015-09-24T03:35:43.270" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T03:35:43.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16010" CreationDate="2015-09-23T18:42:26.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not &quot;Mordor&quot;... I have always believed this is the only correct transl(iter)ation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T18:42:26.727" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16010" CreationDate="2015-09-24T02:27:31.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we disregard the existing historic translation &lt;code&gt;Demon City&lt;/code&gt;, and want to come up with a more, perhaps &quot;modern&quot; English translation to convey what early 20th century Shanghai was like, then what about: &lt;code&gt;Sin City&lt;/code&gt;. It is still used to describe historic Shanghai, as seen in these examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sin City Shanghai | For a short time in the beginning of the 20th century this city ... Shanghai was THE island of wickedness on the Chinese continent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://travel-alphabet.com/sin-city-shanghai/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://travel-alphabet.com/sin-city-shanghai/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sin cities in which you can pursue vice and debauchery have existed throughout history, from Rome’s ..., to Shanghai where you could float for days in opium dens high on sex and drugs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.askmen.com/top_10/travel/top-10-sin-cities.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.askmen.com/top_10/travel/top-10-sin-cities.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11759" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T02:27:31.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16013" CreationDate="2015-09-24T02:55:21.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of the choices you gave, &quot;over a thousand apples&quot; is closest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;exactly one thousand&lt;/code&gt; : no, because if it was exactly one thousand you wouldn't need the 上 to denote upwards at all&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;over a thousand&lt;/code&gt; : closest. 上 conveys above, when used with hundreds or thousands, typically used to convey the sense of abundance and excess of hundreds or thousands&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;roughly a thousand&lt;/code&gt;: no, for same reason as #1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;up to a thousand&lt;/code&gt;: no, because if it were up to, it would be something else like jihu/nearly &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11759" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T02:55:21.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16058" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-24T07:35:51.387" Score="-1" ViewCount="666" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does this translate to in English? Apparently it's a quote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天是歷史, 明天是未知, 而今天是禮物&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11737" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T08:41:45.317" Title="Please help me with this translation?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-09-24T15:23:11.683" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16058" CreationDate="2015-09-24T08:27:28.300" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't translate it back, it's translated from English at first. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time&#xA;  waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today&#xA;  is a gift. That's why it is called the present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Said by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Morse_Earle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Alice Morse Earle&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another version:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is God's gift, that's why we call it the present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Said by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Rivers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Joan Rivers&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it's quoted by the film &lt;code&gt;Kung Fu Panda&lt;/code&gt;'s dialogue too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yesterday is a history,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  tomorrow is a mystery,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  but today is a gift,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  that is why it is called Present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-09-24T08:41:45.317" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T08:41:45.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16060" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-24T14:20:46.557" Score="10" ViewCount="2480" Body="&lt;p&gt;I live in Taiwan.There are occasions where I need to thank people, and sometimes they use &quot;不會&quot; to reply my &quot;謝謝&quot;. Is this correct and what does &quot;不會&quot; in this occasion mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3860" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-09-24T18:19:41.017" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T13:59:56.700" Title="Is &quot;不會&quot; a correct response to &quot;謝謝&quot;？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16060" CreationDate="2015-09-24T17:43:35.260" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this occasion, 不会 means &quot;no problem&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11244" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T17:43:35.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16065" CreationDate="2015-09-24T18:14:52.063" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Background&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am currently trying to translate this sentence, which comes out of an informational flyer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“那就一定不要错过[北京留学生友会]即浖联会为新老同学们免费举办的[汽车知识讲座]”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Attempt&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempt at a translation is this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Then you absolutely must not miss the chance to join the Undergraduate Chinese Student Organization's and the Beijing Students Studying Abroad Friendship Club's informational courses on cars, conducted free of charge for new and old students.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I have a good understanding of the beginning of the sentence, which asks readers to take advantage of this opportunity provided by the organization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the latter part, I can make out that there are free informational meetings about cars for new and old students alike, but I am not certain how the grammar works to connect it with the first part of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, I do not know how '即浖' is being used, or if the two together even make a word. '浖' does not seem to be in common Chinese-English dictionaries. Turning to Chinese dictionaries suggested that it means something like 'boundary'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6758" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T22:08:23.560" Title="Does this translation of a sentence accurately capture the information and grammar of the original sentence?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16062" CreationDate="2015-09-24T18:42:48.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My translation is &quot;Undergraduate Chinese Student Organization's and the Beijing Students Studying Abroad Friendship Club's courses about car knowledge are coming. These courses are free to all freshmen and current students. Do not miss it.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即将 means will happen very soon. So you can use &quot;is coming&quot; or &quot;is on the way&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;old means 年龄上的“老”. It is better to say &quot;current students&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;take advantage of&quot; means 利用. It is not positive here. It is better to use &quot;value&quot; which means 珍惜.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully, it can help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11244" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T18:42:48.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16062" CreationDate="2015-09-24T19:09:19.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about this:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Then do not miss the upcoming Vehicle Knowledge Lecture(Speech) held by the [Beijing&#xA;  Abroad Student Friends Club], conducted free of charge for students&#xA;  and new comers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T19:09:19.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16062" CreationDate="2015-09-24T22:08:23.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;北京留学生友会&quot; -- Do you mean &quot;北京留学生校友会&quot;？ If that is the case, then this is how I would do it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you absolutely must not miss the upcoming seminar on “Knowing your Motor Vehicles”, presented by the Beijing Foreign Students and Alumni Association. Admission is free for all (old and new) students. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better still, omit the words in parentheses, since &quot;all&quot; already includes &quot;old and new&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T22:08:23.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16066" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16073" CreationDate="2015-09-25T00:20:11.227" Score="1" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen cases of 还 being used with adjectives and verbs like in the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;还好&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;还可以&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What connotation does 还 give in these cases? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2670" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-10-22T00:12:43.357" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T00:12:43.357" Title="How is 还 used with adjectives?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16066" CreationDate="2015-09-25T01:08:39.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most basic meaning of 还 is &quot;back to&quot;, &quot;return&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your examples it means &quot;fairly&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The connotation is that it requires a second (returning, back to start) thought to determine that it is good (还好) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-09-25T01:08:39.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16068" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-25T01:30:30.830" Score="2" ViewCount="1124" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen 芥蘭 listed in overseas Chinese restaurants several times as a translation of &quot;broccoli&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has generally struck me as odd, as I have always referred to broccoli, at least in Cantonese, as 西蘭花. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A5%BF%E8%98%AD%E8%8A%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; suggests that this is also common usage in Mandarin.) How common is the first usage? Is this usage possibly linked to regional variation, and if so, which ones in particular?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what it is worth, I &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; seen 芥蘭 referred to as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai-lan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Chinese broccoli&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. Moreover, I ran Google searches for exact matches (using quotation marks) for all of the other variant names listed in the Wikipedia article for broccoli, and 西蘭花 (both traditional and simplified forms) was the most common result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T08:17:00.323" Title="Why do some overseas Chinese restaurants translate broccoli as &quot;芥蘭&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16068" CreationDate="2015-09-25T02:50:21.757" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently they categorise 芥蘭 and 西蘭花 as the same species… of different cultivar groups… although they do not at all taste in any way similar. For Chinese 芥蘭 and 西蘭花 are two completely different vegetables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西蘭花 is broccoli, and I think it is okay to call 芥蘭 kailan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11211" LastActivityDate="2015-09-25T02:50:21.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16072" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16093" CreationDate="2015-09-25T17:13:20.443" Score="2" ViewCount="938" Body="&lt;p&gt;When making up a sentence in Chinese we all can make many types of mistakes. But I'm interested in one particular mistake, namely &lt;em&gt;&quot;a mistake that makes native Chinese speakers to wonder about the &quot;tense&quot; of the situation described by the sentence.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, I know there is no tense in Chinese, only aspect. But still . . . One local agreed with me that a sentence like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃完饭.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sounded &quot;tensless&quot; i.e. he couldn't figure out where to put it (in time) in the future, past, present . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is logical because 吃 is a verb without any implicit bound (you can just keep eating forever). So the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃饭.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;experesses a boundless acivity of eating. So I figure out it is 100% not in the past, and 99% not in the future, so only present left. &#xA;But as soon as 完 added to 吃:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃完饭.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything becomes a little bit strange. 完 adds a bound on the main verb, namely, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吃 = eat, but 吃完 = eat-up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So activity &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; bounded and cannot be attributed to present tense but it can not be attributed to other tenses since no other indication of time is given. (There is no 昨天, 明天, etc.) And there is more to it: no indication of 'existency/actuality' of the situation (adding 了) is given. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the reader puzzled: &quot;Eating process completed but when?&quot; or &quot;Has this situation taken place at all?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please, natives, provide us with more examples of &lt;strong&gt;simple&lt;/strong&gt; (small) sentences which make you wonder about the &lt;strong&gt;tense&lt;/strong&gt; of the event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-09-26T06:01:15.570" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T04:59:47.727" Title="How to make a tenseless sentence?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16066" CreationDate="2015-09-25T18:10:34.367" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;还 is a polyphone with two pronunciations: hai2 and huan2. Your examples are using the first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea behind 还 (hai2) in these words is &lt;em&gt;still; yet&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还好 = yet good = fair&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还可以 = still acceptable = fair&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还 (hai2) has another meaning: &lt;em&gt;in addition; else&lt;/em&gt;, as in 还有, 还要.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning &lt;em&gt;backto; return&lt;/em&gt; mentioned in the other answer belong to the pronunciation huan2, which IMHO has nothing to do with your examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-09-25T18:10:34.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16074" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16077" CreationDate="2015-09-25T19:20:58.287" Score="0" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure how to use &quot;抱怨.&quot;&#xA;Would it be correct to say: 我很瘦，但我不在抱怨。&#xA;Or if there is a better phrase to use in this case, please let me know!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11769" LastEditorUserId="11769" LastEditDate="2015-09-25T20:42:57.837" LastActivityDate="2015-10-01T19:56:41.783" Title="Using &quot;抱怨&quot;: I'm really skinny, but I'm not complaining" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16072" CreationDate="2015-09-25T19:22:59.603" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two things to be cleared:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To say a language is tenseless means it does not have a &lt;strong&gt;grammatical&lt;/strong&gt; category of tense (e.g. word morphology, auxiliary verbs and tense particles in English). Chinese sentences &lt;strong&gt;do refer to time&lt;/strong&gt; but by using lexical words such as adverbs and verbs, with a combination of aspect, mood and other language elements.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The examples in your question are &lt;strong&gt;not complete sentences&lt;/strong&gt;. They are sentence fragments, such as clauses and phrases, that may or may not contain time references. When they are used in a complete sentence, in most of the cases, a time reference will exist in one form or another.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃完饭 sounds tenseless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's true, because it is a sentence fragment without any time reference. To make a complete sentence with it there are two options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Add 了 particle: &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃完饭了。I am done eating (now).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/le-grammar-summary/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;complicated matter&lt;/a&gt; and doesn't indicate tense by itself. But in this sentence, 完 (&lt;em&gt;complete; done&lt;/em&gt;) and 了 (state change marker) together form a &lt;code&gt;verb+完+[object]+了&lt;/code&gt; phrase, which is a clear signal for present perfect tense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use this phrase as a adverbial clause: &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃完饭，就去写作业。I'll do my homework after I'm done eating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lack of time reference in either clause (吃完饭, 去写作业) suggests neither has happened yet, so it's a statement of plan, which maps to simple present tense in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ambiguity though, is we couldn't tell if the speaker has already started eating, but the same can be said for the English version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now back to the subject of the question, &lt;strong&gt;how to make a tenseless sentence?&lt;/strong&gt; Strictly speaking, given how grammatical tense is defined (see #1 in at the beginning of this answer), all Chinese sentences are tenseless and the language is a tenseless language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think what you really want to know is 'what are some common sentences &lt;strong&gt;with ambiguous time reference&lt;/strong&gt;'. After some thought, I couldn't think of any real sentences in their actual contexts like that. I couldn't think of any sentence or even clause that has ambiguous time reference while its English counterpart doesn't, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the clauses 我吃完饭 and 我吃饭 sound 'tenseless', the same can be said for 'I finish eating' and 'I eat'. Grammatically they are simple present tense, but as sentences they don't make any sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you want to create sentences with ambiguous time reference, simply omit any verbs, adverbs or other language elements that refer to time, but they sound either incomplete or unnatural. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2015-09-30T04:59:47.727" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T04:59:47.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16074" CreationDate="2015-09-25T21:04:04.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're correct:    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am really skinny, but I am not complaining.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我很瘦，但我不是在抱怨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-09-25T21:04:04.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16074" CreationDate="2015-09-25T21:05:07.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it is appropriate to use &quot;抱怨&quot; here. Your translation is also correct. But I think a better translation is &quot;我真的很瘦，但我不是在抱怨&quot; which more accurately reflect the tone of the English sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(BTW that was from Google Translate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-09-25T21:05:07.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16072" CreationDate="2015-09-26T00:13:25.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;these are some keywords for tense&#xA;for past tense:已经，过，完，曾经，了，（this one is hard-&gt;才），刚&#xA;for thing will happen in future: 会， 必然，一定，还，要&#xA;for now:正在， 正， 着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我已经吃了，我吃过了，我刚吃完， 我已经吃了，我吃了，我刚吃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我会吃的，我必然要吃，我一定吃，我还没吃呢，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我正吃呢，我正在吃，我吃着呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2015-09-26T00:13:25.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16081" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16084" CreationDate="2015-09-27T06:12:42.887" Score="0" ViewCount="1054" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, in the movie Ip Man, the &quot;northerner&quot; martial arts fighter who comes to Foshan to challenge the local martial arts fighters always talks in Mandarin, while everybody he talks to (the local citizens, fighters, Ip Man himself, factory workers, etc.) always speak to him in Cantonese. This is repeated throughout the movie. The conversations are carried on fine with both sides seeming to understand the other perfectly, and both sides assuming that the other side understands them, even though Mandarin and Cantonese are not mutually intelligible. Neither side tries to change to the other side's language, and neither side is annoyed that the other side continues to speak the other language. This seems really odd to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this realistic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5978" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T15:02:06.230" Title="Can people carry on a conversation with each side speaking a different form of Chinese, like in some movies?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16081" CreationDate="2015-09-27T06:22:01.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To a certain degree. In old times there is no one official dialect that is required by the government. So the more sophisticated people generally have aquire the ability to understand more than one dialect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T06:22:01.020" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16068" CreationDate="2015-09-27T09:34:06.043" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm from Taiwan. And just for the record, I'm not exactly a botanist nor a experienced cook. But as far as I know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We call &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/MCm8xu4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/MCm8xu4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;a photo of 芥藍(蘭)菜&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/sB7qco0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/sB7qco0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;another photo of 芥藍(蘭)菜&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; 芥藍(蘭)菜.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;While we call &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/DlzWKsq.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/DlzWKsq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;a photo of 花椰菜/花菜/青花菜&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/s6IXlfz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/s6IXlfz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;another photo of 花椰菜/花菜/青花菜&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; 花椰菜/花菜/青花菜.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We don't really use the term 西蘭花 here. I think it's used by Cantonese-speaking people for broccoli as far as I remember (I speak a little Cantonese).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure we translate broccoli as 花椰菜/花菜/青花菜, but I'm not sure you have a non-academic name for 芥藍(蘭)菜 since these are grown in southeastern Asia. (I thought it's called Chinese kale, no?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As for the menu you mentioned above, you may need to order the dish to find out what exactly do they mean by 芥蘭. :)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8129" LastEditorUserId="21468" LastEditDate="2019-03-21T08:17:00.323" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T08:17:00.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16081" CreationDate="2015-09-27T14:54:52.167" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;People can carry on a conversation speaking whatever language they are comfortable with, if they can understand each other's language. This happens ALL the time in immigrant families all over the world. A typical situation is: Parents move from country A to country B, and are native speakers of A but have a good understanding of B. Their children, growing up in country B, acquire B with native fluency and understand A as their home language. In these families, parents and children carry on conversations in two different languages pretty much all the time. I don't see anything unrealistic about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2015-09-27T15:02:06.230" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T15:02:06.230" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16085" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19430" CreationDate="2015-09-28T10:32:03.207" Score="2" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;成都话方言词典 (1987) lists a bunch of words under the IPA initial /Ĩ/.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Southwestern Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; doesn't seem to actually have this initial according to &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; other resources who put all the /Ĩ/ listed words under the initial /n/.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example 成都话方言词典 lists 路 as /Ĩu/ (ignoring tones for now) whereas most other resources list it as /nu/. The /Ĩu/ IPA results in a 'pinyin' of &lt;code&gt;lu&lt;/code&gt; while the /nu/ IPA gives a pinyin of &lt;code&gt;nu&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find &lt;strong&gt;anything&lt;/strong&gt; to back up 成都话方言词典's usage of /Ĩ/, regardless, my real question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does /Ĩ/ &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; exist in Southwestern Mandarin?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T19:35:11.180" Title="Does /Ĩ/ *really* exist in Southwestern Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16060" CreationDate="2015-09-28T17:29:57.543" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is better to use &quot;不用谢&quot; or &quot;不用&quot;,instead of &quot;不会&quot;。&#xA;&quot;不用&quot; is short for &quot;不用谢&quot;,which means you don't need to thanks me.&#xA;&quot;不会&quot; means I can't do some thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11779" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T17:29:57.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16088" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-28T20:30:12.600" Score="1" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say you're at an event and you want to say, I like &lt;strong&gt;this&lt;/strong&gt; specific event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say basketball, is 我喜欢这篮球比赛 correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in comparison, 这篮球比赛比昨周篮球比赛很好。That doesn't look right, so I'm &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;curious on how to formulate these types of statements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11751" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T21:04:20.793" Title="Questions on how to talk about specifics, how to talk about things in relation to other things" Tags="&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14857" CreationDate="2015-09-28T20:37:28.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What the author really means 回归 is 网络写作 的(出版方式) 回归 传统的(出版方式)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;                     to be known by broad public                              &#xA;                    /                   ^&#xA;                   / （“回归”）          | (冒了出来)&#xA;                  \/                    |&#xA;Traditional writting ---------&amp;gt;  Internet writting&#xA; (传统的出版方式)   &amp;lt;------ 回归 -------- (网络写作 (的出版方式)）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11780" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T20:37:28.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16088" CreationDate="2015-09-28T21:04:20.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say 这场篮球赛比上周那场更好。or 这场篮球赛比上周那场好的多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11780" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T21:04:20.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16091" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16096" CreationDate="2015-09-29T04:08:16.647" Score="1" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gsfxv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gsfxv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some notations above the characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⅃⅃⅃ ___ LLL&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大      人    国&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do these notations mean anything?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T19:17:30.417" Title="Do the notations ⅃⅃⅃ ___ LLL mean anything?" Tags="&lt;notations&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16060" CreationDate="2015-09-29T07:45:29.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is, but only if you are in Taiwan and speaking to a local there. (This occasion appears in the MV of Jay Chou's song, &amp;lt;&amp;lt;半岛铁盒&gt;&gt;.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In Mainland China, use &quot;不用谢&quot;,&quot;别客气&quot; or &quot;没关系&quot; as a response. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T07:45:29.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16072" CreationDate="2015-09-29T14:40:11.840" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hopefully the answer from NS.X. has clarified things for you.  I believe, however, that not only are &lt;em&gt;sentence fragments&lt;/em&gt; ambiguous as to time, &lt;em&gt;complete but isolated sentences&lt;/em&gt; are frequently ambiguous between past time and present time as well. This is what the tenselessness of Chinese implies.  Take the sentence that came up in the comments we exchanged a few days ago:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牆上掛著一副畫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This could mean:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;A picture &lt;em&gt;was&lt;/em&gt; hanging on the wall&quot; OR&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;A picture &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; hanging on the wall.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without a context, most people will assume the sentence refers to the present, but there is nothing &lt;em&gt;within&lt;/em&gt; the sentence that tells us this. I could not give this sentence in a test and ask the question:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這句話是講：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a) 過去的事情&lt;br&gt;&#xA;b) 現在的事情&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or I could ask this, but I would have to count it as right no matter whether the students chose a or b (otherwise both the students and our school would be very angry). It is only a larger context that can remove the ambiguity of this sentence. Yet it is a &lt;em&gt;complete&lt;/em&gt; sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T14:40:11.840" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16036" CreationDate="2015-09-29T15:36:45.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a classical Chinese poem by 蘇軾:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“此心安處是吾鄉”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T15:36:45.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16091" CreationDate="2015-09-29T19:17:30.417" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a more clear picture. I think they are not letters or characters. They are only decoration for the &quot;大人国&quot;. The reason is the angle of view of your picture.You can see your picture carefully again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8pSS4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8pSS4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11786" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T19:17:30.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16097" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-30T00:51:12.593" Score="3" ViewCount="528" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any websites or resources analogous to Detextify for maths?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Presently, I do not know (but desire to learn) how to type Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-09-30T23:37:36.700" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T12:44:39.407" Title="How can I convert Chinese characters sketched with my mouse, into computerised characters?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16097" CreationDate="2015-09-30T03:22:27.270" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many online OCR input websites. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yibizi.com/html5/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.yibizi.com/html5/&lt;/a&gt; (neat and fast, without ads, but seems only working inside China)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I strongly suggest you install a client software rather than using a website because many websites are full of ads. And many of them are only working in some particular browsers, like infamous IE series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sougou Pinyin (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogou_Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;) is the most used Input Method in China. I am also personally using this on my MacBook Pro. It has Windows/Mac version. You can get the software by clicking the links in the Wikipedia page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With it, you can click &quot;手写输入&quot; to input by &quot;drawing&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yWW2y.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yWW2y.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3LZg8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3LZg8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T03:22:27.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16097" CreationDate="2015-09-30T05:36:05.330" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://jingyan.baidu.com/article/a17d5285399a948099c8f243.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://jingyan.baidu.com/article/a17d5285399a948099c8f243.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;If your OS is Windows 7, you can use &quot;Tablet PC Input Board&quot;.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OHWiC.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OHWiC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/92acN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/92acN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NGKL6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NGKL6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11786" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T05:36:05.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16060" CreationDate="2015-09-30T06:43:40.753" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When to reply to &quot;thanks/thank you&quot;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In China mainland, you can say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;&gt; 不客气/别客气/没事儿/客气什么（啥）啊/这算什么（啥）/小事&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In Hongkong, you can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;&gt; 唔使客气/唔紧要&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Only in Taiwan, you say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;&gt; 不会&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（all expressions used in mainland are also understandable in Taiwan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remind: If you say 不会 in China Mainland when replying to &quot;thanks / thankyou&quot;, people get confused. (Imagine when you say &quot;thank you&quot;, the one you thanked say &quot; No I can't &quot; back to you.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T06:43:40.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16060" CreationDate="2015-10-01T00:58:02.943" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm from Taiwan. 不會 in this context essentially means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;No trouble at all&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, &quot;I didn't really do much&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's &lt;strong&gt;just another humble/polite expression&lt;/strong&gt; we like to use. And saying 不會 is quicker and &lt;strong&gt;easier to pronounce&lt;/strong&gt; than 不客氣 in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I first(?!) heard the expression/usage form my classmate in high school, I felt that it was very polite and sophisticated. I can understand the implication even if I didn't use that expression myself before that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might stumble on this term because &lt;strong&gt;it literally reads &quot;not able&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;But in &lt;strong&gt;Hokkien&lt;/strong&gt;, we can just use this one-syllable word &lt;strong&gt;袂&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?source=5&amp;amp;in_idx=03e7&amp;amp;n_no=6654&amp;amp;curpage=2&amp;amp;sample=%E8%A2%82&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=2&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=3&amp;amp;rowcount=54&quot;&gt;see dictionary&lt;/a&gt;).&#xA;It's a negation word that simply means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it's translated into Mandarin, we somehow have the tendency to make it a multiple-syllable word 不會.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, when our buddies say &quot;thank you&quot;, we sometimes reply with &quot;三八/三八兄弟&quot; in Hokkien. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(where 三八 means silly/foolish and 兄弟 means brothers/friends )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 三八兄弟 expression essentially means &quot;Silly you, you don't have to mention that at all.&quot; And &quot;We are family, family help each other.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of us don't like to mention what we did for others or make people think we want favors in return someday. I'm not sure it's a cultural thing (social graces category, no? ) or a personal thing. I said that because some fellows are REALLY into calling in favors. And personally if I did something that was very difficult to do for others, I do expect appreciations secretly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So do we really mean &quot;No trouble AT ALL&quot; when we say 不會?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well. it depends. Normally we do, you can sense that from the micro facial expression and the whole situation. But oftentimes it's just a social expression or a quicker way to say 不客氣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8129" LastActivityDate="2015-10-01T00:58:02.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16104" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16105" CreationDate="2015-10-01T05:34:43.863" Score="3" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had both 南瓜小米粥 (nánguā xiǎomǐ zhōu; pumpkin and millet congee) and 小米南瓜粥 (xiǎomǐ nánguā zhōu; millet and pumpkin congee) in China.  They were different; the first one I've had many times and it usually (always?) has chunks of pumpkin, whereas the second one I've had once and it was more of a pumpkin puree.  I'm not sure if this is just a difference in shops where I bought it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, when I bought 小米南瓜粥, I asked for 南瓜小米粥 as that is what I'm accustomed to asking for.  The lady at the counter corrected me, calling it 小米南瓜粥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q&lt;/strong&gt;: Are 南瓜小米粥 and 小米南瓜粥 the same thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T14:26:52.033" Title="Are 南瓜小米粥 (nánguā xiǎomǐ zhōu) and 小米南瓜粥 (xiǎomǐ nánguā zhōu) the same thing?" Tags="&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16104" CreationDate="2015-10-01T08:55:59.397" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think they're different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;南瓜小米粥&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;小米粥&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;南瓜&lt;/code&gt;: as you said, it's millet congee with chunks of pumpkin in genaral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zIReu.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zIReu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;小米南瓜粥&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;南瓜粥&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;小米&lt;/code&gt;; it's more like pumpkin puree, with millet grains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7MU3h.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7MU3h.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course what the name means indeed largely depends on the restaurant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-10-02T14:26:52.033" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T14:26:52.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16106" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-01T14:28:35.540" Score="2" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the title of a famous wuxia-novel, whose full title is 射鵰英雄傳之鐵血丹心, it is also a the name of a Cantonese song. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have searched for an explanation of this phrase.&#xA;I thought,  maybe it is a chengyu, an expression in classical Chinese, or a quotation from some text, but I did not found any clue for being so. Maybe the author itself invented this phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to understand the meaning of this  phrase, &#xA;by this I mean its  grammatical structure, cultural significance or any other annotation that  helps to shed some light onto this phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2015-10-01T15:10:57.010" Title="What is the meaning of the phrase 铁血丹心 ?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16097" CreationDate="2015-10-01T14:58:35.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can simply use &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.co.uk/#zh-CN/en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google translate&lt;/a&gt; input method. They have a handwriting recognition pad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's see a screenshot:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nTEmh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nTEmh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGqH8nk2sjs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;how it works in action&lt;/a&gt;. (dial down the volume first)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Bonus (so you want to learn how to type Chinese):&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcLCE80tGZ8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Video: How to type Chinese using Google translate?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5VoDdqsxNQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Video: How to type Chinese using Windows built-in input method?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2-1. &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/Tllg7BU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Setting up Microsoft Pinyin new experience input method - step 1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2-2. &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/P36vlFL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Setting up Microsoft Pinyin new experience input method - step 2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2-3. &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/hc8KBJ2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Setting up Microsoft Pinyin new experience input method - step 3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2-4. &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/g6W2Hqp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Setting up Microsoft Pinyin new experience input method - step 4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2-5. &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/czCGbiY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Setting up Microsoft Pinyin new experience input method - step 5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2-6. &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/dLnCJyk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Setting up Microsoft Pinyin new experience input method - step 6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2-7. &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/7EgjO3g.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Setting up Microsoft Pinyin new experience input method - step 7&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2-8. &lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/vblzY8G&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Setting up Microsoft Pinyin new experience input method - step 8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8129" LastActivityDate="2015-10-01T14:58:35.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16106" CreationDate="2015-10-01T15:10:57.010" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although it looks like an idiom expression (chengyu), I believe it is actually a coined phrase, specifically for the TV adaptation of the Wuxia novel (射鵰英雄傳, 1983 TVB Hongkong) you mentioned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally, 鐵血丹心 can translate to &quot;Iron blood scarlet heart&quot;. There is the connotation of the conflict between love and patriotism and such, but its a bit far fetched IMO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-10-01T15:10:57.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16109" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16111" CreationDate="2015-10-01T18:17:13.187" Score="2" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 愛已成往事 is complete chinese sentence, that means: love already turned into sth. of the past. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, but how does the meaning changes when 當 is put in front of it to form 當愛已成往事 ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T07:24:38.467" Title="What is the function of 當 in 當愛已成往事 ?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16109" CreationDate="2015-10-01T21:02:37.363" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;當 just means &quot;When&quot; in such usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-10-01T21:02:37.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16097" CreationDate="2015-10-01T23:41:09.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use this one: &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/home&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/home&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;and it always worked perfectly. Can recommend!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4498" LastActivityDate="2015-10-01T23:41:09.687" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16113" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16138" CreationDate="2015-10-02T04:19:12.960" Score="0" ViewCount="2491" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen 蕉 translated into Mandarin (and dubbed into Mandarin) as 肏.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cccanto.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CC-CANTO&lt;/a&gt; doesn't really give anything much for &lt;a href=&quot;http://cccanto.org/search.php?q=%E8%95%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;蕉&lt;/a&gt; in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://words.hk/zidin/%E8%95%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;words.hk&lt;/a&gt; doesn't give any results, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing 蕉 just fits the pronunciation &lt;code&gt;ziu1&lt;/code&gt; but is not the actual character for whatever it is supposed to mean, but I have no way of knowing for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does 蕉 mean in Cantonese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-10-02T08:16:18.973" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T08:25:21.347" Title="What does 蕉 mean in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16114" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-02T08:13:37.137" Score="4" ViewCount="381" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read someone mentioning 蔑 as a negation word in classical Chinese, but unfortunately without explaining how it works or an example sentence. So I looked it up in my dictionary and it only showed me the meaning as a verb for denouncing s.o. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastEditorUserId="2600" LastEditDate="2015-10-02T17:57:46.503" LastActivityDate="2016-12-07T09:13:09.140" Title="What is the usage of 蔑 as a negation word in classical chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;negation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16114" CreationDate="2015-10-02T08:37:55.347" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a good English definition and explanation with an example sentence to get you started:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Students Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 negative particle of the perfective: had not, have not, will have not; similar to 末 mò and often accompanied by perfective-final 矣 yǐ; mostly found in Zuozhuan 左傳 and Guoyu 國語, later mainly for archaic effect; e.g. 寧事齊楚, 有亡而已, 蔑從晉矣 níngshì Qí Chǔ, yǒu wáng éryǐ, miècóng Jìn yǐ, Better to serve Qi and Qi, lest we simply perish, and [better] not to have followed Jin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 not to have, lack; there are no…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next you can have a look at these dictionary samples to get a better grip of how it works (some of the definitions are the same, but they use different sources):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MoE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◆ &amp;lt;副&amp;gt; 無、沒有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如：「蔑以復加」、「蔑不有成」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Liang'An&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 〈書〉無；沒有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例：～以復加∣～不有成。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hanyu Da Cidian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 无；没有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《诗·大雅·板》&#xA;喪亂蔑資, 曾莫惠我師。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毛 传&#xA;蔑, 無。資, 財也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《史记·孔子世家》&#xA;夫子循循然善誘人, 雖欲從之, 蔑由也已。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《新唐书·突厥传赞》&#xA;自《詩》《書》以來, 伐暴取亂, 蔑如帝神且速也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明 胡应麟 《少室山房笔丛·华阳博议上》&#xA;即小學一端, 門逕十數, 古今博洽, 蔑能相兼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Longmans&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;❷ 沒有﹐無：蔑以復加（沒有甚麼能再增加的了）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Gu Hanyu Cidian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;④无。《左传•僖公十年》:“蔑不济矣。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T15:09:44.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16097" CreationDate="2015-10-02T12:44:39.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three best options IMHO are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nciku&lt;/a&gt; (the pioneer, still works on a webpage). Now called&#xA;Line-dict.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google Translate App, as posted above. It recently bought nciku's technology, but the imput method is not as&#xA;    confortable, since your writing must be really fast for the software&#xA;    to pick it up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt;: my own personal choice. It is&#xA;flexible, extendable, colourful, confortable, has a very&#xA;comprehensive dictionary, and has lots of extra features, such as&#xA;automatic picture translation or even live video text translation (this last&#xA;one function for a fee).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9801" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T12:44:39.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16118" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16119" CreationDate="2015-10-02T19:09:30.170" Score="1" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夫非盡人之子與&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only understand this sentence from classical Chinese to a very low degree. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;夫  could be some kind of sentence particle or simply mean &quot;man&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;非 and  與 often belong together, 非  negates a phrase in a sentence with&#xA;a  copula. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;盡 , at least per how I know it, means &quot;to fill&quot; or &quot;utmost&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I cannot make any semantical sense out of it, but if I tried, I would render it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a man is not the child of an utmost man (god?), or is he?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please tell me my misunderstandings and explain the real meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-10-03T19:37:52.290" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T19:37:52.290" Title="What is meaning of the sentence 「夫非盡人之子與」?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16118" CreationDate="2015-10-02T20:43:19.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;夫 is a particle that you can ignore in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 非 is a negation, in this case as part of a rhetorical question with 與: Is it not? (or, in this case: Are we not?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盡 in this text means all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, 人之子 belong together: sons of men.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, 與 is a final particle marking a question, like 吗 in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation of the sentence is: “Are we not all sons of men?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a translation without context, of course. I’d have to read the rest of this Mengzi passage to give you a better one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T20:43:19.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16118" CreationDate="2015-10-02T20:46:13.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;夫(that (guy))非(is not)盡(only/just)人(man)之('s)子(son)與(?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the sentence can translate to &quot;Isn't that (guy) also just a man's son?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T20:46:13.567" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16121" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16134" CreationDate="2015-10-03T00:01:28.323" Score="4" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the following sentence has the topic-comment structure, but I'm not entirely sure if there is another grammar principle underlying it that I'm not seeing. The sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你家孩子真多！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the topic is 你家, with the rest being the comment. Is this right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2670" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-04T01:26:36.133" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T04:28:34.633" Title="Does 你家孩子真多 follow the topic-comment pattern?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16121" CreationDate="2015-10-03T00:48:35.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;sure you could think this way, but then it would imply that for phrase like &quot;你人真好&quot;. with 你 being topic 人真好 being comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T00:48:35.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16123" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16128" CreationDate="2015-10-03T01:40:40.697" Score="3" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen 是的 used multiple times as a &amp;quot;yes&amp;quot; answer to a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in the following interaction:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 这只猫是你的吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 是的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is it different than just 是 by itself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2670" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T07:37:30.087" Title="Why is 的 used with 是 sometimes to answer in the affirmative? As in 是的" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16123" CreationDate="2015-10-03T03:06:03.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe there is no semantic difference between 是。 and 是的。when used in answers. Both are very common, but using just one word / phoneme to reply colloquially can be a little bit too spartan / less polite sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T03:06:03.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16123" CreationDate="2015-10-03T05:57:09.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;是的&lt;/code&gt; is the formal usage, while &lt;code&gt;是&lt;/code&gt; is informal, and short. And &lt;code&gt;是的&lt;/code&gt; has the self-sufficient feel, as if it had a period attached to it, while &lt;code&gt;是&lt;/code&gt;, on the other hand, feels like it has a comma attached, inviting both sides to expand on it. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 这只猫是你的吗?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;     B: 是。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;     A: 它是什么品种的？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;     B: 虎斑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-10-04T07:37:30.087" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T07:37:30.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16109" CreationDate="2015-10-03T07:24:38.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;當 have different means in many sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a time adverb,it can be same as &quot;WHEN&quot; &quot;WHILE&quot; &quot;AS&quot; ,without the time limitation just (AS) you use these three word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in an article,comes with the mentioned means,當 always appear in first word on a sentence or middle of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當我離開的時候，要好好照顧你自己。&#xA;As I leave,take good care by yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要好好照顧你自己當我離開的時候。&#xA;Taking good care by yourself as I leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當 be a adverb and whole letters is 當作,means take....as.. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把我當白痴嗎?&#xA;Do you take me as a Idiot?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把我當作白痴嗎?&#xA;Do you take me as a Idiot?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當 be a verb ,in this time ,the pronunciation of 當 sounds like &quot;DOWN&quot; just you say without nasal sound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and in traditional usage,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當鋪 &quot;DOWN&quot; &quot;PUH&quot;   means Pawnshop = a shop(鋪) of pawning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;典當 &quot;D-IAN&quot; , &quot;DOWN&quot; means pawn in 典當 and it has been simplified to 當 in modern usage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在當鋪將一些首飾典當成現金&#xA;He pawns some jewelry for cash in pawnshop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他將一些首飾當成現金&#xA;He pawns some jewelry for cash&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6221" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T07:24:38.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16123" CreationDate="2015-10-03T08:28:12.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both right, but 是的 is more common in spoken language. The 的 in here is called a modal particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11793" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T08:28:12.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16130" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16131" CreationDate="2015-10-03T09:17:37.177" Score="3" ViewCount="784" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the idiom to describe a really long line of people (waiting in line to buy tickets, for example)? I know one of the words is 龙. I tried googling it, but couldn't find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="3011" LastEditDate="2015-10-03T09:30:38.527" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T14:47:52.720" Title="Chinese idiom to describe a long line" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16130" CreationDate="2015-10-03T09:34:41.620" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The chengyu with 龙 could be &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E5%A4%A7%E6%8E%92%E9%95%BF%E9%BE%99&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;大排长龙&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T09:34:41.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16132" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-03T13:53:18.477" Score="3" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently learned about the practice of 坐月子 or &lt;code&gt;sitting the month&lt;/code&gt; where a woman secludes herself for around a month following a pregnancy. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/business/international/china-confinement-care-for-new-mothers-now-27000-a-month.html?_r=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;articles&lt;/a&gt; I've &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.npr.org/2011/07/20/138536998/for-chinese-moms-birth-means-30-days-in-pajamas&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;read&lt;/a&gt; indicate that this practice has been around quite a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm curious as to when this expression first came into use and if there are many historical precedents for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T17:40:24.823" Title="Origin of the term &quot;Sitting the Month&quot;" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6554" CreationDate="2015-10-03T21:41:51.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;條(tiu4) is the proper classifier for 路(lou6).  You have been hearing 個(go3) might because the person was referring to 路(lou6) 口(hau2), which means the corner of the street.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11805" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T21:41:51.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16121" CreationDate="2015-10-04T01:03:58.143" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s a topic-comment structure, but exactly what the topic is is open to interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be “你家”.  In that case a rough English version would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Your home – how many children there are here!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or it could be “你家孩子” meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The children in your home – there are so many of them!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one to choose depends on context.  If you heard this spoken, there might be intonational clues, e.g. a pause after the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3647" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T01:03:58.143" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16132" CreationDate="2015-10-04T11:39:40.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sitting the month is a tradition since the Western Han Dynasty, people think women's menstrual blood and the body after childbirth is unclean. It can angered deities and bring disease and disaster, so mothers can not leave before the child is a full month out of the delivery room. Now sitting the month is treated as a necessary measure to recover from the childbirth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11812" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T11:39:40.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16113" CreationDate="2015-10-04T16:22:45.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means bananas (香蕉)! But if people say &quot;食蕉&quot; to you in a foul way, it means &quot;eat shit&quot;, because a banana and shit are similar in shape i guess...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i am from HK and i speak Cantonese&#xA;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11814" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T16:22:45.293" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16139" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16144" CreationDate="2015-10-04T16:22:49.573" Score="2" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;Watching shows with 弹幕 (or bullet hell-style subtitles) the word ‘FLAG’ often shows up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does ‘FLAG’ mean?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-10-05T03:18:24.783" Title="“FLAG” meaning in ‘bullet hell-style subtitles’ (弹幕)?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13756" CreationDate="2015-10-04T17:12:55.687" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;*After my rough translation, i don't think the lyrics makes any sense at all, in particular the little observation in Italy described in paragraph 2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me sing&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(让我唱歌吧)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Because I'm proud of it&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(因为我感到自豪)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I'm Chinese&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(我是中国人)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;A true Italiano.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(一個真的意大利人)&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good morning Italia gli spaghetti al dente&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(早安呀意大利面条)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;And a partisan for president&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(还有属于总统的党派)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;with the car radio always in the right hand&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(汽车收音机永远在右手)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;And a canary on the window&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(还有在窗上的一只金丝雀)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Good Morning Italy with all you artists&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(早安呀意大利和妳所有的艺术家)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;With too much America on the manifests&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(和妳所有过多的美國旅客)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;With the songs, with love, with the heart&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(和妳的歌 妳的爱 妳的心)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;With more women and fewer and fewer nuns&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(和妳越來越多的女人 越來越少的修女)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Good morning Italia, good morning Maria&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(早安呀意大利 早安呀玛利亚)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;With eyes full of melancholy&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(你那忧郁的眼神)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Good morning God&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(早安呀神)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;You know I'm here too&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(你知道我也在与你同在)&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me sing with the guitar in hand&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(让我以手中的结他伴唱)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Let me sing a song slowly slowly&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(讓我慢慢地唱)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Let me sing because I'm proud of it&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(让我唱 因为我感到自豪)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I'm a Chinese person, a true Italiano&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;(我是一个中国人 一個真的意大利人)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;La la la …&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me sing with the guitar in hand&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Let me sing a song slowly slowly&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Let me sing because I'm proud of it&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I'm a chinese person, a true italian&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me sing&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Because I'm proud of it&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I'm a chinese person&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;A true Italiano&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11814" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T17:12:55.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16139" CreationDate="2015-10-04T17:35:30.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In those situations FLAG (often accompanied by 立， e.g. 立FLAG，FLAG已立) usually means its a hint that sets the stage of future scenes; most commonly, foreshadows a characters' death, etc.  The usage roots from japanese Galgames. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T17:35:30.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16132" CreationDate="2015-10-04T17:40:24.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The earliest reference i can make is a chapter &quot;Nei Ze&quot; in a book &quot;Liji&quot; (See &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/liji/nei-ze&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/liji/nei-ze&lt;/a&gt;). The word &quot;sitting the month&quot; has been replaced by &quot;the month of confinement&quot;, &quot;坐月子&quot; by &quot;月辰&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11814" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T17:40:24.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16139" CreationDate="2015-10-04T18:03:25.847" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was initially adopted by computer programmers. In order to mark the state of a certain block of code, they commonly use a variable called &quot;FLAG&quot; to store the value of state. For example you could have FLAG = 1 to mean that the user is male, then the following code blocks will work on the premise that the user is a male. Likewise, you can have FLAG = 0 to mean the user is female, then there will be a different logic followed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then it's widely used in China(first in Japan) to indicate some character's line indicates that something will happen in the future, usually someone's death. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when someone says &quot;Don't worry, I'll be right back. I promise.&quot; Then usually he/she is going to die.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, when a girl says &quot;I'll never date someone like him.&quot; They usually end up with being couple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People use &quot;FLAG&quot; as a ridicule towards the noticeable pattern of story that occurs over and over again across Movies/TV episodes/Novels and so on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11815" LastEditorUserId="11815" LastEditDate="2015-10-05T03:18:24.783" LastActivityDate="2015-10-05T03:18:24.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16145" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16147" CreationDate="2015-10-05T03:39:38.773" Score="1" ViewCount="712" Body="&lt;p&gt;Walking down the street in Tianjin I see this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T1xn1m.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T1xn1m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;written on building walls in red paint&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: what does it say, and what does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's written in red paint on several buildings that I walk past.  The same thing is written maybe 4 or 5 times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to translate it using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/sinograms.html?r&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;search by radical&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mobilefish.com/services/chinese_handwriting_recognition/chinese_handwriting_recognition.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;handwriting recognition&lt;/a&gt;, and this is all I managed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;外?空裂&#xA;请勿停?&#xA;注意安全&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says something about mind your safety, and don't park here (?).  I'm not really sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2015-10-05T06:06:35.750" Title="What is this written on several buildings in red paint?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16145" CreationDate="2015-10-05T06:06:35.750" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;外檐空裂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请勿停靠&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;注意安全&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“ the outer eaves are missing and broken&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;please not park alongside&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;watch out for safety”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-10-05T06:06:35.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16148" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-05T12:41:54.030" Score="3" ViewCount="1555" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of these words mean &quot;According to&quot;, but I'm wondering are there any different in use. For example, some of them might only be used as adj. or adv.; some of them might have other meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11725" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T12:05:31.237" Title="凭, 按, 根据, 依据, 依照, and 按照 how to use these words correctly?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16149" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16150" CreationDate="2015-10-05T22:32:30.740" Score="2" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are the only character's acceptations I really can't relate to, does anyone know why it's used with such meanings? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9351" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T00:02:22.410" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T00:02:22.410" Title="Why does 点 mean &quot;to light\to ignite&quot; in certain compounds (such as in 点燃\点火\点灯)?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16149" CreationDate="2015-10-05T23:27:03.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;点(點), the original meaning is a small black spot. --&gt; create a small spot --&gt; use the pointed edge to touch something --&gt; ignite by touching the wick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-10-05T23:27:03.150" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16152" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-06T18:40:10.053" Score="2" ViewCount="410" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was asked to translate the phrase &quot;I wanna wake up where you are&quot;.&#xA;One of the options that came up was &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想在你的身边睡醒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which turned out to be not so pleasant to a native Chinese ear. &#xA;A better option，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想在你的身边醒来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;was slightly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, in which context would I want to use 睡醒? &#xA;And does it express the opposite notion if 睡觉？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an appendix question, I would be happy to know why do people say &quot;睡了“ when deciding to to to sleep and not ”睡觉了“。 What function does the &quot;觉” provide, conceptually, in this phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2015-10-06T23:12:27.893" Title="The usage of 醒来 vs. 睡醒, and a little bit about 睡觉。" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16153" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-06T20:20:23.367" Score="3" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am beginning Chinese speaker, but I watch this documentary on Chinese characters and they talk about origins of the characters from ideograms.  They refer to a book called &quot;Roots of Characters&quot; but I cannot find it.  Instead using Chinese Characters 汉说文 I find a website with some information: &lt;a href=&quot;http://shuowen.xpcha.com/03ch6de8uu4.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://shuowen.xpcha.com/03ch6de8uu4.html&lt;/a&gt; Here is the entry for:  水 (shui : water)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hcG97.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the English name of this book?  Is there a reliable online resource?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11826" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2019-01-03T00:36:58.860" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T00:36:58.860" Title="What is this book called? 汉说文" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16152" CreationDate="2015-10-06T21:50:22.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;醒: wake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;醒来: wake up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睡醒: wake from sleep&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睡觉: (go) sleep&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaker, IMO 我想在你的身边睡醒 and 我想在你的身边醒来 or 我想在你身边醒来 (no的) sound equally fine.  我想在你的身边醒来 is slightly more spoken expression, while 我想在你的身边睡醒 is slightly more written.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睡醒 and 睡觉 do have opposite meanings, but a better antonym for 睡醒 is 睡着，which means &quot;fall asleep&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睡了 and 睡觉了 both sound Ok to me to express &quot;go to sleep&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 睡觉, 睡 is actually the verb &quot;sleep&quot; while 觉 is the noun &quot;sleep&quot;. I think 睡觉 become mainstream just because nowadays the chinese spoken language like to use phrases with two phonemes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastEditorUserId="6762" LastEditDate="2015-10-06T23:12:27.893" LastActivityDate="2015-10-06T23:12:27.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16156" CreationDate="2015-10-07T02:02:49.790" Score="7" ViewCount="347" Body="&lt;p&gt;畀 and 被's modern pronunciations are quite similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although 畀 can mean “give” like the Mandarin 给 it also can work like 被:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢畀人睇見&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他被人家看見&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do Cantonese 畀 and Mandarin 被 have any historical connection?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T05:26:38.663" Title="Do Cantonese 畀 and Mandarin 被 have any historical connection?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16155" CreationDate="2015-10-07T11:19:24.100" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;畀 and 被 are not related.  In Old Chinese (F. K. Li's system) 畀 was pjidh, and 被 was bjiarx/h, phonetically quite different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;被 (the qusheng reading) was, and still is, a coverlet, etymologically related to the verb 'to cover' (the shangsheng reading). How 'cover' became a marker of passivity in a sentence is a long story; when something is laid on you, it's never you that does the laying, and the fact that it's an action external to you gives it a very passive feeling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;畀 originally meant 'give' in the sense of to 'bestow'; it came to be a passive marker is a very different fashion from 被; in fact, in most southern dialects, passive is marked by co-verb like structures with the meaning of 'give'; this is a regional feature, though the actual word differs from dialect to dialect; in the Minnan dialect, for example, it is 'ho', and its usage is very similar to 畀 in Yue dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T11:19:24.100" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16157" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-07T12:02:48.713" Score="2" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's Mozi, first two lines of Befriending the Learned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;入國而不存其士，&#xA;  見賢而不急，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;if one enters the country and doesn't have his soldiers(?), meets the valuable and doesn't have to worry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't make sense? I agree, on ctext.org there is a different translation, Can someone explain me, possibly word by word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9771" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T03:07:50.493" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T03:38:34.803" Title="How do I translate the first two lines of Befriending the Learned? 入國而不存其士，見賢而不急" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16148" CreationDate="2015-10-07T12:05:31.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are actually two ways to answer your question. I'm not sure which would be more helpful to you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) an etymological answer: why are these particular words being used in this particular way;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) a grammatical answer: what syntactic differences exist between the words; what different kinds of sentences are they used in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, I often find the etymological answer is more useful, in that I get more of a sense of what the speaker is thinking. Grammar often does not help that much in illuminating what someone is thinking, though it is essential for using the word correctly yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll try the etymological approach here, and look at what 按, 照, 依, 憑, 根, and 據 are doing here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;按 = to press with the finger; imagine the judge running a finger down a list of rules.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;依 = to lean on; to rely on something to hold you in a set position.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;照 = to illuminate; in fact, this is a key word: you could take it to mean 'according to' all by itself, with modifications indicated by what's in front: 依照,  按照 are variations of 照; they both rely on light to some degree&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;憑 seems to be 'rely on' in a mental sense; it is closer to 靠 in meaning than 依. Of all the words here, 憑 is the furthest removed from the central meaning of 'according to'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;根 means root; in a more fig. or adverbial sense, it means to take something as a base, what something is built on&lt;br&gt;&#xA;據 is another key word; it originally meant to support oneself with a staff. Light is not necessary for this. If one's staff is touching the ground (rooted, 根據) one knows one has a solid basis for action. One can also lean on one's staff 依據, and avoid slipping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically there are two ideas here:&lt;br&gt; &#xA;照 is to follow something that illuminates one's way.  This is often realized as following someone's rules, methods, or example.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;據 is to have a fixed point that allows one to act without mishap. This often suggests the idea of a basis for one's actions or beliefs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two basic ideas can be modified by appropriate forms. 依 works with both 照 and 據; on the other hand 按 doesn't work with 據 (why press on a staff with one finger?) and 根 doesn't work with 照 (what is the basis of a lamp?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what I see as the semantics involved; for grammar, the comment under your answer has perhaps more useful guidance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T12:05:31.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16159" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16161" CreationDate="2015-10-07T12:43:24.960" Score="5" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the story I'm reading for class, a man meets a woman online and she asks him what sign he's born under (属什么). He says 牛, and she says &quot;我是杀牛的.&quot; He recounts, &quot;就这么两句话一下子就把我打动了.&quot; So they arrange to meet in the park and it turns out she's old and gray instead of young and pretty like he expected, and he thinks &quot;直到这个时候我才什么都明白，眼前的这个女人为什么是“杀牛的”了.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What on earth is going on? “杀牛” has to have some idiomatic or slang meaning, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10933" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-03T11:01:08.303" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T11:01:08.303" Title="What does “杀牛” mean in this context?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16159" CreationDate="2015-10-07T14:01:44.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;(From the view of the man), the 1st &lt;code&gt;杀牛的&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;men born under the Ox sign killer&lt;/code&gt;, the 2nd one means &lt;code&gt;(real) Ox killer&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T14:01:44.633" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16157" CreationDate="2015-10-07T14:25:24.327" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original text is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;入國而不存其士，則亡國矣。見賢而不急，則緩其君矣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;could be translated word by word as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;If one governs the country but doesn't preserve his able and virtuous persons, &#xA;the country will perish. &#xA;If one sees (discovers) the able and virtuous persons but doesn't hurry up (to appoint them), &#xA;they will neglect their monarch.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;治国而不优待贤士，国家就会灭亡。见到贤士而不急于任用，他们就会怠慢君主。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T03:38:34.803" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T03:38:34.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16163" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16164" CreationDate="2015-10-07T15:38:38.860" Score="-2" ViewCount="716" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the end of &lt;a href=&quot;http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zyDqrkZxco8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zyDqrkZxco8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;update: the song title is probably on the 4th line from the bottom in the credits, but I cannot read it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11830" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-13T23:38:16.987" LastActivityDate="2020-07-13T23:38:16.987" Title="What is the title of this song?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;songs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-10-10T05:11:51.433" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16163" CreationDate="2015-10-07T15:52:30.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title is 好像好像谈恋爱, the TV series or movie is 爱情公寓.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update. The 4th line from the bottom is 问候歌 (&quot;Song of Greetings&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the different versions on Youtube: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_5F0DcpqP8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_5F0DcpqP8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-10-07T17:43:46.707" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T17:43:46.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16165" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-07T17:35:04.317" Score="3" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;两个队的分数_都很_近.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The spaces are where words/phrases are supposed to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there such words that fit in these spaces? I've been going through Google trying to find similar sentence structures but to no avail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11832" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T03:05:25.897" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T03:05:25.897" Title="How to fill in the blanks in 两个队的分数_都很_近?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16165" CreationDate="2015-10-07T19:17:51.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;两个队的分数&lt;strong&gt;全&lt;/strong&gt;都很&lt;strong&gt;接&lt;/strong&gt;近&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shall work. however, this will imply that each team has multiple scores (like score for goals, for shots, for passes, etc.) and all scores are close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T19:17:51.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16165" CreationDate="2015-10-08T01:14:49.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;两个队的分数都很&lt;strong&gt;接&lt;/strong&gt;近 already makes sense to me, and doesn't specify whether each team has multiple scores or not. However, it seems that you need another word or phrase between 都 and 很.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they do have multiple scores, the example that @siyi gave would work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, you could try 两个队的分数&lt;strong&gt;其实&lt;/strong&gt;都很&lt;strong&gt;接&lt;/strong&gt;近, where 其实 means &quot;actually&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11834" LastEditorUserId="11834" LastEditDate="2015-10-09T01:28:14.263" LastActivityDate="2015-10-09T01:28:14.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="826" CreationDate="2015-10-08T01:31:15.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese tradition, certain numbers are believed by some to be auspicious (吉利) or inauspicious (不利) based on the Chinese word that the number name sounds similar to. The numbers 0, 6, 8, and 9 are believed to have auspicious meanings because their names sound similar to words that have positive meanings. The superstitious aspects of this primarily grow out of the Cantonese Culture, but has taken root through other dialects and regional groups of Chinese. Source:&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11835" LastActivityDate="2015-10-08T01:31:15.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10411" CreationDate="2015-10-08T01:35:57.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你可以用中文给我说or你可以用中文给我说吗,你可以给我说中文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11835" LastActivityDate="2015-10-08T01:35:57.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16172" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16173" CreationDate="2015-10-08T14:47:43.917" Score="3" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does &quot;當地的頭腦&quot; mean? I saw a shirt with that written on it. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the earth and brain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does &quot;当地的头脑&quot; mean the same thing? Even if it doesn't make sense, would it matter if I bought it because it looks cool? I'm just worried it means something inappropriate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11836" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-04T06:15:59.257" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T20:49:52.357" Title="Understanding &quot;當地的頭腦&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16172" CreationDate="2015-10-08T15:04:19.847" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;当地的&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;local&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;头脑&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;head&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;当地的头脑&lt;/code&gt; means the head, i.e. the person having real power in local place. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而且当在国外在一些不发达的地区和当地的头脑打交道的时候，往往会需要因地制宜，使用一些非常手段，比如现金贿赂等等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在洛阳北大街的万景楼饭店宴请祝绍周、警察局局长等洛阳当地的头脑吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-10-08T15:04:19.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16172" CreationDate="2015-10-08T20:09:53.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Local big gun' 'A local with much influence' 'Someone who is full of xxxx' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11838" LastActivityDate="2015-10-08T20:09:53.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14519" CreationDate="2015-10-09T17:30:40.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know whether 予以 is &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; word or &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt;, but to better comprehend phrases using these two characters, I suggest treating them as two words, namely 予(give/provide) and 以(with).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;direct object&lt;/strong&gt; is the preposition object following the word 以.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;indirect object&lt;/strong&gt; is usually &lt;em&gt;(sub)topicalized&lt;/em&gt;, and thus moved to the front, as in your example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您认为我国在发展“低碳经济“方面，可能会采取哪些政策措施予以推进 (a &lt;em&gt;sub-subtopic&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below are semantically equivalent rewordings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您认为在发展“低碳经济“方面，我国可能会采取哪些政策措施予以推进 (a &lt;em&gt;subtopic&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在发展“低碳经济“方面，您认为我国可能会采取哪些政策措施予以推进 (the &lt;em&gt;topic&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您认为我国可能会采取哪些政策措施給发展“低碳经济“方面作推進 (normal word order, replace archaic 予 with modern 給)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您认为我国可能会采取哪些政策措施推進发展“低碳经济“方面 (normal word order, with normal (verbal) use of the word 推進)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In cases where the indirect object is not topicalized, the normal word order prevails and this object should follow the verb 予. However, because 予 is archaic, we usually use its modern equivalents like 給, or use the archaic pronoun 之 as the indirect object, as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欲終取之必先予之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;授之以鱼不如授之以渔.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;授 and 予 are synonyms and mean &lt;em&gt;give/provide&lt;/em&gt;. The second 授, however, means &lt;em&gt;teach&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 予以 tends to be followed by a verbal although that position accepts a nominal. Compare: &lt;em&gt;grant us your approval&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;approve us&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4428" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T02:59:50.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16178" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-09T17:44:56.300" Score="4" ViewCount="5466" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering how many Chinese characters have more than one pronunciation in Mandarin. I understand this could be a difference in tone, initial, final, or some combination of these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone come across a list of these (or at least a list of the ones that are among the most common 2,000-3,000 characters)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11845" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T13:13:48.623" Title="How many Chinese characters have multiple readings/pronunciations in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16178" CreationDate="2015-10-09T19:03:55.140" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;1235/3000 or 41%, by using grep '[.&lt;em&gt;].&lt;/em&gt;[.*' on Wenlin's frequency list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1    的 [de] (grammatical particle)  [dì] 目的 mùdì goal  [dí] 的确  [dī] cab&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3    是 [shì] to be  [tí]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4    不 [bù] not  [bú] [fǒu] [fōu] [fū]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5    了 [le] (particle) [liǎo] 了解 comprehend [liào] (=瞭) [liāo] [liáo]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9    有 [yǒu] have; there is; 没有 haven't; 有的 some  [yòu] (=又)  [wěi]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10   中 [zhōng] middle; in; 中国 Zhōngguó China  [zhòng] hit (a target)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-10-09T19:03:55.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16178" CreationDate="2015-10-09T19:12:53.377" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are official lists for this. See the following pages in the Chinese Wikipedia:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;普通话异读词审音表 for mainland China&lt;br&gt;&#xA;國語一字多音審訂表 for the ROC (Taiwan)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Neither of the lists is complete; they are basically there to provide standard answers to test students on correct pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How many characters have variant readings is actually quite hard to answer; one reason is the large number of 'literary' readings which are still often used when reading or reciting older literature.  Chinese opera of all varieties typically uses such readings.  This phenomenon (called 文白異讀) is quite extreme in some dialects; in the Minnan dialect for example, there are variant readings (sometimes multiple variants) for almost every character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.china-language.gov.cn/wenziguifan2/managed/012.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is the official version of 普通话异读词审音表 from the 国家语言文字工作委员会 (State Language Commission). They don't seem to have a pdf version, but you can copy the text from places such as 百度百科 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/248604.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All those characters where the list says 统读 mean that those characters 'used to' have different readings in earlier versions of the list. Now through a wave of the SLC's magic wand, they have miraculously disappeared. Actually many (most) people continue to use them, but For your HSPK you may skip them.  This is one way to pick out the first ones to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ROC list is much longer than the PRC list, because it reflects more of the 文白 differences.  Be sure to keep the ROC and PRC readings separate! A number of the differences between the two standards are because the PRC simplification process has merged two different forms with two different readings into one form with (still) two different readings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-10-10T17:18:00.283" LastActivityDate="2015-10-10T17:18:00.283" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14857" CreationDate="2015-10-10T00:26:26.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is the general trend that has returned to the traditional, paperback way, because the trend once was like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The young new writers are those who are driving this trend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no logic mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11211" LastActivityDate="2015-10-10T00:26:26.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16182" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-10T03:15:25.107" Score="2" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can these sentences be translated into English? Are they questions or afirmative sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1-洗没洗衣服&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2-听没听音乐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3-复习没复习课文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11847" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-10-10T05:10:21.170" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T13:18:13.190" Title="What is the role of 没 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16182" CreationDate="2015-10-10T04:13:20.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're all questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1-洗没洗衣服 = Have you washed the clothes or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2-听没听音乐 = Have you listened to music or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3-复习没复习课文 = Have you revised the text or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All three sentences have the same structure. If you break the first one apart, you get this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗 = wash(ed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没洗 = not wash(ed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衣服 = clothes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11834" LastActivityDate="2015-10-10T04:13:20.427" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="114" CreationDate="2015-10-11T14:29:59.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The explanation of below pic can help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It's similar to the [ʒ] sound in the middle of English word &quot;measure&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zEsCQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zEsCQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Learn to speak &amp;quot;r&amp;quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11630" LastActivityDate="2015-10-11T14:29:59.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16192" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16193" CreationDate="2015-10-11T19:18:54.697" Score="-1" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;Background story: small office with ~20 people, a pretty girl saying in office chat room: &quot;Hey, something strange. Someone put a small amount of money and this piece of paper with text in a pocket of my jacket. If someone do it by mistake or maybe he wanna to say something to me? Is it a flirting may be?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No one response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I have some text on yellow paper, most likely an envelope, and want to know in which language this text is written and if text on it connected to this girl. After initial searches, I was guessing that it's Japanese characters, it looks like Hiragana or Katakana for me, but finally Japanese natives said that it's a most likely simplified Chinese and even  guess that first char is 換.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0j8S4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0j8S4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11857" LastActivityDate="2015-10-12T01:22:00.397" Title="Is this Chinese and which character is written here if yes?" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-10-12T05:29:46.513" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16192" CreationDate="2015-10-12T01:22:00.397" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me it looks more like &quot;葉片,&quot; which in simplified Chinese is &quot;叶片.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I am not sure if this is scratch script of another character. There was a time in China where Chinese was &lt;strong&gt;further simplified&lt;/strong&gt;, for example four was simplified from &quot;四&quot; to &quot;の,&quot; but later this idea was given up and returned to the nowadays simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that I think about it, I am pretty sure it's not &quot;片&quot;…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11211" LastActivityDate="2015-10-12T01:22:00.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12354" CreationDate="2015-10-12T15:29:36.223" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;These bad translations are actually quite rare nowadays as google translation gets &quot;clever&quot;. However, &quot;好事不出门，坏事传千里&quot;, rare things do get popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a hidden meaning behind this. The reason would be more of a question. It could be a bad joke or just someone who knows nothing about English and looked it up in a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These translations can always give you a good laugh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jZYwK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jZYwK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the following image can answer your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X3YKo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X3YKo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastEditorUserId="5741" LastEditDate="2015-10-12T15:39:06.447" LastActivityDate="2015-10-12T15:39:06.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16178" CreationDate="2015-10-13T13:13:48.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Under the 3000 most used characters according to Jun Da's list, there are 470 characters with at least 2 different readings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I counted myself and used the 现代汉语词典（第六版） from the Commercial Press as a reading pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Counting all the dictionary's characters (around 13,000) you can say that around 9~10% of all characters have multiple readings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T13:13:48.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16182" CreationDate="2015-10-13T13:18:13.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are the same as the verb + 不 + verb structure, but negating a the past action:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗不洗 - do you wash or not?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;洗没洗 - did you wash or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听不听 - do you listen or not?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;听没听 - did you listen or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T13:18:13.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16153" CreationDate="2015-10-13T13:59:29.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book is &quot;说文解字&quot;, shorten as &quot;说文&quot;.&#xA;汉 here means the time when it was written, the Han Dynasty; but not Chinese(汉语/汉文). People may refer it to &quot;汉·说文&quot; or just &quot;说文&quot;.&#xA;You can get details here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia/Shuowen_Jiezi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11864" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T13:59:29.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16199" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16213" CreationDate="2015-10-13T14:44:26.980" Score="3" ViewCount="1073" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a friend who has started learning Mandarin, and I want to ask them how their Mandarin studies are going. The first phrase that comes to mind is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你中文学习得怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure, however, if 怎么样 is correct. I don't actually know its exact meaning, but I've always thought of it as &quot;how's it going?&quot;, such as in “你过得怎么样？”. Therefore, in this case, &quot;it&quot; would be the person's Chinese studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct? If not, what would be a better way to ask this question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5917" LastEditorUserId="5917" LastEditDate="2015-10-13T15:26:22.080" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T10:28:39.007" Title="Asking Someone How Their Chinese Studies Are Going" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16200" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-13T15:50:36.540" Score="2" ViewCount="1077" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember once being told that there are differences in usage and meaning between 能 and verb + 得了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他能来。 他不能来。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他来得了。 他来不了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;Maybe my examples above weren't that good. Here are some new ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小孩搬不了这个大花盆。 小孩不能搬这个大花盆。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这儿声音太大，我听不了。 这儿声音太大，我不能听。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When should I use each? What are the differences in meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2015-10-14T03:21:14.673" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T05:02:30.090" Title="Difference between 能 and verb + 得了(de liao3)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16200" CreationDate="2015-10-13T16:07:54.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whichever you please. 不能 is more general, but also means cannot, must not, ought not, should not. Likewise, 能 is often an inherit trait, as in 你能说汉语吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T16:07:54.287" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16202" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16204" CreationDate="2015-10-13T16:55:09.630" Score="3" ViewCount="420" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the character 歃 , &#xA;namely in the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;葵丘之會諸侯，束牲、載書而不歃血&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it is glossed as &quot;to smear one's mouth with the blood of a victim to take an oath&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have searched for further details on this custom, but I was limited to sites only in Chinese, which I do not understand well enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you explain the meaning of 歃 , when it was used, by whom, for which purpose, where did it come from, when did it extinguish, who could do this, what significance did it have, how was it performed, did the owner of the blood been killed etc. ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T03:15:22.547" Title="What is the cultural meaning of the practice 歃 when taking an oath ?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16202" CreationDate="2015-10-13T17:23:33.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original meaning of 歃 is &quot;to sip&quot;. It is most frequently seen in the phrase 歃血 which means &quot;to smear one's mouth with blood or to sip some blood and take an oath (usually in the ritual to form an alliance)&quot;, it doesn't imply where the blood comes from. It can be blood from a sacrifice, a victim, those who take part in the oath, etc. You can just smear the blood or sip a bit, there is no formal procedure for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a fairly archaic character that is seldom seen nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T17:23:33.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16202" CreationDate="2015-10-13T17:31:46.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lord Pingyuan was a Zhao chancellor involved in the Warring states factions. When the state of Zhao was in trouble in 257 BCE, the capital Handan under siege by Qin troops, lord Pingyuan was sent to the state of Chu to ask for assistance . King Kaolie of Chu and lord Pingyuan then performed the custom of 歃血为盟, or symbolically smearing blood around the mouth to establish an alliance and display mutual trust. The allies of Zhao, Chu and also Wei were able to lift the siege, and thus delay the final victory of Qin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was not human blood, but from cattle. Kangxi: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/kx/6B43.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/kx/6B43.htm&lt;/a&gt; and Shuowen: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/sw/6B43.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/sw/6B43.htm&lt;/a&gt; hint that the tradition has been known since the Spring and Autumn period (~700/400 BCE).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Huainanzi (139 BCE) tells: 故胡人弹骨,励志故事，越人契臂，中国歃血也，所由各异，其于信一也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Qin united the kingdoms, there seems to have been less reason to make alliances and keep the tradition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T17:31:46.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16205" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-13T21:36:38.627" Score="1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;A random phrase from 周易 is 南狩之志，乃大得也. I tried to translate it using the following thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;乃 is probably a conjunction and renders to &quot;in fact, actually&quot; to stress something not as expected.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;大得 rendered to &quot;big gain, big achievement&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;志 rendered to &quot;will, determination,intention&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;狩   is somehow problematic, I found &quot;to go for a hunt in the winter&quot;, &#xA;   but I am not sure, if it only is limited to &quot;winterhunting&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The determination to hunt in the winter in the south is actually a big achievement.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if I got the sentence verbatim right, but if it is so , is the sentence irony or sarcasm, because winter hunting in the south is considered paradoxically? like saying &quot;gone fishing to the sahara&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T16:12:41.257" Title="Is the phrase 南狩之志，乃大得也 ironically ?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16205" CreationDate="2015-10-13T22:00:43.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;狩 is to hunt, and has nothing to with the season. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The aspiration to hunt in the south brought success.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then we may ask why, and the answer is that the south is lighter in the winter than the north. So the season is indirectly the reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T22:00:43.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16200" CreationDate="2015-10-14T00:15:18.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the difference is mostly in formality. For the first 2 examples you've given, both would be acceptable grammatically, but 能 definitely sounds more formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I think there are examples where they can't completely be used interchangeably. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃不了了&lt;/code&gt; can be used to indicate that one can't keep eating (because one is full/doesn't like the food). But to indicate the same with 能 you probably need to say, &lt;code&gt;我不能继续吃了&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might fall in a general category of idioms where you can't use 能 instead of a construction involving 得. For example, &lt;code&gt;我看不起他&lt;/code&gt; really can't be replaced easily with 能&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T00:15:18.393" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16202" CreationDate="2015-10-14T02:15:55.910" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The passage is punctuated slightly wrong, it should be 葵丘之會，諸侯束牲、載書而不歃血: At the assembly at Kuiqiu, the feudal lords bound the sacrifice and placed their written pledges on it, but did not make blood oaths (i.e. they did not kill animals as part of the ceremony of allegiance).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The assembly at Kuiqiu marked the ascendance of Qi Huan gong 齊桓公, the first of the five feudal leaders (五霸) of the Spring and Autumn period, and the decline of the Zhou royal house. It was a meeting convened by Qi, at that point the most powerful of the feudal states, to make an alliance between the major rulers of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The expression sha xue is often used in the longer phrase 歃血為盟. An animal sacrifice was killed and its blood wiped on the lips. The written agreement was then placed on the sacrifice and the whole thing buried. This action was part of the regular ceremony of alliance between states, and was performed either by the leader of the state or his representative.  It could also occur between lesser figures, and different animals were supposedly used, depending on their status&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea was that putting blood on the mouth solemnified the words of the treaty of alliance, and signified the punishment that would come on whoever broke the agreement (or at least that's one interpretation). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This passage is from Mengzi, who felt that Qi Huan gong's decision not to use blood in the ceremony of allegiance between the feudal lords was superior to later practice using blood, which involved the idea of divine retribution, and thus departed from the mutual trust that was essential for the allegiance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, according to Mengzi, Qi Huan gong, by convening the assembly, arrogated to himself a power that belonged to the Zhou royal house, and had therefore also offended against virtue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Later note&lt;/strong&gt;: There is an article that discusses the significance of these &quot;covenant tablets&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/13989/Williams_Houma.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-10-15T03:15:22.547" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T03:15:22.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16209" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-14T03:38:12.093" Score="1" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was recently writing a letter to a Chinese colleague and wanted to wish her luck on a book she is writing. In essence, I wanted to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I hope your book is coming along well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I wasn't sure how to translate this. Perhaps one might say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我希望你的书进展得很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but this doesn't have the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How might one translate this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="472" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T02:57:26.197" Title="How to translate &quot;coming along?&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16209" CreationDate="2015-10-14T04:04:45.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;希望你的书能顺利出版。 &#xA;希望能早日在书店等候你签名售书。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T04:04:45.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16200" CreationDate="2015-10-14T04:20:23.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main difference between -得了 and 能 is that -得了 can only be used with a fairly small subset of verbs, while 能 can be used with most verbs; for example, we can say 能看見, but 看見得了 sounds quite odd to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this is because -得了 has a more specific meaning than 能, which is as generic as you can get, but I can't immediately provide a reference for this. Another important difference is that 能 can be used with a whole clause:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他還能一邊唱一邊跳, 真厲害. He can sing and dance at the same time, impressive!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way to stick -得了 into this kind of sentence; it is a verbal affix, so can only be used as part of a relatively simple sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Later note&lt;/strong&gt;: I changed the example above from 能看 to 能看見. This may work better. I Still haven't found leading references, but here is one article that discusses some of this: 郝維 2001〈補語的可能式研究綜述〉，《漢語學習》3：29-34.  In particular, the article notes that -得了 is usually used for actions that can be completed. This seems right, so in the zillions of cases where we want to speak of general ability, -得了 is often inappropriate. An example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他能彈鋼琴 He can play the piano. (ok)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;?? 他彈得了鋼琴 He can (finish) playing the piano. (odd)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-10-14T05:02:30.090" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T05:02:30.090" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16209" CreationDate="2015-10-14T09:30:30.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我祝愿您的书能顺利完成。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It literally means &quot;I wish your book will be completed as planned&quot;. I hope this translation matches your meaning well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="11744" LastEditDate="2015-10-19T08:30:35.660" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T08:30:35.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16199" CreationDate="2015-10-14T09:42:31.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's correct. It sounds native enough. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;怎么样&quot; in this sentence is used for asking how the things are. i.e. Are they good or bad? It's the same in &quot;你过得怎么样&quot; (literally &quot;How are you getting along (these days)? &quot;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your friend could answer &quot;还行&quot; (&quot;not so bad&quot;) &quot;很好&quot; (&quot;very well&quot;) or &quot;不怎么顺利&quot; (&quot;not so well&quot;), as a few examples. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T09:42:31.357" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16214" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-14T14:11:33.413" Score="1" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if there are different ways in Mandarin or Cantonese to express the causative, examplified by the help of the sentence &quot;to make s.o. jump&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T14:47:20.540" Title="In which ways can I express &quot;to make s.o. jump&quot; ?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16215" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16225" CreationDate="2015-10-14T14:51:34.127" Score="1" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;A random phrase from Lun-Heng begins with 或啁之曰, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as far as I understand its parts mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;或 someone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;啁 to chirp, to twitter&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;之 objectpronoun &quot;it,him,her&quot; as in &quot;I like him, I talk about it&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;曰 to say (stands right before a verbatim quotation)**&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rendered into one sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;someone twittered it saying: &quot;...&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not understand how 啁 to twitter fits into it, because if one twitters one makes sounds of a bird and does not speak to convey a contend. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T03:00:38.113" Title="what is the translation for 或啁之曰 ?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16216" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-14T15:23:47.160" Score="0" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence from the Kang-Xi Dictionary 或作譈懟，亦書作憞, I looked up&#xA;the characters 譈,懟,憞 all are pronounced  dui4 and all  are translated as to hate. I am confused  and do not know how to deal with this sentence. I am not sure, but those 3 charaters does not strike me as commonly used characters, or do they ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T14:52:40.650" Title="What is translation for 或作譈懟，亦書作憞 ?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16216" CreationDate="2015-10-14T16:33:06.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;或作譈懟，亦書作憞 means &quot;also, it is identified to 譈 or 懟; and it can be written as 憞.&quot;&#xA;They are all archaic words and no longer used today. Neither orally nor literally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11864" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T16:33:06.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14492" CreationDate="2015-10-14T16:53:33.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's called 连续变调.&#xA;In Chinese dialects such as Wu(spoken in Zhejiang Province and Jiangsu Province and Shanghai City), Min(spoken in Fujian province and Taiwan) or Cantonese(one member of the Yue Dialects), there exists the alterations of characters' tones when they are used in words. That's called 连续变调.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11864" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T16:53:33.177" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16214" CreationDate="2015-10-14T16:54:37.273" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The causative action can be expressed in many ways, the most common one in everyday Mandarin Chinese is 让, which is used together with the verb that expresses the action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make X jump can be 让X跳 or 让X跳起来 depending on the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;To further elaborate the causative&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition 使 and 叫 can also be used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;使 means &lt;em&gt;to cause&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to enable&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;to apply/use/employ&lt;/em&gt;, etc. and is often used in written language, e.g. 什么使你这样想呢? &lt;em&gt;What makes you think this way?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;叫 in itself means &lt;em&gt;to call&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to summon&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;to shout&lt;/em&gt; but can be used to express causative when someone was explicitly ordered to do something, e.g. 大夫叫他卧床一两天。&lt;em&gt;The doctor ordered(/instructed) him to stay in bed for a day or two.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some cases you can mutually replace 让, 使, 叫, in some cases not.  For example if you make someone jump by ordering him/her to jump it's 叫, because you instruct him/her verbally to do so. On the other hand if you are acting carelessly e.g. with a burning torch or a sharp knife and you cause the other person jump to avoid getting hurt, it cannot be 叫, because you are not instructing or calling on this person to do something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, note that when you see these verbs, they not necessarily express causative, all of these characters have their own set of meanings, but can be used to express &lt;em&gt;to make someone do something&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To learn more about this, I suggest you look into a proper grammar or text book or just look up more example sentences &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-10-15T14:47:20.540" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T14:47:20.540" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16209" CreationDate="2015-10-14T17:11:56.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, maybe you can say:&#xA;祝愿您妙笔生花，书香流芳。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11864" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T17:11:56.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16060" CreationDate="2015-10-14T17:20:31.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is okay to say &quot;不会&quot; in some context.&#xA;For example, sometimes people help you with something, you fell uneasy to bother and grateful with the help, you would say &quot;谢谢&quot;, it will imply that you are actually saying &quot;麻烦了&quot;. (Thank you. And I was sorry having bothered you.) People would say &quot;不会&quot;.(That's okay. It had not bothered me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11864" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T17:20:31.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16223" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16224" CreationDate="2015-10-14T17:23:06.570" Score="0" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;貪人之有者殘 is a phrase from 素書. I am not able to understand the grammatical structure of this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;貪: does it mean greedy or make s.o. greedy, or consider s.o. greedy , or greed (noun)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;貪人: is it just &quot;greedy person&quot; or is 人 not immediately connected with 貪&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;之: is it here an object pronoun or genitive-particle or the word &quot;go&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有: does it mean &quot;have&quot; or &quot;exist&quot; or &quot;come into existence&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;者: is this the particle that makes the whole part infront of it a noun-phrase ? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;殘: is it &quot;to injure&quot; or an adjective &quot;being in state of being injured&quot; ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you explain to me the grammatical structure of this sentence and its meaning in English ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-12T21:10:57.760" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T21:10:57.760" Title="What is the meaning of 貪人之有者殘?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16223" CreationDate="2015-10-14T17:35:26.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The structure is &amp;lt;贪[人之有]者&gt; &amp;lt;残&gt;.&#xA;&quot;贪 人之有 者&quot; can be translated as &quot;he who is lust for other people's possessions&quot;.&#xA;But I am sorry I don't know the exact meaning of 残 here. Maybe it means &quot;harm&quot;, &quot;impair&quot; or &quot;to be bad&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11864" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T17:35:26.983" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16215" CreationDate="2015-10-15T03:00:38.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here 啁 is a phonetic loan for 嘲, 'to mock', as in 嘲笑, so the phrase 或啁之曰could be translated &quot;Someone mocked him, saying...&quot; Using one character for another because they are pronounced similarly is common in older works.  You could compare it to the situation in earlier English works where the same word is often spelled different ways, even in the same sentence.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt there is any regular semantic relationship between 啁 in the sense of 嘲, and 啁 in the sense of 'noisy'. As the comment by nee.wong notes, although phonetically similar, they are still pronounced differently. In fact, 啁 meaning 'noisy' usually occurs only in onomatopoeic phrases such as 啁啾 zhoujiu or 啁哳 zhouzha.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T03:00:38.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16230" CreationDate="2015-10-15T14:02:08.357" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;A random phrase from the 道德經 is 豫兮若冬涉川 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the part 若冬涉川 as &quot;like crossing a stream in the winter&quot; where &quot;in the winter is used&quot; is used adverbially, so a more verbatim translation might be &quot;like winter-walking a stream&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked up the first characters as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;豫  relaxed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;兮  character that marks an exclamation (maybe like a pronounced ! ) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I cannot make any sense when combining both parts, the only translation I can come up with would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;relaxed yo ! like winter-walking the stream&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which does not make sense to me, because it feels paradox .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T14:17:18.897" Title="What is the meaning of 豫兮 in 豫兮若冬涉川 ?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16229" CreationDate="2015-10-15T14:17:18.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You must know that the character 豫  means being caution， being extremely careful;&#xA;兮 is modal particle， like 啊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So,the whole sentence means (他)犹豫小心，就如同冬天过河一样，不敢贸然下水似的. Being extremely caution so that he dare not cross the river in winter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11884" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T14:17:18.897" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9431" CreationDate="2015-10-15T17:46:00.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;起is more used in writing than speaking, though we still use that in normal talking.&#xA;A really formal way, as I could immediately remember, is &quot;自……始&quot; or &quot;自……启&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11827" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T17:46:00.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16234" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-15T21:16:28.673" Score="0" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two lines from 三字經 are 爾男子，當自警.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand 爾男子 as &quot;you boys&quot; as if asking for attention by adressing them.&#xA;警 is to warn or to guard or being in a state of attentive observation.&#xA;Now as for 當 and 自 I am very unsure, &#xA;what is their function in this sentence , how  would you explain their grammatical roles in terms of English grammar (adverbs, particles,sth. else ? )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T00:25:49.557" Title="What is the grammatical function of 當 and 自 in 爾男子，當自警 ?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16235" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16237" CreationDate="2015-10-16T00:23:15.457" Score="1" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you express in Chinese a conditional set in the past that did not actually happened? Like for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;if she had not helped her, they both would be dead now&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T23:00:20.527" Title="How do you translate &quot;if she had not helped her, they both would be dead now&quot; ?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16234" CreationDate="2015-10-16T00:25:49.557" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當 = should / must&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自警 = self-discipline&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think their grammatical roles are?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T00:25:49.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16235" CreationDate="2015-10-16T01:00:42.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;要是她没帮她，她们两个现在早都死了。 please notice the now in your phrase,.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11884" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T01:00:42.830" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16235" CreationDate="2015-10-16T14:31:30.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are asking about counterfactuals in Chinese. This is way too big a topic to discuss in detail here. Try looking at the entry for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Bloom&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Alfred Bloom&lt;/a&gt; in Wikipedia. This will give you some links, but is otherwise not very helpful. The SparkNotes version of the story: Bloom wrote a book in 1981 which claimed that Chinese cannot express counterfactuals and therefore Chinese people do not think counterfactually. People have been jumping up and down on him ever since. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what it's worth, my own feeling is that Chinese has plenty of ways of expressing counterfactuals, but there are significant linguistic differences between Chinese and English as well. That these influence people's thinking seems reasonable. That they explain why China was trampled underfoot by the great powers in the 19th century seems to overstate the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About your example: you have a conditional about something that didn't happen, indicated by if-negative past perfect then a pseudo-subjunctive. English uses a ton of fancy tense stuff here that Chinese simply doesn't have.  One way to translate, as in the solutions suggested by both Gerxy and Henry Ho, is just use a regular conditional structure with a time adverbial to keep things straight (早 or 已); another possibility that sometimes gets used is modals such as 會 as in Henry's second solution.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not unusual to run into counterfactuals that are extremely difficult to translate, and people often simply resort to explaining, rather than translating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T14:31:30.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16242" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16244" CreationDate="2015-10-17T16:09:44.983" Score="0" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the sentence 他是华胄，所以气质不凡. It is been translated as &quot;He is the offspring of a noble family, thus his character is not a common one&quot;. I also found for 华胄  the translation &quot;offspring of the huaxia&quot; and simply &quot;chinese&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Verbatim, 华胄 would be &quot;chinese helmet&quot;, &quot;flowery helmet&quot;, &quot;illustrous helmet&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously the word is a metaphor,&#xA;what was is its original meaning and what does it imply culturally as a metaphor ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2015-10-17T19:00:05.763" Title="What is the meaning behind 华胄 ?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16243" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16276" CreationDate="2015-10-17T16:54:55.587" Score="0" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;淫之以色，啗之以利，養之以味，娛之以樂 is a sentence from 六韜 (six secret teachings), a book about strategies. There are 4 lines each containing 4 characters and the same pattern: A 之以 B, wherein A and B are semantically related. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you give a translation and maybe an annotation on the grammatical structure? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:48:52.643" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T02:56:35.997" Title="What is the translation for 淫之以色，啗之以利，養之以味，娛之以樂?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16242" CreationDate="2015-10-17T19:00:05.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;胄 (由 + 月) means descendants, whereas 冑 (a different character, 由 + 冃) means helmet. Since they look similar, they got merged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华胄 means either of Han lineage or of noble descent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no word 华冑, which would mean Chinese helmet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-10-17T19:00:05.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16245" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16294" CreationDate="2015-10-17T20:09:48.817" Score="4" ViewCount="407" Body="&lt;p&gt;I run Fedora and was wondering if it's possible to write character components with keyboard? E.g. only the left part of &amp;quot;说&amp;quot;? If yes, how would one do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11896" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-03T00:21:41.830" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T00:21:41.830" Title="How to write character components on a keyboard?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16246" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-17T22:51:36.173" Score="1" ViewCount="601" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know where I can find a descriptive grammar and a generative grammar of Mandarin, in English or French?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11896" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-10-17T23:50:11.520" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T11:09:04.433" Title="Descriptive / generative grammar of Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16247" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16248" CreationDate="2015-10-18T01:39:18.360" Score="0" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;Started reading this article this morning: &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.cnfol.com/it/20151016/21610292.shtml?t=1445048857070&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;为抢红包，小伙跳楼威逼母亲买iPhone6s&lt;/a&gt; but couldn't get past the first word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;酗逼&lt;/strong&gt;母亲买6s，为此不惜以跳楼威胁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[emphasis is my own]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酗逼 appears again in the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;前几天媒体刚曝出马来西亚一女孩为买iPhone导致其母亲跪在大商场求其别买，没想到现在重庆也有一&lt;strong&gt;酗逼&lt;/strong&gt;母亲买6s，因为他嫌iPhone4S抢红包速度太慢，无奈其母亲每月1000多元的退休金实在买不起，他就在家里闹着要跳楼，其父身在外地求助警察，后经警察劝解，他认识到自己错误，离开了要跳楼的窗台，主动向母亲道了歉，并保证以后不再作出这样冲动的举动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't make heads nor tails of this word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-8&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;rsv_idx=2&amp;amp;tn=baidutop10&amp;amp;wd=%22%E9%85%97%E9%80%BC%22&amp;amp;oq=%E9%85%97%E9%80%BC&amp;amp;rsv_pq=f0f19cd600033298&amp;amp;rsv_t=8e96gjYbCx5rM9ZrNG6rq3Jka4nMfmMS3urlLJX8GRrUXiTm%2BdAZQ41yKh%2Fq4JYd3Q&amp;amp;rsv_enter=1&amp;amp;inputT=1339&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=7&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=1956&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;baidu search&lt;/a&gt; only gives the same article back for using the &lt;em&gt;exact&lt;/em&gt; word 酗逼, everything else just returns things like &lt;code&gt;酗酒逼...&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article has nothing to do with liquor &lt;code&gt;酒&lt;/code&gt; or the like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've got to guess it's a total mistake. Probably the author thought he was writing &lt;code&gt;xiong bi&lt;/code&gt; and not &lt;code&gt;xu bi&lt;/code&gt; anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What was the writer going for with '酗逼'?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T04:59:06.887" Title="What was the writer going for with '酗逼'?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16247" CreationDate="2015-10-18T12:40:02.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally, 酗 means drinking alcohol and getting drunk, 逼，force someone to do sth. I saw this word in some Classical Chinese text, but I don't think people use this word regularly. So, I suspect this could be typo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11752" LastActivityDate="2015-10-18T12:40:02.707" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16251" CreationDate="2015-10-18T14:43:37.547" Score="1" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;毋庸置疑 is a chengyu. Its meaning is &quot;beyound any doubt&quot;, but what is its verbatim meaning in literary Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;毋 is like &quot;don't&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;置 is &quot;to place, to put&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;疑 is &quot;doubt&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;庸 I am not sure of the correct meaning for&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please, if possible, explain the grammatical structure of the sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-08T02:29:31.717" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T02:29:31.717" Title="What is the meaning of 庸 in the phrase 毋庸置疑?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16250" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16253" CreationDate="2015-10-18T14:56:38.243" Score="3" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;A random passage from Mencius is:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;殺之而不怨，利之而不庸，民日遷善而不知為之者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first two lines have the same structure V1 之而不 V2, wherein V1 is expressing someone doing something to another and V2 how this one reacts to it. &#xA;I think I understand the first line 殺之而不怨: someone kills (some people from a group) and they (the group) don't begrudge it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 利之而不庸 I only understand so far that: someone makes the group benefit from something yet the group 庸, of which I don't know the meaning. The meanings I found in different online dictionaries do not make any sense to me in this context. 庸 is translated as &quot;common, unspecial, mean, low&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-12T20:56:24.347" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T20:56:24.347" Title="What is the meaning of 庸 in 利之而不庸?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16249" CreationDate="2015-10-18T15:30:40.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/xs/5EB8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;庸&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;code&gt;需要&lt;/code&gt; (need) here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) (会意。小篆字形。从用,从庚。“庚更”同音,表更换。先做某事,然后更换做别的事。本义:用;需要)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) 同本义 [need;adopt]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(4) 常与否定副词“无”、“勿”、“弗”连用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(5) 又如:无庸讳言;无庸细述;毋庸讳言;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;毋庸&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;无须/不必&lt;/code&gt; (no need to).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-10-18T15:30:40.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16252" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-18T15:52:15.123" Score="3" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help me with any differences between those words? C-E dictionaries say &quot;there's no way out&quot; or &quot;nothing can be done&quot; for all of them, C-C dictionaries say about the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I was corrected using 莫可奈何 and 沒轍 wrong in these examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 還不就是我媽，三天兩頭就幫我安排相親，他明知道我最排斥相親這件事！唉！別人我還可以不理，偏偏他是我老媽，我也【莫可奈何】。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 都什麼時代了，你買還來相親這一套啊？！不過話是回來，天下父母心，做父母的總是為子女的終身大事，我也 【沒轍】，沒法幫你。真是難為你了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I put 沒轍 for 莫可奈何 and vice versa. Can anyone explain the different notions of these two words? I added 沒辦法 as well, because maybe there are some similarities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for all the help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2821" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:48:08.357" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:48:08.357" Title="Difference between 沒轍, 莫可奈何，沒辦法" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16250" CreationDate="2015-10-18T15:54:36.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/xs/5EB8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;庸&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;code&gt;酬谢&lt;/code&gt; (reward) here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(10) 酬其功劳 [reward]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (11) 又如:庸勋(酬劳有功的人)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cy.babihu.com/cy_993146v_1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;And&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.酬其功劳。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  《书·益稷》：“明庶以功，车服以庸。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　孔颖达疏：“赐车服以旌别其人功能事用。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  《左传·僖公二十四年》：“庸勳、亲亲、暱近、尊贤，德之大者也。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  《孟子·尽心上》：“杀之而不怨，利之而不庸，民日迁善而不知为之者。”  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;利之而不庸&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;benefit them (the civilians), and they won't reward (someone)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-10-18T15:54:36.300" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16256" CreationDate="2015-10-18T16:05:16.997" Score="2" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does 到 contribute to the meaning of the expression:&#xA;这些的确是铁匠会&lt;strong&gt;用到&lt;/strong&gt;的老式钉子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference between sentences with and without it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这些的确是铁匠会&lt;strong&gt;用到&lt;/strong&gt;的老式钉子&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这些的确是铁匠会&lt;strong&gt;用&lt;/strong&gt;的老式钉子&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T10:16:03.713" Title="What is the grammatical function of 到 in 这些的确是铁匠会用到的老式钉子 ?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16254" CreationDate="2015-10-18T19:28:57.030" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;用到 = 用得到 where 到 is resultant compliment for the verb 用. 到 here means 'occurred; reached; accomplished' in the sense that without it, it sounds like 'attempted'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With some other verbs, the differentiation is more prominent, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抓老鼠 (try to) catch a mouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抓到老鼠 (manage to) catch a mouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to 用 the difference is mostly in certainty level but very trivial:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些的确是铁匠会&lt;strong&gt;用&lt;/strong&gt;的老式钉子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are true old fashioned clinch nails that a blacksmith &lt;strong&gt;might&lt;/strong&gt; use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些的确是铁匠会&lt;strong&gt;用到&lt;/strong&gt;的老式钉子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are true old fashioned clinch nails that a blacksmith &lt;strong&gt;would&lt;/strong&gt; use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note, 用到 could also mean 'use (...) towards' where 到 is a preposition meaning 'towards; for', as in 把时间用到最重要的事情上. It's unrelated to this question though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-10-18T19:28:57.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16257" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16258" CreationDate="2015-10-18T19:37:48.557" Score="0" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;不了​了之 is a ChengYu, read as bu4 liao3 liao3 zhi1 its figurative meaning is &quot;to let sth. in its original state&quot;. I guess the ChengYu had some concrete verbatim meaning in literary Chinese, but I do not understand it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I tried anyway to disclose its verbatim meaning, I would translate it into &quot;if it is not considered as finished, finish it&quot; and by conclusion &quot;If it is considered as finishd, do not finish it&quot;,&#xA; wherein  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了 = to finish &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不了 = to not finish, used as noun of the putative form &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了之 = finish it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;conditional not explicitly written.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(IF)不了-nominalized putative-(THEN)了之 - verb,object pronoun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But actually, this is only a shot in the dark and could be even false grammatical understanding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:51:34.647" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:51:34.647" Title="What is the verbatim (grammatical) meaning of 不了​了之?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16257" CreationDate="2015-10-18T20:10:32.247" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding for 不了 and 了之, respectively, are accurate. The key to your question is the relationship between the two parts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classical Chinese, omission of conjunctions is a very common thing, which brings beauty and ambiguity at the same time. In most cases it's intentionally left blank for the reader to interpret. There is no single correct answer. Even with the presence of a conjunction (e.g. 而), it could be just a syntactical tool without nailing down the logical relationship between two clauses. I believe this is the case in 不了了之. The most natural conjunction, if to insert, is 而 i.e. 不了而了之, however it is still unclear whether that's an 'and' or a 'but' or anything else. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing clear though is it's definitely not a strong causation (e.g. 'if-then'). But it could really be anything depending on the context from weak causation, adverseness/comparison, concession to simple time continuation. Some possible translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ending without finishing. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is no resolution but it's ended. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Settle by leaving unsettled. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Although it's not resolved, leave it be.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2015-10-18T20:10:32.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16259" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16262" CreationDate="2015-10-18T23:04:46.140" Score="4" ViewCount="757" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was recently corrected by a Chinese friend. He said it's incorrect to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不能找&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He said the right form is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我找不到 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which sentence structure pattern is this following. Is it used with only certain verbs? Only with 能／可以／会？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2670" LastEditorUserId="2670" LastEditDate="2015-10-20T03:58:12.987" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T03:11:41.220" Title="Why is 我找不到 correct and 我不能找 wrong? Which grammatical point am I missing?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16259" CreationDate="2015-10-19T00:31:52.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Um, in your description you had two identical sentences… Let's go with your title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我不能找&quot; is wrong. It conveys either that &quot;I am not allowed to search&quot; or &quot;I do not possess the ability to search.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我找不到&quot; is the correct way. It means &quot;I searched, but cannot find.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the nuance between not able to search (&quot;不能找&quot;) and not able to find (&quot;找不到&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11211" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T00:31:52.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16259" CreationDate="2015-10-19T01:46:39.957" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我不能找&quot;： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm &lt;em&gt;not able/ allowed/ permitted/ qualified&lt;/em&gt; to look for&#xA;  something/somebody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我找不到&quot;： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I &lt;em&gt;am not able to&lt;/em&gt;/ &lt;em&gt;cannot&lt;/em&gt; find the things that I am looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically, native speaker seldom use &quot;我不能找&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English speakers don't quite say &quot;I cannot look for something&quot; either, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastEditorUserId="11576" LastEditDate="2015-10-30T06:34:05.323" LastActivityDate="2015-10-30T06:34:05.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16259" CreationDate="2015-10-19T01:52:05.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just add some additional information:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;找 means to look for something, to search&#xA;找到 means to find&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this can be of some help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T01:52:05.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16264" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16304" CreationDate="2015-10-19T02:43:15.527" Score="0" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;Malcom X once said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. You can't hate Africa and not hate yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a fairly well known quote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any “official” translations of this quote? (Not Google translate, etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T15:50:29.040" Title="Is there an &quot;official&quot; translation of Malcom X's You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16265" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16269" CreationDate="2015-10-19T02:57:34.030" Score="15" ViewCount="8681" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using the ChineseSkill app to learn Chinese and I learned that '&lt;strong&gt;Sunday&lt;/strong&gt;' in Chinese is &lt;strong&gt;星期天&lt;/strong&gt; (xīngqītiān). However, sometimes on the internet I see &lt;strong&gt;星期日&lt;/strong&gt; (xīngqīrì).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are both correct? Why is there such a variation in usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11707" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:50:52.097" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:50:52.097" Title="Is Sunday 星期天 or 星期日?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2015-10-19T03:03:49.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are correct,  星期日 is more formal, and 星期天 is more colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T03:03:49.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2015-10-19T03:20:42.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;“星期日” is used in official, &quot;星期天&quot; is more used in daily conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11898" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T03:20:42.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16259" CreationDate="2015-10-19T03:24:36.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;我不能找&quot; is something stop me to seek something or I don't want to seek.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;我找不到&quot; is I seeked but I did't find anthing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11898" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T03:24:36.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2015-10-19T03:49:39.130" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;In theory, &lt;code&gt;星期日&lt;/code&gt; should be correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The concept of a week was introduced from the west, the name of days came from the Sun, the Moon and the stars. When they were introduced to China, only Sunday was preserved, the other days were renamed from 1 to 6, so they became &lt;code&gt;星期日&lt;/code&gt; (Sun -&gt; 日), &lt;code&gt;星期一&lt;/code&gt; ... &lt;code&gt;星期六&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chinese, &lt;code&gt;天&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;日&lt;/code&gt; could be used for the meaning of &lt;code&gt;day&lt;/code&gt; both. So the people started to say &lt;code&gt;星期天&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;星期日&lt;/code&gt;, and the original meaning (i.e. &lt;code&gt;Sun&lt;/code&gt;) was lost, which would be a &quot;misuse&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays &lt;code&gt;星期日&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;星期天&lt;/code&gt; are both correct. Basically in a formal context, such as in news, &lt;code&gt;星期日&lt;/code&gt; is used more than &lt;code&gt;星期天&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5e958df90100gch7.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;话说“星期日”与“星期天”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="3613" LastEditDate="2015-10-20T04:20:12.317" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T04:20:12.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16252" CreationDate="2015-10-19T04:10:24.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked up in the dictionary and felt nobody in the comments would hit the point. 莫可奈何 or 無可奈何 means that &quot;(things have already been this and) nothing more can be done&quot;. If you only want to express that nothing can be done, using 沒轍(more colloquial) or 沒辦法 are both OK.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The best-known usage of 無可奈何 is in 《史記》: A person named Fan Wuji committed suicide, and the Prince of Yan arrived too late to stop him. Since Fan was dead, the Prince felt 無可奈何 and used a box to contain Fan's head and returned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T04:10:24.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2015-10-19T06:17:21.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;星期天, 星期日, 周日, 礼拜天&#xA;they are all Sunday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11906" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T06:17:21.240" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2015-10-19T06:26:25.373" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my believe, 星期天 originates from 禮拜天 which literally means worship day. In christian view, Sunday is dedicated to worshiping God and because the week system is introduced from Western, therefore calling it &quot;worship day&quot; is correct and still being used in modern days. The meaning, however, is lost (this reminds me of Christmas being replaced by Xmas somehow).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11908" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T06:26:25.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2015-10-19T06:35:13.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;both of them is correct.i am chinese,we usuallay use xingqitian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11909" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T06:35:13.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16274" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16278" CreationDate="2015-10-19T07:12:35.217" Score="2" ViewCount="456" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=gACWYYCTWCWPV6JyC5A3RtrYVTNTf190kUShqV37ZNn_uMHPq6XR1BZrdHUuug8tJiBlHSGhXZyqwbiWBwCkJSivUAdq2zGZ1RprPq5VX57&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;人艰不拆 百度百科&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人艰不拆（读音rén jiān bù chāi），网络语，意思是“人生已经如此的艰难，有些事情就不要拆穿”。该词语出自林宥嘉歌曲《说谎》，“别说我说谎 人生已经如此的艰难，有些事情就不要拆穿”后常被网友在回帖中引用，楼主直接说出了一个事情的真相，只是让人一时无法直接面对的意思。“人艰不拆”已经在国家新闻出版广电总局今2014年11月27日发出的通知中被明令禁止使用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why did 人艰不拆 get banned?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T05:18:00.973" Title="Why did 人艰不拆 get banned?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16243" CreationDate="2015-10-19T08:00:27.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;之 = third person pronoun (it/him/her)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以 = with or indicating an indirect object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Verb 之以 Noun = VERB him with NOUN &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In context, 淫之以色，啗之以利，养之以味，娱之以乐 means (a &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; rough translation) &quot;(sexually) seduce him with sexy (women), lure him with benefit, accustom him with delicious food and amuse him with (obscene) music&quot;. It is included in a strategy saying that if you want to destroy your enemy nation, you need to first deceive (as in making him unable to make right decisions) the king then attack the military for the betterment of people. The sentence is detailing (figuratively) how you deceive the leader of enemy nation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4657" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T08:00:27.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16277" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-19T09:15:50.100" Score="0" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;is there anyone who can help me translate &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.creativebiomart.net/Mammalian-Two-Hybrid-System.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mammalian Two-Hybrid System&lt;/a&gt; into Chinese? I'm not sure is it 哺乳动物双杂交系统? Any help would be appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11914" LastActivityDate="2016-03-18T06:46:23.240" Title="What's the translation for Mammalian Two-Hybrid System to Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16274" CreationDate="2015-10-19T16:14:43.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chengyu (or idiom) is a cultural thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Getting banned&quot; is an administrative(political) thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing is that your quoted message is not accurate. The original order was from 《关于规范广播电视节目用语推广普及普通话的通知》（广发【2013】96号）, which was to clarify the usage in broadcasting programmes for popularizing Putonghua.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now why? Because Putonghua has an official standard, the official channels should keep their standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5741" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T16:14:43.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2015-10-19T19:46:51.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;星期日&lt;/code&gt; is preferred in formal situations, but &lt;code&gt;星期天&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;周日&lt;/code&gt; are more often used in daily situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, &lt;code&gt;期&lt;/code&gt; should be pronounced as &lt;code&gt;qī&lt;/code&gt;, not &lt;code&gt;qí&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11927" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T19:46:51.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2015-10-20T00:42:19.607" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;both are understanding 星期天 or 星期日 both ref to sunday, nothing different, this is command sense for Chinese in world wide, no worry dude, you can use  both of it &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11930" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T00:42:19.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6577" CreationDate="2015-10-20T01:08:39.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1st of all, u need to understand how chinese word work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多好看,basically this sentence base on english word theory we can seperate into 2, which is 多好 and 看 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多好mean very,great,better&#xA;看,say u know, that was straight forward, 'look'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but if we direct translate to english, it will be trouble, because when u replace above into sentence, you will get very look, great look (this make sense for you, maybe), better look, yet does not represent the actually mean, the actual mean is look nice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example :&#xA;你穿这衣服多好看 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if we direct translate u you get&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you dress this cloth better look / great look / better look&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the correct sentence should be&#xA;you look nice via this dressing ( and so on)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this is because the statement build for chineese and english is totally different, so sometime when we use the google translate, lot of them are make no sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11930" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T01:08:39.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16277" CreationDate="2015-10-20T02:57:23.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According after reading your reference :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mammalian Two-Hybrid System&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original record is talking about &quot;protein-protein interactions in mammalian cells&quot;. The protein is not living thing so it can't 雜交, 交合, 雜交 (these terms mean cross mating). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems below is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;哺乳動物細胞雙混合系統&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11934" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T02:57:23.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16209" CreationDate="2015-10-20T02:57:26.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope your book is coming along well.&#xA;more spoken: 希望你的书写得很顺利。&#xA;Official： 希望你的书创作得很顺利。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use these  sentences:&#xA;希望你的大作早日完稿。 Hope that your master piece can be finished soon.&#xA;希望早日读到你的大作。 Hope to read your book soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T02:57:26.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14519" CreationDate="2015-10-20T03:52:51.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the most important thing to help you understand the word &quot;予以&quot; is that this word comes from ancient Chinese. It's not a ordinary word in nowadays, rarely used in formal Chinese articles or government documents.&#xA;Since it's from ancient Chinese, we'd better separate the word into &quot;予&quot; and &quot;以&quot;. In ancient Chinese(文言文)，“予” means &lt;em&gt;give/provide&lt;/em&gt;, and usually uses independently in sentence. See below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;予人口实 Give testimony (usually implies by accidentally)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“以” means &lt;em&gt;with&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;So, “予以推进”, could be translated into &quot;&lt;em&gt;give resources to help advancement&lt;/em&gt;&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, there is a very useful site named &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ciyang.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;辞洋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can input character or word for explicit explanation in Chinese, including many ancient usages.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T03:52:51.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16259" CreationDate="2015-10-20T04:11:19.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我 = I/me 不能 = can't/not able 找 = find (means you cannot find thing, mostly people will ask you back why you cannot find thing?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 = I/me 找 = find 不到 = not reached/not completed (means failed to find something)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a Chinese =D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11937" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T04:11:19.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13552" CreationDate="2015-10-20T05:26:02.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct way to separate this sentence into phrases: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;不断 向 产业链的高端 提升 是 发展趋势 的 要求&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main point of the sentence is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;提升 是 要求&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All words before &quot;提升&quot; should be adjective here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T05:26:02.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16264" CreationDate="2015-10-20T05:41:24.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think should be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;你不能恨一棵树的根，而不恨树。你不能恨非洲，&lt;strong&gt;却&lt;/strong&gt;不恨自己。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's literal translation, I don't know whether there is a more elegant way like translated into Chinese idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T05:41:24.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16264" CreationDate="2015-10-20T08:53:32.523" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are many chinese saying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人穷怪屋基、屋漏怪瓦稀&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人醜不要怪父母，人窮不要怪政府&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11898" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T08:53:32.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16245" CreationDate="2015-10-20T13:41:47.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;五笔输入法&lt;/a&gt;, but I think it would be very difficult to learn, even to native Chinese speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the best way to do it is draw it with mouse, some input method support the feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T13:41:47.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16245" CreationDate="2015-10-20T17:07:04.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like @user25500062 said, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;五笔输入法&lt;/a&gt; can do this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you mean &lt;code&gt;strokes&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;particles&lt;/code&gt;, not keys, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Wubi Shurufa&lt;/code&gt;, or the &lt;code&gt;Wubi Input Method&lt;/code&gt;, is used mainly by older Chinese people who never properly learned &lt;code&gt;pinyin&lt;/code&gt; in school. Most of the younger generation use only &lt;code&gt;pinyin&lt;/code&gt;. However, if you put the time and effort into using wubi, you'll type at an amazing speed, and will be able to do what you're looking for. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very useful for learning the stroke order of the characters. If you don't understand pinyin yet, you should learn pinyin too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However... I think you should also look for a drawing pad IME that converts drawn characters to their correct character, but you may need to try it a few times, and will most likely need the correct stroke order. I tried several, and sometimes it doesn't completely recognize the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're too lazy to find a proper application (like I am right now), you can head on over to &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; and select the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Down-arrow icon at the bottom-left corner.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select the option, &quot;Chinese (Simplified, China) - Handwrite&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can draw characters and try to get them converted. Make sure you're translating &lt;code&gt;&quot;FROM&quot; Chinese&lt;/code&gt; &quot;&lt;code&gt;TO&quot; any other language&lt;/code&gt; before attempting this, or it won't show up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11925" LastEditorUserId="11925" LastEditDate="2015-10-20T19:48:23.933" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T19:48:23.933" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2015-10-20T22:05:49.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;星期日 is much better because it carries over a bit of history. it has to do with how Chinese defined the 7 days weeks&#xA;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%9F%E6%9C%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%9F%E6%9C%9F&lt;/a&gt;)&#xA;星期天 doesn't make much sense if you try to analyze the phrase's formation, its much more colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T22:05:49.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13664" CreationDate="2015-10-20T23:32:05.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been using Lingoes for a long time, and I also use GoldenDict on my android cellphone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The beauty of GoldenDict is that it supports a lot dictionary formats, and lingoes format is one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can download 高级汉语大词典 here, and add it to the GoldenDict folder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lingoes.cn/download/dict/ld2/Advanced%20Chinese%20Big%20Dictionary.ld2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.lingoes.cn/download/dict/ld2/Advanced%20Chinese%20Big%20Dictionary.ld2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T23:32:05.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16246" CreationDate="2015-10-20T23:35:36.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot websites about Chinese grammar online, just google for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a copy of 外国人实用汉语语法, I would say it is a excellent book, but the one I have is of an old edition. Here is the revised edition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外国人实用汉语语法(修订本)(中英文对照)&#xA;A PRACTICAL CHINESE GRAMMAR FOR FOREIGNERS(Revised Edition) (In both English and Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.cn/%E5%A4%96%E5%9B%BD%E4%BA%BA%E5%AE%9E%E7%94%A8%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E8%AF%AD%E6%B3%95-%E6%9D%8E%E5%BE%B7%E6%B4%A5/dp/B001J0ADWA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.cn/%E5%A4%96%E5%9B%BD%E4%BA%BA%E5%AE%9E%E7%94%A8%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E8%AF%AD%E6%B3%95-%E6%9D%8E%E5%BE%B7%E6%B4%A5/dp/B001J0ADWA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2015-10-21T17:44:41.257" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T17:44:41.257" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16245" CreationDate="2015-10-21T01:25:34.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You just need an input method with a dictionary of bushou(部首) characters. While you are running Fedora Linux, I recommend you to try an open source input method engine called Rime. There are two front-ends available for Linux distros: ibus-rime and fcitx-rime. And it is cross-platfom, which means you can use your own configuration on Windows, Mac OS X and Android.&#xA;You can customize your own dictionary. For example, you can just input 'shuo' and get a candidate list containing &quot;讠&quot; and &quot;訁&quot;. It's up to you and you don't have to learn an extra way to input Chinese characters like 五笔(Wubi).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11864" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T01:25:34.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16301" CreationDate="2015-10-21T05:46:05.447" Score="2" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;Baidu translates &lt;code&gt;girdling root&lt;/code&gt; as 环根.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Icibia quotes Baidu with the exact same entry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu images returns nothing resembling a girdling root upon 环根 search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu also returns very little about 环根 itself, mostly giving results about 环根芹[属].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is &quot;girdling root&quot; &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; 环根 in Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T06:13:59.730" Title="Is &quot;girdling root&quot; *really* 环根 in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16246" CreationDate="2015-10-21T07:46:33.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are quite a lot of Chinese grammar books. I have got one here:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide&lt;br&gt;&#xA;by Claudia Ross and Jing-heng Sheng Ma&lt;br&gt;&#xA;现代汉语实用语法&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ISBN: 9780415700108  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sold in Amazon ranging from $30 to $100. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; Tens of various grammar books are listed in Chinese Grammar Wiki. The one above is included. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T07:46:33.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16299" CreationDate="2015-10-21T12:23:22.673" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be short, yes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;環根 is the roots growing around the tree trunk, with time, both the roots and the trunk would grow thicker, to the point when they pressure each other, causing the tree to grow weak and even wither. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=3&amp;amp;ved=0CC4QFjACahUKEwjY1qWDytPIAhVBpIgKHbhUD-E&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fla2.thu.edu.tw%2Fdownload.php%3Ffilename%3D17_3f153afa.pdf%26dir%3Dwriting_journal%2F8%26title%3D%25E9%259B%25BB%25E5%25AD%2590%25E6%25AA%2594%25E4%25B8%258B%25E8%25BC%2589&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNErK9ivtssntUCK7MAqvJxKjuiHpw&amp;amp;sig2=gBlxJUknlccNF_Gb_XgpmQ&amp;amp;bvm=bv.105814755,d.cGU&amp;amp;cad=rjt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; (PDF download) is a study done by Associate Professor Chang Chin Yu from Department of Landscape Architecture, Tunghai University. Sorry it's in traditional Chinese cause I'm from Taiwan (plus Tunghai University is in Taiwan). I believe Google translate can do the traditional-to-simplified work for you ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11908" LastEditorUserId="11908" LastEditDate="2016-11-16T06:13:59.730" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T06:13:59.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16216" CreationDate="2015-10-21T14:52:40.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;康熙字典(KangXi Dictionary) is a rarely used dictionary, you can't even find it in a common book store in China. You should go to special book stores or big library to find one if you need it. &#xA;So, it's not a dictionary for ordinary people, most of characters it contains are no longer used in nowadays. My suggestion is you should not dig so deep if you are just begin to learn Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T14:52:40.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16205" CreationDate="2015-10-21T15:19:03.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding 狩, @倪阔乐 's answer is not correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to explaination from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/72E9.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/72E9.htm&lt;/a&gt; , it means hunting in winter, and especially means burn woods to force animals run away indeed easy for hunting.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T15:19:03.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16264" CreationDate="2015-10-21T15:26:07.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Such sayings have their culture background and only Malcom X himself could tell whether a translation is right or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;背祖忘宗&quot; or &quot;數典忘祖&quot; may carry a similar meaning but does not have the same context.  Not to say creative translations like &quot;惱根怎可不惱樹, 厭鄉也該厭自己&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2015-10-21T15:50:29.040" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T15:50:29.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16205" CreationDate="2015-10-21T16:12:41.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence you quoted is actually explaining/supplementing the sentence &quot;明夷于南狩，得其大首，不可疾貞。&quot; which means (approximately) &quot;to go south to for war, capturing/killing the bad leader, in a righteous manner&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, such &quot;志&quot; is considered &quot;大得&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T16:12:41.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16306" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-21T19:04:10.037" Score="2" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does one translate the following sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't &lt;em&gt;afford&lt;/em&gt; to lose any more time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't afford to lose any more sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried looking this up, but nothing quite matches the meaning I want to convey.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T10:05:07.690" Title="How to translate this usage of &quot;afford&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16307" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16312" CreationDate="2015-10-21T19:53:06.233" Score="0" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been writing Chinese sentences just to get myself used to the language, and I tried writing the sentence &lt;em&gt;I carry my cat&lt;/em&gt;. I translated this to &lt;code&gt;我携带我的猫&lt;/code&gt; (Pinyin: wǒ xié dài wǒ de māo). It sounds odd to have another instance of &lt;code&gt;wǒ&lt;/code&gt; in the same sentence.&#xA;Is this sentence correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11877" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T04:40:06.380" Title="Is 我携带我的猫 grammaticaly correct?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16306" CreationDate="2015-10-21T22:59:48.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;I can't afford to&quot; can translate directly to &quot; 我（已（经））无法承受……&quot;&#xA;I can't afford to lose any more time. 我无法承受损失任何更多的时间。&#xA;I can't afford to lose any more sleep. 我无法承受损失任何更多的睡眠。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adding 已 or 已经 enhances the negative tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T22:59:48.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16307" CreationDate="2015-10-21T23:02:55.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually we don't use animals as the object of 携带, but using animals after 带 is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 我带我的猫一起去旅行。 I carry my cat while travelling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T23:02:55.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16306" CreationDate="2015-10-21T23:09:31.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't afford to lose any more time.&#xA;我不能再损失更多的时间。&#xA;我损失不起更多的时间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't afford to lose any more sleep.&#xA;我不能再损失更多的睡眠。&#xA;我损失不起更多的睡眠。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T23:09:31.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16307" CreationDate="2015-10-22T01:55:49.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我携带我的猫。This sentence is grammatically correct.We Chinese people are more used to.我抱(着)我的猫 or我带(着)我的猫。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11286" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T01:55:49.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16307" CreationDate="2015-10-22T02:14:43.650" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a sign, it is common to see &quot;不可攜帶寵物&quot;, &quot;請勿攜犬入內&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, we seldom use &quot;攜&quot; or &quot;攜帶&quot; in ordinary text; simply &quot;帶&quot; is okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T02:14:43.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16307" CreationDate="2015-10-22T10:40:13.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我携带我的猫 is grammatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say that 携带 and 带 have a difference in register. We usually find 携带 in signs or instructions (eg. websites of airlines), which are much formal. But generally speaking, in texts or even conversations, we use 带&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11955" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T10:40:13.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16314" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16319" CreationDate="2015-10-22T19:03:59.810" Score="0" ViewCount="499" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was practicing the usage of prepositions and made the sentence &lt;code&gt;我走通过城市。&lt;/code&gt; This sentence was intended to translate back to &quot;I walk through the city.&quot;, which it did. However, adding the word &lt;code&gt;怕&lt;/code&gt; with the intention to say &quot;I am afraid to walk through the city&quot;, apparently now the word &lt;code&gt;走&lt;/code&gt; has the context of &quot;go&quot; in the sentence &lt;code&gt;我怕走通过城市。&lt;/code&gt;, so now it translates to &quot;I am afraid to go through the city.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Why does the word &lt;code&gt;走&lt;/code&gt; change in this sentence?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;NOTE: I do know that the words 'go' and 'walk' generally have similar meanings in English, I'm just wondering why it is changed.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11877" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T04:52:11.833" Title="Why in some contexts does 走 mean &quot;walk&quot;, but in others &quot;go&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16315" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16316" CreationDate="2015-10-23T00:00:41.777" Score="2" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just the word throttle or when it is used in phrases like &quot;bandwidth throttling&quot; or &quot;throttle internet connection&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T00:01:24.427" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T00:01:24.427" Title="How would you translate &quot;throttling&quot; to Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16315" CreationDate="2015-10-23T00:56:24.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bandwidth throttling=带宽限制&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Throttled internet connection=（带宽）受限的网络连接&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9790" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T00:56:24.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16317" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16318" CreationDate="2015-10-23T03:01:03.797" Score="1" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read this quotation when I was reading some English paper, I am really curious to know what is its original Chinese text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In pursuit of knowledge, every day something is acquired; in pursuit of wisdom, every day something is dropped. -- Lau Tzu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11536" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T14:04:21.973" Title="Original Chinese text to Lau Tzu's quotation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16317" CreationDate="2015-10-23T03:35:37.797" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's &lt;code&gt;为学日益，为道日损&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为学日益，为道日损，损之又损，以至于无为，无为而无不为。取天下常以无事，及其有事，不足以取天下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;——老子《道德经》第四十八章&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-10-23T03:48:46.563" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T03:48:46.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16314" CreationDate="2015-10-23T04:02:29.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are really three words you need to figure out here: 走，去，離開。  去 usually means to go 'toward' a particular place, which is not my current location, or not the location of the topic of the sentence. This is NOT the same as English.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example of the difference, in English, we say 'Go away' when we want someone to leave our immediate vicinity. In Chinese we cannot use 去 (unless you say 去你的, which is very rude, close to **** off); instead we must use 走(開). 離開 is more like 'depart', but has some overlap with 'leave' as well. It means to remove oneself from a specific place.  This sometimes overlaps with 走, but never with 去 (I think). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走 means 'walk' in the sense that one's movement is on foot.  In sharp contrast with 去, there is no destination, so when one says 他走過市場, it means he walked by or through the market; what is his his destination? unknown; perhaps there is none.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand if you say 他去過市場, it is quite different: &quot;He once went to the market&quot; Notice that 過 here is the aspectual particle, not the locative word 'through'.  This means 'He has been to (gone to) the market' His destination was the market, and this often has the sense that his purpose was to visit it; it is not unusual to see '去' translated as 'visit' because it means you went to a place for a purpose, perhaps just of being there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走's overlap with 離開 and 'go' is often quite confusing.  For example, 他離開了 simply means 'he left some place', but 他走了, in addition to leaving some place, can also mean &quot;He died.&quot;  In English, of course, we would say, &quot;He's gone.&quot;  Yikes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T04:02:29.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16314" CreationDate="2015-10-23T04:21:55.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;走 means Leaving only in the following similar CONTEXTS: 你现在走吗？ 你这就要走吗？他走了，不回来了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for other situations, 走 usually means walking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T04:21:55.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16323" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16325" CreationDate="2015-10-23T06:31:38.997" Score="2" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very basic question about a simple topic that is not really clear to me (curiously, my book doesn't address it, or, more probably, I don't get it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are rules to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to pluralize personal pronouns: just add &quot;们&quot; (e.g.: 我 [I] -&gt; 我们 [we])&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to make possessive adjective from personal pronouns: just add &quot;的&quot; (e.g.: 我 [I] -&gt; 我的 [my])&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can these rules be combined to make possessive adjective for plural pronouns (e.g.: 我 [I] -&gt; 我们的 [our])?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastActivityDate="2015-10-26T02:41:32.843" Title="Possessive and plural: usage of 们 and 的" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16323" CreationDate="2015-10-23T07:45:46.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;same rule applys for animal pronouns 它&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T07:45:46.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16323" CreationDate="2015-10-23T07:46:34.030" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Stan (see first comment in the question) and sotondolphin (see other answer), the answer is: Yes.&#xA;So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们的 -&amp;gt; our&#xA;你们的 -&amp;gt; your&#xA;他们的 -&amp;gt; their&#xA;她们的 -&amp;gt; their&#xA;它们的 -&amp;gt; their&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T07:46:34.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2934" CreationDate="2015-10-23T08:38:21.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;because it sounds cute~~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T08:38:21.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16329" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-23T14:08:50.350" Score="3" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;To become a Buddhist &quot;monk&quot; or &quot;nun&quot; is called &lt;em&gt;chūjiā&lt;/em&gt; 出家. What is it called to take Catholic orders, other than &lt;em&gt;dāng shénfù&lt;/em&gt; 當神父, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt; (after reading some comments): A former Dominican novice told me that 出家 is sometimes used in the case of taking monastic orders. I'd be especially interested to hear from other people who have first-hand experience with this calling in a Chinese-language context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastEditorUserId="11958" LastEditDate="2015-10-25T11:14:27.443" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T23:17:05.117" Title="How to translate &quot;take Catholic orders&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8675" CreationDate="2015-10-23T14:46:59.300" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/8695/5714&quot;&gt;the earlier answer&lt;/a&gt;, but I had the same question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if it can help, I found an interesting information at &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/List_of_separable_verbs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki's list of separable verbs&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;and especially at &lt;a href=&quot;https://mandarinfriend.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/separable-verbs-a-misleading-concept-for-chinese-learners/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“Separable Verbs” – A Misleading and Unnecessary Concept&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-10-24T10:20:10.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16331" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16332" CreationDate="2015-10-23T14:47:20.213" Score="2" ViewCount="393" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm self translating common phrases in English, and I tried to translate &quot;Excuse me, do you have the time?&quot; And I came up with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;劳驾、做你有那个时？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a natural sounding sentence and is it correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11877" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T09:21:29.020" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T09:22:06.017" Title="Does 劳驾、做你有那个时？ sound natural? (&quot;Excuse me, do you have the time?&quot;)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16331" CreationDate="2015-10-23T15:26:29.887" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately it's not correct. You could say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;打扰一下，你知道现在几点吗？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;对不起，现在几点了？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T15:26:29.887" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16331" CreationDate="2015-10-23T17:09:27.790" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;打扰一下=(bother for a while) 对不起=(sorry)&#xA;but the meaning still can be use for the sentences&#xA;and the 你知道现在几点吗 meaning is (do you know what time now?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese so I know it,&#xA;more accurately &#xA;Excuse me=(不好意思)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for the whole translation is like this:&#xA;不好意思，你知道现在几点吗？(do you have the time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11937" LastEditorUserId="11937" LastEditDate="2015-10-26T06:38:25.087" LastActivityDate="2015-10-26T06:38:25.087" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16334" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-23T18:34:41.753" Score="7" ViewCount="2002" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most difficult for me in learning Chinese is memorizing the correct tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to find on web what the most frequently used tones are, but it seems to be hard to find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose if one tone is used 50 % of the time, I will just need to memorize the other ones. For instance tone 4 seems to be very frequently used, and I will just have to memorise perfectly tones 1, 2 and 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-10-24T01:47:34.400" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T19:37:43.127" Title="Which is the most frequently used tone?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16335" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16338" CreationDate="2015-10-23T19:27:27.713" Score="3" ViewCount="2744" Body="&lt;p&gt;I keep on thinking that the way it is pronounced (māo) seemed to mimic the  noises a cat makes (&lt;em&gt;meow!&lt;/em&gt;). The character seems identical to the one for the same word in Japanese. Was this the original character that the Japanese language piggybacked off of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11877" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T06:49:21.853" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T06:49:21.853" Title="What is the origin of the word 猫 (cat)?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16335" CreationDate="2015-10-23T21:23:59.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;you're correct on both of your assumptions; but keep in mind, simplified Chinese comes from traditional Chinese which in turn has origins. And in this case, 猫 came from 貓; the left part of the word, 豸 indicates its Cat type animal and the right side, 苗 gives it how it sounds when it makes sound. and together it described what kind of beast it is and what sound it makes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and if you see kanji in Japanese you can almost always assume its coming from Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T21:23:59.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16334" CreationDate="2015-10-23T22:49:56.103" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did some searching for &lt;code&gt;tone distribution chinese&lt;/code&gt; and found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-distribution-of-tones-in-Mandarin-Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;What is the distribution of tones in Mandarin Chinese?&quot;) on Quora.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One person who responded took a list of characters and extracted, with some programming, the tone(s) for each character. (Multiple pronunciations are permitted and counted separately.) The result he got was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First tone:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;24.2% (counting by characters)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;26.9% (counting by appearance in words)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Second tone:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;28.1% (counting by characters)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;24.7% (counting by appearance in words)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Third tone:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;16.3% (counting by characters)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;18.3% (counting by appearance in words)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fourth tone:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;31.4% (counting by characters)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;30.1% (counting by appearance in words)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I am not sure what exactly was counted as a &quot;word&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More importantly, there is also the presence of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a tone sandhi&lt;/a&gt;. This allows for a &quot;neutral&quot; tone (e.g. in 妈妈) and in a sequence of two repeated third tones, for the first third tone to shift to a second tone (e.g. in 你好). (There are also some more examples with the behaviour of specific characters.) As a result, working off of dictionary entries may not reflect actual frequencies of tones, and moreover, the specific tone used will depend on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, this and my experiences with Chinese indicate that there's no one tone that comes up overwhelmingly frequently. However, there are some pointers in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/116/5714&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; for tone memorisation, and I particularly like the idea &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/6142/5714&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T22:49:56.103" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16335" CreationDate="2015-10-24T05:28:10.120" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Japanese character you're referring to is 貓. Currently, in China they use 猫. Although 猫 is considered the simplified character of 貓, 猫 is already mentioned as a variant form in the 廣韻 dictionary, which is now a millennium old (although of course, 豸 is used for felines and 犭for canines...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question about the sound is interesting, and you could note that the sound cats make, meow, is written with the character 喵, pronounced miāo. Looking at the Kangxi dictionary, we can see that the pronunciation of 貓 also used to be some sort of &quot;miao&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, dictionaries don't seem to comment on the fact that they named the animal after its sound. The only explanation of the name I see is: 鼠善害苗。貓能捕鼠，故字从苗。, i.e. &quot;Mice damage crops (lit. &quot;苗&quot; miao, sprouts), cats can catch them, hence the character deriving from 苗&quot;, which of course seems a bit bullshit. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10901" LastActivityDate="2015-10-24T05:28:10.120" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16329" CreationDate="2015-10-24T13:14:55.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the phrase might be &lt;code&gt;担任圣职&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;授任圣职&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinacatholic.org/News/show/id/30761.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt;'s an article talking about Pope Francis. It uses &lt;code&gt;担任圣职&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the second translation, here's a quote from &lt;code&gt;The Three Musketeers&lt;/code&gt; (in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1257/1257-h/1257-h.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Ordination!&quot; cried d'Artagnan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is translated in &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=fgycZH5oQfEC&amp;amp;pg=PA246&amp;amp;lpg=PA246&amp;amp;dq=%E5%9C%A3%E8%81%8C%E6%8E%88%E4%BB%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese&lt;/a&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“圣职授任礼！” 达达尼昂叫起来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2019-04-17T23:17:05.117" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T23:17:05.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16329" CreationDate="2015-10-24T13:53:26.577" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Holy orders&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圣秩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to take holy orders&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;领受圣秩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;21st Century&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 圣职受任仪式&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 牧师职位&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 牧师的品位等级&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KEY, ABC, A Chinese-English Dictionary, Grand Ricci all call this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;神品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Liang-An also calls it &lt;code&gt;神品&lt;/code&gt; saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也作［圣品］、［圣秩］&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-10-24T13:53:26.577" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16334" CreationDate="2015-10-25T11:19:36.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even more useful than learning the individual tones is their learning their combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One combination many English-speakers seem to have trouble with is 3 + 2, as in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Měiguó 'America'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;hěn máng 'busy, quite busy'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;xiěwȧn 'to finish writing'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;liǎnpén 'basin for washing the face'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc. This combination is particularly useful because it helps people grasp the correct sound of &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; tone 2 and tone 3, by juxtaposing them and so highlighting their differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advantage of learning all 4 * 5 = 20 combinations reasonably well is that each two-syllable word you know serves as a model for new words that have the same pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastActivityDate="2015-10-25T11:19:36.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16323" CreationDate="2015-10-26T02:41:32.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the suffix &lt;em&gt;de&lt;/em&gt; 的 can make any noun (including pronouns) possessive. It has other uses, too, but the possessive is one important case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastActivityDate="2015-10-26T02:41:32.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16331" CreationDate="2015-10-26T04:51:20.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;做你有那个时&quot; sounds very strange to me and honestly I wouldn't have known what you meant had I not read the English version&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;劳驾&quot; isn't really appropriate in this type of sentence either&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;something like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“不好意思，请问现在几点” is more natural sounding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11971" LastActivityDate="2015-10-26T04:51:20.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16345" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-26T10:20:37.110" Score="7" ViewCount="415" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend complained that she aged five years in an instant and she posted some photos. I commented that she always has excellent skin and looks very young. Then she said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是你太能說了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean something like, &quot;you are such a skilled flatterer&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T03:12:36.607" Title="&quot;是你太能說了&quot;這句話什麼意思？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16346" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-26T10:23:39.480" Score="0" ViewCount="713" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to gain more exposure to northern Chinese accents. I feel their vocabulary, speed of talking, and even which idioms they use are very different from the rest of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. My friend recommended a popular TV show, but it has to do with ancient Chinese history. I can't recall the name of the TV show, but while it was definitely what wanted in terms of hearing more northern accents, learning words like 陛下 aren't quite useful to me as far as conversation, reading, business, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any TV series, dramas, shows, etc. that are very popular that can allow me to be exposed to more northern styled Chinese? It can be a 电视剧 or any sort of show as long as it can help me with modern northern Chinese language. Note: I really don't like 爸爸去哪儿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I apologize as I don't mean to just categorize one group of people as &quot;northerners&quot;. It's hard for me to specifically say which area, as I don't have much exposure to northern accents at all (hence the blunt question), but I suppose Beijing would be more of what I'm referring to, or, as NS.X said, anything with a slight northern accent. I suppose a romance / drama series may be best as well, since I find those to be most helpful with conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3011" LastEditorUserId="3011" LastEditDate="2015-10-27T07:40:05.397" LastActivityDate="2015-11-01T07:53:42.783" Title="Chinese TV shows with northern Chinese accents" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-10-28T18:30:03.117" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16345" CreationDate="2015-10-26T10:57:23.280" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;能说&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;be able to talk much&lt;/code&gt; literally, i.e. &lt;code&gt;talkative&lt;/code&gt;, and maybe they're nonsense, unreasonable. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你太能说了，我再也受不了你了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You are so talkative. I can't put up with you anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if your friend used this word correctly, here's a bit meaning of &lt;code&gt;you're a little sophistical&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: If I'm your friend, I'll say &lt;code&gt;是你太会说了&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;会说&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;be able to talk persuasively or eloquently, good at talking&lt;/code&gt;. Maybe not many words, but reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference only: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=ESdBO5pHjFd4vfxUc-qQqUGvqnwy6RuY0_LOtgRL-Ln8_O9NIhAmLRcchRr9Rd9T0cSG1cNknhOzccDCesCamlLpbu5ox9xv3Mkc-9PKmk3&quot;&gt;能说与会说的区别，最好举例&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;能说的人是话痨，话多，但不见得都有用…会说的人，话不一定多，但说的话有道理，有分寸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-10-26T10:57:23.280" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16350" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16362" CreationDate="2015-10-26T17:25:40.610" Score="0" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is apparently a jargon engineering term for something to do with frequency (Hz). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing it might be something to do with resonance (&quot;sweet spot&quot;?) but I've not run into it, and neither have the two native Mandarin-speaking engineers I've asked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9242" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T05:27:05.333" Title="Meaning of 甜-Z (Z is the upper-case English letter)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16252" CreationDate="2015-10-27T00:27:51.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;These three phrases differ in register, which affects how and when they will be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;méi bànfǎ&lt;/em&gt; 沒辦法 is basic Mandarin and can be used in ordinary speech and writing without any issues arising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;mò kě nàihé&lt;/em&gt; 莫可奈何 is a highly learnèd idiom; a more common form is &lt;em&gt;wú kě nàihé&lt;/em&gt;  無可奈何. As four-character Classical idioms, they have a certain formal &quot;air&quot; to them, even though 無可奈何 is pretty common. But it is a less basic expression than 沒辦法 — I would use 沒辦法 nine times out of ten, at least. I have never used 莫可奈何.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;méizhé&lt;/em&gt; 沒轍 is highly colloquial and has a regional flavor. I wouldn't use it unless it's part of your normal regional accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastEditorUserId="11958" LastEditDate="2015-10-27T04:13:50.143" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T04:13:50.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16345" CreationDate="2015-10-27T02:07:18.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, your understanding is totally correct. She said you are a over skilled flatterer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T02:07:18.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16346" CreationDate="2015-10-27T02:41:18.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there is no specific &quot;northern accents&quot; exists in China. Although Putonghua pronunciation based on northern dialect, but the differences among regions still exist. Beijing and Tianjin are so close to each other, but they still speaks in different tones, don't even mention Henan accent, Shanxi accent, or Shandong accent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume you were talking about the Putonghua accent, which is also the standard accent nowadays. All public(satellite) TV programs in China mainland are in &quot;northern accent&quot;(standard accent) in my opinion, except those TV programs broadcasting in local cable channel or those special TV programs made for minority people(Tibetan, Uygur). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you want to learn Chinese from dramas or entertainment programs, just turn on your TV, and follow the pronunciation. If you were trying to find recommendations on programs, I would like to suggest below TV dramas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《我爱我家》 &lt;em&gt;I Love My Family&lt;/em&gt;. A popular comedy series in 2000s.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《家有儿女》 &lt;em&gt;Home with Kids&lt;/em&gt;. Popular comedy series made in 2000s.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2015-10-29T01:53:40.240" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T01:53:40.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16346" CreationDate="2015-10-27T03:02:44.450" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Update history:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OCT27 2015: Write down the 1,2,3 parts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OCT28 2015: add the 4th part&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OCT28 2015: add explanation to @tofu_bacon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOV01 2015: Note which is TV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;explanation to @tofu_bacon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shalom, my content is not just categorize them. I want to divide them more orderly. To answer your question more clearly, I add some romance/ city TV series and also I will note them with &lt;em&gt;EMPHASIS&lt;/em&gt; to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the northern Chinese accents is a large range because in Northern China, there are many different accents. And the standard pronunciation (Pu tong hua) is also based on northern Chinese accents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will introduce these  types and the movies or TV with them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;1.Northwest Chinese:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Xinjiang Accent:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《无人区》&lt;/strong&gt; - Movie -   (It's a chinese road movie in which you can hear different type accents in Xinjiang and Qinghai, not only the Uygur language)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Shaanxi Accent:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《关中匪事》&lt;/strong&gt; - TV series -   (Especially the theme song of this TV, is created by a famous Shaanxi composer )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《武林外传》&lt;/strong&gt; - TV series -  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iqiyi.com/a_19rrk2hct9.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.iqiyi.com/a_19rrk2hct9.html&lt;/a&gt; (The lead role woman: Tong is an actually Shaanxi Accents)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《平凡的世界》&lt;/strong&gt; - TV series -    (in this TV, you may listen another type Shaanxi accent, because Shaanxi province have three geographical conditions so it has three different life style and accent, this TV from a famous book in China written by a north Shaanxi Author: Luyao)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;2.Beijing Accents:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beijing accent does not means the Putonghua, for many authentic Beijing director or screenwriter, they like to design some roles with pure Beijing accent instead of Putonghua. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《大宅门》&lt;/strong&gt; - TV series -  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iqiyi.com/a_19rrk57msh.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.iqiyi.com/a_19rrk57msh.html&lt;/a&gt; (This TV adapted from a real story of a Family of Chinese Medicine, the actors nearly all use Beijing accent. What's more, the time in this TV is the end of Qing dynasty and the begin of the Republic of China so it show many conflicts and cultures in China, also have some Beijing opera decorated the atmosphere. I recommend this TV.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;《贫嘴张大民的幸福生活》&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; - TV series -  (This TV show the daily life of Beijing in 1990s, my parents really love this TV because its their great youth time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;《北京爱情故事》&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; - TV series -  (This is a love story in Beijing about some people, not only use Beijing accent, but also some other accent popular nowadays. It's a good TV to know the life and love for Beijing young people. link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iqiyi.com/v_19rrh59e04.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.iqiyi.com/v_19rrh59e04.html&lt;/a&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;3.Northeast Accents:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least four areas use this accent: Liaoning province, Jiling privince, Heilongjiang province and some cities in Inner Mongolia. Among these areas, people in Liaoning province use the Northeast accents more. Many outstanding actors, singers, and performers from this there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《东北一家人》&lt;/strong&gt; - TV series -   (This is a situation comedy called A family in northeast China and first broadcast in 2001. It's really funny. And you can see many famous stars in this TV when they are young)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《乡村爱情》&lt;/strong&gt; - TV series -  (I will not give the links here because they have too many seasons. This TV directed by Zhao Benshan, a famous comedy actor and also is a heritage of 'Er ren zhuan' Show in China. This TV show the rural Life in northeast China)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Comedy Sketches acted by Zhao Benshan&lt;/strong&gt;  all show the usage and pronunciation of Northeast accents. I just give a link here and you can search him in several video site. He nearly attended each Chinese New Year Gala, and he is honored as The king of comedy in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;4.Tianjin Accents:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a city, Tianjin, close to Beijing, who has good development in economy, education, view sight, and traditional culture. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《杨光的快乐生活》&lt;/strong&gt; - TV series -  This is a life comedy. Two main actors are father and son and their relationship in this TV is also father and son. They use Tianjin accent in this TV and show the life in Tianjin city.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another interesting thing I will recommend from Tianjin is 相声 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;相声 (Chinese Crosstalk comedy, Xiangsheng)&lt;/strong&gt;  nowadays have many different factions, they usually divided by the area. The Tianjin Xiangsheng is the most famous one. This is a folk art. Some radio have this program &lt;a href=&quot;http://qingting.fm/livechat/channels/1175&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://qingting.fm/livechat/channels/1175&lt;/a&gt;, you can have a try but it may be difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will update here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My expression in English may lead to confusion of you, I should say sorry. If you find out the wrong use of language, please point out and I will learn that.Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11974" LastEditorUserId="11974" LastEditDate="2015-11-01T07:53:42.783" LastActivityDate="2015-11-01T07:53:42.783" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16350" CreationDate="2015-10-27T03:14:05.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thank Stan for pointing out my digression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see the patent page. I think it is just a wrong identification of OCR. Please see the [0036] in APPLICATION page, it is the 5.5 Hz in that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-------former answer--not fit this question-----------------------&#xA;Do you mean that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fr3Kd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fr3Kd.png&quot; alt=&quot;甜 - zig&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a abbreviation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That has the same meaning with 甜甜. But it is not a formal style. For example,  When you write  a draft, you can use it but you can not use it in some official documents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11974" LastEditorUserId="11974" LastEditDate="2015-10-27T03:29:52.427" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T03:29:52.427" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16345" CreationDate="2015-10-27T03:41:32.323" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It, in most cases, means you spoke too much. But I still need context to make it clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the context it still has other possible meanings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ludi praise the friend as good skin and young looking, and got this as reply. So it perhaps is a kind reply saying, Ludi is always good at encouraging people. If Ludi's friend is a native Chinese, it's reasonable. Chinese are always talking in this way to show modest. When you praise a Chinese, we were always saying 'oh you are not telling the truth, and I am not as good as you are describing', but in fact we like you words, and feel happy of hearing your praise. This should be a cultural difference for you to understand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastEditorUserId="3526" LastEditDate="2015-11-02T03:12:36.607" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T03:12:36.607" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16252" CreationDate="2015-10-27T03:43:47.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;沒轍 is a word originally from Beijing or north China local tongue, which means I have no way out. In fact the 3 are the same meaning, but 莫可奈何 is more textual and is from ancient Chinese. 沒辦法 is as modern Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T03:43:47.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="470" CreationDate="2015-10-27T04:16:42.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;gǒu&lt;/em&gt; is the common word for &quot;dog&quot;, found in spoken language almost everywhere in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;quǎn&lt;/em&gt; is now a learnèd word; but it is the main word found in the meaning &quot;dog&quot; in old texts, and some people have theorized that it could be cognate to English &lt;em&gt;hound&lt;/em&gt; and its Indo-European relatives. &lt;em&gt;Quǎn&lt;/em&gt; is used in just a few dialects, most notably Fúzhōu, as the word for &quot;dog&quot;. And in Mandarin &lt;em&gt;quǎn&lt;/em&gt; appears mainly in educated compounds, while &lt;em&gt;gǒu&lt;/em&gt; is the ordinary word for &quot;dog&quot; in everyday speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T04:16:42.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16331" CreationDate="2015-10-27T04:21:50.147" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could say something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不好意思（劳驾），麻烦下现在的时间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11975" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T09:22:06.017" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T09:22:06.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16307" CreationDate="2015-10-27T04:40:06.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 带着 is better than 携带&#xA;I believe most of users use the second one &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11975" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T04:40:06.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16350" CreationDate="2015-10-27T05:27:05.333" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;甜Z is likely the result of imperfect OCR (optical character recognition) for &quot;5Hz&quot;. The machine probably sees &quot;&lt;strong&gt;5H&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;甜&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's usually seen in Google's OCR for Chinese patents. If you need to search for original patent text for clarification, you can go to  &lt;a href=&quot;http://epub.sipo.gov.cn/gjcx.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://epub.sipo.gov.cn/gjcx.jsp&lt;/a&gt; and search the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4657" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T05:27:05.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16252" CreationDate="2015-10-27T06:26:32.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;没办法（standard Mandarin） = 没辙（dominantly used in Northeastern area of China but understood by all Chinese）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;be unable to find a way out;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  can't do anything about it;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  can't help it;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  have no other way but to do sth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无可奈何 = 没办法 + feeling bad and helpless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may use 无可奈何 when you 没办法 and also feel terrible for your lack of strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No one uses 莫可奈何 nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T06:26:32.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16130" CreationDate="2015-10-27T08:12:43.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the idiom should be 大排长龙。 “a really long line of people waiting in line to buy tickets” could be translated as &quot;等着买票的人大排长龙&quot;。 if you want to say it in plain words: 等着买票的人排了好长的队。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11977" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T08:12:43.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16365" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-27T13:11:42.993" Score="5" ViewCount="2506" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for some exclamations to be used in comics to express great joy and pride, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;I'm a good boy!&quot;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Hell yeah!&quot;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;I'm so great!&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or similar. Any suggestion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T16:00:48.370" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T14:15:53.640" Title="Hell yeah! - How to express great joy?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16365" CreationDate="2015-10-27T15:21:54.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what dialect you're writing in. For example, Cantonese (primarily used in Hong Kong) has slang versions that is different from Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I'm a good boy&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;乖仔 (this is in cantonese and is a slang). It means, &quot;Good boy!&quot;&#xA;我很聽話 (this is universal). It literally means, &quot;I listen.&quot; But it in practice means, &quot;I'm well behaved.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hell yeah:&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;棒死了 (this means &quot;fresh to death!&quot;)&#xA;The important word is &quot;棒&quot;, which means &quot;awesome.&quot;&#xA;Alternatively, some people use &quot;酷&quot; as a slang. This literally means &quot;Cool&quot; and sounds like &quot;cool&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I so great&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;我好勁 &#xA;The important word is &quot;勁,&quot; which means &quot;strength&quot; or &quot;great&quot;&#xA;This is slang term. But if someone read this, they would laugh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11981" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T15:21:54.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15946" CreationDate="2015-10-27T17:51:22.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should use the word &quot;想&quot; in this case. I think the sentence you're trying to write is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is an irresponsible person, he thinks he is our boss / manager.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the word &quot;要&quot; in this context speaking about an &quot;irresponsible person&quot; doesn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11981" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T17:51:22.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16335" CreationDate="2015-10-27T19:08:43.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a pictophonetic word. It is originally from the Traditional version of from the word: 貓 &#xA;豸 suggests that it is some sort of animal. It actually means legless insects. That's probably because of the way cats move (slyly, and smooth)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苗 provides the sound of the word, which is &quot;Miao&quot;. It plays no part in the actual definition of the word because this part of the world means seedling (with regards  to Grass - 田). You'll find that many Chinese words have some sort of agricultural root in them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, to your point about the sound that the cat makes, the originator of the word found a particle that match the sound, and then appended a particle that signifies an animal or creature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11981" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T19:08:43.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6877" CreationDate="2015-10-27T19:34:27.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;小學雞 literally translates to primary school (小學) chicken (雞)&#xA;It depends on the context. Formally, it generally means a person who isn't sophisticated or of a low level. Informally, if someone says it to you, they are saying that you're stupid. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think about it, it's like you've been left behind in school and you're still in primary school&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大學雞 literally translates to university (大學) chicken (雞)&#xA;It depends on the context. Formally, it generally means a person who has achieved a higher level. It is almost a compliment but sort of sarcastically. Informally, if someone says it to you, then they're kind of jokingly saying, &quot;nice job.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of the word Chicken (雞) is because it's a joke. 雞 in it of itself can be an insult because in Cantonese slang it means &quot;Prostitute.&quot; But 雞 has somewhat been been used loosely in humorous situations. It's sort of like saying &quot;silly goose&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to think about 小學雞 vs. 大學雞 is that 小學雞 means &quot;silly goose&quot; and 大學雞 means that you're less silly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11981" LastEditorUserId="11981" LastEditDate="2015-10-28T09:57:05.907" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T09:57:05.907" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16365" CreationDate="2015-10-27T22:18:43.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the current trending slang for &quot;great&quot; is “碉堡了” or “叼炸天”。&#xA;For a less extreme expression you can use “给力”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for example to express &quot;I am so great!&quot;: 我碉堡了。&#xA;&quot;Hell yeah!&quot;: 给力！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T22:18:43.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16254" CreationDate="2015-10-28T04:35:54.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 到 here has nothing special: 用到 and 用 in this context are the same.  But the cat 抓到 and 抓 rat are different. This is a very common Chinese situation where the same structure (verb+到）has different usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The negation of this blacksmith context should be: with 到:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些的确是铁匠不会用到的老式钉子 or&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;这些的确是铁匠用不到的老式钉子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;without 到:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些的确是铁匠不用的老式钉子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the negative expressions are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-03T00:06:27.767" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T00:06:27.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16314" CreationDate="2015-10-28T04:52:11.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;you would meet more this situation than you can believe that, the same Chinese character could be translated to many English words because of the different context or used with different words. following are some examples for 走:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1, an action or movement, as walk, means you move your body by legs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2, 咱们走, in English is Let's go. this 走is go&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3, 请把书走快递送给我: please send me the book by delivery service. this 走means a method or a way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4, 说话走嘴: talk in a wrong or inappropriate way without carefully consideration. this 走means too fast to think&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5, 枪走火: accidental firing of a gun. 走here is a little bit like in 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6, 走神, this is a frequently used expression, means you are out of mind. for example when you are in class, you are not thinking as the lecturer, but thinking about something not about the class&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this is not a complete list for 走，but just some examples for you to see the cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T04:52:11.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16249" CreationDate="2015-10-28T04:55:40.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;a doubt is not needed&#xA;here庸 some parts like need or necessary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T04:55:40.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16247" CreationDate="2015-10-28T04:59:06.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;maybe you need to pay more attention to 酗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酗 originally means drink to much, and act insane after drinking. So it has a meaning of too much/over and insane. 逼means force or heavily ask for. So 酗逼means over-force insane. As described in the topic, the young guy force parents to buy iPhone in a insane way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T04:59:06.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16249" CreationDate="2015-10-28T06:12:45.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;80% of the time 庸 means &lt;code&gt;mediocre;commonplace&lt;/code&gt;,15% of the time 庸 means &lt;code&gt;need;adopt&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.平常，不高明的：平庸。庸医。庸言。庸俗。庸人。昏庸。庸主（平庸或昏庸的君主）。庸夫。庸暗（平凡，愚昧）。庸庸碌碌（没有志气，没有作为）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.需要：毋庸置疑。无庸细述。无庸讳言。南海自古以来就是中国的领土，这是毋庸置疑的!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.You can click &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%E5%BA%B8&amp;amp;tupu=01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for more details about 庸!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11987" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T06:12:45.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16345" CreationDate="2015-10-28T07:03:17.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, of course not! Just different cultures!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is very very MODEST especially after 70's and after 80's!&#xA;Let me replay it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;you: You are so kind!&#xA;your friend: I'm not!&#xA;you: You are so cute!&#xA;your friend: No,I'm ugly!&#xA;you: You look so good! &#xA;your friend: I'm not,because of the weather good!&#xA;you: You are so beautiful.&#xA;your friend: No no, 是你太能说了(chuckling ~)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11987" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-10-31T08:12:02.353" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T08:12:02.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13999" CreationDate="2015-10-28T08:01:14.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Great question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;两 is unit of two-horse carriage in the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 - c. 1046 BCE),I think it's around this time that 两 replaced 二.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;驷(or 乘) is unit of four-horse carriage in the Zhou Dynasty.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;二 can be numeral(two) and ordinal numeral(second).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;两 can be numeral(two) and unit of weight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11987" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T08:01:14.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13999" CreationDate="2015-10-29T01:12:49.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient received texts such as the &lt;em&gt;Shījīng&lt;/em&gt;, the &lt;em&gt;Yìjīng&lt;/em&gt;, and others, the primary attested meaning of &lt;em&gt;liǎng&lt;/em&gt; 兩 is 'two'. This is specifically in reference to paired sets of things, not just any two things taken together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Hàn the word begins to appear regularly as a general word for &quot;two&quot; or &quot;a couple of&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a measure word, it is used in ancient texts not only with two-wheeled carriages, but also with wooden clogs (normally two to a set) and lengths of cloth (normally two &lt;em&gt;zhàng&lt;/em&gt; 丈 apiece). We read the measure word &lt;em&gt;liàng&lt;/em&gt;, but there are ancient scholia that say there is no need to distinguish this word from &quot;two&quot; in pronunciation. A measure word is fundamentally a noun, and there are cases of nouns being read in the &lt;em&gt;qùshēng&lt;/em&gt; — very roughly speaking, the Mandarin fourth tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage as a measure word gave rise to the sense &quot;tael&quot;, because a tael is 24 &lt;em&gt;zhū&lt;/em&gt; 銖; the &lt;em&gt;huángzhōng&lt;/em&gt; 黃鍾 'type of ceremonial bell' weighed 12 &lt;em&gt;zhū&lt;/em&gt; 銖, so twice that amount was called a &lt;em&gt;liǎng&lt;/em&gt; &quot;two[-fold]&quot;. So &quot;tael&quot; is really a derived meaning of the basic word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T01:12:49.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16345" CreationDate="2015-10-29T03:39:51.980" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a kind of specifics of oriental culture. This is so called &lt;em&gt;aimai(暧昧)&lt;/em&gt; in Japanese. Oriental culture is very implicative compares to western culture. The most common behavior is that people is shy to praise themselves or be praised by others. People may disagree the praise words directly although they perhaps quite enjoy the words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, firstly, I think your friend is not good at Chinese expression, because she used a very general and fuzzy character &quot;说&quot;. She should use 夸奖(praise) instead in my opinion. Secondly, she seems disagree your praise, but I am sure she was laughing on the front of screen. Yep! She enjoy your words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T03:39:51.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16382" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16392" CreationDate="2015-10-29T03:59:58.683" Score="4" ViewCount="597" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Update:&lt;/code&gt; I apologise effusively for writing ɤ instead of ɣ, which I had intended all along. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Preface:&lt;/code&gt; I represent the voiceless velar fricative with its IPA phone [x],&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and the voiced velar fricative with [ɣ].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is &lt;a href=&quot;http://accent.gmu.edu/browse_native.php?function=detail&amp;amp;languageid=44&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this phonetic inventory for Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; wrong? It excludes  [x] and [ɣ], and includes only the voiceless uvular fricative [χ].&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative#Occurrence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page for [x]&lt;/a&gt; includes Mandarin, which it exemplifies with (I omit the links):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chinese  |   Mandarin  |    河/hé  |     [xɤ˧˥]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3. but the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_fricative&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page for [ɣ]&lt;/a&gt; excludes Chinese, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and similarly &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's IPA for Mandarin page&lt;/a&gt; excludes [ɣ]. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will someone please clarify and explain these contradictions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastEditorUserId="11787" LastEditDate="2015-10-29T17:42:16.140" LastActivityDate="2015-10-30T06:20:33.583" Title="Does Cantonese or Mandarin contain the voiced or voiceless velar fricative?" Tags="&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16382" CreationDate="2015-10-29T04:22:07.433" Score="3" Body="&lt;h3&gt;There are two issues here:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[x] or [χ]?&lt;/strong&gt;: Who cares? You could pronounce pinyin &amp;quot;h&amp;quot; in a variety of ways without impeding understanding (e.g., [h], [x], or [χ]). I think [χ] is a better description of my experience with pinyin &amp;quot;h&amp;quot;, but this isn't a big deal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[ɤ] is the voiced velar fricative, right?&lt;/strong&gt; Nope! You're confusing two very graphically similar symbols. [ɣ] is the voiced velar fricative, and [ɤ] is a close-mid back unrounded vowel. Chinese lacks the former and has the latter (it's the &amp;quot;e&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;hē&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;kè&amp;quot;, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T04:22:07.433" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16329" CreationDate="2015-10-29T04:35:14.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe 入教？ It doesn't mean for being a godfather (or similar) in Buddhist. But it is the equivalent of 出家 in some level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T04:35:14.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16365" CreationDate="2015-10-29T04:53:46.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends if you want to use some formal words or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;informal (but normally stronger than formal words). I think it is OK to use these words in comics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爽 or 爽翻了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牛B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;活活美死&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T04:53:46.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16345" CreationDate="2015-10-29T05:00:26.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you are such a skilled flatterer = 你太会说话了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you commented a (relatively) long paragraph for the post, she just wanted to say &quot;what a long comment&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T05:00:26.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8675" CreationDate="2015-10-29T05:12:38.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;separate verb? In modern Chinese grammar they are called 动宾短语(a phrase with structure of verb + objective). It's a huge group and I don't believe anyone can give you a complete list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睡觉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走路&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗脸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刷牙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喝水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泡妞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;修车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骑马&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;射箭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;any more you want? I can give you even a longer list&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T05:12:38.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16235" CreationDate="2015-10-29T05:15:27.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese has no special grammar for subjunctive, but just add words and/or expressions like 如果 要不是 若（非），幸亏……否则…… for the situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T05:15:27.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16274" CreationDate="2015-10-29T05:18:00.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;广电总局is the official management office of TV/broadcasting/movie, and this rule is only for those official issues. It's not affecting oral/bbs/social network and so on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T05:18:00.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16382" CreationDate="2015-10-29T11:26:45.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Standard Chinese &lt;strong&gt;does contain&lt;/strong&gt; voiceless velar fricative [x] but &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; voiced velar fricative [ɣ]. Actually Standard Chinese has only one voiced consonant [ʐ].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, many Mandarin speakers especially those from southern China would pronounce [x] as [h], and speakers of northern China would tend to practice [x]. If you take [h] for [x], people will not misunderstand you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ɤ] is not a consonant; it's a vowel. It is different from [ɣ]. They are different symbols and represent different entities!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Responses to your questions&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;yes. errors occurred.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;correct.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Please be careful !!!&lt;/strong&gt; This page is about [ɣ] but not about [ɤ] (which your post originally confounded with [ɣ]). They are&#xA;different symbols!!!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;no. you missed something. that page does include [ɤ], in the vowel&#xA;table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ɤ | e | roughly like American sir&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11864" LastEditorUserId="11787" LastEditDate="2015-10-29T22:02:01.713" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T22:02:01.713" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16382" CreationDate="2015-10-29T22:47:05.600" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Voiceless&lt;/strong&gt;: Pinyin &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; is standardly the voiceless velar fricative [x], although it is often written [χ] for some reason — Chinese IPA developed its own transcriptional traditions, for instance the use of [ɒ] where [ɑ] might be more usual, in the mid-twentieth century. However, there's no systematic contrast between [x] and [χ] in standard Mandarin, and systematic contrast is the important thing. Besides that, for many speakers, the aspiration of stops is also expressed with the velar fricative rather than pure aspiration: &lt;em&gt;tāng&lt;/em&gt;: [tˣɐŋ], &lt;em&gt;kuí&lt;/em&gt;: [kˣu̯ɘi], etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Voiced&lt;/strong&gt;: In standard Cantonese, no. And in the major representatives of Yuè (&quot;Cantonese&quot;) dialects, as described in Zhān Bóhuì 詹伯慧's &lt;em&gt;Guǎngdōng Yuè fāngyán gàiyào&lt;/em&gt; 广东粤方言概要, voiced velar fricative [ɣ] is not attested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; some cases of [ɣ] in regional languages. Conservative Wú dialects, for instance, voice /x/ to [x͡ɣɦ] in low-register tones. Hokkien final /-k/ may take on voicing and approximant quality before the noun-suffix &lt;em&gt;á&lt;/em&gt;: /sái ha̍k-á/ 'outhouse': [sai₅₅ ha₃₅ ɣa₅₂], and so on, although it is also often heard as a fully voiced stop [sai₅₅ ha₃₅ ga₅₂]. [ɣ] is reconstructed for the medieval initial &lt;em&gt;xiámǔ&lt;/em&gt; 匣母 in most environments by most hands, too. But no dialect groups have anything like the degree of standardization we encounter in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastEditorUserId="11958" LastEditDate="2015-10-30T06:20:33.583" LastActivityDate="2015-10-30T06:20:33.583" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16235" CreationDate="2015-10-29T23:00:20.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Yàoshi méi bāng tā, liǎnggerén zǎojiù sǐle&lt;/em&gt; 要是沒幫她，兩個人早就死了 [if not help her; both persons long-since already become dead].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd omit the initial &quot;she&quot; and avoid rendering &quot;now&quot; literally, since sentence-&lt;em&gt;le&lt;/em&gt; suggests that adequately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Counterfactuals are definitely used in Chinese, in spite of the opinions of some theoreticians. But it's ordinarily sufficient to say &quot;if&quot; plus a negated verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T23:00:20.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16335" CreationDate="2015-10-30T00:57:37.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Mandarin word &lt;em&gt;māo&lt;/em&gt; may indeed be onomatopœtic — many dialect forms have tones and vowels that are inconsistent, showing that as a group they represent onomatopœia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the character (貓/猫) has pretty clearly represented a word for something feline for a very long time. The &lt;em&gt;Shījīng&lt;/em&gt;'s &quot;Dàyǎ&quot; has a line &quot;有貓有虎 [there are cats and tigers]&quot;; the &lt;em&gt;Lǐ jì&lt;/em&gt; has a line &quot;迎貓為其食田鼠也 [the reason they welcome cats is that (cats) eat fieldmice].&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastActivityDate="2015-10-30T00:57:37.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5172" CreationDate="2015-10-30T06:26:09.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Supposedly this &lt;em&gt;biang&lt;/em&gt; originates in a regional form of Northern (&quot;Mandarin&quot;) Chinese. It's not a syllable in the standard language as originally defined with rigidity, but all the same it's widely known and used now. Technically, it's a loan syllable. So I suppose we should say that it's phonologically possible because people actually use it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, Chao and Yang's &lt;em&gt;Concise Dictionary of Spoken Chinese&lt;/em&gt; also lists two closely related &quot;unofficial&quot; syllables: &lt;em&gt;bia&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;pia&lt;/em&gt; — neither of which is supplied with a character there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastActivityDate="2015-10-30T06:26:09.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1629" CreationDate="2015-10-30T06:49:11.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Claw wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After that, metathesis occurred which changed /ʐɨ/ to /ɨʐ/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to add that Karlgren envisioned the crucial step as vocalic epenthesis (insertion of a vowel) rather than metathesis (inversion of two segments). He envisioned a stage in which these syllables were syllabic /ńź/ through loss of the final vowel, after which a schwa was inserted before the consonant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastActivityDate="2015-10-30T06:49:11.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16401" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16406" CreationDate="2015-10-31T07:15:30.350" Score="2" ViewCount="651" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese seem to have no problem pronouncing &lt;code&gt;Wi-Fi&lt;/code&gt;. Wi has a similar Chinese pronunciation with pinyin: &lt;code&gt;wai&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This got me wondering, is there any “fai” (zy: ㄈㄞ) pronunciation record in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2015-10-31T08:52:00.757" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T03:15:46.020" Title="Any “fai” (zy: ㄈㄞ) pronunciation record in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13552" CreationDate="2015-10-31T08:56:47.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Okay, let's analyze the easy stuff first. You have a 是 there, that you can use to split the sentence in two parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不断向产业链的高端提升 and 发展趋势的要求&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second one is pretty straight-forward, you have a noun phrase 发展趋势 that translates to &quot;development trend&quot;, but even better here I think is &quot;further development&quot;, as 趋势 carries redundant semantics in English. What it conveys here is going upward from a lower point, which is inherent in &quot;development&quot;; the whole thing modifies (的) the noun 要求 &quot;requirement&quot;, &quot;necessity&quot;, but also &quot;precondition&quot;, therefore:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the precondition for further development&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the hard part: here you have an adverb 不断 &quot;continually&quot; that (hold fast!) binds with 向 &quot;toward&quot;. As you know, in Chinese there's a loose distinction between what in western languages we call verb and particle, so you have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;continually moving toward&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there it goes 产业链, &quot;industry chain&quot; or &quot;industrial chain&quot; as you read &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=hwcfyHLc9ZxYKf7tv81DvxOvbPLO_h5XiGDgisMCxN66N5c-dBkCDsjerp5VPAREpfJhb-Yu3Yc_bovY1AzG0a&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. It is not necessarily the same as &quot;supply chain&quot;, but here english native speakers might have a different opinion. It modifies (的) the following 高端提升. This is a noun phrase as well. I agree with other posters who read 高端 as &quot;high level&quot; as in &quot;high level increase&quot;, which you can simply interpret as &quot;improvement&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally we put it all together:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The continual improvement of the industrial chain is precondition for further development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T08:56:47.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16259" CreationDate="2015-10-31T09:21:50.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;找到 means to find;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;找 means to look for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We do say 我找不到 for this case, but 我不能找到 is also correct in grammar.&#xA;Just that normally we prefer 我找不到. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 我不能找 means totally different things, and I believe this is only used in rare cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12004" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T09:21:50.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16345" CreationDate="2015-10-31T09:41:10.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally yes, and its an adequate translation. But it is just being modest here. Actually it's kind of like flattering back at you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12004" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T09:41:10.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16401" CreationDate="2015-10-31T11:45:21.630" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer is no. To say WiFi, you would say 無線上網 (wireless internet access).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, there's no &quot;Fai&quot; sound in Mandarin. They have it in Cantonese though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快 = kuai (mandarin) / fai (cantonese) = fast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11981" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T11:45:21.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16401" CreationDate="2015-10-31T15:20:49.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not in standard Mandarin, no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are regions in the South where Mandarin phonetics are not rendered standardly, and Standard &lt;em&gt;hu-&lt;/em&gt; (also sometimes &lt;em&gt;ku-&lt;/em&gt;) tends to be pronounced &lt;em&gt;f-&lt;/em&gt;. In Western Fújiàn I often heard &lt;em&gt;huàidàn&lt;/em&gt; 壞蛋 'bad person, asshole, etc.' pronounced as though the Pinyin were &lt;em&gt;fàitàn&lt;/em&gt;. But I wouldn't count on using that to write &quot;WiFi&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of regional &lt;em&gt;f-&lt;/em&gt; for Mandarin &lt;em&gt;k-&lt;/em&gt; appears in New York's Chinatown, where Forsyth Street is translated &lt;em&gt;Kēxījiē&lt;/em&gt; 科西街, because the community was completely Cantonese-speaking at one time. You can see it on the street signs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T15:20:49.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16407" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16408" CreationDate="2015-10-31T21:04:27.107" Score="4" ViewCount="538" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;I hope I didn't embarrass you&quot; 怎么翻译？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是不是：”希望我没让你没脸“ ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12006" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T01:53:46.710" Title="How to translate &quot;I hope I didn't embarrass you&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16407" CreationDate="2015-10-31T22:11:08.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That phrase that you provided means, &quot;I hope I didn't cause you to lose face.&quot; However, that is not a common saying. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say, &quot;I hope I didn't embarrass you&quot; in the context of having accidentally said something inappropriate about another person would be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望沒有讓你難為情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, you can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望沒有讓你覺得難為情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11981" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T22:11:08.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14871" CreationDate="2015-11-01T15:49:15.317" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have a reference handy. But as other commenters have stated, it's probably a regional form the word that means &quot;to drink&quot; in Mandarin and is written 喝. Words for &quot;to eat&quot; and &quot;to drink&quot; tend to cross over a certain amount between those exact senses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the sound that reminds you of &lt;em&gt;hou&lt;/em&gt;, the open final &lt;em&gt;-e&lt;/em&gt; in Mandarin is a rather rare sound in Chinese — it's a diphthong whose phonetics are roughly [ɯɘ] or [ɯə] in Standard Mandarin — and regional equivalents are typically forms of [o]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This meaning &quot;to consume [food]&quot; is a fairly recent association for the character 喝 — with the modern pronunciation &lt;em&gt;hè&lt;/em&gt;, it's attested in the meanings &quot;to frighten&quot; and &quot;to berate&quot;, and is seen in those meanings in old texts. There's another reading &lt;em&gt;yè&lt;/em&gt; for meanings connected with choking or sounds of choking, but these uses are only found in pre-modern writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though neither the word nor the character is likely to be related to &lt;em&gt;hè&lt;/em&gt; 嚇 'to frighten&quot; or &lt;em&gt;hē&lt;/em&gt; 訶 &quot;to berate&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We still use 喝 in the pronunciation &lt;em&gt;hè&lt;/em&gt; to mean &quot;to cry out&quot;, as in &lt;em&gt;yāohe&lt;/em&gt; 吆喝 &quot;to shout one's wares (said of peddlers)&quot; and &lt;em&gt;hècǎi&lt;/em&gt; 喝彩 &quot;to cheer (as at a sports event)&quot;. The character is attested in this sense by the Sòng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastEditorUserId="11958" LastEditDate="2015-11-01T15:58:04.957" LastActivityDate="2015-11-01T15:58:04.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16259" CreationDate="2015-11-01T17:23:59.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to put the language into context. &#xA;It is an idea that is trying to be expressed.&#xA;In Mandarin that idea is expressed as &#xA;找不到。As muchos as it might not seem like the&#xA;right way, if is the Chinese way. I became fluent&#xA;in Mandarin when I just accepted the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12011" LastActivityDate="2015-11-01T17:23:59.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16401" CreationDate="2015-11-01T22:40:46.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Chinese_phonology#From_Late_Middle_Chinese_to_Standard_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This wikipdia article&lt;/a&gt;, the consonant /f/ didn't appear until late middle Chinese, when it evolved from bilabial stops when followed by a glide /j/ or /w/. However, /ai/ has no glide so /fai/ couldn't possibly ever be evolved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9790" LastActivityDate="2015-11-01T22:40:46.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16413" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16418" CreationDate="2015-11-02T02:10:33.687" Score="2" ViewCount="781" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chinese is very rusty, and I would like to learn to recognize more Chinese characters that appear in the GUI of operating systems, and popular apps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;取消 Qǔxiāo = Cancel&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;控制面板 Kòngzhì miànbǎn = Control Panel&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if such a list would be manageable for learning and referring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I had to choose between learning Mainland China / Hong Kong / Taiwan versions, I would prioritize Mainland China.  Pinyin and audio pronunciation would be ideal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12013" LastEditorUserId="12013" LastEditDate="2015-11-03T02:41:24.100" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T05:47:46.133" Title="Word list for computer UI and technical. (Simplified character, pinyin, English)" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16413" CreationDate="2015-11-02T03:08:21.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;there is a simple way for you. Install some software or app which is well localized, and switch the language (from your OS setting or App configuration), and compare the words. In fact, those popular OSes are well localized, and you just need to switch the locale setting, and got UI in different languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: zh_TW (traditional Chinese, for Hong Kong or Taiwan) and zh_CN (simplified Chinese, for China mainland) are different&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T03:08:21.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16259" CreationDate="2015-11-02T03:11:41.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我找不到 is like I cannot find&#xA;我不能找 is like I cannot look for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T03:11:41.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16401" CreationDate="2015-11-02T03:15:46.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;fai is not a pronunciation in mandarin, in fact we just read wifi as the English pronunciation, which is similar to wai-fai&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T03:15:46.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16413" CreationDate="2015-11-02T04:29:03.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assumed that you are looking for something like that : right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Graph      n. 图表#曲线    v.用图显示 &#xA;Border     n. 应用视窗四面的框架,边框 &#xA;Grid       n. 格子  Horizontal   n. 水平，      adj. 地平线的 &#xA;Vertical   n. 垂直     adj. 垂直的 &#xA;Range      n. 行列     v.平行，延伸 &#xA;Widget     n. 图象符号&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Draw       n. 平局     v.划，绘制&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if that is right, I can post or send you a word list as like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, Gcd directs you another way of localized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11884" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T04:29:03.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16413" CreationDate="2015-11-02T20:59:30.813" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have done some software translation and there are couple of ways you can go about learning UI-related language. The first thing is to start using applications (including your operating system) in Chinese. This would be the first step if you're serious about this, because otherwise it's hard to get a good grasp of the really common words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that words are used differently on the Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and so on. Even simple words like &quot;save&quot; or &quot;paste&quot; can be different, so it's not just a matter of simplified and traditional Chinese. Sometimes it even differs between applications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two good resources you can use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iicm.org.tw/term/termb_I.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;電腦名詞譯名&lt;/a&gt; - This is a huge list of computer-related words. It's extremely useful since it includes both Taiwan and Mainland usage so you can compare and choose the appropriate terms. This list is REALLY big, by the way, by far the most comprehensive resources I've found.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;有道&lt;/a&gt; - This is an online dictionary that also has a lot of translated articles (parallel texts). This is very good if you want to know how dialogues in programs are written, including error messages and prompts of different kinds. Searching here will take you very far, but do make sure to check examples to make sure the answer you find really is the right one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this answer is too &quot;advanced&quot;. If you're just looking for the 100 most common computer-related words, others have provided or will provide better answers. This is the best I can offer if you want to go beyond that, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T20:59:30.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16419" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16427" CreationDate="2015-11-02T21:41:02.240" Score="3" ViewCount="249" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having a hard time to decide which to use between the three options (损害，损伤 and 伤害)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone can teach me the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:56:37.087" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:56:37.087" Title="Any difference between 损害,损伤,伤害?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16419" CreationDate="2015-11-02T21:48:52.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;损害 is more common than 伤害 is much more common than 损伤, otherwise they are identical. Use them all to avoid repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T21:48:52.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16421" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-02T21:59:07.080" Score="1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me decipher the name of the post office (city name) on postmarks from 1953. I'm not sure if it's Nanking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TwYCG.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TwYCG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12016" LastActivityDate="2015-11-03T17:26:07.140" Title="City Name on a Postmark" Tags="&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16422" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-02T21:59:18.600" Score="12" ViewCount="578" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference among:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;自习     (zì xí)   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;自学     (zì xué)  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They should be something like &quot;to study by oneself&quot;, &quot;to study on one’s own&quot;, but still, I don't get the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-11-05T13:18:32.517" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T08:33:48.337" Title="自习 vs 自学: what's the difference?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16423" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16425" CreationDate="2015-11-02T22:09:42.707" Score="3" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese universities can use  建立于1926年 or 创立于1926年 or 创办于1926年to say &quot;established in 1926.&quot; Are there significant differences between these?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is there any standard short form comparable to the English abbreviation &quot;est. 1926&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching on Google shows the various options described in the comment and the answer are almost equally common, both in connection with 大学 and without that.  The results seem to be heavily influenced by machine translated web pages, so may not be reliable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What stood out to me was that results for 创立 immediately gave much more reference to prestige universities than others I tried. That may just be chance.  But Siyi Deng also suggested this was the most prestigious--and prestige is the point of anything to do with trademarking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2015-11-05T15:52:40.353" LastActivityDate="2015-11-05T15:52:40.353" Title="How to say when a university was established" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16422" CreationDate="2015-11-02T23:07:08.443" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;自习 is more frequently related to the &quot;self-study sessions&quot; of high-school and colleges.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自学 generally implies teaching oneself about sth., i.e. no connotation to schools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T23:07:08.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16423" CreationDate="2015-11-02T23:11:18.890" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;创建于&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;建立于&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;创立于&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;创办于&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are all acceptable, but for university I believe 创立于 is the most accurate one, the 立 here adds a subtle preeminence hint, and the 创 implies hard working.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, 创办于 does not have the &quot;greatness&quot; flavor, and 建立于 can be used for any institute in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is an abbreviation that can convey the same implications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastEditorUserId="6762" LastEditDate="2015-11-02T23:21:17.573" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T23:21:17.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16421" CreationDate="2015-11-02T23:23:57.843" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very vague, but looks like 满洲里 to  me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzhouli&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzhouli&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T23:23:57.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16419" CreationDate="2015-11-02T23:27:57.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;损害,损伤,伤害&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;损伤 is generally a noun. The other 2 can be both noun and verb, with 损害 much more frequently a verb than noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;损伤 generally implies physical damage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伤害 can be both physical and psychological or spiritual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;损害 when used as a verb has a derogatory connotation, while the other 2 do not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T23:27:57.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16422" CreationDate="2015-11-03T00:40:31.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;自学 means to learn something from zero by oneself.&#xA;自习 means to review or study for a course by oneself. We have 自习时间 in high school and colleges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12018" LastActivityDate="2015-11-03T00:40:31.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16422" CreationDate="2015-11-03T02:36:37.967" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;自习：study by oneself in scheduled time or free time; review one's lessons; Preview.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自学： study independently or teach himself totally. emphasis study on one's own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11884" LastActivityDate="2015-11-03T02:36:37.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16422" CreationDate="2015-11-03T07:26:44.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;自习： Study on your own&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自学： Learn something by yourself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3728" LastActivityDate="2015-11-03T07:26:44.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16422" CreationDate="2015-11-03T21:48:01.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;学 more represent learning something new while 习 is more like review or revise, though you might learn something during review.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confucious said: 学而时习之（学习 而且 时常 复习 它）, means you learn something new, but still need to review / revise sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part you concentrate for 自 has no difference no matter &quot;by oneself&quot; or &quot;on one’s own&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11827" LastActivityDate="2015-11-03T21:48:01.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16060" CreationDate="2015-11-03T22:25:05.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This renders Taiwanese &lt;em&gt;bē la&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;bōe la&lt;/em&gt; &quot;[I am] not able ~ there is no such state&quot;, which is the usual reply to a compliment or thanks. Basically it just means the speaker is politely denying your compliment, as a statement of humility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastActivityDate="2015-11-03T22:25:05.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16434" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-03T23:03:44.813" Score="1" ViewCount="888" Body="&lt;p&gt;Need help urgently!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question #1: What are the differences between these three sentences: &#xA;1) 他坐在椅子上 &#xA;2) 他在椅子上坐着&#xA;3) 他在椅子上坐 (wrong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question #2: Why is &quot;他在椅子上坐&quot; wrong? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2015-12-01T19:45:07.723" Title="Why is &quot;他在椅子上坐&quot; wrong?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16422" CreationDate="2015-11-03T23:56:26.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;自习 emphasizes more on one's  reviewing the knowledge points he has learned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自学 emphasizes on one's teaching himself something where no teachers are available. In general,  you don't  have to  go to school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 自习 or 自习课 could be a noun, referring to a session in school where the teacher is absent, or when present, the teacher doesn't teach any new material, and the students sit on their seat, do their homework, review the material, read words from textbooks and etc. I don't know if such a session exists in foreign countries. I remember I started taking this session from grade 6 in the primary school, and there are two sessions, in the morning and in the evening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2015-11-03T23:56:26.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16434" CreationDate="2015-11-04T00:56:51.147" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;他在椅子上坐 is not necessarily wrong. For example, in such context: 他在椅子上坐, （而不是在床上坐）, makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for your question 1, I don't think expression 1 and 2 have a big difference there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T00:56:51.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16437" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16442" CreationDate="2015-11-04T01:35:35.573" Score="5" ViewCount="277" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am now learning 近义词 and got a problem with distinguishing the difference between  留神，留意，留心. The textbook says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他干什么特别留心，看书时也常常做笔记 （留神and留意arent allowed here）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  多亏我对他留了一点心，这个情况没有告诉他 （留神 and 留意 arent allowed here）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你看得出来他吗？ 我没有留意 （留神 and 留心 arent allowed here） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are some correct and some wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:59:39.050" LastActivityDate="2020-08-08T16:03:38.040" Title="Difference between 留神，留意，留心？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16407" CreationDate="2015-11-04T01:53:46.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to BMak's answer, in a slightly different context its also possible to say &quot;我希望没有让你觉得很&lt;strong&gt;尴尬&lt;/strong&gt;“. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;尴尬&lt;/strong&gt;'s meaning is closer to &quot;awkward&quot;, and could be also due the general situation and not only because of something someone have said or done.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T01:53:46.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16437" CreationDate="2015-11-04T03:16:57.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The level of care or attention or focus:&#xA;留心 &gt; 留意 &gt; 留神&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so for example if you agreed to help somebody to look into something, you can say:&#xA;我会给你留心的 sounds most serious and dedicated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我会给你留意的 also OK, but no promises&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我会给你留神的 only if I have the spare time and engery&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, like the examples you have mentioned, the usages are mostly dictated by conventions than anything intrinsic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T03:16:57.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16434" CreationDate="2015-11-04T04:15:17.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here 着 is a character indicate status in Chinese, like &quot;doing&quot; for present tense in English. You can imagine 坐 is a verb &lt;em&gt;sit&lt;/em&gt;, it must come with 着&quot;&lt;em&gt;-ing&lt;/em&gt;&quot; in present tense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a summary, &lt;strong&gt;坐＝sit，坐着＝sitting&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T04:15:17.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16437" CreationDate="2015-11-04T04:39:04.497" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should understand the three characters in the words firstly.&#xA;心：Mind&#xA;意：Sense&#xA;神: Focus&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So add 留(&lt;em&gt;keep&lt;/em&gt;) before them, becomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;留心：Keep in mind --&gt; remember&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;留意：Keep in sensitive --&gt; ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;留神：Keep on focus  --&gt; look out / be careful&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation may not accurate in English, if someone have better translation, please comment below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sentence 1 talking about reading/studying, so 留心 should be the only correct word. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sentence 2, here 留心 is separated, it's a derivative usage in my opinion. It means &quot;keep defensive (because I remember he did something bad.)&quot;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sentence 3, I don't understand the meaning... and I don't want to guess (although I could) since it's a tutorial/exam, it should be clear.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2015-11-04T14:32:59.167" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T14:32:59.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16413" CreationDate="2015-11-04T05:47:46.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iicm.org.tw/term/termb_I.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iicm.org.tw&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;youdao.com&lt;/a&gt; from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/16418/16&quot;&gt;Olle's answer&lt;/a&gt; are good resources, but nobody has answered your question about help with pronunciation. I like to use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.perapera.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Perapera plugin&lt;/a&gt; for Chrome or Firefox. It lets you hover over Chinese characters in your browser and it shows the meaning and pronunciation. Another option is an on-line dictionary like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mdbg.net&lt;/a&gt; that includes pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T05:47:46.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16434" CreationDate="2015-11-04T07:04:50.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) 他坐在椅子上  = 2) 他在椅子上坐着 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He is sitting on/in a chair. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He sits on /in a chair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You choose which translation to use depending on which part you want to stress.(movement or status)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) 他在椅子上坐 (questionable)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He sits on /in a chair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;strong&gt;He sits on /in a chair&lt;/strong&gt; in English sounds right to you, then 他在椅子上坐 is grammatically correct as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I can give you a rare context where it CAN be correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你都这么大了，行为要变得正常一点，在桌子上吃饭，在厕所拉屎，在床上睡，在椅子上坐，该怎么样就怎么样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd better put your context here so we can discuss. Safely speaking, avoid the third usage unless you are confident that you are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-12-01T19:45:07.723" LastActivityDate="2015-12-01T19:45:07.723" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16434" CreationDate="2015-11-04T07:06:25.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you need to notice the difference between  &lt;em&gt;坐&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;坐着&lt;/em&gt;, as mentioned before:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As a summary, 坐＝sit，坐着＝sitting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, let take a look at the whole sentences,notice the Bold character which express its most meaning. &lt;em&gt;在椅子上&lt;/em&gt; here function as adverb, yet do note that &lt;em&gt;在椅子上&lt;/em&gt; can work as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;坐&lt;/strong&gt;    在椅子上 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt;  在椅子上  &lt;strong&gt;坐着&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, &lt;em&gt;他在椅子上坐&lt;/em&gt; is a sentence Chinese native can understand, yet their seldom use it either in writing or speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tourfavor.com&lt;br&gt;&#xA;More that just a Chinese language&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11884" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T07:06:25.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16446" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16447" CreationDate="2015-11-04T07:47:43.420" Score="3" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;通知 and 公告 both mean a notification from the authority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But any difference? Could somebody help me figure out the difference with some concrete examples?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:59:10.487" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:59:10.487" Title="Difference between 公告 and 通知?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16446" CreationDate="2015-11-04T08:26:35.820" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;公告&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;announcement, public announcement, proclamation, public notice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通知&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;notice, inform, notify&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 公告 is a 通知 to the public.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 通知 can be private or public. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公告 =  通知 + publicity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T08:26:35.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16446" CreationDate="2015-11-04T08:33:09.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that the &quot;公告&quot; is commonly used in government, to publish important thing, it is more formal. &quot;通知&quot; means notice, let a few people know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12026" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T08:33:09.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16449" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16452" CreationDate="2015-11-05T04:57:32.707" Score="0" ViewCount="602" Body="&lt;p&gt;We probably all know these three (盖，修，建) can be used when we want to say &quot;build a house&quot; like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;盖房子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;建房子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;修房子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is there any difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(if possible please also explain the difference below... too many words meaning &quot;build&quot; in Chinese!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兴建, 兴修，建造，建筑，建设，修建&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:58:48.247" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:58:48.247" Title="Difference between 盖，修，建" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16449" CreationDate="2015-11-05T09:03:49.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;修 means fix or recover&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this word have the meaning of recovering something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like some famous sentences always used by Buddhist 修心养性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如来说众生的心性本来具足一切德能，只因妄想执着而不证得，所以要修行，修心养性，端正行为。Something like this...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盖 means shielded or covered&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盖房子 is for &quot;build&quot; some building with rooftop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;建 means build&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11937" LastActivityDate="2015-11-05T09:03:49.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16437" CreationDate="2015-11-05T09:25:59.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of the Chinese word is influence by culture of Buddha, in order to explain 心，意，神. I think need the ancient Chinese wisdom to explain it...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to explain it from what I know, here you can reference it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心：无形无相 = heart/core：(shapeless, formless)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意：眼耳鼻舌身意的六根之一 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;神：let break this word and see, it's the combination of 示 and 申&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;示 means show&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;申 come from the basic word of 田(means farm or field)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 田 become 申 it's show it connected or pass through to sky and ground or top or bottom, so this word 神 have the meaning of god.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are using 留神 this word it's have some meaning like stay focus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11937" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-11-06T04:36:51.457" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T04:36:51.457" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16449" CreationDate="2015-11-05T10:22:37.660" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;盖 literally means &quot;to cover&quot; something (e.g., put a roof over). This character is often heard used in an oral context to describe building something, and is used in a more colloquial manner. Note that you typically use this character to onky refer to the construction of buildings or houses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;建 (to build/establish/found) and in particular 修建 (to build/construct/erect), is used in more formal contexts (e.g., writing a letter/article). The meaning is synonymous to the above. You can use 建 to refer to building more than just buildings or houses, like tunnels or bridges. After all it makes not much sense to &quot;cover&quot; a tunnel or bridge like you would a house, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 修 by itself can mean build, it can also mean to repair/mend/decorate, depending on the context it is used in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兴建 refers to the construction or founding of something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兴修 refers to the act of starting a construction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 建筑\建设\修建\建造 the specific nuances can be tricky to explain, but they can all mean to build or construct and are synonymous to one another and can be used interchangeably as nouns (except for 建造) or verbs depending on the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples: You can use 建筑 as a noun to refer to an a building/establishment, the architecture/structure of the installation. 建设 can be used to refer to the &lt;em&gt;new&lt;/em&gt; establishment of something, like a layout, setting, or even a new business or facility. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's really not much to say about 修建 and 建造. It might be worth noting that 建设 is more generalised compared 建造 to the others and has a larger range of use (I.e., abstract nouns/concepts, like 建设性).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2015-11-06T10:09:11.847" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T10:09:11.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16453" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-05T19:05:09.047" Score="-1" ViewCount="415" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried handwriting it in Google translate, but struggle to copy the characters. Please, help me! Thank you very much in advance!! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://s019.radikal.ru/i635/1511/0e/38a93e447481.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://s019.radikal.ru/i635/1511/0e/38a93e447481.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12042" LastEditorUserId="12042" LastEditDate="2015-11-06T20:51:57.870" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T20:58:38.493" Title="Please help me translate what is carved on my dizi flute. Thank you!" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-11-06T07:15:21.967" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16453" CreationDate="2015-11-05T20:09:23.663" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;六出飛花入戶時，坐看青竹變瓊枝。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Tang poem (对雪) by 高骈 (Gao Pian), with the following meaning: Snow flakes are falling on the bamboo poles of the house, and I am sitting here watching the landscape turn white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorDisplayName="user4452" LastEditDate="2015-11-09T20:58:38.493" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T20:58:38.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16453" CreationDate="2015-11-06T03:17:06.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;Flying &quot;flowers&quot; of snow, each jutting sixfold — &#xA;    as these enter our home,&#xA;we sit watching the green bamboo&#xA;    turning to trees of pale jade.&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The square text on the bottom says &quot;國韻製造 [manufactured by Guóyùn 'national in-tune']&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastEditorUserId="11958" LastEditDate="2015-11-06T03:23:13.007" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T03:23:13.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16457" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16458" CreationDate="2015-11-07T10:25:31.037" Score="4" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday in class I was correcting the mistakes in my translation together with my teacher. He gave us an article about the mafia in America and the Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy International Airport in 1978, which inspired the film &lt;em&gt;Goodfellas&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Near the end of the article there is this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;导演马丁斯科西斯年拍摄的影片 《盗亦有道》 (又译为 《好家伙》) 即根据博克的真实经历和汉莎航空大劫案改编，该片由罗伯特德尼罗主演，至今仍被认为是继 《教父》 系列之后另一部描述美国意大利黑帮的经典之作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I've translated like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The film shooted by the director Martin Scorsese in 1990, &lt;em&gt;Thieves have morals too&lt;/em&gt;, (also translated as &lt;em&gt;The Goodfellas&lt;/em&gt;) is primarily based on a reconstruction of Burke's true story and the Lufthansa heist at Kennedy Airport. This film, interpreted by Robert De Niro as leading actor, is still considered today another cult movie that describes italian american mafia after the series &lt;em&gt;The Godfather&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher said that 美国意大利黑帮 should be &quot;the italian mafia in America&quot;. I've thought about that for a while . . . If it's &quot;in America&quot;, why there is no 在 before 美国?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He clarified that if it were &quot;italian american&quot;, like I said, it would be something like 美意 or, better, 意美 (like in the title: 中英词典, &quot;Chinese-English dictionary&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the two translations are pretty similar in content, but I would appreciate it if someone could explain to me which is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Sorry for my bad English; it's not my native language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10944" LastEditorUserId="10944" LastEditDate="2015-12-09T17:18:51.160" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T17:18:51.160" Title="美国意大利黑帮 - Expressing location without 在?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16457" CreationDate="2015-11-07T11:41:16.647" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese and English express this in different ways. Or better yet, English emphasizes the nuance that these mafiosi are of Italian descent but operate in America: &lt;em&gt;Italian mafia in America&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese term 美国意大利黑帮 is just &quot;American-Italian&quot; mafia. Chinese has no proper word for demonym-adjectives, &lt;em&gt;Italian&lt;/em&gt; will translate as 意大利人 if it is a demonym denoting a person (&quot;Italy-person&quot;) and most likely 意大利的 if it is something from Italy (e.g. 意大利的经济 Italian economy) but omitting 的 is more natural in most cases, e.g.  意大利经济 Italian economy. It's a bit like headline style in English: &lt;em&gt;UK minister resigns&lt;/em&gt; (where UK is certainly not an adjective) and not &lt;em&gt;British minister resigns&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Chinese heavily relies on context, 美国意大利黑帮 requires you to use your knowledge and understanding of the context, and put this together. English on the other hand prefers splitting this up and making clear what role &lt;em&gt;Italian&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;American&lt;/em&gt; play here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-11-07T11:41:16.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16459" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16461" CreationDate="2015-11-07T13:19:56.720" Score="1" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that 抠门儿 is an informal phrase meaning dingy. But can't figure out how these three Chinese words combined together could be used to describe a person being dingy (extremely reluctant to spend money). I googled and baidu but in vain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:58:29.713" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:58:29.713" Title="What is the origin of 抠门儿?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16457" CreationDate="2015-11-07T13:33:53.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/6696/drunken-master&quot;&gt;Drunken Master&lt;/a&gt; have given the correct answer in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'd like to add some details about the phrase &lt;em&gt;美国意大利黑手党&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Drunken Master said, meaning of Chinese heavily depends on context. The confusing part of the phrase is the combination of 美国意大利. It could be America-Italy mafia, which means an international criminal group active in both America and Italy. And also, it could be an American mafia has strong connectivity with Italian(lead/control by Italian, or most of the gang members are Italian). From the context in your material, the second one should be correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T07:02:35.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16459" CreationDate="2015-11-07T14:00:18.427" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E6%8A%A0%E9%97%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.baike.com/wiki/抠门&lt;/a&gt; tells:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抠门 - 历史渊源 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.古时候有一个财主，爱财如命.去寺里烧香看见庙门上的刷的金粉，他都要抠去带走。所以就有了抠门这个词语。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.“抠门”的意思是说，吝啬到连个门把手都舍不得装，开门的时候不得不用手去抠门缝。抠门就诞生了。所以大家把吝啬的人说成是抠门。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-11-07T14:00:18.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1718" CreationDate="2015-11-07T17:09:08.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe is a late answer to this question. But I'd like to add more details based on deutschZuid's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  此致  &#xA;敬礼！&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is the most common and always right like &lt;strong&gt;regards&lt;/strong&gt; in English. But usually it's for private letter. If you are writing a letter to business companion, you can use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        顺祝&#xA;    商祺!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        祝&#xA;    生意兴隆！&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-11-07T17:09:08.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16463" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16474" CreationDate="2015-11-07T21:16:40.487" Score="4" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sentence 1: 桌子上有一本作业 &#xA;Sentence 2: 桌子上有我的作业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think both sentences are correct. However, I just watched a grammar video which mentioned the existential sentence with &quot;有&quot; can only carry a non-specific noun. If so, &quot;桌子上有我的作业“ wouldn't be correct, because &quot;我的作业&quot; is specific. So I am confused. Can anyone explain this?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T00:59:53.667" Title="Does an existential sentence with &quot;有&quot; only carry a non-specific noun?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16463" CreationDate="2015-11-07T23:06:54.383" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are correct. The video is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-11-07T23:06:54.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16463" CreationDate="2015-11-07T23:38:32.457" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe the video is trying to make you understand the difference between 有 and 是, which is basically &quot;definiteness&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;桌子上&lt;em&gt;有&lt;/em&gt;一本作业 (indefinite)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;桌子上&lt;em&gt;是&lt;/em&gt;我的作业 (definite)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I wouldn't say it's wrong to say 桌子上有我的作业, even not being a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2015-11-07T23:38:32.457" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16469" CreationDate="2015-11-08T10:59:34.373" Score="8" ViewCount="1804" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've tried to google these old Chinese characters using their closest approximations but still haven't found out any. I want to find these characters so that I can copy and paste them instead of taking photos of them every time needed. They are: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9o27S.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9o27S.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vLfR8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vLfR8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wovg7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wovg7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iDIyS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iDIyS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qF0dE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qF0dE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I just added 3 more Old Chinese characters because before that I didn't have enough reputation to upload more than 2 images. So, at the beginning, there were 2 images but after adding 3 more, now there are 5 images.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12055" LastEditorUserId="12055" LastEditDate="2015-11-09T03:26:05.400" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T10:54:11.700" Title="How to type these old and rare Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16467" CreationDate="2015-11-08T14:50:38.800" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you're having trouble displaying the following characters install the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fonts.jp/hanazono/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanazono&lt;/a&gt; font&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=2C686&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unicode码：2C686&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=29AC1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unicode码：29AC1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拼音mao4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;石 毛&lt;/code&gt; doesn't seem to have much of a record as far as I can tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LlXu2.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LlXu2.png&quot; alt=&quot;oh&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No results found for “⿱石毛”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where &lt;code&gt;⿱&lt;/code&gt; means top/bottom components in order of: 石(top) 毛(bottom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt; 日&lt;/code&gt; also doesn't seem to have an exact match that I can find, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://osdn.jp/projects/tsukurimashou/scm/svn/commits/555&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; website seems to say it's this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EDCEe.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EDCEe.png&quot; alt=&quot;yes&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⿱日[T]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they say it's a combination of &lt;code&gt; 日&lt;/code&gt; but the character looks more like 干 than 于, not sure if it will work for your purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/htm/80/80B0.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea 肰&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unicode码：80B0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;How to find characters?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;1&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used zisea's &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zslf.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;两分&lt;/a&gt; to find both characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the first one I searched &lt;code&gt;羽 能&lt;/code&gt; (with a space in the middle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ULWG.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ULWG.png&quot; alt=&quot;yeh&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and for the second I searched &lt;code&gt;高 毛&lt;/code&gt; (with a space in the middle).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Svmvi.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Svmvi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can figure out the two major components you can pretty much find any character you want, unicode or non-unicode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;2&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笔顺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/sousuo/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic sou suo page&lt;/a&gt; explains it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请输入正确的笔顺编码：李→1234521&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笔顺说明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笔顺名称   一（横）    丨（竖）    丿（撇）    丶（点）    乛（折）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笔顺编号   1   2   3   4   5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;注:一（提）归为一（横），亅（竖钩）归为丨（竖），丶（捺）归为丶（点），各种折笔笔画归为一（折）——《现代汉语通用字笔顺规范》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; for instance is 丶一丨フ一丨フ丨フ一ノ一一フ which equates to 41251252513115&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you search for this on &lt;a href=&quot;http://zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt; select 字典 and then 笔顺 you'll get something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dyTbo.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dyTbo.png&quot; alt=&quot;hi&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;3&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;google components&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.sg/?gfe_rd=cr&amp;amp;ei=xFpAVqv6MauE8Qe8zK3wAQ&amp;amp;gws_rd=ssl#q=%22%F0%A5%8E%BF%20%E6%97%A5%22&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot; 日&amp;quot; google search&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h2Kku.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h2Kku.png&quot; alt=&quot;okay&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you try an exact search (quoted) for the components you are looking for you might also find what you want. That's how I found  referenced as a combination of the two, obvious, components of your character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T08:54:56.807" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16470" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-08T18:19:20.507" Score="4" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;For instance, I would like to write the following sentence about China:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Many songs were written to praise the Chinese Communist Party and the 'Motherland' &quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By &quot;Motherland&quot;, I mean 祖国 ( zuguo / zŭguó).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an academic article, and I would like to include both the Chinese characters and the pinyin. What style should I use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12060" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T21:31:17.743" Title="What is the correct style/format when including Chinese translations in academic articles?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;academic&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16467" CreationDate="2015-11-08T21:26:34.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used &lt;a href=&quot;http://wenlin.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wenlin&lt;/a&gt; to find them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA; [mào]&#xA;&#xA;(=能䏻竜) (!龍)&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I required students to own a copy of Wenlin when I college classes on the Chinese script — it's a very useful program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T21:26:34.923" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16470" CreationDate="2015-11-08T21:31:09.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I'm writing a scholarly article I normally put the Chinese first (Pinyin italicized and before characters) like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Many songs were written to praise the Chinese Communist Party and the &lt;em&gt;zǔguó&lt;/em&gt; 祖国 ‘Motherland’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that for a linguistically inclined and Chinese-reading audience I'd give primacy to Chinese term. But if it's intended for ordinary readers, I'd make the English the primary focus, this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Many songs were written to praise the Chinese Communist Party and the ‘Motherland’ (&lt;em&gt;zǔguó&lt;/em&gt; 祖国).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T21:31:09.230" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16470" CreationDate="2015-11-08T21:31:17.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use normal vernacular, make it readable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Omit tone marks in pinyin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do not reverse names in translation (as the Japanese do)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T21:31:17.743" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16463" CreationDate="2015-11-08T22:58:05.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, normally, in standard usage &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;zhūozishàng yǒu wǒde zuòyè&lt;/em&gt; 桌子上有我的作业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;isn't supposed to be correct. You'll hear it a lot, though, especially if a different specific noun phrase is contrasted, such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;… &lt;em&gt;dàn méiyǒu nǐde zuòyè&lt;/em&gt; 但没有你的作业.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Better Half, a native speaker, swears there's nothing wrong with &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;… &lt;em&gt;yǒu wǒde zuòyè&lt;/em&gt; 有我的作业.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum&lt;/strong&gt;: The preferred way of dealing with stating the location of a specified noun (modified by a personal pronoun (&lt;em&gt;wǒ&lt;/em&gt; 我, etc.) or a deictic pronoun (&lt;em&gt;nà&lt;/em&gt; 那, etc.) is to make it the topic of the sentence, giving it greatest focus, as befits a specified noun. So &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;wǒde zuòyè zài zhūozishàng&lt;/em&gt; 我的作业在桌子上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11958" LastEditorUserId="11958" LastEditDate="2015-11-09T00:59:53.667" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T00:59:53.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16475" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16484" CreationDate="2015-11-09T00:18:15.560" Score="4" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking at the phrase: &quot;就算世界与我为敌&quot;&#xA;and I understand that the gist of it is: &quot;Even against the whole world&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, I don't fully understand how to properly parse it. In particular, the words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与 - and / with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 - as / because of / for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how they're being used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12062" LastActivityDate="2015-11-10T05:19:25.633" Title="How to parse &quot;就算世界与我为敌&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16463" CreationDate="2015-11-09T00:28:29.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;hi actually Chinese people can understand both sentence and we cannot even tell which is right or wrong in grammar. I believe that for most Chinese people they think both sentence are right.this is unbelievable but trueIf you want to communicate with Chinese people is not that hard.But sorry actually I can't help you with this problem. Good luck with your Chinese studying☺️&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12064" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T00:28:29.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16475" CreationDate="2015-11-09T02:03:19.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;就算 even if &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世界 the world&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与 and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 I&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 as, being&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敌 enemies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastEditorUserId="6762" LastEditDate="2015-11-09T02:25:50.287" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T02:25:50.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16479" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-09T04:46:30.867" Score="2" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am told that this seal stamp character(s) are from the Chinese dialect, though I got it from my Japanese grandmother.  She had it made and gave it to me. I was told it says 'strong and smart' and also resembles my name 'Matthew'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not been able to find the characters that are shown on the stamp, and do not know either language well. Can someone help me with what the characters say and mean, or where to find them, along with anything else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bPKiQm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bPKiQm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12065" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-09T07:00:02.703" LastActivityDate="2015-11-10T19:04:52.217" Title="Can you decipher what this seal stamp says and means?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2015-11-11T01:25:54.267" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16457" CreationDate="2015-11-09T05:56:55.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hold similar view with Tochtli's teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;美国意大利黑帮&quot; does mean Italian Mafia in the U.S.  The position of the adjectives determines its context.  The &quot;outer&quot; one serves geographical purpose while the &quot;inner&quot; one serves demonym purpose when the context of the subject allows it, say &quot;美國意大利公司&quot;.  This is especially phenomenal if the &quot;inner&quot; adjective and the subject forms a common/well-known term, e.g. &quot;意大利黑帮&quot; in the article.  It does require certain level of cultural knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confusion raises when they do not form a common term, e.g. &quot;美國意大利幫派&quot;. In such cases, we must rely on the context of the whole article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;international criminal group active in both America and Italy&quot;, I cannot think of any concise Chinese term either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T05:56:55.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16475" CreationDate="2015-11-09T08:38:34.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although Siyi Deng has already answered it correctly, I'm just making it more clear, hope u understand, :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if         = 就算&#xA;the world     = 世界&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;became / enemy / with / me&#xA;     为     /     敌    /   与 /   我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12069" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T08:38:34.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1773" CreationDate="2015-11-09T09:34:11.283" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 2010 book &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.it/books/about/Jews_and_Judaism_in_Modern_China.html?id=bMXx4ca9_BQC&amp;amp;redir_esc=y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Jews and Judaism in Modern China&amp;quot;, by M. Avrum Ehrlich&lt;/a&gt;, translates kosher as &lt;em&gt;jieshi&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both the Pleco and KTdict iOS apps also offer 洁食（＊jieshi*) as a translation for kosher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12070" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T13:08:40.230" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T13:08:40.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16475" CreationDate="2015-11-09T11:06:33.243" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;与 here serves as a noun conjunction (you could replace it with 和), and links 世界 and 我 forming a composite subject. Its proper translation however depends on the verb that follows, which is 为.&#xA;为 oftentimes can be rendered just as &quot;to be&quot;. It is after all a copular verb, especially in this sentence, therefore：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就算 / (世界 / 与 / 我) / (为 / 敌)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if it's me against the world&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you should also consider that 与 can work as a preposition, thus it relates to the following 我 more strongly than &quot;pure&quot; conjunctions, so it's also acceptable to parse it as: &#xA;世界 / 与我&#xA;For this reason I would tend to give more prominence to 世界 semantically, therefore I think the best translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if the world's against me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2015-11-09T11:13:15.427" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T11:13:15.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16485" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-09T19:41:44.687" Score="1" ViewCount="4921" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would be the most accurate term for &lt;strong&gt;newbie&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;noob&lt;/strong&gt;, namely one that also conveys a dash of sarcasm and a bit of a condescending tone? I guess it should also be slang. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;新来的&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;新手&lt;/strong&gt; are pretty neutral, &lt;strong&gt;外行&lt;/strong&gt; simply means &lt;strong&gt;layman&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T01:20:04.903" Title="How to say &quot;newbie&quot; or &quot;noob&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16485" CreationDate="2015-11-09T19:41:44.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, while I was researching the question I may have found the answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pleco says its &lt;strong&gt;菜鸟&lt;/strong&gt;, as well as the Chinese version of Newbie on &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8F%9C%E9%B3%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the other interpretations in Pleco is &lt;strong&gt;idiot&lt;/strong&gt; which may be too harsh，and another is &lt;strong&gt;beginner&lt;/strong&gt; which is neutral and descriptive. But one of the definitions is indeed &lt;strong&gt;newbie&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty much sure the answer would be &lt;strong&gt;菜鸟&lt;/strong&gt;, but what the heck, let's post anyway and see if something better comes up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="2792" LastEditDate="2015-11-11T01:20:04.903" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T01:20:04.903" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16485" CreationDate="2015-11-10T00:20:28.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;新手&#xA;(新=new)(手=hand)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're new to a subject there will often be a 新手指南.  You can see this all over: for example in the Chinese language Weibo developer documentation there is a section titled 新手指南。 A 指南 is a &quot;user guide&quot; or &quot;guide book&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(指= to point)(南= although it means south, it is used in the word for compass)  I have seen 新手 used perhaps 50 or 60 times to communicate essentially the same meaning as a noob or newbie.  新手, however, is not slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12078" LastActivityDate="2015-11-10T00:20:28.660" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16475" CreationDate="2015-11-10T05:19:25.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;世界与我为敌 here means &quot;the world and me are hostile&quot;. 敌 is not a noun here, in fact it's an adjective in my opinion, 敌对的 in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the phrase is &quot;世界&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;我为敌&quot;, then the 敌 would be a noun means enemy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-11-10T05:19:25.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1773" CreationDate="2015-11-10T05:43:52.697" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 犹太的 is a proper word reflect to kosher. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what is the restriction of &lt;em&gt;kosher&lt;/em&gt;, but I believe it's something similar to halal. Halal is translated to 清真的, which emphasize the religion specific. Because Islam is translated to 清真教 at the time it was just introduced to China, although nowadays we use 伊斯兰教 to refer the religion, and 清真 to reflect to halal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare halal and kosher, I believe 犹太的 make sense since it emphasize the religion specific. Regarding 洁食 mentioned by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/16483/11936&quot;&gt;food_lover&lt;/a&gt;, I think it's not a proper translation to Chinese people. Because 洁食 means &lt;em&gt;clean food&lt;/em&gt; in Chinese, it implies food which are not kosher is dirty. This may acceptable to Jewish, but definitely kind of offensive to people who don't believe in the religion. So I think a neutral word like 犹太食品 would be the best for kosher food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-11-10T05:50:17.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16467" CreationDate="2015-11-10T06:15:18.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ciyang.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CiYang&lt;/a&gt;. It's perfect for unusual characters. You can input those parts of the character separately, it will give the candidate characters for you, including very explicit explanation and usage if there is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can input 月犬, it will show you 肰(ran2) with explanation and unicode. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-11-10T06:15:18.893" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16485" CreationDate="2015-11-10T08:35:41.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;新手，菜鸟, 新人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be used to express newcomer, beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12067" LastActivityDate="2015-11-10T08:35:41.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16479" CreationDate="2015-11-10T19:04:52.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The the characters on the stamp were written in 小篆(xiao zhuan), which is an ancient Chinese writing form. The character on the right is 麥, which means wheat. The character on the left is 菲, which means the fragrance of plants. I don't know how those two characters could relate to 'strong and smart'. I think the combination of the two characters might have a specific meaning in Japanese, since there are also Chinese characters in Japanese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12085" LastActivityDate="2015-11-10T19:04:52.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16485" CreationDate="2015-11-10T21:25:53.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;小白&lt;/strong&gt; is also a possible translation of &lt;strong&gt;newbie&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9790" LastActivityDate="2015-11-10T21:25:53.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16513" CreationDate="2015-11-11T02:20:10.193" Score="1" ViewCount="770" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner in Chinese language. I have taken the Chinese - level 1 course on edX [MandarinX]. I did learn the basics which I could use when I travel and go to a restaurant while I am there as a part of the course. I did score 94% in my final exam but I lack the people who speak in Chinese so that I can practice. I have Chinese friends but they want to learn English and I teach them, but they never speak in Chinese when I tell them I want to learn. It's kind of discouraging. Is there a place, a website or a good application where I could find Chinese speaking people to learn, practice and grow. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12089" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-27T04:32:25.197" LastActivityDate="2020-02-27T04:32:25.197" Title="Where can I find people to communicate in Chinese to learn and improve it?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-11-13T11:29:14.167" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16500" CreationDate="2015-11-11T02:34:31.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你可以加入一个中文的SNS，尝试交些新朋友。例如：微博（like twitter）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11368" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T02:34:31.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16502" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16503" CreationDate="2015-11-11T04:14:23.023" Score="2" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, 风浪 is waves created by wind, and 涌浪 would be waves created by tidal movements or surge waves. However, this is a very bulky way to describe them. What is the English for this difference, besides just &quot;wave&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate offers the alternative options of 风浪: wind and waves, storm; for  涌浪: swell, surge &#xA;English has &quot;storm surge&quot;, but that's not really helping. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12046" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:58:03.237" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:58:03.237" Title="What is the difference (and english translation) between 风浪 and 涌浪?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16502" CreationDate="2015-11-11T06:35:51.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www2.ouc.edu.cn/cpeo/oceanography/ziyuan/tech/chapter8/6.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; webpage from the &lt;em&gt;Ocean University of China&lt;/em&gt;, '风浪'='wind wave', and '涌浪'='swell'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That webpage also gives the following definitions:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;风浪(wind wave): They are generated by the wind, restored by gravity, and progress in a particular direction.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涌浪(swell):When the waves move out of the storm center, forced waves become free waves moving at speeds due to their periods and wavelengths. Once away from the storm these long-period, uniform waves are called swell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the Wikipedia definition of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swell_%28ocean%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Swell (ocean)&lt;/a&gt;, the swells are&#xA;&quot;&lt;em&gt;These series of surface gravity waves are not generated by the immediate local wind, instead by distant weather systems, where wind blows for a duration of time over a fetch of water. This is the primary definition of a swell as &lt;strong&gt;opposed to a locally generated wind wave&lt;/strong&gt;, which is still under the influence of the mechanisms that created it e.g. Wind blowing over a puddle.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my understanding, '风浪' has two meanings. The broader meaning refers to all waves generated by wind blowing; the narrower meaning refers to &quot;a locally generated wind wave, which is still under the influence of the mechanisms that created it&quot;, to distinguish from '涌浪'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12075" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T06:35:51.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="470" CreationDate="2015-11-11T15:22:15.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In modern day usage, 狗 is used in more oral and casual context, while 犬 is used in more literal and formal context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contrary to typical Chinese language trend, it is not true that 犬 is from classical Chinese text, while 狗 is a modern word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are five common idioms involving the word 狗 or 犬, and their original literary sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雞鳴狗盜 - 乃夜為&quot;狗&quot;，以入秦宮臧中，取所獻狐白裘至 ... 客之居下坐者有能為雞鳴 (Han Dynasty) or 皆藉王公之势，竞为游侠，鸡鸣&quot;狗&quot;盗，无不宾礼 (Han Dynasty)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雞犬不寧 - 譁然而駭者，雖雞&quot;狗&quot;不得寧焉 (Tang Dynasty)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;狡兔死 走狗烹 - 飛鳥盡，良弓藏；狡兔死，走&quot;狗&quot;烹 (Han Dynasty)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;畫虎類犬 - 效季良不得，陷为天下轻薄子，所谓画虎不成反类&quot;狗&quot;也 (Han Dynasty) (some argue 狗 means tiger cub here)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;虎父無犬子 - 先主视之，叹曰：虎父无&quot;犬&quot;子也！ (Yuan Dynasty, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, may not be the origin of the phrase)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Four of the five classical texts use the word 狗, while the more casual Romanced of the Three Kingdoms used the word 犬. It's likely that 狗 was commonly used in formal classical Chinese text, perhaps more so than 犬.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12094" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T15:22:15.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16500" CreationDate="2015-11-11T20:14:32.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend &lt;strong&gt;Sharedtalk&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Hellotalk&lt;/strong&gt; for finding online language learners who are interested in language exchange. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have gained a good base of written communication you could try social media such as &lt;strong&gt;微博&lt;/strong&gt; or friend/activity finding apps like &lt;strong&gt;陌陌.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T20:14:32.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="470" CreationDate="2015-11-11T20:28:41.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;roughly speaking, 90% of the time you should use 狗. 那个狗 that dog, 这个狗 this dog. 犬 is used when we talk about animal species like 犬科 dog species &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11219" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T20:28:41.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16509" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-12T01:23:00.657" Score="1" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was surprised to find out about the character 餵 (wei4, 喂) because it doesn't seem to have a meaning other than an expression to answer the telephone. Since the telephone was only invented in the last hundred years or so...this must be a relatively new character. Is this accurate? If so, how was the character/sound developed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12096" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T10:51:49.527" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T10:51:49.527" Title="What is the etymology and glyph origin of 餵?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16509" CreationDate="2015-11-12T02:01:51.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;喂 means &lt;em&gt;feed(verb)&lt;/em&gt; originally besides answering telephone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the origin of the character, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ciyang.com/search.php?q=%E5%96%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CiYang&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(1) (餵、喂是近代的“餧”字) 喂食    餵 and 喂 are modern writing of 餧&#xA;餧,饲也。——《玉篇》    餧 means feed(verb)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a new character derive from 餧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. The most popular usage of 喂 may be a character for answering phone. But it is also a derivative from the common usage of saying hello in a &lt;strong&gt;rude&lt;/strong&gt; way.  Because of this, in fact, there are many people claims that answering phone with 喂 is impolite, we'd better say 你好/您好 instead. If you call public service number like customer service hot lines, you always hear the operator answering 您好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2015-11-12T05:35:28.790" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T05:35:28.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16509" CreationDate="2015-11-12T03:15:54.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;餵 and 喂 were different characters. Both of them are so-called 形聲字, which can be roughly translated as meaning-sound character. It means that part of the character is for the meaning, and part of it is for the sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 餵，食 is its 形 part, or the part for meaning, which has something to do with food, and 畏 is its 聲 part, which sounds wèi or ㄨㄟˋ. For 喂 the 聲 part is the same as that of 餵 which is why they share similar pronunciations, and its 形 (meaning) part is 口, which has something to do with the mouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;餵 can only mean to feed or to raise (a pet); 喂 could (past tense) only mean to make some sound (to scare off). 《康熙字典》 has an entry for 喂:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《玉篇》於韋切，音威。恐也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why 喂 is used for telephone answering. It can be also used to shout out to someone to raise attention, as &quot;hey&quot; in &quot;&lt;em&gt;Hey! You stop there right now!&lt;/em&gt;&quot; The simplification of Chinese characters turn two characters into the same thing (which I consider bad ): so now 喂 can mean to feed too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also an entry in 《康熙字典》 for 餧, an alternative character of 餵:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《廣韻》《集韻》《韻會》於僞切，音委。《玉篇》餧，飼也。《廣韻》餧，飯也。《說文》食牛也。《禮·月令》季春，餧獸之藥，毋出九門。《註》餧者，啗之也。藥，毒物也。《楚辭·九辯》驥不驟進而求服兮，鳳亦不貪餧而妄食。《註》謂不貪人飤己妄食也。&#xA;  又《唐韻》奴罪切《集韻》《韻會》《正韻》弩罪切，音鮾。《玉篇》飢也。一曰魚敗曰餧。《楚語》民之羸餧，日日已甚。《前漢·魏相傳》振乏餧。◎按餧餒古通，今相承，以餧爲餧飼之餧，以餒爲飢餒之餒，遂分爲二。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So… basically to directly answer your question, 餵 doesn't answer the phone, 喂 does and also inherit 餵's meaning of to feed or to raise pets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11211" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T03:15:54.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16509" CreationDate="2015-11-12T03:34:45.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is &lt;code&gt;喂&lt;/code&gt; being used for answering the telephone in modern times seems to be a &lt;code&gt;未解之谜&lt;/code&gt;, one idea is that the usage might derived from French &lt;code&gt;oui&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那么，是外来语的模仿吗？我们来看外国人打电话的招呼语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;英语：HELLO.Hi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;日语：もしもし，(发音 moshee moshee)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;法语:Allo ,oui (发音 wi)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;德语： Guten Tag，Tag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;俄语：Алло（发音 allo)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;意大利语： Pronto? Ciao.（俏）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;荷兰语：hallo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;西班牙语：Aló。.Sí, diga. Dígame. Bueno. 或者aló + buenos días(早上好) 、buenas&#xA;  tardes(下午好)、 buenas noches(晚上好) 葡萄牙语：Aló&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清朝末年可能被中国借用的语言中，只有法国的OUI发音接近喂，其他的相差十万八千里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那么，“喂”是法语“oui”的音译吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;电话于正式发明的第二年即1877年就进入了上海。是年1月，上海轮船招商局托西人造电话机一部，其电线由金利源栈房通至总局公务厅，这是中国人第一次使用电话。此后，电话逐步在上海推广。1881年。当时上海英商瑞记洋行在上海租界内开办华洋德律风公司，架起市内电话线路。从此中国出现了电话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1882年，大北电报公司在上海外滩7号正式开设了第一个电话局，设置了一部人工交换机。并在租界内的马路上架设了话线杆。25家客户成为上海首批电话用户。这个电话局是中国最早的市内电话局。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是不是在电话传入的早期，上海人借用了法语的OUI来做电话里的招呼用语，一时没有确切证据，也许是这么来的吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_9c05e85901013f6t.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;中国人打电话为什么要说“喂”的考证&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qulishi.com/news/201504/32560_2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;打电话时为什么会先说“喂”？你绝对猜不到&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T03:34:45.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16500" CreationDate="2015-11-12T13:33:38.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on how easy it is for you to get in touch with native speakers IRL, I suggest the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) natives everywhere:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;download Wechat 微信 and use the &quot;People near me&quot; function (附近的人), it will show people in a 5-10km radius near you that are online right now. Given that Chinese people do tend to use Wechat more often than non-Chinese, your chances to meet people will increase. You could start chatting people up randomly or based on mutual interests, and even hang out together. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, don't expect natives to be willing to speak in Chinese to you ALL the time. Keep in mind that people speak their native language naturally, which means they will quickly become frustrated if they have to put too much effort in communicating with you. The worse is your Chinese, the sooner they'll feel like switching to a language they can have an actual conversation with you with.&#xA;In order to mitigate this outcome, you either improve your level BEFOREHAND or you specifically look for someone interested in language exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) I just have an internet connection:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;speaking about language exchange, that's exactly what you want to go for if there are no natives able to physically go out with you.&#xA;I can recommend &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lingq.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;LingQ&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://lang-8.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lang-8&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hellotalk.com/#lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;HelloTalk&lt;/a&gt; (app) or the excellent &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.italki.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;italki&lt;/a&gt;  where you can connect with real people that will correct your sentences and answer your questions (provided you do the same for them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T13:33:38.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16060" CreationDate="2015-11-12T13:54:21.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In terms of whether it is &quot;correct&quot; or not, I think we cannot say it is correct or not, but that it is the idiomatic way or customary way in Taiwan, so it is &quot;correct&quot; or &quot;appropriate&quot; to say that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in Hong Kong or Guangzhou, when a waiter or waitress brings you a pot of tea in a Dim Sum restaurant, we usually say &quot;唔該&quot;, which literally means &quot;Not Should&quot;, and it means, &quot;You shouldn't&quot;.  But the waiter or waitress really should bring customers a pot of tea, so why do most people say &quot;You shouldn't&quot; or &quot;唔該&quot;?  Because it is the customary way of saying it, and it gives the meaning of &quot;You are so kind; you really shouldn't (be so kind and go through the trouble of bringing me some tea).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And besides the page &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.douban.com/group/topic/45291216/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;为什么台湾人回答谢谢的时候喜欢说不会，请问是不会什么&lt;/a&gt; as suggested by @songyuanyao (which I can't say whether it is true or not, as I don't live in Taiwan and don't speak the Taiwanese language yet), but sometimes I feel when they say &quot;不會&quot;, it is like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a person says: &quot;謝謝&quot;, if his tone is very sincere and expresses a lot of gratitude, it can imply &quot;Thank you so much, for offering me this help, and I appreciate it.&quot;  And the &quot;不會&quot; literally means &quot;It won't be&quot; or &quot;it wasn't&quot;, but it gives the meaning of &quot;No, it wasn't such a big help; you really don't have to thank me.&quot;  This is how I feel of it, and languages, if 99% of people say it that way or intend to give the meaning by those words, it really becomes the standard way of expressing something, just like when Cantonese people say &quot;Not should&quot; or &quot;You shouldn't&quot;, it really means &quot;thanks for your help.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="940" LastEditorUserId="940" LastEditDate="2015-11-12T13:59:56.700" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T13:59:56.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16515" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16523" CreationDate="2015-11-12T15:47:22.373" Score="6" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3745/bare-metal-programming&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bare-Metal Programming&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bare-metal programming is a term for programming that operates without various layers of abstraction or, as some experts describe it, &quot;without an operating system supporting it.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Example:&#xA;&#xA;A: I made a nice motor controller with a STM32 MCU.&#xA;B: Interesting, what OS did you use?&#xA;A: No OS, bare metal.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The informal Chinese word for this &lt;code&gt;bare metal&lt;/code&gt; seems to be &lt;code&gt;裸奔&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this word is widely used and understood among the programming community, I find it hard to use on a more formal occasion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9846" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-11-16T05:39:35.130" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T05:40:10.183" Title="What's the Chinese word for &quot;bare-metal&quot; (computer programming)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16515" CreationDate="2015-11-12T15:57:29.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The common translation seems to be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;裸金属&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is just naked + metalic(s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2015年5月19日 - (底层)系统底层开发:裸金属(bare metal)、...通常意义上所说的“系统编程”,往往是指中...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://linux.cn/article-5462-2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://linux.cn/article-5462-2.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your suggested 裸奔 on the other hand just means “streak” as in running around naked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of 裸金属:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;裸金属架构 (“Bare Metal” Architecture)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/482432974.html?fr=ala&amp;amp;word=%E8%A3%B8%E9%87%91%E5%B1%9E&amp;amp;device=mobile&amp;amp;ssid=0&amp;amp;from=844b&amp;amp;uid=0&amp;amp;pu=usm@0,sz@1320_2001,ta@iphone_1_8.4_3_600&amp;amp;bd_page_type=1&amp;amp;baiduid=B0DC14BD4CFD809A8478494C15B38C6D&amp;amp;tj=zhidao_2_0_10_l1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/482432974.html?fr=ala&amp;amp;word=裸金属&amp;amp;device=mobile&amp;amp;ssid=0&amp;amp;from=844b&amp;amp;uid=0&amp;amp;pu=usm@0,sz@1320_2001,ta@iphone_1_8.4_3_600&amp;amp;bd_page_type=1&amp;amp;baiduid=B0DC14BD4CFD809A8478494C15B38C6D&amp;amp;tj=zhidao_2_0_10_l1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T15:57:29.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6897" CreationDate="2015-11-12T22:10:15.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;File(data) organization specialist &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T22:10:15.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16518" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-12T23:08:33.850" Score="10" ViewCount="1079" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tell me, please, how do 我's radicals 手 and 戈 create the meaning of 我  (ie: I)? &#xA;  I know that 戈's pictogram (象形) means a rake-like tool or weapon, borrowed for sound to mean &quot;me&quot; (note 'Oracle bone script').&quot; But then how did &quot;rake-like tool or weapon&quot; shift semantically to mean &quot;I&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12102" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T00:26:14.743" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T00:26:14.743" Title="Glyph origin of 我 - How did 我's radicals 手 and 戈 create the meaning of 我?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16519" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16527" CreationDate="2015-11-12T23:50:17.890" Score="5" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found citations from ancient texts backing both interpretations on the Internet while searching for the correct form of the term:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清·唐甄《潜书·食难》：“吾老矣，岂能复俯首于他人之宇下，&lt;strong&gt;察颜观色&lt;/strong&gt;，以求无拂于人，吾不能也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《论语·颜渊》：“夫达也者，质直而好义，&lt;strong&gt;察言而观色&lt;/strong&gt;，虑以下人。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which of these is/are correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8054" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T05:31:40.453" Title="Is 察颜观色 or 察言观色 the correct term to use?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16518" CreationDate="2015-11-13T00:15:20.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Phonetic loan. The social hierarchy in Chinese society was such that one had to use pronouns according to class. 朕 (zhèn) means &quot;I&quot;, but was eventually used exclusively by the emporor, and nobody was allowed to be equal to him. Therefore a range of honorific pronouns exist in Chinese, many of which are loan words or otherwise obscure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T00:15:20.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16522" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-13T00:46:31.713" Score="8" ViewCount="1187" Body="&lt;p&gt;A while ago I learned that some was 些 or 一些, but now I've also learned that there is another way to say some, 有的. My teacher didn't go into the difference in class and I forgot to ask her afterwards. Is there a difference in meaning and/or usage or are they totally synonymous?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance，&#xA;William&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12104" LastEditorUserId="12104" LastEditDate="2015-11-13T00:52:09.217" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T02:24:44.560" Title="Difference: 些 and 有的" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16515" CreationDate="2015-11-13T01:51:46.587" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bare Metal&lt;/code&gt; could be tanslated as &lt;code&gt;裸金属&lt;/code&gt; literally, but it doesn't make sense for Computer Science. I prefer to translate is as &lt;code&gt;裸机&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;Bare machine&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bare_machine&quot;&gt;Bare machine&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bare machine (or bare metal), in computer parlance, means a computer&#xA;  without its operating system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example from &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/search?q=bare+machine&amp;amp;keyfrom=dict.index&quot;&gt;youdao&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A new remote boot technology based on IP storage area network was&#xA;  designed, and the core technology of it is the firmware protocol stack&#xA;  running under &lt;strong&gt;bare machine&lt;/strong&gt; platform. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;设计了一种基于IP存储区域网络的远程引导技术，该技术的核心是运行在&lt;strong&gt;裸机&lt;/strong&gt;下的固件协议栈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://fanyi.baidu.com/?aldtype=85&amp;amp;keyfrom=alading&amp;amp;smartresult=dict&amp;amp;expand=1#en/zh/bare%20machine&quot;&gt;baidu&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example, you might choose to allow the results from the virtual&#xA;  machines to vary within 10 percent of the results from the &lt;strong&gt;bare metal&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  control machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;例如，您可以选择允许来自虚拟机的结果与来自&lt;strong&gt;裸机&lt;/strong&gt;控制机器的结果存在10%的偏差。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-11-13T02:11:33.263" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T02:11:33.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16522" CreationDate="2015-11-13T02:36:13.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一些 usually used when you try to say something relate to number, but you don't want to say a certain number. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我买了一些蔬菜  I bought some vegetables. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 有的 here is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer about 有的 is inaccurate, please reference &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/16542/11936&quot;&gt;Txv's Answer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strike&gt;Usage of 有的 the same as &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; in English. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;有的人 ＝ some people&#xA;有的动物 ＝ some animals&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another word which combines 些 and 有的, which is &lt;strong&gt;有些&lt;/strong&gt;, the usage is the same as 有的 &lt;strong&gt;in some situation&lt;/strong&gt;. Like below comments shows, sometimes 有些 and 有的 not the same. &lt;/strike&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2015-11-19T05:23:51.360" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16518" CreationDate="2015-11-13T02:54:43.427" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, &lt;code&gt;我&lt;/code&gt; was a kind of weapon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the book &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=o257Z22lr-mz2mRd-yqBNvyiNUmYPkZerOqsAbtIbBZvV4H741uFAMkomIdi2eawIHEswwm0FpZgqAQZpMH-IK#3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;字源谈趣&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;code&gt;我&lt;/code&gt; was a kind of broadax originally in slavery society.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ROWPk.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ROWPk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请看图（A），是甲骨文里的“我”字，象个什么东西呢？象把有柄有钩的古代武器——大斧，斧口有一排锋利的锯齿。原来，这是奴隶社会里一种用来行刑杀人和肢解牲口的凶器，叫做wǒ，古代也有人把这种锯斧叫做“錡”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then later, &lt;code&gt;我&lt;/code&gt; was obsoleted by other new weapons little by little. From Han and Tang dynasty, &lt;code&gt;我&lt;/code&gt; was borrowed to be used as first person, and the pronunciation doesn't change till today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我”这种奴隶社会杀人的凶器，到了战国时代，大抵被后起的更优良的凶器所淘汰；于是“我”字在汉唐以后便被普遍借用来作为第一人称使用，还是读作wǒ，字音至今不变。（先秦乃至汉唐以前，第一人称，是用“吾”“予”“余”等字来表示的。）但词性却已由名词变作人称代词，而“我”是杀人凶器的原义便早已不为人所知了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phenomenon is called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yuwenchaoshi.com/bencandy.php?fid=355&amp;amp;id=802&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;假借字&lt;/a&gt;, means select and use an old word for new expression and meaning, without creating a new word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;许慎：“假借者，本无其字，依声托事，令长是也。”即本来没有那个字，现在为了表达的需要，在不另造新字之情况下借用旧字来充当新义，就成了假借，“令”本义表命令的会意字，后来指县令。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5d99e6da0100o1bj.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉字“我”最早是杀人凶器&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T03:11:42.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16522" CreationDate="2015-11-13T03:16:59.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your teacher is correct in saying that both mean &quot;some.&quot; However, these have a slightly different meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有的 = There are some&#xA;&lt;br&gt;有些 also means There are some&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using &quot;一些&quot; usually comes after a verb that relates to &quot;some [noun]&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am buying some clothes - 我买了一些衣服&#xA;&lt;br&gt;I am eating some fruit - 我吃了一些水果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11981" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T03:16:59.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16519" CreationDate="2015-11-13T04:02:21.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are correct. According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/f/15/32184.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;察言观色&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;察：详审。观察别人的说话或脸色。多指揣摸别人的心意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;察：详审(scrutinize)。言：言语(speech)。观：看(look)。色：脸上表现的神情(expression on face)。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So it means &lt;code&gt;dive sb.'s thoughts from what he says and the expression on his face&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/f/79/126422.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;察颜观色&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;观察别人的脸色，以揣摩其心意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note it's a little different that here's only watching expression on sb.'s face, no listening the speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.doc88.com/p-770376910199.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;漫说“察言观色”与“察颜观色”&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“察颜观色”与“察言观色”各有其特定的语境可用，而且都有较远的语源可查，更有权威工具书为据，现代文学中又有许多经典著作的用例佐证，当让这两个成语‚各司其职‛，为传承汉语精确性服务。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T04:02:21.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16528" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16530" CreationDate="2015-11-13T06:25:09.340" Score="4" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;p&gt;Results for &lt;code&gt;pizza&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese are numerous&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;比乍&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;披莎&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;比萨&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;匹萨&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;批萨&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;皮萨&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;披薩&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm never sure which to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a most common/most well-known translation or transliteration for Pizza in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T05:10:14.037" Title="Most common/well known translation (transliteration) of “pizza” in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16522" CreationDate="2015-11-13T06:56:26.973" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;有的 has the meaning &quot;there exists (something)&quot;, while 一些/些 can means &quot;some&quot; or &quot;a number of&quot;.&#xA;Two words can be swap each other at begin of a clause or a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(有的/一些)人喜歡蘋果。 Some people like apples.&#xA;我發現(有的/一些)人喜歡吃蘋果。 I found that some people like to eat apples.&#xA;我吃了(一些/些)蘋果。 I ate some apples.&#xA;我看到在馬路上有(一些)重機車。 I saw some motorcycles on the road.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's common to say 有些/有一些 too, and able to replace 有的, but not 一些.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(有些)人喜歡蘋果。 Some people like apples.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幾 can be used to express &quot;some&quot; too, and it can replace 一些 but you need to add classifier after 幾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我找了(幾本/些)書來看。 I found some books to read.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm native Mandarin speaker so I hope it's helpful. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6848" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T06:56:26.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16528" CreationDate="2015-11-13T07:00:41.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;批萨 and 匹萨 are the most common ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比萨 only used to reference the tower - &lt;em&gt;Leaning Tower of Pisa&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T07:00:41.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16528" CreationDate="2015-11-13T07:18:56.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“外国煎饼”&#xA;Just kidding. &#xA;Any one of them is OK. Cuz they are all transliterations, and we Chinese can understand what you mean. &#xA;Btw, we call Leaning Tower of Pisa '比萨斜塔'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12107" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T07:18:56.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16532" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-13T12:52:53.733" Score="4" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is this sentence in &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-at-ease.com/friends-in-desert-learn-chinese-story/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this story 沙漠里的朋友&lt;/a&gt;: 今天我的好朋友打了我一巴掌.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, can I replace 巴掌 with 耳光?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12109" LastEditorUserId="9387" LastEditDate="2015-11-14T02:19:43.410" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T01:40:07.177" Title="Are 耳光 and 巴掌 the same?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16532" CreationDate="2015-11-13T13:25:06.257" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;耳光&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;box on the ears; slap on the face&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巴掌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;palm of the hand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While they are inherently different, &lt;code&gt;打…巴掌&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;打…耳光&lt;/code&gt; are roughly the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider these two example sentences from &lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打他一巴掌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dǎ tā yī bāzhang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;give him a slap&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打耳光&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dǎ ěrguāng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;slap sb.'s face; box sb.'s ears&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference might be is that 耳光 could alude to a specific hit/slap/punch to the ears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T04:36:47.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16419" CreationDate="2015-11-13T20:20:07.453" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The literal meanings of the three words share much in common: to cause damage or harm. Usages can sometimes be distinguished by the intention and effect of the action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;损害: to damage, to undermine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;损伤: to injure or harm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伤害: to hurt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The drum player says he feels &lt;strong&gt;hurt&lt;/strong&gt; by his neighbours‘ complaint that his loud music &lt;strong&gt;harms&lt;/strong&gt; people's hearing and &lt;strong&gt;damages&lt;/strong&gt; the image of the peaceful neighbourhood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鼓手说他感到&lt;strong&gt;伤害&lt;/strong&gt;，因为邻居们投诉他大声的音乐&lt;strong&gt;损伤&lt;/strong&gt;听觉，并且&lt;strong&gt;损害&lt;/strong&gt;社区安宁的形象。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12108" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T20:20:07.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16422" CreationDate="2015-11-13T22:38:01.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;自习 is more like self review, self study.  It is more likely that you learn it from a teacher, and reviewing it by yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;自学 is self learn. It implies you probably don't have a teacher, but learn it from books, online materials, or by DVD or online videos.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="940" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T22:38:01.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16537" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16639" CreationDate="2015-11-14T16:03:13.460" Score="1" ViewCount="507" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I have been confused about when I am to use the state complement. For example, if I want to say &quot;In general I read the messages quickly&quot;, which sentence should I write?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我一般很快地看留言&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我一般看留言看得很快&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe both are right? But somehow the two sentences don't sound the same to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-11-16T00:50:06.950" LastActivityDate="2015-11-28T15:05:27.073" Title="When do I use the state complement?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16538" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16552" CreationDate="2015-11-14T16:21:43.380" Score="0" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/seal-of-virtue-complete&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhuang Zi 5.2&lt;/a&gt; we read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聞之曰：『鑑明則塵垢不止，止則不明也。久與賢人處，則無過。』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://terebess.hu/english/chuang.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lin Yutang translation&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;Now I have heard that if a mirror is perfectly bright, dust will not collect on it, and that if it does, the mirror is no longer bright. He who associates for long with the wise should be without fault.&quot; (Notice in the link above how Yutang avoids the quotes.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if the saying is both phrases,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;『鑑明則塵垢不止，止則不明也。久與賢人處，則無過。』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or only the first one (being the end quote misplaced somewhere in the copy chain).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;『鑑明則塵垢不止，止則不明也。』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looks to me like both phrases make more sense in the context of this book. In some places it is referred in the shorter version, like &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.br/books?id=CDJnAwAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA45&amp;amp;lpg=PA45&amp;amp;dq=%E9%91%91%E6%98%8E%E5%89%87%E5%A1%B5%E5%9E%A2%E4%B8%8D%E6%AD%A2%EF%BC%8C%E6%AD%A2%E5%89%87%E4%B8%8D%E6%98%8E%E4%B9%9F%E3%80%82&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=9LOrYdfDlU&amp;amp;sig=iMBRRj3xq9bAbN1YD27pGFJ78ow&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0CEkQ6AEwCGoVChMIgJSwqaeQyQIVBCKQCh1DjQE3#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%E9%91%91%E6%98%8E%E5%89%87%E5%A1%B5%E5%9E%A2%E4%B8%8D%E6%AD%A2%EF%BC%8C%E6%AD%A2%E5%89%87%E4%B8%8D%E6%98%8E%E4%B9%9F%E3%80%82&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.br/books?id=5Jsjj52AqpwC&amp;amp;pg=PT62&amp;amp;lpg=PT62&amp;amp;dq=%E9%91%91%E6%98%8E%E5%89%87%E5%A1%B5%E5%9E%A2%E4%B8%8D%E6%AD%A2%EF%BC%8C%E6%AD%A2%E5%89%87%E4%B8%8D%E6%98%8E%E4%B9%9F%E3%80%82&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=Nd07ew2FD4&amp;amp;sig=BlLNV7xwSJEo3B-acWoSGyowIuA&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0CEUQ6AEwB2oVChMIgJSwqaeQyQIVBCKQCh1DjQE3#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%E9%91%91%E6%98%8E%E5%89%87%E5%A1%B5%E5%9E%A2%E4%B8%8D%E6%AD%A2%EF%BC%8C%E6%AD%A2%E5%89%87%E4%B8%8D%E6%98%8E%E4%B9%9F%E3%80%82&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T05:06:40.480" Title="What is the correct saying?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16538" CreationDate="2015-11-15T01:49:42.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly, it doesn't matter. The &quot;quote&quot; is mostly made up in such context to emphasize the 2nd phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2015-11-15T01:49:42.323" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16522" CreationDate="2015-11-15T09:45:38.027" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main grammatical difference, which hints to the usage difference, is that 些 is indeed a &lt;strong&gt;classifier&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This implies 些 gets involved when you're counting stuff. Now you say: but 些 is supposed to mean &quot;some&quot;, I'm not really counting anything! &#xA;Well nevertheless you are, even though you are not expressing a precise quantity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, let's add a piece to the puzzle. &#xA;As you may know, classifiers in chinese are also used to &lt;strong&gt;determine&lt;/strong&gt; a noun, i.e. they replace the determinative article in English. That's why 那个苹果 can be translated as &quot;that apple&quot; but also &quot;the apple&quot;, that one apple we talked about earlier in the conversation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our 些 in turn carries the same semantic value. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一些苹果 some apples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那些苹果 these apples / the apples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore 些 is used when you're talking about a narrow topic, something circumscribed to a pool of common knowledge between you and your interlocutors.&#xA;Whereas 有 means &quot;there is&quot; and 有的expresses a general existential trait, as in 有的人喜欢吃苹果 = &quot;there are people who like to eat apples&quot; = &quot;some people like to eat apples&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tl;dr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;些 particular, unspecified but possibly finite number &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有的 general&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2015-11-15T09:45:38.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16543" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-15T13:27:27.620" Score="3" ViewCount="700" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my Chinese textbook, 谦虚好学 is used, and 虚心求教 is used as well. They both mean modest, so when should I use each one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12118" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T02:36:38.017" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T04:05:52.080" Title="Difference between 谦虚 and 虚心?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16543" CreationDate="2015-11-15T14:50:23.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, 谦虚好学 is used to praise others, don't use it on yourself. 虚心求教 just the opposite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-11-15T14:50:23.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16543" CreationDate="2015-11-16T02:58:08.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;謙虛好學 means &quot;modest and eager to learn&quot;, usually used by teachers to praise the students.  When you use it on yourself, praising yourself as &quot;好學&quot;, you are not &quot;謙虛&quot; anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虛心求教 means &quot;seeking help/solution/knowledge in a modest manner/attitude&quot;; in addition, &quot;虛心&quot; also implies that you are ready to un-learn some of your prior knowledge.  You can use it on yourself but you must be very careful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T02:58:08.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16543" CreationDate="2015-11-16T05:10:39.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;虚心 and 谦虚, in fact they are almost the same. you should always find that, in Chinese, there are always many words saying even exactly the same meaning, which makes Chinese very flexible for using.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T05:10:39.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16538" CreationDate="2015-11-16T05:18:13.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;聞之曰 in most cases means a quote is following. But for ancient works like Zhuangzi, it maybe not. Sometimes ancient authors talk with the beginning of 'I heard from others that...' just a style, and the following 'quote' is not from some resource, but just the author's personal opinion, or maybe it is really quote, but the originals has already lost during the long history. As you should know, Zhuangzi is as old as about 2500 years ago, and the quote should be at least 2500 years also, which is a age without paper, pen, very few educated people, and documentation was very hard, so that the lost of the original of a quote is reasonable. Also, in ancient Chinese, there is no quotation mark, even Chinese never used any punctuation marks in writing. Ancient educated people are trained to read the articles without punctuations, and the punctuations are add by modern people. So, please, as a reader of ancient Chinese, never pay that much attention to quotation marks. After all, no matter where the sayings are from, they are always reasonable and worthy to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastEditorUserId="3526" LastEditDate="2015-11-17T05:06:40.480" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T05:06:40.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16537" CreationDate="2015-11-16T05:22:42.533" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;both are fine. they are expressing the same thing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T05:22:42.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16532" CreationDate="2015-11-16T05:24:43.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;耳光 means a hit on face&#xA;巴掌, when talking about hit, means a hit by palm, but maybe on face or other parts of your body&#xA;also, 巴掌 means palm as noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T05:24:43.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16522" CreationDate="2015-11-16T05:27:26.217" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;一些&quot; means some (a number of)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;有的&quot; means some of&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so you see the difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;some students &quot;一些学生&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;some of the students &quot;有的学生&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一些&quot; focus on this part&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;有的&quot; also pays attention to others&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2015-11-16T09:32:56.520" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T09:32:56.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16519" CreationDate="2015-11-16T05:31:40.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;言 means words, what you say&#xA;颜 means face originally, and here it refers to emotional expression on your face&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both are reasonable&#xA;察言观色 means be aware of what you say, and your emotional expression on your face&#xA;察颜观色 means be aware of your emotional expression on your face&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;颜 and 色 here both means emotional expression on your face. 察颜观色 is a repeating of the same thing, also a Chinese rhetoric of 互文 (describe repeatedly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T05:31:40.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16515" CreationDate="2015-11-16T05:34:01.987" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should mean, a computer without OS, no software, only hardware. In programming, it means the programmer directly operate the machine, the chips without drivers, operating systems, and any other software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-11-16T05:40:10.183" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T05:40:10.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16558" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16571" CreationDate="2015-11-16T09:22:43.293" Score="2" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked up a dictionary and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新式 and 新型 are all translated as &quot;new type&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but when I look up a Chinese-to-Chinese dictionary it said that 新式 is 新的样式 and 新型 is 新的类型. and both seem to be different but I didn't quite get their nuances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone who can explain the difference well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2015-11-17T00:40:03.897" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T02:11:03.487" Title="Difference between 新式 and 新型" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16" CreationDate="2015-11-16T11:28:17.783" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two main usages of 了, as an aspect marker and as a modal particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;em&gt;Aspect marker&lt;/em&gt;: expresses completion of an action&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case 了 can be used to produce a past tense. It typically follows immediately after the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V + 了 + Obj.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了一辆车 = I bought a car&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我看了一部电影 = I watched a movie&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find the aspect marker 了 also after the object, when the object is strongly bound to its verb. This usually happens when the object is a place or in case of &lt;em&gt;verb-object compounds&lt;/em&gt;, a.k.a. &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Separable_verb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;separable verbs&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V + Obj. + 了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去台湾了 = I went to Taiwan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃饭了 = I ate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, if you do place 了 between verb and object, the sentence &amp;quot;hangs&amp;quot;. It implies a follow-up. This is often used in subordinate constructions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去了台湾（以后）= After I get to Taiwan, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃了饭（以后）= After I eat, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;em&gt;Modal particle&lt;/em&gt;: expresses &lt;strong&gt;change&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other usage of 了 as a modal particle is to express a change of state. It's found only at the end of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;台湾我不想去了 = I don't want to go to Taiwan (anymore)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的名字我想起来了 = I remember his name (now)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A notable case of how the modal 了 affects the meaning of a sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我知道 = I know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我知道&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt; = I got it (I know it now, but I didn't knew it before)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among other use cases there is giving commands (imperative), as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闭嘴了 = shut up! &lt;br&gt;&#xA;别闹我了= stop bothering me!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们走了 = let's go&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你关门了 = close the door!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes sense because a command implies a change in what someone is doing: you're talking (status quo), but now I want you to &lt;em&gt;stop&lt;/em&gt; (change); or the door is open (status quo), now I want you to close it (change).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, you can use 了 to express something you're going to do (future) or a decision you just made:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我付钱了 = I'll pay!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As opposed to: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;钱我（已经）付了 = I've (already) paid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;要 ~ 了&lt;/em&gt; construction also reflects this soon-to-change valence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飞机马上要落地了 = the plane is about to land&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我快要毕业了 = I'm graduating soon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some additional examples to show the difference between past, status quo, change and future change with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天下了雨 = it rained today (it's stopped now)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;下雨呢 = it rains (it was raining before too)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;下雨了 = it rains (now, while it wasn't before)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;今天要下雨了 = it's going to rain today &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally keep in mind that 了 doesn't necessarily indicate a change that's taking place right now. It can describe a situation that started in the past and hasn't ended yet (then it might appear together with the aspect 了):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Change in the past (ending point):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我等了 (ASP) 一个小时的车了 (MOD) = I waited the bus one hour (I'm not waiting anymore)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Change in the past (starting point) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;我等车（已经）一个小时了 (MOD) = I've been waiting the bus for one hour (the wait has started and I'm still waiting)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T21:43:45.083" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T21:43:45.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14688" CreationDate="2015-11-16T11:53:26.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;外國地名譯名&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://data.gov.tw/node/gov/resource/9441&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://data.gov.tw/node/gov/resource/9441&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Taiwan, traditional characters, csv&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外国地名译名手册 / Mainland&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%96%E5%9B%BD%E5%9C%B0%E5%90%8D%E8%AF%91%E5%90%8D%E6%89%8B%E5%86%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%96%E5%9B%BD%E5%9C%B0%E5%90%8D%E8%AF%91%E5%90%8D%E6%89%8B%E5%86%8C&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mainland, simplified characters, but can only find scanned copies online&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12126" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T11:53:26.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16573" CreationDate="2015-11-16T13:54:07.587" Score="3" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;Working on some translations but always come across things like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;李二嫂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;王二叔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三奶奶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;张幺伯儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;code&gt;李二嫂&lt;/code&gt; I think I came up with something like: &lt;code&gt;The Li family's second eldest son's wife&lt;/code&gt;, which sounds stupid in English. Should we opt for something more like Mrs. Li?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;幺伯儿&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;二叔&lt;/code&gt; might just be better off as &lt;code&gt;uncle&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;三奶奶&lt;/code&gt; might just be &lt;code&gt;great grandmother&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a good way to deal with (translate) these &lt;code&gt;surname&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;#&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;relative name&lt;/code&gt; names?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T03:58:33.600" Title="Translation: Chinese relative names + numerals into English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16563" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16564" CreationDate="2015-11-16T17:52:51.820" Score="0" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of the words are defined as &quot;to lose one's way&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T22:08:54.993" Title="What is the difference in use between 迷失， 迷路， 走失 and 迷途？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16563" CreationDate="2015-11-16T22:08:54.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;迷路 is daily used expression,it means one get lost.e.g.我迷路了，I'm lost.&#xA;迷失，迷途 are written words,formal words,both of them mean lost,but 迷失 is a verb,迷途 is a noun.&#xA;走失 is a daily and formal word,basically it means one get lost,but the reason could be either one can't find the way or being abducted or kidnapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12133" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T22:08:54.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16565" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16566" CreationDate="2015-11-16T22:47:56.930" Score="0" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Jimmy Du's Essential Chinese, p. 46:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand everything  you say. 你说的我都懂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand all they say. 他们说的我不是都懂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 不是 there in the second example, and not simply 不? I have only seen 懂 used as a verb before. This does not resemble anything I have learned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12122" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T00:51:42.850" Title="Puzzling negation in a beginner's grammar book" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2015-11-17T00:34:49.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;他們說的我不都懂&quot;.  It's just far less common than &quot;他們說的我不是都懂&quot; nowadays.  As user6065 said, &quot;不&quot;/&quot;不是&quot; is used to modify &quot;都&quot; (= &quot;all&quot;).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T00:34:49.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16558" CreationDate="2015-11-17T00:37:19.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;式, 型, and 类 all share similar meanings. You can use them to describe a category, type, classification, kind, model, or pattern of something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The nuisances can be subtle depending on the context or circumstance it's used. While these characters can be interchangeablely, there are exceptions. As an example let's use a common noun like 人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人式 can roughly translate to &quot;human/people style/form/pattern&quot;, referring to a specific way/system to classify a style of some. Most commonly you'll with practical arts, such as martial arts or cooking (e.g., Hong Kong-style cooking). In Japanese, the equivalent would likely be 様式. If I were a robotic lifeforms and was describing a way of doing thing the human way, could use 式. Both nouns and adjectives can be used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人型 can roughly translate to &quot;human/people model/shape.&quot; 人型机器人 (android) is a common example of using 人型. 型 refers to the shape and structure of something. 新式 and 新型 can be used interchangeably because they both refer to something new. Regardless of whether or not it's a new style or model of something, the implied meaning is that this is a new type of thing. You typically would only use 型 with nouns as it applies the charateristic of the noun, such as a human-shaped or ball-shaped robot. Only nouns are applicable with this character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;类 is similar to the aforementioned characters as it can be used to describe a some kind of thing. 人类 commonly is used to refer to mankind, but it literally means &quot;human-kind/kin.&quot; 新类 is usually used to refer to a new type/kind of type of something  (e.g., 虫类). Like a new type/kind of robot (新类型机器人) or new living species (新类生物) of some sort. Both nouns an adjectives can be used with this character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T00:37:19.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16568" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16569" CreationDate="2015-11-17T00:43:23.070" Score="1" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this exchange student next to me and last week I saw a friend of hers write something on her door and they seemed to have quite a lot of fun about it. Can someone translate it or at least say what it's about? Everyone is very curious about it but no one ever sees her to ask or is afraid to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Et2SF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Et2SF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12134" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-11-17T10:23:13.453" LastActivityDate="2015-11-25T01:29:29.227" Title="Translating Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16568" CreationDate="2015-11-17T01:29:28.990" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many of the phrases are internet languages. Just “baidu” it and you will know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;木有: 没有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;正房生快：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;正房 primary wife. In old days in China, man can have a wife and many&#xA;  concubines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;生快 is shorted for 生日快乐（happy birthday）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T01:29:28.990" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16570" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-17T01:42:51.333" Score="-1" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone please translate the text carved on my dizi? Please, thank you, with all my heart&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CRIAD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CRIAD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12135" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T02:22:54.883" Title="Dizi poem on my dizi flute please" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-11-18T22:01:46.247" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16558" CreationDate="2015-11-17T02:11:03.487" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe they are almost interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新型建筑 新式建筑 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新型计算机 新式计算机&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新型设计 新式设计&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新型武器 新式武器&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新型手机 新式手机&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A little concern is that 新型 is primarily for things that does have a 型/型号.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example， most digital devices and most industrial products always have 型/型号. So 新型 and 新式 are both good for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other side, most art-related products have only aesthetic concerns and have no specific 型/型号. 新式 could be better here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新式服装 新型服装？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新式婚礼 新型婚礼？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新式歌曲 新型歌曲？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新式糕点 新型糕点？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新式化妆 新型化妆？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, I re-point out that, to a native speaker like me, they are almost the same and interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T02:11:03.487" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16570" CreationDate="2015-11-17T02:22:54.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;夜上受降城闻笛 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hearing the Flute at Night on Shouxiang Walls&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朝代：唐代&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;748-827 AD, Tang Dynasty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作者：李益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Li Yi, China&#xA;                                                                                               Translator: Ying Sun © 2008&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原文：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;回乐峰前沙似雪，The sand below Huile Peak is as white as snow. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;受降城外月如霜。Outside Shouxiang Walls frost-like moonbeams glow. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不知何处吹芦管，&lt;/strong&gt;  Someone is playing the flute - not sure from where. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一夜征人尽望乡。&lt;/strong&gt;  Over night all soldiers get homesickness hard to bear.do Homeward night levy .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;source:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.musicated.com/syh/tangpoems.htm#LiYi01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.musicated.com/syh/tangpoems.htm#LiYi01&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T02:22:54.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16561" CreationDate="2015-11-17T04:16:19.450" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about this construction:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jack the Ripper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we can have something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Uncle Wang the Second&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: yes, &lt;code&gt;Mrs. Li the Second&lt;/code&gt; cannot precisely convey the meaning of &lt;code&gt;李二嫂&lt;/code&gt;; even &lt;code&gt;Uncle Wang the Second&lt;/code&gt; is a little ambiguous. I doubt whether there is actually a concise expression in English, so maybe I will leave a footnote to explain it in the article/book/etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PPS: According to the wikipedia entry &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_kinship#Culture&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese kinship&lt;/a&gt;, there were translations like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Second Uncle&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;—Yang, Rae (1998), &lt;em&gt;Spider Eaters: A Memoir&lt;/em&gt;, University of California Press, p. 46, ISBN 0-520-21598-2, retrieved 2009-07-14, &amp;quot;The letter became evidence of Second Uncle's yearning for the Nationalists to come back.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, &lt;code&gt;Second Uncle Wang&lt;/code&gt; sounds quite reasonable too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T07:30:12.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6159" CreationDate="2015-11-17T05:12:29.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;韬 is hide&#xA;光 is light or something shining here it means your brilliant ideas, 晦 is implicit   or something bad and weak&#xA;养 is improve or change&#xA;韬光养晦 means no showing your power, just improve yourself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T05:12:29.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16575" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-17T08:36:44.173" Score="0" ViewCount="367" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked up a dictionary and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实质 and 本质 are all translated as &quot;essence&quot; or &quot;core&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone who can explain the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T23:41:59.583" Title="What is the difference between 实质 and 本质?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16575" CreationDate="2015-11-17T09:54:48.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think when used as nouns, they have the same meaning. (But in the phrase &quot;现象与本质&quot;, often we don't use “实质” to replace “本质”.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When used as adjectives 实质 means &quot;substantive&quot; or &quot;actual&quot;, 本质 means &quot;essential&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;本质区别、本质原因&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  实质进展、实质性证据&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8114" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T09:54:48.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16575" CreationDate="2015-11-17T10:33:54.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that you ask the difference between 实质 and 本质 in Chinese. They have the same meaning. The interpretation is from the &quot;现代汉语词典-第6版&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ing6J.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ing6J.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5glCo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5glCo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T10:33:54.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16568" CreationDate="2015-11-17T10:50:15.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;白象代表方便面和巧克力：&quot;white elephant&quot; denotes instant noodles and chocolate. &quot;白象&quot; is a instant noodles brand in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好久没见（Long time no see）蓝天（blue sky）白云（white clouds）太阳（sun）了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T10:50:15.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16568" CreationDate="2015-11-17T19:12:13.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like it was her birthday last week and her friend wrote funny birthday messages on there! (See other replies)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12140" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T19:12:13.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16575" CreationDate="2015-11-17T23:41:59.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;【本质】 běnzhì 指事物本身所固有的、决定事物性质、面貌和发展的根本属性。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例句：在一些平凡的小事上，往往能够看出一个伟大人物的优良的&lt;strong&gt;本质&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【实质】 shízhì 事物、论点或问题的实在内容。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例句：理想问题，&lt;strong&gt;实质&lt;/strong&gt;上是一个人的世界观问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◆辨析：“本质”运用范围比“实质”广。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“本质”指人或事物本身所固有的根本的属性。它可构成本质特点、本质特征等词组。事物的本质是隐蔽的，是通过现象来表现的，不能用简单的直观去认识，必须透过现象掌握本质。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“实质”指内在的实际的属性，跟表面的或虚假的东西相对，一般指抽象事物，如精神实质、问题的实质等。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T23:41:59.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16568" CreationDate="2015-11-18T00:45:03.770" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;正房 primary wife. In old days in China, man can have a wife and many concubines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生快 is short for 生日快乐（happy birthday）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很久没见蓝天白云太阳了 long time no seeing blue sky, white clouds, and the Sun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晴天娃娃 Sunny Baby&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝老牛 wish you the Old Cow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;木有烦恼 having no worries&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天天灿烂 every day resplendent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不会画老牛 don't know how to draw a cow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来个象代替 drew an elephant instead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白象代表方便面和巧克力 the while elephant represents instant noodles and chocolates&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;算礼物了 that would be my presents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哈哈 haha&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;分割线 dividing line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T00:45:03.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2015-11-18T00:51:42.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand everything they say. 他们说的我都懂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand all they say. (I only understand some of what they say.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们说的我不都懂。or 他们说的我不是都懂。Here using 不 or 不是 makes no differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand anything they say.&#xA;他们说的我都不懂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 不都 means not all, ie maybe some, and 都不 means all not, ie none.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T00:51:42.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1750" CreationDate="2015-11-18T01:00:39.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;干嘛 does not equal 干吗&#xA;嘛 is colloquial for 什么&#xA;干嘛 = 干什么。So 你在干嘛 = 你在干什么 = What are you doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干吗 = 干，吗？Doing it？ &#xA;你在干吗 = Real Chinese people will understand it as, Are you copulating right now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12145" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T01:00:39.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9683" CreationDate="2015-11-18T01:14:27.627" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think you guys are completely understanding it, there is a philosophical difference in the two words. It's possible to 有方法但是没办法. 方法 refers to the general method or way something can be done. 方 means prescribed, 法 here can be understood as way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 方法 is the general or prescribed way something is done that humanity has discovered. 办 means doing，法 here also means way. 办法 refers to someone specific actually doing it. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的病其实治疗方法很简单，就是每天跑步。但是没办法，因为城市太拥挤所以没有地方跑。Here, I know the way to cure my illness, but I can't specifically carry it out due to individual circumstances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12145" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-22T08:21:15.460" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T08:21:15.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16585" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16606" CreationDate="2015-11-18T02:55:27.470" Score="2" ViewCount="1189" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is, falsely, assumed that Mandarin is the mother tongue of all Chinese speakers (here we can understand Mandarin as 普通话/国语/华语).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mother tongue would be the language that someone learned at home from their family members.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would imagine the mother tongue for most Chinese speakers would be some form of dialect/topolect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seems to only be stats for &quot;speaker&quot; amounts and not strictly native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the percentage of the population whose actual mother tongue is Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T02:32:55.520" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T02:32:55.520" Title="What is the percentage of the population whose actual mother tongue is Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16561" CreationDate="2015-11-18T03:58:33.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not get a copy of &quot;The Dream of the Red Chamber&quot;, and see what the masters did with names like 寶二爺，璉二奶奶，尤大娘，尤二姐...etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, if I were working on a novel, I would probably use first names and/or simple forms like Mrs. Li and Uncle Wang at much as possible, for the sake of readability, and then add a footnote explaining the names and address terms in Chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, alternatively, use Wang Ershu as if it's his name, and then add a footnote explaining the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just my two cents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T03:58:33.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16532" CreationDate="2015-11-20T01:40:07.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;巴掌&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D61E3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D61E3.png&quot; alt=&quot;Hands&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;耳光&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o0cpN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o0cpN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Slap&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the difference...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10952" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T01:40:07.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16589" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17804" CreationDate="2015-11-20T02:21:57.373" Score="1" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;The final &lt;code&gt;ue&lt;/code&gt; can be found in some Chinese dialects/topolects. It seems to also be written properly as &lt;code&gt;uɛ&lt;/code&gt; if I'm not mistaken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuanese_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sichuanese Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; lists an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;uɛ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ue&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;国&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I would understand could be written, in full, as &lt;code&gt;gue&lt;/code&gt; without any sort of tone markings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does &lt;code&gt;ue&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;uɛ&lt;/code&gt; just equate to pinyin &lt;code&gt;ue&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T06:31:39.760" Title="Can the dialectical final &quot;ue&quot; be written in pinyin &quot;ue&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16590" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16592" CreationDate="2015-11-20T04:40:26.850" Score="0" ViewCount="1084" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any elegant and succinct way to translate “穷则变，变则通，通则久” to English? I felt the translation could be quite lengthy when I tried to explain every single character. Thank you very much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11536" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T05:43:48.547" Title="How to translate “穷则变，变则通，通则久” to English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16590" CreationDate="2015-11-20T05:21:23.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Poverty demands change, change carries development and permanence follows development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T05:21:23.103" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16590" CreationDate="2015-11-20T06:04:56.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;穷则变，变则通&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Impasse is followed by change, and change will lead to a solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Grand Ricci&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(provr.) Quand on est à bout, on change, dès que l’on a changé, on aboutit : dès qu’un changement s’est amorçé, une solution peut voir le jour. De tout s’avise à qui pain faut; nécessité est mère d’industrie, d’invention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last part is quite sums it up in quite a nice succienct way: &lt;em&gt;necessity is the mother of invention&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T07:02:54.163" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T07:02:54.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16246" CreationDate="2015-11-20T18:47:11.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best I know of is &lt;em&gt;Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar&lt;/em&gt; (Routledge Comprehensive Grammars) by Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T18:47:11.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16594" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16595" CreationDate="2015-11-20T23:56:01.757" Score="1" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would one translate &quot;feature&quot; as verb to Chinese? &lt;br&gt;&#xA;e.g&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This album features all the new artist from NYC.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This frying pan features all new design allows the user to cook in their sleep&#xA;..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-11-21T05:29:11.223" LastActivityDate="2015-11-21T05:29:11.223" Title="Translate &quot;feature&quot; as a verb to Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16594" CreationDate="2015-11-21T04:45:06.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say &lt;code&gt;以xxx为特色/特点/重点&lt;/code&gt;. (or &lt;code&gt;由xxx主演&lt;/code&gt; for movie etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This album features all the new artist from NYC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;该专辑以来自纽约市的所有新艺术家为特色。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or use &lt;code&gt;xxx的特色在于&lt;/code&gt; for same meaning, sometimes make the sentence more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This frying pan features all new design allows the user to cook in their sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;该平底煎锅的特色在于全新设计允许用户在睡眠中进行烹饪。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-11-21T04:45:06.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16596" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16597" CreationDate="2015-11-21T21:17:06.347" Score="11" ViewCount="5529" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the proper way to respond a sendoff like &lt;code&gt;祝周末愉快&lt;/code&gt; while repeating the same wish to the sender?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, we might say something like &quot;Thanks, you too.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a shorter or more appropriate way to express &lt;code&gt;也祝周末愉快&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11392" LastActivityDate="2015-11-21T21:41:16.503" Title="Saying &quot;you too&quot;" Tags="&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16596" CreationDate="2015-11-21T21:41:16.503" Score="6" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The short form:&#xA;谢谢，你也是！ You, too!/The same to you!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The longer form:&#xA;Repeat with 谢谢，我也祝你X, e.g. 谢谢，我也祝你新年快乐！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2015-11-21T21:41:16.503" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16598" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16599" CreationDate="2015-11-22T09:13:55.880" Score="3" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked up a dictionary and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;插,刺,捅,扎 are all translated as &quot;sting&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any difference between them? For example some are more casual while others are not...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastActivityDate="2015-11-25T11:15:27.900" Title="插,刺,捅,扎 what are the differences?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16598" CreationDate="2015-11-22T09:33:41.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;cha,&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;usually use it as, fork, you stick fork into food. you stick your finger into your mouth, etc. its usually not aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ci,&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;the second one, basically as, needle, eg: the fish bone hurt my finger... when you are having a shot from doctor, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;tong,&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I feel this is like, you use weapon firmly stick into something, a bit aggressive. for example, the knife sticked into your body...etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;zha,&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;this one is like an accident, you accidentally hurt your finger, by a very small, sharp thing, for example: the glass hurt me, you can use &quot;zha&quot;, also &quot;zha&quot; usually is not deep, its like hurt you on the surface...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just a brief explain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7010" LastActivityDate="2015-11-22T09:33:41.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13187" CreationDate="2015-11-23T02:23:28.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;生气is slightly 愤怒, 愤怒is seriously 生气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-23T02:23:28.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16601" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16605" CreationDate="2015-11-23T02:41:46.503" Score="1" ViewCount="522" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 响，声，and 音. When I check the English translation, it says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;响: echo, sound, noise, make a sound, to sound, to ring, loud, classifier for noises&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;声: sound, voice, tone, noise, classifier for sounds&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;音: sound, noise, musical note, tone, news, syllable, reading (phonetic value of a character)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pls help me clarify the difference, it is quite difficult to catch. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请帮我清楚分别“响”，“声”，和“音”。多谢你们。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12025" LastActivityDate="2015-11-23T15:49:35.623" Title="What is the difference between 响，声，and 音" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16601" CreationDate="2015-11-23T03:45:26.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tuttle&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;响〔響〕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ADJECTIVE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;loud, noisy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;教室里在考试, 你们说话声音别这么响。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Jiàoshì li zài kǎoshì, nǐmen shuōhuà shēngyīn bié zhème xiǎng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There's an examination in progress in the classroom. Don't talk so loudly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;NOUN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;sound, noise, voice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;机器声太大, 我听不清你说什么。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Jīqì shēng tài dà, wǒ tīng bu qīng nǐ shuō shénme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The noise from the machine is too loud; I can't hear what you're saying. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;音&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;NOUN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;sound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;① sound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;噪音 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;noise &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-11-23T08:00:20.143" LastActivityDate="2015-11-23T08:00:20.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10397" CreationDate="2015-11-23T05:00:47.140" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm in the same situation, and have just come across Brainscape:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.brainscape.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.brainscape.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have a really good (at first glance) Chinese business vocab list which is free. It uses flashcards. Very nice interface&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers&#xA;Charlie&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11978" LastActivityDate="2015-11-23T05:00:47.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16601" CreationDate="2015-11-23T13:56:12.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;声音 sound，more like a word.Mostly,we use them together.There is no difference between 声 and 音.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;响 make a sound loudly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;声音很响。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sound is loud.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12160" LastActivityDate="2015-11-23T13:56:12.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16601" CreationDate="2015-11-23T15:49:35.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;响 - a type of sound. It is an adjective that can mean &quot;loud ring&quot; like &#xA;响声音 = loud ringing noise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;声 - depending on context, it can mean sound, noise, or voice. For example:&#xA;我把声音 = my voice&#xA;那是什么声音 = what is that sound/noise&#xA;Colloquially, you can shorten 声音 as 声, which would mean noise. You can also use the word 音 by itself to mean sound. But this is a bit atypical. Usually you would use both words together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;音 - as mentioned, when using this word by itself, it can mean sound. But it generally means &quot;tone.&quot; So it's not noise or a loud sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;音 can also be used with the word 樂. &#xA;音樂 means music where 樂 is used to describe the type of sound (a happy sound)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11981" LastActivityDate="2015-11-23T15:49:35.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16585" CreationDate="2015-11-23T19:08:35.280" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mother tongue would be the language that someone learned at home from their family members&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seems to only be stats for &amp;quot;speaker&amp;quot; amounts and not strictly native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, 'mother tongue' and 'native' are not the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My mother tongue is officially Mandarin Chinese, and I used to speak it a lot at home, but my native language is English, which is my strongest language. Well, depending on perspective, people like me might be considered as having two native languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that is so, then everyone whose mother tongue is Mandarin Chinese must be a native speaker, which makes it a subset.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As people whose mother tongue is Mandarin Chinese (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_varieties_of_Chinese#/media/File:Map_of_sinitic_languages_full-en.svg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;836 million&lt;/a&gt;) is a subset of people whose native language is Mandarin Chinese, (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;960 million&lt;/a&gt;) I think that it is safe to assume that the map provided by @Stan is an accurate depiction of the population whose actual mother tongue is Mandarin Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given those numbers, the percentage would be 87%. However, we do know that while some people's official mother tongue is Mandarin Chinese, they may not pursue it, which makes this statistic inaccurate. So there might be around a 10% margin of error if we were to assume that only Chinese people in China pursue their mother tongue as native language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12131" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-11-23T19:08:35.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16607" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16612" CreationDate="2015-11-24T01:32:04.377" Score="2" ViewCount="474" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&amp;amp;search=pidgin&amp;amp;searchmode=none&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;[Etymonline:]&lt;/a&gt; pidgin (n.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      1876, from &lt;em&gt;pigeon English&lt;/em&gt; (1859), the reduced form of the language used in China for communication with Europeans, from &lt;em&gt;pigeon&lt;/em&gt; (1826), itself a pidgin word, representing a Chinese pronunciation of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=business&amp;amp;allowed_in_frame=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;business&lt;/a&gt;. Meaning extended 1891 to &quot;any simplified language.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot even conjecture how Chinese phonology might transform 'business' into 'pidgin'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastActivityDate="2015-11-24T06:29:30.277" Title="How might 'pidgin' have represented a Chinese pronunciation of 'business'?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16647" CreationDate="2015-11-24T04:45:43.543" Score="2" ViewCount="537" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hear people use the English loan word &lt;code&gt;sticker&lt;/code&gt; a lot in Chinese, perhaps even more than &lt;code&gt;粘粘&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;贴贴&lt;/code&gt; or what have you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although a loan word, &lt;code&gt;sticker&lt;/code&gt; prounced in Chinese &lt;strong&gt;mainly&lt;/strong&gt; sounds like a transliteration with a combination of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;si • ti • ke &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;si • di • ke&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would imagine it would be written something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;斯提克&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;斯蒂克&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but, I have not come across any such transliteration in written form, yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a transliteration of &lt;code&gt;sticker&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T09:15:20.487" Title="Does &quot;sticker&quot; have a transliteration?" Tags="&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16609" CreationDate="2015-11-24T05:29:47.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am afraid there's no transliteration in Chinese for &quot;sticker&quot;. In Chinese, especially in Shanghainese, there are many transliterations for English words. For example, &quot;司迪克&quot; for “stick（walking stick）”，“斯博灵” for “spring lock”，“水门汀” for “cement”，“拉三” for “lass”，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;sticker&quot;, if you have ever heard any Chinese says,it is just an occasionally borrowed word from English. That means if you write &quot;give me a sticker&quot; in Chinese, it would be &quot;给我一张sticker&quot;. There's no Formal Chinese transliteration of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we use such words like &quot;贴纸&quot;，&quot;粘纸&quot;, or &quot;不干胶标签&quot; for &quot;sticker&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7029" LastActivityDate="2015-11-24T05:29:47.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16607" CreationDate="2015-11-24T05:48:25.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to some scholars,&quot;pidgin&quot; derives from the word &quot;皮钦&quot;, which is originally of a Cantonese (a South-China dialect) pronunciation. &quot;皮钦&quot; itself in Cantonese is an inaccurate transliteration of the English word &quot;business&quot;，and may be distorted during its spread from person to person，place to place. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally guess it might be an erroneous pronunciation of the word &quot;business&quot;, which to many Chinese at that time, was pronounced as a 'bisin(“皮钦”)' + an 'ess(it was mistakenly regarded as a dispensable suffix)'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7029" LastEditorUserId="7029" LastEditDate="2015-11-24T06:29:30.277" LastActivityDate="2015-11-24T06:29:30.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16607" CreationDate="2015-11-24T06:02:20.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker. This is my speculation, but I believe more or less it's the truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, &quot;business&quot; was a little difficult (as it had three syllables) for most Chinese people at that time, so they would like to miss the third syllable, only pronounced it like &quot;busin&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, both Mandarin and Cantonese (no matter now and then) did not have the exact /z/ sound, so we would transliterate it into the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolo-palatal_affricate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;/tɕ/&lt;/a&gt; sound (aka &lt;code&gt;j&lt;/code&gt; in pinyin) – similar situation for Japanese, they say &lt;code&gt;ビ(bi)ジ(ji)ネ(ne)ス(su)&lt;/code&gt; for &quot;business&quot; – Unfortunately, the /dʒ/ sound followed the same way because there's no /dʒ/ in Mandarin and Cantonese either. So, even today, when I hear &quot;the letter /tɕiː/&quot; from a Chinese native speaker, I have to ask whether it's a G, Z, or even J.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the Chinese people at that time would pronounce &quot;business&quot; like /ˈbɪtɕɪn/, and then Europeans could not distinguish it from &quot;pigeon&quot; with a similar Chinese accent (the reason for /b/ to /p/ might also be the influence of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade%E2%80%93Giles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Wade–Giles system&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, which transliterated the &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; sound in pinyin back to &quot;p&quot;. &lt;strong&gt;P&lt;/strong&gt;eking vs. &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;eijing is a perfect example): as a consequence, &quot;pigeon&quot; and later &quot;pidgin&quot; was used for that pidgin word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2015-11-24T06:02:20.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16613" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16615" CreationDate="2015-11-24T07:28:14.930" Score="5" ViewCount="2879" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed lots of compound words using &quot;只&quot; for &quot;only&quot;, but what is the correct way to say &quot;only child&quot; (a child with no brothers, nor sisters)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-18T20:16:23.280" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T20:16:23.280" Title="What is the correct Chinese expression for &quot;Only child&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16613" CreationDate="2015-11-24T07:35:25.507" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's an exact word for &lt;code&gt;only child&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;code&gt;独生子(女)&lt;/code&gt;, especially in China mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.koolearn.com/t-3970727-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;【天朝热词英文说~125】&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;根据family planning&#xA;  policy（计划生育政策），一般情况下每个家庭只允许生育一个孩子，也就是我们所说的only/single child（独生子女）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the context, there're also other expressions. From &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/search?le=eng&amp;amp;q=only%20child&amp;amp;keyfrom=dict.top&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;youdao&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you have an only child, was this by choice or chance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果你只有一个孩子，那是你特意为之还是意外？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After counting down for nine years, I was finally an only child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在倒数计时了九年后，我终于是家里唯一的孩子了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-11-24T08:07:29.387" LastActivityDate="2015-11-24T08:07:29.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16613" CreationDate="2015-11-24T08:22:02.530" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese expression for 'only Child' can be '&lt;strong&gt;独生子女&lt;/strong&gt;(only child)','&lt;strong&gt;独子&lt;/strong&gt;(only son)','&lt;strong&gt;独女&lt;/strong&gt;(only daughter)'，or some more ancient or literary words like '&lt;strong&gt;独苗&lt;/strong&gt;(only child)','&lt;strong&gt;单丁&lt;/strong&gt;(only son)',&lt;strong&gt;单根独苗&lt;/strong&gt;(only child or only descendant).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Native Chinese speakers may have other expressions like,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他膝下&lt;strong&gt;仅有一女&lt;/strong&gt;。（He has only one daughter.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是那老汉&lt;strong&gt;唯一的儿子&lt;/strong&gt;。（He is the only son of that old man.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是&lt;strong&gt;三代单传&lt;/strong&gt;。（He is the only one son for several generations in the family.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope the above helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7029" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-11-24T08:22:02.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13187" CreationDate="2015-11-24T08:42:41.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are different disagree in expressing &quot;angry&quot;. 生气 means someone is angry, but it is not 愤怒。愤怒 means someone that is very angry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12167" LastActivityDate="2015-11-24T08:42:41.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16609" CreationDate="2015-11-24T12:05:14.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To say sticker, you would use, &quot;貼紙&quot; (Tiēzhǐ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You won't be able to find a phonetic translation, for the word &quot;Sticker.&quot; Depending on which dialect, some people use english within their Chinese. We joke around and call this &quot;Chinglish.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you're transcribing or looking at subtitles, you would see the English word written out in English instead of phonetically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他買了&quot;stickers&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually the only time that you would write something out in phonetic Chinese is if there isn't a Chinese word for it already (i.e. English names)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obama = 奧巴馬 (àobāmǎ)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11981" LastActivityDate="2015-11-24T12:05:14.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16568" CreationDate="2015-11-24T15:45:33.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.I haven't seen a sunny day for a long time(maybe you are in Britian),so he draws clouds and sun in the top if the picture and want a sunny day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.I wish my primary wife a happy birthday(referring to the exchange student who live in this room)that means he or she is joking about the owner is the primary wife and the unspoken words means the drawer has many other wives,of coure joking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.&quot;晴天娃娃&quot; means the picture above,maybe the drawer nikname]&#xA;&quot;祝&quot;=wish&#xA;&quot;老牛&quot;=old cow(maybe refer to your friend live in the house)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.the drawer feels too complicated to draw the cow so he draws an elephant instead.&#xA;&quot;生快&quot;=happy birday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.5.&quot;白象&quot;=white elephant(a Chinese inatant noodles brand)represents the instant noodles and chocolate as a birthday gift to her, also kind of joking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the picture shows a sense of humor to a friend's birthday and wish her happy birday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kl7Ty.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kl7Ty.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12170" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-11-25T01:29:29.227" LastActivityDate="2015-11-25T01:29:29.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16621" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16629" CreationDate="2015-11-24T20:28:28.947" Score="3" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm referring to frequency tables such as this &lt;a href=&quot;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;one:&lt;/a&gt;. To take one example,  it lists words like 商 and 业 in the top 500 characters and words like 买 and 卖 in the second 500 characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's true even though 商 业 and 买卖 both loosely mean &quot;business.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these relative frequencies valid across the board or does the average person use 买卖 more in speaking rather than writing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="52" LastEditDate="2015-11-25T22:28:44.820" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T07:55:31.043" Title="Is the frequency of written characters much different from spoken ones?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16621" CreationDate="2015-11-24T20:43:43.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The site listed doesn't give a lot of information on what exactly the corpus is, but as the paper is from 2010, we can assume that there isn't quite as much bias towards social media posts as there would be if such a study occurred today. That's important because social media tends to be &quot;written&quot; in a register that's much more in line with the spoken register of a language compared to traditional written media.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As such, this phenomenon is not unique to Chinese, but can be noticed throughout pretty much any language with a large corpus of written media. Much like a news article in English would likely use the word &quot;purchase&quot; more often, whereas spoken English would tend towards &quot;buy/bought,&quot; it would be natural for a similar situation to occur in Chinese. This would result in a different frequency distribution for characters in written Chinese as opposed to spoken Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5808" LastActivityDate="2015-11-24T20:43:43.127" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16623" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16624" CreationDate="2015-11-24T21:12:40.067" Score="3" ViewCount="572" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering how to write a dedication (in a book or on a memorial, for example). In English I would inscribe &quot;For my friend.&quot; I like the somewhat ambiguous and all-encompassing meaning of this English phrase, as it can mean &quot;I wrote this for my friend&quot; or &quot;I made this for my friend&quot; or &quot;This is to honor my friend&quot; and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would &quot;为我的朋友&quot; fit this meaning? Would &quot;给我的朋友&quot; be better? Is there an idiomatic phrase or different translation that would be better? Or would I have to lose the ambiguity and translate it more specifically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that 为 is primarily used to mean &quot;for the sake of,&quot; which is sort of the meaning, but &quot;For my friend&quot; also has the meaning of giving something or dedicating something to someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Based on the comments/answer supplied and further research, my understanding is that there are two ways to write this (neither of which were included in my original question).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;献给 seems to have more of a &quot;dedicated to&quot; connotation, while 致 is a more formal/poetic way of devoting or addressing something to someone. Can a native speaker confirm if I am understanding this correctly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12173" LastEditorUserId="12173" LastEditDate="2015-11-25T01:10:27.820" LastActivityDate="2015-11-25T05:51:32.963" Title="Would you use 为 or 给 (or neither) as a dedication?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16623" CreationDate="2015-11-24T21:55:23.350" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;致友 致友人 致好友 致故友 致新友 致挚友 致益友 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2015-11-24T21:55:23.350" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16623" CreationDate="2015-11-25T05:51:32.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;致&quot;is often used in the beginning of the letter.&#xA;&quot;献给&quot;is a more formal way of &quot;给&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12170" LastActivityDate="2015-11-25T05:51:32.963" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16598" CreationDate="2015-11-25T11:15:27.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say, 刺 and 扎 highlights the acuteness of the things that is stabbing. If there has to be a difference, 刺 can be done with something pointing or sharp, but 扎 usually refers to only pointing things. But 捅 isn't necessarily sharp. Instead, 捅 usually implies a rapid and forceful movement. 插 can be the mildest and the most casual action of the four, and it also  sometimes implies that their is already a slit or a hole before putting into something, like a plug, a card slit, or a blank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12004" LastActivityDate="2015-11-25T11:15:27.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13836" CreationDate="2015-11-25T11:23:24.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't bother memorizing their differences, I usually just regard them as one thing. However, the last character actual indicates its texture--pure liquid, sticky, extraction etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12004" LastActivityDate="2015-11-25T11:23:24.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13836" CreationDate="2015-11-25T21:06:40.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;剂&quot; makes Chinese feel more about chemistry while &quot;x水&quot; is more oral in   daily life with any form of liquid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12170" LastActivityDate="2015-11-25T21:06:40.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16621" CreationDate="2015-11-25T21:12:26.090" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course it is. Interjections are far more common in any spoken language compared to its written counterpart. Chinese also consists of many words and phrases that are very formal and rarely spoken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://naccl.osu.edu/sites/naccl.osu.edu/files/NACCL-21_Vol._1--Hongyin_Tao--pp._13-27.pdf&quot;&gt;https://naccl.osu.edu/sites/naccl.osu.edu/files/NACCL-21_Vol._1--Hongyin_Tao--pp._13-27.pdf&lt;/a&gt; could be taken as a starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the ten most common written characters are 的，一，是，不，了，在，人，有，我 and 他, the most spoken ones are 的，是，我，就，不，你，了，那，啊 and 个。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那个 and 啊 stand out in spoken Chinese, as does 你, since written language usually addresses a collective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嗯 occupies place 2042 in the written frequency list, but position 30 in the spoken. Similar for 吧 and 哦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-11-25T21:12:26.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="470" CreationDate="2015-11-26T05:46:53.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient Chinese, 狗 is baby or young dog, while 犬 is grown-up dog. In today's Chinese, they are almost the same. But 狗 is more for oral or informal expression, while 犬 is formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, please be more aware to some fixed phrases, like those mentioned by other guys here, for example 狂犬病 (hydrophobia) is a medical term, and you should not use 狂狗病 (some people also use 疯狗病 for hydrophobia in oral, but this is just for informal usage)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-26T05:46:53.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1023" CreationDate="2015-11-26T05:50:13.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;they are the same, even 星期天 (星期日, they are the same, means Sunday) are so-called 周天 (in fact it should be 周日)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周一 － 周六 ＝ 星期一 － 星期六&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周日 ＝ 星期日，星期天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but we seldom use 周天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also, 礼拜x is exactly the same (礼拜天 and 礼拜日 are ok for use)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-26T05:50:13.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2" CreationDate="2015-11-26T05:52:41.040" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;做 sometimes means actual action or acting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作 is for abstracted meanings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in fact even many native speakers are not very clear of that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-26T05:52:41.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16633" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-26T22:02:29.153" Score="3" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very short, isolated question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No hopes or dreams&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, it's very clear that this is &quot;neither hopes nor dreams&quot; i.e. there are no hopes, and also no dreams. In Chinese, which word, 和 or 或 (or some other options) can be used to express this mutual inclusiveness?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没有梦和希望&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没有梦或希望&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10955" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-12-21T05:57:37.170" LastActivityDate="2015-12-21T13:02:17.303" Title="和 or 或? When to use &quot;and&quot;s and &quot;or&quot;s" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16633" CreationDate="2015-11-26T23:20:42.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither. 没有梦也没有希望 is the correct form for nor/neither.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和 in 没有梦和X means &quot;having no dreams&quot; &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;another full statement&quot; (X).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或 in 没有梦或X means &quot;having no dreams&quot; &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;another full statement&quot; (X)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-11-26T23:20:42.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16633" CreationDate="2015-11-27T06:27:22.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in oral, 没有希望和/或梦想could be the same for understanding. But in some cases which require very strict expression, legal document or scientific papers, for example, 和and或are different&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-11-27T06:27:22.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16636" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-27T10:13:38.883" Score="3" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;□&lt;/code&gt; is the official place-marker for unknown or unwritable characters. Sometimes though there are appropriate characters for the mistakenly believed unwritable or nonexistent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my conundrum:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《现代汉语方言音库》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《成都话音档》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;□&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kuai³¹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;～着走, 两脚尖向内地走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《成都方言词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vEdrx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vEdrx.png&quot; alt=&quot;2&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《四川方言词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xua45.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xua45.png&quot; alt=&quot;3&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm willing to bet the missing character could be written &lt;em&gt;拐&lt;/em&gt;, but I haven't any proof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What character could be written here instead of □?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T06:54:15.127" Title="Character for &quot;□&quot; 西南官话 kuai³¹: &quot;～着走, 两脚尖向内地走&quot;" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16633" CreationDate="2015-11-27T10:14:01.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The preferred rendition for disambiguation would be actually be 没梦想、没希望. Please note the pause mark (as opposed to the comma) and the symmetric syllabic structure, in addition to the repetition of 没. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is in line with other &quot;balanced&quot; repeated structures in modern standard Mandarin Chinese, such as 又…又… and 连…也…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2015-11-27T10:14:01.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9366" CreationDate="2015-11-28T12:25:59.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been studying chinese for a couple of years and this is the most difficult subject I have bumped into with difference. It's like a stone in the road I can't jump over. All those answers are right in a superficial and practical level but implies a western approach to something far more complex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many natives have told me that chinese people don't make a distinction between countable or uncountable nouns, and that I should approach the subject of indefinite measure words with a chinese mind. 一点 doesn't always means &quot;a little&quot; of a mass noun. It can be used sometimes with countable nouns in english like for example &quot;advice&quot; (一点意见 = a few advices, not a little bit of advice) but we can't say 一点锚 (some cats). That would be incorrect. Which leads me to think that chinese DO really make a distinction between countable or uncountable things (ok, maybe this way of naming it is misleading as everything can be counted with it's appropriate number and classifier, let's called them common nouns VS material nouns, or individual nouns VS mass nouns, whatever...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, you say that 一些 means &quot;a few&quot;, but it can also be used with things that for an english speaker would be mass nouns like sand, water, gold or rice, (like &quot;a few waters!&quot;) in the same way we do with 一点. So, the boundaries between countable and uncountable nouns seem to be quite blurred and confusing and I still find some inconsistencies even when I try to think as a native chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12188" LastActivityDate="2015-11-28T12:25:59.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16537" CreationDate="2015-11-28T15:05:27.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chinese the basic syntactic structure is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;主语, Subject + (状语, Adverb) + 动词, Verb + (补语, Complements)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, from this structure we can see that the &lt;strong&gt;adverb&lt;/strong&gt; comes &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; the verb and the &lt;strong&gt;complement&lt;/strong&gt; slot &lt;em&gt;follows&lt;/em&gt; the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever precedes the verb modifies its meaning. So, since the adverb comes before the predicate, it behaves like a &lt;em&gt;determinant&lt;/em&gt;. 很快(地) in your first sentence adds more information to the main action, 看.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, whatever follows the verb represents the results of the predicate, it &lt;em&gt;completes&lt;/em&gt; the meaning of the verb and that's why this place is reserved for complements. The degree complement, or 程度补语, it's a very special complement that specifies the qualities of the action. You could think about it as &lt;em&gt;picture&lt;/em&gt; of the predicate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, both your sentences are correct from a grammatical point of view. They also mean the exactly same thing. The difference between the two consist in the focus.&#xA;In the first sentence the predicate (看) is the most important element. In the second instead the degree of the action (得很快) receives the focus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我一般很快地看留言。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  In general I &lt;strong&gt;read&lt;/strong&gt; messages. &lt;em&gt;How&lt;/em&gt; do I read them? &lt;em&gt;Quickly&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  我一般看留言看得很快。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  In general I &lt;strong&gt;read&lt;/strong&gt; messages and my action has the &lt;em&gt;result&lt;/em&gt; to be &lt;em&gt;quick&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10944" LastActivityDate="2015-11-28T15:05:27.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16641" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16645" CreationDate="2015-11-28T22:32:51.013" Score="1" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm translating a classical Chinese text into English and the phrase &quot;起予“ 让我头痛。 Please, help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the full classical text (from the Confucian analects) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子夏問曰：「『巧笑倩兮， 美目盼兮， 素以為絢兮。』何謂也？ 子曰： 「繪事後素。」 曰： 「禮後乎？」 子曰： 「起予者商也，始可與言詩已矣。 」 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best I can try to translate 起予 is for it to mean something along the lines of... starts to give....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9734" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T08:58:43.403" Title="Classical Chinese question. 古文。 Meaning of 起予？" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16642" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16646" CreationDate="2015-11-29T21:31:32.617" Score="5" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translate says &quot;tape&quot; is 胶带, and &quot;tape it&quot; is 用胶带.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But to me, that's just saying &quot;use tape&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a verb for the act of taping something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, how would you say &quot;could you tape that package?&quot;&#xA;or &quot;can you tape that shut?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T15:05:05.420" Title="How do you say &quot;tape it&quot; as in, &quot;taping a package&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16642" CreationDate="2015-11-30T04:30:36.230" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To communicate the same generic sense as the English verb to tape, try 貼 (simplified: 贴), pinyin: tie1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;t: 可以幫我把它貼起來嗎?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;s: 可以帮我把它贴起来吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e: Can you help me tape it up?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;appropriate for situations such as sealing a package like a present for someone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;tape that shut&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;t: 我貼好了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;s: 我贴好了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e: I finished taping&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;for example after applying duct tape to repair a hole in an air duct, you can say this&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Machine translation such as Google is still somewhat hit-and-miss, I'm sure you have come across &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.boredpanda.com/funny-chinese-translation-fails/&quot;&gt;translation fails&lt;/a&gt; that make you wonder &lt;em&gt;Did they use Google Translate?&lt;/em&gt;. Better to use machine translation as a last resort when no native language speaker is available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11759" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T04:30:36.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16641" CreationDate="2015-11-30T08:58:43.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;起 means &quot;inspire&quot;, and 予 means &quot;me&quot;. Literally: It's you, Shang (Zixia's given name), who inspired me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T08:58:43.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16642" CreationDate="2015-11-30T09:02:03.590" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;用胶带捆 (literally: bind with tape) seems a good translation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ancient Chinese has many similar verbs directly from nouns, but there are much fewer, if not none, in Modern Chinese. So there are some cases that a single English word must be translated into a long phrase in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T09:02:03.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16609" CreationDate="2015-11-30T09:15:20.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no need for a transliteration. 贴纸 is good enough for translation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you hear anybody say 不干胶, they may also mean stickers.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I guess that you hear some Chinese saying &quot;sticker&quot; in English, is because they can't remember the Chinese word 贴纸, so they use English instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T09:15:20.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16434" CreationDate="2015-11-30T09:51:12.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be no particular reason why generally a verb cannot be placed after an adverbial phrase, it's just a matter of &quot;sense&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他在床上睡。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He sleeps on the bed.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If a Chinese hear this, he may guess that your emphasis lies on &quot;on the bed&quot;, to show that this person sleeps on the bed instead of floor or sofa.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他睡在床上。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;On the bed, he sleeps. (A bit weird in English?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is different. For a Chinese, this sounds like a plain descriptive sentence.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Of course, I gave an example when both sentences are grammatically right, but slightly different on meanings. But for a foreigner, how can he tell the difference based solely on the characters?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For the sentence in your question, 他在椅子上坐 (without a context) just &lt;strong&gt;sounds&lt;/strong&gt; weird, period. It may be semantically right, but not grammatically. I believe this may happen in English or any other languages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T09:51:12.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16306" CreationDate="2015-11-30T10:05:07.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not easy to translate &quot;afford&quot; into Chinese. Translation may be quite different according to the context.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For your instance, here is my personal suggestion:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我再也耗不起更多时间了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I can't afford to lose any more time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I can't afford to consume any more time. (literally)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我不能睡得更少了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I can't afford to lose any more sleep.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I can't sleep any shorter. (literally, quite different)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T10:05:07.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16642" CreationDate="2015-11-30T15:05:05.420" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not just say'用胶带包起来' or '用胶带包上'? That's what my Chinese wife would say every time we went through the hussle of sending a package to China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12128" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T15:05:05.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16434" CreationDate="2015-11-30T23:22:41.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question!  The first two have nearly the same meaning, but I think the second emphasizes the &quot;current&quot; quality of the action more.  That is to say, I would translate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他坐在椅子上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as &quot;He sits on a chair,&quot; while I would translate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在椅子上坐著。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as &quot;He is currently sitting on the chair.&quot;  Given the context you provided in your comment, this seems like the most likely wording.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure why I should feel that this formulation changes the chair to a specific one, but perhaps it's that in English, the sentence &quot;He is currently sitting on a chair&quot; has an odd feeling of unnecessary vagueness about it (perhaps because a chair is the default thing to sit on).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在椅子上坐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;has an odd feel to it, as though it were missing something (possibly a second syllable, as mentioned in the comments).  Also, without the progressive 著 at the end, it seems to say that he habitually sits on a chair, which seems like an odd thing to say of someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9824" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T23:22:41.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9366" CreationDate="2015-11-30T23:56:10.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would read those as &quot;several things&quot; and &quot;a bit of stuff&quot;, respectively.  As others have noted, 一些 is almost always used with a countable noun and 一點 is typically (though not quite as universally) used with a mass noun.  The situation for the latter phrase is not that different from the confusion between &quot;fewer&quot; and &quot;less&quot; in English; although &quot;less&quot; should not be used with countable nouns, you'll find it (and 一點) used with them anyway, from time to time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9824" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T23:56:10.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16434" CreationDate="2015-12-01T02:34:38.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;LOL,seeing this question I want to say,have you ever heard about Chinglish?while,what you ask is just the Chinese of English style.&#xA;&quot;他坐在椅子上&quot;，&quot;坐&quot;is a verb,focus on the motion of sitting.&#xA;&quot;他在椅子上坐着&quot;focus on the condition of sitting.&#xA;In grammar aspect,most of Chinese can't explain the 3rd one,but we know we just don't use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12170" LastActivityDate="2015-12-01T02:34:38.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16654" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16655" CreationDate="2015-12-01T04:32:04.700" Score="6" ViewCount="2695" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might seem as an unserious question but i was really stunned the first time I had an argument with a Chinese guy in League of Legends and he said: &quot;我艹你&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my first thought ofcourse was WTF!?! I grass you? what is he trying to tell me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so my question is how does i grass you relate to i f*** you? :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12207" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T10:50:22.680" Title="Help me understand why 我艹你 means i f*** you?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16654" CreationDate="2015-12-01T04:39:05.193" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;艹 -&gt; 草 -&gt; 操 -&gt; 肏 all with pinyin &quot;cao&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They're all Internet variants on the same word that proliferated through use of computer IMEs. 肏 (the proper character) didn't show up on some earlier IMEs, so 操 was chosen as an alternative for it. From there, 草 became used because it is often the first option that shows up on an IME when people are typing quickly (as is often the case especially in online gaming). From there, 艹 was chosen as a form of self-censorship that is somewhat common on Chinese Internet media.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other variants such as 卧槽.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5808" LastEditorDisplayName="user5808" LastEditDate="2015-12-01T04:44:04.987" LastActivityDate="2015-12-01T04:44:04.987" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16656" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16657" CreationDate="2015-12-01T14:26:50.257" Score="0" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this in a Chinese television show, which I would like some help to translate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你说它真它就真，说它假它就假，它是真真假假假假真真谁也弄不明白.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first part I do understand. It means: &quot;If you say it is real then it is real, if you say it is fake then it is fake&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the second part of the sentence I can't make much sense of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some brilliant mind out there that can?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12207" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-12-01T17:35:16.333" LastActivityDate="2015-12-01T17:35:16.333" Title="Something I came across in a movie 你说它真它就真说它假" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16656" CreationDate="2015-12-01T17:29:10.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;你说它真它就真，说它假它就假， 它是真真假假假假真真谁也弄不明白.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;You claim it's true and as truth it is. &#xA;You declare it's faulty as falsehood is should be. &#xA;Is it true or false, go figure!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One not so elegant translation would be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;if you say A, and I supposed to believe it as A and when you say about&#xA;the same thing but this time it is B, and I supposed to believe it is&#xA;B, so is it A or B???? what do I know???&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The concept is quite similar to an old saying &quot;to swear black is white.&quot; Or you can use the biblical reference on Mark 11:24 &quot;Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.&quot;  Or if you stretch this more, &quot;Cogito ergo sum,&quot; which is the Latin philosophical proposition by René Descartes, as in English &quot;I think, therefore I am.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s the true pseudo-profound bullshit! ref: Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 10, No. 6, November 2015, pp. 549–563 &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12181" LastActivityDate="2015-12-01T17:29:10.707" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16658" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-02T01:40:47.963" Score="4" ViewCount="565" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am doing some work with scanning Chinese text with my computer and I have run into a problem that I do not have with other languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because there are no spaces between characters, I cannot tell when one word ends and another one begins. Is there any easy way to do this? For example in English I am telling my computer to split things like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sentence = &quot;My name is John&quot;&#xA;the computer will return a list of words.&#xA;computer = ['my', 'name', 'is', 'John']&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12213" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-12-02T06:49:12.237" LastActivityDate="2016-01-01T07:32:04.923" Title="How to tell when one word starts and another word ends?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14808" CreationDate="2015-12-02T01:56:46.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did you see what I posted on Facebook? In this context, Post is verb.&#xA;which means 发布，发表，公布&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have you seen my post on my Moments (Wechat)? In this context, Post is noun.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;on Wechat, it means 朋友圈，圈文&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;on Weibo, it means，微博，状态&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;on Blog, it means 文章&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;on Community/forum, it means 帖子，评论，留言 等等。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12067" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T01:56:46.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16660" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16688" CreationDate="2015-12-02T06:06:24.023" Score="2" ViewCount="2929" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found there is no exact word to translate this phrase. Is there a way to describe this status?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2337" OwnerDisplayName="haudoing" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-12-02T06:47:28.810" LastActivityDate="2015-12-07T17:01:26.660" Title="How to translate &quot;曖昧&quot; into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-08-29T16:04:51.963" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16660" CreationDate="2015-12-02T06:19:58.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translate gives it as the following adjectives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ambiguous&#xA;暧昧, 含糊, 含混, 双关&lt;br&gt;&#xA;dubious&#xA;可疑, 暧昧, 不三不四, 怀疑的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;equivocal&#xA;暧昧, 双关&lt;br&gt;&#xA;doubtful&#xA;疑, 儗, 暧昧, 踯, 怀疑的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;shady&#xA;阴凉, 荫, 背阴, 不三不四, 暧昧, 荟&lt;br&gt;&#xA;indefinite&#xA;不定, 活络, 暧昧, 暗昧, 不明确, 非决定性的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;uncertain&#xA;不确定, 飘忽, 渺茫, 疑, 易变, 暧昧&lt;br&gt;&#xA;indistinct&#xA;模糊, 缈, 恍, 惚, 苍莽, 朦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the translated terms, I'd add &quot;vague&quot; to the list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the commentary below, perhaps the best fit might be the phrase and usage popularised by Facebook: &quot;It's complicated&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="Euan M" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T06:33:42.023" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16658" CreationDate="2015-12-02T06:55:01.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short of a lexicographic analysis, you can't. There is a little punctuation in Chinese, so you can split sentences into subgroups. But after that, there's no easy way to say where a word stops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even very common words like 的 (genitive marker, appears right after the possessor, eg 我的朋友: me, I; genitive; friend: my friend) cannot be relied on 100% to be always just that. 'Taxi' is written 的士, and in this case 的 would not be a single character delimiting two words, but the first character of a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Chinese is not the only language that doesn't have spaces. You'll run into more problems like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T06:55:01.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16664" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16668" CreationDate="2015-12-02T07:52:10.010" Score="2" ViewCount="1219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this in a Chinese television show where someone says: &quot;咱们狸猫换太子的计划&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't figure out what &quot;狸猫换太子&quot; could mean. To my knowledge this means: &quot;Leopard exchange for Crown Prince&quot;. Which makes no sense in the context of the television show.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me understand this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12207" LastEditorUserId="12207" LastEditDate="2015-12-02T08:01:57.783" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T09:22:26.877" Title="What does 狸猫换太子 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16660" CreationDate="2015-12-02T08:17:48.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Guifan&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;形 (态度､用意)不明朗; (行为)不光明正大&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;态度暧昧 ｜关系暧昧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English I think we would call this &lt;strong&gt;flirtatious&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like: 跟别人暧昧 would just simply mean to flirt with somebody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T08:17:48.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16664" CreationDate="2015-12-02T09:15:46.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means exchanging sth slinkingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/8/10d/290326.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;狸猫换太子&lt;/a&gt; is a famous legend story supposed happened in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Song dynasty&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;戲曲劇目。宋代故事戲。敘述宋真宗妃劉妃因妒李妃產子趙稹，以貍貓偷換太子，誣李妃產妖，使其貶入冷宮，劉妃得以冊立為后。後又火燒冷宮，李妃在逃出後流落民間。李妃原命人將趙稹投入河中，幸經太監搭救，送往八賢王府，長成繼帝位為宋仁宗。後包拯巧遇雙目失明的李妃，得知實情，乃大力審案，終使真相大白。劉妃被打入冷宮，迎李妃入宮，故事圓滿結束。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an explanation of the story on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bao_Zheng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wild Cat Exchanged for Crown Prince (狸貓換太子): Bao Zheng met a woman&#xA;  claiming to be the mother of the current Emperor Renzong. Dozens of&#xA;  years ago, she had been Consort Li, an imperial concubine of Emperor&#xA;  Zhenzong's, before falling out of favour for supposedly giving birth&#xA;  to a bloody dead wild cat. What really happened was a jealous Consort&#xA;  Liu plotting with eunuch Guo Huai (郭槐) to secretly swap Li's infant&#xA;  with a skinned wild cat minutes after birth and order palace maid Kou&#xA;  Zhu (寇珠) to kill the baby. But Kou gave the baby to chief eunuch Chen&#xA;  Lin (陳琳) who secretly brought the child to the Eighth Prince, a&#xA;  younger brother of Emperor Zhenzong. Kou was later tortured to death&#xA;  by Guo when Consort Liu began to suspect about the fate of the baby&#xA;  child. The child was raised by the Eighth Prince as his own son and&#xA;  was subsequently selected to ascend to the throne as Emperor Renzong&#xA;  after Emperor Zhenzong died without an heir. Due to the passage of&#xA;  time, getting evidence presented a challenge. With the help of a woman&#xA;  dressed as Kou's ghost, Bao dressed himself as the hell overlord Yama&#xA;  and used Guo's fear of the supernatural and guilt to extract his&#xA;  confession. When the verdict was out, the emperor was reluctant to&#xA;  accept Consort Li. Bao then admonished the emperor and ordered a set&#xA;  of beatings for him for lack of filial piety. The emperor's Dragon&#xA;  Robe was beaten instead. Emperor Renzong eventually accepted his&#xA;  mother and elevated her as the new empress dowager.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-12-02T09:22:26.877" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T09:22:26.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16669" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16675" CreationDate="2015-12-02T09:49:07.427" Score="19" ViewCount="9722" Body="&lt;p&gt;We are creating a product which has an small embedded OLED display (64 x 48 pixels). We would love to support Chinese in this product and wonder what is that smallest resolution that would be needed to support Chinese writing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume simplified Chinese would give the best result? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently in our product, which supports English only, our smallest font size is 5 x 7. I'm pretty sure Chinese symbols will need more resolution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12216" LastEditorUserId="12221" LastEditDate="2015-12-03T05:35:08.020" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T22:18:48.987" Title="Lowest pixel resolution needed to support Chinese?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16660" CreationDate="2015-12-02T10:16:11.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;曖昧 = ambiguous romantic relationship&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase is in reference to a romantic relationship. Its usually from outsiders commenting on the relationship between a guy and a girl who are friends but may be more than that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can kind of thinks about it as the sort of weird stage before you've had the DTR (determine-the-relationship) conversation. If you don't have that convo, then you may be perpetually 曖昧. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11981" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T10:16:11.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16671" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16673" CreationDate="2015-12-02T11:30:57.717" Score="2" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know both of them mean &quot;style&quot;, but don't know the difference between the two words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can somebody tell me the difference? I would appreciate it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T03:39:37.760" Title="What is the difference between 款式 and 格式" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16671" CreationDate="2015-12-03T03:39:37.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way out of your conundrum is to realize your original assumption &lt;code&gt;I know both of them mean &quot;style&quot;&lt;/code&gt; is the source of confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words can become flexible and have more than one meaning, or &quot;senses of the word&quot;. However, usually when asking about the meaning of a word, we are talking about the primary, or most common usage of a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, even if both 款式 and 格式 can sometimes be used as &quot;style&quot;, only one of them can be considered &quot;style&quot; as its primary use, primary meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;款式&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out of the choices, only this would have a primary meaning of &quot;style&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cdict.net/?q=%E6%AC%BE%E5%BC%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CDICT search for 款式&lt;/a&gt; translates this as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pattern&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;style&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;design&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;格式&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cdict.net/?q=%E6%A0%BC%E5%BC%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CDICT search for 格式&lt;/a&gt; translates this as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;form&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;specification&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;format&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a more technical note, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E6%A0%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yellowbridge etymology on the word 格&lt;/a&gt; shows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;木 [mù] tree; wood, lumber; wooden&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;各 [gè] each, individually, every, all&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps one way think of what this word means, is that, at least in ancient times when this word was developed, wood was commonly thought of as a practical material for making, reshaping all kinds of different &quot;forms&quot; or &quot;things&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taoism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Feng Shui, within their five elements, 木 or &quot;wood element&quot; is associated with creation/creating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Conclusion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, as long as you can let go of the idea that both &quot;mean&quot; style, then you can see that the difference in these terms is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;款式's primary use/meaning/sense is &quot;style&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;格式's primary use/meaning/sense is &quot;form&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless you are not sure what the difference between the words &quot;style&quot; and &quot;form&quot;, that would be new question then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11759" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T03:39:37.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14195" CreationDate="2015-12-03T06:19:20.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was at university there were books that had the English version alongside the Chinese version. This was either the complete Chinese text plus the complete English version or one page Chinese one page English. However, in my own experience these are not very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option is to get something which you are familiar with and then buy the Chinese version, for example Harry Potter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how I progressed past this level; I got my hands on the Chinese primary school student books. Pinyin is available up to the 5th book 第五册. If you study hard and learn everything up to the 5th book you will also be ready to stop using pinyin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can get scans of the textbooks online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T06:19:20.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16669" CreationDate="2015-12-03T12:24:18.047" Score="24" Body="&lt;h1&gt;8x8: Lowest necessary resolution for Chinese characters&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, the &lt;strong&gt;recognizable lowest resolution&lt;/strong&gt; for Chinese characters, is about &lt;code&gt;8x8&lt;/code&gt; pixels. The following paragraphs are rendered by the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Special SimSun&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; font's smallest 8x8 bitmap glyphs (Note: &quot;&lt;em&gt;Before Revision&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is rendered by the Windows Vista's default &lt;code&gt;simsun.ttc&lt;/code&gt;; &quot;&lt;em&gt;After Revision&lt;/em&gt;&quot; shows how Special Simsun improves the quality). I believe native speakers are able to read these 8x8 resolution characters within the context, though a few are difficult to be recognized individually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aJq9S.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aJq9S.png&quot; alt=&quot;Special SimSun&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The &lt;strong&gt;Special SimSun&lt;/strong&gt; font is revised based on &lt;code&gt;simsun.ttc&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;mingliu.ttc&lt;/code&gt; contained in Windows Vista: First, it replaces ugly bitmap glyphs of Windows Vista's &lt;code&gt;simsun.ttc&lt;/code&gt; with those of Windows XP's, and adds a few other bitmap glyphs; Second, it completes the bitmap glyphs in CJK EXT A (6852 characters), and supports the GB18030 character set (27533 characters) – especially, some low-resolution bitmap glyphs are included so that characters can be rendered in the bitmap way under 6pt–21pt for 96dpi; Finally, all bitmap glyphs are revised one by one, so the rendering quality is improved.&quot; — By the author of this font&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be remiss of me not to mention the &lt;code&gt;7x7&lt;/code&gt; resolution font: &lt;code&gt;超宋体&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;Super Song&lt;/strong&gt;) made by &lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.themex.net/showthread.php?t=16852265&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;夏夏@bbs.themex.net&lt;/a&gt;. However, this font is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;simplified Chinese only&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, and we can imagine it will be even more difficult to read than &lt;code&gt;8x8&lt;/code&gt; resolution characters, so my conclusion for OP's question is &quot;about &lt;code&gt;8x8&lt;/code&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;12x12 would be moderate&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following paragraphs are rendered by the &lt;code&gt;方正像素12&lt;/code&gt; font with its &lt;code&gt;12x12&lt;/code&gt; resolution glyphs. Almost every character can be recognized without context. Of course, compared with the &lt;code&gt;16x16&lt;/code&gt; resolution, it has to lose strokes even for many simplified characters; however, yes, native speakers may feel relaxed to read them now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a96ES.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a96ES.png&quot; alt=&quot;方正像素12&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2015-12-04T06:55:58.847" LastActivityDate="2015-12-04T06:55:58.847" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="704" CreationDate="2015-12-03T18:42:59.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is extremely simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Always use the horizontal form in vertical text, and always use the vertical form in horizontal text. That's truly all there is to it. How do I know for sure? I've read several of the actual Zhuyin promotional documents (in Chinese) from the pre-Taiwan Republic of China. So yeah, I'm pretty darn sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12035" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T18:42:59.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9219" CreationDate="2015-12-04T03:18:09.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;thank you for inviting me for dinner &#xA;谢谢你邀请我与你共进晚餐 this saying is much more gentle than &quot;谢谢你那天邀请我吃晚饭&quot;. Use the first sentence if you had dinner in senior restaurant and use the second sentence if you had dinner in your friend's home or it was just a common meal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;thank you for the gift&#xA;谢谢你的礼物， and it could be much better if you say &quot;谢谢你的礼物，我很喜欢&quot;(thank you for the gift, i like it very much)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn more skill about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/daily-chinese-learning-tips/how-to-say-thank-you-in-chinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;how to say Thank You in Chinese&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12231" LastActivityDate="2015-12-04T03:18:09.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16680" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-04T04:43:00.237" Score="2" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;Supposing that one can find everything on Tfaobao, I tried it but I didn't find this specific type of decorating sugar for baking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笔尖糖 or 粗糖 don't bring me proper results. I guess I am not translating it right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QGfctm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QGfctm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Example&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9685" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-13T02:34:11.737" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T02:34:11.737" Title="Proper translation for nib sugar, coarse sugar, decorating sugar" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16633" CreationDate="2015-12-04T06:32:18.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally I would rather use &lt;code&gt;没有梦，也没有希望&lt;/code&gt;, since &lt;code&gt;nor&lt;/code&gt; can translate to &lt;code&gt;也没有&lt;/code&gt;. Or just use &lt;code&gt;没有梦，没有希望&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use negative word with &lt;code&gt;和&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;或&lt;/code&gt; both means &quot;nothing mentioned are available&quot;. In most cases we use &lt;code&gt;没有……和……&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11193" LastActivityDate="2015-12-04T06:32:18.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16682" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-04T13:35:47.913" Score="4" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is China's in theater subtitle version: 我得他妈的想办法活下去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A streaming video version: 只能开动脑筋想办法自救&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you do better than the above? Namely by incorporating science into it, both of which don't include the science bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why didn't the translations use 科学 as a verb? It seems many words serve as &#xA;a noun or a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like this -只能开动脑筋用科学想办法自救 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3063" LastEditorUserId="3063" LastEditDate="2015-12-04T13:41:25.743" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T04:39:58.523" Title="How would you translate The Martian's: &quot;I'm going to science the s*** out of this&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16683" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16684" CreationDate="2015-12-04T16:54:13.260" Score="2" ViewCount="345" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 咁 means &amp;quot;so&amp;quot;, as in &amp;quot;so big&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;gam daai&amp;quot;. However, I just found this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我仲未失望咁係度等&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ngo5 zung6-mei6 sat1-mong6 gam3 hai6 dou6 dang2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In which I think it ought to be interpreted as an adverbial suffix, like English -ly. Maybe it is just because I saw a Mandarin rendition of this which makes it a 地. So can this gam sometimes be used as Mandarin 地? Also, I translated this sentence to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't yet been disappointed of being here waiting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before seeing the Mandarin version. Would that be a valid translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-12-04T22:50:20.853" Title="Cantonese 咁: adverb suffix?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16683" CreationDate="2015-12-04T18:55:05.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is at least one possible error here (係 v.s. 喺), so I'll assume a nonzero possibility of characters being misassigned. In that case, I'll assume the pronunciation is correct except for the tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I have never heard &lt;code&gt;gam3&lt;/code&gt; (generally written as 咁) used (correctly) outside of a context where it comes before an adjective as a means of indicating the extent something is &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;adjective&amp;gt;&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conversely, there is also &lt;code&gt;gam2&lt;/code&gt;, which has the same pronunciation apart from the tone.&lt;/strong&gt; (The dictionary gives as 噉.) Use of this &lt;code&gt;gam2&lt;/code&gt; &lt;em&gt;alone&lt;/em&gt; (i.e. not in some sort of set phrase like 噉樣) indicates something like &quot;in this case&quot; (e.g. 今日落雨，噉我哋唔好出去啦---&lt;em&gt;it is raining today, so let's not go out&lt;/em&gt;). (The dictionary also suggests 恁 as a particle with the romanisation &lt;code&gt;gam&lt;/code&gt; with a meaning that could fit, but the use-case appears identical to 噉, so I cannot differentiate between them.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It is worth noting that people seem to sometimes conflate the two&lt;/strong&gt;---e.g. 咁樣 and 噉樣 both appear in the Google IME. In fact, 咁嘅 is a lot more common than 噉嘅, judging from Google search and IME suggestions, even though &lt;code&gt;gam3&lt;/code&gt; is definitely not the right tone. &lt;strong&gt;Thus, it looks like there's some variation in what the correct transcription for a character not used formally is.&lt;/strong&gt; (I later found similar ambiguities when I tried checking the character for &lt;code&gt;zung6&lt;/code&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Regardless of what the correct character is, &lt;code&gt;gam2&lt;/code&gt; makes more sense, because I can group it with 係 in a way that makes sense to me.&lt;/strong&gt; This means that the translation should be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I still haven't lost hope, so I'm waiting here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what it's worth, I'm having a lot of trouble catching any instance of &lt;code&gt;gam&lt;/code&gt; in the audio of the song (&quot;想你想得好孤寂&quot;) in question. If the particle were actually absent, though, the line would not feel complete. (I would interpret it as either &lt;em&gt;I still haven't lost hope, waiting here&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;I still haven't lost hope that waiting here . . .&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-04T22:50:20.853" LastActivityDate="2015-12-04T22:50:20.853" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16682" CreationDate="2015-12-04T22:42:58.050" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;科学 could indeed function as a static verb, but it is not recognized as a regular verb. Neither was 和谐, until it became a fad using it to criticize mainland politics (as in 他被和谐了). As in English, you could formally make most nouns verbs, but it only works if people understand the logic behind the transformation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 科学, you could probably use the 化 suffix to accomplish what you want: 要科学化这个该死的问题想个办法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-12-04T22:42:58.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16686" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16689" CreationDate="2015-12-05T20:40:35.190" Score="2" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm practicing with the words 以前 and 以后.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Using the word 以前, I came up with this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我一分钟以前刚刚看到他！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My English intention was to make this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I just saw him a minute ago!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was told the format of using this word with time words was this:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;time word + 以前 + following action&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So to break up the sentence I made:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;[我]一分钟 + 以前 + 刚刚看到他&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm not sure if &lt;code&gt;刚刚&lt;/code&gt; is actually separate from &lt;code&gt;以前&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11877" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T01:16:47.483" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T01:16:47.483" Title="Is 我一分钟以前刚刚看到他 grammatically correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16686" CreationDate="2015-12-05T20:59:48.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure, but you'd better use 之前 in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-12-05T20:59:48.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16660" CreationDate="2015-12-06T20:28:04.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As many others have said, 暧昧 can be used in different occasions, which calls for different word to express the precise meaning in each occasion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there's the romantic 暧昧 when you describe a &lt;strong&gt;relationship&lt;/strong&gt;, which I would translate to something to the effect of &quot;there's a &lt;strong&gt;thing&lt;/strong&gt; between them&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when you talk about someone's attitude is 暧昧, you mean they are being &lt;strong&gt;indirect, noncommittal, giving mixed signals, hesitating to express their opinions.&lt;/strong&gt; You would choose the one that fits the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think in general when you have a word that doesn't have a direct, 100% corresponding word, it most likely falls to your subjective judgement. And sometimes you simply don't have sufficient information or context to translate it, 暧昧 can be one of such word, for those occasions you would try your best and note what word is being used originally or ask for clarification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5795" LastActivityDate="2015-12-06T20:28:04.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16686" CreationDate="2015-12-07T01:01:07.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Native Taiwanese here. This is what I would say: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我一分钟以前*才刚*看到他&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;才剛&quot; corresponds to the &quot;just&quot; in your English sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12215" LastActivityDate="2015-12-07T01:01:07.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16633" CreationDate="2015-12-07T13:11:58.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally as others stated, negating like this causes ambiguity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However in this specific case, 梦想和希望 sounds like an idiom-like word to me, they work together as one phrase, like &quot;bread and butter&quot;. So at least to me, 没有梦想和希望 means neither&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-12-07T13:11:58.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16981" CreationDate="2015-12-08T14:51:54.813" Score="6" ViewCount="363" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here’s my list: 队伍, 成分, 身分, 才力, 呼噜, 亮堂, 好处, 种子, 妥当, 爽快, 痛快, 记性, 出息, 佩服, 分析, 哈欠, 寒毛, 活泼, 鼻涕, 道理, 滑稽, 考究, 讲究, 打算, 正经, 裁缝, 得罪, 意识 (and also意识 形态), 熟识, 见识, 体谅, 兴趣, [东/西/南/前/后/那/上/下/头/里/外/左/右]边, 知道, 父亲 and 困难.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This list is made up of two-character words, for which I have found that different dictionaries disagree with each other on the pronunciation of the tail character: one or more dictionaries may give the neutral tone, whereas one or more other dictionaries may give a different tone (almost always, the “citation” tone for the character). I would be inclined to believe that, given the difference between dictionaries, it may not matter a great deal if the neutral tone is used or not for these words. Could anyone confirm this? Or else give a detailed answer to the question in the title above?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list also contains a few words (痛快, 呼噜, 出息, 知道, 父亲 and 正经) for which a dictionary has said that both using the neutral tone, and not using it, are possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionaries used are those I have installed on a smartphone Android app called Pleco. They are: Pleco C-E, CC-CEDICT and Adso. I’ve noticed that often (but by no means always) Adso gives the citation tone whereas the other two give the neutral tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, this question is a follow-up to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14826/words-where-it-is-important-to-distinguish-between-the-neutral-tone-and-the-cita&quot;&gt;words where it is important to distinguish between the neutral tone and the citation tone&lt;/a&gt;, which I asked a few months ago. I was a little disappointed that it didn’t get more answers or comments, so I decided to follow up with this question which is more specific. I believe around 75% of the words are fairly common, standard terms. Sorry if there are too many unusual or abstruse words, and if the list is a bit long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS I just noticed some other related (but not duplicate) questions with useful info on this topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14433/mandarin-neutral-tone-tone-value&quot;&gt;Mandarin Neutral Tone: Tone Value?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9056/where-does-the-4th-tone-go-on-wan3shang-evening&quot;&gt;Where does the 4th tone go on wan3shang (evening)?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T16:14:43.500" Title="What difference(s) does it make to use the citation tone instead of the neutral tone, for the tail character in these words?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5581" CreationDate="2015-12-08T21:05:25.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the Cangjie comment to the extent you are actually putting in radicals rather than pinyin, but the draw back is it is four corners based so the order or even which part of a radical you put in is based on a set of rules. The original system could make random characters, but now they have it compare the potentials with the Unicode set or such. If you search ANKI web I had a set of flashcards for learning to type with Cangjie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other &quot;radical&quot; input method is Wubi which is based on the stroke order since any character can be narrowed down by the first five strokes again. Both of these inputs are based on 5^24, neither uses x or z except as a modifier, keys iterations mapped to 50k character sets. I could never find an English typing tutor for Wubi and experimenting with it the results were seemingly random. Too many iterations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a windows application which lets you input radicals and place them by location within the character, but I can't remember the name. I had it running under Wine on my Ubuntu system a couple of years ago. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is really needed is hand writing recognition input that lets you write the radical and then place it in the place location with in the character. I don't know of any hand writing recognition that lets you choose the radical you are writing to lock it in. This would also help visual learners like myself to find characters with similar radicals. Chineasy is such a teaching method buts its only on paper. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12260" LastActivityDate="2015-12-08T21:05:25.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16698" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16703" CreationDate="2015-12-09T04:04:19.137" Score="3" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;Entry for 叫当 from 《成都大辞典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zbAtR.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zbAtR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;0&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It mentions a pair of pants might be hawked for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一千六百元 （旧币）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and a 衫子 might be hawked for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;二千元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The definition does mention 铜钱, but I'm not entirely sure what 旧币 is &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt;, especially because 一千 and 二千 is a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess it could be money from the 清朝 period, but it could just as easily be money from the 三国 period (they have 当千钱 after all).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly is this 旧币 referring too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2015-12-09T04:17:18.613" LastActivityDate="2015-12-10T00:45:50.820" Title="What does 旧币 refer to exactly?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5581" CreationDate="2015-12-09T04:53:05.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yup! I was selling it again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a popular Chinese input method engine called 'Rime'. It's open source. It's cross-platform: 小狼毫 for Windows, 鼠须管 for OS X, and ibus-rime or fcitx-rime  for all distros of Linux. It's fast, clean and powerfully configurable!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And! among so many default schemas there is one, called 'Stroke', use the basic 5 strokes to type in characters. It is the dish for everybody! Default key bindings: 横h，竖s，撇p，点n，折z(You can change the key bindings to your own taste). And it's used mixed with Pinyin by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How it works like:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zHZ6X.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zHZ6X.png&quot; alt=&quot;tutorial of typing 点 and 折&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;====&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to get it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Official sites: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rime.im/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://rime.im/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GitHub pages:&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/rime&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/rime&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11864" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T04:53:05.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16700" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16701" CreationDate="2015-12-09T05:33:39.320" Score="4" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;I take 我不明白你刚说的第一句话 to mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I don't understand what you said in the first line&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand what 的 does in this sentence (or grammar function).&#xA;Relatedly, would it be possible to omit it and still have a well formulated sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12262" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T11:40:30.087" Title="What role does 的 play in the sentence 我不明白你刚说的第一句话?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16700" CreationDate="2015-12-09T07:09:36.413" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;A completely parallel English version of the Chinese would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't (or don't) understand the first word (or sentence) that you just said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 is functionally equivalent here to 'that':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the first word (or sentence) | that | you just said.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你刚说 | 的 | 第一句话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that the order of the clause is reversed in Chinese and English.  This is because Chinese treats &quot;the first word&quot; as the head of the phrase, and puts it where all heads in Chinese phrases go: on the right side.  It treats 你刚说 as if it were modifying the head, and puts it where all modifiers (attributives) go in Chinese phrases: on the left side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that this is exactly parallel to how adjective - noun phrases are treated in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the red | _ | pen&lt;br&gt;&#xA;紅色 | 的 | 筆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Chinese treats this kind of adjectival phrase in the same way that it treats relative clauses. This is very logical, since in both phrases the descriptive part and the head part get the exact same treatment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English, on the other hand, is weirdly inconsistent, putting head first in relative clauses and head last in adjectival phrases, where it doesn't even bother to mark which is which.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both these cases in Chinese the 的 is required. To omit it will confuse people and even if they can figure out what you mean, they will feel you have said something very odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T07:09:36.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16702" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16704" CreationDate="2015-12-09T08:49:15.830" Score="8" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia, as far as I can tell, has three options for what we would probably just call &lt;em&gt;traditional&lt;/em&gt; Chinese in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;香港繁體&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;澳門繁體&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;台灣正體&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from proportions, shapes, sizes (and 台灣正體's placement of punctuation markers in the middle of the air) I can't really see much of a difference, at first glance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the differences between 香港繁體, 澳門繁體 and 台灣正體?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T15:59:44.313" Title="What are the differences between 香港繁體, 澳門繁體 and 台灣正體?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16698" CreationDate="2015-12-10T00:45:50.820" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;旧币 literally means &quot;old currency&quot;; it is not referring to any currency in particular, and without context it's hard to be sure. I believe the usage of &quot;旧币&quot; is only to tell the reader that, despite using &quot;元&quot;, it is not referring to the modern renminbi, which has never had a value so low that old, off-season hawked clothes would cost thousands of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most likely answer IMO is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_series_of_the_renminbi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;old, first series RMB&lt;/a&gt;. This had a brief history between 1948 and 1955, after which it was &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%B8%81#.E5.B8.81.E5.88.B6.E6.94.B9.E9.9D.A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;revaluated&lt;/a&gt; at a rate of 10000 old RMB = 1 new RMB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there are &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_yuan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;numerous historical Chinese currencies called &quot;元&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, and if you keep their value in mind, it could have been during the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation#China&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;late civil war's hyperinflation&lt;/a&gt;, but since currency valuations were so much in flux during this period, this answer is less likely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even less likely are the various pre-Republic yuans, since they were pegged against stable, high-value foreign currencies like the Japanese Yen and Mexican Peso (no sarcasm, these were both stable and high-value in the early 20th century).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I would pay more attention to the usage of &quot;元&quot; in the prices than the phrase &quot;铜钱&quot;. The latter used to be real currency but is probably being used as a synonym of &quot;money&quot;, just as &quot;钱&quot; used to be a unit of currency but is now used as the word for &quot;money&quot; today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2015-12-10T00:45:50.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16702" CreationDate="2015-12-10T01:56:48.850" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically speaking, there are mainly two factors diversifying what you see between different versions of Chinese Wikipedia pages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The HTML language tag: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_language_codes.asp&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;lang&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;html lang=&quot;zh-CN&quot; dir=&quot;ltr&quot; class=&quot;client-js ve-not-available&quot;&amp;gt; 大陆简体&#xA;&amp;lt;html lang=&quot;zh-HK&quot; dir=&quot;ltr&quot; class=&quot;client-js ve-not-available&quot;&amp;gt; 香港繁體&#xA;&amp;lt;html lang=&quot;zh-MO&quot; dir=&quot;ltr&quot; class=&quot;client-js ve-not-available&quot;&amp;gt; 澳門繁體&#xA;&amp;lt;html lang=&quot;zh-SG&quot; dir=&quot;ltr&quot; class=&quot;client-js ve-not-available&quot;&amp;gt; 马新简体&#xA;&amp;lt;html lang=&quot;zh-TW&quot; dir=&quot;ltr&quot; class=&quot;client-js ve-not-available&quot;&amp;gt; 台灣正體&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;lang&lt;/code&gt; attribute tells the browser to choose proper display settings such as &lt;strong&gt;fonts and styles&lt;/strong&gt;. Different &quot;proportions, shapes, and sizes&quot; are generally decided by the browser and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locale&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;locale settings&lt;/a&gt; of the operating system.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia literal conversion system &quot;字词转换&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E5%AD%97%E8%AF%8D%E8%BD%AC%E6%8D%A2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;TECHNICAL DETAILS&lt;/a&gt;). The necessity of the conversion is that different regions sometimes use different Chinese terminologies, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大陆：数字化、数码化 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  台灣：數位化 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  港澳：數碼化 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  新馬：数字化、数码化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The conversion has four stages, which are sequentially executed by the MediaWiki &lt;code&gt;LanguageConverter&lt;/code&gt; (a brief history can be found &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E7%BB%B4%E5%9F%BA%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91#.E5.90.84.E5.9C.B0.E4.B8.AD.E6.96.87.E5.B7.AE.E7.95.B0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;a href=&quot;http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/includes/ZhConversion.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;MediaWiki internal conversion table (MediaWiki内置转换表)&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (2) &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Conversiontable&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Wikipedia local-global conversion table (中文维基百科本地全局转换表)&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (3) &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E5%AD%97%E8%A9%9E%E8%BD%89%E6%8F%9B%E8%99%95%E7%90%86/%E5%85%AC%E5%85%B1%E8%BD%89%E6%8F%9B%E7%B5%84&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Public conversion group (公共转换组)&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (4) &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:%E9%AB%98%E7%BA%A7%E5%AD%97%E8%AF%8D%E8%BD%AC%E6%8D%A2%E8%AF%AD%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Manual conversion for specific entries (各条目内手工转换)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So even if the automatic conversion steps (1)–(3) fail, the final manual work can rectify all the errors. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2015-12-10T02:03:13.383" LastActivityDate="2015-12-10T02:03:13.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16705" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-10T03:05:20.667" Score="1" ViewCount="249" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the best way to think of the phrase in English?   It seems to be a very formal sort of expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;多数是工作时数超长疲劳所至.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&#xA;Rachel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Edit:  Thank you.  I didn't realize it was a typo for a different phrase.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-15T07:22:18.517" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T07:22:18.517" Title="What does '所至‘ mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16705" CreationDate="2015-12-10T04:25:31.947" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @user6065 has pointed out, we can find the example sentence in many online dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这些安全事件中，多数是工作时数超长疲劳[&lt;strong&gt;所至&lt;/strong&gt;］。( &lt;strong&gt;Typo Warning!&lt;/strong&gt; )&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Many of these incidences have been attributed to fatigue due to long working hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;However, in that sentence, the only correct word should be 所致&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e. it should have been&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这些安全事件中，多数是工作时数超长疲劳&lt;strong&gt;所致&lt;/strong&gt;。( &lt;strong&gt;Correct!&lt;/strong&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;所致&lt;/strong&gt; can be considered as a short form for &amp;quot;所导致&amp;quot;, so it means &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;be caused by&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;be the result of&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. It is sharply distinguished from &lt;strong&gt;所至&lt;/strong&gt;, whose 至 means 到达 (reach, arrive at). 所至 is not commonly used, except in this idiom:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;精诚所至，金石为开&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally this idiom means &amp;quot;At the place where the true faith reaches, even rigid stone can be cracked.&amp;quot; That is to say, &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;Faith can move mountains.&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-12-10T04:25:31.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16702" CreationDate="2015-12-10T06:04:40.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some words different in those 3 traditional Chinese, such as the example &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/16704/10911&quot;&gt;Stan&lt;/a&gt; said. This is usually found in loan word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Cantonese is used in Hong Kong (I am not sure about Macao). In Hong Kong, they put some Cantonese words in their traditional Chinese, therefore there are some words you cannot find in Taiwan traditional Chinese but in Hong Kong traditional Chinese, such as 「佢」、「冇」、「嘅」、「㗎」. You can find more information in &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B2%B5%E8%AA%9E%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another difference of those Chinese is pronounce. In Taiwan, it only has &lt;strong&gt;4 tones&lt;/strong&gt;, but in Hong Kong, it has &lt;strong&gt;9 tones&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10911" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-12-10T06:04:40.490" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16708" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28722" CreationDate="2015-12-10T09:31:17.787" Score="14" ViewCount="8163" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, the question is in the title... I'd be very thankful for an explanation, but also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you give examples of cases where they are and are not interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I use them for &quot;where are the others/is the rest?&quot;? Or &quot;other than that, I'm not sure&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When in doubt, which to use? (which is most general?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is similar to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/6419/is-%E5%85%B6%E4%BB%96%E4%BA%BA-any-different-from-%E5%88%AB%E7%9A%84%E4%BA%BA&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt; but I'm also curious about 另外, and in the general sense, not just with 人. I also found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/36gc4g/%25E5%2585%25B6%25E4%25BB%2596%25E5%258F%25A6%25E5%25A4%2596%25E5%2588%25AB%25E7%259A%2584_usage_and_differences/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;reddit&lt;/a&gt; (useful but frozen) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesepod.com/lessons/talking-about-others-%E5%88%AB%E7%9A%84%EF%BC%8C%E5%85%B6%E4%BB%96%E7%9A%84%EF%BC%8C%E5%8F%A6%E5%A4%96%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Chinesepod&quot;&gt;Chinesepod&lt;/a&gt; (too expensive for one answer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3716" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T07:19:43.877" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:47:24.203" Title="Differences: 别的 vs 其他 vs 另外 (other)" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16708" CreationDate="2015-12-11T05:18:21.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;别的 n 其他have the same meaning.另外,for my opinion,is something like'other than this':他除了要照顾年迈的奶奶,另外还要做许多家务。(He needs to take care of his old grand, also needs to do many housework)&#xA;&lt;br&gt;it have different meaning with the other two.correct me if im wrong :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12278" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T05:18:21.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10511" CreationDate="2015-12-11T05:48:31.943" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For 规矩,u can just interpreted it as 'rule'.if say: 这个孩子很没有规矩, u can just think its say: he's not following the rules for..i dont know, rule for people i think&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12279" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T05:48:31.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16711" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16712" CreationDate="2015-12-11T11:30:50.543" Score="-1" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to translate this sentence, but I don't think that I am going on the right way. I don't know how to reach the final.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence: &lt;code&gt;我爱的很野不会说谎等不等你都是一样&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin: &lt;strong&gt;wǒ ài de hěn yě búhuì shuōhuǎng děng bù děng nǐ dōu shì yíyàng&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation: &lt;strong&gt;My very wild love don't lie, ...&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &lt;code&gt;等&lt;/code&gt; meaning &quot;and so on&quot; or &quot;wait&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is a chorus of a music called 野 from 莫文蔚 (Karen Mok).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11707" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T14:18:44.213" Title="How to translate &quot;我爱的很野不会说谎等不等你都是一样&quot; in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16711" CreationDate="2015-12-11T14:18:44.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not one sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我愛的很野 I'm a wild lover&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不會說謊 I won't tell a lie&lt;br&gt;&#xA;等不等你 Whether I wait for you or not&lt;br&gt;&#xA;都是一樣 It will turn out the same&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;擅用美麗 I know how to use my looks&lt;br&gt;&#xA;辣辣的闖 I knock them down I'm so hot&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那怕愛到 even if I love till&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一身傷   I'm covered with scars&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;愛要很野 Love's got to be wild &lt;br&gt;&#xA;帶點瘋狂 a little bit crazy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;刺激著你 If it gets you all hot&lt;br&gt;&#xA;別太緊張 Don't get too uptight&lt;br&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T14:18:44.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16713" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16714" CreationDate="2015-12-11T14:42:17.860" Score="1" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the basic meaning of 主持， which is &quot;taking charge of&quot;. But I don't know how and on what occasion I can use this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I just use this for all the things which someone is responsible for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;主持会议，&#xA;主持单位，&#xA;主持家务，&#xA;主持工作，&#xA;主持推销&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-12-11T16:42:11.960" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T11:32:33.753" Title="How to use 主持 in composition" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16713" CreationDate="2015-12-11T16:34:15.333" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually there's a site written by Chinese explained the meaning of &quot;主持&quot;. And here it is: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/77617/14131395.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/77617/14131395.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, there are some points I think I should explain for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. When it comes to Ancient Chinese, the &quot;主持&quot; always means someone handles or deal with things. And at this time, it's a verb. But when we visit a temple, we would call the head-hander &quot;主持&quot; -- now it's a noun.&#xA;&#xA;2. When it comes to Modern Chinese, this word means someone in charge of some things, especially something matters or grand to cater for the solemn atmosphere there. In those occasions you can use it, and others will not feel you choose your words unexpected.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope can help :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12280" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T16:34:15.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16713" CreationDate="2015-12-11T22:22:27.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;主持 have several different meanings. &quot;In charge of something&quot; is one of them but it is usage is rather limited, you can say 主持家务 主持工作 but that's about it in this sense of the word. Think of the above two as fixed phrases. You dont want to use &quot;主持&quot; anytime you want to express the meaning of &quot;in change of&quot;, &quot;主管&quot; is probably more often used word. &#xA;The word &quot;主持” more often takes on the meaning of 'host' and 'moderate'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;主持晚会 host a gala&#xA;主持会议 moderate a meeting  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12281" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T22:22:27.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16585" CreationDate="2015-12-12T04:31:56.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;At Copenhagen University we are taught that roughly 75% af the Chinese population speak mandarin. 19% speak cantonese, and the left over 6% is divided besween the rest of the 54 minorities in China. China has 55 minorities.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All children attending school in China have mandarin lectures. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12207" LastActivityDate="2015-12-12T04:31:56.603" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16717" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-12T15:45:15.813" Score="2" ViewCount="970" Body="&lt;p&gt;I already learned that Chinese wh- questions don't require a 吗 particle but I got stuck on this sentence: 你要买点儿什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which does the sentence mean, &quot;what will you buy?&quot; or &quot;will you buy something/anything?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 点儿 confuses me a bit. That's why I'm not sure if the question 你要买点儿什么？ is asking whether or not to buy or what to buy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also if I add a 吗 to the end of the sentence, thus 你要买点儿什么吗？, what will it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your help in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12284" LastEditorUserId="12284" LastEditDate="2015-12-12T15:51:34.867" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T02:49:16.730" Title="What does 你要买点儿什么？ mean exactly? (吗 question vs. Wh- question)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16717" CreationDate="2015-12-12T15:56:57.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;点 and 儿 are separate words. The first one means 'something' and the 2nd one is just a commonly attached word that helps the pronunciation, pronounced as 'er'. The two combined is asking &quot;do you want to buy anything&quot;. 吗 refers to the questioning tone, in which it is pronounced as 'ma'. It is totally ok for you not to add it to your sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12285" LastActivityDate="2015-12-12T15:56:57.120" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16717" CreationDate="2015-12-12T17:59:14.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basic grammar. It means ”What would you like to have?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot add an interrogative 吗 at the end, since 什么 (what?) is already interrogative. The same applies to 还是, as in 你想买苹果还是香蕉？, and some other constructs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;点儿 is used as an emphasis, it carries no relevant information. You might as well say 要买什么？ in the most minimalistic form. 你要买点儿什么？ makes it more polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-12-12T17:59:14.273" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16721" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16722" CreationDate="2015-12-12T23:28:37.843" Score="3" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;準繫詞語 is my best guess as to what it says, what does this mean? I know it's some kind of word class description, but these jerks wrote it in 繁体字 in the smallest font possible... ( and/or Im an idiot) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas guys? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C3Tda.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C3Tda.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9734" LastActivityDate="2015-12-13T00:05:14.763" Title="There's some blurry text I cant quite read, any ideas what it is/means?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16721" CreationDate="2015-12-13T00:05:14.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it says 準繫詞語 (准系词语), and according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B3%BB%E8%A9%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, this means &lt;strong&gt;pseudo-copula&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12288" LastActivityDate="2015-12-13T00:05:14.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16717" CreationDate="2015-12-13T02:37:58.753" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, with or without &lt;code&gt;吗&lt;/code&gt; could be different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你要买点儿什么？&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;What would you buy?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你要买点儿什么吗？&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;Would you buy anything?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;点儿&lt;/code&gt; doesn't change the basic meaning here. It just means &lt;code&gt;a bit/a little&lt;/code&gt;, and makes the mood soft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T02:49:16.730" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T02:49:16.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="781" CreationDate="2015-12-13T15:50:30.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To what I have been taught in schools or even chinese dictionaries I flipped...the only correct pronunciation for the word blood is Xiě.....while Xuè is represent Snow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence it is depending on the individual on their level of acceptance and understanding of the language and/or words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For myself, I will only stick to my foundation laid...that is blood is xiě and snow is xuè.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no grey area and to me, no justification of when where xuè is used in formal or informal.. spoken or written etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is important as there is no grey area in languages especially for those trying to learn the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as an example : it couldn't be that we use &quot;yes&quot; as &quot;no&quot; in certain area or usage for English...can we?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12291" LastEditorUserId="12291" LastEditDate="2015-12-13T15:55:32.760" LastActivityDate="2015-12-13T15:55:32.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16726" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16727" CreationDate="2015-12-13T17:02:30.477" Score="3" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been reading about Chinese writers and apparently they have too many names! For example, in the article of Wikipedia about 黃遠庸 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Yuanyong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Huang Yuanyong&lt;/a&gt;) there's first this name as the title of the article. Then appear the pen name 黃遠生, and after that it says that his given name is 黃為基, why is that? I understand the pen name but if there's a pen name and a given name, what's the other one? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12292" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-12-24T15:13:18.207" LastActivityDate="2015-12-24T15:13:18.207" Title="Why do Chinese writers have three different names?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16726" CreationDate="2015-12-13T18:11:00.257" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You probably know something about the intricacies of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_name#Alternative_names&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese names&lt;/a&gt; prior to the downfall of the last dynasty, picking names at different stages of life was common among intellectuals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Yuanyong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Huang Yuanyong&lt;/a&gt;, check the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%BB%84%E8%BF%9C%E7%94%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese language version&lt;/a&gt; of the Wiki article.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;原名黄为基，字远庸，笔名远生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, his original name was 为基, his 字 name was 远庸 and his pen name was 远生. In the pre-Republican era, it was common to pick a 字 name (or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_name#Courtesy_name&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;courtesy name&lt;/a&gt; in English). This name was most likely chosen by a teacher, and henceforth an educated person was to be referred to by his courtesy name, the given name was only used within the family. Since Huang Yuanyong was socialized in the late 19th century, there is nothing uncommon with him having three different names. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But having alternate names is not something restricted to China or Chinese writers. Many Western intellectuals, writers or revolutionaries are in the need of an alternate name at some point, some even used multiples (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lenin&lt;/a&gt; e.g. was known as Ulyanov, Ilyin, Karpov, Mueller or Frei, just to name a few.)&#xA;Although it is true that the Chinese name system is more elaborate, but until the modern ages it was common for Western scholars to Latinize (Linné used &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Linnaeus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Linnæus&lt;/a&gt; in Latin) their names or pick a Latin name, this is somewhat similar to the Chinese courtesy name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-12-24T14:30:44.177" LastActivityDate="2015-12-24T14:30:44.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16728" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16730" CreationDate="2015-12-13T18:31:13.890" Score="0" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what the following Chinese expression means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犊不畏虎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know what it literally means by deciphering the meanings of individual Chinese characters, that a calf is not afraid of a tiger, but what does it &quot;imply&quot; exactly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would this expression be used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the expression above used frequently in modern times, or is it an outdated expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other equivalent expressions in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12293" LastActivityDate="2015-12-13T23:32:05.543" Title="What does &quot;犊不畏虎&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16728" CreationDate="2015-12-13T18:44:20.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a proverb, and it is not used very often. The young are fearless, the novice doesn't fear the veteran, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-12-13T18:44:20.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16728" CreationDate="2015-12-13T23:32:05.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is actually written as &quot;初生牛犊不怕虎”，it is sometimes used to describe a person not afraid of an strong enemy because he/she is a novice or beginner. Not very often, but is is commonly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12069" LastActivityDate="2015-12-13T23:32:05.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16708" CreationDate="2015-12-14T04:49:24.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;別的 &amp;amp; 其他 are similar. &#xA;EG: You can use other methods. &#xA;別的方法 ／ 其他方法 other methods  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外's usage is adv in english. Always use in the beginning of the sentences.&#xA;另外 in addition &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12294" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T04:49:24.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16732" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-14T06:43:51.847" Score="6" ViewCount="5134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have come across several times reading Chinese that they repeat words twice and then again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an Instance what is the difference between 热闹　and 热热闹闹　？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what is the grammar meaning when words get multiplied in that manner？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12207" LastEditorUserId="12207" LastEditDate="2015-12-14T10:51:34.877" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T14:20:47.093" Title="A Golden Rule for When Chinese Repeat a Word Twice X Twice? 热热闹闹" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16732" CreationDate="2015-12-14T11:26:59.693" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;XXYY (sometimes XYXY) has nothing special comparing to XY, just an oral style. But not all adj. or adv. have such usage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T11:26:59.693" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16713" CreationDate="2015-12-14T11:32:33.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;as the phases you listed, 主持 is a verb, meaning as presiding, leading, directing, or mastering. That is, acting as the commander of organization, or a task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, a joke for you .... 主持 (or 住持) could also be a noun, which is the head of monks in a temple :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T11:32:33.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10511" CreationDate="2015-12-14T11:37:05.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;that's all kinds of regulations. but in most cases, 惯例 is not a rule with official definition or power. it is just habits for people doing something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;礼仪 is manners for doing something to be polite, maybe legally defined or not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规矩 may be more official, and more powerful, which means you must follow the process&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T11:37:05.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16700" CreationDate="2015-12-14T11:40:30.087" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is really a hard word to learn. It has toooooooooooooooooo many usages&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the structure of &quot;verb + 的&quot; (说的) is used as a noun, which means &quot;what you just said&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also, &quot;verb + objective + 的&quot; is a different structure, which means &quot;the person who do it&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T11:40:30.087" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16737" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-14T16:10:53.187" Score="0" ViewCount="559" Body="&lt;p&gt;For many years ago I went to China and bought a poster. Now i really wonder what the charcters mean. I tried downloading some programs, but I couldn't translate the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand this is not a translation service. Anyway I'll have to give it a shot. Or else I'm never going to find out what it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hprt9m.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hprt9m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Chineese text1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bcNIkm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bcNIkm.png&quot; alt=&quot;Chineese text2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12296" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-17T01:07:46.063" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T04:38:30.210" Title="Meaning of text on poster" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-12-20T13:23:09.017" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16737" CreationDate="2015-12-14T17:15:01.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Picture 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X（can not recognize）报（traditional Chinese）平安。&#xA;means  x sends safeness， or  x sending safeness。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Picture 2&#xA;can“t  read it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T17:15:01.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16737" CreationDate="2015-12-14T17:39:56.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;竹报平安 (zhúbào-píng’ān) = send a letter home saying that all is well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丁亥年 (dīnghài nián) = 2007 (or 1947, 1887, …)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T17:39:56.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16740" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16741" CreationDate="2015-12-14T18:48:25.467" Score="-1" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;there are some sentences, I can not understand here are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 为什么一有缺憾就拼命去补足？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 这个圆满就有了缺憾；但正因缺憾，未来就有了无限的转机，无限的可能性，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;these two sentences I dont understand can you translate and explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12297" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T04:13:13.957" Title="help translating complex sentence" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-12-15T03:57:29.687" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16740" CreationDate="2015-12-14T19:02:38.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么 why is it that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一…就 as soon as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有缺憾 there is a shortcoming&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拼命 (that one should) go the extreme lengths&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去补足 to make up for the deficiency&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个圆满 this satisfactory (result)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就有了缺憾 suffers from shortcomings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但正因 but just because&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;缺憾 there is a shortcoming&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未来 the future&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就有了 (precisely) will have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无限的转机 unlimited changes for the better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无限的可能性 and unlimited possibilities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T19:02:38.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16680" CreationDate="2015-12-14T21:51:43.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What a simple question.Nib sugar we called it 珍珠糖.Coarse sugar called 砂糖.And decorating sugar called 装饰用糖 or 烘焙装饰糖.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12299" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T21:51:43.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16740" CreationDate="2015-12-15T04:13:13.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not easy to translate,but I can explain&#xA;1)No sooner there is an imperfection then you force yourself to amend it,why?&#xA;In other words,why when a imperfection(or drawback,or something not good) come up,in that moment,that you should go the extreme lengths immediately to make up for the deficiency(or make it to be perfect).&#xA;2)Because it is not perfect,you can improve it in many ways.&#xA;(Because some reason)this satisfactory condition became a situation without satisfaction(the situation is not perfect).And the reason(the shortcoming or imperfection),it's the point.If you can amend it(the point that you can improve ),because of this you have a chance to make more possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12299" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T04:13:13.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16737" CreationDate="2015-12-15T04:30:58.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;竹报平安 (zhúbào-píng’ān) (bamboo for fine)，this is a traditional phrase, frequently used when you are away from family for long, and sending a mail back home to tell your family everything is fine for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丁亥年 is a traditional style of recording years. There are 10 marks for sky (天干), and 12 marks for earth (地支), and they are grouped one by one, which is 60 groups (干支纪年). 丁 is the 4th of 天干, and 亥 is 12th of 地支.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you may have heard that Chinese people have a property called 属相 (shǔxiang), which is an animal standing for the year the person was born. There are 12 animals, paired with 12 地支. 亥 is paired with pig.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastEditorUserId="6136" LastEditDate="2015-12-17T04:38:30.210" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T04:38:30.210" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9219" CreationDate="2015-12-15T04:42:01.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in most cases you appreciate for doing sth. or for a specific objective. That is 谢谢你 + verb phrase / 谢谢你的 + noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T04:42:01.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9639" CreationDate="2015-12-16T01:19:44.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I am not good at English,but as a Chinese,I have the confidence that &quot;的&quot; is the symbol of the adjective.For example,&quot;office&quot; means ”机关“.it is a noun;&quot;official&quot; means &quot;官方的“.It is a adjective which adds meaning of nouns;&quot;officially&quot; means &quot;官方地&quot;It is an adverb which adds information about the action.In this sentence&quot;我是九点去上班的”,there is something omitted that all the Chinese will do it.The full sentence is&quot;实际上，我是九点去上班的。&quot; means &quot;The true &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt;(or the situation is)that I went to work at 9:00.&quot;With &quot;的&quot;，makes the whole sentence become a adjective which adds information about the situation.It is a past tense or not,depends on the texts or conversations.In a similar way,&quot;他是吃素的&quot; can translate into &quot;He's a vegetarian&quot;,because it means&quot;The situation is that he eat vegetables only.(or he never eat meat)&quot; .That is why this sentence can describes a personal eatting habits.It is for Lars Andren.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12299" LastEditorUserId="12299" LastEditDate="2015-12-16T01:34:39.500" LastActivityDate="2015-12-16T01:34:39.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16717" CreationDate="2015-12-16T10:59:29.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你要买点儿什么?——&gt;What do you want (to buy) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要买点儿什么吗?——&gt;Do you want (to buy) sth.? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a seller usually use the 1st statement because they want to let you believe that you have decided to buy sth. ,just don't know what to buy,so they can sell more goods per day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12314" LastActivityDate="2015-12-16T10:59:29.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16717" CreationDate="2015-12-16T11:29:26.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can combine 什么 and 吗. But as others stated, 你要买点什么 and 你要买点什么吗 are different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 什么 in 你要买点什么 means &quot;what&quot; and forms the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While in 你要买点什么吗, 什么 means &quot;anything, whatever&quot; and is NOT part of the question structure. Other example of this use 你说什么都好 anything/whatever you say is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-12-16T11:29:26.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9639" CreationDate="2015-12-17T06:23:59.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is really a hard word to learn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;verb + objective + 的：people doing something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;verb + 的：something that is done by verb, or something that could be done&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T06:23:59.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16732" CreationDate="2015-12-17T09:42:15.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I've never learned the AABB &quot;grammar rule&quot; from book. This means it's never considered as a kind of grammar rule at least in my student age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't agree with @gcd0318. There is difference between AB and AABB. In Chinese, repeating usually means emphasize the AB word, or to make the sentence sounds good to phonology. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 勤恳（diligent and conscientious） vs. 勤勤恳恳 &#xA;Although they have the same mean, but use 勤勤恳恳 always make the audience feel that the speaker is highly applaud one's diligent and conscientious. Use 勤恳 doesn't have the strong emotional feeling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your example, 热热闹闹, it's the same as usage of 勤勤恳恳. It emphasize how  bustling it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And see this great &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2935/2583&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt; for usage of repeating words in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2016-03-15T07:23:18.320" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2015-12-17T09:52:05.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;整 is formal. So 三百八人整 isn't good since 三百八 is informal, and as others stated, it usually means 380 but can mean 308. 三百八十人整 is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整 means exactly, that is, the last one or more zeros in the number is exact and is not an approximate. It then becomes redundant if your number does not end with a 0. 三百零八人整 is odd since you have given maximum precision for an integer. Similarly, you can say 三百元整，三元整, but not 三元五角四分整。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T09:52:05.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16759" CreationDate="2015-12-18T06:18:22.273" Score="0" ViewCount="1427" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in &quot;You have misunderstood, what I mean is that....&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12326" LastActivityDate="2015-12-18T08:04:47.630" Title="How do you say &quot;I mean&quot;, as in &quot;that is not what I mean&quot; ?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2015-12-19T21:51:52.160" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16758" CreationDate="2015-12-18T08:04:47.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually,there is not a statement of 'I mean' in 'That is not what I mean'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 'That is not what I mean.' is '那不是我的意思。'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, '我的意思' is just 'what I mean'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12315" LastActivityDate="2015-12-18T08:04:47.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16760" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16761" CreationDate="2015-12-18T18:51:09.167" Score="8" ViewCount="1201" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was listening and they said stuff like 大作 and 小作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friend thinks it's an adjective and it can be used as so: &#xA;一个很作的女孩子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12327" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T05:53:59.330" Title="What does “作” mean in this context?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16760" CreationDate="2015-12-19T01:03:26.020" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;“作”, when as a verb in this context, means &quot;to make trouble&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“作”, when as an adjective in this context, means &quot;loving to make ridiculous troubles (being likely to be a trouble-maker)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“大作” means to make big troubles, usually causing bad consequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“小作” means to make small troubles, normally not really harmful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她是个很作的女孩” means she is a trouble-making ridiculous girl.(For example: She wants gifts every month and will be very angry if not; she gets upset ridiculously when you contact some other young girls, etc..)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, with this meaning, officially, it should be pronounced as &quot;zuò&quot; even though most normal native speakers pronounce it as &quot;zuō&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12224" LastEditorUserId="12224" LastEditDate="2015-12-26T02:44:26.810" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T02:44:26.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16766" CreationDate="2015-12-20T04:18:40.137" Score="1" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translate tells me casual/unceremonious  = &quot;随便&quot;&#xA;But I always thought &quot;随便&quot; meant &quot;whatever&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to say &quot;You can come over whenever, it will be casual&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T23:44:15.450" Title="How do you say an event will be casual?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16762" CreationDate="2015-12-20T08:54:14.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &quot;随便&quot; has a lot of meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It can be used to represent words ending with '-ever', like whatever, whenever, like what you thought.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It can be used also as an adjective, and in this way it means 'don't care much about details'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It can be used as an adverb, which means 'freely' or 'do as one's will'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think maybe &quot;随便&quot; is not very suitable in your example. &quot;不正式&quot;, which means not formal, or &quot;随意&quot;, which is used to describe someone or something without many constraints, may be more appropriate. But actually, they don't differ a lot :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12333" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T08:54:14.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16633" CreationDate="2015-12-20T09:19:43.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most cases we'll use &lt;code&gt;和&lt;/code&gt; for your example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;和&lt;/code&gt; is used to describe things that share some features in common, like in your example, &lt;code&gt;梦想&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;希望&lt;/code&gt; are similar in that there both don't exists in that situation. It corresponds to 'both', 'all', 'neither', etc. So it doesn't matter whether the feature is 'negative' or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;或&lt;/code&gt; is used to describe one of the things to have the feature. It's like 'either' in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, there is another difference between them. Sometimes &lt;code&gt;和&lt;/code&gt; emphasizes that the whole owns the feature, not part of it, while &lt;code&gt;或&lt;/code&gt; means either part has the same property, too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12333" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T09:19:43.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14213" CreationDate="2015-12-20T10:50:22.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I'd say &quot;大开大合&quot; is used to describe something (for instance, a novel/play/movie) that is epic, or grand in scale. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12334" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T10:50:22.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16762" CreationDate="2015-12-20T12:35:33.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, the best way to deliver the OP's meaning should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你随时都可以过来，这不是一个太正式的活动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of other ways to say this, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;欢迎随时过来。(no need to say &quot;event is casual&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;欢迎随时过来，不要太拘谨。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;随便什么时间来都行，看你方便。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你想什么时候来就什么时候来。(when you are very closed friends)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, I think nowadays younger Chinese people would like to add a &lt;code&gt;并&lt;/code&gt; like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你随时都可以过来，这并不是一个太正式的活动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks more formal but actually younger people like to use 并 everywhere recently&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T12:35:33.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16767" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16768" CreationDate="2015-12-20T12:53:59.017" Score="7" ViewCount="504" Body="&lt;p&gt;My vocabulary states that 则是 means: &quot;then is&quot;.  However I don't understand how to translate the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而段剑&lt;strong&gt;则是&lt;/strong&gt;神情严肃地站在聂离的身边。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can translate it perfectly fine by omitting 则是, so not sure what does it add.&#xA;I was thinking, maybe it is a construct with 而...则是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ps: this is a sentence from the novel 妖神记，chapter 177.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T10:32:21.897" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T10:32:21.897" Title="Meaning of 则是 in 而段剑则是神情严肃地站在聂离的身边" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16767" CreationDate="2015-12-20T13:20:40.283" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to look at the whole sentence to understand:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;聂离观察了一下各处之后，走回了大厅的上首，坐在了叶修和叶朔的旁边，而段剑则是神情严肃地站在聂离的身边。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;则是 contrasts the actions of 聂离 (he sat down next to the two Ye's), and 段剑 (he stood next to 聂离).  English might use a conjunction such as &quot;while&quot;, or &quot;on the other hand&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;则是 is not really a conjunction, though.  It is more like what is sometimes called a &quot;pseudo-cleft&quot; sentence: &quot;As for Duan Jian, what he did was to stand next to Nie Qin with a stern expression.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think 而 is absolutely necessary here. If you don't use it though, I would probably put a period, rather than a comma.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a good example of how English and Chinese have different ways of linking compound sentences to form a narrative structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T13:20:40.283" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16767" CreationDate="2015-12-20T14:36:42.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translation is &quot;And Duanjian just standing by Nieli seriously.The original is 聂离观察了一下各处之后,走回了大厅的上首,坐在了叶修和叶朔的旁边,而段剑则是神情严肃地站在聂离的身边。&#xA;The meaning of the text is Nieli looked around,than back seat of the honor,besides Yexiu and Yesuo.And Duanjian just standing by him seriously. I  can't find a word in English to replace it.And 则是 are two words,则是 should be divided into 则  and 是.The vocabulary 则  is  a conjunction  which shows  the transition.Everyone sitting on their own seats and Duanjian standing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12299" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T14:36:42.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16770" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-20T19:11:22.317" Score="0" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vigbp.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vigbp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this symbol mean? Does it even exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12336" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-12-21T05:56:49.693" LastActivityDate="2015-12-21T05:56:49.693" Title="Does anyone know the translation of this character?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-12-21T11:02:46.933" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16770" CreationDate="2015-12-20T20:31:36.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does exist. Mandarin pinyin pronunciation: kāng. It's a common surname, also means healthy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9239" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T20:31:36.223" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16772" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16781" CreationDate="2015-12-20T23:21:32.103" Score="2" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;低喝了一声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could not see how 喝 here means drink, so I tried to look further in my dictionary and it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The same as 嗬, which is an onomatopoeia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which kind of makes sense since I also found a similar expression: 哼了一声.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the dictionary seems to give it a tone of surprise, but in that case what does it mean together with 低? Maybe I could translate the sentence as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;he made a small oh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-12-21T05:55:54.940" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T06:18:19.720" Title="What does 低喝了一声 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16773" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-21T02:56:26.700" Score="-1" ViewCount="660" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three articles in Wikipedia that disturb me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese language&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinitic_languages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sinitic languages&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's think about this for a moment. Mandarin Chinese is the official variety of China and Taiwán. And Sinitic languages are the whole family: Hakka, Mandarin, Cantonese. So what do you understand when you hear &lt;em&gt;Chinese language&lt;/em&gt;? Mandarin or Sinitic languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the Chinese government says that there's only Chinese right? And everything else is a dialect but strictly speaking, with linguistics definitions shouldn't &lt;em&gt;Chinese language&lt;/em&gt; be  more like, Chinese languages/Chinese family and Mandarin/Mandarin Chinese a language with those notes that clarifies saying something like &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;usually people saying Chinese refers to Mandarin but technically it refers to Sinitic languages/Chinese family&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12292" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-02-12T09:00:21.137" Title="Chinese language?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16774" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16778" CreationDate="2015-12-21T11:09:15.047" Score="3" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;This instruction can be found on a notice inside the elevator in my office building in Tianjin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QfMNWm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QfMNWm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;prohibition of chasing&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says 禁止追逐打闹 (jìn​zhǐ zhuī​zhú​ dǎnào) which is translated to &quot;prohibition of chasing&quot;.  The icon next to it appears to depict a man attacking an old lady with an axe, but crossed out in red.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How should this actually be interpreted?  Presumably the Chinese actually makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Googling translations of this phrase's components gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;禁止 = prohibition, and it seems the grammatical structure 禁止[something] means [something] is prohibited,&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;追逐 = to chase (seems to be where the English &quot;chasing&quot; came from),&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;打闹 seems to be something like a playful fight,&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it seems like 追逐 and 打闹 together: 追逐打闹 = roughhousing.  Still, it's not particularly clear, and it doesn't explain the icon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T23:35:12.587" Title="What is this mysterious elevator instruction: 禁止追逐打闹 or &quot;prohibition of chasing&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16633" CreationDate="2015-12-21T11:42:05.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No hopes or dreams should be 没有希望，也没有梦想&#xA;It is referring 'no' to both hopes and dreams. Despite the usage of 'or' in English form, it shouldn't be direct translation to Chinese using 或。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12079" LastEditorUserId="12079" LastEditDate="2015-12-21T13:02:17.303" LastActivityDate="2015-12-21T13:02:17.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16776" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-21T12:56:13.120" Score="4" ViewCount="809" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a relatively simple question， but until now I have not consistently heard or seen a dominant choice. Is there a difference? And if so what is the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T02:26:21.290" Title="What is the difference between 顾客 and 客户？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16776" CreationDate="2015-12-21T13:26:22.230" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;顾客 is a customer, a shopper, an end user.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;客户 is a client, an intermediary purchaser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They overlap somewhat, but these are the principal definitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-12-21T13:26:22.230" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16774" CreationDate="2015-12-21T17:31:09.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, don't be bothered by the icon. It will confuse you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you already know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;禁止追逐打闹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a compound phrase appearing in 禁止追逐和打闹. Usually the sign hangs against the wall in school as a reminder for students to keep themselves safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So just imagine what those playful kids do, and you will know what 追逐打闹 is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12340" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-22T03:11:09.283" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T03:11:09.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16774" CreationDate="2015-12-22T04:39:37.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the icon is not proper, nor the english. 禁止追逐打闹 is as a reminder not only for students (as @jiehong-jiang mentioned), but also public areas, saying not chasing each other or fighting with each other, to keep safety and order&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T04:39:37.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16776" CreationDate="2015-12-22T04:41:01.863" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;顾客 always refers to people as each single person, but 客户 is always a group or organization&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T04:41:01.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16772" CreationDate="2015-12-22T04:42:26.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;低喝 here may be a shout but not aloud. 喝 is not only drink, but also shout. 低 here is about the voice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T04:42:26.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16767" CreationDate="2015-12-22T04:51:07.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;而……则……is a phase, meaning but. 则could be omitted without affect meaning. it's for emphasizing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T04:51:07.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14213" CreationDate="2015-12-22T04:54:25.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;if I want to fly high, I can get to the top of sky, meanwhile if I want to go deep, I can get to the kernel of the earth. This could be called 大开大合&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you see?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T04:54:25.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16772" CreationDate="2015-12-22T06:18:19.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;(He/She) shouted in a low voice...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10952" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T06:18:19.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16786" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16787" CreationDate="2015-12-22T08:39:13.290" Score="2" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;Expressions such as &lt;em&gt;psychology is dead&lt;/em&gt; in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A cognitive scientist once told me that psychology is dead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are examples of personification, in this case, to convey the idea that psychology is using an outdated paradigm to study how the brain works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I translate that into Chinese? I once said to a relative of mine who speaks Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有个认知学家告诉过我，心理学已经死亡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and he couldn't understand what I meant until I told him about the re-interpration of the Stanford marshmallow experiment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what are some better translation for the expression &quot;psychology is dead&quot;? An alternative I can thought of would be &quot;心理学已经过时&quot; but that would mean removing the figure of speech from the original expression, and I'd like to avoid that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11162" LastEditorUserId="11162" LastEditDate="2015-12-22T09:05:58.707" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T09:05:58.707" Title="a better translation for the expression &quot;psychology is dead&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16786" CreationDate="2015-12-22T09:05:48.880" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Friedrich Nietzsche: &quot;Gott ist tot.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well-known translation: &lt;code&gt;上帝已死。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Stephen Hawking: &quot;Philosophy is dead.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well-known translation: &lt;code&gt;哲学已死。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus I believe the best translation for &quot;Psychology is dead&quot; should be &lt;code&gt;心理学已死。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Of course, without context, one might hardly understand the meaning, but any other translation won't do either. So an idiom-like expression fits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T09:05:48.880" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16788" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="42068" CreationDate="2015-12-22T10:03:39.433" Score="7" ViewCount="748" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=1F2870&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;（扌+方）的释义--字海网（叶典网）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9yG8y.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9yG8y.png&quot; alt=&quot;leng&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Getting &lt;code&gt;非unicode&lt;/code&gt; but it's kind of hard to believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there really no unicode for &quot;扌&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-12-23T12:56:37.630" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T18:57:06.537" Title="Is there really no unicode for &quot;扌&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16789" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16791" CreationDate="2015-12-22T12:44:50.840" Score="0" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does this phrase mean: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请回复我结果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12344" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T14:12:13.583" Title="What does this phrase mean: 请回复我结果?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-12-22T20:00:38.333" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16789" CreationDate="2015-12-22T14:12:13.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;看起来提问者懂中文，那我就先中文答吧：这是在香港，台湾地区口语用的比较多的间接宾语后置用法，普通话一般没有这样的用法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this kind of usage is common in Cantonese, but not in mandarin(common usage in the  Mainkind China ). “请回复我结果” is the same as &quot;请把结果告诉我&quot;, that is &quot;please tell me the result&quot; in English. I think it is a kind of postposition of indirect object in cantonese, Putonghua doesn't have this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2847" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T14:12:13.583" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10168" CreationDate="2015-12-22T14:44:39.577" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;you need to know：china is no have internet freedom！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PK（like “VS” or （Player versus player，PvP））&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ZF  （政府，ZhengFu，“gov“）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GCD （共产党，GongChanDang，&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%B1%E4%BA%A7%E5%85%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/共产党&lt;/a&gt;）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TMD （他妈的，TaMaDe,like&quot;WTF&quot;）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;JC  (警察，JingCha，is “police”)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_crab_%28Internet_slang%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_crab_%28Internet_slang%29&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12346" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T14:44:39.577" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16798" CreationDate="2015-12-22T15:30:49.563" Score="1" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know the reason why 生地黃 is called 地黃 [yellow earth]? I don't know if 六味地黄丸 took the name from 生地黃 or viceversa, but either way I couldn't find neither the etymology of 六味地黄丸 in English (I still can't understand Chinese properly). Any idea for the reason of the presence of 地黄 in the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9351" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-10T15:06:52.233" LastActivityDate="2020-02-10T15:06:52.233" Title="Why is 生地黃 called 地黃 [yellow earth]?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16793" CreationDate="2015-12-22T16:52:24.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;地黄 is the plant, Rehmannia glutinosa. For TCM, it can be used in various ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;fresh: 鲜地黄（生地黄、鲜生地）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;dried: 干地黄（生地黄、干生地）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;processed: 熟地黄（熟地）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生 (raw) is usually a synonym to 鲜 (fresh), but here also means unprocessed and therefore equivalent to either 鲜 (fresh) or 干 (dry).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%9C%B0%E9%BB%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/地黃&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T16:52:24.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16795" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16801" CreationDate="2015-12-22T17:41:53.137" Score="2" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们可不可以把有些数量提前到三月交货&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do we use 交货 here? Can we do without it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12344" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-02-10T15:04:28.877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-10T15:04:28.877" Title="Why use 交货 in 我们可不可以把有些数量提前到三月交货？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16796" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16797" CreationDate="2015-12-22T18:07:52.903" Score="2" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;至少今天她都不想再见到聂离了，&lt;strong&gt;谁&lt;/strong&gt;让聂离骗了她。这是对聂离的惩罚！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can 谁 here be translated as the relative pronoun who? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My literal translation would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At least for today she, &lt;strong&gt;who&lt;/strong&gt; has let Nieli to deceive her, doesn't want to see him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I searched in this same site and it says that there shouldn't exist a relative pronoun: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9128/are-there-relative-pronouns-in-chinese&quot;&gt;Are there relative pronouns in Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2015-12-23T04:40:23.727" Title="谁 as relative pronoun?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16796" CreationDate="2015-12-22T20:26:24.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese does not have relative pronouns. In the case of the sentence that you gave, it would probably be best translated using &quot;因为&quot; (because):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至少今天她都不想再见到聂离了, 因为她让聂离骗了她 or in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least for today, she doesn't want to see Nieli again, because she let Nieli deceive her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, instead of using relative clauses, particles like 的 are used instead. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The man, who learns Chinese, is here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学汉语&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;人在这儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above case, we use the fact that the person learns Chinese to describe said person, instead of having a relative clause. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6203" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T20:26:24.803" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16793" CreationDate="2015-12-23T01:23:59.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;黃 is sometimes a plant name: 大黃 'rhubarb' (this used to be dai-huang, not da-huang), 麻黃 ephedra'; 地 sometimes means a tuber, seems that's not the case here. One source identifies 3 varieties: 天黃, 人黃, 地黃.  This is the 三合 system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-12-23T01:23:59.633" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5623" CreationDate="2015-12-23T02:04:59.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A somewhat late suggestion.  In Chinese bureaucratic practice, there were specific tables where specific documents where placed.  For example, the 奏案 was a table where memorials 奏 to the emperor were put before they were presented.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This evolved into a filing system, where related documents were all kept together on one table.  This is parallel to English 'case' where the documents for one particular legal proceeding were kept in separate boxes (&quot;cases&quot;).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of a case of documents, though, Chinese has a table of documents.  Thus an 案件 is thus simply a document (or documents) from a particular table. Chinese did of course have containers to put this stuff in too. There were 卷宗, which were paper folders for documents (存放文件的紙夾), and 卷帙 which were cases for documents (裝書的套子).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-12-23T02:04:59.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16796" CreationDate="2015-12-23T02:22:22.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;She never wanted to see Nie Qin again (at least not today).  That would fix him! Who told him (it was OK) to lie to her anyway?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This use of 誰叫/讓 is pretty common:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;誰叫/讓你亂講話? 你挨打活該!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Who told you to open your big mouth? You deserved to get smacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2015-12-23T02:22:22.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16795" CreationDate="2015-12-23T02:25:32.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider this part of your sentence with 交货 (t: 交貨) omitted, its spot represented by the &lt;code&gt;___&lt;/code&gt; below, this would be what it looks like, loosely translated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;subject:           predicate:&#xA;... some amounts   be rescheduled earlier for March ___&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some terms or concepts in language that, although are not verbs themselves, have a commonly associated course of action understood by everybody. Only in such cases, it is possible a further specific verb, course of action &lt;code&gt;___&lt;/code&gt; can be omitted. However,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Amounts&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; normally understood as some kind of verb or some kind of action, for which you can then associate with a schedule clause&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in this case, with no further context, there is no single &quot;obvious&quot; course of action to relate to &lt;code&gt;amounts&lt;/code&gt;. For example &lt;code&gt;amounts&lt;/code&gt; if talking about some physical goods or material resource, depending on what kind of goods or material resource, can have associated actions such as extraction, refinement, disposal, audit, inventory (taking), and yes, also delivery. Without further context there is no evidence that &quot;delivery&quot; is the correct interpretation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example, omit action:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mf3pD.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mf3pD.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Animated image of a belly dancer belly dancing&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;subject:               predicate&#xA;... the belly dancer   be rescheduled earlier for 7PM ___&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As in &lt;code&gt;Can the belly dancer be rescheduled earlier for 7PM ?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it is commonly understood that a belly dancer belly dances, that is a commonly associated course of action understood by everybody&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;thus you do not need the additional &lt;code&gt;___&lt;/code&gt; to clarify &lt;code&gt;for 7PM belly dancing&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you would normally only specify the &lt;code&gt;___&lt;/code&gt; action clarification, if the belly dancer were to do something other than the expected belly dancing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However in your posted example, without further context, since &lt;code&gt;amounts&lt;/code&gt; does not necessarily have a commonly associated course of action &lt;code&gt;delivery&lt;/code&gt;, of course you need to clarify and specify which of the possible action of &lt;code&gt;amounts&lt;/code&gt; you intend to reschedule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Image credit: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.picgifs.com/graphics/belly-dancing/graphics-belly-dancing-471150-794732/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.picgifs.com/graphics/belly-dancing/graphics-belly-dancing-471150-794732/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11759" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2019-01-04T15:54:24.817" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T15:54:24.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16767" CreationDate="2015-12-23T03:06:40.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;则是 can be transferred to but.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All people stand there to chat together but Xiaoming only seat there alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12350" LastActivityDate="2015-12-23T03:06:40.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13117" CreationDate="2015-12-23T03:18:58.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;招财进宝 means to bring in wealth and treasure for family -- felicitous wish of making money; amass fortunes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12350" LastActivityDate="2015-12-23T03:18:58.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16796" CreationDate="2015-12-23T04:40:23.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;谁让/叫 + clause is a expression for reasoning, the clause is telling the reason for doing something, but the form is as a question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2015-12-23T04:40:23.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16788" CreationDate="2015-12-23T08:19:23.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese, I've never learned this character. But I can't tell whether it &quot;really doesn't exist&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's a region-specific-writing-by-mistake creation. People want to express the meaning but don't know there is an existing character for it. Back when communicating with the outside was very difficult, it was a common scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the explanation of the character, there is a formal character &lt;strong&gt;捻&lt;/strong&gt; to express the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-10-28T07:03:54.480" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T07:03:54.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16808" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-23T18:38:06.203" Score="1" ViewCount="434" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can somebody please help me in the translation of this phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个书包看起来不大&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 起来 mean in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12358" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-24T13:24:43.357" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T17:29:03.497" Title="What does 这个书包看起来不大 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16808" CreationDate="2015-12-23T20:31:31.227" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This school bag is apparently not big (enough).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-12-23T21:32:51.967" LastActivityDate="2015-12-23T21:32:51.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16788" CreationDate="2015-12-24T04:21:29.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nothing surprising about it. I too have never seen this character, and the Unicode doesn't record all Chinese characters, by far. Here's what the Unicode tables show:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NX863.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NX863.png&quot; alt=&quot;The main table&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main table, radical 扌, 9 strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/374P4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/374P4.png&quot; alt=&quot;Extension B, part 1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Extension B table, radical 扌, 9 strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3M9Ob.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3M9Ob.png&quot; alt=&quot;Extension B, part 2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Extension B table, radical 扌, 9 strokes, continued.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, no 扌罒方 here. So, no Unicode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-12-24T10:13:19.080" LastActivityDate="2015-12-24T10:13:19.080" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16808" CreationDate="2015-12-24T10:00:35.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;起来&lt;/strong&gt; in this case is used as an adverb. It is combined with the verb &lt;strong&gt;看&lt;/strong&gt; together as a phrase. &lt;strong&gt;看起来&lt;/strong&gt; means looks as if. The people who is saying this sentence may not really look inside the volume of that bag, but only guess it would be big enough for carrying things, or fit someone's figure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also make some other phrases in the same way, such as &lt;strong&gt;闻起来&lt;/strong&gt; for &quot;smells&quot;, &lt;strong&gt;吃起来&lt;/strong&gt; for &quot;tastes&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;这道菜闻起来很香&quot;. This dish smells delicious(but might not tried yet).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;这道菜吃起来很香&quot;. This dish tastes good.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such cases 起来 has nothing to do with the meaning get up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-24T10:00:35.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5623" CreationDate="2015-12-25T08:01:16.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is the evolution path:&#xA;案 means bench at the beginning. People usually put documents and books on bench, to reference the documents put on bench, people created a new word 案牍 for it. 案牍 means &quot;documents on bench&quot;, it's the document itself, not the content. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, let's imagine. One day, some people sit around a bench, discussing some cases written on 案牍. One man said: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;这个案牍讨论完了, 把那个案牍递给我。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here people sit close to each other, the man might just point his finger at the document he wanted, then other people knew what he wanted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other day, these people might talking the cases at a different place where they can't see the documents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;举报赵太守贪污的那个案牍，你们看过了吗？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attention! They start to reference the documents with what the content it contains. On the other hand, 案牍 starts to be used to reference the &lt;strong&gt;case&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Morden Chinese uses 案件 instead of 案牍 while talking about &quot;case&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T08:01:16.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16808" CreationDate="2015-12-25T12:07:16.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Chu Rui said 看起来 means look as if. It is right. But what I want to mention is that if 起来 is after a verb, most time focus on the feeling of your behavior. In this sentence , &lt;code&gt;看起来&lt;/code&gt; focus on the the feeling which is that the bag seems not big through your eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chu Rui’s example, &lt;code&gt;闻起来&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;吃起来&lt;/code&gt; , they all focus on the subjective feeling of the behavior. &lt;code&gt;闻起来&lt;/code&gt; means smell but is different from single word &lt;code&gt;闻&lt;/code&gt; , &lt;code&gt;闻起来&lt;/code&gt; make the sentence focus on the the feeling of the object which is good or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a pattern when use Verb+起来. You can follow this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Subject + Verb + 起来 + Adjective.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The adjective is used to describe the subject through one kind of behaviors. The central point of this sentence is the Adjective you used to describe the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T12:07:16.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16808" CreationDate="2015-12-25T17:29:03.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;起來&quot; changes the voice from active to passive. In English we have &lt;strong&gt;eat&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;taste&lt;/strong&gt;. Similarly in Chinese we have &quot;吃&quot; and &quot;吃起來.&quot; So when I &lt;strong&gt;eat&lt;/strong&gt; a bread, I &quot;吃&quot; a bread, and the bread &lt;strong&gt;tastes&lt;/strong&gt; good to me, so it &quot;吃起來&quot; very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you can say &quot;嚐起來,&quot; where &quot;嚐&quot; means to taste something, e.g. I &lt;strong&gt;tasted&lt;/strong&gt; that dish which would be I &quot;嚐&quot; that dish, while that dish &lt;strong&gt;tasted&lt;/strong&gt; good being it &quot;嚐起來&quot; quite good. Notice the difference between the two meanings of &lt;strong&gt;taste&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11211" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T17:29:03.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16818" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16819" CreationDate="2015-12-26T04:23:15.240" Score="6" ViewCount="300" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is regarding tone sandhi for consecutive third tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I notice CC-CEDICT has over 200 bigrams with tone pair 3-3 where there also exists a separate bigram 2-3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One such example is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;白果 bai2 guo3&#xA;百果 bai3 guo3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tone sandhi says that the second should also be pronounced bai2 guo3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two main questions about this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are both words pronounced exactly the same?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If no, can a native speaker (listener) consistently distinguish the two words apart from one another?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, I'm curious whether tone sandhi is merely an approximation (that the first 3rd tone should be pronounced as a second tone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a bonus question, if the words have exactly the same pronunciation, why do dictionaries not standardize so that both words show the same pinyin (e.g. &quot;bai3 guo3&quot;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3645" LastEditorUserId="3645" LastEditDate="2015-12-29T05:48:14.800" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T03:41:22.497" Title="Bigrams ending in third tone where first syllable is second tone vs. third tone" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16818" CreationDate="2015-12-26T08:38:34.670" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There have been conflicting claims on whether the second tone and the &quot;raised third tone&quot; are distinct, but according to Jerry Norman's 1988 book, &lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt;, &quot;Perceptual tests done by Dreher and Lee (1966) and Wang and Li (1967) established that native speakers are unable to make a consistent distinction between second tones and raised third tones&quot; (147). So all 2-3 and 3-3 compounds are homophones; the only way to tell which is intended is by context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[After new edit to question] The question is divided into two parts: 1) Do native speakers actually produce 2-3 and 3-3 pairs in an acoustically distinct way? 2) Can &quot;native listeners&quot; accurately distinguish  between 2-3 and 3-3 pairs when they hear them? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The studies Norman cites address the problem of the listener, i.e. they are perceptual studies.  I have Wang and Li (1967); I won't try to summarize it, but I think the subjects, the sample, the format of the experiment, and the statistical analysis are good. Wang and Li found that the accuracy with which native listeners distinguished 2-3 and 3-3 pairs &quot;in neutral speech&quot; ranged from 49.2 to 54.2 percent. In other words, they were wrong half the time. This is no better than guessing, so Norman says they are 'unable to distinguish consistently.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the perceptual side, not the production side.  You also want to know if people actually &quot;pronounce&quot; the two differently.  I presume you mean that by using physical measurements we can come up with a consistent set of differences between the two members of each pair.  Wang and Li discuss and reject this idea: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does tone 3 become tone 2 when it occurs before another tone 3?&#xA;  Attempts to answer this question have been made by extensive&#xA;  measurements of spectrographic data on voice pitch. Such attemps have&#xA;  not yielded, and indeed cannot yield, any conclusive results. The&#xA;  nature of phonetic variations is such that we would expect to find a&#xA;  great deal of overlap in the physical measurements of the two types of&#xA;  tone sequences mentioned above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Putting this in my own words, there is no principled way to decide which of the vast number of acoustic components produced by an individual utterance of a 2-3 and a 3-3 compound people might use to distinguish the two.  We can't look at the signal and pick out what part &quot;means&quot; something. This is a familar problem in linguistics, right? Perceptual tests avoid this problem and produce an objective answer, which is simply that people can't distinguish these pairs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's put it another way. Imagine that native speakers actually produce 2-3 and 3-3 pairs that are &quot;distinct.&quot; Distinct here means a physically measurable difference (pitch, loudness, duration, or some combination) that is used consistently in all such pairs, regardless of their otherwise different phonetic/phonemic structure, and can be detected using acoustic instrumentation and/or analysis.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forget that we can't do this; suppose we can. Wang and Li have already shown that for some reason, native listeners are not able to detect this distinction at better than 50-50 accuracy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is at least a paradox, if not a contradiction: do languages have sounds or sound patterns that everyone uses, and are physically different in a consistent way between phonologically &quot;minimal&quot; pairs of different words, but that no one can distinguish? What does it mean for &quot;distinct&quot; words to be &quot;undistinguishable&quot;? Note we are not talking about &quot;performance&quot; issues here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wang and Li do consider the problem of making clear which pair you want to express: &quot;It is obviously possible to distinguish the 3-3 sequences by employing various additional features, such as extra stress, pause, etc.&quot; This is why the phrase &quot;neutral speech&quot; is added in their description of their results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bonus answer:&lt;/strong&gt; you seem to be asking why the dictionary lists the pronunciation of 百果 as bǎiguǒ instead of báiguǒ.  Most dictionaries give only the 'isolation' tones for single characters, even in compound words.  For example, the Pinyin Chinese-English Dictionary says 'Tonal changes within compound words are not generally marked.' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several reasons not to mark tone sandhi in dictionaries. Convenience is an important one; changing compounds to use sandhi forms is more complicated than just leaving them alone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason is that the domain of sandhi rules often crosses word boundaries. Since sandhi occurs whether something is a word or not, a dictionary perhaps need not register such non-lexical changes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the same logic, the morpheme bái 'white' and the morpheme bǎi 'hundred' are phonologically distinct. Although they merge phonetically in some environments, that doesn't mean we should ignore the distinction between the two and give the 'surface' form in dictionary entries where sandhi rules may apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2015-12-30T03:41:22.497" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T03:41:22.497" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16895" CreationDate="2015-12-27T02:02:12.400" Score="7" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the article &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=23043&quot;&gt;&quot;Mysogyny as reflected in Chinese characters&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, Victor Mair wrote: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the early days of the PRC, the government changed some characters for the names of minority ethnic groups so that they no longer had &quot;bug&quot; (chóng 虫) or &quot;dog&quot; quǎn犭/ 犬) radicals in them because they were thought to be pejorative.  A makeover of the Chinese script that would remove the &quot;woman&quot; radical from derogatory characters would be even more radical, as it were.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Removal of radicals or components which seemed pejorative sounds quite similar to the Western style of, so-called, &quot;political correction&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which got me wondering which characters, in general (minority ethnic groups and everything else), have been &quot;politically corrected&quot; before? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the characters for Jewish people still contains the &quot;dog&quot; quǎn犭/犬 radical: &lt;code&gt;犹&lt;/code&gt; in 犹太人. I guess PRC's PC movement would be to make Chinese minority groups feel better, but I have no way of proving that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-01-05T18:05:42.787" Title="What characters have been politically corrected before?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16773" CreationDate="2015-12-27T16:48:50.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When one says that they understand the Chinese language, it is generally implied that they mean Mandarin Chinese, or 普通话 (pu tong hua), which is the official standard. Technically, yes, it is an umbrella term for a wide range of dialects of the language traditionally spoken by Han Chinese people. Hence, the Chinese Language as a whole, including all dialects, is referred to as 汉语 (han yu, or language of the Han). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sinitic languages are a even larger group of related languages that encompass the languages spoken by some ethnic minorities in China, of which 汉语 is a part of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using English as an analogy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone says they speak English, it's generally understood to be Standard American English or Standard English (Britain). However, English spoken in Ireland, New England, India, etc. are all slightly different in either vocabulary or pronunciation, yet they all fall into the category of English. English belongs to a larger group of Germanic Languages such as German, Danish, and Swedish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6203" LastEditorUserId="6203" LastEditDate="2015-12-28T21:19:47.243" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T21:19:47.243" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16831" CreationDate="2015-12-27T17:00:42.053" Score="1" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone please explain why would the following text have negative sentiment? Is there any specific word or hidden semantics that makes it negative? Is completely subjective?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你那个城市十一银行还上班啊&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Title:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;【壕卡信用卡11-06】人生首卡，求卡神指教&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11390" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T14:26:08.380" Title="Negative sentiment for text" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16823" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16824" CreationDate="2015-12-27T21:06:24.560" Score="3" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;Am I right to assume that the question is about the other person's &lt;strong&gt;personal&lt;/strong&gt; method of studying English? And would omitting the 是 make the question more general?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Is this an example for the topic-comment structure: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Topic-comment_sentences&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Topic-comment_sentences&lt;/a&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2879" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-04T06:19:09.490" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T06:19:09.490" Title="What is the function of 是 in this sentence: 你是怎么学习英语的？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16823" CreationDate="2015-12-27T21:41:04.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;是的 constructs are for emphasizing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是怎么学习英语的？ = &lt;strong&gt;How&lt;/strong&gt; did you learn English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是什么时候来的？ = &lt;strong&gt;When&lt;/strong&gt; did you come here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是来看病的 = I have come to get a medical exam (as opposed to a social visit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-12-27T21:41:04.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16823" CreationDate="2015-12-28T12:12:20.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;是。。。的&quot; is used to emphasizes the time, the place, the way (solution) of doing something or the agent who does the action.  What is emphasized must be something that has already happened. &#xA;So basically in this question &quot;你是怎么学习英语的？&quot; the person who said it wanted to know exactly the method of studying that the person was mentioned (你) had used.&#xA;When omitting this structure the question will be: &quot;你怎么学习英语？&quot;， the action “学习英语” does not be emphasized and it might has not happened yet. &#xA;I think the difference between this two are just the matter of tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12370" LastEditorUserId="12370" LastEditDate="2015-12-28T12:20:22.733" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T12:20:22.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16829" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-28T15:04:21.803" Score="0" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where can I find texts/books with a lower vocabulary range (1000 words) for preparing an HSK exam or see more often the most used words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11150" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T16:32:04.803" Title="Where to find graduated text/books?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-01-31T08:42:06.433" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16829" CreationDate="2015-12-28T15:47:46.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would highly recommend  the “汉语教程“ or Hsk标准教程“.&#xA;Or just go to google and look for : &quot; hsk sample paper /hsk mock test&quot;. You will find plenty of pages that provide previous exam papers with the vocabulary list attached to them. I assume that you are preparing for the hsk3, which the vocab requirement is 600 words right? If I am right, and you prefer to follow textbooks then go for the 汉语教程第一上 and 汉语教程第一下 or simply check out the hsk标准教程3. Those books were published by the Beijing language and culture University press. You can check out their website to get the book that I've listed above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.blcup.com/en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.blcup.com/en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12370" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T15:47:46.123" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16822" CreationDate="2015-12-28T16:26:42.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The negative sentiment can be found in:&#xA;1.那个 &#xA;2. &quot;还上班啊&quot;&#xA;This is an exclamation sentence. The speaker who said it was kind of shocked because the person he/she was talking to have to deal with a situation that was supposed not to happen which is working during the national day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12370" LastEditorUserId="12370" LastEditDate="2015-12-28T16:38:08.600" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T16:38:08.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16822" CreationDate="2015-12-28T18:30:24.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new here and am a start-up teaching Chinese online. We use a different method called &amp;quot;decoding&amp;quot; and would love to use it here, too, because it makes things much easier to explain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你   那个  城市    十一   银行    还   上班    啊?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ni nage chengshi shiyi yinhang hai shangban a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you that  city  Oct.1st Bank  still work (question)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess you know some Chinese. What might be confusing here is &amp;quot;shiyi&amp;quot; (ten one) means October 1st.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you understand all elements with the right separation, it's quite easy to understand the logic in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12372" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T14:26:08.380" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16834" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16838" CreationDate="2015-12-28T21:55:07.737" Score="0" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if this is the right place to ask for a correction, but I will try. Can someone please check this piece of writing and tell me if there are any mistakes? Thank you so much for the help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的城市&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我出生在里米尼。因为我在这里住了二十年了,所以我是一个里米尼通。&#xA;在我的城市中心有几个很有名的教堂和博物馆。每年有很多游客从世界各地来里米尼游览古迹。&#xA;里米尼人也很喜欢去中心买东西,散步,见朋友。在里米尼有很多有意思的地方。凯沃尔广场是一个特别精美的地方。在这儿有一个大喷泉和一个真漂亮雕塑。广场对面还有许多非常好的餐厅和酒吧。&quot;日餐厅&quot;做饭做得很好吃,它是我最喜欢的餐厅。&#xA;里米尼是一个海边城市, 所以夏天我跟我的男朋友一起去海滩。附近有一家多厅电影院。我很喜欢去这里看电影。&#xA;我爱我的城市。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12359" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T14:24:06.393" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T14:24:06.393" Title="Can someone please check this piece of writing?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;&lt;mistakes&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-01-03T22:21:10.137" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16835" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16837" CreationDate="2015-12-29T01:10:24.590" Score="2" ViewCount="869" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a term for CFD (Contract for Difference in stock trading) in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I googled it but could not find anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9292" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T04:40:21.940" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T04:40:21.940" Title="What is Chinese for CFD (Contract for Difference)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16835" CreationDate="2015-12-29T01:30:40.203" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E5%B7%AE%E4%BB%B7%E5%90%88%E7%BA%A6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;差价合约（Ccontract For Difference,CFD）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;差价合约是一种比较新兴的金融衍生工具，目前只在7个国家的证券交易所交易。投资者以某一个商品的价格进行买卖，而不涉及该商品实体的交易。差价合约的商品，理论上可以是所有有浮动价格的东西，包括有各国指数，外汇，期货，股票，贵重金属以及其他商品。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.financeun.com/News/201557/2013cfn/13394143600.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;股指差价合约(Contract for Difference)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B7%AE%E5%83%B9%E5%90%88%E7%B4%84&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;差價合約- 维基百科，自由的百科全书&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T01:30:40.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16834" CreationDate="2015-12-29T01:48:09.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's pretty fine, just to make it more natural:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的城市&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我出生在里米尼。&lt;del&gt;因为&lt;/del&gt;我在这里住了二十年了,所以我是一个里米尼通。 在我的城市中心有几个很有名的教堂和博物馆。每年有很多游客从世界各地来里米尼游览古迹。 里米尼人也很喜欢去&lt;strong&gt;市&lt;/strong&gt;中心买东西,散步,见朋友。在里米尼有很多有意思的地方。凯沃尔广场是一个特别精美的地方&lt;s&gt;。&lt;/s&gt;&lt;b&gt;，&lt;/b&gt;在&lt;s&gt;这&lt;/s&gt;&lt;strong&gt;那&lt;/strong&gt;儿有一个大喷泉和一个&lt;s&gt;真&lt;/s&gt;&lt;strong&gt;特别&lt;/strong&gt;漂亮&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;雕塑。广场对面还有许多非常好的餐厅和酒吧。&quot;日餐厅&quot;做饭做得很好吃,它是我最喜欢的餐厅。 里米尼是一个海边城市, 所以夏天我跟我的男朋友一起去海滩。附近有一家多厅电影院&lt;s&gt;。&lt;/s&gt;&lt;b&gt;，&lt;/b&gt;我很喜欢去&lt;s&gt;这&lt;/s&gt;&lt;strong&gt;那&lt;/strong&gt;里看电影。 我爱我的城市。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-12-29T03:56:11.560" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T03:56:11.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16839" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16865" CreationDate="2015-12-29T04:14:05.113" Score="3" ViewCount="537" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吓死宝宝了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of a sudden this &quot;phrase&quot; (if we can even call it that) is everywhere. I'm reading it, hearing it and seeing it everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What gives to the sudden rise in usage of this expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-01-16T11:41:26.490" Title="Why the sudden rise in usage of &quot;吓死宝宝了&quot;?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16840" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16843" CreationDate="2015-12-29T04:58:43.643" Score="7" ViewCount="1163" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many westerners (like I) possess a three-part name in full.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;given + middle + family [名·中间名·姓]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's understood that―in China―middle names typically don't exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, westerners only translate their legal &quot;first&quot; and “last” names as per the traditional Chinese format below. (phonetically or otherwise)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;family + given [姓·名]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if one would like to retain their middle name in the translation, where would they place it? What would be the conventional or culturally appropriate arrangement in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note&lt;/em&gt;: Most transliterations do tend to be exceedingly long compared to native Chinese names, but for now let's not worry about the total character count too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12377" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-30T12:50:34.107" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T07:14:22.497" Title="Where does the middle name go in a name that has been translated into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16841" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-29T04:58:57.357" Score="2" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;《庭审现场》２０１５１２２６ 谁在说谎 &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.cntv.cn/2015/12/26/VIDE1451136647389475.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.cntv.cn/2015/12/26/VIDE1451136647389475.shtml&lt;/a&gt;. Civil case plaintiff 李付成, at time mark 01:42, says： &lt;code&gt;我一个弟兄们（有三间老房子）&lt;/code&gt;. Would 我的一个兄弟 (or at least 我的一个弟兄) not be more usual? Any comment on the first version?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-25T12:21:00.020" LastActivityDate="2016-05-01T23:35:13.037" Title="Comparing 我一个弟兄们 with 我的一个兄弟" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16840" CreationDate="2015-12-29T08:20:19.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is translated as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;given · middle · family&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally think it is rude to reorder people names&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2541" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T08:20:19.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16840" CreationDate="2015-12-29T10:40:02.900" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very easy, just use Wikipedia to find examples, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart&lt;/em&gt; is listed as &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B2%83%E5%B0%94%E5%A4%AB%E5%86%88%C2%B7%E9%98%BF%E9%A9%AC%E5%BE%B7%E4%B9%8C%E6%96%AF%C2%B7%E8%8E%AB%E6%89%8E%E7%89%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;沃尔夫冈·阿马德乌斯·莫扎特&lt;/a&gt; on Chinese Wikipedia&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Johann Sebastian Bach&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%BA%A6%E7%BF%B0%C2%B7%E5%A1%9E%E5%B7%B4%E6%96%AF%E8%92%82%E5%AE%89%C2%B7%E5%B7%B4%E8%B5%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;约翰·塞巴斯蒂安·巴赫&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Thomas Alva Edison&lt;/em&gt; is transliterated as &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%88%B1%E8%BF%AA%E7%94%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;托马斯·阿尔瓦·爱迪生&lt;/a&gt; by full name in Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could continute, but you see the pattern: &lt;strong&gt;[first]·[middle]·[last]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two more observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(1) Sometimes the name to which the middle initial(s) of a person resolve(s) to is/are not known, in other cases, they are just a middle initial, e.g. &lt;em&gt;Harry S. Truman&lt;/em&gt; (or &lt;em&gt;Harry S Truman&lt;/em&gt;), which in Chinese is written as &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%93%88%E9%87%8C%C2%B7S%C2%B7%E6%9D%9C%E9%B2%81%E9%97%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;哈里·S·杜鲁门&lt;/a&gt;, with the Latin letter between the Chinese characters. A bit odd, but remember that Chinese will use just the last name to refer to a foreign person, e.g. 杜鲁门, so the awkward &amp;quot;mixed&amp;quot; form will probably be used only once in a text (when the person's full name is introduced.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(2) In other cases, when a person's middle name is not known, Chinese might use a character to replace the middle initial, this is commonly seen with Russian (Ukrainian, etc.) personages. Technically, the Russian middle name is a patronymic name, i.e. not the same as the Anglo-Saxon/Western middle name and middle initial, but from the Chinese point of view the issue is similar. Even if a Russian person's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Slavic_naming_customs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;full name&lt;/a&gt; (given name + patronymic name + family name) is known, it's still rather long, especially when you need to fit that onto a television screen, e.g. &lt;em&gt;Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%B1%B3%E5%93%88%E4%BC%8A%E5%B0%94%C2%B7%E8%B0%A2%E5%B0%94%E7%9B%96%E8%80%B6%E7%BB%B4%E5%A5%87%C2%B7%E6%88%88%E5%B0%94%E5%B7%B4%E4%B9%94%E5%A4%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;米哈伊尔·谢尔盖耶维奇·戈尔巴乔夫&lt;/a&gt;, which is quite intimidating, especially in Chinese characters. Because most Chinese won't know how to type the (Cyrillic) first letter С [not the same as Latin capital letter C] of &lt;em&gt;Sergeyevich&lt;/em&gt; (Сергеевич), they will adopt a different, easier solution: 米哈伊尔·谢·戈尔巴乔夫, i.e. shorten the patronymic name to the first character of the Chinese transliteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2020-07-18T07:14:22.497" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T07:14:22.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16840" CreationDate="2015-12-29T11:15:54.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You made a mistake. Translating a English names to Chinese won't change the order. Thomas Alva Edison is still translated to given-middle-family form as 托马斯·阿尔瓦·爱迪生. Only native Chinese names are family-given ordered, like 屠呦呦(Tu Youyou). Native Chinese surely don't have a middle name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9640" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T11:15:54.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16845" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16847" CreationDate="2015-12-29T12:45:47.293" Score="0" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 发货, 出货, and 交货?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12344" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-30T12:48:39.547" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T12:48:39.547" Title="What is the difference between 发货，出货 and 交货？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16845" CreationDate="2015-12-29T19:44:13.037" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;出货: produce goods&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发货: ship goods&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;交货: deliver goods&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T19:44:13.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="884" CreationDate="2015-12-29T19:48:45.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answer of OP by citation of Yip and Rimmington Comprehensive Grammar clarifies alot the 很-case. Here is description of taken from the Wenlin Chinese software, describing the grammatical category &quot;Stative Verb=Jìngtài Dòngcí=静态动词&quot; (s.v.):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;These entries are frequently translated into English as adjectives, even though they actually behave in Chinese as verbs. That is, the sense of ‘to be’ is already incorporated into these verbs, e.g., Zhèige hěn hǎo 这个很好 ‘This is quite good’. In fact, it is simply ungrammatical to place the verb shì 是, ‘to be’, directly in front of a stative verb. Because stative verbs are actually verbs, they are directly negated by bù 不, e.g., bù hǎo 不好 ‘not good’, and can be further modified by adverbs of degree such as hěn 很 ‘quite’, fēicháng 非常 ‘extremely’ and shífēn 十分 ‘very; utterly’. One common function of stative verbs is that they may serve as adverbs to other actions, e.g., mànmàn 慢慢 in mànmàn chī 慢慢吃 ‘take your time (eating)’ and  rènzhēn de xiě 认真地写 ‘write carefully’.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, however, that the term stative verb/静态动词 may also refer to a class of &quot;normal&quot; verbs (not adjectives) which have an existential flavour:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;静态动词表示一种静止状态包括“存在”和“拥有”的动词，如be,have, own, belong, exist, hold(容纳）等；表示度量的动词，如cost, weigh, measure等；表示五官感觉的动词，如see, hear, taste, smell, feel等；以及 表示心理状态的动词，如 believe, think, know, remember, forget, understand, love, like ,hate, detest(讨厌）等。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1114719.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1114719.htm&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adjectives just belong to the class of stative verbs also stated here, p. 8:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281004772_Universal_syntax_and_Mandarin_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281004772_Universal_syntax_and_Mandarin_Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12384" LastEditorUserId="12384" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T21:44:22.957" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T21:44:22.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2431" CreationDate="2015-12-29T20:31:09.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am very unfond of pinyin, but it makes more sense looking at it like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(y)i&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(w)u&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(y)ü&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;since the () is situational. Again with regards to the semivowels, these specifically merely change if they're beginning a word/syllable. It's easier to say &amp;amp; to read this way. It's a helpful feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, there are plenty of mapping issues within the entire vowels system for pinyin, and the general solution is to teach each as exceptions in pronunciation in &amp;quot;special cases&amp;quot; or ignore the point. Neither seems particularly efficient however, especially from a learning perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zhuyin maps 1-to-1, and personally I just made my own romanisation to match it and maintain accuracy. Regardless, how you speak is priority over spelling matters, try to ingrain good examples of different syllables for reference when needed in new contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12385" LastEditorUserId="24946" LastEditDate="2021-04-14T00:43:26.453" LastActivityDate="2021-04-14T00:43:26.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="884" CreationDate="2015-12-30T00:42:03.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically speaking, Chinese sentences are NOT constructed in the way of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Subject + Verb (+ Object)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually Chinese sentences are constructed in the way of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Topic + Comment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Case 1)&lt;/strong&gt; In most cases the Comment part describes some actions, where verbs are used and objectives may appear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: Topic and Comment are before and after the pipe (|).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他｜明天到。  我｜去图书馆借几本书。 他｜跑得快，跳得高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Case 2)&lt;/strong&gt; In some cases the Comment part describes feelings/status/existence, where verbs are used and objectives may appear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他｜是学生。  我｜喜欢听音乐。  我｜爱你。  我｜有点头疼。&#xA;公园里｜有很多人。  汽车站｜在前面。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Case 3)&lt;/strong&gt; In other cases the Comment part just provides description or additional info to the Topic, where verbs may not be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他｜高个子，大眼睛，长头发。  他｜人很好，很热心。  他｜理想远大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这篇文章｜语言优美，结构清晰，意境悠远，内含深刻。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这台电视｜价格不太贵。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上海的夏天 ，｜我听说每天下雨，也很潮湿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case the sentences may sound weird to English native speakers, as there may not be verbs used in the Comment part. However it can be better understood if you think of Comment in this type of Chinese sentences as something similar to appositive in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The insect, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;a large cockroach with hairy legs&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, is crawling across the kitchen table&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some English sentences, there are also part (i.e. nominative absolute) that provides additional info, similar to the Comment part in Chinese sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A robber burst into the room, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;knife in hand&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He lay there, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;his teeth set, his hand clenched, his eyes looking straight up&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He stood there, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;with his hand raised&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt; Basically, in Chinese anything can go in the Comment part, as long as it sounds ok and conveys clear meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2015-12-30T23:16:50.060" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T23:16:50.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16851" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17162" CreationDate="2015-12-30T04:18:01.543" Score="1" ViewCount="915" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for poems about parents' love, concern, and caring of their children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware of 孟郊《游子吟》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“慈母手中线,游子身上衣。临行密密缝,意恐迟迟归。谁言寸草心,报得三春晖?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that's heavy on the &quot;repayment&quot; aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for something that emphasizes the amount of effort, time, energy parents put into taking care of their children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something well known is preferable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-14T20:41:19.817" LastActivityDate="2016-02-14T20:41:19.817" Title="Poems about parents love and care for children" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16851" CreationDate="2015-12-30T09:37:27.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;《诗经·邶风·凯风》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;凯风自南，吹彼棘心。&#xA;  棘心夭夭，母氏劬劳。 &#xA;  凯风自南，吹彼棘薪。&#xA;  母氏圣善，我无令人。 &#xA;  爰有寒泉？在浚之下。&#xA;  有子七人，母氏劳苦。 &#xA;  睍睆黄鸟，载好其音。&#xA;  有子七人，莫慰母心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12389" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T09:37:27.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8475" CreationDate="2015-12-30T15:52:51.580" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;不对， 你可能想说的是我用手机听歌，但是在手机上，会感觉到不自然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12391" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T15:52:51.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16854" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16856" CreationDate="2015-12-30T18:00:11.987" Score="1" ViewCount="424" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding of the word is &quot;lovable or cute&quot;. Can someone give me the context when it might be appropriate to use this term? For example, lots of folks find kittens lovable or cute. A sample sentence and explanation of when to use the term would help me the most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T06:38:52.510" Title="How to use 可爱，properly?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16854" CreationDate="2015-12-30T18:05:38.597" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这个小孩真可爱。good to describe for a kids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个小狗可爱极了。for pets as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宝贝，你穿上这件衣服真可爱！usually for a girl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那小伙蛮可爱的。usually a comment for a feminine guy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12197" LastEditorUserId="12197" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T01:35:55.610" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T01:35:55.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16854" CreationDate="2015-12-30T19:47:00.673" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's nothing very special about the usage of 可爱. In Chinese many 'adjectives' are formed from verbs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;好吃 (&quot;good to eat&quot;) is &lt;em&gt;tasty/delicious&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有趣 (&quot;has interest&quot;) is &lt;em&gt;interesting&lt;/em&gt; and&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;难看 (&quot;hard to look at&quot;) is &lt;em&gt;ugly&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are not really adjectives, but their best English counterparts are adjectives, so you can think of them as 'adjectives'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可爱 (&quot;can be loved&quot;) is cute/lovely.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 可爱 to describe people, especially children, or animals, and even inanimate things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这只狗很可爱！This dog is very cute! &lt;em&gt;(可爱 is the predicate of the sentence)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;可爱的小女孩 cute (little) girl &lt;em&gt;(可爱 is used as an adjective to describe a noun)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case of animals, you can also use 萌物 (&quot;cute thing&quot;) to denote an animal that is just cute, 萌宠 is a cute pet and 卖萌 means &quot;to act cute/behave in a cute way&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T06:38:52.510" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T06:38:52.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16857" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16902" CreationDate="2015-12-30T20:14:05.817" Score="-3" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I translate correctly this sentence?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;附件是我做的方案针对目前我们存在的问题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do 方案 and 针对 mean in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12344" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T03:22:54.383" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T13:49:48.510" Title="How do I translate &quot;附件是我做的方案针对目前我们存在的问题&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16859" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16866" CreationDate="2015-12-30T20:57:23.787" Score="0" ViewCount="1483" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen 看 used on its own, 见 used on its own, and 看见 used together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看 means &quot;to see&quot; or &quot;to watch&quot;， objects are typically inanimate (i.e.&#xA;not people) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;见 means &quot;to see&quot; or &quot;to meet&quot;, objects are typically&#xA;people&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the above correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would you use 看见？ &lt;a href=&quot;http://xn--rcktbp9l7213b4vj.jp/your-community/chinese-grammar/difference-between-kan-and-jian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This (Rocket Languages) site&lt;/a&gt; suggests it means &quot;to catch a glimpse of&quot;.  Specifically, why use 看见　instead of just 见　？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kanjian.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;even a website!&lt;/a&gt; where the object is 音了 -- as in, &quot;see the music&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Rocket Languages site also explains the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_grammar#Complement_of_result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;complement&lt;/a&gt; form, 看不见　which suggests &quot;can't&quot; -- are there other examples &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6139" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T04:59:29.083" Title="To see, to watch, to meet - 看 vs 见 vs 看见" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-12-31T17:20:25.470" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16860" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16861" CreationDate="2015-12-31T01:34:11.607" Score="3" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;In collecting books, I've come across what appears to be an 1881 Chinese language bible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being able to read some Japanese, I'm sure of all of the characters in the title &lt;code&gt;書?經聖&lt;/code&gt;, except for the 2nd one, which resembles &lt;code&gt;全&lt;/code&gt;, but rather than a &lt;code&gt;人&lt;/code&gt; at the top, it looks more like a &lt;code&gt;入&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;八&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the ability to photograph/OCR it, I'm hoping someone could enlighten me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt; It would seem the character is correct as &lt;code&gt;全&lt;/code&gt;, though finding an exact match for the phrase in Google/Baidu is not successful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12395" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-09-07T06:34:02.940" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T06:34:02.940" Title="書全經聖 - 1881 Chinese bible (what is the 2nd character?)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16860" CreationDate="2015-12-31T02:03:50.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does it look like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/86zD6.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/86zD6.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the way how it was written in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/kx/5168.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;康熙字典&lt;/a&gt;. And the radical of &lt;code&gt;全&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;入&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一作仝。会意。篆文从入,从王(玉)。盖谓交纳的玉完整无缺。本义:纯色玉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T02:15:16.140" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T02:15:16.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16860" CreationDate="2015-12-31T02:05:14.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/lda/lda00283.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/lda/lda00283.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a variant character. 圣经全书 just means the full volume of the christian text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T02:05:14.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16857" CreationDate="2015-12-31T04:03:39.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you can translate like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I made a plan that aiming at the problems we have. And i've already&#xA;  put it in   the attachment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12398" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T04:03:39.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16839" CreationDate="2015-12-31T04:45:43.430" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's because of the Internet, which made this sentence popular. There was once a boy in Sina Weibo (China's version of Twitter) who sent a threat to a girl. The girl on Sina Weibo replied to express her dissatisfaction. The message was &quot;吓死宝宝了&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It soon got around on Weibo. Many people were talking about this. So now many people use this sentence to express their discontent by force or threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12398" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T09:12:01.303" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T09:12:01.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16859" CreationDate="2015-12-31T04:59:29.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;your understanding is correct for the basic use.&#xA;the difference between 看 and 看见，the latter usually means 'have seen/watched', which emphasizes the fact that sb saw sb/sth in the time before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12399" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T04:59:29.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16857" CreationDate="2015-12-31T13:16:59.067" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;支持倪阔乐同学的翻译。但我想指出的是，“附件是我做的方案针对目前我们存在的问题”是一个病句，甚至可以说这不是一个句子。正确的应为“附件是我做的针对目前我们存在问题的方案”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with 倪阔乐's translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Attached is the plan (方案) I've made regarding (针对) the problems we are currently facing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the original sentence is just weird. I would say this instead: 附件是我做的针对目前我们存在问题的方案.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12400" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2016-01-01T20:21:55.277" LastActivityDate="2016-01-01T20:21:55.277" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16868" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16872" CreationDate="2015-12-31T17:14:10.047" Score="2" ViewCount="381" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is as the title. The sentence &quot;school bus is coming&quot; is translated as &quot;校车来了&quot;. I understand this translation because &quot;了&quot; here indicates a new situation. But why are &quot;校车来着&quot; or &quot;校车正来&quot; WRONG? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-16T00:41:50.303" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T00:41:50.303" Title="Why &quot;校车来了“， not &quot;校车来着&quot; and &quot;校车正来&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16868" CreationDate="2015-12-31T17:43:04.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;They're just weird. You could say &lt;code&gt;校车正来着&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;校车正在来（的路上）&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Note that they mean &lt;code&gt;on the way&lt;/code&gt; more than &lt;code&gt;has arrived&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T17:43:04.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2015-12-31T19:19:56.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, &quot;好吃的&quot; here is a noun instead of adj. It means &quot;something delicious&quot;. We often use this kind of adj phrase to express a noun. Actually you can understand it as &quot;好吃的东西&quot;or &quot;好吃的食物&quot;. But we'd like to omit the noun followed by &quot;的&quot;. For another similar example: &quot;好玩的&quot; which means interesting things. You can also say&quot;好玩的东西&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这么多&quot;here means &quot;so many&quot;. &quot;这么多好吃的&quot; means &quot;there are so many delicious food&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12403" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T19:19:56.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16868" CreationDate="2015-12-31T20:43:34.100" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;校车来了&lt;/code&gt; could mean &quot;the school bus&quot; is coming, but notice that it can also mean &quot;the school bus has come&quot;;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;来着&lt;/code&gt; is usually used with &quot;what&quot; and is usually used in northern Chinese Mandarin dialect. In this context, it is wrong;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;正来&lt;/code&gt; is correct, or rather, not wrong. The problem is, it does not sound like a very common oral expression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T20:43:34.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16868" CreationDate="2016-01-01T04:02:49.320" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;[Edited to discuss 正, 在, and 著]&#xA;There is a discussion of 在 and 著 in Li and Thompson's 1981 book &lt;em&gt;Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar&lt;/em&gt;. They don't have much to say about 正. My own feeling is that this is usually used with either 在 and 著; it seldom, if ever, appears by itself. Sentences such as 他正吃飯 are simply odd. I am not a native speaker, so I'm ready to be corrected on this.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 在 and 著 are durative markers, but they still differ in meaning. L&amp;amp;T's examples of the difference include:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他在穿皮鞋: He is putting on leather shoes&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他穿著皮鞋: He is wearing leather shoes&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Their explanation for the difference here is that 在 is used with persistent actions (actions that have some duration), while 著 is used with actions that result in a persistent state. 穿 can have either of these interpretations, so both sentences are good, but each has a different meaning. Again, I think 他正穿皮鞋 is just odd here, better to say 他正在穿皮鞋, or 他正穿著皮鞋. In neither case does this actually change the meaning, it simply emphasizes the durative nature of the action or result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of 來, I think the Chinese logic is that &quot;come&quot; is not a persistent action. Instead, it is what Quirk et al (1981) call a transitional action. Other examples they give are:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The train is arriving at the station&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It looks like he is scoring a goal&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;According to Quirk, transitional actions do not have a durative meaning, and so for these cases English progressive has an anticipatory meaning, i.e. a period leading up to the transition. For these cases, Chinese doesn't use either 著 or 在 (since there is no persistent action or state). Instead it uses forms such as 快...了:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;She is dying 她快死了.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;She is coming 她快來了.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since these are not durative sentences, many languages do not use progressive forms here. In this case it is English that is exceptional, rather than Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2016-01-04T06:33:54.683" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T06:33:54.683" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16868" CreationDate="2016-01-01T07:17:48.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;校车来了 表示 校车将要在非常短的时间内到达，通常指人的视线范围内看到校车。而来和着两个字在汉语里是没有组合的。校车正在来（的路上）不能确定校车什么时间会到达&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12405" LastActivityDate="2016-01-01T07:17:48.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16875" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-01T13:57:26.027" Score="3" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to learn the dialect spoken in Nantong. Are there any resources to help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6488" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T02:57:57.863" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T02:57:57.863" Title="Information about the Nantong dialect" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16876" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16877" CreationDate="2016-01-01T15:41:43.903" Score="1" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;When talking about my favorite singer, how do I say &quot;I've got all his albums&quot;?&#xA;I thought it was &quot;他的光盘我都有&quot; but I don't think it's correct because I can't find any results for that on Google.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12359" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-01-02T14:20:11.540" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T06:22:10.367" Title="How do I say &quot;I've got all his albums&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16876" CreationDate="2016-01-02T01:30:56.660" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;光盘 = Disk =  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that's a huge no-no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唱片 is more of a old fashion way of saying album. So I personally recommend 专辑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the result would be: 他的专辑我都有。or 我有他所有的专辑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12406" LastActivityDate="2016-01-02T01:30:56.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16876" CreationDate="2016-01-02T07:10:26.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another way to say it is : 他所有的专辑我都有。&#xA;:D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12370" LastActivityDate="2016-01-02T07:10:26.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16875" CreationDate="2016-01-02T12:48:32.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some documents about Nantong dialect, but it's still difficult for Chinese in other areas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wapwenku.baidu.com/view/09e3c92aaaea998fcc220e42.html?ssid=0&amp;amp;from=1099b&amp;amp;uid=0&amp;amp;pu=usm@3,sz@1320_2001,ta@iphone_1_9.2_3_601&amp;amp;bd_page_type=1&amp;amp;baiduid=2B26F0FC87EAF856CC6D8FCB7EA56F60&amp;amp;tj=wenku_3_0_10_title#2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wapwenku.baidu.com/view/09e3c92aaaea998fcc220e42.html?ssid=0&amp;amp;from=1099b&amp;amp;uid=0&amp;amp;pu=usm@3,sz@1320_2001,ta@iphone_1_9.2_3_601&amp;amp;bd_page_type=1&amp;amp;baiduid=2B26F0FC87EAF856CC6D8FCB7EA56F60&amp;amp;tj=wenku_3_0_10_title#2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12410" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-01-02T17:35:41.943" LastActivityDate="2016-01-02T17:35:41.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16880" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17545" CreationDate="2016-01-04T06:11:42.377" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese dialectical/topolectical dictionaries use the long-short romanization system (长短音) to write out pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia mostly just mentions Shanghai, Wu and Suzhou for using the long-short romanization system. 李荣, though, seems to use this system for the entire 现代汉语方言大词典 which covers 40-odd dialects/topolects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the advantages of using this long-short romanization system as opposed to using any other system, i.e.: ipa, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-03-24T01:01:15.077" Title="Why the long-short romanization system (长短音) for Chinese dialects?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16840" CreationDate="2016-01-04T06:36:07.460" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two ways to translate a non-Chinese name. The first is to use transliteration with the ·&amp;nbsp;character separating name parts. The order of name parts is not changed and the meaning of name parts is irrelevant. That would make it &lt;strong&gt;[first]·[middle]·[last]&lt;/strong&gt; like others have said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other option is to use a name that follows the Chinese naming conventions. This is normally only done in case of people that live or work in China and use that name in daily interactions, like &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%A9%E7%8E%9B%E7%AA%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Matteo Ricci&lt;/a&gt; (Chinese name 利玛窦 Li Madou). Most people choose a name that is similar to the sound of their name in the other language, but that's not always the case. So the middle name may or may not be reflected in that kind of name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T06:36:07.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16760" CreationDate="2016-01-04T08:19:27.910" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;作 in this certain context means &lt;em&gt;exaggeration&lt;/em&gt; as adj. And it is the abbr. of 做作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word is the derogatory sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11136" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T08:19:27.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16868" CreationDate="2016-01-04T09:42:46.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @Stan said in the comment, the issue is with the notion of &quot;arrive&quot;. If the bus is in sight and will stop in short time, then in Chinese &quot;it has arrived&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;车来了 meaning either bus is going to arrive in short time, or it has arrived&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;车已经来了 (more often 车已经到了) meaning bus has arrived&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;车正在来 meaning bus is on its way -- will take a while&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T09:42:46.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16884" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16921" CreationDate="2016-01-04T09:50:47.620" Score="4" ViewCount="4317" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Pleco always tells me two little hashes on the top of 汉字 such as. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are &quot;kwukyel&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone point me to a reference that explains this term as it relates to Chinese language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps --  I already know the explanation about older Korean. That is not the question.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm asking about why this is in my Chinese language dictionaries (at least two).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ &lt;em&gt;-- this premise is not quite correct ----&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; I don't believe these dictionaries are intended to be abstract Hanzi references.] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are Chinese language dictionaries.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there any good reference that explains the mapping to &quot;kwukyel&quot;&#xA;for Chinese language is wrong?  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If the term &quot;kwukyel&quot; is not meaningful for Chinese language, what definition should the marks be mapped to?&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If the answer is &quot;nothing&quot;, please provide some evidence/references so I can give credit to your answer. :-)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5986" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-01-09T05:12:12.680" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T17:19:56.723" Title="What does &quot;kwukyel&quot; mean in regards to Chinese language characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16884" CreationDate="2016-01-04T10:02:04.057" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kwukyel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;kwukyel&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gugyeol&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;gugyeol&lt;/a&gt; is a Korean system to write Chinese characters phonetically that predates Hangul. As for &lt;code&gt;丷&lt;/code&gt; itself, to quote from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%B7#Korean&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is a kwukyel note. Kwukyel was a system formerly used in Korea whereby correct interpretation of texts written in Classical Chinese was aided by small interspersed notes such as this one. The notes represent Korean morphemes but were only used within Chinese text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-07-29T09:12:33.593" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T09:12:33.593" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16886" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-04T11:32:09.337" Score="5" ViewCount="6658" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anybody knows where to get this Chinese font type? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YmyNv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YmyNv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Dotted font&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12423" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-10T22:44:40.740" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T16:20:51.317" Title="Chinese Dotted/Dashed Line font?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16884" CreationDate="2016-01-04T15:13:41.777" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a learner of Chinese it means nothing to you. But since Chinese characters were and are used to write other languages, diacritics used in 口訣 (kwukyel/gugyeol) belong to the Hanzi (in Unihan just &quot;Han&quot;) world. So if Pleco uses the Unihan database as its source, kwukyel signs are bound to appear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, regarding the added question of what to name them in Chinese, the name &lt;em&gt;kwukyel&lt;/em&gt; maps to 口訣. Hence calling them just that, [Hánguó] kǒujué, 韓國口訣, could work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-01-09T05:14:47.513" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T05:14:47.513" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16868" CreationDate="2016-01-04T22:55:07.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;来 is frequently used to cooccur with the bound reading in the immediate situation. For example, we can say 来了. By contrast, 着 cannot do the same but indicates duration, for instance, *来着 sounds bad. &#xA;Crucially, the action implied by 来 need to refer to the speaker, but 着 does not seem to do that, for example, 说着他走了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11718" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T22:55:07.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16868" CreationDate="2016-01-05T09:03:10.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First of all:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;校车来了&quot; means &quot;the school bus has arrived&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;while &quot;校车来着&quot; and &quot;校车正来&quot; mean &quot;the school bus is arriving&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Secondly: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The more grammatically correct way of saying &quot;校车来着&quot; and &quot;校车正来&quot; would be &quot;校车在来着&quot; and &quot;校车正在来&quot;, the &quot;在&quot; acts as an equivalence of &quot;be&quot; in English.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not using &quot;在&quot; would be like saying &quot;the school bus coming&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12428" LastActivityDate="2016-01-05T09:03:10.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16760" CreationDate="2016-01-05T11:24:09.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you sure, do you have context of what they said? How is 作 pronounced, as zuò or zuō?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大作(zuò) is most often used as a noun meaning &quot;masterpiece&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2016-01-05T11:24:09.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16892" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16919" CreationDate="2016-01-05T12:31:23.913" Score="0" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you help me out with the translation of the following sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;少量的商品代理应该可以安排当无品牌申报出到英国&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Representative with a small amount of goods should be able to arrange customs declaration of the trademark in England.”&#xA;Thank you in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12344" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T07:48:19.260" Title="Help translating 安排当无品牌申报出到英国" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16894" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16918" CreationDate="2016-01-05T13:12:50.210" Score="2" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please help translating the following phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;针一的材质&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean &quot;first class material&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12344" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T07:39:24.937" Title="Help translating 针一的材质" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16820" CreationDate="2016-01-05T18:05:42.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question of Chinese minority nationalities' names is a bit more complex than that. Many of these minorities did not have a single, fixed name before they were catalogued in the 20th century. In fact, the definitive list of minorities was not fixed &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China#Officially_recognized_ethnic_groups_in_mainland_China&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;until the 70s&lt;/a&gt;. The Chinese writing system also underwent huge changes in the 20th century. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, many minority names could be spelled in a variety of ways, or the characters for them were not part of the Chinese standard in the first place. Under these circumstances, it's not surprising that the government would choose to write the names of minority groups with characters that had positive connotations. I assume the groups themselves also preferred a positive name. The description &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the government changed some characters for the names of minority&#xA;  ethnic groups&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is somewhat misleading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, here are some &lt;strong&gt;examples&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苗 (Miao) could be spelled a number of ways, one of them being 猫&#xA;with the &lt;code&gt;dog&lt;/code&gt; radical. Since this character already means &quot;cat&quot; and is then pronounced máo, reducing it to 苗, which means &quot;young plant&quot;, is less confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瑶 (Yao) used to be written as 猺, which also means &quot;jackal&quot;. Again, changing the character is not only friendlier, but also less confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/kx/7F8C.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;羌&lt;/a&gt; (Qiang) is a good example of a character that has always been written a variety of ways. One of them was 猐, again with the dog radical. I don't think it's too weird to choose a different spelling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, many Chinese minorities were called 蛮 (barbarians) in Chinese historical sources. One example is the 布依 (Buyi), who were referred to as 仲蛮 (Zhongman) in Qing dynasty texts. In such cases, it's not so much that the characters were changed, and more that the government began to use the name by which members of that group referred to their own group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideology may have also played a small part in the way that Chinese characters were simplified into 简体字 (Jianti zi). I've always suspected that some Chinese anti-monarchist took some joy from replacing the character 後 (behind, after, later) with 后 (queen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 他 was used as a third-person pronoun for both genders well into the 19th century. I assume this was split into 她/他 to conform to European languages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is some movement in China to change the characters with negative meanings that have the &quot;woman&quot; radical. However, this is limited to a relatively small group, maybe comparable to the number of people who wish to use &quot;xe&quot; as a gender-neutral pronoun in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-01-05T18:05:42.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16896" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-05T23:41:54.547" Score="2" ViewCount="1873" Body="&lt;p&gt;大部分的时间？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大多数的时间？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or some other phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12411" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T18:22:46.167" Title="How do I say &quot;most of the time&quot; in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3602" CreationDate="2016-01-06T01:04:41.150" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would just keep practicing. You should also have confidence in yourself and write characters over and over again. Its all about 练习！（practice）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12434" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T01:04:41.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16896" CreationDate="2016-01-06T03:22:41.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一般&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tuttle Learner's&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 generally speaking, ordinarily&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每星期一上午我们一般都开会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Měi Xīngqīyī shàngwǔ wǒmen yìbān dōu kāihuì.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We usually have a meeting every Monday morning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Guifan&lt;/em&gt; defines this as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 形 占绝大多数的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学生们一般都很尊重老师。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;占绝大多数的 can also include time here so there's no need to specifically emphasize &lt;em&gt;时间&lt;/em&gt; unless you want/need to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can even opt for a &lt;strong&gt;一般来说&lt;/strong&gt; if you're in the mood, which &lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt; defines as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;generally speaking, generally, by and large&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;em&gt;Guifan&lt;/em&gt; gives the following example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般来说, 雨天他是不会来的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which roughly translates to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, when it rains, he won't come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T05:20:21.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16896" CreationDate="2016-01-06T04:24:52.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;平时 or 平常 are two common expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T04:24:52.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16876" CreationDate="2016-01-06T06:22:10.367" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我集全了他的（所有）专辑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或者说，&#xA;他的（所有）专辑我都集齐了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9623" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T06:22:10.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16857" CreationDate="2016-01-06T09:28:22.447" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, people more frequently write(input) Chinese on mobile with IM tools. People usually write very short sentences or phrases, and then send it out immediately, then send additional words if the previous ones are wrong or confusing. When people get used to the way they input characters, it will also influent the way they speak Chinese. You can even see many people omit the punctuations from their sentences in Chinese forums. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your question, in fact, in my opinion, it just needs a comma: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;附件是我做的方案, 针对目前我们存在的问题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T09:28:22.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16886" CreationDate="2016-01-06T09:36:03.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply try &quot;中文字体 虚线体&quot; in Google, you will find many results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, here are some resources:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sozi.cn/ziti/201009092755.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;华康标楷虚线体&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sozi.cn/ziti/201009183666.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;金梅美工虚线体&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried a few, they are all traditional Chinese font type, can't find simplified Chinese version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2016-01-07T06:03:53.447" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T06:03:53.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16857" CreationDate="2016-01-06T13:43:06.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd use &quot;proposal&quot; for &quot;方案&quot; and &quot;focus&quot; for &quot;针对&quot; in this context. Here is my take:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attached is my proposal focusing on the issues that we are currently facing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4300" LastEditorUserId="4300" LastEditDate="2016-01-06T13:49:48.510" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T13:49:48.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5414" CreationDate="2016-01-06T22:07:33.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also heard people just saying 好吧,随你! (without便) in that kind of situation. Colloquial, of course. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12409" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T22:07:33.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16839" CreationDate="2016-01-07T04:34:28.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It came from this variety show in China, ZheJiang called Hurry up, Brother &amp;lt;&amp;lt;奔跑吧兄弟&gt;&gt;. One of the actors mentioned this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chinese-translated Teletubbies 《天线宝宝》- Po said this phrase in chinese as &quot;宝宝&quot; means teletubbies.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more examples like &quot;吓死爹了&quot; and netizens changed the wordings to make it sound more adorable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12444" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T04:34:28.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5414" CreationDate="2016-01-07T06:19:40.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese native. in your situation, you can say(either is okay):&#xA;1) 好了,随你便了&#xA;2) 好吧,你爱咋滴咋滴(or 你爱怎么样就怎么样, more colloquially used and shows more energy than above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12446" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T06:19:40.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16909" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17606" CreationDate="2016-01-07T13:48:15.867" Score="0" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to find an Apple tablet dictionary that supports drawing input.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I mean by that Is that you are able to draw the character you are looking for and then it suggests a number of characters this drawing of yours looks like. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that android Pleco has this function but not for Iphone Pleco.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone point to another app that works for IOS? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12207" LastActivityDate="2016-04-02T23:42:41.270" Title="Apple Tablet Dictionary that Supports Drawing Input" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16910" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-07T14:52:57.063" Score="1" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to translate this passage in traditional Chinese into English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;教學年資：在本校升等時職級滿三年為50分，每增授課一學期加1分，最高分為70分。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my own translation (Please bear in mind that I am still learning to how to translate):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Years of teaching: To apply for promotion, the teaching staff needs to have fulfilled 3 years of service to obtain 50 credits with one additional credit for every course taught over 1 semester. The maximum of credits shall not exceed 70.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12363" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T00:47:14.907" Title="Can anyone make my Chinese-English translation sound better?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5414" CreationDate="2016-01-07T22:19:55.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the best answer is -- OK， ill do what you say. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;-好的，就照你说的做。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hǎo de, jiù zhào nǐ shuō de zuò&lt;br&gt;&#xA;-好的，按你说的做。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hǎo de, àn nǐ shuō de zuò.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;-好的，听你的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hǎo de, tīng nǐ de.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;-好的，随你。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hǎo de, suí nǐ.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7010" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T22:19:55.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16910" CreationDate="2016-01-08T00:40:11.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;在本校升等時，職級滿三年為50分，每增授課一學期加1分，最高分為70分&#xA;When applying for promotion at the University, those who have held their current rank for three years will receive 50 points, with an additional point for each semester of teaching beyond [the three years], up to a maximum of 70 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 申請 'apply for' is omitted at the beginning (在本校申請升等時) and there should be a comma after that. The word 'rank' 職級 is used oddly, I think 以原職級任教滿三年 or 服務滿三年 would make more sense. The intent is probably that one must hold each rank for a minimum of 3 years before applying for promotion (assistant to associate, associate to full), but this wording doesn't really make that clear. 每增 is also not very smooth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main problem with the translation is that 'credit' is not right here, this is a point system; also for every course taught over 1 semester is not right, the intent of the Chinese text is clearly to count semesters of teaching, not courses taught&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2016-01-08T00:47:14.907" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T00:47:14.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16913" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16914" CreationDate="2016-01-08T04:12:48.613" Score="1" ViewCount="358" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is related to the Verb + Result Complement discussed &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/5134/6139&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, but I think it's different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are my instructions*:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Change the following into interrogative sentences (a) with a potential complement and &lt;em&gt;then give negative answers to them&lt;/em&gt; (b)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请把下列问句改成带可能补语的问句， 并用否定句回答：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) 你能拿来那本书吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I feel comfortable with part (a), I think to make a potential complement it's all about 得.  Correct me if I'm wrong:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5a) 你能拿&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;来那本书吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I struggle with part (b). I know to give a negative Result Complement, we use Verb + 不 + Result Complement. However, the use of 能源动词　&quot;能&quot; is begging to be negated (maybe my instinct is wrong...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Should I put 不 between 那_来?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5b)  我能拿&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;来那本书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;...or 不 before 能:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5b) 我&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;能拿得来那本书。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This lesson is teaching me the former, but it feels awkward to leave a &quot;positive&quot; 能 in there... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, what kind of rude person says &quot;No, I cannot bring the book&quot;?! (Just kidding... kinda. Maybe this person is physically incapable of bringing the book?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*I promise you're not helping me cheat, I study Chinese on my own :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6139" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T23:50:21.997" Title="Where to put 不 when responding in negative" Tags="&lt;negation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16913" CreationDate="2016-01-08T12:11:57.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, the question does not require you to leave the 能 in the sentence. Since the 能 is already implied by the 可能补语 structure, the most natural way to solve your problem would be to leave off the 能:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你拿得来那本书吗？&#xA;我拿不来那本书。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, to me it sounds more natural to move the object to the start of the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;那本书你拿得来吗？&#xA;那本书我拿不来。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... but it's grammatically correct either way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T12:11:57.683" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16760" CreationDate="2016-01-09T05:53:59.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;作 I believe is a very Shanghai-ness saying, describing a personality which is a mixture of pretentiousness, snobbishness, and a self-centred awareness. Whereas 做作 describes the pretentious aspect of the character, on its own it has got subtle nuances that attract popular modern usage due to its room for visual imagination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern everyday uses it can be used very negatively indeed, but most of the time like most other derogatory words have been thrown around casually. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar word in English can be &quot;b****&quot;, in which the referred individual carries similar personality overtones though the imagery b**** is more aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12454" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T05:53:59.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16868" CreationDate="2016-01-09T07:29:30.427" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this example, I translate 了 as &quot;already&quot;. So using 了， this is good news when the bus has already left its origin（last station) and is coming ( even if I don't see it yet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12455" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T07:29:30.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16896" CreationDate="2016-01-09T07:32:06.323" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you mean the length of time, then use &lt;code&gt;大部分时间&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean &lt;code&gt;in most cases&lt;/code&gt;, then use &lt;code&gt;大部分情况下&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(You can replace &lt;code&gt;大部分&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;大多数&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12456" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T07:32:06.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16894" CreationDate="2016-01-09T07:39:24.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;针一&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;针二&lt;/code&gt; are just names of materials. They refer to different kinds of cloth. (Those words are quite professional. Even native speakers don't know that.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12456" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T07:39:24.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16892" CreationDate="2016-01-09T07:48:19.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;代理应该可以把少量商品当成无品牌商品申报，出口到英国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The agent can declear a small part of the goods as no-brand merchandise and export them to England.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12456" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T07:48:19.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16884" CreationDate="2016-01-10T06:06:33.717" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;(sorry to toot my own horn, but my prior effort to Edit another answer to give credit didn't work)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question makes sense, but is not quite correct.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It says  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the dictionary is only contemporary Chinese, not for multiple uses for&#xA;  Hanzi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But&lt;/strong&gt; if you're looking at   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unihan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;that very much is an abstract Hanzi reference.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not only for contemporary Chinese -  not even only for Chinese language.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Here is the Wikipedia on it:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_unification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_unification&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is shown inside your electronic Mandarin or Cantonese or other Chinese dictionary,  you should expect some confusion.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's a huge set of characters.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There may be genuine disagreement on a &quot;correct&quot; mapping, as well as mistakes or compromises in your electronic tool.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;~&lt;br&gt;&#xA;~&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For a specific Component or Character mapping you are curious about, maybe that should be a new question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the definition &quot;kwukyel&quot;...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;as a learner of Chinese it means nothing to you.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That definition is for an old form of Korean writing - also considered in Unihan.  It was a mark just to guide the reader, without a &quot;meaning&quot; of it's own.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a learner of Chinese, if you see &quot;kwukyel&quot; in Unihan you should think &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if there is another definition in your tool, from a Chinese-only dictionary, you should use that because it was (hopefully) researched just for Chinese --  ignore the Unihan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if there is no other definition, just take it as &quot;no useful meaning&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think your electronic dictionary could be improved, you might report to their support.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5986" LastEditorUserId="5986" LastEditDate="2016-01-13T03:58:29.803" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T03:58:29.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16922" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16924" CreationDate="2016-01-10T10:24:00.087" Score="4" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my own language (Dutch) I can (jokingly) point at something that is decaying (or perhaps my tea getting cold, or my desk being disorderly) and utter the single word: ‘entropy’. Or I can, out of the blue, say (again, jokingly): ‘I hate entropy’.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that ‘entropy’ is simply  &lt;em&gt;shāng&lt;/em&gt; in Chinese, which, apart from  熵, can also be 商, 傷 or 墒, is either of these statements  that I can make in Dutch, also possible in the Chinese spoken language (without being unintelligible)? (Pointing and saying &lt;em&gt;shāng&lt;/em&gt;, or perhaps &lt;em&gt;wǒ tǎoyàn shāng&lt;/em&gt;.) If not, would there be a work-around that still involves the concept of entropy, or is 熵  restricted to a physics class and/or the written language? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12466" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T23:24:52.493" Title="Is 熵 in any way part of the spoken language?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16922" CreationDate="2016-01-10T13:56:02.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question really has two parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Would people generally understand the word 熵 shang in spoken language?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know about this word in particular, but generally the only one-character words that are commonly spoken tend to be very common, familiar words on the level of 看, 貓, 走 and the like. More unusual words tend to be introduced in  a multi-syllable form, unless the word is expected in the context. Which brings us to the second part of your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Will an uncommon Chinese word be understood when spoken out of context?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, no. Especially when people know you're not a native speaker, they're more likely to assume you mean one of the more common variants of  shāng. You could explain that you mean the 熵 you talk about in your physics work (“熵！就是热力学的熵！”, assuming you and the Chinese people you're talking to work in science). Or you could use one of the numerous Chinese expressions that mean something like &quot;things fall apart&quot;. But your intention of jokingly using the scientific term &quot;entropy&quot; on its own is unlikely to work in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-01-10T13:56:02.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16922" CreationDate="2016-01-10T14:56:12.427" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience, yes, humorously, among more scientifically sophisticated people. However, as you pointed out, since 熵 is a one-syllable word, so used by itself it can be unintelligible. Usually people make a sentence out of it to indicate which &lt;em&gt;shang&lt;/em&gt; character they are referring to. For example, 人走不关灯，得多产生多少熵呀！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastActivityDate="2016-01-10T14:56:12.427" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16896" CreationDate="2016-01-10T15:06:42.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;通常。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;strong&gt;通常&lt;/strong&gt;来说，“most of the time”翻译成“通常“是比较恰当的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastActivityDate="2016-01-10T15:06:42.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16922" CreationDate="2016-01-10T22:53:03.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, I saw 熵 only in my Chemistry class. Don't use that in your daily life, or people get confused by what you say. If you are talking with a people with low education, he or she won't even know this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12340" LastActivityDate="2016-01-10T22:53:03.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16922" CreationDate="2016-01-10T23:59:51.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very recent word in Chinese. One claim I've seen is 1923, but I seriously doubt that it was used in any real publications prior to WWII, and it is still not listed in a number of major dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the spoken language, at best it might be understood as 'quotient' 商. This is of course the origin of the word, with the 火 added to indicate it is the thermodynamic kind of quotient (!). This bizarre approach to translation renders it pretty much useless in the spoken language, since the 火 is not pronounced, and I am willing to bet that even the written form will be unrecognizable to a majority of China's educated population.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one really wants to talk about it, perhaps one might speak of 熱力(學的)熵. Although it certainly could be used in conversation without this circumlocution, it would have to be introduced in a rational way.  The jokey use of 熵 is simply not a part of modern spoken Chinese, at least not yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-01-10T23:59:51.187" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16928" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16930" CreationDate="2016-01-11T04:00:03.213" Score="4" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on a literary translation of a 16th century Joseon prose narrative, and I'm here to ask for help with a few of the bits I'm finding gnarly and confusing. I've hit on the passage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;久作江湖之漫浪。 何圖不我遐棄。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have translated it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;For a long time (久), I have caused (作) wild and unrestrained [behaviour throughout] the whole wide world (江湖之漫浪). How could I expect that you would not cast me aside?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you think &quot;wild and unrestrained&quot; is okay for 漫浪?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Context: the speaker is General Malt, i.e. alcohol, addressing a ruler.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12467" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T04:11:53.670" Title="For a long time, I caused the &lt;wide world&gt; to be &lt;manlang 漫浪&gt;" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16929" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16974" CreationDate="2016-01-11T04:07:08.373" Score="1" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there standard translations for phrases like 月日 and 惶恐百拜, used in correspondence in premodern times? 'A day of a month' and 'I cower fearfully and bow a hundred times' don't really...y'know...WORK in English... -_-;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12467" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T05:55:25.723" Title="Dealing with expressions in classical Chinese letters: 月日 and 惶恐百拜" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16928" CreationDate="2016-01-11T11:13:57.603" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for an intro to a great piece by Im Jae (sp? 林悌‧愁城誌). Do you know of any English or Chinese studies or translations of his work?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found it pretty difficult writing, a pastiche of the 尚書, packed full of metaphors and puns on drinking. For the passage you are working on, it always helps to look at the larger context, especially where the author is using a lot of parallelism in his grammar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只緣禮法之矛盾。久作江湖之漫浪。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's because of (my) flaunting of Manners and Codes,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That I've long been a roamer of River and Lake&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何圖不我遐棄。迺曰命爾專征&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That you would accept me, how was that my intent? &lt;br&gt;&#xA;And now you would have me command your attack!&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-01-11T11:13:57.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16931" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16933" CreationDate="2016-01-11T14:05:56.487" Score="3" ViewCount="1470" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if the verb 是 (shi) is optional?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你的生日是什么时候？ (Ni de shengri shi shen me shi hou?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你的生日什么时候？ (Ni de shengri shen me shi hou?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which of those two sentence used more?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11371" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-14T20:46:14.990" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T14:45:40.640" Title="Do I have to include 是 in 你的生日(是)什么时候？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3642" CreationDate="2016-01-12T01:34:58.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't forget &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没问题 No problem&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可以撒 sure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走起 sure, let's go&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;:D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12067" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T01:34:58.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16931" CreationDate="2016-01-12T05:07:15.317" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;你的生日是什麼時候?&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;(When is your birthday?) is the proper way to propose a question.&#xA;&lt;em&gt;你(的)生日什麼時候?&lt;/em&gt; is gramatically incorrect but seldom heard when speaking for shortness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &#xA;&lt;em&gt;你(的)生日是哪一天?&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;(What day is your birthday?)&#xA;and, &lt;em&gt;你什麼時候生日?&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;are frequently used for asking about birthdays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These can also be used in many other occations. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;你什麼時候出去的?&lt;/em&gt; (When did you get out?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;你們什麼時候要走(=離開,出發)?&lt;/em&gt; (When are you guys going to leave?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are really colloquial way to speak&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll take the last one when speaking :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12473" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-14T20:51:05.053" LastActivityDate="2016-02-14T20:51:05.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16935" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16949" CreationDate="2016-01-12T10:58:37.810" Score="0" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've struggled with this for a while, and I haven't found a definitive answer. In English we can use 'should' to indicate an estimation or probability.&#xA;Merriam-Websters 4th definition is that should&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is used in auxiliary function to express what is probable or expected&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He should be here by 7PM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should have it done by Friday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should run in Windows 95.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use 应该 but it feels wrong since there is no sense of obligation or demand, whereas there is such a connotation in &amp;quot;should&amp;quot;. What should I use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T23:17:27.743" Title="Translating &quot;should&quot; to express what is probable or expected" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16936" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16940" CreationDate="2016-01-12T11:03:31.383" Score="0" ViewCount="357" Body="&lt;p&gt;I mostly hear 增添 in most contexts, but lately have come across 新增 and 添加. What are the differences in tone and register?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T20:42:19.437" Title="To add: which should I use 新增, 添加or增添?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16884" CreationDate="2016-01-12T16:55:15.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Specifically for the character &quot;兑&quot;, the top two strokes are a corrupted form of 八 , which in this case symbolizes air coming out of one's mouth.  The character &quot;兑&quot; is an early form of &quot;悅&quot;, which means happiness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most characters can be classified as Pictographs (象形), Ideograms (指事), Compound-ideograph (會意) or Phono-semantic (形聲). By definition, compound-ideographs are composed by adding two different components to directly infer their meaning.  For an example, 林, composed of two 木, which means a forest. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, attempting to understand Chinese by decomposing them into their respective parts only makes sense for compound-ideograph characters. Unfortunately, compound ideograph characters are only a fraction of the frequent Chinese characters in use.  (&quot;兑&quot; is, unfortunately, a pictograph)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, many commonly-used Chinese characters take forms and meanings that are many degrees removed from their etymology. Normal people don't learn how to speak and write daily English by learning Latin and Germanic roots, so learning the etymology of Chinese characters would likely be overkill for mastering proficient use of the modern language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI, simply for the sake of correctness, many online sources claiming to explain Chinese character etymology is unreliable and rooted in folk etymology to propagate certain beliefs or religion, such as confucious beliefs or falun gong.  For example, many such websites would explain the character &quot;王&quot; by quoting the Confucious saying &quot;a ruler is the person who can connect the heaven, the people and the ground&quot; (一貫三為王).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, oracle carvings from ~1500BC indicate that &quot;王&quot; is a pictograph for an axe.  Confucious is from ~500BC.  Chinese characters are far from as &quot;deep&quot; as some propagandish websites would lead you to believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, most native users wouldn't care about the etymology anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11447" LastEditorUserId="11447" LastEditDate="2016-01-12T17:14:29.940" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T17:14:29.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1420" CreationDate="2016-01-12T17:36:39.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我一个北京的朋友居然在上中文入门这门课！&#xA;One of my friends from Beijing is taking Chinese 101! [It doesn't make any sense!]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;code&gt;It doesn't make any sense!&lt;/code&gt; means that you think he's crazy, then you could say &lt;code&gt;有病!&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;code&gt;It doesn't make any sense!&lt;/code&gt; means that you are puzzled by his intentions, then you could say &lt;code&gt;真耐人尋味&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;code&gt;It doesn't make any sense!&lt;/code&gt; literally means that you cannot understand why he's doing it, then you could say &lt;code&gt;真的叫我無法了解&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11447" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T17:36:39.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16896" CreationDate="2016-01-12T18:22:46.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Colloquially, it is also possible to say 多半, as in 多半的時間.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9824" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T18:22:46.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16936" CreationDate="2016-01-12T20:42:19.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;These words are very similar in meaning. There are some more variants like 添加，加添，添增……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新增 is generally used in the sense of &quot;add a new feature&quot;, often in the context of software. However, it can also substitute for other variants of &quot;add&quot;. It puts more emphasis on the fact that something has changed, rather than what has been added.&#xA;新增 is often used as an adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;增加 tends to be used with things that can be expressed in numbers, like money, weight and so on. 增添 is more commonly used for more abstract things like content or effort. However, it's not &lt;em&gt;wrong&lt;/em&gt; to switch them around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;添加 seems a bit more formal, more likely to appear in written language. It's often used for sentences like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;牙膏中添加少量的氟化物&#xA;some fluoride is added to toothpaste&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... and other food-related expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T20:42:19.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16941" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16943" CreationDate="2016-01-12T20:54:44.107" Score="0" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is as the title. I have seen both versions as the Chinese equivalent of &quot;toenail&quot;. Which one is correct? Or are both right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T01:08:22.963" Title="Which version is correct, 脚趾甲 or 脚指甲?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16941" CreationDate="2016-01-12T21:17:49.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“趾甲” is short for &quot;脚趾甲&quot; which is toenail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12482" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T21:17:49.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16941" CreationDate="2016-01-13T01:08:22.963" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 脚趾 and 脚指 mean &lt;em&gt;toe&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/js/8DBE.htm&quot;&gt;趾&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;em&gt;toe&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/xs/6307.htm&quot;&gt;指&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;em&gt;finger&lt;/em&gt;, and historically 脚趾 is the correct term, but because 指 is a homophone and has a very similar meaning, 脚指 is such a common mistake that in modern contexts, it could be considered correct also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this only applies to the 脚趾/脚指 pair; if you only write 指甲, it would mean &quot;fingernail&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T01:08:22.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16944" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-13T02:09:38.597" Score="0" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could not find a better answer to express the red envolope meaning behind Chinese culture. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12067" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-22T00:11:58.220" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T00:11:58.220" Title="What is 抢红包，订阅开奖提醒？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16944" CreationDate="2016-01-13T03:20:35.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;抢红包:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, you can understand &quot;抢红包&quot; like this: many people are scrambling a gift happily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI: usually &quot;red envelope&quot; means a small package with money :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;订阅开奖提醒: you can understand it like this: subscribe it and it will send a notice to you when will begin to 抢红包.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12483" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-01-14T04:24:16.397" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T04:24:16.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16946" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16948" CreationDate="2016-01-13T03:59:10.523" Score="3" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the preparation of the Tangut script for Unicode there seems to be extra added attention on the language, recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tangut being a dead, sinitic language with a script all of its own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the significance of the Tangut language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-01-13T07:04:12.710" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T06:10:46.330" Title="What's the significance of Tangut?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16947" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-13T04:19:23.820" Score="1" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;p&gt;For &quot;Maximum number of active tables per W/W: 4&quot;, is &quot;每位服务生接待已就座餐桌的最大数目：4&quot; correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does &quot;acitve table&quot; mean &quot;the seat is taken&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11703" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-11-05T13:19:11.067" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T13:19:11.067" Title="Proper translation for &quot;active table&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16946" CreationDate="2016-01-13T05:02:10.860" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No other significance than being a historical language and script of interest to academia. As such, it has a given role in Unicode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T05:02:10.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16935" CreationDate="2016-01-13T07:18:41.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, you can use 应该. However, as Stan says in comments, it does carry the connotation that there is some reason why it &quot;should&quot; be. So, for example, you could say a sentence like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[要是他六点离开了，]他应该七点到。&#xA;[If he has left at six, ] he should be here at seven.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're just throwing out an estimate, it would be better to use an &quot;I think...&quot; construction. This carries less of a tone of uncertainty than it does in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我认为我周五会把这个任务办好。&#xA;I think I'll have it done by/on friday.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T07:18:41.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16935" CreationDate="2016-01-13T16:23:43.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/16949/5714&quot;&gt;The other answer&lt;/a&gt; mostly covered it, but I'd like to offer some additional comments. Firstly, note that 应该 can be used to indicate obligation. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你应该每晚刷牙 (&lt;em&gt;You should brush your teeth every night.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least to me, there is a certain ambiguity to &quot;should&quot;: depending on the context, the emphasis may be more on what is &lt;em&gt;likely&lt;/em&gt; (e.g. to use your examples: &lt;em&gt;He should be here by 7PM.&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;It should run in Windows 95.&lt;/em&gt;) than on &lt;em&gt;obligation&lt;/em&gt; (e.g. &lt;em&gt;I should have it done by Friday.&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; Thus, only &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; of your examples of &quot;should&quot; are about &quot;what is probable or expected&quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also the case with 应该, even when a time-frame (in the future) is specified:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他应该七点到---&lt;em&gt;He should be here at 7.&lt;/em&gt; This reads as a statement about likelihood to me.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你应该星期五之前处理了这件事---&lt;em&gt;You should deal with this matter before Friday.&lt;/em&gt; This indicates obligation to me, similar to my first example.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我应该星期五之前处理了这件事---&lt;em&gt;I should deal with this matter before Friday.&lt;/em&gt; I get the sense that the focus is more on probability, without further context.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When obligation (as opposed to simple expectation) should be &quot;read in&quot; seems to depend on context. For the most part, however, I would be comfortable saying that 应该 can generally work as a translation for &quot;should&quot;, at least in the most obvious examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The issue of which uses of &quot;should&quot; have which connotations is interesting, but that's an English-language question.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T16:41:35.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16944" CreationDate="2016-01-13T22:42:05.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did a little research and found this on &amp;quot;Chinese wikipedia&amp;quot;, and translated it for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Giving out 红包 is a Chinese convention during New year (Festival). In China the color red stands for joy, luck and happiness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Giving out 红包 to someone (usually 18-) means bringing luck and wish to them. And the money in it is only to make kids happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is the original article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;派&amp;quot;红包&amp;quot;是华人新年的一种习俗，华人喜爱红色，因为红色象征活力、愉快与好运。&#xA;派发红包给未成年的晚辈（根据华人的观念，已婚者就算成年），是表示把祝愿和好运带给他们。红包里的钱，只是要让孩子们开心，其主要意义是在红纸，因为它象征好运。因此，在分派红包的长辈面前打开红包，是不礼貌的做法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12489" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T04:23:38.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16955" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-14T00:06:46.043" Score="0" ViewCount="675" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to be able to say something along the line of: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;just because she has a boyfriend doesn't mean she can't focus in school.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12327" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T07:40:37.463" Title="How to translate the phrase &quot;just because . . . it doesn't mean that...&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-01-28T14:24:14.193" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16955" CreationDate="2016-01-14T01:23:59.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a translation close enough for your purposes probably:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;她有了男朋友不代表她上课不专心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4680" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T01:23:59.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16955" CreationDate="2016-01-14T01:26:31.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two ways to translate this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不要仅因为&lt;/strong&gt;......&lt;strong&gt;就代表/觉得/是/意味着）&lt;/strong&gt;......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不要仅因为她谈男朋友了，就觉得她不会将心思放在学习上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just because, translated to &quot;不要仅因为&quot;，we put the negative &quot;doesn't mean&quot; ahead in Chinese grammer. &quot;that&quot; can be translated to &quot;就觉得，就代表&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;仅仅/只是&lt;/strong&gt;......&lt;strong&gt;并不意味着&lt;/strong&gt;......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她只是谈了男朋友，并不代表她不会将心思花在学业上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the literal translation. But it also makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12067" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T01:26:31.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16955" CreationDate="2016-01-14T05:41:51.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;儘管(雖然 etc.)。。。。不代表（不表示 etc.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儘管她有男朋友，不代表她不能專注學業&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastEditorUserId="9326" LastEditDate="2016-01-14T07:40:37.463" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T07:40:37.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16959" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16961" CreationDate="2016-01-14T18:42:58.060" Score="7" ViewCount="1150" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many words in Cantonese which I think should be pronounced as b, d, g, are translated by the British to p, t, k, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a place in Hong Kong called 大埔 and is pronounced as Dai Bo in Cantonese, but translated to Tai Po in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are lots of similar examples, to list just a few:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The surname 郭 is Gwok in Cantonese but translated to Kwok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;芒角 (Mong Gok) translated to Mong Kok.... etc. etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the b d g in Cantonese are not the same as b d g in Englilsh, and that's why the British preferred to call 大埔 Tai Po instead of Dai Bo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know linguistics. Any linguist here can tell me why? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastEditorUserId="9326" LastEditDate="2016-01-19T04:16:51.393" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T04:16:51.393" Title="b and p, d and t, k and g etc. in English and Cantonese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1420" CreationDate="2016-01-14T19:23:20.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best translation depends on the specific language context because 'make sense' has broader meaning than its Chinese counterparts: 有道理，说得通，靠谱……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this particular example in your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my friends from Beijing is taking Chinese 101! [It doesn't make any sense!]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一个北京的朋友居然在上中文入门这门课！[&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;开什么玩笑啊！&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6288" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T19:23:20.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16959" CreationDate="2016-01-14T19:27:40.847" Score="18" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Voicing and Aspiration&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stop consonants can fall into the following categories (roughly):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Voiced&lt;/strong&gt; stops: Vocal chords start vibrating before stop is released. E.g., English &quot;b&quot; as in &quot;bat&quot; (/bæt/ in IPA), French &quot;b&quot; as in &quot;bon&quot; = /bɔ̃/.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Unvoiced unaspirated&lt;/strong&gt; stops: Vocal chords start vibrating almost exactly when stop is released. E.g., Chinese &quot;b&quot; as in &quot;bu&quot; = /pu/, English &quot;p&quot; after &quot;s&quot; as in &quot;spit&quot; = /spɪt/, French &quot;p&quot; as &quot;pain&quot; = /pɛ̃/.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Unvoiced aspirated&lt;/strong&gt; stops: Vocal chords start vibrating a bit after stop is released. You can feel a puff of air at that time. E.g., English initial &quot;p&quot; as in &quot;poop&quot; = /pʰuːp/; Chinese &quot;p&quot; as in &quot;pu&quot; = /pʰu/.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used b/p/pʰ as an example, but it's analogous for d/t/tʰ and g/k/kʰ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Languages and Voicing/Aspiration Distinctions&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing you might have noticed from the examples I gave is that different languages treat these differently. Roughly speaking, we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; (Mandarin and many other dialects) has &lt;em&gt;no voiced stops&lt;/em&gt;. It distinguishes between aspirated and unaspirated unvoiced stops (&lt;strong&gt;p vs pʰ&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;French&lt;/strong&gt; (and many European languages) has &lt;em&gt;no aspirated stops&lt;/em&gt;. It distinguishes between voiced and unvoiced-unaspirated stops (&lt;strong&gt;b vs p&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;English&lt;/strong&gt; (in its initial stops at least) distinguishes between voiced and unvoiced-aspirated (&lt;strong&gt;b vs pʰ&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This generally works out well for English speakers. Many English-native learners of Chinese or French never even learn anything about voicing or aspiration. b/pʰ are close enough to both b/p and p/pʰ that there's rarely any difficulties introduced by this when English speakers are interacting with French or Chinese people (in whatever language). On the other hand, this works out &lt;em&gt;terribly&lt;/em&gt; for, e.g., French speakers and Chinese speakers interacting with one another. b/p both sound like p to a Chinese speaker, and p/pʰ both sound like p to a French speaker. Hilarity may ensue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Voicing, Aspiration, and Romanization&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The International Phonetic Alphabet was first developed in Paris. This makes sense when you look at the symbols used: b/p/pʰ. I can imagine the thought process: &lt;em&gt;/b/ and /p/ are just so different sounding that they need different symbols, right? And /pʰ/ is some bizarre aberration, so no biggie if you need a super-script to write that.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyhow,the people developing romanizations for Chinese stuck with that convention. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade%E2%80%93Giles&quot;&gt;Wade-Giles&lt;/a&gt; system writes &lt;strong&gt;/p/ as p and /pʰ/ as p'&lt;/strong&gt;. That is, &lt;strong&gt;the letter &quot;b&quot; never gets used for anything&lt;/strong&gt;! This may strike you as a poor choice. I would tend to agree. People always throw away the apostrophes, and then it's impossible to tell how something is supposed to be pronounced. Thankfully Pinyin fixed this (&lt;strong&gt;/p/ is b and /pʰ/ is p&lt;/strong&gt;), but there's still plenty of places you see the older systems, like surnames (e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_(surname)&quot;&gt;Chang vs Zhang&lt;/a&gt;) and place names (e.g., Peking, Chunking, etc.). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T19:27:40.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16868" CreationDate="2016-01-15T10:13:54.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;校车来了 means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the school bus is arrived and stayed here, you can take in this bus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;校车来着 and 校车正来 means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the school bus is coming soon, but you must wait a minute ,until the bus come to your location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12494" LastActivityDate="2016-01-15T10:13:54.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16963" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16964" CreationDate="2016-01-15T16:58:33.977" Score="6" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to better understand the use of 吧 in a sentence where I am asking a question. For example, could the particle be used in the following way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是你的咖啡吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that the particle would imply that the person asking the question already assumes that the coffee belongs to the person he is asking, and so the question is not entirely open-ended. Something like, &quot;This is your coffee, right?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my understanding correct here? Also, does this construction affect the politeness of the phrasing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12493" LastEditorUserId="4709" LastEditDate="2016-01-19T19:00:02.813" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T19:00:02.813" Title="Proper use of 吧 in questions" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;&lt;yes-no-questions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16963" CreationDate="2016-01-15T21:07:43.813" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes &lt;code&gt;吧&lt;/code&gt; is used at the end of a question when you already assume the statement to be true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(modal particle indicating suggestion or surmise)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas had you ended the question with ma (t: 嗎, s: 吗) then it is just a question, no assumption behind it, you are asking because you honestly have no clue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References: &lt;a href=&quot;http://cdict.net/?q=%E5%90%A7,%E5%97%8E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://cdict.net/?q=吧,嗎&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the politeness level of 吧, while it is certainly non-formal, it is not inherently impolite.  Even in English, &lt;code&gt;This is yours, right?&lt;/code&gt; is not necessarily offensive or impolite, probably depends on the situation. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;positive: someone may have been looking for their misplaced coffee and would be delighted to hear you bring their coffee and say &lt;code&gt;This is yours, right?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;negative: On the other hand if I point to an unwanted piece of litter on the ground and say to you &lt;code&gt;This is yours, right?&lt;/code&gt;, I'm accusing you of being a litterbug, so it is a slightly different story.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Recommendation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not particularly impolite, but if for some reason conveying that you assume something, will somehow come across as rudeness on your part, then instead of &lt;code&gt;ba&lt;/code&gt;, use &lt;code&gt;ma&lt;/code&gt; (t: 嗎, s: 吗)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11759" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-01-15T21:14:26.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16963" CreationDate="2016-01-16T07:51:15.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are right:&#xA;for more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是你的咖啡吧？More casual tone,used between friends.here &quot;吧&quot; can be replaced with &quot;咯&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是你的咖啡吗？maybe usually，&quot;吗” used between 2 strangers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12499" LastActivityDate="2016-01-16T07:51:15.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16839" CreationDate="2016-01-16T11:41:26.490" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @sis say, this sentence comes from Weibo (Chinese use it instead of Twitter). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吓死宝宝了means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Oh My God &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yeah , maybe you can understand .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12494" LastActivityDate="2016-01-16T11:41:26.490" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1847" CreationDate="2016-01-16T19:57:38.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please think: as a native speaker of English (or maybe some other languages), how often do you forget how to spell a word? I guess that situation hardly happens. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I seldom forget how to write characters. If I do forget, I would look it up with phones, computers or dictionaries, or ask someone around. If I can do none of these, I tend to write a character which looks similar, and try to use that as an aid to recall. If that doesn't work either (which is very unlikely to happen), I will write Pinyin, or just find a synonym to replace the word, or try to rewrite the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When one forgets how to write it, he/she does not have totally no clue about it. Usually it happens when a character is infrequent and has seldom used parts. A common example would be 嚏 in the word 喷嚏 (sneeze). This character is only used in this word, and consist of an extremely uncommon part 疐. Thus, many people may forget how to write it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12501" LastActivityDate="2016-01-16T19:57:38.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16929" CreationDate="2016-01-17T17:37:24.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;However, different meanings in different contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=-56CYh16l71j-oYkn1nWF5zUuRneEzGzhLSn7AQHmOBHQxVsegCB4cAYL9yDQEIEW8SAdxXgbUmixEa3_gKW-q#2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;，there are four meanings about &quot;月日&quot;. But in my opinion, it would be explained in five ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)moon and son&#xA;It is understood easily and Literally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)the day you choose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;辑五瑞，择吉月日，见四岳诸牧，还瑞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate into English:&#xA;Shun collected the Wurui. Then he chose a good day to meet the offcials and return the Wurui.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=qfelnaPkqEOVs2TpHMzkrvsEVs4uf7i6mineGEFUeFlruGog2Gpq0jy7d7E2Nz26r8_D24BGDsLhqNKNMv_p4K#1_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;五瑞(Wurui)&quot; is a thing that offcials would like to wear in ancient.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3)a couple of days&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;伏念臣自蒙恩，改授京官，到今七年，除持服月日外，亦以四年馀两个月。——《求追赠考妣状》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate into English：&#xA;Under grace, I have appointed as government official for seven years now. Apart from the time of observe mourning, there are four years and two months。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4)one month &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自史太公死后，又早过了三四个月日。——《水浒传》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate into English：&#xA;It has been three or four months, when Shi was dead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/143/313365.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Old man is referred to &quot;太公&quot; in ancient.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5)describe time is short&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shici8.com/article_17480.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;羣小无知，，故求全月日之命耳。——《魏书·王建传》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate into English:&#xA;We are weak, and afraid that we will be killed like the people of Canhepo. So we just want to save our short lifes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking of &quot;惶恐百拜&quot;, the phrase was usually divided into two phrases &quot;惶恐&quot; and &quot;百拜&quot;, and was used to show your respect for recipient in letter. You can check this article &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.docin.com/p-791686610.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《上海图书馆藏明代尺牍》书信用语研究&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-8&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;tn=93899312_hao_pg&amp;amp;wd=%E9%A1%BF%E9%A6%96%E7%99%BE%E6%8B%9C&amp;amp;oq=%E4%B8%B4%E7%AC%94%E6%83%B6%E6%81%90%2C%E9%A1%BF%E9%A6%96%E7%99%BE%E6%8B%9C!&amp;amp;rsv_pq=bfb5fc62001236a1&amp;amp;rsv_t=4e44wuEphb2rXkfRR3T7G4Q5oFBtckbHfTwHYrnBHMTf8CvzPmTCy4r%2F1ljwsuw%2FDCoKXFXR&amp;amp;rsv_enter=0&amp;amp;inputT=1283&amp;amp;bs=%E4%B8%B4%E7%AC%94%E6%83%B6%E6%81%90%2C%E9%A1%BF%E9%A6%96%E7%99%BE%E6%8B%9C!&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;and also could find &quot;顿首百拜&quot; in many questions&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;惶恐&quot; shows you feel anxious because you afraid of disturbing the recipient. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;百拜&quot; doesn't mean &quot;bow a hundred times&quot; anyway. It looks like &quot;Yours sincerely&quot; and &quot;Best regards&quot; in letter in English. It shows your respect for recipient in the end of the letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2016-01-17T17:37:24.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16277" CreationDate="2016-01-18T05:40:08.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a related on, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-hybrid_screening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;yeast two hybrid system&lt;/a&gt;, which is 酵母菌双杂合系统. So your answer should be 哺乳动物双杂合系统 in simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T05:40:08.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16929" CreationDate="2016-01-18T05:55:25.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;月日 may have different meanings in different context. I guess it just means date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal meaning of 惶恐百拜 is I bow down to your repeatedly with full of fear, but it is just a way to show the respect and submission to someone has a higher rank such as the emperor, your boss or your teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T05:55:25.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16959" CreationDate="2016-01-18T06:04:56.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree on the answer from Stumpy Joe Pete, and I want to add some points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both Cantonese and Mandarin, there's no voiced consonants and only voiceless consonants. So 大埔 should indeed be Tai Po.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, in Wu Chinese, it has both voiced and voiceless consonants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T06:04:56.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16946" CreationDate="2016-01-18T06:10:46.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tangut language is believe to be close to Tibetan, while the writing system of it was a mimic of Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tangut people are believed to be massacred by Mongolian invaders and the rest of them, if there is any, are believed to conceal their national identity and eventually become a part of other ethnic groups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The importance of Tangut language is purely of academia, as it's a dead language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T06:10:46.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16931" CreationDate="2016-01-18T06:14:53.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I must say the answer provided by user12473 is not &quot;colloquial&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For asking the birthday, you can say 你什么时候生日, 你生日什么时候, 你什么时候过生日, 你生日在什么时候. Note that there's no use of 的 in colloquial language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T06:14:53.537" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16695" CreationDate="2016-01-18T16:14:43.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference would be the degree of correctness. Certain words must have no citation. Certain words must have.  And certain words are in between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you come to China, you will hear correct version and wrong version as well based on what province, what city you are. The reason is 1/ oral language is free style. 2/ dialect influence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on what you give, I'll give you a reference to what Beijing people are speaking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;队伍, 成分4, 身分4, 才力4, 亮堂, 好处4, 种子, 妥当4, 爽快4, 痛快4, 记性, 出息4, 佩服, 分析1, 哈欠,&#xA;  寒毛2*, 活泼1, 鼻涕4, 道理3, 滑稽, 考究4, 讲究4, 打算4, 正经3*, 裁缝, 得罪4, 意识 (and also意识&#xA;  形态4), 熟识2, 见识2, 体谅4, 兴趣4, [东/西/南/前/后/那/上/下/头/里/外/左/右]边1, 知道4, 父亲1 and&#xA;  困难4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Only number - it's ok to have that citation  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With * - It must have the citation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take &lt;code&gt;正经&lt;/code&gt; for example, I would never ignore the citation on the tail. I won't understand it if the tail is not in 3rd tone. The 3rd citation tone must apply here. It means &quot;serious, gentleman, not-fooling-around&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take &lt;code&gt;成分&lt;/code&gt; for example, it's ok if you give no tone to the tail but even you say you give no tone, there is still a bit of 4th tone, just not quite as strong as normal. So does all the so-called neutral tone at tail like &lt;code&gt;&quot;好吧，吃了，没了，呆着&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12510" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T16:14:43.500" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16983" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16984" CreationDate="2016-01-18T22:10:23.490" Score="4" ViewCount="3068" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the United States, I was taught a geographical scheme comprising seven continents:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Africa (非洲), Antarctica (南极洲), Asia (亚洲), Australia (澳洲), Europe (欧洲), North America (北美洲), and South America (南美洲).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do people in mainland China perceive the world continents? It seems quite different. For example, I have the impression that Oceania (大洋洲) dominates over Australia, while the subdivision of the Americas varies by model.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12377" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T02:08:43.083" Title="What are the continents according to Chinese schemes?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16983" CreationDate="2016-01-19T02:08:43.083" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Geographically, Chinese people say seven continents, as you listed above, except Oceania(大洋洲), which stands for Australasia and almost all small islands in Pacific ocean. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T02:08:43.083" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16985" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16987" CreationDate="2016-01-19T04:44:08.337" Score="5" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;Certainly 同调代数 means the mathematical subject of homological algebra.  But different sources disagree as to whether the first two characters in that sense of the term are pronounced tóngtiáo or tóngdiào.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact I have mostly seen the characters with no pinyin, including on zh.wikipedia, and I have not spoken with Chinese mathematicians about it.  The term is not in my paper dictionaries.  Google translate and perapera both give tóngdiào.  But Wenlin (using the ABC dictionary) gives tóngtiáo for &quot;homology&quot; without specifying the mathematical sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is it?  Since seeing the comments below, I take the Baidu entry with pinyin as authoritative for tóngdiào.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-01-19T11:07:16.410" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T16:25:50.590" Title="How to pronounce 调 in 同调代数?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16985" CreationDate="2016-01-19T04:54:34.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will pronounce it as 同tong2 調diao4 代dai4 數shu4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T04:54:34.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16985" CreationDate="2016-01-19T16:25:50.590" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;同调 pronounces as: tóng diào, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/c/39/89550.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;reference&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) [same tone]∶音调相同&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) [person with same common purpose or taste]∶比喻志趣或主张相同的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11095" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T16:25:50.590" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16988" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16990" CreationDate="2016-01-19T22:38:15.030" Score="10" ViewCount="1405" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both characters mean &lt;code&gt;night&lt;/code&gt;, also when they are together, when is it better to use each character ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Beautiful night: 美丽的夜 can be rephrased to 美丽的晚 ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Good night: 晚安 to 夜安 ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1130" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2016-01-20T09:36:25.353" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T09:36:25.353" Title="What is the difference between 夜(yè) and 晚 (wǎn)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16988" CreationDate="2016-01-19T23:11:45.440" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;晚 itself means &lt;strong&gt;late&lt;/strong&gt;, and it doesn't mean night, like 晚霞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 夜晚， 晚上，晚间 mean &lt;strong&gt;night&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;beautiful night&quot; is 美丽的夜 or 美丽的夜晚，not 美丽的晚。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However in some words the character 晚 does mean night, that is because it is kind of abbreviation, like 晚安, 晚饭, 晚会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In regard to when to use 晚 and when to use 夜, there is no hard rule for that. There is no scientific explanation for why one is chosen over another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T23:11:45.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16988" CreationDate="2016-01-20T00:40:02.420" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Originally,  晚 could be written as 莫 (in ancient form): 艹（草, grass）+ 日 (sun), referring to when the sun is below the grass -- sunset. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese, we can understand or memorize it in this way: 日 (sun) + 免 (cancel), without the sun, sunset.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then its meaning extends to night and evening. &lt;strong&gt;So 晚 does mean night and evening, and they are its original meanings!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally, 夜 could be written as 亱 (in ancient form): house (dot + horizontal) people (人, Throw away + vertical) + day (旦), referring to (people, sun) stop and rest. It means the time period from dusk till dawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as 晚，its meaning extends to night and evening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;晚 is more focused on &quot;being late&quot; (at night or in the evening), which is later used as &quot;late&quot;.&#xA;夜 is more focused on &quot;dark and dusk&quot; (at night or in the evening).&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, “夜晚” can be understood in 2 ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) in Modern Chinese, night or evening, together as a noun; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) as noun+adj: the night/evening is late → the time at night is late. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/xs/665A.htm&quot;&gt;晚 means:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Noun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) (形声。从日,免声。本义:傍晚;黄昏)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 同本义 [evening]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚,莫也。——《说文》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚,暮也。——《广韵》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四时失序,则辰星作异。…政急则出蚤,政缓则出晚。——《汉书·李寻传》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一屠晚归。——《聊斋志异·狼三则》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) 又如:晚曦(晚霞);晚夕(傍晚,晚上);晚半天儿(晚夕,晚晌,晚间,晚上);晚钟(傍晚的钟声);晚寒(傍晚的寒气);晚晴;晚饷(晚餐);晚阴(傍晚时的阴霾);晚来(傍晚) [evening]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) 夜晚 [night] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚星没。——庾信《对烛赋》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) 又如:晚吹(夜晚的风);晚头(晚上);晚月(夜月);晚炬(夜间的火炬);晚漏(晚更);晚魄(月亮);晚逻(夜间巡逻) [night] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(6) 晚年 [old age;one’s later years]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚出榆关逐北征,惊沙飞迸冲貂袍。—— 温庭筠《塞寒行》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(7) 又如:晚运(晚年。运指时期);晚涂(晚年);晚境(晚年的境遇;晚年);晚悟(晚年觉悟) [old age;one’s later years]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(8) 秋季 [antumn]。如:晚菘(秋末冬初的大白菜);晚造(秋季作物);晚果(秋天成熟的果实);晚热(秋天的炎热)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(9) 旧时官场后辈对前辈、下级对上级称晚生,简言曰晚。多用于书信 [pupil (often self-reference in writing or speaking to teacher)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恕治晚不能躬送了。——《儒林外史》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(10) 时间靠后。属于或关于时间上或发展上的后期阶段的 [late;far on in time]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兴尽晚归舟。——宋· 李清照《如梦令》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事之晚矣。——《资治通鉴·汉纪》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;土气有早晚。——宋· 沈括《梦溪笔谈》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(11) 又如:晚唐;晚父;晚母(后母;继母);晚爷(后父);晚妻(后续之妻);晚嫁(再嫁);晚伯母(伯父后来续娶的妻子);晚进(后进;后辈);晚婆(晚娘,继母) [late;far on in time]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Adj.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 迟,在规定的、通常的或恰当的时间以后来的或做的 [late]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大器晚成。——《老子》四十一章  Chapter 41.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 又如:晚达(显达较迟);晚日(近日;最近几天);晚歇(〈方〉∶过一会儿);晚转身(〈方〉∶第二次嫁人);晚客;晚茶(迟采摘的茶叶);晚麦(迟熟的麦);晚代(近世);晚禾(晚稻);晚甲(迟发的芽)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) 衰;老 [old]。如:晚叶(晚年;老叶);晚谬(年老昏愦);晚暮(年老)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/xs/591C.htm&quot;&gt;夜 means:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Noun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) (形声。金文字形。从月,亦声。本义:从天黑到天亮的时间) [Origin: The time interval from dusk till dawn]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 同本义 [night]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夜,舍也。天下休舍也。——《说文》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夜,暮也。——《广雅》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨夜见军帖。——《乐府诗集·木兰诗》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三日三夜。——《世说新语·自新》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) 又如:夜游子(爱在晚上游荡的人);夜里个(昨天);夜合钱(妓女接客所收的报酬);夜行人(夜间秘密行事的人,如盗贼、侠客之类);夜不收(夜间侦探;亦指夜晚淫乐者);夜叉婆(凶暴貌丑的女人);夜消(夜宵);夜里(昨天晚上);夜台(长夜台。墓穴);夜夫(更夫);夜漫漫(黑夜漫长。喻指苦难的岁月);。又如:夜艾(夜深深);夜永(夜深);夜定(指夜深人静之时) [night]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) 黄昏,天黑 [dusk]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;岂不夙夜?谓行多露。——《诗·召南·行露》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行者怏怏自退,看看日色早已夜了。便道此时将暗,也寻不见师父,不如把几面镜子细看一回。——《西游补》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) 凌晨,天快要亮的时候 [in the small hours;before dawn]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;郑玄注:“夜,夜漏未尽鸡鸣时也。”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Adj. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 晦暝,幽暗 [dim;dusky]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是故索物于夜室者,莫良于火;索道于当世者,莫良于典。——《潜夫论》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 又如:夜室(黑暗的房间;墓穴);夜台(夜庭。坟墓。亦借指阴间);夜府(犹夜台,墓穴)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11095" LastEditorUserId="2600" LastEditDate="2016-01-20T05:21:08.450" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T05:21:08.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16991" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-20T02:00:29.290" Score="2" ViewCount="2390" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was making an omelette and I dropped an egg on the floor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I said &quot;Oops!&quot; because of my mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#en/zh-CN/oops&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Is Chinese &quot;哎呀&quot; (Āiyā) the&lt;/a&gt; nearest equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I gather, 哎呀 seems like a &quot;sound word&quot; -- by which I mean you may not see &quot;哎&quot; or &quot;呀&quot; used in other words - they are really used as exclamations or interjections, and they are very instinctive , knee-jerk reactions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other Chinese expressions someone might shout if they made a mistake?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest, I probably said &quot;shit&quot; or &quot;damn&quot;, so I wonder if there are a list of Chinese interjections , some mild (&quot;oops!&quot;) and some more profane (&quot;fuck!&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Though I suppose it would be obvious if I saw someone drop an egg and shout in Chinese -- even if I never heard it before!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6139" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T23:52:37.003" Title="How to say &quot;Oops&quot;; or other exclamation/interjection you might say if you make a mistake" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16991" CreationDate="2016-01-20T02:22:13.227" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no exact equivalent of the English &quot;oops&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is mostly because &quot;oops&quot; is a special English word, with an uncertain etymology but &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/q/154820/39857&quot;&gt;one theory is that it derives from &quot;upsy-daisy&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. It is special because it is only used to express a mistake; I think you'll find that many other languages also don't have an exact equivalent of &quot;oops&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I think you are right that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%93%8E%E5%91%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;哎呀&lt;/a&gt; is a close equivalent, but unlike &quot;oops&quot; it can be used to express general surprise, and it is onomatopoeic. Other related words that people can utter include the shorter &quot;呀&quot; or the longer &quot;哎呀妈呀&quot;, depending on region and/or severity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, obviously there are many Chinese curse words that can be used to express &quot;oops&quot;, similar to English words like &quot;shit&quot; or &quot;damn&quot;. I won't list them because there are so many, and I'm sure many regional variants that I don't know of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:38:11.437" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T02:22:13.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16991" CreationDate="2016-01-20T04:46:06.493" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sichuanese does have an equivalent of oops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;哦呵(儿)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;成都话方言词典&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sichuanese pinyin: o3 ho4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pronunciation: [o⁵³ xo²¹³]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;叹词。表惊异或惋惜 ▷～! 新盆子打烂了!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;interjection. diplays astonishment or regret ▷oops! (I) broke the new wash basin!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I, personally, prefer the 儿化 pronunciation which would be something like: o4 her3 in mandarin pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be written a lot of different ways, but that's not important here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T04:46:06.493" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16994" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16995" CreationDate="2016-01-20T21:50:19.630" Score="1" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a TV series title I've been watching recently. Maybe closing the eyes is an idiom that I don't understand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11860" LastEditorUserId="11860" LastEditDate="2016-01-22T17:39:24.080" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T22:37:33.090" Title="what is the meaning of &quot;他来了请闭眼&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16994" CreationDate="2016-01-20T22:13:04.943" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the idiom is adapted from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%80%E6%89%8B_(%E6%B8%B8%E6%88%8F)&quot;&gt;Chinese version&lt;/a&gt; of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_(party_game)&quot;&gt;Mafia (party game)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Players close their eyes &quot;at night&quot;. &#xA;In the Chinese version of the game, it's &quot;天黑了请闭眼&quot; (It's dark, please close your eyes (waiting for something to happen next).).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also, I think the expression “他来了请闭眼” (He comes, please close your eyes (waiting for something to happen next).) contains elements of burlesque or joke. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11095" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T22:13:04.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16928" CreationDate="2016-01-21T04:11:53.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel &quot;漫浪&quot; here is something similar to &quot;漂泊&quot; (wander in distant travel away from home)。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11095" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T04:11:53.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16997" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16999" CreationDate="2016-01-21T06:25:30.740" Score="1" ViewCount="47" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok folks, I have another asshole section from the text I am working on, Suseongji (Chouchengzhi), by a 16th century Joseon literatus...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This time, this passage is driving me nuts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;攻愁有方。許臣時一中之。不疑於用。謂臣招衆口。爾獨斷於心。遂令薄才。得容海量。敢不勉增淸烈。益播芳芬。杯酒釋兵權。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only bit that is really clear to me is 杯酒釋兵權。but the general context is that a General Malt (e.g. alcohol) is addressing the 天君 (e.g. the mind) so maybe there are some jokes I don't understand...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'There is a method for attacking/defeating/overcoming sorrows. Permit me to pick a time and at once go inside of it [the Citadel of Sorrows] (許臣時一中之), and “do not doubt those you use” (不疑於用). This is to say that though I have been much-criticised (謂臣招衆口), you alone made the judgement [about me] in your mind. It follows that when you order someone of inferior talent to contain the ocean (i.e. do as much as they can), they are so daring/presumptuous that they do not strive...增淸烈。益播芳芬。'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone can help with this I will be so so grateful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12467" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T10:44:27.817" Title="Another couple of doozies: 許臣時一中之... and 敢不勉增淸烈。益播芳芬。" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16998" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17000" CreationDate="2016-01-21T06:33:22.317" Score="2" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;More from Chouchengzhi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would appreciate thoughts on my translation of the following...my supervisor doesn't like my translation of 得趣 at all! Does it mean something more like 'to get a taste for something'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伏念襄。穀城之種。曹溪之流。王，謝相隨。擅風流於江左。嵇，劉得趣。寄閑情於竹林。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Brew (Yang) is of the genus of Grain Citadel (Gucheng), and the current of Dregs Creek (Caoxi). The Wang and Xie families both followed [the Yang family], and monopolised elegance and civilisation south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze. Xi [Kang] and Liu [Ling] shared a past-time [with the Yang family],  living in seclusion in the bamboo grove.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12467" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T11:23:32.930" Title="The meaning of 得趣...to get a taste for something?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16997" CreationDate="2016-01-21T10:44:27.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;海量 is a pun; a man with the ability to accept others' opinions, and someone who can hold as much liquor as you can pour into him.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;淸烈 also, 'purity of heart' and 'strong white (distilled?) liquor'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;芳芬 also, 'fragrance = a great reputation' and fragrance = 'well fermented booze'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T10:44:27.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16998" CreationDate="2016-01-21T11:23:32.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;得趣 = technical term in Taoism. to find true meaning. Often used for the meaning (or pleasures), that hermits find in their surroundings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朝退常歸隱，真修大隱情。園林應得趣，巖谷自爲名&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where are you getting the Yang family?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T11:23:32.930" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17004" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17005" CreationDate="2016-01-22T00:32:46.707" Score="0" ViewCount="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;四川方言词典&lt;/em&gt; defines 圣谕书 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(名)旧时民间流传的劝人行善，宣扬因果报应的故事书，本为*讲圣谕用的底本，所以称～：屋主人时常惯用小竹片撑开眼睑，坐在下面看～。(祖61)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圣谕书 sounds like an interesting version of &quot;Chinese fables&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm curious as to what the most well known 圣谕书 is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T02:03:59.960" Title="Whats the most well known 圣谕书?" Tags="&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17004" CreationDate="2016-01-22T02:03:59.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Sacred Edict 《聖諭》was first published by order of the Kangxi Emperor in 1670 (there were earlier works, but this was the first with this title). It was published in a revised and expanded version in 1724 by the Yongzheng Emperor called 《聖諭廣訓》There is an article on this in the Chinese Wikipedia.  There is also an article in the English Wikipedia under Sacred Edict of the Kangxi Emperor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Sacred Edict was a 'hortatory' work, meaning it 'urged people to do good' (勸善). There was a whole category of such books called 善書; you can still pick these up at Buddhist or Taoist temples in Taiwan.  I wouldn't call these books of fables, though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T02:03:59.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17006" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17014" CreationDate="2016-01-22T04:08:51.540" Score="4" ViewCount="940" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;If you go after Mandarin, choose the somewhat uncommon GR over pinyin romanization if at all possible. It’s harder to learn at first, but I’ve never met a pinyin learner with tones even half as accurate as a decent GR user. Long story short, this is because tones are indicated by spelling in GR, not by diacritical marks above the syllables.&quot;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://fourhourworkweek.com/2007/11/07/how-to-learn-but-not-master-any-language-in-1-hour-plus-a-favor/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://fourhourworkweek.com/2007/11/07/how-to-learn-but-not-master-any-language-in-1-hour-plus-a-favor/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Chao claimed that, because GR embeds the tone of each syllable in its spelling,[5] it may help students to master Chinese tones. One study however, found the opposite to be true in a study of GR.&quot;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwoyeu_Romatzyh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwoyeu_Romatzyh&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12535" LastEditorUserId="25265" LastEditDate="2020-09-06T08:41:28.183" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T08:41:28.183" Title="What are the advantages / disadvantages for learning tones with Pinyin vs with Gwoyeu Romatzyh?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17007" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17009" CreationDate="2016-01-22T09:40:59.060" Score="0" ViewCount="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;more Joseon dynasty classical Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In the poetry he had written, in the end, there was no attitude of poverty. How was it he never became well-known?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其所爲詩絶無窮態。竟不振。何哉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this make sense? Can it be more loosely translated as this person's poetry was really good, or something like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12467" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T10:13:11.520" Title="&quot;There was no attitude of poverty in his poetry&quot; 絶無窮態" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17006" CreationDate="2016-01-22T10:05:14.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Or maybe look into Bopomofo (aka zhuyin) which is taught in taiwan (so you can find plenty of children's books, dictionaries and computer/smartphone input methods that use it) . it's designed specifically for mandarin pronunciation and lots of people on this forum have said that it helped them with their speaking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4222" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T10:05:14.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17007" CreationDate="2016-01-22T10:13:11.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;穷 shouldn't be taken literally as &lt;em&gt;poverty&lt;/em&gt;, instead, it is figurative &lt;em&gt;exhaustion of one's talent; reaching the limit of one's capability&lt;/em&gt;. Also I am not sure 振 necessarily means &lt;em&gt;becoming well-known&lt;/em&gt;, it could be simply &lt;em&gt;hanging on steadily&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without further context I would interpret the sentence as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The poetry he wrote showed no sign of exhaustion, why didn't he keep going?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T10:13:11.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17010" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17194" CreationDate="2016-01-22T11:16:11.160" Score="-3" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wmakU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wmakU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;characters&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that separately they should mean something like &quot;beauty&quot;, &quot;love&quot;, &quot;friend&quot;, &quot;mad&quot;, but written like this, do they form a sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12544" LastActivityDate="2016-02-16T19:14:16.350" Title="Translation needed for 4 Chinese characters" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2016-02-16T23:24:42.603" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17011" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17033" CreationDate="2016-01-22T11:46:08.943" Score="3" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.outlier-linguistics.com/learning/getting-radical-radicals/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; article, radicals were invented for looking up characters in a dictionary, and didn't exist until after the publication of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.outlier-linguistics.com/shuowen-jiezi-%E8%AA%AA%E6%96%87%E8%A7%A3%E5%AD%97/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Shuōwén Jiězì [說文解字]&lt;/a&gt; (around 100 AD).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it true that radicals were introduced for this purpose, long after many characters already existed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="42" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-01-29T23:15:47.403" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T23:16:55.583" Title="Are radicals a relatively new invention for looking up dictionaries?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17006" CreationDate="2016-01-22T11:52:40.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chao was a genius and a very funny guy.  But pinyin draws on his experience with GR and a lot of other efforts.  Pinyin is a better system.  And of course it is far more widely used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tone marks seem weird to a lot of English speakers -- though of course they are standard in French too -- and used to be a big nuisance to type, on typewriters.  But today they are easy on computers and people should learn to use them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T11:52:40.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17013" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17019" CreationDate="2016-01-22T15:18:12.147" Score="7" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that 景 is written on the Tang-era &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorian_Stele&quot;&gt;Nestorian Stele&lt;/a&gt; with the &quot;boxes&quot; switched, ie. the 口 is above and 日 is below. Would this be a standard way to write the character during that time, or is it an intentional variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Nestorian-Stele-Budge-plate-X.jpg&quot;/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12545" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T02:09:38.680" Title="Why is 景 written &quot;wrong&quot; on the Nestorian Stele?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17006" CreationDate="2016-01-22T16:22:58.717" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, I think too much importance is ascribed to which transcription system is used. Students' ability to distinguish, pronounce and remember tones depends on many factors and the way the tones are written is just a very small part of it. Even if there was a difference between systems, it would probably drown in other factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question of tonal spelling (i.e. including the tonal information in the spelling of the word rather than using diacritics) has actually been researched experimentally. Scott McGinnis (1997)[1] compared two classes taught with either Hanyu Pinyin or Gwoyeu Romatzyh. They were tested on reading tasks and the accuracy of their tonal production was assessed by native speakers. The study found that the Gwoyeu Romatzyh group actually performed worse than the Hanyu Pinyin group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I think the problem is that tones are often treated as something extra, even optional. Not by all, but by far too many. Some teachers don't grade an answer as wrong if the tone is wrong (or left out) but the initial and final are correct, or they don't deduct as many points for tonal errors as they do for spelling errors. Students often ask &quot;do we have to remember the tones too?&quot; and at one point an intermediate student asked me if I was serious when I said that he had to learn all the tones (his tones were terrible and it turned out to be because he had just ignored them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, changing transcription system to Gwoyeu Romatzyh will not help. The little evidence we have suggests that it won't and there's nothing else that suggests that it will. Yes, it's good to treat tone as an integral part of a word, but you can achieve that by consistent and persistent teaching or learning methods instead. Therefore, using Pinyin is the best option since it's by far the most well-spread and accessible system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going off on a tangent, I do think that it's worthwhile for students to learn more than one transcription system after they have already learnt their first. I think that this is good because it breaks the strong grip of orthography. Seeing the same sound written with different letters or symbols may lead to new insights into that sound. I have no research to support this, but it was like that for me and I know many others who have had similar experiences when learning a second transcription system, regardless of which one it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1]: McGinnis, S. (1997). Tonal spelling versus diacritics for teaching pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese. The Modern Language Journal, 81(2), 228-236.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="507" LastEditorUserId="507" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T07:44:10.217" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T07:44:10.217" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3550" CreationDate="2016-01-22T21:10:21.840" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;I miss you&quot; is probably the best equivalent, but do be aware that it's often a bit stronger than the corresponding words in English, especially when you are talking to traditional people in China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12548" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T21:10:21.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17011" CreationDate="2016-01-22T22:43:09.057" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your phrasing may be ambiguous, so I'll answer in two ways. If you're asking if characters didn't have a radical and then one was added - thereby changing the character - for classification purpose, then of course the answer is no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the question is to know whether the &quot;concept&quot; of radical existed, then you can think of it this way: if people had a concept of radical in their mind prior to the Shuowen, then it had to be a way for them to classify those characters. Indeed, the people who could write did see the parts of a character, but a &quot;radical&quot; is a component that's considered more important/interesting: apart from classification, what role could it serve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the concept of radicals has to come with a desire to classify characters... of which the Shuowen is the first known example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10901" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T22:43:09.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17006" CreationDate="2016-01-22T22:50:33.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;I’ve never met a pinyin learner with tones even half as accurate as a decent GR user.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My only guess is that Tim Ferris has not met many Mandarin learners, then. Ask any foreigner with a near native leevel, one of those you see on TV or whatever, which system they learnt: chances are the vast majority will have studied pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not to say that GR is bad. It's probably great and perhaps people who use it get good results with their tones: there will still be tons more people who have learnt pinyin and reached an equal level. In any case, they'll have to use pinyin to access the overwhelming majority of dictionaries (the remaining will anyway be in bopomofo, still not in GR).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10901" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T22:50:33.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17013" CreationDate="2016-01-23T02:09:38.680" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a 隸書 form of 景. According to the references cited in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/yda/yda01809.htm&quot;&gt;教育部異體字字典&lt;/a&gt;, it occurs on steles from the Tang dynasty.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes these variations are done for ease of cutting, or because certain forms tend to break or wear away very easily; I don't know if this is the case here. Another form that also seems to appear a lot is with two 日, a 日 on top and a second one in 京 (= 日/小).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T02:09:38.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17020" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17021" CreationDate="2016-01-23T15:55:21.367" Score="2" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mo Yan's Red Sorghum there is a line saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曾外祖母做了好饭好菜，说着甜言蜜语，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is clear, and could be translated either &quot;Greatgrandmother made good foods and said honeyed words&quot; or &quot;Greatgrandmother made good foods while saying honeyed words.&quot;  In grammatical terms, 说着 could be either a verb (said) or an adverb (while saying).  But as I understand it these are pronounced differently.  The verb is pronounced zháo and the adverb zhe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't distinguish them by context since they mean pretty much the same thing. Is there a good way to distinguish them?  Is one just more common than the other? Or is it just ambiguous? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T20:40:15.553" Title="How is 着 pronounced here?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17020" CreationDate="2016-01-23T20:40:15.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;说着 could be either a verb (said) or an adverb (while saying). But as I understand it these are pronounced differently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases 说着 reads 'zhe' and means &lt;em&gt;while saying&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说着(zhao2) is a rare usage only in colloquial language in the Northern dialects, where 着 means &lt;em&gt;hit the target&lt;/em&gt;, e.g. '被你说着了' means 'spot on'. The non-dialectal version is '被你说中了'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specific to your sentence, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;曾外祖母做了好饭好菜，说着甜言蜜语，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without further context, it looks like an incomplete quote because 了 suggests the action of 'making food' was already done at the point soft words were said, the latter must be occurring at the same time with something else that's snipped out. One may naturally think the complete sentence would be like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;曾外祖母做了好饭好菜，说着甜言蜜语，哄小曾孙子吃。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The soft words were said when great-grandmother was trying to get the child to eat. 着 suggests those actions were occurring in parallel, temporally, and from the semantics we are able to conclude the former is the method for the latter, logically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since we know where this sentence is quoted from, we can look at the real context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三天里她茶饭不思，精神恍惚，曾外祖母做了好饭好菜，说着甜言蜜语，我奶奶置之不理，宛若木人一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a time frame (三天), now it becomes clear that 着 suggests it's a repetitive action 'during' those three days as opposed to an one-off action. The whole sentence goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In those three days, grandmother fell into a trance and had no desire to eat. Her mother made good foods and &lt;strong&gt;kept saying&lt;/strong&gt; soft words to her, but she did not respond at all just like a wooden stick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T20:40:15.553" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17022" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-23T21:08:45.550" Score="1" ViewCount="533" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning about Chinese complement of time-measurement (时量补语). It sounds very tough though, and I'm now stuck on some sentences like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;她学汉语要学一年&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我看电影只看了十分钟&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My textbook doesn't explain a rule applied to the sentences. If a sentence containing 时量补语 takes adverbs like 只 or an auxiliary verb like 要, do they have to be placed right before the last verb of the sentence? That's just my guess so can anyone tell me if I'm wrong or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also would like to know the meanings of the following sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;她学汉语要学一年 (I'm not sure if this means 'she is going to learn Chinese for a year' or something else) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我看电影只看了十分钟 (Does this sentence mean 'I just watched TV for ten minutes'?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;她学汉语能学一年 (I've changed the 要 to 能, but I'm not sure if this makes sense. If this is a valid sentence, what's the meaning?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12284" LastEditorUserId="12284" LastEditDate="2016-01-23T21:53:47.937" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T22:24:41.733" Title="Questions about 时量补语" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17022" CreationDate="2016-01-23T22:37:26.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, I will note that it's not quite correct that the 时量补语 must be placed before the &amp;quot;last verb&amp;quot; of the sentence. Rather, in those scenarios, the 时量补语 is placed before the last iteration of the verb it applies to in the clause. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今年我返乡下只返过一次，因为我太忙了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;This year I only went back to my hometown once, because I was too busy.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, I don't think it's always necessary to repeat the verb twice.&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为了准备在法国读大学，我学了法文三年。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;To prepare for studying at a French university, I studied French for three years.&lt;/em&gt;）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, in some cases (such as that of my first example), it sounds more natural for the verb to only appear once. However, if you indeed repeat the verb, the 时量补语 must indeed be placed before the second appearance, not the first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That done, I will move onto the specific sentences you asked about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她学汉语要学一年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that the 要 is part of 要学一年: this indicates that it's &lt;em&gt;necessary&lt;/em&gt; to learn the subject in question for a year. Thus, this sentence does not mean &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;she is going to learn Chinese for a year&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;, since this English sentence doesn't convey obligation; rather, absent any other context, it means something like &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;she will have to learn Chinese for a year.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我看电影只看了十分钟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;I only watched the television for ten minutes.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; This works because 只 (&lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt;) is attached to 看了十分钟.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她学汉语能学一年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judging from &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/entry/d0a4319c37df403f9bff217131592872&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dictionary&lt;/a&gt; examples of usage of 能 (e.g. 我能照顾好自己), it is fine to use 能 alone. This phrasing sounds odd to me---I would instead write something like 她能学一年汉语---but I am inclined to assume that this is merely a result of my own preferences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am a native Cantonese speaker and have a very intuitive understanding of Chinese grammar in general. It's possible that I am missing something, or that my vocabulary isn't completely standard. I have tried to double-check the key uncertainties I had.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure what sense of &amp;quot;just&amp;quot; you are using. If you mean that &lt;em&gt;I finished watching the television for ten minutes just now&lt;/em&gt;, your translation isn't correct. If you are using &amp;quot;just&amp;quot; in the sense of &amp;quot;only&amp;quot;, your translation is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T22:37:26.340" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17024" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17025" CreationDate="2016-01-24T12:48:48.513" Score="3" ViewCount="3527" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe you can informally say &quot;gěi&quot; when handing something over like the soy sauce during dinner, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what can you say when you give a gift? Like &quot;Here you go&quot; instead of just &quot;Here&quot;. Or maybe &quot;This is for you&quot;. Something simple and short, please. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12562" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T14:20:54.363" Title="How to say &quot;here you go&quot; when giving a gift?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17024" CreationDate="2016-01-24T14:25:55.363" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you are handing over a gift: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;送给你。(&quot;A gift for you.&quot;), or &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;给你。 (&quot;For you.&quot;), or &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这是给你的。(&quot;This is for you.&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can expand it, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这是给你的...。 (&quot;This is a/some ... for you.&quot;), or&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这本书是送给你的。(&quot;This book is a gift for you.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't forget that in some cases, you have to use 您 instead of 你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can make it more polite by saying: 请收下 (&quot;Please accept it.&quot;) or if you are accepting a gift and your partner makes some polite comment about the gift and/or the occasion you can say: &quot;谢谢，我收下了。&quot; (&quot;Thank you, I accept it.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2016-01-24T14:25:55.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17026" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17032" CreationDate="2016-01-24T19:14:26.343" Score="0" ViewCount="1361" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I know, they all mean similar things (way, method), but 方式 can also mean style which makes it similar to 样式. Is there a difference in the way they are used grammatically or is the difference mainly about preference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12566" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T09:50:56.587" Title="Difference between 办法， 方法， and 方式？" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17027" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17028" CreationDate="2016-01-24T19:20:31.957" Score="5" ViewCount="2874" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both mean &quot;to think&quot; or &quot;to consider&quot;. Is there a usage difference between the two? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12566" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T12:56:05.760" Title="What is the difference between 认为 and 以为?" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17027" CreationDate="2016-01-24T19:26:07.523" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;以为&lt;/code&gt; carries with it the nuance of thinking or considering something mistakenly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我以为你们已经分手了。 - I thought you had already broken up (but it seems you're still together.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;认为&lt;/code&gt; doesn't have any such connotation and can be used generally to mean &quot;to think,&quot; &quot;to consider.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我认为他是我最重要的朋友。 - I consider him to be my most important friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5808" LastActivityDate="2016-01-24T19:26:07.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17029" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-24T19:36:01.460" Score="4" ViewCount="1069" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both can mean &quot;to receive&quot;. It seems as if 受 has a more negative connotation than 收 but I'm 100% sure about the exact usage differences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12566" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T02:42:03.190" Title="What is the difference between 受 and 收?" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-03-29T14:44:47.383" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17030" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17031" CreationDate="2016-01-25T06:05:23.653" Score="0" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've tracked 點鬼簿 as far as 張鷟《朝野僉載》. I thought it was something like 'augmenting the records of the dead', but I don't really understand it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12467" LastActivityDate="2016-01-25T08:33:53.047" Title="What does dian gui bu mean?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17030" CreationDate="2016-01-25T08:33:53.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's a derogatory word. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's used to mock poems which abused name of the ancients and historical stories.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12572" LastActivityDate="2016-01-25T08:33:53.047" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17026" CreationDate="2016-01-25T09:21:51.070" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't looked up in the dictionary, so my answer may not be accurate. Just for reference.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;方法 means the way that should be followed when doing something. Example: 使用方法 (the way to use something, like washing machine or ointment)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;办法 seems to be more colloquial, and mostly refers to the way to solve a problem or achieve a goal. Sometimes it is equivalent to 方法. Example: 我没办法吃这么多。(I can't make it to eat this much. )&lt;br&gt;&#xA;方式 refers to the &quot;style&quot; when doing something. However, it is not eqivalent to 样式. The latter refers to what a thing looks like. Example: 传统方式未必是落后的。(Traditional way(style) is not definitely out of date. ) And: 传统的样式是很好看的。(Traditional style is very beautiful. )&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hope this will help you. ^o^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2016-01-25T09:21:51.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17011" CreationDate="2016-01-25T09:49:16.997" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that Chinese characters are &lt;em&gt;born with&lt;/em&gt; radicals, but they were not &lt;em&gt;classified&lt;/em&gt; by radicals until &lt;em&gt;Shuowen Jiezi&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To understand why radicals appeared at that time, we need to know that in the Warring States period (about 475-221 BC), characters between states could be quite different. The First Emperor of Qin (Ying Zheng, known as Qin Shihuang) unified the writing form of Chinese, and ordered his chancellors to invent Lishu, a typeface that can still be seen today. &lt;em&gt;Shuowen Jiezi&lt;/em&gt; was published in Eastern Han Dynasty, when the shape of most Chinese characters had not been changed for centuries. Therefore, only then could a dictionary with radical index be possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could also be possible that the author of &lt;em&gt;Shuowen Jiezi&lt;/em&gt; created a radical index for people to look up characters with similar meanings in the dictionary, as a radical may indicate a certain type of meaning. For example, people who want to express a concept related to water may look up for radical &quot;水&quot;(shui).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-01-29T23:16:55.583" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T23:16:55.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16909" CreationDate="2016-01-25T09:57:37.093" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The real thing you need is an input method supporting stroke input. A &lt;strong&gt;Sogou&lt;/strong&gt; input method is recommended. You can download it on its website. Use this input method to input the character you have seen, and look it up in any Chinese dictionary app. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2016-01-25T09:57:37.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17035" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-25T16:27:35.477" Score="2" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她离开了三年了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她离开三年了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My two different textbooks say those two sentences respectively for the one same meaning: &quot;It's been three years since she left.&quot; but I'm still not sure because my books are too old and meager in terms of contents. Do they really have the same meaning? If so, can I take the 她离开三年了 as an abbreviated version of 她离开了三年了 which leaves out the aspectual particle 了 after 离开? If there's a difference between the meanings of the two sentences, please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your help in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12284" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T02:41:53.133" Title="她离开了三年了 vs. 她离开三年了 Is there any difference between the two?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17035" CreationDate="2016-01-25T17:40:12.950" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;她离开了三年了: She had been away for 3 years. (She could have been back now or could have not been back.).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;她离开三年了: She has been away for 3 years (have not been back). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她离开了三年了 could be the abbreviated version of 她离开三年了 and is used to describe the same thing, and it could also be different.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11095" LastActivityDate="2016-01-25T17:40:12.950" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17037" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-25T21:15:17.093" Score="0" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9kS7y.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;unknown character&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what this necklace means, thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12578" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-01-26T00:24:12.547" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T08:58:12.690" Title="What is this character?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-01-26T15:28:12.683" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17037" CreationDate="2016-01-25T21:46:16.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 寿（in simplified Chinese）: old age, long life; lifespan. It is used for expressing best wishes: wish people who wear it to have a good long life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A3%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ref&lt;/a&gt; on Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11095" LastActivityDate="2016-01-25T21:46:16.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17039" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17093" CreationDate="2016-01-26T01:19:50.453" Score="3" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;In that site it says 多早晚 means &quot;When&quot;. I asked a friend from Singapore, she told me that no one uses that, and it's a mistake. I would like to know if you use it, and in which context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=zao+wan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=zao+wan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11371" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2016-02-02T23:00:54.773" LastActivityDate="2016-02-03T02:02:41.083" Title="Is 多早晚 wrong or right" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17037" CreationDate="2016-01-26T02:39:05.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;shòu&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;寿&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;longevity&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zhù nǐ jiànkānɡ chánɡshòu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;祝  你  健康      长寿&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May you stay healthy, live long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12067" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T02:39:05.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17039" CreationDate="2016-01-26T05:36:07.327" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, in Mandarin there is this meaning &quot;when&quot; for &quot;多早晚&quot;. But the saying &quot;多早晚&quot; is not common. You could possibly hear this in northern China. It's colloquial. It's not surprising that your Singapore friend never heard of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11090" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-01-30T03:21:54.763" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T03:21:54.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17039" CreationDate="2016-01-26T06:00:31.080" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like classical Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/72/115314.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◎ 多早晚 duōzǎowǎn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[when] 多咱,什么时候(“多咱”来于“多早晚”)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多早晚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什麼時候。紅樓夢．第十四回：「我且問你，你們這夜書多早晚纔念呢？」或作「多早」、「多咱」、「多咱晚」、「多偺」、「多喒」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甚晚、很晚。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1376106.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度百科&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;中文名&lt;/strong&gt; 多早晚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;外文名&lt;/strong&gt; Much sooner or later&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;性质&lt;/strong&gt; 词语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;来源&lt;/strong&gt; 红楼梦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多早晚 duōzǎowǎn [when] 多咱，什么时候(“多咱”来于“多早晚”)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《红楼梦》第六四回：“黛玉道：‘可是你没的说了！好好的，我多早晚又伤心了？’”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;茅盾《霜叶红似二月花》：“我早就想过，多早晚，我们村子里一人一股香，大家上县里去，一步一拜，打伙儿跪在王伯申大门前，求他高抬贵手。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the encyclopedia entry mentions 多咱 comes from 多早晚 and is in common usage in Northern China. You might be hard pressed to find usage of 多早晚 outside of 红楼梦 though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T06:00:31.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17039" CreationDate="2016-01-26T06:29:03.343" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我来自中国广州，在中国大陆没有人说这个词，只听过早晚，没有说多早晚的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12581" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T06:29:03.343" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17037" CreationDate="2016-01-26T06:38:37.557" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这是一个寿字，多用来祝福老年朋友们身体健康，比如：健康长寿，您今年高寿?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12581" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T06:38:37.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17037" CreationDate="2016-01-26T08:58:12.690" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it is 寿， usually it is a gift for older people to wish them have a good body and live longer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12585" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T08:58:12.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17050" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-26T09:38:23.963" Score="0" ViewCount="787" Body="&lt;p&gt;This phrase means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is nothing more comfortable than lying down. There is nothing more&#xA;  delicious than jiaozi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would rather find more local version. Thank you guys.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I love dumplings quite much. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12067" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-01-28T03:01:04.593" LastActivityDate="2016-01-28T03:12:19.570" Title="How do I translate &quot;舒服不如倒着，好吃不过饺子&quot; in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2016-01-29T05:46:43.133" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17026" CreationDate="2016-01-26T09:50:56.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;方法 refers to a method in the strict sense of a careful organized plan that controls the way something is done.  This is also  expressed by tiáolǐ 条理 --  you follow a known rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;办法 means you somehow get the problem solved, but maybe not by any rule.  Maybe you make up a new, temporary solution, that no one else has ever tried, and you will never do again, but it works.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe you have a problem and you do 方法 because you know a procedure that would solve it.  But you do not 办法 because you cannot find a practical way to follow the procedure.  &quot;I know how to fix that broken door, but I cannot find the time to do it.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T09:50:56.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17053" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17056" CreationDate="2016-01-26T13:40:04.133" Score="2" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would know what is the correct place of 喜欢 in my sentence, or if the both are valids what are the differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1/ 我喜欢坐飞机去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2/ 我坐飞机喜欢去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11371" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T21:32:40.630" Title="Structure of sentence with 喜欢+V" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17054" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17055" CreationDate="2016-01-26T18:04:36.963" Score="2" ViewCount="735" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both can mean &quot;view/idea/opinion&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I can say: &#xA;对这个问题有两种不同的&lt;strong&gt;看法&lt;/strong&gt; (there are two different view on this question)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be reasonable to replace &quot;看法&quot; with &quot;想法&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12566" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-16T23:47:07.617" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T23:47:07.617" Title="What is the difference between 看法 and 想法?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17054" CreationDate="2016-01-27T02:50:06.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think about a scenario: You and your group are asked to do a social survey, and you're going to pick up your topic by yourselves. So you called a meeting to discuss it. Everybody talked about their ideas(想法), and you vote for a topic.&lt;br&gt; &#xA;Think about another scenario: At class, your professor played a piece of video about some hot news, and then he wanted you to talk about your own point of view(看法).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, &quot;想法&quot; is usually used when there is some problem need to be discussed to solve. &quot;看法&quot; is usually used when people talked about their opinions about something happened or some social phenomenon.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;想&quot; means you need to think and &quot;看&quot; means how you see this.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yet in daily life, replace one with another won't make it a big deal, so people sometimes don't take the difference seriously, they just speak it out.&#xA;May this would help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11090" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T02:50:06.790" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17053" CreationDate="2016-01-27T09:37:37.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe a comparison to English will help you remember:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我喜欢&lt;strong&gt;坐飞机&lt;/strong&gt;去。(adverbial)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I like to travel &lt;strong&gt;by plane&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我喜欢&lt;strong&gt;坐飞机&lt;/strong&gt;看风景。(still adverbial)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I like to watch scenery &lt;strong&gt;by plane&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我喜欢&lt;strong&gt;坐飞机&lt;/strong&gt;（，而不是坐火车）。(followed by nothing)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I like to &lt;strong&gt;take planes&lt;/strong&gt;(, not trains).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm not sure if my explanation makes sense. Just for reference.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T09:37:37.120" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16776" CreationDate="2016-01-27T10:02:16.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;顾客 can be explained as &quot;a guest(客) who visits(顾) our shop,&quot; that is, a customer. Its opposite site is a retailer.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;客户 (client) often refers to one or more people who comes to negotiate a business. Its opposite site is a company or a self employed person (e.g. a psychiatrist or a lawyer). I believe both words appear under Western influence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T10:02:16.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17058" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17059" CreationDate="2016-01-27T10:26:26.537" Score="4" ViewCount="639" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a translation of 这里开了家医院 to &quot;There is a hospital here&quot; but this translation seems to ignore the word 开了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the word 开了 add addition meaning to the sentence which the translation does not include or is it a perfectly valid translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12593" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T21:13:07.703" Title="Translation of 这里开了家医院" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17058" CreationDate="2016-01-27T12:20:10.007" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;这里 开了 家 医院。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Here opened a hospital.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They opened up a hospital here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translating is also a task of creation. Translators can change a bit the original meaning so the sentence sounds better in the target language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T12:20:10.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17022" CreationDate="2016-01-27T12:49:23.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 时量补语 rule is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S + (V) + O + V + 时量补语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first verb isn't that important, and it's most likely to disappear from the sentence. So the verb that takes the adverbs and modal verbs 只，没, 要 etc. should be placed after the second verb (the important one).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 时量补语 expresses for &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;how much time&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; the action is done, which is different from the time adverb that expresses &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;when&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; the action happened. Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我学汉语学了&lt;em&gt;一年&lt;/em&gt;。 I studied Mandarin &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;for one year&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. (duration)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我&lt;em&gt;去年&lt;/em&gt;学了汉语。 I studied Mandarin &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;last year&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. (when)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps. Cheers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2016-01-29T02:48:43.150" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T02:48:43.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17027" CreationDate="2016-01-27T12:56:05.760" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Putting it simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认为 - think or consider&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以为 - thought or considered (but I was wrong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T12:56:05.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17063" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33386" CreationDate="2016-01-27T13:15:37.430" Score="8" ViewCount="895" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've already done some research on the character 也, but I haven't find something that pleased me. I've seen explanations going from &quot;horn&quot; and &quot;snake&quot; to &quot;vulva&quot; and &quot;around&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where did it come from? How did it get the meaning of &quot;also&quot; and what does it have to do with the characters 他 and 地?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T10:51:54.613" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T12:26:30.380" Title="Glyph origin of 也" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17063" CreationDate="2016-01-27T17:36:26.570" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;也，它，虫 have the same origin, meaning 蛇 snake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也 means vulva, 女阴. This meaning is related to totem worship and reproduction worship. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's also possibly related to the ancient Chinese mythology : &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCwa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nüwa&lt;/a&gt; (女娲) who is known for creating mankind and repairing the pillar of heaven (Fig. 1 and 2), and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuxi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fuxi&lt;/a&gt; (伏羲) who is credited with (along with his sister Nü Wa) creating humanity and the invention of hunting, fishing and cooking as well as the Cangjie system of writing Chinese characters (Fig. 2). From this mythology we can see how 蛇 snake was related to the reproduction worship. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The evolutions of characters of 也，它，虫，and 蛇 are listed beneath Fig.1 and 2. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/Default.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;complete reference&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As how the meaning of 也 extends to &quot;also, too, as well, either&quot;, I don't know...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fig. 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AtUlV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AtUlV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fig. 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fxnra.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fxnra.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ON4Qg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ON4Qg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dxDcX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dxDcX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;它&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mRLiR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mRLiR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uOF5L.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uOF5L.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;虫&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CDLfm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CDLfm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;蛇&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eqpRx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eqpRx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LnYfy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LnYfy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11095" LastEditorUserId="11095" LastEditDate="2016-01-27T22:20:56.730" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T22:20:56.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17063" CreationDate="2016-01-28T01:02:04.060" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note: much of this is based on the answer by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/49056-effective-methods-beside-mnemonic-stories-to-learn-advanced-characters/#entry375504&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Altair at Chinese-Forums&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may be worthwhile to answer the 也 / 他 / 地 / 池 question first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Character    Mandarin    Cantonese    Hokkien       Middle Ch.   Old Ch.&#xA;也           yě          jaa5 / yáh   iā             yæX         *lAjʔ&#xA;他           tā          taa1 / tā    tha/thaⁿ       tha         *l̥ ˤaj&#xA;地           dì          dei6 / deih  tè/tē/tōe/tī   dijH        *[l]ˤej-s&#xA;池           chí         ci4 / chìh   tî             drje        *Cə.lraj &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although in standard Mandarin, each initial, each final, and each tone is different, one can see that they are more similar in other varieties of Chinese. Comparing this with the rime tables of Middle Chinese (from between the Sui and Song dynasties), the vowels vary between /a ~ æ ~ je ~ ij/. The orthography thus points to a similar enough pronunciation in Old Chinese when the characters were formed that 也 was thought to be an appropriate phonetic in the semantic-phonetic scheme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, there is a rather well-known orthographic quirk that 也, 它 and 㐌  were viewed as the same logograph in Bronze script of the Zhou. So we can add (Mandarin is standard Hanyu Pinyin; Cantonese is Jyutping and Yale; Hokkien is Peh-oe-ji; Middle and Old Chinese are from Baxter-Sagart 2014):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Character    Mandarin    Cantonese    Hokkien       Middle Ch.   Old Ch.&#xA;蛇           shé         se4 / sèh    chôa / siâ     zyæ         *Cə.lAj&#xA;施           shī         si1 / sī     si/sì          sye         *l̥ aj&#xA;馳           chí         ci4 / chìh   tî             drje        *lraj&#xA;紽           tuó         to4 / tòh    tô             da          *lˁaj                                      &#xA;匜           yí          ji4 / yìh    î              ye          *laj &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The modern Chinese readings can start to be grouped then, roughly corresponding to modern standard Mandarin shi/chi/she, tuo/ta, ye/yi, and finally di. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a deeper connection to all of these besides the sound? Some of them may be derived from each other via the usual word-formation processes of Old Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/czjMj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/czjMj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The evolution of 它&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters from the oracle bones &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3994&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;seem to point&lt;/a&gt; to a &quot;hooded snake&quot; being the 'original' meaning of what was depicted by 也/它/㐌 (and the original 虫, which was retained in 虺 as opposed to 蟲; hence, 蛇 is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=2953&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;double snake&lt;/a&gt;), and the principal conjecture seems to be that this meaning of a snake and its hood extended to &quot;spreading&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many of the modern meanings could conceivably be traced from this idea of spreading. 地 would therefore be &quot;that which is spread&quot; (based on applying the *-s nominalising suffix in Old Chinese) = &quot;land, ground&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may also be that the meaning of &quot;also/too&quot; may simply be a phonetic loan (假借), but it is very likely that this transfer of meaning was the motivation for adopting 他 and much later 她、牠、祂 based on the third person being the &quot;other&quot;. This shift must have happened later after the Mandarin varieties split from the more southern Chinese tongues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2016-01-28T01:14:52.510" LastActivityDate="2016-01-28T01:14:52.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17050" CreationDate="2016-01-28T03:12:19.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As with most idioms, there's a couple ways to translate this non-literally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to go the old fashioned route, you can maybe quote from the Bible like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/2.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ecclesiastes 2:24&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe the Spanish idiom:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A full stomach makes a happy heart. (barriga llena, corazón contento)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could of course modify those to be about dumpling specifically: i.e. A stomach full of dumplings makes a happy heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can just try something from yourself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Life doesn't get better than relaxing in bed and eating delicious dumplings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2016-01-28T03:12:19.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17070" CreationDate="2016-01-28T21:48:58.273" Score="5" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practical conclusion from the responses: No digital media currently focus on the precise pronunciation of Pinyin Dao, or Beijing for English speaking students of Chinese.  You must look to sources on IPA on line or for purchase.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most English speakers need explicit phonological explanation of how to speak the distinction of voiced  /b,d/ from unvoiced  /p,t/, along with hearing it demonstrated.  We typically cannot hear it from demonstration alone, let alone produce it, because this contrast is changing in English usage (and other Germanic languages as well).  The very complicated current situation is described at &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_(phonetics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_(phonetics)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The issue is not just this one word Dao but includes at least b and d as initial consonants in Pinyin.  Every expert work I have looked at on the issue agrees with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daoism%E2%80%93Taoism_romanization_issue#Notes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daoism%E2%80%93Taoism_romanization_issue#Notes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They say the initial of 道 /Dao is a tenuis voiceless alveolar plosive, close to the IPA symbol [t], but although Pinyin d is unvoiced, it often gives the impression of being voiced to the untrained ear.  And because Pinyin d has no voiced alveolar plosive allophone in Mandarin, native Chinese speakers do not find it important when foreigners say it voiced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, English speakers actually distinguish between the tenuis voiceless alveolar plosive (the Pinyin d or the t of &quot;stop&quot;) and the d of &quot;dog,&quot; but are not good at hearing the distinction, because they are allophones of one phoneme in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question on English stackexchange bears on the matter:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/203866/pronunciation-of-st-when-is-it-sd-and-when-st&quot;&gt;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/203866/pronunciation-of-st-when-is-it-sd-and-when-st&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;It confirms what @Janus Bahs Jacquet says in a comment below, that the English usage is pretty variable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to have some good models for how to pronounce these things.  I know about the &quot;t&quot; in &quot;top&quot; versus &quot;stop.&quot;  I can do that as an exercise.  And I am beginning to think that may be the best approach I can take.  But I'd still like to hear some carefully pronounced models of the Mandarin words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone point me to a web site or a cd where I can hear careful examples of these distinctions?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:38:11.437" LastActivityDate="2016-02-01T19:28:54.513" Title="Help with pronouncing 道 precisely" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17069" CreationDate="2016-01-29T00:10:31.657" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Mandarin native speaker I pronounce 道 exactly same as 到，稻。 I pronounce the initial d exactly same as in &lt;strong&gt;d&lt;/strong&gt;og or &lt;strong&gt;d&lt;/strong&gt;ad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also pronounce t exactly in the same way for s&lt;strong&gt;t&lt;/strong&gt;op. The native English pronunciation of &lt;strong&gt;d&lt;/strong&gt;og and s&lt;strong&gt;t&lt;/strong&gt;op might be different, but to my ESL ears, they are exactly same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Added: Here is a video teaching Pinyin &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwyQK62tO_U&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin Chinese Pinyin Pronunciation&lt;/a&gt;. In the video the girl pronounces initials and finals 100% correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another online tool teaching Pinyin &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/12/0210/22/2006953_185666608.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉语拼音全套flash&lt;/a&gt;. &#xA;Scroll down and look for these flashes: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zSV5Q.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zSV5Q.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2Gs9c.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2Gs9c.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The male pronunciations are also 100% correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2566" LastEditorUserId="2566" LastEditDate="2016-02-01T19:28:54.513" LastActivityDate="2016-02-01T19:28:54.513" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17071" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17081" CreationDate="2016-01-29T06:12:10.073" Score="0" ViewCount="2693" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese does not use a word separator. How a novice learner can detect the word's boundaries? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12612" LastEditorUserId="12612" LastEditDate="2016-01-29T15:25:03.687" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T11:05:14.717" Title="How to determine the end of words?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5662" CreationDate="2016-01-29T08:03:11.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the Pinyin language bar, click on Tool Menu &gt; Options &gt; Advanced Tab &gt; Character Set to Traditional&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12613" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T08:03:11.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5662" CreationDate="2016-01-29T08:39:39.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know it's late to the game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This does not answer the question, in fact, it circumvents it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend sogou pinyin (搜狗拼音). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are both versions for Windows and Mac.  By default it's set to the simplified Chinese, but you can switch to the traditional version very easily by pressing &quot;shift+ctrl+f&quot;, f for 繁体(fan ti). And press them again to switch back to the simplified output. Or you can change the setting to define your own preferable combination of the switch. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11095" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T08:39:39.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17071" CreationDate="2016-01-29T16:39:43.073" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today over at &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=23754&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;LanguageLog&lt;/a&gt;, I came across this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;台灣經驗不僅是對其他開發中國家的一種啟發，更是台灣免於赤化的最佳保障。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Inadvertently, when scanning that phrase I ran down a gardenpath (yes, that's what linguists call it: a fruitless attempt that turns out to be the wrong choice, so you have to back up). Turns out it's not 開發　中國(家) *&quot;develop China's (state)??&quot;, but, rather, 開發中　國家 &quot;in-development states&quot; (i.e. &quot;developing countries&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such things will happen and happen again to the reader, and if you care to know more, head over to said site and google it for 'gardenpaths', there's lots of examples for a number of languages. Just the other day I realized German &quot;Maisturm&quot; is ambiguous: is it &quot;Mais-Turm&quot; (maize/corn tower) or &quot;Mai-Sturm&quot; (May tempest)? Probably the latter in most cases, but only context can tell. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember some of the beginner's textbooks for Chinese using spaces between words, so I guess you'll still be able to find some. As for why spaces are not normally used in Chinese and Japanese (but in Korean), one can only guess that people find them too unsightly, not really needed and maybe too big a change from what they're used to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, while extra spaces might benefit the reader, they do put a burden on the writer (try to add them while staying consistent—it's not easy!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3674" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T16:39:43.073" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17075" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17079" CreationDate="2016-01-30T02:40:38.847" Score="3" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two questions about the childhood name of the pivotal character in Mo Yan's Red Sorghum Clan:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Her childhood name was 九儿.  Does this suggest she was one of (at least) nine children?  I do not recall any point of the novel talking about any siblings but I may well have forgotten something.  And of course the novel could imply they existed, and just not talk about them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And should I suppose that Mo Yan intended to use the homophony with &#xA;酒 (wine)?  Or does Mandarin just have so many homophones that I should not make anything of this one?  In the story she has no special relation to 高粱酒 when she is young, but it becomes central to her adult life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T17:01:23.520" Title="What can we make of the name 九儿?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5662" CreationDate="2016-01-30T03:02:00.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“華師大”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am using the simplified Chinese IME from Office 2010. This IME is mainly for simplified characters, but traditional Chinese characters also appear in its database. For an &lt;strong&gt;occasional use&lt;/strong&gt; of traditional characters, you may have to scroll down several pages to choose a corresponding traditional character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an &lt;strong&gt;occasional use&lt;/strong&gt; of traditional characters, you can also use Google Translate or Word to convert simplified characters to traditional characters. Note that such conversion can make a few errors, so a manual grammar check is required before the result is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10952" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T03:02:00.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17029" CreationDate="2016-01-30T03:47:11.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;《现代汉语词典》第五版中给出的解释：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;收&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（动词）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;① 把外面的事物拿到里面；把摊开或分散的事物聚拢：&lt;strong&gt;收拾 | 收藏 | 收集 | 收篷 | 衣裳收进来了没有？&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;② 取自己有权取的东西或原来属于自己的东西：&lt;strong&gt;收回 | 收复 | 收税 | 没收。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;③ 获得（经济利益）：&lt;strong&gt;收入 | 收益 | 收支。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;④ 收获；收割：&lt;strong&gt;收成 | 秋收 | 麦收 | 今年早稻收得多。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⑤ 接；接受；容纳：&lt;strong&gt;收报 | 收留 | 收容 | &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/17029/what-is-the-difference-between-%E5%8F%97-and-%E6%94%B6#&quot;&gt;收礼物&lt;/a&gt; | 收徒弟。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⑥ 约束；控制（感情或行动）：&lt;strong&gt;收心 | 我的心情像断了线的风筝似的，简直收不住了。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⑦ 逮捕；拘禁：&lt;strong&gt;收监。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⑧ 结束；停止（工作）：&lt;strong&gt;收工 | 收操 | 收场&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“收礼物”中的“收”属于上述第⑤个释义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;受&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（动词）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;① 接受：&lt;strong&gt;受贿 | 受教育 | 受到帮助。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;② 遭受：&lt;strong&gt;受灾 | 受批评 | 受委屈。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;③ 忍受：&lt;strong&gt;受不了 | 受得住。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;④ 适合：&lt;strong&gt;受吃（吃着有味） | 受看（看着舒服） | 受听（听着入耳）。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“受礼物”的“受”属于上述第①个释义。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;用“受”也没有太大的语法错误，但从词典中给出的例子来看，“受”多接抽象的事物，“收”多接具体的物品。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;收到教育&lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; 收到帮助&lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10952" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T03:47:11.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17022" CreationDate="2016-01-30T05:02:22.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, for a native speaker, 她学汉语能学一年, if you put your emphasis on &quot;能&quot;, it may imply that it takes too long(a year) to study Chinese. There may be slightly complaint, unsatisfactory, or even despise. So this sentence may be interpreted like this: it takes her a year to study Chinese, &lt;strong&gt;that's quite an unbelievable long time.&lt;/strong&gt; Another example is: 他吃饭能吃三小时.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it may be very different with the sentence 她学汉语要学一年, and it may be a little offensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12618" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T05:02:22.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17075" CreationDate="2016-01-30T07:51:31.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because she born on 9th Sep of Chinese traditional calendar, it's a Chinese traditional festival, which we call it &quot;重九&quot;(double nine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12621" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T07:51:31.000" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17029" CreationDate="2016-01-30T08:18:11.760" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;受 is usually a passive word, as in &quot;I RECEIVED the mail.&quot; The original actor is the giving side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;收 is usually an active word, as in &quot;I CHECKED the mail, and got it&quot;. The original actor is the receiving side.      &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12621" LastEditorUserId="11925" LastEditDate="2016-02-05T05:06:10.890" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T05:06:10.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17071" CreationDate="2016-01-30T11:05:14.717" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can only detect word boundaries by the context and your vocabulary. If you don't know words many enough or the situation at hand much enough, there isn't much other way to ensure you understand the things correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason that Chinese doesn't have word boundaries is that there are &quot;character boundaries&quot;. In English, the basic unit of the lexicon, called a lexeme, is one word separated by spaces or punctuation. In Chinese, the lexeme is one Chinese character, so rather than having separated words, it is easy to distinguish different characters in a sentence. However, the hard part is that many Chinese words are actually multi-character words, much like multi-word terms / phrasal verbs in English. If English were to use multi-word terms as frequently as does Chinese use multi-character words, new English learners will find it equally hard to learn English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8137" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T11:05:14.717" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17058" CreationDate="2016-01-30T15:38:00.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Word-to-word translation is not always good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a similar mistake Chinese English beginners always make:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;桌子上有一本书   &amp;lt;--&gt;  There &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; a book on the table&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 有 is not always the English word &quot;have&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12624" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T15:38:00.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17075" CreationDate="2016-01-30T17:01:23.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;xfx explained the 九, I'll add the 儿:&#xA;儿 is often added to a 小名 (childhood name). It does not mean &quot;ninth child&quot; in this case, and the meaning &quot;child&quot; isn't really important here. The alternative would be to double up the name (like 花花，果果, etc). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While homophones are extremely common and you wouldn't normally think of 酒 when you hear 九, in this case it may well be intentional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T17:01:23.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16909" CreationDate="2016-01-30T19:25:51.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/PfOw02IixOI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Youtube video&lt;/a&gt; shows how to enable iPad's builtin system chinese hand writing keyboards. Once you enable one of them, you can use it not only for Pleco but also for any apps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11478" LastEditorUserId="11478" LastEditDate="2016-01-30T19:38:57.303" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T19:38:57.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17058" CreationDate="2016-01-30T23:39:11.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;There's a hospital here.&quot; is okay but it does omit &quot;开了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my perspective, &quot;There's a hospital here&quot; = &quot;这里有家医院&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;开了&quot; adds a subtle change to the sentence that, imagine you're no stranger to this place, then someday you find that there's a hospital which you've never known before, then you may say &quot;这里开了家医院&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In translation, you don't necessarily need translate &quot;开了&quot; literally as &quot;someone opened/founded&quot;. I suggest to translate this as &quot;这里开了家新医院&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though there's no &quot;新&quot; in the original sentence, but this could imply the change from &quot;这里没有医院&quot; to &quot;这里有家医院&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T23:39:11.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17010" CreationDate="2016-01-30T23:48:54.673" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately I don't think these four characters form a sentence or phrase.&#xA;My guess is this comes from someone's tattoo because these four characters are very common in U.S. But I have never seen them appearing together...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T23:48:54.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16991" CreationDate="2016-01-30T23:52:37.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哎呀(oh)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;啊(oh)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哇(oh)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不(no)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我靠(shoot)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我肏(fuck)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;shit/fuck(Yes, they're used in colloquial Chinese because they can express the same idea as 我靠 and 我肏 but they're &quot;politer&quot;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T23:52:37.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17089" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17092" CreationDate="2016-01-31T04:20:55.947" Score="12" ViewCount="2855" Body="&lt;p&gt;I grew up learning simplified Chinese characters,&#xA;but we are now living in Hong Kong,&#xA;and so I need to teach my children traditional Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't seem to figure out the difference between these three characters 裡, 裏 and 里.&#xA;In traditional Chinese book I see 裡,&#xA;and in another traditional Chinese book I see 裏.&#xA;Is there any difference, and is one of them &quot;right&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3999" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2016-01-31T05:38:16.293" LastActivityDate="2020-12-23T21:22:03.610" Title="What is the difference between 裡, 裏 and 里?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17089" CreationDate="2016-01-31T05:46:41.830" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are utilized in the exact same way. The only difference is that 裏 is used in Hong Kong/mainland as the proper character (正体字) and 裡 is the variant character (异体字), but in Taiwan the situation is reversed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: Taiwan Newspaper: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cna.com.tw/news/asoc/201601310093-1.aspx&quot;&gt;http://www.cna.com.tw/news/asoc/201601310093-1.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;uses &lt;code&gt;這裡有個好粉絲團，需要你關&lt;/code&gt; as part of an ad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong video: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/hk.nextmedia/videos/10153143683192448/&quot;&gt;https://www.facebook.com/hk.nextmedia/videos/10153143683192448/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2016-01-31T05:58:11.050" LastActivityDate="2016-01-31T05:58:11.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17089" CreationDate="2016-01-31T05:48:41.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the what I can find, both 裡 and 裏 referred to as the traditional form. It might have something to do with different areas of Asia. For instance, in Taiwan it was believed that the (er) in Mandarin was to difficult and unnecessary. So they dropped it from their teachings. I will ask my Mandarin professor on Monday though, and try to give a better answer. As for 里, I believe it's just the simple form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-12-23T21:22:03.610" LastActivityDate="2020-12-23T21:22:03.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17089" CreationDate="2016-01-31T08:25:54.850" Score="15" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Short Answer:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the &lt;strong&gt;meaning &amp;quot;inside&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, 裏 or 裡 is the traditional form (as @Ringil has pointed out, 裏 is the proper form in the standard of Mainland/Hong Kong and 裡 is treated as a variant; but in Taiwan the situation is reversed), and 里 is the simplified form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the &lt;strong&gt;meaning &amp;quot;mile, kilometer, li (Chinese unit of distance)&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, 里 is the &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; correct form in both traditional and simplified Chinese. So be careful: 公里, 里程 &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; be written as 公裏(裡), 裏(裡)程 – That's wrong, wrong, wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;A few more comments&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Duan Yucai's &lt;em&gt;Commentary on Shuowen Jiezi&lt;/em&gt; wrote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pjQlZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pjQlZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;裏&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;(裏) 衣內也。引伸爲凡在內之偁。从衣。里聲。良止切。&#xA;&lt;em&gt;The layer inside clothes. And the meaning is extended to generally &amp;quot;inside&amp;quot;. The radical is 衣. Sounds 里. Consonant like 良 and vowel like 止.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically speaking, 裏 and 裡 both comprise 衣(礻) and 里. There's no difference between these two characters – if any, in my opinion, 裏 is a more &amp;quot;proper&amp;quot; form to exhibit the ideogram of the ancient scripts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z91fL.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z91fL.gif&quot; alt=&quot;里&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;居也。从田从土。凡里之屬皆从里。良止切。&lt;em&gt;Dwell. With radicals 田 and 土. In the category of 里 all characters have 里 as the radical. Consonant like 良 and vowel like 止.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese, 里 is generally related to the distance unit li, kilometer or mile (sometimes it's written as 英哩 or just 哩). However in ancient Chinese, it has various meanings such as &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;dwell, alley, lane, community, village, li (Chinese unit of distance), and hometown&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. Just note that in these cases, it should never be written as 裏 or 裡.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-01-31T08:25:54.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17039" CreationDate="2016-01-31T13:18:07.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm from the northeast of China. At first, I'm surprised to learn that, &quot;多早晚&quot; means &quot;when&quot;. Finally I find out that, in my home town, people usually pronounce it as &quot;多咱&quot;（duō zǎn）to mean &quot;when&quot; , and I've never known the exactly written characters of that phrase till I see this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I should say, I have NEVER saw this phrase in formal written Chinese. So avoid the use of this phrase in written Chinese, and also in spoken Chinese because native Chinese listeners from other parts of China may not understand the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase can be used in informal situations (seems only in the northeast? maybe ), for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;咱们啥时候走？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;咱们duō zǎn走？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two sentences are both ok in daily spoken situations, which mean &quot;when will we go&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12624" LastEditorUserId="12624" LastEditDate="2016-01-31T13:23:50.230" LastActivityDate="2016-01-31T13:23:50.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17094" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17105" CreationDate="2016-01-31T14:53:46.140" Score="3" ViewCount="1026" Body="&lt;p&gt;While people in China generally understand my tones (unless I use the wrong tone by mistake), I find I do not match either the height of their highs or the drop-off of their falling tones.  My voice is fairly low in English so of course I would not try to match the absolute pitch of tones used by a soprano.  But I am pretty sure that even the lowest-voiced native Chinese speakers are putting more contour into their tones than I currently do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if I could improve my tone contours by drilling on the tones while hearing musical notes to indicate the high, middle, and low parts of my desired range. For example I might practice saying first tone to match D above middle C,  and third to go from maybe B below middle C to G below and back up to A.  I know there will not be fixed correct absolute tones even just for my own use. This would be to train me in tonal agility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone succeeded using this kind of technique to increase tonal range?  Or is there some other good technique more specific than just listening a lot and trying hard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The clear and sophisticated discussion of tone in Yen-Hwei Lin's &lt;em&gt;Sounds of Chinese&lt;/em&gt; (Cambridge 2007) reminds me to say this question is about drill on fine pronunciation of the basic tones in isolated syllables.  I know there are other issues for actual speech beyond the usual textbook descriptions of sandhi on  不 bù, 一 yī , and successive third tones.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-02-11T08:17:10.467" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T01:49:14.990" Title="How can I improve my tonal range?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16636" CreationDate="2016-01-31T18:43:37.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There could be two answers to this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.拐 can pronounced as kuai in some dialects. For example, in Lufeng dialect, it's pronounced as kuai3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.擓(pronounced as kuai3 in Mandarin, Unicode:U+64D3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This character has three meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, in some dialects it means scratch, such as ShanDong dialect and Mandarin of Jianghuai.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, in others dialects it means carrying on arm, it's used as a synonym for 挎(kua2). In this sense, it can be interpreted as an adjective. To describe the posture that deliberately lift legs in walking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, it means ladle out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we use the second meaning, it could be written in the common sayings(一～一～).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for my terrible English. Hope my answer is helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12632" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-07T06:54:15.127" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T06:54:15.127" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17096" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-01T08:12:04.953" Score="1" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;can anyone tell me what 前後鼓吹 means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In context: 賜以秬鬯一卣。寵以前後鼓吹。知悉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I grant you one vessel of black millet herb-flavoured liquor, and I proclaim my favour for you. Let it be known.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The emperor is conferring honours on one of his generals...前後鼓吹 seems to have something to do with court music...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12467" LastActivityDate="2016-02-03T23:46:20.450" Title="What does 前後鼓吹 mean?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17097" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36417" CreationDate="2016-02-01T19:18:42.663" Score="5" ViewCount="309" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 2015 Chengyu Convention apparently tested contestants on 1,500 different chengyu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where's the list of the 1,500 Chengyu?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T11:19:53.140" Title="What are the 1,500 chengyu for the 2015 chengyu convention" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17098" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17099" CreationDate="2016-02-01T20:37:02.837" Score="2" ViewCount="620" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the standard ways of calling one's parents—&quot;媽媽/母親&quot; or &quot;爸爸/父親&quot;, mother and father respectively, the former more familiar and the latter more formal; or the more familiar/childish way—&quot;媽咪&quot; or &quot;爹哋&quot;, mommy and daddy respectively; and of course, the ways I've seen in dramas, the more archaic way, or I suppose the most respectful way—&quot;娘&quot; or &quot;爹&quot;, often throwing an &quot;啊&quot; in front for more familiarity. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken in any way)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in everyday modern life, how does, for example, a maturing teen, or a thirty-something adult, refer to their parents, either directly and indirectly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Directly as in calling their parents themselves—&quot;[Mother/Father]早晨!&quot;, indirectly as in referring to parents with friends, or perhaps acquaintances, such as &quot;我的 [Mother/Father] 現在不錯&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've always avoided using any mother/father nouns in indirect speech since, to me, they sound either too rigid (using things such as &quot;爸爸&quot;, usually reserved for writing, since this is Cantonese), or too immature (using things such as &quot;媽咪&quot;, which to me seems too baby-like, especially for an adult).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how would you refer to your parents in a non-rigid and a &quot;mature&quot; way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9376" LastEditorUserId="9376" LastEditDate="2016-02-02T07:01:24.457" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T23:53:10.287" Title="In Cantonese, what is a less &quot;childish&quot; way to call one's own parents?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17098" CreationDate="2016-02-02T01:03:55.350" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, 我爸爸 and 我媽媽 are perfectly fine to use to refer to your parents, no matter what your age is. They are neither rigid nor childish. Slightly more familiar terms are 我阿爸 and 我阿媽. In a very formal context, You can also say 我父母.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To address them directly, most people use 爸爸 and 媽媽, or 阿爸 and 阿媽, depending on which their family prefers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;父親 and 母親 are mainly for writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2016-02-02T21:42:11.847" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T21:42:11.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17100" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17124" CreationDate="2016-02-02T04:59:08.267" Score="4" ViewCount="2013" Body="&lt;p&gt;As titled, how to translate &quot;黑科技&quot; in to english?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any translation better than &quot;fictional technology&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12106" LastActivityDate="2017-01-21T07:12:25.153" Title="How to translate &quot;黑科技&quot; into English？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17100" CreationDate="2016-02-02T15:50:28.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;黑科技&quot; comes from a comics. It means magical and amazing technical products that violated the nature of the world nor could be explained by the human knowledge. Inconceivable technology would be a good translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12643" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T15:50:28.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17103" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-02T15:55:05.530" Score="-1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zajF9m.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zajF9m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Picture is turned sorry!&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just wanted to know what this symbol was. My friend got the tattoo 15 years ago and she has no idea what it is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12644" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-02T18:36:07.167" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T20:25:59.033" Title="Please can someone tell me what this says in engish?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2016-02-04T03:48:10.943" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17094" CreationDate="2016-02-02T17:55:41.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's true that Chinese speakers use a wider pitch range than English speakers, or at least a wider range than most American English speakers.  I blame it on Clint Eastwood. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately it's pretty hard to change ingrained vocal habits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way I've found to practice is to imagine some situation where the English intonation comes closer to Chinese tones. For example, when I practice 2nd tone words, I imagine I'm answering a telephone call. Hello? Wei? Shei? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finding a better voice to model can also help.  If your voice is naturally deep as you say, try listening to the 1994 Three Kingdoms tv series (it's on Youtube, in some versions with sub-titles); the actors who dub the voices for Zhang Fei and Guan Yu both have deep voices that might be more appropriate models for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, bear in mind that pitch is not the only element of tones; loudness and length are also very important in good tonal intonation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T17:55:41.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17103" CreationDate="2016-02-02T20:25:59.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's this: 恋, it is also sideways&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means Love, admiration or desire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12646" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T20:25:59.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16776" CreationDate="2016-02-02T20:34:48.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;客户 (client) is more formal, also it is used to refer to repeat or long term customers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;顾客 (customer) is more casual, most of time it is used to refer to shopper or diner, people who are not purchasing on a regular basis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example, if I ordered something from a store or online, I am a 顾客. But if I rent a place, a car or consistently have products being shipped to me (usually under a contract), then I am a 客户. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, 客户 is someone who you have an established agreement with.&#xA;顾客 is just someone who purchase from you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12646" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T20:34:48.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17094" CreationDate="2016-02-02T22:34:49.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting question, and it got me thinking for the last couple of days. Here's my two cents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rather than try to match your pitches to some model recordings, have you tried matching them to your personal highs and lows when speaking English? Try to notice how high and low you can go in different language contexts. An example that comes to mind is, if you run into someone you haven't seen in years, you probably say &quot;How are you&quot; with more contours than when you use the same three words to greet someone you see every day. Try to match your high Mandarin tones to your highest English pitch and your low to your lowest. That may help to increase your range a bit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each person has a pitch range whatever language s/he speaks. When speaking a tonal language such as Chinese, it is often used very consciously since a wrong pitch often means a wrong word. In English, however, there are no such worries so many people tend to use the middle range in everyday situations. But they really are capable of a much bigger range. You mentioned that when speaking English, your voice is low, but what is more of interest is whether it is &quot;low and relatively flat&quot; or &quot;low and, for lack of a better word, theatrical.&quot; If it's the former, perhaps it can explain why you feel your tonal range in Chinese is not wide enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2016-02-03T05:26:58.417" LastActivityDate="2016-02-03T05:26:58.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17039" CreationDate="2016-02-02T23:44:23.400" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possibly comparable, 多早晚 is similar to &quot;when (sooner of later)&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11095" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T23:44:23.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17098" CreationDate="2016-02-02T23:53:10.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also:老母and老豆are acceptable I believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12649" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T23:53:10.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17100" CreationDate="2016-02-03T10:05:52.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;黑科技 is quite a parody way to describe technology that is beyond explanation so I think &quot;&lt;strong&gt;dark side of the force&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; will be the appropriate way to describe it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12652" LastActivityDate="2016-02-03T10:05:52.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17096" CreationDate="2016-02-03T10:17:44.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;鼓 = (beat) Drum&#xA;吹 = blow (trumpet)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Beating the drum and blowing the trumpet around the person&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar terms: 前后部鼓吹，两部鼓吹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12652" LastActivityDate="2016-02-03T10:17:44.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17114" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-03T10:47:23.223" Score="0" ViewCount="959" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does my child call my godparents?  Do my godparents become &quot;great godparents&quot; now that I have a child, similar to my parents becoming grandparents?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12653" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T09:35:38.583" Title="What is the Mandarin term for great godparents?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17115" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17116" CreationDate="2016-02-03T16:38:24.713" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;《&lt;em&gt;锦城旧事&lt;/em&gt;》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在这灌县城中得此三者之利的，当推魏大肚。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does 推魏大肚 refer to?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T07:18:20.837" Title="Making sense of '推魏大肚'" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17115" CreationDate="2016-02-03T16:50:19.843" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;当推:  should/ought to (应当) be/mention/select/elect/recommend (推举/首推, 指出, 是)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;魏大肚：Nickname of someone whose family name is Wei (魏) and who has a beer belly (大肚).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当推魏大肚：should mention Big Belly Wei &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;论这村里最聪明的，&lt;strong&gt;当推&lt;/strong&gt;王小二。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Talking about the smartest guy in the village, it must be Wang Xiao Er. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(People will all choose Wang Xiao Er as the answer to the question that who the smartest guy in the village is.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11095" LastEditorUserId="11095" LastEditDate="2016-02-03T20:45:45.080" LastActivityDate="2016-02-03T20:45:45.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17114" CreationDate="2016-02-03T17:32:02.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To most people in English &quot;great godparents&quot; means simply godparents who are very very good at it.  In general, &quot;godparent&quot; means different things to different people.  People especially differ as the the religious connotations.  For many Christians, a godparent has promised to assure that the godchild will grow up properly schooled in the faith, if the parents are unable to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People who want a Chinese term for godparents have used 乾媽 and 乾爹.  But I think in China if you say someone is your 乾媽 or 乾爹 most people will think you mean that person is your foster parent or step parent.  In the west a godparent might become a foster parent, if the parents die, but usually that does not happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By far the most common use of  乾媽 on line is to name 老干妈 chili sauce.  And in Taiwan at least one person has used 乾媽 to mean oranges.  See  &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/society/breakingnews/1593333&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/society/breakingnews/1593333&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think if you want to express your idea of godparents in Chinese, you should first be clearer about your idea in English.  If you mean, for example the Catholic Church sense of the term, then you could ask Chinese Catholics how they express it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-02-03T23:35:11.253" LastActivityDate="2016-02-03T23:35:11.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17096" CreationDate="2016-02-03T23:46:20.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;鼓吹 originally means the ceremonial musicians in the ancient dynasties. In your case, the whole context means a king is giving a duke some kind of reward. 秬鬯 is a kind of liquor rewarded by king to duke who makes great achievements or contributions. 寵以前後鼓吹 means the duke is invited by the king to a concert held in the palace.  前後鼓吹 means the royal musical band is playing ceremonial music around the duke. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the modern life, the word is similar to 'preach' or 'boost'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12643" LastActivityDate="2016-02-03T23:46:20.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17119" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17121" CreationDate="2016-02-04T12:42:55.647" Score="1" ViewCount="516" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that all of them mean benefit or profit in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me understand when to use each word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T13:50:31.463" Title="What is the difference between 利润， 利益，盈利？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17119" CreationDate="2016-02-04T13:50:31.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“利润” is the spread between interest and paid, and is always used in economy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“利益” is the benefit that people gain from what they are doing or are going to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“盈利” is similar to “利润”. But &quot;利润&quot; usually be used as a noun,“盈利” can be used a noun, an adjective and a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.公司今年的&lt;strong&gt;利润&lt;/strong&gt;是10,000,000，明年目标是&lt;strong&gt;盈利&lt;/strong&gt;100,000,000。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate into English：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The company's profits is 10,000,000 this year, and their goal is gain 100,000,000 next year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“利润” is used as a noun, and “盈利” is used as a verb in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.苹果是去年唯一一家&lt;strong&gt;盈利&lt;/strong&gt;的公司。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apple is the only profitable company last year. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“盈利” is used as an adjective here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.&lt;strong&gt;盈利&lt;/strong&gt;对一家上市公司来说很重要。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Profits is important to the listed company.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“盈利” is used as a noun in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T13:50:31.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17122" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17123" CreationDate="2016-02-04T16:31:21.093" Score="2" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone knows how 万一 became a phrase with &quot;just in case&quot; meaning?&#xA;Is it a shorthand of a longer phrase or chengyu?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T09:11:30.213" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T09:11:30.213" Title="Does anyone know origins of 万一?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17122" CreationDate="2016-02-04T17:15:04.290" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/199191/8163691.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/199191/8163691.htm&lt;/a&gt; gives a plausible answer: it refers to a remote possibility of a thing X happening.  Sort of &quot;among the ten thousand and one things that could happen, one is X.&quot;  Far back in ancient and classical Chinese,  the ten thousand things are a proverbial way to express all that happens in this world.  But I did not find sources giving any specific classical source for 万一 meaning &quot;just in case.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T17:15:04.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17100" CreationDate="2016-02-04T17:33:27.563" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Black Technology&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a role of Japanese light novels &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Metal_Panic!#Full_Metal_Panic.21_The_Second_Raid&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Full Metal Panic!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A9%9A%E7%88%86%E5%8D%B1%E6%A9%9F%E7%94%A8%E8%AA%9E%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8#.E5.82.BE.E8.81.BD.E8.80.85.E8.88.87.E9.BB.91.E7.A7.91.E6.8A.80.E7.AF.87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;黑科技（Black Technology）——是指倾听者所拥有，但是非人类自力研发；凌驾于人类现有的科技之上的知识。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black Technology is obtained from the Whispered who is another role of &lt;em&gt;Full Metal Panic!&lt;/em&gt; . It is so knowledgeable that it overtops the existing technology of human being.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, &quot;黑科技&quot; is often used to describe the companies which have unbelievable technology, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/#q=sony+%E9%BB%91%E7%A7%91%E6%8A%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;such as Sony&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T17:33:27.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17125" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17126" CreationDate="2016-02-04T19:55:24.747" Score="3" ViewCount="1547" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a bit confused by the appropriate use of 大约 and 差不多.&#xA;I have learned to use 差不多 in many cases where I am talking about an approximate amount, value, extent, etc. of something, or speaking about how two things are similar. Would someone be able to provide an explanation differentiating these two words / concepts? Also, is one or the other more common in colloquial usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12493" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T18:56:19.913" Title="The correct usage of 大约 vs. 差不多" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17125" CreationDate="2016-02-04T20:32:47.180" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;大约 means &quot;approximately&quot;, 差不多 means &quot;almost&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大约 is normally used as an adjective or adverb in phrases like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;大约四英尺厚的雪&#xA;snow that is approximately 4 feet thick&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多 can be used in a similar way, but it's more commonly used as an adjective-verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这两本书的内容都差不多&#xA;these two books' contents are about the same&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 这两本书的内容都差不多一样 (with 差不多 as an adverb) means the same thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The important thing to remember is that 差不多 means &lt;em&gt;almost, but not quite&lt;/em&gt;, so two things that are 差不多一样 are not exactly the same. Whereas something like 大约一个小时 could be exactly one hour, although it could also be a bit more or less.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多 is also commonly used in a colloquial sense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;差不多了吧&#xA;that should do it&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience, 大约 is more common in written language. The spoken equivalent is 大概. But that may be a regional thing. 差不多 is very common in colloquial language, mostly in the sense of &quot;about the same&quot; or &quot;good enough&quot; as in the examples above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastEditorUserId="12420" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T18:56:19.913" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T18:56:19.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17125" CreationDate="2016-02-04T20:40:12.433" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;大约 is mostlty to describe quantity ,value,time,date,which are related to numbers.&#xA;差不多 is to tell two or many things are similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12666" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T20:40:12.433" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16172" CreationDate="2016-02-04T20:49:52.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Word to word ,it means local head.&#xA;Like ali said 'A local with much influence' is a right way to understand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I never see someone using this phrase and it sounds weird to me.&#xA;Maybe it only exist in some dialect.&#xA;I am a Chinese and i suggest you don't use it in the future or it will be improper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12666" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T20:49:52.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16654" CreationDate="2016-02-04T21:15:14.163" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;@wuerling's answer is right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider similar situations in English:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shit --&gt; shoot --&gt; shucks --&gt; sugar, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hell --&gt; heck, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;god --&gt; gosh. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minced_oath&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minced oath&lt;/a&gt; substitutes or euphemistic expressions formed by misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo term reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Extension of this phenomenon in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肏 --&gt; 操 --&gt; 草 --&gt; 艹 --&gt; 擦（cā） --&gt; 嚓. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can also see phrases like: 我擦，我擦嘞 online to express exclamation or amazement or shock or sometimes outrage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also an attenuation of the pronunciation, &lt;strong&gt;less plosive&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 擦 --&gt; 嚓，changing 扌(hand 手) to 口（mouth）even attenuates the meaning from making a motion to just producing a sound. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the purpose of academic discussion, 日, 干 (do) also mean f*** in this case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: 我日你。我干。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11095" LastEditorUserId="11095" LastEditDate="2016-02-04T22:22:38.580" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T22:22:38.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2" CreationDate="2016-02-05T05:13:27.803" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an extension to Flake's answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做 in most cases do not involve creative activity, in another word, usually do not involve mind work. As in 做工(work), 做饭(cook).&#xA;作 in most cases is something creative.As in 作曲(compose), 创作(write).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12621" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T05:13:27.803" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17132" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-05T06:23:19.300" Score="3" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been taking Mandarin classes at university. Due to illness I have missed a lot and fallen way behind. Now I wish to continue learning on my own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I find it very hard to remember the characters. Because I am a senior, is there any hope, or am I too old to learn and remember the characters? Are there resources that simplify this? These are the texts we were using:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Integrated Chinese Textbook Simplified Character &#xA;中文听说读写 (3rd Edition)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;( Level 1, Part 1)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Integrated Chinese Workbook Simplified Character&#xA;中文听说读写&#xA;(3rd Edition)&#xA;(Level 1, Part 1)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Integrated Chinese Character Book &#xA;Simplified and Traditional Characters 中文听说读写 (3rd Edition) (Level 1, Part 1)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I lack the opportunity to interact with Mandarin-speaking individuals. What are good online resources for hearing Mandarin spoken, so that I can become more aware of how to speak and pronounce it correctly?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12671" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-08-01T12:20:13.950" LastActivityDate="2020-08-01T12:20:13.950" Title="How can I get exposure to Mandarin usage and pronunciation?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17132" CreationDate="2016-02-05T16:55:53.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a really good podcast from Taiwan that I like. I think you can try listening to it if you want more &quot;exposure&quot; to the language:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青春愛消遣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12672" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T16:55:53.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17136" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17278" CreationDate="2016-02-06T04:53:22.133" Score="4" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've searched &lt;code&gt;nordic hamstring curl&lt;/code&gt; and its synonyms &lt;code&gt;glute ham raise&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;natural ham curl&lt;/code&gt; on Baidu. None of top Chinese articles had Chinese words for it, they just used the English words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.actrainer.com/bbs/detail_703&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.actrainer.com/bbs/detail_703&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.dabin69.com/thread-295004-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://bbs.dabin69.com/thread-295004-1-1.html&lt;/a&gt;   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4681" LastActivityDate="2016-02-22T15:51:03.743" Title="What is &quot;Nordic hamstring curl&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;sport&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17138" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17149" CreationDate="2016-02-06T09:23:24.583" Score="0" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;产业 vs 企业 vs 商业. I think the 3 of them means enterprise. What's the difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12527" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T09:50:45.320" Title="产业 vs 企业 vs 商业. What's the difference?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17138" CreationDate="2016-02-06T10:06:13.770" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;产业 chan3 ye4 = industry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;企业 qi3 ye4 = enterprise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;商业 shang1 ye4 = business&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice each of the words contain &quot;业&quot;. That one character means business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All three of the words mean business but different types of businesses based on size.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kind of like bread, then branching off into wheat bread, white bread.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12677" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T10:06:13.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17141" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17154" CreationDate="2016-02-07T10:00:58.370" Score="4" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Vietnamese preparing to celebrate the Lunar New Year and have found this piece of decoration. I think the Chinese character on that is a Traditional one, pretty calligraphic and notably containing the 龸 part (I guess). I've tried looking up this character in our most reliable Han dictionary (from Traditional Chinese characters to Vietnamese), but failed. Moreover, I've searched it on the LINE dictionary (Chinese to English), and the best result I've got is 常.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm here to seek help. What is this character? Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QISSr.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QISSr.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;常?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9417" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-17T23:46:38.120" LastActivityDate="2020-04-17T23:46:38.120" Title="An unknown, calligraphic Traditional Chinese character (Character identified: 常)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16773" CreationDate="2016-02-07T17:28:48.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How you understand 'Chinese language' really depends on your point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you consider it historically, maybe it should reference to the  aggregate of dialects. Most 'Chinese' nowadays speak Mandarin, which is a political consequence. Before the 1900s, there was still no official Chinese pronunciation, and the Mandarin as a prevailing language was initiated to unite the whole country. Most Chinese people except those in Beijing were actually forced to change there original language to the northern version. In this way, Mandarin is just the official version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in daily life, I am more fond to think of 'Chinese language' as Mandarin, because 90% of Chinese speak Mandarin, just like for Python, 90% run Python 2.7, and when you use Python 3, you always want to claim that to get rid of homonyms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just my baloney, do care:) [?!?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12682" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-02-09T01:05:51.467" LastActivityDate="2016-02-09T01:05:51.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17143" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-07T19:05:43.023" Score="2" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about answering 这是哪儿. Should I answer directly and say that this is a restaurant, or if I should give a general answer and say this is Utica, if someone asks me that question？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12684" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-07T21:32:53.293" LastActivityDate="2016-02-07T21:32:53.293" Title="How do I answer 这是哪儿?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17143" CreationDate="2016-02-07T21:30:48.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really should depend on the context. Note that &quot;Where am I?&quot; has similar ambiguity in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, if I'm at a shop and speaking to someone on the phone who wants to know where I am, and I ask the shopkeeper 这是哪里？, it's expected for the name of the shop (or its location) to be given. This might also hold if I am on the street.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparatively, in some cases, I might want less specific information. If someone is bringing me into an unfamiliar store, I might instead expect the answer to indicate what &lt;em&gt;type&lt;/em&gt; of store I am in. If I have been driving long distances and have just stopped, I &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; expect 这是哪里？ (if asked by a passenger I am carrying) to be about what town I am in, not what road I am on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastActivityDate="2016-02-07T21:30:48.307" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17145" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17147" CreationDate="2016-02-08T12:33:23.000" Score="7" ViewCount="3446" Body="&lt;p&gt;The questions &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/932/is-there-a-traditional-chinese-new-year-greeting&quot;&gt;Is there a traditional Chinese New Year greeting?&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/943/which-expression-do-native-speakers-actually-use-chinese-new-year-or-spring-fes&quot;&gt;Which expression do native speakers actually use: Chinese New Year or Spring Festival (or other)?&lt;/a&gt; describe various greetings for this time of year.   But they do not specifically address  新年快乐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese people in the US often say this to me at this time of year, but I think it is really not said in China.  Is that true?   I have never been in China for this festival.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T11:03:34.030" Title="Do people in China say 新年快乐 at Spring Festival?" Tags="&lt;greetings&gt;&lt;chinese-new-year&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17145" CreationDate="2016-02-08T13:19:34.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, mainlanders say this. At the very least, my wife says this to other mainlanders and she is from 黑龙江. She seems to vary between 春节快乐 and 新年快乐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mainland expats at my work have been saying 新年快乐 to me all day too, but I haven't heard a 春节快乐 yet :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4709" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T13:19:34.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17145" CreationDate="2016-02-08T14:24:52.173" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. 新年=New Year, while it does not specify whether it's the new year of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calendar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese calendar(农历)&lt;/a&gt; or the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Gregorian calendar(公历)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's ok to say 新年快乐 in both cases. And normally we'll interpret it based on the context. If you wish to be more specific, you can use 元旦 for 公历新年 and 春节 for 农历新年.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Edit:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal opinion about the usage of 快乐 in greetings (as a native speaker myself):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generally, 新年快乐 seems more formal to me while 新年好 seems more casual.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;新年快乐 is mostly used with other greetings/blessings, starting with 祝(你). eg. 祝你新年快乐，万事如意，心想事成. Thus, it's better used in written language, where you'd use one long sentence to express your best wishes to someone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both can be used when people meet during the Spring Festival, but you'd use multiple short phrases instead of one long sentence in the oral language, so 新年好 probably better suit the case.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2016-02-09T05:43:32.800" LastActivityDate="2016-02-09T05:43:32.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16773" CreationDate="2016-02-08T15:17:37.510" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The term &lt;em&gt;Mandarin&lt;/em&gt; (普通话) denotes a dialect which is now the official spoken language of the People's Republic of China and used in most of the China mainland. But it was under heavy influence of the dialect of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchu_people&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Manchu People&lt;/a&gt; and not widely used before the Qing Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The term &lt;em&gt;Chinese language&lt;/em&gt; (汉语) is a broader concept than Mandarin. All languages listed on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Chinese_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; can be considered &lt;em&gt;Chinese language&lt;/em&gt;, but as you can see only a small branch of it is called &lt;em&gt;Mandarin&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sinitic languages&lt;/em&gt; is a linguistic term denoting a branch of the Sino-Tibetan &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_family&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;language family&lt;/a&gt;(汉藏语系), which is possibly the broadest concept in this three according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Tibetan_languages#Shafer_.281955.29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;. Please also notice the infobox on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinitic_languages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; which shows a classification like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sino-Tibetan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  └Sinitic&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;├Chinese&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;└Macro-Bai ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2016-02-12T09:00:21.137" LastActivityDate="2016-02-12T09:00:21.137" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17138" CreationDate="2016-02-08T15:43:48.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;企业: &lt;strong&gt;enterprise/&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;corporation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;; business(only the organization, not the activity it engages in)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;产业: &lt;strong&gt;industry&lt;/strong&gt;; business(the activity but not the company/organization).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;eg. 软件产业=software industry/business, 房地产(业)=real estate (business)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;商业: &lt;strong&gt;commerce&lt;/strong&gt;/commercial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;eg. 商业(的)银行=&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bank&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;commercial bank&lt;/a&gt;, 商业(的)软件=&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_software&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;commercial software&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2016-02-10T09:50:45.320" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T09:50:45.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17145" CreationDate="2016-02-08T17:05:57.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because 新年快乐 is such a standard form of saying it, sometimes it may make it feel you don't have the enthusiasm when you say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more cheerful and upbeat form of saying it may be 恭喜发财！(may you be prosperous), or even a form of   恭喜！恭喜！恭喜发财！ for the warmth and enthusiasm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="940" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T17:05:57.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17145" CreationDate="2016-02-08T18:00:45.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Happy (快乐)&quot; is not a traditional greeting. I believe that it came to the Chinese language with English greetings such as &quot;happy new year&quot; and &quot;happy birthday&quot;, which the majority of younger people adopted as the standard greeting of virtually all special days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to the oral noun, &quot;Spring Festival (春节)&quot; is definitely said more often than &quot;new year&quot;, at least in Northern China where I'm from. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of the &lt;strong&gt;traditional&lt;/strong&gt; greetings uses the word &quot;happy (快乐)&quot;. Instead, &quot;恭喜发财&quot;, &quot;过年好&quot;, &quot;新年好&quot; are dominantly common. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12690" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T18:00:45.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17145" CreationDate="2016-02-08T20:28:51.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whether it is a &quot;greeting&quot; specifically might be arguable, but if you watch the CCTV Chinese New Year Gala (&quot;春晚&quot;, colloquially), you will hear a fairly steady stream of &quot;新年快乐&quot;s.  It is most definitely a very normal thing for Chinese people in China say to one another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for a greeting specifically, some of the things rwei suggested like &quot;新年好&quot; might be more common, but that might also depend on regional differences.  Keep in mind that &quot;China&quot; is a very large place and speaking patterns are not always uniform.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6391" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T20:28:51.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17141" CreationDate="2016-02-09T05:27:44.087" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you posted is &lt;code&gt;常&lt;/code&gt; (pinyin: chang2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means &lt;a href=&quot;http://cdict.net/?q=%E5%B8%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;always&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;often&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and with New Year decorations, can appear in combination for example in well-wishing phrases about happiness, fortunes, health, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recognition might be difficult because this is not the regular script typically seen in print text, but is instead written in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_script_styles#Semi-cursive_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;semi-cursive script&lt;/a&gt;, also known as running script (pinyin: xing2 shu, t: 行書, s: 行书, Vietnamese: Hành thư)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The bottom part of 常 is composed of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8F%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;口 (mouth, pinyin: kou3)&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B7%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;巾 (pinyin: jin)&lt;/a&gt;, and normally these shapes are clearly discernible when looking at the regular script version&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;but in your posted example it is condensed: the box-like 口 is reduced to a mere triangle and merged with the 巾&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the top half's strokes are still recognizable though, not drastically altered compared to regular script&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it shows condensed strokes typical of cursive script, yet has not been completely condensed, so it should be semi-cursive not cursive&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, listed as semi-cursive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xNRpS.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xNRpS.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Chang, semi-cursive&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://shufa.supfree.net/x/25442.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;supfree.net&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;notice the similar condensed shapes and strokes at the bottom&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://shufa.supfree.net/raky.asp?zi=%B3%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://shufa.supfree.net/raky.asp?zi=%B3%A3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the Simplified vs. Traditional aspect, not every Traditional Chinese character has been changed to make Simplified Chinese, for example: character for the number one 一 (pinyin: yi). 常 is also an example of a character that the authors of Simplified Chinese did not simplify, so under Simplified Chinese it remains unchanged from Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helped,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Happy Lunar New Year!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11759" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2019-02-20T01:58:37.230" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T01:58:37.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17138" CreationDate="2016-02-09T17:02:59.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the translation of @jooshee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, “业” doesn't directly mean &quot;business&quot; as in the way the western world uses it. It only gains this meaning, when combined in ways like the ones in the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classically, “业” means &quot;to work&quot; (verb) or &quot;work&quot; (noun) as becomes obvious form this 成语 ： “安居乐业” , which can be translated to &quot;to live in peace and work happily&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12700" LastActivityDate="2016-02-09T17:02:59.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16773" CreationDate="2016-02-10T10:40:52.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term &lt;em&gt;Mandarin&lt;/em&gt;, in my opinion, is a rather confusing term to non-Chinese speakers, as it is not obvious as for why this would be any different of a classification like Cantonese is. However, the word Mandarin in Chinese is 普通话, which strictly speaking means &quot;the common language&quot; and is the &lt;em&gt;official&lt;/em&gt; language used for politics and the official media. Many countries don't need to differentiate between an official language and the one they speak daily. But in a country as vast as China such a standardizing measure is obviously needed for communication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, for the term &lt;em&gt;Chinese Language&lt;/em&gt; can not directly be translated nor explained to the word 汉语, since this only would be accepted by the mainland.&#xA;However, since 中国大陆 (China Mainland) is not the only country or place which uses the Chinese language. And thereby this becomes a political question. For example in Taiwan they use the word 国语 instead of 汉语. And the rest of the Chinese-speaking world mostly uses the term 华语, which I believe comes closest to the word &lt;em&gt;Chinese Language&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And lastly, the word &lt;em&gt;Sinitic Languages&lt;/em&gt; simply is a linguistic term to classify the languages spoken in the region. This will furthermore include all dialects and variations of 华语, but also all the dialects spoken by all minority groups and the people of 新疆 and Tibet. (Which, if you ever heard someone form 新疆 speak Chinese, doesn't often sound like Chinese anymore.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12700" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T10:40:52.673" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16654" CreationDate="2016-02-10T10:50:22.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The explanations above are very reasonable, however, when getting to the meaning of 我艹你 it does not have the same meaning as &quot;I f*** you.&quot; would have if you told anyone in English. It is more like &quot;I am gonna f*** you up.&quot; Or a really strong form of 我讨厌你 (= I hate you. / You are so annoying.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12700" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T10:50:22.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17125" CreationDate="2016-02-10T10:57:15.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term 差不多 can easily be understood by direct translation. 差（v）＝ differ ， 不多 ＝ not much. Thereby, we can see that it means &quot;not to differ by much&quot; which logically corresponds to almost. In certain context 差不多 and 差点儿 means the same. The same logic applies here also, as 一点儿 means &quot;a little&quot;, being the same as &quot;not much&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 大约 can best be translated to &quot;approximately&quot;. Which then becomes obvious why it is a more formal word than 差不多. As said before its spoken equivalent is 大概 which best is translated to &quot;roughly&quot; and thereby also showing that it is more colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12700" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T10:57:15.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16851" CreationDate="2016-02-11T00:01:19.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;《&lt;strong&gt;送母回乡&lt;/strong&gt;》&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;mdash;&amp;mdash;&lt;strong&gt;李商隐&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;停车茫茫顾，困我成楚囚。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;感伤从中起，悲泪哽在喉。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;慈母方病重，欲将名医投。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;车接今在急，天竟情不留！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;母爱无所报，人生更何求！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;When I stopped the carriage and looking around blankly,&lt;br&gt;I felt like a prisoner because of the sadness I've gone through.&lt;br&gt;My grief tear is like fishbone stuck in my throat.&lt;br&gt;Now my mother is sick(lethally sick),&lt;br&gt;so I'm taking her to visit the doctor.&lt;br&gt;But on the way,&lt;br&gt;the God(sky) took my mother's life mercilessly.&lt;br&gt;I can't pay back for my mother's love,&lt;br&gt;what else can I look forward to?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12069" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T00:01:19.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17163" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-11T05:44:18.143" Score="5" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;My textbook gives me the following two examples of 一下, saying that the 一下 in each sentence doesn't mean the same thing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你去问一下老师 (Just ask your teacher)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我打了孩子一下 (I smacked my child)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 1. I'd like to check again with native speakers what the 一下 from 我打了孩子一下 means exactly. Does the 一下 mean how many the speaker smacked her/his child, only one time in this case, or act as an adverb like 'a little bit'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 2. Even though the objects (老师 and 孩子) equally refer to persons, I guess the 一下 conveys different meanings depending on its position. So, I know this question sounds stupid but would there be any difference if I change the place of 一下 as follows?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你去问一下老师 → 你去问老师一下&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打孩子一下 → 打一下孩子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12284" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T08:49:01.543" Title="Questions about the meaning and position of 一下" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17163" CreationDate="2016-02-11T08:05:18.553" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 1. Does the 一下 mean how many the speaker smacked her/his child, only one time in this case, or act as an adverb like 'a little bit'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means only once here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/0/3/5557.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;一下&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; might mean &lt;code&gt;a little bit&lt;/code&gt; too, depends on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;附於動詞後面，有略微的意思。如：「想一下」、「看一下」。亦作「一下子」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=&amp;gt; Attached after the verb, means &lt;code&gt;a little&lt;/code&gt;. (Note: In some instances, depends on the context. --end note)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other two common meaning of &lt;code&gt;一下&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;in a short while&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;suddenly&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) [in a short while]∶表示短暂的时间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;灯一下又亮了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) [in one go;at a single stroke;all of a sudden]∶突然间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天一下阴了下来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 2. would there be any difference if I change the place of 一下 as follows?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你去问一下老师 → 你去问老师一下&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;打孩子一下 → 打一下孩子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, there're no difference. In both cases &lt;code&gt;一下&lt;/code&gt; acts as an adverb modifying the verb, the position won't change the basic meaning. (Except that the object will be emphasized if it's placed at the front.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T08:49:01.543" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17094" CreationDate="2016-02-11T08:16:02.567" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is data on this matter.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zainea.com/f0_m%26f.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zainea.com/f0_m%26f.pdf&lt;/a&gt; present data showing that English speakers who study Mandarin typically use more tonal range in Mandarin than in English but substantially less than native Mandarin speakers do.  Hardly surprising.  And it is known that musical training helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scilt.org.uk/portals/24/library/slr/issues/24/24_5_tsai.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.scilt.org.uk/portals/24/library/slr/issues/24/24_5_tsai.pdf&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chen (1974) compared the pitch range between English and Chinese&#xA;  speakers. The results showed that Mandarin needs a pitch range 1.5&#xA;  times wider than English, and that native English speakers do not have&#xA;  this range naturally. The author claimed that native speakers of a&#xA;  non-tonal language need to widen their pitch range to successfully&#xA;  acquire a tonal language. Wong and Perrachione (2006) studied a group&#xA;  learning Mandarin tones, and found that “large individual differences&#xA;  were observed. Learning success was found to be associated with the&#xA;  learner’s ability to perceive pitch patterns in a nonlexical context&#xA;  and their previous musical experience”. Experienced teachers have also&#xA;  reported that students with musical training learn Mandarin faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only advice I found was for students to try harder. Too often, though, &quot;trying harder,&quot; without explicit guidance, only reinforces habits you already have.  No one that I found suggested either&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) students with musical experience should see the known data on what pitches native speakers actually use, so the students can aim for a much closer match to native pronunciation than most ever hear about today. As monalisa says, a native speaker's pitches vary.  Data shows even a single first tone can drop its pitch slightly at the end!  But research shows the physical pitch in the sense of &quot;fundamental frequency&quot; of the sounds is truly a key part of perceived Mandarin tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) students without much musical experience should spend some time using tuning forks or a keyboard to learn to hear pitch better.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is neglected because too many teachers in the US are just convinced American students can never have very good Mandarin pronunciation anyway, so they don't want to worry about &quot;fine points.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tuning forks are helping me now, and i will pass on the little bit I have learned.  It seems best to focus on one note for the high level tone.  This is not surprising: Studies show people are consistently better at using the low part of their vocal range and need more training to extend their high end.  A tuning fork is extremely convenient.  Pitch sources free on-line and on phone apps sounded bad to me -- I did not try paying for better ones.  Electronic tuners seem like overkill.  I don't have a piano.  Pitch pipes make &lt;em&gt;less&lt;/em&gt; pure notes than a natural human voice (they produce more harmonics), so they are a bad model. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Left to myself, I radically misjudged both the pitches i was using and what I should do about them.  My voice is not really very low, only I stay very much in the low end of it in English (this may indeed be due to Clint Eastwood).  Overreacting to this, I initially aimed far too high for high tones (A440).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The standard textbook advice is: find the high end of your natural speaking range. They do not say how, and anyway this is wrong.  No one outside of Chinese opera uses the actual extreme high end of their natural (i.e. non-falsetto) range in speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Data on page 210 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1139452150&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1139452150&lt;/a&gt; suggests I should better aim for something close to G190 for my first tones, more than an octave below what I had first tried.  The more I practice, the better that pitch sounds to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tuning forks are surprisingly hard to find so I will point out that many adjustable forks cover the whole range that  &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1139452150&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1139452150&lt;/a&gt; found for one male voice, and do not go as high as Middle C (256--261 depending on which scale it is for).  But most sets of non-adjustable tuning forks start at middle C and go up.  What  &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1139452150&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1139452150&lt;/a&gt; found for one female voice uses tones above and below middle C. Of course keyboards cover all this range and much more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course this is training, it is artificial.  In actual speech i will not (and should not) have a fixed pitch for first tones or any other tones.  But today I spoke with Chinese friends for the first time since I began work with the tuning forks.  I heard their tones more accurately than I had before.  And I could copy their tones more accurately, or adapt them more appropriately to my own vocal register, than I did before. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-02-27T01:49:14.990" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T01:49:14.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17166" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-11T09:50:22.670" Score="1" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of these words mean must or inevitable, but is there a difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12713" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T12:03:19.473" Title="Difference between 不得不， 不免 and 必然?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17166" CreationDate="2016-02-11T12:03:19.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不得不: have to, there are factors/reasons that force someone to (do something)&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;由于过热，我&lt;strong&gt;不得不&lt;/strong&gt;关闭机器&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I &lt;strong&gt;have to&lt;/strong&gt; turn off the machine due to overheating.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I &lt;strong&gt;have no choice but&lt;/strong&gt; to turn off the machine due to overheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不免/难免: would naturally; cannot help but.&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8D%E5%85%8D#Adverb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; (It sounds more like reasonable than inevitable. See example below)&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;工作量大，&lt;strong&gt;不免&lt;/strong&gt;会有失误。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  It'd be &lt;strong&gt;normal&lt;/strong&gt; to make mistakes due to the high workload.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (The mistakes can be avoided if careful enough. But due to the workload it is very &lt;strong&gt;reasonable&lt;/strong&gt; to make mistakes. You can use 必然 here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;必然: inevitable, certain. (At least the speaker believes so. There may be reasons, or there may be none)&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宇宙中必然有其他生命存在。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  There must be other forms of life in the universe.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (The speaker believes so, but he doesn't necessarily prove it. There may be no reason given for the statement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T12:03:19.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17168" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17170" CreationDate="2016-02-11T12:43:42.277" Score="0" ViewCount="1046" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone explain to explain me the difference between the three verbs&#xA;喜欢 (&lt;em&gt;xihuan&lt;/em&gt;), 要 (&lt;em&gt;yao&lt;/em&gt;), and 想 (&lt;em&gt;xiang&lt;/em&gt;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢喝一杯啤酒。 (&lt;em&gt;wo xihuan he yi bei pi jiu&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我要喝一杯啤酒。 (&lt;em&gt;wo yao he yi bei pi jiu&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我想喝一杯啤酒。 (&lt;em&gt;wo xiang he yi bei pi jiu&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When do I have to use it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11371" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-11T18:12:03.517" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T18:13:38.837" Title="Differences between 喜欢, 要, and 想?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-02-12T01:05:11.120" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17169" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-11T13:26:32.290" Score="2" ViewCount="3153" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hakka is a dialect of Chinese and therefore should be considered when speaking however what about &lt;strong&gt;writing&lt;/strong&gt;?  From a translation perspective is there a specific way to write Hakka or is this the same as Simplified or Traditional Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12714" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T12:25:13.360" Title="Is written Hakka the same as simplified Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17168" CreationDate="2016-02-11T13:59:04.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;喜欢(xi3 huan1) means to &lt;em&gt;like&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要(yao4) tends to realize the action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想(xiang3) means to &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt;, but you don't have to realize it. Sometimes it is just an expression of your desire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12715" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-11T18:13:38.837" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T18:13:38.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17173" CreationDate="2016-02-11T16:38:21.043" Score="3" ViewCount="4331" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know sarcasm is not commonly used in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English and many other languages, sarcasm is a matter of pragmatics and usually expressed by applying different intonation or stressing specific words. Sometimes intonation change is not even required and sarcasm is implied simply from the meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does that work in Chinese? I tried to think of different cases when you would use sarcasm. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That movie was &lt;strong&gt;so&lt;/strong&gt; interesting.  [but it actually wasn't]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I ordered a USB cable on Taobao and got nail polish as a gift.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;That&lt;/strong&gt; makes sense. [it really doesn't make any sense]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yeah, right, I &lt;strong&gt;really&lt;/strong&gt; wanna eat that slimy pasta from 4 days ago (here &lt;em&gt;&quot;Yeah, right&quot;&lt;/em&gt; also takes part). [i don't want to eat old pasta]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any idea how one would express those three examples in Chinese? Can intonation take part in Chinese as well? Are there certain words or some grammar particles that help to convey the subtext of sarcasm?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your thoughts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T17:43:34.050" Title="How to express sarcasm?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17171" CreationDate="2016-02-11T17:21:28.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can intonation take part in Chinese as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes of course. From my opinion, the sentences above could be translated word by word while still preserve their meaning. Or if you are writing it instead of actually saying it, you can add a few word to better illustrate the sarcastic sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这电影真好看。(stress 真) or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 这电影真他妈的好看。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我在淘宝买了条USB线，结果赠品是指甲油。卖家真有脑。(here 有脑 actually means 无脑, doesn't have a brain / idiot)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;呵呵，4天前的意面真好吃。(呵呵 also takes part)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; In both cases, adding 他妈的 or something similar right after 真 is perfectly fine in oral language. It's like &quot;so fucking fine&quot;(actually not fine) or &quot;You are SO DAMN right.&quot;(may be right or not, depending on the context).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This technique is actually called 反语 in Chinese. For example, (not about sarcasm) 好不热闹 actually means 好热闹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2016-02-11T17:38:40.623" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T17:38:40.623" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17171" CreationDate="2016-02-11T17:43:34.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Intonation works, but particles and certain rhetorical phrases can also reveal mood:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哎，那部电影岂能没有意思呢。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;果然 is often used sarcastically, to indicate an unexpected outcome:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在淘宝上订购了一条USB电缆，果然收到了指甲油为礼物。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often the context is self-evident, just like in other languages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;对啦，真真想吃下那四天前做的谄媚的面条。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T17:43:34.050" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6000" CreationDate="2016-02-12T15:38:45.213" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is one of the most remarkable pieces of art in language that human kind has ever made. In elementary school, Chinese teachers ask their students to write not only correct but beautifully by printing a picture for each character. Chinese is different from other western languages such as German, French, or English because it has no alphabet. Instead, it contains 50,000 characters. If a person knows 5000 of the most commonly used characters, he or she can read a newspaper. How many characters a person knows indicates how intellectual that person is. Chinese is one of the world’s oldest languages, and its written form, like that of most languages, developed from the pictograph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12720" LastActivityDate="2016-02-12T15:38:45.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17175" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17177" CreationDate="2016-02-13T03:04:47.530" Score="9" ViewCount="478" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people in the US normally avoid saying a person has &quot;died.&quot;  They say the person &quot;passed on,&quot; or &quot;has left us.&quot;  Are there similar, gentle ways in Chinese to avoid saying a person died?  Would it generally seem rude among friends to just say that someone has died? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T16:37:26.007" Title="Politeness in referring to a recent death" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17176" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-13T14:37:07.797" Score="6" ViewCount="1212" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do Chinese people put a finger on the lips and use the expression &quot;shh&quot; to ask for silence? According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/a/24588&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; in the English Language Stack Exchange, this expression originated from English about six centuries ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course people who watch western movies and the internet would know about this expression. But what I wonder is: if I go to a traditional village in a not-so-visited part of China, would they use and understand this expression? Or do they have their own different expression to imply silence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12725" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:38:11.437" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T04:34:01.837" Title="Is the &quot;shh&quot; expression of silence used in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17175" CreationDate="2016-02-13T15:50:03.450" Score="11" Body="&lt;h3&gt;TL;DR&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most general euphemism for &quot;die&quot; in Chinese is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;去世&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Literally means &quot;leave the world&quot;. Similar to the English expression &quot;pass on/away&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be polite enough to address anyone's death and is commonly used in speaking and writing. So if you don't know which word is the best, just use this one – in only a few cases would it sound unsuitable (even though it won't sound impolite), e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When using euphemism is absurd. For example, it's weird to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(Awful!) 这个专门杀男孩的杀手终于去世了。&#xA;(Awful!) Finally, the serial killer who aims at boys has passed away.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you wouldn't say that in English, don't try it in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When addressing children's death. Chinese consider 去世 is too solemn for children, and in formal writing we use &lt;code&gt;夭折&lt;/code&gt;. In conversations, personally I &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (I hope there's no chance for me) say &lt;code&gt;离开了我们&lt;/code&gt; (has left us).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;A Longer List&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;General (for grown-ups)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(leave the world; leave forever) 去世/过世/离世/谢世/辞世/与世长辞 / [长逝/永逝]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(sleep forever; rest in peace; say farewell forever) 安息/永眠/长眠/永别&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For children and youths&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夭折/夭亡/早逝 / [殤/兰摧玉折]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For young girls&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;香消玉殒/倩女离魂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the great&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;逝世/辞世/与世长辞/ [星陨]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For martyrs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;牺牲/就义/殉道/殉国/殉难/殉职/壮烈/舍身 [成仁/以身许国/舍生取义/马革裹尸]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For those who die for illness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;病故/病逝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For ancient emperors&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;驾崩/ [大薨/山陵崩/登遐/晏驾]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For Buddhist monks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;圆寂/坐化/涅槃 [示寂/示灭/入灭/灭度/示灭]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For those who die for accidents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;遇难/罹难/丧身&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For those who normally die at an old age&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;寿终/寿终正寝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For old masters (these phrases are Taoism related)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;驾鹤西去/仙去/仙游/ [登仙/物化/羽化/遁化/迂化/迂神/隐化/解驾]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Brackets [ ] denote expressions that would be too formal to be used in conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This list is far from and is not supposed to be perfect (as expressions are too many). Feel free to improve it :)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2016-02-13T16:37:26.007" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T16:37:26.007" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2016-02-13T15:50:03.450" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17058" CreationDate="2016-02-13T21:13:07.703" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it just means &quot;has just been opened&quot;. It is much like the use of the  English perfect tense to give news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T21:13:07.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17035" CreationDate="2016-02-13T21:24:27.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;她离开了三年了: Without context this sounds weird to me. Without any context, all the responses above are just adding to confusion.&#xA;to render it more idiomatic, perhaps change to: 她离开已经有三年了。&#xA;她离开三年了: this is idiomatic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T21:24:27.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17022" CreationDate="2016-02-13T22:24:41.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key grammatical point in all 3 sentences is: the verb used in the first half of each example statement is REPEATED in the second half.&#xA;她学汉语要学一年&#xA;with the use of 要, we can infer that the above is a nonpast statement (ie not a past reference). Without any context, it is difficult to know what it means. Perhaps the speaker intended to say 她要学汉语的话，得学一年 (If she wants to learn Chinese, she will have to learn it for 1 year).&#xA;我看电影只看了十分钟&#xA;This statement has past reference because of the use of 了. If it is about a specific movie, it means &quot;I watched this/that/the movie for only 10 minutes&quot;. If it is about the activity of watching movie, it means &quot;I watched a movie for only 10 minutes&quot;.&#xA;她学汉语能学一年&#xA;This is not idiomatic to me. May be the following was intended: 她学汉语只能学一年。(She can only afford to spend 1 year learning Chinese)&#xA;Learners whose native language does not require this kind of verb repetition are likely to say for example 我看这部电影只有十分钟。&#xA;Thank you for reading my comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T22:24:41.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16994" CreationDate="2016-02-13T22:37:33.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is a conditional statement: When he comes, please close your eyes.&#xA;Please note that “了” does not necessarily mark the statement for a past event. In this case it marks &quot;future completion&quot;. Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T22:37:33.090" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16935" CreationDate="2016-02-13T23:17:27.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that &quot;should&quot; expresses either obligation or expectation. The Chinese term 应该 also expresses either obligation or expectation. For the latter, adding 会 adds to the clarity and adding 吧 at the end of the sentence makes it even clearer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He should be here by 7PM.&#xA;If you mean &quot;he is expected to be here by 7 pm&quot;: 他应该会在下午7点前到吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should have it done by Friday.&#xA;If you mean &quot;I must have it done by Friday&quot;: 我应该在星期五之前把它做完。If you mean &quot;I expect to have it done by Friday&quot;: 我应该会在星期五之前把它做完吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should run in Windows 95.&#xA;这（软件）应该能用于 Windows 95 吧。&#xA;(Of course a piece of software could not possibly have any obligation to anybody, so there can only by one interpretation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T23:17:27.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16922" CreationDate="2016-02-13T23:24:52.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you possibly be talking about the English word &quot;atrophy&quot; which in Dutch might be &quot;entropy&quot;? Atrophy is a medical term to describe a muscle losing its bulk, and therefore its functionality, through prolonged lack of use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T23:24:52.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16774" CreationDate="2016-02-13T23:35:12.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;English equivalent : No horse play please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T23:35:12.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16762" CreationDate="2016-02-13T23:44:15.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are we all missing the point that, &quot;casual&quot; or &quot;formal&quot; refers to how one should come dressed in? How on earth can a party be 随便什么时间来都行!&#xA;I suggest: 服装：非正式。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T23:44:15.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16682" CreationDate="2016-02-14T00:04:03.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not knowing what &quot;science&quot; means in the movie, I would tentatively render it as follows, keeping in mind the key point is to convey the resolution expressed in &quot;the shit out of&quot;.&#xA;用我们的科技把它打得个焦头烂额。&#xA;Of course this does not sound like it would do for a title, but you get the idea.&#xA;I count on you guys out there to give a better translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-02-14T00:04:03.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17169" CreationDate="2016-02-14T01:05:34.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not aware of any Hakka writing. Theoretically, you could express Hakka expressions using Chinese characters used for Mandarin PLUS Hakka-unique Chinese characters, either old characters not used in modern Mandarin or created specially for Hakka. This methodology has already been adopted in Hong Kong for Cantonese and in Taiwan for Minnan Yu. Missionaries who came to Hakka speaking areas about a hundred years ago might have invented romanised Hakka for the purpose of producing a Hakka Bible. I don't know if they did. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether simplified or traditional is a matter of the appearance/shape of the characters. Simplified characters have less number of writing strokes than their traditional counterpart. In any case, only a very small portion of the full set of Chinese characters are in the simplified form.&#xA;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-02-14T01:05:34.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17189" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17200" CreationDate="2016-02-14T02:05:35.973" Score="0" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does one say 热闹i in English? I did some google search and the possible candidates are  lively, busy, and noisy. The connotation of 热闹  is crowdness, happy, noise, and excitment. Busy street in my opinion lacks the element of excitment. Is it? Also, busy club should be improper to describe the scenario. Somehow I feel coldness about busy street where people wear suits and walk quickly to work with apathy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9375" LastActivityDate="2016-02-15T23:58:06.007" Title="How to say 热闹 in English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-02-19T01:02:53.570" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17189" CreationDate="2016-02-14T04:36:39.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Vibrant, as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;adj. Pulsing or throbbing with energy or activity: the vibrant streets of a big city.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wordnik.com/words/vibrant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.wordnik.com/words/vibrant&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In urban planning, the idea of having vibrant streets, neighborhoods, communities can often be seen as a goal to work towards:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Vibrant Markets &amp;amp; Streets&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.inclusivecities.org/policy-planning/vibrant-markets-streets/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.inclusivecities.org/policy-planning/vibrant-markets-streets/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are in the market for associative housing such as Condo developments, look at the area amenities section in the sales brochure. You may notice the use of &lt;code&gt;vibrant&lt;/code&gt; to describe the street, neighborhood or the community development in order to make you feel attracted to buy there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11759" LastEditorUserId="11759" LastEditDate="2016-02-14T04:49:04.077" LastActivityDate="2016-02-14T04:49:04.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17191" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17193" CreationDate="2016-02-14T05:48:57.330" Score="5" ViewCount="466" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35461265&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; about mango's cultural significance in modern Chinese history. It mentioned about the following poem which was translated from Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Seeing that golden mango / Was as if seeing the Great Leader Chairman&#xA;  Mao!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Standing before that golden mango / Was just like standing beside&#xA;  Chairman Mao!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Again and again touching that golden mango: / the golden mango was so&#xA;  warm!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Again and again smelling the mango: / that golden mango was so&#xA;  fragrant!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched on Google and Baidu but couldn't find the original poem. Does anyone know the original verse?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4681" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-15T07:52:47.700" LastActivityDate="2016-02-15T07:52:47.700" Title="Original Chinese version of the mango poem" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17191" CreationDate="2016-02-14T11:27:02.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The poem is from a 2007 article by Freda Murck, who cites the Renmin ribao, 10 August 1968. Unfortunately, I don't have access to rmrb here.  The BBC story is highly confused, you should consult Murck's article for a clearer picture.  If you don't have access to jstor, there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/faculty/publications/chau/chau-maos-travelling-mangoes.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a 2010 article&lt;/a&gt; on Adam Chau's webpage that is a slightly different take, and without any samples of doggerel verse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-02-14T11:27:02.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17191" CreationDate="2016-02-14T12:59:39.840" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This poem came from Page 6 of Renmin Ribao (Aug 10, 1968). The title was &quot;金色的芒果&quot; (&lt;em&gt;Golden Mango&lt;/em&gt;) and the author was 鼓兵. The bold lines denote the cited part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h3&gt;金色的芒果&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鼓兵&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  首都工农毛泽东思想宣传队的同志们，为了使全市工农兵都能迅速地看到毛主席送的芒果，特在清华园扎了一座彩台，将一颗芒果放在上面。几天来，首都工农兵群众，排着整齐的队伍，敲锣打鼓地来到清华园，瞻仰这颗芒果……&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　金色的芒果啊，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　放在红色的彩台上，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　金色的芒果啊，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　闪耀着红太阳的光芒。&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　千万支队伍在迎着芒果走来，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　千万支歌曲在对着芒果高唱。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　千万双眼睛在注视着芒果，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　千万颗红心在激烈地跳荡。&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　&lt;b&gt;见到那金色的芒果啊，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　就好象见到了伟大领袖毛主席；&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　站在那金色的芒果面前啊，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　就好象站在毛主席身旁。&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　一次又一次地摸着那金色的芒果啊，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　金色的芒果多么暖！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　一次又一次地闻着那金色的芒果啊，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　金色的芒果多么香！&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　多少人手捧芒果眼望中南海，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　幸福的热泪簌簌淌；&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　多少人面对芒果表决心，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　誓言滚滚震天响：&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　“毛主席啊！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　我们永远跟着您干革命，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　海枯石烂心不变，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　任何困难无阻挡。”&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　“毛主席啊！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　为了捍卫您的革命路线，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　我们刀山敢上；&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　为了夺取无产阶级文化大革命的全面胜利，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　我们火海敢闯。”&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　“毛主席啊！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　我们一定认真读您的书，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　活学活用您伟大的思想，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　我们一定贯彻您的指示，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　一丝一毫不走样。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　…………&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　金色的芒果啊！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　放在红色的彩台上。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　金色的芒果啊！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　闪耀着红太阳的光芒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2016-02-14T12:59:39.840" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17010" CreationDate="2016-02-14T15:36:16.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's slightly analyze them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to: &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following characters falls in these parts of speech:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;美:【形】 【動】 【量】&#xA;愛:【動】 【名】&#xA;友:【動】 【名】&#xA;狂:【形】 【動】&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since these characters would definitely &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; make a valid sentence in Modern Chinese, let's assume we are dealing with Classical Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical Classical Chinese sentence consist of: &lt;code&gt;主語、謂語、賓語&lt;/code&gt; or you can understand it like &lt;code&gt;Subject Predicate Object&lt;/code&gt; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a possible combination:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【形】【名】【動】【形】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can do a 詞性活用 (a hack if you will), and make 狂 become a 【名】 to mean &quot;a crazy person&quot;. The sentence would mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Beautiful love befriends with a crazy person.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Please note that this is just for the sake of answering the question.&lt;/strong&gt; Don't use it because nobody will understand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="11486" LastEditDate="2016-02-14T15:52:20.357" LastActivityDate="2016-02-14T15:52:20.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17195" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-14T19:27:24.740" Score="1" ViewCount="488" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase I'm trying to grab is usually used when stating survey results or something of the like, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A survey found that 7 out of 10 men go to the gym every week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could this be translated as something like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个概观发现，七个出十个男人每周去健身房`&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11877" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-14T20:36:01.010" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T01:39:30.813" Title="How to express &quot;x out of y&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17195" CreationDate="2016-02-15T06:17:21.283" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to express a percentage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（某集体之中）有十分之七的人去了健身房。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或者：（平均下来）十个人里面有七个去了健身房。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;70% of them went to the gym.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to express a number:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;这&lt;/strong&gt;十个人里面有七个去了健身房。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(There are exactly 10 people in total, and exactly 7 people went to the gym.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10952" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-02-15T06:17:21.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17198" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17199" CreationDate="2016-02-15T08:47:54.547" Score="11" ViewCount="594" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why does 息 mean news?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chraracter's etymology suggest it means &quot;rest&quot; - &#xA;&quot;From nose indicating breath and also phonetic 自 and heart or chest 心. Meaning to rest.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E6%81%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E6%81%AF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess, it is something to do with nose + heart as a metaphor for &quot;interest&quot;. It might be understood as &quot;What is dear(heart) to me(nose)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T17:41:57.590" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T17:41:57.590" Title="Why does 息 mean news?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17198" CreationDate="2016-02-15T10:49:26.177" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;Over its long history of usage, the meaning of 息 has evolved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/xs/606F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;息&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; has the connotation of &lt;code&gt;message&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(5) 消息 [message]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (6) 又如:信息(音信;消息);息耗(消息,信息)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its original meaning is to &lt;code&gt;breathe;pant&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(会意兼形声。从心,从自,自亦声。自,鼻子。古人以为气是从心里通过鼻子呼吸的。本义:喘气;呼吸)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then the meaning was extended,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人之氣急曰喘。舒曰息。引伸爲休息之偁。又引伸爲生長之偁。引伸之義行而鼻息之義廢矣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ Breathing slowly was called &lt;code&gt;息&lt;/code&gt;, and it extended again to mean &lt;code&gt;rest&lt;/code&gt;, and extended again to mean &lt;code&gt;grow&lt;/code&gt;. ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then it became to be used with its antonym &lt;code&gt;消&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;get rid of;eliminate&lt;/code&gt;) as &lt;code&gt;消息&lt;/code&gt; from pre-Qin period (先秦), means &lt;code&gt;增减;盛衰&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;growth and decline&lt;/code&gt;), and then extended to mean &lt;code&gt;变化&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;change&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then &lt;code&gt;消息&lt;/code&gt; began to be used to mean &lt;code&gt;情况&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;circumstances;situation;condition&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;到了魏晋时期,“消息”的涵义则多为“情况”了.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  任何事物都会有从生长到死灭、从兴盛到衰败的发展变化过程,这种变化过程是一种“情况”.所以“消息”从“消长(生死盛衰)”的涵义演变为“情况”的涵义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ By the Northern and Southern Dynasties, 消息's primary meaning was situation. The process of evolution is a kind of situation, so &lt;code&gt;消息&lt;/code&gt;'s meaning was extended from changing to situation. ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;到了南北朝后期,“消息”便又发展出“音信”、“音讯”的涵义,而且从此就成为“消息”最主要的意思.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ By the later stages of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, &lt;code&gt;消息&lt;/code&gt;'s meaning was further extended to mean &lt;code&gt;音信&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;mail;message;news&lt;/code&gt;) and &lt;code&gt;音讯&lt;/code&gt;.  And that became its primary meaning.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.doc88.com/p-903537492871.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;释息&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xueshu.baidu.com/s?wd=paperuri%3A%285d6583ea4e4e45ce9b2db18fc01a643e%29&amp;amp;filter=sc_long_sign&amp;amp;tn=SE_xueshusource_2kduw22v&amp;amp;sc_vurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.doc88.com%2Fp-6971139996618.html&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“消息”的词义演变历程探析&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.doc88.com/p-9025335154065.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;从消息到信息──词义的变迁与汉语教学隅例&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-09T00:29:59.833" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T00:29:59.833" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17189" CreationDate="2016-02-15T23:58:06.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would venture &quot;bustling&quot;. The already suggested &quot;vibrant&quot; captures the positive connotation of 热闹 nicely, but it does not carry the same sense of crowdedness and (as a result) exertion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12738" LastActivityDate="2016-02-15T23:58:06.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17201" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17206" CreationDate="2016-02-16T02:34:34.290" Score="2" ViewCount="5347" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had a friend type it out, but Google translate said it meant &quot;Routine&quot;, and she insisted that's not what it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently it's slang?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anybody heard this before, and know what it translates into?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T00:59:18.380" Title="What does 都是套路 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17201" CreationDate="2016-02-16T03:22:32.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;套路means a series of skills and trick&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12658" LastActivityDate="2016-02-16T03:22:32.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17203" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17281" CreationDate="2016-02-16T03:46:19.873" Score="2" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;This recently came up during a visa application, and we had a hard time coming to a definitive conclusion, even with Chinese family members :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the preferred relationship title for &quot;my mother's mother's big brother's son&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it helps to narrow the scope, I'm interested in the mainland Mandarin convention. Also, the son is older than 'me' in this situation by a lot, say 40 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3699" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T01:05:08.933" Title="What is the preferred relationship title for &quot;my mother's mother's big brother's son&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17201" CreationDate="2016-02-16T04:01:47.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen 套路 in gamer slang to mean something like &lt;code&gt;ways to play (the game/character etc)&lt;/code&gt;. So something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这都是套路&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;could mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These are all possible ways to play (the game/character etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2016-02-16T04:01:47.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17145" CreationDate="2016-02-16T06:39:18.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;新年快乐 (Xīnnián kuàilè)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;新年好 (xīn nián hǎo)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;过年好 (guò nián hǎo)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a comprehensive guide about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-culture/all-about-chinese-new-year/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese New Year and New Year greetings&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12067" LastActivityDate="2016-02-16T06:39:18.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17201" CreationDate="2016-02-16T09:15:31.923" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally, &quot;it's all routine&quot;, which is now used online to mean &quot;act according to scripts, not from heart&quot;. That is, you mindlessly follow what a book or someone else tells you to do, step by step, without any thinking from yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it originated from the routines to date girls. (I made this up) 1. get her out, 2. pick a restaurant that is quiet and posh, 3. &quot;carelessly&quot; drop something on the ground so you can touch her hand, etc, which eventually leads to get her to bed. So guys follow this routine mindlessly and girls recognise his behaviour &quot;is all routine (to get me to bed)&quot;, not to start a serious relation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2016-02-16T09:15:31.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17010" CreationDate="2016-02-16T19:14:16.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, they don't form a sentence = = They are just four random words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12742" LastActivityDate="2016-02-16T19:14:16.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17201" CreationDate="2016-02-16T20:43:50.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that OP asked about a girl saying 'Ai Mei' to him (assume OP is a him), Ai Mei could mean unclear relationship, so I guess these two words 'Ai Mei' and 'Dou Shi Tao Lu' were said by the girl under the concern of sincereness of OP's pursue (if there were any). Hope this helps answer OP's questions :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12743" LastActivityDate="2016-02-16T20:43:50.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17209" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-16T22:03:23.927" Score="1" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder, how precisely one can judge by name if the person is a man or woman. I would appreciate the most comprehensive list of attributes which can connote the gender of a person if we see his/her name.&#xA;I have never saw any studies regarding the matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12505" LastActivityDate="2016-02-16T22:03:23.927" Title="Men's and women's Chinese names" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2016-02-16T22:10:49.487" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17201" CreationDate="2016-02-17T00:33:59.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, the close meaning of 都是套路 can be referred &quot;It's trap&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12309" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T00:33:59.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17211" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17213" CreationDate="2016-02-17T01:57:00.647" Score="7" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Pleco dictionary the popular name for Pandas is 熊猫, while the &quot;original&quot; name is 猫熊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its characters meaning order change from: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;popular: bear cat&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;original: cat bear&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1130" LastEditorUserId="1130" LastEditDate="2016-02-17T02:19:45.257" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T14:10:09.710" Title="Why the popular name for Pandas 熊猫 consists of its words in inverse order 猫熊?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17211" CreationDate="2016-02-17T03:29:45.167" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Popular perspective : &lt;a href=&quot;http://tech.gmw.cn/newspaper/2014-11/17/content_102037974.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;“猫熊”变“熊猫”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;抗日战争期间，在重庆举办了一次动物标本展览，正式对公众展出了“猫熊”这种动物的标本。当时人们写汉字的顺序还是从右到左，可是写“猫熊”时，却依了英文的书写顺序，从左到右了。结果，“猫熊”让观众念成了“熊猫”。这次展览，是熊猫首次在大众面前亮相，影响很大，“熊猫”之名也传播开了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ In 1940s, at an exhibition of panda specimen, the name of panda is written from left to right as &lt;code&gt;猫熊&lt;/code&gt; in accordance with the English name. But at that time people were used to reading from right to left, so it was read as &lt;code&gt;熊猫&lt;/code&gt;, and became popular little by little. ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another perspective : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.huayuqiao.org/articles/yaodehuai/yaodh08.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;談“熊貓”和“貓熊”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“熊貓”語源上可能還是出自“小熊貓”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  大熊貓太像熊了 (熊頭、熊身、短尾), 小熊貓太像貓了 (貓頭、窄身、長尾)。因此小熊貓應該稱“熊貓”, 大熊貓應該稱“貓熊”才是！而早期熊貓、貓熊的混淆, 其源頭可能就是在於小熊貓！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ &lt;code&gt;熊猫&lt;/code&gt; might come from (be confused with) &lt;code&gt;小熊猫&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;lesser panda&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;red panda&lt;/code&gt;). ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-02-17T14:10:09.710" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T14:10:09.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1346" CreationDate="2016-02-17T04:45:43.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Chinese and we do speak like that. By meaning &quot;需要整块时间&quot; we actually mean we need to spend a whole afternoon or a whole morning or a whole evening on it. That is to say, we need a whole period of continuous time to just do one specific thing and cannot do anything else during that time. Besides, by saying that, we also indicate that we &lt;strong&gt;think&lt;/strong&gt; it needs a lot of time of us.  In daily life, &quot;整块时间&quot; usually lasts for 3-4 hours, but it also depends on individual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I really don't know how to express this kind of meaning in English, like &quot;a scale of time&quot; or &quot;a block of time&quot;? I'm not sure about that for I am seeking its English translation too. Tell me if you find a phrase for that. Thanks~ XD&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12746" LastEditorUserId="12746" LastEditDate="2016-02-17T05:13:27.920" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T05:13:27.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16931" CreationDate="2016-02-17T05:15:00.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my ears, 你的生日什麼時候？ sounds more authentic than 你的生日是什麼時候？  Which of the phrasing is more common might depend on location though.  As a non-native speaker, one should remember that nouns or pronouns can be predicates in Chinese.  Sometimes non-native speakers are influenced by their native language and add 是 as copula, even though it is not necessary.  Other examples of sentences, where nouns or pronouns are predicates:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一瓶水多少錢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外面二十度。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他們中國人嗎？　(In this sentence 他們是中國人嗎？ would put emphasis on 'being Chinese' and increase the tone of doubt.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12745" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T05:15:00.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17216" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17220" CreationDate="2016-02-17T08:18:27.840" Score="7" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;why does a &amp;quot;bamboo joint&amp;quot; (as etymology suggests) mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;control / to restrict / to curtail / to economize&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and at the same time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;festival / holiday&amp;quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll post partial a answer from the link given below in the comments section:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Around the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), dictionaries began listing a second definition for 節, &amp;quot;bamboo cord,&amp;quot; thanks to the resemblance between bamboo ridges and knotted up bits of twine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's where the semantic gods of Association begin to run wild. Because twine was used as a restraint, 節 gave birth to 節制 (jiézhì), which means &amp;quot;restrict&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;moderate.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T19:06:44.797" Title="Why does 節 mean both &quot;festival&quot; and &quot;to save, to control&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16931" CreationDate="2016-02-17T14:45:40.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'你的生日是什么时候？’seems more natural than '你的生日什么时候？' But it does not mean that '你的生日什么时候’cannot be used in certain situations. Otherwise, it seems to me that '你生日什么时候？' sounds more natural than '你的生日什么时候？’. I do not know exactly the reason for this. It is possible that this relate to the number of characters in one utterance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11718" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T14:45:40.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17035" CreationDate="2016-02-17T15:00:20.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Im my opinion, we can't tell whether the woman came back or not without context in both sentences.&#xA;In comparison, I think the nuances is that &quot;她离开三年了&quot; stress how many years she has left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T15:00:20.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17035" CreationDate="2016-02-17T15:51:03.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Oops, I think there is no difference between these two sentences, but the latter one is more preferred for it is tighter. To make no misunderstanding, I would say that we do need “了” to finish a sentence, make it sounds better, help to form a phrase, or do other things, but we just don't need too many “了” in one sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you read two sentence, I think you may feel that the second one is more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12746" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T15:51:03.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17216" CreationDate="2016-02-17T16:06:05.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply because it can be used both as noun and verb. As a noun, it can mean &quot;festival&quot;. As a verb, it can mean &quot;to save, to control&quot;. You have to remember it in the context for every single word can have dozens of meaning according to the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh. Thanks to comments, now I add some explanations for &lt;strong&gt;WHY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kvp6H.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kvp6H.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;From left to right, from ancient time to the present, it shows how &quot;节&quot; derives.&#xA;The rightest one is mostly  used in Chinese mainland and “節” is mostly used in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its original meaning is something made by bamboo and used as a bowl and a instrument sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, you can figure out how its meanings expand from the original one from the pic below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;// The circle is the original one.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f5acv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f5acv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess you guys can understand those words in the pic so I don't translate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The website is here : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=2654&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=2654&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;====================== sth awful below ===================================&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;================== are you sure you want to take a look ? ======================&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is some meanings of “节” from Chinese Dict.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;〈名〉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（1） 形声。从竹，即声。本义：竹节。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（2） 同本义。泛指草木枝干间坚实结节的部分。&#xA;节，竹约也。——《说文》&#xA;苞笋抽节。——左思《吴都赋》&#xA;譬如破竹，数节之后，皆迎刃而解。——《晋书·杜预传》&#xA;其于木也，为坚多节。——《易·说卦》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（3） 又如：节根（草木的节与根）；节旄（竹节上所缀牦牛尾饰物）；节粉（竹节旁附着的白色粉末）；节槎（树木上歧出的节）；节次（依次，陆续；或程序，规程）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;........&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FORGET ABOUT IT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese I can not recall all of it either. A lot of sentences above are from ancient Chinese. It is even OK for some Chinese to not understand those sentences. Just remind that &lt;strong&gt;learn words from context&lt;/strong&gt;. XD&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;// Hope I don't scare you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;// Thank you guys who edited my answer and made it more readable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12746" LastEditorUserId="12746" LastEditDate="2016-02-22T04:00:15.527" LastActivityDate="2016-02-22T04:00:15.527" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17221" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-17T16:38:12.813" Score="0" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am still trying to memorise tones of Chinese words. In another post I gave &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dropbox.com/s/ypf6div37m0c34i/third%20tone.docx?dl=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a link&lt;/a&gt; for 3rd tone words. When I will have written sentences that are easy to remember, I think I will succeed in fixing a lot of my pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other tones, I plan to make sentences with the same pinyin which gives different words. For example, &lt;em&gt;shi&lt;/em&gt; gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With the first tone: to lose, wet, division&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With the second tone: to pick up, stone, to know&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With the fourth tone matter, scholar, persimmon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: what are the pinyin most often used for frequently used words? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-17T17:37:06.683" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T16:46:54.817" Title="How can I memorise easily the four tones?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-02-19T17:41:01.803" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17221" CreationDate="2016-02-17T17:06:40.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Words do not generally have tones. Characters have tones, and they are integral to the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Memorizing batches of characters with certain tones is like memorizing batches of characters with certain pronunciations, that is, rather pointless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When memorizing a character, you memorize its strokes and components, its pinyin transliterations, its tones (often more than one), and a number of common words formed by it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T17:06:40.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17223" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-17T17:54:37.463" Score="3" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that it is grammatical to say &quot;我游了三次泳.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I wanted to say, &quot;I saw you three times,&quot; could I say it as &quot;我看过你三次见&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you,&#xA;Rachel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T04:12:56.830" Title="Question about complement of frequency? (Using 过 and 次)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17223" CreationDate="2016-02-17T19:15:18.887" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a verb has an object, the verb has to be repeated before a time/frequency complement. In this case, this would result in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我見過你見過三次。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to handle objects and complements is to prepone the object:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你人我見過三次。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 我游了三次泳, the word 游泳 is a loose verb-object pair that should be viewed as just a verb.  The 泳 is difficult to explain as an object in many grammatical constructions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12745" LastEditorUserId="12745" LastEditDate="2016-02-17T20:14:52.063" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T20:14:52.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17223" CreationDate="2016-02-18T01:20:32.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you can't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first sentence: 游 is a verb. 泳 is a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence: 看 is a verb. 見 is an adverb. It is not the same structure as the first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should just say 我看過你三次 or 我見過你三次.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12756" LastEditorUserId="12756" LastEditDate="2016-02-18T04:12:56.830" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T04:12:56.830" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17195" CreationDate="2016-02-18T01:39:30.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. It should be something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一項調查顯示, 十個男人中有七個每週上健身房。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12756" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T01:39:30.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17176" CreationDate="2016-02-18T01:44:08.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, every Chinese understands &quot;shh.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12756" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T01:44:08.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17035" CreationDate="2016-02-18T02:41:53.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;他离开三年，这边就都乱了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他离开了三年，这边就都乱了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;？他离开了三年了，这边就都乱了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;？他离开三年了，这边就都算了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These uses suggest that there is a difference between 他离开了三年 and 他离开了三年了. My decision on this difference is that 他离开了三年 emphasizes temporal interval with a start and finish point, that can be used to denote a background time in terms of duration. This type of time does not relate to the time of utterance, i.e., the so-called aspect. In contrast, 他离开了三年了 is open to this utterance time, i.e., the so-called tense. More importantly, this ‘leave’ event does not relate to whether he comes back or not. After all, that he comes back or has not come back presuppose a time of utterance. No matter whether he comes back, the subsequent event still happened as the speaker intended to express. That said, 离开了三年 is just used to subjectively choose or make prominent an interval of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12639" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T02:41:53.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5956" CreationDate="2016-02-18T02:55:36.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;3 long 2 short can mean life is always up and down. Sometimes good, sometimes bad... so nothing to worry about... There'll be good times and bad times - it's interchangeable. Like the stock market: bulls &amp;amp; bears, economy: boom &amp;amp; bust, war &amp;amp; peace, etc... So it's a warning implied that don't expect things to run smoothly forever. Be aware of the unexpected hiccup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12757" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-02-18T03:04:49.220" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T03:04:49.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17176" CreationDate="2016-02-18T04:34:01.837" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. Nearly all Chinese people understand the body language of putting a finger on your lips or saying &quot;shhh.&quot; In addition, Chinese also often use 嘘 pronounced xū instead of &quot;shhh&quot; to hush others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11625" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T04:34:01.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17201" CreationDate="2016-02-18T08:17:39.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means 用了很多计谋(intrigue,plot).for example, Teemo Dance in front of you, and there are a lots of mushrooms around him. you can say that 都是套路.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12760" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T08:17:39.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17234" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17235" CreationDate="2016-02-18T09:11:36.810" Score="5" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading some historical texts on Liu Bei, the famous Three Kingdoms warlord, I was surprised to see that in more than one occasion, he is referred to as 明将军. What does this name mean, and where did it come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuge_Liang&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Zhuge Liang&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;亮乃進曰：「明將軍當復有遠志，但結毦而已邪！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa_Zheng&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fa Zheng&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;正旣宣旨，陰獻策於先主曰：「以明將軍之英才，乘劉牧之懦弱；張松，州之股肱，以響應於內；然後資益州之殷富，馮天府之險阻，以此成業，猶反掌也。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think Liu Bei ever had a formal title of &quot;明将军&quot;. Instead, he had the title of &quot;General of the Left&quot; (左将军), bestowed by the Han emperor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it simply an honorific? Was the title used on other people? Or is this another name for Liu Bei that I'm not aware of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T12:43:42.463" Title="Why did people sometimes call Liu Bei &quot;明将军&quot;?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17234" CreationDate="2016-02-18T10:40:59.337" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an honorific, meaning &amp;quot;illustrious&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;enlightened general&amp;quot;, and as such is not specific to Liu Bei.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Records_of_the_Three_Kingdoms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Records of the Three Kingdoms&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, Pei Song's annotations cite a passage where Huangfu Li (皇甫酈) addresses Li Jue (李傕) as 明將軍:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;近董公之強，明將軍目所見...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In recent times, you yourself, illustrious general, saw with your own eyes how powerful Dong Zhuo was ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T12:43:42.463" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10749" CreationDate="2016-02-18T11:07:19.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has it something to do with word: 来由? I mean 来由 is a &amp;quot;reason, a cause&amp;quot;. So whenever you put Object(Obj) inside this &amp;quot;parenthesis&amp;quot; 由Obj来 you emphasise the cause of the action? or smth?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as I think as an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;由我来...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Literally&lt;/strong&gt;: &amp;quot;From me comes something&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the meaning of 由Obj来 is&#xA;&amp;quot;up to&amp;quot;&#xA;or&#xA;&amp;quot;It's up to (it/her/him) to do something&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T11:13:37.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17237" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-18T11:58:07.077" Score="1" ViewCount="637" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've learned about separable verbs, 离合词. I learned that separable verbs such as 游泳 must be divided into the verb (游) and the object (泳) when particles like 了, 过, 着, etc. are attached to the verb or the sentence has time-measuring complements like 三个小时. Now I'm wondering if I can combine it with some time-related elements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他游了三个小时泳&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他游泳游了三个小时&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;He swam for three hours&quot;, are those two sentences fine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from the above question, one more question came across my mind. My teacher explained to me that 的 can mean &quot;even&quot; that emphasizes the long duration of an activity by giving a pair of two sentences 我坐了一个小时火车 and 我坐了一个小时的火车. The structure of the former (我坐了一个小时火车) looks very similar to 他游了三个小时泳. So if I put a 的 between 三个小时 and 泳, thus 他游了三个小时&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;泳, would the 的 make a difference to the meaning of the sentence likewise?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12284" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-18T23:17:40.547" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T23:17:40.547" Title="Are both 他游了三个小时泳 and 他游泳游了三个小时 fine?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17239" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-18T13:59:24.767" Score="2" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started learning Chinese not too long ago but have come across these expressions (比照 and 比较) when comparing things. I am confused as to whether I'm using it correctly. Would anyone be able to help tell me what situations to use which term?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12762" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-18T23:21:11.307" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:32:17.490" Title="What is the difference between “比照” and “比较”？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17240" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-18T16:28:20.990" Score="2" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently bought an old wooden item that shows 5 traditional (?) Chinese characters. I tried my very best to translate them by researching all kind of pages, but cannot find some parts I need. Can someone help me translate? And now that I learned a little bit about how signs work I would also be very curious about the meaning of the single parts of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the pictures (I believe the signs are mirrored, as with stamps for cookies.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A4KGsm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A4KGsm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;number 1 and 2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nyroPm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nyroPm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;numbers 3 to 5&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12763" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-02-18T23:19:52.077" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T00:46:52.923" Title="Help with translating old signs" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17240" CreationDate="2016-02-18T18:20:02.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First four characters should be 喜福富贵, although the last one is a bit tricky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T18:20:02.497" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17237" CreationDate="2016-02-18T18:42:09.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say &lt;code&gt;他游了三個小時泳&lt;/code&gt;. People will understand it, but it doesn't sound as smooth as &lt;code&gt;他游了三個小時的泳&lt;/code&gt;. However, that's still not the best way to say it. You should just say &lt;code&gt;他游了三個小時&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;他游泳游了三個小時&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; will make it sound more smooth, but it doesn't change the meaning at all, not even emphasizing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12756" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T18:42:09.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17239" CreationDate="2016-02-18T23:46:38.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In oral, we all say &quot;比较&quot;. 比照 is seldom used in oral. They are almost equal. You'd better learn sentences first. Examples:&#xA;通过比较/比照，旧手机更好用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那款手机比较漂亮。You can't use 比照 here. Here, 比较 means more or pretty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12764" LastActivityDate="2016-02-18T23:46:38.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17271" CreationDate="2016-02-19T03:22:36.853" Score="2" ViewCount="1056" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently started using Glossika to learn Chinese and have noticed that these words are defined differently in their sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总是 - always &#xA;经常 - usually&#xA;通常 - often&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I understand, they are interchangeable. Am I correct in my understanding?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nicholas&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12762" LastActivityDate="2016-02-21T09:24:00.153" Title="Are 总是, 平常, 通常, and 经常 all interchangeable?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17246" CreationDate="2016-02-19T05:24:46.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;通常 cannot be replaced with 经常 in the following situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)a. 通常是年龄越小，遗传的影响越大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. ？经常是年龄越小，遗传的影响越大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot swap 经常 for 通常，as in (2):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) a.我经常去他家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b.*我通常去他家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on these two observations, I summarize that 通常 is oriented towards a rule among the events, whereas 经常, towards a daily act.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12639" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T05:24:46.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17248" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17261" CreationDate="2016-02-19T12:10:07.100" Score="3" ViewCount="499" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have always thought, perhaps wrongly, that it was mutual intelligibility that was the deciding factor as to whether a 方言 would be considered a dialect or it's own separate language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia's entry &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect#Political_factors&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dialect: Political Factors&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An opposite example is the case of Chinese, whose variations such as Mandarin and Cantonese are often called dialects and not languages, despite their mutual unintelligibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not interested in politics, though; linguistically speaking when can a 方言 be considered a language and not a dialect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2021-04-28T10:16:42.980" Title="When is a 方言 a language and not a dialect" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17252" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-19T15:11:07.587" Score="5" ViewCount="450" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this sentence in a book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明年这个时候你还没有毕业呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought the sentence was wrong at first, but it says the sentence is grammatically correct and that there's nothing wrong with it. As you know, most Chinese grammar books tell you have to use 没 to negate past actions, so I didn't understand how 明年, which refers to a future time, can stand with 没. The book says 没(有) is used for unfinished events(毕业), regardless of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, I'm still not sure what cases I have to use 没, not 不, with adverbials of future time like 明年, 下星期, etc. for. Can you give me some examples?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I'm wondering if there's a difference between the meanings of these two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明年这个时候你还&lt;strong&gt;没有&lt;/strong&gt;毕业呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明年这个时候你还&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;毕业呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12284" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T18:49:33.473" Title="Can I say 没 to negate future events?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="20" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17239" CreationDate="2016-02-19T16:33:28.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;比較 has the meaning of comparing and coming to a conclusion of one's liking, &#xA;我比較喜歡這款式，我比較不喜歡吃中餐 &#xA;whilst &#xA;比照 (對比按照, in a comparative way) is used for following the same routines as in 這件事請比照辦理。 比照這方法去做。 比照平日處理。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12349" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T16:33:28.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17221" CreationDate="2016-02-19T16:46:54.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you asking about what the most common pinyin combinations (e.g. zhang, shui, hu) are? – Maroon yesterday &#xA;Yes, i am looking for most common pinyin which give a lot of hanzis. it looks like zhang is a good answer thank you so much&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T16:46:54.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17089" CreationDate="2016-02-19T19:26:21.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm from Taiwan and the form 裡 I've ever only seen in print because if you hand write the word, it's always 裏, I don't think I've ever seen anyone write it as 裡 which just seems wrong although it could be a generational thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12773" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T19:26:21.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17248" CreationDate="2016-02-19T19:32:31.937" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are always difficulties in classification. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language#Languages_and_dialects&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language#Languages_and_dialects&lt;/a&gt;). Unintelligibility is one criterion, but there may be others, for example, the similarities in grammar, vocabulary, written forms, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people and even linguistics DO consider Cantonese as a language, but in that way, Chinese will be a &lt;strong&gt;language family&lt;/strong&gt; which consists of at least 8-9 major languages, where Mandarin is one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T19:32:31.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17252" CreationDate="2016-02-19T19:42:25.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think of &lt;code&gt;還沒有&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;not yet&lt;/code&gt;. It isn't limited to the past actions. It simply means &lt;code&gt;not yet&lt;/code&gt;. Just like in English you can say &lt;code&gt;you will not yet have graduated next year&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's just &lt;code&gt;沒&lt;/code&gt;, most of the time it is used for the past actions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't say &lt;code&gt;明年這個時候你還不畢業呢&lt;/code&gt;. But I would say &lt;code&gt;明年這個時候你還不畢業嗎&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;明年這個時候你還不畢業阿&lt;/code&gt;. Both are questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12756" LastEditorUserId="12756" LastEditDate="2016-02-19T19:54:23.607" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T19:54:23.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17246" CreationDate="2016-02-19T19:52:21.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, they are not interchangeable. The meanings are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;總是 - Always&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;經常 - Often&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通常、平常 - Usually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, you won't interchange these three words, will you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12756" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T19:52:21.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17252" CreationDate="2016-02-19T23:29:22.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using 没 often suggests a of deviation from an expectation or likely scenario. It would have been plausible for us to graduate next year, but now it looks as if we will not achieve that.&#xA;However, if the action we failed to complete was entirely unexpected or even implausible, then 不 may feel more appropriate. But this will rarely be the case when you are also using 还, which emphasizes an implicit or explicit expectation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: 倪阔乐 just gave a good example of a negation that does not imply a failure to meet an expectation: &lt;em&gt;&quot;Next year at this time you will still refuse to graduate.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;If you have been refusing to graduate all along, then a completion of the action　&quot;to graduate&quot; could not have been expected and 不 should be prefered over 没.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12738" LastEditorUserId="12738" LastEditDate="2016-02-20T23:28:42.613" LastActivityDate="2016-02-20T23:28:42.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17248" CreationDate="2016-02-20T01:17:41.383" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to assume that the question you want to ask are how mutually intelligible various 方言 actually are. &lt;a href=&quot;https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/14919/Tang_Heuven_Lingua2009.pdf?sequence=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; 2009 study by Chaoju Tang and Vincent J. Van Heuven has some data on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the excerpted table on how mutually intelligible various 方言 are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Word Classification:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/73zim.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/73zim.png&quot; alt=&quot;Word Classifying Test&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Word Understanding:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MBFkI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MBFkI.png&quot; alt=&quot;Word Understanding Test&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read more on the methodology in the paper itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For comparison's sake &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sulaandjohn.com/files/users/e/535D6469E2612048E040A8C0AC002D4E/Mutual%20Comprehension.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; 1989 John B. Jensen study found that Spanish and Portuguese are &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;50-60% mutually intelligible at least as measured on...passive&#xA;  listening to electronically re-produced voices&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2016-02-21T13:57:19.050" LastActivityDate="2016-02-21T13:57:19.050" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17263" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17265" CreationDate="2016-02-20T10:20:38.033" Score="3" ViewCount="439" Body="&lt;p&gt;All those &quot;systems&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;系统,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;体系&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;制度&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;体制&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;装置&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How one should differentiate between them? I think that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;系统 has something to do with &lt;strong&gt;unite, gather, tangle&lt;/strong&gt; flavor. So this word is a bit abstract. Should be used for &quot;systems&quot; which might NOT have a physical representation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;体系 has somethign to do with &lt;strong&gt;body + unite&lt;/strong&gt;. For systems &quot;bodies&quot;. With physical representation?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;.... &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I almost certaitly think my interpretation is wrong. Help!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2016-02-20T14:07:30.723" Title="What are the flavors of all those &quot;systems&quot;:系统,体系,制度" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17263" CreationDate="2016-02-20T13:37:31.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can speak this collocation like '改革教育体制', but if you speak '?改革教育体系', &#xA;it sounds weird. If you speak 建立知识体系，it sounds natural. But if you speak ?建立知识体制, it is unacceptable. Based on these, I think, control as addressed above is the key factor for 体制, and 体系 seems to be a type of summary knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12639" LastActivityDate="2016-02-20T13:37:31.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17263" CreationDate="2016-02-20T14:07:30.723" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;装置 'device' doesn't really belong here. Here are some definitions from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;教育部國語辭典&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;系统: 同類事物，按一定秩序相連屬，而自成一整體&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;objects/affairs belonging to the same category, joined together in a specific order to form a unity.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &#xA;The emphasis is on order, thus can be used to form adjectivals such as 很有系統 &quot;very systematic&quot;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;體系: 由許多要素構成，具有一定條理組合成的整體。如：「哲學體系」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;a unity formed from numerous elements which have a connecting principle, such as 'philosophical system.'&quot; The emphasis is on the underlying unity of the elements, hence principles.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;制度:經制定而為大家共同遵守認同的辦事準則&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;a code for the conduct of affairs established by common understanding and agreement.&quot; The emphasis is on how things are done, hence this is commonly used with political affairs.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;體制: 一定的規則、制度. &quot;fixed rules; a system of operation.&quot; The emphasis is on the set nature of the system. This can also be used for written formats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-02-20T14:07:30.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17266" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17269" CreationDate="2016-02-20T19:15:18.017" Score="4" ViewCount="899" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider for example the words 很 (hěn) and 员 (yuán). I constantly hear each term pronounced in at least two distinct ways by native speakers. The issue is really the vowel sound in the finals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Approximate to English, I hear 很 pronounced as either &quot;mother &lt;strong&gt;hen&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;Attila the &lt;strong&gt;Hun&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, while 员 sounds like &quot;inn&lt;strong&gt;uen&lt;/strong&gt;do&quot; or &quot;Are &lt;strong&gt;you hon&lt;/strong&gt;est?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've attempted to look up the &quot;official&quot; pronunciations through Wiktionary, IPA transcripts, Pleco dictionary, etc. but I keep running into discrepancies. So which pronunciations are standard and which are dialectal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12377" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T17:33:41.773" Title="Mandarin pronunciation for &lt;hen&gt; and &lt;yuan&gt;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17252" CreationDate="2016-02-20T20:34:14.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've never heard of 没 being restricted to past actions. It is perfectly useful, as in 范冰冰明年没有结婚的打算.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I interpret these sentences as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明年这个时候你还没有毕业呢 = next year at this time you will still not have graduated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明年这个时候你还不毕业呢 = next year at this time you will still refuse to graduate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-02-20T20:34:14.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17252" CreationDate="2016-02-21T01:17:30.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question: 昨天他上班了没有? ~ Answer 1: 昨天他没上班 or Answer 2: 昨天他不上班. &#xA;Either answer is grammatically correct to the above question, but with different implications. Answer A implies that the fact that he goes to work did not happen yesterday, whereas Answer B implies that he was not on duty yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12639" LastActivityDate="2016-02-21T01:17:30.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17266" CreationDate="2016-02-21T01:46:22.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;@DrunkenMaster's comment is right you will meet many accents of Mandarin. But there is a literally official standard of pronunciation in the PRC, tested by the 普通话水平测试. Set levels of performance are required for school teachers, local tv announcers, national tv announcers and so on. This is probably the most widely understood single accent -- even if no one in China speaks it perfectly!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This explains why the charts in Ringil's answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/17248/when-is-a-%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80-a-language-and-not-a-dialect&quot;&gt;When is a 方言 a language and not a dialect&lt;/a&gt; show people all across China understand Beijing dialect better than any other except for their own regional dialect -- and in many cases understand it significantly better than their own regional dialect.  The Beijing accent is closest to the official one that everyone on China hears on TV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know no good source for &lt;em&gt;official&lt;/em&gt; phonetic information related to the  普通话水平测.  But I take it you still want some good reliable, single source, to take as your speech standard while you learn.  Anyway that is what I want, as I think it is important to aim for good mastery of one accent as base, and other local ones if you like on the side or later.  That one should be the most widely understood accent (and the best received in business and academic circles if that matters to you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After trying many different sources, digital and print, I suggest Yen-Hwei Lin &lt;em&gt;The Sounds of Chinese.&lt;/em&gt;  It gives very careful and clear explanations, and recorded examples.  It does discuss variants of many phonemes.  But obviously no book is exhaustive on those.  And anyway at this point, to learn one reasonably authoritative accent for your own speech, go with the dominant version Lin gives for each phoneme.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will not repeat what Lin says about hěn, and yuán, but refer you to that book's full account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2016-02-22T16:03:21.270" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17266" CreationDate="2016-02-21T06:52:46.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard pronunciation, I believe, is [ɛ] for yu&lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt;n and [ɤ] for h&lt;strong&gt;e&lt;/strong&gt;n. I do not think there are variants in the vowel for yuan, but many southerners (including myself) may front [ɤ], even to [ə].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3251" LastActivityDate="2016-02-21T06:52:46.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17246" CreationDate="2016-02-21T09:24:00.153" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;总是&lt;/strong&gt; is just plainly &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;平常&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;em&gt;usually&lt;/em&gt;, as in being part of normal life. For example, 我平常有运动 would literally be &quot;I do exercise as part of my life&quot;, interpreted as &quot;I exercise often&quot;. If you want to say &quot;Fast food is usually unhealthy&quot;, the &lt;em&gt;usually&lt;/em&gt; would not be in the sense above, so 快餐平常都不健康 would be incorrect. Rather, that would have a weird meaning like &quot;Fast food is unhealthy most of the time (but it is healthy today)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;通常&lt;/strong&gt; is also &lt;em&gt;usually&lt;/em&gt;, but in the sense of being the more common/likely/normal/general case. For example, 叶子通常是绿色的 would literally be &quot;Leaves are normally/generally green&quot;, and translates to &quot;Leaves are usually green&quot;. The same fast food example would work for 通常: 快餐通常都不健康 would be &quot;Fast food is usually unhealthy&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;经常&lt;/strong&gt; means often. 我经常运动 would, like 我平常有运动, be interpreted as &quot;I exercise often&quot;. However, the former directly states “I exercise often&quot;, while the latter states &quot;I do exercise as part of my life&quot;, so note the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An extra example, 我经常跌倒 means &quot;I fall often&quot;, and the average person would not say 我平常跌倒 as it would be like &quot;I usually fall&quot;. 我平常走路都会跌倒 &quot;I would fall when I walk in the usual manner&quot; would be more legit. 我走路通常会跌倒 would be &quot;When I walk I usually fall&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8137" LastActivityDate="2016-02-21T09:24:00.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10749" CreationDate="2016-02-21T16:23:21.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In semantic, the pattern of sentence with &quot;you&quot;(由) directs to the agent, expresses the meaning of process and behavior. While the pattern of sentence with &quot;bei&quot; directs to the patient, expresses the meaning of consequence and action.--&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.docin.com/p-373949875.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;A Comparison of Two Patterns of Sentences with &quot;you&quot;(由) and &quot;bei&quot;(被)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这件事 _______ 公司负责。&quot; expresses the action, so we should choose &quot;由&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这件事 _______ 公司负责了。&quot; expresses the consequence, so we should choose &quot;被&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a picture from the article &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.docin.com/p-373949875.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;A Comparison of Two Patterns of Sentences with &quot;you&quot;(由) and &quot;bei&quot;(被)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, it show us the difference between the pattern of sentence with &quot;由&quot; and the pattern of sentence with &quot;被&quot;.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/taxe3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/taxe3.png&quot; alt=&quot;the difference between the pattern of sentence with &amp;quot;由&amp;quot; and the pattern of sentence with &amp;quot;被&amp;quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an English Version that I tried to translate.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Vrx0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Vrx0.png&quot; alt=&quot;the difference between the pattern of sentence with &amp;quot;由&amp;quot; and the pattern of sentence with &amp;quot;被&amp;quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2016-02-21T16:23:21.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17136" CreationDate="2016-02-22T15:41:14.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;诺迪克腘绳肌屈伸动作&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doesn't seem to be widely used but it is a translation used by 北京体育大学图书馆, but I am not sure if that means anything or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.answerlib.org/MzA3NTU2ODUxNg_1202225834_db4d32086d0e8bd42fe47df8e2aaeaba.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; 国际体育科教资讯服务 【科技前沿】&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;采用新式腘绳肌测试仪可减少运动损伤发生概率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昆士兰科技大学9月29日报道，最近昆士兰科技大学（QUT）的研究人员研制出了一种具有突破性的仪器。该仪器可以帮助顶尖职业运动员评估并减少腘绳肌损伤风险。该仪器为目前全世界唯一一种可以在诺迪克腘绳肌屈伸动作（Nordic hamstring curl）中进行肌肉力量测量的便携式装置。 [国际体育科教资讯服务]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hnVUj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hnVUj.png&quot; alt=&quot;yup&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;研究团队首次证明腘绳肌损伤风险是可以通过测量运动员进行诺迪克屈伸动作时腘绳肌的力量来进行量化的。腘绳肌力量提升10牛顿可以将腘绳肌损伤降低约9个百分点。澳大利亚的一些重量级俱乐部已经开始使用原型设备，而该研究团队也已经开始在橄榄球联盟、NRL、板球以及A-联赛（足球）俱乐部中开展相关初期测试。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original information is from here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.ch/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=13&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwii1KqV2IvLAhUEOxQKHSsoDyIQFghgMAw&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Flib.bsu.edu.cn%2Fdocs%2F2014-11%2F20141127111232403211.pdf&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNFpUMNDpzqZHoqyXa_X6HMGoxbbNA&amp;amp;sig2=8xaBDtiBe6XCMZBB4-l_fw&amp;amp;bvm=bv.114733917,d.d2s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[PDF] 国际体育科教资讯服务 - 北京体育大学图书馆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诺迪克腘绳肌屈伸动作（Nordic hamstring curl）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Sport_University&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Beijing Sport University From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beijing Sport University (BSU) (Chinese: 北京体育大学) (formerly Beijing University of Physical Education), founded on November 1, 1953,&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.ch/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=13&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwii1KqV2IvLAhUEOxQKHSsoDyIQFghgMAw&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Flib.bsu.edu.cn%2Fdocs%2F2014-11%2F20141127111232403211.pdf&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNFpUMNDpzqZHoqyXa_X6HMGoxbbNA&amp;amp;sig2=8xaBDtiBe6XCMZBB4-l_fw&amp;amp;bvm=bv.114733917,d.d2s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt; has contributed greatly to the sustainable development of Chinese sport and physical education and has enjoyed the fame as one of the &lt;strong&gt;key sport universities&lt;/strong&gt; in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would imagine that they have good enough credit to trust the material they put out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-02-22T15:51:03.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17252" CreationDate="2016-02-22T16:00:39.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q1: Anyway, in the sentence &quot;明年这个时候你还没有毕业呢&quot;, &quot;没有&quot; means the person has not graduated right now. However, &lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/86c717808762caaedd33d453.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;还&quot; refers to the situation which the person is not graduated lasts into the future&lt;/a&gt;. So &quot;还没有&quot; make sense of the future time &quot;明天&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q2: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/86c717808762caaedd33d453.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;“不”多用于主观叙述，可以否定现在、过去和将来的动作行为；“没”主要用于客观叙述，否定动作、状态的发生或完成，用于否定现在和过去，不能用于否定将来。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate into English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不&quot; is used to negate present, past and future actions in subjective mostly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;没&quot; is used to negate present and past actions in objective mostly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, &quot;you have not graduated next year(明年这个时候你还____毕业呢)&quot; is objective description. So we should choose &quot;没有&quot;. And &quot;明年这个时候你还不毕业呢&quot; is a incorrect sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2016-02-22T16:00:39.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17203" CreationDate="2016-02-23T01:05:08.933" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use '表舅', because he is your mother's '表哥'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically I think there are three prefixes that you can add to relationship words: '亲' (directly/closely related, which is usually omitted), '堂', '表'. All your ancestors, siblings (that share at least father or mother with you), and descendant are '亲'. '堂' only refers to your father's brothers' children. In this way, your '堂' something should have the same family name with you (assuming all children using inherit their family names from their fathers). '表' is used for basically all other kins that have a common ancestor with you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T01:05:08.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17284" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-23T09:04:39.093" Score="4" ViewCount="947" Body="&lt;p&gt;漢 is the character meaning &quot;China&quot; or &quot;Sino-&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It supposedly ultimately derives from the name of the river Han. I understand why the water radical is present there, but I have no idea why the seemingly random characters 中, 人, 廿 and some two horizontal lines between 中 and 人 are combined and why were these particular ones chosen to represent the river's name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="Vhbv" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T00:25:03.530" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T00:25:03.530" Title="Why is the character 漢 built in such a weird way?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17284" CreationDate="2016-02-23T09:55:42.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 漢 is pictophonetic. Radical 氵 (water) suggests it's meaning while 堇 (clay) provides the sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipu.cgi?b5=%BA~&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zhongwen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E6%BC%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;yellowbridge&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12798" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T09:55:42.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17286" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17432" CreationDate="2016-02-23T11:10:29.767" Score="3" ViewCount="329" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been wondering how did they wrote date and time with 文言 ?&#xA;Like how would you translate &quot;我周日通常醒早，八点半钟起床。&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11896" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T07:03:38.600" Title="Write date and time using 文言?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17284" CreationDate="2016-02-23T11:23:04.620" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/sw/6C49.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;说文解字&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从水，難省聲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;漢&lt;/code&gt; is taking &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sluVU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sluVU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; as its pictophonetic part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. What does &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sluVU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sluVU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; mean?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the ancient inscriptions (甲骨文 and 金文) of it (from &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=eKP0q4M692IUlg9-KL5jFhv0lk5VP6RgN3iRNqncW3JAIoeYn6Pz9M2d7JgtY1LrLUxUNWcCOV5Hj0DX8QM6mK&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;字源谈趣&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gPkm3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gPkm3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its original meaning is to fire someone (as a penalty), who is tied up and crying to the sky. So it's used for the meaning of &lt;code&gt;suffering&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;disaster&lt;/code&gt;, and then &lt;code&gt;難&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;艱&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;嘆&lt;/code&gt; were created based on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Why &lt;code&gt;漢&lt;/code&gt; took this character as its pictophonetic part?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1st perspective, from &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=eKP0q4M692IUlg9-KL5jFhv0lk5VP6RgN3iRNqncW3JAIoeYn6Pz9M2d7JgtY1LrLUxUNWcCOV5Hj0DX8QM6mK&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;字源谈趣&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漢水的“漢”，以“氵”（水）表意，以“漢（去氵）”表音兼表义。意指古代聚居在漢水一带中原地区的我国最大的民族——华夏族（后发展以“漢”为名的漢族），是历经千灾万难，在与艰难困苦斗争中发展起来的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[“漢” is taking “氵”（water） as its ideographical part, taking “漢”（getting rid of 氵） as its pictophonetic and ideographical part. It indicates the largest nationality residing at &lt;code&gt;漢水&lt;/code&gt; struggled to grew up (into the han nationality).]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2nd perspective, from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=2260&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;象形字典&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;造字本义：长江最大支流，古代中原朝庭常常流放政治犯的西北水域。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[In ancient times &lt;code&gt;漢水&lt;/code&gt; served as a place of banishment for criminals.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-02-23T11:37:11.767" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T11:37:11.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17252" CreationDate="2016-02-23T18:49:33.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;h2&gt;[没有] （ &amp;lt;=  ）  // past or now&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For time：not happen, but may/might happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For things：not here, but was/should be somewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;[还没有]      // for future&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For time: not yet, but should will happen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For things：not here, but will be somewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;[不]   （ ! ）     //any&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reverse, could using everything and everywhere for everyone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$不不 is Yes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$不 is no&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;When you want to check graduate&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sometimes, We should careful the time point (明年)in the conversation. &#xA;future：at this case, we use 还没有。when we say it, we may ignore 还，so we may say 没有 instead of 还没有. becasue we know the time is next year. But the meaning is not equal to 没有 if there is no 明年（future time point）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没有毕业 ：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还没有毕业：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明年没有：=&gt; 明年（还）没有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不毕业：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明年这个时候你还没有毕业呢&#xA;// will graduate &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;If (time &amp;lt; graduateTime)&#xA;     Return “没有”&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明年这个时候你还不毕业呢&#xA;// no graduate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;If (time != graduateTime)&#xA;       Return &quot;不&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my first answer in stackoverflowers.&#xA;Thanks！hope you understand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12801" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T18:49:33.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17290" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-23T19:08:36.923" Score="3" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since 赤 means &lt;em&gt;red&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;bare&lt;/em&gt;, and 道 means &lt;em&gt;way&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;path&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T23:31:01.107" Title="Why does 赤道 mean Equator?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17290" CreationDate="2016-02-23T19:21:38.213" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;赤 has several meanings, in this case imaginary or unreal. The equator is  a path that has been thought up by the human intellect, and so does not represent a physical boundary per se.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T19:21:38.213" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17292" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-23T22:51:37.690" Score="0" ViewCount="511" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;serving&quot; in Chinese, as in 1 serving of vegetables or 3 servings of bread, as it relates to nutrition? If you could give an example sentence too then that would be great! Thanks so much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12804" LastEditorUserId="12691" LastEditDate="2016-02-24T02:24:09.940" LastActivityDate="2016-02-24T03:04:15.343" Title="How do you say 'serving' in Chinese as it relates to nutrition?" Tags="&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17292" CreationDate="2016-02-23T23:21:09.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it is restaurant food or fast food, you can use either '份' or the corresponding count word (量词). For example, 每份套餐, 每份薯条, 每个汉堡, 每份红烧肉, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is a snack or drink, we directly use the mass or volume for 'serving'. For example: 每 100 mL 可乐 (cola)，每 100 g 薯片, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is an empty nutrition label (used as the standard format) published by Ministry of Health of P.R.C. (中国卫生部). See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gov.cn/gzdt/2008-01/11/content_856260.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.gov.cn/gzdt/2008-01/11/content_856260.htm&lt;/a&gt;. What you want is the title of the second column.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LbMHn.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LbMHn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T23:21:09.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6233" CreationDate="2016-02-23T23:28:07.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll bet it was a famous dish, very famous at the time which was 1972, but not in China.  I'll bet it was chicken egg foo young, a mainstay of American Chinese restaurants.  He did say it had chicken in it, which he would probably not say if it was just chicken broth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In those days &quot;Chinese food&quot; pretty much meant egg rolls, chow mein, and chop suey. It was popular, sure, but people did not expect much variety.  Pepper steak was considered fancy.  And chicken (or shrimp, or beef, or bean sprout) egg foo young was one of the staple menu items.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paul Simon could have found a lot more Chinese food than that around New York's Chinatown if he wanted to.  But it does not seem that he was very interested in that, since he just says he was in &quot;a Chinese restaurant downtown.&quot; And the article specifies that  &quot;mother and child reunion&quot; was a common menu item at Chinese restaurants. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it was chicken egg foo young with a fine name applied to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These reviews show what this restaurant Say Eng Look was serving in 1979.  A fair variety of things.  And they show how New Yorkers thought of the newly expanding Chinese food world.  One review here calls out egg foo young as the passe kind of thing people used to get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.insatiable-critic.com/Article.aspx?ID=1237&amp;amp;keyword=A+Scrutable+Guide+to+New+York%E2%80%99s+Chinese+Restaurants&amp;amp;AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.insatiable-critic.com/Article.aspx?ID=1237&amp;amp;keyword=A+Scrutable+Guide+to+New+York%E2%80%99s+Chinese+Restaurants&amp;amp;AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By 1992 the chicken and egg dish that Paul Simon saw was no longer on the menu at the restaurant but the chef would make it if you called in advance: &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=oOQCAAAAMBAJ&amp;amp;pg=RA1-PA17-IA6&amp;amp;lpg=RA1-PA17-IA6&amp;amp;dq=%22Say+Eng+Look%22+Restaurant+egg&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=v6SrsND8vF&amp;amp;sig=QHRX_4-iX213AWb7wWSBts-slps&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjIo5iN1pLLAhWIcz4KHUKvDqUQ6AEIPjAG#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%22Say%20Eng%20Look%22%20Restaurant%20egg&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://books.google.com/books?id=oOQCAAAAMBAJ&amp;amp;pg=RA1-PA17-IA6&amp;amp;lpg=RA1-PA17-IA6&amp;amp;dq=%22Say+Eng+Look%22+Restaurant+egg&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=v6SrsND8vF&amp;amp;sig=QHRX_4-iX213AWb7wWSBts-slps&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjIo5iN1pLLAhWIcz4KHUKvDqUQ6AEIPjAG#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%22Say%20Eng%20Look%22%20Restaurant%20egg&amp;amp;f=false&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-02-25T12:45:24.140" LastActivityDate="2016-02-25T12:45:24.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17290" CreationDate="2016-02-23T23:31:01.107" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually there are three of these words: 赤道, 黄道, 白道, where '赤' means 'red', '黄' means 'yellow', and '白' means 'white'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赤道 is the equator. 黄道 is the sun's track in the sky. 白道 is the moon's track in the sky. As for why they are named so - they are named using &quot;the five colors corresponding to five directions&quot;, according to 《汉书·天文志》. If you know Chinese, you can refer to this question on 知乎: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/21376627&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/21376627&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T23:31:01.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17296" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-24T02:57:49.067" Score="5" ViewCount="1700" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it has to do with swindling; cheating. But why? What is the imagery or story behind this word, 坑爹?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12806" LastActivityDate="2016-02-25T15:56:05.127" Title="Why is 坑爹 such a popular word, and what exactly does it mean?" Tags="&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17292" CreationDate="2016-02-24T02:58:34.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;h3&gt;For macroscopic semantics&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q: What is included in this set meal?&#xA;A: 一份火腿，两份蔬菜，两份果汁&#xA;&#xA;Q: What else you want to order, sir?&#xA;A: 一例番茄炒蛋，一例糖醋排骨，一例果盘&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also just use corresponding unit for each object to express &amp;quot; serving of &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like &amp;quot;一盘水果&amp;quot; &amp;quot;一瓶饮料&amp;quot; &amp;quot;一块排骨&amp;quot; &amp;quot;一条鱼&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;For microscopic semantics&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q: What is included in this bottle of drink&#xA;A: 100毫克维生素，10毫克碳水化合物，20克糖&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here under microscope, scientific unit is  often used like &amp;quot;gram 克&amp;quot; &amp;quot;milligram 毫克&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6750" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-02-24T03:04:15.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17296" CreationDate="2016-02-24T04:19:56.130" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;坑-爹,literally, means 'to trap your father'. As a slang, it means 'to deceive someone'. Thus, if you speak, &quot;这个手机很坑爹 'this phone very 坑爹'&quot;, that means 'this phone is of low quality'. It is very possible that you could have been deceived by a seller or producer. By so speaking, you treat the producer (liar) of this low-quality phone as your son, then you turn to become its father. In normal usage, the sex is in fact irrelevant even if 爹'father' canonically should be male. 爹 here can refer to any one who suffer from being deceived. As a result, 坑-爹 implies a cursing attitude towards someone. After all, to play someone's father implies to dominate or control it. No one likes to have extra fathers except for that physiologic father. So, 坑爹 should be cautiously used. Of note, this inference has become very weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12639" LastActivityDate="2016-02-24T04:19:56.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17301" CreationDate="2016-02-24T08:30:59.717" Score="1" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where should I put the &quot;多“ in large numbers?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I saw in one text&lt;br&gt;&#xA;300多万人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but&lt;br&gt;&#xA;10亿多人  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12794" LastActivityDate="2016-02-24T09:18:01.270" Title="Where should I place 多 in large numbers?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-03-01T23:33:26.557" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17299" CreationDate="2016-02-24T09:18:01.270" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are different in meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;300多万人:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&gt;300)万, maybe 301万 or 310 万...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10亿多人:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&gt;10亿), maybe 10亿+10000 or 10亿+1000000...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12770" LastActivityDate="2016-02-24T09:18:01.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17302" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17303" CreationDate="2016-02-24T23:11:34.810" Score="1" ViewCount="695" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would you say 治安不好 in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone told me it means &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;not safe&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;, but I am not sure about it. It seems too broad. 治安 is the safety level of a place specifically relating to crimes, but being not safe may refer to avalanche or smog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9375" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-04T23:57:48.360" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T12:33:29.030" Title="How to say 治安不好 in English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17302" CreationDate="2016-02-24T23:32:54.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a comment about law and order/public safety. So, e.g. it could translate as &quot;Public safety is bad.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2016-02-24T23:32:54.667" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17296" CreationDate="2016-02-25T00:56:01.933" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, 坑爹 is somehow an Internet slang, which means the word is casual and it's OK to use it when you are chatting with your friends or posting it in a forum. But maybe it's not a good idea to use it in some formal situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've searched but failed to find some concrete statements about the origin. It's seems the most spoken origin is from a Chinese version for a Japanese anime &quot;搞笑漫画日和&quot;. There are also opinions on this comes from several dialects use similar words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's difficult to translate 坑 to English because the use for 坑 can be much further than swindling and cheating, especially in oral communication. 坑 means hole when interpreted as noun. The feeling is close to a hole had been dug and you fell down into the hole. It's proper to use it with a lot of things or events if they make you fell unhappy or not working as expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爹 means father. If it is used to call some oneself initially, I think he is raising his position and asking for being respected. (Hard to explain this for me, since similar usages are more in some dialects I'm not familiar)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the meaning of the word changed as an Internet slang, 爹 in 坑爹 can be explained as anyone now. As a result 坑爹 can be explained as 坑人 or 坑我. And this can be treated as an adjective to express the felling that similar to a hole had been dug and you fell down into the hole or something digs that hole. It can be used the emotion when someone is unhappy, embarrassed or feel not good because other reasons. It can also be used to describe something unpleasant. The exactly meaning of the word varies according to the environment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他坑过我。&#xA;He did something bad and caused loss to me.&#xA;&#xA;他很坑，总是把事情搞砸。&#xA;He is not reliable and always make things bad.&#xA;&#xA;这题很坑，很多人都做错了。&#xA;This problem is 坑 and many people failed.(easy to get wrong answer for the problem and makes people feel a bit annoyed)&#xA;&#xA;这场考试真坑爹，我肯定不到90。&#xA;This exam is 坑爹 and I'm sure I can't reach 90.(the exam leads low scores and makes people feel not good)&#xA;&#xA;什么，一瓶水要100块，太坑了！&#xA;What, a bottle of water charges 100 yuans, too 坑!(unfairly expensive)&#xA;&#xA;我忘带钱了，坑爹！&#xA;I forget to bring money, god!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for my poor English, hope this makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12770" LastEditorUserId="12770" LastEditDate="2016-02-25T15:56:05.127" LastActivityDate="2016-02-25T15:56:05.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17302" CreationDate="2016-02-25T18:32:23.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess &amp;quot;high-crime&amp;quot; makes more sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;治安不好的小区&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;high-crime neighborhood&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12821" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T09:30:46.187" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T09:30:46.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17306" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-25T22:08:01.700" Score="4" ViewCount="1867" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 听看，听见，听到? I heard someone use 听看 in reference to a song they would listen to? Does 听看 have a similar meaning to 看看 in that it means to have a quick look/listen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12758" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T20:23:07.123" Title="Difference and usage of 听看，听见，听到?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17306" CreationDate="2016-02-25T23:02:17.450" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;1, 听看 does not make sense as a word in mandarin, where did this come from? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2, 听见，听到 does not have semantic differences. people will use them interchangeably. follow your heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5795" LastActivityDate="2016-02-25T23:02:17.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17308" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17309" CreationDate="2016-02-26T08:28:23.023" Score="6" ViewCount="1758" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I got that correctly 前面 is used for things like 本子在书的前面 or 本子在书前 and 面前 is used for living creatures (the ones with a face) like 报纸在我的面前. Could you please confirm if I'm correct here or missing something and there's more to that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that appropriate to use 前面 for persons as well? My teacher said that for persons 前面 is not really a correct preposition to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6842" LastEditorUserId="6842" LastEditDate="2016-02-26T09:57:59.297" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T13:53:32.923" Title="Difference between 前面 and 面前" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17308" CreationDate="2016-02-26T09:05:17.447" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;前面 means &quot;in front of&quot; or &quot;at the front of&quot;. It can be used for anything that has a front, though in some cases just 前 may be better.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面前 means &quot;in front of the face&quot;. It can only be used in the context of things that (literally or metaphorically) have a face. In many cases it carries a sense of &quot;in the face of&quot; or &quot;in the view of&quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;法律面前没有特权&#xA;There are no privileges before the law.&#xA;如何在喜欢的人面前表现&#xA;How to present yourself before a person you like / are attracted to.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So your initial suspicion is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; use 前面 for a person, but only if you're strictly referring to the position, and not to the sense of &quot;looking at&quot;. For example, you could use 前面 when you want to say &quot;there are many people in front of me in the line&quot; but not when you say &quot;The student is standing in front of the teacher&quot;, where 面前 would be more appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastEditorUserId="12420" LastEditDate="2016-02-26T10:13:46.243" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T10:13:46.243" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17310" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-26T12:22:07.103" Score="5" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;骠骑, meaning &quot;very fast horse&quot;, was also the name of a general rank in ancient China (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AA%A0%E9%AA%91%E5%B0%86%E5%86%9B&quot;&gt;骠骑将军&lt;/a&gt;, roughly meaning &quot;General of the Flying Cavalry&quot;). &lt;strong&gt;How is it correctly pronounced?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 骠 and 骑 have two different pronunciations, piào/biāo and qí/jì. Interestingly, I've seen and heard all sorts of different pronunciations for 骠骑:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;biāo qí&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cidian.xpcha.com/54agc0e8y42.html&quot;&gt;http://cidian.xpcha.com/54agc0e8y42.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;piào qí&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E9%AA%A0%E9%AA%91%E5%B0%86%E5%86%9B&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/骠骑将军&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E9%AA%A0%E9%AA%91&quot;&gt;http://www.baike.com/wiki/骠骑&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;piào jì&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/0/2f/71249.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/0/2f/71249.htm&lt;/a&gt; (Guoyu version; interestingly the same page lists &lt;strong&gt;piào qí&lt;/strong&gt; for the main entry)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So then the question comes: &lt;strong&gt;which one is right?&lt;/strong&gt; Are there regional differences? Are there different correct versions? Are they all correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T18:40:22.433" Title="What's the correct pronunciation for 骠骑?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17308" CreationDate="2016-02-26T12:33:55.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In response to your second paragraph: it's nature to use 前面 with persons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;前面 can stand for &quot;prior&quot; to indicate relationship about logic or time.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When using as &quot;prior&quot;, 面前 cannot replace 前面:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他在我前面加入这家公司，比我多干了3年。&#xA;He joined the company before me and worked 3 more years than me.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 他在我面前加入这家公司 means &quot;in front of my face&quot;, I saw him joined this company.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;前面 mainly refers to a direction, while 面前 gives a sense of something is near when referring location(usually can be easily seen). It's strange to say something you can't see is just in front of your face, isn't it?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For direction:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A:那家超市在哪里?&#xA;B:在前面，沿这条路过5个红绿灯就到。(can't say 面前 here since the supermarket isn't very near)&#xA;A: Where is that supermarket?&#xA;B: In front of (us), follow this road and pass 5 traffic lights then you'll reach there.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12770" LastEditorUserId="12770" LastEditDate="2016-02-26T12:40:38.060" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T12:40:38.060" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17308" CreationDate="2016-02-26T13:53:32.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;-面前 means in front of your face (something likes this), because here 面 means face, 前 means in front of.. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-前面 means front, previous, ahead, here 前 means in front of, 面 means rather field, a zone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12829" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T13:53:32.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17310" CreationDate="2016-02-26T14:29:24.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting, I saw reasons for several pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Sorry for leaving some 文言(ancient Chinese)because I don't know how to properly translate from ancient Chinese to English)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The origin of this word:《史记·卫将军骠骑列传》：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冠军霍去病既侯三岁，元狩二年春，以冠军霍去病为骠骑将军，将万骑出陇西，有功。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【集解】徐广曰：“骠，一作‘剽’” :骠 can be also written as '剽' piāo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【正义】《说文》云：“骠(biāo)，黄马鬣白色，一曰白髦尾” 骠 is yellow horse with write hair on head or neck, also said has a write tail&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Both 集解 and 正义 are famous comments on 史记)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And after looking up my dictionary, initially I think the answer is piào which means brave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 骑, qí means riding, jì means the person who rides horse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以霍去病为骠骑将军，将万骑 (I simplified the sentence here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means assigned 霍去病 as 骠骑将军, then commanded ten thousands of 骑(cavalryman)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't infer a certain conclusion which one should be chosen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;qí : the name is saying something about the person's riding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jì : it's 骑将军 who commands 骑(cavalryman)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally speaking, I think the later is more reasonable and the former is a bit meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact this question is somehow opinion-based because answering it requires interpreting ancient articles which is debatable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12770" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T14:29:24.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17306" CreationDate="2016-02-26T16:59:34.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;听听看 means listen to (listen to and see if it is any good).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T16:59:34.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17310" CreationDate="2016-02-26T18:40:22.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;骠骑: The correct one is piào jì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骠: piào for adjective(being brave and fast) and biāo for noun(a kind of horse). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骑: jì for noun(a horse or other ridable animal) and qí for verb(to ride) (modern Chinese only keeps qí after 1985). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should use the old time standard when reading an ancient poetry or something. e.g. 一骑(jì)红尘妃子笑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(骠骑 is an ancient word, so use jì instead of qí)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6002" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T18:40:22.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17317" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17326" CreationDate="2016-02-27T03:30:32.367" Score="1" ViewCount="444" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three options I have found are:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;根据新的管理   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;新的管理团队&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;管理团队新血液&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do either of these sound good, or does anybody have a better suggestion?&#xA;Can it possibly be said in only 4 characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For context, these are going on business cards&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IGMlu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IGMlu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm printing out over 1,000 of these, so I want to make sure I don't mess up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastEditorUserId="4181" LastEditDate="2016-02-27T04:07:59.673" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T04:40:03.687" Title="What is the best way to say &quot;Under New Management&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2016-02-27T04:11:57.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://nlp.qq.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Tencent NLP&quot;&gt;Tencent NLP&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IUT25.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IUT25.png&quot; alt=&quot;Tencent NLP&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bosonnlp.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;bonson NLP&quot;&gt;Bonson NLP&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1nO7U.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1nO7U.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many lexical analyzers for Chinese, but these are not developed for daily use, the typical usage is Chinese searcher engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ltp-cloud.com/demo/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;语言云&lt;/a&gt; has a online demo, I test it by enter a sentence from today news,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;北京时间2月27日凌晨1点，FIFA特别代表大会选举中，因凡蒂诺击败萨尔曼、阿里王子、尚帕涅，成功当选新任国际足联主席，瑞士人的任期至2019年。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The default result seems complicate, I deselected &quot;语义依存分析&quot; and &quot;语义角色标注&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5mkc9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5mkc9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HTdDF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HTdDF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OtbWP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OtbWP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These tool can not be 100% accurate, for example, &quot;选举&quot; in the sentence is&#xA;a noun, not verb ( so the SBV relation is also wrong, SBV means subject-verb),&#xA;the biggest mistake is it split 因凡蒂诺(Sorry, Mr.Infantino) to 因 and 凡蒂诺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These errors are understandable, it is still helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2016-02-27T04:25:59.950" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T04:25:59.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17319" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17320" CreationDate="2016-02-27T07:57:25.533" Score="3" ViewCount="2089" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 计算机 and 电脑？Does the meaning differ between regions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user12834" LastEditorDisplayName="user12834" LastEditDate="2019-04-06T02:39:59.150" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T02:39:59.150" Title="Difference Between 计算机 and 电脑" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17319" CreationDate="2016-02-27T09:39:27.693" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, they're interchangable and both mean &lt;code&gt;personal computer&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;计算机&lt;/code&gt; could be used for wider range. Such as,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大型计算机 (large (-scale) computer; maxicomputer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中型计算机 (medium-size computer; midcomputer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小型计算机 (minicomputer; small-size computer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;微型计算机 (microcomputer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T09:39:27.693" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17319" CreationDate="2016-02-27T09:51:45.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Easy. 计算机 means both the &lt;em&gt;computer&lt;/em&gt; (desktop, laptop, server, or other variants) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; the hand-held &lt;em&gt;calculator&lt;/em&gt; that only does arithmetics or basic functions.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电脑 is the desktop, laptop or other computer &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt;, but not the calculator. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T09:51:45.603" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17319" CreationDate="2016-02-27T14:34:42.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;电脑 for daily use, 计算机 is a formal words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大娘: 你学什么的?&#xA;小明: 我学计算机的?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;an old women: What subject did you major?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xiaoming: I majored in computer science (at college).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;计算机 means computer science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大娘: 你学什么的?&#xA;小明: 我学电脑的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An old women: What subject did you major?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xiaoming: I majored in how to type and install windows (at Department of Community Services).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T14:34:42.137" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17323" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-27T17:26:05.540" Score="2" ViewCount="359" Body="&lt;p&gt;In particular, in the song 耶稣喜爱世上小孩, the second line 世上所有的小孩 sounds as though it were pronounced shìshàng suóyǒu dì xiǎohái.  Is that correct?  Thank you for your help; my ear for Chinese is not yet well developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="314" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T08:12:59.080" Title="How to pronounce 的 in 所有的?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-02-29T16:10:44.767" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17323" CreationDate="2016-02-27T17:41:29.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is usually pronounced &quot;de&quot; (as in French), but in songs it is commonly pronounced &quot;di&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T17:41:29.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17323" CreationDate="2016-02-27T19:03:53.773" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it's on a downbeat, accented note, then definitely &quot;di&quot;. If it's short and unaccented, then it really does not matter. It's probably why you could not tell when you heard it. If you are singing, sing &quot;di&quot; to play safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T19:03:53.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17317" CreationDate="2016-02-27T19:19:31.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about a slightly more formal register, since it's going to be printed on your business card? I suggest &quot;嶄新管理團隊&quot;. On a side note, I agree that the design has plenty of room for improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T19:19:31.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17328" CreationDate="2016-02-28T01:59:07.907" Score="5" ViewCount="723" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't know what 大法 means. I did some google search and all the answers were &quot;Dafa&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I didn't think it is correct. What does it mean exactly? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12839" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-02-27T10:40:55.820" LastActivityDate="2018-03-31T15:05:59.890" Title="How to say 索尼大法好 in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17327" CreationDate="2016-02-28T02:24:33.033" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;索尼 is Sony.&#xA;大法 is borrowed from Falungong's 法轮大法.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The inventor of this saying might want to gave people some ideas on how Sony's fans follow Sony's industrial design.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about translate to Sony cult supremacy or Sony sect supremacy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7027" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T02:24:33.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17327" CreationDate="2016-02-28T04:14:27.897" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the accurate translation is &lt;strong&gt;Sony is the best&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12840" LastEditorUserId="12840" LastEditDate="2016-02-28T05:01:14.220" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T05:01:14.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17317" CreationDate="2016-02-28T04:40:03.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;老店新张！I saw it used in many instances in China when the owner changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12841" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T04:40:03.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17319" CreationDate="2016-02-28T06:40:15.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You ask the difference between 电脑 and 计算机, is like asking the difference between PC and computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电脑 is what people use in speaking, 计算机 is more technical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English PC is more like a Windows installed desktop computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And computer is just a computer and sometimes more technical because the nature of a computer is to do arithmetic computations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11391" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T06:40:15.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17323" CreationDate="2016-02-28T06:42:51.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;de silent tone(轻声)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;di is more like a dialect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11391" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T06:42:51.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17333" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17335" CreationDate="2016-02-28T08:10:33.983" Score="3" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because my study of Chinese is mostly based on intermediate videos I think I am missing something. Now that I have a sense of the large number of homophones in Chinese, the potential for double-entendres and word play seems obvious; but it is not the sort of thing one would put into intermediate material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I wonder if there are some examples of humorous or satirical ambiguity that convey a sense of how these commonly come up?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can happen in English when a word has two distinct meanings. For example, in an agricultural context we speak of a bull &quot;servicing&quot; a cow; this usage injects an element of humor into the notion that a phone company &quot;services&quot; a customer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3171" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T11:25:18.790" Title="Homonyms in the context of humor or satire" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17323" CreationDate="2016-02-28T08:12:59.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[d]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a very silent sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10952" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T08:12:59.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17333" CreationDate="2016-02-28T10:55:13.187" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Homophones are often used humorously in Chinese. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many jokes use the topic of people confusing similar-sounding phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;把一个卖糖葫芦的被揍了，到警察局，警察问理发师：“你为什么揍卖糖葫芦的？”理发师说：“我在屋里烫头发，他在外面喊‘烫糊喽’！”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A man selling candy fruit (Tanghulu) was beaten up. At the police office,&#xA;  the police officer asked the haidresser: &quot;Why did you beat up the&#xA;  candy fruit seller?&quot; The hairdresser answered: &quot;I was in my shop&#xA;  applying perms (烫头发)， and he stood outside yelling 'he burned [my&#xA;  hair] to a paste!' (tang hu lou)!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also more satirical uses of word substitution and homophones. For example, in mainland Chinese online communication, it's common to refer to China's government as the 天朝 (heavenly court), to mockingly compare it to the imperial court of times past. There are many examples of this type. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example that may be unique to Chinese is the 同音文章 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-syllable_article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;One syllable article&lt;/a&gt;), where a short story is composed only of characters that are pronounced as the same syllable (but not necessarily the same tone). These are often humorous, just because the form constraints enforce absurd content. From a famous example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;石室詩士施氏，嗜獅，誓食十獅。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The &quot;Stone-house poetry master&quot; from family Shi liked lions&#xA;  and swore to eat ten lions [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many other examples from many different types of Chinese humor. In conclusion: Yes, both homophones and words with multiple meanings are used in Chinese humor, both in satire and vulgar humor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastEditorUserId="12420" LastEditDate="2016-02-28T11:25:18.790" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T11:25:18.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17319" CreationDate="2016-02-28T14:26:04.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaker,in our daily life,there are not so many differences between 计算机 and 电脑，usually,when we are having classes,the official name is 计算机课 rather than 电脑课.the biggest difference may be in some professional feild,for example,in Chinese college a major named 计算机专业 ，so when you speak Chinese ,there is no need to pay much attention to it,unless you are in a special academic field thus you can say 计算机,also,if you say 电脑，most people can still understand you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12843" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T14:26:04.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17338" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17339" CreationDate="2016-02-28T18:01:51.830" Score="2" ViewCount="1101" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would you say something like &quot;I'm lagging again, my ping is spiking to 500(ms)&quot; in Putonghua and Cantonese (in the context of online games)? I've heard someone say &quot;網又卡了！&quot; before, but I'm not entirely sure how common that is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12846" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T08:50:48.280" Title="What's the correct term for ping (connection latency) in Standard Chinese/Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17338" CreationDate="2016-02-28T18:21:21.993" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, in putonghua，We say &quot;网又卡了， 我ping都500了， 卡死了（damn lagging）， 你卡不？小王怎么一点都不卡呢？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Ping” is totally acceptable in Putonghua， just like “windows，NPC，BOSS”， all game players know it， or you can use &quot;延迟”， “我延迟有500了” 。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T18:21:21.993" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17327" CreationDate="2016-02-28T18:36:35.360" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;法，or 大法 is borrowed from Buddhism， in Buddhism， 法 means 轨持（dharma），truth or law that affects the whole universe。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so 索尼大法好 can be The dharma of Sony is good , or The truth of Sony is good for simplicity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T18:36:35.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17341" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17344" CreationDate="2016-02-29T16:10:16.557" Score="3" ViewCount="806" Body="&lt;p&gt;Was trying to explain to my one friend what does it means by &quot;&lt;strong&gt;He's a baller&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.  The closest I got is &quot;他很酷&quot; but that's just the same meaning as &quot;He's cool&quot;.  Is there a more...descriptive translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:  Here's an example:   &quot;I hit 4 of a kind twice at the casino tonight, it's baller&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2016-03-01T15:09:45.217" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T15:09:45.217" Title="Translation of &quot;Baller&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17342" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17343" CreationDate="2016-02-29T18:14:44.907" Score="0" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of this word? I used to see it in a batch of examples. Most recent ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;如买方提出索赔，凡属品质异议须于货到目的口岸之日起30天内提出&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;上级机关的决议，凡属要一点的，必须迅速传达&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12344" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-03-16T02:29:13.450" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T08:04:43.677" Title="What is the meaning of 凡属?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17342" CreationDate="2016-02-29T19:28:12.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Belonging to. What. Where. Word by word: ordinarily with regard to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E5%87%A1%E5%B1%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/凡属&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-02-29T19:28:12.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17341" CreationDate="2016-03-01T04:20:39.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Base on urban dictionary's definition, a baller is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A thug that has &quot;made it&quot; to the big time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当屌丝逆袭成功之后，他就成就屌丝之王了，又称：“屌王“， ”屌霸“， “逆袭屌”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T04:20:39.450" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17345" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33554" CreationDate="2016-03-01T05:02:03.513" Score="3" ViewCount="383" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see that 声 has an entry in the Kangxi dictionary, but every site seems to define 声 as a simplification of 聲. Does 声 also exist as a traditional character? If not, then what's the glyph origin behind 殸?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12846" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T00:23:17.810" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T07:21:12.183" Title="Does 声 exist as a traditional character?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9116" CreationDate="2016-03-01T05:29:57.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;會 has an entry in 康熙字典 (Kangxi Dictionary):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;〔古文〕㞧㣛《唐韻》《集韻》黃外切，音繪。合也。《易·乾卦》亨者，嘉之會也。《疏》使物嘉美之會聚。《書·禹貢》灉沮會同。《疏》謂二水會合而同。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又《洪範》會其有極。《疏》會，謂集會。《禮·樂記》竹聲濫，濫以立會，會以聚衆。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又《周禮·天官·大宰》大朝覲會同。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又《春官·大宗伯》時見曰會。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又《禮·檀弓》周人作會，而民始疑。《註》會，謂盟也。《左傳·昭三年》有事而會，不協而盟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又《左傳·宣七年》凡師出與謀曰及，不與謀曰會。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又《集韻》《韻會》古外切，音儈。與繪通。《書·益稷》日月星辰，山龍華蟲作會。《傳》會，五采也。《釋文》馬、鄭作繪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;又《詩·衞風》會弁如星。《箋》會，謂弁中之縫也。《釋文》會，《說文》作䯤。《周禮·夏官·弁師》王之皮弁會五采。《註》會，作䯤。鄭司農云：謂以五采束髮也。士喪禮曰：檜用組，乃笄。檜，讀與䯤同，書之異耳。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;又《周禮·天官·小宰》聽出入以要會。《註》謂計最之簿書，月計曰要，歲計曰會。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;又《天官·司會註》會，大計也。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;又《周禮·夏官·職方氏》東南曰揚州，其山鎭曰會稽。《註》會稽，在山隂。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;又姓。《姓氏急就篇》漢武陽令會栩。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又《集韻》古活切，音括。會撮項椎也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又《集韻》戸栝切，音活。《莊子·人閒世》會撮指天。向秀讀。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又《韻補》今聲濁，叶泰。古聲淸，叶祭。《卻正·釋譏》三方鼎峙，九有未乂。聖賢拯救之秋，列士樹功之會。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bold text are 5 definitions of 會 that is pronounced as kuài (or ㄎㄨㄞˋ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the 1st of the 5 definitions, 會 with this pronunciation is used equivalently with 䯤 (something like a hairpin), which is pronounced as kuài. This might be from the definition of 會 being the sewings in an ancient Chinese hat (弁) used to constraint hair. Of course, these 2 characters and their meanings could have had their influences on each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2nd and 3rd of the 5 definitions relate to the definition of accountant. I don't quite see its connection with the hairpin definition, but the usage of this word to represent accounting possibly comes from 會's meaning of gathering together, while its pronunciation succeeded the one for another meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the name of the mountain and a last name, they might had only a verbal pronunciation kuài beforehand and needed a character, and therefore 會 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in conclusion, the pronunciation of 會 as kuài might comes from its equivalance with 䯤 (because they look alike), and other meanings with this pronunciation exist only because 會 already has a pronunciation of such, and therefore, derived meanings of 會 takes the sound of kuài (such as accounting), as well as sound of kuài takes the character of 會 (such as 會稽山, the mountain).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;__&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(answer based on only Kangxi Dictionary and personal deduction)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11211" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T05:29:57.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17345" CreationDate="2016-03-01T06:37:02.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;殸 led to 聲, but was not composed from 声; it's not like evolution to ever more complexity, sometimes a component is isolated from more complex forms. 声 has been used for a thousand years, if that is &quot;traditional&quot; enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T06:37:02.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17348" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17833" CreationDate="2016-03-01T08:46:11.803" Score="4" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has &quot;管理 = manage&quot; something to do with plumbing, making pipes or taking care of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know 管 is a measure word for tube-shaped objects. So my logic suggest that 管理 is an meaning-extension for &lt;em&gt;managing pipe-works&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;running pipes, plumbing&lt;/em&gt;. Managing here is taken as a metaphore for guiding the &quot;flow&quot; in the desired direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I right? Does a native speaker feels this connotation in 管理?&#xA;If so then what connotation does a native feel in 处理? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I would be very greatful if someone lists all the verbs in similar form to 管理 and 处理 with meaning &quot;to manage&quot; and their connotations. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s.&#xA;I think this additional question will be absolutly silly but...&#xA;Does 尽管 have somethign to do with piping etymology of 管? You know, there are a lot of &quot;although&quot;s in chinese and some help with differentiation between them would be great. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2016-03-01T09:06:10.670" LastActivityDate="2016-04-29T21:13:11.240" Title="Has 管理 something to do with plumbing? If so then" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17338" CreationDate="2016-03-01T08:50:48.280" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some technical terms do not have formal translation or still used in English form for the sake of convenience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Ping' is one of such example, alternatively you can use latency in Chinese '延迟'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be more appropriate to use 'ping'  among IT guys and use latency '延迟' for non-IT users. However, in Cantonese especially among people from Hong Kong, it's advised to use English when referring to technical terms as the translation can be very different from Mandarin, unless you are very sure of the correct translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12853" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T08:50:48.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17348" CreationDate="2016-03-01T11:17:05.827" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to answer all you questions once, just one of them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Does a native speaker feels this connotation in 管理?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, at least I don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;code&gt;管理&lt;/code&gt;, it has nothing to do with &lt;code&gt;管子/管道&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;tube;pipe&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 新汉英大辞典,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;管理 [guǎn lǐ]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  1. manage; run; administer; supervise; rule; administration; management; regulation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. Managing here is taken as a metaphore for guiding the &quot;flow&quot; &#xA;in the desired direction.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, broadly speaking, you could say that but literally it doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://max.book118.com/html/2015/0917/25601944.shtm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; 's a perspective about the meaning evolution from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/20/xs/7BA1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;管&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/143/312381.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;管理&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“管”的实义动词义，应是由其名词义发展而来的。其语义演变过程大体是：最初指一种乐器，而后代指这种形状的东西，尤指“键”。再有此发展到管钥匙，主管库房的人，再衍生出动词义“掌管、管理”；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ “管” 's notional verb meaning should be developed from its noun meaning. The meaning evolution is roughly: first indicates a kind of instrument, and then indicates things with this kind of shape, especially &lt;code&gt;key&lt;/code&gt;. And then developed to person who is in charge of the key or storehouse, then derived the verb meaning of &lt;code&gt;be in charge of; administer, manage&lt;/code&gt;. ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;管理&lt;/code&gt; 's literal sense should be &lt;code&gt;administer;control;in chare of&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-03-01T11:30:29.783" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T11:30:29.783" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17351" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26849" CreationDate="2016-03-01T15:25:56.263" Score="6" ViewCount="588" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only difference between a replica of a van Gogh painting, and a fake van Gogh painting, is that the replica claims to be a replica while the fake claims to be real.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a subtle distinction, and because people could feel insulted if I confuse the two, I want to be sure to get it right, and not just trust a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if I want to buy high quality replicas of say, Ming dynasty furniture, how should i describe that in Chinese?   I do not want genuine historic antiques, and I certainly do not want to bother with people offering fakes as if they were genuine.  I want high quality replicas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My concern is not talking with dealers.  My concern is when I ask a hotel clerk, or a shopkeeper who does not have what I want, where I might find what I want.  They should not think I am asking if they know any frauds or counterfeiters!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-03-01T20:38:35.910" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T18:51:22.090" Title="How to say replica as opposed to fake" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17319" CreationDate="2016-03-01T22:02:43.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For Mandarin, regional differences exist, but there are also similarities. To summarize, here are some rough charts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Computer:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   Mainland       Both         Taiwan&#xA;&#xA;t: 計算機          電腦&#xA;s: 计算机          电脑&#xA;r: ji4 suan4 ji   dian4 nao3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Calculator&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as in, pocket calculator:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   Mainland       Both         Taiwan&#xA;&#xA;t: 計算器                       計算機&#xA;s: 计算器                       计算机&#xA;r: ji4 suan4 qi4               ji4 suan4 ji&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Details:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Computer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=qiKKJHmXdD0QTRbTYbOG5rUIM_-6C2M5GA-gWb_K0v6q0ZDVdZ040Bmb-nqFEClb_6iz_IrWESdgKs9uDVptbq&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;baike.baidu.com 计算机&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;计算机（computer）俗称电脑 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu, &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.baidu.com/contact.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a mainland website&lt;/a&gt;, lists s: &lt;code&gt;计算机&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;computer&lt;/code&gt;, with s: &lt;code&gt;电脑&lt;/code&gt; as a popular term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When browsing computer websites with localized versions of the same page, &lt;code&gt;HP.com&lt;/code&gt; for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www8.hp.com/tw/zh/products/gateway/desktops/personal/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taiwan&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HP 桌上型電腦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www8.hp.com/cn/zh/products/gateway/desktops/personal/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mainland&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HP 台式电脑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In English, this page would be &lt;code&gt;HP Desktop Computers&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They have slightly different ways of conveying &lt;code&gt;Desktop&lt;/code&gt;, Taiwan: &lt;code&gt;桌上型&lt;/code&gt; quite literally desk-top-format, whereas Mainland: &lt;code&gt;台式&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;but for the &lt;code&gt;computer&lt;/code&gt; part of &lt;code&gt;Desktop Computer&lt;/code&gt; both use r: &lt;code&gt;dian4 nao3&lt;/code&gt;, t: &lt;code&gt;電腦&lt;/code&gt;, s: &lt;code&gt;电脑&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for both the Mainland and Taiwan, you can say &lt;code&gt;computer&lt;/code&gt; by saying &lt;code&gt;dian4 nao3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Calculator&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For t: &lt;code&gt;計算器&lt;/code&gt;, s: &lt;code&gt;计算器&lt;/code&gt;, r: &lt;code&gt;ji4 suan4 qi4&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/42510.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike.baidu.com 计算器&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;计算器是现代人发明的可以进行数字运算的电子机器。 ...外文名 calculator&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;s: &lt;code&gt;计算器&lt;/code&gt; is for mathematical calculations, and its English is &lt;code&gt;calculator&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For t: &lt;code&gt;計算機&lt;/code&gt;, s: &lt;code&gt;计算机&lt;/code&gt;, r: &lt;code&gt;ji4 suan4 ji&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cdict.net/?q=%E8%A8%88%E7%AE%97%E6%A9%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CDICT 計算機&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;computer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Tw) calculator&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CL:臺|台[tai2]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So while it can mean &lt;code&gt;computer&lt;/code&gt;, but in Taiwan, it means &lt;code&gt;calculator&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11759" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-03-03T18:50:06.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17342" CreationDate="2016-03-02T00:06:49.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;凡属品质异议须于货到目的口岸之日起30天内提出&#xA;All disputes pertaining to product quality shall be submitted within 30 days starting from the date of arrival of the product at the port of destination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凡属要一点的，必须迅速传达&#xA; I assume  &quot;要一点&quot;has been defined earlier in the document. I guess it means &quot;Priory 1&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All Priority 1 matters shall be speedily communicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastEditorUserId="12726" LastEditDate="2016-03-02T00:43:51.097" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T00:43:51.097" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17201" CreationDate="2016-03-02T00:26:34.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;套路：I think the closest in the Anglo-Saxon lexicon is :something lame or corny.&#xA;Come on. All your moves are so predictable. Try something more original !! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T00:26:34.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17239" CreationDate="2016-03-02T01:38:08.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;比 is short for 比较 (compare) and 照 is short for 对照 (contrast); together 比照 means &quot;compare and contrast&quot;. This is an example of creating a new term from two other terms. Such kind of terms are not conversational usually. There are a part of the written language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T01:38:08.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17356" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17427" CreationDate="2016-03-02T01:56:50.907" Score="3" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for any poems/phrases/quotes/stories/allegories about “good news.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only things I can think of at the moment are: &lt;em&gt;报喜不报忧&lt;/em&gt; and maybe &lt;em&gt;好事不出门，坏事传千里&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T12:45:25.457" Title="poems/phrases/quotes/stories/allegories about “good news”" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17351" CreationDate="2016-03-02T07:14:10.777" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;replica = 仿制品. &#xA; fake = 赝品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赝品 used to refer to replica that is very hard to identify whether it is authentic or not. As the language evolved, it refers to those with low qualities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in Chinese, there is no direct mapping. Usually, you can add other adjectives to express the subtle meaning, like hello_harry suggested, 高仿, which is equal to 高级仿制品. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赝品 also limited to those replica that trying to make the same as original and sell for profit. While 仿制品 don't have good or bad in the purpose, for example, 仿制品 can be made for museum, it can also be a different size. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, it seems you want to buy a  高级赝品 of furniture. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12862" LastEditorUserId="12862" LastEditDate="2016-03-02T07:34:24.140" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T07:34:24.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17327" CreationDate="2016-03-02T08:27:05.017" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence people treat Sony like a religion. &#xA;So I think the best way to translate it is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;In Sony we trust&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6626" LastEditorUserId="6626" LastEditDate="2016-03-03T04:01:45.833" LastActivityDate="2016-03-03T04:01:45.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17356" CreationDate="2016-03-02T10:10:33.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first allegory that comes into my mind is 塞翁失马，焉知非福。The allegory tells us that bad news sometimes becomes good, and vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="901" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T10:10:33.357" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17361" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17363" CreationDate="2016-03-02T10:37:14.187" Score="0" ViewCount="1371" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say to &quot;make your bed&quot;? I've tried with Google translate but I don't believe it (zuo4 seems very wrong). Also searched this place but seems nobody asked this question yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is zhengli (整理) in any way appropirate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9329" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T08:33:30.500" Title="Phrase &quot;to make your bed&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17361" CreationDate="2016-03-02T11:35:03.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 整理 is appropriate, usually we say 整理床铺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12770" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T11:35:03.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17361" CreationDate="2016-03-02T11:38:24.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;整理床 or 理床 is both appropriate to use in your case, but be careful when using the second one, although they present the same meaning, 理床 is more likely to get people confused with other words since it's too short to pronounce. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12489" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T11:38:24.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17361" CreationDate="2016-03-02T11:45:14.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can use 拾牀. This means &quot;Pick up your bed&quot; as in pick up after yourself. This is good for cantonese and mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整理 is also ok. That means to sort clean up/take care of. So if you use this, you'll need to append the word bed to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11981" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T11:45:14.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17361" CreationDate="2016-03-02T14:26:11.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;整理床铺…………………………………………………………………………&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12866" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T14:26:11.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17319" CreationDate="2016-03-02T14:53:09.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For questions like this, I sometimes do a Google image search. For 电脑 I only get images of computers (which is what I expected); for 计算机 I get images of both computers and calculators. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when I asked a native speaker from Henan last year, he insisted that 计算机 refers to calculators. This may be related to the regional differences mentioned by user454038. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T14:53:09.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8790" CreationDate="2016-03-02T16:22:40.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about &quot;请你再说一遍&quot; or &quot;请再说一遍&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-03-03T16:40:54.653" LastActivityDate="2016-03-03T16:40:54.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8790" CreationDate="2016-03-02T22:00:42.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To not sound rude, one can add 請.  As in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請再講一遍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12745" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T22:00:42.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17361" CreationDate="2016-03-02T22:45:44.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use the verb 鋪牀, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/102/275702.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ZDic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12745" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T22:45:44.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17345" CreationDate="2016-03-02T22:59:19.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;声 is a pictograph of an old stone instrument.  The radical 殳 is a hand hitting something with a stick.  The ear 耳 below 聲, must represent the hearing of the sound from this instrument being played.  See the book: &quot;China: Empire of Living Symbols&quot; by Cecilia Lindqvist.  If I remember correctly it is in there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12745" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T22:59:19.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1055" CreationDate="2016-03-03T00:03:48.333" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like how nobody even tried to answer the question at the end, &quot;and in what contexts can it be found and with what meanings?&quot; Here are a few that I always heard:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;mai dongxi which means to go shopping. (lit. buy stuff)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chi dongxi which means to eat something. (lit. to eat stuff)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;nvhai you tai duo ge dongxi which means girls have too much stuff.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ni xiang mai shenme dongxi? which means, &quot;what do you want to buy&quot; (lit. you want to buy what stuff?).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you have to understand that &quot;something&quot; is a very unique word to English that has many many meanings. To my knowledge there is no Chinese equivalent word, so dongxi is really just a word that basically means stuff in the physical sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12869" LastActivityDate="2016-03-03T00:03:48.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17327" CreationDate="2016-03-03T08:21:24.907" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally, 大法 means &quot;great magic&quot; ，which used to be a superstitious description of &quot;theory／technic&quot; in ancient time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;点金大法 点金术 alchemy&#xA;易容大法 易容术 magic disguise &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now 大法 is often used as a humorous yet satirising description of metaphysical entities like &quot;art&quot;,&quot;music&quot;,&quot;emotions&quot; &#xA;which cannot be completely measured or assessed by science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;suggested translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Sonyism Rocks!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6750" LastEditorUserId="6750" LastEditDate="2016-03-03T08:35:47.587" LastActivityDate="2016-03-03T08:35:47.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1055" CreationDate="2016-03-03T11:04:24.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Afaik 东西 always stands for &quot;something&quot; or &quot;a thing&quot;. However the question might point to the origin of this meaning. A Chinese teaching professor once told me, that the silk road goes from east to west, which is from 东 to 西 and there were many goods traded on the silk road and that's how this meaning came to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6414" LastActivityDate="2016-03-03T11:04:24.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17374" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-03T14:33:47.843" Score="1" ViewCount="362" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm studying Mandarin via ChineseSkill for Android, and a problem has arisen. I understand a little Japanese, and so rather than listening to the spoken phrases that I'm supposed to translate, I find myself just &quot;decoding&quot; the text without reference to the spoken Chinese at all. As a consequence, while I can comprehend 我在看报纸 with no problem, but I can't pronounce 报纸 without looking it up. I'm also clueless when it comes to pronouncing personal names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can change the app to display only pinyin, but that wouldn't help with literacy. What do Japanese-speakers (or speakers of non-Mandarin languages) do to learn Chinese aurally/orally?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12868" LastEditorUserId="12868" LastEditDate="2016-03-04T15:53:28.433" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T19:10:30.233" Title="What Methods Are Used by Mandarin Learners Who Speak Japanese?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;reading&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17374" CreationDate="2016-03-03T14:42:42.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the only good way to practice reading out loud. I would recommend using google translate for each word you don't know how to pronounce and use their pronunciation translator. (Their's is actually pretty accurate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Luckily though, believe it or not the Chinese pronunciation is a higher learning curve but after that it's VERY simple. There's actually only a set number of sounds for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's good that you know some Japanese so I'm assuming you know some Kanji but also take caution that a lot of Japanese words are not used the same way Chinese words are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I don't have a computer that can type chinese right now so bare with me or if some one could edit this, I would appreciate it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: The word 'watashi' in japanese is 'I' but the chinese translation of that Kanji is actually 'si'. Which actually means 'personal' or 'private' rather than 'I'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;**Editor's note: 私 is the kanji for watashi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12824" LastEditorUserId="12824" LastEditDate="2016-03-03T19:36:16.653" LastActivityDate="2016-03-03T19:36:16.653" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17376" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17377" CreationDate="2016-03-03T16:55:38.533" Score="4" ViewCount="1261" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several words that mean &quot;child&quot; in Chinese, e.g. 孩子, 儿童 and a few others. When can they be used interchangeably and when not?&#xA;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The children are playing: 孩子们在玩呢 or 儿童们在玩呢 or both ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My children: 我的孩子 (not 我的儿童?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Child labour: 童工, 孩(子)工.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: &#xA;Yesterday, a native speaker told me that you can say 一个孩子 but not 一个儿童.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-03-04T08:56:14.460" LastActivityDate="2016-03-04T16:36:50.513" Title="Difference between 孩子 and 儿童 (and 孩童，少儿，...)" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17376" CreationDate="2016-03-03T18:16:01.853" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most cases, they are not interchangeable. In my experience, &quot;儿童&quot; emphasizes on age, but &quot;孩子&quot; emphasizes on relationship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are talking about a part of the population, &quot;儿童&quot; is more formal and can be used with other words to make phrases. Therefore, in the following occasions you only use &quot;儿童&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儿童医院&#xA;儿童乐园&#xA;童工&#xA;适龄儿童&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;孩子&quot; is informal when you talk about that population and is seldom used with other words. The only case I can think about is &quot;孩子们&quot;. You cannot say &quot;孩子医院&quot;. HOWEVER, it is the most commonly used word to indicate relationship, i.e. &quot;我的孩子&quot; for &quot;my child(ren)&quot;. You cannot say &quot;我的儿童&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, for people in their 50s, they can call all people younger than (approximately) 25 &quot;孩子们&quot;, but someone at his age of 20 is definitely not &quot;儿童&quot;. That's why I say &quot;孩子&quot; emphasizes on relationship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a translation perspective, &quot;儿童&quot; can be translated into &quot;kid&quot;, &quot;infant&quot;, &quot;child&quot;; &quot;孩子&quot; mostly means &quot;child&quot;. The meanings and usage of these two words are not strictly corresponding to those English words so be careful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;少儿&quot; is &quot;teen&quot;, and usually only refers to that group of people (i.e. &quot;teens&quot;). It is kind of different...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastEditorUserId="12691" LastEditDate="2016-03-03T18:21:46.730" LastActivityDate="2016-03-03T18:21:46.730" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17319" CreationDate="2016-03-03T21:11:05.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are the same and interchangable, no difference. 电脑 tends to be a little bit oral,  计算机 tends to be a little bit formal, and often used in documents, book, literature etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12875" LastActivityDate="2016-03-03T21:11:05.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17379" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17390" CreationDate="2016-03-04T03:45:42.883" Score="0" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for old dialectical works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figured there should be some topolectical Bible translations in the very least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Came across this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.photosharp.com.tw/FORUM/ArticleList.aspx?ForumId=40&amp;amp;TopicId=41385&amp;amp;Page=7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;forum&lt;/a&gt; post:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小時候曾經參加過天主教會的聚會，神父或牧師在每回講經佈道前總會打開放滿各種語言文字聖經的書櫃，讓信徒挑選自己看得懂的文字聖經，記得其中至少就有國語聖經(北京話)，台語聖經(河洛話或閩南話、福佬話)，客語聖經(客家話)，粵語(廣東話)聖經，蜀語聖經(四川話)，吳語聖經(蘇州話寧波話) ，魯語聖經(山東話) 、廈門話聖經，潮州話聖經，上海話聖經，福閩語聖經(福州話)，莆仙話，甌語聖經(溫州話)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My focus is on Sichuanese; the &lt;code&gt;蜀语圣经 (四川话)&lt;/code&gt; part of the post really caught my attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the 蜀语圣经?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-03-04T20:58:00.673" Title="What is the 蜀语圣经?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17381" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-04T06:30:20.467" Score="0" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing a paper for my world literature class on the poem &quot;Dead Roe Deer&quot; from the &lt;em&gt;Classic of Poetry&lt;/em&gt;. In my research/reading of a direct translation, I read that to embrace/think of spring is a Chinese expression with sexual connotations, but I can't find evidence of this expression anywhere else. &#xA;If anyone is familiar with this expression and can verify its existence or meaning, that would be extremely appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://home.earthlink.net/~nooriginalthought/Chinese_Poetry.html#Dead_Deer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here's&lt;/a&gt; link to blog post where I read this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12882" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-04T23:29:09.117" LastActivityDate="2016-03-05T13:35:47.063" Title="Is to embrace or think of spring an expression?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17382" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17396" CreationDate="2016-03-04T12:50:21.067" Score="4" ViewCount="741" Body="&lt;p&gt;All those talk, discuss, chat and ect. In any language there are a lot of words expressing different connotation of people speaking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my own language (russian) there are lot's of them BUT I can hardly explain the difference. The etymology of those words is unknown to me. In chinese, on the other hand, I think, there might be some etymological information hiddend in 字 mentioned in the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: If not for all of those 字 listed in the topic, can you explain the difference between (for some of them) using etymology?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Added 述 to the question. Can anyone explain it's origing and how those origins affect the application of 述 to the speach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.S. Here is the list of connotations we have figured out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;告&lt;/strong&gt; - 牛 cow + 口 mouth → cow bending its neck in lowing → &lt;strong&gt;tell&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;inform&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;announce&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;signal&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;谈&lt;/strong&gt; - 言+炎 abbreviated form of 淡=light+words→&lt;strong&gt;a light talk&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;说&lt;/strong&gt; - 兌=八split or strip+兄extend the arms→extend the arms&amp;amp;strip away a captive's clothes. 说=言+兌=words+strip away doubts→&lt;strong&gt;a speach&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;an explanation&lt;/strong&gt;. Or a better hypothesis that 兌=八split+兄men = salient or wedge, that is &lt;strong&gt;a formation of troops as a salient&lt;/strong&gt;. If 言+兌=&lt;strong&gt;to insert words&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;報 or 报&lt;/strong&gt;　- 服 (spread over) + 幸 (handcuffs) → spread a restraining device over part of a criminal's body in &lt;em&gt;retribution&lt;/em&gt; for a crime → &lt;em&gt;retaliation&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;recompense&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;remunerate&lt;/em&gt;→ &lt;em&gt;reward&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;to report&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;to announce&lt;/strong&gt; a crime as a punitive measure→&lt;strong&gt;official repor&lt;/strong&gt;t or annoncment.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;论&lt;/strong&gt; - 言 + elder scrolls → a doctrine, &lt;em&gt;deep thoughts&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;a theory&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;讲&lt;/strong&gt; - 言 + structure, scaffold → &lt;strong&gt;structured talk&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;议&lt;/strong&gt; - 言 + a separated in half animal = dis + cuss = &lt;strong&gt;a discussion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;述&lt;/strong&gt; - 言 + weaving, interconnecting = &lt;strong&gt;a narration&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T06:39:58.047" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T06:39:58.047" Title="Roots of the difference between 谈,论,说,讲,议, 叙,言,报,告,述" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17383" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17384" CreationDate="2016-03-04T13:32:03.240" Score="-1" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can traditional and simplified counterparts have different pronunciations? For example, 兄 [xiōng] (elder) brother becomes 儿 [ér], right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11464" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-10T22:12:32.003" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T22:12:32.003" Title="Can traditional and simplified counterparts have different pronunciations?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17383" CreationDate="2016-03-04T15:02:17.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The traditional character for 儿 is 兒. They are pronounced the same [ér].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2016-03-04T15:02:17.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17389" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-04T20:26:53.327" Score="1" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;My first idea is &quot;有些用户想要它&quot; but it is probably wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11860" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-03-16T02:34:14.967" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T14:30:05.410" Title="How can I say &quot;Some users want it&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17379" CreationDate="2016-03-04T20:58:00.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It'd probably refer to 四川话 of either 成都 or 重庆, and very unlikely to be the extinct &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba-Shu_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;巴蜀语&lt;/a&gt;. However, it seems unlikely, as the Mandarin (referring to 官话 here) versions listed &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&amp;amp;lr=&amp;amp;id=4fWf1WlCStcC&amp;amp;oi=fnd&amp;amp;pg=PA54&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; do not include any form of Sichuanese; nor can I find it in the Spillet (1975) catalogue. The furthest south for Mandarin is the Nanjing Mandarin version of 1857, adapted from the Delegates' Wenli (i.e. Classical Chinese) version. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another line of evidence is that the romanisation for Chongqing/Chengdu Sichuanese is distinctly non-missionary based. The earlier publications from a form of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Latinxua Sinwenz&lt;/a&gt; specific to southwestern Mandarin, originally developed in the Soviet Union and in use in the 1930s. The other, more current one is based on Hanyu Pinyin, and is known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuanese_Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sichuanhua Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;, and is mostly used in academic or learning materials. Compare this to the situation for Min varieties of Chinese, the principal romanisations for which were overwhelmingly developed by missionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, a non-classical / non-standard Mandarin Chinese Bible can be written in Chinese characters (compare the New Cantonese Version). But again there appears to be no record of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be of course hugely exciting if this did turn out to be true, and such a thing would not be outside the realms of possibility. With the current evidence, it seems nonetheless unlikely. Perhaps it was a non-Sinitic language of the southwest like Lisu or Hmong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2016-03-04T20:58:00.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17391" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17393" CreationDate="2016-03-04T21:00:19.790" Score="0" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I say &quot;x background&quot; like &quot;I have translation background&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11860" LastActivityDate="2016-03-04T22:03:30.560" Title="How can I say &quot;I have translation background&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2016-03-25T21:43:50.133" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17392" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-04T21:21:54.463" Score="0" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;亲收获？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12344" LastActivityDate="2016-03-05T01:59:09.830" Title="What is the meaning of 亲收获？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2016-03-05T20:34:53.640" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17391" CreationDate="2016-03-04T22:03:30.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;背景&quot; in Chinese can also be used to refer to people's background. Therefore it is okay to say &quot;我有翻译背景&quot;. &quot;经历&quot; is also fine but it is &quot;experience&quot; in English. If you think your &quot;background&quot; means &quot;experience&quot; exactly, it is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In universities we often say &quot;你有计算机（专业）背景吗？&quot; (&quot;Do you have background in Computer Science?&quot;) If you have a degree in Computer Science then you definitely do. However, we probably don't think a degree in Computer Science counts as experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-03-04T22:03:30.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17389" CreationDate="2016-03-05T00:22:02.780" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Might a nominalisation as 有的用戶要的 work in your context?  It would translate to &quot;It is something that some users want&quot;, for example as an answer to a question.  The pronoun 它 for innate objects is seldom used in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12745" LastActivityDate="2016-03-05T00:22:02.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17392" CreationDate="2016-03-05T01:59:09.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence (亲收获) does not make any sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest thing I can think of is &quot;亲，收货&quot;, which means &quot;Hey there, pick up your package.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &quot;亲&quot; originally mean &quot;darling&quot;, but among contemporary Chinese Internet users, it has very weak emotion and only means &quot;hey there&quot;, especially on Taobao, an eBay-like website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-03-05T01:59:09.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17382" CreationDate="2016-03-05T10:09:10.447" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;言 (yan2) is the root of all words meaning talk. It says so in the 說文解字 (a dictionary from the Han dynasty):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;凡言之屬皆从言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The origin of the character 言 is a picture of a person with a big mouth. In ancient Chinese, it’s the general word for any form of speech or talking. In modern Chinese, it has become literary and is normally only used in compound words like 語言 (yu2yan2) &quot;language&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most other characters you mention are just 言 with a second component to indicate the sound of the word (this type of character is called 形聲字 (xing2sheng1zi4):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;談&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(tan2)’s phonetic part is 炎 (yan2), which means hot or inflamed. In ancient Chinese, this word has connotations of talking happily about something. It’s often used in the combination 談笑 (tan2xiao4), meaning &quot;to talk and laugh&quot;. In modern Chinese, this is a general word for light conversation, similar to English &quot;chat&quot; or Russian &quot;razgovor&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;論&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(lun4)’s phonetic part is 侖 (lun2), meaning logical order. In this case, this part also points to the meaning: Both in ancient and modern Chinese, 論 means to explain or to discuss. It can also mean to ponder something without actually talking out loud. Example from the 呂氏春秋:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;闻言必熟论 the words heard must be carefully examined&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;說&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(shuo1)’s phonetic part is 兌 (dui4), which can mean a number of things such as &quot;exchange&quot; or &quot;melt&quot;. In ancient Chinese, 說 has two meanings. Pronounced &quot;shui4&quot;, it means &quot;to persuade&quot;. Pronounced &quot;shuo1&quot;, it means &quot;to explain&quot;, or, as a noun, &quot;teachings&quot;. For example, 老子說 means &quot;the teachings of Laozi&quot;. The meaning &quot;explain&quot; still exists in modern Chinese, but 說 has also become a general word for &quot;speak&quot;, like English &quot;say&quot; or Russian &quot;skazat&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;講&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(jiang3)'s traditional character had the phonetic 冓 (gou1), which can mean a number of things, including &quot;to meet&quot; and &quot;to combine&quot;. Accordingly, 講 in the 說文解字 means &quot;to reconcile&quot;. The simplified character uses 井 (jing3), meaning water well (Russian &quot;kolodets&quot;). In modern Chinese, 講 has a number of meanings, but the most common ones are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;講故事 tell a story&#xA;講價 negotiate the price&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some dialects, 講 replaces 說 as the main verb for &quot;speak&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;議&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(yi4) has 義 (yi4), which means &quot;meaning&quot; or &quot;righteousness&quot;. Both words reflect the meaning of 議, which means &quot;opinion&quot; or &quot;comment&quot; and is normally used in compound words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;告 &lt;em&gt;(edited)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;There are different explanations of this character. I originally followed the &quot;cow that makes a noise&quot; explanation found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E5%91%8A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, but that seems to be wrong.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;告 (gao4) consists of the parts 牛 (niu2) &quot;cow&quot; and 口 (kou3) &quot;mouth&quot;. &#xA;Various explanations for this character exist. The 說文解字 explanation does not make sense to me. &lt;a href=&quot;http://wxs.swu.edu.cn/de/upimg/soft/30_120416112817.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt; (PDF in Chinese) claims that the character originally described a method of catching or keeping cows. Later it acquired the sense of &quot;to sacrifice&quot; (also written as 祰). From there, its meaning as &quot;report&quot; developed. In ancient Chinese, 告 meant &quot;to report something to a superior&quot;. Nowadays it means &quot;to tell somebody about something&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;報&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(bao4) is interesting. The left side is a criminal (辠 zui4). The right part is a hand and a kneeling person, a shorter version of the character 服 (fu4) &quot;punish&quot;. 報 originally meant &quot;court documents&quot;, but the meaning has expanded to cover the English words &quot;report&quot;, &quot;answer&quot;, &quot;repay&quot; and, from those meanings, &quot;newspaper&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastEditorUserId="12420" LastEditDate="2016-03-07T21:01:24.083" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T21:01:24.083" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17381" CreationDate="2016-03-05T13:35:47.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;有女懷春、吉士誘之: A girl in love, enticing lucky men.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有女怀春 is actually a proverb. Embracing spring is thus a euphemism for being ready for love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-03-05T13:35:47.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17398" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17399" CreationDate="2016-03-06T00:07:55.523" Score="5" ViewCount="383" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0146193&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;recently retracted article&lt;/a&gt; on the scientific journal PlosOne was retracted (amongst other reasons) due to concerns that the authors were adherents to the pseudoscientific theory of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;intelligent design&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, one &lt;a href=&quot;http://complexroots.scientopia.org/2016/03/03/the-creator-paper-post-pub-peer-review-and-racism-among-scientists/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog post&lt;/a&gt; regarding the article makes the (unsupported) claim that the retraction is racist, and the scientifically unacceptable phrases are actually mistranslations due to the poor command of English by the authors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So by now you probably know that PLOSONE retracted a paper about the mechanics of the hand for including phrases about &amp;quot;the mystery of the creator's design&amp;quot;. Which sounds like an intelligent design argument sneaking into a scientific publication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except it wasn't. It was a poor translation of a Chinese idiom, which the author states would have been better translated as &amp;quot;nature&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any idiom in Chinese that translates to any of the two following phrases used in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: Hand coordination should indicate the &lt;strong&gt;mystery of the Creator’s invention.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2: The explicit functional link indicates that the&#xA;biomechanical characteristic of tendinous connective architecture between muscles and articulations is the &lt;strong&gt;proper design by the Creator&lt;/strong&gt; to perform a multitude of daily tasks in a comfortable way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8054" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-03-06T14:32:51.080" Title="Is there a Chinese idiom that involves a &quot;Creator&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17398" CreationDate="2016-03-06T02:02:21.743" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The authors's claim seems likely true.  Of course among the several authors and the editor who passed the article on, some may have had a different idea than others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Victor Mair at &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=24360&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=24360&lt;/a&gt; was right to say &quot;no matter what the authors may have meant if they were thinking of a Chinese term, or even if they weren't thinking of a particular Chinese term, paper was written in English for consumption by the international community of scientists, and ... conveys the wrong message for a scientific paper.&quot;  Really the paper should not have been printed this way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But historically there has been huge debate over how ancient, or classical, or later Chinese, ideas of 天 relate to western religious ideas.  Does 天 mean God, or god, or heaven, or just sky as a metaphor for the grandest most stable aspect of existence?  Even within the 论语/Analects some occurrences seem quite materialistic, so that it would mean overall nature, and others more anthropomorphic suggesting a God with personal intentions.  Many other characters have similar ambiguity and there is every reason to suppose that through history different Chinese people have meant different things by this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not found a source giving the original Chinese from this paper.  But the website &lt;a href=&quot;http://wap.sciencenet.cn/info.aspx?mod=news&amp;amp;id=339768&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wap.sciencenet.cn/info.aspx?mod=news&amp;amp;id=339768&lt;/a&gt; discusses this case and offers several idioms, which they claim would not seem religious to most Chinese people but would to many westerners:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相信很多母语为中文的朋友都会理解，“造物主” “神奇的造物主” “上帝之手”……当初赵忠祥在《动物世界》里不都是这么讲的吗？在我们眼里这样的表达和“大自然”无异，也并不会有任何宗教相关的意识和概念。但是当这些东西放到英文环境下，其含义往往会丰富起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first I was not clear on the phrase 赵忠祥, but March Ho's comment led me to find it is the name of the narrator of a TV show  《动物世界》 (Animal World).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certainly those idioms can be religious in Chinese.  But &quot;上帝&quot; is also used for what some western physicists call the &quot;God Particle&quot;--the Higgs boson, and that is never understood religiously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mair goes on to say: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Even if they were unaware that &quot;the Creator&quot; — especially when&#xA;  capitalized, as it always is in the paper under consideration —&#xA;  generally refers to the Judeo-Christian God, at least Le Xiong must&#xA;  have been aware that the Latin suffix -or indicates one who performs a&#xA;  specified action.  Thus &quot;the Creator&quot; (not &quot;a creator&quot;) is a very&#xA;  different proposition from &quot;creation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But within the English language many creationists say just as indignantly that everyone should know the suffix &quot;tion&quot; in words like option, election, creation, indicates that someone has opted, or elected, or created something, so they insist &quot;Creator&quot; is not a different proposition from &quot;creation.&quot;  I am not willing to blame the authors for ignoring Latin etymology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to the article, yes it should not have appeared this way.  As to what the authors meant, as Stan well says,  the authors don't believe in creationism, and they didn't mean it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-03-06T14:32:51.080" LastActivityDate="2016-03-06T14:32:51.080" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17400" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17401" CreationDate="2016-03-06T08:32:34.193" Score="5" ViewCount="824" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between these two sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要明天不下雨，我们就去爬山。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果明天不下雨，我们就去爬山。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They seem very close in meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12794" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T04:11:32.783" Title="What is the difference between 只要 and 如果?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17400" CreationDate="2016-03-06T10:47:25.820" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is, &lt;code&gt;只要&lt;/code&gt; is used for the only condition, while &lt;code&gt;如果&lt;/code&gt; usually doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;只要明天不下雨， 我们就去爬山。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ As long as it doesn't rain tomorrow, ... ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It doesn't rain tomorrow&quot; is the only one condition, the other things don't matter, e.g. &lt;code&gt;wind blowing&lt;/code&gt;. So you could follow the sentence with &lt;code&gt;即使刮风我们也去。&lt;/code&gt; (Even it's windy we still will go.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果明天不下雨， 我们就去爬山。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ If it doesn't rain tomorrow, ... ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It doesn't rain tomorrow&quot; isn't the only condition, that means if it's windy tomorrow, we might not go climbing too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-03-06T11:44:22.230" LastActivityDate="2016-03-06T11:44:22.230" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17402" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-06T20:14:09.400" Score="5" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me with this postmark? It is from Shanxi, but I can't desipher the date (around 1910?) and town. &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fd5k0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fd5k0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12890" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T20:59:53.327" Title="Shanxi old postmark: town and date" Tags="&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17402" CreationDate="2016-03-06T23:32:45.600" Score="6" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Town&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The city is &quot;运城&quot; (&quot;運城&quot; is its traditional Chinese writing). That is a well-known city in 山西.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Date&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Year: 己酉 (1909, 1969, 2029, ..) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Month: 二月 (&lt;strong&gt;2nd Month&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese Calendar, or &lt;strong&gt;February&lt;/strong&gt; in Gregorian) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Day: 廿四日 (24th)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that date is a Chinese Calendar date. Since you said it was around 1910, so the year should be 1909. Thus, 己酉年二月廿四日 was March 15, 1909. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I am not familiar with history and their convention in those years, so I am not 100% sure if the date is in Chinese Calendar or Gregorian Calendar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that if this is Chinese Calendar, 己酉 doesn't align exactly with the year of 1909. A Chinese year starts from the Chinese New Year (a.k.a Spring Festival) and ends before the next, which means the tail of 己酉 might be in 1910. However, since it is 二月 (second month), it should be still in 1909.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-03-06T23:32:45.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17404" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17409" CreationDate="2016-03-07T02:16:49.310" Score="6" ViewCount="632" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 学校 and 学堂? I've heard that 学堂 has more classical usage, is that correct? I know that 学校 is more commonly used these days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user12834" LastActivityDate="2016-03-14T00:15:40.087" Title="Difference Between 学校 and 学堂" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17402" CreationDate="2016-03-07T03:03:18.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HTWJp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HTWJp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Town&#xA;  &quot;運城&quot; is an old city in Shang xi(山西） Province .  Since the foundation of the People's public of China, Chinese character reform association issued a series of criteria to simplify the writing of  Chinese Character. So you can search 运城 instead of &quot;運城&quot; for more detailed information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time &#xA;   &quot;己酉“ is a special way for Chinese to record time. &quot;己酉” represent 1669,1729, 1789,1849 and 1909. &#xA;   &quot;二月廿四日” Chinese adopt lular calendar to record time. You can convert it through this website &lt;a href=&quot;http://wannianli.tianqi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wannianli.tianqi.com/&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;    So the exact time is 1909/03/15&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12891" LastEditorUserId="12891" LastEditDate="2016-03-07T06:05:04.610" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T06:05:04.610" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17029" CreationDate="2016-03-07T03:15:10.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;tl;dr: 收 takes more concrete objects than 受. Moreover, the exact senses of &amp;quot;receive&amp;quot; that the characters can respectively take on are not identical.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My perception is that the difference between 收 and 受 is not &lt;em&gt;directly&lt;/em&gt; linked to either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whether the connotations are positive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whether the speaker is passive or active&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will first give examples of when we use each character and indicate why these explanations do not quite work, before giving some suggestions which I believe might better capture the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Examples of using 受&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受 &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; often appear in situations where we might translate it as &amp;quot;bear&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;shoulder&amp;quot; (which in English generally accompany negative statements, not positive ones), and where the subject is relatively passive. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然她小时候受了很多困难，她竟然能够成为一位有影响力的学者。 (&lt;em&gt;Even though she faced many difficulties in her childhood, she was still able to become an important scholar.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also should note that in these cases, &amp;quot;receive&amp;quot; is an inappropriate translation. However, 受 can also appear in relatively neutral or positive situations, and the subject can sometimes be &amp;quot;involved&amp;quot; in the action. &lt;em&gt;Sometimes&lt;/em&gt;, &amp;quot;receive&amp;quot; might be an acceptable translation. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受了训练之后，我说日语的时候发音发得更准。 (&lt;em&gt;After [receiving] some training, I had more accurate pronunciation when I spoke Japanese.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我受我朋友影响，每星期天去教堂。 (&lt;em&gt;As a result of my friends' influence, I am going to church every Sunday.&lt;/em&gt; A more literal, but perhaps less ideal translation: &lt;em&gt;Exposed to my friends' influence, I am going to church every Sunday.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Examples of using 收&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also instances where 收 can accompany unequivocally negative scenarios, or where the involvement of the subject is minimal. Modified example from a news article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她曾经收过死亡威胁。 (&lt;em&gt;In the past, she had received death threats.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is in contrast to scenarios where the subject is fairly involved, or where the connotations are neutral or positive. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天收到你的毕业证书。 (&lt;em&gt;I received your diploma [earlier] today.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice also that &amp;quot;receive&amp;quot; is more consistently a good translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;What then is the difference?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;受 tends to be associated with more abstracted objects. It seems to generally mean something along the lines of &amp;quot;to experience&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;to be subject to&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;to be exposed to&amp;quot;.&lt;/strong&gt; A more accurate gloss is often possible, but may not be generalisable to all instances where the character appears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;收 often indeed means &amp;quot;receive&amp;quot;, although &amp;quot;collect&amp;quot; is at times more appropriate. &lt;strong&gt;However, 收 is only appropriate when there is an &amp;quot;object&amp;quot; to be obtained, something relatively &amp;quot;concrete&amp;quot; (e.g. a signal for my phone, a letter, money). It is generally inappropriate when by saying that I received something, I mean that I was &lt;em&gt;subjected&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;exposed&lt;/em&gt; to something (e.g. a blow to the head, an education at such and such a university).&lt;/strong&gt; This more or less corresponds to what I describe as more &amp;quot;abstracted&amp;quot; objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Finally, I should note that in some cases, such as in the death threat example, both 收 and 受 could conceivably be used with an object. However, the word chosen in these cases reflects the emphasis of the clause, and the exact usage may be different.&lt;/strong&gt; I would read &amp;quot;他收到实物威胁&amp;quot; as simply indicating that death threats were received. In contrast, I would read &amp;quot;他受到死亡威胁&amp;quot; as indicating that the death threats influenced my subject somehow, and moreover, I would see the fragment as incomplete (e.g. here, as part of &amp;quot;他受到死亡威胁，离开了欧洲&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T03:15:10.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17407" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-07T03:34:53.413" Score="1" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;First phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;身死无名为至愚.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他的犯罪记录即随之而至.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be a good way to translate those phrases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-15T23:59:02.730" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T03:46:50.153" Title="What do 为至 and 即随之而至 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17407" CreationDate="2016-03-07T05:25:52.107" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 1st &lt;code&gt;至&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;most&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;为至愚&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;be most foolish&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2nd &lt;code&gt;至&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;arrive&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;他的犯罪记录即随之而至&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;then his criminal record followed (to arrive)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-03-16T01:17:22.383" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T01:17:22.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17404" CreationDate="2016-03-07T06:50:50.257" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The connotation of 学堂 is more than &quot;an old expression of school&quot;, but &quot;an &lt;strong&gt;old-style school&lt;/strong&gt; in ancient China&quot;. A typical 学堂 only has one room and one teacher and few students (compared with a modern school). Just imagine the place where Confucius taught his followers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学校:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o9kpF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o9kpF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;学校&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学堂:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zs6A1.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zs6A1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;学堂&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T06:50:50.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17356" CreationDate="2016-03-07T09:03:19.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;静候佳音 (used at the end of mails): I look forward to your good news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T09:03:19.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17411" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-07T09:42:07.050" Score="0" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was a discussion about different &quot;talk&quot; words in chinese. Here is the link: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/17382/roots-of-the-difference-between-%E8%B0%88-%E8%AE%BA-%E8%AF%B4-%E8%AE%B2-%E8%AE%AE-%E5%8F%99-%E8%A8%80-%E6%8A%A5-%E5%91%8A/17396#17396&quot;&gt;Roots of the difference between 谈,论,说,讲,议, 叙,言,报,告,述&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there was an explanation of 告. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;告&#xA;  (gao4) consists of the parts 牛 (niu2) &quot;cow&quot; and 口 (kou3) &quot;mouth&quot;. 說文解字 is a bit confused about this, but it appears to mean the sound a cow makes. It originally meant &quot;to report something to a superior&quot;. Nowadays it means &quot;to tell somebody about something&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I wonder does 告 still posess some of it's connotations from its glyph origin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 告(to tell) sound vulgar to native speaker? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there words to insult someone using &quot;Cow talking&quot; analogy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it have the connotation of &quot;to fink&quot; (to be an informator)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe it has something to do with LOUD talking just like cows always moo'ing loud?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T00:25:49.277" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T00:25:49.277" Title="Does 告 posess negative connotation?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17411" CreationDate="2016-03-07T10:44:33.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;but it appears to mean the sound a cow makes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems wrong. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/sw/544A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;牛觸人，角箸橫木，所以告人也。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如許說則告卽楅衡也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ The cow butts people, with ledger on the cow horn, so means &lt;code&gt;告人&lt;/code&gt; (report to people).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As &lt;code&gt;许&lt;/code&gt; said it is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/5/84/140386.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;楅衡&lt;/a&gt; (the ledger tied on the cow horn to avoid the cow butting people. ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, it seems to have nothing to do with &quot;the sound a cow makes&quot;. So (also based on the sense of a native Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Now I wonder does 告 still posess some of it's etymologycal&#xA;  connotation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean &quot;the sound a cow makes&quot;, no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does 告(to tell) sound vulgar to native speaker?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, basically it's neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there words to insult someone using &quot;Cow talking&quot; analogy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does it have the connotation of &quot;to fink&quot; (to be an informator)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. Such as &lt;code&gt;告发&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;密告&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;告状&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Or maybe it has something to do with LOUD talking just like cows&#xA;  always moo'ing loud?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-03-07T10:48:34.400" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T10:48:34.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17404" CreationDate="2016-03-07T13:23:36.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think in my native dialect (Wu dialect) we still call school 学堂. On the other hand, as a native Mandarin speaker I would say, albeit not all would agree with me, that whenever one would like to refer to old-style schools, one would not use 学堂 alone, but rather something like 旧式学堂. The only exception I can think of would be when the whole time setting (in a TV drama), or the context (of a written text) is already set to a specific ancient time period when 学堂 was still very colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, I would not support the idea of associating additional attributes to a word, other than its minimalistic meaning. When it comes to 学堂, the first group of people to ever use it for the specific meaning of &quot;a place to study&quot;, which the word up til today still retains (especially in dialects), was living not only with old-style schools, but also with old-style writing tools, weapons, cookers, and everything. So a further association to the styles etc is perhaps just an illusion resulting from too much influence from TV dramas. If the other guy were right about the point that 学堂 would also describe the style of the school, phrases like 新式学堂 would then make absolutely no sense at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But let's even forget about trying to get an absolute meaning of a word. It all depends on the context (&quot;life form&quot; by Wittgenstein, if you will). And the rule of thumb I'd suggest is the one I described at the very beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12899" LastEditorUserId="12899" LastEditDate="2016-03-07T13:30:30.277" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T13:30:30.277" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17416" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17417" CreationDate="2016-03-07T21:05:24.950" Score="1" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading this set of poems for my humanities class. One of the lines is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jrn44m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;但聞人語響&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Supposedly, the last character is xiang with a third tone and it means to &quot;sound&quot; or &quot;echo&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I thought this character means &quot;want&quot;, as in 想.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone clarify what xiang (third tone) means? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8151" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-07T22:30:30.553" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T03:23:50.010" Title="Does xiang (third tone) mean &quot;want&quot; or &quot;echo&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17416" CreationDate="2016-03-07T22:27:48.463" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;響 (&lt;em&gt;xiang3&lt;/em&gt;) is the traditional form of 响, which means to &quot;sound&quot; or to &quot;echo&quot;. It is not the same character as 想, which means to &quot;think&quot; or to &quot;want&quot;. It is not uncommon for different characters to have the same pronunciation and tone. Examples off the top of my head include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;zhong1: 中 (中国), 钟 (两点钟), 终 (终于)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;ying1: 应 (应该), 英 (英雄), 鹰&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;sha1: 杀 (杀死), 沙 (沙滩), 莎&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;diao4: 调 (调查), 钓 (钓鱼), 吊 (吊着)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somewhat tangentially, it can be difficult to determine what character a spoken syllable is supposed to correspond to with absolutely no context. One consequence of this is that people often will indicate the characters for their names when speaking by giving examples of terms or phrases with the component characters (e.g. 谢谢的谢，英雄的英). (Character(s) in &quot;given names&quot; rarely form combinations that would be permissible in normal usage, even in cases where a coherent meaning for the whole name is obvious: e.g. 马英九, 崔世安, 周杰伦, 刘博.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-09T03:23:50.010" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T03:23:50.010" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17416" CreationDate="2016-03-08T01:26:25.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The full sentence should be &quot;空山不见人，但闻人语响。&quot;, in which “响” is the simplified version of &quot;響&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, it should mean &quot;sound or echo&quot; for in the first sentence the author said that he did not see anybody in the mountain and in the second sentences there is a turning point marked by &quot;但&quot;, which can be understood as &quot;but&quot;. After this turning point he said he could hear the &quot;sound or echo&quot; of words of people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(You can replace &quot;sound or echo&quot; with &quot;want&quot; and the sentence will not make sense if you do)&#xA;I guess you may confuse &quot;响&quot; with “想” as their sound are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I prefer &quot;echo&quot; than &quot;sound&quot; as he did not see the people but just caught the words in the wind and this poem tends to create an atmosphere of serenity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12746" LastEditorUserId="12746" LastEditDate="2016-03-08T05:16:16.393" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T05:16:16.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17419" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17424" CreationDate="2016-03-08T18:34:46.047" Score="4" ViewCount="953" Body="&lt;p&gt;儿 [Er] child  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;儿子 [Érzi] son&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    女儿 [Nǚ'ér] daughter  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, why is 儿 in different positions in each word but they are both valid?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11464" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-03-15T04:37:17.637" LastActivityDate="2016-03-15T04:39:49.590" Title="Why is 儿 in different positions in &quot;儿子&quot; and &quot;女儿&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17419" CreationDate="2016-03-08T20:59:11.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;儿(=兒) is optional. &#xA;子 already means &quot;son&quot;, and 女 (used to) mean &quot;daughter&quot;.  E.g. 育有一子一女 means &quot;feed one son and one daughter&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Old Chinese, most words were monosyllabic.&#xA;While in modern Chinese, most words consist of two or more characters, so 儿 is added.  Why is 儿 in different positions in 儿子 (son), 女儿 (daughter)?  Mainly because other candidate two character words have had meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儿女 means &quot;sons and daughters&quot; or &quot;(young) people&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;男儿 is the same meaning as &quot;man&quot; in phrases &quot;be a man&quot;, &quot;man enough&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In fact, 女儿 also has other meanings. It could mean &quot;unmarried girls&quot; or &quot;(young) women&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12906" LastEditorUserId="12906" LastEditDate="2016-03-09T05:54:40.253" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T05:54:40.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17356" CreationDate="2016-03-09T03:50:37.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;烽火连三月，家书抵万金 －－ Good news in war.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2016-03-09T04:24:37.613" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T04:24:37.613" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17361" CreationDate="2016-03-09T07:54:37.437" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“铺床”is  used  the  most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sorry  but  I have never heard “理床” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;整理床铺” is ok and is more formal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12910" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-03-09T08:33:30.500" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T08:33:30.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17419" CreationDate="2016-03-09T11:55:28.897" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting question, because it allows us to look at how words are formed in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Characters&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 兒 and 子 meant &quot;child&quot; or &quot;son&quot; in ancient Chinese. 兒 was more specific, while 子 had a variety of other uses, like &quot;master&quot; (as in 孔子 - master Kong/Confucius). When 子 meant child, it was somewhat inclusive of female children, although it can also refer to males only, as in the sentence &lt;code&gt;无子,有女二人 [he had] no sons, but two daughters&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兒 can sometimes be used for &quot;children&quot; in general, as in the modern 兒童, but in ancient Chinese, it tended to be male-specific. The Qin dynasty proto-dictionary &lt;em&gt;倉頡篇 Cangjiepian&lt;/em&gt; gives the definition:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;男曰儿,女曰婴 male [young children] are called 兒, female [ones] are called 嬰&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When 兒 refers to the child &lt;em&gt;of someone&lt;/em&gt;, it means son.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女 means daughter, but has always also meant &quot;woman&quot; or &quot;female (human)&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Forming Two-Syllable Words&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the pronunciation of the Chinese language changed over the centuries, many one-syllable words became homophones. In order to clarify which word they meant, people formed two-syllable words that were less likely to be confused. Three very common ways to do this are:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;putting two words with very similar meaning together, as in &lt;code&gt;房屋 (house-house)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;幫助 (help-help)&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;美麗 (pretty-pretty)&lt;/code&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;adding a more general word that clarifies the &lt;em&gt;type&lt;/em&gt; of thing being described:  &lt;code&gt;偉大 (grand-big)&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;月亮 (moon-light)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;only for nouns, adding 子: &lt;code&gt;桌子 (table)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;梨子 (pear)&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;褲子 (pants)&lt;/code&gt; all mean the exact same thing with or without the 子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s easy to see how 兒子 follows all three of these rules. I suspect it was formed by the third rule, because the 子 is pronounced in the fifth / neutral tone, which suggests it does not carry the meaning of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why 女兒 instead of 女子? Firstly, 女子 &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; mean daughter or &quot;female child&quot;. But it can also refer to &quot;women&quot; in general. So 女兒 is more specific.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And why not 兒女? The word &quot;daughter&quot; would not be formed this way, because 女 is more specific than 兒, which can be gender-neutral. Therefore, 兒女 reads as &quot;sons and daughters&quot;, which is indeed what it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastEditorUserId="12420" LastEditDate="2016-03-09T12:33:32.877" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T12:33:32.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17425" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-09T13:15:55.030" Score="2" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;Couple of times in my research on Verb+了aspect, I've stumbled across really interesting nonstandard ideas about what this particle really means. Only one theory strikes some notes in my mind. Namely it is a theory that 了 is not a perfect aspect marker (there is a GROUP of perfect aspects one of them is 了)  but rather an &amp;quot;actuality&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;reality or existential&amp;quot;) aspect marker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone suggest some reading about 了 from &amp;quot;actual\existential\realization&amp;quot; stand point of view? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please, don't talk about &amp;quot;sentence final 了&amp;quot;. This problem is solved for me. I'm intereted only in verb+了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok. I think I need to elaborate on the difference between &amp;quot;perfect&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;actual&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; negate perfect aspect of a verb in question. But you &lt;strong&gt;can't&lt;/strong&gt; nagate a verb once you make it &amp;quot;actual&amp;quot; by adding 了 to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃了饭了, 但是没&lt;strong&gt;吃了&lt;/strong&gt;完. - &amp;quot;I have eaten, but haven't eaten.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It  is absurd. You can't just negate something you just made &amp;quot;real&amp;quot;!! (by stressing it's actuality, the thing took place in reality)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can nagate perfect aspect (完) of the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃了饭了, 但是没&lt;strong&gt;吃完&lt;/strong&gt; - &amp;quot;I've eaten, but didn't finish!&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is ok, sicne in the second case we negate the 完 part (perfect aspect) and not the 吃了 part (actuality aspect, the stressing that &amp;quot;eating&amp;quot; really took place).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.S.&lt;/strong&gt; I have forgotten one more name for the 了 - 'actuallity aspect&amp;quot;. 了 is used whenever the &amp;quot;thing&amp;quot; actually &lt;strong&gt;was&lt;/strong&gt; or 100% will take place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.S.S.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Some papers I've gathered in my research:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;Aspect in Mandarin Chinese: A Corpus-based Study&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; by Richard Xiao,Tony  McEnery (chapter 4.1.4)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;The Influence of Worldview on Second Language Acquisition: A Study of Native English Speakers Acquiringthe Chinese Aspect Marker -Le.&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; by Yang Li-qiong&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Corpus-Based Contrastive Studies of English and Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; by  Tony McEnery,Richard Xiao (page 11-12 and so on)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Lecture 17: Existential Sentences in Chinese: Syntax and Semantics&amp;quot; by Barbara H. Partee&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T12:02:07.237" Title="了 as &quot;perfect&quot; aspect vs 了 as &quot;actual&quot; aspect theory" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17426" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17429" CreationDate="2016-03-09T14:21:59.550" Score="0" ViewCount="321" Body="&lt;p&gt;我上课时遇到了这两个词， 但我还不太理解这两个有没有差别？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我知道它们在英文里指的都是”loophole“ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm still not clear on what the difference is between these two! If you could give an example of how to use either, that would be really helpful! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="12420" LastEditDate="2016-03-09T14:47:18.117" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T20:05:43.843" Title="钻法律的空子和钻法律的漏洞有差？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17356" CreationDate="2016-03-09T15:18:20.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Three subtle poems by three grand masters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李白  Li Bai&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春日醉起言志&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E6%98%A5%E6%97%A5%E9%86%89%E8%B5%B7%E8%A8%80%E5%BF%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;维基文库，自由的图书馆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;处世若大梦，胡为劳其生。&#xA;所以终日醉，颓然卧前楹。&#xA;觉来盼庭前，一鸟花间鸣。&#xA;借问此何时，春风语流莺。&#xA;感之欲叹息，对酒还自倾。&#xA;浩歌待明月，曲尽已忘情。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春日醉起言志&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;維基文庫，自由的圖書館&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;處世若大夢，胡爲勞其生。&#xA;所以終日醉，頹然臥前楹。&#xA;覺來盼庭前，一鳥花間鳴。&#xA;借問此何時，春風語流鶯。&#xA;感之欲歎息，對酒還自傾。&#xA;浩歌待明月，曲盡已忘情。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that poem, the wise man discourses on the Virtues of the forgetfulness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After waking up from a sound sleep, he heard the singing of a warbler without knowing which day it was. The &lt;strong&gt;good news&lt;/strong&gt; come when someone told him that it was already Spring, what made the happy man sing, having the Moon and the wine for companion. In the end, he returns to the &quot;accomplished&quot; taoist state, where being transcends emotions, and &quot;all is forgotten&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杜甫  Du Fu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.literature.org.cn/Article.aspx?ID=6834&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;客至&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;舍南舍北皆春水，但见群鸥日日来。&#xA;花径不曾缘客扫，蓬门今始为君开。&#xA;盘飧市远无兼味，樽酒家贫只旧醅。&#xA;肯与邻翁相对饮？隔篱呼取尽余杯。 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the &lt;strong&gt;good news&lt;/strong&gt; is the friend that, suddenly, shows up in the poet's gate, what's reason enough for a good night drinking with a few friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王维  Wang Wei&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gushiwen.org/GuShiWen_e731c3242e.aspx?WebShieldDRSessionVerify=z40BXsaD0r3MjwalsN19&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;杂诗&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;君自故乡来，应知故乡事。&#xA;来日绮窗前，寒梅著花未？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杂诗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;君自故乡来，应知故乡事。&#xA;来日绮窗前，寒梅着花未？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the poet is happy because of the &lt;strong&gt;good news&lt;/strong&gt; that a traveler might bring. It happens that this special traveler is coming from his home town.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2019-04-24T12:45:25.457" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T12:45:25.457" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17425" CreationDate="2016-03-09T15:32:01.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answering your new edited question.  Your first reference, &quot;Aspect in Mandarin Chinese: A Corpus-based Study&quot; by Richard Xiao,Tony McEnery, indeed gives a novel fine-grained analysis of perfective particles in Mandarin.  But it is their own theory and so far as i can see more people cite it than expand on it. A list of 186 works citing it is given at &lt;a href=&quot;https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;cites=14017749010703840750&amp;amp;as_sdt=5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;cites=14017749010703840750&amp;amp;as_sdt=5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The issue here is &lt;em&gt;grammaticalization&lt;/em&gt;.  If we want to say 了 has a purely grammatical role in the sentence 我吃了 then we obviously cannot just say that role is as a perfect aspect marker.  The word clearly does more than indicate perfect aspect.  So we must define some much more specific subdivision of perfect aspect like &quot;actuality aspect.&quot;  But other grammarians prefer not to subdivide aspect that way, and rather say 了 has a lexical or pragmatic role in addition to its grammar.  There is a vast literature on this, and references in Michaelyus answer are one good way into it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-03-11T15:37:27.650" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T15:37:27.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17426" CreationDate="2016-03-09T16:17:18.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;漏洞 is just more formal than 空子。 If two guys are talking on the street, they may use 空子. But if you are writing on some files, you'd better use 漏洞. Other than this, they basically mean the same thing.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T16:17:18.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17430" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-09T22:02:36.303" Score="4" ViewCount="465" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I've been writing &quot;should not&quot; in Chinese a lot. But, I've been confused. What is the difference between &quot;不该“ and &quot;不应“? Are they both used? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I know we can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不起，我不该说那么难听的话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but we could also say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学习不应再是少数人的高级消遣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Both examples from Iciba) My intuition says 不应  is more formal. Is that the only difference? Are there different usages? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="12691" LastEditDate="2016-03-10T01:40:07.643" LastActivityDate="2016-03-15T02:37:52.400" Title="&quot;不应&quot; vs. &quot;不该&quot;: Which is used in formal writing?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17430" CreationDate="2016-03-09T22:18:40.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that &quot;不应&quot; is more formal, and I also agree that it seems to be the biggest difference - at least in common use cases. I have a feeling that &quot;不该&quot; is more objective while &quot;不应&quot; is a little bit subjective, but didn't find any reference for this - probably it's just a side effect of being formal/informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, your first case is likely to happen in oral expression, and the second case is likely to happen in a public speaking or a written essay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I think the combined word &quot;应该&quot; can be used to replace either &quot;应&quot; or &quot;该&quot;, so there shouldn't be very big differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T22:18:40.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17286" CreationDate="2016-03-09T23:01:23.107" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some disagreements with above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though '七曜' did exist in Chinese philosophy and literature from the very beginning, it is almost certain that the practice of using '七曜' to notate the seven days of a week came from the western world via India around the Tang Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In spite of this, it was not until the dawn of the Chinese dynasties that Chinese people did really start to get accustomed to the idea of having in their life 'weeks' made up of seven days as Christianity began its spread in China, and finally with the foundation of the Chinese Republic 'weeks' became official in Chinese people's life. In China, people use numbers (星期一, 二, ...)to mark different days of a week except Sunday (星期日). It's now the Japanese practice to use '七曜' (金曜日, 火曜日, ...)to name different days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus it's hardly noticeable in ancient Chinese language to use any terms related to the concept of 'week'. Most of the time, it suffices to state the year and the date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two common systems of counting the days in ancient China. One is the Regnal Year (年号), according to different emperors, together with a cardinal number, e.g. 顺治二年. Sometimes the regnal year was so much used and the regnal names for the years became even much more famous than the actual names of the emperors so people directly use the regnal names for the emperors. In fact when people talk about emperors of Qing Dynasty 康熙，乾隆，顺治... they are actually using their regnal names for the years as a substitute of their long and tricky foreign names ('foreign' in regard to Han People).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another system is 干支 (Ganzhi), which is the combination of ten heavenly stems '天干' (甲、乙、丙、丁、戊、己、庚、辛、壬、癸) and twelve earthly branches '地支' (子、丑、寅、卯、辰、巳、午、未、申、酉、戌、亥). This system is cyclic with a period of sixty years. This system is still in use today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next is the date. Lunar years were used in ancient Chinese (they are still used widely today). In every month there're thirty or twenty-nine days called by 初一, 初二...初十, 十一...十九, 二十, 廿一...廿九, 三十. It was also common to use the phase of the moon to state which day it is in a month (朔，望，晦).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;永和九年(ninth year of Yonghe)，岁在癸丑(Ganzhi)，暮春之初 (at the beginning of the late spring). ——王羲之 Wangxizhi 《兰亭序》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壬戌之秋 (the autumn of Renxu (Ganzhi)), 七月既望 (the seventh month, the day after the day of the full moon). ——苏轼 Sushi 《赤壁赋》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the hour of the day, it is absolutely ambiguous in ancient Chinese. Most of the time people just talked about the position of the sun or moon, whether it was morning or noon or afternoon and that was enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More precisely, people would use twelve Digan (地支), which I mentioned above, to divide a day into twelve intervals, which are called '时辰'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also people use '五更' to mark the five '时辰' of the night from seven &#xA;o'clock till five of the next morning, such as in the idiom '三更半夜' (around midnight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So your sentence could be possibly translated as &#xA;每至休沐，吾犹日出而兴. (Every rest day, I still wake up as the sun rises).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12913" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-03-12T07:03:38.600" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T07:03:38.600" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17356" CreationDate="2016-03-10T06:29:33.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/news/im-thrilled-to-death&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;xǐ dà pǔ bēn 喜大普奔&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;huò rán kāi lǎnɡ 豁然开朗 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yòu jīnɡ yòu xǐ 又惊又喜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dà xǐ ɡuò wànɡ 大喜过望 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;xǐ cónɡ tiān jiànɡ 喜从天降&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12067" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T06:29:33.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17430" CreationDate="2016-03-10T08:25:44.240" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;不应&quot; or &quot;不该&quot;  is short for &quot;不应该&quot;, so you should use &quot;不应该&quot; in formal writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你不应该那样做。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12825" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T08:25:44.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17145" CreationDate="2016-03-10T11:03:34.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually Chinese can say &quot;新年快乐&quot; and &quot;新年好&quot; on both January 1st and Chinese new year(Spring Festival).&#xA;But &quot;过年好&quot; is only used at Chinese new year.&#xA;Also &quot;新春快乐&quot; is used at Chinese new year only,but it is for written or formal occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least in northern China,恭喜发财！is not used frequently I guess.Maybe businessman like to say that?I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12910" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T11:03:34.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17438" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17439" CreationDate="2016-03-11T01:46:04.483" Score="3" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for the right word to use in the situation where you are looking after a child and they wander off. In English I would say &quot;I lost my child!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 丢 the proper word? Google wants to say &quot;我失去了我的孩子&quot;, but my dictionary indicates that 失去 means more like bereavement.  Zhongwen.com  has &quot;迷路&quot; for 'to be lost' but I think that is what the &lt;em&gt;child&lt;/em&gt; would say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6285" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T11:23:44.290" Title="Can 丢 refer to people?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17438" CreationDate="2016-03-11T02:06:32.143" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;丢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6 {colloquial} (of a person, child, etc. that went missing) have disappeared, gotten lost&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我们的孩子丢了&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;发现孩子丢了，第一时间并不是去报警&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;公安刑侦局打拐办主任：孩子丢了要立刻报警&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;梦见孩子丢了，是什么意思？ &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2016-03-11T02:14:48.667" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T02:14:48.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17430" CreationDate="2016-03-11T03:11:31.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aside from the formal/informal issue, I think another distinction is that 不该 is more suited for an event in the past that &quot;should not have&quot; happened. Using 不应 for this situation sounds awkward, if not wrong, to me. This may have something to do with the objectiveness/subjectiveness @bfrguci mentioned, since &quot;should not have&quot; is not an objective description of reality, but rather an opinion and judgement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2786" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T03:11:31.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17430" CreationDate="2016-03-11T05:10:42.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, &quot;不应&quot; is used more frequently in formal writing, while &quot;不该&quot; is used in oral expression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's hard for you to determine formal or non-formal, consider this, use 不该 for subjective, and use 不应 for objective case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12489" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T05:10:42.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17425" CreationDate="2016-03-11T11:06:39.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if you've tried looking at the interaction of aspect and evidentiality. This is covered in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://blclab.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/nllt00.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;2001 paper&lt;/a&gt;. The claim is countered in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.davidpublishing.com/davidpublishing/Upfile/2/10/2014/2014021002518837.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;2014 paper&lt;/a&gt;. I get the feeling that &lt;em&gt;guo4&lt;/em&gt; is more &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378216613002038&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;widely explored&lt;/a&gt; in this context. The 1997 tome &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s_QsqyAOwUIC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Territory of Information&lt;/a&gt;&quot; makes use of several comparisons with Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T11:06:39.697" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17443" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-11T15:16:16.563" Score="1" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9116/why-is-the-%E4%BC%9A-in-%E4%BC%9A%E8%AE%A1-pronounced-ku%C3%A0i&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;, a few examples of morphological alternation patterns are provided, like Verb/Noun (e.g. 处 chu3 &quot;to dwell&quot; / chu4 &quot;a place&quot;) and Active/Inactive Verb (e.g. 好 hao4 &quot;to like&quot; / hao3 &quot;to be good&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are more complete lists available somewhere? Alternatively, could someone provide more examples? Actually this question has three parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Are there more characters which are Verb or Noun depending on the pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Are there more characters which Active/Inactive Verb depending on the pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Are there other sorts of morphological alternation patterns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With as many examples as possible. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a question about modern standard Chinese/普通话.&#xA;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-09-01T08:33:24.357" Title="Give further examples of morphological alternation patterns such as Verb/Noun (处 chu3 / chu4) and Active/Inactive Verb (好 hao4 / hao3)" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17445" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17458" CreationDate="2016-03-11T17:58:22.283" Score="5" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need help with 实现 v.s. 现实 and 罪犯 v.s. 犯罪.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find it hard to remember the distinction between these pairs which are of the form AB / BA. Can anyone help me grasp the underlying ideas/logic/feeling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I'd be interested in other similar pairs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-02-27T04:30:04.360" LastActivityDate="2020-02-27T04:30:04.360" Title="Pairs which are of the form AB / BA" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17438" CreationDate="2016-03-11T19:20:30.767" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can use 丢 for money ,books, key,clothes,animals and so on,use 失去for chance,good future,sb's love,dream,and other abstract things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12931" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T19:20:30.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17445" CreationDate="2016-03-11T19:38:41.923" Score="-1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我实现了我的梦想，I achieved my dream&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;现实 reality&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can say 我实现了我的梦想，我的梦想变成了现实。I realized my dream,my dream has become realized.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A man who 犯罪,thence become a 罪犯&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12931" LastEditorUserId="12931" LastEditDate="2016-03-11T19:51:07.687" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T19:51:07.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17426" CreationDate="2016-03-11T20:05:43.843" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;没有差别，但是中国比较习惯说钻法律的空子，利用法律的漏洞。如果说有差别，第二个比较官方一点吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12931" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T20:05:43.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17445" CreationDate="2016-03-11T20:53:35.013" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There're no underlying logic on those pairs you've mention.  It's just a coincidence that the 2 words can be used in form of AB/BA where both AB and BA &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a word.  Note that in the examples, AB and BA have different meaning while there are some example that has the same meaning, such as:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;油漆 / 漆油 (paint)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;色彩 / 彩色 (arguable as 色彩=color while 彩色=color(ful))  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe there are similar situation in English such as breakout / outbreak or overlay / layover.  It'll be easier for you to just forget the AB/BA format and remember them as separate words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T20:53:35.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17445" CreationDate="2016-03-11T21:12:07.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Specific cases&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of 犯罪 and 罪犯, note that 犯 often comes up in expressions related to committing some sort of transgression (e.g. 犯法, 犯错误), and that 罪 in isolation can refer to crime (e.g. 罪与罚). Thus, I can interpret 犯罪 as &amp;quot;committing a crime&amp;quot;. (Note: I am not sure if on a linguistics-level, this is actually an appropriate interpretation.) I then simply remind myself that 罪犯 is not the correct term if I want to say &amp;quot;commit a crime&amp;quot;, and I will not be surprised when I recall that it means &amp;quot;criminal&amp;quot;. (In this case, it helps that I recall hearing 某人犯罪 and &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; 某人罪犯 on the news.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am terrible at remembering the difference between 现实 and 实现, and the meaning is close enough (reality v.s. to realise) that I have been lazy about it (since I am more likely to hear either term than to use it personally). If I were to seriously make myself remember which one is the verb, and which the noun, I would probably make myself write out sentences, ideally where the terms appear together (e.g. 实现这个现实). Moreover, I would also rely on the fact that I can remember the phrase 现实世界 (&amp;quot;real world&amp;quot;, or more loosely &amp;quot;world of reality&amp;quot;, possibly a &amp;quot;contraction&amp;quot; of 现实的世界) without &amp;quot;corrupting&amp;quot; 现实 into 实现.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;General comments&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There is no real &amp;quot;underlying logic&amp;quot; that explains the different meanings that are achieved in cases where characters can be &amp;quot;flipped&amp;quot; or where their order can be reversed.&lt;/strong&gt; It is best to memorise the terms separately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In some cases, noting how the character order affects meaning &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt; be useful. (This might take some maturity in or familiarity with Chinese; there's no one-size-fits-all standard to this.)&lt;/strong&gt; For example, in 开放, the emphasis feels like 开 to me, which fits the meaning of roughly &amp;quot;to open&amp;quot;, whereas in 放开, the emphasis is on 放, which fits the meaning of &amp;quot;to let go&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a list of some more such character pairs &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/175525464598185724.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T21:59:06.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17453" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17454" CreationDate="2016-03-12T13:27:09.277" Score="0" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;倪阔乐 pointed in his answer, 乒 and 乓 have onomatopoeic use and these characters were &quot;chosen for the sound playing the game makes&quot; and it's a Great explanation but....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I see 乒乓 together I see the picture of &quot;table&quot; with their legs (丿丶) plus a &quot;net&quot; on it. Not you ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They looks like pictographic characters but using not one but two characters instead!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Primarily I was asking the etymology and if they have they other uses ? (this part is filled, thanks!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11464" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T20:13:26.963" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T20:13:26.963" Title="乒 and 乓 characters are together a pictographic group?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-03-15T07:43:56.163" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17453" CreationDate="2016-03-12T14:01:12.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;乒 and 乓 have onomatopoeic use for sudden noise from a gun or similar. Their resemblance with an actual pingpong table is coincidental, and the characters were chosen for the sound playing the game makes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E4%B9%92%E4%B9%93%E7%90%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/乒乓球&lt;/a&gt; for the history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both characters are used individually, but do not form any other words than 乒乓 and related terms. They derive from 兵 (bīng, soldier).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; Expanding a bit, because these characters are a bit of interest. They seem to appear during Ming in the 16th century, with the vernacular literature of the time. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西游记 / Journey to the West (Ming, 1580): 如此二三日，又听得后宰门乒乓乒乓，砖瓦乱响。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;封神演义 / Creation of the gods (Ming, 1560): 乒乒乓乓，如同阵前炮响；轰轰烈烈，却似锣鼓齐鸣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儒林外史 / Rulin waishi / Unofficial world history (Qing, 1750): 忽然乒乓一声响，屋梁上掉下一件东西来；不左不右，不上不下，端端正正掉在燕窝碗里，将碗打翻。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some sources tell that 乒 is a hand holding a pickax, but late characters are rarely if ever ideographic in nature. More likely, some creative author used 兵 to coin a new set of onomatopoetic characters. 乒乒乓乓 has so become a proverb from the Ming era romance literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorDisplayName="user4452" LastEditDate="2016-03-13T11:20:45.080" LastActivityDate="2016-03-13T11:20:45.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9794" CreationDate="2016-03-12T18:31:05.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's translate this English sentence to Classic and Modern Chinese: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Donald Trump is a New Yorker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classic Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Donald Trump 者 New York 人也.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;者: topic marker (which does not exist in modern Chinese)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人: person&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;也: to be (is)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Donald Trump 是 New York 人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人: person&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;是: to be (is)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 人 (meaning person) is written the same in classic and modern Chinese, but the pronunciation in Classic Chinese was probably very different. But we will never know, unless someone invents a time machine that will allow us to go back in time and talk to ancient Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12936" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-12T21:18:08.310" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T21:18:08.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17404" CreationDate="2016-03-14T00:15:40.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;学校&quot; is refer to the modern school including college and university, however, &quot;学堂&quot; is usually refer to antique school before the establishment of People's Republic of China, or it can be used with some words like &quot;网络学堂&quot; which means online class&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12943" LastActivityDate="2016-03-14T00:15:40.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17445" CreationDate="2016-03-14T23:01:03.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of them have a logic, but often you'll need some classical exposure to feel it. Querying a dictionary like MDBG with &quot;罪*&quot;, &quot;&lt;em&gt;罪&quot;, &quot;犯&lt;/em&gt;&quot; and &quot;*犯&quot; will help you feel the pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;罪犯 / 犯罪&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;罪 : N (a crime)&#xA;犯 : V (to commit / offend)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V+N gives V (like in 吃饭、喝水、生气、……犯罪), therefore 犯罪 is literally &quot;to commit a crime&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find several words in which 犯 as the second character means the person committing a crime:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;共犯 : the accomplice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;囚犯 : a prisoner&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嫌犯 : a suspect+&#xA;(and tons of others, war criminals, juvenile criminals etc)&#xA;Knowing these few examples helped me remember that 罪犯 shares the same pattern.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;实现 / 现实&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this one, I like to remember useful pairs, like 梦想与现实, dream and reality.&#xA;Ultimately, I prefer to think of it as a case of V+N vs N+V where 实现 means &quot;to cause to be now&quot; and 现实 means &quot;the current fruit/result&quot;:&#xA;现 is never a verb in &lt;code&gt;现X&lt;/code&gt; compounds, it's always an adjective (or noun with an adjectival role) having a meaning around the concept of &quot;now&quot; (modern, current etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10901" LastActivityDate="2016-03-14T23:01:03.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17419" CreationDate="2016-03-15T03:01:25.010" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see the above answer can not say wrong, but I feel a little strange. &quot;儿&quot; You can understand the children of parents. 儿子的&quot;子&quot; Represents men: the child is a boy. 女儿的&quot;女&quot; represents a woman: the child is a girl. In Chinese, parents said a son is &quot;儿子&quot; or &quot;小儿&quot; (xiao er), and a girl is &quot;妮儿&quot; (nin er).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above mentioned is limited to &quot;儿子&quot;, &quot;女儿&quot;. If you have to connect to (桌子) the table, this is without any meaning. Do you understand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-03-15T04:39:49.590" LastActivityDate="2016-03-15T04:39:49.590" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17445" CreationDate="2016-03-15T04:29:34.187" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Crime(犯罪) is a behavior。 the criminal（罪犯） is a group of people. Only when people commit crimes(犯罪) can they become criminals（罪犯）!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2016-03-15T04:29:34.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17169" CreationDate="2016-03-15T08:16:19.327" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an old Hakka textbook, published in Singapore in the 1950s. It is written in transcription (for the learner) and in Chinese, using Traditional characters, including some Hakka-specific characters -- borrowed most probably from Cantonese -- like 冇, 唔.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below are a couple of pages. Today, though, it is rarely written, and when it is, the writer will use whatever character set he or she uses for Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/71ddN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/71ddN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Cover page&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A7qzp.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A7qzp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Pages 2-3&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2016-03-15T08:16:19.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3852" CreationDate="2016-03-15T12:28:31.083" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Maybe&lt;/strong&gt; because a foot is a measurement 'unit' so it gives the idea of a &quot;bit&quot; as any other small units (bit =&gt; bit more =&gt; enough)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;足 is a foot&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  尺 is unit of measurement (very old, 3000 years old at least)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;足 and 尺 are obviously related, so MAYBE some meaning was transfer...... the concept could evolve: bit =&gt; bit more =&gt; enough&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really &lt;em&gt;don't&lt;/em&gt; know!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11464" LastEditorUserId="11464" LastEditDate="2016-03-15T17:23:19.297" LastActivityDate="2016-03-15T17:23:19.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17169" CreationDate="2016-03-16T01:21:36.303" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is a total different language compared to other languages since it's ideographic. For thousands of years, it's been learned by Han people all over the country. People in different regions may have different pronunciation for the same word, but we can still understand what the meaning of what's written down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is interesting. The Chinese writing system is like the binary program for computers, dialects vary like programming languages. No matter what kind of programming language developers choose, the true meaning of what developers want the computer to know will be translated to binary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hakka, a branch of Han, also writes Chinese for hundreds years. There isn't an official writing system for Hakka based on the pronunciation since it's not necessary. So there is no difference between writing system of Hakka and Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But things changed when westerners (especially missionaries) came to China. Because learning the pronunciation of a local language is much easier than learning the writing system, they chose to create a new writing system based on the pronunciation for translating the Bible. When people get used to learning a language this way, it will reflect on the Chinese writing system as well. An obvious example is Cantonese used in Hong Kong. The writing system looks like Chinese, but in fact it's in western style. Because many characters created for Cantonese focus on the pronunciation, don't care about the original meaning of each character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sorry, my answer seems out of topic. But I am just trying to explain the simple answer for the question. -- &quot;Yes, they are the same. Because there is not official writing system for Hakka.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-03-16T02:28:27.390" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T02:28:27.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17407" CreationDate="2016-03-16T01:55:15.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;为至 is not a word, but different parts of the sentence. &#xA;The correct grouping should be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;身死无名/为/至愚.  -- 《史记 司马相如》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Dead without good reputation is the most stupid thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为： is，至愚：most stupid (thing),至 means “most” here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;即随之而至&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即 means &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt;, 随之而至 is ancient style expression for &quot;跟随它（一起）到来／发生&quot;. If you are intetrested to ancient Chinese(文言文)，read this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.douban.com/note/211000327/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;usage of 之 in ancient Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinabaike.com/article/122/1053/2008/200810261586466.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;usage of 而 in ancient Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2016-03-16T03:46:50.153" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T03:46:50.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17468" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17482" CreationDate="2016-03-16T02:04:28.190" Score="2" ViewCount="1149" Body="&lt;p&gt;I grew in a family that speaks Wu Chinese, so I cannot differentiate between the &quot;ing&quot; sound and the &quot;in&quot; sound. Are there any ways to tell them apart or pronounce them differently? They sound the same to me. (Hanyupinyin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12954" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-03-17T22:22:08.567" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T22:22:08.567" Title="How do I tell the difference between &quot;ing&quot; and &quot;in&quot;?" Tags="&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17468" CreationDate="2016-03-16T02:18:57.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you pronounce &quot;ing&quot; sound, you should feel reverberation in your nose, &quot;in&quot; doesn't. &#xA;Listen carefully to &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E7%B2%BE%E8%8B%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;精英&lt;/a&gt;&quot;(jing ying) and &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E9%87%91%E9%93%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;金银&lt;/a&gt;&quot;(jin yin) and feel the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T02:18:57.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17470" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17488" CreationDate="2016-03-16T04:36:02.853" Score="3" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any (style(?)) guidelines as to using analogically simplified versus its original (traditional(?)) character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any rules as to using analogically simplified Chinese characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T09:40:50.107" Title="Usage: analogically simplified (类推简体) vs. original characters" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17471" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-16T05:42:08.797" Score="3" ViewCount="1464" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;冬天&lt;/strong&gt;：&lt;code&gt;能穿多少穿多少&lt;/code&gt;；&lt;strong&gt;夏天&lt;/strong&gt;：&lt;code&gt;能穿多少穿多少&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;剩女产生的原因有两个:一是&lt;code&gt;谁都看不上&lt;/code&gt;；二是&lt;code&gt;谁都看不上&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;女孩给男朋友打电话：如果&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;到了，&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;还没到，&lt;code&gt;你就等着吧&lt;/code&gt;；如果&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;到了，&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;还没到，&lt;code&gt;你就等着吧&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;单身的原因:&lt;strong&gt;原来&lt;/strong&gt;是&lt;code&gt;喜欢一个人&lt;/code&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;现在&lt;/strong&gt;是&lt;code&gt;喜欢一个人&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;男人对一个女人有好感的原因:一是&lt;code&gt;喜欢上这个女人&lt;/code&gt;；二是&lt;code&gt;喜欢上这个女人&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;男人约会迟到的原因:一是&lt;code&gt;睡过了&lt;/code&gt;；二是&lt;code&gt;睡过了&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12957" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T04:24:52.600" Title="Can you explain the differences between the following sentences?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17471" CreationDate="2016-03-16T06:02:06.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're puns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: Winter: wear as much as possible, summer: wear as little as possible.&#xA;多少 means &quot;how much&quot;, but could be read as 多+x &quot;how very x&quot;, with x here being 少 （little).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2: 看不上 is ambiguous. She won't give anybody a thought. or Nobody gives her a thought.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3: &quot;... then you just keep waiting.&quot; vs. &quot;... then you can wait for your punishment.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4: 喜欢一个人 can mean &quot;to like a person&quot;, can also mean &quot;to like to be alone&quot; (a verb like 生活 is implied, 一个人 is an adverb here).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5: 喜欢上 can be read as &quot;started to like&quot; vs. &quot;would like to fuck&quot; with 上 being read differently.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;6: 睡过了: &quot;he overslept&quot; vs. &quot;has slept (with her) before&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastEditorUserId="12420" LastEditDate="2016-03-16T06:25:29.167" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T06:25:29.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17471" CreationDate="2016-03-16T06:16:52.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;冬天：能穿&lt;code&gt;多少&lt;/code&gt;穿&lt;code&gt;多少&lt;/code&gt;；夏天：能穿多&lt;code&gt;少&lt;/code&gt;穿多&lt;code&gt;少&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In winter wear as much as you can; In summer wear as less as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剩女产生的原因有两个:一是&lt;code&gt;谁&lt;/code&gt;都看不上；二是&lt;code&gt;谁都看不上&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two reasons: nobody likes her; she likes nobody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女孩给男朋友打电话：如果你到了，我还没到，你就&lt;code&gt;等着&lt;/code&gt;吧；如果我到了，你还没到，&lt;code&gt;你就等着&lt;/code&gt;吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She tells her BF: if you comes here early than me, just wait; if I come here early than you, watch yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;单身的原因:原来是&lt;code&gt;喜欢一个人&lt;/code&gt;，现在是喜欢&lt;code&gt;一个人&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reason of don't have BF/GF: ago I like single, now I like he/she.(don't like others)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男人对一个女人有好感的原因:一是&lt;code&gt;喜欢上&lt;/code&gt;这个女人；二是喜欢&lt;code&gt;上&lt;/code&gt;这个女人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reason of a boy likes(or &lt;code&gt;is fond of&lt;/code&gt;) a girl: he likes her; he want to ML with her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男人约会迟到的原因:一是睡&lt;code&gt;过了&lt;/code&gt;；二是&lt;code&gt;睡过&lt;/code&gt;了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reason of a boy was late for appointment: wake up late(oversleep); was slept with the girl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. 英语不好，希望能看懂 O(∩_∩)O~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. My English is not very good, I hope you can understand. O(∩_∩)O~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12825" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T06:16:52.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17474" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17480" CreationDate="2016-03-16T08:25:08.903" Score="0" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am keen to learn more on traditional Cchinese characters for reading and writing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which site should I go to for basic learning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12959" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-17T21:19:25.193" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T21:19:25.193" Title="Learning traditional Chinese characters" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-03-16T17:26:35.363" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17342" CreationDate="2016-03-16T08:35:44.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it is a combination of two single Chinese characters. The former is a  pronoun equal to &quot;everything&quot; while the latter is a verb that is the same as the word, &quot;possess&quot;. &#xA;Actually many Chinese characters have their own meanings. So it is a method that phrases can be understood word by word. However, this method is useful with several weakness. Due to some idioms originated from exclusive storys, they were given to specific meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12960" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T08:35:44.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17476" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17479" CreationDate="2016-03-16T08:50:21.370" Score="2" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was interested in differentiatig between different usages of &lt;strong&gt;obj+业&lt;/strong&gt;,for example: 企业,商业... and there it was - 行业.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question is &quot;why 行  means industry and does it have something to do with it's &quot;original&quot; meaning &quot;a row\line?&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T17:55:59.527" Title="How does 行 evolved to mean industry?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17342" CreationDate="2016-03-16T09:09:13.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“但凡” short as “凡”，means “all of”.And “属于”short as “属”，means “belong to”.&#xA;  You could interpret this word “凡属……” as “in this case” if be followed by a clause.If it is followed by a noun，it means “one of ”.&#xA;  Sorry ，my english is not better than a child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12961" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T09:09:13.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17476" CreationDate="2016-03-16T09:17:22.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a polysemous word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行 háng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.行列：罗列成～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rows or lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.兄弟姐妹的次弟；排行：我～二，你～几？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;order of brothers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.人物排列的次序，水平（横）的称行,垂直（竖）的称列。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;same as 1 (rows: horizontal &amp;amp; columns: vertical)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.量词。用于成行的东西：泪下两～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how to describe this…… eh……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.某些营业所：银～。花～。商行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;business premises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.行业：同～。各～各业。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;industry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.行纪人专门代替委托人买卖货物的固定场所，常代销、代购，如鱼行、粮食行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;place for buy and sell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.用长的针脚成行地连缀：～棉袄。～几针。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;same as &lt;code&gt;mend&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%A1%8C/2672431&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;see here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T09:21:05.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17476" CreationDate="2016-03-16T12:07:27.623" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My intuitive guess was it has something to do with 行会. So I looked it up and there it is:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/4002407.htm&quot;&gt;from baidu baike&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;(although the entry is about 行会 and not 行, so everything would technically still be based on my original assumption, which isn't that bad of a guess from a native speaker's perspective):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;行会产生于隋唐。唐代工商业组织大都称“行”，源于街巷上的贩卖摊商，往往一条街上开设的都是同类的店铺，故称“行”，如“织锦行”、“金银行”等。到了宋代，行会组织更加发展。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it turns out that during Sui/Tang dynasty, it often happened to occur that along a certain street, there were exclusively shops doing the same kind of business, and therefore the 行 (line).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12899" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T12:07:27.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17474" CreationDate="2016-03-16T12:26:34.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope I've understood you correctly and that by traditional Chinese you meant classical Chinese, or 文言文.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming you have pretty decent knowledge in modern Chinese, you can start, like all Chinese students do nowadays and ancient elites likewise, from recitation and memorization of classical works. &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E5%8F%A4%E6%96%87%E8%A7%80%E6%AD%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;古文观止&lt;/a&gt;, literally meaning &quot;stop reading any more classical works after this collection&quot;, is a selection, sorted chronologically roughly by dynasty, first published some hundred/two hundred years ago. I suggest you start with essays written in relatively more modern eras.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck and have fun.&#xA;ps: there are of course some countably many (not in the mathematical sense) old syntactic as well as morphological (e.g. character &quot;overloading&quot;, 通假字) rules that one should always know and that we were also taught after primary school, but I can't help you there because to me, these rules have already become innate and can't be enumerated without omission. But I do know that some Jesuits pastors who visited Chinese back in Ming dynasty have left some valuable notes, many of which titled as something similar to grammaticae sinicae. They were on google books some years ago, not sure if they still are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12899" LastEditorUserId="12899" LastEditDate="2016-03-16T12:39:03.463" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T12:39:03.463" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17400" CreationDate="2016-03-16T12:43:21.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如果 - if&lt;br&gt;&#xA;只要 - as long as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2016-03-16T15:36:00.667" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T15:36:00.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17468" CreationDate="2016-03-16T14:44:12.827" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between &quot;in&quot; and &quot;ing&quot; is in the ending sound. Say &quot;in&quot;, hold it for a second or two, and feel the position of your tongue. Your tongue should be in the front, touching the roof of your mouth just behind your front teeth. Then say &quot;ing&quot;, and do the same. Your tongue should be at the back of your mouth. Try to hear the difference in sound when you do this exercise. Differentiating the sound will come with practice. Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T14:44:12.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17468" CreationDate="2016-03-17T02:10:53.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We've made a video all about this topic over on the Say It Right series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The link to that specific video is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesepodtv.wistia.com/medias/6ed5mm4y4v&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; which you can watch for free, but if you found it helpful, you could check out the rest of the series here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesepod.com/lp-sir&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chinesepod.com/lp-sir&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12969" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T02:10:53.060" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17400" CreationDate="2016-03-17T04:11:32.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When not used in precision condition, they are very close. But for those of very strict documents, like business contract, legal documents, and academic papers, they are different. 只要 means sufficient condition， while 如果 means a general one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T04:11:32.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17468" CreationDate="2016-03-17T04:15:11.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many people in South China are not clear of n and ng. That's, as you mentioned, Wu ascent problem. I suggest you use dictionary to know what character are n or ng, and listen to those who pronounce good, for example, presenters of CCTV news&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T04:15:11.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17342" CreationDate="2016-03-17T04:16:30.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;translate it into English: all those that belong to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T04:16:30.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17471" CreationDate="2016-03-17T04:24:52.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are some interesting Chinese wording and grammar patterns&#xA;冬天能穿多少穿多少：多少is one word as a whole. 夏天能穿多少穿多少：多is an adv. for 少&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谁都看不上：谁in this sentence could be sub. or obj. In Chinese obj. may be not following verb, but at the beginning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个人：may be someone (refer to other person), or being alone (refer to oneself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜欢上：上could be a 助词 (English has no such part of speech) for 喜欢, means &quot;have fallen in love&quot;, or a verb (oral using only, means f**k)，喜欢is the predicate, means &quot;love to f**k&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睡 could be sleep, also, only in oral using, could be f**k. 睡过means &quot;slept for too long&quot;, or &quot;f**ked&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T04:24:52.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17470" CreationDate="2016-03-17T06:26:38.780" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The latest standard is &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%80%9A%E7%94%A8%E8%A7%84%E8%8C%83%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《通用规范汉字表》 (&lt;em&gt;List of Commonly Used Standard Chinese Characters&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt; formally released in 2013. In practice, 226 analogically simplified characters are identified as 规范字 by the authority; other traditional characters that are not included in 通用规范汉字表 should not be analogically simplified and should keep their original forms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related information is quoted as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What the standard says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《通用规范汉字表》p. 9, 说明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;六、本表对社会上出现的在《简化字总表》和《现代汉语通用字表》之外的类推简化字进行了严格甄别，仅收录了符合本表收字原则且已在社会语言生活中广泛使用的“闫、&lt;a href=&quot;http://yedict.com/zscontent.asp?uni=2CB2D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(钅仑, U+2CB2D in CJK EXT-E)&lt;/a&gt;、&lt;a href=&quot;http://yedict.com/zscontent.asp?uni=2B5AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(兆页, U+2B5AF in CJK EXT-C)&lt;/a&gt;”等226个简化字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;This list has strictly examined and assessed the analogically simplified characters that apprear in society but are excluded in 《简化字总表》 (&lt;em&gt;Complete List of Simplified Characters&lt;/em&gt;) or 《现代汉语通用字表》 (&lt;em&gt;List of Commonly Used Modern Chinese Characters&lt;/em&gt;), and includes only 226 analogically simplified characters, such as 闫, &lt;a href=&quot;http://yedict.com/zscontent.asp?uni=2CB2D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(钅仑, U+2CB2D in CJK EXT-E)&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://yedict.com/zscontent.asp?uni=2B5AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(兆页, U+2B5AF in CJK EXT-C)&lt;/a&gt;, which are consistent with the inclusion principle of the &lt;em&gt;List&lt;/em&gt; and have been widely used in social life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How the authority interprets the regulation for analogically simplified characters. It's a controversial topic in the academic circle (FYI, read these two articles &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.gmw.cn/2013-12/14/content_9810277.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.21ccom.net/articles/zgyj/gqmq/article_20140216100630.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;), but the opinion in 《〈通用规范汉字表〉解读》 should be considered as the current practical standard – Keep the traditional characters unchanged if they are not in 通用规范汉字表. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;原征求意见稿说明中曾有“根据国务院1986年'今后对汉字的简化应持谨慎态度，使汉字的形体在一个时期内保持相对稳定'的指示精神，本字表以外的字，不再类推简化。”此字句于正式版中消失，即&lt;strong&gt;字表本身没有提及字表以外的汉字如何使用&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;[11]&lt;/sup&gt;。但是《〈通用规范汉字表〉解读》中提到，无限制的类推「实际上使汉字的总体系统繁化甚至混乱……违背了辞书存储汉字的历史真实性原则，拉大了汉字应用的古今差异和两岸差异」，并说明「……收录了少数已经被社会所习用，并符合《简化字总表》规定的类推简化字。&lt;strong&gt;今后表外字不再类推简化。&lt;/strong&gt;」 &lt;sup&gt;[12]&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;The explanation in the former draft for soliciting opinions once said &quot;According to the instructions of the State Council in 1986 &lt;code&gt;From now on further simplification of Chinese characters should be prudent. Let the forms of Chinese characters be relatively stable in a period.&lt;/code&gt;, characters excluded from this list will not be analogically simplified.&quot; However, this sentence disappears in the formal version – &lt;strong&gt;It indicates the &lt;i&gt;List&lt;/i&gt; itself does not mention how to use the characters that are not included within the &lt;i&gt;List&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;sup&gt;[11]&lt;/sup&gt; Yet, 《〈通用规范汉字表〉解读》 (&lt;em&gt;Interpretation of the List of Commonly Used Standard Chinese Characters&lt;/em&gt;) mentions, an unlimitedly analogical simplification &quot;actually makes the whole system of Chinese characters complicated and even chaotic ... which violates 'the principle that dictionaries should reflect the historical genuineness of the usage of Chinese characters', and increases the divergences between ancient and modern Chinese and between Mainland and Taiwan&quot;, and further says &quot;... (the &lt;em&gt;List&lt;/em&gt;) now includes a few analogically simplified characters that are consistent with the principle of the &lt;em&gt;List&lt;/em&gt; and have been widely used in social life. &lt;strong&gt;From now on, characters that are not included in the &lt;i&gt;List&lt;/i&gt; will not be analogically simplified&lt;/strong&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[11] &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.gmw.cn/2013-12/14/content_9810277.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《通用规范汉字表》以外的字应准许类推简化&lt;/a&gt;. 光明网《光明日报》. 2013-12-14.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[12] 教育部语言文字信息管理司组 编，王宁 主编. 3.3 《通用规范汉字表》对待类推简化的态度. 《〈通用规范汉字表〉解读》. 商務印書館. ISBN 9787100100939 （中文（中国大陆）‎）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;These 226 analogically simplified characters are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AYg4o.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AYg4o.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;list of 226 analogically simplified characters&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS:&lt;/strong&gt; The voices from the academia against &quot;characters that are not included in the &lt;i&gt;List&lt;/i&gt; should not be analogically simplified&quot; are strong. In my opinion, both sides have got a point: For the positive side, it largely simplifies the Unicode encoding for Chinese characters and is very pragmatic – just consider the difficulty and trouble when people try to input rare Chinese characters on a computer (some analogically simplified characters don't even exist in Unicode!); For the opposing side, it does make some paragraphs extremely ugly when the simplified are mixed with the traditional – in the aesthetic and purist view point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2016-03-17T09:40:50.107" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T09:40:50.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17342" CreationDate="2016-03-17T08:04:43.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;凡属&lt;/code&gt; is a short version of &lt;code&gt;凡是&lt;/code&gt;+&lt;code&gt;属于&lt;/code&gt;. Then it'd be much easier for you to understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;凡是&lt;/code&gt;: any&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;属于&lt;/code&gt;: belongs to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, This second sentence make no sense to me. I guess you missed a &lt;code&gt;重&lt;/code&gt; before &lt;code&gt;要&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T08:04:43.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16732" CreationDate="2016-03-17T14:20:47.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do believe there is a differential meaning in multiplied words. One important meaning is that to repeat a word or phrase in the AABB manner is to impose a fictive duration upon AB. For example, we can speak 热闹一下，but not *热热闹闹一下 because 热热闹闹 denotes a duration reading that is incompatible with the perfect meaning expressed by '一下'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12639" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T14:20:47.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17491" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-18T01:52:27.620" Score="0" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gWBZG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gWBZG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot translate, it would be great if you guys could. It's a stamp on a Hong Kong banknote from 1941.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12977" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2016-03-18T07:23:22.363" LastActivityDate="2016-03-18T07:23:22.363" Title="Stamped Chinese characters on a banknote" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-03-18T06:20:39.267" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17491" CreationDate="2016-03-18T02:26:29.153" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Read right to left, top to bottom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;富行揀選&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;樣券&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;富行 was short for 雲南富滇銀行 (The Yunnan &amp;quot;Fu-Tien&amp;quot; Bank), 揀選 meant &amp;quot;select, pick&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;樣券 means &amp;quot;banknote sample&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/52m8W.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/52m8W.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Sample&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Welcome to Chinese.SE. However, this kind of question is off-topic. Because&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions asking for translations are off-topic unless prior research effort is clearly indicated; we're here to help you learn, not provide a bulk translation service.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-03-18T02:26:29.153" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17494" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17499" CreationDate="2016-03-18T03:09:05.400" Score="5" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English I can change &quot;what the heck&quot; to something like &quot;what the heeckkkkkk&quot; when writing in order to show that the pronunciation of &quot;heck&quot; is being dragged out. When writing Chinese characters, how can I indicate this lengthened pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12980" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-18T03:59:36.847" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T03:00:58.927" Title="How to indicate &quot;long pronunciation&quot; in writing in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17494" CreationDate="2016-03-18T04:04:07.373" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/55016.htm&quot;&gt;破折号&lt;/a&gt;(dash), for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们在天安门前深情的呼唤：周——总——理——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12825" LastActivityDate="2016-03-18T04:04:07.373" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-18T11:47:50.350" Score="3" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading an article in some chinsese newspapare and saw a line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因为偷了一张题写着政治标语的&lt;strong&gt;海报&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why the Hell &lt;code&gt;Ocean + Official Report&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;a poster&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. has it something to do with a &lt;strong&gt;postage stamp&lt;/strong&gt;? You by a stamp, stick it on to an envelope of the letter and send it overseas. And those stamps always have some picture on them like a mini-poster?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.p.s. Any idea why they called any &quot;theatrical act&quot; - ocean? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2016-03-18T21:08:42.693" LastActivityDate="2016-03-18T21:08:42.693" Title="How does 海报 became &quot;a poster&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17496" CreationDate="2016-03-18T16:41:01.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Ocean&quot; in Chinese sometimes means massive production, maybe it is because &quot;ocean&quot; is so big and vast. &quot;Official reports&quot; means posters. &quot;A massive production of official reports about special events&quot; can be understood as &quot;Hai Bao&quot;, or &quot;ocean&quot; + &quot;reports&quot;, or posters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user12627" LastActivityDate="2016-03-18T16:41:01.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17496" CreationDate="2016-03-18T17:37:56.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Baidu says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;海报这一名称，最早起源于上海。旧时，海报是用于戏剧、电影等演出或球赛等活动的招帖。上海的人通常把职业性的戏剧演出称为“海”，而把从事职业性戏剧的表演称为“下海”。作为剧目演出信息的具有宣传性的招徕顾客性的张贴物，也许是因为这个，人们便把它叫做“海报”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means, if I summarise:&#xA;The word originated in Shanghai, where people referred to professional theatrical productions as &quot;海&quot;. Hence &quot;海报&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10901" LastActivityDate="2016-03-18T17:37:56.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17494" CreationDate="2016-03-18T17:40:26.903" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The one I see most often is the use of &quot;～&quot;:  &quot;啊～～～&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10901" LastEditorUserId="10901" LastEditDate="2016-03-19T12:11:43.763" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T12:11:43.763" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17504" CreationDate="2016-03-19T03:37:41.843" Score="0" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the origin of 天气?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天, I'm willing to bet is 老天爷; with phrase like 天公不作美 (天公 = 老天爷) and even the government claiming that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老天爷为何这么给“面子” 专家细解阅兵前后降雨成因&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that the idea that 老天爷 is in charge of the weather would fit quite well here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 气? 气 could be a lot of things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no proof here. Just stipulating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T10:54:40.557" Title="Origin of 天气 (weather)?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17501" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-19T06:07:36.080" Score="0" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/agJDq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;[!90s tattoo on the right ankle&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to find a translation of the ankle tattoo on the photo below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12987" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-03-19T13:48:48.397" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T13:48:48.397" Title="What does the Chinese symbols mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-03-19T09:11:35.980" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17502" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17505" CreationDate="2016-03-19T06:24:42.610" Score="4" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[ &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B6%93#Han_character&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wiktionary :&lt;/a&gt; ] 經  [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;classic works, scripture, canon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;pass through&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;warp (as in &quot;warp and weft&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(Chinese medicine) energy channels of the body&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(geography) longitude&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;manage, deal/engage in&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;stand, bear, endure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;constant, regular&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;a result or, through, after&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I  tried to unite the 9 definitions above by similarity in meaning into as few sets as possible, but what underlying semantic field connects, conciliates, and unites the 4 different sets below?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Set I:&lt;/strong&gt; 1.   classic works, scripture, canon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Set II:&lt;/strong&gt; 2. pass through&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. warp (as in &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_and_woof&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;warp and weft&lt;/a&gt;&quot;) &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &lt;em&gt;[because the weaver must PASS the weaving material&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;  &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;  THROUGH the warp and weft]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4. (Chinese medicine) energy channels of the body&lt;br&gt;&#xA;9. a result or, through, after  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Set III:&lt;/strong&gt; 5.    (geography) longitude&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Set IV:&lt;/strong&gt; 6. manage, deal/engage in&lt;br&gt;&#xA;7. stand, bear, endure&lt;br&gt;&#xA;8. constant, regular&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastActivityDate="2016-03-22T14:51:42.663" Title="What semantic field underlies 經?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17501" CreationDate="2016-03-19T06:37:51.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姊〔姉〕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PY zǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ZY ㄗˇ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OLD VARIANT OF 姊 zǐ (or jiě) {zi2}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 older sister&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 Taiwan pr. [jiě]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(variant of zǐ 姊) elder sister&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T06:37:51.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17500" CreationDate="2016-03-19T10:54:40.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;气 is vapor, and so 天气 is the vapor of heaven, that is weather. 气候 is climate by analogy, referring to a timespan, or 地气, referring to the vapors of earth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 气 is also breath, attitude, atmosphere and similar derived meanings. Poetically, 天气 could mean the influence of the heavens, although it is likely that 天气 was applied to such settings rather than being derived from religion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;樂記 (战国):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地氣上齊，天氣下降，陰陽相摩，天地相蕩，鼓之以雷霆，奮之以風雨，動之以四時，暖之以日月，而百化興焉。如此則樂者天地之和也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The breath (or influence) of earth ascends on high, and that of heaven descends below. These in their repressive and expansive powers come into mutual contact, and heaven and earth act on each other. (The susceptibilities of nature) are roused by the thunder, excited by the wind and rain, moved by the four seasons, and warmed by the sun and moon; and all the processes of change and growth vigorously proceed. Thus it was that music was framed to indicate the harmonious action of heaven and earth.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T10:54:40.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17502" CreationDate="2016-03-19T13:26:55.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The earliest documented meaning of 经 is &quot;to weave&quot;. It does not mean that in modern Chinese, but it can still mean &lt;em&gt;warp&lt;/em&gt;. &#xA;In weaving, &lt;em&gt;warp&lt;/em&gt; is the name for the threads that are fixed into the weaving frame, where fabric is created by pushing the &lt;em&gt;weft&lt;/em&gt; through horizontally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the meaning &lt;em&gt;weave&lt;/em&gt;, it expanded towards the verbal meanings it has today:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To order or operate&lt;/strong&gt; as in the modern words 经营 or 经理  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To pass through&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;em&gt;experience&lt;/em&gt; as in the modern words 经历 or 经过. From here it expanded to mean &lt;em&gt;constant, regular&lt;/em&gt; as in 经常, and &lt;em&gt;things that are constant&lt;/em&gt; like the 经书 (canonical scriptures).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the meaning &lt;em&gt;warp&lt;/em&gt;, 经 expanded to mean &quot;vertical&quot; lines along certain things, such as the &quot;energy channels&quot; in a human body or the longitudinal lines on planet earth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning &quot;canonical scriptures&quot; can also be derived from the &lt;em&gt;warp&lt;/em&gt; meaning, because these are the books that span &quot;vertically&quot; through time, whereas later commentaries are woven through &quot;horizontally&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the underlying image is always that of a weaving frame. But some of the modern / later meanings have moved very far from that original meaning. I don't think there is &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; semantic field that comfortably contains all of 经's various meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T13:26:55.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17502" CreationDate="2016-03-19T14:01:17.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Semantic fields are never going to be defined as clearly, either in theory or in applications, as say fermion fields in physics.  If you take very strictly the idea that &quot;a semantic field is a set of words grouped semantically (that is, by meaning), referring to a specific subject,&quot; then the answer to your title question is obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously each of the definitions you quote deals with a different specific subject. &#xA;By that criterion few words in any language will belong to a unique semantic field.  Maybe obscure terms like &quot;Technetium&quot;  do (an element in chemistry).  But even &quot;iron&quot; or &quot;sulfur&quot; will belong to many different fields.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the question you ask &quot;what underlying semantic field connects, conciliates, and unites the 4 different sets below.&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to that is warp in weaving.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To see this you should see specifically what warp is.  When @KWeiss writes of warp threads fixed into the weaving frame, that is just for carpet (or tapestry) weaving where you use a frame fixed at the size of the carpet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ordinary looms such as the Han Dynasty loom reconstructed below have a fixed width but can produce a strip of fabric however long the warp threads are.  (The width was normally at most the arm-span of the weaver, so the weaver can easily push the shuttle back and forth carrying the weft threads.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4vpP1.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4vpP1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/chrisbuckley.toranatribal/photos/a.10151613664370469.1073741827.8534905468/10153685553110469/?type=1&amp;amp;theater&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.facebook.com/chrisbuckley.toranatribal/photos/a.10151613664370469.1073741827.8534905468/10153685553110469/?type=1&amp;amp;theater&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually the warp threads are kept on rolls at the far end of the loom away from the weaver.  The fabric is rolled up at the weaver's end as it is produced, and the warp threads are unrolled at the other end as needed.  Different warp threads are raised at different times, by the treadles shown in the diagram.  And while the diagram has just two treadles fairly early looms sometimes used more treadles to create more elaborate weave patterns.  The weft is just passed back and forth each time.  This is the relation of warp to &quot;managing.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The warp and weft threads both &quot;pass through&quot; each other in some sense.  But the warp threads run the whole length of the piece, never changing direction.  The weft threads cross back and forth across the width of the fabric.  Further, as Wikipedia puts it: &quot;Because the warp is held under high tension during the entire process of weaving the warp yarn must be strong.&quot;  The weft is usually less strong, and more flexible so it will bend to cover more of the warp threads it crosses.  This is what links warp to constancy and enduring, and to longitude reaching from pole to pole (as opposed to lines of latitude which circle the earth), and to the Classic Books.  The classics convey the warp of learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Warp and Weft, Chinese Language and Culture&lt;/em&gt; by Keekok Lee gives a much more detailed account which you can see at &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=Ku1Sr-q9KNUC&amp;amp;pg=PA238&amp;amp;lpg=PA238&amp;amp;dq=chinese+weaving+warp&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=HMZH1Nrogc&amp;amp;sig=1H_nzhP7Xx54evx-1yaJ94xC_-o&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwj8o87O_s3LAhXCVyYKHc9JB2AQ6AEIPTAJ#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=chinese%20weaving%20warp&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://books.google.com/books?id=Ku1Sr-q9KNUC&amp;amp;pg=PA238&amp;amp;lpg=PA238&amp;amp;dq=chinese+weaving+warp&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=HMZH1Nrogc&amp;amp;sig=1H_nzhP7Xx54evx-1yaJ94xC_-o&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwj8o87O_s3LAhXCVyYKHc9JB2AQ6AEIPTAJ#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=chinese%20weaving%20warp&amp;amp;f=false&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That book offers reasons why the warp is even more fundamental in Chinese weaving than in western.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-03-22T14:51:42.663" LastActivityDate="2016-03-22T14:51:42.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17507" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-19T17:24:24.383" Score="1" ViewCount="669" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some examples of Google search:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;风中的树_新浪博客&lt;br&gt;&#xA;历史转折中的邓小平_电视剧_央视网  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.co/search?q=%E4%B8%AD%E7%9A%84&amp;amp;oq=%E4%B8%AD%E7%9A%84&amp;amp;aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.534j0j7&amp;amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;amp;es_sm=0&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com.co/search?q=%E4%B8%AD%E7%9A%84&amp;amp;oq=%E4%B8%AD%E7%9A%84&amp;amp;aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.534j0j7&amp;amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;amp;es_sm=0&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11464" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-03-21T05:27:33.520" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T08:35:07.607" Title="What does the underscore (_) mean in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17508" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17511" CreationDate="2016-03-20T02:38:33.677" Score="4" ViewCount="1522" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering whether anyone could tell me if these words are completely interchangable all situations. If not, how am I to discern which to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12762" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T07:45:15.437" Title="Differences between 凉 and 冷，冻 and 冰" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17508" CreationDate="2016-03-20T07:16:56.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;凉 is often objective,well 冷 is often subjective,we usually use &quot;冷&quot; to express our feelings,but it can be objective sometimes,like&quot;冷水&quot;.But &quot;冷&quot; is more severe than &quot;凉&quot;,&quot;冷&quot; often means it's too cold that you can't stand it,well &quot;凉&quot; means it's cold but it's OK.For example,in summer it's very hot,we say we want things that are “凉”,not 冷，to cool us down.&#xA;冻 is a adj,it means frozen.Well 冰 is used as a noun more often which means ice.冰 can be a adj too,but it means &quot;similar to ice in shape&quot; or just cold(very close to 冷),not frozen. Examples:冰糖 means a kind of solid sugar which is very similar to ice in shape.冰水 means ice water,no huge difference to 冷水. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12995" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T07:16:56.537" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17508" CreationDate="2016-03-20T12:24:53.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;凉 means cold(冷), but not that cold. For example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;我们快吃吧，食物快凉了&quot; - Let's eat, the food is getting cold.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;今天的天气真凉快&quot; - The weather today is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷 means cold.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;我好冷啊&quot; - I'm feeling cold.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;天气真冷&quot; - The weather is cold.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;一杯冷水&quot; - A cup of cold water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冻 means cold/freeze too, but freezing cold or something frozen.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;冻死我啦&quot; - So freezing cold.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;冻疮&quot; - Frostbite &#xA;&quot;冻肉&quot; - Frozen meat.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;果冻&quot; - Pudding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰 means ice, very cold or icy cold.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;冰块&quot; - Ice cube.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;冰点&quot; - Freezing point (of a substance).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;冰箱&quot; - Refrigerator/freezer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want me to arrange those words according to the temperature, I'd say 凉 -&gt; 冷 -&gt; 冻/冰.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps you. If you have any questions, just comment below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8193" LastEditorUserId="8193" LastEditDate="2016-03-20T14:12:51.203" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T14:12:51.203" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17508" CreationDate="2016-03-20T13:09:20.260" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;凉 (liáng) s.v. &lt;strong&gt;cool&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;chilly&lt;/strong&gt;. 不想吃凉米饭. (liàng) v. &lt;strong&gt;make cool&lt;/strong&gt;. 天气凉了. &lt;em&gt;Opposite: 温&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷 (lěng) s.v. &lt;strong&gt;cold&lt;/strong&gt;; 天气很冷. &lt;em&gt;Opposite: 热&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冻 (dòng) v. &lt;strong&gt;freeze&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;feel frosen&lt;/strong&gt;. 湖泊冻成冰. &lt;em&gt;Opposite: 融&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰 (bīng) n. &lt;strong&gt;ice&lt;/strong&gt;. v. &lt;strong&gt;put on ice&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;feel cold&lt;/strong&gt;. 湖泊冻成冰. &lt;em&gt;Opposite: 汽&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T13:09:20.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17513" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17516" CreationDate="2016-03-20T17:06:47.110" Score="7" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it true that 家(&quot;jia&quot;)denotes perhaps greater competence or prestige, while 手(“手”) is a slightly less professional specialist? How can one know when to use one rather than the other?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Examples:&#xA;乐手-yuè shǒu       instrumental performer &#xA;歌手-gē shǒu          singer&#xA;鼓手-gǔ shǒu          drummer&#xA;吉他手-jíta shǒu   guitarist &#xA;音乐家-yīnyuè jiā  musician &#xA;作曲家-zuòqǔ jiā   songwriter &#xA;钢琴- gāngqín jiā     pianist&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12806" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T23:14:15.037" Title="When to use 手 and when to use 家 for a type of musician or other specialist" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17513" CreationDate="2016-03-20T19:32:24.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play piano, I'm a 钢琴手. Beethoven also play piano, but we should call him a 钢琴家, because he is too good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T19:32:24.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17515" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17529" CreationDate="2016-03-20T23:13:07.390" Score="0" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference in writing strength as 力 or 力量 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen it both ways and am not sure of the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13005" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-21T00:49:18.460" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T06:46:36.807" Title="Ways to write &quot;strength&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17513" CreationDate="2016-03-20T23:14:15.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;钢琴家 is not just any pianist; s/he is a piano virtuoso. I would reserve this for someone who has a career in music, especially in performance; or someone who has attained a very high level in the art of piano playing. 家 can be translated loosely as &quot;an expert in ...&quot; So you definitely do not use it for yourself. 手, on the other hand, can be used more generally for someone who plays a musical instrument.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T23:14:15.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17517" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17518" CreationDate="2016-03-21T01:08:04.910" Score="2" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;In America we describe the fuel consumption of a car with miles/gallon. I know in some countries people use liters/100 km. Some countries use km/liter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which format do Chinese people use, L/100 km or km/L?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公里/公升？ 公升/100公里？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13007" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-03-21T14:01:40.077" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T14:29:17.573" Title="Km/liter or liter/100km in China? 公里/公升？ 公升/100公里？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17517" CreationDate="2016-03-21T01:33:46.937" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China &lt;code&gt;升/百公里(L/100km)&lt;/code&gt; is used as the measurement of &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.bitauto.com/basictechparam/20120629/1405745326.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;油耗&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MESCu.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MESCu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;油耗：俗称汽车在行驶完100公里的耗油量。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  耗油量参数是指汽车行驶百公里消耗的燃油量(以“升”「L」为计量单位)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ Oil consumption: Commonly known as the oil consumption for the car driving 100 kilometres.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The parameter of oil consumption is the consumed oil capacity for the car driving 100 kilometres (taking liter as the unit of measurement). ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-03-21T14:29:17.573" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T14:29:17.573" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12774" CreationDate="2016-03-21T02:09:28.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chinese friend [born and raised in Shandong Province, just FYI] and I have discussed this sense of the word &quot;creepy&quot;, and she says 毛骨悚然的 (máogǔsǒngrán de) is more formal/written. She suggests 瘆得慌 (shèn de huang &amp;lt;-- that's 4th tone followed by two 5th/light tones) or 瘆人 (shènrén) for a more conversational/spoken translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13008" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T02:09:28.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17526" CreationDate="2016-03-21T02:34:54.060" Score="4" ViewCount="457" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read this sentence in the book &lt;em&gt;游子吟&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;神的存在是一个不以人们的主观意志为转移的客观事实&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unclear about what &quot;以&quot; and &quot;为&quot; are doing here. I Googled to see if &quot;以...为&quot; is a common construct; &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Using_%22yi...wei%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; says that you can say &quot;以 A 为 B&quot;, which means &quot;use/take A as B&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming this sentence is using the same construct, then A would be 人们的主观意志 (&quot;man's subjective will&quot;) and B is &quot;转移&quot;, right? However, the page I linked to seems to indicate that A and B must be nouns. I looked up &quot;转移&quot; and the main definitions are almost all verbs. Google Translate tells me that it can also mean &quot;metastasis&quot;, but that's a medical term, so I'm not sure if that's the correct translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current best attempt at a translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The existence of God is an objective fact, which we can't use man's subjective will to change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this sentence using &quot;以...为&quot;? If so, am I correctly identifying A and B? And if so, does that mean B can also be a verb? Or is my understanding completely off?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13003" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T03:01:19.860" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T03:01:19.860" Title="Does 神的存在是一个不以人们的主观意志为转移的客观事实 use the 以...为 grammar construct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17520" CreationDate="2016-03-21T02:56:29.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a slightly different version of translation:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The existence of God is objective, which can't be changed by people's will. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although “以……为” has existed in Chinese language for milleniums, its meaning differs as the language evolves. Specifically, in your example, “以A为B” can be explained as &quot;B happens for the reason of A&quot;. However, this is quite a unique usage that doesn't coincide the common rule. Most of the time, this structure means &quot;regard A as B&quot; or &quot;see A as B&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T02:56:29.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17507" CreationDate="2016-03-21T02:58:39.327" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The underscore is not used before the Internet came to China. Since your two examples are all &lt;strong&gt;web page titles&lt;/strong&gt;, I guess that the underscore just functions as a separator. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T02:58:39.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17494" CreationDate="2016-03-21T03:00:58.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not think there is a way to have the same effect as  &quot;what the heeckkkkkk&quot; with Chinese characters, except within pinyin, which would be weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Languages are not supposed to all have the same set of tools to express emotions. There are a lot of things on can do with Chinese characters that cannot be done in other languages. For example 福 upside-down means &quot;prosperity obtained&quot; through a very rough pun which has no equivalent in other languages, I would bet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, all languages have tools to express emotions, and in Chinese, there a long list of finals like 啦咯嘛阿呀 used for this purpose, and among them you may find the one which will convey a similar emotion as in &quot;whaat?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="663" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T03:00:58.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17507" CreationDate="2016-03-21T08:24:04.377" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess it becomes popular on Internet due to web technology favor. Most of web servers are built on Unix(or similar, like Linux) OS. Underscore is widely used as space replacement since space it's not allowed for variable name in most of the programming languages. Also, web pages usually in a hierarchical structure, and web page title usually contains the hierarchical information for SEO purpose. Thus the underscore symbol is introduced into web pages as a separator, although some programmers may choose the minus symbol instead of underscore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a conclusion, the underscore is nothing with Chinese, but a web stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2016-04-13T08:24:08.527" LastActivityDate="2016-04-13T08:24:08.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17520" CreationDate="2016-03-21T08:27:32.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here 以A为B is to be taken as &quot;to do B by means of A&quot;. (I take 为 to be the same as in 为了 here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I think you translated it just fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10901" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T08:27:32.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17520" CreationDate="2016-03-21T09:32:21.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think “为” is misused here. It could be clearer if remove 为 or replace it with &quot;而&quot;. The meaning is just what @AurusHuang provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2016-04-15T04:35:51.623" LastActivityDate="2016-04-15T04:35:51.623" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17515" CreationDate="2016-03-21T10:12:32.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to say sometimes Chinese choose different words for rhythm.&#xA;you can say 很有力量, not 很有力&#xA;you can say 大力出奇迹(this sentence used during pool games)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They just sounds good~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12910" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T10:12:32.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17530" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17534" CreationDate="2016-03-21T18:31:11.350" Score="2" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm having difficulty translating the following sentence into Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A fraction &lt;em&gt;q&lt;/em&gt; of the population is smart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was tempted to translate this as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;百分之 &lt;em&gt;q&lt;/em&gt; 的人口是聪明的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But strictly speaking this is not correct, because &lt;strong&gt;fraction&lt;/strong&gt; as a mathematical terminology means &lt;strong&gt;分数&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese (as in &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; / &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; for some natural numbers &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt;), which is not necessarily a percentage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the literal Chinese translation of &lt;strong&gt;fraction&lt;/strong&gt; doesn't read well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;分数 &lt;em&gt;q&lt;/em&gt; 的人口是聪明的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping to get help on a better translation of the sentence. Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the comments it's clear to me that the English sentence to be translated, taken on its own, may be open to multiple interpretations. I hope the following context will clarify its meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The intended meaning of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;A fraction &lt;em&gt;q&lt;/em&gt; of the population is smart&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The total number of smart people is &lt;em&gt;q&lt;/em&gt; * &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;given that the population size is &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt;. To put this in full context, the original sentence I am to translate is related to calculating a conditional probability using Bayes' rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Suppose &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt;% of the population is educated, and a fraction &lt;em&gt;q&lt;/em&gt; of the educated is smart. Suppose further that a fraction &lt;em&gt;r&lt;/em&gt; of the uneducated is smart as well. What is the probability that a randomly selected educated person is smart?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Replacing the algebra notations with numbers, the above could have read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Suppose 73% of the population is educated, and 4/7 of the educated is smart. Suppose further that 2/3 of the uneducated is smart as well. What is the probability that a randomly selected educated person is smart?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3385" LastEditorUserId="3385" LastEditDate="2016-03-22T06:47:26.967" LastActivityDate="2016-03-22T19:52:55.470" Title="Translation of &quot;fraction&quot; in a sentence" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17531" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17532" CreationDate="2016-03-21T23:38:43.103" Score="0" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;氵and 十 are the left and right components and the kanji is shown in &quot;Spirited away&quot; but I can't find it in any dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11464" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T23:45:18.837" Title="Which kanji is this: 氵+ 十?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2016-03-22T17:11:14.547" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17531" CreationDate="2016-03-21T23:45:18.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;汁 - Chinese zhi1, Japanese しる - in Chinese, it means juice, but in Japanese, it can mean juice, sap, or soup broth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5808" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T23:45:18.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17530" CreationDate="2016-03-22T04:41:40.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;q比例的人口是属于聪明的。&quot; However this translation is less common in spoken language(Chinese), the more common version we would say is quite like your first translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13019" LastActivityDate="2016-03-22T04:41:40.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17530" CreationDate="2016-03-22T18:06:45.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose 73% of the population is educated, and &lt;strong&gt;4/7 of the educated is smart&lt;/strong&gt;. Suppose further that 2/3 of the uneducated is smart as well. What is the probability that a randomly selected educated person is smart?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;假设73%的人口受过教育，而&lt;strong&gt;受过教育的人当中4/7是聪明的&lt;/strong&gt;。进一步假设2/3没受过教育的人也是聪明的。随机抽取一个受过教育的人是聪明的概率是多少？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(Ratio &lt;em&gt;q&lt;/em&gt;) + of + X&amp;quot; can be translated as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(在)X(当)中q. &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;(在)受过教育的人(当)中4/7&lt;/strong&gt;是聪明的&amp;quot;. And &amp;quot;其中4/7是聪明的&amp;quot; sounds more concise – though IMO it can't be applied to this example because it's a little ambiguous.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;qX. &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;4/7受过教育的人&lt;/strong&gt;是聪明的&amp;quot;. Sometimes for the subtle fluency, when X doesn't contain &amp;quot;的&amp;quot;, it would be better to say  &amp;quot;q的X&amp;quot; instead, such as &amp;quot;4/7的农民&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;30%的学生&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;X的q. It sounds a little colloquial and a little awkward for this example because there're two close &amp;quot;的&amp;quot;s: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;受过教育的人的4/7&lt;/strong&gt;是聪明的&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Ratio &lt;em&gt;q&lt;/em&gt;) above can be replaced by a percentage &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;p%&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; too. Either &amp;quot;(在)受过教育的人(当)中50%是聪明的&amp;quot; or&#xA;&amp;quot;(在)受过教育的人(当)中p%是聪明的&amp;quot; (p% as a variable) is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you have to use &amp;quot;ratio q&amp;quot; as a variable, it has to be &amp;quot;比例q&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;比率q&amp;quot;, and a &amp;quot;有&amp;quot; would be necessary: &amp;quot;受过教育的人中&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;比率q是聪明的&amp;quot;. Though maybe not everyone consider it clear enough - &amp;quot;比率q的X&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;X的比率q&amp;quot; patterns are even worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I don't see the point of this math problem. If we just randomly select a person within the educated, i.e. P(smart|educated), then, isn't the answer a trivial &lt;code&gt;4/7&lt;/code&gt;? Have I missed anything? :/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-03-22T19:52:55.470" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17535" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17536" CreationDate="2016-03-22T21:35:31.443" Score="2" ViewCount="3105" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference between:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们说着话吃饭。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他们一边说话一边吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他骑着自行车听音乐。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他一边骑自行车一边听音乐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thx&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T05:54:25.403" Title="Difference between V+着+V and 一边+V+一边+V" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17535" CreationDate="2016-03-22T22:14:42.097" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Off the top of my head, the emphasis appears to be different in these two forms. If I use &lt;code&gt;verb1&lt;/code&gt; + 着 + [&lt;code&gt;verb1 complement&lt;/code&gt;] + &lt;code&gt;verb2&lt;/code&gt; + [&lt;code&gt;verb2 complement&lt;/code&gt;], the second verb is &lt;em&gt;to me&lt;/em&gt; a more important action. For example, I would interpret 你不应该听着音乐做功课 as &lt;em&gt;&quot;You mustn't listen to music while doing homework&quot;&lt;/em&gt; and 你不应该做着功课听音乐 as &lt;em&gt;&quot;You mustn't do homework while listening to music&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. These are not the same. If I want to tell someone that to focus on her homework, I use the first sentence. If I want someone to focus on the music we are listening to (so as to better appreciate it), I would use the second sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In comparison, if I use 一边 + &lt;code&gt;verb1&lt;/code&gt; + 一边 + &lt;code&gt;verb2&lt;/code&gt;, there is less of an implicit emphasis on either action. If I see 你不应该一边等巴士，一边拍照, my interpretation is that it does not matter whether the person addressed stops taking photographs and waits for the bus, or gives up waiting for the bus and takes more photographs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-22T22:41:59.910" LastActivityDate="2016-03-22T22:41:59.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17537" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17540" CreationDate="2016-03-22T23:34:01.057" Score="5" ViewCount="2944" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know both can mean &quot;for example/such as/for instance&quot;. They are most likely synonyms but even synonyms have slight subtle differences in precise meaning and usage. &#xA;I know that 例 can be used alone: (&lt;strong&gt;例句&lt;/strong&gt; -- &lt;em&gt;example sentence&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;例语&lt;/strong&gt; -- &lt;em&gt;example word/phrase&lt;/em&gt;) and 比 cannot (比句 and 比语 don't exactly make much sense).&#xA;What I don't know are the specific semantic differences between 例如 and 比如.&#xA;Any help would be appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12566" LastActivityDate="2020-05-13T12:09:36.330" Title="What is the difference between 比如 and 例如" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17538" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-22T23:44:13.363" Score="8" ViewCount="6415" Body="&lt;p&gt;These four words all express (get it, because they all mean express ha ha ha) similar meanings: to express/show/display/manifest/demonstrate/convey/indicate etc. I'm sure there are subtle differences between these form words in terms of formality, usage, and semantics, but I'm not sure what they are. Perhaps some place more emphasis on &quot;expressing&quot; (ideas, for example) while others place more emphasis on &quot;showing/displaying&quot; (displaying one's wealth, for example)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would greatly appreciate you could &lt;em&gt;express&lt;/em&gt; your opinions and knowledge (I am so sorry) on this issue, assuming you didn't already uninstall your browser after reading this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12566" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T19:11:37.120" Title="表达 vs. 表现 vs. 表示 vs. 显示" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17539" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-23T01:57:00.887" Score="-1" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;in simplified Chinese.&#xA;'investment' I believe is 投资&#xA;meta 元 as in metadata 元数据&#xA;The concept I am looking for in Chinese is 'making a smart investment based on (knowledge from) metadata'&#xA;I was told by a Chinese friend that 元投资 would not come across as being immediately clear to a Chinese speaker.&#xA;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13026" LastActivityDate="2016-09-11T03:40:44.963" Title="Looking for the right way to combine concepts of (smart) investment and metadata" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17537" CreationDate="2016-03-23T03:36:06.513" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;比如&lt;/code&gt; used for &lt;code&gt;similar but have different things&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;例如&lt;/code&gt; used for &lt;code&gt;many of the same things, and take a typical example, using the example to illustrate the general of many things&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &lt;code&gt;比如&lt;/code&gt; may not exist, but &lt;code&gt;例如&lt;/code&gt; is must really exist. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比如和例如最重要的区别在“比”“例”的不同上。两词共有的“如”都是“象”的意思。但是，“比如”是用两个有些相似但是根本不同事物间的形容。例如说，“说话就比如是骑自行车样，要练习。”这里就不能用“例如”。“例如”是在说明很多相同的事物时，从中拿出一个典型的例子，用这个例子来说明众多的一般的事物。例如：“大家都很无私，例如小李就捐了一万块。”这里用比如好像可以，但是准确的应该是“例如”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/941f119c9ec3d5bbfd0a7471.html&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12825" LastEditorUserId="12825" LastEditDate="2016-03-23T03:48:16.393" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T03:48:16.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17539" CreationDate="2016-03-23T06:53:47.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;元数据投资&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is a proper one. 元 is the unit of Renminbi, it may mislead people, but 元数据 doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T06:53:47.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17542" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17543" CreationDate="2016-03-23T13:55:57.540" Score="1" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out the difference betwen 涉及and 涉及到. I know here are two examples of each &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当今世界的很多问题都涉及到全球的共同利益 － Could I say 涉及? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&#xA; 她的演讲涉及了太多敏感的话题 －  Could I say 涉及到？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T14:45:07.477" Title="What is the difference between 涉及 and 涉及到" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17542" CreationDate="2016-03-23T14:45:07.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes and yes. They are pretty much interchangable. Your second example contains 涉及了, marking a completed action, while 到 in 涉及到 is a preposition (to): relating to. You could say 涉及到了 as well, given completion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T14:45:07.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17538" CreationDate="2016-03-23T16:02:06.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only guess the difference in connotation between some of words based on the HanZi involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表 - is a depiction of a surface, a face part of some object. So the meaning is close to &lt;strong&gt;to show a surface = to demonstrate&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表达 - to demonstrate + to reach = to express an idea AND thus &lt;strong&gt;reaching minds&lt;/strong&gt; of listeners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表现 -  to demonstrate + to become visible = to show so others will &lt;strong&gt;see&lt;/strong&gt;. So it's meaning is basicly &lt;strong&gt;to show&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表示 - to demonstrate + an altar to gods = ??? Maybe &lt;strong&gt;to express&lt;/strong&gt; as something coming from &quot;inner you&quot;? I don't know, looks like it's 99% has the same meaning as 表现. We need to wait for a native speaker here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I'm not a native speaker. My level of chinese is low. So don't trust me on my words :) too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.S. Read this article: &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mcu.edu.tw/~ssmith/express.ppt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;How to express &quot;experss&quot;?&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2016-03-23T16:13:21.943" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T16:13:21.943" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16880" CreationDate="2016-03-24T01:01:15.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a bit off topic from the category of Chinese, but most languages that have never been written before (i.e. they were spoken languages with no writing systems) do not choose the IPA or even the most common writing system used in their area (often seen as the alphabet/language of the colonizer, which may be the sentiment reflected in China on a low-level with the Mandarin-speaking Han representing the colonizers) to transcribe their language for the first time. Often, they use something distinct in order for readers to know in which language it is to be pronounced (in the case of Chinese) and to proudly display their distinct heritage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want more information about this, there are many linguistics papers on the topic of the choice of alphabet for Haitian Creole, which is currently being debated at the national level in Haiti. Long story short, the choice of alphabet has more to do with heritage and aesthetics than logic and science... those dictionaries are using 长短音 to differentiate themselves from ones for more established dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11131" LastActivityDate="2016-03-24T01:01:15.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8790" CreationDate="2016-03-24T02:49:23.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A version with only one word: &lt;code&gt;啥？&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2279" LastActivityDate="2016-03-24T02:49:23.220" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17538" CreationDate="2016-03-24T19:17:33.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;for my understanding below are how these words are used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表达 to express your feelings or emotions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表现 to showcase like your wealth, your talent or your belongings &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表示 to express your thanks by presents or gifts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;显示 to display, like the number or message displayed on the monitor &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13039" LastActivityDate="2016-03-24T19:17:33.317" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17551" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17553" CreationDate="2016-03-26T06:28:08.523" Score="4" ViewCount="552" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm in the process of memorizing the radicals for the purpose of character recognition. I've been making an effort to memorize the pronunciation of them as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While some of the tones are dead on, it seems that some of the others don't seem to correspond to what's used more often (plus some of them have three different pronunciations). As an example: spirit 示 does not correspond to any of the entries for spirit in mdbg.net.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are the radical pronunciations really valuable to memorize?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13050" LastActivityDate="2016-03-26T15:25:45.343" Title="Radical Pronunciation - Helpful to Learn?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17551" CreationDate="2016-03-26T15:25:45.343" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, I think the answer is no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning radicals is indeed a good idea to improve your character recognition (and also remember them better, for writing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, knowing that the character 想 is composed of three radicals (tree, eye and heart) is useful if you study its etymology/origin or if you want to create your own mnemonic to remember this character.&#xA;It makes more sense than remembering the strokes individually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, knowing how to pronounce those radicals does not help to achieve this goal. And as you've mentioned, their pronunciation is sometimes tricky. I think you're just find with remembering the radicals by their actual meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, any knowledge is still valuable, and knowing the pronunciation of radicals has the advantage to allow you to have conversations about radicals with Chinese speakers. &#xA;I personally never learnt those pronunciation, and my level in Chinese is very close to native speaker. And every time I ask details about a character to Chinese friends, I'm struggling when they tell me that it's composed of radicals X or Y!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that answers your question!&#xA;Wish you pleasure and success in your studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13053" LastActivityDate="2016-03-26T15:25:45.343" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17029" CreationDate="2016-03-27T02:42:03.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Considering 受 and 收 as the translation of the English verb &quot;to receive&quot; is confusing, as it really depends on how they are used (a lot of expressions use those two words). I think the difference is easier to see with examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;受 seems to be used for immaterial things&lt;/strong&gt; (such as feelings, influence, etc.) Its passive connotation really depends on the context or other words in the sentence/expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他很受欢迎。 - He is very popular.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他受到你的影响。- He is influenced by you. (which can be good or bad).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even when the character 受 is used in words, it is for abstract things:&#xA;感受 (a feeling)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;收 seems to be used for material things&lt;/strong&gt; (a letter, a document, a SMS).&#xA;ex:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我收到你的短信。 - I received your SMS.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;别忘记收垃圾。- Don't forget to collect the trash.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same things here, when 收 is used in words, it describes material things:&#xA;收音机 - Radio (set). Literally &lt;em&gt;the device receiving sounds&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this answer your question.&#xA;I wish you pleasure and success in your studies!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13053" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T02:42:03.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10763" CreationDate="2016-03-27T02:47:03.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the difference between 收 and 受 is easier to see with examples.&#xA;In any case, it would be a mistake (and confusing) to consider them as the direct equivalent of the English &quot;to receive&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;受 seems to be used for immaterial things&lt;/strong&gt; (such as feelings, influence, etc.) Its passive connotation really depends on the context or other words in the sentence/expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他很受欢迎。 - He is very popular.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他受到你的影响。- He is influenced by you. (which can be good or bad).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even when the character 受 is used in words, it is for abstract things: 感受 (a feeling)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;收 seems to be used for material things&lt;/strong&gt; (a letter, a document, a SMS). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我收到你的短信。 - I received your SMS.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;别忘记收垃圾。- Don't forget to collect the trash.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same things here, when 收 is used in words, it describes material things: 收音机 - Radio (set). Literally &lt;em&gt;the device receiving sounds&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course their might be other differences and details, but I think this is the big picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this answer your question. I wish you pleasure and success in your studies!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13053" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T02:47:03.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17556" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-27T12:17:58.573" Score="0" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know both mean &quot;two,&quot; but what differentiates the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is a difference, when do I use 两 and when do I use 二?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9216" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T07:09:35.607" Title="Difference between 两 and 二?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-03-28T18:21:41.123" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17557" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-27T14:43:50.470" Score="1" ViewCount="343" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to write a numeral in 汉字。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am not sure, if I need to put 一 in huge numerals before tens.&#xA;So, my numeral is 81,016 and my question is: do I need to write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;八万一千零一十六&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;八万一千零十六&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which form is right? Thank you for helping!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6703" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-17T07:03:35.033" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T06:41:35.437" Title="Which number translation is correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17556" CreationDate="2016-03-27T14:54:21.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;二 two&lt;br&gt;&#xA;两(兩) two, both, a few, pair &amp;lt;- measure word&lt;br&gt;&#xA;双(雙) two (as a pair), both, twins&lt;br&gt;&#xA;贰(貳) two   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有兩本書  &amp;lt;- you should use a measure word (两) here &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11464" LastEditorUserId="11464" LastEditDate="2016-03-27T20:02:58.597" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T20:02:58.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17559" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-27T18:00:22.837" Score="0" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;Parts of speech are always dicey in Chinese. What is a verb, what is an adjective etc. So, In the sentence 你好！， what part of speech is Hao? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13061" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:47:49.510" Title="Parts of speech question." Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17557" CreationDate="2016-03-28T03:19:44.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;八万一千零一十六&quot; is more common and formal, though &quot;八万一千零十六&quot; can be used also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T03:19:44.567" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17557" CreationDate="2016-03-28T05:46:19.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;八万一千零一十六 is the correct way to say it.&#xA;八万一千零十六 would be understood, but sounds awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13067" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T05:46:19.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17556" CreationDate="2016-03-28T05:49:01.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;两 always followed by a unit. for example, 两个，两只，两双。&#xA;二 is used for counting, used individually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13067" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T05:49:01.513" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1898" CreationDate="2016-03-28T06:16:30.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;类&quot; is used for describing a type (a class) of 角色.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;个&quot; is used for referring to a particular 角色.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T06:16:30.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17556" CreationDate="2016-03-28T07:09:35.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;according to 《现代汉语规范词典》：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现代“二”和“两”的用法区别主要是：1.当作数字读或在数学中，用“二”不用“两”，如“一、二、三、四” “一加一等于二” “一元二次方程”。2.序数、小数、分数中用“二”不用“两”，如“第二” “二嫂” “零点二” “二分之一”。3.在一般量词前，个位数用“两”不用“二”，多位数中的个位数用“二”不用“两”，如“两个人” “两只” “两条” “两次” “一百五十二人” “十二次”。4.在传统的度量衡单位前“二” “两”都可用，只是在质量单位“两”前用“二”不用“两”，属于特例。如“二（两）亩地” “二（两）尺布” “二两酒（不说‘两两酒’）”。在我国法定计量单位和某些非法定计量单位前多用“两”，如“两吨” “两公里” “两（二）米”。5.在多位数中，百位、十位、个位用“二”，千位以上多用“两”，但首位以后的百、千、万前多用“二”，如“二百二十二” “两千元” “两亿人” “三万二千二百人”。㊁见“俩”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Major different of &quot;二&quot; and &quot;两&quot; in contemporary Chinese: 1. As a number or in mathematics, uses &quot;二&quot; but not &quot;两&quot;. 2. In ordinal, decimal numbers and fractional numbers, uses &quot;二&quot; but not &quot;两&quot;. 3. When used with normal counter word, for single digit number, uses &quot;两&quot; but not &quot;二&quot;. For multiple digit numbers, uses &quot;二&quot; but not &quot;两&quot; in the digit in units. 4. When used with Chinese traditional units of measurement, both of them can be used. An exception is when &quot;两&quot; is used as a unit, only &quot;二&quot; is used. When used with official and unofficial unit of measurement, &quot;两&quot; is often used. 5. For digits other then the digit of unit in multiple digit numbers, &quot;两&quot; is preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4328" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T07:09:35.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17568" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17585" CreationDate="2016-03-28T13:40:34.143" Score="4" ViewCount="749" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just learned that you could use 看样子 to mean something similar to 看起来. Is there a difference in usage? Is one more formal than the other? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Iciba.com &#xA;好天气看样子要过去了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他看起来很生气 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:33:27.857" Title="What is the difference btween 看样子 and 看起来" Tags="&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17569" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17570" CreationDate="2016-03-29T01:58:51.580" Score="1" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading &lt;a href=&quot;http://jiyinyiyong.github.io/monads-in-pictures/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; when I came across this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;让任意的值是在一个上下文当中&lt;/strong&gt;. 现在的情况你可以想象一个可以把值放进去的盒子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_monads_in_pictures.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;English version&lt;/a&gt;, I know that this is saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Let an arbitrary value be in a context. You can think of this as a box that you can put the value in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I've never seen 是 and 在 together like this with 让 earlier in then sentence. I thought that 在 by itself would have been fine. Is there something about 是在 that is meaningful in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13003" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T12:09:46.763" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T12:09:46.763" Title="Is there something about 是在 that is meaningful in 让任意的值是在一个上下文当中?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17569" CreationDate="2016-03-29T02:54:03.747" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The article in the first link is clearly machine-translated from the original version in the second link with some partials not even translated. A lot of the sentences are difficult to understand, if they make any sense at all. 让任意的值是在一个上下文当中 is just wrong in Chinese. One proper translation might be 把任意值放到上下文当中.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2016-03-29T02:54:03.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17571" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17572" CreationDate="2016-03-29T09:56:11.177" Score="2" ViewCount="332" Body="&lt;p&gt;During his visit in the Czech Republic, the president of PRC Xi Jinping (习近平) has made a record in the castle of Lany guestbook. Its photo was &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/hostzCLR/status/714482191829442560&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;posted publicly&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second line 二〇一六年三月廿八日 is obviously the date 2016-03-28,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but what are the main three characters above? They don't look like the name signature much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CepZxI3XEAEgIWz.jpg:small&quot; alt=&quot;??? 二〇一六年三月廿八日&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6867" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2016-03-30T10:49:48.783" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T19:51:21.070" Title="Decipher particular short cursive inscription (is it really 习近平's signature?)" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17571" CreationDate="2016-03-29T10:07:33.473" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's &lt;code&gt;習近平&lt;/code&gt; (Xi Jinping)'s signature. Just written in Traditional Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is Xi's signature on his dissertation (Doctor of Laws):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rbd6T.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rbd6T.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Xi&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2016-03-29T10:27:56.273" LastActivityDate="2016-03-29T10:27:56.273" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10763" CreationDate="2016-03-29T10:40:41.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;收 is collecting, 受 is receiving&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13075" LastActivityDate="2016-03-29T10:40:41.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17574" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-29T17:56:14.893" Score="1" ViewCount="1661" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking the Great Wall of China with Google Earth, and I found relly weird characters (that are the same size as the Great Wall) near it. I don't know what these characters mean, so here is picture if anyone can tell me the meaning.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uf6u7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uf6u7.png&quot; alt=&quot;Great Wall characters&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13079" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-03-30T01:50:27.350" LastActivityDate="2016-03-30T01:50:27.350" Title="Weird Chinese text next to the Great Wall" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-03-30T09:22:26.107" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17574" CreationDate="2016-03-30T00:08:47.413" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The writing says 忠于毛主席, or &quot;loyal to Chairman Mao&quot;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/4452/%E5%80%AA%E9%98%94%E4%B9%90&quot;&gt;倪阔乐&lt;/a&gt; says. as This has a pretty interesting history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is said that it was constructed by Red Guards during the early Cultural Revolution, out of rocks painted with lime. It is a famous slogan, the first part of the &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89%E5%BF%A0%E4%BA%8E%E5%9B%9B%E6%97%A0%E9%99%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;三忠于四无限&lt;/a&gt;&quot; movement (three loyal, four infinite), which provides the following slogans:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;忠于毛主席 (loyal to Chairman Mao)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;忠于毛泽东思想 (loyal to Maoism)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;忠于毛主席的无产阶级革命路线 (loyal to Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary path)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the four infinites refers to the degree of loyalty to the above three:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;无限崇拜 (unlimited worship)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;无限热爱 (unlimited adoration)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;无限信仰 (unlimited faith)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;无限忠诚 (unlimited loyalty)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the Cultural Revolution ended and its legacy discredited, the writing became obscured by brush. But for whatever reason, in 2008 the area was cleared and repainted, making the writing visible again. It's placed in a very prominent position in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutianyu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mutianyu&lt;/a&gt; section of the Great Wall, a section that's already special as it's one of the few with &lt;a href=&quot;https://history.stackexchange.com/q/27023/2957&quot;&gt;merlons on both sides of the wall&lt;/a&gt; - very picturesque. Here you can see before/after pictures of the clearing, note that the writing is visible even from far away on the wall, as it's on the inside of a turn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VHnS9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VHnS9.png&quot; alt=&quot;before&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t1Y62.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t1Y62.png&quot; alt=&quot;after&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;Photos from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thegreatwall.com.cn/phpbbs/index.php?id=125518&amp;amp;forumid=1&amp;amp;threadid=125489&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.thegreatwall.com.cn/phpbbs/index.php?id=125518&amp;amp;forumid=1&amp;amp;threadid=125489&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's interesting is why the writing was restored, as usually the Cultural Revolution and its artifacts are unpopular even in China. Perhaps after so many years, it's gained historical value. Perhaps it's become popular by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/world/asia/21iht-currents21.html?_r=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese millenials&lt;/a&gt;, who have not lived through the Cultural Revolution - it was also a time where &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_culture_movement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;leftists&lt;/a&gt; like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Xilai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bo Xilai&lt;/a&gt; were at their peak in popularity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2016-03-30T00:08:47.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17576" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17584" CreationDate="2016-03-30T11:38:21.717" Score="0" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any tips for pronunciating tone value &quot;21&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to be, fairly, common in Chinese topolects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kind of hard to get a grasp on the whole starting low and dropping lower thing, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some have suggested treating like a neutral tone; others: treating it like English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T13:48:26.247" Title="Tips for pronunciating tone value &quot;21&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17571" CreationDate="2016-03-30T17:18:31.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As my uncle (who is very good at calligraphy) put it, most Chinese signatures are wrong in their strokes if you take it seriously. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you take out any character of the signatures alone, it will be hard to recognize. You don't need to worry about that, for Chinese people, some signatures can be only recognized by those who sign it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For cursive strokes, I began writing in this way by imitating adults when I was a middle school student. Because pupils are not allowed to write in cursive strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Years past, I write characters in cursive unconsciously, if I stop and think about how I write next stroke, I will fail. Which proves it has become my conditioned reflex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may be off the topic, just end it here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13088" LastEditorUserId="13088" LastEditDate="2016-03-30T17:24:15.547" LastActivityDate="2016-03-30T17:24:15.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17578" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17579" CreationDate="2016-03-30T17:22:21.617" Score="5" ViewCount="388" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen threads for 可以 as opposed to 会 and 能, but what about 可以 with its component, 可?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary seems to use them interchangeably:&#xA;白银&lt;strong&gt;可以&lt;/strong&gt;指：银，贵金属，用做货币时&lt;strong&gt;可&lt;/strong&gt;称为白银&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference in nuance, or flow of the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12868" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T06:08:59.643" Title="What's the difference between 可 and 可以?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17578" CreationDate="2016-03-30T17:53:11.410" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;可&quot; is a morpheme, while &quot;可以&quot; is a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the meaning of &quot;be able to&quot;, &quot;可&quot; and &quot;可以&quot; are interchangeable in most cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we answer a question, we should say &quot;可以&quot;, which means &quot;fine&quot;, or &quot;OK&quot;. When coming to popular culture, some of us would just answer &quot;可&quot;, which is not literally supposed to. Say, if you answer like this, we could still understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the situations I could come up with, only &quot;可&quot; is used as emphatic adverb (just like &quot;very&quot;), sometimes used to throw a question.&#xA;See definition #2 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8F%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For example, &quot;这本书可贵了&quot;, which means &quot;this book is very expensive&quot;. This is the morpheme &quot;可&quot; used for emphasis.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Another example, &quot;近来可好？&quot;, which means &quot;How have you been recently?&quot;. This is the morpheme &quot;可&quot; used to throw a question.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13089" LastEditorUserId="13089" LastEditDate="2016-03-30T20:53:57.987" LastActivityDate="2016-03-30T20:53:57.987" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17578" CreationDate="2016-03-31T06:08:59.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;可以&quot; simply means can, be able to.&#xA;&quot;可&quot; means a lot than that, but is rarely used alone. It's wired that you say 可 to some questions. But it's ok to use like that, and when it happens, it has the same meaning as 可以, but it feels like u are a king.... Anyway it is really wired.&#xA;when 可 is used with other character, it usually emphasis that char. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13093" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T06:08:59.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17374" CreationDate="2016-03-31T13:12:11.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will address two parts to this question: how to read Chinese and how to learn how to understand spoken Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learning to recognise and pronounce all of the Chinese characters takes time and lots of practice. The best way is to use graded readers that introduce maybe 20-40 new characters per short story and then continuously repeat those characters in later stories. This is roughly approximating spaced repetition where you are forced to read a character again at the point of forgetting it. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are always going to be elusive characters that require you to relearn them several times. I learned how to read the language before resources appeared on the internet. I have found that after learning many languages that the more work I put into it (looking up in a physical dictionary and writing it in a notebook) the better I retain it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I founded a company that builds language solutions to solve this problem and we have good traction with polyglots. It's kind of against what I said above because I usually get the best results of doing things the hard way--without internet, but I figure this is the kind of tool I would like to have had at the time to give me the best results in terms of saving time and gaining the hard-to-acquire listening skills for Chinese. The idea here again is using spaced repetition, but this time in a hands-free audio format building up the most frequent structures of the language until you can handle foundation vocabulary effortlessly and fluently. From there you start expanding your vocabulary, like I said above, through more extensive reading. You can turn your extensive reading into intensive reading by applying a spaced repetition training schedule to your reading (should be reading aloud: 大聲唸). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to our solutions, there are two clients I interact with frequently, Olle and Alexander, who use a program which I strongly recommend. The Chorus Method was developed by Olle Kjellin, a linguist/polyglot from Sweden and test run by advanced Korean/Chinese learner Alexander Giddings to great effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyone just needs to remember that language mastery and fluency only comes at the expense of doing things the hard way. Even when you get tools and solutions like we make, make sure that you're still using the tools the hard way. The tools allow you to cover more ground and make faster progress than what I had. In other words, we give you pinyin transcription and narrow IPA transcription of every sentence giving you faster access, but you can use the extra data to do lots of hard work faster. Most polyglots swear by mass amount of dictation work. Then they recite and record what they've written. The transcriptions allow them to check for mistakes extremely fast. Do it every day like martial arts moves. I calculate threshold fluency at around 30,000 sentences that you've said from your mouth without looking at text. Your goal should be 100,000 sentences. Depending on your regimen, this could be months or years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A martial arts acquaintance that I've known many years is John Fotheringham who came to Taiwan after learning to do translation in Japan. He now runs a site called language mastery, if I remember correctly, and I'm sure he also has channels you can follow. He's a fine example of someone who learned Chinese after Japanese and speaks both to high levels, but unfortunately I do not know many who have done so other than Japanese native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is unlike most European languages where you can start to understand a lot of the spoken language much earlier than you can speak. For European languages, I can use a dictionary, pick out a few common words and then actually hear them being used by native speakers. Words are longer and easier to detect, and most advanced vocabulary is shared so that it's easy to get the gist of broadcast and formal language. That doesn't work with Chinese and it's the complete opposite, because words are much shorter, there are many homophones, and there are tones, and there is no shared vocabulary with anything else you're familiar with unless you speak Korean or Vietnamese ( &gt; Japanese has a much bigger divergence phonologically which I have analysed in detail on my blog in an article called hacking Kanji from Chinese). Note: a personal acquaintance of mine, Olle Linge, runs a blog called Hacking Chinese which I strongly recommend. His Chinese is par and can hold advanced debates in Chinese. He's a big proponent of reforming Chinese learning literacy and I stand with him on his ideas. I strongly recommend to read everything he's written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the major problems with learning to comprehend Chinese is due to the large number of regional accents and dialects (and I'm referring to just Mandarin here). Carefully choose the voice and accent you learn from. I prefer and speak as Taiwanese do for several reasons: I live here in Taiwan, everybody speaks the same standardised way, and there is little interference from Hokkien for most people under the age of 60. You cannot find this homogeneity in language use anywhere in China. When everybody speaks the same way you can perfect your own accent and standard very finely. When you have built a strong foundation on one accent, then it's very easy to figure out the others. But if you train on a variety of accents, you won't be able to perfect one good standard, you may get discouraged by people's reactions, thereby causing you not to reach your goals. Beijing or Shanghai have very good standards you can base on too, just focus more on broadcast speech. You'll be hard to find two people who speak the same way on the street in those cities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seem to run into a lot of learners who are very wary of basing their speech on Taiwan. But the best thing is to research this very thoroughly. There are many advantages to it and gives you much more access to all of China for reasons I don't have time to mention here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend following both Chris Parker (serious chap doing professional interpretation who also has a website) and 郝毅博 (that's Háo Yìbó--an entertaining chap--now making videos in Taiwan) who both have exceptionally strong rhetoric in Chinese who both learned in China. (To address your &quot;names&quot; question, just learn the name of everybody you see or meet and get it in writing as much as possible. This is an experience issue and will take you 3-4 years of doing this to be able to read any and every name you encounter. People who grew up in Chinese classrooms have that much more exposure to names so you need to replicate it as much as you can during your learning process).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13097" LastEditorUserId="13097" LastEditDate="2016-04-02T18:24:07.630" LastActivityDate="2016-04-02T18:24:07.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17583" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17586" CreationDate="2016-03-31T13:30:57.540" Score="3" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I have come across quiet a few English names which sound very similar in Chinese Mandarin. To quote a few examples :-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English : Chinese ( Pinyin )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Australia :  澳大利亚 ( Àodàlìyǎ )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John : 约翰 ( Yuēhàn )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Singapore : 新加坡 ( Xīnjiāpō )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong : 香港 ( Xiānggǎng )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Peter : 彼得 ( Bǐdé )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if there is some rules governing the conversion from English proper names such as these. eg  Australia is broken into some phonemes ( smallest units of speech ) which are converted to their Chinese counterparts and reassembled to form Àodàlìyǎ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that there are many proper names which sound completely different in English and Chinese. Some examples :-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japan : 日本 ( Rìběn )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;America : 美国 ( Měiguó )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13100" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T15:47:27.600" Title="Are there concrete rules of conversion between &quot;homophone&quot; English and Chinese proper names?" Tags="&lt;proper-nouns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17576" CreationDate="2016-03-31T13:48:26.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possible to analyse English intonation with Chinese tonal contours, a favourite topic of mine that tends to upset a lot of people who believe their language is not tonal. This remains controversial, but not so much for those working in voice recognition technologies who actually look at the data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this response I refer to the surface phonetic tone in square brackets [] as is customary in IPA (which I assume you're referring to but not explicitly stated in your question), and the underlying phonemic tone number (as in 平上去入) like this //.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tonal contour [21] would appear in this English sentence on the word &quot;for&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;What are you looking for?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just isolate that word &quot;for&quot; and repeat it over and over and feel the [21] on it. To a certain extent, this would be considered either /3rd/ or neutral tone in Mandarin, although neutral can manifest at different heights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the same sentence, we can also make &quot;you&quot; a [21] tone also, but you'd need to change the overall intonation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;What&lt;/em&gt; are you looking for?!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say [21] gets spread over &quot;are you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both Cantonese and the Hokkien (Southern Min) variety I speak have [21], which is called a third tone in Hokkien, and I believe a /4th/ tone in Cantonese, although I think it starts a bit higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the rest of the sentence, I would label &quot;what&quot; as mid-rising [34], getting stretched out over four syllables &quot;what are you look&quot;, and [2] on &quot;-ing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What3 are3 you3 look4 -ing2 for21?&#xA;*What*53 are2 you1 look4 -ing2 for21?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another tough tone would be [11] and you may feel like you'll get that confused with the [21] above. So I'll try to help. You can find this appearing on &quot;what&quot; in the following English sentence if you apply extra stress to the first word and say the sentence like a response to somebody else and not in an exclamatory way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;That's&lt;/em&gt; what I'd like to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually the [11] contour maintains through &quot;what I'd like&quot; with a slight rise of [23] on &quot;do&quot;. I would say the word &quot;that's&quot; has a high rising [45] contour. Practise this first in English and try to isolate the words exactly as you normally say them and try to isolate the tone you're using. This will help you map between what you can naturally do in English (although depends on the variety of English you speak) and how to produce the tones right in Chinese every time. Here's my analysis of that sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's45 what1 I'd1 like1 to1 do23.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative intonation for comparison:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's34 what3 I'd3 like3 to4 do53!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'd prefer to put those numbers into ruby text, but I don't think the HTML here supports it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This [11] appears in the Sixian Hakka variant I speak on the /2nd/ tone and in /1st/ tone sandhi followed by /2nd/ tone. I believe it also appears in Cantonese /6th/ tone (non-入聲 if you don't count to /9/), although that tone may have some dipping perhaps more akin to the [21] you mentioned above, I'll have to check my sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck with training them. It takes time and patience. The better you get at this tone training, the more luck you'll have with many more languages, whether tonal or not. You'll hear so much more that's going on that most people were never aware even existed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13097" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T13:48:26.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17568" CreationDate="2016-03-31T15:03:31.690" Score="4" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;From the comment by @user6065&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarities and differences of '看来', '看起来' and '看样子'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They are all conjunctions, used to make judgements or predictions based on a specific situation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They could be used at the beginning of a sentence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They are interchangeable sometimes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Examples:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天一下子阴了，看来(看起来/看样子)要下大雨了。&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is cloudy all of a sudden, looks like it is about to rain.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;赵娜老打哈欠，看来(看起来/看样子)昨天晚上没睡好。&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Zhao Na keeps yawning, looks like she didn't sleep well last night.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雨下个不停，看起来(看来/看样子)我们这几天去不成海边了。&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is still raining, looks like we can't go to the seaside in a few days.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看起来(看来/看样子)，这条马路到年底也修不好。&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Looks like this road won't get fixed by the end of year.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;杰克笑嘻嘻得走过来，看样子(看来/看起来)他今天心情不错。&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Jack is coming with smile on his face, looks like he is feeling good today.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;王经理一直没出声，看样子(看来/看起来)他对这个计划并不满意。&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mr.Wang didn't say anything, it looks like he is not satisfied with this plan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;看来&quot; is to represent the inference by analysis (little bit). While &quot;看起来&quot; and &quot;看样子&quot; represent the inference more obviously, such as the inference easily made according to appearance. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;看来&quot; is only used before &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_(grammar)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Subject&lt;/a&gt; most of the time. While &quot;看起来&quot; and &quot;看样子&quot; could be used before or after &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_(grammar)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Subject&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;看来&quot; could be used in these structures: &quot;从...看来&quot;, &quot;在...看来&quot;, &quot;由此看来&quot;, &quot;照我看来&quot;, which refer to get the inference via different perspectives. &quot;看起来&quot; and &quot;看样子&quot; cannot be used in these structures.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他看起来(看样子)像个40多岁的中年人，哪像个20多岁的小伙子？&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He looks like around 40 years old. How could he look like a 20-year-old guy?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这些花看起来(看样子)像是真的一样，其实是假的。&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;These flowers looks like authentic, but they are artificial.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他看样子(看起来)很老实，其实狡猾得要命。&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He looks like honest, but he is cunning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这些菜看样子(看起来)就很好吃，我今天要多吃几碗饭。&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;These dishes looks tasty. I would like to have more today.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13089" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T15:03:31.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17583" CreationDate="2016-03-31T15:47:27.600" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes and no. It's a very broad subject as there are many different varieties of spoken Chinese, there are different methods of transliteration, and the rules themselves have been in flux at various times in history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll just address your examples, but realise that there are many more cases and rules not covered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Australia : 澳大利亚 ( Àodàlìyǎ )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This name originated during a time when English -&gt; Chinese transliteration was in its infancy and no hard rules existed. People just picked whatever characters sounded close and easy. For Australia in particular, the transliteration probably came from European missionaries, who preferred using phonetics rather than the usual Chinese preference for using single character + type, you know like 英国 or 欧洲. There's more details here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qinshuroads.org/Chinese_Australia/Oz_Name_dj.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.qinshuroads.org/Chinese_Australia/Oz_Name_dj.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;John : 约翰 ( Yuēhàn )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, missionaries most likely. &quot;John&quot; is pronounced &quot;Yohann&quot; or &quot;Yohanna&quot; in many languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Singapore : 新加坡 ( Xīnjiāpō )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bit more complex. Singapore is originally a Sanskrit name, so you're comparing two different transliterations. It's why its name resembles many Indian city names. By luck they are still similar, but it's not always the case as we'll see later...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hong Kong : 香港 ( Xiānggǎng )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are not terribly similar, but that's because the English name is derived from Cantonese instead, which is pronounced &lt;em&gt;Heong Gong&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Peter : 彼得 ( Bǐdé )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Japan : 日本 ( Rìběn )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one of my favourites. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Japan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;They are the same name&lt;/a&gt;. Basically Portuguese got the name from Wu Chinese, for some reason, as &lt;em&gt;Cipan&lt;/em&gt;. Meanwhile, the Dutch got the name but via Southern China, as &lt;em&gt;Yatpun&lt;/em&gt;, which they wrote down as &lt;em&gt;Ja-Pun&lt;/em&gt; because J sounds like Y in Dutch. Of course, neither of these routes involved Mandarin, which has its own somewhat different pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;America : 美国 ( Měiguó )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another interesting case. This name was settled on after a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/13097/2583&quot;&gt;very long period of evolution&lt;/a&gt;, over a time where basically the Chinese had no idea how to properly transliterate European names. Note that the proper, full name for &lt;em&gt;United States of America&lt;/em&gt; is 美利坚合众国, and 美国 is an &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/5798/2583&quot;&gt;abbreviation&lt;/a&gt;. But if you thought there were too many names for America, wait 'till you see how the Chinese tried to translate &quot;President&quot;. The concept of a paramount leader that is periodically overthrown by non-nobles was really baffling. There were variants from &quot;big leader&quot;, to complete phonetics (pu-rui-si-deng-te), to weird hybrids &quot;伯里玺天地&quot; (hey there, snuck in 玺 and 天地, both implying Emperor). Sinologist Jonathan Spence explores this subject in more detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All your examples are either complex cases or historical examples where no rules existed. That's different now, to prevent every new foreign word producing dozens of Chinese translations. Here are some related questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/2270/2583&quot;&gt;Why do Chinese translations of English names sound very inaccurate?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/311/2583&quot;&gt;How do we know what characters correspond to Chinese names?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/2657/2583&quot;&gt;How does foreign word transliteration work in the context of Cantonese vs Mandarin?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T15:47:27.600" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17476" CreationDate="2016-03-31T17:55:59.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to add to the answers posted thus far. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For whatever reason, the question and Andrew's point on 行會 made me think of Kyoto, where the streets are in orderly east-west and north-south fashion. I've never been to Xi'an, China. My understanding, and confirmed by Wiki (link 1),  is that Kyoto was modeled after Xi'an, or rather, the Chang'an of China's Tang dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060514000012KK13388&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; source, 行會 was created out of necessity to better manage its constituents, as well as for taxation purposes. The residents lived in what is called wards (坊, also known as 里 link 3) or 裏 (link 4) in Han periods, also referred to as 里/裏坊), and the businesses were mainly located in the markets 市. Wards and markets were further divided into rows. &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.so.com/doc/6602768-6816554.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;For markets, similar businesses would be located within the same row.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.封建社会中商肆、行会的首领。&#xA;  《周礼·地官·肆长》“肆长各掌其肆之政令” 唐 贾公彦 疏：“此肆长谓一肆立一长，使之检校一肆之事，若今行头者也。” 范文澜 蔡美彪 等《中国通史》第四编第一章第二节：“商行的首领叫‘行头’或‘行老’，行头有权规定本行商货的物价。 - from _http://baike.baidu.com/view/603481.htm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So based on all this and to answer the original question, yes, 行 in reference to businesses and industries does indeed stem from its original meaning of 'line'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1): _https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3): _http://www.twwiki.com/wiki/%E5%9D%8A%E5%B8%82%E5%88%B6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4): _http://big5.ce.cn/gate/big5/cathay.ce.cn/history/200912/01/t20091201_20533874.shtml&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T17:55:59.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10763" CreationDate="2016-03-31T18:09:09.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.dictionary.yahoo.com/dictionary?p=%E6%94%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;收&lt;/a&gt;:&#xA;1. to accept; to receive&#xA;2. to gather; to collect&#xA;3. to put away&#xA;4. to retrieve; to get back&#xA;5. to conclude; to finish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.dictionary.yahoo.com/dictionary?p=%E5%8F%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;受&lt;/a&gt;:&#xA;1. to receive; to accept &#xA;2. an indicator for the passive voice&#xA;3. to bear; to endure&#xA;4. to be subjected to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the above, this confirms that to 受 is a passive action. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To PJ Hades' example above, I would add to it with additional takes on the translation, that:&#xA;他接受了这份礼物。  --&gt; He accepted the gift. He's taking it! It belongs to him now!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他接收了这份礼物。  --&gt; He received the gift. As in, he physically collected or was handed the gift from someone else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastEditorUserId="13086" LastEditDate="2016-03-31T20:14:22.370" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T20:14:22.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9652" CreationDate="2016-03-31T18:42:08.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked up the singer. He is of Chinese Hakka descent, and was born in Malaysia. In reading the comments for the video, it seems like the restaurant really was his at some point, but no longer. Because of this, my two cents on line 2 is:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;That his chicken rice is genuine (or rather, the best), despite that it isn't Hakka like he is,  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR,  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;That his chicken rice is genuine and the best even though he technically isn't from or descended from Hainan.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Partial translation. Focus here is to help you understand it better, literally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;＃ 涯正宗嘅鸡饭&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My genuine chicken rice!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;唔系客家偏偏出名海南&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Not Hakka but came to fame Hainan&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人人都知有间龙门星店&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Everyone knows about my restaurant (龙门星店 is the name of the shop; 龙门&#xA;dragon gate is a popular name for restaurant / hotel-esque places, 星&#xA;is star)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;按好吃讲只只来帮衬&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So delicious, everyone frequents (帮衬 means to help, a polite way to say customers are visiting your shop = everyone helps you out帮衬)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你要嚓最靓鸡饭&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you want &quot;blank&quot; best chicken rice (&quot;blank&quot; because I also cannot place this word, sorry)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;价钱係普普通通讲来好平&lt;br&gt;&#xA;price is average, but really, so cheap&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;客仔招呼一流&lt;br&gt;&#xA;best customer service (literally, &quot;customer&quot; &quot;say hello&quot; &quot;the best&quot;. &quot;Say hello&quot; loosely literally translates to greet, too. A shopkeeper or a host will 招呼 the customers by taking care of them)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吃饱又送支牙签&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Literally, eat full and gift toothpick. A generally accepted translation could be, you get a full meal here AND a free toothpick!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Me (Able to understand Hakka, not a fluent speaker)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/1316645/5959946.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/1316645/5959946.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A9%AC%E6%9D%A5%E8%A5%BF%E4%BA%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A9%AC%E6%9D%A5%E8%A5%BF%E4%BA%9A&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastEditorUserId="13086" LastEditDate="2016-03-31T19:15:02.343" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T19:15:02.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12095" CreationDate="2016-03-31T19:56:25.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I were to introduce this dish to a friend who doesn't speak Chinese, and has no knowledge of culinary techniques, I usually just say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;saucy fatty pork. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And add, good with rice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for the more technical users, I believe others here have nailed it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T19:56:25.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17114" CreationDate="2016-03-31T23:00:15.860" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question directly, and assuming there is no religious context :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you refer to your godparents as 乾爹、乾媽，then your kids could technically refer to them as 乾爺爺、乾奶奶，or 乾公公、乾婆婆。Depending on how close you are to your godparents, you could drop the 乾 as long as there's no confusion between references to the great godparents and the blood relations grandparents. Another idea would be to use &quot;last name&quot;+ 爺爺奶奶 or 公公婆婆。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T23:00:15.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17382" CreationDate="2016-04-01T07:57:31.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found a more sound explanation of the meaning of 讲(講) and of 议(議).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;About 讲(講):&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According the Shirakawa, 冓 is a shape of braided ropes;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UZHSC.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UZHSC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冓 signified “to connect two shapes.” Then 木 “wood” was added. Together they meant wooden configuration that repeated the same patterns that people constructed. It meant “structure; to construct.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讲(講) “to lecture; talk” is &quot;made&quot; out of 冓.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right 冓 was used phonetically for to mean “to connect two things,” and the left side had 言 “word; language.” Together “people reconnected by talking” gave the meaning “to reconcile; lecture; talk.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when simplification process was carried out the 冓 part was replaced by 井 because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;井 has soud component needed for 講&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;井 looks like a some sort of a simplified structure, scaffold (冓)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we can understand WHERE and HOW to use 讲 - this HanZi stresses &quot;structured talk, logically structred and so on&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;About 议(議):&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W5Wov.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W5Wov.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From left to right - &quot;a sheep body with a saw in the process of separating it in halves. Next the sheep is on top and at the bottom is a more elaborate halberd that had saw-like blades. Together they meant &lt;strong&gt;cutting&lt;/strong&gt; a sacrificial sheep with a saw to prepare it as offering to the god. Something suitable for the god meant “morality; just.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many words where 義 posess connotation of &quot;just, right ect.&quot; but &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;in our case&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;言+義 = 议(議)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hanzi 義 stresses not the &quot;righteousness&quot; but &quot;separation, cutting&quot; meaning of a 義.&#xA;So 议(議) has meaning - “to discuss what is just” or “to discuss.” But there is even more to this!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.etymonline.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.etymonline.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;discuss&lt;/strong&gt; - comes from Latin &quot;to smash/cut to pieces&quot; or &quot;smash apart&quot;, &quot;scatter, disperse&quot;. From &lt;strong&gt;dis-&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;&lt;em&gt;apart&lt;/em&gt;&quot; + &lt;strong&gt;quatere&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;&lt;em&gt;to shake&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. So the meaning &quot;to take into pieces, to analyze&quot; what 義 is all about!!! This way english etymology converges to chinese etymology (I think not by chance but by design).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;About 述:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell 述 comes from &quot;wall&quot; + &quot;(术)術 weaving baskets&quot;. You can see 行(speciality or industry) in the 術 which &lt;em&gt;&quot;prooves&quot;&lt;/em&gt; the theory that 术 is a &quot;speciality of making baskets&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 述 means &quot;to go&quot; + &quot;to weave&quot; = to narrate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="13086" LastEditDate="2016-04-02T20:07:25.420" LastActivityDate="2016-04-02T20:07:25.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17593" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-01T08:14:18.300" Score="1" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain me which one is correct and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13105" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T14:46:51.627" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T13:04:00.937" Title="Which is correct, &quot;我对我的妈妈说很多话&quot; or &quot;我对我的妈妈说很多&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17593" CreationDate="2016-04-01T08:39:04.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first one seems to be more logic to the last one. But both of them are strange. I didn't get the point that what would you like to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To explain at least, the last sentence lacks object of verb &quot;speak&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they are declarative sentence, it's better to say 我对我的妈妈说了很多话 or 我对我的妈妈说了很多. Both of these are reasonable, but don't mean the same. The 2nd one seems to pull other points more, but 1st one didn't have this meaning.&#xA;It's complicated, wish that I've make it clearer to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13106" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T08:39:04.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17593" CreationDate="2016-04-01T08:53:21.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;說很多話 can mean that you habitually talk to your mother a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;說(了)很多 means you have said a lot of things (regarding a specific subject).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13075" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T08:53:21.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17114" CreationDate="2016-04-01T09:35:38.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Godparent is translated as &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%95%99%E7%88%B6%E6%AF%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;教父母&lt;/a&gt;. Since Christianity isn't major part of historical Chinese family life (not now either), there is no predefined way for great-godparent. So it's entirely up to you what you child should call him/her. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common way would be to simply call the great-godparent 爷爷奶奶 when directly talking to him/her. Inside family, to specifically differentiate him from genetic great parents, you can add the surname eg 王爷爷 or just make up the term 教爷爷 for your family. Outside family when you child introduces that person to a third party, say it in full 爸爸的教父.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T09:35:38.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5530" CreationDate="2016-04-01T11:50:29.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just bought some made in China by Dettol, and the bottle says 免水洗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13107" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T11:50:29.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5530" CreationDate="2016-04-01T16:01:18.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's called 免洗洗手液.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;免洗 doesn't mean it's not a liquid or doesn't contain water, it means you don't need to wash the hand sanitizer off with water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW I only have seen hand sanitizer in hospital in China. Unlike it is everywhere in North America (in malls, office buildings etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12076" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T16:01:18.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17600" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-01T21:10:08.100" Score="5" ViewCount="1338" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the best way to say &quot;Chinese speaker&quot; in Chinese? There are the terms 母语者 and 非母语者; there are 华语学者 and 中国通 and 能说中文的人. None of these terms seems to encapsulate the simple &quot;Chinese speaker,&quot; meaning &quot;a person who speaks Chinese,&quot; in Chinese...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12806" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-17T01:11:38.573" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T06:24:01.500" Title="What's the best way to say &quot;Chinese speaker&quot; in the sense of &quot;a person who speaks Chinese&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17600" CreationDate="2016-04-01T21:41:32.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese context, if someone was mentioned as 说中文, it generally means a person who can speak mandarin. The bottom like  will be general literacy was relative new thing in China history. Speaking some form of Chinese dialects like Cantonese  is totally different from that he can read/write Chinese character.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13110" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T21:41:32.927" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17600" CreationDate="2016-04-01T22:22:12.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the challenge lies with how the English word &quot;speaker&quot; does not translate well to Chinese, in the context you describe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.dictionary.yahoo.com/dictionary?p=Speaker&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, we can see that speaker in the sense of language ability simply translates to 說。I would argue that adding 會 or 能，thereby making it 他會說法語 or 他能說法語 , is giving more information than required. Perhaps depending on context, it would be necessary to respond this way, but a simple 他說法語 is a short and complete sentence on its own. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I would like to point out that there are certain pockets of the world where &quot;Chinese&quot; refers to both Mandarin and Cantonese, and a follow up question to &quot;Do you speak Chinese?&quot;, is, &quot;Which one?&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In certain industries, multilingual employees will wear badges indicating what languages aside from standard assumed (Eg. English in North America, Japanese in Japan, etc.) can be used for conversation. Sometimes, instead of just the name of the language, you can see &quot;精通&quot; as well. While it should translate to proficient, that's often a generous description and should actually be taken to mean &quot;conversational in&quot;. Truthfully, &quot;通曉&quot; would be a better description. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On that thought, &quot;通&quot; could be what you're looking for if you're looking to describe someone's ability on paper. Think of an online dating site. A possible description could be: 女，25-35歲，通國、粵、英語。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going back to the problem of &quot;speaker&quot; not translating well to Chinese for a moment, notice that there isn't a single character to mean &quot;person orating&quot; or &quot;person giving a speech&quot;. See the dictionary link above. In Chinese, you typically need three characters; 演說家、演講者、說話者, with the last one being awkward but proper in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastEditorUserId="13086" LastEditDate="2016-04-01T22:33:28.370" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T22:33:28.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17568" CreationDate="2016-04-02T14:37:17.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There exists the case whereby 看来 cannot be replaced with 看样子, as shown below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. 在笔者看来,教育有两个基本功能。&#xA;b. *在笔者看样子，教育有两个基本功能。&#xA;c. ?在笔者看起来，教育有两个基本功能。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This contrast indicates that '看来' relates to highlight one's idea, and '看样子' or '看起来' involves the inference according to the given information, for examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d. 你看这位畜主笑逐颜开，得意洋洋，看样子他的这头毛驴今天准能卖个好价钱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we replace 看样子 with 看起来 in d, as for me, the new sentence can also be acceptable though not perfectly natural. However, 看样子 and 看起来 are not exchangeable in e and f, as shown below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e. 这个问题现在看起来好像并不复杂。&#xA;f. *这个问题现在看样子好像并不复杂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在'now' implies that '问题' has long been concerned, and after a long-term study, it is now being easy. This contrast suggests that 看样子 is proper to describe the immediate presupposed situation, whereas 看起来 is suitable for a summary purpose, whether immediate reality or immediate focus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12639" LastActivityDate="2016-04-02T14:37:17.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16909" CreationDate="2016-04-02T23:42:41.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't need an app for this, it's a built-in feature in iOS. To enable Chinese handwriting input, do the following steps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go to &lt;strong&gt;Settings&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;rarr; &lt;strong&gt;General&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;rarr; Keyboard.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go &lt;strong&gt;Keyboards&lt;/strong&gt; and tap &lt;strong&gt;Add New Keyboard&lt;/strong&gt;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tap on the name of the keyboard you want to add: e.g., &lt;strong&gt;Chinese (Simplified) - Handwriting&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Optional: Tap &lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt; and drag on the handles to rearrange the keyboard list into the order you'd like.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go to whatever app you want to enter Chinese text into (e.g., Pleco).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get to a place in the app where it expects keyboard input (e.g., in Pleco, tap in the search text box).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the keyboard, there is a globe-icon key (it becomes a happy face key in the emoji keyboard), which allows you to cycle through your keyboards. Tap it until you reach the Chinese handwriting input you added. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw the strokes and select your character from the proposed characters that appear at the top of the keyboard.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13113" LastActivityDate="2016-04-02T23:42:41.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6273" CreationDate="2016-04-02T23:48:30.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;更is correct. Why used 经? Because when speaking in Cantonese, 更 and 筋 sounded the same. When it is in mandarin, 筋 and 经 got mixed up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13114" LastActivityDate="2016-04-02T23:48:30.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17593" CreationDate="2016-04-03T17:45:27.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, in Chinese if you don't want to emphasize &quot;我的，你的，他的&quot;，we usually remove &quot;我的”，我对我妈说....or 我对妈妈说 is more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, it should be added a complement &quot;了&quot; after the verb &quot;说&quot; to indicate the action is finished. So it could be 我对妈妈说了很多话。or 我对妈妈说了很多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, 说了很多话 means that you speak a lot &quot;sentence&quot; to your mother, while 说了很多 means you talk a lot topics or opions with your mother. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3931" LastActivityDate="2016-04-03T17:45:27.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17593" CreationDate="2016-04-04T06:23:00.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, we often say it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我和妈妈经常聊天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我对妈妈讲了很多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We usually drop the term 我的 if it is implicit but clear and unambiguous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12552" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-17T01:16:26.887" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T01:16:26.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17568" CreationDate="2016-04-04T06:39:22.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“看样子” and“看起来”，are both similar to “it seems ...” or “it looks like ...”， or “probably ...”，we usually use it to express some predictions based on some fact!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sometimes，“看来” can be used to express prediction, too. for example, &#xA;“看来，天要下雨了…”.&#xA;but in “在某人看来”，“看来” is similar to “as can be seen by somebody” or “somebody's opinion is ...”.&#xA;“看来”“看起来” is very different，its meaning changes in different cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12552" LastActivityDate="2016-04-04T06:39:22.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17239" CreationDate="2016-04-04T06:47:19.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“比照”，if we reference something firstly，then do something similar，we use “比照” to express our work is based on someone' work before. for example，“我比照着John cena的摔跤姿势练习摔跤”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“比较” is similar to “compared with ...”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we do not use “比照” to express the comparison action. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12552" LastActivityDate="2016-04-04T06:47:19.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17614" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17615" CreationDate="2016-04-04T10:46:20.437" Score="3" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some textbook materials, I read that comparisons in Chinese should be used with &quot;positive adjectives&quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is correct: 我比他高。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is said to be incorrect: 他比我矮。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It should be: 他没有我高。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I sometimes see sentences with supposedly &quot;negative&quot; adjectives (with 小 instead of 大, 矮 instead of 高, 瘦 instead of 胖...) such as the second sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I am a bit puzzled about it. What exactly is meant by positive adjectives and what is the intuition for using them in comparative sentences? What are examples of &quot;negative&quot; adjectives that cannot be used in comparative sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13125" LastActivityDate="2016-04-04T16:56:56.600" Title="比 comparison structures: positive adjectives?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17614" CreationDate="2016-04-04T11:36:55.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally, I've never heard about this as a strict grammar rule. You can say both versions of the same sentence as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他比我高 vs&#xA;他比我矮 &#xA;&lt;br&gt;or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他比我富有 vs&#xA;他比我穷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and they would be equally correct, even though I can confirm the first ones FEEL better to me. I guess it has to do with the tendency of Chinese culture to point out positive qualities, or qualities perceived as such. As in the example, it's better to be tall than short. It's better to be rich than poor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The negation is also performed on the positive quality. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;The same behavior can be found in western languages. It's always nicer to speak in euphemisms even if you're not making comparisons. &quot;He's not so handsome&quot;, as opposed to &quot;he's ugly&quot;. It's a sign of politeness. &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a more philosophical-sounding analysis, you can think that it's easier to speak about the presence of a quality, instead of its absence. What you first notice about a tall person is that she's tall, and not that she's not short. &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your question, what are these &quot;positive&quot; qualities? &#xA;Well, it all comes down to what defines a socially successful person: tall, rich, nice, handsome, smart are all good examples. &#xA;&lt;br&gt;You can apply the same intuitive principle to things and concepts, even though the boundary is more blurred here: is expensive better than cheap? &lt;br&gt;&#xA;It depends. By looking at what kind of comparisons people make, you can also get a few hints about their personality and social status.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2016-04-04T16:56:56.600" LastActivityDate="2016-04-04T16:56:56.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17616" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17617" CreationDate="2016-04-04T12:54:23.093" Score="3" ViewCount="1435" Body="&lt;p&gt;If my understanding is correct, then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他没有我高。= he's not as tall as me, i.e. he is shorter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他不比我高。= he's either as tall as me or shorter, i.e. he's at most as tall as me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that correct? If so, in what situations would one use 不比? Is it when one is sure that a certain thing is no more than the compared one, but not sure if it is the same or less? Or do people just use it without thinking about it -- e.g. someone says 不比, but may mean 没有?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13125" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-04-04T13:59:03.093" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T01:07:20.013" Title="不比 vs 没有 comparison usage" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17616" CreationDate="2016-04-04T13:44:03.703" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. 他没有我高。-&amp;gt; he &amp;lt;  me&#xA;2. 他不比我高。-&amp;gt; he &amp;lt;= me&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparing with the 1st one, the 2nd one is usually used for the situation to explain sb/sth is not bad relatively. Such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他不比我高。&#xA;-&amp;gt; I'm as tall as him at least, he's not taller than me, connote that I'm not bad comparing with him.&#xA;本公司的技术水平已经不比国际上的一流水平差。&#xA;-&amp;gt; Our technology level is not worse than international advanced level, connote that we're at the same level at least.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-04-04T13:49:24.453" LastActivityDate="2016-04-04T13:49:24.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17616" CreationDate="2016-04-04T14:30:33.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native Chinese speaker, and the following is only my personal opinion from my experiences.  In fact, I've never thought about the difference between “不比”and“没有”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think your understanding is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some possibly interesting things for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他可不比我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means: &quot;he is not similar to me&quot; (it suggests than he is weaker than me in some way).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他可没有我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means: &quot;he is not in possession of me&quot; which may be improper without context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13128" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-17T01:07:20.013" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T01:07:20.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6273" CreationDate="2016-04-04T21:59:39.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is explained by the 文白音 phenomenon that all Chinese dialects have.  Some characters have two readings: one formal and one colloquial.  Take Shanghainese for example (the dialect I am most familiar with): 聞 is pronounced [ven] in a formal context (i.e. in names, compound words and literary readings) such as in 新聞.  But it is pronounced [men] in daily conversations, such as in 儂聞聞看.  Now the Peking dialect also has words like this, 更 being one of them.  The formal pronunciation is [geng] but the colloquial [jing].  Note that the meaning of the character is the same for both two pronunciations (as opposed to the two pronunciations of words like 長).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, because Putonghua is heavily influenced by the Peking dialect, it also retains some instances of 文白音, such as 薄 (bo: 薄熙來 bao: 牆壁很薄) or 廈 (xia: 廈門 sha: 大廈).  For some reason, 更 is not one such instance though; it is pronounced [geng] only in Putonghua.  Other common examples in Putonghua:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;字　文音　白音&#xA;給　ji　 gei&#xA;車　ju　 che&#xA;了　liao le&#xA;爪　zhao zhua&#xA;血　xuè  xiě&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of a movement to simplify pronunciation, fewer and fewer of these 文白音 words are left in Putonghua.  Examples that seldom are honoured today are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;字　文音　白音&#xA;白　bo　 bai&#xA;六　lu 　liu&#xA;北　bo　 bei&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples can be found on Wikipedia: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_and_colloquial_readings_of_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_and_colloquial_readings_of_Chinese_characters&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12745" LastActivityDate="2016-04-04T21:59:39.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17620" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-05T01:39:37.183" Score="0" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;I teacher mine told me that 买 could be use to buy/purchase but also to &quot;to decide to buy&quot;, or &quot;go shopping&quot;, other teacher told me the first one was wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who is right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11371" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:28:01.957" Title="When to use of 买" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17620" CreationDate="2016-04-05T02:03:39.777" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt; I am Chinese student.&#xA;买 could be use to buy/purchase but also to &quot;to decide to buy&quot;, or &quot;go shopping&quot;&#xA;买and卖：buy and sell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13134" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T02:03:39.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17616" CreationDate="2016-04-05T05:20:27.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in most cases you are right, but in precise context, like academic paper or legal document, they could be the same, both means &quot;he is not taller than you, maybe shorter, maybe the same as you&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:20:27.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17620" CreationDate="2016-04-05T05:28:01.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;买 means &quot;to buy&quot;. But the phrase 买东西 means &quot;to go shopping&quot;. You can use similar phrases like 买衣服, 买蔬菜 and so on to mean &quot;shop for clothes / vegetables&quot;. You could say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我买东西去了，可是商店关门了，没有买到。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I went shopping, but the store was closed, so I didn't buy anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There could be a similar context where it means &quot;decide to buy&quot;, but I haven't heard it used in that sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your second teacher is right in that it normally does only mean &quot;to buy&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:28:01.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6273" CreationDate="2016-04-05T05:29:16.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;更 (geng1) could pronounced as jing(1) because of ancient pronunciation, but not something ineffable. In ancient Chinese 更(geng1, not geng4) is pronounced like jing(1), and in modern China even today, some local forks are talking in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;更 is a way of timing. Ancient Chinese divided a whole night into 5 parts from 19:00-5:00(next day), each part as 2 hours. that is 一更(19:00-21:00)二更(21:00-23:00)三更(23:00-1:00 of next day)四更(1:00-3:00)五更(3:00-5:00), which are 戌亥子丑寅 accordingly. 三更(23:00-1:00 of next day) is just the middle of night, so, 半夜(mid-night)三更&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:29:16.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17239" CreationDate="2016-04-05T05:32:17.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you are not sure, just use 比较. 比照is more literal and precise, so it is also less used&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:32:17.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17568" CreationDate="2016-04-05T05:33:27.857" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both are just used orally. and in most cases you can just either one, native speaker could understand you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:33:27.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17593" CreationDate="2016-04-05T05:36:02.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in most cases they are the same. Chinese has omissions of objective, that is, many verb has the most frequently used objective, like 说(话) and 吃(饭), so if you just use 说/吃 without objective, the objective could be regarded as 话/饭 by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:36:02.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17559" CreationDate="2016-04-05T05:47:49.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Never think of parts of speech when learning Chinese, since Chinese has such concept no earlier than Tang dynasty, which is very short history comparing with Chinese. In fact Chinese parts of speech also have nothing to do with their functions in sentence. Noun could be predicate, verb could be objective, even prep. could be subjective, which is totally different with western languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T05:47:49.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17631" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17635" CreationDate="2016-04-05T11:19:09.327" Score="6" ViewCount="580" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I say &quot;跟据我的经历那儿的人很友好&quot;? Is this a correct sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I use 经历, 经验, or is there a better way to say this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12794" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-10T03:34:44.360" LastActivityDate="2016-04-10T03:34:44.360" Title="When should I use 经验 and when should I use 经历?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17631" CreationDate="2016-04-05T12:12:37.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;looking up both words in e.g. iciba, in particular considering the example sentences would suggest the&#xA;answer, namely 经验, for more examples see jukuu, in fact feed &quot;according to my experience&quot; to jukuu and find&#xA;1. 1.   I would offer some tips according to my own experience.&#xA;    根据我的经验，我可以提供一些小建议。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T12:12:37.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17631" CreationDate="2016-04-05T12:15:39.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 经验 is a little bit more better in your sentence. 经历 sounds more serious and longer, like this sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a miserable experience(经历) in war time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一段战争年代的痛苦&lt;strong&gt;经历&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T12:42:37.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3636" CreationDate="2016-04-05T17:02:42.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Giving someone &quot;benefit of the doubt&quot; suggests uncertainty as to the motive or intention. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a kid knocks over an ugly vase, and the kid claims it was by accident, you could give the kid the benefit of the doubt, and accept the apology. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what does it mean to give someone the benefit of the doubt? According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.cambridge.org/zhs/%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8/%E8%8B%B1%E8%AF%AD/give-sb-the-benefit-of-the-doubt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cambridge dictionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to ​believe something good about someone, ​rather than something ​bad, when you have the ​possibility of doing either&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say you're 35 and single, and at every family gathering you get recurring questions on your plans to get married. As tempting as it is to assume everyone is out to ruin your day and the old fogeys are showing their age by insinuating outdated social values, another way to interpret the situation is to give all of them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they asked because they care about you. Or it's just an easy conversation starter. They don't mean you any harm and didn't mean to hurt you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this situation, I would say colloquially: 她們不是故意的，別想太多, or, they didn't mean it that way, don't overthink it. Neither &quot;寧縱勿枉&quot; nor &quot;無心之失&quot; is appropriate here. The former sounds stiff and out of place as it has a connotation of legal speak. As for the latter, the focus is on &quot;之失&quot;. You've already made up your mind that the person is at fault, just that it was a fault committed unintentionally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the scenario in which you want to say &quot;give benefit of the doubt&quot; in Chinese, why not consider 疑中留情? I first came across this term via &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20050517000011KK06700&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this forum&lt;/a&gt;. The examples provided in this other forum includes letting a student retake his final exam, as he claims that a family emergency resulted in him having to miss the exam at its originally scheduled time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, to give someone the benefit of the doubt is to believe in their [good] intentions. The emphasis is on the good intention, not the perceived slight, and not the presumably offensive action. In my experience growing up in my Chinese household, the emphasis was always on the outcome, the action. Intention didn't matter. If I were to assume most traditional Chinese household was like this, then yes, giving the benefit of the doubt is a foreign concept. It mattered most what was done, the action. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastEditorUserId="13086" LastEditDate="2016-04-06T01:11:37.140" LastActivityDate="2016-04-06T01:11:37.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17631" CreationDate="2016-04-05T17:25:22.747" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, I think “经历” would be a better choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“经验”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“经验” often refers to some knowledge or work experience，for example，“I am expert in programming and algorithms”，then  I can say “根据我的经验，我可以给你一些编程技巧”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“经历”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“经历” refers to some personal experience during life，study，work，travel and so on. For example，“I have a good travel to China”，then I can say，“我曾经在中国有一个美好的经历，根据我经历的事情（或者根据我的经历），我认为大多数中国人都比较腼腆而友好”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12552" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T17:25:22.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17631" CreationDate="2016-04-05T17:39:52.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my dictionary (source 1: 辭海  趙錫如 主編 將門文物 出版):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;經歷:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1) 履歷&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2)曾做過或看過某件事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;經驗: &#xA;1) 親身做過或見過&lt;br&gt;&#xA;...which is as clear as mud! So let's break it down some more:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歷:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;動詞:經驗、經過、曾經；例:歷久。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;形詞:以往的，過去的；例:歷朝。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;名詞:與[曆]字通。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;From this, we see that its meaning encompasses &quot;experienced&quot;, &quot;past&quot;, and was interchangeable with &quot;calendar&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;驗:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;名詞:證明；例:何以為驗。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;形詞:有效的；例:驗方。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;動詞:測試；例:試驗。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;動詞:檢查；例:查驗。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;From this, we see that there's a &quot;test with attention to results&quot; component, like trial and error. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, we can see that 經歷 is more appropriately used to describe an experience you had, noun form. Think 歷史, history. You were there at a point in time. Contrast this with 經驗, which is akin to insights you gleamed from being somewhere at some point in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my google search, this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.synnex.com.tw/asp/emba/synnex_short_content.aspx?infovalue=56&amp;amp;seqno=22213&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt; captured it best, especially with its title &quot;有經歷，不等於有經驗&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: sorry, it has occurred to me I did not answer the question.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In common speech, &quot;經驗&quot; would be the more appropriate term to use in the situation you've described. You are sharing an insight derived from a past event in your life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Update 4/6/2016; found an online source with examples supporting my writing above]&#xA;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://yun.dreye.com/dict_new/dict.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://yun.dreye.com/dict_new/dict.php&lt;/a&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;經驗:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (a) experience; a lesson&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Examples:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他以巨大代價獲得這方面經驗。He paid dearly for his experience.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  缺乏實際經驗的空頭理論家 an armchair theorist deficient in practical experience&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  以上來源於：《漢英大辭典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare this with 經歷  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) to go through; to undergo; to experience; to come through; to undergo an experience&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2) one's past experience; a professional career; adventure&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Examples:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  孩子們被那個水手的冒險經歷迷住了。&#xA;  The boys were charmed by the sailor's adventure.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  請跟我們談談你在非洲的經歷。&#xA;  Please tell us about your experiences in Africa.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  以上來源於：《漢英大辭典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastEditorUserId="13086" LastEditDate="2016-04-06T20:17:05.450" LastActivityDate="2016-04-06T20:17:05.450" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17637" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17639" CreationDate="2016-04-05T17:57:14.357" Score="5" ViewCount="672" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the West, Chinese names almost never seem to be written using pinyin tone marks or numbers. For example, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;current president&lt;/a&gt;'s name will simply be written as Xi Jinping. I had to Google to discover that it is Xí Jìnpíng, and even this top ranked Google search result gives what sounds to me like a very &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GKck6Ed5d8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;incorrect pronunciation&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realise that it is assumed that the target audience will simply Westernise the pronunciation regardless, but what is the correct approach to pronouncing these names?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Options I see:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.&lt;/strong&gt; Use the correct sound and neutral tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2.&lt;/strong&gt; Treat it like a Westernised version of the name, and pronounce it like an English speaking person would.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3.&lt;/strong&gt; Acquire name pronunciation knowledge. Is this option even possible? Is there a 1 - 1 mapping between a pinyin-without-tones name and a character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13062" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T23:05:08.300" Title="How do I pronounce romanised Chinese names which lack tone marks?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17637" CreationDate="2016-04-05T18:33:06.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hearing English speaking folks pronounce Beijing as ”Beizhing” makes this an unrealistic ambition (is it really that hard pronouncing jing quite naturally as in jingle bells?). You simply can't expect people to correctly pronounce names or stuff in another language. Certainly, in some European countries, there are ambitions to come as close as possible: while Americans would say G'orbachev, educated Europeans would say Garbach'ov, which is much closer to the real pronounication. Bet you didn't know that.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is the actual case, to the degree that Chinese names are already reversed in Japanese inferiority complex style. They would say or write Jinping Xi in all other cases than when there is an actual known person. I am just waiting to hear some media idiot say Zedong Mao.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nope, it is not possible without learning the language. And probably not important either. A close approximation, without tones, is praiseworthy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T18:33:06.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17637" CreationDate="2016-04-05T23:05:08.300" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, this is &lt;strong&gt;what I do&lt;/strong&gt; in such a case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If my listener is not Chinese, does not know Chinese, or I am speaking in an event that doesn't require my listener(s) to know Chinese - I pronounce it in &lt;strong&gt;whatever tone I feel comfortable&lt;/strong&gt;. Sometimes I mimic the listeners' pronunciation. (However, if I can guess the tones, I may tend to guess, because that makes me comfortable.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If my listener is Chinese, I usually guess the tones, and add that I am not sure if the tones I used are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese people will understand that you cannot make the tones perfectly correct - when you are only given the Pinyin without tone marks - because there's missing information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my idea about your options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Using neutral tone is creative :-) I have never heard anyone do that. It will make the pronunciation funny.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I believe this would be okay if both you and your audience are English speakers, corresponding to my first point above.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is corresponding to my second point above. Guessing the tones require knowledge about common names and naming conventions. This is possible, but may not be accurate for all names. This would be the best you can do. In most cases, last names are easier because there are only tens of frequently used last names.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few examples for guessing last names: Zhang (first tone: 张, 章), Li (third tone: 李), Liu (second tone, 刘）, Wang (second tone, 王 - but it might be first tone, 汪, which is less frequent).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First names are harder. For common names it is still possible, like Ming (second tone, 明), Hao (forth tone, 浩 or 昊). Names like Jinping would be difficult but I would guess it to be 金平 if it is not the president's name, because 金 is more common than 近.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T23:05:08.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8666" CreationDate="2016-04-06T02:21:48.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.It is a little wired to use 亲爱的 in Chinese letter.&#xA;You could use &quot;敬爱的&quot; or &quot;尊敬的&quot;. But if you write letter to your close friend or your lover, you could use &quot;亲爱的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are Chinese letter structures [eg. Name, Address, Date, Recipient, Body, Closing] much the same as English letters?&#xA;This is the basic letter structure in Chinese:&#xA;Recipient&#xA;Body&#xA;Closing&#xA;Name&#xA;Date&#xA;Address&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.It is ok to end your letter like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could get more information about write Chinese letter here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.onlinechineselearning.com/resource/chinese-business-email-etiquette.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese letter etiquette&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13141" LastActivityDate="2016-04-06T02:21:48.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17645" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17646" CreationDate="2016-04-06T14:31:37.810" Score="1" ViewCount="521" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to translate the children's book &quot;Where Is Gah-Ning?&quot; in Chinese. The Gah-Ning in question is Chinese-Canadian, and the book is written in English, so I don't know how to render her name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking 尕拧, because &quot;small-stubborn&quot; fits the character so well, but I don't know if it sounds like a name. It's totally OK if it sounds like a nickname, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10933" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-10T03:35:47.393" LastActivityDate="2016-04-12T09:03:05.180" Title="Chinese names: Gah-Ning" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17645" CreationDate="2016-04-06T14:53:06.307" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although it is a potentially valid to use the slightly derogatory &quot;cute&quot; nickname, it is much more likely to be a more standard-sounding given name, for example 佳寧 or perhaps 嘉寧, both pronounced Jiāníng in Mandarin and Gā-nìhng in Cantonese. To my ear, both are female names. A quick Google returns quite a few profiles with this exact given name, overwhelmingly female. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2016-04-06T14:53:06.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17647" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17649" CreationDate="2016-04-06T16:08:09.640" Score="11" ViewCount="1053" Body="&lt;p&gt;For work, I occasionally have to translate foreign language documents. I've been running into a lot of Chinese (simplified) documents that have a date listed as &lt;code&gt;YYY/MM/DD&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the year only 3 digits? Is this just a typo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13150" LastEditorUserId="12420" LastEditDate="2016-04-07T16:03:07.483" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T03:17:15.000" Title="Three-digit year in date on Chinese document" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1120" CreationDate="2016-04-07T02:33:38.363" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Social Media&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Discord&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://discord.gg/GyaY2PX&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;30 Days of Chinese&lt;/a&gt; is for sharing your Chinese studies.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Facebook&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/businesschineselearning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Business Chinese Learning&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/CCTV.CH&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCTV中文&lt;/a&gt; Chinese news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/ChineseClass101/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChineseClass101&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/crilearnchinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CRI Learn Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/HangridgeMandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanbridge Mandarin Facebook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/chinesecharacterslearning/?fref=ts&amp;amp;ref=br_tf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Learn Chinese characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learn Chinese Mandarin &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/groups/294971488137057/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK1&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/groups/680764145797105/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK2&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/groups/847553949046831/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK3&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/groups/267659047538214/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK4&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/groups/536408247293302/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK5&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/groups/224576495512293/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK6&lt;/a&gt; with Richard Wu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Twitter&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/HSKTestOfficial&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK Official&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13141" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-11-17T23:57:33.043" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T23:57:33.043" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2016-04-07T02:33:38.363" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17647" CreationDate="2016-04-07T02:40:31.517" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;By now you have figured out, why the years are represented as YYY, but just to make this post not look like many of those stubs on this site, here's a more detailed answer to anyone stumbling upon this page in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Taiwan&lt;/strong&gt; (officially styled the Republic of China) still uses the &lt;strong&gt;Republican calendar&lt;/strong&gt; (or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minguo_calendar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minguo calendar&lt;/a&gt;), alongside the international calendar system of Western origin. This is known as &lt;strong&gt;民國紀元&lt;/strong&gt; (民国纪元 in simplified Chinese, though not used in Mainland China). It follows the dynastic/feudal time keeping of &lt;strong&gt;numbering years consecutively&lt;/strong&gt; after the ascension to throne of the current emperor, with the exception that there is no sort of emperor or king in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_%281912%E2%80%9349%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Republican era&lt;/a&gt; (although, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Shikai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yuan Shi-kai&lt;/a&gt; made a faint attempt, and resigned from his throne almost exactly 100 years ago). A similar system is still in place in &lt;strong&gt;Japan&lt;/strong&gt;, used parallel to the Western calendar, and probably even &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_calendar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;more extensively used, with era names, etc.&lt;/a&gt; than the Republican calendar in modern day Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The practical way to work with it is not that difficult. Here's the formula:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Republican calendar Year = Western calendar Year - 1911&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this year is 105年. For those who can work with Tradional characters, here's a sophisticated &lt;a href=&quot;http://sinocal.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;online calculator&lt;/a&gt;. Here's the output for this month:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/42mBn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/42mBn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(The bold face digits are the days according to the Western calendar, the smaller digits show the month/day in the Chinese calendar, in this case the lunar calendar is used, which is the basis of observing Chinese New Year, etc.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This elaborate system of Chinese time keeping and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;age reckoning&lt;/a&gt; have their many intricacies, but the above is probably enough for you  to get the gist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2016-04-07T06:37:35.980" LastActivityDate="2016-04-07T06:37:35.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17631" CreationDate="2016-04-07T06:03:10.723" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“经历” and “经验” are both similar word of experience in English but put emphasis on different aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For “经历”, it puts emphasis on the personal experience that someone had.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For “经验”, it puts emphasis on the skills or knowledge that someone had summarized from a series of events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On this basis, both “经历” and “经验” are okay in terms of meaning in your sentence. The best choice out of them depends on your emphasis as described above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6777" LastActivityDate="2016-04-07T06:03:10.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17653" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-07T13:03:54.527" Score="2" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the etymology of this word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know 就 means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to start&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;to enter&lt;/strong&gt;, which sometimes is being interpreted as &lt;strong&gt;to take&lt;/strong&gt; some thing (to enter a position of...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I just can't see why &amp;quot;surrender&amp;quot;. Maybe there is some story to that word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T22:53:15.877" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T22:53:15.877" Title="Why does 就范 mean &quot;to give in&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17653" CreationDate="2016-04-07T13:21:06.473" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;就 here means 迁就，将就, &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;to accept&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; in english&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;范 here means &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;standard, model&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;; in history 范 is the model to cast iron.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 就范 means &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;fit in a model&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; (given by others) in very strict way from the original meaning. It's a strong word, you can understand it as &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;surrender&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13136" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T22:51:48.423" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T22:51:48.423" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17657" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-07T16:46:10.673" Score="3" ViewCount="398" Body="&lt;p&gt;Slightly different sort of question for everyone today, hope someone can point me in the right direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to do research on the Buddhist &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jataka_tales&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jataka tales&lt;/a&gt;, originally written in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81li_Canon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pali Canon&lt;/a&gt;. I've been able to find many reliable translations of the Jataka tales in English, but would like to strengthen my research by drawing upon Chinese texts as well. As far as I can tell, the Jataka tales are called &quot;佛传故事&quot; in Chinese. I'm far from an expert at navigating the Chinese web, but what I'd ideally like to find is a PDF translation (preferably in simplified, but I'll take whatever I can get) issued by a Chinese university or museum of this text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this is a long-shot, but if anyone could help me find this resource it would be much appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9657" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T15:44:58.700" Title="Reliable source for Chinese translation of Pali Canon Jataka tales (佛传故事/佛傳故事)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17657" CreationDate="2016-04-07T19:18:48.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is called 本生故事 in Chinese. PDF is available here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://vdisk.weibo.com/s/t0ojS8AH__rfZ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://vdisk.weibo.com/s/t0ojS8AH__rfZ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-04-07T19:18:48.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17661" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-09T11:59:12.683" Score="2" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a story to this mutation of meaning? Or is this shift of semantics connected to phonetic considerations only?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T19:07:07.293" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T19:07:07.293" Title="Why 批 means &quot;criticize&quot; and &quot;a batch&quot; at the same time?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17662" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-09T12:40:37.147" Score="1" ViewCount="572" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can easily find a lot of lists with the most frequently used hanzi. But I think the frequency is linked to the use in sentences, independently of words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need the frequency of used hanzi linked to the construction of Chinese words. I mean the frequency for 的 will be very different. If someone has an idea for the frequency of use of radicals in the construction of hanzi, I am also interested.&#xA;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-09T12:50:17.237" LastActivityDate="2016-06-18T09:03:40.620" Title="Frequency of hanzi by use in Chinese words" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17662" CreationDate="2016-04-09T20:40:17.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would need to do some database manipulation. First extract a bigram frequency list (&lt;a href=&quot;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/&lt;/a&gt;) or a more general word frequency list (as provided by Wenlin, for example), and then decompose the individual morphemes to obtain the most used characters for words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-04-09T20:40:17.823" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17664" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17665" CreationDate="2016-04-10T04:02:25.477" Score="0" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my school they teach a PEEL format for writing essays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Point-论点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evidendence-论据&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explanation-论证&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Link-????&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the &quot;link&quot; known as in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9681" LastActivityDate="2016-04-10T05:07:00.050" Title="Essay &quot;link&quot; in chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17664" CreationDate="2016-04-10T04:51:44.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Link&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;连接&lt;/strong&gt;、&lt;strong&gt;联系&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=iBivQkPTgOKbr7amIiAXlQGcS0w2aP6yirio3C_7L-iIasVC2eLwgaZHKUv_LfMU-8cnE2kNb012_YNN6PjY3hmJrwniho8tW7XKxqSRKfm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;英语作文怎么写好内容丰富 百度知道&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;提问者采纳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英语作文有4点：PEEL【point、evidence、explain、link】就是要提出一个点、再找出几个例子、用几个段落解释这几个例子、每段落最后一句要可以&lt;strong&gt;连接&lt;/strong&gt;到下一节的内容、这样就能写出一篇较好的英语作文了。【我们老师就是这样教的】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.sg/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwi0mMTMpYPMAhVDKqYKHe5LA28QFggaMAA&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Facsbr.moe.edu.sg%2Fwbn%2Fslot%2Fu1258%2FSec%25204%25265%2520CL%2520Scope%2520and%2520Sequences%2520T1%2520T2%25202014%2520.xlsx&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNGAxdg-EWl0rFTEBHVEuFsxTOG58w&amp;amp;bvm=bv.119028448,d.dGY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[XLS] Sheet1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;论点、申论、举例、&lt;strong&gt;联系&lt;/strong&gt;（PEEL）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PEEL&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Points/Topic Sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elaboration/Examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Link/Summary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;段落主句&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;扩展／例子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;联系&lt;/strong&gt;主旨／段落总结&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-04-10T05:07:00.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17645" CreationDate="2016-04-10T05:30:17.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't read the whole book yet. After reading the introduction of the book from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/where-is-gah-ning-robert-n-munsch/1112035176?ean=9781550379822&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Barnes &amp;amp; Noble&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Gah-Ning is determined to visit the town of Kapuskasing. She tries riding her bicycle, then glides away on roller blades, but each time her father pulls up in the car and brings her back. He doesn't want her to go because he has heard that people go to Kapuskasing to shop like crazy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I come up with the girl's name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;佳人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the name of the book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;何處覓佳人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;佳人何處&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="808" LastEditorUserId="808" LastEditDate="2016-04-10T06:35:56.210" LastActivityDate="2016-04-10T06:35:56.210" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17661" CreationDate="2016-04-10T10:37:57.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;批 [pī] is originally  (扌+), and 批 is a vulgar form since ancient times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;㧙 is another variant form, meaning wring, twist, strike at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;說文解字 informs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;() 反手擊也。左傳曰。宋萬遇仇牧于門。而殺之。玉篇所引如是。今左傳作批。俗字也。从手。聲。匹齊切。十五部。俗作批。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; thus means to strike with the hand, to slap, and also to kill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;康熙字典 adds:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《唐韻》匹迷切《集韻》《韻會》篇迷切，音鈚。《說文》手擊也。《左傳·莊十二年》宋萬遇仇牧于門，批而殺之。&#xA;又《廣韻》推也，轉也。&#xA;又示也。《唐書·李藩傳》遷給事中，制敕有不便者，黃紙後批之。&#xA;又《韻會》與(卑刂)通。削也。《杜甫·房兵曹馬詩》竹批雙耳峻。&#xA;又《集韻》騈迷切，音鼙。擊也。&#xA;又助也。&#xA;又頻脂切。與琵通。琵琶，馬上所鼓。或从手。《風俗通》批把，近世樂家所作，以手批把，因以爲名。&#xA;又《韻會》《正韻》普弭切，音庀。亦手擊也。&#xA;又《集韻》《韻會》蒲結切，音蹩。讀若敝入聲。義同。《史記·荆軻傳》奈何以見陵之怨，欲批其逆鱗哉。《註》批謂觸擊之。&#xA;又《孫臏傳》批亢擣虛。《註》批音白結反。相排批也。《莊子·養生主》批大郤，導大窾。&#xA;又《正韻》避列切，音別。義同。《韻會》通作㧙。《集韻》本作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here additional meanings are push, turn, peel, cut, help, and we also see that 琵琶 has been written 批把, a reminder that people always have had problems knowing characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/6279.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/6279.htm&lt;/a&gt; informs of the modern meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;用手掌打：～颊（打嘴巴）。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;刮：～凿。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;口头或用文字判定是非、优劣、可否：～准。～示。～复。～语。～阅。～判。眉～（写在书页天头上的批语）。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大量：～购。～销。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;量词，用于大宗的货物或数量众多的事物：一～货物。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;棉麻等未捻成线、绳时的细缕：线～儿。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The principal meaning is still to hit with the hand, and to cut is also preserved as a basic connotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;批 as a measure word or as a batch is rather recent, and might be the result of analogy or slang, for instance when bundling goods in the harbor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Drunken Master points out that 批评 may be seen as an analogy to dissecting things in critique, but another possibility is that it just adds a slapping notion to the evaluation, since 批评 originally meant criticizing negative traits and shortcomings. Afterwards, it has yet again shifted to take on the connotation of critique in general, including praise and other positive meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-04-10T10:37:57.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17668" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17673" CreationDate="2016-04-10T12:18:17.840" Score="1" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of my problem. I came across final particle 乎 in a classical text by 孟子. I know from a short description in a unreliable resource that it is similar to 呢, 吗 and 吧。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is, I am looking for a more detailed description in a reliable resource that I can put in a list of contents for my university report. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can any one point me to a reliable place to read about rules of Classical Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12207" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-11T07:59:33.237" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T10:42:33.660" Title="Looking for a legit place for Classical Chinese grammar rules" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17669" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17756" CreationDate="2016-04-10T13:25:16.853" Score="1" ViewCount="276" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw the previous posts about 接受 and  接收。 But couldn't find information about the difference between 接受 and 得到。 它们的对象可以是抽象的也可以是具体的？ 得到/接受的可以是好的也可以是消极的？ &#xA;Or maybe I just need to memorize the “习惯搭配”？！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12794" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T21:35:28.030" Title="Are 得到 and 接受 similar?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17670" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17680" CreationDate="2016-04-10T16:46:56.677" Score="2" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zimbabwe is a country. Which one is its Chinese translation: 辛巴威 or 津巴布韦?&#xA;Could it be possible that Chinese in Taiwan call it 辛巴威?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another country is Zambia. 尚比亞 or 赞比亚?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13007" LastActivityDate="2016-04-12T10:43:29.200" Title="Translate Zimbabwe to Chinese: 辛巴威 or 津巴布韦?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17670" CreationDate="2016-04-10T16:56:33.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In PRC we call them：津巴布韦 and 赞比亚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3931" LastActivityDate="2016-04-10T16:56:33.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17668" CreationDate="2016-04-11T08:02:37.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best reference in English is probably Pulleyblank's &lt;em&gt;Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar&lt;/em&gt;. I don't think it is available in a digital version though, so you'll have to look up a print version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2016-04-11T08:02:37.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17669" CreationDate="2016-04-11T19:42:21.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;While similar, they aren't interchangeable. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://yun.dreye.com/dict_new/dict.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;接受:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;to accept; to take; to embrace; to adopt; to bow to&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Examples:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他已經接受了我們的邀請。He has accepted our invitation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;山姆因為窮只得接受這份工作。Sam had to take the job because he was broke.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得到:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;to obtain; to receive; to acquire; to derive; to earn; to get; to gain&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Examples:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他們從政府那裡得到一筆貸款。They obtained a loan from the government.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;她應該得到此榮譽。She is worthy to receive such honor.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;接受 is passive, such as when you accept gifts or accept a situation. 得到 is for when you actively seek out or ask, and as a result, you received. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2016-04-11T19:42:21.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17675" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17791" CreationDate="2016-04-12T01:16:04.007" Score="1" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;On NYC's death certificate, there is this sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The department of Health and Mental Hygiene does not certify to the&#xA;  truth of the statements made thereon, as no inquiry as to the facts&#xA;  has been provided by law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to translate it into Chinese: 鉴于没有法务部门作出特殊要求，卫生局不对以上陈述的真实性负责。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a little inaccurate, but I can't think of any better translation that would make sense in Chinese. Any suggestion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11311" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2016-04-12T04:52:59.267" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T10:30:15.273" Title="NYC's death certificate: &quot;as no inquiry as to the facts has been provided by law.&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4993" CreationDate="2016-04-12T03:15:46.217" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would change upon different circumstances. When it's about a state of relationship, I would say amorous ambiguity, but when it's an adjective I would say it's blurred, ambiguous, or unclear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13190" LastActivityDate="2016-04-12T03:15:46.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17645" CreationDate="2016-04-12T09:03:05.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer 佳宁(佳寧), meaning &quot;nice and peaceful.&quot; Although this girl may be young and stubborn, the name you suggest sounds awful and should not be applied to a girl.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P.S. 尕 is a character used mainly in dialects. 拧 is used as a verb and never appears in people's names. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2016-04-12T09:03:05.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17678" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-12T09:08:09.243" Score="0" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know 寸 is a depiction of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a finger pointing at a wrist where one’s pulse was taken. The distance&#xA;  between a hand and that point is small, so this portion signified a&#xA;  little…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DOrvJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DOrvJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So IMHO 寸 has the double meaning of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to measure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to press&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some say 寸 has the additional meaning of &quot;something small&quot; (I personally doubt that, yet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 討 should mean 言(to talk) + 寸(to press) = to ask, to demand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&#xA;  1.討親  to marry a wife. &#xA;  2.討求  ask, beg, demand, (to press on with ones desires)&#xA;  3.討情  ask for leniency. &#xA;  4.討伐  to suppress rebels, to vindicate authority. &#xA;  5.討飯  beg for food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here we can see that &quot;to press&quot; and &quot;to ask&quot; are somewhat synonyms under the roof of 寸.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 討厭? I can't understand how &quot;to press/ask&quot; + &quot;dog eating meat in cave&quot; should form a meaning of &quot;to hate&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know the story behind that 討厭 word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T00:25:08.070" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T00:25:08.070" Title="Enigma of 討厭. Why does it mean &quot;to hate&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17678" CreationDate="2016-04-12T09:28:26.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;厭(厌) is a phono-semantic character. The &quot;dog&quot; part only indicate its pronunciation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In Old Chinese, this character means &quot;fulfilled&quot;. Then its meaning changed to &quot;become bored, dislike&quot;. So 討厭 literally means &quot;ask for + being disliked&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2016-04-12T09:28:26.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17670" CreationDate="2016-04-12T10:43:29.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;tl;dr&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zimbabwe / Zambia is translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;津巴布韦 / 赞比亚 (for China, Malaysia &amp;amp; Singapore)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;津巴布韋 / 贊比亞 (for Hong Kong &amp;amp; Macau)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;辛巴威 / 尚比亞 (for Taiwan)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;In General&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For such cases, my suggestion is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Visit the &lt;strong&gt;English&lt;/strong&gt; Wikipedia page of the topic (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zimbabwe&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zambia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Click 中文 under language to switch to &lt;strong&gt;Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; Wikipedia&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Choose the country specific page at the top of the page&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大陆简体 (Simplified Chinese, China)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;香港繁體 (Traditional Chinese, Hong Kong)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;澳門繁體 (Traditional Chinese, Macau)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;马新简体 (Simplified Chinese, Malaysia &amp;amp; Singapore)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;台灣正體 (Traditional Chinese, Taiwan)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get the corresponding wordings&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastActivityDate="2016-04-12T10:43:29.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17681" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17705" CreationDate="2016-04-12T13:03:12.930" Score="1" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I know that 不愁 means to &quot;not worry about&quot; but I'm trying to figure out its exact usage. In particular, I'm trying to figure out if the phrase after  不愁  is always negative? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I know we can say 不愁 找不到工作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you also say 不愁找工作？Or does that not make sense ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it 不愁没钱 or 不愁钱？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T16:19:10.140" Title="What comes after 不愁 is it negative or positive?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17682" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17688" CreationDate="2016-04-12T13:44:32.790" Score="4" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question for you all. I've seen sentences that are like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还是做一枚安静的吃货好了 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &#xA;我还是做一枚安静的美少女&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that this is a funny expression (used primarily online) Can I replace the final word with any noun? For example, could I say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还是做一枚安静的老外吧。? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T00:29:46.097" Title="How do you use - 我还是做一枚安静的N 吧" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9934" CreationDate="2016-04-12T16:01:00.717" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I have just consulted a dictionary, the earliest house in ancient China was just for fete or family meetings, and &quot;豕&quot; stands for wild boar, which was very rare sacrifice that time,,so it's ceremonious. And then the houses were used for living, the word &quot;家&quot; changed its meaning.&#xA;Hope this answer can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13194" LastActivityDate="2016-04-12T16:01:00.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17685" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-12T20:55:27.013" Score="2" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;差之毫厘，谬以千里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the overall meaning of this saying, but if I wanted to just be able to define 以 as it is used here, how could I do so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-01-28T11:41:13.223" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T11:41:13.223" Title="How to use 以 in Literary Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17685" CreationDate="2016-04-12T21:31:03.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;以 = as; using; taking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差之毫厘，谬以千里 = &lt;em&gt;to miss by a hair is as wrong as (to miss by a) thousand li&lt;/em&gt;, or more to the point: miss by a hair, but (still) be off a mile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-04-12T21:31:03.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17687" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21967" CreationDate="2016-04-13T02:19:24.060" Score="3" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a rule or a guideline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries dealing with MSM (Modern Standard Mandarin) would never include tone sandhi into their entries, as people are supposed to know the rules and apply them themselves. 你好 is always going to be &lt;code&gt;ni3 hao3&lt;/code&gt;; many topolectical dictionaries, though, do not expect the reader to know the rules of tone sandhi, 你好 would become &lt;code&gt;ni2 hao3&lt;/code&gt;, for instance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any rules or guidelines regarding whether or not to implement tone sandhi rules in topolectical dictionaries?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: some topolectical dictionaries will also include original tone to sandhi marks, e.g.: &lt;code&gt;ni3-2 hao3&lt;/code&gt;. I'm not sure if there is a preferred standard when dealing with dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2016-04-14T04:39:15.923" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T10:50:00.597" Title="Rule: tone sandhi in topolectical dictionaries" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17682" CreationDate="2016-04-13T05:29:43.610" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its a funny way of describing &quot;I'll remain a spectator and not get involved in the matter&quot;, because &quot;I'll never reach that level&quot; or &quot;I'll never do such a thing/achieve such a result&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can definitely say &quot;我还是做一枚安静的老外吧。&quot; or replace it with any other nouns, but it depends on what the situation is. For example, if you see a Chinese guy doing something that you'll be never able to do, you can say &quot;我还是做一枚安静的老外吧。&quot; meaning you are amazed by the situation and will remain a foreigner and not try to achieve what he did...It's just a funny way of saying things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all comes from this saying &quot;我只想做个安静的美男子(I only want to be a silent/low profile handsome guy&quot; if you want to look more into it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2017-05-26T00:29:46.097" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T00:29:46.097" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17685" CreationDate="2016-04-13T06:56:20.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;well,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would suggest &quot;thereby&quot;, &quot;therefore&quot;, or &quot;because of&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have a look:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%BB%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=以&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-04-13T06:56:20.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17668" CreationDate="2016-04-13T07:18:11.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a reference in traditional Chinese, you may consider the book &quot;經詞衍釋&quot;, ISBN: 7101041639. It explains nearly all particles in literary Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, try the site &quot;Multi-function Chinese Character Database&quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-07-17T10:42:33.660" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T10:42:33.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17692" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-13T07:39:53.023" Score="3" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that &quot;生态环境观&quot; refers to ecology and that &quot;生态伦理观&quot; refers to environmental ethics. Can anybody confirm this or correct me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13056" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T14:36:51.677" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T14:36:51.677" Title="What's the difference between 生态环境观 and 生态伦理观？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17557" CreationDate="2016-04-13T08:27:28.090" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both representations (&lt;code&gt;八万一千零一十六&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;八万一千零十六&lt;/code&gt;) are correct, while &lt;code&gt;八万一千零一十六&lt;/code&gt; sounds more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Rule&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule is actually very simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Use &lt;code&gt;十…&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;一十…&lt;/code&gt; at the very beginning of the number. Otherwise, just keep the &lt;code&gt;一十&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 = 一&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  11 = &lt;code&gt;十&lt;/code&gt;一&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  310 = 三百&lt;code&gt;一十&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3010 = 三千零&lt;code&gt;一十&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3310 = 三千三百&lt;code&gt;一十&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  30010 = 三万零&lt;code&gt;一十&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  100010 = &lt;code&gt;十&lt;/code&gt;万零&lt;code&gt;一十&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  30100010 = 三千零&lt;code&gt;一十&lt;/code&gt;万零&lt;code&gt;一十&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tools&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use online tools to do the conversion. &lt;strong&gt;Input Arabic numbers, and get Chinese output.&lt;/strong&gt; Both tools can handle negative value &amp;amp; decimal places. It is suggested to compare the result from both tools if using for formal usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mandarintools.com/numbers.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mandatintools.com&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; - Variety of output styles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Traditional Chinese - &lt;code&gt;81016 = 八萬一千零一十六&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Simplified Chinese - &lt;code&gt;81016 = 八万一千零一十六&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Traditional Chinese (formal) - &lt;code&gt;81016 = 捌萬壹仟零壹拾陸&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Simplified Chinese (formal) - &lt;code&gt;81016 = 捌万壹仟零壹拾陆&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pinyin - &lt;code&gt;81016 = ba1 wan4 yi1 qian1 ling2 yi1 shi2 liu4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;All translations are perfectly correct and natural, except:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The character &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; is not necessary for those beginning with &lt;code&gt;一十...&lt;/code&gt; (e.g. &lt;code&gt;一十二萬零五&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;一十億&lt;/code&gt;). It is still correct, but unnatural.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesenumbers/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinesetools.eu&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; - Variety of input types (Numbers, Dates, Years, Time, Money, Fractions, Decimals, Percents). Only one output style:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Simplified Chinese with Pinyin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;120101 = 十二万〇一百〇一 shíèr wàn/mò líng yībǎi líng yī&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;All translations are perfectly correct and natural, except:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I cannot understand why &lt;code&gt;万&lt;/code&gt; has a pinyin of &lt;code&gt;mò&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The dollar character should be &lt;code&gt;块&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;快&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastEditorUserId="3511" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T06:41:35.437" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T06:41:35.437" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17697" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17698" CreationDate="2016-04-13T13:27:42.270" Score="3" ViewCount="442" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that 炒冷饭 means to rehash a dead conversation. But is this still used in conversation? For example, could I say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你别再炒冷饭！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm scared this expression is a bit old and is not used anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="2600" LastEditDate="2016-04-13T22:04:07.657" LastActivityDate="2016-04-13T22:04:07.657" Title="Do people still use 炒冷饭？" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17697" CreationDate="2016-04-13T13:46:56.407" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's still used and a common phrase, which is used to express that an event or object does not contain something new/creative (a bit more than just rehash a dead conversation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can search using the keyword &quot;炒冷饭 没有新意&quot; to find the use of this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12770" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-13T15:17:27.387" LastActivityDate="2016-04-13T15:17:27.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17692" CreationDate="2016-04-13T19:45:15.663" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They aren't equal, and we won't say these things since it's so strange, and what actually do you mean?&#xA;Ecology should be 生態學，while environmental ethics is same as your original answer 生態倫理觀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13208" LastEditorUserId="13208" LastEditDate="2016-04-14T08:33:35.240" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T08:33:35.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17701" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36515" CreationDate="2016-04-13T20:15:41.843" Score="4" ViewCount="76101" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My first question here, sorry if it's not a good fit.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am tracking a parcel in Chinese, but I do not know what 已出口直封 means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that 广州互换局 means Guangzhou exchange bureau/office, and 已出口开拆 means that the parcel has been opened by customs, but I don't know the other part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2016-04-10 13:03 广州互换局, &lt;strong&gt;已出口直封&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2016-04-10 09:13 广州互换局, 已出口开拆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have checked Google Translate, but it just says &lt;code&gt;straight seal&lt;/code&gt;, which is meaningless to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated.net also says &lt;code&gt;We have been exported straight seal&lt;/code&gt;. I have no idea what this means though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13209" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T09:21:05.840" Title="What does 已出口直封 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17701" CreationDate="2016-04-14T00:41:09.357" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess this should mean the inspection was successful and your package is directly(直)  (re)packaged(封)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://community.ebay.cn/thread-1200132963-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://community.ebay.cn/thread-1200132963-1-1.html&lt;/a&gt; (this is the most helpful page I have found)&#xA;A translation is &quot;departure from outward office of exchange&quot;. A Chinese explanation is &quot;这表示包裹己经顺利的通过海关检查,重新打包好,交给航空公司,等待航班飞走&quot;, it means &quot;this indicates the package passed the inspection by custom and had been repackaged, sent to airline and waiting the plane to fly&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12770" LastEditorUserId="12770" LastEditDate="2016-04-14T14:46:10.560" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T14:46:10.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17097" CreationDate="2016-04-14T01:00:53.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the closest I could find, not sure if its the actual chengyu tested. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wenku1.com/view/F0CBDA049210A058.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;2015年《中国成语大会》海选题库文件&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T01:00:53.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17539" CreationDate="2016-04-14T01:16:29.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;元投资&quot; = &quot;Metadata investment&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think &quot;Metadata investment&quot; is clear to people with English speaking background too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example the sentence you've used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;making a smart investment based on (knowledge from) metadata&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; is not equivalent to simply as &quot;元数据投资&quot; or &quot;元投资&quot;, its actually &quot;making 投资(investment) based on 元数据(metadata)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or the full sentence should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;利用(using)元数据(metadata)去做(to do)有效的(smart)投资(investment)&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the above sentence will make it way clearer to what you are trying to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T01:16:29.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17681" CreationDate="2016-04-14T01:54:42.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;不愁 basically means &quot;not worried&quot;, to answer your question, I think you are looking at it the wrong way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, I think the confusion is between the using of &quot;不&quot; and &quot;没&quot;, you are thinking that by adding the word &quot;不&quot; or &quot;没&quot;, the sentence becomes negative. But it all based on the context you are using it in. Lets compare the examples you provided:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不愁找不到工作&lt;/strong&gt; vs &lt;strong&gt;不愁找工作&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不愁找不到工作(Not worried about not finding a job)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不愁找工作(Not worried about job searching/job hunthing)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two sentences may translate into different meanings, but it all comes down to the same general idea, &lt;strong&gt;that is &quot;Not worried, I can find a job(or maybe I don't need a job)&quot;. And that is why the sentences basically means the same thing.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不愁没钱&lt;/strong&gt; vs &lt;strong&gt;不愁钱&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不愁没钱(Not worried about not having money)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不愁钱(Not worried about money)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two sentences also have the same general idea &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Not worried, I have money/I don't need money)&quot;, so they mean the same thing too.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So theres no negative or positive words that you need to follow with &quot;不愁&quot;, but instead it all based on the context. For example, if you are paying for someone and they are reluctant for you to do so, you could say &quot;啊呀，不愁钱(lets not worry about money)&quot; instead of &quot;啊呀，不愁没钱(lets not worry about not having money)&quot; as it is abit more informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this all might seems confusing, but 加油，咱不愁，会越来越好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T01:54:42.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17706" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-14T10:48:13.223" Score="1" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember my teacher giving an official name for words that are not a part of syntax analysis or not being considered in syntax analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;如果把义放在后而把利摆在前 &quot;If you put justice last and put profit first&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a syntax analysis what would you call 如果?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12207" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-08-12T02:03:26.520" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T02:43:14.030" Title="Chinese grammar: type of word that is not a part of syntax analysis" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17708" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17709" CreationDate="2016-04-14T14:27:29.770" Score="4" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I just learned this grammar.  For example, I know that we can say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个商店的价格从五十元到五千元不等。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, I thought I could also say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个商店的价格从五十元到五千元。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 不等 add to the sentence? Does it slightly change the meaning? Does it make it more colloquial? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2016-04-15T18:24:45.663" Title="What does &quot;不等“ add in 从A到B不等?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17708" CreationDate="2016-04-14T14:54:04.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may understand &lt;code&gt;等 = 同&lt;/code&gt; (that's we say &lt;code&gt;等同&lt;/code&gt; when two things equal each other). Therefore &lt;code&gt;不等&lt;/code&gt; here works as an adverb meaning &lt;code&gt;不同 (differently)&lt;/code&gt;. Overall it's saying the price changes from &lt;code&gt;五十元&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;五千元&lt;/code&gt; with various amounts in between. It doesn't change the meaning but adds certain emphasis. On the contrary, it makes it sound more official, not colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--edit--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note we don't say &lt;code&gt;从A到B不同&lt;/code&gt; in a natural way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13218" LastEditorUserId="13218" LastEditDate="2016-04-14T15:07:22.530" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T15:07:22.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17708" CreationDate="2016-04-14T15:57:57.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;不等 is not 不等于 。此处表示的是一个范围。&#xA;价格50到5000不等 ，等价于range（50，5000）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13220" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T15:57:57.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17712" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-15T05:30:23.393" Score="1" ViewCount="835" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a list of common Chinese first names? There are some lists containing top 100 names but it is quite insufficient as it covers only 15% of total population. I need a comprehensive list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(哪里可以找到中国最常用的1000个名字？有一些排名列出了最常用的100个，但是它不够充分，因为它仅覆盖15％的总人口。我需要一个完整列表。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13224" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2016-04-15T06:16:13.003" LastActivityDate="2016-04-15T06:23:27.827" Title="Mandarin Chinese Most Frequent 1000 First Names (中国最常用的1000个名字)" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17520" CreationDate="2016-04-15T06:02:03.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;about the usage of 以﹒為﹒, have a look of &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/search.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;國語辭典&lt;/a&gt; (in traditional chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the basic is 以 a 為 b (^以.為), e.g.: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000150743&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;以退為進&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly: by means of (以) retreat (退), for the purpose of (為) promotion (進).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-04-15T08:11:33.653" LastActivityDate="2016-04-15T08:11:33.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17712" CreationDate="2016-04-15T06:23:27.827" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there's an official account for the top 1000 most used first names. But here is an interesting statistic I've found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In this image, it says the top 10 most used first names are:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英(ying)，华(hua)，玉(yu)，秀(xiu)，文(wen)，明(ming)，兰(lan)，金(jin)，国(guo)，春(chun). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think its pretty accurate tbh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/29NKS.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/29NKS.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2016-04-15T06:23:27.827" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17715" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17792" CreationDate="2016-04-15T15:40:44.803" Score="3" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to The Infallible Wikipedia, most modern Chinese poetry (新诗) is metrically free and unrhymed, sometimes hard to distinguish from a short essay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are rhyme or tonal schemes along the lines of Regulated Verse ever used in poetry written in modern Mandarin, or is it relegated to Classical Chinese poetry?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12868" LastActivityDate="2016-05-22T23:38:28.107" Title="Is Regulated Verse Used In Modern-Language Poetry?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17708" CreationDate="2016-04-15T18:24:45.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say the meaning is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'从 ... 到 ...' is a phrase to describe a range, while '不等' means 'diverging'. Putting '不等' at the end will to some extent emphasize the meaning of 'diverging within a range' and you can take it as an echo for the phrase which makes the sentence more complete and sounds better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12962" LastActivityDate="2016-04-15T18:24:45.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17678" CreationDate="2016-04-15T22:23:15.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jiagumima.com/html/jiaguwenzidian_4800.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; says it all. My rough translation, and really my understanding, of this source is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厭 is from 猒 (same pronunciation). In 猒, what looks to me like 日 and 月 is actually a big mouth, and sharp teeth. The dog (犬) signifies hunting. So, you hunt large beasts, and you become disgusted (sick of) eating so much meat. Over time, a cliff  厂 is added, as it's a common hunting ground. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, years later, the meaning expands to include &quot;dislike due to having too much of something&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Onto 討. This &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E8%A8%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;site&lt;/a&gt; provides etymology explanations, as well as definition. Or check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=837&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;, where you see that in its verb form, it more or less means &quot;to bring upon oneself&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2016-04-15T22:23:15.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17718" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-16T09:38:49.080" Score="1" ViewCount="333" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if I should put 跟 before 在 or the other way round. For example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我跟朋友（一起）在饭馆吃饭&#xA;or&#xA;我在饭馆跟朋友（一起）吃饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I use both, but the meaning is slightly different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12794" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-17T14:38:46.573" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T03:05:42.493" Title="Word order in a sentence with 跟 and 在" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17718" CreationDate="2016-04-16T10:04:24.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;跟:with (who)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跟朋友 with friends &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跟家人 with family&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在 : in (where)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在饭馆 in the restaurant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The order of 跟朋友 and 在飯館 is not important in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6647" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T10:04:24.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17718" CreationDate="2016-04-16T10:31:06.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lets just simply translate this into English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跟: with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我跟朋友（一起）在饭馆吃饭: I'm here with friends in the restaurant eating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在饭馆跟朋友（一起）吃饭: I'm in the restaurant eating with friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the answer is, both are correct grammatically, both means the same, depends on which one you like to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T10:31:06.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17721" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17724" CreationDate="2016-04-16T17:08:30.980" Score="1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;While looking for the correct pronunciation of 站 (zhàn / zhan4), I've come across several different recordings in online dictionaries, Forvo, wiktionary, and Google Translate, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it's pronounced as &quot;dshan&quot; (the &quot;a&quot; like in &quot;angry&quot; or the German umlaut &quot;ä&quot; / IPA -æn) and sometimes as &quot;dshuhn&quot; (like &quot;un&quot; / IPA -ʌn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a regional difference? What is the &quot;standard pronunciation&quot; as you would expect to hear it in TV news etc. in mainland China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13168" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-17T07:00:16.470" LastActivityDate="2016-04-17T07:00:16.470" Title="Pronunciation of 站" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17701" CreationDate="2016-04-16T18:10:01.843" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/328602946847012725.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu Zhidao&lt;/a&gt;, I think the most important point is that the package had not ever been &lt;strong&gt;unwrapped&lt;/strong&gt; and sent out to your destination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese explanation: &quot;总包在国内已经出口国外之前已经封好，直接邮寄到当地国家，称为直封。也就是说从中国至目地国家的包裹，&lt;strong&gt;没有拆开过邮袋&lt;/strong&gt;，到了目地国家才拆开，再由目地国家按地区分开，在按地区装袋封发，进行邮寄配送。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13231" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T18:10:01.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17721" CreationDate="2016-04-16T18:17:02.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;according to 國語辭典, it's zhàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000007820&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000007820&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, in 漢語多功能字庫, there're 2 pronunciations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%AB%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=站&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T18:17:02.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17721" CreationDate="2016-04-16T18:21:30.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Standard mandarin pronunciation is [an] (”un” for Americans). Regional speech is [æn], preferably in Sichuan and some southern areas, more so for finals like -uan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T18:21:30.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17725" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17726" CreationDate="2016-04-16T20:11:08.243" Score="4" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure why this question has not been posted yet (I might have overlooked), but is it possible to communicate with native Chinese people even if you don't change its tones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I only memorize Chinese words by pinyin just to be able to type in the keyboard, like &lt;code&gt;wo&lt;/code&gt;, not &lt;code&gt;wǒ&lt;/code&gt;. And thus I want to speak all the sentence as if all the words consist of the same tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I just wonder if it is possible to make myself understood in oral communication even if I only use the same tone (or first tone). Does Chinese people understand it, or are they not able to understand it if it is not pronounced properly? Or more concretely, how much can I make a communication (e.g. 70%, 30%, etc...)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T15:30:14.823" Title="Can I communicate without changing tones?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17725" CreationDate="2016-04-17T02:15:21.383" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been also curious about this and I think this could easily be a research topic. Chinese people often happen to understand me even when my tones are flat, and I highlight that they understand me a lot less when my tones are wrong.&#xA;Of course this depends a lot on the context, and on the sentence. In a known context and with basic (high frequency) words tones are not that important (I would agree with @NS.X, 80/90%). The speech could sound weird to Chinese people but they can understand. Take also into account that they are used to a wide variety of accents from all China.&#xA;But, &lt;strong&gt;the grammar and the set phrase is better to be perfect&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If conditions are not so particular, tones are important as grammar and words, so recognition percentage could easily fall below 50% of the sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to add that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sometimes I noticed for some words Chinese people have difficulty to remember which tone it is. For them is natural to put that tone on that sentence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When they wisper, or better, when they speak crying (you can see sometimes in the movies) tones almost disappear.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About your study I can say tones are really important, you have to study them and try to learn, but I also say you that I memorized most of them just hearing and using them. You will end up repeating a sentence in your head and saying &quot;&lt;em&gt;Ok, wo is third tone&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4031" LastActivityDate="2016-04-17T02:15:21.383" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17727" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17728" CreationDate="2016-04-17T07:03:16.237" Score="3" ViewCount="595" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/she&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;She&lt;/a&gt; in English (as this is the main language of the site) sometimes has the following function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Used in place of it to refer to certain inanimate things, such as ships and nations, traditionally perceived as female:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a line from &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=gPT25R8m_nJe6raOCXWft2G1zKFy779oUrBTCjBf_e4tSeKyCUHSI2KAFPaXD_TENvE63IsTMvA_dQ7sLnXAA_&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天下四川人&lt;/a&gt; by 陈世松 that is in the '99 pressing that I have (with emphasis being my own):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这一人口数量j仅有寥寥可数的几个国家可以匹敌，让你无时无刻不感受到&lt;strong&gt;她&lt;/strong&gt;的存在价值。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have yet to come across this type of using of 她 in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does &amp;quot;she&amp;quot; (她) work for inanimate objects in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If so, how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyone seems to disagree but here are some examples from dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Guifan&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 代 称值得自己尊重和珍爱的事物&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爱祖国, 她永远连着我的心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 {formal} she (as a reference to one's country, party, flag, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hanyu Da Cidian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 指可敬、可爱的事物, 往往用“她”字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蒋光慈 《月夜的一瞬》诗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;月儿如玉盘一般的圆, 她的美丽的清光, 神秘的笑脸, 引得我起了无名的幻想。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何其芳 《听歌》诗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我听见了迷人的歌声, 它那样快活, 那样年轻, 就象我们年轻的共和国, 在歌唱她的不朽的青春。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Liang'an&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 稱代自己敬愛或懷念的事物。如故鄉、母校等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T13:18:39.770" Title="&quot;She&quot; (她) for inanimate objects in Chinese(?)" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17727" CreationDate="2016-04-17T07:29:57.860" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, referring to ships and nations as female is an English thing. If you see that being done in Chinese, the writer must be under too much English influence. By the way, if I remember correctly, ships and nations are fererred to as male in Russian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Edit&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe you can find a lot of examples that use &quot;她&quot; to refer to various things, but still it's not common practice. In fact, using &quot;她&quot; to mean &quot;she&quot; was not introduced into Chinese until very recently, just a little more than a centuary or so, when Chinese people started to get familiar with western culture. Today most Chinese people are quite comfortable with this character for referring a female person, but the infiltration is not complete:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you would still encounter people (especially elder ones) who use &quot;他&quot; to refer to both male and female people; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;while there are &quot;她&quot; and &quot;妳&quot;, the character &quot;您&quot; still doesn't have a female counterpart;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it is used for referring to a female person, not an object, in most cases;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;她&quot; and &quot;他&quot; are pronounced exactly the same, so are &quot;妳&quot; and &quot;你&quot;, so the distinction doesn't exist in oral Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, this really is a cultural matter. When an American says &quot;my country&quot; I believe he/she must have a motherly figure in mind, but to most Chinese people, the word &quot;祖國&quot; just doesn't give them the same feeling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13233" LastEditorUserId="13233" LastEditDate="2016-04-17T09:57:07.097" LastActivityDate="2016-04-17T09:57:07.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17727" CreationDate="2016-04-17T13:17:28.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q1: Does &quot;she&quot; (她) work for inanimate objects in Chinese?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes it does. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q2: If so, how?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How it is used is based on your affect, so no regulation is actually given. But here is a few tips i can think off. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She（她） is used when something is beautiful, memorable to you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He（他） is used when something is mighty to you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If neither, then use it(它). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12489" LastActivityDate="2016-04-17T13:17:28.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17733" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-17T23:52:09.267" Score="1" ViewCount="1584" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm starting to learn Cantonese and I'm not sure where to start. Is it best to start with learning to write/read or learning to speak?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13239" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-25T12:17:34.880" LastActivityDate="2016-04-25T12:18:14.770" Title="Beginner learning Cantonese: Start with reading/writing or with speaking?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17733" CreationDate="2016-04-18T02:59:39.593" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jave a look of these free materials:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/cantonese.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/cantonese.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just curious, may I ask the purpose of learning? Lastly, beware of the tones, there are nine :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-25T12:18:14.770" LastActivityDate="2016-04-25T12:18:14.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17718" CreationDate="2016-04-18T03:00:59.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are ok. But there are slightly difference(and the difference is really very small so you can use any of them as you like in daily life).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我跟朋友（一起）在饭馆吃饭: you emphasize that you are with friends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在饭馆跟朋友（一起）吃饭: you emphasize that the action &quot;吃饭&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13241" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T03:00:59.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17718" CreationDate="2016-04-18T03:05:42.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In daily use, both are ok and nobody will tell the differents, I think. But  in grammar the first sentence emphasized in &quot;whom you have meal with&quot;, while the second sentence emphasized in&quot;the location in which you have meal&quot;, this kind of emphasis is very very lightly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13242" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T03:05:42.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13664" CreationDate="2016-04-18T03:31:35.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;for chinese-chinese dictionary, the 國語辭典 (from taiwan, in traditional chinese) is second to none:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/search.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/search.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the best is that, together with &quot;國語辭典簡編本&quot;, &quot;國語小字典&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;成語典&quot;; you may download them here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.publicense.moe.edu.tw/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://resources.publicense.moe.edu.tw/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you know unix commands, it's an easy job to modify the source files to a plain text file, or database, and save in your computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another one, as essence as 國語辭典, is the 漢語多功能字庫 (from hong kong, in traditional chinese, with chinese/english interface):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the description is:&#xA;Multi-function Chinese Character Database:&#xA;With Archaic Script Forms,&#xA;Etymologies,&#xA;English-Chinese Lookup,&#xA;&amp;amp; Word-formations Phonologically Disambiguated&#xA;According to the Cantonese Dialect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, the internet archive has the famous 康熙字典 (from 四庫全書, version for emperor 乾隆)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/search.php?query=%E5%BE%A1%E5%AE%9A%E5%BA%B7%E7%86%99%E5%AD%97%E5%85%B8&amp;amp;and[]=subject%3A%22%E5%9B%9B%E5%BA%AB%E5%85%A8%E6%9B%B8%E8%96%88%E8%A6%81%22&amp;amp;and[]=creator%3A%22%EF%BC%88%E6%B8%85%EF%BC%89%E5%BA%B7%E7%86%99%E8%81%96%E7%A5%96%E4%BB%81%E7%9A%87%E5%B8%9D%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/search.php?query=御定康熙字典&amp;amp;and[]=subject%3A%22四庫全書薈要%22&amp;amp;and[]=creator%3A%22（清）康熙聖祖仁皇帝%22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;need any more ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T03:31:35.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12874" CreationDate="2016-04-18T09:13:08.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;勿 (U+52FF) is a chinese character since oracle bone script; it's a common character in literary chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%8B%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=勿&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cantonese preserve more pronunciations of ancient chinese language; and some characters are still used in cantonese nowadays, while other pronunciation system evolves to used other characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some common usages of 勿 in literary chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000088455&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;己所不欲，勿施於人&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000101032&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;潛龍勿用&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;didn't one learn from confucius:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子曰﹒非禮勿視﹒非禮勿聽﹒非禮勿言﹒非禮勿動 :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T09:13:08.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17733" CreationDate="2016-04-18T11:33:30.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what you're trying to achieve. But Cantonese is used more often in speech than in writing: Most written materials in Cantonese-speaking areas still use Putonghua / Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you commented that you want to learn it mostly to understand speeches in a church, I'd recommend learning to speak first. Learning the characters can be difficult, especially if you don't already read Chinese. You can stick with writing the words down phonetically at the start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most learning material about Cantonese will use characters, but I know that there are some &quot;business Cantonese&quot; type books that use phonetic script only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T11:33:30.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17741" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17742" CreationDate="2016-04-18T14:41:20.863" Score="0" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, what's the difference between 那边儿 and 那边? When writing in Chinese do I need the 儿 because I've heard people say both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12525" LastActivityDate="2016-04-21T12:34:10.743" Title="Would it be incorrect to not include 儿 here?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17741" CreationDate="2016-04-18T16:01:57.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;儿 is Pekingese (beijing dialect), like &quot;lah&quot; in singlish (singapore english).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_dialect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_dialect&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish#Lah&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish#Lah&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in general, you don't need to write it; unless you want to impress readers that it's pekingese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T16:01:57.390" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17733" CreationDate="2016-04-19T01:31:09.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning to speak will not give you any bad habits that would later interfere with learning to read.  But if you first learn to read, then you will use your own ways to hear the words in your mind, and it will be wrong (it will sound like your English).  You will then have a lot of work to do overcoming those habits before anyone can understand you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In today's world of digital resources it is easy to find resources for good speech and hearing, and you should use them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T01:31:09.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17240" CreationDate="2016-04-19T01:47:49.610" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;from upper left to bottom right. first one is富, second one is 贵, 3-己丑, not sure? 4-寿, 5-福&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13253" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T01:47:49.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17240" CreationDate="2016-04-19T09:14:43.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The left two should be 壽富, from top to down. The right ones, from top to down again, are likely to be 富貴X. I am sure about the last character, 屋?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T09:14:43.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17725" CreationDate="2016-04-19T10:50:28.020" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think so. Try this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮。施氏时时适市视狮。&#xA;十时，适十狮市。是时，适施氏适是市。施氏视十狮，恃矢势，使是十狮逝世。氏拾是十狮尸，适石室。&#xA;石室湿，施氏使侍拭石室。石室拭，施氏始试食十狮尸。食时，始识十狮实十石狮尸。试释是事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T10:50:28.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17749" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17751" CreationDate="2016-04-19T12:57:56.347" Score="5" ViewCount="679" Body="&lt;p&gt;I originally just wanted to ask something about 廿 (20). But as I searched on the internet I found 卅(30) and 卌(40) as well, and I have to admit that I didn't know these two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 廿 is pronounced as &quot;ye&quot; or &quot;yia&quot; in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q1: Which one is correct (I myself pronounce it as &quot;yia&quot;).&#xA;Q2: If it's &quot;yia&quot;, is it a two-syllable word? Any other examples of two-syllable word in Chinese?&#xA;Q3: How to pronounce 卅卌 in Cantonese?&#xA;Q4: How to pronounce 廿卅卌 in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most Cantonese speakers will pronounce 卅 as something like &quot;sa-a&quot; and 卌 like &quot;se-a&quot;. But I think that's not the formal pronunciations of these words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastEditorUserId="9326" LastEditDate="2016-04-19T14:09:05.350" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T16:54:07.607" Title="How to pronounce 廿卅卌 in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17749" CreationDate="2016-04-19T14:54:31.257" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Their pronunciations (both Cantonese and Madarin) can be found on Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8D%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;廿 niàn&lt;/a&gt; 卅 sà 卌 xì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These three words can be found in poems, but are rarely used in mandar today, usually we use &quot;二十/三十/四十&quot; to represent twenty/thirty/forty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be specific:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;廿 is wildly used in some &lt;strong&gt;dialects&lt;/strong&gt; (as far as I know in Zhejiang Province): we use &quot;廿二&quot; for 22.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卅: is used in &quot;五卅&quot; movement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卌： I have never seen any usage for this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13258" LastEditorUserId="13258" LastEditDate="2016-04-19T15:35:49.067" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T15:35:49.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17749" CreationDate="2016-04-19T15:48:58.227" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most Cantonese speakers I know, 廿 is still a colloquial item of vocabulary, replaced with 二十 in usual formal writing; but 廿 remains a very common alternative, for counting as well as enumerating. According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1871/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CantoDict&lt;/a&gt;, the pronunciation &quot;a&quot; is the most common. This is verified in my experience; the variant with &quot;e&quot; I've not heard this before myself, but I suppose it is possible. (What is written as -ia becoming -ie is something I've heard before). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has always been perceived as a one-syllable word, with one tone (the 陽去 tone, realised as low and level in standard Cantonese, and noted as 6th tone in Yale and Jyutping). True &quot;polysyllabic&quot; characters do exist in Chinese, but 廿 is not traditionally one of them. The most well known is 囍, but there are &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters#Polysyllabic_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;more&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Standard Cantonese, 卅 is &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/7674/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;saa1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, whilst 卌 is &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8392/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sei3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; (note 卌 is pronounced the same as 四 when alone). These are somewhat more common in Cantonese than in Mandarin; 卅 is used in colloquial speech referring to the 30th of the lunar month in the traditional calendar, especially in reference to the last day of the year, [Lunar] New Year's Eve, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/47005/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;年卅晚&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciations 卅呀 &lt;em&gt;saa1-aa6&lt;/em&gt; and 卌呀 &lt;em&gt;sei3-aa6&lt;/em&gt; have been written with 呀 on the end in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/49248/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CantoDict&lt;/a&gt; to represent that second lower syllable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, there are 廿 &lt;em&gt;niàn&lt;/em&gt;, 卅 &lt;em&gt;sà&lt;/em&gt; and 卌 &lt;em&gt;xì&lt;/em&gt; as very literary characters with restricted usage. 廿 is commonly seen in Chinese calendars, but not necessarily commonly pronounced as 廿 &lt;em&gt;niàn&lt;/em&gt;, so in Mandarin it could be considered a polysyllabic character. This however is not the traditional method of pronouncing it. MDBG.net gives a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?wdqb=c%3A%2A%E5%BB%BF%2A&amp;amp;wdrst=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;few more set expressions with 廿&lt;/a&gt;. 卌 is even rarer. But both these characters, along with 廿, have a long pedigree: 卌 is &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitib/frb/frb00272.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;present in the Guangyun&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among the topolects that use 卅 regularly apart from Cantonese, we also have the Min Nan group and the Wu group (including &lt;a href=&quot;http://wu-chinese.com/minidict/search.php?searchkey=%E5%8D%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shanghainese&lt;/a&gt;). 卌 is even rarer, and I don't know if it's used in Wu; but Cantonese and &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=1398&amp;amp;curpage=0&amp;amp;sample=0&amp;amp;radiobutton=0&amp;amp;querytarget=0&amp;amp;limit=0&amp;amp;pagenum=0&amp;amp;rowcount=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Min Nan&lt;/a&gt; attest to its existence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2407/are-there-more-special-numerals-like-%E5%BB%BF&quot;&gt;there's also&lt;/a&gt; 皕.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T16:28:45.447" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17752" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-19T16:36:32.370" Score="6" ViewCount="5707" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me the most difficult thing about learning Cantonese has been that there are very few learning materials for foreigners (and I assume even for Chinese people). And even the materials that exist are all only regarding basic conversational topics. There is basically no Cantonese literature at all.&#xA;When I learned French it was very helpful to be able to follow audiobooks of stories from writers like Voltaire. The closest thing is watching Hong Kong movies, but they speak quickly and the subtitles are in Mandarin not Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any Cantonese literature or audiobooks out there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A question for those Cantonese of you out there: Why does it seem that Cantonese people are so unwilling the write their own language? I understand that if you write Cantonese then other Chinese will not be able to understand, but so what? That sounds like their problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the Vietnamese we used to write everything in Classical Chinese (文言). Since then we've switched to writing in our own language. We like it and are not ashamed of it. I don't see why the Cantonese shouldn't do similarly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand why Cantonese are fiercely defensive of their language and at the same time refuse to write it down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11206" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2016-04-25T04:11:42.963" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T22:29:56.983" Title="Why don't Cantonese speakers write their own language?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="16" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17752" CreationDate="2016-04-19T17:11:29.907" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not really that Cantonese people are unwilling to write the language; It's simply because the language is very oral-oriented where many slangs are involves mainly for effectiveness purpose.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's similar to English when people use phase like &quot;What ya'll doing?&quot;, which you won't see on most learning material for English or CNN news.  In fact, written cantonese is commonly used in instant messaging tools, like what Mathaholic wrote in the comment.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some learning material from another post:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/FSI/fsi-cantonese.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/FSI/fsi-cantonese.html&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for being defensive of the language, it's because there are signs with chances of the language being...extinct.  Just imagine when you speak English and your next generations are only lectured in French, whereas in a 100 years no one will speak English on Earth.  It is a little exaggerating but it gives you an idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-09-29T16:48:31.190" LastActivityDate="2016-09-29T16:48:31.190" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17752" CreationDate="2016-04-19T19:10:52.913" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Awtho tradeetional Cantonaese haes been spaken fer a long tym, its spellin isna sae strict as in Mandarin, n aften hasna been teached at the schuil. Tradeeition haes it that the auld 文言文 was uised maist pairt in wrutten leid. Wrutten Cantonaese haes only been uised since the 20th yeirhunder, n resoorces aboot hou tae applee the leid in a conseestant mainer ar scairce. Wird order, dimeenuteeves n definit airtikils ar differin. Fer the maist pairt, thaim fowks that bruikit regional leid have haed no staudartised graimmar, leadin til mair speelin variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorDisplayName="user4452" LastEditDate="2016-04-19T19:35:53.283" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T19:35:53.283" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17741" CreationDate="2016-04-19T21:24:30.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well 儿 can appear in formal language. We Chinese speakers don't really care so much. Actually it can mean something different with or without 儿 in different contexts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13260" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T21:24:30.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17669" CreationDate="2016-04-19T21:35:28.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;得到 is receive, emphasize on the physical action of getting something. &#xA;接受 is more like accept, emphasize on the mental acceptance of something. It can be things related to moral, like 接受批评: I know I am wrong, and I accept the truth that I am wrong. However, 得到（或者 受到）批评 means: the action that I am being blamed by someone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13260" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T21:35:28.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17692" CreationDate="2016-04-20T01:59:51.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion,  &quot;生态环境观&quot; is more objective, it include ecological and environmental sciences. Whereas &quot;生态伦理观&quot; is &quot;生态环境观&quot; plus ethics. Specifically, &quot;生态伦理观&quot; is a branch of ethics, and is relative to the moral connection between human and nature, the research object is the moral connection between person and person affected by the relationship between human and nature, such as Good, evil, morality and immorality. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11798" LastActivityDate="2016-04-20T01:59:51.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20942" CreationDate="2016-04-20T03:04:55.770" Score="2" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a rule or a guideline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries dealing with MSM (Modern Standard Mandarin) would never morph erhua into the pinyin 头儿 would just simply be &lt;code&gt;tou&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;r&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;tour&lt;/code&gt;. Some topolectical dictionaries that I have seen actually combine the two (头儿) into a nice little: &lt;code&gt;ter&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any rules or guidelines regarding whether or not to combine erhua with pinyin in topolectical dictionaries?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T17:13:56.487" Title="Rule: erhua (儿化) in topolectical dictionaries" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17752" CreationDate="2016-04-20T03:17:02.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The modern written Chinese (白話文) is based on Mandarin, by the way of 我手寫我口 (I write what I say, 講乜寫乜).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine a dialog:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we'll go for shopping, then have buffet, will you join?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no, my iPhone is dead, but i don't have money for repair, what can i do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do we say actually in Cantonese (講乜), if I write it down (寫乜):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我哋一陣去 shopping, 然後食 buffet, 你嚟唔嚟?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唔去啦, 部 iPhone 瓜咗, 又冇錢整, 點算?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you accept the above 2 lines as &amp;quot;written Cantonese&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, is this an &amp;quot;English&amp;quot; sentence :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;माफ गनुस्, why we need to pay for this haute-costume, cui bono?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-04-25T11:53:19.367" CommentCount="17" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17760" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-20T21:24:08.023" Score="2" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm unsure whether the 中 in this phrase is to be in the first or fourth tone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃得苦中苦，方为人上人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what exactly does 方 mean in this saying?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you, &#xA;Rachel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T18:39:41.923" Title="Question about the use of 中 (first or fourth tone)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17760" CreationDate="2016-04-20T21:49:19.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's zhōng, according to 國語辭典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000120693&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000120693&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in cantonese, it jung1 (sydney lay scheme)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%B8%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=中&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sound file: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/zung1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/zung1.Mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方者﹒才也﹒始也; roughly &quot;only then&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-04-20T21:49:19.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17685" CreationDate="2016-04-21T03:11:12.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your example, the characters &quot;之&quot; and &quot;以&quot; are &quot;虛詞&quot; serving mostly structural purposes.  We can shorten it as &quot;差毫厘, 謬千里&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other meanings and usages of &quot;以&quot;.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;以卵擊石 - to &quot;take&quot; an egg and (attempt to) crush a rock&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;王往以眾 - the king went &quot;leading&quot; the crowd&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;以牛 - to &quot;give&quot; the cow (to someone)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;用兵五十人以上 - sending a troop with 50 ppls or above&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2016-04-21T03:11:12.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17768" CreationDate="2016-04-21T03:11:25.573" Score="5" ViewCount="2600" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked a similar question about Japanese &lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/30117/usage-of-spaces-in-japanese&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese names are sometimes stylized &lt;code&gt;last name + space + first name&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FfojO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FfojO.png&quot; alt=&quot;image&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the author's name 马骥 is stylized, &lt;code&gt;last name + space + first name&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;马 骥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hanyu Da Cidian likes to throw spaces around proper nouns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a screenshot from Pleco&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mmlBe.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mmlBe.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;something&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First and second spaces can been seen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清 李光庭 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(the second space is after 庭 and before《)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third and fourth spaces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;唐 李益 詩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any rules as to the usage of spaces in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:43:48.687" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T16:41:37.680" Title="Usage: Spaces in Chinese" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17752" CreationDate="2016-04-21T08:40:38.623" Score="15" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Why not write in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;written Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese speakers are not unwilling to write their own language. Nowadays, written Cantonese is often used in lyrics, instant messaging, social network, advertisements and billboards. It is also gaining public attention as the Government of China wants to ban it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yue Wikipedia site&lt;/a&gt; containing 40,000+ articles written in Cantonese. However, written Cantonese is almost always used only in informal writings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For formal writings, standard written Chinese is being used. It is taught in school to write in standard written Chinese (i.e. written Mandarin). It is because Mandarin was chosen as the basis for standard written Chinese as they had the largest number of speakers during the language reform. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No matter which dialect one spoke, one still wrote in standardised Mandarin for everyday writing. However, Cantonese is unique amongst the non-Mandarin varieties in having a widely used written form. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese#History&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard written Chinese is understood by speakers of all varieties of Chinese. Even so, there are some variations in vocabularies in different countries (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/17680/3511&quot;&gt;see example&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard written Chinese can be spoken in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(It is interesting to know that, historically, written Cantonese has been used in Hong Kong for legal proceedings in order to write down the exact spoken testimony of a witness, instead of paraphrasing spoken Cantonese into standard written Chinese.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Side reading: Language policy of Hong Kong&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The language policy of Hong Kong is  &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%A9%E6%96%87%E4%B8%89%E8%AA%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;兩文三語&lt;/a&gt; (Bi-literacy and Tri-lingualism), which includes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Written: Chinese &amp;amp; English&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Spoken: Cantonese, Mandarin &amp;amp; English&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard written Chinese is normally referred as &quot;Chinese&quot; (中文) or &quot;written Chinese&quot; (書面語) instead of &quot;Mandarin Chinese&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For spoken Chinese (口語), &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantonese&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yue Chinese&lt;/a&gt;, namely 廣東話 / 粵語) is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Hong_Kong#Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;de facto official spoken variety of Chinese&lt;/a&gt; in Hong Kong &amp;amp; Macau. It is influential in Guangdong province, and is widely spoken among overseas communities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (namely 普通話 / 國語 / 華語) is the official language of China &amp;amp; Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese#History&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Further reading&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Before the 20th century, the standard written language of China was Classical Chinese, which has grammar and vocabulary based on the Chinese used in ancient China, Old Chinese. However, while this written standard remained essentially static for over two thousand years, the actual spoken language diverged further and further away. Some writings based on local vernacular speech did exist but these were rare. &lt;strong&gt;In the early 20th century, Chinese reformers like Hu Shi saw the need for language reform and championed the development of a vernacular that allowed modern Chinese to write the language the same way they speak&lt;/strong&gt;. The vernacular language movement took hold, and the written language was standardised as Vernacular Chinese. &lt;strong&gt;Because they had the largest number of speakers, Mandarin was chosen as the basis for the new standard&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The standardisation and adoption of written Mandarin pre-empted the development and standardisation of vernaculars based on other varieties of Chinese. No matter which dialect one spoke, one still wrote in standardised Mandarin for everyday writing.&lt;/strong&gt; However, Cantonese is unique amongst the non-Mandarin varieties in having a widely used written form. Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong was a British colony isolated from mainland China, so most HK citizens do not speak Mandarin. &lt;strong&gt;Written Cantonese was developed as a means of informal communication. Still, Cantonese speakers must use standard written Chinese, or even literary Chinese, in most formal written communications, since written Cantonese may be unintelligible to speakers of other varieties of Chinese.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Historically, written Cantonese has been used in Hong Kong for legal proceedings in order to write down the exact spoken testimony of a witness, instead of paraphrasing spoken Cantonese into standard written Chinese. However, its popularity and usage has been rising in the last two decades, the late Wong Jim being one of the pioneers of its use as an effective written language. &lt;strong&gt;Written Cantonese has become quite popular in certain tabloids, online chat rooms, instant messaging, and even social networking websites&lt;/strong&gt;; this would be even more evident since the rise of Localism in Hong Kong from the 2010s, where the articles written by those Localists media are written in Cantonese. Although most foreign movies and TV shows are subtitled in Standard Chinese, some, such as The Simpsons, are subtitled using written Cantonese. Newspapers have the news section written in Standard Chinese, but they may have &lt;strong&gt;editorials or columns&lt;/strong&gt; that contain Cantonese discourses, and Cantonese characters are increasing in popularity on &lt;strong&gt;advertisements and billboards&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Written Cantonese advertising banner in Mainland China&#xA;  It has been stated that Written Cantonese remains limited outside Hong Kong, including other Cantonese-speaking areas in Guangdong Province; e.g., (Snow, 2004). However, colloquial Cantonese advertisements are sometimes seen in Guangdong, suggesting that written Cantonese is widely understood and is regarded favourably, at least in some contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some sources will use only colloquial Cantonese forms, resulting in text similar to natural speech. However, it is more common to use a mixture of colloquial forms and Standard Chinese forms, some of which are alien to natural speech. Thus the resulting &quot;hybrid&quot; text lies on a continuum between two norms: Standard Chinese, and colloquial Cantonese as spoken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ilc.cuhk.edu.hk/chinese/downloads/Cantonese_make_easy.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Some Cantonese Learning Resources&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese Basic Course: &lt;a href=&quot;https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/FSI/fsi-cantonese.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/FSI/fsi-cantonese.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;粵語審音配詞字庫&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《粵語音韻集成》電子版 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton2/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton2/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;粵語空中課堂 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chiculture.net/0604/html/b05/0604b05.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chiculture.net/0604/html/b05/0604b05.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;粵語網路課堂 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ilc.cuhk.edu.hk/Chinese/pthprog1/index_flash.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.ilc.cuhk.edu.hk/Chinese/pthprog1/index_flash.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;粵語學習中心 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.clc.com.hk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.clc.com.hk/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;俗語趣談 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rthk.org.hk/elearning/lautinchi/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.rthk.org.hk/elearning/lautinchi/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;妙趣廣州話 &lt;a href=&quot;http://ifiles.tvb.com/ifiles/fun/fun39.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ifiles.tvb.com/ifiles/fun/fun39.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;粵普字詞配對 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chiculture.net/0603/html/d03/0603d03.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chiculture.net/0603/html/d03/0603d03.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;樂在詞中 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dragonwise.hku.hk/dragonwise_main/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.dragonwise.hku.hk/dragonwise_main/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Other References&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingualism_in_Hong_Kong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingualism_in_Hong_Kong&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastEditorUserId="3511" LastEditDate="2019-02-11T04:19:20.263" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T04:19:20.263" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17763" CreationDate="2016-04-21T09:10:24.967" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;No space is needed when writing Chinese names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, spaces are added for better alignment only. To align 2-character and 3-character names, space may be added in between 2-character names. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;李　白&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  杜　甫&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  白居易&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  李　賀&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  陳子昂&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  王　勃&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  賀知章&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  王昌齡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastActivityDate="2016-04-21T09:10:24.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17741" CreationDate="2016-04-21T12:34:10.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;when you writing an essays or something like that, or in a informal communication(daily chat) you can use “儿” as you like ,but in some formal case, especially writing documents,you'd better not use it, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13243" LastActivityDate="2016-04-21T12:34:10.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17763" CreationDate="2016-04-21T14:07:46.110" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For prettify and easier to recognize at first glance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清 李光庭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;清&lt;/code&gt; means Qing dynasty, &lt;code&gt;李光庭&lt;/code&gt; is a name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;唐 李益 詩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;唐&lt;/code&gt; means Tang dynasty, &lt;code&gt;李益&lt;/code&gt; is a name and &lt;code&gt;詩&lt;/code&gt; means poetry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If no spaces between them, like &lt;code&gt;唐李益詩&lt;/code&gt; will looks like a man named &lt;code&gt;李益詩&lt;/code&gt; at Tang dynasty or even an idiom, because we can treat &lt;code&gt;益&lt;/code&gt; as a verb, &lt;code&gt;唐李&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;詩&lt;/code&gt; are nouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13275" LastActivityDate="2016-04-21T14:07:46.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3025" CreationDate="2016-04-21T18:54:00.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good way to write faster, apart from to &quot;practice, practice, and practice&quot;, is learning the order in which strokes are supposed to be written. This order tipically arises logically from the radicals that are used to build each character, and from the ancient traditional writing, e.g: engraving in wood or stone, and, mainly, using feathers or brushes &amp;amp; ink.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you write with a feather on thin sheets of rice paper, it is materially very hard to perform some movements without piercing through, such as a full circle, or a right-to-left horizontal line. That is one reason why most ideograms that should be circular in nature, are actually drawn as squares. This is the case, f. i., of the &quot;sun&quot;:  日 (rì). In writing so, boxes are drawn using two strokes: the left, top and right sides of the aquare in one single movement, and then closing the box at the bottom from left to right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some other unwritten rules, like writing from left to right, top-down, and adding the dots at the end. But watch out, since these rules do not work 100% of the times. In Chinese calligraphy, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_order&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stroke order&lt;/a&gt; is very unintuitive, because the lines are usually drawn in the less logical of orders, for reasons that only experienced calligraphers can explain (such as achieving more graceful manners, or avoiding blurring the ink at crossings). It is always a good idea to learn how to draw some complex characters of frequent use, such as 我 (wŏ). After a bit of practice with these, most other will come around quite naturally. This simple practice will greatly increase your handwriting speed.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/N308E.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/N308E.png&quot; alt=&quot;Wo by Arch Chinese&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyhow, calligraphy by itself is considered a rightful art in mainland China, so it is naturally hard to master. There are many abbreviations for the most common strokes, and also different calligraphies that may be used, outside of the canonical one. Many chinese brand designers seem to think that, the more unreadable the font, the more beautiful it looks when printed. Like it's the case in western calligraphy, usually the most unreadable of all, are the notes taken by professionals, who have to write the same text, over and over again, like medics and chemists. Studying their calligraphy will yield hints on how to optimize your writing speed, once you achieve some average level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a number of websites where beginners can learn the right stroke order, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archchinese.com/chinese_english_dictionary.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ArchChinese&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9801" LastActivityDate="2016-04-21T18:54:00.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17775" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17776" CreationDate="2016-04-22T00:52:50.923" Score="2" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to say that &quot;she will go eat after playing tennis with her friends&quot; but I want to know if there are better ways of saying this then the ones I'm about to show&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她和朋友打了网球，她去吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她跟朋友打网球以后，她去吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now these sentences sound really choppy to me. If it's better to keep a consistent subject, then I'm wondering if there's any way I can put &quot;with friends&quot; after the verb and not with the subject. For example, maybe something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她先打网球跟朋友，在去吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, any alternative ways of expression would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12525" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T05:43:52.947" Title="Best way to express a change of subjects in a succession of events" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17775" CreationDate="2016-04-22T01:08:04.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually the second one is quite natural. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她跟朋友打网球以后，她去吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is actually the most legit you can get for this case, otherwise you will have to alter the meaning of your sentence a bit. Like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她在网球场和朋友约好了， 然后再去吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means, she had a plan to go to tennis with her friends, and then dinner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12489" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T01:08:04.560" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3025" CreationDate="2016-04-22T03:30:33.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, make sure you are writing in the &lt;strong&gt;correct stroke sequence&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, just try to write faster, and &lt;strong&gt;don't care the strokes to be connected&lt;/strong&gt;. While, try to keep the connecting line as light as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters are understandable even if the strokes are connected as long as the stroke sequence is correct. The strokes in many Chinese handwriting computer fonts are connected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese handwriting in ball pen:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vdeFy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vdeFy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Chinese handwriting&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese handwriting computer font:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PXjmH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PXjmH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Chinese handwriting font&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T03:30:33.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21152" CreationDate="2016-04-22T03:38:30.663" Score="0" ViewCount="4370" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English term &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive-aggressive_behavior&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;passive aggressive&lt;/a&gt;&quot; is generally used to describe non-overt displays of aggression, such as resistance, poor attitude, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;posting silly workplace notices&lt;/a&gt; or other behaviours that indirectly express hostility to the target. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I was unable to find an idiomatic translation. Google returns a few answer sites (&lt;a href=&quot;https://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101123103322AAh29Rl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;a href=&quot;https://taiwanease.com/en/forums/how-does-one-say-passive-aggressive-in-chinese-t12218.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?f=40&amp;amp;t=85897&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;) which return examples that sound like machine translations, and which also sound partly like oxymorons due to their different connotations in Chinese. For example, &lt;code&gt;被动攻击&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;消极攻击&lt;/code&gt; were all given as examples, but they do not appear to make sense, and sound like machine translations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would one idiomatically translate the phrase into Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8054" LastActivityDate="2016-09-16T08:26:39.850" Title="Idiomatic translation of &quot;passive aggressive&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17779" CreationDate="2016-04-22T04:05:48.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 被动攻击 and 消极攻击 are the correct term. It sounds strange and machine like because it is so rarely used. I would say this is something related to psychology and it is one area that is just beginning to be explored or studied in the Chinese society.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coming from a Chinese background, I hear a lot of &quot;消极&quot; or &quot;被动&quot; describing a person, but I guess we only thought of it as a personality trait rather than a &quot;Passive aggressive&quot; behaviour. But I think as China is exploring in this area more and more, more people will come to know this term &quot;被动攻击/消极攻击&quot;, and it won't sound so machine like anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T04:05:48.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17779" CreationDate="2016-04-22T04:13:00.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;code&gt;被動攻擊&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;消極攻擊&lt;/code&gt; are both appropriate for passive aggressive. Because it looks like a proper noun in psychology, not a well-known noun in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13275" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T04:13:00.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17775" CreationDate="2016-04-22T05:43:52.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its best to use &quot;先...然后(first...and then)&quot; or &quot;之后(after)...再&quot; to describe a sequence of events one after another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她先跟朋友打网球，然后再去吃饭。(She's going to play tennis with friends first(先), (然后)then she will eat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她跟朋友打完网球之后，再去吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or even shorter...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她跟朋友打完网球，再去吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;notice the use of 打完, it means after she finishes tennis, instead of 打 which translate to after she plays tennis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your first and second sentence 她和朋友打了网球，她去吃饭 doesn't need &quot;她&quot; again on the second part, because you've already said it in the beginning. So you can just say 她和朋友打了网球, 再去吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your third sentence is very close, 她先打网球跟朋友，在去吃饭。Just abit of misspelling and rearrange the words so its 她先跟朋友打网球, 再去吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there are several ways of achieving what you want to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T05:43:52.947" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3025" CreationDate="2016-04-22T06:56:04.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are ancient people think exactly like you, so they developed &lt;code&gt;草書&lt;/code&gt;, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8D%89%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like drawing the &lt;code&gt;shape&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;detail&lt;/code&gt;, i.g. stcakexhacnge and stackexchange will looks like identity at first glance. There are no rules but depend on your mind, sometimes it can be master pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13275" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T06:56:04.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17785" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-22T16:33:36.857" Score="4" ViewCount="1022" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the last two years or so I began to see people frequently using 感恩 as verb meaning &quot;thank (you)&quot;, such as &quot;感恩大家&quot; or &quot;感恩领导&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I thought &quot;感恩&quot; is a verb-noun phrase, meaning &quot;thank (you for your) kindness&quot;, while &quot;感谢&quot; is the phrase for &quot;thank (you)&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the use of &quot;感恩&quot; instead of &quot;感谢&quot; a newly emerged usage, or have the two always been interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3385" LastActivityDate="2016-05-01T23:41:12.067" Title="Why is &quot;感恩&quot; frequently used as a verb?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17763" CreationDate="2016-04-22T16:36:32.623" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is two cases, as your first figure, '李冀', it is a typography  as other answers said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in tradition, people's name tend to have leading space, called '抬头'. It shows respect to the one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As your second screenshot, it uses '抬头' obviously. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or more accurately, it is '挪抬'. You simply add one-character space before people's name(or other words that addressed he.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DRWRJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DRWRJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the '蒋总统' have a space before it. Look at the blue rectangle, these poor people '张学良' and '杨虎城' do not have, because they did bad things to '蒋总统'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HA2q7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HA2q7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is modern example, '贵部' (Your department) has a space before it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can check more infos about '抬头' from &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%8A%AC%E9%A0%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2016-04-22T16:41:37.680" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T16:41:37.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16841" CreationDate="2016-04-22T21:07:02.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我一个弟兄们&lt;/strong&gt; is grammatically incorrect: &lt;strong&gt;一个&lt;/strong&gt; (=1) conflicts with &lt;strong&gt;们&lt;/strong&gt; (&gt;1).&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;I watched the video in question. The interviewee actually said &lt;strong&gt;我一个弟兄&lt;/strong&gt;. It is the subtitle that added a &lt;strong&gt;们&lt;/strong&gt; at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13284" LastEditorUserId="13284" LastEditDate="2016-04-22T21:57:00.420" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T21:57:00.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17785" CreationDate="2016-04-22T21:28:44.857" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right that &lt;strong&gt;感恩&lt;/strong&gt; is a verb-noun phrase. When another noun is appended (i.e. &lt;strong&gt;感恩XX&lt;/strong&gt;), it means that you are thanking (&lt;strong&gt;感&lt;/strong&gt;) someone (&lt;strong&gt;XX&lt;/strong&gt;) for their kindness (&lt;strong&gt;恩&lt;/strong&gt;). Inversion is at play here. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;感恩&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; carries a degree of formality and is rarely used in daily conversation. It will be awkward if someone uses &lt;strong&gt;&quot;感恩&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; when not speaking publicly.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;To rate them in terms of formalities: &lt;strong&gt;感恩&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; &lt;strong&gt;感谢&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; &lt;strong&gt;谢谢&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; &lt;strong&gt;多谢&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;strong&gt;感恩&lt;/strong&gt; is used exclusively in formal context while &lt;strong&gt;多谢&lt;/strong&gt; is only used casually. &lt;strong&gt;感谢&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;谢谢&lt;/strong&gt; can be used at the user's discretion, though the former sounds more formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13284" LastEditorUserId="13284" LastEditDate="2016-04-23T06:01:22.803" LastActivityDate="2016-04-23T06:01:22.803" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17706" CreationDate="2016-04-22T21:33:06.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;如果&lt;/strong&gt; is a &lt;strong&gt;conjunction&lt;/strong&gt; meaning &quot;in the event of&quot;, the same as &lt;strong&gt;if&lt;/strong&gt; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13284" LastEditorUserId="13284" LastEditDate="2016-04-22T21:56:27.010" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T21:56:27.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17675" CreationDate="2016-04-22T21:54:42.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;健康与心理卫生局依法未对事实进行调查，故不对上述声明的真实性负责。&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br/&gt; - &lt;strong&gt;健康与心理卫生局&lt;/strong&gt;: The department of Health and Mental Hygiene&lt;br/&gt; - &lt;strong&gt;依法未对事实进行调查&lt;/strong&gt;: as no inquiry as to the facts has been provided by law&lt;br/&gt; - &lt;strong&gt;不对上述声明的真实性负责&lt;/strong&gt;: does not certify to the truth of the statements made thereon&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;The rest is styling choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13284" LastEditorUserId="13284" LastEditDate="2016-04-27T10:00:14.593" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T10:00:14.593" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17715" CreationDate="2016-04-22T22:57:35.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regulated verse is indeed used by some poetic societies in the New Culture Movement. Among them &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Moon_Society&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Crescent Moon Society&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is a prominent one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13284" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T22:57:35.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17795" CreationDate="2016-04-23T02:51:15.933" Score="1" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could anyone who's more knowledgeable in language confirm that this is Chinese? My friend knows Japanese, and he says it's definitely not Japanese (unless he's mistaken).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is Chinese, could someone translate it to English for me? I've tried many different optical character recognition sites, and none can figure any of the characters out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hm1Ux.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hm1Ux.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13287" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T00:01:53.957" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T00:01:53.957" Title="Friend was given a guitar with what looks like Chinese handwriting on it (Characters identified: 茶杏銅鑼)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17793" CreationDate="2016-04-23T03:13:27.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;茶杏铜锣 i dont know its meaning. brand name？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13288" LastActivityDate="2016-04-23T03:13:27.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17793" CreationDate="2016-04-23T04:54:48.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are written in traditional Chinese: &lt;strong&gt;茶杏銅鑼&lt;/strong&gt;, which translated verbatim to &lt;strong&gt;Tea, Apricot, Copper, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Gong&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;The four words together do not resemble anything meaningful. I did a google search with the exact four words but cannot find anything related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13284" LastActivityDate="2016-04-23T04:54:48.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16589" CreationDate="2016-04-23T05:02:19.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ue&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;üe&lt;/strong&gt; are pronounced differently.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ue&lt;/strong&gt; is not used in Mandarin. Only &lt;strong&gt;üe&lt;/strong&gt; is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The questioner was actually asking about using Hanyu Pinyin to transcribe Sichuanese. Hanyu Pinyin was designed as a tool to teach the speaking of mandarin, but it is still possible to capture words in Sichuanese using the closest possible combinations. I see no problem with doing so since this is probably the best you can get. But since it is still an approximation, if you stick to it methodologically your pronunciation will sound a little off to native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13284" LastEditorUserId="13284" LastEditDate="2016-04-26T06:31:39.760" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T06:31:39.760" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17798" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17801" CreationDate="2016-04-23T15:41:42.393" Score="3" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know 局 applies to everything which demands crooking ones body. A job behind a desk almost always means you are sitting with your back bent: A small office is 局, a chess game is 局, a game in general is 局, everywhere you sit with bent back is 局.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I was wondering about 局 as a &quot;situation, phase&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my thinking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;game&quot; + &quot;board&quot; = &lt;strong&gt;chess game&lt;/strong&gt; + &lt;strong&gt;board&lt;/strong&gt; = how things are positioned on the board.&#xA; Is this line of reasoning correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T00:25:53.123" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T00:25:53.123" Title="What are the etymologies of 局 and 局面?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17760" CreationDate="2016-04-23T18:21:36.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First tone, when you use it to mean 'middle', 'middle of', 'centre'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it is pronounced in the fourth tone, it typically means &quot;got it&quot;. For example, when you check your lottery ticket and you've won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I double checked with this &lt;a href=&quot;http://yun.dreye.com/dict_new/dict.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt; and it looks like I got it. Here are more specifics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拼音: zhong (first tone)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  注音: ㄓㄨㄥ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  center; middle&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  in; inside; among&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  in between&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  average, mean, or middle (class, grade, etc.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  in the course of&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  fit for    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拼音: zhong (4th tone)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  注音: ㄓㄨㄥˋ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  to hit (a target)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  to suffer; to sustain&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  以上來源於：《漢英大辭典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2016-04-23T18:21:36.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17798" CreationDate="2016-04-23T21:51:22.787" Score="5" Body="&lt;h1&gt;The etymology of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;局&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;1st interpretation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;促也。从口在尺下，復局之。『說文解字』&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  促也。以㬪韵爲訓。从口在尺下復局之。尺所以指厈規榘事也。口在尺下。三緘其口之意。『說文解字注』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Upper part of &lt;strong&gt;局&lt;/strong&gt; represents &lt;strong&gt;尺 (ruler)&lt;/strong&gt;, alluding to &lt;strong&gt;rules and canons&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;Lower (inside) part of &lt;strong&gt;局&lt;/strong&gt; represents &lt;strong&gt;口 (mouth)&lt;/strong&gt;, alluding to &lt;strong&gt;unbounded freedom&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;strong&gt;口 (mouth)&lt;/strong&gt; is under (inside) &lt;strong&gt;尺 (ruler)&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;局&lt;/strong&gt; implies a sense of &lt;strong&gt;constraint&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;2nd interpretation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一曰博，所以行棊。象形。『說文解字』&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一曰博所㠯行棊。象形。博當作簙。簙、局戲也。六箸十二棊。簙有局以行十二棊。局之字象其形。此別一義。『說文解字注』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;局&lt;/strong&gt; is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Pictograms&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pictogram&lt;/a&gt; of &lt;strong&gt;博 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liubo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Liubo&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/strong&gt;, an ancient Chinese board game. The relationship between &lt;strong&gt;局&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;博 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liubo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Liubo&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/strong&gt; is mentioned vaguely: &quot;簙有局以行十二棊&quot;. &lt;strong&gt;局&lt;/strong&gt; can either mean &lt;strong&gt;a round of the game&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;the board on which the game is played&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;The etymology of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;局面&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;盘中排营寨城池，眼前无弓箭旌旗。心内有刀枪剑戟，局面儿几般形势。『元 周德清 《斗鹌鹑·双陆》曲』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;局面&lt;/strong&gt; first appeared in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qu_(poetry)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qu&lt;/a&gt; written by &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%91%A8%E5%BE%B7%E6%B8%85&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;周德清&lt;/a&gt; in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yuan dynasty&lt;/a&gt;. It refers to the situation of an ongoing &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backgammon#East_Asia&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Backgammon&lt;/a&gt; game.&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;hr/&gt;&#xA;Please Note: My answer only considers the origins of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;局&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;局面&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Their meanings change overtime and are impossible to encapsulate in an reasonably long answer. The &quot;sitting with your back bent&quot; hypothesis proposed by the questioner might indeed be true at some point in history.&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;hr/&gt;&#xA;Source &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/sw/5C40.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/sw/5C40.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/240375.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/240375.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;hr/&gt;&#xA;Revision History&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;20160423_0: Initial answer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;20160423_1: Elaborated on the 2nd interpretation for 局 and left room for ambiguity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13284" LastEditorUserId="13284" LastEditDate="2016-04-24T01:18:06.477" LastActivityDate="2016-04-24T01:18:06.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17733" CreationDate="2016-04-24T13:52:49.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(As a born Cantonese and not a professional linguist)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese is mostly spoken while the formal written form of Chinese is always 白話文/語體文 (&lt;em&gt;&quot;Written vernacular Chinese&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, what I managed to find on Wikipedia).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The written form of Cantonese is informal, and mostly used on Internet forum, text messages, modern subtitle, etc. In Hong Kong, the newspaper &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Apple Daily&quot; first used Cantonese in quotes in their articles&lt;/strong&gt;, they were heavily criticized back then, but Cantonese in formal text is ever so slowly getting to appear in formal occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might notice there are many &lt;code&gt;口&lt;/code&gt; radicals in Cantonese, they are mostly invented or borrowed characters as those didn't existed in the past and aren't used in other dialects. &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B2%B5%E8%AA%9E%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/粵語字&lt;/a&gt;. Moreover, many of those aren't standardized because they weren't used in writing that much, like those on the Wikipedia page: &lt;code&gt;而家&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;依家&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;宜家&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;伊家&lt;/code&gt; means the same in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese spoken regions, &lt;em&gt;&quot;Written vernacular Chinese&quot;&lt;/em&gt; is always recognized and written Cantonese is not encouraged for formal texts. One can also read Cantonese from &lt;em&gt;Written vernacular Chinese&lt;/em&gt;. So unless you know how to speak Cantonese, learning how to read it might not be your first priority. Therefore, for the best effects and usefulness, &lt;strong&gt;I suggest first learning how to speak it&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Written vernacular Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;今天晚上我們要去哪兒吃飯呢？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Written Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;今晚我哋要去邊到食飯？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="11486" LastEditDate="2016-04-24T14:14:07.333" LastActivityDate="2016-04-24T14:14:07.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17803" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17808" CreationDate="2016-04-25T05:06:11.750" Score="2" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Google Translate it is &quot;Strange&quot; and &quot;Strangeness&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I saw a native speaker post &quot;好诡异&quot;, which would be &quot;how strangeness?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When would you use one or the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastEditorUserId="13284" LastEditDate="2016-04-26T02:59:48.883" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T18:15:12.083" Title="What is the difference between 诡异 and 奇诡?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16589" CreationDate="2016-04-25T16:41:38.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hanyu Pinyin is generally used for Standard Chinese. If you want to represent /uɛ/ in something consistent with Hanyu Pinyin, you could use &lt;em&gt;uê&lt;/em&gt;. The Wikipedia article was using Sichuanese Pinyin, which may not be compatible with Hanyu Pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12619" LastActivityDate="2016-04-25T16:41:38.603" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17805" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-25T18:28:17.367" Score="-1" ViewCount="308" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a little confused wrt to the basic sentence structure:&#xA;Is &quot;Nimen he shenme?&quot; correct. Also can someone point out what is the basic structure for sentences and questions as in: Subject + Verb + object. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pardon me, i'm a beginner in Pinyin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13305" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T07:36:21.450" Title="What is the correct sentence structure in pinyin?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2016-04-28T14:30:17.260" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17803" CreationDate="2016-04-26T00:27:39.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &quot;诡异&quot; and &quot;奇诡&quot; means strange or something out of the the ordinary, its a move elaborate expression than &quot;奇怪&quot;, &quot;奇异&quot;, &quot;怪异&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;好诡异&quot; can translate to &quot;how strange&quot; or even better &quot;so out of the ordinary&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T00:27:39.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17805" CreationDate="2016-04-26T00:40:58.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To a native speaker, even the phrase &quot;he shenme nimen?&quot; makes sense, but I would say the general structure to what you are trying to say is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Subj. + Verb + 什么(What) + Sometimes optional(Noun) ?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 1: 你(You) + 喝(Drink) + 什么(What)? In this case, you don't need to follow by a noun, because &quot;drink&quot; is normally water/soft drink/alchol&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 2: 你(You) + 用(Use) + 什么(What) + 手机(Phone)? In this case, you are asking specifically what phone they are using.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an in depth explanation, please have a look at this link, it has plenty of structures and usages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Placement_of_question_words&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Placement of question words&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T00:40:58.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17803" CreationDate="2016-04-26T01:57:07.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;strong&gt;诡异&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;奇诡&lt;/strong&gt; are adjectives. The &quot;strangeness&quot; translation is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;诡异&lt;/strong&gt; is a commonly used word meaning &lt;strong&gt;&quot;strange&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. It can be used both colloquially and in writing. The idiom &lt;strong&gt;&quot;好诡异&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; you mentioned means &quot;How strange it is!&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;奇诡&lt;/strong&gt; is a formal word used exclusively in literatures. It is a stronger form of &lt;strong&gt;诡异&lt;/strong&gt; and is usually reserved for things that are extremely bizarre or supernatural. Use this word with caution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13284" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T01:57:07.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16841" CreationDate="2016-04-26T06:59:21.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 兄弟 is used most often to mean something like &quot;my buddy / pal&quot;, whereas 弟兄 has a military connotation. It's often used in war movies by soldiers referring to each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd expect 兄弟 to be used more often by people talking about a familial, personal relationship, and 弟兄 to refer to a person you got to know in some formal organization like the military.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 们 is probably adapted from 哥们, which is colloquial and can refer to a single person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T06:59:21.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17805" CreationDate="2016-04-26T07:05:10.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sentence structure does not change based on whether you use pinyin or characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic sentence structure is subject-verb-object, with any attributes going before the corresponding sentence part:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kouke de nimen man-man de he dian shenme?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;The thirsty you slowly drink a&#xA;  bit of what?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  adjective-subject adverb-verb adjective-object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are exceptions, some types of sentences are formed differently. But as a beginner, you'll be OK with S-V-O almost all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastEditorUserId="12420" LastEditDate="2016-04-26T07:36:21.450" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T07:36:21.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17752" CreationDate="2016-04-26T08:33:15.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a born Cantonese and I live in Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simple answer for not writing in Cantonese is because: &lt;strong&gt;it is not as useful as writing in Written Vernacular Chinese.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Brief History&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has been a custom to write in Literary Chinese in the ancient times as you know, and people used to speaking in their own dialects. Because written records were so well kept, Literary Chinese never changed much. While the most of the people, who didn't know how to read and write, changed the form of their spoken languages. The difference gap was originally small, but as time passed, illiterate people began to not be able to understand Literary Chinese. &lt;strong&gt;But Literary Chinese was still used, why? Because knowing it gained you social status and because it was the universal language which all dialects can use to communicate.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, Written Vernacular Chinese was used because the people wanted to use it, &lt;strong&gt;as they thought it was easier to use and to comprehend than Literary Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Conclusion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not use written Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Because writing in and comprehending Written Vernacular Chinese is not that frustrating. The contrast of Cantonese and Written Vernacular Chinese is not as much as the latter and Literary Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It has been a tradition to write in Written Vernacular Chinese and culture and politics say it is informal to write in Cantonese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Written Vernacular Chinese has become the standard of communication, just like English in European countries.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese is oral-orientated, it might be harder to write when one is not trained to write it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Even as a born Cantonese, because I learned to read in Written Vernacular Chinese, it takes more time for me to understand written Cantonese. On the other hand, I can instantly read out Cantonese from Written Vernacular Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T08:33:15.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17675" CreationDate="2016-04-26T11:25:48.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;因沒有法定聆訊, 健康與心理衛生局不會證實以上陳述的真確性.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;certify = 證實&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;truth = 真確性&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;statements = 聲明 / 陳述&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;made thereon = 有關 / 以上&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;inquiry as to the facts = 聆訊 / 研訊&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;.... provided by law = 法律規定&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, the phrase &quot;no inquiry as to the facts has been provided by law&quot; somehow appears to me that the Dept. does not have the authority to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2016-04-27T10:30:15.273" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T10:30:15.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17813" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-27T02:46:32.023" Score="3" ViewCount="1400" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/19943-chinese-dictionary-with-ipa/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this thread&lt;/a&gt; but it answered only with Pinyin suggestions, and not IPA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T15:46:17.857" Title="Are there any online dictionaries that supply IPA transcriptions for Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;ipa&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17814" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-04-27T02:46:58.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;International Phonetic Alphabet&lt;/a&gt; is a widely recognized notation system to standardize the representation of sounds in any spoken language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IPA is based on the latin alphabet, with additional symbols and diacritic marks. A sequence of sounds is represented between forward slashes. So for example the standard pronunciation of the English word &amp;quot;cat&amp;quot; can be written in IPA as &lt;code&gt;/kæt/&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A description of Chinese sounds using IPA notation can be found on Wikipedia as well: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Standard Chinese Phonology&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your question is about notation systems or symbols that do not pertain to IPA, please use the tag [notations] instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T19:21:53.640" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T19:21:53.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17815" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-04-27T02:46:58.163" Score="0" Body="For questions concerning the International Phonetic Alphabet and its usage in Chinese phonology" OwnerUserId="11787" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T19:21:53.640" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T19:21:53.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17816" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-27T02:49:56.260" Score="0" ViewCount="1219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know little about Cantonese (for now), but please advise me if I erred in conjecturing that IPA is more precise and helpful than &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yale or Jyutping Romanisations&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastActivityDate="2016-04-29T00:27:36.163" Title="Are there any online dictionaries that supply IPA transcriptions for Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;ipa&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31502" CreationDate="2016-04-27T02:57:46.217" Score="5" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%98%9C#Etymology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Etymology [of 腸]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideogrammic compound (會意): &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5#Translingual&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日&lt;/a&gt; ‎(“sun”) + &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%80#Translingual&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一&lt;/a&gt; + &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8B%BF#Translingual&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;勿&lt;/a&gt;   The rays of the sun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E6%98%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;From chineseetymology.org:&lt;/a&gt; ]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Primitive pictograph 昜. From sun日 (rays) on a sun dial (一勿). Meaning bright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My research of the etymology of 腸 motivated this question. I know that &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; means one, and that &lt;code&gt;勿&lt;/code&gt; means 'not' or 'do not' (ie: negation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-30T06:19:26.200" Title="How does '一勿' Compound to mean sundial?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17817" CreationDate="2016-04-27T03:54:34.227" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/extraPhoto/661c-1383730155_photo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/extraPhoto/661c-1383730155_photo.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ideograph on the right is 昜. Have a look of the 漢語多功能字庫:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%98%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=昜&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may compare the changes from bronze script, bamboo/silk and others. In my opinion, the saying of &quot;rays on a sun dial&quot; is, well, beyond reasonable imagination :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-28T03:00:17.287" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T03:00:17.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17816" CreationDate="2016-04-27T04:01:49.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might try the &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;漢語多功能字庫&lt;/a&gt;, with traditional Chinese, English interface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the top right corner, you can choose the scheme: IPA (number) &amp;amp; IPA(letter).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-04-28T05:25:55.007" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T05:25:55.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17827" CreationDate="2016-04-27T15:48:25.730" Score="0" ViewCount="1674" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone wrote to me &quot;两个月就写这么好，棒棒的！&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get the first part (though I don't think it's true - 哪里哪里 ；-））, but what exactly does that &quot;appendix&quot; stand for? I interpreted it as a kind of &quot;clapping one's hands in approval&quot;, as Google Translate just spits out &quot;Bang Bang!&quot;, but that may well be too far-fetched!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any input on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13168" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T18:57:31.097" Title="Meaning and etymology of the expression “棒棒的！”" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17820" CreationDate="2016-04-27T16:45:15.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence written this way to expressing one's feeling, and there are different ways to do this. You can understand it as if the person writing is adding in feelings in their words, like using different tones when speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the first part of the sentence, you can tell this approach is self praise style and acting cute whilst doing it. So in this case the person is trying to say &quot;I'm great&quot;, but doing it in a cute way. &quot;棒&quot; means great/nice/awesome as @enrico explained already. &quot;棒棒的&quot; is like rather than saying &quot;爸&quot; (Dad) one might say &quot;爸爸&quot; (also Dad). It does not change any mean here. The reason why I am saying it makes the person saying this sound cute is because when kids are younger, they would say &quot;Daddy&quot; and once they are older they will chan say &quot;Dad&quot; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13312" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T16:45:15.817" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17820" CreationDate="2016-04-27T18:04:30.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;棒棒的 is a cute way to say &quot;good&quot;, &quot;well&quot; and something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13314" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T18:04:30.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17817" CreationDate="2016-04-27T18:21:54.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;勿 as in &quot;not&quot; is originally a logograph of a signaling flag. It is not the same logograph as the rays depicted in 昜 (which is 日 rì over  yáng).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not uncommon for Chinese characters to have merged similar logographs into one single abstract unit, in the latter case 旦 over 勿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take for example 易 (yì), which is unrelated to 昜, although its modern components are 日 and 勿. It is derived from the logograph of a chameleon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T18:21:54.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17820" CreationDate="2016-04-28T04:34:03.300" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;棒 means 'great; awesome'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;棒棒 the repetition basically makes it sound rhythmical and cute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 after a repeated adjective in spoken language is a very subtle thing - it slightly changes the meaning from 'awesome' (praising your writing) to 'keep being awesome' (encouraging you). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, the difference between (真)棒 and 棒棒的 is like that between '(very) cool' and 'cool beans' in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T04:34:03.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17538" CreationDate="2016-04-28T09:24:08.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to get the ideas about Chinese words is to analyze the individual characters's meaning. So, let us begin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表达 vs. 表现 vs. 表示 vs. 显示&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the first 3 words have common character 表, we can only focus on the different one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;达&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meaning is 'a clear road', then it became a adjective, verb, preposition. No matter what it's meanings grow, it still wanders around 'clear' and 'road'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到达(reach): 达 reference 'road' .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;豁达(generous;open-minded):达 reference 'clear, open'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;表达&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;达 reference clear,  you speak or write to make others know your ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did not realize this answer would get long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AFK&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T09:24:08.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17169" CreationDate="2016-04-28T23:58:35.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hakka is a spoken language, as you have pointed out. Traditional and simplified Chinese are variants on a writing system. You can write Hakka in both traditional and simplified Chinese. Before simplified Chinese even existed (i.e. before the 1950s), Hakka would be written in traditional Chinese (the only writing system for Chinese). Nowadays, Mainland and Singaporean Hakkas would tend to write in simplified Chinese, whereas Taiwanese and Hong Kong Hakkas would probably write in traditional Chinese—these just depend on the practices of the respective regions. Hakka can also be written in various romanization schemes, including &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pha%CC%8Dk-fa-s%E1%B9%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pha̍k-fa-sṳ&lt;/a&gt;. The Hakka Wikipedia uses both Chinese characters and PFS (sometimes mixed with other similar romanization schemes). There is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_Bible:_Today&amp;#39;s_Taiwan_Hakka_Version&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bible&lt;/a&gt; published in both traditional Chinese characters and PFS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AFAIK, the only official attempt to &quot;standardize&quot; Hakka writing is by the Taiwanese Ministry of Education with its suggested characters (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ws.moe.edu.tw/001/Upload/6/RelFile/6507/7824/hakka-words.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;part 1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://ws.moe.edu.tw/001/Upload/6/RelFile/6507/7823/hakka_words-2nd_all.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;part 2&lt;/a&gt;). The MOE also has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://depart.moe.edu.tw/ED2400/News_Content.aspx?n=5EB26D97D6A29617&amp;amp;sms=8C59E176B3E3F56E&amp;amp;s=30783F04D0989E57&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;romanization scheme&lt;/a&gt; for six different Taiwanese dialects. &lt;a href=&quot;http://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This dictionary&lt;/a&gt; more or less follows the MOE-suggested characters and uses the MOE romanization scheme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12619" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T23:58:35.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17816" CreationDate="2016-04-29T00:07:45.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The English Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; has IPA for Cantonese along with other commonly-used romanization schemes (Jyutping, Yale and Cantonese Pinyin). For example, for the entry on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%8B%E5%8F%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;朋友&lt;/a&gt;, under &quot;Pronunciation&quot; in the Chinese section, you can click [Expand] to see the IPA /pʰɐŋ²¹ jɐu̯¹³/. There's also IPA for other topolects, like Mandarin (/pʰɤŋ³⁵ i̯oʊ̯³/ → /pʰɤŋ³⁵ i̯oʊ̯³/). (Note: There may be a bug with the audio that covers the IPA.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12619" LastEditorUserId="12619" LastEditDate="2016-04-29T00:27:36.163" LastActivityDate="2016-04-29T00:27:36.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17662" CreationDate="2016-04-29T10:09:52.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't find any existing statistics online so I wrote a simple program to do the job. Source data was downloaded from SouGou web dictionary 2006(see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sogou.com/labs/dl/w.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;), a vocabulary consists of a totality of 468,949 words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you don't need this for research purposes I will only list partial results below. If you need the whole list of 6,143 characters just leave a comment, I'll see if I can find a site to host the file...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note that repetitive characters are counted separately in a word(e.g. for the word '一心一意', '一' is counted twice)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the form of &lt;li&gt;characters    frequencies&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不   4268&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人   3176&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一   2961&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大   2808&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中   2108&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;之   1811&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;国   1809&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;机   1800&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;学   1773&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;心   1759&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;无   1678&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;子   1675&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;生   1664&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天   1630&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;网   1549&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小   1497&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有   1486&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;电   1444&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上   1421&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;水   1396&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;地   1309&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三   1306&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;下   1301&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;风   1291&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;文   1270&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;行   1266&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;业   1262&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;会   1260&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;工   1237&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;发   1231&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;新   1228&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;家   1225&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;高   1194&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;金   1183&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;性   1134&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了   1126&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;出   1124&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;理   1072&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;动   1058&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;公   1044&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;自   1034&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;手   1032&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;山   1029&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;头   1008&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;成   1002&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;日   1001&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;化   986&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;道   985&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;车   983&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十   933&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the radicals, you'll first have to specify the writing system for the characters, as traditional characters usually have much more radicals than their simplified counterparts.(for instance, '一' and '壹', former one being simplified and latter traditional)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13324" LastActivityDate="2016-04-29T10:09:52.050" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17832" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-29T20:39:45.443" Score="3" ViewCount="469" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I read this Chinese proverb. It looked amazing, but I wasn't able to find the Chinese version (or even find out if it actually existed). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;One cannot manage too many affairs: like pumpkins in the water, one pops up while you try to hold down the other.&#xA;- Chinese Proverb&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know how it translates, that would be a great help! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T10:54:04.787" Title="Is this a real Chinese Proverb? (Pumpkins and Time Management)" Tags="&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17348" CreationDate="2016-04-29T21:13:11.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Has &quot;管理 = manage&quot; something to do with plumbing, making pipes or taking care of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;管理&lt;/code&gt; is simply a modern combination of two related verbs for the Western concept of &quot;management&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;管&lt;/code&gt;, as a verb, carries a heavy connotation of restriction and setting rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;理&lt;/code&gt;, as a verb, carries the meaning of intervening or acting.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As far as I know 管 is a measure word for tube-shaped objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.  管 is either a noun or a verb.  When it's a noun, it's the tube itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So my logic suggest that 管理 is an meaning-extension for managing pipe-works or running pipes, plumbing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;管 by itself does not carry the meaning of any pipe-works or running pipes. Water pipes are exactly expressed as &lt;code&gt;水管&lt;/code&gt;.  Pipes (for utilities) or circular tunnels (transportation and escape routes) can be expressed as &lt;code&gt;管道&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Managing here is taken as a metaphore for guiding the &quot;flow&quot; in the desired direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese philosophy of &quot;management&quot; suggests that good leaders should lead by example -- they should stick to the highest moral standards, and be kind to its people.  It also concerns itself with law, order and inter-state relations.  It does not, in any way, involve deciding directions, strategic planning or management by objectives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etymology of terms for modern concepts rarely deal with philosophy.&#xA;Modern Chinese likes disyllabic verb phrases for representing concepts (two verbs = one noun). Many of these translations are not accurate representations of the concept as a whole; many of them are terms borrowed from the Japanese after the Opium War.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar example is &lt;code&gt;責任&lt;/code&gt; (responsibility), which is composed of characters meaning scold and appointment.  The combination of words does not suggest that scold and appointment are the main ideas to responsibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;尽管&lt;/code&gt; &quot;even though&quot; has nothing to do with pipes either.  &lt;code&gt;尽管&lt;/code&gt; is one single morpheme; the two characters by themselves mean nothing related to the meaning of the whole phrase.  The characters are simply borrowed for their pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar examples include &lt;code&gt;什么&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;怎么&lt;/code&gt; -- their meanings of &quot;what&quot; and &quot;how&quot; are not explainable by studying the meaning of the separate characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Terms related to 管理 and their meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;管理: to manage (by rules, procedures, regulations, strategies, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;处理: to handle, to process. 处理身后事 managing affairs (after death), 文书处理 word processing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;管治: to administer, to govern (as in governments governing people)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整理: to reorganize, as in cleaning up a messy room or desk, or organizing collected information (for a research project)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;治理: to fix, usually something involving public health, public order or public utilities. 治理河道 river training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整治: similar to the above, but with a more aggressive tone.  May concern itself more with &quot;correcting&quot; bad trends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整頓：similar to the above, but often directed towards industries. It carries the implication that a short-term (financial) loss would be incurred in exchange for long-term sustainability. 整頓旅遊業 suggests rooting out bad practices in the tourism industry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;管制：to regulate; to restrict. 利润管制 regulation of profits. 隧道管制區 Tunnel Control Area. 進出口管制 import/export restrictions. 排放管制 emission restrictions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;管束: to restrict, to hinder.  Usually one party has authority over the other, i.e. parents over their kids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11447" LastActivityDate="2016-04-29T21:13:11.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17785" CreationDate="2016-04-29T23:33:18.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often we say &quot;感谢&quot; in the oral conversation, but &quot;感恩&quot; is also used in oral, the meaning is more deep. I will give a example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生活中，我们要学会感恩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13327" LastActivityDate="2016-04-29T23:33:18.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17835" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17911" CreationDate="2016-04-30T02:21:53.577" Score="0" ViewCount="1091" Body="&lt;p&gt;In both word choice, and use, what is the difference between 吹风 and 刮风? Can I say &quot;今天刮风很大“ but not say ”今天吹风很大“？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user12834" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T03:09:10.513" Title="What's the Difference Between 吹风 and 刮风?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17839" CreationDate="2016-04-30T04:10:23.013" Score="3" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kids like to call grown-ups Uncle &amp;amp; Aunty. Professions can even be uncle &amp;amp; aunty-ized:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;警察叔叔&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“一个人在家害怕,警察叔叔帮我找爸妈” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Sichuan there is even &lt;strong&gt;护士娘娘&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;护士娘娘,我嘴巴干的很,可不可以给我倒杯水啊!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other professions can be uncle &amp;amp; aunty-ized?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-04-30T14:15:30.700" Title="What professions can be uncle &amp; aunty-ized?" Tags="&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17836" CreationDate="2016-04-30T06:43:20.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;driver: 司机叔叔/司机阿姨&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;firefighter: 消防(员)叔叔/消防(员)阿姨&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;doctor: 医生叔叔/医生阿姨&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;waiter/waitress: 服务员叔叔/服务员阿姨&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;post officer: 邮差叔叔/邮差阿姨&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12619" LastActivityDate="2016-04-30T06:43:20.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17836" CreationDate="2016-04-30T14:15:30.700" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is mostly for jobs that require wearing a uniform. The uniform provides a visual cue for children that these are special people who may be able to help them when needed. Note that 司机叔叔/司机阿姨 are for professional drivers, not any driver of a private car.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2016-04-30T14:15:30.700" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17842" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17843" CreationDate="2016-05-01T12:57:45.127" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I plug the SIMcard from Danish provider Plenti, my Huawei router writes the provider name as 汥湴槿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate translates it into 汥 Ban hibiscus. This doesn't seem right to me... What can it mean? &quot;Unknown provider?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13334" LastActivityDate="2016-05-01T14:20:39.890" Title="Phone provider Plenti -&gt; Router write 汥湴槿" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17842" CreationDate="2016-05-01T14:20:39.890" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unicode in hexadecimal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;汥 6C65 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  湴 6E74 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  槿 69FF&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Then, look up the ASCII chart:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nPuY4.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nPuY4.gif&quot; alt=&quot;ASCII&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Write them down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6C: l &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  65: e &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  6E: n &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  74: t &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  69: i&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now, We get &quot;lenti&quot;. Don't ask why &quot;P&quot; is missing or why it's displayed like that. Maybe it's just a bug.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2016-05-01T14:20:39.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17835" CreationDate="2016-05-01T23:39:00.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;今天吹风很大&quot; is wrong, and &quot;今天刮风很大&quot; sounds weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To talk about weather, usually we say &quot;今天风很大&quot;, &quot;今天刮大风&quot;. We never use &quot;吹风&quot; for weather.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually usage of &quot;吹风&quot; is weird by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13337" LastActivityDate="2016-05-01T23:39:00.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17849" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-02T08:25:47.713" Score="2" ViewCount="1554" Body="&lt;p&gt;I studied pinyin so I naturally type simplified Chinese but now I want to type traditional Chinese. Is there a program available where I can type traditional Chinese using Pinyin method? Thanks &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13344" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2016-05-02T19:35:45.717" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T07:52:03.820" Title="Is there an online program that can type pinyin for traditional Chinese?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17849" CreationDate="2016-05-02T09:03:17.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, again in mac os x, go to system preferences⋯keyboard⋯input sources⋯press +⋯choose &quot;chinese-traditional&quot; from the left⋯then choose &quot;pinyin - traditional&quot;, voila :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;remember to check the &quot;show input menu in menu bar&quot;, then you can choose the pinyin as input method, and type &quot;out&quot; traditional chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T09:03:17.487" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17849" CreationDate="2016-05-02T10:56:49.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Solution for Windows 8.1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go to &lt;code&gt;Control Panel\Clock, Language, and Region\Language&lt;/code&gt; (Alternatively, click the downward arrow on the language bar (on the taskbar) to open&#xA;the menu and click &lt;code&gt;Settings...&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click &lt;code&gt;Add a language&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select &lt;code&gt;Chinese (Simplified)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select &lt;code&gt;Chinese (Simplified, China)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Once &lt;code&gt;中文(中华人民共和国)&lt;/code&gt; is available as a language, click &lt;code&gt;Options&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;following it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Under &lt;code&gt;Input&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Microsoft Pinyin&lt;/code&gt; should appear by default. If it is not there, click &lt;code&gt;Add an input method&lt;/code&gt; and select &lt;code&gt;Microsoft Pinyin&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Once &lt;code&gt;Microsoft Pinyin&lt;/code&gt; is available as an input method, click&#xA;&lt;code&gt;Options&lt;/code&gt; following it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Under &lt;code&gt;Choose character set&lt;/code&gt;, select &lt;code&gt;Traditional Chinese&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Congratulations! You can now type traditional Chinese with Pinyin. You can also press &lt;code&gt;shift&lt;/code&gt; to switch between English and Chinese when &lt;code&gt;Chinese (Simplified, China)&lt;/code&gt; is selected.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This answer only considers what you can achieve in native Windows system (i.e. no third-party apps). In fact, the lack of native support for Pinyin as an input method for traditional Chinese has been repeatedly complained by users.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is no easy method to switch between simplified Chinese and&#xA;traditional Chinese using this method. You have to go through the&#xA;same process again to change from one character set to another (you can keep the &quot;Options&quot; window open for quick switching).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is possible to add tradition Chinese as a language and then select &quot;Microsoft Bopomofo&quot; as an input method. But note that although &quot;Microsoft Bopomofo&quot; is based on Pinyin, it is different from &quot;Microsoft Pinyin&quot; and is rather clunky to use.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some characters outputted by &quot;Microsoft Pinyin&quot; using traditional Chinese character set is incorrect. For example, &quot;只 (only)&quot; is written the same way in both simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese. But &quot;Microsoft Pinyin&quot; will outputted it as &quot;衹&quot;. There is no easy way around this problem and you have to spot it by yourself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A fail-proof way is to type in simplified Chinese and then copy the result into Google Translate to translate them into traditional Chinese. This comes handy when you only need to type a small number of characters (note that Google Translate will mess up your formatting), or when you need to be absolutely sure that what you are typing is 100% correct.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13284" LastEditorUserId="13284" LastEditDate="2016-05-02T11:03:30.490" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T11:03:30.490" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17853" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17854" CreationDate="2016-05-02T13:38:23.507" Score="5" ViewCount="764" Body="&lt;p&gt;After reading &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/17836/what-professions-can-be-uncle-aunty-ized&quot; title=&quot;this&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, I remembered we can also call some of them 师傅. But I'm not sure which ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T17:03:35.957" Title="What professions can be called 师傅?" Tags="&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17853" CreationDate="2016-05-02T14:40:41.287" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Taxi / Bus driver &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;师傅, 我要去天安门.&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;all the manual workers&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;师傅, 我想做一个木头大象&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Mr.Carpenter, I wanna make a wooden elephant.&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;师傅, 你能搬动大象吗?.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Mrs.Porter, Can you lift an elephant?&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;师傅, 我要给我的大象烫个头发&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Miss Barber, My elephant needs a perm&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note: not used in high class barbershop&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;师傅, 我不是坏人&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Mr. Entrance Guard, I am not bad.&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In real life, there are some native Chinese call doctors, teachers 师傅, not much, but it really does, the doctors and teachers said they don't know if they should laugh or cry, embarrassing, since in practice, 师傅 are always applied to these professions that do not need to learn from in colleges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;You call one 师父 who teach you some professional skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2016-05-03T09:08:33.360" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T09:08:33.360" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17853" CreationDate="2016-05-02T15:39:13.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think blue collar workers are more likely to be called 师傅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, Chef, taxi driver, auto mechanic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12076" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T15:39:13.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17849" CreationDate="2016-05-02T15:43:58.237" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Sogou input, there's a preference setting for it. And I believe many Chinese input have it too.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q1OnA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q1OnA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12076" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T15:43:58.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17849" CreationDate="2016-05-02T16:25:51.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/ime/pinyin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Pinyin&lt;/a&gt; is another option for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Windows, switch your input method to Google Pinyin, and then use &lt;kbd&gt;Ctrl&lt;/kbd&gt;+&lt;kbd&gt;Shift&lt;/kbd&gt;+&lt;kbd&gt;T&lt;/kbd&gt; to switch to traditional Chinese mode. Now you can type pinyin to get traditional Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZrThv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZrThv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can easily switch back-and-forth between simplified and traditional characters by using the same keyboard combination above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3385" LastEditorUserId="3385" LastEditDate="2016-05-02T16:53:50.857" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T16:53:50.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17849" CreationDate="2016-05-02T16:58:51.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;just remembered to remind you, there're differences between fonts for simplified and traditional chinese. since you're not mac user, i would suggest downloading google font: &quot;not sans cjk&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/get/noto/help/cjk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com/get/noto/help/cjk/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/get/noto/#sans-hant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com/get/noto/#sans-hant&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's free, have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T16:58:51.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17859" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-02T19:00:47.960" Score="0" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand the difference between 决策 and 决定. It seems like 决策 is used more formally and in the case of business contexts more (e.g. 战略决策 - strategic decision)。 But, I wasn't sure if that was entirely rue. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, could I say 在京东所有重要的决策由刘强东拍板&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or should I say 决定？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your help! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T17:12:38.293" Title="Difference between 决策 and 决定" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17859" CreationDate="2016-05-02T19:24:51.803" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;決策 is strategy, a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000097229&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000097229&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;決定 is &quot;to determine&quot;, roughly used as a verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000097201&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000097201&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by the way, 决 (u+51b3) is, well, not ...&#xA;it should be 決 (u+6c7a), have a look of this page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B1%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=決&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it states clearly: 決﹒行流也﹒从水从夬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三點﹒部首「水」也﹒兩點﹒部首「冫」也, get it :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-05-02T19:38:49.363" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T19:38:49.363" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17861" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17867" CreationDate="2016-05-02T19:44:51.167" Score="2" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to internalize numbers by forcing myself to think of them numerically rather than associating them with their English translations. So I thought it might be a good idea to learn my times table in Mandarin using Anki flashcards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the following a valid way to ask an arithmetic question that expects a number as an answer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;七乘以六等于什么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried to search for an answer online, but I can only find examples of arithmetic statements and equations, not questions. Is it ok to take an equation and change the right hand side to 什么 as I've done above, or is there a more idiomatic way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13062" LastEditorUserId="13062" LastEditDate="2016-05-03T11:00:31.927" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T15:36:46.360" Title="How to ask a simple maths / arithmetic question" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17862" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-02T21:33:36.517" Score="0" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out if there's a difference between  经营模式and 商业模式。 Right now, I'm writing a business case  （商业案例） and I'm trying to figure out which of these two would be the better title for a section of the case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the help! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stephen &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T15:46:21.627" Title="What is the difference between 经营模式vs。商业模式" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17862" CreationDate="2016-05-02T22:37:34.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first glance, I would say they are the same, probably due to different translators. But 经营 sounds more like management and 商业 sounds more like business. I don't think there's an actual difference. I did found an article addressing the difference, but it's not a serious article. Stick with 商业 if you want a direct translation of &quot;business model&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13349" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T22:37:34.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17862" CreationDate="2016-05-02T23:58:21.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main difference is the scope besides their definitions. Business models can be very different, say between service and manufacturing. But operation model could be the same for different businesses, say retail stores for car parts and used furniture. Operation model could have bigger scope like network of dealerships, but it's somewhat defined by the business model - selling cars.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T23:58:21.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17861" CreationDate="2016-05-03T01:40:14.383" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a video lesson my team and I put together on this a topic. If you click the link you should be able to view the video.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ref: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesepod.com/lessons/lets-do-math-in-chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chinesepod.com/lessons/lets-do-math-in-chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some typical Math equations: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一加一等於二&#xA;one plus one equals two&#xA;yī jiā yī děngyú èr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一百五乘以二等於三百&#xA;One hundred and fifty multiplied by two equals three hundred.&#xA;yībǎi wǔ chéngyǐ èr děngyú sānbǎi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;六除以三等於二&#xA;six divided by three equals two&#xA;liù chúyǐ sān děngyú èr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12968" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T01:40:14.383" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17862" CreationDate="2016-05-03T04:59:19.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;简单来说经营模式可能适用于一些小一点的公司或者店面，比如一个小卖部的经营模式，一个小工厂的经营模式，但是商业模式往往用来形容一些大公司，比如某某集团，或者比较前沿的创业公司，总结一下，经营模式比较接地气，而商业模式让人感觉比较高端，上档次，其实本质差不多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13351" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T04:59:19.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17861" CreationDate="2016-05-03T09:31:01.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The method is correct, but the word should be '几' , not '什么'. If you ask 等于什么? it will 等于数字 ever, brain-teaser :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;几 is used more when you calculate simple questions, can be replaced with 多少 which is a common word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;七乘以六等于几?&#xA;七乘以六等于多少?&#xA;&#xA;12345乘以4545等于几?(acceptable, but 多少 is more appropriate due to the complexity).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can cut the 以, there's no difference in practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T09:31:01.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17859" CreationDate="2016-05-03T11:18:55.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;决策is a noun and can only be used as a noun&#xA;for example 这是一个非常重要的决策。this is a very important decision.&#xA;决定 is a verb but also a noun&#xA;verb example 你要决定你想去哪。you need to decide where you want to go&#xA;noun example 这是老板的决定，不是我的。this is the boss's decision, not mine.&#xA;hope this helps.&#xA;P.S. I am Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13354" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T11:18:55.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17538" CreationDate="2016-05-03T11:28:47.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;表达, to express&#xA;他表达了他的爱意。to express something, used for expressions&#xA;表现, verb: to show, to perform. noun: behavior&#xA;verb 他表现出了他的才华。he has shown his talents.&#xA;noun 他的表现不是很好。 his behavior is not very good.&#xA;表示 means ...&#xA;这表示他喜欢你。this means that he likes you.&#xA;显示 to display or show.&#xA;手机能显示图片。phones can display/show pictures.&#xA;hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13354" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T11:28:47.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17849" CreationDate="2016-05-03T11:43:11.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;there is an app for typing Chinese made for Chinese people. search Sogou pinyin in google and it will take you to the home page of the app, download and install(un tick the Sogou browser because you probably don't want it, it's practically a Chinese version for Chrome) don't worry about it being illegal, it's not. after installing, you can just press ctrl + shift + f to change into traditional Chinese and same keys to change back. there are a lot of other cool settings and skins that comes with the app.&#xA;I recommend this app to all people who type Chinese it is really handy.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.sogou.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://pinyin.sogou.com/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;this is the website, go in click the button that says 立即下载 and it will start downloading. and just install it with your own preferred setting and you're good to go.&#xA;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13354" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T11:43:11.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17862" CreationDate="2016-05-03T12:05:51.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I come from Taiwan.&#xA;经营模式and 商业模式 is different!&#xA;经营 means a person , a group or a company used a method to treat itself!&#xA;But 商业 means transaction with different person,group or company!&#xA;So I think your case talk about only one company use 经营!&#xA;But if you talk about the mod of the transaction from the different company that you can use 商业!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;經營是一總方法,是對內的,不管是公司,團體或個人!&#xA;換句話說:經營是用一個方法來規範公司,團體或者是自己!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而商業是對外的,要構成一個商業行為,至少要兩個不同的族群!&#xA;商業是用一些技術或者手段來達到自己的目的!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastEditorUserId="13352" LastEditDate="2016-05-03T12:13:24.483" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T12:13:24.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17872" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-03T12:08:18.570" Score="2" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to remember what is the proper way to use time. Do we ever add 在 before a year when writing? Or do we generally not add it? Here's an example sentence that I wrote. Would you add 在？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在2006年， 当刘强东正在寻求资金时， 中国的物流系统非常糟糕。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T22:20:30.323" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T22:20:30.323" Title="Do you add &quot;在“ before saying &quot;___年“？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17872" CreationDate="2016-05-03T14:04:16.703" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You sentence is correct with or without the 在. Using 在 will put a bit more emphasis on the year, while leaving off 在 will put a bit more emphasis on the action. Also, if you're listing years, you would not use 在:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2006年，中国的物流系统非常糟糕。2008年，仍然糟糕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T14:04:16.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17861" CreationDate="2016-05-03T15:36:46.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you think of different ways to say it in English, then you can tell the difference when it's expressed in Chinese. &#xA;When it's &quot;what is the result of 6 times 7&quot;, we say &quot;六乘七等于什么?”.&#xA;when it's &quot;how much is 6 times 7?&quot;, we say &quot;六乘七等于多少？”.&#xA;As for doing the times table, we would say, 一七得七..二八一十六...六七四十二. Skip the operation words except on single digit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T15:36:46.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17862" CreationDate="2016-05-03T15:46:21.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another way to look at the difference is to think operation model as tactics - how to do certain things in certain ways; business model as strategy - what to do in which area and what time and how much by whom sort of things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T15:46:21.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17859" CreationDate="2016-05-03T16:43:46.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what authority (or veto power maybe) that 刘强东 has. Also it sounds redundant to say 重要的决策, can you think of any 不重要的决策？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to say it, it's either &#xA;在京东所有的决策由刘强东拍板&#xA;or&#xA;在京东所有重要的决定由刘强东拍板&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, could I say 在京东所有重要的决策由刘强东拍板&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T16:43:46.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17853" CreationDate="2016-05-03T17:03:35.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;People still the original meaning of 师傅 to address teachers, instructors, mentors in different professions/fields. Like Pan Mei in Kill Bill 2.&#xA;In modern times (80's, 90's or even today), 师傅 has been evolved to address those from whom one needs favor or help. &#xA;Asking for direction:&#xA;师傅，去大栅栏怎么走？&#xA;Needing help:&#xA;师傅，把空调给我们开上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T17:03:35.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17832" CreationDate="2016-05-03T18:32:06.130" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's also used to measure how good someone is with Kongfu - be able to handle or deal with multiple opponents at a time. &#xA;手忙脚乱&#xA;应接不遐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T18:32:06.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17779" CreationDate="2016-05-03T18:47:25.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would consider it's 消极敌对 or 消极仇视 in the context of hostile working environment or behavior at workplace. Reasons for people behave that way could be insecure, incompetent, over-confident at different times. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T18:47:25.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17820" CreationDate="2016-05-03T18:57:31.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's really a 琼瑶 question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My experience is that the term used by those can't pronounce 儿音 like 真棒儿，真带劲儿 instead they can only say each separately 真-带-劲-儿. I used to have a friend from Taiwan, for the life of her, she could not say 一会儿 the way we say in mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T18:57:31.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="242" CreationDate="2016-05-03T19:56:43.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I literally just read an article about how foreign sinologists choose their English names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://daily.zhihu.com/story/8231370&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://daily.zhihu.com/story/8231370&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Reference links: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.haijiaoshi.com/archives/722&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.haijiaoshi.com/archives/722&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can totally assemble characters for each syllable. But in a smart way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example 韦闻笛（Wendi）、爱莲心（Allinson）、 白之（Birch）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Alessandro will be 亚历山德罗，or for example 安山卓，乐珊倬.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12076" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T19:56:43.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16913" CreationDate="2016-05-03T23:50:21.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;拿somehow sounds awkward. I would say depends on the situation, use different verb.&#xA;我不能把那本书带来&#xA;(I haven't finished yet, so I can't lend it to you.)&#xA;那本书我拿不出来&#xA;(It's a rare book and locked up for safekeeping.)&#xA;那本书我现在取不了&#xA;(The library is closed. Or my buddy is not home.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T23:50:21.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17443" CreationDate="2016-05-03T23:55:27.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;好(hǎo hào) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;正(chēng zhèng) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;应(yīng yìng) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;奔(bēn bèn) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;卷(juǎn juàn) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;调(tiáo diào) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;转(zhuǎn zhuàn) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;兴(xīng xìng) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;模(mó mú) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;系(xì jì) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;挨(āi ái) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;挑(tiāo tiǎo) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;盛(chéng shèng) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冠(guān guàn) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;壳(ké qiào) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;载(zǎi zài) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;散(sǎn sàn) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;强(qiáng qiǎng) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;供(gōng gòng) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;薄(báo bó) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尽(jǐn jìn) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;难(nán nàn) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;种(zhǒng zhòng) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;更(gēng gèng) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;处(chǔ chù) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;乐(lè yuè)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2016-07-03T07:55:08.020" LastActivityDate="2016-07-03T07:55:08.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17835" CreationDate="2016-05-04T06:50:00.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;今天吹风很大&quot; is a wrong sentence, which should be replaced with &quot;今天刮风很大&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Baidu Dictionary(&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%E5%90%B9%E9%A3%8E&amp;amp;ab=12&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the interpretations from baidu dictionary&lt;/a&gt;)the term &quot;吹风&quot; has following meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) makes gas through some instrument.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) let wind blow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) use blower to dry one's hair&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) let somebody know something in advance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the term &quot;刮风&quot; has absolutely different meaning from term &quot;吹风&quot; because it describes as a natural phenomenon, i.e. the horizontal component motion of the air. (According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=9I2mB47Cyy8yTs1wvkq0BVCoVAmaTLT7RLpCX83JOdJc7fA2ca1X8wb8ek_9b8rsEiPVKlfSl37ZDasF1a8P2Es6MVbLN0CluUU015sAIVm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu Encyclopedia&lt;/a&gt;!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13360" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T06:50:00.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17832" CreationDate="2016-05-04T10:54:04.787" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a real proverb and means what your quote says it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wiktionary.org/zh/%E6%8C%89%E4%B8%8B%E8%91%AB%E8%98%86%E6%B5%AE%E8%B5%B7%E7%93%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;按下葫芦浮起瓢&lt;/a&gt;  (&lt;em&gt;àn xià hú lú fú qǐ piáo&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  variant: 按下葫芦又起瓢 (&lt;em&gt;... yòu qǐ piáo&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;葫芦 and 瓢 are two different words for &lt;em&gt;gourd&lt;/em&gt;, similar to a pumpkin. These were used to collect water, so that's why you would want to hold them under water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T10:54:04.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17888" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17944" CreationDate="2016-05-04T18:02:34.727" Score="0" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;What could be a correct word to replace &quot;x&quot; in the question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要换这个东西 &quot;X&quot; 那个吗？&#xA;(Do you want to exchange this for that?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11371" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T12:12:03.207" Title="What is the missing word" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17888" CreationDate="2016-05-04T20:20:27.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;weird. If you want to exchange this for that, should be &quot;你要用这个东西换那个吗&quot;。&#xA;If you use &quot;你要换这个东西(A) &lt;em&gt;和&lt;/em&gt; 那个(B)吗&quot;, sounds you want to exchange A+B with something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13337" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T20:20:27.920" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17859" CreationDate="2016-05-04T20:28:12.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;decide --- 决定(verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;decision --- 决定(noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;policy decision --- 决策&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;decision making --- 决策&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;decision theory --- 决策论&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13337" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T20:28:12.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17891" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17895" CreationDate="2016-05-05T00:59:56.893" Score="0" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate the Chinese 债权 and 债权转让 into English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess 债权 has a meaning opposite to the word 'liability'. For example,&#xA;money deposited with a bank becomes a liability of the bank. But for the depositor, it has the right(债权) to gain the interests.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2507" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T04:27:22.863" Title="How to translate 债权 and 债权转让 into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-05-10T16:35:36.857" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17894" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-05T04:13:17.120" Score="0" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a 成语 that means something along the lines of an enemy's best tactic is to hide himself, or to make you believe he doesn't exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13362" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T23:20:36.747" Title="Is there a proverb that means something like an enemy's best tactic is to hide himself?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17891" CreationDate="2016-05-05T04:27:22.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the 國家教育研究院 (of taiwan, in traditional chinese) maintains a bilingual academic terms database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://terms.naer.edu.tw/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://terms.naer.edu.tw/download/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 會計學, you may download the zipped excel file, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://terms.naer.edu.tw/download/101/Term_101.zip/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://terms.naer.edu.tw/download/101/Term_101.zip/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that you may find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;債權移轉　subrogation&#xA;債權，求償，索賠　claim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T04:27:22.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17898" CreationDate="2016-05-05T04:59:23.073" Score="0" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;exotic pet is translated on iciba as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外来宠物&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;VICE also translated it the same way in a video of theirs, also adding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外来物种&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And my &lt;strong&gt;absolute&lt;/strong&gt; favorite&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;野生猛宠&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is there a common well known term for exotic pets? 野生宠物？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T18:09:04.723" Title="Proper translation for the exotic pets" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17897" CreationDate="2016-05-05T05:10:14.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the SPCA hong kong used &quot;珍奇品種寵物&quot; for exotic pet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spca.org.hk/ch/animal-welfare/welfare-law-development/exotic-pet-laws&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.spca.org.hk/ch/animal-welfare/welfare-law-development/exotic-pet-laws&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;click the flag to toggle between traditional chinese &amp;amp; english :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, turtles, or parrots are not fierce. so, 野生猛寵, the &quot;猛&quot; is, not descriptive for certain species of exotic pet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T05:10:14.653" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17894" CreationDate="2016-05-05T08:30:57.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;what about &quot;退避三舍&quot;, have a look 教育部成語典; of taiwan, in traditional chinese, you can search in english or traditional chinese ^o^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.idioms.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cydic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcydic&amp;amp;schfmt=text&amp;amp;searchid=CW0000000105&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.idioms.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cydic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcydic&amp;amp;schfmt=text&amp;amp;searchid=CW0000000105&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T08:30:57.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17859" CreationDate="2016-05-05T17:12:38.293" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;决策更倾向于一个“策略”（策）&#xA;决定更强调一个“结果”（定）&#xA;决定不光可以做动词也可以做名词&#xA;决策一般用作名词&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4569" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T17:12:38.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17894" CreationDate="2016-05-05T19:31:05.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 36 stratagems, there's one called &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Openly repair the gallery roads, but sneak through the passage of Chencan&lt;/strong&gt;g&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(明修棧道,暗渡陳倉／明修栈道,暗渡陈仓, Míng xiū zhàn dào, àn dù chén cāng)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deceive the enemy with an obvious approach that will take a very long time, while surprising him by taking a shortcut and sneak up to him. As the enemy concentrates on the decoy, he will miss you sneaking up to him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12076" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T19:31:05.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17897" CreationDate="2016-05-05T19:42:20.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Exotic&quot; refers to a species which is not native or indigenous to the owner's locale; and &quot;pet&quot; is a companion animal living with people. So it can be called 异国宠物，见例：异国短毛猫（exotic shorthair）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12076" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T19:42:20.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17903" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17905" CreationDate="2016-05-06T00:53:10.353" Score="0" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to know the exact meaning of this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我几个月后再来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have some options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A few months later I come again&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Next month I come again&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Other meaning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13348" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-05-06T07:04:00.233" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T00:08:57.097" Title="Meaning of this sentence: 我几个月后再来" Tags="&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17904" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-06T01:11:38.860" Score="1" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;There appear to be some rare examples of suffix 们 after 许多、很多、各位。According to some sources this is acceptable。Examples: 许多:  &quot;许多思想家们认为&quot;(   &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.irib.ir/2010-07-31-13-14-51/2010-07-31-13-16-24/item/47176-%E8%A5%BF%E6%96%B9%E9%81%93%E5%BE%B7%E8%A7%82%E5%BF%B5%E7%BC%BA%E5%A4%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chinese.irib.ir/2010-07-31-13-14-51/2010-07-31-13-16-24/item/47176-%E8%A5%BF%E6%96%B9%E9%81%93%E5%BE%B7%E8%A7%82%E5%BF%B5%E7%BC%BA%E5%A4%B1&lt;/a&gt;)  &quot;许多 蜜蜂们&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ruiwen.com/news/54481.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ruiwen.com/news/54481.htm&lt;/a&gt;) (already questioned at this and other sites)&#xA;很多：&quot;吸引很多玩家们的参与&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ezu88.com/4578.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ezu88.com/4578.html&lt;/a&gt;) 各位：&quot;这样子 你通知各位兄弟们&quot;(功勋03 ３２：５1,&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.le.com/ptv/vplay/25045964.html#vid=25045964&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.le.com/ptv/vplay/25045964.html#vid=25045964&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T23:09:32.133" Title="Wrong or merely redundant use of 们?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17903" CreationDate="2016-05-06T01:13:14.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will come again after a few months:&#xA;&quot;I&quot; &quot;a few months&quot; &quot;after&quot; &quot;again come.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12806" LastActivityDate="2016-05-06T01:13:14.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17906" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17907" CreationDate="2016-05-06T02:33:15.727" Score="2" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to know the meaning of this Chinese sentence, 你是边度人&#xA;I really don't know what the meaning could be. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13348" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-11T15:50:40.990" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T15:50:40.990" Title="what does this sentece means 你是边度人?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-05-10T16:35:59.843" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17906" CreationDate="2016-05-06T02:56:21.870" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a Cantonese  way of saying &quot;Where are you from&quot;, equivalent to the Mandarin way of saying 你是哪里人. You could answer it by saying 我是____人, meaning, &quot;I am from ___&quot; (filling in the blank with where you're from; e.g. if you're from the USA, you would reply 我是美国人). Literally translated, it means you-are-where-person?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, there is a difference between the spoken form and the written form. What you've written is usually what is spoken (but I think it's usually 你係邊度人). More commonly, in writing, you would use 你是哪里人 instead of 你是边度人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13368" LastActivityDate="2016-05-06T02:56:21.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17904" CreationDate="2016-05-06T05:10:37.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that 们 in this context is redundant. 许多 and 各位 have already implied that there is more than one entity. Therefore, the 们 here is simply redundant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13367" LastActivityDate="2016-05-06T05:10:37.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17904" CreationDate="2016-05-06T16:19:44.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree it's redundant. When there's a quantifier following with a noun, never use 们.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;们【助】&#xA;用在代词或指人的名词后面,表示复数。如:孩子们&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;注意：名词前有数量词时，后面不加“们”，例如不说“三个孩子们”&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://xuexi.123cha.com/zd/11586.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xuexi.123cha.com/zd/11586.html&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12076" LastActivityDate="2016-05-06T16:19:44.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17835" CreationDate="2016-05-07T03:09:10.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;吹风 is defined by Oxfford as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;VERB&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 让风吹 get a blast of air&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the most common usages of this is when people are on motorcycles because the 风 is constantly 吹ing the rider and passengers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oxford also gives the example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你感冒了, 不要吹风。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You've got a cold. Don't go getting yourself caught in a draught.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also common 吹风 with air conditioning and electric fans too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刮风 is defined by ABC as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V.O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 the wind blows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and here are two sample sentences from Liang'an:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;颳風了, 關窗戶吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Close the window, it's getting windy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;颳風下雨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rainy and windy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T03:09:10.513" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2016-05-07T03:09:10.513" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17912" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17913" CreationDate="2016-05-07T07:06:21.397" Score="1" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading the sentence below out loud felt extremely awkward, however I can't figure which part is improperly constructed to begin fixing the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;相比看到子女长大成家，没有其他可以更让他们感觉放心的了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to express the following idea (in English):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To [Chinese parents], there's no any other thing that's more settling than to see their children grow up and form families.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13372" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T00:24:12.163" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T00:24:12.163" Title="Help me rephrase: 相比看到子女长大成家，没有其他可以更让他们感觉放心的了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17912" CreationDate="2016-05-07T07:26:14.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;consider: 沒有比兒女長大成家，更讓父母安心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T07:26:14.747" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17914" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17919" CreationDate="2016-05-07T09:52:48.013" Score="3" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have encountered the following sentence:&#xA;他就拿我没办法的信念&#xA;in the following paragraph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;抱着誓死不从，他就拿我没办法的信念，我只有拼命挣扎，但是我错了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which was originally &lt;a href=&quot;http://health.sohu.com/20041120/n223089261.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (link now broken).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't understand the meaning of 拿 here. Any definition from the dictionary doesn't make sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the 信念， I think it refers to the 信念 in a previous paragraph in the text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在我的印像中，但凡强奸如果女的不愿意，誓死不从的话，男的很少能得逞的，所以我当时就是抱了这样的信念的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best translation that I could come up with is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He could not do anything with my belief&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or in other words, he couldn't make me stop fighting.  But I feel pretty uncomfortable with this translation. It doesn't seem correct to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13374" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T01:52:44.737" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T01:52:44.737" Title="What is the meaning of 拿 in 他就拿我没办法的信念?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17916" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17918" CreationDate="2016-05-07T12:39:25.827" Score="2" ViewCount="14977" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, when a friend is doing some activity, we typically say to him/her:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enjoy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can we say this in a idiomatic way in Mandarin Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13348" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-24T15:00:41.610" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T01:16:51.830" Title="How to express &quot;have fun!&quot; or &quot;enjoy!&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17914" CreationDate="2016-05-07T18:16:56.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are right. It sounds weird even in Chinese. So I'd say it's the problem with the original sentence, not your translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13349" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T18:16:56.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17916" CreationDate="2016-05-07T18:41:56.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;玩得开心 or 尽兴。 Seems that in Chinese, there's no equal saying of having fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13376" LastEditorUserId="13376" LastEditDate="2016-05-09T15:28:37.400" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T15:28:37.400" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17914" CreationDate="2016-05-07T20:09:00.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding punctuation might help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抱着“誓死不从，他就拿我没办法”的信念，我只有拼命挣扎，但是我错了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿...没办法, literally 'take ... with no solution', is an idiomatic way to say 'could do nothing about ...'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;誓死不从，他就拿我没办法 = (If I am) determined to resist to the end of my life, he could do nothing (to make me yield).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抱着...的信念 = with the idea/belief/conviction that ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the whole sentence goes &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With the idea that he couldn't do anything as long as I am determined to resist, I struggled hard with every string pulled, but I was wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2016-05-10T18:16:35.757" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T18:16:35.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17922" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17929" CreationDate="2016-05-08T10:22:53.407" Score="1" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;而 - is a connective like &quot;and&quot; in some situations. Etymologically this meaning comes from how hair in someone's beard are close together.&#xA;就 - is a connective in other situations. Etymology information is lost to us. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can we say that sometimes they are equal in their meaning and function? In what circumstances are they equal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T10:10:20.877" Title="Similarities between connectives 就 and 而?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17922" CreationDate="2016-05-08T10:48:51.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;就 is foremost a verb (closing in, move towards; engage in; accomplish) or an adverb (only, just; then; immediately; precisely), and rarely a conjunction (even if).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而 is foremost a conjunction (and; and yet) or a classical pronoun (you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have no common meanings, and also no particular grammar in common. They can be used together, as in 一蹴而就 or 就我而言.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-05-08T10:48:51.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17922" CreationDate="2016-05-08T11:28:31.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;according to 漢語多功能字庫 &amp;amp; 教育部異體字字典,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%80%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=而&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QTAzMjU1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QTAzMjU1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%B0%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=就&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QTAxMDc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QTAxMDc0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;let look at the differences first:&#xA;就, as verb: come to, go to, complete, follow; 而 doesn't used as verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就, as idiom: at once; 而 doesn't imply such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而 as noun: beard; 就 doesn't have this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, 而 as adverb or conjunction (also, and, and yet, and then, but, nevertheless); 就 as adverb or preposition (then, thereupon, according to), they might be equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in literary chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而者﹒承上之詞也﹒置句首或中﹒猶如也﹒若也﹒然也﹒乃也﹒則也﹒以也﹒與也﹒及也﹒其也﹒豈也﹒且也﹒猶也﹒故也﹒夫也﹒此也﹒唯也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i think that 而 and 就 have different meanings most of the time, one cannot replace each other without modifying the structure of sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-05-08T11:28:31.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17926" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17927" CreationDate="2016-05-09T04:23:48.523" Score="8" ViewCount="570" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm just beginning to learn Mandarin and I have an excellent teacher. She tells me a lot of stories of how the characters came to be. Today we talked about the character for dragon, but she doesn't know how it changed so drastically from the traditional version to the simplified version. I'm very curious because the two characters are not at all alike. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13283" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T02:43:16.830" Title="What is the story or reason of how 龙 came from 龍?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17926" CreationDate="2016-05-09T05:41:30.650" Score="16" Body="&lt;h2&gt;TL;DR&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sxu2W.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sxu2W.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Evolution&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Long Answer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the oracle script to the seal script, character 龍 evolved from simple to complex. The seal script was already very similar to 龍.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aSa9O.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aSa9O.png&quot; alt=&quot;Oracle-Seal Script&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However later, variants (there were too many!)  and 尨 appeared:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Dictionary 集韻 (1037 AD)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;古作[...](帝+尨). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The ancient forms for 龍 are [...] (帝+尨) [...]&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dT5CC.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dT5CC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Dictionary 金石文字辨異 (1810 AD)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;尨: 隋龍藏寺碑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;尨: appeared in the inscription of Longzang Temple (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sui Dynasty&lt;/a&gt;, 581–618 AD).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tE7c3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tE7c3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;尨&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And after the establishment of the PRC, &lt;code&gt;尨&lt;/code&gt; was further simplified to &lt;code&gt;龙&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T05:41:30.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17849" CreationDate="2016-05-09T07:52:03.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Online input method&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin pinyin → Traditional Chinese: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyinput.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.pinyinput.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese pinyin → Traditional Chinese: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantoneseinput.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantoneseinput.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T07:52:03.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17922" CreationDate="2016-05-09T15:21:11.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, these two words are very different, and it's the difference - not the similarity - you need to grasp. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these words indicate a rhetorical &quot;following from,&quot; but 就 means &quot;to follow from&quot; in the broadest, simplest sense, rather like an English &quot;then&quot;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it's used as a 'verb', it's intended to show that one thing follows as a consequence of another. An excellent example of how this usage can be precisely mapped in English is below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;若這樣就那樣“ - &quot;If this, then that.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;他吃了整之火雞，那他就飽了。“ - &quot;He ate the whole turkey, so he, then, [is] full!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, &quot;就“ as a &quot;verb&quot; is easily understandable as an English &quot;then&quot;, as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now consider this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我渴死了“  - &quot;I'm thirsty!&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;”那，你就去喝水吧!“ - &quot;So go drink, then....&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The many instances this phrase can be used - whether humorously, as a reprimand, as an exclamation, as an acquiescence, as mockery - all pretty much depend on &quot;就&quot; being the simplest, most common-sense idea anyone could have. 若一就二 - like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“而” is more like an &quot;and&quot; than a &quot;then&quot; - however, it is more specific and narrow because it further indicates transcendence, or moving beyond the expectations of discourse. In that sense, it's much more like &quot;moreover&quot; - so whether one uses it as &quot;and,&quot; &quot;also,&quot; &quot;but,&quot; &quot;however,&quot; or any other sense, it always has that meaning of saying &quot;moreover&quot; behind it - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我吃飽了，而吃太飽雅。。。“ -&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;I ate, moreover {but/also/however}, i ate too much.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男： “昨晚我們去看弟弟演一出布萊希特戲...&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女： &quot;而他演的好好看啦！“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guy:  &quot;Last night we went to see my little brother act in one of Brecht's plays.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Gal:  &quot;Moreover {And/But/Also} he really acted so well in it!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that exchange above, &quot;而“　can be used to indicate a &quot;but&quot; - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guy: &quot;We went to see my brother act [implied: and i expected him to be awful]....&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Gal:  &quot;But he really looked great up there!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or an &quot;and&quot; that draws attention to the importance of what comes after, in contrast to what came before: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guy: &quot;We saw my brother...&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Gal: &quot;And it was amazing!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, in modern Chinese it's going to indicate a &quot;moreover&quot; of some sort - but depending on the rhetorical context, it can be translated into other languages in any of many ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13392" LastEditorUserId="13392" LastEditDate="2016-05-10T10:10:20.877" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T10:10:20.877" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17914" CreationDate="2016-05-09T22:56:47.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you know other similar sayings (slang, probably) like 把...搞定(be able to solve/resolve)，把...拿下 (get it done)，then the meaning of 拿...没办法 is have no control of someone or certain situation. Reasons could be different though, lack of power, ability, or simply don't have time or not wanting to deal with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T22:56:47.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17904" CreationDate="2016-05-09T23:09:32.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be redundant, but it's not incorrect. There is no plural in Chinese. At times, having 们 merely makes it sound better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T23:09:32.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17894" CreationDate="2016-05-09T23:20:36.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;声东击西 and 借刀杀人 came to mind if you emphasize on the hiding part.&#xA;Making noise in the east while attacking in the west;&#xA;Trick someone else to kill your enemy without doing it yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T23:20:36.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17916" CreationDate="2016-05-09T23:36:23.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;尽管玩儿&#xA;It's similar to Beijing slang that we used to say: 你先玩儿着，我们下回再聊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T23:36:23.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17903" CreationDate="2016-05-10T00:08:57.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will return in a few months. &#xA;Or as you said&#xA;I will come again after a few months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T00:08:57.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17888" CreationDate="2016-05-10T00:21:15.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a bit awkward, but it's still valid to say&#xA;你要换这个东西跟那个吗？&#xA;Another way to say it &#xA;你要把这个东西换成那个吗？&#xA;Or&#xA;你要把这个东西跟那个换一下吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T00:21:15.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17912" CreationDate="2016-05-10T02:44:48.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese like to use phrases, and in fact, many sentences in Chinese are formed by a sequence of phrases to give you the meaning without considering much about the stuff like &quot;is, are, have, has&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, &lt;strong&gt;the proper use of phrases are very important&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your sentence, there is no a conventional saying &quot;长大成家&quot;, which make the whole sentence sound strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the original English sentence, there are two phrases:&quot;grow up and form families&quot;, and I would recommend translating them separately to &quot;长大成人和成家立业&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps you :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13395" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T02:44:48.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17941" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17942" CreationDate="2016-05-10T03:32:14.713" Score="2" ViewCount="599" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning Simplified Mandarin using Memrise. I just learned the character 觉, to feel. However, I'm pretty sure I learned earlier that 觉 meant to sleep. Is there a difference between the characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13398" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T11:41:24.790" Title="Are the characters for sleep and feel the same?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17941" CreationDate="2016-05-10T03:46:07.850" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters can have multiple meanings and multiple pronunciations. You figure out the intended pronunciation and meaning based on the context. In the context 睡觉 （Shuìjiào，&quot;go to sleep&quot;), the pronunciation is jiào and the meaning is &quot;(a period of) sleep&quot;. In the context 感觉 （Gǎnjué， &quot;feeling&quot;), the pronunciation is jué and it contributes the meaning &quot;feel&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastEditorUserId="3183" LastEditDate="2016-05-10T05:30:12.403" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T05:30:12.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17888" CreationDate="2016-05-10T06:19:41.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The proper way to say this would be thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你要把這個東西跟那個換[ 掉] 嗎？“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you insist on not using the &quot;把“ construction, then you should write it thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你這個東西要換那個嗎？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13392" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T06:19:41.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17888" CreationDate="2016-05-10T07:57:35.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;I am come from Taiwan.&#xA;我來自台灣&#xA;In traditional,If the clerk want to check your request that you want to replace!&#xA;They always said:&quot;請問你要把&quot;A&quot;換成&quot;B&quot;嗎?&quot;&#xA;傳統上,如果店員要確認你換貨的需求.他們會說:&quot;請問你要把&quot;A&quot;換成&quot;B&quot;嗎?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you want to exchange this for that?&#xA;(你想要把這個東西和那個東西(交換/取代)嗎?)&#xA;你要换这个东西 &quot;X&quot; 那个吗？&#xA;參考答案:&#xA;你要换这个东西 &quot;成為&quot; 那个吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastEditorUserId="13352" LastEditDate="2016-05-10T09:36:51.960" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T09:36:51.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17945" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17949" CreationDate="2016-05-10T16:16:50.063" Score="4" ViewCount="673" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 还 and 又 may be used to indicate an addition to the preceding information. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我买了香蕉、苹果&lt;strong&gt;还&lt;/strong&gt;买了葡萄。  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们不但要努力学习，还要考得好。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;昨天没考好，现在&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;撞伤了，真倒霉。  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他要买肉&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;要买鱼。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May I exchange both in all above examples? If not, what are the rules involved?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;EDIT&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Short answer according to what I could understand from Frank Joe's reply: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;还 = also  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;又 = and to make things worse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T01:35:21.917" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T06:54:55.340" Title="Difference between 还 and 又" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17945" CreationDate="2016-05-10T18:48:54.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One major difference is when using 不但/不仅....还, you shouldn't substitute with 又 in most cases, but you can in certain scenarios. 她不仅会唱歌，又会跳舞，而且还会画画.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your second sentence sounds a bit awkward, either the logic is not there or not how I would say it.&#xA;Either&#xA;我们只有努力学习，才能考得好。&#xA;Or&#xA;我们不但要努力学习，还要保持/注意身体健康.&#xA;The latter could easily be a slogan in a typical Chinese school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-20T06:54:55.340" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T06:54:55.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17681" CreationDate="2016-05-10T19:16:37.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on the context when you say 不愁没钱 or 不愁钱（用）.&#xA;For example, when you talk about doing something that requires funding but the money is not there yet. On the other hand, you know for sure there is money somewhere else that can be allocated for this &quot;something&quot;, then you would say 不愁没钱.&#xA;A different scenario: I always have $3000 cash in my account each month for purchases, my kid is asking if he can get a new computer for school, I would say 儿子，你上学需要，咱就买，咱家不愁钱.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T19:16:37.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17945" CreationDate="2016-05-10T21:04:32.200" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between 还 and 又 is that 又 expresses a feeling like &quot;Again?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;I ate spaghetti yesterday and today I ate it again!&quot; You can use &quot;我昨天吃了意面，今天又吃了意面!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, 又 means that you want to emphasize that you ate it 'again'. Maybe you want to express that spaghetti is your favorite, or you want to express that you have nothing left in the refrigerator so you just have to eat it again. When you use 又, you always want to let the other person focus that the action is repeated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 还 just means &quot;also&quot;. There is no special meaning here. In your example,  我买了香蕉、苹果还买了葡萄, you just want to say that you bought banana, apple and grape. There is no relationship between these three fruits and you don't have other meaning for 还.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More specific for your question, you cannot exchange 还 and 又 in your example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天没考好，现在又撞伤了，真倒霉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence uses 又 because the fact that the person didn't do well in this exam is already bad news. What's more, he is injured now, which makes this person more unfortunate. You should find that both 没考好 and 撞伤 are negative things. In this sentence, bad things are repeated. We use 又 here because we want to emphasize how unlucky he is in this period of time. 又 deepens the level of unluckiness of this person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他要买肉又要买鱼。&#xA;The speaker tries to emphasize that he needs to buy both meat and fish. You didn't specify the background of this sentence. But if he wants to do this buying, you should use 还 here. If he is not willing to buy these, 又 is more appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了香蕉、苹果还买了葡萄。&#xA;I just bought these three fruits. The speaker wants to state this fact and nothing else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们不但要努力学习，还要考得好。&#xA;For this sentence, the attitude is positive. We need to study hard and get perfect on exams and we really want to reach these goals. If you want to use 又 here, the background should be &quot;our parents ask us to do these and we think these requirements are impossible to do&quot;. And you should replace 不但 with 既 because 既...又 is a word group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, the usage of 又 and 还 really depends on the background of specific sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13387" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T05:34:17.637" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T05:34:17.637" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17945" CreationDate="2016-05-11T03:29:19.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;h1&gt;&quot;实用汉语近义虚词词典＂还（副）／又（副）&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;［相同］&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;都是副词，作状语，以下情况时经常可以互换：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用于未发生的行为，表示同一行为的重复，常与＂要、想、得、会＂等助动词连用，动词后面没有＂了＂：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;１）假如你下次还来找麻烦，我就不客气了。（又✓）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ２）下次还遇到这种事，我该怎么办？（又✓）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ３）他上个星期去了白云山，这个星期还想去。（又✓）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ４）我昨天去银行取钱，没取到，今天又得去一趟。（还✓）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ５）今天听写，明天又要听写。（还✓）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ６）如果不制止，他以后又会这么做的。（还✓）&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用于过去的行为，表示不同行为的增加，动词后面有＂了＂：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;１）昨天我买了一支笔，还买了几个本子。（又✓）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ２）小明刚才扫了地，还擦了窗户。（又✓）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ３）下午我去邮局寄了信，又去市场买了一点菜。（还✓）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ４）去年小周买了房，又买了车。（还✓）&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;［不同］&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用于未发生的行为，表示行为重复时，如果句未有＂了＂，或前面有否定词，只能用＂又＂，不能用＂还＂：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;１）要是这次又失败了，那可怎么办？（还✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ２）如果你今天又迟到了，就只能坐在最后一排。（还✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ３）你千万不要又和别人吵架啊！（还✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ４）你可别又发脾气啊！（还✗)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;＂又＂还可以用于已经发生的行为，表示同一行为重复，动词后或句未常有＂了＂；＂还＂不能这么用：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;１）阿里昨晚又喝醉了。（还✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ２）他把信看了一遍，又看了一遍。（还✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ３）他又来找麻烦了！（还✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ４）你怎么又惹妈妈生气了？（还✗)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;＂又＂还可以用于有规律性的客观行为、事件，表示重复；＂还＂不能：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;１）冬天到了，天气又变冷了。（还✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ２）新的一年又到了。（还✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ３）下星期又该考试了。（还✗)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;表示增加意义时，＂又＂可以表示不同时间范围内行为的增加，＂还＂不能：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;１）去年他买了房，今年又买了车。（还✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ２）我前年去了欧洲旅游，今年又去了东南亚几个国家。（还✗)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;都可以表示行为或状态的持续，但不能互换：＂还＂修饰的动词后面不能有＂了＂，大致相当于＂仍然＂；＂又＂修饰的动词之后要有＂了＂，大致相当于＂接着＂：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;１）都１０点了，你怎么还睡？(又✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ２）那一年，我大学还没毕业。(又✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ３）都几天了，她还在生气呢！(又✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ４）你走后，我们又聊了十多分钟。（还✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ５）叶明又休息了几天，才来上班。（还✗)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    ６）时间还早，我又睡了一会儿才起来。（还✗) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2016-05-11T06:33:02.043" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T06:33:02.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17951" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-11T07:15:56.547" Score="2" ViewCount="1415" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please help me clarify the difference between the two phrases: &#xA;I thought that 睡不着 means that you cannot fall asleep (可能补语）&#xA;for example: 我经常失眠， 睡不着觉。 &#xA;and that 没睡着 means that you didn't sleep （结果补语） &#xA;for example: 牙疼死了， 一夜没睡着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there were also examples like&lt;br&gt;&#xA;昨晚我一夜睡不着 &#xA;is it the same meaning as 没睡着？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12794" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T05:46:26.837" Title="What's the difference between “睡不着” and &quot;没睡着“？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17951" CreationDate="2016-05-11T07:36:47.043" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;睡不著&quot; implies that you want to sleep but you cannot, while &quot;沒睡著&quot; just means that you did not fall asleep. So if you say &quot;昨晚我一夜沒睡著&quot; you could mean that you successfully kept yourself awake all night last night, which is apparently different from &quot;昨晚我一夜睡不着&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, although &quot;牙疼死了，一夜沒睡着&quot; is OK, &quot;牙疼死了，一夜睡不著&quot; is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13233" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T07:36:47.043" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17953" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-11T08:20:48.433" Score="11" ViewCount="2206" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read about connectives 也 和 并 与 及 and asked some questions about them but still I'm somewhat not satisfied with my understanding. Let me summarize my knowledge:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1. 与&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: nouns only (old chinese), similar items of abstract and contrasting nature. 天与地, 是与非&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;does not connect: words having YU sounding charactes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;etymology: many hands holding something.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;analogs to:和跟同&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connotation: &quot;together with&quot; (to sit together with...), used in high speach, ancient/archaic tounge.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;geography of usage: universal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;literal or oral: literal mostly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2. 和&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: nouns, pronouns, synonyms, antomyms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;does not connect: verbs,  words having HE sounding charactes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;etymology: &quot;a grain + a mouth&quot;. Meaningn that something is always a process of &lt;strong&gt;connecting&lt;/strong&gt; food and mouth.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;analogs to:与跟同&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connotation: netural&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;geography of usage: universal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;literal or oral: both&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;3. 跟&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: nouns, single characters, words, applied to similar items and more often to humans.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;does not connect:  verbs, phrases,  words having GEN sounding charactes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;etymology: heel of a foot&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;analogs to:和与同&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connotation: A跟B -&gt; means &quot;A and B&quot; where A is following B &quot;in foot steps&quot;. (some disagree with this &quot;following&quot; connotation&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;geography of usage: northern colloquial&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;literal or oral: oral mostly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;4. 同&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;does not connect: words having TONG sounding charactes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;etymology: Singing while working. Unison, chorus.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;analogs to:和与跟&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connotation: A同B -&gt; &quot;A and B&quot; when both are alike, similar.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;geography of usage: southern colloquial&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;literal or oral: oral mostly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;5. 并&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: synonyms verbs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;does not connect: antomyms?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;etymology: two human standing next to eachother.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;analogs to: 竝﹒並﹒并﹒併&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connotation: A并B, where A and B happen &lt;em&gt;at the same time&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;close in time&lt;/em&gt; progressing from A to B.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;geography of usage: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;literal or oral: literal mostly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;6. 及&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: nouns, verbs, phrases&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;does not connect: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;etymology: a hand grabbing a man&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;analogs to:?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connotation: A及B, means A and B with greater emphasis on A. (can anybody explain)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;geography of usage: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;literal or oral: completely literal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;6.1 乃 or 廼(迺)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;does not connect: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;etymology: 乃 is a dull blown version of 廴 which is a remnant of &quot;a nest&quot; in 廼 where 西 depicts a bird taking a seat in the nest.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;analogs to: 若乃 (like a series of\stacking on top untill) = 至于 (up to). Now servers as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; as a consequence of it's &quot;in a serie&quot; connotation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;examples: 乃聖乃神 - &quot;And perfect and divine!&quot; Here 乃 stresses layering of attributes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connotation: layering of sticks on top of each over, a series of events, one after another (like sticks in a bird's nest).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;geography of usage: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;literal or oral: ? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;7. 而&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: words (old chinese only), phrases&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;does not connect: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;etymology: hair of a beard.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;analogs to: 但 but still means &quot;and&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connotation: giving a sence of exeeding expectations, moreover kind of &quot;and&quot;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;geography of usage: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;literal or oral: both&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;8.也&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: In classical chinese 也 connects nouns. In modern - verbs only&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;etymology: controversial some say it's either a snake (the idea &quot;stretch/connection&quot;) or umbilica cord(connection to mother), or some utility object on the floor, whence &quot;to be low&quot; connotation originate which you still can trace for characters containing 也 as a radical. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;usage: In classical chinese a sentence &lt;strong&gt;AB也&lt;/strong&gt; frequently translates to &quot;A is(equal) B&quot; or &quot;A being(always being) B&quot;. This model of 也 as *&quot;a copula particle with function analoguos to modern &lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt; is being deisputed by some linguists. The best model of a genesis of 也 IMHO is explained in &lt;strong&gt;Marco Caboara&lt;/strong&gt; works. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In short: In classical chinese 也(chi), regardles of it's etymology and true meaning, became a substitute for 啻 since they both had the same reading &quot;chi&quot; but 也 is much easier to write. 啻 had a meaning of &quot;only&quot;/&quot;just&quot;/&quot;alike&quot;/&quot;As&quot; and &quot;to stop&quot; (funny isn't it), so generally we can interpret &lt;strong&gt;AB也&lt;/strong&gt; as modern ** A是B** but more thorough translation&#xA;  would be &quot;A &lt;strong&gt;also&lt;/strong&gt; B&quot; i.e. &lt;strong&gt;A &lt;em&gt;(is)&lt;/em&gt; also &lt;em&gt;(being)&lt;/em&gt; B&lt;/strong&gt;. So I hope you see that thingking about&#xA;  也 as copula &quot;to be&quot; was not a big mistake but &quot;copula-model&quot; does&#xA;  not explain why today we use 也 as &quot;and/with&quot;. But &quot;也-also-model&quot; does hint on the origins of modern 也.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connotation: &lt;em&gt;&quot;also&quot;&lt;/em&gt; almost perfect translation for modern and ALSO :) classical chinese. Other translations: &quot;also equal&quot;, &quot;is also like that&quot;, &quot;alike&quot;, &quot;is the same as&quot;, just &quot;as&quot; when we treat &quot;as&quot; as also. Example: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;He as me&lt;/strong&gt;(AB也) is good at chinese&quot; :).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;9.零&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: numbers only ex.: 一千零一夜 1000 and 1 night.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;10.共&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;geography of usage: Cantonese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;11.又&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: antonyms, parts of a complex number. ex.: 二十又五, 一又三分之二&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;12.亦&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connotation: also&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;13.且&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;does not connect: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;etymology: Primitive pictograph 且. An ancesteral tablet placed on the altar or a depiction of a penis as in 祖 (spirit+penis = spirit of Fathers). So the sence of &quot;following from ancestors to you and so on. The line of following = lineage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;analogs to: 将, in ancient times 且 was used as a future tense marker.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connotation: almost a perfect analog of an english word &quot;further&quot; which is close to meaning of &quot;moreover&quot; as a stressing of some futher things to come. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;usage: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;而且 - &quot;but still&quot; or &quot;yet further&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;尚且 - &quot;further more&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;且不说 - &quot;further no mention&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;且看 - &quot;(let's) further look (at)&quot; or &quot;let's consider&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;且慢 - &quot;further wait (a minute)&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;geography of usage: ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;literal or oral: literal as a standalone character only in classical chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;14.兼 - ?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connects: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;does not connect: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;etymology: &quot;2 cereal twigs + one hand&quot;. Meaning &quot;holding two things in one hand, to lump together, combine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;analogs to:?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;connotation: A兼B , A and B all held together and treated as one object.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;geography of usage: ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;literal or oral: liteal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand the &quot;AND&quot; meaning of those HanZi. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Help! Can you fill in the blanks in the table above? Can you explain usage rules with simple but precise words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Relevance Questions:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3235/do-%E5%92%8C-and-%E5%8F%8A-refer-to-two-different-kinds-of-ands&quot;&gt;Do 和 and 及 refer to two different kinds of “ands?”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T11:46:25.093" Title="也 和 并 与 及 跟 而 同 difference?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-07-17T01:54:00.490" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17953" CreationDate="2016-05-11T10:00:27.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nice summary. Some additions and comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;并&quot; and &quot;及&quot; are largely literal and you don't normally use them in oral expressions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;而&quot; is normally not used in the sense of &quot;and&quot; in modern Chinese. It usually denotes &quot;but&quot;, &quot;yet&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'd say &quot;和&quot; &quot;与&quot; and &quot;跟&quot; are largely interchangeable in daily usage, with &quot;与&quot; being slightly more literal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;跟&quot; is not really &quot;vulgar&quot;. It's just another way to express &quot;and&quot; without necessarily any special/baser meaning on its own. And the meaning of &quot;following&quot; is not really invoked when it's used to mean &quot;and&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T10:00:27.837" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17951" CreationDate="2016-05-11T12:00:26.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you may know there are verbs that can be formed by two character. Let's indicate it with V1V2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The patterns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V1不V2 means I can't/I am not able to...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没V1V2 means I didn't...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 睡不着 I am not able to sleep, while 没睡着 is I didn't sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;explanation&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;You may now wonder, why there is a difference? Is it more of a convention that one pattern is translated this way rather than the other way? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, if we try to translate the meaning literally, we obtain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I (try to) sleep but I don't fall&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or similarly for 看不到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I look but my gaze doesn't reach&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the other pattern instead, we have a straight negation,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there is only way to translate it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't fall asleep or I didn't manage to look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This should help you understand a first difference between these two patters but as you can see with 看到 the difference is even more subtle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember now the difference between 不 and 没。不 is a negation for the &lt;strong&gt;present&lt;/strong&gt; while 没 is a negation for the &lt;strong&gt;past&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T12:00:26.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17888" CreationDate="2016-05-11T12:12:03.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For my opinion,i will replace the 'X' with '成',  by not changing the whole sentence...&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;你要换这个东西 &quot;成&quot; 那个吗？&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;However the sentence I've mentioned sounds weird,we usually say:&#xA;你要把这个东西换成那个吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13410" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T12:12:03.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17953" CreationDate="2016-05-12T00:47:52.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;CCG (2nd ed.) &lt;strong&gt;22.1: Conjunctions that link words or phrases&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;22.1.1: &lt;strong&gt;The 4 conjunctions&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 4 conjunctions that join nouns or nominal expressions. These conjunctions, which all mean 'and', may often be used interchangeably, the difference between them being one of style:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;和 [neutral]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跟 [northern colloquial]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;同 [southern colloquial]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;与 [formal]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爸爸和妈妈都出去了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;城市跟农村我都住过。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你同我都是南方人。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are more than two nominal items, the conjunction comes between the last two, the rest being separated by dun-commas /、/...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哥哥、姐姐、妹妹和弟弟 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;物理、化学、数学和哲学&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;22.1.2: &lt;strong&gt;而 'also'&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is often used to join two adjectives or adjectival expressions, which are either both affirmative or an affirmative followed by a negative. In the former case, the two adjectives must be of similar length, either both monosyllabic or both disyllabic. In the latter case, the affirmative adjective is always monosyllabic and the negative disyllabic with 不 'not' as the first syllable, in a rhythmic, antithetical sequence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个人坚定而勇敢。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他是个认真而严谨的科学家。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这篇文章长而空。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;长而不空。艳而不俗。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个西瓜大而不甜。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;22.1.3: &lt;strong&gt;并 'also'&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can link two predicate verbs that are transitive and share the same object:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;会上讨论并通过了这项提案。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大家都同意并拥护我的提议。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lexical conjunctions cited above are the standard connectives for the three word categories of nouns, adjectives and verbs. However, as we shall see from the clausal conjunctions below ,they have disyllabic variants: e.g. 以及 for 和, 而且 for 而, and 并且 for 并.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T11:46:25.093" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T11:46:25.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17961" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-12T01:39:42.457" Score="0" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0WlyG.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0WlyG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Help what does this symbol on this jacket mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13415" LastActivityDate="2016-05-12T07:25:07.073" Title="I want to purchase this jacket for my son but it has this symbol on it. Can you help? I have a picture!" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-05-12T12:54:29.387" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17961" CreationDate="2016-05-12T02:41:34.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;悟&quot; has the meaning of &quot;think&quot;, but far more than that. In Chinese, 悟 is always related to Zen. &#xA;  If you watched Kung Fu Panda 3 before, could you remember Po tried to 悟 something but he just cannot do that at first? &#xA;  Because 悟 is a really hard thing to do. You can 想(think) a Math question, but you cannot use 悟 with it. Only when the thinking is related to yourself, the nature, the world even the universe and you try to figure out something mentally, you can use 悟.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zaCqi.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zaCqi.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when you try to understand this picture(the Eight Diagrams), you are trying to 悟 something rather than 想(think) something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, this is a good jacket. But I think this 悟 just a abbreviation of Wu(悟)kong(空).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13387" LastActivityDate="2016-05-12T02:41:34.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17961" CreationDate="2016-05-12T05:48:09.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;悟 (wù) is a buddhist concept, especially in chán (禅), and means &quot;realize&quot;, &quot;awaken&quot;, especially in the word 悟空 (wùkōng): awake in the emptiness of existence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The monkey 孙悟空 (Sun Wukong) is a character in the classic novel Journey to the West, and is often portrayed in Chinese and East Asian culture. The same goes for many other buddhist concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this instance, it is related to Japanese manga.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-05-12T05:48:09.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17961" CreationDate="2016-05-12T06:52:22.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I come from Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think your jacket symbol was from a comic that name is &amp;quot;Dragon Ball&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OqWpA.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OqWpA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-05-12T07:25:07.073" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17951" CreationDate="2016-05-12T07:09:35.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I come from Taiwan.&#xA;Actually “睡不着” and &quot;没睡着“ is the same means.&#xA;Means that I did not sleep!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But they had some different.&#xA;“睡不着” means I want to sleep but I can't fall into sleep!&#xA;&quot;没睡着“ means I am trying to sleep but I not fall into sleep!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastActivityDate="2016-05-12T07:09:35.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17953" CreationDate="2016-05-12T09:53:49.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand the &amp;quot;AND&amp;quot; meaning of those . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the context of &amp;quot;and&amp;quot;, as a conjunction, there're roughly about 21 chinese characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;零﹒暨﹒若﹒乃﹒迺﹒且﹒也﹒兼﹒而﹒共﹒亦﹒及﹒竝﹒並﹒并﹒併﹒又﹒與﹒和﹒同﹒連&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to have a full, complete answer is, well; beyond my ability; here're some of my suggestions to your query.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;零&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for &amp;quot;and&amp;quot; in numeric expression, you must use 零, not others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. one thousand and one nights ⋯&amp;gt; 一千零一夜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;暨&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;very formal, might change with 及; example from &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/search.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國語辭典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.    歡迎董事長暨夫人蒞臨指導, 中華兒童暨家庭扶助基金會&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;若&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in literary chinese﹒若﹒猶及也﹒與也; not used as &amp;quot;and&amp;quot; in modern time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.    天官書⋯無德受殃﹒若亡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;若 is roughly &amp;quot;及至於&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 燕策⋯今涇陽君若高陵君﹒先于燕趙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here﹒若 is exactly as &amp;quot;and&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;乃﹒迺&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in literary chinese﹒乃 = 迺﹒及也﹒且也﹒又也; i think that in modern time, we do not use 乃, 迺 as &amp;quot;and&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 儒林列傳⋯欲求能治尚書者﹒天下無有﹒乃聞伏生能治﹒欲召之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here﹒乃者﹒及也﹒and 也; the event &amp;quot;聞伏生能治﹒欲召之&amp;quot; is happened later than the event &amp;quot;欲求能治尚書者﹒天下無有&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 漢書⋯自古而患之久矣﹒何況迺復其南方萬里之蠻乎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here﹒乃者﹒又也﹒and 也; furthermore (何況), and there're barbarian in the distant south.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;且&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in literary chinese﹒且者﹒而也﹒又也﹒並也; nowadays, we used &amp;quot;而且&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;並且&amp;quot; as &amp;quot;and&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example from &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/search.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國語辭典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 老榕樹既高且大&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 魚麗⋯君子有酒﹒旨且多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 僖公二十四年⋯以志吾過﹒且旌善人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;也&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in literary chinese, 也 is one of the most used particles. however, i've difficult to find that it's used as &amp;quot;and&amp;quot; in literatures of yore; i would suggest it's commonly used as &amp;quot;also&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;too&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;兼&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one, translations such as &amp;quot;both&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;together&amp;quot;; are better than &amp;quot;and&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;而&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in literary chinese﹒而者﹒與也﹒及也;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 昭公二十五年⋯哀樂而樂哀﹒皆喪心也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 論語⋯學而時習之﹒不亦說乎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 美而廉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's the name of a restaurant in hong kong, should be translated to delicious (美) and (而) cheap (廉)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;共&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one, i prefer translation &amp;quot;together&amp;quot; most of the time, though it could be used as &amp;quot;and&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 滕王閣序⋯落霞與孤鶩齊飛﹒秋水共長天一色&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;亦&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in literary chinese﹒亦者﹒又也﹒且也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 文公七年⋯先君何罪﹒其嗣亦何罪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 宣公十四年⋯楚子使申舟聘于齊﹒曰﹒無假道于宋﹒亦使公子馮聘于晉﹒不假道于鄭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;及&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in literary chinese﹒及者﹒與也﹒乃也﹒又也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 湯誓⋯時日曷喪﹒予及汝皆亡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 刺客列傳⋯非獨政能也﹒及其姊亦烈女也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;竝﹒並﹒并﹒併&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;based on my reading experience, 竝 (u+7add) is used more in literatures of yore. nowadays, we use 並, or 并, 併.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly, 竝 --&amp;gt;並; 國語辭典 stated &amp;quot;并&amp;quot; 通 &amp;quot;併&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;并&amp;quot; 通 &amp;quot;並&amp;quot;;&#xA;so, i put this four characters in group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 我支持這項決定﹒并加以宣導&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 漢書⋯徙代王於清河﹒是為剛王﹒並前在代凡立四十年薨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, i'm tired to find examples for the others five: 又﹒與﹒和﹒同﹒連&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;let me to stop here, have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T07:31:15.663" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17968" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-12T10:39:52.247" Score="1" ViewCount="3445" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was browsing &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.brainyquote.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.brainyquote.com/&lt;/a&gt; website and found that the top one quote on hot topic &quot;life&quot; is an quote from Confucius(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_life.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_life.html&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do read part of &lt;em&gt;The Analects of Confucius&lt;/em&gt; however I doesn't remember any quote with similar meaning. what is the exact original/source text of quote above? How should I translate it to Chinese? I have tried google translation but only get Vernacular Chinese sentence which of course could not be the original one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12881" LastEditorUserId="12881" LastEditDate="2016-05-12T10:51:41.203" LastActivityDate="2018-12-22T21:31:51.670" Title="what is the of exact original/source text of &quot;Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17968" CreationDate="2016-05-12T10:53:06.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Confucius&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia page for Confucius&lt;/a&gt;, in the &quot;Misattributed&quot; section, you can find this quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Attributed on the internet but not found in print prior to an attribution in Aero Digest, 1949, p. 115&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13418" LastActivityDate="2016-05-12T10:53:06.343" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17970" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-12T15:38:08.157" Score="2" ViewCount="328" Body="&lt;p&gt;i know that a few hanzis cannot be used alone, on their own, in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i am looking for a list where i can find them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;someone can help ? just for the most frequent :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is it allowed to use 爸 alone or only in 爸爸 ？what about 把 with handle meaning : is it allowed to use alone for that meaning ? confusing with measure word and preposition used in 把字句 baziju structures...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there is also the case 白 ：is it allowed to use alone for &quot; white &quot; ? or white can only be translated by 白色 ？&#xA;a list of characters not used on their own should be welcome, a great help for learners :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2016-06-06T05:38:02.080" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T05:38:02.080" Title="hanzis used on their own, hanzis exclusively used in words" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17970" CreationDate="2016-05-12T16:46:27.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;蝴(蝶), (葡)萄, 琵(琶), 玻(璃), 怂恿 are some examples of characters that occur only in di- or polysyllabic compounds, never alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-05-12T16:46:27.473" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17972" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17973" CreationDate="2016-05-12T17:06:37.503" Score="1" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;Getting your eyebrows done is different in China than in the West.  In China, it involves shaving (rather than waxing or threading), trimming, and plucking.  Consequently, I have been asking for 刮眉毛 (guā méi mao, or &quot;shave eyebrows&quot;), and since I ended up with my eyebrows done, I thought it was correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have recently learned that I instead should ask for 修眉 (xiū méi) or 修眉毛 (xiū méi mao).  However, it's unclear to me how I should use this in a sentence, e.g., what is a grammatically correct way to ask for 修眉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question&lt;/em&gt;: How should I ask for 修眉?  How should I use 修眉 in a sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2016-05-14T02:26:43.627" Title="Getting my eyebrows done = 修眉 (xiū méi); how do I use this?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17972" CreationDate="2016-05-12T20:04:50.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;刮眉毛 is grammatically identical to 修眉毛. They are both an action. The only difference is in the meaning. Therefore, you can use 修眉毛 in the same way as 刮眉毛. Here is some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你好，我想修眉毛。 (Hello, I want to 修眉毛) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你好，你们这里可以修眉毛吗？ (Hello, do you offer&#xA;修眉毛 service?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following also make sense grammatically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你好，我想刮眉毛。 (Hello, I want to 刮眉毛) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你好，你们这里可以刮眉毛吗？ (Hello, do you offer&#xA;刮眉毛 service?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13423" LastEditorUserId="13423" LastEditDate="2016-05-14T02:26:43.627" LastActivityDate="2016-05-14T02:26:43.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17974" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-13T00:41:08.363" Score="0" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe this violates rules (at least it does in StackOverflow), because it's a subjective question.  But this is a really big decision so I just wanted to tap any resources I could before moving forward&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm going to open a business that has private Mahjong rooms, open late (till 4AM), at the top floor of a building&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a business name I am thinking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;熬云&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because 熬夜 is staying up late&#xA;运气 is luck&#xA;and 云 is clouds (top floor)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my main problem is that I have no idea how it sounds.  I do not know any Chinese business names, what is normal, what sounds normal, what sounds ridiculous&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Does &lt;strong&gt;熬云&lt;/strong&gt; sound like a business name?  Especially one that has private rooms for mahjong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastEditorUserId="4181" LastEditDate="2016-05-13T01:56:05.687" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T23:02:03.920" Title="Opening a Mahjong business. Does 熬云 sound like a business name? Have no idea what a normal Chinese business name sounds like" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17972" CreationDate="2016-05-13T01:04:49.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;修 means &quot;modify&quot;; 刮 means &quot;shave&quot;, which is some kind of &quot;modify&quot;. &quot;修眉&quot; usually means &quot;modify the style of eyebrows, including shave the rim of it&quot;, since merely nobody shave her eyebrows completely. However, when saying &quot;刮眉毛&quot;, in people's common sense, she will be of no eyebrows. &quot;描眉&quot; is used more frequently than &quot;修眉&quot;, and they're usually used together. Beautiful women 描眉 everyday, but hardly 刮眉; they prefer to say 描眉 or 修眉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11933" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T01:04:49.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17974" CreationDate="2016-05-13T01:59:52.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me as a native speaker, there is a negative feeling about 熬. It means getting through(or endure) bad things(etc. pain, poor, sickness).&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/71AC.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;see 熬's meaning here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So maybe 熬 is just not the best choice. But considering your ID as &quot;A O&quot;, you may like this &quot;ao&quot; sound very much. So my recommendation is to use 鏖 instead.(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/26/js/93D6.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;see 鏖's meaning here&lt;/a&gt;). It basically meaning a really long battle. As Mahjong is a really long battle on the table. Hope this helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T01:59:52.657" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17977" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-13T07:27:37.820" Score="2" ViewCount="513" Body="&lt;p&gt;When using the complement 到, like in 买不到, &#xA;being able/unable to achieve the goal - is connected to the subject or object? &#xA;For example&#xA;这本新书很受欢迎， 你现在去买， 一定买不到。 (cannot buy because there are no books left..)&#xA;Will it be correct to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我忘了信用卡， 买不到礼物&#xA;or&#xA;今天我很忙， 买不到礼物&#xA;Here the ability/inability is connected to 我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12794" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T06:53:11.723" Title="Use of complement 到" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17978" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17991" CreationDate="2016-05-13T07:55:53.097" Score="4" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;打墙也是动土&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/70931373.html?fr=ala&amp;amp;word=%E6%89%93%E5%A2%99%E4%B9%9F%E6%98%AF%E5%8A%A8%E5%9C%9F&amp;amp;device=mobile&amp;amp;ssid=0&amp;amp;from=844b&amp;amp;uid=0&amp;amp;pu=usm@0,sz@1320_2001,ta@iphone_1_8.4_3_600&amp;amp;bd_page_type=1&amp;amp;baiduid=B0DC14BD4CFD809A8478494C15B38C6D&amp;amp;tj=zhidao_1_0_10_l1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/70931373.html?fr=ala&amp;amp;word=打墙也是动土&amp;amp;device=mobile&amp;amp;ssid=0&amp;amp;from=844b&amp;amp;uid=0&amp;amp;pu=usm@0,sz@1320_2001,ta@iphone_1_8.4_3_600&amp;amp;bd_page_type=1&amp;amp;baiduid=B0DC14BD4CFD809A8478494C15B38C6D&amp;amp;tj=zhidao_1_0_10_l1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;动土：指破土建房。意谓为了小事费了大手续，便不如索性做起大事来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出处：《红楼梦》第二十九回：“‘打墙也是动土’！已经惊动了人，今日乐得还去逛逛。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lit&lt;/strong&gt; Building a wall also [requires] moving earth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fig&lt;/strong&gt; Building a wall requires almost as much work as building a house, so why not build a house? If one is going to undertake something, why stop at half measures? Why not “go the whole hog”/go “all the way”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打墙也是动土 doesn't seem to be super well known, I'm looking for something that expresses the idea of &amp;quot;If one is going to undertake something, why stop at half measures?&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any synonyms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T08:32:30.293" Title="Well-known Synonym: 打墙也是动土" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17979" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17980" CreationDate="2016-05-13T11:54:53.657" Score="8" ViewCount="1878" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but the Cyrillic Ш/ш (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sha_%28Cyrillic%29&quot;&gt;sha&lt;/a&gt;) looks like the Chinese 山 (shān) and have similarity in pronunciation.  Is there any actual relation between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T22:21:54.373" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T22:21:54.373" Title="Is there any relation between the Cyrillic Ш (sha) and the Chinese 山 (shān)?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17979" CreationDate="2016-05-13T12:28:13.500" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. The Cyrillic script is based on the Greek script, and some other local scripts like Hebrew. The basis for &lt;em&gt;sha&lt;/em&gt; is thought to be the Hebrew letter &lt;code&gt;ש (shin)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;ש&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's unlikely that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;shin&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is based on the Chinese character, either. It seems taken from the Phoenician alphabet, where the corresponding letter looks like a Latin &lt;code&gt;W&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's worth keeping in mind that at the time Cyrillic characters were invented, Russia did not yet control Siberia. So it was very far from China, and contact between China and the west was limited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But maybe the Chinese character was influenced by these scripts?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's not impossible, but the earliest versions of the Character look more like a triangle, so the simpler explanation is that it's just a picture of a mountain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pa0OK.png&quot; width=&quot;100&quot; height=&quot;100&quot; alt=&quot;Seal script 山&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the evidence, it seems unlikely that these characters are related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastEditorUserId="12420" LastEditDate="2016-05-13T13:02:15.917" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T13:02:15.917" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17897" CreationDate="2016-05-13T18:09:04.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;外来物种&lt;/code&gt; sounds right in Mandarin, but it means exotic species. You can simply replace &lt;code&gt;物种&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;宠物&lt;/code&gt; and to become &lt;code&gt;外来宠物&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6555" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T18:09:04.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17951" CreationDate="2016-05-13T18:19:14.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;睡不着&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;cannot fall asleep&lt;/code&gt;, while &lt;code&gt;没睡着&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;the state of not falling alseep&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6555" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T18:19:14.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17974" CreationDate="2016-05-13T23:02:03.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;熬definitely sounds negative tiresome if not above neutral. 傲云maybe better choice and still has the sound/meaning if your original 熬云. Each hand starts with 13 tiles remind me a restaurant named &quot;Lucky 13&quot;. Contradiction like that sometimes makes it stand out more or make it easy for people to remember. If the name is 清七对, everyone (who plays Mahjong) knows what it is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T23:02:03.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17978" CreationDate="2016-05-14T03:18:35.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不能半途而废&#xA;do not give up at half way&#xA;or 持之以恒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastActivityDate="2016-05-14T03:18:35.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17985" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17986" CreationDate="2016-05-14T13:24:23.073" Score="1" ViewCount="5108" Body="&lt;p&gt;is there one by the two words above usually used for &quot; percent &quot; ?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or is it usual  to use any of them ?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wenlin software  gives 百分比 as percent.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mdbg dictionary on line gives 百分之   :-)   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T04:07:51.287" Title="translate &quot;percent&quot; in chinese 百分之 or 百分比?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17985" CreationDate="2016-05-14T13:31:20.450" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Matter of taste. You want prefix style, use 百分比, as in 五个百分比. Suffix style, use 百分之, as in 百分之五.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;百分之 is a sentence pattern, and requires a number. 百分比 is a noun, and also means percentage on its own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-05-14T13:31:20.450" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17985" CreationDate="2016-05-15T23:47:46.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;百分比&quot; means percentage and can be used alone as a noun. &quot;百分之&quot; can only be used as a prefix, and the result is a specific percentage, e.g. 1%, 2%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The expression 1% etc are pronounced as 百分之..., that could give you a sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: A 占 B的百分比是多少？ 百分之一（1%）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13337" LastActivityDate="2016-05-15T23:47:46.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17985" CreationDate="2016-05-16T00:41:25.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simpler way: % in 国语 (Taiwanese Mandarin) is pronounced pa1. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can basically take any number: 10 (shi2) and add % (pa1) on the end and you're done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%25&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%25&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T00:41:25.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17990" CreationDate="2016-05-16T02:33:40.373" Score="2" ViewCount="508" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've searched in here and elsewhere on the web and couldn't find the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the percentage of the most common characters (say, top 5000) that underwent simplification?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="20986" LastEditDate="2019-03-12T17:27:11.347" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T17:27:11.347" Title="What's the percentage of simplified characters in the most common characters?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17989" CreationDate="2016-05-16T08:09:57.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4d3f04b40100ffxk.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4d3f04b40100ffxk.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;有学者王鼎吉统计：以国家语委、国家教委1988年1月26日联合发布的《现代汉语常用字表》为例，在3500个常用字中，有简化字1116个，占31.9%，即不到三分之一&#xA;there are 31.9% character undergo simplification in the most common 3500 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T08:09:57.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17978" CreationDate="2016-05-16T08:32:30.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides 一不做，二不休, there is 好人做到底，送佛送到西. Or simply 既然已经做了，索性做到底. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English you can say &quot;in for a penny, in for a pound&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T08:32:30.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17970" CreationDate="2016-05-16T08:40:28.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Judging from the examples in your question, I suppose you are not asking about 联绵词 as other users have mentioned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can definitely use 爸 and 白 alone, but not in all circumstances. As for 把 in the sense of &quot;handle&quot;, I'd say it is seldom used this way. 把儿 and 把手 are more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the general question, I don't think one can find a good list of characters that can't be used alone. You see, this is not a black or white situation. The independence of each Chinese character is rather a continuous spectrum. In fact, the distinction between &quot;word&quot; and &quot;phrase&quot; itself is not so clear. I'm afraid this won't be a case where one can memorise a list and be ready to go. In stead, you may have to learn the collocations gradually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T08:40:28.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17970" CreationDate="2016-05-16T10:27:09.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost all characters are words on their own. The question you asked is the problem of raising spoken Mandarin in China. Its phonetic structure does not fit well with Chinese characters ( losing part of tones and rime-endings ) forcing it to use redundant characters to differentiate the meaning of words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In written Chinese and some other branches of Chinese languages, it can stand alone. Say in Cantonese, [亞爸 / 去咗 / 街], [面 / 青 / 口唇 / 白]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in spoken Mandarin, 爸 and 白 are allowed alone, joining with other character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[我／爸／是／李剛], [爸，我 / 結婚 / 了].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[白的] [白開水]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you heard is not universal in Chinese languages. From the beginning of Chinese writing, the written script is mostly not of spoken langauges. The original Chinese writing presses writers to remove redundant words and to keep it easy to read out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T10:27:09.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17248" CreationDate="2016-05-16T11:11:33.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The misalignment of definition comes from misunderstanding of words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the very beginning of Chinese writing, writing is not word by word record of spoken, but specialized form of record eliminating any unnecessary redundancy. This makes Chinese writing more independent from actual pronunciation of languages and allows the evolution of languages without affecting Chinese writing much. It is no surprise that Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese has adopted it for a long time with this adaptable structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《方言》 is a book written nearly two thousand years ago, which means the words of various places (in the empire).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Western linguistics was introduced in Chinese, &quot;方言&quot; was chosen to mean &quot;dialect&quot;. While a dialect means a mutually understandable branch within a language, some perceives it is various speeches in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is pretty tricky that while the Chinese writing is understandable across languages but the speakers of various languages are not mutually intelligible in daily life. The political issues on the unification and nationalistic climax of China causes widespread misinformation of 方言. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays linguistics agrees that they are Chinese language&lt;strong&gt;s&lt;/strong&gt; and linguist groups them in a Chinese language family. Only those with no linguistics knowledge would still debate on the word 方言. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T11:11:33.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17995" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-16T17:02:43.793" Score="-1" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know how I should say &quot;It was added a language menu&quot; I know that 语言菜单 its language menu, but what about the verb? and the person? How I can make a sentences like this one? Thanks (: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13449" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T17:30:44.877" Title="How do you say &quot;It was added a language menu.&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17995" CreationDate="2016-05-16T17:30:44.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;code&gt;已添加到语言菜单&lt;/code&gt;, which means &lt;code&gt;(It) was added to language menu&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6555" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T17:30:44.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17997" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-17T00:22:19.000" Score="0" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am student of chinese language, level 1 and I will have to make a presentation about my city.&#xA;I would truly appreciate your help.&#xA;The title is &quot;City of students&quot;. Could it be translated to &quot;Da xue sheng cheng shi&quot;?&#xA;And also, to indicate the colours of the city flag is the sentence &quot;Chengshi guoqi de yanse shi hui se he huang se&quot; correct (by any chance)?&#xA;Thank you so much!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13451" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T04:14:30.843" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T05:06:13.147" Title="Can &quot;City of students&quot; be translated to &quot;Da xue sheng cheng shi&quot;?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17997" CreationDate="2016-05-17T00:52:01.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the first part, Wang Dingwei is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the second sentence, guoqi(国旗) refers to the national flag. The city flag should be translated to &quot;shiqi&quot;(市旗). I think &quot;shiqi de yanse shi huise he huangse&quot;(市旗的颜色是灰色和黄色) should be right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13447" LastEditorUserId="13447" LastEditDate="2016-05-17T07:27:01.747" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T07:27:01.747" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17997" CreationDate="2016-05-17T06:59:49.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the first part, I think you mean 大学城. Google that and you will see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ivan is correct about 市旗. The description, however, could use a bit of polishing. Try 市旗为灰黄二色。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, if you are referring to the flag of the 大学城 (if such a thing even exists), since it isn't really a city, you may have to say 大学城的旗帜为灰黄二色。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2016-05-17T07:14:10.033" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T07:14:10.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17985" CreationDate="2016-05-17T08:40:02.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;百分比 is percentage&lt;br&gt;&#xA;百分之 is percent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;one percent = 百分之一&lt;br&gt;&#xA;five percentages = 五个百分比&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13458" LastEditorUserId="13458" LastEditDate="2016-05-17T08:45:04.983" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T08:45:04.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17997" CreationDate="2016-05-17T18:15:41.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;City of students: 学生之城 (xuésheng zhī chéng)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;City flag: 市旗为紫黄双色 (shìqí wèi zǐ-huáng shuāng sè)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that words are not split up into morphemes when using pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T18:15:41.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18005" CreationDate="2016-05-17T23:16:51.130" Score="2" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently reading an entomologists diaries from the late 19th Century - A.E. Pratt. He travelled Sichuan Province and published his journal, &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/tosnowsoftibetth00pratrich&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;To the Snows of Tibet through China&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, in 1892. Pratt keeps referring to the &lt;em&gt;Tung&lt;/em&gt; River; however, I can find no corresponding river, today. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a couple of problems, the first being that names change frequently throughout the frontier's particularly turbulent pre-modern history. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pratt mentions &lt;em&gt;Fu-lin&lt;/em&gt; (which I am assuming is modern day &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/maps/place/Fuling,+Chongqing,+China/@29.5854082,106.8238431,11z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x369300832bb0e82b:0xaafda18e375b4c45!8m2!3d29.703113!4d107.389298&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fuling&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; which he also mentions). Pratt mentions the Yangtse by name, so the Tung is not the Yangtse on which Fuling sits. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, here is my question: assuming Pratt was using somthing akin to Wade-Gile's system of romanization, what would the &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt; equivalent be, i.e. I can't remember what &quot;T&quot; is in Wade-Giles? Is anyone aware of the &lt;em&gt;Tung&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4495" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T04:12:17.530" Title="Historical Question, Possible Wade-Giles, Sichuan river name" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18004" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-18T00:57:38.263" Score="2" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question for you all. Recently, I've been using a textbook from mainland China. In the textbook, I learned 出于Sth考虑, which means roughly &quot;Out of consideration for ___&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher, who is Taiwanese, corrected me to say &quot;基于Sth考虑&quot;。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be interested - for any native speakers. Which do you prefer to say? Where are you from? (And, if you know, is there a regional difference)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T05:16:06.370" Title="出于考虑 vs。 基于考虑 。 Do Taiwanese say 基于？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18003" CreationDate="2016-05-18T01:49:08.973" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tung river is the translation of 銅河, it's called 大渡河 (Dadu river) now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On page 127 of the &quot;to the snows of tibet through china&quot;, it was written:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;. . . Lu-ting-chiao, which is built on both banks of the Tung River, . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, Lu-ting-chiao is 瀘定橋.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, there's a map on page 353, you may compare it with other source :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another interesting book about tibet, thanks :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2016-05-18T04:12:17.530" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T04:12:17.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18004" CreationDate="2016-05-18T02:54:36.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;have a look of this article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/supplement/columnist/art/20150903/19279967&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/supplement/columnist/art/20150903/19279967&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both &quot;出於&quot; or &quot;基於&quot; are equivalent of english &quot;based on&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would prefer &quot;pure chinese&quot;, as suggested by the author, or, write in literary chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T02:54:36.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18007" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-18T05:27:34.903" Score="5" ViewCount="886" Body="&lt;p&gt;My teacher said it wasn't a good thing to say - why? For example, my back really hurt - is this not what I should have said?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I express that my lower back hurts? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T23:00:09.327" Title="Why can't I say &quot;我的腰不好”" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18008" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-18T05:57:16.283" Score="0" ViewCount="301" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know which of these two phrases you use more often. I know that in general they both mean &quot;a double edged sword&quot; is one used more in Taiwan or in mainland China? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6003" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T13:39:22.833" Title="双刃剑 vs。 两面刀 which is used more often?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18007" CreationDate="2016-05-18T07:12:33.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我的腰不好 In Chinese, the word has sexual meanings, implicitly meaning that you are weak in sex..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13462" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T07:12:33.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18007" CreationDate="2016-05-18T07:52:58.917" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;腰 or 腰子 is slang for kidney. In traditional Chinese medicine theory, kidney is responsible for producing and storing sperms. Thus 腰不好 becomes a slang implying weakness in bed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It takes a cheeky friend to twist 腰不好 towards sex; In a lot of situations saying 腰不好 is fine. If you are unsure, it is always OK to say 腰疼 or 腰痛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T07:52:58.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18008" CreationDate="2016-05-18T08:17:30.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;刀, by definition, usually has a curved blade with one sharpened edge. Thus a Samurai's sword, a scimitar, and a machete all fall into the definition of 刀. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it has a double edge, and it has a straight shape, it is usually a 剑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;双刃剑 is the standard translation of double-edged sword. There is no usage difference between Taiwan and the mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In very rare cases, 两面刀 is short for 两面三刀, which describes a two-faced person who is secretly trying to harm the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="11095" LastEditDate="2016-05-21T06:22:41.850" LastActivityDate="2016-05-21T06:22:41.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18013" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18019" CreationDate="2016-05-18T11:21:37.350" Score="3" ViewCount="449" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a question about making comparisons in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between saying '我不比她差' and '我比她不差'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T23:01:20.463" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T00:52:18.777" Title="What's the difference between saying '我不比她差' and '我比她不差'?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18014" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-18T16:48:36.697" Score="0" ViewCount="1777" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know how to form a sentence such as, &quot;He shared this information with me,&quot; &quot;She shared her recommendations with me.&quot; I believe the &quot;with&quot; here is not 跟，和 or 与, since the &quot;sharing&quot; action is not joint or communal. Instead, it's what one person &quot;gives,&quot; in a sense, to another. Would 分享 ever apply to this type of &quot;share,&quot; or is it 送, or is it something like &quot;他给我分享。。。&quot;? What would I say in the case of, &quot;He shared this song with me?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help clarifying this would be greatly appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13465" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T14:25:21.053" Title="How do I say &quot;share with me&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18008" CreationDate="2016-05-18T16:51:15.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;双刃剑 definitely. Chinese swords are always double edged. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no 两面刀, it's too dangerous for the user. This word became a metaphor for 'double-dealers'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T16:51:15.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18014" CreationDate="2016-05-18T17:08:32.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;He shared this song with me&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the following translations are correct and common, you can use them interchangeably in a loose environment, say daily conversation, normal text. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Suggest sharing&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他跟我分享了这首歌. &#xA;他和我分享了这首歌.&#xA;他与我分享了这首歌.&#xA;他同我分享了这首歌.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Suggest owner&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他给我分享了这首歌.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T17:08:32.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18013" CreationDate="2016-05-18T17:12:04.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我不比她差&#xA;Normal structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我比他不差&#xA;To emphasize you are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; less...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T17:12:04.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18018" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-18T23:02:55.203" Score="1" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;and thank you for making time to help me with this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I met with a supplier recently, and they told me that in China there was a word for the process of developing and refining a product. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The concept as explained to me was pronounced choppa-dowa. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the correct spelling/pronunciation/interpretation of that concept?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you so much again - Norman Lutes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13468" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T17:40:37.260" Title="Word for developing and refining a product: Choppa - dowa?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18013" CreationDate="2016-05-19T03:48:45.200" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Judging from a native speaker point of view, use '我不比她差' only.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'我比她不差' doesn't make sense in Chinese, as no one uses '我比她'+ '不' + adjective.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you want to say 'I am better than her', say '我比她好' instead of '我比她不差'&#xA;When using '我比她' + adjective, don't use '不' in front of the adjective; native people don't understand it and don't use it like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you want to say 'I am not worst than her', say '我不比她差'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example: When you want to say 'I am taller than her', say '我比她高' instead of '我比她不矮'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13423" LastEditorUserId="13423" LastEditDate="2016-05-24T18:31:56.723" LastActivityDate="2016-05-24T18:31:56.723" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18013" CreationDate="2016-05-19T05:26:48.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The emphasis of &lt;code&gt;我比她不差&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;她&lt;/code&gt;, the object to be compared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T05:26:48.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18014" CreationDate="2016-05-19T16:29:13.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;With context, X 跟/和/与 Y分享了... can mean the same thing that X initiated the sharing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without context, X 和/与 Y 分享了... can mean either way, although it is more likely to be understood as X initiated the sharing to Y, so you might need to add clarification if it's the other way. 跟 will always mean X initiated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you does not want to indicate who initiated the sharing, you can use 我们分享了... as in English &quot;we shared...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T16:29:13.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18018" CreationDate="2016-05-19T17:36:44.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Closest I can think of is 产品开发, or chanpin-kaifa (product development).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where in China did you hear this? Sounds southern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T17:36:44.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17240" CreationDate="2016-05-19T17:39:18.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The last one is '居'. 富贵居.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't how to translate it, but not everyone's home can be called 居. Usually belong to an educated man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T17:39:18.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18008" CreationDate="2016-05-19T20:05:32.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For such comparison, google is a nice tool.  You can compare the popularity of words by the number of results found by Google.&#xA;Remember to put a phrase in double quotes to search the exact phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3wYxd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3wYxd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;versus&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NYzux.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NYzux.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;两面刀&quot; used to be a popular phrase in Ming dynasty.  Most search results of &quot;两面刀&quot; are sayings in Ming dynasty that contain &quot;两面刀&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The literal meanings of &quot;双刃剑&quot;, &quot;两面刀&quot; are rarely used, their metaphorical meanings are quite different.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12906" LastEditorUserId="12906" LastEditDate="2016-05-23T19:09:19.470" LastActivityDate="2016-05-23T19:09:19.470" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17977" CreationDate="2016-05-20T07:05:54.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;到&quot; is more like a colloquial expression that is the equivalent of &quot;了&quot;, and its usage depends on regions. So there is no real strict rule saying it can only be used in conjunction with subject/object whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastActivityDate="2016-05-20T07:05:54.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17977" CreationDate="2016-05-20T10:12:57.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;＂实用现代汉语语法＂distinguishes 3 types of 可能补语；A、B 与 C 类如下：A：在动词结果补语或趋向补语之间插入＂得＂或＂不＂可以构成 A 类补语。＂吃饱＂－－－＂吃得饱＂、＂吃不饱＂（买到－－－买得到、买不到）。B：B类可能补语是由＂得／不＋了＂构成的。C：动词和形容词后可以只用＂得／不得＂作补语，叫 C 类可能补语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q and comment #2 (着zhao2 作结果补语，表示动作达到了目的，多用于口语） have type A, comment #1 has type B。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂实用现代汉语语法＂：B 类可能补语于 A 类的区别：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然在表达＂主、客观条件是否容许实现＂这一点上 A 类可能补语与 B 类有相同之处，但 A 类总与动作的结果或趋向联系，而 B 类则与结果或趋向无关。试比较：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１）今天晚上我有事，看不完这本书了。（A 类，不能实现＂看完＂）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;２）今天晚上我有事，看不了这本书了。（B 类，不能实现＂看＂）（supporting comment #1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;包含 B 类可能补语的句子的结构特点 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;包含 B 类可能补语的句子，结构特点基本与包含 A 类可能补语的句子相同，值得提出的有以下两点：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１。动词形容词与 B 类结合要比 A 类来得容易，结合面也宽些，连某些动补式动词（如＂扩大、延长，埋没，提高＂等）、前面有状语的动词甚至有其他补语的动词都可以带 B 类补语。例如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１）我们这里埋没不了人才。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;２）他这个人，早来不了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;３）这些土地是我们的，谁也抢不了去！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是因为 B 类可能补语主要用于口语，所以只有口语中不常用的动词，如＂逾、著、恭候、寻（找）。。。＂、表示使令义的＂使、让、叫＂以及能愿动词等不能带 B 类可能补语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不能带 B 类可能补语的形容词有以下两类：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A。某些口语中不常用的，如＂肮脏＂、＂错误＂、＂丑陋＂、＂细腻＂、＂衰败＂、＂高大＂等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B。非谓形容词，如＂男＂、＂女＂、＂雌＂、＂雄＂，＂正＂、＂副＂、＂横＂、＂竖＂、＂夹＂、＂大型＂、＂初级＂、＂多项＂、＂个别＂、＂共同＂、＂主要＂、＂新生＂、＂慢性＂、＂新式＂、＂四方＂、＂万能＂、＂天然＂、＂人为＂、＂袖珍＂、＂高频＂等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;２。B 类可能补语中间不能插入程度副词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2016-07-20T05:02:39.400" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T05:02:39.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18031" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18048" CreationDate="2016-05-21T16:31:58.030" Score="4" ViewCount="499" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a piece of artwork, a paper rubbing (see the images attached) with a piece of text on, which I'd like to know the meaning of. I suspect it is in Chinese, but I'm unsure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online tools like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newocr.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.newocr.com/&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.i2ocr.com/free-online-chinese-traditional-ocr&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.i2ocr.com/free-online-chinese-traditional-ocr&lt;/a&gt; for character recognition have failed me completely, and I don't have an Android phone to try Google Translate on the image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have checked the list of characters at on the list &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zein.se/patrick/3000char.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zein.se/patrick/3000char.html&lt;/a&gt;. Number 49 is somewhat similar to the last character on the drawing, and from the topic I'm guessing it has something to do with distance, but I couldn't get any further than that. Checking for Japanese as well, I have skimmed &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_j%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_j%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji&lt;/a&gt; and the last character on the drawing appears as number 314, meaning &quot;rut&quot;; this is rather unhelpful. The size of the rubbing is 47 x 35 cm, the size of the text on it is 2 x 6 cm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please let me know the meaning or point me in the right direction? I'd also appreciate any hints about the cultural context, if there's any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/skVEC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yMGOz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yMGOz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13405" LastEditorUserId="13405" LastEditDate="2016-05-22T14:15:37.017" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T21:28:25.577" Title="Meaning of text on a picture" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18031" CreationDate="2016-05-21T17:45:30.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like a rubbing of (漢) dynasty stone carving. The second character is 君 (u+541b), which means &quot;a chief; a sovereign; ruler; gentleman; monarch&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 3rd one is 車 (u+8eca), which means &quot;cart, vehicle, barrow, carriage, chariot&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, this type of carriage is called &quot;軺車&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-05-24T03:03:47.317" LastActivityDate="2016-05-24T03:03:47.317" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18033" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18037" CreationDate="2016-05-22T00:13:54.200" Score="7" ViewCount="5568" Body="&lt;p&gt;The last name of the detective Sherlock Holmes is translated as &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%87%E6%B4%9B%E5%85%8B%C2%B7%E7%A6%8F%E5%B0%94%E6%91%A9%E6%96%AF&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;福尔摩斯&lt;/a&gt;&quot;(Fuermosi) in Chinese, which seems to be strange, since the Chinese pronunciation is nowhere close to the English one, beginning with the &quot;F&quot; sound instead of the &quot;H&quot; sound. Since the word &quot;福&quot; doesn't vary significantly in pronunciation across dialects, it probably is not a dialectal issue. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, the &quot;ho&quot; phoneme is definitely present in Chinese, and translating it as &quot;侯尔摩斯&quot; would be significantly closer in pronunciation to the original. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a reason this strange translation was carried out in the first place, and was furthermore maintained over the years? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was myself confused by this translation, when I saw the book in a Chinese library and could not initially place any detective story starting with &quot;Four&quot; or the equivalent, and only realised the true translation after browsing through the book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8054" LastEditorUserId="8054" LastEditDate="2016-05-22T00:20:04.530" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T10:57:09.547" Title="Why is Sherlock Holmes translated as &quot;福尔摩斯&quot; (Fuermosi)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18033" CreationDate="2016-05-22T00:30:01.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;福尔摩斯&quot; is not accurate for the pronunciation. That's right. But this is decided by the first two translators for the book in 1902, Ding Huang and Zaixin Zhang. They translated Sherlock Holmes to &quot;休洛克福而摩司&quot;, which is really similar to &quot;福尔摩斯&quot;. In 1903, &quot;福尔摩斯&quot; was used in a new translated version by Wenming Press. But the reason behind this is untrackable anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13387" LastActivityDate="2016-05-22T00:30:01.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18033" CreationDate="2016-05-22T00:36:52.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Transliterations from/to Chinese belong to the realm of fuzziness. It is no more different than ignorant English-speaking people pronouncing Beijing as Beizhing (as if they had a speech impediment, unable to say &quot;jingle bells&quot;). Or people saying Mukden, Canton and what have you not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some Western names have been transliterated by sound, oftentimes using Cantonese, since trade was carried out in southern China for a long time. That is why Sweden is called 瑞典 in Chinese (Seuihdin in Cantonese, Ruidian in Mandarin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, Chinese names for foreign things are often translitterated with a fixed set of morphemes, 福 being one of them, in order to make such names neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could imagine a translator pondering a suitable transliteration for Holmes, stumbling over hou-er-mo-si as a first estimation, only to realize that 猴儿 means monkey.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-05-22T00:36:52.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17970" CreationDate="2016-05-22T05:36:35.193" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To understand this problem, you need to understand the linguistic concepts of 'bound' and 'free'.  To understand the concepts of bound and free, you have to understand the idea of a morpheme. A morpheme is an abstract linguistic unit that everyone knows how to use, but no one really knows how to define: 'dog' is an English morpheme; so is un-, or -ly.  Dog can be used in a wide variety of places in a sentence; un- and -ly cannot.  These two types of morphemes are thus called 'free' and 'bound'. Chinese morphology is similar to English in this basic sense. Of course there are important differences too. There are a number of books that discuss this, I recommend Jerry Norman's 1988 book, &lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two examples that illustrate the properties of bound and free in Chinese. First is the character 椅. This is a typical Chinese bound morpheme. Any Chinese-English dictionary will tell you it means 'chair'; what they usually don't tell you is that you can't just say 買一張椅. 椅 is bound; to use it as an independent word you have to at least use the compound form 椅子.  Note it does not &lt;em&gt;require&lt;/em&gt; the suffix 子. It can be used in other compounds perfectly well without this, both on the right side: 躺椅, 藤椅, 電椅, and on the left side 椅墊, 椅背, 椅套.  This means 椅 is not like English affixes, such as un- and -ly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare this with 床 'bed'. Unlike 椅, 床 is used by itself: 買一張床 is a perfectly good sentence. It can also be used in compounds: 吊床, 單人床, 床墊, 床頭, etc.  床 is free; it can be used as an independent word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you know which characters (morphemes) are free and which are bound? This is what I think the OP really wants to know.  I don't completely agree that the difference between free and bound is a continuous spectrum. In different dialects, a morpheme may have a different status: a bound morpheme in dialect A may be a free morpheme in dialect B. A morpheme's status may also change; many morphemes that were free in early texts are now bound in modern Chinese.  But the Mandarin dialects are largely consistent in what is free and what is bound, so free and bound are well worth learning for a foreign student.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absurdly, there is NO modern dictionary that marks characters (morphemes) as bound and free.  There WAS one which you might be able to find if you are near a large library: The Dictionary of Spoken Chinese, published by Yale University's Institute of Far Eastern Languages in 1966.  This was based on an earlier work by Chao Yuen-ren and several colleagues, compiled during WWII.  Although very old, for the common words that bother every student, it is a great resource for serious students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that sometimes the free-bound distinction can be tricky. Going back to the question, 爸 can be used by itself, but mostly as a vocative form (when you are talking to Dad); otherwise it can be odd: 他是我的爸 is odd for many people, 他是我的爸爸 is normal for everyone. The status of 爸 as a free morpheme is limited; you are best treating it as a bound form, except in talking to Dad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白 is free, but only with the meaning of 'white'.  In the adverbial sense of 'without paying' or 'in vain', it is like all Chinese adverbs: bound.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 bǎ has several meanings. As a structural particle it is bound, but a special kind of bound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a morpheme meaning 'handle' it is emphatically bound. Be careful, there are actually two morphemes meaning 'handle': bǎ, as in 把手, and bà as in 刀把. This is probably a historical change, there are some forms where there are two pronunciations: eg 把子 can be bǎzi, or it can be bàzi. I've heard both. What I haven't heard is 買一個把.  So for standard Mandarin, 把 is bound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-05-22T05:36:35.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18033" CreationDate="2016-05-22T10:52:00.910" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term &quot;福爾摩斯&quot; was used in newspapers as a detective example (中國亦有福爾摩斯), as early as 1905.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://mmis.hkpl.gov.hk/coverpage/-/coverpage/view?_coverpage_WAR_mmisportalportlet_actual_q=%28%20verbatim_dc.collection%3A%28%22Old%5C%20HK%5C%20Newspapers%22%29%29%20AND+%28%20%28%20allTermsMandatory%3A%28true%29%20OR+all_dc.title%3A%28%E7%A6%8F%E7%88%BE%E6%91%A9%E6%96%AF%29%20OR+all_dc.creator%3A%28%E7%A6%8F%E7%88%BE%E6%91%A9%E6%96%AF%29%20OR+all_dc.contributor%3A%28%E7%A6%8F%E7%88%BE%E6%91%A9%E6%96%AF%29%20OR+all_dc.subject%3A%28%E7%A6%8F%E7%88%BE%E6%91%A9%E6%96%AF%29%20OR+fulltext%3A%28%E7%A6%8F%E7%88%BE%E6%91%A9%E6%96%AF%29%20OR+all_dc.description%3A%28%E7%A6%8F%E7%88%BE%E6%91%A9%E6%96%AF%29%29%29&amp;amp;_coverpage_WAR_mmisportalportlet_sort_field=dc.publicationdate_bsort&amp;amp;p_r_p_-1078056564_c=QF757YsWv5%2BakvA8rFW5EnsZQsGxDCXI&amp;amp;_coverpage_WAR_mmisportalportlet_sort_order=asc&amp;amp;_coverpage_WAR_mmisportalportlet_o=0&amp;amp;_coverpage_WAR_mmisportalportlet_hsf=%E7%A6%8F%E7%88%BE%E6%91%A9%E6%96%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;香港華字日報, 1905-10-25&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Title: 香港華字日報, 1905-10-25 = The Chinese Mail&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Bib ID: NPTCM19051025&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Publisher: 香港 : 香港華字日報有限公司&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Date Created/Published: 1905-10-25&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Page: 7th&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hu5sU.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hu5sU.gif&quot; alt=&quot;newspaper&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An article talked about this topic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/supplement/columnist/art/20060205/5630349&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;福爾摩斯譯名及其他&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i edited this answer, with sound files of &quot;福&quot;, in min nan (閩南話) and cantonese (廣東話). one may compare these with the 1st syllable of english pronunciation of &quot;holmes&quot;, have fun &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in min nan (閩南話), according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/default.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;教育部臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;福　&lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=10695&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=%E7%A6%8F&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=1&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=2&amp;amp;rowcount=25&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hok&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/audio/10695.mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mp3 file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in cantonese (廣東話), according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢語多功能字庫&lt;/a&gt;, using sydney lau scheme:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;福　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%A6%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fuk1&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/fuk1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mp3 file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-05-25T10:57:09.547" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T10:57:09.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18038" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18039" CreationDate="2016-05-22T15:12:56.227" Score="3" ViewCount="579" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading this poem by Tao Yuanming. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飲酒詩二十首之五&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;結盧在人境&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而無車馬喧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;問君何能爾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心遠地自偏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;採菊東籬下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;悠然見南山&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;山氣日夕佳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飛鳥相與還&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此還有真意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欲辨已忘言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a general idea, because I found the translation below on Wikipedia. But the most difficult line is &#xA;心遠地自偏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Must I understand 偏 as a verb, that means secluding, like in 偏僻？ And 遠地 as 遠的地方？ Is the whole rest about creating a wilderness, then, added by the translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i built my hut in a zone of human habitation,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet near me there sounds no noise of horse or coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you know how that is possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A heart that is distant creates a wilderness round it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then gaze long at the distant summer hills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The flying birds two by two return.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these things there lies a deep meaning;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2016-05-23T14:07:41.027" Title="Tao Yuanming Poem" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18038" CreationDate="2016-05-22T15:32:37.300" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;i would suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if one's mind (心) is isolated (遠), one's physical location (地) would automatically (自) becomes remote (偏)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-05-22T16:48:00.720" LastActivityDate="2016-05-22T16:48:00.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18042" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-22T19:34:24.823" Score="0" ViewCount="666" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading an advertisement that says:  '阿里云免费体验! 注册即获得高达300美元体验套餐! 立即开通阿里云全球服务!'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would 即获得 mean 'immediately obtain?' 即 can mean so many different things, it's a bit confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks,&#xA;Rachel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T15:58:11.923" Title="How to determine what 即 means in a sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18033" CreationDate="2016-05-22T20:01:20.877" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Min dialects pronounce 福 as &quot;hok&quot;, hence the spelling Hokkien (also spelled Fujian as per Mandarin pronunciation). The translation of Holmes as 福尔摩斯 is neither inaccurate nor ignorant. It has to do with which language/dialect the translator speaks, and in this case, a Min dialect, as pointed out by another user. When a name catches on, it becomes the one people will use. The historical fact that one Chinese dialect was chosen as &quot;standard&quot; Mandarin 國語 does not invalidate other dialects, nor does it render transliteration of names according to those dialects inaccurate. Another example would be the name Hong Kong, which is pronounced &quot;Xiang Gang&quot; in Mandarin. But I am sure the name Hong Kong will stay, and it would be a bit silly to say that the transliteration &quot;Hong Kong&quot; is inaccurate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding some references here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Sherlock-Holmes-translated-to-F%C3%BA%C4%9Brm%C3%B3s%C4%AB-in-Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Sherlock-Holmes-translated-to-F%C3%BA%C4%9Brm%C3%B3s%C4%AB-in-Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2016-05-25T03:26:38.697" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T03:26:38.697" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="695" CreationDate="2016-05-22T20:13:20.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stroke order is important to get the right proportions. First, it's like a picture.  A good photographer would know the law of thirds.  Similar concept in Chinese characters.  The previous stroke helps to align the next stroke on the page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take 酉 for instance.  I was always taught that you start from top left, first down then right.  Start with the 一。But then there is the mouth 口。you open the mouth 冂，fill it, 一, then close it 一 at the bottom. So do you write 儿，before opening the mouth? If you did, you would have to make sure the mouth was big enough to fill everything.  Otherwise you would have no guideline for where to stop the stroke, and the proportions for the size of what to fill the mouth with. The correct stroke order: 一，冂，儿，一，一。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The worst character to write nicely I find is: 美, and anything with 隹 in it, like: 謢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this stroke order is important.  It is only important in computerized typing to know the right combination of key presses to output the right character on screen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13489" LastActivityDate="2016-05-22T20:13:20.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18038" CreationDate="2016-05-23T05:44:37.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means when you abandon worldly desires in pursuit of power, money, etc, which corresponds to 心远. You are consequently moving far away from the populous urban areas, which corresponds to 地自偏 and you will find more peace in your heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13490" LastActivityDate="2016-05-23T05:44:37.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18042" CreationDate="2016-05-23T06:23:44.400" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right, 即获得 is &quot;immediately obtain&quot;, The definition of 即 is by context, it is &quot;immediately&quot; or &quot;right now&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13491" LastActivityDate="2016-05-23T06:23:44.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18038" CreationDate="2016-05-23T09:04:32.880" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Understand what kind of people Tao Yuanming was would help you understand his poem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tao Yuanming was a solitary. He spent his whole life to practice his creed －－ “不为五斗米折腰”，&lt;em&gt;Never bow down for five dous of rice&lt;/em&gt;. He prefer to live far way from worldly people, especially shame on live for making money. &#xA;He wish he can live alone in the wild, but he can't escape from living pressures, he need all kind of materials like other worldly people need. He had to live near other people although he really hate to live with them. But he can't stop yearning for that. So he wrote that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;心遠地自偏 : &#xA;让心（飘向我向往的）远方，（我住的)地方(也就)自然而然地（变成了那个我向往的）偏僻的远方。&#xA;&#xA;Let heart roam to the faraway (which I wish to live), then I am there.&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2016-05-23T14:07:41.027" LastActivityDate="2016-05-23T14:07:41.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18031" CreationDate="2016-05-23T10:10:00.527" Score="8" Body="&lt;h1&gt;TL;DR&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a rubbing of &lt;code&gt;此君車&lt;/code&gt;. The proper translation is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This (is) the master's chariot &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as said in Wang Dingwei's answer. The man on the chariot could not be a king, because the structure of the chariot was just too poor for a king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update Jun 20, 2018&lt;/strong&gt;: add the very original source of the rubbing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Long Answer&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not an expert on stone carvings (畫像石) of Han Dynasty, but I happen to have read some volumes of the series book &lt;em&gt;Chinese Stone Carving Corpora – Stone Carvings of Han Dynasty in Shandong&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;中國畫像石全集: 山東漢畫像石&lt;/em&gt;). I will try to cover information of this rubbing as complete as possible, but be aware, my conjectures are not necessarily correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Where did the rubbing come from?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 1970s, 中国国际书店 (China International Book Store, now the name is changed to 中国国际图书贸易总公司, China International Book Trading Corporation) compiled a catalog for a collection of rubbings (the rubbings were made by 汲古閣 in 1960s–1970s):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;中国拓片 Chinese Rubbings&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HfsqA.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HfsqA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Chinese Rubbings&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The preface of this book said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;中国国际书店经营出口的拓片，有墨拓、彩拓两大类，制作精工，形象、拓墨均能保持原貌，可供艺术爱好者收藏、欣赏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;本目录所列各式拓片，均有现货，欢迎订购。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;The rubbings exported by China International Book Store mainly include two categories: ink rubbings (black and white) and color rubbings. They are well made and the image and rubbing ink can keep the original. They can serve art lovers for collecting and appreciating purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;We have the rubbings listed in this catalog in stock. Orders are welcomed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rubbing in the question is one of them listed in this book, numbered &quot;BS-2014&quot; with a brief description:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;依据&lt;/em&gt;汉代山东嘉祥画像石拓制而成。一辆马车。乘车者是主人，手持缰绳拉马，后为随从，高举华盖侍候。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Rubbed &lt;em&gt;according to&lt;/em&gt; the stone carvings of Han Dynasty in Jiaxiang, Shandong Province. One chariot. The rider is the master, taking the rein pulling the horse; the follower is the servant, holding the canopy aloft. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No.: BS-2014&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/edHPU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/edHPU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;此君车&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other similar rubbings of chariots in this book are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;功曹車 Head Clerk's chariot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No.: BS-2071&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UbyNl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UbyNl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;功曹車&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;尉卿車 Head of Security's chariot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No.: BS-2072&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hrxhE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hrxhE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;尉卿車&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Story behind the rubbing&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before introducing what this kind of rubbings were used for, let's enjoy the &quot;此君車馬&quot; rubbing first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;武氏祠前石室西壁上石畫像&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Stone carving on the West Wall, Front Stone Room, Wu Family Shrine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;約東漢靈帝建寧元年(公元一八六年)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  縱一一七厘米 橫二〇三厘米&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  清代乾隆五十一年(公元一七八六年)山東省嘉祥縣武宅山村北出土&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  嘉祥縣武氏祠保管所藏&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  In the first year of Jianning of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Ling_of_Han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Emperor Ling of Han&lt;/a&gt; (186 AD)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Height: 117cm, Width: 203cm&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Unearthed in the north of Wu Family Village, Jiaxiang County, Shandong Province, in the 51st year of Qianlong of Qing Dynasty (1786 AD)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Kept in Preservation Institute of Wu Family Shrine of Jiaxiang County&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;原石編號「前石室五」。畫面自上而下分為三層，層間分別隔以雙菱紋，連弧紋，花紋帶和橫欄，下邊飾鳥、獸、雲龍紋和連弧紋。第一層，銳頂部份，中刻西王母端坐於交龍上，兩側有羽人、玉兔、蟾蜍、奇禽異獸。第二層，刻孔門弟子一列二十二人，皆冠服左向恭立。第三層，刻一列車騎左向行。畫像殘泐，有榜題「調間二人」、「此騎吏」、&lt;strong&gt;「此君車馬」&lt;/strong&gt;、「主簿車」、「主記車」。右端一人恭送。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The original number of the stone is 前石室五 (5th of Front Stone Room). There are three stories in the picture. Double diamond patterns, Connected arc patterns, flower patterns and horizontal bars separate different stories. On the top story, the acme, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Mother_of_the_West&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Queen Mother of the West&lt;/a&gt; sitting on two crossed dragons is carved in the middle, with bird men, Jade Rabbit, Toad, supernatural birds and beasts at both sides. On the middle story, twenty-two apprentices of Confucius with costumes standing respectfully facing leftwards are carved. One the bottom story, a row of chariots heading left are carved – The image is damaged, and there are titles &quot;調間二人&quot; (two Tiaojian's), &quot;此騎吏&quot; (This cavalry [is a] officer), &lt;strong&gt;&quot;此君車馬&quot; (This [is] the master's chariot and horses)&lt;/strong&gt;, &quot;主簿車&quot; (Head Clerk's chariot), &quot;主記車&quot; (Head Secretary's chariot), and there's one man cordially seeing them off on the right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(The &quot;此君車馬&quot; part. Full image can be downloaded &lt;a href=&quot;http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/db-machine/imgsrv/djvu/bei/b03-09.djvu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here (Format: djvu)&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VLRyl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VLRyl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;此君車馬&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As said in &lt;em&gt;中國畫像石全集 Chinese Stone Carving Corpora (vol. 1)&lt;/em&gt;, &quot;中國畫像石概論 An Introduction to Chinese Stone Carvings&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漢代的畫像石，存在於石祠堂、石闕、墓葬和石棺之上，主要表現當時的各種信仰及主人的身份地位、生活境況。三國兩晉以後，這種表現手法漸被壁畫取代，畫像石迅速衰落，在北朝至隋唐五代，只在一些棺槨和棺床之上還能見到。再往後，則僅在某些石質碑版上還有類似的藝術品，但主要是用線刻手法表現的單幅畫面，也包括一些天文圖、地圖和城池及宮殿、官署、寺觀、園苑的平面圖。就整個畫像石藝術來說，已至尾聲階段。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The stone picture carvings of Han Dynasty existed in stone shrines, stone watchtowers, tombs, and stone coffins, depicting the religions at that time as well as the master's social status and life situation. After the era of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;three kingdoms&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_dynasty_(265%E2%80%93420)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jin Dynasty&lt;/a&gt;, this kind of artistic technique, stone picture carving, declined and was gradually replaced by murals. From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_and_Southern_dynasties&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Northern Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sui&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tang&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Dynasties&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Five Dynasties&lt;/a&gt;, only on coffins and coffin beds could stone picture carvings be seen. And afterwards, only some stone boards had similar artworks, but they were mainly single frame expressed by the line carving technique, and included plans of some astronomic graphs, maps, cities, palaces, government offices, temples, and parks. However, for the art form of stone picture carving, it almost came to an end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;To be continued ... and now two years have passed. It doesn't actually cost me two years to find the answer to my doubts, but driven by the hard life (not really) as a software engineer, I've nearly forgotten the responsibility to finish this answer. Fortunately, the fate leads me here again.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Conclusion&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: the rubbing is a modern copy to a relatively old copy to the stone carving in 武梁祠後壁 (back wall of Wu family cemetery, Jiaxiang, Shandong Province, China), which dates back to the mid-2nd century. Currently, the stone is kept in 嘉祥縣文物保管所 (Jiaxiang cultural artifact museum).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The relatively new rubbing (real rubbing but not &lt;em&gt;copy&lt;/em&gt;) is &#xA;   &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ldPwe.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ldPwe.gif&quot; alt=&quot;武梁祠後壁　神話故事、拝礼畫像&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;   OP's &quot;rubbing&quot; is at the bottom left corner. Zoom in:&#xA;   &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m22i9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m22i9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Zoomin&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that, &lt;code&gt;此君車&lt;/code&gt; does not appear on the original source, so it is a mistake that might come from some other copies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can imagine, there must be many versions of rubbings and copies appearing in history because the stone is so old. In fact, OP's &quot;rubbing&quot; probably copied the image from a relatively old book &lt;em&gt;金石索 (Research on Epigraphy)&lt;/em&gt; authored by Feng Yunpeng and Feng Yunyuan in 1836. This book contained &lt;em&gt;copies&lt;/em&gt; of epigraphs. Note that again, there's no &lt;code&gt;此君車&lt;/code&gt; on this old copy either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pWoGX.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pWoGX.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;金石索.12卷.金索.石索各6卷.清.冯云鹏.冯云鹓同辑双桐书屋藏板清道光16年跋刊1836年_页面_0742&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;   &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Asgh9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Asgh9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;0743&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;   &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/90m1i.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/90m1i.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;0744&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2816" LastEditorUserId="2816" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T21:28:25.577" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T21:28:25.577" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18049" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18050" CreationDate="2016-05-23T12:45:35.500" Score="1" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 则 in 欲速则不达? Does it mean fortune, wealth, success? I couldn't figure out out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2016-05-24T11:16:50.587" Title="Meaning of 则 in 欲速则不达？" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18049" CreationDate="2016-05-23T13:25:56.153" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;欲 －－ willing, want&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;速 －－ speedy, quick&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;则 －－ then, but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 －－ not, negative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;达 －－ arrive, done&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you want to finish it quicker, then you probably can't get it done (correctly).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2016-05-24T01:33:25.440" LastActivityDate="2016-05-24T01:33:25.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18049" CreationDate="2016-05-23T19:20:05.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;code&gt;则&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;then&quot; in English, like the Chinese word &lt;code&gt;就&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13496" LastEditorUserId="12420" LastEditDate="2016-05-24T11:16:50.587" LastActivityDate="2016-05-24T11:16:50.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18031" CreationDate="2016-05-24T09:24:31.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;此君車.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There used to be at least &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra02068.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;17 different ways&lt;/a&gt; to write 此. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;This (is) the Master's Chariot&quot;. &quot;Master&quot; might not be the proper translation, he could well be a king. In the context of &quot;衛國之法，竊駕君車者罪刖&quot;(from《韩非子》), 君車 is the king's chariot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The picture itself is a rubbing from a mural painting. Not sure about its source, but the style harkens back to Han Dynasty tomb paintings. Similar texts, like &quot;此君車馬(This is the Master's Chariot and Horses)&quot;, &quot;此丞相車(This is the Prime Minister's Chariot)&quot; are also found in tomb paintings from Han Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bonus, another 君車 for you:&#xA; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AAMQo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AAMQo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2016-05-24T09:51:43.190" LastActivityDate="2016-05-24T09:51:43.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18042" CreationDate="2016-05-24T15:42:52.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;即 here means immediately. If you register AliCloud you will then obtain the service set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I can think of, 即 can be used in several ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;that is ..., is just ..., similar to 就是, e.g. 知识即力量&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to start working at some position, e.g. 即位&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;immediately, as in your sentence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to make assumptions, similar to even if..., e.g. 即使&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There could be more than what are listed above.&#xA;Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2016-05-24T15:42:52.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18057" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18058" CreationDate="2016-05-24T18:35:04.487" Score="0" ViewCount="572" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to identify the artist that this seal belongs too. The closest I could find was either &lt;code&gt;Chen Hongshou&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Yang Jin&lt;/code&gt; but both are different stylistically from the picture that bears this seal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am unable to make out what it reads due to my limited language knowledge. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would anyone have a little bit more details on who it belongs to and/or what the seal reads?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oHgdZ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oHgdZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Updated image&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/seWA4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/seWA4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13502" LastEditorUserId="13502" LastEditDate="2016-05-24T19:54:46.213" LastActivityDate="2016-05-24T21:18:55.850" Title="Artist seal and meaning" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18057" CreationDate="2016-05-24T18:57:14.583" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's 羅綺, in traditional chinese, in Small Seal Script (小篆)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the left character is 羅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%BE%85&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=羅&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the right one is 綺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%B6%BA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=綺&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1st, it's in vertical writing, you need to read from top to bottom, from right to left&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;羅庚香色　⒓⒐⒌⒈&#xA;綺申似凝　⒔⒑⒍⒉&#xA;寫春玉瓊　⒕⒒⒎⒊&#xA;　　京樹　　　⒏⒋&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;characters 1-8 are in traditional chinese, in 隸書:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;香色&#xA;似凝&#xA;玉瓊&#xA;京樹&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;色凝瓊樹﹒香似玉京&quot; is derived from a 劉禹錫 (a poet of 唐 dynasty)'s poem 和令狐相公詠&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E6%A0%80%E5%AD%90%E8%8A%B1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;梔子花&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蜀國花已盡﹒越桃今已開﹒&lt;strong&gt;色凝瓊樹&lt;/strong&gt;倚﹒&lt;strong&gt;香似玉京&lt;/strong&gt;來&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;且賞同心處﹒那憂別葉催﹒佳人如擬詠﹒何必待寒梅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;characters 9-14 are in traditional chinese, in 行書:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;羅庚&#xA;綺申&#xA;寫春&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;庚申 is one of sexagenary cycle, used to record time, day, month &amp;amp; year; 春 is spring; together, it's either spring of 1920, or 1980.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, &quot;羅綺&quot; is the name of author; &quot;寫&quot; is write.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-05-24T21:18:55.850" LastActivityDate="2016-05-24T21:18:55.850" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18059" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-24T19:43:01.987" Score="5" ViewCount="574" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I study usage of different aspects markers in Chinese, I started to realize that my problems with those markers come from simple fact that: &quot;I don't see any use in them.&quot; Reason for this is: Whenever I see a bare verb phrase, I translate it as &lt;em&gt;simple present time&lt;/em&gt;. But this is far from truth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, let me ask a question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Why does 他吃了饭 sound incomplete?&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;This kind of sentence is being used in many theoretical talks and papers on Chinese linguistics&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My answers:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;The difference between 他吃饭 and 他吃了饭 lies only in that 了 renders the situation as factual rather then irreal (habitual, desirable, wishing, issuing a command etc.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他吃饭&#xA;can be translated (&lt;strong&gt;in proper context&lt;/strong&gt;) as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An order. &quot;He (must) eat (now)!&quot; (screaming).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A habit. He eats (always).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A desire. He (wants/thinking about) to eat.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But once you add 了 to a verb(as in 他吃了饭),  you thus delete all the mentioned above as a possible translations. Now the &lt;strong&gt;situation&lt;/strong&gt; is &quot;factual \actual&quot;. It is not about habit, orders, desires and other irrealis modes. But rendering situation factual is not enough, you still have a big list of possible translations (&lt;strong&gt;in proper context&lt;/strong&gt;), for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A fact. He ate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A fact. He eats... and then... (not as a habit, but actually eats as in some narrative)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A fact. He just initiated a process of eating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Future. He will have eaten (by the time ...) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;any suggestions?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that is why in 他吃了饭 you need further specification! The verb 吃了 is not rendered to ANY time (just rendered to reality, making it a fact or eventuality)!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Please, refrain from &quot;perfective aspect marker 了&quot; viewpoint if it is possible. Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.s.s. Please, provide your possible translations and contexts for 他吃了饭&lt;/strong&gt; (this is very important for not natives! We need to see the point in adding aspects to naked verbs!!!) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-04T23:16:10.667" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T23:16:10.667" Title="Why does 他吃了饭 sound incomplete?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18059" CreationDate="2016-05-25T02:11:49.113" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't for the life of me understand why switching an associative verb to the front forms a question in English. Am I not stupid? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact is, in a lot of cases, languages don't follow any kind of logic or reasoning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say 他吃饭了, it's a complete sentence. If you say 他吃了饭, a listener would expect you to tell him what happened next, like 他吃了饭，拍拍肚子就走了。Now that it's complete, the listener can rest in peace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in this case, 他吃了饭 means &quot;After he ate&quot; -- Apparently an incomplete sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why does switching the position of 了 change its meaning? No one has the slightest idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are situations where &quot;verb + 了 + object&quot; makes a complete sentence. Like when answering &quot;他吃了什么?&quot; with &quot;他吃了一只火鸡.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2016-05-25T02:18:10.427" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T02:18:10.427" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18059" CreationDate="2016-05-25T02:23:50.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin is not my mother language, yet I would tend to think like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using 了 after the verb and object (verb + object + 了)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It denotes that the action is completed, with an implication that it is not completed a long time ago, or it is just completed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using 了 right after the verb.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also denotes the completion of an action, but there is no indication of the time. It may sounds unnatural to be complete, yet it is OK to end a sentence like this. Only because 吃饭 is a very usual situation would the listener expects more than that usually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using 了 right after an adjective&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is completely different from the previous two. Adding 了 in this case means &quot;become (adjective)&quot;. &#xA;Example: &#xA;你帅了。 =&gt; You became handsome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using 了 after verb, adjective and adverb (verb/adjective + adverb + 了) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this one, I think 了 is only used to soften the tone of the sentence, without any actual meaning.&#xA;Example: 你漂亮极了。 -&gt; You are so beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, if that is the case, what is the difference between 了 and 完? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You cannot use 完 after the object but only after the verb, yet this rule does not apply to 了. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &#xA;你吃饭完 —&gt; incorrect, &#xA;你吃完饭 —&gt; correct, &#xA;我吃完饭了 —&gt; correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using 完，you can continue the sentence with another job. (Ex: I finished doing sth, and THEN...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Another approach&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;了 actually means 了结, which is &quot;end&quot; in English, while 完 is 完成, which is equivalent to &quot;finish&quot; in English. If you can distinguish between &quot;end&quot; and &quot;finish&quot;, you should be able to identify the difference between 完 and 了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this definition, I am not so sure, but an example will be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃了饭 &amp;gt; I ended eating (I was eating, but now I am no longer eating), &#xA;我吃完饭 &amp;gt; I finished eating&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2017-01-27T08:16:56.577" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T08:16:56.577" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18004" CreationDate="2016-05-25T06:28:12.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ask your Taiwanese teacher which of the following does he prefer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;出于对妻子身体的考虑，他在乡间买了所房子。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;基于对妻子身体的考虑，他在乡间买了所房子。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me the answer is undoubtedly 1, whatever the flavor of Chinese it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, this depends on the context: &lt;code&gt;出于&lt;/code&gt; sounds more casual, while &lt;code&gt;基于&lt;/code&gt; sounds like something you would use in a government report. But also bear in mind that where there is a rule, there are exceptions. Someone could absolutely come out with valid examples totally contradicting mine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like 水巷孑蠻 said, both expressions are influenced by English. Many Chinese writing and translation guidebooks warn against such usage. Out of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/example/blng/eng/out_of_consideration_for/#keyfrom=dict.main.moreblng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;26 sentences&lt;/a&gt; from 有道词典, only 3 are translated to 出于...考虑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T06:28:12.060" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18004" CreationDate="2016-05-25T10:14:47.840" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my view,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;出於&quot; and &quot;基於&quot; are slightly different from each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出於: When you are doing something for the sake of a specific group of person. &#xA;You may also use it when you want to express somehow positive or negative things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;基於: It is more formal and neutral. Therefore, use it when you are doing so for official reasons, or when you are not caring a specific group of person. &#xA;You should also use it when you want to keep a neutral stance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;出于&lt;/strong&gt;对妻子身体的考虑，他在乡间买了所房子。 &#xA;You are caring your wife, which you are expressing positive attitude(I think), so you use 出于.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;基于&lt;/strong&gt;保安理由，需要保密。&#xA;You are doing it for official reasons, without expressing any feeling inside, so you use 基于.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T10:14:47.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18008" CreationDate="2016-05-25T11:25:15.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;双刃剑 is usually used to describe something having a good side and a bad side, it may solve a problem, but it creat another problem at the same time. Just like a double-blade-sword, you can force it to your enemy to hurt him, but if your enemy push it back, it can hurt you. 双刃剑 is never used to decribe a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两面刀 is rarely used. I think it might be used as short of 两面三刀, which means a person pretends to be your friend for today, and turns his back on you or betray you tomorrow. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13504" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T11:25:15.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18014" CreationDate="2016-05-25T14:25:21.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Format: A share something with B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this format: &#xA;&quot;A&quot; and &quot;B&quot; can be he, she, we and so on. &#xA;&quot;share&quot; can be other tense like shared, shares and so on&#xA;&quot;something&quot; can be happiness, info, book and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation: A 与/同/和/跟 B 一起分享了something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Share&quot; should be used at least between two people. No matter in Chinese or in English, the sentence &quot;I share a book with me&quot; does not make sense. You can understand in this way, A share something with B = A share something with B (together).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11244" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T14:25:21.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18004" CreationDate="2016-05-25T17:15:09.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For those who lives in mainland China when using in daily life, there is no any difference between 基于 and 出于.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13486" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T17:15:09.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18069" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-25T22:26:07.250" Score="1" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know nothing about the Chinese language but, while we ate in a Chinese restaurant with lots of Chinese symbols around me, I asked myself if these symbols could be built up from elementary lines or forms (like our words are made up out of 26 letters). Is that the case? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13510" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T00:52:34.360" Title="Are Chinese symbols built from more elementary symbols or forms?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18069" CreationDate="2016-05-25T22:57:42.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;explanation in modern day research:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we use components (部件), to &quot;build up&quot; chinese characters; and there're 1316.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/system_intro.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/system_intro.jsp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;basically, we have 8 types of stroke (筆畫) to compose each component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the &quot;structural relations and configuration regularity&quot; of components, have a look of this page; in english and traditional chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://other.allad.com.tw/chinese2/teacher_e.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://other.allad.com.tw/chinese2/teacher_e.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-05-26T00:52:34.360" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T00:52:34.360" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18074" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-26T08:25:45.013" Score="3" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) 突然父亲嘘了一口气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) 突然父亲嘘一口气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would have understand them if it's not the for the &quot;突然&quot; part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My take:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(1) &lt;em&gt;&quot;Suddenly father exhaled (once)&quot;&lt;/em&gt; (like &quot;ooooh&quot; and then maybe&#xA;died).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(2) &lt;em&gt;&quot;Suddenly father started to perform an exhale.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; (and after he&#xA;performed it maybe he died).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Sentence (2) As far as I see doesn't have niether of those readings: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Conteractual. &quot;If something happens/ed, then he has/would exhaled.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Suprise. He can exhale?!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Probable. Well, he can exhale.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Future. He might exhale.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deductive. He exhale. (I can say that based on some reasoning)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Abilitive. He can exhale.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that 突然 eliminate all those readings and I'm lost a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T23:57:53.173" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T23:57:53.173" Title="Why does 了 change in 突然父亲嘘(了)一口气?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18074" CreationDate="2016-05-26T09:45:47.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Previous answer for ref:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/18061/13501&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/18061/13501&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at my previous answer, I explained:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the first and second, both mentioned that 了 is used to denote the completion of an action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the fourth one, I mentioned that 了 is used only to soften the tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example above, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)突然父亲嘘了一口气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)突然父亲嘘一口气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first sentence is denoting the completion of the action &quot;exhale&quot;, because indeed you are talking about things in the past and father has done and ended exhaling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, most Chinese native speakers use it, not to express this meaning, but the fourth meaning actually, which is, only to soften the tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite the fact mentioned, please note that you cannot use 了 after any verb if the &lt;strong&gt;ACTION&lt;/strong&gt; is NOT completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;One more point to notice:&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;The first and second meaning of 了 are only applicable to action verbs. For position verbs(有，坐，死...), they should follow the adjective rule, which is, when confronting these verbs, th meaning should be &quot;become (verb status)&quot;.&#xA;Example: 我有了。 or  他死了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T11:02:09.437" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14017" CreationDate="2016-05-26T10:08:28.320" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My attempt (although it's probably 1 year too late):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聘用廣東話教師&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本人欲學習廣東話，故需一位教師。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如閣下能說廣東話，亦樂意教學的話，敬請聯絡本人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本人願付學費，亦希望教師能說基本的英語或羅馬尼亞語。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如閣下有意在這兩種語言得到幫助，本人亦當盡力幫助。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聯絡電話：xxx...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聯絡電郵：xxx...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13514" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T10:08:28.320" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18008" CreationDate="2016-05-26T13:39:22.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;双刃剑is more graceful.Sounds like &quot;Washington District of Columbia&quot;.(often used)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两面刀is more plain.Sounds like &quot;City&quot;.(rarely used)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13517" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T13:39:22.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18042" CreationDate="2016-05-26T15:58:11.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/js/5373.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; gives 6 meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;就是：知识～力量。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;当时或当地：～日。～刻。～席。～景。在～。～兴（xìng ）。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;就，便：黎明～起。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;假如，倘若：～使。～便（biàn ）。～或。～令。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;靠近：不～不离。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;到，开始从事：～位。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With translations and comments, comments in italics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;is:&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;知识即力量 = Knowledge is power.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;This usage of 即 is more formal and less often heard colloquially.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;this (time or place):&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;即日 = today;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;即刻 = right now;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;即席 = with improvisation (lit. [in] this seat);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;即景 = the immediate (poetic) environment;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;在即 = soon;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;即兴 = with improvisation (lit. [by] that [time's] mood)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;then:&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;黎明即起 = [as soon as] dawn [comes], then [you should] get up&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;the example cited is actually Classical Chinese, so you would not hear this colloquially&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;if:&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;即使 = even if&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;即便 = even if&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;即或 = even if&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;即令 = even if&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;I don't even know the last two.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;come near:&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;不即不离 = keep at a respectful distance (lit. neither approach nor leave)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The example cited is a Buddhist term, and I have never heard of it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;to start working at some position:&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;即位 = to start working at some position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;即位 is idiomatic, I would say.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, a list of the words that you would hear colloquially:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;即日 = today;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;即刻 = right now;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;即席 = with improvisation (lit. [in] this seat);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;即景 = the immediate (poetic) environment;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在即 = soon;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;即兴 = with improvisation (lit. [by] that [time's] mood)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;即使 = even if&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;即便 = even if&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;即位 = to start working at some position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(From meanings 2,4,6)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13514" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T15:58:11.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18074" CreationDate="2016-05-26T20:00:59.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;突然 … V [expressing &lt;strong&gt;change of state&lt;/strong&gt;] =&gt; 了 + object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T20:00:59.723" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18080" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-27T02:05:59.577" Score="2" ViewCount="354" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0D-ot2tso8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0D-ot2tso8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is that somewhat controversial commercial for laundry soap.  It's at about the :40 second mark.  Is he saying 帅哥？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you,&#xA;Rachel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T14:28:08.417" Title="What does this announcer say after the words 改变？" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18004" CreationDate="2016-05-27T05:16:06.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Above all, I am a Chinese student from mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my point of view, firstly,both 出于 and 基于 are correct. Then, which to choose，出于or基于，is based on sth . If it is abstract,such as mood,health,sympathy and so on,maybe you choose 出于 properly. If it is concrete,such as theory,fact,phenomenon,present situation and so on,maybe 基于 is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, there is no clear difference between 出于and基于. They have overlapping range of application. As we Chinese students  learning English, we are always puzzled in that which is correct in this sentence ,in or on? Maybe you English speakers would say,both them are correct,but in this situation,on is better,in that situation,in is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover,as for what you mentioned,religion difference. According to my experience,Taiwanese is more traditional,using 基于 maybe more academic from their part. Maybe  出于 is informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way,出于 is widely used in spoken language and novel, unofficial report. 基于 is widely used in writing language,government report,thesis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope these are useful for you^_^  enjoy Chinese &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13518" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T05:16:06.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18083" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18084" CreationDate="2016-05-27T18:44:58.123" Score="8" ViewCount="3922" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using four different input methods for typing 汉字. Most of them share the same principles for translating what you type in pinyin to Chinese characters. But I am unable to figure out how to type in pinyin words with an &lt;em&gt;U with Umlaut&lt;/em&gt; like &lt;strong&gt;ǚ&lt;/strong&gt;, for example &lt;strong&gt;女&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am using: &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.pinyin&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Google Pinyin Input&quot;&gt;Google Pinyin Input&lt;/a&gt; in Android, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/sunpinyin/sunpinyin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Sun Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ibus-m17n&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ibus m17n&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/phuang/ibus-pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ibus-pinyin&lt;/a&gt; in Ubuntu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some common way used to type it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1130" LastEditorUserId="1130" LastEditDate="2016-05-27T18:54:14.517" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T18:58:42.603" Title="How to write characters containing the ǚ pinyin symbol in most common Chinese Input Methods?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18083" CreationDate="2016-05-27T18:58:42.603" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;As pinyin doesn't use the letter &lt;strong&gt;v&lt;/strong&gt;, then words containing the &lt;strong&gt;u with umlaut&lt;/strong&gt; can be written with &lt;code&gt;v&lt;/code&gt; key, then combined with the number keys to get different tones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;v+1 = ǖ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;v+2 = ǘ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;v+3 = ǚ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;v+4 = ǜ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;v+5 = ü&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1130" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T18:58:42.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18088" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-28T09:41:29.337" Score="5" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the end of a sentence in a conversation, how does one distinguish between 吧 and 嘛, 罢 and 嘛?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-11T15:51:07.913" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T15:51:07.913" Title="How to distinguish between 吧 and 嘛, 罢 and 嘛" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18089" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18091" CreationDate="2016-05-28T09:44:50.200" Score="1" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;My keyboard does not allow me to input them all but I have found four (similar) ways in total of writing the Chinese character for yellow (黄). Why is this and how have these four forms come to differ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="11212" LastEditDate="2016-05-28T16:45:51.150" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T01:18:26.233" Title="Why are there four ways of writing 黄?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;word-lists&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18088" CreationDate="2016-05-28T13:01:25.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Situations where 吧 is used:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一起（together) + Verb + 吧: When expressing the meaning &quot;Let's (together)&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一起去吧。 =&gt;  Let's go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adjective/Verb + 吧: When suggesting others to do something. (Imperative, but not that authoritative)  (Let it be ...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去做吧。 =&gt;  Just do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快点吧。 =&gt; Be quick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好吧。 =&gt; Okay. (Let it be good.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adjective/Status Verb(是, 有，死，坐) + 吧: Expressing rhetorical mood, when you expect the listener to agree with what you say.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天是星期六吧？ =&gt; Today is Sunday, right? (Isn't it?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你还好吧？ =&gt; You are still OK, aren't you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Situations where 嘛 is used:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the listener does not realize the fact, and you want him to be acknowledged of that. Use this when wanting to express in a soft tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他就是这样的人嘛！ =&gt;  He is a person like that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Put right after subject: I think there is no difference except to emphasize the subject. For this usage, 就 is usually used in the next sub-sentence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讲到我本身嘛，我只有这句话。=&gt; Talking about myself, I only have this to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For the word 罢:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Verb + 罢: As the word 罢 can be written as 作罢(finish and not doing again), this ending could, in some sense, means to end doing something.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;BUT!&lt;/strong&gt; In my view, except the following situation, 罢 has no difference with 吧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说罢，他就走了。=&gt; As soon as he has spoken, he left. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;罢 could also be treated as a verb, which can be used in the middle of a sentence. But since I only want to focus on endings, I will not discuss here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Though Chinese being my mother character, I only see it in books, but have never used it before. If you have more examples, just tell me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a sentence ending: 罢了. This means &quot;just&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她只是做了功课罢了。 =&gt; It is just that she finished her homework.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There may be other situations that I miss. Welcome to correct anything.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2016-07-04T02:33:38.897" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T02:33:38.897" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18089" CreationDate="2016-05-28T15:14:55.847" Score="6" Body="&lt;h1&gt;黄&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplifed variant (Unicode point U+9ec4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;黃&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional variant (Unicode point U+9ec3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;⿈&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kangxi radical 201 (Unicode point U+2fc8)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Variant character (Unicode point U+2155b)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Variant character (Unicode point U+28774)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T15:14:55.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18092" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-28T16:07:47.330" Score="5" ViewCount="918" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many resources that offer a list of Measure Words, but I'm interested in finding a resource where I can type a word and get its Measure Word back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you very much in advance to anyone who knows about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13531" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T07:48:45.590" Title="I'd like to know any resource to check the Measure Word for a given word" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18089" CreationDate="2016-05-28T18:00:27.860" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The display font maybe doesn't have these variant characters. Try using a different font&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13493" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T18:00:27.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18092" CreationDate="2016-05-28T18:36:35.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;measure word&quot; is called &quot;classifier&quot; in days gone by. the most completed list that i know, is in &quot;&lt;strong&gt;中西譯語妙法&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (page 4 - 26); 43 classifiers, with 370+ examples. this book was printed in shanghai, in 1893. you may download it from internet archive (which was blocked in xxxxx nowadays; well,  guess where?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/lessonschinese00yaterich&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;first lessons in chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9RWh3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9RWh3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;page 4 of first lessons in chinese&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;though this book talked about english and shanghai dialect, i think that most of these classifiers are valid and appropriate, in modern usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T18:36:35.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18095" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18145" CreationDate="2016-05-28T19:29:57.923" Score="3" ViewCount="9113" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a similarity between Cantonese and Thai? I've noticed that some words such as the word for chicken is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T14:33:56.830" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T00:39:06.620" Title="Cantonese and Thai similarities" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18095" CreationDate="2016-05-28T19:50:44.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No similarity whatsoever (different families), but diffusion of a dominant language. This would be more obvious visavis cantonese and vietnamese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is the latin of East Asia, and there are many loanwords in neighboring languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T19:50:44.697" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18097" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18098" CreationDate="2016-05-28T23:50:14.467" Score="0" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the audio course Pimsleur Mandarin III an expression is taught which you can say when giving someone a gift. The expression itself is unclear to me, which one of these is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yī diǎnr shǎo yì sī&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yī diǎnr xiǎo yì sī&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or something else?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching online I couldn't find any reference/usage of this expression. Is it a common expression to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13533" LastActivityDate="2016-05-29T06:28:59.033" Title="Unclear expression in Pimsleur 3 &quot;here is a small gift&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18097" CreationDate="2016-05-29T06:28:59.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character before 意思 should be 小. Notice that 小 has a connotation of size that 少 lacks; 少 is an indication of quantity. Moreover, 小意思 readily appears in dictionaries; 少意思 does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, the overall construction (一点儿小意思) makes sense to me, and does appear in some online results. For example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/f/6d/109873.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zdic.net&lt;/a&gt; gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是俺们家乡特产,你一定要收下,只是一点小意思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no 儿 affixed to the 点, but to the best of my knowledge, this discrepancy is not important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastActivityDate="2016-05-29T06:28:59.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18099" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-29T10:45:51.240" Score="0" ViewCount="2663" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone please tell me what it means? I don't understand the 2nd kanji and can't find it online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://lp.hm.com/hmprod?set=key[source],value[/model/2016/C00%200410194%20002%2085%200966.jpg]&amp;amp;set=key[rotate],value[-2.05]&amp;amp;set=key[width],value[1005]&amp;amp;set=key[height],value[1175]&amp;amp;set=key[x],value[1941]&amp;amp;set=key[y],value[193]&amp;amp;set=key[type],value[DETAIL]&amp;amp;hmver=0&amp;amp;call=url[file:/product/large]&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="aishi" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-10T09:42:38.690" LastActivityDate="2020-12-27T21:54:37.480" Title="What do these kanji mean: 吉庆有余" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18099" CreationDate="2016-05-29T12:14:41.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The second character is 慶 in the simplified form (簡体字). It can be read as 吉慶有余 (pronounced as 'jiqing-youyu' in Chinese). It's not Japanese. It's a Chinese phrase printed on a made-in-China T shirt. If we read it in Japanese way, we read it &quot;吉慶余りあり,&quot; meaning &quot;There are so many happy things,&quot; and it passes as a Japanese oldish expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="Yoichi Oishi" LastActivityDate="2016-05-29T12:40:50.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18088" CreationDate="2016-05-30T00:18:25.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, in our normal life, 吧 is usually used for the moments when you are guessing/questioning/acquiring/normal words ending/agree....&#xA;吧 can be used in many situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 嘛 is a little kind of &quot;spoiled&quot;, totally used between friends and girl/boy friends, also used for acquiring, not used for guessing. It's sometimes used when you are angry. “好嘛，你竟然骗我！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;罢 is a little kind of &quot;compromise&quot;, or &quot;have no choice&quot;. It's usually used in literature; it's not normal to use it in daily life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13539" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-06-03T19:16:26.150" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T19:16:26.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18105" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18106" CreationDate="2016-05-30T03:35:49.397" Score="0" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would the following sentence come across as a part of a thank you letter to a family receiving you as a guest in their home in Taiwan? The letter is to be sent before arriving as a &quot;thank you in advance&quot; gesture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;謝謝你們接待我當你們的家庭成員&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13541" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T02:21:54.447" Title="How to express gratitude as a house guest?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;taiwanese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18105" CreationDate="2016-05-30T03:53:17.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;an approach that's formal, more &quot;literary chinese&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;對府上之款待﹒先行拜謝&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;先行拜謝&quot; is, roughly &quot;thank you in advance&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;府上&quot; is the honourable term of &quot;your home&quot;, you may change it to &quot;貴府&quot;, &quot;貴寓&quot;, or &quot;尊府&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000038602&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000038602&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;款待&quot; is, roughly &quot;reception&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000078380&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000078380&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T03:53:17.653" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18107" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18119" CreationDate="2016-05-30T04:13:38.467" Score="2" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;Heard pronunciation ㄍ丨(romanization: gi) recently in a dialect of south western mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was trying to trace it together with something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.slideserve.com/oona/3438032&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Seems like&lt;/a&gt; Hakka pronounces 机/機 ㄍ丨but I couldn't really see much else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What Chinese language(s) have pronunciation ㄍ丨(romanization: gi)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2021-02-21T22:04:25.000" Title="What Chinese language(s) have pronunciation ㄍ丨(romanization: gi)" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17535" CreationDate="2016-05-30T05:54:25.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我哭着唱歌。哭着 sounds to turn into kind of adv., describing a status before another verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一边哭一边唱。哭and 唱 are still two actions happening at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am singing with tears. 我哭着唱歌。&#xA;I am singing while Weeping.我一边哭一边唱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, not much difference. V着v, sounds more colloquial, 一边v一边v，sounds more formal and literal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13542" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T05:54:25.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17515" CreationDate="2016-05-30T06:46:36.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We say 电力 electric power instead of 电的力量; 马力， horsepower, instead of 马的力量，魄力，guts instead of 魂魄的力量，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say 有力的反击，effective strike back, instead of 有力量的反击。大力的支持，fully support, instead of 大力量的支持，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we use 力量 as a separate word, e.g, 我们的力量, our strength, 团结的力量， unity,s strengths , 集体的力量，groups power, we don't say 我们的力 or 团结的力。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an idiom, 群策群力，power of team work. &#xA;There is a phrase, 团队的力量， power of team work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the above, I will say 力 and 力量 mean merely same, the difference is 力 mostly used as part of a phrase while 力量 is used as a separate word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13542" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T06:46:36.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18089" CreationDate="2016-05-30T07:21:12.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please refer to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Variant Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;. They are all variants to 黃.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters in Chinese are progressing. Different fonts and writing ways can also make characters change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reference &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E9%BB%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Moe Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; here. It shows every word's pronouncing and meaning by hovering your cursor on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T01:18:26.233" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T01:18:26.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17508" CreationDate="2016-05-30T07:45:15.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;凉 adj cold&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷 adj cold&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冻 verb freeze&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰 noun  Ice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From these 4 characters, we can also make the following phrases,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冻冰 verb freeze 河冻冰了。 river gets frozen.&#xA;冷冻 adj.frozen; 冷冻食品，frozen food&#xA;     Verb freeze  我把虾冷冻了。，I freeze the shrimp. &#xA;冰冷 adj freezing e.g.冰冷的面庞. Freezing face&#xA;冰凉 adj icy cold  e.g.冰凉的水. Icy cold water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凉and冷 are both adj, very similar when it's describing temperature. But, 凉 is a little bit less cold than 冷。 we can say winter is 冷， late autumn is 凉。for the most of cases, they can be substituted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope the bellow example will help you sense the difference of these 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天凉(冷）了，冷（凉）水冻成冰。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's getting cold, cold water freezes into ice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰遇冷（凉）水就会化冻。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When ice meets cold water, it will defreeze.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13542" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T07:45:15.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18007" CreationDate="2016-05-30T08:43:04.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on your tone. If you say 我的腰坏了 seriously, it means your back is hurt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say 我的腰坏了 jokingly, it means you have had too much sex!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13542" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T08:43:04.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18007" CreationDate="2016-05-30T12:13:17.813" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can say “我的腰受伤了”，but whether you say use any method，“我的腰不好”can bring misunderstand. the best way voice this thing,you can detailed description of how to hurt your waist.&#xA;for example ,“我昨天摔了一跤，把腰摔伤了。”it means “yesterday i had been tripped, lead my waist injured”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6515" LastEditorUserId="6515" LastEditDate="2016-05-30T12:25:12.480" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T12:25:12.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18007" CreationDate="2016-05-30T15:54:17.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For backache, you could just say 我背疼了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T15:54:17.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18007" CreationDate="2016-05-31T00:37:29.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your back hurts, you should just say 我的腰疼 or 我的腰痛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you say 我的腰不好, it literally means &quot;I have a bad back&quot;. Normally this means you have a back condition, from old age or from a permanent injury. This is why it's not appropriate to say it when you simply have some back pain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's true that 腰 can also mean kidneys, especially in TCM, but usually people know what you're talking about in context, so in most cases it's fine to refer to your lower back as 腰.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T00:37:29.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18123" CreationDate="2016-05-31T00:51:41.333" Score="4" ViewCount="1414" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got this from the Spoonfed Chinese shared deck on Ankiweb. The translation, which was included in the deck, was &quot;Did you find me about something?&quot; and Google says &quot;Are you looking for me?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I translate it character by character I get &quot;Do you find that I have something&quot;, but 找 apparently doesn't have the meaning of &quot;think&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13549" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T09:23:53.577" Title="What does 你找我有事吗 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18117" CreationDate="2016-05-31T01:22:59.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google's translation is correct. &#xA;Character by character translation: &lt;strong&gt;Are you looking for me for something?&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;找 means &lt;strong&gt;find, look for&lt;/strong&gt;, not &lt;strong&gt;think&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T01:22:59.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18107" CreationDate="2016-05-31T01:39:59.613" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 机 is pronounced &lt;em&gt;gi&lt;/em&gt;(pin yin) in Hakka. But not all &amp;quot;Ji&amp;quot; pronunciations have the same reflection. e.g. 鸡 is pronounced &lt;em&gt;gie&lt;/em&gt;(pin yin) in Hakka, not &lt;em&gt;gi&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples I remember for now: 几，吉，记，季，寄，继，计，贵， etc. Of course, they have different tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2021-02-21T22:04:25.000" LastActivityDate="2021-02-21T22:04:25.000" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18135" CreationDate="2016-05-31T02:34:18.410" Score="2" ViewCount="547" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always been wondering how you would say, &quot;I went to china both for travel and to study Chinese.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if someone asked you, &quot;你是去中国旅行的还是去学习汉语的?&quot; (Did you go for travel or for study?), and you basically wanted to say &quot;both reasons&quot;, would you use the 一边。。。一边。。。 structure? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would this be correct? 我是去中国一边旅行一边学习汉语的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T05:36:57.040" Title="Use of the word BOTH in Chinese." Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18117" CreationDate="2016-05-31T02:39:03.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually 找 here cannot be translated to &lt;strong&gt;find&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;look for&lt;/strong&gt;. According to the context, the word here means &lt;strong&gt;approach&lt;/strong&gt;. The sentence literally means &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Do you approach me for something?&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt; In everyday Chinese, the sentence can be translated as &lt;strong&gt;&quot;What's the matter?&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user13373" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T02:39:03.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18120" CreationDate="2016-05-31T02:44:29.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact 一边。。。一边。。。 means doing two things at the same time, like 我一边学习一边听音乐 means &lt;strong&gt;I listen to the music while studying.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, you can say &lt;strong&gt;我去中国既旅行又学习汉语。&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;既。。又。。 is an appropriate phrase to express that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user13373" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T02:44:29.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18117" CreationDate="2016-05-31T08:04:05.337" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;找 in this context means &lt;em&gt;to contact/approach/seek/come to see&lt;/em&gt;. The whole sentence is very idiomatic and is a good pattern to remember. Roughly, we are asking &lt;em&gt;Is there a particular reason/cause for coming to see me?&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;Are you looking for me, because you have something to discuss?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also ask, 你来看我有事吗？ (Literally: &quot;You come to see me &lt;em&gt;because&lt;/em&gt; of some issue?&quot;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or even, 你给我打电话有什么事？ (Literally, &lt;em&gt;What is the (particular) cause for calling me?&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use this pattern to express the goal/reason [e.g. to discuss something] of some action [e.g. to seek someone]. In Chinese, you don't need to express everything explicitely, e.g. a causative relation between to actions, as above, from the context this will be clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T08:04:05.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17970" CreationDate="2016-05-31T14:03:43.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are really two questions here: one about bound and free morphemes, which has already been answered comprehensively, and the other about where to put the tone mark in pinyin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s an answer for that. The rules seem to be as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there is only one vowel, it takes the diacritic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there is more than one vowel, then the vowels {a}, {e}, or {o} take the diacritic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the vowel cluster is {ao}, then {a} takes the diacritic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the vowel cluster is {iu} or {ui}, the last letter takes the diacritic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a straight copy from &lt;a href=&quot;https://talkbank.org/pinyin/Tone_marks.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyin.info/rules/where.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;page&lt;/a&gt; put the rules differently. It’s also worth a look as it has a summary table that may be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple web search for “pinyin which vowel has accent” will give more pages on the topic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2016-05-31T14:19:13.147" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T14:19:13.147" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17970" CreationDate="2016-05-31T20:42:21.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The vowel priority rule is as follows:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 - a&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2 - e/o (they neve appear together)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3 - i/u (if they appear together, the last one takes the diacritic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the vowel that takes the diacritic is also the stressed vowel. We must say haaaaaaaao (好), but not haooooooo. Huooooooo (火), but not huuuuuuuo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2016-06-02T14:45:25.070" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T14:45:25.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18126" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-31T22:51:30.683" Score="0" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching a TV show, and some of the dialogue is giving me trouble.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rRVd2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rRVd2.png&quot; alt=&quot;screenshot&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The father is teasing his son's love intrest (the pictured girl). At least I think that's what's happening. They as her if she has 地X, and she says she does not. She then asks the family the same question, and it definately seems like a big deal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't figure out the third character. It sounds like &lt;code&gt;mei di xi&lt;/code&gt;, or perhaps &lt;code&gt;mei di qi&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought it could be related to the word place, since the 地 is from 地方. So maybe it's about owning land? It is on a Taiwanese drama from 2007, so if anyone has any cultural context t ogo along with the answer, that would be great!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13211" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T16:36:36.143" Title="沒地X, what is the third character?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18126" CreationDate="2016-06-01T05:39:48.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The words are &quot;mei di qi&quot;. &quot;地契&quot; is a whole word, which means lease.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13557" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T05:39:48.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18120" CreationDate="2016-06-01T05:43:29.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just reply 两者都是 in Chinese. or say 我去中国旅行同时学习汉语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13557" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T05:43:29.797" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18099" CreationDate="2016-06-01T07:09:09.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;吉, short for 吉祥, lucky, auspicious, propitious&#xA;庆, short for 喜庆, joyful, happy event, to celebrate&#xA;有余, to have enough and to spare, to have a surplus&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to have a lot of happy things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some Chinese traditional paintings, you may see a plump child holding a halberd(戟, ji3, similar with 吉), a chime stone(磬, qing4, same with 庆) and a fish(鱼, yu2, same with 余), usually a cyprinoid, sometimes only a fish and a lotus flower, which indicates 吉庆有余.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T07:09:09.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18130" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18133" CreationDate="2016-06-01T10:12:06.750" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;When does an adjective end in hu1 (乎)? To paraphrase, what do adjectives ending in 乎 have in common?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T17:47:22.923" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T17:47:22.923" Title="When does an adjective end in hu1 (乎)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18131" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19226" CreationDate="2016-06-01T10:14:46.777" Score="1" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the Cantonese diminutive (粒) as in 鸡粒炒饭 the same as the Mandarin (子)? Is that the right character to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE: Sorry for the mistake, I really did mean 粒, not 里.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-06-08T22:06:14.873" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T12:49:57.567" Title="Is the Cantonese diminutive (粒) the same as the Mandarin (子)?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18132" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19191" CreationDate="2016-06-01T10:26:56.220" Score="0" ViewCount="10172" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am also trying to figure out the meaning of the kanji on one of my T-shirts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/91hy4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/91hy4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what I got in pleco:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8t8sT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8t8sT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this I could only make out &quot;I'm looking forward to an entertaining festival today&quot;, but I'm sure that's wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="11212" LastEditDate="2016-10-05T00:21:36.403" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T22:50:49.200" Title="Meaning of the kanji 目娱乐节今日?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18130" CreationDate="2016-06-01T22:37:27.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;乎 usually does not form adjectives, but adverbs, that is modified verbs or adjectives. 胖 is an adjective, 胖乎乎 is an adverb, or a modified adjective, adding an enhancing element, or an injection if you will: fat to a great extent; 急乎乎: in an extreme hurry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乎 has other uses, but with regard to your question, it is an enhancing modifier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T22:37:27.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18130" CreationDate="2016-06-02T02:53:52.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For second question.&#xA;Almost all the adjectives. But this is an old Chinese usage, it strengthens adjectives' effects.&#xA;Now we use it in the spoken language, which adjectives could use it depends on custom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user13031" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T02:53:52.093" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18120" CreationDate="2016-06-02T05:55:46.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, there is no word, or even grammatical principles expressing the meaning &quot;both&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, we will say 我是去中国旅行&lt;strong&gt;和&lt;/strong&gt;学习汉语的。&#xA;Because clearly you are going to do two things at the same time, actually &quot;both&quot; is redundant. In Chinese, thus, just stop confusing in the word &quot;both&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to emphasize &quot;both&quot;, like that in English, a good way, in my view, will be to emphasize the word &quot;和&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2016-06-29T05:36:57.040" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T05:36:57.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18099" CreationDate="2016-06-02T09:38:19.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/492051.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;baidu baike&lt;/a&gt;, the term &amp;quot;吉庆有余&amp;quot; share the same meaning with &amp;quot;吉庆有鱼&amp;quot;, which has the meaning to be auspicious or lucky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term &amp;quot;吉庆有余&amp;quot; derives from traditional Han's auspicious symbol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term &amp;quot;吉庆&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;吉庆有余&amp;quot; means auspicious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the evidence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/477100/10914357.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;baidu baike&lt;/a&gt;, in the 《琵琶记·旌表》 written by 高明, there is a sentence: &amp;quot;祥瑞如此，吉庆必来。&amp;quot; My mandarin chinese interpretation is that 像这样祥瑞的时候，喜庆的事情一定也会到来, which means when it is a good time, something auspicious will happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, &amp;quot;吉庆有余&amp;quot; veil with a meaning of being propitious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13360" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T09:38:19.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18137" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18138" CreationDate="2016-06-02T12:17:57.877" Score="2" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a high school student who are curious with psychology. When I read the section on neuron, I find that the Chinese translation below is &quot;神经&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am very enthusiastic about it because it seems that &quot;神&quot; basically means the god and &quot;经&quot; has the meaning of passing by. The combination, however, seems to be unfathomable because we, human, doesn't have any god in our body. We're just individual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wanna know the etymology and history of the word &quot;神经&quot;?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13360" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2016-06-02T12:49:07.683" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T18:02:21.747" Title="What's the meaning of &quot;神&quot; in &quot;神经&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18137" CreationDate="2016-06-02T12:48:08.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/20/js/795E.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;multiple definitons for 神&lt;/a&gt;. One of them can explain why 神经 means nerves/neurons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;心思，心力，注意力：劳～。凝～。～魂颠倒。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, 神 is used to express &quot;thought&quot;, &quot;mental&quot;, &quot;attention&quot;. Therefore 神经 means &quot;thought/mental/attention pathway&quot;, which is a pretty good description of nerves/neurons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why 神 means that as well as things like &quot;god&quot; and &quot;divine&quot;, one clue comes from this divining text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《皇極經世》天之神棲乎日，人之神棲乎目。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It translates to roughly; &quot;the divinity of heaven resides in the sun, the divinity of man resides in the eye.&quot; So you can see how the association between eyes, sight, gaze, attention, thought can be easily made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People of many cultures have ascribed mystical properties to the eyes and sight. Shakespeare once said, paraphrased, &quot;the eye is the window to the soul.&quot; Matthew 6:22 says &quot;the eye is the lamp of the body.&quot; (where lamp means light) And what about the all-seeing eye, a representation of God? So the many definitions of 神 provides an interesting view of ancient human philosophy and beliefs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T12:48:08.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18137" CreationDate="2016-06-02T18:02:21.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, each character you mentioned has multiple meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;神 here doens't mean god but means mind/consciousness.&#xA;经 means &quot;passing by&quot; as you said but it's a noun here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So put them together it means the pathway of mind/consciousness, which is nerve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T18:02:21.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17970" CreationDate="2016-06-02T18:31:34.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;h1&gt;1&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 20 years I still remember my primary school teacher told me these rules to determine which vowel to put accent on in dipthongs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有a不放过 (If there is a &amp;quot;a&amp;quot;, put the accent on it.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没a找o,e (When there's no &amp;quot;a&amp;quot;, put the accent on &amp;quot;o&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;e&amp;quot; if there's it.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;i,u并列放在后 (If there are both &amp;quot;i&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;u&amp;quot; then put the vowel on the second one.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take first tone as example, all possible combinations of vowels are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ā,ō,ē,ī,ū,ü(bar on it)&#xA;āo,āi (有a不放过)&#xA;ōu,ēi (没a找o,e)&#xA;uī,iū (i,u并列放在前)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;2&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;is it allowed to use 爸 alone or only in 爸爸 ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;what about 把 with handle meaning : is it allowed to use alone for that meaning ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very confusing to use it alone when it means handle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;confusing with measure word and preposition used in 把字句 baziju structures...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ancient character of 把 looks like two hands together holding something. So this character means holding (verb). Then it extends to mean &amp;quot;a handful of&amp;quot; when it's a measure word. In modern Chinese, the preposition 把 means &amp;quot;take/make/let&amp;quot; somebody/something to ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;there is also the case 白 ：is it allowed to use alone for &amp;quot; white &amp;quot; ? or white can only be translated by 白色 ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's okay to use it alone for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T11:15:21.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18132" CreationDate="2016-06-02T18:35:30.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on my understanding: it should meaning &quot;今日娱乐节目&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13575" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T18:35:30.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18117" CreationDate="2016-06-03T04:31:24.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It actually means, Is there anything I can help you with? &#xA;or Do you have any questions to me?&#xA;Sometimes, we just say &quot;有事吗？&quot; in a more casual situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13578" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T04:31:24.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18095" CreationDate="2016-06-03T04:40:34.660" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cantonese does contain a substrate from the Tai languages, which includes Thai and Zhuang as modern members, so that could be a source of similarities. However, the word for chicken (雞), and most other Cantonese vocabulary, can be traced to Chinese sources, so that's not it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5978" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T04:40:34.660" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18146" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-03T15:32:46.740" Score="3" ViewCount="1982" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I've studied these two words: 几乎 and 差点儿. My book says that they have different meanings and they are used in different contexts, however I don't quite grasp in what way they are different, even if I've been provided with loads of examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher mainly focused on the meaning of 差点儿. According to her, this word have a slightly negative connotation, it indicates lack of something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe 差点儿 is more colloquial (口语)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think? Is there a clear difference between these two words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10944" LastActivityDate="2021-04-18T12:20:37.957" Title="What is the difference between 几乎 and 差点儿?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18150" CreationDate="2016-06-03T17:09:01.893" Score="1" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand &lt;code&gt;...,但是有意思的是,...&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;..., but the interesting thing is, ...&lt;/code&gt; but I went through great pains to arrive at this. The culprit here that jammed the cranks in my head was the &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;. Had it not been there I might have just inferred that meaning and carry on assuming that the &lt;code&gt;thing&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;interesting thing&lt;/code&gt; was implicit or the phrase was something akin to &lt;code&gt;but what's interesting is&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; doing here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also be grateful for another example showing the same rule in action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12559" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T19:42:30.377" Title="Is there a grammar rule for using 的 in this snippet 但是有意思的是?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18148" CreationDate="2016-06-03T17:24:36.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As long as I can remember now, 的 has two uses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a possessive identifier(or describing a noun with another noun)&#xA;This one is relatively easy, meaning &quot;of&quot;, &quot; 's &quot;. for example: &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的妈妈  =&gt; My mother&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杰克的食物 =&gt; Jack's food&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a modifier, namely, to describe a noun with verbs or adjectives, similar to the relative clause in English, using the relative pronouns (that, which, where, etc.) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我帅气的老公 =&gt; My handsome husband&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从中国来的特产 =&gt; A special property which comes from China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more thing before analyzing your sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the word &quot;thing&quot; is usually omitted if applicable. So if you see sentences like these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是我妈的(东西)。=&gt; This is my mum's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个是很有意思的(东西)。=&gt; This is very meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you should know that there is a hidden “东西” in between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in your example, knowing that a hidden “东西” is within the sentence, and 的 in th above case having the second meaning, you should understand why the translation is like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T17:24:36.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18148" CreationDate="2016-06-03T17:54:52.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both your translations are definitely correct (if you think about it &lt;code&gt;but the interesting thing&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;but what's interesting&lt;/code&gt; mean the same thing). As you pointed out, something is omitted here: in this case it's the word 事情 &lt;code&gt;thing, the thing&lt;/code&gt;. This happens because it's implicitly inferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence 但是有意思的事情是 is grammatically correct too and it means the exactly same thing. In this case we made 事情 explicit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You already know that 的 introduces the modifier which precedes the noun that it's modifying. If you make 事情 implicit, you have to leave 的 in the sentence to indicate that the element that comes before represents a modifier, and the thing that is modified can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this sentence:&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的自行车比你的新。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  My bike is newer than yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's analyse it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的自行车 (Modifier + Subject) + 比 (preposition) + 你的 (Modifier) + 新 (Predicate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, after 你, there is a 的 that modifies something implicit. The word 自行车 is explicit the first time (after 我), but it's omitted the second time (after 你) because both the speaker and the audience know they are talking about bikes. Thus, you omit 自行车 the second time but keep 的 to signify that the element that comes before is a modifier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Although it could sound redundant, it is perfectly OK to say 我的自行车比你的自行车新.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10944" LastEditorUserId="10944" LastEditDate="2016-06-03T18:20:21.863" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T18:20:21.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18146" CreationDate="2016-06-04T02:53:24.323" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;差点儿 is more emotional. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我差点儿迟到了。&lt;/code&gt; implies that I feel lucky I was not late and I would feel bad if I were late.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;我几乎迟到了。&lt;/code&gt;  states a fact and sounds like it's not a big deal even if I was late.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Visualize such a scenario. I run across the road and a car nearly hits me. My girlfriend says &lt;code&gt;你差点儿就被撞了！&lt;/code&gt; It's a blame but I can feel she's really worried and feels grateful I was not hit by the car. I would be really sad if she says &lt;code&gt;你几乎就被撞了。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T02:53:24.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18092" CreationDate="2016-06-04T07:48:45.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sure there are other resources on the Web/etc., but the Pleco app on iOS (and other platforms I think) has a nice built-in dictionary that displays the measure word in the listing for each Chinese noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13579" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T07:48:45.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18117" CreationDate="2016-06-04T08:42:40.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An English equivalent would be :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can I help you?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's up?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you require assistance?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What do you need?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or in Singaporean-English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You look for me for what?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Number 5 would be the most literal translation. Drunken Master's example of :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你来看我有事吗?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although there's nothing wrong with a non native speaker saying the above, we normally wouldn't say that because 看 means more of &quot;look&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eg. 你看那女孩儿好正哦 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literal: &quot;you look at that girl, awesome&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If: &quot;你看我有事吗?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above has a different meaning. It means more of &quot;Do you think there's something wrong with me?&quot; &quot;Do you think there could be something wrong with me?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13589" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T08:42:40.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18095" CreationDate="2016-06-04T09:04:26.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A huge population of Northern Thai consists of Chinese and most of these Chinese come from Southern China Guangdong Province from an area/ city called 潮州 (Chao zhou /teochew). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even today, most of these modern Thai Chinese can speak some Teochew although they may not understand Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to mixing of cultures, some words could have translated to Thai. Pronunciation may be closer to Teochew than Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe one of their kings was of Chinese descent as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13589" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T09:04:26.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18156" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22924" CreationDate="2016-06-04T11:38:35.033" Score="3" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that 書名號 in English is called &quot;Guillemet&quot;, I don't know if you knowing the English version makes it any better to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wanted to refer to a section/chapter within a user manual. Which of the following is the correct one, or the mostly acknowledged one? Or am I wrong about all these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;《××使用手冊．××方法》&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;《××使用手冊》－××方法&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;《××使用手冊》××方法章節&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to make the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;詳情請參考 ____ 。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are my researches, as they are required on Chinese SE to show my effort. (I've learned the hard way)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/FILES/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/HAU/h12.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;《重訂標點符號手冊》修訂版--書名號&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above document is the official document written by the educational department in Taiwan. This is recommended to write a 書名(book title) with an 篇名(article title):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;《莊子．逍遙遊》&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As well as Wikipedia, though it didn't specify the syntax of writing such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I still wanted to make sure because I want to write a 書名(book title) with a chapter/section(章節)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T04:47:19.517" Title="Punctuation - 書名號 in writing a title and chapter of a documentation" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18158" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-04T17:04:09.193" Score="0" ViewCount="457" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was trying to say this to someone and it came out &quot;我跟你们没兴趣&quot;, which I can tell isn't right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To clarify, common interests here refer to personal interests or interests in activities, rather than shared goals in the context of business partnership or political alliances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11858" LastEditorUserId="11858" LastEditDate="2016-07-11T18:55:13.813" LastActivityDate="2016-10-13T14:30:49.613" Title="How do you say &quot;we don't have any common interests&quot;?" Tags="&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18148" CreationDate="2016-06-04T19:42:30.377" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“的”的用法是：①部分n＋的＝adj&#xA;adj修饰n／v&#xA;②省略一些词语&#xA;such as:美丽的蝴蝶  美丽＝n   美丽的＝adj  蝴蝶＝n  美丽的修饰（modifier）蝴蝶&#xA;                     ——莫道不销魂，帘卷西风，人比黄花瘦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13592" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T19:42:30.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17970" CreationDate="2016-06-04T20:25:46.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;给你说些汉字记法。&#xA;艹字为偏旁很多（radical）与植物（botang）有关&#xA;例如（such as）：草，花，藤蔓，药，菜，茶&#xA;氵字为偏旁很多与水（water）有关&#xA;例如：渴，河，海，江，没，汹涌，沫，浅&#xA;扌字为偏旁很多与手（hand）部动作有关&#xA;例如：打，拉，撕，撤，扔，提，捏，推&#xA;火字为偏旁很多与火（fire）有关&#xA;例如：炎，焰，烧，灼，烫，燃&#xA;按偏旁归类的，有很多&#xA;而且一些是象形字（glyph）&#xA;例如：火，目，日，山，水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;                         ——寻寻觅觅，冷冷清清，凄凄惨惨戚戚。乍暖还寒时候，最难将息，三杯两盏淡酒。怎敌他、晚来风急！燕过也，正伤心，却是旧时相识。&#xA;    满地黄花堆积，憔悴损，如今有谁堪摘。守着窗儿，独自怎生得黑。梧桐更兼细雨，到黄昏、点点滴滴。这次第，怎一个愁字了得&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13592" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T20:25:46.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18163" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19163" CreationDate="2016-06-05T01:25:21.757" Score="1" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;How did the character 双 in the dish name 炒双冬 come to mean &quot;bamboo shoots&quot;? Isn't 双 just a character meaning &quot;pair&quot;? Also, why 冬(winter)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="11212" LastEditDate="2016-06-05T11:35:56.433" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T16:34:15.923" Title="The character 双 in the dish name 炒双冬。" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18163" CreationDate="2016-06-05T01:36:26.827" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's 炒双冬. 双 here means two. One 冬 is 冬菇, also known as 香菇, a kind of mushroom, lentinus edodes. The other 冬 refers to 冬笋, bamboo shoots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T01:36:26.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18163" CreationDate="2016-06-05T16:34:15.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;双means two，冬is short for冬笋and冬菇。双冬here means冬笋and冬菇。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13594" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T16:34:15.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18146" CreationDate="2016-06-06T14:12:36.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;看到這問題，我挺意外的，因為我從沒想過“差點兒”和“幾乎”要怎麼分，所以我認真地想了一下——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;若說“差點兒”更加口語，我不太認同，倒是覺得兩者都差不多，沒有口語或不口語的區別。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不過我發現，說話時“幾乎”後面往往會加一些字，比如說：幾乎“沒”、幾乎“不”、幾乎“都”、幾乎“快”、幾乎“要”等等……。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而“差點兒”並不會。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這大概算是一種用法的不同？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其實我也不是很確定，畢竟，說習慣後就不會刻意區分它們。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My English is poor，it is hard for me to translate my opinion into English，so I hope you can understand my words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13586" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T14:12:36.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19165" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19166" CreationDate="2016-06-06T16:25:42.297" Score="3" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am struggling with the pronunciation of the 一 in 一边.  The usage I am particularly concerned with is describing simultaneous tasks, as &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Simultaneous_tasks_with_%22yibian%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.  My understanding is that 一 is pronounced as first tone when alone or as an ordinal but fourth tone otherwise, consistent with this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2045/pronunciation-of-%E4%B8%80-in-%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%AA&quot;&gt;similar question about 一个&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14560/is-%E4%B8%80-in-%E4%B8%80%E7%BA%BF%E5%9F%8E%E5%B8%82-first-or-second-tone/14573#14573&quot;&gt;this question about 一线城市&lt;/a&gt;.  As such, I would expect 一边 to be pronounced yi4 bian1.  However, in the first link above, and also in every dictionary I look at, it is first tone.  What is the correct way to pronounce this word? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T03:26:47.523" Title="Pronunciation of 一 in 一边" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19165" CreationDate="2016-06-06T18:43:55.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yìbiān would be correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For ordinals, it is pronounced yī. In other cases, When followed by fourth tone, it takes the second tone (一对, yí duì). For all other following tones, it takes on the fourth tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason it is not marked in dictionaries, is because the rules for tone sandhi are few and straightforward. Isolated cases are when a tone is dropped (or replaced by the fifth neutral tone), and those cases are usually indicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T18:43:55.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19167" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-06T20:12:02.863" Score="4" ViewCount="1192" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the most common Chinese honorifics? As far as I know we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大人 = respect, like the -sama in Japanese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;贵 = your&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;臣 = your servant&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;朕 = I (only used by the emperor)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T22:40:20.443" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T22:43:41.857" Title="What are the most common Chinese honorifics?" Tags="&lt;terms-of-address&gt;&lt;formal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19168" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-06T23:12:28.927" Score="0" ViewCount="3743" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't speak or write Chinese, but currently working on web project for my client. The site is available in four languages. The translated content for Chinese is given to me in word doc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is very simple,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is it OK if I break a single line Chinese sentence into two for design purpose?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is brief of why I'm asking this question. tl;dr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a banner I'm designing for, I have some space issues. Wanted to know if it is OK to break a single line into two lines? When trying out google translator I got a bit confused when I break lines because there was a change in word and auto capitalization. Would be great if some one could clear my doubts, because I do not want the viewers to get annoyed seeing random capitalization and poor language. Also do not want to piss off my client. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A small example is given below&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English: &lt;strong&gt;User's skin becomes Brighter&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What my clients translator gave me: &lt;strong&gt;用户的肌肤变得更亮白&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What google translated(when in single line): &lt;strong&gt;User's skin becomes more white&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the help of google translator I tried breaking the lines as below. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;用户的肌肤变&#xA;得更亮白&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google gave me &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;User's skin becomes&#xA;More Brightening&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I found that google captilises the first letter of second line. Does a new line mean a new sentence in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13601" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T02:14:33.027" Title="Breaking a single line Chinese sentence into multiple lines for design purpose" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19168" CreationDate="2016-06-07T00:25:05.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In terms of grammar, Chinese also uses punctuation marks to delimit fragments and sentences, so a line break usually doesn't indicate a new sentence. The only hard rule is that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_breaking_rules_in_East_Asian_languages#Line_breaking_rules_in_Chinese_text&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;most punctuation marks should not begin lines&lt;/a&gt;. Most word processing software should enforce this for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this it's a stylistic question. It's true in Chinese, just as it is in English, that line breaks introduces a pause. It's an effect that poetry often takes advantage of. Usually it's bad to pause in the middle of a word, and since &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/13466/2583&quot;&gt;Chinese words are made up of one to many characters&lt;/a&gt;, you need someone that understands Chinese to identify the words and avoid breaking them. In your example sentence, they are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用户 - 的 - 肌肤 - 变得 - 更 - 亮白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Line breaks emphasise the first word of a line, so maybe you want to do it to emphasise certain words. This emphasises the &amp;quot;becomes&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用户的肌肤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;变得更亮白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This emphasises the &amp;quot;more&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用户的肌肤变得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;更亮白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can really overdo the line breaks and make it seem like shouting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用户的肌肤变得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;更!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;亮!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But really, these are all design decisions, which don't occur in a vacuum. You need to go back to your client and ask what they would like. Maybe they value the shape of the text, even if it means breaking in the middle of a word. Maybe they don't want line breaks at all, even if the text must be resized. Maybe they just don't care.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T00:32:57.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19168" CreationDate="2016-06-07T00:39:35.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To the best of my knowledge, breaking up sentences into separate lines is fine, but you should not do so in a way that breaks up linked characters (e.g. in your example, 变 and 得). For example, in the ending of &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/WispcqP-liU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a Hong Kong commercial about cervical cancer prevention&lt;/a&gt;, we see the text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;爱护自己 (&lt;em&gt;take care of yourself&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  及早检验 (&lt;em&gt;and get tested early&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The characters in the commercial are traditional, but I am using their simplified equivalents for convenience.) The two clauses are clearly linked together as a phrase or sentence, but they appear on separate lines. A new line does not mean a new sentence here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some cases, the two lines could stand separately. For example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/IvzkX9ODJ98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;生命有希望 / 前路由我创&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;em&gt;There is hope in life&lt;/em&gt; / &lt;em&gt;the path forward is up to me.&lt;/em&gt;) However, I would be disinclined to interpret them as separate sentences; in context provided, the two clauses are tied together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T00:39:35.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19171" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-07T01:00:34.410" Score="2" ViewCount="2355" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been spending a lot of time learning chinese, and have some ideas for apps that would make this complicated process easier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for datasets (ideally free) that I can use to back an app I want to write. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dataset should have definitions, character ranks, frequency data, radical composition data etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of an existing app is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanzicraft.com/character/%E5%AE%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hanzicraft.com/character/%E5%AE%89&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where does one obtain such data? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T13:53:17.047" Title="Where can I find a dataset for Chinese characters to back an app I want to write?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19167" CreationDate="2016-06-07T02:12:10.890" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When addressing the listener's family, a prefix 令 (ling4, which has a meaning of good, lucky) can be used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;令尊, your father&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;令堂, your mother&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;令郎, your son&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;令嫒, your daughter&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;令兄, your elder brother&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;令弟, your younger brother&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;令姊, your elder sister&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;令妹, your younger sister&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correspondingly, when addressing the speaker's own family, a prefix 家(jia1, which means home, family) is used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;家父, 家严, my father&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;家母, 家慈, my mother&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;家兄, my elder brother&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;家弟, 舍弟, my younger brother&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;家姊, my elder sister&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;家妹, 舍妹, my younger sister&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舍 (she4, my humble house) is used only with the younger of the same generation, or the younger generation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;舍侄 (brother's son), 舍甥 (sister's son), my nephew&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My son and my daughter are 犬子, 犬女. 犬 here is puppy. But it's extremely rude to call others with any dog related words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In daily informal cases, we can use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;您 as a replacement of 令&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 as a replacement of 家、舍,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;common words like 父亲, 母亲, 哥哥, 弟弟, 姐姐, 妹妹, 儿子, 女儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;您父亲, your father&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我弟弟, my younger brother&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My father and my mother can be 我爸爸, 我妈妈. But 您爸爸X or 您妈妈X is not proper because 爸爸 and 妈妈 are not honorific while 父亲 and 母亲 are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, 尊 (zun1, honor, respect) is a honorific prefix:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尊夫, your husband&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尊夫人, your wife, also 嫂夫人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尊驾, you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尊师, your teacher&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尊长, your elders&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T22:43:41.857" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T22:43:41.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19173" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19174" CreationDate="2016-06-07T02:18:47.540" Score="0" ViewCount="2549" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the main differences between 能，and 可以? They both mean &quot;to be able to&quot;, or simply &quot;can&quot;, correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13605" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T05:56:03.133" Title="Neng [能] vs Ke yi [可以]" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-06-14T09:05:37.507" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19173" CreationDate="2016-06-07T02:43:08.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a substantial difference between the following contrast pair:&#xA;a. 我能说汉语。&#xA;b. 我可以说汉语。&#xA;In a., neng 能 indicates that I have the ability to speak Chinese while in b. keyi 可以 implies that this action, my speaking Chinese can be carried out if asked or allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12639" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T02:43:08.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19165" CreationDate="2016-06-07T03:26:47.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The regular use is exemplified below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一次  24  yícì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个  24  yígè&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一旦  24  yídàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一起  43  yìqǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一撇  43  yìpiě&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一种  43  yìzhǒng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一人  42  yìrén&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一行  42  yìxíng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一边  41  yìbiān&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一堆  41  yìduī&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般  41  yìbān&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, When 一 follows another character to form an immediate constituent, no matter how the tone changes, yi remains the first tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第一  41  dìyī&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;守一  31  shǒuyī&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;专一  11  zhuānyī&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同一  21  tóngyī&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12639" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T03:26:47.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19173" CreationDate="2016-06-07T05:56:03.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neng primarily means that the current CIRCUMSTANCES ALLOW you to carry out a certain action. Ke Yi has the sense of being ALLOWED (or asked) to do something. If you want to say, I have the ability to do something, as in an acquired ability such as speaking Chinese, you should definitely use this word.: 会 hui4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T05:56:03.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="253" CreationDate="2016-06-07T06:27:57.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neng primarily means that ALL the current circumstances (whether it be one's skill or the current general state of things) make it possible for you to carry out a certain action (I &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; lend you that pencil). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ke Yi has the sense of being ALLOWED/PERMITTED (or asked) to do something. (I &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; take the book -&gt; I am permitted to take the book).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to say, I have the acquired ability to do something, as in an acquired ability such as speaking Chinese, you should definitely use 会 hui4. (I &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; speak Chinese). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T06:27:57.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18120" CreationDate="2016-06-07T08:22:28.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;都 can mean either 'both', or 'all'.. so you could simply say, 都是吧 whether it was 2 or 10 reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13607" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T08:22:28.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18146" CreationDate="2016-06-07T15:43:01.610" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Furthermore,差点 has a mean “at this time”，几乎means“most of the time”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13612" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T15:43:01.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18117" CreationDate="2016-06-07T15:50:54.497" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This mean:Do  you have any problem need my help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13612" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T15:50:54.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17681" CreationDate="2016-06-07T16:19:10.140" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Itis doesn't matter weather negative or positive.不愁 means you needn't warry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13613" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T16:19:10.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19171" CreationDate="2016-06-08T04:18:58.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found sources for characters, definitions, and stroke order to build a &lt;a href=&quot;http://donkirkby.github.io/donkirkby/ChineseVocabulary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;set of flash cards&lt;/a&gt;. I listed &lt;a href=&quot;http://donkirkby.github.io/donkirkby/ChineseSources&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;several sources&lt;/a&gt; on the project web site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2016-06-08T04:18:58.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18013" CreationDate="2016-06-08T08:11:27.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think of it this way,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我比他不差 - I compared with her is not worse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不比她差 - I am not worse than her&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both are correct, but the latter sounds more colloquially correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13618" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-06-08T08:11:27.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19171" CreationDate="2016-06-08T12:43:09.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some free databases that may be useful to you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cc-cedict.org/wiki/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/a&gt;: high quality user-created  dictionary released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://crr.ugent.be/programs-data/subtitle-frequencies/subtlex-ch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SUBTLEX-CH&lt;/a&gt;: Chinese word and character frequencies based on film and television show subtitles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Chinese_characters_decomposition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikimedia Commons Chinese character decomposition database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13279" LastEditorUserId="17262" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T13:53:17.047" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T13:53:17.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18132" CreationDate="2016-06-08T16:24:27.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;今日娱乐节目in plain English means 'Today's entertainment programmes' '节目'usually means TV Programmes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13129" LastActivityDate="2016-06-08T16:24:27.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18132" CreationDate="2016-06-08T17:43:27.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This T-shirt has printed the words in a  wrong order.It should be :今日娱乐节目&#xA;（today entertainment program）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13622" LastActivityDate="2016-06-08T17:43:27.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18158" CreationDate="2016-06-08T18:15:57.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们没有共同语言。这是地道的中文翻译方式，不是直译的。你也可以翻译成“我们没有共同的兴趣”。只是日常口语一般不会说的这么正式。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13622" LastActivityDate="2016-06-08T18:15:57.487" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18131" CreationDate="2016-06-08T18:22:19.910" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the meanings of those two are the same in the only single word,but we'd like to use the specific one in some established by usage phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13622" LastActivityDate="2016-06-08T18:22:19.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19198" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-09T01:39:48.270" Score="0" ViewCount="1111" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do a lot of writing in different languages and have keyboard input types set up with hot keys so I switch easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm currently in Taiwan studying Mandarin and added the &quot;traditional&quot; Chinese input type along with the &quot;simplified&quot; that I already had. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem I'm having is that the trad and simple input methods have the same icon and I sometimes don't know which one I'm on, and can easily mistake one for the other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't the end of the world, but if anyone knows a hack to change this (maybe just the color or something) I would be very happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hxHXx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hxHXx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T15:06:15.667" Title="How can I change the icon used for a keyboard input type in Mac" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19199" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19206" CreationDate="2016-06-09T05:53:54.407" Score="2" ViewCount="914" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering how to express a certain function of &quot;actually&quot; in Chinese. Up to now I've always used 其实。But I'm not sure this is right for what I want to express. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you translate this: A: 北京冬天天气冷不冷? B: Well, actually I went to Beijing last year and it was very cold. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you say: 其实，去年我去了北京，太冷啊！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks very much in advance, I would really love to know the answer to this!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T16:41:13.830" Title="Starting a sentence with &quot;actually...&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19198" CreationDate="2016-06-09T06:12:08.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can click on the icon, it should provide a drop-down menu with a bunch of preferences and options. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Select &quot;Show Input Source Name&quot; - then select your preferred keyboard language. &#xA;It should come up with the icon, PLUS something like &quot;Pinyin - Simplified&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This worked for me, hopefully works for you too!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T06:12:08.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19201" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-09T08:54:03.870" Score="0" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does any one have good glyph origin theory about those HanZi?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My take:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;状 - fence + dog inside  ~ then this mutated to a &quot;situation or&#xA;disposition&quot; meaning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;状 - remnant of 壮 + dog = huge dog. how this ended in the present&#xA;meaning of 状 i don't know.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;況 - water + a man with a big mouth (speaking). Meaning of &quot;describing water&quot; or describing a phenomenon. Water and &quot;moreover&quot; meaning play good together but &quot;situation&quot; meaning doesn't click for me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T00:23:53.280" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T00:23:53.280" Title="Glyph origin or any mnemonic for 況 and 状?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19201" CreationDate="2016-06-09T10:22:00.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually Xu Shen's rationalizations are not so much worse than yours:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;状狀《說文》犬形也。从犬爿聲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;況况湟《說文》寒水也。从水兄聲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has to be admitted that neither explanation is particularly compelling or enlightening for the modern reader. As a learning crutch, how about these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爿 a stick, a chip, a small piece of wood; I carve it to so it takes the 狀 &lt;em&gt;shape&lt;/em&gt; of a 犬 dog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 水 water is like my 兄 brother; under these 況 &lt;em&gt;conditions&lt;/em&gt; I thrive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to deal with recalcitrant characters is to just accept oneself's mnemonic ineptitude and to proceed reading and writing. Chances are that the more important items will show up often enough that they will become familiar enough sooner or later. It must be said that some things will never feel at home in the minds of some learners, and still cause a burden in terms of time spent and maybe wasted. Perfection is a noble goal, but determination to attain it without any lacunae is a certain way to failure; sometimes the way to learn something depends on getting over not being able to and going on with whatever comes up next. We cannot always explain, attain, or keep everything. Even Confucius, when discussing why 犬 is used to write &lt;em&gt;dog&lt;/em&gt;, once remarked: &quot;the ancient dogs must have looked strange indeed&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3674" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T10:22:00.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19201" CreationDate="2016-06-09T10:40:17.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;have a look of this page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%8B%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=狀&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狀(u+72c0)﹒犬形也(form, appearance of dog)﹒从犬﹒爿聲(爿 is sound component)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爿(u+723f) is a main component of chinese character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/bronzePiece.php?piece=%E7%88%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/bronzePiece.php?piece=爿&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;況(u+6cc1)﹒寒水也(cold water)﹒从水﹒兄聲(兄 is sound component)﹒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B3%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=況&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would think that all your takes is, . . . ,well, try again :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, additional info added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my brief checking, that the term &quot;狀況&quot; in modern usage; the earliest one is in page 102 of 御製詩四集﹒卷七十九, by emperor 乾隆 of 清 dynasty:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06054264.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/06054264.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O5K1G.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O5K1G.png&quot; alt=&quot;page 102 of 御製詩四集﹒卷七十九&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the last 4 &amp;amp; 3 characters at the bottom of left most column.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in early 20th century, it's frequency in &lt;a href=&quot;https://mmis.hkpl.gov.hk/search-result?p_p_id=search_WAR_mmisportalportlet&amp;amp;p_p_lifecycle=0&amp;amp;p_p_state=normal&amp;amp;_search_WAR_mmisportalportlet_keywords=%E7%8B%80%E6%B3%81&amp;amp;_search_WAR_mmisportalportlet_hsf=%E7%8B%80%E6%B3%81&amp;amp;p_r_p_-1078056564_actual_q=%28%20verbatim_dc.collection%3A%28%22Old%5C%20HK%5C%20Newspapers%22%29%29%20AND+%28%20%28%20allTermsMandatory%3A%28true%29%20OR+all_dc.title%3A%28%E7%8B%80%E6%B3%81%29%20OR+all_dc.creator%3A%28%E7%8B%80%E6%B3%81%29%20OR+all_dc.contributor%3A%28%E7%8B%80%E6%B3%81%29%20OR+all_dc.subject%3A%28%E7%8B%80%E6%B3%81%29%20OR+fulltext%3A%28%E7%8B%80%E6%B3%81%29%20OR+all_dc.description%3A%28%E7%8B%80%E6%B3%81%29%29%29&amp;amp;_search_WAR_mmisportalportlet__cnsc1002_WAR_mmisportalportlet_formDate=1465478506595&amp;amp;p_r_p_-1078056564_sort_field=dc.publicationdate_bsort&amp;amp;p_r_p_-1078056564_new_search=true&amp;amp;p_r_p_-1078056564_sort_order=asc&amp;amp;p_r_p_-1078056564_q=%E7%8B%80%E6%B3%81&amp;amp;_search_WAR_mmisportalportlet_jspPage=%2Fjsp%2Fsearch%2Fcnsc05.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;old hk newspaper&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1900s (8)&#xA;1910s (20)&#xA;1920s (190)&#xA;1930s (505)&#xA;1940s (217)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-06-09T13:42:26.633" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T13:42:26.633" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17063" CreationDate="2016-06-09T11:30:52.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me quote one guy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同意评友呵呵“也”是“匜”的初文的观点。认为“也”表示低的意思：匜，古代洗手用具，有低凹面可盛水；池，存水的低处为池；地，地面以上的疙瘩墩为土，土以下即低于疙瘩底面为地；弛， 张弓即拉紧弓弦则弓背高，放松弓弦则弓背低为弛；驰，马飞奔则头与身段表现为低；扡同拖，把物体从低处拉出；他，认为比我们低一级的第三人称，古含贬义。猜：低凹的可存水的洗手用具是共用必须品，你洗手，我洗手，使得“也”有了“同样的并列的”意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thinks it's a good model of the evolution of 也.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.&#xA;the quote is taken from a comment section under the glyph at &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.vividict.com/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;So, it's not reputable in any way :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T12:26:30.380" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T12:26:30.380" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19171" CreationDate="2016-06-09T12:09:54.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That website is made with the following resources that you can find in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanzicraft.com/about&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FAQ&lt;/a&gt; section:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where does the data come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;HanziCraft would not exist without the massive amounts of work already&#xA;  done by other people &amp;amp; researchers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lwc.daanvanesch.nl/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Leiden University Weibo Corpus Data&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cjkdecomp.codeplex.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Gavin Grover's Decomposition Data&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=cc-cedict&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Junda's Character Frequency Data&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1130" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T12:09:54.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19199" CreationDate="2016-06-09T15:59:38.397" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is true that a lot of words in an English conversation such as 'basically', 'well...', 'actually' don't have good one-to-one translation mappings to the Chinese language. 其实has a negating connotation to the context you are trying to convey. I am going to give it a shot and say, here 'actually' could be replaced by 'in fact', which then can be translated to '实际上'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence would now read: ‘实际上，我去年去了北京，很冷啊！’ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13129" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T15:59:38.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18158" CreationDate="2016-06-09T16:26:56.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;interest&quot; has multiple related meanings and that's why Ghost's answer struggles. OP does provide some context but not enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under the context of personal interest, common interest will be 共同的兴趣爱好 something we both like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under the context eg &quot;The common interest between US and China&quot; that will indeed be 共同的利益.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In a constructed case, &quot;my bank doesn't have common interests with his bank&quot; this can even mean 一样的利息)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T16:26:56.887" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19199" CreationDate="2016-06-09T16:35:43.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know adding verbal modal particle 了 is enough for marking reality or actuality of the situation. No need in 其实 here cause it can be used in irrealis context too.(habit, wishing, ordering....) in your case 其实 is just a decoration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. Try translating Your sentence without 了. That is: ，去年我去北京，太冷啊！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s.s if you want to stress that &quot;it is cold&quot; then use sentence finale modal particle 了. Like this - 其实，去年我去了北京，太冷了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2016-06-09T16:41:13.830" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T16:41:13.830" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18126" CreationDate="2016-06-09T16:36:36.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;契，‘qi'，没地契means there are no land deeds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13129" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T16:36:36.143" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19198" CreationDate="2016-06-10T03:53:48.313" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Update: I was not able to find out how to change the actual icon, but a quick fix was to select the &quot;show input source name&quot; in the dropdown on the top bar. I was just seeing the icon before, and now I can see the full name. This is fine but takes up 4x more space in my crowded top bar that it needs to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll consider it a shim. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T03:53:48.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19211" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19212" CreationDate="2016-06-10T04:35:07.600" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer someone's question as to whether something is so or not, can you simply reply, &quot;of course it is!&quot; just as we do in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &#xA;Can you swim？ (你会游泳吗？）&#xA;Of course I can swim! (As in, that's a ridiculous question). (当然啊！）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T04:54:41.433" Title="Using 当然 as an exclamation?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19211" CreationDate="2016-06-10T04:54:41.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, you can use any word as an exclamation, especially in speech. I'm not aware of any language where this is ungrammatical. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: What's your favourite Chinese word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 当然！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T04:54:41.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19213" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19221" CreationDate="2016-06-10T04:59:40.550" Score="2" ViewCount="470" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wanting to say, &quot;I think China is the world's second biggest country.&quot; As, in, &quot;I'm pretty sure this is the fact.&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would have originally used 觉得. But apparently this is only for opinions? As in &quot;I think your Chinese is good.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not wanting to say, &quot;I feel&quot; or &quot;I believe&quot;, i'm wanting to express that regarding a certain question, I believe the FACTUAL answer is such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T20:15:00.750" Title="How to express &quot;I think&quot; (not I feel)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19213" CreationDate="2016-06-10T05:09:55.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;what about 認為:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000136182&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000136182&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for serious, formal one; with researches, proofs, etc..., you may consider 考證:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000076978&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000076978&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T05:09:55.437" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19215" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19220" CreationDate="2016-06-10T10:54:49.253" Score="0" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend wrote this on his timeline, and I need to know... Please help me....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;准备过奖黑板政治生物历史脑.  What does this mean??? Btw, he is not an advanced Chinese speaker,so some grammars might be incorrect.. But I just need to know what he's trying to say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean, I tried to use the google translator, but it gave me some impossible answer &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13633" LastEditorUserId="13633" LastEditDate="2016-06-10T11:06:52.870" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T19:57:00.687" Title="准备过奖黑板政治生物历史脑 in English please?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-06-20T11:41:32.607" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19215" CreationDate="2016-06-10T12:00:29.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is jibberish. Google was right. IMHO. I'm not advanced though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T12:00:29.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19215" CreationDate="2016-06-10T12:10:59.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9IHT3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9IHT3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then could you guys uhh... Track back and try to guess what he really meant to say? Because the google translation of this is stupid... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13633" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T12:10:59.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19198" CreationDate="2016-06-10T17:49:55.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Navigate to /system/library/input methods&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right click on TCIM.app and choose &quot;show package contents&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Navigate to contents/resources/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There you will have the icon, named pinyin.tiff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make a backup of the icon. Make another icon, and replace this instance with your creation. Admin password needed. Kill TCIM to make it take effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep a copy of your icon somewhere else, as OS X updates will overwrite your changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same applies to SCIM or any input method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T17:49:55.660" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3271" CreationDate="2016-06-10T19:41:36.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;至少&quot; accents on the &lt;em&gt;amount&lt;/em&gt;, for example, &quot;我想这人至少五十了&quot;,&#xA;and &quot;起码&quot; accents on the &lt;em&gt;thing&lt;/em&gt;, for example, &quot;吃饭前起码完成一半工作&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But they are always OK to exchange each other. But there is still a very very very little difference on emotion, &quot;至少&quot; has the meaning of &quot;Absolutely&quot;, and used for accurate description or certain emotion, and &quot;起码&quot; has the emotion of pray for something, or contentment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="13636" LastEditDate="2016-06-10T19:58:28.470" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T19:58:28.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19215" CreationDate="2016-06-10T19:57:00.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is not even a sentence. That is just a bunch of words put together and they don't make any sense as a sentence. It literally means &quot;prepare award blackboard politics biology history brain&quot;. Also, don't trust Google Translate when translating sentences. I often use Google Translate to translate sentences just for giggles. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user12627" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T19:57:00.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19213" CreationDate="2016-06-10T20:15:00.750" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我认为&quot; is good, it's equal to &quot;I think&quot;, which means you deducted it from your knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use &quot;据我所知&quot; witch equals to &quot;As I know&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我认为中国是世界第二大的国家&quot;, or &quot;据我所知，中国是世界第二大的国家&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T20:15:00.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19549" CreationDate="2016-06-10T20:37:52.403" Score="1" ViewCount="527" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently tried to compose a sentence to some who told me they were translating a book from English to Chinese. I responded to them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太好了！很不幸，我的中文知识不足够的，所以不可能帮你们。加油，我很兴奋的！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I am not a native speaker and my Chinese is quite poor, I cannot tell whether it will sound natural to a native Chinese speaker, or is just barely-passable 老外中文.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that I have omitted the 因为 that should be there to match the 所以 clause. My understanding is that it is okay to omit either one or the other and still have the meaning understood, but I'm sure there are complex rules about which can be omitted in different contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also had originally started the second sentence as &quot;不幸我的中文...&quot; with the intended meaning of &quot;Unfortunately, my Chinese...&quot;. However I chose instead to separate it into an introduction as I wasn't sure whether 不幸 prepended to the beginning of the sentence would make it harder for the absent 因为 to be inferred. I decided to try to play it safe and instead say &quot;It is very unfortunate; my Chinese...&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After my first 我 I omitted the second one which could have gone in &quot;所以不可能帮你们&quot;. My understanding is that in Chinese you do not repeat 我 as much as you do &quot;I&quot; in English. I did, however, use it for the next sentence which introduces a new topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the second sentence seemed a little convoluted to me and while I think it is understandable, I don't think it seems natural at all. My intended meaning was &quot;My Chinese mastery is insufficient, ...&quot;, but again I think this part is clunky and unnatural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5917" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T01:21:37.793" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T01:21:37.793" Title="Does ...我的中文知识不足够的，所以不可能帮你们... sound awkward?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17053" CreationDate="2016-06-10T21:24:47.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, the second sentence is not complete, it's invalid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean &quot;I enjoyed board a plane&quot;, then you should say &quot;我喜欢坐飞机&quot;, not &quot;去&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you use &quot;去&quot;, a destination should be described in your talking context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我喜欢步行去巴黎&quot; means &quot;I like to go to Paris by walk&quot;, means when I go to Paris, I like to go there by walk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我步行喜欢去巴黎&quot; means &quot;I like to walking to Paris&quot;, means when I'm take a walking, I like to walking to Paris.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For extending, you may also say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;巴黎，我喜欢步行去&quot;, equals to &quot;I like to go to Paris by walk&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我喜欢步行，去巴黎&quot;, means I like walking, especially walking to Paris.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, if you say &quot;我去巴黎喜欢步行&quot;, this may lead to misunderstanding of these two meanings, this is because &quot;去&quot; may meaning either &quot;When I'm on my way to Paris&quot; or &quot;When I'm arrived and in Paris&quot;, there must be complementary information in context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when you want to say &quot;喜欢&quot;, just use the same sequence in English --&quot;I like (somebody or something)&quot;, &quot;我喜欢某某&quot;, that's it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="13636" LastEditDate="2016-06-10T21:32:40.630" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T21:32:40.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="253" CreationDate="2016-06-10T22:24:15.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I will drive (I will learn it). &lt;em&gt;我会开车&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;I'm trained in drive. &lt;em&gt;我会开车&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;I can drive / I'm able to drive. &lt;em&gt;我能开车、我可以开车&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;      &#xA;      &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;        &lt;p&gt;I'm allowed / licensed to drive. &lt;em&gt;我可以开车&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;        &#xA;        &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;          &lt;p&gt;I will drive (today). &lt;em&gt;我会开车&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;          &#xA;          &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;            &lt;p&gt;You asked me to drive, and I say &quot;OK!&quot;. &lt;em&gt;&quot;OK!&quot;=“可以！”&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;          &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;        &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reverse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I won't drive (maybe I'm tired today). &lt;em&gt;我不会开车&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;I'm not allowed to drive (drunk or license revoked). &lt;em&gt;我不可以开车。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;I can't drive / I'm unable to drive (I have no vehicle)  &lt;em&gt;我不能、我不可以开车。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;      &#xA;      &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;        &lt;p&gt;I'm not trained in drive. &lt;em&gt;我不会开车&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;        &#xA;        &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;          &lt;p&gt;I won't drive! (Never!) &lt;em&gt;我不会开车！&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;        &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only the &quot;会&quot; is special which means either &quot;I have the ability&quot; or &quot;I wish&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;可以&quot; is a bit special which means &quot;got allowed&quot; or agreed from community.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like in English, &quot;can&quot; and &quot;able&quot; may include &quot;got allowed&quot;, implicitly include &quot;trained&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="13636" LastEditDate="2016-06-10T23:12:17.747" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T23:12:17.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19222" CreationDate="2016-06-11T00:00:15.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I can understand your meaning very well, it's good!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some recommendations，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“太好了！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's an adversative after it, you can use &quot;只是&quot; (but).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“很不幸” should be “很遗憾” (unfortunately)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我的中文知识不足以帮到你们”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, just for the second sentence, I can't imagine what do you want to mean by &quot;我很兴奋的&quot;... but you can use “支持你们！” (support you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;太好了！只是很遗憾，我的中文知识不足以帮到你们。支持你们，加油！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="13636" LastEditDate="2016-06-11T00:12:10.393" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T00:12:10.393" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18131" CreationDate="2016-06-11T00:40:29.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“鸡粒” is common Chinese, means &quot;diced chicken&quot;, “粒” means diced small cubes of meat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“鸡子” is Cantonese, means the kidney, a viscera of chicken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually different things. But “鸡粒”, “鸡籽”, and “鸡子” may all mean the egg of chicken in loosely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="13636" LastEditDate="2016-06-11T12:49:57.567" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T12:49:57.567" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18146" CreationDate="2016-06-11T02:40:03.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's one of the old question of Chinese, and this is the real answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two words has same meaning of &quot;almost&quot;, but opposed emotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;几乎&quot; means that thing is really &lt;strong&gt;good&lt;/strong&gt;, people really want it, but unfortunately lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;差点&quot; means that thing is really &lt;strong&gt;bad&lt;/strong&gt;, people don't want it, and success avoided it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, &quot;差点&quot; expresses complaint, and &quot;几乎&quot; is regretful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is still an interesting extending question, does &quot;几乎&quot; and &quot;几乎没&quot;, or &quot;差点&quot; and &quot;差点没&quot; has the same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="13636" LastEditDate="2016-06-11T12:45:46.940" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T12:45:46.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19229" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-11T13:55:21.943" Score="0" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is 走 distinguished from 辵? They both mean to go/walk, according to the dictionary. Why weren't they merged during simplification?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13642" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T16:46:08.767" Title="Why is 走 distinguished from 辵?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18013" CreationDate="2016-06-11T14:08:44.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's all the same on meaning, to understanding...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我比她差&#xA;= I'm worse than her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;比她差&#xA;= I'm [&lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; (worse than her)].  --We normally use this structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我比她&lt;strong&gt;不差&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;= I'm (&lt;em&gt;not worse&lt;/em&gt;) than her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T14:08:44.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19222" CreationDate="2016-06-12T02:47:31.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;haha,I just find Chinese topic in StackOverflow excitely today.&#xA;By the way, the translation above is much more natural than before.But i think this will be much better:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太好了！可惜，我的英文不好，不能帮助你们。支持你们，加油！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13646" LastEditorUserId="13646" LastEditDate="2016-06-12T02:54:37.743" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T02:54:37.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19235" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-12T05:25:36.850" Score="5" ViewCount="2438" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often want to be able to type a character that I don't know how to pronounce. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read online that most input systems let me type a &quot;u&quot; and then be able to type a radical in. This has had little success for me, as it seems my mac input methods and my android phone input methods behave differently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition I often don't know how to pronounce the radicals. What is the easiest way to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I imagine that I would have to do it stroke by stroke, and maybe the order is important?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a stroke option on my mac input but I can't figure out how to use it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gHAzi.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gHAzi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2017-04-23T17:39:49.677" Title="How do I type in a Chinese character that I don't know how to pronounce?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19235" CreationDate="2016-06-12T05:31:38.910" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;With stroke method, you need to know the characters very well, which means you know how to write the character in correct order. It's hard for a non-native speaker in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest you use the &quot;Trackpad Handwriting&quot; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, well... I tried &quot;Trackpad Handwriting&quot; which provided by Mac, it's SO BADLY DESIGNED. I can't even believe it's product of Apple!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for @Ming 's reminder, Trackpad Handwriting has special setting to enable features like &quot;two fingers tap clear&quot;. Then, the UE design might not that bad. But considering it's not default options, it's still bad! Not that bad, but bad!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Alternative:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some online handwriting input method for Chinese, which are more effective and convenient than Trackpad Handwriting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-input-tools/mclkkofklkfljcocdinagocijmpgbhab&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-input-tools/mclkkofklkfljcocdinagocijmpgbhab&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hanzi.unihan.com.cn/Qpen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://hanzi.unihan.com.cn/Qpen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yibizi.com/html5/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.yibizi.com/html5/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are using Chrome, then the extension provided by Google may be the best choice for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="16864" LastEditDate="2017-04-22T08:10:32.170" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T08:10:32.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19238" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19300" CreationDate="2016-06-12T06:06:29.097" Score="1" ViewCount="974" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example in Taiwan I want to ask the people making my latte to put less honey in.&#xA;So how would I translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Today, please put in less honey than yesterday.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My bad translation attempt (added afterwards)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你們今天比昨天請用蜂蜜得少&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that's bad, please don't laugh! Help me :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastEditorUserId="9372" LastEditDate="2016-06-12T06:29:28.477" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T15:56:29.067" Title="How do say &quot;less&quot; when modifying a noun?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19238" CreationDate="2016-06-12T06:15:39.147" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, you can have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;少甜 = less sweet&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;少糖 = less sugar&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走甜 = no sweet&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走糖 = no sugar&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The scale is not absolute, I guess that most shop would understand what you want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;無糖 - no sugar&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;微糖 - 25% sugar&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;半糖 - half sugar&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;少糖 - 75% sugar&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;全糖 - full sugar&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A normal drink, without any mention of sweetness, would be full sugar. So in a full sentence, you may say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;請給我一杯拿鐵。少糖。謝謝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roughly: please give me (請給我) a latte (一杯拿鐵), less sugar (少糖), thanks (謝謝).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2016-06-21T15:59:38.930" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T15:59:38.930" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3083" CreationDate="2016-06-12T06:18:51.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it could also be related to the fact that some characters are just transliterations. For example 咖啡 kāfēi is just meant to sound like coffee or cafe. So what are the meanings of those characters? So the meaning of 咖 is &quot;sounds like ka and has something to do with mouth 口).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that's not a lot of meaning. If you look up 咖啡 in google translate both 咖 and 啡 translate to coffee, and so does 咖啡. Funny.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastEditorUserId="9372" LastEditDate="2019-05-02T23:17:42.967" LastActivityDate="2019-05-02T23:17:42.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19229" CreationDate="2016-06-12T07:23:40.240" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplification has a practical purpose, that is to ease learning and daily use. &lt;code&gt;辵&lt;/code&gt; is an archaic form that's not used in any modern context. There is no point simplifying it anyway. I doubt that the 简化字小组 ever looked beyond the 4000 most frequently used characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are over 50,000 characters that have ever existed, only about 2000 get a simplified version in 《简化字总表》, if you don't count the radicals and derivatives, the simplified character count wouldn't exceed 400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the sake of argument, there could be a few other reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They usually take an existing homophone character to substitute the complex one, 後 to 后 for example. 走 and 辵 sounds nothing similar.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is this principle called 述而不作, which means they try to find existing simplifications and make them standard instead of inventing their own (though in many cases the simplified form is rather obscure). The 辵 to 走 simplification never existed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;辵 is already simple!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2016-06-12T07:30:54.310" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T07:30:54.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14729" CreationDate="2016-06-12T09:33:15.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Scroll to the bottom for PDFs, latest tests, vocabulary lists and pretty much everything to do with HSK.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinaeducenter.com/en/exams.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinaeducenter.com/en/exams.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(this is in response to the below)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE2: Actually there used to be a PDF which contained the corresponding pinyins, not only the words/characters themselves. Does anybody know where could that file be found?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T09:33:15.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19243" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-13T00:26:53.973" Score="1" ViewCount="858" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been able to find many charts that describe all possible Initial and Final combinations in pinyin, but I'm wondering if there is anything available like that that uses Hanzi only?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made something like what I'm looking for and pasted it below (you'll have to paste it into a text editor like notepad++ to get it to look like a table...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if anyone else has made something like this and if so, how it might be different from what I've made here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;安 半 盘 满 饭 但 谈 南 兰 干 看 汉 ◎ ◎ ◎ 站 产 山 然 赞 参 散&#xA;昂 帮 胖 忙 方 当 堂 囊 朗 港 康 航 ◎ ◎ ◎ 张 场 上 让 脏 藏 桑&#xA;鞥 崩 朋 梦 风 等 藤 能 冷 更 坑 恒 ◎ ◎ ◎ 正 城 声 仍 增 曾 僧&#xA;物 部 普 木 福 度 图 努 路 古 哭 湖 ◎ ◎ ◎ 猪 除 书 如 足 粗 苏&#xA;我 波 破 末 佛 多 脱 诺 罗 果 括 或 ◎ ◎ ◎ 桌 缀 说 弱 坐 错 所&#xA;挖 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 挂 跨 话 ◎ ◎ ◎ 爪 欻 刷 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎&#xA;外 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 怪 快 坏 ◎ ◎ ◎ 拽 揣 摔 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎&#xA;王 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 光 况 黄 ◎ ◎ ◎ 状 创 爽 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎&#xA;阿 把 怕 马 发 大 他 那 拉 嘎 卡 哈 ◎ ◎ ◎ 炸 茶 杀 ◎ 杂 擦 撒&#xA;爱 白 牌 麦 ◎ 代 太 奶 来 该 开 还 ◎ ◎ ◎ 摘 拆 晒 ◎ 在 菜 赛&#xA;恶 ◎ ◎ 么 ◎ 德 特 呢 乐 格 克 和 ◎ ◎ ◎ 者 车 设 热 则 厕 色&#xA;恩 本 喷 门 分 扽 ◎ 嫩 ◎ 跟 肯 很 ◎ ◎ ◎ 镇 沉 深 人 怎 岑 森&#xA;奥 包 跑 毛 ◎ 道 逃 脑 老 高 靠 好 ◎ ◎ ◎ 照 超 少 扰 早 草 扫&#xA;欧 ◎ 剖 某 否 豆 头 獳 楼 狗 口 后 ◎ ◎ ◎ 周 抽 手 肉 走 湊 搜&#xA;湾 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 段 团 暖 乱 馆 宽 换 ◎ ◎ ◎ 传 穿 拴 软 钻 窜 算&#xA;味 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 对 退 ◎ ◎ 贵 亏 会 ◎ ◎ ◎ 追 垂 水 锐 最 崔 虽&#xA;◎ 北 培 美 非 得 忒 内 类 给 ◎ 黑 ◎ ◎ ◎ 这 ◎ 谁 ◎ 贼 ◎ ◎&#xA;◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 顿 屯 黁 论 滚 困 婚 ◎ ◎ ◎ 准 春 顺 润 遵 村 隼&#xA;◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 东 通 农 龙 公 空 红 ◎ ◎ ◎ 中 虫 ◎ 容 总 从 送 &#xA;&#xA;鱼 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 女 绿 ◎ ◎ ◎ 据 去 许 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎&#xA;月 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 虐 略 ◎ ◎ ◎ 决 却 血 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎&#xA;云 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 军 群 巡 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎&#xA;原 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 卷 泉 宣 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎&#xA;义 必 皮 米 ◎ 地 体 你 里 ◎ ◎ ◎ 机 气 喜 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ &#xA;也 别 撇 灭 ◎ 蝶 铁 捏 列 ◎ ◎ ◎ 节 且 写 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎&#xA;要 表 票 苗 ◎ 掉 条 鸟 料 ◎ ◎ ◎ 叫 桥 小 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ &#xA;眼 边 片 面 ◎ 点 天 年 连 ◎ ◎ ◎ 见 前 现 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ &#xA;英 并 平 明 ◎ 定 听 宁 领 ◎ ◎ ◎ 京 请 星 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ &#xA;因 滨 品 民 ◎ ◎ ◎ 您 林 ◎ ◎ ◎ 金 亲 新 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ &#xA;压 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 俩 ◎ ◎ ◎ 家 恰 下 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎&#xA;羊 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 娘 两 ◎ ◎ ◎ 将 强 想 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ &#xA;有 ◎ ◎ 谬 ◎   丢 ◎ 牛 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 久 求 休 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎&#xA;永 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎   ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 窘 穹 雄 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎&#xA;&#xA;而 ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎   ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎&#xA;◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎   ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ ◎ 之 吃 事 日 自 次 思&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13650" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T00:53:50.283" Title="Is there a chart of all possible Chinese syllables using Hanzi?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19235" CreationDate="2016-06-13T09:58:54.850" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming you know most simple characters, then lots of online search lets you search by parts, for example in Baidu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水水水 gets you 淼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;亡口月贝凡 gets you 赢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2016-06-13T09:58:54.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19238" CreationDate="2016-06-13T10:57:18.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;“请比昨天少放些蜂蜜” for equality translation, but it's a bit of writing style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more clear way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天的太甜，这次请少放点蜂蜜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2016-06-21T16:00:10.387" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T16:00:10.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3083" CreationDate="2016-06-13T11:06:52.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, you can consider it in the very similar scene of English names, some English names has a very explicitly expression, like Jack, like Rose, like Williams, and so on. The similar is in Chinese names, if you ask about &quot;芳&quot;, they would say &quot;Wow, that about very beautiful flowers&quot;, if you mention &quot;盈&quot;, they would say that's about the beautiful full moon, if you mention about &quot;明&quot;, they would say that's about brightness and clever. But lots of names are a bit harder to explain if somebody is not too much interested in names, literature, and culture, not hate to tell you indeed :&quot;P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you ask someone about his/her own name, maybe consider these two scenes. For the first, a people's understanding of his name always grows with his life experience, for the second, the name has always a strong or implicitly beautiful meaning, but you know, Chinese people is always little shy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="13636" LastEditDate="2016-06-14T00:50:34.263" LastActivityDate="2016-06-14T00:50:34.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19251" CreationDate="2016-06-14T01:39:58.583" Score="0" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the old daoist text Zhuang Zi, we see 登假 at least twice in the Inner Chapters (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/seal-of-virtue-complete#n2748&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;5.1&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/great-and-most-honoured-master#n2754&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;6.2&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first part, it gives the meaning of departure and &quot;going up&quot; (to isolation in the mountains? To the heavens above?). In the second part, it gives the meaning of ascension, of reaching a higher goal (grasp the Dao).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also saw some references to the death of an emperor or king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know 登 means ascend, climb, but 假 means fake, suppose or vacation. What's the contribution of 假 to the meaning observed in the Zhuang Zi translations, or even to the death of a king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastActivityDate="2016-06-14T06:46:46.210" Title="What's the meaning of 登假 in old daoist scriptures like Zhuang Zi?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19250" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21206" CreationDate="2016-06-14T04:40:52.033" Score="2" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%B2%B7%E6%B1%9F%E8%AF%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;岷江话&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;岷江话，又称为岷江小片，是四川话的一个分支，主要分布于四川盆地西南部岷江流域及长江两岸，同时在盆地中部分布有一个由西充、盐亭、射洪三县组成的方言岛。岷江话的主要特征是入声保留，独立成调，拥有一套仅用于入声字的紧元音韵母，在部分地区还保留有喉塞音韵尾，因而并不符合“入声归阳平”这一《中国语言地图集》中划定西南官话的标准。在《中国语言地图集》中，部分学者因其除入声外的声调调值与成渝片相近而仍将其划入西南官话&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%B2%B7%E6%B1%9F%E8%AF%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;。但也有学者认为，岷江小片是由中上古巴蜀语直接发展而成，与主要源自移民的西南官话拥有截然不同的起源&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minjiang_dialect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minjiang_dialect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Minjiang dialect&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Minjiang dialect (simplified Chinese: 岷江话; traditional Chinese: 岷江話, local pronunciation: [min˨˩tɕiaŋ˥xa˨˨˦]; pinyin: Mínjiānghuà), is a branch of Sichuanese, spoken mainly in the Min River (Mínjiāng) valley or along the Yangtze in the southern and western parts of the Sichuan Basin. There is also a language island of Minjiang dialect located in the center of the Sichuan Basin covering three counties: Xichong, Yanting, and Shehong Counties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are resources listed on both wikipedia pages, but they are mostly just classification materials &amp;amp; not learning-based.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any learning resources for Minjiang dialect (岷江话)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only things I know of are quite specific:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://book.douban.com/subject/1606436/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;乐山方言&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://book.douban.com/subject/5398699/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;遵义方言语法研究&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遵义方言诠注&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://book.douban.com/subject/4621060/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;四川邛崃油榨方言记&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T07:14:33.977" Title="Learning resources for Minjiang dialect (岷江话)?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19249" CreationDate="2016-06-14T06:46:46.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;《康熙字典》&#xA;又《集韻》《正韻》與格同，至也。《易·萃卦》王假有廟。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from &lt;em&gt;Kangxi Dicitionary&lt;/em&gt;: the 13th meaning of &lt;code&gt;假&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It pronounces as &lt;code&gt;格&lt;/code&gt;, means 'arrive'. Example sentence from &lt;em&gt;Yi Cuigua&lt;/em&gt;: The King arrives at the ancestral temple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/22/js/81F3.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;^ref&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13655" LastActivityDate="2016-06-14T06:46:46.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18105" CreationDate="2016-06-14T19:53:46.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;ALso another way to express your gratitude as an house guest you can say：&#xA;叔叔和阿姨，谢谢让我留在您们的家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13666" LastActivityDate="2016-06-14T19:53:46.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19243" CreationDate="2016-06-14T20:57:24.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我 should be 哦, in the -o group: o, bo, po, mo, fo, lo. It is conflated with the -uo group: wo, duo, tuo, nuo, luo, guo, kuo, huo, zhuo, chuo, shuo, ruo, zuo, cuo, suo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The -i group is also missing: zhi, chi, shi, ri, zi, ci, si (different from yi, bi, pi etc.). Back to the drawing table. And don't neglect the tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has it been done before? Yes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wkBLZ.gif&quot;&gt;&#xA;  (&lt;a href=&quot;http://input.foruto.com/cccl/cccl_article025.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oTAku.jpg&quot;&gt;&#xA;  (&lt;a href=&quot;http://appwk.baidu.com/naapi/doc/view?ih=756&amp;amp;rn=1&amp;amp;doc_id=34405355ad02de80d4d8400a&amp;amp;o=jpg_6_0_______&amp;amp;pn=1&amp;amp;iw=1157&amp;amp;ix=0&amp;amp;sign=9bea64db37e000cb352d19100141ad49&amp;amp;type=1&amp;amp;iy=0&amp;amp;aimw=1157&amp;amp;app_ver=2.9.8.2&amp;amp;ua=bd_800_800_IncredibleS_2.9.8.2_2.3.7&amp;amp;bid=1&amp;amp;app_ua=IncredibleS&amp;amp;uid=&amp;amp;cuid=&amp;amp;fr=3&amp;amp;Bdi_bear=WIFI&amp;amp;from=3_10000&amp;amp;bduss=&amp;amp;pid=1&amp;amp;screen=800_800&amp;amp;sys_ver=2.3.7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and  etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-01T00:53:50.283" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T00:53:50.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="654" CreationDate="2016-06-15T09:01:25.360" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have thought about this before, but from the perspective of Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q: Why does 有機 mean organic?&#xA;A: Because the fertilizer/feed that is used to raise whatever it is &#xA;   is made from stuff that works biologically rather than just chemically.&#xA;   Soooo, yeah... poop.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, let us imagine a timeline of word formation.... *wo0Ooo0o~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;機（mechanism）&lt;/strong&gt;⇒ 機能(mechanism-ability = function) ⇒　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;生活機能(life-function) ⇒ &lt;strong&gt;有生活機能(having-life-function = organic)&lt;/strong&gt; ⇒　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有機(having-life/organic)&lt;/strong&gt; ⇒ 有機肥料(organic fertilizer) ⇒　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有機栽培(cultivation with organic fertilizer) ⇒ &lt;strong&gt;有機食品(organic foods)&lt;/strong&gt;　　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 有機食品 is just shorthand for &lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;生活&lt;strong&gt;機&lt;/strong&gt;能肥料栽培&lt;strong&gt;食品&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If that's true&lt;/strong&gt;... then 機 by itself would mean a machine like a wooden weaving loom and by extension, &quot;mechanism&quot; as in &quot;an assembly of moving parts performing a complete functional motion, often being part of a large machine&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Are you having any of that then?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, let me go back a little further in pure speculation...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;糸(thread) ⇒ 玆(threads), &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人(person) + 戈(spear/pole) ⇒ 戌 ＋ 玆 ⇒ 幾(loom),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;幾 ＋ 木 ⇒ 機(machines usually made of wood - mechanism)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Yeah? No?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Vapid Layman-Guesswork&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;you say!&lt;/em&gt; (well I beat you to it, so sticks and stones...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ALSO!&lt;/strong&gt; I found that Waseda University has at least two copies of the oldest surviving book with the word 有機 meaning organic in it. I perused it to see where it's mentioned first in the book and of course it was on like next-to-the-last page. This book（舎密局開講之説）is a translation of lectures given by a Dutch scientist named Koenraad Wolter Gratama made by his assistant-professor Shousuke Misaki（三崎嘯輔）at a place called the 舎密局(Bureau of Chemistry) in Osaka in 1869.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason this is hilarious is because the characters 舎密 were chosen by the Japanese founders to approximate the sound of the Dutch word for chemistry, &quot;chemie&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sVh0P.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sVh0P.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;舎密局開講之説&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastEditorUserId="13668" LastEditDate="2016-06-15T09:09:45.303" LastActivityDate="2016-06-15T09:09:45.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19257" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-15T22:35:18.547" Score="7" ViewCount="567" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in the title, should something like 不对 be &lt;em&gt;written&lt;/em&gt; as bù duì (as in the individual characters) or as bú duì (the way it's actually spoken)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that my teacher writes e.g. 你好 as nǐ hǎo (i.e. despite the ní hǎo pronunciation).  Google Translate seems to stick to writing it according to the individual character tones too.  Is this the standard way?  I'm confused because I thought of Pinyin as 'just' a pronunciation guide, so why not write everything exactly as it is spoken?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13672" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T12:11:30.860" Title="Should Pinyin be written as it is (collectively) pronounced or in terms of the individual syllables?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19257" CreationDate="2016-06-16T00:31:28.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it makes up the same &quot;expression&quot; (usually ranging from one to four words) in pinyin, such as &quot;budui', &quot;nihao&quot;, etc, it is put together. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is not the same &quot;expression&quot;, they will be separated. &#xA;For example: hen gaoxing renshi ni. &#xA;Notice &quot;hen&quot; is separate from &quot;gaoxing&quot; and so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This helps the reader read with ease rather than having to make sense of a bunch of random letters, which, for a beginner, they would not be used to yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastEditorUserId="13300" LastEditDate="2016-06-16T05:16:57.037" LastActivityDate="2016-06-16T05:16:57.037" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19257" CreationDate="2016-06-16T02:40:37.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a common convention writing pinyin with the dictionary tone. Students will soon learn the rules for tone sandhi, and will then apply it to both pinyin and characters. If applying tone sandhi in pinyin, there is a risk of associating a certain syllable with the wrong meaning or learning the wrong tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, nǐ hǎo is the standard rendering in pinyin, despite the actual pronunciation ní hǎo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-06-16T02:40:37.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19260" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19261" CreationDate="2016-06-16T09:20:03.547" Score="3" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not entirely sure, but a friend (mother tongue 普通话, originally from 沈阳(Shenyang)) recently pronounced 这 as ze4 or maybe zen4 when she said 今天天气这么好. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这 isn't such simple word I find, as it can be zhe4 or zhei4, but I was not aware of any other ways it could be pronounced. Is ze4 or (zen4?) a common alternative?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2016-06-16T10:03:04.783" LastActivityDate="2016-06-16T19:48:27.463" Title="Pronunciation of 这 (ze4 or zen4?) in 天气这么好" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19260" CreationDate="2016-06-16T11:55:23.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Shenyang speech, pronounce &quot;zh&quot; as &quot;z&quot;, and &quot;ch&quot; as &quot;c&quot;, &quot;sh&quot; as &quot;s&quot;, &quot;r&quot; as &quot;y&quot; or &quot;l&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 人(ren) as &quot;yin&quot;, 扔(reng) as &quot;leng&quot;, etc..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Shenyang speech is almost same as the official speech (普通话）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know some friends from Shenyang, they take care to correct their speech, but they can't differentiate the real mistake, but just pronounce all the mistake in the reverse way --all &quot;z&quot; and &quot;zh&quot; as &quot;zh&quot;, &quot;c&quot; and &quot;ch&quot; as &quot;ch&quot;, and &quot;s&quot; and &quot;sh&quot; as &quot;sh&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the area of China is huge, there are always local speeches in specify regions (and also local style of using characters and words). Shenyang and Beijing speeches are both very close to official choose --but seems little opposite style in differences, that Shenyang speech is a bit simpler and Beijing is complex, or vise versa maybe. (Refer to the history, Manchu people was moved from Shenyang to Beijing, so Shenyangs has more origin Manchu speeches).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When saying &quot;这&quot;, Beijings is like to say &quot;这儿&quot;(zher4), and Shenyang people always pronounce &quot;zei4&quot;. When saying &quot;这个&quot; in daily talk, we always likely to skip &quot;个&quot; and pronounce as &quot;zhei4&quot; (like the English &quot;J&quot;), like &quot;这个人&quot; can be speech as &quot;zhei4ren2&quot;, and Shenyangs will pronounce it as &quot;zei4yen2&quot; as the local accent. When saying &quot;这么&quot;(zhe4me in official speech), Shenyangs will say &quot;ze4me&quot; (pronounce like the English &quot;them&quot;), &quot;这么好&quot; will pronounce as &quot;ze4mehao3&quot;, and Beijings are like to skip the &quot;e&quot; in the soft character &quot;么&quot; and pronounce as &quot;zhem4hao3&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="13636" LastEditDate="2016-06-16T19:48:27.463" LastActivityDate="2016-06-16T19:48:27.463" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19260" CreationDate="2016-06-16T15:04:03.613" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;'zhe4' is the most formal pronunciation. 'zhei4', 'zen4', and 'zhen4' are informal and dialectal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I grew up in Beijing and local people use these variants frequently. (In contrast, 'zhe4' is actually not often heard in informal speech in the region.) In particular, 'zhei4' is common when people use 这 as a pronoun by itself (e.g., 这位 (this person)、这边儿 (this way)), and 'zen4' and 'zhen4' (less common than 'zen4') appear exclusively in 这么. Compare 怎么 'zen3me'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of 'ze4' is not heard in the Beijing dialect, but could appear in other dialects of Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related note: When used alone to indicate location, 这儿, 'zher4' in pinyin, sounds more like 'zhar4' in the Beijing dialect - that is about somewhere between &lt;em&gt;jerk&lt;/em&gt; sans &lt;em&gt;k&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;jar&lt;/em&gt; in Midwestern American English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fun note: In very, very native Beijing dialect, 这儿 is sometimes pronounced like 'zhar4-har'. It might not be completely intelligible to people who grew up in regions in China farther away from Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastEditorUserId="3283" LastEditDate="2016-06-16T16:27:53.813" LastActivityDate="2016-06-16T16:27:53.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19263" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-16T15:18:08.177" Score="3" ViewCount="5675" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been struggling with how to say &quot;like&quot; or &quot;to be like&quot; in mandarin. Other languages I know can do this quite tersely and basically all in the same way. Of course they're all Indo-European, and 3 of them are Romance, so that explains the similarities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've asked my teacher and she says 像 xiàng is what I'm after. When I look up this word it's not really clear how it expresses &quot;like&quot; or &quot;be like&quot;. It often seems to require extra wording like (一樣 yǐ yàng）or (那麼／么 nàme + adj).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm still not sure how to express certain basic concepts about &quot;similarity&quot;, and it feels strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;French: comme moi&#xA;Spanish: como yo&#xA;English: like me&#xA;Italian: come me&#xA;&#xA;French: comme ça&#xA;Spanish: así &#xA;English: like that&#xA;Italian: cosí&#xA;&#xA;F: Il est comme toi, il ne supporte pas ça.&#xA;S: El es como tú, no aguanta eso.&#xA;E: He's like you, he can't stand that.&#xA;....&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone help me translate the following sentences/phrases into Mandarin? Please provide pinyin if you can!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note these sentences are intentionally vague/ambiguous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;- Like this.&#xA;- Like that.&#xA;- Not like that.&#xA;- Don't do it like that; do it like this.&#xA;- We don't say it in Taiwan like they do in China.&#xA;- We say it in Taiwan like they do in China.&#xA;- Sally is like her mother.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks, any help appreciated...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ben&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastEditorUserId="9372" LastEditDate="2016-06-16T15:37:09.957" LastActivityDate="2016-06-16T23:03:46.810" Title="&quot;like&quot; and &quot;to be like&quot; in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19263" CreationDate="2016-06-16T15:25:58.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Like this. 像这样。 xiang4 zhe4yang4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Like that. 像那样。 xiang4 na4yang4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not like that. 不像那样。 bu2 xiang4 na4yang4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't do it like that; do it like this. 别那么做；这么做。 bie2 na4me zuo4; zhe4me zuo4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We don't say it in Taiwan like they do in China. 我们台湾人说话和中国人说话不一样。 wo3men Tai2wan1ren2 shuo1hua4 he2 zhong1guo2ren2 shuo1hua4 bu4 yi2yang4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We say it in Taiwan like they do in China. 我们台湾人像中国人一样这么说。 Wo3men Tai2wan1ren2 xiang4 Zhong1guo2ren2 yi2yang4 zhe4me shuo1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sally is like her mother. Sally像她母亲。 Sally xiang4 ta1 mu3qin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comment: I think when learning languages that have very different origins, at some point, you'd have to give up trying to pair the words one-to-one to another language... Such a strict correspondence usually does not exist. You need to learn the language itself, not just such correspondences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastEditorUserId="3283" LastEditDate="2016-06-16T16:34:29.233" LastActivityDate="2016-06-16T16:34:29.233" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19257" CreationDate="2016-06-16T16:06:43.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you already know it, there are five tones of Chinese character pronunciations, the level tone(阴平), the rising tone(阳平), the falling-rising tone(上声), the falling tone(去声), and the light tone(轻声).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the problem of &quot;你好&quot;, it's the problem that it's hard to pronounce a sequence of multiple falling-rising tones continuously, if you are not pronouncing it slow and carefully. All characters before the last one will be likely to pronounced as rising tones, and the last character, if you pronounce it shortly, it will likely to pronounced as a falling tone, and you can extend the length and complete a falling-rising tone. The reason is the falling-rising tone has the weight just a little greater than the light tone, the real pronunciation will effected by the tone before and after it. If you pronounce &quot;你好&quot; slow and clearly, you can pronounce both character as the correct falling-rising tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不&quot; is essentially pronounced as falling tone, but when using before another falling tone character, it pronounces as a rising tone, which is because of the classical Chinese feature of &quot;rhyming&quot;, witch is almost lost at all on the character pronunciations in modern Chinese, but still exists in poems --the construct of characters, and a little of very frequently used characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also polyphonic characters in Chinese, which has multiple pronunciations with difference meanings. Witch is similar to &lt;a href=&quot;https://jakubmarian.com/english-words-that-change-meaning-depending-on-the-stress-position/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;English words that change their meaning depending on stress position&lt;/a&gt;. The different pronounces of a polyphonic character can't replace each other, most of them has different meanings on each pronunciations, there are often some relations between these meanings, but can't be replaced each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="13636" LastEditDate="2016-06-16T23:10:20.877" LastActivityDate="2016-06-16T23:10:20.877" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19266" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-16T20:13:54.110" Score="1" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone has a good model of the origin of 施?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know the common ground in deciphering this character is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On the left - flag pole.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On top  - flag cloth.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On the right-bottom - snake or, in unconventional reading, character representing &amp;quot;being low on the ground&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with this decoding is that it does not explain all the usage of 施.&#xA;If the &amp;quot;Flag spreading on the ground like a snake&amp;quot; can explain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;to spread&amp;quot; a life form or plant, 施于中谷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;to last&amp;quot; (in time or space). 鳥獸安施&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but the same etymology model can't explain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;to donate&amp;quot; - 冬天施粥, 夏天施茶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;to give&amp;quot; - 施綿衣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;to use&amp;quot; - 無計可施&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;to teach&amp;quot; - 施之為孫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;or, my favorite: 殺而施之 - &amp;quot;to execute and to show a body of a criminal to the public&amp;quot; (makes you doubt the correctness of the whole &amp;quot;flag+snake&amp;quot; model.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T00:23:29.403" Title="Can anyone suggest glyph origin of 施?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19263" CreationDate="2016-06-16T21:28:48.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Fang Jing provides the right answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For extending, you can also use &amp;quot;如&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;似&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;若&amp;quot; as the same as &amp;quot;像&amp;quot;, let's see:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他激情如火 (He bursts like fire!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她冷若冰霜 (She's as cold as ice)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如胶似漆 (Like glue and lacquer they clung together)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to choose from them? --follow the rhyme scheme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &amp;quot;一样&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;as same as&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;looks the same&amp;quot;, and can be replaced with &amp;quot;般&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;一般&amp;quot;, and so on--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;死般沉寂 （Silence as dead)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sally prepared a hearty dinner just like her mother will. (Sally&lt;strong&gt;像&lt;/strong&gt;她妈妈&lt;strong&gt;那样&lt;/strong&gt;准备了温馨晚餐)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When talking in metaphorical terms, it's indeed express the impressions feelings, the function is complex in any language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in Chinese, you can skip both &amp;quot;像&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;一样&amp;quot; and express your impression well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;炉火纯青 (Perfectly practiced)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闭月羞花 (A beautiful face, that even a flower will feeling shy, and the moon will feeling inferior if meet her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-06-16T23:03:46.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19266" CreationDate="2016-06-17T02:22:01.257" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, according to 說文解字, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%96%BD&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;施(u+65bd)&lt;/a&gt;﹒从㫃﹒也聲, it should be &quot;chopped&quot; into 㫃(u+3ac3) &amp;amp; 也(u+4e5f).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/oraclePiece.php?piece=%E3%AB%83&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;㫃&lt;/a&gt; is a main component of oracle bone script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, 施 is a 形聲字 (Phono-semantic compound character), to decipher the meaning, i would suggest starting from 㫃, which is 旗在竿上飄游之形 (roughly, a flag flying on a pole).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gWLef.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gWLef.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;㫃 i oracle bone script&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;amongst usages listed, my opinions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;殺而施之, 施 is &quot;exhibit the corpse&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;施之為孫, well, this one, do you mean the verse of 禮記﹒學記 &quot;不陵節而施之謂孫&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if yes, 施 is &quot;carry out&quot; teaching, or make it simpler, &quot;teach&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps: may i ask why &amp;amp; how do you choose these usages of 施?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-06-17T02:22:01.257" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19266" CreationDate="2016-06-17T06:02:46.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on answer of @水巷孑蠻 and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3960&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;象形字典&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/sw/65BD.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;施&quot; originally means &lt;strong&gt;flag&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;旗皃。从也聲。亝欒施字子旗，知施者旗也。式支切 -- 《说文解字》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why it contains meaning of &quot;spread, give&quot; as well? I &lt;strong&gt;GUESS&lt;/strong&gt;: because of wind. It's wind let flags waving, so a waving flag can be reflected to wind easily. Wind spreads tiny things, so it derive to the meaning &quot;&lt;strong&gt;spread&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. Spread implies that  something goes from one place to another place, so if someone spread goods or foods, seems like wind spreads seeds. So 施 contains the meaning of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;donate&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your examples, they are all the derivative meaning of 施, &lt;strong&gt;&quot;to spread / expose / donate / to use&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 殺而施之, I think 施 here originally means &lt;em&gt;&quot;don't bury the corpse, expose the body to public, to spread the message( that a cruel punishment happened)&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2016-06-17T06:53:18.777" LastActivityDate="2016-06-17T06:53:18.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19271" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-17T15:51:12.333" Score="0" ViewCount="650" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know when I can say &quot;说差（了）&quot;. My dictionary says the &quot;差&quot; means 错误 which means &quot;wrong&quot; in English but I'm still not clear on the usage of 说差. Is it the same as 说错? It would be appreciated if you give me some examples like short conversations that show how 说差 is used. Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12284" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T06:20:56.300" Title="When can I say &quot;说差了&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9719" CreationDate="2016-06-17T18:40:02.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;关系密切的社群 will be an alternative translation ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13110" LastActivityDate="2016-06-17T18:40:02.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19271" CreationDate="2016-06-18T05:28:03.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“不对”、“错了”……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Tom今年十八……呃，不对，十七岁。” (Tom is 18... hmmm, nope, 17 years old.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;找您五毛……啊，错了！四毛。 (This is your change --50... Uh! Nope, 40 cents.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-06-18T05:28:03.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19243" CreationDate="2016-06-18T08:41:22.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have put together an eleven-page Excel spreadsheet listing all Mandarin syllables. If there is any interest, I'll speed up my proofreading and make it generally available. Comments are welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My table includes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) A representative character for each common syllable (HSK 1~4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) A number [but no character] for rare syllables&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) A hash mark for non-existent syllables. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) Toneless Zhuyin (Bopomofo)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) Toneless Hanyu Pinyin &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(6) Complete syllables spelled in Gwoyeu Romatzyh tonal spelling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BJRDa.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BJRDa.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Juhin--Pinyin--GR Mandarin Syllables&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not finished proofreading it, however, so it is not yet ready for distribution. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13683" LastActivityDate="2016-06-18T08:41:22.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19277" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-18T10:56:52.563" Score="7" ViewCount="2492" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想这个穿着红色衣服的男孩已经被续了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, the word &quot;续&quot; means life-prolonging, and when people say this they usually mean that someone was being life-prolonged &lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt; somebody instead of someone was being life-prolonged &lt;em&gt;by&lt;/em&gt; somebody. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13684" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T12:40:11.023" Title="What does &quot;被续了&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="17" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19277" CreationDate="2016-06-19T06:04:10.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a Chinese (political) joke. It has been told that a boy is killed to lengthen the former (×2) chairman, Zemin Jiang. But it's not proven to be true yet. It's alright to used chatting with people of new generations in China. And it has somehow become a meme among them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people say 续命、续一秒、+1s , they are also talking about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user6617" LastActivityDate="2016-06-19T06:04:10.520" CommentCount="20" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18018" CreationDate="2016-06-19T14:18:23.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe the word was 研發 yánfā/yanfa, an abbreviated Chinese calque translation of &quot;research and development&quot; (equivalent to R&amp;amp;D)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13683" LastActivityDate="2016-06-19T14:18:23.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14723" CreationDate="2016-06-19T14:23:37.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;請問，有沒有治香港腳的藥？would sound OK in Taiwan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13683" LastActivityDate="2016-06-19T14:23:37.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="654" CreationDate="2016-06-19T17:57:31.567" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, I have asked myself the same question some time ago. I find the explanations that take the word &quot;Mechanism&quot;（机制）into account as a reference to biological systems when trying to explain how 有机 is connected to the meaning of &quot;organic&quot; rather good.&#xA;However, when I asked my Chinese teacher about it she told me that it also might have to do with 机 as a sound as it sounds similar to the way we pronounce &quot;C&quot; which is the chemical element of carbon which determines wether a compound is organic or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12700" LastActivityDate="2016-06-19T17:57:31.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19287" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19289" CreationDate="2016-06-20T15:35:24.880" Score="1" ViewCount="496" Body="&lt;p&gt;When referring to a human being recovering from some illness/condition, does 恢复 or 康复 imply that the person is still in the process of recovery?  Does 恢复 or 康复 imply that the person has fully recovered?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When referring to non-human recovery--e.g. reclaiming land by reforestation, island reclamation, recovering a lost item from a lost &amp;amp; found--is 恢复 or 康复 more appropriate?  Is there another word that is even more appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3202" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T01:10:44.277" Title="Recovery; difference between 恢复 and 康复" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19287" CreationDate="2016-06-20T15:47:53.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think both 恢复 and 康复 suggest that the person has fully recovered. The difference between these two term, I think, is that 恢复 is a more general term. When someone fixes a broken machine, you can say this machine 恢复正常 (starts to work). However, 康复 can only be used to describe a person recovers from illness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11461" LastActivityDate="2016-06-20T15:47:53.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19287" CreationDate="2016-06-20T18:51:10.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;恢复 usually means recovering from a state to the original state, almost always implies getting back to the normal and good state. It can be used abstract as well, such as people's mood or a certain feeling. Thus it is not necessary for describing physical things or conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;康复 is much more specific. It's always related to health since 康 can mean health in Chinese, meaning completely recovering from an illness. And it can be used to animals, but not plants(but if you are a writer and you're using personification, that's fine to use the word). Keep in mind that people don't really say 康复 from just a flu or a tooth pain which is not severe. People tend to use it more often on serious conditions like a surgery, especially that last long and require you to rest in bed. Although it makes perfect sense to say this word, it is pretty much in formal conversations or letters that I would be more likely to use it. When in a casual context that people know you're talking about the sickness, just say '好了' to mean 'recovered' and '好了吗？' to ask about if someone is recovered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12962" LastEditorUserId="12962" LastEditDate="2016-06-20T23:43:03.380" LastActivityDate="2016-06-20T23:43:03.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19277" CreationDate="2016-06-20T22:39:49.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we say『续』，it is only used on Jiang Zemin the Elder when we refer to one's life is lengthened. For other people, it should mean that his life time is given to the Elder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13702" LastActivityDate="2016-06-20T22:39:49.060" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19287" CreationDate="2016-06-21T01:10:44.277" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;you may consider: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%97%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;痊(u+75ca)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%99%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;癒(u+7652)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%98%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;瘳(u+7633)&lt;/a&gt;; all three have the meaning of &quot;recover from illness&quot;, or &quot;to be healed&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in modern usage, it's common to use &quot;痊癒&quot;, my brief checking, that 瘳 is more popular in literary chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as usual, it's fuzzy, that these characters alone do not imply it's in process of recovery, or fully recovered. if you want, you need to add characters for hints.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about non-human recovery, 康復 is not appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in your example, &quot;recovering a lost item from a lost &amp;amp; found&quot;, you may consider 取回 or 領回 (recovering) 失物 (lost item).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;island reclamation&quot;, imo, it's not recovering. then &quot;reclaiming land by reforestation&quot;, i don't understand the logic, would you further explain it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T01:10:44.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19292" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19293" CreationDate="2016-06-21T01:26:04.693" Score="1" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;like kids are playing an outdoor game and someone gets out.&#xA;How to say &quot;you're out&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13110" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T01:35:07.357" Title="what's the better translation of &quot;you're out&quot;?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19292" CreationDate="2016-06-21T01:35:07.357" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you mean someone is having an unsuccessful finish for the round, the word is 出局. You're out = 你出局了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T01:35:07.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19295" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19296" CreationDate="2016-06-21T04:28:44.730" Score="0" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;My fried wrote 智渊别伤心爱兰可以帮你。&#xA;我们一起学习吧 to me. What does this mean?? I'm so curious. I tried google it  but gave me &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AjnZ8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AjnZ8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This weird answer.&#xA;(Btw, his  Chinese skills are not that advanced, so he might have used the google translator to translate this. If you think so, could you guess what it means??) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh and there's sth that I noticed, a dot in English typing is '.' While in Chinese, its 。is there a difference between these two?? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13633" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T08:16:14.153" Title="智渊别伤心爱兰可以帮你。 我们一起学习吧 in English please?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19295" CreationDate="2016-06-21T08:16:14.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's break this into parts and examine the meaning of each piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;智渊 (pinyin: zhi-4 yuan-1)  [name] &#xA;别   (bie-2)                 don't&#xA;伤心 (shang-1 xin-1)         be sad (be depressed, be upset, etc.)&#xA;爱兰 (ai-4 lan-2)            [name]&#xA;可以 (ke-3 yi-3)             can&#xA;帮   (bang-1)                help&#xA;你。 (ni-3)                  you.&#xA;我们 (wo-3 men)              we&#xA;一起 (yi-4 qi-3)             together&#xA;学习 (xue-2 xi-2)            study&#xA;吧   (ba)                    [ending exclamation]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roughly translated, this means &lt;em&gt;Zhi-yuan, don't be upset! Ai-lan can help you. Let's study together!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on this sentence, we can also guess some context: it is not uncommon in Chinese to reference oneself in the third person. I rewrite the translation to help you understand: &lt;em&gt;Zhi-yuan, don't be upset! I [Ai-lan] can help you. Let's study together!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me try to guess some context. This sentence is probably related to school. You may have recently received some scores or grades, and you may not have done too well, so the speaker assumes/imagines that you are disappointed, and he is comforting you and offering help. If I am way off, you may laugh at me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Amusing how much information one can infer from one sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.S.&lt;/strong&gt; Regarding your concern that 爱 means love: you are right--typically used, it means love. However, when used in a name, it is literally part of the name. The word's meaning may give meaning/significance to the name, but it is essentially just the name. In the same way English has names such as Grace, Valentine, and Lily, Chinese has names made of common words that make certain names beautiful--and other names awkward...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.P.S.&lt;/strong&gt; Since Chinese is such a tremendously different language than English, and since its history is largely independent of English, it should not be too strange that the punctuation is different. In general, it it best that you use Chinese full-width punctuation (。，) when writing in Chinese and Latin half-width punctuation (.,) when writing in Latin-related languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4520" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T08:16:14.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19297" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-21T08:48:17.280" Score="0" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can natives and other knowledgeable people share their ideas on how to differentiate between many &quot;to give&quot; verbs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list is not complete. Anyone is welcome to add their &quot;gives&quot; in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;施 - Glyph origin: a depiction of a &quot;waving banner&quot; + &quot;to be low&quot; = so Connotation: &quot;to spread&quot; as a flag in a wind.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;给 - Glyph origin:? connotation:neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;予 - Glyph origin: depiction of a shuttle in a loom machine. Connotation:?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;赏 - Glyph origin:? connotation:?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T00:25:30.330" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T00:25:30.330" Title="Connotations of different &quot;to give&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19297" CreationDate="2016-06-21T11:03:05.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;给&lt;/code&gt; is the most common one and the equivalent to &lt;code&gt;give&lt;/code&gt; in modern Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And we do not use the single character &lt;code&gt;施&lt;/code&gt;. It is usually in words like &lt;code&gt;施舍&lt;/code&gt;， &lt;code&gt;施予&lt;/code&gt; etc. &#xA;Don't know where you see it meaning &quot;waving banner&quot; or &quot;to spread&quot;. It just means normal &lt;code&gt;to give&lt;/code&gt; in some words. However, this character have several means other than &quot;give&quot;, which can be only identified by the word or context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also &lt;code&gt;予&lt;/code&gt; is not used alone. &quot;a looming shuttle&quot; ??? I've no idea about this. Common words including &lt;code&gt;予&lt;/code&gt;: ～以 赐～ 赋～ 给～ . Note: sometimes its meaning is an abstraction of &quot;give&quot;, and can be translated as &quot;grant&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last one, &lt;code&gt;赏&lt;/code&gt;, when it is a verb, the most precise translation maybe &lt;code&gt;award&lt;/code&gt;, meaning grant someone his/her reward, and usually given by his/her superiors. For example, giving some gold to a war hero from his monarch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T11:03:05.000" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19297" CreationDate="2016-06-21T13:07:18.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;there're numerous ways to express &quot;to give&quot; in chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;70+, according to 漢語多功能字庫:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/searchEnglish.php?freq=-1&amp;amp;word=give&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/searchEnglish.php?freq=-1&amp;amp;word=give&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;even an old dictionary in 19th century, &quot;give&quot; needs 2 volumes to explain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CTScF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CTScF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this question needs a long, long answer, have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T13:07:18.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19238" CreationDate="2016-06-21T17:37:00.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say, &quot;麻煩幫我放比昨天少一點的糖／蜂蜜&quot; Less sugar than yesterday, please！I believe it's way formal to use &quot;請&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13706" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T17:37:00.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19302" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-22T14:49:46.957" Score="0" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;The infallible Wikipedia says of modern Chinese poetry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Due to the special structure of Chinese writing and Chinese grammar,&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;modern poetry&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;free verse poetry&lt;/em&gt;, may seem like a simple short vernacular essay since they lack some of the structure traditionally&#xA;  used to define poetry.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In its article on free verse as it relates to English literature, we have the following nugget:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The internal pattern of sounds, the choice of exact words, and the&#xA;  effect of associations give free verse its beauty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the same generally true in Chinese as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What characteristics (e.g., wordplay, alliteration, sentimental language) distinguish a poem in free verse from an essay or address?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12868" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2016-06-23T12:59:39.080" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T14:29:17.400" Title="What distinguishes modern poetry from prose?" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19303" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-22T15:10:42.920" Score="2" ViewCount="661" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 趁着 means &amp;quot;to take advantage of a situation&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I just came along two examples using 就 in the same sense. Are there any differences between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师可以&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;学生的年龄再练习一下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师可以&lt;strong&gt;趁着&lt;/strong&gt;学生的年龄再练习一下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;这个机会谈谈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们&lt;strong&gt;趁着&lt;/strong&gt;这个机会谈谈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T15:28:10.043" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T15:33:45.713" Title="Difference between 趁着 and 就" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19303" CreationDate="2016-06-22T21:43:47.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First thing first, these two sentences have different meaning, and the latter is wrong. 老师可以就学生的年龄再练习一下。/老师可以趁着学生的年龄再练习一下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't use 趁着 to objects such as students, stone, sexy girl.&#xA;You can only use 趁着 to actions such as student practicing, stone thrown to you, sexy girl starving at you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例如:&#xA;老师趁着学生在练习，去泡牛肉面吃。(correct)&#xA;老师趁着学生，去泡牛肉面吃。(incorrect, no meaning at all)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 is a very versatile word that has many meanings.&#xA;it can be used after objects and/or actions, and will have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example 就你。there are 2 totally different meanings to this simple sentence. 1, I will do anything to suit your need; (比例： 妹说：哥哥，我要。 哥说：好的，就你。)  2, in a negative way, questioning your ability. (比例： 哥说：我是最好学生。妹说：就你？)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T21:43:47.507" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19238" CreationDate="2016-06-22T22:05:21.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you talk, you don't talk like a machine. So if that person whom you are asking is a woman (16-80 years old), you say: 宝贝，不用那么甜啦。 If that is a man and older than you, you say: 哥哥，人家不要那么甜啦。If younger than you, you said：弟弟，我不要那么甜哦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I highly doubted that you will talk like this to someone in Starbucks: &quot;Today, please put in less honey than yesterday.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T22:05:21.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19271" CreationDate="2016-06-22T22:20:34.907" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are black and white, and also grey. 差 is the grey area where you are not totally wrong nor totally right. For example, if a Chinese call you a 老外 (old foreigner)，then，you can say：你说差了，我不老，我只是外国人。 or you can say it like this, same meaning, but more sophisticated : 君此言差矣，寡人并不老，人家只是一名外国人！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also Chinese people never use &quot;说差&quot; at all。 It's not a thing in Chinese. We use: 此言差矣 in situation where someone has said something slightly wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T22:20:34.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19302" CreationDate="2016-06-23T01:14:45.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia article on Chinese Poetry is particularly bad, without a single source given for the paragraph on Modern Chinese Poetry. The article on Modern Chinese poetry is equally bad, with most of the references given to a collection of English translations compiled in 1970.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're really interested in the subject, try Michelle Yeh's book &quot;Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry&quot;. Although it is now 20 years old, it is still a good survey and will give you a fairly clear idea of what modern Chinese poetry is like and how it has evolved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I had to name a characteristic of modern Chinese poetry, it would be that prosody (patterns of words and sound adopted by the poet) is used to give new meaning and emotional impact to ordinary forms of language. Here is an excerpt of a poem by Yang Mu (楊牧), &quot;Let the Wind Recite&quot; (讓風朗誦), that is typical of how modern Chinese poetry reshapes ordinary syntax&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;假如我能為你寫一首&lt;br&gt;&#xA;夏天的詩，當蘆葦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;劇烈地繁殖，陽光&lt;br&gt;&#xA;飛滿腰際，且向&lt;br&gt;&#xA;兩腳分立處&lt;br&gt;&#xA;橫流。一面新鼓&lt;br&gt;&#xA;破裂的時候，假如我能&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為你寫一首秋天的詩&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在小船上擺盪&lt;br&gt;&#xA;浸濕十二個刻度&lt;br&gt;&#xA;當悲哀蜷伏河床&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如黃龍，任憑山洪急湍&lt;br&gt;&#xA;從受傷的眼神中飛升&lt;br&gt;&#xA;流濺 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say that it &quot;seems like a simple short vernacular essay&quot; suggests a very odd idea of what a &quot;vernacular essay&quot; is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2016-06-23T01:27:42.987" LastActivityDate="2016-06-23T01:27:42.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19238" CreationDate="2016-06-23T16:48:06.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If not so formal, make it short and simple in Simplified Chinese: 今天请少加点蜂蜜，谢谢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13719" LastActivityDate="2016-06-23T16:48:06.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19271" CreationDate="2016-06-23T16:59:44.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually we just say 说错了 if we found we made a mistake in a talk or statement. 说差了 is not a common usage for 'I made a mistake' regarding to what you said. I wonder if you actually want to discuss about 说岔了 instead of 说差了. 说岔了 usually means 'misunderstanding on either the topic or the opinion caused by confusing words/expression/context'. For example, when a group of friends are discussing about 吃醋 in a context to compare which vinegar is the best; you jumped in and told them that your girl friend likes 吃醋 (be envy of other girls you know). They may told you that 你说岔了! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13719" LastActivityDate="2016-06-23T16:59:44.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6912" CreationDate="2016-06-23T17:31:57.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;盛(&quot;shèng&quot;)&quot; is not only in 盛开 but also same pronunciation in 盛大，盛宴，盛装，盛会。。。usually used to describe very large/important/formal/official occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;盛(&quot;chéng&quot;)&quot; is used mostly in phrase like 盛饭，盛菜，盛汤... means 'adding 饭/菜/汤 to a bowl or a pot'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13719" LastActivityDate="2016-06-23T17:31:57.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19312" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19313" CreationDate="2016-06-23T22:44:37.000" Score="0" ViewCount="1342" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does watching Chinese movies with English subtitles help a beginner level Mandarin student to learn and improve the language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12089" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T03:13:43.557" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T03:13:43.557" Title="Does watching Chinese movies with English subtitles help in learning Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2016-06-29T15:14:13.310" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19312" CreationDate="2016-06-24T00:50:28.423" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience, I would say no. The translations for movie subtitles are usually too loose to be of much use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you watch a Chinese movie with &lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt; subtitles, that definitely  helps. You can see exactly what they're saying, so you can test your hearing and work on your hanzi recognition at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastActivityDate="2016-06-24T00:50:28.423" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19312" CreationDate="2016-06-24T02:28:39.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion it definitely helps.&#xA;It improves your listening skills (you get used to the hearing the sounds of the language spoken as they are spoken in a regular conversation). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll only distinguish a word once in awhile, but there are words that are used over and over again so you'll especially exposed to words that are more frequent, which is great for beginners. The subtitles may help, especially if the movie has both hanzi and pinyin hardcoded and english subs (non-hardcoded).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a good habit. Go for it every time you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13722" LastActivityDate="2016-06-24T02:28:39.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19303" CreationDate="2016-06-24T07:34:56.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the word 趁着：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be viewed in a whole structure, as in &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;趁着A, B。--&gt; &quot;While doing A/being in the situation of A, takes the opportunity to do B.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, &quot;趁着&quot; will convey a meaning of being selfish (I am only caring about my advantage, yours is nothing, moods like this), which is definitely nothing good. So, in the example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师可以趁着学生是(这个)年龄再练习一下。 Will be barely OK, but then some may have negative feelings towards 老师.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the word 就:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就A, B。 --&gt;  &quot;According to the situation of A, do B.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, &quot;就A, B。&quot; gives a mood of caring about others, or intending to say that &quot;I am doing this for the sake of people who are affected by the situation A&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, 就 could have many other meanings, but since I only want to focus on the difference between 趁着 and 就, I won't discuss here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2016-08-02T03:18:03.993" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T03:18:03.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19316" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19321" CreationDate="2016-06-24T09:18:44.070" Score="0" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t51rP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t51rP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;yes&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;tian ˩˧ ˧˩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do these back to back tones mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tone sandhi?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;book should be here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://nbct01.baidupcs.com/file/a04834fd03e33862ac150679edef1ee5?bkt=p2-nb-944&amp;amp;fid=521867496-250528-652496989958779&amp;amp;time=1462617078&amp;amp;sign=FDTAXGERLBH-DCb740ccc5511e5e8fedcff06b081203-GxPinMP7PgHO5VmJ%2BNNtsqHMoEI%3D&amp;amp;to=nbhb&amp;amp;fm=Nin,B,U,ny&amp;amp;sta_dx=22&amp;amp;sta_cs=0&amp;amp;sta_ft=pdf&amp;amp;sta_ct=6&amp;amp;fm2=Ningbo,B,U,ny&amp;amp;newver=1&amp;amp;newfm=1&amp;amp;secfm=1&amp;amp;flow_ver=3&amp;amp;pkey=1400a04834fd03e33862ac150679edef1ee55883d3650000015c6168&amp;amp;sl=76218446&amp;amp;expires=8h&amp;amp;rt=pr&amp;amp;r=198989889&amp;amp;mlogid=2963387329539921376&amp;amp;vuk=521867496&amp;amp;vbdid=3223180196&amp;amp;fin=%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D%E9%82%9B%E5%B4%8D%E6%B2%B9%E6%A6%A8%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80%E8%A8%98.pdf&amp;amp;fn=%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D%E9%82%9B%E5%B4%8D%E6%B2%B9%E6%A6%A8%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80%E8%A8%98.pdf&amp;amp;slt=pm&amp;amp;uta=0&amp;amp;rtype=1&amp;amp;iv=0&amp;amp;isw=0&amp;amp;dp-logid=2963387329539921376&amp;amp;dp-callid=0.1.1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;book&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2016-06-26T11:30:52.730" LastActivityDate="2016-06-26T11:30:52.730" Title="Back to back tones for single character ˩˧ ˧˩?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19316" CreationDate="2016-06-24T11:08:13.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;˩˧ is a contraction for ˩ ˧, that is an extra low tone followed by a mid tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, ˧˩ is ˧ ˩, a mid tone followed by an extra low tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such tone combinations exist in Hmong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_letter&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_letter&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hmong_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hmong_language&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-06-24T11:08:13.640" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19312" CreationDate="2016-06-24T11:43:29.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Im sure it is,  just like reading is a great way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you are watching the movie translated into English, then it'll be less helpful. Try with the Mandarin subtitles option. I know that if I put on English subtitles on an English speaking movie, then what they are saying shows below in text form, and it is not translated or disrupted, the exact words are shown below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13659" LastActivityDate="2016-06-24T11:43:29.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19320" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-24T11:59:17.287" Score="0" ViewCount="869" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I want to say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;we were in(at) the shop on Saturday&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would the translation be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;星期六我们在了店。(xingqiliu wo men zai le dian) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same for this past tense,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I want to say, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;we were happy&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would the translation be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;wo men shi le kuaile&quot; ? because 'we were' would use the verb to be &quot;shi&quot;“是” and that would be in the past tense, add 'le'  '了‘?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13659" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T06:15:21.897" Title="Sentence Structure for past tense" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19316" CreationDate="2016-06-24T12:11:04.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reversed tone letter is apparently one of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modifier_Tone_Letters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Modifier Tone Letters&lt;/a&gt; which do indeed indicate tone sandhi. I haven't yet come up with a pdf, but hazarding a guess, perhaps ˩˧ (low rising) is the recitation form and the reversed form is the sandhi form (low falling).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-06-24T12:11:04.297" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19322" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-24T16:24:11.797" Score="0" ViewCount="326" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for words to define grade levels from babies to adults.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;According to what I've found on Baidu, the basic division is:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(童年)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;婴儿 - 0 to 3 years old&lt;br&gt;&#xA;幼儿 - 3 to 6 years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(少年)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;启蒙 - 7 to 10 years old&lt;br&gt;&#xA;逆反 - 11 to 14 years old&lt;br&gt;&#xA;成长 - 15 to 17 years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成年 - 18+ years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But according to the dictionary, 启蒙 and 逆反 mean &quot;to initiate&quot; and &quot;rebellious behavior&quot;, which doesn't seem to relate to age at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there better words to add up to 级 to define these grades?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T01:07:22.457" Title="婴儿、儿童、少年、成年 and other words related to age" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19320" CreationDate="2016-06-24T19:56:00.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one of the core conceptual mistakes that learners of Chinese make.&#xA;Let me try to shed some light on it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 does &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; express past tense, it expresses &lt;strong&gt;change&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not past tense?! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Because as 倪阔乐 has also stated, (1) there are no tenses in Chinese. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And because (2) 了 can express change in the past, present and future, too. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's just examine these two statements. The first one should not be that hard to realize, because in Chinese you do not conjugate verbs, in fact there is no such thing as conjugation in Chinese, so there is no exact corresponding term to express: 'was', 'wrote', 'had', etc. In Chinese, you express actions that took place in the past in a different way, most notably by adding temporal markers, like 昨天 (yesterday), 以前 (before, in the past), 当时 (in those times), etc. 了 may or may not be used in these sentences, it's entirely possible to construct sentences that recount past actions without using 了, e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我年轻的时候家里没有电脑。 &lt;em&gt;When I was young, we had (lit. there was) no computer at home.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I said: 我年轻的时候家里没有电脑了。, that would be different. The latter expresses the idea that in the past we had a computer, but when I was young my family somehow lost or got deprived of that computer (i.e. there was a change from the &quot;state&quot; of having a computer at home to the &quot;state&quot; of not having one anymore).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, to further illustrate that 了 and the past tense do not go hand-in-hand, let's take a look at this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哦，啤酒就很快没了！ &lt;em&gt;Oh, we'll soon run out of beer!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you see, here we express something that is going to happen in the (near) future, yet still use 了 – to express the expected change of going from the situation of having beer to the situation of having no more beer. And to have an example where 了 can be used to refer to the present, regard the following example: You sit at your desk at your company and your colleagues are Chinese, at noon one of them will shout: 吃饭了！ &lt;em&gt;Time to eat!&lt;/em&gt; So why do we use 了? Because it express the change of interrupting your work and taking a lunch break. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By now, I think, it should be clear that 了 and past tense are not connected. You use 了 when you want to express that there was, is or will be some change that you want to point out, regardless of the perceived tense (past, present, future) of the action or event. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can now go back to your examples and work them out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We were in(at) the shop on Saturday&lt;/em&gt; There is not really a change here, so suppose you are telling your friend what you did on Saturday: 星期六我们在商店。 However, this sentence may also express that Saturdays you are usually at the shop. So, you may want to add some extra elements to make it clear, like &lt;em&gt;last Saturday&lt;/em&gt;: 上个星期六. The context (previous sentences or earlier information about your usual Saturday activities) may also help the listener to understand what you mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The proposed translation of the other sentence &lt;em&gt;We were happy.&lt;/em&gt; has two major mistakes. First, 快乐 takes the place of the predicate by itself, there is no need for 是 (as a copula, unlike the English &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;) [This is something you need to lookup in your textbook, I won't go into it]. The other mistake is the use of 了. As you by now know that it does not express past tense per se, it's just not going to turn your sentence into past tense. You have to express past with some modifier, e.g., by introducing something that expresses the temporal aspect. You could use 当时 or 那天, or many other words entirely depending on how and when things happened. 当时我们很快乐。 &lt;em&gt;In those times we were happy&lt;/em&gt; or 那天我们很快乐。 &lt;em&gt;That day we were happy.&lt;/em&gt; What the &lt;em&gt;that day&lt;/em&gt; refers to depends on the rest of your story, when you say something like &lt;em&gt;We were happy.&lt;/em&gt;, you probably have already established the time frame in an earlier sentence, so it should be clear, or choose another  more adequate temporal marker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this is quite a bit of an explanation, and do expect some people to add comments on it, so please also check those, and most importantly consult your textbook or teacher on this for more example and exercises. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2016-06-24T20:03:12.287" LastActivityDate="2016-06-24T20:03:12.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19322" CreationDate="2016-06-25T02:03:18.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;chinese characters related to age, there're three main sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the first one is 論語, chapter 為政&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子曰：「吾十有五而志于學，三十而立，四十而不惑，五十而知天命，六十而耳順，七十而從心所欲，不踰矩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;而立&lt;/strong&gt; - 30+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不惑&lt;/strong&gt; - 40+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;知天命&lt;/strong&gt; - 50+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;耳順&lt;/strong&gt; - 60+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the second one is &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06079470.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;釋名&lt;/a&gt;, which was written in 漢 dynasty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 卷三﹒釋長幼 (page 57-60):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ckuKw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ckuKw.png&quot; alt=&quot;p58&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;人始生曰嬰兒﹒胸前曰嬰&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;嬰&lt;/strong&gt; - newborn, before breast (breastfeeding)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;兒始能行曰孺&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;孺&lt;/strong&gt; - started to walk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;七年曰悼&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;悼&lt;/strong&gt; - 7+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;毀齒曰齔&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;齔&lt;/strong&gt; - losing baby teeth ( 9-12?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RIC0J.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RIC0J.png&quot; alt=&quot;p59&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;十五曰童&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;童&lt;/strong&gt; - 15+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;二十曰弱&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;弱&lt;/strong&gt; - 20+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;三十曰壯&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;壯&lt;/strong&gt; - 30+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;四十曰強&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;強&lt;/strong&gt; - 40+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;五十曰艾&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;艾&lt;/strong&gt; - 50+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;六十曰耆&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;耆&lt;/strong&gt; - 60+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;七十曰耄&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;耄&lt;/strong&gt; - 70+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;八十曰耋&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;耋&lt;/strong&gt; - 80+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;九十曰鮐背&quot;, &quot;或曰黃耇&quot;, &quot;或曰胡耇&quot;, &quot;或曰凍梨&quot;, &quot;或曰齯&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;鮐背&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;黃耇&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;胡耇&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;凍梨&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;齯&lt;/strong&gt; - 90+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3HZmg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3HZmg.png&quot; alt=&quot;p60&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;百年曰期頤&quot;　&lt;strong&gt;期頤&lt;/strong&gt; - 100+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the third one is 說文解字, also of 漢 dynasty, which was published earlier than 釋名. some explanations were different from 釋名, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%80%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;耄 is 90+&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, talking about age, remember to consider &quot;虛歲&quot;, or &quot;虛齡&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000111350&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000111350&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there're several more age related characters / words, have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-06-25T02:03:18.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19325" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-25T02:06:59.990" Score="4" ViewCount="478" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to understand which (if any) of these sentences are incorrect and why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我给了我妹妹一支笔。(being the most basic, this is the one I think I understand)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我把那支笔给我妹妹了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我把一支笔给我妹妹了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在把这支笔给我的妹妹&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for any answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13726" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:57:04.413" Title="When is the 把 construction forbidden?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19325" CreationDate="2016-06-25T04:25:51.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;see grammars，b/c object of 把 should be definite（确定）only 3 might need justification, better search this site for previous discussion of such a basic question, cf. ＂实用现代汉语语法＂，＂把＂字句，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在＂把＂字句中，谓语总是针对＂把＂的宾语的，有人甚至认为在句字中＂把＂的宾语是话题。正因为如此，它必须是听话人可以理解的，确定的事物。也就是说，当说话人用＂把＂字句时，听话人必须知道宾语所指的是什么。＂把＂的宾语所指的事物大多数是已知道的，。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有时＂把＂的宾语包含数量短语＂一个＂，对听话人来说，是一个新信息不是定指的，但这个宾语还是确指的，是听话人能够理解的。例如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(１)刚才我把一个孩子碰倒了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这个句字里，＂孩子＂不是任意一个，而是被＂我＂撞倒的那个，只是在这个句字里，＂孩子＂是谁并不重要，说话人只是要告诉对方＂撞倒的＂是＂一个孩子＂，而不是＂一个老人＂、＂一个青年＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(２)老妈从你的书架上把一本书拿走了，我没看书名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个句字中的＂一本书＂就是老妈拿走的那本，也是确定的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有时＂把＂的宾语还可以是一类事物或抽象的事物，但也是听话人可以理解的。例如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(１)这是个自动售报机，只要把钱放进这个眼里，报纸从另一边出来了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在自动售报机前面，这个句字的＂钱＂，所指也是很清楚的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(２)他中文很好，都能把中文诗翻成英文了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在谈到学中文时，通指的＂中文诗＂也就变得确定了，即＂他翻译过的中文诗＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(３)他挥了一下手，似乎要把一切烦恼统统赶走。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个句字里表示抽象事物的＂一切烦恼＂显然是＂他的＂，也是确定的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总之，＂把＂的宾语应该是一个确指的、听话人可以理解确认的事物。如果听话人不可理解，就不能作＂把＂字的宾语。如一个人突如其来地对教室里的同学说＂我把信寄走了＂，大家一定会莫名其妙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus it seems 3 can also be considered correct in that they make the point that a pen and not a pencil or some other writing utensil was given, if unfamiliar with the combination of 在 (for progressive aspect, 动作正在进行的形式）with 把 (see 4) enter ＂在把＂ in jukuu for many examples &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2016-06-25T06:36:36.440" LastActivityDate="2016-06-25T06:36:36.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19367" CreationDate="2016-06-25T08:32:55.237" Score="0" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am translating my diary app to Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my app, there's a search feature that searches for the user's diaries. The user can adjust some search options. one of the options is how the search results should be sorted. The user can choose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Earlier → Later&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Later → Earlier&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Earlier -&gt; Later is selected, June 25 will be ordered before June 26, and vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am kind of stuck on how to translate these two choices, even though I am a native speaker...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;更早 → 更晚 but the 更 seems weird. If I remove it,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;早 → 晚 it sounds like morning to night&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;时间升序排列 it sounds a little technical. And since most people don't have a concept of &quot;a later date is a bigger date&quot;, it won't make too much sense to people&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;较早 → 较晚 this is fine at first but then I thought that users might think that it does not show &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; early results. You know, it's only &lt;em&gt;较&lt;/em&gt;早.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what can I translate this into so that people won't misunderstand it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T06:45:37.710" Title="Sort by date translations?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19327" CreationDate="2016-06-25T12:58:13.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most of Chinese websites, “更早” and “更晚” are used to page forward and page backward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's much appropriate to use word “最”, “最” implies “most”. Personally, I'm prefer to use phrases “最新日记” (latest diary) and “最早日记” (earliest diary), they are presented in nature language, thus easier to read and to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13728" LastActivityDate="2016-06-25T12:58:13.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19325" CreationDate="2016-06-25T16:50:59.183" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply put, 把 is just used to denote the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the object particle 把 can only be used when the action is done entirely on the object and the object undergoes some consequences or changes after the action. This also implies that the object is doomed to experience the consequence once the action is triggered. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the following sentence will be very wrong: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把汉语学习。 = I learn Chinese. (?) -&gt; wrong &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, &quot;学习&quot; means learn. Object particle is not used here as &quot;Chinese&quot; itself did not undergo any consequences or changes. Unless you use the completion form 了, then it will be OK to do that as &quot;Chinese&quot; has been in your mind deeply (did have some kinds of change), otherwise it will be unnatural to use the object particle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in your example above, the use of 把 is correct in each of the four sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, so the only problem left is whether the four sentences are natural or not to be spoken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bear in mind that Chinese loves simplicity. So, for the particle 把，you should use it only when it is important that the listener does not miss the object (i. e. 笔 in your example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correct me if I am wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T01:57:04.413" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:57:04.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19325" CreationDate="2016-06-25T19:12:01.127" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Super Cool Handsome Gel Boy has given you a very interesting answer. You used the preposition 把 correctly. However there are some minor issues in the usage of the particle 了: in the 2nd and 3rd sentence, 了 &lt;strong&gt;should directly follow&lt;/strong&gt; the predicate and &lt;strong&gt;precede&lt;/strong&gt; the object (妹妹), because it is modified by the determiner 我. So we should write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我把那支笔给&lt;b&gt;了&lt;/b&gt;我妹妹。&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我把一支笔给&lt;b&gt;了&lt;/b&gt;我妹妹。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The preposition 把, as you've been told, can only be used when the direct object of the sentence undergoes or suffers some changes or consequences, in other words, the &lt;b&gt;action&lt;/b&gt; expressed by the predicate &lt;b&gt;must act directly upon the object&lt;/b&gt;. It follows that you are allowed to use 把 with action verbs, but not with stative verbs or verbs that do not express an action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore you cannot use 把 with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Stative verbs&lt;/b&gt;, such as 是，有，在，像，生存 (to exist)，etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Verbs expressing &lt;b&gt;mental activities&lt;/b&gt; or &lt;b&gt;judgements&lt;/b&gt;, such as 想，觉得，喜欢，知道，爱，希望 (to hope), 要， etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Intransitive verbs&lt;/b&gt; or verbs with &lt;b&gt;&lt;em&gt;default&lt;/em&gt; objects&lt;/b&gt;, such as 旅行，跳舞，睡觉，迟到 (to be late)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Directional verbs&lt;/b&gt;, such as 去，来，上，下，进，出，回，到，过，起，etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also notice that the preposition 把 can only be applied if the &lt;b&gt;object&lt;/b&gt; of the sentence you're constructing is &lt;b&gt;somehow definite or known&lt;/b&gt; to the speaker and the listener. For instance, I cannot say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你把一些书放在桌子上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because the object 书 is not definite (in fact it is preceded by 一些 which expresses indefiniteness). To make this sentence correct, I should say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你把书放在桌子上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, 书 doesn't have any specific modifier, but it's inferred from the context that both the speaker and the listener know &lt;em&gt;the book&lt;/em&gt; they are talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some situations in which you are obliged to use the 把 construction. This mainly happens when you have a &lt;b&gt;result complement&lt;/b&gt; or a &lt;b&gt;direction complement&lt;/b&gt; and they introduce &lt;b&gt;another object&lt;/b&gt; in the sentence which is additional to the one of the main predicate. In the sentence I've just given to you (你把书放在桌子上), I must use the 把 construction because the predicate 放 has the result complement 在 which introduces its own object (桌子上). After the result complement block I'm not allowed to put anything else, so to add the object of the predicate (放) I should anticipate it using the preposition 把.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10944" LastEditorUserId="10944" LastEditDate="2016-06-25T21:08:29.907" LastActivityDate="2016-06-25T21:08:29.907" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19331" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19332" CreationDate="2016-06-24T00:13:34.290" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't understand the basis for the ordering of the Kanji in this dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/ho04/ho04_00717/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/ho04/ho04_00717/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to be a Rime Dictionary and I found some information on Wikipedia about that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rime_dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, but I'm not sure how I should go about looking up a given character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone familiar with Rime Dictionaries help me understand how to find a given character here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XhFyG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XhFyG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" OwnerDisplayName="sazarando" LastActivityDate="2016-06-26T12:31:10.617" Title="How are the Kanji in this Dictionary Ordered?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19331" CreationDate="2016-06-26T09:14:34.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the book is &quot;草書禮部韻寳&quot; by emperor 仁宗 of 宋 dynasty. it's for looking up how a chinese character  appears in 草書 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive_script_(East_Asia)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cursive script&lt;/a&gt;), as you know, ordered according to rime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, it's a calligraphy dictionary. you look up a character, see how it's in 草書, nothing more; no explanation, no 反切.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you're looking for a rime dictionary, you may download all 5 volumes of &quot;鉅宋広韻&quot; (宋版廣韻), from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchives/0500000000/default/00&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;重要文化財（漢書）&lt;/a&gt; of the national archives of japan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchives/0500000000/0511000000/00&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchives/0500000000/0511000000/00&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, info added about how to lookup a character in rime dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in general, you already know the 聲 (Tone) &amp;amp; 韻 (final) of a character, then you use the rime dictionary for confirmation, or look up characters in the same 韻目 (rhyme groups). if you don't know how to pronounce a particular character, forget it :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rime_dictionary#Structure&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiki page&lt;/a&gt; explains it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    the characters were first divided between the four tones &#xA;    Each tone was divided into rhyme groups&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;since 平聲 (level tone) has more characters, it's further divided, that there're five group:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    上平聲 upper level tone&#xA;    下平聲 lower level tone&#xA;    上聲 rising tone&#xA;    去聲 departing tone&#xA;    入聲 entering tone&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, each group has several 韻目 (rhyme groups), each group list all relevant characters with the same 韻 (final). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;talking about tones &amp;amp; finals, it's easier if you know &lt;strong&gt;cantonese&lt;/strong&gt;, one of the dialects which still has 入聲 (entering tone); that, if you know the pronunciation, or, from the end of finals (-p, -t, -k); you know that it's 入聲字, directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now, let's try 鬱; in cantonese: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%AC%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wat1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/wat1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;first, to determine it's in which 聲 (Tone):&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it belongs to 入聲 (entering tone), which is directly by the cantonese pronunciation. or, if i try to write the romanisation, it's &quot;wat&quot;, which ends with &quot;t&quot;, a second hints of 入聲字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;secondly, pick up the 5th volume of 鉅宋広韻﹒入聲卷, in the first page, read from rightmost column, from top to bottom; until you find a character sounds similar to 鬱&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9QP0b.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9QP0b.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;p2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that is, to look for 屋, 沃, 燭, 覺, 質, 術, 櫛, 物 in sequence. then, 物 sounds similar to 鬱. because i know both the cantonese pronunciation, they're similar, if in doubt, the two characters (文弗) above 物 provide &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;反切&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it should read as &quot;物﹒文弗切&quot;, which means the pronunciation of 物, one can combine the 聲母 (initials) of 文, with the 韻母 (finals) of 弗:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文:  &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%96%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;m&lt;/strong&gt;an4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弗: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%BC%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;f&lt;strong&gt;at&lt;/strong&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;物: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%89%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;mat&lt;/strong&gt;6&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弗 is also sounds similar to 鬱, which i've strong confidence that character &quot;鬱&quot; is in 韻目 (rhyme groups) &quot;物&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;now, turn to the page of 物, voila, 鬱 is here :)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yl6no.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yl6no.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;p13&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in mandarin, 鬱 is&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000011748&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; yu &lt;/a&gt;; without hints of tone; imo, it's very difficult for mandarin speaker to use rime dictionary. you may try it by yourself &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-06-26T12:31:10.617" LastActivityDate="2016-06-26T12:31:10.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19333" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19434" CreationDate="2016-06-26T09:32:49.157" Score="0" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hsdMG.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hsdMG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;hullo&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the term for these piles of tiles on top of a roof?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T17:37:35.497" Title="What is the term for these piles of tiles on top of a roof?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19325" CreationDate="2016-06-27T01:04:17.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Be very careful when using 妹妹 and 笔 in a sentence. Just like you do in English with cock (rooster) and little girl. In Chinese, Pen (笔) has an implication of a penis because they are all similar shape, especially for the Chinese; so you will never say something like this: (My little sister loves cocks.) or (I give my cock to my sister.), even though they are all correct in grammar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我给了我妹妹一支笔。 ( I gave my sister a cock.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我把那支笔给我妹妹了。(I gave away that cock to my sister.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我把一支笔给我妹妹了。(I gave away a cock to my sister.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在把这支笔给我的妹妹 (I am giving away this cock to my sister.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are all correct. but if I want to say or do it in a more sophisticated and correct way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is it: &#xA;我送了一支钢笔给我妹妹。（I gifted my sister a fountain pen.）/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;use 送 (gift), not 给 (give); why? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I give my cock to my sister. (bad)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I gift my cock to my sister. (okay)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also, using 钢笔, so no one will think of your 笔 has anything to do with your private part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the &quot;把&quot;, its meaning is &quot;taking&quot; in your sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I give my sister something; (我给我妹东西。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am &quot;taking&quot; something to give my sisiter. （我把东西给我妹。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastEditorUserId="13713" LastEditDate="2016-06-27T01:39:24.670" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T01:39:24.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19322" CreationDate="2016-06-27T01:07:22.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;启蒙&quot;&quot; refers to  the Age of Enlightenment, and &quot;叛逆&quot; refers to the Age of rebellion in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.qdac.cc/?p=1378&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here is the other words define the grade:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(青年)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青春期 - 18 to 28 years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成熟期 - 29 to 40 years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(中年)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壮实期 - 41 to 48 years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;稳健期 - 49 to 55 years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;调整期 - 56 to 65 years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(老年)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;初老期 - 66 to 72 years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中老期 - 73 to 84 years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;年老期 - 85 years old and older&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3914" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T01:07:22.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19336" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-27T08:14:57.590" Score="1" ViewCount="792" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the various verbs that can be used to indicate walking for animals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saying something like 老虎开始走向巴士 or 小猫在街上走着 sounds odd to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T09:35:25.867" Title="Verbs to indicate animals walking?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19337" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-27T15:37:17.687" Score="1" ViewCount="1070" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm taking private Mandarin classes in Taipei. I'm having trouble referring to the beginning/middle/end of things. I asked my teacher how to say this, and the more I explained the more confused she got. Is this a cultural difference? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After some discussion, this basically seems to be a strange idea to communicate to her. But I'm having a hard time accepting this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example I asked how to say &quot;the beginning of the week was rainy&quot; She offered something involving me as the subject: 我剛開始 (wǒ gāng kāi shǐ&#xA;)... I explained It doesn't have anything to do with me. So now I'm more confused as I look over my notes. For whatever reason, it appears that referring to the beginning/middle/end of things requires a verb in Mandarin? I can accept this if I have to, but could someone help me put the following ideas into Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;the beginning/middle/end of the week (was hot)&#xA;the beginning/middle/end of the book (was exciting)&#xA;the beginning/middle/end of the summer (is when students arrive)&#xA;the beginning/middle/end of the year (seemed promising)&#xA;the beginning/middle/end of the speech (was inaudible)&#xA;the beginning/middle/end of the word ....&#xA;the beginning/middle/end of the hour&#xA;the beginning/middle/end of the movie&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2016-06-28T10:10:27.323" Title="how to refer to beginning/middle/end in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19327" CreationDate="2016-06-27T15:41:06.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about 按日期顺序 and 按日期倒序?&#xA;These are the ones I usually see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4360" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T15:41:06.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19339" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-27T16:37:44.153" Score="1" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems 就 is a very frequently used word. I'm just confused about its use. Anyone can help to explain how to use it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13740" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-11T15:59:40.583" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T15:59:40.583" Title="Who can explain me how to use &quot;就&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-06-29T15:14:30.703" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19339" CreationDate="2016-06-27T17:23:16.093" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;就&quot; is used with a verb or adjective to mean &quot;something will happen in very short time&quot; and is translated as &quot;right now, right away, at once, very soon, be about to, be going to, be doing, etc. &quot;. &quot;就“ also expresses a meaning that one action happens immediately after another.  I just found this content with the explanation of 就 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.decodemandarinchinese.com/learn-better/?tag=%E5%B0%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.decodemandarinchinese.com/learn-better/?tag=%E5%B0%B1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13740" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T17:23:16.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19343" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19344" CreationDate="2016-06-28T03:08:59.353" Score="-1" ViewCount="1534" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yIwb6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yIwb6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;this picture is an image of a motherboard I am having trouble with.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am having trouble with this motherboard and I need help translating the text at the bottom to english. thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13747" LastActivityDate="2016-06-28T15:20:56.947" Title="Can someone please translate my picture to English! thank you!" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-06-29T15:14:21.720" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19343" CreationDate="2016-06-28T03:20:21.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Clockwise,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;机箱喇叭 - Internal Speaker&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;重启 - Restart&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;开关 - On/Off&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;电源灯 - 绿色 - Power Indicator Light - Green&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;硬盘灯 - Hard Disk Indicator Light&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2016-06-28T15:20:56.947" LastActivityDate="2016-06-28T15:20:56.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19339" CreationDate="2016-06-28T03:57:28.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;就&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;means emphasize,can translate as &quot;just&quot;, for example, &quot;我就是不想去&quot;(I just don't want to go!), used mostly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;means under some condition, once, for example ,&quot;我一吃海鲜就想吐&quot;(I will get a sick once I eat seafood.), used frequencely.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;means relying on or with, for example, &quot;就着菜吃饭&quot;(Eating rice with a dish.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;means successful ,like &quot;一蹴而就&quot;(Success at once.), rarely used.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's all I understood for experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12985" LastActivityDate="2016-06-28T03:57:28.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19346" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35163" CreationDate="2016-06-28T06:57:03.820" Score="5" ViewCount="568" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been studying the etymology of characters lately, and I'm stuck trying to figure out how 对/對 is formed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is apparently a compound of 丵 (zhuó; grass, bush) and 寸 (cùn; inch, thumb), plus an extra horizontal stroke at the bottom left of 對, which various sources have different explanations as coming from 口, 士, or 土.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither the modern nor Old Chinese pronunciations of 對 (/tuːbs/) resemble any of the possible components: 丵 (/zroːwɢ/), 寸 (/shuːns/), 口 (/kʰoːʔ/), 士 (/zrɯʔ/), 土 (/l̥ʰaːʔ/). This seems to indicate that 對 is not a phonosemantic compound (形声).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it also doesn't seem to be an associative compound (会意) either, since none of the components seem to be related to any of the meanings of 對.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how is 對 formed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9263" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T00:23:44.377" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T09:51:08.940" Title="What is the origin of the character 对/對?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19346" CreationDate="2016-06-28T07:18:56.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a real consensus on this, but it seems to be a 会意-type character where the left side is a shortened form of 業.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of the character may be built up from the combination of these two elements:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kanjinetworks.com/eng/kanji-dictionary/online-kanji-etymology-dictionary.cfm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;業&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; - a pictograph representing a kind of stand for musical instruments &lt;strong&gt;facing one another&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%B0%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;寸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; - as a marker of &lt;strong&gt;action&lt;/strong&gt; as with a hand&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: 学研漢字源 (2006年出版)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oracle Bone Script Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oracle Bone Script for &lt;strong&gt;「業」&lt;/strong&gt; is - &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IOGSr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IOGSr.png&quot; alt=&quot;業&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oracle Bone Script for &lt;strong&gt;「對」&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uvadg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uvadg.png&quot; alt=&quot;對&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So assuming this explanation, the character would have been composed to call to mind a word describing an action similar to what would happen when a person places musical instruments into a stand facing one another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you suspected, I wasn't able to find any source that indicated that any part of this character is used for sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese publication「字源」mentions several issues with determining the etymology of this character in particular. While there are many theories proposed, none of them has gained a consensus because more research is required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can view the 字源 entry for 對 here at: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/kangxi/pic.php?f=ziyuanlxq&amp;amp;p=200&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;www.guoxuedashi.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TEIL4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TEIL4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T05:54:55.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19337" CreationDate="2016-06-28T10:10:27.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;By &quot;the beginning/middle/end&quot;, commonly Chinese words 初，开头，开始 /中，中间 /末，末尾，结尾 are related to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the beginning  /      middle     /end of the week (was hot)&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;&lt;code&gt;一周初，一周开始/ ? 一周中间(几天) /周末............In Chinese, there's not an commonly used expression for middle of a weekend. we don't say it much.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the beginning/middle/end of the book (was exciting)&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;&lt;code&gt;书的开头      /中间  /末尾，结尾&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the beginning/middle/end of the summer (is when students arrive)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;夏初  /仲夏   /夏末.......... “仲夏” is relatively literary. We don't say “夏中” much, personally I've never seen it before.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the beginning/middle/end of the year (seemed promising)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;年初      /年中   /年末，年尾，年终..........As “年中” and “年终” share the same pronunciation &amp;lt;niɑ̄n zhōng&amp;gt;, make it clear if you use them in daily oral expression.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the beginning/middle/end of the speech (was inaudible)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;演讲开始   /中间  /末尾，结尾&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the beginning/middle/end of the word ....&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;as above&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the beginning/middle/end of the movie&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;as above&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the beginning/middle           /end of the hour&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;一小时开头     /半小时(eg. 3:30) / ？  .......We don't directly say &quot;end of an hour&quot; much in Chinese, but this: when you wanna say end of an hour like 4:50, just say “快5点” or “接近5点” or “将近5点”&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope above helps. BTW, it may not be the same as your teacher told you, while I speak Mandarin of mainland China, there's few tiny differences of the language between Mainland and Taiwan, but feel free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13748" LastActivityDate="2016-06-28T10:10:27.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19325" CreationDate="2016-06-28T16:48:53.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the actual reason why you don't like sentence 4, is that you don't usually use &quot;在&quot; with &quot;给&quot;, because &quot;给&quot; finishes instantly, but &quot;在&quot;, when used with verbs, means that it is still in progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-06-28T16:48:53.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19346" CreationDate="2016-06-29T03:49:03.113" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, to make a reasonable guess; have a look of &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢語多功能字庫&lt;/a&gt;, please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對 (u+5c0d) is a character since 甲骨文 (oracle bone script), which is composed by component &quot;丵&quot; (u+4e35), &quot;土&quot; (u+571f), &amp;amp;  &quot;又 - 手&quot; (又 originally means right hand).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 pictures of 對 in oracle bone script:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QswXM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QswXM.png&quot; alt=&quot;p1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7xDhN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7xDhN.png&quot; alt=&quot;p2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rtkfa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rtkfa.png&quot; alt=&quot;p3&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, 丵 in small seal script (i can't find this one in oracle bone script at this moment)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VGfNh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VGfNh.png&quot; alt=&quot;p4&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/oraclePiece.php?piece=%E5%9C%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;土&lt;/a&gt; in oracle bone script&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fXPHJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fXPHJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;p5&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/oraclePiece.php?piece=%E6%89%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;又 - 手&lt;/a&gt; in oracle bone script&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3Jhbl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3Jhbl.png&quot; alt=&quot;p6&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the synopsis in &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%B0%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;手持工具開闢土地&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the initial meaning of 對 is &quot;using hand (又 - 手) tools (丵) to develop land (土)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;later, in 金文 (bronze script), the form of 對 is slightly changed:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UwdpH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UwdpH.png&quot; alt=&quot;p7&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VKXKU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VKXKU.png&quot; alt=&quot;p8&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n3xFn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n3xFn.png&quot; alt=&quot;p9&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;闢地分疆﹒植樹於土﹒立下地界&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the meaning of 對 at this time is &quot;planting tree along the boundary of the newly developed land&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with nowadays technology, one might think of &quot;building a fence to protect an area&quot; (e.g. set up barbed wire fence to encircle a farm)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;後假借為應對、應答之意&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對 was &quot;borrowed&quot; to have the meaning of &quot;response&quot;, &quot;reply&quot; or &quot;answer&quot;; which matches of the first two explanations in 國語辭典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000002366&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000002366&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, chopping &quot;對&quot; into &quot;業&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;寸&quot;; errh . . . . &quot;off course&quot; :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, quoting &quot;帝作邦作對&quot; to support the above meaning is appealing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's the poem &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/book-of-poetry/huang-yi/zh?en=on&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;皇矣 ( with James Legge's english translation)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;作之屏之﹒其菑其翳&#xA;脩之平之﹒其灌其栵&#xA;啟之辟之﹒其檉其椐&#xA;攘之剔之﹒其檿其柘&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;verses in the second group is, opened up, made clearing in forest, paved the area. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, in third group:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;帝省其山﹒柞棫斯拔﹒松柏斯兌&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%9F%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;柞&lt;/a&gt; has the meaning of &quot;chop down trees&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;帝作邦作對&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%82%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;邦&lt;/a&gt; has the meaning of &quot;planting tree as boundary&quot;, similar to 對. imo, &quot;作邦作對&quot; is rhetoric,  a &quot;writing in pair&quot;. in modern chinese, we still have the saying: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000139573&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;作威作福&lt;/a&gt;, or, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000139480&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;作福作威&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%A5%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;業&lt;/a&gt; is character since bronze script, which is a 象形字 (pictogram) of &quot;rack for hanging bell, musical instruments&quot;. here're 2 samples of 業:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kGKqj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kGKqj.png&quot; alt=&quot;p10&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Ufkx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Ufkx.png&quot; alt=&quot;p11&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, 業 is, unlikely, derived from 對 or 丵.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-06-29T13:48:42.190" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T13:48:42.190" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19320" CreationDate="2016-06-29T06:15:21.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different with English, Chinese do not emphasize the past tense.&#xA;If you want to describe the past thing, it always have two ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use some simple word with &quot;past&quot; meaning. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Add the time of the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take your example:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;we were in(at) the shop on Saturday&quot;---我们&lt;strong&gt;星期六&lt;/strong&gt;在店里(The word of Saturday already says the thing is in the past, no need other past word)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;we were happy&quot;---我们&lt;strong&gt;曾经&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;那时&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;过去&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;以前&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;当初&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;以往&lt;/strong&gt;很开心&#xA;(In here, the past word 曾经/那时/过去/以前/当初 indicate the thing is in the past)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, 是了(shi le) is a strange combined word. Never use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I have already eaten&quot;---我吃&lt;strong&gt;过了&lt;/strong&gt;≈我吃&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In here, 过了 and 了 means &quot;already&quot;; Attention: 了 is a modal particle, in different sentence have different explanation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13750" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T06:15:21.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19297" CreationDate="2016-06-29T06:45:52.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;施 - Like passers-by to beggars, have means of &quot;succor&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;给 - neutral，just give.(daily use) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;予 - just give, often combine with 给～,～以(often used in official)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;赏 - In the past was superior leadership to her/his subordinate, at present it often used in joke that he/she is your superior, you must take orders from him/her.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13750" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T06:45:52.323" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19355" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-29T10:06:53.837" Score="4" ViewCount="2882" Body="&lt;p&gt;My questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How to use “ 难道 ” in Chinese sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 你不知道吗？ and 你难道不知道吗？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13751" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-01-28T11:39:43.810" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T02:40:32.717" Title="How to use “ 难道 ” in Chinese sentences?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19355" CreationDate="2016-06-29T10:31:41.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a comprehensive answer, but: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;难道 gives special emphasis to the question, like &quot;Could it be that...?&quot; and can be used to contrast with what was previously said, especially to expose some presumption or surprise (that could serve as an explanation for what has been said previously. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你今晚不要和我们去游泳吗？ 难道你不会游泳吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[usually, there would be some pause between the two sentences because the speaker needs some time to draw the concluding second sentence from the reaction or response of the other speaker]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Aren't you joining us to go swimming tonight? Or perhaps could it be that you can't swim?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Not very elegant translation, but points out the meaning of 难道)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between the two sentences you provide, should now be clear, the second one expresses the surprise over the reaction or response of the other person in a form of presumption/speculation (It's not necessary that the other person does not know [whatever it is], but we just make a guess). The first sentence is just a plain question with no speculative character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2016-06-29T10:40:05.377" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T10:40:05.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19355" CreationDate="2016-06-29T14:31:32.227" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grammatically, &quot;难道&quot; is an indication of 反问句(a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;rhetorical&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrogative#Question_types&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;negative&lt;/a&gt; question). The exact correspondence in English may differ depending on the context, but I will give some examples here:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(难道)你不知道吗？ &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &gt; Don't you know it? &lt;em&gt;(I thought that you knew it.)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你(难道)不知道……吗？ &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &gt; Don't you know that ...... &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (难道)你不明白吗？ &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &gt; Don't you understand? &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这难道不是真理吗？ &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &gt; Ain't that the truth? &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (难道)你今天不用上班吗？ &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &gt; Don't you have to work today? &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你不来吗？ &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &gt; Aren't you coming?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I believe it's sometimes better to put 难道 in the beginning, though most of the time, the order doesn't matter in spoken language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Questioning with a negating particle 不(not) is a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;negative question&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; itself. So basically they are the same in meaning.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The possible difference is: in the second question with 难道, the speaker believes &lt;strong&gt;more firmly&lt;/strong&gt; that the listener should have known (the object), to the extent that he is/would be very surprised if the listener doesn't know anything. &lt;em&gt;This may also be implied in the first sentence without 难道, again, depending on the context&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2016-06-29T16:01:53.503" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T16:01:53.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19303" CreationDate="2016-06-29T18:51:00.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;While all of the answers above are sophisticated and rigorous. I will explain the usage of these two words in terms of their possible complementary usages in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 can be used the same way as &quot;with regards to/ regarding&quot; &#xA;For example, 就这个问题,我们再来谈谈 can be understood as &quot;Regarding to this problem, let's talk about it again&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;趁着 can be used the same way as &quot;while&quot;&#xA;Borrowing the example from above, 老师趁着学生在练习，去泡牛肉面吃, can be understood as &quot;While the students are studying/practicing, the teacher went to eat a bowl of beef noodle&quot; (泡 means to soak in warm water, I didn't put that in the translation since it doesn't make sense in English to soak noodle.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13757" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T18:51:00.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19363" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19365" CreationDate="2016-06-29T23:12:27.233" Score="4" ViewCount="551" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at a Chinese poster for the new Suicide Squad movie:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://screenrant.com/suicide-squad-posters-international-joker/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://screenrant.com/suicide-squad-posters-international-joker/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw the phrase '各有各劲抽.'  What does this mean?  'Each one has powers,' or something like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you,&#xA;Rachel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastActivityDate="2018-03-31T15:13:08.340" Title="What does 劲抽 mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19364" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19366" CreationDate="2016-06-30T01:28:43.897" Score="2" ViewCount="1689" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where did the phrase, 太牛了 come from?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm guessing it doesn't have anything to do with cows...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T12:20:30.493" Title="Where did the phrase, 太牛了 come from?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19363" CreationDate="2016-06-30T01:57:30.537" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, it's a popular slang in hong kong, most of the time it's &quot;勁揪&quot;; however, when one say it, the pronunciation of &quot;揪&quot; is slightly changed to &quot;抽&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/ging6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/cau1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;kick ass&quot;, &quot;smash&quot;, &quot;rock&quot; are some possible translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%8B%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;勁 (u+52c1)&lt;/a&gt; is &quot;strong, powerful, sturdy&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%8F%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;揪 (u+63ea)&lt;/a&gt; is &quot;to fight&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, it's roughly &quot;good at fighting&quot; --&gt; &quot;wonderful, powerful&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%8A%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;抽 (u+62bd)&lt;/a&gt;, is &quot;pull, levy, whip&quot;; which has the syllable of what we pronounce; and, 抽 is more common, civilised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so &quot;各有各勁抽&quot; in the poster, roughly means &quot;members are good at fighting individually&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you pronounce it correctly, you're 勁揪 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RSG48.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RSG48.png&quot; alt=&quot;p1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-06-30T17:11:40.027" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T17:11:40.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19364" CreationDate="2016-06-30T03:59:56.997" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It came from &lt;strong&gt;牛逼&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;牛逼&lt;/strong&gt; means cow's genital orginally and it is derivatized into &lt;strong&gt;impressive&lt;/strong&gt; due to it's wide. Many people are saying it even it's bad meaning. You can both use &lt;strong&gt;太牛了&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;太牛逼了&lt;/strong&gt; though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13763" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T03:59:56.997" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19327" CreationDate="2016-06-30T06:36:18.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Earlier → Later: 由舊到新 (From old to new)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Later → Earlier: 由新到舊 (From new to old)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Real life example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This wording has been used by YouTube for users to select the sorting order of comments under each video.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastEditorUserId="3511" LastEditDate="2016-06-30T06:45:37.710" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T06:45:37.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19364" CreationDate="2016-06-30T07:02:27.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cows are very stubborn and stupid kind of animal while having unique personality, so when use them to describe a person, we can assume that person has done something very awesome that a normal logical person will not even try. Thus, very cow like. (太牛了)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that person try to do something that a normal logical person will not even try and failed, then we can call him &quot;太猪了&quot;. (Very pig like or stupid)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太鼠了 （ Very rat like = cowardly )&#xA;母老虎  (Female tiger-tigress) If your wife is a female tiger, she is fierce and will hit you and make you scare of her. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese use animals as an adjective in this way so we don't sound too aggressive while being humorous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T07:02:27.953" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19336" CreationDate="2016-06-30T09:29:29.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Native Chinese speaker here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, we do not have many specific animal locomotion words in Chinese. You can very well say they 'walk'. &#xA;But, when we want to sound learned or create variation, we do have more descriptive vocabularies for movements. These words are applicable to the movements of animals, human, as well as objects sometimes. I can give you some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dash - 冲 (横冲直撞 can describe a wild person or animal running around frantically); &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;measured steps - 踱着方步 or 踱步 (can be used to describe the canter of a horse);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cat walk - 猫步;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;横行 - it is the walk a proud person or a crab;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;limping- 跛足而行，跛行;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;潜行 - moving stealthily under water or in the dark;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;滑行 - gliding on land or in the air;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;扑 - jump of a tiger, lion, etc. (any predator)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三步并作两步，连滚带爬，上蹿下跳 are more complicated modes of movement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13764" LastEditorUserId="13764" LastEditDate="2016-06-30T09:35:25.867" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T09:35:25.867" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19364" CreationDate="2016-06-30T16:47:55.250" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first, it was 吹牛皮, which means blowing up the cow skin. 吹 means blow up and 牛皮 means cow skin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long ago, butchers blow up the pig skin to shave hairs. However, a cow is much bigger than a pig. So, when someone says he/she is able to blow up the cow skin, he/she must be talking big (吹牛皮).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes，speaking rudely sounds cool or more impressive. So, 吹牛皮 turns to 吹牛逼. 牛逼 means cows' vagina. We use 逼 but not the correct Chinese character, because 牛逼 sounds more acceptable. It's just like shot and shit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吹牛逼 means talking big, while 牛逼 means &quot;real big&quot;. 牛 is short for 牛逼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Check the link below. I got most of my opinions from it.&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;My English is not good. If there is any mistake in spelling or grammar, just correct it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://iask.sina.com.cn/b/7253794.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://iask.sina.com.cn/b/7253794.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13766" LastEditorUserId="13766" LastEditDate="2016-07-01T12:20:30.493" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T12:20:30.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19371" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19372" CreationDate="2016-06-30T16:54:53.093" Score="1" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;I try to translate the sentence  &quot;this semester we have studied 10 lessons more than previous one&quot;.我们这个学期学过的课比上个学期多十课”？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13769" LastEditorUserId="13769" LastEditDate="2016-06-30T17:02:41.620" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T07:43:33.830" Title="can I say &quot;我们这个学期学过的课比上个学期多十课”？" Tags="&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19371" CreationDate="2016-06-30T16:59:06.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Correct.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;我们这学期比上学期多学10课。&quot; may be a better translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13766" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T16:59:06.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9384" CreationDate="2016-06-30T22:01:53.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hopefully, this explanation can be somewhat helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot; [冫]&quot; denotes &quot;ice&quot;, so most of the words with &quot; 冫&quot; relate to &quot; cool, cold, low temperature, etc.&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot; [氵]&quot; denotes &quot;water&quot;, so most of the words with &quot; 氵&quot; relate to &quot; river, sea, rain, etc.&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot; [灬]&quot; denotes &quot;fire&quot;, so most of the words with &quot; 灬&quot; relate to &quot; fire, hot, high temperature, etc.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more explanations for radicals learning here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.decodemandarinchinese.com/search?q=radical&amp;amp;f_collectionId=5485fbc8e4b0fbc1be3e1abe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.decodemandarinchinese.com/search?q=radical&amp;amp;f_collectionId=5485fbc8e4b0fbc1be3e1abe&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2HDGh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2HDGh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;冫, 氵 and 灬&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13740" LastEditorUserId="13740" LastEditDate="2016-06-30T22:07:00.940" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T22:07:00.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19371" CreationDate="2016-07-01T07:43:33.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind in Chinese typically a measure word is between number and noun. So &quot;十门课” maybe a better expression even your sentence is understood. In Taiwan people could have said “十科” rather than “十门课”. Also most foreigners tend to speak in very formal words, expressions and grammar when they start to learn Mandarin. If I were in this situation, I would say something like &quot;这学期我比上学期多十门课。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T07:43:33.830" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19375" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19381" CreationDate="2016-07-01T11:14:14.453" Score="0" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my iOS app, users can select a start date and an end date to search for stuff posted in that range&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I added a little footnote thingy that says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The start date and end date are both inclusive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to tell the user that stuff posted at the start date and the end date will be in the results of the search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't understand, here's another example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My age is between 1(inclusive) and 100(exclusive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that my age can be 1 but it can't be 100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I translate &quot;inclusive&quot; and &quot;exclusive&quot; into Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;开始日期和结束日期会被包含在搜索结果中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it sounds kind of long. Is there a more concise translation? Also, how can I translate the second example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的年龄是介于1（包括）到100（不包括）之间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That just sounds weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T16:54:23.180" Title="How to translate &quot;inclusive&quot; and &quot;exclusive&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19376" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19382" CreationDate="2016-07-01T11:37:21.460" Score="1" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;在他脑海中幻灯似的循环浮现&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that 循环浮现 is a verb-phrase, right?&#xA;In which case I would expect to see 似地 instead of 似的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain this and provide a sample translation for the example sentence? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T07:27:21.197" Title="Why does this phrase use 似的 instead of 似地？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19377" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-01T14:04:53.233" Score="0" ViewCount="1137" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I decided to tattoo myself a sentence in kanji.&#xA;However, the good ol' google translator shows two slightly different things in the results, and I'd like to know why and which version to choose:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;traditional: 更強的每重生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;simplified: 更强的每重生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(and if this is wrong, I know it's against the rules, but what is the correct translation of &quot;Stronger with every rebirth&quot; ? :) )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13777" LastActivityDate="2018-10-11T14:56:28.810" Title="Why are traditional and simplified different in such small manner?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19376" CreationDate="2016-07-01T14:43:57.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;似的&quot; is a fixed term/word, there is no &quot;似地&quot;, so no matter how/where you use it (eg. after a verb or noun), the expression is always &quot;似的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can still see &quot;似地&quot; in many places nowadays is mainly due to historical reasons. However based on the latest version of the official Chinese dictionary, the correct usage is alwyas &quot;似的&quot;. If you use website that based on the latest official dictionaries, you won't find any &quot;似地&quot;. e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://cidian.xpcha.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;cidian.xpcha.com&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pep.com.cn/xiaoyu/jiaoshi/study/jszy/yy/bzxc/201012/t20101202_980614.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here are some detailed explanations.&lt;/a&gt; It is from 人民教育出版社 &quot;People's Education Press(PEP)&quot;, the official publisher of the Chinese Dictionaries used in Mainland. The summary is in its last sentence: &lt;strong&gt;&quot;无论什么情况，都不应将“似的”写作“似地”.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, which means &lt;strong&gt;&quot;No matter in what circumstance, you should only use “似的” rather than “似地”&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more quoted paragraph for the comment below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然也有一些语法书、辞书，如黄伯荣、廖序东主编的《现代汉语》(甘肃人民教育出版社1983年版)、王自强编著的《现代汉语虚词用法小词典》(上海辞书出版社1984年版)等有“似的”组成短语作状语时可写作“似地”的说法，但一般的现代汉语词典特别是权威性词典，都不收录“似地”这种写法，这在实际上是以“似的”为规范词形，而弃置“似地”这一写法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2431" LastEditorUserId="2431" LastEditDate="2016-07-05T07:27:21.197" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T07:27:21.197" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19377" CreationDate="2016-07-01T16:45:47.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like Bolu's translation in your comment. &quot;愈挫愈勇&quot; sounds like a good Chinese expression. It is good that you asked here before you get the tatoo :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your question, CHT (Chinese Traditional) and CHS (Chinese Simplified) are just different writing systems, the actual phrasing/expression depends on locale. For example, the same thing might be expressed in different ways in Mainland/Hongkong/Taiwan, etc. Therefore, if you use Google Translate, it is likely their results are phrased the same way, especially in your case where &lt;strong&gt;none of them makes any sense&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, for a character, it is possible it was pretty simple from the beginning of time so it didn't get simplified - which means its shape in CHS can be the same with that in CHT. In your case, all characters but &quot;强&quot; are in this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to the Gel Boy's explanation, CHS is the official writing system in China Mainland (P.R.C excluding Hongkong and Macau) and Singapore. CHT is official in Hongkong, Macau, and Taiwan. In countries where Chinese is not an official language but widely used by immigrants, CHS and CHT may both appear and be accepted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T16:45:47.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19375" CreationDate="2016-07-01T16:54:23.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Chinese people just don't use the straight forward translation of these two words to express this kind of situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The start date and end date are both inclusive. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;起止日期均包含在内。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You didn't mention anything about &quot;search result&quot; in your English version so why bother that in Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My age is between 1 (inclusive) and 100 (exclusive). &lt;br&gt;&#xA;我的年龄在 1（含）至 100（不含）之间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Excuse me? Why don't you just say your age is between 1 and 99 inclusive? Your age is a float?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By the way, just in case you are going to release your app - your punctuation in English was wrong, there should be a space added before each left bracket. Better review these things carefully before your publish an iOS app, in order not to lower the overall user experience.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T16:54:23.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19376" CreationDate="2016-07-01T17:00:22.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because &quot;似的&quot; is a single word and it does not modify &quot;循环浮现&quot;! It is different from those adverbs or adverbial phrases that modifies the succeeding verb directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;像……似的&quot; or &quot;……似的&quot; itself is a complete adverbial phrase. You can replace this part with &quot;像……一样&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T17:00:22.967" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10708" CreationDate="2016-07-02T09:37:00.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm from Macao. The cantonese is Macao and Hong Kong is 98% the same. i don't know about the 2% difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese from mainland China is way more different. Sometimes it's quite difficult to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13783" LastActivityDate="2016-07-02T09:37:00.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19384" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19386" CreationDate="2016-07-03T12:00:48.423" Score="0" ViewCount="456" Body="&lt;p&gt;Haven't managed to find a usage that speaks specifically to cut or slice open a body part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also seeing contradictions (or perhaps information gaps) between CantoDict and Pleco.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CantoDict says '&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/16614/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;開面&lt;/a&gt;' means 'slice open' while Pleco describes this as a face-painting technique for Cantonese opera.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/56427/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;切片&lt;/a&gt;' seems like it could apply, though Pleco suggests more of a Medical context.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How many variants can you make of &lt;em&gt;&quot;I sliced my finger&quot;&lt;/em&gt; in Traditional Chinese / verbal Cantonese (slang)?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13545" LastEditorUserId="13545" LastEditDate="2016-07-03T12:22:40.460" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T08:04:38.173" Title="&quot;to slice or cut (a finger)&quot; in Traditional Chinese / Spoken Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19385" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-03T16:02:49.227" Score="3" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have three very lovely, yet very loud Chinese children living next door to me in my condominium.  Two of the children are quite young, and I do realize children by their very nature are loud; without exception -- and at all hours -- they leave their apartment with their mother and are screaming.  This can be loud, happy singing, or it can be frustrated crying.  I am disabled and sleep quite a bit, mostly due to severe pain.  The parents' English is not good; they are new here.  How can I very politely (in writing) ask the parents that they please try to keep their children quiet in our common spaces, like hallways?  They are very loud and noise travels far in our building.  Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13789" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T21:34:35.647" Title="Asking the Parents of Small Children to be Quiet in Public Areas" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2016-07-17T08:38:05.500" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19384" CreationDate="2016-07-04T02:12:40.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that &quot;開面&quot; as &quot;to slice open&quot; in cantodict is &lt;strong&gt;wrong&lt;/strong&gt;. Have a look at 國語辭典, these two terms are listed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000076573&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000076573&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000099591&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000099591&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About &quot;I sliced my finger&quot;, you may consider:  (u+20779). I guess that your computer / tablet needs to have a suitable font in order to display it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rWlV5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rWlV5.png&quot; alt=&quot;p1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage:&#xA;Your colleague asked &quot;What happened to your finger?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer: &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/bei2.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;比&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/zoeng1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;張&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/zi2.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;紙&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/gaai3.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/can1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;親&lt;/a&gt;&quot; (Click each character for its sound file :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roughly, &quot;比張紙&quot; is &quot;by a piece of paper&quot;; &quot;親&quot; is &quot;sliced&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be careful :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you can :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%AF%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;比&quot; (u+6bd4)&lt;/a&gt;, or &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%BF%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;俾&quot; (u+4ffe)&lt;/a&gt; are equal in this context, you can use either one, I quoted &quot;比&quot; just because it's simpler, has fewer strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, here's another one: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%95%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;畀&quot; (u+7540)&lt;/a&gt;, which is the ancestor of the above two. It existed since oracle bone script, used commonly in literatures of yore. Unfortunately, nowadays this original character is not well recognised; that's why people are using &quot;比&quot; or &quot;俾&quot; most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-08-24T08:04:38.173" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T08:04:38.173" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19387" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-04T04:35:36.873" Score="5" ViewCount="1130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you please explain how to make sense of &quot;都不嫌多&quot;. How is the meaning composed from the characters. I cannot make the connection between the literal translation of &quot;all not suspicion many&quot; and actual translation &quot;never too much&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe I should not even try?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entire sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么爱你都不嫌多&#xA;= I can't love you more&#xA;= However I love you, it’s never too much&#xA;= I can never love you too much&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from the song 小苹果.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13794" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T19:27:33.910" Title="Explain the phrase &quot;都不嫌多&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19387" CreationDate="2016-07-04T07:03:57.027" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I cannot make the connection between the literal translation of &quot;all not suspicion many&quot; and actual translation &quot;never too much&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal translation of &lt;code&gt;都&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;嫌&lt;/code&gt; seems not exact, especially &lt;code&gt;嫌&lt;/code&gt; doesn't mean &lt;code&gt;suspicion&lt;/code&gt; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.so.163.com/w/eng/%E9%83%BD/#keyfrom=dict2.index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;都&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.（表示强调） even:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;He didn't even look at it.&#xA;他连看都不看它一眼。&#xA;&#xA;Even a child knows all this.&#xA;这种事连小孩都知道。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.so.163.com/w/%E5%AB%8C/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;嫌&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;动词&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   （厌恶; 不满意） dislike; mind; complain of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;get oneself disliked;&#xA;讨人嫌&#xA;&#xA;not want to take the trouble; think it troublesome;&#xA;嫌麻烦&#xA;&#xA;Everybody disliked him because of his hot temper.&#xA;大家都嫌他脾气太急。&#xA;&#xA;You don't mind us smoking here, do you?&#xA;你不嫌我们在这里抽烟吧?&#xA;&#xA;She always complains of the food.&#xA;她常常嫌菜不好吃。&#xA;&#xA;The article is good in content, only it's a bit wordy.&#xA;这篇文章内容不错， 只是文字略嫌罗唆。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then &lt;code&gt;怎么爱你都不嫌多&lt;/code&gt; could be literally translated as &lt;code&gt;However I love you (I) won't even mind (it's) much&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you make the connection now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T07:03:57.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19387" CreationDate="2016-07-04T09:52:53.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you need a few more examples of that &lt;code&gt;嫌&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我男朋友嫌我薪水太少，所以和我分手了。&#xA;My boyfriend thinks my income is not enough so he broke up with me.&#xA;&#xA;他不願僱用我們，因為他嫌我們兩個太懶散。&#xA;He didn't hire us, because he thinks we are too lazy.&#xA;&#xA;主管嫌某個同事太吵，把他趕出了會議室。&#xA;My boss thinks one of my colleague is too noisy, so she kicked him out of the meeting room.&#xA;&#xA;你不嫌麻煩，我都嫌麻煩了。&#xA;Though you don't think it troublesome, I really do think it is troublesome.&#xA;&#xA;你是嫌事情還不夠多嗎！&#xA;Do you think we are available all day and we don't have things to do?&#xA;&#xA;他嫌我矮。&#xA;He thinks I'm too short.&#xA;&#xA;我超愛糖果，快給我糖果，一點也不嫌多。&#xA;I love candy very much. Give me candy! I will never feel enough.&#xA;&#xA;我是工作狂，超愛工作，快分派任務給我，我絕不嫌多。&#xA;I'm a workaholic and I love work so much. Just assign tasks to me, I will never think it's too much.&#xA;&#xA;錢是怎樣都不嫌多的。&#xA;You will never think you have too much money.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In brief, &lt;code&gt;嫌&lt;/code&gt;=&lt;code&gt;think (most of the time in a dislike or negative way)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;怎么爱你都不嫌多&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;I will love you, and I will never(怎么...都不) think(嫌) my love for you is too much.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13797" LastEditorUserId="13797" LastEditDate="2016-07-04T10:04:37.050" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T10:04:37.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18088" CreationDate="2016-07-04T12:42:55.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;吧 is almost used at the end of a sentence (except when it's a phonetic transliteration of the English word BAR, as in 酒吧，网吧),  to express several moods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;when you guess or estimate something&#xA;  这道题目的答案是A吧。&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;The answer to this problem is A (I guess it should be, but not sure)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When you try to persuade someone to do something or propose a plan/advice/scheme, etc. In this case, the word 吧 softens your voice, so it's not a strong proposal.&#xA;  六点了，我们去吃饭吧。&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;It's 6 o'clock. Let's go to take a dinner. ( Is that fine?)&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;  不要跑，等下一班车吧。&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;Don't run. (You may) wait for the next shift of bus. (In my opinion).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;when used at the end of an phrasal verb or imperial sentence, 吧 can express strong feelings that you are extremely angry or excited. In this case, you may speak this word louder.&#xA;  燃烧吧，小宇宙！&#xA;  A famous line from the popular Japanese manga  Saint Seiya.&#xA;  Who can knidly give me a good translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When you feel that something doesn't deserves your concerning, or when you think that your can do nothing to help.&#xA;  分手我不怕，就这样吧。&#xA;  A sentence from the lyric of the song 一夜长大 by famous singer 梁静茹。&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;I'm not afraid of breaking up. Let it be.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 罢 can be interchangeable with 吧, as a mood word. However, I think this usage is outdated and less and less popular. You may read it often in old articles. For example, articles by 鲁迅. In his time,  the modern Chinese started developing, so some rules/words are not fixed, I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a verb, 罢 can mean “to finish, to abandon, to dismiss” . As other answers pointed out, you can use it at the end of a verb to indicate the action has finished. This function is similar with the particle in English .&#xA;说罢，他就跑了。&#xA;&lt;em&gt;(Finishing) saying (that), he runs away.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;嘛 is more confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm from Southwest China. People here prefer 嘛 to 吧 and it is used whenever 吧 can be. When speaking in the local dialect in my ordinary life, I never say 吧. However, I always use 吧 when speaking in Mandarin.Also, I seldom find  嘛 on television and newspaper, so I think  嘛 is more a regional choice. Can someone from other regions tell me how 嘛 is used there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to treat 好嘛 as a single word, other than a compound of 好 plus 吧. I can't catch up with other words in this pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘛 can mean &quot;what&quot; in oral speech, and this usage is common. If I'm not wrong, people from 天津 region use this quite a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T12:42:55.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19392" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-04T17:04:24.627" Score="1" ViewCount="1201" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I translate 'do well on your test' into Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friend is taking a test tomorrow. Although he speaks English to me, I thought it would be nice to wish him success in chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 祝你好运测试 correct (or adequate)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13633" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T18:28:35.530" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T18:28:35.530" Title="How do I translate 'do well on your test' into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;politeness&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19392" CreationDate="2016-07-04T20:29:52.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could just say &quot;祝(wish)你(you)好(good)运(luck)&quot;. &quot;祝你好运&quot; is usually used alone, neither &quot;祝你好运测试&quot;[incorrent usage] nor &quot;祝你测试好运&quot;[partially correct usage] is typical usage in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest &quot;祝你测试顺利&quot;, literally translated as &quot;wish(祝) you(你) test(测试) smooth/successful(顺利)&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T20:29:52.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19377" CreationDate="2016-07-04T21:59:50.473" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kanji is the Japanese word for 漢字 (Chinese character). It is &quot;hanzi&quot; in Chinese. And only hanzi has tranditional and simplified forms. Kanji is also simplified, but kanji has only one official form in Japan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese Simplified is the official writing system in mainland China, Chinese Traditional is the official writing system in Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan. Mainland China also use Chinese Traditional in some special situation, for example, in calligraphy, in trademarks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all traditional Chinese characters are simplified, so some simplified Chinese characters are identical to their traditional counterparts, for example, 更(simplified) and 更 (traditional).&#xA;Some are slightly different, for example, 强(simplified) and 強(traditional).&#xA;Some are very different, for example, 龙(simplified) and 龍(traditional).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I just said, traditional Chinese characters are still used in mainland China for calligraphy. That's because many traditional Chinese characters look more balanced in structure than their simplified form.&#xA;Here is some example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Simplified    Traditional&#xA;汉            漢&#xA;龙            龍&#xA;华            華&#xA;灵            靈&#xA;广            廣&#xA;书            書&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you want to use Chinese characters for tattoo, I would suggest traditional Chinese characters, because they are more balanced in structure and more good-looking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coincidentally, the simplified version of the &quot;愈挫愈勇&quot; suggested by @bfrguci is identical to their traditional counterparts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@sazarando suggests grass script for tattoo. I'd like to remind you that Chinese characters written in grass script is hard to recognize even for native speakers of Chinese language, so I personally don't think it a good choice.  I suggest you choose from clerical script, regular script, semi-cursive script. All these three scripts are widely used for handwritten Chinese characters, both simplified and traditional, in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. But just as @sazarando said, avoid fonts for print if you could.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@greglow give a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-characters-learning-tips/traditional-chinese-vs-simplified-chinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an article&lt;/a&gt; comparing traditional and simplified Chinese. I skimmed through this article and found some of its arguments very controversial and misleading. I'll explain what I mean in detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1, &quot;The traditional Chinese, most of them are hieroglyphic. It conveys more significant than simplified Chinese.&quot; This is incorrect. You can refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese character classification&lt;/a&gt; in Wikipedia. Chinese characters are roughly classified into six categories based on the rules they are formed, that is, pictographs, simple ideograph, compound ideographs, phono-semantic compounds, rebus, transformed cognates. There is no accurate number, but it's estimated that about 90% of Chinese characters, traditional or simplified, are phono-semantic compounds. Pictographs, or hieroglyphic, comprise only 4% of all Chinese characters. That's because pictograph is only suitable for concrete things, for example, sun (日), moon (月), eye (目), mountain (山), rain (雨), elephant (象) and so on. It's hard to depict abstract concepts using only pictographs, in which case the other five formation rules come into play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2, The article gave some examples to demonstrate that &quot;traditional Chinese character conveys more significant than simplified Chinese&quot;. But the examples it used are not very persuasive. It claimed 愛 (traditional) is better than 爱(simplified, means love) because 愛 (traditional) has a 心(heart) as its component so it conveys the meaning that we love with heart. But I can also argue that 爱(simplified) is better because it has a 友 (friend) in the mid of the word, so it convey a broader feeling of love than 愛 (traditional). I can even give some other examples in favor of simplified Chinese. I argue that 党 (simplified, means party as in Democratic Party) is better than 黨 (traditional), because 党 contains a 兄(brother) while 黨 a 黑 (black), so 党 conveys that our Party love its members as brothers and no dirty(black) politics. It's obvious that this kind of arguments is too far-fetched, and it just remind me of something like astrology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3, &quot;After characters simplified, lots of Chinese people cannot read the ancient classical literature.&quot; This is incorrect. In fact, &lt;strong&gt;an average literate people in mainland China can read both simplified and traditional Chinese characters without any difficulty&lt;/strong&gt;, because traditional Chinese characters are still very common in everyday lives. In mainland China, traditional Chinese characters are not banned. Instead, they are allowed to be used for some special situations. According to 《&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gov.cn/ziliao/flfg/2005-08/31/content_27920.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中华人民共和国国家通用语言文字法(Law of the People's Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language)&lt;/a&gt;》, Chinese government, educational organizations, public service organizations, public TV and broadcasting should use standard(simplified) Chinese characters. And according to Article 17, there are six situations in which traditional Chinese characters can be used publicly and lawfully:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;第十七条　本章有关规定中，有下列情形的，可以保留或使用繁体字、异体字：&#xA;Article 17: traditional Chinese characters and other variant Chinese characters can be preserved or used in the following situations:&#xA;(一)文物古迹；&#xA;(1) cultural relics and historical sites&#xA;(二)姓氏中的异体字；&#xA;(2) in family name&#xA;(三)书法、篆刻等艺术作品；&#xA;(3) art works, such as calligraphy and seal carving&#xA;(四)题词和招牌的手书字；&#xA;(4) handwritten characters used in dedication and signboard&#xA;(五)出版、教学、研究中需要使用的；&#xA;(5) if there is necessity to use traditional Chinese characters for publishing, teaching, researching. &#xA;(六)经国务院有关部门批准的特殊情况。&#xA;(6) some other special situations approved by relevant department of State Council of the People's Republic of China.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the same time, almost all official dictionary of Chinese characters give both simplified and traditional form of a character. Usually the the traditional form of a character is placed in a pair of parentheses immediately after the simplified form. Here is an example from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinhua_Zidian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《新华字典，第11版 (Xinhua Dictionary, 11th Edition (Chinese Edition)》&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;, the best-selling and most widely used Chinese dictionary in China.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f636j.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f636j.png&quot; alt=&quot;an excerpt from Xinhua Dictionary&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see that both 爱(simplified) and 愛 (traditional) are given out, and the traditional form 愛 is placed in parentheses immediately after the simplified form 爱.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RPBqk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RPBqk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;inscription at Mount Tai&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An inscription in traditional Chinese at Mount Tai. 五嶽獨尊 (simplified version: 五岳独尊) and 昂頭天外 (simplified version: 昂头天外). An average literate person in mainland China can read it without any difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VWxQ8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VWxQ8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Lantingji Xu&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the most famous calligraphy work in China, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantingji_Xu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lantingji Xu&lt;/a&gt;(simplified Chinese: 兰亭集序; traditional Chinese: 蘭亭集序). It's written in semi-cursive script. Again, an average literate person in mainland China can read it without any difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pFLyF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pFLyF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;an excerpt of Xinhua Daily&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The four red characters in the upper-left corner is the name of Xinhua Daily written in traditional Chinese characters. 新華日報(simplified version: 新华日报)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Dwxcc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Dwxcc.png&quot; alt=&quot;a grandpa exercising calligraphy at some park in mainland China&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;A grandpa exercising his calligraphy at some park in mainland China. This is  a kind of outdoor recreation popular among the elderly (thought mainly male) in mainland China. He is writing traditional Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-10-11T14:56:28.810" LastActivityDate="2018-10-11T14:56:28.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19397" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19488" CreationDate="2016-07-04T23:45:05.907" Score="0" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had the same question as the OP of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/17926/what-is-the-story-or-reason-of-how-%e9%be%99-came-from-%e9%be%8d&quot;&gt;What is the story or reason of how 龙 came from 龍?&lt;/a&gt; and I like visuals given by Stan. The hardest part for me in Chinese is remembering the strokes of these simplified characters that came from traditional characters that don't seem very alike. Is there a website/book that explicitly deals with this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13779" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T00:24:06.917" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T00:24:06.917" Title="Is there any compilation/resources/dictionaries on the transformations of how simplified characters came to be?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19398" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19412" CreationDate="2016-07-05T01:15:52.437" Score="0" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to ask, &quot;Will this email address be removed from this mail group?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best I could come up with was, &quot;这邮件地址会这个mail group除了吗？&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How should I ask this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T06:58:14.427" Title="How can I ask, &quot;Will this email address be removed from this mail group?&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19399" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19401" CreationDate="2016-07-05T01:51:22.440" Score="2" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm studying character components using guoxuedashi, a online service/dictionary where you can filter by components, and there's LOTS of them.  The thing is, they use a different system of classification, &lt;em&gt;the nested structure&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Entry for&#xA;Guoxuedashi: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/4E2D.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/4E2D.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;ZDic: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4E2D.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4E2D.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find ''nested structure'' makes more sense than ''single component structure'' though. Why does Zdic lists 中 having 丨 as a radical if it's truly a single-component structure? Doesn't a single component structure imply that the radical is equivalent to the word itself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I haven't heard of Zdic until I found out about this stackexchange. But since it's highly praised I want also to discuss if Guoxuedashi is viable since I mainly uses it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13779" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T01:16:22.650" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T01:16:22.650" Title="Why is the character 中 listed as a 嵌套结构 (nested structure) and not a 单一结构 (single component)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19392" CreationDate="2016-07-05T03:54:22.767" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I basically agree with what Itux just said. But I would prefer to say “祝你考试顺利” instead of “祝你测试顺利”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your context, “考试” would be the word you look for when you want to translate &quot;test&quot; or &quot;exam&quot;. As for &quot;quiz&quot;, it's usually “小测”. “测验” means test indeed but in a much more general way. People tend to just use “考试” when they talk something about school, especially in daily conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13803" LastEditorUserId="13803" LastEditDate="2016-07-05T04:00:11.503" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T04:00:11.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19399" CreationDate="2016-07-05T06:43:58.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 'radical' is usually translated from 偏旁 or 部首. But 偏旁 and 部首 are a bit different. People long ago called the left part of a character 偏 and the right part 旁. But later till now 偏旁 refer to components of characters. Some of the components that indicate semantic meanings are called 形旁(semantic radical). Xu Shen(?AD58-?147), the author of the book Shuo Wen Jie Zi(《说文解字》), classified the characters that have the same semantic radical into one category(部). This radical is always placed at the first in the list, so it's called 部首(literally 'category head'). 部首 is always 偏旁 but 偏旁 is not always 部首. According to Xu Shen's classifications, 中 is in the category of 丨 and 丨 is the radical component of 中.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to the single-component structure and the nested-component structure, it's another classification. There have been several different principles to define if a character is a single-component or not. &lt;em&gt;Single component structure character&lt;/em&gt; is translated from 独体字 and &lt;em&gt;nested component structure character&lt;/em&gt; 合体字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the theory of 'the six categories of Chinese characters' or 'Chinese character classification'(六书), the ideographic(指事) and pictographs(象形) are single components, the compound ideographs(会意) and phono-semantic compounds(形声) are nested. 中 is an ideographic character so it's a single component structure character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the character style developed from 小篆 to 隶书, and further to 楷书 widely used today, the shapes changed. The traditional classification was a bit out of date. Su Peicheng(1935-), a modern Chinese linguist, defined 263 single component characters according to the defination made by the Chinese encyclopedic dictionary &lt;em&gt;Ci Hai&lt;/em&gt;(《辞海》, literally &lt;em&gt;diction ocean&lt;/em&gt;, edited from 1915 to 1928 and first published in 1936）. 中 is included in the category of single-component structure characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1997, State Language Commission of PRC published a standard on the Chinese character set, which defines 280 single component structure characters, with 中 included, 丨 excluded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastEditorUserId="13558" LastEditDate="2016-07-05T13:33:54.220" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T13:33:54.220" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19377" CreationDate="2016-07-05T07:11:42.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Stronger with every rebirth&lt;/em&gt; makes me think of the phoenix that is reborn from Nirvara once and once again. There is an idiom for this scenario, &lt;em&gt;浴火重生&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;涅槃重生&lt;/em&gt;, which have the same form in both simplified and traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T07:11:42.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19399" CreationDate="2016-07-05T07:21:38.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most 漢字 are always categorized the same way, but sometimes there are differing views on how a character should be classified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One dictionary may list a character in a certain way, and another dictionary will list it differently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T07:21:38.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19404" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19415" CreationDate="2016-07-05T07:26:51.447" Score="1" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;can we say ”我很长时间看书“？meaning I have read a book for a long time. is it possible to put duration in the beginning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13769" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T16:37:43.067" Title="which one is correct and why &quot;我看书看很长时间” or &quot;我很长时间看书”" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19377" CreationDate="2016-07-05T07:39:24.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Traditional Chinese refers to Chinese characters that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946.&#xA;But Simplified Chinese refers to standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Xiandai Hanyu Tongyong Zibiao 现代汉语通用字表 (List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese) for use in mainland China. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In your sentences, only &quot;qiang&quot;(强） has tranditional and simplified form.&#xA;traditional: 更強的每重生&#xA;simplified: 更强的每重生&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your translation of &quot;Stronger with every rebirth&quot; is wrong, if we explain in great details, we can say “每一次重生都能让你变得更强”, but it is very long sentence, Chinese people like use short idiom to explain long sentence, so you also can say “越挫越勇”，“坚持不懈”，”浴火重生“，”破茧成蝶“，focus on &quot;stronger&quot; and &quot;rebirth&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you don't know simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese, which is better to learn, you can see this article and find your answer&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-characters-learning-tips/traditional-chinese-vs-simplified-chinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-characters-learning-tips/traditional-chinese-vs-simplified-chinese/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T07:39:24.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19404" CreationDate="2016-07-05T07:53:28.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;看书“ is detachable word， that means we need to put temporal words(such as 很长时间）into the middle of &quot;看书”。Detachable word can be collocated with many kinds of word or phrase and the collocation with quantitative phrase is one of the most common occurrences。&#xA;So the correct answer is &quot;我看了很长时间书&quot; or &quot;我看书看了很长时间”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still don't understand this grammar point, I recommond you to buy one or two good Chinese grammar book, this articel tells you the best Chinese grammar book.&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/best-chinese-grammar-book/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/best-chinese-grammar-book/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T07:53:28.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19398" CreationDate="2016-07-05T07:59:26.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;这个邮件地址会被邮件组删除/移除吗？&quot;. First, you need to catch the important words in this sentence. &quot; email address&quot;(邮箱地址),&quot;removed&quot;(移除) and &quot;mail group&quot; (邮件组). You can make a sentence with these three words in a logical order. &quot; will&quot; is future tense, so you need to use &quot;会&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastEditorUserId="13804" LastEditDate="2016-07-07T06:58:14.427" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T06:58:14.427" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3120" CreationDate="2016-07-05T08:21:54.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, please don't entangle in learning Chinese pinyin and Chinese character at the same time or not.You need to ask yourself what is your purpose of learning Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you only want to travel in China or learn some daily Chinese or make some Chinese friends, I recommend you to learn Chinese pinyin first. Many Chinese learners chose learn pinyin first,but notlearn Chinese pinyin and Chinese character together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because Chinese pinyin is a very easy part and even easier than English learning, and pinyin can help Chinese learners'pronounce. But Chinese characters is a very hard part in Chinese learning. HSK1 and HSK2 didn't appear characters. If you choose learn Chinese pinyin and Chinese character together, may be you will give up learning Chinese very fast. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for Chinese beginners, only focus on Chinese listening and speaking is enough. If you are a kid or teenager,I recommend you learn Chinese pinyin and character together.You can spend more time to practice characters and you don't need to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T08:21:54.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19409" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-05T10:23:08.607" Score="4" ViewCount="407" Body="&lt;p&gt;The second clause is translated as some version of: &quot;If you look at it from the point of Change, then heaven and earth never stay the same for even a moment&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what I think I know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 negates a verb&#xA;能 indicates that something is possible, and functions as an auxiliary to another verb&#xA;不能(verb) therefore means &quot;cannot (verb)&quot;, &quot;does not (verb)&quot;&#xA;以 has a variety of meanings, but the only one that fits here is to indicate a period of time: 一瞬 (&quot;a moment&quot;, &quot;the blink of an eye&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is this: what verb is 不能 modifying? What in the verse conveys &quot;to stay the same&quot;? Is there an implied verb somewhere meaning &quot;to be unchanged&quot;? How is the above interpretation derived, exactly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks to anyone who can explain this to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should mention also that I first encountered this in its literary Japanese form, where the full gloss is: 蓋し将た其の変ずる者よりして之を観れば、則ち天地も曾て以て一瞬なる能はず, if that helps anyone to understand the issue. There is no verb explicitly indicating &quot;existence&quot;, &quot;stopping&quot;, or &quot;lack of change&quot; in the Japanese interpretation either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13805" LastEditorUserId="13805" LastEditDate="2016-07-05T12:03:57.000" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T18:30:04.803" Title="Classical Chinese grammar help: 蓋將自其變者而觀之，則天地曾不能以一瞬" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19384" CreationDate="2016-07-05T10:56:33.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do you mean by &quot;to cut or slice open a body part&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is a small wound, you can say &quot;&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/85/js/20779.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/85/js/20779.htm&lt;/a&gt;) or, less commonly, &quot;鎅&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/26/js/9385.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/26/js/9385.htm&lt;/a&gt;).  e.g. &quot;損&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is caused by slashes, you can say &quot;劈&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/js/5288.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/js/5288.htm&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is a big open wound, you can say &quot;劏&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/js/528F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/js/528F.htm&lt;/a&gt;).  e.g. &quot;劏開&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If such body part(s) is sliced away, you can say &quot;片&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/7247.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/7247.htm&lt;/a&gt;), which is pronounced as pin2 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/sound.php?s=pin2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/sound.php?s=pin2&lt;/a&gt;) in such usage.  e.g. &quot;塊皮畀車葉片咗去&quot; (a layer of skin is sliced away by the propellers).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T10:56:33.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19409" CreationDate="2016-07-05T11:15:46.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;以&quot; here has the same meaning as &quot;已&quot;, which means &quot;stop&quot; in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence &quot;不能&quot; is modifying &quot;以&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T11:15:46.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19398" CreationDate="2016-07-05T11:23:02.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Better use active voice in Chinese, e.g. &quot;這個郵件組會刪除這個電郵地址嗎?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, I think the real challenge in your question is the two occurrence of &quot;this&quot;.  It is really awkward to have two &quot;這個&quot; in the same sentence.  If you provide more information, I think we can make a better translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit @sazarando : for &quot;Will this email address be removed from the Inside_Sales mail group?&quot;, I suggest &quot;這個電郵地址會從'內部銷售'郵件組刪除(掉)嗎?&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Instead of passive voice, I'd rather omit the subject.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2016-07-06T02:22:36.650" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T02:22:36.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19409" CreationDate="2016-07-05T12:12:26.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I'm very surprised that a foreigner is even reading the classical article 前赤壁賦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your question, I think the answer is related to omission,  a common grammatical phenomenon in classical Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 以 doesn't mean &quot;to stop&quot;. When it means to stop, 以 is just an alias of 已 (another common phenomenon, called 通假, where characters with similar pronunciations or shapes are used  interchangeably) , which means to stop. If 以 really means to stop here, what  is the role of 一瞬? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To stop a moment doesn't make sense.  From the context, the author 苏轼 wants to express that &quot;the universe is always changing. Changes never stop&quot;.  If it means to stop within a moment,  the meaning sounds weird: &quot;the universe CAN'T STOP within a moment&quot;. So does  it takes some time for the universe to stop? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the sentence omits the complement: 则天地曾不能以一瞬 观之/度 (duo 2nd tone, to consider, to think of)之. &lt;em&gt;Then the universe can't be even  observed / considered in (the unit of) one moment&lt;/em&gt;, since it changes so fast. Even in one moment (very short period), it has changed a lot, and you can notice no details or nothing meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is there such an omission? Well, the pattern of this article is 赋, and it requires the writer to use a lot of 对仗 ( coupling sentences. Two groups of sentences written in the similar pattern. For example, same numbers of characters, similar sentence structure).  You can notice a lot of coupling sentences in this article, can't you? The next sentence is coupled with the sentence in the questions, so the number of characters is restricted here. Also, the verb in the complement repeats 观之 in the previous clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I'm not a linguist, so please correct me if I use incorrect terms in the answer. I'll appreciate that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T12:12:26.610" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19404" CreationDate="2016-07-05T16:37:43.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“我很长时间看书” is grammatically incorrect, because any time expressing duration, in Chinese, must be put behind verb + object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However &quot;我看了很长时间书&quot; will be correct, though, since 很长时间 here &lt;strong&gt;MEANS&lt;/strong&gt; a length of time, but &lt;strong&gt;ACTS&lt;/strong&gt; as a noun. Actually, &quot;的&quot; is hidden in the sentence, so the non-abbreviated version will be &quot;我看了很长时间的书&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我看书看了很长时间&quot; is conveying the same meaning, but since the verb is used twice, one tries to emphasize on the action being done by using this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet after all, the most usual one being used by native speakers, I think, will be &quot;我看了书很长时间&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T16:37:43.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19409" CreationDate="2016-07-05T18:30:04.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;不能以&quot; is a common term in 宋 dynasty, some examples from this time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上清儲祥宮碑 by 蘇軾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;. . . 臣嘗竊論之﹒黄帝老子之道﹒本也﹒方士之言﹒末也﹒修其本而末自應﹒故仁義不施﹒則韶濩之樂﹒&lt;strong&gt;不能以&lt;/strong&gt;降天神﹒忠信不立﹒則射鄉之禮﹒&lt;strong&gt;不能以&lt;/strong&gt;致刑措&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the grammar of 不能以 in here is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if 仁義不施, then 不能 (cannot) 降天神 以 (by) 韶濩之樂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if 忠信不立, then 不能 (cannot) 致刑措 以 (by) 射鄉之禮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不能 modify the verb &quot;降&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;致&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;答李端叔書一首 by 蘇軾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;. . . 尋常不通書問﹒怠慢之罪猶可闊畧﹒及足下斬然在疚﹒亦&lt;strong&gt;不能以&lt;/strong&gt;一字奉慰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(i, omitted) 不能 (cannot) 奉慰 以(by) 一字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that, 不能 modify the verb 奉 (offer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;婺州金華縣社倉記    by 朱熹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;. . . 其行之也﹒以聚歛亟疾之意﹒而不以慘怛忠利之心﹒是以王氏能以行於一邑﹒而&lt;strong&gt;不能以&lt;/strong&gt;行於天下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不能 (cannot be) 行 (~carry out) in the whole nation 以 (by) the method of 社倉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that, 不能 modify the verb 行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, the wiki has a pic claimed to be the authentic, original writing of 赤壁賦:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Su_Shi-Former_Ode_on_the_Red_Cliff.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Su_Shi-Former_Ode_on_the_Red_Cliff.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T18:30:04.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19418" CreationDate="2016-07-05T18:34:23.537" Score="3" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently reading about the reign of 漢靈帝。 He appears a horrible ruler indeed. Yet Wikipedia states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Emperor Ling died in 189 at the age of 34, after reigning for 21 years. After his death the power fell into the hands of Dong Zhuo, who despised him. Emperor Ling was one of the rare examples of history in which an emperor whose throne was inherited by a son received a highly derogatory (but accurate) posthumous name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there indeed such a bad meaning of 靈？ Or was there? I know 靈 to mean &quot;clever &quot; or &quot;effective &quot; when it is an adjective!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T19:00:08.630" Title="Derogatory usage of 靈 in old Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19417" CreationDate="2016-07-05T18:46:31.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;for 諡號 (posthumous name), they're fixed, have special implications. treat the character used in posthumous name as a &quot;code&quot;, you need to decipher it's meaning by looking up 諡法解.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E8%B0%A5%E5%8F%B7#.E8.A7.84.E5.88.99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wiki page&lt;/a&gt; listed all 183&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, if you can read literary chinese, the internet archive has the &quot;bible of posthumous name&quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/search.php?query=%E6%98%8E%E8%AB%A1%E7%B4%80%E5%BD%99%E7%B7%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;明諡紀彙編&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-07-05T19:00:08.630" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T19:00:08.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19419" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21014" CreationDate="2016-07-05T19:03:31.317" Score="9" ViewCount="887" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt; always bothered me. I couldn't (and maybe still can't) get a hold of its meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By looking at many examples of the usage I came to realization that 就 marks a process of &lt;strong&gt;becoming a subject to or beaing subjected to&lt;/strong&gt; someone, something, some situatuion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Words:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就你 - (I'm) a subject to your wishes. (As you wish!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就學 - To be a subject to a learning. (Go to school)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就伴 - to become a subject of a companion. (Act as a companion).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就范 - to be subjected to a molding, forming. (To yield, to give in).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就木 - to be subject of wooden cascket (to die).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就算 - to be subjected to a calculation (Suppose ...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就是 - to be a subject of truth\reality (Indeed ...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就诊,就医 - to be subjected to a medical examination (to see a doctor)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就餐 - to be a subject of food eating process. (to dine, to eat)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就位 - to be subjected to a place (to take a place)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就义 - to be subjected to a fair split (义 depiction of a splitting of&#xA;a goat). (to die as a martyr)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就擒 - to be a subject of a capturing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就近 - to be a subject of proximity. (to use the situation of being&#xA;in close to somethig to your advantage)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就歼 - to be a subject of annihilation. (be annihilated)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就着菜吃飯  - to be a subject to a flavoring. (to flavor, add somethign&#xA;to food)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就事论事 - facts(事) are subjects(就) or this discussion(论事) or &amp;quot;Subject is 事 and we discuss (only) 事.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就可 - a subject to possibility (will be able to)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就能 - a subject to ability (will be able to)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就会 - a subject to ability (will)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就正  -to be subjected to a correction (ask for correction, to take a right path, ask for right guidance, to correct)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;then-constructions:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;21&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Verb+了, 就+Verb.&lt;/em&gt; 吃完&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;午飯&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;走. - When eating have taken it's place, to be subjected to leaving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;若不快去, 就趕不上了 - If we don't hurry &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; we a subjects to lateness. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;About/considering-constructions:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;23&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就这个问题,我们再来谈谈 can be understood as &amp;quot;Regarding to this problem, let's talk about it again&amp;quot;. Here again 就 marks 这个问题 as a slave/subject of the main sentence part 我们再来谈谈.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;slave to X constructions:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;User &amp;quot;Atmega 328&amp;quot; provides example of 就你 usage。There are 2 totally different meanings to this simple sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A)I will do anything to suit your need; (比例： 妹说：哥哥，我要。 哥说：好的，就你。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;B)In a negative way, questioning your ability. (比例：&#xA;哥说：我是最好学生。妹说：就你？)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;emphasis-function:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 就 acts as a passive marker (close to subject marker). Example is provided by user &amp;quot;ltux&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就他一个人知道这事 vs 他一个人知道这事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Proper translation in the light of my model would be something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;He is &lt;strong&gt;being&lt;/strong&gt; the only person to know it.&amp;quot; vs simple statement: &amp;quot;he&#xA;is the only person to know it.&amp;quot;&#xA;Here we can see that a stressing of the fact that 他 is &amp;quot;a subject to being the one&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;a measure word:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way 就 can serve as a measure word for wrappings of a coil or a thread: 繁纓七就. Can any one explain why? Is this function a new construction or an ancient one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;marking something as a subject of actions:&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在深夜发出的电邮里，奥巴马总统或许会,&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;他阅读的备忘录, 提出措辞尖锐的问题&#xA;Obama's night-time emails with questions, subject to what he read before, are sharp and super smart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;etymology:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that's a question! Why the hell &amp;quot;tall building + very&amp;quot; became &amp;quot;to become a subject&amp;quot;?! One guy said: 请教：三窟已就的“窟”是高层建筑？是不是和莫高窟一样的. So I've looked at the 莫高窟. Well, it looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xejmL.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xejmL.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and this really looks like an ancient way of writing 就:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AHBIw.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AHBIw.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%B0%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;humanum&lt;/a&gt;. Why this super tall building means to become a subject? Maybe this meaning comes from being a &amp;quot;subject to God&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any info about the subject :) will be appreciated. I would also love to hear natives opinion on my idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. 就就 meaning remains a riddle for me. Can any one explain why this thing means what it means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T08:52:46.723" Title="A unified theory of 就 meaning" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19385" CreationDate="2016-07-05T19:11:28.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;希望您能多照顾一下您的孩子，他们经常吵闹，影响我们生活和休息。&quot; (Please take good care of your kids, because they are so noisy and badly influenced our lives.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try not use &quot;大叫&quot; on your note, because that sounds like a bad comment on their kids, which may make them unhappy. Better use &quot;我们&quot; to show that you are a &quot;general neighbor&quot; like the others, instead of someone who cannot fall asleep due to your own reason (medical/phycological maybe, who knows). This politely tells them it is their fault, not yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, having both Chinese and English would also help, as is suggested in the comments you got.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T19:11:28.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19385" CreationDate="2016-07-05T21:34:35.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure how much politeness you're looking for, here's my input:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不好意思(mr. / mrs. X), 我最近有睡觉睡得不太好, 如果孩子们晚上可以安静一点, 对我来说这是一个很大的帮忙, 谢谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Excuse me Mr./ Mrs.X, I have trouble sleeping lately, if the kids can be more quiet at night, it will be helpful, thanks.&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did not mention about the common space thing as it might give them a false message that their kids can be as loud as they can in their house, but you can edit it to see fit.  Also if they're not very nice people or if you want to be more forceful, Bfrguci's answer is a better choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T21:34:35.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19419" CreationDate="2016-07-05T22:00:55.273" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;reference: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_Chinese_Dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;现代汉语词典，第6版 (Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition)&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This dictionary gives 8 basic meaning items for 就.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;approach, get close to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;get to, begin to do&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;passive, -ed by&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;finish, become&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;eat something (side dish) together with other thing (main course)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[preposition] a: by, at somebody's convenience, take advantage of. b: about, concerning, with regard to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[adverb] 8 sub items listed, about time or for emphesis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[conjugation] represent assumed concession, even if&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figure. meaning of 就 in 现代汉语词典, 第6版, page 697&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jUVw8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jUVw8.png&quot; alt=&quot;excerpt from Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LAuGC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LAuGC.png&quot; alt=&quot;excerpt from Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides the meaning items of the character itself, the dictionary also listed 32 words beginning with 就. I didn't list all of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figure. meaning of some words beginning with 就 in 现代汉语词典, 第6版, page 697&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jYwaH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jYwaH.png&quot; alt=&quot;excerpt from Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on my own interpretation, I can't find the very one base-meaning from which all other meanings derive. But it seems that compilers(and the sholars behind them) of &lt;em&gt;Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition&lt;/em&gt; think all the modern meanings of 就 come from one common origin, though they didn't tell us what the one common origin is and how the other meanings derive from that origin. About this point, you can refer to @congliu's answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3852/%E8%B6%B3-why-is-foot-also-enough&quot;&gt;足: why is “foot” also “enough”?&lt;/a&gt; for detail. I copy a sentence from his answer: &quot;Those whose form or pronunciation are the same but no relation between their meaning, basically will be in given different entries, with superscripts on their upper right corner. For example, '耳&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;' and '耳&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;', '安&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;', '安&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;' and '安&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;' &quot;. This is a rule followed by all authoritative Chinese dictionary, including &lt;em&gt;Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition&lt;/em&gt; of course. But as we have seen, all the 8 meaning items is listed under only one entry of 就, no superscrpts, no separate entries. So we can infer that the 8 meaning items are related and come from one common origin. Of course, there exist other possibilities. Maybe there are several distint roots of the meanings of 就 but the scholars haven't reached agreement on this topic now. No matter what the fact is, we can always make our own guess and try to find some formula for mnemonics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In the following contents, whenever I mention the classification of or relation between the meaning items of 就, it's all based on my own interpretation and may be subjective.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of its 8 meaning items seem related to each other, some not. I'm inclined to classify item 1,2,4 to one univeral category, meaning approach / get to / become. Most of the 32 words begin with 就 can be classified into this catetory. When 就 is used to make up a word in which 就 is followed by a noun, you can usually reason that the meaning of 就 falls into this category. For example, 就位(take one's place)，就业(take up an occupation)，就寝(go to sleep)，就学(go to school)，就范(submit to control, give in)，就木(get to wooden cascket, to die)，就医(go see the doctor)，就餐(go to eat)，就义(get to righteousness, to die as martyr).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Item 3 seems unrelated to any other ones. If 就 is used to make up a word in which 就 is followed by a verb, then you can reason that 就 means passive. For example, 就歼(annihilated)，就擒(captured).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Item 5 seems unrelated to any other ones. (就着菜吃饭. Eat dinner together with vegetables.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Item 6 seems unrelated to any other ones. (a: 就近 do something in the neighbourhood/without having to go far for convenience, 就便 at somebody's convenience/while you are at it. b: 就我所知 so far as I know.  就目前的情况看来 in the light of present situation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Item 8 seems unrelated to any other ones. It says it's same with 就是(3). I'll talk about 就是 in more details later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Item 7 contains 8 sub items.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sub item a,b,c,d seems related to each other, all have the meaning about time/sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a. in short time, at once, right away. (我就来. I will come right away)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b. things begin or end as early as, long since. (风早上就停了. The wind has already subsided in the morning.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c. as soon as, right after, one thing happened immediately after another. (吃完了午饭就走. leave as soon as lunch is finished.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d. something is the natural consequense of some condition. (若不快去, 就赶不上了. If you don't hurry up, you will be late. Be late is the natural consequence of not hurrying up)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sub item e seems unrelated to the other ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e. used as comparision, meaning bigger/longer/more and so on. (他三天才来一次，你一天就来三次. He comes once every three days, you come three times in one day.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sub item f seems unrelated to the other ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f. 就 is put in between two identical component to represent &quot;tolerate&quot; or &quot;don't care about something&quot;, X就X吧. (丢了就丢了吧，以后小心点. If it's lost, it's lost. Just be more careful from now on.[means you don't care about the fact that it's lost / though you are unhappy that it's lost, you finally decide to accept the fact and make do without it.]  大点就大点吧，买下算了. Though it's bigger (than the right size), I decide to buy it and make do with it. [You like the skirt's colour, its sytle, and so on. But its size is a little bigger. You hesitate for a while and decide to accept it. You say: &quot;大点就大点吧，买下算了.&quot;])&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sub item g seems unrelated to the other ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g. only, just. (就他一个人知道这事 He is the only person who knows this / Only he himself knows this. 就三个人来开会 Only three people showed up to the meeting.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sub item h seems unrelated to the other ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;h. for positive emphesis. (我就不信我学不会. I just refuse to believe that I can't grasp that.[means &quot;I will work harder to grasp that&quot;])&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 就是：&#xA;就是 as a word has three meaning items.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[auxiliary] used at the end of a sentence for affirmation. (我一定办到，你放心就是了. I will get it done, just trust me / rest your heart.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[adverb] used alone to express agreement. (就是，就是，您的话很对. Yes, yes, what you said is right.) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[conjugation] even if. represent assumed concession, usually used together with 也. Example: 为了祖国，我可以献出一切，就是生命也不吝惜. For my country, I can sacrifice anything, even if it's my life, I will not stint on it.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figure. meaning of 就是 in 现代汉语词典, 第6版, page 698&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jTgNz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jTgNz.png&quot; alt=&quot;excerpt from Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something more about 就是: in the phrase 就是他(Who broke the window? It is him! [pointing to him])， 就是 is not deemed to be a word, and can't be explained by any of the three meaning item of 就是. Instead, here 就，是，他 are three seperate word. 就 falls into meaning item 8 sub item h. That is, 就 means emphesis. We can just say &quot;他!(Who broke the window? Him!)&quot;, or &quot;是他(It's him!)&quot;, or &quot;就是他(It is him!)&quot;. We can also say &quot;就他!&quot;. In this case, it's legitimate to use 就他 in place of 就是他.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regard to 就他(follow his wishes) and 就你(As you wish!), I guess 就 means 迁就(accommodate oneself to, yield to, give in to) here. But 迁就 is a word as a whole and can't be abbreviated to 就. I can't find any example using 就他 as &quot;follow his wishes&quot; or 就你 as &quot;as you wish&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 迁就: This word means accommodate oneself to, yield to, give in to. 迁 means move, 就 means approach (Item 1). A迁就B literally means &quot;A moves himself to approach B (at B's convenience)&quot;, and extends to mean  &quot;A accommodate himself to B&quot; / &quot;A yields to B&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 就 in 繁纓七就:&#xA;繁纓七就 comes from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Rites&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Book of Rites(Simplified Chinese: 礼记. Traditional Chinese: 禮記)&lt;/a&gt;, a collection of Chinese classic texts dating back to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhou dynasty&lt;/a&gt; (1050–771 BC) in China. So obviously this meaning is an ancient one, and no longer used today, or it will be listed in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 就就：I didn't find any other exmaple of 就就 meaning &quot;intact,whole&quot; outside of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;www.zdic.net&lt;/a&gt;, and zdic.net doesn't give any reference for this usage. Maybe it's from a certain dialect. I can find an exmaple of 就就 from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCshi_Chunqiu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lüshi Chunqiu(吕氏春秋)&lt;/a&gt;, 《吕氏春秋•下贤》：“确乎其节之不庳也，就就乎其不肯自是，鹄乎其羞用智虑也，假乎其轻俗诽誉也。” But here 就就 means &quot;a look of hesitation&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T13:18:15.777" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19423" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19435" CreationDate="2016-07-06T00:33:14.427" Score="0" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a restaurant I asked for dry fried green beans (干煸豆角) with no salt.  The woman was very kind and asked if hot peppers are okay (yes) and when she told the cook I heard her say don’t add salt.  When they came though they had very much salt.  Delicious but I should not eat that.  She said they had not added salt, which was true in a way.  But of course the cook had made up the peppers-and-meat seasoning at the start of the day.  It had a lot of salt in it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I fear I did not explain the problem very well to her, because that past-perfect construction was beyond me.  How can I say “there was already a lot of salt in the meat”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The people were so kind I want to go back.  But I have to be able to explain this to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Henry HO and user6065 give good ideas of what I should have said yesterday in the first place.  And I will use those suggestions in the future at other restaurants. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when it happened, the woman was very concerned to say &quot;He did not add any salt.&quot;  And I tried to agree &quot;Yes, I know he did not add any.  The meat was already salty.&quot;  She really wanted to help me and I wanted to explain that I appreciated that even though the result was too salty for me to eat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can easily say I know he did not add any.  The second part is harder for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-07-06T03:23:44.333" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T13:24:32.543" Title="How can I say “there was already a lot of salt in the meat”?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3120" CreationDate="2016-07-06T01:09:16.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It also depends on whether English is your native language (I am assuming here it is for you). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is not, I would not recommend learning pinyin simultaneously as sometimes it just confuses you as to the sounds of the word. For example: while you continue to pronounce Q as queen in English, in Pinyin, you need to keep reminding yourself that &quot;Q&quot; is pronounced as &quot;Ch&quot; (Eg: &lt;strong&gt;Qing&lt;/strong&gt; is pronounced as &lt;em&gt;King&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my friends' native language is Hindi and he preferred writing the pronunciations in hindi, as hindi has characters for all those variations of the &quot;chh&quot; sound that cannot be distinctly expressed in English in daily language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if English &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; your native language, you will have to do a lot of &lt;em&gt;unlearning&lt;/em&gt; when you learn Pinyin. For example: Zh is pronounced differently (Eg: &lt;strong&gt;Zhong&lt;/strong&gt; 中 is pronounced not as z-h-ong but rather &quot;&lt;em&gt;chong&lt;/em&gt;&quot;). &lt;strong&gt;Ri&lt;/strong&gt; 日 is not pronounced as &quot;I-R&quot; but rather as &quot;R-I' keeping the tip of the tongue behind a palate producing a sound that is not usually used in English (Eg: &lt;strong&gt;Rizhao&lt;/strong&gt; is rounounced as &lt;em&gt;&quot;Ir-zhao&quot;&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal experience has been that it is more instinctive to listen and imitate rather than go the Pinyin route. This needs a lot of practice (hence just keep saying the same words till you get it right). Keep Pinyin as your fall back reminder of what to say - as a trigger and not as the main mode of learning pronunciation. But others may have a different take based on their experiences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, I am assumming that you have native Chinese speakers around you who you can practice this with regularly. If not, you still can do so by listening to the sounds of the language through you tube or internet sites. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for how Chinese students learn, what has been mentioned earlier is true, but do remember that (a) they hence face a similar problem later when they start to speak in English (they pronounce words differently initially) (b) They are not learning &lt;em&gt;purely&lt;/em&gt; through Pinyin &lt;em&gt;alone&lt;/em&gt; -  they learn Pinyin and Chinese along with the teacher simultaneously pronouncing these words (and hence start to associate Pinyin with certain sounds made by their teacher).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do remember - While Pinyin was the only mode of learning to speak Chinese 20 years ago (cassettes and walkmen were not as easily available and portable as mp3), today it is not so. Mp3 availability makes learning and learning a practical easy possibility. For example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yoyochinese.com/learn-Chinese/conversational-chinese/Lesson-9-I-can-speak-English-and-little-Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this lesson&lt;/a&gt; makes it easier for you to say &quot;I can speak a little Chinese&quot; than &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lingworld.com/speak-in-chinese.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; lesson&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13808" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T01:09:16.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19423" CreationDate="2016-07-06T02:17:02.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you want to say &quot;The bean is okay but the meat is salty&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about &quot;豆很棒, 肉太咸&quot; / &quot;豆很棒, 可是肉有點咸&quot; / &quot;豆很棒, 可是肉的咸味重了點(兒)&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you tell them the difference between the two main ingredients, they will know how to improve the dish for you.  ^__^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:  Also, it is more polite to express your feeling on the dish, than to comment on their preparation process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2016-07-06T03:41:11.603" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T03:41:11.603" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19398" CreationDate="2016-07-06T03:08:17.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think using passive voice is better, ex. &quot;這個郵件地址將會(被)從(郵件)群組中移除嗎&quot;. It implies YOU may be going to delete/remote the address from the group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use &quot;這個郵件組會刪除這個電郵地址嗎&quot;, it means the GROUP is going to delete/remove the mail address actively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T03:08:17.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19427" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19432" CreationDate="2016-07-06T04:19:46.460" Score="0" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wants to know that what are the prerequisites to start Learning Chinese Language. I wants to Lear to write and to speak in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13811" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T07:09:02.010" Title="Would Like to learn Chinese Language" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-07-07T14:34:34.620" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19419" CreationDate="2016-07-06T05:01:28.173" Score="4" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Perspective from Japanese&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The primary meaning for &lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt; in Japanese (which as you may know often tends to keep the Classical Chinese meaning for characters) is to &quot;&lt;strong&gt;stick to&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;arrive at&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;become (something)&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; and is related to a word that is written with 「&lt;strong&gt;従&lt;/strong&gt;」（从） meaning &quot;&lt;strong&gt;follow&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;obey&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From that perspective I think your theory holds up well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say that these meanings could be reduced to two basic underlying concepts which are related:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;following&lt;/strong&gt; ⇒ 从（従）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;arriving at a destination&lt;/strong&gt; ⇒ 近・到・着・完成・完全・完了（只有 &amp;amp; 仅仅 by extension）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use some of your examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就你 - &lt;em&gt;follow&lt;/em&gt; your wishes. (As you wish!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就學 - &lt;em&gt;arrive at&lt;/em&gt; (a place of) education. (Go to school)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就伴 - &lt;em&gt;follow&lt;/em&gt; (the way of a) companion. (Act as a companion).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就范 - &lt;em&gt;follow&lt;/em&gt; a mold (To yield, to give in).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就木 - &lt;em&gt;arrive at&lt;/em&gt; a wooden casket (or a tree 【&lt;em&gt;scary&lt;/em&gt;-version】) (to die).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Usage of phrases like「就他」&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic meaning of these kinds of phrases in context could be:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「就是他」「就是他的」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「仅仅他」「只有他」  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These meanings can be viewed as being derived from the concept of &quot;arriving&quot; in the sense of &quot;completion&quot; or &quot;completeness&quot;, as in &quot;only him&quot; or &quot;only his&quot; and &quot;just him&quot; or &quot;just his&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastEditorUserId="13668" LastEditDate="2016-07-06T08:03:04.190" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T08:03:04.190" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19423" CreationDate="2016-07-06T05:16:27.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems more about courtesy than translation. I know you don't want to give her the impression that you are blaming her for something you didn't declared in advance. If you plan to go back to the same restaurant, I suggest you discuss with her beforehand how the dish would be prepared &lt;em&gt;in more details&lt;/em&gt;. You can ask her &quot;Is the meat preserved in salt?(这肉是用盐腌的吗？)&quot;, &quot;Is the hot peppers preserved in salt?(辣椒是用盐腌的吗？)&quot;, &quot;Does the seasoning itself contain salt? (调料里有盐吗？)&quot; and so on. If she answered &quot;yes&quot;, you can say &quot;Oh, I want something less salty. Do you have fresh meat not preserved in salt?&quot;. Dicussing this &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; the dish was cooked is not offensive. You are just telling her your special need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastEditorUserId="6043" LastEditDate="2016-07-06T05:28:39.490" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T05:28:39.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16085" CreationDate="2016-07-06T05:41:11.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes they use /l/.&#xA;People from the Southwest sometimes can not distinguish /n/ and /l/ very well.&#xA;For example,  牛奶 [milk], in standard mandarin it should be [niu2 nai3]; however, people from the southwest usually say [liu12 lai4]; even if when they are trying to speak mandarin, they prounance like [liu2 lai3].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13809" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T05:41:11.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19423" CreationDate="2016-07-06T06:04:25.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肉本身的味道就已經很鹹了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The taste of the meat itself was already very salty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or more politely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可能是肉本身的鹹味對我來說就已經太重了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the taste of the meat itself was too salty for me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or if you want to emphasize it's not her fault&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可能是肉在調味前的鹹味就已經很重了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the taste of the meat was already very salty before seasoning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13567" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T06:04:25.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19427" CreationDate="2016-07-06T10:20:59.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the long term of view, studying PinYin is a good start. It helps you pronounce correctly every thing you learn later, which I think is the key to make people understand you :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13812" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T10:20:59.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19333" CreationDate="2016-07-06T17:37:35.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a kind of roof ornament. I can't tell what exactly it is from your photo, but most of them are &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E5%90%BB%E5%85%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;吻兽&lt;/a&gt;. It is a common roof ornament in ancient Chinese architectural. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13816" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T17:37:35.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19423" CreationDate="2016-07-06T18:04:45.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我知道你们没有放盐，但是可能因为肉是腌过的，所以对我来说还是太咸了。这不是你们的错，我仍然非常感谢你们对我的照顾（帮助）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This translates into:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I know you did not add salt, but, possibly because the meat was pickled, it was still too salty for me. This is not your fault. I still thank you very much for the care you have shown me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, this is a polite and considerate way of addressing the issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13816" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2016-08-07T20:30:53.103" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T20:30:53.103" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19436" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-06T19:43:53.643" Score="1" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this on a shirt and cannot find out what it means. My findings are that it is bopomofo/zhuyin phonetic for &quot;Wai1&quot;. The only translations I found were &quot;lop-sided&quot; which doesn't seem to make any sense, and &quot;awesome power&quot; which seems to make more sense for a shirt but this is a Cantonese translation and apparently bopomofo is not commonly used for Cantonese. Anyone know?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how it appears on the shirt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ㄨ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ㄞ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastEditorUserId="13817" LastEditDate="2016-07-06T22:54:00.520" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T01:53:02.667" Title="What does this translate to? ㄨㄞ" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19436" CreationDate="2016-07-07T00:11:48.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is Mandarin phonetic symbols commonly used in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lib.ctcn.edu.tw/chtdict/zhuyin_2.aspx?ZhuYin=%E3%84%A8%E3%84%9E&amp;amp;TopZhuYin=%E3%84%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lib.ctcn.edu.tw/chtdict/zhuyin_2.aspx?ZhuYin=%E3%84%A8%E3%84%9E&amp;amp;TopZhuYin=%E3%84%A8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Phonetic_Symbols_II#Finals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Phonetic_Symbols_II#Finals&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When printed on tee-shirt in this way, I think it means something naughty, happy and enjoyable.  See &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wiktionary.org/zh-hant/%E7%88%BD%E6%AD%AA%E6%AD%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wiktionary.org/zh-hant/%E7%88%BD%E6%AD%AA%E6%AD%AA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T00:11:48.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19436" CreationDate="2016-07-07T01:53:02.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it means &quot;WHY?&quot;, as a joke. Maybe...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ㄨㄞ&lt;/strong&gt; not, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T01:53:02.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19439" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19441" CreationDate="2016-07-07T02:04:13.157" Score="2" ViewCount="532" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm told that 緊 serves the general purpose of '-ing' (according to HK native speaker, who also uses '梗' to represent this idea in text).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is supported by what I've found online, except with a distinction between continuous (住) and progressive (緊) aspects:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_and_progressive_aspects#Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_and_progressive_aspects#Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same native speaker says there isn't really a difference between continuous and progressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do we use 緊 and 住 to distinguish between continuous and progressive, or is 緊 sufficient to cover all the bases?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13545" LastEditorUserId="13545" LastEditDate="2016-07-07T05:28:25.867" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T12:20:02.187" Title="Spoken Cantonese | using '緊', and difference between continuous and progressive aspects" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19439" CreationDate="2016-07-07T03:18:31.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Progressive and continuous in Cantonese are different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我著緊衫。-&gt; I am wearing cloth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have not yet worn your clothes, and you try to do so, this is progressive, so you use 緊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我著住(件)衫。-&gt; I am wearing cloth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have already worn your clothes, but you still want to wear it(keeping the status), this is continuous, so you use 住。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我食緊花生&quot; v.s. &quot;我食住花生睇戲&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;我食住花生睇戲&quot;, eating could be treated as progressive, because the amount of food you have is changing, and not continuous because it does not involve a status change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you also express the word &quot;while&quot;, and this is an exception which 住 is used instead. So you can have &quot;我食住花生睇戲&quot;, but never &quot;我食住花生&quot;. Some native speakers may use &quot;我食緊花生睇戲&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So conclusion: 緊 for progressive, 住 for continuous OR (progressive + &quot;while&quot; meaning)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example when 住 is not used:&#xA;去(go), 嚟(come)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is definitely progressive, since there are changes on the action during the progress(location change). People seldom use this to have &quot;while&quot; actions, so the conclusion, 住 is seldom used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can have 唔去住, 唔嚟住, because there will not be changes if you &lt;strong&gt;DON'T&lt;/strong&gt; go or &lt;strong&gt;DON'T&lt;/strong&gt; come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example when 緊 cannot be used:&#xA;死(die)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One cannot be dying as one could either be dead or alive, there is no progressing status between. So you cannot have &quot;progress&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you will still see the word 死緊，as in 我死緊份報告出嚟(a very rude expression). That is because here 死 here does not mean &quot;die&quot;, but meaning &quot;working one's best (with negative feelings) to do&quot;, and this meaning could exist as progressive form. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have mentioned 梗 in your post. But actually this means &quot;surely&quot;, and is put after verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why you will see smth like 死梗，but the meaning will be &quot;We are (surely) dead!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2016-07-20T05:06:57.287" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T05:06:57.287" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19439" CreationDate="2016-07-07T04:48:27.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, &quot;我著住衫&quot; is odd, un-natural. The nearest is &quot;我著住件衫&quot;, which is, well, I have difficulties to grasp the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 緊 / 梗: let's say, my friend asks me over the phone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ｑ﹒做緊乜　what are you doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ａ﹒食緊飯　I'm eating rice --&gt; I'm eating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ａ﹒打緊牌　I'm playing mahjong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ａ﹒行緊街　I'm wandering in the street.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these examples, actions are in progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess, no proof: after years of British influence, we adopted some grammar rules, where we use 緊 to simulate &quot;-ing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, sometimes it's tricky. Let's say I accidentally delete all Excel files on my computer, my colleague would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呢獲野﹒你死梗啦　~ you're making really big trouble this time (or, ask someone else for a proper, precise translation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 住, let's say I'm late for dinner, my friend calls me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ｑ﹒響邊?　Where are you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ａ﹒就到. 食住等啦　I'll arrive soon, eat while you're waiting [for me].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would you describe it, progress or state?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another one: 袋住先&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;To pocket it first&quot;, or &quot;to adopt it first&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think that 住 is widely used in colloquial Cantonese. Of course, I may be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-10-22T12:20:02.187" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T12:20:02.187" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19397" CreationDate="2016-07-07T07:01:33.933" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no specific rules about how they became simplified Chinese, there is a group of expert did that a few decades ago, the goal is to make it easier to write, and don't lose it's original shape a lot. There is actually even a easier version than the current simplified Chinese, but it lost the spirit of Chinese character, so they were abandoned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13822" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T07:01:33.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19427" CreationDate="2016-07-07T07:09:02.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, set a specific learning goal. For example, you want to learn &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/chinese-language-course/oral-chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;daily Chinese&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/chinese-language-course/business-chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Business Chinese&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, choose the correct &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/top-websites-learn-chinese-online-for-free&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;learning materials&lt;/a&gt; according to your learning goals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thirdly, you need to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/learn-chinese-pinyin-pronunciation/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;learn some Chinese pinyin&lt;/a&gt; first, because pinyin is the basic of learning Chinese. Once you master Chinese pinyin, you can learn how to speak Chinese easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13141" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T07:09:02.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19325" CreationDate="2016-07-07T07:11:50.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;All usages in the examples are grammatically correct. Basically if you construct your sentence in compliance with the &lt;pre&gt;&quot;[Subject e.g.我你他] 把 [Object e.g. 笔/书] [predicate e.g. 给妹妹/放那里]&quot;&lt;/pre&gt; pattern I don't see how you could be convicted grammatically wrong.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However from an idiomatic perspective #4 is very awkward, too grammatically influenced by Western languages and wont be heard ever from a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I assume present continuous tense is used in #4 to connote an intent/desire that should translate to &quot;I will give away this pen shortly&quot;? In that case the correct expression should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我(要/会/准备)把这支笔给我的妹妹 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as a side note, in colloquial context we tend to omit the subject and even the 把 itself. The following examples would be preferred by native speakers in every day/non-emergency situations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;那支笔给我妹妹了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;笔放桌上了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;桌挪到角落去了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually the 把 construction is intended to stress the intent/importance and in many cases even the urgency of the predicate, with an extra amount of emphasis on the significance of achieving the outcome of the predicate. Consider the following examples where their context/situation perfectly warrants the use of 把:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（快）把警察叫来！ - Call the police over (immediately)!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;把枪扔了！ - Drop your gun/weapon!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（赶紧）把火灭了！ - Put out that fire! (Hurry!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13821" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T07:11:50.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19325" CreationDate="2016-07-07T09:41:33.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;normally all is correct(unless you require strict grammar), but meaning is different for No.4 &quot;我在把這隻筆給我妹妹&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for native speaker, they will think you are in the middle of giving this pen to my sister&quot; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13823" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T09:41:33.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19446" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19459" CreationDate="2016-07-07T15:45:49.757" Score="3" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently started seeing this odd rendering of the 门 character, may be it's only in the font that my browser defaults to. Here's an image (2nd character in the title):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I0DbQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I0DbQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know if this glyph is a valid variant or some modern &quot;invention&quot; of a font designer? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2016-07-08T04:40:56.533" Title="Is there any printed or handwritten precursor to this 门 (door, gate) glyph?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19399" CreationDate="2016-07-07T15:55:46.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;EDIT1&lt;/em&gt;: p.s. We usually say “独体字” instead of “单一结构”.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;EDIT3&lt;/em&gt;: I found that we learned Chinese not as much as some of you. Yea, we didn't consult any historical documents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a native Chinese speaker (and...maybe my English is not good enough to express my ideas).&#xA;As a middle school student, I hadn't heard of &amp;quot;nested structure&amp;quot;. Yea, never heard of it at all. A long time ago, when I was a little kid, my teacher told me that &amp;quot;中&amp;quot; is single component structure, and its radical is &amp;quot;|&amp;quot;.&#xA;Why? First, its structure is very simple that cannot be divided into independent parts. Then, it cannot be used as a radical of other characters, so its radical isn't itself. So, usually we look for the first stroke (i.e. &amp;quot;|&amp;quot;) for its radical.&#xA;This is what I know. I'm not sure that it may not be 100% accurate, coz our teachers can also make mistakes (she has made LOTS of mistakes in fact).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13825" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T01:12:53.090" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T01:12:53.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19448" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19449" CreationDate="2016-07-07T16:14:44.533" Score="1" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can deal with some easy that/who which clauses. At least I think so. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我提供的幫助&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;根據我所看到的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am totally lost, when it becomes even slightly more complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The man whose bag I found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The businessman for whom I translated the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone translate these? I have a strong feeling all my attempts are totally wrong. Like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;x 我所給他翻譯原文的男人 x&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T16:53:48.023" Title="Complicated that-clauses" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19448" CreationDate="2016-07-07T16:53:48.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You found a very interesting point. I thought about this for a few minutes, and I concluded that there may not be a straight-forward translation for this kind of sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you may have already known, in Chinese the adjective words/phrases/clauses are usually placed before the nouns they modify, therefore, if in your English sentence the relationship between your clause (A) and your antecedent (e.g. the man, B) cannot be translated into A 的 B, the thing becomes tricky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want your translation to express exactly the same meaning, you can do things like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我找到了他的包的（那个）男人 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;我给他翻译了原文的（那个）商人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't sound very elegant but the meaning is still clear to Chinese speaker, I believe. We say this kind of sentences have a strong 翻译腔, because normally (at least long time ago), Chinese people don't construct sentences this way. It sounds like something translated from English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want your translation sounds natural, you will have to rephrase your sentence, depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我找到的包的主人 (The owner of the bag I found. Avoiding &quot;whose&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让我给他翻译原文的商人 (The businessman who let me translate the text for him. Avoiding &quot;whom&quot;.) or 需要我给他翻译原文的商人 (The businessman who needed me to translate the text for him.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't major in Chinese or linguistics, so I just answered from a native speaker perspective. Maybe there are some better way to keep both structural consistency and elegancy - I don't know that though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, if you learn some language, you not only need to speak it, but also need to think in it. If you always think in English first and try to translate your thought into Chinese, you fall into this kind of situations. That's exactly what happened to me, sometimes when I speak English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T16:53:48.023" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19446" CreationDate="2016-07-07T17:00:43.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It might be the written form of this character in some other regions. This is more likely to be a locale problem on your browser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters (a.k.a CJK unified ideographs in Unicode) are not only used in China. In different regions, the same characters can be written in different shapes. Fonts for Chinese character is those regions will reflect these differences. In other words, it is the same word, encoded the same way (in Unicode), but appears to be in different shapes in fonts designed for different regions. It is very likely the one you see is not a valid form accepted in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to fix this, in your browser content locale settings, you need to set Chinese Simplified (China) as a preferred language, and give it higher priority than other languages that also use Chinese characters. &quot;Other languages&quot; include but may not be limited to Japanese (Japan), Chinese Traditional (Hongkong), and Chinese Traditional (Taiwan). Like this in Chrome:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IuaXw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IuaXw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't put Chinese Simplified there, or put some of those &quot;other languages&quot; above Chinese Simplified, you are likely to have such issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T17:00:43.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19451" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19452" CreationDate="2016-07-07T17:37:37.217" Score="0" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the phrase '住在上海旁边的一个小村子里’... I cannot understand the use of 的 in this phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help is greatly appreciated :) If you have the time to fully break down the sentence that would also be helpful :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13826" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T18:37:50.577" Title="Confused with the use of 的 with respect to '住在上海旁边的一个小村子里’" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19451" CreationDate="2016-07-07T17:51:55.600" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;住(live)在(in)上海(Shanghai)旁边(beside)的(indicates attributive)一个(a)小(small)村子(village)里(used together with 在 to mean in)&quot; can be translated as 'live in a small villiage beside Shanghai.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 is used between an attribute and the head noun it modifies. That is, an attribute must be followed immediately by a 的 in order to modify a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question lies in the different word orders between English and Chinese.&#xA;In English, the word indicating the location of A is usually placed after A, together with a preposition such as in/at/beside and so on. While in Chinese, the word indicating the location of A is usually placed in the attributive position (before A), followed immediately by a 的. So &quot;a church in Washington&quot; is translated as &quot;在(in) 华盛顿(Washington)  的  一所(a)  教堂(church)&quot; or just &quot;华盛顿的一所教堂&quot;, &quot;a church beside Washington&quot; is translated as &quot;华盛顿(Washington) 旁边(beside) 的 一所(a) 教堂(church)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;住在上海旁边的一个小村子里&quot;, 住 means live, &quot;在...里&quot; means in, &quot;上海(Shanghai) 旁边(beside) 的 一个(a) 小(small) 村子(village)&quot; means &quot;a small village beside Shanghai&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上海旁边(beside Shanghai) as a whole is used as attribute to modify 一个小村子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastEditorUserId="6043" LastEditDate="2016-07-07T20:44:22.457" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T20:44:22.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19266" CreationDate="2016-07-07T18:27:08.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've found an article but can't translate it to human language. &lt;strong&gt;Please, help to translate since it's 文言文 and I don't know it!&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Here should be some good info about etymology evolution of 施.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jXI7K.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jXI7K.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T18:27:08.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19454" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19455" CreationDate="2016-07-07T19:41:09.130" Score="5" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know how to directly translate a sentence like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I [verb] [x] more than [y]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would usually translate it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[x] 比 [y] 更 [some adjective that captures the same meaning as the verb]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;I love you more than my phone&quot; would become &quot;你比我的手机更亲爱&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a more direct translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13003" LastActivityDate="2016-07-08T05:49:47.517" Title="A more direct translation for &quot;I [verb] [x] more than [y]&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19454" CreationDate="2016-07-07T19:50:39.610" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a very direct translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &quot;more than&quot; means higher degree/level of the [verb], then &lt;code&gt;I [verb] [x] more than [y]&lt;/code&gt; can be translated to &lt;code&gt;我 [verb] [x] 甚于 [verb] [y]&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I [verb] [x] more than [y]. 我 [verb] [x] 甚于 [verb] [y].&#xA;I love you more than my phone. 我 爱 你 甚于 爱 我的手机.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甚于 means &quot;surpass, exceed&quot;, indicating the degree/level of the [verb].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &quot;more than&quot; means a larger number/amount, then 甚于 should be replaced with 多于.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I play basketball more than football. 我 玩(打) 篮球 多于 玩(踢) 足球.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may notice that the verb appeared twice in the Chinese translation. The second verb is there to avoid ambiguity. There is no case(grammar) in Chinese. A pronoun is always in the same form whether it's accusative case or nominative case. If you say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我爱你甚于他&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then I don't know whether you mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I love you more than he does. 我比他更爱你&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I love you more than him. 我爱你甚于爱他.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are sure no ambiguity will be introduced, then you can leave out the second verb. As in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我爱你甚于我的手机.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is only one reasonable interpretation, that is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I love you more than my phone.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No one will interpret it as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I love you more than my phone does. 我比我的手机更爱你.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, the second verb can, but doesn't have to, be left out. It's always OK to specify the second verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastEditorUserId="6043" LastEditDate="2016-07-08T05:49:47.517" LastActivityDate="2016-07-08T05:49:47.517" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19446" CreationDate="2016-07-08T01:39:10.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it ought to be 门(U+95e8), the simplified of 門, somehow your browser used a japanese font for font substitution. if you manually change the display font, it should change back to 门.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i think that it's not a case of variant character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BgYRd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BgYRd.png&quot; alt=&quot;p1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-07-08T01:39:10.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19446" CreationDate="2016-07-08T02:10:14.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a common 略字 (abbreviated character) used in Japan mostly for handwriting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastEditorUserId="13668" LastEditDate="2016-07-08T02:30:17.723" LastActivityDate="2016-07-08T02:30:17.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19446" CreationDate="2016-07-08T04:40:56.533" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is such handwriting in calligraphy works of Tang Yin (唐寅, also well known as 唐伯虎, Tang Bohu, 1470-1524, Ming Dynasty). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found some pictures of his writing, 《落花诗册》.  I marked the related characters with a mark to the right. The genuine writing is now in Suzhou Museum, Jiangsu Province. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iS5SZ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iS5SZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;門&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KQ2b8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KQ2b8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;開&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wgxJy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wgxJy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;開 and 闌&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xR7q4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xR7q4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;悶&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-07-08T04:40:56.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19461" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-08T11:21:09.490" Score="4" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen &quot;the least expensive&quot; translated as 最便宜的. Does this inversion always have to happen, or is there a way to say &quot;least&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-14T16:47:00.497" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T16:47:00.497" Title="How do I say &quot;least&quot; in the superlative sense in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19461" CreationDate="2016-07-08T17:34:11.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As suggested by some comments, it depends on the context, and what you would like to stress with this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without any context, it sounds exactly the same with &quot;the cheapest&quot;. In this way, 不贵 is 便宜, 最便宜的 is the translation.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you are trying to say all these things are expensive, but this one is the least expensive one among them, then 最不贵的 is better. However, when you use this phrase, your audience should either have the knowledge that all these things are expensive, or you should explicitly stress mention that. Otherwise, it doesn't sound natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-07-08T17:34:11.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19466" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-09T02:26:41.690" Score="2" ViewCount="792" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroflex_consonant?oldformat=true&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article on retroflex consonant&lt;/a&gt;, but isn't this wrong? I assume that Mandarin zh, ch, sh, and r sound should be pronounced with your tongue curled up, rather than &quot;flat?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Laminal post-alveolar, with a flat tongue. These occur, for example,&#xA;  in Polish cz, sz, ż (rz), dż and Mandarin zh, ch, sh, r.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13840" LastActivityDate="2016-08-21T14:00:46.837" Title="zh sound with a flat tongue?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19477" CreationDate="2016-07-09T07:01:55.840" Score="2" ViewCount="792" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something that interests me from a linguistic/neurological point of view: Do Chinese native speakers actually thinkg about the parts of compound words that have a completely different meaning from just the sum of the compounds when using them? Like 东西 (&quot;East-West&quot;), or 西红柿 (&quot;Western red persimmon&quot;)? Or are they just like standalone words on their own?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13168" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T11:25:12.143" Title="Do native speakers think about compound words as &quot;东西&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19468" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19472" CreationDate="2016-07-09T10:58:34.443" Score="26" ViewCount="5796" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese Wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BF%84%E7%BD%97%E6%96%AF&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; describes the name of Russia, and many of its historical Chinese exonyms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;按照俄语发音“Россия”，其名称应翻译为“羅西亚”。元朝时根据蒙古语译为「斡羅思」[b]，到清朝初年许多文献中曾称为「羅剎」[c]，但在以国家相称时则多译为「鄂羅斯」[d]或「俄羅斯」。清乾隆年间官修《四库全书》时将其正式统一为“俄羅斯”或简称“俄国”，自此沿用至今。[12] 日本漢字與朝鮮漢字則將俄羅斯稱為「露西亞」（日语：ロシア roshia */?，韓語：노서아 noseoa */?[e]），此譯名較為接近俄語原始發音。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, while the &quot;罗斯&quot; part corresponds to the &quot;Rus&quot; part of the name, the &quot;俄&quot; part seems to have no corresponding phoneme, either in Russian or any of the other language I have looked up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8054" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-07-09T13:06:47.857" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T09:33:25.783" Title="Why is Russia translated to 俄罗斯(E Luo Si)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19468" CreationDate="2016-07-09T11:29:16.293" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;After some searching, it seems that the name comes from the Mongolic/Tungusic language family group, of which Manchu is a member. This explains why the Qianlong Emperor decreed that the country be called by its Manchurian exonym. However, the reasons behind the appending of the &quot;o&quot; phoneme are unclear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;Oros&quot; name is reflected in the languages of many other languages in the family which have a more extant distribution than Manchu, which is almost extinct. For example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://mn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%8B%D0%BD_%D0%A5%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%8B_%D0%A3%D0%BB%D1%81&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mongolian&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://bxr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE_%D1%83%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%81&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Buryatian&lt;/a&gt;  render it as Орос (Oros). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTotal-SAGA201301012.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This paper&lt;/a&gt; from the (unfortunately paywalled) &lt;em&gt;Northwestern Journal of Ethnology&lt;/em&gt; seems to suggest that the term comes from the Mongolian/Manchurian language family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The word&quot;oros&quot;, derived from Mongolian language, had been recorded in official historic materials from early times that it was used to refer to a sovereign State in Manchu language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8054" LastActivityDate="2016-07-09T11:29:16.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19468" CreationDate="2016-07-09T11:29:56.447" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;斡羅思&lt;/code&gt; is most probably the origin, which is from the Mongolian word &lt;em&gt;Oros&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《新元史·列传·外国九》：“斡罗思，其族曰司拉弗哀。唐末，司拉弗哀人柳利哥兄弟三人皆有智勇，侵陵他族，为众部之长，其所居之地曰遏而罗斯，遂以此为部落之名。遏而罗斯急读为斡罗斯，亦译为兀鲁斯，又曰厄罗斯。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some believe &lt;em&gt;Oros&lt;/em&gt; is the exclamation &lt;em&gt;O&lt;/em&gt; + &lt;em&gt;Ros&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-07-09T11:29:56.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19468" CreationDate="2016-07-09T11:35:40.963" Score="13" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“俄罗斯”不是从英文或俄文来的。可能是从蒙古文Oros来的。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在中国元明朝时称俄罗斯族为“罗斯”或“罗刹国”.当时蒙古族人用蒙语拼读俄文“ROCIA”时,在“R”前面加一个元音.因此,“ROCIA”就成了“OROCCIA”.满清政府时,蒙语的“OROCCIA”转译成汉语时,就成了“俄罗斯”.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The name of &quot;Éluósī&quot; does not come from English or Russian. It may come from&#xA;Mongolian Oros.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;During the Chinese Yuan and Ming dynasties the Russian ethnic group was called &quot;Luósī&quot; or &quot;Luóchàguó&quot;. At that time as Mongol people read Russian &quot;ROCIA&quot; phonetically in Mongol, they added a vowel before the &quot;R&quot;. So, &quot;ROCIA&quot; became &quot;OROCCIA&quot;. During the Manchurian Qing government, as Mongol &quot;OROCCIA&quot; was translated into Chinese, it became &quot;Éluósī&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1jrDF.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1jrDF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13721" LastEditorUserId="13721" LastEditDate="2016-07-12T04:39:48.457" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T04:39:48.457" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19468" CreationDate="2016-07-09T12:16:58.363" Score="36" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the &quot;俄&quot; part seems to have no corresponding phoneme, either in Russian or any of the other language I have looked up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes it's peculiar in Chinese. It's related to the Mongolian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.doc88.com/p-686404834684.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭文深.俄罗斯国家名称变迁考——从“罗刹”到“俄罗斯”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summarize it in short:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Yuan Dynasty, the Mongolian translated &lt;code&gt;罗斯&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;oros&lt;/code&gt; (but not &lt;code&gt;ros&lt;/code&gt;) followed by the Mongolian pronunciation habit, and then translated into Chinese character as &lt;code&gt;斡罗斯&lt;/code&gt;. In Mongolian, there's no words started from &lt;code&gt;[r]&lt;/code&gt;, such words are usually borrowed words. Then for these words, in order to make it conform to Mongolian pronunciation rules and incarnate Mongolian vowel harmony, the strong vowel of the first syllable will be brought forward. Then &lt;code&gt;罗斯&quot;ros&quot;&lt;/code&gt; became &lt;code&gt;oros&lt;/code&gt;, then &lt;code&gt;斡罗斯&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Qing dynasty, the Manchu didn't have direct contact with the Russian, they used the translation (especially the transliteration) of the Mongolian which is the intermediary between them. For Chinese characters they used &lt;code&gt;鄂罗斯&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;俄罗斯&lt;/code&gt;, until the Emperor QianLong unified them into &lt;code&gt;俄罗斯&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T05:32:58.543" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T05:32:58.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19419" CreationDate="2016-07-09T16:25:03.130" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;From a letter of &lt;strong&gt;John Renfroe&lt;/strong&gt;,&#xA;CEO and Co-founder, Outlier Inc.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't looked into this character very much, but on a quick search (meaning I read the entry in 說文新證), here's what I've got.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ancient form in your post on stack exchange is 亯 over 京. That's how it was written from the Shang dynasty through the Warring States period. In Qin, it was written 京+尤 or 京+又 (examples of both exist). The reason they wrote it differently is unclear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Shang version depicted a tall building. The character meant &quot;to reach high,&quot; from which &quot;to reach/arrive,&quot; &quot;to accomplish,&quot; etc. were derived.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd guess (keep in mind this whole paragraph is a guess, not based on research—I haven't looked into it enough yet) that in 就學 or 就職, the meaning is &quot;to undertake&quot; as an extension of arriving (at school or work). Not sure about the grammatical uses but &quot;at once&quot; isn't too much of a stretch from &quot;to arrive&quot; (consider 馬上 &quot;immediately&quot;, but literally &quot;on a horse&quot; as a metaphor for &quot;happening/arriving quickly&quot;), and &quot;already/as early as&quot; isn't much of a stretch from &quot;at once&quot;. I'd have to look into it a lot more to be sure of how the meanings are related, but it looks like you and other posters have made a good start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've attached the relevant entry from 季旭昇《說文新證》 to this email. It isn't very high-res, unfortunately, but it should be legible. Note this is an old edition—I don't have the most recent edition with me right now—so his position on this character may have changed since then. At any rate, it's a good starting point for this kind of research and may interest you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that I'm not claiming he's right—I'd have to do a much more exhaustive search to verify. That said, 季旭昇 does excellent work and is generally very reliable, so it's a good source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7qr1E.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7qr1E.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2016-07-09T16:25:03.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19467" CreationDate="2016-07-09T17:25:15.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese native speaker, and I personally view words like &quot;东西&quot; as an entity, rather than &quot;东&quot;+&quot;西&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my point of view, all Chinese native speakers would simply judge such words as standalone words. In fact, all characters are meaningless until they are grouped to words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, I suppose, say, English native speakers won't identify &quot;nevertheless&quot; as &quot;never&quot;+&quot;the&quot;+&quot;less&quot;, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13844" LastActivityDate="2016-07-09T17:25:15.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19467" CreationDate="2016-07-09T18:58:18.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I beg to differ. Regardless of language, speakers sometimes reflect on the composition of words and their etymology. This is probably more true in languages that strive to keep their uniqueness, like Chinese and Icelandic, rather than languages that are littered with loan words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese speakers are able to see the logic behind words like 危机, but do not understand imports such as 经济 or 沙发 in terms of components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-07-09T18:58:18.363" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19466" CreationDate="2016-07-09T20:07:27.890" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the answer to your question depends on how one should interpret the phrase &lt;em&gt;flat tongue&lt;/em&gt;. So, let's try to read the crucial parts of the article, bearing in mind that &lt;b&gt;our brain tends to save energy&lt;/b&gt; even when we talk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, as the article says, there are &lt;b&gt;different kinds&lt;/b&gt; of &lt;em&gt;retroflex&lt;/em&gt; consonants:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Latin-derived word retroflex means &lt;em&gt;&quot;bent back&quot;&lt;/em&gt;; some retroflex consonants are &lt;strong&gt;pronounced with the tongue fully curled back&lt;/strong&gt; so that articulation involves the underside of &lt;strong&gt;the tongue tip&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;subapical&lt;/em&gt;). These sounds are sometimes described as &quot;true&quot; retroflex consonants. However, retroflexes are commonly taken to include other consonants having a similar place of articulation without such extreme curling of the tongue; these may be &lt;strong&gt;articulated with the tongue tip&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;apical&lt;/em&gt;) or &lt;strong&gt;the tongue blade&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;laminal&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Retroflex sounds articulated with the tip of the tongue (known as &lt;em&gt;apical&lt;/em&gt;) are basically limited to plosive consonants, such as [ʈ], [ɖ] and [ɳ] or flaps, such as [ɽ] and [ɭ]. To be more specific, Wikipedia calls these sounds &lt;em&gt;apical post-alveolar&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Apical post-alveolar&lt;/em&gt;, with a somewhat &lt;strong&gt;concave tongue&lt;/strong&gt; (the tongue is curled). These occur, for example, in Hindi and other Indo-Aryan languages. (Hindi has no retroflex sibilants, although some of the other Indo-Aryan languages do.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tip is the most agile part of the tongue, so it can easily curl, but if the sound we are trying to make is continuous, then it could get tired pretty soon. Plosive consonants are articulated with a temporary occlusion followed by an immediate release of the air that comes from the lungs. Flaps also have a similar articulation. So, &lt;b&gt;plosives&lt;/b&gt; and &lt;b&gt;flaps&lt;/b&gt; are not difficult to pronounce even with the tongue completely curled. However, articulating a &lt;b&gt;fricative&lt;/b&gt; or an &lt;b&gt;affricate&lt;/b&gt; sound with this configuration of the tongue it's a different story. Fricatives and affricates consonants are continuous sounds, so eventually our tongue will get tired if our language has many of these kind of sounds in its phonetic inventory (Mandarin has four and uses them quite often).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why there is another group of retroflex sounds that have a slightly different articulation. They are pronounced with the blade of the tongue, which is that portion of the tongue just behind the tip. These are called &lt;em&gt;laminal post-alveolar&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Laminal post-alveolar&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;with a flat tongue&lt;/strong&gt;. These occur, for example, in Polish cz, sz, ż (rz), dż and Mandarin zh, ch, sh, r. (in IPA Mandarin zh, ch, sh, r are [ɖ̥ʐ~ʈʂ], [ʈʂʰ], [ʂ], [ʐ] respectively).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that in the article they used the &lt;b&gt;phrase &quot;flat tongue&quot;&lt;/b&gt; to indicate that &lt;b&gt;the consonant is pronounced with the blade&lt;/b&gt; which touches the alveolar ridge resulting flat to some extent. In fact, in this state the tongue itself is not completely curled, it only raises up a bit but the sound produced is still a retroflex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;b&gt;amount of energy&lt;/b&gt; involved in the articulation of &lt;em&gt;laminal consonants&lt;/em&gt; &lt;b&gt;is less&lt;/b&gt; than the amount required for the &lt;em&gt;apical consonants&lt;/em&gt;, because now the tongue is more relaxed. Considering that articulating a fricative or an affricate sound using the tip of the tongue is really expensive in terms of energy, our brain developed the tendency to pronounce these kinds of consonants using the blade of the tongue instead of the tip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not saying that it's anatomically impossible to pronounce a fricative or an affricate sound with the tip but, if you try, you will notice that it's a little challenging and anyway the sound produced will be somehow different from the Mandarin equivalent. In the case of the fricatives [ʂ] and [ʐ] there is the risk that if you put too much force in the articulation with tip, the tongue will stick to the alveolar ridge and because of this obstacle the air will be released laterally resulting in a &lt;em&gt;lateral retloflex&lt;/em&gt; sound, which is not what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this reason, in Chinese (like in all the other natural languages) fricatives (sh, r) and affricates (ch, zh) tend to be pronounced with the &quot;flat tongue&quot;. In conclusion, it's a matter of terminology: &lt;b&gt;&lt;em&gt;retroflex&lt;/em&gt; doesn't necessarily mean that the tongue is curled back&lt;/b&gt;, it means that it is &lt;b&gt;at least raised up&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10944" LastEditorUserId="10944" LastEditDate="2016-08-21T14:00:46.837" LastActivityDate="2016-08-21T14:00:46.837" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19467" CreationDate="2016-07-10T02:29:33.427" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I saw a tomato first in my life time, I was told its name was &lt;em&gt;fanqie&lt;/em&gt;(番茄) by my mom or dad in the dialect. I was not able to recognize or write any character then. All I knew about the tomato was that it was a red, green, or yellow, and delicious vegetable and sounded &lt;em&gt;fan qie&lt;/em&gt;. I thought it was another kind of 茄子(eggplant).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, after I went to school and learned to speak Putonghua and write characters, I got to know that &lt;em&gt;fan qie&lt;/em&gt; is written as 番茄 and it has another name 西红柿. As my teacher explained, 番 refers to &lt;em&gt;foreign&lt;/em&gt;. 番茄 is a kind of eggplant-like thing from a foreign land. The name makes sense. So does 西红柿, &lt;em&gt;western land's red persimmon&lt;/em&gt;. But now when it comes to 西红柿 or 番茄, I don't think about what each character means. It's just a name of an object. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some cases, I may not really care about each character's meaning from the very beginning. For example, 深圳. It's a city of Guangdong province. If 圳 alone is seen, I may not recognize it at all. Seldom can I see it elsewhere. It's always part of 深圳. So I don't know its meaning till now without referring to a dictionary, and I'm sure it won't take long before I totally forget it even if I look it up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is a transliterated word like 咖啡. I didn't figure out what 咖 or 啡 means until I learned the English word &lt;em&gt;coffee&lt;/em&gt;. And all of a sudden, I got to know there are many such words in Chinese, like 坦克(tank), 沙发(sofa). A single character in such word has no specific meaning but just indicates the pronunciation. Of course there are some translated words that concern about both the meaning and pronounciation like 迷你(mini), 可口可乐(Coco Cola), 露华浓(Revlon) and etc, some of which are really beautiful and elegant master pieces of translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A third example is a word like 麒麟, kirin. I thought it was just a creature in myth, and didn't try to find out what 麒 or 麟 means until I watched an anime， &lt;em&gt;the Twelve Kingdoms&lt;/em&gt;, in which there are kirins that can transform to humans. The female kirins are named X麟 and the male X麒, where X is a character that has similar pronounciation with the name of the kingdom the kirin belongs to. After some research I leaned that 麒 refers to a male kirin and 麟 a female kirin. So does 凤凰, phoenix, 凤 as male and 凰 as female. But in the word 龙凤, 凤 represents a girl or woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some characters in my dialect I have been expecting to find out how to write. Some have been clear, but the others have not. There is a dirty character that means the f word. It sounded exactly the same with 十(ten) in the dialect. Since it's a dirty word, I just didn't dare and felt embarrassed to ask my parents or teachers how to write it correctly. My little fellows and I just wrote it as 十. In the circumstances, we all knew it meant the f word. About one year ago, I happened to read someone's post and get to know the right character should be 入(go into, penetrate). A 20-year-old question was finally made clear. However some of the unclear may stay mysterious till my last day. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe every character in a compound word makes sense, indicating either the meaning or the pronounciation or both. Now I always tend to find out what each character means when I see a new word . And I would do the same to the old words, expecting to find some interesting stories. It helps to get a deeper understanding and also bring benefits especially when learning ancient Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastEditorUserId="13558" LastEditDate="2016-07-10T10:36:33.073" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T10:36:33.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19478" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-10T10:51:37.687" Score="0" ViewCount="543" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am translating a text about a man who got divorced and after many days of desperation, he eventually starts accepting his situation and so he totally changes himself and starts a new life and a new way of being. This is described as &quot;the Phoenix process&quot;, a rebirth, and he came to be a &quot;new born&quot; and a new man. How can I say all those things in few Chinese words? I thought about 重生 but I am not sure about its use. I was also wondering if there is a chengyu that can better explain it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13553" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T04:25:14.943" Title="Chinese for &quot;rebirth&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19467" CreationDate="2016-07-10T11:25:12.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I learn the words directly and don't try to think about how it came about the first time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Character scope&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start viewing it from the &lt;em&gt;character&lt;/em&gt; scope rather than the &lt;em&gt;word&lt;/em&gt; scope. Children usually learn some complicated character, e.g. 聽 (&quot;listen&quot;, 听 in traditional Chinese), by decomposing them into reasonable or unreasonable fragments of the character, e.g. &lt;code&gt;耳王十四一心&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. easy-to-read mnemonics to help memorizing. But that's only for writing the words. A native writer would be too familiar with it and doesn't even look at these parts. This is like learning the word &quot;breakfast&quot; in English -- some people learn it by remembering &quot;break fast&quot;, but you don't think about it anymore if you are familiar with that word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you stare at the characters for a long time, they may decompose into fragments in your eyes and you would doubt if you wrote the word wrongly. For example, the character 的 (preposition for possessive relationship, or less used as the center of an archery target) combines 白 (write) and 勺 (spoon), which does not have apparent relationship with the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is similar to the case you mentioned, except that this is within the same character, while you are talking about compound words, which have a more apparent spacing between two words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Word scope&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東西 is a very common word, so a mature native speaker almost never remembers that it means &quot;East West&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is like the phrase &quot;touch wood&quot; in English. I don't know about the etymology of this phrase, but I'm sure that many people say it without being aware of the material &quot;wood&quot;, but merely as an unconscious saying (especially when what they're about to say after &quot;touch wood&quot; usually makes people uncomfortable). I think this is comparable to how it is used in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The special feature in modern Chinese is that most content words are in duplets. I think this phenomenon is like how children say &quot;Mommy&quot; rather than &quot;Mom&quot; -- as if one extra syllable (yes, one character in Chinese &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; be considered as one syllable rather than one word) makes the word more meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, when reading long sentences, just like we (at least I do) format an English sentence into subject+verb+object structure in English, one would first group characters into words, and then word phrases, and then parts of speech, and then the whole picture of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A fact to note is that while every Chinese character has its own meaning, in compound words, closely related with the meaning of the characters (such as 跑 &quot;run&quot; 步 &quot;steps&quot; as in 跑步 &quot;run&quot;), or not (such as 東 &quot;east&quot; 西 &quot;west&quot; as in 東西 &quot;thing&quot;),  few people would notice the individual meanings. So when grouping characters, 跑步 should be thought as one word rather than a verb+object phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there are also instances where sometimes words are thought as one or two words, especially when it comes to modern technology stuff. The word 伺服器 (server) is made up of 伺服 (serve) and 器 (machine). I'm not talking about 伺服, where both characters are related to the meaning of &quot;serve&quot;. &quot;Server&quot; obviously has a distinctive meaning than &quot;serving machine&quot; (sounds like an auto teller machine or a waiter robot). Therefore, people who know what a server is would view all three characters as one word, but people who don't know what a server is would understand it as a &quot;serving machine&quot;, so it becomes two words. This is just like people who don't know what a smartphone is know that it is a phone that is smart, and people who know what a smartphone is have a totally different approach to understand this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Classical Chinese scope&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a little off-topic, but this is also partially related to your question, depending on whether your definition of &quot;native speakers&quot; also includes ancient people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classical Chinese, texts are much more simplified due to scarcity of resources in ancient China and time-consuming of copying, especially before paper and movable characters printing technology were invented. Therefore, often, one character stands for its independent meaning, unlike how it is in modern Chinese. For example, 妻 (wife) 子 (son) means &quot;wife and children&quot; in classical Chinese, but 子 is used only as a suffix like the &lt;code&gt;my&lt;/code&gt; as in &lt;code&gt;mommy&lt;/code&gt;, so only 妻 is meaningful in modern Chinese, so 妻子 is one word standing for &quot;wife&quot; in modern Chinese. However, there are many instances of 妻子 standing for &quot;wife and children&quot; in ancient texts (and thus one of the reasons why classical Chinese might be more difficult to read for native speakers).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13848" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T11:25:12.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19478" CreationDate="2016-07-10T11:37:13.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we even have a six-word phrase &quot;鳳凰 (phoenix) 浴火 (bath in fire) 重生 (to reborn)&quot;, to refer to the mythology about phoenixes' reborn. &quot;重生&quot; means reborn, where 重 means &quot;again&quot; and 生 means &quot;birth&quot;, so it can be used as a phrasal verb or a noun. 浴火重生 is also used frequently enough to be considered as something like an idiom/chengyu (although it doesn't have the long history like a chengyu). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you are translating, I recommend that you keep the original reference to the phoenix process. However, for future readers, if you are looking for another idiom that has a similar meaning, there is an old poem by 陸游, which can be used in a similar context: &quot;山窮水盡疑無路，柳暗花明又一村&quot;, although it only implies the meaning of getting hope in the most (mentally) hopeless condition, but not literally (physically) the meaning of death/actual defeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13848" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T11:37:13.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19419" CreationDate="2016-07-10T11:53:21.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;三窟已就&quot; means &quot;all three holes have been completed&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It comes from the etymology of &quot;狡兔三窟&quot;, originated from 戰國策.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rabbit has three/several (according to the origin, it is indeed three) holes to live in, so if one is destroyed/occupied, it can still live in others. This is a metaphor when an adviser advises his master not to be overdependent on his current source of power (or to get satisfied with the current stability without preparation in case something wrong happened) (his current source of power is the position of a powerful official)f, that he should have three reliable sources of power (eventually, the two other ones are the support from citizens/former debtors and the position of a general in another country).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;三窟已就&quot; is when the adviser reports that &quot;all three rabbit holes have been constructed&quot; (and now you can be relieved).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13848" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T11:53:21.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19482" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19536" CreationDate="2016-07-11T01:21:33.177" Score="4" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;After reading &lt;em&gt;Romance of the Three Kingdoms&lt;/em&gt;, I was surprised to see a lot of references to 砲響 (the sound of cannonade). Here's a few examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嚴綱鼓譟吶喊，直取麴義，義軍見嚴綱兵來，都伏而不動；直到來得至近，一聲砲響，八百弓弩手一齊俱發。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89%E5%9C%8B%E6%BC%94%E7%BE%A9/%E7%AC%AC007%E5%9B%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;三國演義 第七回&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;城中全無動靜，眾軍一齊擁入。只聽得一聲砲響，伏兵四起。曹軍急退，背後張繡親驅勇壯殺來。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89%E5%9C%8B%E6%BC%94%E7%BE%A9/%E7%AC%AC018%E5%9B%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;三國演義 第十八回&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously there was no gunpowder or cannons back then (the story was &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;set in the 3rd century AD&lt;/a&gt;, and gunpowder was thought to have been &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder#Original_development&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;invented in the 9th century AD&lt;/a&gt;), and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/5014/2583&quot;&gt;the character 砲&lt;/a&gt;  suggests that it's a catapult instead. But the passages and wording (一聲砲響) suggests that it makes a single loud sound heard across the battlefield. Were catapults really that loud? Why would it be a single sound, and not a series, i.e. if a commander has multiple catapults and orders a volley? Or is it something other than a catapult?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T14:19:26.510" Title="砲響: were there cannons in ancient China?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19478" CreationDate="2016-07-11T02:59:18.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;重新振作&lt;/strong&gt; ↓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f9hsA.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f9hsA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;换了个人&lt;/strong&gt;↓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q4KuH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q4KuH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;![enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走出阴影↓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/61R5J.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/61R5J.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;获得新生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BMJ5J.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BMJ5J.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重生一般&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p86Nh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p86Nh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脱胎换骨(chengyu)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Hgx6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Hgx6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;![enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浴火重生 (chengyu)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NfbIe.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NfbIe.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凤凰涅磐 (chengyu)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vMSnd.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vMSnd.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;羽化登仙(metamorphosis from human being to heavenly being)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nN5XA.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nN5XA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T02:59:18.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19484" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-11T06:38:26.123" Score="1" ViewCount="424" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing a wedding invitation in both Chinese and English.  In English, the dress code is &quot;black tie optional&quot;, which means guests are given the option to either wear a tuxedo or a proper dark coloured suit.  What would the equivalent of this be in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Candidates I have so far are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;正裝&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;禮服&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither seem to accurately capture the equivalent of &quot;black tie optional&quot;.  Any other suggestions?  If it matters, this invite will mostly be sent to people in Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13856" LastActivityDate="2016-09-11T05:40:54.300" Title="What is &quot;Black tie optional&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19482" CreationDate="2016-07-11T07:32:50.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a quite interesting topic to discuss. I think  一 in 一聲砲響 is more like a correspondence to the 齊 in 一齊俱發 since a one big loud sound can indicate all catapults(or something else) at one time while several of them can not. So as the second example which has more of an emphasis of that sudden moment all hidden soldiers came out. With all description like this, the reader will feel the tense, otherwise will not. About the catapults, I think what you said makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm speaking from the angle of a native speaker but not a professional linguistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13854" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T07:32:50.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1514" CreationDate="2016-07-11T09:19:30.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All these dialects are direct descendants of Middle Chinese. They are mainly different in their pronunciation of words, not grammar. With regard to vocabulary, there dialects share a common set of content words, and a minorly different set of function words. Almost all neologisms introduced to Chinese from the western world, especially scientific terms, share only one common form among all these dialects. There exist also some words used to represent some local concepts specific to only their own regions. Very similar grammar, similar vocabulary, different pronunciation, so it's understandable why these dialects are not mutually understandable when spoken, they are when written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Yang took 再會 and 再見 as example to prove that vocabulary in Shanghainese is significantly different from Mandarin vocabulary. I must remind you that this example may give you the impression that the Shanghainese and Mandarin use different words so they are somewhat mutually unintelligible. This is not true. 再會 and 再見 are both valid words in Mandarin. 再會 is more used in formal occasions and 再見 in non-formal ones. I don't speak Shanghainese. But it seems that Mandarin and Shanghainese choose different words for &amp;quot;Goodbye&amp;quot; during their respective development, but the words they chose are related to each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @Yang said, all there dialects use Standard Chinese as their writing system. Some of the dialects, such as Cantonese and Wu, can also be written in some non-standard and non-official writting system specific to the dialect itself. But because of their similar grammar and similar vocabulary, as long as a dialect is written down in &lt;strong&gt;Chinese characters&lt;/strong&gt;, I can understand it well, thought I have to guess the meaning of some function words. I'll take as an example the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yue dialect(Cantonese) version&lt;/a&gt; of &lt;em&gt;Varieties of Chinese&lt;/em&gt; in wikipedia. I don't speak Cantonese, and I can't understand it at all if a Cantonese native speaker say something to me. But I can read and understand this wikipedia page well with some guessing works. The following is the first sentence from the wikipedia page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中國方言即係中國唔同地方講嘅話，傳統上以南北區分，即所謂「南腔北調」，如果再細分又有所謂「七大方言」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese dialects refer to the different languages spoken in different regions of China. They are tranditionally classified according whether they are spoken in the south or north of China, that is &amp;quot;southern tones and northern accents&amp;quot;. They can be classified into seven varieties if treated in smaller granulariy than just north and south.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;analytic language&lt;/a&gt;. Its grammar is very simple. No case, no tense, no inflection, no conjugation, and so on. I don't know what the word 係 means, but it's easy to guess that it means &amp;quot;是(is)&amp;quot; in Mandarin. In similar ways, I can guess 唔 mean 不(negating)，嘅 means 的. The whole sentence reads almost the same with Mandarin, except the three function words 係 唔 嘅, which is very easy to guess. All the other words in this sentence is in completely the same form with Mandarin. The more formal the content written in a dialect is, the easier for the native speakers of other dialects to read it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://hak.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%BBng-koet_Ng%C3%AE-ngi%C3%A8n&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hakka version&lt;/a&gt; of the same wikipedia item is totally written in Roman alphabet. It's not understandable to me at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T09:41:32.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1862" CreationDate="2016-07-11T10:37:05.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also didn't find the chinese proverb, but I think there is a similar proverb can translate the sentence. This sentence is &quot;敢于发问，羞耻一时，耻于发问，愚昧一生”，so this sentence teach you &quot;不耻下问 bù chǐ xià wèn&quot;. (not feel ashamed to ask and learn from one's subordinates). This common Chinese proverb comes from 《论语·公冶长》：“敏而好学，不耻下问 (&quot;The analects of Confucius · GongYeChang&quot; Bright as (he) is, (he) is fond of studying. Feel not ashamed to learn from one's subordinates). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to continue to learn some common Chinese proverbs, I recommend you read this article &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/most-common-chinese-idioms-you-should-know/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/most-common-chinese-idioms-you-should-know/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T10:37:05.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19397" CreationDate="2016-07-11T10:59:54.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese refers to Chinese characters that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. After new China was founded in 1949, entered a new phase in simplified Chinese characters, simplified characters adapted to early literacy movement. So, Chinese simplified largely promoted the rapid growth of the national. But the policy problem, Taiwan still use traditional Chinese. How to simplified characters came to be? I can recommend the book.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zDcD9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zDcD9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also can check our Chinese character study card.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9R1EK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9R1EK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find more study cards in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pinterest.com/studychinese/learn-chinese-characters-with-hanbridge-mandarin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.pinterest.com/studychinese/learn-chinese-characters-with-hanbridge-mandarin/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T10:59:54.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19491" CreationDate="2016-07-11T14:06:22.523" Score="0" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my first post here and I apologise if this isn't quite the right forum for such a question - although I'm hopeful that it is. I'll be happy to edit and refine my question if necessary, or delete it at worst. I should also just mention that English is my only language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what the most appropriate translation of the phrase &quot;Brush Stroke Order&quot; would be in written Chinese (if it matters - although I'm lead to believe it doesn't - in a Cantonese dialect/context).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I'm discovering, there are many ways this could be translated depending on the precise intention. Of course, there's the obvious meaning that pertains to the formalities of constructing Chinese characters, but this isn't quite what I'm after. The phrase in this particular context refers to the broader idea of the act of writing, more specifically &lt;em&gt;writing well&lt;/em&gt; - giving literary form to ideas, refining structure, and creative flair - in any language. I expect there's no translation that would directly encompass all of these, but hopefully they act as a something of a guide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear, I'm not as interested in the obvious, &quot;character writing&quot; meaning of the phrase - I specifically want to focus on how it could be translated in a much wider, literary sense; the art of creative writing as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13858" LastEditorUserId="13858" LastEditDate="2016-07-12T08:37:27.360" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T12:04:17.300" Title="The phrase &quot;Brush Stroke Order&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19489" CreationDate="2016-07-11T14:59:29.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;筆順 in pinyin &lt;em&gt;bǐshùn&lt;/em&gt; refers to the stroke order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My girlfriend is from Shenzhen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13860" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T14:59:29.097" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19489" CreationDate="2016-07-12T03:02:54.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, verism, do you want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;name of a stand-alone project, concerned with creative writing&quot;&#xA;&#xA;&quot;translated in a much wider, literary sense;&#xA; the art of creative writing as a whole&quot;&#xA;&#xA;&quot;writing well - giving literary form to ideas,&#xA; refining structure, and creative flair&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in general, &quot;creative writing&quot; would be translated as &quot;創意寫作&quot;, clearly, it's not creative enough　  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at this moment, i would suggest &quot;創翰作坊&quot; as the name of your project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坊, or 作坊 is workshop; while &quot;創作&quot; is creation. &quot;翰&quot; has several meanings: brush pen, writing, . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, may i ask the importance of a translation of &quot;brush stroke order&quot;, and why you prefer cantonese? it's possible that a more &quot;creative&quot; term would be made, with more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;info added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, this time maybe &quot;揸筆創撰&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;揸&quot; is take up with fingers, &quot;筆&quot; is pen; &quot;揸筆&quot; is a cantonese term for &quot;holding a pen&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;創&quot; is creat, a hint of creative,&quot;撰&quot; is &quot;to write, or, talent&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there're characters for &quot;write&quot;, i choose this one for &quot;out of the box&quot; feel; and, for the &quot;balance&quot; of the cantonese pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-07-12T12:04:17.300" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T12:04:17.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19492" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-12T03:40:22.233" Score="1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of the versions of 'learn' that people are explaining to me here in Taiwan involve studying (學到，學會) but I often find myself wanting to speak of learning in a way that has nothing to do with studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I learned to sing well in church.&#xA;I learned to walk at age two.&#xA;Where did she learn to manipulate people like that?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also often want to make the distinction be studying and learning, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;You learn more studying songs than textbooks. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone share some options for me? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T11:19:24.053" Title="how to say &quot;learn&quot; without involving studying?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19489" CreationDate="2016-07-12T05:59:25.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of words and idioms that describe &lt;em&gt;writing characters well&lt;/em&gt;, some of which involve &lt;em&gt;strokes&lt;/em&gt;, such as 龙飞凤舞, 银钩铁划, 提按分明, 有曲有直. Also there are words describing &lt;em&gt;writing  compositions well or painting well&lt;/em&gt; like 妙笔丹青, 笔下生花, 惟妙惟肖. However none of them has anything to do with the &lt;em&gt;stroke order&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T05:59:25.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19494" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19495" CreationDate="2016-07-12T06:08:05.323" Score="0" ViewCount="2531" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6vWBT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6vWBT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw a random image of Chinese character. Can someone tell me what letter it is. I had often seen it as a mysterious symbol. So where does one use this symbol? Is it spiritual or zen kind of symbol?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13864" LastEditorUserId="13864" LastEditDate="2016-07-13T03:46:38.197" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T03:46:38.197" Title="what does this symbol mean in chinese?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-07-12T19:30:23.683" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19494" CreationDate="2016-07-12T06:13:15.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;「美」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This character is written as &quot;mei3&quot; in pinyin and is pronounced similarly to the English word &quot;May&quot; (like the month). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It generally means &quot;beautiful&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T06:13:15.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19494" CreationDate="2016-07-12T06:14:49.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means beauty/beautiful in Chinese, and it's spelling is měi, the third tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To better memorize it, you can take a look of my project before that has a transformation from its English letters to Chinese character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://gracegotlost.com/6-Steps-to-BEAUTY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://gracegotlost.com/6-Steps-to-BEAUTY&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13854" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T06:14:49.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19492" CreationDate="2016-07-12T06:43:54.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your examples it seems more like learn by practice, which in Chinese we usually say 學到 or 學會; on the other hand, learn by study is closer to 學習, in which 習 means systematic learning and training to acquire knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13854" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T06:43:54.430" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19492" CreationDate="2016-07-12T07:00:25.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Really not involving studying?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confucius suggested the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Arts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Six Arts of education&lt;/a&gt; as the scope of what people should study. Therefore, singing can be considered as studying as well (although Music in the Six Arts actually referred to playing instruments).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;學 is simply learning&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the term 學 is the direct translation of &quot;learning&quot;. Studying is not necessarily involved. On the other hand, these words have more academic feeling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Words specifically about learning&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;修 literally means &quot;repair&quot;, but has different meanings when paired with other characters (this word carries complicated meaning involving cultural and religious background, and even as a native Chinese speaker I am not confident to independently explain this word)&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is an ancient saying: &quot;修身, 齊家, 治國, 平天下&quot;, which is translated as &quot;complete/improve yourself (your knowledge), lead your family, rule the country, then conquer the world&quot;. Refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-best-translation-of-%E4%BF%AE%E8%BA%AB-%E9%BD%90%E5%AE%B6-%E6%B2%BB%E5%9B%BD-%E5%B9%B3%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8B-into-English&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; for details&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;修煉 is used by some religious practitioners or Taoism/Buddhism as a way of improving one's experience and to &quot;accumulate&quot; some kind of concept that is similar to XP in modern games :P (who knows, maybe modern games copied such concept). Note that 煉 has a 火, which means refining of metal, and Chinese people often copmare refining of metal to refining of one's spirit/life experience.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;修練 simply means practising. 練 means practising itself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;習 (revise)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;讀 read&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;書 means &quot;book&quot;, and 讀書 literally means &quot;read books&quot;, but also refers to the generic action of going to school in modern Chinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;研究 (research, explore, investigate)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Translating the three examples in OP&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I learned to sing well in church.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在教堂學唱歌學得唱得如此好。&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I, in church, learnt singing songs, which made me sing so well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This assumes the condition that you were just singing and you were talking about your performance, as you see from &quot;such a good way&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This also seems odd in Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在教堂學會把歌唱好。&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I, in church, learnt to sing songs well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This seems to mean something different from &quot;sing well&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am unable to make a natural translation that does not change the meaning of your English sentence. Probably because of the culture of humility, in Chinese, we rarely say ourselves sing well in such a way -- children usually get scolded immediately whenever they say that they are good at something, especially without citation or comparison, or without a specific condition like this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I learned to walk at age two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我自兩歲學會走路。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, &quot;學會&quot; refers to acquiring a skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where did she learn to manipulate people like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她從哪裏學會那樣作弄 (I don't understand the term &quot;manipulate&quot; well enough) 別人?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to refer to a story:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mencius originally lived near a graveyard. He and his young friends always see people mourning when burying, so they imitated (學着 as in modern Chinese) the people. Mencius's mother is upset with this and moved near a market, but he and his new friends imitate (also 學) how hawkers yell and advertise instead. Eventually they moved near a school, where Mencius and his new friends imitate how students read aloud.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this classical story (I realized that citation is seriously needed, but I am unable to find any reliable sources even from Wikipedia! This is probably a myth), 99% of the sources describe all the three actions as 學, but the former two are obviously not involved in studying, but the meaning of &quot;learning&quot; as in &quot;imitation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Studying in Chinese culture&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After all, Chinese culture, especially the academic part, is totally about studying. The only difference is whether you are studying books (讀&lt;strong&gt;書&lt;/strong&gt;). There is a saying &quot;萬般皆下品，惟有讀書高&quot;: &quot;everything is bad/low-class/low-quality, and only studying books is high-class/good&quot;. This proves that Chinese people considering everything as learning, but studying books (especially, studying classical books like &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analects&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Analects&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;) is a different level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, in Chinese culture, the main difference between &quot;studying&quot; and &quot;learning&quot; is whether it is the publicly recognized as high-class studying, i.e. 讀書, because for more than 1000 years, Chinese people had to study classical books to enter the exam to become officials, which is considered the common aim for most scholars.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Yes, keep in mind when looking for translation of words that cultural difference also matters)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13848" LastEditorUserId="13848" LastEditDate="2016-07-12T11:19:24.053" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T11:19:24.053" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19499" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19503" CreationDate="2016-07-12T08:17:20.363" Score="1" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me understand why 是 is in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这件事情到底是解决了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't figure out what role it plays, and I think I usually see such a sentence without it. Does it form the passive or something? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11293" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T04:15:46.443" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T17:34:07.640" Title="Why is 是 in 这件事情到底是解决了?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19500" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-12T08:20:12.760" Score="1" ViewCount="421" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm very glad I found this website. Just a few months ago I've started learning Mandarin Chinese by myself and right now I'm in Sichuan. I try applying my little knowledge in daily life, but it's not easy ...also of course because they don't speak &quot;proper&quot; Mandarin here, but their craaazy dialect instead ...I'm trying anyways :)&#xA;A few things I'd like to know but was not able to find in dictionaries / through Google:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say there's a fruit vendor and I want to tell her/him that I'd like &lt;strong&gt;&quot;one of these&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; ...so far I've said sth like &quot;这个。。。一个“ - and felt completely stupid doing so. Please help me say it propberly!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same situation, but I want a bigger/smaller fruit of what he/she's holding in their hand. sth like &lt;strong&gt;&quot;a bigger/smaller one, please&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When at a shop, asking for a specific item - &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Do you have...?&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Could I say 这里有。。。吗？ and/or does even the literal translation 你们有。。。吗？ make sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and finally: &lt;strong&gt;&quot;I only speak a tiny bit Chinese.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13865" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T11:48:34.283" Title="How to say &quot;One of these&quot; and three other mini phrases?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19501" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19504" CreationDate="2016-07-12T08:33:22.610" Score="1" ViewCount="877" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have often heard (and probably repeated) that there is a Chinese curse: &quot;May you live in interesting times.&quot;  Is there really such a saying in Chinese? I can't think of one, and can't even think how I would translate it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase sounds appealingly enigmatic and understated, and perhaps expresses a preference for stability that might be a Chinese characteristic. You can see why it would resonate with us Brits, particularly in these very 'interesting times' - not just the phrase itself, but that we would think of it as a curse rather than a good wish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T09:06:25.200" Title="&quot;May you live in interesting times&quot;" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19500" CreationDate="2016-07-12T08:36:59.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it's not stupid at all. I think they can understand what you are saying. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want only one, you could say &lt;code&gt;这个来一个&lt;/code&gt; ,  &lt;code&gt;我要一个这个&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;给我称一个这个&lt;/code&gt;, pointing to the fruits you want to buy. And you could add &lt;code&gt;只要一个&lt;/code&gt; to emphasize that you need only one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a smaller/bigger one, you could say &lt;code&gt;我想要个小/大一点的。&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;能换个小/大一点的吗？&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;这里有...吗？&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;你们有...吗？&lt;/code&gt; are both okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T08:36:59.240" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19499" CreationDate="2016-07-12T08:43:59.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply put, it's for emphasis. In English you might say &quot;has in fact been resolved&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T08:43:59.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19501" CreationDate="2016-07-12T09:06:25.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quote Investigator &lt;a href=&quot;http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/12/18/live/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/12/18/live/&lt;/a&gt; may be helpful here in terms of background. It could not find an earlier citation than a &quot;March 1936 newspaper report in “The Yorkshire Post”:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sir Austen Chamberlain....said: “It is not so long ago that a member of the Diplomatic Body in London, who had spent some years of his service in China, told me that there was a Chinese curse which took the form of saying, ‘May you live in interesting times.’ There is no doubt that the curse has fallen on us. We move from one crisis to another. We suffer one disturbance and shock after another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13866" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T09:06:25.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19494" CreationDate="2016-07-12T10:45:53.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This Chinese character means &quot;beauty&quot; or &quot;good&quot;. The pinyin of this word is měi. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can make the common Chinese phrases, such as &#xA;&quot;美丽&quot; měi lì （beautiful）; &#xA;&quot;美国&quot; měi guó (America); &#xA;&quot;美味&quot; měi wèi (delicious).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stroke order is&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m27u5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m27u5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think it's so hard to remember this Chinese character, you can see this video and learn how to learn Chinese Characters by associative memory.&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtH96dJdUpk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtH96dJdUpk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T10:45:53.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19482" CreationDate="2016-07-12T11:41:47.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%A0%B2#Han_character&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;, 砲 can be defined as a catapult. It is acceptable to me that there have been catapults for a long time, probably dating back to the Zhou dynasty (warring states period) or even earlier {{citation needed}}.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese chess, there is a piece called 砲 or 炮. There are too many confusing sources for the origin of Chinese chess, so I'm not going to explore about it here. In Chinese chess, the 炮/砲 piece is used in a way similar to the 車, or the castle in western chess, except that when it eats another piece, there must be any piece between the 炮/砲 and the victim. This suggests that the 炮/砲 should be a projectile, probably with a high arc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to many sources, Chinese chess must be already present (and look like what it looks like nowadays) during the Han dynasty. As the OP mentioned, gunpowder had not been invented back then. I saw in a pretty popular (meaning that its historical background is likely to be reliable) film that catapults existed even before the Han dynasty. Therefore, it is very likely that 砲 actually means catapults.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does 一聲砲響 work? No idea. Maybe the ancient catapults worked in a way such that the launch is very loud because of the heavy load? Or maybe the stone hit the ground at high momentum immediately? I have no idea, but these are possible reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: instruments like 撀鼓 or 鳴金 were mainly used in battles in ancient China, but I can't relate 砲 to it in any ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13848" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T11:41:47.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19499" CreationDate="2016-07-12T11:57:37.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel that it is a placeholder to fill up the sentence so that 到底 and 解決 won't stick together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also a hybrid between &quot;到底解決了&quot; (which sounds slightly weird) and &quot;到底還是解決了&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another function would be to emphasize the fact that it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; resolved, just like adding an unnecessary &quot;do&quot; before some sentences to emphasize the positive stance, such as &quot;I &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; want you to resolve it now&quot; rather than &quot;I want you to resolve it now&quot; (sorry, not a very good English example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13848" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T11:57:37.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19509" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19531" CreationDate="2016-07-12T13:46:19.907" Score="0" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you guys aware of any website service or any language exchange platform where one can post their stories or essays and get them checked? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, below is my story, if anyone finds a very striking error, please do let me know. Of course it's not possible to go through the entire story and correct it word by word, I understand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一个小孩子的时候住在美国。 我是在那儿出生的。 我爸爸妈妈一些年以后座飞机来到美国的。&#xA;他们买到了一个很大的公寓。 我在那家公寓长大。 附近我有很多朋友。 我们在美国住五-六年。 然后，我们建搬家到印度。由于很大堵车，污染环境，和人口密集，印度给我留下了不太好的印象。然而什么时候以后，我开始了喜欢印度和印度的文化。 印度和美国并不一样。他们见间有很多差异。&#xA;我岁十一年龄以后，我们再搬家回到美国。这次我根本不喜欢美国。 当我终于适应印度的周围我父母宣布了我们要回去美国。原因才是他们都不喜欢印度有点儿。&#xA;现在我们还住在华盛顿，美国。我喜欢在这儿。但是我很想印度。有一天我一定要搬家去印度。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-美理&#xA;2016.07.12&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13868" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-06T04:07:19.783" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T04:07:19.783" Title="My Chinese Story, need correction, any suggestion?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-07-15T08:36:15.277" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13296" CreationDate="2016-07-12T15:04:33.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to @Flaudre's answer below, which included this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃不了 unable to eat&#xA;chi bu liao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can add another 了(this time 'le') to mean 'any more' (or a change of state, from being able to eat to not being able to eat):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃不了了 = I can't eat any more. I'm full up. I've had enough.&#xA;wo chi bu liao le&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 is a great word!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T15:04:33.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19512" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19513" CreationDate="2016-07-12T20:34:44.143" Score="2" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;yellowbridge.com&lt;/a&gt; when looking up stroke order, but they didn't have any information on 㠭.  This isn't the first time this has happened, but usually it's easy enough to guess.  However, in this case, I'm not sure whether I should right the top-right 工 or the bottom-left 工 first.  (After Googling a bit, everything I looked at said &quot;top-to-bottom&quot; and &quot;left-to-right&quot;, but none of them said which of these two guidelines takes precedence.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There isn't a double/triple 工 character like 林 or 森 is there?  If there were, I suppose that would dictate the proper stroke order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2341" LastActivityDate="2016-07-19T17:05:32.073" Title="Stroke order of 㠭" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19512" CreationDate="2016-07-12T21:34:25.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: It is completely analogous to the stroke order of 叕 and other square quadruples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorDisplayName="user4452" LastEditDate="2016-07-12T21:46:11.583" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T21:46:11.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19514" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19517" CreationDate="2016-07-13T00:27:02.567" Score="0" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend who learns chinese sent me this. The google translator says that it means &quot;if there&quot;.. Is this the right translation? Because to me, i think that five chinese characters should mean something more than just 'if there' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13633" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T04:40:25.073" Title="如果真的有 what does this mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19515" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19521" CreationDate="2016-07-13T00:30:18.803" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the first episode of the Chinese-Japanese anime collaboration 一人之下, we see Zhang Chulan (张楚岚) in a classroom at his university. Just prior to this, we see &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ThDzg.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a still of a university building&lt;/a&gt;, with a plague that appears to read (left to right) 南不海大学.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This struck me, at first glance, as an implausible combination of characters: I could not think of any reasonable reading for them. Moreover, my sense is that 不 only makes sense attached to a verb (他不说德语) or adjective (这份功课不难), unless it is attached to 是, in which case a noun can follow (这本书不是罪与罚).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my intuition correct, or is there actually a plausible reading for this sequence of characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T03:35:46.667" Title="Is this usage of 不 before a noun acceptable?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19515" CreationDate="2016-07-13T01:12:44.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the university name you saw is simply a translation from Japanese. Anyway Chinese is an interesting language where sentences are often compressed to the smallest possible form with words of different parts of speech are mixed, such as nouns being used as adjective. It is also possible in ancient Chinese, as the meaning of 非, but very rarely used that way in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that ancient Chinese is often unconsciously used in written Chinese for some scholars or people who get in touch with ancient texts too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13848" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T01:12:44.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19514" CreationDate="2016-07-13T01:13:15.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the context of your conversation, but by literal translation it means 'if there really is', &lt;code&gt;如果&lt;/code&gt; meaning &lt;code&gt;if&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;真的&lt;/code&gt; meaning &lt;code&gt;real/really&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;有&lt;/code&gt; meaning &lt;code&gt;is/has/exists&lt;/code&gt;. In general you can understand it as 'if it really happens/exists/does' or 'if it happens for real'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13854" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T01:13:15.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19514" CreationDate="2016-07-13T01:15:49.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我有一部手機... 如果真的有(一部手機)... &#xA;某事據說已發生了... 如果真的有(這件事)...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In simple words, it means &quot;if there really is&quot;. The object part is omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13848" LastEditorUserId="13848" LastEditDate="2016-07-13T04:40:25.073" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T04:40:25.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19515" CreationDate="2016-07-13T01:27:23.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;一人之下 is an original Chinese anime, and reworked as animated TV plays in Japan, so it shouldn't be the literal translation from the pronunciation of Japanese language, and 不 here is more likely to be used for pure naming, just like I name my child with any Chinese character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13854" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T01:27:23.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19512" CreationDate="2016-07-13T01:40:41.820" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a rarely used Chinese character. It has two pronunciation: &quot;zhǎn&quot; and &quot;zhàn&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English meaning: to open, to stretch; to extend, to unfold; to dilate; to prolong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The radical of 㠭 is 工, such as the radical of 林 or 森 is 木. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stroke order of 㠭 is&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nSfaM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nSfaM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn more common stroke orders of Chinese characters, I recommend to read &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-characters-learning-tips/chinese-character-stroke-order/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;learn Chinese character stroke order&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-07-19T17:05:32.073" LastActivityDate="2016-07-19T17:05:32.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19515" CreationDate="2016-07-13T03:35:46.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just a wordplay, in the original edition, the name of the university is 南不开大学 which is derived from 南开大学 that is famous university in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people add a &quot;不&quot; in the name of their favouries for fun or to show their likes or respects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have met these nickname in social website:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李不白(if you google 李不白 you can see his poems, this guy must be a big fan of 李白, no comments for his poems XD)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;令狐不冲(令狐冲)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张小忌(张无忌, sometimes they use 小)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东门吹雪(西门吹雪)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T03:35:46.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19522" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-13T03:50:05.543" Score="0" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand the meaning of this sentence. Nobody doesn't like him/herself. My question is, why is there a 的 at the end? It is not a past tense sentence. And also there isn't any detail so that the 是。。的 structure be used. Then why? :-/ &#xA;Does anyone of you more such examples where 的 is used like this? Please share if you do. Thank you. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13868" LastEditorUserId="13868" LastEditDate="2016-07-13T04:04:30.297" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T11:33:49.880" Title="没有人不喜欢自己的。 what does 的 imply here?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19484" CreationDate="2016-07-13T04:52:37.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the end, I went with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;禮服或正裝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13856" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T04:52:37.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19525" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-13T06:45:04.303" Score="2" ViewCount="690" Body="&lt;p&gt;I and my Chinese friend are discussing about the meaning of &quot;她是笨蛋的学生”&#xA;So, can u guys tell me which meaning is correct, or which meaning is popularly used: &quot;She is a fool student&quot;, or &quot;She is the student of a fool&quot;. I mean, the &quot;笨蛋” refers to the teacher or the student?!&#xA;Thank you for concerning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13873" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T11:18:01.200" Title="What does 她是笨蛋的学生 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19525" CreationDate="2016-07-13T07:18:35.753" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the sentence is &lt;code&gt;她是笨蛋学生&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;她是笨学生&lt;/code&gt;, it would mean &lt;code&gt;She is a fool student&lt;/code&gt;, but since there is a &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; in between, &lt;code&gt;笨蛋&lt;/code&gt; is a noun that refers to a person, and not an adjective anymore. So &lt;code&gt;She is the student of a fool&lt;/code&gt; makes better sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13854" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T07:18:35.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19522" CreationDate="2016-07-13T08:52:43.410" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is a 語氣詞 (can't find an English translation for it, literally means &quot;tone word&quot;). This is somehow like exclamation words such as &quot;Oh&quot;, but they serve a slightly different function. You should view them as something like punctuations instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, you can easily express your tone with an increase or decrease in loudness, length/speed or pitch to express that it is a question or a statement; a sure statement, a quoted statement or a doubtful statement; a pleading tone, or a commanding tone; whether you feel that the quantity in the sentence is excessive, neutral or too few. However, Chinese has a fixed pitch, so it is especially necessary to have words at the end of a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It feels really very unnatural if these words are absent. Without these words, the sentence may sound cold, emotionless, or even unnatural or interrupted. For example, the word &quot;啦&quot; is used so frequently in Cantonese (and probably in Putonghua) to express that the sentence is strongly subjective/emotional/pleading, that some of my friends even mix it (using the pronunciation &quot;la&quot;) into our WhatsApp messages in English. For example, &quot;請你不要。&quot; (Please don't.), as you can see in the English translation, sounds very cold and authoritative (even with &quot;Please&quot;). What if we are pleading to our friends (in a calm way, not an exclaiming way)? &quot;請你不要啦。&quot; carries a much more persuading tone (especially if we increase the length of 啦, but not necessarily).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples of these words include (question) 嗎, 呢, (exclamation) 呀, 啊, (statement) 而已, 的, 啦, 吧, (and nil too), etc. (In Cantonese there are many more of these words, but I don't think these also exist in Putonghua)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的, in this example, expresses the objectiveness, absoluteness of the statement &quot;Nobody doesn't like himself&quot;. It shows that the sentence is a reasonable, inarguable and doubtless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To understand this sentence, these syntactic expletives (虛詞) can be ignored, but you may totally misunderstand the tone of the speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that if the sentence is changed into &quot;沒有人不喜歡自己的&lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, the tone implies presumption and uncertainty, seeking for agreement. Why is there another after 的? It is because 的 isn't very strongly related to 語氣詞, but more related to the structure of a statement, while 吧 is a very expressive word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;===&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese (Cantonese) speaker, so I understand the language pattern to nature, that it sometimes gets very difficult to explain how some language patterns work. IMO, Chinese doesn't have a very strict language pattern compared to English. Reading more Chinese books is the only way to develop the sense of understanding these patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13848" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T08:52:43.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18158" CreationDate="2016-07-13T09:29:33.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我们没有共同爱好.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A local expression is : 我们玩不到一块儿去. (note that 儿, you should use 儿话音 to speak this sentence, or the feel will fail).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or a wild expression: 我跟你尿不到一个壶里. means you are two types, and cannot get along with each other. The opposite is 我跟他穿一条裤子. means you are very close. &lt;strong&gt;Don't say&lt;/strong&gt; 我跟 &lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt; 穿一条裤子 to someone, that means a totally different thing, except you really mean that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T09:29:33.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19525" CreationDate="2016-07-13T09:34:22.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am native Chinese. I have to say that in practice such saying is very unlikely to be used. This is swearing at someone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a Chinese language learner, it is not the path to go to dig into such things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese language is not like western languages in that it is very simple in grammar. There is no time tense for verbs. There is no part of speech changes for pronouns etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, do not dig into grammar. Grammar is extremely simple. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9811" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T09:34:22.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19522" CreationDate="2016-07-13T09:43:48.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First thing first, This sentence should be 没有人是不喜欢自己的。It's missing a 是 here; (No body &quot;do&quot; not like themselves)。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 and 的 are used here to emphasize the meaning of this sentence and make it clear. Without them, it will be a different meaning. For instance: 没有人不喜欢自己。 (Nobody not like me/ Everyone like me.) 自己=me；自己的=mine；&quot;Everyone like mine&quot; has no meaning, so you can instantly tell 自己的 is not referring to myself, but to something else, the object &quot;没有人&quot; or themselves in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a simple example: &#xA;我爱你。 (I love you.)&#xA;我是爱你。（I do love you.)&#xA;我是爱你的。（I do love you very much.) &#xA;With 的 at the end, you can definitely see that I do love you more, and not less. can you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T09:43:48.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19509" CreationDate="2016-07-13T09:55:25.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We don't use too much period, only when you finish saying a short piece of contents. In general your Chinese is good, you know a lot Chinese words. (My English is not good enough, not sure you understand all of my saying)&#xA;我还是一个小孩子的时候住在美国。 我是在那儿出生的， 我爸爸妈妈几年后坐飞机来到美国， 他们买到了一个很大的公寓， 我在那家公寓长大， 附近有很多我的朋友。 我们在美国住五六年，然后，我们搬家到印度，由于很大堵车，环境污染，和人口密集，印度给我留下了不太好的印象，然而不知道什么时候开始，我喜欢印度和印度的文化。 印度和美国并不一样，他们之间有很多差异。 我十一岁以后，我们再搬家回美国。这次我根本不喜欢美国，当我终于适应印度的环境的时候我父母宣布了我们要回美国，原因是他们都有点儿不喜欢印度。 现在我们还住在美国华盛顿，我喜欢在这儿，但是我很想印度，有一天我一定要搬家去印度。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13877" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T09:55:25.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19525" CreationDate="2016-07-13T10:17:13.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is of, so 笨蛋 is refers to teacher&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13879" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T10:17:13.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19522" CreationDate="2016-07-13T10:26:06.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Stan's reference to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/10504/2816&quot;&gt;NS.X's answer&lt;/a&gt; gives a good explanation. 是...的 construction doesn't necessarily imply past action. It's just for emphesis. It's easy to give some examples for this usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I will never buy iPhone. I only use Android phone. 我是绝对不会买 iPhone 的。我只用 Android 手机。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/10504/2816&quot;&gt;NS.X's answer&lt;/a&gt; said that the 是 … 的 construction emphasises time, manner or place. In fact, it can also be used to emphasise the action(verb) itself. In &lt;code&gt;我是绝对不会买 iPhone 的&lt;/code&gt;, 的 emphesizes 不会买(won't buy). 是 can be left out here. (You can also say that the 的 emphesizes the whole sentence.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regard to&lt;code&gt;没有人不喜欢自己的&lt;/code&gt;, the 的 is used here to emphasize on 不喜欢(doesn't like). Its full version is &lt;code&gt;没有人是不喜欢自己的&lt;/code&gt;. 是 is left out here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at the fourth meaning item of 的 from &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiandai_Hanyu_Cidian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Contemporary Chinese Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, 6th Edition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figure 1. Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition, page 272&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hWqQR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hWqQR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;④用在陈述句的末尾，表示肯定的语气：这件事儿我知道~。&#xA;It can be translated as &quot;Used at the end of a declarative sentence, indicating an affirmative tone: I do know this thing.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T11:33:49.880" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19525" CreationDate="2016-07-13T11:18:01.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very likely this was intended to have an adjectival meaning: &quot;she is one dummy of a student.&quot; It is a VERY casual way of talking, much more likely to be sent as a text message or post than spoken, but I have seen LOTS of this kind of thing online. Think of it as a Chinese correlate to the pidgin English so many people use when they are posting carelessly.  Don't use it in your assignments, your teacher might have a conniption fit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T11:18:01.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19522" CreationDate="2016-07-13T11:25:34.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very simple: 的 converts the predicate to an adjective phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me explain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Atmega328's answer was on the right track. 没有人不喜欢自己的 is an informal abbreviated form of 没有人是不喜欢自己的 where 是 is omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To simplify the question let's look at Atmega328's very good example: 我爱你 is I love you, and 我是爱你的 is I am &quot;you-loving&quot;. The verb here changes from &quot;love&quot; to &quot;am&quot;, and the object &quot;you&quot; becomes an adjective &quot;you-loving&quot;. English however doesn't have a way of converting a predicate to an adjective phrase - but &quot;I am someone who loves you&quot; comes close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The motivation of verb to adjective conversion is indeed to emphasise - as the function of the sentence changes from making a mere statement to &lt;em&gt;describing&lt;/em&gt; the subject with an adjective, just like how &quot;It was a car that passed.&quot; emphasises the object passed was a car more than simply &quot;A car passed.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13880" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T11:25:34.863" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19482" CreationDate="2016-07-13T12:07:26.393" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Brewitt-Taylor's English translation of San-guo yanyi calls it a &quot;bomb.&quot; This was a kind of &quot;signal bomb&quot; 號砲 or 信砲. The earliest real historical record of these seems to have been the Yuan dyansty, as Song Yuanyao's comment notes. Joseph Needham's volume on &quot;The Gunpowder Epic&quot; has a brief mention of the use of these, for instance in the Mongol attack on Yangzhou in 1276. I think it is safe to say that Luo's description of battles where these are employed is simply anachronistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T12:07:26.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19482" CreationDate="2016-07-13T14:19:26.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;i checked briefly, the earliest usage of &quot;砲響&quot; and &quot;砲聲&quot; was in the book &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06054721.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;錢塘遺事&lt;/a&gt;, by 劉一清 of 元 dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0eXVa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0eXVa.png&quot; alt=&quot;p41&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卷九, on page 49, it recorded the event in 揚州, on 德祐丙子二月二十日, which was march 7th, in the year of 1276.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;clearly, joseph needham is a marvellous scholar :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T14:19:26.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19538" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-13T14:51:39.367" Score="4" ViewCount="5164" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese given names are 1 or 2 characters long. Were there any proper, Han Chinese given names of 3 or more characters, that weren't transliterations or pseudonyms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surnames are different; while most are only one character, there are quite a few that are &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_compound_surname&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;two characters or more&lt;/a&gt;. However, I haven't found any example of given names being longer than 2 characters. For example, despite keeping their Manchu surname, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisin_Gioro&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Aisin Gioro&lt;/a&gt; clan adopted Chinese naming conventions: Puyi's brother was named 愛新覺羅溥任, with a 2-character given name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2021-04-01T21:15:50.800" Title="Chinese given names with 3 or more characters?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19538" CreationDate="2016-07-13T15:11:04.093" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in my experience, in recent years, there're more people with 3 characters given name; from taiwan, or mainland. these characters are just common chinese character, no special meaning when combined together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sorry, i can't provide any valid, real example here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;guess a is that, with 1 or 2 characters as given name, there're chances that someone else would have the same surname + given name; which made many unnecessary, even unsolvable troubles. so, people start to get a 3 characters given name; in order to distinguish from others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;guess b is the influence of japanese culture. with 1 character surname + 3 characters given name, the combination is 4 characters long; which would look like a common japanese name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, i can't prove it :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T15:11:04.093" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19538" CreationDate="2016-07-13T16:44:20.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possible, for a Chinese to have a first name longer than 2 characters. I had a classmate like that, but I don't think I should reveal his name here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is fully legal and proper, and is becoming more widely accepted in recent years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this wasn't common when you date back. If you look for materials talking about China and Han (汉) people more than a hundred years ago, you probably won't find any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess one reason for having longer names is that as communication approaches improve, people start to learn that there are a lot of other people in China using those common names - if they don't want to think of a creative and unique short name, one way to avoid that is to have a longer-than-usual name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12691" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T16:44:20.990" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19541" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-13T19:33:43.260" Score="1" ViewCount="1473" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 生活 and 生命 mean &quot;life&quot;. Both can be modified by &quot;好&quot; (好生活/好生命). Like any language, I don't believe two words ever mean the exact identical thing. If anybody could point me to the subtle (or not so subtle) differences between the two words, I would be most grateful. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12566" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T02:55:38.533" Title="Difference between 生活 and 生命" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19384" CreationDate="2016-07-13T20:00:14.317" Score="-1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Haven't managed to find a usage that speaks specifically to cut or slice open a body part.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剖開 - cut open. &#xA;Examples: 剖開胸部 (cut open the chest);剖開腹部 (cut open the abdomens)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T20:00:14.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19541" CreationDate="2016-07-13T20:08:45.997" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;生活 is life as in &quot;family life/private life/sex life/working life&quot;.&#xA;生命 is life as in &quot;Cats are supposed to have nine lives/He lost his life in an accident&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T20:08:45.997" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19544" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-13T20:38:16.920" Score="0" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both can either mean &quot;to borrow&quot; or &quot;to lend&quot;. I know you can combine both of them &quot;借贷&quot; to mean &quot;debit and credit&quot;. But what are the differences in usage and semantics between those two words. They both are so similar but I'm sure there are some differences between the two. For example, I know you say 借钱 but usually don't say 贷钱 (correct me if I'm wrong).&#xA;Any clarifications and explanations would be awesome! Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12566" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T12:41:40.020" Title="Difference between 借 and 贷" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19544" CreationDate="2016-07-13T21:09:27.133" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;We don't usually say 贷钱, but we do say 贷款 a lot, which is a more official way of saying 借钱. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you borrow money from your friend, you 借钱 from your friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case it's more casual, and the amount of money is usually not too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you go to the bank for a loan, you 贷款 from the bank. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case it's more official, and the amount of money is usually a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in general, 借 and 贷 have very similar meaning, but can be used in different phrases for different context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13854" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T21:09:27.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19538" CreationDate="2016-07-13T21:35:10.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditionally, naming is mostly based on family tree. But in recent years, we are given more freedom to name our children. From people I know with 3+ given names, I understand that there are several considerations from their parents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) Literal translation from original names in their ethnic groups other than&#xA;  ethnic Han.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen people with 4 or even 6 characters in their given name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) Add mother's surname in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have some friends whose name structure look like &lt;code&gt;father's surname&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;mother's surname&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;2 characters&lt;/code&gt;. This is not the traditional way like adding husband's name before wife's whole name, it's more based on some casual reasons like &quot;It means I'm the love of my dad and mom&quot;, or &quot;It sounds good&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) Surname happens to be the initial character of a 4-character&#xA;  phrase/idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my friend told me her grandpa loves an idiom so much and the initial character happens to be her surname, so she got her name as it is right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13854" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T21:35:10.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16669" CreationDate="2016-07-13T22:18:48.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stan's answers are great, but assume &lt;strong&gt;NATIVE speakers&lt;/strong&gt;.  As a newbie, and assuming  &lt;strong&gt;GRAYSCALE&lt;/strong&gt; (I personally find it hard to read anything lower than 16x16)...  If you are using an OLED display that is only capable of &lt;strong&gt;monochrome&lt;/strong&gt;, I think newbies will need MUCH higher (at least 24x24).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12229" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T22:18:48.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19538" CreationDate="2016-07-14T01:51:43.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%83%E5%AE%8F%E6%88%90%E5%8F%B0%E7%81%A3%E9%98%BF%E6%88%90%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E5%81%89%E4%BA%BA%E8%B2%A1%E7%A5%9E%E7%B8%BD%E7%B5%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;real case&lt;/a&gt;. He changes his name to &quot;黃宏成台灣阿成世界偉人財神總統(Huang Hung Chen Taiwan Ah Chen World Great Person Rich President)&quot;. It is the longest name in Taiwan now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2016-07-14T03:52:02.530" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T03:52:02.530" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19222" CreationDate="2016-07-14T02:14:17.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence of &quot;太好了！很不幸，我的中文知识不足够的，所以不可能帮你们。加油，我很兴奋的！&quot; can be understood by a native Chinese speaker, but it certainly doesn't sound natural. If used by a native speaker, it would have been more natural to say &quot;太好了，但很可惜，我的中文水平还不够好，所以可能无法帮到你们。加油，支持你们！&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不幸&quot; means “misfortune” or &quot;misery&quot; which is larger than what you mean. &quot;可惜&quot; means “pity”, which is more fit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不可能&quot; means “totally impossible” which doesn't sound friendly. &quot;可能无法&quot; means “I wish but might not be able to”, which shows you're willing to help but because of temporary insufficiency in Chinese language skills might not be able to, which shows amicability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;兴奋&quot; means “excited”， I guess that's not what you mean. I guess you might mean that you are happy to know they are working on the translation, or you just wanted to support them. Here usually in a daily conservation a native speaker might say &quot;支持你们&quot; which means “I support you”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw, I'm a native Chinese speaker. There are quite significant number of nuances in transforming your Chinese skills to native level. It's very painstaking and involves a lot of practice. I went through the same when learning English. So 支持你！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13884" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T02:14:17.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19538" CreationDate="2016-07-14T06:36:53.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Now in China mainland, you can find 4 character names mostly in pediatric departments, kindergartens and primary schools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Han people, most patterns are &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;father's surname+mother's surname+2 given characters&#xA;  OR father's surname+3 given characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However influenced by popular novels and dramas of Mary Sue style, some young parents give names like all kinds of &lt;em&gt;Zixuan&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Yuhan&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Zihan&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Haoyu&lt;/em&gt;, which are too widely used. One jokes says if you call Zixuan in a kindergarten, 1/3 of the children will answer you. Their given names may be 紫萱 子轩 梓萱 紫瑄 子煊. If you call Zihan, another 1/3 will answer you, named 紫涵, 子涵, 子翰, 梓晗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T06:36:53.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13846" CreationDate="2016-07-14T07:54:26.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;商&lt;/strong&gt; - is a weighing-machine, a scales, a weigher. Mostly seen in merchants' shops thus &quot;commerce and shop&quot; connotation. Scales were used to weigh matter. Weighed matter was &lt;strong&gt;separated&lt;/strong&gt; from the rest of the bulk (a &lt;em&gt;quotient&lt;/em&gt; of 5 kilos for example) and then sold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T07:54:26.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19541" CreationDate="2016-07-14T12:48:19.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;生活 - everyday life.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;生命 - from birth to death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T12:48:19.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19554" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-12T18:30:46.827" Score="0" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;My garden neighbor gave me these greens. Is this 苦木？ My neighbor said it is ku3mu4. Did I spell it correctly? What is it called in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KiBW0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KiBW0m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BAng1.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BAng1m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eRXU2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eRXU2m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: In response to the given answers, here are some entries from my dictionary, but I'm still unsure...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wg4Aa.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wg4Aa.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jC0fO.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jC0fO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8XjLo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8XjLo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" OwnerDisplayName="Jack Maddington" LastEditorUserId="11212" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T22:19:33.803" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T22:19:33.803" Title="Are these greens 苦木？" Tags="&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19556" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-14T17:09:36.623" Score="3" ViewCount="622" Body="&lt;p&gt;金钱 is just 钱 with an added 金 but both mean &quot;money&quot;. Are there any semantics or grammar differences between the two? Also, 款 seems to also mean money. I know 款 is usually used after 贷 but can it also be used similarly to the other two (节约款/时间就是款/有款的人)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12566" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T09:41:11.700" Title="What is the difference between 钱 and 金钱 (and 款)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19556" CreationDate="2016-07-14T18:46:19.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In terms of usage here are the common use for those words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金钱 = Usually represent wealth in writing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;時間就是金錢 (time is money)&#xA;我的金錢 (my wealth)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;钱 = Money&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Most common form of money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;多少钱 (how much)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;款 usually means fund (in terms of money)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;for example: &#xA;(款)&#xA;信用卡还款 -- credit card transferring (funds)&#xA;退款- refund&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;钱 is more informal than the other two. (In general if there is a single character form and a two character form, the two character form is more formal.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;款 is also used in 贷款, which means loan. Generally 款 does not imply money that you have so much as simply money that you are using. 款 can in some situations have a negative connotation while 钱 is neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13891" LastEditorUserId="15119" LastEditDate="2016-08-17T13:37:26.213" LastActivityDate="2016-08-17T13:37:26.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19556" CreationDate="2016-07-15T03:03:27.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;节约款 is not widely seen, but there are some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.韩版节约款男装衬衫&#xA;2.节约款六成奖励医务人员&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first 款 means &lt;em&gt;style, pattern&lt;/em&gt;. But I am not sure if it's a cheap style or a slim style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second 款 means &lt;em&gt;money&lt;/em&gt;. The context says a hospital takes measures to cut the cost and the surplus is given to the staff as a bonus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时间就是款 is an improper use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有款的人 does not mean &lt;em&gt;a wealthy man&lt;/em&gt;. This 款 means &lt;em&gt;model, style, fashion&lt;/em&gt;. 有款的人 refers to someone who is good at dressing up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T03:03:27.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19554" CreationDate="2016-07-15T03:45:10.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't cook much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This looks like 油麦菜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a variation of lettuce (Lactuca sativa). From a search on the web (wikipedia), I don't think there is a specific English name for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/34825.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;百度百科&lt;/a&gt; gives a Latin name &quot;Lactuca sativa var longifoliaf. Lam&quot; for it. The site also says it can be called &quot;莜麦菜&quot;, &quot;苦菜&quot; or &quot;生菜&quot; (note: there is also another kind of vegetable called &quot;生菜&quot;). But I've never heard anyone calling it &quot;苦木&quot;. And as it is a kind of vegetable, I think it should be unlikely for it to be called &quot;苦木&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2016-07-18T01:58:08.883" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T01:58:08.883" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19562" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-15T09:11:17.700" Score="0" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 交易就告成立. and 交易即告成立.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The catch: Since every book says that 就=即 I considered to create a new sentence out 交易即告成立 by switchin characters.There is no instance of 交易就告成立 have been found by me as of yet. But it should I hope bring the difference between 就 and 即 to the surface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One native said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;前者表示已经成立。后者表示还未成立但即将或者很快成立&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Some of my reseach:&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;As far as I know 即 the core meaning is &quot;identity&quot;. It seems this character has been merged with 卽(to eat, fast) on the basis of sound and similarity of composition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the saying from some Buddist book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;道遠乎哉。即物而真聖遠乎哉 “Is the Way far away? Reality is wherever there is&#xA;  identity with things”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即(ji) here is translated as &quot;identical, identity&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another example from some modern manual:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;CIS即视觉识别系统，其含义是:......&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here 即 again means &quot;namely or identical&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. please, don't tell me it's about food. Or if you do explain how food has something to do with &quot;identity&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.S. IMHO I would say that 即 looks more like a man hunching over tracks on ground 艮+卩. IMHO. IMHO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.S. Context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;国际商品贸易合同的签汀在交易磋商过程中,一方发盘经另一方接受以后,&lt;strong&gt;交易即告成立&lt;/strong&gt;,贸易双方就构成了合同关系。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在实盘有效期内发盘人受其约束,只要受盘人在规定期限内接受发盘,&lt;strong&gt;交易即告成立&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;...\&#xA;P.S.S.S.&#xA;From a random guy in the internet: &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;若甲方收到乙方发出的订货单后七天内，未通知乙方其不接受该订货单的订货，则视为甲方确认订货单，订货单所载约定产品&lt;strong&gt;交易即告成立&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Legally speaking, “即告成立” means that transaction or deal takes effect&#xA;  upon the elapse of that seven days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The wording I propose should be acceptable in most cases for such&#xA;  translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2016-07-15T09:33:52.303" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T12:16:39.590" Title="What is the difference between 交易就告成立. and 交易即告成立.?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19556" CreationDate="2016-07-15T12:28:28.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;錢 (n) money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** less formal form of 金錢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金錢 (n) money ; (adj.) monetary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** more formal form of 錢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有錢 - have money ; rich; wealthy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等錢使 - in need of money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浪費金錢 - waste money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金錢損失 - monetary lost&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金錢補償 - monetary compensation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;款/款項 (n) sum of money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巨款 - huge sum of money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;現款 - a sum of money in cash&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;提款 - withdraw a sum of money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T12:28:28.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19544" CreationDate="2016-07-15T12:41:40.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;借 can mean borrow or lent of any thing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;借入 ( borrow ),&#xA;借車 (borrow a car)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;借出 (lent out),&#xA;借出房間 ( lent out  a room)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;貸 only refer to lent of money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;貸出 (lent out)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T12:41:40.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19562" CreationDate="2016-07-15T14:25:22.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only difference between 交易就告成立 and 交易即告成立 is that the former is more used in spoken language and the latter in written language. 即 in 交易即告成立 is a very formal word and functions as an &lt;strong&gt;adverb&lt;/strong&gt;, meaning &quot;right away/at once/immediately/thereupon&quot;. When 即 is used in this sense, usually it can be replaced with 就. There is no difference between 即 and 就 in their meanings or grammatical roles in this case. Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It took the police only several days to break the case. 该案仅几天即告破/该案仅几天就告破(了).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used in some idioms, for example, 一触即发, 一拍即合, 稍纵即逝, 即 can't be replaced with 就, though 即 still means &quot;right away/at once/immediately/thereupon&quot; in these words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for CIS即视觉识别系统, 即 is a &lt;strong&gt;conjunction&lt;/strong&gt; here. In the construction A即B, 即 roughly means &quot;namely/is also called/equals&quot;. B explains or rephrases A. It's not the same with 交易即告成立. 就 can't mean &quot;namely/is also called/equals&quot;, so it can't be used in place of 即 in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your native friend may simply base his/her answer on intuition. If you need an exhaustive explanation, you'd better refer to some Chinese grammar books. @user6065 gave a good reference book &lt;em&gt;汉语800虚词用法词典&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I beg to differ with @wpt's claim that the use of 就 in 交易就告成立 is a misuse influenced by dictionary definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the definition of 即 in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition, page 605.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dmtnX.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dmtnX.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⑥&amp;lt;书&gt;[副] 就;便：一触~发 | 招之~来 | 闻过~改。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;书&gt; means this meaning of 即 is usually used in written language. [副] means 即 is used as an adverb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the dictionary used 就/便 directly as the explanation of 即. That's just because 即, 就, 便 all have the meaning of &quot;right away/at once/immediately/something happens soon after another&quot;. Except for some idioms and Chengyu(成语), wherever you use 即 in this sense, you can use 就 or 便 in place of 即. The three words are interchangeable grammatically and semantically. As I just said, the only difference is that 即 is more formal than 就 and 便.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a paper on the evolution of 即, 就, 便 from verb to function word (adverb and conjunction). cf. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnki.net/KCMS/detail/detail.aspx?filename=YJJK200500016&amp;amp;dbname=CJFDN0508&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“即”、“便”、“就”虚化过程中的错项移植&lt;/a&gt;. With regard to when 就 was first used as adverb, the scholars haven't reached an agreement. The author of this paper believes it's no later than Song dynasty (960-1279).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@wpt claimed that 即告 is a set phrase. My opinion is that 即告 is just a commonly used phrase, not a set phrase. Less Google search results doesn't mean 就告 is a misuse. Greater occurrence of 即告 in formal documentatuions doesn't mean it can't be replaced with 就告 gramatically and semantically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastEditorUserId="6043" LastEditDate="2016-07-20T12:16:39.590" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T12:16:39.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19566" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19575" CreationDate="2016-07-15T15:52:36.763" Score="0" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chapter 111 of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Records of the Grand Historian&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (史记), there is a famous quotation attributed to &lt;em&gt;Qubing Huo&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;骠骑将军为人少言不泄，有气敢任。天子尝欲教之孙吴兵法，对曰：“&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;顾方略何如耳，不至学古兵法&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked the translation from many Chinese websites, but all of them seem to be unsatisfactory. Can anyone give me a word-by-word translation for this quotation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11536" LastEditorUserId="11536" LastEditDate="2016-07-18T04:43:40.837" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T04:43:40.837" Title="How to translate &quot;顾方略何如耳，不至学古兵法“?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19562" CreationDate="2016-07-15T17:23:51.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;即 (which is) is a word particle, it can also mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即是= equal to ;&#xA;立即= immediately ;&#xA;即刻= immediately; right this moment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 (be then) is a word particle, it can also mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就算= be considered;&#xA;就此 = just like this; &#xA;就可以= can then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 交易就告成立 and 交易即告成立 suggested the previous sentence has stated &quot;under certain condition&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如無異議 (if there is no objection ) 交易[就]告成立 ( the deal agreement would  [then be / be considered] confirmed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如無異議 (if there is no objection ) 交易[即]告成立  ( the deal agreement would [then be / be immediately] confirmed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T17:23:51.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19566" CreationDate="2016-07-15T18:20:59.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;顾方略何如耳，&#xA;顾 - 2 possible translations [1] look back [2] to see&#xA;方略 - no word to word for these 2, together they roughly means &quot;strategy&quot;&#xA;何如耳 - also a phrase, appears in few other histrionic written sentences; i think it would translate to something like &quot;how effective&quot;&#xA;不至学兵法。&#xA;不至 - together could mean 2 things  [1] don't yet have to [2] if not successful&#xA;学兵法 - you could guess this one yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T18:20:59.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19451" CreationDate="2016-07-15T18:37:50.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is used as an adjectival suffix here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1.住)(2.在)(上海旁邊)(的)(3.小村子)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.住(verb) &quot;live&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.在(preposition) &quot;in &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.小村子 (noun) &quot;small village&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;= 住在小村子 (live in small village)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 is an adjectival suffix that make 上海旁邊 a relative phrase of the noun 小村子 (small village)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** In English, we place the relative pronoun &quot; that/ which/ who&quot;  after the noun to indicate the following is a relative phrase of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&#xA;&quot; the village [that] is beside Shanghai.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** In Chinese, we place the adjectival suffix 的, after the relative phrase to indicate that phrase is a descriptive phrase of the following noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&#xA;[ relative phrase - (beside Shanghai) ]+ [adjectival suffix - (的) ]+[ noun- (small village)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T18:37:50.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19570" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-15T19:01:29.180" Score="1" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure where I have to put the 的 in this sentence, if someone could explain me &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的西班牙语只学了半年 &#xA;or &#xA;我只学了半年的西班牙语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11371" LastEditorUserId="11371" LastEditDate="2016-07-15T19:22:38.483" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T13:39:21.760" Title="Where is the right place of the 的 in this sentence" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19571" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19577" CreationDate="2016-07-15T19:34:23.017" Score="2" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know how they are used, but I don't understand how they differ in meaning in sentences like these. Eg. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他说的汉语很流利。&#xA;他说汉语说得很流利。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kindly explain using examples if possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Added further:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I came across this a very long time ago and had even asked a Chinese native friend why 的 is used here because it denotes possession. But she couldn't explain me very well. I feel my question is somehow related to this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lily 说：“我小吗？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;monster 说：“小？ 你？ 你小的不能再小了。你非常小。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another one of such kind is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不知道我做的对不对。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now here, should this 得 be used? It's very confusing and I often come across such sentences with this 的 and I fail to understand why it's being used there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13868" LastEditorUserId="13868" LastEditDate="2016-07-16T05:44:37.007" LastActivityDate="2016-07-21T02:34:15.247" Title="What's the difference between this 的and this 得 when it comes to meaning in the following sentences" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-07-17T21:56:41.587" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19571" CreationDate="2016-07-15T19:44:03.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;the first one describe your chinese and the second one describe how you speak chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese that I speak is fluent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I speak Chinese fluently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(他说的汉语)很流利。&#xA;他 (说汉语说) 得很流利&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11371" LastEditorDisplayName="user13890" LastEditDate="2016-07-15T23:19:18.193" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T23:19:18.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19566" CreationDate="2016-07-15T21:05:00.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;顾方略何如耳，不至学兵法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, it means (to fight a battle) you don't necessarily study warcraft, but to consider how to deploy strategy. To break that into word-by-word meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;顾: but to look at/take care&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classic Chinese the primary meaning of 顾 is to look back, but considering the context here it's more likely to be an adversative conjunction that has an emphasis of look at/take care/consider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;方略: strategy = 策略&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;何如: how = 如何／怎么样&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an inversion phrase that has the same meaning with 如何 when using at the end of sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;耳: auxiliary word/Chinese particles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't have much meaning, but has an indication of &lt;code&gt;nothing more than&lt;/code&gt;. So to better understand this sentence, you can translate it as &lt;code&gt;but to nothing more than considering how to deploy strategy&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不至: no necessary/no need&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;学兵法: learn/study warcraft&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13854" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T21:05:00.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19574" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-16T00:57:42.640" Score="1" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned that a third tone character is pronounced as a second tone if it's followed by another third tone character. My question is, how do I pronounce a sentence that has three or more consecutive third tone characters? Should I pronounce all of them except the last one as second tones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11478" LastActivityDate="2016-07-16T00:57:42.640" Title="How to pronounce multiple consecutive third tones in a sentence" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2016-07-17T14:38:17.893" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19566" CreationDate="2016-07-16T03:16:55.693" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;as far as i search (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/shiji/wei-jiang-jun-piao-qi-lie-zhuan/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ctext.org&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%8F%B2%E8%A8%98/%E5%8D%B7111&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;維基文庫&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp; &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06082059.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;四庫全書薈要&lt;/a&gt;), the character &quot;古&quot; is missed in the question, which make great difference in translation. the relevant text ought to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;驃騎將軍為人少言不泄﹒有氣敢任﹒天子嘗欲教之孫吳兵法﹒對曰﹒顧方略何如耳﹒不至學古兵法&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yi5Z5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yi5Z5.png&quot; alt=&quot;p117&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, i would suggest in clause 顧方略何如耳:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;顧　考慮　considering&#xA;方　方法 --&amp;gt; 戰術　military tactics　&#xA;略　策略 --&amp;gt; 戰略　military strategy&#xA;何如　如何　how to&#xA;耳 is a 虛字, served the purpose of ending a clause; and helping 句讀&#xA;靈活運用　to deploy flexibly&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, 顧方略何如耳 is roughly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;considering (顧) how to (何如) deploy military tactics (方) &amp;amp; strategy (略) flexibly (deploy and flexibly are inserted for easier comprehension)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in clause 不至學古兵法:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;不至　不至於 or 不必　no need&#xA;學　學習　to learn&#xA;古　古代    ancient&#xA;兵法　the art of war / warfare&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, 不至學古兵法 is roughly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there's no need (不至) to learn (學) the ancient (古) art of war (兵法)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the rationale of my attempted translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at the time of 霍去病 (140 bc – 117 bc), 孫吳兵法 (5th century bc) is a few hundred years old. most likely, general 霍 had ideas that society, technology and enemy are changed, that, ancient books about the art of war were outdated. further he had talent in war, that, learning from these ancient rules of war is unnecessary for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-07-16T03:30:11.943" LastActivityDate="2016-07-16T03:30:11.943" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19570" CreationDate="2016-07-16T06:43:52.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我的西班牙语只学了半年 or 我只学了半年的西班牙语&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我的&lt;/strong&gt;= &lt;strong&gt;my&lt;/strong&gt; (the 的 after 我 denote possessive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;半年&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; = half year &lt;strong&gt;of&lt;/strong&gt; (the 的 after 半年 is an adjectival suffix that turn 半年 into a relative phrase of 学~西班牙语 )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-07-16T17:13:34.267" LastActivityDate="2016-07-16T17:13:34.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19571" CreationDate="2016-07-16T07:59:45.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 generally expresses possession or modification and 得 is used after a verb or an adjective to express possibility or capability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some literal translations that should help to differentiate between the two examples that you listed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他说的汉语很流利。 &#xA;[他说的汉语][很流利]。&#xA;[The Chinese that he speaks][(is) fluent].&#xA;&#xA;他说汉语说得很流利。&#xA;[他][说汉语][说得][很流利]。&#xA;[He][speak Chinese][speaks][fluently].&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, that which comes &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; the 的 modifies what comes &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他穿的衣服很时髦。&#xA;[他穿的衣服][很时髦]。&#xA;[The clothes that he wears][(is) fashionable].&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 的 ends up forming a complex subject:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他说的汉语&#xA;The Chinese (that he speaks)&#xA;“他说” modifies &quot;汉语&quot;. &#xA;Which Chinese? The Chinese that he speaks.&#xA;&#xA;他穿的衣服&#xA;The clothes (that he wears)&#xA;&quot;他穿&quot; modifies &quot;衣服&quot;.&#xA;Which clothes? The clothes that he wears.&#xA;&#xA;红色的书&#xA;The (red) book&#xA;&quot;红色&quot; modifies &quot;书&quot;.&#xA;Which book? The book that is red.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得 is generally used in the following pattern to describe the degree to which something is done: &lt;code&gt;[Subject][Verb-Object][Verb 得][Adverb]&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;她看书看得很快。&#xA;[她][看书][看得][很快]。&#xA;[She][read books][reads][quickly].&#xA;[Subject][Verb-Object][Verb 得][Adverb]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the dialogue that you provided, the &quot;的&quot; should actually be &quot;得&quot;. It seems to just be a typo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Lily 说：“我小吗？”&#xA;Lily: &quot;Am I small?&quot;&#xA;&#xA;Monster 说：“小？ 你？ 你小的不能再小了。你非常小。”&#xA;Monster: &quot;Small? You? You're so small that you can't get any smaller. You're very small.&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the third example, 得 should not be used. 的 is correct here, but it can be confusing because there is an implied/omitted noun. The thing being modified isn't said explicitly and all that is said is the modifier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我不知道我做的对不对。&#xA;[我][不知道][我做的][对不对]。&#xA;[I][don't know][(that which) I did][is/is not right].&#xA;I don't know if what I did was right.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another example dialogue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: 我要买书。&#xA;A: I want to buy books.&#xA;&#xA;B: 新的还是二手的？&#xA;B: New (books) or used (books)?&#xA;&#xA;A: 新的。&#xA;A: New (books).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how &quot;书 / books&quot; is not repeated. Once the object is clearly in context, both speakers drop it for convenience and brevity. Natural human speech tends to be like this. It would seem quite odd to say everything explicitly since once something is in context, repeating it can seem unnecessarily redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5961" LastEditorUserId="5961" LastEditDate="2016-07-21T02:34:15.247" LastActivityDate="2016-07-21T02:34:15.247" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19571" CreationDate="2016-07-16T08:47:51.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both in 你小的不能再小了 and 我不知道我做的对不对, the 的 should have been 得. 不能再小 and 对不对 are &lt;em&gt;情态补语(modal complement)&lt;/em&gt;, and should be used after 得. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figure 1. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiandai_Hanyu_Cidian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;现代汉语词典，第6版&lt;/a&gt;(Contemporary Chinese Dictrionary, 6th Edition), page 272.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lgMkK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lgMkK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;③ Used after a verb or adjective, followed by a complement indicating the result or degree of the verb/adjective: 写(write) 得 非常(very) 好(good). 天气(weather) 热(hot) 得 很(very).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figure 2. &lt;a href=&quot;https://book.douban.com/subject/1091176/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;实用现代汉语语法&lt;/a&gt;(Practical Contemporay Chinese Grammar), page 597&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ldriy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ldriy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Exmaples from top to bottom:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;①睡(sleep) 得 很(very) 晚(late)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;②打(play) 得 很(very) 好(good)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;③学(learn) 得 好(good)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;④唱(sing) 得 好(good)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;⑤睡(sleep) 得 香(sound)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;⑥说(say) 得 非常(very) 对(right)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;①回答(answer) 得 对不对(right or not)？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;②唱(sing) 得 好(good) 吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;③起(get up) 得 是不是(whether or not) 很(very) 晚(late)？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastActivityDate="2016-07-16T08:47:51.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19579" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19580" CreationDate="2016-07-16T11:37:50.590" Score="7" ViewCount="2640" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between the three &lt;em&gt;read&lt;/em&gt; verbs, 阅读，读，and 看? A casual googling gets you some explanations but as I still can't get it correctly and it has not been posted here, I wish someone could clarify it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the difference of the three verbs from 念; 念 is used when you speak it out, sometimes loudly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as to the three verbs, 看 is used in more general while 阅读 is used when you concentrate on the action of reading...right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then I don't know the difference between 阅读 and 读. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, does 阅读 (or 读) is only used when you read words or sentences? For example, I'm now at Starbucks and see a trash bin outside, around 10m ahead. Is it awkward to say &lt;code&gt;请阅读那个垃圾桶&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most books I used I saw 看 is most often used, but during my current stay in China (too short yet), I have seen 阅读 far more often than 看...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-07-20T09:58:05.097" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T03:53:34.327" Title="What is the difference between 阅读, 读, and 看?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19579" CreationDate="2016-07-16T16:21:48.737" Score="9" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看 could mean &lt;code&gt;see&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;look&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;watch&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;read&lt;/code&gt;, but 阅读 does not mean &lt;code&gt;see&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;look&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;watch&lt;/code&gt;. 阅读 only means &lt;code&gt;read&lt;/code&gt;. Examples: &#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在看书。(I'm reading a book.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在读书。(I'm reading a book.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在阅读。(I'm doing some reading.)(Normally we don't say &lt;code&gt;我在阅读书&lt;/code&gt;; see below.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;WRONG SENTENCE&lt;/strong&gt;: 请阅读那个垃圾桶。(Please read that trash bin.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;请看那个垃圾桶。(Please look at that trash bin.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;阅读 is more like an intransitive verb, or a noun in English, while 读 is more like a transitive verb. Examples:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我喜欢阅读。(I like reading.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UNNATURAL&lt;/strong&gt;: 我喜欢阅读书。(I like reading books.)(Although in English it is very good, it sounds weird in Chinese, because a one-syllable word is combined with a two-syllable word.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;RATHER FORMAL&lt;/strong&gt;: 我喜欢阅读书籍。(I like reading books.)(This sounds formal rather than weird because two two-syllable words are put together.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13901" LastEditorUserId="13901" LastEditDate="2018-06-20T03:53:34.327" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T03:53:34.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19581" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19585" CreationDate="2016-07-17T13:59:57.393" Score="2" ViewCount="395" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have looked for that word. The most common translation seems to be 企业家. However, I think 企业家 can be confused with big businessman. I want to say 我是企业家, but I'm not a big businessman. I'm just trying to run a startup, so I think I should say 我是一个创业者. Am I right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3522" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-07-19T17:05:09.743" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T12:08:35.697" Title="Is 创业者 the best translation of entrepreneur as somebody who is trying to run a startup?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19582" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19583" CreationDate="2016-07-17T14:57:15.457" Score="3" ViewCount="544" Body="&lt;p&gt;以 is one of the most confusing words in Chinese. Texts that really challenge me are usually full of it. Today I saw something confusing again:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I encountered the phrase 文以載道。The document claims it means &amp;quot;transport the Way through literature&amp;quot;. I know some similar phrases, but the placement of 以 differs. I add some non idiomatic English translations, to explain my idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以文會友 ： befriend through refined interests&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以誠相待 : interact with each other through sincerity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以暴易暴 : replace tyranny through tyranny&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以備不虞: through preparation be at ease&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以詞害意: through words harm the meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From all these I expected the phrase to be 以文載道。What am I overlooking? I know there might be many things, since Chinese is the pinnacle of versatility - at least among the languages I speak!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T19:04:19.250" Title="Why 文以載道 but 以文會友?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19582" CreationDate="2016-07-17T15:52:21.770" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;文以载道&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;成语&lt;/code&gt; (Chinese four-character idiom), which has its history and origin, and the reason why and how it was formed and determined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/7/8d/156203.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;文以载道&lt;/a&gt; originated from &lt;code&gt;宋·周敦颐《通书·文辞》&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;文所以载道也。轮辕饰而人弗庸，徒饰也，况虚车乎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original sentence &lt;code&gt;文所以载道也&lt;/code&gt;, the point is to describe the subject &lt;code&gt;文&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;The writings are used for illuminating the thought&lt;/code&gt;. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/0/142/311801.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;所以&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;code&gt;use&lt;/code&gt; here.) When it was simplified to &lt;code&gt;成语&lt;/code&gt;, the grammar structure was reserved and then became &lt;code&gt;文以载道&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;以文载道&lt;/code&gt; is not wrong grammatically, and we can find such usages (such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_6ff911dd0100nb9v.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;). But its meaning is somewhat different, like &lt;code&gt;To illuminate the thought through writings&lt;/code&gt;). It's not the formal usage as &lt;code&gt;成语&lt;/code&gt;, while &lt;code&gt;文以载道&lt;/code&gt; is the formal one (which you could look up in the dictionary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-07-17T16:51:48.703" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T16:51:48.703" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19582" CreationDate="2016-07-17T16:25:58.330" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, lost in translation lah :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;以文會友&quot;, i would suggest: by means of (以) article | essay | writings (文), to interact with (會) people (友)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以暴易暴, i would suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;using (以) violence (暴) to cope with | against (易) violence (暴)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, the term &quot;文以載道&quot; is tricky, it's derived from 文辭第二十八章 of 周元公集, by 周敦頤 of 宋 dynasty:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;文所以載道﹒猶車所以載物﹒故為車者﹒必飾其輪轅﹒&#xA;為文者﹒必善其詞說﹒皆欲人之愛而用之﹒然我飾之而人不用﹒&#xA;則猶為虛飾而無益於實況﹒不載物之車﹒不載道之文﹒雖美其飾﹒亦何所為乎&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06053510.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;周元公集&lt;/a&gt;, 卷一, page 69-72&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vbCUK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vbCUK.png&quot; alt=&quot;p70&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in this article, &quot;文以載道&quot; is roughly: &quot;writings ought to convey virtue&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's not a word by word translation, but to deliver the original meaning in literary chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about &quot;以文載道&quot;, i would say that it loses the emphasis of what a writing (文) should be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, if possible, translate from the original text. imo, the b**** is, well, unreliable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, more info.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/chun-qiu-zuo-zhuan/zhao-gong-yuan-nian/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;左傳﹒昭公元年&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;君子有四時﹒朝以聽政﹒晝以訪問﹒夕以脩令﹒夜以安身&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is roughly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;morning (朝) is for (以) administrative work (聽政)﹒&#xA;afternoon (晝) is for (以) interview (訪問)﹒&#xA;evening (夕) is for (以) order amendment (脩令)﹒&#xA;night (夜) is for (以) reposing (安身)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that, i would say ^.以..$ is a fixed structure, which emphasises the 1st character (the one before &quot;以&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, changing to &quot;以朝聽政﹒以晝訪問﹒以夕脩令﹒以夜安身&quot;, imo, is inappropriate in the above text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, the term &quot;以文會友&quot; is from &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/analects/yan-yuan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;論語﹒顏淵&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;曾子曰﹒君子以文會友﹒以友輔仁&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, the &quot;^以...$&quot; structure is roughly &quot;using / by means of&quot; (以 ) + the 2nd character, to serve the purpose of 3rd, 4th characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, changing to &quot;文以會友﹒友以輔仁&quot; is inappropriate in the above text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-07-17T19:04:19.250" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T19:04:19.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19581" CreationDate="2016-07-17T23:35:42.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;企業家 (T) or 企业家 (S) is the correct translation for &quot;entrepreneur&quot;&#xA;it doesn't indicate the size of  the business that person is running, ,  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For that, we have 大企業家 (T) or 大企业家 (S) meaning large profile entrepreneur)，and 小企業家 (T) or 小企业家 (S) meaning small profile entrepreneur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a start up business owner, the term is 新進企業家 (T) or 新进​​企业家 (S) meaning start up entrepreneur&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;創業 (T) or 创业 (S) means &quot;to start a business&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;創業者 (T) or 创业者 (S) means &quot; one who starts his or her own business&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;T: Traditional Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S: Simplified Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="3522" LastEditDate="2016-09-04T12:08:35.697" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T12:08:35.697" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19586" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-18T00:29:35.373" Score="1" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a version of the &lt;em&gt;Dao De Jing&lt;/em&gt; that I found on Gutenberg.org, this character appears: 繟. I've done multiple searches of the web and of several dictionaries online, but wasn't able to find a translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the chapter that contains the character: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;第七十三章&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;勇於敢則殺，勇於不敢則活。此兩者，或利或害。天之所惡，孰知其故？是以聖人猶難之。天之道，不爭而善勝，不言而善應，不召而自來，繟然而善謀。天網恢恢，疏而不失。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody know its meaning? According to MDBG.net, the reading of it is: chǎn, but no definition was provided: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E7%B9%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=繟&lt;/a&gt; (click the character to expand the information on it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13908" LastActivityDate="2016-09-16T10:16:21.337" Title="Translation of &quot;繟&quot;" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19586" CreationDate="2016-07-18T01:43:01.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;have a look of the 國語辭典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000008412&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000008412&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, 唐玄宗御製道德真經疏:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YsWbK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YsWbK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Sb8mV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Sb8mV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T01:43:01.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19589" CreationDate="2016-07-18T03:17:43.800" Score="5" ViewCount="2135" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vZTST.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vZTST.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;strong&gt;why some Chinese words don't use the rule of prefix?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T04:25:20.487" Title="Why do some Chinese characters for animals not use the radical 犭?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19588" CreationDate="2016-07-18T03:55:06.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are mainly four ways how a Chinese character is created:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;象形 The character is drawing of the object (牛 羊)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;指事 ideograms express an abstract idea through an iconic form (一 上)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;会意 compound ideographs, also called associative compounds or logical aggregates, are compounds of two or more pictographic or ideographic characters to suggest the meaning of the word to be represented. (森 休)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;形声 these are often called radical-phonetic characters. (狗 猪 猴)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Pictograms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this wiki article&lt;/a&gt; for details. (Note: The other two mentioned in this article, 转注 and 假借, are ways of giving an existing character a new meaning)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing your &quot;rule of prefix&quot; refers to the radical-phonetic characters. Most Chinese characters falls into this category, but there are still a lot of characters that do not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw: The character 鸡 went through a more complex process to get the current form. I do not know the details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T03:55:06.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19588" CreationDate="2016-07-18T04:13:43.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some Chinese characters are pictographs. For instance 牛 and 羊 come from pictographs of animals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By contrast, many other Chinese characters are composites of a &quot;meaning part&quot; and a &quot;sound part&quot;. 狗, 猪, 猴 have as meaning part an alteration of 犬 &quot;dog&quot; and sound parts 句 (compare 够), 者 （compare 煮, 著, 诸), 候 respectively. 鸡 has meaning part 鸟 “bird”. The left hand side, 又, is an elision of the sound part 奚 (pronounced &lt;em&gt;xi1&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There is no rule that all characters must have both a sound part and a meaning part. Many besides 牛 and 羊 do not.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However some characters originated in a way similar to your suggestions. For instance 萬 is from a pictograph of a scorpion. At some point a scribe added the common meaning part 虫 &quot;bug&quot;, yielding the character 蠆 &quot;scorpion&quot;. This was probably more as a disambiguation than out of any desire that all bugs have 虫 in their character for the sake of consistency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastEditorUserId="3183" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T11:23:02.180" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T11:23:02.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="242" CreationDate="2016-07-18T04:59:49.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing I am surprised no one has mentioned is that there are a number of characters that are standardly used to transliterate foreign words. I think some characters are chosen for this purpose because they are simple and common, some because they are particularly useful for transcribing certain foreign sound combos, some because they are otherwise rare and will therefore not bring unwanted meaning connotations. Once characters appear in a number of transliterations, they will be recognized as characters which commonly are used to transliterate, and thus will bring less unwanted meaning connotations to a transliteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance 亚历山德罗 is the standard transliteration of Alessandro and contains characters commonly used in transliterations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T04:59:49.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12112" CreationDate="2016-07-18T05:54:25.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you say 投了错的保险, in fact it has the same meaning with 投错了险 in Chinese.&#xA;Maybe the right way to say express this meaning is 投了错的保险,but most people in China were used to say 投错了险.It was different from the English,when the 错 appear,we will naturally know it was with the 险，not the 投。It was our habit of grammer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13912" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T05:54:25.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19586" CreationDate="2016-07-18T08:56:42.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This word means 坦然 in modern chinese. In fact I can't find a right English word to express the meaning. The meaning of sentence is, natural has its own rule.It didn't fight, but it will be the winner. It didn't say anything, but evernthing in the world will answer it. It didn't call anyone, but there are so many animals in the world. So, we just take it easy, just get our own plans, just do what we should do, calmly and indifferently, and the natural will help us to finish everything well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13912" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T08:56:42.107" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8504" CreationDate="2016-07-18T16:15:12.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I read it right, @user3306356's question is whether there are a lot of  word-sets comprising a word that has long existed in Chinese and another word that is a loanword from another language representing the same concept. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sense, I will say there are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a lot of these kinds of word-sets. Anyway, if there is already a native Chinese word for a certain concept, why bother borrowing a new one from another language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To elaborate on this question, I think we need to distinguish between &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loanword&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;loanword&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calque&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;calque&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untranslatability#Adaptation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;free translation&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phono-semantic_matching&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;phono-semantic matching&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;em&gt;loanword&lt;/em&gt; is a word adopted from one language (the donor language) and incorporated into a different, recipient language &lt;strong&gt;without translation&lt;/strong&gt;. That is, only the pronunciation of the word is somewhat reserved, and you can't reason about its meaning from the Chinese characters makeing up the word. &lt;code&gt;Sofa = 沙发&lt;/code&gt; is of this kind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;em&gt;calque&lt;/em&gt; or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word, or root-for-root translation. &lt;code&gt;E-mail = 电子邮件&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;skyscraper = 摩天楼&lt;/code&gt; are of this kind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese seldom borrow new words from other languages for something already existed in Chinese. There are a few word-sets of this kind, and the loanwords are used just because they sound fancy or have an exotic feeling. &lt;code&gt;Bacon: 培根 = 煙肉, Daddy: 爹地 = 爸爸, Cheese: 芝士 / 起司 / 起士 = 奶酪 / 乳酪&lt;/code&gt; are of this kind. The Chinese words before the equals sign are loanwords (phonetic translation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When new concepts are introduced to China, it's most common for Chinese to use existing Chinese morphemes to coin new words for the concepts. Chinese love &lt;em&gt;free translation&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;phono-semantic matching&lt;/em&gt; much more than &lt;em&gt;phonetic translation&lt;/em&gt;. Anyway, a word made up of native Chinese morphemes is much more comprehensible than a word made up of some characters having nothing to do with its meaning. At first, a phonetic translation and a free translation or phono-semantic matching may exist at the same time and compete with each other, and usually the free translation or phono-semantic version will beat the phonetic translation at last.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many word-sets listed by @Semaphore are just different Chinese translations of the same new concept imported from other languages, not word-sets made up of a loanword and a native Chinese word for a certain concept that has long existed in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take &lt;code&gt;Laser: 雷射 = 激光&lt;/code&gt; as an example. Laser is invented in the USA, so it's a new concept from English. Only the concept of laser was borrowed, not the word itself. 雷射 is a &lt;em&gt;phono-semantic matching&lt;/em&gt; of laser, 激光 is a &lt;em&gt;free translation&lt;/em&gt; of the same word. But neither the word 雷射 nor 激光 existed in Chinese before laser was invented. So this word-set doesn't conform to @user3306356's standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Taxi: 的士 = 計程車 / 出租車&lt;/code&gt; is similar to &lt;code&gt;Laser: 雷射 = 激光&lt;/code&gt;. 的士 is a phonetic translation of taxi and is mostly used in Hong Kong. 計程車 is a free translation of taxi and is used in Taiwan. 出租車 is another free translation of taxi and is used in mainland China. The concept of taxi is imported from western world. 的士, 計程車, 出租車 are just different translations of taxi, none of these words existed in Chinese language before the concept of taxi was introduced to China. So this word-set doesn't conform to @user3306356's standard either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastEditorUserId="6043" LastEditDate="2016-07-18T20:15:22.937" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T20:15:22.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19562" CreationDate="2016-07-19T04:15:34.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;就 and 即 are quite different, and the usual dictionary definition of 即 = 就 is misleading in many cases (but not all).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important thing to bear in mind here, I think, is that 就 is most common as a temporal adverb (contrasting with 才). It is a &quot;free morpheme&quot; in the sense that 了 is a free morpheme; within the syntactic limitations that &quot;temporal adverb&quot; imposes, it can be used without restriction. 即 is not a free morpheme. It is literary Chinese, and its use in the Modern Standard Chinese is usually restricted to set phrases such as 可望不可即, 即位, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, 即告 is such a phrase, now used only in legal terminology to mean &quot;immediately take effect&quot;. Influenced by the dictionary definition, some do indeed substitute 就 here, but this is a recent &quot;misuse&quot;.  According to Google's very inaccurate estimates, there are 4000+ instances of 就告成立 found by the mighty google searchbot. These are mostly from books or blogs that are dated after 2000. For 即告成立, there over 250,000 instances, with no such temporal restrictions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on this stark contrast, I don't think that 即告 has yet been superceded by 就告. If you want to use 就 with this sort of legal meaning, consider using the Modern Chinese compound 宣告, instead of just 告 (also classical, not modern). Googling the phrase 就宣告成立 gets 27000+ examples. This is less common than standard legal terminology, but better than the perverse 就告.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-07-19T04:15:34.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19581" CreationDate="2016-07-20T02:08:49.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 创业者 is the correct answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13927" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T02:08:49.370" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10411" CreationDate="2016-07-20T03:29:30.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want someone to speak to you in Chinese, you can simply just say that you know Chinese and that someone would naturally converse in Chinese with you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我会说中文&quot; would mean I know how to speak in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13928" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T03:29:30.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19607" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-20T19:06:47.220" Score="10" ViewCount="536" Body="&lt;p&gt;户 means home. So these examples are not suprising: 房 fáng (house),  扁 biǎn (flat), 扇 shàn (fan [mostly used indoor]), 扉 fēi (door)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尸 means corpse, and it looks like it refers to tail or something leaving downwards, so these examples are not suprising either:&#xA;尿 niào (urine), 尾 wěi (tail), 屎 shǐ (poo), 屁 pì (fart)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 屋 wū (room) and 居 jū (live) under 尸 is suprising since it seems to belong more to 户 by its meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this discrepancy above due to a calligraphical mistake or lazyness, namely, leaving off that one tick, made a long time ago?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://justlearnchinese.com/chinese-radical-show-home-radical-42/&quot;&gt;http://justlearnchinese.com/chinese-radical-show-home-radical-42/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://justlearnchinese.com/chinese-radical-show-corpse-radical-41/&quot;&gt;http://justlearnchinese.com/chinese-radical-show-corpse-radical-41/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13935" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T00:25:17.777" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T04:30:32.377" Title="Should 屋 and 居 use radical 户 instead of 尸?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19607" CreationDate="2016-07-21T07:06:04.850" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this discrepancy above due to a calligraphical mistake or lazyness, namely, leaving off that one tick, made a long time ago?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR:&lt;/strong&gt; I don't think so, because (1) &lt;code&gt;尸&lt;/code&gt; used as the pictographic radical with the meaning &lt;code&gt;house&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;屋&lt;/code&gt; was explicitly mentioned in 说文解字 long before, (2) the original meanings of &lt;code&gt;尸&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;户&lt;/code&gt; used as radicals are not exactly the same (&lt;code&gt;house&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;single door&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;1. About &lt;code&gt;尸&lt;/code&gt; (and &lt;code&gt;屋&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;尸&lt;/code&gt; used as the pictograph in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/xs/5C4B.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;屋&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; was explicitly mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/sw/5C4B.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;说文解字&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;居也。从尸。尸，所主也。一曰尸，象屋形。(&lt;em&gt;&lt;code&gt;尸&lt;/code&gt; looks like house.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会意。从尸,从至。尸,与房屋有关,“至”表示来到。人来到这里居住之意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guokr.com/question/559701/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt; summarized three usages of &lt;code&gt;尸&lt;/code&gt; when used as radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;italics is translation from me&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.从原意而来，代表人的躯体。(&lt;em&gt;Derived from the original meaning, represents body of human.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;会意字有：&#xA;屍：死去的躯体，就是尸体。屍和尸古来就一直通用。&#xA;尿：躯体排出的水分。&#xA;屎：米经过躯体排出来的东西。&#xA;屄：躯干上的洞。&#xA;尾：躯干后面的毛。&#xA;等等。&#xA;&#xA;形声字有：&#xA;尻，屌，屈，屑，屙，屁&#xA;属（声旁是蜀，不是禹），&#xA;届（声旁是凷，不是由），含义是到达，比如届时，无远弗届等等。&#xA;展，屠，&#xA;尼：原意为靠近，后来用昵字代替了本意。至于尼姑的尼，则是梵语比丘尼（bhikṣunī）的音译缩略。&#xA;居：原意为蹲下。后来用踞字代替了本意。&#xA;等等。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B. 从履字来的，表示各种鞋子的字。履不是人体的部位，但是是服装，所以和尸的原意仍然有关联。(&lt;em&gt;Derived from 履, used to represent various kinds of shoes. 履 is not the part of body, but the clothing, it's still relevant to the original meaning of 尸.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这类字有：&#xA;屐：木鞋&#xA;屝：泛指鞋&#xA;屜：鞋子里垫的草。&#xA;屟（屧）：鞋子的木底&#xA;屣：鞋子&#xA;屦：麻鞋&#xA;等等&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C.第三类的尸本意不是躯体，而是指房屋。其形状像一面墙壁和屋顶。(&lt;em&gt;The meaning of the 3rd kind of 尸 is not body, but the house. Its shape looks like a wall and the roof.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这类字有：&#xA;屋，&#xA;层（層）：原意指楼（重屋），引申为重，重复。&#xA;屏：原意指影壁墙。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;2. About &lt;code&gt;户&lt;/code&gt; (and &lt;code&gt;房&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/xs/6237.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;户&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; means single leaf door originally, note it's not exactly the same but relevant to &lt;code&gt;house&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;象形。甲骨文字形,象门(門)字的一半。汉字部首之一。从“户”的多与门户有关。本义:单扇门&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a picture from the book &amp;quot;字源谈趣&amp;quot; explaining the difference between &lt;code&gt;门&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;户&lt;/code&gt;, especially their ancient form (left-most one).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/97FMz.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/97FMz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we could understand the original meaning of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/xs/623F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;房&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, i.e. &lt;code&gt;正室左右的住室&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;em&gt;wing room/side room (with single door)&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上古边室皆用单扇门(即“户”),庙门大门才用双扇门,故“房”从“户”。本义:正室左右的住室&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Additional information about &lt;code&gt;居&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/xs/5C45.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;居&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; seems to be the different case with &lt;code&gt;屋&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;象形。金文字形,是“踞”的本字,象人曲胫蹲踞形。本义:蹲着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;居&lt;/code&gt; is the original character of &lt;code&gt;踞&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;squat&lt;/code&gt;. Then it was used for other meanings, &lt;code&gt;踞&lt;/code&gt; was created for the using of the meaning &lt;code&gt;squat&lt;/code&gt;. So the usage of &lt;code&gt;尸&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;居&lt;/code&gt; should be the 1st case shown as before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-07-21T13:52:43.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19612" CreationDate="2016-07-21T10:40:49.567" Score="0" ViewCount="606" Body="&lt;p&gt;只 zhǐ is just simply 只 zhǐ in simplified writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell the most common traditional form is 衹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why so many variations for traditional 只 zhǐ (衹/祇/秖/隻)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-07-21T12:01:53.310" Title="Why so many variations for traditional 只 zhǐ (衹/祇/秖/隻)?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19611" CreationDate="2016-07-21T12:01:53.310" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To clarify:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;只 has two meanings and pronunciations, zhī (single) and zhǐ (only)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;隻 is pronounced zhī and has the same meaning as 只 (zhī)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;衹, 祇, 秖 all can mean zhǐ (only), but also had other meanings:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/23/js/8879.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;衹&lt;/a&gt; has the same meaning, but could also mean 緹 (a reddish colour used in textiles) - hence the 衣 (clothing) radical&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/20/js/7947.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;祇&lt;/a&gt; also has the pronunciation of qí meanin &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/8607177.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;地祇&lt;/a&gt;, or earth spirits in Chinese folk religion, hence the 示 (divine) radical&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/20/js/79D6.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;秖&lt;/a&gt; is supposed to mean &quot;谷始熟&quot;, hence the 禾 (grain) radical&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what you're really asking can be split into multiple questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why are there multiple zhǐ (only) characters?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衹 is the correct one, but due to close similarity with the other characters, they have often been confused for each other. Over time the other forms have become accepted as also having the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to demonstrate how confusing this can be, the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/20/js/7957.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;祗&lt;/a&gt; is also mistakenly used; it even has a similar pronunciation (zhī). If you haven't noticed, the only difference is a dot below the right part: 氐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the goals of simplification had been to eliminate multiple characters meaning the same thing, so it's easy to see why these three were merged into 只 (zhǐ). According to 說文解字, 只 emerged as an alternate form of 衹 as far back as the Song dynasty (&quot;宋人詩用只爲衹字&quot;), explaining why 只 was chosen. But this leads to the next question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why did 隻, unrelated and pronounced differently, also get merged into 只?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's harder to answer as it's one of the controversial aspects of simplified Chinese: 一简对多繁. For whatever reason, in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_General_Standard_Chinese_Characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《通用规范汉字表》&lt;/a&gt; 只 was listed as &quot;low risk&quot; (低风险多音字). Probably because the two meanings have different pronunciations and have different grammatical functions, and therefore were unlikely to be mixed up. This is unlike the &quot;high risk&quot; characters like the infamous 干, which has confused computer translators into translating it as &quot;fuck&quot; on many Chinglish menus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that they wanted to simplify 隻, a very commonly used character, but there were no good options - e.g. they could have used 支 but it is already a different measure word, which could cause confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2016-07-21T12:01:53.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19614" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19615" CreationDate="2016-07-22T06:41:41.813" Score="0" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know any Chinese, but I went to a kind of sales pitch by a Chinese salesman. He kept saying a word at the end of some sentences. The best I could think of the English pronunciation would be div-e-day. It was always in the form of a question, so I think it might be something to the effect of &quot;am I right&quot; in English.  Any guesses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13948" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-07-23T02:39:55.663" LastActivityDate="2016-07-23T02:39:55.663" Title="Word that I kept hearing at the end of a sentence" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19614" CreationDate="2016-07-22T09:22:52.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;word&quot; you are asking about is not one word but two: &quot;对不对&quot; &#xA;对： Right&#xA;不对： Wrong&#xA;So he is asking you that: Is it correct or not? But actually meaning for this is trying to convince people like &quot;Don't you think what i said is very reasonable? Yes, I am right!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Pinyin for these words: DUI 对, BU 不， DUI 对&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13949" LastActivityDate="2016-07-22T09:22:52.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19616" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19617" CreationDate="2016-07-22T13:56:20.373" Score="2" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on translating song lyrics, and trying to understand the meaning behind the song 星光 by S.H.E.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lyrics I'm struggling with are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也許是你笑的弧度和我很像&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation guess: Perhaps its the shape of your smile [that] I really like(像??).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and later:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才會背靠著背一起等天亮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation guess: Until then we lie side by side waiting for dawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4275" LastEditorUserId="4275" LastEditDate="2016-07-22T15:29:50.260" LastActivityDate="2016-07-22T17:02:19.197" Title="Translating song lyrics: SHE Starlight 2 verses" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19616" CreationDate="2016-07-22T16:47:17.770" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Missing or omitted&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Line 1: &quot;也許是你笑的弧度和我(的)很像 &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;**the possessive marker 的 is omitted, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我= I /  我的 (with object)= my / 我的 (without object)= &lt;strong&gt;mine&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Line 2: &quot;(我們)才會背靠著背一起等天光&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** The subject pronoun &quot;我們&quot;(us) is omitted, &#xA;In Chinese, we omit pronoun whenever possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Break down&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1.也許是] [2. 你笑的弧度] [3. 和我(的)很像]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1.may be it is because] [2. the curvature of your (mouth) (when you) smile] [3.is very similar to mine ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** they simile like each other, imply their personalities are similar too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[4.(我們) 才會] [5.背靠著背] [6.一起] [7.等天光]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[4. that made us] [ 5.back pressing against each others back] [6.together] [7.waiting for dawn]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** It is a graphic description of a couple sit closely together in darkness and just let time pass. (supposedly a romantic scene.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-07-22T17:02:19.197" LastActivityDate="2016-07-22T17:02:19.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19439" CreationDate="2016-07-24T10:13:26.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese grammar, 緊 indicates a ‘progressive’ aspect while 住 indicates a ‘durative’ aspect. Both aspects are part of the ‘continuous’ aspect of English grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢著緊件外套 (she is putting on an overcoat) describes a dynamic ongoing action of wearing the overcoat.&#xA;佢著住件外套 (she has on her body an overcoat) describes a static persistent state of already having the overcoat on her body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢拖緊兩個細路過馬路 (he is taking two kids across the road) denotes that “taking two kids” is the main action while crossing the road.&#xA;佢拖住兩個細路過馬路 (he is crossing the road with two kids tagging along) denotes that “taking two kids” is merely a subsidiary action of crossing the road.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13950" LastActivityDate="2016-07-24T10:13:26.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19620" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-24T12:13:07.503" Score="1" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;I still am super grateful that all TV shows in China have subtitles (in Chinese) because even Chinese people will get a bit confused as to what's being said without the characters specifying which of the many homophones are being pronounced&quot; from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.duolingo.com/comment/7272741&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.duolingo.com/comment/7272741&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read lots of comments like this suggesting that characters are necessary, as opposed to pinyin (or kana for Japanese) only, because of ambiguity due to homophones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suggesting that Chinese and Japanese are &quot;crippled&quot; in speech, since speech and pinyin (or kana) transcriptions are equivalent! So if one is insufficient than so is the other!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find that hard to believe. I expect that speakers adapt the language to avoid ambiguity, for example by extending words (e.g. 2-syllable words in madarin e.g. adding &quot;zi&quot; to some nouns) or adding more context through more sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case however the ambiguity argument for characters falls short. Not to mention Korean supposedly has many homophones aswell, and they are just fine with hangul.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also saw the &quot;Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den&quot; poem mentioned as an argument for characters, even though that was written to promote the use of modern vernacular in which homophones are disambiguated as needed, as opposed to old/literary Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13962" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T19:15:52.387" Title="Is Chinese really that ambigous in oral communication?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19620" CreationDate="2016-07-24T13:32:08.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den&quot; (施氏食狮史) is an anormality or a very &quot;perverse&quot; case. Characters will often have the same pronunciation (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/17416/5714&quot;&gt;Does xiang (third tone) mean &amp;quot;want&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;echo&amp;quot;?&lt;/a&gt;). However, with some context, in the form of either a &quot;term&quot; or a phrase that the character forms, it is possible to distinguish between characters. If someone says &lt;code&gt;sha1 si3&lt;/code&gt;, I can probably safely assume that they mean 杀死 (unless there's some other parsing of their speech that makes more sense). If someone says &lt;code&gt;hua1 yuan2 zhong1&lt;/code&gt;, I can safely guess that they mean 花园中.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is possible even if the tones are missing: for example, I could guess the characters for &lt;code&gt;ru guo quan shi jie wo ye ke yi fang qi&lt;/code&gt; (i.e. 如果全世界我也可以放弃) even though I had only had heard this phrase in a song. (Singing will obscure the tones used for characters.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consequently, issues of ambiguity in oral communication are, to the best of my knowledge, limited to cases where context cannot be provided, such as with identifying the component characters of people's names. These can be rectified if the speaker provides example usage of each character (e.g. 元朝的元, 责任的任).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T19:15:52.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19622" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-24T16:09:38.413" Score="5" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 份 in 身份? Is 份 used as a word pointing to a papers i.e. documents (passport and so on)? Or is it used as a 'division' so as to differentiate a man from man (身 body in our case)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T23:55:16.070" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T23:55:16.070" Title="Why there is 份 in 身份?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19622" CreationDate="2016-07-24T16:38:37.983" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the past, it was 身分, which means the social position of an individual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000131140&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000131140&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somehow, in modern times, it evolved to 身份. Indeed, in Taiwan, the identity card is called &quot;身分證&quot;, while in Hong Kong, it is called &quot;身份證&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say that both &quot;身分&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;身份&quot; have their supporters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can read traditional Chinese characters, there's a pdf about the controversy over &quot;分&quot; or &quot;份&quot; in the translation of &quot;identity card&quot;, by the law drafting division, Department of Justice, of Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/clrc/crcl_48/yen.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/clrc/crcl_48/yen.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T14:48:25.790" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T14:48:25.790" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19625" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-24T18:59:23.290" Score="0" ViewCount="689" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a certain website, the translation for fruit is 水果, but later on it tells me that it is also 果.&#xA;What is the distinction?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13965" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T13:39:22.277" LastActivityDate="2016-07-29T02:44:27.647" Title="Distinction between 水果 and 果?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19626" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19627" CreationDate="2016-07-25T02:04:55.787" Score="0" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;English language descriptions of baijiu constantly repeat that &quot;sauce flavored&quot; baijiu -- meaning  酱香型 -- is called this because it smells like soy sauce (醬油).  I believe this is sheer ignorance and just shows they think all Chinese sauce is soy sauce.  Am I wrong?  Does the word 酱 in the phrase 酱香型 refer to 醬油?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, I see that Google Translate does not even render 酱香型 as &quot;sauce flavor,&quot; it renders that phrase as &quot;Maotai flavor.&quot;  I guess that seems less misleading to me, but only because it is completely uninformative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear, I have a bottle of Maotai here as I write, which I have enjoyed over the past three weeks since friends brought it to a dinner.  I do know what it tastes like. But people may differ in what resemblances they notice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-07-25T03:48:49.593" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T03:48:49.593" Title="Does the word 酱 in 酱香 refer to 醬油?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19626" CreationDate="2016-07-25T03:40:55.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;sauce flavored&quot; baijiu has a fermented bean sauce flavor.In my opinion,this flavor shares some similarity with soy sauce's flavor as the soy sauce is also made from fermented beans.However,the baijiu's fragrance is far more strong and abundant than soy sauce's.It's a mixture of various fragrance.&#xA;See more in &lt;a href=&quot;http://iask.sina.com.cn/b/6894418.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;What's &quot;sauce flavored&quot; baijiu? &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13960" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T03:40:55.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="305" CreationDate="2016-07-25T08:33:37.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend you one teaching material &quot;古代汉语&quot;.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eHKBP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eHKBP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the basic and common classical Chinese book. It introduced the history of classical Chinese and provided so many useful materials to learn classical Chinese. &#xA;Chinese Poetry, like classical Chinese, also deeply embodies the basic spirit of Chinese culture. Poetry is the art of language and is China’s national spirit. If you also interested in Chinese poetry, I can recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/top-5-chinese-poems/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;top 5 Chinese poems&lt;/a&gt; to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T08:33:37.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="305" CreationDate="2016-07-25T11:10:53.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like this book:&amp;lt;&amp;lt;文言津逮&gt;&gt; written by &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E5%BC%A0%E4%B8%AD%E8%A1%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;张中行&lt;/a&gt;, reviewed by &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%95%E5%8F%94%E6%B9%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;吕叔湘&lt;/a&gt;, It is easy to read as a pocket guide, but very magnificent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vQgVr.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vQgVr.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;The characters in title written by &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%AF%E5%8A%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;启功&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T11:10:53.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19625" CreationDate="2016-07-25T14:11:33.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;果 means fruit or result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the meaning is fruit, it equals to 水果.&#xA;When the meaning is result, it equals to 結果.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 水果 and 結果 can be abbreviated to 果. You had better look at the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13967" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T14:11:33.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9548" CreationDate="2016-07-25T15:37:58.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient China, “河” only means the Yellow River(黄河) while “江” only means the Yangtze River（长江）, and the other rivers in our modern meanings are called Water (水).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as time goes, we are used to call any rivers &quot;河&quot; except the rivers which has been named &quot;江&quot; in history, such as&quot;长江&quot;、&quot;黑龙江&quot;、&quot;澜沧江&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost all the river in other countries are called “河” just because Chinese didn't know their existence in the past, such as Amazon River（&quot;亚马孙河&quot;)、Mississippi River（&quot;密西西比河&quot;）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply, you can just understand it in the following way:&#xA; 1. &quot;河&quot; is now a standard expression usage for the river.&#xA; 2. &quot;江&quot; is just used for some rivers because of the  historical reason. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13968" LastEditorUserId="5813" LastEditDate="2016-07-25T15:49:27.880" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T15:49:27.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1015" CreationDate="2016-07-25T15:47:34.713" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your &quot;舅&quot; is your mother's brother while your &quot;叔&quot; is your father's younger brother and &quot;伯&quot; is your father's elder brother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13968" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T15:47:34.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19634" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-26T00:19:14.617" Score="2" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;(my 1st post)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone give me a sample sentence containing&#xA;爱 taking 2 objects?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing it's    &amp;lt;&amp;lt;  I'd love him to [do ...] &gt;&gt;&#xA;type of construction?  Thank you.  HH&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(from Wikipedia)&#xA;一价动词：强制要求与一种性质的名词性词语关联的一类动词。可记为动1。例如“病、醉、休息、游泳”等。这类动词差不多就是一般说的不及物动词。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二价动词：强制要求与两种性质的名词性词语关联的一类动词。可记为动2。例如“爱、采、参观、讨论”等。这类动词差不多就是一般说的及物动词。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三价动词：强制要求与三种性质的名词性词语关联的一类动词。可记为动3。例如“爱、采、参观、讨论”等。这类动词差不多就是一般说的双宾动词。[1] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13973" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T01:14:32.137" Title="爱、采 ( A trivalent verb takes 2 objects )" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19634" CreationDate="2016-07-26T00:54:14.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一价动词&lt;/strong&gt;(动1):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is intransitive verbs, which means, verbs that cannot have an object attached to them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 我病了。 -&gt; I am sick. (No object and cannot have an object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;二价动词&lt;/strong&gt;(动2):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is transitive verbs, verbs that can have objects attached to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 我爱你。 -&gt; I love you. (&quot;you&quot; is the object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;三价动词&lt;/strong&gt;(动3):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also called 双宾动词 and 授与动词，meaning verbs that can have &lt;em&gt;an object&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;a receiving or benefiting target&lt;/em&gt;(i.e. equivalent to &quot;to&quot; in English or 给 in Chinese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 我送了礼物给我哥哥。 -&gt; I gave presents(object) TO my brother(benefited target).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T00:54:14.240" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19637" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-26T01:04:56.733" Score="3" ViewCount="1088" Body="&lt;p&gt;Within an average Chinese person's vocabulary ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      (which may be ~ 30,000 (?) words,  but this number isn't important) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;could you guess &#xA; what percentage of the words are 1-character, and&lt;br&gt;&#xA; what percentage of the words are 2-characters? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess would be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;1-character words ... maybe 45%  (水  石  木  好 我 爱 你 ...) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;2-character words ... maybe 20%  (人民,   君子,   小人,  水滴, ...) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   ( both numbers may be a bit higher,  like 50% and 25% ) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(How about for common nouns?)      Thank you.  HH &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13973" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T21:51:04.593" Title="What percentage of Chinese words are 1-character ? ... 2-character?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19639" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19651" CreationDate="2016-07-26T03:58:59.610" Score="3" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;On RFI Chinese Radio, they often have a topic about what I got to understand is Brexit, a current issue in England. They often use at different time the terms &lt;strong&gt;退欧&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;脱欧&lt;/strong&gt; to talk about the issue. From what I understand, it's about separation of England from the European Union, but I can't get hold of the difference between these two expressions. Does anyone have an idea ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, thanks to @水巷孑蠻 for the answer which seems accurate. I accepted that answer but now @Tang Ho's answer bothers me.&#xA;What I find is that &lt;strong&gt;退欧&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;脱欧&lt;/strong&gt; could be interchangeable. But now, it is implied that it could be depending on how the organization of England vs Europe is viewed by narrator. Both answers seem valid. How to choose ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6384" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T14:48:53.480" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T18:52:35.553" Title="What is the difference between 退欧 and 脱欧?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19639" CreationDate="2016-07-26T04:30:56.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;退歐 stand for 退出歐盟 ( withdraw from EU)&#xA;** it imply EU is just a loose alliance. Much like the Common Market before it. Members are free to withdraw their memberships at any time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脫歐 stand for 脫離歐盟 ( break away from EU) &#xA;** it imply EU members are legally bonded to each others, much like a federation. Leaving EU is akin to a state of America proclaims independent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** which one to use, is based on what the narrator consider EU is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T04:47:28.427" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T04:47:28.427" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19639" CreationDate="2016-07-26T04:37:18.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;they are just translation of brexit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;退歐&quot; is &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000055097&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;退出&lt;/a&gt; + 歐盟 (eu)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;脫歐&quot; is &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000054676&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;脫離&lt;/a&gt; + 歐盟 (eu).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;退歐&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;脫歐&quot; like coke &amp;amp; pepsi, imo, they taste similar, it's hard to say which one is better :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T04:42:59.517" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T04:42:59.517" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19637" CreationDate="2016-07-26T13:58:08.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;your question is interesting but I am not very clear about your purpose. But below, I will talk about my own ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, words (詞) are make up with single character （字）。 We can sort them by the sum of single character。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, lots of words only use one character many years ago, which is traditional Chinese language. But in 1919 &lt;strong&gt;New Culture Movement&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96%E8%BF%90%E5%8A%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;新文化運動&lt;/a&gt;) happened, students find new ideas and western culture like democracy and science are hard to spread in common Chinese people using these old language style because they are hard to understand. So they try to replace many single character words with 2(or maybe more)-characters word in order to make the Chinese language closer to daily speaking and make more people accept their ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So modern Chinese has more 2-characters than ever before, so I believe the percentage of it will be more higher than your expect, and 1-characters will be lower. I am unable to give exact numbers(we do not know what is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;common&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, what is the define of it), just count words in your vocabulary if your need one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13981" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T13:58:08.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19637" CreationDate="2016-07-26T14:40:56.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;中国文字改革委员会研究推广处 (1959) found that 29% or 1046 of the 3624 most common words are monosyllabic. Other investigations have found a similar proportion, although the ratio will decrease further with the inclusion of more new or uncommon words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One reason that polysyllabic words are on the rise is that Chinese topolects gradually have lost a lot of distinct sounds, making homonyms problematic to understand. Another is that new words are naturally polysyllabic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a misconception that old Chinese consisted only of monosyllabic words. In 文言文, yes, because Classical Chinese was an ideal, and its condensed form made it possible to economize in printing. In speech, not so much, since the vernacular has drifted considerably from old Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we include proper names and all words, monosyllabic words will drop to below 10%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T14:40:56.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19637" CreationDate="2016-07-26T15:18:34.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;an unscientific approach: the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/search.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;國語辭典&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;, of taiwan, has about 164489 entries, using grep + wildcards, one may find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;12540⋯7.62% are 1 character entry (^.$) e.g. 八, 扒&#xA;87516⋯53.20% are 2 characters entry (^..$) e.g. 八伯, 八拜&#xA;21836⋯13.28% are 3 characters entry (^...$) e.g. 八拜交, 八敗命&#xA;35781⋯21.75% are 4 characters entry (^....$) e.g. 八百羅漢, 八百壯士&#xA;2562⋯1.56% are 5 characters entry (^.....$) e.g. 八分休止符, 八風吹不倒&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how to define / interpret &quot;word&quot; in the finding, well, it's beyond my knowledge :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T15:23:38.077" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T15:23:38.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19645" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-26T17:44:20.070" Score="1" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do we know if there is only one peach or multiple peaches in the sentence&#xA;桃是水果?&#xA;How do we know in general? With the use of measure words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13965" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T12:46:58.430" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T12:46:58.430" Title="How many peaches in 桃是水果?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19645" CreationDate="2016-07-26T18:28:36.340" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_grammar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_grammar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Plurals&#xA;Chinese nouns and other parts of speech are not generally marked for number, meaning that plural forms are mostly the same as the singular. However, there is a plural marker 们 [們] men, which has limited usage. It is used with personal pronouns, as in 我们 [我們] wǒmen, meaning &quot;we&quot; or &quot;us&quot; (from 我 wǒ, &quot;I, me&quot;), and can be used with nouns representing humans, most commonly those with two syllables, like in 朋友们 [朋友們] péngyoumén &quot;friends&quot; (from 朋友 péngyou &quot;friend&quot;). Its use in such cases is optional.[13] It is never used when the noun has indefinite reference, or when it is qualified by a numeral.[14]&#xA;The demonstrative pronouns 这 [這] zhè &quot;this&quot; and 那 nà &quot;that&quot; may be optionally pluralized by the addition of 些 xiē, making 这些 [這些] zhèxiē &quot;these&quot; and 那些 nàxiē &quot;those&quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Chinese nouns usually do not have plural form, we have to use plural markers to indicate plural like the Wiki article stated, you can also indicate a noun is singular or plural with measure words like 一個(a /one), 兩個 (two); or predeterminer like 所有(all) 有些(some)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of &quot; 桃是水果&quot; we can deduct from the context that we are talking about &quot;all peaches&quot; , because 一個桃是水果 (a peach is fruit) doesn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 桃都是水果, 所有 is implied&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T18:38:39.763" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T18:38:39.763" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19647" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-26T21:01:19.007" Score="2" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an issue that came up while I was discussing a grammar exercise with my Chinese language partner. My grammar book has an exercise where the solution is &quot;我被他当做(了)自己的儿子。&quot;  My language partner said that 他 in this sentence refers to the speaker's 干爹 gāndiē, which some dictionaries translate as &quot;godfather&quot;. Some dictionaries translate both 干爹 gāndiē and 教父 jiàofù as &quot;godfather&quot;. However, MDBG translates 干爹 as &quot;adoptive father (traditional adoption, i.e. without legal ramifications)&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it correct that the person in the sentence &quot;我被他当做(了)自己的儿子。&quot; can only be someone's 干爹?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T17:29:58.597" Title="&quot;我被他当做(了)自己的儿子。&quot; 干爹 gāndiē or 教父 jiàofù?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19648" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-26T21:49:22.433" Score="0" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been working through a grammar book with exercises where one of the solutions is &quot;医生把病人医好了.&quot; My language partner said that 医好了 is unusual and that it is better to say 治好了 instead. Is this correct or is ti still OK to use 医好了? (I suspect that the main author of the grammar book is over 80; the book itself is less than 10 years old.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T06:10:51.710" Title="Is 医好了 outdated in favour of 治好了?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19647" CreationDate="2016-07-26T23:51:37.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;教父 refers to the &lt;em&gt;fathers in the churches&lt;/em&gt;, which is widely used in religious setting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your sentence &quot;我被他当做(了)自己的儿子。&quot;, it means &lt;strong&gt;Godfather&lt;/strong&gt; -  someone who is influential to you through providing support (in all aspects); someone who plays a vital role in your life. It doesn't need to be legalized (which is supported by legal documents), it could be only by the word of mouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6005" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T23:51:37.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19648" CreationDate="2016-07-27T00:05:18.260" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, it's &quot;治好了&quot; more in common use and colloquial. “医好了” is a a kind of usage in ancient prose, we occasionally use in written language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13984" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T00:05:18.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19639" CreationDate="2016-07-27T01:06:36.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those two terms can be interpreted in this way.&#xA;退歐 refers to the intention of exiting (hence ‘Brexit’) or withdrawing from EU. This process involves a referendum and is now completed.&#xA;脫歐 would involve some physical action of breaking away from or severing connections with EU. This process has not yet started.&#xA;But people are, no doubt, using those two terms interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13950" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T01:06:36.667" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19648" CreationDate="2016-07-27T02:56:05.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with Echo Z. 治好了 is more common although the other one is not uncommon. There is 医治 as a verb such as in 医治病人。Also, 他的病没得医/没得治. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13987" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T02:56:05.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19625" CreationDate="2016-07-27T03:00:08.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To get a better understanding of the comparison, I suggest you read more about the so-called single-syllable word or double-syllable words in the Chinese language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13987" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T13:39:08.963" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T13:39:08.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19639" CreationDate="2016-07-27T03:08:48.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe when a Chinese (me included) writes 脱欧 or 退欧，they most likely mean the same thing, that is, the UK leaving the EU and no longer being a member of it. 脱 and 退 are different of course, but I think an expression of idea sometimes does not go that far, unless perhaps the writer or speaker is discussing something in-depth about the nature of the EU. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13987" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T03:08:48.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19655" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19657" CreationDate="2016-07-27T05:11:53.103" Score="2" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I want to say is &quot;我是一个踏实的人&quot;, but I am not able to think out an accurate word or phrase to say that, thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13140" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T06:27:18.227" Title="How to express 踏实 accurately?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19655" CreationDate="2016-07-27T05:21:22.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word you are looking for is &quot;pragmatic&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我是一个踏实的人&quot; - &quot;I am a pragmatic person.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pragmatic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pragmatic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T05:21:22.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19655" CreationDate="2016-07-27T06:27:18.227" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;踏实 seems to have two groups of meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dependable; sure and steady&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;at ease; free from anxiety; having peace&#xA;of mind&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;practical; realistic; pragmatic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;down-to-earth&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to describing people, I'd choose &quot;dependable&quot; or &quot;down-to-earth&quot; depending on which meaning you need. If you could provide some more context, it would help in choosing the best word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5961" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T06:27:18.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="305" CreationDate="2016-07-27T12:53:43.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the internet archive has several old books for learning 文言文, or wenli (文理):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/elementschinese00confgoog&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;elements of chinese grammar　中國言法&lt;/a&gt;﹒by marshman j d d; printed in 1814&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one talked about phonology,  and grammar; a good start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/introductiontoli00branuoft&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;introduction to literary chinese&lt;/a&gt;﹒by j brandt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i guess this one was printed in ~1927, articles in literary &amp;amp; colloquial chinese, with english translation and explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/chinesischegram00gabegoog&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chinesische grammatik　漢文經緯&lt;/a&gt;﹒by georg von der gabelentz; printed in 1881, in leipzig&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one was in german. judging from the chinese characters displayed, 2/3 of it was about 虛字; an important aspect of 文言文.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/guidetowenlistyl00morg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a guide to wenli styles and chinese ideals&lt;/a&gt;﹒by evan morgan; printed in 1912, in shanghai&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one is full of short literary chinese articles, with english translation, occasionally explained some critical mots in text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/lessonsinelement00balliala&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lessons in elementary wenli　華文釋義&lt;/a&gt;﹒by f w baller; printed in 1912, in shanghai&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, articles in &quot;literary chinese&quot; (imo, not pure enough) with english translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;these're resources as far as i found, one may download the files &quot;freely&quot;; errrr. . . provided you're not in ***** &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T12:53:43.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19660" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-07-27T14:25:58.823" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T14:25:58.823" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T14:25:58.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19661" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-07-27T14:25:58.823" Score="0" Body="HSK or 汉语水平考试 (Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì) is a standardised Chinese proficiency test for non-native speakers of Chinese. The test is administered by the Chinese National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (NOTCFL, also known as Hàn Bàn / 汉办), an agency affiliated with the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China." OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T22:10:55.097" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T22:10:55.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19662" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19671" CreationDate="2016-07-27T15:01:27.900" Score="0" ViewCount="7263" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if you can say &quot;我好&quot;, when someone asks you &quot;你好吗?&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I am aware you can answer &quot;我很好&quot; as in &quot;I am very good&quot;, but can you say &quot;I am good&quot;? &#xA;Please fix my mistakes if I have any.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Thanks, Orangalo &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13990" LastActivityDate="2016-10-12T02:42:51.740" Title="&quot;I am good&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19392" CreationDate="2016-07-27T20:41:42.097" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;根据语言环境， 我能想到两种翻译：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;命令句式：  把你的测试考（做）好&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;祝福，类似于 good luck:   （祝）考试顺利 / （祝)你考试取得好的成绩&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13993" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T20:41:42.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19662" CreationDate="2016-07-27T20:46:26.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;根据语言环境可以有一下几种回答方式：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;not bad -  还行&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm good -  挺好/ （我）挺好&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... depends on what you want to reply. may be you can give some description about how good you are... :)  so you can start talking with people that you like to...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13993" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T20:46:26.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19648" CreationDate="2016-07-27T20:54:29.787" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;普通话的确说“治好了” 多一些， 按照北方语系的习惯，  只好了更加口语话而且用于更多的语言环境。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;治好了， 可以有 医好了， 治理好了， 管理好了， 等等其他的意思（依照语境不同， 更加灵活）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13993" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T20:54:29.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19637" CreationDate="2016-07-27T21:51:04.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;P.S.  Several hours after I posted this query, but before the 3 great answers appeared, I did one more search and this time, I found 2 great references: a book (in google books) and a freely-downloadable paper:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;[The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Psychology]  (book) &gt;&gt;&gt;  Compared to nouns, most verbs in Chinese are shorter, and more than 40 per cent are monosyllabic. In English, nouns and verbs overlap more closely in word length. Thus, the monosyllabic nature of Chinese is more clearly reflected in verbs ... &#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      &amp;gt;  40+ % are monosyllabic.   &amp;lt;----   much lower than I thought. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[PDF] Vocabulary Development in English and Chinese: A Comparative Study with Self-Organizing Neural Networks&#xA;-- by X Zhao, P Li,  ...&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.470.8174&amp;amp;rep=rep1&amp;amp;type=pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.470.8174&amp;amp;rep=rep1&amp;amp;type=pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Footnote 4] states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;According to Wang (1994), 44 percent of 3000 most frequently speaking Chinese words are monosyllabic; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;and in the 8822 words used by Chinese government to evaluate student’s vocabulary level, 22 percent of them are monosyllabic words (Xing, 2006). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13973" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T21:51:04.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19669" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-27T22:47:41.960" Score="2" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess is that (at least) 99.9% of Chinese characters represent words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The possible exceptions are 的 and 吗 -- as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的  in  &amp;quot;my car&amp;quot; (wǒ de chē)   我的车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吗  in  你好吗?  or   &amp;quot;Ni Hai Hao Ma?&amp;quot; (你还好吗?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 and 吗 may not be words, more like suffixes or (sentence) particles. Are there many more exceptions like these? Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The concept of a [Chinese word] is not too tricky. See:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/13465/are-there-large-discrepancies-between-what-chinese-consider-to-be-words?rq=1&quot;&gt;Are there large discrepancies between what Chinese consider to be words?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/19637/what-percentage-of-chinese-words-are-1-character-2-character/19668#19668&quot;&gt;What percentage of Chinese words are 1-character ? ... 2-character?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also related:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3083/why-do-native-speakers-often-say-a-character-has-no-meaning&quot;&gt;Why do native speakers often say a character has &amp;quot;no meaning&amp;quot;?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13973" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T17:40:19.387" Title="Does a Chinese character almost-always represent a word?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19669" CreationDate="2016-07-28T01:37:30.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is foremost a particle, but also a word in its own right. As &lt;em&gt;de&lt;/em&gt;, it can mean &lt;em&gt;plus&lt;/em&gt;, as in 七个的六个一共十三. As &lt;em&gt;dī&lt;/em&gt;, it can mean &lt;em&gt;cab&lt;/em&gt;. As &lt;em&gt;dì&lt;/em&gt; it can mean target.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吗 is in &lt;em&gt;ma&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;má&lt;/em&gt; likewise mostly a particle, but in some instances an isolated character without meaning of its own. As &lt;em&gt;mǎ&lt;/em&gt; in 吗啡, it means morphine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a number of such isolated characters, such as 蝴, which can only be used in conjunction with 蝴蝶, 蝶 in itself meaning &lt;em&gt;butterfly&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蝴 is thus not a word, since it cannot stand on its own and doesn't convey any useful information. One could still infer the meaning from its written form, but likely not from speech (perhaps a child trying to say &lt;em&gt;hú&lt;/em&gt; but not completing with &lt;em&gt;dié&lt;/em&gt;, then).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is true for a handful of such isolated characters. For instance 蚂 can be part of 蚂蚁 &lt;em&gt;mǎyǐ&lt;/em&gt;, 蚂螂 &lt;em&gt;mālang&lt;/em&gt; and 蚂蚱 &lt;em&gt;màzha&lt;/em&gt;, but is not a word in itself. The same is true of 螂 and 蚱, which can be combined in words but not carry individual meaning. 蚁 can stand alone, as the family of ant-like insects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particles, on the other hand, can mostly be regarded as words, as they carry linguistic meaning in their own right. 哦 and other interjections are of this nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T01:37:30.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19662" CreationDate="2016-07-28T03:14:00.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We never answer “我好” when asked “你好吗?”. Indeed, these days it's not very common for people to greet others with “你好吗？” face to face, but simply “你好” will do just fine. When greeted with “你好”, we can acknowledge it with the same “你好”. 我很好 sometimes means I am ok (so don't worry about me). Imagine two lovers just broke up but still treat each other as friends. In their letters later on, one may write 我很好，不用担心我. This is the scenario that popped into my head when I first saw this quesiton. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13987" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T03:14:00.763" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19669" CreationDate="2016-07-28T03:30:58.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know much about grammer analysis. 吗 being put at the end of a sentence with a raised tone and a question mark forms a quesiton sentence. Is it word? I can say it is a character, and does not have any meaning itself. I guess it's a functional character. 的 is like &quot;of&quot; in English. 我的朋友: a friend of mine (my friend). Also, 蓝色的天空 (blue sky). 蓝色的: having the nature of blue. But in Mainland China, 的 has another usage in legal language （not used in HongKong）. Being put at the end of a sentence clause, it means &quot;if such thing happens&quot;. Eg: ...造成损失的，应负法律责任 (...One shall bear legal liabilities if loss is incurred).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13987" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T03:30:58.103" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19669" CreationDate="2016-07-28T03:51:51.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is exception? you're kidding :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the initial meaning of 的 is &quot;bullseye of target for archery&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000002148&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000002148&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you must define clearly what's character and word, before others help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T04:08:41.887" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T04:08:41.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19625" CreationDate="2016-07-28T06:30:10.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;果 is the abstraction of all kinds of &quot;production of flower&quot;. It could be fruit, or nut. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水果 means &quot;juicy fruit&quot; literally, but it could be any &quot;production of flowers&quot; which tastes delicious, e.g banana. But usually, people don't call nuts 水果, but 坚果 instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2016-07-29T02:44:27.647" LastActivityDate="2016-07-29T02:44:27.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19676" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-28T09:16:32.347" Score="0" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Change this sentence into a more grammatically correct version?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青少年自殺越來越嚴重這問題完全失控。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13998" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T08:07:15.140" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T08:07:15.140" Title="Is 青少年自殺越來越嚴重這問題完全失控 grammatically correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19677" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-28T09:36:13.323" Score="1" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;子曰：「人而不仁，如禮何？人而不仁，如樂何？&#xA;Hello, this is Confucius:&#xA;I have translated it into: man without virtue, rituals (manners) according to what? man without virtue, music according to what?&#xA;this would mean: what's the value of rituals without virtue in heart? what's the value of music, without virtue?&#xA;Am I right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9780" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:16:19.453" Title="，如禮何？，如樂何？= rituals according to what?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19676" CreationDate="2016-07-28T09:51:06.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“青少年自杀越来越严重 &lt;em&gt;这&lt;/em&gt; 问题完全失控” ==&gt; “青少年自杀越来越严重 &lt;em&gt;的&lt;/em&gt; 问题完全失控”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;use “的” to describe issue (问题) using the sentence “青少年自杀越来越严重”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13999" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T09:51:06.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19676" CreationDate="2016-07-28T10:03:05.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;青少年自殺的情況﹐越來越嚴重﹐甚至有點失控。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can't say that a problem (問題) is out of control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13950" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T10:03:05.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19680" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19683" CreationDate="2016-07-28T10:16:08.660" Score="-6" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for the link to the Chinese Stack Exchange site that specialized in computer vocabulary. The site no longer opens with link I saved.  Thanks, Seee. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14000" LastEditorUserId="14000" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T15:04:44.603" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T15:04:44.603" Title="Chinese Stack Exchange Computer" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-08-10T10:01:05.470" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19677" CreationDate="2016-07-28T10:19:04.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;about 論語﹒八佾　子曰﹒人而不仁﹒如禮何﹒人而不仁﹒如樂何&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Legge&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;james legge&lt;/a&gt;'s translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(子曰) the master said &#xA;(人而不仁) if a man be without the virtues proper to humanity&#xA;(如禮何) what has he to do with the rites of propriety&#xA;(人而不仁) if a man be without the virtues proper to humanity&#xA;(如樂何) what has he to do with music&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;traditionally, there're several ways to explain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one is to expand the verses to &quot;子曰﹒人而不仁﹒何以為禮樂&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(子曰) the master said&#xA;(人而不仁) if a man has no benevolence&#xA;(如禮何) how can he perform ritual&#xA;(人而不仁) if a man has no benevolence&#xA;(如樂何) how can he perform music&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another is to treat it as &quot;子曰﹒人而不仁﹒禮樂沒奈何&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(子曰) the master said&#xA;(人而不仁) if a man has no benevolence&#xA;(如禮何) what can ritual do&#xA;(人而不仁) if a man has no benevolence&#xA;(如樂何) what can music do&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, add links.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the internet archive has some james legge's books, these two are english translation of the classic four:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/fourbooksgreatle00confuoft&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the four books&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/zhushijiaozhengh00legg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;註釋校正華英四書&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:16:19.453" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:16:19.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19676" CreationDate="2016-07-28T10:32:34.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[1/青少年] [2/自殺] [3/越來越] [4/嚴重] [5/這問題] [6/完全] [7/失控]。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[1/Young people] [2/commit suicide] [3/became more and more] [4/serious] [5/this problem] [6/completely] [7/out of control]。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase &quot;自殺越來越嚴重&quot; (commit suicide become more and more serious)  itself is awkward, because commit suicide is a verb phrase; 嚴重 is an adjective. Adjective cannot modify verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct phrasing is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1/青少年][2/自殺][3/這問題][4/越來越][5/嚴重],[6/已經][7/完全失控]。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1/Young people][2/commit suicide][3/this problem of][4/become more and more ][5/serious],[6/already][7/out of control]。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;notice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1/Young people] [2/commit suicide] [3/&lt;strong&gt;this problem&lt;/strong&gt; of]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;** problem**&quot; is the head noun,  &quot;young people suicide&quot; is the relative clause. In English grammar, the head noun is placed in front of the relative clause like so: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;This problem&lt;/strong&gt; of young people commit suicide&quot; but in Chinese grammar, the head noun is placed after the relative clause like so: &quot;青少年自殺這&lt;strong&gt;問題&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已經 (already)ties &quot; &lt;strong&gt;this problem&lt;/strong&gt; of young people commit suicide&quot; to the follow up statement &quot; completely out of control&quot; together. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you don't add 已經. the sentence will be split in two. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青少年自殺這問題越來越嚴重. (這問題)完全失控。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-subject (這問題), is omitted, because it is stated in the previous related sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A final grammatically correct edition would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;青少年自殺這問題越來越嚴重, 已經完全失控。&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot; This problem of young people commit suicide became more and more serious, already out of control.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T10:47:00.843" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T10:47:00.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19680" CreationDate="2016-07-28T12:11:03.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think what you're looking for is here: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/6375/chinese-computer-vocabulary-and-most-frequently-encountered-common-computer-ter&quot;&gt;Chinese computer vocabulary, and most frequently encountered common computer terms&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It lists a bunch of Chinese computer terminology. Should be what you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you can't find what you're looking for just use the search function (top-right). All I searched was &quot;computer vocabulary&quot;, exactly what you wrote in the question, and the page came up straight away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T12:11:03.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19684" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-28T14:27:21.167" Score="0" ViewCount="831" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might seem a duplicate question, since beginers have a lot of doubt about not using 是 instead of 很 as in 我很好, but there's nothing related to what I'm asking here. At least I haven't found anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does a native speaker think about the difference between a sentence using 是...的 and the same one using 很? For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这本书&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;新&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这本书&lt;strong&gt;很&lt;/strong&gt;新。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;商店的衣服&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;贵&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;商店的衣服&lt;strong&gt;很&lt;/strong&gt;贵。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T01:48:01.423" Title="Sentence using 是……的 vs sentence using 很" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19684" CreationDate="2016-07-28T14:44:51.713" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;是…的 is used for emphasis. In this case, it is used for contrasting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这本书是新的: This book is new (contrasting old).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这本书很新: This book is new (neutral or normal case).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T14:44:51.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19686" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-29T01:36:25.160" Score="6" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, ambiguity (mishearing, or intentional wordplay) can be created by&#xA;boundary shifting.  Do you have anything like this in Chinese?  Thank you.  HH&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(written space -shifting) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;notable -- no table -- not able&#xA;&#xA;AMIABLE TOGETHER = AM I ABLE TO GET HER? (by Dmitri Borgmann)&#xA;              is a perfect longer example.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(aural (spoken?) &quot;juncture&quot; -shifting) -- (moving of perceptual grouping?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;grade A    ---   gray day &#xA;night-rate   ---  nitrate &#xA;I scream     ---   ice cream &#xA;a nice man   ---   an ice man &#xA;home-acre    ---   hoe-maker &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intended tags:  Wordplay, Speech-error, Humor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13973" LastEditorUserId="13973" LastEditDate="2016-08-01T17:27:07.633" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T03:34:22.240" Title="Boundary-shifting wordplay (or mishearing) in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19625" CreationDate="2016-07-29T01:43:56.663" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm chinese&#xA;“果”的多种含义&#xA;a．结出果实（水果：苹果，牛油果，香蕉，菠萝）；&#xA;b．事情的结局或成效（后果，结果）&#xA;c.果断（意思是很干脆）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14006" LastActivityDate="2016-07-29T01:43:56.663" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19684" CreationDate="2016-07-29T02:40:33.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;是……的 : just tell the status of the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很: tell the feeling about the subject. more like &lt;strong&gt;so...that...&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这本书是新的: this book is &lt;strong&gt;new&lt;/strong&gt;. (emphasis for &lt;strong&gt;new&lt;/strong&gt;. tell the status of book is new)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这本书很新: this book is &lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt; new.(emphasis for &lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt;, I feel this book so new &lt;del&gt;that I might want to do something about it&lt;/del&gt;  ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;商店的衣服是贵的: the status of price of clothes in shop is expensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;商店的衣服很贵: I feel the clothes in shop is so expensive (that...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3292" LastEditorUserId="3292" LastEditDate="2016-07-29T02:46:49.113" LastActivityDate="2016-07-29T02:46:49.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19686" CreationDate="2016-07-29T03:15:25.783" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese do have mishearing issue, because of the limited pronunciation and tones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classic example may be all foreigners know when they were starting to learn Chinese tones is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请问shui jiao 多少钱一 wan ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If foreigners don't pay attention to the tones, It could be: &lt;em&gt;请问水饺多少钱一碗？(How much for one bow of dumplings, please?)&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;请问睡觉多少钱一晚？(How much for sleeping with you for one night, please?)&lt;/em&gt;. 睡觉 and 水饺 have same pronunciation but different tones, 晚 and 碗 have the exactly same pronunciation and tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2016-07-29T03:15:25.783" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19686" CreationDate="2016-07-29T03:24:13.860" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are wordplay in every language, Chinese is no exception.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;下雨天留客，天留人不留。&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;Raining day make the guest stay, although heaven keeps the guest, the host does not.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;下雨天，留客天。留人不?&quot; &quot;留！&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;Raining day, a day to keep the guest.  Do you keep the guest ?&quot; &#xA;(answer) &quot;Keep!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Steven Chow's movies-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西人，狠樣 ( can't explain here because these are vulgar terms)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-07-29T03:24:13.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19686" CreationDate="2016-07-29T05:20:53.470" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喜欢上 一个人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;to get to like someone&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;to get to like being alone&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喜欢 上一个 人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;to like the previous man/woman&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喜欢 上 一个人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;to like to f-word someone&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-07-29T05:20:53.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14729" CreationDate="2016-07-29T16:03:28.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The place where you can download materials is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetest.cn/godownload.do&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChineseTest.cn&lt;/a&gt;, but the &lt;a href=&quot;http://english.hanban.org/node_8002.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hanban website&lt;/a&gt; currently sends you to the non-existing www.chinesetesting.cn site to download mock tests ... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since part of the question is about vocabulary lists with pinyin, here is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mandarinchineseschool.com/files/HSK/New_HSK_Level_IV_Vocabulary.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the best list I have found&lt;/a&gt;: this PDF file contains the vocabulary for HSK4 in a long table with columns for the following types of content: the word's number, the word itself, pinyin transcription, part of speech (verb, noun, ...), meaning (i.e. English translation) and an &lt;em&gt;example sentence&lt;/em&gt; (!). (If you are only interested in HSK3, you can ignore the last 600 words in the table.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want even more HSK-related materials, check the &lt;a href=&quot;http://cstrobbe.github.io/languagelearning/chinese/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;HSK section&lt;/a&gt; on my website. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-07-29T16:23:52.903" LastActivityDate="2016-07-29T16:23:52.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19693" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-29T19:12:48.953" Score="0" ViewCount="1745" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;modern&lt;/strong&gt; Chinese words to compliment a beautiful girl. Here are what I have found: 美女，宝贝，女神。are there any thing else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other words that I can think of, but doesn't really works are: 如花, 佳麗, 天仙, 淑女, 仙子. because you would not say this when you see a beauty: hey, 如花，吃饭没有？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also, why are there so many 4-words Chinese phrases to describe a beauty? To name a few: 閉月羞花 沉魚落雁 傾國傾城 國色天香 天生麗質 清麗脫俗 花容月貌 明眸皓齒  美艷絕世........................................&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are Chinese scholars really into hot and cute chicks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T07:32:26.353" Title="Modern words to compliment a beautiful woman/girl beauty" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19694" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-30T02:01:06.150" Score="0" ViewCount="589" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an ealier question (or thread) &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/19634/%e7%88%b1-%e9%87%87-a-trivalent-verb-takes-2-objects&quot;&gt;爱、采 ( A trivalent verb takes 2 objects )&lt;/a&gt;  ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 variations/versions of a proverb or expression were mentioned :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;爱及屋乌 == he loves her so much that he even loves the CROW perched on the roof of her house.  ( Note: 'crow' rather than 'bird' -- people don't have crows or ravens as pets, do they? ).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;爱乌及屋  --- I think this means : (He) loves the pet bird so much that he even loves the cage. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;爱屋及乌&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the original form is 爱及屋乌.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    Confucius would say: a true love (of a man) is trivalent; and&#xA;      has two objects: the woman he loves, and everything around her.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is original?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13973" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-08-04T14:10:46.703" Title="Which proverb / expression is original? -- 爱及屋乌, 爱乌及屋, 爱屋及乌" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19694" CreationDate="2016-07-30T03:23:02.420" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/3/5022.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/3/5022.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;愛屋及烏&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;      因愛一個人連帶的也愛護停留在他屋上的烏鴉。語本尚書大傳．卷三．牧誓．大戰篇：「&lt;strong&gt;愛人者，兼其屋上之烏&lt;/strong&gt;。」後比喻愛一個人也連帶的關愛與他有關的人或物。明．許自昌．水滸記．第八齣：「他們都是你舅舅的相識，&lt;strong&gt;你何無愛屋及烏情&lt;/strong&gt;？」隋唐演義．第八十七回：「楊妃平日愛這雪衣女，雖是那鸚鵡可愛可喜，然亦因是安祿山所獻，&lt;strong&gt;有愛屋及烏之意&lt;/strong&gt;。」亦作「屋上瞻烏」、「屋烏推愛」。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/10509.htm&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/10509.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T03:23:02.420" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19696" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-30T05:54:01.427" Score="3" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any reference book from which I can learn the basic usages applied to the proofs in mathematics?&#xA;I met several problems these days, for instance, &quot;两者不能同时成立&quot; seems hard for me.&#xA;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-28T01:14:10.473" Title="In mathematics, how to express &quot;两者不能同时成立&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19696" CreationDate="2016-07-30T06:29:12.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;are you looking for &quot;contradictory&quot;, in mathematic, it would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;contradictory opposite&quot;　&quot;矛盾否定&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;contradictory propositions&quot;　&quot;矛盾命題&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;教育研究院, of taiwan has documentations of bilingual academic terms, the mathematical one is here, you may download it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://terms.naer.edu.tw/download/301/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://terms.naer.edu.tw/download/301/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T06:29:12.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17977" CreationDate="2016-07-30T06:53:11.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title of this thread relates to the use of 到 as a complement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese grammar, the word ‘complement’ (補語) is mostly used as the shortened form for verbal complement (動詞補語 or 動補). As the name has suggested, a verbal complement is used only in conjunction with the preceding verb, and is thus connected neither to the subject nor to the object. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be specific, there are 4 main types of verbal complements: resultative (結果補語), directional (趨向補語), potential (可能補語), and extent (程度補語). In Chinese grammar, 到 can be used only as a resultative complement. In the examples of 去到, 找都, 收到 etc, the first characters are the head verbs, indicating the process of an action; the second character 到 is the resultative complement, indicating the result of an action. The two characters together are called a resultative verb (結果動詞).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese grammar, 到 can function as an extent complement (as well as a resultative complement), e.g. 行到好癐, 笑到轆地 ‘laugh oneself silly’. But 到 can’t be used this way in Chinese grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As regards the phrase 买不到 as supplied by the OP, 买 is the head verb, 到 is the resultative complement, and 不 is the potential complement (indicating the inability of completing an action). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13950" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T06:53:11.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10454" CreationDate="2016-07-30T08:38:38.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term &quot; Captain Obvious&quot; has no equivalent in Chinese, it is part of a sarcastic  phrase : &quot; &lt;strong&gt;Thank you, Captain Obvious!&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;  not commonly be used by itself.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Cantonese sarcastic phrase, &quot; 鬼唔知阿媽係女人咩？&quot; ( who doesn't know  mother is woman?)  express a similar meaning. We say it when someone said something painfully obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in Mandarin, it would be &quot; 誰不知娘親是女人？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-07-30T08:44:49.323" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T08:44:49.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8986" CreationDate="2016-07-30T09:25:17.987" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The corresponding Chinese expression for&#xA;You can tell ...by ...&#xA;is&#xA;一看...就知道...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, &quot;一看...就知道...&quot; in English is &quot; take one look at.... you can tell...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the correct corresponding Chinese phrasing structure for &quot; &lt;strong&gt;You can tell&lt;/strong&gt; ...&lt;strong&gt;by&lt;/strong&gt; ...&quot; is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;憑&lt;/strong&gt;...&lt;strong&gt;就知道&lt;/strong&gt;...&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;憑&lt;/strong&gt;(他的脸色), &lt;strong&gt;就知道&lt;/strong&gt;(他是认真的)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;憑&lt;/strong&gt;(他一句話), &lt;strong&gt;就知道&lt;/strong&gt;(他是认真的)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T09:25:17.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19701" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-30T13:46:37.057" Score="5" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some sentences that I have seen contain the pattern &quot;verb + 了 + verb&quot;. An example of this is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他們碰了碰杯子。&quot;  [1]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since in all examples that I have seen the verb before and after 了 is the same, I believe that this pattern is a combination of verb reduplication and 了1 (comes after verbs and expresses completion).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very literal translation of the above sentence would therefore be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;They have briefly hit the glasses.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far, I have been unable to verify or falsify the above hypothesis. Am I on the right track or does the &quot;verb + 了 + verb&quot; pattern express something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1]&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/peng-pengjian-pengshang/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/peng-pengjian-pengshang/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14014" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T15:33:48.843" Title="When 了 has the same verb before and after it, is it reduplication combined with 了1?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19702" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19706" CreationDate="2016-07-30T16:24:04.467" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;Long ago, I stumbled upon &lt;a href=&quot;https://mojim.com/twy100018x42x7.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wang Jie's &lt;code&gt;明日你是誰&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3d0eI6CJGY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;video here&lt;/a&gt;). Recently, I casually sung it, and a friend asked me for a translation, and I was in trouble with a few lines. Let's see the start:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;離別也許是簡單的一句 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  每次說出偏要灑眼淚 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  就像在放下也在擔起一片空虛 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  每一個夢也伴隨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last two lines are a bit puzzling: I know (I think) the meanings of the single words, but I can't piece together a convincing translation from them. Here is an attempt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;To part may be a simple.word, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [But] every time I say it, I always cry, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  As if I were laying down [what?] and carrying a void,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  And each [of my] dreams followed [what?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone shed light on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2016-07-31T21:24:32.197" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T21:24:32.197" Title="A few lines from 明日你是誰" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19702" CreationDate="2016-07-30T17:09:18.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;放下 = quit, terminate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As if I could forget you and carrying a void.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you are still in every of my dreams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will be your company in every of your dreams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastEditorUserId="9326" LastEditDate="2016-07-30T17:37:20.303" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T17:37:20.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19704" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-30T20:40:51.300" Score="2" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to ask &quot;how much will shipping be to the uk?&quot; in a polite way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Uk is 英国, shipping is 运费, and to ask how much something is is 多少钱, but I'm not sure how to put them together. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14015" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T02:02:10.447" Title="How to ask how much shipping is" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19701" CreationDate="2016-07-30T21:53:50.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Users &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/798/ns-x&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/798/ns-x&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/6065/user6065&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/6065/user6065&lt;/a&gt; have both confirmed that the pattern is, indeed, verb reduplication combined with 了1, the combination indicating that the action is both brief and completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks both for your answers! Although this is very basic to most of you readers, it means a lot to me to have the confirmation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14014" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T21:53:50.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19702" CreationDate="2016-07-30T23:14:59.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;就像在放下也在擔起一片空虛&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就像 (it is like) 在放下 (putting down,)  也在擔起 (also like picking up) 一片空虛 (an emptiness)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Trying to let go of an emptiness, but this empty feeling always come back .&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;每一個夢也伴隨&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每一個夢(in every dream) 也伴隨 (it always follows me )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;This emptiness follows me, in all of my dreams.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T23:14:59.783" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19704" CreationDate="2016-07-31T02:02:10.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;请问到英国的运费需要多少钱？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;to the UK&quot; should be put in front of &quot;shipping&quot;, and the sentence can be translated back to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how much is required for the shipping to the UK?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“请问” is for politeness, and “需要” make it formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14017" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T02:02:10.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19693" CreationDate="2016-07-31T02:34:40.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;美女 is the safest choice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宝贝 is used to call someone (boy or girl) who's in a romantic relationship with you, or you call a baby girl (usually aged &amp;lt; 10) 宝贝.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女神 nowadays has some negative meanings and is not recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other similar choices are 小美女，靓妹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example in wechat:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pft89.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pft89.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;real world example&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14017" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T02:34:40.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19693" CreationDate="2016-07-31T03:25:14.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;大美人&lt;/strong&gt; (great beauty)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她是一個不折不扣的&lt;strong&gt;大美人&lt;/strong&gt; ( She is an authentic great beauty)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;大美人&lt;/strong&gt;鄺美雲的花名是鄺美人 (Great beauty Cally Kwong's nickname is Beauty Kwong)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;妳這種&lt;strong&gt;大美人&lt;/strong&gt;當然不怕沒男人追求 (Great beauty like you, of course you don't have to worry about no one courting you)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is kind of a honoring term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-07-31T03:31:25.913" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T03:31:25.913" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19696" CreationDate="2016-07-31T11:49:25.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Set Theory(&quot;集合论&quot;), mutually exclusive is &quot;互斥&quot; and opposite set is &quot;对立&quot;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://book.douban.com/subject/1801399/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;集合论基础&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://logic.wikischolars.columbia.edu/file/view/Jech,+T.+J.+(2003).+Set+Theory+(The+3rd+millennium+ed.).pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Set Theory-Jech&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14018" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T11:49:25.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19713" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-31T16:58:47.857" Score="0" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my dictionary 谑 means &quot;to joke around&quot;, I looked 谑 up in a sentence database but without any result. Is this word used in modern Chinese or does it have an archaic vibe to it ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14021" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T04:21:52.247" Title="Is 谑 (xue4) occassionally used in modern Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19713" CreationDate="2016-07-31T17:17:05.207" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;謔(u+8b14), we still use this character nowadays, have a look of 國語辭典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000059028&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;謔稱&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000059029&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;謔而不虐&lt;/a&gt; are 2 common examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;may i ask which dictionary and database you used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T17:17:05.207" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19713" CreationDate="2016-07-31T17:19:04.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. 恶谑 and 谑谑 are both used, as well as 谑. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.people.com.cn/GB/guandian/27/20010928/572225.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.people.com.cn/GB/guandian/27/20010928/572225.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://culture.people.com.cn/GB/87423/11360777.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://culture.people.com.cn/GB/87423/11360777.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T17:19:04.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19713" CreationDate="2016-08-01T04:21:52.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes, 戏谑 is mostly used word contains 谑 in Chinese simplified&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14022" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T04:21:52.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19693" CreationDate="2016-08-01T07:32:26.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Better to avoid 如花, because most Chinese may think of this 如花 from Stephen Chow's movies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DYunI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DYunI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NBX6W.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NBX6W.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T07:32:26.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19718" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-01T14:26:37.167" Score="0" ViewCount="844" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to translate the name Chloe into Chinese that would be meaningful and sound the same as it does in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The name Chloe is a Greek baby name. In Greek the meaning of the name&#xA;  Chloe is: Green shoot. Fresh blooming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have come up with &quot;草怡&quot;. Does that work as a transliteration of the name or does that name not seem right? I don't want to pick anything that would have a negative colloquialism. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14024" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T02:45:27.947" Title="Good Transliteration of the name &quot;Chloe&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19718" CreationDate="2016-08-01T17:21:20.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;克洛伊&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The TV show &lt;em&gt;24&lt;/em&gt; has a character whose name is also Chloe, her name is usually transliterated as 克洛伊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=24%E5%B0%8F%E6%97%B6%20%E5%85%8B%E6%B4%9B%E4%BC%8A&amp;amp;rsv_spt=1&amp;amp;rsv_iqid=0xacfd0e2400012f80&amp;amp;issp=1&amp;amp;f=3&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;rsv_idx=2&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;rqlang=cn&amp;amp;tn=baiduhome_pg&amp;amp;rsv_enter=1&amp;amp;inputT=3771&amp;amp;rsv_t=f45cNth6Gciz%2F0ft05WuQOoGzyvrl2%2FnrfAeiufouLET%2F7240PgTl%2FFFz6fMnySPI0Dc&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=16&amp;amp;rsv_sug1=12&amp;amp;rsv_sug7=100&amp;amp;oq=24%E5%B0%8F%E6%97%B6%20chloe&amp;amp;rsv_pq=e8a61b710001194f&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;prefixsug=24%E5%B0%8F%E6%97%B6%20kelu&amp;amp;rsp=0&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=4308&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu search&lt;/a&gt; returns the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么看完反恐24小时那么喜欢克洛伊?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;24小时大结局,杰克与克洛伊的告白,悲壮得简直可以用荡气回肠来形&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爱死24小时的克洛伊了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Results for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E5%85%8B%E6%B4%9B%E4%BC%8A&amp;amp;rsv_spt=1&amp;amp;rsv_iqid=0xacfd0e2400012f80&amp;amp;issp=1&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;rsv_idx=2&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;rqlang=cn&amp;amp;tn=baiduhome_pg&amp;amp;rsv_enter=1&amp;amp;inputT=131160&amp;amp;rsv_t=1065QBM0tgjUydCncrjaAZwTFyNSZFNnh3QaZto4BxmWcKq%2FRN%2B7Gkj9dUheWuwNQkJz&amp;amp;oq=24%E5%B0%8F%E6%97%B6%20%E5%85%8B%E6%B4%9B%E4%BC%8A&amp;amp;rsv_pq=d0f4ddc300012797&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=21&amp;amp;rsv_sug1=20&amp;amp;rsv_sug7=100&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=133589&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;克洛伊&lt;/a&gt; also return a lot of Chloé/Chloe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chloé官方网站 / 名牌服装、手袋、香氛官网&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;克洛伊CHLOE DVD中字_土豆_高清视频在线观看&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三亚婚纱摄影_三亚【克洛伊】婚纱摄影工作室_海外婚纱摄影_三亚...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T17:21:20.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19720" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21310" CreationDate="2016-08-01T17:43:59.903" Score="2" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common translation I've seen online for &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=cojtL7sC08vIYwgZYPsCBWseYtQRylaRunZIPaorKLjsgW_2VU2iCJOmIZkLQa9meR8dGV-2NzKHL9t0HDwiiq&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;学理解释&lt;/a&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;academic interpretation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but looking up information in English about &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.hk/?gws_rd=cr,ssl#newwindow=1&amp;amp;safe=strict&amp;amp;q=academic%20interpretation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;academic interpretation&lt;/a&gt; kind of only gives results from the original translation or stuff that means something completely different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cnki.net/dict_result.aspx?searchword=doctrinal%20interpretation&amp;amp;tjType=sentence&amp;amp;style=&amp;amp;t=%E5%AD%A6%E7%90%86%E8%A7%A3%E9%87%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CNKI&lt;/a&gt; has a completely different, and consistent translation, though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Criminal Treatment of the Juvenile Crime:&lt;strong&gt;Doctrinal Interpretation&lt;/strong&gt; from the Perspective of Criminal Policy&#xA;      未成年人犯罪的刑法处遇——刑事政策视域下的&lt;strong&gt;学理解释&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In fact, the interpretation of criminal law is a organism, whose whole function is determined directly by three elements, namely legislative interpretation, judicial interpretation, &lt;strong&gt;doctrinal interpretation&lt;/strong&gt;, and their interrelation ship as well.&#xA;      刑法解释体制是一个有机系统 ,立法解释、司法解释、&lt;strong&gt;学理解释&lt;/strong&gt;三部分的自身状况及相互关系决定刑法解释体制整体性能的良性发挥。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Doctrinal interpretation&lt;/strong&gt; initiates application and interpretation of penal code 17th section and second paragraph,it would persevere definition way of the theory of conduct plus the theory of accusation;&#xA;      其中&lt;strong&gt;学理解释&lt;/strong&gt;在弘扬该刑事政策的基础上,在未成年人犯罪的刑法处遇上倡导:对刑法典第17条第2款的解释和适用,应坚守行为说+罪名说的限定方式;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm more willing to trust CNKI than Baidu, but I'm no lawyer - I'm not sure if Doctrinal interpretation means anything at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lawyer.get.com.tw/Dic/DictionaryDetail.aspx?iDT=48033&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lawyer.get.com.tw&lt;/a&gt; also has the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;詞條&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;doctrinal interpretation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;中文&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;學理解釋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;解釋&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;與法定解釋〔legal interpretation〕相對，其依法律本身內在的合理性進行解釋。按其解釋方法不同，又可分為語法解釋〔grammatical interpretation〕和邏輯解釋〔logical interpretation〕。&#xA;  → interpretation ( 撰)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/interpretation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Free Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; has some info:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;According to the civilians there are three sorts of interpretations, the authentic, the usual, and the doctrinal. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.-3. It is doctrinal when it is made agreeably to rules of science. The Commentaries of learned lawyers in this case furnish the greatest assistance. This last kind of interpretation is itself divided into, three distinct classes. Doctrinal interpretation is extensive, restrictive, or declaratory. 1st. It is extensive whenever the reason of the law has a more enlarged sense than its terms, and it is consequently applied to a case which had not been explained. 2d. On the contrary, it is restrictive when the expressions of the law have a greater latitude than its reasons, so that by a restricted interpretation, an exception is made in a case which the law does not seem to have embraced. 3d. When the reason of the law and the terms in which it is conceived agree, and it is only necessary to explain them to have the sense complete, the interpretation is declaratory. 8. The term interpretation is used by foreign jurists in nearly the same sense that we use the word construction. (q. v.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but, again, I'm no law expert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is doctrinal interpretation a proper translation of 学理解释?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T09:37:11.540" Title="Translation: 学理解释" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19718" CreationDate="2016-08-01T17:53:18.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;Hit Girl&quot; actress is 克蘿伊 --&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A7%91%E6%B4%9B%C2%B7%E8%8E%AB%E7%91%9E%E5%85%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A7%91%E6%B4%9B%C2%B7%E8%8E%AB%E7%91%9E%E5%85%B9&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   克蘿伊·格雷丝·摩蕾茲 （英语：Chloë Grace Moretz，1997年2月10日－），美國女演員，.......&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This page &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloe&lt;/a&gt; shows others with the same 克蘿伊, which seems the most common Chinese rendering of the name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 克蘿伊‧安格紐，愛爾蘭歌手，女性合唱團體天使女伶（Celtic Woman）的最年輕成員。&#xA; 克蘿伊·布莉姬（Chloe Bridges），美國女演員、歌手。&#xA; 克蘿伊·瓊斯（Chloe Jones），美國女性色情演員。&#xA; 克蘿伊·馬歇爾（Chloe Marshall），英國大尺碼模特兒，2008年薩里小姐冠軍，英國小姐亞軍&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13973" LastEditorUserId="13973" LastEditDate="2016-08-01T17:59:58.010" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T17:59:58.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19639" CreationDate="2016-08-01T18:52:35.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think in this case both have the same meaning, because EU is like an organization, and UK is part of Europe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in other situations, there may be difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take Japan 脫亞入歐 as an example. If one says 退亞入歐, then it's misleading as it seems to mean Japan is a member of an organization of Asian countries like EU.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we say Japan 脫亞 instead of 退亞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for non-asian countries (e.g. US), one'd better say 退亞 as a short form of 退出亞洲, instead of 脫亞(脫離亞洲).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T18:52:35.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19662" CreationDate="2016-08-01T22:35:59.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You must be very cautious about translating 很 in a hyper-literal way. In Mandarin it often functions ONLY to link a noun and adjective, and consequently does not necessarily add the literal sense of &quot;very&quot;. Hence your possible reluctance to use &quot;我很好&quot;, even though it is the appropriate response for what you want to express, is unwarranted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This point is mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Simple_%22noun_%2B_adjective%22_sentences&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6630" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T22:35:59.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19696" CreationDate="2016-08-02T02:46:30.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess your mean you are writing math proofs and want to say something like &quot;A holds, or B holds, but not both&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seldom write proofs in Chinese nor am I a math student, but I do read a little bit math written in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;A成立，或B成立，但非同時&quot; is perfectly fine and clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you do want to be academic, then the translation for Exclusive Or in Mathematics is &quot;異或&quot;. So you can say &quot;A異或B&quot;. But I doubt how many people understand except the math guys.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If what you mean is not &quot;are not both true&quot; but &quot;cannot both be true&quot;, or &quot;mutually exclusive&quot;, then &quot;互斥&quot; suggested in another answer sounds like the correct choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastEditorUserId="9326" LastEditDate="2016-08-02T23:35:26.437" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T23:35:26.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19686" CreationDate="2016-08-02T03:34:22.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another example, &quot;小處不可隨便&quot; is a motto which means one should be serious even on small matters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T03:34:22.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19726" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-02T05:33:27.020" Score="2" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like a more laypersons way of understanding what veganism means. Kinda like &quot;我吃素的&quot; as a vegetarian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11057" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T06:33:04.583" Title="Is there a more colloquial way of saying “vegan” than “纯素食者”?" Tags="&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19720" CreationDate="2016-08-02T05:50:59.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;is it a term in civil law only? cause i searched in these four:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.legislation.gov.hk/eng/glossary/homeglos.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;English-Chinese Glossary of Legal Terms&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hklii.hk/eng/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hong Kong Legal Information Institute&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.worldlii.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;World Legal Information Institute&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://terms.naer.edu.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;雙語詞彙資料庫, of taiwan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;non of them has the term &quot;doctrinal intepretation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, the finding you had, is the &quot;only&quot; translation in chinese now; which means &quot;better than nothing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T05:50:59.443" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19726" CreationDate="2016-08-02T06:07:51.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in cantonese, you may say 食全齋, sound files: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/sik6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt; 食 &lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/cyun4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt; 全 &lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/zaai1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt; 齋 &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, colloquially, say 吃全素, in mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T06:07:51.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19729" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19730" CreationDate="2016-08-02T06:14:33.023" Score="0" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume a sentence that starts with &lt;code&gt;or&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin, something like the follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M: Where are you from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;F: Chicago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M: No, I meant which city you are from in China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M: Or did you grew up in US?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these sentences, is it correct to just use 或 to start the sentence? I haven't seen the kind of usage of 或; I only saw it is used within the sentence, combining multiple related items.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M: 你是从哪里来的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;F: 芝加哥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M: 我的意思是你是从哪个中国城市来的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M: 或，你在美国出生和长大了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if it is not correct, how should I start the sentence with &lt;code&gt;or&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T05:53:31.520" Title="How to start the sentence with &quot;or&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19729" CreationDate="2016-08-02T06:38:03.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the translation is fine, but if you speak it, that's pretty weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;colloquially, we use &lt;code&gt;還是說&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;或是說&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;或者說&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the sentences are better to be spoken like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M:你從哪來的?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;F:芝加哥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M:我的意思是你是從中國的哪個城市來的?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M:或者說,你是在美國土生土長的?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for the most part, we add few redundancies to sentence to make it fluent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14026" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T05:53:31.520" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19731" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-02T10:25:48.727" Score="-13" ViewCount="1656" Body="&lt;p&gt;How is the difficulty about the Chinese writing system viewed by native speakers? Is it a view they share with other learners around the world or do they see it the same way other speakers see their own language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14027" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2016-08-04T10:29:02.503" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T05:35:38.917" Title="Are Chinese people aware of the difficulty of their writing system?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19731" CreationDate="2016-08-02T10:49:03.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would be the criteria for a judging writing system as &quot;good&quot; or &quot;bad&quot;? How well it matches the pronunciation? How easy it is to learn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese are aware of the difficulty of their writing system - i.e. that it takes a long time to learn - and &lt;strong&gt;proposals to reform it go back to at least the late 19th century&lt;/strong&gt;. Some people supported very radical reforms. For example, the Chinese author &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Xun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lu Xun&lt;/a&gt; (1881-1936) supposedly said, “If Chinese characters are not eradicated, China will perish” (漢字不滅，中國必亡 / 汉字不灭，中国必亡: Hànzì bù miè, Zhōngguó bì wáng). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One such proposal that replaced Chinese characters with Latin script, was &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Latinxua Sin Wenz&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. (Note, however, that not every romanization system was meant as an effort to replace Chinese characters with the Latin script.) &#xA;Also around the beginning of the 20th century, Wang Zhao (1859-1933) came up with a system inspired by Japanese &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;katakana&lt;/a&gt;, but the Chinese government banned the system. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other examples, see, for example, John DeFrancis' book &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chinese_Language:_Fact_and_Fantasy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (University of Hawai'i Press, 1984)  and Jerry Norman's book &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cambridge.org/de/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/asian-language-and-linguistics/chinese?format=PB&amp;amp;isbn=9780521296533&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (Cambridge University Press, 1988). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, some other writing systems are also difficult:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btn0-Vce5ug&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The hardest language to spell&lt;/a&gt; (Tibetan, according to NativLang on YouTube)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKVtpCByEy4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;World's Most Complicated Writing System&lt;/a&gt; (Thai, according to XidNaf on&#xA;YouTube)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcdYKxHT8kY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Hardest Writing System! - an animated rant about learning&#xA;Japanese&lt;/a&gt; (by NativLang on YouTube)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-08-01T16:15:49.523" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T16:15:49.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19731" CreationDate="2016-08-02T11:07:54.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese native speaker, at least I didn't realize this problem until you ask. Well, we have Pinyin which is more like phonetic symbol to help us input Chinese characters into Computers. As for writing by hands, indeed, it is much more complicated than English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this also made the variety of calligraphy of Chinese characters. Many masters are practicing how to write more beautiful characters through their whole lives. I have to admit that's difficult to learn. The fact is while you are judging it, it is used by the most people on this planet lol :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14028" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T11:07:54.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19734" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-02T14:29:39.763" Score="2" ViewCount="7081" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a laptop with a UK English version of Windows and a French keyboard (azerty ...). I have been using the Google Pinyin IME for some time now but I can't figure out how to enter a &quot;half comma&quot; (顿号, dùnhào, i.e. this type of comma: &lt;strong&gt;、&lt;/strong&gt;). There are explanations for non-azerty keyboards (e.g. at &lt;a href=&quot;http://laoshilink.org/laoshilink/GoogleIME.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;LaoshiLink&lt;/a&gt;) but I haven't found any for French keyboards. (I did a web search in French but I wasn't lucky.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2016-10-13T15:31:45.237" Title="How do you enter a half comma (顿号, dùnhào) with Google Pinyin IME and a French keyboard" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19734" CreationDate="2016-08-02T16:05:08.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I figured it out after some more searching and trying, here is the answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After starting Google Pinyin IME, right-click on the &lt;strong&gt;keyboard button&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;软键盘&lt;/strong&gt; ruǎnjiànpán: software keyboard). From the menu that appears, choose &lt;strong&gt;标点符号&lt;/strong&gt; (biāodiǎn fúhào: punctuation marks). This will bring up a keyboard on the screen; the dun comma is on the top row, on the same key as the number 2. You can than enter the dun comma using either the software keyboard or your hardware keyboard. You can then close the software keyboard again by clicking on the keyboard button. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I am not aware of keyboard shortcuts to do this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-10-13T15:31:45.237" LastActivityDate="2016-10-13T15:31:45.237" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19738" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20758" CreationDate="2016-08-03T07:57:20.540" Score="0" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if things (in general) are ever dialect checked?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哈尔滨啤酒 has a commercial where they go around singing the name 哈啤 over and over again but it sounds a lot like &lt;code&gt;SB&lt;/code&gt; in Southwestern Mandarin. (They really should have checked that.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if these public things (billboards, commercials, posters, etc.) are ever checked to make sure it doesn't have any dialectical problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T04:38:28.807" Title="Are things ever dialect checked?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19739" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-03T08:08:53.017" Score="3" ViewCount="1155" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would anyone be able to clarify the differences between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems from the examples that I've been given is that 增长 refers to 'growth', but at times can be used to mean 'increase'. 增加 On the other hand seems to be more widely used for 'increase' or 'add'? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12762" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T05:40:25.353" Title="Differences between 增加 and 增长" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19739" CreationDate="2016-08-03T11:40:13.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are similar.&#xA;(1)Both 增长 and 增加 can be used on numbers, which change continuously, For example, 人口（population）、年纪（age）、体重（weight）.&#xA;(2)Both of them can be used on some abstract things, such as emotion, feeling, atmosphere. However, in this case, 增加 can be used on both positive and negative things; while 增长 is only for positive（good） things.&#xA;(3)增加 sometimes used in mearning of 加（add）. Then, it is very different in mearning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13809" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T11:40:13.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19726" CreationDate="2016-08-03T11:45:39.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;try &quot;素食者&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you chose to say&quot;我吃素的&quot;， you should be careful. Because &quot;吃素的&quot; sometimes has a deeper mearning in oral language - Incapacitated, bullied, weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13809" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T11:45:39.330" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19743" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-03T12:49:35.837" Score="8" ViewCount="869" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronoun 谁 has two pronunciations — shéi and shuí — without a difference in meaning. When I started learning Chinese, I learnt the pronunciation shéi. However, one of my Chinese language partners (from Henan) said that he had never learnt this pronunciation and said that no other words in Chinese are pronounced as shéi (so this pronunciation was an anomaly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I have also noticed that &lt;em&gt;New Practical Chinese Reader&lt;/em&gt;, published by Beijing Language and Culture University Press, uses shéi, while another book &lt;em&gt;Chinesisch für Deutsche&lt;/em&gt; from Haiwen in Shanghai consistently uses shuí.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these two alternative pronunciations the result of regional differences? Is one of them the &quot;official&quot; pronunciation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;: The original version of this question claimed that the final &quot;-éi&quot; (i.e. with the second tone) does not occur in other Chinese words. As 倪阔乐 pointed out in a comment, this is not correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-08-04T09:29:44.150" LastActivityDate="2016-08-04T09:29:44.150" Title="Are the two pronunciations of 谁 (shéi / shuí) the result of regional differences?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19743" CreationDate="2016-08-03T14:45:58.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of dictionaries include &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/24/xs/8C01.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;both&lt;/a&gt; of them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;● 谁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（誰）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;shuí ㄕㄨㄟˊ 又 shéi ㄕㄟˊ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/24/sw/8C01.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;说文解字&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从言隹聲。示隹切&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to be &lt;code&gt;shuí&lt;/code&gt;&lt;sup&gt;[1]&lt;/sup&gt;, but according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/24/kx/8C01.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;康熙字典&lt;/a&gt; it has both pronunciations in different books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(pinyin added by me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《五音集韻》是爲切(shéi) 《玉篇》是推切(shuí)，音垂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, both are right. IMO, &lt;code&gt;shéi&lt;/code&gt; seems to be used more in spoken language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/27/js/96B9.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;隹&lt;/a&gt; has three pronunciations, &lt;code&gt;zhuī&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;cuī&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;wéi&lt;/code&gt;, but only &lt;code&gt;zhuī&lt;/code&gt; was mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/27/sw/96B9.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;说文解字&lt;/a&gt;. So I believe the pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;谁&lt;/code&gt; mentioned in 说文解字 should be &lt;code&gt;shuí&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-08-03T14:59:50.343" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T14:59:50.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19745" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19746" CreationDate="2016-08-03T18:52:57.943" Score="0" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;if you had come to the meeting... ,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in other words the untrue condition, as opposed to :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;if you have come to the meeting... ,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the mere if clause? I used to think it was 假如, but dictionary examples suggest otherwise. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;假如有這必要, 就這麼幹吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use context to express this difference, please provide examples!&#xA;I would really appreciate an explanation in English (apart from the examples). My Chinese is basic and if I have to translate I only get the basics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2016-08-04T13:49:01.410" LastActivityDate="2016-09-03T13:56:57.780" Title="If you have vs if you had" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19745" CreationDate="2016-08-03T19:51:40.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;you may consider &quot;倘若&quot;, &quot;假如&quot;, or &quot;假使&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000051670&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000051670&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000089761&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000089761&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000089751&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000089751&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but, the chinese language is &quot;fuzzy&quot;, these terms do not absolutely indicate an untrue condition in the clause; they just merely imply such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T19:51:40.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19747" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-03T20:02:33.440" Score="-4" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone provide some possible meanings of &quot;menghe&quot; to Chinese speakers?  I am intentionally not providing the context as I think there may be more than one possible answer and I don't want to lead anyone towards a particular answer.  Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14038" LastActivityDate="2016-08-04T16:19:35.337" Title="Meaning of menghe" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ClosedDate="2016-10-02T05:15:08.293" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19739" CreationDate="2016-08-03T22:53:14.840" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To understand the differences between these two compound words. you need to first understand the meanings to 加 and 长。 While it's simple for 加 which just means addition (1加1=2), there are fives meanings to 长：1, grow; 2, length; 3, long ; 4, leader; 5, First&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;长大=grow up，长高 grow taller, 长长 grow longer (zhang chang) same word sounds different.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;长边=Length;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;长夜=long night；长城=great wall of China which means long wall;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;班长=Leader to a class; 市长=leader to a city; 厕所长=leader to a bathroom；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;长女=First born daughter to a family; 长老=oldest old people in a family;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;增 simply means getting more;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so &lt;strong&gt;增加&lt;/strong&gt; simply means &lt;strong&gt;getting more in addition&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but &lt;strong&gt;增长&lt;/strong&gt; can mean a &lt;strong&gt;lot of things&lt;/strong&gt;. Refer to &quot;长&quot; meaning from above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can't use 增加， but you can use 增长, and visa versa.&#xA;For example. You have enlarged your penis. and you can say：我增长了我的阴茎。You can't use 增加 here， because you are not adding （加） something to your penis because you are only making it grow longer. 长 used here means 1, grow. But of course, if you had an accident and have part of your penis damaged and you have done a penis transplant, then you can use 我增加了我的阴茎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T22:53:14.840" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19718" CreationDate="2016-08-04T00:52:50.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a girl，柯萝翊，柯萝奕，柯萝漪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a boy, 柯罗逸，柯罗毅，柯罗驿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-08-04T00:52:50.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20749" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-04T09:13:07.853" Score="0" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Wenlin dictionary translates 会说 as &quot;talker&quot;, but the meaning of talker in Harrap's dictionary is bad. Should 会说 be translated as &quot;narrator&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-08-09T15:29:09.827" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T15:29:09.827" Title="What is the best translation for 会说?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20749" CreationDate="2016-08-04T09:52:32.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;會&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;be able to&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;說&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;say&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;spaek&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C: 你會說普通話嗎? / 你會普通話嗎?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  E: Do you speak Mandarin?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;talker&lt;/code&gt; is similar to &lt;code&gt;很會說&lt;/code&gt;(good at talk) or &lt;code&gt;很愛說&lt;/code&gt;(talktive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;narrator&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese is &lt;code&gt;旁白&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;說書人&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another case&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colloquially, we can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 你真是&amp;amp;&lt;em&gt;@#^$#&amp;amp;&lt;/em&gt; (something dirty)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: you are fuxxxx....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 哇,你真會說 (frivolous)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: wow, you are so mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14026" LastEditorUserId="14026" LastEditDate="2016-08-04T10:04:32.180" LastActivityDate="2016-08-04T10:04:32.180" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19694" CreationDate="2016-08-04T10:17:40.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The provenance of &quot;爱屋及乌&quot; is from Han FuSheng &lt;em&gt;the commentary of the book of documents&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;Wars&lt;/em&gt; “爱人者，兼其屋上之乌。” This sentence means &lt;strong&gt;love me,love my dog&lt;/strong&gt;. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6MkQ7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6MkQ7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The completed explain means that: The love for the house extends even to the crows perching on its roof -- loving one thing on account of another. He that loves the tree loves the branch.；He who loves Bertrand loves his dog. Love for a person extends even to the crows on his roof；He that loves the tree loves the branch. (come from:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.onlinechineselearning.com/resource/funny-chinese-phrases.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.onlinechineselearning.com/resource/funny-chinese-phrases.html&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爱及屋乌 and 爱乌及屋 are wrong Chinese idioms.You can say 屋乌之爱.&#xA;The synonym idioms are 相(xiāng)濡(rú)以(yǐ)沫(mò)、屋(wū)乌(wū)之(zhī)爱(ài)、民(mín)胞(bāo)物(wù)与(yǔ)、兼(jiān)爱(ài)无(wú)私(sī).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I send the whole idiom story in Chinese, you can not only understand the idiom but also learn Chinese by yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;商纣无道，周武王兵进朝歌，商兵倒戈，商纣自焚，商朝灭亡。&#xA;周武王召见姜太公，问道：“商朝她也没了，殷都咱也占了，可是我们对旧王朝的官宦贵族士兵怎么处置呀？”姜太公说：“臣闻之，爱人者，兼其屋上之乌。而商朝的人不是我们所爱。既然不爱他们，就统统杀了他们算了。”&#xA;武王觉得不妥，这得杀掉多少人呀？于是就召见召公。召公说：“有罪的就把他杀掉，没罪的就让他活下来。”&#xA;这个比姜太公的办法好，但武王还是觉得不行，就召见周公。周公说：“好的君主不偏爱自己的旧朋友和亲属，而是用仁政感化普天下的人。我看应当让他们都回各自的家，耕种自己的田地。”&#xA;武王听了很高兴，心中豁然开朗，于是就照周公的意见办理，结果天下太平，民心归顺。&#xA;姜太公的那句话，就成就了“爱屋及乌”的成语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2016-08-04T14:10:46.703" LastActivityDate="2016-08-04T14:10:46.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19747" CreationDate="2016-08-04T16:19:35.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks to those that tried to offer helpful information. I found a local Chinese speaker who was willing to help and think I found the answer I was looking for. In addition to being a name, as pointed out by @ElpieKay (thanks!), it can also be 孟河 which seems similar to the answer by @user6065 (looks like one character matches at least). Anyway, apparently it is a small town where a style of traditional Chinese medical treatment originated around 200 BC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14038" LastActivityDate="2016-08-04T16:19:35.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20749" CreationDate="2016-08-04T16:35:27.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;会说 can mean “is a talker” as in “can speak (well)”, but it can have other meanings too. The basic idea is: “会说 = can + speak”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it needs to be treated as a single word, sometimes as two separate words. (Edit: it seems to occur more often as two separate words than as a single word.) This distinction can be seen in Pinyin (but the Hanzi do not give this distinction). I believe it can usually by heard too in speech, but my oral Chinese isn’t so good so I’m not sure!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here a few examples I got from an app on my phone (Pleco), with some more translations into English &amp;amp; French of my own. I added the French as in the first comment (to TomN’s answer) it looks like the user “faure” is more familiar with French.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你真会说。 | Nǐ zhēn hùishūo. = You’re a really good talker. = Tu parles très bien.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你会说法语。 | Nǐ huì shuō Fǎyǔ. (= you can speak French) = You speak French. = Tu parles français.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人家会说你，你在乎不在乎？ | Rénjia huì shuō nǐ, nǐ zàihu bù zàihu? (= people may talk (of) you, do you care?) = Don’t you care what people will say? = Tu t’en fiches du qu’en dira-t-on?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;谁都没她会说话。 | Shuí dōu méi tā huì shuōhuà. = No one is as eloquent as she is. = Elle est plus éloquente que quiconque.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这么复杂的中文句子，我不会说。| Zhème fùzá de Zhōngwén jùzi, wǒ bú huì shūo = I can’t say such a complicated sentence in Chinese. = Je ne peux pas dire une phrase aussi compliquée en chinois.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably not an exhaustive list of all the ways the sentence fragment 会说 can be used, but you get the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t think 会说 ever means “narrator” as in “person who narrates”  / “person who tells a story”. 叙述者 xùshùzhě is one way to say “narrator”; there are others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2016-08-05T15:20:32.307" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T15:20:32.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20754" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21322" CreationDate="2016-08-05T01:18:25.593" Score="0" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;An answer from another question linked this article &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou_Television_Cantonese_controversy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou_Television_Cantonese_controversy&lt;/a&gt; which says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Due to Mandarin’s status as the official language, use of the country’s other languages in television as well as radio and film is rigorously restricted by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT).[6][7][8] Permission from national or local authorities is required for using a dialect as the primary programming language at radio and television stations.[7]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a list of all approved languages for use by SARFT?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T13:04:01.867" Title="What languages have been approved by SARFT for use?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19718" CreationDate="2016-08-05T02:19:22.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;chloe 可怡&#xA;This is most suitable for a girl in my opinion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15051" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T02:19:22.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20754" CreationDate="2016-08-05T02:40:17.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes: 普通话.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All other languages, topolects and regiolects may occur in local plays, in educational material, in foreign movies etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一、电视剧的语言（地方戏曲片除外）应以普通话为主，一般情况下不得使用方言和不标准的普通话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二、重大革命和历史题材电视剧、少儿题材电视剧以及宣传教育专题电视片等一律要使用普通话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三、电视剧中出现的领袖人物的语言要使用普通话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sarft.gov.cn/art/2005/10/15/art_106_4370.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.sarft.gov.cn/art/2005/10/15/art_106_4370.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-01-04T04:16:03.080" LastActivityDate="2017-01-04T04:16:03.080" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19718" CreationDate="2016-08-05T02:45:27.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;可蕾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可(ke3): able, becoming, agreeable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蕾(lei3): bud, bloom&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are frequent female name characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only downside is that they all go the third tone like down-up-down-up which can be mouthful for a name, but you can substitute 可 with 珂, another frequent female name character. The latter sounds better, but the meaning could be a bit off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;珂(ke1): (white) jade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T02:45:27.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19738" CreationDate="2016-08-05T04:38:28.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Once your sentence exceeds seven words, it is guaranteed that you will offend a man in the street or a women on the roof. So we just give it up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the homophones in the same dialect aren't enough to deal with...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you are to do business in Sichuan (or anywhere actually) it's your own lookout.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T04:38:28.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20759" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-05T04:59:57.407" Score="0" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do Cantonese speakers still understand speech when all syllables are spoken in a neutral tone (similar to the Mandarin's 5th tone)? And to what extent do they understand it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I spoke to a Cantonese waiter and I was particularly tired at that time so I was unable to articulate my tones and they seem to not understand anything at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I heard somewhere that if you forget the tone it's safer to use a neutral tone to avoid saying bad words and the like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9514" LastActivityDate="2016-08-14T02:54:14.153" Title="Comprehension of untoned speech in Cantonese" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20759" CreationDate="2016-08-05T06:53:24.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends. if you have all tones incorrect, then it's hard to guess what you are saying, but if you have only 1 or 2 incorrect, generally people can understand you. For example, if I say, I duck your mom. You probably get the meaning. but if I say, I duck your nun. you will be confused. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T06:53:24.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20749" CreationDate="2016-08-05T07:04:46.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;会说 is not real Chinese words. a correct way to call someone who talks fluently is 好口才，能说善道，会说话，老奸巨猾，老油条。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会=able&#xA;说=speak，say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会说 able to speak;&#xA;Most people are able to speak, even babies; so this is not right if what you really mean is to speak fluently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T07:04:46.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19500" CreationDate="2016-08-05T11:48:34.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;ElpieKay's answer seems fine to me apart from not answering the last part of the the question (I only speak a tiny bit Chinese&quot;). For that, I propose:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不太会说中文 (Wǒ bú tài huì shuō Zhōngwén)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(≈ &quot;I can't really speak Chinese&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T11:48:34.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20769" CreationDate="2016-08-05T14:38:58.710" Score="2" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently reading a history book by P. Zarrow on the period between 1840 and 1949. When commenting the emergence of vernacular Chinese (pioneered f.e. by 胡適）he makes sparse comments about the views of the opponents of vernacular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, it struck me that the opponents supposedly said, the &quot;vernacular&quot; was almost as alien to the populace as Classical Chinese （文言文）. And as the reason for this they stated the influence of Western Grammar! Zarrow writes that, while speaking of 瞿秋白，though not explicitly stating that he said it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, looking at what 胡適 advocated in a poem of his, it seems not to have been any difficult vernacular -such as 紅樓夢， on which he was a master- but pretty much modern mandarin &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;都是平常情感。&#xA;  都是平常言語。&#xA;  偶然碰著個詩人。&#xA;  變幻出多少新奇詩句！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I wonder: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What strong western grammatical influence was there in the vernacular of this era? I searched hard and found only a few minor inventions (like 她它牠，妳), of which most have died out. Surely, this was not so hard for the people!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Where these really an obstacle, or was it rather the myriads of dialects, spoken since time immemorial?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2016-08-05T15:28:32.327" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T12:45:37.213" Title="Western grammatical influence on vernacular Chinese in the 20th century" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20763" CreationDate="2016-08-05T18:17:02.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Little, I would say. The new cultural movement was about opposing the west, not embracing it. Apart from loan words and interpunctuation, there has been a gradual increase in long and complicated sentences with many relative clauses joined with 的. Perhaps using 被 in a neutral fashion rather than only negative also has western influence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why would the people accept artificial injections into the language? It is like the debate in some western countries about introducing yet another, ”gender neutral” pronoun. Languages tend to evolve into simplicity, so the natural step would be to get rid of gender altogether, i.e. something like classical chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T18:17:02.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20765" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20767" CreationDate="2016-08-05T19:01:53.253" Score="1" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best simplified Chinese translation for the isopod known as the common European &quot;Woodlouse&quot;, also called &quot;Sow bug&quot; or &quot;Pill bug&quot; in US?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlouse&lt;/a&gt; for details)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15056" LastEditorUserId="15056" LastEditDate="2016-08-06T18:34:45.600" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T18:34:45.600" Title="Translation for &quot;Woodlouse&quot;" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;proper-nouns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20766" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20768" CreationDate="2016-08-06T03:26:07.780" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Korean movie On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate has the Chinese title, 生活的發現, which, obviously, has nothing to do with its English version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Life's Discovery&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;Discovery of Life&lt;/em&gt;, are some translations - does anyone have any cool ideas how to phrase that differently, and in a way more palatable to the English speaker? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11587" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T14:13:56.357" Title="Different ways to phrase “生活的發現”" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20765" CreationDate="2016-08-06T04:22:44.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is called 鼠妇 in writing phrase，also some nickname which is 西瓜虫 潮虫 团子虫 etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15059" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T04:22:44.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20766" CreationDate="2016-08-06T04:44:22.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, the original title described someone was &quot; At the moment of recalling a turning point &quot; (I am interpreting &quot;turning gate&quot; as &quot; a gate that's the turning point of someone's life&quot;-  meaning someone went through a gate (crossed a line/ made a choice) that changed his or her life from that point on). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, someone interpreted the title similarly and came up with a Chinese title  &quot;(改變)生命的發現&quot; - &quot;a life (changing) discovery&quot; with the implied meaning &quot; changing&quot; omitted. ( someone went thought a gate and discovered something that changed his or her life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the translator confused 生命( one's life) with &quot;生活&quot; ( a living ) , that why the title was translated as &quot;生活的發現&quot; instead of the somewhat more accurate &quot; 生命的發現&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation of the original title would be:&#xA;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;回望人生轉捩點&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;A look back at the turning point of life&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-instead of 回想 (think back/ remember) I choose &quot;回望&quot;( look back/ revisit) - which is an action verb that paint a more vivid picture to simulate imagination. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Just put 轉捩點 ( a turning point) after 回想(think back) is too general, so I also included the originally implied meaning of &quot;life&quot; to  clarify it is not just any turning point, but a &quot; life's turning point&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-06T14:13:56.357" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T14:13:56.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20763" CreationDate="2016-08-06T07:09:18.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding to how early writers are influenced by western languages. The renowned poet and translator 余光中 has written quite a lot about it. Below are some examples he mentioned in his articles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deliberate plurals. Traditionally plurals are only used when absolutely necessary. In the following sentence the reader doesn't actually care whether it's one fly, a group of flies, or fly as a species. Therefore, it's better to leave it out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;战士战死了的时候，&lt;strong&gt;苍蝇们&lt;/strong&gt;所首先发现的是他的缺点和伤痕…… ——鲁迅《战士和苍蝇》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deliberate plurals, and apparent western pronoun-phrase -- &quot;your total extinction&quot;. A colloquial way to say it is 我诅咒你们全灭.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大小一切的&lt;strong&gt;苍蝇们&lt;/strong&gt;……我诅咒&lt;strong&gt;你的全灭&lt;/strong&gt;。——周作人《苍蝇》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes we know you've been to Cambridge. We can totally tell. &quot;不曾知道过&quot; is an imitation of the English past participate &quot;haven't known&quot;. &quot;更大的愉快&quot; is an imitation of the English comparative &quot;greater happiness&quot;. In whole it looks like an awkward English sentence being translated to awkward Chinese. 我不知道什么比这更愉快 would be much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我不曾知道过更大的愉快&lt;/strong&gt;。——徐志摩《我所知道的康桥》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typical stacked modifiers. Very unsinological I'd say. It's not even good English. With English you can use clauses to right-branch a sentence, with modifiers trailing behind, theoretically ad infinitum. With Chinese, all modifiers are supposed to put at the left side. If the modifiers gets overabundant, the sentence would be very hard to digest. Usually this kind of sentences should be completely restructured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我这本书只预备给一些“本身已离开了学校，或始终就无从接近学校，还认识&#xA;  些中国文字，置身于文学理论、文学批评以及说谎造谣消息所达不到的那种职务上，&#xA;  在那个社会里生活，而且极关心全个民族在空间与时间下所有的好处与坏处”的人&#xA;  去看。——沈从文《边城》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of stacked modifiers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但我是更感动于那些无望的度着寂寂的光影，沉默的，在憔悴的朱唇边浮着微笑，属于过去时代的少女的。——何其芳《哀歌》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;余光中 went on to say that some of the writers, including 鲁迅 and 胡适, are already excellent 文言文 writers, but when they write 白话文, they tend to lose themselves and incorporate western language features into their articles. 鲁迅 even did this deliberately because he thought the contemporary Chinese wasn't expressive enough and it had to be improved this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first this was only a literary vernacular, but they do pierce into the spoken language. Modern mandarin is already a conglomerate because of the influence of early 白话文 and their authors. In late 1970s 余光中 even proposed to eradicate 恶性西化 in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2016-08-07T12:45:37.213" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T12:45:37.213" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5791" CreationDate="2016-08-07T03:34:03.840" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct translation of &quot; this is &lt;strong&gt;life&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; isn't &quot; 這就是&lt;em&gt;生活&lt;/em&gt;&quot; but &quot;這就是&lt;strong&gt;人生&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&#xA;people often confused 生活 (living) with 生命 (a life) and 人生(one's life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of &quot;這就是命&quot;, it is translated as &quot; this is fate&quot;  in English .&#xA;命 as in 命運 (fate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T03:34:03.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20773" CreationDate="2016-08-07T03:45:13.780" Score="3" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BClin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;绿林&lt;/a&gt; were an agrarian rebellion movement during the Xin dynasty. How is 绿林 pronounced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wikipedia &lt;strike&gt;claims&lt;/strike&gt;claimed that it's Lǜlín&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/f/162/360278.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;dictionaries&lt;/a&gt; it's lùlín&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2016-08-09T08:09:39.243" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T08:09:39.243" Title="How to pronounce 绿林?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20772" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-07T03:47:12.950" Score="4" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;This morning in Taipei I went to buy a coffee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I knew how to say 我要一杯咖啡 and I knew the word for big is 大.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I didn't know where in the sentence to put the 大. Does it go before 杯 to mean &quot;big cup&quot;? Or if 杯 is a classifier rather than a noun here, I guess it can't take an adjective. Unless it can actually function as both noun and classifier at once?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or alternatively would it go before 咖啡? That sounds odd when I back-translate literally into English &quot;I want one cup of big coffee&quot;. But you can never trust literal translations to be idiomatic anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-08-09T15:29:20.593" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T15:29:20.593" Title="Where to put the adjective when asking for something that comes in multiple sizes?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20771" CreationDate="2016-08-07T04:44:42.877" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be &lt;code&gt;lùlín&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/xs/7EFF.htm&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;绿&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is 多音字(polyphone) in Chinese, &lt;code&gt;lǜ&lt;/code&gt; is usually used for color, &lt;code&gt;lù&lt;/code&gt; is used for some 专有名词(proper noun).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/f/162/360278.htm&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;绿林&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is pronounced as &lt;code&gt;lùlín&lt;/code&gt;, because it came from the name of the mountain &lt;code&gt;绿林山&lt;/code&gt;, which is pronounced as &lt;code&gt;lùlínshān&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;绿林&lt;/code&gt; should be pronounced as &lt;code&gt;lùlín&lt;/code&gt;, it has become a proper noun, in general it won't be used for the meaning of &quot;green woods&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also other examples of &lt;code&gt;绿&lt;/code&gt; pronounced as &lt;code&gt;lù&lt;/code&gt;. Such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/d/23/53582.htm&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;鸭绿江&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/f/162/360280.htm&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;绿营&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-08-07T08:26:16.863" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T08:26:16.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20772" CreationDate="2016-08-07T04:44:57.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The adjective is always placed directly before the noun, so it is correct to phrase the sentence as: &#xA;(我)(要)(一杯)(大)(咖啡 )&#xA;(I)(want)(a cup of )(&lt;strong&gt;large&lt;/strong&gt;)(&lt;strong&gt;coffee&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(a cup of) is the quantity word and classifier, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大 in 大咖啡 is short for &quot;大杯 / 大碼&quot; (large cup/ large size ), it is still functioning as an adjective, but the phrase 大杯咖啡 / 大碼咖啡 is treated as one item on the menu, so you can call it a noun.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;so, 一大杯咖啡 or 餃子一小份 is incorrect then?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not incorrect, the adjective is just modifying different objects in the phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一&lt;strong&gt;大杯&lt;/strong&gt;咖啡 (one &lt;strong&gt;large cup&lt;/strong&gt; of coffee); 一&lt;strong&gt;小份&lt;/strong&gt;餃子 (one &lt;strong&gt;small order&lt;/strong&gt; of dumplings)  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一杯&lt;strong&gt;大咖啡&lt;/strong&gt; (one cup of &lt;strong&gt;large coffee&lt;/strong&gt;); 一份&lt;strong&gt;小餃子&lt;/strong&gt; (one order of &lt;strong&gt;small dumpling(s)&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;大咖啡&lt;/strong&gt;一杯 (&lt;strong&gt;large coffee&lt;/strong&gt;, one cup); &lt;strong&gt;小餃子&lt;/strong&gt;一份 (&lt;strong&gt;small dumpling(s)&lt;/strong&gt;, one order)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;咖啡一&lt;strong&gt;大杯&lt;/strong&gt; (coffee, one &lt;strong&gt;large cup&lt;/strong&gt;); 餃子一&lt;strong&gt;小份&lt;/strong&gt; (dumplings, one &lt;strong&gt;small order&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小 in 小餃子 can be the adjective (small) that modify the noun 餃子(dumpling), meaning &quot;the size of individual dumpling is small; it can also be shorthand for 小份, &quot;小(份)餃子&quot; = &quot;small (order of) dumplings&quot;, meaning the number of dumplings is small.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-08-09T15:28:47.703" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T15:28:47.703" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20775" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-07T05:45:37.633" Score="6" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been looking to improve my Chinese pronunciation and listening skills. When looking at most tv dramas and textbook dialogues, however, I can't help but notice that tones and pitches tend to be overpronunced in a way that just sounds very unnatural to me and different from the Mandarin I hear in my daily life. Because these sources sound unnatural, I don't really &amp;quot;believe&amp;quot; in them and don't think it would be productive to try to imitate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goQzSuBwBa4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This might be a good example.&lt;/a&gt; Randomly choosing the conversation at 10:50, and comparing it to the conversation at, say, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI56XotU8OQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;11:15 here&lt;/a&gt;, the former seems theatrical and overpronunced, unlike the more everyday dialogue present in the latter link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a male speaker, however, and would need a reality TV show or other media genre with a less theatrical mode of pronunciation and articulation with more male speakers. Aside from reality TV, would anyone have suggestions for other genres? Within reality TV, could anyone recommend some programs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have linguistics training, and don't mind answers with technical jargon if one wants to comment on the differences between the two modes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15063" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-13T23:42:56.883" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T18:07:18.413" Title="Media Source for &quot;Natural&quot; Sounding Mandarin Chinese" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;movies&gt;&lt;audio&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20776" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20780" CreationDate="2016-08-07T07:02:33.050" Score="2" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;Convince -&gt; 说服&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I phrase a sentence, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I should convince her that it is not her fault.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this work (sounds odd): 我应该说服她，这不是她的错。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is there a more understandable / grammatically correct way of phrasing it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4356" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T08:12:20.973" Title="How do I say &quot;convince (someone) that (something)&quot;?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20777" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20781" CreationDate="2016-08-07T07:08:26.073" Score="3" ViewCount="584" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently the successful taxi app 滴滴出行 was originally called 嘀嘀打车. What is the meaning of 嘀嘀 here and why was it considered acceptable to change 嘀嘀 to 滴滴?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-08-07T13:08:11.060" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T13:49:34.163" Title="Meaning of the name Didi Chuxing/滴滴出行？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20777" CreationDate="2016-08-07T07:21:28.390" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, taxi is called &quot;的士&quot; in hong kong. in mandarin speaking area, it's translated as &quot;計程車&quot; or &quot;出租車&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about 1990s, it's trendy to use &quot;的士&quot;, instead of &quot;計程車&quot; in mainland china; the action of using / calling a taxi is &quot;打的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so 的 --&gt; 嘀嘀 --&gt; 滴滴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they share the same syllable :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T07:21:28.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20775" CreationDate="2016-08-07T07:45:33.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the radio television hong kong has channel in mandarin; in their website, they've archive of past programme, or podcasts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://programme.rthk.hk/channel/radio/index.php?c=pth&amp;amp;m=archive&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://programme.rthk.hk/channel/radio/index.php?c=pth&amp;amp;m=archive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the site design is a little bit &quot;non-standard&quot;, just click any links, until you see &quot;收聽 listen&quot; with a headphone icon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T07:45:33.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20776" CreationDate="2016-08-07T08:12:20.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To convince:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to make&lt;/strong&gt; (someone) &lt;strong&gt;believe&lt;/strong&gt; = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;使&lt;/strong&gt;.....&lt;strong&gt;相信&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;strong&gt;使&lt;/strong&gt;她&lt;strong&gt;相信&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;make&lt;/strong&gt; her &lt;strong&gt;believe&lt;/strong&gt;) 這不是她的錯 (that it is not her fault)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to make&lt;/strong&gt; (someone) &lt;strong&gt;+(verb)&lt;/strong&gt; = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;說服&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;strong&gt;+(verb)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:  &lt;strong&gt;說服&lt;/strong&gt;( convince)她&lt;strong&gt;相信&lt;/strong&gt; (her &lt;strong&gt;to believe&lt;/strong&gt;) 這不是她的錯 (that it is not her fault)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*相信 in this sentence is a verb that can be replaced with other verb, for example: &quot;deny&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I should convince her that it is not her fault.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;base on the context of in this sentence, you are not convincing her to act, but convincing her to believe, so &quot;使她相信這不是她的錯&quot; is the  appropriate phrasing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T08:12:20.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20777" CreationDate="2016-08-07T08:49:59.263" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;why was it considered acceptable to change 嘀嘀 to 滴滴?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://4g.zol.com.cn/455/4553068.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This news (嘀嘀打车改名了! 正式更名为滴滴打车)&lt;/a&gt; has an explanation about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;更名是公司长远战略发展的需要，“滴滴”较“嘀嘀”更具有文化内涵及寓意。【滴】是水滴下落的清脆声，有着滴水成河的凝聚意义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to its official 微博, the name was changed for the needs of long-term strategic development, &lt;code&gt;滴滴&lt;/code&gt; has more cultural connotation and moral than &lt;code&gt;嘀嘀&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;滴&lt;/code&gt; means the clear and melodious sound of water dropping, has the cohesion meaning of &quot;many drops of water make a river&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.xinhuanet.com/tech/2014-05/21/c_126526443.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This news (嘀嘀打车改名为“滴滴”)&lt;/a&gt; has another explanation about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;依据小桔科技官方的解读，更名为“滴滴打车”，一是取与象声词“嘀嘀”的谐音，二是取“滴水之恩当涌泉相报”之意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the official story, the name was changed because (1) &lt;code&gt;滴滴&lt;/code&gt; has the same pronunciation with the onomatopoeia &lt;code&gt;嘀嘀&lt;/code&gt;; (2) takes the meaning from &lt;code&gt;滴水之恩当涌泉相报&lt;/code&gt; (drop the boon of the water, be to flow out spring to report mutually).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;业内分析认为，滴滴改名也是出于商标侵权避嫌考虑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the industry analysis, &lt;strong&gt;the name was changed to avoid trademark infringement trouble&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(BTW: &lt;code&gt;滴滴打车&lt;/code&gt; still had trademark infringement trouble even after changed the name. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnmo.com/soft/417149.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;改了名字也侵权 滴滴打车再次成为被告&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What is the meaning of 嘀嘀 here&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the above statement mentioned, &lt;code&gt;嘀嘀&lt;/code&gt; is 象声词(onomatopoeia), I &lt;em&gt;guess&lt;/em&gt; it came from the voice of car horns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-08-07T13:49:34.163" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T13:49:34.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20775" CreationDate="2016-08-07T13:26:19.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;TV programs that discuss current events and social issues are quite good. Best is having a panel of a few people (not just a one-on-one interview) where a specific topic is discussed - this constrains the range of vocabulary expressed but also provides a variety of different speakers. Often a certain speaker becomes a 'favorite' because of their intonation, sentence structure etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talk_(TV_series)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talk_(TV_series)&lt;/a&gt; but in Mandarin would be perfect.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15060" LastActivityDate="2016-08-07T13:26:19.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20783" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20784" CreationDate="2016-08-07T16:25:38.717" Score="2" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;A gentleman I saw today had the tattoo &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有輪有得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am struggling to understand if this is a legitimate sentence and what it could mean. I am familiar with 有得， expressing beneficiality. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;學習有得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my limited experience, 有輪 is not used to characterise people, but wheeled objects. So, my interpretation would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Having wheels pays off! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my interpretation correct and is the sentence natural?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2016-08-08T11:59:06.207" Title="Meaning of 有輪有得" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20783" CreationDate="2016-08-07T17:15:14.133" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is my interpretation correct and is the sentence natural?&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase make no sense. As you said, 有輪 means ( have wheels), 有得 on the other hand, means &quot;can&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/18059/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/18059/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have to be some wrong characters in the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is &quot; 有輪有得&quot; could be :&quot;有能有德&quot; (competent and virtuous) opposite of &quot; 無德無能&quot; (lack virtue and ability)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a mix up of two similar phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有輸&lt;/strong&gt;有贏 (some lose some win)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It can be written as 有贏有輸 (some win some lose) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;輪 was mistaken for 輸&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is a Cantonese phrase&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有得&lt;/strong&gt;有失 (some gain some lose )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;輸: defeat ; lost (in match or gamble) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;失: lose (something)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-08T11:59:06.207" LastActivityDate="2016-08-08T11:59:06.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20785" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20786" CreationDate="2016-08-07T23:55:27.623" Score="6" ViewCount="3803" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can native speakers of Mandarin Chinese readily understand speakers of neighbouring regions such as Korea, Japan, Mongolia, or Canton? Are Mandarin Chinese and any of these languages mutually intelligible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15067" LastEditorUserId="15067" LastEditDate="2018-05-10T18:51:11.260" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T18:51:11.260" Title="Is there any other language intelligible to Mandarin Chinese speakers?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20785" CreationDate="2016-08-08T01:02:37.923" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Mandarin is part of the Sino-Tibetan language family, whereas Japanese, Mongolian, and Korean are not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even within the Sino-Tibetan family, most langauges are mutually unintelligble. Even worse, within the Chinese family, most regiolects and topolects are mutually unintelligble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People in Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo speak Wu, which is not intelligble for Mandarin speaking people. The two topolects broke off some two thousand years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People in Guangdong and Guangxi speak Cantonese, which is unintelligble for people speaking Wu or Mandarin. And so it continues. Only nearby topolects are intelligble, for instance Sichuan Mandarin vs. Hebei Mandarin vs. Tianjin Mandarin and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese has borrowed the Chinese writing system, but the spoken language has nothing in common with Chinese. Even so, Japanese has borrowed many loanwords, that often sound similar (电话 is denwa in Japanese, dianhua in Chinese). Chinese is therefore considered as the equivalent of Latin in East Asia, since many langauges have been influenced by Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At best, people from different nations can only pick up stray words in other languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, they have long shared the same writing system, which means that Japanese can read Chinese and vice versa (when using characters, not Hiragana or Katakana), with some difficulty. This was true for Korean and Vietnamese before they incorporated their own writing systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't matter if the writing is in traditional or simplified, most can read both varieties, although may not be able to write in both scripts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-08T01:02:37.923" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20783" CreationDate="2016-08-08T06:36:57.533" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would it be possible the word is 有輸有得? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It mean that there is lost and gain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;輸(lose) and 輪(wheel) look similar anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it make more sense if the word is 輸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6153" LastActivityDate="2016-08-08T06:36:57.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20772" CreationDate="2016-08-08T17:03:54.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a linguist, just a native speaker. My opinion is that 大 should go before 杯, i.e. 我要一大杯咖啡, since I have never heard anyone said 我要一杯大咖啡.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words like 杯 are called 量词(sorry I don't know the exact term), and the adjectives about amount are always placed before 量词. For example, &#xA;一大碗饭= a bowl of a lot of rice， 一大把花= a bunch of many flowers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe this solution is not satisfying; sorry I can't explain it in detail. 量词 is actually quite sophisticated, and is often omitted when translated into English. I hope &lt;a href=&quot;https://m.douban.com/group/topic/8930200/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; will help (well it's written in Chinese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15068" LastEditorUserId="3472" LastEditDate="2016-08-09T14:04:25.307" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T14:04:25.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20772" CreationDate="2016-08-09T04:09:17.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally I've used&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要一杯咖啡，大的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要一杯咖啡，大杯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if it's the best way to say it, but I've never had any problem being understood this way...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15071" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T04:09:17.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20771" CreationDate="2016-08-09T05:10:18.743" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like @songyuanyao said, &lt;code&gt;lùlín&lt;/code&gt; is the one currently accepted in dictionaries. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;绿 and 录 used to share the same pronunciation, somewhat between &lt;code&gt;lù&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;lǜ&lt;/code&gt; (let's for a moment forget about 入声). Then vowel shifts happen, in different ways and to different degrees in different times and places. Now 绿 and 录 are parted in mandarin, but not in some other dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, for whatever reason, mandarin tried to conform to local and historical pronunciations, that's why we see a lot of strange pronunciation for toponyms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this trend is fading. Take 六安 for example, in newer dictionaries, it's read as &lt;code&gt;liu'an&lt;/code&gt; instead of the traditional &lt;code&gt;lu'an&lt;/code&gt;. The local people aren't content with this change, but there is nothing special with this 六; &lt;code&gt;lu&lt;/code&gt; is just a local pronunciation, keeping it makes no sense. If we keep every local pronunciation, mandarin will explode with polyphones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same case with 绿 in 绿林 etc. Whatever the context, 绿 is unmistakably color of the chlorophyll. Keeping two pronunciations will do no good but only confuse people and raise questions like this. If &lt;code&gt;lù&lt;/code&gt; is one day erased from dictionaries, I wouldn't be surprised a little bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2016-08-09T05:18:42.577" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T05:18:42.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20771" CreationDate="2016-08-09T07:29:00.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, after the moment of forgetting 入聲, may we try the  approach by cantonese, which still has 入聲, and, is highly correlated to middle chinese (中古漢語)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%B6%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;綠 (u+7da0)&lt;/a&gt; in cantonese has only &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; pronunciation, which is luk6 (sydney lay scheme), &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/luk6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;說文解字 explained 綠 is &quot;从糸﹒彔聲﹒力玉切&quot;; that &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%BD%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;彔 (u+5f54)&lt;/a&gt; is also luk6 in cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, 力玉切:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%8A%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;力&lt;/a&gt; --&gt; lik6, get &quot;l&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%8E%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;玉&lt;/a&gt; --&gt; yuk6, get uk6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;combine the &quot;l&quot; from &quot;力&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;uk6&quot; from &quot;玉&quot;, we get &lt;strong&gt;luk6&lt;/strong&gt;. the pronunciation in cantonese today, still matches what was written in 漢 dynasty, about 1900+ years ago. isn't it wonderful?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%85%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;六&lt;/a&gt; also shares the same pronunciation (exact initial, final &amp;amp; tone) with 綠.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, discrepancy between modern days mandarin and literatures of yore,  rhyme dictionaries (韻書) are unsolvable; which causes confusions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, particular pronunciations would disappear, well, very unlikely. i would suggest, in case of doubt, shift to other dialects, lookup rhyme dictionaries; and adjust accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T07:29:00.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20792" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20794" CreationDate="2016-08-10T04:31:24.403" Score="4" ViewCount="1202" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Evan Osnos's book &lt;em&gt;Age of Ambition&lt;/em&gt; he mentions that during the Cultural Revolution&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;People took to saying, “You’ll earn less building rockets than you’ll earn selling eggs.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the original Chinese phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been 百度-ing for a bit now but to no avail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T09:45:20.580" Title="Original phrase: You’ll earn less building rockets than you’ll earn selling eggs" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20792" CreationDate="2016-08-10T05:05:16.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;it might be &quot;搞導彈不如賣茶葉蛋&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;導彈 is missile, while 茶葉蛋 is this one: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8C%B6%E8%91%89%E8%9B%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/茶葉蛋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, the quoted saying is, . . . :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T05:05:16.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20792" CreationDate="2016-08-10T05:26:46.690" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's &lt;code&gt;搞导弹的不如卖茶叶蛋的&lt;/code&gt;. It's usually used to describe &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=4_OdXUbkdt-QbT8_ah_4YMRdfJpq2VXsz5XySqYG_em6RMdMV-HzOJcGxDsRID3WRtOcessRaWutWs-zE0089a&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;脑体倒挂&lt;/a&gt;, the special social phenomenon in 1980s and 1990s at Mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;脑体倒挂是指相同条件下脑力劳动者的报酬低于或等于体力劳动者取得的报酬数量。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ &lt;code&gt;脑体倒挂&lt;/code&gt; means under same condition, mental workers' income is less than blue-collar workers'. ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-08-10T09:45:20.580" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T09:45:20.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29" CreationDate="2016-08-10T07:00:29.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know one Chinese wechat corner can practice speaking Chinese and learn daily Chinese learning tips from every Monday to every Friday freely. There are some professional Chinese teachers in that group and answer Chinese learners' problems. You can try to add that group and practice Chinese Mandarin every day. Good luck!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NrwXI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NrwXI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T07:00:29.420" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2016-08-10T07:00:29.420" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20785" CreationDate="2016-08-10T17:41:53.790" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to the great answer posted by @倪阔乐, one thing Westerners don't understand well is there are more than 200 mutually unintelligible languages in China, all spoken in the same country. According to the linked &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article on 'varieties of Chinese'&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chinese (汉语/漢語 Hànyǔ), also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the&#xA;  Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of &lt;strong&gt;hundreds of local language&#xA;  varieties&lt;/strong&gt;, many of which are not mutually intelligible. The&#xA;  differences are similar to those within the Romance languages, with&#xA;  variation particularly strong in the more rugged southeast. These&#xA;  varieties, often called &quot;dialects&quot;, have been classified into seven to&#xA;  ten groups, the largest being Mandarin (e.g. Beijing dialect), Wu&#xA;  (e.g. Shanghainese), Min (e.g. Taiwanese Hokkien), and Yue (e.g.&#xA;  Cantonese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you go to Shanghai and hear people there speaking Shanhainese, you will be surprised to find how different it is from Mandarine. Mandarine is often called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Putonghwa (普通话, literally 'common speech')&lt;/a&gt; because there are many &lt;em&gt;uncommon speeches&lt;/em&gt; in China. It was only 1930 when a standard national language was adopted in China and before then, most Chinese people spoke only their local languages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As explained in the other answer, Chinese is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Tibetan_languages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sino-Tibetan languages&lt;/a&gt; while Korean and Japanese are believed to be &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_isolate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;language isolate&lt;/a&gt; (there are some disputes over their origin, though). It is impossible they could be mutually intelligible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12614" LastEditorUserId="12614" LastEditDate="2016-08-11T01:57:30.857" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T01:57:30.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19726" CreationDate="2016-08-11T06:33:04.583" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我是素食主義者。Might be a better choice, it also means, &quot;I am a vegetarian&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15082" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T06:33:04.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20801" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-11T07:22:57.180" Score="0" ViewCount="443" Body="&lt;p&gt;I notice that some typefaces (especially ones used in old texts) have some radicals displayed differently than what I usually see. For example sometimes I see the 糹 (left-side) radical displayed like 糸 (compare bottom three strokes), the 示 (left-side) radical displayed like &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TtED2.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;, the 食 (left-side) radical displayed like , and the 隹 radical (compare top dot) displayed like &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rK5jI.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt; . Would it be considered odd for people to actually hand write these radicals this way? Or is this more of a &quot;old/computer typeface&quot; kind of thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12846" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2019-01-06T04:09:06.053" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T04:09:06.053" Title="Handwriting Certain Radicals" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20801" CreationDate="2016-08-11T08:34:36.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We don't use that kind of typeface in hand writing.&#xA;It just an old typeface. We uses it in artworks or some design.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15083" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T08:34:36.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20804" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20807" CreationDate="2016-08-11T09:16:04.767" Score="0" ViewCount="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a set of Chinese 成语 and 俗语 describing ways in which a desired situation may not be achieved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, like the following two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欲速则不达&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东施效颦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where can I find a complete list?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T09:27:06.763" Title="Proverbs and saying for not achieving a specific situation (or objective)?" Tags="&lt;proverb&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20801" CreationDate="2016-08-11T09:17:06.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In modern times, old typeface is universal in patterns, calligraphy and seals(most). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;google pictures &quot;chinese seal&quot;, to get some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Commonly, we won't use that. Now the typeface we use is called 行書 or 楷書&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14026" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T09:17:06.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19662" CreationDate="2016-08-11T09:21:33.330" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;a: Are you ok？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b: 我很好(I'm good).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, 很 does not mean 'very'. It means 'quite'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15083" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-11T23:02:54.187" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T23:02:54.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20804" CreationDate="2016-08-11T09:27:06.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are too many 俗語, 諺語 to list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are few similar 成語 for you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;揠苗助長 = 欲速則不達&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;適得其反 to the end, get opposite effect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事與願違 nothing comes out as planned&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14026" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T09:27:06.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19662" CreationDate="2016-08-11T11:21:56.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is not correct to translate &quot;我很好&quot; into &quot;I am very good&quot;. It means &quot;I am doing fine&quot;, &quot;I am doing well&quot;. When one say &quot;你好吗？&quot;，“好” is an adverb, means &quot;How are you doing&quot;，&quot;Are you doing OK&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a less satisfiction case, say “我还好”，&quot;还行吧&quot;，“就那样吧”，“还是那样”。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do not say &quot;我好&quot;？Because it is sound like the adjective &quot;good&quot;. People do not use it to themselves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9346" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T11:21:56.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20810" CreationDate="2016-08-11T14:39:28.703" Score="5" ViewCount="635" Body="&lt;p&gt;When talking about age we don't use any verbs, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我二十岁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about when you need to deny someone's age? Do we use 不是 or 没有?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不是二十岁。 or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我没有二十岁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-08-11T15:19:07.093" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T15:40:10.447" Title="Verb used to deny age" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20809" CreationDate="2016-08-11T14:58:49.663" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, we use &lt;code&gt;不是&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;没有&lt;/code&gt;, for different meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我不是二十岁。  &#xA;I'm not twenty years old. (Probably 10, or 30, ...)&#xA;&#xA;我没有二十岁。&#xA;I'm less than twenty years old.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: You could use &lt;code&gt;是&lt;/code&gt; such as &lt;code&gt;我是二十岁&lt;/code&gt; to emphasize the fact (that you're twenty). And when asked with the specified age, we usually answer it with using &lt;code&gt;是&lt;/code&gt;. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你是二十岁吗？&#xA;我是二十岁。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When asked about the age generally, we usually answer it without using &lt;code&gt;是&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你多大？&#xA;我二十岁。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-08-11T15:40:10.447" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T15:40:10.447" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20811" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-11T21:52:44.193" Score="0" ViewCount="645" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;我有房子&quot;, but why not &quot;我有一栋房子&quot;? Why &quot;我有孩子&quot; and not &quot;我有一个孩子&quot;?&#xA;Why &quot;我不是坏人&quot; and not &quot;我不是一个坏人&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15086" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2016-08-12T09:14:11.037" LastActivityDate="2016-08-16T15:01:58.900" Title="Why are measure words sometimes omitted?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20811" CreationDate="2016-08-11T22:41:40.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Classifiers are not needed when there is no qualifier such as a numeral involved. Compare 有孩子 with 有三个孩子, the numeral 三 justifies a classifier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classifiers are also used in some other contexts, such as when a noun is preceded by 这 or 那: 这个, 那本.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T22:41:40.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20811" CreationDate="2016-08-11T22:46:18.593" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your first two examples are not proper ones, since Chinese grammar do not usually use plural or singular form, 我有房子 could mean &quot;I have a house&quot; or &quot;I have houses&quot; ; 我有孩子 could mean &quot; I have a child&quot; or &quot;I have children&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the third example, 我不是坏人, since 坏人 is a description word for the subject, no matter the subject is singular or plural, therefore, classifier is not needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subject can be 我，我們 or 我們三個,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不是壞人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們不是壞人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們三個不是壞人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in all three cases, 壞人 does not require a classifier &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if you write 我們三個不是(三個)壞人 , the second qualifier (三個 ) would be redundant, we know it is three from the subject 我們三個&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if you write 我不是(一個)壞人, (一個) would also be redundant, we know it is one from the subject 我&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if you write 我們不是(兩個/一群)壞人 ,  (兩個/一群 ) would be redundant, we would know the subject is &quot;two people&quot; or &quot;a group of people&quot; from previous context.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although writing &quot;我不是一个坏人&quot; is not grammatically wrong, keeping your writing as direct and as simple as possible (for example, omitting subject, object whenever possible) is considered good form of writing by most writers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-11T23:51:19.553" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T23:51:19.553" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20814" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20817" CreationDate="2016-08-12T03:37:43.577" Score="0" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Evan Osnos's book &quot;&lt;em&gt;Age of Ambition&lt;/em&gt;&quot; there's an excerpt that says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This was a sharp reversal from the past. In nineteenth-century China, English was held in contempt as the language of the middlemen who dealt with foreign traders. “These men are generally frivolous rascals and loafers in the cities and are despised in their villages and communities,” the reformist scholar Feng Guifen wrote in 1861. But Feng knew that China needed English for diplomatic purposes, and he called for the creation of special language schools. “There are many brilliant people in China; there must be some who can learn from the barbarians and surpass them,” he wrote. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that it is from 冯桂芬's《校邠庐抗议》where he talks a lot about 西学 and whatnot - but I might be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was the original Chinese of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“These men are generally frivolous rascals and loafers in the cities and are despised in their villages and communities,” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“There are many brilliant people in China; there must be some who can learn from the barbarians and surpass them,”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T04:22:57.257" Title="Translation: Feng Guifen's comments on English (1861)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20815" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20818" CreationDate="2016-08-12T03:38:53.253" Score="2" ViewCount="404" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most sources I can find say that 讀 (读) is a phonosemantic compound (形聲), where 言 is the semantic component and 賣 is the phonetic component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the pronunciation of 賣 (mài) does not resemble 讀 (dú) at all, even in Middle Chinese (賣 /mai/; 讀 /duk/) or Old Chinese (賣 /mreːs/; 讀 /l'oːɡ/).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the purpose of the 賣 component in the character 讀?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9263" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T00:23:34.760" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T00:23:34.760" Title="What is the purpose of the 賣 (卖) component in the character 讀 (读)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20815" CreationDate="2016-08-12T04:15:41.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;賣&quot; / mai4 / and &quot;&quot;/du2/ have different sound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瀆 as in 自瀆      /du2/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犢 as in 初生之犢 /du4/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讀 as in 讀書 /du2/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they are all phonically similar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shuowen.org/view/1489&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.shuowen.org/view/1489&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从言。聲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;char=%F0%A7%B6%A0&amp;amp;remap=gb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;char=%F0%A7%B6%A0&amp;amp;remap=gb&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《康熙字典》.... 中从囧，非字也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It said the middle of  is 囧, it is not the the word &quot;&quot;(sell) (I think it meant not the word &quot;賣&quot; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-12T04:39:01.347" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T04:39:01.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20814" CreationDate="2016-08-12T04:22:57.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;the internet archive is your friend :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's in the book &quot;校邠廬抗議&quot;, 卷下﹒采西學議 (p66, p69)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/02092023.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/02092023.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many brilliant people in China; there must be some who can learn from the barbarians and surpass them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;中國多秀民﹒必有出於夷而轉勝於夷者&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yvq8t.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yvq8t.png&quot; alt=&quot;p69&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These men are generally frivolous rascals and loafers in the cities and are despised in their villages and communities,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;其人率皆市井佻達游閒﹒不齒鄉里&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/stk2t.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/stk2t.png&quot; alt=&quot;p66&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it seems that your book &quot;age of ambition&quot; is quite interesting :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T04:22:57.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20815" CreationDate="2016-08-12T05:12:55.277" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, 賣(u+8ce3) is sell; while (u+27da0) is pronounced as &quot;育&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;left is 賣(u+8ce3), right is (u+27da0), note the difference of the middle component:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lodIV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lodIV.png&quot; alt=&quot;screenshot&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, in the past, 賣(u+8ce3) is for 買賣 (buy &amp;amp; sell) only. other characters e.g., 讀, 贖, 覿, 續 are using (u+27da0).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UmIvh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UmIvh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, 讀 as a phonosemantic compound character is, combined &quot;言&quot; &amp;amp; (u+27da0); that's why it's 屋韻﹒徒谷切&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;somewhere in time, the (u+27da0) is less used, and 賣 is more &quot;popular&quot;; which causes confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T05:12:55.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19499" CreationDate="2016-08-12T05:50:22.553" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply speaking, '是' is equivalent to &quot;is&quot;, and '了' is often used in perfect (or past) tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it means &quot;is (是) eventually resolved (解决了)&quot;.  If one sentence ends with &quot;了&quot;, it often tends to describe a state of a thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15088" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T04:45:31.820" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T04:45:31.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20811" CreationDate="2016-08-12T08:59:51.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If no measure words, the sentence will be focus on &quot;是/不是&quot; &quot;有/没有&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If have measure words, the sentence will be focus on &quot;measure words&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it only omit the number and keep measurement unit , it have little difference with number &amp;amp; unit.&#xA;Take the three sentences to compare：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;我不是&lt;strong&gt;一个&lt;/strong&gt;坏人&quot;  --&gt; I am not &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; bad man&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;我不是&lt;strong&gt;个&lt;/strong&gt;坏人&quot;   --&gt;  I am not &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; bad man&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;我&lt;strong&gt;不是&lt;/strong&gt;坏人&quot;    --&gt;   I am &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a bad man&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13750" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T08:59:51.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20821" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20822" CreationDate="2016-08-12T09:12:27.647" Score="0" ViewCount="919" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please tell me what this vegetable in Taiwan is called in Chinese. (I also don't know its English name so can't look it up in a dictionary.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xhJUW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xhJUW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;mystery vegetable in Taipei&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2016-08-12T09:30:11.397" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T15:07:50.110" Title="What's this vegetable in Taiwan called?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20821" CreationDate="2016-08-12T09:41:54.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's called 秋葵 in Mainland China. So is it in Taiwan I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15092" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-01-02T15:07:50.110" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T15:07:50.110" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20823" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20825" CreationDate="2016-08-12T11:00:43.717" Score="1" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;Near where I'm staying in Taipei there is &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%BE%E5%B1%B1%E6%85%88%E7%A5%90%E5%AE%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a temple called 慈祐宮&lt;/a&gt;. Most signs write 慈祐 in pinyin as &quot;Ciyou&quot;, but some write it as &quot;Cinyou&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6XO13.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6XO13.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;temple sign for tourists&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would this just be a mistake or could there be a reason for it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Could it be another Romanization system rather than Hanyu Pinyin?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Could it be for another language/dialect rather than for Standard Mandarin Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2016-08-12T13:21:56.180" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T14:38:09.333" Title="Why would the name of the 慈祐宮 temple in Taipei sometimes be written &quot;Cinyou&quot; instead of &quot;Ciyou&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20824" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20826" CreationDate="2016-08-12T12:09:50.777" Score="1" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this sign in Taipei. What is the third character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zNx7F.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zNx7F.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;不夠?車&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sign says &quot;不夠_車&quot; - &quot;Not enough ? (vehicle)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it the character &lt;code&gt;丩&lt;/code&gt;, in which case what does it mean?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it a bopomofo character? - I found &lt;code&gt;ㄐ&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it supposed to be an English &lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the green line at the bottom part of the character or an underscore for some reason?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shop the sign is on sells scooters / mopeds, or perhaps parts and accessories for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2016-08-12T15:00:21.997" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T15:00:21.997" Title="What is the third character on this sign seen in Taipei?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20823" CreationDate="2016-08-12T14:38:09.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taiwanese minnan. /i/ changes to palatalized /ĩ/, and so ci becomes cin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T14:38:09.333" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20824" CreationDate="2016-08-12T14:56:35.680" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What was below the sign? That is, what products did the store sell? It wouldn't be motorcycles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sign says: 不够机车, or in old script 不够機車. 機車 means engine, but in Taiwan more specifically motorcycle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ㄐ + ㄧ in bopomofo is j + i, that is ji, which gives 机.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T14:56:35.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20827" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20828" CreationDate="2016-08-12T15:12:03.217" Score="2" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9R1pi.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9R1pi.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;米+団 character&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This character is on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.7-11.com.tw/2week/111228/app_111228-3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the label of a riceball sold at 7-11&lt;/a&gt; in Taipei. I believe this kind of riceball is originally Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to be some kind of variant of 糰 / 团 but is actually composed of 米 on the left plus 団 on the right. But I can't find it anywhere on the Internet or in Unicode so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a known variant, or is it possibly normally considered a Japanese character? On Wiktionary, 団 is listed only as a Japanese shinjitai character. (Shinjitai is a simplified character made in Japan.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe it's some kind of fake character made up by 7-11, like a trademark?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-26T10:28:15.970" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T10:28:15.970" Title="Is this a rare/variant character (combining 米 and 団), or not really a Chinese character?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20827" CreationDate="2016-08-12T15:35:28.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;糰 is 米 + 團. 團 simplified is 团. 团 has a variant character 団.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus 米 + 団 = 糰.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;団 itself is a variant chacter of 糰.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand it could just be a clever way of writing 米團 = 米团 = rice ball.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: It is written 御飯團 in all instances I can find regarding the ad. It is a private/funny simplification that has no formal recognition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorDisplayName="user4452" LastEditDate="2016-08-12T16:11:22.820" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T16:11:22.820" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20829" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-12T15:40:28.347" Score="7" ViewCount="802" Body="&lt;p&gt;Particularly when it comes to verbs, I've noticed that there are so many synonyms. For example, &quot;To resist&quot;: 抗，抵抗，抵制，抗拒，反抗 etc. &quot;To feel&quot;: 感觉，觉得， 感到，感，感觉到 etc. &quot;To handle&quot;: 处理，办理，处置，应付，办 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now, I'm mostly concerned with being able to express myself verbally to my peers, not with talking to really important people or reading very formal literature, and I'm finding it hard to know which words I should learn, given that there are many synonyms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: Is it true that all verbs (or most) are also nouns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15086" LastActivityDate="2016-11-15T12:21:54.717" Title="Too many synonyms. How do I know which words are too formal/informal?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20829" CreationDate="2016-08-12T16:24:28.273" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use lexical occurence to choose the most frequent variants. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use disyllabic variants if possible. That will make it more clear to most listeners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there are verbs and verbs. 感觉 is a verb, but 感觉到 is a resultative verb, conveying the result of the action of feeling something. It is the same difference as in 看 and 看到, it adds some complexity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, words are not always synonyms, even if they share meaning. 感觉 foremost means to feel, whereas 觉得 mainly means to think (as in I think, not as in thinking hard). Think and feel are blurred in meaning, both in English and Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抵抗 means resist, and so does 抵制, but the latter mainly means boycott. 抗拒 means resist, but in the sense of defiance. 抵抗 is more of a struggle against oppression. 反抗 has a revolutionary flavor to it, and means to oppose or revolt, and therefore also resist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反抗 has 31.5 occurences per million characters of text, 抵制 10, 抵抗 3.3, 反抗 30.4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Listening a lot will make you pick up the right words in the right context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T16:24:28.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20831" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-12T23:38:31.490" Score="3" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to be visiting China next year, along with my father.  My parents are divorced, but my dad is now dating someone who will likely be coming with us.  They aren't married, so I'm not sure what word to use to introduce them.  If I say something like, &quot;这位是我爸爸，和我爸爸的女朋友&quot;, would that cause confusion?  Is there another word for this, or would something like this be uncommon in China? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15095" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T11:18:02.693" Title="Does &quot;女朋友&quot; work for older couples?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20831" CreationDate="2016-08-13T01:48:19.710" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;女朋友 is girlfriend in English, but in Chinese, it also implies these two people that are dating, are also sexually interacting, regardless of their age. If that is the case, then you can introduce her as your dad's 女朋友. but if they are only dating, and not sexually interacting, then please use &lt;strong&gt;红颜知己&lt;/strong&gt; which means a very beautiful woman that is getting to know your dad. Or more commonly, you can use 女伴，a female that is dating your dad. On the other hand, if your dad is dating a much younger woman, you need to introduce her as his &lt;strong&gt;忘年之交&lt;/strong&gt;, which means ageless true love, or people may think that she is into your dad's money. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in some situation, 女朋友 and 女伴 could both means bitch or hoe, so to be safe use &lt;strong&gt;红颜知己&lt;/strong&gt; if they are similar age, and &lt;strong&gt;忘年之交&lt;/strong&gt; if one is older.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastEditorUserId="13713" LastEditDate="2016-08-13T01:57:01.630" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T01:57:01.630" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20831" CreationDate="2016-08-13T03:16:32.800" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using archaic phrases like 红颜知己 or 忘年之交 is a bad suggestion, these phrases come straight from dated Chinese movies. No modern human talk like this in real life. It is like saying &quot; She is my father's fair lady&quot; or &quot; she is my dad's dear confidant.&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they are very close, saying she is 女朋友 (girl friend) is perfectly fine in today's open minded society. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The safest option is to call her your dad's 朋友 (friend). or 好朋友 (good friend) if you are not sure they are officially a couple or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T03:16:32.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20834" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-13T06:15:28.103" Score="3" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen &quot;敦厚老实&quot;, where the two adjectives are simply put together, but I've also seen things like &quot;x而x&quot;, &quot;x又x&quot; and &quot;又x又x&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do these mean, are there any other ways， and which are the most common?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15086" LastActivityDate="2019-11-10T12:19:41.243" Title="How do I join more than one adjective together?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20831" CreationDate="2016-08-13T07:00:12.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting question. I think the answer depends on who you will meet (a well-educated relative, a college classmate, or an aunt who lives in the backward countryside) or even depends on whether that girlfriend is a Chinese or a white woman. I think it even depends on the extent you are westernized. I think if I am introducing a relative (such as my 60-year old uncle)'s &quot;girlfriend&quot; in a similar situation like yours, I would say: 这是黄阿姨，我叔叔的朋友 (This is Aunt Huang, my uncle's friend). And let others guess their relationship (they may easily find out according to the circumstances). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13987" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T07:00:12.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20834" CreationDate="2016-08-13T08:06:09.737" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;(1.) In [(X) &lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt; (Y)] , &quot;&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(快)&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;(準) = (quick) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; (accurate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(強)&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;(有力)=(strong) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; (forceful)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(簡)&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;(清)= (simple) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; (clear)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2.) The [&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(X)&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(Y)] structure functions like [(X) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; (Y)] in English, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When (X) and (Y) are adjectives, the subject is being (X)and (Y) at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(快)&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(準) = (fast) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; (accurate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(強)&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(有力)=(strong) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; (forceful)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(簡單)&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(清楚)= (simple) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; (clear)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When (X) and (Y) are verbs, the two actions could happen at the same time or one following the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(哭)&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(笑) = (crying) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; (laughing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(打)&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(鬧) = (punching) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; (yelling)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3.) [(X)&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(Y)] is just [&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(X)(&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;)(Y) ] omitted the first &lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this form, (X) and (Y) are usually two characters words. Since [(X) &lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt; (Y)] is similar but much more popular, [(X)&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;(Y)] is kind of redundant,  not many people would use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've seen &quot;敦厚老实&quot;, where the two adjectives are simply put together&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this form, both adjectives have to be two characters words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快捷準確 (fast and accurate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;簡單清楚 (simple and clear)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;強勁有力 (strong and forceful)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** You can use multiple four characters adjective clauses on one subject&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的演說 簡單清楚, 強勁有力 ( his speech is simple and clear, strong and forceful)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-10T12:19:41.243" LastActivityDate="2019-11-10T12:19:41.243" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20831" CreationDate="2016-08-13T09:45:27.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do not say  红颜知己 or 忘年之交 if you're not from Chinese Costume dramas.I think it's perfect to say 女朋友.It seems to me that the meaning of 女朋友 came from English girlfriend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15099" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T09:45:27.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20838" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20844" CreationDate="2016-08-13T13:31:35.757" Score="2" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I was looking in my book for a Chinese saying about the guy that quenched his thirst by thinking about plums.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm shy to admit, but it's one of my favorites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does the saying go? How do you spell it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T16:37:55.677" Title="Quenching thirst by thinking about plums" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20838" CreationDate="2016-08-13T13:40:12.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;望梅止渴&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A Chinese English Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;quench one's thirst by thinking of plums-console oneself with false hopes; feed on fancies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and some Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;多功能成语词典&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;解释&lt;/strong&gt; 口渴时想到吃到梅子,流出口水,就不渴了｡比喻用空想或空话来安慰自己或别人｡也作“望梅消渴&quot;｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;语见&lt;/strong&gt; 《水浒传》五一回:“雷横道:‘我赏你三五两银子也不打紧,却恨今日忘记带来｡'白秀英道:‘官人今日见一文也无,提甚三五两银子｡正是教俺望梅止渴,画饼充饥｡'&quot;&#xA;  例句 如果现在丢开这些基本的书籍不认真苦读,一心想找秘本,只恐望梅止渴,无济于事｡(马南邨《燕山夜话·有书赶快读》)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;近义&lt;/strong&gt; 画饼充饥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;反义&lt;/strong&gt; 把饭叫饥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;提示&lt;/strong&gt; “渴&quot;不要写作“喝&quot;｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;辨析&lt;/strong&gt; 〔参见〕画饼充饥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;典故&lt;/strong&gt; 三国时期,有一次曹操率领军队行军,走到一个没有水的地方,士兵们口渴难忍｡曹操就骗他们说:前面有片很大的梅树林,结了许多梅子,又甜又酸,可以解渴｡士兵们听了,想起梅子的酸味,嘴里顿时流出口水,就不感到渴了｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T13:40:12.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20840" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20896" CreationDate="2016-08-13T13:52:58.977" Score="0" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the time on 河南话's 中 meaning very good?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like 3rd tone but I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T11:07:36.403" Title="What's the tone on 河南话's 中 (as in: very good)" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20841" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-13T15:25:08.007" Score="0" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;E.g. It doesn't matter if you are ugly (or not)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你丑不丑都没关系 or something similar? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15086" LastActivityDate="2016-09-12T17:20:45.467" Title="How do I say &quot;It doesn't matter if...&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20841" CreationDate="2016-08-13T16:19:48.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;你丑不丑都没关系&quot; is good and sounds native. You could say &quot;你丑不丑都无所谓&quot; as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15097" LastEditorUserId="15097" LastEditDate="2016-08-13T16:26:09.703" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T16:26:09.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20840" CreationDate="2016-08-13T16:22:52.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;中&quot; sounds like 3rd and often means “OK” or &quot;好&quot;，&quot;好的&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15097" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T16:22:52.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20838" CreationDate="2016-08-13T16:37:55.677" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;望梅止渴    wàng méi zhǐ kě lit. to quench one&quot;s thirst by thinking of plums (idiom), fig. to console oneself with illusions&#xA;The expression is a chengyu (成语, cheng2yu3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a story behind it: in the Three Kingdoms period, general Cao Cao (曹操    Cáo Cāo (155-220)) was leading his troops on a journey to battle. They were in a dry place and his troops were very thirsty. Cao Cao tricked them by telling them they were not far from a wood of plum trees, where the plums were juicy and sweet; they would be able to quench their thirst there. Thinking of the plums got the soldiers' mouths watering. They no longer felt so thirsty and were able to continue their route. Soon after they arrived at a place where they found water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got this info from a very good French-Chinese book called &quot;Il était une fois Au pays des chengyu&quot; by Fei-Fei CHEN and Claire JOURNIAC. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T16:37:55.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20845" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20847" CreationDate="2016-08-13T16:52:20.600" Score="1" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like this 成语 and brought it up in a conversation, but the person I was speaking with (an expat Chinese) didn't know it. So I would like to know how well-known it is. Would a 10 year old in Beijing be likely to know it, for instance? Or, a primary school teacher, or a 20 year old science student?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T18:15:27.590" Title="How well-known is the expression 杯弓蛇影?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20846" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-13T17:10:44.030" Score="1" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of them refer to &quot;to focus on&quot; or &quot;to concentrate&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that if you want to specifically refer to something inanimate being concentrated in something, then you would use 集中, ex. 酒吧集中在那个地方. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, other than that, it seems like you can use the two interchangeably when referring to a person concentrating in something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for any help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15101" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T06:18:43.723" Title="What's the difference between 集中 and 专心" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20845" CreationDate="2016-08-13T18:15:27.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my mind, most well-educated individuals in China know the meaning of '杯弓蛇影' ，at least they heard about it (even do not fully understand the meaning.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'杯弓蛇影' appears in our textbook of elementary school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15097" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T18:15:27.590" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20846" CreationDate="2016-08-13T18:18:22.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;專心 is a state of mind, roughly &quot;concentrate, focus one's attention&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;集中 is &quot;gather or bring together&quot;, roughly &quot;summon, muster&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T18:18:22.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20849" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-13T22:47:22.333" Score="1" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going through an anki deck and have come across the following sentence: 我去听他的演讲去晚了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb is mentioned twice, the first time to describe the goal (听他的演讲) and secondly to describe the verb, like an adverb (she went late). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: I've only ever seen adverbs using 地 or 得 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I do this with any verb?  e.g. 我吃古老肉吃快了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about two character verbs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15086" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T02:22:02.333" Title="What are the rules for this grammatical construction: 我去听他的演讲去晚了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20849" CreationDate="2016-08-13T23:39:07.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two clauses compressed to one by reintroducing the verb. The first instance is descriptive (I am going to listen to his lecture). The second instance describes the result of the action (I came late).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to reintroduce the verb to give 晚 the proper context. Without it, 晚 would refer to 演讲.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can omit one instance of the verb: 你（说）汉语说得很流利。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you really have no choice: 你说汉语比我说汉语说得好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T23:39:07.503" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20849" CreationDate="2016-08-14T01:45:58.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can actually copy the format and use it in similar situations where your action was to do something for someone else or because of someone else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can also copy the format and use it in situations where your action was about yourself or to serve yourself, but we do not use this type of expression as listed above as often. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For both situations, it is better to add &quot;comma&quot; before the second verb, because just like in English, comma indicates rhythm or breath break when speaking, and grammatically it signals something is about to change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&#xA;Your actions are about someone else or to serve someone else&#xA;1: 我去送饭，送慢了(I went to deliver food, but I was late)&#xA;2: 我去帮忙送孩子上学，送早了(I went to help drop off the kid, but I was too early)&#xA;3: 我去交作业，交晚了(I went to turn in my homework, but I was late)&#xA;4: 我去听他的演讲，去晚了(I went to listen to his speech, but I was late)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your actions are about yourself or to serve yourself &#xA;5: 我吃古老肉，吃快了 &#xA;Usually, the expression goes like this: I ate gulao meat, but I ate it too fast so now my stomach hurts. Translation:我吃咕咾肉，吃太快了, 我肚子现在疼（notice &quot;了&quot;； it means the action has been completed, and there is a result or consequence following in situations where the actions are about you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum it up:&#xA;1: 我去听他的演讲，去晚了(add common to be grammatically correct; follow the speaking pattern of that in English, if you feel like to pause in a sentence, then that is a good indication that there should be a comma)&#xA;2: 我吃古老肉，吃快了,所以我肚子疼 （we would not have a hard time at all to understand the fact that you were eating pork and you ate it too fast; but what useful information does it give to me? Not much I am afraid. To have a meaningful conversation, usually a result or consequence shall follow the fact, and of course, after you have paused and decided to share what that consequence maybe.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15102" LastActivityDate="2016-08-14T01:45:58.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13030" CreationDate="2016-08-14T02:18:44.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;看来：It seems; It is more about making a conclusion based on understanding or making assumptions about feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: 看来，你喜欢她(It seems that you like her.）；看来，你讨厌她(It seems that you hate her.)；看来，她不会来了(It seems that she is not coming.)；看来，你错了(It seems that you are wrong.)；看来，你对了(It seems that you are right.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看起来：It looks like; It is more about conclusions based on observations of  facts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:看起来，天快黑了（Looks like it is about to get dark）；看起来，她喝多了(Looks like she is drank)；看起来，没事了(Looks like everything is okay now)；不像看起来那么简单(It does not look like to be so simple)；我有黑圆圈了，看起来我应该每天早点睡觉(I have dark circles under my eyes, looks like I should go to bed early every day)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看出来:Have you figured it out? Have you noticed? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: 你看出来他喜欢她了吗？（Have you noticed that he likes her?）她看出来情况不对 （He noticed that something was wrong.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看得出来：I can tell; we can tell; He can tell; *** can tell. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: 看得出来，你喜欢她；（We can tell that you like her）; 看得出来，你跟不不喜欢你的工作 （We can tell that you do not like your job at all.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15102" LastActivityDate="2016-08-14T02:18:44.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20846" CreationDate="2016-08-14T02:39:06.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;集中：集中人员／to pool or gather personnel or people together; 集中精力/to channel all energy together; to 集中物力/to gather all resources together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;专心：专心读书/To concentrate on reading；专心学习/To focus on studying;专心做事/To focus on doing something;专心开会/To focus on the meeting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two can not be used interchangeably:&#xA;The following would be wrong:(专心 can not replace 集中)&#xA;专心人员／专心精力／专心物力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But interestingly, 集中 can be used in some phrases where 专心 is used；however, the meaning would be different. &#xA;For example: &#xA;集中读书/gathered together to study;集中学习/concentrated study on something，集中开会/to have a focused meeting (usually to solve a series of issues:集中开会解决这些问题)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, they can not be used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule of thumb: 集中 is to gather something that can be gathered such as energy, people, buildings, etc.专心 is to concentrate on an action that will generate positive outcomes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15102" LastActivityDate="2016-08-14T02:39:06.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20759" CreationDate="2016-08-14T02:54:14.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since every phoneme has many different tones, the possible permutations get very large very quickly. Each phoneme can have up to 7 possible meanings based on the tone. If you speak a sentence of 5 phonemes for example where each phoneme has 7 possible meanings the number of possible sentences is about 16,000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course the context helps to narrow down the possibilities, so if you are in a restaurant ordering from a menu then a smart enough waiter might be able to figure it out, but in general proper use of tones is essential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15103" LastActivityDate="2016-08-14T02:54:14.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20846" CreationDate="2016-08-14T03:18:58.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;專 (focus/ concentrate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心 (mind)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;專心&lt;/strong&gt; is a compound word for &quot; &lt;strong&gt;focus (one's) mind&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;集 (gather)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中 (centralize)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;集中&lt;/strong&gt; is a verb for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;focus / concentrate&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can act on different nouns, for example: 集中火力，集中人手，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you 集中&lt;strong&gt;精神&lt;/strong&gt; (focus your &lt;strong&gt;mind&lt;/strong&gt;) or 集中&lt;strong&gt;注意力&lt;/strong&gt;(focus your &lt;strong&gt;attention&lt;/strong&gt;)，you are being &quot; &lt;strong&gt;專心&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can tell someone &lt;strong&gt;to be 專心&lt;/strong&gt;, but when you tell someone &lt;strong&gt;to 集中&lt;/strong&gt;, the noun(精神, 注意力) is omitted, which is not recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;專心&lt;/strong&gt;讀書(&lt;strong&gt;focus your mind&lt;/strong&gt; to study)= &lt;strong&gt;集中精神&lt;/strong&gt;讀書 (&lt;strong&gt;focus your mind&lt;/strong&gt; to study). You can't just say 集中讀書 and omit 精神.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*集中 can also be an adjective &quot;concentrated&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-14T03:40:46.730" LastActivityDate="2016-08-14T03:40:46.730" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20856" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-14T23:20:30.383" Score="9" ViewCount="813" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember reading that some verbs don't accept 了 or 过.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side question： When I use a word like 昨天 or 以前 do I use 了 or is it redundant? e.g. 昨天我去买了一台电脑 or 昨天我买一台电脑 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15086" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T14:50:57.993" Title="Which verbs DO NOT go with 了 and or 过?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20856" CreationDate="2016-08-15T01:47:25.187" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;过 and 了 are &lt;strong&gt;aspect&lt;/strong&gt; markers, and can be used with any verbs, including 过 and 了 themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过 is the &lt;strong&gt;experential aspect&lt;/strong&gt;, indicating that an event has taken place (or the negation thereof), regardless of timeframe &lt;em&gt;(there is no tense in Chinese)&lt;/em&gt;. 我去过巴黎二十次。 (I have had the experience of visiting Paris twenty times.) 我没去过越南。 (I have not had the experience of going to Vietnam.) 我从来没看过电影。 (I have never had the experience of seeing a movie.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 is the &lt;strong&gt;perfectative aspect&lt;/strong&gt;, indicating that an event has been completed, again regardless of time. 我买了个新脚踏车。 (I have bought a new bike.) 吃了饭以后可以逛逛街。 (We can go for a walk after we have finished eating [future]).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both aspects can be expressed simultaneously: 我吃过了。 They can also be used with other complemented verbs: 我看得见过了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aspects can be used with any verb. The only restriction is context and combining conflicting aspects. For example, using durative 着 with completion aspects 过 and 了 makes no sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your side question: since there is no tense in Chinese, it does not matter in which time frame these aspects are used. The use of 昨天 or 以前 indicates the time, whereas 过 and 了 indicate completion, regardless of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastEditorDisplayName="user4452" LastEditDate="2016-08-15T04:08:33.880" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T04:08:33.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20858" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20860" CreationDate="2016-08-15T04:08:17.913" Score="-1" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 如果做这样，他要看不懂。 mean? Is it grammatically correct? I tried to google translate it, which gave me stupid results. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13633" LastActivityDate="2016-08-17T13:01:56.853" Title="如果做这样，他要看不懂。 what does this mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20858" CreationDate="2016-08-15T05:56:23.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;He is 他, as indicated in your example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;strong&gt;complement&lt;/strong&gt; is a word or sentence following a verb, providing additional structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A complement can be &lt;strong&gt;resultative&lt;/strong&gt;, as in 做完 (do something, and also finish doing it), &lt;strong&gt;directional&lt;/strong&gt;, as in 放下 (let go of something, and to put it down), and so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;strong&gt;potential complement&lt;/strong&gt; indicates possibility, as in 看得懂; here 看 is the verb (to see), followed by 得 and an &lt;strong&gt;affirmative potential complement&lt;/strong&gt; 懂. The modifier 得 changes resultative or directional complements to potential ones. 做得完 = he is able to finish what he is doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;strong&gt;negative potential complement&lt;/strong&gt; is therefore the opposite, when a verb followed by 不 plus verb indicates that the action does not result in the desired result: 看不懂. He sees, but he is not able to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full sentence then: 如果做这样，他要看不懂. 如果 = if; 做 = do; 这样 = this way; 他 = he; 要 = will; 看不懂 = not understand. &lt;em&gt;If (you) do like this, he will not understand.&lt;/em&gt; (You is inferred from the context.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it grammatical? It is not pretty, but will be understood. It would be better to negate an affirmative complement, but still better to use 了解 than 看懂. It doesn't sound very native.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T05:56:23.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20861" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20863" CreationDate="2016-08-15T06:19:35.723" Score="3" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning some grammar and there are many rules with 了, to express action completion or change of state. My book examples seem strange for some Chinese people, so I made those small following sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are:&#xA;Which sentences are totally incorrect?&#xA;Which ones are weird?&#xA;For the remaining ones, are they expressing the same meaning? For each meaning, which is the &quot;best&quot; orally and during writting?&#xA;Thx&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A1)我学了六年法语了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A2)我学六年法语了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A3)我学了六年法语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A4)我学六年法语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A5)我学了法语六年了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A6)我学法语六年了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A7)我学了法语六年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A8)我学法语六年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the small ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(B1)我学法语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(B2)我学了法语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(B3)我学法语了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(B4)我学了法语了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(C1)我学六年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(C2)我学了六年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(C3)我学六年了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(C4)我学了六年了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15108" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T12:06:23.380" Title="Example cases with 了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20861" CreationDate="2016-08-15T07:01:25.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which sentences are totally incorrect?&#xA;C1&#xA;only this one is totally incorrect, all others are ok from grammar point of view but some(could be list in answer 2) are not used by local Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which ones are weird? &#xA;A4,A8, B1. they are similar with the simple present tense in English, but actually in Chinese speaking, they are seldom used though without grammar issue.(practically, for B1, a prep. &quot;在&quot; can be added before the verb to express the current status. for A4, A8, they are really weird without “了”)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the remaining ones, are they expressing the same meaning? For each meaning, which is the &quot;best&quot; orally and during writing?&#xA;All remaining ones, they are basically expressing same meaning in their groups, but there is tiny differences in tense and in points wants to emphasize.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in Group A, putting 六年 first is to emphasize that it is six years I have been learning French for. but putting 六年 behind is not emphersizing this duration.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in group B, B3 is a little different, it can be understood in some context as: I decided to learn French. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in group C, they are basically same.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best(local) ones:A1/A2/A3/A5/A6/A7/B2/B4/C2/C3/C4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15109" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T07:01:25.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20861" CreationDate="2016-08-15T07:52:41.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A1)我学了六年法语了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first 了 is an aspect marker, indicating completed action. the second 了 is final particle, indicating change of situation. It is not grammatically incorrect, but native Chinese would most likely skip using the final particle to avoid 了 appear in a short sentence twice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A2)我学六年法语了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the aspect marker 了 to indicating completed action, 学六年法语 could be confusing... are you going to learn &quot;six years of French?&quot; or you going to learn &quot; Sixth Year French?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A3)我学了六年法语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one fixes the problem (A2) has. A grammatically correct sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A4)我学六年法语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like (A2) is it &quot;six years of French?&quot; or &quot; Sixth Year French?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A5)我学了法语六年了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is similar to (A1) just the object 法语 and the relative phrase 六年 switched place. Again, the final particle can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A6)我学法语六年了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to (A3) with the object 法语 and the relative phrase 六年 switched place, also a grammatically correct sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A7)我学了法语六年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to (A5) with the final particle omitted, Which make it better structured sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A8)我学法语六年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without either the aspect marker 了 or the final particle 了, the sentence is unfinished. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(A3) , (A6) and (A7) are the three grammatically correct and well structured sentences on the list.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(A1) and (A5) are not grammatically wrong, just not sounding smooth with two 了 in the same sentence&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(A2) and (A4) are not grammatically wrong, but a little bit ambiguous with 六年法语 could mean either &quot;six years of French&quot; or &quot; Sixth Year French&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(A8) is unfinished sentence&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(B1)我学法语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learn French&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(B2)我学了法语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learned French&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(B3)我学法语了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if 了 is treated as a aspect marker, the sentence would mean &quot;I have learned French&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if 了 is treated as a final particle, the sentence would mean &quot;I've started learning French&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(B4)我学了法语了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learned French (already)- like in Group A,  final particle 了 could be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Group C are all incomplete sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-15T08:07:45.273" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T08:07:45.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20861" CreationDate="2016-08-15T11:00:41.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being tensless, chinese developed into modal language. There are two realis markers 了: verbal 了 marks relative realis and sentence final 了 marks absolute realis. So everytime you want to speak, you need to decied is the thing you are going to tell was/is/will be in &quot;real world&quot; or &quot;was/is/will be in your head/dreams/desires i.e. &quot;irreal world&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a bit like aspect and tense in English. Aspect marks relative time of the verb (relative to situation time) and tense marks absolute time (relative to speach time). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So I &lt;strong&gt;was&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;sitting&lt;/em&gt; on the bus just &lt;em&gt;reading&lt;/em&gt; a book when somebody &lt;strong&gt;tapped&lt;/strong&gt; me on the shoulder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slanted words mark relative time (doing) (time relations between verbs &lt;em&gt;inside&lt;/em&gt; the situation), bold words mark absolute time (did/was) for the &lt;em&gt;whole&lt;/em&gt; situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO perfectivity/completion has nothing to do with either 了. Perfectivity is being marked by other means in chinese (see 六年 in your sentences).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So with this in mind lets try to understand your list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A1)我学了六年法语了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First 了 is a relative realization modal marker (that is this V+了 tells us that you was learning the language before ??? (some time) what time is not clear though) but having 六年(perfectivity marker) after 了, transforms relative 了 to absolute realization marker (making it a &lt;strong&gt;past&lt;/strong&gt; marker). So secondary 了 (which always marks absolute realization of the whole situations) is redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A2)我学六年法语了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;incorrect. The sentence is marked by absolute realis 了(past time) so nothing wrong here but &quot;六年-thing&quot; is just confusing. See Tang Ho answer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A3)我学了六年法语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;relative realis 了 made absolute by 六年, so everything is ok. It's just a plain old &quot;past tense&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A4)我学六年法语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Without any of the 了's the situation is not rendered real! The reading of this sentence can only be in some irrealis mood. i.e. &quot;I usually learn...&quot; or &quot;I always learn...&quot; (yes, habitual mood considered irrealis in chinese) ect.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For (A5)(A6)(A7)(A8) see other users answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(B1)我学法语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(B2)我学了法语 well, this almost unfinished sentence because verbal 了 marks that the situation took place while/befor/ect but the tense of the situation is not marked explicitly. Some indication of &quot;absolute tense&quot; must be added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. When I was investigating the nature of 了 the most problems gave me this pair of sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I was eating. vs 我吃饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 我吃饭 there is no information about tense. So I added it -&gt; 我吃了饭 but this is ungrammatical! I couldn't understand why. But then I read one article and it struck me: The reason why natives (majority of them) think 我吃了饭 is incomplete is due to 了 being relative. It translates to english as &quot;I eating &lt;em&gt;(for real and it's not a fantasy or wishful thinking)&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see, in &quot;I eating&quot; there is ONE problem - there is relative tense marker (-ing) but no absolute tense information! In other words we can ask: &quot;WHEN you eating? Past? Present? Future?&quot; You have to add absolute time to this sentence: &quot;I &lt;strong&gt;was/is/will be&lt;/strong&gt; eating.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same thing with chinese: 我吃了饭 - we can ask &quot;WHEN you eat? Yes, you told us that the &quot;eating&quot; took/take/will take place in reality(了) (&lt;em&gt;by the time&lt;/em&gt;) xxxxx&quot; but WHEN? By what time was/is/will it take place in real world? You have to add absolute tense to the sentence i.e. to render it to past, present or future!!! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, there are two ways (I know only two) to add absolute tense information to the sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;by adding 了 to the end of the sentence.我吃了饭了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;by adding some perfectivity information. 我吃了一碗饭 (一碗 marks the&#xA;perfectivity).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2016-08-15T12:06:23.380" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T12:06:23.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20866" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-15T13:20:05.553" Score="0" ViewCount="1154" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a self introduction speech in my chinese class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. please make it in &quot;easy wording&quot; with pinyin, thank you in advance. (not too complication)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15112" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T09:13:02.603" Title="How do you say 'I hope you got to know a little more about me'" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-08-25T10:23:24.370" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20866" CreationDate="2016-08-15T14:49:20.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;希望 (hope) 你们 (you) 对我 (to me) 有了 (have) 更多的 (more) 了解 (understanding)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xī wàng nǐ men duì wǒ yǒu le gèng duō de liǎo jiě&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T14:49:20.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20868" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-15T15:13:46.750" Score="-1" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Background&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am from Hong Kong (so I understand spoken Cantonese, spoken Mandarin, spoken English, written Chinese, and written English) but I am having a hard time translating that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would appreciate any help to translate that line while retaining the funniness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13514" LastActivityDate="2016-08-16T02:08:29.847" Title="How would you translate &quot;one minute of this film is two minutes too much&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20868" CreationDate="2016-08-15T16:48:31.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Base on the context, it is a negative remark toward a particularly bad film. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Logically speaking,  if you watch one minutes of a film, even every second is horrible, the worst you can say is: &quot; Watching one minute of this film is one minute too long.&quot; Meaning watching any of it is a waste of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, all languages use exaggerated expressions. For example, &quot;度日如年&quot; ( a day feel like a year) --  It is quite a similar idea to the quote in the question, just not that extreme, ( &quot; it is so boring, watching one minute feel like two.&quot;   * &lt;em&gt;As exaggeration goes, it is quite minor&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using literal translation might not feel right. Since the main point of the sentence is to express &quot; how unbearable a film is to the viewers&quot; there's some suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看這部電影簡直度日如年 ( Watch this film make a day feel like a year)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這部電影貼錢也不值得看 ( This film is not worth watching even if they pay people to see it) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這部電影簡直浪費觀眾的青春 ( This film really is wasting viewers' youth) * &lt;em&gt;Great exaggeration&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or use a funny Cantonese phrase 呢部戲睇過都要洗眼 ( you have to wash your eyes after you have seen this film)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T16:48:31.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20872" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20874" CreationDate="2016-08-16T14:07:32.347" Score="0" ViewCount="1007" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a common way to translate ajhumma/ajumma into Chinese? I've been looking but haven't seen a word in Chinese that carries the meaning the ajhumma has. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, ajhumma can mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Married woman (or woman old enough to be married)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Older woman&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unfashionable woman (implied)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking specifically for the way one would address an 'older lady' (with that meaning in mind) but not be rude. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15119" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T06:33:24.717" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T06:33:24.717" Title="Is there a common way to translate ajhumma/ajumma into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20811" CreationDate="2016-08-16T15:01:58.900" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a slight difference in meaning in those cases. &lt;strong&gt;Measure words always indicate a determined quantity.&lt;/strong&gt; Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有房子。 I have &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; house. &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; I have house&lt;strong&gt;s&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我有一栋房子。 I have &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; house.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有孩子。 I have &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; child. &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; I have child&lt;strong&gt;ren&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我有一个孩子。 I have &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不是坏人。 I'm not &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; bad person.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我不是一个坏人。 I'm not &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; bad person. (I might be two or three bad people, whatever that means)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-08-16T15:01:58.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20872" CreationDate="2016-08-16T15:28:49.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As one can understand from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajumma&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajumma&lt;/a&gt; an ajumma (아줌마) is a respectful word for a married or aged married woman, or for any middle-aged or elderly woman, but not a granny, nor a young woman. It is an aunt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An ajumma is often a housewife, restaurant worker. Ajumma can be used pejoratively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 阿姨 would fit the description rather well. It is an aunt, or an elderly woman, family nurse or babysitter. Pejoratively, it means concubine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-16T15:28:49.723" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20856" CreationDate="2016-08-16T15:37:19.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many of my students have this question. And what you are trying to ask is not which verbs don't use 了, but &lt;strong&gt;which verbs don't use 了 to express past tense&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basicaly Mandarin &quot;separates&quot; verbs into action verbs and stative verbs. So, any verb that is not an action, for example, 有 是 在 etc don't express past tense using 了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a small list. Since I'm not a native speaker, I'm not sure what is an action or not in Chinese. Hopefully someone can help us make a more detailed one:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;是&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;mental&quot; verbs: 知道、喜欢、爱、etc.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;modal verbs: 应该、要、会、能、可以、etc.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;adjectives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the above verbs take 了, it indicates a change of state. For example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是大学生了。 I'm a graduate student &lt;strong&gt;now&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-08-16T15:37:19.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20876" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-17T11:28:38.617" Score="1" ViewCount="1497" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've started to learn Chinese about a month ago (as a foreign language) and I'm a little bit confused about how to pronounce the third tone (while dropping aside the &lt;strong&gt;tone sandhi&lt;/strong&gt; rules).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused with the following points I've read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The third tone should be pronounced as falling-raising tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The third tone should be pronounced low, then fall a little bit and then stay flat.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The third tone should be pronounced low and flat (same as the first tone but low in the sound level).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher told me to pronounce the third tone as falling-raising tone (starting medium, go low, and then high) but now as I read about the two other pronunciation options I'm confused. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15122" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T14:19:23.457" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T15:40:52.177" Title="How to pronounce the Mandarin third tone" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20858" CreationDate="2016-08-17T13:01:56.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;i don't think that is the correct expression in Chinese.It should be&quot;如果这样做，他要看不懂&quot;.In this sentence,做 is verb,and 这样is adverb,Adverbs qualify verbs,这样qualifies做。It means&quot;if it is done this way,he would be able to understand&quot;.Hopefully it can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15123" LastActivityDate="2016-08-17T13:01:56.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20876" CreationDate="2016-08-17T13:08:36.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, let's make an answer of this, it is really a good and valid question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternative 1 is the correct way of pronunciation in standard mandarin. In learning, whether you are native child or a foreign student, you need to master tones and pronounce them like a news anchor. This will make your language clear and easy to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternative 2 and 3 are colloquial speech, how it is often pronounced in fast and less clear everyday speech – you will pick up that naturally later, but you must still master the standard. And it doesn't really stay flat, it is just cut off shortly after starting rising in a little jerk, as to speed up the speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAqayUpWr_o&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAqayUpWr_o&lt;/a&gt; explains in detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-17T13:08:36.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20876" CreationDate="2016-08-17T16:45:20.803" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In isolation, any third-tone character should indeed properly be pronounced falling, then rising.  In the five-level scale that is common in specifying tones for tonal languages, the typical characterization of the third tone is 2-1-4; that is, the end of the tone contour is higher than the start (though not as high as the first tone or the end of the second tone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conjunction with other characters in an utterance, however (as opposed to, say, a list of third-tone characters), the contour is truncated and it is, more or less, simply 2-1.  Being the only tone with a &quot;bent&quot; shape to it, as it were, it takes longer to say, and the natural rhythm of the speech simply doesn't permit enough time to draw it out to its completion.  I suppose in principle, it would be possible to speed it up so that the entire 2-1-4 contour could fit into the same &quot;space&quot; as a first, second, or fourth-tone character, but in practice, that doesn't happen.  (For that matter, it may be that a character undergoing tone sandhi was originally just the &quot;other half&quot; of the tone contour—the 1-4 half, that is.  It should be noted that the second tone is usually specified as 3-5, or sometimes 2-5.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See pp. 45-46 in Robert Ramsay's &lt;em&gt;The Languages of China&lt;/em&gt; and pp. 147-48 in Jerry Norman's &lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt; for more details.  (I'm afraid I'm an old fuddy-duddy who reads books as well as on-line materials, and this is what I have.  Maybe you can find excerpts in Google Books.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Norman's book, incidentally, includes a second case of tone sandhi that is not often described.  He writes, in the closing of the aforementioned passage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In addition to the cases of tone sandhi mentioned in conjunction with&#xA;  the third tone above, one other minor case should be mentioned.  In a&#xA;  three-syllable combination, if the second syllable is a second tone&#xA;  (either an original second tone or a raised third) and the first&#xA;  syllable is either a first or second tone, the middle syllable changes&#xA;  to a first tone in rapid speech...: [聯合國] liánhéguó &quot;United Nations&quot;&#xA;  is pronounced liánhēguó, and [他買馬] tā mǎi mǎ &quot;he buys a horse&quot; becomes&#xA;  tā māi mǎ.  [The characters in brackets are my addition.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if this is universal amongst Mandarin speakers, but when I read this, I was mildly surprised to find that I actually observe it in my own speech.  It might be interesting to see how broadly this rule is observed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9824" LastActivityDate="2016-08-17T16:45:20.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20876" CreationDate="2016-08-18T07:25:38.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The third tone should be falling - rising tone. It is the most difficult tone. Fall down first, then goes up.&#xA;I think the best way is to learn the four tones is to read after a real Chinese teacher. Here is a video where you can learn how to pronounce the four tones one by one.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/chinese-four-tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/chinese-four-tones&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13141" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T07:25:38.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20881" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-18T08:32:10.363" Score="1" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've looked online for this but I haven't really found what I'm looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may be that there is no one formula to express &quot;X enough&quot;, but I also wouldn't be surprised if there is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adjectives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;They weren't good enough to win.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He wasn't fast enough to escape.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I was strong enough to open the bottle.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adverbs: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;She sang well enough to be hired.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We couldn't solve the problem quickly enough.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He talked loudly enough to be heard in the next room.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-18T09:16:51.647" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T10:32:10.760" Title="How to express [Adjective + enough] or [Adverb + enough]" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1112" CreationDate="2016-08-18T08:49:31.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many happy returns for the day&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is the idiom-to-idiom translation with similar meaning and used in the same situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T08:49:31.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20881" CreationDate="2016-08-18T09:34:49.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;够好 or 足够 could be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们做得不够好，赢不了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T09:34:49.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20881" CreationDate="2016-08-18T10:32:10.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The basic structures:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[adjective + &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt;] = [&lt;strong&gt;夠&lt;/strong&gt; + adjective]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[adverb + &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt;] =  [&lt;strong&gt;夠&lt;/strong&gt;+ adverb]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adjectives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Good &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;夠&lt;/strong&gt;好; &lt;strong&gt;Not&lt;/strong&gt; good &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;不夠&lt;/strong&gt;好&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fast &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;夠&lt;/strong&gt;快; &lt;strong&gt;Not&lt;/strong&gt; fast &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;不夠&lt;/strong&gt;快&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strong &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;夠&lt;/strong&gt;力; &lt;strong&gt;No&lt;/strong&gt;t strong &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;不夠&lt;/strong&gt;力&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adverb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Well &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;夠&lt;/strong&gt;好; &lt;strong&gt;Not&lt;/strong&gt; well &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;不夠&lt;/strong&gt;好&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quickly &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; =&lt;strong&gt;夠&lt;/strong&gt;快; &lt;strong&gt;Not&lt;/strong&gt; Quickly &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;不夠&lt;/strong&gt;快&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Loudly &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;夠&lt;/strong&gt;大聲; &lt;strong&gt;Not&lt;/strong&gt; loudly &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;不夠&lt;/strong&gt;大聲&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When the sentence included a verb:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;She sang well enough. = 她唱得&lt;strong&gt;夠&lt;/strong&gt;好&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Couldn't solve quickly enough. = 解得&lt;strong&gt;不夠&lt;/strong&gt;快&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He talked loudly enough. = 他說得&lt;strong&gt;夠&lt;/strong&gt;大聲&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*compare to the basic structure, in a sentence that included a verb, a potential particle like 得  have to be placed after the verb to connect to the adjective or adverb. (得 - to the degree of)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*If the sentences included passive verb like  &quot;&lt;strong&gt;sang&lt;/strong&gt;...to  &lt;strong&gt;be hired&lt;/strong&gt; /  &lt;strong&gt;talked&lt;/strong&gt;...&lt;strong&gt;to be heard&lt;/strong&gt; in the next room &quot; , the structure would become more complicated, different type of particles could be used. That would be too broad to answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T10:32:10.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20885" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-18T14:19:28.583" Score="0" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm getting a tattoo in Chinese and I have everything already I'm just missing the &quot;moving on&quot; part. How should I translate it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15130" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2016-08-25T10:22:47.920" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T13:36:59.703" Title="How to write &quot; moving on&quot; in traditional Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20886" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-18T15:22:47.997" Score="-1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;自圆其说 refers to making one's statement plausible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a similar saying, indicating the action of justifying one's own reason, but justifying it to oneself, i.e., without necessarily making it plausible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance someone may do this off they felt under attack, and had little grounds or means of defending themselves, a common case experienced by many.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The witnesses and people responsible for positive change of mindset, change, and support at that time may lie elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the reasons for this may be that the situation or state of belief surrounding them may not be rype for their explanations or their actions to be accepted, without the proper full picture being depicted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EXAMPLE:&#xA;Wang Lang has a brown bear at home.&#xA;To fill his desire to overcome freedom, he gets out and walks among streets filled with brown bears, telling himself, &quot;I am not scared of brown bears&quot;. Then, suddenly, he might think he is done and sees a red bear. He knew this was possible, and he knew that by &quot;brown bears&quot; he actually meant bears, so he 自圆其说s this statement to himself, because of his hope. But he knows it is just self justification, and not justification to others (he only thinks what he is saying to himself). So, because of this, does 自圆其说, or is there a better 熟语 for what I am describing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="11212" LastEditDate="2016-08-23T05:02:44.720" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T06:53:53.113" Title="Alternatives to 自圆其说, but for self-justification" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20887" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20891" CreationDate="2016-08-18T15:31:31.733" Score="2" ViewCount="1602" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the rough difference between a 成语 (4-character proverb)and a 俗语 (8-character or so saying), but what is a 谚语, and how does it differ from these?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am also interested in 熟语。 How does this differ from these three?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="11212" LastEditDate="2016-08-22T20:55:12.697" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T06:24:26.433" Title="成语 versus 俗语 versus 谚语, what is the difference?" Tags="&lt;proverb&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-18T17:21:21.713" Score="-1" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was told my wife's name means &quot;beautiful&quot; and that in English it sounds like &quot;Jenny&quot; (I thought it was zhenyi, but apparently not). Was hoping to get the correct spelling and characters for future reference. Thanks.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lpGyd.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lpGyd.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15133" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T20:35:53.810" Title="Character name help (beautiful?)" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-09-03T22:17:12.823" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20888" CreationDate="2016-08-18T20:35:53.810" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;真怡 - zhen1yi2 - really happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T20:35:53.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20886" CreationDate="2016-08-18T21:13:58.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;自相矛盾 would do, defending an obviously lost cause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T21:13:58.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20887" CreationDate="2016-08-18T21:16:04.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;成語 and 諺語 are well established common expressions , well known by the whole population. 俗語 is more often, limited to regional use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;成語 mostly refer to Chinese idiom.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;諺語 can be from different countries.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese 成語 are uniformly four characters phrases.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For 俗語 and 諺語,  number of character are flexible, some come in two parts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗語 : &amp;quot;有便宜唔好使頸&amp;quot; (Cantonese) : &amp;quot;If there's benefit to be have, don't be stubborn.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;諺語: &amp;quot;神要毀滅某人，必先使其瘋狂&amp;quot; (western): &amp;quot; &amp;quot;Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;諺語 (proverb) include  &amp;quot;common sense&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;words of wisdom&amp;quot;. from known or unknown origins.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;俗語 (folk saying) include &amp;quot;situation description&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;common sense&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;words of wisdom&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;成語 (idiom) include  &amp;quot;situation description&amp;quot; , &amp;quot;common sense&amp;quot;, and &amp;quot;words of wisdom&amp;quot;.  Mostly came from known historical references, like poems, classical literature or famous quotes by historic figures .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;熟语&lt;/strong&gt; (Well known phrases) include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惯用语(common phrase), usually contain three characters, for example: &amp;quot;打秋風&amp;quot;，&amp;quot;拍馬屁&amp;quot; , 成語, 諺語, 俗語, 歇后语(two-part allegorical saying), for example: &amp;quot;和尚打傘，無法無天&amp;quot; and 格言(motto), usually from famous people, for example: &amp;quot;We have nothing to fear but fear itself.&amp;quot; by Franklin D. Roosevelt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T06:24:26.433" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20886" CreationDate="2016-08-19T00:13:53.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;砌詞狡辯&lt;/strong&gt;  (use twisted logic or make up stories to defend oneself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not recommend 自相矛盾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自相矛盾 (contradict oneself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This idiom came from a story about a weapon merchant claimed his spears could pierce through any shield, and his shield could withstand any attack. when someone asked &quot; what happens if  I use your spear to attack your shield? &quot; He had no answer. This idiom not only apply to words, it can apply to actions too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;前後矛盾 (previous and current action or statement contradict each other)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:  someone  making two statements, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Statement 1. &quot;I was working that morning, I couldn't be the killer,&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Statement 2. &quot; I was out of town that morning, I couldn't be the killer&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two statements contradict each other. At least one or both are lies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The OP added an example, basically, he was seeking other phrases beside 自圆其说 to describe the action in the example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To rephrase the example&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'A man owned a brown bear at home. One day he walked down the street and saw many brown bears running around. He felt scared, but told himself: &quot;I have a brown bear at home, there's no reason for me to be afraid of other brown bears.&quot; &#xA;To other people who were safely hiding in their house, that guy's reasoning is illogical, but to the guy himself, it was justified.'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, when later a red bear came out and ate him for lunch, he would understand that he was wrong, but this part is beside the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way he justified &quot; I am not afraid of bear because I have one at home.&quot; is called &lt;strong&gt;自欺欺人&lt;/strong&gt;  (fool oneself and others)-- meaning someone is either in denial or firmly believes in something that's false, and his argument might sound solid in his mind, but to others, it would be all lies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-23T06:53:53.113" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T06:53:53.113" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20840" CreationDate="2016-08-19T02:17:59.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say the 2nd tone. My wife is from there so I think she has the authority on that...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13129" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T02:17:59.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20840" CreationDate="2016-08-19T11:07:36.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think in a localism it's hard to say a word's pronunciation is first or second or third or fourth tone. Cause sometimes the localism pronunciation is out of the four kinds of tone. In this question, if I have to choose one from the four tones,it would be third tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15138" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T11:07:36.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20897" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-19T16:33:56.717" Score="2" ViewCount="1247" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't they all mean &quot;always&quot;? I would be grateful if you could provide example sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15086" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-07-25T01:35:29.350" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T19:28:13.290" Title="What is the difference between 向来, 一直, and 总是?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20897" CreationDate="2016-08-19T16:51:52.583" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They do all carry the &quot;always&quot; meaning, but each provide different finer details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;向来 = always; (since the beginning)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一直 = always; (have been continuously)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;总是 = always; (unexceptionally /universally)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;向來&lt;/strong&gt;沒有加班費  &quot;without overtime pay &lt;strong&gt;since the beginning&lt;/strong&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一直&lt;/strong&gt;沒有加班費  &quot;&lt;strong&gt;have been continuously&lt;/strong&gt; without overtime pay.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;總是&lt;/strong&gt;沒有加班費  &quot;&lt;strong&gt;unexceptionally&lt;/strong&gt; without overtime pay .&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-19T17:16:00.363" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T17:16:00.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20899" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-19T21:52:22.070" Score="2" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;他原来什么都不知道&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shouldn't it be 他原来什么都没(有)知道 to show that we're talking about the past tense here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15086" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T18:24:13.447" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T18:24:13.447" Title="Is the sentence 他原来什么都不知道 grammatically correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sentence&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20900" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-20T04:27:03.373" Score="2" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this text:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;购物时，售货员的态度很可能会影响人们的情绪，碰到态度差的售货员，你可以不买，再去别的商店看看。 &#xA;如果非要在那儿买，可能花钱买气受。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does &quot;花钱买气受“ mean please？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T17:05:47.320" Title="What does the phrase “花钱买气受“mean？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20900" CreationDate="2016-08-20T04:47:33.873" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;花錢 - spending money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;買 - to buy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;氣受 - reverse of 受氣 - to be ill-treated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;together, 花錢買氣受 is roughly &quot;spending money to buy ill-treating&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-20T04:47:33.873" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20900" CreationDate="2016-08-20T05:33:15.213" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;By the way, it implies not to receive service deserved for such an amount of money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13655" LastActivityDate="2016-08-20T05:33:15.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20899" CreationDate="2016-08-20T16:03:27.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking, the adverb 没 &lt;b&gt;does not&lt;/b&gt; negate events that happened in the past, rather it is used to express &lt;b&gt;negative completed actions&lt;/b&gt;. When we say &lt;em&gt;completed&lt;/em&gt; we mean that the action indicated by the predicate it's finished, it doesn't necessarily mean that is a past tense. 没 is the negative counterpart of 了 (when it is the aspectual particle).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 了 and 没 should only be used if the predicate in your sentence expresses a &lt;b&gt;true action&lt;/b&gt;, in other words, if the verb &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; something to an object, &lt;em&gt;acts&lt;/em&gt; directly upon it or &lt;em&gt;changes&lt;/em&gt; it in some way. The predicate 知道 (to know) doesn't indicate an action, because the object of your knowledge doesn't undergo or suffer any change at all. In these situations should use 不 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if you use 不 you should express the time through some adverb, if you want to keep the notion of &lt;em&gt;past tense&lt;/em&gt; in your sentence. The word 原来 can be used as an adverb (&lt;em&gt;originally&lt;/em&gt;) or as an adjective (&lt;em&gt;original&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;initial&lt;/em&gt;) and it describes an original condition. If the meaning you had in mind was &quot;&lt;em&gt;At first he didn't know anything&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, then your translation (他原来什么都不知道) is perfectly fine. However if you wanted to say &quot;&lt;em&gt;He didn't know anything before.&lt;/em&gt;&quot; (which is a little bit different from the previous one), you should consider using the adverb 以前. So, the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他以前什么都不知道。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is correct too. It certainly indicates a &lt;em&gt;past tense&lt;/em&gt; and you don't put 没 because of the nature of the predicate. But, again, it depends on the interpretations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10944" LastEditorUserId="10944" LastEditDate="2016-08-20T16:41:45.040" LastActivityDate="2016-08-20T16:41:45.040" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20900" CreationDate="2016-08-20T19:12:05.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;花: to spend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;钱: money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;买:to buy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;气: anguish, sever mental pain, humiliation, embarrassment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find a reliable source to explain the origin of this use. 气 literally means vapour or air. Anguish is often accompanied with shortness of breath, which has something to do with air - imagine the feeling when someone's chest is pumped with air like an over-inflated balloon. It seems that associating anger with inflated chest is rather universal; I remember an American cartoon depicted an angry bird like an inflated balloon. There is a Chinese legend 三气周瑜 which means &quot;the three galls (irritations) of Zhouyu&quot;; by the end of the last bout of irritation, Zhouyu died of anguish; google translate says &quot;three gas Zhouyu.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受: to endure, to bear, to suffer.(the polar opposite of enjoy).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally means &quot;to spend money to buy anguish to bear.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that context it means this: what you are actually going to buy is a product plus a huge insult; the benefit of the product is so tiny in comparison with the damage that'll be done by the insult to your mental health, you are actually just buying anguish to endure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/M2lfZg-apSA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Soup Nazi&lt;/a&gt;, Seinfeld and Newman think the soup is worth the ordeal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2016-08-20T21:34:15.430" LastActivityDate="2016-08-20T21:34:15.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20906" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-21T01:18:34.470" Score="3" ViewCount="495" Body="&lt;p&gt;A: 他迟到了。&#xA;B: 这也难怪。 今天地铁坏了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand it, 也 means also or too. I'm not sure how this fits in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15086" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T06:18:15.957" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T06:20:14.040" Title="What does 也 mean in the dialogue: A: 他迟到了。B: 这也难怪。 今天地铁坏了。" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20906" CreationDate="2016-08-21T02:47:26.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt; here is an adverbial particle that implies &quot;&lt;strong&gt;understandably&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without 也, the sentence would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; 难怪他迟到, 今天地铁坏了。&quot; - &quot;Since the subway is out of order today, there's no surprise that he was late.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding &lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt; to emphasize it is &quot;understandable&quot; , the sentence would become:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;这&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;难怪(他迟到), 今天地铁坏了。&quot; - &quot;Since the subway is out of order today,  it is &lt;strong&gt;understandably&lt;/strong&gt;  no surprise (that he was late).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the second example sentence, the topic &quot;他迟到&quot; is omitted, and &quot;这&quot; replaced it as a pronoun. it is the same as 也难怪他迟到, 今天地铁坏了。&quot;*&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;也 means &quot; too&quot; or &quot;also&quot; - &quot; this &lt;strong&gt;too&lt;/strong&gt; is no surprise &quot;. implies it is the same as other common events, so it is &quot;understandable&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T06:20:14.040" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T06:20:14.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20908" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-21T07:01:18.973" Score="0" ViewCount="299" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;Welcome to English&quot;, as in welcome to English class?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15147" LastActivityDate="2016-08-21T08:26:36.993" Title="How do you say &quot;Welcome to English&quot;, as in welcome to English class?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2016-09-03T22:17:01.320" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20908" CreationDate="2016-08-21T08:26:36.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it is a title of a book, it can be translated as  &quot;英語入門&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is a greeting from a teacher to his class, it means &quot; 歡迎第一次學習英語。&quot; = &quot;Welcome to English learning for the first time.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beside the above examples, the phrase &quot; Welcome to English&quot; doesn't provide enough context to be meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-08-21T08:26:36.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20910" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-21T22:32:07.483" Score="0" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;我今天去电影院&#xA;今天我去电影院&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also noticed that other words can be before or after the subject:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果我是你&#xA;我如果是你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference in nuance of placing such words before or after the subject, if any?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15086" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T06:57:22.617" Title="What is the difference between putting 今天 before or after the subject?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20911" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-21T22:52:16.047" Score="2" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this phrase but I cannot really see the function or point of the 2 '以‘。 Must be old Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;授人以鱼不如授人以渔。 (Translated maybe: &quot;Knowledge is the best charity.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the 2 '以‘ doing here please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T07:05:46.320" Title="What is the function and/or meaning of the 2 '以‘ in this phrase?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20911" CreationDate="2016-08-22T00:49:01.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[授人(give people)] [&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;(with)&lt;/strong&gt;] [鱼 (fish)] [不如 (not as good as)] [授人 (teach people)] [&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;(with)&lt;/strong&gt; ] [渔 (lessons of fishing)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;授 can mean &quot;to give&quot; or &quot; to teach&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鱼 is noun for &quot;fish&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;渔 is verb for &quot;to fish&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;授人以鱼不如授人以渔 = &quot; It is better to teach someone to fish than give someone fish. &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-22T03:31:39.750" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T03:31:39.750" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20900" CreationDate="2016-08-22T01:52:09.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You feeling unsatisfied and frustrated when you have something not worth the money you spent, normally it used to describe a bad service&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15051" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T01:52:09.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20914" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20915" CreationDate="2016-08-22T01:54:33.557" Score="0" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC Proverbs&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情深恭敬少 ,知己谈笑多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lit [When] friendship [is] deep, formalities are few; [for] close confidants, chats [and] laughter are many.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fig Intimate friends don't stand on ceremony.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What synonyms/phrases/poems are related to 情深恭敬少?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online material mostly just explains the phrase itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T03:04:51.873" Title="synonyms/phrases/poems related to: 情深恭敬少" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20914" CreationDate="2016-08-22T02:07:18.413" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The so call &quot; poem&quot; itself is not very polished. I suppose the person who wrote &quot;情深恭敬少 &quot; was thinking an idea along the line of &quot; 熟不拘禮 &quot; ( being so close, there's no need for formalities&quot; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 知己談笑多 which is not a convincing statement because 酒肉朋友 談笑 more. Anyway, a phrase &quot;酒逢知己千杯少&quot; (It is such a joy to drink with good friends, one can forget how much he has drunken.) is from a famous poem that depict heartfelt interaction between good friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-22T03:04:51.873" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T03:04:51.873" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20916" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21236" CreationDate="2016-08-22T02:07:45.483" Score="0" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Modern Standard Mandarin, the common word for the verb &quot;to go&quot; is 去, while in southwestern Mandarin, the same concept is expressed with 朅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has 朅 (qiè) ever been commonly used for 去 'to go' in the past or in other topolects?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2016-09-25T19:32:39.997" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T06:37:22.277" Title="Has 朅 (qiè) ever been commonly used for 去 'to go'" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20911" CreationDate="2016-08-22T02:42:31.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i guess the sentence &quot;授人以魚不如授人以漁&quot; is translated, pretending in the style of literary chinese, from the quote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.&#xA; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is derived from anne isabella's writing; here's the link to the investigation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/08/28/fish/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/08/28/fish/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, it's marginally acceptable. the original quote could be translated without 以, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;授之魚未若教之漁&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;added another translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;授之魚﹒苟延而已﹒未若教之漁﹒裨益一生&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;added info:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;What if I rewrite &quot;授人以鱼不如授人以渔“ as &quot;把鱼授人不如把渔教人“? &#xA;It is not as poetic, but is it the same or completely wrong?&#xA;If acceptable, we have 以 is 把。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把魚授人 is OK; but 把漁教人, imo, is unacceptable. the least change of it is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;把魚授人不如教人以漁&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as i said before in another comment, that with 10 characters only, 3 of them (魚, 如, 漁) have similar pronunciation is not good, better to avoid it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &lt;strong&gt;literary chinese&lt;/strong&gt;, &quot;以&quot; has numerous usages. let's use 教人以漁 as an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you keep the sequence, it could be interpreted as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;teaching (教) someone (人) to fish (漁)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以 serves the purpose of make it 4 letters long; however, it's not possible to omit 以, &quot;教人漁&quot; is odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next, if you change the sequence to 以漁教人, it could be interpreted as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;using (以) fishing techniques (漁) to teach (教) people (人)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that, 以 has the meaning of 用. both of them are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-08-22T06:23:19.543" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T06:23:19.543" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20916" CreationDate="2016-08-22T03:04:38.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;as far as i know, 朅 is rarely used in cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, it's also seldom used in the past, only 2 appearances in 詩經: &quot;庶士有朅&quot;, &quot;伯兮朅兮&quot;; about 14 times in before 漢 dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han/zh?searchu=%E6%9C%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han/zh?searchu=朅&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;afterward, my casual checking is that, it's not a common character in literatures of yore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T03:04:38.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20910" CreationDate="2016-08-22T03:38:39.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an independent sentence, there is no difference between the two sentences. but if there is context, things could be different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们俩已经去电影院守了好几天了，今天我去（电影院），你们俩歇着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you replace &quot;今天我去&quot; with &quot;我今天去&quot;，the feeling is different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T03:38:39.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20910" CreationDate="2016-08-22T04:10:52.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's really a matter of emphasis. The greater emphasis is on the word that goes first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天我去..., means, &lt;em&gt;Today,&lt;/em&gt; I am going out...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, with 我今天去...,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the emphasis is on the  我 or I.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T04:10:52.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20829" CreationDate="2016-08-22T06:43:16.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed, we will find there are so many synonyms to explain one word in dictionary. Generally, the front of three or four synonyms are formal, but the most important is that we should put these synonyms into the special sentence, translate the whole sentence and choose the best word to explain the context. May be you will find all 2 or 3 synonyms can explain the same sentence, such as &quot;I feel cold today.&quot; You can explain &quot;我今天觉得很冷” or &quot;我感觉今天很冷”。But if the sentence has a premise, such as &quot; I caught a cold yesterday and I feel cold today&quot;. You should explain &quot; 我昨天感冒了，所以今天感觉很冷。” Choose &quot; 感觉” to emphasize &quot;just feel by himself, don't think about the weather is colder than yesterday, just represent the feeling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T06:43:16.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20922" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20923" CreationDate="2016-08-22T09:15:47.293" Score="0" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;why the phrase &lt;strong&gt;来不及&lt;/strong&gt; is translated into &lt;strong&gt;too late&lt;/strong&gt;?&#xA;why not use 太迟？ &lt;strong&gt;太迟爱你&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;what is the different between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and why does &lt;strong&gt;来不及&lt;/strong&gt; mean &lt;strong&gt;too late&lt;/strong&gt; in the first place? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;来=come &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不=no &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;及=？？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Makes little sense to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T08:48:21.113" Title="来不及爱你 Too late to love you" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20922" CreationDate="2016-08-22T10:15:34.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The break down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「來」(come ) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「及」implies 「及時」 (in time) here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「得」or 「不」 are the two potential particles that indicate &quot; &quot;able , or &quot;unable&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*You either &lt;strong&gt;able&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;unable to&lt;/strong&gt; come in time.  That's why they are called potential particles.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「來」 (come) 「不」(unable to) 「及」 (in time ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「來不及」= unable to come in time = too late&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「來不及愛你」= unable to come to love you in time = too late to love you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T10:15:34.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1112" CreationDate="2016-08-22T17:31:52.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also, 年 and 岁 both mean &quot;year&quot; here.&#xA;年年 and 岁岁 mean &quot;every year&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日 and 朝 both mean &quot;day&quot; here.&#xA;今日 and 今朝 mean &quot;today&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's some kind of duality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12014" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T17:31:52.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20925" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-22T19:01:12.190" Score="0" ViewCount="498" Body="&lt;p&gt;我跑了3公里的步 vs 我跑步跑了3公里. They both mean &quot;I ran for 3 km&quot;, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15086" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T07:48:23.510" Title="What is the difference between these two sentences?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20925" CreationDate="2016-08-22T19:12:51.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. The second option uses an extra clause and reintroduces the main verb, the first uses 的 to separate verb 跑 from noun 步. You can generalize it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我唱了三分钟的歌 vs. 我唱歌唱了三分钟.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T19:12:51.913" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20925" CreationDate="2016-08-22T20:59:26.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;跑 | 3公里的 | 步&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;跑步 is a simple (verb) + (noun) structure: 跑 (verb) + 步 (noun)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;3公里的 is a relative clause of the noun 步, that describe the length of it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The relative clause 3公里的 is inserted between the verb and the noun 跑 | 3公里的 | 步&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;跑步 | 跑了3公里 is a (topic) + (statement) structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跑步 (topic) + 跑了3公里 (statement)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between #1. and #2. is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;treat 跑 | 步 as (verb) + (noun), then add a relative clause for the noun&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The typical is :S+V+O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他（S）跑(V)步（O）跑了三公里（补语）。&#xA;Notice that We can totally ignore “跑了三公里”, so this is just answering for &quot;How long did he ran&quot;？So that's 3 kilometers.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T11:35:21.450" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T11:35:21.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20928" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20929" CreationDate="2016-08-22T21:24:10.597" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;When speaking to Chinese folks in the Bay Area, when you hit a technology word (&quot;load average&quot;, &quot;I/O thruput&quot;), you just break into English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a good site with translations for ALL the fancy words? The Google doesn't always do a good job (surprisingly!), and searching has come up blank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在美国，跟中国人聊聊电脑界，常用半中半英的chinglish。 对港陆台人不合适。有没有电脑界的汉英技术词典网站吗？美国霸王大哥、中国百度小弟都翻不成。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15159" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T22:40:51.033" Title="Need a Chinese/English technology translation website 请求汉英电脑技术词典的网站" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20928" CreationDate="2016-08-22T21:38:35.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Me as a native Chinese speaker often runs into the similar trouble. The problem is that computer technology came to us as English with the original language describing it. All of those translation come after it, those good ones even later, and also they would mainly be used for education purpose in text book. And as a programmer myself I always find difficult to find the correct Chinese word for those new terms came into the industry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were also quite some time when I tried to use the Chinese term while talking with other Chinese that studied abroad and they just looked at me with a confused expression on their face. So I don't bother doing so anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also during those time that I worked for foreign invested software companies in China, even most of the co-workers are Chinese we would still mix English in our conversation, classic examples are 'bugs', I run into no Chinese calling it 缺陷 but only myself, and even that was trying to tell an American what's the Chinese word for 'bug' and it felt so wrong to me at that time when I speak it. So I would say don't bother to find such a thing. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As OP insist I went on searching such a thing. There was actually a term on this '计算机专业英语', and I recall I indeed need to pass the test for this one back in the university study. So I went on googling '计算机专业英语词典', like I said it's mainly for educational purpose and for text book, those things are so out of date like at least four years ago, also I suspect it would consider as out of date even back at that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again it looks all of those tools/resources are trying to targeting students, some of them even are just a simple copy from text book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is this one looks promising main has the potential as a candidate, but as it's a mobile app I didn't try it myself: &lt;a href=&quot;http://cidian.dict.cn/wjs/sc54.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;外教社计算机英语词典&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2415" LastEditorUserId="2415" LastEditDate="2016-08-22T22:40:51.033" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T22:40:51.033" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19271" CreationDate="2016-08-23T06:30:05.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;说差了 could mean what you are saying is somewhat right but not totally right. It has the similar meaning to 说对了一半, which means you are only half right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15162" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T06:30:05.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14729" CreationDate="2016-08-23T06:32:09.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can download HSK materials here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/download/pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/download/pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13141" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T06:32:09.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19271" CreationDate="2016-08-23T08:22:29.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Native Chinese speakers don't use this phrase in daily life, If you want to tell somebody &quot;what you said is wrong.&quot;, you can use “说错了” or “错了” but not &quot;说差了&quot;. Though there is meaning called “wrong” in bunches of meanings of &quot;差&quot;, which usually represent &quot;not good, less good than something else.&quot;, we don't use it frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, i have never used the phrase &quot;说差了&quot;.&#xA;I'm a Chinese student, native Chinese speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15163" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T08:22:29.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20925" CreationDate="2016-08-23T08:46:28.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, they both mean &quot;I ran for 3km&quot;, but there does be difference between them, i will illustrate the difference in the aspect of what speaker want to emphasize rather than grammar matters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我跑了三公里的步&quot;: the main meaning speakers what to show is “我跑了步”-&quot;I've run&quot;, no matter how long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我跑步跑了三公里”: the focus of this sentence is &quot;我跑了三公里&quot;-&quot;I run for 3km&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the adjunct word ahead of a noun is not important at all, by contrast, the adjunct word after a noun does matter, because that's exactly what speakers want to tell you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15163" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T08:46:28.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18080" CreationDate="2016-08-23T09:20:25.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. He's not saying the word &quot;帅哥&quot;. What he says is &quot;改变，只需一颗俏比洗衣溶珠&quot; as  @NS.X. comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T09:20:25.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20937" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-23T11:22:38.167" Score="2" ViewCount="477" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't quite distinguish them, because &quot;communication&quot; is always social? &#xA;I guess 交际 is like my social skills and 沟通 is used with &quot;dispute&quot; but is that it and what about 交流？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15165" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T04:35:07.680" Title="交流，交际，沟通: whats the difference?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20937" CreationDate="2016-08-23T11:58:57.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Informal speaking, “交流” is like exchanging idea and information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15097" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T11:58:57.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20937" CreationDate="2016-08-23T12:05:57.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am sure all three terms can be found in dictionaries, but some of the definitions might overlap and cause new learners confusion, I think it is better to just list their main difference in my answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;交流 = interact / exchange&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;交際 = socialize&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;溝通 = communicate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;文化交流 (cultural exchange) ; 互相交流 ( interact with each other) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;交際應酬 ( socialize and partying) ；與上流社會交際 (socialize with the upper class ) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;無法溝通 (unable to communicate); 以眼神溝通 ( communicate with looks in the eyes)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T12:05:57.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20916" CreationDate="2016-08-23T14:40:46.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know where you see this character, but as I'm from Chengdu, Shichuan( in southwest), it probably just a character to show the pronunciation of &quot;去&quot;(we pronounce &quot;去&quot; as &lt;em&gt;qiè&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a dialect thing. People of the ancient Shu country(古蜀国) used it and this passed down to the current Sichuan dialect.&#xA;The usage can be traced back to the Warring States period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you can find some explanations in ancient books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“按《楚辞》：‘东既驾兮朅而归，不得见兮心伤悲。’朅，去也”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;                            --杨慎《升庵全集》卷五十九《朅来》&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;朅，去也&lt;/code&gt; just means &lt;code&gt;朅 = 去&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13439" LastEditorUserId="13439" LastEditDate="2016-08-23T14:51:44.840" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T14:51:44.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20900" CreationDate="2016-08-23T14:44:09.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pay money for unpleasant things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13439" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T14:44:09.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17758" CreationDate="2016-08-23T15:57:07.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you are talking about topolectal dictionaries, which are not based on the ISO that Hànyǔ Pīnyīn has, there is no single standard. The ISO standard for Hànyǔ Pīnyīn of course just appends the -r, without visually indicating any vowel or nasal consonant changes, just as the standard also rules against visually indicating the tone sandhi in consecutive tone three syllables. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would presume as a trend though that phonological adaptations are useful in a topolect dictionary, and so any one that uses an orthography based on notating the sound (whether it is a custom romanisation system or an IPA-based system) would try to present sound changes in the &lt;em&gt;surface representation&lt;/em&gt; and not only the underlying morpheme structure. Hence the unrounding of -o to -e in 头儿 that you see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more complicated instances of vowel change, I think it's pretty much required. Fuzhounese, as one of the varieties of Chinese that has morpho-semantically-motivated vowel tensing, really needs the vowel changes to be notated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T15:57:07.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20943" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20976" CreationDate="2016-08-23T22:00:50.087" Score="0" ViewCount="553" Body="&lt;p&gt;I couldn't get the whole signification out of Google Traduction.&#xA;I know it begins like &quot;Password for extraction :&quot; but I am not able to translate 个 so I can't find what the actual password is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15168" LastActivityDate="2016-09-01T04:49:44.830" Title="What does 解压密码233（19个3）mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20937" CreationDate="2016-08-23T23:11:08.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like using linedict.com for this, you can find example sentences which help us 老外 see how words are used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/example?query=%E4%BA%A4%E6%B5%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/example?query=%E4%BA%A4%E6%B5%81&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Click the radio button Examples and enter a word. You get examples with English translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T23:11:08.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20937" CreationDate="2016-08-24T04:34:59.043" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;交流= vt.communicate, &#xA;          n. Communication&#xA;交际= n. Social networks&#xA;沟通= vt. Deeply communicate &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15169" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T04:34:59.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20937" CreationDate="2016-08-24T05:51:19.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;交流:talk in forum,exchange each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;交际:make friends or something like that. or other mean talk in part--&gt;noun,like 交际能力：ability of socialize&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沟通:still means talk,but usual talk for some purpose ,like change other person mind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15170" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T05:51:19.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20947" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-24T06:02:36.500" Score="0" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I knew what characters belong together, I think I can translate it adequately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;据了解，这些特色餐馆连日来人气火爆，前来就餐的多数是结伴而来的年轻人.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  We understand that, day after day, many lively groups of young people come to dine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially, I'm not sure about what belongs together in: 连日来人气火爆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This morning, a Chinese friend told me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;连日来： for a few days&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   来 works a bit like since/for&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  人气火爆： a lot of people&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  人气 works like 人们&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T01:50:15.573" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T01:50:15.573" Title="What characters belong together as words in ...连日来人气火爆...?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20947" CreationDate="2016-08-24T08:19:24.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;连日来 means it's been a while/a couple days.&#xA;人气火爆 means it's very popular. &#xA;So 连日来人气火爆 is for it's been popular for a couple of days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15171" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T08:19:24.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20943" CreationDate="2016-08-24T08:31:57.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;解压密码 is the password for a zipped file when you need to extract the files.&#xA;23333333333 is not a typical chinese word, you can use it as a slang which means LOL. You dont say 23333333333 in your real life just like you dont say LOL in a conversion. It's only intended to express &quot;that's funny&quot; in your social network.&#xA;Putting them together, 解压密码233（19个3), it doesnt look like a sentence to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15171" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T08:31:57.257" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20922" CreationDate="2016-08-24T08:48:21.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple way to distinguish the two of the phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You use either &lt;strong&gt;来不及做某事&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;做某事太迟了&lt;/strong&gt; when you wanna say &lt;strong&gt;too late to do something&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;If you want to use 太迟， put the object ahead of 太迟. 太迟爱你 is not even correct in grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15171" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T08:48:21.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20900" CreationDate="2016-08-24T09:36:10.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;花钱买气受 ≈ 花钱买气 to 受 ≈ 花钱 to 受气 ≈ 花钱受气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受 ≈ to bear with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;generally, you 花钱 to buy something to serve your needs or to please yourself, but &quot;气&quot; in this case means anger/unpleasantness, which is told in the previous context 态度差的售货员(a poor attitude seller), no one will want to spend money for it, right :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;气受 is a bit like the old Chinese grammar, which ofter put the object before the verb, I would say that it's written in this &quot;reversed&quot; way to emphasize the object, in today's grammar, you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不是来花钱受气的。&#xA;I'm not come with my money for a poor service.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T09:36:10.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20952" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-24T17:22:00.597" Score="1" ViewCount="1388" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there is a word to describe &quot;relationship chemistry&quot; in Chinese. I think it's a 2-character word. Sort of like Extrasensory perception (ESP).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you say this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2016-08-30T08:40:28.720" Title="how to say Relationship chemistry" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20952" CreationDate="2016-08-24T17:38:30.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;靈犀?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000065618&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000065618&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心有&lt;strong&gt;靈犀&lt;/strong&gt;一點通&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, in the past, 紅線 + 月下老人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000087005&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000087005&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000164586&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000164586&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;info added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one character? then it must be 緣, which could be translated to fate, destiny, or serendipity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000011822&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000011822&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the fourth explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;人與人或事物之間遇合的機會&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;有緣&quot; is the simplest usage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-08-24T21:34:06.117" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T21:34:06.117" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20952" CreationDate="2016-08-24T18:10:53.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/44349/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/44349/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;投契&lt;/strong&gt; /tou2 qi4 /  get along well; see eye to eye; be &lt;strong&gt;congenial&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/congenial&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/congenial&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;congenial&lt;/strong&gt; (kənˈdʒiːnjəl; -nɪəl)&#xA;  adj ... 2. having a similar disposition, tastes, etc; compatible; sympathetic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/9018/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/9018/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;投機&lt;/strong&gt; /tou2 ji1 /[2] congenial; &lt;strong&gt;agreeable; amiable&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/13057/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/13057/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;合拍&lt;/strong&gt; /hap6 paak3/   ( Cantonese jyutping ) :&lt;strong&gt;in harmony&lt;/strong&gt;; ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quote from OP:&quot;&lt;em&gt;Sort of like Extrasensory perception (ESP)&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare to the classical term &lt;strong&gt;靈犀&lt;/strong&gt; (spiritually connected), &lt;strong&gt;會心&lt;/strong&gt;( unspoken/unexpressed understanding between minds/ connected in mind) is a more modern term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Or maybe it's one word? These words aren't coming to mind. It's sort of like 我们两个有[word]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is one word,  the answer is simple, it is either &lt;strong&gt;緣&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;feel&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们两个有[&lt;strong&gt;緣&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们两个有[&lt;strong&gt;feel&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;有緣&quot; = fated union&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;有 feel&quot; mixed Chinese and English, but it is quite a common term in Hong Kong &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-26T16:16:21.043" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T16:16:21.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19647" CreationDate="2016-08-25T01:58:35.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is common to say &quot;godfather&quot; when referring to an elder man who is influential to someone's life and treated as the person's father, but in a non-Christian country like China, simply translating &quot;godfather&quot; to 教父(literally &quot;religious father&quot;) is quite improper, if the person (&quot;他&quot; in the sentence) is not from a Christian country or is not a Christian believer. If this is the situation in the context, the elder person (&quot;我&quot;) can only be the younger person's (&quot;他&quot;) &quot;干爹&quot; instead of &quot;教父&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2016-08-25T01:58:35.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20956" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-25T03:27:12.190" Score="4" ViewCount="912" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, for example, a common magic term is &lt;em&gt;Abracadabra&lt;/em&gt;. Though the term itself may not stem from English, it is nevertheless a term most native English-speakers are aware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there similar incantations associated with magic, in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2283" LastActivityDate="2016-12-24T18:02:34.657" Title="What are some well-known &quot;magic&quot; terms, phrases, or incantations in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1112" CreationDate="2016-08-25T06:36:28.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of times, it just means 'Happy birthday'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2016-08-25T06:36:28.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20866" CreationDate="2016-08-25T06:42:58.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence can be translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我希望你(们)可以多了解我一些&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2016-08-26T09:13:02.603" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T09:13:02.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14835" CreationDate="2016-08-25T06:45:38.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, there is no such open-source Sichuanese TTS available so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2016-08-25T06:45:38.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20885" CreationDate="2016-08-25T06:57:05.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Moving on&quot; can translate some Chinese idioms, such as 堅持不懈,一往無前,堅持到底,奮勇向前, these are traditional Chinese. These idioms mean &quot; always move forward bravely&quot; 勇敢地一直向前进.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this answer can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-08-25T06:57:05.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20961" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20978" CreationDate="2016-08-25T07:14:25.827" Score="2" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder is there a Mandarin term for &quot; jump the shark&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark&lt;/a&gt; which means the decline of quality of a T.V show reached the breaking point for the viewers, even the most loyal fans have no choice but give up on the show. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess would be 沒救了，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The T.V show 'House' finally jumped the shark. (電視劇 「醫神」終於沒救了。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but is there other choices?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a native Cantonese speaker, there might be some mainland term I am not aware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-25T07:20:55.667" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T08:36:11.737" Title="I wonder is there a Mandarin term for &quot; jump the shark&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20885" CreationDate="2016-08-25T08:05:26.770" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;向着胜利勇敢前进。An inspireing phrase from the song of the Youth Pioneer Group, &quot;Marching bravely towards victory.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13939" LastActivityDate="2016-08-25T08:05:26.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20947" CreationDate="2016-08-25T12:51:49.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;据了解，这些特色餐馆连日来人气火爆，前来就餐的多数是结伴而来的年轻人&#xA;  I would break this sentence into this:&#xA;  据/了解，这些/特色/餐馆/连日来/人气/火爆，前来/就餐/的/多数/是/结伴而来/的/年轻人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 连日来, &quot;连日&quot; means &quot;few days&quot;, with a emphasis in succession; suffix &quot;来&quot;, short form of &quot;以来&quot;, can be translated as &quot;for the period of&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;人气火爆&quot;, &quot;人气&quot; actually means popularity instead of people; &quot;火爆&quot; literally means &quot;fire and explosion&quot;, it was usually only used to describe a living thing, or the temper thereof, meaning he/she/it has a strong temper. Nowadays, &quot;火爆&quot; is adopted to describe popularity too, meaning very high popularity; and for this usage, an closely related term with the same meaning being &quot;很火&quot;, literally &quot;very fire&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, take note that both &quot;人气火爆&quot; and &quot;很火&quot; are somewhat slangy terms, and I would not consider them as standard Chinese.  And &quot;很火&quot; is usually used in mainland China and other Mandarin speaking countries. In Hong Kong, where the main spoken language is Cantonese, &quot;很火&quot; is not used at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4159" LastActivityDate="2016-08-25T12:51:49.617" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20964" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-25T16:54:39.180" Score="1" ViewCount="410" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen examples that show 对不起 as duì&lt;strong&gt;bù&lt;/strong&gt;qǐ and duì&lt;strong&gt;bu&lt;/strong&gt;qǐ in pinyin. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不起，我踩到你的脚了。&#xA;duì&lt;strong&gt;bù&lt;/strong&gt;qǐ, wǒ cǎi dào nǐ de jiǎole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不起，我听不懂。&#xA;duì&lt;strong&gt;bu&lt;/strong&gt;qǐ, wǒ tīng bù dǒng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, I have also seen the same issue with 没关系 as méiguān&lt;strong&gt;xì&lt;/strong&gt; and méiguān&lt;strong&gt;xi&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the neutral tone being marked as a falling tone in these words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15179" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T02:04:46.700" Title="Difference between duìbùqǐ and duìbuqǐ" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9447" CreationDate="2016-08-25T19:29:11.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 幺 wasn't changed in the process of simplification. The picture below may help you understand the current relation between 麼, 麽, 幺 and 么 in light of their evolution. Note that grey nodes represent variant characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historical character information is taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/shuo-wen-jie-zi/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt; (121) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/kangxi-zidian/zhs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;康熙字典&lt;/a&gt; (1716). Modern data about Hong Kong are based on the Longman Advanced Chinese Dictionary (2003, available in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pleco.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt;), data about Taiwan are based on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MOEDict&lt;/a&gt; (2016), created by the ROC Ministry of Education, and data about Mainland China are taken from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gov.cn/gzdt/att/att/site1/20130819/tygfhzb.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Table of General Standard Chinese Characters (通用规范汉字表)&lt;/a&gt; (2014), which is an official document describing simplification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bCrFQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bCrFQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;The evolution of 幺麼.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2016-08-26T07:19:50.287" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T07:19:50.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20964" CreationDate="2016-08-26T02:04:46.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is only a pronunciation variation in spoken Chinese. Most untrained Chinese people may not even notice the difference between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no difference between the two variations in your examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like asking what is the difference between &quot;I'm going to do ...&quot; and &quot;I'm gonna do ...&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: There are word that would carry different meaning using neutral tone or not. E.g, 东西 means &quot;east and west&quot; when pronounced as &quot;dōngxī&quot; (without neutral tone), and means &quot;thing&quot; when pronounced as &quot;dōngxi&quot; (with neutral tone).&#xA;In a dictionary, a word that must be pronounced with a neutral tone will be explicitly noted with a neutral tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T02:04:46.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14835" CreationDate="2016-08-26T02:22:53.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;讯飞 (short for 科大讯飞) is a leading tech company in speech synthesis and recognition.  An &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xfyun.cn/default/online_demo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;online-demo&lt;/a&gt; for Sichuanese TTS is demonstrated on their website. In addition, they have provided an offline &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xfyun.cn/sdk/dispatcher&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;TTS SDK&lt;/a&gt;, you may have a try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15097" LastEditorUserId="15097" LastEditDate="2016-08-26T03:38:23.097" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T03:38:23.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20956" CreationDate="2016-08-26T03:16:19.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;about incantations / mantras / &quot;咒&quot;, there's no confucian counterparts. meanwhile, there're numerous in taoism and buddhism. only those of taoism are native chinese, when relevant ones of buddhism are translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in taoism literatures, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.daoinfo.org/wiki/%E6%80%A5%E6%80%A5%E5%A6%82%E5%BE%8B%E4%BB%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;急急如律令&lt;/a&gt;&quot; and its deviations, are often used at the end of most mantras, that deities / daemons would follow the instructions of the speaker. here're 3 examples from 鬼谷子天髓靈文, 雲笈七籤 &amp;amp; 太平廣記:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/le9ey.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/le9ey.png&quot; alt=&quot;p1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lqwYH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lqwYH.png&quot; alt=&quot;p2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mHeDq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mHeDq.png&quot; alt=&quot;p3&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in buddhism, the most common mantras are: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%97%E7%84%A1%E9%98%BF%E5%BD%8C%E9%99%80%E4%BD%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;南無阿彌陀佛&lt;/a&gt;, or &quot;喃嘸阿彌陀佛&quot;, that the speakers of this mantras &quot;would&quot; reborn in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amit%C4%81bha&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;amitābha&lt;/a&gt; (阿彌陀佛)'s &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhavati&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sukhavati&lt;/a&gt; (西方極樂世界) after death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another one is 六字大明咒, &quot;唵嘛呢叭咪吽&quot;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om_mani_padme_hum&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Om mani padme hum&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one is &lt;strong&gt;tibetan&lt;/strong&gt; in origin, i would say this one is quite &quot;popular&quot; in taiwan &amp;amp; hong kong :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T03:16:19.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14335" CreationDate="2016-08-26T03:43:59.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine a furious cat ready for fighting, what will it do? It will &quot;须发皆张&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T03:43:59.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14335" CreationDate="2016-08-26T04:30:31.660" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A literal translation: beard and hair both stand on the ends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Metaphorical meaning: to describe someone is displaying extreme anger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15180" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-11T18:34:28.320" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T18:34:28.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20937" CreationDate="2016-08-26T04:35:07.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;交流， communication / exchanging ideas&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;交际， socializing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沟通, talking about something frankly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15180" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T04:35:07.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20961" CreationDate="2016-08-26T04:38:59.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest I can think of is &quot;完蛋了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15180" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T04:38:59.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20897" CreationDate="2016-08-26T04:45:13.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;向来, has always been like this ( continuation in terms of time) &quot;It has always been like this that we don't get paid for doing voluntary work.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一直, always ( either in terms of frequency or time) &quot;He is always happy&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总是 always (in terms of frequency only). &quot;All religious stuff aside, the fact is, people who can't kill will always be subject to those who can.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15180" LastEditorUserId="15180" LastEditDate="2016-08-26T04:51:30.730" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T04:51:30.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20943" CreationDate="2016-08-26T05:04:43.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Password to decompress is 233(19 &quot;three&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15180" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T05:04:43.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20961" CreationDate="2016-08-26T08:36:11.737" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;That should be &quot;江郞才尽&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;江郎才尽&quot; means someone was always writing good articles, but one day, his article is not that good anymore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5994" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T08:36:11.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20983" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-26T19:39:12.600" Score="0" ViewCount="1451" Body="&lt;p&gt;Things like regulator, atmospheric-air filled tank, nitrox, snorkel. Helpful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15188" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T14:48:38.170" Title="Does anyone have a list of SCUBA diving related terms in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sport&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20984" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-27T01:28:21.637" Score="2" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example (in Cantonese): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;記住帶埋手套&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走之前要閂埋房門&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;佢跟埋我哋一齊去&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What character can be used as 埋 in Mandarin? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for any help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15101" LastActivityDate="2016-08-27T04:27:43.860" Title="What's the Mandarin equivalent of 埋 in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20984" CreationDate="2016-08-27T01:37:10.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;埋 doesn't correspond to a single character in mandarin, but is more generic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;带来&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;闩好&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(omit)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-27T01:37:10.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20984" CreationDate="2016-08-27T04:16:07.870" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/946/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/946/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;埋&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/maai4 /  jyutping&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/mai2/ /man2/   pinyin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] [v] bury; cover up; lay sth underground&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] [v] conceal; hide; lie low&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] [粵] [v] finish up; close out; settle (an account)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[4] [粵] [v] move closer/nearer to; close in/up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[5] [粵] [adv] closer together; nearer to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[6] [粵] [adv] even; too; also; as well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In &quot;記住帶&lt;strong&gt;埋&lt;/strong&gt;手套&quot;, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;埋&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; means &quot;too&quot;(see [6]) . In Mandarin, it is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&#xA;The sentence would become &quot;記住&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;帶手套&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in &quot;走之前要閂&lt;strong&gt;埋&lt;/strong&gt;房門&quot; , &quot;&lt;strong&gt;埋&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; means &quot;close in/up&quot;(see [4]). In Mandarin, it is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. The sentence would become &quot;走之前要閂&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;房門&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;佢跟&lt;strong&gt;埋&lt;/strong&gt;我哋一齊去&quot;, &quot;埋&quot; means &quot;as well&quot; (see [6]).  In Mandarin, it is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. The sentence would become &quot;他&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;跟我們一起去&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When &lt;strong&gt;埋&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;finish up&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese: 做&lt;strong&gt;埋&lt;/strong&gt;啲功課先可以去玩。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mandarin: 做&lt;strong&gt;完&lt;/strong&gt;那些功課才可以去玩。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When &lt;strong&gt;埋&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;closer together&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese: 你兩個企&lt;strong&gt;埋&lt;/strong&gt;啲。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mandarin: 你們兩個站&lt;strong&gt;近&lt;/strong&gt;點。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-27T04:27:43.860" LastActivityDate="2016-08-27T04:27:43.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19648" CreationDate="2016-08-27T05:32:18.267" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;医好了, to me, is more often used in old times, that's why it's totally ok to say that in HongKong, considering HK is still using traditional Chinese. In modern Chinese, 治好了 is more natural, but in some formal occasion we can use 医 and 治 together as one verb, i.e. 医治&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张医生医好了无数病人。(it's ok, but less used in daily communication, I would use it in a composition, or in HK maybe? I don't know since I didn't go there)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张医生医治了无数病人。(sounds formal, I would use it in a report)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张医生治好了无数病人。(sounds more familiar and nature, I use it in my daily life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-08-27T05:32:18.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20988" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-27T08:26:38.053" Score="1" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had this text: 我的性格比较好静，让我发言或接受采访我就犯晕。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First I thought 犯晕 is a word, but I can't find it as a word.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I see 犯 can mean 'recurrence of something bad'. I also found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英雄犯大错误。 Great men (often) have great faults.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this kind of context, can 犯 be 'often'??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-09-08T15:07:56.393" Title="Can I just translate 犯 as often?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20988" CreationDate="2016-08-27T09:13:47.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.16pic.com/photo/pic_456811.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.16pic.com/photo/pic_456811.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犯晕 doesn't mean fainting in the literal sense, rather it means getting a bit bewildered, drowsy or tired as a result of information overload.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4452" LastActivityDate="2016-08-27T09:13:47.530" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20988" CreationDate="2016-08-27T09:20:23.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2546/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2546/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;犯&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/faan6/ /faan6*2 / ( jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/ fan4 /  (pinyin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] [v] offend; violate; go against&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] [v] invade; attack; encroach on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] [n] criminal; convict; culprit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[4] [v] &lt;strong&gt;suffer recurrence of&lt;/strong&gt; (illness, bad habit, etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context of :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「犯頭暈」，「犯作嘔」，「犯肚痛」「犯口癢」and 「犯儍」,「犯」means &quot; suffer recurrence of &quot;(see [4])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「犯頭暈」= &quot;suffer recurrence of fainting&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「犯作嘔」= &quot;suffer recurrence of vomiting &quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「犯肚痛」= &quot; suffer recurrence of stomachache&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「犯口癢」= &quot; suffer recurrence of open my big mouth.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「犯儍」 = &quot; suffer recurrence of stupidity.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;often &quot; describe an event happens frequently, but not regularly; while &quot;recurrence&quot; means something happens repeatedly, regularly. Therefore, The answer to your question is: &quot;No&quot; - 「 犯」doesn't mean &quot; often&quot;,  it means: &quot; repeatedly suffering&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*「犯暈」is short for 「犯頭暈」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can I just translate 犯 as often?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could translate 犯 as &quot;repeatedly suffer&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I repeatedly suffer fainting every time they ask me to make a speech or take an interview.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;英雄犯大错误。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It simply means :&quot; The hero made (committed) a big mistake.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-28T08:52:42.810" LastActivityDate="2016-08-28T08:52:42.810" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20991" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-27T23:38:17.983" Score="2" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't see what 会 is doing in this sentence. Maybe nothing, could it just be omitted??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当初为什么会转行呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I would translate as: 'Back then, why did you change your profession?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T07:34:51.490" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T07:34:51.490" Title="What is this 会 doing in 当初为什么会转行呢？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20991" CreationDate="2016-08-28T00:11:11.797" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;会 here simply means &quot;would&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;当初为什转行呢？&quot; =  &quot;Why did you change job back then?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;当初为什么&lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt;转行呢？&quot; = &quot;Why &lt;strong&gt;would&lt;/strong&gt; you change job back then?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;more example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你為何同意？&quot; = &quot;Why do you agree?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你為何&lt;strong&gt;會&lt;/strong&gt;同意？&quot; = &quot;Why &lt;strong&gt;would&lt;/strong&gt; you agree?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can omit it, However &quot;would&quot; in the sentence does emphasize an inquisitive tone. Imply &quot;you should not had.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-28T00:31:07.193" LastActivityDate="2016-08-28T00:31:07.193" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20991" CreationDate="2016-08-28T15:10:09.747" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“会”，it can mean &quot;meeting&quot;. For example, &quot;我在开会”  I'm having a meeting.&#xA;it can also mean &quot;a modal particles&quot;. for example, &quot;你怎么会转行呢?&quot; why did you change your profession?  &quot;你怎么转行呢？&quot;why did you change you profession? the later sentences be lack of euphemism tone!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15197" LastActivityDate="2016-08-28T15:10:09.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19648" CreationDate="2016-08-29T07:18:26.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Daily use:&#xA;In Mandarin native (especially north/middle china), 治好了 is the common expression, but in Canton or Fujian culture(including Guangxi/Hong Kong/Macao) 医好了 are much more often in native use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Official use:&#xA;治好了 can have more meaning than 医好了 in different contexts, while 医好了 can only express 'cured'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15092" LastActivityDate="2016-08-29T07:18:26.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20983" CreationDate="2016-08-29T09:12:59.360" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinascubadiving.com/main/raidersdetails-did-68.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;潜水词汇中英对照大全--潜游世界无障碍—转自TOPPLAYER潜水&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水机构&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;世界水中教育联盟 CMAS&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;专业潜水教练协会 PADI&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;国际潜水教练协会 NAUI&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;国际潜水学校联盟 SSI&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中华民国潜水协会 CTDA&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;世界水下科技协会 UTDA&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;美国海洋大气总署 NOAA&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水员急救网路 DAN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水科技协会 DSAT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;世界潜水器材展 DEMA&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水类型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水 Diving&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;浮潜 Skin Diving（Snorkeling)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;闭气潜水 Free Diving&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水面供气潜水 Air Supply Diving-Hose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水肺潜水 Scuba Diving&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;商业潜水 Commercial Diving&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;工业潜水 Industtrialized Diving&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;体验潜水 Discover Scuba Diving (DSD)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;岸潜 Shore Dive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;船潜 Boat Dive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;深潜 Deep Dive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夜潜 Night Dive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冰潜 Ice Dive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水下导航 Underwater Navigation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;放流潜水 Drift Dive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;垃圾潜水（漫潜）Muck Diving&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;技术导向潜水 TEC Dive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高海拔潜水 Altitude Dive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;洞穴潜水 Cave or Cavern Dive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;沉船潜水 Wreck Dive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水中摄影 Underwater Photography&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;巡弋漫游 Vehicle Cruise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;搜索寻回 Search And Recovery&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;低能见度潜水 Limited Visibility Diving&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;多重深度饱和潜水 Multi-Level Dive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水面闭封潜水环境 Overhead Environments&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;装备篇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;轻装 Snorkeling Equipment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;重装 Scuba Equipment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;面镜 Mask&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呼吸管 Snorkel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呼吸管固定扣 Snorkel Attachement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;头套 Hoods&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;溼式防寒衣 Wetsuit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;乾式防寒衣 Drysuit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;排气阀 Deflator Valve&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;手套 Scuba Gloves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;活塞平横式 Balanced Piston Type&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;低压出器孔 Low Pressure Contact Port&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高压出气孔 High Pressure Contact Port&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;低压管 Low Pressure Hose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高压管 High Pressure Hose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;二级头 Second Stage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;顺流式 Downstream Valves Type&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;咬嘴 Mouthpiece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;备用气源 Alternate Air Source&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;备用二级头 Safe Second Stage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;章鱼式 Octopus Alternate Air Source&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水仪表 Instrument Console&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;残压表 Perssure Gauge/SPG&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;深度表 Depth Gauge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;气瓶 Cylinderor Scuba Tank&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;气瓶开关 Tank Valves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;螺旋式气瓶开关 DIN Valves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;臂抱式气瓶开关 Yoke Valves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;气密圈 O-Ring&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;调节器 Regulator&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一级头 First Stage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;隔膜平横式 Balanced Diaphragm Type&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;指北针 Compass&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水中通讯器 Underwater Radio&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;求援浮力棒 Signal Tube or Surface marker buoy or Sausage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;浮力扬升袋 Liffing Bag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水装备袋 Gear Bag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蜂鸣器 Air Horn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;定位回声系统 Sonar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水中推进器 Subscooteror Subtransporter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水下遥控无人载具 ROV&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;密闭式循环水肺系统 Semi-Closed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;防水盒 Waterproof Case&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;浮球 Surface Floats&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;渔枪 Spear Gun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;备用零件 Spare Parts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漏气 Free Flow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水压测试 Pressure Test&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水证照 Certification Card&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水日志 Diving Log&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜航准线 Lubber Line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;磁针 Magnetic Needle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;定位转盘 Bezel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水电脑 Diving Computer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;浮力调整背心 Buoyancy Control Device&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;充排气阀开关 BCD Inflator Valve&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;快速接头 Hose Rapid Adapter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;充气钮 Inflator Button&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;排气钮 Deflator Button&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水下手电筒 Marine Light&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;闪明器 Flash Light&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;萤光棒 Light Stick&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水下记录板 Dive Slate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;渔网 Fishing Net&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;缠绕 Entanglement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;救援 Rescue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水靴 Diving Boots 蛙鞋 Fins&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;配重带 Weight Belt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;快卸扣 Quick-Release Buckle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;铅块 Weights&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;铅块止滑扣 Weight Retainer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水刀 Diving Knife&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水员级别&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水员 Diver&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;初级潜水员 Openwater Diver&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中级潜水员 Advanced Diver&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;专项潜水员 Specialty Diver&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高级潜水员 Master Scuba Diver&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水长 Dive master&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;教练 Instructor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;教练训练员 Instructor Trainer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;课程总监 Course Director&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水术语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;空气 Air&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;废气 Exhaust&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;氧气 Oxygen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;氮气 Nitorgen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高氧气体 Nitrox&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;氦氧氮混合气体 Trimix&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;氦氧混合气体 Heliox&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;气瓶充气站 Refil Station&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;充气压缩机 Air Pump&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;气瓶充气 Fill Tank&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;充气-对气瓶 Refil Air&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;充气-对背心 Inflate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;空气消耗量 Air Amount Used&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人体空腔 Body Air Space&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;耳腔 Ear Air Space&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;耳膜 Eardrum&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;副鼻腔 Sinus Air Space&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;气道 Airway&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;胸腔 Chest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;肺泡 Pulmonary Alveolus&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潮气肺容积 Tidal Volumn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最大肺活量 Vital Capacity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;无效能的肺馀容积 Residual Volumn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;气压 Air Pressure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水压 Water Pressure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;绝对压力 Absolute Atmosphere&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;压缩 Squeeze&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;气体分压 Percentage of Air&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;立方英迟 Cubic-Feet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;公斤平方公分 Bar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;英磅平方英吋 PSI&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;体积 Volume&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水容积 Water Container Volume&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;浮力 Buoyance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;正浮力 Positive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中性浮力 Neutral&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;负浮力 Negative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;沉 Sink&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;浮 Float&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;悬浮 Hovering&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;光线折射 Refraction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;色温 Color Temperature&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜伴 Diving Buddy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜伴制度 Buddy System&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜导 Team Leader/Guide&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;押队 Team Holder/Keeper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水下通讯手势 Communication Signals&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水计划 Dive Planning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水地点 Dive Site&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下潜简报 Dive Procedures/Briefing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;著装 Suiting Up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下水前的装备检查 Final Check/Safety Check&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;技能评估性质的下潜 Check Dive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;入水点 Entry Point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;入水 Entering The Water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上岸 Exiting The Water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;风险 Potential Hazards&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;跨步式入水 Giant Stride Entry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;背滚式入水 Backward Roll Entry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;镰刀式入水 Headfirst Long Entry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;面镜排水 Mask Clearing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;调节器复位 Regulator Recovery&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;调节器排水 Regulator Clearing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;压力平衡 Equalize&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;耳压平衡 Equalization/Ears Clearing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呼吸 Breathing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;共气 Buddy Breathe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呼气 Exhale&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吸气 Inhale&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;憋气 Breath-Hold&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上浮 Ascents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下沉 Descents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;踢动蛙鞋 Use Fins&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;平静水域 Confined Water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;开放水域 Open Water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;海洋相关&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;海岸 Shore&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;海湾 Gulf&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潮汐 Tides&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;涨潮 Incoming High Tide&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;满潮 High Tide&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;退潮 Outgoing Low Tide&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;平潮 Low Tide&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;波浪 Surf&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;碎浪区 Surfzone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;涌浪 Waves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;海流 Ocean Currents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潮流 Tides Currents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;洋流 Relatively Premanent Currents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;激流 Rushing Water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;激流区 Rip Dispersal Area&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;沿岸流 Down Shore Current&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;回流 Undertow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;涌昇流 Up Current&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下降流 Down Current&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漩涡 Eddy Current&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;能见度 Visibility&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水底 Bottom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水中 Underwater&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水面 Surface&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;珊瑚礁 Reef&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;堡礁 Barrier Reef&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;裙礁 Fringing Reef&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;环礁 Atoll Reef&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人工鱼礁 Artificial Reef&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;沉船 Wreck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;泻湖 Lagoon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;温带 Temperate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;热带 Tropical&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;寒带 Polar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;淡水 Freshwater&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;海水 Saltwater&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;圣婴现象 El Nino&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;温室效应 Global Warming&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;病症&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过度换气 Hyperventilation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;氮醉 Nitrogen Narcosis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;心肺复苏术 CPR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;失温 HeatLoss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;恐慌 Panic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;抽筋 Cramp&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;脱水 Dehydration&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;氧中毒 Oxygen Toxicity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;浅层水域昏迷 Ascent Unconsciousness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;减压症 Decompression Sickness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;气泡 Bubbles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呛水 Inhaled Water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;溺水 Drowning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;窒息 Choking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;急救 First Aid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;抗组织氨 Anti-Histamine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;再压舱 Recompression Chamber&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水医学 Underwater Medicine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜船&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水平线 Horizen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潜水船 Diving Boat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上船登艇 Boarding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;船长 Captain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甲板 Deck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;航行中 Underway&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;船首 Bow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;走向船首 Forward Bow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;左舷 Portside&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;走向左舷 On The Portside&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;右舷 Starboard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;走向右舷 On The Starboard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;船尾 Stern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;走向船尾 Aft Stern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下锚 Anchors&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;锚绳 Anchor Line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下风处 Leeward Side&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;晕船 Seasickness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水中生物&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一群鱼 A School of Fish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鲨鱼 Shark&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;梭鱼 Barracuda&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;刺魟鱼 Sting Ray&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;魔鬼魟鱼 Manta&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;狮子鱼 Lionfish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;石头鱼 Rockfish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;粗皮鲷 Surgeon fish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鲽鱼 Butterfly fish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;盒子鱼 Boxfish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扳机鱼 Triggerfish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;海豚 Dolphin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;薯鳗 Moray Eel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鲶鱼/沙毛 Catfish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;火鱼 Firefish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水母 Jellyfish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;海星 Starfish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;海胆 Sea Urchin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;海蛇 Sea Snake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;章鱼 Octopus&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;芋贝 Cone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;珊瑚 Coral&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;行程/旅游&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;渡假村 Resort&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;免费迎宾饮料 Welcome Drink&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;面海房 Ocean view&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;菲律宾八爪船 Banca&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;敞蓬快艇 Open Yacht&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;盖舱快艇 Cabin Boat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;独木舟 Kayak&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;沙滩排球 Beach Volleyball&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;海滩饮料吧 Beach Bar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大厅 Lobby&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;柜檯 Front desk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;筷子 Chopstick&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-08-29T09:12:59.360" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20997" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-29T12:52:18.320" Score="0" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't speak much Chinese at all and would like to write a letter to our adopted grandmother. Thank you for the help! Here is what I have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曾祖母尊鉴;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们想念你。&#xA;红红感冒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们会回来的，当时她是健康的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们爱你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谨此&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what I am trying to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dear Great Grandmother,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We miss you.&#xA;Hong Hong has a cold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We'll be back, when she is healthy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We love you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sincerely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15203" LastActivityDate="2016-08-30T08:43:42.907" Title="Does this letter to our adopted Grandmother make sense?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20997" CreationDate="2016-08-29T16:01:10.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any native Chinese speaker can edit and make your letter perfect and native sounding, however, that would not be your writing and won't help your learning. Instead, I would suggest some basic improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;紅紅感冒 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;since Chinese grammar doesn't have tenses, you have to indicate  Hong Hong's is &quot;currently&quot; having a cold by putting &quot;現在&quot;(now/currently) in front of the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you treat 感冒 as a noun, &quot;紅紅感冒&quot; in English would be &quot; Hong Hong flu&quot; (subject+n) you need to add a verb between the two nouns, the simplest one is &quot;有&quot;(has); If you treat 感冒 as a verb, then you don't need to add another verb.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們會回來，當時她是健康的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike in English, Chinese sentences usually state the time first, therefore, this sentence should has been &quot;當時她是健康的, 我們會回來。&quot;  but &quot;當時&quot; is a common term for &quot; at that time (in the past)&quot;. The correct structure is &#xA; [ (當) + (relative phrase) + (時)] / [ (當)+(她健康) +(時)] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當她健康時 ( when she is healthy) would be grammatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們會回來 means &quot; we will be back&quot; ,  you should add the reason &quot; to see you&quot;  and write &quot; 我們會回來看你&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*You can further improve the writing by replace &quot; 當她健康時&quot; (when she s health) with &quot; 等她康復後&quot; (wait until she has recovered)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Using terms like &quot;尊鑒, 謹此&quot; is too formal for someone close to you.  A casual &quot; 親愛的&quot; (dear) feels more intimate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*To avoid the same subject 我們 appear twice in consecutive sentences, you can omit the second subject 我們. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;親愛的曾祖母:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我們想念你 ，&#xA;現在紅紅(有)感冒，&#xA;等她康復後，我們會回來看你，&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;愛你!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*is she 祖母 (grandmother) or 曾祖母 (great grandmother?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-30T08:20:50.460" LastActivityDate="2016-08-30T08:20:50.460" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21002" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-30T02:07:00.517" Score="1" ViewCount="562" Body="&lt;p&gt;I answered a question about the character 請,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,137964,137965#msg-137965&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,137964,137965#msg-137965&lt;/a&gt; on other site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, 請 can mean: &quot;to treat; to pay for someone&quot; beside the listed meanings of &quot; to invite&quot; in the dictionary on that site. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suddenly realized it may not be the case in Mandarin, I think I heard Mandarin say: 「這頓飯我作東」, 「這頓飯我來付」，but do Mandarin say 「這頓飯我來請」 or  「我今晚請吃晚飯」？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-30T02:13:37.497" LastActivityDate="2016-09-10T17:34:09.220" Title="Is 請 also mean &quot;to treat&quot; in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20952" CreationDate="2016-08-30T08:40:28.720" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you said 2-character word I guess you want 默契.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15208" LastActivityDate="2016-08-30T08:40:28.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20997" CreationDate="2016-08-30T08:43:42.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just one tip for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use &lt;code&gt;红红感冒了&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;红红感冒&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By adding a &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; can simply clarify that the child Hong Hong got a cold and is still having it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2016-08-30T08:43:42.907" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20829" CreationDate="2016-08-30T11:46:31.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use a learner's dictionary. Beginner and intermediate-level dictionaries don't have formal or literary words. You may want to try the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tuttlepublishing.com/books-by-country/tuttle-learners-chinese-english-dictionary-9780804845274&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tuttle Lerner's Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;; it has an electronic version in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2016-11-13T13:01:06.373" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T13:01:06.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20988" CreationDate="2016-08-31T07:29:54.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;犯, in the very beginning of it's creation means &quot;dog hurts people&quot;, the left radical 犭 implies animals, in this case is a dog(taking 狗,狼,猪,猫... for examples and you can find that they all have a 犭)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given this background, the original meaning can be summarised as &quot;to offend, to violate&quot; or so, generally, what will you get if you offend/violate something? I'd say you will suffer from some bad results in most situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, if you 犯晕, you will suffer from dizziness(will, not really dizziness, it only a metaphor here which means if people want you to give a talk or have an interview with you, you'll become embarrassed and have no ideas what to do, just like dizziness).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in summary, you can use 犯 in two ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in an active way: to offend/to violate something(often rules, laws..). e.g. 犯罪 -&gt; to commit a crime&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in a passive way: to suffer from something(more like an extension in meaning, you violate something hence you suffer the result). e.g. 犯晕，犯迷糊，犯傻，犯难, in this way you can simply translate it as &quot;to be&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-08-31T07:29:54.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21008" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-31T07:43:28.937" Score="1" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know of the words 日 and 天, which both mean &quot;day&quot; in Chinese, but I'm not sure which to use in phrases such as &quot;I've been in Taiwan for 25 days&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look in Wiktionary I'm even more confused:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;日 is marked &quot;literary or dialectal&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天 is marked &quot;Obsolete sense in Modern Standard Chinese - may be preserved in fossilised compounds and expressions or other varieties of Chinese.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So which should I use for saying things like &quot;I think I will stay two or three days&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe there's a third word I don't know about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T07:07:44.883" Title="Which word to use for &quot;day&quot; when talking about lengths of time?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20829" CreationDate="2016-08-31T07:43:55.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Language is the &quot;fuzziest&quot; learning subject in my opinion. You don't have to use it very precisely in oral. People will ask you to clarify if they don't understand because of you use a wrong word. Then you know that one is incorrect. You try and practise more and more, you will know how to use them. This is so called &quot;try-wrong&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, don't worry, just say it. :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2016-08-31T07:43:55.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21008" CreationDate="2016-08-31T07:50:39.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should use &quot;天&quot; here, since it needs &quot;量词(unit)&quot; here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 日 and 天 could be used as noun like &quot;day&quot; in English. e.g. 星期天／星期日 are both correct for &quot;Sunday&quot;. But you should always use 天 when you try to express &quot;a number of days&quot;， like 十天，三天，etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I think I will stay two or three days.&#xA;  我觉得我会待两三天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are exceptions as well. When you want to use a phrase which contains days, usually you should use 日 but not  天。&#xA;e.g &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们报了一个新马泰七日团。&#xA;  We ordered a Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand seven-days group tour. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2016-08-31T08:04:48.890" LastActivityDate="2016-08-31T08:04:48.890" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21008" CreationDate="2016-08-31T07:56:44.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For daily usage I suggest you use &quot;天&quot;, but &quot;日&quot; is still widely used in literacy (especially old books) and on formal occasions.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;扬州十日 (A )Ten Day('s massacre) in Yangzhou&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我觉得我会呆两三天。 I think I will stay two or three days.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; More examples for you:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;过年七天乐(a popular TV program) 7 Days' Fun on New Year&lt;br&gt;&#xA;北京一日游 a one-day tour in Beijing&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And you may always say 天 in daily use instead of 日:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;给我十天时间就够了。 Ten days are enough for me.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;本航班需要航行一天又六个小时。 This flight will take one day and six hours.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Plus, for Sunday, 星期天 is used in spoken and informal languages, while 星期日 in formal:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;星期天一起出去玩好吗？ Shall we go out on Sunday?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;截止日期为星期日晚九点。 The deadline is 9 p.m, Sunday.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; For your example, the correct word is &quot;天&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我已经在台湾呆了25天。I've been in Taiwan for 25 days. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="11744" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T07:07:44.883" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T07:07:44.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21008" CreationDate="2016-08-31T08:04:07.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of the &quot;天&quot; and &quot;日&quot; as the &quot;量词&quot; are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the modern standard Chinese, people will say &quot;我觉得我会待两三天&quot; in their daily life, and will say &quot;我预计我将停留两三日&quot; in the formal situation such as applications or official documents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15212" LastActivityDate="2016-08-31T08:04:07.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21008" CreationDate="2016-08-31T09:43:07.280" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Basic difference:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天 (n) sky; day&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日 (n) sun ; day; date&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When stating number of days, you can use either 日 or 天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三個月另八日 /三個月另八天 ( three months and eight days)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十六日 / 十六天 ( 16 days) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For non-specific day, you can use either 日 or 天  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今日，昨日，明日= 今天，昨天，明天 (today, yesterday, tomorrow)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這一日 = 這一天 (this day)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那一日 = 那一天 (that day)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;today, yesterday, tomorrow, this day and that day can be any day on calendar.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When stating a date on calendar, use 日 or 號&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三月八日 / 三月八號 ( 8th March) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you cannot say 三月八天&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When stating a specific date, use 日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;國慶日, 開放日 ( Independent day, open day) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you cannot say 家長天, 開放天&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In summary:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When stating number of days, 天 and 日 are interchangeable &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For non-specific date, 天 and 日 are also interchangeable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When stating specific date, use 日 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;but I'm not sure which to use in phrases such as &quot;I've been in Taiwan for 25 days&quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you are referring to the number of days, you can use &lt;strong&gt;either.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-08-31T10:29:28.307" LastActivityDate="2016-08-31T10:29:28.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19419" CreationDate="2016-08-31T10:53:07.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think after 3 years I've cracked it. My original post is wrong. 就 is not &quot;subject&quot;. It's more simple than this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就 as a verb used to mean &quot;to take&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就 as a conjunction now means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;AND&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, thus extending original meaning &quot;to take&quot;. Since you are &quot;with an object&quot; when you &quot;take it&quot;, that is, it can be said that you are in a situation of &quot;you &lt;strong&gt;AND&lt;/strong&gt; it&quot;. Mind you there are many &quot;and&quot; in chinese (跟, 及, 也, 和, 并, 与, 而, 同 ect.) each has it's own connotation and perhaps evolved from a verb.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arguments for this point of view:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1)&lt;/strong&gt; I have found some rare etymology article about 就:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;尤&lt;/strong&gt; - The relevant oracle bone form of this character combines 又 hand + a vertical, slightly bent line, suggesting a skin eruption →&#xA;  wounded, contracted hand → &lt;em&gt;differ&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;conspicuous&lt;/em&gt; (← conspicuously&#xA;  different shape of a wounded hand). Also, &lt;em&gt;criticize&lt;/em&gt; (← be critical&#xA;  of what is perceived as figuratively bent) and &lt;em&gt;outstanding&lt;/em&gt; (←&#xA;  conspicuous). &lt;em&gt;Natural(ly)&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;stand to reason&lt;/em&gt;, and&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;especially/particularly&lt;/em&gt; are borrowed meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;examples:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;疣 - 尤 (skin eruption) + 疒 illness (for emphasis/clarification) →&#xA;&lt;em&gt;wart&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;抛 - The right-hand element# combines a variant form of 尤 (contracted hand) + 力 power/energy →&#xA;contract the hand about an object preliminary to hurling it. 抛 adds 手 hand/action indicator →&#xA;&lt;em&gt;throw/hurl&lt;/em&gt; → &lt;em&gt;throw away&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;discard&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt; -&#xA;As per 尤 (contracted hand) + 京 metropolis → contract the arm in summoning people to a&#xA;metropolis → &lt;em&gt;settle&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;take up&lt;/em&gt; → &lt;em&gt;take/get a job&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;take instruction&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;embark&lt;/em&gt; (upon) (← take&#xA;up) → &lt;em&gt;appoint&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;provide service for&lt;/em&gt; → &lt;em&gt;arrange&lt;/em&gt;. Also, &lt;em&gt;seat&lt;/em&gt; (a guest) (← settle).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;examples:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鷲 - As per 就 (contract) + 鳥 bird → predatory bird contracting its talons around its prey → &lt;em&gt;eagle&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;僦  - As per 就 (appoint) + 人 person (→ human agency) → &lt;em&gt;hire&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;pay wages&lt;/em&gt; → &lt;em&gt;rent&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蹴 - As per 就 (contract) + 足 leg/foot → contract the leg muscles (compare 蹙) in kicking/trampling&#xA;→ &lt;em&gt;kick&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;tread on&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;trample&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Credit due: &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.slideshare.net/KanjiNetworks/etymological-dictionary-ofhanchinesecharacters?from_action=save&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters&lt;/a&gt;&quot; By Lawrence J. Howell and Research Collaborator Hikaru Morimoto&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2)&lt;/strong&gt; Now the second argument:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;construct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...了, 就...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吃完了午飯就走. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated literally: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Eating finish &lt;strong&gt;is a fact&lt;/strong&gt;(了), &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt;(就) go.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated with more styling: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Eating done, &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; off you go!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;construct: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一...,就...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她一生气就脸红&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Once&lt;/strong&gt; she's angry, &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; face turns red.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2019-04-06T08:52:46.723" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T08:52:46.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21018" CreationDate="2016-08-31T12:30:06.023" Score="0" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading &lt;em&gt;Sabrina Knight, Chinese Literature, A very short introduction&lt;/em&gt;. The book mentions a fourth century division of literature into: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;History &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Daoist and Buddhist Masters, Masters of Strategy, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Belles Lettres&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the Chinese terms? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is the actual quote:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7hnMf.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7hnMf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest is possibly off topic. I believe I can resolve it by web search, if I know the Chinese terms, but it is the reason for the question, so I include it as a side note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have trouble understanding the fourth category, since it seems not to include 小說。Would it be lyrics? Poetry? Say 樂府，輔鳥賦, non classic poetry like 楚辭？ The difference between &lt;em&gt;Belles lettres&lt;/em&gt; and 小說 seems to be the conveying of the 道. While I understand the significance (at least a little) it is hard for me to tell what the category would include.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2016-09-09T19:14:50.350" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T19:14:50.350" Title="Categories in Chinese literature - Original terms" Tags="&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21015" CreationDate="2016-08-31T13:30:22.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it probably means 四部分類法: 經史子集&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastActivityDate="2016-08-31T13:30:22.567" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21015" CreationDate="2016-08-31T13:34:13.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;what are the Chinese terms? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are 儒，玄，史，文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classic (儒學)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Daoist and Buddhist Masters, (玄學)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;History (史學)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Belles Lettres (文學)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have trouble understanding the fourth category, since it seems not to include 小說。Would it be lyrics? Poetry? Say 樂府，輔鳥賦, non classic poetry like 楚辭？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different time period had different major form of &quot;Belles Lettres&quot; for example: 唐詩, 宋詞. Mostly circulated among the upper class circle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小說 was considered of lower class, not worthy of included in the 文學 category at the time the category was created.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://r.ilong.cn/article/detail/id/34663.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://r.ilong.cn/article/detail/id/34663.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;立儒、玄、史、文四学为&lt;strong&gt;官学&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;  (established: 1.Classic 2.Metaphysics 3.History 4.Fine Writing, four categories of literature study as the &lt;strong&gt;official categories of study&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I consulted an expert, he wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The first response was correct-- the four categories refer to 經 (classics), 史 (history), 子 (masters), and 集 (collection of letters). 經 refers to the main theory in Confucianism, and, in contrast, 子 refers to the challenges and defence from individual thinkers. 史 is the official history, and, in contrast, 集 is the supplementary materials, mostly poems that reflect the thinking of the society at the time.&#xA;  儒玄史文 makes no sense in this context. It is a phrase rarely used in classical Chinese.&quot; - Mr.K&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My argument was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;經史子集 are four classifications of all classical books. It is still in use today; 儒玄史文 are categories of studies specifically refer to 南朝四学, and had became &lt;strong&gt;obsolete&lt;/strong&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just didn't  know for sure that which one the question was referring to. And based on the time difference, it is most likely refer to 四部分類法-- 經史子集&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-04T20:54:09.513" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T20:54:09.513" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21015" CreationDate="2016-08-31T18:45:52.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;since your book is an introduction, i would suggest that the &quot;four main categories&quot; is 經﹒史﹒子﹒集; in sequence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;classics - 經&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;history - 史&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;masters - 子&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;collections of belle lettres - 集&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the long explanation: in 漢 dynasty, texts were divided into 6 categories, according to the 七略 (~bc 5):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;六藝略﹒諸子略﹒詩賦略﹒兵書略﹒數術略﹒方技略&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%83%E7%95%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/七略&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;later, in 西晉 (265 - 316), 荀勖 changed the six categories to four, in sequence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;甲部 - 經書&#xA;乙部 - 子書 ( masters is the second category)&#xA;丙部 - 史書 ( history is the third category)&#xA;丁部 - 詩賦&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;afterward, in 東晉 (317 - 420), &lt;strong&gt;&quot;~fourth century&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, 李充 rearranged the categories to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;甲部 - 五經&#xA;乙部 - 史記 ( history is the second category)&#xA;丙部 - 諸子 ( masters is the third category)&#xA;丁部 - 詩賦&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%9B%E9%83%A8%E5%88%86%E9%A1%9E%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/四部分類法&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that, the sequence of 經﹒史﹒子﹒集 is unchanged, till today. next, imo, 詩賦 matched &quot;belle lettres&quot; more than 集, in the last category &quot;collections of belle lettres&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you side note about the fourth category, you want to know the contents of it in which dynasty?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ok, the internet archive has the book &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/02091113.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;補晉書藝文志&lt;/a&gt;, which was compiled in 清 dynasty. in 卷四﹒丁部集錄 listed all texts / books / publications at that time (from ~p42 of pdf file). you may glimpse what was included in this &quot;fourth category&quot;, in 晉 dynasty (265 - 420).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps: just curious, may i ask, why you learn chinese literary, or it's history in english?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-09-01T02:07:39.687" LastActivityDate="2016-09-01T02:07:39.687" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21019" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21065" CreationDate="2016-08-31T22:29:00.193" Score="0" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect it comes from &quot;又做完了，又做得美丽,&quot; since that would make some sense. Is it something along these lines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15216" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T06:06:15.300" Title="Where does the word 完美 come from?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21019" CreationDate="2016-08-31T23:24:20.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;完&lt;/strong&gt;(adverbial - &lt;strong&gt;entirely / wholly&lt;/strong&gt;) + &lt;strong&gt;美&lt;/strong&gt;(adjective - &lt;strong&gt;beautiful / excellent&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;完美&lt;/strong&gt; is a compound word for &quot;perfect, perfectly, perfection&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;完&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/880/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/880/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;|jyun4|  jyutping&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;|wan2 |  pinyin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] [v] complete; finish; bring to a conclusion &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;strong&gt;whole&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] [v] run out; use up &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[4] a Chinese family name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;美&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/257/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/257/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;|mei5|  jyutping&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;|mei3|   pinyin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] beautiful; pretty; pleasing; fine; fair &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] good; &lt;strong&gt;excellent&lt;/strong&gt;; exquisite; nice &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] be pleased with oneself &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[4] [v] praise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;完美&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/9672/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/9672/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;|jyun4 mei5|   jyutping&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;|wan2 mei3|   pinyin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;perfect&lt;/strong&gt;, perfection, perfectly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-08-31T23:24:20.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21021" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-01T04:14:33.680" Score="11" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am familiar with the most common ways characters are simplified, but sometimes I am not completely sure what the thought process was. For example, with 邊 to 边, 力 is not a novel phonetic component, nor does it resemble the 草书 form of 邊, and as far as I know it's not a historical variant, so it appears like a mostly arbitrary replacement to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E5%AD%97%E6%80%BB%E8%A1%A8&quot;&gt;简化字总表&lt;/a&gt;, the list of simplified Characters published by the Chinese government, is the only original source I know of regarding simplified characters, but it only shows what the simplified characters are, and provides little explanation for the reasoning. Is there any source that documents the reasoning behind simplification? I imagine there was a committee that discussed it, and there had to have been some written correspondence about it. Are there any sources like that available to the public?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9263" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T03:05:00.400" Title="Are there any original sources documenting the simplification process?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1112" CreationDate="2016-09-01T04:18:09.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means “happy birthday”, and this sentence always says to elder people.Learn more Chinese expressions about happy birthday, read here：&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/daily-chinese-learning-tips/how-to-say-happy-birthday-in-chinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;How to Say Happy Birthday in Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13141" LastActivityDate="2016-09-01T04:18:09.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21023" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21034" CreationDate="2016-09-01T04:29:59.623" Score="1" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, we call women 小姐 and this is often used in everyday situations including calling for a waitress or anyone in the service industry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I have heard this is rude to call a woman a 小姐 in China because they use the negative connotation of the word 小姐. Instead, Mainlanders call a woman 姑娘. Is this the same throughout all of China, or is it different in places such as Hong Kong and Macau (which uses mostly Cantonese). If we go to a rural part of China (outside of major cities like Beijing, etc) would calling a waitress 小姐 be considered rude? Would this hold true for other semi-Chinese speaking countries (Singapore, malaysia, indonesia, etc)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T08:24:53.403" Title="Localization between Mainland China's 姑娘 and Taiwan's 小姐" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21024" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-01T04:31:12.043" Score="0" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am hoping that someone here can point me in the right direction. I am looking for some reading material so that I can practice my pronunciation. What I would like to find is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Reading Material that has the following features:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is an eBook or Kindle book &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Uses Pinyin and Traditional characters in alternating rows &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is novel length or at least a collection of short&#xA;stories&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not care if it has English translation or not, really. It is not for vocab building so much as having a substantial reading source that will allow me to read out loud to my wife and have her correct my pronunciation. Also, having the Pinyin and traditional characters one above the other in alternating rows will allow for a little bit of character recognition training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please let me know if there is anything like this that you know of anywhere. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:  Searching Amazon I have found many books that combine pinyin and traditional characters, but they all have some flaw:  either the pinyin is on a separate page (not alternating rows) or it is not an ebook.  The search continues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: I also found one app that alternates rows of pinyin and trad chars on the iPhone app store but it is subscription based and rather expensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15218" LastEditorUserId="15218" LastEditDate="2016-09-02T05:05:03.447" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T05:05:03.447" Title="Looking for Pinyin/Traditional Characters eBooks" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19303" CreationDate="2016-09-01T04:33:38.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You know the correct meaning of &lt;strong&gt;趁着&lt;/strong&gt; is &amp;quot;to take advantage of a situation&amp;quot;, and maybe you also can translate it as &amp;quot;a situation gives you a chance to do something or to do something better&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们可以趁着妈妈没有回来再玩一会儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation &amp;quot;mom is not at home&amp;quot; can be taken advantage of, so &amp;quot;it is good time for playing&amp;quot;, we will have no more chance to play games after she comes back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &amp;quot;就&amp;quot; sometimes has different meaning. In your second sentence, it has same meaning as &amp;quot;趁着&amp;quot;, but not in the first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;就&amp;quot; in the first sentence is probably better translated as &amp;quot;according to&amp;quot;. It might have also different translations based on the whole context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion &amp;quot;就&amp;quot; is better to be translated as &amp;quot;for (aimed to)&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;about&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should make a speech for/about this situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你可以就这个问题发表演讲（你可以针对这个问题发表演讲）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence &amp;quot;老师可以趁着学生的年龄再练习一下。&amp;quot; is obviously wrong, you can not use &amp;quot;趁着&amp;quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15217" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T15:33:45.713" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T15:33:45.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20943" CreationDate="2016-09-01T04:49:44.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am Chinese I have same questions about these in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;19 个 3 means &quot; the number of 3 is 19 &quot;, so the password is 233333333333333333333.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;『个』in Chinese means &quot;the number of&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, there must have a &quot;quantifier&quot; between number and noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;eg.&#xA;      In English you can say : one person and in Chinese you should 一个人( one 个 person )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;one finger 一个手指（one 个 finger）&#xA;&#xA;two oranges 两个橘子( two 个 orange)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in Chinese, we don't have &quot;plural&quot;, one apple is &quot;一个苹果&quot;， two apples &quot;两个苹果&quot;, &quot;苹果&quot; will always be &quot;苹果&quot;, not &quot;苹果s&quot;, no matter how many apples there are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing about &quot;quantifier&quot; in Chinese is that different noun has different &quot;quantifier&quot; for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;eg.&#xA;      a pig. you should say 一只猪 or 一头猪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;a mobile phone. you should say 一部手机&#xA;&#xA;a car. you should say 一辆车&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't know which quantifier should, you can use 个.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15217" LastActivityDate="2016-09-01T04:49:44.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21024" CreationDate="2016-09-01T04:52:28.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your request of Pinyin and Traditional characters are in itself an oxymoron.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin is the system used in China and focuses on simplified characters. This system allows foreigners to learn Chinese a lot easier. &#xA;Traditional Chinese characters use ㄅㄆㄇㄈ. A system that is only used in Taiwan.&#xA;Currently there's not much casual medium (novels, movies) that combines Traditional and Pinyin together. More educational mediums consists of text books provided by National Taiwan University. I believe they teach Chinese using the ㄅㄆㄇ system. The Bible and church hymns (if you are religious) occasionally has pinyin, but sometimes this type of pinyin is written in Wade-Giles and pronounced as Taiwanese (the dialect)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-09-01T04:52:28.693" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21023" CreationDate="2016-09-01T05:14:47.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;姑娘 is more used in northern China or say the mandarin spoken regions. 小姐 is more often used along the coast especially in south.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小姐 gets the meaning of sex worker in 90s. In formal situation, it's still prefrered to use 小姐 rather than 姑娘, which sounds informal and rural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2016-09-01T05:14:47.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19648" CreationDate="2016-09-01T05:54:02.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 医好了 is always used in traditional Chinese medicine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, you can use &quot;医治&quot;, so you can say 医生把病人医治好了. same as &quot;医好了&quot; or &quot;治好了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is nothing different between these three word. Everybody can understand them. but we use &quot;治好了&quot; more than &quot;医好了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15217" LastActivityDate="2016-09-01T05:54:02.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20988" CreationDate="2016-09-01T06:24:15.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;犯&quot; is always used before a word, which is a noun represent something bad of people, to describe something bad are occurring. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;eg. 犯病，犯坏，犯傻，犯晕，犯浑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your text, &quot;让我发言或接受采访我就犯晕。&quot;, means that &quot; the bad situation  &quot;fainting&quot; will occur when you are asked to make a speech. There is no meaning about &quot;often&quot;, you also can say 『我今天犯晕』.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I don't think it is necessary to translate &quot;犯&quot; explicitly in your first sentence. You can just translate it as &quot;always feel faint&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;英雄犯大错误&quot; , there isn't a idiom like this, and the &quot;犯&quot; has the same meaning as &quot;犯晕&quot;, &quot;大错误&quot; is something bad of people same as &quot;傻&quot;, &quot;坏&quot;, &quot;错&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, there is an implicit &quot;often&quot; in this sentence, but not because of the &quot;犯&quot; and it's because of the logic of the sentence. It means that :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If some one is a big man, his mistakes will alway get great influence. so in Chinese, it's same as &quot;英雄犯的错误一般都是大错误&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have a proverb like this : &quot;淹死会水的&quot;，it also means：&quot;被淹死的人一般都是会游泳的&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15217" LastEditorUserId="15217" LastEditDate="2016-09-01T06:29:22.633" LastActivityDate="2016-09-01T06:29:22.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21021" CreationDate="2016-09-01T07:03:55.783" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese is no stupid command from &quot;communist overlords&quot;. There was a committee discussing simplification, and they did choose simplified characters with academic discretion. I have found this semi-official book for explaining the sources of almost each simplified characters, plus the history of Chinese character simplification from Qing Dynasty:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《简化字溯源》(Tracing the Source of Simplified Characters), published by Language &amp;amp; Culture Press, 1997. (It's not an English book, but this is all I can think of. )&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can borrow it from a library, or buy it online for about $6.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For those who think Simplified Chinese is a brutal command from the &quot;red evils&quot;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Chinese simplification is a process that started thousands of years ago, which has been performed by various regimes, not just the Communist China.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lishu(lit. &quot;slave script&quot;) is the best-known simplification in Ancient China, promoted by Qin Shihuang. Before that, Xiaozhuan(lit. &quot;minor seal (script)&quot;), which is more complex with round and delicate curves, served as the official script (after Qin unified China).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In 1935, the KMT government had drafted a proposal of simplifying Chinese, which contains about 500 characters as the &quot;first batch&quot;. Most of them were accepted by the current Simplified Chinese. It was rejected because Dai Li, the head of intelligence, strongly opposed the proposal with the reason &quot;Simplified Chinese is abomination to the ancestors&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The current Simplified Chinese was sometimes called Yi-Jian (&quot;First Simplification&quot;), because there were Er-Jian (&quot;Second Simplification&quot;) during the early 1980s, which was really a disaster. The Second Simplification was made in a hurry, with a lot of simplifications that may cause confusion, violate the principle of making Chinese characters, or be just too ugly. People around China also invented their own simplification arbitrarily, which brought more confusion. The Second Simplification was terminated in mid-1980s, and the standard Chinese script was rolled back to the First Simplification.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What I'd like to say is, Simplified Chinese we use today may be imperfect, but they're so widely used and tested in daily life, and it is the best existing solution besides Traditional Chinese, with less complexity, and introduces minimum confusion. It can be left today because it is based on extensive research and respect to the principles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="11744" LastEditDate="2018-12-29T03:05:00.400" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T03:05:00.400" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21032" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21036" CreationDate="2016-09-01T17:04:54.473" Score="0" ViewCount="999" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something a young Chinese kid would read (5-10 years old).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12017" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T11:27:14.023" Title="What are some good Chinese short books/novels for beginners?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-09-18T10:21:24.300" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21032" CreationDate="2016-09-01T22:22:26.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's one starting point:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/7743108.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;我的第一本日记：二年级的美羊羊&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's part of a series of similar books called &quot;我的第一本日记&quot;.&#xA;It's a schoolgirl's diary but not a real diary, I think an adult actually wrote it. It's got pinyin printed above the 汉字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read it myself; didn't understand everything but I still found it to be a rewarding read. Makes a nice change from all the boring textbook material. It's probably suitable for Chinese kids 8 years old or upwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I admit this one is probably more for intermediate students than beginners, but perhaps there are others in this series that are easier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2016-09-01T22:22:26.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21023" CreationDate="2016-09-02T04:19:43.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a little tricky. I know in Taiwan, you call the ladies 小姐. &#xA;I'm from northern China. If you say 某人是小姐 means she's from sex industry.&#xA;If you just say 小姐 to a person, it means &quot;Miss&quot;. There's negative meaning in this word, but it's OK to use this way. &#xA;If you want to call for service in a restaurant, you can say 服务员 which means waiter/waitress.&#xA;If you ask for help, or you need to get attention from someone you dont know, you can simply say 你好（HELLO）to get people know you need something. You may want to say 你好 toward to the person and raise your hand to indicate you need attention from him.&#xA;When I was traveling in Shanghai, there was a girl asking me to take a photo of her and her friend, she used 姑娘. It's a little weird to me, I would just say 你好 to start the conversion.&#xA;姑娘 means young girl, you call people young girl, but you dont say &quot;Hi, young girl&quot; to the person, right? It's OK to say 姑娘 if she's not very old, so if you dont know which word is better and want to be nice, 姑娘 is safer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15171" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T04:19:43.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21035" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-02T05:07:54.720" Score="11" ViewCount="5212" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if anyone here is aware of an API out there on the net anywhere that can receive a traditional character and send back the pinyin for it in JSON?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15218" LastEditorUserId="15229" LastEditDate="2016-09-07T19:15:25.140" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T11:37:59.217" Title="API for transliterating a traditional character (writing the pinyin)?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21032" CreationDate="2016-09-02T06:26:57.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZCwxK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZCwxK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend some suitable story books for your children, it also can try to figure out how Chinese characters work and Chinese structures from very simple sentences, check this link, you will find a list of Chinese story books for whatever your need is!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/kids-teenagers-chinese-learning-tips/best-chinese-story-books-for-children/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/kids-teenagers-chinese-learning-tips/best-chinese-story-books-for-children/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A Magic Paint Brush 神笔马良 (shén bǐ mǎ liánɡ) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Water Dragon 雨龙 (yǔ lónɡ)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Phoenix and the Hundred Birds 百鸟朝凤 (bǎi niǎo cháo fènɡ) &#xA;........&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You kids will read Chinese story books better with a professional teacher’s guidance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T06:26:57.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21037" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-02T08:39:13.720" Score="-1" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone translate this text for me? I think I kinda understand it, but thinking about it deeper, I am not very sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jbwwf.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jbwwf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T09:23:45.377" Title="blood wall translation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-09-12T18:49:45.177" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21037" CreationDate="2016-09-02T09:04:45.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Husband, husband, I am in Guangdong.&#xA;Working during the day, and arbeite in the night.&#xA;Forty yuan for thirty minutes.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a 打油诗. The speaker is a married woman, who has left her home and husband to work in another place. She does her  job in the day and becomes a sex worker in the night. And 40 yuan for half an hour is the charge for sex service since 80 yuan per hour is too high for a normal job. Here Guangdong infers Dongguan(东莞) in Guangdong province, which is famous of sex industry and titled the sex city of China. But of course Guangdong is a province that offers a lot of work opportunities and attracts many Chinese to leave home and work there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastEditorUserId="13558" LastEditDate="2016-09-02T09:10:38.853" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T09:10:38.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21037" CreationDate="2016-09-02T09:23:45.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;O my dear husband, in Canton now I dwell.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I work By day, but with an easy virtue I earn by night.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For 40 dollars will I be paid, for 30 minutes will he be served.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开工 here means starting her sex business with men and by so she gets money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T09:23:45.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21035" CreationDate="2016-09-02T09:31:45.440" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you have programming knowledge, you may download the 國語辭典 (of taiwan),  which is under creative commons 3.0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.publicense.moe.edu.tw/dict_reviseddict_download.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://resources.publicense.moe.edu.tw/dict_reviseddict_download.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;basically, it's 3 large excel files, using bash, grep, cut would give you relevant info of characters / words; and mandarin romanisation is one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's about 166000+ entries, that would be enough for &quot;normal&quot; usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T09:31:45.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21032" CreationDate="2016-09-02T11:27:14.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For ages 8-10, I recommend 康軒(Brand) 國小學習(For Elementary level) 自修國語 (Self-study) level 1-3. These are books easily purchasable in Taiwan and are in traditional characters. It is important for ages 5-10 to read books that aid in pronouncing characters, whether it is pinyin or ㄅㄆㄇ (bo po mo).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's pretty much the same teaching material as what they teach in school. &#xA;Here is a link for the picture &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pcstore.com.tw/ibookhouse/M10148138.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.pcstore.com.tw/ibookhouse/M10148138.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People have different opinions on textbooks as a &quot;reading material&quot;, but I personally think they last longer, has more stories, and provide a better value in the long run. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T11:27:14.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21042" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21112" CreationDate="2016-09-02T11:51:36.743" Score="0" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, on January 1st, for every new year, at Taipei 101 or Kaohsiung Dream Mall they often have singers and other popular actor/actress say new year greetings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are New year greetings are never translated (both creatively and literally). Here is an example of nba player Jeremy Lin in the New Years commercial using the phrase 猴年賀歲. Is it cultural? or are some things just better left untranslated since it is just a &quot;greeting&quot; and can be expressed with Happy New Years or  Happy Year of the Monkey.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEJKHc-f3c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEJKHc-f3c&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastEditorUserId="15213" LastEditDate="2016-09-02T12:21:37.620" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T11:00:32.923" Title="Would it be appropriate to translate a Chinese New Year Greeting(s)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12329" CreationDate="2016-09-02T12:01:08.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question. can OP give more specific details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will answer this question from another angle, I think the OP is talking about HP and MP. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are examples of what other games would use.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;火影忍者 Naruto: chakra 查克拉&lt;br&gt;&#xA;英雄聯盟 LoL/ DOTA/ most RPG games: mana 瑪那&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if OP is talking about spirit technique, then yes, that would be an appropriate translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&#xA;Naruto Ninjutsu would be translated as 忍術&lt;br&gt;&#xA;仙法・磁遁螺旋丸 -&gt; Sage Art: Magnet Release Spiralling Sphere&lt;br&gt;&#xA;風遁・螺旋手裏剣 -&gt; Wind Style: Rasen Shuriken&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can see how the translation slightly differs from the original, but it sounds much smoother and is localized. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase 法 and 術 literally can both mean technique and can be used in many ways&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to translate it would be to use &quot;stance&quot;&#xA;Ex: 吸星大法 Essence Absorbing Stance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think OP just wants to make it sound cool, my advice is this, any type of localization would sound awkward, but if the medium (video game) makes it look cool, then everyone will like it either way. The pokemon move for pikachu's thunderbolt is actually a poor translation of the japanese version's 10 thousand bolt.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But if we use it in context, and categorize the attack based on weak to strong: thunder shock -&gt; thunderbolt -&gt; thunder. Then the translation would feel good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastEditorUserId="15213" LastEditDate="2016-09-02T12:19:09.063" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T12:19:09.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21044" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-02T12:49:55.133" Score="0" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a huge thunderstorm here in Kaohsiung right now so I thought I would learn the word for &quot;thunder&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can find three words in the dictionary and wonder which I should use for everybody to understand me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雷 léi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雷聲 léishēng&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雷鳴 léimíng&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know often single-character words are technically correct but not usually used on their own. But also quite a few are, such as 雨.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also some words are poetic or technical or archaic or dialectal, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which of these three words should I use most of the time for &quot;thunder&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T20:30:06.007" Title="雷 vs 雷聲 vs 雷鳴 for &quot;thunder&quot;, which is most common?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21044" CreationDate="2016-09-02T13:36:25.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;打雷 is the best for describing action.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;現在外面正在打雷 There's thunder outside right now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雷聲 is also good for describing what you hear&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我剛被雷聲嚇到 I was surprised (shocked) by the sound of the thunder&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雷 by itself means thunder, and used a little less often&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but it also means bomb as in 地雷.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這家店有雷. This store is a bomb. (When joking to friends that this food store sucks and is like stepping on a bomb/mine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could say, 外面有雷 There is thunder outside&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But it would sound awkward, the common phrase would be, 外面正在打雷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastEditorUserId="15213" LastEditDate="2016-09-02T13:57:15.230" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T13:57:15.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21044" CreationDate="2016-09-02T13:56:11.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Which of these three words should I use most of the time for &quot;thunder&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;行雷/打雷&lt;/strong&gt; is the most common term for &quot; thunder&quot;( v with no obj) [&lt;em&gt;it thunders&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雷 (n) thunder &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雷電 common term for &quot; thunder and lightning &quot; (n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;行雷/打雷&lt;/strong&gt; verb with no object for &quot; thunder&quot; : [&lt;em&gt;it thunders&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行雷閃電 - common phrase for &quot; thundering and lightning&quot;(v- no obj)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雷聲 = sound of thunder; 雷響 = booming of thunder; 雷嗚 = roar of thunder&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看見閃電之後數秒才聽到&lt;strong&gt;行雷/打雷&lt;/strong&gt; - a few seconds after seeing  lightning, you'll hear &lt;strong&gt;thunder&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看見閃電之後數秒才聽到&lt;strong&gt;雷聲&lt;/strong&gt; - a few seconds after seeing  lightning, you'll hear the &lt;strong&gt;sound of thunder&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;看見閃電之後數秒才聽到&lt;strong&gt;雷響&lt;/strong&gt; - a few seconds after seeing  lightning, you'll hear the &lt;strong&gt;booming of thunder&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;電閃後必有&lt;strong&gt;雷嗚&lt;/strong&gt; - after  flash of lightning,  &lt;strong&gt;roar of thunder&lt;/strong&gt; will come&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;雷嗚 is mostly used in poetic sense&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It might sounds strange, for &quot;lighting strike&quot;, 雷轟, 雷擊, 雷打 or 雷劈 is more popular than 電擊 or 電殛; meanwhile 電殛 also means &quot;electrocute&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-02T20:30:06.007" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T20:30:06.007" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21035" CreationDate="2016-09-02T16:34:04.970" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several libraries for converting Chinese characters to pinyin. If you are comfortable with programming languages (which you probably are if you are asking for an API), your choice will depend on the programming languages you know, the quality of the library and the licence under which it is available. If you need a user interface, you should probably first look at pinyin4j and ZDT. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/YangKuang/pinyin4net&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pinyin4net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: C# library that supports both simplified and traditional Chinese characters. Output is hanyu pinyin. Licence: MIT. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/kimziv/PinYin4Objc&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PinYin4Objc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: Objective-C library (with some Ruby) that supports both simplified and traditional Chinese characters and most popular pinyin systems. Licence: Apache License 2.0.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/teambition/HanziPinyin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;HanziPinyin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: Swift library that supports both simplified and traditional Chinese characters. Licence: MIT License. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/pilgr/PiPinyin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PiPinyin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: Java library for Android for converting Chinese characters to pinyin. I assume it supports simplified characters but could not find out if it also supports traditional characters. (The older &lt;a href=&quot;https://code.google.com/archive/p/pinyin4android/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pinyin4android&lt;/a&gt; library, on which PiPinyin is based, appears to have no documentation.) Licence: Apache License 2.0.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/handsomezhou/pinyin4cpp&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pinyin4cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: C++ library. Licence: Apache License 2.0. (Possibly inspired by pinyin4j, below.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin4j.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pinyin4j&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: Java library for conversion &quot;between Chinese characters and most popular Pinyin systems&quot;. Can also ouput Wade-Giles, Yale and Gwoyeu Romatzyh! Licence: GPL v2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sinologia.info/unihanconver/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Unihanconver&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: a Perl library &quot;to convert between Traditional/Simplified Chinese directly in Unicode (not GB/Big5 conversion)&quot;. It can be used through a Gtk2+ Interface and from the console. (See also the &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/unihanconver/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;developer site&lt;/a&gt;.) Licence: GPL 2. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zdt.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ZDT (Zhongwen Development Tool)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, written in Java, &quot;is an easy to use, open-source Mandarin Chinese flashcard application that can help you learn Chinese&quot;. One of its features is conversion between Chinese charactes and pinyin. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/zdt/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Developer site&lt;/a&gt;.) Licence: Eclipse Public License. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/zh2tone/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zh2tone / Chinese Word to ZuYin Code&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: a tool to convert Chinese characters/words to zhuyin fuhao (bopomofo). The tool has not been updated since 2012, has no licence, ... &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have not checked the quality of these libraries (alpha/beta/production-ready, test coverage, etc.) nor their completeness (how many characters they support etc.). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you need such a library for professional use, I would steer clear of libraries that have no licence. Software available under Apache 2.0, MIT or BSD can be reused both in open source and commercial applications. Libraries available under a GPL licence (&quot;GNU General Public Licence&quot;) can only be used in other GPL code.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-08-03T14:39:31.157" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T14:39:31.157" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21021" CreationDate="2016-09-03T00:12:54.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend the book 《简化字源》by 李乐毅, ISBN 7-80052-494-9. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the simplification history of 愛 to 爱.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R71DY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R71DY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;love&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's frustrating and even disgusting that the topic on simplified and traditional characters has now always been a quarrel due to political correctness, ideology, bias or even just ignorance, or what I may call 'pretend to be blind'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The image quality is poor and it's in Chinese, so I try to give a brief interpretation of this page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;爱 originates from 行书. There are countless variants similar to the&#xA;  present 爱 in the ancient writings, printings and carvings. Here are&#xA;  the famous ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1st by Wang Xizhi, 王羲之, AD303-361 or AD321-379, Jin Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2nd by Monk Zhiyong,  智永, dates of birth and death unknown, Sui&#xA;  Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3rd by Li Shimin, 李世民, AD598-649, Tang Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4th by Su Shi, 苏轼, AD1137-1101, Northern Song Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5th by Wen Zhengming, 文征明, AD1470-1559, Ming Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6th in 崔勤造像碑, Northern Wei Dynasty, AD368-534.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The form 爱 was widely used by the folk and could be seen in many folk&#xA;  literature works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7th in Yuan Dynasty's 京本通俗小说.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8th is the same with today's simplified 爱. It could be seen in Song's&#xA;  古烈女传, Yuan's 古今杂居三十种, 全相三国志平话, 朝野新声太平乐府, Ming's 娇红记, 薛仁贵跨海征东白袍记,&#xA;  岳飞破虏东窗记, Qing's 目莲记弹词, 金瓶梅奇书, 岭南逸史. This one is also seen in one of&#xA;  Ming's official documents, 兵科抄出. And it was also included into&#xA;  手头字第一期字汇 sponsored and published by 200 public figures and 15 social&#xA;  organizations in 1935.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9th 标准行书范本 Taiwan 1979.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both traditional and simplified characters are precious legacy. It was not CCP but the Chinese ancestors that invented and used these variants. In 1935, KMT government launched to make a standard of simplified characters but this project was then cancelled. After 1949, CCP took over this project and finally made it. In 1952, Chiang Kai-shek proposed it again in Taiwan but was opposed and came to nothing. Today Japan uses Chinese characters, kanji, some of which have also been simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastEditorUserId="13558" LastEditDate="2016-09-03T07:35:42.350" LastActivityDate="2016-09-03T07:35:42.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21050" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21052" CreationDate="2016-09-03T20:29:59.017" Score="2" ViewCount="1345" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned recently that both 一箭双雕 and 一石二鸟 are equivalent to the phrase &quot;kill two birds with one stone&quot;. Is there any difference between these two? Do they have different connotations? Would you use them in different situations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13003" LastEditorUserId="13003" LastEditDate="2016-09-04T22:43:30.350" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T22:43:30.350" Title="Difference between these two phrases for &quot;Killing two birds with one stone&quot;: 一箭双雕 vs. 一石二鸟" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21035" CreationDate="2016-09-03T21:39:19.840" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Glosbe seems to offer this service:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://glosbe.com/transliteration/api?from=Han&amp;amp;dest=Latin&amp;amp;text=%E4%BD%A0%E5%A5%BD&amp;amp;format=json&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://glosbe.com/transliteration/api?from=Han&amp;amp;dest=Latin&amp;amp;text=你好&amp;amp;format=json&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;{&quot;result&quot;:&quot;ok&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;nǐ hǎo&quot;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://glosbe.com/transliteration/api?from=Han&amp;amp;dest=Latin&amp;amp;text=%E9%BE%9C&amp;amp;format=json&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://glosbe.com/transliteration/api?from=Han&amp;amp;dest=Latin&amp;amp;text=龜&amp;amp;format=json&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;{&quot;result&quot;:&quot;ok&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;guī&quot;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a very small experiment the service didn't seem so smart at distinguishing characters with multiple pronunciations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://glosbe.com/transliteration/api?from=Han&amp;amp;dest=Latin&amp;amp;text=%E9%8A%80%E8%A1%8C&amp;amp;format=json&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://glosbe.com/transliteration/api?from=Han&amp;amp;dest=Latin&amp;amp;text=銀行&amp;amp;format=json&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;{&quot;result&quot;:&quot;ok&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;yín xíng&quot;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the documentation at &lt;a href=&quot;https://glosbe.com/a-api&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://glosbe.com/a-api&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cloud.google.com/translate/v2/quickstart&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Translate API&lt;/a&gt; might also offer what you're looking for (the console at &lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://translate.google.com&lt;/a&gt; does), but that service isn't free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15229" LastEditorUserId="15229" LastEditDate="2016-09-04T08:57:52.830" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T08:57:52.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21050" CreationDate="2016-09-03T21:42:40.903" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned, both 「一箭雙雕 」and 「一石二鳥」are equivalent  to the English idiom &quot; kill two birds with one stone&quot; . The difference is the scenario of the metaphor . You can say the two idioms are basically the same, but「一箭雙雕 」 is more decisive and forceful, while 「一石二鳥」 is more methodical and calculated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「一箭雙雕 」(one arrow goes through two condors) describe two goals being achieved by one straight forward action-- that take great aim, skill and power.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「一石二鳥」( hit two birds with one stone) also describe one action achieves two goals, but the stone has to hit the first bird and then bounds to hit the second bird-- that take skill, planing and calculation. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「一箭雙雕」focus on the result: You can describe someone dating two sisters at the same time as  「一箭雙雕 」, but not 「一石二鳥」.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「一石二鳥」 focus on the method: People say &quot; 「一石二鳥之計」( the trick that kill two birds with one stone) but not 「一箭雙雕之計」。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another term similar to the two is 「一舉兩得」( take one action and get two benefits)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-03T21:59:02.423" LastActivityDate="2016-09-03T21:59:02.423" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21053" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21054" CreationDate="2016-09-04T07:00:10.540" Score="2" ViewCount="2463" Body="&lt;p&gt;Was validating some Google translations and came upon this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rolling papers:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. 廁所用紙&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. 捲菸紙 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do say toilet paper in Chinese? The more technical term for the commonly used toilet paper is 抽取式衛生紙, what about the Western toilet paper rolls?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T02:05:03.560" Title="How do say toilet paper in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21053" CreationDate="2016-09-04T07:51:29.600" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong &quot;Toilet paper&quot; is simply called 廁紙. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the modern toilet paper,  people were using 草紙(rough straw paper) for toilet paper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for a roll of toilet paper , it is still called &quot; 廁紙 &quot; ( with classifier if needed. For example  一卷廁紙 ) and the more technical term would be 卷裝廁紙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For tissues in a box, we call it 紙巾 (with classifier if needed. For example 一盒紙巾)and the more technical term would be 盒裝紙巾 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*衛生紙 is another name for 廁紙 or 紙巾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T07:51:29.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21053" CreationDate="2016-09-04T11:27:09.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, we use 衛生紙、廁紙、手紙. Paper rolls we call them 卷紙. The 抽取式衛生紙 is called as 紙抽.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15217" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T11:27:09.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21053" CreationDate="2016-09-04T11:56:58.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;(sorry for reposting this answer, first time using the comment section and didn't like how the comment was formatted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those wanting to learn Chinese&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'll add in some other examples for those in taiwan  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衛生紙功能分類 types of tissues&lt;br&gt;&#xA;擦手紙 / 擦手巾 / 餐巾紙 napkin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;廚房紙巾 paper towels&lt;br&gt;&#xA;盒裝面紙 / 面紙  facial tissue / Kleenex&lt;br&gt;&#xA;抽取衛生紙 / 捲筒衛生紙 toilet paper &#xA;三層抽取式 3 layer toilet paper (For those who don't like the toilet paper ripping if you just had a watery one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T11:56:58.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21057" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21058" CreationDate="2016-09-04T18:36:37.890" Score="0" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have very limited access to Chinese books, but I have noticed some texts that seem to make a point of avoiding 了。Is there a discernible reason? Does it sound more educated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is from the cover of a book the author doesn't seem to be trying to write short keywords.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PJaVM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PJaVM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T02:12:51.820" Title="Implications of pointedly avoiding 了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21057" CreationDate="2016-09-04T21:28:38.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is an introduction of an novelist, listed her major works, plus some brief comments on her style and achievements. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 is mostly a &lt;strong&gt;final particle&lt;/strong&gt; that finishes &lt;strong&gt;sentences&lt;/strong&gt;, Since the text in question is basically a bulletin style list of items, it is possible to not use 了 even once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T21:28:38.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21059" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21061" CreationDate="2016-09-04T21:49:10.887" Score="0" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;To improve my extremely bad listening ability, I am watching 蘭陵王。 I am currently at a point where the protagonist is pursued and his friend joins him, instead of fleeing. The friend comments:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VKbFr.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VKbFr.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand, that 豈有此理的豈 is written in new characters and that it is a rhetorical question. I think I understand the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As a brother, how could I let fourth Prince brave the danger alone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In so doing, I have assumed 犯險 to be 冒險。But none of my dictionaries contain it. When is 犯險 used? Does it differ from 冒險？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2016-09-06T06:02:48.837" Title="What is the correct usage of 犯險?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21059" CreationDate="2016-09-05T01:23:37.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2546/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2546/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;犯&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] [v] offend; violate; &lt;strong&gt;go against&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] [v] invade; attack; encroach on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「犯險」go against danger&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「犯天威」go against  the wrath of Heaven (emperor)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「冒險犯難」take risk and go against disaster&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not in that dictionary, but I would suggest &quot;&lt;strong&gt;go and face&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is also a good interpretation of 「犯」in this sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main point is: &quot;to 「犯」something formidable&quot;  is to actively go against it, facing it, so your interpretation of &quot; to brave&quot; is quite direct and accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have assumed 「犯險 to be 「冒險。But none of my dictionaries contain it. When is 犯險 used? Does it differ from 冒險？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*「冒險」 and 「犯險」 are basically the same, differ only in degree of activeness. You can move forward to 「冒險」,  or you can 「冒險」 by not taking action; but you have to move forward to 「犯險」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*「以身犯險/以身冒險」(personally go against danger/personally taking risk)is a common four characters phrase, it mentions 以身 (with one's own body) to emphasize the  seriousness of the stake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1428/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1428/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;冒&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;strong&gt;risk; brave&lt;/strong&gt;; jeopardize&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-06T06:02:48.837" LastActivityDate="2016-09-06T06:02:48.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21057" CreationDate="2016-09-05T02:12:51.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in modern written vernacular chinese (白話文), several characters are used abusively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&quot;的&quot;, &quot;麼&quot;, &quot;了&quot;, &quot;嗎&quot;, &quot;性&quot;, &quot;地&quot;, &quot;們&quot;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the more these characters are used, the worst the article are.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore the implications of pointedly avoiding 了, or any above mentioned characters is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;authors tried to write &quot;elegantly, more beautiful&quot; article, using less, or without these characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reading some good articles, you would feel the differences. the first recommendation is 董橋, learn from him, you won't be regret.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/supplement/columnist/%E8%91%A3%E6%A9%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/supplement/columnist/董橋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hornbill.cdc.net.my/hornbill2/collection01/dongqiao/dqsw.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hornbill.cdc.net.my/hornbill2/collection01/dongqiao/dqsw.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T02:12:51.820" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21059" CreationDate="2016-09-05T02:53:48.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;犯险 is differ from 冒险。犯险 is often uesed in 以身犯险。And“做兄弟的岂能留四爷一人犯险” is the same as “做兄弟的岂能留四爷一人以身犯险”。&#xA;e.g 觊觎拆迁补偿以身犯险,伪造法院判决终被判刑。&#xA;    老汉高速公路骑自行车 只为捡柴方便以身犯险。&#xA;    军人们甘愿以身犯险来保卫我们的祖国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15235" LastEditorUserId="15235" LastEditDate="2016-09-05T03:37:47.040" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T03:37:47.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21019" CreationDate="2016-09-05T04:57:21.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;宋 司马光 《太子太保庞公墓志铭》：“至於庐舍饮食，无不尽心为之驱处，使皆完美”。这是我索到的“完美”一词最早的出处。完在古代汉语可作形容词，意思是完整的，完好的，如完璧归赵。在司马光的文章中“完美”一词应是完备美好之意。至于完美一词什么时候变成现代汉语中“完美”(perfect)的意思，这个我就不清楚了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15235" LastEditorUserId="15235" LastEditDate="2016-09-05T05:04:30.577" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T05:04:30.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21019" CreationDate="2016-09-05T06:06:15.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;there's an earlier usage of &quot;完美&quot; in 唐 dynasty. in 漢文大藏經﹒毗尼作持續釋﹒卷五:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;釋　若犯妄語。譬如大石破為二分終不可還合者。謂石大　&lt;strong&gt;完美&lt;/strong&gt;　。四覩奇觀。比丘戒淨。人天欽仰。若犯妄語波羅夷法。不得還成比丘梵行。布薩羯磨不共眾僧。如石兩分。破壞本質。失眾敬瞻。棄置不盻故。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/mobile/index.php?index=X41n0730_005&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/mobile/index.php?index=X41n0730_005&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, i would suggest the etymology of &quot;完美&quot; is derived from &quot;完整&quot; + &quot;美好&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vn0vz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vn0vz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T06:06:15.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21066" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21072" CreationDate="2016-09-05T13:46:55.773" Score="2" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;As part of my efforts to improve my Chinese, I read various books. I just started one. In the first sentences, the author uses 年頭 instead of 時期。I searched the dictionary and found various meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;start of the year &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;period &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;epoch &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;days&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;year's harvest &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do I understand correctly, that here it means period? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is the first of the periods I spent in France for advanced studies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it differ from other &quot;periods&quot;, such as 時間，時期？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U4mFl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U4mFl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T11:00:18.113" Title="Understanding 年頭 in context" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21066" CreationDate="2016-09-05T15:27:33.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;年头 just means year in this sentence。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this online dictionary will help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/4/4/8606.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/4/4/8606.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◎ 年头，年头儿 niántóu,niántóur&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) [year]∶年份&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我到北京已经三个年头了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) [years]∶时代;年月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这年头工人农民的生活好起来了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) [harvest]∶年成;年景&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今年又是丰收的好年头。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15235" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T15:27:33.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21053" CreationDate="2016-09-05T16:41:10.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;手纸:this could be more casually&lt;br&gt;&#xA;卫生纸:more formally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ask ur mother to bring back some手纸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our 卫生纸  is the best production you ll never seen,A CEO said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15241" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T16:41:10.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21070" PostTypeId="7" CreationDate="2016-09-05T17:58:52.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;Specific Chinese grammar or usage topics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;Real problems or questions that you’ve encountered&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2016-09-05T17:58:52.787" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T17:58:52.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21071" PostTypeId="7" CreationDate="2016-09-05T18:00:05.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;Anything not directly related to the Chinese language&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;Questions that are primarily opinion-based&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;Questions with too many possible answers or that would require an extremely long answer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;Simple translation requests&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2016-09-05T18:00:05.660" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T18:00:05.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21066" CreationDate="2016-09-05T19:32:18.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When 「年頭」 means &amp;quot;start of the year&amp;quot; 「頭」 means &amp;quot; start of / beginning of &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When 「年頭」 means period, epoch or days, 「頭」 means &amp;quot; unit of &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The word 「年」 doesn't take classifier because 「年」itself can function as a classifier or measuring word, we say 「一年」，but not 「一個年」, the same way we say 「一英里」(one mile),  but not 「一個英里」(one a mile)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The word 「年頭」 is a countable noun that must take a classifier when counting, we say  「一個年頭」 but not 「一年頭」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 「我到法國的第一年 」and 「我到法國的第一個年頭」mean &amp;quot; the first year I was in France&amp;quot; but 「我到法國的第一年」 empathize 年 as a length of time, while 「我到法國的第一個年頭」 empathize number of year(s) that is being counted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「我坐了十年監」 (I spent ten years in prison )  &lt;em&gt;that is a long time&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「我坐了十個年頭的監」(I spent ten years in prison) &lt;em&gt;that  is a lot of  years&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「determiner +年頭」=  determiner + period / determiner + days&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「日治&lt;strong&gt;那些年頭.&lt;/strong&gt;」  &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;The period&lt;/strong&gt; when Japanese were occupying.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「二次大戰&lt;strong&gt;那些年頭.&lt;/strong&gt;」 &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Those days&lt;/strong&gt; in WWII.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;這年頭&lt;/strong&gt;求職不易」&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;These days&lt;/strong&gt;, finding job is hard.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T23:06:14.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21073" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31859" CreationDate="2016-09-05T20:07:33.947" Score="4" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;Efforts of simplification of Chinese Characters predate the Communists by decades. I assume that all these native Chinese people in favour of simplification were infinitely  better educated than I am. While I use traditional characters, I have always thought it was obvious, why one might want some form of simplification: speed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I further assumed it was clear why none of the existing scripts was chosen: we don't want to destroy the countability of strokes, that form the basis of the radical system!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I looked a little bit into 行書 and was amazed! It appears faster on average than 簡體楷書  (perhaps this information is wrong?) and I can see  it has discernible strokes and radicals! Am I wrong? Why did people not promote 行書 instead of inventing a new 楷書-行書 mix?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or was the goal memorability? I have tried learning both and found traditional characters more memorable. I started with simplified ones, so it definitely wasn't habit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or are there too many short radicals, making it hard to categorise them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bWpfg.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bWpfg.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not proficient, so I can not use myself as the basis for comparing speeds. Today I even wrote an exam in 簡體  at half the speed of 繁體字，because I constantly had to stop the hand from writing 繁體字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-11-02T12:40:18.700" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T19:17:37.020" Title="What was the idea behind simplification, given 行書 existed?" Tags="&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3224" CreationDate="2016-09-05T21:44:04.500" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. The decision whether a character is simplified depends on the sentence it appears in. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;萬里 means &lt;em&gt;ten thousand miles&lt;/em&gt; in traditional script.&#xA;哪裡/哪裏 means  &lt;em&gt;where&lt;/em&gt;. In simplified form it would be written 哪里。But, evidently the replacing character is a valid traditional character in some meaning, namely &lt;em&gt;mile&lt;/em&gt;! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白雲 means &lt;em&gt;white cloud&lt;/em&gt;. The simplification (rather oldest form) is 白云。 But you can see the same character as a verb in traditional Chinese: &#xA;自云良家子 零落依草木&#xA;That was actually the reason for the creation of 雲 in  antiquity - clarity! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;後 means &lt;em&gt;behind&lt;/em&gt;. It was replaced with the traditional character for empress: 后 in the latter meaning 后 is both a simplified and a traditional character!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;麵 means &lt;em&gt;grain&lt;/em&gt;. It was replaced by 面， &lt;em&gt;face&lt;/em&gt;。 The latter remains the character for face in both scripts!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2017-04-22T10:53:57.257" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T10:53:57.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21073" CreationDate="2016-09-06T03:34:44.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese is much simpler than 行書, involving less strokes overall. Two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Many simplified characters were already derived from cursive forms (草書楷化). Examples include 書 → 书, 車 → 车, 興 → 兴. 草書 is much less strokes than 行書.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Simplification involved &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters#Method_of_simplification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;many different techniques&lt;/a&gt;, including removing entire radicals or portions of a character, like 習 → 习, or even reconstructing the character based on new radicals, like 響 → 响. Therefore there's many more ways to reduce strokes than relying on cursive forms alone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 行書 wasn't used because it's not simple enough. There was an attempt to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_round_of_simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;go even simpler&lt;/a&gt; during the Cultural Revolution, but it failed due to being too radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;YMMV of course; it's possible that 行書 is genuinely faster for you than Simplified, but on average less strokes = faster handwriting, and Simplified is generally faster to hand-write than 行書. See also: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/3845/2583&quot;&gt;How much faster is it to write Simplified over Traditional?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-09-06T03:34:44.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21077" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-06T21:10:42.393" Score="1" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just watched an interview in Mandarin with Jackie Chan and he gets emotional telling a story about his mother saying &quot;你给我死&quot; - you kill me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, can anyone tell me what kind of emotion &quot;你给我死&quot; would typically be used to convey. Extreme disappointment? A sense of &quot;I don't even want to know you anymore&quot;? Is it an idiom that has a deeper meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Link to interview, it's at 29 minutes: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjIZv9Y9idQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjIZv9Y9idQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user15253" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T06:15:53.753" Title="你给我死 - what emotion does this convey, typically?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21077" CreationDate="2016-09-06T23:42:45.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;at 29:02 he mentioned &lt;strong&gt;&quot;安樂死&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; (euthanasia)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at 29:16 he mentioned that his mother said &lt;strong&gt;&quot;你給我死吧&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i think that you misunderstood the saying. it's &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;I don't even want to know you anymore&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 - you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;給 - give, let&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 - me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;死 - dead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吧 - a particle ~ ok, or treat it as meaningless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, &quot;你給我死吧&quot; is roughly &quot;let me die, please&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in most countries, religions, &lt;strong&gt;euthanasia&lt;/strong&gt; is prohibited, so when a aged parent asked his son to let her die, it's unbearable for all parties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the son would be facing legal action, most likely homicide; or against his religious belief, if he do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if he don't it, he is looking his mother suffering from disease, lost of functions slowly, which is also an bad experience. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, in such situation, the emotion of &quot;你给我死吧&quot; would convey is an unbearable begging, asking someone who is close, trustable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lastly, imo, it's a question about euthanasia, beyond any languages. have a look of the book &quot;fatal freedom&quot; by thomas szasz; chapter 6 talked about euthanasia in details:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0815607555&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Freedom-Ethics-Politics-Suicide/dp/0815607555&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-09-06T23:52:17.543" LastActivityDate="2016-09-06T23:52:17.543" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21080" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21082" CreationDate="2016-09-07T14:30:42.083" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;Never heard 箸子 before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is in a lot of dictionaries I have though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from sample sentences there isn't any info about when/where this is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When/where are chopsticks referred to as 箸子?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T16:19:08.387" Title="When/where are chopsticks referred to as 箸子" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21080" CreationDate="2016-09-07T15:03:11.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;箸 is used frequently in literatures of yore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;禮記﹒曲禮上　&quot;飯黍毋以&lt;strong&gt;箸&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/liji/qu-li-i/zh?searchu=%E7%AE%B8&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/liji/qu-li-i/zh?searchu=箸&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;numerous times in 史記&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg 史記﹒宋微子世家　&quot;紂始為象&lt;strong&gt;箸&lt;/strong&gt;﹒箕子嘆曰﹒彼為象&lt;strong&gt;箸&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/shiji/song-wei-zi-shi-jia/zh?searchu=%E7%AE%B8&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/shiji/song-wei-zi-shi-jia/zh?searchu=箸&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;later, in 菽園雜記 of 明 dynasty, it recorded the rationale of people called it 筷子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;民間俗諱﹒各處有之﹒而吳中為甚﹒如舟行諱住﹒諱翻﹒以&lt;strong&gt;箸&lt;/strong&gt;為快兒&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E8%8F%BD%E5%9C%92%E9%9B%9C%E8%A8%98/%E5%8D%B701&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/菽園雜記/卷01&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-09-07T16:19:08.387" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T16:19:08.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21083" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-07T15:25:49.683" Score="-1" ViewCount="747" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems to be some kind of internet phrase? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15257" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T08:44:53.233" Title="What does this phrase mean 给你操床头柜里去" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21080" CreationDate="2016-09-07T16:12:41.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers already mentioned when and where the word 箸 came from, I would give some examples of its usage in modren Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8442/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8442/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;箸&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;|zyu6 |  (jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;|zhu4 |  (pinyin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.&lt;strong&gt;chopsticks&lt;/strong&gt;; 2.&lt;strong&gt;classifier for food&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;箸 is the original word for &quot;chopsticks&quot;, pronounced as zyu6 in Cantonese and zhu4 in Mandarin, both being exactly the same as 住 is pronounced. 住 has a meaning of &quot;stop&quot; or &quot;cease&quot; which is considered to be inauspicious. The opposite meaning of &quot;stop&quot; is sth like &quot;fast&quot;. So 快子 (meaning &quot;fast&quot;) was used and is later changed to 筷子 or simply 筷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&lt;strong&gt;chopsticks&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 擺上杯&lt;strong&gt;箸&lt;/strong&gt; - &quot;set up dining table set &quot; (杯=cup, 箸= chopsticks)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;strong&gt;classifier for food&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 挾兩&lt;strong&gt;箸&lt;/strong&gt;肉便停了筷 &quot;put chopsticks down after picked two &lt;strong&gt;箸&lt;/strong&gt;(amount of one operation of chopsticks can pick up)  of meat&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T16:12:41.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21083" CreationDate="2016-09-07T22:26:09.027" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means having very rough sex, essentially. (let you fuck from bed to the closet.) Generally used by female only, and so if a girl tell you that, you are a lucky guy and if a guy tell you that, he want you to get him from behind, which is obviously gay if you are into that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;给你 let you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;操 fuck&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;床头 bed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;柜里 inside the closet&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;去 go&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T22:26:09.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21053" CreationDate="2016-09-08T03:07:46.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;we  usually say &lt;code&gt;卫生纸&lt;/code&gt; in china,&lt;code&gt;卫生纸&lt;/code&gt;is the Simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15260" LastActivityDate="2016-09-08T03:07:46.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21066" CreationDate="2016-09-08T04:11:05.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often this kind of expression (xx头) is frequently seen in literature works or in a vulgar tone, in my opinion, there is a simple way to find out it's meaning in the context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Modify 年头 with a definite &lt;strong&gt;ordinal&lt;/strong&gt; number, e.g. &lt;strong&gt;第1&lt;/strong&gt;个年头，第2个年头，第10个，第n个年头，in such case, 年头 simply means year, the first year, the second year, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Modify 年头 with other determiners or quantifiers, such as：这（this）年头，那（that）年头，那些（those）年头，有一些（there have been some）年头了，for these cases it means an indefinite period of time, or years.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so the translations would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这年头：these years（pay attention that it's not 'this years' because it's talking about an indefinite period of time instead of a specific year, so you have to make it plural/unspecific in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那年头：those years&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些年头：equals to 这年头，both talk about unspecific period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那些年头：equals to 那年头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有些年头了，有好些年头了：there have been some years that ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you may encounter another similar expression &quot;这日头，这些日头，那日头，那些日头，有些日头了&quot;, what you need to do is to replace &quot;year&quot; with &quot;day&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这/那些日头：these/those days&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我学中文有些日头了：I have been learning Chinese for many days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I know, besides these two usage, there isn't 这月头、这时头，这分头，这秒头，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-09-08T04:11:05.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20988" CreationDate="2016-09-08T13:40:57.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;您好！这个句子中的“犯”是“经常会”的意思。口语表达中常用，不用于规范的书面表达。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15267" LastActivityDate="2016-09-08T13:40:57.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20988" CreationDate="2016-09-08T15:07:56.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In these situations I think you can just translate &quot;犯&quot; as the word &quot;make&quot;.&#xA;&quot;I'm quiet. Letting me speak in public or be interviewed will make me dizzy.&quot; &#xA;&quot;Great men will also make great faults.&quot; &#xA;Or &quot;Great men made great faults.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15268" LastActivityDate="2016-09-08T15:07:56.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21091" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21093" CreationDate="2016-09-08T15:38:58.027" Score="0" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just given some mochi by a Taiwanese host in Kaohsiung.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I decided to look up the local word and found &quot;麻糬&quot; máshǔ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a transliteration of Japanese &quot;mochi&quot;, which is written 餅 in that language. Not using either character in the Chinese version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;麻 is pretty common in transliterations but 糬 seems to be unique. I can't find any information on any other use it may have, or where it came from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is its origin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:16:31.560" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T07:17:57.860" Title="What is the origin of the character &quot;糬&quot; seeminly only used in &quot;麻糬&quot; to translate a Japanese word which doesn't use either character?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21092" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-08T16:01:39.950" Score="2" ViewCount="471" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friends in Kaohsiung just taught me the word for &quot;taro&quot; 芋頭.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked it up and found yu4 tou5 but my friends here insist it's yu4 tou2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a pronunciation difference between Taiwan vs the mainland?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2016-09-20T11:05:30.523" Title="Does 芋頭 have a different pronunciation in Taiwan Mandarin vs Mainland?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21091" CreationDate="2016-09-08T17:26:19.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Japanese is known to coin its own unique kanji: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/kokuji/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/kokuji/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;働 = ｲ (person) + 動 (move) = &quot;work&quot;&#xA;&#xA;込 = 辶 (road) + 入 (enter) = &quot;crowded&quot;&#xA;&#xA;鰯 = 弱 (weak) + 魚 (fish) = &quot;sardine&quot; &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 麻糬 (mochi) already had a kanji 「餅」, so we can eliminate the possibility of 糬 being an unique kanji of Japanese origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is found in 汊語字典，新華字典 and 說文解字  without any definition;   康熙字典 doesn't even has this entry，so we can eliminate the possibility of 糬 being an archaic Chinese character, and must be a recent creation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「糬」 is clearly a 形聲字  with 「米」being the substantial component and「署」being the phonic component, Consider the historical tie between Japan and Taiwan, 糬 is most likely a Taiwanese coined character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine the period when Taiwan was under Japanese rule, and the locals saw mochi for the first time. We can presume not everyone on the island knew Japanese, therefore people had to borrow phonetically similar Chinese characters to describe it in writing, and decided 麻 and 署 were the two characters sounded like mochi the most. Since it is a food product made of rice, the 米 radical was added to 署 soon after, and that's how the term 「麻糬」 was coined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: remove 丼 as an example of Japanese unique Kanji&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*One more speculation on when mochi was first introduced to China: Cantonese has a similar food called 糯米糍，if  Mochi was first introduced to Canton, I am sure Cantonese people of the time would had called it 東洋米糍,  or 米糍, since it was not made of 糯米&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-09T04:33:10.577" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T04:33:10.577" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21083" CreationDate="2016-09-09T02:41:25.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends .&#xA;Sometimes it means some passionate thing between lovers.&#xA;When you are fight with someone , the meaning of this phrase is abuse，just like fuck off in English.（actually it is more serious than fuck off ，but i don't know much about dirty words in English  ）&#xA;At last ，this is a rare case ， joking with friends .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15271" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T02:41:25.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21096" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-09T03:44:57.827" Score="1" ViewCount="616" Body="&lt;p&gt;大家好！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 还要 mean in this sentence?  &quot;释然啊，你现在心里在想什么，我恐怕比你还要清楚。&quot; It was in a Chinese novel that I was reading called 释然的修行.&#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15273" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T17:05:17.937" Title="What does 还要 mean in this sentence? &quot;释然啊，你现在心里在想什么，我恐怕比你还要清楚。&quot;" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21092" CreationDate="2016-09-09T06:19:03.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/83/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/83/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There'are two different pinyin of 頭 in Mandarin: |tou2| tou5|&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;頭|tou2|&#xA;[1] [n] head; hair; hairstyle&#xA;[2] [adj] first; top; start; end&#xA;[3] [n] chief; leader; boss&#xA;[4] [n] side; party; aspect&#xA;[5] classifier for certain domestic animals&#xA;&#xA;頭|tou5&#xA;suffix for certain objects, location words, and adjectives (to form a noun)|&#xA;&#xA;Example:&#xA;彩頭 cai3 tou2&#xA;頭髮 tou2 fa3  &#xA;風頭 feng1 tou2&#xA;鐘頭  zhong1 tou2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the example words contained 頭 has tone 2 reading. (I am wondering why they didn't include a tone 5 reading example.) It shows  |tou2| is the primary pinyin of 頭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T06:19:03.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21096" CreationDate="2016-09-09T08:17:44.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“还要” is used to express a high degree. This sentence means I know more about your desires than you do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15271" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2016-09-09T11:22:51.650" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T11:22:51.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21100" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21101" CreationDate="2016-09-10T16:16:58.043" Score="4" ViewCount="368" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that I understand the &lt;strong&gt;overall&lt;/strong&gt; meaning of the sentence: &lt;code&gt;He forcibly stole her bag and ran away&lt;/code&gt;. But I'm not sure about that part (一把把), neither its &lt;strong&gt;meaning&lt;/strong&gt; nor its &lt;strong&gt;grammatical function&lt;/strong&gt; (I'm not even sure if it is a single element or I've splited two and joined it :/ ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've searched the web, but it seems to be a not-so-frecuent construction. I've found it on a book (汤小团－东周列国卷－１, p.76). When I google it, I get only results for the classifier (一把). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11943" LastEditorUserId="11943" LastEditDate="2016-09-10T16:31:32.600" LastActivityDate="2016-09-10T17:08:34.477" Title="What is the meaning of &quot;一把把&quot; on &quot;他更是一把把她的书包给枪了过去“？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21100" CreationDate="2016-09-10T17:08:34.477" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 一把把 here is made up of two different grammatical units:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first 一把 is the classifier you mention. It is used to modify the action, and means something like &quot;with one grab&quot;. It emphasizes that the action happened suddenly. Here are some examples from news websites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;乘客 &lt;strong&gt;一把&lt;/strong&gt; 拉开飞机安全门&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A passenger opened a plane's door with one grab.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;男子欲跳楼好友 &lt;strong&gt;一把&lt;/strong&gt; 拉回去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  As a man wanted to jump off a building, his friend pulled him back with one grab  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;走进人家客厅 &lt;strong&gt;一把&lt;/strong&gt; 抢走手机&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Walking into someone's living room, [he] stole a cell phone with one grab  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second 把 is just the normal marker for the verb's object when it comes before the verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他 &lt;strong&gt;把&lt;/strong&gt; 书包抢了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  He stole the book bag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 一把把 is not a grammatical unit here, it just happens that two parts of the sentence put two instances of the same word together:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他 一把 抢了书包&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他 把 书包抢了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2016-09-10T17:08:34.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21002" CreationDate="2016-09-10T17:34:09.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These phrases 『这顿饭我来请』『今天我请客』『我请』 very common in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15284" LastActivityDate="2016-09-10T17:34:09.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21103" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-10T19:26:44.390" Score="0" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like both of them refer to going crazy because of something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex. 别被她冲昏了头脑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex. 你让我快抓狂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please help me differentiate when you would use which? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15101" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T02:24:17.770" Title="Difference between 冲昏 and 抓狂?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21092" CreationDate="2016-09-11T01:31:35.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually one example of a more general phenomenon. Mandarin, as spoken in Taiwan, uses weak stress (the neutral tone) much less often than Mandarin as spoken in northern areas. This is true not only of Taiwan speakers, but of other areas as well.  According to Jerry Norman's 1988 book, &lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt; (p. 149):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Weak stress (neutral tone) is an essential feature of the standard&#xA;  language, and of most northern dialects, but because its occurrence is&#xA;  lexically determined it is difficult for non-Peking speakers to&#xA;  master. Speakers of putonghua from many regions in South China,&#xA;  however, employ only a very small number of weakly stressed syllables,&#xA;  and these are chiefly limited to grammatical suffixes and particles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-09-11T01:31:35.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21105" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21109" CreationDate="2016-09-11T17:55:31.980" Score="0" ViewCount="820" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone point to the origin of this Chinese parable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“A man travelling through the country came to a large city, very rich and splendid; he looked at it and said to his guide, ‘This must be a very righteous people, for I can only see but one little devil in this great city.’ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“The guide replied, ‘You do not understand, sir. This city is so perfectly given up to wickedness … that it requires but one devil to keep them all in subjection.’ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Travelling on a little farther, he came to a rugged path and saw an old man trying to get up the hill side, surrounded by seven great, big, coarse-looking devils. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“ ‘Why,’ says the traveller, ‘this must be a tremendously wicked old man! See how many devils there are around him!’ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“ ‘This,’ replied the guide, ‘is the only righteous man in the country; and there are seven of the biggest devils trying to turn him out of his path, and they all cannot do it.’ ” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15292" LastActivityDate="2016-09-12T01:45:00.213" Title="Origin of Chinese Parable: Devils and Righteous Man" Tags="&lt;literary-chinese&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21106" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-11T19:00:56.610" Score="7" ViewCount="519" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on a dictionary tool that provides, as an auto-assist, transcription of Chinese characters into corresponding (Modern Standard Mandarin) pinyin+tones on a naive, character-per-character basis &lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; lexical parsing (the tool is intended for indexing of new terms/phrases, lexical parsing is overkill).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to make the auto-assist feature as useful as possible, I would like the assisted-transcription operation to choose the most frequent reading [1] of any individual character as the preferred default in an effort to reduce the amount of time users will spend correcting the inevitable [2] mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Python's pinyin package, based on &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/fayland/perl-lingua-han/tree/master/Lingua-Han-PinYin/lib/Lingua/Han/PinYin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin.dat&lt;/a&gt;, seems to provide reasonably good performance in that regard; but I'm curious whether there's a standard (issued by a language authority in PRC or Taiwan) list of such frequencies available, and/or whether any list exists that includes the other possible readings, in decreasing order of frequency, by way of providing a helpful dropdown list of alternates in cases where the preferred reading doesn't happen to be correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] i.e., assuming a large and representative set of textual data, if a character has multiple possible readings, the pronunciation most often assigned the character based on more advanced lexical analysis of the function of the character within a larger semantic block. For example, if within the set there are three observed instances of 为[wei4]什么 and one observed instance of 作为[wei2], choose &quot;wei4&quot; as the default transcription option for 为.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] I'm aware of characters such as 调 for which alternate readings (in this case diao4/tiao2) are equally likely, so in these cases such &quot;assistance&quot; will likely never have an accuracy rate better than 50%. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T18:26:46.467" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T18:26:46.467" Title="Is there an authoritative list of most frequent to most infrequent pronunciations for individual Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21107" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-11T23:06:48.447" Score="2" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought that 下去 was generally used in a V+下去 format. For example: 活下去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm seeing it used before a verb in this sentence?  &quot;父亲接下去说:...&quot;    And in this sentence: &quot;你这样下去会累垮的。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why am I so confused? Help. Please. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. I just realized I may actually be confused by 接 in this sentence... Possibly could someone explain it to me? :/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9734" LastActivityDate="2016-09-12T05:53:55.923" Title="Can someone please clarify the different sentence structures I can use &quot;下去&quot; in?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21107" CreationDate="2016-09-12T01:26:20.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;have a look of the 國語辭典, &quot;下去&quot; has 4 meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000105631&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000105631&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1　自上而下 - from top to bottom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2　用在動詞後﹒強調由上向下之意 - used after a verb, emphasise the action from top to bottom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3　用在動詞後﹒表示事情繼續進行 - used after a verb, showing the continuous state of the action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4　用在形容詞後﹒表示程度漸漸增加 - used after adjective, indicate the degree is increasing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the example, &quot;接下去说&quot; is equal to &quot;接著说&quot;, #3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, &quot;你這樣下去會累垮的&quot; is also #3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-09-12T01:26:20.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21105" CreationDate="2016-09-12T01:45:00.213" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;claiming this parable has chinese origin is doubtful. several themes in the text are very un-chinese, against the customs &amp;amp; culture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1　&quot;travelling through the country&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2　such travelling with a guide&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3　seven&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in other cultures, 7 might be a &quot;magic&quot; number, but it's not in chinese. we used 5, 10, 12, 3, or 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lastly, here's a link of its mormon origin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lds.org/manual/book-of-mormon-gospel-doctrine-teachers-manual/lesson-36-on-the-morrow-come-i-into-the-world?lang=eng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.lds.org/manual/book-of-mormon-gospel-doctrine-teachers-manual/lesson-36-on-the-morrow-come-i-into-the-world?lang=eng&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-09-12T01:45:00.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21107" CreationDate="2016-09-12T02:23:26.290" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answer already explained the different usages of 「下去」, &#xA;I would look into the logic behind it, and illustrate it with some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「下去」is basically [下- down / downward (adverb) + 去 (directional particle)] structure that modify a verb before it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;踢下去 kick down&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;咬下去 bite down&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;劈下去 hack down&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the three examples above, the role of 「下去 」is simple -  it  indicates which direction the verb apply to (*downward) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other use of &quot;V+下去&quot; indicate continuation of an action 「下去」= ( down the order/ continue next)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;讀下去 (keep on reading) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;唱下去 (keep on singing)  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;想下去 (keep on thinking) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It functions like &quot;繼續+V&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;繼續讀(keep on reading) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;繼續唱(keep on singing)  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;繼續想(keep on thinking) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;p.s. I just realized I may actually be confused by 接 in this sentence... Possibly could someone explain it to me? :/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;接 here is a verb &quot;to continue&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;父亲**接 下去 *说:..&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;my father **continued, *and said:...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;and&quot; in English also indicates &quot;down the order in time line&quot;. For example:&quot; catch and release&quot; = &quot;catch first then release right after&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-12T05:53:55.923" LastActivityDate="2016-09-12T05:53:55.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20897" CreationDate="2016-09-12T07:13:16.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;总是&quot; means &quot;all the time&quot;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“一直” means &quot;always&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;向来&quot; means it always like that, since the beginning. and &quot;向来&quot; always used in this phrase pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;向来&quot;... &quot;都&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn more Chinese grammer here：&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/chinese-language-course/chinese-grammar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/chinese-language-course/chinese-grammar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13141" LastActivityDate="2016-09-12T07:13:16.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21042" CreationDate="2016-09-13T05:36:54.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why translate? It's a Chinese new year. Leaving it untranslated adds the Chinese &quot;taste&quot; of this event.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, translating this is not inappropriate. It depends on the choice of the event host. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T05:36:54.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21113" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-13T13:31:31.683" Score="0" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been facing a lot of examples of &quot;why didn't/haven't VERB&quot; in English translated as 怎么不 VERB. Why don't they use 没 VERB?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已经九点了，你怎么还&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;起床？（你怎么还&lt;strong&gt;没&lt;/strong&gt;起床？）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你怎么&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;选一个更好的作文题？（你怎么&lt;strong&gt;没&lt;/strong&gt;选一个更好的作文题？）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T10:49:44.327" Title="怎么不 VERB (why didn't/haven't VERB)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21114" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21118" CreationDate="2016-09-13T13:57:19.957" Score="2" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is regarding the following sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第一印象一般很难改变。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can currently not figure out why based on the grammar 一般 is placed at the position it is in the sentence above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anybody shortly explain with grammar why it is located there and for example not at the beginning of the sentence (sounds logical to me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15302" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-11T16:00:30.090" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T16:00:30.090" Title="Explanation of location 一般" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21115" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-13T14:21:28.537" Score="1" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;The entire character 嫑 seems to be pronounced or translated to &quot;bao&quot;. What does this character 嫑 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, I'd really like to know the meaning of the middle symbol on its own as well. The top one is bù 不 (no, not, negative) and the bottom is nǚ 女 (female, woman).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest thing I could find was xī 西 (west, western). Without the &quot;bu&quot; on top we get 要 yào (to want, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm quite new to Mandarin Chinese, but am quite familiar with the basics so far. (I've complete about half-way through some popular apps.) I am very interested in how the symbols combine into new characters and change meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T03:32:57.163" Title="Meaning of 嫑 and its middle radical" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21113" CreationDate="2016-09-13T14:37:18.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right, it's quite fine to use &lt;code&gt;没&lt;/code&gt; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &lt;code&gt;没&lt;/code&gt;+V is usually used for the past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你怎么还没起床？ =&amp;gt; Why haven't you got up? (The intent is, you should have got up early.)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;不&lt;/code&gt;+V could be used for past tense, present tense or future tense, according to the relevant context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你怎么还不起床？ =&amp;gt; Why don't you get up?&#xA;你怎么不去学校？ =&amp;gt; Why don't/won't you go to school?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T14:37:18.323" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21117" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-13T17:09:51.117" Score="2" ViewCount="1332" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've found no leads as to this on the internet, and also have been unable to ask my teacher about this sentence struture. So, I hope this isn't a duplicate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering, how do I say &lt;em&gt;become&lt;/em&gt; in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Since high school started, RE became boring.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you don't exercise, you won't become fit.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you keep practicing the piano, you'll become much more skilled.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if I'm a total idiot, asking this question. I legitimately just can't find the answer, not even in my dictionary. No internet search has yielded any leads either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15304" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T05:20:29.660" Title="Chinese verb 'to become'" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21114" CreationDate="2016-09-13T17:30:24.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In typical [ topic + opinion/ comment] structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「第一印象」(the first impression) is the topic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「一般(是)很難改變(的)」( generally, is hard to be changed) is the opinion/ comment.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you write 「一般, 第一印象(是)很難改變(的), the adverb (一般) that should be followed by the verb (是) is now followed by a noun (第一印象) instead, and it is grammatically incorrect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*see comment from Enrico Brasil on your post:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Adverbs usually are placed before verbs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence has to be changed to 「一般(來說), 第一印象(是)很難改變(的)」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般來說 = generally (adv) speaking (v)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T17:30:24.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21117" CreationDate="2016-09-13T18:19:52.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For &amp;quot;become + adjective&amp;quot; it would be &amp;quot;變得+ adjective&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「自高校開學以來，RE 就&lt;strong&gt;變得&lt;/strong&gt;沈悶 」 - &amp;quot;Since high school started, RE &lt;strong&gt;became&lt;/strong&gt; boring.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「如果你不運動，你就不會&lt;strong&gt;變得&lt;/strong&gt;健美 」 - &amp;quot;If you don't exercise, you won't &lt;strong&gt;become&lt;/strong&gt; fit.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「如果你繼續練習鋼琴，你將會&lt;strong&gt;變得&lt;/strong&gt;更有技巧 」 - &amp;quot;If you keep practicing the piano, you'll &lt;strong&gt;become&lt;/strong&gt; much more skilled.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &amp;quot; become + noun&amp;quot; it would be &amp;quot;成為 + noun&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「我想&lt;strong&gt;成為&lt;/strong&gt;一個醫生 」 - &amp;quot;I want to &lt;strong&gt;become&lt;/strong&gt; a doctor.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「她想&lt;strong&gt;成為&lt;/strong&gt;偶像歌手 」 - &amp;quot;she wants to &lt;strong&gt;become&lt;/strong&gt; an idol singer.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自高校开学以来，RE 就变得沉闷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你不运动，你就不会变得健美&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你继续练习钢琴，你将会变得更有技巧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想成为一个医生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她想成为偶像歌手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T22:11:27.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21120" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-13T23:25:54.627" Score="2" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't see how this hangs together. What is '有选择地‘ doing here? This comes from a 听力专项训练。 The sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;选择工作地点是应届毕业生找工作的一个重要步骤，因为只有选好了工作地点，才能有选择地与招聘单位联系和洽谈，才能迈出与用人单位联系的第一步。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a similar vein I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们不得不悲伤地与我们的客人们告别。 If I remove 与我们的客人们 it still seems to make sense.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们不得不悲伤地告别。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if I take: 才能有选择地与招聘单位联系和洽谈， and remove 与招聘单位&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才能有选择地系和洽谈 then how should I interpret '有选择地' ??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the function of '有选择地' in my sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Could it mean: 'optimally'? 'optimally relate and discuss'??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T04:29:46.497" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T02:41:01.720" Title="What is this de 地 or deyu 地与 doing in ...只有选好了工作地点，才能有选择地与招聘单位联系和洽谈...?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21120" CreationDate="2016-09-14T03:23:49.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/33/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/33/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[粵] dei6 | [國] de5&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[suffix] used after an adjective (usually polysyllabic) to form a literary adverbial phrase&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;巧妙 (clever) | 巧妙地 (cleverly)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;強烈 (strong) | 強烈地 (strongly)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;準確 (accurate) | 準確地 (accurately)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有选择(selective) may not be a common adjective, but 有选择地 is still a literary adverbial phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有选择地&lt;/strong&gt; 与 招聘单位 &lt;strong&gt;联系&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;与(with) is preposition &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;招聘单位 (hiring department) is the object &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有选择地&lt;/strong&gt;  is  the adverb modifies the verb &lt;strong&gt;联系&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;無條件投降 &quot;unconditional surrender&quot;  is adjective + noun&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;無條件地投降 &quot;unconditionally surrender&quot; is adverb and verb&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems like that dictionary might left something out.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有选择 is not an adjective,  it is a descriptive phrase, functions as an adjective only when it is a part of an adverbial phrase 有选择地. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Descriptive phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;漫不經心 ( not paying attention)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;假仁假義 ( fake kindness)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;貪得無厭 ( greed with no limit)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adverbial phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;漫不經心地 ( absentmindedly )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;假仁假義地 ( pretentiously )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;貪得無厭地 ( greedily)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T07:57:38.727" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T07:57:38.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21115" CreationDate="2016-09-14T03:32:57.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The old character shows hands pulling a head from a woman, which I presume means helping her to have a baby rather than pulling her head off! The middle part is the head and the hands. The fact that the hands only have 3 fingers is proof positive that aliens kidnapped Chinese babies a long time ago. Everyone knows only aliens have 3 fingers!&#xA;This from zdic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/24/zy/8981.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/24/zy/8981.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9nkVU.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9nkVU.gif&quot; alt=&quot;old yao character&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T03:32:57.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21123" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21125" CreationDate="2016-09-14T03:52:38.370" Score="3" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does it mean 'another story'?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is the phrase that came to my mind first.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is there any other corresponding English phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13836" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-09-14T05:23:19.830" LastActivityDate="2016-09-16T12:34:59.847" Title="What is the meaning “这是后话”?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21123" CreationDate="2016-09-14T04:20:35.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it means that this is some description which supplements after the event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is similar to 後記, but 後記 always contains lots of statement, whereas 后話 is always both shorter and spoken by someone instead of being written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15274" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2016-09-16T12:34:59.847" LastActivityDate="2016-09-16T12:34:59.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21123" CreationDate="2016-09-14T04:40:30.663" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The counterpart of “这是后话” in English should be &quot; That is a story for another time.&quot; meaning some future events are related to the story, but not the focus of the current story arc. The author may or may not revisit it in later part of the story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-14T04:52:56.703" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T04:52:56.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21126" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-14T04:56:01.730" Score="1" ViewCount="2202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently learning the difference between zi and ze sound, and it is so hard for me to learn this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Could somebody tell the difference between them ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How to distinguish between zi and ze sound ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Please hear this recording (&lt;a href=&quot;https://soundcloud.com/reinard-wu/zi-or-ze&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://soundcloud.com/reinard-wu/zi-or-ze&lt;/a&gt;) and tell me this sound zi2 or ze2 ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13751" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T14:45:54.003" Title="What is the difference sound between zi and ze?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18158" CreationDate="2016-09-14T06:26:01.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, you saying this to someone's face? What is the context of this sentence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience people in China almost never say such things to each other, cus it's just not very polite. Cultural difference. Therefore any translations would probably come out wrong for a Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15307" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T06:26:01.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21092" CreationDate="2016-09-14T07:09:16.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I dont know about taiwan, but both ways of pronunciation( tone, specifically) are natural in mainland China. And tou5 does sound native to people in many parts of China, but I myself barely notice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries can't tell you stuff like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15307" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T07:09:16.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21103" CreationDate="2016-09-14T07:41:55.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are very different. 冲昏 means that someone is overwhlemed with certain emotion and cannot think critically. This does not mean he/she is mentally broken. 抓狂 is just crazy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15307" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T07:41:55.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20991" CreationDate="2016-09-14T07:59:34.700" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can be omitted.&#xA;Check this:&#xA;Why did you change your profession?&#xA;Why did you choose to change your profession?&#xA;Not much difference, right? This doesnt mean that 会 is equal to 'choose to'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15307" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T07:59:34.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21083" CreationDate="2016-09-14T08:44:53.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;''bang you very hard so your head hits the headboard(of the bed)''. Here 床头柜 refered to the head of the bed. Somehow there isn't a very common word meaning ''headboard'' in Mandarin，so we use 床头柜(closet at the head of the bed) instead. This setence may be used in dirty talk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15307" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T08:44:53.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21134" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21155" CreationDate="2016-09-14T12:04:45.723" Score="4" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the past few days I read through half of the excellent grammar book by Claudia Ross and Jing-heng Sheng Ma and all of the very enlightening &quot;Aquisition of Word Order in Chinese as a Foreign Language&quot; by Wenying Jiang (I recommend reading both). One of the things that the first book really managed to clear up for me was that the traditional Western grammar terms don't really transfer over to Chinese. A lot of the questions I've had about the language after studying it for several years were cleared up by learning about how stative verbs, open-ended action verbs, change-of-state action verbs, adjectival verbs, complements, etc. are used in quite different ways in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is, when I go look up a word in a dictionary, at most it's gonna say &quot;verb&quot; or &quot;adjective&quot;, which isn't very helpful to me. I know that I can just translate &quot;adjective&quot; to &quot;adjectival verb&quot;, but I wish the dictionary took into account the unique structure of Chinese grammar, rather than presenting simple, familiar terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is: are there any Chinese-English dictionaries that provide a, shall we say, less eurocentric grammar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10966" LastActivityDate="2016-09-16T11:17:54.483" Title="What are some more detailed dictionaries?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21053" CreationDate="2016-09-14T22:14:21.463" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;usually, in my family,we just say &quot;卷筒纸&quot; or &quot;手纸&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15312" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T22:14:21.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21126" CreationDate="2016-09-14T23:59:09.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It will depend on the tone somewhat. In zdic.net you can enter pinyin zi1 or zi2 and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try here for many zi &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/pyjs/?py=zi2#z&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/pyjs/?py=zi2#z&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Funnily, there are only 3 zi2 listed.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Then you can click on any character, its page will open and there is a loudspeaker icon for you to listen to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you can find a lot of ze&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/pyjs/?py=ze2#z&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/pyjs/?py=ze2#z&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I think ze has an errr sound, like when you see something you don't like in English you might say &quot;errr&quot;, lips forward, whereas zi the lips are stretched to the sides a bit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-09-15T00:30:32.283" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T00:30:32.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21126" CreationDate="2016-09-15T00:35:59.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This used to bug me a lot.  It turns out linguists disagree about exactly how to describe this, but the effect is similar either way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One school says the pinyin syllables zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, ri have a syllabic consonant and not a true vowel.  The other school calls i in those syllables an &quot;empty rime&quot;, Chinese 空韵  kōngyùn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either way there is no vowel sound, only a voiced consonant.    That is why i here is so different from in li or qi and so on where i has a vowel sound.  Zi sounds like it has a vowel e to a lot of beginners because we think there has to be  vowel sound and e is pretty neutral.  But there is no vowel sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put it another way: you can say zzzzzz for a long time with no vowel at all. To pronounce zi you do the same thing only for a short time (and of course add the right tone).  Same with sssss and zhhhh and shh and rrrr.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, ze truly has a vowel sound e.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the best explanation is in the excellent Yen-Hwei Lin &lt;em&gt;Sounds of Chinese.&lt;/em&gt;  She uses the term syllabic consonant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2016-09-15T00:50:54.807" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T00:50:54.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21134" CreationDate="2016-09-15T01:29:22.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The online dictionary &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; (a brother of Wikipedia) offers some usage notes and technical information on individual words, and they have a knowledgeable and active Chinese userbase. Some entries are a bit spotty, but you can expect most of them to be pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15129" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T01:29:22.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21126" CreationDate="2016-09-15T01:36:46.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Easy to distinguish for a native speaker. For example，“I blamed myself for this error.” In Chinese, “我为这个错误自责 (zì  zé)”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just practice，and practice makes perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15268" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-09-16T00:56:56.763" LastActivityDate="2016-09-16T00:56:56.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21126" CreationDate="2016-09-15T01:37:50.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to Colins's answer, in IPA, &lt;code&gt;zi&lt;/code&gt; is /t͡sz̩/ (basically tszzz), and &lt;code&gt;ze&lt;/code&gt; is /t͡sɤ/ (tse).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15129" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T01:37:50.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21053" CreationDate="2016-09-15T02:05:03.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“餐巾纸” in restaurant, or means “napkin”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“面巾纸” or “手帕纸”  for papers like a handkerchief&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“厕纸” for toilet paper，but it is not used in common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever the paper is, saying “卫生纸” is always right. For the daily use soft paper，we do not distinguish that much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And we will never say “厕所用纸”“抽式卫生纸”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15268" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T02:05:03.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21103" CreationDate="2016-09-15T02:29:11.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wYPA0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wYPA0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All means mad，but different types of mad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“冲昏” means you are so mad that you have already lost your mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“抓狂”means you are so mad but you do not know what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15268" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T02:29:11.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21143" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-15T02:39:19.227" Score="2" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can't quite get the meaning of 赶上 here. Any suggestions please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;像她这样一个铁路工人家庭出身、没上过大学、貌不出众的文工团演员，一步步地走到今天，成为一个集制片人、导演、演员于一身的大明星，完全是赶上了好时代。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完全是&lt;em&gt;赶上&lt;/em&gt;了&lt;em&gt;好时代&lt;/em&gt;。 totally (赶上)&lt;em&gt;in time for??&lt;/em&gt; the (好时代）&lt;em&gt;golden era&lt;/em&gt;??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赶上：to keep up with， to catch up with， to overtake， to chance upon， in time for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-25T04:40:56.703" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T04:42:16.787" Title="What is the meaning of 赶上 in ...完全是赶上了好时代?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21143" CreationDate="2016-09-15T03:05:18.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In time for, or to chance upon. I think both are OK. Maybe it'll be clearer if you understand the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is mentioned in the sentence that she was born in a railway worker family with poor education, and was a plain-looking average actress in the art troupe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(That means she should not have succeeded.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However she finally achieved her success as a producer, a director and a famous actress. If it was not for a golden era, she would not be so successful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13901" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-25T04:42:16.787" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T04:42:16.787" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21143" CreationDate="2016-09-15T03:09:03.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;In time for&quot; is the right interpretation in this context. 好时代(an era when living was great) is like a party. It has a beginning and an end. People who died before it or born after it missed out. &quot;她赶上了好时代&quot; means she was born at the right time, during a great era. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赶上 means &quot; (rushed in or hurriedly arrive) &lt;strong&gt;just in time&lt;/strong&gt;.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T03:09:03.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21126" CreationDate="2016-09-15T10:08:03.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My answer for Q1 (&quot;what's the difference&quot;) is to describe subjectively how I go about making these two different sounds. It's a simple technique I found (on internet somewhere maybe?) after around a year studying Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I say zi in any tone, for the &quot;i&quot; part I try to keep my lower jaw still, my lips almost together, and leave my tongue close to where it was when I was saying the &quot;z&quot;. It feels like a closed shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I say ze, for the &quot;e&quot; part I drop my jaw, opening the lips and moving the tongue downwards. It feels like an open shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gives two distinct vowel sounds to my ears, and seems to be good enough. It works for zi/ze, si/se and ci/ce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Q2 (&quot;how to distinguish between them&quot;), just practice saying zi and ze, using the method above and listening to the differences. For me the main difference can be summarised by &quot;closed/open&quot;: zi sounds &quot;closed&quot; and ze &quot;open&quot; to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Q3, it sounds like ze2 to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T10:08:03.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17779" CreationDate="2016-09-16T08:26:39.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To literally translate &quot; passive aggressive&quot; as 「被動攻擊」or 「消極攻擊」cannot capture the essence of this phrase. It is better to use interpretation that truly express the meaning of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My choice is &quot; 陰損&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tw.ichacha.net/hy/%E9%99%B0%E6%90%8D.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://tw.ichacha.net/hy/陰損.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;①陰險尖刻：說話～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-09-16T08:26:39.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21153" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-16T09:27:11.020" Score="2" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to say :明天晴天   or should I always use &quot;shi&quot; in this type of sentence &quot;明天是晴天&quot; ?&#xA;If both of them are right,is there any difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15323" LastActivityDate="2016-09-16T10:14:32.430" Title="sentence structure when talking about weather" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21153" CreationDate="2016-09-16T10:01:53.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;天晴 sunny (adj)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晴天 sunny day (n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明天天晴 = (it will be) sunny tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明天是個晴天 = Tomorrow is a sunny day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wrote 明天晴天, it would be a noun (tomorrow) followed by another noun (sunny day). The verb 是 (is) and the classifier(個) are omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-16T10:14:32.430" LastActivityDate="2016-09-16T10:14:32.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21134" CreationDate="2016-09-16T11:17:54.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked the same question on Reddit and was recommended the ABC Chinese-English dictionary. It uses many of the terms I have outlined by design.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10966" LastActivityDate="2016-09-16T11:17:54.483" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="459" CreationDate="2016-09-16T12:05:02.203" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese is searchable online here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://edoc.uchicago.edu/edoc2013/digitaledoc_index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://edoc.uchicago.edu/edoc2013/digitaledoc_index.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go to 'EDOC: Linear Output', select 'All' on the right-hand side (under 'ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese'), type in your characters, and click 'Display Phonetics'.  For more complicated searches, go to 'EDOC: Search'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, to give a simple example to help clarify what the OP is referring to as &quot;character etymologies&quot; vs. &quot;word etymologies&quot;, the ABC dictionary gives the following for 蜜 (mì):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘Honey’ [Chuci]. || [T] MTang mir &amp;lt; mir, ONW miit — [D] PMin *mit || [E]&#xA;  Thought to be borrowed from IE-Tocharian B mit ‘honey’ &amp;lt; PTokharian *mjət&#xA;  (Behr Oriens 1999 / 2000: 36).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above is a word etymology.  It is a loanword, of Indo-European origin, and is in fact related to English &quot;mead&quot;, Lithuanian &quot;medus&quot;, Greek &quot;μέθη&quot;, Russian &quot;мёд&quot;, and Farsi &quot;می&quot;, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A character etymology would decompose this character into 虫 (insect radical) and 宓 (phonetic), which is in turn decomposed into 宀 (roof radical) and 必 (phonetic). Both 虫 and 宀 can be traced back to the oracle bone script, while 必 can be traced back to the bronzeware script. (Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanziyuan.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hanziyuan.net&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character and word etymologies are quite distinct - while all of the components of the character are of Chinese origin, the word itself is Indo-European.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15320" LastEditorUserId="15320" LastEditDate="2019-02-04T09:13:05.943" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T09:13:05.943" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21157" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21158" CreationDate="2016-09-16T18:28:14.117" Score="0" ViewCount="1118" Body="&lt;p&gt;What phrase is said at the beginning of this music video?&#xA;There are no subtitles &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/RpG7FzXrNSs?t=41s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/RpG7FzXrNSs?t=41s&lt;/a&gt; and here&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/RpG7FzXrNSs?t=49s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/RpG7FzXrNSs?t=49s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like he says mi shong ying but I don't speak chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The phrase has been identified as 明天的声音 which means &quot;tomorrow's voice&quot; I think.  Not sure what it means by &quot;tomorrow's voice.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15322" LastEditorUserId="15322" LastEditDate="2016-09-16T20:28:47.483" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T06:42:52.177" Title="Phrase said thirty seconds to mars from yesterday" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21157" CreationDate="2016-09-16T20:37:45.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;He says 明天的声音 (M&amp;iacute;ngti&amp;amacr;n de sh&amp;emacr;ngy&amp;imacr;n), which literally means &quot;the voice of tomorrow&quot;. I think it's a symbolic answer. The two mandarins ask to the emperor what he desires, whether the fire of the sun (太阳的火, tàiy&amp;aacute;ng de huo&amp;#780;) or the ice of the stars (星星的冰, x&amp;imacr;ngx&amp;imacr;ng de b&amp;imacr;ng), and he answers &quot;the voice of tomorrow&quot; (明天的声音). I think it represents innovation: the emperor wants a new, dynamic kind of music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10944" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-13T05:49:35.250" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T05:49:35.250" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21159" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-17T01:00:38.000" Score="3" ViewCount="458" Body="&lt;p&gt;I get 'take care' or 'be careful' for 留神。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I‘ve seen '一不留神‘ translated as 'accidentally', but this guy did not write his stuff 'accidentally'. It seems to mean 'surprisingly' here. Is that right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是1970年入伍的。我主动要求当最艰苦的工程兵，我当兵10年，参与抢险、修路盖房子，还写了不少东西，&lt;strong&gt;一不留神&lt;/strong&gt;写了不少军报头条。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一不留神&lt;/strong&gt;写了不少军报头条。 Surprisingly, I wrote a lot of lead stories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T02:20:40.617" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T02:20:40.617" Title="What does 一不留神 mean ...还写了不少东西，一不留神写了不少军报头条?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21159" CreationDate="2016-09-17T01:19:27.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;his main job is 工程兵, his part-time, leisure activity is writing articles to the military newspaper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一不留神, means &lt;strong&gt;unintentionally&lt;/strong&gt; in the sentence. cause his leisurely activity has more achievements than his main job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T01:19:27.677" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21159" CreationDate="2016-09-17T01:58:41.090" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;留神 means &quot;pay attention&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一不留神 means &quot; not paying attention for just an instance&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the sentence,  &quot;一不留神&quot; implies &quot; before I notice it&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一不留神&lt;/strong&gt;写了不少军报头条&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;Before I noticed it&lt;/strong&gt;, I had already written many lead articles in Military News&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could use &lt;em&gt;&quot;Before I noticed it&quot;&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;&quot;Before I knew it&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-17T03:02:48.290" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T03:02:48.290" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19556" CreationDate="2016-09-17T03:22:22.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Tang Ho  your anwsers are correct However,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, Teaching chinese should use mandarin and not should use cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will be produce much misunderstanding meanwhile foreigners can't understand this different between mandarin and cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;錢 =&gt; 钱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等錢使 =&gt; 等钱用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浪費金錢 =&gt; 浪费金钱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金錢損失 =&gt; 金钱损失 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金錢補償 =&gt; 金钱补偿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;款/款項 =&gt; 款/款项&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巨款 =&gt; 巨款&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;現款 =&gt; 现金&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;提款 =&gt; 提款&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15326" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T03:22:22.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21042" CreationDate="2016-09-17T11:00:32.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the previous answer that it adds the Chinese &quot;taste&quot; of the saying. You could compare it to hearing 'mazel tov' which has a much richer meaning than just 'good luck'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, for Chinese people, various animals evoke different feelings for the upcoming year. For example...is it a good year to have a baby or a year to be cautious? Such cultural meaning doesn't come across in the English translation so it is easier to just translate as 'Happy New Year' if required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15060" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T11:00:32.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21164" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-17T22:52:42.323" Score="6" ViewCount="1001" Body="&lt;p&gt;One meaning of 有 is &quot;have&quot; i.e. possess. Can 有 also be used to form the present perfect tense as in &quot;I have looked&quot;, possibly &quot;我有看&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, then a follow-up question: what is more natural, using 有 or 过?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="153" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T06:23:51.547" Title="Can 有 be used to form present perfect tense?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21164" CreationDate="2016-09-18T05:50:05.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm from southern China. In my experience, 过 is used more to form present perfect tense than 有.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes people do use 有. It seems more common in Taiwan mandarin, or at least &quot;stereotypical&quot; Taiwan mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2016-09-18T05:50:05.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21166" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-18T08:22:54.633" Score="0" ViewCount="411" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently walking around Taiwan. Well mostly I'm walking, but I'm also interspersing some hitchhiking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; By &quot;walking around&quot; I don't mean &quot;here and there&quot;, I mean literally &quot;around&quot; the whole island, mostly following 環島1號線, but sometimes on other highways or smaller roads.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XBlDt.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XBlDt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;route sign&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When telling locals in Chinese what I'm doing, which word for &quot;walk&quot; is the best to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some of the words for &quot;to walk&quot; in Mandarin that I've come across so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;步行 (bùxíng)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;健行 (jiànxíng)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;散步 (sànbù)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;徒步旅行 (túbù lǚxíng)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;遠足 / 远足‎(yuǎnzú)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走 (zǒu)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;行走 (xíngzǒu)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走路 (zǒulù)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the preferred word varies by region, I'd want the one most appropriate in Taiwan. But just in Mandarin since I haven't learned any Taiwanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2016-09-18T09:25:06.297" LastActivityDate="2016-09-18T09:25:06.297" Title="I'm currently walking (mostly) around Taiwan. When telling locals this, which of the many words for &quot;walk&quot; is the best to use?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21166" CreationDate="2016-09-18T08:38:32.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;徒步環島&quot; or &quot;環島步行&quot; is most appropriate for &quot;walking around taiwan&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;環島&quot; is around the island.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;great activity, how many days you need? and where're you now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-09-18T08:38:32.697" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21166" CreationDate="2016-09-18T08:43:42.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If by saying &quot;walking around Taiwan&quot;,  you meant &quot; touring Taiwan on foot.&quot; then「徒步遊覽台灣 」is the appropriate phrase.&#xA;If you meant &quot; wandering around Taiwan on foot&quot; then saying「徙步漫遊台灣」is proper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traveling along the entire coast line of Taiwan on foot is 「環台(島)步行」; Traveling across Taiwan on foot is 「橫台(島)步行」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-18T08:59:15.337" LastActivityDate="2016-09-18T08:59:15.337" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19556" CreationDate="2016-09-19T02:41:25.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no difference between 錢 and 金錢 as you said. In usage, 錢 is more common than 金錢 and is usually used by people, e.g., 給我錢, 多少錢, 沒有錢, 很有錢. And 金錢  is sometimes used to be made sentence, e.g., 時間就是金錢, 親情是無法被金錢取代的, 金錢不是萬能的. But those both are meaning &lt;strong&gt;money&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 款 can mean &lt;strong&gt;money&lt;/strong&gt; and it always used to a specific purpose, e.g., 款項, 工程款, 貸款, 頭期款, 募款, 專款. By the way, 款 also has another meaning though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13763" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T02:41:25.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21164" CreationDate="2016-09-19T03:33:33.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can use 有 to form present perfect tense, consider the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In mainland, people usually don't use 有 (to me it sounds a bit childish and made me think of a little girl.) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Michel: 你看过 &quot;Pride and Prejudice&quot; 没? Have you ever read ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emily: (我)看过。 I have read it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong or Taiwan, looks like it's frequently used (I haven't been there but in quite a lot of TV series and variety shows the celebrities often use it, friends from there may correct me if I'm wrong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Michel: &quot;你有看(过) 'Pride and Prejudice' 没?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emily: &quot;(我)有看(过)啊，很好看的。&quot; (I have read it.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you can see, since you have used 有, 过 becomes optional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 有 and 过, in order to form a perfect tense you should at least use one, depends on which tone do you want to use from the previous examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-06T06:23:51.547" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T06:23:51.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21172" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21173" CreationDate="2016-09-19T06:52:16.460" Score="11" ViewCount="925" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming the character (and word/morpheme) 辣 is not a recent creation and goes back far in history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These days it means &quot;chili/chilli&quot;, &quot;pepper&quot;, &quot;spicy&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But chili peppers only came to China and Asia generally as part of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange&quot;&gt;Columbian Exchange of the 15th and 16th centures&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm wondering in which ways 辣 was used before chilli peppers were known to the Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was it used for other kinds of spices? If so, which, and is it still used for those now? Were other things considered &quot;spicy hot&quot; in those earlier times?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For comparison I know the 麻 of 麻辣 has various meanings besides &quot;numbing&quot; and &quot;Sichuan pepper&quot; such as &quot;hemp&quot; and &quot;sesame&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2016-09-20T02:40:10.427" Title="How was 辣 used before the Columbian Exchange?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21172" CreationDate="2016-09-19T07:38:57.423" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;in ancient time, &quot;辛&quot; was used, in lieu of 辣. e.g. in 洪範:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;潤下作鹹﹒炎上作苦﹒曲直作酸﹒從革作&lt;strong&gt;辛&lt;/strong&gt;﹒稼穡作甘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/shang-shu/great-plan/zh?searchu=%E6%BD%A4%E4%B8%8B%E4%BD%9C%E9%B9%B9%EF%BC%8C%E7%82%8E%E4%B8%8A%E4%BD%9C%E8%8B%A6%EF%BC%8C%E6%9B%B2%E7%9B%B4%E4%BD%9C%E9%85%B8%EF%BC%8C%E5%BE%9E%E9%9D%A9%E4%BD%9C%E8%BE%9B%EF%BC%8C%E7%A8%BC%E7%A9%A1%E4%BD%9C%E7%94%98%E3%80%82&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/shang-shu/great-plan/zh?searchu=潤下作鹹，炎上作苦，曲直作酸，從革作辛，稼穡作甘%E3%80%82&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nowadays, dictionary would explain 五味 as 甜﹒酸﹒苦﹒辣﹒鹹, instead of older terms 甘﹒酸﹒苦﹒辛﹒鹹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000159662&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000159662&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i guess the taste 辛 was gotten from 薑 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; ginger &lt;/a&gt;), 花椒 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanthoxylum&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; Zanthoxylum &lt;/a&gt;); that these two were native chinese plants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, the character &quot;辣&quot; is derived from &quot;辛&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;剌&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%BE%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=辣&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, more info:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the book 酉陽雜俎 of 唐 dynasty (618-907) mentioned &quot;胡椒&quot; (pepper) and associated its taste to the terms &quot;辛辣&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06073489.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;酉陽雜俎　卷十八&lt;/a&gt;, ~p112 of the pdf file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AzUAQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AzUAQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;p112&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;胡椒 - pepper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;摩伽陁國 - &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magadha&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;magadha&lt;/a&gt;, a kingdom in ancient india&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another casual found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the term &quot;辣椒&quot; (chili pepper) is first used in 漢文大藏經　百癡禪師語錄　卷三 (around 1644-1661):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;張空火傘熱難當&#xA;何處幽陰可隱藏&#xA;莫道太平無款待&#xA;濃煎幾碗辣椒湯&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/J28nB202_003&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/J28nB202_003&lt;/a&gt;, [0016b07]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-09-20T02:40:10.427" LastActivityDate="2016-09-20T02:40:10.427" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21159" CreationDate="2016-09-19T08:50:46.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the meaning of word &quot;somehow&quot; is similar to &quot;一不留神&quot;. The author didn't care about whether he's articles could be the lead stories. He just like to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For we, if we kept doing the thing all the time, we would find out that time passes unbelievably quick. After a long time had past, the author found out that he &lt;strong&gt;somehow&lt;/strong&gt; wrote a lot of lead stories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15340" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T08:50:46.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19556" CreationDate="2016-09-19T09:06:54.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;钱&quot; is usually means money, which you spend to buy what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;金钱&quot; i is the written language of money. It also emphasizes &quot;钱&quot; is valuable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;款&quot; usually is not a complete word, it is a morpheme. The meaning of &quot;款&quot; is different in different words. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;取款 withdrawl money, &quot;款&quot; usually means cash&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;巨款 large amount of currency&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;被罚款 been fined， &quot;款&quot; means money&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15340" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T09:06:54.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21172" CreationDate="2016-09-19T11:50:52.073" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;'辣' is not a accurate word for the taste that we mean. For example, as the answers above, garlic (大蒜) tastes '辣', ginger (生姜) tastes '辣', and mustard (芥末‌) also tastes '辣'. These three ones are the typical '辣' spices that have been used in cooking and meals since the very long before the chilli peppers entered. However, they have completely different tastes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T11:50:52.073" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21164" CreationDate="2016-09-20T08:59:46.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an really interesting question. It is actually a wrong usage in Taiwanese Mandarin. Since we speak a lot of Taiwanese here, the usage of adding 有 in showing past perfect is effected by Taiwanese or which called &quot;Minnan&quot; dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In standard Chinese grammar, for example:&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;I have read the book. 我讀過那本書。&#xA;----&gt;我有讀過那本書。&#xA;Have you had dinner? 吃過飯了嗎？&#xA;----&gt;有吃飯了嗎？&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you get someone who can speak Minnan dialect, it will sound perfectly smooth in Minnan. However, it became an incorrect usage that used by everyone in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15350" LastEditorUserId="15350" LastEditDate="2016-09-20T09:09:44.987" LastActivityDate="2016-09-20T09:09:44.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21092" CreationDate="2016-09-20T11:05:30.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, it is a regional pronunciation difference. I've checked the educational bureau dictionary of Taiwan, it is yùtou5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is often pronounced as yùtóu. And personally, I said this a lot too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;頭tóu:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;head ex.人頭&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;leader&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;top or end ex. 山頭&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;beginning of an event ex.從頭開始&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;measurement ex.一頭牛&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;using as adjective, beginning of, in the front ex.頭幾排&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;those just some common usages... and more you can check the dictionary (the dictionary which I used is called 萌典, a Taiwanese Mandarin dictionary)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;頭tou5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;suffix ex.舌頭、上頭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And most of the people just pronounce all as tóu here in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15350" LastActivityDate="2016-09-20T11:05:30.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21179" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21182" CreationDate="2016-09-20T13:06:38.343" Score="1" ViewCount="1095" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what Chinese people say in general when saying &quot;you should be ashamed of yourself&quot;. In Google translate I get the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;你应该为自己感到羞耻&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion this is way too formal. Is there a slang / phrase that Chinese / Cantonese people use in general?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6188" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-10-22T12:14:44.263" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T12:14:44.263" Title="How would one say: &quot;You should be ashamed of yourself.&quot; in Mandarin and Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21180" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-20T23:00:18.937" Score="3" ViewCount="923" Body="&lt;p&gt;Specifically, how would I say &amp;quot;Why not (choose) both?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Why not (do) both?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex. &amp;quot;Do you want to go to the park or go watch a movie?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Why not both?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to do some searching and found two possible answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;为什么不两者兼得?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;为什么不两样都做?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone help verify if either are correct? If not, what's the most natural way of saying it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15101" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T03:42:15.570" Title="How do I say &quot;Why not both&quot; in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21180" CreationDate="2016-09-21T00:02:57.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;为什么不两者兼得? - this is more likely to appear in books or writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么不两样都做? - this sounds more natual. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you choose to say the second one, you may want to change it a little bit by saying 为什么不两个地方都去？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would say 不如两个地方都去！as this sounds more energetic, simpler and positive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: Native speaker&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15354" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T03:42:15.570" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T03:42:15.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21179" CreationDate="2016-09-21T00:14:55.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mandarin:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你应该为自己感到羞耻 we still say it in general and it is much mild comparing to 你真不要脸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cantonese:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese we would say 你应该感到羞耻 but it is more formal, in slang/daily i usually say 我系你我會搵窿捐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: I am a native speaker for both&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15354" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T00:14:55.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21179" CreationDate="2016-09-21T00:23:26.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe: 感到羞愧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你应该感到羞愧。 I don't think the reflexive 'yourself' is used much in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For ashamed of myself there is a phrase 自惭形秽： 真让我自惭形秽。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-09-21T00:53:40.557" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T00:53:40.557" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21179" CreationDate="2016-09-21T03:02:18.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest using a rhetorical question to express the emphasized tone to the next degree:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你难道不为自己的行为感到羞愧吗？Don't you think you are shaming yourself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T03:02:18.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21180" CreationDate="2016-09-21T03:59:55.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was told for 'Why don't you choose both?' you could say '你为什么不两个都选啊？‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T03:59:55.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21179" CreationDate="2016-09-21T04:36:43.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你应该为自己感到羞耻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a correct translation for &quot;you should be ashamed of yourself&quot;. The reason you feel it is too formal is because it doesn't omit anything, which is very rare in actual conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你应该感到羞耻 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would sound much more natural. I am a native Cantonese speaker, so I would say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你應該覺得慚愧至係！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2016-09-26T23:15:21.310" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T23:15:21.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21180" CreationDate="2016-09-21T04:50:44.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Why not both&quot; is not an actual question that seek an answer, it is a rhetorical question (more like a statement or a suggestion) that pointing out the obvious solution. Therefore, I would translate &quot; why not both&quot; as 「兩樣都幹不就行了？」( wouldn't it be fine to just do both?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to translate it in a more literal way, you can say:「何不兩樣都做？」( why not do both?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你为什不 sounds like a question seeking an answer, 何不 sounds like a rhetorical question more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T04:50:44.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21180" CreationDate="2016-09-21T04:54:42.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;两者兼得 can be used like this: 两个都去不就两者兼得了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the speaker needs to let people know the subject first. (What's 兩者's 兩 is about)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I will say: 不然两个都去（选）！／要不兩个都去（选）？／两个（选）都去也行啊／何不两个都去（选）？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use 为什么, it will sound more like asking why you are not doing something. Using 何不 can show the inviting tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15350" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T04:54:42.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12572" CreationDate="2016-09-21T05:07:34.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In case where two nouns are understood to have a close personal relationship, or when the first noun or pronoun belongs to a group indicated by the second noun, 的 is often not needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ex.我哥哥、我媽、我姊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我們班、我們學校、我們教室&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Resources: Chinese textbook)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will sound casual when you drop 的. And just one thing that I found interesting is that you can say 我媽媽 or 我媽, but you can't say 我的媽 or 我的哥. It needs to be double when you add 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15350" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T05:07:34.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21164" CreationDate="2016-09-21T17:30:13.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the question is more complicated than a misuse in Taiwan. In Xinhua dictionary, &lt;code&gt;有&lt;/code&gt; has a meaning of &lt;code&gt;yield&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;have happened&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the short sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;情况有变化。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a rough paraphrase to &lt;code&gt;情况变了&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; is, of course a perfect tense word. So could we also regard &lt;code&gt;有&lt;/code&gt; here as a perfect tense word too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sadly, among linguists there is still controversy upon the issue. I would personally suggest &lt;code&gt;情况有变化&lt;/code&gt; emits a stronger feeling of &lt;code&gt;Situations have changed&lt;/code&gt; than &lt;code&gt;There are changes in situations&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider another phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有辱师门&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What &lt;code&gt;有&lt;/code&gt; means here? The phrase does manifest a solid meaning of &lt;code&gt;have shamed masters&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Something exists, which shames masters&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only consensus researchers have reached so far is &lt;code&gt;有&lt;/code&gt; doesn't act as an auxiliary verb. The word is still a transitive verb. So you feel OK when the following word/phrase is both a verb or a noun, or is often regarded as a noun, namely a gerund. But it is weird when conditions are not met.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An idea comes to my mind that we may need a 'perfect tense' scale. From the weakest to the strongest lies &lt;code&gt;有&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;过&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt;. Improper combinations of 'past tense' word and the following verb give strange impressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, I would remind you &lt;code&gt;有&lt;/code&gt; is more of an aspect word, rather than a tense word. It only implies perfect, not necessarily present. For instance, &lt;code&gt;情况有过变化&lt;/code&gt; has a stronger meaning of &lt;code&gt;Situations had changed.&lt;/code&gt; And sometimes the word's meaning is probably overrided, such as &lt;code&gt;在这几年里，情况有变化&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;Situations are changing in the past few years.&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a professional studying Chinese. Feel free to challenge me if you have different ideas. Finally I'd like to point out language itself is a &lt;em&gt;evolving&lt;/em&gt; magic, maybe one day today's misuse would become tomorrow's fashion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13655" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T17:30:13.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21164" CreationDate="2016-09-22T04:23:49.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“我有看过”= “我看过” it means I have read it.&#xA;&quot;有&quot; emphasis that have already do something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13141" LastActivityDate="2016-09-22T04:23:49.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21195" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-22T07:43:35.900" Score="1" ViewCount="390" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know, so all radicals and non-radicals that make up Chinese character have names?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, then where can I find a radical and non-radical Chinese character component dictionary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking, that if someone was teaching, they may want to use name (and perhaps also 的-descriptions, for disambiguation), when teaching them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would also have the advantage, of, adding visually impaired people understand, the various components a character was made up of, which might help explain its meaning, a pronunciation clue, or even, which I think would be very nice, a story related to the parts that make up a character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In theory, it would be nice to have a Braille system, where a long sequence of Braille characters, told the user on a Braille device (which could also speak), the exact components and layout of these radical and non-radical components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After all, blind users may be curious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r28Pc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r28Pc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Braillant display picture&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="9732" LastEditDate="2016-09-22T15:17:47.630" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T06:31:56.557" Title="Do all 汉字 components (radicals and non-radicals) have names?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21196" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21199" CreationDate="2016-09-22T07:52:53.363" Score="1" ViewCount="449" Body="&lt;p&gt;Memorizing characters is tough. For me, these two were hard (旅 and 派), until today when I noticed that the bottom right part looks just like the character 刃 (the edge of a knife) written backwards. This resemblance makes it easier to memorize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless I have a few questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What does the bottom left character component in these two characters represent?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What about the top right part of 旅?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These components seem a bit uncommon in the dictionary for me, which is probably what made it harder for me to remember them in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can I use a special dictionary on Android to look up all the characters in Chinese that have one of these two non-radical components in them, so that I might memorize similar looking characters?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pleco.chinesesystem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt;, but could not find this feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T12:43:58.463" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T12:59:07.983" Title="What do the character components in 旅 and 派 represent?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21196" CreationDate="2016-09-22T08:48:35.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/xs/65C5.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/xs/65C5.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;◎ 旅 lǚ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;〈名〉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) (会意。甲骨文字形,象众人站在旗下。旗,指军旗;人,指士兵。小篆字形,表示旌旗;从“从”,表示众人,即士兵。本义:古代军队五百人为一旅)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/zy/65C5.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/zy/65C5.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;象众人站在旗下 ( like followers standing under a banner )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1 what does that bottom left character component in these two characters represent?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That part was &quot;从&quot; (two people side by side), representing  &quot;众人&quot; (followers = soldiers)  in the original 甲骨文.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2 What about the top right part of 旅?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was a &quot;flag/ banner&quot; in 甲骨文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 &lt;em&gt;Can I use a special dictionary obj Android, or app, to look up all the characters in Chinese that have one of these two non-radical components in them, so that I mg carry exploit other characters using this criterion?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use the site linked in this post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;**the left side of 派 in 小篆 was representing &quot;river branches &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/sw/6D3E.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/sw/6D3E.htm&lt;/a&gt; (派) 別水也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T05:53:26.007" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T05:53:26.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21198" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21200" CreationDate="2016-09-22T11:14:18.547" Score="-1" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does &quot;his laughter usually at his own expense&quot; mean in Chinese? I use Google 翻譯, its answer is &quot;他通常在自費的笑聲&quot;, which is very strange to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: It is my first time to ask question here. If my question is not appropriate or needs to be edited, please let me know. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15364" LastActivityDate="2016-09-22T13:18:52.653" Title="What does &quot;his laughter usually at his own expense&quot; mean in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21196" CreationDate="2016-09-22T11:49:22.430" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;though part of the right component of the character &quot;旅&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;派&quot; look similar, they've different origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%97%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;旅 (u+65c5)&lt;/a&gt; is a character since oracle bone script, that it's composed by &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/oraclePiece.php?piece=%E3%AB%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;㫃 (u+3ac3)&lt;/a&gt;, plus 2 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/oraclePiece.php?piece=%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;人 (u+4eba)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;旅 (u+65c5) in oracle bone script:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BKkRH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BKkRH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;㫃 (u+3ac3) in oracle bone script:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E0VIN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E0VIN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人 in oracle bone script:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rNPqR.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rNPqR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B4%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;派 (u+6d3e)&lt;/a&gt;, according to 說文解字 is 水 (u+6c34) +  (u+200a2), in which  is the mirror writing of  the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B0%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;永 (u+6c38)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;永 (u+6c38) in oracle bone script:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xhPGc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xhPGc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;flip it horizontally, you've  (u+200a2):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NBLd5.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NBLd5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, about your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;what does that bottom left character component &#xA;in these two characters represent?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;㫃 (u+3ac3) roughly is a flying flag. while 水 (u+6c34) is water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;What about the top right part of 旅?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the character 旅 (u+65c5) should be &quot;chopped&quot; into 㫃 + 人, if not, you'd be confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;to look up all the characters in Chinese that have&#xA;one of these two non-radical components in them&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the components of chinese characters ranged from 1600+ to 3000+, depends on who did the research, including simplified chinese, oracle bone script, bronze script, small seal script or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;though i don't have a smartphone yet, it's in doubt that any apps in android, or ios would satisfy your need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lastly, i would recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;multi-function chinese character database&lt;/a&gt; to you, which is &quot;with archaic script forms, etymologies, english-chinese lookup, &amp;amp; word-formations phonologically disambiguated according to the cantonese dialect&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-09-22T11:49:22.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21198" CreationDate="2016-09-22T13:18:52.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Original post meant, how do you translate, laughing at own expense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An simple translation would be 笑自己 / 開(自己)玩笑 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-09-22T13:18:52.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14101" CreationDate="2016-09-23T02:47:52.230" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some recent open source efforts that have opened this up a bit. One is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/chanind/hanzi-writer&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;hanzi writer&lt;/a&gt;, which was based on the data for 3195 strokes contained in &lt;a href=&quot;http://zdt.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ZDT&lt;/a&gt; but now uses the more complete character data from &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/skishore/makemeahanzi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;make me a hanzi demo&lt;/a&gt;. It uses javascript to draw and animate the strokes, directly from json versions of the character path data. Update: Recently, the library has been &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/chanind/hanzi-writer/pull/24&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;made significantly smaller&lt;/a&gt;. As of 2018-03-02, it is also able to &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/chanind/hanzi-writer/pull/37&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;show radicals in different colors&lt;/a&gt;, based on data in &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/skishore/makemeahanzi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;make me a hanzi demo&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another great recent project is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/skishore/makemeahanzi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;make me a hanzi demo&lt;/a&gt;. It contains stroke animations for 9507 characters (includes traditional chars). This data was extracted from two free chinese fonts using a semi-automated algorithmic approach. At present, the main things of interest on the master branch are the two data files graphics.txt and dictionary.txt and a complete collection of animated SVG's of the characters. SVG's vary in size from 2KB to 45KB. If you would prefer to render the characters algorithmically, you may wish to explore some of the other branches, such as demo (check the lib sub-folder) and tools (which seems to be where recent developments are taking place). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/chaseconley/hanzi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;One more&lt;/a&gt; i've come across that uses the same data format as ZDT but which doesn't reveal license terms is worth mentioning, as the code is brief and easy to follow. Nicely done Chase! To draw a new stroke, you can grab zdtStrokeData.txt from the first project mentioned here, then cut and paste the paths for the stroke you want to draw over the string where the 'strokes' array is defined (currently line 291). Update: You also need to replace tabs with semi-colons and add a final semi-colon first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the differences between the two data formats used by the projects above, the ZDT format may include multiple paths for a single stroke, in cases where the direction of stroke changes mid stroke. The prefix format is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/chaseconley/hanzi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;explained well by Chase&lt;/a&gt;. It records the direction of stroke, whether the current path is the final part of a stroke or part of the initial paths of a stroke and whether the current path is part of a radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'make me a hanzi demo' path data (graphics.txt) does not contain stroke direction information. Also, unlike the ZDT data, a single path defines a single stroke. The stroke information is in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/paths.html#PathDataCurveCommands&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;SVG path format&lt;/a&gt;, using quadratic bezier curves. To ascertain which part of the paths represent the radical, one may do a lookup in dictionary.txt. The dictionary also contains character decomposition data in an interesting format, derived from &lt;a href=&quot;http://unicode.org/charts/unihan.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Unihan&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cburgmer/cjklib&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJKLib&lt;/a&gt;. The project page has more information on the format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11604" LastEditorUserId="11604" LastEditDate="2018-02-03T13:34:25.637" LastActivityDate="2018-02-03T13:34:25.637" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21196" CreationDate="2016-09-23T03:24:44.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the Chinese words are similar to the English words. Each English word is constructed with letters, for which the 26 letters are the standard atoms. For each Chinese word, there are also such atoms, but due to the complicity,  unless the Chinese linguists, nobody spend time on studying and remembering them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To the specific questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) what does that bottom left character component in these two characters represent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both the two words (旅 and 派), the elements on the left are the whole, i.e., &quot;方&quot; and &quot;氵&quot;. &quot;方&quot; means square and you can find it in use. For the&quot;氵&quot;, it looks like &quot;三&quot; but evolves from &quot;水&quot; (water).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) What about the top right part of 旅?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please see the picture:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LsvID.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LsvID.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;and refer to the order &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiexingcun.com/hanzi/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=2987&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.xiexingcun.com/hanzi/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=2987&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;It looks like the word &quot;人&quot; (people).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Can I use a special dictionary obj Android, or app, to look up all the characters in Chinese that have one of these two non-radical components in them, so that I mg carry exploit other charactersusing this criterion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the components are too complex, I think we only need to remember the words themselves. More exercise is necessary, and more important, writing exercise, not just typing on the computer, is important for better understanding the structure and good remembering.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T03:24:44.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21204" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-23T04:44:51.490" Score="0" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this 肠 a typo in my book？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这次探明了大石围天坑是集地下溶洞、地下原始森林、珍稀动植物以及地下暗河于一体的世界第二大天坑。 短肠蕨类植物比恐龙时期的桫椤还要古老。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;短&lt;strong&gt;肠&lt;/strong&gt;蕨类 ： short &lt;em&gt;intestined&lt;/em&gt; fern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can 肠 refer to the trunk of a tree, the stem of a plant or somehow the length of the leaves??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T04:52:31.127" Title="Is this 肠 a mistaken character?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21204" CreationDate="2016-09-23T04:52:31.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it's not a typo, surely there is a kind of plant called 短肠蕨, the latin name of which is Allantodia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Details can be found at: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eflora.cn/sp/Allantodia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.eflora.cn/sp/Allantodia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T04:52:31.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19250" CreationDate="2016-09-23T06:42:38.980" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some audio resources you can find online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://i.youku.com/i/UMzk3NTQ2NTYxMg==?spm=0.0.0.0.2gJYWR&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Four recital audios in 乐山方言 by a native speaker&lt;/a&gt;, which maybe useful for audition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kw=%E5%B2%B7%E6%B1%9F%E8%AF%9D&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;A community of 岷江话&lt;/a&gt;：there are some resources&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my first answer in the community, if my answer is not appropriate, please let me know. Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15369" LastEditorUserId="15369" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T07:12:36.677" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T07:12:36.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21207" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21222" CreationDate="2016-09-23T07:45:31.377" Score="2" ViewCount="842" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, this comic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E3WMM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot; copyright Duncan Lin Design, image bears attribution &quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E3WMM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; title=&quot; copyright Duncan Lin Design, image bears attribution &quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it literally about peeling shrimps or is there a figurative meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15370" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T07:53:34.540" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T05:21:55.670" Title="What does peeling shrimps mean in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21208" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35388" CreationDate="2016-09-23T07:53:06.150" Score="6" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder if this is even the right place to ask this question but I couldn't figure another place so here I am. What is the difference between these two characters? If none, then why are there two different unicode code points?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15371" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T00:30:42.713" Title="(女 vs 女): Unicode points U+5973 vs U+F981" Tags="&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21208" CreationDate="2016-09-23T08:38:15.923" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;the wiki page explains the situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJK_Compatibility_Ideographs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJK_Compatibility_Ideographs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;briefly, u+f900 - u+faff is reserved for duplicated characters from south, north korea, taiwan, &amp;amp; japan, slowly for backward compatibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fyi, there's another ⼥ (u+2f25), this one is for representing the radical ⼥ only. for normal text usage, the 女 (u+5973) should be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T08:38:15.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21210" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:55:49.340" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T13:55:49.340" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T13:55:49.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21211" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:55:49.340" Score="0" Body="Questions about the identification of Chinese characters, especially characters seen in photos and other visual materials." OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-09-27T08:00:26.810" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T08:00:26.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21212" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:56:43.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This tag encompasses all questions that are about the learning process itself, including materials, techniques, memorization strategies, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that it's &lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt; easy to ask questions like these that are off-topic. Make sure your question follows the general &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask&quot;&gt;guidelines&lt;/a&gt;, otherwise it may attract close votes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few rules of thumb: try as much as possible to ask questions that define a practical issue, and that can be answered objectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Asking for recommendations based on your specific situation and background is off-topic, as the answers will probably benefit only you, e.g. &amp;quot;I just got my HSK 5, what should I do next?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;How can I improve my X&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why &amp;quot;How can I improve my X&amp;quot; is off-topic even though other people might find the answers useful, is because everybody's learning process is different. So answers to such a question simply can not be objective. Everybody here is happy to help you learn Chinese when you encounter difficulties, however open-ended personal questions are just not a very good fit for the format of this Q&amp;amp;A site (see more &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1827&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Asking for learning resources is also likely going to be off-topic, as it's &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1860/are-requests-for-resources-on-topic&quot;&gt;very hard&lt;/a&gt; to ask a good question about that. Make sure you check the dedicated thread first: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/1120&quot;&gt;Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T23:31:50.180" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T23:31:50.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21213" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:56:43.163" Score="0" Body="For questions about the process and techniques used to learn Chinese or its topolects." OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T23:31:50.180" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T23:31:50.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21208" CreationDate="2016-09-23T15:13:57.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed, this should be a stackoverflow question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unicode are mean to put all the world language into a single coding page, it has no intention to unified different language character. Maintaining individual language in different codepage help solve some old encoding-decoding issues. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, there is more &lt;code&gt;repeated&lt;/code&gt; unicode character than you can imagine, it is part of language &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoglyph&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Homoglyph&lt;/a&gt;. For example, a latin &quot;o&quot; , greek &quot;o&quot; and cyrillic &quot;o&quot; looks similar but use their own codepage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T15:20:46.933" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T15:20:46.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21215" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21221" CreationDate="2016-09-23T19:07:46.040" Score="-2" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anyone can tell me the meaning of the picture's ideogram?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://s21.postimg.org/q6hqzyedj/Ideogram.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Ideogram&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15372" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-14T16:48:50.287" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T16:48:50.287" Title="What's the meaning of this ideogram?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-09-25T19:44:42.623" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12572" CreationDate="2016-09-24T00:17:50.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, please be aware that 妈 and 妈妈 are ofen used by someone self, 妈妈 especially 母亲 is used for other people's mother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 妈, 妈妈 and 母亲 is using from natural to formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爸爸，你看到我妈在哪里了吗？Hey Daddy, Do you know where is  mummy？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汤姆，这是我妈妈. Tom, this is my mum/mother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杰克，你妈妈身体好些了吗？Jack, do your mother feel better in these days?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杰瑞，请问您母亲叫什么名字？Jerry, may I have your mother's name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2479" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T00:17:50.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21219" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21220" CreationDate="2016-09-24T01:38:21.123" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a potholer myself, I'm not up on the technical terminolgy. Is 天坑 a sinkhole, or is there some other technical term?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-09-25T00:18:35.440" Title="Is the potholing term for 天坑 sinkhole?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21219" CreationDate="2016-09-24T03:01:03.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just 'Tiankeng', perhaps because this large karst topography exists mainly in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2005年，国际喀斯特天坑考察组在重庆、广西一带大规模考察后，“天坑”这个术语在国际喀斯特学术界获得了一致的认可，并开始用汉语拼音“Tiankeng”通行国际。这是继峰林（Fenglin）和峰丛（Fengcong）之后，第三个由中国人定义并用汉语和拼音命名的喀斯特地貌术语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See in &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9%E5%9D%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15369" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T03:01:03.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21215" CreationDate="2016-09-24T05:14:55.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Going to make a wild guess here, the picture looks like the simplified character of 壽 (&lt;strong&gt;寿&lt;/strong&gt;)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This character is often seen during Chinese new year, where people wish others a long life, for ex. 祝人長壽, 萬年長壽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the picture, it looks like it's carved on a rock, these are often seen in souvenir shops that sell small trinkets with Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T05:14:55.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21207" CreationDate="2016-09-24T05:21:55.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely agree with the above comment by Tang Ho. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The comic is written by a Taiwanese artist using the pen name Duncan. If you see him in the public, he always has a face mask of his comic book character on. In past interviews, duncan explains that when he's in public, he wants to observe human behaviors and draw about them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This comic strip is about eating food that are tasty, but are tedious and time consuming. Shrimp shells take a long time to peel (about 10 secs, 30 if the shrimp is hot). We all love eating shrimp, but the peeling time, and the seafood smell on your hands just make it too tedious to eat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: An all you can eat BBQ shop called  燒肉屋, located in Kaohsiung Taiwan was famous for helping its customers peel the shrimp shell in front of their customers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T05:21:55.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21219" CreationDate="2016-09-25T00:18:35.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Gangosa In gaming community among Chineses, 天坑 also means low-skilled players and trolls. It's just another interesting fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15379" LastActivityDate="2016-09-25T00:18:35.440" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21225" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-25T03:22:00.270" Score="1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my Memrise Chinese courses 煎 seems to be translated inconsistently and I'm always getting it wrong. This also leads to confusion when I'm looking at menus in real life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that the dictionaries I generally use are also not consistent with each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case English speakers who are not into cooking are not always clear on the differences between these terms and cooking methods, which might be part of the reason for inconsistency is the flashcard courses. Even moreseo given that many English speakers are actually imperfect second language speakers and are still active on language learning sites, forums, flashcard sites, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So out of English &quot;braise&quot;, &quot;pan fry&quot;, and &quot;sauté&quot;, which is the best fit for 煎?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course languages don't map 1:1 so the Chinese might be &quot;between&quot; two or all of the English words, or might overlap two or all of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2016-09-25T11:11:59.353" Title="For the character/word 煎, which of the English words &quot;braise&quot;, &quot;pan fry&quot;, &quot;sauté&quot; are the best way to think of it?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21225" CreationDate="2016-09-25T03:45:03.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best fit would be &quot;pan fry&quot; or &quot;sear&quot; - cooking with a small amount of fat, typically in a shallow pan. 煎 goes with such foods as steak, fish filet, pancake, eggs (sunny-side-up or over-easy, not scrambled) ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI, saute or stir-fry is &quot;炒&quot; and braise is usually rendered &quot;紅燒&quot; in menus and recipes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2016-09-25T03:45:03.897" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21225" CreationDate="2016-09-25T11:11:59.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely a question that requires cultural understanding as well as a knowledge of different cuisines.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I usually translate like this:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;braise -&gt; 滷 (ex: 滷味)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;pan fry, sear, saute, stir fry -&gt; 炒, 煎 (炒飯, 煎餃) This group is often up for debate.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;cook in water -&gt; 煮 (煮飯, 煮水餃)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;**side note: One way to think about cooking terms will be to think of dumplings&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鍋貼(pot stickers), 煎餃(fried dumpling), 水餃(dumpling cooked in water), 蒸餃(steamed dumplings)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Most people would consider 鍋貼(pot stickers) and 煎餃(fried dumpling) as the same thing. Apparently not, I recently asked a breakfast shop what is the difference and they said 鍋貼 uses more oil and also steams the dumplings while 煎餃 use less oil and don't steam the dumplings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-09-25T11:11:59.353" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21228" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21232" CreationDate="2016-09-25T19:22:36.153" Score="3" ViewCount="326" Body="&lt;p&gt;「暗戀」literally means &quot;hidden relationship&quot;, but sometimes I found it also means &quot;have a crush on someone&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering which one is the more common translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12341" LastActivityDate="2016-09-25T23:09:00.847" Title="How to translate「暗戀」to English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21228" CreationDate="2016-09-25T19:38:52.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;the individual meaning of the characters may not directly express the meaning of the word they combine to create, a crush can be considered a secret desire so I would imagine that crush is the correct translation.  my dictionary says anlian means 'to be secretly in love with'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15362" LastActivityDate="2016-09-25T19:38:52.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21228" CreationDate="2016-09-25T23:09:00.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;暗戀 is usually translated as having a crush, the chinese word usually means that the subject being crushed on does not know of it, while I feel the english word for crush can be interchanged with &quot;like / have feelings for / fancy someone&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-09-25T23:09:00.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21233" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-26T04:11:29.333" Score="1" ViewCount="613" Body="&lt;p&gt;Breaking down each word it means thousand autumns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does this mean a playground swing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a local cantonese word or is it used in mandarin too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15390" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T11:11:48.920" Title="Why does 千秋 mean a swing?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21233" CreationDate="2016-09-26T05:19:17.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong Cantonese call playground swing &quot;韆鞦&quot;. (we consider 鞦韆 / 秋千 a Mandarin term )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/36669/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/36669/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;鞦韆&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;cau1 cin1&lt;/em&gt;   (jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;qiu1 qian1&lt;/em&gt;  (pinyin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;swing; trapeze&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[粵] &lt;strong&gt;韆鞦&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong, 韆鞦 is often written as 千秋 by people who either didn't know the correct characters or just want to use characters that have less stokes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can tell from the context of a sentence that we are talking about &quot;swing&quot; or  &quot;thousand autumns&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;more reference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A7%8B%E5%8D%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A7%8B%E5%8D%83&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-26T05:39:12.810" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T05:39:12.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20916" CreationDate="2016-09-26T06:37:22.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/19727884&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zhihu post&lt;/a&gt; might be of help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not just southwest, many topolects, including even the good old Beijing dialect, read 去 along the lines of &lt;code&gt;qie&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;khe&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The OP's quoted text used the character 朅, probably to distinguish it from the standard mandarin &lt;code&gt;qu&lt;/code&gt;, but in fact it is just 去 but with a different sound.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T06:37:22.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21233" CreationDate="2016-09-26T08:17:49.630" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mandarin, it's 秋千 (ie the two characters reversed), and 千秋 doesn't mean swing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It actually has some connection with thousand years. Every swing cycle represents a year of life and you do it many times as a wish for longevity of the child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T08:17:49.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21233" CreationDate="2016-09-26T08:48:19.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;in 唐 dynasty (618-907), there're records of 千秋:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the peom 樓前 by 王建&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;天寶年前勤政樓&#xA;每年三日作千秋&#xA;飛龍老馬曾教舞&#xA;聞著音聲總舉頭&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another one is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E6%BC%A2%E6%AD%A6%E5%B8%9D%E5%BE%8C%E5%BA%AD%E7%A7%8B%E5%8D%83%E8%B3%A6%EF%BC%88%E4%B8%A6%E5%BA%8F%EF%BC%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢武帝後庭鞦韆賦&lt;/a&gt; by 高無際, which stated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;況鞦韆者﹒千秋也﹒&#xA;漢武祈千秋之壽﹒&#xA;故後宮多鞦韆之樂&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;later, in 記纂淵海　卷八十九, by 潘自牧 (~1195) of 宋 dynasty (p33-34 of pdf file);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06065623.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/06065623.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that the term &quot;鞦韆&quot; was elaborated. mr 潘 claimed that, according to mr 高:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;鞦韆﹒漢武帝後庭之戲﹒&#xA;本云千秋﹒祝壽之詞也﹒&#xA;語訛轉為秋千﹒後人乃旁加革&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VQsBa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VQsBa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9ZqXr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9ZqXr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;briefly, it's 千秋  --&gt; 秋千 --&gt; 鞦韆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;back to the original question, the game &quot;swing&quot; in cantonese is &quot;千秋&quot;, which share the meaning &quot;thousand autumn&quot;, a term for wishing for longevity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lastly, i would say that it's one of the numerous evidences, that cantonese is highly correlated with middle chinese. or, one might say that cantonese preserve more / change less than other &quot;dialects&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T08:48:19.230" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21239" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-26T12:35:03.313" Score="1" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;could you explain, please, why we use 上 with some verbs? and with some 下？does it depends on the verb? 广场上停得下10辆车 10 cars can be placed here. 天安门照得上吗？Can you take picture of Tiananmen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13769" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T16:01:51.600" Title="How to explain usage of 照得上 站得下" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21239" CreationDate="2016-09-26T18:33:06.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;停得下 = [&lt;strong&gt;停&lt;/strong&gt; verb]+[&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt; potential particle]+[&lt;strong&gt;下&lt;/strong&gt; directional particle]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;照得上 = [&lt;strong&gt;照&lt;/strong&gt; verb]+[&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt; potential particle]+[&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt; directional particle]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 广场上停得下:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;停 is the verb for &quot;to stop / to park&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得 is the potential particle for &quot;able to&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;下 is the directional particle for &quot;down&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;广场上停得&lt;strong&gt;下&lt;/strong&gt;=  able to park &lt;strong&gt;down&lt;/strong&gt; on the square&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 天安门照得上:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;照 is the verb for &quot;to take picture&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得 is the potential particle for &quot;able to&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上 is the directional particle for &quot;onto&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天安门照得&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt; =  able to take picture of Tiananmen Square &lt;strong&gt;onto&lt;/strong&gt;(the camera)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are only two potential particles. They are &quot;得&quot; and &quot;不&quot; , so it is easy to remember. You potentially, either able to, or unable to preform an action (verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many more directional particles such as &quot; up, down, in, out, &quot;&#xA;we choose different directional particle depend on how a verb act on an object. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;放上 (lay upon) - 放得上 / 放不上 (able/unable to lay it upon )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丢下 (drop down) - 丢得下 / 丢不下 (able/unable to drop it down)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;插入 (insert in)- 插得入 / 插不入 (able/unable to insert it in)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;取出 (take out) - 取得出 / 取不出 (able/unable to take it out)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*There are too many particles to explain them one by one. You just have to memorize each of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T18:33:06.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21241" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21253" CreationDate="2016-09-26T18:37:18.150" Score="2" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither mdbg.net nor Yellowpage nor Pleco seem to know this word, though it seems to be common. It stumbled over it in the first HSK4 mock test:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个节目我一直在看,它介绍了很多生活中的小知识,包括怎样选择牙 膏,擦脸应该用什么毛巾,怎样远离皮肤病等等。很多以前我没有注意到的 问题,现在通过它了解了不少。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought it must be to clean one's face or something similar. A &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.pcbaby.com.cn/qzbd/12762.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;web result&lt;/a&gt; suggests you can use Vaseline for it, so it's focus might be more on grooming rather than cleaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, what does this mean and why don't dictionaries know that? Is it very colloquial?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15394" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T03:33:24.913" Title="What's the meaning of 擦脸?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21241" CreationDate="2016-09-26T19:02:51.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;擦脸 is not a single word but a verb (擦 cā: wipe) plus a noun (脸 liǎn: face) that serves as an object. &quot;擦脸应该用什么毛巾&quot; means &quot;what kind of towel you should use to wipe your face [dry]&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T19:02:51.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21179" CreationDate="2016-09-26T21:04:05.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;你怎么好意思&#xA;Which means why you do not feel shamed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15396" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T21:04:05.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21117" CreationDate="2016-09-27T05:20:29.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;These three sentence can actually be translated in this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since high school started, RE became boring.&#xA;（学校）开学后，RE就变得无聊。 (words in the parenthesises can be omitted. You don't have to specify it's high school here.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't exercise, you won't become fit.&#xA;如果你不运动，就不会有好身材。（for body shape）&#xA;or 如果你不锻炼，身体就不会好。(for health)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you keep practicing the piano, you'll become much more skilled.&#xA;如果坚持练琴，你会弹得更好。&#xA;or 如果坚持练琴，你会更加出色。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above translations would best suit the context of verbal Chinese. When speaking Chinese, you try to use simpler words and shorter sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you translate each word into corresponding Chinese word, the sentence would be verbose and sound awkward/weird to local people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15398" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T05:20:29.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21247" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21251" CreationDate="2016-09-27T07:03:06.233" Score="2" ViewCount="940" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 喝 and 饮 seem to mean 'to drink', but is there nuance beyond this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="153" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T16:52:04.593" Title="What is the difference between 喝 and 饮?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="253" CreationDate="2016-09-27T07:36:07.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;会VS能VS可以&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.“会”means can, and always means to learn a skill,and then can do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 我以前不会游泳，跟老师学习一个月以后，现在我会游泳了。&#xA;I can not swim before, after I study with a teacher for one month, I can swim now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 我不会开车。&#xA;I don’t know how to drive.&#xA;You know in China, citizens can only get the drive license after they are 18 years old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“能”means be able to.&#xA;1) 我喝酒了，所以不能开车。&#xA;I drink, so I can’t drive a car.    &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 我生病了，今天不能上班。&#xA;I’m sick today, so I can’t go to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“可以”emphasize permission.&#xA;After knocking on the door, and then you can say &#xA;A：我可以进来吗？May I come in?&#xA;B: 可以。/不可以。Yes,you can./No, you cannot.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this reply is not polite. Chinese always answer “不好意思，请稍等”.That means “ Sorry, wait a moment please.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also can check this video:How to differentiate &quot;会&quot;, &quot;能&quot; and &quot;可以&quot;？It can answer your question.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/hui-neng-keyi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/hui-neng-keyi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T07:36:07.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21247" CreationDate="2016-09-27T07:54:40.927" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;饮 is more of a classical term which mostly exists in established words and phrases: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As verb: 饮酒, 饮水思源，饮鸩止渴, 饮泣, 饮恨, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As (part of) noun: 饮品, 饮料, 饮片, 饮具, 冷饮, 饮食, 饮用水, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 喝 in everywhere else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually you don't create words and phrases with 饮. I tried a few and they all sound funny:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;饮可乐, 饮咖啡, 饮西北风, 饮汤 -- DON'T EVER USE THESE.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T07:54:40.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21247" CreationDate="2016-09-27T13:41:29.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The clue is in 飲食 and 吃喝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, 吃喝 is more colloquial and 飲食 is more literal, (it is the other way around in Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In practical usage&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 飲  and 喝 can be a verb for &quot;to drink&quot;  for example: 飲湯，飲酒，飲水; 喝湯，喝酒，喝水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 喝  can also be a verb for &quot;to shout&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/230/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/230/&lt;/a&gt; , for example: 呼喝，大喝, 喝止&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since 飲 as a verb can only means &quot;to drink&quot; we can easily add adverb  to modify it , for example :  狂飲，痛飲, 暢飲，but it would be difficult for 喝, for example:  大喝 can means&quot; freely drink&quot; or  &quot; loudly shout&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;飲 can be  (part of) a noun for &quot;beverage&quot;, for example: 冷飲，熱飲, 飲品; 喝 cannot.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In summary&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a verb for &quot; to drink&quot;, 飲 and 喝 are interchangeable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;飲 is more colloquial and 喝 is more literal. (Cantonese)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;喝 is more colloquial and 飲 is more literal. (Mandarin)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;飲 can be part of a noun; 喝 cannot.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-27T16:52:04.593" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T16:52:04.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21241" CreationDate="2016-09-27T14:03:12.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Christopher's right that the base meaning of 擦 is &quot;wipe.&quot; I hear (and say) it most often in the phrase 擦黑板 (&quot;erase the blackboard&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would just add that because the meaning of 擦 is pretty general, the correct interpretation of 擦脸 will depend on context.  It might mean “wipe your face with a handkerchief&quot;, &quot;dry your face with a towel&quot;, &quot;wash your face&quot;, etc.  In your example sentence, I would actually be inclined to interpret it to mean &quot;wash your face,&quot; but it's not super clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to give you an additional datapoint, here's a definition and example sentence from &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyu.baidu.com/zici/s?wd=%E6%93%A6%E8%84%B8&amp;amp;tupu=01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu dictionary&lt;/a&gt; (emphasis mine): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用毛巾等&lt;strong&gt;揩脸；洗脸&lt;/strong&gt;。 陈白尘 《无声的旅行》:“我们在五分钟之内完成了&lt;strong&gt;起床、穿衣、擦脸等&lt;/strong&gt;一连串动作。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case the context makes it clear that the meaning is &quot;wash your face&quot; to go along with the rest of the morning routine of getting up and getting dressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15399" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T14:03:12.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21254" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-27T22:47:23.440" Score="2" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;Researchers have used/cited the Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese for finding disyllabic compound words and characters with top-bottom and left-right construction. However I haven't found this information/filter on the site -- only sorting by part of speech. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Traditional Chinese Psycholinguistic Database has been helpful but not comprehensive enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm designing materials for a research project comparing simplified readers and traditional readers, so being able to compare frequencies between characters of the two systems is important. I haven't found a research article that compared the two systems AND provided an appendix of the materials. any suggestions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Various sources categorize simplification methods differently and only list some examples. Does a more comprehensive list exist? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where can I find a list of simplified radicals and their traditional counterparts? a list of disyllabic compound words sorted by frequency? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any resources would be appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15408" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T23:03:04.083" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T23:05:28.613" Title="Is there a database/application that sorts characters based on pronunciation, radical, frequency; and disyllabic compound words by frequency?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21255" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-28T00:30:56.290" Score="0" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably an impossible question to answer, just a style thing, but why did the writer use 甩 twice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“在台上，你的手是不是被什么东西扎了一下？ 快结束时我看你微微甩了甩手，你平时被东西扎着时就是这样子。“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我看你微微甩了甩手 I saw you flick your hand slightly (I suppose I could write: I saw you give a slight flick of your hand 'a flick of your hand': （一个）甩手)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would 微微甩了手 be acceptable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T12:47:30.030" Title="Why use 甩 twice?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21255" CreationDate="2016-09-28T01:47:29.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;user6065 is right about the grammar of course.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as your question about why the writer would use reduplication of 甩 in addition to a separate adverb like 微微， I'm not sure there's a better answer than &quot;that's what Chinese speakers like to do.&quot;  I'm not a native speaker, but I've lived in (southern) China for a good while. Based on the ear test, I'm not sure I've actually ever heard someone say 微微， while I hear reduplication of verbs to express the that meaning all the time.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to word choice, I heartily endorse the principle of mindless conformity.  Until we reach fluency, we second language learners are the slaves, native speakers are the masters, and we should always remember that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15399" LastEditorUserId="15399" LastEditDate="2016-09-28T01:54:01.193" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T01:54:01.193" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21257" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-28T02:55:06.510" Score="3" ViewCount="540" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I looked up the Chinese word for &quot;survive&quot; so far I only came up with &quot;生存&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the glosses into English 生存 cover &quot;live&quot;, &quot;exist&quot;, &quot;subsist&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be quite different from the common English meaning og getting through dangerous event unscathed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a better Chinese word that has that meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T01:56:22.597" Title="Is there a better word than 生存 for uses such as &quot;I survived the typhoon&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21257" CreationDate="2016-09-28T03:11:49.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the good question. It's always interesting to see the cultural difference between English speaking countries vs Chinese speaking countries.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Common phrases for surviving a typhoon would be 度過颱風 -&gt; survived a typhoon  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's often combined with 平安 -&gt; peacefully (平安度過颱風), which shows the religious cultural side of Chinese (referencing Taoism &amp;amp; Buddhism). It feels like there is a sense of acknowledgement and respect of nature, like it something can one cannot prevent/stop. In English speaking countries, one would hardly ever describe surviving a typhoon as hoping for a peaceful outcome. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生存 is highly influenced by pop culture like zombies and survival (live or die) type situations. Games like《How to &lt;strong&gt;Survive&lt;/strong&gt;》, are translated as 殭屍&lt;strong&gt;生存&lt;/strong&gt;遊戲.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastEditorUserId="15213" LastEditDate="2016-09-28T03:22:14.420" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T03:22:14.420" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21159" CreationDate="2016-09-28T03:18:43.027" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“一不留神”means &quot;没注意到变化或情况&quot;&#xA;eg:&#xA;&quot;我早上跑步的时候，一不留神踩到狗屎了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13380" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T03:18:43.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21257" CreationDate="2016-09-28T03:21:08.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's better to say:&quot;幸存&quot;。That means someone go through some bad things such as disaster or serious illness, and still be alive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15409" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T03:21:08.307" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21255" CreationDate="2016-09-28T03:23:52.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Referred from another site: &quot;汉语有些动词可以重叠使用，用来表示短时、尝试或反复多次，带有一种轻松的口气。&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinaqw.com/hwjy/hykt/200806/11/119975.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinaqw.com/hwjy/hykt/200806/11/119975.shtml&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate it as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, some verbs can be used in an overlapping/repetitive way to signify short-time action, trying something or do something again and again, accompanied with a soft and relaxed tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this ABAB-like structure, sometimes you can map it as &quot;A+ed a bit/slightly&quot;, use -ed because it's a past action, besides the time period is really really short like in no time(practically or emotionally you want to de-emphasize the action).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;甩了甩手 -&gt; flicked his hand a bit/slightly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他看了看手表 -&gt; he took a quick look at his watch. (a quick look still has some meaning of 'slightly' to me)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;奥巴马拉了拉领带 -&gt; Obama slightly pulled his tie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but 奥巴马 doesn't 打了打领带, 打领带 really takes time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jack 打了打篮球. -&gt; I want to emotionally de-emphasize the action 打篮球 here, I think he didn't play for a long time, maybe made some shots and left and that's it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And some opposite examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我吃了吃饭. also, 我喝了喝水, 我上了上班&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wrong, it violates the &quot;short-time&quot; action rule, since nobody can have dinner in no time, the same for work(上班)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you only say 我吃（完/过）饭了. 我上（完/过）班了.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他正在眨了眨眼. 正在: be doing sth. 眨眼: blink&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wrong, ABAB usually don't fit the progressive tense, better as a past simple tense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can say: 他眨了眨眼&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To comprehend ABAB structure, you will need a whole book, but hope these simple rules helps you out a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T03:23:52.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21257" CreationDate="2016-09-28T03:36:48.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Major Update&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the word &quot;survive&quot; contains more than one meaning, it may be necessary to translate different definition to different Chinese word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/survive&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/survive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;verb (used without object), survived, surviving.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to remain alive after the death of someone, the cessation of something, or the occurrence of some event; continue to live:&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Few survived after the holocaust&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In definition (1), there is no simple translation for &quot; &lt;em&gt;to remain alive after the death of someone&lt;/em&gt;&quot; but for &quot;&lt;em&gt;continue to live&lt;/em&gt;&quot; , the translation would be 生還; 存活 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Few &lt;strong&gt;survived&lt;/strong&gt; after the holocaust (大屠殺之後很少人&lt;strong&gt;生還/存活&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to remain or continue in existence or use:&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Ancient farming methods still survive in the Middle East.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In definition (2), the translation would be 留存; 保存&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to get along or remain healthy, happy, and unaffected in spite of some occurrence:&#xA;&lt;em&gt;She's surviving after the divorce.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No simple translation for definition (3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She's &lt;strong&gt;surviving&lt;/strong&gt; after the divorce (離婚後她&lt;strong&gt;繼續正常地生活下去&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;verb (used with object), survived, surviving.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to continue to live or exist after the death, cessation, or occurrence of:&#xA;&lt;em&gt;His wife survived him. He survived the operation.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In definition (4), there's no simple translation for the first example sentence. For the second example sentence, the translation would be 挺過&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to endure or live through (an affliction, adversity, misery, etc.):&#xA;&lt;em&gt;She's survived two divorces.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In definition (5), the translation would be 挺過&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence in the question &quot;I &lt;strong&gt;survived&lt;/strong&gt; the typhoon”  is similar to the example sentence in definition (4): &lt;em&gt;He &lt;strong&gt;survived&lt;/strong&gt; the operation&lt;/em&gt;. which means survived should be translated to &lt;strong&gt;挺過了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He &lt;strong&gt;survived&lt;/strong&gt; the operation (他&lt;strong&gt;挺過了&lt;/strong&gt;手術)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I &lt;strong&gt;survived&lt;/strong&gt; the typhoon (我&lt;strong&gt;挺過了&lt;/strong&gt;颱風)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;生還 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/30546/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/30546/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;脫險 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/33659/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/33659/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;存活 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/50120/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/50120/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I &lt;strong&gt;survived&lt;/strong&gt; the typhoon”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在颱風中&lt;strong&gt;生還&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在颱風中&lt;strong&gt;脫險&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在颱風中&lt;strong&gt;存活&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike &quot; to survive&quot; in English, the Chinese verb 生存，生還，脫險 and 存活 do not act on object. You cannot say 我生還了颱風 or 我脫險了颱風&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For verb that can act on an object like typhoon (颱風) , you can use  &quot;挺過&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;挺 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2044/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2044/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*[3] endure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我&lt;strong&gt;挺過&lt;/strong&gt;了颱風&quot; (I &lt;strong&gt;survived&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;endured&lt;/strong&gt; the typhoon)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;這建築物挺過了三次戰爭&quot; (this building &lt;strong&gt;survived&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;endured&lt;/strong&gt; three wars)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-28T19:54:52.537" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T19:54:52.537" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21265" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21282" CreationDate="2016-09-28T07:06:42.987" Score="4" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;洋 often takes on the meaning of &lt;code&gt;foreign&lt;/code&gt; as a noun prefix - think: &lt;code&gt;洋火、洋车、洋芋、洋碱&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have just come across this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《成都方言》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;词语: 遭洋罪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发音: zao1 yang2 zui4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;定义: 自找的难言之苦：出了钱不说，还～，简直划不着！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洋罪 strikes me as a very interesting combo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=AEutn8TldkDPKaudj7aiGkrp-xWGGg4tFDtXuLXmxYbXqH0flSOu9CNx5ccPKNB17ik7-BDXrg2II5IMftl1e8xsnlmGCtxblFzDp1xfSam&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt; just gives it one simple definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yáng zuì ㄧㄤˊ ㄗㄨㄟˋ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洋罪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;特别的痛苦。 欧阳山 《苦斗》五八：“死了倒也自在，免得受这洋罪。这样的鬼病，能治好的，万中都无一呢。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very similar to the meaning in《成都方言》as, roughly, &lt;code&gt;extreme pain&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The definition on &lt;strong&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/strong&gt; also matches those of &lt;strong&gt;汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;现代汉语词典&lt;/strong&gt; very closely - with the same quote, even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;HDC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;特别的痛苦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欧阳山 《苦斗》五八 死了倒也自在, 免得受这洋罪。这样的鬼病, 能治好的, 万中都无一呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;XHD&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;特别的痛苦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欧阳山《苦斗》 死了倒也自在, 免得受这洋罪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MoE&lt;/strong&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;特別的痛苦、難過。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which, too is about the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Grand Ricci&lt;/strong&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Peine intense; souffrance insupportable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which roughly translates as &lt;code&gt;intense pain&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;unbearable suffering&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here comes the more interesting definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 terrible pain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 torture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 (coll.) pain suffered at the hand of foreigners&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third definition here actually includes the whole foreign(ers) aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mess up by seeking to imitate foreign ways (takes verb &amp;quot;shòu&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really hope that KEY's definition is correct - as it is the most interesting of them all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an accurate origin of this word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was 洋罪 meant to mean originally?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T18:03:17.910" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T18:03:17.910" Title="What is the origin of 洋罪?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21265" CreationDate="2016-09-28T20:27:03.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This phrase 遭洋罪 came from 《成都方言》, and I have never heard of it, so it is likely be a regional common phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I think the 洋 in 洋罪 is the same one in 洋相, which means &quot;ridiculous&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/22/52441.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/22/52441.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chengyu.911cha.com/N2N2MA==.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chengyu.911cha.com/N2N2MA==.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洋 in 洋相 was also originated from the &quot;foreign&quot; meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At that time in China, many people had the concept of &quot;foreign&quot; = &quot;ridiculous;  extreme&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;出&lt;strong&gt;洋&lt;/strong&gt;相 = display &lt;strong&gt;foreign (ridiculous)&lt;/strong&gt; behavior&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;遭&lt;strong&gt;洋&lt;/strong&gt;罪 = suffer &lt;strong&gt;foreign (ridiculous / extreme)&lt;/strong&gt; punishment &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-28T20:49:19.437" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T20:49:19.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21270" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21663" CreationDate="2016-09-28T23:20:44.140" Score="0" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;We live in the USA. My 12 yo daughter was transferred to a private middle school for gifted children and joined Mandarin class, where students already studied for 2 years. She is trying to catch up, but apparently it is more difficult than we thought at the beginning of the academic year. While we consider hiring a private tutor to help her to catch up, I wonder if you can suggest any resources, free and paid, which would be useful to help my daughter - websites, books, language learning packages, etc. Is there any good course on Coursera you can recommend? Is Anki convenient for learning Chinese words? Is Rosetta Stone good, in your opinion? Or is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineasy.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chineasy.com/&lt;/a&gt; would be good for this purpose? Any ideas will be highly appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15425" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T08:53:23.240" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T08:53:23.240" Title="How to catch up with advanced group?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21257" CreationDate="2016-09-29T05:59:43.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word '生存' does not imply much details about how much suffering you have experienced and it only gives the information that you are alive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word '幸存' means that not only are you alive but also have experienced some difficulties to get through. Besides, it usually indicates that this is a relatively good outcome by the character'幸' in the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word '度过' means that you have just experienced it in contrast to the case in which you have never had such an experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word '挺过' is the stronger form of '度过' in tone, by the use of which you may want to tell people you finally got through it and you were very relieved after it. Some struggling and suffering are included.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word '存活' is a little emotive compared to '生存' which is quite formal and neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word '生还' is the written form of '存活' when one refers to the result rather than the process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to point out that almost any of the words in the many posts of others is completely right to use in the view of a Chinese as long as it is grammatical. The difference lies in which Chinese character the word that you use contains. You know, character and word are two different concepts in Chinese and it is the core of Chinese learning at the advanced level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, there seems no single words with the meaning'get through a disaster unscathed', and if 'survive' also has the meaning of unscathed, I suppose you would have to express it in two words, which could be like this: 在这场台风中，我毫发未损。' or '我毫发无伤地在这场台风中生还下来。'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15427" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2016-09-29T07:27:52.360" LastActivityDate="2016-09-29T07:27:52.360" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21276" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21278" CreationDate="2016-09-29T11:44:21.713" Score="1" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would one translate the 推舉 , 推選 , 薦舉? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Im pretty sure they all mean something like electing or choosing. Among the three, 推選 is probably the most colloquial and conversational basic use, while 推舉 and 薦舉 are only seen in writing/more advanced level of use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When would you use 推舉 , 推選 , 薦舉? Please give examples in Chinese with basic English translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T03:41:25.460" Title="Word choice between 推舉 , 推選 , 薦舉" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21276" CreationDate="2016-09-29T17:49:29.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 「推舉」,「推」means &amp;quot;to push &amp;quot;, and 「舉」 means &amp;quot;to raise &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「推舉」means to &amp;quot;single out and elevate someone&amp;quot; which means &amp;quot; to recommend&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 「薦舉」,「薦」means &amp;quot; to recommend&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「薦舉」means &amp;quot; to elevate and recommend someone&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In「推選」, 「選」means &amp;quot; to choose&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「推選」means &amp;quot;to single out and choose someone&amp;quot; / &amp;quot; to nominate and elect someone&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;推舉&lt;/strong&gt;他為經理 ( I &lt;strong&gt;recommend&lt;/strong&gt; him to be the manager)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;薦舉&lt;/strong&gt;他為經理 ( I &lt;strong&gt;recommend&lt;/strong&gt; him to be the manager)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眾人&lt;strong&gt;推舉&lt;/strong&gt;之下，他成為了經理 ( After everybody &lt;strong&gt;recommended&lt;/strong&gt; him, he became the manager)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眾人&lt;strong&gt;薦舉&lt;/strong&gt;之下，他成為了經理 ( After everybody &lt;strong&gt;recommended&lt;/strong&gt; him, he became the manager)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眾人&lt;strong&gt;推選&lt;/strong&gt;他為經理 ( Everybody &lt;strong&gt;recommend and choose&lt;/strong&gt; him to be the manager)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*「推舉」;「薦舉」;「推選」only apply to people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*「推薦」is the most common term for &amp;quot;to recommend&amp;quot;, followed by「推舉」and then「薦舉」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*「推薦」apply to either people or object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;向日本人&lt;strong&gt;推薦&lt;/strong&gt;美國牛肉 ( &lt;strong&gt;recommend&lt;/strong&gt; American beef to Japanese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;推薦&lt;/strong&gt;他為經理 ( I &lt;strong&gt;recommend&lt;/strong&gt; him to be the manager)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*「薦舉」is more commonly written as 「舉薦」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*「選舉」(election)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T03:41:25.460" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21279" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-30T01:32:18.490" Score="1" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;我希望你们都有一个愉快的假期！ 国庆节快乐！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I read this, I assumed 扎着 was zha1zhe, but when I listened she says zha1zhao2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快结束时我看你微微甩了甩手，你平时被东西扎着时就是这个样子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Near the end I saw you give a little flick of the hand; when something pricks you, you always react like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What effect does 着 zhao2 have on 扎？ Is it translatable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got this from mdbg.net&#xA;着 zhao2 (after a verb) hitting the mark / succeeding in &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T03:30:34.840" Title="What is the sense/meaning of this 着？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21279" CreationDate="2016-09-30T02:50:04.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When 着 was read zhao2, it means:&#xA; 1. 接触，挨上：着边。上不着天，下不着地。//one thing touches the other thing&#xA; 2. 感受，受到：着凉。着急。着忙。着风。着迷。 //be affected by something&#xA; 3. 使，派，用：别着手摸。 //using(slang)&#xA; 4. 燃烧，亦指灯发光：着火。灯着了。 //light up; &#xA; 5. 入睡：躺下就着。 //fall asleep&#xA; 6. 用在动词后，表示达到目的或有了结果：打着了。没见着。//if used after a  verb: the motion has reached its purpose or has an result&#xA;In your sentence, I believe it takes the 6. &#xA;So when you say 扎着, it means being pricked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15315" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T02:50:04.260" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21265" CreationDate="2016-09-30T02:52:42.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is really an interesting question, even as a native speaker I don't know the meaning it implies, so I did some bits of research and this answer came into my sight, which perfectly convinced me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original reference: [&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/18385575.html]&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/18385575.html]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;所谓洋货,意思是从海洋上&quot;漂&quot;过来的货物,现在的话就是进口的,以前一般都是从海洋上来,所以叫洋货. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;洋罪主要是日本奴役统治中国部分地区的时候,对老百姓机器恶毒,劳动强度高,生活水平却极其低,就是遭罪,而且一般的罪没法比,那罪来源于洋人_日本人,所以叫洋罪. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one is talking about 洋货, of which I think you have perfectly grasped the meaning, i.e. things imported from outside China, since most goods need to be transported by the sea(洋), later people call it 洋货.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I will try to translate the second sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洋罪 talks about the times when Japan ruled some parts of China, by those time the Japanese extremely maltreated the common people, there was a high labour intensity, meanwhile the people suffered a very poor and miserable life, but not any other misfortune can be made to compare with it because it came from 洋人(the foreigners), by so, it's called 洋罪.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Up to now, people still use this word, but the meaning of suffering from foreigners has faded out a lot, only to emphasise an unexpected feeling of sufferings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in most cases if you suffer, you only say 遭罪, only in some unexpected cases, which you totally can't foresee it but you still suffer, you say 遭洋罪.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今早上班地铁特别挤，我一直站了1个小时，真是&lt;strong&gt;遭罪&lt;/strong&gt;啊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This morning the subway is extremely crowded and I had to stand all along for an hour, I really suffered a lot!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今早上班地铁特别挤，我一直站了1个小时，中途地铁又坏了，我又换乘公交车，真是&lt;strong&gt;遭洋罪&lt;/strong&gt;啊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This morning the subway is extremely crowded and I had to stand all along for an hour, what's more, the subway broke down in the middle way so I had to take a bus instead, I could not suffer more!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T02:52:42.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21241" CreationDate="2016-09-30T03:33:24.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;在汉语的日常使用中. 擦脸表示 脸上有汗 或者水 或者其他东西. 需要擦掉.&#xA;早上起床之后,应该说:们在五分钟之内完成了起床、穿衣、洗脸等一连串动作。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15434" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T03:33:24.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13664" CreationDate="2016-09-30T10:17:40.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;GoldenDict can support StarDict dictionary file format, you can find many StarDict dictionary files from &lt;a href=&quot;http://download.huzheng.org/zh_CN/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;HuZheng's site&lt;/a&gt;, as you may know, HuZheng (胡正) is the developer of StarDict.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can download 新华字典, 高级汉语大词典, and 现代汉语词典.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3830" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T10:17:40.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21287" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21288" CreationDate="2016-09-30T10:18:26.003" Score="2" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;Popular in Japanese anime and cartoons, after someone says something &quot;cringy&quot;, you often see people falling down and having their feet in the air. What would be a good way to describe this phenomenon, both in Chinese and English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T00:46:00.403" Title="What is a better way to say the phrase 腳都軟掉?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21287" CreationDate="2016-09-30T13:26:17.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest 「&lt;strong&gt;翻倒&lt;/strong&gt;」and  that is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;flipped&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「他此言一出，眾人&lt;strong&gt;翻倒&lt;/strong&gt;」; &quot;Once  he said that, everyone &lt;strong&gt;flipped&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in this kind of scene, the audience was figuratively &quot;being knocked out&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;floored&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. I found the idiom &quot;blow someone away&quot; be a good match, and from the example sentence, I found &quot;knock someone off their feet&quot; suit even better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/blow+away&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/blow+away&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Blow somebody away also blow away somebody:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;To cause someone great pleasure or surprise knock somebody off their feet &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Everyone I tell that story to, I mean everyone, is just blown away.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Related vocabulary: blow your mind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Once he said that. Everyone was &lt;strong&gt;blown away&lt;/strong&gt;!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;His stupid words &lt;strong&gt;knock everybody off their feet&lt;/strong&gt;!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;His stupid words &lt;strong&gt;floored&lt;/strong&gt; everyone!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Chinese slang, 「&lt;strong&gt;雷倒&lt;/strong&gt;」&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1816380.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/1816380.htm&lt;/a&gt; describe the reaction scene  very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&#xA;「他的蠢話，&lt;strong&gt;雷倒&lt;/strong&gt;眾人」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-09-30T14:40:46.373" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T14:40:46.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21287" CreationDate="2016-09-30T23:23:16.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'cringy' is nothing good. It implies dislike, disgust. 'cringe' basically means 'become bent' a kind of attempt to become a circle (kring)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blown away, knocked off my feet are positive, you are impressed almost to disbelief. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘floored‘ is probably from boxing or prize fighting, literally 'knocked to the floor', figuratively 'stopped， made silent'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;linedict has several examples for cringe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由于尴尬/ 恐惧而畏缩  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/example?query=cringe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/example?query=cringe&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My trusty translator is still sleeping, but maybe someone can offer a more colloquial version of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们由于尴尬脚在空中地倒下了。  (Trusty translator does not like this)&#xA;They collapsed with embarrassment, their feet sticking up in the air.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trusty translator arose, suggested:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仰面倒地四脚朝天。 (Although maybe not 4 legged)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（They) fell flat on their backs, legs skyward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-10-01T00:46:00.403" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T00:46:00.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21291" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-01T06:14:40.847" Score="2" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 忚 and how is it pronounced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have the complete Confucius 論語 -- Is the character used in it (論語)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(How old is this dictionary?) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kangxizidian.com/kangxi/0377.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.kangxizidian.com/kangxi/0377.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, (optionally) could you comment on if the following argument is commonly expressed by Chinese people, e.g., by teen-agers ?  (It seems like something that teen-agers might say.)     Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is a logical argument.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BB%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BB%96&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has had 他 (Mandarin) = [he; him; she; her] (originally gender-neutral; nowadays usually referring to males) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because (nowadays for females) 她 is used for she/her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祂 is used for He (deity).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牠 is used for it (animal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, therefore, the only (or most) logical meaning of  忚  is [he/she/it] for children and babies. Q.E.D.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13973" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-10-28T03:20:41.913" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T03:20:41.913" Title="What is the meaning of 忚 and how is it pronounced? -- (a logical argument)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21292" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21294" CreationDate="2016-10-01T12:04:39.393" Score="1" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;Evil vs. good is the theme of most (slightly exaggerated) works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list of works I have only contain things like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天下乌鸦一般黑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老鼠过街，人人喊打&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;臭味相投&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狼狈为奸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but these are all mostly just talking about evil itself and not comparing/contrasting the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any stories/allegories or poems and phrases/quotes/sayings about the evil vs. good would be most welcomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: 邪不能胜正 is good...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T07:22:18.353" Title="poems/phrases/quotes/sayings/idioms/stories/allegories: evil vs. good" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21291" CreationDate="2016-10-01T12:51:31.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;忚 (u+5fda) is rarely used in the past, it did appear in several books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the latest one, with english explanation, was in early 18th century, in robert morrison's &quot;a dictionary of the chinese language&quot;, volume ii, part i (page 139 of pdf file):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;㦒(u+3992)忚: insultingly neglectful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/p1dictionaryofch02morruoft&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/p1dictionaryofch02morruoft&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bmfC4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bmfC4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, its' earliest appearance in literatures of yore, was in 輶軒使者絕代語釋別國方言　卷十, by 揚雄, of 漢 dynasty (page 79 of pdf file):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眠娗﹒脉蜴﹒賜施﹒茭媞﹒譠謾﹒&lt;strong&gt;㦒忚&lt;/strong&gt;﹒皆欺謾之語也﹒楚郢以南﹒東揚之郊通語也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;欺謾&quot; is roughly deceive, disrespectful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06050580.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/06050580.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UwFRI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UwFRI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;its' next appearance was in 廣韻　上平聲　卷第一﹒齊韻第十二 (page 31):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;忚&lt;/strong&gt;　欺謾之皃 (貌)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchives/0500000000/0511000000/00&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchives/0500000000/0511000000/00&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wPnlJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wPnlJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;back to your question, i don't think that this character was used in 論語.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;康熙字典 was published in 1716; so it's about 300 years old :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the argument:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Now, therefore, the only (or most) logical meaning&#xA;of 忚 is [he/she/it] for children and babies.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, it's not. i would say that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他　he 也﹒從人﹒也聲&#xA;她　she 也﹒從女﹒也聲　&#xA;祂　god 也﹒從示﹒也聲　&#xA;牠　it 也﹒從牛﹒也聲　&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, these four are 形聲字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lastly, i think that most 小學類　字書 had the character &quot;忚&quot;, and, explained it; though in literary chinese, and printed in traditional script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T12:51:31.560" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21292" CreationDate="2016-10-01T13:15:08.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;to &lt;strong&gt;contrast&lt;/strong&gt; the good &amp;amp; evil, i would suggest the pairs of &quot;君子&quot; vs &quot;小人&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;善&quot; vs &quot;惡&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;論語﹒述而&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;君子坦蕩蕩﹒小人長戚戚&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;莊子﹒山木&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;君子之交淡若水﹒小人之交甘若醴&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;國語﹒周語下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;從善如登﹒從惡如崩&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公羊傳﹒昭公二十年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;君子之善善也長﹒惡惡也短﹒惡惡止其身﹒善善及子孫&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T13:15:08.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21292" CreationDate="2016-10-01T17:43:29.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many phrases and quotes mentioned good and evil, I personally like these two the most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sutrapearls.org/proverbs/pr12/pr12_02.htm#sthash.2b7sB2J5.dpbs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.sutrapearls.org/proverbs/pr12/pr12_02.htm#sthash.2b7sB2J5.dpbs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;善惡到頭終有報, 只爭來早與來遲&lt;/strong&gt;」 this is a 佛門諺語 (Buddhist proverb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;variant: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;善有善報，惡有惡報，若然不到，時辰未到&lt;/strong&gt;」 this one is a 打油詩 (doggerel)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The universe will reward good deed and punish evil deed eventually. It is just a matter of time.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/114296.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/114296.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;勿以惡小而為之，勿以善小而不為&lt;/strong&gt;」 (quote from Lui Bei, Shu Han founder, 161 AD-223 AD)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Do not think it is fine to commit a sin because it is just a minor one; Do not think it is useless to do a good deed because it is too small&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others: ( mostly heard in martial art movies nowadays)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「改邪歸正」 (reform from wicked to decent)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「行俠仗義，儆惡除奸」( uphold justice with selflessness, deter evil and remove the wicked)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「邪不勝正」(evil cannot defeat justice) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「自古正邪不兩立」(since the ancient time, justice and evil cannot coexist)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-02T01:53:52.817" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T01:53:52.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21296" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-01T18:34:12.773" Score="7" ViewCount="8908" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a website where I can look for history and etymology of Chinese characters? For example 工.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be a Chinese website (I am VERY new to Chinese). But better in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please also drop any useful links you regularly used when starting to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or let's say, how do Chinese understand this: 极 [jí] (extreme)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15444" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T05:05:19.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-29T04:41:13.683" Title="Where to look for history and etymology of Chinese characters? For example 工" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21297" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-01T19:38:22.303" Score="2" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, in the phrase &quot;教师之为教.&quot; I know it is formal language, but what is a good way to understand it in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-18T20:13:04.433" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T20:13:04.433" Title="What does 之为 mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21296" CreationDate="2016-10-01T20:26:23.453" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E8%BB%8A&amp;amp;submitButton1=Etymology&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E8%BB%8A&amp;amp;submitButton1=Etymology&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This website gives origins for many characters, as well as pictures of some earlier forms (e.g., from Oracle bones). Keep in mind that the structure of most characters is a phonetic and a semantic component put together (形声字). Most characters aren't pictograms (象形字), ideograms (指事字), or semantic combinations of other characters (会意字); although these types of characters have most captured the western imagination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, etymology is a bit of a misnomer, as that would be for morphemes and words, not their graphical representation. It is, however, commonly called this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T20:26:23.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21297" CreationDate="2016-10-01T21:21:03.273" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I searched for 教师之为教 and got a few hits suggesting it's the first clause from the sentence &amp;quot;教师之为教，不在全盘授予，而在相机引导。……&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case, 之 means &lt;em&gt;of; from&lt;/em&gt; and 为 means &lt;em&gt;act; perform&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;教师之为教 literally means 'the act of teaching of a teacher (should be ...)', and in this context means 'the art of teaching (is ...)'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;教师之为教，不在全盘授予，而在相机引导。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The art of teaching is not to explain everything at once, but to guide at opportune times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T21:21:03.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21296" CreationDate="2016-10-01T21:23:35.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stumpy Joe Pete linked to arguably the best website for looking at historical forms of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another website tool that exists, but that is only sort of useful, is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhongwen.com/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt;, for exploring the composition of many characters. It organizes characters in a tree but this is strictly about formal character composition, not history. &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com/d/166/x114.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here's an example&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15106" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T21:23:35.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21291" CreationDate="2016-10-01T23:18:20.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I copied and pasted it into zdic, which has it as xi1 and lie3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/js/5FDA.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/js/5FDA.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T23:18:20.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21297" CreationDate="2016-10-01T23:36:14.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can't comment, not enough points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this 之 just 的？ Edit: that is to say 之为 is not a word it's more 教师-之-为-教&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;教师的为教 The teacher's way of teaching ... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A strange phonetic coincidence between 为 and way!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-10-02T01:11:16.740" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T01:11:16.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21296" CreationDate="2016-10-02T03:57:11.013" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;May I suggest 漢語多功能字庫, maintained by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which has a Chinese/English interface, shows character in various scripts, components and pronunciations; and explains etymologies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T05:06:01.630" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T05:06:01.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21297" CreationDate="2016-10-02T05:29:34.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;imo, &quot;教師之為教&quot; is an composed verse, pretending in old written style. so, here's the literary chinese approaches:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;first, some examples of &quot;之為&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一之為甚　&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;once (一) is (為) too much (甚)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 indicates the occurrence of &quot;once&quot;, while 為 is &quot;being&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000149553&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000149553&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;知之為知之，不知為不知&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;understanding (知之) is (為) understanding (知之)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 indicates the state of understanding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000113233&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000113233&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;佛之為教﹒以神為貴&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;buddha (佛) 's (之為) doctrine (教), or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the doctrine (教) of (之為) buddha (佛)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;師之為理﹒在於發悟&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;teachers (師) ' (之為) principles (理), or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the principles (理) of (之為) teachers (師)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;so, back to &quot;教師之為教&quot;.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, it's ugly, &quot;not-literary-chines-enough&quot;, a better saying is &quot;師之為教&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would suggest &quot;之為&quot; as &lt;strong&gt;'s&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;teachers (師) ' 之為 teaching (教)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &quot;之為&quot; as &lt;strong&gt;of&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the teachings (教) of (之為) teachers (師)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, a more clumsy one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the teachings (教) conducted (為) by (之) teachers (師)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;since chinese language is fuzzy, there're a few more ways of explanations, the above are just some of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T05:29:34.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21305" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-02T23:20:04.647" Score="2" ViewCount="936" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to say &quot;Disgusting.&quot; in Chinese (the Taiwanese way, and Hong Kong way) about the defilement of a nation's culture &amp;amp; traditions? I need the harshest word for 'disgusting' possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15453" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-12-11T13:57:42.400" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T13:57:42.400" Title="&quot;Disgusting&quot; as the Chinese would say it" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;&lt;taiwanese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21306" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-03T00:07:46.577" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this text. I do not understand to what 身体的反应能力is referring. I must be missing something. What is it? Is there a clue in this text?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you argue with you partner, you may be angry, but what has that got to do with a 'bodily reaction'? Is  the woman referring, in a subtle Chinese way, to: 'No sex after an argument'？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生活中，夫妻之间免不了因为一些事情而争吵。但有研究表明，和爱人争吵半个小时，起码要花一天的时间来恢复身体的反应能力。对于那些经常争吵一个半小时的夫妻来说，恢复的时间还要加倍。有些社会学家做过实验，实验结果表明：需要用五件积极的事情，才能消除掉一件负面事情产生的阴影。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I changed this a bit for clarity:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和爱人争吵半个小时（的人），（这些人）起码要花一天的时间来恢复（他们）身体的反应能力。&#xA;People who quarrel for half an hour with their loved ones need at least a whole day to restore/recover [不知道] 身体的反应能力 ??normal relations??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-10-03T10:12:27.030" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T10:12:27.030" Title="To what does 身体的反应能力 refer here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21305" CreationDate="2016-10-03T03:16:30.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;for the word &amp;quot;disgusting&amp;quot; A simple search can yield many results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肉酸 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1431/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1431/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肉麻 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/2054/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/2054/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反胃 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/13997/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/13997/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘔心 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/15164/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/15164/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鶻突 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1310/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1310/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;about the defilement of a nation's culture &amp;amp; traditions&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the word you are looking for is &amp;quot;shameful&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可恥 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/46203/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/46203/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T03:25:45.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21306" CreationDate="2016-10-03T08:39:56.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's better translated as neural response than literally 'bodily reaction' since the neural system controls the reaction of the body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a neurologist, but I do have that feeling that if I had a quarrel with someone, I would need some time to restore my spirits, In that period, my reaction to outside circumstance slows down a lot, I'm distressed, distracted and thus can't focus, perhaps some nervous substances not working as usual?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can imagine that if you quarrel with you GF, even someone throw something at you you wouldn't care that much or you couldn't even feel that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T08:39:56.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21306" CreationDate="2016-10-03T09:03:21.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll do a rough translation of the whole text for those who don't understand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In life, the husband and wife will inevitably quarrel over certain things (事情). However, studies have shown that arguing with your loved ones for half an hour, requires at least a whole day to &lt;strong&gt;recover (恢复身体的反应能力)&lt;/strong&gt;. For those who often argue for an hour and a half, the time for things to &lt;strong&gt;go back to normal (恢复)&lt;/strong&gt; multiplies. Some sociologists have conducted an experiment, showing: You need 5 positive events (事情) to cancel out one negative event (事情). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answering OP's question, what does 身体的反应能力 mean? In the hospital, when we take care of patients, we usually refer to it as taking care of a patient's 身、心、靈 (body, mind, soul) The body refers to the physical body. Mind as in emotional state of mind, and soul is for religious purposes (whether it's Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, etc. I took the 身体的反应能力 as more of the body and the mind combined together, some will say the emotional state of mind corresponds to the physical state of the body. I didn't find anything sexually suggestive in that paragraph. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastEditorUserId="15213" LastEditDate="2016-10-03T10:03:08.160" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T10:03:08.160" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19720" CreationDate="2016-10-03T09:37:11.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doctrinal Interpretation would be a good translation. For these types of translation, it's important to localize and keep the original meaning as much as possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://thefederalistpapers.org/principles-of-constitutional-interpretation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://thefederalistpapers.org/principles-of-constitutional-interpretation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The above link presents us with six main methods of interpretation when looking at law: textual, historical, functional, doctrinal, prudential, equitable, and natural. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out of the six, doctrinal is presented as : &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Decision based on prevailing practices or opinions of legal professionals&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, mainly legislative, executive, or judicial precedents, according to the meta-doctrine of stare decisis, which treats the principles according to which court decisions have been made as not merely advisory but as normative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twwiki.com/wiki/%E5%AD%B8%E7%90%86%E8%A7%A3%E9%87%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.twwiki.com/wiki/%E5%AD%B8%E7%90%86%E8%A7%A3%E9%87%8B&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This link explains that doctrinal interpretation, 學理解釋是專家學者從法律理論/各家學說的角度對法律所作出的解釋，沒有法律強制力，不是法官審判案件的依據，不具法律約束力，但是從法律的淵源及將來的發展來看，學理解釋是一個很重要的法學發展的推動力量。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A rough translation would be: The doctrinal interpretation of the law from a &quot;philosophical (法律理論)&quot; and &quot;professional (專家學者)&quot; standpoint, is not legally enforced, does not present itself as the basis for a judge to judge a case, and is not legally binding, but is rather viewed from the &quot;original legislature (法律的淵源)&quot; and its' future interpretation. Doctrinal interpretation is an important driving force for the development of laws. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can kind of see that doctrinal interpretation has more of a philosophical/theory type of definition and is more often used for discussing laws.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T09:37:11.540" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21311" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26076" CreationDate="2016-10-03T10:19:04.750" Score="1" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;this might sound like a strange question, but I have found a technical dictionary on the Internet that was described as &quot;English–Chinese/Japanese&quot;. Being a complete novice in Chinese and having no practical knowledge in Japanese, I am not sure how's that supposed to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand many characters are the same in both languages and there are borrowings, but could somebody tell me what's the structure of this dictionary? Google translate is schizophrenic about this, but I also see Japanese syllabaries here. Can it be in both at the same time? Please take a look at these excerpts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;abandonment of cargo        放弃货载&#xA;abandonment of claim        放弃索赔&#xA;abandonment of water rights     放弃水权&#xA;abandonment value       废弃价值&#xA;ABAP, Advanced Business Application Programming     アバップ,R/3などSAPシステムの製作やアドオン開発に用いられる高級言語&#xA;abat-vent       通风帽,通气帽,障风装置,挡风装置&#xA;abatement and exemption from penalty        免除刑罚&#xA;abatement cost      消除有害事物的成本&#xA;abatement of smoke and dust     消烟除尘&#xA;...&#xA;hydraulically controlled plow       液压控制犁&#xA;hydraulically controlled reel       液压操纵拔禾轮&#xA;hydraulically coupled power plants      連接水系,一つの水系に複数の調整池があり,この水を利用して発電する連接水系では上流の発電所で使用した水を下流の発電所で再度利用できる。&#xA;hydraulically cushioned protection      液压减震的防护&#xA;...&#xA;pivotal line        枢轴线&#xA;pivotal member      中枢メンバー&#xA;pivotal method      要法&#xA;pivotal moment      重要な瞬間&#xA;pivotal player      中心人物&#xA;pivotal point       转折点&#xA;pivotal port        枢纽港&#xA;pivotal value       枢轴值&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for any comments on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T18:25:52.213" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T18:25:52.213" Title="Is this dictionary Chinese, Japanese or both?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21311" CreationDate="2016-10-03T10:29:43.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely a English to Japanese Dictionary. You can think of it as a English to Japanese Dictionary (with 漢字 for kanji)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pivotal method -&gt; 要法 has no meaning at all in chinese. But the japanese words ようほう gives it a much better meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other words such as 消除有害事物的成本 has meaning in Chinese, but looks translatable to japanese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastEditorUserId="15213" LastEditDate="2016-10-03T10:37:44.120" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T10:37:44.120" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="253" CreationDate="2016-10-03T11:46:06.113" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The differences are well explained on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22hui%22_%22neng%22_%22keyi%22&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;. It also visualises the overlaps with the following Venn diagram:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YxokC.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YxokC.png&quot; alt=&quot;hui vs neng vs keyi&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: ability in the sense of “know how to” (会 (huì) is more common than 能 (néng))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: permission/request (use 能 (néng) or 可以 (kěyǐ))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C: possibility (use 能 (néng) or 可以 (kěyǐ))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D: permission not granted (use 不可以 (bù kěyǐ))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E: impossibility (use 不能 (bù néng))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T11:46:06.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21305" CreationDate="2016-10-03T12:09:06.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One word that pops in mind for Chinese would be 無恥 which is shameful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an old movie clip, showing the time when Nationalist from China invaded Taiwan and forced everyone, including school teachers and children to speak Chinese. Those who spoke Taiwanese had to wear a sign saying they will speak Chinese. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IVfqlpPPbM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IVfqlpPPbM&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words seen in this clip are&lt;br&gt;&#xA;at 2:50 playful words that children call each other when they are calling each other disguisting&lt;br&gt;&#xA;邋遢鬼 (I have heard it pronounced in Taiwanese as 垃圾鬼), 骯髒鬼 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at 4.14 &#xA;閉嘴、不像話、夭壽死嬰仔你 translated in clip as -&gt; shut up, you short life little bastard you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think what you're trying to say is what is spoken by the teacher from 4:14 and afterwards. Those are common phrases that adults use to 教訓 naughty little kids. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T12:09:06.280" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21315" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21316" CreationDate="2016-10-03T21:25:50.657" Score="-1" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please, what is the meaning of this sentence? is it chinese, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JWo9w.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JWo9w.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am truing to uninstall software OSToto to create a wifi hotspot. The software switched from English to Chinese by its own, and I am unable to uninstall it. Neither, to copy the sentence and translate it through the google translator. Please, what is the meaning of the printscreen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15461" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T07:45:35.943" Title="meaning of the uninstallation sentence?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-10-23T05:59:17.563" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21315" CreationDate="2016-10-04T03:31:48.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;卸载程序无法执行，可能是卸载所需的数据被破坏！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer to translate it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The system has failed to launch the uninstallation process. This might be caused by the loss/destroy of some data which is required (for uninstalling it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, it's always a nightmare to uninstall applications for Windows. I think maybe you can do some Google research.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.techradar.com/news/software/10-tips-for-removing-a-program-that-won-t-uninstall-907471&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.techradar.com/news/software/10-tips-for-removing-a-program-that-won-t-uninstall-907471&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="1042" LastEditDate="2016-10-04T07:45:35.943" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T07:45:35.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21318" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21321" CreationDate="2016-10-04T09:17:32.113" Score="1" ViewCount="901" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a dictionary lookup, it seems that both 周 and 星期 can mean &quot;a week&quot;—is there any difference in usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-09-02T23:09:14.807" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T23:09:14.807" Title="What's the difference between 周 and 星期?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-09-02T23:06:41.590" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21318" CreationDate="2016-10-04T09:54:15.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;there are no differences in meaning ， the only differences is where those words come from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;星期 and 礼拜 are originally from china, but 周 is barely a new word, that caused by western influences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for more information, you can read this article&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zybang.com/question/46a3fe5084005470d13f83db003fc4ae.html?fr=iks&amp;amp;word=%D6%DC%BA%CD%D0%C7%C6%DA+%B5%D8%B7%D6%B1%F0&amp;amp;ie=gbk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zybang.com/question/46a3fe5084005470d13f83db003fc4ae.html?fr=iks&amp;amp;word=%D6%DC%BA%CD%D0%C7%C6%DA+%B5%D8%B7%D6%B1%F0&amp;amp;ie=gbk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15418" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T09:54:15.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21318" CreationDate="2016-10-04T10:02:21.513" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dividing a year into 52 weeks was a new concept to Chinese people at the time. Since 星期(指七夕，就是牛郎织女鹊桥相会之日) a common term already existed in China,&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%9F%E6%9C%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%9F%E6%9C%9F&lt;/a&gt; it was then used to express a &amp;quot;week&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中國古代有七曜这一詞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*The Japanese still use 七曜 for the name of their days in a week - (日曜日, 月曜日, 火曜日 水曜日, 木曜日, 金曜日 and 土曜日)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, there was another common Chinese term 周天 (a circle of) &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%91%A8%E5%A4%A9/909115&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%91%A8%E5%A4%A9/909115&lt;/a&gt; therefore, 周 was also borrowed to describe  &amp;quot;a week&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for practical usage,  周 and 星期 are interchangeable, but 周 is more formal and 星期 is more colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the single syllable 周 doesn't take classifier, but 星期 does. We say 一星期 or 一個星期, but we only say 一周, not 一個周&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both 周一 and 星期一 mean &amp;quot;Monday&amp;quot;, as mentioned before, and they are interchangeable, only 周一 is more formal and 星期一 is more colloquial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T13:25:15.110" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21318" CreationDate="2016-10-04T10:02:41.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;周&lt;/strong&gt; can be a &lt;strong&gt;lot of things&lt;/strong&gt;, while &lt;strong&gt;星期&lt;/strong&gt; can &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; mean a week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;周&lt;/strong&gt; has the meaning of a &lt;strong&gt;circle&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;circumference&lt;/strong&gt;. One week is just like time running in a circle in 7 stages or 7 days. 周一 means first stage in that circle, or Monday. 周末 means last stage in that circle, or last day of the week, or Sunday. &lt;strong&gt;末&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;strong&gt;last&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make things clear, &lt;strong&gt;周期&lt;/strong&gt; means one &lt;strong&gt;cycle&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I have said above, 周 can means a lot of things. For instance,  &lt;strong&gt;彬周&lt;/strong&gt; literally means &lt;strong&gt;male penis&lt;/strong&gt;。Thus, you should always use 星期 for a week if you are don't want to embarrass yourself because 星期 means only a week and nothing else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastEditorUserId="13713" LastEditDate="2016-10-04T10:07:46.857" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T10:07:46.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20754" CreationDate="2016-10-04T22:39:16.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally, I don't think there is a list for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Local radio and TV stations are allowed to broadcast with dialect within &lt;strong&gt;Local ONLY&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong_Television&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;广东卫视&lt;/a&gt; is broadcasted in Mandarin and is available to every province in China. While, for example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BB%A3%E6%9D%B1%E5%8D%97%E6%96%B9%E8%A1%9B%E8%A6%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;南方卫视&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B9%BF%E4%B8%9C%E5%B9%BF%E6%92%AD%E7%94%B5%E8%A7%86%E5%8F%B0%E7%8F%A0%E6%B1%9F%E9%A2%91%E9%81%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;珠江频道&lt;/a&gt; are broadcasted in Cantonese, which is &lt;strong&gt;ONLY&lt;/strong&gt; available within Guangdong Province.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, Radio and TV station are in 2 categories, available to every province and available within a specific province. I believe every province has many stations for both type.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, dialect varies a lot even inside Guangdong Province. Taking &quot;accent&quot; into consideration, Cantonese in Guangzhou, Zhongshan, Maoming, Dongguan, Qingyuan sounds different. Not to mention Teochew dialect and Hakka Chinese, all inside Guangdong province. For Teochew dialect, the difference of Chaozhou and Shantou is more than notable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why I believe, it might be not possible to list all approved languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13089" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T22:39:16.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21323" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21325" CreationDate="2016-10-05T00:13:37.907" Score="1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have consulted a dictionary, but am unsure of the meaning of 关 in 休戚相关, 患难与共。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I'm not sure about the meaning of 与 in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T01:01:51.283" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T01:01:51.283" Title="Meaning of characters in 休戚相关, 患难与共" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21292" CreationDate="2016-10-05T00:54:44.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Came across these today and thought of this thread. Hope it helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孟子：性善论&#xA;荀子：性恶论&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/8533904ca45177232f60a23b.html?from=search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/8533904ca45177232f60a23b.html?from=search&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T00:54:44.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21323" CreationDate="2016-10-05T01:29:39.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I get this answer from my Trusty translator. (Had to make her a coffee first!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;休：喜悦，吉利 happiness, luck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;戚：忧愁悲哀 worry sadness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相关：related, connected&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与共： have in common, we share&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Found this link:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zybang.com/question/ea2bbea8fb9cc6cf808a4790c7900d44.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zybang.com/question/ea2bbea8fb9cc6cf808a4790c7900d44.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From an old song: Life's joys and life's miseries walk hand in hand and keep each other company.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think that translates it nicely!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-10-05T02:15:14.467" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T02:15:14.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3011" CreationDate="2016-10-05T03:22:05.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You'll get a better definition if you use an actual, even paper, Chinese-English dictionary, for instance &quot;resilient / tough and strong/durable&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15467" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T03:22:05.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17985" CreationDate="2016-10-05T03:27:07.310" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=e%3Apercent&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=e%3Apercent&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is there. 三七開定論, 百分率&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15467" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T03:27:07.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21329" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-05T03:51:24.230" Score="1" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate 'Market Access','Consumer Market Access' and 'Firm Market Access'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definition&#xA; - 'Market Access' is the extent concept. Under this concept, 'Consumer Market Access' means that the extent of the market the consumer can access.&#xA;Similarly, 'Firm market access' refers to the extent concept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope someone can help me to improve the translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;市场进入，市场获得，市场邻进，市场获取，which one should I choose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If add &quot;消费者&quot; or &quot;企业&quot; before it, which one is the best?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15468" LastEditorUserId="15468" LastEditDate="2016-10-05T14:28:27.817" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T14:28:27.817" Title="How to translate 'Market Access' into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21329" CreationDate="2016-10-05T06:08:34.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/8/152/337518.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/8/152/337518.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;◎ &lt;strong&gt;门径&lt;/strong&gt; /&lt;strong&gt;門徑&lt;/strong&gt; ménjìng&#xA;  [access] 門前的小路 (the path lead to the door)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;市场门径 (Market Access)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;消费者市场门径 (Consumer Market Access)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;企业市场门径 (Firm Market Access)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T06:08:34.033" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21329" CreationDate="2016-10-05T06:10:37.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, the author examined the relationship between specific commitments and &lt;strong&gt;market access&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在明确具体承诺的解释规则之后, 笔者进而分析了具体承诺与&lt;strong&gt;市场准入&lt;/strong&gt;的关系.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;consumer market access 消费市场准入&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What to you mean by 'firm market access'? Better if you write a sentence!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The company's access to the Chinese market is very limited.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;该公司对中国市场的渗透是非常有限的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe something like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T06:10:37.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21329" CreationDate="2016-10-05T08:07:42.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;MARKET ACCESS&quot; means &quot;市场准入&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg.&#xA;However, a loosening of market access rules is expected to occur in the coming years.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;然而, 在未来几年里,市场准入规则预计将不断放宽.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15469" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T08:07:42.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20856" CreationDate="2016-10-05T08:24:23.820" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;昨天我去买了一台电脑 is correct.&#xA;When you use chinese sentenses which have a meaning similar to English sentence of present perfect or past perfect, 过 or 了 should always be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg. 我通过了这次考试。I have passed the exam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15469" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T08:24:23.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13664" CreationDate="2016-10-05T08:29:04.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend you 现代汉语词典. As it is an intermediate level dictionary which is not too complicated to confuse you, but it covers words commonly used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15469" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T08:29:04.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21336" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-05T09:44:05.130" Score="3" ViewCount="2762" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闷声发大财&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闷声大发财&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are widely used among the Chinese people, which one is the correct one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13684" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T00:22:34.957" Title="Should I use &quot;闷声发大财&quot; or &quot;闷声大发财&quot;？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21337" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21342" CreationDate="2016-10-05T09:44:47.507" Score="2" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an incredibly horrible quality excerpt (read: screenshot) from 《四川邛崍油榨方言記》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f42ME.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f42ME.png&quot; alt=&quot;hi, guys&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's the highlights from &lt;code&gt;2 ər&lt;/code&gt; that I wanted to point out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爾 止開三上紙日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兒 止開三平支日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而 止開三平之日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二 止開三去至日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and for contrast the highlights from &lt;code&gt;3 i&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逼 曾開三入職幚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;彼 止開三上紙幚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;秕 止開三上旨幚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蔽 蟹開三去祭幚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;箅 曾鼻子蟹開四去霽幚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last two “XX” might be final + initial - 逼 for instance &lt;code&gt;職幚&lt;/code&gt; final &lt;code&gt;i&lt;/code&gt; plus initial &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; -- a backwards 反切 - a 切反, if you will. 反切 usually includes the correct tone with the final, which doesn't seem to be carried out here - 職 would be second-tone, here, if anything - and not first like the tone that is noted for 逼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上/平/入/去 is, obviously, a tone marker - still not really seeing how the pre-fixed number fits in with it, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“X” + 開 I'm more lost on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know what this method is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does its components work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T19:01:11.800" Title="What is this “XX” 開 “#” “上/平/入/去” “XX” method for describing character pronunciation?" Tags="&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21336" CreationDate="2016-10-05T13:11:42.873" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the summary of google hits on each term, including both Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Blue is for 发大财, and red is for 大发财:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Jv6T.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Jv6T.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So apparently 闷声发大财 is more ubiquitous, both in Simp. and Trad. Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is not a problem of correctness. Nothing is grammatically wrong in either form. There might be something slightly off for 大发财 because it doesn't conform to similar phrases like 吃大亏, 撞大运, etc., but it's not that important. The thing is, even if 大发财 was indeed the original form, 发大财 has already become an internet meme, and there is no way to stop that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After careful listening, I think there is not doubt that the Chairman did say 闷声大发财. The pronunciation of 发 is hard to dismiss if you know how 入声 works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are like 1 billion native 官话(Mandarin in the broader sense) speakers who can't distinguish 入声. Also &lt;code&gt;verb + 大 + object&lt;/code&gt; has always been a prevalent form. These could be why the 闷声发大财 version gained it's popularity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T00:22:34.957" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T00:22:34.957" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21329" CreationDate="2016-10-05T14:20:59.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Chinese Wiki MBA (&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E5%B8%82%E5%9C%BA%E5%87%86%E5%85%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E5%B8%82%E5%9C%BA%E5%87%86%E5%85%A5&lt;/a&gt;),  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;market access -&gt; 市場準入 (T) / 市场准入 (S)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the basis of market access, a logical translation for these two would be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a consumer market access -&gt; 消费者市场准入&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and a firm market access -&gt; 企业市场准入  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly enough, there is no such word as &quot;consumer market access&quot; and &quot;firm market access&quot; that is commonly used. (Quick google search had 0 results for firm market access and consumer market access, but had results for &lt;strong&gt;firm behavior&lt;/strong&gt; and market access.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I propose the following. Using the definition of market access from business dictionary, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/market-access.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/market-access.html&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;Openness of a country's markets to foreign goods and services. Market access reflects the government's economic policies regarding import substitution and free competition.&quot; Market access would be a &lt;strong&gt;reflection&lt;/strong&gt; of a &lt;strong&gt;government's policies&lt;/strong&gt; regarding &lt;strong&gt;access to markets&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There could be some tweeks that can be made to reflect your definition of consumer market access -&gt; Market Access for Consumers , of course this would also change its definition into something like, the consumer's behavior that reflects the government's economic policies regarding access to markets. The same can be said for firm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T14:20:59.640" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21340" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-05T16:06:25.993" Score="2" ViewCount="392" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know it's a Confucian saying but I'd like to know the meaning behind it.  Anyone have a clue?:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15472" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T00:18:58.147" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T00:18:58.147" Title="What does the following phrase mean “士不可不弘毅, 任重而道遠”?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21340" CreationDate="2016-10-05T16:32:08.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnculture.net/ebook/jing/sishu/lunyu_en/08.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《论语·泰伯章》&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chapter 7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　曾子曰：“士不可以不弘毅，任重而道遠。仁以爲己任，不亦重乎？死而後已，不亦遠乎？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The necessity to the officer of compass and vigor of mind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The philosopher Tsang said, &amp;quot;The officer may not be without breadth of mind and vigorous endurance. His burden is heavy and his course is&#xA;long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Perfect virtue is the burden which he considers it is his to sustain;-- is it not heavy? Only with death does his course stop;-- is&#xA;it not long?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another version from &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=GeuCvIVdYk5rmifkySI7wrTwgT5jp3FORZwTujslDSzOqcLAjqHG4_XrVrumeT3C-MzZyNc7vl9kitzbWDrCca&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;baidu&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An educated gentleman cannot but be resolute and broad-minded, for he has taken up a heavy responsibility and a long course. Is it not a heavy responsibility, which is to practice benevolence? Is it not a long course, which will end only with his death?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T16:32:08.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21337" CreationDate="2016-10-05T16:45:37.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;these're codified verse, each character represent a &quot;value&quot; of particular &quot;property&quot;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BB%A3%E9%9F%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣韻&lt;/a&gt; is the origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;逼   曾開三入職幫&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逼   the character looked up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曾   one of sixteen &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%94%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;韻攝&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;開   開口音 (開 for 開口音, or 合 for 合口音)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三   等第 (一, 二, 三 or 四)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;入   entering tone, 聲調 tones (平, 上, 去 or 入)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;職   this one is 韻目 (slightly different from 韻母 finals, there're 206 韻目 in 廣韻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幫   it's 聲母 initials&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, back to your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;“X” + 開&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's &lt;strong&gt;[ 通 | 江 | 止 | 遇 | 蟹 | 臻 | 山 | 效 | 果 | 假 | 宕 | 梗 | 曾 | 流 | 深 | 咸 ]&lt;/strong&gt; + &lt;strong&gt;[ 開口音 |合口音 ]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, it's interesting that the book used traditional chinese script :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;info added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ok, if you understand cantonese, literary chinese &amp;amp; traditional script, here it's:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;韻攝&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the rhythm book 廣韻, there're 206 韻目, which was &quot;assimilated&quot; into 16 韻攝, that, ignoring initials, tones; similar finals were grouped together. i guessed it's easier to remember 16, instead of 206 :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通攝, which included &quot;東韻&quot;, &quot;董韻&quot;, &quot;送韻&quot;, &quot;屋韻&quot;, &quot;冬韻&quot;, &quot;宋韻&quot;, &quot;沃韻&quot;, &quot;鍾韻&quot;, &quot;腫韻&quot;, &quot;用韻&quot;, &quot;燭韻&quot;; in cantonese (sydney lay scheme), these're:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通   tung1,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/tung1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東   dung1,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/dung1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;董   dung2,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/dung2.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;送   sung3,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/sung3.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;屋   uk1,    &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/uk1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冬   dung1,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/dung1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宋   sung3,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/sung3.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沃   yuk1,   &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/juk1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鍾   jung1,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/zung1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;腫   jung2,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/zung2.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用   yung6,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/jung6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;燭   juk1,   &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/zuk1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;grep the idea now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢語多功能字庫&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchives/0500000000/0511000000/00&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鉅宋廣韻&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;等第&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one, it's roughly louder, loud, quiet, quieter (from 1 to 4). it's derived from 韻圖 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rime_table&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rhyme table&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the internet archive has a copy of 韻鏡, in page 100-101:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/02077186.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/02077186.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MmKIb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MmKIb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in bottom right, one can find&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;北&#xA;◯&#xA;逼&#xA;◯&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which, the 等第 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%8C%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;北&lt;/a&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt;, while 等第 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%80%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;逼&lt;/a&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;三&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-10-05T19:25:17.510" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T19:25:17.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21343" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-05T17:21:10.923" Score="-5" ViewCount="2409" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that after a few attempts using google to search in Chinese, every result I was getting was written in traditional characters (even despite me searching in Mandarin, simplified characters). Does anyone know why this might happen? How can I set it to give me simplified characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are simplified characters actually not as useful as traditional characters if it gives me everything in traditional characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15304" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T01:42:48.257" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T01:42:48.257" Title="When searching in Chinese, why do things always come up in traditional characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21343" CreationDate="2016-10-05T17:37:45.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;h3&gt;It returns results for both&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you search Google in Chinese, it will match pages that have the terms &lt;em&gt;in either traditional or simplified&lt;/em&gt;. For example, if you search for &lt;code&gt;台湾&lt;/code&gt;, then both pages with &lt;code&gt;台湾&lt;/code&gt; and pages with &lt;code&gt;臺灣&lt;/code&gt; will show up in the results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional and simplified Chinese aren't different languages; they're just different scripts (and both are most commonly used to write Modern Standard Mandarin). In my experience, most people can read both but only write in one. So Google's default behavior makes sense!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;What if I just want results in one?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go to the gear icon in the upper right, and select &amp;quot;Advanced Search&amp;quot;. You can select &amp;quot;Chinese (Simplified)&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Chinese (Traditional)&amp;quot;, and the results will be limited to the one you chose. Hopefully as you continue to improve your reading skills, this won't be necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T17:37:45.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21345" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21347" CreationDate="2016-10-05T18:16:19.013" Score="2" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure what characters and what meaning is in the Chinese writing on this plane. This image comes from the first Indiana Jones movie, so it may be possible that there are mistakes in it, but I would love to know what characters are being used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to guess, using Google Translate, and so far, without being sure, all I have is &quot;东東西東-&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help would be greatly appreciated.&#xA;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x6IiU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x6IiU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Air East Asia&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15473" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T00:18:15.490" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T00:18:15.490" Title="Chinese writings on this movie plane" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21336" CreationDate="2016-10-05T18:19:14.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original phrase should be 「悶聲大發財」, I read it in the most famous martial art novel 『鹿鼎記』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鹿鼎記&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第二十八回　未免情多絲宛轉　為誰辛苦竅玲瓏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;韋小寶道：「多謝皇上記掛，又派了御前侍衛來找尋奴才。那惡尼姑起初十分生氣，向我拳打腳踢，後來我說皇上是鳥生魚湯，是大大的好皇帝，殺不得的。她卻說很多大逆不道的話。我讚你一句，她就打我一記耳光。後來我不肯吃眼前虧，只好&lt;strong&gt;悶聲大發財&lt;/strong&gt;了。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese myth, there are two Hell officers 黑無常 and 白無常，people refer the pair as 黑白無常 or 無常鬼，they wear tall hats and the phrase 「一見發財」is written on the white one's hat.  Since 無常鬼 do not speak, 「悶聲大發財 」actually has double meaning of &amp;quot; stay silent and get rich&amp;quot;  and &amp;quot; silent like a ghost&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%91%E7%99%BD%E7%84%A1%E5%B8%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%91%E7%99%BD%E7%84%A1%E5%B8%B8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;謝將軍：臉為白色並穿白色長袍，穿戴長筒官帽，上有「一見發財」或「一見生財」、「一見大吉」字句&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for so many Google results for 悶聲發大財 was because 江澤民 said it that way on T.V. Consider 「質素」( quality) is written as 「素質」in Mainland China, it seems like they have a habit of phrasing things differently from the traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T18:27:15.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21345" CreationDate="2016-10-05T18:39:47.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It literally means &amp;quot;East Asia West Asia Airlines&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东亚西亚航 - Simplified&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東亞西亞航 - Traditional&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the character for Asia is written the way it is in Japanese: &lt;code&gt;亜&lt;/code&gt;. As far as I know, there's no deep meaning behind the choice of &lt;code&gt;亜&lt;/code&gt; (or for the bizarre name). It's from an Indiana Jones movie and the airline is fictional. In answering this question, I found the &lt;a href=&quot;http://indianajones.wikia.com/wiki/Air_East_Asia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikia entry&lt;/a&gt; for it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T18:39:47.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21348" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-06T03:58:39.463" Score="2" ViewCount="926" Body="&lt;p&gt;妻子要丈夫帮她洗碗，丈夫不好意思拒绝，就把儿子叫到面前说：“孩子，现在让你练习洗碗，以后可以帮太太的忙。“ 儿子不以为然的说：“不必，以后我可以叫我儿子洗。“ 哈哈！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found the expression '帮太太的忙‘ unusual. I presume it means here either a)  'help your wife when she is busy' or just b) 'help your wife'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do 帮 and 忙 work together here or are they 2 separate words? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帮忙： help， lend a hand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 帮忙 really mean: 'help (someone) when (they are) busy'??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T16:12:27.030" Title="What does 帮忙 really mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17985" CreationDate="2016-10-06T04:07:51.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;‘五个百分比’ 是错误的。虽然大家能听懂您的意思，但是感觉上很别扭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5%，读作 ‘百分之五 ’；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘五个百分点’ ，意思相同，在口语中很常用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1%、2%、30%这3个百分比中，其中一个也可以说“3成”，这个百分比就是30%  。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这期彩票 我 百分之百 会中！到时我请你们去吃牛排。你们喜欢几成熟的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要8成熟的(80%)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要8分熟的(80%)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要全熟的（100%）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要熟透了的(100%)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15474" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T04:07:51.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21348" CreationDate="2016-10-06T04:48:46.433" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your correct, 帮忙 just means to help (someone). It can also be split apart two word, 幫 as help and 忙 as busy.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way the sentence is composed is in a more creative way, that uses the meaning of the characters creatively, both combined and uncombined. However, it's a common technique that shouldn't be over thought.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你可以&lt;strong&gt;幫&lt;/strong&gt;一個&lt;strong&gt;忙&lt;/strong&gt;嗎? vs 你可以&lt;strong&gt;幫忙&lt;/strong&gt;嗎? are just two different ways of asking if you can help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T04:48:46.433" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21351" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-06T06:47:12.653" Score="1" ViewCount="1335" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do native speakers explicitly learn about 4 tones in school or do they naturally pick them up without formal education? If so how does the school test it? By having students write appropriate tone marks on words? Or do they have oral tests? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15475" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T14:38:55.243" Title="Do native speakers learn about 4 tones in school or do they naturally pick them up without formal education?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21351" CreationDate="2016-10-06T07:28:55.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned Mandarin as a foreign learner and had to memorize the four tones, although they came pretty naturally to me after some point. However, I'm for most purposes a native Cantonese speaker, and I never &quot;formally&quot; learned the six tones. (I did not even realize that there were six until I saw an illustration, and I still don't &quot;consciously&quot; know the rules for tone sandhi.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Chinese language education might have been unorthodox (I picked up Chinese from family, which probably is the case for many in the diaspora as well), but I don't recall native Cantonese speaker relatives who went through a more standard education intensively learning about the different tones of Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure of the extent to which this maps to native Mandarin speakers learning Mandarin in school (in places where Chinese is used officially), particularly since there could be some regional variation. But at the very least, it's reasonable to assume that the four tones will come naturally to a child in a family that speaks Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5714" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T07:28:55.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21353" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-06T07:30:17.550" Score="2" ViewCount="566" Body="&lt;p&gt;At 0:57 in the link below, the woman says &quot;餐&quot; in what sounds to be the second tone, which is rising &lt;strong&gt;(Edit: on second thought, it sounds more like a toneless tone, like &quot;么&quot; in &quot;什么.&quot; The girl says &quot;餐&quot; there in the same manner as she says &quot;欢&quot; immediately before that in the same sentence, which has a toneless tone. The guy immediately after that also says the first &quot;欢,&quot; in the same manner.)&lt;/strong&gt; But when I looked up the pronunciation of the kanji, it had the first tone mark, which was flat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this happening because this is an interrogative sentence? Does this always happen? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At 0:42 in the same video (second link probably plays from that point) on the other hand, the final kanji doesn't put on the rising second tone. Instead it seems to maintain its original third tone (Or it doesn't?).  It seems to be a similar interrogative sentence but why doesn't the same phenomenon happen on this one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/mC5qFpBNxZM?t=55&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/mC5qFpBNxZM?t=55&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/mC5qFpBNxZM?t=43&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/mC5qFpBNxZM?t=43&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15475" LastEditorUserId="15475" LastEditDate="2016-10-06T08:07:36.360" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T19:23:29.640" Title="Do tones change at the end of an interrogative sentence?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21343" CreationDate="2016-10-06T07:55:01.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion Google doesn't distinguish the different between them because of most of native madarin user have no difficult to read them. If you really want to get simplified only, I would suggest you to use the Baidu engine which is devoloped by China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15476" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T07:55:01.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21348" CreationDate="2016-10-06T08:04:00.343" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;just b.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忙，(心亡),原始意思是“心迫”，即有很多事要做或者等待完成，心里焦急的样子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“忙”  可以代指  busy ,但不完全等于busy。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帮=help&#xA;（some one 的）忙=some thing need（some one） to do &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“忙”’还可以作动词。&#xA;等我忙完了，我就来找你。&#xA;这里的“忙”指的是“做我急需要完成的事”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在古汉语中每一个字都可以看作是separate word。&#xA;帮忙 合在一起 ，帮=help 忙 = do。合起来还是help的意思。和是否 busy 没有必然关系。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15474" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T08:04:00.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21239" CreationDate="2016-10-06T08:04:38.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It just depends on the verb you use.&#xA;At first, I would suggest you to use 得下 with all verb cause in many case 得下is more common to combine with verbs.&#xA;Both of 得上, 得下 means be able to do (the verb) in your case,and in that means 得下 is more common instead of 得上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15476" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T08:04:38.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21348" CreationDate="2016-10-06T08:49:17.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaker just walk around this post...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帮忙 means to give help, and the concept &quot;busy(忙)&quot; inside it is minor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese there are many two-character words (e.g. 帮忙) that express a simple concept that is deliverable by just one character (e.g. 帮). Two-character words are more informal and can make conversation easier. &#xA;Other examples like, 词组 ~ 词, 运动 ~ 动, 学习 ~ 习&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, those two-character words almost never appear in ancient Chinese, which is very concise and compacted language. Only after 1910s-1920s, the &quot;New Culture Movement&quot; popularized the written vernacular Chinese and those two-character words were invented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15477" LastEditorUserId="15477" LastEditDate="2016-10-06T16:12:27.030" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T16:12:27.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21348" CreationDate="2016-10-06T09:51:08.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;帮忙 means do someone a &lt;strong&gt;great favor&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;帮 means &lt;strong&gt;do something&lt;/strong&gt; for someone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;帮太太的忙 means do his wife a favor.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do do and favor work together here or are they 2 separate words? The answer is both! why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do my homework for me please! (a little rude; don't you think?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a great favor to me if you finish my homework! (a little arrogant and self-centered.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can you do me a favor for finishing my homework! (sounds a little better, right?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, 帮忙 essentially means helping someone do something very important because 忙 means busy; ie, keeping someone occupied by doing this favor for you, and since Time equals money, it's a great deal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, use 帮忙 if you are asking a great favor, or if you are a polite person asking for a small favor. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, use 帮 if you are asking a small favor, or if you are an arrogant person asking a big favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;帮我拿杯水过来。 Pass that cup of water to me. (Small favor, use 帮 is enough)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;帮忙拿杯水过来。 Do me a favor, pass that cup of water to me. (Passing a cup of water will not make someone busy, thus it's too polite/inappropriate to use 帮忙 here.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T09:51:08.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21360" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21363" CreationDate="2016-10-06T10:09:41.783" Score="1" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to determine the part of speech tags of words succeeding 不 like these?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In standard Chinese word segmentation datasets, 趕不上 is segmented as 趕 不 上, and 找不到 is segmented as 找 不 到; 趕上 is segmented as 趕上 itself, and 找到 is segmented as 找到 itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both POS tags of 趕上 and 找到 can be easily determined, which are almost always VV, but &quot;上&quot; and &quot;到&quot; in 趕不上 and 找不到 are difficult to determine their POS tags.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are their POS tags according to&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&amp;amp;context=ircs_reports&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&amp;amp;context=ircs_reports&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15481" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T15:54:08.370" Title="How to determine the part of speech tags of words succeeding 不 like these?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21351" CreationDate="2016-10-06T10:19:49.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right, in standard mandarin there are 4/5 tones (一聲,ˊ,ˇ,ˋ,˙) depending on how you want to call it. Kids pick them up naturally by listening to adults and watching cartoon. The hardest ones to master are the 2nd(ˊ) and 3rd(ˇ).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At what age do children master their use of tones? Around elementary school 3rd grade, because the ㄅㄆㄇ (bopomo) are not shown in the text books at 4th grade.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can you test for the tones? It can only be tested using a written test. If you buy elementary school blank writing papers, they have an extra section for kids to write the pronunciation. Regular writing papers though, will not have that extra section. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;link to pictures of children's writing &lt;a href=&quot;http://pchomekids.pixnet.net/blog/post/30513011-%E3%80%8A%E8%A6%AA%E5%AD%90%E7%AA%A9%E3%80%8B%E3%80%90%E5%AD%B8%E6%A0%A1%E5%A5%BD%E5%A5%BD%E7%8E%A9%E3%80%91%E5%B0%8F%E4%B8%80%E6%96%B0%E7%94%9F%E5%AD%B8%E5%AF%AB%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://pchomekids.pixnet.net/blog/post/30513011-%E3%80%8A%E8%A6%AA%E5%AD%90%E7%AA%A9%E3%80%8B%E3%80%90%E5%AD%B8%E6%A0%A1%E5%A5%BD%E5%A5%BD%E7%8E%A9%E3%80%91%E5%B0%8F%E4%B8%80%E6%96%B0%E7%94%9F%E5%AD%B8%E5%AF%AB%E5%AD%97&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Interestingly, children tend to use ㄅㄆㄇ (pronunciation) more than characters. If they don't know how to write a character, they will use its ㄅㄆㄇ. Even more interesting, is how they teach Chinese to adults in America. No basics, only character memorization! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T10:19:49.553" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21351" CreationDate="2016-10-06T10:27:04.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Native speakers explicitly learn about 4 tones in school (mainland China).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Schools test Pinyin, tones are included as they are a part of Pinyin, but as students move to higher year levels, Pinyin are no longer tested because Pinyin is to assist students to learn Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is no oral test for Chinese in mainland China so far.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastEditorUserId="13091" LastEditDate="2016-10-07T03:18:36.407" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T03:18:36.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21360" CreationDate="2016-10-06T10:50:14.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;趕不上 is a [&lt;strong&gt;(趕) verb&lt;/strong&gt; + &lt;strong&gt;(不) potential particle&lt;/strong&gt; + &lt;strong&gt;(上) directional  particle&lt;/strong&gt;] structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;找不到 is a [&lt;strong&gt;(找) verb&lt;/strong&gt; + &lt;strong&gt;(不) potential particle&lt;/strong&gt; + &lt;strong&gt;(到) attainment / achievement particle&lt;/strong&gt;] structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 趕上, 趕 is the verb &amp;quot;to rush&amp;quot;, and 上 is a directional particle that indicates the direction of the verb apply to (forward)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;趕 = to rush; 趕上 = to catch up&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 找到, 找 is the verb &amp;quot;to find&amp;quot;, and 到 is a particle that indicates the success of the verb (attainment / achievement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;找= to find; 找到 = have found&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had explained the role of potential particle in other answers before:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「得」or 「不」 are the two potential particles that indicate &amp;quot; &amp;quot;able , or &amp;quot;unable&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Potentially, you either able or unable to. That's why they are called potential particles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T15:54:08.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21343" CreationDate="2016-10-06T10:56:59.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are simplified characters actually not as useful as traditional&#xA;  characters if it gives me everything in traditional characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional characters are used in HongKong and Taiwan and simplified characters are used in mainland China. The answer to your question depends on where you are going and how you are going to use the language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want search results in simplified Chinese, you can try some Chinese search websites. The most common one would be &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T10:56:59.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21365" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21370" CreationDate="2016-10-06T12:17:27.753" Score="3" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to know what's the exact difference between 住 and 居.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since these characters mean the same thing, why can't I convince them together into one word meaning &amp;quot;to live&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T22:34:08.293" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T22:34:08.293" Title="What's the exact difference between 住 and 居?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21366" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21379" CreationDate="2016-10-06T12:22:22.400" Score="4" ViewCount="517" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese idiom &quot; 不翼而飞&quot; contains the character 翼 meaning wings, but how could one fly without wings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 不翼 = 无翼 ？ I'm confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am aware of the fact that the saying means &quot;vanish into the air or disappear without trace&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T08:08:17.660" Title="Meaning of 翼 in 不翼而飞" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21292" CreationDate="2016-10-06T12:58:51.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;邪不能胜正 has variants: 邪不胜正; 邪不敌正.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few other sayings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;祸福无常 (disaster and happiness do not follow rules (idiom); future blessings and misfortunes are unpredictable)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;善有善报，恶有恶报 (virtue has its reward, evil its retribution.) One can also add this: 若然不报时晨未到 (The payback is just a matter of time).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, some examples of contrasting 义 and 利; justice/righteousness with profit. I think it's related to the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;见利忘义&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;见利思义&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;重利轻义&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;君子喻于义，小人喻于利 (Confucious).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2016-10-07T07:22:18.353" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T07:22:18.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21366" CreationDate="2016-10-06T13:35:16.450" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means something disappeared as if it had flown away, and that something probably doesn't have wings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It originally means words because words spread across the world without wings. Now it just means something disappearing into thin air.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15485" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T13:35:16.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21365" CreationDate="2016-10-06T15:20:47.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;住&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/668/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/668/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] [v] live; reside; stay; dwell; inhabit [2] stop; cease&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;居&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1017/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1017/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] [v] to live at, dwell, reside, inhabit, occupy, abode&#xA;  [2] [n] a residence, an house, dwelling &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;居住&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4174/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4174/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to reside; to live (at some place) | [粵]: 住&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;住 is a verb for &quot;to live (in); to reside (at) &quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;居 is mainly a noun for &quot; a residence, an house, dwelling&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the meaning of &quot; to live / to reside &quot; has a dedicated verb 住 , and 居 as a verb, has other meanings (for example: occupy) , few people would use 居 for the meaning of 住 , except in instances that literal style of reading is preferred. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can think of 居 is more literal and 住 is more colloquial when it comes to using a verb for &quot;to live ; to reside&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some example sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他現在&lt;strong&gt;住在&lt;/strong&gt;美國 (he currently &lt;strong&gt;resides in&lt;/strong&gt; America)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他現&lt;strong&gt;居於&lt;/strong&gt;美國 (he currently &lt;strong&gt;resides in&lt;/strong&gt; America)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他現在在美國&lt;strong&gt;居住&lt;/strong&gt; (he currently &lt;strong&gt;resides in&lt;/strong&gt; America)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*unlike 住 or 居, which is placed before the object , 居住 is placed after the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-06T15:45:24.347" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T15:45:24.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21374" CreationDate="2016-10-06T16:22:01.087" Score="2" ViewCount="2330" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that both are supposed to mean &quot;to place&quot; but are they interchangeable? I know that 摆 can be used in the following manner: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;桌子上摆着三本书。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So could you also say something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;桌子上放着三本书。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and have it be a valid sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15486" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T17:43:52.853" Title="Is there a difference between 摆 and 放?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21372" CreationDate="2016-10-06T17:01:19.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are valid but with subtle differences. 摆 is more like &quot;put for display&quot;, while 放 is just &quot;put&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T17:01:19.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21372" CreationDate="2016-10-06T17:33:39.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;擺放&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/15120/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/15120/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lay, layout, place, set&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;擺&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2141/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2141/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] [v] &lt;strong&gt;lay&lt;/strong&gt;; put; &lt;strong&gt;place&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;arrange&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] [v] display; assume; put on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] [v] state clearly; talk about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[4] [v] wave; sway; swing; wag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[5] [n] oscillating device; pendulum&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;放&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/862/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/862/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] let go; release; set free&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] let out; dismiss; take leave&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] put; &lt;strong&gt;place&lt;/strong&gt;; set; &lt;strong&gt;lay&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[4] let off; set off; send out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[5] distribute; hand out; lend for interest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[6] send into exile; exile; banish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[7] (of flowers) blossom; come into bloom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[8] enlarge; lengthen; &lt;strong&gt;let out/down&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[9] graze; pasture; put out to feed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The topic is the verb &quot;to place&quot;. Both  擺 and 放 can be the verb for &quot;to place&quot;, but 擺 also implies the object is placed in a particular position (arranged)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 擺下陣勢 ( lay down a formation) but not 放下陣勢, because a formation has to be arranged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;桌子上摆着三本书。( more likely be neatly arranged)&#xA;&#xA;桌子上放着三本书  ( either randomly or neatly positioned)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-06T17:43:52.853" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T17:43:52.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21366" CreationDate="2016-10-06T19:14:01.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;翼 = Wing&#xA;Yes, here, 不翼 = 无翼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It basically means something is gone in a weird way. For example, you could swear you left something at a certain place and you couldn't find it. You would use this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6035" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T19:14:01.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21366" CreationDate="2016-10-06T19:32:15.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不翼而飞&#xA;发音：bù yì ér fēi&#xA;释义：翼：翅膀。没有翅膀却飞走了。比喻物品忽然丢失。也比喻事情传播得很迅速。&#xA;出处：《管子·戒》：“无翼而飞者声也。”《战国策·秦策三》：“众口所移，毋翼而飞。”&#xA;示例：足足的一百六十块钱就那样便不翼而飞了。（郭沫若《革命春秋·创造十年》）&#xA;近义词：不胫而走 不知去向&#xA;反义词：原封不动&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11786" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T19:32:15.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21366" CreationDate="2016-10-06T20:35:11.973" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;飞 means fly. You leave footsteps if you run away, but you leave no trace if you fly away. It disappeared with no trace and you don't know the reason/how. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's reasonable if it &quot;has wings&quot; (because there is no trace), but it doesn't have any, so the disappearance makes people wonder how did it happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an idiom so it doesn't have to be something actually has wings. For example, you can say your book 不翼而飞了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have enough points to comment yet but 不胫而走 is quite different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastEditorUserId="13091" LastEditDate="2016-10-06T21:19:04.953" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T21:19:04.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21365" CreationDate="2016-10-06T21:57:18.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have enough points to comment yet, but 居住 can be used before the object. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他居住在美国 is both acceptable and correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;住 means live&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;居住 also means live but contains the meaning of stay (the period is longer than 住), and can imply &quot;have a life there&quot;, such as set up a home. Even it doesn't have to be permanent, the length of time cannot be very short. Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. You &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;say&lt;/strong&gt; my friend is going to live with me/ in my house for&#xA;  3 days：我朋友要在我家&lt;strong&gt;住&lt;/strong&gt;三天。You &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;say&lt;/strong&gt; 我朋友要在我家&lt;strong&gt;居住&lt;/strong&gt;三天。This is because 3 days is a short period of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. You &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;say&lt;/strong&gt; you lived in a hotel for 3 days: 我在旅馆里&lt;strong&gt;住&lt;/strong&gt;了三天。You &lt;strong&gt;cannot use 居住&lt;/strong&gt; in this case (lived in a hotel for 3 days) because you only live there&#xA;  temporarily and it doesn't require you to set up a home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;c. You &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; say 他&lt;strong&gt;居住&lt;/strong&gt;在美国三年了。 As 3 years is a relatively long period and it requires you to set up a home of some kind to live in a city/country for this long. 居住 is more appropriate in this case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;居/居于 is more literary, is rarely used in spoken language. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastEditorUserId="13091" LastEditDate="2016-10-07T00:52:56.427" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T00:52:56.427" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21381" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21384" CreationDate="2016-10-06T22:09:38.107" Score="0" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am aware of the fact that 别 usually means &quot;don't&quot;, but what about :/ the expression 别开生面​。 Here, doors it mean &quot;another&quot;? What exactly does it mean in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T22:48:19.990" Title="Meaning of 别 in 别开生面?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21381" CreationDate="2016-10-06T22:44:49.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;别开生面 is actually an idiom which means &quot;to break a new path&quot; or &quot;break fresh ground&quot;. In this case, 别 is just part of the idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15486" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T22:44:49.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21381" CreationDate="2016-10-06T22:45:33.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%88%AB%E5%BC%80%E7%94%9F%E9%9D%A2/787396&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%88%AB%E5%BC%80%E7%94%9F%E9%9D%A2/787396&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别开生面: open up a fresh outlook &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, in 别开生面, 别 means &quot;other / different&quot; (as in &quot;other way&quot; or &quot;different way&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别 (differently)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开 (open up)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生 (new )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面 (outlook)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T22:45:33.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21381" CreationDate="2016-10-06T22:48:19.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;别开生面 usually means to start something new, or to do something new&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别 is used as 另外 (something else), or 别处 (another place, elsewhere)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;开 is used as 开辟，开创 (invent/open up/start)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;生面 is for 新的面目 (a new face/ a new appearance)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In context, it means to start another style, a new style, or start something new. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T22:48:19.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21351" CreationDate="2016-10-06T23:37:16.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just on a side note: English is a stress timed language with heavy doses of schwa to regulate the stress. Most speakers of English a) do not know this and b) never learn this, but they speak like this anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find a lot of videos about this on youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-10-06T23:57:19.610" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T23:57:19.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21365" CreationDate="2016-10-07T01:28:11.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;住&lt;/strong&gt;and&lt;strong&gt;居&lt;/strong&gt; are interchangeable, and they can also be used together, with slightly different in meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;住&lt;/strong&gt;者&lt;strong&gt;人主&lt;/strong&gt;也**。 人 means human, person; 主 means occupy, owner.&#xA;Thus &lt;strong&gt;住&lt;/strong&gt; essentially means living in some place for a relative short term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;居&lt;/strong&gt;者&lt;strong&gt;尸古&lt;/strong&gt;也**。 尸 means corpse, dead body; 古 means ancient, old or long period of time here.&#xA;Thus &lt;strong&gt;居&lt;/strong&gt; essentially means living in some place too, but for a long term because ever after you are dead, ie, becoming a &lt;strong&gt;尸&lt;/strong&gt; corpse, your soul will still live in that place for a long period of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国人来美国定&lt;strong&gt;居&lt;/strong&gt;。 Chinese come to America to live there for a long time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你妈&lt;strong&gt;住&lt;/strong&gt;在酒店。 Your mom is living in a hotel. (Probably short term)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T01:28:11.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21366" CreationDate="2016-10-07T08:08:17.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't study language, here is what I think:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Idioms, or rather, Classical Chinese is grammatically much different than Modern Chinese. Back then, you can have a greater freedom on how you write and words with similar meanings can be used alternatively but in Modern Chinese, we tend to centralize meanings of characters more and use less of the other meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the definition of 不: &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/1680.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/1680.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不&lt;br&gt;&#xA;bù&lt;br&gt;&#xA;副词。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;用在动词、形容词和其它词前面表示否定或加在名词或名词性语素前面，构成形容词：不去。不多。不法。不料。不材（才能平庸，常用作自谦）。不刊（无须修改，不可磨灭）。不学无术。不速之客。&#xA;单用，做否定性的回答：不，我不知道。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;用在句末表疑问：他现在身体好不？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;没有&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, one meaning of &lt;code&gt;不&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;没有&lt;/code&gt;, but it is not the most commonly used meaning of &lt;code&gt;不&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T08:08:17.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21113" CreationDate="2016-10-07T14:36:50.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the book &quot;Modern Chinese Grammar&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://m.sanmin.com.tw/product/index/000225652&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://m.sanmin.com.tw/product/index/000225652&lt;/a&gt;), we can roughly distinguish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不: this word is a negation that comes with the speaker's subjective feeling, which means that the speaker might think the other should have done something (for example in the first sentence, you should have already got up)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;没: this word, however, is a negation which is more or less objective. That is to say, the fact that the other person did not wake up is noted.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum up, in both sentences, the contexts show very strong meanings that both speakers did not agree with what the others have not done, and therefore the negation word &quot;不&quot; was used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I feel that using the negation word &quot;不&quot; is usually more powerful and that implies the relation with the other is more close. Hope this answer can give you some clues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15493" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T14:36:50.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21391" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21392" CreationDate="2016-10-07T17:31:27.023" Score="2" ViewCount="2212" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3456/difference-between-%E8%80%8C-%E4%BD%86-and-%E5%92%8C&quot;&gt;Difference between 而, 但 and 和&lt;/a&gt; contrasts 和 with two others, but doesn't mention 也.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;And&quot; vs. &quot;also&quot; … ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T23:39:59.347" Title="What's the difference between 也 (yě) &amp; 和 （hé)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;nuance&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21391" CreationDate="2016-10-07T17:52:38.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;也 means &quot;also&quot; whereas 和 means &quot;and.&quot;  Adverb vs. conjunction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for example, to say &quot;I am also a student&quot; you could write &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我也是学生。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you cannot write &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我和是学生。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, 也 cannot function as 和。To say &quot;My friend and I are watching a movie&quot; you could write&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我和我的朋友在看电影。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you cannot write &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我也我的朋友在看电影。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some links you might want to check out (both on ChineseGrammarWiki): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_%22also%22_adverb_%22ye%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The &quot;also&quot; adverb &quot;ye&quot;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22and%22_with_%22he%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Expressing &quot;and&quot; with &quot;he&quot;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15486" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-10-07T21:49:35.440" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T21:49:35.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21391" CreationDate="2016-10-07T23:39:59.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 和 is more complicated than just 'and'. It shows a mouth 口 and 禾 a plant like rice. Its original meaning may have been something like 'in time of peace we have food to eat'. Its sense of 'and' may have evolved from 'peace - together - with - and'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look here you can see a lot of meanings: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E5%92%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/%E5%92%8C&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I think sometimes 和 and 跟 are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hear '我也要‘ a lot 'I want some too'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read 也 may be a picture of a wash basin, but I'm not convinced of that. Anyone have better info?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T23:39:59.347" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21351" CreationDate="2016-10-08T04:06:22.663" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are two different ways to read the first part of your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Do children learn how to &lt;em&gt;say&lt;/em&gt; words with the appropriate tones prior to going to school?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Are children &lt;em&gt;explicitly aware&lt;/em&gt; of the tones they're using. (e.g., When they say 中国, do they know or could they explain that 中 is zhong1 and 国 is guo2)?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to #1 is (obviously!) yes.  It's their native language, so of course they pronounce it (more or less) correctly, and that includes the tones.  The answer to #2 is mostly no, and instruction in school builds that explicit knowledge.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make an analogy to English speakers, consider stressed and unstressed syllables.  Children who are native speakers of English correctly stress different syllables of multi-syllable words.  In &quot;computer&quot; they will stress the 2nd syllable, and in &quot;telephone&quot; they will stress the 1st.  But if I were to ask my 4-year-old son &quot;Which syllable is stressed in the word 'computer'?&quot; he wouldn't be able to tell me. When he gets older and begins to understand syllables and patterns of stress in English, he will gain that explicit knowledge. (Though as Gangosa notes in his/her answer, you can speak English just fine without it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One additional point: As EmmaXL states in her answer: &quot;Pinyin is to assist students to learn Chinese.&quot; More specifically on the mainland, explicit knowledge of pinyin helps students' Chinese move closer to standard Putonghua. With such major differences between dialects of Chinese, this explicit instruction is necessary to get everybody speaking (mostly) the same language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15399" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T04:06:22.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21395" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21402" CreationDate="2016-10-08T05:12:19.413" Score="4" ViewCount="1550" Body="&lt;p&gt;井井有条​ (to be neat and tidy) we have a sequence of the third tones. Why is it pronounced as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jing2 jing2 you3 tiao2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jing2 jing3 you3 tiao2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After all, the first half goes together, and the second half goes together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can we generalize the (3, 3) |-&gt; (2, 3) tone change rule to words greater than two characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could we have three or four tone changes in a line of characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the rule that if we have N third consecutive tones, then the first N-1 change to second tones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-10-08T07:55:36.483" LastActivityDate="2021-03-16T14:17:59.423" Title="Generalize consecutive third tones change rule" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21396" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21398" CreationDate="2016-10-08T05:24:39.123" Score="0" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idiom stands for constantly strive for improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look at 精益求精, I read&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excellence increase seek excellence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But shouldn't it be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excellence increase seek more excellence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course if you added 曾加&#xA;then it no longer be four characters long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a topic comment sentence:&#xA;As far as excellence goes, it is improvement that seeks it (excellence itself). (?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please better explain the arrangement XY求X?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other 成语 of this form?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T10:30:51.523" Title="精益求精, how to properly interpret this classical Chinese chengyu?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21397" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21485" CreationDate="2016-10-08T05:45:44.267" Score="3" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do you call a 成语 or expression made up of 3 words instead of 4? For example, 夜猫子, 绊脚石, or 避风头.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-07-25T01:35:37.220" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T02:33:00.657" Title="What do you call a 成语 made up of three words instead of four?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21396" CreationDate="2016-10-08T06:35:13.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;精&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/565/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/565/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[4] [adj] skilled; versed; &lt;strong&gt;proficient&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;益&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1217/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1217/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] [v] increase; add to; augment [2] &lt;strong&gt;in a higher degree&lt;/strong&gt;; to a greater extent; more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;求 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/883/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/883/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;strong&gt;seek&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;精益求精&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/7244/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/7244/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(idiom) &lt;strong&gt;to constantly improve oneself&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Can someone please better explain the arrangement XY求X?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an idiom, not a sentence. Idioms do not have to follow normal grammar rules. You just have to look at each character within an idiom to construct a coherent meaning in your mind. In the case of 精益求精, it offers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;精 &amp;quot;proficient&amp;quot; (adj)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;益 &amp;quot;in a higher degree&amp;quot; (adverb phrase) +  求 &amp;quot;seek&amp;quot; (V)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;精 &amp;quot;proficient&amp;quot; (adj)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(and it does not constitute a sentence. )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;proficient in a higher degree seeking proficient&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to decode the meaning with logical deduction and get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;(someone already) proficient (still) seeking proficiency in a higher degree&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But most of the time, it is best to learn the story of the idiom and memorize the meaning behind it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T06:35:13.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21113" CreationDate="2016-10-08T06:39:13.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your examples I honestly can't see any essential distinction, they are interchangeable here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking about the tense, 没 may intend to express a very weak comparison between the past and the present(before you didn't, now you still haven't), so I will naturally translate it using a prefect tense, but basically either past tense or perfect tense is ok for them both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T06:39:13.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21397" CreationDate="2016-10-08T06:45:16.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is in this post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/20887/%e6%88%90%e8%af%ad-versus-%e4%bf%97%e8%af%ad-versus-%e8%b0%9a%e8%af%ad-what-is-the-difference/20891#20891&quot;&gt;成语 versus 俗语 versus 谚语, what is the difference?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;熟语 (Well known phrases) include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;惯用语(common phrase)&lt;/strong&gt;, usually contain three characters, for example: &quot;打秋風&quot;，&quot;拍馬屁&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T06:53:37.053" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21401" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-08T07:17:25.953" Score="4" ViewCount="1740" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;There is no learn Chinese website so I figured I should ask here. Please let me know if this is not the right place to ask.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm learning Chinese and I aim to be able to type fast. I am considering learning one of Wubi or Cangjie (EDIT: or Zhengma now). My ultimate goal is to be able to read and type Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese. Can I get the pros and cons and comparison of Wubi based on this. (comments on any other input method, if helpful for typing speed are welcome too)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which is &quot;easier&quot; to learn. I'd like to know which one's rules are more intuitive than the other based on some pre-existing associations. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which takes less time to learn? One may have simpler rules to decide components but have too large a number compared to ther&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which is faster to type? I'm not talking about the extreme case where that super character with 99 strokes can be typed using only 2 characters in Cangjie and 23 in Wubi or some such. I'd like if the relative frequency of the Chinese characters themselves is considered. I'm looking for a weighted average. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which is more versatile. I am given to understand that both Cangjie and Wubi (recent versions) can type both Simplified and Traditional characters. Are there any major differences there? Also, is either good for typing the Kanji characters that Japan uses exclusively (I don't know how many of them there are)?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: There's also Zhengma which I hear is capable of typing the entire Unihan set. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Wubi I believe is licensed on Windows so that's not an issue for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;Mods: this can be seen as a discussion question but I think its a good question that some may like information on and removing it just because only one person will get those 15 points doesn't seem like a good idea to me. &lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15371" LastEditorUserId="15371" LastEditDate="2016-10-09T20:55:52.710" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T02:39:51.143" Title="Chinese IMEs - Wubi, Cangjie" Tags="&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21395" CreationDate="2016-10-08T07:33:34.920" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule about the 3rd tone sandhi is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When word with the 3rd tone is used alone, or used at the end of the expression, it's pronounced as the original tone, i.e. the 3rd tone. e.g. &lt;code&gt;雪&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;滑雪&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When two words with the 3rd tone are used together, the 1st one is pronounced as the 2nd tone. e.g. &lt;code&gt;老虎&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;海岛&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When word with the 3rd tone is used before other words with the 1st/2nd/4th tone, it's pronounced as the &lt;code&gt;半三声&lt;/code&gt; (only the first half of the 3rd tone, without the rising tone part). e.g. &lt;code&gt;卡车&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;草莓&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When three words with the 3rd tone are used together;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the first two words are closely linked, i.e. 2+1 construction, then the first two words are pronounced as the 2nd tone. e.g. &lt;code&gt;草稿纸&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;古典美&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the last two words are closely linked, i.e. 1+2 construction, then the 1st word is pronounced as &lt;code&gt;半三声&lt;/code&gt;, the 2nd word is pronounced as the 2nd tone. e.g. &lt;code&gt;米老鼠&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;老领导&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;井井有条&lt;/code&gt; matches the rule 4.1 and 3, so it should be pronounced as 2-2-(半三声)-2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the rule that if we have N third consecutive tones, then the first N-1 change to second tones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends on how you seperate the words, to determine which rule should be applied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/link?url=AgvqgYhNI7TQqTEcyqDkDF4ic-PTlAwlNFsPlAgWngb6O6n_-j1OURgQ9jvXnICqPRkTwTpZ93F6OaHQWosb7ihNBh778wCuz94pUb1GDzi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;第三声变调教学教学&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thn21.com/base/ying/9222.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;第三声（上声）的变调&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zybang.com/question/21aa45a75e2a30cc1a2981356ae32941.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;现代汉语中三个三声连在一起,该怎么变调?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-10-10T14:23:58.787" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T14:23:58.787" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21396" CreationDate="2016-10-08T09:14:11.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;精益求精&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try this link:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=O3VNmx4OycxEKxV6GQ6uqpaNw8ldIR9W4wmebs46jTG3Q_GrZ-DqJBmEMzX8x_qh1cYEjUFcTbhzyr_esEFtqsmZBCoWSVaiW2Qom_QqRXcvvI4d55sVR8miWs68jcOF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=O3VNmx4OycxEKxV6GQ6uqpaNw8ldIR9W4wmebs46jTG3Q_GrZ-DqJBmEMzX8x_qh1cYEjUFcTbhzyr_esEFtqsmZBCoWSVaiW2Qom_QqRXcvvI4d55sVR8miWs68jcOF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;精：完美；&#xA;jing: perfect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;益：更加；&#xA;yi: even more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;求：追求。&#xA;qiu: seek, want, desire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事物已经非常出色了，&#xA;Something already outstanding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;却还要追求更加完美，&#xA;but still want even more perfect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好了还求更好。&#xA;good still want better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to improve on perfection&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence. ~Vince Lombardi&#xA;Striving to better, oft we mar what's well. ~William Shakespeare, King Lear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-10-08T09:27:08.090" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T09:27:08.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21396" CreationDate="2016-10-08T10:30:51.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Be the best of the best is essentially what it means. Let's say you have a huge cock and it's the biggest in your family. Eventually, somebody will get a bigger cock than you, if you don't kept feeding it healthy diets everyday. Thus this 成语  also has a meaning of teaching people not to be arrogant when you are the best and kept getting harder work done everyday. For the above example, maybe feeding your cock a health diet is not enough because your family and your neighbors can do the same, so you may need to give your chicken more such as protein shake, meat and even medicine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T10:30:51.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21113" CreationDate="2016-10-08T10:49:44.327" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;没 is not a verb because there is no action in 没，nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 is not a verb neither because there is no action in 不，not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb are 起 and 选:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已经九点了，你怎么还不&lt;strong&gt;起&lt;/strong&gt;床？ (起 is the verb here, it means &quot;get up&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你怎么不&lt;strong&gt;选&lt;/strong&gt;一个更好的作文题？(选 is the verb here, it means &quot;choose&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T10:49:44.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21401" CreationDate="2016-10-08T13:27:44.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will give a blanket answer to your question. This might seem like a discussion and sound harsh but I hope it helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is &quot;easier&quot; to learn? Which takes less time to learn? Which is faster to type? Both Wubi or Cangjie are hard to learn if you are new to Chinese. (I am basing this on your goal of learning to read and type Mandarin and Cantonese, fyi, character wise, they are the same, only with different pronunciation). I recommend regular pinyin or ㄅㄆㄇ for newcomers to Chinese because you will not know which character to type. (While a pinyin-based input method requires only that you are familiar with the pronunciation, Wubi and Cangjie require that you are already familiar with the characters you want to write.) Once you have mastered the characters, in terms of speed and which is faster, both are equally fast once you get used to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How long do they take to learn? Both takes about 1 month to &quot;learn&quot;, but many more months to practice. This is only if you have mastered reading Chinese first. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you brought up typing Japanese. This will be a completely different input method so Cangjie and Wubi will not help. At the end of the day, typing is only an additional &quot;soft skill&quot; but you will have to master the &quot;hard skill&quot; of learning the language first. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-10-09T03:02:27.617" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T03:02:27.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21409" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21410" CreationDate="2016-10-08T18:35:53.170" Score="0" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm now chating with a host over AirBnB. She seems to NOT speak English, so she replyed to me the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你好，我不会英语，你介意吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I tried to reply the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你好。我会看得懂中文少一点，可是我不会说。如果我们用信息，我们会没有问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I now wonder if the last sentence is correct or not. Specifially, I think there are some expressions occurred on me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们会没有问题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们不会有问题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们会没问题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the sentence I used correct? Or is there a better expression here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;By the way is 我不会英语 the correct in grammar or does she just omit it since it is obvious in context?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T07:07:07.777" Title="What to mix 会 and 没有 to say &quot;We won't have any problems.&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21409" CreationDate="2016-10-08T20:06:46.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the sentence I used correct? Or is there a better expression here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&lt;em&gt;我们会没有问题&lt;/em&gt; - 我们 (we) | 会 (will) | 没有 (not have) | 问题 (problem)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;em&gt;我们不会有问题&lt;/em&gt; - 我们 (we) | 不会 (will not) | 有 (have) | 问题 (problem)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我们会没问题&lt;/em&gt; (just #1 omitted 有)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both #1 and #2 are correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没有 (not have) acts on the noun &quot;问题 &quot;(problem)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不会 (will not) modify the verb &quot;有&quot; (have)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;By the way is 我不会英语  correct in grammar or does she just omit it since it is obvious in context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我不会英语 means &quot; I don't know English&quot; (don't understand, can't speak, read or write)  or it is &quot;我不会說英语&quot; but omitted the verb &quot;說&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我不会說英语 means &quot; I can't speak English&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不会英语 on its own is grammatically correct. Since she understood what you wrote in English, she was actually saying &quot;我不会說英语&quot; but omitted the verb &quot;說&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-09T02:17:53.797" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T02:17:53.797" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21401" CreationDate="2016-10-09T00:10:34.353" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wubi is indeed very fast, but the cost and benefit makes it less worthwhile. In fact, I'd like to argue most of the professional typewriting systems aren't worth learning. You get AI support on major sound-based IMEs and AI advances a thousand miles a day, soon they will be at least as fast as Wubi and its peers. I'd like to think Wubi is as dead as all those stenotype systems. You shouldn't use them if you want to be some sort of professional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also Wubi is a copyrighted system, though the copyright owner, 王江民, reluctantly gave out an earlier version for free (after losing a copyright lawsuit, which is kind of ridiculous because he should have won), the later versions are again copyrighted. No software company takes interest in buying the copyright and develop an IME for it, which means you're stuck with the so-called classic version which only supports a subset of simplified Chinese characters(it can support a bigger charset, but you have to work around a lot of issues, making it less of a choice for traditional Chinese). 王江民 made IMEs with his own company, but apparently he knew neither software nor business. Last time I checked, the company had only 2 part-time employees maintaining the website, nothing else. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The business is later transferred to 王's daughter-in-law, but she has her own business to take care of. Last year I wrote a tirade on the status of Wubi. She said she will do something about it, but nothing happened since then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By comparison, the Cangjie inventor had made it to the public domain, and now it has a livelier ecosystem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, Wubi takes less strokes to form a character, but Wubi's rule has more exceptions and therefore more difficult to learn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2016-10-09T05:49:02.750" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T05:49:02.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21413" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-09T04:16:24.683" Score="5" ViewCount="381" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find it hard to imagine how the character 矢 looks like an arrow (perhaps a &amp;quot;big&amp;quot; man with a spear on top of his head, I dunno).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please explain this in terms of oracle bone scripture character evolution, Unicode characters or something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 丢失的失 also looks similar, and might be related. Not to speak about 矮子的矮 where arrows 矢 are shorter than spears (not sure what character you'd user for a spear), women 女 on average shorter than men, and grains 禾 smaller than X, can't remember what X is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T10:08:35.173" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T10:08:35.173" Title="How does 矢 look like an arrow?" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21413" CreationDate="2016-10-09T06:06:21.763" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters originally looks more different when written in older script, e.g. Oracle Script, as stokes get simplified more and more and curvy strokes are then converted to straight lines and boxy characters, eventually, different characters look alike.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;矢 originally looks like this in Seal Script:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XM0Sx.gif&quot; alt=&quot;矢&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Primitive pictograph 矢. An arrow. Meaning arrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;失 originally looks like this in Seal Script:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y4JUj.gif&quot; alt=&quot;失&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Augmented pictograph 失. Augmentation 丿(something lost) to hand 手 indicating dropping something. Meaning lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for reference, hand 手 in Seal Script:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TKCch.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TKCch.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T06:06:21.763" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2016-10-09T08:19:31.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between “的”“地”and “得”, and how to use these three words? It is not an easy problem. I’m not kidding, because the pronunciation of these three word are same. So next we are going to talk about how to use the “的, 地, and 得” in Chinese. The pronunciation of these three word are same. All of them pronounced “de” with natural tone. But we cannot make them wrong in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“的” is a structural auxiliary word which attached at the back of an attributive modifier. It is a kind of symbol of attributive.&#xA;And I can give you some structures.&#xA;Adj.+的+N.&#xA;漂亮的裙子&#xA;聪明的孩子&#xA;Sb.+的+Sth.&#xA;我的书&#xA;他们的房子&#xA;Sb.+的+Sb.&#xA;他的哥哥&#xA;我的姐姐&#xA;But in this structure , “的”can be omitted. You can say “他哥哥”/“我姐姐”also.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“地” is a structural auxiliary word which attached at the back of the adverbial modifier. It is a kind of symbol of adverbials.&#xA;Here is a structure also.&#xA;Adj.+地+V.&#xA;高兴地笑&#xA;迅速地离开&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“得” is a structural auxiliary word which attached at the back of the verb or adjective, the front of complement. It is a kind of symbol of complement.&#xA;The structure is “V.+得+adj.”&#xA;师傅开车开得很快。&#xA;她说话说得很慢。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still don't know how to use  “的”“地”and “得”, you can see the video &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/de-de-de&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/de-de-de&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T08:19:31.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12761" CreationDate="2016-10-09T19:31:36.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason that she feels surprise is that she finds out that works are doing loading in a wrong way. Therefore, she says &quot;is there any possible that you can change the way you are doing&quot;. &quot;愣了愣&quot; means that she is surprised about the wrong action and try to correct them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T19:31:36.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21417" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-09T23:02:57.460" Score="0" ViewCount="5884" Body="&lt;p&gt;In what kind of situations might I use the phrase 借你吉言？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I'm trying to think of a neat, cool translation. Haven't got one yet!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;God willing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If only ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-10-10T05:01:53.647" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T05:01:53.647" Title="When might you say 借你吉言？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21417" CreationDate="2016-10-10T01:25:41.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;字典中解释为:接受你的祝福，谢谢你的关照&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use it when somebody say something good about you or when something good comes true which was said by somebody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例子1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A:你家孩子学习这么好，肯定能考个好大学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B:借你吉言…………&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例子2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A :昨天晚上有点感冒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B:今天天气这么好，肯定会很快就好的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;第二天A的感冒好了，两人又见面了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A:借你吉言，昨天感冒真的好多了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T01:25:41.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21353" CreationDate="2016-10-10T01:35:05.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digmandarin.com/tips-on-learning-chinese-interrogative-sentences.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tips on Learning Chinese Interrogative Sentences&lt;/a&gt;, there are several methods to post a question in Chinese, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adding question particles at the end of a sentence, for example: 嗎, 呢, 吧&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using question words to indicate a more specific question: “what”(什麼), “how”(如何), “where”(哪裡), “Who”(誰) and “why”(為什麼)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;While asking how much or how many about something, adopt: 幾, 多少&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Transforming a sentence with a common question construction, the “ Verb-不-Verb” format&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Combining two or more associated statements, like “(是)...還是...” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone uses a sentence constructed in any of these ways, we will know immediately that she/he is asking a question. Most of the time, people don't use tones to differentiate a question from a statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, in &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/mC5qFpBNxZM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the video&lt;/a&gt; you brought up, she applies the common question construction, the “ Verb-不-Verb” format, for her two questions. There is no actual need to change the tone at the end of sentences, and that is also not a clear way to express a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15493" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T01:35:05.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21417" CreationDate="2016-10-10T02:55:44.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is used when someone said something good is going to happen to you (or you family etc.). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你肯定能通过这次考试！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 借你吉言，我也希望能通过！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T02:55:44.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21417" CreationDate="2016-10-10T04:47:32.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;承你貴言&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/56723/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/56723/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;wish everything you said would come true&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;承你貴言 is a more well known idiom than 借你吉言.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only heard 借你吉言 for the first time here. It is virtually unknown among Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two phrases are very similar in meaning though,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;借你吉言 means &amp;quot;(I hope to)borrow your blessing words &amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;承你貴言 means &amp;quot; (I) humbly accept your blessing words and hope it will come true&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use either phrase as a formal / humble respond, when someone is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(1.) blesses you good luck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(2.) predicts good fortune or success will come to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I suggest using the more common 承你貴言.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T05:00:48.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21409" CreationDate="2016-10-10T06:42:48.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your sentence has already expressed the basic meaning, so all of them sound ok to me, speaking of a more strict grammar, it's better to add a &quot;的&quot; after each sentence: 我们会没问题 -&gt; 我们会没问题的, as @user6065 already pointed out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But to sound more nature, I might make two changes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Turn it into an impersonal sentence: 会没事的/是没有问题的（the person 我们 removed）, which can be translated as &quot;It will be ok/fine&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Further change, adding some mood to emphasize uncertainty, thus it becomes: 应该会没事的/应该是没有问题的, which can be translated as &quot;It should be ok/fine&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T06:42:48.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21424" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21425" CreationDate="2016-10-10T08:54:17.003" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just stumbled upon the three words &lt;code&gt;實驗&lt;/code&gt; (shíyàn), &lt;code&gt;測驗&lt;/code&gt; (cèyàn), and &lt;code&gt;試驗&lt;/code&gt; (shìyàn). Looking them up on mdbg.net and on Google Translate, they all translate to &quot;test/experiment&quot;. So I was wondering: what (if any) is the difference between them? Are they exact synonyms or is there a subtle difference in meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS I wss looking for &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/word-usage&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;word-usage&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;word-usage&lt;/a&gt; but it doesn't exist. I'm not sure if there are better tags for this post. If you know any, feel free to edit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T09:39:22.543" Title="Three words for &quot;test&quot;: differences?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21424" CreationDate="2016-10-10T09:23:27.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are the common definitions for these words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;實驗 - experiment (lit: practical test)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;e.g. 物理實驗 - physics experiment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;測驗 - test as in exam (lit: test/measure test)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;e.g. 英語能力測驗 - English skill test&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;試驗 - test as in tryout/trial (lit: try test)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;e.g. 臨床試驗 - Clinical trial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I suggest don't use any translation engine if you want to study that language, use actual dictionaries. I believe translation engines are just to get a grasp of the input. At this point in time, humans are needed to finalize the translated outputs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="11486" LastEditDate="2016-10-10T09:28:37.323" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T09:28:37.323" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21424" CreationDate="2016-10-10T09:39:22.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;實驗: this word is commonly used to indicate scientific trials. The first character &lt;code&gt;實&lt;/code&gt; means concrete, and we call a lab by appending a character for room &lt;code&gt;室&lt;/code&gt; to it, which becomes &quot;實驗室&quot;. On the other hand, a experimental theater is usually translated into &quot;實驗劇場&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;測驗: is normally applied to indicate examinations or assessments, such as SAT would be likely associated with this word. The character &lt;code&gt;測&lt;/code&gt; means assessing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;試驗: is less common than the first two words, and we see this word appearing at some medical/pharmacological/agricultural areas. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are not exact synonyms, but we would apply different terms according to related domains, so it is very rare to see &lt;code&gt;試驗&lt;/code&gt; being used to indicate normal exams at schools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15493" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T09:39:22.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21427" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21428" CreationDate="2016-10-10T09:49:29.880" Score="0" ViewCount="383" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this phrase. I am curious to understand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;愿你出走多年，归来还是少年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I translate it using a variety of online tools, I come up with something like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;you would like to run for many years and return as a teenager.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that an accurate description/translation of what this phrase means in English? Or is there some other meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15515" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T23:43:45.417" Title="Translation of 愿你出走多年，归来还是少年" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-10-23T06:02:47.810" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21427" CreationDate="2016-10-10T11:09:39.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your transition is the literal meaning of the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It comes from the book 《愿你出走半生，归来仍是少年》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The actual meaning of it is no matter what happens to you and no matter how many places you have been, you should always keep a beginner's heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T11:09:39.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21433" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21438" CreationDate="2016-10-10T12:55:40.757" Score="1" ViewCount="2756" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference between 哥 and 哥哥? Both are defined as “elder/older brother” in various online dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T11:35:25.883" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T07:43:58.007" Title="Difference between 哥 and 哥哥" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21433" CreationDate="2016-10-10T13:14:05.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no difference between them of the meaning, I feel  哥 is more formal than the other one, and 哥哥 feels closer than 哥.&#xA;Generally, girls would like to call 哥哥 more than boys.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastEditorUserId="15502" LastEditDate="2016-10-10T13:36:59.670" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T13:36:59.670" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20801" CreationDate="2016-10-10T13:28:38.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are just different writing styles which we can tolerate.Because the governments in Chinese using regions have established &lt;strong&gt;standards&lt;/strong&gt; on which is the right way (正體字, lit. correct form character) and which is the wrong way (異體字, lit. different form character), these typefaces are used less and less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please see:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://input.foruto.com/ccc/gongbiu/dzijingbiu/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中文字元資料頁：港標中文網&lt;/a&gt; for the right and wrong ways to write in Hong Kong&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You might want to check this one especially: &lt;a href=&quot;http://input.foruto.com/ccc/gongbiu/dzijingbiu/doc/dzijingbiu_jitai.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《〈常用字字形表〉異體字表》 (pdf檔)&#xA;&lt;/a&gt;, note that the left side is the standard form in Hong Kong and the right side is a wrong form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://teaweb.whps.tp.edu.tw/~chinese/data/word.ppt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;標準國字研討&lt;/a&gt; for the right and wrong ways to write in Taiwan and the rules on how to create a Traditional Chinese font for use in Taiwan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not studying language, but as far as I know, the modern Chinese typeface is based on Seal Script and how it was evolved. Each component of a character in Seal Script corresponds to &quot;the basic 8 strokes&quot; and this is how the Ming/Song typeface is based on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so, because of this very fact, Hong Kong and Taiwan defines different characters as the &quot;correct form&quot;, one example might be &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ssBQc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;window&quot;&gt; (left: HK; right: TW)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you mentioned &quot;食&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BTHpH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/28/zy/98FD.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/28/zy/98FD.htm&lt;/a&gt; In the second row, you can see the correct form in different regions: (left to right) Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Old typeface. The third row are different forms of &quot;飽&quot; that means the same but not considered standards and I know none of them except &quot;饱&quot; which is used in Mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For comparison, this is the same character in Seal Script, so you can see how the curvy lines are adapted into straighter lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Je726.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Seal Script&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="11486" LastEditDate="2016-10-10T14:03:24.680" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T14:03:24.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1737" CreationDate="2016-10-10T16:58:52.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English term that is closest to 老乡 is &quot;country folk&quot; or &quot;countryman&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/folk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/folk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;plural :  a certain kind, class, or group of people : old folks | |just plain folk | &lt;strong&gt;country folk&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Folk&lt;/strong&gt; is always plural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can describe or address a group of 老乡 as &quot;folks&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;to describe one 老乡 , you can say &quot;that countryman&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to address one of your own 老乡, you can say &quot; Hey, fellow countryman!&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T16:58:52.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21433" CreationDate="2016-10-10T21:41:52.077" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;哥哥 is more likely to be used by kids. Similarly, in English, children call their parents Mummy and Daddy but when they grow up, they would call them Mum and Dad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an adult, you can still call your brother or male cousin 哥哥 and that is not a problem. In fact, many people use both 哥 and 哥哥. It just depends on which they feel like to use at the moment. Generally speaking, 哥 also shows that you are a little bit closer to each other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese people sometimes call their best friend 哥哥, 姐姐, 弟弟, or 妹妹; Each of them can be said only by one character, such as 哥 or 姐. Besides their cousins and siblings, people used to use them on their best friends only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These days, 哥 and 姐 have been widely used. For example, sales people may call their potential customers 哥 or 姐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastEditorUserId="17030" LastEditDate="2017-10-14T07:43:58.007" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T07:43:58.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21440" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21447" CreationDate="2016-10-10T23:20:05.830" Score="0" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never heard of this adjective...?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I checked on Baidu and it was less than helpful... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=RobUqePv2YKUWD1PXNi_ZHv9awWxDw4oSQoJQPtHo5st56o9ELMlOm2-CAExjxKrGNRrEbKem5soSudPG34cCPP3Pq5XaMHdQDBCO02Oc-W&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zhidao.baidu.com/link?url=RobUqePv2YKUWD1PXNi_ZHv9awWxDw4oSQoJQPtHo5st56o9ELMlOm2-CAExjxKrGNRrEbKem5soSudPG34cCPP3Pq5XaMHdQDBCO02Oc-W&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9734" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T01:24:43.687" Title="What is the meaning of 很搭?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21440" CreationDate="2016-10-10T23:43:09.710" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can think of it as two words 很搭 but it generally means very compatible, suitable, a good match. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 很 is used as an adverb. ex: 很帥, 很酷, 很好&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The 搭 is used as slang for being compatible.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can also change up the adverb and use &lt;strong&gt;滿&lt;/strong&gt;搭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's usually used for clothing, 你穿這件還滿搭的. This clothing matches you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T23:43:09.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21427" CreationDate="2016-10-10T23:43:45.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This link &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zybang.com/question/cf6f5a8be999c03ebea19cce043813bb.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zybang.com/question/cf6f5a8be999c03ebea19cce043813bb.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;has this answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望你不管在人世上经过多少世事 再见时仍能保留少年人所有的赤子之心.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I translate as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope, no matter what you experience in this world, that when we meet again, you can still retain the purity and innocence of youth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T23:43:45.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21443" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21444" CreationDate="2016-10-10T23:55:09.323" Score="0" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;As &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1495/15412&quot;&gt;I've said before&lt;/a&gt; I'm completely illiterate in Chinese but I'm struggling to do some vital translations for my job. I am trying to make the following noun phrase in chinese:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a proposal for creating a website&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a little about &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14709/indefinite-article-vs-numeral-use-of-%E4%B8%80-y%C4%AB&quot;&gt;Chinese articles&lt;/a&gt;. So those &lt;code&gt;as&lt;/code&gt; before &lt;code&gt;proposal&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;website&lt;/code&gt; are not necessary.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;also from &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english-chinese-traditional/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cambridge dictionary&lt;/a&gt; we'll have:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;proposal == 建議  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;for == 為了  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;create == 創造  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;website == 網站&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how should I express intention in Chinese grammatically?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Are there any structure equivalent to &lt;code&gt;preposition+gerund English structure&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Or should I use the noun form of the verb (&lt;code&gt;Creation == 創造&lt;/code&gt;)?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The translation suggested by &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.cambridge.org/translate/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cambridge dictionary&lt;/a&gt; is as follows:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a proposal for creating a website == 用於創建網站的建議&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Is it exactly true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15412" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T01:12:06.403" Title="How do you express intention (for + gerund English structure) in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21443" CreationDate="2016-10-11T01:02:54.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since there's no indication of you actually studying Chinese, I could just give you the answer by providing the correct Chinese phrase .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, other users who are actually studying Chinese can benefit from a more detailed answer.  I would make here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, the grammar structure of &quot;a proposal for creating a website&quot; is:&#xA;&quot;A&quot; (classifier) + &quot; proposal&quot; (noun) + &quot;for creating a website&quot; (adjective phrase) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A word for word translation in Chinese would be 「一個建議，有關創立一個網站的」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is, the  (classifier)+ (noun)+( adjective phrase) structure  is rarely used in Chinese grammar; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use (classifier) + (adjective phrase) +(noun) structure in Chinese instead. So the sentence should be 「一個(有關創立一個網站的)建議」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「的」 in 「有關創立一個網站的」is needed to indicate「有關創立一個網站」 is a adjective phrase, (the same rule apply to adjective clause, relative phrase and relative clause)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-11T01:12:06.403" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T01:12:06.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21443" CreationDate="2016-10-11T01:05:10.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have a look here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/example?query=proposal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/example?query=proposal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first example seems quite close to what you need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他提了个建议。  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā tíle gè jiànyì.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He put forward a proposal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just squeeze web page in there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他提出了一个网页的建议。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T01:05:10.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21446" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-11T01:12:59.730" Score="2" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, one of the ways 返 is used is to express &quot;return&quot; or &quot;back&quot;. What word in Mandarin is the best equivalent to it? Would it be 回?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the examples - not sure if the translation is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex. 我要還返本書俾佢 -&gt; 我要还回本书给他 (I need to return a book to him)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex. 走之前記住攞返鎖匙 -&gt; 走之前记住拿回钥匙 (before you leave, remember to get your keys)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for any help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15101" LastEditorUserId="15101" LastEditDate="2016-10-11T01:34:03.567" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T03:19:44.273" Title="Mandarin equivalent of 返 in Cantonese? Is it 回?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21440" CreationDate="2016-10-11T01:24:43.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;「很搭 」is shortened form of 「很合配搭」(very compatible)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「配搭」(v)  &quot; to match; to accompany&quot; ; (n)  combination ;  pairing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「合配搭」= compatible &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T01:24:43.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21446" CreationDate="2016-10-11T01:59:33.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a verb particle, the Mandarin equivalent of 返 in Cantonese is indeed 回&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俾&lt;strong&gt;返&lt;/strong&gt;你一啲好處(C) = 給&lt;strong&gt;回&lt;/strong&gt;你一點好處 (M) = give you &lt;strong&gt;back&lt;/strong&gt; some benefit &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, the term 還返 is uniquely Cantonese, &quot;我要還返本書俾佢&quot; in Mandarin would just be &quot;我要还本书给他&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second, 本 is a classifier without determiner or count word, it  is normal in Cantonese, but in Mandarin, you should not omit the determiner or count word; you should write &quot;我要还(這)本书给他&quot; or &quot;我要还(一)本书给他&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finally, you can omit the classifier along with the determiner and write &quot;我要還書俾佢&quot; / &quot;我要还书给他&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-11T03:19:44.273" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T03:19:44.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21450" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21460" CreationDate="2016-10-11T02:28:53.630" Score="-1" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chinese is not bad, but I want to improve it. And since among all the people that I know who are learning Chinese, the most successful one are those with a Chinese girlfriend, and to be honest with you, I kinda learn my Chinese pinyin through chatting with a crazy Chinese babe in weixin, so my question one: is getting a Chinese girlfriend the way to go to be literate in Chinese? I think Learning Chinese is like practicing Chinese GongFu (功夫). You can read all the GongFu books in the world, but if you don't have that better than your opponent (女朋友) to fight you, it is hard to motivate yourself to move on to next level and become a GongFu master yourself one day. What do you think the easiest way to learn Chinese is? (PS. if you are a sweet Chinese master, you can add my weixin: wudixzz to be my opponent.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question two: For my Chinese, it's weird because I only know how to type Chinese using pinyin, and if you ask me to write Chinese using a pen on a piece of paper, I can't remember how to spell the Chinese character. For example, 规则， guize, are relatively simple characters in Chinese, but when picking up a pen, my brain is blank. What will be the easiest method to remember these millions of different Chinese words? Reading doesn't work for me. I have been read more than 10 Chinese books annually for many years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question three, just like what I have said, I can read Chinese, but whenever I try to read handwritten Chinese, most of the time, I can understand anything at all. Seems to me, every Chinese has invented his/her ways of writing every single Chinese word differently. Surprisingly, when asking a Chinese to translate a handwritten piece of note back to standard Chinese, she doesn't have any problem at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q3: how to read handwritten Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T03:19:11.973" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T03:19:11.973" Title="ideal way and easiest method to learn Chinese" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-10-23T06:01:31.043" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21451" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21453" CreationDate="2016-10-11T04:10:31.063" Score="0" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do the following characters say in english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forgive me but I can't put them into google translate because it is an image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SS0A4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SS0A4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15322" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T06:20:27.183" Title="Character Identification" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2016-10-23T05:56:17.193" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21450" CreationDate="2016-10-11T05:13:55.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a good way to learn Chinese by committing with a Chinese, and most of us are like to be friends with a foreigner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn how to write Chinese, you must learn strokes of Chinese characters (which was called 笔画 in Chinese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T05:13:55.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21451" CreationDate="2016-10-11T05:55:16.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters are 從昨天 - From yesterday/since yesterday.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By itself, it sounds and feels like something is missing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The song by popular Chinese band S.H.E. - 老婆 Wife, uses it in their lyrics, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;從昨天&lt;/strong&gt; 到今天 還有明天. 感謝老天 讓你們 陪在我身邊.&quot; (From yesterday, till today, and tomorrow, thank heavens for letting you stay by my side).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T05:55:16.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21195" CreationDate="2016-10-11T06:31:56.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/jbs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/jbs/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;try this website, it's helped me when i see a character but don't know how to pronounce it. it tells you what the radical and non-radical is called as well. hope it helps you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15433" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T06:31:56.557" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21458" CreationDate="2016-10-11T10:08:36.630" Score="1" ViewCount="527" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure I understand the first part of this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他爱怎么想就怎么想，我才不在乎呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found it in the Pleco C-E dictionary (Pleco is a an app on my Android) as a sample sentence for 在乎. The given translation is: “I don't care what he thinks”. Any pointers on how to understand the first part of the sentence would be welcome. Is there a general rule for X怎么Y就怎么Y? Is this some subtle usage of 就?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T23:33:24.037" Title="What's the meaning of the first part of: 他爱怎么想就怎么想，我才不在乎呢" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21456" CreationDate="2016-10-11T11:58:38.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's actually like&#xA;&quot;He will think whatever he like to think, I donnot care.&quot;&#xA;When saying 爱怎么就怎么 we usually mean&quot;I don't care&quot; or &quot;do whatever you want.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15521" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T11:58:38.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21456" CreationDate="2016-10-11T12:00:41.667" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This would be best translated into:&#xA;He thinks however he wants to think, I don't care.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence structure is often used with 什么.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如：你想吃什么就吃什么。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Word by word: You want to eat whatever, just eat whatever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...which really means: Eat whatever you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This structure can work with any normal question pronoun &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(哪里/哪儿，什么，怎么，谁，什么时候，为什么。。。）. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(wherever, whatever, however, whoever, whenever, for whatever...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 就 is pretty much equivalent to 'just', as in 'just do it'. It's not absolutely required here, but it's used very often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could write this type of sentence in Chinese more similarly to English:&#xA;你就吃你想吃的 (You just eat what you want to eat).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think a native speaker would more inclined to use the xxxx什么就xxxx什么 structure, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See if you can wrap your head around this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们想去哪里玩就去哪里玩，反正我都不去了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15520" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T12:00:41.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21450" CreationDate="2016-10-11T13:17:05.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely learning correct stroke order is super helpful for learning 汉字. It keeps your writing more consistent, neater looking, and easier to remember. Generally speaking, order goes from top left corner down to bottom right. There's a good number of online dictionaries that will show you the stroke order for each character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, learning characters just comes down to practice and memorization. Reading alone is not nearly enough to learn how to write. You just gotta commit and do a lot of repetition and you could easily learn 5 to 10 字 a day. Luckily, the more characters you have under your belt, the easier it becomes to learn more and more, because you'll learn to recognize the different radicals and components in each character. Just start slowly chipping at it and in no time you'll have a few hundred characters locked down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something that I've found has really helped my vocab, listening, and reading is listening to Chinese music and reading along with the lyrics. Just look up whatever lyrics you don't understand and you can make em into a vocab sheet. Good way to learn some useful words that they might not teach in a textbook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase &quot;you don't use it, you lose it&quot; is especially true for 汉字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15520" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T13:17:05.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21450" CreationDate="2016-10-11T15:11:43.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You're right, having a Chinese (girl)friend and talking/chatting a lot is a great way to get fluent in Chinese. But be aware that there are limits to this method. It can get you fluent and communicative both on chat and when speaking face-to-face with Chinese people. But if you also want to, say, be able to watch TV, understand books and articles, basically anything that is aimed at adult native speakers, that's not something you can learn by chatting with a girlfriend. If you want to get there, you need to work on expanding your vocabulary and spend time learning Chinese characters. My favourite way of expanding vocabulary and improving spoken comprehension is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesepod.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChinesePod&lt;/a&gt;, but of course there are many other podcasts, and you can surely find some that you enjoy. To learn from real-world videos made for native speakers, use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fluentu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FluentU&lt;/a&gt;. Another tip is to have &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt; on your phone, often look up words you don't know and save them as flashcards (see the next point).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you have a problem with forgetting, use a spaced repetition system (SRS), which can schedule repetitions of what you've learnt. There are many SRS programs, and I personally recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skritter.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Skritter&lt;/a&gt;, which is specifically made for Chinese. Another option is to use the flashcard SRS that is available in Pleco.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You should also think how much time you want to spend on learning to write  characters. Maybe it's enough to be able to type it and recognise them? In that case, learn to write only insofar as it helps you with character recognition. After all, handwriting is not an indispensable skill anymore (see the next point). Of course your mileage may vary.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think that if you practice writing Chinese characters, your ability to recognise handwritten Chinese will improve. But you may also ask yourself how important this ability is for you. I, for one, hardly ever write anything by hand in any language I know, including my mother tongue, and I also very rarely need to read handwritten text. So I basically don't care about it too much. But your situation may be different.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2016-10-13T05:38:07.683" LastActivityDate="2016-10-13T05:38:07.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21461" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-11T15:53:09.670" Score="0" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that there is a big gap between my listening comprehension under ideal conditions (f.e. listening to a chinese movie/TV show/ChinesePod at my computer) and real-life listening comprehension (f.e. listening to friends at a loud chinese restaurant or sometimes just stuff like listening to a clarification question after I ordered milk tea at a noisy street).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure most Chinese learners face similar issues and I haven't come across any good strategy how to tackle this. Since I do not live in China I do not get enough input to use the &quot;just listen more under non-ideal conditions&quot;-strategy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have any suggestions/ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15524" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T17:43:22.720" Title="Techniques for improving listening comprehension under background noise conditions" Tags="&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21462" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21468" CreationDate="2016-10-11T15:58:14.500" Score="3" ViewCount="562" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am curious as to how reliable HSK tests downloaded from the internet are. I've downloaded them from the sites listed in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14729/hanban-hsk-official-website-resources-download&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;. And have also use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kongziapp.confucius.hsk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;android app here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can pass the HSK 1 &amp;amp; 2 tests on both the app and pdf. I certainly did not understand all the written or spoken text and maybe made lucky educated guesses on a maximum of 3-4 questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the difficulty level of these tests and the scores given accurate? I know that one may not be able to answer this definitively here, but can anyone who has relevant knowledge/experience comment?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I apologize if this question is inappropriate for the forum here, feel free to close it or otherwise suggest another forum. 谢谢!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T19:05:17.323" Title="Reliability of HSK practice tests" Tags="&lt;practice&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21456" CreationDate="2016-10-11T23:33:24.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;他爱怎么想就怎么想，我才不在乎呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He can think what he likes, I just don't care.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T23:33:24.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19662" CreationDate="2016-10-12T02:42:51.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you need to think 很 as a linking verb, in English you never say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but: I am fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The soup delicious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but: The soup tastes delicious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same in this case, 很 as a linking verb, you can't omit it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 很 好 = I am fine. (not &amp;quot;very well&amp;quot;), there is no &amp;quot;very&amp;quot; involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you want to express &amp;quot;I am very/quite well&amp;quot;, you need to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 非常 好. (that important note is now you don't need 很 anymore, since 非常 already carried the meaning of BE.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-12T02:42:51.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21461" CreationDate="2016-10-12T06:01:43.867" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me answer that based on my experience as an English learner.&#xA;Just keep listening under ideal conditions. Don't worry about that. One day you'll surprise yourself being able to listen to Chinese in noisy background or even multi-tasking. The building of listening comprehension is extremely slow and imperceptible. You may need years of patience especially for a language with totally different phonetic system.&#xA;Most foreign language learners around the world don't even manage to do what you can do now. Good job and carry on!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15530" LastActivityDate="2016-10-12T06:01:43.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21296" CreationDate="2016-10-12T06:35:16.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This online dictionary seems the right tool for you&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;It looks up the character's definition in several modern and ancient dictionaries, you can also see how the pronunciation and writing has evolved over thousands of years, being different today between mandarin and dialects, traditional and simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15530" LastActivityDate="2016-10-12T06:35:16.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21462" CreationDate="2016-10-12T10:57:55.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have done HSK3 and am preparing for HSK4. I used some HSK3 practice tests to see whether I was ready for that test. When the practice tests are identified as past test papers, they should be a good rough guide to your readiness for the real test. I treat them only as a rough indicator because there are no &lt;em&gt;exact&lt;/em&gt; descriptions of what you need to know for HSK tests (except for character lists, which are only marginally helpful). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also find HSK preparation books. The practice tests in those books are sometimes somewhat harder than the real HSK test. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2016-10-12T10:57:55.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21296" CreationDate="2016-10-12T13:30:13.273" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.outlier-linguistics.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters&lt;/a&gt;, when it's finally ready, will be a user-friendly reference about the etymology of Chinese characters, together with mnemonics that can help learning them. The great thing about it is that it is going to be based on modern etymology scholarship, in contrast to many other resources that are based either folk etymology or on Shuowen Jiezi, which contains explanations that are not necessarily correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2016-10-12T14:18:47.950" LastActivityDate="2016-10-12T14:18:47.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21470" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21471" CreationDate="2016-10-12T17:52:23.277" Score="4" ViewCount="2323" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand the meaning of 麻烦 as &quot;troublesome&quot; (ex. 麻烦你等一下), but am not sure what it means in this phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard that this can function as some sort of apology for troubling someone. Is that true? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15486" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-20T18:16:20.093" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T11:58:12.973" Title="What does 麻烦你了 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21470" CreationDate="2016-10-12T18:29:08.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term 麻烦 can be a noun, an adjective or a verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;麻烦: (n) trouble; (adj) troublesome; (v)  to trouble / to bother / to inconvenience&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/inconvenience&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/inconvenience&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;*inconvenience&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;verb (&lt;strong&gt;used with object&lt;/strong&gt;), inconvenienced, inconveniencing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a verb, it has to be used with object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; *I understand the meaning of 麻烦 as &quot;troublesome&quot; (ex. 麻烦你等一下)*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No,  &quot;&lt;strong&gt;麻烦&lt;/strong&gt;你等一下&quot; means &quot;(I have to) inconvenience you to wait a minute&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A better English phrasing would be &quot;sorry to inconvenience you, please wait a moment &quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you say 麻烦你, (inconvenience you), usually you would begin with a &quot;sorry&quot; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 麻烦你 itself already contains an apologizing tone, the &quot;sorry&quot; can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;*What does 麻烦你了 means*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Sorry to inconvenience you&quot; (to ask someone to do something) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Sorry to have inconvenienced you (to apologize for the inconvenience you caused)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-12T18:54:20.077" LastActivityDate="2016-10-12T18:54:20.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21472" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-12T21:53:54.843" Score="4" ViewCount="491" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence comes to my mind is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;at least, in the end, I can say that I tried everything I could.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a corresponding expression for ‘交代’ here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13836" LastEditorUserId="13836" LastEditDate="2019-03-28T17:21:33.743" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T17:21:33.743" Title="'最终有个交代‘, '交代’ meaning" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21472" CreationDate="2016-10-12T23:02:08.997" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;「交代 」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(v)  to answer to  / to explain / to report ; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(n)  explanation / justification&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;向民眾&lt;strong&gt;交代&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;answer to&lt;/strong&gt; the people / &lt;strong&gt;explain&lt;/strong&gt; to the people)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;給民眾一個&lt;strong&gt;交代&lt;/strong&gt; (give people an &lt;strong&gt;explanation&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;最終有個**交代** meaning&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means &quot; At the end, there will be an &lt;strong&gt;explanation&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎樣向皇上&lt;strong&gt;交代&lt;/strong&gt; ( how to explain / report it to the emperor?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你可獻上我的頭顱作為&lt;strong&gt;交代&lt;/strong&gt; ( you can offer my head as your &lt;strong&gt;report&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Additional Note:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;交代 mainly means &quot;explain&quot; or &quot;explanation&quot;, and by extension, it also carries meanings of &quot;report&quot; and &quot;instruction&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you explain how you've carried out a task to your boss - that would be &quot;giving a report&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you explain how to carry out a task to your son - that would be &quot;giving an instruction&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-15T19:07:39.757" LastActivityDate="2016-10-15T19:07:39.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21476" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21492" CreationDate="2016-10-13T11:30:02.137" Score="1" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the translation of the sentence:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Let's all press &quot;commit&quot; button!  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have three options:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;让我们按下&quot;Commit!&quot;按钮&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我们都按''Commit!''按钮&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我们所有人都来按''commit遵守''按钮！&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15412" LastActivityDate="2016-10-15T19:03:24.943" Title="which one is a better translation and seems natural in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18158" CreationDate="2016-10-13T14:30:49.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd cut the sentence in 2, like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们好像不能沟通。兴趣爱好完全不一样&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沟通 is just the word you need in this kind of situation. it's about the ability to find a common ground (or not), between persons but also between cultures (西方人和中国人思想不一样！). Mostly translated as 'communicate', i'd rather put it as 'relate to'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好像 ('it seems') softens up the message.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完全 underscores the difference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12128" LastActivityDate="2016-10-13T14:30:49.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21472" CreationDate="2016-10-13T14:36:31.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first I thought, 最终有了一个交代 means &quot;I finally found an/the answer&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'd like to know what 交代 really means and how to translate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你快死了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你让我照顾你的孩子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我把他抚养成人。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我最终对你有了一个交代。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have done your bidding, but what is 有个交代？？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looks like the other side of &quot;I am in your debt&quot;, ie &quot;you are in my debt&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently there is a sense of something which takes a long time to 交代.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Got this comment from italki, seems to make sense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In traditional Chinese culture, people believe that there is an&#xA;  afterlife. But people are not able to move on to the afterlife if they&#xA;  have unfinished last wishes. Their souls are still entangled in this&#xA;  world. If &quot;有个交代” is related to finished last will, in a way it means&#xA;  &quot;let go&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think I can translate 我最终对你有了一个交代。 as &quot;I have finally achieved closure for you.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-10-14T02:35:40.930" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T02:35:40.930" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21479" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21487" CreationDate="2016-10-13T14:50:10.953" Score="0" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in this poem (shown below). Unfortunately I don't know much about where it originates. It seems to be posted frequently online but the original author / source is omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mostly I've read this using translation tools but if a proper English translation exists, I'd love to read it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;愿无岁月可回头，且敬往事一杯酒&lt;br&gt;&#xA;看流年似水，往事不可追&lt;br&gt;&#xA;愿你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每天那么忙&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做的都是自己喜欢的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;此后做的每一个选择都是为了自己&lt;br&gt;&#xA;少一些何必当初，多一些暗自庆幸&lt;br&gt;&#xA;以后的所有泪水，都是喜极而泣 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;昨天已经过去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;无论怎样忧伤，都无济于事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;时间不会倒流，光阴不会倒转&lt;br&gt;&#xA;明天尚未到来，无论怎样期待&lt;br&gt;&#xA;最终能否如愿，都是个未知数&lt;br&gt;&#xA;只有今天才真正属于自己&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有些路，走下去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;会很累，但是不走，会后悔&lt;br&gt;&#xA;人生没有对错，只有选择后的坚持&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不后悔，走下去，就是对的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;喜欢一句诗，走着走着，花就开了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;人生就像坐火车一样&lt;br&gt;&#xA;过去的景色那样美，让你流连不舍&lt;br&gt;&#xA;可是你总是需要前进，会离开&lt;br&gt;&#xA;然后你告诉自己，没关系&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我以后一定还会再来看&lt;br&gt;&#xA;可其实，往往你再也不会回去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;流逝的时间，退后的风景&lt;br&gt;&#xA;邂逅的人，终究是渐行渐远&lt;br&gt;&#xA;亲爱的自己&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不要抓住过去不放&lt;br&gt;&#xA;断了线的风筝让它飞&lt;br&gt;&#xA;放过它，更是放过自己&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的孤独，虽败犹荣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;愿无岁月可回头，且敬往事一杯酒&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15515" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T05:35:21.863" Title="Poem source and English translation - 愿无岁月可回头，且敬往事一杯酒" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21480" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21483" CreationDate="2016-10-13T15:27:28.703" Score="3" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%BC%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;MDBG translates 弄&lt;/a&gt; as &quot;to do / to manage / to handle / to play with / to fool with / to mess with / to fix / to toy with&quot;. When I look at example sentences with 弄 and a complement of result, I find only descriptions of actions that are somehow negative:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他把我的电脑&lt;strong&gt;弄坏了&lt;/strong&gt;。 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://comet.cls.yale.edu/mandarin/content/result/grammar/Result-8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yale University Center for Language Study&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;小狗把房间&lt;strong&gt;弄得很乱&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;请不要把顺序&lt;strong&gt;弄乱了&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我不小心把衣服&lt;strong&gt;弄脏了&lt;/strong&gt;。(Last three examples from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mandarinchineseschool.com/files/HSK/New_HSK_Level_IV_Vocabulary.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mandarin Chinese School: New HSK Level 4 Vocabulary (Chinese-English)&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can 弄 only have a negative complement? Or is this just the most common usage? (If positive outcomes after 弄 are possible, please provide an example.) &#xA;Note that I am interested in 普通话 rather than local dialects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T00:00:48.013" Title="Is 弄 + complement of result only used for actions with a negative outcome?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21482" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21484" CreationDate="2016-10-13T18:16:41.387" Score="0" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I wanna translate the following sentence:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Let's make a website for remote sensing and photogrammetry real. Let's&#xA;  all press &quot;commit&quot; button!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which of the following is a better one?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;让我们一起创造一个网站，让遥感和摄影测量成为现实。大家一起按commit按钮。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;让我们一起创造一个网站，让遥感和摄影测量成为现实。让我们按下&quot;Commit!&quot;按钮。&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;让我们一起创造一个关于遥感和摄影测量的网站。大家一起按commit按钮。&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;让我们一起创造一个关于遥感和摄影测量的网站。让我们按下&quot;Commit!&quot;按钮。&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you please consider the following facts in your answer.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;About the meaning of the first sentence, it's not photogrammetry real. The explanation for meaning of the sentence is let's make a website for remote sensing and photogrammetry come into existence. Or let's create a website for remote sensing and photogrammetry.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Also consider that I'm not searching for a word-by-word explanation.Just write down what you would say if you wanted to express the same idea naturally in Chinese?  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/90327/remote-sensing-and-photogrammetry?referrer=8G2asYAyI_To9RoVf1VtPg2&quot;&gt;I'm trying to create an international community for remote sensing and potogrammetry experts in StackExchange&lt;/a&gt;.There are some remote sensing and photogrammetry groups or pages in facebook, Twitter,Google+, LinkedIn,etc. that have strictly expressed to just post in their local language. And since Chinese is the most widely spoken languages in the world (due to high population) and Chinese people are so active in scientific affairs, the number of such pages in facebook, etc. is high and so I cannot promote the idea in those pages in English and I should post in Chinese. So please consider the fact that the translation will be used to post on social networks for promotional goals. And I need a natural translation which requests the reader respectfully with kind of informality and intimacy (since I'm posting on social networks and I'm not writing a formal letter or paper to organizations) and also I need my request do not sound like begging.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15412" LastActivityDate="2016-10-16T01:13:25.653" Title="Which is a better translation for the sentence &quot;Let's make a website for remote sensing and photogrammetry real.&quot; which will be used as a slogan?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21480" CreationDate="2016-10-14T00:00:48.013" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No，it can be followed by positive outcomes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your examples, they are followed by adjectives such as 乱、坏、脏, which are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you can also say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的电脑坏了，是李明帮我弄好的。My computer was broken, Ming Li fixed it for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你能帮我弄一下吗？Can you help me to do/fix this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把这个弄得很漂亮、很整齐。He made it very pretty and tidy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, 弄 can be followed by both positive or negative outcomes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T00:00:48.013" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21482" CreationDate="2016-10-14T03:12:53.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would prefer this one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;让我们一起创造一个网站，让遥感和摄影测量成为现实。大家一起按commit按钮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but slightly change to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们一起来创造一个网站。一个可以让遥感和摄影测量成为现实的网站。大家一起按commit按钮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would suit better with your english version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2732" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-14T03:29:43.263" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T03:29:43.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21397" CreationDate="2016-10-14T03:32:19.710" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No surprise here, they are called 三字成语 (three-letter 成语).  However the words in your question are usually not considered 成语, they are 俗语.  三字成语 do exist, though, such as 破天荒, 莫须有, and 闭门羹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6697" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T03:32:19.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21479" CreationDate="2016-10-14T05:35:21.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course you can't find an author. Frequently these articles are created by the internet PR business, or what we call 营销号. They steal materials from various sources and stitch them together to create click-baits. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry if this sounds harsh, but this piece is far from good literature. You find much better verses in Reader's Digest. But still, it took me some minutes to do the translation. Please ignore the rough edges because I only had 15 minutes for it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;看流年似水，往事不可追&#xA;Watching the seasons pass like a river. What's happened cannot be undone.&#xA;愿你&#xA;Wish you&#xA;每天那么忙&#xA;Busy everyday&#xA;做的都是自己喜欢的&#xA;doing what you love to do&#xA;此后做的每一个选择都是为了自己&#xA;Every choice you make from now on, are made for yourself&#xA;少一些何必当初，多一些暗自庆幸&#xA;Fewer regrets, more secret rejoice&#xA;以后的所有泪水，都是喜极而泣&#xA;From now on, all your tears are tears of happiness. &#xA;昨天已经过去&#xA;Yesterday has passed&#xA;无论怎样忧伤，都无济于事&#xA;However sad you are, it wouldn't help&#xA;时间不会倒流，光阴不会倒转&#xA;Time don't flow backwards, day and night don't reverse themselves&#xA;明天尚未到来，无论怎样期待&#xA;Tomorrow is yet to come, whatever you expect&#xA;最终能否如愿，都是个未知数&#xA;may or may not come true, nobody knows&#xA;只有今天才真正属于自己&#xA;What you really have is today&#xA;有些路，走下去&#xA;Some roads, if you walk on&#xA;会很累，但是不走，会后悔&#xA;you will be exhausted, but if you dont, you will regret&#xA;人生没有对错，只有选择后的坚持&#xA;There is no right or wrong in life, only stick to your chice&#xA;不后悔，走下去，就是对的&#xA;Don't regret, keep on, that's it&#xA;喜欢一句诗，走着走着，花就开了&#xA;There is a line I like: You walk on and on, then the flowers begin to bloom.&#xA;人生就像坐火车一样&#xA;Life is like a journey on a train&#xA;过去的景色那样美，让你流连不舍&#xA;You see beautiful scenes, you don't want to let go&#xA;可是你总是需要前进，会离开&#xA;But you have to move forward, have to leave,&#xA;然后你告诉自己，没关系&#xA;Then you tell yourself: it's OK,&#xA;我以后一定还会再来看&#xA;I'll be back someday&#xA;可其实，往往你再也不会回去&#xA;But in fact, the chances are you will never be back&#xA;流逝的时间，退后的风景&#xA;Time passes, scenes retreat&#xA;邂逅的人，终究是渐行渐远&#xA;Whoever you get to know, will eventually part their ways&#xA;亲爱的自己&#xA;Dear self:&#xA;不要抓住过去不放&#xA;Don't cling to the past&#xA;断了线的风筝让它飞&#xA;Let the loose kite fly away&#xA;放过它，更是放过自己&#xA;Let it go, moreover, let go of yourself&#xA;你的孤独，虽败犹荣&#xA;Your loneliness, though defeated, is not without glory&#xA;愿无岁月可回头，且敬往事一杯酒&#xA;May there be no years and months worthy of going back, and let's raise the glasses for what happened in the past.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T05:35:21.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21488" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21489" CreationDate="2016-10-14T16:45:12.200" Score="1" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was told this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你确定你是外国人→_→&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I looked up the meaning of 确定 it said it meant definite/certain. So, my guess for this sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are you certain you are a foreigner/are you definitely a foreigner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I right? Why was 确定 used in this context? What is its actual meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15304" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T04:34:53.730" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T04:34:53.730" Title="What is the meaning of 确定 in 你确定你是外国人?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21488" CreationDate="2016-10-14T17:09:19.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct; in this context, 确定 means &quot;to be certain&quot;.  It looks like someone is jokingly doubting that you are a foreigner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15549" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T17:09:19.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21488" CreationDate="2016-10-14T18:02:41.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;確定 as a verb means &quot;to determine&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;確定&lt;/strong&gt;你是外國人」literally means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;determined&lt;/strong&gt; you are a foreigner&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate the meaning of 「確定」 as a verb more clearly, let's look at the following sentences:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「可以&lt;strong&gt;確定&lt;/strong&gt;這是假貨」( can &lt;strong&gt;determine&lt;/strong&gt; this is a fake)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「可以&lt;strong&gt;肯定&lt;/strong&gt;這是假貨」( can &lt;strong&gt;be certain&lt;/strong&gt; that this is a fake)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「名單已被&lt;strong&gt;確定&lt;/strong&gt;」( the list has been &lt;strong&gt;determined&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「名單已被&lt;strong&gt;確認&lt;/strong&gt;」(the list has been &lt;strong&gt;confirmed&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;Are&lt;/strong&gt; you &lt;strong&gt;certain&lt;/strong&gt; you are a foreigner?&quot; -「你&lt;strong&gt;肯定&lt;/strong&gt;你是外國人?」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T18:02:41.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21491" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-14T21:44:58.593" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;My dictionary has an entry for 蟗 (qiū), but no explanation is given. Here is the entry from the Pleco Android app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Z2lU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Z2lU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Pleco entry I&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pZ304.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pZ304.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Pleco entry II&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this mean, and why is the dictionary entry missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="11212" LastEditDate="2016-10-14T22:43:49.023" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T22:43:49.023" Title="Meaning of 蟗&#xA;(qiū)" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21476" CreationDate="2016-10-14T21:57:15.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you mean a button that appears on a screen, it is better to say &quot;点击（click）...&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在，让我们点击“Commit”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would rather omit &quot;键&quot; or &quot;按钮&quot; in the above sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;按钮 normally refers to actual buttons that you can press by hand，such as the on/off button on your TV or computer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;键 can be used when you talk about keyboards, remote control and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are talking about an actual button, your first translation appears to be the most natural one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T21:57:15.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21491" CreationDate="2016-10-14T22:07:18.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;次蟗 means spider and it is not commonly (very very rarely) used in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyu.baidu.com/zici/s?wd=%E8%9F%97&amp;amp;tupu=01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://hanyu.baidu.com/zici/s?wd=蟗&amp;amp;tupu=01&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zidian.eduu.com/detail/14985.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://zidian.eduu.com/detail/14985.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/23/kx/87d7.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/23/kx/87d7.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T22:07:18.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21494" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-14T22:14:29.147" Score="0" ViewCount="1124" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know, on an Android smartphone or PC, how do I use the RSUNICODE floating point number to enter a character, and why would I use a RSUNICODE number to enter text in this way? Is this what RSUNICIDE codes are used for... to enter text?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2016-10-15T04:25:35.910" Title="How to use RSUNICODE codes?" Tags="&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21494" CreationDate="2016-10-15T04:25:35.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;as far as i know, the function of rsunicode is to find out the &lt;strong&gt;radical &amp;amp; stroke count&lt;/strong&gt; from an input, the output is the radical index (1-214) &amp;amp; number of strokes, excluding the radical of the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;it's not for inputting text.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-10-15T04:25:35.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21476" CreationDate="2016-10-15T05:56:15.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since there is a exclamation mark '!', I think it is actually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Let's all press &quot;commit&quot; button simultaneously!  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and thus the translation in Chinese is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;让我们一起按下“commit”按钮！&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*键 refers to a key on the keyboard; 按钮 refers to a button (on screen). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-15T19:03:24.943" LastActivityDate="2016-10-15T19:03:24.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5659" CreationDate="2016-10-15T10:55:09.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use the default installed Chinese language pack (Chinese Traditional Taiwan Microsoft BoPoMo)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When typing, try using the space bar, this works for characters that don't represent anything by themselves (ㄅㄆㄇㄈㄉㄊㄋㄌ etc...). This won't work for characters that are associated with words (ㄚ=阿, ㄞ=哀, ㄛ=喔)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For ㄅㄆㄇ that are associated with words, you will have to scroll down and pick what you want. A little more of a hassle, but still works.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tones can be used by themselves. just insert them and press space bar (ˊ ˇ ˋ ˙) But I will warn you beforehand, they are written in superscript and hard to read. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-15T10:55:09.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21482" CreationDate="2016-10-16T01:13:25.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question was initially proposed in Chinese Meta &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1495/is-asking-to-translate-a-short-paragraph-from-english-to-chinese-on-topic-here&quot;&gt;Is asking to translate a short paragraph from English to Chinese on topic here?&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a few basic translations&lt;br&gt;&#xA;攝影測量學 is the more technical term for photogrammetry. 攝影測量法 also works.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;遙感探測 is for remote sensing, this can be shorted to 遙測 or 遙感 (casual/technical jargon) for those in the industry. However, for those who are unfamiliar or not used to the term, I would go for its more formal 遙感探測.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal localized translation for your slogan would be this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In traditional Chinese, (use google translation to change from Traditional to Simplified)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;開創新社團 Starting a new group/community (referring to a website)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;歡迎對遙感探測及攝影測量法有興趣的人來加入 Welcoming those who are interested in remote sensing and photogrammetry to come join us&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a &quot;call to action&quot; that doesn't sound so awkward. My personal opinion is asking people to &quot;press commit&quot; just sounds awkward. For English it sounds like your begging, while the Chinese translation, no one knows what commit is. Yet I understand the reason for mentioning the &quot;commit&quot; part because this is not a website yet.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other SE users, feel free to give critics or opinions on my translation/localization&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:49:43.223" LastActivityDate="2016-10-16T01:13:25.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21501" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21601" CreationDate="2016-10-16T03:04:39.650" Score="0" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two of the most well known Chinese poets ABC says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;poet, second in fame only to Li Bai&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;of Du Fu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did either 杜甫 or 李白 popularize or standardize any sort of 方言 through their works? (Certainly not on purpose.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or were they very 书面 anyway?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T19:10:19.567" Title="Did 李白 and 杜甫 popularize/standardize any 方言?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21503" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-16T06:10:18.557" Score="-1" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not have any historical dictionaries installed (yet) in Pleco. I am trying to look up a character I found in the handle of a contributor on the Japanese SE, but could not find it in Pleco.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't all Japanese kanji have Chinese (繁体) equivalents? I have attached screenshots of the characters (closest character is 侵, but this one has a small 人 on the left rather than a small 刀):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cHkIl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cHkIl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;drawn character&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IsaMD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IsaMD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;picture of username handle&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2016-10-16T07:32:10.450" Title="Cannot find Japanese kanji in Chinese dictionary" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21501" CreationDate="2016-10-16T06:39:39.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;李白and杜甫 make the language of Shaanxi(陕西）popular.&#xA;They were the people of tang dynasty ,and capital of the tang dynasty is Chang'an where is in Xi'an of Shaanxi province now.So the language of Shaanxi is standard for everyone like the dialect of Beijing has effect on Chinese now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15555" LastActivityDate="2016-10-16T06:39:39.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21503" CreationDate="2016-10-16T07:32:10.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's 帰 (u+5e30), located in &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJK_Unified_Ideographs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;cjk unified ideographs&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. it's a kanji, a character mainly used by japanese. the equivalent one in chinese is 歸 (u+6b78).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, the dictionary used is, well, not good enough. it maybe suitable for beginner, or amateur. any decent one would give you the answer directly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/search.jsp?q=%E5%B8%B0&amp;amp;x=0&amp;amp;y=0&amp;amp;stype=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/search.jsp?q=帰&amp;amp;x=0&amp;amp;y=0&amp;amp;stype=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QTAyMDc1LTAwNQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QTAyMDc1LTAwNQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cns11643.gov.tw/AIDB/query_general_view.do?page=3&amp;amp;code=3067&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cns11643.gov.tw/AIDB/query_general_view.do?page=3&amp;amp;code=3067&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lastly, i guessed the id &quot;劫回帰&quot; is derived from the manga &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu-Gi-Oh!&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yu-Gi-Oh!&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-10-16T07:32:10.450" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21506" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-16T09:41:28.610" Score="0" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this word in &lt;a href=&quot;https://guides.github.com/features/issues/#notifications&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Github guide&lt;/a&gt;, and I don't know how to translate it to Chinese.It is used in this context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Muted &lt;strong&gt;threads&lt;/strong&gt; won’t show up as unread again until you are specifically @mentioned again. This makes muting a great strategy for &lt;strong&gt;threads&lt;/strong&gt; that you have little interest in (perhaps a sub-system that you aren’t familiar with). If you mark an issue as read, it will stay that way until someone comments on the &lt;strong&gt;thread&lt;/strong&gt; again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15556" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T14:07:57.620" Title="How to translate &quot;thread&quot; to Chinese？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-10-23T06:00:31.370" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21506" CreationDate="2016-10-16T13:53:22.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;楼主： OP&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沙发: first answerer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二楼: second answerer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三楼: third answerer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这个部分,我们邀请每个人用英语来回答和沟通. Here we have ‘thread' as 部分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-16T13:53:22.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21509" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-16T19:43:03.800" Score="5" ViewCount="2994" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the difference between 多少 and 几 simply &quot;how much&quot; vs &quot;how many&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read different sources with varying perspectives: some emphasize expected number (1-10 for 多少 vs 10+ for 几), others talk about money (多少) vs. non-money items (几). Is there a more definitive answer on usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="153" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2020-05-19T05:04:13.383" LastActivityDate="2020-05-19T05:04:13.383" Title="When should I use 多少 or 几?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21509" CreationDate="2016-10-16T20:44:11.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, we use &amp;quot;how many&amp;quot; for countable nouns and &amp;quot;how much&amp;quot; for uncountable nouns. But in Chinese, there's no difference between countable and uncountable when it comes to measure or describe the quantity of something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say &amp;quot;how many men&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;how much money&amp;quot; ; both &amp;quot;how many&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;how much&amp;quot; in Chinese is「多少」. &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;How many&lt;/strong&gt; men&amp;quot; = 「&lt;strong&gt;多少&lt;/strong&gt;人」; &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;How much&lt;/strong&gt; money&amp;quot; = 「&lt;strong&gt;多少&lt;/strong&gt;錢」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;幾&lt;/strong&gt;」 (adj): &lt;strong&gt;a few&lt;/strong&gt; ;  &lt;strong&gt;several&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;em&gt;Example: &lt;strong&gt;幾&lt;/strong&gt;個人一齊做 ( &lt;strong&gt;a few people&lt;/strong&gt; do it together)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;幾&lt;/strong&gt;」 (adv):  &lt;strong&gt;quite&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;considerably&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;em&gt;Example: 「&lt;strong&gt;幾&lt;/strong&gt;好」( &lt;strong&gt;quite&lt;/strong&gt; good)，「&lt;strong&gt;幾&lt;/strong&gt;快」 ( &lt;strong&gt;quite&lt;/strong&gt; fast)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;幾&lt;/strong&gt;」 (adv): &lt;strong&gt;how; how many / how much&lt;/strong&gt; ; &lt;strong&gt;what&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Examples:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;「幾多?」(how many? / how much?)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;em&gt;幾時?」(what time? = when?)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;「(有)幾好?」(how good?)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;「(有)幾快?」 (how fast?)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「多少」(how many) is a phrase used to ask or talk about an amount ;「幾」 is mainly an adverb (how / what).  For example: 「幾」(how)+「多」(many) = 「幾多」(how many) ; 「幾」(what)+ 「時」(time) = 「幾時」(what time / when)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「多少?」and 「幾多?」only mean &amp;quot; how many?&amp;quot; but 「幾」has other usages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;When should I use 多少 or 几?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When asking [how many of something] or [how much of something] you can use  either[多少+(something)]or [幾多+(something)], for example: 多少人 or 幾多人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can omit 多 in 幾多 in some cases when you want to use a more classical style of speech. Which means you can use: &amp;quot;幾人? &amp;quot; instead of &amp;quot;幾多人?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Is the difference 多少 and 几 simply &amp;quot;how much&amp;quot; versus &amp;quot;how many&amp;quot;?  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The different usages of 多少 and 几 have been explained in the body of this post&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T00:23:54.473" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21512" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21513" CreationDate="2016-10-17T01:39:55.590" Score="2" ViewCount="2808" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese first language here, but since I've lived outside of China since I was little I'm completely out of touch with this kind of culture. Does China have stuff like this? I know you can call someone &quot;A-叔叔&quot; or something like that, but say you're in high school and you want to address a friend, girlfriend, teacher, or stranger. What would you call them, their whole name, or first name, or last name (like they do in Japanese) or add a suffix (like -kun or -san in Japanese, okay I watched some anime okay? Fine are you happy now)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13665" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T03:17:40.080" Title="How do you address someone with their name in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21512" CreationDate="2016-10-17T03:29:48.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do you address someone with their name in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same as English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By titles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李先生 = Mr. Lee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李太太 = Mrs. Lee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李小姐 = Miss Lee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李女仕 = Ms. Lee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李醫生 = Dr. Lee &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李老師 = Mister Lee ( teacher)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李主席 = Chairman Lee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李教練 = Coach Lee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李爵士 = Sir Lee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李公爵 = Duke Lee &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By age and gender  ( not blood-related)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李叔叔 = Uncle Lee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李姨姨 / 李阿姨 = Aunt Lee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(李)兄 ( less formal than &quot;Mr. / Mister&quot;.   For men slightly older than you )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(李)師傅 = Master Lee ( a polite address for master of any field or  any accomplished craftsmen)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*There are too many to list. But basically, you can't go wrong with the first four on the list. (Mr./ Mrs. /Miss /MS.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T03:29:48.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21512" CreationDate="2016-10-17T03:40:39.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.Usually we would call them by their Surname.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ex: 王先生 (Mr. Wang), 黃叔叔(Uncle Huang, can also be used for anyone around your father's age), 黃阿姨(Aunt Huang, can also be used for those around your mom's age), 王小姐(Ms. Huang), 馬媽媽(Mother Ma)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.For those who have an academic degree, or if they hold high positions in a company, we use their profession or position. Gender pronouns are irrelevant here.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ex: 賴醫師(Dr. Lai), 林老師(Teacher Lin), 柯主任(Manager/Director Ko), 周董(CEO Chou, Jay Chou's nickname) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3a. For those closer to us, we call them by their nick names, these are given or adopted when they were young and they just decided to continue using them. Nicknames usually start with their Surnames but sometimes uses a character in their full name depending on how smooth it sounds. These are usually used with 小A, B哥, C姊.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ex: 小汪 (Little Wong), 馬哥(Brother Ma), 瑄姊(Sister Hsuan, full name might be something like 許紋瑄, but 許姊 sounds off)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3b. Other times we just call them by their given name. 浩平 (Full name might be 王浩平).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.Then there are &quot;catch all nicknames&quot; used in school and in the work place like 學長(Senior for males), 學姊(Senior for females), 學弟 (Junior for males, 學妹( Junior for females). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Chinese culture is heavily influenced by hierarchy. Even among friends, 哥 and 姊 is usually referred to those who are older. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T03:40:39.743" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21515" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21516" CreationDate="2016-10-17T06:34:43.327" Score="3" ViewCount="4267" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to find out what is the polite way of telling someone that someone, specifically a relative, has passed away? I'm pretty sure it's not very nice to say someone died （死）。 Google translate suggests 他去世了。But is that right? Is it different for Cantonese?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2386" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T01:03:22.417" Title="What is the polite way to say a grandparent has passed away?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21515" CreationDate="2016-10-17T07:25:12.417" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The common polite terms for 「死了」(died):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;過身 (passed away)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;去世 (left this world)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;逝世 (departed from this world)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;仙逝 (departed to the spiritual world)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走了 (had gone)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他過身了&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他已經去世了&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;曹操在 220 AD 逝世&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我祖父早已仙逝&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我父母都走了&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走咗(走了) is the most popular one among Cantonese speakers  because of the vagueness ( as if the dead person was just gone for a trip) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the polite way to say a grandparent &lt;strong&gt;has passed away&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;祖父&lt;strong&gt;過身了&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;could you provide the jyutping?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;90% of the time Cantonese would use the two below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我祖父過咗身 ngo5 zou2 fu6 gwo3 zo2 san1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我祖父走咗嘞 ngo5 zou2 fu6 zau2 zo2 lak6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-18T05:09:25.153" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T05:09:25.153" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21517" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-17T09:09:06.543" Score="2" ViewCount="675" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering how is the difference between traditional and simplified Chinese?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example think of the following sentence:    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在StackExchange網站中建立遙感探測和攝影測量問答網站的這個提案，仍處在委託階段 ( commitment phase) 。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That has been written in pure Taiwanese version by a native who has studied in USA as the translation for the following:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a proposal for creating a remote sensing and photogrammetry Q&amp;amp;A site&#xA;  in StackExchange Network is in commitment phase now  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now how can it be converted to a pure mainland Chinese version?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I mean are the differences just in typing?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are there any difference in the vocabulary?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is there any service on the net which gets a traditional word (or a&#xA;word typed in traditional Chinese) and then gives you its simplified&#xA;version?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do I have to apply grammatical changes, too?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do simplified Chinese (People who are living a mainland China)&#xA;understand traditional Chinese easily? What about vise versa?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which one is used wider in the world (traditional or Chinese)? (I&#xA;mean for promotional purposes is it better to translate a passage&#xA;into simplified or traditional to be understandable by more people?)  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15412" LastEditorUserId="15412" LastEditDate="2016-10-17T09:16:02.070" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T10:54:24.973" Title="The difference between simplified and traditional Chinese and how should one convert a traditional sentence into a simplified one?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21517" CreationDate="2016-10-17T09:59:25.723" Score="3" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Now how can it be converted to a pure mainland Chinese version?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a big project. Best to find a professional translator who knows both well to do the job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;I mean are the differences just in typing?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Are there any difference in the vocabulary?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. Quite a lot are different. Like &lt;em&gt;software&lt;/em&gt;, in Taiwan it's 軟體 and in the mainland it's 软件. I'd like to show another example, the word &lt;em&gt;cache&lt;/em&gt; in computer science. In Taiwan they adopt 快取 while in the mainland 缓存 is used. The two versions seem quite different at the first glance. One uses 快 fast, the other 缓 slow. But they describe the very same thing from two aspects. Both 快取 in simplified and 緩存 in traditional will be odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Is there any service on the net which gets a traditional word (or a word typed in traditional Chinese) and then gives you its simplified version?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Character-to-character is available, like from 體 to 体. But word-to-word is not that easy. 软体 is improper. Besides, there are cases that multiple traditional characters can be transformed into one simplified one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Do I have to apply grammatical changes, too?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grammars of both are almost the same in the written language, but I'm not sure about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Do simplified Chinese (People who are living a mainland China) understand traditional Chinese easily? What about vise versa?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The written language can be easily understood. The characters can be recognized easily though one may find it hard to write them by hand. I know little about the case vise versa since I'm from the mainland. Traditional characters are never forbidden though they cannot be used in the official documents like laws. We learn to recognize the traditional ones but not how to write in the school. I have read a lot of novels printed in traditional Chinese. Both of them can be widely seen in daily life, of course the simplified more than the traditional. Anyway both are precious legacies from our ancestors of the past thousands of years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Which one is used wider in the world (traditional or Chinese)? (I mean for promotional purposes is it better to translate a passage into simplified or traditional to be understandable by more people?)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far as I know, many softwares, webs and manuals provide both. But I myself find it okay to read only the traditional version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T10:54:24.973" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21517" CreationDate="2016-10-17T10:35:52.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can it be converted to a pure mainland Chinese version?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Using Google Chrome, there is an extension for translating websites. In the past this used to be extremely popular, until English only speakers realized the translations were not only horrible, they were machine translations. For your case, you can use machine translation if you have either Simplified or Traditional Chinese because in essence they are the same, only the writing is different.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean are the differences just in typing?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The differences are just in typing. However, a few exceptions to this rule applies when you are talking about the &lt;strong&gt;different dialects&lt;/strong&gt; of Chinese (Standard Madarin is the one all Chinese speakers know, Cantonese is slightly different, Taiwanese is also different). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any difference in the vocabulary?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Vocabulary is basically the same. Slang wise, they will be different. There might be some slight variations in how common certain words are used, but overall, Mainlanders can communicate with those in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and even communicate among chinese speakers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any service on the net which gets a traditional word (or a word typed in traditional Chinese) and then gives you its simplified version?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Google Translate (the plug in) will quickly help translate from Simplified to Tradition. Granted, you have either one or the other as the source language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do I have to apply grammatical changes, too?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Grammar is the same. The only problem occurs when users use local slang. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do simplified Chinese (People who are living a mainland China) understand traditional Chinese easily? What about vise versa?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Traditional Chinese is used only in Taiwan now. That being said, Taiwanese can read simplified, (maybe not as fast or fluent as reading traditional). You can use this Chinese SE as an example. There are many users on this site that use simplified/traditional/both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is used wider in the world (traditional or Chinese)? (I mean for promotional purposes is it better to translate a passage into simplified or traditional to be understandable by more people?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In terms of promotion, it would be simplified. However, this is talking about marketing. I heard you want to promote on facebook. Is facebook blocked in China? Yes it is blocked, but it is so easy to get around to the point, no, it's not blocked to anyone who has a college degree. Is this a good marketing strategy? I won't comment on this because this starts to become irrelevant to Chinese SE. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T10:35:52.847" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21509" CreationDate="2016-10-17T10:58:23.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the difference is rather simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;asking about quantity, you can always use 多少.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;几个 would be used as you expect the quantity to be low. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;几块钱? a few box (5, 8,..)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12128" LastEditorUserId="12128" LastEditDate="2016-10-17T11:47:08.323" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T11:47:08.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21509" CreationDate="2016-10-17T13:16:53.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the things you are referring to are, well let's say, more than 12. It is proper to use 多少. Conversely, you want to use 几 or 幾 (in traditional Chinese) when referring to a smaller number of objects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15566" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T13:16:53.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21522" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-17T13:24:41.397" Score="5" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the area 51 SE, when sites are still in testing mode. How would one translate the words define, commit, and private beta? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This idea was originally brought up by another user who wanted to start an SE to appeal to the Chinese users. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking &#xA;define can be translated as 定義 (definition)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;commit I'm not so sure&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Private beta as beta 測試 or maybe use execute (verb) like 執行階段&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or maybe there is a better way to present these terms like 定義階段, commitment 階段, 測試階段/執行階段&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are good translations for &quot;define , commit , and private beta&quot; in the context of SE?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T03:52:03.713" Title="How to translate &quot;define , commit , and private beta&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21523" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21524" CreationDate="2016-10-17T13:46:28.673" Score="1" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just got a push notification:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;word天! .....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it's not the first I've gotten with the English word &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;word&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a quick baidu:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;焦点资讯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新闻| Word天,这款润滑油要逆天! &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;1小时前 搜狐汽车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厉害word哥!武警总队高标准完成马拉松警卫任务 &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;5小时前 凤凰网&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厉害了word亲 国美超市生活百货9.9元最后一天限时秒杀 &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;10小时前 新浪新闻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the meaning/reason for sudden influx in usage of English word &amp;quot;word&amp;quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T18:02:07.767" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T18:02:07.767" Title="What's the reason behind the sudden influx of the English word &quot;word&quot; in Chinese slang?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21523" CreationDate="2016-10-17T13:57:24.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;word 天 is chinese slang for 我的天. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With an increasing English skill level of Chinese speakers, Chinglish or rather the Chinese counter part of Chinglish is becoming more and more common. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Names are often translated using English sounds with Chinese chracters. Ex: Stanford University = 斯坦福大學&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some store names are starting to use English sounds with Chinese characters&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Bread Ice / 不賴的冰 &lt;a href=&quot;http://sunyat.pixnet.net/blog/post/63815917-%E9%AB%98%E9%9B%84-bread-ice%E4%B8%8D%E8%B3%B4%E7%9A%84%E5%86%B0-%7C-%E5%8F%A4%E6%97%A9%E5%86%B0%2B%E5%B8%95%E5%B0%BC%E5%B0%BC%EF%BC%8C%E7%9C%9F%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://sunyat.pixnet.net/blog/post/63815917-%E9%AB%98%E9%9B%84-bread-ice%E4%B8%8D%E8%B3%B4%E7%9A%84%E5%86%B0-%7C-%E5%8F%A4%E6%97%A9%E5%86%B0%2B%E5%B8%95%E5%B0%BC%E5%B0%BC%EF%BC%8C%E7%9C%9F%E7%9A%84&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But these words are not limited to only English. Some even use the local dialect (Taiwanese) and convert it to Standard Chinese. 阿兜仔 is taiwanese slang for forienger (specifically white foriengers) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5WUtW0Dvik&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5WUtW0Dvik&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think overall it's just people becoming more and more creative with how they use slang. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastEditorUserId="15213" LastEditDate="2016-10-17T14:11:41.470" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T14:11:41.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21515" CreationDate="2016-10-17T21:42:57.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to what Tang Ho says, you can use 没了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没 is homophonic to 殁(die) in old Mandarin as well as many other Chinese languages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T21:42:57.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21512" CreationDate="2016-10-18T03:17:40.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native speaker, but I've lived in China for a good while. (In 浙江, I should note, so someone from farther north or farther south might have different but equally valid answers.) I'll try to respond to your specific questions as well as I can based on my experience.  You said &quot;say you're in high school&quot;, so I'm going to give advice that I think would be appropriate for a high schooler:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1 Addressing a friend&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience, friends tend to call each other by nickname, given name or full name, with a strong preference for nicknames.  Sometimes the given name might be followed by 哥 or 姐, if the person is a bit older or superior in some respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even now, I don't know many of my wife's friends' full names because she never says them, using nicknames instead.  What method people choose sometimes depends on features of the name, as well.  For example, my wife's given name is just one character, and it's not a character that sounds good when repeated, so her friends and relatives tend to call her by her full name, defaulting to that since she has no nickname and calling her just by her given name sounds weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2 Girlfriend&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not having been in China at the girlfriend-having age and not having eavesdropped on any young couples, I'll abstain on this one.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3 Teacher&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surname + 老师。  Can't miss with that one, though I should note that sometimes people will use the title 老师 for people who aren't actually teachers, so watch out for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4 Stranger&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is where it gets tricky. It depends on age and authority, and I mess up with great frequency.  Here's the chart I try to keep in my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Parents' generation: 阿姨，叔叔&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Between parents' generation and grandparents' generation: 伯伯， 嬷嬷&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Grandparents generation: 爷爷，奶奶 (姥姥 up north) (I only ever really hear young kids being asked to address people in this way.  I'm in my 30s, and I don't think I'd probably address a 90-year-old this way.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15399" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T03:17:40.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21532" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21662" CreationDate="2016-10-18T12:32:23.263" Score="0" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for Chinese 成语 that generalize 袖手旁观, but indicate complacency with regards to something that could happen, rather than to something that has already happened, or is happening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Current answers to my post mention war...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May be a strange distinction to make, but I was not talking about war. I was thinking about the occurrence of an undetected natural phenomenon, such as a flood, earthquake, meteorite, volcano eruption, or anything elder of the sort that one could not have accounted for, because there were no signs, and nobody thought about it. So I am looking for a saying imploring to think about a possible calamity when everyone else did not think it was obvious or coming. These things have all happened in history, unaccounted for, until someone was wise enough to think about them and get others to do so as well, and 成语 correct millennia of wisdom, so it seems strange that no-one would exist to describe what I am looking for, with all the 成语 out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="11212" LastEditDate="2016-10-18T18:42:23.570" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T11:17:18.640" Title="袖手旁观 generalizations" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21532" CreationDate="2016-10-18T13:50:31.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese meaning of 袖手旁观 is 把手藏在袖子里，站在旁边看；比喻置身事外，不过问或不参与（含贬义）。&#xA;The translation is:&#xA;Put your hands in your sleeves, stood by and watched; metaphor out of it, don't ask or not to participate (including pejorative).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it can used to something could happen or is happening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T13:50:31.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21532" CreationDate="2016-10-18T16:48:21.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So I am looking for a saying imploring to think about a possible calamity when everyone else did not think it was obvious or coming. These things have all happened in history, unaccounted for, until someone was wise enough to think about them and get others to do so as well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's called having &quot;先見之明&quot; (wisdom to foresee) or 先知先覺 (foresee / notice early)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone has 先見之明  (wisdom to foresee) but not do anything to deal with it, it is called 袖手旁观 (stay idle by the side)  or 置身事外 (stay out of it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-26T18:37:36.627" LastActivityDate="2016-10-26T18:37:36.627" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21535" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-19T01:15:10.823" Score="0" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;There should always be a quid pro quo.&#xA;总是应该有个？？？（条件：Maybe I need 条件： condition）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;quid pro quo: 抵偿物； 补偿物； 相等物； 代用品; 对价&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="16117" LastEditDate="2019-04-20T02:02:22.053" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T02:02:22.053" Title="Which translation is best for 'quid pro quo'?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21535" CreationDate="2016-10-19T01:40:48.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can translate it into a Chinese saying &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天下没有免费的午餐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal translation of it is there is no free lunch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastEditorUserId="15502" LastEditDate="2016-10-19T09:09:15.307" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T09:09:15.307" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21537" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-19T02:18:46.190" Score="0" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can't see it, it's the same radical on top of 篇.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is it? What does it mean? I've been trying to search for it on Google, on dictionaries, and other places, but I can't find any information about it. It doesn't even have any content in the Unicode dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15575" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T02:47:10.600" Title="What is this radical called? " Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21537" CreationDate="2016-10-19T02:26:37.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/9b/js/25AD7.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;竹部&lt;/a&gt;, usually called as &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z2443m7618j19616.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;竹字头&lt;/a&gt;. It's usually used as radical for the things concerned with bamboo or bamboo ware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;竹()：竹部、竹字头，作部首时可以表示和竹子或竹制品有关的事物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-10-19T02:47:10.600" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T02:47:10.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21535" CreationDate="2016-10-19T02:35:29.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;quid pro quo &quot; means &quot;a favor or advantage granted or expected in return of something&quot;. A literal translation would be 对等交换 (equal exchange)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some Chinese idioms similar to it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有來有往 (things go both way)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;投桃报李 (repay favor with favor)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;礼尚往来 (repay in kind)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There should always be a quid pro quo. 总是应该有个 ? ? ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总是应该有个&quot;对等交换&quot; (literal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总是应该有个&quot;礼尚往来&quot; (idiomatic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T02:35:29.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21537" CreationDate="2016-10-19T02:39:30.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;, as @songyuanyao expressed, is called 竹字头, 竹: bamboo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;篇, a quantifier, 一篇文章(an article), 一篇报道(a report), 一篇诗歌(a poem)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient China, just as people of the other parts of the world did, used something instead of modern &quot;paper&quot; to write on, bamboo is frequently used as writing materials, it's cheap and easy to keep for a long time, people split bamboo into thin pieces, and join them together with lines, then engrave on those pieces and form a scroll, an unfolded scroll is 一篇, so that's why there is a &quot;bamboo&quot; on some characters like 篇.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T02:39:30.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21541" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-19T02:47:34.893" Score="0" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see this sentence in a question about friendship, and I like this answer the most, who can give me a good English translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T14:40:21.380" Title="What is a good English translation of 相见亦无事，别后常忆君。" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1020" CreationDate="2016-10-19T03:09:49.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question： Why is 又 used there and not 再 in the above sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, you need to know the difference of 再 and 又.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 再 means“again”，can be used to repeat the same action in the future  which haven’t happened yet; &#xA;2) 又 means “again” too, but is used for the past to emphasize the event had already happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;服务员，再来一杯啤酒。&#xA;When I finished a cup of beer, I want to order one more, I can say “Waiter, one more, please.” So here I should use “再”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师，可以再说一次吗？&#xA;The teacher had asked me a question, but she spoke very fast and I didn’t get it, here I can say “Teacher, could you please say it again?” The teacher haven’t said it again yet, So here is “再”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你怎么又迟到了？&#xA;Yesterday I was late, my boss was a little bit angry, and today I was late again, he asked me “Why did you late again?” I was late, this event had happened this morning, so here we should use “又”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我这次又没通过考试。&#xA;Last time I didn’t pass the exam, and this time I failed again. I got my report and I knew I didn’t pass the exam either. So here we use “又”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you need to use &quot;又&quot; in this dialogue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 现在恢复得怎么样了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 没问题了，又可以爬山了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to know more about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/zai-and-you&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;how to use &quot;再&quot; and &quot;又&quot;？&lt;/a&gt;Please check the free video.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13804" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T03:09:49.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21541" CreationDate="2016-10-19T03:18:56.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we are together, there is nothing special, but once we part from each other, I miss you day and day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T03:18:56.790" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21544" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-19T04:16:40.113" Score="3" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;When studying Chinese, the Chinese learner journal had a section to talk about the various kinds of 剧 (theatrical work, opera, drama), for example 北京剧, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It almost seems to me like every city had its own kind of 剧. Is this so? If not, what are the main types of 剧 and how do they distinguish themselves from each other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I have heard, their style varies deeply from one part of China to the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T13:32:57.667" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:47:01.680" Title="What are the types of 剧 (theatrical work, opera, drama) in modern China?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21544" CreationDate="2016-10-19T04:53:34.173" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;中国戏曲 (Chinese Opera) has been a popular form of entertainment throughout China's history. The major difference between regional Chinese operas is each region uses its own local dialect. There are also cultural differences, for example, Cao Cao has white face paint (indicate villain role) in most regional operas, but not in the opera in his home town region. The other differences are minor ones, like the choice of musical instruments, details in costumes, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most famous Chinese Opera is Beijing opera (京剧) due to Mandarin being the standard Chinese language.  Cantonese opera (粤剧) is also world famous because many oversea Chinese were from Canton.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a long list of opera at Wiki:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_opera&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_opera&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Northern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Beijing opera (Peking Opera) (京剧)&#xA;Yu opera (豫剧)&#xA;Errenzhuan/Bangzixi/Benbeng opera (二人转) (Northeast China)&#xA;Hebei bangzi (河北梆子) (Hebei)&#xA;Jiju (吉剧) (Jilin)&#xA;Lüju (吕剧) (Shandong)&#xA;Maoqiang (茂腔) (Shandong)&#xA;Pingju (评剧) (Hebei)&#xA;Puju (蒲剧) (Shanxi)&#xA;Qinqiang/Qin dynasty opera (秦腔) (Shaanxi)&#xA;Zaju (雜劇)&#xA;Jinju (晋剧) (Shanxi)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Southern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Cantonese opera (粤剧) (Guangdong)&#xA;Gaojia opera (Quanzhou)&#xA;Huaguxi (花鼓戏) (Hubei/Hunan)&#xA;Huangmei opera (Anhui)&#xA;Shanghai opera (沪剧)(Shanghai)&#xA;Kunqu (昆曲)&#xA;Liyuan opera&#xA;Teochew opera (潮剧)&#xA;Hakka opera (汉剧)&#xA;Min opera (闽剧) (Fuzhou)&#xA;Puxian opera (Putian, 莆仙戏)&#xA;Nanxi (Wenzhou)&#xA;Ouju (Wenzhou)&#xA;Shaoxing opera/Yueju (Zhejiang)&#xA;Taiwanese opera (歌仔戏)&#xA;Wuju (Jinhua)&#xA;Sichuan opera (川剧)(Sichuan)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;歌仔戲 ( Taiwanese opera) &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%8C%E4%BB%94%E6%88%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%8C%E4%BB%94%E6%88%B2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:47:01.680" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:47:01.680" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18007" CreationDate="2016-10-19T06:22:55.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not that troublesome as described in some other answers, I have lumbar disc herniation since college, and I usually say exactly &quot;我的腰不好”. People would find it implicit sometimes, but I think it's fine to make it sound a bit hilarious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However as said in congusbongus's answer, it should be used to describe a long term condition. If you only mean temporally back pain you can use 腰疼 腰痛 背疼 背痛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12397" LastEditorUserId="12397" LastEditDate="2016-10-19T06:45:13.867" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T06:45:13.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21541" CreationDate="2016-10-19T09:06:47.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;相见亦无事，别后常忆君。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we're together, it just seems so natural, when we're apart, I can't stop thinking of you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T09:06:47.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21506" CreationDate="2016-10-19T09:30:21.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In computer science we call thread &quot;线程&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;程&quot; stands for the way and &quot;序&quot; stands for order. So &quot;程序&quot; means program.&quot;线程&quot; takes &quot;程&quot; from &quot;程序&quot;.&#xA;&quot;线&quot; means line or &quot;thread&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15340" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T09:30:21.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21506" CreationDate="2016-10-19T12:59:57.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this article, thread should be translated into &quot;message&quot;, which is &quot;消息&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15556" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T12:59:57.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21506" CreationDate="2016-10-19T14:07:57.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the given context, you will subscribe to a thread and receive notifications of new comments. A thread = Github issue/project + its comments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think thread can be &quot;话题&quot; and new comment can be &quot;新回应&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12076" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T14:07:57.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21541" CreationDate="2016-10-19T14:40:21.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Growth in longing comes from a place of absence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12076" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T14:40:21.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21552" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-19T20:01:23.643" Score="3" ViewCount="1479" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought it should be 聊一会儿天, since the measure words should be put right after the verb, like in 吃一点儿东西，参观一次长城. But there are a lot more results of 聊天一会儿 on Google. (74,200 vs 18,100)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain why is that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T05:36:22.430" Title="聊天一会儿 or 聊一会儿天?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21552" CreationDate="2016-10-19T20:30:49.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“聊一会儿天” is the more commonly used version. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching on Google, some “聊天一会儿”'s results are like “来聊天一会儿删”, in which it is actually “来聊天，一会儿删”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using my Google, “聊一会儿天” shows more results in fact. (742,000 vs 705,000)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13223" LastEditorUserId="13223" LastEditDate="2016-10-21T17:13:55.487" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T17:13:55.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21552" CreationDate="2016-10-19T22:33:30.423" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;聊天一会儿 is the correct one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;聊天= chit chat&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一会儿 = a moment &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聊一会儿天 is the incorrect one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;聊= talk, chat&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一会儿 = a moment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天 = sky&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The better ways to say it will be 聊聊，谈心，聊一下，说八卦。Don't use 儿 because it also means son, and because 儿 (er) is merely an accent for some part of China. it doesn't add any meaning to your sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T22:33:30.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20899" CreationDate="2016-10-19T22:44:31.940" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First thing first. Chinese doesn't have any grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus 他原来什么都不知道 and 他原来什么都没(有)知道 are both correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chinese, there is something called &quot;用词&quot;, or word choice. So to show past tense here, you can use &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他原来&lt;strong&gt;以前&lt;/strong&gt;什么都不知道; 以前 means past. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他原来&lt;strong&gt;现在&lt;/strong&gt;什么都没有知道；现在 means now.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他原来&lt;strong&gt;未来&lt;/strong&gt;什么都不知道; 未来 means future. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他原来什么都不知道; simply means that he didn't know, doesn't know and will not know. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T22:44:31.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18007" CreationDate="2016-10-19T23:00:09.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese people have very short sex sessions due to premature ejaculations, ie, their penises are way too sensitive. Since Chinese are all about faces (面子)，they will blame their short sex on their backs instead of their penises. Thus 我的腰不好 is equivalent to 我的鸡巴不好。 (My penis is not good.) which is obviously a &lt;strong&gt;no face&lt;/strong&gt; (没面子) thing to say to anyone.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct way to say &quot;My back really hurts.&quot; will be: (我的后面真的疼。) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My = 我的&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;back= 后面&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;really = 真的&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;hurt= 疼&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T23:00:09.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21552" CreationDate="2016-10-19T23:36:48.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should check the search result in context，聊天一会儿 may came from a piece of sentence which has the meaning other than “talk for a while”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4001" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T23:36:48.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21552" CreationDate="2016-10-20T00:07:41.870" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My font of all knowledge from  泰州 also immediately said: '聊一会儿天‘是对的。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She would not say: '聊天一会儿‘， but she can't say why not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T00:07:41.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20899" CreationDate="2016-10-20T00:58:09.053" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“不”emphasis the subjective,“没有”emphasis the objective.他什么都不知道is subjective.So we say 他原来什么都不知道，not他原来什么都没有知道.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15583" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T00:58:09.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21515" CreationDate="2016-10-20T01:03:22.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;去世，仙逝，作古，逝世，驾鹤西归，阴阳两隔，老了，走了，不在了，殒命，见阎王了，见马克思了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15583" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T01:03:22.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21501" CreationDate="2016-10-20T03:02:17.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese have changed a lot since town dynastic. It was Middle Chinese that used in Tang Dynastic, which Li Bai and Du Fu lived in. Cantonese is the dialect which is most close to Middle Chinese. But still they are not close enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15340" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T03:02:17.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21522" CreationDate="2016-10-20T03:52:03.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree &lt;strong&gt;define&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;定義階段&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;beta&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;測試階段&lt;/strong&gt;. And &lt;strong&gt;commit&lt;/strong&gt;, I suggest that is translated as &lt;strong&gt;推行階段&lt;/strong&gt; which means &lt;strong&gt;promote&lt;/strong&gt; because the &lt;em&gt;commit&lt;/em&gt; stage needs someone's promotion by commit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13763" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T03:52:03.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21563" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21565" CreationDate="2016-10-20T04:55:16.663" Score="0" ViewCount="1192" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there more specific terms than “適配器” which is the general word for “adapter”? What about “轉換器”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gI7XS.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gI7XS.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;various travel adapters&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English speakers use a variety of terms to refer to these devices. Personally I find &quot;travel adapter&quot; pretty unambiguous and straightforward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/c31737db-b9b3-49fa-a60a-41ceb8647f53_1.7c91f3db9dcd45120bd0ace5cb9455ae.jpeg?odnHeight=450&amp;amp;odnWidth=450&amp;amp;odnBg=FFFFFF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/c31737db-b9b3-49fa-a60a-41ceb8647f53_1.7c91f3db9dcd45120bd0ace5cb9455ae.jpeg?odnHeight=450&amp;amp;odnWidth=450&amp;amp;odnBg=FFFFFF&quot; alt=&quot;various travel adapters (image on Chinese internet)&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2016-10-20T06:18:24.410" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T08:37:59.830" Title="What are the most common Chinese terms for travel power adapters between different international socket and plug standards?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21563" CreationDate="2016-10-20T05:45:44.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://s.taobao.com/search?q=%E8%BD%AC%E6%8D%A2%E6%8F%92%E5%A4%B4&amp;amp;commend=all&amp;amp;ssid=s5-e&amp;amp;search_type=item&amp;amp;sourceId=tb.index&amp;amp;spm=a21bo.50862.201856-taobao-item.1&amp;amp;ie=utf8&amp;amp;initiative_id=tbindexz_20161020&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;「转换插头」&lt;/a&gt; just as printed on the picture you provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, less commonly, 「插座转换器」「电源插座转换器」, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6579" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T05:45:44.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21566" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-20T06:55:27.873" Score="2" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm translating some programming documentation. I know 'serve' can be translated to 服务/提供. But in the sentences below, it sounds a bit weird in Chinese. So, what are the right and elegant translations of 'serve' in the sentences below? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How do I &lt;strong&gt;serve&lt;/strong&gt; the static files in deployment?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...setting up your server to &lt;strong&gt;serve&lt;/strong&gt; this address.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...to ensure newer Bootstrap versions are &lt;strong&gt;served&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user15276" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2016-10-20T12:23:27.847" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T12:23:27.847" Title="How to translate 'serve' in these sentences?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21567" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-20T07:01:56.697" Score="2" ViewCount="345" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a Cantonese forums, someone posted a question:  &amp;quot; how to say 'each other?' or 'one another' in Chinese&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the suggestion was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I  thought the simplest way is just to say 大家？&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;They don't like each other - 佢哋唔中意大家&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And my reply to this answer was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, 大家 means &amp;quot;everybody &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;大家都唔鍾意佢哋&amp;quot; ( everybody dislike them)&#xA;大家 is the subject, and 佢哋 is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the subject and object switch places in the above sentence, you have to replace 大家 with &amp;quot; 所有人&amp;quot; or &amp;quot; 全部人&amp;quot; and place the object before the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;所有人佢哋都唔鍾意&amp;quot; / &amp;quot;全部人佢哋都唔鍾意&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*you cannot write 大家佢哋都唔鍾意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*佢哋唔鍾意所有人 or 佢哋唔鍾意全部人 sound awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家一齊停手 ( everybody stop at once)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家都有好處 ( everybody would benefit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think I have done a good job explaining why 大家 (everybody) cannot be the object for the subject 佢哋. It is a pronoun, and pronouns should be able to become subjects or objects. Would that be because 佢哋 is also a pronoun?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also know 佢哋唔鍾意所有人 or 佢哋唔鍾意全部人 sound awkward, but can't explain why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T15:11:34.653" Title="Is the pronoun 大家 (everybody) a subject only?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21568" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-20T08:15:00.070" Score="1" ViewCount="52" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a 成语 saying that care yields fine products (eg. care as in cheerfulness)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard 慢工出细货, but I would like a 成语 to express something like 小心出细货, not sure if this expression id's even correct, perhaps someone can confirm or correct me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T15:02:17.663" Title="Care yields fine products" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21567" CreationDate="2016-10-20T08:26:42.570" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry,my mistake.When it is noun,it can be subjective.When it is adjective,it can be predicate.For example,他是大家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15583" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T08:26:42.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21572" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-20T08:50:33.067" Score="5" ViewCount="1284" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the differences between these three, 斯 vs 这 vs 此, and any other characters or words for &quot;this&quot; in Mandarin Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm just a beginner and I've noticed at least these few characters are in my Memrise flashcard courses all with English translation of &quot;this&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2016-10-20T11:57:38.133" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T08:10:17.577" Title="斯 vs 这 vs 此 for the meaning &quot;this&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21572" CreationDate="2016-10-20T09:20:46.807" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;斯 is ancient Chinese language usage, and 此 is more used in writing language. 这 is most common nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15589" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T09:20:46.807" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21566" CreationDate="2016-10-20T09:51:14.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;serve:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在开发过程中如何加载静态文件? 开发过程中静态文件如何管理？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;设置好你的服务器来为这个地址提供服务&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;确保你正在使用新版本的 Bootstrap&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T09:51:14.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21568" CreationDate="2016-10-20T15:02:17.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe 慢工出细货 is good enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it doesn't mention about care explicitly, it is strongly implied as much care have to be given to produce a delicate product (as 细 means 细緻 here), &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it takes time to breed that work (慢工).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12030" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T15:02:17.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15914" CreationDate="2016-10-20T15:06:09.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say (and commonly heard in Hong Kong) 如無意外.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be translated as &quot;If there are no accident&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If everything goes as planned, there are no accident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12030" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T15:06:09.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21567" CreationDate="2016-10-20T15:06:22.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;After much thinking, I surmise the reason I use 大家 mainly as a subject, is because of 大家 often functions as an address, like &amp;quot;gentlemen&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;folks&amp;quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;大家&lt;/strong&gt;聽我講 &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Everybody&lt;/strong&gt; listen to me.&amp;quot; / &amp;quot; Listen to me, &lt;strong&gt;folks&lt;/strong&gt;.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;大家&lt;/strong&gt;靜一靜 &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Everybody&lt;/strong&gt; be quiet for a moment.&amp;quot; / &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Gentlemen&lt;/strong&gt;, be quiet for a moment.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was confused  &amp;quot;folks / gentlemen&amp;quot; (大家) with &amp;quot;everybody&amp;quot; (大家)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone pointed this out to me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;C Chiu&amp;quot; wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I think 大家 can be the object for the subject 佢哋, e.g. 佢哋已經將宣誓嘅事通知咗大家. What makes the sentence 佢哋唔鍾意大家 sounding unnatural is probably because of the verb 鍾意 rather than the subject 佢哋.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is right, 佢哋通知咗大家 is grammatically acceptable, 大家 can be an object for the subject 佢哋. The problem is the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is &amp;quot;唔鍾意大家&amp;quot; sounded unnatural, but &amp;quot;通知大家&amp;quot; isn't?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My conclusion is, &amp;quot;大家&amp;quot;  implies &amp;quot;the audience&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;notify&amp;quot; (通知) can act on &amp;quot;the audience&amp;quot; naturally but  &amp;quot;dislike&amp;quot; (唔鍾意) can't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T15:06:22.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21572" CreationDate="2016-10-20T15:28:12.097" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;斯 refers to a person mostly, as in 天將降大任於斯人也...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, 这斯 in ancient Chinese means &quot;this (bad) guy&quot; in 水浒传, used by a rude guy frequently. As mentioned, it is an ancient word used in this way, don't use it in your daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;斯 have other use in modern Chinese, forming vocabulary like 斯文 which means well behaved or polite. Also for translating foreign words with their pronunciation, like Oscar to 奧斯卡.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这 is more commonly spoken than 此, and it can refer to almost anything that I thought of. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此 sound more like written script. If it is used in spoken communication, most likely it is a phrase or the speaker want to sound formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12030" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T15:28:12.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21579" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-20T15:38:54.363" Score="1" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to start tutoring Mandarin through software I am writing. What are US domestic curriculum standards that I can base my teachings off of, starting at the middle- high-school level? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please provide links and an explanation for why you selected a particular one. I'm looking for a curriculum example, learning objectives, exercise samples, and evidence of learning examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I'm thinking &lt;a href=&quot;https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/apcourse/ap-chinese-language-and-culture&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;US AP (Advanced Placement) language curriculum&lt;/a&gt; would be a good starting point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, should I be using China's HSK?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking AP because I'd eventually like to bring on more languages into my software and AP offers many language choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-07-19T12:39:02.577" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T13:11:30.920" Title="What are some US Mandarin curriculum standards?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;teaching-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21567" CreationDate="2016-10-20T15:39:22.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While 大家 means 'everyone', it refers to 'everyone' in a group of people that is implied in the sentence, or everyone in close proximity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;佢哋唔鍾意大家&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家 in this case implies everyone within the group of '佢哋', which is essentially 'each other'. Also this sentence sounds perfectly natural, I hear this a lot when people are referring to couples who don't actually like each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;大家好&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家 here refers to everyone that you are speaking to, basically 'hey everyone'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;大家都唔鍾意佢哋&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an implicit subgroup '大家' where everyone in that group or everyone here dislikes 佢哋, 'everyone (here) dislikes them'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;大家咁話啦&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'You too', 'same'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家 can definitely be used for 'each other', however it is not the only usage, and there is not a direct one to one translation for 大家 in english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other special cases, for 'each other' / 'one another' you could use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;'彼此'相愛&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to love each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;'互相'鼓勵&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to encourage each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;'自相'殘殺&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to hurt and fight each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15592" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T15:39:22.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21572" CreationDate="2016-10-21T01:15:05.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nobody mentioned 该。 It is not clear to me where, at what point, 'this' becomes 'that'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zdic says:该： 那，着重指出前面说过的人或事物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前面 is close enough to be 'this' I think, although 该， when used like an English article, is mostly translated as 'the'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;该装潢公司提出， This decoration company suggests，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;该体系适用于8层, This system can be applied in 8 levels,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;该中心楼高8层, This centre is 8 stories high,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T01:15:05.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21552" CreationDate="2016-10-21T01:25:45.913" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The truth is, no native Chinese speakers say, 聊天一会儿, but 聊一会儿天. There is no explanation to any linguistic usage or grammar, unfortunately. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, never say 聊天一会儿, but only 聊一会儿天? Maybe because 聊天 is a loose word or compound word, so you can say 聊什么天，never 聊天什么。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15595" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T01:25:45.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21523" CreationDate="2016-10-21T01:30:22.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“Word” is prounounced almost the same as Chinese “我的” （My）， 天 means “heaven，God”，so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Word天 ＝ 我的天 ＝ My God&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you get the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15595" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T01:30:22.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21552" CreationDate="2016-10-21T05:15:15.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be honest, most of the chinese in the world are come from china.&#xA;If you want to learn the original chinese, then &lt;strong&gt;聊一会儿天&lt;/strong&gt; should be the correct one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聊天一会儿 sounds weird because 聊 is the verb, 天 just a word which &quot;supports&quot; the verb。So instead we add 一会儿 right after 聊, not after the &quot;support word&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9331" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T05:15:15.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21586" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21599" CreationDate="2016-10-21T06:48:51.560" Score="1" ViewCount="498" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like Microsoft input method is either imperfect or I don't know exactly, how to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many characters are just not appear in the hint panel, for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/80jCe.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/80jCe.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to enter 苹 or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WYBJP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WYBJP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to enter 汁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any way yo be able to enter ANY character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T19:34:54.387" Title="How do Chinese themselves enter characters into computer?" Tags="&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20910" CreationDate="2016-10-21T06:57:22.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess this kind of grammar is not unique only in Chinese.&#xA;generally it's most likely that it's the same with English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can we say in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today I went to the cinema.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I today went to the cinema.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15589" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T06:57:22.617" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21586" CreationDate="2016-10-21T07:00:32.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because the input method will show suitable character automatically when you used for many times. By the way ,my English is not very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15597" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T07:00:32.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21586" CreationDate="2016-10-21T07:08:59.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you enter, for example yao something like 189 results will show up. To scroll through them I use the Tab key. I think some systems use F12.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use iBus intelligent Pinyin input method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also scroll using the arrow keys. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think yin throws up about 300 candidates. It would be impractical to show them all!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more you use the program, the more the characters you use a lot show up first. Intelligent pinyin!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T07:08:59.980" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15914" CreationDate="2016-10-21T07:26:38.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“一帆风顺” this also a well known idioms that bless people to do things smoothly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15418" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T07:26:38.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1645" CreationDate="2016-10-21T08:03:10.673" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt; is the most complex unicode Chinese character by strokes (64).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15598" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T08:03:10.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21586" CreationDate="2016-10-21T08:49:02.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese character input methods can basically arranged under these categories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Voice Input&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like Siri, the software can transform the voice into characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Handwriting Input&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw a character and any possible options will be listed and then you can pick one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Spell Input&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This category includes Pinyin, the one in your question, and phonetic symbols used in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Stroke Input&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A character is composed of several basic strokes, like －丨丿丶乛. The sequence &amp;quot;－丨丿丶&amp;quot; can form 木. Taking a forward step, a character can be resolved into smaller basic parts like 木. 木木木 can form 森. This is how Wubi(五笔) input method does. By the way Wubi is the most efficient and powerful if you master it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we have many possible characters for one input, we can walk through the list to find the wanted.  Pressing &lt;code&gt;-&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;=&lt;/code&gt; can go forward or backward.  Of course you could define your own hotkeys. Besides, you could use the acronyms to input more characters for one input. &lt;code&gt;jttqbc&lt;/code&gt; brings the possible sentence 今天天气不错. So you don't have to input &lt;code&gt;jintiantianqibucuo&lt;/code&gt;. If the acronym is ambiguous, a &lt;code&gt;'&lt;/code&gt; is used to make it clear. &lt;code&gt;wan&lt;/code&gt; brings 完 晚 and so on. &lt;code&gt;w'a'n&lt;/code&gt; brings 我爱你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T08:49:02.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21586" CreationDate="2016-10-21T17:36:20.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to choose 苹 just press &quot;8&quot; on the keyboard.If the character you need didn't show, press &quot;+&quot; on the keyboard to load next ten characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15602" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T17:36:20.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21586" CreationDate="2016-10-21T18:10:42.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use Page up or Page down to get more show up, arrow doesn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15251" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T18:10:42.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21552" CreationDate="2016-10-21T18:15:47.593" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;聊天一会儿&quot; is not Chinese sentence, no one say like that, &quot;聊一会儿天&quot; is people say all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15251" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T18:15:47.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21572" CreationDate="2016-10-22T01:00:06.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;斯 is old tone.don't use it in any situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这 is more like 'that' than 'this'.这是一个没有答案的问题--&gt;it's a question &lt;strong&gt;that&lt;/strong&gt; without an answer. use 这 only you mention before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&#xA;when begin with 这，it's just mean 'this'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此 often come with the object.此地--&gt;this place. 此刻--&gt; right moment. 此人--&gt;this people.&#xA;also 此 is fit in rhyme&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15603" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T01:00:06.323" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21552" CreationDate="2016-10-22T03:46:42.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Google search gave similar results (with quotes):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;聊天一会儿&amp;quot; (72,500 results)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;聊一会儿天&amp;quot; (14,600 results)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are right that the 1st phrase is not correct. But let's take a closer look at some results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一会儿和同事聊&lt;strong&gt;聊天,一会儿&lt;/strong&gt;在QQ上和网友说说话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么我在红米上qq只&lt;strong&gt;聊天一会儿&lt;/strong&gt;就好了很多流量.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刚才哥儿几个&lt;strong&gt;聊天&lt;/strong&gt;，中间我出去&lt;strong&gt;一会儿&lt;/strong&gt;。回来后，大伙儿看我直乐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See, by putting a comma or rearranging the words, they now have the correct syntax. Since these are more frequently used than &lt;code&gt;聊一会儿天&lt;/code&gt; (at least in writing), Google found more articles, which makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T14:38:17.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21586" CreationDate="2016-10-22T06:21:12.120" Score="4" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Chinese Input Methods Introduction:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Pinyin methods.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out-of-box on windows in Chinese language. Very elegant. Pure typing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sougou&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most users. Most powerful word source. Most ADs. It provides anything you want and don't want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;QQ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Powerful than Bing, less useless functions than Sogou. I use QQ 精简 edition on windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only if you are a geek.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;双拼(Double Type) Pinyin methods&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost all these pinyin methods support this function to turn on in settings. I'd tried to learn it, but I found I can spend my time on TVs, so I still use pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;五笔 methods&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sougou support this, just like I said, it provide anything.&#xA;Another choice is 极点五笔.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五笔 is very hard to learn, I had used this method for several years but switched to Pinyin methods many years ago. It is based on the form of character other than pronunciation, but it doesn't fit the nature of character-writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Common usages of Chinese input method:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Choosing word&lt;/strong&gt;: Space&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;prev page&lt;/strong&gt;: - or ,(comma)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;next page&lt;/strong&gt;: + or .(period)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some methods also support number keys.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;switch to English&lt;/strong&gt;: shift key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Insert English&lt;/strong&gt;: just type english ,then press Enter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Special content&lt;/strong&gt;: press key v ( some methods allow you to input emojis, radicals, even running custom scripts. i.e. google method)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T06:21:12.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20899" CreationDate="2016-10-22T06:41:17.877" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese verb tense don't rely on a fixed auxiliary. You have to &lt;code&gt;choose&lt;/code&gt;based on the 'time', not the verb.&#xA;原来 is already imply &lt;code&gt;time&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cann't insert 没有 before 知道, since 知道 is a verb, 有 modify noun.&#xA;To negate 知道, use 不 other than 没.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T06:41:17.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21501" CreationDate="2016-10-22T06:56:13.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They don't use 方言 in writing. In the old days, Chinese speaking and writing are two systems, they don't write what they say. They use another grammar and words in writing(文言). That makes all Chinese, no matter where you are from, can communicate without troubles.They can even communicate with Japanese, Koreans via 汉字(笔谈).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T06:56:13.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21602" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21603" CreationDate="2016-10-22T08:24:46.390" Score="2" ViewCount="1978" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;to pick up girls&quot; in Chinese? I would like to say: I'm going to go and pick up some girls!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: Question inspired by &lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/40214/what-is-the-japanese-equivalent-of-to-pick-up-a-girl-or-to-hit-on-girls&quot;&gt;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/40214/what-is-the-japanese-equivalent-of-to-pick-up-a-girl-or-to-hit-on-girls&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13572" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:43:48.687" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T15:29:57.927" Title="What is the Chinese equivalent of “to pick up a girl” or “to hit on girls”?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21602" CreationDate="2016-10-22T09:07:07.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Off the top of my head, I can think of 勾搭, 泡妞, 把妹 and 溝女&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;勾搭&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/52068/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/52068/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;em&gt;pick up a lover&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;溝女&lt;/strong&gt; (Cantonese slang)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/20482/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/20482/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;pick up chicks; go out looking for women to chat up; dawdle away one's time with a girl; [slang] cruise (look for sexual partner)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[variants] &lt;em&gt;媾女, 勼女, 追女仔&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;溝 is most probably a loanword from '(to) court'.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;泡妞&lt;/strong&gt; (Mandarin slang)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;to pick up chicks; to go out looking for women to chat up; to chase skirts; to dawdle away one's time with girls |&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/40924/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/40924/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;把妹&lt;/strong&gt; (Internet slang)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/58867/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/58867/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;to chase girls; to pick up girls&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; I'm going to go and pick up some girls!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要去泡妞 (Mandarin slang)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要去溝女 (Cantonese slang)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要去把妹 (web slang)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要去勾搭女人 (literal) &lt;em&gt;&quot;女人&quot; can be replaced by 女孩 or 女生 in Mandarin and 女仔 in Cantonese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-22T09:43:12.240" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T09:43:12.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21602" CreationDate="2016-10-22T13:41:27.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for a one night stand you might say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今晚去约炮。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck with that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T13:41:27.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21552" CreationDate="2016-10-22T23:50:49.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest 一会儿聊天。 &#xA;我要和她一会儿聊天。(I'm going to chat with her in a while). &#xA;It sounds more natural. &#xA;Like in English,  the order of word changes the whole signification of the sentence. &#xA;一会儿 = time indicator&#xA;聊天＝Verb&#xA;You can also say 待会儿聊天，which has almost the same meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15608" LastEditorUserId="15608" LastEditDate="2016-10-23T00:09:46.610" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T00:09:46.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21607" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21608" CreationDate="2016-10-23T00:42:05.730" Score="0" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't understand the reference here. Is there such a thing as 'waste money， 废钱' in China? Or is it 'abandoned， discarded money'? Who threw the money there '我们‘ or 其他人？？ Is he alluding to some story or 成语？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那还能不同意？ 这就好比我们家后院扔着一堆废钱，你要拿它给我换一辆汽车。 我不光同意，甚至还有点儿不敢相信呢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这就好比我们家后院扔着一堆废钱，你要拿它给我换一辆汽车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate:&#xA;That's like someone threw a pile of money in our backyard and then you come along and offer to give me a car in exchange for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Seems a weird idea, because first you need to know how much money it is. Could be more than the value of a car.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: if you have any waste money, you can throw it my way!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-10-23T01:36:39.623" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T05:28:49.510" Title="What is meant by 废钱？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21607" CreationDate="2016-10-23T02:28:45.843" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;废 in 废钱 stands for 作废 (canceled)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;废钱 means &quot;canceled coin&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under some extreme circumstances, a government might issue a new currency and cancel an existing one. For various reasons, such action is rarely done, but generally the result would be dreadful to the people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: When Japanese occupied Hong Kong, all money in Hong Kong ( any internationally accepted currency) had to be exchanged for the Japanese issued &quot;military notes&quot; which was useless outside of the occupied territory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example sentences, it is most likely referred to the previous government of China issued coins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-23T02:36:47.860" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T02:36:47.860" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21607" CreationDate="2016-10-23T05:20:16.253" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your reference is very likely comes from this Japanese Chinese teaching book &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.de/books?id=qpusCAAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA201&amp;amp;lpg=PA201&amp;amp;dq=%E8%BF%99%E5%B0%B1%E5%A5%BD%E6%AF%94%E6%88%91%E4%BB%AC%E5%AE%B6%E5%90%8E%E9%99%A2%E6%89%94%E7%9D%80%E4%B8%80%E5%A0%86%E5%BA%9F%E9%93%81&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=3Kt-DPrk05&amp;amp;sig=_D9VQXoJ_T3x8WVJR1ge512OacA&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjgmJ_AjfDPAhVE8RQKHZR4DFkQ6AEICjAA&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, and the character &quot;钱&quot; actually is a typo of &quot;铁&quot;, this is a very common mistake when people type Chinese in Wubi Input Method (or 五笔字型输入法&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;废铁 is scrap metal (for recycling), it perfectly fits the surroundings (后院 backyard), put it in the context this sentence's meaning: &#xA;If you can trade this this not valuable thing (废铁) to a way much more valuable thing (汽车) for me, I'll be not only happy to agree but also surprised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see in the linked book, the conversation is the girl (maybe a producer) asks Mr. Wang, will he agree to let them adapt his Internet novel to a TV show, so Mr. Wang made a humble and humorous metaphor. (The context is Mr. Wang wrote more than 30 novels, only two of them got published)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15611" LastEditorUserId="15611" LastEditDate="2016-10-23T05:28:49.510" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T05:28:49.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21552" CreationDate="2016-10-23T05:36:22.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;聊一会儿天 is correct, the &quot;一&quot; can be omitted in speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&#xA;打(一)会儿游戏, &#xA;看(一)会儿书,&#xA;听(一)会儿音乐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15611" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T05:36:22.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21612" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-23T10:25:48.310" Score="-1" ViewCount="541" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning Chinese and met few characters, which are looking like western characters with similar pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which pronounced like &lt;code&gt;zi&lt;/code&gt; and visually similar to &lt;code&gt;Z&lt;/code&gt; and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;匹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which pronounced like &lt;code&gt;pi&lt;/code&gt; and visually similar to Greek &lt;code&gt;π&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this just by coincidence, or this is some real language borrowing phenomenon?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T13:10:45.927" Title="Why do some Chinese characters look like western ones?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-10-23T20:11:17.627" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21612" CreationDate="2016-10-23T10:45:39.627" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters and English alphabets developed independently. There's nothing in common between the two systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子 and Z or 匹 and π don't even look similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Human beings can only produce limited number of sound tones. It is inevitable that some pronunciations would be similar between different languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-23T10:53:40.833" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T10:53:40.833" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21612" CreationDate="2016-10-23T13:10:45.927" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a subject very close to my heart as I am an amateur etymologist. Since I have been learning Chinese, I have also been collecting words whose sound and meaning are similar to other languages. I have quite a few. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etymologists propose a language called Proto-Indo-European as the origin of the Indo-Germanic languages. One needs to look for words with similar sounds and meanings when comparing languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is I think unreasonable to assume that the tribes that spoke this language only drifted westwards, none going east. However, as the West had only very limited access to China in the last 2000 years, they had neither the opportunity nor the desire nor the means or ability to include Chinese in their studies, which is their loss, as I see it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particularly 子, meaning son, child, seed may be related to German zeugen, which means, among other things, beget a child. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;German uses -zeug as a suffix with a meaning like '-thing' in words like Spielzeug, Werkzeug， Bettzeug. Chinese has 子 in many combinations with a similar useage, such as 牌子， 量子， 脑子 . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May all just be coincidence, but the belief that the Proto-Indo-Europeans only walked westwards seems very egocentric of western scholars.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T13:10:45.927" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21602" CreationDate="2016-10-23T15:29:57.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A common internet slang word for this is 撩妹 (liao2 mei4), literally &quot;to tease sisters&quot;, but 妹(子) on the internet is commonly used just to mean a pretty girl.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%92%A9%E5%A6%B9/19464048&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%92%A9%E5%A6%B9/19464048&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11877" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T15:29:57.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21616" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-24T05:06:02.637" Score="0" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to understand the following excerpt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有时候灭掉不如引导。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this sentence mean anyway?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15622" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-14T16:48:21.700" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T16:48:21.700" Title="Please explain the meaning of the sentence" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-08-10T11:22:11.333" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21617" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21619" CreationDate="2016-10-24T07:57:27.870" Score="3" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;In macOS' Dictionary app, the result of &lt;code&gt;允许&lt;/code&gt; shows the following example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不得到领导的允许，你不能走。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can’t go without the permission of the leaders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I wonder how the sentence can be valid without a conjunction. Specifically, I can understand it if it uses a conjunction, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你不得到领导的允许，你就不能走。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the sentence above doesn't use a conjunction. In this case, is the sentence valid in grammar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in these cases, how can I interpret it as a sentence that uses a &lt;code&gt;without&lt;/code&gt; preposition? If I were to see just the sentence, my understanding would be something like the follows, with the comma functioning as a resultative:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You couldn't get the permission of the leaders, so you cannot go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;, which slightly differs in meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have much difficulty in reaching the correct translation used in the dictionary...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T10:23:12.303" Title="How to interpret a sentence with two clauses but no conjunction?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19647" CreationDate="2016-10-24T08:08:30.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;干爹 refers to someone who treats the speaker as his own child and provides as much help, love, carefulness, and even money as he can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;教父 is usually used in religious relation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, I think the speaker is only saying that this guy treated him as well as his father did, and the guy is not necessary to be the speaker's 干爹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15585" LastEditorUserId="15585" LastEditDate="2016-10-24T08:14:20.513" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T08:14:20.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21617" CreationDate="2016-10-24T09:37:06.373" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But the sentence above doesn't use a conjunction. In this case, is the sentence valid in grammar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conjunctions are often omitted in Chinese and English. The example sentence is valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不得到领导的允许，你不能走。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(如果)不得到领导的允许，你(就)不能走。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two sentences express the same thing. Just the first one omitted 如果 and 就.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also omit only 就 and write &quot;如果不得到领导的允许，你不能走。&quot; ; or you can omit only 如果 and write &quot;不得到领导的允许，你就不能走。&quot; . Both sentences are valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to express &quot;&lt;em&gt;You couldn't get the permission of the leaders, so you cannot go.&lt;/em&gt;&quot; the conjunctions would be different- (因為) 你得不到领导的允许，(所以) 你不能走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can omit 因為 and write &quot;得不到领导的允许，所以你不能走&quot; ; or you can omit 所以 and write &quot;因為得不到领导的允许，你不能走&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but you cannot omit both and not affect the sentence's meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The point is&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can omit conjunctions if it doesn't affect the sentence's meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When a conjunction is needed to clarify the sentence, leave it un-omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Side note&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beside conjunctions, you can also omit subjects and objects. As long as it doesn't affect the meaning of the sentence. For example: The full reply to &quot;你認得我?&quot; should be &quot; 我認得你&quot; since it is a Q and A between two people, the subject and object can be omitted to make it cleaner, just reply: &quot;認得&quot; is enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T09:37:06.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21616" CreationDate="2016-10-24T11:57:30.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should supply more context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有时候 Sometimes 灭掉 eliminate/destroy 不如 not as good as 引导 lead/guide。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a political context maybe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is better not to seek to destroy your adversaries but to guide them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if the context is bad habits:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is better to seek guidance rather than try (yourself) to eradicate a bad habit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T11:57:30.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21623" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21624" CreationDate="2016-10-24T19:51:26.250" Score="3" ViewCount="3362" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm having trouble to differ 'n' and 'ng'. I've been searching it on internet, but I can't really differentiate them. How can I pronounce them correctly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15619" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T14:54:42.860" Title="N and NG in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21623" CreationDate="2016-10-24T20:02:17.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/10280/38&quot;&gt;This answer&lt;/a&gt; provides a useful explanation and also explains what to do with your mouth when pronouncing the two sounds. As that commenter mentioned, my wife is from Jiangsu and even in English can't distinguish between the two sounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1vSOQ3kOak&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This youtube video&lt;/a&gt; has some concise examples from English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MOkZv-Tcys&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This youtube video&lt;/a&gt; has some Chinese examples although the audio quality and the pronunciation aren't very clear. It's the best I could find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T20:02:17.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21616" CreationDate="2016-10-24T21:17:15.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Considering the context: “这样啊，那就太好了，我期待你成为魔门门主的那一天，有时候灭掉不如引导。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence means: I'd rather to guide a person like you than destroying you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15625" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T21:17:15.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21616" CreationDate="2016-10-25T04:21:20.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means something like &quot;sometimes it is better to guide your opponent and make him/her your friend (or lead him/her in the direction that you want) rather than to destroy him/her.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not quite sure if my explanation really fit in the context. Hopefully it will help you understand the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15627" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T04:21:20.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21627" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21638" CreationDate="2016-10-25T05:02:13.910" Score="1" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a question regarding how to improve your speaking skills in a particular situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my situation: my level of Chinese is somewhat advanced beginner to intermediate, I guess. I'm focusing a lot on reading improvement, by learning characters and grammar, for academic purposes. I live in Hong Kong currently, but most will know that it is not always ideal to practice your 普通话. I was too late to register for any classes, so I'm doing a lot of self-study right now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to enhance my speaking skills. There are plenty of students from the Mainland over here, and I know quite a few already. So I can find some partners as well, but I don't necessarily have a lot of time to do the classic language exchange &lt;em&gt;every day&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my techniques is currently to meet somebody, to take lunch or dinner with him/her, so as to use my vocabulary and so on more actively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My problem is however that I often feel lost during the conversations. I suddenly rely on the very basic vocabulary, while ignoring the new words I do know. And this disturbs me quite a lot, because I wish to have more interesting discussions than just the casual talk about school etc. (FYI, I guess I'm at around 1200 characters or something: that is, being able to recognise their meanings and possible write them without issues)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have experience with this kind of situation? What could I do, to actively use more of the vocabulary I do know? To level up my conversation skills?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that I've obviously did not master the new characters to the point where I can use/remember them easily. But will this simply go away with drilling exercises?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Should I &quot;prepare&quot; my conversations somehow, but designing some vocabulary list? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions, constructive criticism is highly welcome. Any of your previous experiences with similar situations as well!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My apologies if this question has been asked elsewhere. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ask me anything you need to know more about this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15628" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T22:19:27.807" Title="How to improve speaking skills during &quot;real&quot; conversations" Tags="&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21627" CreationDate="2016-10-25T13:59:49.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;启蒙, growing pains. We’ve all been through that phase and there really is no miracle solution. You can only carry on and practice as much as you can. Even stronger: if you want to get better, there really is just one way. It is all about about real life situations and encounters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;useful words you know but forget to use (or new words or expressions you want to start using): make a small list and read them through right before the engagement. Use them once and their status immediately changes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;preparing the conversation is indeed useful. Which topic do you want to bring up or broaden? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;putting to use past engagements. What was it you wanted to say but didn’t manage to? Which expressions did your partner use frequently and seem useful? Keep them in mind, even if you don’t understand them (fully).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;during the practice: quickly write down the really crucial words you don’t understand. If your partner is patient, ask her or him to write it for you. If not; just scribble it down in pinyin and try to look them up afterwards. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learning to deal with not understanding everything. Focus first on the general meaning of a proposition. Sometimes getting the bigger idea is an accomplishment in itself. It can also help to pinpoint expressions used within a certain story.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also useful: getting an idea of the linguistic rhythm of your partner. Does she/he switches topics quickly? Sometimes people use a lot of words to convey only one idea.  This meta-information will help the interpretation process itself.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is obvious that the more time you spent with native speakers, the more you will be able to learn and getting used to speaking Mandarin naturally . Doing something together, apart from sitting in front of each other and talk, will immediately bring up new chances in a natural way; Becoming real friends will also help you to get into their way of thinking and global linguistic environment. Oftentimes, speaking a foreign language is more a question of knowing how to present an idea, than just translating word by word, which wouldn’t work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加油吧!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12128" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T13:59:49.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21630" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-25T16:19:52.837" Score="1" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is anyone aware of where I can find novels for download which contain both English and Chinese on the same page?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15633" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2016-10-25T22:11:23.623" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T15:19:10.927" Title="Is it possible to get novels written in Chinese and English on the same page to download?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20956" CreationDate="2016-10-25T16:43:41.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just think of one universal Chinese incantations , that it appear on many literature and still using it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is  &lt;h1&gt;变 or   變 &lt;/h1&gt; (transform, convert, conjuring). &#xA;One can repeat it many times to emphasize it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like 变! 变! 变! 变! 变!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-10-25T16:58:47.767" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T16:58:47.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19647" CreationDate="2016-10-25T17:29:58.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;NONE OF THOSE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence carry the exact meaning as in English &quot;He treat me like his son&quot;. So it doesn't automatically carry neither of the say titles.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot assume those title without first confirm with the speaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T17:29:58.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21627" CreationDate="2016-10-25T22:19:27.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find participating in group activities much more useful than one-on-one as there is not the pressure of having to guide the conversation and someone else can jump in when you have nothing to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two ways I do this; play team sports with all Chinese guys. There is always plenty of conversation before, during and after play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Join wechat groups, there is a steady stream of people talking crap. You can absorb the conversation at your own pace an either join in or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T22:19:27.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21630" CreationDate="2016-10-25T22:47:03.737" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a copy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. It has Chinese on odd pages and English on even pages. Such books are cheap and you can buy them in most big book shops in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T22:47:03.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15914" CreationDate="2016-10-25T23:05:46.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another way to say it in Chinese: 不出意外的话,...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, in an expression popular on internet:  不出啥么幺蛾子的话。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13719" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T23:05:46.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21336" CreationDate="2016-10-25T23:15:54.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RIQ6X.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RIQ6X.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 江泽民 said 闷声发大财 on TV, it is more popular in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15638" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T23:15:54.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21643" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-26T05:19:01.143" Score="1" ViewCount="382" Body="&lt;p&gt;mdbg.net has for zhe 着： aspect particle indicating action in progress &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That implies it corresponds with -ing. Many times however, I find 着 cannot be translated in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 着 do? What difference does it make if it were not used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 父亲去世了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他光着脚，手指弯曲着，失去了往日的力量。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;His leg bared, fingers bent, gone his former strength.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他的眼睛紧闭着，像两个黑洞。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;His eyes tightly closed, like 2 black holes.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;嘴巴张着，牙齿都露了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mouth open, teeth revealed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T12:56:07.440" Title="What does the zhe 着 after a verb do?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21644" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21789" CreationDate="2016-10-26T06:06:17.483" Score="4" ViewCount="824" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some languages, like English, sometimes, it is possible to combine sentences by using commas, conjunctions and omitting subjects and verbs to avoid repetitions. In some languages, avoiding repetitions is considered a good practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it also a good practice in Chinese? Or it is better to repeat subjects and verbs, instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should sentences be combined? Should also subjects and verbs been omitted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She is 25 years old.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She is American.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She is very pretty.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can combine these three sentences like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She is 25 years old, American and very pretty.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible/good to do something similar with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她是25岁。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她是美国人。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她很漂亮。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastActivityDate="2016-11-09T01:30:15.200" Title="Combining sentences: use of conjunctions, omission of subject and verb" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21645" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21646" CreationDate="2016-10-26T06:26:24.823" Score="1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like some help figuring out what this embroidery says, if it says anything at all. It's allegedly from China, but I don't have access to the physical object, just a few photos. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Random characters I can sort of pick out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Upper right: 豕(?)常&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Upper left (and again somewhere in the middle): 中&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Near the top of both left and middle: 王&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Several on the right (not in a row): 窗, 月, and 有 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Signature: 豈 (and something else)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The level of illegibility is such that I'm not entirely sure I believe that all of these are characters, but someone (somewhere) went to the trouble of sewing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kG60t.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kG60t.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Embroidery&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T01:42:14.710" Title="Illegible embroidery" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21645" CreationDate="2016-10-26T07:01:20.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First vline is a poem :寻常一样窗前月，才有梅花便不同 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15596" LastActivityDate="2016-10-26T07:01:20.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21647" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-26T15:56:51.660" Score="2" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently limited and slowed down in my progress learning Chinese, that some times I read a text from my textbook and cannot identify a character, because I don't know its pronunciation. I don't know its pronunciation and thus can't look it up.&#xA;Now there are several ways to bypass that circumstance, however there is yet no neat or fast way to get to its pinyin and translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally there were a tool as Google's translate for Android, that also simplified the identification process and made it exportable (as PDF).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there already a tool for that? Otherwise I would write a tool or later an application that translates any Chinese texts from images, documents etc. and automatically stores it as a PDF somewhere, either on a hard drive or uploads it to a cloud.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9323" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-09-27T16:48:08.347" LastActivityDate="2020-09-28T13:33:33.523" Title="What tool allows a fast translation from Chinese that is both scaleable and exportable?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21647" CreationDate="2016-10-26T17:20:29.117" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several ways to look up characters without knowing their pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In &lt;strong&gt;printed dictionaries&lt;/strong&gt;, you need to identify the character's &lt;strong&gt;radical&lt;/strong&gt; (or at least one of the character's radical components), consult the dictionary's radical index (where characters with that radical will be ordered by &lt;strong&gt;number of strokes&lt;/strong&gt;) and thus find the character's pronunciation. You can then look up the character in the normal way, i.e. by pinyin. (Some dictionaries also offer other ways to look up characters, but this example should be sufficient.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since this way of looking up characters is slow and frustrating (see e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://failbluedot.com/looking-up-a-chinese-character&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yes, it really can take a year to learn how to look up a Chinese character&lt;/a&gt;), there are &lt;strong&gt;digital alternatives&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Looking up the character through its &lt;strong&gt;radicals&lt;/strong&gt; in a &lt;strong&gt;digital/online dictionary&lt;/strong&gt; such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=radicals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Looking up the character in an online dictionary that supports &lt;strong&gt;handwriting recognition&lt;/strong&gt; (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=chardict&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;: click on the paintbrush button) or an app. There are several apps that support handwriting input. See for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pleco.com/products/pleco-for-android/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fluentinmandarin.com/content/chinese-characters-handwriting-recognition-iphone-ipad/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;How to use Chinese handwriting recognition on the iPhone/iPad&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://appcrawlr.com/android-apps/best-apps-chinese-handwriting&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Best Android apps for Chinese handwriting&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are also apps that support character recognition based on &lt;strong&gt;optical character recognition (OCR)&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2016-10-26T17:20:29.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21649" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-26T20:15:54.190" Score="5" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you write 'they' (tāmen) in Chinese characters, you have to be specific about the gender: 他们 / 她们 / 它们&#xA;All of them mean 'they' but what do you use if you mean a group mixed with men and women?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15646" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T22:59:26.283" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T22:59:26.283" Title="What is a non-gender specific way to specify a group of people when writing Chinese" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21649" CreationDate="2016-10-26T20:33:47.000" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;他们 - &quot;they&quot; (men / men and women )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她们 - &quot;they&quot; (women )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;它们 - &quot;they&quot; (objects)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*The term &quot;它们&quot; is rarely used. Most of the time, people would use &quot;这些&quot; (these)+ object or &quot;那些&quot;(those)+ object when referring a group of objects.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-10-26T20:33:47.000" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21647" CreationDate="2016-10-27T00:01:47.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah, I agree with Strobbe 先生， a great app for that is HanpingPro Reader. Point your mobile at a line of text, the red line over the part you want, it focusses and click! You have the Chinese text with translation. Great when reading!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ce.linedict.com has a great 'draw the character' window, better than other sites I've tried. Next to the input box at the top is a kind of paintbrush symbol. Click it and the window appears. Draw!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T00:01:47.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21652" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21672" CreationDate="2016-10-27T01:50:18.627" Score="0" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;appreciate if someone can let me know how to translate the following into mandarin, thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;kindly provide me with the full year numbers up to october, we will use it to project for the full 12 months.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15433" LastEditorUserId="15433" LastEditDate="2016-10-27T06:43:20.317" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T03:20:44.487" Title="how to say &quot;projected numbers&quot; in chinese (mandarin)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21656" CreationDate="2016-10-27T03:27:56.237" Score="0" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I want to say &quot;a little&quot; of something I might say  一点儿 yìdiǎnr.  Or I might say  一点点 yìdiǎndiǎn.  But I do not feel right using erhua with reduplication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds wrong to me (and maybe &lt;em&gt;I&lt;/em&gt; am just wrong about this) to say either  一点点儿 yìdiǎndiǎnr  or 一点儿点儿 yìdiǎnrdiǎnr.  Is one of those reasonably normal?  Are both? Or what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For simplicity suppose I am talking with university people in Beijing.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2016-10-30T03:01:19.727" Title="Erhua and reduplication" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;erhuayin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21655" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21657" CreationDate="2016-10-27T06:28:15.950" Score="1" ViewCount="716" Body="&lt;p&gt;hi does anyone know of any websites that lists simple excel formula in chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &#xA;“=sum” --&gt; 把所有选项加起来&#xA;“=CONCATENATE” --&gt; 把所有选项融为一体&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i'm trying to teach my china colleagues some simple excel formula to make them more efficient in their work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thanks!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15433" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T07:24:27.663" Title="translation of simple excel formula" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21653" CreationDate="2016-10-27T07:06:40.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In spoken language, northerners do say 一点点儿 or 一点儿点儿 sometimes, but not all the time, it depends on the situation. It is not wrong to say those words with erhua.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't encourage Chinese language learners to learn them because &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;it is not really that important &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;it doesn't really change the meaning &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;it is hard for learners to say them in a natural way &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;you don't have to sound like a northerner.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe correctness is more important and sounding natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T07:06:40.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21655" CreationDate="2016-10-27T07:24:27.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Microsoft official website has those information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://support.office.com/zh-cn/excel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://support.office.com/zh-cn/excel&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Click 常用函数 to show the list of popular Excel functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15650" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T07:24:27.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21643" CreationDate="2016-10-27T08:34:06.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;着 is used to express that something is in the &lt;strong&gt;status&lt;/strong&gt; of a verb, so it should not be progressive. For example &quot;sitting&quot; is 坐着.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他光着脚，手指弯曲着，失去了往日的力量。&#xA;His leg bared(baring), fingers bent(bending), gone his former strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Counter-examples:&#xA;您做着什么？ This one is invalid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb &quot;do&quot; is progressive(this action is changing), so 着 is not used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T08:34:06.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21652" CreationDate="2016-10-27T09:27:05.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, translate to English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;kindly provide me with the full year numbers up to october, we will use it to project for the full 12 months.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please provide me with the figures for this year up to October, we will then use that to estimate the values for the whole year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that, it can't be toooo hard to translate， though my Chinese is none too hot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please provide me with the figures for this year up to October,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;请提供今年到十月的数据，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we will then use that to estimate the values for the whole year.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;然后我们会用这些数据来估计整年的使用。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something along those lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-10-27T13:06:39.017" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T13:06:39.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21532" CreationDate="2016-10-27T11:17:18.640" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;洞燭先機／／／／／／未雨綢繆／／／／／／防微杜漸／／／／／／防患未然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T11:17:18.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21270" CreationDate="2016-10-27T11:38:05.627" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;try &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wannalearn.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.wannalearn.com/&lt;/a&gt;&quot; search &quot;chinese&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openculture.com/freelanguagelessons&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.openculture.com/freelanguagelessons&lt;/a&gt;&quot; scroll down to &quot;chinese&quot; section&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Main_Page&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Main_Page&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-10-27T22:04:35.823" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T22:04:35.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21664" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21671" CreationDate="2016-10-27T15:31:39.133" Score="4" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically whole question in the title. I was told that saying 我想要了一杯茶 or anything along those lines is incorrect. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15654" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T12:21:01.493" Title="Why is it incorrect to say (Someone) 想要了一 (Something)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21664" CreationDate="2016-10-27T15:41:07.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence like you could use either 想要，想 or 要，as all mean &quot;to want,&quot; though you should note that there is a slight difference here in terms of tone and politeness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想一杯茶 means &quot;I would like a cup of tea.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要一杯茶 and 我想要一杯茶 mean &quot;I want a cup of tea.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The link below might be helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22yao%22_and_%22xiang%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Differences between 想 and 要&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15486" LastEditorUserId="15486" LastEditDate="2016-10-27T16:10:43.763" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T16:10:43.763" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21664" CreationDate="2016-10-27T20:47:44.827" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;@ccless1 have explained quite good, but there are some problems unsolved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no &lt;code&gt;想要了&lt;/code&gt; is used in Chinese actually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;想要&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;em&gt;I would like something&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;要&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;em&gt;I want something&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;examples:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想要一杯茶&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would like a cup of tea, please&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我要一杯茶&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;give me a cup of tea, b***h&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;By the way&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我想一杯茶&lt;/em&gt;  is not actually proper Chinese for &lt;em&gt;I would like a cup of tea&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;想&lt;/em&gt; have the meanings of &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;miss&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我想一杯茶&lt;/em&gt; means &lt;em&gt;I am thinking about / of a cup of tea&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15658" LastEditorUserId="15658" LastEditDate="2016-10-28T12:21:01.493" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T12:21:01.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21667" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21673" CreationDate="2016-10-27T22:20:55.230" Score="0" ViewCount="1024" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was in Shanghai on a business trip several weeks ago. One evening, while my coworker and I were walking down Nanjing Road on the way back to our hotel, we were accosted my many ladies of the night offering their services.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not having any interest in whatever devilry might await us should we accept their offer, we simply said &quot;No&quot; repeatedly in English, but that didn't seem to get the point across very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, my coworker asked our translator about the encounters, and how he could say &quot;Go away!&quot; or &quot;Leave!&quot; in Chinese. Our translator told him, with a slight smile, that he could use a word that phonetically sounds like &quot;gwen&quot;. When asked what it meant, he said simply, &quot;Fuck off!&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would this Chinese word actually be (what is the hanzi in Simplified Chinese)? And is the meaning as strong as our translator suggests?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15661" LastEditorUserId="15661" LastEditDate="2016-10-28T04:53:56.063" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T11:13:29.987" Title="Help me identify this Chinese word?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21667" CreationDate="2016-10-27T22:48:44.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That would be 滚 gun3, pronounced gw-un often said by girls angry with their boyfriends! Can just be Get lost!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/e6c39bd11f7c4943a176654779a1b445&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/e6c39bd11f7c4943a176654779a1b445&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: just thought, on the whole it does make Gwen a rather unfortunate name in China!&#xA;你叫什么？ What's your name?&#xA;滚。 Gwen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-10-28T00:00:05.677" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T00:00:05.677" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21667" CreationDate="2016-10-28T00:20:11.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're thinking of 滚, with the 3rd tone. gun3. This is a rather derogatory character that should be extremely rarely used, for when you want someone to, as you stated, fuck off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is indeed as strong as your translator suggests. It's really rude and disrespectful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6548" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T00:20:11.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21653" CreationDate="2016-10-28T00:24:21.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;一点儿点儿 can be used to say 'little by little'. But aside from that, it's not needed in spoken Chinese and can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6548" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T00:24:21.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21664" CreationDate="2016-10-28T03:08:21.450" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the problem is the usage of the character &quot;了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When &quot;想要&quot; and &quot;了&quot; are used together, the object is usually placed between them.  e.g. &quot;我剛才不渴, 但現在想要一杯茶了.&quot;  The object may be omitted too, e.g. &quot;親愛的, 我想要了.&quot;  (....the wife whispering to her husband....)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also have noted the difference between &quot;想要&quot; and &quot;想要....了&quot;.  When &quot;想要&quot; is used alone, it refers to the intention/though/request itself.  When &quot;想要....了&quot; is used, it usually signifies a recent change or a decision just made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;想&quot; vs &quot;要&quot; vs &quot;想要&quot;, cingS has given a clear answer already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T03:08:21.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21652" CreationDate="2016-10-28T03:20:44.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;we will use it to project for the full 12 months =&gt; &quot;我們會用來&lt;strong&gt;推算&lt;/strong&gt;全年的數字&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T03:20:44.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21667" CreationDate="2016-10-28T04:02:39.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/266/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/266/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;滾&lt;/strong&gt; /gun3/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] [v] &lt;strong&gt;roll&lt;/strong&gt;; rotate; trundle &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] [v] &lt;strong&gt;piss off&lt;/strong&gt;; get out; &lt;strong&gt;beat it&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;滾 / 滚 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, telling someone to &quot;走开&quot; (walk away) is not forceful enough. Your translator was suggesting you should tell them to &quot;滚开 (roll away /piss off)&quot; like an egg to express your displeasure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, there's actually a phrase &quot;滚蛋&quot; means exactly that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;滚 (roll) = 滚开(roll away)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend against such a brunt language. To turn down the ladies of the night, you could simply say &quot; 没兴趣&quot;(not interested)/mei2 xing4 qu5/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you ask: &quot;Why is 滚开 more forceful than 走开?&quot; The answer is, it would be natural for people already on the ground or on their knees to roll away. Saying 滚开 implies you are in a dominating position.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-28T11:13:29.987" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T11:13:29.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21674" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21675" CreationDate="2016-10-28T11:40:31.880" Score="2" ViewCount="563" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is the title. Considering pinyin is in romanised form, did the ancient Chinese have pinyin to help them learn characters, or did they just have to repeat them hundreds of times to help them remember what the reading was?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I know that characters have been simplified, but in ancient China why did they make the characters so &lt;em&gt;ludicrously&lt;/em&gt; complex, considering they've decided that's a bad idea now? I think 为 is a lot easier to remember than 為 personally. There are other examples like 难 versus 難. In ancient China why did they make the characters have loads of strokes, when its logistically easier to write and remember a character with less strokes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15304" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:11:58.650" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:11:58.650" Title="In ancient China, was there an equivalent of pinyin?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21674" CreationDate="2016-10-28T12:10:26.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Considering Chinese as Hieroglyphics or Logogram. This language has it own granularity as basic element.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;A - 1&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, we did have some mechanism / program the same with Pinyin &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FanQie&lt;/a&gt; as the most popular one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and thinking of Taiwan, the Pinyin is not actually very popular there, they have another set of &lt;em&gt;thing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language_romanization_in_Taiwan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Taiwan Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;A - 2&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also considering what I said, Chinese as Hieroglyphics, this language characters apply the shape of things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like anything in the world, things came out very complex firstly, and then when people get good at it, they know how to reduce the complexity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the Simplified Chinese in 1970s, it was aiming at popularizing the education, and eradicating illiteracy by making the character easier to learn to the general folks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;P.S&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a linguist at all, I just explained something that I knew and from my point of view. Hope these would help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15658" LastEditorUserId="15658" LastEditDate="2016-10-29T15:44:43.883" LastActivityDate="2016-10-29T15:44:43.883" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19302" CreationDate="2016-10-28T14:29:17.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The internal pattern of sounds, the choice of exact words, and the effect of associations give free verse its beauty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What characteristics (e.g., wordplay, alliteration, sentimental language) distinguish a poem in free verse from an essay or address?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are different kinds of rhymes, sentimental language, and general poetic techniques used, it is very similar to the western equivalents. Basically they are the result of western influence. What make it different from other form of literature would be the focus on rhythm, imagery and emotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12030" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T14:29:17.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21653" CreationDate="2016-10-29T01:53:49.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I grew up in northern China. 一点儿点儿 sounds a lot more common than 一点点儿. Well at least in my hometown(Zhengzhou, Henan). When you say 点 without er it sounds more like a verb. And if you say 点儿, it sounds more like a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be irrelevant to your question. But it's interesting to mention.&#xA;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;点个点儿 means: draw a dot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one is a verb and the second one is a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15272" LastActivityDate="2016-10-29T01:53:49.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21681" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-29T18:11:40.040" Score="8" ViewCount="1093" Body="&lt;p&gt;In particular, there should be many examples of 形声字 (&quot;phono-semantic compound characters&quot;) which were &quot;damaged&quot; by simplification. I am interested especially in characters where a 声旁 (&quot;phonetic&quot;) or 形旁 (&quot;signific&quot;) was partially removed in such a way as to provide misinformation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;盤 was simplified to 盘, leaving a pointless 舟 at the top instead of a 声旁/phonetic. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;More obscurely 勝 (etymologically 朕+力) was simplified to 胜, leaving a pointless 月 instead of the semantically helpful 力. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of more examples like these? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note: this is not intended as an anti-简体字 post!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:12:39.053" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:12:39.053" Title="Examples of &quot;bad&quot; simplified characters/简体字?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21653" CreationDate="2016-10-30T01:57:12.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am from Jiangsu China, I've listened to Beijing people say erhua, '一点点儿'，'一点儿点儿' are all normal to say. You can decide which to say based on your preference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, you can totally say '一点儿', or '一点点' to express 'a little'. People get that, it's normal and they all have the same meaning. [Young people sometimes also say '一丢丢(diū)' to express 'a little', sometimes girls think that's cute]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides Beijing, from cities like Tianjin and Kaifeng are people who say erhua as well. You can talk with or without erhua, that's totally fine. And for people who are not from above cities, they sometimes also say erhua and that's not abnormal. &#xA;No matter what you say, people get that and it won't be too weird if you say that very slowly and stress each and every character. From my view, it's only a preference thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;---add---&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just asked my friend from Beijing, he said that you are right, mostly commonly people say '一点儿' or '一点点'. And mostly the erhua is used by '老北京'(older generation in Beijing). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15674" LastEditorUserId="15674" LastEditDate="2016-10-30T03:01:19.727" LastActivityDate="2016-10-30T03:01:19.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21683" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21684" CreationDate="2016-10-30T04:34:24.713" Score="0" ViewCount="1105" Body="&lt;p&gt;My girlfriend is adopted into a Chinese family and they gave her the middle name &quot;Lai Fa&quot;. Her mother is Cantonese and says it means beautiful flower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when we google the words online nothing comes up. Is there an origin of this term?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15675" LastActivityDate="2016-10-30T05:43:04.807" Title="Lai Fa - beautiful flower?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21683" CreationDate="2016-10-30T05:26:27.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;麗&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1152/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1152/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lai6   (jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) [adj] &lt;strong&gt;beautiful&lt;/strong&gt;; magnificent; elegant &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;花&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/32/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/32/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;faa1   (jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) [n] &lt;strong&gt;flower&lt;/strong&gt;; blossom &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your girlfriend's middle name is 麗花 (lai6 faa1 in Cantonese jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;if you want to search Cantonese words, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CantoDict&lt;/a&gt; is the place to go&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-30T05:43:04.807" LastActivityDate="2016-10-30T05:43:04.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7149" CreationDate="2016-10-30T16:31:26.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me add a few points to congusbongus's very good answer. The most likely explanation is that 奇 originally meant ‘to ride’, but then it was borrowed to represent the word ‘unusual’, which had identical pronunciation. Later, in order to keep the two characters separate, the 馬 ‘horse’ radical was added to the character for ‘to ride’. This is the way the etymology of many characters is explained by Chen Zhiqun in her very interesting dissertation, &lt;a href=&quot;http://arrow.monash.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/monash:34651/THESIS01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Compound ideograph: a contested category in studies of the Chinese writing system&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (for a summary of Chen's main points, you can take a look at chapter 2 of my thesis: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/michalkk/WhyAreChineseCharactersSoDamnHard.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why are Chinese characters so damn hard?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in short, the character 奇 doesn't represent anything related to the meaning ‘unusual’. There are many cases of such phonetic loans. Consider 花. It means ‘flower’, that's why it has the grass radical. But it may also mean ‘to spend’. There is nothing in the components 花 that is related to the meaning ‘to spend’. The only relation is that the Mandarin word for ‘to spend’ is pronounced identically to the Mandarin word for ‘flower’, &lt;em&gt;huā&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2016-12-03T13:39:55.703" LastActivityDate="2016-12-03T13:39:55.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21681" CreationDate="2016-10-30T18:43:51.197" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;for 形聲字, the simplification made severe, unrepairable damages to the chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example, the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%9B%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;難(u+96e3)&lt;/a&gt;; it's composed by the 172th radical 隹(u+96b9); and the component (u+26c29), that's a phonetic component, which was shared by numerous characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the 說文解字 stated: 難　鳥也﹒從鳥﹒堇聲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%A0%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;堇(u+5807)&lt;/a&gt; is a character since oracle script, &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jQuSa.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jQuSa.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;; later, it's derived to 堇(u+5807) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp; (u+26c29)&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ux9Ye.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ux9Ye.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;back to the phonetic component 堇. in cantonese, 堇 is pronounced as gan2　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/gan2.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;, which has the 韻母 (final) &quot;an&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, characters share this phonetic component 堇, guess how they pronounce?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%9B%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;難(u+96e3)&lt;/a&gt;　naan4　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/naan4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%98%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;嘆(u+5606)&lt;/a&gt;　taan3　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/taan3.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%89%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;艱(u+8271)&lt;/a&gt;　gaan1　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/gaan1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;after thousands of years, the 韻母 (final) of these characters are changed slightly from &quot;an&quot; to &quot;aan&quot;, isn't marvellous?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, the simplified script of 难, 叹 &amp;amp; 艰 lose the phonetic component 堇; that no-one in modern time, or generations in the future would associate the correct pronunciation from the component of the simplified character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c'est patrimoine culturel perdu ☠&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lastly, i think that this question is excellent; i worried about the temporary &quot;hold on&quot; status of it. may i ask the rationale of this decision?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-10-30T18:43:51.197" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21689" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21690" CreationDate="2016-10-30T20:08:54.270" Score="0" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read about the phrase in the title and traced it back to the following article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/postcard/bro-code?utm_content=buffer2c3cb&amp;amp;utm_medium=social&amp;amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;amp;utm_campaign=buffer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/postcard/bro-code?utm_content=buffer2c3cb&amp;amp;utm_medium=social&amp;amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;amp;utm_campaign=buffer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the Chinese isn't given.  Is there a Chinese saying similar to this and, if so, can somebody provide the original Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;++ The article states that this is a 'northeastern saying'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9814" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2016-10-30T22:42:28.577" LastActivityDate="2016-10-31T08:45:50.867" Title="Is there a Chinese saying similar to “Once two men share a woman, they’re brothers.”" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21689" CreationDate="2016-10-31T00:46:06.537" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe it is a Cantonese term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditionally, a man would call the husband of his wife's older sister 襟兄; and that 襟兄 would in term referring the man as 襟弟. They were 襟兄弟 (lapels brothers) or 老襟 (fellow lapels) to each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;襟兄弟 originally describe the relationship of two men married a pair of sisters. Somehow, people began to use this term to refer to the relationship of different men married the same woman in different time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid confusion and being joked at, people stopped calling each other 襟兄 or 襟弟 and started calling each other 姊夫 (older sister's husband) or 妹夫 (younger sister's husband) instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Outsiders in occasions would still refer them as 襟兄弟, with the understanding of the term also has a second meaning that is derogatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, calling the men who have sexual relationship, (married or not) with the same woman in different time (or worse, at the same time) as 襟兄弟 (lapels brothers) or 老襟 (fellow lapels) had became the main definition, while the original definition of describing the relationship between two brothers-in-law had became secondary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;a &lt;a href=&quot;https://hk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070308000051KK00211&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chinese reference&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/15873/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cantonese reference&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There's also a term 同靴 (in a same boot) or 靴兄弟 (boot brothers) &#xA;  refers to men who have sex with a same prostitute&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/62611723.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/62611723.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;旧时称同嫖一妓者。《官场现形记》第三二回：“幸喜他平日，也常到 钓鱼巷 走走，与 余荩臣 有同靴之谊。”&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;同靴之谊 means &quot;relationship between fellow prostitute clients&quot;.  It also means &quot;relationship between two men who have sex with a same woman&quot; nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-10-31T08:45:50.867" LastActivityDate="2016-10-31T08:45:50.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21691" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-31T03:05:49.837" Score="3" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been learning Chinese for 2 months and I'm finding it too hard to learn by myself. So as I asked in the title, I'd like to get a tutor so that I can learn basic grammar and practice conversations. I hope someone can give advice! Thank you in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15681" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-10-31T23:39:14.740" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T19:48:21.547" Title="How can I get a Mandarin teacher while living in a small town without Chinese schools/institutions?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21689" CreationDate="2016-10-31T05:59:08.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can search to find this one:&#xA;“所谓四大铁:一起同过窗,一起扛过枪,一起嫖过娼,一起分过赃.”, which means the so called four solid relations. &quot;一起同过窗&quot; means classmates especially for primary school, and the reason is the relation is built up gradually. &quot;一起扛过枪&quot; means army friends especially for attending the same wars, for which the reason is clear. &quot;一起嫖过娼&quot; means what you said &quot;share the same woman (prostitute)&quot; and &quot;一起分过赃&quot; means doing some bad thing together. The reasons for the latter two are same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastActivityDate="2016-10-31T05:59:08.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21689" CreationDate="2016-10-31T06:46:27.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;穴兄弟 or 同道中人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically they are not formal phrases meaning this but seen on the internet. 穴 means &lt;em&gt;hole, cave&lt;/em&gt;. 道 means &lt;em&gt;path, way&lt;/em&gt;. But here both imply vagina (屄 or 阴道).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They can both be applied to two of the three gay men in a similar case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同道中人 is a 成语 and originally means people who share the same goal or hobby. But the great netizens have given it a new meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13558" LastActivityDate="2016-10-31T06:46:27.270" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21691" CreationDate="2016-10-31T21:17:09.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few options: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finding an &lt;strong&gt;online &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandem_language_learning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tandem partner&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; who speaks Chinese and is interested in learning a language that you can teach (your native language or another language in which you have a near-native proficiency). &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mosalingua.com/en/how-to-find-conversation-partners-best-language-exchange-sites/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mosalingua&lt;/a&gt; lists a few sites where you can find a tandem partner; there are several other ones, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://polyglotclub.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Polyglot club&lt;/a&gt;. See also &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/32477-how-i-found-chinese-speaking-friends-online/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How I found Chinese speaking friends online&lt;/a&gt; on ChineseForums.com. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finding a &lt;strong&gt;paid tutor or teacher&lt;/strong&gt;. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/forum/29-classifieds/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;classifieds section&lt;/a&gt; on ChineseForums.com might be helpful here. Some of the sites that help you connect with tandem partners can also help you find paid tutors or teachers. The actual teaching may work through Skype lessons or through video conferencing functionality built into the site.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-01-25T19:39:49.667" LastActivityDate="2017-01-25T19:39:49.667" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21697" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21698" CreationDate="2016-11-01T00:07:56.357" Score="4" ViewCount="2234" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just tried to type in &lt;em&gt;taipei&lt;/em&gt; in iOS but it didn't return any correct prediction. After my investigation, I found that it is &lt;em&gt;taibei&lt;/em&gt;, not &lt;em&gt;taipei&lt;/em&gt;, to get the correct pinyin result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, now I wonder why it is called &lt;em&gt;taipei&lt;/em&gt;. 台 is &lt;em&gt;tai&lt;/em&gt; like 台风 and 北 is &lt;em&gt;bei&lt;/em&gt; like 北美洲. So why is it called &lt;em&gt;taipei&lt;/em&gt;? I think in traditional chiese it should also be typed in as &lt;em&gt;taibei&lt;/em&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2016-11-02T02:07:15.467" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T15:54:51.647" Title="Why is 台北 spelled Taipei, not Taibei?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21697" CreationDate="2016-11-01T00:23:37.753" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei#Romanization&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt;: the spelling &quot;Taipei&quot; derives from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade%E2%80%93Giles&quot;&gt;Wade–Giles&lt;/a&gt; romanization T'ai-pei. &quot;Taibei&quot; is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A0ny%C7%94_P%C4%ABny%C4%ABn&quot;&gt;pinyin&lt;/a&gt;, which iOS supports as an input method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wade-Giles used to be the standard method of romanization so it shows up in a lot of older Chinese names like &quot;Chiang Ching-kuo&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin has its own disadvantages, especially when spoken by English speakers. Consonants like &quot;zh&quot;, &quot;q&quot;, or syllables like &quot;ri&quot;, &quot;shi&quot; sound very different from what an English speaker might expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T00:23:37.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21701" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21702" CreationDate="2016-11-01T02:16:07.513" Score="1" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems to be a line of poetry from ancient times?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15472" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T02:43:55.677" Title="What does this phrase mean in Chinese “珉，石之美玉者”?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21701" CreationDate="2016-11-01T02:43:55.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence seems to be the explanation of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/sw/73C9.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;珉&lt;/a&gt; in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;说文解字&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;珉,石之美者。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be literally translated as &lt;code&gt;珉, the elegant one (the beauty) of the stones&lt;/code&gt;; &lt;code&gt;珉&lt;/code&gt;'s original meaning is &lt;code&gt;似玉的美石&lt;/code&gt; (jade-like stone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T02:43:55.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21703" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21704" CreationDate="2016-11-01T03:12:18.210" Score="2" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 珉 from the original phrase  is said to mean &quot;an apple of Sodom&quot;...is that true?  If so, what does that even mean?  I though the character 珉 meant a jade-like stone as it has the particle 王 = 玉 (jade).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15472" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T10:29:47.923" Title="What does the following phrase mean: 故虽有珉之雕雕,不若玉之章章——《荀子》" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21703" CreationDate="2016-11-01T03:38:37.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even &lt;code&gt;珉&lt;/code&gt; is beautiful and looks like &lt;code&gt;玉&lt;/code&gt;, it's still stone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;故虽有珉之雕雕,不若玉之章章&lt;/code&gt; means, even &lt;code&gt;珉&lt;/code&gt; is beautiful and has high value to  be engraved (to artwork), it's still not as clear and beautiful as &lt;code&gt;玉&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-11-01T03:48:15.460" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T03:48:15.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21705" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-01T03:55:28.603" Score="1" ViewCount="1590" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, “a rainfall of jade” conjures up a pleasant imagery. The name I’m looking for is intended for a boy. Family name is 白. I was thinking of the name 雨琳 as it’s closer to the English comparative. But would these combination of characters be suitable for a given name for a boy?  People have told me 雨琳 is too feminine for a boy?  Is there any other similar combinations that exude a more masculine tone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15472" LastActivityDate="2016-12-02T10:01:08.257" Title="Can anyone recommend Chinese names that mean &quot;a rainfall of jade&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21706" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-01T05:14:11.413" Score="3" ViewCount="840" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;It is what it is&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;I am what I am&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;They are what they are&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose phrase means &quot;it&quot; etc. are difficult to characterize or classify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2016-11-01T06:16:28.317" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T01:52:20.873" Title="How to translate &quot;it is what it is&quot; ,etc.?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21706" CreationDate="2016-11-01T05:55:28.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;It is what it is&quot; (imply it can't be changed) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(事情)就是這樣 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;I am what I am&quot; (imply I can't be changed)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我就是這樣 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;they are what they are&quot;  (imply they can't be changed)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他們就是這樣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T05:55:28.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21705" CreationDate="2016-11-01T09:48:07.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;if the family name is 白, may i suggest, for rainfall:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%9C%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;霝(u+971d)&lt;/a&gt;, which means &quot;light rain, drops of rain&quot;. it has a heritage since oracle bone script, used for people's name at that period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000003720&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000003720&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another one is: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%BE%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;澍(u+6f8d)&lt;/a&gt;, which means &quot;timely rain; to rain, to moisten&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000009123&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000009123&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for jade, roughly all characters belong to the 96 radical &quot;玉&quot; is jade related. i would suggest these four:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%92%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;璐(u+7490)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%91%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;瑾(u+747e)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%90%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;琨(u+7428)&lt;/a&gt;, or &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%90%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;琦(u+7426)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so some combinations of a boy's name:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;霝璐, 霝瑾, 霝琨, 霝琦, or 澍璐, 澍瑾, 澍琨, 澍琦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;before making any decision, would you consider the baby's &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000132478&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;生辰八字&lt;/a&gt;? in the past, it's one of the most important factor in choosing any name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T09:48:07.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21703" CreationDate="2016-11-01T10:29:47.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;珉&quot; is some kind of stone which looks similar to &quot;玉&quot; (Jade).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;雕雕&quot; means dedicated craftsmanship and implies external appearance, impression, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;章章&quot; means the natural color (usu. white or red) and implies the internal character, virtue, etc. of a gentleman (君子)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the phrase you quoted, 孔子 concluded that 玉 was better praised than 珉 not because of rareness, but rather its characteristics similar to gentlemen (君子).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T10:29:47.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21711" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21714" CreationDate="2016-11-01T11:10:41.627" Score="4" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I learned the word 太太, I was also told that you would not say &quot;这是我的太太&quot;, because using 的 with people would sound too possessive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the other day I was saying goodbye to a native Chinese chat partner, I wrote &quot;再见，我朋友&quot;. And he didn't understand. When I wrote it in English again, he said that it should be &quot;再见，我的朋友&quot;. I asked him why and what I had learned, but I wasn't able to really understand his answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, can someone please explain to me when to use 的 with people and when not to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13168" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T03:19:42.700" Title="Using ＂的＂ with people" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21712" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-01T11:36:46.417" Score="0" ViewCount="367" Body="&lt;p&gt;学校餐厅的开支增加了，这样一来，餐厅就会 increase the food price.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I say &quot;increase the food price&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T06:15:19.773" Title="How to say &quot;increase the food price&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21711" CreationDate="2016-11-01T12:22:02.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question should be &quot; when can I omit the &lt;strong&gt;possessive 的&lt;/strong&gt; &quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;adjective suffix 的&lt;/strong&gt; cannot be omitted when it is needed. For example: 强大,勇敢&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;人；身形高大&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;人; Adjectives that do not need adjective suffix can directly apply to the object. For example 好(good) in  好女儿(good daughter)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;possessive 的&lt;/strong&gt; in 这是我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;太太; 他是我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;女儿；陈先生是我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;上司 can be omitted to 这是我太太; 他是我女儿；陈先生是我上司 when there's a verb to act on the object, for example 是 is the verb and 我(的)女儿 is the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot omit the &lt;strong&gt;possessive 的&lt;/strong&gt; when there's no verb to act on the object . That's why you have to say 再见了, 我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;朋友 but not 再见了, 我朋友.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless you also omit the &lt;strong&gt;subject&lt;/strong&gt;. In this case, &lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;. Then you can omit the &lt;strong&gt;possessive 的&lt;/strong&gt; along with the subject and write 再见了, 朋友.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 你打了我的女儿 - 打 is the verb and 我(的)女儿 is the object, therefore, you can omit 的 and write 你打了我女儿&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 你好吗？我的好女儿，there's no verb to act on the object 我的好女儿, therefore, you cannot omit the sentence to 你好吗？我好女儿&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 我(的)上司是陈先生 - 我(的)上司 is the subject, 的 can be omitted'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 我(的)女儿打了人 - 我(的)女儿 is the subject, 的 can be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-02T03:19:42.700" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T03:19:42.700" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21715" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21722" CreationDate="2016-11-01T12:23:40.567" Score="2" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are those roughly equivalent? Do they belong to the same register of language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to mdbg.net:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;女 (nǚ​) – female / woman / daughter&#xA;女人 (nǚ​rén​) – woman&#xA;女子 (nǚ​zǐ) – woman / female&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T09:33:12.993" Title="What's the difference in use of 女, 女人 and 女子?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21706" CreationDate="2016-11-01T13:37:03.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry to disagree with the distinguished colleague 唐后&#xA;We think &quot;I am what I am.&quot; is better translated: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'我就是我。‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T13:37:03.880" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21715" CreationDate="2016-11-01T14:15:14.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are detailed answer from the following thread at CantoDict forums on the difference between &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?1,129669&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;女人 and 女子&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;女子 Female - Used in the most formal situations, such as news reporting, e.g., 一名女子 (a female), or 女子組 (the female group as in Olympic sports events), or 小女子 (how a woman addresses herself in historical drama)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;女人 Woman - Used in casual situations, such as daily conversation, e.g., 一個女人 (a woman) or 三個女人一個墟 (three women [make as much noise as] a farmer's market)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the character 女, it can be a noun or an adjective for &amp;quot;female&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only example of &lt;strong&gt;女&lt;/strong&gt; as a noun, is with a pronoun, for example 此 (this) as in 此&lt;strong&gt;女&lt;/strong&gt; (this &lt;strong&gt;woman&lt;/strong&gt;) - a simplified form of 此女子 (this &lt;strong&gt;woman&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is only used in classical writing style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T09:33:12.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21723" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-01T15:42:17.690" Score="0" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a theory, that learners of Chinese, who user a bilingual dictionary with all the characters, and the pronunciations on the right, with equal pronunciations being consecutive, listed in order of first, second, third, fourth, and then fifth tone, can have a good tone looking things up and memorizing all the characters that have a given pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I confess there is a point, where this gets counter-intuitive. Instead, one wants a bilingual dictionary, with the characters listed by radical, and then the completely differing pinyin pronunciations on the right.&#xA;This way the learner learns to remember the character's make-up first, and then its pronunciation.&#xA;Since, at this point, the user has memorized all the possible character components that could take place, there shouldn't be a problem (no longer the problem novice users encounter where they find a new character funny looking, and become concerned with not being able to draw it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for this to work, the now no longer beginner but intermediate stage user, will want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A dictionary which lists the Chinese characters and words composed from then in order, sorted by radicals.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since we are looking for a software dictionary, a keyboard input method based not on ASCII, but on bopofomo or something similar, so that the user may enter AND CONCENTRATE FIRST, on each radical.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this stage, the user should be able to associate the pronunciation with characters' and word's shape, (in one step), and not the other way round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SUMMARY: With this technique, the user should be able to focus on a character's radical and non-radical composition sequence, and go through associating / learning all the different pronunciations, of all the characters which look the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may be innovative to provide this list, in a software dictionary, just ordered by &amp;quot;SAME-LOOKINGNESS&amp;quot;, independently of what is a considered a radical and what is not (since not every readable component of a character has been traditionally considered a radical).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11212" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-10-29T15:56:31.827" LastActivityDate="2020-10-29T15:56:31.827" Title="Impact of order of bilingual dictionary entries, dictionary searching, and input method on Chinese learning" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21725" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-01T19:51:51.500" Score="-1" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;(NSFW, roll over to view)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m4tmQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m4tmQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of the Chinese Language on this picture ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15695" LastEditorDisplayName="user5714" LastEditDate="2016-11-03T01:35:51.740" LastActivityDate="2016-11-04T05:24:13.817" Title="What is the meaning of the words on the pictures" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21725" CreationDate="2016-11-01T23:29:46.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope it is not your tattoo. If it is, ask for your money back!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the wrong way round, a mirror image of the characters. Should be: 爱ai事shi实shi, roughly intended is &quot;Love is a fact&quot;, but actually these words together have no meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T23:29:46.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21706" CreationDate="2016-11-02T01:52:20.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are overused terms commonly considered meaningless nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is broad and vague and depends on situations.  Sometimes it can mean &quot;本該如此&quot; and sometimes it may mean &quot;幹!&quot;  (i.e., &quot;fxck it&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T01:52:20.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21725" CreationDate="2016-11-02T14:57:39.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a verb-object structure, the word &quot;爱&quot; means love as a verb, and the word &quot;事实&quot; means “the fact”. So the word&quot;爱事实&quot; means “Love the fact”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And “Love is a fact” means “爱是事实”， but there is no &quot;是&quot; in the picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15701" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T14:57:39.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21691" CreationDate="2016-11-02T15:47:31.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know a online website offer some Chinese courses: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinlingo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinlingo&lt;/a&gt;. I don't know what kind of method they use, but I believe they have some free courses and one-to-one courses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you need tandem-partner and you are a English native speaker, maybe we can help each other, I am learning English and perparing TOEFL :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15701" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T15:47:31.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21730" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21737" CreationDate="2016-11-02T22:54:50.213" Score="0" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard about this pun, but I don't know how to identify the one character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried a few tricks to search CEDICT but either it doesn't show up or there are too many hits to wade through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T14:05:48.847" Title="Blessed bat pun: 蝙蝠→__福" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21730" CreationDate="2016-11-02T23:40:33.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The punch is 五&lt;strong&gt;蝠&lt;/strong&gt; →五&lt;strong&gt;福&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A graphic of &quot;five bats&quot; (五&lt;strong&gt;蝠&lt;/strong&gt;) symbolizes 五&lt;strong&gt;福&lt;/strong&gt;臨門 (Five good fortunes come to the household)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vqK8p.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vqK8p.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vXFyq.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vXFyq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Five good fortunes:&#xA;「壽(long life)、富(wealth)、貴(status)、安樂(peace)、子孫眾多(many children)。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-02T23:57:40.623" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T23:57:40.623" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21733" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-03T07:34:26.007" Score="4" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;Specifically, I'm trying to translate a paragraph of 琅琊榜, and I find poetry particularly difficult as it has imagery, metaphor, and meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;云氏庭院的花前柳下，依然是举杯邀明月，对影成三人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Within context, this describes the state of a beautiful woman, nearing thirty and still single. You can say, &quot;Yun Piaoliao still remained single&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you go by imagery, it's something like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;In the Yun family garden, she was still raising a glass to the moon and inviting her shadow to become a party of three.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you go by reference, the phrase quotes 《月下独酌》 by 李白, which is basically an ode to loneliness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you translate it without losing the poetry, metaphor, and meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15707" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T14:33:52.810" Title="How to translate 举杯邀明月，对影成三人?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21712" CreationDate="2016-11-03T08:33:41.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Word by word, the translation is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;increase(提高/增加 ti gao / zeng jia);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the food(食物shi wu);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的(pinyin: de, meaning the food'&lt;strong&gt;S&lt;/strong&gt; price, or price &lt;strong&gt;OF&lt;/strong&gt; the food.  The character is added to express that the price is the food's);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;price (价格jia ge)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the whole sentence would be, 提高食物的价格 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although in short, you can simply say 涨价(zhang jia) meaning to increase price as @user-487 answered above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15674" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T08:33:41.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21733" CreationDate="2016-11-03T08:42:39.873" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;邀明月&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;invite the bright moon&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;李白 felt lonely drinking by himself, so he invited the moon to drink with him (the moon was not a person, but there was no one else, so let's count it as one.)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;对影&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;facing (his own) shadow&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Well, in his drunken state, his own shadow looked like another man raising a cup with him.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;成三人&lt;/strong&gt; ( The moon, I myself, and my shadow became three people)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Let all three of us, the moon, I myself, and my shadow drink together!&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;举杯邀明月，对影成三人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I raise my cup and invite the moon to drink with me. Along with my shadow, we become three drinking friends &quot;  (describing how alone he felt that he had to drink with imaginary friends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Within context, this describes the state of a beautiful woman, nearing thirty and still single. You can say, &quot;Yun Piaoliao still remained single&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The narrative was comparing her situation to the one of 李白 when he wrote that poem - &quot; utterly alone with no companion&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;云氏庭院的花前柳下，依然是举杯邀明月，对影成三人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;In the Yun family courtyard, in front the flowers and under the willow tree, she was still alone,  just like in the poem: &quot;&lt;em&gt;Raise the cup and invite the moon, along with my shadow, it makes a party of three&lt;/em&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-03T14:33:52.810" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T14:33:52.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21730" CreationDate="2016-11-03T09:43:01.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Merriam Webster:&#xA;pun: a humorous way of using a word or phrase so that more than one meaning is suggested. &#xA;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm reading a book on anti-gravity. I just can't put it down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this definition going to work in Chinese? Given 4 tones, you really need a 1st tone word for 蝙蝠X福 to even remotely be a pun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蝙蝠发福？ 发 is not the same sound as 蝙 thus not a good candidate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bless might be 赐福， but as 赐 is not the same sound as 蝙， it is clearly punless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't see anything funny in 五蝠五福， but I am not Chinese. Maybe it is funny. You said pun, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蝙蝠边福？ Just thinking aloud!&#xA;蝙蝠，变福? 变 is 4th tone, so I don't think so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me know if you find it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T09:43:01.607" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21730" CreationDate="2016-11-03T14:05:48.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;蝙蝠寓福 / 以蝠寓福&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“福”为诸事皆吉之总称，以蝠寓福。每逢新年或吉日，人们贴“福”字以吉祥。双为吉数，一为单，二为全。中国自古有求全的民风，画面上以双数蝙蝠（或孩童）来表示求全，求吉祥，追求美好幸福的心理。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kPiKB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kPiKB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蝙蝠寓福；佛手结，形如人手，也谓佛之手。因“佛”与“福”音似，佛手结在图案中作多福的象征。桃寓长寿，石榴寓多子，这三者结合在一起表示多福‘多寿、多子孙，表现人们祈求家族繁荣昌盛的愿望。九个如意寓意“九如”。九如出自《诗经·小雅·天保》：“天保定尔，以莫不兴，如山如阜，如岗如陵，如川之方至，以莫不增.....如月之恒，如归之升，如南山之寿，不骞不崩，如松柏之茂，无不尔或承。”意思是上天保佑你，让你没有不兴盛的，如山、阜（土山）、岗、陵和大川，象月之持久，太阳初升好比南山之长寿，松柏之常青，没有人不拥护你。此为九如，另外如意形如灵芝，灵芝又为吉祥瑞草，二者可互相混用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mhPfD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mhPfD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you are just looking for a pun for &quot;蝙蝠&quot; it has to be &quot;遍福&quot;, 寓意福到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15592" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T14:05:48.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21738" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-04T02:43:44.267" Score="1" ViewCount="611" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking up the origin of pun, I came across this for the origin of Japan. I suspect jih pun must be Cantonese. Tang Ho, as resident Cantonese expert, is that so??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&amp;amp;search=pun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&amp;amp;search=pun&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japan: 1570s, via Portuguese Japao, Dutch Japan, acquired in Malacca from Malay Japang, from Chinese &lt;strong&gt;jih pun&lt;/strong&gt;, literally &quot;sunrise&quot; (equivalent of Japanese Nippon), from jih &quot;sun&quot; + pun &quot;origin.&quot; Japan lies to the east of China. Earliest form in Europe was Marco Polo's Chipangu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-04T12:07:38.127" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T15:50:32.430" Title="Was &quot;jih pun&quot;- an origin of &quot;Japan&quot;, came from Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21739" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21741" CreationDate="2016-11-04T03:25:22.127" Score="0" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I know there is &#xA;Mandarin,&#xA;Hokkien,&#xA;Cantonese&#xA;But are there other minority dialect?&#xA;I've heard one spoken outside the mainlands, can anyone confirm?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15713" LastActivityDate="2020-12-30T07:05:07.040" Title="How many different dialect known to exist in the Chinese language and what are they?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21738" CreationDate="2016-11-04T03:26:59.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;日 means &quot;Sun&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本 means &quot;origin&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/410/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/410/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;日本 Japan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;jat6 bun2   (jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ri4 ben3, lv4 ben3   (pinyin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese pronunciation of 日本 is /ni pon/ (Nippon), &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese use the Japanese Kanji 日本 and pronounce it as Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese pronounce it as /jat6 bun2/ &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mandarin pronounce it as /ri4 ben3/ or / lv4 ben3/ &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese pronunciation of 日本 is in deed more similar to /jih pun/ than the Mandarin pronunciation does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-04T09:48:10.493" LastActivityDate="2016-11-04T09:48:10.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21739" CreationDate="2016-11-04T04:23:05.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;yeah there are a lot of them: Cantonese is spoken by people around guangdong（广东）area, Hokkien is spoken by people around fujian（福建） area. There are also Mongolian Language spoken by inner mongolian （内蒙古） people, Tibetian Language spoken by tibet （西藏）people. These are the most famous one i believe, there are still a lot of them since china consist of many clan and area. Every clan and area have there own language&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15418" LastActivityDate="2016-11-04T04:23:05.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21725" CreationDate="2016-11-04T04:45:54.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;爱 means 'Love' and 事实 means facts. Together the meaning would be 'facts about love'. It's read form right to left, because i believe the one who make it follow the old writing system.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MoWd2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MoWd2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like this one, it is read 中国城 not 城国中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15418" LastActivityDate="2016-11-04T04:45:54.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21725" CreationDate="2016-11-04T05:24:13.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three words are &quot;爱(love/like)事实(fact)&quot;. This phase or sentence is not normal and it is difficult for understanding. From the flowers I doubt the picture is about a Japanese or a Korean. Therefore, for the exact meaning or the cultural background, it is better to also ask for a Japanese or Korean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastActivityDate="2016-11-04T05:24:13.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21744" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-04T11:27:23.233" Score="3" ViewCount="3028" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are 太... 了 (tài... le) and 很(hěn) grammatically equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My feeling is that semantically 太... 了 (tài... le) is somehow &quot;stronger&quot; then 很(hěn), that is: 太... 了 (tài... le) seems &quot;exceptionally, extremely&quot;, while 很(hěn) is just &quot;very&quot;. Is it correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summing up both questions with an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;may I say (apart of changes in meaning):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我的狗很大 Wǒ de ɡǒu hěn dà&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我的狗太大了 Wǒ de ɡǒu tài dà le&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the meaning of the second sentence is somehow &quot;stronger&quot; ?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我的狗很大 Wǒ de ɡǒu hěn dà -&gt; my dog is very big)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我的狗太大了 Wǒ de ɡǒu tài dà le -&gt; my dog is so big! / my dog is too big!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastEditorUserId="11269" LastEditDate="2016-11-04T13:29:23.527" LastActivityDate="2016-11-10T01:00:17.203" Title="太... 了 (tài... le) vs 很(hěn)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21746" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-04T18:21:24.107" Score="0" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think its a line written by the poet Qu Yuan that maybe symbolizes a persons nobility?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15472" LastActivityDate="2016-11-09T01:47:37.153" Title="What does the following phrase mean “扈江离与辟芷兮，纫秋兰以为佩.”?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21746" CreationDate="2016-11-04T19:25:54.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From 屈原《离骚》( 'Lisao' by Qu Yuan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;扈(to wear/to carry) | 江篱(a kind of fragrant plant) | 与(and) | 辟芷(a kind of fragrant plant) | 兮(exclamatory particle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;纫(to sew) | 秋兰 (a kind of fragrant plant) | 以为 (to make) | 佩 (sachet)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;扈江篱与辟芷兮，纫秋兰以为佩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Wear verrucosa and angelica dahurica , sew a sachet with autumn orchid inside&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;maybe symbolizes a persons nobility?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line symbolizes Qu Yuan's high moral standards, and his unwillingness of associate with immoral people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;bad guys stink&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-04T19:47:02.390" LastActivityDate="2016-11-04T19:47:02.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21750" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-04T22:51:53.397" Score="1" ViewCount="20713" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed in Cantonese there are two ways to say &quot;thank you&quot; based on the situation. You use &quot;m goi&quot; if thanking someone for a service and &quot;do ze&quot; when you receive a gift. Does Mandarin have similar expressions for giving thanks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15717" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-11-05T06:47:48.487" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T06:11:48.173" Title="Saying &quot;thank you&quot;" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21751" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-04T23:16:49.413" Score="-1" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can any one tell me the meaning of this picture?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HczRb.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HczRb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15718" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-11-05T12:02:10.410" LastActivityDate="2016-12-05T12:49:30.880" Title="Can someone please tell me what this poem means?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21750" CreationDate="2016-11-05T02:19:29.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;M goi&quot; means &lt;em&gt;shouldn't&lt;/em&gt;. More accurately &lt;em&gt;I shouldn't bother you to do this for me.&lt;/em&gt; I don't think people who speak Mandarin would say anything similar to this to show gratitude. You may say 真不该麻烦你 which literally only means &lt;em&gt;I really shouldn't bother you (to do this for me)&lt;/em&gt;. But it can never be used like &lt;em&gt;m goo&lt;/em&gt; as a casually way to say thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of time, it would just simply be 谢谢 (xiexie) or 多谢 (duo xie) in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15272" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-11-05T06:49:30.617" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T06:49:30.617" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21753" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21755" CreationDate="2016-11-05T03:01:57.327" Score="0" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just looking at 吾， found in 语 so I looked for some example sentences in iciba.com and found this. I guess it's correct, but it is a bit cryptic, so I'd like to check, probably from an old book or such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe a literal translation: 莫吾知也夫! no I knows also this (I)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;莫吾知也夫! Alas, no one understands me! (iciba)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;莫： there is no one&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吾： I，we&lt;br&gt;&#xA;知： know&lt;br&gt;&#xA;也： also&lt;br&gt;&#xA;夫： this (person?), me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because given the English translation, I would write something different, perhaps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唉，没有人了解我！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T05:08:26.833" Title="Is this translation correct?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21751" CreationDate="2016-11-05T03:32:05.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a poem by 李白 (Li Bai 701 AD -762 AD )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一為遷客去長沙，Once became a banished man, he headed to Changsha.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西望長安不見家。looking back at Chang'an in the west, he could not see his home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黃鶴樓中吹玉笛，Inside the Yellow Crane Tower, someone was playing a *tunes with jade flute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;江城五月落梅花。It felt like falling plum blossoms in the River City in May&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*The tunes was《梅花落》(Plum Blossom Falling)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Li Bai was banished from the capital, He wrote this poem to express his sorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T09:20:47.597" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21753" CreationDate="2016-11-05T05:08:26.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately your interpretation is not quite correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence is in ancient Chinese. 也 means nothing but to indicate the end of a phrase or sentence, and 夫 here indicates an exclamation. There were originally no punctuations in an ancient Chinese article, and these are just like punctuations. Using more than one such word (也夫) indicates stronger exclamation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;莫: no one, 吾: me, 知: understand, 也夫: exclamation, may be translated 'Alas!' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So putting together, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alas, no one understands me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唉，没有人了解我！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15723" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T05:08:26.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21756" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-05T05:42:44.447" Score="0" ViewCount="1236" Body="&lt;p&gt;The bot I am referring to is a software program that does automated tasks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking of if &quot;器&quot; is the right character for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I confirmed it with wordreference but does not appear to have a translation for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there actually a better translation than the one I have mentioned?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15580" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T07:41:58.927" Title="How do you say bot in chinese?" Tags="&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21759" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-05T11:12:23.380" Score="3" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;The below variant of the Traditional character 選 comes from an old book of 20th-century Vietnam. I personally cannot find any source that acknowledges this variant. I'm also pretty sure that Unicode doesn't have this glyph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jg4vk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jg4vk.png&quot; alt=&quot;選&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, since this variant is likely Vietnamese-made, I hope to know about any source that records Vietnamese-varied Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9417" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T09:08:59.153" Title="Is there any record on this specific variant of the character 選?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21759" CreationDate="2016-11-05T23:31:52.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently the Vietnamese used Chinese characters a long time ago, perhaps only in learned circles. They also created their own &quot;Chinese&quot; characters, which were not known in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a similar case of a character I could not find. I downloaded some fonts called HAN NOM A.ttf and HAN NOM B.ttf, then I could write the character, but I can't remember what it was now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you can get some leads here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_N%C3%B4m&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_N%C3%B4m&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T23:31:52.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21761" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-06T01:00:43.730" Score="1" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see pretty pictures of plum blossom, 81 petals of the 九九消寒图，but I can't really figure out the meaning of 练 in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘冬练三九，夏练三伏‘ What does this 练 mean here? Maybe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winter has?? 3 very cold periods '九‘， summer has?? 3 very hot periods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any tips please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T03:14:23.950" Title="What is the meaning of 练 in 冬练三九？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21761" CreationDate="2016-11-06T03:14:23.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Guifan&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冬练&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;动 根据冬季气候特点进行体育锻炼, 以增强中枢神经系统的体温调节功能, 改善肌体抗寒能力, 增强体质。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically: winter exercises/training (based at improving thermal workings of the central nervous system, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hanyu Da Cidian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冬练三九，夏练三伏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;指不管严寒酷暑,坚持刻苦锻炼。三九,一年中最冷的时期。三伏,一年中最热的时期。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sanjiu is the coldest part of the year - sanfu is the hottest part of the year. So: no matter how adverse weather conditions are one must persist in painstaking physical exercise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's more examples from &lt;strong&gt;Hanyu Da Cidian&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;梁斌《烽烟图》&#xA;  这是练来的!我爸爸曾对我说过,叫我冬练三九,夏练三伏! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新凤霞《童年纪事》&#xA;  学戏练功吃苦可真不少,冬练三九,夏练三伏。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;又《艺海博览》&#xA;  青年演员要做到拳不离手,曲不离口。冬练三九,夏练三伏。练出来没有用不上的。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to clarify the times of year:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictoonary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三九&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the third nine-day period after the winter solstice-the coldest days of winter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;&amp;amp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三伏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the three fu-the three hottest periods of the year (i.e. 初伏 chūfú, 中伏 zhōngfú, and 末伏 mòfú; altogether 30 or 40 days)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;&amp;amp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;出伏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the first day of the first fu (falling in mid-July)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;&amp;amp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中伏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the first day of the middle or second fu (falling in late July)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;&amp;amp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;末伏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the first day of the last or third fu (falling in early or mid August)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T03:14:23.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21723" CreationDate="2016-11-06T05:52:01.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most modern dictionaries, there is a preface that allows you to search words up by radical, by directing you to the appropriate page. Most people use this section when they want to learn its pronunciation and/or its meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some old dictionaries like the &lt;em&gt;Shuowen Jiezi&lt;/em&gt; or the &lt;em&gt;Kangxi Dictionary&lt;/em&gt; (说文解字 and 康熙大词典 respectively) are all-radical dictionaries, which organize characters by radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an online dictionary, there is a section dedicated to radicals, so it gets even more convenient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could also use Cangjie/Wubihua or similar to simulate this &quot;radical-lookup&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, some dictionaries have a &quot;first-5-stroke preface&quot; that allows searching based on stroke order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR: This has already been invented.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15680" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T05:52:01.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21756" CreationDate="2016-11-06T07:41:58.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;bot&quot; as a software program could be translated just like the physical robots as &quot;機器人&quot; (literal meaning is &quot;machine&quot;+&quot;person&quot;) in the Mandarin Chinese; or it would also be called more specifically as &quot;機器人程序&quot; or &quot;機器人程式&quot; (&quot;robot&quot;+&quot;program&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, in the spoken Chinese, people may just borrow the original English word &quot;bot&quot; instead of using any localized translations mentioned above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some educational or academic sources would suggest some complex terms but they are rarely being used in the actual conversations or texts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4668" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T07:41:58.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21744" CreationDate="2016-11-06T09:43:01.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of interpreting 我的狗太大了 as &quot;stronger&quot; than 我的狗很大, the former one has more of a negative tone in it. If I exaggerate the first phrase a little bit more, it will be my dog is way too big. It has nuances of a complaint as compared to the mere description of 我的狗很大 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15730" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T09:43:01.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21767" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21770" CreationDate="2016-11-06T10:11:57.803" Score="0" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 面包 and 列巴? Dictionaries suggest both mean bread, but Google search seems to indicate that 面包 is any kind of baked flour (buns, bread, baguettes, croissants etc.), while 列巴 just means a regular (in the European sense) bread. Is that correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am aware of this thread: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1491/how-do-i-say-a-loaf-of-bread&quot;&gt;How do I say &amp;quot;a loaf of bread&amp;quot;?&lt;/a&gt; but it doesn't fully answer my question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T13:56:39.327" Title="Difference between 面包 and 列巴" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21768" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21769" CreationDate="2016-11-06T14:57:01.983" Score="3" ViewCount="398" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 不 at the end of a sentence mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;更新速度可以快点不&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context is somebody complaining about updating site content so slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean &amp;quot;Can update speed be quicker&amp;quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15622" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T05:24:53.327" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T05:24:53.327" Title="What does 不 at the end of a sentence (e.g. 更新速度可以快点不) mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21768" CreationDate="2016-11-06T15:27:33.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes, your translation is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以…不 ～=  可不可以… &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually used to form an alternative question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以快点不～=可不可以快点?&#xA;这个可以吃不～=这个可不可以吃? Is this eatable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3656" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T15:27:33.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21767" CreationDate="2016-11-06T16:41:09.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short 面包refers to bread(general) and 列巴refers to specifically Russian bread.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15732" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T16:41:09.590" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21773" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21774" CreationDate="2016-11-07T08:56:38.613" Score="1" ViewCount="276" Body="&lt;p&gt;做饺子 and 做饭饺子, second is said grammatically incorrect, by a Chinese person : is that right ? what is the problem with 做饭饺子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wenlin says : 做饭[-飯] zuòfàn* {E} v.o. prepare a meal | Nǐ huì zuòfàn ma? 你会做饭吗? Can you cook ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T15:39:40.733" Title="chinese grammar, 做饺子 or 做饭饺子?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21773" CreationDate="2016-11-07T09:20:24.217" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character &quot;饭&quot; itself in the word &quot;做饭&quot; has a literal meaning as &quot;meal&quot;. So if you say &quot;做饭饺子&quot;, the whole meaning of the sentence would become &quot;prepare 'meal dumplings'&quot;, it contains a strange phrase &quot;meal dumplings&quot; (饭饺子) which is not in the regular Chinese vocabulary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sense, &quot;饭&quot; is just a generic character referred to any kind of meal, if you mean to refer to a specific type of food, you should just replace &quot;饭&quot; with that food such as &quot;饺子&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4668" LastEditorUserId="4668" LastEditDate="2016-11-07T09:27:59.440" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T09:27:59.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21773" CreationDate="2016-11-07T12:09:54.173" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's just 做饺子 (the 饭 is redundant)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做饺子or 包饺子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12128" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T12:09:54.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21744" CreationDate="2016-11-07T13:58:03.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my own point of view, 太...了 does convey a stronger feeling towards the thing you are describing than 很. You can consider 太 as meaning &quot;very much&quot; or &quot;a lot&quot;, whereas 很 means &quot;really&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15736" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T13:58:03.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21777" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21782" CreationDate="2016-11-07T15:32:13.613" Score="3" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started my essay with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我先說一下我國在歐洲中的地理位置,⋯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, there are a lot of problems with this. It seems that the teacher thought my country was in Central Europe, since he changed 中 to 中部。I wanted to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I first talk about the geographical location of my country within Europe.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I have used 內 or 裡？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T05:15:32.660" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T05:15:32.660" Title="The location of my country within Europe: 我先說一下我國在歐洲中的地理位置" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21778" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21784" CreationDate="2016-11-07T16:09:45.897" Score="1" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I started learning Chinese, I learned that 阿姨 can refer to both older female friends and the maternal aunts. I was therefore told to refer to my aunt as 親阿姨, at least upon first mention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today I wrote &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的親阿姨搬到這裡快要二十年了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher corrected my mistakes meticulously, but he only speaks Chinese, so I often don't understand the reason. He corrected it to:&#xA;我姨搬到這裡快要二十年了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I use 我姨 in writing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2016-11-09T08:39:04.087" Title="Differentiating the words 阿姨 親阿姨 and 姨 correctly" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21783" CreationDate="2016-11-07T16:26:12.383" Score="0" ViewCount="368" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chinese friends taught me to refer to the husband of my maternal aunt as 姨丈。My friends are perfectly familiar with my family and how we are related to each other. Specifically, the uncle in question is the husband of my mother's youngest sister.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today my (university) teacher (who only speaks Chinese and therefore we can't easily communicate on nuances) corrected all occurrences of 姨丈 to 姨夫。The dictionary treats them as synonyms. Is there any difference? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher is from Beijing. My friends are from 浙江。I believe that my friends from 江蘇 and 台灣 also use 姨丈，but I might be mistaken on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T21:15:22.673" Title="Is there any difference between 姨丈 and 姨夫？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21779" CreationDate="2016-11-07T17:12:00.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;amongst &quot;姨丈&quot;, &quot;姨夫&quot;, &quot;姨父&quot; or &quot;姨爹&quot;; &quot;姨丈&quot; is the most common one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000150395&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000150395&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, your teacher is . . . :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T17:12:00.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21777" CreationDate="2016-11-07T17:20:30.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I first talk about the geographical location of my country within Europe&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the equivalent chinese is &quot;not smooth&quot;. may i suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我先說一下: 我的國家位於中歐 / 西歐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~ i first talk about: my country is located in central europe / western europe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, &quot;occupied&quot; is a very bad term, to introduce geographic location; don't use this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T17:20:30.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21777" CreationDate="2016-11-07T17:25:56.423" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your first try is a correct translation of the English you want to say. 内 or 里 are not as good as 中. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better still, you can omit it, 我國在歐洲的地理位置. Here &quot;in&quot; is implied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After your teacher's modification&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我先說一下我國在 &lt;strong&gt;歐洲中部&lt;/strong&gt; 的地理位置 = I first talk about the geographical location of my country in &lt;strong&gt;Central&lt;/strong&gt; Europe. (Here 歐洲中部 means Central Europe and &quot;in&quot; is implied. Notice the change in sentence structure.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;user6065's suggestion 我国在欧洲里占有的地理位置 isn't good. If you say that, people will expect you to immediately follow that your country's location is strategically important (which may or may not be what you want, but certainly not reflected in your English expression).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T17:25:56.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21779" CreationDate="2016-11-07T17:38:07.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Due to geographical different, the calling custom can be varied in different China district, especially north versus the south. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In southern China Guangdong region custom,  when greeting, the minor always call senior aunt(father side） husband as &quot;姑丈&quot;. （for mother side aunt husband is called 姨丈)  When the minor introduce/refer their aunt husband to third party, they can use either &quot;姨丈&quot; or 姨夫. Although the books say they are the same, but in vocal speaking , &lt;code&gt;yi^2 zang^4&lt;/code&gt;  rhyme is pretty clear, compare to &lt;code&gt;yi^2 fu^1&lt;/code&gt;. OTH , Beijing (Northen China) may use different custom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the Chinese rank of 姨 also carry few more meaning. I.e., husband may refer his sister-in-law as &lt;code&gt;大姨子&lt;/code&gt;、&lt;code&gt;小姨子&lt;/code&gt;。And the husband will refer sister-in-law husband as 大姨夫, 小姨夫. But since they are same seniority rank , thus, the husband will never call them 大姨丈. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now come to the next part : To differentiate the husband sister-in-law title versus the husband senior aunt. I.e. &#xA;我那个大姨&lt;code&gt;夫&lt;/code&gt;  can means &quot;my aunt(father side) husband&quot; or &quot;my sister-in-law husband&quot;. Due to the seniority calling custom, 大姨&lt;code&gt;丈&lt;/code&gt; always means my aunt husband.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The person must clarify explicitly during conversation to clear the confusion if they wish to use&lt;code&gt;姨夫&lt;/code&gt; , for example, one will say  : &lt;code&gt;我老家那个大姨夫&lt;/code&gt;  my family-side aunt husband. This is important whether in vocal or writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When refer to sister-in-law husband, one must first introduced, 我大姨子的丈夫 My sister-in-law husband。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only after the explicit introduction, the conversation can abbreviate to 姨夫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you are not sure, just ask for clarification. Even Chinese will get confused of those title if no clarification is made. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-07T21:15:22.673" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T21:15:22.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21778" CreationDate="2016-11-07T18:28:32.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You mandarin teacher just too ignorant to tell about different region Chinese language usage custom, and fail on learning the importance of presenting language in explicitly ways. Perhaps I will say , &quot;for the sake of correcting to correct&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can write it, but please don't use &quot;我姨&quot; in speaking, unless you are comfortable to the regions custom that use that(perhaps Beijing?). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin depends heavily in vocal rhythm changes, many verbs shared the same vocal rhythm. It is bad in vocal saying &quot;我姨&quot;, because the vocal &quot;姨&quot; shared with different meaning vocals(like 已，咦， 宜, 疑,etc）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Chinese already invented the sharp vocal &quot;Ar&quot; as people calling reference, thus when you speak  &quot;我阿姨”， all Chinese in different region will understand you. You will get a blank face when you say &quot;我姨&quot;, even native mandarin speaker will have trouble fetch the meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, back to &quot;我親阿姨&quot;, it is quite redundant in Chinese speaking custom. Normally, just say/write &quot;我阿姨&quot; is enough. Chinese always treat 阿姨 as close relative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When come to 阿姨, Chinese only explicitly define ladies who is NOT your relative, for example, the housekeeper 管家阿姨, the lady stay at the floor below you 楼下的阿姨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-09T08:39:04.087" LastActivityDate="2016-11-09T08:39:04.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21777" CreationDate="2016-11-07T18:49:52.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is inappropriate to write that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it carry different meaning when &lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt; used in this way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;在歐洲中&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mandarin, besides &quot;central&quot;, it also carry the meaning of &quot;among/within&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But even it is weird when translated to English : &#xA;let's talk about my home country geographical location within Europe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If English speaking people not going to write &quot;home country&quot;, why complicate it with a foreign language. Even in many language, it is easier to say where you come from, then talk about country.  E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我来自XX国。 对于XX国不大熟悉的人， 我先說一下XX国在歐洲的地理位置,⋯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because non-European(even USA) rarely study Europe maps. Non-European have no idea which country make up of central European. So it is better to say Europe then narrow down to explicit location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-07T19:21:00.857" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T19:21:00.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21773" CreationDate="2016-11-07T19:17:09.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin is not difficult. However, usage are varied depends on regional custom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although rice is Chinese main staple, it can't growth in Northern region. And Beijing mandarin love to use the word &quot;做&quot; as noun for actions, or preparation. &#xA;Thus 做饭 become synonym of cooking in Beijing mandarin.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Southern China, where the rice is growth, a straight forward verb is used : &#xA;煮饭. So in Guangdong region, when people say 煮饭, it means cooking, not about cooking rice, but prepare the meals. And southerner love to use explicit meaning, thus, wrapping dumpling &quot;包饺子&quot; .  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T19:17:09.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21750" CreationDate="2016-11-07T19:33:59.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually Cantonese use both verb interchangeable, there is no special preference using any of those. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can think of &quot;m goi&quot; carry extra meaning of sort of polite custom of &quot;oh, you shouldn't spend money to buy me this presents, well, I will take it anyway.&quot;, &quot;sorry for bother&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in mandarin, you must use them explicitly : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people buying you a meal, a presents, thanks for all your fish, anything that about spending money : &#xA;&quot;太破费了，谢谢&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for services, a meals，invitation,etc &#xA;“麻烦你了， 谢谢”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T19:33:59.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21788" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21790" CreationDate="2016-11-08T06:09:57.223" Score="0" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is this called?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;橱&quot;or“抽屉”？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W8ISl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W8ISl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15739" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T23:38:54.367" Title="What is this called?&quot;橱&quot;or“抽屉”？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21644" CreationDate="2016-11-08T06:22:15.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese, the language, itself doesn't ALWAYS use conjunctions together to link different kinds of splitted words, phrases……ect together. However, sometimes what we should notice is that we Chinese prefer other ways instead of using conjunctions, the common ways are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Using &lt;strong&gt;punctuations&lt;/strong&gt; to link short words together to describe things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小王，25岁，上海人，喜欢吃零食。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that we usually shorten the splitted words by the commas liking them together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If words &lt;strong&gt;of the same type (used as nones, adjectives……ect), and if they are of small unit in a sentence itself&lt;/strong&gt;, maybe “顿号” is a good choice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢看书、写作、旅游。(I like reading, writing and travelling.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this situation, we don't need to use &quot;and&quot;, compared with this, the English prefer using &quot;and&quot; in front of the last parallel splitted word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Most cases &quot;and&quot; functions to link sentences together in English or western languages in syntax, however in Chinese we don't do that, we still use punctuations like commas, &lt;strong&gt;this means Chinese language perfers &quot;showing meaning&quot; to &quot;pure syntax&quot; itself&lt;/strong&gt;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eg: You are a student, and I'm also a student.&#xA;你是学生，我也是。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice in English we must add &quot;and&quot; here to link the parallel sentences together in a normal syntax, but in Chinese we CANNOT add &quot;和&quot;, A comma is ENOUGH here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) For some fixed characters, we don't use any punctuations &lt;strong&gt;but just write them one by one&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢吃喝玩乐（We don't prefer saying：We love 吃、喝、玩、乐，because &quot;吃喝玩乐&quot; is a fixed pharse. Others such as &quot;爸爸妈妈&quot;、“上上下下”……. In English we have to use commas+&quot;and&quot; to link them to meet the right syntax.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4）In some special pharses like &quot;both……and……&quot;, if we use nagative, this means &quot;half negative&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both you and me don't like sports （= Either you or me like sports.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However &lt;strong&gt;in Chinese we are of &quot;fully negative&quot; in meaning&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你和我不喜欢体育。(= Neither you or I like sports.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5）We prefer make nones or shortened phrases &lt;strong&gt;&quot;adjectivable&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; to modify a none directly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g: She is a 25-year-old girl, from ShangHai and like singing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we usually say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她是一个&lt;strong&gt;25岁，来自上海且喜欢歌唱的&lt;/strong&gt;女孩子。(translated in English, this should be something like &quot;She is a 25-year-old,singing-like girl from ShangHai&quot; or through the adjective clause like &quot;She is a 25-year-old girl from ShangHai, who likes singing.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6）In some “成语” (idoms or pharses), we also have conjunctions or meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;宁&lt;/strong&gt;缺毋滥 (We prefer lacking if nothing meets).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三思&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;行（Decision after a deep thought）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2016-11-09T01:30:15.200" LastActivityDate="2016-11-09T01:30:15.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21788" CreationDate="2016-11-08T06:34:52.040" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;收納櫃/置物櫃/抽屜櫃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the following items link to a commercial site:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://24h.pchome.com.tw/prod/DEBAFW-A9007JUBM&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;收納櫃 參考圖片 1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://24h.pchome.com.tw/prod/DEBAG5-A9005ROUF&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;收納櫃 參考圖片 2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://24h.pchome.com.tw/prod/DEBAAT-A9006NN62&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;收納櫃 參考圖片 3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.mall.yahoo.com/item/E-J%E3%80%90005020%E3%80%91%E5%85%8D%E9%81%8B%E8%B2%BB-%E8%8D%B7%E9%A2%A8DIY%E4%BA%94%E5%B1%A4%E6%94%B6%E7%B4%8D%E6%AB%83-%E5%85%A9%E8%89%B2%E5%8F%AF%E9%81%B8-%E6%94%B6-p088763666391&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;收納櫃 參考圖片 4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gohappy.com.tw/ec2/product?pid=5206774&amp;amp;cid=66461&amp;amp;sid=8&amp;amp;mid=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;收納櫃 參考圖片 5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gohappy.com.tw/ec2/product?pid=3901046&amp;amp;cid=66461&amp;amp;sid=8&amp;amp;mid=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;收納櫃 參考圖片 6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gohappy.com.tw/ec2/product?pid=5075289&amp;amp;cid=66461&amp;amp;sid=8&amp;amp;mid=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;收納櫃 參考圖片 7&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-08T07:24:31.347" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T07:24:31.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21788" CreationDate="2016-11-08T07:08:48.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“抽屉”：可能是橱或柜的一部分，可以抽放（Maybe a part of cupboard or cabinet we can pull it out and put things there and push it in）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pWEtW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pWEtW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we see a thing full of “抽屉”, a collection of them one beyond one together (like the image you showed us). This is called “柜”. This may be high or low, but most cases this is low or mediam of height:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eqpuF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eqpuF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for most cases, if a high thing full of small doors together for us put bags, books……ect. This is also a “柜”：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rup3P.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rup3P.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the acient China, “柜” was something like a box (can open or close, horizonal and movable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you see a high thing with a door open, where there's a large space seperated by thin boards to put cups, glasses, cropsticks or in a room for clothes…… with no 抽屉, this should be “橱”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MXGRx.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MXGRx.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HOWEVER, with the rapid development of our cupboard, we make &quot;橱&quot; and &quot;柜&quot; together called &quot;橱柜&quot;: This is a thing (most case this takes after &quot;橱&quot;, with a few 抽屉), we usually use &quot;橱&quot; for glasses/cups……, “柜” for kitchen small things like scissors，rag……).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YJ88t.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YJ88t.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, for &quot;clothes&quot; or &quot;cups&quot;, we usually put them into the “橱”, the others are usually put in the 柜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T07:08:48.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21788" CreationDate="2016-11-08T07:43:57.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;橱&lt;/strong&gt; means a kind of furniture. But native chinese won't say &lt;strong&gt;橱&lt;/strong&gt;, because is weired. &#xA;In genral, we will say that is &lt;strong&gt;橱柜&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抽屉&lt;/strong&gt; means a component of furniture that can be pulled and pushed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like this &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/15ou8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/15ou8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your posted pic that can be called &lt;strong&gt;收纳柜&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;组合抽屉式收纳柜&lt;/strong&gt; in simplified Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like this &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D5syP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D5syP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15740" LastEditorUserId="15740" LastEditDate="2016-11-08T08:22:17.343" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T08:22:17.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21794" CreationDate="2016-11-08T09:07:29.090" Score="1" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was a kid in Indonesia (about 30 years ago), I heard a cassette tape of a Hokkien/Hakka album about a Tofu Seller.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The album started with a man reciting a poem about when his 76-year-old father moved from mainland to Singapore and Malaya to study accounting, but after changing many jobs, at the end he became a tofu seller.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where can I see a video or an mp3 or a translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15741" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2018-05-19T16:15:08.863" LastActivityDate="2018-05-19T16:15:08.863" Title="Looking for Hakka old song about Tofu Seller" Tags="&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21793" CreationDate="2016-11-08T09:27:17.493" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUOIhXl8xgw&quot;&gt;客家阿伯酿豆腐&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jianpu.cn/pu/25/255986.htm&quot;&gt;歌詞&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快速提升中文程度的方法：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. 初級者多看中文文章。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. 中級者多寫中文文章。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. 高級者多用中文思考。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;所以，除了初學者可能有困難外，建議大家多用中文問答。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="15652" LastEditDate="2016-11-08T09:43:09.303" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T09:43:09.303" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21777" CreationDate="2016-11-08T10:11:06.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hope you don't mind if I pepper up your English a bit first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first talk about the geographical location of my country within Europe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;might be better so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would first like to talk about the geographical location of my country within Europe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would first like to talk about 我首先想谈谈一下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the geographical location of my country within Europe. 我国家在欧洲中的地理位置。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T10:11:06.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21767" CreationDate="2016-11-08T10:46:05.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ticked answer is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is one of those generalised terms subject to local custom. The actual word of 面包 is actually 麵包.  麵 means something made out of wheat. In general speaking , you may say 列巴 is a kind of 面包. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, only northern China will generalised 列巴  as bread. Southern Chinese and all other Chinese literature have no idea about the Russia bread 列巴 (which the main ingredient is RYE, not wheat) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is similar to US people in the past generalised facial tissues as Kleenex, photocopy as Xerox.  But outside US, unless exposed to US custom and product, you can't use the generalised terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless you make a conversation with a person that stay in Northern China many years ago, otherwise, use 面包/ 麵包for bread/loaf.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-08T13:56:39.327" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T13:56:39.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21681" CreationDate="2016-11-08T13:20:32.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplification introduced some inconsistency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The official simplified form of 盧 is 卢, so is easy to reason that 壚瀘櫨轤臚艫鱸鸕顱 should be simplified to 垆泸栌轳胪舻鲈鸬颅 respectively. But at the same time, 蘆廬驢爐 are simplified to 芦庐驴炉 respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once I wanted to type the word 芦苇(reed). I use &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wubi input method&lt;/a&gt;, which is based on the structure of characters rather than their pronunciation, so I need to break down the charecter I want to input into components. I thought 芦 should be written as &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F16Xs.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F16Xs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, so I broke it into 艹、卜、尸. Of course, I didn't get the expected character with these components. I got rather confused. Finally I had to resort to pinyin input method and found that it is 芦 instead of &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F16Xs.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F16Xs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T13:20:32.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21746" CreationDate="2016-11-08T15:47:02.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;善鸟香草以配忠贞。凸现屈原高尚品德，不与世俗同流合污的高尚情操。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This famous idiom comes from QuYuan's works called &quot;LiSao&quot;, which was a collection of poets written by him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meaning of the statement is: I put on Cao Zhi around my shoulders, and tied QiuLan to Sope to hang it beside myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Chinese, the plants of &quot;QuiLan&quot; or &quot;Cao Zhi&quot; are of self-contained, so QuYuan used these plants to describe that His passion/sentiment for people, for the motherland is so high that he wasn't willing to associate himself with undesirable elements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15745" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2016-11-09T01:47:37.153" LastActivityDate="2016-11-09T01:47:37.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21738" CreationDate="2016-11-08T15:50:32.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;影响日语的是吴语与闽南语，和粤语普通话有何关系？&#xA;我恨三十字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15745" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T15:50:32.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21681" CreationDate="2016-11-08T16:20:43.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For your information, Chinese glyph has another form, call &lt;code&gt;Cursive&lt;/code&gt;. Which become fundamental of so &quot;simplified Chinese&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the simplification is not born from nowhere (as in Chinese proverb , pop up from the stone), it has it own historical and literature traits. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the old cursive can refer to 《标准草书》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, the cursive glyph are wrote with added creativity, it is not easy even with the simplified word reference book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless , the whole writing things is heavily politicalised.  Since pin-ying and handwriting recognition become norm, the original mandarin might re-emerge back to mainland China mainstream usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T16:20:43.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20801" CreationDate="2016-11-08T17:01:23.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q ： Would it be considered odd for people to actually hand write these radicals this way? &#xA;Yes. Just treat it similar to English cursive, gothic writing style. It has become art than practical handwriting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: is this more of a &quot;old/computer typeface&quot; kind of thing?&#xA;Variance of radical display not coming from computer typeface. In fact, it came from the early day of press printing development, where individual lead stamp is putting together to form a paragraph. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The old day lead stamp manufacturing process can't deal perfectly with individual stamp structural requirement. Some stamp may damage easily, so some the early manufacture use replacement radicals.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the era of the laser printing, micro printing, all this deem obsolete. But bad habits/practice die hard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T17:01:23.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21501" CreationDate="2016-11-08T19:10:19.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, the question itself have made some mistake so I will correct it slightly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方言 refers to a variation of Chinese that is SPOKEN  in a certain (local) group. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does NOT refer to the style or variation of the writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李白and 杜甫 are poets during the Tang dynasty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The format of the poem itself was standardized way before that with the uses of 平仄(a form of notation for pronouciation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The choice of words(style of writing) in the poem, is the style of 文言韻文(which is also standardize before them). The &quot;predecessor&quot; of today's 書面語.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no, the two person did not promote 方言 in their poems and they did not standardize writings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15732" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T19:10:19.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21788" CreationDate="2016-11-08T23:38:54.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks to me like they might be stackable. Maybe you can add more drawers, so perhaps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（塑料的）可叠加的五斗柜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T23:38:54.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21744" CreationDate="2016-11-09T02:32:31.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my understanding, 很(hěn) means &quot;very&quot; while 太... 了 (tài... le) means &quot;over(ly)&quot;. So, the second is more stronger (over the limit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15741" LastActivityDate="2016-11-09T02:32:31.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21353" CreationDate="2016-11-09T18:41:27.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The shared clip are make from computer generated voice. &#xA;When learning mandarn, hearing is not enough, you need to practice the exact tonal usage. Sometime is better to find verb that goes with the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because there is a trap of tonal changes for some character when put together, that will cause hearing problem. &#xA;I.e., First tone zhōng 中 together with first tone 餐 cān, your brain will tought it &quot;doesn't sound right&quot;, and try to correct it and cause you to assume it as another tone. &#xA;To grab the correct tone, just practice to speak out different verb using the character, to make your brain to get use to that word and tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早餐 zǎo cān&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;午餐 wǔ cān&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚餐 wǎn cān&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can move on and try &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cān tīng  餐 廳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speak it out for a few time, then try the clip again, see whether you still think hear it as second tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also practice the tonal changes, to help your hearing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;餐  1 cān&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;殘  2 cán&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;慘  3 cǎn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;灿  4 càn   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do take note that, bad speaker or microphone may also cause mishearing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-09T19:04:25.317" LastActivityDate="2016-11-09T19:04:25.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21744" CreationDate="2016-11-09T19:33:21.083" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;很 sometime may interchange with 太 . however,  很 mostly carry out and descriptive meaning. While 太 are mean to show something exaggerate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you use   太....  了, it will add extra expressive complaining tones.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;# 很 versus 太&#xA;my dog is [very big](for the breed) 我的狗[个子*很*大] &#xA;my dog is too big(for the house) 我的狗[个子*太*大]&#xA;&#xA;# 太....  了&#xA;my dog is [just too big!] 我的狗[个子太大了!] or 我的狗[太大只了!] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word  &lt;code&gt;大&lt;/code&gt;,  carry a few meaning : &lt;code&gt;larger&lt;/code&gt; OR &lt;code&gt;greater&lt;/code&gt; OR &lt;code&gt;older&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When describe with living subject, you must put additional care , i.e. put an extra description.  Thus : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;高大  : tall&#xA;肥大  : Fat and tall&#xA;强大  ：strong and powerful (more appropriate to use 强壮 for masculine） &#xA;年纪大 ：old&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的狗很大, 我的狗太大了 is a confusing term.  Is it older? taller? Stronger? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我的狗很高大 -&amp;gt; my dog is tall&#xA;我的狗长大了 -&amp;gt; my dog grow up (,at last)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-09T19:39:59.957" LastActivityDate="2016-11-09T19:39:59.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21744" CreationDate="2016-11-10T01:00:17.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;太&quot; is roughly translated as &quot;too&quot;, while &quot;很&quot; is &quot;very&quot;. In terms of the emotional senses, &quot;太&quot; has some stronger personal feelings in it, while &quot;很&quot; is normally objective and neutral&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15753" LastActivityDate="2016-11-10T01:00:17.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21815" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21818" CreationDate="2016-11-10T01:15:17.480" Score="8" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成语－虚有其表－可以用在下面情形吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有一个人的报告写的很好看，很漂亮，可内容都错了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有没有其他的成语？ Any suggestion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T07:16:30.170" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T07:16:30.170" Title="「虚有其表」这个成语可以用來形容好看，但内容全错的报告吗？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21815" CreationDate="2016-11-10T05:58:19.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;虛有(unsubstantially having) + 其表 (ones appearance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虛有其表 means &quot;all appearance but no substance&quot; or &quot; contradictory to the impressive exterior&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use it to describe someone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;seem strong but can't actually fight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;seem smart but dumb as a brick&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use it to describe something:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;seem impressive but is actually useless &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有一个人的报告写的很好看，很漂亮，可内容都错了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It only illustrates the person is 无能 (incompetent). Unless you also stated &quot;he seems very smart&quot;, you cannot use 虛有其表 to describe him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use this term to describe the reports he wrote is not appropriate because &quot;good penmanship&quot; doesn't necessary contradict &quot;wrong information&quot; - the reports can be good looking and wrong.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有没有其他的成语？ Any suggestion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有名无实 (in name only)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浪得虛名 (undeservingly enjoy a good reputation )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外強中乾 (look vigorous outside but exhausted inside)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金玉其外，败絮其中 ( look great outside but rotten inside)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-10T10:31:03.213" LastActivityDate="2016-11-10T10:31:03.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21815" CreationDate="2016-11-10T08:35:32.970" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有其表&lt;/strong&gt; 可以描述 &lt;strong&gt;寫得很好看，很漂亮&lt;/strong&gt; 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;虛&lt;/strong&gt; 和 &lt;strong&gt;內容都錯&lt;/strong&gt; 有一點點差距，但是基本上還是可以用。因為 &lt;strong&gt;內容都錯&lt;/strong&gt; 要用 &lt;strong&gt;錯&lt;/strong&gt; 來形容，但是 &lt;strong&gt;錯有其表&lt;/strong&gt; 並不是常用的成語。所以，退而求其次，用 &lt;strong&gt;虛&lt;/strong&gt; 也無不可。 &lt;strong&gt;空有其表&lt;/strong&gt; 倒還聽過。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其他類似的詞還有下面這些，但不一定是成語，也有些許差距，提供參考。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空大老脬（ㄎㄨㄥ　ㄉㄚˋ　ㄌㄠˇ　ㄆㄠ／kōng dà lǎo pāo）：表面雖強大，而實則虛浮萎弱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空心湯糰（ㄎㄨㄥ　ㄒㄧㄣ　ㄊㄤ　ㄊㄨㄢˊ／kōng xīn tāng tuán）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;空心湯圓（ㄎㄨㄥ　ㄒㄧㄣ　ㄊㄤ　ㄩㄢˊ／kōng xīn tāng yuán）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;空心蘿蔔（ㄎㄨㄥ　ㄒㄧㄣ　ㄌㄨㄛˊ　ㄅㄛ˙／kōng xīn luó bo）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;空心架子（ㄎㄨㄥ　ㄒㄧㄣ　ㄐㄧㄚˋ　ㄗ˙／kōng xīn jià zi）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這四詞都比喻徒有虛名，而無實在利益。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一紙空文（ㄧ　ㄓˇ　ㄎㄨㄥ　ㄨㄣˊ／yī zhǐ kōng wén）：徒具文字而無實際效用的文書。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以上來自 &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外，和 &lt;strong&gt;很好看，很漂亮，可內容都錯&lt;/strong&gt; 有點相關的詞還有：徒具形式、徒具外表、華而不實、花瓶。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Tang Ho 的 &lt;strong&gt;金玉其外，敗絮其中&lt;/strong&gt; 倒很貼切。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2016-11-10T08:35:32.970" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21820" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-10T23:08:12.473" Score="4" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is the title of an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/donald-trump-won-now-what.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; from NewYork Times:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Highlights of Hillary Clinton’s Concession Speech and President Obama’s Remarks&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you translate &quot;concession speech&quot; in Chinese &lt;em&gt;accurately&lt;/em&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Concession&quot; means &quot;让步，承让&quot;. But it seems rather weired to say &quot;让步演讲，承让演讲&quot;. In this Chinese &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.ifeng.com/a/20161110/50233024_0.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt;, it seems  to suggest that one might translate it as &quot;败选演讲&quot;. But &quot;败选&quot; seems to be rather inferior to &quot;concession&quot; in English.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="298" LastActivityDate="2016-11-11T00:08:18.220" Title="How would you translate the phrase &quot;Concession Speech&quot; in Chinese accurately?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21820" CreationDate="2016-11-10T23:32:50.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about: 认输演说 or 认输演讲 or 败选演讲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of the latter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;麦凯恩在大选之夜的败选演讲中做手势让支持者冷静下来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-10T23:32:50.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21820" CreationDate="2016-11-10T23:47:28.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would rather go with 退讓宣言，as it is matches the style of the original. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15732" LastActivityDate="2016-11-10T23:47:28.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21820" CreationDate="2016-11-11T00:02:38.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To concede(承认失败) means &quot; to admit (defeat) after previously denied&quot;. &#xA;Since &quot;concession speech&quot; refers to &quot;admit defeat in an election&quot;, the full transaction should be 承认竞选失败的演说&#xA;And contract to 败选演说 / 败选演讲 is appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-11-11T00:02:38.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21820" CreationDate="2016-11-11T00:08:18.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;maybe &quot;妥協演說&quot;? in which &quot;妥協&quot; roughly means &quot;compromise&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000054800&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000054800&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-11-11T00:08:18.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21825" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21827" CreationDate="2016-11-11T01:11:23.577" Score="2" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working in a software project and the documentation for some component I need to integrate is only in Chinese. There's a table that has a field named &quot;Amount&quot; and its description is &quot;总价,以分为单位&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate gives me &quot;Total price, divided into units&quot;, and some other page says it's something like &quot;Total Price , in minutes&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that I feel like the part after the comma is important, and neither of them seem like they fit. The &quot;Amount&quot; field is about money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15760" LastActivityDate="2016-11-11T05:13:09.617" Title="What does &quot;总价,以分为单位&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21825" CreationDate="2016-11-11T01:15:36.480" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;总价：(Total price）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以分为单位（Counted by minute）, this means &lt;strong&gt;every minute you should pay xxxx, and how much time you've taken, so the total price is yyyyy&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS：This can be also extended like：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The total price is xxxx, counted by (some unit). The &quot;some unit&quot; may be unit of time, unit of weight, unit of others……ect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are you calculating how long you will finish that component and how much you can earn from this? If yes, mine is the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2016-11-11T05:13:09.617" LastActivityDate="2016-11-11T05:13:09.617" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21825" CreationDate="2016-11-11T01:16:13.597" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point is when &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/5206.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;分&lt;/a&gt; is used as the unit(单位) of money, it means &lt;code&gt;cent&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. one hundredth of &lt;code&gt;元&lt;/code&gt; (the basic monetary unit of China).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;价值等于某货币单位百分之一的单位 [cent]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;总价,以分为单位&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;total price in cents&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-11-11T01:33:32.090" LastActivityDate="2016-11-11T01:33:32.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21815" CreationDate="2016-11-11T17:24:52.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;虚有其表. English equivalent &quot;things that looks better than it was&quot;,  with additional description.&#xA;To critique the article written in flowery language but contain tons of mistake  : &#xA;某人写的报告用词华丽辞藻，其实内容空泛，虚有其表。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to say somebody fancy article contains too many mistake,  you can use the proverb 错误百出 as contrast to the flowery language. &#xA;某人写的报告用词华丽辞藻，其实内容错误百出得令人不忍卒睹. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;某人写的报告用词华丽辞藻，其实内容错误百出, 全是瞎扯(/鬼扯）. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, mandarin usual don't say &quot;有一个人&quot;, but &quot;某人“ , &quot;某某&quot; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-11-11T17:24:52.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21461" CreationDate="2016-11-11T17:38:53.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try your best. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to any language that being &quot;localised&quot;, it took &quot;origin&quot; speaker time to adapt in order to understand different slang. E.g. A GB English speaker will have a hard time following Australian English, New Jersey slang, Mississipi slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you watch series from PRC, it is mostly Beijing slang. If you don't understand most of the words speaking by some Chinese, then you probably hearing some sort of dialect, e.g. Shang-hai-hua, Guang-dong-hua ,etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-11-11T17:38:53.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21830" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-11T22:39:30.980" Score="4" ViewCount="758" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know whether in chinese there are polysemous disyllabic words made up of disyllabic morphemes, that is a word made up of two characters and which when (at least one of) its syllables are pronounced differently, this not being due to sandhi effects, a different meaning is obtained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know there are polyphonic polysemous characters with different meanings when their pronunciation change, so in theory this should be possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope to hear news soon.&#xA;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastEditorUserId="15764" LastEditDate="2016-11-12T07:00:23.597" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T07:15:10.567" Title="Polysemous disyllabic words" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21830" CreationDate="2016-11-12T00:59:00.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about 利害 and 结果 and 东西？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;利害（都四声）,both 4th tone pros and cons&lt;br&gt;&#xA;利（四声4th）害（轻声neutral tone） , terrible (and confusingly also great)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;结果jie1guo3 bear fruit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;结果jie2guo3 outcome&lt;br&gt;&#xA;东西dong1xi1 east and west&lt;br&gt;&#xA;东西dong1xi thing&lt;br&gt;&#xA;精神jing1shen2 spirit mind (this word just came up in my text)&#xA;精神jing1shen vigour, vitality &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Homonyms with the same meanings look here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zybang.com/question/51d637d5aad5d84a6c3e45a3c746458a.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zybang.com/question/51d637d5aad5d84a6c3e45a3c746458a.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is about single characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zybang.com/question/655a87060b4ee9784787d4bf9231b3ba.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zybang.com/question/655a87060b4ee9784787d4bf9231b3ba.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: 字相同,读音不同,意思不同, Character the same, tone different, meaning not the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer: 很多啊 和字 有五个读音 意思都有所不同 比如,我和他 he 是连词 麻将和了是动词 读hu 和面 读huo 是动词 等等&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate for you,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很多啊 &#xA;There are a lot&#xA;'和'字 有五个读音 &#xA;the character '和' has 5 different pronunciations&#xA;意思都有所不同 &#xA;each has its own different meaning&#xA;比如,我'和'他 'he' 是连词 &#xA;for example, I 'and' he '和' is a conjunction read he&#xA;麻将'和'了是动词 读hu &#xA;Mahjong '和' is a verb read 'hu'&#xA;'和'面 读'huo' 是动词 等等&#xA;'和' bread, read 'huo' is a verb etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This link is for words with the same sound, but different characters.(I know, not what your asking for, thought it was interesting!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zybang.com/question/51d637d5aad5d84a6c3e45a3c746458a.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zybang.com/question/51d637d5aad5d84a6c3e45a3c746458a.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see, I don't have a lot to do this morning!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS I think 'differentely' is spelt differently. Vive la difference!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-11-12T03:39:47.323" LastActivityDate="2016-11-12T03:39:47.323" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21834" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-12T04:38:46.670" Score="4" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, 怎么 has three major meanings as interrogatives - how, what, and why. It is quite perplexing for me to understand which interrogative someone tries to ask in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when I posted in WeChat that my weather app predicted the today's weather terribly in Shanghai, my friend added the following comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;怎么又到上海了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, while I assume she tried to ask me &quot;Why have you come to Shanghai again?&quot;, it can also be translated as &quot;How have you come to Shanghai again?&quot;, which I will reply with &quot;In flight&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it is difficult for me to understand why this word has three interrogatives and which one is correct in the context. I also wonder why people don't avoid the potential conflict of meaning and instead just use a more easily recognizable word like 为什么 and 什么, if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or do Chinese people discern this difference pretty easily? Or is it completely dependent on the context? Any tips on discerning it better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T19:33:21.480" Title="How can you discern which meaning of 怎么 as an interrogative should be used in a sentence?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21830" CreationDate="2016-11-12T12:38:06.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Off the top of my head:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mandarin/Cantonese:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相親 |xiang4 qin1|arranged blind date with intention to marry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相親 |xiang1 qin1|love each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cantonese:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和議 |wo6 ji5 | to second a motion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和議 |wo4  ji5| peace talks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To find polysemous disyllabic words, you could look for polysemous disyllabic characters .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 相 is pronounced differently in 相同 and 相貌 in Mandarin and Cantonese; 和 is pronounced differently in 和平 and 附和 in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can use these characters to form compound words, some of the words would be polysemous disyllabic like the examples above&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Cantonese has 9 sounds compare to 4 sounds in Mandarin, it would has more examples of polysemous disyllabic words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;more examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5262/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5262/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;轉機 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] zyun2 gei1 (jyutping)  a turn for the better; a favourable turn of events&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] zyun3 gei1  (jyutping)  to switch flights (at an airport); flight connection &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1][2] zhuan3 ji1 (pinyin) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;重犯 serious crime convict&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;重犯 re-offend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-13T07:15:10.567" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T07:15:10.567" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21834" CreationDate="2016-11-13T00:28:08.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ermm, you posted &quot; that my weather app predicted the today's weather terribly in Shanghai, &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I presume to mean: &quot;Today's weather in Shanghai will be terrible.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the context: The weather.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no reason for your friend to then ask how you got to Shanghai, that lacks coherence. Her or his comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么又到上海了。 means: 'How come we are getting bad weather in Shanghai again!'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么How又again到to上海Shanghai了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T00:28:08.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21643" CreationDate="2016-11-13T03:24:11.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I say 他坐着，this instance sounds incomplete. If I say 他正坐着, it sounds complete. This contrast indicates that 着 in Chinese is merely used to indicate a duration, without involving the tense relating to the now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12639" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T03:24:11.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21839" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21841" CreationDate="2016-11-13T18:20:15.397" Score="0" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to tell a joke where the teacher places three students at three different sides of the room. I tried like this, but apparently it was wrong:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老師讓他們分散在房間的三方。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you offer any suggestions? Also things like &quot;place them apart from each other &quot; might help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T00:14:33.487" Title="How to say: &quot;at three different sides of the room &quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21839" CreationDate="2016-11-14T00:14:33.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the teacher places three students at three different sides of the room：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师让三个学生分别站在房间三面墙前。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T00:14:33.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21834" CreationDate="2016-11-14T01:31:55.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In this sentence, the key work to figure out the meaning of &quot;怎么&quot; is &quot;又&quot;, which pointed out that it was not your first trip to the city. So the sentence could mean &quot;Oh you are here in Shanghai again, why/for what?&quot; instead of &quot;Oh you are here in Shanghai again, how did you travel to here this time?&quot;. The latter would be weird, because If your friend wanted to know how, there's no need to point out that was not the first time you are in that city. I think the same applies to English too.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;About how to discern the difference of what &quot;怎么&quot; stands for, I would say, it's based on the context. Sometimes the sentence itself could contain enough information to be your context. For example, when it means why, it usually comes with the reason why the person would ask in the same sentence. In the above sentence, because you went to the city again, your friend would wonder what was that for this time. Another example &quot;你怎么总是迟到&quot;, the word &quot;总是&quot; which means always, is the reason why the person wonders. When it means how, it usually would be pretty straightforward, eg. &quot;你是怎么来的?&quot; which means how did you come to here?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But sometimes the context is not in the same sentence, eg. &quot;你怎么知道的？&quot; It could both mean &quot;how could you possibly know&quot; and &quot;why you would know that&quot; without proper context.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As for when to use &quot;为什么&quot; instead of &quot;怎么&quot; for asking the reason, well, to me the former could be more formal then the latter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15773" LastEditorUserId="15773" LastEditDate="2016-11-14T01:48:51.197" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T01:48:51.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2003" CreationDate="2016-11-14T03:45:38.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assume English is a text, Chinese is nearly an image. To differentiate whether a language close to image or text, see the grammar usage frequency within a language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that research has found it only takes about 0.013 seconds (13 milliseconds) for the brain to process an image, and that it processes visual information 60,000x faster than text. Please refer to MIT research on 2014 Humans see an image in just 13 milliseconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Base on this assumption, Chinese read faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15774" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T04:06:22.890" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T04:06:22.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21103" CreationDate="2016-11-14T12:17:20.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;冲昏 : happening/emotions that overwhelm someone that will cause irrational consequences..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他让一时的胜利冲昏了头， 令他犯下了不可补救的错误。&#xA;The winning overwhelm him and cause him to make a big blunder.&#xA;&#xA;他让贪念冲昏了头， 把所有储蓄都都抛进去庞氏骗局的投资计划。&#xA;Greed overwhelm him, which make him pour all his live saving on Ponzi scheme.&#xA;&#xA;怒火冲昏了他的头， 导致他犯下更大错误 。&#xA;The overwhelming angers cause him make even bigger mistake.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抓狂 ：things/people/action that drive someone crazy, or causing frustration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;那些碎碎念令他抓狂 &#xA;Those nagging drive him crazy&#xA;&#xA;他常在会议中说出让人抓狂的话&#xA;He always say  something that drive everybody crazy during the meeting.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-14T12:24:09.983" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T12:24:09.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2003" CreationDate="2016-11-14T12:46:02.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;BEWARE of a research paper and bad statistic&lt;/strong&gt;. Especially there is a lot of fancy P &amp;lt; 0.10,&#xA;  P &amp;lt; 0.05.  Don't stuff those things in your head just because the publisher is some &quot;well-known bodies&quot;, or many citations from one or others.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking a glance at some &quot;research paper&quot; shown in the answer, the methodology is somewhat flaw, there is statistical bias in the research, especially failure to produce double blind test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is pointless to compare different language  &quot;performance&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-08-08T10:40:22.563" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T10:40:22.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7149" CreationDate="2016-11-14T14:09:52.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the literature citation is found here ：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/5947.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/5947.htm&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your information, usage of a glyph went through many years of evolution. &#xA;The original usage pf (奇 Ji) as number  derive from I-ching, differentiate the number Ying(feminine, even number, divided by &quot;pair&quot; ) and Yang(Man, Odd, cannot be divided perfectly )  . 一者，奇也(The number &quot;One&quot;, is special)。陽奇而隂偶 (yang is odd, and ying is even)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, one is a special (odd/strange) number for most cultures when they start develop mathematics. For unknown reason, the early writer of I-ching successfully derive a binary multiplication from the number one. &#xA;As we know today, any number power of 0, is 1 . And I-ching binary &#xA;i.e.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2^0 = 1 &#xA;2^1 = 2&#xA;2^2 = 4&#xA;&#xA;# conventional math&#xA;10^0 = 1&#xA;11^0 = 1&#xA;55^0 = 1 , etc&#xA;# guess what happens when zero power of zero ? &#xA;0^0 = 1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to its special attributes, 1 is also known as 奇 , but only in I-ching.  In modern mandarin, it is no longer mean one, but odd number. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（update) &#xA;I just found a reference of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=1466&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ancient 奇 glyph&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-01-15T17:33:30.067" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T17:33:30.067" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21848" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-14T16:03:30.010" Score="3" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being a beginner, I am bit puzzled by the concept of &quot;shì&quot; being used not for describing nouns with adjectives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using search, I think it is clear to me that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Noun + noun = I can use &quot;shì&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adjective + noun = I should use &quot;hen&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well but what I am unable to figure out is the combination, like &quot;&lt;em&gt;This is my new phone&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&#xA;I am connecting two nouns, but also connecting an adjective and a noun. What rule is the applied?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15776" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T08:48:24.767" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T08:48:24.767" Title="Using &quot;shì&quot; for noun + adjective + noun" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21848" CreationDate="2016-11-14T18:27:42.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you use your odd rules for English? If not, why invent one for Mandarin? &#xA;&quot;my new phone&quot; is an accusative.  Even &quot;This&quot; is also accusative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This（这） is（是） my（我的） new phone（新手机/新电话).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shì is mandarin generic connector equivalent to &quot;am/are/is/did/do/does&quot;,  but English sometime will omit them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Excuses me, [are] you Mr. John?&quot; -&amp;gt; &quot;请问， 你[是]约翰先生吗？&quot;&#xA;&quot;Yes, [I am]&quot; -&amp;gt;  &quot;[是的]&quot; &#xA;&#xA;You [are] digging your own grave. &#xA;你[这是]找死&#xA;你[这是]自掘坟墓&#xA;你[这是]作死&#xA;你[这是]挖坑给自己跳&#xA;&#xA;[Did he] just wake up?&#xA;[他是不是]刚睡醒？&#xA;&#xA;[is he] the person that you speak about?&#xA;[他是不是]你刚说的那个家伙？ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hen 很 -  means very , plentiful, a lot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-15T09:42:56.023" LastActivityDate="2016-11-15T09:42:56.023" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21834" CreationDate="2016-11-14T19:33:21.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;怎么又到上海了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not conventional writing, but means for casual conversation. &#xA;So it is inappropriate translate it to English :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strike&gt;&quot;hey , I see you came to Shanghai again.&quot;  &lt;/strike&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should interpret it as &#xA;&quot;What's bring you back to Shanghai&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is more literate to say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是什么风把你吹回来上海？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T19:33:21.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21848" CreationDate="2016-11-15T08:27:08.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems the answer did not help much, here is mine - it is about predicative and attributive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My phone is new.&lt;/em&gt; The adjective describes the subject, this is the predicative.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;My new phone.&lt;/em&gt; The adjective is attributive, it is linked to the noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is predicative, do not use &quot;to be&quot; (shì).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SIDE NOTE&lt;/strong&gt;: I am a beginner myself and I often see the example &quot;Sky is blue&quot; translated as &quot;Tiānkōng shì lánsè de (天空是蓝色的)&quot;. I have no idea why it can be like this as it clearly is predicative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15783" LastActivityDate="2016-11-15T08:27:08.440" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20829" CreationDate="2016-11-15T11:15:21.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Natural language evolve according to needs, sometime a new word invented,sometime it is simplify and merge with others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think synonyms in other language are confusing, you will notice there is similar confusion inside your mother language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does &lt;code&gt;resists&lt;/code&gt; carry only one meaning ? &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/resist&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;resists as define in dictionary.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;to withstand, strive against, or oppose: to resist infection; to resist temptation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;to withstand the action or effect of: to resist spoilage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;to refrain or abstain from, especially with difficulty or reluctance: They couldn't resist the chocolates. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;( verb used without object) to make a stand or make efforts in opposition; act in opposition; offer resistance.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Read the whole sentences to learn the actual meaning of resists. Once you get use to it, it become natural habits. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pickup synonyms from your native language and map it to similar word for foreign langauge.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-15T12:21:54.717" LastActivityDate="2016-11-15T12:21:54.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21853" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-15T15:43:24.967" Score="2" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noted the confusion for using &quot;SHI4&quot; and too struggle to grasp the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Common rule for learners is that Noun + Adjective is never linked with &quot;SHI4&quot;. As in &quot;He is tall&quot; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I have also read (though only in one resource) that for facts and undisputable truth, such as colors, we do need to use &quot;SHI4&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a comment on a related question here, the author mentiones that for comments about subject/topic, this is commonly used. But isnt it always a comment?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is the reason then for &quot;Sky is blue&quot; being translayed with &quot;SHI4&quot; instead of &quot;HEN3&quot;. Could it the be translated that way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15785" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T09:33:23.093" Title="Using SHI4 for noun and adjective, exceptional rules" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21853" CreationDate="2016-11-15T17:43:38.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is much easier if you know how your own mother language works, instead of trying to understand &quot;grammar logic&quot; of foreign language with your own understanding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at some example : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;the sky [is] blue ：天空[是]蓝(色)的&#xA;the sky [is] crystal blue : 天空是透蓝的 &#xA;The air [is] bad : 空气[很]差/坏&#xA;he [is] bad : 他[很]坏.  他[是]个坏人. 他[很]差劲&#xA;he [is] naughty : 他[很]顽皮&#xA;he [is] (a) bad guy : 他[是] (个) 坏蛋/坏人&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think the confusion is cause by mandarin connector, it is half true. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I.e., the sentence &lt;code&gt;The air is bad&lt;/code&gt; carry out (ambiguous) relative comparison . Mandarin use 很 to explicit brought out relative comparison attributes.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;He is tall&lt;/code&gt; , is relative. It carry out additional comparison message e.g. &quot;He is tall, compare to his sibling&quot;.  他很高，和他兄弟姐妹比较的话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 used for affirmative, or agree  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;He is (a) USA citizen 他是(个)美国人&#xA;His lucky charm is a penguin 他的幸运物是只企鹅&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now ，I think you shouldn't have trouble differentiate this : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他的皮肤很黑&#xA;&#xA;他的皮肤是黑色的&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use both affirmative 是 and 很, it just emphasize 很, nothing conclusive, but just agree others about something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;最近生意是很差 （Recently, the business is really bad )&#xA;(well, the business is really bad, last time one used to make $1000 a day, now only take home $990 a day, really bad.)  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in a conversation : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Lee : The business is bad&#xA;李 ： 生意很差&#xA;Business partner : Yupe, the business is bad， but it is not doom&#xA;生意伙伴 ：生意是很差, 不过还没那么坏&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, you use 是 if agree on another person relative statement.&#xA;X : he is tall    他很高 &#xA;Y : yes, he is really tall compare to his sibling,  是呀， 他是很高, 和他家的兄弟姐妹比较的话。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, sometime you will prefer to use &lt;code&gt;really&lt;/code&gt; 真的 ， as agreement or emphasize your statement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;He is really tall , 他真的很高&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-17T09:33:23.093" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T09:33:23.093" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21853" CreationDate="2016-11-16T02:18:47.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, words such as adjectives, they CANNOT be used as verb (predicate). So we have to use &quot;Be&quot; as &quot;link verb&quot; to construct a whole, suitable syntax-based sentence. Something like: He is tall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in Chinese, &lt;strong&gt;adjectives can be also used as predicates,&lt;/strong&gt; so you DON'T need to add the &quot;link verb&quot; (Be，是) to link both adjectives with subjects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g：他很高。(“高” is an adjective, so you can directly use it after the subject).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such sentences as &quot;天蓝，地广，人多&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, &lt;strong&gt;if you say AA 是 BB，this means We define AA as BB（AA=BB）in the Chinese meaning&lt;/strong&gt;. So you have to use nouns to define someone is AA/BB. And adjective is ONLY used to describe part of something of someone BUT NOT WHOLE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's analyse this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1）他很高。（This means his height is high, it DOESN'T MEAN He = high, because &quot;He&quot; is a man, &quot;tall&quot; is only an adjective that descirbes his height NOT himself whole!）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）他是一个学生 (He = a student, because he is learnning at school, this is what he is wholly!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you add &quot;是&quot; between an adjective and a noun (used as a subject). This DOES NOTHING EXCEPT FOR the enhancements of the meaning of the sentence itself!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g：&#xA;A：他很高？&#xA;B：是的，他&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;很高。(Yes, he is REALLY very tall).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2016-11-16T02:32:15.680" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T02:32:15.680" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21103" CreationDate="2016-11-16T02:24:17.770" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我作为一名中国人来回答你：“冲昏”重在表示你的负面情绪影响你的判断力，而“抓狂”则重在表示你的负面情绪影响你的行为。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15787" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T02:24:17.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21857" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21858" CreationDate="2016-11-16T06:38:24.587" Score="0" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't decipher this pic. Will someone please kindly tell me what they are? It is from the name of a language school. Looks a bit like 拍扙, whatever that is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TJuQY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TJuQY.png&quot; alt=&quot;From the name of a language school&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-11-16T06:57:17.287" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T06:57:17.287" Title="Could you please tell me what these characters are?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21857" CreationDate="2016-11-16T06:56:07.080" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;柏林&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Berlin (the capital of Germany)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快速提升中文程度的方法：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. 初級者多看中文文章。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. 中級者多寫中文文章。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. 高級者多用中文思考。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;所以，除了初學者可能有困難外，建議大家多用中文問答。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T06:56:07.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21859" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-16T11:38:29.053" Score="1" ViewCount="749" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;&lt;em&gt;immersion&lt;/em&gt;&quot; as in &quot;full &lt;em&gt;immersion&lt;/em&gt; language program&quot; or &quot;I am moving to China so I can get some &lt;em&gt;immersion&lt;/em&gt; in the language&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2287" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T20:54:49.073" Title="How do you say &quot;immersion&quot; as in &quot;full immersion language program&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21861" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-16T14:25:18.790" Score="2" ViewCount="960" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know whether there're truly bound trisyllabic morphemes in mandarin Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you so much in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastEditorUserId="15764" LastEditDate="2016-11-16T15:58:36.360" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T07:52:53.717" Title="chinese bound trisyllabic morphemes" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21859" CreationDate="2016-11-16T14:33:42.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although in a 洗禮(baptism), a person may be immersed in water for a brief moment, but the purpose of baptism is mostly for symbolizing purification or regeneration. For example: 經過戰火的洗禮 (After the baptism of war). It is not a very good translation for &quot;immersion&quot; in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沉浸 is the correct translation for &quot;immersion&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;Full immersion language program&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in Chinese should be &lt;strong&gt;全浸式語言課程&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another suggestion :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;單語環境學習課程 (single language environment study course)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-16T15:58:21.147" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T15:58:21.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21861" CreationDate="2016-11-16T15:08:42.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bound trisyllabic morphemes? Like &quot; wonders&quot; or &quot;importing&quot;? Those kind of three syllables words in Chinese are mostly transliterated to two syllables word like 奇蹟，輸入.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are still many three syllables compound words though :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非正式 (unofficial)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;候選人 (candidate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But they are all FREE morphemes because almost all Chinese characters have meanings of its own. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think some markers like &quot;們&quot; and some final particles like &quot;嗎&quot; are bound morphemes as in 士兵們，你好嗎? Nevertheless, 士兵 and 你好 are free morphemes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say there's no true bound trisyllabic morphemes in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Would you accept loaned words like 凡士林(Vaseline)? all characters in 凡士林 has its own meaning, but in 凡士林, all three characters must be used together in exact order to form one meaningful word.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-16T15:41:58.793" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T15:41:58.793" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21859" CreationDate="2016-11-16T15:28:11.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have only seen the direct translation of 'full immersion language program' once in an advertisement of a very specific English summer program, it is not a common word that you would go out and say to native speakers telling them that you want 語言洗禮 or 浸禮, because a lot of the time it would be interpreted as baptism. Tang Ho's answer '全浸式語言課程' is as close as it gets for a direct translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I would suggest to use 'experience' 體驗 or 'train' 訓練 as an alternative for 'immerse'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想好好的體驗中國的文化和訓練我的中文，所以我會搬到中國去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to fully experience the Chinese culture and practice my language, therefore I am moving to China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15793" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T15:28:11.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21861" CreationDate="2016-11-16T18:39:19.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bound morphemes are very rare in chinese just because most characters have meanings on their own, and more so with bound trisyllabic morphemes, but I don't think there is none.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿姨們 - 阿 nickname prefix, 姨 auntie, 們 plural suffix&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丫頭子們 - 丫頭 little girl (pejorative), 子 nominal suffix, 們 plural suffix&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of bound pre/suffix on top of my head: 第， 頭， 兒， 們， 子, you can probably come up with more bound morphemes with these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I am not 100% sure what the proper definition of bound morphemes for Chinese is, as I haven't taken any formal Chinese literature courses after secondary school in HK, this is all I can think of for now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15793" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T18:39:19.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21866" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-17T04:57:40.230" Score="3" ViewCount="442" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for any references here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;North-eastern Mandarin has the word &lt;code&gt;xier&lt;/code&gt; (perhaps: &lt;code&gt;xuer&lt;/code&gt;) usage is same as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;太棒了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e.: &lt;code&gt;太xier了&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As usual everyone thinks that it cannot be written &amp;amp; that there is no character for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So please any references to this word / character are requested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: I did come across this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;血，读作 xie3，非常、十分的意思，与胶东东部方言对应词汇的发音、含义完全相同&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on wikipedia - perhaps it is 太血儿了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-19T14:13:50.933" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T00:21:46.960" Title="References: north-eastern Mandarin: xier meaning 'great/awesome/excellent'" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21861" CreationDate="2016-11-17T07:52:53.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know from experience that linguists and grammarians absolutely refuse to define the terms they use adequately in order to build their own cloud castles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;morpheme:  a speech element having a meaning or grammatical function&#xA;  that cannot be subdivided into further such elements&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;morpheme: &quot;smallest meaningful unit in a language,&quot; 1896, from German morpheme,&#xA;  coined 1895 by Polish-born linguist Jan Baudouin de Courtenay&#xA;  (1845-1929), from Greek morphe &quot;form, shape&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;isn't a bound morpheme a contradiction in terms, since it cannot stand alone? Better to use the word 'affix', because that is what is meant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you then say: &quot;But a meaningless morpheme may still have a grammatical function.&quot; then any letter is a morpheme, since, if I remove, say, 'o' from 'morpheme' I get 'mrpheme'. Therefore, 'o' has the grammatical function of making 'mrpheme' an interpretable  collection of letters. Thus the smallest morpheme in English is a letter and smaller than a letter you cannot write.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In another thread someone complained about the arrogant insistence that Western grammatical concepts must also be applicable to Chinese. I wholeheartedly agree. Most, if not all, of the precepts of Western Grammar have no scientific definition, but people talk about them as if they were scientific facts which must also be true in Chinese. Can you define 'word' or 'subject' or 'sentence' rigorously? You know what you mean until I ask you to make your definition unequivocal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the Chinese word: 轿车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;轿jiao4 has 2 or 3 syllables, depending on your point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;轿 is made up of: 车 + 乔 （ 夭 + 儿） in Simplified Chinese or 车 + 夭 + 高 in Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could argue 高 is not a morpheme, but I would accept it as such, as a picture of a tall building.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tang Ho mentioned 们， but this is 人 + 门, so it is not elemental.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would therefore agree with Tang Ho that Chinese has no bound trisyllabic morphemes and go further and say that neither does English. English has letters and Chinese has Primitives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T07:52:53.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21868" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21869" CreationDate="2016-11-17T08:51:17.890" Score="3" ViewCount="872" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is a proper way to write knock-knock (the sound of knocking in the door) in Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15796" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-11-17T09:21:46.260" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T09:23:25.207" Title="What is proper way to WRITE &quot;knock-knock&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21868" CreationDate="2016-11-17T08:57:56.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here're some of them, listed from light sound to heavy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;笃笃&#xA;咚咚&#xA;嘭嘭/砰砰&#xA;咣咣 (usually used with 砸门)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-11-17T09:23:25.207" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T09:23:25.207" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21882" CreationDate="2016-11-17T09:45:04.293" Score="7" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I am learning Buddhism/dharma in Chinese.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么合掌鞠躬叫&quot;问讯&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或是说：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么现在的&quot;问讯&quot;不是用讲的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;问&quot;和&quot;讯&quot;都是动词吗？还是动词+名词？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T16:47:50.627" Title="The question is about 问讯" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21872" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21874" CreationDate="2016-11-17T10:14:56.293" Score="1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am unable to understand, whether the sentences below require the particle de? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Zhè ge hěn hào chī&lt;/strong&gt; (literally &quot;this piece of food delicious&quot;. I guess there is no &quot;de&quot; in the end, although it is an adjective in this sentence, modifying the measure word &quot;ge&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;zhè zhī hēi de&lt;/strong&gt; (This cat is black. For some reason, there is the &quot;de&quot; but I cannot see why).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;zhè Ben Shu hěn hào&lt;/strong&gt; (This book is good. Here again, the &quot;de&quot; is missing. When I tried to verify with google translate, it used 是 but I guess that is not correct.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is it because those are one-syllable adjectives? I have heard that often in that case, the &quot;de&quot; particle is skipped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15797" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T07:20:27.213" Title="Sentence with demonstrative without explicit subject - de required?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21872" CreationDate="2016-11-17T10:41:30.617" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个很好吃。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般语气，可以不加'的'。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;若要加强语气，加'的'，而且念重一点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是黒的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这猫是黒色的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通常要加'的'。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这本书很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和第一例一様，平常可省略；加强语气时，加'的'。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T10:41:30.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21872" CreationDate="2016-11-17T10:55:08.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Always check the full context of your original sentence. 的 use to indicate items/things/action explicitly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你说的是那一只猫 ？ ： Which cat your are talking about&#xA;zhè zhī hēi de 这只黑的 ：This black one (pointing to specific black cat among many black cats)&#xA;你要那一支蓝笔 ？ ： Which blue pen you need? &#xA;这支蓝的,(or simply 这支) ： This one , for specific. (or simply &quot;This one&quot;)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happens when you say : &#xA; zhè zhī hēi  这只黑 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This always follow after an inquiry for comparative items, with affirmative answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q ：I want the darkest black cat 我要最黑的黑猫&#xA;A : This is the darkest(or simply, &quot;this one&quot;)   这只黑 (这只）&#xA;Q : Give me the sweetest watermelon 我要最甜的西瓜&#xA;A : This one 这个甜  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-17T11:09:12.890" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T11:09:12.890" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21875" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21877" CreationDate="2016-11-17T11:03:28.383" Score="3" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question might be weird, but I haven't been able to find an answer to this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some characters seem to be used only in combination with other characters. For instance, I believe 儿 cannot be used for a child unless you make expressions such as 奴儿, 儿子, 儿童 etc. But how to know this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When translating words into Chinese, dictionaries I know only state it's a Kangxi radical or not, but I haven't seen any information explicitly stating &quot;this character is not a stand-alone one&quot;. Is there a way to find this information for Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T12:22:48.527" Title="How to determine if character can be used separetely?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21876" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21884" CreationDate="2016-11-17T11:58:34.100" Score="2" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have come across the following sentence: 波兰是欧洲最漂亮的国家。I reckon it means &quot;Poland is the most beautiful country in Europe&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this how sentences of such type are normally made? Is 的 here &quot;of&quot; or part of 最...的? Note that I am absolute beginner level student.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-17T13:01:52.870" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T14:07:56.567" Title="Structure: X is the most Y of Z" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21875" CreationDate="2016-11-17T12:22:48.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unlike alphabets in English, each Chinese character has its own meaning or meanings. A single character, usually cannot clearly express a specific meaning, therefore two characters would combine into a specific word, and two words may combine into one specific phase,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;strong&gt;明&lt;/strong&gt; contains the following meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] bright; light; brilliant &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] clear; understandable; [v] clarify; understand; obvious; evident &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] intelligent; clever &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[4] eyesight; seeing faculty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[5] day; daybreak; dawn &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[6] [v] state; show; assert &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[7] next (day or year)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[8] the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[9] a Chinese family name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With only one character, it is too general to know which meaning it is referred to, therefore we need to add a second character to form a specific term :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] 光(light) + &lt;strong&gt;明&lt;/strong&gt;(bright) = &lt;strong&gt;光明&lt;/strong&gt;(bright)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;strong&gt;明&lt;/strong&gt;(clear) + 白(plain) = &lt;strong&gt;明白&lt;/strong&gt;(understand)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] 聰(clever) + &lt;strong&gt;明&lt;/strong&gt;(intelligent) = &lt;strong&gt;聰明&lt;/strong&gt;(intelligent)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[4] 復(recover) + &lt;strong&gt;明&lt;/strong&gt; (eyesight) = &lt;strong&gt;復明&lt;/strong&gt;(regain eyesight)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[5] 天(sky) + &lt;strong&gt;明&lt;/strong&gt;(daybreak)= &lt;strong&gt;天明&lt;/strong&gt;(daybreak) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[6] 聲(voice) + &lt;strong&gt;明&lt;/strong&gt;(state)= &lt;strong&gt;聲明&lt;/strong&gt;(announce)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[7] &lt;strong&gt;明&lt;/strong&gt;(next) + 天(day) = &lt;strong&gt;明天&lt;/strong&gt;(tomorrow)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[8] &lt;strong&gt;明&lt;/strong&gt;(Ming) + 朝(dynasty)= &lt;strong&gt;明朝&lt;/strong&gt;(Ming dynasty)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[9] &lt;strong&gt;明&lt;/strong&gt;(Ming) + 先生(Mr.) = &lt;strong&gt;明先生&lt;/strong&gt;(Mr. Ming)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some instances, the context would indicate which meaning of a character is referred, therefore using one character is possible; in other instances, a character only contains one single meaning, therefore is possible to be used alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T12:22:48.527" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21878" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21888" CreationDate="2016-11-17T13:32:37.733" Score="0" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does this mean in English if you translate it? And what does this mean in pinyin, please tell me its very important!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ANZW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ANZW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15798" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T10:56:44.533" Title="What does this mean in English, very few words (Screenshot inside)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18018" CreationDate="2016-11-17T17:40:37.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you met and spoke in person to a supplier, you should have asked them to write down the Chinese characters and pinyin if you are genuinely interested to take note of specific terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now given &quot;choppa-dowa&quot; is nowhere near any Chinese pronunciation, if I was to hazard a guess that might come close, I would try 產品優化 chan-pin you-hua (pronounced Ch-ah'n Peen Y'Oh Hwah) meaning Product Refinery (to make improvements to an existing product).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15671" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T17:40:37.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21878" CreationDate="2016-11-17T20:18:45.610" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;illusional romance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梦幻：梦是睡觉时的妄想，幻是魔术师的表演。二个都是虚假的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情缘：情通常指男女爱情，缘是缘分(the fate, the lot, the second cause)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;补充：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'梦幻' also means '美好的'(extraordinary, too good to be true)。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example: 梦幻音乐。 It means wonderful music instead of fake music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it depends on the whole story.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'梦幻情缘' may be a beautiful love when the story is real and good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastEditorUserId="15752" LastEditDate="2016-11-18T02:32:02.767" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T02:32:02.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21871" CreationDate="2016-11-17T21:08:23.640" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;依&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gaya.org.tw/magazine/v1/2005/59/art1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;香光莊嚴&lt;/a&gt;解釋：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在漢語的構詞上，問訊是由「問」與「訊」二個同義詞所組成的詞彙。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「問」是動詞，意思是「恤問」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「訊」是動詞，意思是「詢問」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果「訊」作名詞，在非佛教場合也還是可以用的。如：打聽消息。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;現在的&quot;問訊&quot;也還是有用講的，但通常只在人少的時候。當很多人同時向佛或法師表達恭敬時，沒辦法大家都講，所以就只有身體的動作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;問訊 is composed of two synonyms, 問 and 訊.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Both are verbs, meaning &quot;comfort and ask&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 訊 is a noun, it can still be used in non-Buddhist cases.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Such as: to inquire about something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, 問訊 can still be used orally, but usually only in the cases of 2 or 3 people. When many people express respectful to the Buddha or the masters at the same time, they cannot speak all together. So they only show the body movements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="15652" LastEditDate="2016-11-20T07:07:56.263" LastActivityDate="2016-11-20T07:07:56.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21876" CreationDate="2016-11-18T01:33:54.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Now let's begin with the syntax analyzes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;波兰(Subject) 是(Prediate) 欧洲最漂亮的(Adjective) 国家 (Object).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole statement is structured by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S+P+Object. But there comes a short pharse to modify the Object：欧洲最漂亮的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最：means &quot;most&quot; in English, used as an adverb to modify the adjective 漂亮 (beautiful).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And let's come to &quot;……的&quot;, it REALLY has many usages, according to your descriptions, &quot;最...的&quot; is a fixed phrase, yes, that's right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, a verb/adjective + 的 = someone who is doing the job/relying on sth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 卖鱼(selling fishes) &amp;lt;=&amp;gt; 卖鱼的 (fish-selling men).&#xA;&#xA; 卖花(selling flowers) &amp;lt;=&amp;gt; 卖花的 (flower-selling men).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what's more——For MOST CASES, We add &quot;的&quot; at the back of an adjective to modify a noun:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漂亮 is an adjective, but we don't say：他是一个漂亮人 but 他是一个漂亮&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example: 这是一个木头&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;船。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sometimes &quot;的&quot; means &quot;A belonging to B,part of B&quot;：&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的苹果(My apple), this apple belongs to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牛的眼睛（An Ox's eye）, this eye belongs to the ox.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2016-11-18T01:44:01.547" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T01:44:01.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21872" CreationDate="2016-11-18T07:12:40.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有时候会在形容词后面加“的”，没什么实际意义。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诶，我和你讲，这瓜超甜的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（Hey, I'd like to tell you that this melon is so sweet.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有时候“的”的后面省略了一些词，需要根据语境（context）补充。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;这支笔是谁的？（谁的笔）&#xA;&#xA;我的（我的笔）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;٩( 'ω' )و May you understand what I said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15800" LastEditorUserId="15800" LastEditDate="2016-11-18T07:20:27.213" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T07:20:27.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21886" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-18T09:00:35.573" Score="2" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know what relationship ties those terms. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_encoding&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;There is however no mandated connection between the encoding system and the font used to display the characters; font and encoding are usually tied together for practical reasons&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, I do not fully grasp what that means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a systematic comparison between the different strokes that the main typefaces apply to chinese characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the regular script sans-serif? what typeface does wikimedia use for regular script?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pfjUs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pfjUs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastEditorUserId="15764" LastEditDate="2016-11-18T09:20:40.610" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T10:29:30.313" Title="character encoding, script, typeface/font" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21886" CreationDate="2016-11-18T10:29:30.313" Score="5" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;There is however no mandated connection between the encoding system&#xA;and the font used to display the characters&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;considering the situation: an utf-8 encoded plain text file (*.txt), how do it display on the computer, is depend on the user, not the author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in stkaiti:&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0RhgZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0RhgZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in hanzipen tc:&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ooney.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ooney.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in songti tc:&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jX1cx.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jX1cx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the same content can be displayed by different fonts, to give different impression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;font and encoding are usually tied together for practical reasons&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in pre-unicode era, as i remember, on mac os, all big-5 encoded text is defaulted to display initially by the system font &quot;taibei&quot;; while shift jis encoded text would use the font &quot;osaka&quot;. in modern days (utf-8), mac / windows are smart enough to choose the font automatically, to display each code point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for chinese character, the concepts &quot;serif&quot;, &quot;sans serif&quot;, &quot;script&quot; are, inapplicable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for this question, i would suggest you read the book &quot;CJKV Information Processing&quot;, published by o'really; which is informative &amp;amp; authoritative: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596514471.do&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596514471.do&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they provided the 1st chapter in pdf:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;ftp://ftp.oreilly.com/examples/nutshell/cjkv/pdf/CJKVInfoProc.Chap1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ftp://ftp.oreilly.com/examples/nutshell/cjkv/pdf/CJKVInfoProc.Chap1.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T10:29:30.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21878" CreationDate="2016-11-18T10:56:44.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate it as &lt;code&gt;fantasy romance&lt;/code&gt;. The translation, as Farnz said, depends on the story. 梦幻 literally means like a dream. So it can be good (dream come true) or bad (empty dream). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one thing that is certain is that it's something you don't expect to experience in normal daily life (can be supernatural, or just too many extreme coincidences happen in the story)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are talking about the online computer game 梦幻情缘, then fantasy romance would be perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This Korean TV series &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couple_or_Trouble&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couple_or_Trouble&lt;/a&gt; is translated as 梦幻情侣 in Chinese and Fantasy couple in English. And you can take a look at its plot to get some context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T10:56:44.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21848" CreationDate="2016-11-19T15:37:59.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; I have your answer.&#xA;Shì 是 means 'is' but we tend not to use it with adjectives. That's why you're confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a teacher - wo shi laoshi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am fat - wo hen pang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You were right in using 'hen' by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 'shi' but will need to add 'de' at the end&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wo shi pang de - I &lt;em&gt;am&lt;/em&gt; fat (emphatic, like you are stressing the fact that you are after an argument)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colours are treated like nouns, so that's the other thing that confused you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use the shi...de construction with them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wode mao shi heise de - my cat is black&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that make sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15808" LastActivityDate="2016-11-19T15:37:59.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21890" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-19T15:52:02.320" Score="2" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm struggling with where some time phrases go? I understand that 'when' comes before the verb and 'how long for' goes after. However I have found sentences using 很久 and 整天 that seemingly break this rule (sometimes). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很久没看到你（了）&#xA;我整天打网球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll be fine as soon as I understand why. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/swyPB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/swyPB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;example&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15808" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T03:57:53.953" Title="Chinese word order assistance" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21891" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21896" CreationDate="2016-11-19T16:18:11.490" Score="4" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please help me explain how 要不了多久 is translated into &quot;It won't be long&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literal meaning would be &quot;Could not demand how long?&quot;&#xA;I am not sure how 多久 works in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15622" LastActivityDate="2016-11-19T20:31:29.777" Title="Please explain 要不了多久" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3820" CreationDate="2016-11-19T16:48:14.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is baffling to me why anyone could have ever have questioned the proposition that written Chinese DID NOT represented a monosyllabic, spoken language. The earliest examples we have represent a communication system with the spiritual world. The writers knew what they wanted to say, could the spirits not understand this shorthand approach? Of course they could! Even with four or more &quot;tones,&quot; there is no way the human mind would ever have been able to understand the huge number of words any natural human language possesses...in the several tens of thousands at least. This idea that natural human language, used as a practical means of communication, could consist of 30~40~80,000 monosyllabic &quot;words&quot; is, to put it mildly, absurd. The evolution from a mono-character/syllabic system to what has become the modern norm of mostly di-syllabic words, can only be understood as moving from a communication system between human beings and the spirit world used for extremely limited purposes to one that gradually became a system used between educated human beings, again for less limited but just the same specialized purposes, and finally a communication system among all speakers of the language for all purposes. That is why the documents that we read throughout the centuries show a gradual movement from monosyllabic phrases that turn into di-syllabic words where one syllable modifies another, limiting the reference field of that syllable, making it more specific so that ordinary human beings, not gods, can understand what is going on. Another glaring error of the monosyllabic idea, as it particularly refers to a written language, is the appearance of &quot;vernacular&quot; novels during centuries when &quot;Classical Chinese&quot; was still be used for official and scholarly purposes. These novels, it can be readily and logically assumed, DO, represent the spoken language, and indeed can be read fairly well today....easier than Shakespeare, to be sure, for English speakers. It is also interesting to note that until the early decades of the previous century, &quot;Classical Chinese&quot; novels were also published for the &quot;erudite&quot; class who felt the vernacular written language was an abomination, an affront to their educational training by the uneducated. When I first read Norman's book I was no longer teaching but actually using Chinese every day as well as translating Classical Chinese. In the intervening years perhaps people in the academic field have debunked this monosyllabic theory...I hope so. It is so wrong-hedaded that one is at a loss to understand how the idea could ever occur to anyone. ##&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15809" LastActivityDate="2016-11-19T16:48:14.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21893" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-19T17:37:33.270" Score="5" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I know that to make an adverb, you use 'de/di' and put it before the verb like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我兴奋地打开了我的礼物 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in my studies this week I saw this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...病症的人逐年增加&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;逐渐成长为独立&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I right in thinking that these are simply adverbs but to make an adverb from an adjective like 好 or 兴奋 you need a 地？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15808" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-20T01:56:12.877" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T01:56:12.877" Title="Adverbs that don't use 地" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21893" CreationDate="2016-11-19T19:31:32.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An adv doesn't have to be followed by a “地“, such like in &quot;慢慢走“／”好好干“. However, you can always check if a word is an adv by adding a &quot;地&quot; and see if it still make sense. If &quot;yes&quot;, then it's an adv. E.g., &quot;慢慢地走&quot;／“好好地干”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15811" LastActivityDate="2016-11-19T19:31:32.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21895" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-19T20:17:20.827" Score="1" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dictionary says is 'set off' or 'serve as a foil'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what I mean is the 写作手法 '衬托'， is there such word in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2016-11-20T04:20:28.273" Title="How to say 衬托 in English?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21891" CreationDate="2016-11-19T20:31:29.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your confusion came from only thinking 多 as &quot;how&quot; as in: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多少? (how many?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多快？(how fast?) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多久？ (how long?) * time&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 多 can, and mostly means &quot;many/much&quot; as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多日 (many days) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多人 (many people)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多時 (much time)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 過不了多久, you don't see a question mark, which mean it is not a question, and 多 here means &quot; much&quot; and 久 means &quot; long time&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure of this phrase is: &#xA;要不了(would not take) 多(much) 久(long time) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多 here function as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-11-19T20:31:29.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21895" CreationDate="2016-11-19T20:53:28.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;衬= to match; to complement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;托= to lift; to support&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;衬托&lt;/strong&gt;:(v) &lt;strong&gt;to complement and enhance&lt;/strong&gt; ;(n) &lt;strong&gt;a complemental contrast&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;set off&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/set%20off&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/set%20off&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;show up by contrast&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-19T20:53:28.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21895" CreationDate="2016-11-19T23:42:36.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'foil' is very thin sheets of something, like aluminium foil used in the kitchen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The sense of &quot;one who enhances another by contrast&quot; (1580s) is from the practice of backing a gem with metal foil to make it shine more brilliantly.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 'a foil' as a backdrop makes something appear better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An ugly woman serves as a foil to a pretty girl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In literature, a foil is a character who contrasts and accentuates another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a way of writing it just means separate some text from the main body of the text by some means such as more indent, italics, put in a text box or frame, bullets or numbering, different font or font colour or highlighting in order to make it stand out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should &lt;strong&gt;set&lt;/strong&gt; this clause/paragraph &lt;strong&gt;off&lt;/strong&gt; from the rest of the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related word is feuilleton: 文艺​专栏, 小品​文章 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(originally) part of a French newspaper devoted to light literature and criticism (usually at the bottom of a page and &lt;strong&gt;separated&lt;/strong&gt; by a rule), 1845, from French feuilleton (18c.), literally &quot;a leaflet (added to a newspaper),&quot; diminutive of feuille &quot;leaf,&quot; from Latin folium.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found: 衬映: set off by contrast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-19T23:42:36.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21890" CreationDate="2016-11-20T04:52:34.760" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;中文常会有倒装句(inverted sentence)，建议不要执着文法，谁先谁后。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both sentences in the Question can be reversed with a little modification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;很久&lt;/strong&gt;没看到你了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我没看到你已经&lt;strong&gt;很久&lt;/strong&gt;了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;整天&lt;/strong&gt;打网球。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我打网球一&lt;strong&gt;整天&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2016-11-20T04:52:34.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21902" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21903" CreationDate="2016-11-20T05:03:01.113" Score="2" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does this mean &quot;Anyway, you must be safe&quot; or &quot;Anyway, you are certainly safe&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is the former, but I am not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15622" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T20:49:27.883" Title="Translation of &quot;无论如何, 你一定要平安&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21902" CreationDate="2016-11-20T05:30:34.080" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;无论如何 means &quot;no matter what&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb 要 means &quot;need &lt;strong&gt;to be&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; here in this sentence, because it is followed by an adjective 平安(safe).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一定&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;平安 means &quot; &lt;strong&gt;need to be&lt;/strong&gt;  safe for sure&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the verb 要 is followed by a noun, for example 一定要一千美元, then 要 would simply mean &quot;need&quot; - &quot;need $1000 for sure&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If the verb 要 is followed by another verb, then 要 would be a modal verb in the sentence, for example: &quot;you need to kill him&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-20T06:13:55.377" LastActivityDate="2016-11-20T06:13:55.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21890" CreationDate="2016-11-20T08:56:23.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;strong&gt;“很久”+verb&lt;/strong&gt;：Generally speaking, &lt;strong&gt;the &quot;verb&quot; is usually a negative one&lt;/strong&gt; (not + verb)  in the English meaning, in this structure, this means the &quot;The state of the negative verb lasts for a long time/ages.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical example is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;很久没有&lt;/strong&gt;住在这里了。(I haven't lived here for a long time或者It's for ages since I left here.) And we DON'T SAY &quot;我很久住在这里了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, sometimes when you see “很久才……”, this MUST BE ADDED before a verb (positive/negative), meaning &quot;After a long time, Someone (begins) to do something&quot;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i. 他很久才吃饭 (It's been a long time before he began to have breakfast).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ii. 他很久才告诉我真相（It's been a long time before he told me the truth）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）&lt;strong&gt;S+verb+……+很久&lt;/strong&gt;：The verb can be positive or negative, this still means &quot;for a long time/ages&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.我住在这里&lt;strong&gt;很久&lt;/strong&gt;了。(It's been a long time since I began to live here).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ii.我不玩游戏&lt;strong&gt;很久&lt;/strong&gt;了。(It's been a long time since I stopped playing games).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3）As for &quot;整天&quot;, this is much easier to learn and use. This is PURELY an adverb to modify a durable verb that means &quot;The state of the verb lasts for all the day&quot;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他整天陪我玩(He's playing with me all the day)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2016-11-20T08:56:23.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21908" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-20T13:27:24.840" Score="7" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been reading into this topic and found a bit conflicting information - some say it is mandatory to put a classifier after demonstrative (e.g. zhè), while some say it actually is not mandatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example a question &quot;what's name of this cat&quot;, I have seen the following phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;zhè māo jiào shén me míng zì? 这猫叫什么名字 ？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so I think, should it not be with &lt;strong&gt;zhī&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;zhè zhī māo jiào shén me míng zì? 这只猫叫什么名字？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are both options correct? As I do not know characters much yet, I would be grateful for pinyin in the answers, if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15815" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T02:26:06.193" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T14:39:55.287" Title="Is classifier/measure word required after demonstrative?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21908" CreationDate="2016-11-20T13:46:02.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should really have a measure word after a number or 'this' and 'that'. Therefore, 'zhe zhi mao' is the correct option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15808" LastActivityDate="2016-11-20T13:46:02.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21902" CreationDate="2016-11-20T14:03:24.277" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;无论如何，你一定要平安。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Whatever goes down, yo ass gotta stay in one piece. (US)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;No matter how, you must stay safe. (UK)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would put 你一定要 as you must, you gotta&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-20T14:03:24.277" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21911" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23186" CreationDate="2016-11-20T23:51:01.473" Score="6" ViewCount="411" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some characters have multiple pronunciations (多音字), but often some pronunciations are much more common. For example, 吗 is almost always used as a question particle pronounced ma, but occasionally it is pronounced mǎ (as in 吗啡 [morphine]) or má (in the phrase 干吗).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most dictionaries will show the different pronunciations and their corresponding definitions, but there is no way to tell which ones are the most frequent. Are there any sources that show the relative frequency of 多音字?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9263" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T08:17:56.330" Title="Are there any dictionaries that show the relative frequency of 多音字?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21908" CreationDate="2016-11-21T08:57:55.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In oral circumstances, both are right. And just like other people say, the latter one is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some region (Usually in Nothern Chinese accents, esp. Beijing accent), people use 这（zhei4) instead of 这个(zhe4 ge4)/这只(zhe4 zhi1). e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「瞧瞧这傻小子 (Qiáo qiao zhèi shǎ xiǎo zi)!」=「瞧瞧这个傻小子 (Qiáo qiao zhè ge shǎ xiǎo zi)！」=「Look at this stupid guy out there!」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15825" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T08:57:55.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16947" CreationDate="2016-11-21T16:24:01.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is a good example of terrible sentences craft in mandarin, translate to English, later attempt to translate the terrible sentences back to mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has nothing to do with taken seat or seat served, but serving.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is pretty clear to say this in English : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Each waiters/waitress served : 4 tables max&#xA;服务生能接待的数目 ：最多4桌/台客人&#xA;&#xA;Each waiters/waitress should only served 4 tables&#xA;服务生最多只能接待四桌/台客人&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just be careful when you read some &quot;weird&quot; mandarin and strange English translation. It is quite common as some restaurant owner refuse to consult people(not even amateur) to proofread their menu. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-02-21T11:52:25.313" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T11:52:25.313" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21871" CreationDate="2016-11-21T16:47:50.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A word with multiple meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉典 ： &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/e/fc/265284.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;問訊&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;简单来说， 就是佛教借用这个词，用久了成规范。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同 &lt;code&gt;问好&lt;/code&gt; 。 比如说： &lt;code&gt;遥遥点头问好&lt;/code&gt; Greet with a node. 你不需要喊出来，不是吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果是普通人， &lt;code&gt;問訊&lt;/code&gt; 还是用说的或是写的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T16:47:50.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21902" CreationDate="2016-11-21T20:49:27.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not an exact translation, but this is how we(or I) would say it in English:&#xA;- No matter what (happens), be sure to stay safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note:&#xA;&quot;Be sure&quot; would be more like 务必 (be sure to)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, props to the wicked street translation haha&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15828" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T20:49:27.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21917" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21918" CreationDate="2016-11-21T21:13:52.560" Score="8" ViewCount="1105" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know the difference (if there is a difference) between 肯定 and 确定？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seem to have trouble in knowing when to use each of them in certain contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15828" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:35:40.137" Title="Difference between 肯定 and 确定" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21917" CreationDate="2016-11-21T21:52:06.730" Score="14" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;肯定 certain; sure; affirm;  (the outcome is virtually a fact)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;确定 determine; confirm; finalize (the outcome is already a fact)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say, &quot;Team China certainly (肯定) will lose to team Germany in the World Cup.&quot; The outcome has not been known yet.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say, &quot;Team China beat team Japan and is confirmed (确定) to advance to the second round.&quot; The outcome is known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you cannot say, &quot;Team China confirmed (确定) will lose to team Germany in the World Cup.&quot; They haven't played yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;确定 (to finalize): finalize the team roster&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;肯定 (to affirm): affirm his earlier statement&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-13T03:02:49.893" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T03:02:49.893" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19271" CreationDate="2016-11-22T06:20:56.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most circumstances, we don't say &quot;说差了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BUT in Shandong accent, we often use &quot;差(cha4)&quot; instead of &quot;错&quot;. ---- So that @Atmega 328's answer ——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chinese people never use &quot;说差&quot; at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;—— is proved wrong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At last I strongly suggest you use &quot;错&quot; rather than &quot;差&quot; because it's commonly used anywhere in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15825" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T06:20:56.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20925" CreationDate="2016-11-22T06:59:21.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我跑了3公里的步。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——I had a three-kilometer run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我跑步跑了3公里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——I ran 3 kilometers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are right no matter you say these sentence in oral/formal circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15825" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T06:59:21.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20925" CreationDate="2016-11-22T07:48:23.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, they have the same meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15800" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T07:48:23.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21917" CreationDate="2016-11-22T07:57:27.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;嗯。。大部分时候他们差不多。但是有一些小差别，得看具体语境。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你确定/肯定他就是凶手吗？&#xA;      我确定/肯定。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我敢确定/肯定他一定不是凶手。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是有的时候必须用肯定：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;至于你信不信，我肯定不信。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15800" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T07:57:27.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21893" CreationDate="2016-11-22T14:53:02.140" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;地 only CHANGES &lt;strong&gt;ADJECTIVES&lt;/strong&gt; to adverb. Any adverbs without being conjugated from adjectives can exist without 地.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;地 is commonly omitted. This happens usually when the adjective has ONE CHARACTER only. For example: 慢慢走 or 慢走. 地 is omitted since 慢 has only &lt;strong&gt;ONE&lt;/strong&gt; character. The repetition of 慢 here is only for the purpose of expressing the action in a more visualized or vivid way.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;兴奋 has two characters, and you cannot shorten it to one character to have the same meaning, so we usually don't omit 地 in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T14:53:02.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21890" CreationDate="2016-11-22T15:00:25.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很久 + verb: 很久 here is acting as an adverb, and Chinese grammar allows adverb to be placed right before the verb. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 很久沒有見你了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很久 at the very last of the sentence, but before the grammatical endings like 了: Since it is a time, it conveys the meaning of &quot;For (a period of time)&quot;. The meaning itself, actually, is being expressed by putting the period of time at the end of the sentence. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 沒有見你很久了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning in these two are exactly the same. However native speakers tend to use the first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2016-11-23T03:57:53.953" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T03:57:53.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21925" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21931" CreationDate="2016-11-22T15:33:37.257" Score="1" ViewCount="406" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does mean zhōngxing from ZTE in Chinese? ZTE is the Chinese company that makes, among others, modems, routers, smartphones, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15567" LastEditorUserId="15567" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T22:20:07.530" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T06:43:49.103" Title="What does mean zhōngxing from ZTE in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21926" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21928" CreationDate="2016-11-22T16:12:03.360" Score="7" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Today I mistook 化学 for 滑雪.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;That's it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I train my ears to better hear tones when people speak Chinese? Sometimes, the tones aren't pronounced to a level where I can physically hear them/have enough time to hear them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how can I train my ears to hear tones more easily?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15304" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T10:45:05.690" Title="How to hear tones in speech better" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21927" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21941" CreationDate="2016-11-22T19:13:18.073" Score="7" ViewCount="949" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the question regarding the difference has been asked but the answers didn't really help me in the other post. I'm trying to recall what my Chinese teacher once taught me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;理解 is when you can understand why something/someone is how it is, but 了解 is more of a deeper connection or understanding of someone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: If you went to an area with a lot of poverty and lived there for a bit, could you say that you finally 了解 them? Sorry for the mix of Chinese and English haha.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15828" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T14:30:57.707" Title="A 理解 and 了解 comparison" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21926" CreationDate="2016-11-22T19:25:46.403" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It will come with more exposure. Watch movies/shows, listen to music, talk with people via voice-chat or in person. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the ways I trained myself to recognize the tones is to listen to the same tone, but with different sounds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;biao1 shen1 zhong1 ying1 then he2 ma2 qie2 liu2 etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this was really helpful when trying to become more familiar with how each of them sound. I also used this when I started practicing the actually production of words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't give up! Eventually it'll come with exposure and time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15828" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T19:25:46.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21925" CreationDate="2016-11-22T22:03:27.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;中興 as a single term, does mean &quot;revival, restoration&quot; particularly refers to a period of revival of a declining dynasty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;中興 is mostly a history text book term, when we are talking about a particular period in history. It is never used in contemporary sense. People who were living in a 中興 period would not refer their country's revival as a temporary state&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However as a company name in this case, we have to see 中 and 興 as individual characters because China is not in decline. and 中 clearly refers to 中國 (China), not 中期(middle period)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中 stands for: 中國 = China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;興 means: &quot;thriving; prosperous; flourishing&quot; as in &quot;興盛&quot; (thrive,flourish)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中興通訊 means &quot;Flourishing China Communication &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-23T04:58:30.663" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T04:58:30.663" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21932" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21945" CreationDate="2016-11-22T23:25:16.930" Score="3" ViewCount="960" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Chinese teacher once told me that you can only put two positive or two negative adjectives in this construction. Is this correct? So I couldn't say for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我哥哥一方面有名，另一方面不帅。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks!&#xA;G&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15808" LastEditorUserId="15808" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T23:48:50.917" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T09:36:55.483" Title="一方面...另一方面 Can you use it with a positive and negative idea?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21927" CreationDate="2016-11-22T23:38:20.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;理解 seems to imply empathy. Examples:&#xA;希望你能理解。I hope you would understand.&#xA;我可以理解的。I can understand why.&#xA;令人难于理解。It is hard to understand why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了解 seems to mean &quot;To find out or To have realized the situation&quot;. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想了解具体情况。I would like to know the specifics of the situation.&#xA;我了解你的意思。I know what you mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T23:38:20.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21932" CreationDate="2016-11-22T23:44:34.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please go to this link:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_various_aspects_with_%22yi_fangmian%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_various_aspects_with_%22yi_fangmian%22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12726" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T23:44:34.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21932" CreationDate="2016-11-23T00:00:24.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following sentence expresses admiration for and doubt of someone, which I think are respectively positive and negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一方面我羡慕他的才华, 而另一方面我却怀疑他的判断力.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;On the one hand I admire his talent, but on the other hand I doubt his judgement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;admire&quot; and &quot;doubt&quot; are the contrasting items.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence is not good, because 一方面。。。另一方面 should contain  opposites or contrasting thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence might be expressed like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我哥哥虽然不帅，但很有名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Here are 2 sentences, neither of which contain, to my mind, opposites or contrasting things, both of which use 一方面。。。另一方面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;驱动他们的一方面是对民主的期待，另一方面是对民族自立的渴望。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They are driven on partly by a wish for democracy, but also by a desire for national self-assertion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'democracy' and 'independence' are not mutually exclusive or contrasting things for a nation state I believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英国各家媒体一方面就牛津大学的录取规程进行争论,另一方面也在广泛意义上就精英主义展开了激烈辩论.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The British media have created a fierce controversy over Oxford's admission procedures (my note: which are elitist) and elitism in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'elitist admission procedures' and 'elitism' are not contrasting opposites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tang Ho, I hope you do not think 'talent' and 'judgement' are adjectives??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I repeat: Although, talent and judgement are not adjectives. (OP specifically mentioned 'adjectives' in his post.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-11-23T06:59:27.413" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T06:59:27.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21936" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21938" CreationDate="2016-11-23T00:17:49.197" Score="0" ViewCount="557" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin Chinese, the latte is written as &quot;拿铁&quot;. In fact if you type in &quot;natie&quot; on iPhone the cafe emoji shows up in the predictive list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I just entered a brunch of Starbucks in Taipei, and found that it is spelled as &quot;那提&quot;. Why is it not &quot;拿鐵&quot;, the equivalent of &quot;拿铁&quot; in Traditional Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6M5Rc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6M5Rc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T03:22:12.267" Title="Why is latte written as &quot;那堤&quot; in Traditional Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21936" CreationDate="2016-11-23T02:43:59.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, &quot;拿鐵&quot; is just a translation term. it helps to indicate the particular type of drink. in hong kong, another place using traditional chinese, latte is translated as &quot;鮮奶咖啡&quot; by starbuck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;鮮奶&quot; - fresh milk; voila, &quot;咖啡&quot; - coffee :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;toffee nut crunch latte --&gt; 拖肥果仁脆趣鮮奶咖啡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gingerbread latte --&gt; 薑汁鮮奶咖啡 &amp;lt;-- my favourite &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZMg02.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZMg02.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eYhbf.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eYhbf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i'm thirsty now, have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T02:43:59.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21936" CreationDate="2016-11-23T03:22:12.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The vocal translation of words are interesting. In fact this kind of example is very common between Mandarin Chinese and Traditional one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take Hollywood for an instance, in Mandarin Chinese we call as 好莱坞(Hao3 Lai2 Wu1), But in Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong SAR), people call it 荷里活(Ho4  Lei5  Wut6). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how Taiwanese call Hollywood in Traditional Chinese but when I play OverWatch/守望先锋/鬥陣特攻 and i switch the region &amp;amp; language into Chinese (Traditional), I heard 好萊塢(Hao3 Lai2 Wu4). There's one slice difference lies in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people criticised that this may cause language barrier. I don't think so :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15825" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T03:22:12.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21908" CreationDate="2016-11-23T04:20:58.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Gâr is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding measure words is always better so as to make a sentence semantically clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because if I was asked &lt;code&gt;这猫叫什么名字&lt;/code&gt; I &lt;strong&gt;probably&lt;/strong&gt; would answer &lt;code&gt;Well it's a Persian cat&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then not until you asked me again &lt;code&gt;No! I'm asking 这猫叫什么名字&lt;/code&gt; could I be able to exclude the possibility that you might be asking for the kind of the cat. Someone else may also prefer giving you its name firstly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is highly context-dependent. Which means the contexts will greatly help pinpoint the exact meaning of the sentence, and they always do. (Thanks to context-denpendency, we need far less words to effectively make a sentence very clear.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why we might say &lt;code&gt;measure word is not mandatory&lt;/code&gt; because we seldom say a word or sentence without any context. Under proper context, both form can express their meanings clearly and that's OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without any context, you'll have to omit no words so that you can express it clearly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the question is &lt;code&gt;这只猫叫什么名字&lt;/code&gt; I would reply &quot;Just call it Petty&quot; since it clearly refers to &lt;strong&gt;THIS ONE&lt;/strong&gt; cat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6750" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T04:20:58.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21927" CreationDate="2016-11-23T04:46:17.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;理解: (v) to understand; to comprehend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了解/瞭解: (v)to understand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;理解 is mostly referred to &amp;quot;understand/comprehend a concept on its foundations level&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;strong&gt;理解到&lt;/strong&gt;人際關係是基於互相利用的原則 &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;comprehend&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;the concept of&lt;/strong&gt;) interpersonal relationship is based upon mutual benefit of self-interest.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了解/瞭解 means &amp;quot;clearly understand&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;strong&gt;了解&lt;/strong&gt;他的心情 &lt;strong&gt;(clearly)understand&lt;/strong&gt; his feeling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T04:46:17.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21911" CreationDate="2016-11-23T04:58:28.327" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/search?q=%E5%90%97&amp;amp;keyfrom=dict.index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.youdao.com/search?q=%E5%90%97&amp;amp;keyfrom=dict.index&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zidian.911cha.com/duoyinzi.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zidian.911cha.com/duoyinzi.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paste your word to search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bu the way, in Chinese, if a Tone #3 is followed by a Tong #3, you should pronounce the Tone #3 as Tone #2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洗脸(xi3 lian3) actually sounds like (xi2 lian3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想 (wo3 xiang3) sounds like (wo2 xiang3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走马上任 (zou3 ma3 shang4 ren4) sounds like (zou2 ma3 shang4 ren4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I said &quot;sounds like&quot;, which means you still have to write the tone in it's original way during the test. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3436" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T04:58:28.327" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21925" CreationDate="2016-11-23T06:43:49.103" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中兴通讯的前身是1985年由航天系统的691厂以及运兴香港电子等共同投资创办的“中兴半导体”。而“中兴”名字由来有二：一是因为691厂是中方企业，港资企业为运兴，各取一字，成为“中兴”；第二个更为重要的原因是“中兴”暗含中国兴旺的意思。这也正表达了当时创业者侯为贵寄望中兴通讯振兴民族通信产业的理想。后来，中兴通讯称谓先后经历了中兴维先通、中兴新的变化，但始终坚持“中兴”二字。如今，“中兴通讯，中国兴旺”已写入中兴通讯企业文化的第一条。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zte.com.cn/Events/zte30years/media/messager_15.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ZTE official site&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you cannot read Chinese, you may refer to the following translations in my poor English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two reasons why this company is called [中兴]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;ZTE is combined by two corporations: 中国航天691厂(CASC 691 Factory, a Chinese company) and 兴运 (Xing1 Yun4, a Hong Kong company). take one word from each company, we get[中] and [兴].&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Like other users said, 中兴=中国兴盛=China's soaring.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15825" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T06:43:49.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21926" CreationDate="2016-11-23T07:00:15.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way is to experience these mistakes as many as possible. This would have a deep impact on you even hardly forgotten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's nothing you need to do with your ears. Just let yourself make more mistakes and then tell yourself never make that again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15825" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T07:00:15.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21932" CreationDate="2016-11-23T09:14:15.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;一方面。。。另一方面。。。&quot; Structure can be used in the following ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.&quot;On one hand...on the other hand (is also)...&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (&lt;em&gt;where the two adjectives are conflicting with each other.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example: 一方面貪心，另一方面(又)正派 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On one hand he is greedy, on the other hand, he is (also) honest.&#xA;      (would he pick up the suspicious bag that has a dollar sign on it?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*(又) can be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.&quot;&lt;strong&gt;On one hand...  On the other hand (is also)...&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (&lt;em&gt;where the two adjectives are reinforcing each other.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example: 一方面貪心，另一方面(又)愚蠢 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On one hand he is greedy, on the other hand, he is also foolish,&#xA;      (that's why he picked up the suspicious bag that has a dollar sign on it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*(又) can be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So your teacher said you can only put two positive or two negative adjectives in this construction is partly right, it applies only when the two adjectives are reinforcing each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Unrelated to your question about &quot;two positive or two negative adjectives in this construction.&quot; The &quot;一方面。。。另一方面。。。&quot; structure can also be used in the following way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;From one side...and from another side...&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (&lt;em&gt;when two events/elements are happening at the same time.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example: 一方面受外敵攻打，另一方面受內亂困擾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On one side, being attack by outside enemy, on other side suffering  from internal upraising&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your example sentence &lt;em&gt;我哥哥一方面有名，另一方面不帅。&lt;/em&gt; &quot;有名&quot; and &quot;不帅&quot; are in conflict with each other when it come to attracting ladies, the sentence is understandable, but it does not fit well into a straight &quot;一方面。。。另一方面。。。&quot; Structure, It only work if antonymous conjunction (like: 但/但是、而、不過、可是) are added, like Farnz Seager suggested or rephrase it to 我哥哥虽然不帅，但很有名 as Gangosa suggested would be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-23T09:36:55.483" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T09:36:55.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21643" CreationDate="2016-11-23T12:56:07.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's like a &quot;to be participle&quot;. It's not actually &quot;to be -ing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&#xA;门开着。 The door &lt;strong&gt;is opened&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他在开门呢。 He is &lt;strong&gt;opening&lt;/strong&gt; the door.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can understand it as a -ing construction only if it follows another verb. In that case, it's like someone does something while &lt;strong&gt;doing&lt;/strong&gt; something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他开着门开灯了。 He turned the lights on while &lt;strong&gt;opening&lt;/strong&gt; the door.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps. Cheers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T12:56:07.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20947" CreationDate="2016-11-23T17:21:53.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentences are obviously written by someone who speak Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;据了解，这些特色餐馆连日来人气火爆，前来就餐的多数是结伴而来的年轻人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Cantonese/local dialect - Universal mandarin&#xA;据了解  - 　据消息来源 , 据知&#xA;特色餐馆 - 主题餐馆&#xA;连日来   - 接连几天&#xA;人气火爆 - 门庭若市，人潮汹涌， 人山人海 ，好不热闹, 生意火红&#xA;前来就餐 - 前来用餐&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For language learner, be careful when choosing the material. Sometime, localised vocab doesn't &quot;click&quot; very well with typical vocabulary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-11-24T08:18:53.927" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T08:18:53.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21949" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-23T23:19:46.413" Score="0" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was trying, in my poor way, to make sense of these old 4 character stanzas from 郭璞《葬经》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;微妙在智，触类而长 ，玄通阴了， 巧夺造化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An American told me, this is not correct, I should look up the original first. It should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;微妙在智，触类而长 ，玄通阴阳， 巧夺造化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was written a long time ago. The 'original' most probably does not exist. How can I know what is the original? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find both versions on baidu. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T08:50:38.707" Title="What is the real original of 微妙在智，触类而长 ，玄通阴了， 巧夺造化" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21949" CreationDate="2016-11-24T00:26:54.427" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;the 四庫全書 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siku_Quanshu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;imperial collection of four&lt;/a&gt;), 文淵閣 version,  had the book 葬書. the author was marked as &quot;郭璞&quot; of 晉 dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my mistake here, as another comment indicated, the last fourth character is &quot;功&quot;, not &quot;巧&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there are two occurrences of the verse &quot;微妙在智﹒觸類而長&quot;, both of them is followed by &quot;玄通陰陽﹒功奪造化&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VJsYR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VJsYR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vv5Vx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vv5Vx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one of them is the text, another one is remark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;secondly, based on my experience, the verse &quot;玄通陰了&quot; is non-sense, in literary chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, the internet archive has a copy of &quot;葬經箋註&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/02094303.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/02094303.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lastly, imo, any text that's earlier than 1911, you must do the research in &lt;strong&gt;traditional chinese&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, no baidu, use google.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-11-24T06:41:17.523" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T06:41:17.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21949" CreationDate="2016-11-24T03:54:14.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=JXL84W9kGIKP7UB16P8gVyDs1CUwrhdWZ42lcgI4DOdeyY2-E4wWrfRzARCz0V7c0LQdVEK86cDnZoTOvli1aI0ocsRgD6hvxbIhOdu2sFQrRl1avIFQf7q7FWb41cbb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Refer to this link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;微妙在智，触类而长，玄通阴了，巧夺造化。（巧夺天工）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15835" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T03:54:14.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21949" CreationDate="2016-11-24T08:50:38.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just be careful when you take anything from Baidu, not without a pinch of salt. The site is mostly plagiarized contents from everywhere without proof reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This should be the correct sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;微妙在智，触类而长 ，玄通阴阳， 功夺造化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To explain each of this in detail will take pages. Because ancient article are written in 文言文 （imagine Shakespeare English vs modern English) , it is difficult to decipher perfect answer. Some word or noun are dual/multiple meaning, sometime you don't know which meaning the writer is picking. I will dissect them to closes meaning and you should interpret yourself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;微妙在智&#xA;微妙: subtle /  mysterious&#xA;在 upon&#xA;智 wisdom / knowledge / awareness&#xA;&#xA;触类而长&#xA;触 touching/ contacting / connecting&#xA;类 being / same being / items / material / things &#xA;而长 growth&#xA;&#xA;玄通阴阳&#xA;玄 mystical / &#xA;通 Through&#xA;阴阳 live and death / the universe  / everything &#xA;&#xA;功夺造化&#xA;功 Work / effort / results&#xA;夺 snatch / comparitive / comparable &#xA;造化 creation / natures &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T08:50:38.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21927" CreationDate="2016-11-24T11:13:38.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;理解 is more of a process while 了解 is more of a state.&#xA;For example, 你能理解吗/难以理解/你能理解我的意思吗，all of them imply the process to complete something;我想了解一下情况/我对中国不是很了解，all these instances imply the extent of understanding or konwing.&#xA;However when used as noun, the difference is more obvious, 理解 denotes inner thought of your mind, and 了解 means you know some facts of outer world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15842" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T11:13:38.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21848" CreationDate="2016-11-24T13:33:54.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you made a little mistake. It should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;noun IS noun (period) = noun 是 noun。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;noun IS adjective (period) = noun 很 adjective。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you have: &quot;This is my new phone&quot;, basicaly you have &quot;this is my phone&quot; which is a noun (or pronoun actually) IS noun (phone). So it should be 是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nota that &quot;new phone&quot; is not a &quot;new + end of the sentence&quot; structure. It's attached to &quot;phone&quot;, which is a noun and ends the sentence. That's why it should be 是 and not 很.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T13:33:54.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21876" CreationDate="2016-11-24T14:07:56.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a characteristic following a noun is a 2 (or more) character adjective or a multi-character phrase, it should have 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漂亮&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;国家&lt;br&gt;&#xA;很好&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;老师&lt;br&gt;&#xA;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T14:07:56.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21908" CreationDate="2016-11-24T14:39:55.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native, but as a Chinese teacher I always tell my students that the measure word is mandatory because the number 1 is implicit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这(一)只猫 = this (one) cat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that when it's another number we don't omit it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这两只猫 = these two cats&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这三只猫 = these three cats&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T14:39:55.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21927" CreationDate="2016-11-24T17:31:08.203" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 理解=understand，了解=know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15843" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T17:31:08.203" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21911" CreationDate="2016-11-24T18:06:42.413" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nlnJb.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nlnJb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I use this dictionary when I was in my primary school. Nearly all Chinese people use this dictionary to learn Chinese. In this dictionary, if characters have multiple pronunciations, the dictionary would tell you what it is and where you could find other pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15843" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T18:06:42.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21106" CreationDate="2016-11-24T18:45:25.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your idea is great, but I didn't find any authoritative material list the frequency about multiple pronunciations. Maybe because multiple pronunciations use in oral Chinese, and Chinese people learn oral Chinese before writing. So Chinese people seldom think about the frequency of multiple pronunciations. Multiple pronunciations are habits for Chinese people.But for Chinese learner, it is a little difficult to tell. I think your work is very meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15843" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T18:45:25.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21960" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-25T01:21:06.837" Score="3" ViewCount="670" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is a language without case markings on words, but it does make some steps in that direction. It sometimes marks what in some languages would be an accusative or oblique case noun with 把/将 and leaves it in front of the verb. What is the motivation for this? Speech rhythm? Effect? Emphasis? I believed all such sentences could be rewritten without 把, but maybe this one can't?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那时戏剧界有一种很不好地风气，就是把戏剧当成一种时髦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, 当成 means  'regard as, treat as, consider as' if a person is mentioned, or 'regarded as, treated as, considered as' if a person is not mentioned, which implies a third party regarding 1 object as something else, here '戏剧‘ as ‘时髦’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, '，就是把戏剧当成一种时髦。' is a passive construction, neither '戏剧‘ nor '时髦‘ are regarding anything, a person is doing that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theatre was regarded as a vogue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would you say 1.'，就是把戏剧当成一种时髦。' rather than 2.‘，就是戏剧当成一种时髦。‘ We know 'theatre' cannot regard things, people do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 2. wrong?&#xA; Can I rewrite 3. 你把我当成什么人? as '你当成我（为）什么人？ In 3. we see the 'regarder', 你， whereas in 1. the 'regarder' is not mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is said that 把 marks the 'object' of a verb, in which case ，'把戏剧当成一种时髦' has 2 objects and no subject, so to speak, namely '戏剧‘ and '时髦‘。 The person or persons 'regarding' it are not mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, even for me as a 老外， ‘就是当成戏剧一种时髦’ sounds terrible.&#xA;Maybe '就是人们当成戏剧为一种时髦‘ is acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule: When the regarder is not mentioned, fill the gap before the verb with 把X， where X is the thing regarded. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that account for this syntax??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T04:37:09.220" Title="What is the motivation for the use of 把 or 将？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21960" CreationDate="2016-11-25T01:37:54.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's a simulation of english grammar, after may fourth movement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就是把戲劇當成一種時髦 is roughly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that's, (就是) to treat (把) drama (戲劇) as (當成) a (一種) trendy things (時髦)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, modern days 白話文 is un-xxxx-able; using western (english?) grammar to write, or analyse written chinese is, well .... i'm not dare to say it openly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;personally, i read &amp;amp; write literary chinese as far as i can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;那時戲劇界有一種很不好地風氣，就是把戲劇當成一種時髦。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this sentence in literary chinese, it could be (there're ways to express the idea, here's just one of the attempt) written as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;時風澆薄﹒以戲為髦&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that, the structure of &quot;把 a 當成 b&quot; is represented as &quot;以ａ為ｂ&quot;; so, the character &quot;把&quot; was seldom used in such situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;But this use of 把 is not found in old Chinese texts from say 1000 years ago? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no, 把 was not used in such situation in the past; based on my experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2016-11-25T03:51:42.520" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T03:51:42.520" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21960" CreationDate="2016-11-25T04:10:37.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;把&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/821/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/821/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[7] [prep] used before a direct object and a verb often carrying the sense of disposal | [粵] 將&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 can be a &lt;strong&gt;disposal marker&lt;/strong&gt;. It indicates the object after it, is being acted upon on by the verb or verb phrase that follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;戏剧当成一种时髦&amp;quot;,  &amp;quot;戏剧&amp;quot; is in the usual position of a subject in a sentence. However, we know it is actually the object. To denote this fact, we use a disposal marker &amp;quot;把&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他們(subject, omitted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;把/將(disposal marker, indicates the following noun is the object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;戏剧(object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;当成一种时髦(verb phrase act upon the object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simpler example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他殺了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他(subject)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;殺(verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;了 ([aspect marker] indicating completed action)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;object (needed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把他殺了/將他殺了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;subject (omitted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;把/將 (disposal marker)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他(object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;殺(verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;了 ([aspect marker] indicating completed action)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, the verb 殺 is placed after the subject,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我殺了他(I killed him)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;placing aspect marker before the object change the sentence structure to the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我把他殺了 (he was killed by me) / 我將他殺了 (he was killed by me)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The motive of using 把 or 將, is to emphasize the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T04:37:09.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21963" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22008" CreationDate="2016-11-25T08:46:26.480" Score="7" ViewCount="613" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many moons of my struggle with 就 and 就是 maybe finally over. But still I need help from natives and others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a book out there with a title: &quot;这就是台湾，这才是台湾&quot;&#xA;Once I saw that phrase I thought that I have a key for cracking the 就 thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I, certantly, have an opinion about the proper translation of that sentence but I would rather hear an uncontaminated (by my ideas) reasoning of others. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To help the explanation of the title of that book, I provide some more examples for 就 and 才 interplay. Translation of those will be appreciated too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你怎么想我就不在乎呢。vs 你怎么想我才不在乎呢。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;两个人就能办好。 vs 两个人才能办好。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就是他。 vs 才是他。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就是够了。 vs 才是够了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T06:30:14.750" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T06:30:14.750" Title="这就是台湾，这才是台湾. Cracking the 就 again" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21927" CreationDate="2016-11-25T09:04:57.380" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese verbs are usually made up according to this formula:&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;modificator + modificated&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;modificator + a verb to modify&lt;/strong&gt;. &#xA;So when I seen that 理解 and 了解 ending with the same charecter (解), this usually means that there is a slight modification of a verb 解(to divide) is in play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's find the roots of the word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;理　(11)　リ　 As per 里# (long strip) + 玉 jewel → veins or streaks in a&#xA;  piece of jade → &lt;em&gt;logic&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;reason&lt;/em&gt; (← lines/threads of a reasoning&#xA;  process ← vein; streak) → &lt;em&gt;principle&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;em&gt;natural science&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here we already see the connotation which 理 brings: lines/patterns of reasoning. Now add this to 解 and you have &quot;to understand解(split/crack) by reasoning理&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now about 了 which is 瞭 simplified:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;瞭　(17)　リョウ　 As per 尞# as described in 僚 (circular continuum) + 目 eye →&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;observe from a high place,&lt;/em&gt; enjoying a &lt;em&gt;clear&lt;/em&gt; panoramic view → *clear-sighted; &lt;em&gt;clarity&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you add everything up and you have: &quot;to understand 解 clearly or by observation (not by reasoning理)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2016-12-01T14:30:57.707" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T14:30:57.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21963" CreationDate="2016-11-25T09:05:49.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My earlier answer depended on dictionaries' definitions too much. I mean I use the language, I should know what the function of 就 in different context. In practical sense, at the root, 就 as an adverb has three basic meanings, and they can extend to more meanings with different components, for example, 就座, 就業, 就地, 就緒 and 就捕 are all unique terms that have 就 as a component, that doesn't mean 就 has the meaning of &quot; &lt;strong&gt;take&lt;/strong&gt; the seat, &lt;strong&gt;get&lt;/strong&gt; a job, &lt;strong&gt;on&lt;/strong&gt; the spot, &lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt; complete and &lt;strong&gt;be&lt;/strong&gt; captured. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.then; right away&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.only; just&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.near; close to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without clear context, the following phrase can be interpreted differently: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有錢就買車-  when I have money, then I would buy a car&#xA;(就= 1.then; immediately)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有錢就買車-  whenever I have money, I only use it to buy car&#xA;(就= 2. only; just)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有錢就買車 have money and soon will buy a car.&#xA;(就=3. Near; close to; soon)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid confusion, we have to make the context  more clear, .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等我有錢就去買車-  when I have money, then I would buy a car&#xA;(就= 1.then; immediately)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一有錢就只知道買車-  whenever I have money, I only use it to buy car&#xA;(就= 2. only; just)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有錢，就快買車了- I have money and soon will buy a car.&#xA;(就=3. Near; close to; soon)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as for 才, it too carries the meanings of &quot;only; just&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the context of 这就是台湾, 这才是台湾  gave room for different interpretations. 这 could mean &quot;这里(here)&quot; or &quot;这样(this way/like this)&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to some dictionaries. 就 has 7 meanings as an adverb, 6 as a verb, 3 as a preposition, and 2 as a conjunction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can check it out at: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/808/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/808/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 这&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;是台湾，就 is an adverb (就 &lt;em&gt;[3] [adv] exactly; precisely; definitely&lt;/em&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;是台湾 = This &lt;strong&gt;precisely&lt;/strong&gt;, is Taiwan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才 as an adverb is simpler, it means &quot;only&quot;, only then or &quot;just&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;是台湾 = &lt;strong&gt;Only&lt;/strong&gt; this, is Taiwan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your example sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1a. 你怎么想我&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;不在乎呢。 As for how you think, I &lt;strong&gt;definitely&lt;/strong&gt; don't care. (就 &lt;em&gt;[3] [adv] exactly; precisely; definitely&lt;/em&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1b. 你怎么想我&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;不在乎呢。As for how you think, I &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; don't care.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2a. 两个人&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;能办好。&lt;strong&gt;Just&lt;/strong&gt; two people can finish it. (就 &lt;em&gt;[4] [adv] only; merely; just&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2b. 两个人&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;能办好。 &lt;strong&gt;Only&lt;/strong&gt; (having) two people can finish it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3a. &lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;是他。 It &lt;strong&gt;definitely&lt;/strong&gt; is him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3b. &lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;是他。 &lt;strong&gt;Only then&lt;/strong&gt;, is him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4a. &lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;是够了。 &lt;strong&gt;Forthwith&lt;/strong&gt; is enough (就 &lt;em&gt;[1] [adv] at once; forthwith; right away&lt;/em&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4b. &lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;是够了。&lt;strong&gt;Only then&lt;/strong&gt; is enough&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Respond to comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才 = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;only then&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in 2b. it is an adverb for 能 - (才能= &lt;strong&gt;only then&lt;/strong&gt;, can)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1b, 才 = &quot; &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. It is an adjective for 我- (我&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;if it is just me / concerning just me&lt;/strong&gt;, I don't care). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can tell 才 is the adjective &quot;just&quot; for the noun when it is followed by a negative statement denoted by 不 or 没&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我不认识你= I don't know you&#xA;我(才)不认识你= (as far as I am concerned) I don't know you / I (just) don't know you&#xA;&#xA;我没有那么多钱= I don't have that much money&#xA;我(才)没有那么多钱=  (as far as I am concerned) &#xA;I don't have that much money / I (just) don't have that much money&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-28T10:29:06.063" LastActivityDate="2016-11-28T10:29:06.063" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21617" CreationDate="2016-11-25T10:23:12.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is the sentence valid in grammar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is. I would say it is even preferred to omit conjunctions in some cases, unless of course you are writing very technical documents. Adding all the conjunctions makes one's Chinese look cumbersome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your question, it really can't have other interpretations. If you want to express&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You couldn't get the permission of the leaders, so you cannot go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不会得到领导的允许，你不能走。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不会得到领导的允许，不能走。(I think this one is better.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to express&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You haven't got the permission of the leaders, so you cannot go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没得到领导的允许，你不能走。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得不到领导的允许，你不能走。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would mean the same thing as the original sentence. '得不到' and '不得到' here mean the same thing. However, '得不到' can have another meaning, but the sentence structure would need to get a little change:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你得不到领导的允许的，不能走。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'不' and '没' with their various usages are really difficult in Chinese. 加油～&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T10:23:12.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17687" CreationDate="2016-11-25T10:50:00.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think to include both original tones and sandhi marks would be a preferred way, as the individual characters are very important in Chinese. And also, the dictionary will include a preface or something explaining the sandhi rules and how they mark them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T10:50:00.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21968" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22479" CreationDate="2016-11-25T13:24:58.433" Score="6" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 论 has pinyin lùn for all uses except in 论语 where it is &#xA;lún.  Is there some known historical reason for this change in pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T12:28:38.407" Title="Why is there a special pronunciation of 论 just for 论语?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21917" CreationDate="2016-11-25T16:34:33.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;基本一样，但我觉得‘肯定’比较偏主观，’确定’比较偏客观。&#xA;而且‘肯定’一般是和人相关的，主体是‘人’，比如获得某人的‘肯定’。&#xA;‘确定’偏向描述事物，事件等，主体是‘事’。这件事就这么‘确定’下来了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15847" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T16:34:33.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21963" CreationDate="2016-11-26T03:17:01.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is our considered opinion. Hope it helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have ended your striggle to understand 就 and 才， you certantly need to begin your striggle to spell English correctly!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这就是台湾，这才是台湾。&#xA;This and only this is Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你怎么想我就不在乎呢。（not said this way)&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 你怎么想我就不在乎了。 I can't keep worrying about how you feel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你怎么想我才不在乎呢。 I don't care what you think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两个人就能办好。 You just need 2 people to finish this work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两个人才能办好。 You have to have at least 2 people to finish this work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就是他。 That's him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才是他。(这才是他。） That is how he is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就是够了。  (maybe try: 我受够了。 I've had enough! (angry))&#xA;It's enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(再给我XX)才是够了。(give me more,) then it will be enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这才是够了。 It's not enough./ Only this is enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-26T03:17:01.107" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21963" CreationDate="2016-11-26T15:02:45.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COMMON FUNCTION OF 就 and 才&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are used to denote the word in which the speaker do not want the listener to make mistakes or misunderstandings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 这就是台湾 and 这才是台湾 both focuses on the word 这&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;DIFFERENCE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply say, the difference is the mistake itself. Here are 3 situations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What kind of mistakes the speaker expect the listener will make&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What kind of mistakes the speaker don't want the listener to make&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What kind of mistakes that the listener already made, and the speaker wants to correct the listener&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &lt;em&gt;what kind of mistakes&lt;/em&gt; is the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;就&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The listener will think &lt;strong&gt;MORE THAN&lt;/strong&gt; the expected or correct one.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Response with opposition the &lt;strong&gt;NEGATIVE&lt;/strong&gt; thought by someone else.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 这就是台湾。 -&gt; Here is Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taiwan is not far away, it is right here. However, using 就, it could meaning the following 3 things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i. The listener may think Taiwan is still far away.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ii. The listener thinks Taiwan is still far away.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;iii. The speaker wants the listener to know Taiwan is NOT far away, but right here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 如果明天台风还没有走，我就不上班。 -&gt; If the typhoon did not go away by tomorrow, I will not go to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has a common sentence structure: 如果...就...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You may wonder what the use of 就 here is. It usually denotes the following meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will not go to work as long as the typhoon is not gone. (Don't think that I need &lt;strong&gt;more&lt;/strong&gt; conditions to not go to work, this condition suffices)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;A: 我看你还是在乎的了。(Negative mood)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: 我就不在乎给你看！(Despite the use of 不, opposite to negative mood is positive) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;A thought that B will care(negative), but actually B will not, and so B responds with the use of 就.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;才&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The listener will think &lt;strong&gt;LESS THAN&lt;/strong&gt; the expected or correct one, or the listener will just think &lt;strong&gt;WRONG&lt;/strong&gt; if the mistake cannot be quantitized or qualitized.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Response with opposition the &lt;strong&gt;POSITIVE&lt;/strong&gt; thought by someone else.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 这才是台湾。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could meaning the following 3 things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i. The listener may think Taiwan is somewhere else, not here.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ii. The listener thinks Taiwan is somewhere else, not here.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;iii. The speaker wants the listener to know Taiwan is NOT somewhere else, but here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 两个人才能办好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could meaning the following 3 things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i. The listener may think that less than two guys are already enough to do something.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ii. The listener thinks that less than two guys are already enough to do something.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;iii. The speaker wants the listener to know that less than two guys are not enough to do something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 你怎么想我才不在乎呢。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The listener thought the speaker will care(positive), but actually the speaker will not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there are actually more usage, but I am not going to list here, since we are focusing on the comparison only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2016-11-27T00:27:04.980" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T00:27:04.980" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21974" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:45:45.730" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-11-26T19:45:45.730" LastActivityDate="2016-11-26T19:45:45.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21975" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:45:45.730" Score="0" Body="Questions related to written Chinese. Note: there are separate tags for 'handwriting' and 'characters'. " OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-11-27T02:50:31.287" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T02:50:31.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21976" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:46:37.913" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-11-26T19:46:37.913" LastActivityDate="2016-11-26T19:46:37.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21977" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:46:37.913" Score="0" Body="Questions related to Chinese names." OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-11-27T02:50:40.963" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T02:50:40.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21978" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:48:28.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This tag is for software used to assist with the Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may include (not exhaustively):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;IMEs (input method editors). See also &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/input-methods&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;input-methods&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;input-methods&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;OCR (optical character recognition)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;spelling/pinyin software&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;automatic conversion from traditional to simplified and vice versa&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;speech transcription&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;word processors&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use this tag when you have questions about such software. Make sure what you ask is on-topic. Asking for recommendations in the form &amp;quot;what's the best X to do Y&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;is X good for Y&amp;quot; is off-topic almost everywhere on Stack Exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please don't use this tag for character recognition issues, e.g, handwritten text, pictures, signs, etc. For that, make sure you check this thread first: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/36144&quot;&gt;How do I self-answer “What does this say?”&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have questions about programming, even if the intended purpose you might want to take it to Stack Overflow (make sure it's on topic there).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T00:02:47.307" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T00:02:47.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21979" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:48:28.040" Score="0" Body="Questions related to software for reading, writing or processing (written or spoken) Chinese." OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-11-27T02:52:07.503" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T02:52:07.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21980" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:49:24.147" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-11-26T19:49:24.147" LastActivityDate="2016-11-26T19:49:24.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21981" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:49:24.147" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the varieties of Chinese spoken in Taiwan." OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-11-27T02:50:03.260" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T02:50:03.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21982" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:50:44.983" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-11-26T19:50:44.983" LastActivityDate="2016-11-26T19:50:44.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21983" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:50:44.983" Score="0" Body="Questions related to fonts or typefaces used for displaying text in Chinese." OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-11-27T02:49:27.193" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T02:49:27.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21984" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-26T20:38:44.907" Score="2" ViewCount="1046" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got into learning Chinese recently and since I already speak Japanese I find myself in a weird spot of being fairly familiar with a writing system, yet barely being able to read more than 30 characters. As for Japanese character readings, I learnt them using radicals that indicate or hint a certain reading. &#xA;According to my Chinese friends, they too read Hanzi by radicals. &#xA;But since the readings differ largely, Japanese has more possible readings per character than Chinese and some characters are flat out different, I obviously can't apply the same system again.&#xA;Does anyone know of a book or a website that teaches the readings by radicals?&#xA;(Something like Heisig's Remembering the kanji 2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15854" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T11:40:21.320" Title="Hanzi pronunciation by radicals" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21963" CreationDate="2016-11-26T21:04:56.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Now I will try to answer my own question. Judging by the opinions gathered here, I think the nature of 才 and 就 can be explained easily by this definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就 - already. It is a marker of a sufficient minimum.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;才 - barely. It is a marker of a necessary minimum.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她三岁就会说话. She &lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt; learned to speak when she became three. (3 years was sufficient for her)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她三岁才会说话. She learned to speak &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; when she became three. (3 years was a necessary threshold for her)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Only|barely(才)&lt;/strong&gt; three is enough to finish this task. (3 is a minimum number)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Three man is &lt;strong&gt;already(就)&lt;/strong&gt; enough to finish this task. (3 is a sufficient number)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你怎么现在就回家 It's 6, you are supposed to be home at 9.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你怎么现在才回家 It's 11:30 you were supposed to be home at 9.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们九点上课，可是他八点就来了。We start class at 9am, but he came as early as 8 o’clock.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们九点上课，可是他九点一刻才来。We start class at nine o’clock, but he didn’t come until quarter past.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when we say something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要是他不来，我们&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;走吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;usually such sentences (要是...就) translate 就 as &amp;quot;then&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they don't come, &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; we will leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But now I think 就 is more &amp;quot;already&amp;quot; than &amp;quot;then&amp;quot; (or rather 就 has a an original connotation of &amp;quot;already&amp;quot; (i.e. sufficient conditions for something to be true are met).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. can someone explain what &amp;quot;去才去&amp;quot; means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;如果方便&lt;strong&gt;去才去&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;外国上学是不是想&lt;strong&gt;去才去&lt;/strong&gt;? 是不是很自由的想去就去不想去就不去?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank NS.X. for answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去才去(is a shortened 想去,才去) = &lt;strong&gt;Only then&lt;/strong&gt; go, when you want to. &lt;em&gt;(Once you know the fact that you want to go, then you can go.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去就去(is a shortened 想去,就去) = If you want to go, then &lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt; go. &lt;em&gt;(You've already been standing here for an hour unable to move! It is taking to long for you to do this. Go already!).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T10:33:00.140" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21986" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21988" CreationDate="2016-11-27T01:20:25.323" Score="2" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to understand &amp;quot;请勿复敢见矣&amp;quot; in 《孟子·公孙丑下》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孟子去齐，宿于昼。有欲为王留行者，坐而言。不应，隐几而卧。客不悦曰：“弟子齐宿而后敢言，夫子卧而不听，&lt;strong&gt;请勿复敢见矣&lt;/strong&gt;。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曰：“坐！我明语子。昔者鲁缪公无人乎子思之侧，则不能安子思；泄柳、申详，无人乎缪公之侧，则不能安其身。子为长者虑，而不及子思，子绝长者乎？长者绝子乎？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone translates &amp;quot;请勿复敢见矣&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;I do not dare to ask for meeting you anymore&amp;quot;. It makes sense to me, but I don't get why it can be expressed in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &amp;quot;请勿&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;please stop doing/ please do not&amp;quot;, and &amp;quot;复敢见&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;dare to meet again&amp;quot;. Therefore the natural interpretation would be &amp;quot;Please don't dare to meet again&amp;quot;. I know it sounds very odd, so I am wondering what I have missed here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12341" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T04:53:32.117" Title="How to understand &quot;请勿复敢见矣&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21986" CreationDate="2016-11-27T02:36:27.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from baidu, in more modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/139017464.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/139017464.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;客人很不高兴地说：“我是先一天斋戒沭浴后才敢跟您说话，先生睡卧而不听，今后再也不敢请求见您了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They put '请勿复敢见矣' as '，今后再也不敢请求见您了'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T02:36:27.373" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21986" CreationDate="2016-11-27T03:00:50.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in classical chinese, &quot;i&quot; is rarely used. it's replaced by other character / word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請勿復敢見矣 is &quot;I do not dare to ask for meeting you anymore&quot; (imo, this translation is a very good one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請 - replaced &quot;i&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勿 - do not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;復 - anymore&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敢 - dare to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;見 - ask for meeting you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the same sentence, 弟子齊宿而後敢言 is roughly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i used to respect (you, mr 孟), therefore i dare to persuade&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弟子 - literally &quot;disciple&quot;, it replaced &quot;i&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;齊宿 - in 漢 dynasty, it was interpreted as &quot;used to respect&quot;¹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而後 - therefore&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敢言 - dare to persuade&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no &quot;i&quot;, get it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹齊﹒敬也﹒宿﹒素也:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t1Rmy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t1Rmy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T03:00:50.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19696" CreationDate="2016-11-27T14:16:48.350" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I have two conditions, ONLY one can be true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either A or B is true. We cannot make two conditions (both A &amp;amp; B) become true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15856" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2016-11-28T01:14:10.473" LastActivityDate="2016-11-28T01:14:10.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17389" CreationDate="2016-11-27T14:30:05.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we shouldn't consider the context, I think &#xA;“有些用户需要它。”&#xA;may be okay.&#xA;In fact, yours is probably right but, we seldom say like this in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15856" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T14:30:05.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21992" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22002" CreationDate="2016-11-28T02:59:29.007" Score="0" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《广安方言与民俗词典》&lt;/strong&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【yào】尿“niao4”的音变。此为江西话在广安一些地方的遗存。在实际语言运用中，要注意区分“要来了”与“尿来了”、“我要”与“屙尿”等相似音。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗语：“打尿噤”，指因尿急身体突然颤动一两下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“口水多，无尿屙”，讽刺话语特别多的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你娃儿沟子一翘，老子就晓得你要屙尿”，比喻十分清楚对方的意图。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歇后语：“鸡公不屙尿——各有各的道”，指公鸡饮水但不排尿，自有它排尿的去处。比喻环境不同，人的际遇也就不同。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically &lt;code&gt;【yào】尿“niao4”的音变。此为江西话在广安一些地方的遗存。&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this pronunciation still exist in modern-day 江西话?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T05:55:31.833" Title="is 尿 still pronunced `yao` in 江西话?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21647" CreationDate="2016-11-28T05:34:42.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest using an third-party IME with on-screen touchpad or stroke input.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good Chinese learner should choose a better IME instead of built-in IME on Windows/Mac.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many IMEs that could meet your demand, like Sogou IME, Baidu IME and more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I am taking Sogou IME (搜狗输入法) as an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Right-click on floating indicator, choose &lt;code&gt;搜狗工具箱(O)&lt;/code&gt;to open Sogou IME Toolbox.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click &lt;code&gt;手写输入&lt;/code&gt;to open on-screen handwriting touchpad, write the character that you don't understand, then there it is.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Default mode is &lt;code&gt;单字手写&lt;/code&gt; (Single-Character Mode). Click &lt;code&gt;长句手写&lt;/code&gt; to switch to Multiple-Character Mode.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mTDLu.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mTDLu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;手写输入 window&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if you find this method too easy for you, you may try stroke mode:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;type &lt;code&gt;U&lt;/code&gt; to activate stroke mode, and use &lt;code&gt;h, s, p, n, z&lt;/code&gt; in replace of five main stroke:&lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt;「横(heng2)」，&lt;code&gt;丨&lt;/code&gt;「竖(shu4)」，&lt;code&gt;丿&lt;/code&gt;「撇(pie3)」，&lt;code&gt;丶&lt;/code&gt;「捺(na4)」or「点(dian3)」，&lt;code&gt;乛&lt;/code&gt;折(zhe2)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice: this method requires you to &amp;quot;write&amp;quot; the desired character in right order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: if you want to know how 「汉」 pronounces, you should type: &lt;code&gt;u &lt;/code&gt; then type &lt;code&gt;ddhzn&lt;/code&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RVjHz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RVjHz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;笔画输入 Mode&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't follow the order how a character should be written, you won't get the caracter you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-28T05:34:42.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21917" CreationDate="2016-11-28T12:52:31.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have enough reputation yet to comment, but I wanted to try to translate what J.tom said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Basically it's the same, but I think '肯定' is more subjective, while&#xA;  '确定' is more objective. Moreover, '肯定' is generally associated with&#xA;  people, especially when people are the subject. '确定', however, tends&#xA;  to describe things, events, etc., when things are the subject. For example, &quot;This matter is &lt;strong&gt;确定&lt;/strong&gt;(determined) like this.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-28T21:53:41.767" LastActivityDate="2016-11-28T21:53:41.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21984" CreationDate="2016-11-28T13:29:05.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know Japanese, but, coincidentally, I have just saw &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fluentin3months.com/easy-japanese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Learning the most common phonetic and semantic chunks (or “radicals”) enables you to make educated guesses about the pronunciation and meaning of new characters. For example, all of the following Kanji share the same phonetic chunk, 工 (“craft”). It is pronounced kou (こう), and low and behold, each of the following Kanji it contains are all pronounced kou:&#xA;  紅 (“crimson”)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  空 (“empty”)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  虹 (“rainbow”)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  江 (“creek”)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  攻 (“aggression”)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  功 (“achievement”)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the《詩經》(Canon of Poetry) era, phono-semetic characters (形聲字) always sounded same as the &quot;sound&quot; part. &#xA;In fact, this is how phono-semetic convention works that time: when a character is not yet formed, we &lt;em&gt;borrow&lt;/em&gt; the homophone and add another part indicate its meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the 白一平 construction I looked up in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eastling.org/oc/oldage.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東方語言學網&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;空: khoŋ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  虹: kroŋs&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  江: kroŋ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  攻: koŋ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  功: koŋ  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But after 3000 years, it ends up in Modern Mandarin(北京話) that the [r] and [s] are lost, [kh] becomes the fricative [h], or hardens in non-aspirated [k], or the [ʨ] the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate, and they all develop different tones. &#xA;They are still vaguely similar in position, but also widely different.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, as of what you are thinking, my suggestion is to forget it, and just memorize it. There is no rule in general, except vague likeness. &#xA;If you read extensively in Ancient Chinese (上古漢語) journals you might learn some arcane rules scholars established, but then you are spending several times long to learn those words, than just memorizing them! ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2016-11-28T13:29:05.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="115" CreationDate="2016-11-28T17:53:51.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend memorizing the measure words by incorporating them into your study of vocabulary from the get-go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an analogy: When studying English, one should not memorize &quot;reflect&quot; but instead &quot;to reflect on sth.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good start are the measure words on this page:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blogs.transparent.com/chinese/10-must-know-chinese-measure-words/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blogs.transparent.com/chinese/10-must-know-chinese-measure-words/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15862" LastActivityDate="2016-11-28T17:53:51.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21997" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-28T23:18:58.963" Score="0" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't find any good translation for the word clout, which, it seems to me, is a fairly relevant concept in terms of the way things work politically in China. In some context like this,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Does the business leader really have the clout to influence those regulations?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it means social ability, connections, or prestige which affords a special influence. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clout&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Clout&quot;&gt;Clout&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15759" LastActivityDate="2016-12-02T02:27:00.447" Title="Translation of clout" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21997" CreationDate="2016-11-28T23:43:19.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about 权力 or 影响力 or just 力量？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two firms wield enormous clout in financial markets.&#xA;两家公司在金融市场有非常大的影响力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does he have any clout?&#xA;他有什么影响吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;国际政治力量&#xA;international political power/strength/clout&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-11-28T23:43:19.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21997" CreationDate="2016-11-29T00:15:32.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found two examples when I looked it up in Collins COBUILD: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mr Sutherland may have the &lt;strong&gt;clout&lt;/strong&gt; needed to push the two trading giants into a deal...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;萨瑟兰先生也许有&lt;strong&gt;能力&lt;/strong&gt;促使两大贸易巨头达成协议。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The two firms wield enormous &lt;strong&gt;clout&lt;/strong&gt; in financial markets.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;两家公司在金融市场有非常大的&lt;strong&gt;影响力&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope these examples help :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15825" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T00:15:32.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22000" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22488" CreationDate="2016-11-29T03:11:03.423" Score="1" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;四川话很少有翘舌音，除了自贡、郫县有一些说法之外，真的很难找到四川话的翘舌音。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《广安方言与民俗词典》记了几个：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【che(-)n】?伸“she(-)n”的音变。指舒展开。“扯伸”，又说“拉伸”，指拉直。例：把衣服扯伸。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【cha(v)】?叉“cha(-)”的音变。指分开、张开。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【ché】?坼“chè”的音变。指物体表面或内部出现了裂缝。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些大概是错的，不过没有证据。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;广安话有翘舌音吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="15850" LastEditDate="2016-11-29T12:09:21.677" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T17:28:19.590" Title="Does 广安话 have 翘舌音?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21997" CreationDate="2016-11-29T03:19:40.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;maybe 權勢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000103700&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000103700&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly, 權 is power, and 勢 is influence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%AC%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=權&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%8B%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=勢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T03:19:40.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21992" CreationDate="2016-11-29T05:55:31.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a zh-Gan native speaker from 吉茶片 永新小片. This prounciation of 尿 still do exist now in my hometown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:'屙尿(ó yào)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15864" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T05:55:31.833" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21674" CreationDate="2016-11-29T06:45:46.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient China, people used Fanqie（反切） to indicate the sound of a character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in Kangxi Dictionary(康熙词典), the character “微” is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;無非切&#xA;[無(&lt;strong&gt;W&lt;/strong&gt;u)非(F&lt;strong&gt;ei&lt;/strong&gt;)] = Wei&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15865" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T06:45:46.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22004" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22054" CreationDate="2016-11-29T07:16:22.823" Score="7" ViewCount="485" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成语－挟怨报复－可以用在下面情形吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有一位前辈的报告写错了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我善意指正他。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  后来，我的报告他故意找问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下面这些可以吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一朝权在手 便把令来行&lt;br&gt;&#xA;心胸狭窄 倚势挟权&lt;br&gt;&#xA;倚老卖老&lt;br&gt;&#xA;窃弄威权&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪一个最好？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2016-12-04T20:30:56.857" Title="The question is regarding 成语－挟怨报复" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22004" CreationDate="2016-11-29T09:08:41.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;依你描述&lt;/strong&gt;，你的这位前辈表现出来的是「刚愎自用」，「心胸狭窄」，「不容异已」的性情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而他的动机可以用「记仇」来形容。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至于行为本身则可说是「恶意刁难」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「刚愎自用」：总以为自己一定对，一意孤行地抗拒一切不同的意见。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「心胸狭窄」: 没有原谅他人的修养&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「不容异已」: 固执地排除一切反对者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「记仇」: 把仇恨不满都常记心中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「恶意刁难」: 恶意地找人麻烦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;According to your description&lt;/strong&gt;, your senior fellow employee showed he has a temperament of 「刚愎自用」(self-willed), 「心胸狭窄」(narrow-minded) and  「不容异已」(intolerance to opinion different from his own).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And his motives can be described as 「记仇」(vengeful).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the act itself, it can be said to be 「恶意刁难」(maliciously seeking trouble for others)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「刚愎自用」(self-willed) : always thought he must be right, bent on resisting all the different views.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「心胸狭窄」(narrow-minded): never forgive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「不容异已」(intolerance of views different from his own): stubbornly ruled out all opponents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「记仇」(Vengeful): always hold grudge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「恶意刁难」(maliciously seek trouble for others)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never heard of 挟怨报复 as an idiom,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挟怨 can be translated to &amp;quot;hold a grudge&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;报复 means &amp;quot;revenge&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挟怨报复 means &amp;quot;hold a grudge and seek revenge&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T09:34:36.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21893" CreationDate="2016-11-29T11:41:41.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;(It's been a week, but hope this helps)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There are plenty. Consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;這台機器早晚會出事情。&#xA;快給我你的帳單！&#xA;我時常搭地鐵去上班。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these phrases, the functions of &lt;code&gt;早晚&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;快&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;時常&lt;/code&gt; are mostly apt to be seen as adverbs. This being said, the POS in Chinese is not very well-agreed. &#xA;This is due to lack of morphological markers. &#xA;In the ancient time there is no &lt;code&gt;地&lt;/code&gt; marker, and adjectives also functions as adverbs (like German). &#xA;In these cases, arguably they also look like the complementary adjectives of the subject. &#xA;I guess its advent is probably 20 century, when phrases are so complicated that we often have difficulty parsing, and English-like structures are borrowed into written Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So back to the question, I would say that when a adverb doesn't cause ambiguity, &lt;code&gt;地&lt;/code&gt; is often not added. The examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(a)我兴奋地打开了我的礼物。&#xA;(b)我兴奋打开了我的礼物。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In (b), it cause some confusion (at least when the eye has parsed to &lt;code&gt;兴奋&lt;/code&gt;) what &lt;code&gt;兴奋&lt;/code&gt; functions as. But in (b), suffices to say, &lt;code&gt;地&lt;/code&gt; clears up confusion by reminding you a verb is following. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last I shall note that even scholars often disagree, as modern Mandarin grammar is not well restricted, and native speakers are generally very tolerant with non-standard phrases. &#xA;I found a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/23579160&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;discussion&lt;/a&gt;. You shall notice that the general consensus does not deem &lt;code&gt;地&lt;/code&gt; to be not compulsory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, append &lt;code&gt;地&lt;/code&gt; from an adjective if the adjective is several-Charactered (so more difficult to parse), or when the phrase is complicated so that confusion arises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T11:41:41.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20856" CreationDate="2016-11-29T12:13:48.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the distinction is a soft one, rather than compulsory.&#xA;When you stress you have done something and there is some action or change in the process, use &lt;code&gt;過&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;When you stress you have completed doing something, use &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt;; it is somewhat like perfection, but see below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For brevity, call&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(a)昨天我去买一台电脑&#xA;(b)昨天我去买了一台电脑&#xA;(c)昨天我去买過一台电脑&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(a) is okay but rare, sounds a bit dry. It reminds me of a very formal narrative without sentiment (in a fiction), or a formal speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(b), however, is very common. It occurs to me German usage of auxiliary &lt;code&gt;haben&lt;/code&gt; &amp;quot;have&amp;quot; (or &lt;code&gt;sein&lt;/code&gt; for a group of verbs such as &lt;code&gt;gehen&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;kommen&lt;/code&gt;) is also soft: it does not strongly stress perfection, but loosely equivalent to English past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(c) is okay but somewhat dubious, probably because &lt;code&gt;買&lt;/code&gt; occurs within a short moment, and little is &amp;quot;taking place&amp;quot;.&#xA;But consider the context: You and your friends are talking about a computer sales in that store who is very bad-tempered, and you say, &lt;code&gt;昨天我去買過一台電腦，店員真的好兇啊!&lt;/code&gt; you are stressing you really have seen him, and he is really bad-tempered. This is perfect. You have tried something, and found something new.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can think of a good example: as of &lt;code&gt;愛&lt;/code&gt; (following Enrico's example), one usually says &lt;code&gt;我愛他&lt;/code&gt;, but it is odd to say &lt;code&gt;我愛過他&lt;/code&gt;. Why? because it changes little visible to &amp;quot;love&amp;quot; someone.&#xA;But does it have its own appropriate context? yes! Consider: A and B are talking about C. Now A reveals to B that A and C once had a relationship, but broke up.&#xA;Still somewhat remorseful, A remarks: &lt;code&gt;我愛過他&lt;/code&gt; It is appropriate then. (as a side remark, &lt;code&gt;愛&lt;/code&gt; is so formal-sounding and really uncommon in spoken Mandarin, no matter parental love or romantic love....at least in Taiwan I think.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-26T10:20:00.327" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T10:20:00.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21963" CreationDate="2016-11-29T17:11:35.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of people are trying to explain 就 vs 才 with english equivalent terms, but that makes it very confusing when it can be explained with simple logic statements, and it is crucial to understand the reasoning behind all these cases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;X就Y -&gt; Y if X&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;X才Y -&gt; Y if and only if X&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is that when using 就, X is not the only condition that Y can happen, while with 才 Y happens [if and only if] X happens. Basic example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下雨的話(X)地就會濕(Y)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The floor will get wet (Y) [if] it rains (X)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下雨的話(X)地才會濕(Y)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The floor will get wet (Y) [if and only] if it rains (X)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mutated form of 就 vs 才:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你怎么想我(X)就不在乎呢(Y)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I wouldn't care (Y) [if] however you think of me (X)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你怎么想我(X)才不在乎呢(Y)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I wouldn't care (Y) [if and only if] however you think of me (X)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But wait a second, how does that make any sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see, &quot;I wouldn't care&quot; is the result of &quot;however you think of me&quot;, the action. By using 就 you are simply stating that you wouldn't care how he thinks of you. But in some cases that's not powerful enough, and only in chinese that you can deliver that kind of tone: you want to tell the other person you don't care so much that &quot;however you think of me&quot; is the ONLY thing that you don't care about, and you care about everything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;两个人(X)就能办好(Y)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It can be done (Y) [with] two people (X).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;两个人(X)才能办好(Y)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It can be done (Y) [with and only with] two people (X). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Note that this can imply strictly 2 persons, or 2 or more people) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is harder to explain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就是他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That is (simply) him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;才是他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That is (the real) him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would use 就是他 when you see someone doing something that he normally does. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那就是菲尔普斯(Y)，又贏獎牌了(X)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That is Michael Phelps (Y), winning yet another medal (X)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;([Because] of winning another swimming medal, he has to be Michael Phelps)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then let's say Michael Phelps had been on a losing streak for the past few of games, and he has finally gotten another medal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那才是我知道的菲尔普斯！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Oh yeah that is the true Michael Phelps that I know of!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(This signifies that it is the real Michael Phelps [because and ONLY because] he has won again and he is known for winning. It wasn't him when he wasn't winning. You would use this form when you want to confirm that something is finally back in shape or back to where it used to be.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, quite straight forward:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就是够了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That is enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;才是够了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That is just enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15592" LastEditorUserId="15592" LastEditDate="2016-11-29T17:25:02.757" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T17:25:02.757" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22009" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22010" CreationDate="2016-11-29T18:58:09.403" Score="10" ViewCount="3349" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that all of them mean &quot;to have to&quot; in some form or another, but are they interchangeable? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15486" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2020-02-29T15:04:09.927" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T15:04:09.927" Title="What is the difference between 必须, 得, 必需, and 需要?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22009" CreationDate="2016-11-29T21:05:43.837" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;First let's clarify the definitions of 須 and 需&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;須： Adverb/verb, meaning should, must; 《必須，必定，須要》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你（必須）參加這次會議&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must participate in this meeting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;需: Compound, meaning need, require; example compounds: 《需要(require)，需求(demand)，必需(need)，急需(urgent need)》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;植物生長（必需）陽光和雨露&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plants require sunlight and raindrops to grow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very easy to mix up 必須 and 必需, even for native speakers, as they have the same pronunciation (cantonese and mandarin) and very similar meanings. In english, both can be represented by &amp;quot;need&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;You need to participate in this meeting&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Plants need sunlight and raindrops to grow&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The easiest way to distinguish the two is to see whether it is a noun or a verb that comes after it. If it is a noun, use 必需， 需要; if it is a verb, use 必須.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得 is quite interesting because it can be used to replace both 必須 or 必需&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有錯誤就得批評;做得好就得表揚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wrong doing needs to be critiqued, good work needs to be complimented&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這公工程得三個月才能完成&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It takes 3 months to finish this construction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 需要 can be used as a noun as &amp;quot;need(s)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15592" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T21:05:43.837" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22011" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22016" CreationDate="2016-11-29T21:07:54.253" Score="9" ViewCount="1769" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, 'She &lt;em&gt;was&lt;/em&gt; a good teacher' ? Any and all translations I get are '她是好老师'. Is there anyway to indicate past tense explicitly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15872" LastActivityDate="2020-12-28T03:04:30.797" Title="How do you specify past tense for 是?" Tags="&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22011" CreationDate="2016-11-29T23:07:20.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'She was a good teacher'  她曾经是位好老师&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曾经 puts this firmly in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of the time you can use 了 or 过 to indicate the past. Here is an explanation thereof from another forum. I thought it sums up their usage quite well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了和过的区别&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了和过都能用在动词后面。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“了” 有表示过去时，现在进行时，将来时的意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如：我去了一趟超市。（过去）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他睡觉了。（现在）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我到了给你打电话。（将来）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“过” 只表示过去发生的某些事情。不能表示现在时和将来时。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如：我去过中国。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“了” 和 “过” 的用法是非常相似，希望你能慢慢体会，多多练习。(ง •_•)ง,加油&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15850" LastEditDate="2016-11-30T06:52:57.220" LastActivityDate="2016-11-30T06:52:57.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22011" CreationDate="2016-11-30T01:43:41.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;以前&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is pretty straightforward, we can just say &lt;code&gt;以前 (in the past) + whatever&lt;/code&gt; and we have 'was whatever'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;before; formerly; previously&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以前我家生活不太好。 &#xA;  Yǐqián wǒ jiā shēnghuó bù tài hǎo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the past, life was hard for my family. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it helps, the above sentence you can even think of it without &quot;In the past,&quot; and just think of it as &quot;life &lt;strong&gt;was&lt;/strong&gt; hard for my family.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以前他当过理发员。 &#xA;  Yǐqián tā dāng guò lǐfàyuán.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He used to be a barber. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to use 是 you can easily say:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;他以前是理发的&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for your sentence &lt;em&gt;She was a good teacher&lt;/em&gt; you can simply say:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;她以前是个好老师&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;她以前教得很好&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曾 or 曾经 on the other hand only means &lt;code&gt;once&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;once was&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This form of &quot;was&quot; only really works if said person is not that way anymore - not dead! If the person is dead, it's best to just refer to them in the presets tense, the context will be clear enough for people to know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-11-30T12:50:15.847" LastActivityDate="2016-11-30T12:50:15.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22009" CreationDate="2016-11-30T02:20:02.987" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a general rule,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;須&quot; refers to something mandatory due to regulations, rules, logics, culture, etc.  It is usually used as an auxiliary verb (助動詞) or adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;需&quot; refers to something essential or definitely required.  It may be followed by a verb, though the sentence will become clumsy in many cases, e.g. &quot;植物需接受適當的陽光和雨露&quot;.  It is usually used as a noun or verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For regulations or contracts, &quot;應&quot; &gt; &quot;須&quot; &gt; &quot;需&quot; &gt; &quot;得&quot;.  &quot;應&quot; means undeniable responsibility.  &quot;得&quot; is favorable but not mandatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For official documents, &quot;須&quot; refers to actions and &quot;需&quot; refers to objects. e.g.  &quot;須會商&quot; (discussion required) vs &quot;需會商之案件&quot; (file requiring discussion).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These characters are very confusing, not to mention grey areas and common misuses.  Have fun ~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastEditorUserId="5875" LastEditDate="2016-11-30T07:47:06.003" LastActivityDate="2016-11-30T07:47:06.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22011" CreationDate="2016-11-30T03:01:50.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others mentioned, The paste tense for &quot;是&quot; is usually &quot;曾经&quot; or &quot;过去&quot;. But here might be a little different. &quot;She was a good teacher&quot; implies that she has died now. So it might be more clear to say &quot;她生前是个好老师&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone say &quot;她曾经/过去是个好老师&quot;, it might be more similar to &quot;She used to be a good teacher&quot;, and might imply (but not always imply) that she is not a good teacher now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11098" LastActivityDate="2016-11-30T03:01:50.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22011" CreationDate="2016-11-30T04:37:08.547" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to remember, unlike in English, we &lt;strong&gt;do not have past tense&lt;/strong&gt; for verbs in Chinese grammar. Both &quot;is&quot; and &quot;was&quot; is written as &quot;是&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;是&quot; in &quot;她是好老师&quot; could be &quot;is&quot; or &quot;was&quot;. We really don't care which, because it is presumed readers can find out the sentence is in past or present tense by looking into the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她&lt;strong&gt;以前&lt;/strong&gt;是个好老师&quot;(she was a good teacher &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她&lt;strong&gt;曾经&lt;/strong&gt;是个好老师&quot; (she was a good teacher &lt;strong&gt;once&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她&lt;strong&gt;三年前&lt;/strong&gt;是个好老师&quot;(she was a good teacher &lt;strong&gt;three years ago&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All three example sentences above clearly indicated the verb &quot;是&quot; is in past tense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If no time reference is found in the context, then all verbs are in present tense by default.                 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are reading a historical novel, even most individual sentences in it didn't have time reference, you should still know it is in past tense; If you are reading an instructional manual, you know the text is written in present tense entirely.                &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The answer to &quot;&lt;em&gt;How do you specify past tense for 是&lt;/em&gt; &quot; should be &quot;&lt;strong&gt;there's no need&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="2533" LastEditDate="2017-05-13T02:59:30.627" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T02:59:30.627" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18156" CreationDate="2016-11-30T06:18:18.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the section 4.15.3.1 of Guóbiāo(the Chinese national standards)《&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.co.jp/search?q=GB%2FT%2015834-2011%20%E6%A0%87%E7%82%B9%E7%AC%A6%E5%8F%B7%E7%94%A8%E6%B3%95&amp;amp;oq=GB%2FT%2015834-2011%20%E6%A0%87%E7%82%B9%E7%AC%A6%E5%8F%B7%E7%94%A8%E6%B3%95&amp;amp;aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58j69i61.651j0j7&amp;amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GB/T 15834-2011 标点符号用法&lt;/a&gt;》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;示例2：《史记・项羽本记》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i think &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《××使用手冊．××方法》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is better. But you should notice that the dot （you can check it in section 4.14） is not the dot in English text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2644" LastEditorUserId="2644" LastEditDate="2017-06-29T04:47:19.517" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T04:47:19.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22011" CreationDate="2016-11-30T06:34:15.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a frequent type of question, perhaps someone can ask a more general question that would allow a more generally useful answer. As a step toward that, I'll try to raise a couple of general points here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, past tense is not a vocabulary item in English. It is a type of verbal inflection. Chinese does not have this type of verbal inflection. Answers here that propose using words like 以前 or 曾經 are using vocabulary items to try and &quot;translate&quot; English past tense into Chinese. This is not a general solution; that is, it will not work for all Chinese verbs in all situations. For example,&#xA;&lt;br&gt;He died.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;is not going to be translated as&#xA;&lt;br&gt;他曾經死了.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So 曾經 is not always an equivalent of past tense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also true here. As someone else noted above, a sentence like &#xA;&lt;br&gt;他曾經是好老師.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;is probably more like to be interpreted as equivalent to English&#xA;&lt;br&gt;She used to be a good teacher.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is probably not what the OP meant when asking how to say &quot;She was a good teacher&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This brings in the second part of the problem in answering this type of question. When people ask things like how to say &quot;She was a good teacher&quot;, they usually do so without stopping to think that such English sentence may have more than one meaning or interpretation.  In many cases, Chinese equivalents may be radically different for the different English meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, we might have the following context:&#xA;&lt;br&gt;My sixth grade math teacher was Mrs. Li. She was a great teacher.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In this case, one very natural Chinese translation would be.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;我小學六年級的數學老師是李師老。她是非常好的老師.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It would actually be somewhat odd to translate as&#xA;&lt;br&gt;我小學六年級的數學老師曾經/以前是李師老。她曾經/以前是非常好的老師.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In this case, the demand that English &quot;tense&quot; be directly reflected in the Chinese is a mistake. Chinese simply doesn't use words like 曾經 or 以前 in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such cases, asking questions like &quot;How do you say 'She was a good teacher'&quot;, without also specifying the context, can often lead to confusing or contradictory answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2016-11-30T06:34:15.697" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22019" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22021" CreationDate="2016-11-30T13:01:20.943" Score="3" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning of 論, when pronunced as lún, has already been listed in the answer by @user-487 in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/21968/why-is-there-a-special-pronunciation-of-%E8%AE%BA-just-for-%E8%AE%BA%E8%AF%AD&quot;&gt;another question&lt;/a&gt;. However, none of those meaning seems appropriate in the following famous &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%9C%9D%E4%B8%AD%E6%8E%AA_(%E6%99%82%E6%83%85%E5%A4%A9%E6%84%8F)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;朝中措 by 元好問&lt;/a&gt;：  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;時情天意枉論量，樂事苦相忘。……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“通‘倫’，事物的條理、秩序” sounds acceptable, but still makes me feel strange. Is there any reliable sources that clarify the meaning of 論 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15731" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T08:03:35.177" Title="What does 論 mean in 時情天意枉論量？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22019" CreationDate="2016-11-30T13:23:52.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://sou-yun.com/Query.aspx?type=poem1&amp;amp;id=256008&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://sou-yun.com/Query.aspx?type=poem1&amp;amp;id=256008&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;press論量 It is clear is that site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15877" LastActivityDate="2016-11-30T13:23:52.657" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22019" CreationDate="2016-11-30T13:55:45.357" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;論量/论量 ㄌㄨㄣˋ ㄌㄧㄤˊ/ lùn liáng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;依《漢語大詞典》，有二義：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;評論、計較。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　唐吳兢《貞觀政要‧論任賢》：“至於論量人物，直道而言。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　金元好問《論詩》詩之三十：“撼樹蚍蜉自覺狂，書生技癢愛論量。” &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;猶思量。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　元袁桷《睡覺東西書燈猶明喜勉元達兼示瑾子》詩：“師友淵源端有緒，老夫推枕起論量。”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此處“枉論量”是指“沒什麼好談論計較的”。枉, 白費 (useless)；論，談論 (to talk about, to argue)；量，較量 (to compete with)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;根據《康熙字典》：論&#xA;《玉篇》力困切，《廣韻》《集韻》《韻會》《正韻》盧困切；同崘，&lt;strong&gt;去聲&lt;/strong&gt;，義同。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;所以，古時即有去聲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="15652" LastEditDate="2016-11-30T20:57:56.270" LastActivityDate="2016-11-30T20:57:56.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22019" CreationDate="2016-11-30T14:09:58.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;論量:論議是非。(to discuss, to comment on things / on rightness)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000067103&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;) So, the original sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;時情天意枉論量，樂事苦相忘。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;might translate as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is useless to guess the heaven's intention at that time; it is unfortunate that happy things are forgotten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very word to word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The then-emotion, and heaven's meaning, in vain it is to discuss and measure. Happy things --- it is painful --- to be forgotten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;苦&lt;/code&gt; has also the meaning &lt;code&gt;to the full extent, strongly&lt;/code&gt;, and orignal meaning of &lt;code&gt;枉&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;bending&lt;/code&gt; (becomes: wrong, misjudge, etc.). &lt;code&gt;相&lt;/code&gt; is a &lt;code&gt;position-filler&lt;/code&gt; to invert syntax, because &lt;code&gt;樂事&lt;/code&gt; is &quot;being forgotten&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice is not to be too serious about ancient poems and lyrics, since they are imposed by extremely strict phonetic restrictions of that tune. There are, frequently, inverted syntax, omitted words, fragment sentence, for the form's sake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does it mean? I don't know either. But upon looking at the whole lyrics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;時情天意枉論量，樂事苦相忘。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  白酒家家新釀，黃花日日重陽。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;城高望遠，煙濃草澹，一片秋光。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  故國江山如畫，醉來忘卻興亡。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last sentence is clear: a certain country has fallen / declined. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I have checked, out of curiosity, Yuan Haowen's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Haowen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;biography&lt;/a&gt;, you see several things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Born at the height of the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), he experienced the social unrest and war at the decline of the dynasty. He fled to Henan with his mother when the Jin regime moved their capital. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since in ancient literature, the speaker is often the poet, we can probably say, Yuan Haowen is lamenting the demise of the Jin government, inherited by Mongolians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastEditorUserId="15652" LastEditDate="2016-12-01T08:03:35.177" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T08:03:35.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13344" CreationDate="2016-11-30T14:44:15.487" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bit late here, but @Thomas Hsieh, I think, was completely wrong (no offense).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Old Chinese (from earliest attested times until 漢), all characters had a very complex pronunciation; they had diphthongs or triphthongs, two or three consonants each in the beginning and in end. (See: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%8D%E8%BE%85%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;複輔音&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Throughout Middle Chinese (from 魏晉 on until 元, a loose term though), most consonant clusters had been gradually lost. &#xA;I guess this was because the Chinese Empire had expanded considerably and was constantly at war with foreign people. As a result, many 2nd-language learners arose; since they could not speak Old Chinese well, they simplified their pronunciation in a strange manner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, the native Chinese adopted simplified Chinese as well. &#xA;However, many words had no longer been recognizable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;becoming:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wa ee da ko oo hoo ma ee va ee bee ko na see sa ree…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is indecipherable, right? To fix the situation, meaningless suffixes were added. &quot;Well you said “鼠” a rat — or did you mean “數” to count, or “屬” to belong to, or “暑” a hot and humid day?&quot; Hence, we agreed on “老鼠” for mouse, “計算” for to count, “屬於” for to belong to, and “大熱天” for a hot and humid days to remove the ambiguity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Part of ancient lexicon was obsolete, and remain in use solely in written Chinese, and helped to form the distinction of 文言(written Chinese) and 白話(vernacular Chinese). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some markers were added not for significant meaning, but for unambiguity. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One-character words became rare and two-character words more common. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the beginning “老” was a marker for reverence, but in “老鼠”, it seemed to have been borrowed to be a marker purely for disambiguity, as you do not normally revere a rat. &#xA;Similarly “子” was a diminutive ending (compare “孩子”, “小子”, also English “-y” as in “Kitty”, or “-et” in “nymphet”), but it was borrowed in “獅子” purely for disambiguity — when you say “獅子” you do not mean it to be cute!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found something: &lt;a href=&quot;http://ccl.pku.edu.cn/chlib/articles/%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E8%AF%8D%E7%BC%80%E7%9A%84%E6%80%A7%E8%B4%A8%E4%B8%8E%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E8%AF%8D%E6%B3%95%E7%89%B9%E7%82%B9.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉语词缀的性质与汉语词法特点&lt;/a&gt; (loosely: Properties of Chinese prefixes and suffixes, and features of their word-forming rules)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2016-12-03T09:07:13.697" LastActivityDate="2016-12-03T09:07:13.697" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22024" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22025" CreationDate="2016-11-30T15:47:23.363" Score="0" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to find the actual text characters in this image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B5PjC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B5PjC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried an online OCR and this is what I got.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万正嬴体简体&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万正赢体简体&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万正搔体简体&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万正粗们简体&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MS P二儡彭、y′又&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2348" LastActivityDate="2016-11-30T16:18:29.687" Title="What are the characters in the image?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22024" CreationDate="2016-11-30T16:06:08.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are font names&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方正康体简体 (Standard kang Simplified)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BxxBl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BxxBl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;方正康体简体&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方正粗倩简体 (Standard Bold Qian Simplified)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4bWQK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4bWQK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;方正粗倩简体&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ＭＳ Ｐゴシック (MS P Gothic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X0crP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X0crP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;ＭＳ Ｐゴシック&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-11-30T16:18:29.687" LastActivityDate="2016-11-30T16:18:29.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22026" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22031" CreationDate="2016-11-30T18:29:40.730" Score="2" ViewCount="1144" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do all of these mean just &quot;fat, obese&quot;? Dictionaries seem to indicate that these characters mean that separately. Is there a reason to use them both? Is this one of the cases where two characters just remove ambiguity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T10:20:15.980" Title="Vocab problem: 肥 vs 胖 vs 肥胖" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22026" CreationDate="2016-11-30T21:12:04.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have different &quot;strength&quot; and meaning:&lt;code&gt;肥胖&lt;/code&gt;&gt;&lt;code&gt;肥&lt;/code&gt;&gt;&lt;code&gt;胖&lt;/code&gt;. Yes, they have similar meaning but cannot be used randomly. Mostly &lt;code&gt;肥胖&lt;/code&gt; is kind of medical situation, which means a serious illness. &lt;code&gt;肥&lt;/code&gt; is very humiliating. Although &lt;code&gt;胖&lt;/code&gt; is less aggressive, it is a little rude anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15878" LastActivityDate="2016-11-30T21:12:04.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22026" CreationDate="2016-11-30T22:16:51.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is this one of the cases where two characters just remove ambiguity?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, Since each Chinese character has its own meaning or meanings. A single character, usually cannot clearly express a specific meaning, therefore two characters would combine into a specific word, and two words may combine into one specific phase.(see my other post &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/21875/how-to-determine-if-character-can-be-used-separetely&quot;&gt;How to determine if character can be used separetely?&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of 肥 and 胖. both can be an adjective for &amp;quot;fat&amp;quot;, however 肥 also has other meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肥 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/188/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/188/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] [adj] fat; plump; chubby | [antonym] 瘦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] [adj] greasy; oily; fatty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] [adj] fertile; rich; luxuriant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[4] [n] fertilizer; manure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[5] [adj] profitable; lucrative; affluent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Combine 肥 and 胖 into 肥胖 make it a specific term for &amp;quot;fat /obese &amp;quot;. Since it is a specific term, it is also more formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beside being an adjective for &amp;quot;fat&amp;quot;,  肥胖 can also be a noun for &amp;quot;obesity&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T04:19:40.930" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21674" CreationDate="2016-11-30T23:09:35.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was no equivalent of pinyin in ancient Chinese, because Chinese writing developed as a way of representing the spoken language—at first for special purposes (e.g., recording divination), and then later more generally.  If there had been pinyin in, say, the 商 Shang dynasty, they might well have used that &lt;em&gt;instead of&lt;/em&gt; Chinese characters.  Why have the (as you say) more complicated Chinese characters at all, if you already have a perfectly good representation in the pinyin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sounds a &lt;em&gt;little&lt;/em&gt; odd today, because we're used to the idea of Chinese characters, and pinyin is used as a way to indicate their pronunciation, but English gets by perfectly fine using only its equivalent of pinyin (normal English orthography).  Chinese could have done so, if they had had such a system, but keep in mind that the alphabet is a rather deep innovation, and it is by no means obvious, and we should not be surprised that they did not have such a thing around the inception of the Chinese writing system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably by the Three Dynasties period, and certainly no later than the 隋 Sui dynasty, when the 切韻 Qieyun (the oldest surviving example) was created, people used 反切 fanqie as a way to express character pronunciations.  It should be emphasized that fanqie is not spelling as we normally think of it in alphabetic languages.  In principle, it divides Chinese character pronunciations into two parts—an initial and a rhyme—so that the character 東 &lt;em&gt;dōng&lt;/em&gt; would be split up into &lt;em&gt;d-&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;-ōng&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But these two parts would not be represented using new symbols introduced only for phonetic purposes, which would have been the beginning of a true spelling system.  Instead, two other existing characters would be selected, one that shared the initial, and one that shared the rhyme.  In the Qieyun, these characters were 德 &lt;em&gt;dé&lt;/em&gt; and 紅 &lt;em&gt;hóng&lt;/em&gt;, and so 東 was understood to have a pronunciation that shared the &lt;em&gt;d-&lt;/em&gt; with 德 and the &lt;em&gt;-óng&lt;/em&gt; with 紅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be sure, 東 is first tone and 紅 is second tone, but at the time of the Qieyun (Middle Chinese), both characters were level tone, and what we call level (first) and rising (second) tone are the result of a register split that happened in all four Middle Chinese tones, &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; the time of the Qieyun.  Mandarin preserves this split of the level tone, but only keeps one side of the rising tone in its third tone, one side of the departing tone in its fourth tone, and loses (in most areas) the entering tone altogether.  Other dialects, such as Cantonese, preserve most of the results of the split.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that fanqie merely expresses the pronunciation of one character in terms of two others, so just as someone who is ignorant of English would find it difficult to learn it from a dictionary, someone who is ignorant of &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; characters cannot learn anything about the pronunciation of &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; character from fanqie &quot;spellings&quot;.  (Also, as a side note, the Qieyun was not intended as a general-use pronunciation reference, but was rather dedicated to Classical readings.)  We might say that equivalence classes of initials and finals are generated by the fanqie spellings, but no explicit values are denoted.  That requires a set of specialized phonetic symbols such as an alphabet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as the characters are concerned, they were not always so complicated; in many cases, the so-called &quot;simplified&quot; characters are actually the original form, and what we call &quot;traditional&quot; characters were later elaborations to distinguish two characters with the same pronunciation but radically (pun only partially intended) different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This came about in part because of the use of 假借 &lt;em&gt;jiǎjiè&lt;/em&gt;, or borrowing, in which an existing Chinese character with (typically) a concrete meaning, and therefore a straightforward pictorial or representational depiction, was borrowed for another word with the same pronunciation.  One of the most (in)famous examples is 來 &lt;em&gt;lái&lt;/em&gt; &quot;come&quot;, whose character represents a wheat stalk, a meaning now captured by the character 麥 &lt;em&gt;mài&lt;/em&gt; &quot;wheat&quot;.  The simpler character was borrowed for the more common meaning, which led some people to speculate that there was a form &lt;em&gt;lái&lt;/em&gt; that meant &quot;wheat&quot;—but in fact, the situation is simpler than that: The original character for &quot;come&quot; was 麥—note the presence of the foot radical at the bottom—so the two characters merely &quot;switched places&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of extended usage is fine if you only want to write something down to remind you of what you yourself meant, but if you want to convey something to someone else, it behooves you to specify it more precisely, which I suspect gave rise to the use of 形聲字 &lt;em&gt;xíngshēngzì&lt;/em&gt;, or phonetic-semantic compounds, which account for the vast majority of Chinese characters (around 90 percent, depending on whose count you trust*).  The phonetic components of many of these characters were themselves compounds already, leading to a large nested structure and the array of complicated traditional characters you observe.  (This complication, by the way, is why on the mainland, you'll typically see traditional characters referred to as 繁體字 fántǐzì, to allude to their complexity, whereas Taiwan often refers to them as 正體字 zhèngtǐzì, to allude to their &quot;correctness&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, Chinese writing evolved organically, as the result of countless scribes working independently, and even with the efforts of the Qin dynasty to keep things straight, lots of characters were standardized that today seem pointlessly complicated.  Whether simplified Chinese measurably helps literacy is a different and difficult question to answer, because that too was done somewhat organically and not always consistently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.  Some of this is just general knowledge, but a couple of (English-language) reference sources that I've found useful are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ramsey, S. Robert, &lt;em&gt;The Languages of China&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Schuessler, Axel, &lt;em&gt;ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Interestingly, the percentage varies from source to source, but there seems to be general agreement on how many characters are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; phonetic-semantic compounds—about 1500—and so the variation in percentage arises almost wholly from how many characters are reckoned to be used in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9824" LastEditorUserId="9824" LastEditDate="2016-12-01T08:47:17.533" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T08:47:17.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13344" CreationDate="2016-12-01T01:04:30.597" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems that you have had the right answer (and you even asked your own question). But your question does stimulate my curiosity. And I search some resources from 漢語大詞典 and Web. Here are what I have found, hoping these information would help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1. Defining「老」and「子」&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;老&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前綴。放在某些指人或動植物的名詞前，構成名詞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;▶ 唐·寒山《詩》之二六八：“老鼠入飯甕，雖飽難出頭。”如：老虎、老玉米、老百姓。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;子&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;名詞後綴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;▶ 《宋書•朱齡石傳》：“齡石使舅臥於聽事一頭，剪紙一方寸，帖着舅枕，自以刀子懸擲之。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;▶ 唐·張鷟《游仙窟》：“千嬌眼子，天上失其流星；一搦腰支，洛浦愧其迴雪。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;▶ 宋·羅大經《鶴林玉露》卷十：“誠齋曰：‘相公且子細，秀才子口頭言語，豈可便信！’雍公大笑。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;▶ 清·黃宗羲《馬雪航詩序》：“程子言性即理，差為近之。然當其澄然，在中，滿腔子皆惻隱之心。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;▶ 張天翼《春風》：“這麼着他細細裏嚼着，臉子微微地側着，好像在那裏欣賞自己那種文雅的嚼聲。”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;某些量詞的後綴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;▶ 《朱子語類》卷一•四：“今日看《中庸》，只看一段子。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;▶ 劉半農《麵包與鹽》：“一個錋子的鹽，擱上半喇子兒的大蔥。”如：兩下子，那陣子；幾幫子；一輩子。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用於動詞、形容詞詞素之後，構成名詞或名詞性詞組。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;▶ 《封神演義》第十二回：“夫人曰：‘我兒，你往哪裏耍子，便去這半日？’”如：胖子；墊子；矮子。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2. Answers from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;知乎 (Zhi Hu)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The followings are my understandings after reading some valuable answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we add prefix 「老」 before animal nouns, we want to show the respect and reverence. So your example 「老虎」「老鼠」 could be explained. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may wonder why Chinese people add 「老」 before「鼠」: Shouldn't this animal be bad because mice always stole?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Ancient China, people treat mouse as a holy animal because mouse is smart and agile, and it has strong reproductive capacity. Some clans even see mice as totem. And this &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; explain why Mouse is the first on Chinese Zodiac.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 「獅子」, an explain is that 「獅子」is a foreign words. This animal doesn't originate from China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a word, when you try to comprehend the definition of a word or a phrase, you'd better think as the way Old Chinese did, because there are huge differences between Old Chinese and Modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15825" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T01:04:30.597" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22026" CreationDate="2016-12-01T02:16:30.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Explaining from the angle of Mandarin, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肥胖 -&gt; it is a noun form meaning obesity. Obesity is a specific term, and is referring to general public, so you should not use it simply to say someone is fat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;胖 is used with people in other situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肥: I don't think it is used with people in Mandarin, but only for other objects and usually used to make compound words only. Ex: 肥牛(fat cow), 肥皂(soap)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI, 肥 is still used with people, but not in Mandarin, mostly in Cantonese speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T02:16:30.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22032" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22036" CreationDate="2016-12-01T03:09:31.347" Score="9" ViewCount="687" Body="&lt;p&gt;So first off, I feel I should specify I am a beginner at Chinese. In my Chinese class, we were asked to write down a progressive question, using the 在...(呢) format. My question was, 你们没在去吗？ which I interpreted as, &quot;aren't you going?&quot;. Another student asked a similar question, with the verb 回来. My teacher said that in Chinese, 去 and 回来 are not used with 在 to become progressive. Why are these verbs exceptions and what other verb have the same exception?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15884" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T09:47:19.400" Title="Why can't 去 or 回来 be used with 在 or 正在 to become progressive" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22034" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-01T06:17:48.873" Score="2" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from near the  beginning of 三国演义 and I am already puzzled：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把何进部下的兵都收归己有。 Maybe: He （收？) recaptured / imprisoned all the troops under 何进's command &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;归己有： returned them to his own command ??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;收 is '收复‘ or '收监‘ or some other word？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-22T04:12:39.240" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T04:12:39.240" Title="What does 收 mean in 他把何进部下的兵都收归己有?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22034" CreationDate="2016-12-01T06:46:36.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;收 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/687/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/687/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] [v] receive; accept; &lt;strong&gt;take&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歸 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2343/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2343/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;strong&gt;belong to&lt;/strong&gt;; rest with; be in charge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;己= self&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有= possession&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;收歸己有 = &amp;quot;take possession and make it belong to oneself&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a common phrase &amp;quot;收歸國有&amp;quot;, which means &amp;quot;Take possession (of a company) and assign it to become State-owned &amp;quot; . Similarly &amp;quot;收歸己有&amp;quot; in your sentence would mean : &amp;quot;&amp;quot;Take possession (of an army) and assign it to become Self-owned &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T09:24:12.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22032" CreationDate="2016-12-01T13:09:52.670" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is &quot;habit&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because we don't write or talk in that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, both 肥 and 胖 mean &quot;fat&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We call a fat person as 胖子.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;肥子 is not usual because we don't have the habit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is going to school.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We translate it into 他在去學校的途中.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We don't have the habit to say 他在去學校.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That fat guy is going to school.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那胖子在去學校的路上。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;??? 那肥子在去學校。 ???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides 去 and 來, 返, 歸, 往 and 到 are also included.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;These verbs are used together with something like &quot;on the way (途中／路上)&quot; to express the progressive tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回 is acceptable. For instance,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Q: &quot;他有沒有回電話？&quot; (Did he call back?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A: &quot;他正在回。&quot; (He is calling back.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="15652" LastEditDate="2016-12-02T01:48:17.063" LastActivityDate="2016-12-02T01:48:17.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13344" CreationDate="2016-12-01T21:43:25.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wish to leave comment instead, but I am new user, so...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some Chinese words @Thomas Hsieh mentioned in answer and comment are wrong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, I'm pretty sure 鼠佬 and 虎佬 are not used in Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, and Written Chinese. I can't get any meaning from them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, 甜頭 does not mean sweetness. It means benefit (好處), the opposite of 苦頭.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest, I never realise 老虎 and 老鼠 have the same prefix. I can't think of any reason why 老虎 and 老鼠 have 老 as prefix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS I am native Cantonese speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15890" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T21:43:25.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21997" CreationDate="2016-12-02T02:27:00.447" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the Youdao Dictionary（有道词典），the word ‘clout’ means influence （影响力）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15892" LastActivityDate="2016-12-02T02:27:00.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21705" CreationDate="2016-12-02T10:01:08.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;琳 used for female's name. You can put 玉 as part of your name and the full name will be 玉霖 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13557" LastActivityDate="2016-12-02T10:01:08.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22042" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22045" CreationDate="2016-12-02T12:43:13.887" Score="2" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;to my understanding a radical is the smallest character you can disassemble a word into (correct me if I`m wrong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the radical &lt;code&gt;辵&lt;/code&gt; seems to be a combination out of two other radicals: &lt;code&gt;止&lt;/code&gt; (in the form of &lt;code&gt;龰&lt;/code&gt;) and &lt;code&gt;彡&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3766" LastActivityDate="2016-12-03T17:41:30.737" Title="Question to radical (部首)&quot;辵&quot;" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21305" CreationDate="2016-12-02T15:29:59.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;恶心&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;噁心&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.junyiacademy.org/root/english-vocabulary1/dragon-book1-lesson2-new/v/dD_itrx5yK0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;junyiacademy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;disgust: 使感到噁心, disgusting, 令人噁心的, disgusted, 感到噁心的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pU8dv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pU8dv.png&quot; alt=&quot;one&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KvOT2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KvOT2.png&quot; alt=&quot;two&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also a video here explaning: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD_itrx5yK0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD_itrx5yK0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-02T15:29:59.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22042" CreationDate="2016-12-02T17:48:09.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A radical is not necessarily the smallest character you can assemble a word into, at least not in the purely visual way that you are thinking about it. It is a semantic element used for classification of Chinese characters, which are complex and may have many strokes similar or identical to those found in other characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today the standard for Chinese dictionaries is the 214 Kangxi radicals (康熙部首). These are what is used to classify Chinese characters. An older classification recognized even more radicals (check out 說文解字 if you are curious), but that's not important right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the short answer is that there are 214 radicals (that you can and should look up to get familiar with) recognized as such for convenience of classification, and they are not meant to be broken down into their stroke elements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another example:&#xA;火, which means fire, appears to have 人 in it, but this is a visual coincidence. 火 is the modern character derived from what was once a pictograph of flames (check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=2417&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=2417&lt;/a&gt;). To say that it is made up of a person and two dots would be incorrect. Visually, you could decompose the character in this way, but it would be a meaningless decomposition. If you kept pulling apart characters like this, eventually you would be left with the basic strokes of Chinese characters, which in themselves mean nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13907" LastEditorUserId="13907" LastEditDate="2016-12-03T16:48:12.020" LastActivityDate="2016-12-03T16:48:12.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22042" CreationDate="2016-12-02T18:04:30.323" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your idea is correct, at least most Chinese people agree with this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in this case, &lt;code&gt;辵&lt;/code&gt; is acturally combined of &lt;code&gt;彳&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;止&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;彳&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;walk slowly&quot; or &quot;the step with left foot&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;止&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;stop&quot; or &quot;halt&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;辵&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;walk one moment and stop the next“.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While &lt;code&gt;彡&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;plume&quot;, obviously having no connection with &lt;code&gt;辵&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, only &lt;code&gt;止&lt;/code&gt; is frequently used in daily life; &lt;code&gt;彳&lt;/code&gt; may occur in some poetry; &lt;code&gt;辵&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;彡&lt;/code&gt; is never used (unless you are studying the articals or books from thousand years ago).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辵：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/js/8FB5.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/js/8FB5.htm&lt;/a&gt; (Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, due to my low reputation, I am only ably to post 1 link. You may find explnation for other characters on that website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15897" LastEditorUserId="15897" LastEditDate="2016-12-03T17:41:30.737" LastActivityDate="2016-12-03T17:41:30.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22042" CreationDate="2016-12-03T08:28:57.087" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not to dismiss most part of @Patrick and @CFSO6459's answers, I want to add that they are not entirely right to try to make &lt;em&gt;too much sense&lt;/em&gt; of &lt;code&gt;部首&lt;/code&gt;(radical). &#xA;The first attempt of &lt;em&gt;modern radical system&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=1417&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;字彙&lt;/a&gt; in Ming era. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suffice to say, the radical system is only an &lt;em&gt;attempted&lt;/em&gt; classification for the &lt;em&gt;convenience&lt;/em&gt;, based upon &lt;em&gt;modern&lt;/em&gt; looking of Chinese characters. &#xA;In fact, the Simplified Chinese cannot even fit the Ming's 214-radical-system, and PROC gov't made their own &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%83%A8%E9%A6%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;adjustment&lt;/a&gt;, and this has always generated some outrage among traditionalist ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Radicals does not necessarily (though mostly) conform to the historical composition of characters, nor do they represent a certain meaning, nor can they not split into smaller part. &#xA;The radical are often nonimportant part, or even nonexistant originally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, not all sensical components are preserved. &#xA;The char. &lt;code&gt;秋&lt;/code&gt;(autumn) is originally the artificial fire to expel locusts and its eggs; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E7%A7%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;see here for Oracle&lt;/a&gt;. But the locust is nowhere seen now. If the radical were the most important part, by all means the locust should be the radical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More striking is &lt;code&gt;法&lt;/code&gt;, rule or (modern sense) law. &#xA;If you see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Oracle&lt;/a&gt;, it is a deer-like animal with &#xA;Some scholars claim that the deer-like animal, in the mythology, &lt;em&gt;expel&lt;/em&gt; (去) bad guys (compare &lt;a href=&quot;https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/c5/94/3b/c5943b89655f0b8b7f4d16a7d1ef35f7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anubis&lt;/a&gt; in Egyptian mythology). &#xA;The detail need not concern us here, but to note that the radical &lt;code&gt;水&lt;/code&gt; now has rid of the most important part --- the deer or whatever. &#xA;The original shape is preserved in the obsolete word &lt;code&gt;灋&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/558832/19776045.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/subview/558832/19776045.htm&lt;/a&gt;), still seen in calligraphy, or plaques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometime only a portion of the radical appeared. &#xA;An example more relevant to this question is &lt;code&gt;途&lt;/code&gt;, an avenue. &#xA;The original &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E9%80%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;shape&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;止&lt;/code&gt; is not &lt;em&gt;to stop&lt;/em&gt;, but &lt;strong&gt;a foot&lt;/strong&gt;, whose shape tells everything: it still resembles one's foot bones. &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;There is no&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;辵&lt;/code&gt;, but only &lt;code&gt;止&lt;/code&gt;. No! The radical &lt;code&gt;辵&lt;/code&gt; was invented, in the attempt to systemize. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are times that the radical does not even exist in the original char. &#xA;A stranger component was replaced by a common radical to standardize. &#xA;A still better example is &lt;code&gt;朕&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E6%9C%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Oracle&lt;/a&gt;). &#xA;Originally, it was two hands lifting at piece of wood besides a boat, probably meaning &lt;strong&gt;mending&lt;/strong&gt;. &#xA;At last, it was borrowed to be the homophone &quot;I&quot; (=oneself), and at last used exclusively by emperors. &#xA;But the now-radical is &lt;code&gt;肉&lt;/code&gt;, meat. &#xA;The &lt;code&gt;舟&lt;/code&gt; becomes the similar-shaped &lt;code&gt;肉&lt;/code&gt; in the effort of standardize, which is not logical.&#xA;There is nothing to hint &lt;em&gt;boat&lt;/em&gt;, by shape, by sound, by meaning. The link is gone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally let me add as an digression that the view that the traditional Chinese, to be sure, has its own beauty, but it is nonsense to say the original meaning can be seen even in modern orthography. More than often, there is none. You have to just memorize it, period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastEditorUserId="15859" LastEditDate="2016-12-03T08:53:18.480" LastActivityDate="2016-12-03T08:53:18.480" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22047" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22049" CreationDate="2016-12-03T19:21:11.117" Score="3" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is 死間 in English and the second way of describing this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All I know it is a type of spy. Is the English word kind of technical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="922" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-12-10T05:45:05.113" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T05:45:05.113" Title="What is 死間 in English and is there a second way in English that could describe this?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22047" CreationDate="2016-12-03T22:04:02.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term 死間 (doomed spies) came from the last chapter of 《孫子兵法》(The Art of War)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13: 用間 - The Use of Spies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/art-of-war/use-of-spies&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/art-of-war/use-of-spies&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用間:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  故用間有五：有鄉間、有內間、有反間、有&lt;strong&gt;死間&lt;/strong&gt;、有生間。五間俱起，莫知其道，是謂神紀，人君之寶也。鄉間者，因其鄉人而用之。內間者，因其官人而用之。反間者，因其敵間而用之。&lt;strong&gt;死間者，為誑事于外，令吾間知之，而傳于敵&lt;/strong&gt;。生間者，反報也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hence the use of spies, of whom there are five classes: (1) Local spies; (2) inward spies; (3) converted spies; (4) &lt;strong&gt;doomed spies&lt;/strong&gt;; (5) surviving spies. When these five kinds of spy are all at work, none can discover the secret system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Having doomed spies, doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and report them to the enemy.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern term, 死間 (doomed spies) are basically &quot;deception / sabotage agents&quot; Their actions are visible. In contrast to 生間 (surviving spies) , whose main function are to secretly gather and report information to their own state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-04T09:37:08.543" LastActivityDate="2016-12-04T09:37:08.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22050" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-04T06:20:33.397" Score="4" ViewCount="2098" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the general pattern for asking questions of the form &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it because ...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My most naïve guess would be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是为什么。。。？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15901" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-22T01:12:09.420" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T01:12:09.420" Title="How to ask &quot;Is it because...&quot; questions" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22050" CreationDate="2016-12-04T09:16:38.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact this is a sentence that enhances the reason why……? And now you can reguard it in English, something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's because I saved a sick man that I was late for school……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To translate this into Chinese directly, this means：是因为AA，所以导致BB的后果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Change this to English in question：Is it &lt;strong&gt;because you saved a sick man&lt;/strong&gt; that you were late for school?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To translate this into Chinese directly, this means：&lt;strong&gt;是因为AA才导致BB吗？&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we always ignore something according to the actual context, and such statement as this always happens when a teacher see that you are late for school, and maybe the student will make a dialog like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Teacher: Why are you late for school?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Student: It's beause I saved a sick man (that I was late for school). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Teacher: Really？&lt;strong&gt;Is it because you saved a sick man&lt;/strong&gt; (that you were late for school)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是真的吗？&lt;strong&gt;是因为你救了一个病人&lt;/strong&gt;（以至于你上学迟到了？）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2016-12-04T09:16:38.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22026" CreationDate="2016-12-04T10:17:34.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the very insightful answers so far, I would like to quote a fragment from &lt;a href=&quot;http://keatschinese.com/en/knowledge/lesson-10-elementary-free-chinese-lessons-%E5%8F%91%E8%BE%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Keat’s Chinese&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In our daily life, we may sometimes want to describe somebody is fat.&#xA;  So when if you learn Chinese language in China, you should know the&#xA;  two different words expressing fat “胖” and “肥”, both are opposite to&#xA;  “thin”. The difference is that we use them to different objects. “胖”&#xA;  is often used to describe the person such as “身体发胖” and “长得胖”. On the&#xA;  contrary, “肥” is to applied to animals or the clothes or shoes. So we&#xA;  can say “肥肉” and “肥猪” as well as “裤子有点儿肥”. So it is very impolite if&#xA;  we say somebody is “肥”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2016-12-04T10:17:34.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22053" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-04T12:51:06.933" Score="0" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if the Wade-Giles pronunciation of &quot;Shih&quot;, as in &quot;Chiang Chieh-shih&quot; is pronounced the same as the Pinyin pronunciation of &quot;Shi&quot; as in &quot;Jiang Jieshi&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15902" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T17:57:28.070" Title="Is Wade-Giles &quot;Shih&quot; pronounced the same as Pinyin &quot;Shi&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22004" CreationDate="2016-12-04T20:30:56.857" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;“挾怨報復”：心懷怨恨而報仇（bear resentment against somebody and retaliate）。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這的確是很常用的詞語，但大部分詞典只有相同意思的“挾嫌報復”。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is indeed a very common word. But most of the dictionaries list only &quot;挾嫌報復&quot; which has the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果前輩很喜歡“雞蛋裡挑骨頭”或刻意曲解你的報告，是可以用此詞。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If the predecessor is very picky or deliberately twists your reports, you do be able to use this term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“一朝權在手，便把令來行”：一旦握有權勢，便下命令。(Once the ascendancy is held, the commands are given.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這和你敘述的情形只有一點相關，就是：他因為是前輩，所以比較有權勢。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;但這句不含“故意找麻煩（報仇）”的意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“便把令來行”不一定和報仇有關。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There is only one point related to the situation; i.e., because of being a senior, he is more powerful.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But this sentence doesn't mean &quot;deliberately looking for trouble (revenge)&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;便把令來行&quot; is not necessarily related to revenge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“心胸狹窄，倚勢挾權”：此二詞連在一起是指“度量小的人濫用權勢”。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這和你敘述的情形有兩點相關：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;其一，你指正他，但他不能包容，是和“心胸狹窄”有關。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;其二，他用前輩的權勢。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這句有一點“報仇”的意思，但不太明顯。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;心胸狹窄，倚勢挾權&quot;: These two phrases together mean that &quot;a narrow-minded person abuses the privilege&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There are two aspects related to the case.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. You corrected his reports, but he couldn't tolerate. It's connected with &quot;心胸狹窄&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. He takes advantage of the power of a predecessor.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This sentence implies &quot;revenge&quot; a little, but less obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“倚老賣老”：賣弄老資格 (to flaunt one's seniority)。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這和你敘述的情形只有一點相關，就是：他是前輩。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is relevant only to that &quot;he is a predecessor&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“竊弄威權”：暗地裡玩弄權勢 (to abuse authority secretly)。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這和你敘述的情形只有一點相關，就是：他用前輩的權勢。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is related to that &quot;he uses the power of a predecessor&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比較這幾個詞語，還是“挾怨報復／挾嫌報復”較適用。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Comparison of these words, &quot;挾怨報復／挾嫌報復&quot; is still more applicable.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Good choice!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2016-12-04T20:30:56.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22047" CreationDate="2016-12-05T01:26:03.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Spying will always be a risky business. I think 孙子's categories:有鄉間、有內間、有反間、有死間、有生間 are arbitrary and overlapping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a spy and you get caught, especially in time of war, you will be mined for information, i.e. tortured and most probably summarily executed,because you are not a soldier in his uniform except if you are useful in a prisoner swap.It is not a case of &quot;OK, $ 20 fine and don't do it again, off you go.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best word I can think of in English for 死間 is French, but has been adopted by 'les Anglais': agent provocateur. Basically, provoke a reaction from the other side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is not clear to me from this explanation gleaned from baidu is, does the &#xA;死間 know his or her information is false? (I know I have been warned not to believe everything baidu has, but this explanation seems to fit.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;死间，是指制造散布假情报，通过我方间谍将假情报传给敌间，诱使敌人上当，一旦事情败露，我间难免一死。也有用死来达到迷惑敌人的目的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-12-05T01:26:03.180" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22056" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22065" CreationDate="2016-12-05T04:32:57.170" Score="2" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;Saw this on Twitter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/avq87.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/avq87.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;yes&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4 new elements = 4 new Chinese characters (since every new element generally gets a newly-invented character).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, I found this &lt;a href=&quot;http://m.mydrivers.com/newsview.aspx?id=486061&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; which says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;化学元素周期表原子序113的新元素将命名为“Nihonium”，元素符号为“Nh”,“Nihon”是“日本”的日语发音，中文名称则尚未决定。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How are new element names/characters decided?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T01:39:00.477" Title="How are new element names/characters decided?" Tags="&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22061" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22062" CreationDate="2016-12-05T19:37:49.820" Score="-1" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can &quot;被世界遗忘的人&quot; be translated as &quot;A person forgotten by the world&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my understanding of 被 correct here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15915" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T17:49:31.657" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T17:49:31.657" Title="The translation of 被世界遗忘的人" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22061" CreationDate="2016-12-05T22:00:05.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it can, but 人 can mean &quot;person&quot; or &quot;people&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to use counting word and classifier (一個 ) to indicate it is a person,  and write &quot;一個被世界遗忘的人&quot; (a person who is forgotten by the world). If you meant &quot;The people who are forgotten by the world&quot; then the sentence would be  &quot;一群被世界遗忘的人&quot;(add counting word and classifier 一群 )or &quot; 被世界遗忘的人們&quot;(use plural marker 們 and write 人們 ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question of &quot;Does 被 mean by?&quot; had been asked and answered here- &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5130/doesnt-%e8%a2%ab-mean-by&quot;&gt;Doesn&amp;#39;t 被 mean &amp;quot;by&amp;quot;?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;To check if a similar question had been asked, you can type in key words on the 'Search Q &amp;amp; A' box on the upper right corner of the page.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-12-05T22:13:37.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16114" CreationDate="2016-12-06T01:09:35.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0774805412&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar&lt;/a&gt; by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/journal/jcl/editors_edwin.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Edwin Pulleyblank&lt;/a&gt;, 蔑 may mean ‘destroy’, but is also a negative particle, used mostly in 左傳 and 國語.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;em&gt;Miè&lt;/em&gt; 蔑 is a] form corresponding to &lt;em&gt;wú&lt;/em&gt; 無 ‘not have’ in the same way that [...] &lt;em&gt;wù&lt;/em&gt; 勿 corresponds to &lt;em&gt;wú&lt;/em&gt; 毋 ‘do not.’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's what Pulleyblank writes about the relation of 勿 and 毋:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, the ancestral forms of the two graphs on the oracle bones appear to have an aspectual distinction, while in the Warring States period there is reason to think that the final -t of &lt;em&gt;wù&lt;/em&gt; 勿 may have been interpreted as the incorporated object pronoun &lt;em&gt;zhī&lt;/em&gt; 之.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, he writes that in 勿 in the Warring States period was interpreted to be the same as 毋之. The “aspectual distinction” from the earlier period seems to be the distinction between an unmarked sentence and a sentence ending with 矣, which is analysed by Pulleyblank as expressing the perfect aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here is an example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;臣出晉君，君納重耳，蔑濟矣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I expel the ruler of Jìn and you bring in Chóng'ĕr, everything will be successful. (Zuŏ Xī 10/&lt;em&gt;fù&lt;/em&gt;. Literally: ‘there will be no not succeeding’)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T01:09:35.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22056" CreationDate="2016-12-06T01:39:00.477" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;4 new elements = 4 new Chinese characters? I also know that 4 new elements = 4 new English words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually these new elements have no relationship with China:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;113: Nihonium (Nh) is from Nihon, another name of Japan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;115: Moscovium (Mc) comes from the city name Moscow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;117: Tennessine(Ts) comes from Tennessee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;118: Oganesson (Og) comes from Russian physicist Yuri Oganessian&#xA;  (1933-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how is a new element are named in Chinese? Here's Official standards from 全国科学技术名词审定委员会:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;化学元素的符号是国际通用的，化学元素的命名由于语种的不同，会有较大的差异。化学元素名称的汉译，自晚清开始译入到21世纪的今天，历经了百年，形成了化学元素自有的中文定名原则：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（1)根据尽量少造新字的原则，在元素定名需要造字时，尽量选用已有的古字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（2）选用或新造汉字应符合国家汉字规范。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（3）符合以形声字为主体的汉字书写特点，以体现元素的性质，发音靠近国际命名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（4)避免与以前的元素名称同音，避免用多音字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（5)使用简化字，避免用怪异字，选用笔画少的字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（6)为了避免歧义，选字应尽量避开生活常用字和已经用做其他行业专用字的汉字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（7)尽量采用繁简无差别的字，以利于海峡两岸和汉语圈科技术语的统一。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to know more about how CHINESE name of new elements are decided, check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnctst.cn/xwdt/zhxw/201611/t20161117_354742.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;全国科学技术名词审定委员会 Official Site&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. They are collecting new names of these 4 new elements. If you have good idea, also check out this website to submit your name suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15825" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T01:39:00.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22066" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22093" CreationDate="2016-12-06T08:58:28.153" Score="4" ViewCount="1289" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone tell me how to write to &quot;everyone&quot; in Chinese. The symbol to write &quot;everyone &quot;. In a video they showed it to write people symbol 2 times. But when I am searching on Google it is not correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15919" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-12-10T05:42:46.633" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T06:10:07.780" Title="How to write &quot;Everyone&quot; in Chinese？" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22066" CreationDate="2016-12-06T09:15:05.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What have you found on google？It should be “每个人”、“大伙儿”和“大家”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you can mean “大众”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use Google's Translation to translate it from English to Chinese：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NlyHx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NlyHx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T09:15:05.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22066" CreationDate="2016-12-06T09:16:18.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is actually writing the people symbol for 3 times&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;众 - means a crowd of people or a huge group of people &lt;br&gt;&#xA;人 - means people,basically&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The word you are saying , writing the people symbol 2 times is &lt;br&gt;&#xA;从 - means from somewhere and etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15908" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T09:16:18.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21712" CreationDate="2016-12-06T09:48:39.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically,it's more appropriate to say &quot;学校餐厅的开支增加了，这样一来，菜价就会上涨了&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15918" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T09:48:39.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22026" CreationDate="2016-12-06T10:20:15.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's easy to distinguish them:&#xA;肥 is  more appropriate to describe animals like &quot;好肥的羊/牛/猪&quot;&#xA;胖 is  more appropriate to describe human like &quot;你/他/她 好胖&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Former two are adjective &#xA;While 肥胖 it's a noun,it's a status, usually  be used alone like &quot;肥胖的原因是…&quot;/&quot;…导致了肥胖&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15918" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T10:20:15.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22066" CreationDate="2016-12-06T10:48:58.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is not so straightforward, depends on context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生活总是让&lt;strong&gt;我们&lt;/strong&gt;遍体鳞伤,&#xA;The world breaks everyone (我们）, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人都到齐了。&#xA;Everyone (人都） is present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1998年对所有人来说都是重要的一年：&#xA;1998 was an important year for everyone (所有人 都）:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家都认为它有很大改进。 &#xA;Everyone (大家都） considered it a great improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T10:48:58.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21340" CreationDate="2016-12-06T12:09:50.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a good version from  &quot;The Analects&quot; by D.C. Lau&#xA;Zeng zi said,&quot; A Gentleman must be strong and resolute, for his burden is heavy and the road is long. He takes benevolence as his burden. Is that not heavy? Only with death does the road come to an end. Is that not long?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15920" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T12:09:50.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21712" CreationDate="2016-12-06T13:13:05.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original sentences contains redundancy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though I can &quot;fill in the blank&quot; as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学校餐厅的开支增加了，这样一来，餐厅&lt;code&gt;的食物就会涨价&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will like this more&#xA;开支增加了，这样一来，学校餐厅&lt;code&gt;的食物就会涨价&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;better  : &#xA;开支增加了，学校餐厅&lt;code&gt;就会涨价， 把成本转移到学生身上&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T13:13:05.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22066" CreationDate="2016-12-06T22:25:19.750" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们＝we, us&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;everyone＝每人，人人，每个&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;every&quot; means 每 in Chinese.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;one&quot; indicates people or thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the correct translation would be 每人 or 每个; and, in Chinese, 每人 is the same as 人人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastEditorUserId="15850" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T04:41:39.770" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T04:41:39.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22066" CreationDate="2016-12-06T23:18:32.363" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common word for &quot;everyone&quot; is &quot;大家&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, since you mentioned &quot;people symbol 2 times&quot;, you are probably looking for &quot;人人&quot;, which is a special form for a few words. For example 人人 is everybody, 天天 is every day and so on. It is in fact a short form for 每个人 (each person).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2821" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T23:18:32.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16114" CreationDate="2016-12-06T23:39:40.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From XinHua dictionary:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;蔑&lt;br&gt;&#xA;（⑤衊）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;miè&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. 目受伤而不明。eye injury so can't see or see clearly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. 无，没有：蔑以复加。none, nothing: can't be more...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. 小：蔑视。轻蔑。little, down: contempt&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4. 灭：“而蔑杀其民人，宜吾不敢服也”。eliminate&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5. 涂染：诬蔑。污蔑。 drawing (bad things): vilification&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient Chinese, 蔑 was used as &quot;none, nothing or to eliminate&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But now we use it as &quot;little or down&quot; (like 蔑视, 轻蔑) and &quot;drawing (bad things to somebody)&quot; (like 污蔑).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastEditorUserId="15850" LastEditDate="2016-12-07T09:13:09.140" LastActivityDate="2016-12-07T09:13:09.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22061" CreationDate="2016-12-06T23:51:04.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we say 人们, then the correct translation should be &quot;people&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But 人 most often means a single person or a human being.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps:&#xA;Can I say &quot;most often&quot;?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I am a Chinese who is learning English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastEditorUserId="15850" LastEditDate="2016-12-07T22:26:24.527" LastActivityDate="2016-12-07T22:26:24.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22078" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22082" CreationDate="2016-12-07T10:12:19.867" Score="2" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently found out that there is a phrase in 彝语 (Yi) which equates to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;杀只鸡，你死了我开心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried finding some references to this online, but to no avail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the original Yi phrase is available I would like to see it too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T14:57:48.337" Title="Reference: （彝语）杀只鸡，你死了我开心" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22079" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-07T12:53:21.723" Score="8" ViewCount="1820" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like several other languages, Standard Chinese has different words for &quot;older brother&quot; (哥哥), &quot;younger brother&quot; (弟弟), &quot;older sister&quot; (姐姐) and &quot;younger sister&quot; (妹妹). However, many languages don't express this type of age relationship by means of nouns only, but by means of optional adjectives. Examples include English, German, French and Dutch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when translating words such as &quot;brother&quot; and &quot;sister&quot; (in the singular form!) in texts from the latter category of languages into Chinese and when there is no context that indicates the age difference, what do Chinese translators do? As far as I know, words such as 兄弟 (&quot;brother&quot;) and 兄弟姐妹 (&quot;brothers and sisters&quot;)) aren't used to refer to a single sibling and wouldn't be correct as translation for, e.g., (singular) &quot;brother&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I hope it is clear that this is not a simple &quot;translate-this-for-me&quot; question, but a question of how translators deal with this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T05:12:10.387" Title="How are ambiguous “brother” and “sister” typically translated into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22079" CreationDate="2016-12-07T13:19:24.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;maybe 昆仲, 昆季; these 2 are very elegant terms for &quot;brother&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000078439&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000078439&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000078438&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000078438&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-12-07T13:19:24.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22078" CreationDate="2016-12-07T14:29:19.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Slaughter a chicken as an offering to thanks gods&quot; is a common expression in Chinese, meaning: &quot;something to celebrate for; something to thanks gods for&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, it is 要劏雞還神 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 如果你死咗，我就要劏雞還神 ( if you died，I will have to celebrate / thanks the gods )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The wording differs from dialect to dialect. For example,  要劏雞還神 in Mandarin would be 要殺雞酬神 and in other dialects, including Yi,  屠 or 宰 may replace 劏 or 殺; other animal may replace chicken, but the basic premise would not be too far apart in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-12-07T14:29:19.633" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22083" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22084" CreationDate="2016-12-07T20:50:32.433" Score="5" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had always known 关 to be for close and 管 to be for caring&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;关门 and 不管他&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I saw a translation for care into 关照.  Which confused me, because it sounded like the wrong Guan.  But after looking it up, it turns out &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#en/zh-CN/care&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a lot of phrases&lt;/a&gt; use 关 for care&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the first definition for 管 is actually tube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here are the phrases where I'm confused at:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我不关心&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我不管&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我不在乎&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are all three of these interchangeable at any point?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or are there subtle differences in scenarios in which you'd use each?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T21:53:36.033" Title="Difference between 关 and 管 in the context of caring?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22083" CreationDate="2016-12-07T21:39:17.430" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;While all three can be translated as &quot;I don't care&quot; from time to time, there are still subtle differences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我不关心&quot; typically means &quot;I am less/no interested in something&quot;. For example, &quot;我不关心政治&quot; (&quot;I don't care about politics&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我不管&quot; is typically used in the case where you insist on something despite the constraints and/or the potential consequence. You acknowledge the presence of the constraints/consequences, but you care less about them. For example, &quot;我不管老闆怎麼想，我下週就是要請假&quot; (&quot;I don't care how my boss thinks. I will take vacation next week.&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also reguard “我不管” as “No matter what happens, I must do something……”. And this is usually used in some senarios that is bad or not very good for you, and you have something mood of 破罐子破摔 (Bad as it is). So this is something in the extreme situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please see this dialog：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈：天冷了，别出去了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我：我想看外婆，外婆病着呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈：那你打一个电话问候一声吧。再说你这几天自己也不舒服呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我：&lt;strong&gt;不管了&lt;/strong&gt;，外婆病重得很，我一定要去看！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the 2nd meaning：&lt;strong&gt;我不管Something&lt;/strong&gt;（This means I'm not reponsible for something, it has nothing to do with me.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我不在乎&quot; is similar to &quot;我不管&quot;, but in the cases you care far less about the constraints and/or the potential consequence. For example, &quot;我不在乎花多少錢, 請醫好我兒子&quot; (&quot;I don't care how much it costs. Please save my son.&quot;). This is much less in mood, compared with 我不管, a neutral word used to mean that you are trying your best to do something with any possible solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the 2nd meaning：我不在乎 sometimes also means “我不介意，不关心某事” (This usually means something happening doesn't effect on me seriously or in faulty).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can understand this in the senario：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爸爸：你为何政治考试不及格？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学生：反正政治是副科，无所谓的，&lt;strong&gt;我不在乎&lt;/strong&gt;。(I don't care about whether I could pass the exam of politics or not because the lesson isn't a major one for me, and on the other hand, it cannot make me repeat my course again).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2358" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T01:37:43.947" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T01:37:43.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21712" CreationDate="2016-12-08T00:51:44.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will translate it as “提高饭菜的价格”. “食品” is more general than “饭菜”, but sounds too general. If this sentence is describing cafeterias in Chinese universities, “饭菜” will suffice because it is unlikely they will provide anything other than 饭 and 菜 (e.g. soft drink and ice cream, which are usually sold elsewhere).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T00:51:44.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22079" CreationDate="2016-12-08T00:56:53.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For EN-CN translators, seniority in the family or clan could be a challenge, like translating siblings when there's no clear age description.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient time, Most Southeast Asian people (Lao, Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, etc.) had been strictly following the rules of seniority/position in family/clan. Korean people even have more rules: taking elder brother as an example--if you are a boy, you have to call your elder brother &quot;Hyong&quot;; if you are a girl, &quot;Oppa&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell, I would like to due this to historical reason -- we say 「兄/弟/姐/妹」 in order to show respect. Most of the time Chinese people don't call their elder brother/sister's name because it is rude. In western language families (like English), people seems like to directly call their brother/sister's name (I got this conclusion from movies that I have seen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's get back to your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When translating English to Chinese, if there's no clear age descriptions, I have to find the answer in the context. Sometimes I can't get the right word even though I have finished the whole materials. Then I would ask for Internet's help :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Resource&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fuzita.org/jpculture/howmanyi/brothersister.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How do you call your brother and sister?&lt;/a&gt; - You could get more information about how to call your brother/sister in most Southeast Asian and European languages.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/20369872&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;英语里的兄弟姐妹为什么没有大小之分？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15825" LastEditorUserId="15825" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T01:03:35.600" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T01:03:35.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22083" CreationDate="2016-12-08T03:02:35.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;管&quot; means &quot;manage&quot; with &quot;responsibility&quot;, always someone who has a high level could &quot;管&quot;, for example, your work leader, government officer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;关“ means &quot;close&quot;, always someone who has a closer relationship with you will &quot;关心&quot; or “关照“ you, for example, your family members and friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15933" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T03:02:35.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22083" CreationDate="2016-12-08T06:27:26.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;管means tube,for example 管道 吸管.it also has the other meaning,manage,for exmaple 管理 &#xA;关means close,as 关门 关窗,and extends to &quot;be closed to&quot;,for exmple 关心,关＝be closed to,心＝heart,so the words mean &quot;it's closed to heart&quot;,a way of express somebody care about someone or something.another example关于,于＝to,关于＝be closed to something or someone,means about something or someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T06:27:26.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22079" CreationDate="2016-12-08T06:40:18.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;actually...兄弟 or 姐妹 can refer to a single sibling.but 兄弟姐妹 can't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“兄弟姐妹” is a generic call to describe all your brothers and systers (people younger / older than you, or equal than you), having relationship with you in blood kinship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T08:07:01.333" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T08:07:01.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22090" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22094" CreationDate="2016-12-08T10:23:09.983" Score="5" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just arrived in this warm community and am glad to find a stackexchange about Chinese language. I merely began to learning Chinese and find it really exciting, yet many of uses and conventions are neither so clear to me, nor really explained -- or even underlined -- in my learning books and websites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here is my question: &lt;strong&gt;I feel a bit confused concerning the different sinograms relatives to the language and the speech&lt;/strong&gt;. Here is what I induce from tremendously few examples and a lot of mystical extrapolations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;说 (shuo1)&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;to talk, to speak, to say&quot; (i.e. talking in a general, theoretical way, referring to the idea/potentiality of speaking)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;话 (hua4)&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;dialect, spoken word&quot; (i.e. talking in a practical, pragmatic way, referring to the act/practical skill of speaking)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;语 (yu3)&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;language&quot; (i.e. the abstract building which is a language, endowed with its rules and theories)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I compared the three with two probable bias:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I assume sinograms to have a proper meaning by itself, which seems to rarely be the case&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I propose the translations treating them sometimes as nouns, sometimes as verbs, even if it seems to be an irrelevant distinction in Chinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus I add two more general questions about the Chinese language:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are sinograms really used sometimes by themselves and understood like that, or do they only carry a meaning when cristalized in a &quot;word&quot; ? (That is to say : is my question relevant or is it more a meta-question for linguists and language anthropologists ?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do those three have &quot;preferred&quot; grammatical functions ? That 说 more often used as a verb and 语 more as a noun ? Or is my comparison of significations meaningful ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢 and sorry for the possible lack of precision :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15938" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T15:04:37.547" Title="Meaning and use of ideograms around &quot;language&quot; : 说，话，语" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22090" CreationDate="2016-12-08T11:17:25.067" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;as  a Chinese we can say 说，means talk ,it'sjust a ver, &#xA;话 means a sentence, these two words  are often used  on dailylife&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15939" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T11:17:25.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22079" CreationDate="2016-12-08T11:30:58.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Brother can be translated as 兄弟，but sister can't be translated as 姐妹，it can only can be translated as 姐姐 or 妹妹，if you don't want to know whether she is older or younger. But if you want to know, you must ask and then decide which word you use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15939" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T11:42:19.810" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T11:42:19.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22066" CreationDate="2016-12-08T11:34:49.543" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's easy, everyone means 所有人！all  of  us!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15939" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T11:34:49.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22090" CreationDate="2016-12-08T12:31:43.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All Chinese character has its meaning or meanings. Some can be used as a word on its own, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Noun: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人(person(/ people/ human)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;火(fire)   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;山(hill/ mountain) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Verb: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;殺(kill)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跑(run)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃(eat)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adjective: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大(big)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小(small)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;好(good) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the majority of Chinese words are composed of two characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;正確(correct) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;討論(discuss/ discussion)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;明白(understand) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*See reference &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/21875/how-to-determine-if-character-can-be-used-separetely&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your question: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;說&lt;/strong&gt; is mostly a verb for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;speak&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;talk&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; but it can combine with other characters to form more specific words. For example: 演說 (lecture/ public speech), 說服(convince/ persuade), 說明(explain)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;話&lt;/strong&gt; is mostly a noun for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;spoken words&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; but it can combine with other characters to form more specific words, for example: 謊話(lie), 說話(speak/ talk) , 對話(conversation)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;語&lt;/strong&gt; is mostly a noun for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;language&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; but it can combine with other characters to form more specific words, for example: 語言(language), 英語 (English), 語音(speech tone)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many characters' original meaning had became obsolete. These characters only become meaningful when they are a part of a &quot;two characters word&quot; or a part of a &quot;four characters phrase&quot;. One good example would be &quot;黷&quot; in &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/60796/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;窮兵黷武&lt;/a&gt;&quot; . The character: &quot;黷&quot; itself originally meant &quot;act wantonly&quot; but today, no one would use this character on its own except in the idiom 窮兵黷武. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T15:04:37.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22095" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-08T13:39:25.870" Score="3" ViewCount="819" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for names of radicals that are universally used and understandable. As far as I know, the official radical names, e.g. 水部 aren't really used. I know that, in this particular case, the name is 三點水. But how about other radicals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, what is 厂 called? The official name is 厂部 &lt;em&gt;hăn bù&lt;/em&gt;, but would people understand me if I said that? I know that 厂 is &lt;em&gt;chăng&lt;/em&gt; in simplified Chinese, but what name would be understandable e.g. in Taiwan or Hong Kong? The traditional version of 厂 is 廠, which doesn't even have the same radical. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_(Mandarin)/Radicals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; calls it 偏廈, but it doesn't look like it's used in practice, is it? Or should I call it X字頭 or X字旁? But how exactly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If found many different lists: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%83%A8%E9%A6%96#.E5.81.8F.E6.97.81.E7.9A.84.E4.BF.97.E7.A8.B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;one&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://tonyphuah.neocities.org/DIR1OPT1B.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;two&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_(Mandarin)/Radicals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;three&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/277756.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;four&lt;/a&gt;, but there are a lot of differences between them. Which one lists names of radicals that are really used? Even native Chinese speakers sometimes forget how to write some obscure character, so I assume there must be a simple way to say “you need to write it with the sloping roof radical”. And I guess there must be some standard naming that is used in schools...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm most interested in names that are used in Taiwan, but answers about other places are welcome as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2016-12-10T18:04:35.233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T00:22:14.273" Title="Understandable names of the radicals" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22096" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22119" CreationDate="2016-12-08T15:35:42.637" Score="0" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few Chinese characters on these certificates and I was wondering if someone can translate them for me please? I know the other ones are in Korean but I could not find a Korean person that could read the whole thing they could only read what's in Korean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s0Rxg.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s0Rxg.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;first pics&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8vbkO.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8vbkO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;second pic&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15942" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-12-09T15:30:53.693" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T16:04:43.293" Title="Chinese Translation of these certificates (old hanja)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22097" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22103" CreationDate="2016-12-08T17:30:31.727" Score="3" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just read the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我这两天住的很愉快。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is pretty clear. Since this is a letter from a guest to a host in AirBnB, the meaning should be something like &quot;It was so good to live here for 2 days.&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm not sure how I can decide which part is a subject and which part is a predicate. If you understand it from the meaning, 我这两天住的 is a subject and 很愉快 is a predicate. But it is only after the meaning that I can understand its grammartical structure, and I wouldn't understand it without context. I also don't understand why 的 is used here, which seems to not &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;in a list of use cases of 的&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is not the only example of when I don't decide the grammartical structure, specifically where a subject is and where a predicate is. How can I tell it apart better when I don't have enough context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T01:44:00.370" Title="How to decide which part is a subject and which a predicate?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22097" CreationDate="2016-12-08T18:31:18.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我 - I (subject)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这两天 - these two days (relative phrase- stating the duration of the event)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;住 - stay (verb)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(得) - (verb particle, to indicate the result or degree )&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;很愉快 - very happy (resultive phrase, describe the result of the verb 住 )&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我&quot; is the subject; &quot;住得很愉快&quot; is the predicate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(的) - (adjectival suffix, indicate the phrase it followed is an description of the following noun)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这两天住(的)&quot; should be followed by a noun, e.g. 地方, as in 这两天住(的)地方 (the place I lived in these two days)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这两天住(的)很愉快 is grammatically incorrect. Either it misspoken 得 as 的, or mistakenly used an adjective instead of a noun after the adjectival suffix &quot;的&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Another possibility is, the noun and the verb in an relative clause are omitted. 这两天住的(地方)很(令人)愉快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我|玩|得|很高興 - (I played and I was very happy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(subject)|玩(verb)|得(verb particle)|很高興(resultive phrase)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T22:20:57.970" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T22:20:57.970" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22096" CreationDate="2016-12-08T21:04:49.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note: Korean is not my native language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A transcription in hangeul first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;단증&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;성명: ******&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;위 사람은 본 도장 제&quot;삼십&quot;회 심사에서 초 단에 합격하였음으로 자이 본증을 수여함&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1972년 6월 ?일&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;미국 당수도 무덕관 김도장&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;최고 사범 김기황&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roughly translated, this reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Class?) Certificate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Name: ****************&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This certifies that the above person was awarded a pass of first dan by examination at this dojang (dojo) in the [30]th class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;June (?), 1972&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;US Tang Soo Do School of Martial Virtue Kim-dojang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chief Instructor Kim Ki-hwang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2016-12-09T16:04:43.293" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T16:04:43.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22100" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-08T22:53:48.383" Score="3" ViewCount="610" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only get as far as 请告诉我怎么.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15946" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T09:56:20.713" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T09:56:20.713" Title="Translation of &quot;Please tell me how to get to your house.&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22100" CreationDate="2016-12-09T01:07:04.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;                    [Please] [tell] [me] [how to] [get to] [your] [house].&#xA;simplified Chinese     请      告诉  我     怎么      去      你的   住所（房子，居住的地方，或家）&#xA;traditional Chinese    請      告訴  我     怎麼      去      你的   住所（房子，居住的地方，或家）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Pinyin（拼音）: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;请       告     诉     我     怎     么     去    你     的     住     所&#xA;qing(3)  gao(4) su(4) wo(3)  zen(3) me(1)  qu(4) ni(3)  de(1) zhu(4) suo(3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, I think &lt;code&gt;house&lt;/code&gt; is not &lt;code&gt;home&lt;/code&gt;, and it's the same in case of Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above answer is in Mandarin not Cantonese or any other Chinese dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11641" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2016-12-10T01:23:41.983" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T01:23:41.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22097" CreationDate="2016-12-09T01:31:26.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how I can decide which part is a subject and which part is a predicate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subject：&lt;strong&gt;The object that starts the statement/sentence. It usually tells us who/what to be mainly described.&lt;/strong&gt; In Chinese, the subject is usually put at the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是学生。(I'm a student.) “我” is a subject, because it is the MAIN object to be described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Predicate：&lt;strong&gt;The action, statement of the subject. In Chinese NOT ONLY a verb can take the predicate, but adjectives and some other words can also take this position.&lt;/strong&gt; This is the MOST DIFFERENCE between Chinese and English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1）他很帅. (He's much handsome). 帅 is an adjective, used as a predicate to describe how he looks. In English, we must use &quot;be&quot; as the link verb to link an adjective with the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）他在吃饭. （He's having lunch）吃 is a verb, used as a predicate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我这两天住的很愉快。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry but you CANNOT use “的”，you should use “得”. Because if you understand the meaning (Some verbs without a complement to tell you how the predicate develops, the meaning of the statement isn't complete).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please think about this statement again:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他住. (He lives).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in English, you will reguard &quot;live&quot; as &quot;he has his own life&quot;. Because when you reguard &quot;live&quot; as “住” (locates in someplace). The statement isn't complete. We neither know where he lives nor how he lives. And so for the Chinese statement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if you wanna make the statement complete, in English maybe we say：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He lives very happily. （他住得&lt;strong&gt;很愉快&lt;/strong&gt;）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that happily just describes how he lives (the statement of the period when lives in someplace). And in Chinese, this is called a 补语(Complete Statement).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;补语 is usually used in two senarios:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) When a S+V, and the &quot;V&quot; (verb used as a predicate). The meaning isn't complete, and we should complete the sentence by attaching something to describe &quot;How/Where……ect&quot; the verb develops……. Such a statement is called a &quot;Complete Phrase&quot;（补语成分）.&#xA;Here we MUST ADD “得”, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;S+V+得+补语成分&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他跳得&lt;strong&gt;很高&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice when a complete phrase is used to describe a verb's degree, you can add “得”. However &lt;strong&gt;if it is used to describe the result of a verb. We CANNOT add that.&lt;/strong&gt; Please compare the two statements:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) 他吃完了。 (完 is a complete phrase to describe 吃, means He has finished eating).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) 他吃得完。 （得, if you add this, this is of &quot;Future Time&quot; to describe that he can and will eat up.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Even if you see a whole statement (something like S+V+O), but if we think we still need to describe the degree of the predicate about (how, where……). The 补语成分 can be also attached at the end of the setence as an optional thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;S+V+O+补语成分&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他吃饭&lt;strong&gt;吃得快&lt;/strong&gt; （他吃饭：is a whole S+V+O, complete statement. But we wanna descirbe how he eats. so “吃得快” can be also attached at the end of that）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2016-12-09T01:44:00.370" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T01:44:00.370" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22104" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22105" CreationDate="2016-12-09T01:55:34.727" Score="2" ViewCount="1290" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I started to learn chinese a few weeks ago..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just installed the Chinese Simplified input method on my Windows 10 laptop and started doing some tests with pinyin and Microsoft Word. However, something seems to be wrong or (more likely) I am missing something:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when I try to type &quot;girl&quot; in pinyin I got the wrong characters completed. That is, I enter &lt;code&gt;nuhai&lt;/code&gt; I got this: 奴孩  is this the correct character for girl?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15947" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T01:15:52.980" Title="Problem with Windows 10 Chinese Input" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22104" CreationDate="2016-12-09T02:00:09.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese , you should press &lt;strong&gt;&quot;nv&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; instead of &quot;nu&quot;. &quot;v&quot; here means &quot;ü&quot; in pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more about Pinyin, you can see this: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2016-12-10T01:15:52.980" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T01:15:52.980" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22100" CreationDate="2016-12-09T05:25:22.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;请告诉我怎么到你的房子。&#xA;家是home, house is referred to with the word 房子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2016-12-10T01:09:11.660" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T01:09:11.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21712" CreationDate="2016-12-09T06:15:19.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Chinese, We always say 学校餐厅的开支增加了，这样一来，餐厅就会&lt;strong&gt;涨价&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;Because it's weird to call particular thing like &quot;食物/food&quot;. And a restaurant always provide food, It's not necessary to say &quot;增长食物的价格&quot;(wordy)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15950" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T06:15:19.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22108" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-09T06:55:41.920" Score="1" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;this article was originally published in German? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本文原載於德文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15952" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T10:22:14.453" Title="How do you say &quot;this article was originally published in German?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22108" CreationDate="2016-12-09T08:26:30.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This article was originally published in German.&#xA;这篇文章最初是以德语出版的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T08:26:30.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22104" CreationDate="2016-12-09T08:57:24.607" Score="-1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nv hai &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;guniang (姑娘)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It  is girl  in Chinese language &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15522" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T08:57:24.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10020" CreationDate="2016-12-09T08:59:50.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Grammar, this is right (Object Clause).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From meaning, you may get confused by “我知道我不知道……”. In fact, this statement can be reguarded like this following：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 知道  （我不知道……）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here “我不知道”是整体一个宾语从句(Object Clause)。Here I wanna emphasis that &lt;strong&gt;I see that I have no idea about something&lt;/strong&gt;. And I know about myself very much that I cannot do something because of no ideas or……related things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also reguard this as：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有自知之明，我并不知道……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T08:59:50.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22100" CreationDate="2016-12-09T09:02:55.933" Score="-1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请告诉我怎么去你家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最简明扼要的应该是这个意思了。&#xA;The most concise should be the meaning of the.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15522" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T09:02:55.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22066" CreationDate="2016-12-09T09:06:04.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everyone  is  all ,so  in  Chinese  language it means  每个人，but everyone of who ，it up to context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15522" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T09:06:04.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10020" CreationDate="2016-12-09T13:15:17.777" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Limitless learning, Socrates knew he had a lot to learn!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出自 《庄子·内篇·养生主第三》，原文“吾生也有涯，而知也无涯。以有涯随无涯，殆已！已而为知者，殆而已矣！为善无近名，为恶无近刑，缘督以为经，可以保身，可以全生，可以养亲，可以尽年。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ars longa, vita brevis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T13:15:17.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22118" CreationDate="2016-12-09T14:00:08.773" Score="3" ViewCount="354" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been frequently told 笨蛋 by my friend when we chat in WeChat. The meaning of 笨蛋 is &lt;code&gt;stupid&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;idiot&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, while we are friends, I wonder whether she uses the term to swear at me or otherwise she is angry with me. Well, sometimes she didn't respond to me after saying the word. It is not to the degree that our relationship gets broken though, as we can continue the conversation in another day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the word 笨蛋 used in such situations or can it be used in more casual situation as well to make fun of the other person? What kind of nuances does it have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-08-11T05:12:20.080" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T05:12:20.080" Title="Is 笨蛋 a derogatory word?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22117" CreationDate="2016-12-09T15:10:43.647" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think of the phrase &quot;You fool!&quot; or &quot;you idiot&quot; -  depend on the relationship between the two people, the reason behind saying that, and the tone of the speech, it can be a playful, affectionate flirt,  or a contemptuous comment.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笨蛋 is such a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Of course it is a degrading term. But 笨蛋 is not a word of hate in general. Only best friends would call each other fool or idiot casually.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-09T15:19:59.437" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T15:19:59.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22096" CreationDate="2016-12-09T15:50:19.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;段證 Dan Certificate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姓名 Name 후레드 버나드 Fred Bernard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;위 사람운 本道場 第三十回 審查에서 初段에 合格하였음으로 兹以 本證을 授與함.&#xA;The person above has passed the first dan during the 30th examination, and thus we award him this certificate.&#xA;1972年 6月 吉日(*) June 1, 1972&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美國唐手道武德舘金道場 USA Tang Su Do Mudeokgwan Keum-Dojang&#xA;最高師範 金基璜 Chief Instructor KIM Ki-Hwang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second is mostly illegible, but it confers a 5th dan, commenting on hard work done by the student, on December 1 1982. To someone whose name is Albert ---S or ---TH.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(*) 吉日 means the first day of the (lunar) month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T15:50:19.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22108" CreationDate="2016-12-09T15:57:11.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这篇文章最初以德文发布。&#xA;no sense  30 words walawala booboo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T15:57:11.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21401" CreationDate="2016-12-09T16:05:35.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are very very few people using wubi in Chinese, and zhengma is much less used than wubi. Because they are hard, and you have to learn them to use them. We use pinyin, because we learnt pinyin even before we started school. And it is fast if you use it for a long time. Also it can type simplified and traditional. Only old people use wubi in our mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastEditorUserId="15898" LastEditDate="2018-07-24T02:15:58.137" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T02:15:58.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22100" CreationDate="2016-12-10T03:03:44.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;请告诉我怎么去你住的地方house here means where you are living in now.maybe you live alone without your family here.you can not translate house into “家”.家 means home .“住的地方”means the place you living in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15958" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T03:03:44.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22066" CreationDate="2016-12-10T04:19:46.967" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends, especially for &quot;人人&quot; vs &quot;每人&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are referring to an expectation or a convention, you use &quot;人人&quot;. e.g. &quot;人人有獎, 永不落空&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are referring to a rule or some kind of obligation, you use &quot;每人&quot;. e.g. &quot;每人一獎, 絕不欺場&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T04:19:46.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22100" CreationDate="2016-12-10T06:32:47.097" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a less westernised way, you may say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;請問你的家怎麼走?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%90%E5%8C%96%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%90%E5%8C%96%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T06:32:47.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22125" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22126" CreationDate="2016-12-10T07:19:21.943" Score="1" ViewCount="453" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that they all mean something like &quot;to bring something to someone&quot; and 送&#xA;also means &quot;to see someone out&quot; and &quot;to give sm a present&quot;&#xA;but what is the difference between these three verbs in these sentences?&#xA;1)他给我带来一些东西.&#xA;2)他给我捎来一些东西.&#xA;3)他给我送来一些东西.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15959" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T14:37:00.703" Title="The difference between 送 ,带 and 捎" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22125" CreationDate="2016-12-10T08:00:30.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;【送】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一、Send something to somebody, this means You &lt;strong&gt;intentionally&lt;/strong&gt; bring something to someone with your own payment, and this thing orignally belongs to you. This is usually used when you wanna go to pay a visit, or you wanna invite someone, to be in honor of something……ect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;明天小明过生日了，我们&lt;strong&gt;送&lt;/strong&gt;什么好呢？（Tomorrow is XiaoMing's birthday, what can we buy to send him as a present?）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;今天是我们结婚的纪念日，我&lt;strong&gt;送&lt;/strong&gt;你一枚戒指（I'd like to send you a ring for the anniversary of our wedding today.）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二、Can be also used you want to give someone something intentionally (for some special purpose, either good or bad).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;送&lt;/strong&gt;她一束花，我爱她。(I sent her a bunch of flowers because of my love to&#xA;her).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;送&lt;/strong&gt;领导1000元红包，希望仕途顺利( I sent my boss 1000 RMB for my future&#xA;official career).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三、 The way of &quot;sending someone something&quot; by using “送” &lt;strong&gt;NOT ONLY MEANS&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;Person To Person&quot;. But Just enpharsis &quot;Something to the destination&quot;. So you can say：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我寄了它一个包裹，&lt;strong&gt;送&lt;/strong&gt;他一个表. (I sent him a package with a watch inside).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【带】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bring something to somebody. The way to &quot;give someone something&quot; MUST BE &quot;Person To Person&quot;. And this usually has two meanings (either will be OK):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The object to be brought to others isn't yours.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe you have a purpose to bring this thing to others, and this isn't your main aim. You just do it &quot;buy the way&quot; (=捎)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今天小王生病了，请给他&lt;strong&gt;带&lt;/strong&gt;作业本。(Please bring the workbook to XiaoWang, because he's ill today).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我去了一次南京，顺便给他&lt;strong&gt;带&lt;/strong&gt;点好吃的东西. (I had a trip to Nanjig, and by the way, I brought him something good to eat).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【捎】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word CAN BE ONLY USED wihtout any purposes, this means when you do something, you see that this could be also good/favourate to others. So you also do that &quot;by the way&quot;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你既然要去看阿姨，我就不去了。顺便请&lt;strong&gt;捎&lt;/strong&gt;给她我的问候，谢谢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Since you are going to your aunt's, Please bring my greetings to her as well and I won't go there. Thanks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For “捎”，you can also say “捎带” instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3293" LastEditorUserId="3293" LastEditDate="2016-12-10T09:00:05.297" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T09:00:05.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21567" CreationDate="2016-12-10T09:06:30.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Everyone, them and each other&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;大家&lt;/code&gt;(n) is &lt;code&gt;everyone&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;佢哋&lt;/code&gt;(n) is &lt;code&gt;them&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;互相&lt;/code&gt;(adv) is &lt;code&gt;each other&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;They don't like each other&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;code&gt;佢哋唔鍾意對方&lt;/code&gt; (most common) or &lt;code&gt;佢哋互相唔喜歡&lt;/code&gt; (less common, be still understandable)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;code&gt;大家&lt;/code&gt; as an object?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;大家&lt;/code&gt; can be an object. Please see the following sentence as an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;天然資源係大家嘅。&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;code&gt;Natural resources belongs to everyone.&lt;/code&gt;, which you can use &lt;code&gt;每個人&lt;/code&gt;(&quot;everyone&quot;) or &lt;code&gt;我哋&lt;/code&gt;(explicitly &quot;us&quot;) to change the effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;code&gt;大家&lt;/code&gt; VS &lt;code&gt;所有人&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;全部人&lt;/code&gt; (VS &lt;code&gt;任何人&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;大家&lt;/code&gt;: everyone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;所有人&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;全部人&lt;/code&gt;: all people&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;任何人&lt;/code&gt;: anyone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above words can interchange in most circumstances to change the meaning while keeping correct grammar, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;大家都唔鍾意爭鬥&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;code&gt;Everyone dislikes fighting&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;所有人都唔鍾意爭鬥&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;code&gt;All dislike fighting.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;全部人都唔鍾意爭鬥&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;code&gt;All dislike fighting.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;任何人都唔鍾意爭鬥&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;code&gt;&quot;Anyone&quot; dislikes fighting.&lt;/code&gt; (meaning &lt;code&gt;No one likes fighting.&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2. and 3. though correct, are more commonly substituted by &lt;code&gt;冇人鍾意爭鬥&lt;/code&gt;(&lt;code&gt;No one likes fighting.&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following sounds unnatural, a better way is to rephrase the sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;佢哋唔鍾意所有人&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;佢哋唔鍾意全部人&lt;/code&gt; become&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;佢哋所有人都唔鍾意&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;佢哋全部人都唔鍾意&lt;/code&gt; become&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;佢哋咩人都唔鍾意&lt;/code&gt; (but this sentence can actually also mean &lt;code&gt;No one likes them(the subject)&lt;/code&gt;, however, in that case, more people use &lt;code&gt;佢哋係咩人都唔鍾意嘅&lt;/code&gt; to combat ambiguity.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;全部人佢哋都唔鍾意&lt;/code&gt; (this only means &lt;code&gt;They don't like all people.&lt;/code&gt; since &lt;code&gt;佢哋&lt;/code&gt; is a pronoun). But I rarely hear this form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;P.S. After writing this answer, as a native tongue, I suddenly became confused in the last section. I wish it goes away soon.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="11486" LastEditDate="2016-12-10T09:12:10.020" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T09:12:10.020" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22095" CreationDate="2016-12-10T09:23:41.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure why you think '水部', '厂部', etc. are the official names. I think it is something like a collection name, e.g., characters like 畓, 永, 沙, etc. belong to 水部, or they (with all the other characters with this radical) constitute 水部. It is not that the radical itself is called 水部.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never heard the name 偏廈. Maybe it is used in Cantonese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The links you gave are quite good resources. Some radicals have more than one names and some names are not widely used any more, which is normal and you needn't worry. Most of the names given are common and understandable. If people really have trouble understanding you, just give them an example character and they will know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T09:23:41.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22095" CreationDate="2016-12-10T10:52:39.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;厂字旁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水部 would be 三点水 or 两点水 depending on the character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T10:52:39.690" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21567" CreationDate="2016-12-10T14:13:10.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;sometimes 大家 refer to a person who is very famous and expert in some aspect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T14:13:10.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21401" CreationDate="2016-12-10T14:49:19.183" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the comments above are great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though there is one thing that I seldom hear people mention, which is the benefit to your reading when you use a stroke-based input method.  This is because fuzzy recognition with Pinyin and bopomofo (注音符號) allow you to type entire phrases barely considering the characters you type, except to the extent that you are diligent in looking for typos (though the will easily slip through with both methods).  The use of sound-based ime's has resulted in a bizarre situation where most Chinese have a great deal of difficulty remembering how to write some of the less-common characters (in fact, when you ask them how to write a harder character, they will often instinctively reach for their mobile phone so they can type it in and see how it's written -- this happens much less frequently with the wubi &amp;amp; cangjie typists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stroke-based methods on the other hand force you to consider the characters you are typing, which allows you to maintain a better grasp of the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been reading Chinese for over 20 years, mostly simplified until 2 years ago when I moved to Taiwan and then almost exclusively traditional.  I had, however read a number of books in traditional characters, but reading became slower and more tedious.  After switching to Cangjie, I found reading traditional all of a sudden became a lot more comfortable as I continued to cultivate a &quot;relationship&quot; with each character as I typed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as speed goes, the both of the stroke-based methods are faster when typed by someone who really does a lot of typing, but pinyin uses the same layout as English and if you type fast in English, you'll most likely type at a pretty good clip in Chinese with pinyin.  I tested myself typing pinyin just now and came in at 71 characters per minute, which is faster than some of my friends typing Cangjie, but i tend to have tons of often embarrassing typos. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not worry about typing speed right so much as not getting pinyin &quot;stuck in your brain&quot; which happened to me for years where I would actually think in pinyin rather than characters), which certainly happened to me for years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are positive that you are going to continue to study Chinese and doing a lot of typing, then I can see the advantages of learning a stroke-based method earlier rather than later, but you will certainly want to have pinyin in the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as bopomofo/zhuyin (ㄅㄆㄇ/注音符號) goes, i'd definitely not bother with that, there is no advantage even when typing Complex characters in Taiwan.  I had heard some arguments that it would help a foreigner with their pronunciation more than pinyin, but while i understand the rationale for that, it is nonetheless misguided, and while nothing compared to cangjie or wubi, there is nonetheless a learning curve as you have to learn new phonetic symbols and develop that muscle memory when you type.  Also, bopomofo/zhuyin uses more keys which makes it a bit less ergonomic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding Wubi vs Cangjie: take a look at where you will be and which character set you will be dealing with. Do not learn Cangjie to type simplified characters (you can do it, but it is an unnatural workaround) and do not learn wubi to type traditional characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would strongly advise learning pinyin which you will naturally do when you begin to study Chinese (if you haven't already); in the meanwhile, you can make learning either wubi or Cangjie a side project to the extent that you feel it works for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15962" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T14:49:19.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22125" CreationDate="2016-12-10T17:35:20.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1)他给我带来一些东西. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He brought me something. (commonly used in literature)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)他给我捎来一些东西.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He brought me something. (with a subtle emphasis that &quot;something&quot; was on his way, he did not bring those explicitly)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3)他给我送来一些东西.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He brought/bought me something. (with a subtle emphasis that &quot;something&quot; is given to you for free)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T17:35:20.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22134" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22157" CreationDate="2016-12-10T19:55:17.200" Score="2" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of my textbooks for Chinese contains a lesson entitled &quot;拍照&quot;. The lesson contains an exercise with questions that need to be answered using vocabulary and constructions from the lesson. The last question is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你拍照片儿的时候怎样用光？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lesson's vocabulary lists contains words such as 光线 and 闪光灯，but not &lt;strong&gt;用光&lt;/strong&gt;, which MDBG translates as &quot;out of (supply) / spent / exhausted (used up) / depleted&quot;. MDBG's translation does not make sense to me in this context. So what does the sentence mean? “How do you use the light when making photos?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T12:06:55.140" Title="Meaning of 用光 in context of photography" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22137" CreationDate="2016-12-10T23:46:13.073" Score="5" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, if I want to say &quot;I wish I learned Chinese when I was little&quot;, is it ok to say &quot;我希望我小的时候学中文&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, is there another word I could use instead? Possibly &quot;我最好小的时候学中文&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or do I need to entirely rephrase and say something like &quot;我小的时候学中文更好&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15520" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T09:33:46.940" Title="Can you use 希望 for actions in the past?" Tags="&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22134" CreationDate="2016-12-11T00:13:52.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese terseness: 用光 用闪光灯 using the flash&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-12-11T09:57:15.260" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T09:57:15.260" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22135" CreationDate="2016-12-11T00:20:15.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a 老外 saying this, maybe: 我希望从小就开始学中文了。 Using 希望 is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-12-11T09:33:46.940" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T09:33:46.940" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22135" CreationDate="2016-12-11T04:36:58.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我真希望我小时候学过中文。or 要是我小时候学过中文就好了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15965" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T04:36:58.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22140" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22142" CreationDate="2016-12-11T06:23:53.920" Score="8" ViewCount="3624" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always wonder whether there is any difference between these four terms to say &quot;excuse me&quot; or &quot;sorry&quot;. The difference between 对不起 and 不好意思 is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5955/whats-the-difference-between-%E5%AF%B9%E4%B8%8D%E8%B5%B7-%E5%AF%B9%E4%B8%8D%E4%BD%8F-and-%E4%B8%8D%E5%A5%BD%E6%84%8F%E6%80%9D&quot;&gt;explained in this question&lt;/a&gt;, but I'm not sure about the differences when you add more similar words into the mix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation I want to ask about is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Saying &quot;Excuse me&quot; to ask a person on the street for a direction or call a waiter in cafe.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Saying &quot;Sorry&quot; when I want to apologize for something that I made a mistake on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these use cases, what is the main difference of these words? I know 请问 doesn't have the &quot;sorry&quot; meaning, though...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T11:35:52.033" Title="What is the difference between 对不起, 请问, 不好意思, and 抱歉 to express &quot;excuse me&quot; or &quot;sorry&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22141" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-11T09:02:05.323" Score="0" ViewCount="1654" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does one translate the following sentence into Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Why not Australia? It's &lt;strong&gt;so much better&lt;/strong&gt; than America&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I use 好多了 to translate &quot;&lt;strong&gt;so much better&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15968" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-11T10:45:28.717" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T15:34:09.843" Title="How do you say &quot;much better&quot; in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22140" CreationDate="2016-12-11T09:46:26.430" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;对不起 is the phrase for apologizing for anything, for generally saying sorry. This is what you would normally say in situation 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请问 means &quot;may I ask...?&quot;; it is used to introduce a question and not to apologize for anything. You can use this when asking for direction (situation 1). But note: because of what it means, it must be followed by a question (otherwise it sounds incomplete). Therefore you would not use it just to attract a waiter's attention – although once you have his attention you can use it to ask whether they have anything you particularly want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不好意思 indicates that the speaker is humbly embarrassed about something; it is used e.g. to politely refuse a gift. Basically it's used when the speaker doesn't want to appear to be taking advantage of the other person's hospitality or goodwill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抱歉 is less common than the others; it is like 对不起 but more formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15838" LastEditorUserId="15838" LastEditDate="2016-12-11T10:28:54.797" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T10:28:54.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22141" CreationDate="2016-12-11T10:58:09.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;好多了 means &amp;quot; much better&amp;quot; Your sentence would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Why not Australia? It's &lt;strong&gt;much better&lt;/strong&gt; than America&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為什麼不是澳大利亞？ 它比美國&lt;strong&gt;好多了&lt;/strong&gt;“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &amp;quot; &lt;strong&gt;so much better&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; the translation would be &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;好太多了&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Why not Australia? It's &lt;strong&gt;so much better&lt;/strong&gt; than America&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為什麼不是澳大利亞？ 它比美國&lt;strong&gt;好太多了&lt;/strong&gt;“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to translate &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;so much better&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;比美国好(better than America)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;比美国好得多(much better than America)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;比美国好得多&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;so&lt;/strong&gt; much better than America)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*It uses the final particle &amp;quot;了&amp;quot; to increase the emphasis.  The 'so' in &amp;quot;so much better&amp;quot; functions the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T15:34:09.843" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22140" CreationDate="2016-12-11T11:35:52.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1. Saying &quot;Excuse me&quot; to ask a person on the street for a direction or call a waiter in a cafe.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, you are apologizing in advance for inconvenience someone (you are about to interrupt someone from his routine and take up his time). Both 不好意思 and 对不起 can be used for this kind of situation. It is basically a polite phrase for getting someone's attention. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 不好意思 is more preferable than 对不起 because the former indicates &quot;it is an embarrassment&quot; in your part. You are in the process of seeking help from that person; while the latter implies &quot; you are about to offend someone&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2. Saying &quot;Sorry&quot; when I want to apologize for something that I made a mistake on.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, you should use 对不起 for a genuine apology. As &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5955/whats-the-difference-between-%E5%AF%B9%E4%B8%8D%E8%B5%B7-%E5%AF%B9%E4%B8%8D%E4%BD%8F-and-%E4%B8%8D%E5%A5%BD%E6%84%8F%E6%80%9D&quot;&gt;answer from other thread&lt;/a&gt; indicated: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;不好意思 = This is not pleasant, however it's not my fault (or not totally my fault), I'm not fully responsible for this. I'm not the loser in this incident. Avoiding to admit the mistake as own fault.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if the offend is minor and unintentional, for example: &quot;you accidentally step on someone's foot&quot;, then saying 不好意思 (excuse me) is quite acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*请问 means &quot;may I ask?&quot; it isn't an apology. It is a polite way to &quot;start asking a question&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*抱歉(sorry) is a more formal term for 对不起&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T11:35:52.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22145" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22146" CreationDate="2016-12-11T16:38:05.143" Score="14" ViewCount="145956" Body="&lt;p&gt;I work in a group where I am the only person that does not speak Chinese, thus I hear Chinese conversations all day every day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've noticed that there's a word which is used &lt;em&gt;extremely&lt;/em&gt; frequently, in almost every sentence, sometimes 2 - 3 times per sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like &quot;nicka&quot; or &quot;nigah&quot;... two syllables, &quot;ni&quot;, &quot;nig&quot;, or &quot;nic&quot; is the first and then &quot;ah&quot; or &quot;uh&quot; is the 2nd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I heard one person explain it once offhand to another English speaker in the office as meaning &quot;something&quot;, &quot;that&quot;, or &quot;that thing right there&quot;, but I'm not sure how good of an explanation that was. I was wondering if you could tell me what the word is and how you'd describe its usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without having any real idea of what it means, it almost seems to me like it's being used like the word &quot;uh&quot; in English (like &quot;I want to you pull that data and uh, then make a PowerPoint showing the summary and uh...&quot;). I've taken some very basic Chinese on Coursera.org and via Pimsluer tapes, but neither explained this to my knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I tried speaking this word into the speech-to-translation part of the Google Translate iPhone app and one time it came out as &quot;That one&quot; and one time it came out as &quot;Your&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9464" LastEditorUserId="9464" LastEditDate="2016-12-11T17:18:56.147" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T16:17:07.777" Title="Very frequently used word in Mandarin that sounds like &quot;nica&quot; or &quot;nigah&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22145" CreationDate="2016-12-11T17:18:28.073" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word your hear is probably 那個 (in traditional characters) / 那个 (in simplified characters). It is pronounced &lt;em&gt;nàge&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;nèige&lt;/em&gt; (in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pinyin transcription&lt;/a&gt;), and it's basic meaning is ‘that’ or ‘that one’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Main_Page&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt; has a nice explanation of &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_filler_word_%22neige%22&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;how nèige is used as a filler word&lt;/a&gt; (follow the link to see examples):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In conversation, you may find yourself at a loss for words, unable to find the correct phrase you are looking for, or simply needing time to gather your thoughts. When you experience this feeling, in English, you may say &quot;umm&quot; or another filler word. In Chinese, the word for this is 那个 (nèige). (The word 那个 can be pronounced both &quot;nàge&quot; and &quot;nèige,&quot; but for this usage, &quot;nèige&quot; is normally used.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2016-12-11T17:32:20.903" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T17:32:20.903" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22141" CreationDate="2016-12-11T23:45:51.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without more detail I made up this little chat:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你毕业后要做什么？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我去美国找工作。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;为什么选了美国？澳大利亚比美国更好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exactly how you say 'much better' will of course depend on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is nothing wrong with Tang Ho's answer, why the down vote?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T23:45:51.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22148" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-12T06:05:58.137" Score="3" ViewCount="766" Body="&lt;p&gt;How old is the &quot;你吃飽了嗎&quot; greeting in Chinese? Has it been around for just about one century or does it go back thousands of years in history? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15973" LastEditorUserId="15973" LastEditDate="2016-12-12T12:10:00.463" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T08:16:11.190" Title="How old is the &quot;你吃飽了嗎&quot; greeting in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22148" CreationDate="2016-12-12T08:09:50.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The quick answer to your question is: &quot; No one knows exactly when.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, asking someone: &quot; 你吃了飯沒？&quot;(Mandarin) or 你食咗飯未呀？&quot; (Cantonese) is a very typical way to start a conversation nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It must be a very long time ago. My speculation is: &quot;It started as far back as human communities first formed.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient time, when living was difficult for most, having a reliable food source, able to feed regularly was a major achievement. That fact alone qualified someone's life as a fine one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not hard to imagine, in ancient time, when someone saw his neighbor, the first words out of his mouth would be: &quot;你好嗎?&quot;(how are you) to indicate he was friendly (not a threat) to him. Then followed up with asking how was his life by saying &quot; 你吃了飯沒?&quot; (have you eaten dinner yet?). Since having meals was the most important thing for everyone, you wanted to make sure the other person had already eaten, before engaging him in any activity or conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the answer was &quot; yes&quot;, then you knew his life was fine, and free to engage in activities or conversation with you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the answer was no, then it was a chance to invite him to have dinner with you, because it could show off your wealth and generosity. (see? I have food to spare!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, gathering around the fire to have a meal together was an important form of socializing back in those days. If you were not really close to that person, you would just excuse yourself and leave him alone (so he can find food for himself).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We still do the same today. Eating dinner together, is still a major form of socializing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the exact wording might be distinct from region to region, and it might have changed many times as time passed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-12T20:39:41.803" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T20:39:41.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22079" CreationDate="2016-12-12T09:24:27.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding is correct. Let me summarize it again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be used to refer &lt;strong&gt;single / multiple&lt;/strong&gt; siblings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;older brother(s) = 哥哥&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  younger brother(s) = 弟弟&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  older sister(s) = 姐姐&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  younger sister(s) = 妹妹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Seldom&lt;/strong&gt; used to refer to a single sibling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;brothers = 兄弟&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  sisters = 姐妹&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  brothers &amp;amp; sisters = 兄弟姐妹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Answer (tl;dr)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your question, there is no good translation to refer to singular sibling. Therefore, it is recommended to &lt;strong&gt;rephrase&lt;/strong&gt; the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;They (two) are brothers = &lt;strong&gt;他們是兩兄弟&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  They (two) are sisters = &lt;strong&gt;她們是兩姊妹&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While, it is even harder to translate &quot;(singular) brother / sister&quot; directly. I recommend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;They are a family = &lt;strong&gt;他們是一家人&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;lt;&amp;lt; Fluent, but a bit ambiguous&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  -- OR --&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  They are brothers and sisters = &lt;strong&gt;他們是兄弟姊妹&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;lt;&amp;lt; Less fluent, less ambiguous &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Side note&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When (singular) 兄弟 / 姊妹 is used, it is usually referring to close friends instead of family member.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他是我的好兄弟 = He is my best friend&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  她是我的好姊妹 = She is my best friend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastEditorUserId="3511" LastEditDate="2016-12-12T09:35:19.753" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T09:35:19.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22095" CreationDate="2016-12-12T10:22:16.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a list of the names of the simplified radicals:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jiantizi.com/help/bushoumingchen.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.jiantizi.com/help/bushoumingchen.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as how universally recognizable, that's up for debate, but I would suggest that the names of the more obscure radicals are not universally recognizable as the author points out in the article discussing the following popular names for radicals: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%83%A8%E9%A6%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%83%A8%E9%A6%96&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;(scroll down to 偏旁的俗稱) and see if that helps a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15962" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T10:22:16.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22117" CreationDate="2016-12-12T14:29:49.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我猜你一定是个男人，因为当女人使用笨蛋这个词的时候，可能代表她恋爱了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15939" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T14:29:49.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22125" CreationDate="2016-12-12T14:37:00.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;他给我带来一些东西，一般指小东西，不重要的东西。&#xA;他给我捎来一些东西，有顺便带来的意思，他也不一定亲自来。东西不太重要。&#xA;他给我送来一些东西，他要亲自过来！说明东西很重要！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15939" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T14:37:00.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21630" CreationDate="2016-12-12T14:45:28.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the moderator hit the nail on the head here by pointing out that we want to help you to be able to find what you are looking for, which often comes down to having the right keywords, i found that 漢英對照 works rather well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of Jane Eyre (which is public domain) complete with English MP3's co.mes up along with others when searching google for the following search terms: 漢英對照小說 在線.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be curious to hear more about what you are looking to do with the back-to-back texts.  If it is to read through and learn to read in Chinese, by using the English to refer to, I would do so sparingly as the books you're most likely to find in this format are English texts translated into Chinese, so translations, not real Chinese&quot; and they'll be devoid of many culturally relevant common expressions such as 你吃了嗎?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on your level, and what you are aiming to accomplish, I would suggest you may also consider parallel texts, i.e texts on the same topic, but not translations of each other (they really stressed this in interpreting school).  This will keep things in context for you and allow you do develop a more organic language base that will be more naturally and with more pizzazz.  For an interpreter, reading parallel texts allows them to focus on complete ideas rather than words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are actually many more advantages on parallel readings versus translations, perhaps for a later discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best of luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15962" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T14:45:28.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10101" CreationDate="2016-12-12T16:38:35.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;袋住先&quot;,   in Cantonese, means &quot;take whatever come to you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is clearly a dual, even in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take the money first no matter how meager the value or future outcome or suffering. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A graft practice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a chronology of the sarcasm.  First, the HK chief minister(CM) postpone the transition of HK proper general election with huge compromise, asking the resident to  &quot;take whatever come to you&quot;(&quot;袋住先&quot;).&#xA;Then a scandal broke-out, as the HK CM are found taking a rebate/graft payment/bribe or whatever that fit the circumstances of &quot;take whatever(bribe) come to you&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-12-12T16:46:50.087" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T16:46:50.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22134" CreationDate="2016-12-12T16:53:35.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;用光&amp;quot; always means use and exhaust something. It is inappropriate to use that verb in photography, no matter it is HK, Taiwan or China, nobody use that word for photography or film making.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin has a special jargon for taking flash/lighting adjustment .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打光  or   打光线  or 用闪光灯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case of &amp;quot;make use of light&amp;quot;. Without flash, mean make use of natural light for composition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;运用光线 / 运用光线构图&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for metering&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;测光&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In filming and photo shooting , when you run out of battery or memory storage/ film&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用光电池 / 用光记忆卡/用光菲林&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can see it is bad attempt to associate  用光 with the use/preparation of light.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine the camera man told the director, &amp;quot;Too dim, need more light&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太暗了， 需要用光 &amp;lt;-- The director will ask what the cameraman need due to  (battery, film, data storage) exhaust/deplete/used up, or perhaps get a smack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太暗了， 需要打光 &amp;lt;== this is something everyone understand clearly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T12:06:55.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22100" CreationDate="2016-12-12T17:44:33.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the matter of these simple question? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please give me your address&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请给我你的地址。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to be more specific en-route. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to get to your place if I start from location X &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果从 X 点出发， 要如何走才能到你家。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HOWEVER， if you really ask something ambiguous such as  &quot;Please tell me how to get to your house? &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Walk ！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用脚走 ！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T17:44:33.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22083" CreationDate="2016-12-12T21:53:36.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;關 implies caring and is often used in the sense of a relationship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;父母一定要關心子女的事。&#xA;Parents must definitely worry about their children's affairs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我關愛我的貓。&#xA;I am concerned for and care about my cat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;管 implies taking action, especially because of responsibility. In some contexts it can also imply meddling.&#xA;老闆得管商店所有的事。&#xA;The boss must handle all matters in the store.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a somewhat confusing example of both 管 and 關 used in a sentence:&#xA;你就關照自己的工作吧，我的事你不用管。&#xA;Just take care of your own work. You don't need to worry about mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13907" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T21:53:36.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22160" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22248" CreationDate="2016-12-12T22:56:52.787" Score="2" ViewCount="737" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a (paper or online) dictionary/list that contains &lt;strong&gt;standard&lt;/strong&gt; variants of Chinese characters next to each other? That is, the Kangxi Dictionary forms (正字／康熙字典體), the forms recommended in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. It would be great if it also showed the characters in different fonts (宋體／明體、黑體、楷書、行書、草書、隸書、⋯⋯), but I'm afraid it may be too much to ask. I know about the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/eng.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants&lt;/a&gt;, but it doesn't seem to contain that information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I'm looking for a dictionary that would illustrate differences between Hong Kong and Taiwan, such as in this picture (Hong Kong on the top, Taiwan on the bottom, source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ogcio.gov.hk/en/business/tech_promotion/ccli/cliac/glyphs_guidelines.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CLIAC&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lfl5Q.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lfl5Q.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Differences between Hong Kong and Taiwan glyphs&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From right to left: Kangxi Dictionary forms, Mainland China standard, Hong Kong standard, Taiwan standard, Japanese standard. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Chinese_character#Orthodox_and_vulgar_variants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DDZ28.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DDZ28.png&quot; alt=&quot;Standard Character Variants. Source: Wikimedia Commons&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or like this (click to enlarge):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Song/Ming fonts)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sH85l.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sH85l.png&quot; alt=&quot;PRC, HK, TW, Kangxi differences, Song/Ming fonts&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Regular script)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mgcjU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mgcjU.png&quot; alt=&quot;PRC/TW differences, regular script&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2016-12-18T19:03:17.993" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T08:40:28.687" Title="Is there a dictionary of standard character variants?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22163" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22170" CreationDate="2016-12-13T01:35:25.513" Score="2" ViewCount="1776" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to translate these words for a rather formal circumstance(Visa interview). And I am referring to serious relationships, not just something like &quot;sugar daddy&quot;, and I think it worths to mention that I am not talking about &quot;养母&quot;,&quot;养父&quot;,&quot;养子&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Godmother&quot;,&quot;Godfather&quot; and &quot;Godson&quot; are the first showing up in my mind, but in China these words seem irrelevant, and I am afraid if I use these terms I would be required to provide some documentation(I guess these documentation exists in a literal &quot;Godfather/Godson&quot; relationship in western/catholic countries), which I don't have. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is there any better translation for &quot;干妈&quot;,&quot;干儿子&quot;, etc. that can help a Visa officer understand the relationship?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I need to write an &quot;invitation&quot; letter to her, and I am trying to fill this blank at the very beginning: Dear ______, so descriptive terms like “close family friend” won't work. Based on everyone's answer, I guess maybe her name would be the best to be filled in. But that seems a little absurd in a Chinese environment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11311" LastEditorUserId="11311" LastEditDate="2016-12-13T14:32:23.987" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T17:21:10.877" Title="How to translate &quot;干妈&quot;,&quot;干爸/义父&quot;,&quot;干儿子/义子“?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21984" CreationDate="2016-12-13T02:04:13.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I learned Cantonese, I started by first learning the pronunciation and romanization, then I memorized the Cantonese pronunciation of most common 3000 characters based on Jun Da's  Modern Chinese Character Frequency List, since I already knew the characters, it was a breeze to learn the pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the very interesting things that happened shortly after I began memorizing was that I began to see the relationships between the Mandarin Pronunciation and Cantonese and often have a very accurate gut-feeling for what the Cantonese pronunciation would be.  I would imagine this may happen for you as well, and you will certainly very quickly begin to see the clues from the radicals based on other characters that you have memorized, but even i that weren't the case, 3000 characters isn't that bad when you're just learning pronunciation and then you can go on to the next step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After I memorized about 1500 characters, I would read aloud for 20 minutes each day, this worked wonderfully since the writing is the same (although i had to be on the look-out for differences when it came to speaking).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I was doing that, I would force myself to try to use Cantonese every chance I got.  This made for some good laughs but with the base i had built from reading, it was very easy to transition into speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your journey will be a bit different in that if you do go through and memorize the pronunciations: 1) you will come across some new characters (which you will presumably want to learn along the way); 2) having memorized the pronunciations, you will not necessarily be able to understand what you are reading, but I would suggest that reading out loud for a short period each day will be very helpful regardless of whether you understand that much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you decide to tailor this approach to your needs, you may find the following anki deck helpful (after you swap the questions and answers so that it is prompting you with the character and you have to come up with the pronunciation): &lt;a href=&quot;https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/39888802&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/39888802&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best of luck and let us know what solution you come up with :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15962" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T02:04:13.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22163" CreationDate="2016-12-13T07:35:45.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it depends on the specific relationship between you and your &quot;干妈&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does she depend on you economically? Or you can just say she is your friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15537" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T07:35:45.697" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22009" CreationDate="2016-12-13T07:54:30.320" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the short answer is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;must 必须&#xA;have to 得&#xA;need 需要&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First Certificate Expert Coursebook By Jan Bell and Roger Gower said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;must is used to express strong, personal obligation or necessity:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I must post the letter straightaway. (I, personally, feel it is necessary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我必须把信直接寄出去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;have (got) to is used when the situation or someone else (not the speaker) makes it necessary:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to work late tonight. My boss says so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不得不工作到很晚。因为我老板让我这样做。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-need, you personally need something to do so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need to invite some friends.(so this party will be awesome)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我需要邀请一些朋友（这样聚会将会很棒）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15537" LastEditorUserId="15537" LastEditDate="2016-12-15T00:51:26.423" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T00:51:26.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22163" CreationDate="2016-12-13T13:06:07.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Godmother&quot;,&quot;Godfather&quot; and &quot;Godson&quot; are the answer. But there are differences meaning of &quot;Godmother&quot;,&quot;Godfather&quot; and &quot;Godson&quot; in Ancient China and western Culture. Let Say Your father and My father are very-very close friend, your father is a famous person. Due to a strong relationship between them. Your father take me in his care. So I become his 干儿子 and he is my 干爹/义父 the wife of your father I call her 义母/干娘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15418" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T13:06:07.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22163" CreationDate="2016-12-13T13:44:25.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The concept of 乾媽 and 乾爹 in Chinese culture is almost the same as &quot; godmother and godfather in Western countries. To become official 乾媽 and 乾兒子, there has to be a rite or ceremony performed in front of witnesses. The relationship is formed in the name of gods, and is acceptable to everyone else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in modern days, people tread the relationship of 乾媽 / 乾爹 and 乾兒子 much more casually, any close friend of the family can become an honorary mother to you just by oral agreement between the parties involved ( you and your 乾媽 or your parent and your 乾媽) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, the most appropriate way to describe your 乾媽 in English, would be &quot;close family friend&quot;. The visa officer would then understand you are not related to her, but she could be seen as a non-blood related authority figure to you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact is. The visa officer just needs some probable reference from someone who can vouch for you. That person needs to be a citizen in good standing, know you and your history intimately. A &quot; family friend&quot; suggested just that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;P.S. I need to write an &quot;invitation&quot; letter to her, and I am trying to fill this blank at the very beginning: Dear ______,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, just a simple &quot;Dear Aunt + (her first name)&quot; would do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to be less formal, you could use &quot;Aunty&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like in Chinese, &quot;aunt&quot; in English can be used to address a female friend of your parents, or addressing your friends' mother.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In Western culture, there's no special term for addressing one's own godmother. You don't hear people saying something like: &quot; Hi, Godmother Sally!&quot; (or whatever her name is) People just call their godmothers by name, or &quot;aunt + (her first name)&quot; presuming she is also a friend of your parents or a mother of your friend&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-13T16:35:23.513" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T16:35:23.513" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26604" CreationDate="2016-12-13T16:10:57.670" Score="6" ViewCount="684" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a list of vocabulary used for developer / programming terminology, with such terms as &amp;quot;Constructors&amp;quot;, &amp;quot; Framework&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;DI&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;CMS&amp;quot; or other similar words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found some pages on the IT fields but the terms used are not technical enough (e.g &amp;quot;computer&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;screen&amp;quot;...etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone knows where to find a nice list for development terms, please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15983" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T13:29:39.270" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T13:29:39.270" Title="Web Developer Vocabulary" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22163" CreationDate="2016-12-13T17:13:12.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The relationship of &quot;干某某&quot;, including the Christianity godparent status, is mostly close circle relationship, it doesn't bring any legitimate meaning in any country. You invitation letter doesn't bring any ease of entry to the relevant authority unless you are someone they can account for. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you must first look for VISA-free status for the visitor then an invitation letter. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise,  google whether particular country visitor will face entries problem. For some circumstances, you need get a signed oath paper/recommendation from legitimate personnel/reputable person(e.g. judge, oath officer, senator, mayor, etc ) from your town, that declare the visits intention. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-12-13T17:21:10.877" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T17:21:10.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22175" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22218" CreationDate="2016-12-14T02:46:48.563" Score="0" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;《广安方言与民俗词典》has the following entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【老+姓氏】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;生活中常以姓氏加“老”字进行称呼，是为尊称，如“老李”、“老王”、“老杨”等。旧时，民间还对某些姓氏有雅称、戏称、讳称等，如：老牌—指王姓。为讳称“帝王”之王，而从“王牌”的牌谐音排，故称之为“老牌”。又因“王”字有三横，“横”、“恒”同音，故又称为老恒。老乱—指李姓。因方言中有“理乱”一词，意为乱七八糟，又“理”、“李”同音，故称姓李者为“老乱”。老推—指宋姓。因方言中“宋”与“耸”同音，耸有推之意，故讳称为“老推”。老跳—指张姓。因“张”与“獐”同音，獐子爱跳，故称之为老跳。老顺—指刘姓。因方言中“刘”与“流”同音，流有二流、下流之意，故取“流水顺江河”之褒义，称之为“老顺”。老摆—指余姓。因“余”、“鱼”同音，叫“老余”会误会为“老鱼”或“牢狱”，四川方言中称鱼为“鱼摆摆”，故称姓余的为“老摆”或“摆尾子”。老拱—指朱姓。因“猪”、“朱”同音，为避免称别人“老朱”误听成“老猪”而不敬，故称之为“老拱”或“老甩”。因为猪常用嘴拱东西，猪尾老是甩动。老弯—指龚姓。因“公”、“龚”同音，如喊“老龚”，会误会为“老公”，自己觉得吃亏。又因“龚”与“弓”同音，方言中“弓”与“弯”同义，如弓腰驼背，故叫姓龚者为“老弯”。老威—指邓姓。四川方言中“邓”、“炖”同音，炖是煨的意思，又“煨”、“威”同音，故称姓邓的为“老威”。老硬&amp;lt;èn&gt;—指石姓。因石头较硬，故称老硬。老咸—指颜姓。因“颜”、“盐”同音，盐是咸的，故称为老咸。老焦—指胡姓。因“胡”、“煳”同音，“煳”与“焦”同义，四川方言中有“焦煳”一词，故称姓胡的为“老焦”。老粉—指白姓。因方言中“白”、“伯”同音，叫“老白”会误听为“老伯”，觉得自己吃亏，于是称之为“老粉”。老凋—指谢姓。因“凋谢”一词，故称老谢为“老凋”。又因花会凋谢，故又称谢姓人为“老花”。老混—指孟姓。因“孟”、“梦”同音，梦总是昏昏然，故讳“梦”而称老孟为“老混”。老猫—指虎姓。四川人常将虎称为猫，叫人为“老虎”显得太凶煞，故讳“虎”而叫“老猫”。老耍—指龙姓。龙灯是用来耍的，故讳“老龙”或“牢笼”而称之为“老耍”。老补—指冯姓。因“冯”、“缝”同音，缝补常连用，故称之为“老补”。老叉—指任姓。因称之为“老任”会误为“老人”，被人占便宜，而“叉叉”表“某某”，故称姓任为“老叉”。老传—指傅姓。因叫“老傅”与“老父”同音，被人占便宜。又因“傅”与“傳”形相近，师傅是传道授业的，转而称呼为“老傳”。传为傳的简化字。老软—指何姓。因“何”、“河”同音，河水是软的，故名。老浮—指陈姓。因“陈”与“沉”同音，船工特别忌讳，反其意而用之，称之为“老浮”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there's an official/standard way to take care of wildcards in dictionaries?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老+姓氏 is okay in theory - but perhaps there is a better alternative (老X姓氏、老*姓氏、老N姓氏...etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T23:10:24.103" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T23:10:24.103" Title="Is there a standard for how wildcards are dealt with in dictionaries?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22176" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22184" CreationDate="2016-12-14T02:51:01.680" Score="0" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;《广安方言与民俗词典》has the following entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【biáng】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;普通话中无“b-i-ang”发音，属于群众自创方音。象声词，本义指用力扯面中面条击打案板之声。生活中常作为口语化的象声词，如巴掌打在脸上的声音、面积较大的东西摔在地上的声音等。为了方便记忆，民间还有此字歌谣：“一点一横长，二字下来口字方，两边丝绕绕，中间马大王，你也长，我也长，心字底，月字旁，打把金钩挂衣裳。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What character is &lt;code&gt;“一点一横长，二字下来口字方，两边丝绕绕，中间马大王，你也长，我也长，心字底，月字旁，打把金钩挂衣裳。”&lt;/code&gt; exactly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get kind of lost after 二字下来口字方.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T09:28:22.510" Title="How is this character written: “一点一横长，二字下来口字方，两边丝绕绕，中间马大王，你也长，我也长，心字底，月字旁，打把金钩挂衣裳。”" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22179" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-14T04:05:58.550" Score="11" ViewCount="801" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok so let me start with some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;xia ci 下次 (next time) is &quot;down time&quot;. so... down = future?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;shang ci 上次(last time) is &quot;up time&quot; so... up = past?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;hou 后 (back) also often refers to future so... back = future?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;qian 前 (forward) also often refers to past so... forward = past?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These internal metaphors are quite at odds with English. We often refer to the future as forward and up. such as &quot;whats coming &lt;strong&gt;up&lt;/strong&gt;?&quot; &quot;&lt;strong&gt;next&lt;/strong&gt; year&quot;... there are more I can't think of right now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway so my question is: does anyone know how this came about? Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15986" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-12-14T20:47:05.683" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T07:10:34.587" Title="I am confused by how time is discussed in Chinese," Tags="&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22066" CreationDate="2016-12-14T06:10:07.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think everyone should be expressed as Chinese &quot;各位&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15985" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T06:10:07.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22179" CreationDate="2016-12-14T07:40:19.700" Score="12" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;下一次/下次 (next time) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine the present time is the beginning of a list. When you go further down the list, the further into the future you will be at.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上一次/上次 (last time) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine you are currently in the middle of a list. When you look up the order on the list, the further you go up, the further you got back in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;之後/以後/後 (after)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine the present time is on the first page of a book, the more you turn the pages, the further you will get to the future - in the back of the book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Example: &quot; 第二次世界大戰&lt;strong&gt;後&lt;/strong&gt; &quot; (&lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt; WWII) . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;第二次世界大戰&quot; was the reference point of a time line (it is on the first page). Every thing that followed (future),  are all in the back of the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;之前/以前/前 (before) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'前' here doesn't mean 'forward'. It means 'previous'. As in '前男友' (ex-boyfriend), '前政府' (previous government). Therefore. '以前' means 'from the previous' = 'before'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*前(in front/forward) can also mean 'future'. Imagine the present time is a line you stand on.  '向前看' (look in front) is the future. See similar terms like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'前途' (road in front = future ahead) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'前景' (scene in front = future prospect)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-14T16:27:30.653" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T16:27:30.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22176" CreationDate="2016-12-14T07:58:25.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know for sure, but I think this must be &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E2%BF%BA%E8%BE%B6%E2%BF%B3%E7%A9%B4%E2%BF%B2%E6%9C%88%E2%BF%B1%E2%BF%B2%E5%B9%BA%E8%A8%80%E5%B9%BA%E2%BF%B2%E9%95%B7%E9%A6%AC%E9%95%B7%E5%88%82%E5%BF%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;biang&quot;&gt;biáng&lt;/a&gt; as seen at Wiktionary.  I saw it recently in an article about a teacher punishing students who were late to class. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see the &quot;马&quot; in the middle, and your description mentions &quot;心字&quot;, also &quot;丝&quot;, also &quot;长&quot;, also &quot;月&quot;... This must be it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:Bi%C3%A1ng.svg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;biang&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; is a big picture of the biáng character I'm talking about.  I lost count after 50 strokes...  :)  More pictures at &lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bi%C3%A1ng_(Chinese_character_for_noodle)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Wikipedia&quot;&gt;Wikimedia&lt;/a&gt;.  That's lot of strokes for 'noodles'!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13707" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T07:58:25.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22176" CreationDate="2016-12-14T09:28:22.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You must mean this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/htsys.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/htsys.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;biang&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this word simulates many things which I can't tell you guys in English &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4539" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T09:28:22.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22187" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22188" CreationDate="2016-12-14T19:01:41.057" Score="1" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin should there be any difference between the pronunciation of the pinyin final in &quot;jiu&quot; and the pronunciation of the pinyin whole word &quot;you&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15993" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-05-22T10:12:48.887" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T10:12:48.887" Title="Pinyin &quot;jiu&quot; / &quot;you&quot; final pronunciation difference" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22187" CreationDate="2016-12-14T23:36:49.147" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pinyin Final &quot;iu&quot; contains a hidden &quot;o&quot;, so it is pronounced &quot;iou&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;y&quot; is actually an &quot;i&quot; Final being used as an Initial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the answer is: if both are the same tones, no :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same tones as in: 就 (jiù) and 又 (yòu)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3561" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T23:36:49.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22189" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-15T01:29:54.333" Score="7" ViewCount="1022" Body="&lt;p&gt;what's the difference between 慢慢 and 渐渐？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example why can you use 慢慢 here，but not 渐渐？&#xA;ex） 你慢慢吃吧，别着急！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15994" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T09:48:20.870" Title="What's the difference between 慢慢 and 渐渐？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22189" CreationDate="2016-12-15T02:56:25.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;慢慢means slowly, 渐渐 means gradually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you said 你可以慢慢吃 = you can eat slowly.&#xA;but not 你可以渐渐吃 = you can eat gradually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15996" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T02:56:25.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22189" CreationDate="2016-12-15T04:18:01.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For people who understand the difference between slowly and gradually, there shouldn't be any problem for them to tell the difference between 慢慢(slowly) and 漸漸(gradually)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;慢慢(slowly) is an adverb that describes an action progress in a slow and continuous speed; 漸漸(gradually) is an adverb that describes something progress/change in tiny, almost undetectable increments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烏雲慢慢散去 means the cloud dissipate in a very slow motion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烏雲漸漸散去 means the cloud dissipates in a very slow motion or dissipates little by little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;慢慢 can modify both action verbs like &quot;speak&quot;, &quot;eat&quot; and &quot;walk&quot;; and non-action verbs like &quot;think&quot;, &quot;finish&quot; and &quot;understand&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漸漸 mostly modify non-action verbs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saying 漸漸吃(gradually eat) doesn't make sense, but 漸漸吃完 (gradually &lt;strong&gt;finish&lt;/strong&gt; eating) does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;你多看一些例子，漸漸就會懂了&lt;/em&gt; = see more examples, you will gradually (little by little) understand.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;你多看一些例子，慢慢就會懂了&lt;/em&gt; = see more examples, you will slowly(after a long time) understand.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-15T04:32:01.397" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T04:32:01.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22189" CreationDate="2016-12-15T05:06:42.877" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;慢慢, a changes that can be easily noticeable/visible within a short moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;渐渐, a changes that can not be easily noticeable/visible in a short moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4206" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T05:06:42.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10101" CreationDate="2016-12-15T05:11:34.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;keep it in your pocket, means, take it / grab it &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4206" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T05:11:34.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22189" CreationDate="2016-12-15T09:48:20.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because 慢慢 has several meaning depends on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;慢慢来， 罗马不是一天建成的。&#xA;Dont' rush , Rome wasn't built in a day.&#xA;Slow down, Rome wasn't built in a day&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你慢慢吃吧，别着急!&#xA;Eat slowly, there is nothing to worry about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;慢慢来， 我们餐厅十点才打烊。&#xA;No hurry, our restaurant close at 10pmSlow down,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;慢慢教，他才六岁而已&#xA;Don't rush, he is just 6 year's old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T09:48:20.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22196" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-15T11:34:59.793" Score="0" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm teaching my mother-in-law how to play &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahtzee&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yahtzee&lt;/a&gt; so she can more easily join us when we have a family gathering.  She's visiting the USA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most things I explained easily enough using Google Translate.  But the term &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poker_hand_categories#Full_house&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“full house”&lt;/a&gt; shows only literal translations.  Does Mandarin (PRC)  have a well-known term for this scoring pattern?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other thing that left me scratching my head was “chance”.  I had to explain at length.  What's a good simple name for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I’d like to make a nice sheet that extends the printed score card to the left, which I'll attach using a paper clip.  Rather than a separate card of notes, this will essentially be a translation of the labels column.  I’m doing this in illustrator and will make the PDF available on the web when I’m done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if anyone would care to note good sound translations for the other items, I’d be interested in those too.  (I posted the linked items as separate questions)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3 of a kind&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4 of a kind&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Full House&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22395/yahtzee-score-card-sm-and-lg-straight&quot;&gt;Small Straight&lt;/a&gt; (sequence of 4)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Large Straight (sequence of 5)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22397/yahtzee-scorecard-well-chosen-word-for-chance&quot;&gt;Chance&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yahtzee! (5 of a kind)  (I found the phonetic transcription on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BF%AB%E8%89%87%E9%AA%B0%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zh Wikipedia stub&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Completed&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the final project.  Details and files are posted on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dlugosz.com/zeta/?p=428&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my page&lt;/a&gt;.  Any further input is still appreciated.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9tqtF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;image&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9436" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T09:18:41.580" Title="Yahtzee score card — what is the term for a “full house”" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22197" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22198" CreationDate="2016-12-15T13:48:25.183" Score="3" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was able to read the second half (大學圖書), but not the actual name of the university. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yYGZw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yYGZw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The image is cropped from a book posted &lt;a href=&quot;http://wdjy.lyedu.org.cn/Item/9873.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6696" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T14:25:45.470" Title="What is the name of the university in this seal?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22197" CreationDate="2016-12-15T14:14:55.770" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;早稻田&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  大學&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  圖書&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Japanese &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.waseda.jp/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Waseda University&lt;/a&gt; collection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6912" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T14:14:55.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22197" CreationDate="2016-12-15T14:17:27.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.waseda.jp/top/en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Waseda University&lt;/a&gt; in Japan.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The seal is in stylized Chinese characters: &quot;早稻田大學圖書&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Japanese kanji:早稲田大学図書) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(English: Waseda University book)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seal indicated the book belong to the Waseda University library.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-15T14:25:45.470" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T14:25:45.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22196" CreationDate="2016-12-16T06:48:09.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two common Chinese equivalent terms for &quot;full house&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;葫芦（葫蘆）: Literally means gourd. This term is more common in Mainland China.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;夫佬：There isn't an English equivalent for this term. It is basically the transliteration of &quot;Full House&quot; in Chinese. It is more common in Hong Kong and Macau.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user13373" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T06:48:09.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22202" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-16T09:11:34.390" Score="1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for legalese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;breach of fiduciary trust (fiduciary basically means, as an adjective, 'having financial responsibility for someone else's money' from Latin 'fidere' trust)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;negligence&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 1. I have 违背受托责任 and for 2. I have 玩忽职守 but I have no way of knowing if these are in fact the terms a Chinese lawyer might use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they acceptable? Any improvements welcome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T18:16:18.197" Title="Looking for 2 legal terms" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22202" CreationDate="2016-12-16T09:37:04.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;New Century E-C&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;fiduciary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(of trust or trustee)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;受信托的；与受托人有关的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;They have a case against their directors for breach of fiduciary duty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们掌握了足够的证据控告董事不履行信托责任。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;negligence&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(civil wrong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过失(行为)；疏忽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;They tried to sue for negligence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们试图就过失行为提起诉讼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&amp;amp;T Biz&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;negligence&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过失 guòshī&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;negligence clause&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过失免责条款&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;guòshī miǎnzé tiáokuǎn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;negligence liability insurance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过失责任保险&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;guòshī zérèn bǎoxiǎn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;21st Century&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;negligence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【法律】 过失的 [1300∼1350]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2016-12-16T09:42:22.133" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T09:42:22.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22204" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22206" CreationDate="2016-12-16T09:43:21.590" Score="9" ViewCount="607" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got a translation of “Are hospitals in your country good?” from a native speaker of Mandarin as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你国家的医院好吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why there is no 的 after 你? It is after a pronoun for instance in such a sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的妈妈的房子很高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T12:49:05.647" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T15:40:54.427" Title="Why there is no 的 after 你 in 你国家的医院好吗?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22204" CreationDate="2016-12-16T12:24:04.843" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is really about: &amp;quot; when can we omit the &lt;strong&gt;possessive 的&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; 1.(adjective suffix):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;强大勇敢 (strong and brave)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;强大勇敢&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;人 (strong and brave man)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You cannot omit the adjective suffix 的 and write 强大勇敢人&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;高大 (tall and big)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;高大&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;人 (tall and big man)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You cannot omit the adjective suffix 的 and write 高大人&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Adjectives that do not need adjective suffix can directly apply to the object. &#xA;&#xA;For example 好(good) in 好女儿(good daughter)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; 2.(&lt;strong&gt;possessive&lt;/strong&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我(的)衣服的鈕扣的顏色是白色的。&lt;/em&gt; can be reduced to: &lt;em&gt;我衣服鈕扣的顏色是白色的。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The last 的 is not omitted because it is not a possessive 的 but an adjective suffix 的.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same with your example sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你(的)国家的医院好吗？can be reduced to: 你国家的医院好吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(的)妈妈的房子很高。can be reduced to: 我妈妈的房子很高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/15677/user-487&quot;&gt;user3a&lt;/a&gt;'s answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The “的” &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; the subject is usually kept.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Others can be omitted, if possible.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I say it is wrong. The possessive '的' after a subject is &lt;strong&gt;usually&lt;/strong&gt; kept, if it is a 'true possessive'(something you actually own) For example:  The possessive 的 in 我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;車 cannot be omitted and make it &amp;quot;我車&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if the '的' is a 'relative possessive'(something you don't actually own) can be omitted. For example: you can omit the '的' in '我的母亲' and write 我母亲.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The possessive 的 in 这是我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;太太; 他是我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;女儿; 你&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;国家; 你&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;公司 can be omitted. You can write 这是我太太; 他是我女儿; 你国家; 你公司 (if you actually own the country or the company, then the possessive 的 should be kept)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again with your example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(的)妈妈的房子很高。 can be reduced to: 我妈妈的房子很高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(的)牛(的)角很长。 cannot be reduced to: 我牛的角很长。 or 我的牛角很长。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(you possess the cow and the cow possesses the horns, neither can be omitted.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T15:19:04.903" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10072" CreationDate="2016-12-16T23:51:12.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If by presumptuous we mean &quot;overstepping social bounds,&quot; I have to admit that an ordinary Chinese person does not have such a concept, and dodging presumptuous questions in China is an art. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, one is left with the kind of feeling very similar to being butt raped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2017-04-24T19:57:55.723" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T19:57:55.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22208" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-17T06:09:11.133" Score="1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;Were there any attempts to alphabetize Chinese that did not involve writing systems existing in other languages already? This would be something like a Chinese analogue to the development of the Korean writing system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, and Bopomofo were all developed in the modern period, and are all examples of romanization specifically, so I'm not considering these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also be interested in learning more about phoneticization via the influence of non-romance languages too. For example, Wikipedia mentions that Chinese itself became more phonetic when Chinese linguists started to recognize &quot;initial&quot; and &quot;final&quot; sounds while transliterating Buddhist mantras originally written in Sanskrit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16009" LastActivityDate="2016-12-18T14:42:15.197" Title="Are there any pre-modern/non-romanization examples of attempts to alphabetize Chinese?" Tags="&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22209" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-17T06:23:36.823" Score="1" ViewCount="920" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ran across this pillow &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gPFha.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gPFha.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;You are in my heart. Lonely but afraid.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the other day and thought that the expression was a little odd. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pictaram.com/media/1306372356112918073_910069957&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;According to this one girl on Instagram&lt;/a&gt; (a very reliable source, I know) it's a #mistranslation. This, along with the fact that if you Google the exact phrase there are a couple of Chinese web pages leads me to believe that &quot;You are in my heart. Lonely but afraid.&quot; is a mistranslated Chinese expression. What is the correct and/or untranslated expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16010" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T07:54:48.943" Title="What is this a mistranlation of?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22209" CreationDate="2016-12-17T07:42:36.977" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a Chinese idiom 心如鹿撞 that has &quot; deer&quot; and &quot; heart&quot; in the same phrase. It means &quot;like a deer is ramming the heart&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use this phrase to describe someone's heart is pounding due to excitement or fear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you are alone with someone you love in the dark. The anticipation and excitement would make your heart pounds (心如鹿撞)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you are stopped in traffic by a police officer, with a dead body in your car trunk. You may try to act calm, but the anxiety and fear would make your heart pump like crazy(心如鹿撞)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the deer image and the phrase &quot;you are in my heart&quot; (implies a headline: &quot;a deer is in my heart&quot;)--  It  should be followed by the subline: &quot; &lt;strong&gt;My heart is pounding in excitement&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; instead of &quot; &lt;em&gt;lonely but afraid&lt;/em&gt;&quot; (you don't have a dead body under your bed, do you?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-17T07:54:48.943" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T07:54:48.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22204" CreationDate="2016-12-17T09:02:17.777" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that 的 is omitted because it's not in the front of the subjects or objectives and because it's not fluent to use too many &quot;的&quot; in a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In TangHo's answer the &quot;strong 强大的&quot; and &quot;tall 高的&quot; are also adjectives.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Why did he omit the &quot;的&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;的&quot; in &quot;好(的)女儿&quot; is omitted because it's not fluent either.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't think it's due to &quot;do not need adjective suffix&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Although &quot;好女儿会很孝顺&quot; is more fluent and simple, I think &quot;好的女儿会很孝顺&quot; is also acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the user3a's answer he/she said &quot;The“的” &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; the subject is usually kept.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But TangHo quoted as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't think it's a mistake because we usually do the &quot;copy and paste&quot; when we quote something.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I know, the &quot;的&quot; in &quot;这是我的车&quot; can also be omitted.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I think &quot;这是我车&quot; and &quot;我牛的角很长&quot; are acceptable in the verbal talking.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can ask your Chinese friends, MrVocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16012" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T15:40:54.427" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T15:40:54.427" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22215" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22226" CreationDate="2016-12-17T14:16:11.483" Score="2" ViewCount="484" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for resources on transliterating Sanskrit into Mandarin Chinese. Not necessarily just Buddhist terms, but a greater variety of Vedanta philosophy terms. &#xA;(I have seen online, &lt;em&gt;A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms&lt;/em&gt; by Soothill.)&#xA;I'm guessing that there is not a standardized system, but that certain terms have become standardized throughout history. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;ब्रह्मन् (Brahman (/brəhmən/)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate gives: 婆罗门 (Póluómén) when attempting to translate the &quot;Brahman&quot;, but I'm sure that is incorrect. I'm uncertain whether this particular term/concept is used in Buddhism (I know it's a Hindu concept), therefor I don't know if it would have been transliterated into 汉语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T02:41:48.267" Title="Transliteration of Sanskrit" Tags="&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22179" CreationDate="2016-12-17T14:23:35.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“前” means &quot;near the beginning&quot; and “后” means &quot;near the end&quot;. If we consider events happen as a queue, it is obvious that “前” means &quot;earlier in time&quot;.  We can also consider the history as a book that tells the story in chronological order, and earlier events also appear in the front “前” chapters of the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When there is ambiguity, alternative expressions are used.  For example, on buses and metros, the announcement says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“&lt;strong&gt;前方&lt;/strong&gt;到站是积水潭站。” (The (next) stop in the &lt;strong&gt;forward direction&lt;/strong&gt; is Jishuitan.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T14:23:35.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21351" CreationDate="2016-12-17T14:38:55.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I had been speaking Chinese with tones ever since I could speak at all, and I could speak both Mandarin and my local dialet, both with tones.  My parents perfer to speak Mandarin and my grand parents speak the local dialect only.  I found that there were some &quot;subtle&quot; differeces between their Chinese (My local dialect has 4 tones, too (but different from Mandarin), and some characters are pronounced slightly differently.  But the differences are quite systematic.), but as far as I can remember, I had no problem speaking Chinese in either &quot;style&quot;, depending on who I spoke to.  That was way before I went to kindergarten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It surprised me, however, when I learned English that I found English does not have tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T14:38:55.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22175" CreationDate="2016-12-17T15:03:27.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The plus sign &quot;+&quot; is not a wildcard character. &quot;姓氏&quot; is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;老&quot; is literal in this context. &quot;+&quot; is a concatenation operator. &quot;姓氏&quot; is a variable, and is supposed to be replaced with an actual family name.  Therefor “老+姓氏” may refer to &quot;老张&quot;, &quot;老李&quot;, &quot;老王&quot;, ..., but not &quot;老blahblah姓氏&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately not all dictionary writers learn programming, so concepts like &quot;variables&quot; would be foreign to them.  Even programming books in English struggle to typeset &lt;code&gt;literals&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;em&gt;variables&lt;/em&gt; differently.  I guess the book 《广安方言与民俗词典》 covers a much wider range of knowledge than barely syntactic patterns, thus the author may not make too much effort typesetting wildcards nicely, as long as the reader can understand what he/she means from the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T15:03:27.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22171" CreationDate="2016-12-17T15:06:58.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;constructor&quot;: &quot;构造函数&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;framework&quot;: &quot;框架&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;dependency injection&quot;: &quot;依赖注入&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;content management system&quot;: &quot;内容管理系统&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of looking for a word table, you can refer to textbooks that cover programming languages (such as C++ or Java) in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T15:06:58.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22100" CreationDate="2016-12-17T15:10:19.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;去你家怎么走？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, do I really need 30 characters.............&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T15:10:19.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21401" CreationDate="2016-12-17T15:28:54.813" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use Pinyin. It's both faster, easier to learn, and more versatile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the time you start learning Chinese, you should have alread started learning Pinyin.  So there is no additional &quot;rules&quot; to learn before you can type.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking of speed, Wubi was fast in 1980s because Pinyin IMs had to deal with many characters with the same pronounciation, while Wubi rarely had two characters having the same 4-letter encoding.  But thanks to the advancement of processing power and the &lt;em&gt;machine learning&lt;/em&gt; technology, nowadays state-of-the-art Pinyin IMs lets the user type the Pinyin of a phrase or even a sentence rather than a character, and &lt;strong&gt;predicts&lt;/strong&gt; the correct characters using advanced Markovian statistic language models (In layman's term, the program reads your mind!), and the accuracy is incredibly high.  Basically you just keep typing.  The longer phrase you type, the more accurate it is.  And as the computer system supports more and more characters, and the IM starts to have bigger and bigger word lists, Wubi starts to have many words or characters having the same encoding, and it basically undermined its own advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most Pinyin IMs (such as Sogou Pinyin) let you toggle between simplified and traditional Chinese mode at any time with a hotkey.  IOS (iPhone) also supports Pinyin for both simplified and traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, it's already the 21st century. Use Pinyin, and let the technology handle the rest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T15:28:54.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22215" CreationDate="2016-12-17T17:36:29.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This looks like a pretty extensive resource on the subject:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/A%20Buddhist%20Chinese_Sanskrit%20Dict_Hirakawa.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A Handful of Leaves: A Buddhist Chinese Sanskrit Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, it does list 婆羅門 as Brahman on page 365. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Too bad it's not digitized, and that it only goes Chinese-Sanskrit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16009" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T17:36:29.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22053" CreationDate="2016-12-17T17:57:28.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are considering the phonemes only and not taking into account tone, then the answer is yes. But if you want to get the most accurate answer about whether or not they correspond to the same sound in Chinese, then you should include a tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shí and shih2 (the 2 should be superscripted) are both romanizations of the character 石 in the Chinese name 蔣介石.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16009" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T17:57:28.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22208" CreationDate="2016-12-17T18:29:41.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you are talking about &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hangul&lt;/a&gt;, as the analogue to alphabetize chinese, i think it's a &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt;. no-one tried to alphabetise chinese (漢字) in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the influence of non-romance languages to the chinese, i guess sanskrit &amp;amp; tibetan are the two most important sources. if you can read literary chinese, in traditional script, certain books are very interesting :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T18:29:41.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22225" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-17T20:39:33.547" Score="-1" ViewCount="512" Body="&lt;p&gt;My girlfriend wrote it and it's important to me. Thank you so much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;點解依個世界有啲咁幼稚嘅人&#xA;點解我唔好以靚啲瘦啲叻啲 有一技之長 點解我乜都做唔好 點解咁多個唔揀揀我 點解冇人中意我 點解我做幾多野都冇人欣賞 &#xA;其實我個人偏向中性某程度上係因為冇男嘅候我所以我索性乜都唔理 其實我唔係特登sad比人睇 只係有時唔知係邊度同埋唔知點抒發情緒好 &#xA;其實都係咁樣好多年 點解唔比我抖下 點解唔可以長眠點解仲要生存&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16018" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2016-12-18T08:59:40.887" LastActivityDate="2016-12-18T08:59:40.887" Title="Can someone please translate this from Cantonese to English for me?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-12-19T01:50:02.533" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22215" CreationDate="2016-12-17T21:43:49.423" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term, 婆羅門, has been used in China for at least 1500 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-tw.oldict.com/Brahman/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;OLDict&lt;/a&gt; lists a few dictionaries. All of them transliterate &quot;Brahman&quot; as &quot;婆羅門&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;resources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://buddhism-dict.net/ddb/indexes/term-sa.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Digital Dictionary of Buddhism&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ss.ncu.edu.tw/~calin/dictionary.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢藏梵英佛學術語&lt;/a&gt; (pdf format)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/palishengdian/refer/dic/sanskrit-1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;梵漢辭典 Digital Dictionary of Buddhism&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some Sanskrit-Chinese translations in 《大正藏》54, which can be downloaded in the pdf format. The script of Sanskrit is the Siddham (悉曇體), not the Devanagari (天城體).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《梵語千字文》(1卷)【唐 義淨撰】&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《唐梵文字》(1卷)【唐 全真集】&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《梵語雜名》(1卷)【唐 禮言集】&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《唐梵兩語雙對集》(1卷)【唐 僧怛多蘗多．波羅瞿那彌捨沙集】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;～～～～～&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《梵漢大辭典》 嘉豐出版社&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《漢譯對照梵和大辭典》長春樹出版公司&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《梵漢對譯佛教辭典：翻譯名義大集》 新文豐出版公司&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《簡明佛教梵英辭典》 長春樹出版社&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《基本漢藏梵英佛學術語》 慧炬出版社&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《佛學名詞中英巴梵彙集》 慧炬出版社&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Language：TC (正體中文)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="15652" LastEditDate="2016-12-21T02:41:48.267" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T02:41:48.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22225" CreationDate="2016-12-18T06:43:43.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The last sentence seems to be the most important:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;點解&quot; -&gt; why&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;唔&quot; -&gt; not&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;比&quot; (should be &quot;俾&quot; here) -&gt; allow&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;抖&quot; -&gt; rest&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;長眠&quot; -&gt; prolonged sleep ... or death&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;仲要&quot; (should be &quot;重&quot; &quot;要&quot; here) -&gt; 重=still, 要=need&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;生存&quot; -&gt; stay alive&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2016-12-18T06:43:43.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22229" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-18T14:24:21.430" Score="1" ViewCount="488" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes a character component has &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/bushou.php?ext=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;one pronunciation&lt;/a&gt; as a Kangxi radical, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archchinese.com/chinese_character_strokes.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;another one&lt;/a&gt; as a stroke, and perhaps even more:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一: yī / héng&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丨: gǔn / shù&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丶: zhǔ / diǎn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;亅: jué / shùgōu&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;乙: yǐ / héngxiéwāngōu / &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E4%B9%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhé&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;乚: yǐ / shùwāngōu / &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E4%B9%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;yà&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;乛: yǐ / hénggōu / &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E4%B9%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhé&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which names are used in practice and understandable? Should I learn all the variants or only one of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2016-12-18T15:40:10.867" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T00:19:18.020" Title="Radical names and stroke names" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22208" CreationDate="2016-12-18T14:42:15.197" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there was such an attempt during the Yuan dynasty. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/&amp;#39;Phags-pa_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;'Phags-pa script&lt;/a&gt; was created for writing languages that were under control of Yuan, including Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The 'Phags-pa script (Mongolian: дөрвөлжин үсэг &quot;Square script&quot;) is an alphabet designed by the Tibetan monk and State Preceptor (later Imperial Preceptor) Drogön Chögyal Phagpa for Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan dynasty, as a unified script for the written languages within the Yuan. The actual use of this script was limited to about a hundred years during the Mongol Yuan dynasty, and it fell out of use with the advent of the Ming dynasty. The documentation of its use provides clues about the changes in the varieties of Chinese, the Tibetic languages, Mongolian and other neighboring languages during the Yuan era.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastActivityDate="2016-12-18T14:42:15.197" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22231" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-18T16:46:54.863" Score="2" ViewCount="505" Body="&lt;p&gt;When looking up individual characters in modern dictionaries, I often come across descriptions such as &quot;one of the ten Heavenly Stems&quot;, &quot;nth Earthly Branch&quot;, &quot;one of the Eight Trigrams&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it something relevant for modern Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do people generally know that 甲 is the first heavenly stem, 丑 is the second earthly branch, and so on?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are they used in modern expressions?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: I can see that 天干, 地支 and 八卦 are still important and serious learners should know about them. One more question: how about the 64 hexagrams (易經六十四卦)? Are they also used for counting or enumeration, or in some fixed expressions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2016-12-18T23:27:45.917" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T14:00:50.730" Title="天干、地支、八卦和六十四卦 Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches, 8 Trigrams and 64 Hexagrams" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22229" CreationDate="2016-12-18T17:13:07.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;横 (heng2) is its own character, as is 竖 (shu4). 一 and 丨are never pronounced as heng2 and shu4, but the shapes are referred to in context of discussing calligraphy, stroke order, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an analogy with the letter &quot;o&quot;. Is it a circle? Yes. Do we ever read it as &quot;circle&quot;? No. But just like &quot;o&quot; is a circle-shaped letter, 一 is a 横-shaped character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of which words are used in practice and are understandable, either check out a dictionary or just ask a Chinese speaker how to pronounce the character. The first answer you find is likely to be the most common and useful. The secondary pronunciations, names of strokes/shapes, and even some of the characters themselves are not common in everyday language, and will only pop up in the context of calligraphy, linguistics, historical research, or some areas of law and science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16009" LastEditorUserId="16009" LastEditDate="2016-12-18T17:33:06.470" LastActivityDate="2016-12-18T17:33:06.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22231" CreationDate="2016-12-18T18:31:46.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Brief answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes. Some modern Chinese words are developed from these conceptions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坤 in 八卦 represents the earth, female, Yin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From these meanings, words like 乾坤 (the world. lit. Heaven and earth), 坤角 ( female characters in Beijing Opera, but not necessarily played by a woman) developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲 is the first element in heavenly stems, and 子 is the first element in earthly branches. The heavenly stems and earthly branches were popular to record the year in ancient times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we have a word 甲子 which means 60 years, because the cycling length of  combinations of heavenly stems and earthly branches is LCM(12, 10) =60.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yes, all most Chinese know these characters, however, some (at least some people I know ) can not remember the order exactly. It would take them few seconds to think of, for example, what the next element after 未? Today, in Chinese calendar, we still use this system to record the year. For example, this year is the year of 丙申 ( 申 indicates it's the monkey year).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yes. You can see them in some idioms (成语) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寅吃卯粮 To consume resources prepared  for or available in the future. Not planned well. Not prepared well. Lit. In the year of tiger, consume food prepared for the year of rabbit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can also see them in list bullets in articles. In English, you use a, b, c, d …, while in Chinese, you use 甲乙丙丁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in organic chemistry, 甲乙丙丁 … are used to express the number of carbon atoms in the nomenclature of substance. We have 甲烷 CH4, 乙烷 C2H6, 丙烷 C3H8…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-18T18:31:46.530" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22229" CreationDate="2016-12-19T00:19:18.020" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually we only use the name ( the second ones in your question) which describes the shape of the radical. It's how teachers call these radicals in classroom. &#xA;Many radicals,  like 丶, are not treated as charterers. Although they may have a pronunciation, most Chinese don't know that.&#xA;Even for these radicals which happen to be characters, we still incline to use the name referring to the radical, rather than its own pronunciation. It would sound ridiculous when you describe the strokes of a character, say 王 this way: 三个一，一竖. Instead, native speakers would say: 三横一竖.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T00:19:18.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22231" CreationDate="2016-12-19T13:45:53.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you inspect it carefully, you will learn Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch is similar to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number_(linguistics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ordinal number&lt;/a&gt;.   It is a matrix [10] x[12].  The combination are still use in traditional Lunar Calendar, esp. during Chinese new year celebration.  While like all ordinal number, it is found in everyday use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can check dictionary for all proverb, verb and noun associate with each character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8 Trigrams are actually using word with particular attributes. In fact, the character come first before the Trigrams meaning are invented. You can check the dictionary to confirm this fact. The trigrams also associate it with 8 different position(e.g. 乾 = East, 坤 = West ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The symbol are represent by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;binary number&lt;/a&gt;.  However, the sequence are named as in ordinal number sequence, start from the biggest number i.e.   乾 = first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;64 Hexagrams are mostly used for literature study such as I-Ching and fortune telling  It has little use nowadays. The hexagrams is the square of (math) of 8 Trigrams, 8 x 8 .  It is octal number actually. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-12-19T14:00:50.730" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T14:00:50.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22241" CreationDate="2016-12-19T16:22:05.100" Score="4" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;許慎 writes for 媛：美女也。人所援也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am inclined to translate 人所援也 as ‘someone who attracts people’, but I might be mislead by English ‘attractive’. It sounds so modern. (Being a beginner with CC, I also wonder: did I get 所 right?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;許慎 himself defines 援 as 引也 (to pull). Kroll (&lt;em&gt;A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese&lt;/em&gt;) has (I) (1) pull up, pull on (a) take in hand, take by hand; draw toward one; e.g. 援筆 take up the writing-brush (2) pull along, lead on, guide (a) cite, adduce (b) recommend; appoint (3) resort to .... (II) (1) aid, assist ... (p. 576).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12466" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T02:24:00.557" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T10:29:42.757" Title="（古文) Is ‘attract’ for 援 in 人所援也 acceptable?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22239" CreationDate="2016-12-19T16:51:19.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are getting close &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美女(也)  pretty girl (she is!)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人[所]援(也)  people [being ] attracted to (her!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;引 means attract in these context, as in 吸引。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(也) is similar to some language nominative case. The complicate part is the second sentence 人所援(也), 也 are pointing to the previous subject. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2016-12-19T17:01:43.400" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T17:01:43.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22239" CreationDate="2016-12-19T21:20:55.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;媛=belle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人&lt;strong&gt;所&lt;/strong&gt;援也= &lt;strong&gt;whom&lt;/strong&gt; people pull close&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非漢&lt;strong&gt;所&lt;/strong&gt;望也 means : not &lt;strong&gt;what&lt;/strong&gt; Han is hoping for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A faithful translation to the original text would be :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;媛: 美女也, 人所援也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &amp;quot;belle&amp;quot; means: &amp;quot;a beautiful woman, whom people (men) want to pull close to himself.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;媛&amp;quot; is the topic, &amp;quot;美女也, 人所援也&amp;quot; is the comment. It is a common [topic + comment/opinion] sentence structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &amp;quot;所&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;美女也, 人所援也&amp;quot; functions as a pronoun (e.g. what; whom) for the object. Which the subject (人) (n) is acting on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, it is  &amp;quot;pull close&amp;quot;(援)(v)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The phrase 非漢所望也 also has an active voice, therefore : &amp;quot;not what Han is hoping for&amp;quot; is a pretty accurate translation to the original text.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T10:29:42.757" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22242" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-19T21:37:30.590" Score="0" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the following label specification for M6?&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ejMid.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ejMid.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;img&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16030" LastEditorUserId="15156" LastEditDate="2016-12-21T02:55:41.967" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T02:55:41.967" Title="What is the following label specification for M6?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-12-28T14:45:27.803" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22242" CreationDate="2016-12-19T22:06:09.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The words before M6 is &quot;英制&quot;. It means 英国帝国单位制 (British unit system) &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Imperial measurement systems&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found it strange that, on the same label, it also checked &quot;一米&quot; which is &quot;one meter&quot; in Metric System.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T22:06:09.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22242" CreationDate="2016-12-20T01:28:12.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The large characters on top 热电偶 mean thermocouple. The characters to the left of M6, 螺纹,  mean threading (such as for a screw). The characters to the right of M6, 英制, mean the English (imperial) system. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16009" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T01:28:12.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22239" CreationDate="2016-12-20T03:17:48.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;人所援也 as &quot;someone who attracts people&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this translation is quite good :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about &quot;所&quot;: in classical chinese, the structure of &lt;strong&gt;&quot;人所&quot; + verb + &quot;也&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; is common. here're 2 examples, hope you can find the induction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would interpret &quot;所&quot; as a pronoun, which the verb is aimed at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;說文解字　貝部 &#xA;    財﹒人所寶也&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;財 - wealth / money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人 - people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所 - which&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寶- cherish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, &quot;財﹒人所寶也&quot; would be &quot;wealth, which is cherished by people&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;說苑　尊賢&#xA;    良臣﹒人所願也&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;良 - good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;臣 - statesman&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所 - whom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;願 - hope /  wish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, &quot;良臣﹒人所願也&quot; would be &quot;good statesman, whom is wished by people&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T03:17:48.910" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22242" CreationDate="2016-12-20T04:54:27.603" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;热电偶&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thermocouple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;型号：BEM 螺钉 / BEM 探针 / BEM 铁氟龙 / 铠装口&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Model: BEM screw / BEM probe / BEM Teflon / Armored&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;分度号&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocouple&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Type&lt;/a&gt; (Temperature range)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;螺纹：M6 / M6英制 / M8 / M10 / M12&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Screw thread: ISO Metric 6 mm (the nominal outer diameter) / &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Standard_Whitworth&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;British Standard Whitworth&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;长度：1米&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Length: 1 meter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;测温范围&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Working temperature range&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T04:54:27.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22160" CreationDate="2016-12-20T08:40:28.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;[中文]&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/zy/5B87.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/zy/5B87.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[EN]&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%AE%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%AE%87&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other useful dictionary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/clk/search/%E5%AE%87/86588/182973?srchType=1&#xA;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%AE%87&#xA;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra01006.htm&#xA;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E5%AE%87&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16035" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T08:40:28.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22250" CreationDate="2016-12-20T12:02:56.527" Score="1" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;We were discussing &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Modifying_nouns_with_phrase_%2B_%22de%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; topic in the class yesterday and had a few difficulties understanding it. The main problem was to understand when the sentence / phrase is referred to a regular action or to the action in the past. Could this be figured out without additional time markers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, from these sentences: &#xA;去北京的火车 or 妈妈做的菜 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6842" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T15:10:51.503" Title="Modifying nouns with phrase + 的" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22249" CreationDate="2016-12-20T13:46:27.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Modifying nouns with phrase + 的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A [phrase + 'adjective suffix 的'] is an 'adjective phrase'. It functions as an adjective for the noun. If there is a [clause +'adjective suffix 的'], then it is an 'adjective clause'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 can also be a 'possessive' but that's another topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The main problem was to understand when the sentence / phrase is referred to a regular action or to the action in the past.  Could this be figured out without additional time markers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May be this can help: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22011/how-do-you-specify-past-tense-for-%e6%98%af&quot;&gt;How do you specify past tense for 是?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the answer is, &quot; no, you can't figure out the action is in the past or present without additional time markers, but you don't need to&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T15:10:51.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22249" CreationDate="2016-12-20T14:25:57.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An explicit time marker is always required.  There is no exception. But sometime it depends on the context, even without a time marker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;到达了北京的火车&#xA;The train that reached Beijing&#xA;&#xA;这都是妈妈做的菜&#xA;All this food are cooked by mum.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T14:25:57.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22252" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-20T17:33:37.223" Score="0" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uJApf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you tell me the meaning of this seal? I got it as a present from China but I don't know what it means...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16036" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T21:43:28.007" Title="Meaning of a seal" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22253" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22264" CreationDate="2016-12-20T20:01:08.540" Score="8" ViewCount="700" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand what 识 means and why 认识 is different from 知道.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I was able to gather the information on 戠 is a depiction of an armed group of people which, while in battle, should be recognized and diffirentiated from other groups by the general. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, 识 is 言+戠 and the explanation goes two ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The relevant oracle bone form of 戠 combines 弋 stake + an abbreviated form of 辛 needle/cutting tool → use a sharp implement to notch a stake, creating a marker. 戠# replaces 辛 with 音 sound → mark/pay attention to a sound. And to obtain &lt;em&gt;knowledge&lt;/em&gt; by &lt;strong&gt;marking&lt;/strong&gt; another person's words.&#xA;You can read more about this view &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_60069d920102wlbz.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;here&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;But the best explanation I've come across is this: 识 is &lt;em&gt;to recognize&lt;/em&gt; and it has a connotation &quot;&lt;em&gt;to recognize (battle groups) by own eyes (what is needed of you on the battle field while operating your troops) or &lt;strong&gt;to see&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;strong&gt;2-nd&lt;/strong&gt; theory/model is right, then it should explain a series of characters below (&lt;strong&gt;I need some help&lt;/strong&gt; filling this list, I don't know all the meanings and maybe you know more characters with 戠): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;幟 - a cloth + conspicuous group = military standard which serves as a battle field marker.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嬂 - it's a woman's name and, I guess, being conspicuous or differentiable in the crowd is a plus for a female. In other words 戠 should posess some positive connotation in order to be incorporated in a name for a woman.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;樴 - adding a stick to 戠 - group of people with stakes (battle group), or a single stake (chinese does not differentiate between plural or singular).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;膱 - dried meat? Well, I'm at a loss here, can't explain, maybe it has something to do with strong/conspicuous flavor.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;旘 - banner of a group of people (same as 幟) but here the banner is flapping on a wind.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;熾 - bright/conspicuous fire so you can see it from afar.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;職 - can't explain it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蟙 - google shows a spider for this character. Maybe it has smth to do with with marks on some spider. Can't explain according to the model.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;織 - to weave. I don't know how this fits in to the model.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;軄 - I don't know what this character means.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, if 2nd theory is true, then 认识 can be easily explained as &lt;strong&gt;&quot;admit seeing&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. This also explains why 认识 is used mostly for &quot;I have met(seen) him&quot; or &quot;I know him (he is my friend i.e. I've seen him)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a native, does 识(to know) and 认识 convey &quot;sensual, seeing&quot; connotation to You, while 知道 does not convey this, as being more abstract &quot;to know&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you help fill the gaps in the list?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.S. Please, don't provide answers like &quot;认识 is for people and 知道 is for facts because it's the way it is&quot;. I seek explanation, logic ect., not a &quot;rule of thumb&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:15:11.250" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:15:11.250" Title="认识 vs 知道 based on glyph origins" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="14" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22252" CreationDate="2016-12-20T21:43:28.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is probably a transliteration of a non-Chinese name. 瓦尼亚 rendered in Pinyin romanization is wǎ ní yà. Unless a set of characters was provided to the person who carved the seal, that is how the carver decided to transliterate your username (and personal name?), Anja.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16009" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T21:43:28.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22255" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-20T22:49:37.017" Score="3" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;We all know that the simplified Mandarian is much faster when handwriting. Yet future is obviously more and more filled with electronical typing rather than handwriting. This closes the problem with the difficulty and speed of writing and so are there any signs that we'll be comming back to the traditional Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16038" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T08:11:03.340" Title="Signs for Traditional Mandarin comming back as technology grows?" Tags="&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22256" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-20T23:06:22.913" Score="3" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that the formal terms for &quot;planet&quot; (行星) and &quot;star&quot; (like the Sun) (恆星) are pronounced identically in Cantonese (both Jyutping: hang4 sing1). Given that these terms are often discussed together, and it is important that they not be confused, I was wonder how do Cantonese speakers manage to differentiate the two terms when speaking in an astronomical context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5978" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T02:01:24.220" Title="Confusion between &quot;planet&quot; and &quot;star&quot; in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22179" CreationDate="2016-12-21T00:58:30.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To understand these words better you should first identify the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context of time, 上/前 means &quot;before the current&quot;; 下/後 means &quot;after the current&quot;. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上次/下次 (last time/next time)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;之前/之後 (before/after)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;提前/延後 (move up/move back)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context of space, 上 means up/above, 前 means front/ahead, 下 means down/below, 後 means back/behind. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;樓上/樓下 (upstairs/downstairs)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;前進/後退 (moving forward/moving backward)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having that said, there are some gotchas when the context of time and space is mixed together. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;前景: literally it means &quot;the scene in front&quot; if translated word by word, but what it really means is the future (which is &quot;what you will see when you move forward&quot;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;向後兼容 (backward compatibility): In my opinion, &quot;backward compatibility&quot; is translated to &quot;向後兼容&quot; only because the translation was done word by word, without taking the context of time/space into account. I would personally prefer considering it as an unfortunate mistake in translation to considering &quot;後&quot; meaning &quot;backward in time&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2358" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T00:58:30.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22256" CreationDate="2016-12-21T02:01:24.220" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;we may assumed the listener know what the utterance means, according to the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another approach is to pronounce 恆星 as &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/hang4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;hang1&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/sing1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;sing1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meanwhile, deliberately pronounce 行星 as &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/haang4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;haang4&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/sing1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;sing1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one is what i learned in primary school, a long time ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;actually, in cantonese, we pronounce 行 as &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/haang4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;haang4&lt;/a&gt; in 行街, 行船.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T02:01:24.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2528" CreationDate="2016-12-21T06:21:41.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think people normally don't say that anymore, only if they work for the government. Ordinary people nowadays stopped calling others 同志 because now it has another meaning, which is gay or lesbian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16041" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T06:21:41.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22253" CreationDate="2016-12-21T06:46:45.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q1: 我认识他=I know him(in person, maybe have some relationship with him), I have seen him before, I can recognise his face. These explanation could be all correct, depends on the context. 我知道他= I have heard about him, I know which guy you talk about. 知道is a bit vague, 认识 is for sure that you have some kind of relationship with someone or something. However, people wouldn't mind if you use either one in oral Chinese.&#xA;Q2: Don't worry about them, as a native speaker, I know none of these words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16041" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T06:46:45.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22261" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22262" CreationDate="2016-12-21T10:01:21.303" Score="2" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following the question below about 认识 and 知道 and coobit's analyses of the characters, I am wondering, if a character contains a meaning part and a phonetic part, is there complete separation of the 2, or does the phonetic part also contribute in some way to the meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone once must have written each character for the first time. I often wonder how they came to the decision to draw them that way. What thoughts went through their minds? They presumably already had a sound for the word, a spoken word, they just had to find a way of representing that sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T23:50:34.203" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T23:50:34.203" Title="Are characters divided into meaning part and phonetic part, with no overlapping?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22261" CreationDate="2016-12-21T11:46:34.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://twowin.com.tw/gogo_card/chinese/p6.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;六書&lt;/a&gt; : six categories of Chinese Characters (象形,指事,形聲,會意,轉注,假借)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四、形聲 phonogram&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. [meaning + phonic] combination character (with original forms of both components intact)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. 形聲 (Phonogram) express both meaning and phonic. Different from 會意 (associative compounds) which can only express meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三、會意 (associative compounds)：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c. associative compounds including phonic component：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: '婢' = '女'(female)+ '卑'(humble); '卑' is also the phonic component&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 婢 belong to one type of 會意字, which both components contribute meanings to the character, and one of the components is also the phonic component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My conclusion is, phonic part in 形聲字 (Phonogram) may or may not contribute meaning. For example: 江(river) =(river + 工 phonic); 聞 (listen) = (ear on the door with 門 phonic)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one of the two meaningful parts in  會意字 (associative compounds) does contribute phonic element to the character, then it is a type c 會意字='會意形聲字'(associative compounds including phonic component)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T11:46:34.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22261" CreationDate="2016-12-21T13:03:59.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take for example classical character 講 = 言(talk) + 冓 (a strucutre/scaffold from bamboo twigs).&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H4Cig.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H4Cig.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the meaning is &quot;talk+structure&quot;, thus &lt;em&gt;a structured talk&lt;/em&gt; which is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;a lecture&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. You see that 講 doen't have a phonetic information since 冓 sounds as &quot;gou&quot;.&#xA;It is written today as 讲, which is 言+井(A square well). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qNRs3.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qNRs3.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;井 was added as a phonetics (it is spelled as &quot;jing&quot;), but it is not only a phonetic component. It is also a simplification of scaffold image&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AgfWQ.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AgfWQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so it has nothing to do with a meaning of &quot;a well&quot;. You can see that 井 still looks like a scaffold/structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2016-12-21T13:19:20.697" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T13:19:20.697" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22253" CreationDate="2016-12-21T14:51:41.110" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I stated in my comment that I don't think study the etymology help you understand a character as much as cross reference the roles of a character in different compound words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;strong&gt;認&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;strong&gt;recognise&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;identify&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;make out&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] admit; acknowledge; agree; accept&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] enter into a certain relationship with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[4] offer/undertake to do sth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;strong&gt;識&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] [v] &lt;strong&gt;know&lt;/strong&gt;; recognize; discern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] [n] knowledge; opinion; view&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 認識 = to know, to recognize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The logic behind it came from the meaning 'to recognize' in 認 and &amp;quot;to know&amp;quot; in 識. You &lt;strong&gt;recognize&lt;/strong&gt; something, to &lt;strong&gt;know&lt;/strong&gt; it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;見識: experience(v) = (see + know)&#xA;*'to see to know'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;見識: experience(n)= (see + knowledge)&#xA;&lt;em&gt;knowledge from what you had seen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;學識: knowledge; acquirements (n) = (learn/study + know)&#xA;&lt;em&gt;knowledge from what you had studied&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常識: common sense; general knowledge(n) = (common + knowledge)&#xA;&lt;em&gt;knowledge that is common&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to 認識, you know 識 is a knowledge you gain by '認' and from all the meanings 認 contained, only &amp;quot;recognise / identify&amp;quot; make sense, thus we know 認識 means &amp;quot;knowledge gained by identify something&amp;quot; or &amp;quot; to identify something to know it.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 知道 (to know about something)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] [v] &lt;strong&gt;know&lt;/strong&gt;; understand; be aware of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] [n] knowledge; learning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] [v] to inform; notify; tell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[7] [v] &lt;strong&gt;think&lt;/strong&gt;; suppose; wonder&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知道: to know about something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you 知 (know; understand; be aware of) and 道 (think) - &amp;quot;you know and think of/suppose something as~&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the information above, we can discern the difference between 認識 and 知道 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;認識&lt;/strong&gt; = 1.(v) to recognize to know  2.(v)know (someone/ something you recognize/ identified before)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you have to meet someone, or come across something to recognize and know him or it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;知道&lt;/strong&gt;= to know (be aware of someone/something)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You don't have to meet a person to know him, you can know or be aware of someone by reading about him or heard of him.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T19:53:25.567" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2528" CreationDate="2016-12-22T03:31:15.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you say 同志 in a formal circumstances or talking to elder people, then it is totally appropriate and respectful. If you use it online or in a younger community, most people would think it means gay nowadays. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12341" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T03:31:15.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14835" CreationDate="2016-12-22T07:26:51.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right about the company. It's full name is 科大讯飞. 科大is short for 中国科学技术大学(University of Science and Technology of China)，my Alma mater!--this company is founded by several alumni in cooperation with the university.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TTS is not difficult for 科大讯飞, and they put their effort more on speech-to-text engine. But they have open source packages for both TTS and STT, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. Actually, they have been there at least since 2014. You could find them here (all-Chinese site): &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xfyun.cn/sdk/dispatcher&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.xfyun.cn/sdk/dispatcher&lt;/a&gt; Their TTS and STT support A LOT of dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, there is a Chinese TTS on Github: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/yantze/vim-tts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/yantze/vim-tts&lt;/a&gt;  It also supports a lot of dialects, including Sichuanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16053" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T07:26:51.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21254" CreationDate="2016-12-22T07:51:18.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope this pdf, &lt;a href=&quot;https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52801895e4b04258782fb399/t/5286e83ae4b01a998999f1bf/1384572986667/SimplifiedChineseMappingChart1956.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simplified Chinese Mapping Chart (1956)&lt;/a&gt;, could help:&#xA;This is 简化字总表(Simplified characters full list), an official list that includes 1) simplified characters that may not be used as radicals; 2) simplified radicals and simplified characters that may be used as radicals; 3) frequently used characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another even more comprehensive list with versions and alterations through years can be found on wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E5%AD%97%E6%80%BB%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;简化字总表&lt;/a&gt; (Chineses only). I guess you would get what you were looking for by translating that page!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16053" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T23:05:28.613" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T23:05:28.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22255" CreationDate="2016-12-22T08:11:03.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, and a definite no. Although there are voices about restoring traditional Chinese, these proposals are considered unpopular and expensive. Even top-ranked students of Chinese literature are unable to pass a basic traditional Chinese test. Even if the computer technology is advanced enough to fully replace handwriting, people are too used to simplified Chinese and will not bother changing the writing system again.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See this page:&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia: Debate on Traditional and Simplified Chinese Characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T08:11:03.340" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22253" CreationDate="2016-12-22T09:07:12.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for your second question, the problem with the etymology of Chinese characters is that most sources just give folk etymologies, which are very often completely bogus, according to serious paleographers. I'm not a paleographer myself, but I'll try to give a few pretty reliable sources so that you can investigate on your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most likely explanation for the structure of the characters with the component 戠 is that they are semantic-phonetic compounds (形聲). All theories of character structure, from the traditional 六書 up to the modern 三書 proposed by Qiu Xigui (2000), recognise 形聲 as the largest category of characters, so you need to have strong arguments if you want to claim that some character groups were created in a different way, especially if they have clearly similar pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chen Zhiqun wrote a very interesting dissertation (2009, &lt;a href=&quot;http://arrow.monash.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/monash:34651/THESIS01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;available online&lt;/a&gt;) about the origin of semantic compounds. Her most important point is that the vast majority of semantic compounds were &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; created by combining meanings of two components, but were rather depictions of prototypical situations related to the meaning of the character. Another way of formation of such compounds was reclarification, the process of adding new compounds that did not change the meaning of the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked up some of the characters you mentioned in Pulleyblank's (1991) dictionary, and they had similar pronunciations in Early Middle Chinese (which we know from the Qieyun 切韻 rhyme dictionary, 601 CE):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;織職 tɕik&#xA;織識幟 tɕɨʰ/tɕiʰ&#xA;識 ɕik&#xA;熾 tɕʰɨʰ/tɕʰiʰ&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like most likely explanation is that 戠 was used to write a similarly pronounced word, which might or might not have been semantically related, and later it was reclarified with an additional component, such as 糸, 耳 or 言.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other good sources to learn character etymology are 說文新證 by Chi Hsiu-Sheng (I think it's possible to find it online) and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.outlier-linguistics.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters&lt;/a&gt; (an initial release is expected in a few days, though we may need to wait for more detailed etymological explanations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chen, Zhiqun. 2009. &lt;a href=&quot;http://arrow.monash.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/monash:34651/THESIS01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Compound ideograph: a contested category in studies of&#xA;the Chinese writing system&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. Monash University. Faculty of Arts. School&#xA;of Languages, Cultures &amp;amp; Linguistics PhD thesis.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chi Hsiu-Sheng 季旭昇. 2010. 《說文新證》，海峽出版發行集團&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pulleyblank, Edwin G. 1991. &lt;em&gt;Lexicon of Reconstructed Pronunciation: in&#xA;Early Middle Chinese, Late Middle Chinese, and Early Mandarin&lt;/em&gt;. UBC&#xA;Press.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qiu, Xigui. 2000. &lt;em&gt;Chinese writing&lt;/em&gt;. The Society for the Study of Early&#xA;China &amp;amp; The Institute of East Asian Studies. Original version: 裘锡圭，1988，《文字學概要》，商務印書館出版&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2016-12-22T13:07:07.670" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T13:07:07.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22272" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-22T10:14:15.533" Score="3" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I presume this is good Chinese, but I would appreciate your opinions, because it confuses me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由于肥胖的形成原因很复杂，因此减肥药的研制困难重重，很多候选药物都存在严重的安全隐患。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很多候选药物存在 many candidate drugs exist&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but 存在 must mean 有 here. 有严重的。。。。 Is 存在 often used this way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;安全隐患 seems to say 'safe hidden dangers' which is somewhat paradoxical, 'safe dangers'. They might mean 'safety dangers, dangers to safety' but was there ever a 'safe danger'? The one excludes the other. They must of course mean potentially dangerous side effects.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure I understand the sentence correctly, but is it good Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T09:28:14.337" Title="Can there be a danger of safety?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22272" CreationDate="2016-12-22T11:53:56.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; Is 存在 often used this way?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;存在 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(n) existence &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;example: 他的&lt;strong&gt;存在&lt;/strong&gt; = his &lt;strong&gt;existence&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(adj) existing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;example:&lt;strong&gt;存在&lt;/strong&gt;風險 = &lt;strong&gt;existing&lt;/strong&gt; risk &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(v) to exist&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;example:(有)風險&lt;strong&gt;存在&lt;/strong&gt; =  (has) risk &lt;strong&gt;exist&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 存在 as a verb, so it is possible, but a better choice of verb would be &lt;strong&gt;存有&lt;/strong&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;exist&lt;/strong&gt;) which cannot be used as a noun or adjective, thus reduce chance of confusion. Or you can simply use &lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;have&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A smoother writing should  be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;很多候选药物都&lt;strong&gt;存有&lt;/strong&gt;严重的安全隐患。&quot;Many candidate drugs &lt;strong&gt;have&lt;/strong&gt; serious hidden safety risk.&quot; (存有 as a verb &quot;exist&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with using 存在 as a verb is : It is usually an intransitive verb (verbs that do not take an object; cannot be passive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-22T12:27:12.237" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T12:27:12.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22272" CreationDate="2016-12-22T12:11:07.450" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a frequent form of the verb 存在 which is used transitively (i.e. it accepts an accusative phrase).&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can break down the sentence as follows: &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很多候选药物 -&gt; (subject) many candidate drugs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;都 -&gt; (adverb) all&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;存在 -&gt; (&lt;i&gt;transitive&lt;/i&gt; verb) present&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;严重的 -&gt; (noun modifier with 的, lax modification) serious&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;安全 -&gt; (noun modifier without 的 = close modification) safety&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;隐患 -&gt; (noun, object) hidden dangers, risks&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is worth noting the difference between 严重的 and 安全. Grammatically they have the same purpose, i.e. modifying the noun, but the first is a pure adjective 严重 and is therefore &quot;applied&quot; to the noun by interposing a 的. The second 安全 has a double value both as noun, as in 安全第一 (safety first), or as adjective, as in 这个区域很安全 (this area is [very] safe). Here 安全 is used as an adjective. It doesn't require 的 because: &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;安全 is inherently a noun, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;的 would be used to determine the strength of the specification. 安全的 poses more emphasis on 安全 (risks [of/for] the safety); no 的 poses more emphasis on the modified noun, thus forming a phrase with 隐患.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Finally you can translate the sentence as:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;i&gt;All candidate drugs present serious safety risks.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2016-12-28T21:15:36.337" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T21:15:36.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22275" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22276" CreationDate="2016-12-22T12:21:08.720" Score="2" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is simple – do these two terms mean the same thing? I have seen the first one translated as a &quot;netizen&quot; once, but do they principally mean the same thing? Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T12:39:47.230" Title="Internet user - 网民? 互联网用户?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22275" CreationDate="2016-12-22T12:39:47.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We usually use the term 网民 to describe  &quot;people who use the internet frequently&quot;.  The literal translation of 网民 is &quot; web resident&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;互联网用户 just means &quot;internet user&quot;. If you have access to the internet, even if you check your email once a week, you are still an internet user.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T12:39:47.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22272" CreationDate="2016-12-22T13:37:03.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only in computing and safety, 安全 means &lt;code&gt;security&lt;/code&gt;. You cannot break away and recombine it with other terms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;信息安全 Information security&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;电脑安全 computer security&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;文件安全 document security&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original noun are actually direct translation from the English terms &lt;code&gt;hidden security risks&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;hidden security dangers&lt;/code&gt;. This is a &lt;strong&gt;common terms use in security(safety)&lt;/strong&gt; only. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, Mandarin user already rephrase term &quot;security&quot; to 保安, use 保安隐患 to replace the confusing 安全隐患。 But poor habits dies hard, you will see some China IT expert use 安全隐患 instead of 保安隐患 . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For unknown reason, some China website reporter/editor start abusing the term  and replace the common sense word : 危险 (danger)，隐患(hidden risks). Pretend it is a &quot;passive&quot; phrase of danger and hidden risk. Which in fact, it is NOT! &#xA;电脑保安隐患 or 电脑安全隐患 is a special terms.  The meaning of SECURITY(safety) can never use to substitute the meaning of &lt;strong&gt;risk&lt;/strong&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read the sentences again, you will notice it's nonsense : untested medicine doesn't have &quot;security risks&quot;/&quot;safety risks&quot;, but pose a &quot;healthy risk&quot; , or plain &quot;risks&quot;!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I.e. Which one do you think is correct ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Most candidate drugs pose serious safety risks .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Most candidate drugs pose serious healthy risks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Most candidate drugs pose serious safety issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the whole sentences are actually poor translation work from a person that doesn't understand English and master mandarin poorly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct term should be plain: &lt;strong&gt;隐患/ 风险 /危险&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this will clear your confusion : &#xA;很多候选药物都存在严重的[隐患]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, there is still many contradicting terms abuse by poor quality translator out there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update 1:&#xA;Hong Kong and Taiwan will use 信息保安隐患/电脑保安隐患 to indicate Information security risk. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most interesting part is the noun &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/9/3/5213.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;安全 &lt;/a&gt; are only mean for two things :&#xA; 1. Secure, out of danger&#xA; 2. preservation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update 2:&#xA;Bare in mind that, China translation always suffered from poor command of English.  Following is a good example of confusing term use : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nature.com/news/paper-that-says-human-hand-was-designed-by-creator-sparks-concern-1.19499&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Paper that says human hand was 'designed by Creator' sparks concern&lt;/a&gt;. A English paper writer will never confuse about &quot;natural selection&quot; versus &quot;creator&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-01-09T09:28:14.337" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T09:28:14.337" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22278" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-22T13:46:23.570" Score="7" ViewCount="2572" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;时间给勤奋者以荣誉，给懒汉以耻辱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a quote from Gao Shiqi.  I understand the basic meaning of it, but what is a good way to define the usage of 以？ It can mean many different things in Chinese and is sometimes confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-28T01:34:25.630" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T15:28:08.273" Title="How is 以 used in 时间给勤奋者以荣誉，给懒汉以耻辱?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22278" CreationDate="2016-12-22T14:21:48.297" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's what Paul Rouzer has to say on 以 in his &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/067402270X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.5 &lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;: This is one of the most frequently used characters in literary Chinese, and it has a very wide application. It was originally a verb meaning “to take,” “to use.” Eventually, it started to be used in combination with other verbs (what English language scholars often call a coverb). &lt;strong&gt;It serves the same purpose as English prepositions&lt;/strong&gt; like “with,” “by means of,” and “through.” It usually comes before the main verb, and it is followed by its own special object:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天以禍報爲不善者。Heaven repays with disaster the person who does evil.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In this example, 報 is the main verb, and 爲不善者 is its object. 以&#xA;  is the coverb, and 禍 is the object of the coverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Identify the object of the coverb in each case: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;聖人以德導小人。 The wise person leads the petty person with virtue. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自禁者以德導欲。 The person who restrains herself leads her desires with virtue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.6 &lt;strong&gt;Shifting the coverb position&lt;/strong&gt;: However, if a writer wants to put special emphasis on the thing that gets used (as in text #3), he or she will place the coverb and its object &lt;strong&gt;after the main verb&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小人導心以耳目: The petty person leads his heart with his ears and eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Another, more awkward way of expressing the same sense: “It is with his ears and&#xA;  eyes that the petty person leads his heart.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;知己者報人以善: It is with good that the one who knows herself rewards others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小人報天以怨: It is with resentment that the petty person rewards Heaven.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on point 1.5, a literal translation of 時間給勤奮者以榮譽，給懶漢以恥辱 might be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;時間  給       勤奮者       以   榮譽  ，     給       懶漢     以    恥辱&#xA;Time provides the diligent with honour, and provides the lazy with disgrace.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, according to point 1.6, when the coverb (here 以) is placed after the main verb (here 給), it puts more emphasis on the thing after the coverb (here 榮譽 ‘honour’ and 恥辱 ‘disgrace’). Therefore, an even more literal translation (though a very awkward one) could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;It is with honour that time provides the diligent, and it is with disgrace that time provides the lazy.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That should explain the use of 以, which in this case basically means ‘with’. Of course, a natural-sounding translation cannot be as literal as the ones above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; 以 can be translated as ‘with’ &lt;strong&gt;in this particular context&lt;/strong&gt;. It doesn't mean that ‘with’ is always a correct translation if 以. In particular, 以 does &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; mean ‘together with’, and is therefore different from words such as 和，与，跟， 一起 and so on. As we can see in the above quote, 以 may in other context be expressed with ‘take’, ‘use’, ‘by means of’ and ‘through’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2016-12-28T10:33:38.017" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T10:33:38.017" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22278" CreationDate="2016-12-22T15:34:23.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 以 has many meanings &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/461/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/461/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/3966/%E7%B1%B3%E5%A5%BD&quot;&gt;米好 '-'&lt;/a&gt; 's answer is a good one. &quot;&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in : “时间给勤奋者&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;荣誉，给懒汉&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;耻辱.” do mean &quot;with&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in : &quot;&lt;em&gt;provides the diligent &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; honour&lt;/em&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &quot;with&quot; also has many meanings &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/with&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/with&lt;/a&gt;. We have to look at the context to decide which meaning of &quot;with&quot; we are talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, we can see 'Time' is the subject, and ' honor' is an object that time gives and 'diligent people' is an indirect object (recipient of honor).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Time gives honor to diligent people&quot; = &quot;Time provides the diligent with honor. &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以(with) before the noun 'honor' is a preposition that indicates 'honor' is the direct object  and 'diligent people' is indirect object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we omit 以(with) in the sentence and write: &quot;时间给勤奋者荣誉&quot; (Time provides honor to the diligent) the meaning of the sentence would almost be the same. Using preposition 'with' before 'honor' is for emphasizing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*personaly, I prefer writing &quot;时间给勤奋者荣誉&quot; which is a simpler structure, and less chance of confusion after transliterated to English &quot;Time provides honor to the diligent&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T15:46:49.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22281" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-22T22:00:57.550" Score="4" ViewCount="328" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm searching for a good resource to learn Chinese with a focus on natural sciences and engineering. In particular, I would like the name of chemicals, machinery parts and environmental/ecological concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16056" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T18:25:30.893" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T18:25:30.893" Title="Good resource to learn scientific Chinese" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22278" CreationDate="2016-12-23T05:03:32.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would respectfully disagree with the 2 answers. If 以 cannot be replaced with another word for 'with', why assume 以 means with? Just because English uses 'provide with'? That is a rash assumption. Would you also change 给 for 提供 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时间给勤奋者以荣誉，给懒汉以耻辱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time, for the hardworking, leads to honour, for the lazybones, leads to disgrace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look here for various meanings of 以:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%BB%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%BB%A5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second one down says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表示率領、帶領。如《左傳．僖公四年》：「四年春，齊侯以諸侯之師侵蔡。」《國語．周語》：「（富辰）乃以其屬死之。」韋昭注：「帥其徒屬，以死狄師。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The linguists or professors at HK Uni, presumably using their great knowledge of Chinese wrote this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘以’表示率領、帶領。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They equate 以 with 率领 or 带领, both of which mean lead. (They may also, of course, err.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四年春，齊侯以諸侯之師侵蔡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I simplify this sentence I get: 齊侯以諸侯之師 Qihou lead (率领） the Zhuhou army.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the year 4 in springtime, Qihou lead the Zhuhou army and invaded Cai.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes no sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时间给勤奋者以荣誉 Time leads the hardworking to honour. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is, of course, figurative language, as 'time' cannot physically 'lead', as did 齊侯 when he invaded (侵) 蔡. We could change 'lead' for 'results in': Time results in （leads to) honour for the hardworking. The meaning is unchanged: Time passes, honour accrues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Makes good sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2016-12-27T05:34:15.137" LastActivityDate="2016-12-27T05:34:15.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22261" CreationDate="2016-12-23T09:35:00.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, &lt;strong&gt;yes, the phonetic part may or may not contribute to meaning.&lt;/strong&gt; But let me put this more precise. &#xA;I understand that Western readers must have been bewildered by the strange history of Chinese characters. &#xA;There has been so much misconceptions that I cannot resist to add several remarks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Abbreviations:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;char := Chinese character&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  p(*) := pronunciation of *&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  m(*) := meaning of *&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  x ~ y := x is close or related to y&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  x ~/~ y := x is not apparently close or related to y&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider char AB consisting of char A and char B sticking together (vertically or horizontally, or stuck in the middle). &#xA;For our purpose, let char AB be an 形聲 (xíng shēng / Phono-semantic character) char. &#xA;Without loss of generosity, let char A be the phonetic part, and char B be the semantic part. &#xA;By our assumption, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;p(AB) ~ p(A)    ... ... (a)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  m(AB) ~ m(B)    ... ... (b)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Logically, in our setting, there are these possibilities: (Examples follow shortly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;m(AB) ~ m(A)    ... ... (c)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  m(AB) ~/~ m(A)    ... ... (d)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before seeing some examples, we naturally wonder, why did this happen? How was the accepted form of AB be agreed on, in the Chinese-using community? And how did these consensus arrive among them at all? You might picture that (along evolution of time):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Suppose p(A) = P and m(B) = M&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It was intended that a new char X be created with m(X) = M' and p(X) = P', with P' ~ P and M ~ M', but either it happens that m(A) ~ M' (case c) or m(A) ~/~ M' (case d).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then elders of the tribe or government officials (??) gathered, to decided how X is written.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They decided X = AB.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They announced the decision, and citizens (??) happily accepted.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The process is not only strange-sounding but in fact, &lt;em&gt;wrong&lt;/em&gt;. There are two ways how it happened. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first version is 假借 (borrowed homophone). This corresponds to &lt;strong&gt;case d&lt;/strong&gt; above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A concept M' with sound P' had already been established in spoken Chinese, but no corresponding char existed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Someone (unlikely a &lt;em&gt;she&lt;/em&gt; in the patriarchal society) wanted to write down a char X with m(X) = M' and p(X) = P'.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He made great effort to find a char A with P = p(A) ~ P', but N = m(A) ~/~ M' in general.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;He wrote A, intending m(A) = M' and p(A) =P'&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;From now on, m(A) = N or m(A) = M', depending on context. A is thus overloaded.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since so much confusion eventually arose, people started to add another char B with M = m(B) ~ M', that is to say, to coin AB, replacing the second meaning of A. (But Q = p(B) ~/~ P' in general.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thus, p(AB) = P' and m(AB) = M'.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;莫(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E8%8E%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Oracle&lt;/a&gt;), a picture of setting sun among woods, means &quot;evening&quot;. &#xA;It was borrowed to be the homophone 莫 &quot;not&quot;, so 日 &quot;sun&quot; (a circle with a dot showing the Sun) was concatenated to it, becoming &quot;暮&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;父(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E7%88%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Oracle&lt;/a&gt;), a picture of a sharp tool, means an ax. &#xA;It was borrowed to be the homophone 父 &quot;father&quot;, so 斤 &quot;a small ax&quot; (a picture of a sharp tool) was concatenated to it, become &quot;斧&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another version is 引申 (figurative meaning). This corresponds to &lt;strong&gt;case c&lt;/strong&gt; above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A new concept M' was gradually formed, calling for written expression yet to exist.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There was the first person who wished to write some X with m(X) = M'.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He made great effort to find a char A with N = m(A) ~ M'.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;He wrote A, intending m(A) = M', while p(A) =P, as was before&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since so much confusion eventually arise, people started to add another char B with M = m(B) ~ M', and to coin AB, replacing the second meaning of A. (But Q = p(B) ~/~ P' in general.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Phonology has changed so much that p(AB) = P' ~/~ P = p(A), no longer same, and people do not remember how it was created.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冓(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E5%86%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Oracle&lt;/a&gt;), a picture of a pile of crossed wood sticks, means &quot;to connect, to join&quot;. &#xA;It gave rise to figurative meaning &quot;to talk&quot;, so 言 &quot;speech&quot; (a picture of a woodwind instrument) was concatenated to it, becoming &quot;講&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卑(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E5%8D%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Oracle&lt;/a&gt;), a person standing, holding a tablet or plaque, means probably a servant job (modern sense: inferior, bad). &#xA;It gave rise to a related and more peculiar sense &quot;maidservant&quot;, so 女 &quot;woman&quot; (a picture of a dancing person) was concatenated to it, becoming &quot;婢&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It hardly (if ever) was the case that X = AB came into existence without the intermediate stage of borrowed homophone or figurative meaning. Everything becomes reasonable, doesn't it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ref.: Some of them comes from my memory, sorry. Some books I once borrowed or read are not at hand, but I cite one book I have, 許進雄《簡明中國文字學》(台灣新北市:學海出版社,2000).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastEditorUserId="15859" LastEditDate="2016-12-23T13:42:56.750" LastActivityDate="2016-12-23T13:42:56.750" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22285" CreationDate="2016-12-23T14:45:05.963" Score="3" ViewCount="3457" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you help me to translate the phrase &quot;One day we will meet&quot; or &quot;Some day we will meet&quot;. My guess is &quot;一旦我们相遇&quot;. Pls correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16062" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T12:34:57.093" Title="How to say &quot;One day we will meet&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22284" CreationDate="2016-12-23T15:22:00.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you can try &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.ca/#en/zh-CN/one%20day%20we%20will%20meet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you input &amp;quot;One day we will meet&amp;quot;  the result from Google Translate will be:  &amp;quot;有一天我們會見&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is now close to 100% correct. If you are learning Chinese, you should have learned most English verbs are converted to two characters compound words in Chinese. &amp;quot;Meet&amp;quot; translate to &amp;quot;見&amp;quot; seem out of place and it is the first thing to check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To refine the sentence,  input &amp;quot;Meet&amp;quot; and you will see a list of Chinese words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.满足: meet, satisfy, fulfill, content, fill, suffice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.见: see, refer, meet, catch sight of, be exposed to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.会面: meet, get together, hold a meeting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.见面: meet, see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.迎接: meet, greet, welcome, receive, salute&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.会见: meet, pay a visit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.遇见: meet, occur, forgather, rencounter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.碰面: meet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.会合: meet, join, assemble, hold a meeting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.接: connect, receive, meet, take over, join, extend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.会: can, be able to, see, meet, be sure, be likely to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carefully study all the words on the list, and you will find 3.会面 4.见面 and 8.碰面 are the better choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now substitute &amp;quot;見&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;有一天我們會見&amp;quot; with the three better choices and you will get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;有一天我們會会面&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;有一天我們會见面&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;有一天我們會碰面&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All three sentences above are acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also input &amp;quot;Some day we will meet&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Some day we will meet again&amp;quot; in Google Translate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*The result for &amp;quot;Some day we will meet again&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;有一天我们会再见面&amp;quot; is 100% acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一旦我们相遇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result in Google Translate for this phrase is &amp;quot;Once we meet&amp;quot; And it is correct, which mean your guess was wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;一旦(once) 我们(we) 相遇(meet)&amp;quot; is not &amp;quot;有一天(one day) 我們(we)會(will)见面(meet)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-23T17:14:56.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22286" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-23T16:08:56.463" Score="3" ViewCount="1624" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been using HelloChinese and one of the quizzes it gave (without much explanation) was something like &lt;code&gt;ni men ai mao&lt;/code&gt; ”你们 爱 猫“ to mean &quot;you love cats&quot;. However, reading it I thought it was &quot;you all love cats&quot; (like the southern US slang Y'all). In google Translate it seems to mean the same thing with or without 们&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly does &lt;code&gt;men&lt;/code&gt; add to the meaning of this phrase and where should it be used? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16063" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-28T01:28:21.673" LastActivityDate="2020-09-25T17:06:09.733" Title="Why is 你们爱猫 translated to &quot;you love cats&quot; (and not e.g. &quot;you all love cats&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22286" CreationDate="2016-12-23T19:07:20.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/5/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/5/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;們&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;an adjunct to a pronoun or noun to indicate plurality&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pronoun&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 (you) is a singular pronoun in Chinese, Adding 們 after it make it a plural pronoun- 你們(you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 (I / me) is a singular pronoun in Chinese. Adding 們 after it, makes it a plural pronoun- 我們 (we / us)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他 (he / him) is a singular pronoun in Chinese. Adding 們 after it, makes it a plural pronoun- 他們 (they / them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Noun&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The adjunct 們 is mostly used with human pronouns (e.g. - 你們, 我們, 他們).  Although it can be used with a noun, it is restricted to nouns for human only. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;戰士 warrior / 戰士(們) warrior(s)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;學生 student / 學生(們) student(s)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;工人 worker / 工人(們) worker(s)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人 person ; people / 人們 (people) * &lt;em&gt;人 can be either singular or plural&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 們 with nouns is much less common and it can often be omitted,  because plurality can often be indicated by use of plural classifiers (e,g. - a group of; a class of) or plural adjective (e.g. - those; these).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;們 is always used on people or other situations when you want to express personification. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we write 一群學生 (a group of students) or 那些學生 (those students) we no longer need 們 to indicate plurality. We know it is not a single student. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding 們 and write 一群學生們 or 那些學生們 would be redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2016-12-26T14:22:40.027" LastActivityDate="2016-12-26T14:22:40.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22286" CreationDate="2016-12-24T07:56:39.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally,Speaking will involve two roles: speaker and audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When audience is only one person, you can use pronoun '你' to represent the listener. However, when the audience is more than one person and you want to refer to them all, you can use pronoun '你们' to represent everyone of audiences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine a scene：&#xA;while you play basketball with five partners, in addition, four people in the opposite half to play basketball. Now, you want everyone to play with together and tell them your idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might say:&quot; Can 我们 play with 你们？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16065" LastActivityDate="2016-12-24T07:56:39.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22290" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22291" CreationDate="2016-12-24T20:53:08.687" Score="22" ViewCount="3349" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is hot water sometimes called 开水? What is the meaning of &quot;open&quot; in this context? How is this different than saying 热水 or 烧水?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it something to do with how the water was made hot, kind of like how there are sometimes different words for frying something (炸，炒，etc.)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16069" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T17:46:22.483" Title="Why is hot water called 开水?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22290" CreationDate="2016-12-24T21:26:58.487" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the meanings of 開 is 沸騰 (boiling) in 《漢語大辭典》&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/510699q.html&quot;&gt;開32&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's nothing to do with &quot;open&quot; or &quot;how&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;開水 boiled water&lt;br&gt;&#xA;熱水 hot water&lt;br&gt;&#xA;燒水 to boil water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When the water is still very hot, we can use 開水 or 熱開水 as hot water.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When it is warm, we use 溫水 or 溫開水.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When it's at room temperature, we use 冷水 or 冷開水.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When it's below, say, 10℃, we use 冰水 or 冰開水.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;開 can indicate that the water has been boiled. Without 開, it may or may not have been boiled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above Chinese words are used in Taiwan. They are probably different in the mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2016-12-25T06:54:53.163" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T06:54:53.163" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22293" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22372" CreationDate="2016-12-25T08:21:05.277" Score="10" ViewCount="2004" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many people interpret the Chinese proverb, 孩子帶財 as that children can bring the wealth to the family and improve the family economy. Therefore, many people do not agree with it. Because, the economy might not get better, and the parents still have to spend a lot of money for children. As a result, it is deemed as only an excuse to persuade people to have children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there is a Chinese saying, 兒孫自有兒孫福 (the descendants have their own fortune). It shows not only that children have their own fortune, but also the correctness of 孩子帶財.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 孩子帶財 is not a phrase to persuade people to have children, people must have some reasons to say it. What are the reasons? How to interpret it in detail and then its correctness? Is it possible to explain it from the viewpoint of &quot;cause and effect&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;許多人將「孩子帶財」這句俗語解釋為：「孩子能帶來財富，使家中經濟變好。」所以，很多人不同意這句話。因為，經濟狀況可能沒有變好，還要為孩子花很多錢。也因此，這句話就被當成是「勸人生子」的話而已。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是，中國有一句古語：「兒孫自有兒孫福」。這句說明了古人即認為孩子有他們的福，也證明了「孩子帶財」是對的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果「孩子帶財」不是用來勸人生子，那此語的流傳必有其因。此因為何？要如何詳細解釋，並證明它的正確性？能用「因果」來解釋嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="15652" LastEditDate="2016-12-30T04:37:25.397" LastActivityDate="2017-01-06T02:49:06.553" Title="What is the correct meaning of &quot;孩子帶財&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;saying&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22293" CreationDate="2016-12-25T10:07:14.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never heard of the phrase 孩子帶財，but judging from the wording, it sounded like a logical fallacy of &quot;correlation imply causation &quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fallacy: &quot;Couples who have money tend to have children, therefore people who have children must also have money .&quot; It is an illogical argument. Wealthy people have children doesn't mean having children make them wealthy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for「兒孫自有兒孫福」, it is a folk saying that means &quot; You will die before your children. It is useless to worry about their future too much. Your children will have their own fortune. For that reason, you don't have to leave them too much money. It has nothing to do with &quot;children bring wealth&quot; . A similar expression of 「兒孫自有兒孫福」is 「不替子女買良田」( don't leave your children too much wealth because they would not be motivated to make it on their own )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the old time, to persuade someone to marry a person he or she never met, people would use the same fallacy and told that person &quot; See how most married couple love each other? After you married, you will grow to love each other.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My conclusion is, 孩子帶財(Children will bring you wealth) is a phrase to persuade people to have children based on the logically fallacy of &quot;correlation imply causation&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-25T15:28:52.567" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T15:28:52.567" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22290" CreationDate="2016-12-25T15:44:07.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;开水 is the general term of boiled water, it's usually fresh boiled. 开 (boiled, not opened) indicates the temperature of the water and it doesn't mean water cooking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;热水 means hot or warm water, it must not been boiled before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烧水 means water cooking. 烧 is the verb and 水 is the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many food cooking terms associated to water or steam. For example steaming 蒸， you can see the 4 dots there, which symbolize the fire。包子 is one of the most steamed Chinese food, it's steamed stuffed bun.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is poaching 煮， which contains very similar structure. One famous food is called 水煮鱼 poached sliced fish in hot chili oil. Have a try ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CpXaQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CpXaQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16077" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T15:44:07.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10072" CreationDate="2016-12-25T19:15:30.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general concept can be expressed using 臆, which could be used in words like 臆测, 臆断, 臆想. To express the idea of presumptuousness, you could use the phrases like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;总是臆测他人的想法&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;对他人有很多臆想&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the Chinese logic, this is slightly more like stating a fact. If we want some stronger language against them, we are likely to not care directly about how inherently positive or negative someone's way thinking is, but only their positive or negative consequences. So we would express them differently depending on the supposed consequences, for example whether it is bad for you, themselves, a third party, or a combination of them. And many of those terms don't distinguish whether they have actually &quot;presumed&quot; something, or only deliberately acted like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;又被代表了 (net slang) for preventing your real opinion to be expressed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就知道瞎想 for wasting efforts themselves, or disrupting someone else supposed to help them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;自说自话 for leading the conversation in a way you don't care and wasting your time. I think this is the case in your example.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;奉承&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;专横&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as the other answer suggests:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;自以为是 for the likelihood of doing something objectively wrong.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有偏见 for treating someone unequally.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有成见 for being ignorant about changes or individual differences.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11444" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T19:15:30.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22293" CreationDate="2016-12-25T20:11:36.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure where you've got this statement.&quot;孩子帶財&quot; can be interpreted as either the child will bring wealth to the family (literally), or the child will bring their own money (that is, the money needed to raise them up). The second one is more common as young couples who plan to have a child are often told &quot;don't worry, the child will bring his/ her own money to the world&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16083" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T20:11:36.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22286" CreationDate="2016-12-26T00:07:16.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a bit weird to say 你们爱猫。 Is that an order, a statement or a question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们爱猫吗？&#xA;皇帝命令：你们都一定要爱猫也！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are speaking at the Annual General Meeting of the Furry Friends Association you might begin thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欢迎朋友们！晚上好！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我知道，你们都爱猫。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 们 in 你们 or 我们 just marks the plural, for all use 都。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;y'all and yins both seem to be African American and fairly recent (not more than 200 years old) in origin. The slaves brought their own African languages with them, y'all probably comes from a transliteration of an African language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2016-12-26T00:07:16.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22293" CreationDate="2016-12-26T09:04:07.690" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;種瓜得瓜，種豆得豆。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As one sows, so shall one reap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;依據佛法，我們前世都修了一些福，今生才能投胎做人。這些善行的果報會在一生當中不同的時段出現。年輕時期出現的這部分是要用來成長和受教育的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the basis of Buddhism, all of us have done some good deeds in our past lives so that we can be human beings in this life. The effects of these good deeds will show up in different periods during the lifetime. The part shown in youth is used for growth and education.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;除了少數的特例以外，父母都會將孩子教養長大。這些教養的費用大多是孩子帶來的財。也就是說，父母為孩子花的錢大多是孩子帶來的財。這些是孩子前世行善的果報。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides a few exceptions, the parents will raise and educate the children. The upbringing expenses are mostly the wealth brought by the children. In other words, the money that parents spend for their children is mostly the wealth brought by the children. These are the children's fruits of karma due to their good deeds in the past lives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastActivityDate="2016-12-26T09:04:07.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22281" CreationDate="2016-12-26T13:30:04.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know of a couple resources for medicine and chemistry. These are technical dictionaries. You can start checking these out. I used to use them for work and never had problems so I guess the translations should be correct. Will post more as I come across them.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Medicine&lt;/i&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.drdict.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;drdict.com&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;i&gt;Chemistry&lt;/i&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cosdna.com/chs/stuff.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cosdna.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;b&gt;EDIT:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you're looking for occasional term references, usually a good bet is to search Wikipedia and switch to the Chinese page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2016-12-26T13:35:26.517" LastActivityDate="2016-12-26T13:35:26.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21917" CreationDate="2016-12-27T13:13:21.873" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;肯定表示认同，确定则是表示认准后决定的.&#xA;肯定和确定分别是：&#xA;判断的决定性&#xA;和&#xA;无法更改的事实&#xA;肯定代表是个人观点：就是自己主观上认为的事实&#xA;确定指的是有证据可以表明的事实.&#xA;you say '我肯定这个人就是凶手'表示个人主观上所认为是事实，自身对这个观点很肯定。&#xA;you say '我确定这个人就是凶手'指拥有证据或已经发生（出现）的一个事实.&#xA;以上是我个人的理解.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16093" LastEditorUserId="16093" LastEditDate="2016-12-27T14:05:48.717" LastActivityDate="2016-12-27T14:05:48.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22253" CreationDate="2016-12-27T14:08:17.170" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;认识是可以通过外观辨别客体，客体多为人，也可以为其他实物。&#xA;知道是全部或局部了解客体的特性，客体可以是实物，也可以是虚物，例如道理。对于客体的外形却未必了解。如：可以说知道一个没见过的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16093" LastActivityDate="2016-12-27T14:08:17.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2016-12-27T14:22:47.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suggestion: you can try using this input method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;software name：‘百度输入法’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open this web site download install package&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After installation can be found in the lower right corner and open or press &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shift+Ctrl to open the input method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X13Ln.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X13Ln.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can get Chinese characters by typing pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to say 'hello'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enter Ni Hao in turn in the case of open input method &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There will be the Chinese characters you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then look at the Chinese characters you want, click on the corresponding Chinese characters you can。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4P7cA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4P7cA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also the input method used by many Chinese netizens！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16093" LastEditorUserId="16093" LastEditDate="2016-12-27T14:30:46.997" LastActivityDate="2016-12-27T14:30:46.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10072" CreationDate="2016-12-27T14:37:13.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;爱答不理：Indifferent to people, not polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出言无状：Speak presumptuous, not polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倨傲无理：Arrogant, arrogant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没上没下：No respect for elders&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目中无人：No one else in the eyes. Describe arrogance, despise people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16093" LastActivityDate="2016-12-27T14:37:13.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22306" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-27T15:34:39.507" Score="1" ViewCount="1216" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently got into learning mandarin, mainly because I recently travelled to Taiwan and really enjoyed their version of it.&#xA;Now I want to learn mandarin, possibly with a Taiwanese accent but I haven't found any helpful resources (like Taiwanese mandarin podcasts) or websites that comprehensively explaining the differences.&#xA;To sum up what I've read so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ㄓ、ㄔ、ㄕ are pronounced as ㄗ、ㄘ、ㄙ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The ㄦ˙ Sound is generally avoided &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are tonal differences as well as differences in vocabulary like 小姐&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially troubling for me are the pronunciation of the Zhuyin/Pinyin characters compared to the standard mandarin accent, as well as tonal differences.&#xA;Can anyone recommend me some resources that could help me out in my quest to learn Taiwanese mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;also keep in mind that I am an absolute beginner so please correct any mistakes or misconceptions of mine, and also point out any differences I may have missed&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Maybe I should mention that I'm currently using the Practical Audio-Visual Chinese textbook for my studies, however for some reason the audio files were recorded in Beijing accent, so that doesn't help me with pronunciation either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15854" LastEditorUserId="15854" LastEditDate="2016-12-27T21:39:28.657" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T15:40:21.440" Title="Questions about the Taiwanese mandarin accent" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22307" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22308" CreationDate="2016-12-27T17:24:12.440" Score="4" ViewCount="454" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm now chatting with someone from China, and she said the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你在北京工作吗？我三月去那里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: 没有。我去北京市旅游的。我三月在意大利。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你在上海时间多一些吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the final sentence mean? I understand &amp;quot;if/when you are in Shanghai&amp;quot;, but what does 多一些 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T23:33:02.587" Title="What does 多一些 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22307" CreationDate="2016-12-27T18:41:31.417" Score="6" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多 = many/ much/ a lot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多些 = more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一些 = some; a little&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多一些 (more by some/ more by a little) = &amp;quot;little more &amp;quot; in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Her full sentence without any omission would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你在上海(的)时间(比你在意大利的时间)多一些吧?&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;Your time in Shanghai (compare to your time in Italy) is little more, right?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can translates to : &amp;quot;your time in Shanghai is little more (than your time in Italy), right?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If she wrote 你在上海时间多些吧? Then the translation would be simply: &amp;quot;your time in Shanghai is more (than your time in Italy), right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*吧 here is a final particle for softening the tone of a speech or indicating uncertainty. Without 吧 at the end, the sentence would sound like a hard fact statement. With 吧, the sentence sounds softer, more like a conversation, and leaves room for you to confirm or invalidate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你在上海时间多一些。&amp;quot; -- &amp;quot;your time in Shanghai is little more&amp;quot;(plain statement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你在上海时间多一些&lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt;?&amp;quot;  -- &amp;quot;your time in Shanghai is little more, &lt;strong&gt;right&lt;/strong&gt;?&amp;quot; ( softer tone, not presumptive, conversation like)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you don't use 'right', you could use 'heh?'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She mistakenly used a period instead of a question mark.  Even it is a rhetorical question, it still needs the question mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it is not a real question, people sometimes omit the question mark. It may lead to confusion if there's not enough context to indicate it is  rhetorical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在上海时间多一些吧。 would be a suggestion or a command.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T09:34:20.313" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22311" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-28T00:07:33.577" Score="0" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently bought &quot;Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1&quot; (Traditional Characters version) after some recommendations on a few language blogs and have worked through a few chapters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that it's very slow-paced and lacking grammar exercises. After reading further online reviews (Amazon, Goodreads, etc.), others seem to share the sentiment that it's a good textbook for university/teacher-assisted learning but not so much for self-study, and that the rest of the series is indeed quite poor in exercises (and even lacks a proper Answer Key!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the textbook series is also quite expensive, what are the most comprehensive options for intensive practical exercises?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My only major requirement is that it's in Traditional Characters as I'm moving to Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16097" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T01:35:49.550" Title="Which Mandarin learning textbooks have the largest amount of practical exercises?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22311" CreationDate="2016-12-28T01:35:49.550" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find some bookstores near the Elementary Schools (小學).&#xA;If you see some signs like 國小參考書, go to find 參考書 (references) or 評量題 (examinations) for the first or second grade (一、二年級). 參考書 include the teachings in the textbooks and some Q&amp;amp;A. 評量題 have only Q&amp;amp;A.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should know that all of them are totally in Chinese, no English.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Ask your Taiwanese friends to go with you.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find many Q&amp;amp;A on &lt;a href=&quot;http://exam.naer.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;全國中小學題庫網&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T01:35:49.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22290" CreationDate="2016-12-28T03:28:12.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer this question, you have to understand that Chinese traditional  characters are mostly came from pictographic scripts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;開 is the tractional style of 开&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then we focus on this character &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;開&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the outside frame 門 is symbolize the door, (you can notice this character is really like an opening door)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the character inside 开 is like a boiler in the campfire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16099" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T03:28:12.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22307" CreationDate="2016-12-28T10:28:14.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;‘你在上海的时间多一些.’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means‘You have more time in Shanghai’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般把‘吧’作为语气词或助词使用，用在句末.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘吧’在不同情况下可以表示‘赞同，推测、命令、请求’等不同语气；用在句中表示停顿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这里，‘吧’表示推测（询问）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16093" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T10:28:14.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22315" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22317" CreationDate="2016-12-28T14:05:15.690" Score="6" ViewCount="3257" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen one of my language partners use 牛气 and 很牛, but he couldn't explain it to me. The context suggested it meant something like &quot;bullshit&quot; or &quot;you are kidding me&quot;, a sign or disbelief, but the dictionaries I tried only suggested literal cattle-related translations. Do they have another meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-12-02T14:17:33.207" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T12:17:20.640" Title="The meaning of 牛气 and 很牛" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;slang&gt;&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22315" CreationDate="2016-12-28T14:38:37.983" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a slang, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%89%9B&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;牛&lt;/a&gt; could be used for expressing &lt;code&gt;awesome&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在中国口语中的“牛”，已经被引申为一个形容词，意思为“厉害、有本事”，例如“你太牛了！”（标准：你太厉害了！）。这个词通常为褒义词，通常用于赞扬、形容某人很厉害，很有本事，很有胆量。也通常用于口语中的调侃。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;很牛&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/%E5%BE%88%E7%89%9B/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;very awesome&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/b/111/298114.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;牛气&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/%E7%89%9B%E6%B0%94/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;arrogant ; self-important&lt;/a&gt; and also &lt;code&gt;awesome&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2016-12-28T14:52:22.477" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T14:52:22.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22315" CreationDate="2016-12-28T15:20:14.197" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most likely, 牛氣 and 很牛 came from a slang '牛逼' (cow's genital) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cow's genitals are huge compare to human's. Calling something 牛逼 means it is unbelievably impressive or out of worldly awesome. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;牛氣 (emitting aurar of unbelievable impressiveness) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;很牛 short for 很牛逼 (very unbelievably awesome) * &lt;em&gt;this example showed 牛逼 can be simplified to just 牛&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a common term 牛脾氣(temperament of a bull), which means &quot; hot tempered&quot; or &quot;extremely stubborn&quot; . But I don't think it is related to the term '牛氣' we are discussing here, because 牛脾氣 is not usually shortened. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I previously stated 牛逼 meant bull's penis, but it should be cow's genital instead.&lt;/em&gt; (I remembered it wrong, May be I thought it make more sense to be impressed by a male genital than a female genital.) Aside from this difference, the answer remain the same -- 牛氣 and 很牛 came from a slang '牛逼'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-29T02:44:52.000" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T02:44:52.000" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22306" CreationDate="2016-12-28T15:40:21.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There actually is a course that distinguishes Taiwan Mandarin from Mainland Chinese Mandarin: &lt;a href=&quot;https://glossika.com/courses/?target=zt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Glossika&lt;/a&gt; has both split into different courses, much as European and Brazilian Portuguese are distinguished as standard in most courses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the most salient basic phonological differences in standard Taiwan Mandarin 國語 vs standard PRC Mandarin 普通话 is ㄩㄥ vs yong. In Taiwan standard Mandarin it's yu- and -(e)ng, whilst in PRC standard Mandarin it's yi- plus -ong. However there's been some rapprochement happening between the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another ㄥ related pronunciation issue relates to the quality of the vowel of after the labial consonants b-, p-, f-, m-: whereas PRC Mandarin uses a mid-back but relatively unrounded vowel [ɤ], whereas Taiwan Mandarin generally uses a slightly more closed but more rounded vowel [ʊ~u].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_Mandarin#Pronunciation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taiwanese Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; gives a quick run down. The merging of retroflex into alveolar is mentioned, as is the lack of erhua; additionally in Taiwanese Mandarin there is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;greater syllable-timed isochrony; syllables are regularly spaced, with much less difference between stressed and non-stressed syllables&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;as a corollary to the above, much less use of neutral tone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there are more basilectal forms of Taiwanese Mandarin, where the accent is strongly influenced by either Taiwanese Hokkien (Min Nan) or Taiwanese Hakka. This (the Hokkien version at least) is what is generally parodied as ㄉㄞˇ ㄨㄢ ㄍㄛˊ ㄧˇ (Dǎiwān góyǐ). You can see some of the phonological changes there: specific lexical interference from Hokkien on 臺, lack of certain glides, and the absence of the ㄩ phoneme (converting it consistently to ㄧ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T15:40:21.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22319" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22320" CreationDate="2016-12-28T18:23:09.400" Score="3" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was in China for a week about a month ago. My brother photographed the menu pics of two dishes, namely &lt;code&gt;梨汤顿燕窝&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;棒打鸡丝拌拉皮&lt;/code&gt;. The first one I figured out to be &lt;code&gt;Lítāng dùn yànwō&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;swallow nests stewed in pear soup&lt;/code&gt;. The second one transliterates to &lt;code&gt;bàng dǎ jī sī bàn lāpí&lt;/code&gt;, but I cannot make sense of it. Word by word it should be &quot;stick hit chicken thread mix facelifts&quot;. So what does that mean? What is this dish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried googling and saw &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xinshipu.com/zuofa/83022&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, which says &lt;code&gt;鸡丝拉皮&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;jīsī lāpí&lt;/code&gt;. I read through it and I understand how it is prepared and what it is, except for one thing: what is &lt;code&gt;干粉皮&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;gān fěn pí&lt;/code&gt;? And is this the same as &lt;code&gt;棒打鸡丝拌拉皮&lt;/code&gt; or is there a difference in preparation, or perhaps it's something entirely different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS Any suggestions for tags are welcome :).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2021-03-27T18:46:00.470" Title="What is 棒打鸡丝拌拉皮?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22319" CreationDate="2016-12-28T19:16:34.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think of 棒打(stick hit)  as &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;stick tenderized&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (tenderize the chicken meat by &lt;strong&gt;hitting&lt;/strong&gt; it repeatedly with a &lt;strong&gt;stick&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鸡丝 is &lt;strong&gt;shredded chicken&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拌 is  &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;mix&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;stir&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拉皮 is a &lt;strong&gt;wide noodle&lt;/strong&gt; made of 木薯粉 (&lt;strong&gt;cassava&lt;/strong&gt; powder)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;棒打鸡丝拌拉皮 = stick tendered, shredded chicken, stir mixed with wide cassava noodle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;picture of 拉皮&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nSKW4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nSKW4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;拉皮&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;p.s: It should be 炖(stew)/dùn/, not 顿(pause)/dùn/ in 梨汤炖燕窝. They used the wrong character&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="22149" LastEditDate="2021-03-27T18:46:00.470" LastActivityDate="2021-03-27T18:46:00.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22290" CreationDate="2016-12-29T02:32:15.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a intersting problem and I want to answer why Chinese use &quot;开&quot; to draw the boiled water. People use teaketettle to hot up water and you can image that when the water is boiled, the pot lid will be flushed and open with the vapor. So Chinese describe the boiled water as open water which is &quot;开水&quot; in Chinese. It is really funny! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16102" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T02:32:15.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22322" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22323" CreationDate="2016-12-29T09:29:22.557" Score="4" ViewCount="1401" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have learned that both words mean &quot;a sentence&quot;. But they behave differently: 句子 requires a measure word and can be used separately, while 句话 does not (?) need the measure word and shouldn't be used alone. Plus it's similar to 菊花, which has a very interesting colloquial meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But one native speaker went in-depth suggesting that they are not interchangeable. I only understood a bit. From what I gather, one might actually mean &quot;an utterance&quot; or &quot;clause&quot;, an incomplete part of sentence. Let me quote him:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;句 jù&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;由词组成的，能表示出一个完整意思的话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;话 huà&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;说出来的，能表达思想、感情的声音，也指把这种声音记录下来的文字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;句子 jù zǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用词和词组构成的，能够表达完整意思的语言单位。每个句子都有一定的语调，表示陈述、疑问、祈使或感叹的语气。在连续说话时，句子和句子中间有一个较大的停顿。在书面上每个句子的末尾用句号、问号或叹号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想你主要困惑的是什么时候用“句子”，什么时候用“句话”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在简单句中，比如，由一个单独的名词组成句子的时候，使用“句子”这个词。比如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A问道：sentence这个英语词汇用中文怎么说？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B直接简单的回答：句子。（这里不能用“句话”，可以用“一句话”或者“几句话”。而且这里的“句子”是泛指，不特指一个句子，还是两个句子，而是都有可能。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“句话”这个词其实不能算个词汇，它不完整。在句子中如果出现“句话”这个词，一般是“一句话”省略为“句话”。比如：“我说句话。”是“我说一句话。”或“我说几句话。”的省略。如果你仅仅使用“句话”，就不完整。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. I also don't understand his use of 词汇 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="16050" LastEditDate="2016-12-29T21:31:22.873" LastActivityDate="2017-01-05T00:00:12.027" Title="Any real difference between 句子 and 句话 in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22322" CreationDate="2016-12-29T10:00:57.093" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;句话&quot; is not a word. A qualifier is needed before it, like&quot;一句话&quot; or &quot;两句话&quot;. No one say &quot;句话&quot; alone, because it is weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16104" LastEditorUserId="16104" LastEditDate="2016-12-30T03:44:38.057" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T03:44:38.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22322" CreationDate="2016-12-29T13:03:17.917" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Johnzh's answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;句话&quot; is not a word. A qualifier is needed before it,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qualifiers provide specific detail of the noun.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quantifiers tell how much or how many&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a classifier 句 precede the noun 话.  we need to add a counting word to make a quantifier before the noun 话, to describe the quantity of it (e.g. 一句话, 几句话) ; or a pronoun (this, these, those) to show proximity of the noun (e.g. 这句话)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use qualifiers, quantifiers or both to modify a noun. For example: 一句话 (one sentence), 蠢话 (stupid speech), 一句蠢话(one stupid speech) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Huang's comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, in few cases, you may omit the number 一 as in 一句话。 &#xA;  for example, 你倒是说句话呀. – Huang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, we can omit the singular counting word 一 and say &quot;说句话&quot; instead of &quot;说一句话&quot;, if you have a verb before it; but we cannot omit plural counting words like 两 or 几 before the classifier 句.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-30T00:38:19.627" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T00:38:19.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22325" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-29T18:11:35.910" Score="4" ViewCount="2288" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is the difference between 公分and 厘米?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I searched both of them mean centimeter, but which of them is correct in using centimeter in terms of size?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12344" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-01-30T05:51:47.150" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T19:59:27.453" Title="What is the difference between 公分 and 厘米?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22325" CreationDate="2016-12-29T19:29:48.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Metric unit of length&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Taiwan&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;公里= kilometer(km)= 1000 meters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;公尺= meter(m)= 1/1000 km&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;公寸= decimeter 1/10M&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;公分&lt;/strong&gt;= centimeter(cm)= &lt;strong&gt;1/100M&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;公釐= millimeters (mm)= 1/1000M&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mainland China&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;千米= 1000 meters= kilometer(km)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;百米= 100 meters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十米= 10 meters, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;米= meter(m)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;分米= decimeter 1/10M&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;厘米&lt;/strong&gt;= centimeter &lt;strong&gt;1/100M&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;毫米= millimeters 1/1000M&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong prefers imperial system because it was formerly ruled by Britain. For metric unit, Hong Kong people mostly use 公里, 公尺, 公分, 厘米 and 毫米 (a mix of Taiwan and Mainland China measurement units)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 公分 and 厘米 mean centimeter, just 公分 is mainly used in Taiwan and 厘米 is mostly used in Mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-01-30T03:33:21.047" LastActivityDate="2020-01-30T03:33:21.047" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22325" CreationDate="2016-12-29T19:35:34.730" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 1928, the government of the Republic of China introduced the metric system to China (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shtong.gov.cn/node2/node2245/node71621/node71626/node71635/node71714/userobject1ai76194.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;read more&lt;/a&gt;). It translated &quot;centimeter&quot; into 「公分」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later in 1959, the government of the People's Republic of China standardized the measurement unit in mainland China (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E7%B5%B1%E4%B8%80%E5%85%AC%E5%88%B6%E8%A8%88%E9%87%8F%E5%96%AE%E4%BD%8D%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E5%90%8D%E7%A7%B0%E6%96%B9%E6%A1%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;read more&lt;/a&gt;). It translated &quot;centimeter&quot; into 「厘米」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So currently some elder people in mainland China still use 「公分」(like my grandparents on both sides), and the younger generation tends to use 「厘米」. For the same reason, Taiwanese would more often use 「公分」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice is to use 「厘米」when you communicate with people from mainland China, and use 「公分」 with Taiwanese (Usually they can understand「釐米」, but it sometimes is confusing and ambiguous thanks to 「公厘」). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12341" LastEditorUserId="12341" LastEditDate="2020-01-31T19:59:27.453" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T19:59:27.453" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22284" CreationDate="2016-12-30T01:41:51.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Forgive me sublimate this phrase meaning.To show the beauty of Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If translate it to Chinese just like that simple,&quot;有一天我們會见面&quot; it's not funny and meaningful.Sounds like “The Soulless Tribute” or “The Walking Dead”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's imagine，someone you loved,by some reason could not meet anymore.At the last met time. She/He said &quot;No sorrow is worse than the one after parting.but &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;One day we will meet&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By Context Match. In Chinese, i will tell you these words &quot;&lt;strong&gt;孔雀东南飞&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;。Then,you will find a romantic true story , and open a high leavel language use way. Have a nice day :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16054" LastEditorUserId="16054" LastEditDate="2016-12-30T02:31:23.693" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T02:31:23.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22307" CreationDate="2016-12-30T09:51:42.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think person A is Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:你在北京工作吗？我三月去那里。&#xA;A: Are you work on Beijing? I have been to Beijing on March!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: 没有。我去北京市旅游的。我三月在意大利。&#xA;I: No!I went to Beijing to travel!I am in Italy in March!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK!The problem is come!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because person A is only listening &quot;I went to Beijing to travel!&quot; in his mind!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你在上海时间多一些吧。(。-&gt;?)(PS:他根本是個問句)&#xA;The total word is&#xA;A: If you travel to Beijing,you spend the time in the Shanghai is more then Beijing!Is right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T09:51:42.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22293" CreationDate="2016-12-31T08:22:19.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;However, there is a Chinese saying, 兒孫自有兒孫福&#xA;(the descendants have their own fortune).&#xA;It shows not only that children have their own fortune,&#xA;but also the correctness of 孩子帶財.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would interpret &quot;福&quot; as &quot;福份&quot;, &quot;福氣&quot; (blessed, or fortune); while &quot;財&quot;  as &quot;錢財&quot; (wealth). these two are different concepts; so, &quot;兒孫自有兒孫福&quot; cannot prove, or refute the saying &quot;孩子帶財&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;那此語的流傳必有其因。此因為何？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, based on my experience, the saying &quot;孩子帶財&quot; is &lt;strong&gt;un-literary-chinese&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;several sites are searched, including &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kanripo.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;kanseki repository&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chinese text project&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;a href=&quot;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cbeta 漢文大藏經&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;none of these site shown exact match results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, &lt;a href=&quot;https://mmis.hkpl.gov.hk/web/guest/old-hk-collection&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;old hk newspapers&lt;/a&gt; was tried, also, no exact match result. which means this saying didn't occur in newspapers, periodicals in hong kong, between 1853 - 1984.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, the interim conclusion is: &quot;孩子帶財&quot; is not a revival of ancient saying; it's a new &amp;amp; recent one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next, i tried bing on windows, and google on mac os; the search results is interesting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the earliest exact match is in 2003:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(生一個，給我一筆錢，我就相信孩子帶財庫)&#xA;我想就算孩子帶財庫，也比不上我們家債務增長的速度吧．．．&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.kimy.com.tw/forumTopic_new.asp?topicID=98094&amp;amp;sort=ASC&amp;amp;offset=10&amp;amp;allReply=y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://bbs.kimy.com.tw/forumTopic_new.asp?topicID=98094&amp;amp;sort=ASC&amp;amp;offset=10&amp;amp;allReply=y&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next one is in 2004, in the same forum:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(孩子自己會帶糧草來)(說不定這孩子帶財)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.kimy.com.tw/forumTopic_new.asp?topicID=227735&amp;amp;allReply=y&amp;amp;offset=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://bbs.kimy.com.tw/forumTopic_new.asp?topicID=227735&amp;amp;allReply=y&amp;amp;offset=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another one is in 2007:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;每個孩子有他自己福分，有的孩子帶財庫，庇蔭父母。 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071022000015KK03199&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tw.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071022000015KK03199&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;afterward, it flourished in 2010s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;my opinion&lt;/strong&gt; about this saying &quot;孩子帶財&quot;, in sequence :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my initial response when reading this saying is: bxxx sxxx (actually, it's an uncivilised word, in cantonese; which i'm not dare to write it here).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next, i tried to analyse the regional, cultural origin, usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, after the above searching, i would accept that this saying has its positive psychological effect, for those pregnant women who are facing financial difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;If 孩子帶財 is not a phrase to persuade people to have children,&#xA;people must have some reasons to say it. What are the reasons?&#xA;How to interpret it in detail and then its correctness?&#xA;Is it possible to explain it from the viewpoint of &quot;cause and effect&quot;?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about its correctness. for developed society, with a low rate of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;infant mortality&lt;/a&gt;, when parents do not worry about the health of their babies, when, they concern the expense of parentings; then, &quot;孩子帶財&quot; has its positive comforting effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;but&lt;/strong&gt;, for undeveloped world, or war zone; when everyone is struggle for survival, such saying is non-sense. it's &quot;more&quot; proper to use &quot;兒孫自有兒孫福&quot; in this situation, to encourage people to have children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2016-12-31T08:22:19.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22331" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-31T10:40:15.047" Score="0" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like someone to translate the writing on this plate in to english please &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LnRj3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LnRj3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16116" LastActivityDate="2016-12-31T12:10:55.443" Title="I would like someone to translate the writing on this plate in to english please" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2017-01-16T13:38:57.043" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22331" CreationDate="2016-12-31T11:22:05.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the rule here, I cannot translate the text for you as it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the sorted out version. You can use &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.ca/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; to try to translate it. You can go line by line first. If the outcome seems wrong, then refine your search and look at individual words that do not seem right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you get the rough translation that somewhat makes sense, but not completely, then you can ask specific questions on items that are difficult to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The original poem, 尋故人 written by 元代 黃清老 is: 適興一尋君，君家在白雲。幽花秋後見，落葉夜深聞。 隨意坐苔石，呼童煮澗芹。不須談世事，詩思正紛紛。 There are three different words. 適興一尋君，君家在白雲。幽花秋後見，落葉夜深聞。 隨喜坐台石，呼童煮澗芹。不須談世事，詩意正紛紛。 The other one is: 言易招尤，對朋友少說幾句。 書能益智，勸兒孫多讀數行。 (I only show the Chinese words here so that other users can use it. I have no time to translate it.) –&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/15652/user-487&quot;&gt;user-487&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;適興一尋君, 君家在白雲.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幽花秋後見, 落葉夜深聞.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隨意坐苔石, 呼童煮澗芹. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不須談世事, 詩意正紛紛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;言易招尤, 對朋友少說幾句.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;書能益智, 勸兒孫多讀幾行.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you write that many comments and consider Google Translate is not very good at translating text written in classical style, I would give you the rough meaning of this text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;適興一尋君 (I have a sudden urge to seek you), 君家在白雲 (your home is in the cloud). &lt;em&gt;somewhere remote&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幽花秋後見 (Pale flowers are seen after fall arrived, ), 落葉夜深聞 (Falling leaves are heard at late night).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隨意坐苔石(Sit on the mossed rock at will), 呼童煮澗芹 (call the kid to cook some Jian qin). &lt;em&gt;a kind of vegetable&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不須談世事 (No need to talk about the world's affair&quot;  , 詩意正紛紛 (One after another, the poetry feelings is coming).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;言易招尤 (Spoken words easily cause trouble) , 對朋友少說幾句(speak a few words less to friends).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;書能益智 (Books can benefit minds), 勸兒孫多讀幾行 (advise your children and grandchildren to read a few lines more).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2016-12-31T12:10:55.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22333" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-31T13:54:00.410" Score="10" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, 車 has two pronunciations: [ce1] and [geoi1].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, 車 also has two different pinyin: [che1] and [ju1].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ce1] corresponds to [che1].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[geoi1] corresponds to [ju1].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most idioms, 車 is pronounced as [geoi1] in Cantonese. For example: 閉門造車, 車水馬龍, 前車可鑒, 螳臂擋車, 學富五車 and 舟車勞頓. All have the character 車 pronounced as [geoi1].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*杯水車薪 is an exception with 車 pronounced as [ce1] (車 is a classifier here. The above mentioned idioms all have 車 as a noun).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It confused me when my friend wrote: &quot;two of the Mainland dictionaries (including 現代漢語詞典) use [che1] to correspond [geoi1]&quot; and list 閉門造車 as [bi4 men2 zao4 &lt;strong&gt;che1&lt;/strong&gt;] instead of [bi4 men2 zao4 &lt;strong&gt;ju1&lt;/strong&gt;], which correctly corresponds to [geoi1] in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After reading some forums, apparently dictionaries in Mainland China, are contradicting each others, with some listed 'che1' and others listed 'ju1' for all the idioms I mentioned. It means the opinions on how to pronounce 車 in idioms are not unified in Mainland China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that said, the question remains. &quot;Is it acceptable to pronounce 車 in the idioms I listed as [che1] in Mainland China?&quot; I mean, if I said: &quot;bi4 men2 zao4 &lt;strong&gt;che1&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; would some people correct me and tell me that I should pronounce 車 as 'ju1' instead? Most importantly, which one do teachers teach to students? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2016-12-31T23:20:45.403" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T16:55:18.913" Title="Pinyin of 車 in idioms" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22334" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22338" CreationDate="2016-12-31T23:01:40.733" Score="2" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've chosen a family for my Chinese name. I derived it from &quot;Булыгин&quot; in Russian. So of course there are no relatives to explain it to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This family is rare, and in the English Wikipedia I can see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Family_Surnames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;百家姓&quot;&gt;no page for it&lt;/a&gt;. Also, all families there are without Pinyin marks, and I have impression that they are not just Pinyin without marks, but romanization, &quot;o&quot; changes to &quot;u&quot; there, and 《卜》 becomes &quot;Bu&quot;, like in Russian. In text to speach engines it indeed sounds like &quot;Bu&quot;. Google Translate interpretes 《卜姓》 as &quot;Bo xìng&quot;, with zero tone, and in another sources I have found that when being a family it should be &quot;Bǒ&quot; in the third one. Baike gives error 500 if I try to click 《卜》 in 《百家姓》 。 &lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%9C_(%E5%A7%93)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Japanese Wikipedia has a dedicated page, and Pinyin is stated to be &quot;Bǔ&quot; there&lt;/a&gt;. I'm lost. Where is the truth?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16118" LastEditorUserId="16118" LastEditDate="2017-01-01T00:23:41.763" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T17:08:15.177" Title="Official Pinyin of 《卜》 in 《卜姓》： &quot;Bǒ&quot;, &quot;Bo&quot; or &quot;Bǔ&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22334" CreationDate="2017-01-01T03:28:51.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This family name is very rare. I personally don't know anyone around me with this family name. The authoritative dictionary &quot;新华字典&quot; lists Bǔ as the correct pronunciation for the family name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation &quot;Bo&quot; (neutral tone) is only used in the word 萝卜, which is a plant (radish), and we even have 胡萝卜(carrot).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T03:28:51.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22333" CreationDate="2017-01-01T03:54:27.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can safely prounouce '车' as [che1] in all idioms above in mainland China. Actually if you don't do it, someone might get confused since it seems we only pronounce it as [ju1] when refering the name of a Chinese Chess piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16119" LastEditorUserId="16119" LastEditDate="2020-01-31T14:39:38.000" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T14:39:38.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22284" CreationDate="2017-01-01T10:01:17.640" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;i think 后会有期 is better.&#xA;分别时说的，意思是，以后我们会见面的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15312" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T10:01:17.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22334" CreationDate="2017-01-01T17:08:15.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In PLC appears as a surname, but it also says it has different pronunciations depending on its meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TDjAy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TDjAy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;PLC&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the surname (family name) should be : Bǔ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1130" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T17:08:15.177" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22339" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22577" CreationDate="2017-01-01T17:44:12.070" Score="0" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been learning about idioms and one that I came across was 亡羊补牢 (wang yang bu lao), which means to mend the fold after the sheep are gone. However, when I've used it in conversation, native speakers have told me it's not commonly used. Was that just because of local tendencies and idioms are commonly used elsewhere in China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T20:21:04.637" Title="Are idioms like 亡羊补牢 commonly used by native Mandarin speakers?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22339" CreationDate="2017-01-01T21:09:28.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Idioms can express complex ideas in just few words. It can add literary flair to plain speech. It is used as vocabulary tool in all languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are benefits in using idioms in speeches. However, it has to be in the right part of a speech, to the appropriate audience, and most importantly, be the apt idiom that can accurately describe a situation or express a feeling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say idioms are not 'commonly' applied in everyday conversations. For example, it would be awkward to throw idioms around when you are discussing the menu with your waiter. It would also make you sounded pretentious to use idioms excessively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You hear idioms mostly in formal speech, scholarly discussion, in lecture from someone of your senior or superior, a sincere conversation between friends, and among people who see themselves as cultured and highly educated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take 亡羊补牢 for instance, it wouldn't be out of place for a teacher who is lecturing his students or a politician who is making a speech to his peer to use this phrase in his speech. But for casual conversations, classical phrases like this are seldom utilized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*There are many idiomatic phrases that we use in daily conversations routinely. some came from classical literature which qualify them as 'idioms' but those are in effect, 'common phrases'. For example : 有恃無恐，心知肚明  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-01T21:39:43.603" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T21:39:43.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22343" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22345" CreationDate="2017-01-02T08:29:37.353" Score="2" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hsk.academy/en/characters/%E5%8F%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The HSK acadamy site&lt;/a&gt;, it seems that 叫 can be used in two contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, it can be used to say someone called someone else:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;妈妈和爸爸叫我&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no translation given, but I think it means &lt;em&gt;mum and dad call me&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second and third examples on this page,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我的名字叫李明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;小姐，你叫什么名字？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 叫 is here used for giving or asking someones name. I would translate the second sentence as &lt;em&gt;My name is&lt;/em&gt; 李明, and the third as &lt;em&gt;Lady, what is your name?&lt;/em&gt; However, this is always used together with 名字, which means name. However, I've also seen simply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我叫 Wythagoras&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for simply &lt;em&gt;my name is Wythagoras&lt;/em&gt; (not my real name, by the way).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a bit confused by all the different usages of 叫, so the question is: In what context can 叫 be used for saying that someone is calling someone (as in the first sentence) and when for asking a name, when should 名字 be used with 叫 and when can it be left out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16127" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T11:36:05.240" Title="When can 叫 be used saying that someone is calling someone and when for asking a name?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22343" CreationDate="2017-01-02T08:49:11.077" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your intuition is correct. 叫 can be used in both ways (and even more). Here are the most frequent ones.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1) to call, to summon (using someone's voice). Verb is &lt;i&gt;transitive&lt;/i&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我爸爸妈妈&lt;b&gt;叫我&lt;/b&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Mom and dad &lt;b&gt;call me&lt;/b&gt; (they are calling my name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) stating one's name. Verb + &lt;i&gt;proper noun or definition&lt;/i&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你&lt;b&gt;叫&lt;/b&gt;什么名字？我&lt;b&gt;叫张三&lt;/b&gt;！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  What's your name? My &lt;b&gt;name is John Doe&lt;/b&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) to yell, to shout, or more specific verbs when referring to animals, e.g. to bark. This is a colloquial usage. Verb is &lt;i&gt;intransitive&lt;/i&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我狗在&lt;b&gt;叫&lt;/b&gt;！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  My dog is &lt;b&gt;barking&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) giving orders, asking to do something. Colloquial usage. Accepts a &lt;i&gt;verb phrase&lt;/i&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的驾照过期了，我要&lt;b&gt;叫&lt;/b&gt;他开车！&#xA;  My driver's license has expired. I'll &lt;b&gt;ask&lt;/b&gt; him to drive!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Specifically, how to decide between the usage 1 and 2. It is often made clear by the context of the whole sentence, as customary with the Chinese language.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As a rule of thumb, you'll have 叫 (to call) when it is followed by a regular object phrase, and you'll have 叫 (asking names) when it is followed by a proper noun or generically by a definition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-01-02T09:03:50.387" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T09:03:50.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22343" CreationDate="2017-01-02T09:20:55.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/339/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/339/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;叫&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] [v] cry; shout; hail; scream &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] [v] &lt;strong&gt;be called&lt;/strong&gt;; known as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] [v] &lt;strong&gt;call&lt;/strong&gt;; summon &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[4] [v] cause&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;叫&lt;/strong&gt; [3]. &lt;strong&gt;call&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你叫我 = you call me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我叫彼得 = I call Peter&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;叫&lt;/strong&gt; [2]. &lt;strong&gt;be called&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这叫工作 = this is called work&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我叫彼得 = I am called Peter&lt;/strong&gt; (My name is Peter)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice 我叫彼得 could mean &quot;I call Peter&quot; or &quot;I am called Peter&quot;(my name is Peter)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid confusion. When you use 叫 for 'to call' you should have enough context connected to this sentence to indicate 叫 means &quot;call&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我在叫彼得&quot; (I am calling Peter) or &quot;我叫彼得回来&quot;(I call Peter to come back)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, when you use 叫 for 'be called',  you should either have enough context connected to this sentence to indicate 叫 means &quot;be called&quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Q: &quot;你叫什么名字？&quot; A: &quot;我叫彼得.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or you can be specific and write &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;名字&lt;/strong&gt;(叫)彼得&quot;-- &quot;my &lt;strong&gt;name&lt;/strong&gt; is (called) Peter&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In phrases like &quot;你叫我&quot;(subject + 叫 + object) 叫 means 'to call' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In phrases like &quot;我叫彼得&quot; (object + 叫 +  name) or &quot;这叫工作&quot; (object + 叫 + definition) 叫 means 'be called' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-02T11:36:05.240" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T11:36:05.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22284" CreationDate="2017-01-02T12:34:57.093" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, the answer from @tang ho&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有一天我們會见面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is not wrong, but usually we don't speak as such. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bare in mind, when learning foreign language, don't neglect the actual context of your own language. As in English, &quot;Some day we will meet&quot; means &quot;Let's meet up when opportunity deem fit&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, this is the formal way to say such : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有机会的话，大家见个面 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, there is similar shortened speaking, Chinese use the word 改天/有空/得闲/下次 for &quot;someday&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有空的时候见个面 （Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;得空见个面 (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;得闲见个面（Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下次见个面 (Mandarin/Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T12:34:57.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22347" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22349" CreationDate="2017-01-02T12:55:46.903" Score="3" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if this idea is correct: that 的 can generally be appended to and adjective in order to refer to the entire class of objects satisfying that adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &#xA;好吃的 (delicious things); 我喜欢好吃的 (I like delicious things.)&#xA;漂亮的 (pretty things); 我喜欢漂亮的 (I like pretty things.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the limitations of this idea, if it is even correct? How about 大的 (big things)? Can I say 我不喜欢大的 (I do not like big things.)? I guess that's a little vague more possibly, since 'delicious' (example above) obviously refers to food. I can imagine a casual conversation in English, where it would be appropriate to say &quot;I like pretty things&quot;, and thus I'm wondering how people might say such things in Chinese, both formally and informally/casually/colloquially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if you told a friend to go purchase an item for you, and you wanted to colloquially say you don't want the &quot;big one&quot; (assuming the item has several size choices), could you say &quot;不要大的&quot;, &quot;不是大的&quot;, or just &quot;不大的&quot; or &quot;不大&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm most interested in what feels most natural to a native speaker. If I said either of the last four phrases above, would a native speaker know that I am stating a preference of not wanting the 'large size item'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T13:46:35.503" Title="Usage of 的 to refer to a generic class of things" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22339" CreationDate="2017-01-02T12:56:49.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some Chinese idioms are special, it depends on the sentences context and the say you express it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the complete idioms  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;亡羊而补牢，未为迟也。(if is never too late if you fix the fence immediate after the first few sheep escape. ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When one say &lt;code&gt;亡羊补牢&lt;/code&gt;, it can either mean : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;i. To comfort or remind someone that it is not too late to fix the mistake, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ii. Somebody mess up in the first place, now they are fixing it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;iii. A hint that somebody make a mistake that must be fixed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why Chinese don't simply throw out the idiom &lt;code&gt;亡羊补牢&lt;/code&gt; unless you are pretty sure what you mean. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T12:56:49.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22347" CreationDate="2017-01-02T13:33:33.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: yes. Your understanding is mostly correct.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Long answer: what happens in a sentence like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢吃好吃的 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I like to eat delicious things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is that you are &lt;b&gt;omitting&lt;/b&gt; something that would otherwise appear after 的. In the example above I omitted 东西。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This omission is fine with very generic nouns. I can come up with the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;东西 (material thing): 我喜欢吃好吃的[东西] I like to eat delicious [things]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;事情 (immaterial thing): 我不喜欢复杂的[事情] I don't like complicated [matters/stuff]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can then omit any other non-generic noun provided that what you are referring to is known from the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你回来的路上能帮我买一些苹果呢？我不要大的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Can you buy me some apples on your way back? I don't want the big ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is not easily understood from context, than you should specify the noun, as in: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢可爱的&lt;b&gt;东西&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I like pretty things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make up a rule of thumb, just remember that you are &lt;i&gt;omitting&lt;/i&gt; something. If you can convince yourself of this, it's easier to distinguish between noun phrases with an omitted noun and regular adjectives. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;In your examples above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不要大的 -- noun phrase with omission -- &lt;i&gt;I don't want the big one(s)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不是大的 -- adjective, with 是 for emphasis -- &lt;i&gt;It's not big!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不大的 -- adjective with end-of-sentence 的 particle (expresses certainty) -- &lt;i&gt;It's definitely not big!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不大 -- negated adjective -- &lt;i&gt;not big&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the correct way to colloquially express the adjective + omitted noun is by preceding it with a verb, just as if it were a normal sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T13:33:33.100" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22347" CreationDate="2017-01-02T13:35:10.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if this idea is correct: that 的 can generally be appended to and adjective in order to refer to the entire class of objects satisfying that adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, in this case, 的 is acting as an indefinite pronoun 'one' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_(pronoun)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_(pronoun)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好吃&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; (delicious &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢好吃&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; (I like delicious &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If there's a noun after 的, then 的 is in the role of 'adjectival suffix'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好吃(delicious)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好吃的(delicious)蘋果(apple)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If there's a noun before 的, then 的 is in the role of possessive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我(I)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的(my)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的蘋果 (my apple)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的 can also be a 'final particle' to emphasize certainty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不喜欢吃蘋果 (I don't like to eat apple)* &lt;em&gt;plain statement&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不喜欢吃蘋果&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; (I don't like to eat apple)* &lt;em&gt;with emphasis&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-02T13:46:35.503" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T13:46:35.503" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22333" CreationDate="2017-01-02T18:13:48.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out the dictionary for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/js/8ECA.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;車&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Mandarin pronunciation ju1 of 車 only refers to the Chinese chess piece. Even in Cantonese, it is incorrect to use [geoi1] in idioms. 閉門造車, 車水馬龍, 前車可鑒, 螳臂擋車, 學富五車 and 舟車勞頓, are all supposed to be [che1].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, the Cantonese interchangeable use of both [geoi1] and [che1]  is somewhat &quot;habitual&quot;, sometimes it is just meant to make fun of it, or make it sound extravagantly literate. You can't change it, so just follow the local custom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other [che1] in Cantonese: 車床，赛車，車站,車禍,車牌,車道,車票,車費.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can tease Cantonese-speaking people by pronouncing the above as [geoi1], clarify it as [che1] for fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Yahoo answer shows some collective info &lt;a href=&quot;https://hk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080901000051KK00772&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《莊子．徐无鬼》「乘日之車」；《經典釋文》「元嘉本車作居」  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《詩經．北風》「惠而好我，携手同車。」；阜陽漢簡《詩經》作「惠而好我，携手同居。」 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《禮記．禮運》「天子以德為車」鄭注：「車或為居」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《爾雅．釋草》「望，乘車」；《經典釋文》作「乘居。居本亦作車，音同」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;由此可見，古人把「居」和「車」偶要混淆的，所以劉熙說「居」為古音較接近事實。我見一些學者如王力和參考文章的著者，把車字的上古音擬為，聲母取「居」，韻母則近於「舍」。據本人所知，不少字音都是聲母韻母個別分途的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T07:21:41.220" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T07:21:41.220" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22352" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22353" CreationDate="2017-01-03T06:18:48.293" Score="-1" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far I have deciphered them, but it makes no sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BRbJq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BRbJq.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16132" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T22:16:48.803" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T22:16:48.803" Title="Need help translating a few words" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-01-16T13:38:11.963" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22352" CreationDate="2017-01-03T06:50:13.530" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;五羊牌&lt;br&gt;&#xA;牌: brand.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;五羊(five sheeps) is the brand name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;广州市&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Guangzhou City  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;广州制帽厂&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Guangzhou hat factory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出品&lt;br&gt;&#xA;produced, product&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规格&lt;br&gt;&#xA;specification&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reasonably, the whole thing in English might become something like (stuff that you can leave out for a nicer translation is between square brackets):&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wuyang [Hats]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A product of Guangzhou Hat Factory [in Guangzhou]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;specifications&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-03T09:56:32.073" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T09:56:32.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22354" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-03T07:11:47.890" Score="1" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can 弟弟 denote a cousin (of younger age)? I was a little surprised by the following excerpts from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.33yq.com/read/23/23888/3516751.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;那个不为人知的故事&lt;/a&gt; describing 杨锦天 both as 杨昭's 弟弟 and as the son of her 姑姑/paternal aunt (same surname（usually): 堂弟，paternal aunt：表弟，see comment #4 below):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;来电话的是杨昭的弟弟杨锦天，。。。  其实这是个可怜的孩子。&#xA;  三年前的一场事故，让他失去了双亲，杨昭的父母将杨锦天领回自己家抚养。杨昭也是那年回到了这座城市。&#xA;  她在外很久，久得让她对姑姑一家的惨剧甚至不能感到痛苦。她难过，但是还不到痛苦的程度。至于这个弟弟，杨昭大他七岁，她与他的关系谈不上亲密。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2017-01-04T06:09:16.867" LastActivityDate="2017-01-04T13:32:32.030" Title="弟弟 denoting cousin (of younger age)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22354" CreationDate="2017-01-03T07:37:29.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very complex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;弟弟&quot; means a lot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;your younger brother(s) (亲弟弟)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;your cousin and he is younger than you (表弟/堂弟)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;your close friend and he is younger that you. (MUST BE close friend)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;young man (Some Area's Dialect) (Also called &quot;老弟&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13390" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T07:37:29.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22354" CreationDate="2017-01-03T10:30:54.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on writer story description, you cannot simply read it out of context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;来电话的是杨昭的&lt;code&gt;弟弟&lt;/code&gt;杨锦天 : denote sibling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;杨昭的父母将杨锦天领回自己家抚养 ：indicate he is not sibling, but cousins, but now adopted by 杨昭 parent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;至于这个&lt;code&gt;弟弟&lt;/code&gt; : denote 杨锦天 is treated as sibling instead of cousin.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not uncommon practice in other culture. Due to various unfortunate incidents(war, famine,natural disaster), it is quite common for human society to adapt sibling children as own children.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the adopting parent who decide whether to retain the relative title or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such case,  杨昭 parent choose to make 杨锦天 as their own child. As in all cultures, family ties is very important.  These small little details does matters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-01-03T10:37:44.940" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T10:37:44.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22354" CreationDate="2017-01-03T14:01:47.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term '弟弟' only refers to 'younger brothers' (include half brothers or adopted brothers). It doesn't include 'younger male cousin' which has its own specific terms '表弟'(younger male cousins from 1. your mother's brother or sister [姨表]; 2. your father's sister [姑表])  and '堂弟'(younger male cousin from your father's brother)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;both (姨)表弟 and (姑)表弟 are simply called 表弟.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*The same is applicable to '哥哥'. We do not address '表哥' or '堂兄' as '哥哥'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason  杨昭 referring 杨锦天 as '弟弟' is clear from the excerpts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;杨昭的父母将杨锦天(&lt;strong&gt;领&lt;/strong&gt;)回自己家抚(&lt;strong&gt;养&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/38158/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/38158/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;领养&lt;/strong&gt;: to adopt (a child); to foster (a child)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杨锦天 was adopted by 杨昭's parents. They raised him as their own son. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if  杨昭's parents were not blood related with 杨锦天, he would still be called  弟弟 by 杨锦天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/15121/mootmoot&quot;&gt;mootmoot&lt;/a&gt; wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is the adopting parent who decides whether to retain the relative title or not.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It hits the mark. Apparently, 杨昭's father did not treat 杨锦天 as his nephew (sister's son). He adopted him to be his 養子 (adopted son) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your adopted brother, blood related or not,  is closer to you than your cousins do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note from comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杨锦天 should had a different family name before he was adopted by his uncle from his mother's side. It was natural for him to adopt the 杨 family name from his uncle, who had became his adopted father. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T15:43:20.230" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22358" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-03T18:14:28.570" Score="2" ViewCount="781" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Please answer in &lt;strong&gt;simplified Chinese characters&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently met a Chinese person who was right in there with the acronyms, abbreviations and text-slang. Words like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;u&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;brb&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;gtg&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;imo&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as you can see, she was pretty knowledgeable about the text-slang we have in English. So, I was wandering if you had any text speak, slang or abbreviations that are used in Mandarin that are similar to the ones in English. For example, are there ones similar to the ones I listed above?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, not every English speaker uses these silly abbreviations over text or the internet, certainly not me, so I'm not saying that any Chinese person does this. But, is there any of this that exists in the Chinese language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15304" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T20:32:11.840" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T20:32:11.840" Title="Do the Chinese have text speak?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;&lt;abbreviations&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22358" CreationDate="2017-01-03T22:06:49.613" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: yes. Skip to the last paragraph for a few examples. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; &#xA;Long answer: it depends.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Firstly, the Chinese language is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;isolating&lt;/b&gt; (low morpheme per word ratio)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;written with &lt;b&gt;characters&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you said, words used in English text speak are acronyms, i.e. made up from initial letters of some other words: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;brb = &lt;b&gt;b&lt;/b&gt;e &lt;strong&gt;r&lt;/strong&gt;ight &lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt;ack&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, characters are morphemes which are also words, therefore if text speak = acronyms (like imho, wrt), then there's very little room for it.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do have sort of acronyms, or abbreviations, in Chinese. The most common occurrence is in lengthy names, for instance those of institutions, which comprise several two-character words. These are most of the times abbreviated using the most significant character from each distinct word. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(食品)药品监督管理局 (food &amp;amp;) drug administration &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  becomes: 药监局&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If text speak = word contraction, then yes, there are some forms commonly used in colloquial speech that eliminate bound morphemes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;什么 &gt; 啥 &lt;br&gt; &#xA;  怎么 &gt; 咋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Finally you can find some slang words used in written language that resemble more closely those you are talking about. Not real acronyms for the reasons stated above, but roman letters used in place of characters with the same pronunciation, which we can construe as examples of slang text speak in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;p了 （bullshit!) -&gt; letter &lt;code&gt;p&lt;/code&gt; instead of 屁 (pi4) &lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;sb (idiot) -&gt; first pinyin letters of 傻逼 &lt;code&gt;sha&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;bi&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;wp (outsider) -&gt; first pinyin letters of 外屁 &lt;code&gt;wai&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;pi&lt;/code&gt;, a distortion of 外地(人) used as a slur for non Shanghainese people in Shanghai.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;ooxx (having sex) -&gt; letters &lt;code&gt;o&lt;/code&gt; (read oh) and &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; (read &lt;code&gt;cha&lt;/code&gt; as 叉 cross, same pronunciation as 插, insert/stick）&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-01-04T00:12:22.387" LastActivityDate="2017-01-04T00:12:22.387" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22358" CreationDate="2017-01-03T23:15:21.910" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, texting is written spoken language, so there is inevitably what you call text-speak. I'm guessing there are fb (facebook), app (mobile app), 3q (thank you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11424" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T23:15:21.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5013" CreationDate="2017-01-03T23:20:13.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the font you are looking at is just not what people write like. Calligraphic fonts are more like how people write. And people write more messily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, Comic Sans is pretty much how people write the abc's, but people write more messily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you write with the feet or with a straight horizontal line, it's just not natural. But I've seen people write the abc's to look exactly like Courier New. It looks pretty cool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DgamG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DgamG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;弯钩 Wān Gōu is not the same as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bMSmM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bMSmM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;    竖钩 Shù Gōu. So 了 should really, technically, be curved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11424" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T23:20:13.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22307" CreationDate="2017-01-03T23:33:02.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From reading it, I believe it means: &quot;(Please, I beg you to) Be in Shanghai (just, for only) some more time!&quot; It's a command.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11424" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T23:33:02.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22363" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22641" CreationDate="2017-01-04T04:51:04.803" Score="1" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I started learning Chinese I would often hear (mostly northers) 连读 a bunch of different words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意思 &lt;code&gt;yi si&lt;/code&gt; - became - &lt;code&gt;yis&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认识 &lt;code&gt;ren shi&lt;/code&gt; - became - &lt;code&gt;rensh&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this doesn't count as 连读 - but the separate syllables where definitely combined into one distinctive syllable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2021-02-18T03:23:52.187" Title="Where can I find a list of (acceptable) 连读 words?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22363" CreationDate="2017-01-04T13:10:51.067" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, we have something called 'contraction' &#xA;It is a rather common practice, if the second syllable involved has a coda. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/profile.php?14,259&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;C.Chiu wrote&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一陣間 &lt;strong&gt;jat zan gaan&lt;/strong&gt; → &lt;strong&gt;ja&lt;/strong&gt;(t)(za)&lt;strong&gt;n gaan&lt;/strong&gt; → &lt;strong&gt;jan gaan&lt;/strong&gt; 因間 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[loss of coda /t/ and the following onset /z/ + vowel/a/]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;地方 &lt;strong&gt;dei fong&lt;/strong&gt; → &lt;strong&gt;de&lt;/strong&gt;(i) (fo)&lt;strong&gt;ng&lt;/strong&gt; → &lt;strong&gt;deng&lt;/strong&gt; 埞  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[loss of coda /i/ and the following onset /f/ + vowel /o/]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夠膽死 &lt;strong&gt;gau daam sei&lt;/strong&gt; → &lt;strong&gt;ga&lt;/strong&gt;(u) (da)&lt;strong&gt;am sei&lt;/strong&gt;→ &lt;strong&gt;gaam sei&lt;/strong&gt; 減死(敢死-gam sei) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[loss of coda /u/ and the following onset /d/ + vowel /a/]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Mandarin, there's some noticeable contractions of classical Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9997/what-are-common-contractions-in-classical-chinese&quot;&gt;what are common contractions in classical chinese?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;諸 = 之乎 (In some rarer cases 諸 can also be contraction for 有之乎. 諸 can be used on its own with the meaning of &quot;all, the class of&quot;, as in 諸侯 &quot;the feudal lords.&quot;)&#xA;      焉 = 於之 (於之 is never used; only 焉.)&#xA;      旃 = 之焉 (Rare.)&#xA;      爰 = 于之 (Rare. The prepositions 於, 于, and 乎 are of different origin, but used interchangeably (except that 乎 can also be used as a final question particle).)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;然 = 如之&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;云 = 曰之&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;弗 = 不之&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;勿 = 毋之 (弗 and 勿 were originally not contractions, but were reanalyzed as contractions in the Warring States period.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;耳 = 而已&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;盍 = 胡不 (胡 is a variant of 何.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;與 = 也乎 (Also written 歟.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;邪 = 也乎 (Also written 耶. Probably a dialectal variant of 與.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;夫 = 不乎 (夫 has many other meanings.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;奈何 = 若之何&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not speak Mandarin, so I can't think of any modern Mandarin phrase contractions. But the examples from the post above proved contractions exist in Mandarin too.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2017-01-04T13:10:51.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22365" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22367" CreationDate="2017-01-04T13:20:29.107" Score="2" ViewCount="715" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have installed QQ pinyin from here &lt;a href=&quot;http://qq.pinyin.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://qq.pinyin.cn/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and now I am trying to enter 女人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am switching to CN then starting to type: &quot;nur...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5K24Q.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5K24Q.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but then I press &quot;...e...&quot; and input changes to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lazVP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lazVP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and after I enter &quot;...n&quot; it turns to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2XIYI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2XIYI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nothing similar to 女人 visible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am doing wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T22:11:18.793" Title="How to enter 女人 with QQ pinyin?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22354" CreationDate="2017-01-04T13:32:32.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Formally no. But it's common in casual spoken Chinese. Especially for the one-child policy generation, no one has any brother or sister, so we call our cousin brother/sister.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your text, the little boy was adopted after his parents died. Even if he's a complete stranger before the adoption, he's now the woman's parents' child, ie her brother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-01-04T13:32:32.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22365" CreationDate="2017-01-04T13:58:37.573" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;nvren &#xA;'v' replaces 'ü' in Chinese input.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11054" LastActivityDate="2017-01-04T13:58:37.573" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22368" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-04T14:46:10.930" Score="0" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern editions of Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字 use seal characters 小篆 only in the headwords. This is also the case with &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=81427&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;editions published a few hundred years ago&lt;/a&gt;. Was the whole original 121 edition of Shuowen written in seal characters, or was the main text written in the clerical script 隸書?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2017-01-04T15:22:37.120" LastActivityDate="2017-01-05T08:31:56.937" Title="Was Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字 originally written in the seal script 小篆?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21106" CreationDate="2017-01-04T20:58:49.597" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I'm not able to find authoritative references for pronunciation for every characters, I do find a dictionary website where you can put in the pinyin, and it will show you all the characters with that pinyin with 5 different tones. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html2/c15.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/html2/c15.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA; And here is all the pinyin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b  ba bo bai bei bao ban ben bang beng bi bie biao bian bin bing p  pa&#xA;  po pai pao pou pan pen pang peng pi pie piao pian pin ping m  ma mo me&#xA;  mai mao mou man men mang meng mi mie miao miu mian min ming f  fa fo&#xA;  fei fou fan fen fang feng d  da de dai dei dao dou dan dang deng di&#xA;  die diao diu dian ding t ta te tai tao tou tan tang teng ti tie tiao&#xA;  tian ting n  na nai nei nao no nen nang neng ni nie niao niu nian nin&#xA;  niang ning l  la le lai lei lao lou lan lang leng li lia lie liao liu&#xA;  lian lin liang ling g  ga ge gai gei gao gou gan gen gang geng k  ka&#xA;  ke kai kou kan ken kang keng h ha he hai hei hao hou hen hang heng j &#xA;  ji jia jie jiao jiu jian jin jiang jing q qi qia qie qiao qiu qian qin&#xA;  qiang qing x  xi xia xie xiao xiu xian xin xiang xing zh zha zhe zhi&#xA;  zhai zhao zhou zhan zhen zhang zheng ch cha che chi chai chou chan&#xA;  chen chang cheng sh sha she shi shai shao shou shan shen shang sheng r&#xA;  re ri rao rou ran ren rang reng z  za ze zi zai zao zou zang zeng c &#xA;  ca ce ci cai cao cou can cen cang ceng s sa se si sai sao sou san sen&#xA;  sang seng y  ya yao you yan yang yu ye yue yuan yi yin yun ying w  wa&#xA;  wo wai wei wan wen wang weng wu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9754" LastActivityDate="2017-01-04T20:58:49.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17616" CreationDate="2017-01-04T23:49:17.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd translate those sentences in this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他没有我高: &quot;He &lt;strong&gt;isn't as tall&lt;/strong&gt; as me.&quot; Or more literally, &quot;He &lt;strong&gt;hasn't got&lt;/strong&gt; my height.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不比我高: &quot;He &lt;strong&gt;isn't any taller&lt;/strong&gt; than me.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others have said, the first one, using 没有, is clearly saying that 他 isn't as 高 as 我. It's an &lt;strong&gt;inequality&lt;/strong&gt;, and you use it to establish that &lt;strong&gt;one is more than the other.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually when you use 不比, you're indicating &lt;strong&gt;a sort-of equality&lt;/strong&gt;. Like &quot;these two things are in the same ballpark.&quot; You'd use it to indicate that it isn't meaningful to say which one is greater.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone said &quot;他不比我高,&quot; my expectation would be that 他 and 我 are &lt;strong&gt;roughly the same height&lt;/strong&gt;, with 他 maybe being the slightly shorter of the two (but that's not a rule).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bonus example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;麦当劳不比肯德基贵&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;McDonalds isn't any more expensive than KFC.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The expectation is that if a meal at KFC costs 20元，then a meal at McDonalds could cost 18元 or 22元, and that would be acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the McDonalds meal actually cost 10元, well that's a meaningful difference and you'd want to use something else... Like &quot;麦当劳没有肯德基贵.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16145" LastActivityDate="2017-01-04T23:49:17.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22322" CreationDate="2017-01-05T00:00:12.027" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;句子 is a noun that refers to a sentence. It needs a measure word to be counted, like &quot;一个句子.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;话 is the noun in &quot;句话,&quot; which means &quot;speech.&quot; &quot;句&quot; is the measure word that you use for it. As johnzh said, you would never use &quot;句话&quot; on its own, but &quot;一句话&quot; could be understood as &quot;one sentence of speech.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“用完整句子” - &quot;Use complete sentences.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“他说了一句话就走了” - &quot;He spoke one sentence and left.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“有几个句子我没看懂” － &quot;There were a few sentences that I couldn't understand.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16145" LastActivityDate="2017-01-05T00:00:12.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22293" CreationDate="2017-01-05T02:31:52.397" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;容我用《雜寶藏經》中的一個公案來解釋。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me explain with an instance in the 《Miscellaneous Treasure Sutra》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昔，波斯匿王於臥眠中，聞二內官共諍道理；&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一作是言：「我依王活。」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一人答言：「我無所依，自業力活。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When King Pasenadi (6th century B.C.E.) lay down to sleep, he heard an argument of two internal officials.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A said, &quot;I live by the king.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B answered, &quot;I don't rely on anyone, but live by my own power of karma.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;王聞此已，情可於彼依王活者，而欲賞之。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  即遣直人語夫人言：「我今當使一人往者，重與錢財、衣服、瓔珞。」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  於是尋遣依王活者，持己所飲餘殘之酒，以與夫人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After hearing it, the king agreed with the official A in mind and wanted to reward him.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  First the king sent a person on duty to tell the queen, &quot;I will dispatch a person to you today. You give him a lot of money, clothes and precious necklaces.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Then the king immediately sent the official A to take the king's remaining wine to the queen.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;爾時此人持酒出戶，鼻中血出，不得前進。會復值彼自業活者，即倩持酒往與夫人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When the official A went out with the wine, he had a nosebleed and couldn't go any further. Just at that time he met the official B and asked him to take the wine to the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夫人見已，憶王之言，賜其錢財、衣服、瓔珞，還於王前。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When the queen saw the official B, she recalled the king's words and gave him money, clothes and necklaces. Then she sent him back to the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;王見此人，深生怪惑；即便喚彼依王活者而問之言：「我使汝去，云何不去？」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  答言：「我出戶外，卒得衂鼻，竟不堪任，即便倩彼持王殘酒以與夫人。」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  王時歎言：「我今乃知佛語為實，自作其業，自受其報，不可奪也。」  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When the king saw the official B, he was deeply astonished and confused. He immediately called the official A and asked, &quot;I dispatched you. Why didn't you go?&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  He answered with the facts. (same as above, omitted)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The king then sighed and said, &quot;I am now aware that the Buddha's words are true. Who makes the cause bears the effect. It cannot be taken away.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;由是觀之，善惡報應，行業所致，非天、非王之所能與。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;According to this, good or evil results come from one's own actions. They cannot be given by gods or kings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;首先，我必需澄清：業包括善與惡的行為和它們的果報。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all I have to clarify that karma includes both good and evil actions and their effects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這個公案告訴我們：我們都依自己的業而活。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這些業包括前世已造的和今生新造的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;所以，子女出生時，會帶著自己前世的業而來，包括財富。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這說明“孩子帶財來”是對的。是帶著孩子自己的財富而來，是孩子自己要用的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The instance tells us that we live by our own karma.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The karma includes those made in the past and present lives.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore, the children are born with their own karma made in the past lives, including wealth.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This shows that &quot;孩子帶財來&quot; is right.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They bring their own wealth for themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但在兒女能賺錢之前，必需經由父母獲得財富。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;所以，父母的收入可能會增加。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But before children can make money, they must acquire their wealth through the parents.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore, the parents' income may increase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不過，因果錯綜複雜，不能只看一項。譬如，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a. 父母在財富方面的業有多少？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;b. 兒女的財業有多少？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;c. 這些財富何時會得到？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;d. 父母和子女雙方在前世有無債務？誰欠誰？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;e. 可能還有很多我們想不到的業。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the karma is very complex. We cannot consider only one aspect. For example,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a. How much karma of wealth do the parents have?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;b. How much karma of wealth do the children have?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;c. When can the wealth be obtained?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;d. Were there any debts between parents and children in their previous lives? Who owes whom?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;e. There may be more karma that we cannot think of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;考慮這些因素，會有很多不同的情形。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking into account these factors, there will be a lot of different situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;父母和兒女都有富有的果報：&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在孩子出生後，父母的收入會明顯增加，也願意為孩子花錢。孩子就會在優渥的環境下成長。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這些父母通常就是贊成“孩子帶財”的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both parents and children have effects of richness:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the birth of children, the parents' income can increase obviously. And they are also willing to spend money for their children. The children will then grow up in a good environment.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;These parents are usually in favor of &quot;孩子帶財&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;父母和兒女都有貧窮的果報：&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在孩子出生後，父母的收入不會明顯增加。如果剛好是父母的貧窮業果成熟時，他們的收入甚至還會減少。這不是孩子造成的，而是父母自己的業報。如此一來，孩子就會在較不好的環境下被養大。這是孩子自己的果報。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這些父母通常就是否定“孩子帶財”的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both parents and children have effects of poverty:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the birth of children, the parents' income will not increase apparently.&#xA;If the parents' karma of poverty happens to take effect in this period, their income will even reduce.&#xA;It's not caused by the children, but by the parents' own fruits of karma.&#xA;As a result, the children will be raised in a bad environment.&#xA;This is the children's own effects of karma.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;These parents are usually those who deny &quot;孩子帶財&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當然還有很多種情況，限於篇幅與業的複雜性，無法一一說明。留給聰明的你，自行推敲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certainly there are more situations.&#xA;I cannot explain all of them due to the limited space and the complexity of karma.&#xA;Leave them to the smart you to think about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可能有人會問：要如何增加財富的業呢？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;答案很簡單，就是“多做善事，幫助需要幫助的人”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people may ask, &quot;How to increase the karma of wealth?&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The answer is very simple, and that is, &quot;Do more good deeds and help those who need help.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自作自受（不限壞事）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The one who makes the causes, bears the effects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-01-05T02:31:52.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22368" CreationDate="2017-01-05T08:31:56.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%AF%B4%E6%96%87%E8%A7%A3%E5%AD%97/6180&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt; says &quot;《说文解字》是首部按部首编排的汉语字典。原书作于汉和帝永元十二年（100年）到安帝建光元年（121年），现已失传，传至今日的大多是宋朝版本，或是清朝的段玉裁注释本。原文以&lt;strong&gt;小篆&lt;/strong&gt;书写，逐字解释字体来源．全书共分540个部首．收字9353个．另有“重文”（即异体字）1163个．共10516字。《说文解字》是科学文字学和文献语言学的奠基之作，在中国语言学史上有极其重要的地位。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can't guarantee it is true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15933" LastActivityDate="2017-01-05T08:31:56.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22374" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-05T16:05:31.187" Score="4" ViewCount="2184" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any commonly used dictionaries of picture (mnemonic) representation of chinese characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean dictionary to convert SINGLE character to a picture, not a picture to a word (i.e. not just illustrated dictionary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-05T06:10:18.867" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T06:10:18.867" Title="Chinese characters picture dictionary / mnemonics?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22375" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22377" CreationDate="2017-01-05T19:18:37.943" Score="0" ViewCount="1404" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the UK some Chinese use a word pronounced like 'a cha' (my guess in pinyin) to describe South Asian people (generally regarded as people of Indian heritage but could include Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, etc.).  I have heard this word used by both Chinese immigrants of Hong Kong origin and by newer mandarin-speaking Chinese immigrants from the mainland but have been told that this word has a Cantonese language origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word seems to have a vulgar connotation.  I have been told a vague etymology that the word relates to the perceived eating habits of South Asians, that they use their hands to eat rather than forks, but I've no idea if this is true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone clarify the origin of this word and give a written form (if existing)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9814" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T04:08:40.027" Title="Which characters are used to write 'a cha', a slang word for South Asians?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22376" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22379" CreationDate="2017-01-05T21:24:47.400" Score="4" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was recently watching the TV show 命中注定我爱你, episode 1. On &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/mjijADvroSU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Youtube&lt;/a&gt; at ~3:50 someone calls out her name 陈欣怡 and she responds &amp;quot;有&amp;quot;. Could that just mean 'I'm here'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16080" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T08:15:07.367" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T08:15:07.367" Title="In《命中注定我爱你》when someone calls out 陈欣怡's name, why does she reply 有?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22375" CreationDate="2017-01-05T21:44:37.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;嚤囉差 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/41792/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/41792/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;嚤囉差&lt;/strong&gt; /mo1 lo1 caa1/(jyuping): indian person (It is a Cantonese only term)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;嚤囉差&lt;/strong&gt; or simply &lt;strong&gt;阿差&lt;/strong&gt; was a nickname for South Asians people who lived in Hong Kong during the British Hong kong (colonial) period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;摩羅 came from the word 婆羅多, Hong Kong transliterated it to 嚤囉&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;差人 means cop&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/934/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;阿&lt;/a&gt; [n] prefix to a name or term of address. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make a nickname for 嚤囉差, people shorten it to just '差' and add '阿' before it to indicate 差 is a name (Indian).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;摩羅差 &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%91%A9%E7%BE%85%E5%B7%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%91%A9%E7%BE%85%E5%B7%AE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;摩羅差是為印度半島籍貫香港差人的俗稱。大英帝國時期，英國從印度招募不少當地人投入軍隊服務，後來這些印度軍人被調派至香港，轉而投入警隊服務，是故印度及巴基斯坦籍貫差役被俗稱為摩羅差。此詞毫無種族歧視或者任何眨意成份，惟衙差一詞出於印度口音時，廣東人容易誤聽為「阿叉」，因而後來才被外籍人士和年輕一輩誤以為是蔑称。&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/934/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;舊時，廣東人的家中長輩或以「夜叉來了」（或是黑白無常）的來臨，來嚇令不服從的孩子。為免誤會延續，阿叉一詞在香港社會已經逐漸少用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;摩羅一詞源自古代對中東來華的伊斯蘭商旅 Morramen 或中世紀從北非攻佔歐洲西南部的北非人 Mouro 的譯音[2][3][4]。古時，印度人自稱婆羅多，故此廣東人譯音此稱謂為摩羅，其後香港人普遍以此稱呼在香港的印度人；差則為差人之意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿差 &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/14993813.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/view/14993813.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-09T15:51:34.333" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T15:51:34.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22378" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22380" CreationDate="2017-01-05T21:59:29.647" Score="2" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I want to say &quot;There are 100 Facebook posts&quot; or &quot;There are 100 Tweets&quot;, how do I do so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Pleco, I got:&#xA;帖子 = post (forum), &#xA;推特 = Twitter, &#xA;脸书 = Facebook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is it something like: &quot;这是百个脸书(推特)帖子。&quot; or &quot;有一百个推特帖子。&quot;? Or does one use the measure word for books or letters or something else entirely. I was unable to find any specific information on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would a native Chinese speaker say? What feels natural for use with counting internet posts. Of course, an example other than Facebook or Twitter is acceptable as well depending on what common social media web services are used in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastEditorUserId="15303" LastEditDate="2017-01-07T01:38:56.230" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T01:38:56.230" Title="Measure word and vocabulary for internet posts" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22376" CreationDate="2017-01-05T22:26:15.817" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/128/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/128/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/jau5/ /jau6 /  (jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/you3/ /you4/   (pinyin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[粵] jau5 | [國] you3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=2532&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=%E5%BE%88&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=2&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=1&amp;amp;rowcount=12&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; [v] have; own; possess | [ant] 冇&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[2] [v] there is; exist; be present&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[粵] jau6 | [國] you4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[adv] variant of 又 (e.g. 二十有六)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When she said &quot;有够平凡&quot; (very ordinary), '有够'(have enough) means  &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=2532&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=%E5%BE%88&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=2&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=1&amp;amp;rowcount=12&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;非常/真的&lt;/a&gt;(very/really)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She yelled &quot;有!&quot;(&lt;strong&gt;present&lt;/strong&gt;!) When people was calling her. Which means &quot;I'm Here!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-05T22:31:38.700" LastActivityDate="2017-01-05T22:31:38.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22378" CreationDate="2017-01-06T05:13:54.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, you will say for &quot; There are 100 xxx posts&quot; as &quot;有 100 个 yyy 帖子&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;eg facebook posts = 脸书帖子&#xA;eg nytimes forum posts = nytimes 论坛帖子 etc &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when the messages generally look long, you can use &quot;篇&quot; as well, when the messages generally look short, you can use &quot;条&quot; as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when there is a special term for eg &quot;tweets&quot;, you can use &quot;推特帖子&quot; or &quot;推文&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12601" LastActivityDate="2017-01-06T05:13:54.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22358" CreationDate="2017-01-06T06:05:19.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ｙes. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;造 = 知道&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酱 = 这样&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜大普奔　=　喜闻乐见、大快人心、普天同庆、奔走相告&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15933" LastActivityDate="2017-01-06T06:05:19.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22365" CreationDate="2017-01-06T07:43:12.100" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;QQ pinyin Input  &quot;nvren&quot;    女人     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16150" LastActivityDate="2017-01-06T07:43:12.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22383" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-06T10:35:50.437" Score="0" ViewCount="990" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the northeastern dialect, 呗 is sometimes added to the end of a sentence. Although I use it often as well, I don't really know how to explain why it is used and what nuance does it carry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first thought was that it is used to state something obvious, like in this example (assume A has never seen a TV):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 那是啥呀？ (pointing to a TV) What is that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 电视呗。 A TV (of course).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I thought I was wrong because when you ask for favours you can also use 呗, like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你帮我把这个整完呗。 Help me finish this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I found nothing &quot;obvious&quot; in that sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so I think it is not always to state something obvious. What nuance does it carry exactly? Or in other words, how can I explain this to a foreigner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2017-01-08T05:37:24.217" Title="What kind of nuance does 呗 have?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22383" CreationDate="2017-01-06T11:04:09.113" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/93692p.html&quot;&gt;汉语大词典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;呗 II  &#xA;bei  &#xA;˙ㄅㄟ&#xA;&#xA;1. 助词。表示事实或道理明显，易于了解。  &#xA;▶ 何永鳌《火焰山上四十天》：「有什么奇怪的，一块红石头呗。」&#xA;&#xA;2. 助词。表示勉强同意或无所谓的语气。  &#xA;▶ 周立波《暴风骤雨》第一部一：「他想，不明白就不明白吧，反正他们会给他车钱，这就得了呗。」  &#xA;▶ 草明《乘风破浪》第四章：「他闷闷不乐，低着头说：‘挺好呗。’」&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the 呗 in your first example is the first meaning above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think in the second one, 呗 may mean 吧.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你帮我把这个整完吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-01-06T11:04:09.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22376" CreationDate="2017-01-06T11:28:48.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just a convention when answering the roll call; it means 'present'.  I suppose e.g. 'yes, sir' is the most equivalent situation. However, oral Chinese conventions differ from district to district; as far as I know, we usually say '到' when counted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15842" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-05T06:09:06.437" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T06:09:06.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22374" CreationDate="2017-01-06T20:31:26.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't believe there is such a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you can always learn from the etymology as Mihao suggested, because basic Chinese characters usually represent physical objects. Though the method is really limited to a small range of glyph, it would be helpful if you are starting to learn Chinese and work perfect if you want to show off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Handian&lt;/a&gt; for this task. Here is how to use it, and the example character is &lt;code&gt;月&lt;/code&gt;(moon). We can see the character starts from the shape of moon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fiAd1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fiAd1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13655" LastActivityDate="2017-01-06T20:31:26.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22387" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22388" CreationDate="2017-01-07T01:32:35.077" Score="0" ViewCount="813" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translate 表面風光、內裏陰乾 in english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where is this ancient idiom coming from by the way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="922" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T02:55:52.257" Title="Translate 表面風光、內裏陰乾 in English" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-01-11T11:43:12.323" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22387" CreationDate="2017-01-07T02:24:28.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not an idiom, but a typical &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A0%86%E5%8F%A3%E6%BA%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;順口溜&lt;/a&gt; (Jingle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表面(on the surface)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;風光(look good)* &lt;em&gt;short from 好風光(good scenery)- something look good in people's eyes)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;內裏(inside)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/15331/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;陰乾&lt;/a&gt;(slowly dry up in dry dark place)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means 'someone seems well off in the public's eyes, but in reality, is flat broke.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-07T13:26:19.653" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T13:26:19.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10722" CreationDate="2017-01-07T04:08:35.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to explain thing simple: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;课 : A lesson=A unit &lt;br&gt;&#xA;科 : any specific subject &lt;br&gt;&#xA;班级: Class. example: ClassA, ClassB (in english mostly call GroupA GroupB)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;年级: Grade, level&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Let's go to the class!&quot; should translate to &quot;让我们去&lt;strong&gt;上课&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; but we mostly said &quot;我们去&lt;strong&gt;上课&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;u can't use &quot;我们去&lt;strong&gt;班级&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; it'll translate to &quot;let go to class group&quot;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;extra: if u want to said &quot;Devid class is Group1&quot; = &quot;devid是在1班&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16156" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T04:08:35.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22383" CreationDate="2017-01-08T05:37:24.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And I found nothing &quot;obvious&quot; in that sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think 呗 means the logic is obvious to the listener or observers of the conversation, instead, 呗 merely signifies that it is obvious to the speaker him/herself. This also explains the first example (电视呗) - A shouldn't have to ask the question at all if it was obvious to A. B's answer ended with 呗 to express that it's obvious to B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你帮我把这个整完呗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would interpret it as &quot;Help me finish this as it's obvious (to me) that you should.&quot; Of course this would either confuse or upset the listener if he/she feels otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2017-01-08T05:37:24.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22387" CreationDate="2017-01-09T02:49:54.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to recommend another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In simplified Chinese, you can find a similar but different one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金玉其外，败絮其中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金玉其外, on the surface it is gold&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;败絮其中, but inside it is just rubbish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very impolite to describe a person in this way. That means this guy is actually an asshole but masked with a polite, friendly and gorgeous appearance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16166" LastEditorUserId="16166" LastEditDate="2017-01-09T02:55:52.257" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T02:55:52.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22395" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-09T10:24:19.057" Score="1" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is part of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22196/yahtzee-score-card-what-is-the-term-for-a-full-house&quot;&gt;this set&lt;/a&gt;, where I also posted my update.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My wife, who is a native Chinese speaker, gave me the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sm.straight is 小顺&#xA;lg.straight is 大顺&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but when I look up &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/%E5%B0%8F%E9%A1%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小顺&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/%E9%A1%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;顺&lt;/a&gt; by itself, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with (noun) sequence.  What am I missing here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It shows me words like &lt;em&gt;obedience&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;happiness&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;submissiveness&lt;/em&gt;, with translations that may use 顺 alone or with a longer string of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This dictionary doesn’t show a noun &lt;em&gt;sequence&lt;/em&gt; or anything like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9436" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T11:36:46.867" Title="Yahtzee score card — sm and lg straight?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22395" CreationDate="2017-01-09T10:36:19.420" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/28/js/987A.htm&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt; shows the following information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;● 顺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（順）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;shùn 　ㄕㄨㄣˋ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;趋向同一个方向，与“逆”相对：～风。～水。～境。～水推舟。～风使舵。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;沿，循：～城街。～理成章。～藤摸瓜。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;依次往后：～序。～次。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;随，趁便：～便。～势。～手牵羊。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;整理：理～。～修（整理修治）。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;服从，不违背：～从。～应。孝～。温～。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;适合，不别扭：～适。～情。～眼。～差（chā）。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;姓。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;汉英互译&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;◎ 顺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;arrange　　　&lt;strong&gt;in sequence&lt;/strong&gt;　　　in the same direction as　　　obey　　　&lt;strong&gt;put in order&lt;/strong&gt;　　　suitable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T10:36:19.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22398" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-09T11:45:30.107" Score="6" ViewCount="736" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to figure out what the most proper way for one to say something simple like if someone asked, &quot;How do you know that?&quot; and then I say, &quot;I read it in a book&quot;. Now what I'm wondering about is how you translate that &quot;I read a book&quot; clause into Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See, the &quot;read&quot; here is a past tense, and apparently, in Mandarin, there is no &quot;tense&quot; marking. Time, it seems, is indicated by putting a time adverbial before the verb. Yet here there is no specific time, rather it's at some indeterminate past time, the only thing known is that it happened. My best guess from various reading material was to try something like,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我以前看一本书 (wo yiqian kan yi ben shu),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but that seems to my ear to lay really heavy emphasis on the &quot;past&quot;-ness of this action, when that is not the primary point here, the point is the fact of having read the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what I really feel I want to do is to use &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt;, as in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我看了一本书 (wo kan le yi ben shu)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I hear that 了 &quot;is not a tense marker&quot;, &quot;has nothing to do with time and nothing to do with tense&quot; and stuff like that, and that what it really indicates is &quot;completion&quot;. Yet the English sentence has tense. So is the above the correct way or not? I also think that the first sentence I mentioned should be &lt;code&gt;我以前看了一本书&lt;/code&gt; (wo yiqian kan le yi ben shu) as well, but there the 了 seems less troubling to me because we have the time specified and in the sentence &lt;code&gt;我看了一本书&lt;/code&gt; given out in this context it seems to my ear that 了 is acting like a tense marker, setting up a contradiction. Without 了 I get&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我看一本书 (wo kan yi ben shu)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which sounds to me more like &quot;I read [pronounced REED] a book&quot;, but then again I've heard that tense/time can be inferred from context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the form &lt;code&gt;我看了一本书&lt;/code&gt; is correct then what role is 了 playing here and why does it sound to me like past tense with a not-a-tense-marker indicating tense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If none of these are correct, what, &lt;em&gt;straight up&lt;/em&gt; is the correct translation? I've found it really hard to find something that just straight up answers that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Also, I'm not 100% sure if the counter 一本 indicating the singularity of the book is needed or correct in all these either but that's a separate question! This question is about time/tense not measure and I'm just using that as an example of something where I think the time is not indicated elsewhere in the conversation by any grammar feature.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16171" LastEditorUserId="16117" LastEditDate="2017-01-20T04:11:51.107" LastActivityDate="2017-01-21T01:55:48.937" Title="How exactly do time and &quot;tense&quot; work in Mandarin REALLY?" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22398" CreationDate="2017-01-09T14:18:26.867" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the form 我看了一本书 is correct then what role is 了 playing here and why does it sound to me like past tense with a not-a-tense-marker indicating tense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'了' in &amp;quot;我看了一本书&amp;quot; is a &lt;strong&gt;[aspect marker] indicating completed action&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我看一本书 = I read a book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 我看了一本书,  the action '看' is completed, which imply 看 is not in present tense but in past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, depend on the context, [verb + 了] could indicate :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[present perfect tense] 我刚看了一本书 = I have just read a book&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[past perfect tense] 我昨天看了一本书 = I had read a book yesterday&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[future perfect tense] 我明天会看了这本书 = I will have read this book tomorrow.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'过' in &amp;quot;我看过一本书&amp;quot; is a &lt;strong&gt;[particle] marking experiential aspect&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我看一本书 = I read a book&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我看过一本书 = I had read a book (I &lt;em&gt;experienced&lt;/em&gt; reading a book, that indicates 看 is in past perfect tense)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*I think I answered a similar question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22011/how-do-you-specify-past-tense-for-%e6%98%af/22016#22016&quot;&gt;How do you specify past tense for 是?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If no time reference is found in the context, then all verbs are in present tense by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are reading a historical novel, even most individual sentences in it didn't have time reference, you should still know it is in past tense; If you are reading an instructional manual, you know the text is written in present tense entirely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mike3 comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK... now I'm not entirely clear on the difference in meaning between &amp;quot;我看了一本书&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;我看过一本书&amp;quot;. Is it just that one emphasizes something else (completion vs. experience) or what? Which would be the correct one to use in the scenario I mentioned in the question and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your scenario:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: &amp;quot;How Do you know?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &amp;quot;I read a book&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can use &amp;quot;我看了一本书&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;我看过一本书&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;I read a book&amp;quot;  in this scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;我看了一本书&amp;quot; stated the fact that you &lt;strong&gt;finished&lt;/strong&gt; reading a book in the past. (了 emphasizes the completeness of your action)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;我看过一本书&amp;quot; stated the fact that you &lt;strong&gt;had in the past&lt;/strong&gt; read a book (过 emphasizes the action was in the past).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both sentences stated the source of your knowledge is from reading a book. '看过' is more preferable if you want to emphasize the action happened in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I mentioned, depend on the context, '看了' can be in any perfect tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T21:01:28.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22402" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-09T16:51:39.480" Score="-1" ViewCount="2472" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Please answer in simplified Chinese.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, we do this on the front of the envelope of a letter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To master (x) or Sir (x) or Lady (x)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Address&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the inside we put:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dear (x).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards, (x).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do the Chinese put on the front of the envelope? Do they have anything they often write inside the letter like 'dear' or 'from'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When writing a name on the front of the envelope, do they use titles? (Mr/Mrs, for example)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15304" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T12:07:11.020" Title="How do the Chinese address letters?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22402" CreationDate="2017-01-09T20:53:10.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many different ways of addressing an individual in Chinese. You can use 同事 (colleague) behind someone's name as a way of addressing him/her. There is a really big emphasis on using 您 (formal you) instead of 你 (informal you) when using the pronoun in addressing someone. If you were writing to a loved one, you could say 亲爱的 (roughly translates to &quot;Dear Love&quot;). As for Mr., Mrs., Miss, etc, you can use 先生，小姐，女士, In terms of signing off a letter, depending on the context, you could end with 谢谢 (thank you) or 等您回话 (waiting for your reply). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16173" LastEditorUserId="16173" LastEditDate="2017-01-11T15:25:06.130" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T15:25:06.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22398" CreationDate="2017-01-10T00:43:39.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's several explanations already, but IMO they are just expanding on your question and not really fixing it, the straight up answer and the most fluent way is this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 你怎么知道的？(How do you know that?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我从一本书上看的。(I read from a book.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;从&quot; translates to &quot;from&quot;, &quot;一本&quot; is needed because you are specifying you read from &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; book and you know which book it is, otherwise you can just say &quot;我从书上看的&quot; without specifying you read it from one particular book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a real scenario, this is the most simplified conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q：你怎么知道？(How do you know that?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 书上看的。(Read it from book/s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;without specifying &quot;我(I)&quot; or &quot;从(from)&quot; or &quot;一本(one)&quot; because you already know its &quot;me&quot;, you already know its &quot;from&quot; a book because i said &quot;书上看的&quot; and you can't recall which book it is so &quot;one&quot; is not needed. It may seem like a lot has to be processed before understanding the sentence, but it feels natural to a native speaker and nothing needs to be processed, the power of language is really a fascinating thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2017-01-10T00:57:31.877" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T00:57:31.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22375" CreationDate="2017-01-10T04:08:40.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;阿叉 aa3 caa1 is a deprecatory/insulting word for Indians in Cantonese. It is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; polite, even though it is widely used in HK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_502d72c70100n6pc.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_502d72c70100n6pc.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“阿叉”起源于香港。当时香港为英国的殖民地，许多印度的工人被英国殖民者派到香港，印度人基本上是全民信教，信教就必定会念经，而经文多以梵语诵读，在香港人听来便是什么摩罗，什么摩罗多。然后再听听印度人说话，多以Tar音结尾。于是便得名“摩罗叉”。摩罗叉就成了印度人的代称，印度人被简称为阿叉。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T04:08:40.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22398" CreationDate="2017-01-10T08:30:44.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no &quot;classical sence&quot; of time in Chinese. Some scholars say that chinese is a &quot;modal language&quot; and not the &quot;tense language&quot;, which means that &quot;time&quot; is indicated by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By words like: &quot;today, tommorow, 5 o'clock ect.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By labeling the situation as real or unreal. World is divided between &lt;em&gt;realis&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;irrealis&lt;/em&gt; modes. When something &lt;em&gt;is/was/became&lt;/em&gt; a fact of reality (i.e. it actually happend or will 100% happen or will became real for sure) then chinese language uses 了 to indicate that mode. If, on the other hand, the chinese speaker talks about his habits, dreams, desires and any other &lt;strong&gt;irrealis&lt;/strong&gt; things, then 了 can't and should not be used. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &quot;You don't use 了 with 没, because 了 marks the reality or actuality of the situation, but 没 says that &quot;it did't happen&quot;, which altogether leads to a contradiction!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. more can be understood from these articles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/28373/YangLi-qiong1998.pdf?sequence=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/28373/YangLi-qiong1998.pdf?sequence=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://thesis.haverford.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10066/10529/Dooley_thesis_1999.pdf?sequence=3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://thesis.haverford.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10066/10529/Dooley_thesis_1999.pdf?sequence=3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.degruyter.com/abstract/j/ling.2013.51.issue-5/ling-2013-0032/ling-2013-0032.xml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.degruyter.com/abstract/j/ling.2013.51.issue-5/ling-2013-0032/ling-2013-0032.xml&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the last article is the best of it's kind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.S. Yeah, and one more : 了 is NOT an [aspect marker] indicating completed action (according to modal view). 了 has nothing to do with completion except for &lt;strong&gt;positive correlation&lt;/strong&gt; between &quot;being a fact of real life&quot; and &quot;being completed action&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2017-01-10T08:37:59.330" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T08:37:59.330" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22196" CreationDate="2017-01-10T12:23:04.647" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;翻译参考:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPPER SECTION 上半部&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Aces 一点&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Twos 二点&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Threes 三点&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fours 四点&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fives 五点&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sixes 六点&lt;br&gt;&#xA;TOTAL SCORE 总点数&lt;br&gt;&#xA;BONUS 赠点&lt;br&gt;&#xA;TOTAL 上半部小计&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;LOWER SECTION 下半部&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3 of a kind 三同花/点&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4 of a kind 四同花/点&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Full House 葫芦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Small Straight 小(四)顺&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Large Straight 大(五)顺&lt;br&gt;&#xA;YAHTZEE &quot;压死&quot; 五同花/点&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Chance 机会&lt;br&gt;&#xA;YAHTZEE BONUS 压死赠点&lt;br&gt;&#xA;TOTAL 下半部小计&lt;br&gt;&#xA;TOTAL 上半部小计&lt;br&gt;&#xA;GRAND TOTAL 总计&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T12:23:04.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22365" CreationDate="2017-01-10T22:11:18.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use nv instead of nu, since 女 has the u with dots above it. The v in most keyboards represents the u with dots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T22:11:18.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22410" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22436" CreationDate="2017-01-10T22:17:11.913" Score="5" ViewCount="14619" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been looking at some questions and I found in some of the answers that 你吃了吗 was identified as slang. I would have translated it as &quot;have you eaten?&quot;, but I'm not sure since it's slang. I'm learning Mandarin without being in China, so I haven't been able to pick up much slang. What does 你吃了吗？mean? What other slang words are there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T11:00:47.513" Title="What does &quot;你吃了吗?&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22411" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22413" CreationDate="2017-01-10T22:41:22.627" Score="5" ViewCount="959" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't think of any minimal pairs; like &lt;code&gt;shu&lt;/code&gt; vs. &lt;code&gt;xu&lt;/code&gt; probably shouldn't count as a minimal pair since the vowel is different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16179" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T14:34:43.003" Title="Are `sh` and `x` really different phonemes, or just different realizations of the same phoneme?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22410" CreationDate="2017-01-10T23:25:22.717" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I was told by my teacher, it likely goes back to times when people didn't always have enough food. It's a curteous way of showing interest in the other persons wellbeing as well as being a greeting or opening to a conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16180" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T23:25:22.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22411" CreationDate="2017-01-11T00:33:57.090" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a classic &lt;a href=&quot;http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test2materials/phonology2.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem&lt;/a&gt; with defining phonemes. Looking for &amp;quot;complementary distribution&amp;quot; of sounds does not uniquely determine a phonological analysis. In Mandarin (I'll use pinyin here), the palatal set of consonants (&lt;code&gt;j&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;q&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt;) is in complementary distribution with &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; of the following sets:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;zh&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;ch&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;sh&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;z&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;s&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gives you three different options on which things to treat as the &amp;quot;same&amp;quot; phonemes. And you can go in the opposite direction too: Pinyin distinguishes all these consonant-sets, but then it merges the written form of the front-vs-back vowels. You could do a phonological analysis like that too, or at least, you &lt;em&gt;almost&lt;/em&gt; could, as /u/ and /y/ contrast when following /n/ and /l/.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And indeed it's the case that different romanization systems make different choices about how to do this. To quote from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Palatal_series&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Yale and Wade–Giles systems mostly treat the palatals as allophones of the retroflexes; Tongyong Pinyin mostly treats them as allophones of the dentals; and Mainland Chinese Braille treats them as allophones of the velars. In standard pinyin and bopomofo, however, they are represented as a separate sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The palatals arose historically from a merger of the dentals [t͡s, t͡sʰ, s] and velars [k, kʰ, x] before high front vowels and glides. Previously, some instances of modern [t͡ɕ(ʰ)i] were instead [k(ʰ)i], and others were [t͡s(ʰ)i] . The change took place in the last two or three centuries at different times in different areas, but not in the Jianghuai dialect used at the imperial court. This explains why some European transcriptions of Chinese names (especially in postal romanization) contain ki-, hi-, tsi- or si- where a palatal might be expected. Examples are Peking for Beijing, Chungking for Chongqing, Fukien for Fujian, Tientsin for Tianjin; Sinkiang for Xinjiang, and Sian for Xi'an.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T00:39:18.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22410" CreationDate="2017-01-11T01:41:44.653" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a common way of greeting someone. The literal translation is &quot;have you eaten?&quot; but in reality it's closer to &quot;how are you doing?&quot; or something along those lines. It also takes the forms of &lt;code&gt;吃了吗？&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;吃了没有？&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15486" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T01:41:44.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22415" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22417" CreationDate="2017-01-11T04:27:49.433" Score="3" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is about understanding a verse in a poem by Han Yu of the Tang dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请问韩愈《猗兰操》里“荠麦之茂，荠麦之有”一句作何解释？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此句下一句，即全诗末句，“君子之伤，君子之守”，“言君子居可伤之时，故君子有可见之操守”；那么“荠麦”的比喻，是否是说荠麦茂于雪霜之时，方见其坚强之节操？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《详注韩昌黎诗集》中解释“荠麦之有”，曰：“谓荠麦之因有也。”这个“因有”又是什么意思呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T20:27:57.520" Title="What does 荠麦之茂，荠麦之有 in 《猗兰操》 mean? 韩愈《猗兰操》“荠麦之茂，荠麦之有”一句作何解释？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22402" CreationDate="2017-01-11T04:45:46.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;如果是正式信件，通常信封上会有头衔一类称呼，如“某某经理”、“某某博士”或“某某先生/女士”。私人信件，如果对方是长辈，也经常会有此类头衔。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信内，正式信件通常以“尊敬的某某”开头。私人信件就比较随意，可以直接称呼作者对对方通常的称呼。如果是至亲或密友，有时也会写“亲爱的某某”。古人写信我也见过以“某某顿首”开头的，其中“某某”是写信人自己的名讳。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;署名前，通常写“此致 敬礼！”或“致礼！”。更传统一些的说法有“顺祺”等，因人而异。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3283" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T04:45:46.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22415" CreationDate="2017-01-11T08:02:57.773" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;薺麥之茂，薺麥之有。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;薺麥之茂生，薺麥之因有。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;薺麥之茂生，因薺麥之有。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;薺麥茂於雪霜之時，乃因薺麥之內有。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;薺麥能茂生於雪霜之時，乃因薺麥之內在本有。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The buckwheat(?) can grow well in the snow because of its inherent ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;君子之傷，君子之守。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;君子之傷厄，君子之見守。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;君子之傷厄，見君子之守。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;君子居於艱難之境，方見君子之內守。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;君子能安居於艱難之境，方見君子之內在操守。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A gentleman can live well in the predicaments, then people can see his inner integrity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastEditorUserId="16050" LastEditDate="2017-01-11T20:27:57.520" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T20:27:57.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22374" CreationDate="2017-01-11T12:08:54.910" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chineasy&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Not a complete dictionary, per-se, though)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dezeen.com/2014/04/12/chineasy-illustrated-characters-learning-chinese-noma-bar/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dezeen&lt;/a&gt; did a pretty interesting review of it here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chineasy illustrated characters designed to make learning Chinese easy&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This system of illustrated characters and animations was developed to help people learn to read Chinese, and is one of the 76 projects nominated for Designs of the Year 2014 (+ slideshow).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PaZrE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PaZrE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;tree&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tree&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taiwan-born entrepreneur ShaoLan first began developing the Chineasy characters as a way to teach her own English-speaking children to read traditional Mandarin Chinese, by creating a visual connection to the words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RlzGN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RlzGN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;woman&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Woman&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having struggled to find a straightforward way to negotiate the huge number and complexity of Chinese characters, she teamed up with graphic artist Noma Bar to develop a system of shapes representing some of the most commonly occurring symbols, which can be combined to create more complex phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZLNKx.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZLNKx.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;fire&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fire&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I created a methodology that breaks down thousands of Chinese characters into a few hundred base building blocks,&amp;quot; explained ShaoLan. &amp;quot;When these building blocks are combined, they form compounds that can in turn be combined to create phrases. Through this method learners can quickly build a large vocabulary of characters with very little effort.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oUpxP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oUpxP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;mouth&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mouth&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As well as providing users with a memorable way to understand the characters, Chineasy aims to offer those living in the West an insight into Chinese culture in a visual format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xD9K7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xD9K7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;water&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Water tap&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;It is educational, social, cultural, and I hope, inspirational,&amp;quot; said ShaoLan. &amp;quot;I am demonstrating the beauty of this deep and ancient culture with a modern interpretation through sleek modern design.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zLpV3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zLpV3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;moon&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Moon&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entrepreneur spent her evenings selecting and sketching suitable characters to form the building blocks of the Chineasy system, which she then modelled on her computer and refined to create contemporary graphic representations that could easily be understood by Westerners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HfjF4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HfjF4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;roof&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Roof&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having presented the initial idea at a conference organised by innovation forum TED that was published online in May 2013, the interest she received encouraged ShaoLan to begin working on a book and launch a Chineasy website and Facebook page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KZsS6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KZsS6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;king&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;King&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A campaign launched on crowdfunding site Kickstarter exceeded its goal of £75000, eventually achieving £197626 of backing that was used to publish the first Chineasy books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/90HoG.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/90HoG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;mountain&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mountain&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The books are now being published by Thames &amp;amp; Hudson. An ebook has been released and an app is in development to illustrate how to write and correct stroke order through simple animations and give tips on pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/utn66.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/utn66.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;door&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Door&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chineasy was nominated in the Graphics category of the Design Museum's shortlist for Designs of the Year and features in an exhibition at the museum until 25 August.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's books/flashcards/notebooks/workbooks and a memory game using this method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some links/info:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chineasy&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineasy.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chineasy&lt;/a&gt; site with news/videos/products/faq&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TED&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ted.com/talks/shaolan_learn_to_read_chinese_with_ease&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ShaoLan:Learn to read Chinese ... with ease!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TED&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ted.com/talks/shaolan_the_chinese_zodiac_explained&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ShaoLan: The Chinese zodiac, explained&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here's a project description from ShaoLan:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chineasy&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chineasy's aim is to bridge the gap between the East and the West. I want to give the west a real understanding of China and an appreciation of Chinese culture through their own eyes rather than layers of packaging and manipulation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mtdxU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mtdxU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;method&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The method - compounds&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is evident that people are hungry to learn about China. People are keen to be able to communicate with the 1.3 billion people. Tet there is not much out there to enable them to do so. Whilst the entire Chinese population is learning English, the west is struggling to comprehend this complex economy and society with their own eyes and judgment. Knowing their language is the key towards true understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chineasy will become the first step for anyone in the world who wants to understand China, Chinese culture and its language. It is educational, social, cultural and inspirational. I am demonstrating the beauty of this deep and broad culture through a modern interpretation using sleek and simple design.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mk4b3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mk4b3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;phrases&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;method - the Phrases&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chineasy's goal is to allow people to learn to read Chinese easily by recognizing characters through simple illustrations. The magical power of the Chineasy method is that by learning one small set of building blocks, students can build many new words, characters, and phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can check out a video they put out on youtube:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/T5FNvW19GbA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ShaoLan's Chineasy: Lesson 1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book has more explanations like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zrnVB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zrnVB.png&quot; alt=&quot;sun&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin: 日 ri4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日 The current version of this ancient building block is quite interesting. It looks just like a window, which is quite handy for us learning Chinese, but why doesn’t this character look like a sun? I mean, it’s not especially hard to draw a sun, right? Well, it used to look a lot more like that burning star in the sky, but the Chinese language has been evolving for thousands of years and most characters have changed a lot. It’s just like “old English”, “middle English”, and “modern English”. The oldest form of Chinese that ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T12:14:02.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22415" CreationDate="2017-01-11T17:54:37.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;薺麥之&lt;strong&gt;茂&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; 薺麥的&lt;strong&gt;茂盛&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; The &lt;strong&gt;lushness&lt;/strong&gt; of chestnut wheat &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;薺麥之&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; (來自)薺麥的&lt;strong&gt;內在&lt;/strong&gt;(飽滿)。-&gt; (comes from) chestnut wheat's &lt;strong&gt;inside&lt;/strong&gt;(plumpness)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;君子之&lt;strong&gt;傷&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; 君子&lt;strong&gt;的困苦&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt;  a gentleman's &lt;strong&gt;hardship&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;君子之&lt;strong&gt;守&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; (彰顯)君子的&lt;strong&gt;操守&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; (emphasize) a gentleman's &lt;strong&gt;integrity&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;薺麥之茂，薺麥之有。&quot;The lushness of chestnut wheat comes from their inner plumpness,&quot; &#xA;  (substance) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;君子之傷，君子之守。&quot;A gentleman shows his personal integrity during hardship.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&quot;Chestnut wheat has substance. Therefore, they are lush outside; a gentleman has substance. Therefore, he shows integrity during hardship.&quot;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《详注韩昌黎诗集》中解释“荠麦之有”，曰：“谓荠麦之因有也。”这个“因有”又是什么意思呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因 = cause; reason&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因有 = there's cause /reason &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;荠麦之因有也 = there's reason within the chestnut wheat (it has substance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-11T18:38:14.927" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T18:38:14.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22420" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22421" CreationDate="2017-01-12T00:41:09.743" Score="3" ViewCount="300" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed many Chinese words have the same or similar meanings but they are not exchangeable. In many cases it is hard to decide which one to choose. Can anyone tell the subtle difference between 志愿, 意愿, and 心愿?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I never heard anyone say &quot;你的生日意愿是什么&quot;. Usually you heard &quot;你的生日心愿是什么&quot;. But both 意愿 and 心愿 are &quot;wish&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-05T05:35:01.897" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T05:35:01.897" Title="What is the subtle difference between 志愿, 意愿, and 心愿?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22420" CreationDate="2017-01-12T01:40:24.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider, in English, a single word can have more than one meaning, and two different words may have a function overlapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'Goal' can be replaced by 'wish' in some instances - e.g. &amp;quot;My Goal(wish) is to become a doctor&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'Dream' can be replaced by 'wish' in some instances - e.g. &amp;quot; My Dream(wish) is to become a doctor&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'Will' can be replaced by 'wish' in some instances - e.g. &amp;quot; To become a doctor is my will(wish)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the difference between 志愿, 意愿 and 心愿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;志愿 mainly mean: Goal; Dream&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;意愿 mainly mean: Will; Desire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;心愿 mainly mean: Desire; Wish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All three above can mean 'Wish'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的&lt;strong&gt;志愿&lt;/strong&gt;（愿望）是成为一名医生 - My &lt;strong&gt;goal&lt;/strong&gt; (wish) is to become a doctor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的&lt;strong&gt;意愿&lt;/strong&gt;（愿望）是成为一名医生 - My &lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt; (wish) is to become a doctor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的&lt;strong&gt;心愿&lt;/strong&gt;（愿望）是成为一名医生 - My &lt;strong&gt;desire&lt;/strong&gt; (wish) is to become a doctor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The important thing is, it all depends on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best term for &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Wish&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;What is your birthday wish?&amp;quot; is '&lt;strong&gt;愿望&lt;/strong&gt;'  As in &amp;quot;你的生日&lt;strong&gt;愿望&lt;/strong&gt;是什么&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, 愿望 mainly mean 'wish' (n) but in some instances, you can translate it to 'desire, hope or dream'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some more tips:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 志愿 if the wish is also an achievable goal (&lt;em&gt;志 means goal, 志愿 = a wish you aim to achieve&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 意愿 if the wish is a determined one (&lt;em&gt;意 means mind, 意愿 = a wish you have made up your mind to fulfill&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 心愿 if the wish is also a deep desire or a life long dream (&lt;em&gt;心 means heart, 心愿 = a wish comes from your heart&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T01:28:19.560" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22422" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-12T02:18:01.857" Score="2" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had the question: 1994 到 2004 年间，不能自理的老年人怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 answer choices were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B. 比例下降&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  D. 比例为零&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see that 零 can mean 'wither and fall'. In English we can say e.g. 'The numbers have withered.' to mean a fairly drastic reduction in numbers of something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is then: are B and D the same answer using different words, or does 为零 mean 'nearly zero, as zero'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-01-27T07:33:22.847" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T07:33:22.847" Title="What is the meaning of 为零 here？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22422" CreationDate="2017-01-12T02:24:30.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two answers are different. And 为零 means that is zero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11054" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T02:24:30.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22422" CreationDate="2017-01-12T02:34:34.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;为零are two words here: is zero.&#xA;比例为零 = 比例是零，but 为 is bit more formal than 是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time, 零 means zero. With only a few exceptions:&#xA;凋零，零落；零 = wither and fall; used on flowers, leaves, people, etc&#xA;拾零，零碎；零 = tiny, shattered stuff; used on memories, errands, etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4067" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T02:34:34.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22422" CreationDate="2017-01-12T04:12:42.640" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;为= being / is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;零= zero&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer D: 比例为零 (proportion is zero) means the proportion of elderly people who can't take care of themselves in the population is zero. (no more elderly people who can't take care of themselves) . That makes no sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The writer of the question might had phrased it wrong, or the answer is just obviously incorrect&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer D should had been 比例&lt;strong&gt;增减&lt;/strong&gt;为零(proportion &lt;strong&gt;increase or decrease&lt;/strong&gt; is zero) which mean 'no change'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When 零 means 'wither and fall'(凋零), it only refers to flower petals or leaves, and is mostly used in a poetic sense; When 零 means 'drop and shatter' as in (零落), it is mostly used in a poetic sense also. For example: &quot;tears drop and shatter(涕零)&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-12T15:39:07.617" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T15:39:07.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22420" CreationDate="2017-01-12T06:32:45.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They all end up with the word 愿, meaning merely &quot;wish&quot;, so we can try to focus on the first character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;志&lt;/strong&gt; is short for 志向, which is related to &quot;job&quot; and &quot;direction&quot;, namely, what kind of &lt;em&gt;JOB&lt;/em&gt; you would wish to accomplish, in addition to the implication that you are HEADING TO or will HEAD TO achieve it. Resolve is required if you use this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 我的志愿是做医生。(Doctor is a JOB)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;意&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;mind&quot;, namely, whether you are &lt;em&gt;WILLING TO&lt;/em&gt; do A or do B,C,D,etc. You are confronted with finite choices if you are using 意愿. You would also use it when you want to say &quot;I wish to do A &lt;strong&gt;INSTEAD OF&lt;/strong&gt; B&quot;. Again, resolve is required if you use this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 我的意愿是做医生。(Instead of a lawyer, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;心&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;heart&quot;, and is simply talking about what you wish to happen. This one focuses on &lt;strong&gt;your&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;FEELING&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;INCLINATION&lt;/em&gt;, so is usually translated &quot;desire&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 我的心愿是做医生。-&gt; I desire to be a doctor. (because sth touched my heart)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2017-01-12T06:41:56.983" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T06:41:56.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21984" CreationDate="2017-01-12T08:58:38.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possible in Chinese as well, and similar rules apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big reason behind this is the &lt;em&gt;liushu&lt;/em&gt; 六書, or the six methods by which all Chinese characters are created: pictogram (象形), simple ideogram (指事), compound ideogram (會意), rebus (假借), phonetic-semantic (形聲), and transformed cognate (轉注). The method of reading by radical is only applicable to the phonetical-semantical category. However:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pictograms and simple ideograms make up a small (although very frequently used) portion of Chinese characters due to the poverty of these two methods in conveying relatively complex ideas. Pictograms and simple ideograms are one-piece in their own, and have no phonetic and/or semantic radicals;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rebus and transformed cognate characters are rare, and their origins relatively obscure;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a good percentage of Chinese characters are compound ideograms (in Japanese kanji, virtually all &lt;em&gt;kokuji&lt;/em&gt; are compound ideograms). However, radicals for compound ideograms usually carry no phonetic value.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fortunately, the rest, or phonetic-semantic characters (形聲字), make up the vast majority (&gt;70-80%) of Chinese characters. So, yes, you may read them by radicals (but very carefully). However, in Chinese, the onset (聲母) and tone of many 形聲字 have changed, so their onset and tone is often different from the onset and tone of their phonetic radical (聲旁). Let's take characters in the phonetic series 方 as an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;方 &quot;square&quot;: Standard Mandarin fāng, Standard Cantonese fong1, Japanese go'on hō (ホー), Japanese kan'on hō (ホー). Reconstructed Middle Chinese (according to Pan Wuyun 潘悟云) /*pʷiɐŋ/, reconstructed Old Chinese (according to Zhengzhang Shangfang 鄭張尚芳) /*paŋ/.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;訪 &quot;visit&quot;: Standard Mandarin fǎng, Standard Cantonese fong2, Japanese kan'on hō (ホー). Middle Chinese (Pan) /*pʰʷiɐŋH/, Old Chinese (Zhengzhang) /*pʰaŋs/. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;旁 &quot;side&quot;: Standard Mandarin páng, Standard Cantonese pong4, Japanese go'on bō (ボー), Japanese kan'on hō (ホー). Middle Chinese (Pan) /*bɑŋ/, Old Chinese (Zhengzhang) /*baːŋ/.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see that reading by radical usually works in Japanese, but can be tricky to apply in Chinese. As a rule of thumb, &lt;strong&gt;use radicals to help remember the rime (韻母) part only&lt;/strong&gt;. You still have to memorize the onset and tone. Moreover, since many of the onsets have already changed in the Old Chinese era, so really memorized the onsets when reading by radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even with Japanese, reading by radical is not entirely bullet-proof. It can't help you distinguish go'on vs kan'on (which can be tricky), and it can't help you decide when to use on'yomi and when to use kun'yomi (also tricky).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Standard Mandarin refers to Putonghua 普通話 and Kuo'yu 國語, which are both standard registers of Mandarin based on the dialect in and around Beijing. 普通話 is the standard in mainland China and 國語 is the standard in Taiwan: they are essentially the same language, with some disagreements on the pronunciation of a few words. Standard Cantonese is the &lt;em&gt;de facto lingua franca&lt;/em&gt; in the Cantonese-speaking world, and is based on the Canton/Guangzhou dialect. Go'on 呉音 and kan'on 漢音 are both on'yomi/borrowed phonetic readings of Chinese characters, go'on being the earlier version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastEditorUserId="16186" LastEditDate="2017-01-12T11:40:21.320" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T11:40:21.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22402" CreationDate="2017-01-12T12:07:11.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the envelope, you may write &quot;xxx收&quot; (literally &quot;to be received by xxx&quot;) or &quot;xxx亲启&quot; (literally &quot;to be personally opened by xxx&quot; - especially if letter is confidential).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the top of the letter, the Chinese simply address the recipient by title/relationship, etc. Some examples would include: 尊敬的客户阁下 (&quot;respectable &amp;amp; honorable customer&quot; - writing for a company), 张博士 (&quot;Dr. Zhang&quot; - someone you're not especially close to), or 亲爱的大文 (&quot;dear Dawen&quot; - a friend). People also write greetings such as &quot;见信如晤&quot; (literally &quot;seeing this letter is like meeting (in person)&quot;). Due to influences from Japan, some people write &quot;xxx 敬启&quot; (literally &quot;please open&quot;) at the top of a letter (as the Chinese equivalent of Japanese &lt;em&gt;haikei&lt;/em&gt; 拝啓).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the letter, you may address the recipient by 阁下, 台端 or 敬启者 if you want to be polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, at the bottom of the letter, people write 此致 (some people write 此致 敬礼, but this looks a bit too pedantic IMO), 祝好, 顺颂时祺, or 某某顿首 (where 某某 is your name, most formal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This should be enough for an informal and/or reasonably formal Chinese letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T12:07:11.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22290" CreationDate="2017-01-12T12:22:31.570" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to argue against some of the answers above. 开水 means water that &lt;em&gt;have been boiled&lt;/em&gt;, but not necessarily still boiling/hot. Actually, people use the expressions 凉开水 (cold, boiled water) or 凉白开 (where 水 is omitted, meaning cold, boiled tap water) frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 开水 and hot water have significant overlaps but are not the same thing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;开水 can be cold or even iced (冰开水), as mentioned above;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;hot water (热水) is usually 开水 (especially when referring to drinking water), but not necessarily - hot bathing water is 热水, but not 开水 - as virtually no one boils bathing water.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the etymology of &quot;开&quot; as boiling, I have no definitive answer. My guess is that boiling water in a Chinese tripod (鼎) often results in the steam pushing the lid open, hence &quot;开&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T12:22:31.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20754" CreationDate="2017-01-12T13:04:01.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In all satellite broadcast TV channels (i.e., 卫视), only Putonghua is allowed. There are two exceptions to this rule, explained below.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The first exception is for satellite TV channels in Guangdong Province within the Pearl River Delta (珠江三角洲), which are allowed to use Cantonese in TV programs. 珠江卫视 and 南方卫视 both broadcast in Cantonese (in the Canton/Guangzhou dialect) to the entire province. Moreover, SARFT allows Hong Kong-based TV corporations (currently only TVB, previously also Asia TV) to broadcast their TV programs in Guangdong.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Satellite TV channels in localities with substantial &lt;em&gt;shaoshu minzu&lt;/em&gt; (minority ethnicity) population may use ethnic languages. Guangxi Satellite TV, Inner Mongolia Satellite TV and Tibet Satellite TV have news progams in Zhuang, Mongolian and Tibetan, respectively. Satellite TV channels in Xinjiang use Uyghur and Kazakh.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As mentioned above, traditional Chinese opera are sung in the language that they are supposed to be sung.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Other than in satellite broadcast TV channels, the SARFT does not fully prohibit (instead only limits) the use of local dialect. Actually, I cannot think of one major city that does not have at least one local TV program in the local dialect. But they do need to apply for permission from the agencies.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As for radio, I know that the the official China National Radio (中央人民广播电台) and Chinese International Broadcast (中国国际广播电台) themselves have channels in Cantonese, Hakka, Korean (intended for the Korean Chinese population), Uyghur, Tibetan and Kazakh. Most radio channels are local, so they do use local dialects as do local TV channels.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no, there is no definitive list. All local dialects can be potentially used on TV and radio, but the only Chinese language that could be broadcast on TV above the city level (besides Putonghua) is Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T13:04:01.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22202" CreationDate="2017-01-12T18:16:18.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is a  背信罪 (Literally, it means the crime of breach trust ) for breach of fiduciary duty meaning. You should digger further for strict legal context.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;過失 is the generally acceptable for &quot;negligence&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13110" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T18:16:18.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22432" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-13T06:15:31.723" Score="1" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;The context is the reader has just been told that in [blank] he 須認真.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[blank]須認真. 若&lt;strong&gt;認不真&lt;/strong&gt;. 便都成了假的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What puzzles me is the 不 in the middle of 認真.  I understand that each character by itself is a word, but it seems generally to be one two character word, &quot;earnest&quot;.  Is the 不 negating one of two words, or half of one word, or all of a two character word?  I've never seen that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T09:45:05.590" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T09:45:05.590" Title="How to Interpret 認不真 in 須認真. 若認不真. 便都成了假的?" Tags="&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22432" CreationDate="2017-01-13T08:47:14.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;「認真」is a common two characters compound word. It means 'serious' (adj.) &#xA;Since it is an adjective, we can add the negative function word 「不」(not ) before it, and form an negative phrase  「不認真」(not serious)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 「認」on it's own can be the verb 'identify' or ' 'recognize' as in 「認人」(identify a person)，「認路」(recognize the way);  while 「真」on it's own can be the adjective 'true' or 'accurate' ; or the adverb 'truly' or 'accurately'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a simple grammatical rule, an adverb can modify a verb.&#xA;Which mean 「認真」 can be treated as a [verb+ adverb] structure instead of a compound that we are familiar with. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of 「認不真」，「不」being a negative function word that modifies the adverb 「真」make it clear that the term we are looking at, is in fact [verb+ 不 + adverb] structure (認+不+真).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 「不」 is placed before 「認真」, that would make it an [不 + adjective] structure (不+認真).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「不認真」means 'not serious'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「認不真」means 'cannot identify accurately' or 'not identify accurately'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I mentioned before, 「認真」is a very common 'word' , to avoid confusion, it is better use 「認不清」 instead of 「認不真」. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe if the phrase in question was 「認不真確」instead of the shortened 「認不真」, you would not be so confused. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the common word 「認真」is widely used, putting 認 and 真 in a [verb + adverb] structure would certainly cause confusion. It is not recommended. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;須&lt;strong&gt;認真&lt;/strong&gt;.若&lt;strong&gt;認不真&lt;/strong&gt;. 便都成了假的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context &lt;strong&gt;須認真&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot; &lt;strong&gt;Need to identify accurately&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; Need to &lt;strong&gt;identify accurately&lt;/strong&gt;. If &lt;strong&gt;not identify accurately&lt;/strong&gt;, then everything will become (be treated as) fake&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest phrasing it as 「須認(得)真(確), 若認不真(確),  便都成了假的」 to make it more clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T08:47:14.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22432" CreationDate="2017-01-13T08:59:50.007" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;可能缺了一个了字，认不（了）真。意思是：我现在好烦，我认真不起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16188" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T08:59:50.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22410" CreationDate="2017-01-13T10:54:31.160" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;What does 你吃了吗？mean?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「你吃了嗎？」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;此句的原義是確認“吃的行為”。譬如：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「吃藥時間過了。你吃了嗎？」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「這個蛋糕很好吃。你吃了嗎？」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;Have you eaten?&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The original meaning of this sentence is to confirm the action of eating. For example,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;The time to take medicine has passed. Have you taken it?&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;This cake is very delicious. Did you eat it?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不知道什麼時候開始，它變成「打招呼」用語。原因可能就像一般人推測的那樣：民以食為天。維持生命最重要的東西就是食物。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nobody knows when it became a greeting. The reason may be something as most people speculate: hunger breeds discontentment. (Foodstuff is all-important to the people.) The most important thing to sustain life is food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以，這句話常見的意思大概就上面這兩種。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore, the common meanings of this sentence are probably the two above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;What other slang words are there?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一、和「你吃了嗎？」同義的「打招呼」用語：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ⅰ. The synonymous greetings of 你吃了嗎？:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　吃了嗎？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　吃飽了嗎？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　吃飯了嗎？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　吃過了嗎？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　⒈ 可以不加「你」，因為這句話的主詞很明顯。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　⒉ 「嗎」可以改用「沒（有）」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　⒊ 這些似乎不是俚語，只是一般用語。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　⒈ We can leave out 你 because the subject of this sentence is obvious.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　⒉ We can use 沒（有）instead of 嗎.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　⒊ These do not seem to be slang, but common words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二、 其他的「打招呼」用語：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ⅱ. Other greetings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;除了「您好」、「嗨」、「哈囉」之類的以外，常見的還有以下這些。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In addition to 您好, 嗨, 哈囉 and the like, some common greetings are listed below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　⒈ 和時間相關的：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　⒈ Time-related:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　早！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　早安！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　早上好！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　這麼早啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　午安！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　中午好！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　下午好！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　晚上好！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　晚安！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　「晚安」用在睡覺前，當然不算是見面的「打招呼」用語。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　晚安 before bed is not a greeting phrase, of course, when we see somebody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　⒉ 和對方動作或外觀相關的：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　⒉ Relating to their action or appearance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　˙ 早上（Morning）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　　˙ 對孩童（To children）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　　　　˙ 去學校啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　　　˙ （去）上學啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　　　˙ Going to school?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　　˙ 對上班族（To (office) workers）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　　　　˙ 去工作啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　　　˙ （去）上班啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　　　˙ Going to work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　　˙ 對主婦（To housewives）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　　　　˙ 去市場啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　　　˙ Going to the market?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　　　˙ （去）買菜啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　　　˙ Going food shopping?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　˙ 回家時段 (Late afternoon)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　　˙ 放學了啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Are classes over?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Coming back from school?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ 下班了啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Getting off work?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ 回來了啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Coming back?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ 累不累啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Tired?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Are you tired?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　˙ 晚餐後 (Evening)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　　˙ 去散步啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Taking a walk?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ 去逛夜市啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Going to the night market?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　˙ 過年時 (Chinese New Year)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　　˙ 恭喜！恭喜！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Gōng Xĭ! Gōng Xĭ!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Congratulations!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ 去拜年啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Going to pay New Year's call?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　˙ 穿著運動服 (Wearing sportswear)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　　˙ （要）去運動啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Going to exercise?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　˙ 牽著狗 (Walking with a dog)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　　　˙ 遛狗啊？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　　　˙ Walking the dog?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　　諸如此類的，非常地多。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　　There are many greetings like these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三、其他俚語：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ⅲ. Other slang words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　這就太廣泛了，無法回答。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　It's too broad to answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有兩句話必需特別說明。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Two sentences must be specified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⒈ 你吃飽了嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　在台灣，這是很常聽到的一句話。也就是字面的意思引申為「打招呼」用語。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　This is a very common sentence in Taiwan. That is, the literal meaning is extended to be a greeting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　但是在大陸，則暗示「很笨」的意思。從字面上看不出來有這個意思。我猜是因為這兩句的英文發音非常相似的緣故。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　But, it implies &quot;stupid&quot; in mainland China. It does not show this meaning literally. I guess it is because the pronunciations of these two sentences in English are extremely similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　你吃飽了嗎？Are you full?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　你很愚蠢嗎？Are you fool?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　所以在大陸不要隨便說這句話。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　So, do not casually say this in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⒉ 吃飽了嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　此句的發音接近韓文中一句很不雅用來罵人的話。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　The pronunciation of this sentence is close to a very indecent Korean curse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　吃飽了嗎 chī bǎo le ma&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　○○○○ xi paer nao ma&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　所以，不要對韓國人說這句話。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　Thus, do not say this to the Koreans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T10:54:31.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22438" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22448" CreationDate="2017-01-13T11:54:25.980" Score="1" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the Wikipedia article &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_(Chinese_characters)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Radical (Chinese characters)&lt;/a&gt;, the Chinese name for radical is &lt;strong&gt;部首&lt;/strong&gt; (bùshǒu; literally &quot;section header&quot;). The term appears to originate from the 2nd-century dictionary &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字 / Shuōwén Jiězì&lt;/a&gt;. Another term I've seen is &lt;strong&gt;偏旁&lt;/strong&gt; (piānpáng), e.g. on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_(Mandarin)/Radicals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikibooks&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what I'm mainly interested in are Chinese names for different &lt;strong&gt;categories of radicals&lt;/strong&gt; (if such names are in use), i.e. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;semantic components&lt;/strong&gt; such as  氵for water and  亻for human being,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;phonetic components&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;components such as 丿&lt;/strong&gt;, which are used as radicals in dictionaries (for lookup purposes) without having a meaning of their own. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm mainly interested in the Chinese term for the fist category, since that category is probably most helpful when learning Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Please note that I'm not asking for names of individual radicals, since that has been covered in, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/22095/12854&quot;&gt;Understandable names of the radicals&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;types of character composition&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T12:52:11.187" Title="Chinese names for different types of radicals?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22439" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-01-13T14:09:14.287" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-01-13T14:09:14.287" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T14:09:14.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22440" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-01-13T14:09:14.287" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the history of the Chinese language(s)." OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-01-14T05:54:55.050" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T05:54:55.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22441" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-01-13T14:10:18.777" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-01-13T14:10:18.777" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T14:10:18.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22442" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-01-13T14:10:18.777" Score="0" Body="Questions related to slang, i.e. a type of language that consists of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal." OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-01-14T05:54:48.347" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T05:54:48.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22443" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-01-13T14:14:11.860" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-01-13T14:14:11.860" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T14:14:11.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22444" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-01-13T14:14:11.860" Score="0" Body="Questions related to learning Standard Chinese or another Chinese language. Questions related to techniques or methods for learning or teaching Chinese can also be asked on Language Learning Stack Exchange. " OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-01-14T05:55:01.247" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T05:55:01.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22445" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-01-13T14:15:36.533" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-01-13T14:15:36.533" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T14:15:36.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22446" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-01-13T14:15:36.533" Score="0" Body="Questions related to (lexical, grammatical, stylistic, ...) errors in the usage of a Chinese language." OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-01-14T05:54:40.807" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T05:54:40.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22447" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-13T20:41:31.587" Score="1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using a 3rd party translation company called Gengo to translate phrases and am trying to measure their ability to translate a phrase in English to Chinese, where flow and native quality are the most important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Getting information in my own language is more important than the&#xA;  price of the product.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this translation of high quality in terms of grammar structure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;透過我自己的語言取得資訊比產品的價格還重要。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T06:11:59.343" Title="is this translation in Chinese of grammatical quality and flow?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22438" CreationDate="2017-01-14T00:25:14.287" Score="5" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;部首: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_(Chinese_character)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Radical&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, used for indexing dictionaries (Shuowen radicals, Kangxi radicals, radicals in modern dictionaries, etc.).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;聲符&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;Phonetic component&lt;/strong&gt;. Also called 音符, but 音符 may also mean ‘musical note’.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;意符: &lt;strong&gt;Semantic component&lt;/strong&gt;. The famous paleographer Qiu Xigui 裘锡圭&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; divides 意符 into two subcategories&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;義符: meaning component (it is the meaning of the component that is relevant),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;形符: pictographic component, form component (it is what the component depicts that is relevant).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;偏旁: This term is quite vague, but probably the most frequent of them all, especially in informal speech. It may mean 部首 (especially a standing one, on the left- or right-hand side of a character), but it also may refer to any component or a part of a character, semantic or phonetic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;筆畫: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_(CJKV_character)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Calligraphic stroke&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&#xA;1. Instead of 聲符、義符、形符 you can also write/say 聲旁、義旁、形旁.&#xA;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&#xA;2. 裘锡圭《文字学概要》, English version: Qiu Xigui, &lt;em&gt;Chinese Writing&lt;/em&gt;, translated by Gilbert L. Mattos and Jerry Norman&#xA;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&#xA;3. The distinction (or lack thereof) between 意符, 義符 and 形符 is quite subtle and depends on the theory you subscribe to. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng3UC894haQ&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This video contains a nice English explanation of the difference between meaning components and form components&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;&lt;/sub&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2017-01-14T12:52:11.187" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T12:52:11.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22449" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22453" CreationDate="2017-01-14T03:56:48.150" Score="4" ViewCount="750" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I go to the cafeteria for meals, when I finish eating and return my tray the cleaners often say 吃完了 (chīwánle = &quot;finished eating&quot;).  I'm unsure how to reply, and say 对，吃完了 (duì, chīwánle = &quot;correct, finished eating&quot;) or some variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How should I reply to 吃完了 (chīwánle = &quot;finished eating&quot;) after I've finished eating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unsure of why they're pointing out the fact that I ate my meal (what else would I do with it?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T01:10:43.313" Title="How should I reply to 吃完了 (chīwánle = &quot;finished eating&quot;) after I've finished eating?" Tags="&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22179" CreationDate="2017-01-14T07:10:34.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right that 上 and 下 imply past and future, and these can pretty much be used before any noun specifying a time： 周、星期、礼拜 (all meaning &quot;week&quot;, in ascending order of informality)、 次、回 (both meaning &quot;time&quot;)、 学期 (semester), etc. Numbers 1-6 or 天/日 can be placed after the words meaning week, as such: 上星期三 (last Wednesday)、 下礼拜天 (next Sunday), etc. Using 上/下 with 周 admittedly sounds a bit weird, so I would stick with 星期 for &quot;week&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other time-specifying nouns, such as the following, 上个 and 下个 can be used: 月 (month)、周末(weekend). In these two, the measure word 个 is optional, but can make the phrase sound a bit less awkward. Of course, with other nouns, the measure word should adjust. For example: 下一场球赛 (the next ball game). The 一 is used here to specify that the phrase refers to the next &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; ball game, as opposed to, for instance, the next few: 下几场球赛. This quantifier usage is more common for these &quot;other&quot; nouns (basically the ones that don't deal with basic units of time defined by earth's rotation and revolution).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 天 (day) and 年 (year)， however, 今 (current)  and 明 (next)， and by extension, 前 (one before previous) and 后 (one after next), should be used. For &quot;previous&quot;, 天 takes 昨, and 年 takes 去.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, Chinese grammar rules are not as strict, but word usage is. Make sure that you use follow the rules in the last paragraph to avoid usage mistakes. For example, use 昨天 for &quot;yesterday&quot; and 去年 for &quot;last year&quot; instead of getting them mixed up or even using 上 or 下.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16195" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T07:10:34.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22451" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22452" CreationDate="2017-01-14T09:43:45.730" Score="2" ViewCount="539" Body="&lt;p&gt;I met with a structure of this type many times during last days, so I wonder:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of &quot;[verb] 一 [verb]&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;想一想&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看一看&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;等一等&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15938" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T17:01:17.490" Title="Structure &lt;verb&gt; 一 &lt;verb&gt;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22451" CreationDate="2017-01-14T12:58:44.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;for a moment&quot;, in other words, doing the action for a short time only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讓我看一看 ==&gt; Let me see(for a moment).&#xA;你可以想一想 ==&gt; You may think(for a moment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is often used as suggestion to the speaker with mild imperative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看一看吧！ ==&gt; Just look(for a moment)!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T12:58:44.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22449" CreationDate="2017-01-14T13:34:46.333" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't really have to give a formal reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar scenario: A Chinese arrives home and sits on his own sofa. His wife may see him and asks &quot;回来了?&quot;. It's like &quot;hi&quot; in a specific context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So next time you may just node and smile. Feeling awkward not to utter a word? &quot;嗯&quot; is enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16196" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T13:34:46.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22447" CreationDate="2017-01-14T14:14:56.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Talking about grammar, this version is perfectly fine. The problem is the word choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, my translation would be &quot;通过母语获取信息比产品价格更重要&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16196" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T14:14:56.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22451" CreationDate="2017-01-14T17:01:17.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Duplication of words is very common in Chinese. It doesn't have much grammatical meaning but it adds a little emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, especially for Chinese spoken in Singapore (my native tongue), the order [verb][verb][particle] is used more often for better cohesion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &#xA;让我想想一下吧! （Usually 让我想一想吧!）--&gt; Please let me think for a moment.&#xA;你的伤这么严重，让我看看！(Usually 你的伤这么严重，让我看一看!) --&gt; Your injury is very serious, let me see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16197" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T17:01:17.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22449" CreationDate="2017-01-14T19:37:14.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your reply might seem a bit awkward to some people, nevertheless it's perfectly fine. The cleaners say this to show politeness, and do not really expect an answer. Thus, even 嗯 (politely) would be a good enough response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T19:37:14.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22457" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22459" CreationDate="2017-01-14T21:02:11.037" Score="0" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is 越级挑战 in one English vocabulary form and if possible, also in idiom?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use google translate and it give me a ridiculous answer: the leap frog challenge. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="922" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T01:44:47.673" Title="What is 越级挑战 in one English vocabulary form and if possible, also in idiom?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22458" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22461" CreationDate="2017-01-14T23:21:05.780" Score="3" ViewCount="3517" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have tried different translators with no luck. Is there any translation to Chinese? Do we have to write the English version like Sim Card?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are emojis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yTlM9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yTlM9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;emojis&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3522" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T23:47:06.980" Title="How to say emojis in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22457" CreationDate="2017-01-15T00:13:57.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should provide the context in which this was used. It can be applied to school, work, development, sports teams moving up the leagues, anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;越级: more than 1 level, skip a grade, leapfrog&#xA;挑战: challenge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;越级挑战: some kind of test or exam or challenge. If your score is good, you go up more than one level. Could be school, work， just the children's game or whatever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not exactly your phrase, but you can see how 'leapfrog' might be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The win allowed them to leapfrog three teams to gain second place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这场胜利使他们连超三个队，跃居第二位。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T00:13:57.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22458" CreationDate="2017-01-15T00:23:24.423" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translates 'emoji' as 表情符號, I think it is an acceptable translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term Emoji originated from 絵文字 in Japanese. Since Japanese Kanji came from Chinese characters, 絵文字 can be reverse import back to Chinese. Which mean if you say 絵文字 in Chinese, people would know you are talking about emojis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Emojis is different from 顏文字 , which you make faces with typed characters.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of 顏文字:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IfmB8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IfmB8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T23:47:06.980" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T23:47:06.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22458" CreationDate="2017-01-15T00:46:49.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can use &lt;code&gt;emoji&lt;/code&gt; directly. And it's usually translated as &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%B9%AA%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;绘文字&lt;/a&gt; (from the Japanese &lt;code&gt;絵文字&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also call them as &lt;code&gt;emoji表情&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;表情符号&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;表情图标&lt;/code&gt; for more general intent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-01-15T00:53:26.697" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T00:53:26.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22457" CreationDate="2017-01-15T01:34:44.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term 越級挑戰 (cross- division challenge) refers to a lower weight class boxer challenges a higher weight class boxer, which is not permitted in an official match. It can only happen in exhibitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese use 越級挑戰 metaphorically to describe someone from a lower level challenge someone in the higher level. For example, a 500th ranked tennis player plays against a top ten player, or Team China facing Team Germany in The World Cup could be described as 越級挑戰. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike in boxing where boxers are divided into different weight classes. A 500th ranked tennis player is technically on the same playing field with the top ten players, and Team China is technically on the same playing field with Team Germany, but we all know the gap between the higher ranked and the lower ranked ones is as wide as the gap between men and boys. Therefore, metaphorically, we can translate &lt;strong&gt;越級挑戰&lt;/strong&gt; as &quot; &lt;strong&gt;challenge the big boys&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;David challenges Goliath&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I didn't say Team China cannot win against Team Germany, but if they won, their victory would be compared to David defeated Goliath for sure.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-15T01:44:47.673" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T01:44:47.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22458" CreationDate="2017-01-15T11:15:04.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most people say &quot;emoji&quot; without translating. While many use &quot;颜文字&quot; for &quot;emoticon&quot; (from Japanese 顔文字 &lt;em&gt;kao-moji&lt;/em&gt;), we almost never really say &quot;绘文字&quot;. A semantical translation might be &quot;表情图&quot; (&quot;graphical emotions&quot;), but it's not really equivalent to &quot;emoji&quot;. So, you could just use &quot;emoji&quot; as is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T11:15:04.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22464" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22465" CreationDate="2017-01-15T11:53:05.287" Score="4" ViewCount="878" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that a cat and dog share the same radical, which is 犭dog (quǎn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if we break the words down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;猫 cat (māo) = 犭dog (quǎn) + 艹 cǎo (grass) + 田 tián (field)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狗 dog (gǒu) = 犭dog (quǎn) + 勹 bāo (wrap) + 口 kǒu (mouth)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Why a dog radical has the dog in it &lt;em&gt;with other components&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Why a cat has the dog radical it in?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These words are not difficult to remember. For a cat, I use 'meow', which is somehow similar to māo. For a dog, I stick to 'Go, go, dog!', which sounds a bit like gǒu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I am curious about the origin of these words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13022" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T23:41:17.467" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T23:41:17.467" Title="Why do cat (猫) and dog (狗) share the same 犭 radical?" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22464" CreationDate="2017-01-15T12:03:23.573" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The radical in 猫 actually comes from &lt;strong&gt;豸 zhi4 (beast)&lt;/strong&gt;, which you can still see in the traditional character 貓. &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas the radical in 狗 is in fact 犭 quan3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplified version of 猫 got the 犭 quan3 radical because of trait reduction and semantic affinity (dog -&gt; beast). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it sounds easier to you, you can think of 犭 quan3 in simplified Chinese as generically referring to an animal, as in 狼 (wolf), 狮 (lion), 猴 (monkey), 狐 (fox) and words relating to animals as 猎 (hunt).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your other question: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) Why a dog radical has the dog in it with other components?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dog &lt;strong&gt;radical&lt;/strong&gt; 犭 comes from 犬 which is a pictogram, still used in some words today, especially dog breeds. No radicals other than the image itself. Here you can see an evolution of the picture. (Source: Wenlin, and possibly 说文解字).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0J1Ye.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0J1Ye.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are talking about the modern character 狗 gou3, it comes from the semantic/radical &lt;strong&gt;犭 quan3&lt;/strong&gt; plus the phonetic part &lt;strong&gt;句 ju4&lt;/strong&gt;. It was probably a colloquial or popular name for &quot;dog&quot; which has made it into the standard language, whereas 犬 keeps a more classical and scientific flavor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-01-15T12:11:58.983" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T12:11:58.983" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21691" CreationDate="2017-01-15T12:43:55.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing that really helped me was Middlebury online. It costs a bit, but if you are working through a school or university, they'll typically cover the cost. If not, it doesn't cost too much. That really helped me because you can speak with a tutor online and set up lessons. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T12:43:55.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22470" CreationDate="2017-01-15T15:55:11.203" Score="3" ViewCount="773" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at some lyrics just now with the phrase &quot;keep it real&quot; - which was translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;忠于本色（？）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really like this attempt - slang turned, slightly, formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any proper translations of this phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-01-16T00:20:59.683" Title="&quot;keep it real&quot; - chinese translation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22468" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-15T16:42:54.420" Score="-1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does these words mean? Im finding out if someone is faking it. Saying hes a chinese but actually not. Im looking at his profile and got the name and status. Are these words make any sense or not? If yes, the meaning?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://postimg.org/image/bwg4yeypb/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;His status&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://postimg.org/image/q6tvrla83/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;His name&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16201" LastActivityDate="2017-01-16T16:12:12.163" Title="Are these chinese letterings real or fake" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-01-17T17:27:56.380" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22468" CreationDate="2017-01-15T16:54:37.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those are real Chinese characters.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The three characters in the status means &quot;(I) won't chitchat&quot; or &quot;no time for &#xA;chitchat&quot;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The four characters in the name means &quot;day dreaming&quot; or, literally &quot;white day make dream&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11802" LastEditorUserId="11802" LastEditDate="2017-01-15T17:12:44.117" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T17:12:44.117" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22467" CreationDate="2017-01-15T17:34:53.933" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dictionary definition of &quot;keep it real&quot; is &quot;be yourself&quot; ; &quot;don't be fake&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;忠於(loyal to) 本色 (real color)&quot;  means &quot; be true to one's own nature&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do think &quot;be yourself &quot; could substitutes  &quot;be true to your nature&quot; &#xA;These two phrases are somewhat comparable, so I would say it is not wrong to translate &quot;keep it real&quot; as &quot;忠於本色&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 忠於本色 sounds quite awkward. It is not a common phrase, because &lt;strong&gt;本色&lt;/strong&gt; means '&lt;strong&gt;characteristic&lt;/strong&gt;' . we generally see it in phrases that depict some unique characters.  For example 英雄本色，強人本色，奸雄本色. Placing a verb 忠於(loyal to) before 本色 just not sounds right in my ears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it is a lyric, you can interpret more freely. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;忠于自我&quot; (be true to yourself), &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;保持真我&quot; (keep your true self) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;別装假&quot; (don't fake)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-16T00:20:59.683" LastActivityDate="2017-01-16T00:20:59.683" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3812" CreationDate="2017-01-15T23:08:26.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've thinking for a while on a simple readability measure for Chinese and I have written a first approximation here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://rolandcoeurjoly.wordpress.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://rolandcoeurjoly.wordpress.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16205" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T23:08:26.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22472" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22473" CreationDate="2017-01-16T03:17:06.460" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone please help me out? What do the following mean?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 过站登机&#xA;2) 正在值机&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are found at the airport regarding flight statuses. Does it mean boarding, delayed, check in etc? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15433" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-01-16T06:12:47.217" LastActivityDate="2017-01-16T06:12:47.217" Title="Airplane status - boarding delayed check in?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22472" CreationDate="2017-01-16T04:22:52.537" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;过站登机 transit boarding&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The original passengers are boarding now.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;过站 is the same as 经停 or 过境.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正在值机 checking in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2017-01-16T04:28:00.390" LastActivityDate="2017-01-16T04:28:00.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22468" CreationDate="2017-01-16T09:42:57.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is just common internet pseudonym/pen-name/call-sign  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;白日做梦 : daydreams&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不闲聊 : no small talk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like anyone using a cool/fancy call-sign when register themselves in a forum, groups chat,etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-01-16T16:12:12.163" LastActivityDate="2017-01-16T16:12:12.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22398" CreationDate="2017-01-16T13:54:45.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well,I think you were just thinking too much. Chinese is a language that doesn't put too much emphasis on the tense. So you are right, most of time, you just infer directly from the context than you can know immediately from what the other peoson is talking about. Ok, back to your original question, how to translate ' I read a book ' into Mandarin (or Taiwanese), if someone asks ' how do you know that?'you just simply answer him/her &quot; oh , 因爲我看( 讀）過這方面的書'（I have read books about it) . It's just that simple. &#xA;(2) Secondly, you also mentioned about the use of &quot;了' ,too. Yes,you may think it as a &quot;past tense ' notifier,but I don't think it is a past tense from a native speaker point of view. It just acts like a auxiliary word in the end of a sentence,has no special meaning. If you want to say, I have done it( 我做過了），or I have seen it (我看過了） then you add '了' at the end of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16207" LastActivityDate="2017-01-16T13:54:45.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22398" CreationDate="2017-01-16T16:08:25.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems you just confuse yourself by taking sentences out of context, which is wrong in all language.  I.e. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;How do you know that?&quot; 你怎么知道？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I read a book&quot; 我读过一本书。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just take note that, if you took the first sentence away, the second sentence &quot;I read a book&quot; become implicit.  You cannot derive exact and explicit meaning from  'I read a book'. Unless you explicit say this : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I read a book before, the facts in there say so.  我读过一本书, 里头是这么说的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare the following conversation, you will notice the context issue : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;What have you done last Sunday?&quot; , &quot;I read a book&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I read a book&quot;, &quot;What is the title of the book?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Where did you get this idea from?&quot;, &quot;I read a book&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Update) &#xA;Native language speaker getting used to abbreviate/shorten meaning without realise. So it is important to expand the abbreviate/shorten sentences to make them explicit when you learn foreign language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the correct verb for read in Mandarin, is &lt;code&gt;读&lt;/code&gt;. Using &lt;code&gt;看&lt;/code&gt; can be somewhat confusing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-01-17T09:14:39.230" LastActivityDate="2017-01-17T09:14:39.230" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22477" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-16T19:13:56.703" Score="1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering what ways there are too practice permission without a teacher, e.g. with software. I often will speak into pleco and Google translate to see if it can recognize my Chinese. I think this has helped me identify some errors in my pronunciation already. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other methods? Does anyone have an opinion or info on how accurate pleco or google translate may be. I.e. if they correctly interpret my speech, how confidant can I be in my pronunciation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what about other apps such as Hello Chinese or Chinese Skill? They seem to be pretty forgiving with pronunciation, much more so than Google translate or pleco.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2017-01-17T21:46:39.130" Title="Practicing pronunciation via app" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-01-18T07:15:50.727" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3798" CreationDate="2017-01-17T05:56:35.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is archaic, not like English from the 1600s.  From personal experience I recommend &lt;em&gt;Gateway to the Chinese Classics&lt;/em&gt; by Faurot.  China Books and Periodicals, Inc. San Francisco, CA USA     ISBN 0-8251-2537-8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spend a month or two with that book and you'll be good to go in terms of wrestling with Classical and Literary Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-01-17T05:56:35.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21968" CreationDate="2017-01-17T11:54:27.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After a bit of research, I've come across a possible explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yywzb.com.cn/more.asp?infoid=5338&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this source&lt;/a&gt; from the 语言文字报 Journal of Language and Writing (not sure the English name is correct) it appears that the character 论 was archaically used with the meaning of &lt;strong&gt;to edit, to compile&lt;/strong&gt; as in the  word &lt;strong&gt;论纂 lun2 zuan3&lt;/strong&gt;, same as 编撰 bian1 zhuan4. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The reference given is the scholar &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%B2%81%E8%BF%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lu Xun&lt;/a&gt; who in his &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%89%E6%96%87%E5%AD%A6%E5%8F%B2%E7%BA%B2%E8%A6%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;teaching materials&lt;/a&gt; for a class at Xiamen University, talked about the Analects:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;﹝ 孔子 ﹞ 既卒 [...]， 门人又相与辑其言行而&lt;strong&gt;论纂&lt;/strong&gt;之， 谓之《论语》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[After Confucius' death], the disciples revised each other's notes [of the master's teachings] and compiled a book, which they called &amp;quot;Edited words&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if we take this for good, the 论 lún in 论语 is a legacy of the archaic 论纂 (to edit, to compile) as Confucius' disciples &lt;em&gt;compiled&lt;/em&gt; his teachings into a volume that later became known as 论语, which literally means “edited words&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T12:28:38.407" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T12:28:38.407" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21866" CreationDate="2017-01-17T15:16:35.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This use case of &lt;code&gt;血&lt;/code&gt; does not apply to north-eastern mandarin, which is referred as &lt;code&gt;东北话&lt;/code&gt;. It's in fact a word in &lt;code&gt;大连(Da Lian)话&lt;/code&gt;. Dalian is a city in Liaoning Province, but &lt;code&gt;大连话&lt;/code&gt; is really different from &lt;code&gt;东北话&lt;/code&gt;. It's similar to the dialect of &lt;code&gt;胶东(Jiao Dong)&lt;/code&gt;, which is a part of Shandong Province.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;血&lt;/code&gt; here means very, not awesome. It's more an adverb than an adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;code&gt;血彪&lt;/code&gt;, which means &lt;code&gt;很傻&lt;/code&gt;, is commonly used in &lt;code&gt;大连话&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more reference, you may search for &lt;code&gt;大连话&lt;/code&gt; and ctrl+f for &lt;code&gt;血&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16196" LastActivityDate="2017-01-17T15:16:35.333" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22477" CreationDate="2017-01-17T21:46:39.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing you could do is use Middlebury. It allows you to speak into a device and it'll recognize your pronunciation and help with tones, etc. Also, on Middlebury, you can have an audio chat with a tutor if you wanted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2017-01-17T21:46:39.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="737" CreationDate="2017-01-17T21:52:35.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely. Imagine if someone could speak and read English, but not write it. They'd be almost illiterate. Also, slight differences in characters could definitely affect how well you type in characters. For example, if one pinyin has two similar characters, if you can't write them, you probably will mix them up at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2017-01-17T21:52:35.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22484" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22485" CreationDate="2017-01-18T10:08:49.427" Score="3" ViewCount="8746" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a repository or database containing all traditional Chinese characters. Where can I find this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-01-18T21:22:25.717" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T03:17:52.393" Title="List of all traditional Chinese characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22484" CreationDate="2017-01-18T10:50:24.210" Score="11" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Download &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesecj.com/forum/forum.php?mod=attachment&amp;amp;aid=NzE3fGVkZjhjN2U1fDE0ODQ3MzU1OTZ8MHwyNTk2&quot;&gt;CJSYS-20110919.zip&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find /CJSYS-20110919/cjsys/yong/mb/cj5-13053.txt&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Copy the [DATA] section (from line 9 to 14136) into a spreadsheet.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Remove whatever you don't need.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sort.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Remove duplicates.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesecj.com/forum/forum.php?mod=viewthread&amp;amp;tid=2596&quot;&gt;倉頡平台2012&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cj5-8300.txt has the simplified characters. (8300餘個簡體漢字)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cj5-20902.txt includes both of them. (國際標準碼20902個簡繁漢字)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cj5-70000.txt includes the rare-used characters. (國際標準碼75000個簡繁中日韓越漢字)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cj5-ftzk.txt is a table of the traditional phrases. (繁體詞庫)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cj5-jtzk.txt is a table of the simplified phrases. (簡體詞庫)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2017-01-18T21:19:14.977" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T21:19:14.977" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22398" CreationDate="2017-01-18T13:02:09.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q: How do you know that?&#xA;A: I read a book.&#xA;But a Chinese person will answer: 我从书上看到的。 （I saw it from a book (or books).）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone says “我看书.”， it means 'I do read books! (I am not illiterate)'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我看一本书。” means 'I read one book', but nobody says that. People only say 一本 if they want to emphasise the number. For example, “我只看一本书。” means 'I only read one book.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, nobody says “我以前看一本书。”, but “我以前只看一本书。” means 'In the past, I only read one book.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我看了一本书。” feels strange because it contains “了” without also mentioning the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我刚刚看了一本书。” means 'I have just read a book.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我昨天看了一本书。” means 'I read a book yesterday.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“……然后，我看了一本书。” means '..., and then I read a book.'  The time is implied by the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我看了一本书，然后去吃饭了。” means 'I read a book, and then I had my meal.' The time is also implied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another character “过” can be used to express that a person had the experience of doing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你看过书吗？” means 'Have you ever read any books?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我看过书。” means 'Yes. I have.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我看过100本书。” means 'I read 100 books [in the past].' or 'I have read 100 books by now.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我以前看过100本书。” also means 'I read 100 books in the past.'  In this case, 'the past' is explicit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我上大学的时候看过100本书。” means 'I read 100 books [during the time] when I was in university [, but may not have finished them all].'  “我上大学的时候看完了100本书。” means 'I [not only read, but also] finished reading 100 books when I was in university.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T13:02:09.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22484" CreationDate="2017-01-18T15:18:33.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;you may download the 國語辭典, there're 4 excel files in the zip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.publicense.moe.edu.tw/dict_reviseddict_download.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://resources.publicense.moe.edu.tw/dict_reviseddict_download.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for traditional chinese, this one is authoritative, and informative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T15:18:33.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22000" CreationDate="2017-01-18T17:28:19.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;广安属于巴蜀地区，广安话更接近于重庆话&#xA;和普通话区别的话就是语音语调不同，&#xA;广安话平翘舌不分，很多口语很具有地方特色&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16217" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T17:28:19.590" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22489" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-18T16:42:26.027" Score="2" ViewCount="333" Body="&lt;p&gt;I mean, do they use this term to name comics from all the world, or just those native, from China? Has something changed about naming with time? Does anyone still uses term 连漫画？&#xA;谢谢！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user30383" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T07:36:02.220" Title="What do chinese people understand by word 漫画 &quot;manhua&quot;?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22489" CreationDate="2017-01-19T01:34:36.630" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's basically just Chinese comics that were produced in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The term &quot;manhua&quot; had existed even before the Japanese term &quot;manga&quot; did. Nowadays manhua just means Chinese comic materials, plus most manhua have fully colored pages, so (other than country of origin) that's how it differs from the traditional black and white of Japanese Manga.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16218" LastActivityDate="2017-01-19T01:34:36.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22489" CreationDate="2017-01-19T02:05:35.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, Chinese usually use &lt;code&gt;漫画&lt;/code&gt; for comics from all the world, including Japan/America/Europe etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the term &lt;code&gt;连环画&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;小人书&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;小儿书&lt;/code&gt;) is usually used for those native ones of China, almost published in the last century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mt.sohu.com/20160423/n445712361.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;绘本、连环画、漫画你知道他们有什么不同吗？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/20278935&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;绘本、漫画和连环画的区别是什么？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-01-20T07:36:02.220" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T07:36:02.220" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22458" CreationDate="2017-01-19T07:24:45.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;表情符號&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表情符號 is the best translation for the type of emoji mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, you can directly use the English word &lt;strong&gt;emoji&lt;/strong&gt; orally or in informal writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: Japanese style emoji &lt;code&gt;(´・ω・｀) ('・ω・´) (*´ω｀*)&lt;/code&gt; are usually referred as &lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A1%94%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;顔文字&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Reference&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1893?viewlocale=zh_TW&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS 10.2 release note (Chinese)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;iOS 10.2 [...] 加入了超過 100 種新的&lt;strong&gt;表情符號&lt;/strong&gt;，其中包含新的表情、食物、動物、運動和職業。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1893?viewlocale=en_US&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iOS 10.2 release note (English)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;iOS 10.2 [...] &lt;strong&gt;Emoji&lt;/strong&gt; have been beautifully redesigned to reveal even more detail and over 100 new &lt;strong&gt;emoji&lt;/strong&gt; have been added including new faces, food, animals, sports, and professions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;iOS screenshot (&lt;a href=&quot;https://briian.com/9598/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;credit&lt;/a&gt;):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iDDpR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iDDpR.png&quot; alt=&quot;iOS emoji keyboard&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastEditorUserId="3511" LastEditDate="2017-01-19T07:42:14.910" LastActivityDate="2017-01-19T07:42:14.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18059" CreationDate="2017-01-19T11:25:17.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that your sentence 他吃了饭 sounds incomplete for two reasons: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there is an aspect marker 了 &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt; &lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the sentence structure in Chinese is theme-comment&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO, what you say here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The difference between 他吃饭 and 他吃了饭 lies only in that 了 renders the situation as factual rather then irreal (habitual, desirable, wishing, issuing a command and ect.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is due to the fact that if you state that something has ended, you imply that it happened. There's nothing that hints about &quot;factual&quot; vs &quot;non factual&quot; directly in the presence of 了 there. I believe it is a consequence of it being an aspect marker.&#xA;Therefore that's &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt; the aspect particle 了 making the sentence hang. That's what that 了 is for. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; &#xA;As Wang Dingwei says: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So in this case, 他吃了饭 means &quot;After he ate&quot; -- Apparently an incomplete sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must complete with something more: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他吃了饭就走了 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他吃了饭觉得不舒服 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他吃了饭一般睡午觉 &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you can also see that the sentences above can be translated with different tenses, therefore:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The verb 吃了 is not rendered to ANY time &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is intuitively true because aspectual 了 doesn't convey information about time. It marks the completeness of the action, not directly its actuality. In 他吃了饭 you are stating that something ends without accounting for what the subject (actually, the theme) does next. That's all what there is to it, IMHO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a last note, if you just want to say that you have finished eating without adding further information, than the theme of your sentence is the food! And to specify that the action is not hanging, I would use a result verb （完，好） AND a &lt;strong&gt;modal&lt;/strong&gt; 了, indicating that I ate and I'm eating no more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;饭我吃好了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-01-19T12:32:11.270" LastActivityDate="2017-01-19T12:32:11.270" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21035" CreationDate="2017-01-19T11:39:55.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It might be easier just to download &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=cc-cedict&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/a&gt; in its entirety and look up your character in it. You can turn this into an API with very little effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16223" LastActivityDate="2017-01-19T11:39:55.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22489" CreationDate="2017-01-19T11:45:34.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unlike English, Chinese does not identify the origin of the subject by using different loan words from their respective cultures.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English: (American) comic, (Japanese) manga; Chinese: 美国漫画、日本漫画, and also 中国漫画、韩国漫画、俄国漫画、法国漫画、捷克漫画 ...  '漫画' may refer the kind of drawn still image art from any country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“连环画” is a kind of “漫画”, characterised by the style of small horizontal booklets, one picture per page, having comments underneath the picture, and not using text bubbles. (Just search for '连环画' with Google Images.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English: (American) cartoon, (Japanese) anime; Chinese: 美国动画片、日本动画片, and also 中国动画片、韩国动画片、俄国动画片、法国动画片、捷克动画片 ... '动画（片）' may refer to this kind of animated art from any country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English: astronaut, cosmonaut, taikonaut; Chinese: （美国）宇航员、苏联宇航员、中国宇航员……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English: submarine, U-boat; Chinese: 潜艇、德国潜艇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English uses 'martial art' to refer to martial art in general, and 'kung fu' for Chinese martial art; Chinese uses '武术' and '功夫' interchangeably. When emphasising the country of origin, Chinese people would say 中国武术、日本武术、泰国武术……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2017-01-19T11:45:34.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22489" CreationDate="2017-01-19T12:17:53.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot use &lt;code&gt;连漫画&lt;/code&gt;alone without indicating the number. The proper term should be used as &lt;code&gt;数目.连漫画&lt;/code&gt; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is used to indicate cartoon style with limited frame that tell the short story. It is very common for four strip comics :  &lt;code&gt;四连漫画&lt;/code&gt;, sometime also call &lt;code&gt;四格漫画&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-01-19T12:17:53.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22484" CreationDate="2017-01-20T03:17:52.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are not wanting to download files to your computer (viruses, etc.) here's a website where you can search for them: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhongwen.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zhongwen.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16173" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T03:17:52.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22498" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-20T12:53:31.637" Score="0" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;my friend got it years ago and is  supposed to be his initials in chinese.. can you tell me if this is correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uw59n.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uw59n.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16227" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T13:09:39.153" Title="Trying to find the meaning of this tattoo" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-01-22T11:04:10.510" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22498" CreationDate="2017-01-20T13:09:39.153" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;女 (Nǚ) means:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(noun) female; woman; girl; daughter; frail  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;手 (Shǒu) means:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(noun) hand; clutch&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(verb) hold; have in one's hand&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(adjective) handy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女手: female's hand; female's writing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T13:09:39.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22501" CreationDate="2017-01-20T15:24:07.407" Score="3" ViewCount="481" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wiktionary, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%99#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This character, 朙, is an &lt;strong&gt;ancient form&lt;/strong&gt; of 明&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know what exactly ancient forms are and their current role in the language together with some academic reference, as well as where I can find a list of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, a different term shown on this page seems to refer to the same concept, namely '&lt;strong&gt;alternative forms&lt;/strong&gt;'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, the difference between these terms and '&lt;strong&gt;traditional forms&lt;/strong&gt;' should be clarified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-01-24T03:47:48.180" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T19:09:04.910" Title="Ancient forms of characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22500" CreationDate="2017-01-20T16:53:22.987" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid different people may use these terms in slightly different ways. But the way I understand it,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;standard form&lt;/strong&gt; 標準體 is one of several ways of writing a character, chosen as standard in a particular place and time (there are different standards: standard mainland forms, standard Taiwanese forms, standard Hong Kong forms, standard Kangxi forms, etc.),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;variant form&lt;/strong&gt; 異體字 is a non-standard form of the character, that nevertheless is or was in use at some point,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;archaic/ancient/old form&lt;/strong&gt; 古字 is a form that was used in the past, but is not anymore,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;simplified form&lt;/strong&gt; 簡體字 (in the narrow sense) is a form that has undergone simplification in mainland China,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;inherited form&lt;/strong&gt; 傳承字 is a form that hasn't undergone simplification, but is regarded as standard in mainland China,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;simplified form&lt;/strong&gt; 簡體字 (in the wide sense) is a simplified form or an inherited form,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;traditional form&lt;/strong&gt; 繁體字 (in the narrow sense) is a form of a simplified character before the simplification,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;traditional form&lt;/strong&gt; 繁體字 (in the wide sense) is basically any form that has been used to write Chinese, other than the simplified form in the narrow sense,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;orthodox form&lt;/strong&gt; 正字 is a form that was regarded as standard in the past, especially in the influential Kangxi dictionary (another term which refers to something similar is 舊字形),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;vulgar form&lt;/strong&gt; 俗字, 俗體字 is a non-orthodox form of the character.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't think &lt;strong&gt;alternative form&lt;/strong&gt; is a well-defined term with a very specific meaning. In Wiktionary it seems to refer to different ways of writing the same characters in different languages (e.g. in Chinese and in Japanese), or to variant forms, when used in the context of a specific language. There are some Wiktionary editors here on Chinese SE, perhaps they can clarify this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as I said, these terms may vary. For example, 正字 sometimes means the same thing as 標準繁體字 (standard traditional form), and there are also contexts where it means 楷書 (regular script, one of the calligraphic styles).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in case you are interested in the development of 明 and other ways it was written (such as 朙 and 眀), going all the way back to the earliest forms, such as &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hl3Br.gif&quot; height=&quot;25&quot; alt=&quot;明&quot;&gt;, Chen Zhiqun wrote a &lt;a href=&quot;http://arrow.monash.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/monash:34651/THESIS01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;whole chapter about 明 (chapter 5)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a list of 古字, you can search for &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=1&amp;amp;wdqt=old+variant+of&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;old variant of&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=1&amp;amp;wdqt=%22archaic+variant+of%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;archaic variant of&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=1&amp;amp;wdqt=%22ancient+variant+of%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ancient variant of&lt;/a&gt;&quot; and &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=1&amp;amp;wdqt=%22classical+variant+of%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;classical variant of&lt;/a&gt;&quot; in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG dictionary&lt;/a&gt;. I'm not sure whether “old”, “archaic”, “ancient” and “classical” are understood in different ways in MDBG.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For something more academic, you may want to take a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/query_by_standard_tiles.rbt?command=clear&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants&lt;/a&gt;, which contains over 100,000 variants, mostly ancient. But note that the dictionary is Chinese-only and has a terrible user interface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2017-02-04T19:09:04.910" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T19:09:04.910" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22502" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22503" CreationDate="2017-01-20T18:50:22.443" Score="1" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I discuss translation in Chinese? I want to express to a Chinese speaker how and English speaker learning Chinese interprets Chinese language (in a few simple cases).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 1: &#xA;猫 is cat, expressing it's English translation:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在英语中“猫”叫作“cat”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 2:&#xA;红茶 is black tea, expressing that I interpret 红 literally as &quot;red&quot;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在英语中“红茶”的译成字面“红色的茶”。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;In English, &quot;红茶&quot; is translated literally as &quot;red tea&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am hoping is that people here will provide several different ways to communicate this in Mandarin. Other examples are welcome, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T21:12:46.910" Title="Expressing translations between English and Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22502" CreationDate="2017-01-20T20:08:51.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do I discuss translation in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;猫&lt;/strong&gt;'的英文是 '&lt;strong&gt;cat&lt;/strong&gt;' / '&lt;strong&gt;狗&lt;/strong&gt;'的英文是  '&lt;strong&gt;dog&lt;/strong&gt;' /  '&lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt;' 的英文是 '&lt;strong&gt;Y&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More detailed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文的'&lt;strong&gt;猫&lt;/strong&gt;'字在英文是 '&lt;strong&gt;cat&lt;/strong&gt;' / 中文的'&lt;strong&gt;狗&lt;/strong&gt;'字在英文是 '&lt;strong&gt;dog&lt;/strong&gt;' / 中文的  '&lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt;' 字在英文是 '&lt;strong&gt;Y&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For standard translation of 红茶:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;红茶&lt;/strong&gt;'的英文是 '&lt;strong&gt;black tea&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;红茶&lt;/strong&gt;'在英文译作 '&lt;strong&gt;black tea&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For literal translation of 红茶: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;红茶在英文的&lt;strong&gt;词面上&lt;/strong&gt;就是 'red tea' ('红茶'  &lt;strong&gt;literally&lt;/strong&gt; means 'red tea' in English)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;红茶&lt;strong&gt;直译&lt;/strong&gt;成为英文就是 'red tea' (the &lt;strong&gt;direct translation&lt;/strong&gt; of '红茶'  in English would be 'red tea')&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many more ways you can rephrase the above examples. I didn't even use the word 翻译 (translate) in any of my examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-20T21:12:46.910" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T21:12:46.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22398" CreationDate="2017-01-20T20:46:37.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;tense:&#xA;ing -- 着&#xA;ed -- 了&#xA;watching -- 看着 &#xA;eatting -- 吃着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16230" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-01-21T01:55:48.937" LastActivityDate="2017-01-21T01:55:48.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22505" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-21T03:24:51.697" Score="7" ViewCount="700" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to know how a word 'works' in a phrase. What did people think when they came up with the phrase 感冒？ A hat/cover on your feelings?? Maybe this 感 means something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感 means feel, perceive, emotion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冒 has these meanings, according to zdic.net:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;向外透或往上升：～烟（❶烟往上升；❷发怒）。～汗。～尖。 emit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　2. 不顾（恶劣的环境或危险等），顶着：～雨。～险。～死。 rash, foolishly brave&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　3. 不加小心，鲁莽，冲撞：～失。～昧。～进（不顾具体条件，急躁进行）。 impulsive, reckless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　4. 用假的充当真的，假托：～牌。～充。～名顶替。 fake, substitute&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　5. 复盖：“先设一铁板，其上以松脂、蜡和纸灰之类～之”。 cover, hide, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　6. 贪污：“贪于饮食，～于货贿”。 corrupt, corruption&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　7. 古同“帽”。 hat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　8. 古同“瑁”，玳瑁。 tortoiseshell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　9. 姓。 surname&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果我感冒的话， I feel ??? Which of 1 - 9 somehow achieves the meaning of 'catch a cold', with its concomitant symptoms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T07:02:05.930" Title="What is the meaning of 冒 in 感冒？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22505" CreationDate="2017-01-21T04:03:47.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/xs/611F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;感&lt;/a&gt; could be used for the meaning of &lt;code&gt;感染/感受&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(14) 感染,感受。多用于疾病 [infect;be affected by]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;code&gt;太夫人并无别症,偶感了些风寒。——《红楼梦》&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/5192.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;冒&lt;/a&gt;, as you've shown it could be used for the meaning of &lt;code&gt;emit&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One saying is that at Song dynasty, &lt;code&gt;感风&lt;/code&gt; is usually used as the excuse of asking for leave by the officials; it literally means &lt;code&gt;affected by the (cold) wind (then got sick)&lt;/code&gt;. At Qing dynasty, the officials changed it to &lt;code&gt;感冒&lt;/code&gt;; &lt;code&gt;冒&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;emit/appear/manifest&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;感冒&lt;/code&gt; then means &lt;code&gt;I've been affected by the cold wind; now the symptom manifested. (so I have to ask for leave)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bjsggw.beijing.gov.cn/sqy/t1381244.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;感冒一词的由来？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-01-21T06:39:58.277" LastActivityDate="2017-01-21T06:39:58.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22505" CreationDate="2017-01-21T06:36:19.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not an expert in chinese grammar. But I am indeed a Chinese.&#xA;In Chinese Language we are not so clear about some verb, noun. @songyuanyao's answer should answer your question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except the meaning of 'catch a cold', 感冒 will use in a condition like &quot;I'm not a fan of Lady Gaga's new song.(我对Lady Gaga的新歌不感冒, this just a translation made by I(or me don't know this gramar :P), I'm not expert of both Chinese and English.)&quot;. So if you are learning Chinese, maybe it's not a very good idea to understand every meaning of a Chinese character in a specific word(phrase), but it maybe helpful if you know the meaning of 冒 as a verb. And the site zdic.net is useful when you wish to understand the source of a word or Character, because it quotes lots of old Chinese sentence, but not so many modern Chinese.&#xA;For learning modern Chinese a dictionary called 《新华词典》is used by most Chinese students, but I don't know if it has a Chinese-English version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So all I want to say is do not let one Character in a word borther you if you already know the meaning of the word(if you just want to understand chinese not being a translater or an expert), knowing common meaning of a character is enough for most situation. I'm saying this because I'm a Chinese and I did't know the meaning of 冒 in 感冒 until I saw this question and search the answer for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16234" LastActivityDate="2017-01-21T06:36:19.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17100" CreationDate="2017-01-21T07:12:25.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like 'black technology', but 'shadow technology' is also a possible useful alternative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16235" LastActivityDate="2017-01-21T07:12:25.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22505" CreationDate="2017-01-21T09:34:10.503" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;感冒&quot; as a term of sickness has a long history, since 宋 dynasty (960-1279): several literatures had this term:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;醫說 by 張杲:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3mWsP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3mWsP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勉齋集 by 黃幹&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ok7a3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ok7a3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清正存稿 by 徐鹿卿&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hpwwu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hpwwu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, in 世醫得效方 by 危亦林 of 元 dynasty (1271 - 1368), &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UHhp2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UHhp2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which mentioned &quot;&lt;strong&gt;感冒&lt;/strong&gt;風寒﹒鼻塞﹒語音不出﹒頭痛﹒拘倦&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which, the symptom is similar to today usage (common cold, or influenza)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next, in 胡端敏奏議 by 胡世寧 of 明 dynasty (1368-1644)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nHqbL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nHqbL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which mentioned &quot;&lt;strong&gt;感冒&lt;/strong&gt;﹒其病即發﹒有身熱惡寒﹒有不身熱而止畏風寒&quot;, &quot;又有&lt;strong&gt;感冒&lt;/strong&gt;後鼻塞﹒咳嗽﹒或身微熱﹒或身不熱﹒皆名&lt;strong&gt;傷風&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, the symptom is similar to today usage, and, it also mentioned &quot;傷風&quot;; that, a term commonly used together with &quot;感冒&quot; nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, &lt;h2&gt;the info provided by the article &quot;感冒一詞的由來&quot; is, incorrect.&lt;/h2&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, with additional info.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i read all 300+ findings of &quot;感冒&quot; in literatures of yore, here's my suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;感冒&quot; is a generic term of sickness since 宋 dynasty (960-1279), i don't find clear definition of it in this period. the earliest one, with symptom in details was in 世醫得效方 by 危亦林 of 元 dynasty (1271 - 1368).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one of the interested finding is in 胡端敏奏議 by 胡世寧 of 明 dynasty (1368-1644)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z0i7J.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z0i7J.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;或因當風坐卧﹒或因輕煖脱衣﹒一時冒寒﹒又或當夏冒暑﹒皆為感冒&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which the causes of &quot;感冒&quot; was stated as &quot;冒寒&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;冒暑&quot;. nowadays we still use &quot;冒&quot; + elements, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冒雪抗議: ~ demontrated while snowing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冒雨遊行: ~ procession in rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;considering &quot;感冒&quot; is a thousand years old literary chinese term, using modern dictionary to explain each character has its limitation. so, with my limited knowledge, i would suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感 as &quot;感染&quot; (infest) in the term &quot;感冒&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冒 as &quot;unprotected, exposed in&quot; in the term &quot;感冒&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, about the 18th meaning of &quot;冒&quot; provided by 漢語大詞典, i'm seriously in doubt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;according to &quot;黃帝內經素問補註釋文&quot; by 王氷, of 唐 dynasty (618 - 907):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LHpGO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LHpGO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the text &quot;忽忽眩冒而巔疾&quot; had the remark &quot;忽忽﹒不爽也﹒眩謂目昡﹒視如轉也﹒冒謂冒悶也&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i don't think that 冒悶 means &quot;神智不清&quot;; i would interpret &quot;冒悶&quot; as &quot;emitting low spirits&quot;, an analog of &quot;冒汗&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next, about 傷寒論, thought it was written by 張仲景 (150 - 219); the remark of &quot;冒者﹒神識不清﹒如有物為之冒蒙也&quot; was made by 程知, of 清 dynasty (1644 - 1911).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;claiming, or implying that 張仲景 wrote such remark, is improper. further, there're &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/shang-han-lun/zh?searchu=%E5%86%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;14 entries of &quot;冒&quot;&lt;/a&gt; in 傷寒論; &quot;神識不清&quot; does not fit them well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2017-01-22T17:55:30.027" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T17:55:30.027" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22510" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22514" CreationDate="2017-01-21T10:10:30.047" Score="1" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ySUs7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ySUs7.png&quot; alt=&quot;picture&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;乱花钱米叫“泡稍”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reference also confirms this saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;②形容(手头) 宽裕 ▷他的钱～，尽是大手大脚的用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References for &lt;code&gt;钱米&lt;/code&gt;, though, are very few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古汉语大词典's entry for &lt;strong&gt;俸恤&lt;/strong&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;旧时官史除俸禄外，其亲属所受之钱米，称俸恤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;payment and pension&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grand Ricci says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;traitement et allocations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could we just combine the English and the French to define 钱米 as &lt;code&gt;payment and allocations&lt;/code&gt; or, more simply, &lt;code&gt;money and food&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-01-24T12:41:49.827" LastActivityDate="2017-01-24T12:41:49.827" Title="Meaning and translation of: 钱米?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22505" CreationDate="2017-01-21T13:30:40.610" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to 《汉语大词典》, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/178466p.html&quot;&gt;感冒&lt;/a&gt; means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;犹感受。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;一种传染病。多因气候变化，人体抵抗力减弱时为病毒感染所致。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;清代官员请假的托辞。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entries 2 and 3 seem to be somewhat related.&#xA;Two entries imply two different stories.&#xA;水巷孑蠻 talks about the 2nd one.&#xA;songyuanyao talks about the 3rd one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question talks about disease, so I focus on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 《汉语大词典》, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/54789t.html&quot;&gt;the 18th meaning of 冒&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;18&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;中医病症名。病者神智不清。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ●《素问•玉机真藏论》：「﹝春脉﹞太过则令人善怒，忽忽眩冒而巅疾。」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ●《医宗金鉴•张仲景〈伤寒论·太阳病下〉》：「其人因致冒，冒家汗出自愈。」集注引程知曰：「冒者，神识不清，如有物为之冒蒙也。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《汉语大词典》列出來源而未解釋，不易了解。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《汉语大词典》 lists the sources without explanation, so it's not easy to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東漢 張仲景（公元 150－219 年）《傷寒論》的&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/shang-han-lun/bian-tai-yang-bing-mai-zheng1/zh&quot;&gt;原文&lt;/a&gt;如下：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The original content in 《傷寒論》 is as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以此表裏俱虛，其人因致冒，冒家汗出自愈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;先看「冒」的意思。(The meaning of 冒.)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【一】《汉语大词典》引用 程知《傷寒經注》：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《汉语大词典》quotes from 程知《傷寒經注》：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冒者，神识不清，如有物为之冒蒙也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冒 means coma, like being covered by something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此句有「冒蒙」一詞。&#xA;「冒」與「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/_8499.html&quot;&gt;蒙&lt;/a&gt;」是同義字，都是「覆蓋」的意思。&#xA;程知 用「覆蓋」來形容病人的「昏迷」。&#xA;這表示「覆蓋」是「冒」的原義，而「昏迷」是其引申義。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There is a phrase 冒蒙 in the above sentence.&#xA;冒 and 蒙 are synonyms, which means &quot;to cover&quot;.&#xA;程知 used &quot;cover&quot; to describe a patient's &quot;coma&quot;.&#xA;It means that &quot;cover&quot; is the original meaning of 冒, and &quot;coma&quot; is its extended meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【二】此外，王丙《傷寒論注》的&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;chapter=407661&quot;&gt;解釋原文&lt;/a&gt;(第143條)如下：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In addition, 王丙《傷寒論注》explained it as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以此表裏俱虛，因虛其人致冒，理必然也。冒家者，謂凡因病而昏冒者也。然冒家或有汗出自愈，其所以然者，非表裏俱虛，乃邪正皆衰，表裏自和故也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此注有「昏冒」一詞。&#xA;再查《汉语大词典》的&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/222376l.html&quot;&gt;昏冒&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This remark has the term, 昏冒.&#xA;《汉语大词典》explains it as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昏冒&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;昏迷不醒&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  《医宗金鉴•杂病心法要诀·三化汤》：「三化气实风中府，昏冒闭满小承羌。」注：「昏冒，谓&lt;strong&gt;神昏不知人&lt;/strong&gt;也。」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  《医宗金鉴•运气要诀·运气为病歌》「诸痛痒疮属心火」注：「心藏神，热乘于心，则神不明，故&lt;strong&gt;昏冒不省人事&lt;/strong&gt;也。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昏迷不醒 means &quot;unconsciousness&quot; or &quot;to lose consciousness&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以，到這裡，冒 ＝ 昏冒 ＝ 昏迷不醒。這是較嚴重的狀況。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, up to here, 冒 ＝ 昏冒 ＝ unconsciousness. This is a more serious situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【三】我們來看 &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;chapter=100807&quot;&gt;金代名醫 成無己 的解釋&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Let's take a look the explanation of a famous doctor 成無己 in the 金 dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冒者鬰也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;查《汉语大词典》對&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/557065s.html&quot;&gt;鬰冒的解釋&lt;/a&gt;：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《汉语大词典》explains 鬰冒 as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中医指头晕目眩或昏迷的症状。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TCM refers to the symptom of dizziness or coma.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由此可知，「冒」也包括輕微的狀況，如：頭暈目眩。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;According to this, 冒 also includes mild situations, such as dizziness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【四】小結論&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;從以上的解釋，我們可以知道「冒」的原義是「覆蓋」，而其引申義是從輕微的頭暈到嚴重的昏迷。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;From the explanations above, we can see that the original meaning of 冒 is &quot;cover&quot;, and whose extended meanings range from the mild dizziness to the serious coma.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;再看「致冒」的意思。(The meaning of 致冒.)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「致」是導致、引起、致使的意思，這應該沒有問題。&#xA;「冒」可以是「冒疾」或「冒癥」。&#xA;所以，「致冒」可以是「導致冒疾」或「引起冒癥」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;致 means &quot;to lead, to arouse, to cause&quot;. There is no problem here, I think.&#xA;冒 may be a disease or symptoms.&#xA;Therefore, 致冒 may mean &quot;to lead 冒, the disease&quot; or &quot;to arouse 冒, the symptoms&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《汉语大词典》說「冒」是「中医病症名」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《汉语大词典》 states that 冒 is a name of 病症 in TCM。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;問題就出在這「症」字。&#xA;若用正體字，「症」和「癥」分得很清楚，前者是「疾病」，後者是「病狀」。&#xA;但簡化後，變成同一字，就容易混淆了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The problem lies in the word, 症.&#xA;If using the traditional characters, 症 and 癥 are clearly different.&#xA;症 means a disease, and 癥 the symptom.&#xA;However, they become the same word in simplified Chinese.&#xA;It is easy to confuse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我猜，在大陸，「病症」大多是指「疾病」。&#xA;所以，「冒」會被解釋為「病名」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I guess, in Mainland, 病症 mostly means disease.&#xA;Therefore, 冒 is interpreted as the name of a disease.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是，解釋為「病癥」可能會更合適。&#xA;也就是說，「感冒」是「感得冒癥的病」。&#xA;而這「冒癥」包括從輕微的頭暈到嚴重的昏迷。&#xA;換句話說，「感冒」是借用「冒」的癥狀而得的病名。&#xA;感冒的時候，頭會有一種暈悶沈重的感覺。&#xA;這種現象就是輕微的「冒」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But it may be more appropriate to interpret it as the name of symptoms here.&#xA;That is, 感冒 means to get the disease which has 冒, the symptoms.&#xA;The symptoms range from mild dizziness to serious coma.&#xA;In other words, 感冒 is the name of a disease that borrows 冒.&#xA;When we catch a cold, the head will have a dizzy and heavy feeling.&#xA;This phenomenon is exactly a slight 冒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;從字面上來看，「致冒」類似「感冒」，差在主動和被動。例如：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Literally, 致冒 is similar to 感冒, and the difference is in active or passive. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（致冒）天冷導致冒疾/冒癥。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The cold weather leads to 冒疾/冒癥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（感冒）某人因天冷感得冒疾/冒癥。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Someone gets 冒疾/冒癥 because of the cold weather.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當然，這裡的「冒」不單指「昏迷」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Of course, 冒 here doesn't just mean coma.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另一個差別是：「感冒」現在已是一專有詞彙，而「致冒」不是。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Another difference is that 感冒 is a proper term now. 致冒 is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;結論(Conclusion)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「感冒」是借用「冒」的癥狀而得的病名。&#xA;「冒」包括從輕微的頭暈到嚴重的昏迷。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;感冒 is the name of a disease that borrows 冒, the symptoms.&#xA;The symptoms range from slight dizziness to serious coma.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the question: &lt;strong&gt;What is the meaning of 冒 in 感冒？&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;原問：「感冒」中的「冒」是什麼意思？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我認為：雖然「冒」的原義是「覆蓋」，但在這裡是指「&lt;strong&gt;感冒的一些癥狀&lt;/strong&gt;」，這可以是頭暈甚或昏迷。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My answer is &lt;strong&gt;some symptoms of cold&lt;/strong&gt;, which may be dizziness or even coma, although its original meaning is &quot;to cover&quot; or &quot;covering&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. 題外話：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「冒」有很多意思。&#xA;在 張仲景《傷寒論》中的「冒」也不只一個意思。譬如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其人叉手自冒心，心下悸，欲得按者。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;病人心悸，覺得心跳得很快，直覺地用手蓋住左胸，也希望能有幫忙按壓的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這裡的「冒」是動詞，只有其原義「覆蓋」的意思，不能用上述的引申義來解釋。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冒 has many meanings.&#xA;The 冒 in 《傷寒論》 also has more than one meaning. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其人叉手自冒心，心下悸，欲得按者。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The patient gets palpitations, fells the heart beating quickly, instinctively covers the left chest with hands, and expects a person who can help press.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冒, a verb here, means &quot;to cover&quot;, only the original meaning, and cannot be explained by the above-mentioned extended meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2017-01-25T08:16:03.603" LastActivityDate="2017-01-25T08:16:03.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22505" CreationDate="2017-01-21T16:03:57.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;感冒 is the abbreviation of traditional medical term 「感风冒」. This means that once your body occasionally received some  「风」（pathogens）and it finally turns out and shows symptoms. Here 「冒」stands for 「(Sth.) to turn out, to express, to manifest」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16240" LastActivityDate="2017-01-21T16:03:57.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12973" CreationDate="2017-01-22T10:25:59.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sadly, but in a fun way, none of the generalizations in the original question are true.  The character &quot;之&quot; means &quot;him/her/it&quot; as well as &quot;of&quot;, so it is not uncommon to see &quot;之之 blah-blah&quot; to mean &quot;his blah-blah&quot; or &quot;A之A&quot; to mean &quot;A's being A&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;其&quot; means &quot;he/she/it&quot;, it is not necessarily possessive.  It also means &quot;proper&quot; in the sense of &quot;suitable&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“彼” is often used as subject rather than object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T10:25:59.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22510" CreationDate="2017-01-22T13:08:24.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;more simply, money and food?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, yes. It is a common practice in Chinese or English to use a couple of representative items to form a general term for a single concept. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;钱米&lt;/strong&gt;' (coins and rice) can be used as a general term for '&lt;strong&gt;wealth / resources&lt;/strong&gt;' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'旧时官史除俸禄外，其亲属所受之 &lt;strong&gt;钱米&lt;/strong&gt;，称俸恤'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;钱米&lt;/strong&gt; (coins and rice) refers to consumables resources like money and food&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;俸恤&lt;/strong&gt; (allocations) is a portion of resource assigned to particular recipient.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;钱米&lt;/strong&gt;' (coins and rice) can also be used as a general term for  '&lt;strong&gt;wealth / consumables resources&lt;/strong&gt;', as in '乱花 &lt;strong&gt;钱米&lt;/strong&gt; 叫“泡稍”'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, '鱼米' (fish and rice) is a general term for 'natural food resources' in the phrase '鱼米之乡'(land of plenty) ; '刀剑'(knife and sword) refers to all 'weapons' in '刀剑没眼'(weapons have no eyes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In old time war campaigns, 钱粮 (coins and grain) is a common term for 'resources' like soldiers' salary, food and horse feed. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;打仗就是打钱粮&lt;/em&gt; &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-22T20:10:22.847" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T20:10:22.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9817" CreationDate="2017-01-22T18:46:29.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning to read and write Chinese first. So far I've learnt around 360 characters and can read/write some basic sentences. I fully intend to learn properly though, but my brain just cannot compute so much information at once. If you think about it the area of the brain used for learning the characters is totally different to the one for learning the sounds, and Chinese children don't have to learn to speak at the same time as learning to read. Also, I figure that there are so many dialects of Chinese that their TV has subtitles, so whilst they will share the same grammar, the sounds they associate with the words is going to be different. Grammar is another thing I think I'll be able to work out better if I am not trying to think of the sounds? That said, I will need to be able to use a grown up dictionary at some point, and want to be able to type. I just pick the characters up very easily with a bit of rote learning so have started with what comes easiest to me. I am listening to the words as well though, so hopefully becoming used to hearing it, and its going to be easier when I get to that bit than if I try just now. Today I did make a start getting my head around the sounds of the tones though and will practice these and recognising them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16246" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T18:46:29.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22516" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-23T01:25:15.393" Score="3" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from an interview text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我从小就喜欢文学，而且对北大非常向往。在我眼里，北大的精华都在文史哲，它们有一种厚重感。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我从小就喜欢文学，&#xA;As a child I always liked literature&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而且对北大非常向往。&#xA;and I longed to go to Beijing University.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在我眼里，&#xA;In my eyes,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北大的精华都在文史哲，&#xA;Beijing University is quintessentially a place for literature, history and philosophy,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它们有一种厚重感。&#xA;they have a ????  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are very important there??&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They are taken very seriously there??&lt;br&gt;&#xA;These subjects have great weight there??&lt;br&gt;&#xA;These subjects are profoundly important there??&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I feel they are profoundly important there??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I translate '它们有一种厚重感。'??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: found this in iciba.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scotland is a unique and austere place, laden with history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;参考译文苏格兰是一个独特的地方,自然条件虽不得天独厚, 历史的厚重感却随处可见.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;历史的厚重感却随处可见 laden with history&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So maybe I can translate:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I feel it, the university, is laden with literature, history and philosophy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I feel it is laden with them.&#xA;I feel they ooze from the walls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春节快乐，万事如意！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastEditorUserId="15140" LastEditDate="2017-01-26T04:33:12.927" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T05:18:50.513" Title="What is the meaning of 厚重感？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22516" CreationDate="2017-01-23T02:39:48.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;厚重= thick and heavy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厚重感 = a thick and heavy feel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most direct translation would be &amp;quot;a &lt;strong&gt;thick and heavy feel&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;. It implies the air is filled with some sense that you can almost feel it's thickness and weight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context of the quotes, &lt;strong&gt;厚重感&lt;/strong&gt; can also be translated as &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;a substantial feel&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;a feel of immensity&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/substantial&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;substantial&lt;/a&gt; (adjective):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;of &lt;strong&gt;ample or considerable amount&lt;/strong&gt;, quantity, size&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;of &lt;strong&gt;solid character or quality&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;firm&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;stout&lt;/strong&gt;, or strong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/immensity&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;immensity&lt;/a&gt;(noun):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;vastness&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;enormous extent&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;&lt;em&gt;the immensity of the Roman empire&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T05:18:50.513" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22518" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22519" CreationDate="2017-01-23T12:19:22.553" Score="0" ViewCount="46" Body="&lt;p&gt;前期编排&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;前期&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;pre-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;first-phase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;编排&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;write and present&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;arrange and rehearse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;write and direct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;compose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pre-composition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First-phase-composition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can't find the official English equivalent of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should be a film(ing) phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess is: pre-production&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's the opposite of 后期制作, which is &lt;strong&gt;post-production&lt;/strong&gt;, so I think it has to be &lt;strong&gt;pre-production&lt;/strong&gt; - Is that right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-01-24T12:41:06.163" LastActivityDate="2017-01-24T12:41:06.163" Title="Translation: 前期编排" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22518" CreationDate="2017-01-23T13:12:40.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;前期&#xA;  preliminary &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  编排&#xA;  arrangement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, &lt;strong&gt;preliminary arrangements&lt;/strong&gt;, which is what &lt;strong&gt;pre-production&lt;/strong&gt; means. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;However I'm no film-making expert so maybe someone could double check this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-01-23T13:13:29.987" LastActivityDate="2017-01-23T13:13:29.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22521" CreationDate="2017-01-23T17:50:58.297" Score="-1" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two weeks ago I accidentally installed a virus that installed a program called &quot;UCBrowser&quot;. I want to uninstall it but it's written in Chinese. Can someone please translate this for me? If it isn't Chinese please tell me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UEyB5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UEyB5.png&quot; alt=&quot;UCBrowser Screenshot&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.&#xA;I'm sorry if this doesn't fit on this forum or if it's &quot;wrong&quot; for another reason but I don't know any other place where I can get help for this and I can't copy it to Google Translate. I really need to get rid of this. I've already worked for 2 weeks and I'm not done yet. And it is possible that I'm gonna post some other questions like this if i don't know what i have to do in the uninstall process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[I'm gonna delete this post as soon as I can when my problem is solved because I know this can't help other people, so please don't flag this post.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16255" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-01-29T08:37:37.103" LastActivityDate="2017-01-29T08:37:37.103" Title="Can someone translate this?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-01-29T08:37:43.840" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22520" CreationDate="2017-01-23T18:50:11.337" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check the box at the lower left corner and click '卸载', which means uninstall at low right corner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16256" LastActivityDate="2017-01-23T18:50:11.337" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22523" CreationDate="2017-01-24T02:40:15.747" Score="3" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this phrase in the CNVS translation of Mark 14:6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但耶稣说：&quot;&lt;strong&gt;由她吧&lt;/strong&gt;！为甚么难为她呢？她在我身上作的是一件美事。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going off of an English translation (ESV in this case), I assume it means &quot;Leave her alone.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But Jesus said, &quot;Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For context, here are &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2014&amp;amp;version=CNVS;ESV&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;both translations of Mark 14 side-by-side&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never seen or heard of 由她/他吧 before, and I wasn't able to find a definition for 由 that fits this usage. So I'm asking, how do I use this phrase? When is it appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13003" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T06:58:00.433" Title="How do I use &quot;由她吧&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22522" CreationDate="2017-01-24T03:17:33.287" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here &quot;由她吧！&quot;, as same as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;任由&lt;/strong&gt;她吧！&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, there is a word &quot;任由&quot;, means as someone like to do something freely, for short &quot;任&quot; or &quot;由&quot;。 As an Example &quot;天高任(任由)鸟飞&quot;(The sky is so vast that birds can fly freely).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here Jesus said &quot;由她吧！&quot;, means &quot;Just let her do whatever she want, I won't give her hard time.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage always like &quot;由 某人 做某事&quot;。As same as &quot;Let someone do something &lt;strong&gt;freely&lt;/strong&gt;, no one stop it, at least I won't do that&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 由他睡(let him sleep if he want), 由他吃(let him eat if he want). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6904" LastEditorUserId="11744" LastEditDate="2017-02-10T06:58:00.433" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T06:58:00.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22524" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-24T10:54:57.090" Score="2" ViewCount="1243" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between this two constructions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;S + 没有 + V&lt;/strong&gt; and  &lt;strong&gt;S + 没 + V&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 我没有输 and 我没输&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it was mentioned by @user6065 &lt;code&gt;grammars, e.g. 实用现代汉语语法 make no difference between meaning and usage of adverbs 没 and 没有&lt;/code&gt;, is there any difference in intonation the usage of 没有 has? May be one is preferable in spoken/in written/in official usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2017-01-24T13:43:09.417" LastActivityDate="2017-01-25T17:48:41.730" Title="What is the difference between 没有+V. and 没+V.?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22525" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22572" CreationDate="2017-01-24T11:53:58.127" Score="4" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to look up 䟠 in 說文通訓定聲. My library has at least two versions of this (multi volume) book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A (poorly) scanned version of it lives here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=1866&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=1866&lt;/a&gt; (it's not fully digitized, no hit for 䟠).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Volume 1 is only introductory. Volume 2 has a kind of index, which I don't fully understand. It starts with a few pages like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;說文通訓定聲総目 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;豊部第一&lt;br&gt;&#xA;...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;臨部第三&lt;br&gt;&#xA;...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;壮部第十八 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17701&amp;amp;page=2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17701&amp;amp;page=2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It continues with a few pages like this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;說文通訓定聲目&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東 (4 instances with that element)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;重 (idem)&#xA;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17701&amp;amp;page=4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17701&amp;amp;page=4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17701&amp;amp;page=10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17701&amp;amp;page=10&lt;/a&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the book starts with the entry for 東.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where should I start looking for 䟠? 豊...壯 are not 部首.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help is appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12466" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-02-09T06:51:27.820" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T06:51:27.820" Title="How do I look up a graph in 說文通訓定聲?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22524" CreationDate="2017-01-24T13:38:06.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[沒+ X(v)]  is the negative form of [有+ X(v)] (replace 有 with 沒)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;沒&lt;/strong&gt;殺人] (did not kill someone) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;殺人]( have killed someone / did kill someone) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Replace &lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;strong&gt;沒&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[沒有+ X(v)] is  also the negative form of [有+X(v)] (add 沒 before 有)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;沒&lt;/strong&gt;有殺人] (did not kill someone) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[有殺人]( have killed someone / did kill someone) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Add &lt;strong&gt;沒&lt;/strong&gt; before 有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put,  沒 can be used as the shortened form of 沒有 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also see it as:  &quot;to turn [有+ X(v)] into negative, you can either replace &lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;strong&gt;沒&lt;/strong&gt; or add &lt;strong&gt;沒&lt;/strong&gt; before 有&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-01-24T13:38:06.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22525" CreationDate="2017-01-24T18:03:23.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/2663788.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文通訓定聲&lt;/a&gt; is a compilation from the Qing dynasty of the original 說文 but organised in a phonologically-based order, although the names are derived from the hexagrams of the Book of Changes / Yijing. So 豊 is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese_finals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;final&lt;/a&gt; (聲) of an envisaged older form of Chinese. The 東/重/etc. are the initial consonants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence to use this you'd have to know the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fanqie&lt;/a&gt; of the character. So not that intuitive for the uninitiated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2017-01-24T18:03:23.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22528" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-24T22:07:07.317" Score="0" ViewCount="489" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to practice my writing with brush, and came across this textile that I think is used a lot in schools at least in Taiwan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SH8at.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SH8at.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;水寫布 Water-writing textile&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Image from &lt;a href=&quot;http://detail.net114.com/chanpin/1018435996.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://detail.net114.com/chanpin/1018435996.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's called 水寫布 (water-writing paper). When wet it becomes black, so that writing in water is highly visible. After drying it returns to white color again. Great, but my thought is that there must be some tradtitional forerunner material to this &amp;ndash; something simple that has been used in the same way? Like some chalk paint on black background or something? It seems like a too good an idea to not be older than this material :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Are there some traditional or readily available materials that can work in a similar way?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T01:05:55.073" Title="Traditional alternative to 水寫布 (water-writing paper) for calligraphy practice?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;&lt;practice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22529" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22530" CreationDate="2017-01-25T01:00:23.123" Score="4" ViewCount="1139" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What is the difference between 抽烟 (chōu yān) and 吸烟 (xī yān) which both pertain to smoking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I‘ve ordinarily asked people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你抽烟吗 (nǐ chōu yān ma = &quot;do you smoke?&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for which nobody has acted oddly about (at least, in regards to my Chinese), so I assumed it was correct, but maybe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你吸烟吗 (nǐ xī yān ma = &quot;do you smoke?&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is synonymous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I ordinarily see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;禁止吸烟 （jìn zhǐ xī yān = &quot;smoking is forbidden&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on No Smoking signs, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XZduhm.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XZduhm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;禁止吸烟 No smoking&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which, up until recently, I thought said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;禁止抽烟 (jìn zhǐ chōu yān = &quot;smoking is forbidden&quot; [presumably])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but this is incorrect, and it doesn't seem to be commonly used (possibly even an invalid phrase).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-10-02T19:19:22.220" Title="What is the difference between 抽烟 (chōu yān) and 吸烟 (xī yān) which both pertain to smoking?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22529" CreationDate="2017-01-25T02:40:53.057" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically they have the same meaning and could be used interchangeably. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subtle difference is, &lt;code&gt;抽烟&lt;/code&gt; is used in spoken language more than &lt;code&gt;吸烟&lt;/code&gt;. As you said, when asking people we usually say &lt;code&gt;你抽烟吗&lt;/code&gt;; of course &lt;code&gt;你吸烟吗&lt;/code&gt; is correct too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, &lt;code&gt;吸烟&lt;/code&gt; is more formal and used in written language more. As you've seen, for a slogon &lt;code&gt;吸烟&lt;/code&gt; is used usually; &lt;code&gt;禁止抽烟&lt;/code&gt; is not wrong, but not used in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-02T01:04:49.710" LastActivityDate="2017-10-02T01:04:49.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22531" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-25T03:35:18.773" Score="1" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use wechat to talk with Chinese friends, and try to type Chinese to help me learn. I would like Chinese characters to appear colour coded according to tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How could I go about this? Assuming it's not possible with any current product, how could one build an app or similar to achieve this? My phone is an iPhone 7 but also interested in Android.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16261" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T11:51:54.523" Title="Colour code characters according to tone on iPhone/Android" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22531" CreationDate="2017-01-25T06:00:50.473" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not possible with existing products. You'd need a special input method, like &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.klye.ime.latin&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Multiling Keyboard&lt;/a&gt;, that would specifically format the input. There are a few difficulties with this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Many hanzi have multiple tones. Which one to pick? To be (possibly, but never 100%) accurate, you'd need a dictionary. Which means the input method would have to backtrack when the tone of the first character changes tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;WeChat doesn't allow colour formatting. So your new input method won't be able to colour the text anyway.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In WeChat's web interface, one might be able to develop a Chrome extension that reads all messages, and colours them. That wouldn't be &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; hard, but I expect it would be time consuming, and resource hungry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After giving it some thought, here is what I think would required:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=cc-cedict&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CEDICT&lt;/a&gt; dictionary. Probably edited to fit a database.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alternatively, if you only care about character tones, a database based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://unicode.org/charts/unihan.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Unihan&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some Javascript and jQuery to lookup the messages and color them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like this [I am using Cantonese tones as I am much more comfortable with them]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OfxYx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OfxYx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;VERY COARSE CODE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;var db={};&#xA;db[&quot;行&quot;]=4;&#xA;db[&quot;有&quot;]=5;&#xA;db[&quot;人&quot;]=4;&#xA;db[&quot;嗎&quot;]=3;&#xA;&#xA;var myColors= new Array(&quot;nil&quot;, &quot;#FF0000&quot;, &quot;#00FF00&quot;, &quot;#0000FF&quot;, &quot;#FFFF00&quot;, &quot;#00FFFF&quot;, &quot;#FF00FF&quot;);&#xA;&#xA;for (n in x) {&#xA;  myString=&quot;&quot;;&#xA;  if(x.hasOwnProperty(n)) {&#xA;    if(x[n].innerText!=undefined) {&#xA;      s=x[n].innerText;&#xA;      console.log(n, s);&#xA;      j=s.length;&#xA;      for(i=0; i&amp;lt;j; i++) {&#xA;        z=s.charAt(i);&#xA;        t=myColors[db[z]];&#xA;        console.log(&quot; .&quot;,z, t);&#xA;        if(t!=undefined) {&#xA;          myString+=&quot;&amp;lt;span style='color: &quot;+t+&quot;'&amp;gt;&quot;+z+&quot;&amp;lt;/span&amp;gt;&quot;;&#xA;        } else {&#xA;          myString+=z;&#xA;        }&#xA;      }&#xA;      x[n].innerHTML=myString;&#xA;    }&#xA;  }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-03-25T11:51:54.523" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T11:51:54.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22533" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22535" CreationDate="2017-01-25T08:52:41.900" Score="0" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following answer in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/21991526&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;知乎&lt;/a&gt;, the respondent said the following to a question asking how much it costs to live in Paris:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外省7-8万，巴黎10W+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what 外省 means here. 省 means &lt;code&gt;province&lt;/code&gt; so it is clear enough for me that 外省 at least doesn't express the metropolitan place like in Paris.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what kind of areas or districts 外省 mean? Is it a suburban or rural? If you relate it to Paris, does it point to somewhere except the central of Paris but in the il-de-france region, or outside of the il-de-france but still in Paris, or totally outside of the Paris? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T20:30:14.883" Title="What is the definition of 外省?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22525" CreationDate="2017-01-25T09:46:12.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the internet archive has a copy of 說文通訓定聲, in volume 13, 泰部弟十三, it stated &quot;分部月轉乾屯&quot;. the character 䟠(u+47e0) is in this volume, on page 156:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/02076602.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/02076602.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OhCee.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OhCee.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about how to find it, according to 說文解字: 䟠(u+47e0)　輕也﹒从足﹒戉聲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which stated the sound as 戉 (in cantonese, sydney lau scheme: yuet6, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/jyut6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%88%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=戉&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a common character shares the same sound is 月(u+6708), which appears in &quot;分部&lt;strong&gt;月&lt;/strong&gt;轉乾屯&quot; of volume &quot;泰部弟十三&quot; of the 說文通訓定聲.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next, read the first 12 pages (~ table of contents), 䟠(u+47e0) is in page 11, which indicated that this volume had the wanted character. then, turn to the page which had this character (turn page by page, or jump to roughly position by guess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's the first time that i read this book, very interesting. may i ask how do you know its existence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thanks in advance :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-01-25T09:46:12.223" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22533" CreationDate="2017-01-25T10:26:45.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;外省(outside provinces / other provinces) refers to all provinces other than 本省(own province) - the province you are currently residing. In this case, 外省 means any province other than Île-de-France where Paris is located in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paris is a city, so &quot;&lt;em&gt;巴黎10W+&lt;/em&gt;&quot; refers to the living cost in Paris only. The quote also mentioned cost outside of Île-de-France &quot;&lt;em&gt;外省7-8万&lt;/em&gt;&quot; but did not mention the cost to live in Île-de-France itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either the writer presumed the cost to live in Île-de-France is the same as in Paris, or he thought Paris is a province. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-26T20:30:14.883" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T20:30:14.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22281" CreationDate="2017-01-25T14:57:15.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;推荐几个中文Podcast：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《科学脱口秀》&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;RSS: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kexuetuokouxiu.com/feed/podcast&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.kexuetuokouxiu.com/feed/podcast&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;科学脱口秀是一个主要以科学相关的谈话类节目，植物学，天文学，两性的等等&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《太医来了》&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;太医来了 是医学、健康相关的节目&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;RSS: &lt;a href=&quot;http://ipn.li/taiyilaile/feed&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ipn.li/taiyilaile/feed&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《心理开花》&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;心理开花 是心理学相关的节目，听这个节目可以学到很多心理学的概念。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以上节目可以在itunes中搜索订阅到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15480" LastActivityDate="2017-01-25T14:57:15.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22524" CreationDate="2017-01-25T17:48:41.730" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me 沒有 is more formal, and 沒 is ellipsis form. I don't think they exhibit difference in usage, though. Note that 沒有 may either be &quot;do not have/possess&quot; (something) or &quot;not&quot; (adverb), depending on context. Chinese is pretty vague sometimes. Lastly, remark that, following the instance 有殺人, “有” is not mandatory and serves as a stressing word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-01-25T17:48:41.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22538" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-26T02:26:10.263" Score="1" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VuMPa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VuMPa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;i cannot for the life of me figure out what this means... been trying to find out through the yomiwa mobile app, looking up online, and trying to match this to some kanji for over an hour&#xA;halp&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="Kitsu" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T06:48:47.803" Title="What does this text bubble mean? i believe it's kanji" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22538" CreationDate="2017-01-26T04:18:51.987" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's probably chinese 咪 which is an onomatopea for cat sounds &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/cj/17521/meaning/m0u/&quot;&gt;(source)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="walljam7" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T04:18:51.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22540" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-26T08:44:11.747" Score="2" ViewCount="908" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a little bit confused how to translate these sentences:&#xA;1)今天我一下课就去看他 (is it &quot;As soon as the class is over I'll come to see him&quot;?)&#xA;我一下课就去看他了 ( &quot;as soon as the class was over I came to see him?&quot;)&#xA;2)他一到中国就给我来了个电话(&quot;as soon as he came to China he gave me a phone call&quot;?)&#xA;3)姐姐一毕业就参加工作了( &quot;as soon as she graduated she started working&quot;?)&#xA;姐姐一毕业就参加工作(&quot;as soon as she graduates she will start working&quot;?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can i say &quot;我一吃了饭就出去了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15959" LastEditorUserId="15959" LastEditDate="2017-01-26T08:57:21.877" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T08:14:21.613" Title="position and meaning of 了 in &quot;一...就&quot; construction" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22540" CreationDate="2017-01-26T09:34:13.480" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;All correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 我一吃了饭就出去了(I went out as soon as I finished my food.).&#xA;If want to express &quot;I'll go out after finishing this meal&quot;. i would say &quot;我一吃完饭就出去&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16270" LastEditorUserId="16270" LastEditDate="2017-01-26T09:43:51.873" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T09:43:51.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22540" CreationDate="2017-01-26T10:38:23.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;[一(X)就(Y)] is a very common sentence structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(X) is the condition or requirement.  When this condition or requirement is met, then the following action or event (Y) would occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depend on the context [一(X)就(Y)] functions as following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;once&lt;/strong&gt; (X) &lt;strong&gt;then / immediately&lt;/strong&gt; (Y) ] &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: [&lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt;(吃完飯)&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;(出去)] = [&lt;strong&gt;once&lt;/strong&gt; I (finish dinner), &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; I would (go out )&lt;strong&gt;immediately&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃完飯 is the condition / requirement that being met; 出去 is the following action that only occurs after the condition is met.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;Whenever&lt;/strong&gt; (X) &lt;strong&gt;then / immediately&lt;/strong&gt; (Y) ] &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: [&lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt;(上課)&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;(睡覺)]= [ &lt;strong&gt;whenever&lt;/strong&gt; I ( go to classes), I would &lt;strong&gt;immediately&lt;/strong&gt; (fall to sleep)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上課 is the condition/ requirement that being met; 睡覺 is the resulting action/event that always occur when the condition/ requirement is met.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;can i say &quot;我一吃了饭就出去了?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If by saying &quot;一吃了&quot;, you meant 'once I finish eating', you can say &quot;我一吃了饭就出去了&quot;. But it is better to say &quot;我一吃&lt;strong&gt;完&lt;/strong&gt;饭就出去了&quot; (once I &lt;strong&gt;finish&lt;/strong&gt; dinner, I would go out). Because &quot;一&lt;strong&gt;吃了&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in &quot;我一&lt;strong&gt;吃了&lt;/strong&gt;饭&quot; can also be interpreted as &quot;whenever I &lt;strong&gt;eaten&lt;/strong&gt; dinner&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You didn't mean to say &quot;I go out whenever I eaten dinner&quot; I suppose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your example sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今天我一下课就去看他 - (下课=X; 去看他=Y ) &quot;Once I finished classes for today, I went to see him immediately.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他一到中国就给我来了个电话- (到中国=X; 给我来了个电话=Y)&quot; Once he arrived in China, he immediately gave me a phone call.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;姐姐一毕业就参加工作了- (毕业=X; 参加工作=Y) &quot; Once my sister graduated, she joined the work force immediately.) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-26T11:12:35.880" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T11:12:35.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5892" CreationDate="2017-01-26T20:15:56.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;冬天 is much more commonly used in oral. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冬季 sounds very formal and you probably will only see it in a geographic science book or hear from National Geographic show. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nothing wrong if you use 冬季 when you talk with people, but just sounds formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16274" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T20:15:56.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22544" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22546" CreationDate="2017-01-26T23:20:06.087" Score="4" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to be able to translate sentences with complicated relative clauses specifying that two things are the same in a particular context. For example, &quot;I take classes where the tests are conversations.&quot; My inclination is to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我采取考试是谈话的课程。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我采取考试是谈话那个课程。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But something about these doesn't feel quite right. Are these ungrammatical, and why? Is there a better way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16276" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T01:31:52.763" Title="How to form a relative clause with a 是 in it?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22544" CreationDate="2017-01-27T03:20:32.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say they are grammatical, but they are unnatural. In Chinese, attributes usually won't be too long. Also, attributes are almost always placed before nouns. So for your case you can use something like a compound sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我上一种课，它的谈话就是测试。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我上的课里，谈话就是测试。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13901" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T03:20:32.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22544" CreationDate="2017-01-27T03:45:52.240" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unlike in English, in Chinese, an attributive clause is not long in general. Instead, we prefer to a subject-detail stucture over the sentence-attributive cluase structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, if you insist on an attributive, you can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我选的是考试（形式）是谈话的课程&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  What I take is classes whose tests (forms) are conversations&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is correct, however, more naturally, I would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我选的课程，其(它的)考试形式是谈话。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The classes I take, whose (their) test forms are conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, you first propose a topic/subject - 我选的课程, and then you start explaining its details. This is how Chinese language organizes the sentence structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I think the verb &quot;take&quot; in your case means &quot;to choose/pick/select/participate in&quot;. The verb &quot;采取&quot; (to adopt/use/take) generally precedes nouns like 方法(method)，措施(measure),方案(plan).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I think &quot;考试形式(test forms)&quot; sounds more natural.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pay attention to the word &quot;其&quot;，it's a formal word used like &quot;which/whose&quot; as in an attributive clause in English. You can use it as a pronoun in the cluase to avoid mentioning the subject repeatly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T03:45:52.240" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22544" CreationDate="2017-01-27T04:01:47.840" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I take classes where the tests are conversations.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above sentence, &amp;quot;I take classes&amp;quot; is the main clause. It is a complete sentence on its own -- [subject (I) + verb (take) + object (classes) ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, if you want to add the relative clause &amp;quot;the tests are conversations&amp;quot; to describe the object (classes),  you can use the relative pronoun 'where' to introduce the relative clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[I take classes (main clause)] + [ where (relative pronoun)] + [the tests are conversations (relative clause)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Translate the main clause &amp;quot;I take classes&amp;quot; into Chinese:&amp;quot;我上課&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Translate the relative clause &amp;quot;the tests are conversations&amp;quot; into Chinese: &amp;quot;對話就是測驗&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we apply the English grammar directly in to the Chinese translation, by adding a relative pronoun like 'where', the sentence would become &amp;quot; [我上課][那裡][對話就是測驗]. It is simple enough but not very accurate, because 那裡 (that place) becomes the subject of this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In typical Chinese grammar, we usually add a relative clause to a main clause by adding adjective suffix '的' after the relative clause to turn it into an 'adjectival clause' and insert it between the verb and noun in the main clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;我上課&amp;quot; is the main clause&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;對話就是測驗&amp;quot; is a the relative clause&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;對話就是測驗的&amp;quot; by adding the adjective suffix '的', the phrase became an 'adjectival (relative) clause'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;insert the 'adjectival clause' between the verb and noun in the main clause-  The result is:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{&lt;strong&gt;我上&lt;/strong&gt;[對話就是測驗][的]&lt;strong&gt;課&lt;/strong&gt;}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{&lt;strong&gt;main&lt;/strong&gt; [relative clause] [adjective suffix] &lt;strong&gt;clause&lt;/strong&gt;}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I watch movies that no one watch.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Main clause - {&lt;strong&gt;我看電影&lt;/strong&gt;} ( I watch movies)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;relative clause - [沒人看] (no one watch)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adjectival suffix - [的]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Result: {&lt;strong&gt;我看&lt;/strong&gt;[沒人看][的]&lt;strong&gt;電影&lt;/strong&gt;}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to form a relative clause with a 是 in it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are talking about [topic + comment/opinion] structure here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我上的 is adjective phrase for the noun &lt;strong&gt;課&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The noun phrase &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;我上的課&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;quot;is the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the comment phrase that provide additional information to the topic is &amp;quot;是對話就是測驗那種&amp;quot; (is the kind that tests are conversations)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[我上的課]+[是對話就是測驗那種] = [我上的課(topic)]+ [是對話就是測驗那種(comment)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T05:19:38.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22544" CreationDate="2017-01-27T05:55:38.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I love Chinese and I love the way it works. If only I could learn it properly!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, you can take a relative clause and stack it in front of the noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the things [(which) I bought in the supermarket yesterday]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;which&lt;/em&gt; is periphrasitic and can be left out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the things [I bought in the supermarket yesterday]. In [ ] is the relative clause. It is really just an adjective for 'things'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English cannot do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'These are the [I bought in the supermarket yesterday] things.', but Chinese can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是 [我昨天在超市里买] 的 东西。 I think this is really cool!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I take classes where the tests are conversations. where here = in those classes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real subject of this sentence is the the tests and what kind they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the tests are conversations 考试是口试的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not like to do the same as above here in Chinese:&#xA;I take [where the tests are conversations] classes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I take classes. In those classes, the tests are conversations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I rewrite: &#xA;The Chinese classes [which I take] all only have oral tests.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The [which I take] Chinese classes all only have oral tests.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那些【我参加的汉语课】的考试都只是口试型的。That seems a bit long winded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我汉语课的考试都是口试型的。Less is more, or at least better!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope the Chinese readers among you can improve my poor Chinese!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家春节快乐！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T05:55:38.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22522" CreationDate="2017-01-27T06:01:08.583" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the song: let it go. perfectly express the meaning of 由她吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16278" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T06:01:08.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22540" CreationDate="2017-01-27T08:14:21.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I won't bother to explain what means by 一...就... as the other answers explained well that it means &quot;as long as... , ...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to explain the meaning of 了 in a different aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my previous answers explained &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/18061/13501&quot;&gt;the use of 了&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 了 in the sentence structure is only used to soften the tone, without any actual meaning conveyed. (i.e. the 4&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt; meaning)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T08:14:21.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22551" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-27T14:26:21.290" Score="5" ViewCount="496" Body="&lt;p&gt;New York (state and city) is called 紐約 (Niǔ​yuē).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Of course that sounds very much like the English &quot;New York&quot;, but how come it's written with 紐 and 約?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look up the characters I get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;紐 knot; button; handle, knob; tie&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;約 treaty, agreement, covenant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the meaning of the characters have anything to do with them being used in this word, or is it simply that they sound similar to the English -- if so, why where these particular characters chosen to begin with and not some other characters that sound the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T21:01:54.987" Title="Why is New York called 紐約?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22551" CreationDate="2017-01-27T15:18:20.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this is in reference to the purchase of Manhattan from the Native Americans by the Dutch for $24 worth of beads.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15593" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T15:18:20.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22551" CreationDate="2017-01-27T20:04:19.093" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, the pronunciation was based on Cantonese instead of modern Mandarin. (E.g.  &quot;Taxi&quot; is translated as  &quot;的士&quot; in Cantonese but it's also acceptable in Mandarin that sounds very differently)    &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%9A%84%E5%A3%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ref:Taxi in Wikipeidia&lt;/a&gt;. I'm thinking it might also apply to 紐約 original sound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13110" LastEditorUserId="13110" LastEditDate="2017-02-02T21:01:54.987" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T21:01:54.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22551" CreationDate="2017-01-28T03:38:41.013" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;紐約 in Cantonese is nau2 joek3 (j- in jyutping is pronounced like y-). That's the closest Cantonese immigrants could come to New York, I suppose...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There aren't many syllabes in Cantonese that could match York:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;jaak [ja:k]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;jik&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;joek [jøk]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;juk [jok] --&gt; that last one could have been a better match.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-01-28T08:19:42.983" LastActivityDate="2017-01-28T08:19:42.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19607" CreationDate="2017-01-28T04:12:07.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 尸 actually represents a sitting person while acting as a component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 居 is 尸 + 古 (a baby 子turned upside down: ）, the place where women sit down and have children: settlement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 屋 is 尸 + 至 (arriving: an arrow landing in the hround), the place where people arrive and sit down: house, residence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16279" LastActivityDate="2017-01-28T04:12:07.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22551" CreationDate="2017-01-28T15:21:25.497" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three universal rules for name translation in Mandarin: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;信 ：precision &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;达 : meaningful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;雅 : elegant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For places historical naming is used. But if there is no precedent name, phonetic name is used, which then has to be chosen so it is made up of elegant characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest phonetic sound for &lt;code&gt;New&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;妞&lt;/code&gt;， &lt;code&gt;York&lt;/code&gt; sound &lt;code&gt;哟&lt;/code&gt;. Both does not follow the elegant rules. Then the next selection will be &lt;code&gt;牛， 纽， 纽&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because New York is a commercial hub, the term &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;枢纽&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; come into mind. And using &lt;code&gt;约&lt;/code&gt; is quite obvious， as in &lt;code&gt;条约&lt;/code&gt;。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus，&lt;code&gt;纽约&lt;/code&gt; are meaningful and elegant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="16210" LastEditDate="2017-01-30T17:38:50.637" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T17:38:50.637" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22558" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22563" CreationDate="2017-01-28T16:23:26.077" Score="4" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to enter text as if normal Chinese text is entering&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nakep.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nakep.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. with guessing of correct characters, but later entering Pinyin of entered text, not characters themselves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;zhèzhīgǒu&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T21:04:14.103" Title="How to enter pinyin itself under Windows?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22559" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-28T20:54:48.393" Score="1" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the Chinese word for &quot;aZn&quot;? (Not &quot;Asian-American&quot; but specifically the Chinese name for the subculture of Asian-Americans that refers to itself as &quot;aZn&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When translating from aZn to Chinese, how does one render the effect of the alternating capitals and lowercases, i.e. translating specifically &quot;aZn PrYdE&quot; and not &quot;Asian[-American cultural] pride&quot;? Does one alternate between using traditional and simplified characters, or using Han and non-Han scripts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16284" LastActivityDate="2017-01-31T17:47:09.600" Title="How is aZn written in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22560" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-28T22:07:05.403" Score="2" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone please identify these marks on the bottom of a bowl?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;賈中&#xA;伯王&#xA;氏國&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o1p0q.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o1p0q.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16285" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T23:50:27.483" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T23:50:27.483" Title="Can someone identify these marks on the bottom of a blue porcelain bowl? (Characters identified: 中王國 賈泊氏)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22560" CreationDate="2017-01-29T00:28:47.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;中王国 贾泊氏,I think this might be a reasonable way to read them &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16287" LastActivityDate="2017-01-29T00:28:47.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22560" CreationDate="2017-01-29T00:44:56.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's probably &lt;code&gt;中王国 贾泊氏&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I did some search and found that this picture should come from some antique forums. However there's no canonical record for it. This piece of porcelain is probably &lt;em&gt;modern made&lt;/em&gt;. On &lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.cntv.cn/thread-13758851-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt;, a person said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It's &quot;fake scholars will finally subjugate the nation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(read left to right instead of right to left)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(假博士终亡国, which has the same pronunciation as the original words)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13901" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-29T04:12:32.283" LastActivityDate="2017-01-29T04:12:32.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22558" CreationDate="2017-01-29T00:56:44.653" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usual IME's won't have that feature... so I think you have two approaches here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use a special IME or IME scheme, for example &lt;code&gt;地球拼音&lt;/code&gt; from &lt;a href=&quot;http://rime.im/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中州韵输入法引擎(RIME)&lt;/a&gt;. Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/25338728/answer/80467826&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Chinese post&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Type Chinese first, then search for a Chinese-Pinyin conversion tool/online app, for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyu.iciba.com/pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://hanyu.iciba.com/pinyin&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13901" LastEditorUserId="13901" LastEditDate="2018-08-06T04:34:15.293" LastActivityDate="2018-08-06T04:34:15.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22564" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-29T04:07:05.537" Score="0" ViewCount="812" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this pic on Weibo so I'd really want to know the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xg0w2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xg0w2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16288" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-01-29T04:31:18.407" LastActivityDate="2017-01-29T04:36:32.560" Title="Could someone tell me what is 奶思 means?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22564" CreationDate="2017-01-29T04:31:57.117" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just Chinglish for &quot;nice!&quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2017-01-29T04:31:57.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22564" CreationDate="2017-01-29T04:36:32.560" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It probably means the English word &lt;code&gt;nice&lt;/code&gt;(pronunciation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pic is very similar to those Chinese Internet meme pics. For example you may have also seen one with the word &lt;code&gt;因吹丝挺&lt;/code&gt;, which means &lt;code&gt;interesting&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These meme pics are often ironic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hwthl.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hwthl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;因吹丝挺&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13901" LastActivityDate="2017-01-29T04:36:32.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22567" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22568" CreationDate="2017-01-29T09:50:04.367" Score="0" ViewCount="371" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning Chinese with Rosetta Stone software and it is based on guessing the sense of words by pictures. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I can't guess the difference between various types of &quot;eggs&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I see normal, probably hen's egg, they write&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个鸡蛋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but when I see some other types of eggs, they can write&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个鸟蛋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases eggs are probably from different birds, not hens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the difference? Only bird genus or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T16:12:33.560" Title="What is the difference between 鸡蛋 and 鸟蛋?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22567" CreationDate="2017-01-29T10:16:07.613" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;鸡蛋 is a specific term.&#xA;鸟蛋 is a general term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we know what kind of bird it is, we use a specific term.&#xA;Otherwise, we use a general term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, we call the eggs of 鸭 (duck), 鸽子 (dove), or 鹌鹑 (quail) as 鸭蛋, 鸽子蛋, or 鹌鹑蛋.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-01-29T10:16:07.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22569" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-29T20:47:51.017" Score="3" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a relative beginner in Chinese. I was trying to draw the character 乔, but missed one stroke and instead got 夰. I was trying to find the meaning of this character before I realised my mistake. I was surprised how little information there is about this character. Several dictionaries don't even contain this character, and Pleco tells me that the pinyin for this character is gao3 but does not give any definition. It is in the basic block of CJK unified ideographs (5930), and appears in the Kangxi dictionary. Are there lots of these characters which have no definition given in English and how would they be used? What does or did this character mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12096" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T21:03:05.373" Title="What is this character used for: 夰" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22569" CreationDate="2017-01-29T21:45:05.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most people probably wouldn't know (or have even ever seen) the character 夰, before, but anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;hào&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 同“昊”。天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;北周  卫元嵩 《元包经·太阴》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;雲浮于夰。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;李江 注&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夰, 天。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;按, 《广韵·上晧》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夰, 《説文》：‘放也。’昊天字從此。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 气。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;北周  卫元嵩 《元包经·太阴》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夰入于囦, 回浮于元。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;苏渊明 传&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夰入于囦, 天氣降也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;李江 注&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夰, 氣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for #1 夰 means the same as 昊 - namely &quot;sky/heavens&quot; &amp;amp; #2 gas/air &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-01-29T21:45:05.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22525" CreationDate="2017-01-30T04:44:58.523" Score="12" Body="&lt;h1&gt;How to look up an entry in 《說文通訓定聲》?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;前言 Introduction&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般中文字典的內容是按部首字形分類排列。&#xA;《說文通訓定聲》則是依音韻分類排列。&#xA;從內容順序來看，作者 朱駿聲 是假設讀者已熟悉字的音韻。&#xA;所以，他先列出自創的「古韻十八部」做為「總目」，然後才是各部的內容。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The contents of common Chinese dictionaries are classified and arranged according to the shapes of radicals.&#xA;《說文通訓定聲》 is arranged in accordance with phonology.&#xA;Judging from the order of contents, the author, 朱駿聲, assumed that the readers are familiar with the sound of characters.&#xA;So, he listed first the self-created &quot;18 classes of classical rhyme&quot; as the &quot;總目錄, Main Contents&quot;, and then the contents of each class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在每一部的前面是「字目」，隨後才是各字的說明。&#xA;「字目」是依「聲符」分類。&#xA;「聲符」即是形聲字的聲音部分。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Each class begins with the &quot;字目錄, Contents of Characters&quot;, followed by the interpretation of each character.&#xA;字目 is classified according to the &quot;sound symbol&quot;.&#xA;聲符 is the sound part of a picto-phonetic character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;註：形聲字的「形符」和「聲符」有很多種英文翻譯。此處暫用直譯的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Note: There are many English translations of 「形符」 and 「聲符」. The literal translations are used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以，正規的搜尋方式是：&#xA;先在「總目」找到「待尋字」是屬於哪一部；&#xA;而後到該部的「字目」依「聲符」去找「待尋字」的位置；&#xA;最後才向後找「待尋字」的說明。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore, a regular search is as follows.&#xA;First, determine which class the target character belongs to in the Main Contents.&#xA;Secondly, according to the sound symbol of the target, find its position in the Contents of Characters of that class.&#xA;Finally, search the interpretation of the target in the subsequent contents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此「聲符」是古韻，一般人不清楚全部的發音，所以很難使用這套工具書。&#xA;所幸，作者在後面列有索引之類的「韻目」，我們可以利用它來搜尋。&#xA;這「韻目」是依部首排列，是我們熟悉的方式，所以應該大家都會用。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The &quot;sound symbols&quot; are in ancient rhyme, which most people don't know all of them, so it is difficult to use this set of reference works.&#xA;Fortunately, the author included an index-like &quot;Contents of Rhyme&quot; in the rear volume, and we can use it to search.&#xA;This &quot;Contents of Rhyme&quot; is arranged according to radicals, i.e. we are familiar with, so everybody should be able to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以下就用「䟠」做例子詳述查閱的步驟。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The following steps show you how to look up an entry in 《說文通訓定聲》by using 䟠 as an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;步驟 Steps&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⒈ 開啟&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=1866&quot;&gt;《說文通訓定聲》網頁&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Open &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=1866&quot;&gt;《說文通訓定聲》 page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⒉ 點選「說文通訓定聲十九」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Click 說文通訓定聲十九.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XrwlS.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XrwlS.png&quot; alt=&quot;a01.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⒊ 「韻目」在第2圖到第6圖。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The images from 2 to 6 show the &quot;音韻目錄 Contents of Rhyme&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「䟠」是七畫的「足」部，在&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18568&amp;amp;page=4&quot;&gt;第4圖&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;䟠 belongs to 7-stroke 足 radical in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18568&amp;amp;page=4&quot;&gt;Image 4&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2rq0g.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2rq0g.png&quot; alt=&quot;a02.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⒋ 從第7圖開始，逐一列出各字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Starting from Image 7, the words are listed one by one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「足」部從第151圖開始。&#xA;「䟠」在&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18568&amp;amp;page=152&quot;&gt;第152圖&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The 足 radical starts from Image 151.&#xA;䟠 is in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18568&amp;amp;page=152&quot;&gt;Image 152&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NFBvY.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NFBvY.png&quot; alt=&quot;a03.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果是書本會比較方便，因為在奇數頁的邊緣印有部首。&#xA;掃描的圖片就只能在上方搜尋欄或瀏覽器位址列輸入圖數跳著找。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is more convenient if using a paper version, because the edges of the odd pages show the radicals.&#xA;For the scanned images, we can only jump to a specific image by changing the number in the searching field at the top or in the address bar of the browser.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AW3I7.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AW3I7.png&quot; alt=&quot;a04.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⒌ 找到「待尋字」後，往上看圓角矩形，其內容說明它是屬於「古韻十八部」中的哪一韻。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;After having found the target word, look the rounded rectangle above, which shows the class of the target.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;像「䟠」是屬於「泰韻」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example, 䟠 belongs to 泰 [ ㄊㄞˋ | tài ] class.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/idwP6.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/idwP6.png&quot; alt=&quot;a05.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⒍ 回到&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=1866&quot;&gt;第1步驟的頁面&lt;/a&gt;，點選「說文通訓定聲二」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Go back to the page in the first step, and click 說文通訓定聲二.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⒎ 「總目」在&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17701&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第2圖&lt;/a&gt;和第3圖。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The Main Contents are in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17701&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;Image 2&lt;/a&gt; and Image 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「泰部」在&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17701&amp;amp;page=3&quot;&gt;第3圖&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The 泰 class is in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17701&amp;amp;page=3&quot;&gt;Image 3&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SX3Jg.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SX3Jg.png&quot; alt=&quot;a06.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「分部月」是指音韻為「月」分部。&#xA;「轉乾屯」是指轉音為「乾部」和「屯部」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;分部月 means that the sound belongs to 月 [ ㄩㄝˋ | yuè ] subclass.&#xA;轉乾屯 means that the sound is changed to 乾 [ ㄑㄧㄢˊ | qián ] class and 屯 [ ㄓㄨㄣ | zhūn ] class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⒏ 從第4圖開始依「十八部」列出各部。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Starting from Image 4, it shows each class in the sequence of &quot;18 classes&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「豐部弟一」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17701&amp;amp;page=4&quot;&gt;第2册第4圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;豐部第一 starts from &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17701&amp;amp;page=4&quot;&gt;Image 4 of the 2nd volume&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「升部弟二」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17889&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第3册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「臨部弟三」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17889&amp;amp;page=60&quot;&gt;第3册第60圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「謙部弟四」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17893&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第4册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「頤部弟五」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17896&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第5册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「孚部弟六」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17898&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第6册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「小部弟七」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=17900&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第7册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「需部弟八」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18130&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第8册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「豫部弟九」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18133&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第9册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「隨部弟十」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18136&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第10册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「解部弟十一」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18139&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第11册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「履部弟十二」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18142&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第12册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「泰部弟十三」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18335&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第13册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「乾部弟十四」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18338&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第14册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「屯部弟十五」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18341&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第15册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「坤部弟十六」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18342&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第16册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「鼎部弟十七」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18345&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第17册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「壯部弟十八」從&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18563&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;第18册第2圖&lt;/a&gt;開始。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「䟠」所屬的「&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18335&amp;amp;page=2&quot;&gt;泰部弟十三&lt;/a&gt;」在第13册。&#xA;也就是&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=1866&quot;&gt;第1步驟頁面&lt;/a&gt;中的「說文通訓定聲十三」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;泰部第十三 that 䟠 belongs to is in the volume 13.&#xA;That is 說文通訓定聲十三 in the front page shown in the first step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⒐ 每一部先列出「字目」，然後才一一列出各字內容。&#xA;「字目」是依「聲符」分類，此等用來分類的「聲符」會被框起來。&#xA;此「聲符」是古韻，未必和現今發音相同。&#xA;一般人不知道古韻，就只能猜其相似的音。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It shows the &quot;Contents of Characters&quot; first in each class, and then the interpretation of each word.&#xA;字目 is classified according to the &quot;sound symbol&quot;, and those used to classify the words are framed.&#xA;The sound symbols are in ancient rhyme, which may not be the same as today's pronunciation.&#xA;Most people nowadays do not know all the ancient rhyme, so we can only guess the similar sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以「&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18335&amp;amp;page=11&quot;&gt;䟠&lt;/a&gt;」為例，左邊的「⻊」是形聲字的「形符」，右邊的「戉」是「聲符」，便以此分類「䟠」字。&#xA;「戉」是從「（居月切）」衍生而來，故用「」表示。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Using 䟠 as an example, the left component ⻊ is the &quot;shape symbol&quot; of the pictophonetic character; the right part 戉 is the &quot;sound symbol&quot;, which is then used to classify 䟠.&#xA;戉 [ ㄩㄝˋ | yuè ] is derived from  [ ㄐㄩㄝˊ | jué ], so  is the indicator.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FWbfo.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FWbfo.png&quot; alt=&quot;a07.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⒑ 要快速找到一個字的說明，要先知道該字在「字目」中的位置。&#xA;然後在上方搜尋欄輸入圖數跳著找。&#xA;這個時候瀏覽器要開兩個分頁，一個是「字目」，另一個是正在搜尋的頁面。&#xA;用搜尋頁上方的大字去比對「字目」，才能判斷出要向前或向後搜尋。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In order to find the interpretation of a word quickly, we should know its position in the &quot;Contents of Characters&quot; first.&#xA;And then we can jump to a particular image by inputing the image number in the searching field.&#xA;The browser should open two tabs now, one for the &quot;Contents of Characters&quot; and the other for searching.&#xA;We have to use the large characters at the top of the searching page to compare the words in the &quot;Contents of Characters&quot; so that we can determine to search forward or backward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;譬如，「泰部字目」從第2圖到第12圖。&#xA;「䟠」在第11圖前面的位置。&#xA;此册共191圖。&#xA;我們就可以推測出「䟠」的圖數大概在第150到180圖之間。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example, the &quot;Contents of Characters&quot; of 泰 class span from the second to the twelfth images.&#xA;䟠 is in the front part of Image 11.&#xA;This volume has 191 images.&#xA;We can roughly infer that 䟠 is somewhere between the 150th and the 180th iamges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們先跳到&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18335&amp;amp;page=170&quot;&gt;第170圖&lt;/a&gt;，可以看到上方的一個大字是「茷」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We jump to &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18335&amp;amp;page=170&quot;&gt;the 170th image&lt;/a&gt; first, and can see one of the big characters at the top is 茷.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bMFb9.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bMFb9.png&quot; alt=&quot;a08.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「茷」在「字目」中的&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18335&amp;amp;page=12&quot;&gt;第12圖&lt;/a&gt;，「䟠」在第11圖前面的位置。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;茷 is shown in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18335&amp;amp;page=12&quot;&gt;Image 12&lt;/a&gt; in the &quot;Contents of Characters&quot;, and 䟠 in the front part of Image 11.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g2gn8.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g2gn8.png&quot; alt=&quot;a09.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這樣我們就知道要向前找。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, we know that we should look up backward.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;依此類推，便可找到「䟠」在&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18335&amp;amp;page=156&quot;&gt;第156圖&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And so on, we can find 䟠 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=18335&amp;amp;page=156&quot;&gt;the 156th image&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q4bSD.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q4bSD.png&quot; alt=&quot;a10.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;步驟摘要 Summary of Steps&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用「說文通訓定聲十九」中的「韻目」查出「待尋字」所屬的韻部。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Find out which class the target word belongs to by using the &quot;Contents of Rhyme&quot; in Volume 19.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用「說文通訓定聲二」的「總目」查出該韻部所在的册數。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Find out the volume number of that class by using the &quot;Main Contents&quot; in Volume 2.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用該册開頭的「字目」查出「待尋字」的位置。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Find out the position of the word in question by using the &quot;Contents of Characters&quot; in the beginning part of that volume.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;在後續內容中查閱該字的解釋。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Look up its interpretation in the subsequent contents.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;「䟠」的意思 The meaning of 䟠&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文通訓定聲》對「䟠」的解釋原文如下：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The original interpretation of 䟠 in 《說文通訓定聲》 is as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;輕足也从足戉聲廣雅釋詁一䟠疾也按飛揚發越之意與越畧同&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;輕足也。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「䟠」是「輕足」的意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;䟠 means 輕快的 (brisk; nimble) 腳 (feet).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以，「輕足」的意思是「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/464475x.html&quot;&gt;行走迅捷&lt;/a&gt;」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore, 輕足 means &quot;fast walking&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;从足戉聲。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;从足：部首是「足」。「⻊」是形聲字的「形」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;从足: The radical is 足. ⻊ is the shape part of a pictophonetic character.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;戉聲：「戉」的聲韻。「戉」是形聲字的「聲」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;戉聲: The pronunciation is 戉 [ ㄩㄝˋ | yuè ]. 戉 is the sound part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《廣雅˙釋詁一》 䟠，疾也。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《廣雅》書中的〈釋詁〉篇第一部分提到：「䟠」是「疾」的意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The first part of 釋詁 chapter of the book 廣雅 mentioned that 䟠 means 疾.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「疾」的意思是「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/_75BE.html&quot;&gt;快速、急速&lt;/a&gt;」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;疾 means &quot;fast or rapid&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;按：飛揚發越之意，與越畧同。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;作者說明：「䟠」是「飛揚發越」的意思，和「越」大略相同。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Author's Note: 䟠 means 飛揚發越, and is roughly the same as 越.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「飛揚」的意思是「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/542282j.html&quot;&gt;飛騰&lt;/a&gt;」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;飛揚 means &quot;flying&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「發越」的意思是「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/323803o.html&quot;&gt;疾速&lt;/a&gt;」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;發越 means &quot;fast&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以，「䟠」是「快速行走」或「健步如飛」的意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore, 䟠 means &quot;fast walking&quot; or &quot;walking as if flying&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2017-01-31T20:41:00.693" LastActivityDate="2017-01-31T20:41:00.693" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22573" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-30T06:20:59.220" Score="2" ViewCount="2323" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Please answer in simplified characters.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've studied Chinese for quite a few years but I still don't know how to insult anyone. I've got to bring it to them hard and fast, strong, relentless. I'm obviously not going to go around insulting anyone, I'd rather just know this for the novelty value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only insult I know is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;笨蛋!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15304" LastActivityDate="2017-01-31T04:49:00.780" Title="Insults in Chinese" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-01-31T18:26:55.760" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22573" CreationDate="2017-01-30T06:30:59.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First  level: 笨蛋，傻瓜/Dumb-ass(Sha Gua)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second level: 脑残/Brainless/Retard(Nao Can)，二B(Er B)，傻B/傻Ⅹ(Sha B/Sha Cha)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not going to translate the last few, they are basically comparing people to private parts......and please....don't say the words in second level to anyone...especially if they are not even your friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T06:30:59.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22339" CreationDate="2017-01-30T21:19:52.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I totally disagree with who thinks 亡羊补牢 is seldom used in casual situations. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;It all depends on whether you use it properly. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your friends have only one week before midterm, but he spent most of his time playing video games. Thus he is so worried that he will fail the exam.&#xA;You can say 亡羊补牢为时未晚 to him to encourage him to work hard in the last week.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;No matter the situation is formal or casual, as long as your friend is facing difficulties that he really cares about or other similar situation happens, you can always use 亡羊补牢 without any problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did your friends tell you 亡羊补牢 is seldom used?&#xA;I think there are 2 reasons,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1, You didn't use this idiom in a proper way, but they don't want to spend time to explain how to use it properly or their English is not good enough to explain it, so they simply say it's seldom used to save troubles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2, Some Chinese native speakers sometimes are picky with foreign speakers. &#xA;They want to find errors in whatever you say to prove Chinese is the most difficult language in the world. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to find out whether an idiom can be commonly used is to ask several 10-year old primary school students in China. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;If most of 10-year old clearly know what this idiom means, you should be okay to use it commonly. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;A child is more credible than an adult on this kind of question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6906" LastEditorUserId="6906" LastEditDate="2017-01-30T21:39:36.547" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T21:39:36.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22573" CreationDate="2017-01-31T04:42:00.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This one for example is very common&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xx個屁 / xx個頭xx-gèpì / xx-gètóuxx &#xA;Meaning: my ass &#xA;(interjection, as in &#xA;A: 這電影好浪漫喔。 &#xA;B: 浪漫&lt;strong&gt;個屁&lt;/strong&gt;阿!&#xA;A: This movie is so romantic. &#xA;B: Romantic my ass!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll find a whole bunch of them here. They have some notes on the really strong ones. As for the usage I'll leave it up to you. Have fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_(Mandarin)/Slang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_(Mandarin)/Slang&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3963" LastEditorUserId="3963" LastEditDate="2017-01-31T04:49:00.780" LastActivityDate="2017-01-31T04:49:00.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22559" CreationDate="2017-01-31T12:33:03.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Writing in all caps in on line chat or forums is akin to shouting in everyone's ears in real life. It is quite annoying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typing capital alphabets in odd positions in a word emphasize a higher volume or higher tone for its reading. For example &quot;a&lt;strong&gt;Z&lt;/strong&gt;n&quot; = a&lt;strong&gt;SI&lt;/strong&gt;an and it is even more annoying than all caps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is considered rude, cheeky and juvenile behavior to type like that: &quot;hEy bRO!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;how does one render the effect of the alternating capitals and lower cases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can imagine using bigger font size or bolder font style for a selected few characters in an otherwise simple phrase, would create this &quot;volume up/ raising tone&quot; effect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for using different alphabets to replace the actual one, like &quot;prYde&quot; instead of &quot;Pride&quot;. You can do the same in Chinese by using a sound alike character to replace the correct one just for the fun of it.  For example:  &quot;神馬？&quot; instead of &quot;什麼？&quot;; &quot;魂淡&quot; instead of &quot;混蛋&quot; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-31T17:47:09.600" LastActivityDate="2017-01-31T17:47:09.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22580" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22582" CreationDate="2017-01-31T19:46:11.883" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;大家好！ I need these questions for one discussion in Chinese classes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please check, if I use the right word order in these questions? Thank you! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他和你用哪种语言谈话？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学习语言的时候有什么困难？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个孩子每天多长时间应该练习语言？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个儿童可以说几种语言？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你哪种语言应该学习？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的父母会什么语言?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你未来想不想学习一种新的语言？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6703" LastActivityDate="2017-01-31T21:20:04.377" Title="Wht is the right word order?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22581" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-31T20:11:15.740" Score="0" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 中文亲属名称 the correct translation for &quot;Family member names in Chinese&quot;(i.e. as in regard to one's family tree)? Anyone has a better translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16140" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-31T20:40:53.327" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T03:29:09.253" Title="Is 中文亲属名称 the correct translation for &quot;Family member names in Chinese&quot;(i.e. as in regard to one's family tree)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22580" CreationDate="2017-01-31T20:23:02.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;他和你用哪种语言谈话？&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他和你用哪种语言&lt;strong&gt;交谈&lt;/strong&gt;？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'交谈' is better than '谈话' because '交谈' means 'talk to each others; while '谈话' mainly means 'speak' or 'talk'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can speak or talk by yourself, but you cannot having a conversation on your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;学习语言的时候有什么困难？&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No problem above &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;一个孩子每天多长时间应该练习语言？&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一个孩子每天应该&lt;strong&gt;花&lt;/strong&gt;多长时间练习语言?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better add an verb '花'(spend) here &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;一个儿童可以说几种语言？&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No problem above&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你哪种语言应该学习？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are placing the [&lt;strong&gt;object&lt;/strong&gt;] directly after the [&lt;strong&gt;subject&lt;/strong&gt; ] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;][&lt;strong&gt;哪种语言&lt;/strong&gt;] &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is better to place the verb '&lt;strong&gt;学习&lt;/strong&gt;'directly after the subject '&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;哪种语言&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;应该&lt;strong&gt;学习&lt;/strong&gt;?&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;应该&lt;strong&gt;学习&lt;/strong&gt;哪种语言?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;你的父母会什么语言?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No problem here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;你未来想不想学习一种新的语言？&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;将来&lt;/strong&gt;想不想学习一种新的语言？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should replace '未来' with '将来' for the meaning of: &quot;in the future&quot; because '未来' itself is a noun or an adjective for 'future' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-01-31T21:20:04.377" LastActivityDate="2017-01-31T21:20:04.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22583" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-01T01:19:52.827" Score="1" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to convert Chinese sentences into English using a web API or open source web project. I want to automate this process so I think the best way is a web API. Most of the translators do not give accurate results. Can you please tell me what is the best web API or web project to do this translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16308" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-02-02T08:23:35.880" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T08:24:34.893" Title="What are the most accurate Chinese to English translation APIs?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-02-19T14:00:34.063" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22544" CreationDate="2017-02-01T01:31:52.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of the answers here are too theoretical and some are even wrong. In Chinese, tests based on conversation is called 口试（verbal test) as compare to tests based on written (笔试）. So the most direct translation is 我选择口试为考试方法的课程. Or for non-Chinese beginner, a more literary translation of 我选择交谈为考试方法的课程 is understandable. I think for most of non-Chinese speakers, the diffcult part is how to handle &quot;where&quot; (or &quot;as&quot;), it is often (not always though) can be replaced it with 为.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16309" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T01:31:52.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22581" CreationDate="2017-02-01T01:40:42.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, understanding the context is the important part. Family Members can means direct family members which means 亲属 or 家属, or including all the relatives (亲戚 or 家眷), but since you are referring to the context of family tree, 家族成员 should be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16309" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T01:40:42.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22583" CreationDate="2017-02-01T01:47:59.610" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker and a programmer myself, I have not found any good translation engine that does a good job in English/Chinese translation. It sucks because most of the engines are more or less doing literal translation, while for Chinese, understanding the context is the important part of how to translate a sentence. Something needs AI to achieve that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16309" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-02-02T08:24:34.893" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T08:24:34.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22551" CreationDate="2017-02-01T02:34:12.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fact that 紐 is used for &quot;New&quot; in so many place name and the fact that it is the Chinese equivalent of the Greek letter &lt;em&gt;Nu&lt;/em&gt;  suggests that there is a &lt;em&gt;de facto&lt;/em&gt; system; of course we can't rule out the involvement of a committee at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T02:34:12.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22588" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-01T02:40:08.830" Score="3" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find two different explanations for 来， 1. it is a picture of fruit on a tree. 2. It represents ripening corn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either way It is a neat symbol for what is coming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which do you think is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:14:33.083" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:14:33.083" Title="Does 来 show fruit on a tree or ripening corn?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22449" CreationDate="2017-02-01T02:50:07.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you leave a lot of your food untouched? The cleaner is probably not pointing out the fact that you've finished your meal, but asking in a question form 吃完啦？(have you finished?), which sounds like 吃完了. Your answer can be simply as 是的, or as someone suggested 嗯 as a confirmation, or repeats the sentence in an affirmative way 吃完了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16309" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-02-02T08:22:27.343" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T08:22:27.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6032" CreationDate="2017-02-01T03:04:48.723" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It might be worth mentioning that early in the Three Character Classic it says the Five Elements 五行 come from numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T03:04:48.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5727" CreationDate="2017-02-01T03:18:11.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese or Mandarin as we know now is a Northern language results from generations of invasions (the major one is Mongolia invasion) and trading. 马上 as the meaning of immediate or at once are influence from the northern culture where horse is the way of transportation and carrying message to somewhere else. In more traditional or ancient Chinese, 立刻 or 即刻 (meaning at this moment, immediately) are used. In fact in Cantonese, if you use 马上，people would likely think that you are not Cantonese or your language root is not Cantonese, and 即刻 is still use till this days in most of Cantonese verbal conversation than 马上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16309" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T03:18:11.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22592" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22594" CreationDate="2017-02-01T04:19:47.570" Score="3" ViewCount="899" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see both 禁止 (jìnzhǐ) and 严禁 (yánjìn) being used to mean &quot;forbid&quot;, and I don't really understand what the difference is between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a distinction between 禁止 (jìnzhǐ) and 严禁 (yánjìn)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online definitions give: (a) 禁止 = ban; forbid; prohibit (&lt;a href=&quot;http://cn.bing.com/dict/search?q=%E7%A6%81%E6%AD%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bing dictionary&lt;/a&gt;) and (b) 严禁 = strictly forbid [prohibit] (&lt;a href=&quot;http://cn.bing.com/dict/search?q=%E4%B8%A5%E7%A6%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bing dictionary&lt;/a&gt;).  So it maybe that's all there is to it (严禁 is stricter than 禁止), in which case this question is asking for confirmation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Or maybe that's what it says in dictionaries, but in everyday use there's almost no distinction.  Or maybe there's some distinction in usage.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples I've come across. This is from some elevator instructions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bT7Mtm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bT7Mtm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Elevator instructions&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This Contains both:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;严禁撞击 = yánjìn zhuàngjī = no fighting&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;禁止吸烟 = jìnzhǐ xīyān = no smoking&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c3Q2Mm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c3Q2Mm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Stone bollard instruction&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;contains &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;严禁挪动石墩 = yánjìn nuódòng shídūn = no moving the stone bollard&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-02-02T08:20:07.887" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T07:16:33.180" Title="Is there a distinction between 禁止 (jìnzhǐ) and 严禁 (yánjìn), which both mean &quot;forbid&quot;?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22592" CreationDate="2017-02-01T05:05:33.927" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;严禁 is short for 严格禁止，which means strictly forbid.&#xA;禁止 is kinda suggestive，严禁 indicates something is obliged not to do by the rules or law.&#xA;Actually in everyday use, there is no obvious distinction between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T05:05:33.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22592" CreationDate="2017-02-01T05:06:35.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking: 严禁 is more strict / serious than 禁止.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However sometimes means the opposite way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar situation in English words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;eg1. This is a good dog.&#xA;eg2. This is a better dog.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is better from above 2 dogs? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking eg2 will be better, however in some situations, eg1 is actually better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;more examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;eg3. No smoking -- 禁止吸烟&#xA;eg4. Seriously no smoking -- 严禁吸烟&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12601" LastEditorUserId="12601" LastEditDate="2017-02-01T05:19:02.323" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T05:19:02.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22592" CreationDate="2017-02-01T06:06:01.300" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is quite simple,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;禁止&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;forbid&lt;/strong&gt; - a formal pronouncement; (&lt;strong&gt;a warning&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;严禁&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;strictly forbid&lt;/strong&gt;  - implies there is a heavy punishment for violation, and it is being enforced earnestly-- (&lt;strong&gt;a stern warning&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice: 禁止 or 严禁 something just means there is a rule in place. It may or may not be a formal, written law. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 禁止 and 严禁 is like the difference between 不准(not allowed) and 绝对不准(absolutely not allowed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-02-01T06:45:47.057" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T06:45:47.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22597" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22598" CreationDate="2017-02-01T08:18:31.560" Score="6" ViewCount="2482" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of the time, Chinese people will respond to a foreigner speaking Chinese with &quot;wow your Chinese is so good!&quot; What is a polite way to respond without sounding rude or full of yourself? Especially when you have studied Chinese for multiple years and you would like to just have a normal conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16314" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-02-02T06:03:04.887" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T03:47:55.517" Title="What is the appropriate response to &quot;Your Chinese is so good!&quot;" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22597" CreationDate="2017-02-01T08:37:45.997" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;是嗎？ (or 有嗎？ or 真的嗎？) 我覺得沒有很好吔。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Really? I do not think it's very good.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Really? I don't think my Chinese is very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒有啦！謝謝你。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;No. Thank you.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Not at all. Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't have to worry about this.&#xA;It's just like somebody asks a foreigner, &quot;Where are you from?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T08:37:45.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22597" CreationDate="2017-02-01T08:59:01.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say，真的吗？我的中文能得到一个中国人的表扬，太棒了！ really？ it is awesome that my chinese gets complimented by a chinese！&#xA;he or she will be flattered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16315" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T08:59:01.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22597" CreationDate="2017-02-01T09:20:21.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The polite Chinese response to flattering comments is to deny them.  哪裏哪裏 (approximately: “'good', where?”) is a common phrase that can be used, or 不好 “not good”, or 還差得遠了 “far from it”, or 還要多學 “I have to study more”.  A more literate phrase is 見笑 (&quot;[people] laugh at [my skills]&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12745" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T09:20:21.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22588" CreationDate="2017-02-01T10:16:16.983" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;很有趣。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Very interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我到今天才知道「來」有這個意思，而且是它的本義。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I didn't know that 來 has this meaning until today, and this is even its original meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「來」的本義是「麥」，也就是「麥」的上半部。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The original meaning of 來 is &quot;grain or corn&quot;, which is the upper part of 麥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文解字》說：「來」的意思是「周所受瑞麥來麰也」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《說文解字》 explains that 來 means 周所受瑞麥, 來麰也.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文解字注》解釋為：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《說文解字注》 interprets it as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在周武王時代，天空降下「麥」，故稱之為「瑞麥」，而其名字叫「來牟」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In the era of King Wu in 周 dynasty, the sky rained down 麥, so it's called the &quot;lucky 麥&quot;. Its name was 來牟.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「來牟」原先只有「麥」的意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The original meaning of 來牟 is only 麥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;直到《廣雅》才說「來」是小麥，「牟」是大麥。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Until 《廣雅》, 來 was interpreted as &quot;wheat&quot;, and 牟 as &quot;barley&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文解字》接著說：「天所來也，故為行來之來。......凡來之屬，皆从來。」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《說文解字》 then explained that 天所來，故釋為行來之來。凡來之類，都用&quot;來&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文解字注》解釋：&#xA;「自天而降之麥，謂之『來麰』，亦單謂之『來』。因而，凡物之至者，皆謂之『來』。......皆引伸之義行，而本義廢矣！」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《說文解字注》 interprets these as follows.&#xA;The 麥 fallen from the sky is called 來麰, also simply called 來.&#xA;Thus, all things that come to us can be called &quot;come&quot;.......&#xA;These are the cases that the extended meanings are used and the original ones are abolished!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;注：此處，來＝麳＝䅘；牟＝麰＝；屬於假借字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Note: Here, 來＝麳＝䅘；牟＝麰＝. These are phonetic loan characters.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Some users may not see . It's &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nuK6Z.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nuK6Z.png&quot; alt=&quot;01.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T10:16:16.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22588" CreationDate="2017-02-01T11:39:33.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked up 來 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/8153526.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字考正&lt;/a&gt; and in &lt;a href=&quot;http://m.sanmin.com.tw/product/index/004732840&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文新證&lt;/a&gt;. These dictionaries are based on classical &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;, but also include information based on modern scholarship and palaeography. The character is described as 麥子 and 禾麥, respectively. Therefore, it looks like your second definition (‘ripening corn’) is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T11:39:33.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22597" CreationDate="2017-02-01T13:05:35.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well I know answers are well-meant, but I do not particularly recommend false modesty. If I were you (or as I am speaking as a L2 learner), I would probably say something like: &quot;謝謝啦！口說還行，才學了一兩年。&quot; (revise to fit your case) Or if you &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; want to show an air of modesty, consider: &quot;您客氣了。中文博大精深，還要加強呢！&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T13:05:35.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22597" CreationDate="2017-02-01T17:52:46.973" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many good suggestions in the answers, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;user6065 wrote: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;standard phrase: ：不敢当! jukuu：You flatter me. 你过奖了。你太捧我啦。6. You flatter me. I wish I could deserve such compliments. 好说！好说！ 您太夸奖了。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a slight drawback of using standard phrases is it makes you sound a little bit too formal and distant. If your Chinese is actually great, it would make your modest sounds false. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you would like to just have a normal conversation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be done by simply say &quot;謝謝&quot;(thanks) or &quot;过奖&quot; (it is too high a praise)--  A short reply without too much emphasis. Then go on with the conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?1,136311,136326#msg-136326&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Phrases to brush off compliments&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A humble response should be brief and low key.&#xA;  Long phrase felt more like a speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?1,134810,134854#msg-134854&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Use of 過獎&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;過獎 =太過/過於( too much / overly) 褒獎 / 誇獎 ( greatly praise / overly praise)&#xA;  Usually, you use 過獎 as a polite/ humble respond to a great compliment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-02-01T18:14:07.187" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T18:14:07.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22592" CreationDate="2017-02-02T07:27:11.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;as being a Chinese,we use 禁止 to prevent somebody doing something.And when we use 严禁,that means if you don't follow the warning there will be some very bad things happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T07:27:11.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5727" CreationDate="2017-02-02T07:29:34.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in ancient times,people thought the fastest moving way is ride horse.so 马上 means the ASAP&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T07:29:34.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22610" CreationDate="2017-02-02T09:58:12.170" Score="0" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some time ago, I bumped into &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiVxa8_yz8c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this song called 有一种爱叫做放手&lt;/a&gt;. Full lyrics with translation below. Any comments are welcome. What I was wondering is: at a certain point near the start, after an if-clause and a question, we have the line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;候鸟失去了南方 | Migrating birds have lost the south.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All I can tell about this sentence is that it means these migrating birds can no longer find their way on their migrations. How is this linked to the rest of the song? I mean, it starts off talking about how the girl has grown tired of the affair with the singer, then it goes on talking about that, and saying they should split up, and in the middle, this bird line. Sounds totally disconnected from the rest of the song to me… is it really? Also, should I interpret it as a question despite the absence of the interrogative particle 吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;如果两个人的天堂 | If the heaven of us two&#xA;像是温馨的墙 | Like a warm wall&#xA;囚禁你的梦想 | Is imprisoning your dreams,&#xA;幸福是否像是一扇铁窗 | Has happiness become like a barred window (i.e. a prison)?&#xA;候鸟失去了南方 | The migrating birds have lost the south.&#xA;&#xA;如果你对天空向往 | If you long for the sky,&#xA;渴望一双翅膀 | Crave for a pair of wings&#xA;放手让你飞翔 | And splitting up would make you fly,&#xA;你的羽翼不该伴随玫瑰 | Your wings should not, like roses&#xA;听从凋谢的时光 | Follow a time of withering.&#xA;&#xA;浪漫如果变成了牵绊 | If [our] romance has become a yoke,&#xA;我愿为你选择回到孤单 | I will choose to go back to solitude for you.&#xA;缠绵如果变成了锁链 | If your bond has become a chain,&#xA;抛开诺言 | [I will choose to] break my promise.&#xA;&#xA;有一种爱叫做放手 | A kind of love is called splitting up,&#xA;为爱放弃天长地久 | Leaving eternity for love.&#xA;我们相守若让你付出所有 | If our protecting each other makes you lose everything,&#xA;让真爱带我走 | Let true love take me away.&#xA;有一种爱叫做放手 | A kind of love is called splitting up,&#xA;为爱结束天长地久 | Ending eternity for love.&#xA;我的离去若让你拥有所有 | If my leaving makes you have everything,&#xA;让真爱带我走 说分手 | Let true love take me away    [and make me] say we split up.&#xA;&#xA;如果两个人的天堂 | If the heaven of us two&#xA;像是温馨的墙 | Like a warm wall&#xA;囚禁你的梦想 | Is imprisoning your dreams,&#xA;幸福是否像是一扇铁窗 | Has happiness become like a barred window (i.e. a prison)?&#xA;候鸟失去了南方 | The migrating birds have lost the south.&#xA;&#xA;如果你对天空向往 | If you long for the sky,&#xA;渴望一双翅膀 | Crave for a pair of wings&#xA;放手让你飞翔 | And splitting up would make you fly,&#xA;你的羽翼不该伴随玫瑰 | Your wings should not, like roses&#xA;听从凋谢的时光 | Follow a time of withering.&#xA;&#xA;浪漫如果变成了牵绊 | If [our] romance has become a yoke,&#xA;我愿为你选择回到孤单 | I will choose to go back to solitude for you.&#xA;缠绵如果变成了锁链 | If your bond has become a chain,&#xA;抛开诺言 | [I will choose to] break my promise.&#xA;&#xA;有一种爱叫做放手 | A kind of love is called splitting up,&#xA;为爱放弃天长地久 | Leaving eternity for love.&#xA;我们相守若让你付出所有 | If our protecting each other makes you lose everything,&#xA;让真爱带我走 | Let true love take me away.&#xA;有一种爱叫做放手 | A kind of love is called splitting up,&#xA;为爱结束天长地久 | Ending eternity for love.&#xA;我的离去若让你拥有所有 | If my leaving makes you have everything,&#xA;让真爱带我走 | Let true love take me away.&#xA;&#xA;为了你失去你 | Losing you for you,&#xA;狠心扮演伤害你 | Heartlessly pretending to hurt you.&#xA;为了你离开你 | Leaving you for you,&#xA;永远不分的离去 | A breakup that we will never undo.&#xA;&#xA;有一种爱叫做放手 | A kind of love is called splitting up,&#xA;为爱放弃天长地久 | Leaving eternity for love.&#xA;我们相守若让你付出所有 | If our protecting each other makes you lose everything,&#xA;让真爱带我走 | Let true love take me away.&#xA;有一种爱叫做放手 | A kind of love is called splitting up,&#xA;为爱结束天长地久 | Ending eternity for love.&#xA;我的离去若让你拥有所有 | If my leaving makes you have everything,&#xA;让真爱带我走 说分手 | Let true love take me away    [and make me] say we split up.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; the title is 有一种爱叫做放手 | Yôu yī zhông ài jiàozuò fàngshôu | A kind of love is called splitting up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-02-04T22:21:32.077" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T10:57:30.053" Title="How does &quot;migrating birds have lost the south&quot; fit into this song?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22609" CreationDate="2017-02-02T11:44:43.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;well as you can see at 如果两个人的天堂, the lyric tell us that there are a couple, 像是温馨的墙  tell us that the man/girl feel that their love like just like a wall, 囚禁你的梦想 imprison the his girlfriend / her boyfriend dream, 幸福是否像是一扇铁窗 then he begin to think, is this happiness has become a barred window that imprison the dream, 候鸟失去了南方 just like group of bird need/want to migrate to south, but they can't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a very interesting metaphore, bird are usually migrate to the south when north become cold, it is something they need to do. In this song the writer illustrate that dream is something that as important as bird need to migrate. But when we has somebody that we love, somehow that love is stronger than the dream that we need to pursue. So the writer say this love just like prison that imprison us from pursue our dream.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that explain your question, this is a very good song, I heard it once years ago, and what a surprise i can hear it again when i open your question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15418" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T11:44:43.710" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30192" CreationDate="2017-02-02T13:38:47.127" Score="0" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;四川方言词源&lt;/strong&gt; has the following information under the entry for &lt;em&gt;搊贺&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又，下江人《释四川话(二)》： “救济□人，或扶助他人成 功，称为‘抽合’。”(《旅行杂志》1945/7/18)此记音。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article is then referenced again under the entry for &lt;em&gt;打启发&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又，下江人 《释四川话 (二)》： “打抽丰称 ‘打起发’。” (《旅行杂志》1945/7/18)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CADAL (China Academic Digital Associative Library) has an issue here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cadal.zju.edu.cn/book/view/07080411&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;旅行杂志&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FH8kS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FH8kS.png&quot; alt=&quot;旅行杂志&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;民国三十四年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which apparently works out to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;》&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iq3WY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iq3WY.png&quot; alt=&quot;民国三十四年&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1945&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then the next part says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第十九卷第七期&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vol. 19/NO. 7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but the table of contents also says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M7qZr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M7qZr.png&quot; alt=&quot;yup&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what &lt;strong&gt;四川方言词源&lt;/strong&gt;'s reference of《旅行杂志》1945/7/18 exactly means.&#xA;1945 is the year; if 7 is the month that corroborates with the issue on CADAL which says 七月 on the cover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p. 2 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3Ne6s.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3Ne6s.png&quot; alt=&quot;yes&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7/31&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that mean 《旅行杂志》1945/7/18 would be the earlier issue: Vol. 19/No. 6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but then that article says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jMSnF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jMSnF.png&quot; alt=&quot;a&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vol. 19/No. 6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;六月三十日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1945 Vol. 19/No. 7 does have an article titled:《释四川话》| the reference in &lt;strong&gt;四川方言词源&lt;/strong&gt; says《释四川话 (二)》though - with a #2. I'm struggling to figure this out though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another example of a reference from the same book looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白虹《四川方言 (川行杂记之 六)》： “锅块，烧饼也。” (《自修》 1941/162/24)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'41 is most likely the year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and another:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(中华书局， 1938/182)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T04:28:37.037" Title="Where can I find 下江人's article《释四川话 (二)》from《旅行杂志》1945/7/18?" Tags="&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22612" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-02T13:39:18.333" Score="0" ViewCount="561" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practicing Chinese is hard when you are not following regular lectures or if you do not know anyone with who talk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond practicing everyday following a book or an app, I would like to write regularly something on my own, like a mini-blog or a Tweeter. This would keep motivation flowing from the fact that other people can read you, and learning from the words and syntax rules you need to check each time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, is there a typical place where to do so, where competent people can read and correct you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15938" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-02-02T16:34:12.283" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T14:16:47.320" Title="Where to write a diary in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22612" CreationDate="2017-02-02T15:57:00.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am chinese in chengdu. All chinese love write min-blog in weibo or weichat. These app like Twitter or facebook in your live. You can download this free app in google or apple  appstore. If you have any question, please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16328" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T15:57:00.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22567" CreationDate="2017-02-02T16:12:33.560" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chicken egg is 鸡蛋 and Bird egg is 鸟蛋.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16329" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T16:12:33.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22612" CreationDate="2017-02-02T16:42:58.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in writing AND having native speakers correct what you write, then you should definitely try out &lt;a href=&quot;http://lang-8.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lang-8.com&lt;/a&gt;. The website allows you to do exactly that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically it's not a (micro-)blogging platform, but if your goal is to improve your Chinese, that might be a reasonable compromise. And nobody will stop you from writing diary-like posts if you like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T16:42:58.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22592" CreationDate="2017-02-03T03:11:13.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are four common words telling people not to do something: 請勿, 切勿, 禁止 and 嚴禁.  For &lt;strong&gt;civilized&lt;/strong&gt; audience,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;請勿&quot; - a polite request or suggestion (violation punishment is possible)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;切勿&quot; - a request or urge, usually for the audience's own sake (violation punishment is also possible)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;禁止&quot; - forbid&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;嚴禁&quot; - forbid (with stress on enforcement or punishment)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In places with better social behavior, you will see &quot;請勿&quot; or &quot;切勿&quot; used more frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2017-02-03T03:11:13.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22611" CreationDate="2017-02-03T04:39:49.040" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1945/7/18 is the common format of year/month/day. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But given that the 6th issue is published on 6/30, the 7th issue is more likely to be published on 7/31.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you check it again and post the picture with the entry 搊贺?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-03T04:39:49.040" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22618" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22619" CreationDate="2017-02-03T12:10:52.997" Score="1" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;The classic text &quot;兵法&quot; is usually translated as &quot;The Art of War&quot;, but doesn't  &quot;武術&quot; also literally mean &quot;art of war&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My (not very long) experience with chinese language makes me believe that if there are two characters with the same english translation then almost always there are nuances of their meaning or usage.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So are there more precise translations for &quot;兵法&quot; and &quot;武術&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that since &quot;兵&quot;'s first meaning is a &quot;soldier&quot; and &quot;法&quot; is more like a &quot;rule&quot;, &quot;兵法&quot; relates to the way you should organize your troops, learn about your enemy to prepare for battle etc, more like a &quot;management of the army&quot;; while &quot;武術&quot; actually means &quot;the art of battling&quot;, &quot;the art of fighting on the battle field&quot;. So that when the &quot;兵法&quot; part is done, you can use your &quot;武術&quot; to beat the enemy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15198" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T08:24:38.043" Title="Difference between 兵法 vs 武術" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22618" CreationDate="2017-02-03T12:30:31.320" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/52938f.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;兵法 Art of War&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用兵作戰的策略和方法。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;strategies and methods of warfare.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;兵書。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;military books, which discuss the strategies and methods of warfare.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/257619f.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;武術 Martial Arts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;軍事技術。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;military technology.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;中國民族體育之一 (one of the Chinese traditional sports.)。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如：太極拳 (tài-ji-quán, shadow-boxing)、劍術 (fencing)、刀術 (broadsword play)、槍術 (spear play, joust)、棍術 (stick/cudgel play)。 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兵法 is usually related to the country.&#xA;武術 is more personal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some user posted the following comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f2Up2.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f2Up2.png&quot; alt=&quot;0.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found the following information on the Web.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=AU6IDAAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PT3#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《影響世界的中國元素--中國功夫》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tVZC3.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tVZC3.png&quot; alt=&quot;2.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=2DlsAgAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PT247#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《中华青少年成长必读集萃——万事由来》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s0Aa2.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s0Aa2.png&quot; alt=&quot;3.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=uwhEBAAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PT77#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《揭秘万物由来之谜》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VASnZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VASnZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;4.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastEditorUserId="16115" LastEditDate="2017-02-05T02:45:23.580" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T02:45:23.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22597" CreationDate="2017-02-03T22:37:07.100" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like the &quot;you flatter me&quot; response but since I just learned the phrase here I say 不太好。It seems to work.  And it's true!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-02-03T22:37:07.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22609" CreationDate="2017-02-04T02:49:59.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese poems or lyrics, it uses a lot of metaphors and imply. If you read the entire first paragraph of the lyrics, it actually talked about two contrast feelings and an if .. then situation. Also when translating poem or lyrics, one must fully understand metaphor (and the context) and often can't translate literally. For example, 温馨 means warm, but also mean pleasant, 囚禁 in general means imprison, but here it means capture or encapsulate. It actually imply a room where the walls fill with full of good dreams and memories, and the barred window like a trap, 候鸟失去了南方 is simply means that migrating birds lost its sanctuaries in the south, implying that there is no where to go, or there is lack of direction. So here is my translation for the first paragraph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;如果两个人的天堂 | If the heaven of two&#xA;像是温馨的墙 | like pleasant walls&#xA;囚禁你的梦想 | that captured your dreams,&#xA;幸福是否像是一扇铁窗 | (Then) is happiness like a trap behind a barred window?&#xA;候鸟失去了南方 | (or) migrating birds lost its south sanctuaries?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16309" LastEditorUserId="16309" LastEditDate="2017-02-05T01:00:55.867" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T01:00:55.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22623" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31501" CreationDate="2017-02-04T10:48:01.773" Score="15" ViewCount="28650" Body="&lt;p&gt;When we know a modern Hanzi, finding its seal script equivalent in a dictionary is not a problem. However, a more common case is that we have an existing seal script character we cannot identify, and we want to know which modern Hanzi it represents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I look up seal script characters that I cannot recognise? I'd be most interested in electronic resources (websites, computer programs, phone apps), but information about paper dictionaries is also OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2017-02-04T14:11:28.757" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T07:03:01.537" Title="How to look up seal script characters?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="795" CreationDate="2017-02-04T11:39:38.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wenlin.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wenlin&lt;/a&gt; works the way you want. When you choose &lt;em&gt;List&lt;/em&gt; -&gt; &lt;em&gt;4. Characters Containing Components&lt;/em&gt; and type 木米女, you will get just 楼 and nothing else, so you might prefer it to Tatoeba. Moreover, Wenlin has its own character decomposition database, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/6067/3966&quot;&gt;which is usually more precise than the Wikimedia database&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Wenlin Desktop is unfortunately quite expensive. If you hurry up, you may &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wenlin/wenlin-abc-cantonese-dictionary-website-ed-robert/posts/1776252&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;get it at a much lower price&lt;/a&gt;. I hope it doesn't sound like a commercial, I'm not affiliated with Wenlin in any way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T11:44:45.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="385" CreationDate="2017-02-04T14:55:28.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right that this isn't the case of the simplified/traditional distinction, but I don't think it's a matter of handwriting and printing either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/zy/805A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ZDic&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d0UaQs.gif&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; alt=&quot;聚&quot;&gt; is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/22501/3966&quot;&gt;orthodox form&lt;/a&gt; (which was regarded as standard in the 1716 Kangxi dictionary) and is currently the standard form in mainland China (and also in Japan and Korea). As for &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R1yKms.gif&quot; width=&quot;30&quot; alt=&quot;聚&quot;&gt;, ZDic says it is standard in Hong Kong and Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T23:17:35.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22626" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22629" CreationDate="2017-02-04T18:23:55.020" Score="1" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;MDBG lists 一点儿 as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E4%B8%80%E7%82%B9%E5%84%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;not an HSK entry&lt;/a&gt;. I've seen other &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hsk.academy/en/hsk_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lists&lt;/a&gt; that do say it is an HSK entry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it common for the HSK to include erhua variants instead of non-erhua? My understanding is that erhua variants are most common in Beijing. Should I focus my vocabulary on learning erhua variants?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12823" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T23:00:07.253" Title="一点 or 一点儿 on HSK 1?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22628" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22636" CreationDate="2017-02-05T04:53:05.733" Score="1" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you translate this sentence into Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She was generous with her time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempt is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她花了很多時間陪我們。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a better, more idiomatic way of saying this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16351" LastEditorUserId="16351" LastEditDate="2017-02-05T06:53:39.837" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T02:34:44.810" Title="How do you say &quot;She was generous with her time&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22626" CreationDate="2017-02-05T08:43:05.930" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the official &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetest.cn/userfiles/file/HSK/HSK-2012.xls&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK1 vocabulary list&lt;/a&gt; published by Hanban in September 2012, erhua variants may occur in the test since they are included in the vocabulary list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you should focus on both non-erhua and erhua variants of the words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16248" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T08:43:05.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22626" CreationDate="2017-02-05T09:40:03.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm from south of China,people here hardly use erhua because of the habit,but the northern people always use it .I don't think it's a big problem in use it or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16352" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T09:40:03.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22612" CreationDate="2017-02-05T14:16:47.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I strongly recommend you use WeChat or Weibo. Weibo is a micro-blogger and WeChat is Chinese WhatsApp. Italki is also a good choice, there are some language exchanger can correct your dairies everyday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16355" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T14:16:47.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22623" CreationDate="2017-02-05T15:35:49.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This site is provides a good source for seal script characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chineseetymology.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good source (more oriented towards calligraphy):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://shufazidian.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://shufazidian.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good paper dictionaries also give the seal script character for each entry, see for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wunan.com.tw/bookdetail.asp?no=1826%20%E2%80%9D%E5%9C%8B%E8%AA%9E%E6%B4%BB%E7%94%A8%E8%BE%AD%E5%85%B8%E2%80%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國語活用辭典&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To look up seal characters, you will have to learn how to recognise the radicals.  It is actually not too difficult and quite fun!  It is also good to get used to that components sometimes are loose – components can be arranged differently from what you might be used to.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12745" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T15:35:49.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22635" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22638" CreationDate="2017-02-05T15:47:52.730" Score="1" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading a letter that Ba Jin wrote in the 80s to a group of students, and there are a few places in the letter that he uses what appears to be a phrase '形势大好' that meant something specific to the context of the times.  Here's a usage of it in context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我常常想，我们生活在其中的社会有时会是十分古怪，叫人难以理解。人们喜欢说，形势大&#xA;  好，我也这样说过。这种说法不是没有道理，我也有自己的经验：根据我耳闻目睹，舍身救&#xA;  人、一心为公的英雄事迹和一人有难、八方支援的好人好事，每天都在远近发生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the literal translation &quot;excellent situation&quot; is missing something.  So is there a better way of understanding it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16356" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T12:11:33.863" Title="What does 形势大好 in this situation mean" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22628" CreationDate="2017-02-05T20:19:30.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She was generous with her time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you translate this phrase literally, it would be &quot;對(花)時間她是慷慨的&quot; (She was generous with her time). But we Chinese usually do not use the term '慷慨(generous) ' to describe the manner of spending time. We usually use  '慷慨' to describe the manner of disbursing money. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate the phrase like this clearly shows it's a straight translation of an English sentence. In this instance, it is better to use the verb phrase '不計較(do not care) ' instead of the adjective '慷慨'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她不計較花時間 (she did not care spending her time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depend on context, you can also interpret the phrase in different ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If she's always this way:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;她對付出時間這一方面十分慷慨&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(In regard of disbursing her time, she is very generous)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you are referring how she acted in one instance&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;她慷慨地付出她的時間&quot;&#xA;  (She generously disbursed her time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;她不吝惜撥出自己的時間&quot;&#xA;  (she was not stingy about allocating her time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-02-05T22:25:54.893" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T22:25:54.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22635" CreationDate="2017-02-05T20:40:54.117" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/2/111/298765.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢典&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;shows that 形势 means [situation; circumstance; condition; state of affairs]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在其周围环境中所处的情形；或在一定时间内，各种情形的相对的或综合的境况。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the context, &#xA;the author was talking about &#xA;社会形势大好&#xA;because there were many 好人好事 everyday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, I think 形势 means 气氛 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The social atmosphere is very good.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T20:40:54.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22635" CreationDate="2017-02-05T21:48:40.937" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 形势 here refers the social &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/trend&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;trend&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1.The general course or prevailing tendency; drift:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大好 means 'very good'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;形势大好 (situation is very good) in this context should mean: &amp;quot;The general course our country in is quite optimistic'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T21:48:40.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22635" CreationDate="2017-02-05T22:42:50.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both hinen and Tang Ho provide correct definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase 形势大好 was first used in last century by communist propaganda to convey the idea that (communist) China is doing well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, no one uses this phrase in colloquial conversation except when he's sarcastic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T22:42:50.150" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22623" CreationDate="2017-02-05T22:48:04.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dullr.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.dullr.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This website helps to convert modern Simplified Chinese into Seal Scripts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this is very convenient, but note that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each Simplified Chinese character may be corresponding to several different Traditional Chinese character. And the computer software may not gives the right conversion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each Traditional Chinese character may be writtern in several different ways in Seal Script, while this won't cause any error though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MunHo mentioned a website ChineseEtymology, which is the best one in collecting the ancient writing styles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T22:48:04.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22363" CreationDate="2017-02-05T22:49:34.910" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some have been crystallized in the spelling:&#xA;- 别 &amp;lt; 不要 (when used as a negative imperative)&#xA;- 甭 &amp;lt; 不用 (it's even explicit in the character!)&#xA;- 啦 &amp;lt; 了啊&#xA;- 这/那 as zhei/nei &amp;lt; 这一/那一 (zhe yi / na yi)&#xA;There are probably others, plus all the Classical Chinese ones mentioned by Tang Ho.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to ones that have not been represented in writing:&#xA;- A very common one I can think of is 多少钱, in which 多少 easily becomes &quot;duo'ao&quot; (or more likely, &quot;dwao&quot;).&#xA;- 这样子 is also commonly pronounced as &quot;zhiangzi&quot;.&#xA;- 不要 is often &quot;b'yao&quot;, which has a character 嫑 biao2 which I've absolutely never seen used&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some characters also suggest that the following contractions exist, although they seem to be dialectal and I've never seen/heard them used:&#xA;- 嘦 &amp;lt; 只要 jiao4&#xA;- 覅 &amp;lt; 勿要 fiao4&#xA;- 孬 &amp;lt; 不要 nao1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10901" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T22:49:34.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22626" CreationDate="2017-02-05T23:00:07.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For what it's worth, I feel the HSK committee here is being frankly unreasonable with all the 儿化 variants it lists:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一点儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;干活儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大伙儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;纳闷儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;纽扣儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;馅儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;心眼儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;使劲儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墨水儿 (seriously???)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大伙儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are all things that you'd never hear in a news broadcast, while 墨水 etc would be, but are not listed in the HSK vocab.&#xA;On the other hand, they list as single-character words things that I'd never hear without 子: 梨子, 桃子 (are the only two I can think of now).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10901" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T23:00:07.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22628" CreationDate="2017-02-05T23:46:57.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A teacher takes a lot of time, more than she has to, helping you.（Maybe she fancies you!) Bypass the word 'generous' but catch the meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她在我身上花了很多时间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T23:46:57.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22635" CreationDate="2017-02-06T00:25:17.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;人们喜欢说，形势大 好，我也这样说过。这种说法不是没有道理，我也有自己的经验：根据我耳闻目睹，舍身救 人、一心为公的英雄事迹和一人有难、八方支援的好人好事，每天都在远近发生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I would translate 形势大 好: everything is going well&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He then says: 我也这样说过 I think so too&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He goes on to say 我也有自己的经验 I have personally experienced  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He repeats that: 根据我耳闻目睹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He lists all the good things which are happening:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;舍身救 人 people give their lives to help others&lt;br&gt;&#xA;八方支援的好人好事 everywhere good people doing good deeds&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每天都在远近发生 every day near or far this is happening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T00:25:17.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8278" CreationDate="2017-02-06T01:17:49.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even in Mandarin there are quite a few terms that aren't written in Hanzi or are written in several different ways. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mandarinbooks.cn/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_book_info&amp;amp;products_id=1759&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;New Age Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; has a page with &lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/QgFluo4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Words or Expressions Beginning with Western Letters&lt;/a&gt;, which lists the kind of words you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list is of course not exhaustive. I would add:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/PM2.5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PM2.5&lt;/a&gt; is the name of a air quality index, which is very commonly used, also in informal and non-technical situations, and therefore can be considered an everyday Chinese word (the actual technical term for PM2.5 is 細懸浮粒子),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APEC_blue&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;APEC蓝&lt;/a&gt;, to quote Wikipedia:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;refers to the rare blue sky in Beijing during APEC China 2014 due to emission reduction campaign directed by Chinese government. Because of its transience, the new phrase &quot;APEC blue&quot; also refers to something wonderful but also fleeting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/O2O&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;O2O&lt;/a&gt;, a buzzword from the Chinese e-commerce industry. Even though it's an English-language acronym (“online to offline”), it seems quite clear that it originated in China and is quite widely understood there (and not so much anywhere else). Therefore I consider it a Chinese word.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Similarly, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_China#Car_dealerships&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4S&lt;/a&gt; means “authorised car dealership”. Again, it's an exclusively Chinese word, even though the name comes from English words &lt;em&gt;sale&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;spare parts&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;service&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;survey&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The slang word for “to buy” is &lt;em&gt;bài&lt;/em&gt;, sometimes used e.g. in connection with Taobao. The most popular way of spelling it is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E5%9C%A8%E6%B7%98%E5%AF%B6%E6%95%97%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;敗&lt;/a&gt;/&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E5%9C%A8%E6%B7%98%E5%AE%9D%E8%B4%A5%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;败&lt;/a&gt;, but I've also seen &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E5%9C%A8%E6%B7%98%E5%AE%9DBUY%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;BUY&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E5%9C%A8%E6%B7%98%E5%AE%9D%E6%8B%9C%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;拜&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The letter &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt; may mean “a lot” in Mandarin. To quote &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2009/06/22/how-to-pronounce-nciku&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sinosplice&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That’s the mathematical n, as in an unspecified number that could be really high. It might seem strange to bring mathematical variables into everyday conversation, but in modern Chinese it happens on a regular basis. In Mandarin when you do something n遍 (&lt;em&gt;n times&lt;/em&gt;), you did it so many times you don’t even know how many. Like we say “a million” in English, or, perhaps more appropriate in its ambiguity, “&lt;em&gt;a zillion&lt;/em&gt;.” Rather than n遍, you can also say n次, which also means &lt;em&gt;a zillion times&lt;/em&gt; [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, some words are very commonly written with various characters, even though some spellings are etymologically more “correct”. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;牛B/牛逼/牛比, a word meaning “(fucking) awesome”. The “correct” spelling is supposed to be 牛屄 (屄 meaning “cunt”), but is rarely used in practice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;屌絲, a word for “loser”. 屌 is “correct” here and means “penis”, but the word is sometimes written as 吊絲.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on what you're looking for, we could also include very standard words, which nevertheless are written with one character by some people, and with another character by other people. Examples include “to stay” (待 or 呆) and “tangerine” (橘子 or 桔子).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2017-02-06T13:16:27.317" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T13:16:27.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22635" CreationDate="2017-02-06T05:24:11.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My 汉语成语大词典 offers “形势逼人” as a chengyu, and refers to 谢觉哉《冷和热》(1881-1971). A rough translation for it could be &quot;the situation is urgent&quot;. I am happy to write out the whole dictionary entry if required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16360" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T05:24:11.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22647" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22648" CreationDate="2017-02-06T10:23:27.087" Score="7" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Sorry, @hinen. I use your answer as my question.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当我比较 &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/posts/22572/revisions&quot;&gt;hinen 的答案&lt;/a&gt;时，我有一个疑问。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原来的内容是：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這樣我們就知道要向前找。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  So, we know that we should look up forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他/她修改，只把​​ forward 改成 backward，没改中文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他/她先在第170图，后来到第156图，是向书本页数较少的方向找。&#xA;英文用 backward，但中文用&quot;向前&quot;还是&quot;向后&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;backward 在字典中的翻译是&quot;向后方&quot;。&#xA;但中文的&quot;向后方&quot;可以是向书本的后面，也就是向页数较多的方向。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以，forward 和 backward 中文要如何说才清楚，用查字典做例子？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T10:54:52.013" Title="Should I use 向前 or 向后？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22647" CreationDate="2017-02-06T10:54:52.013" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;(It's my honor that somebody can use my answer.&#xA;It's also my bad that I didn't use good words.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following expressions may help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;look up forward&lt;br&gt;&#xA;往尾查&lt;br&gt;&#xA;往後頁查&lt;br&gt;&#xA;查後面的頁數&lt;br&gt;&#xA;向字典後面查&lt;br&gt;&#xA;向多的頁數查&lt;br&gt;&#xA;繼續向下查&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;look up backward&lt;br&gt;&#xA;往頭查&lt;br&gt;&#xA;往前頁查&lt;br&gt;&#xA;查前面的頁數&lt;br&gt;&#xA;向字典前面查&lt;br&gt;&#xA;向少的頁數查&lt;br&gt;&#xA;回頭往前查  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T10:54:52.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22649" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22650" CreationDate="2017-02-06T11:12:17.637" Score="1" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is 烧麦 (shāomài):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7q1Svm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7q1Svm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Shaomai; Image source: Wikimedia commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pork_and_glutinous_rice_shaomai_by_jslander_at_Din_Tai_Fung,_Arcadia.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which has the same character 麦 as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大麦 (dàmài = barley),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小麦 (xiǎomài = wheat), and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;燕麦 (yànmài = oats).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are types of grains, and seem unrelated to 烧麦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How does 麦 connect 烧麦 (shāomài), a kind of dumpling, with 大麦 (dàmài), 小麦 (xiǎomài), and 燕麦 (yànmài), types of grains?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T12:06:55.723" Title="How does 麦 connect 烧麦 (shāomài), a kind of dumpling, with 大麦 (dàmài), 小麦 (xiǎomài), and 燕麦 (yànmài), which are types of grains?" Tags="&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22649" CreationDate="2017-02-06T11:29:28.890" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's nothing to do with 麦 (grains).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%87%92%E8%B3%A3&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;烧卖，又称稍麦、烧麦、捎卖、稍美、干蒸、烧梅、肖米、鬼蓬头。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;烧卖及其他与之谐音的名称的来由有多种说法，没有定论。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's explained a little in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shumai&quot;&gt;English version&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The name was given &quot;捎卖&quot;, meaning the product was &quot;sold as a sideline&quot;, with tea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The name was later transformed into modern forms like &quot;烧麦&quot;, &quot;稍美&quot; and &quot;烧卖&quot;, changing the characters while keeping the original pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T11:29:28.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22635" CreationDate="2017-02-06T12:11:33.863" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;here 形势大好 mains 社会风气非常好，people live happily and harmony&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16362" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T12:11:33.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22618" CreationDate="2017-02-06T12:14:16.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;兵法 is the method of how to win a war.武术 is the method of fighting with other person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16362" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T12:14:16.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22654" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22655" CreationDate="2017-02-06T15:41:55.540" Score="3" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#auto/zh-CN/fresh%20baked%20cookie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://translate.google.com/#auto/zh-CN/fresh%20baked%20cookie&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Google says:&#xA;新鲜烤饼干&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I know 饼干 to be cracker.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is there a better term to describe a fresh baked cookie?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T01:36:37.917" Title="What is the best way to say &quot;fresh baked cookie&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22654" CreationDate="2017-02-06T19:55:47.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Cookies' can be translated as '小甜餅' ; describe as '牛油小酥餅' ; transliterated to '&lt;strong&gt;曲奇&lt;/strong&gt;'(often: '曲奇餅')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say &quot;fresh baked cookie&quot; in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新鲜烤的小甜餅 / 新鲜烤的曲奇餅 (fresh baked cookie)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*can be simplified to 新鲜烤小甜餅 / &lt;strong&gt;新鲜烤曲奇&lt;/strong&gt; (fresh baked cookie)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剛出烤箱的小甜餅 /剛出烤箱的曲奇餅 (fresh out of the oven cookie)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;曲奇 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiachufang.com/category/51906/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.xiachufang.com/category/51906/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-02-06T20:04:55.313" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T20:04:55.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22654" CreationDate="2017-02-06T20:35:44.160" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following information is provided for reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use 剛出爐的 or 現烤的 for &quot;fresh baked&quot; in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, &quot;fresh baked cookie&quot; may be called as follows in Taiwan.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;剛出爐的餅乾 ／ 現烤的餅乾&lt;br&gt;&#xA;剛出爐的麵包 ／ 現烤的麵包&lt;br&gt;&#xA;剛出爐的甜點 ／ 現做的甜點&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very common to see these signs in Taiwan.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;剛出爐的麵包&lt;br&gt;&#xA;剛出爐的饅頭&lt;br&gt;&#xA;剛出爐的包子&lt;br&gt;&#xA;剛出爐的披薩  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T20:35:44.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22628" CreationDate="2017-02-06T23:41:14.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;you'd butter put this sentence in specific condition.generally say，她乐于花时间 to do sth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16362" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T23:41:14.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8278" CreationDate="2017-02-07T00:53:11.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other people have given very informative answers and I want to add a simple addition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I speak Shanghainese which is a dialect of Wu Chinese. There are many characters that people don't know how to write them correctly due to several reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The character was obsolete in modern Mandarin and so no one knows how to write it. Note in this case the correct writing exists but most people don't know how to write it. Side note: Mandarin is the only language taught in school while the teaching of Wu Chinese is illegal under current policies.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The character comes from non-Sinitic language. In northern Wu, especially in Shanghai, there are phrases adopted from English, French, Russian, Japanese etc as there used to be an international installment and a large number of foreign population in Shanghi. In southern Wu, e.g. Wenzhou, certain words come from ancient language spoken by native non-Sinitic ethnic groups. In this case, the correct way of writing doesn't always exist unless the usage of the adopted word is common and the writing is fixed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T00:53:11.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22654" CreationDate="2017-02-07T00:56:49.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's simply 现烤饼干 or 现烤曲奇.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hinen mentioned 刚出炉的, it's correct but too complicated in my view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T00:56:49.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22654" CreationDate="2017-02-07T01:36:37.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;曲奇 is only used in Hong Kong, it is a pronunciation translation of 'cookie'. It is not a 'mainstream' Chinese that can be understand across China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16309" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T01:36:37.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22628" CreationDate="2017-02-07T02:34:44.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literal translation: 她不吝惜时间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the context, you can further embellish it a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她（很）乐于助人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她（非常）乐于助人，不吝惜自己的时间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她（很）热心，不吝惜时间帮助他人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她人非常好，热心肠，帮人帮到底，送佛送上西，一点也不吝惜自己的时间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last one is actually a little far-fetched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like the the second one best, especially with the idiomatic expression &lt;code&gt;乐于助人&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11576" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T02:34:44.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="91" CreationDate="2017-02-07T03:43:22.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I had the same question when I was studying Chinese several years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people recommended to use SRS software, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://ankisrs.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anki&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skritter.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Skritter&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.memrise.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Memrise&lt;/a&gt; etc. But non of them helped me as I expected, I kept forgetting how to write characters anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally I realized that the reason why I kept forgetting characters was &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_input_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;拼音输入法&lt;/a&gt;. Because of constantly using 拼音输入法 on mobile phone and computer, not only foreigners, but also native Chinese speakers sometimes forget how to write some rarely used complicated characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the best solution for me was to completely delete 拼音输入法 from my mobile phone and switch to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_count_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;笔画输入法&lt;/a&gt; instead. To be honest, at the beginning it was not easy to learn 笔画, since you definitely have to know how to write the character to be able to type it with 笔画. But after one year of practicing I just get used to 笔画 and do not have an issue with forgetting Chinese characters anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mguHq.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mguHq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;笔画输入法&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16248" LastEditorUserId="16248" LastEditDate="2017-02-07T06:01:54.127" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T06:01:54.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8278" CreationDate="2017-02-07T05:01:35.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many Cantonese expressions are written with 俗字 &quot;folk characters&quot;, which are not valid characters in Standard Mandarin Chinese. However, some of them have their 本字 &quot;original character&quot;, which are usually valid, standard characters fallen into disuse for a certain meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the Cantonese third person pronoun is keoi&lt;sup&gt;5&lt;/sup&gt; (Guangzhou dialect), which is usually written as 佢. However, its 本字 is actually 渠, which used to be a third person pronoun in classical written Chinese, but now only mean &quot;ditch&quot; in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are some Cantonese words without 本字. Many of them are assumed to be Tai-Kadai as opposed to Sinitic in origin, which are borrowed from the Baiyue 百越 (a Tai-Kadai people who inhabited southern China long ago) language into Cantonese. Two very common examples include 痕 han&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt; &quot;itchy&quot; and 甩 lat&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; &quot;loosen&quot;, which are cognates with Zhuang /hom/ and /lot/.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know for sure about Wu and Hokkien, but I am very confident that there are this kind of Baiyue loanwords in both languages. I could think of a few very common Hokkien expressions that do not show cognate relationships with Sinitic, such as 攏 lóng &quot;all&quot;. However, I am no expert on Hokkien.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, it is a quite commonly accepted theory that Tai-Kadai and Sino-Tibetan are ultimately related, all of the aforementioned terms likely will have (distantly related) cognates in Mandarin. However, their resemblance with Tai-Kadai vocabulary is much higher, and are thus much more likely Tai-Kadai loans than Sinitic in origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: for Cantonese I use LSHK Jyutping, which romanizes the Guangzhou/Canton dialect. For Hokkien I use the ROC Taiwanese Romanization System, which is a standardized form of Hokkien Peh-Oe-Ji (POJ) that romanizes the Hoklo/Quanzhang 泉漳 dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T05:01:35.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22609" CreationDate="2017-02-07T07:13:15.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;you'd better say this :The migrating birds have lost their homeland.南方 in this song mains warm place. it more likes homeland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16362" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T07:13:15.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22618" CreationDate="2017-02-07T07:30:41.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;法 - is more like &quot;a law&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;术 - comes from 術 which is a depiction of a street 行 and a hemp 术 weaving. Meaning a street where baskets and other stuff from plants (hemp for example) are sold as a merchandise. In modern days 术 just means skill (derived from the skill to weave a basket) or 术 has smth to do with surgery (weaving again). 令&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have literate translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;武术 - &quot;skill at arms&quot; or &quot;weaponcraft&quot; like in 巫术 (witchcraft)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;兵法 - soldier's law/science.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2017-02-07T08:24:38.043" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T08:24:38.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22667" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-07T09:05:58.573" Score="2" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find 2 very different glyph origins for 入&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It shows the roots of a plant entering the ground.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is a picture of an open tent or tent door.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is correct? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:17:34.633" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:17:34.633" Title="Which is the correct glyph origin of 入" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22667" CreationDate="2017-02-07T11:04:32.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E5%85%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E5%85%A5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(象形) Pictographic. Picture of the sharp point of an arrow used to pierce something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E5%85%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E5%85%A5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Primitive pictograph 入. An open tent door. Meaning enter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/wordinfo.aspx?id=3197&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.vividict.com/wordinfo.aspx?id=3197&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;字源解说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;入，甲骨文像盒盖向下，表示收存物品，加盖封藏。造字本义：收存物品，加盖封藏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(入 in oracle looked like a lid facing down to represent &quot;to store items in&quot; , or 'seal something with a lid' .  &quot;Enter&quot; was an extended meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The original meaning of the word: the storage of items, stamped sealed.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;金文承续甲骨文字形。有的金文形似屋“宀”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(金文 inherited Oracle shape. Some 金文 of 入 looked like &quot;house&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;that may had been the origin of 'An open tent door' etymology&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After studied the references, my conclusion is the earliest pictographic of 入 resembled a lid facing down.  Then evolved into 'open tent' shape. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'arrow' representing 'enter' (入) etymology is likely an later  interpretation. (&lt;em&gt;depend on how early 'arrow head' was invented, it might had been developed concurrently with 'lid'  for the meaning of 入&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T11:04:32.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8278" CreationDate="2017-02-07T12:31:56.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but, in 江苏泰州 they speak a funny dialect. &#xA;今天 is spoken 'gen er zei' My friend has no idea how you might write that in characters. It is not written. She has lots of other words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T12:31:56.813" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22671" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22729" CreationDate="2017-02-07T16:03:17.500" Score="5" ViewCount="672" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese_phonology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Old Chinese phonology&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reconstructions of Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt; seem to be two things that keep cropping up every now and again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter.E2.80.93Sagart_.282014.29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter–Sagart&lt;/a&gt; seems to be the big one these days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any recordings of Old Chinese pronunciations available?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-02-08T13:38:03.127" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T05:51:20.340" Title="Where can I find recordings of old Chinese pronunciation?" Tags="&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22672" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-07T17:59:38.287" Score="2" ViewCount="796" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Please use simplified characters.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English we sometimes say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'My teacher taught us &lt;strong&gt;about&lt;/strong&gt; Chinese'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘My friend was telling me &lt;strong&gt;about&lt;/strong&gt; Chinese'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'You're not intelligent enough to talk &lt;strong&gt;about&lt;/strong&gt; complex Chinese grammar'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'The novel is &lt;strong&gt;about&lt;/strong&gt; dragons'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these use the word &lt;strong&gt;about&lt;/strong&gt;. I've wanted to express these kinds of sentences in Chinese for ages. How would I do it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Please explain how to express the word 'about' in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Please translate &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; create your own example sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15304" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T20:23:27.507" Title="Expressing 'about' in Chinese" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22672" CreationDate="2017-02-07T19:24:18.503" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;About&lt;/strong&gt; + adjective phrase]= [&lt;strong&gt;有关&lt;/strong&gt; + adjective phrase + &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;] or [&lt;strong&gt;关于&lt;/strong&gt; + adjective phrase + &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'My teacher taught us (knowledge) &lt;strong&gt;about&lt;/strong&gt; Chinese'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我老师教我们&lt;strong&gt;有关&lt;/strong&gt;中文&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; (知识)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'Chinese'(中文) is a part of the adjective phrase '中文的'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The object '知识'(knowledge) can be omitted in English, but cannot be omitted in Chinese.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;有关 can also be omitted&lt;/em&gt;: 我老师教我们中文&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; (知识)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘My friend was telling me (things) &lt;strong&gt;about&lt;/strong&gt; Chinese'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我朋友告诉我&lt;strong&gt;有关&lt;/strong&gt;中国人&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;(事情)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'Chinese'(中国人) is a part of the adjective phrase '中国人的'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The object '事情'(things) can be omitted in English, but cannot be omitted in Chinese.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;有关 can be omitted&lt;/em&gt;: 我朋友告诉我中国人&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;(事情)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'You're not intelligent enough to talk &lt;strong&gt;about&lt;/strong&gt; complex Chinese grammar'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你还没聪明到能够谈论&lt;strong&gt;有关&lt;/strong&gt;复杂的中文语法&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;(程度)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'复杂的中文语法' (complex Chinese grammar) is a part of the adjective phrase '复杂的中文语法的'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The object '程度'(level) can be omitted in English, but cannot be omitted in Chinese.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;有关 can be omitted&lt;/em&gt; :你还没聪明到能够谈论复杂的中文语法&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;(程度)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'The novel is (a novel) &lt;strong&gt;about&lt;/strong&gt; dragons'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'这小说是&lt;strong&gt;关于&lt;/strong&gt;龙&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;(小说)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'龙'(dragons) is a part of the adjective phrase '龙的'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Since the object 'novel'(小说) is the same as the subject, it can be omitted in both English and Chinese.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;有关 can not be  omitted here&lt;/em&gt; -- because 龙 is a noun that can be either part of the adjective phrase or the subject. '这小说是龙&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;(小说)' could mean 'it is a novel about dragons' or 'dragons own this novel'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T20:23:27.507" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22674" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22706" CreationDate="2017-02-07T20:35:10.097" Score="3" ViewCount="574" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese writing full width versions of Western question marks and commas are used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;請問，你貴姓？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...] the concept of modern standard punctuation was adapted in the&#xA;  written language during the 20th century from Western punctuation&#xA;  marks. Before that, the concept of punctuation in Chinese literature&#xA;  existed mainly in the form of Judou, a system of punctuation marks&#xA;  denoting stops and pauses, though many works of poetry and prose, as&#xA;  well as nearly all calligraphic works, omitted Judou marks, for in&#xA;  most occasions, it was not necessary to understanding meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_punctuation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_punctuation&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But why then was the Western way of writing punctuation imported to Chinese writing?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It must have worked perfectly good without them? or was there some gain in starting to use Western punctuation in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Related&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/128/is-the-usage-of-european-punctuation-acceptable-in-chinese-writing&quot;&gt;Is the usage of European punctuation acceptable in Chinese writing?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3252/when-writing-pin-yin-should-you-use-a-question-mark-in-sentences-using-ma&quot;&gt;When writing pin yin, should you use a question mark in sentences using &amp;quot;ma&amp;quot;?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T02:26:31.600" Title="Why is Western punctuation used in Chinese writing?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22339" CreationDate="2017-02-08T02:18:46.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;亡羊补牢 means it's good for you to correct your mistake rather than insist of your fault. From the experience of many years lived in Chinese. This idiom is quite popular in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16362" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-02-08T20:21:04.637" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T20:21:04.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22677" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-08T07:48:32.230" Score="0" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good day.&#xA;I would like to know what this character means. Can you help me translate it? Thank you very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EUDXC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16378" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-02-08T13:56:46.593" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T13:56:46.593" Title="Can someone tell me what this means, please?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-02-19T13:59:38.850" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22677" CreationDate="2017-02-08T08:16:17.240" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;“歓” (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/zy/6B53.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/zy/6B53.htm&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An ancient form of &quot;歡&quot;, meaning happy and joy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(never tattoo something you don't know .....)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5875" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T08:16:17.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22597" CreationDate="2017-02-08T08:20:00.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1 - If you say &quot;谢谢&quot;, people will think you are rather proud&#xA;2 - If you say long sentences like: &quot;真的吗？我的中文能得到一个中国人的表扬，太棒了！&quot; people won't even listen until the end of such a long answer and will mainly think you are trying to show off and boast...&#xA;3 - Whatever the answer, it is not because you get a smile in return that people won't think u're rather arrogant. West and East react differently aka 直接 (zhíjiē) and 间接 (jiànjiē) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what should you say then? &#xA;Just: &quot;哪里哪里!&quot; is the simplest and the BEST option as it is exactly what the (Chinese) person who praised u is expecting you to answer :-) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16379" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T08:20:00.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22680" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22682" CreationDate="2017-02-08T08:51:21.733" Score="-1" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;could you please check, if I have translated these sentences in a right way? &#xA;Thanks a lot! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How should it be possible, to design a standard school uniform, that all students would like it, while every student is individual?&#xA;一件同一的校服怎么样可能形成(xing2cheng2)为了每个孩子喜欢他，每个孩子 虽然特别？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What do you want to achieve with inserting of a school uniform? &#xA;你用校服的施行(shi1xing2)想得到什么？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What sense does it make for parents to buy every year a new school uniform, if  child grows very quickly?&#xA;要是一个孩子很快张(zhang)，父母有什么意义每年买一件新的校服？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't you think, that it is important for a child to develop himself  free?&#xA;你们想孩子们随便的发展是不是重要？为什么？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How do you want to solve  costs-problems, if children need in summer another kind of a school-uniform ( as in winter)?&#xA;你们怎么样想解决(jie3jue2)费用的问题要是夏天别的校服被需要？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6703" LastEditorUserId="6703" LastEditDate="2017-02-08T09:11:29.023" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T18:48:43.700" Title="Please, help me to translate these sentences" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22680" CreationDate="2017-02-08T09:22:10.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.怎么可能设计一件标准的可以让彼此不同的所有学生都喜欢的校服？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.你想通过校服的施行来达到什么目的？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3.如果孩子成长(grows)得很快，父母每年买一件新校服有什么意义？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4.你们难道不认为孩子们自由(free)地发展很重要?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5.如果孩子们在夏天需要另一种校服，你们想('打算'is better)怎样解决费用的问题？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use 的(dé)地(dé)得(dé) correctly,&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Structural_particle_%22de%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;you can read this page.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the first sentence is always said without commas, so I translate it like this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16382" LastEditorUserId="16382" LastEditDate="2017-02-08T09:30:41.937" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T09:30:41.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22680" CreationDate="2017-02-08T09:22:22.520" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;How should it be possible, to design a standard school uniform, that all students would like it, while every student is individual?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;怎么可能设计出一套标准校服，让所有学生都喜欢它，而每个学生都是独立的个体 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you want to achieve with inserting of a school uniform?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你想透过施行校服实现什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What sense does it make for parents to buy every year a new school uniform, if child grows very quickly?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如果孩子成长得很快，父母每年购买一套新校服有什么意义？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't you think, that it is important for a child to develop himself free?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你不认为让一个孩子自由发展是很重要的吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you want to solve costs-problems, if children need in summer another kind of a school-uniform ( as in winter)?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如果孩子在夏天和冬天需要不同的校服，你如何解决费用的问题？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T09:22:22.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22671" CreationDate="2017-02-08T10:27:45.973" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can read 《汉语史稿》《说文解字》to learn the ancient Chinese pronunciation. But they might be difficult to understand if you can't use Chinese like a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16382" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T10:27:45.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22684" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-08T13:02:08.063" Score="0" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember once reading about a Chinese character in Unicode that noone knew its meaning and purpose, and after some googling, I found &lt;strong&gt;襨&lt;/strong&gt;. Aside from basic character databases like Wiktionary or Unihan, I wasn't able to find any sources about this character in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, does this character have a meaning? How was this character introduced in Unicode? Are there other such &quot;mysterious&quot; characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16384" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T13:24:33.447" Title="Origins and usage of '襨'" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22684" CreationDate="2017-02-08T13:24:33.447" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;char=%E8%A5%A8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;襨 U+8968&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;國語發音: dù  ㄉㄨˋ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first entry in 原典出處:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《金陵秋·第四章鄂變》：  計革人既潛漢口，而武昌中&lt;strong&gt;襨伏&lt;/strong&gt;必多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;襨伏 means 埋伏. Thus, I guess 襨 means something related to 埋 (bury, secrete, conceal)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T13:24:33.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22686" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22700" CreationDate="2017-02-08T18:18:28.297" Score="0" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having health problems and received a text from my mother-in-law from China, who I have never met.  I would really love to know what she said.  Can you please translate this text for me?  Thank you!!  =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use this link to see the photo I took of the text:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://s1099.photobucket.com/user/tnlizzy316/media/Screen%20Shot%202017-02-08%20at%201.13.03%20PM.png.html?sort=3&amp;amp;o=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://s1099.photobucket.com/user/tnlizzy316/media/Screen%20Shot%202017-02-08%20at%201.13.03%20PM.png.html?sort=3&amp;amp;o=0&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16385" LastActivityDate="2017-02-20T10:09:16.623" Title="please translate this text from My Mother-In-Law from China. I don't speak any Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22686" CreationDate="2017-02-08T18:35:23.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first word 加油 is hard to be directly translated to English. I here translate it as &quot;Keep calm and hold on&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep calm and hold on. I'm praying for you and may God bless you. May everything goes well and all wishes come true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T18:35:23.060" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22680" CreationDate="2017-02-08T18:48:43.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translations provided by the other guys seems unnatural to me. I reorganised the order of each sentence and used colloquial phrases and idiom. So don't use this for homework but this works fine in real life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;众口难调,你怎么可能设计出让所有学生都喜欢的校服?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;要求学生穿校服的目的是什么?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;孩子们都在长身体,难道父母们要每年买一件新校服吗?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你难道不觉得让孩子们自己做主自己的生活也很重要吗?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;孩子们需要冬,夏两套校服,你怎么解决费用问题?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T18:48:43.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22689" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22690" CreationDate="2017-02-08T19:29:40.690" Score="5" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;While learning about &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; usages, i confronted a headache conflict between it's usage or maybe it's an error so i need someone please to clarify this issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;下雨了&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If i go by it's use as action completion marker it mean it rained.&#xA;while in the course this example is for situation change meaning it rain now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;does it completely depend on context to figure out witch meaning ? &#xA;Thanks for your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12120" LastEditorUserId="12120" LastEditDate="2017-02-08T19:59:21.093" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T10:03:40.670" Title="了 usage conflict &quot;now&quot; vs &quot;completion&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22689" CreationDate="2017-02-08T20:13:11.620" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you say, &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; has two common uses: marking completion (i.e., the perfective marker) and marking a change in state. How can you tell them apart?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Immediately after the verb =&amp;gt; completed action&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example from jukuu (translation mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为下了雨,路是湿的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it rained, the road was wet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that the verb is &lt;code&gt;下&lt;/code&gt;, not &lt;code&gt;下雨&lt;/code&gt; (which is a &amp;quot;seperable verb&amp;quot; where &lt;code&gt;雨&lt;/code&gt; is the object).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;End of the sentence =&amp;gt; change of state&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又下雨了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's raining again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Both =&amp;gt; ???&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's possible for it to both be at the end of the sentence and immediately after the verb. In this case, it's ambiguous, and you will have to use your judgement. However, as I've shown using examples, &lt;code&gt;下雨了&lt;/code&gt; is not such a case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T20:13:11.620" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22689" CreationDate="2017-02-08T20:33:43.577" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/4E86.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;了 (le / ㄌㄜ˙)&lt;/a&gt; has two meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;放在动词或形容词后，表示动作或变化已经完成：写完～。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it follows a verb or adjective, it's a perfect or past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case we can use 过 or 曾经 to clarify its tense.&#xA;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下过雨了 or 曾经下雨了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It has been rained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天下雨了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It rained yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;助词，用在句子末尾或句中停顿的地方，表示变化，表示出现新的情况：刮风～。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Particle) When it's used at the end of the sentence or as a pause in the sentence, it means something is changing, a new situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下雨了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's raining.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2017-02-09T01:52:00.853" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T01:52:00.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22692" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-09T03:00:06.393" Score="2" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the German/Chinese forum a guy was asking about how to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is your little brother, that's why he looks up to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wanted to use: 因为他是你弟弟，当然他瞧得起你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ask 2 Chinese friends, who both said no, '瞧得起‘ is unfriendly, use 敬仰。 However, they haven't given me an explanation I can follow about why '瞧得起’ is unfriendly, derogatory. I don't want to get on their nerves, so I'll ask here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does 瞧得起 deride someone? Do they mean: ‘You think he is great, but he is not.'?? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is 瞧得起/看得起 used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T20:36:29.947" Title="What is the difference between 敬仰 and 瞧得起" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22692" CreationDate="2017-02-09T03:17:30.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;敬仰&lt;/strong&gt;' means '&lt;strong&gt;respect and admire&lt;/strong&gt;' ; '&lt;strong&gt;look up to&lt;/strong&gt;'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say that you 敬仰 someone, you are humbling yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;瞧得起&lt;/strong&gt;‘  means '&lt;strong&gt;consider worthy&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say you 瞧得起 someone, you are putting yourself in the position of judging that someone's worthiness (and in the position of granting favors to him or her) ;  you thanks someone for 瞧得起你 (consider you worthy) to show your humbleness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为他是你弟弟，当然他瞧得起你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... why '瞧得起’ is unfriendly, derogatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not unfriendly or derogatory, just improper in certain situations. It is perfectly acceptable to say: &amp;quot;your boss promotes you because he 瞧得起你&amp;quot;. It is also fine to say: &amp;quot; A big movie star 瞧得起你 because he invited you to his party.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A younger brother is not in the position of judging his older brother's worthiness. Therefore, 瞧得起 is an improper term to be used in this instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even for an older brother, it is still not right to say someone 瞧得起 his younger brother-- Brothers are expected to consider each others worthy by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;敬仰 = 尊敬(respect)+ 仰慕(admire)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The opposite of 瞧得起 (consider worthy/ look favorably upon) is 瞧不起 (consider not worthy/ look down upon)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T10:17:57.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22525" CreationDate="2017-02-09T05:42:49.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A late answer...&lt;br&gt;Look for 朱駿聲，《說文通訓定聲》第三版。臺北：藝文印書館，1975。 &lt;br&gt;This edition has a regular radical/stroke index. If you are lucky, your library has a copy.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; Another more roundabout way is to look for 周法高's《漢字古今音彙》第三版。香港：中文大學，1982. This book has a key to 通訓定聲 for each entry that gives you the number of the rhyme class and the number of the character under the rhyme class (from 1 to xxxx). &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;For example, 「一」 is 12.1098, meaning it is the 1098th character in 朱's rhyme class 12 (履部). 周 got these numbers from a book called 檢字一貫三 by 三家村學究, if your library doesn't have either of the two books above, it might have this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2017-02-09T06:05:55.120" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T06:05:55.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22108" CreationDate="2017-02-09T09:32:13.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest:&#xA;「原文以德文發佈。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The original passage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;was being&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;German&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;發佈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Published&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6272" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T09:32:13.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22689" CreationDate="2017-02-09T09:58:59.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mmm, 了 again :)&#xA;There are &lt;em&gt;common&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;not so common&lt;/em&gt; theories of the meaning of 了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The common one: verbal 了 is a completion marker i.e. &lt;em&gt;perfective&lt;/em&gt; marker (Don't confuse it with &quot;perfect&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The now-marginal one: verbal 了 is a marker of actuality of realis maker (Chinese being purely modal language is lacking any tense catigories, thus developed a way to express &quot;tense&quot; by dividing verbs to &lt;em&gt;real&lt;/em&gt;(which took, take or will 100% take place in reality) and &lt;em&gt;unreal worlds&lt;/em&gt;(dreams, hypothesis, order, habits ect.). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just look for my previous questions and posts, there is much explanation there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short 下雨了 means that the situation of raining is real. Now, WHAT it means is up to the listener!!! It can very well be translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;It has rained&quot;, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;It is raining now&quot; ect. &#xA;There should be some context helping you to pick one of the possible translations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it is better to translate the &quot;bare verb form of the sentence&quot; and see what了 might bring if it were there. So 下雨 could mean: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a dream &quot;it is raining (in my dream)&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a habit of raining (&quot;It raining which is a usual thing here&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;an order (&quot;Rain, God damn you!&quot;)...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;any other interpretation where &quot;raining&quot; does not take place in reality.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T09:58:59.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22689" CreationDate="2017-02-09T10:03:40.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The particle 了 (le) has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Uses_of_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;lot of uses&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. The following articles will tell you the difference between 了 as the change of state and 了 as the action complition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Change_of_state_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Change of state with 了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[New Situation] + 了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used in this way, 了(le) is placed at the end of the sentence to show that the whole statement describes a new situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 下雨了 → It wasn't raining, but now it is&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_completion_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Expressing completion with 了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Subj. + Verb + 了 + Obj.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above structure indicates completeness with 了. Notice that 了 goes directly after the verb. (This 了 is called &lt;strong&gt;verb 了&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 你今天早上吃了什么？ → What did you eat this morning? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16248" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T10:03:40.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22698" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-09T11:30:50.767" Score="2" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;It says:&#xA;请勿餐和饮料进来&#xA;Personally I would say:&#xA;请把餐和饮料拿不进来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16388" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T15:27:33.903" Title="Is the following correct ? (sign in Chinese seen in Thailand)" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22698" CreationDate="2017-02-09T14:35:25.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, I don't think that's good enough. From Chinese slogans' use condition it's better to be“请勿自带餐品（食品）和饮料入内” or “禁止外带餐品饮料”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16343" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T14:35:25.890" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22686" CreationDate="2017-02-09T14:53:38.877" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's“Cheer up, I'm praying for you and may God bless you. May everything goes well and all wishes come true.” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16343" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T14:53:38.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22701" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-09T15:00:04.527" Score="1" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;而将活活地被压死&quot; could you break down the meaning of that sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15283" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T13:10:14.090" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T13:10:14.090" Title="What does 而将活活地被压死 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22701" CreationDate="2017-02-09T15:37:48.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;而 is a conjunction. Depend on the previous part of the speech, it could mean 'and yet; but; nevertheless; accordingly; otherwise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1.将] [2.活活地] [3.被压死]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. Will] [2. while still alive (adverb phrase) ] [3. be crushed to death]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Will be killed by crushed alive&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*The adverb 活活地(alive) can be shortened to 活活&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;more example of 活活地 (alive) as an adverb: &quot;活活剝皮&quot; (to skin alive).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T15:37:48.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22703" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22728" CreationDate="2017-02-09T15:54:09.803" Score="-1" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Outlier&lt;/strong&gt;'s entry for 我 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我 depicts a saw-toothed weapon with a long handle. The modern meaning &quot;I, me&quot; is unrelated to the form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess is: &lt;strong&gt;俄&lt;/strong&gt; - modern pronunciation &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; e2 - but the logic of 亻[person] meaning + [weapon] pronunciation 我 - fits the origin of a lot Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-02-11T05:44:09.573" Title="If the form for the character &quot;I&quot; (我) had been related to its meaning - how would it look?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22701" CreationDate="2017-02-09T21:05:39.587" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/3/2/11/n274739.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;“杞人憂天”新解&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;從前在杞國，有一個膽子很小，而且有點神經質的人，他常會想到一些奇怪的問題，而讓人覺得莫名其妙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有一天，他吃過晚飯以後，拿了一把大蒲扇，坐在門前乘涼，並且自言自語的說：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“假如有一天，天塌了下來，那該怎麼辦呢？我們豈不是無路可逃，&lt;strong&gt;而將活活地被壓死&lt;/strong&gt;，這不就太冤枉了嗎？” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們豈不是無路可逃，而將活活地被壓死。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We will have no way to run away, but will be crushed to death alive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(而)(將)(活活地)(被壓死)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(but) (will) (be crushed to death) (alive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而 but&lt;br&gt;&#xA;將 will&lt;br&gt;&#xA;活活地 alive&lt;br&gt;&#xA;被壓死 be crushed to death&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T21:05:39.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22692" CreationDate="2017-02-09T22:44:36.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;敬仰&lt;/strong&gt;是书面用语，适用于正式场合。&lt;strong&gt;瞧得&lt;/strong&gt;起是口语，适用于街头巷尾。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外，&lt;strong&gt;敬仰&lt;/strong&gt;隐含仰视的意思，是自认身份较低的人对身份较高的人所说。&#xA;而&lt;strong&gt;瞧得起&lt;/strong&gt;，则带有非常明显的俯视态度，有认为自己纡尊降贵的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;敬仰&lt;/strong&gt;是书面用语，适用于正式场合。&lt;strong&gt;瞧得起&lt;/strong&gt;是口语，适用于街头巷尾。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外，&lt;strong&gt;敬仰&lt;/strong&gt;隐含仰视的意思，是自认身份较低的人对身份较高的人所说。&#xA;而&lt;strong&gt;瞧得起&lt;/strong&gt;，则带有非常明显的俯视态度，有认为自己纡尊降贵的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;One difference is that &lt;strong&gt;敬仰&lt;/strong&gt; is mostly used in written, and in formal circumstances, whereas &lt;strong&gt;瞧得起&lt;/strong&gt; is colloquial and more popular. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, &lt;strong&gt;敬仰&lt;/strong&gt; implicitly conveys admiration,  it is used by someone - who puts themselves in a lower status - when referring to someone else of higher status. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;On the other hand, &lt;strong&gt;瞧得起&lt;/strong&gt; carries an extremely evident sense of patronizing superiority and condescension.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16389" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-02-19T16:08:12.863" LastActivityDate="2017-02-19T16:08:12.863" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22674" CreationDate="2017-02-10T02:17:54.280" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found answers in Chinese Wikipedia:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classical Chinese has a punctuation system of its own. However, this system is rarely used. The method to read Classical Chinese without punctuation was taught in elementary schools in the past, but it was still too difficult for common people to understand. You may know that Chinese is an isolating language, which means morphemes are quite sequence-sensitive. Even a simple phrase can have quite a few different meanings. In Modern Chinese, this appears even more often.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Examples:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;是你 (It) is you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;是你。 It is you.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;是你？ Is it you?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;哼！是你？ Hmph! Is it you? (contempt)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;During the late 1910s, there is a movement called New Culture Movement, and a major goal of it is to teach everyone to read and write. The Classical Chinese was too hard for people to read, and lacking punctuation is one of the difficulties. On 29 November, 1919, Ma Yuzao and other 5 person submitted a proposal of calling for using modern punctuation system, which mixed classical and Western punctuations (according to Guan Xihua, 2002). &lt;em&gt;Outline of History of Chinese Philosophy&lt;/em&gt; by Hu Shi is the first work applying this punctuation system.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The reason of adapting a &quot;Western&quot; punctuation system is to make reading texts easier, especially for those who is learning reading for the first time. Since the using of new punctuation system, Baihuawen, or Modern Chinese was popularized quite rapidly.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="11744" LastEditDate="2017-02-10T02:26:31.600" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T02:26:31.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1167" CreationDate="2017-02-10T05:21:51.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;人民:People refer to a &lt;strong&gt;collection of people&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;民族:With a common &lt;strong&gt;languag&lt;/strong&gt;e, &lt;strong&gt;regional&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;economic life&lt;/strong&gt; and its performance in the &lt;strong&gt;common cultural&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;common psychological quality&lt;/strong&gt; and the stability of the community&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so,民族 The category of people with common characteristics (national) collection&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16390" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T05:21:51.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1448" CreationDate="2017-02-10T06:11:45.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;科举制:The imperial examination system formed in the sui and tang dynasties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明清科举:Divided into three, Court exam(院试), village exam(乡试),会试,and palace exam(殿试)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if the court exam success.title:秀才&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the village exam success.title:举人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last item on the exam is 殿试.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the first.title:状元&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the second.title:榜眼&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the third.title:探花&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once through 殿试.All called 进士.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16390" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T06:11:45.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22709" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-10T07:40:25.733" Score="1" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;Decomposition Option of the Chinese Character 天 tiān ‘sky’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天 tiān ‘sky’&#xA;一 yī one&#xA;大 dà big&#xA;一 yī one&#xA;人 rén man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天一 大 一 人 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NB. Synonyms: Structural analysis of the Chinese characters, Breakdown of the Chinese characters, Chinese characters split.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15688" LastActivityDate="2017-03-12T12:40:23.170" Title="Are Chinese and Japanese characters decomposed the same way?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22709" CreationDate="2017-02-10T11:43:06.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost all Japanese characters (in my experience &gt;99%) are exist in Chinese. Few are changed a little, like 宮 and 宫. As a Chinese, I have no difficulty in recognizing Japanese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of Chinese characters is simplified in simplified Chinese, but remain unchanged in Japanese, like 車 and 车.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some rare Japanese characters which doesn't has corresponding Chinese character.　But they are still formed by components used in other characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2541" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T11:43:06.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22713" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-10T12:30:31.727" Score="1" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;Decomposition of the Chinese Character 天 tiān ‘sky’ Poll&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;二 èr, 人 rén &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一 yī, 大 dà &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一 yī, 大 dà, 一 yī, 人 rén &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15688" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T11:09:32.583" Title="Which decomposition option of the Chinese character 天 tiān ‘sky’ is correct?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22713" CreationDate="2017-02-10T14:57:37.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;二人：&lt;strong&gt;夫&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UnkVQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UnkVQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一大：&lt;strong&gt;天&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/J1uBY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/J1uBY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一一人：wrong, since &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;二&lt;/a&gt; is not &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一一&lt;/a&gt;, it is a radical itself, which is composed of 2 horizontal &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_(CJKV_character)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;strokes&lt;/a&gt; (横)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JTI6c.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JTI6c.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16248" LastEditorUserId="16248" LastEditDate="2017-02-11T03:37:47.707" LastActivityDate="2017-02-11T03:37:47.707" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22716" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-10T15:48:42.010" Score="0" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4raef.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4raef.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I dont know answer the question, could anybody help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16397" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T16:02:37.770" Title="I dont know answer the question, could anybody help me?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22716" CreationDate="2017-02-10T16:02:37.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This means you need to set a security question to protect your QQ account. QQ is a social media and it's easy to be hacked, set a security question can help you find your account back.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16398" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T16:02:37.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22718" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23440" CreationDate="2017-02-10T16:08:18.290" Score="2" ViewCount="401" Body="&lt;p&gt;In class I remember my 老师 said there is a difference between 店 and 馆。&#xA;For example: 咖啡店 and 咖啡馆。In this context what is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16080" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T18:26:42.170" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T18:26:42.170" Title="What is the difference between 店 and 馆?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22718" CreationDate="2017-02-10T16:14:55.273" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;i don't think there is a a difference. Technically, say 咖啡馆 is more oral, 咖啡店 is more literal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16399" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T16:14:55.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22721" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22726" CreationDate="2017-02-10T16:52:20.950" Score="2" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say 'to stay' or 'to visit' a business?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &#xA;&quot;How long do you plan &lt;em&gt;stay&lt;/em&gt; at the coffee shop?&quot; or&#xA; &quot;We are glad you came &lt;em&gt;to visit&lt;/em&gt; our store.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words like 看，访问，住，下榻，... All seem to pertain to traveling, or visiting someone. But my topic is about visiting a business or store instead of a person or vacation destination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would 坐 be appropriate? Like 你多久坐在咖啡店？But, I guess that does not work for 'to visit' if it is a grocery store.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16080" LastActivityDate="2017-02-18T20:38:07.983" Title="How do you say &quot;to stay&quot; or &quot;to visit&quot; a business instead of a person or vacation destination?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22713" CreationDate="2017-02-10T18:32:11.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The newly released &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.outlier-linguistics.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters&lt;/a&gt; decomposes 天 into 一 and 大. The authors of the dictionary are very concerned about providing information based on serious scholarship, so I would trust it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T18:32:11.013" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22721" CreationDate="2017-02-10T19:46:46.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Full disclosure: my Chinese is more Taiwanese than anything mainland. However, I would say something like &quot;你要在咖啡店留多久？“ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google suggests &quot;你打算在咖啡店呆多久？” which I think is also a good (or probably better) way to say it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16404" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T19:46:46.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22718" CreationDate="2017-02-10T19:49:25.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your comment is right, although in my (admittedly) more colloquial Taiwanese-y Chinese, I would probably call it a 咖啡站 instead of a 咖啡館. However, a 店 is probably a store where you buy supplies related to the product. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16404" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T19:49:25.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22721" CreationDate="2017-02-10T20:39:04.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;How do you say 'to stay' or 'to visit' a business?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt; (visit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上酒家 (dine in a restaurant)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上洒店 (*rent room in a hotel) * &lt;em&gt;short stay for a night or few hours&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上酒吧 (visit a bar)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/12336/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;光顧&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (patronage; patronize | [粵]: 幫襯 )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;光顧某店( shop at some store)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;光顧髮型屋 (visit the hair salon)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other usage of 光顧:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;被小偷光顧 (visited by a thief)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;逛&lt;/strong&gt; (visit/ tour)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逛公司 (shop at or window shopping at department store)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逛遊樂場 (visit / touring amusement park)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;泡&lt;/strong&gt; (visit / linger)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泡酒吧 ( visit a bar / linger in a  bar)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泡網吧 (visit or linger in an internet bar)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;We are glad you came to visit our store.&amp;quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我們很高興閣下&lt;strong&gt;光顧/ 光臨&lt;/strong&gt;本店&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;歡迎閣下&lt;strong&gt;光臨&lt;/strong&gt;本店。&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/48777/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;閣下&lt;/a&gt;: (formal) you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/10173/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;光臨&lt;/a&gt;: (formal) to honor with one's presence; to attend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T22:35:15.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22718" CreationDate="2017-02-10T20:49:00.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/99/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;店&lt;/a&gt;(shop; store; commercial establishment) is undoubtedly a business&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/316/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;馆&lt;/a&gt;(1. public building for accommodation 2.public building for cultural activities  3.public building for certain services) may or may not be a business&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T20:49:00.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22703" CreationDate="2017-02-10T21:42:43.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Axel Schuessler, in his &lt;em&gt;ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese&lt;/em&gt;, writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;wǒ&lt;/strong&gt; 我 (ŋâ[B]) &lt;strong&gt;LH&lt;/strong&gt; ŋai[B], &lt;strong&gt;OCM&lt;/strong&gt; *ŋâiʔ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Independent pronoun 'I, we' [OB, BI, Shi], in classical texts 'I&#xA;  (stressed), we'....Originally, the graph for &lt;em&gt;wǒ&lt;/em&gt; seems to have been&#xA;  created to write the name of a Shang period people/country, 'sheep' 羊&#xA;  was later added 義 (prob. signifying pastoralists) in order to&#xA;  distinguish the name from the pronoun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He cites Sagart &lt;em&gt;TP&lt;/em&gt; 81, 4–5, 1995: 328–342.  (Probably &lt;a href=&quot;https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/file/index/docid/105097/filename/CHINESE_BUY_AND_SELL_AND_THE_DIRECTION_OF_BORROWINGS_.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;, though I'm not sure.)  This doesn't mean the graph doesn't originally depict a rake (as proposed by Richard Sears of chineseetymology.org) or a saw-toothed weapon with a long handle (as proposed by Ash Henson and co. at the Outlier Dictionary), but it does suggest that in any case, by the time it was 假借 borrowed for the pronoun, it was apparently already used figuratively to refer to a country or its people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Schuessler goes on to say that Mandarin &lt;em&gt;wǒ&lt;/em&gt; is a colloquial archaism; some northern dialects have the expected &lt;em&gt;ě&lt;/em&gt;, while some southern dialects have preserved the Old Chinese rhyme shown above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Key: &lt;strong&gt;LH&lt;/strong&gt; = Later Han, &lt;strong&gt;OCM&lt;/strong&gt; = Old Chinese Minimal, OB = Shang dynasty oracle bone inscriptions, BI = bronze inscriptions, Shi = 詩經 Shījīng (therefore, appears no later than 600 BC), &lt;em&gt;TP&lt;/em&gt; = 通報 T'oung Pao (a Wade-Giles-ish rendering), a journal on traditional Chinese culture founded in 1890.  The pronunciation in parentheses is the Middle Chinese reconstruction; the [B] is actually a superscript and represents 上聲 shǎngshēng, the second of the four Middle Chinese tones, from which evolved the modern Mandarin third tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9824" LastEditorUserId="9824" LastEditDate="2017-02-10T22:46:08.580" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T22:46:08.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22671" CreationDate="2017-02-10T22:35:39.730" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt it.  Baxter and Sagart themselves mention, in &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0199945373&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;their recent book on Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt;, that the reconstruction is at least partly schematic: The symbols are meant to be phonemic, not phonetic.  Roughly speaking, that means that their main function is to trace the etymology of the spoken language, not to reflect how the sounds were actually realized.  In many cases, they know no more about a particular sound than that it was a consonant of some sort, or sometimes that it was a velar consonant, or a guttural consonant, or some kind of lower vowel, or whatever.  However, they have decided to use a convention that makes sense, that whenever a sound has so-and-so kind of reflex in the modern languages, or in Middle Chinese, then it will be represented with such-and-such a symbol in their Old Chinese transcription.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In reality, in most cases, the sound probably was something like what they transcribe, but not reliably so.  At one point, a few years ago, Baxter and Sagart produced a &quot;simplified&quot; version of their reconstruction, which filtered out some of the uncertainties and made various specific decisions about which sounds went where.  They decided in the end to scrap that version, because they felt it conveyed an unrealistic level of assuredness about the sounds of Old Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At any rate, even if one were to pick a particular realization of the phonemes of Old Chinese, it would probably take a lot of effort to learn to speak it fluently enough to read, say, Confucius, and no one is going to put in that much effort if there's a good chance a large percentage is just plain wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9824" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T22:35:39.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22713" CreationDate="2017-02-11T02:32:16.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;大 is just a person standing, see the old forms of 大 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/zy/5927.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/zy/5927.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Old forms of 人 show a person with his back bent, maybe working in the fields or praying or bowing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儿 shows 2 legs, draw them together and you have 人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you put a line on 2 legs, 儿 you get 丌， which is a pedestal or some kind of small table, not 'heaven'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More interesting is what the ancients thought of when they wrote 天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps they thought 'the one, 一 that is above and bigger than mortals 大' which neatly uses the senses of big and person in 1 character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-02-11T02:32:16.167" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22731" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-11T03:06:23.133" Score="0" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese Characters Decomposition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丿  piě slash&#xA;十  shí ten&#xA;一  yī one&#xA;丨  gǔn line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15688" LastActivityDate="2017-02-12T03:13:32.690" Title="What character could be made with these radicals?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2017-02-19T14:00:50.713" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22718" CreationDate="2017-02-11T03:53:13.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;店:&#xA;1.商店，卖东西的铺子&#xA;杂货～|～铺|～员。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.旅馆&#xA;住～|车马～|旅～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;馆：&#xA;1.供宾客、旅客居住的场所&#xA;宾～|旅～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.一个国家在另一个国家办理外交的人员办公的处所&#xA;大使～|领事～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.开展文化体育活动的场所&#xA;图书～|博物～|体育～|文化～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.某些服务行业店铺的名称 &#xA;饭～|茶～|理发～|照相～。&#xA;The first translation  of 店 sometimes has the same meaning of the last translation  of 馆 and the second translation  of 店 sometimes has the same translation of the first meaning of 馆。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2017-02-11T03:53:13.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22731" CreationDate="2017-02-11T04:07:26.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's a 卉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;huì&#xA;  各种供观赏的草的总称&#xA;  花～|奇花异～。&#xA;  Which means general term for a variety of &#xA;  ornamental grasses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2017-02-11T04:07:26.033" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22734" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-11T04:18:32.173" Score="3" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;一个农民工请了一个他不认识的女人代收他女儿要寄给他的月饼包裹。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女人说：“这个忙好帮，您不怕我把收到的月饼给吃了？”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The woman said, &quot;That's easy, but aren't you afraid that I might eat the cakes?&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她在这句话用的‘给’是什么意思？ 如果写“您不怕我把收到的月饼吃了”有区别吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T09:11:32.633" Title="What is this 给 doing in this sentence?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22734" CreationDate="2017-02-11T04:45:04.740" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/365632v.html&quot;&gt;給 6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用於動詞前，表示加強「被動」或「處置」等語氣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在這裡是「加強處置的語氣」。&#xA;沒有「給」，也可以，但是語氣較弱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Used before a verb, to enhance the &quot;passive&quot; or &quot;to deal with&quot; and other tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the tone of &quot;to deal with&quot; here (in your example).&#xA;It is OK without 給, but the tone is weaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-02-11T04:45:04.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22734" CreationDate="2017-02-11T05:33:50.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;您不怕我把收到的月饼给吃了？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“您不怕我把收到的月饼吃了”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 is a 'depositive marker' that marks the noun(月饼) after it as an object to be deposited of,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;月饼吃了= the moon cake ate (月饼 is in the subject position)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把月饼吃了= ate the moon cake (把 marks 月饼 as the object, to be deposited of- &lt;em&gt;deposit by eating it&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 给 is a 'passive voice marker' that mark the noun (月饼) as an object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;月饼吃了= the moon cake ate (月饼 is in the subject position)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;月饼给(subject omitted)吃了 = the moon cake was eaten (subject omitted) (给 marks 月饼 as the object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the 'depositive marker' 把 already marked the noun after it as the object, you do not need to add 'passive voice marker' 给 after it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding 给 here just for emphasis, make the tone of the speech stronger. Just like the other answer suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-11T05:44:10.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22738" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22739" CreationDate="2017-02-11T10:38:00.543" Score="3" ViewCount="398" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference between the expressions 元宵节 and  灯节, or are they exactly the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13168" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T14:55:14.410" Title="Difference between 元宵节 and 灯节？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22738" CreationDate="2017-02-11T12:43:13.443" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%83%E5%AE%B5%E8%8A%82&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;元宵節&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;亦稱為上元節、小正月、元夕、小年或春燈節。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  時間是每年的農曆正月十五。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  佛教有在正月十五點燈供佛的習俗。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  而道教中，上元節乃天官華誕，故燃燈以慶。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;元：上元 (農曆正月十五，the 15th of the 1st lunar month)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;宵：夜晚 (night, evening)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;元宵：the evening of the 15th of the 1st lunar month&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lantern: 燈&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Festival: 節&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lantern Festival: 燈節&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hitutor.com.tw/lantern-festival-story.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;元宵節的由來英文介紹&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, usually in February or March in the Gregorian calendar. As early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), it had become a festival with great significance. This day's important activity is watching lanterns. Throughout the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), Buddhism flourished in China. One emperor heard that Buddhist monks would watch sarira, or remains from the cremation of Buddha's body, and light lanterns to worship Buddha on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, so he ordered to light lanterns in the imperial palace and temples to show respect to Buddha on this day. Later, the Buddhist rite developed into a grand festival among common people and its influence expanded from the Central Plains to the whole of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每年農曆的正月十五日，春節剛過，迎來的就是中國的傳統節日--元宵節。元宵節主要的活動就是看燈。東漢明帝時期，明帝提倡佛教，聽說佛教有正月十五日僧人觀佛舍利，點燈敬佛的做法，就命令這一天夜晚在皇宮和寺廟裡點燈敬佛，令士族庶民都掛燈。以後這種佛教禮儀節日逐漸形成民間盛大的節日。該節經歷了由宮廷到民間，由中原到全國的發展過程。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-11T12:43:13.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22731" CreationDate="2017-02-12T03:13:32.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;丿一丨一 ： Radical &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;牛 (牜, ⺧)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;丿一丨一丨：Many characters start with this set of strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I2A2B.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I2A2B.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16248" LastActivityDate="2017-02-12T03:13:32.690" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22721" CreationDate="2017-02-12T08:23:51.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe my answer will be a little different from China. I am Taiwanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q:How long do you plan stay at the coffee shop?&#xA;A1:您打算在咖啡廳待多久呢？（polite way for stranger)&#xA;A2:你要在咖啡廳坐多久？（for acquaintance）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q:We are glad you came to visit our store.&quot;&#xA;A:我們很高興您來拜訪本店（polite way for stranger)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16412" LastActivityDate="2017-02-12T08:23:51.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22744" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22760" CreationDate="2017-02-12T13:32:35.660" Score="0" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone please tell me the meaning of this, during unistalling a program ?&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5rupb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5rupb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16415" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T16:49:13.420" Title="What these means in chinese language, during uninstallation of OSTOTO hotspot?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-02-14T13:09:43.783" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22721" CreationDate="2017-02-12T16:52:53.467" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'to stay' in Chinese is '逗留'  ，'坐'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16417" LastActivityDate="2017-02-12T16:52:53.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22747" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-12T20:39:31.017" Score="0" ViewCount="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please help me translate this! (&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Ok5z.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Ok5z.jpg&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16418" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T06:43:46.500" Title="I visited shanghai a few years ago and bought a necklace. Unfortunately, I don't remember what the necklace says. Can someone help me translate?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-02-13T12:30:10.853" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22738" CreationDate="2017-02-12T22:46:25.027" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;元宵节和灯节其实是一样的，两种称呼而已。这一天人们通常会猜灯谜、赏花灯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16419" LastActivityDate="2017-02-12T22:46:25.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22750" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-13T00:55:16.627" Score="0" ViewCount="1385" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the best way to memorize Chinese characters is learning Chinese character decomposition! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See how it is easy to remember Chinese characters with the help of a simple analysis of the character components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Decomposition of the Chinese character  会 huì ‘can’&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  rén man&#xA;云  yún cloud &#xA;二  èr two&#xA;厶  sī private   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; 云 二厶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15688" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-02-13T02:36:48.063" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:46:33.653" Title="What is the best way to memorize Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-08-09T04:03:26.150" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22750" CreationDate="2017-02-13T01:36:52.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what you mean by memorizing Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading : No decomposition needed.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Writing :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.1. Handwriting: No decomposition needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.2. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_input_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pinyin input&lt;/a&gt;: No decomposition needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.3. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubihua_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wubihua method&lt;/a&gt;: No decomposition needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.4. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wubi method&lt;/a&gt;: Need to know radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, only Wubi method requires decomposition of Chinese characters. Since most of Chinese people are not able to use Wubi and not willing to learn it, because of its complexity, we can conclude that decomposition of Chinese characters is not necessary to memorize them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16248" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T01:36:52.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22752" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-13T05:24:19.770" Score="2" ViewCount="684" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both refer to a &quot;republic&quot; in English. The obvious comparison is the names of the PRC and Taiwan, but I'm assuming it's the same word for &quot;republic&quot; in other countries, e.g. how Singapore is known as Sin-ka-pho Kiōng-hô-kok (&quot;Republic of Singapore&quot;), while South Korea (Republic of Korea) is written in hanja as 大韓民國.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a specific definition that defines a nation as a 民國 vis-a-vis a 共和国, or is it just preference at the time of naming?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16284" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T09:10:29.717" Title="What is the difference between a 民國 and a 共和国?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22747" CreationDate="2017-02-13T06:43:46.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is“想得美”,means &quot;like your wish&quot;or &quot;don't be naive&quot;;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16421" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T06:43:46.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22752" CreationDate="2017-02-13T07:14:49.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;中华民国 (Republic of China) founded 1911 to 1949 founded by dr.Sun Yat Sen from 国民党 Party, 中华人民共和国（The People's Republic of China）1949 - present founded by 共产党 Party。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If You want to know the detail you must read china revolution from 1911 to 1949, cause it's rather complicated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15418" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T07:14:49.603" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22750" CreationDate="2017-02-13T08:23:20.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It also depend on how much you already know about chinese characters and how much time you have to invest on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are an absolute beginner and you want to learn some basic character in your spare time, I find very useful a smarphone app called Memrise. It has memes to help you memorizing, you can even create your own memes for each character, and it has periodical multiple choice tests for both meaning and pronunciations of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also teaches radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a good method for recognition, but doesn't help a lot if your goal is to become able to write hazi by hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To learn to write them, you can use a dictionary smartphone app, like Pleco wich has built-in handwriting recognition, and try to write them again and again until you remember every stroke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If sudying this way (on your own, with Memrise, in your spare time) consider one/two year to learn more or less 100 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you attend a Chinese class, Memrise doesn't help since it's too slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could use Pleco's flashcard to help you review the hanzi you don't remember.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn to write, there's no shortcut: you have to write down them again and again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16423" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T08:23:20.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18132" CreationDate="2017-02-13T12:17:00.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the creator want to say &quot; see entertainment festival today&quot; so he put it into google translate or see dictionary word by word, but he doesn't realize the grammar was totally wrong. After that some Chinese point that problem but too late, so the only thing can do is refuse to admit that error, just telling people that Chinese was mean less or just for fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16425" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T12:17:00.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22757" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-13T13:28:43.990" Score="1" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hUd1N.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hUd1N.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do these Chinese seal characters mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16426" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-20T00:38:47.647" LastActivityDate="2020-08-20T00:38:47.647" Title="What are the seal characters on this white jade pendant? (Characters identified: 龍德)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22757" CreationDate="2017-02-13T13:36:08.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like 龍德, which seems to be the name of various Chinese and Vietnamese kings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T13:36:08.033" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2493" CreationDate="2017-02-13T14:01:40.687" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context 报 is used as a verb that means 'sign up for'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16427" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T14:01:40.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22744" CreationDate="2017-02-13T16:21:00.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It says &quot;Please don't leave me. You said we'd always be together&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The left orange button means QQ support.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right green button means official forum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the left small grey button means &quot;continue&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right small green button means &quot;give another chance&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16429" LastEditorUserId="16429" LastEditDate="2017-02-13T16:49:13.420" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T16:49:13.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22752" CreationDate="2017-02-13T20:39:18.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term 'Republic' originated from Latin '&lt;em&gt;res&lt;/em&gt;'(entity, concern) and '&lt;em&gt;publicus&lt;/em&gt;'(&lt;em&gt;of the people, public&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'民國' and '共和國' both means 'republic' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'民國' emphasize on the meaning of 'people' (民)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'共和國' emphasize on the meaning of 'public' (共)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China for most of its history, was an empire.  All the power belongs to the imperial court. The people(民) had no power at all, therefore 'republic' was  translated as '共和國', emphasized on the word '共'(public)- '共和'(public together)- '共和國'(nation of public together)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Sun Yat Se and his party 國民黨 defeated the Qing Dynasty, ended the imperial rule, they chose to name the new China '中華&lt;strong&gt;民&lt;/strong&gt;國'(Chinese republic/ republic of China) to emphasize China was no longer an &lt;strong&gt;帝&lt;/strong&gt;國 (empire). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason to choose the name '中華民國' was the word '民' can also represent '民族' as in '中華民族' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, most republic in the world are translated as '共和國' in Chinese, because not all republic is made up of mostly one single 民族 like China(中華民族) and Korea (大韓民族).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-02-14T06:23:33.367" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T06:23:33.367" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22752" CreationDate="2017-02-13T23:26:49.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Republican and imperialism(historical meaning, rule by an emperor), were the two options available to the revolutionaries when KMT founded Republic of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that republican government is a very broad idea and various groups of people has their own version of understanding. But back at that time those who win over the other side has one in common, that they oppose the ruling by the emperor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;民国 and 帝国 are a pair of notions more understood by Chinese in 20th century when the ROC was founded. That's one reason 民国 is used instead of 共和国. Both Republic of China and Republic of Korea chooses their official translation to be 民国 to differentiate themself from 帝国 such as Qing Empire, Japan Empire or Korean Empire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also back to 19-20 century, many east Asian theorists and politicians borrowed the idea of nation 国族 and nation state 民族国家 from their European contemporaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other side, some people instead support pan-asianism which promotes the unity of all asian people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of them aim to save asian countries from European colonists and preserve independence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KMT was a nationalist party who want to construct a new national identity and a new nation state. And the south Koreans oppose the pan-asianism as the latter is believed to lead to the invasion by Japan Empire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this reason, they want to emphasize that the new countries, ROC and ROK respectively, are nation state owned by their own people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum up, 民国 emphasized two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Republican government - as oppose to a government ruled by the emperor &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nation state - as oppose to a country manipulated by foreign nations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T23:26:49.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22763" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-14T00:16:44.220" Score="0" ViewCount="948" Body="&lt;p&gt;This 将 indicates A. 'just before' or B. 'just after' sunset? zdic.net has&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;将： 快要， ‘just about to' so A&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;将： 刚，刚刚 which I think means 'just happened', so B&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那是一个夕阳将落的傍晚，.....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T22:14:32.887" Title="What is the meaning of this 将？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3501" CreationDate="2017-02-14T05:15:07.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are the Chinese characters and the Chinese radicals in the Chinese language. A set of radicals form a Chinese character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite often a radical itself can be a Chinese character as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese characters can be decomposed (or broken down, split) into radicals for the sake of making the Chinese characters learning process simple and understandable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is why Chinese character decomposition is a very effective tool for teaching, learning and memorizing the Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please see below how Chinese character decomposition makes learning simple, indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese characters 口 kǒu ‘mouth’ and 日 rì ‘sun’ both include the radical 冂 jiōng ‘down box’.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, the Chinese character 口 kǒu ‘mouth’ also includes the radical 一 yī ‘one’. The Chinese character 日 rì ‘sun’ also includes the radical 二 èr ‘two’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the overall decomposition of the both Chinese characters looks like following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;口 kǒu ‘mouth’&#xA;冂 jiōng ‘down box’&#xA;一 yī ‘one’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日 rì ‘sun’&#xA;冂 jiōng ‘down box’&#xA;二 èr ‘two’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simple, isn’t it? Now we understand that any Chinese character can be decomposed into the Chinese radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15688" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T05:15:07.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22763" CreationDate="2017-02-14T05:53:56.997" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;將 = about to = will soon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;In the evening, the moment the Sun was about to set,&quot; [...I suppose the sentence is unfinished]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: right, I am reminded that (slightly old-fashioned sense) 將 has the sense of 了, but that is not equivalent to 剛剛. &quot;了&quot; means something similar to perfect tense, but that does not necessarily happen &quot;just before now&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastEditorUserId="15859" LastEditDate="2017-02-14T09:21:44.213" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T09:21:44.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22768" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-14T07:03:48.690" Score="1" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;Was wondering what it would be . My best guess was the following but couldn't figure out the term&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我會(____) 笑？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16433" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T23:54:03.547" Title="How would I say &quot;I will get laughed at&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22768" CreationDate="2017-02-14T07:16:28.070" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我會&lt;strong&gt;被&lt;/strong&gt;人&lt;strong&gt;笑&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; - &quot;I will &lt;strong&gt;get laughed at&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我會&lt;strong&gt;被&lt;/strong&gt;人&lt;strong&gt;笑話&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; - &quot;I will be &lt;strong&gt;joked at&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我會&lt;strong&gt;被&lt;/strong&gt;人&lt;strong&gt;取笑&lt;/strong&gt;” - &quot;I will be &lt;strong&gt;made fun of&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我會&lt;strong&gt;被&lt;/strong&gt;人&lt;strong&gt;耻笑&lt;/strong&gt;” - &quot;I will be &lt;strong&gt;ridiculed&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Add '嘲笑' (to ridicule)(&lt;em&gt;as TXV  suggested&lt;/em&gt;) and 譏笑 ( to sneer at; to mock; to ridicule)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我會&lt;strong&gt;被&lt;/strong&gt;人&lt;strong&gt;嘲笑&lt;/strong&gt;” - &quot;I will be &lt;strong&gt;ridiculed&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我會&lt;strong&gt;被&lt;/strong&gt;人&lt;strong&gt;譏笑&lt;/strong&gt;” - &quot;I will be &lt;strong&gt;ridiculed&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-02-14T13:39:55.197" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T13:39:55.197" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22763" CreationDate="2017-02-14T08:00:36.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;将： 刚，刚刚&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it means the aspect marker 將 (similar to 了-- indicating completed action )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When '將' is placed directly after a verb,  it is acting as an 'aspect marker' that indicating completed action. Similar to '了', which is more common in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say '將' is an archaic form of '了'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;敵兵殺&lt;strong&gt;將&lt;/strong&gt;過來 = 敵兵殺&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;過來 (Enemy soldiers have charged at us)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一拳打&lt;strong&gt;將&lt;/strong&gt;出去 = 一拳打&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;出去 (launched one punch away)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term '剛/剛剛' = adverb 'just' in English. It needs to be placed directly before the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;敵兵&lt;strong&gt;剛剛&lt;/strong&gt;殺過來 = Enemy soldiers &lt;strong&gt;have just&lt;/strong&gt; charged at us&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一拳&lt;strong&gt;剛剛&lt;/strong&gt;打出去 = one punch &lt;strong&gt;has just&lt;/strong&gt; launched away&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;那是一个夕阳&lt;strong&gt;将&lt;/strong&gt;落的傍晚&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;That was a nightfall which the setting sun &lt;strong&gt;was about&lt;/strong&gt; to go down.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Since '将' here is placed before the verb '落', it can only be the adverb 'soon' or 'about to' (&lt;em&gt;1. 将： 快要， ‘just about to'&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T08:06:29.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22768" CreationDate="2017-02-14T09:25:07.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following your sentence structure, I would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我會被别人嘲笑 &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notably, I'm using 别人 (other people) and the two-character verb 嘲笑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However Chinese language is not as generous with passive forms as other languages. In this case it still sounds okay, but you may want to consider an active form as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别人會嘲笑我 &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which I prefer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T09:25:07.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22734" CreationDate="2017-02-14T14:16:23.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a discussion about this over here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/12019-%E6%8A%8A%E7%BB%99construction/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;把...给...Construction&lt;/a&gt; on chinese-forums; this was posted from &lt;a href=&quot;http://english.cri.cn/3426/2006/07/05/102@110711_6.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cri.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;主＋“把”＋宾＋给＋动&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a simple construct here: &lt;em&gt;who/what + 把 + object + 给 + verb&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把我的英镑给丢了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大风把柱子给刮倒了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他一句话就把大家给逗乐了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你这一问还真把我给问住了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in your example sentence - we see this construct quite clearly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【我】 +【把】+【收到的月饼】+【给】【吃】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T14:16:23.827" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22763" CreationDate="2017-02-14T22:14:32.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese student. &quot;将&quot; indicates 1. adv. about to or (sometimes means do sth right now). for example: 将来，我将去美国旅游。 In the future, I will travel to the USA. 2. n.  general. 将军被解除了最高指挥官的职务。 The general was relieved of his office as a supreme commander.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16438" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T22:14:32.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22776" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-15T05:39:38.610" Score="0" ViewCount="661" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the Chinese equivalent of the English idiom &quot;&lt;strong&gt;a bad apple spoils the barrel&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16444" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-02-15T06:36:31.077" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T14:52:43.700" Title="Chinese equivalent of &quot;a bad apple spoils the barrel&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22776" CreationDate="2017-02-15T05:48:29.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%80%E7%B2%92%E8%80%81%E9%BC%A0%E5%B1%8E%EF%BC%8C%E5%A3%9E%E4%BA%86%E4%B8%80%E9%8D%8B%E7%B2%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一粒老鼠屎壞了一鍋粥&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one grain of rat feces ruins the whole pot of porridge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T05:48:29.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22734" CreationDate="2017-02-15T09:11:32.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;对于一个在中国生活了20年的人来说，我觉得这两句话区别不大，都是可以的。但是加上“给”听起来更幽默，有调侃的味道，感觉北方人更喜欢这么说。在开玩笑的语境下，我们一般也会加上“给”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not studying Chinese, so my answer is not professional. The grammar of Chinese is very loose and Chinese people are hospitable. If you are learning Chinese for communication, forget these details. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16445" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T09:11:32.633" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22776" CreationDate="2017-02-15T09:17:59.467" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese has an idiom: 害群之马, it refers to the &lt;em&gt;bad apple&lt;/em&gt; which spoils the barrel. Literally, it says : a horse that brings trouble to its herd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“a bad apple spoils the barrel” also has a Chinese counterpart: 一个老鼠屎坏了一锅汤, but it is kinds of rude, maybe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16445" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2017-02-15T14:52:43.700" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T14:52:43.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18117" CreationDate="2017-02-15T09:23:53.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It has a short form: 有何贵干。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有何 means ：What is……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;贵干 is a honorific which means what others gonna to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16445" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T09:23:53.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22108" CreationDate="2017-02-15T09:30:59.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;本文原文系德文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see, Chinese expression is relatively concise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16445" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T09:30:59.620" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22782" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22783" CreationDate="2017-02-15T13:50:32.660" Score="0" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;A concise definition of 连绵词 I found is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;an alliterative and echotic biome&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. ： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;窈窕&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;徘徊&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;孜孜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this group perceived as sth. distinctive with unique rules how or under which circumstances to use them? &#xA;How are they perceived in terms of aesthetics, e.g. do they convey a poetic or archaic connotation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T14:20:34.783" Title="How are 连绵词 used in modern Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22782" CreationDate="2017-02-15T14:20:34.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%81%AF%E7%B6%BF%E8%A9%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;聯綿詞&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聯綿詞 is a terminology in Chinese phonology. They are still functional 詞(compound words). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;do they convey a poetic or archaic connotation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some 聯綿詞 adjective and verb do sound poetic or archaic (e.g 玲瓏, 翩翩, 叮嚀,  拮据). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some 聯綿詞 adjective and verb had become common day-to-day words (e.g. 荒唐, 嘮叨, 累贅, 凌厲)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost all 聯綿詞 noun are common day-to-day words (e.g. 琵琶, 橄欖, 鞦韆, 蝴蝶)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T14:20:34.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22784" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-15T18:42:06.340" Score="3" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first I learned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The most frequent sentence pattern in Chinese is &lt;strong&gt;S V O&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  e.g. &#xA;  你 打 我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next I learned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are fixed places within this pattern, where one can put adverbials,namely between S and V and after O.&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;S a1 V O a2&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  e.g.&#xA;  你 去天 打 我 几个小时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally I learned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are different kinds of adverbials. Those expressing  duration are put after O, those expressing time,manner and place are put between S and V in this sequence.&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;S time manner place VO duration&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  or for the sake of brevity&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;S t m p V O d&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  e.g.&#xA;  你 去天 愉快地 房子后 打 我 几个小时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now these four kinds of adverbials can't be all kinds, for instance one could think of an adverbial,that expresses the instrument &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用大头棒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or the target &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;向踝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how many types of adverbials are in total and what is their sequence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T02:17:38.593" Title="How many different types of adverbials exist in total?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22785" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22928" CreationDate="2017-02-15T22:01:19.423" Score="5" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker who is learning about how Chinese grammar works. I know that a simple sentence contains a subject (主语), a verb (谓语?) and an object (宾语).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我(subject)吃(verb)饭(object)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am also aware that there are other &quot;X语&quot; like 状语, 表语, 补语 etc. I have little to no understanding of how they come into play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came across this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去北京旅行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, 我 is the subject, 去 is the verb. But which is the object? 北京 or 旅行? If either of them is the object, then what is the other one? 补语?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T04:01:24.453" Title="In 我去北京旅行, is 北京 the object? If not, what *is* it?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22786" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-15T23:01:08.350" Score="2" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general syntax of a serial verb construction sentence type is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S &lt;strong&gt;VP1&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;VP2&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;VP3&lt;/strong&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wherein S stands for Subject and VP for verbal phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, the sequence of verbal phrases express an event in a detailed way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is the relationship between the verbal phrases just temporal, i.e. do the verbal phrases describe an event temporally in the sequence of their appearance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 看水果 切水果 愉快地吃水果 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see a watermelon,then cut it, then joyously eat it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the temporal relationship the only one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T12:34:03.290" Title="What is the semantic relationship between the verbal phrases of a serial verb construction?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22785" CreationDate="2017-02-15T23:44:01.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;没有宾语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我旅行。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我（to where)旅行。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我（去北京）旅行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English we could write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went to Beijing on a trip. I went (to where)(why)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or I travelled to Beijing. I travelled (to where).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一到北京可以说： 我玩儿。 我（哪里）玩儿。 我在北京玩儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相比一下： 1.I broke the window. 2. The window broke. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1. did 'I' break? Or did 'the window' break? In 2. did 'the window' break or did something else break? &#xA;In 1. is 'I' the subject or 'the window'? In 2. is 'the window' the subject?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you mean by 'subject'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T23:44:01.857" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22785" CreationDate="2017-02-16T02:37:46.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;北京 is the object of the coverb 去.   去北京= to Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-02-16T17:15:39.820" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T17:15:39.820" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22789" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22790" CreationDate="2017-02-16T05:38:15.160" Score="5" ViewCount="1584" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just got new ID from Nankai Uni which lists me as 教师 (jiàoshī = &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bing.com/dict/search?q=%E6%95%99%E5%B8%88&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;teacher&lt;/a&gt;).  I'm more familiar with the word 老师 (lǎoshī) which also means &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bing.com/dict/search?q=%E8%80%81%E5%B8%88&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;teacher&lt;/a&gt;.  What is the difference between 教师 and 老师?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T21:52:45.690" Title="What distinguishes 教师 (jiàoshī) and 老师 (lǎoshī) which both mean &quot;teacher&quot;?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22789" CreationDate="2017-02-16T05:59:18.247" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems like it's a common question. &lt;em&gt;现代汉语规范词典&lt;/em&gt; has a note, about it, on it's entry for 老师:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;注意&lt;/strong&gt; 跟“教师”“教员”不同。“老师”可以接受表示人的名词或人称代词的限定, 如“小王的老师”“她的老师”; “教师”“教员”不能这样用。“老师”是称谓词, 适用范围宽泛, 还可用来称呼其他行业的某些专业人员; “教师”“教员”是职业名称, 仅指担任教学工作的专职人员。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师 can be a noun or personal pronoun, as in “小王的老师” (Wang's teacher) or “她的老师” (Her teacher) - “教师” and “教员” cannot be used this way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师 can also be used, with a broad scope, as a title and can be used to call professionals in different capacities - “教师” and “教员” are professional designations that only refer to school teaching personnel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a side note: this reminded of people from 重庆 - you'll often here 重庆 people refer to each other as 老师 as a simple term of respect - it's their equivalent to sir/ma'am.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formal terms like Teacher's Day use the word 教师 - 教师节.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-02-16T06:09:56.230" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T06:09:56.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22789" CreationDate="2017-02-16T06:12:14.800" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;教师 teacher  (general term)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师 teacher  (general or affectionate term ; honorific)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can say either '一位教师' or '一位老师'.  Both mean 'a teacher'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You say '我的老师' (my teacher) to show your respect and fondness. Saying '我的教师' lack both .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We address our teacher with the honorific 老师(Sir). For example: &quot;老师! 早上好&quot;(Good morning, Sir!) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You cannot use the general term &quot;教师!&quot; to address your teacher. Saying &quot;早上好, 教师&quot; (Good morning, teacher!) is unacceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T06:12:14.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22786" CreationDate="2017-02-16T08:40:44.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the temporal relationship the only one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most, but not all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我看水果&quot;，&quot;我切水果&quot; and &quot;我愉快地吃水果&quot; are three separate SVO sentences. When we consolidate them into a single sentence, the temporal relationship between each verb phrase is there because these verb phrase must follow a logical timeline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我看(到)水果(就)切开它们(然后)愉快地吃 - Once I saw the fruit, I cut it and then happily ate it ,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I must see the fruit first, before I can cut it, and I must cut it first, before I can eat it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我大喝一聲, 我揮拳, 我打中他小腹 - I shout, I punch, I hit his lower abdomen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我大喝一聲(便)揮拳打中他小腹 - I shouted and immediately punch and hit his lower abdomen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I shouted first, then I punch, and finally hit his abdomen&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, not all multiple verb phrase has a temporal relationship like the examples above. They can happen concurrently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃飯，我看電視，我大聲笑 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have dinner, I watch TV., I laugh loudly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃飯(的同時)(邊)看電視(邊)大聲笑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I laugh loudly while I am watching TV. and having dinner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I have dinner, watch TV and laugh loudly at the same time.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-02-16T12:34:03.290" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T12:34:03.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22768" CreationDate="2017-02-16T09:26:46.600" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will get laughed at &quot; 我会被人嘲笑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16453" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T09:26:46.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22623" CreationDate="2017-02-16T14:27:57.727" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking up seal characters is not as hopeless as other answers seem to indicate, even though it is considerably harder than looking up modern characters. In any case, the lookup needs to consist of identifying which component of the seal character is the radical and finding the character in the corresponding section. Identification of the radical needs to be done by trial and error, as there are no fixed rules that an be applied when you don't know the character in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us start with the slowest, traditional method and see how it can be made faster using electronic dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use a paper edition of 說文解字 Shuōwén Jiězì that contains a seal radical index. Note that most modern editions of Shuōwén have seal script headwords, but their indices use modern characters.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use an &lt;a href=&quot;https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/The_540_Shuowen_Seal_Radicals_-_numbered.svg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;online list of seal radicals&lt;/a&gt; to find out the number of the radical, and find the character in the corresponding section of Shuōwén Jiězì. The radical numbers are equivalent to Shuōwén section numbers (this is where the name 部首 “section headers” comes from).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wenlin.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wenlin&lt;/a&gt; and choose &lt;code&gt;List&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;D. Shuowen Seal Radicals&lt;/code&gt;. This will give you a &lt;a href=&quot;http://guide.wenlininstitute.org/wenlin4.3/Lists#Shuowen_Seal_Radicals&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;list of 540 seal radicals&lt;/a&gt;, and clicking on any of them will give you all the seal characters listed under this radical. This is much faster than looking up the character in Shuōwén, especially when you are not sure which component is the radical (部首). Note that Wenlin lists are based on a Qīng Dynasty commentary on Shuōwén, &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=528853&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字·注&lt;/a&gt;, not the original, Hàn-era &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/shuo-wen-jie-zi/zh&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The problem with the original Shuōwén radical list is that it is &lt;a href=&quot;http://history.cultural-china.com/en/37H8487H13130.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;arranged semantically&lt;/a&gt;, in a way that is not helpful for somebody who doesn't know the radicals by heart. Therefore, I made two other indices that can be opened in Wenlin and used in the same way as above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the list of &lt;a href=&quot;http://folk.uio.no/michalkk/seal-stroke.wenlin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shuōwén seal radicals ordered by approximate stroke count&lt;/a&gt;, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the list of &lt;a href=&quot;http://folk.uio.no/michalkk/seal-freq.wenlin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shuōwén seal radicals ordered by their token frequency in Classical Chinese texts&lt;/a&gt; (based on Jun Da's &lt;a href=&quot;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/statistics/char/list.php?Which=CL&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Classical Chinese Character Frequency List&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former list begins with radicals that are the simplest graphically, and the latter one presents the most frequent radicals first, which makes it much easier to find the radical you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastEditorUserId="3966" LastEditDate="2017-02-18T11:59:42.860" LastActivityDate="2017-02-18T11:59:42.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22796" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22797" CreationDate="2017-02-16T15:08:36.323" Score="3" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cant understand chinese at all and I found this phrase: 视死如归 which translates to &quot;See death as returning home&quot; but also to &quot;Not afraid of death&quot;. I think the second translation comes over as very arrogant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you would say or write this to someone, would they take it as so to speak &quot;Death could be a good thing(as you will find rest when you die or something like that)&quot; or &quot;Be tough&quot;? If this is more hanging to the second translation, is there a better chinese sentence that would mean something like the first phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3901" LastActivityDate="2017-02-20T09:42:54.950" Title="Is 视死如归 seen as &quot;See death as returning home&quot;(Respect to someone who died) or &quot;Not afraid of death&quot;(arrogance)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22796" CreationDate="2017-02-16T15:55:57.080" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both definitions are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;多功能成语词典&lt;/strong&gt; explains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;解释&lt;/strong&gt; 视:看待;归:回家｡把死看作像回家一样｡形容不怕死｡多指为了正义事业而勇于牺牲自己的生命｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;视: treat ;归: returning home. to treat death the same as returning home. To describe being fearless in the face of death. Refers mostly to bravely sacrificing oneself for a righteous cause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also give an example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;例句&lt;/strong&gt; 面对敌人的屠刀,革命先烈视死如归,大义凛然｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A, more literal, translation would be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Facing the butchers knives of the enemy, the martyrs to the revolution treated death as returning home, righteousness abounds.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another translation you can have a look at from &lt;em&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刘胡兰临刑时, 大义凛然, 视死如归。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Liu Hulan faced the executioner's ax with a fortitude that commanded admiration and respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase is mostly seen in connection with &lt;strong&gt;martyrdom&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;em&gt;warfare&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other definitions that might help:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;face death unflinchingly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meet one's death like a hero&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 to view death as a return home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 to not be afraid of dying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 to face death with equanimity (idiom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt you'd ever use this phrase to console anybody, even if you did it'd be strange unless they were dying for some big cause or fighting in a war.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an antonym: &lt;strong&gt;贪生怕死&lt;/strong&gt; which CC-CEDICT defines as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 greedy for life, afraid of death (idiom); craven and cowardly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 clinging abjectly to life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 only interested in saving one's neck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T16:03:35.103" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22785" CreationDate="2017-02-16T17:57:40.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not everything in Chinese maps neatly to English rules of grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;”我去北京流行“ translates to &quot;I go to Beijing to travel&quot;, or &quot;I go traveling to Beijing&quot;.  If I had to pick one as the object, I would pick “流行“, only because it was put at the end of the sentence for emphasis over “北京”, in the same way &quot;travel&quot; has the emphasis over &quot;Beijing&quot; in &quot;I go to Beijing to travel&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11858" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T17:57:40.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22799" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22801" CreationDate="2017-02-16T18:10:26.147" Score="1" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;奥(ao4) denotes a place inside a house,where offerings to one's ancestors are put. It is located in the south western corner of the house.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beside this term, are there further words like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T20:53:40.580" Title="What other words than 奥 exist for places of reveration?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22789" CreationDate="2017-02-16T19:35:15.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The easiest way to distinguish is that 老师 is a pronoun and an honorific, but 教师 is a noun specifically referring to the occupation. Basically, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;王老师是一位了不起的教师。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means Mr. (Teacher) Wang is a fantastic teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 老师 is the more general and common term that it can be used in both ways. 教师 on the other hand is more formal title for the occupation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11335" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T19:35:15.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22799" CreationDate="2017-02-16T20:53:40.580" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;四隅（four corners of a room）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宧（yí ／ ㄧˊ）：室內東北角（northeastern corner）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;窔（yào ／ ㄧㄠˋ ）同“穾”：室內東南角（southeast corner）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奥（ào ／ ㄠˋ）：室內西南角（southwest corner）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;屋漏（wū lòu ／ ㄨ ㄌㄡˋ）：室內西北角（northwest corner）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T20:53:40.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22803" CreationDate="2017-02-16T21:15:49.520" Score="1" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to write a gift card to my TCM grandmaster, but don't know if this is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;棋聖葉富坤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這盆景代表我尊重你的慷慨，人性和古老的知識.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could an immigrant Chinese person understand this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank your for your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16460" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-03-17T03:10:07.437" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T03:10:07.437" Title="Could a Chinese person understand this?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22802" CreationDate="2017-02-16T22:15:23.057" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could a Chinese person understand this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, with a little guess work, we can.  However, your writing can use some  improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;棋聖葉富坤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這盆景代表我尊重你的慷慨，人性和古老的知識.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, you have to put the title after the name when you address to the person directly. I mean it is okay to mention 棋聖葉富坤 as a third person, but not appropriate to call him that to his face. &lt;em&gt;It is like calling 陳律師 as 律師陳&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人性(human nature/humanity) is not the right praising word.  For &amp;quot;kindness/humanity&amp;quot; the correct term in Chinese is &amp;quot;人道&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;古老的 means 'ancient'. It implies 'out dated'.  A better word is 'deep'(深遠) as in &amp;quot;deep knowledge&amp;quot;(深遠的知識)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is no object in your sentence. When you use the verb 代表(represent), you should follow it with an object at the end. In this case, the object should be &amp;quot;respect&amp;quot; (as a noun). You should also translate &amp;quot;respect&amp;quot; as 尊敬(admire/ respect), not 尊重(respect/value)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finally, using his full name is more formal than just using his family name. If you are close to him, you can use just his last name and call him 葉棋聖 to show your fondness to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;葉富坤棋聖:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這盆景代表我對你的慷慨，人道和深遠知識的尊敬.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*If he  is your teacher, you should address him as 葉老師 or 葉富坤老師&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T22:34:49.057" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22804" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-17T06:43:07.850" Score="-1" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;does any one know if there is any method or software to recognize definition, sound of a character? Is there any software?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16463" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T13:44:00.030" Title="Does Chinese character recognistion software exist?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-02-19T13:59:52.790" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22805" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22806" CreationDate="2017-02-17T09:18:26.410" Score="2" ViewCount="392" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a chengyu （成语） or a proverb or a phrase that can elegantly express &quot;&lt;strong&gt;to walk with one's own legs&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, which is used to say that someone has learnt enough and doesn't need a master any more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I taught you all what I know, now  it's time you walk with your own legs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T04:28:22.160" Title="Is there a chengyu to mean &quot;walk with one's own legs&quot;" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22805" CreationDate="2017-02-17T09:58:29.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term that describes someone has completed his study under a teacher or master is '出師'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are common phrase like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;藝滿出師 /藝成出師(mastered a craft or art and be independent of one's master)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can omit '出師' and just say '藝成'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can omit '藝成' and just say '出師'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;學成出師 (completed one's study under a teacher or master)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I taught you all I know, now it's time you &lt;strong&gt;walk with your own legs&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我能教的都教了你，現在是你&lt;strong&gt;學成出師&lt;/strong&gt;的時候了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;學(study) 成(complete) 出(independent of) 師(master)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T04:28:22.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22805" CreationDate="2017-02-17T11:25:46.640" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I collect the following phrases that have the meaning of &quot;independent&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出道&lt;br&gt;&#xA;出师&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自立&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自立门户&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自作门户&lt;br&gt;&#xA;独当一面&lt;br&gt;&#xA;独立自主&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自食其力  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;self-reliant&lt;br&gt;&#xA;self-supporting&lt;br&gt;&#xA;support oneself&lt;br&gt;&#xA;support oneself by one's own labor&lt;br&gt;&#xA;earn one's salt&lt;br&gt;&#xA;earn one's own living&lt;br&gt;&#xA;live by the sweat of one's brow&lt;br&gt;&#xA;live by one's own labor&lt;br&gt;&#xA;live on one's toil&lt;br&gt;&#xA;live on the earnings of one's own work&lt;br&gt;&#xA;stand on one's own feet  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 自食其力 is closest to &quot;to walk with one's own legs&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T11:25:46.640" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22804" CreationDate="2017-02-17T11:28:26.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pleco is a free Chinese&amp;lt;&gt;English app for iOS and Android which can recognise handwriting (you draw with your finger on screen the chinese characted you want to look up) and give definition and pronunciation (in pinyn, zhuyin, and audio file).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the payd version there's also OCR, but it isn't very precise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16423" LastEditorUserId="16423" LastEditDate="2017-02-22T13:44:00.030" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T13:44:00.030" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22810" CreationDate="2017-02-17T11:36:23.583" Score="2" ViewCount="422" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note: I've seen &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/13984/what-does-the-box-say&quot;&gt;prior translation questions&lt;/a&gt; closed, but I think this is different--as it is a matter of public interest and possible disinformation--as opposed to &quot;found a piece of paper in the attic, tell me what it says&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rockwell is a fairly paranoid fellow, made famous by his &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Somebody's Watching Me&quot;&lt;/a&gt; song.  &lt;em&gt;(The FBI ultimately &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theonion.com/article/fbi-discontinues-surveillance-of-rockwell-501&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;declassified the surveillance program&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The top hit I can find for what the paper says claims the headline of the following paper is &lt;a href=&quot;http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/rembert-explains-the-80s-rockwells-somebodys-watching-me/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;ROCKWELL FOR GOD’S SAKE LOCK YOUR DOOR FOR ONCE.&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XgQSb.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XgQSb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Rockwell&amp;#39;s Chinese Newspaper&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Call me a skeptic.  But I doubt that.  (I generally doubt the paper was printed for the video.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite precedent of not allowing translation questions, I beseech you to give a reputable top-Internet-ranked answer to this question others must wonder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16469" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T21:50:58.147" Title="Rockwell's Chinese Newspaper" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22809" CreationDate="2017-02-17T13:56:40.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The news paper was '國際日報 (International Daily)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The headline had nothing to do with the quote. It said &quot;US dollar rise to new record high&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subheading 1: &quot;Eight nations' central bank intervene &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subheading 2: &quot;Gold price everywhere uniformly...&quot; ( text below not shown, but I guess it was 'raise')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-02-17T21:50:58.147" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T21:50:58.147" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22804" CreationDate="2017-02-17T23:15:27.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have Hanping Pro and Hanping Camera Apps. Hanping Camera can read a line of Chinese from a text into your phone. Once you have it in your phone, you pick out individual characters and hear them spoken. It can't read a whole text to you. (At least I don't think so.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also has that 'draw a character with your finger' capability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To scan text into my computer I use command line tesseract. I find it very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T23:15:27.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22805" CreationDate="2017-02-17T23:52:43.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The student surpasses the master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青出于蓝而胜于蓝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T23:52:43.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22768" CreationDate="2017-02-17T23:54:03.547" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;大方笑也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Body must be at least 30 characters： you entered 5.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T23:54:03.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22686" CreationDate="2017-02-18T00:04:18.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;The first word 加油 is hard to be directly translated to English. I here translate it as &quot;Keep calm and hold on&quot;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She's encouraging you to keep trying and not give up.  Literally &quot;more oil&quot; or &quot;step on the gas&quot;.  Best wishes to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-02-18T00:04:18.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22818" CreationDate="2017-02-18T02:02:53.950" Score="2" ViewCount="717" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is not really about comparing things. My question is about expressing the quality of things, like characteristics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, how do you say:&#xA;1. &quot;it sounds like your work is very interesting!&quot;&#xA;2. &quot;he looks like he is very tired&quot;&#xA;3. &quot;this book looks like a hard read&quot;&#xA;4. &quot;this vase looks really heavy&quot;&#xA;5. &quot;this soup tastes like it took a lot of work&quot; &#xA;6. &quot;this flower smells like it should cost 1,000 dollars&quot;&#xA;7. &quot;this blanket feels like it has never been used&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard 着 should be used in this case. Is this true? Can someone elaboration?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16472" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T14:49:41.043" Title="Question about how to say &quot;sounds like&quot; &quot;looks like&quot; &quot;tastes like&quot; &quot;smells like&quot; &quot;feels like (referring to touch)&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22817" CreationDate="2017-02-18T02:18:58.517" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of the direct translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;it sounds like your work is very interesting!&quot; &#xA;听起来你的工作非常有意思!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;he looks like he is very tired&quot; &#xA;他看起来非常累。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;this book looks like a hard read&quot; &#xA;这书想必是很难读的。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;this vase looks really heavy&quot; &#xA;这花瓶看起来很重。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;this soup tastes like it took a lot of work&quot; &#xA;这汤尝着感觉下了很大功夫。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;this flower smells like it should cost 1,000 dollars&quot; &#xA;这些花闻起来像是它们值1000美元。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;this blanket feels like it has never been used&quot;&#xA;这条毯子感觉从来没用过。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above are the so called direct answers, however as you said you want the characteristics, it is a bit harder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A verb representing a feel can be in front of &quot;着&quot; or &quot;起来&quot;, like “看着”，“看起来”，“听着”，“听起来”... and your actual feel, some adjective words can be after that, to express your idea on such thing through an action or interact or motion, like “听起来很悦耳(sounds very melodious) ”，“闻起来很香(smells good)”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But to make this more beautiful, that's literature. An idea would be punch in enormous adjective words and imagination, or quote old literature, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2322" LastEditorUserId="2322" LastEditDate="2017-03-06T14:49:41.043" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T14:49:41.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22802" CreationDate="2017-02-18T15:51:08.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's better for you to write down what you want to say in English and then you can let a Chinese help you translate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15138" LastActivityDate="2017-02-18T15:51:08.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22721" CreationDate="2017-02-18T20:38:07.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;上酒吧&quot;and&quot;上酒店&quot;and&quot;上酒家&quot;are all wrong.&#xA;The right word is &quot;去&quot;，which generally means &quot;go to&quot;.So it should be&quot;去酒吧&quot;or &quot;去酒店&quot;.&#xA;If you want to use &quot;上&quot; , you should still add &quot;去&quot; after the object. &#xA;Like&quot;上 菜市场 去&quot;（go to the grocery store）or&quot;你 上 哪里 去？&quot;（where are you going?）&#xA;Also &quot;逛公司&quot; is wrong. 逛 means shopping or window shopping. 公司 means company. I am not sure what does &quot;visiting a business&quot; mean. If you mean &quot;visting a company and looking around in its building&quot;,then you say&quot;参观公司&quot;。“参观” means see an exhibition or a public display in a relatively normal occasion, such as a museum or company or government office etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16479" LastActivityDate="2017-02-18T20:38:07.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22738" CreationDate="2017-02-18T20:52:03.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;灯节is an informal term of 元宵节。&#xA;元宵 doesn't means 'lantern'. It means 'the night of the 15th day of January', because January(一月) is also called 元月 in ancient Chinese. &#xA;宵 means 'night'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In old tradition, people see lantern shows outside at this day. Thus it is also called 灯节（lantern festival）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16479" LastActivityDate="2017-02-18T20:52:03.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22692" CreationDate="2017-02-18T21:26:52.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This word, in this occasion, is very unfriendly. It really is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the subject of &quot;瞧得起&quot; is usually someone who has much higher social status than you. Or at least that you(the speaker, or the object) and this person are not familiar with each other. Under these circumstances, you can use the word &quot;瞧得起&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can say:&#xA;&quot;他请我去他家做客，是他瞧得起我。&quot;（He invites me to his house because he 瞧得起我）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence actually means that the host doesn't think me as a nobody or totally useless.  So this is actually an excessive modest way of speaking. i.e. It puts the speaker into a very very low position. That's why this word is only used when &quot;me&quot; is the object. It's self-modesty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR in a totally contrary occasion, if you and this person are best friends, you can use this word, but then this is just like a joke between close friends.&#xA;Also 敬仰 is inappropriate. But I really don't want to explain it further, it's another long story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to say that a boy looks up to his brother, you can use the word&quot;仰慕&quot; or &quot;崇拜&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16479" LastActivityDate="2017-02-18T21:26:52.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13600" CreationDate="2017-02-18T22:39:20.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is really an interesting question, so I looked up online and found an interesting explanation about the &quot;mongolian doctor&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word originated in Qing Dynasty. As you may know the governors of Qing Dynasty are Manchu(满族) or Jurchen(女真族，namely the ancestor of Manchu). And they had a subtle relationship with the Mongolians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When they fought together, the Jurchen found that the Mongolian lose fewer horses than the Jurchen, which was because they had better vets. So the Jurchen invited these Mongolian vets to their army to train the Jurchen vets. And these vets were called Mongolian doctor from then on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, when sometimes the war was fierce, when the wounded soldier couldn't find a military doctor around, they sometimes called the Mongolian vet for help. But vets are not doctors, their medical skill may not be so good. Therefore this word generally becomes a synonym of bad doctors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure this is true, but it sure is a funny story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think The word 蒙古 comes from transliteration. The origin of 蒙古 should be the Empire of Mongolia, established by Genghis Khan in 1206. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning 'ignorant' of &quot;蒙&quot; is extended from the meaning &quot;coma or eyes almost can't see&quot;, which your dictionary has left out. The word &quot;发蒙&quot; means inspire someone(usually kids) from ignorance. “三子者，既得闻此言也於夫子，昭然若发蒙矣。&quot; from《礼记》，written in Han Dynasty, which is much earlier than the establishment of the Empire of Mongolia. That's why I believe that this is really a coincidence.  The character of Jurchen is 女真， but do you think that means the Jurchens are all women? It's just a transliteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;Down Syndrome&quot; is also called &quot;蒙古症&quot; because the doctor who find it think his patients looks like Mongolians. This is written in the Chinese version of Wiki but for somehow wipped out in the English version. This is interesting because as a Chinese I learnt &quot;Down Syndrome&quot; in my high school biography class, but yet this is my first time knowing that it's also called &quot;蒙古症&quot;。Usually in China we call this disease &quot;21-三体综合症&quot;. I guess this term &quot;蒙古症&quot; is more popular out of China, maybe even out of Asia. So I guess only this doctor Down knows the answer of the last part of your question...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16479" LastActivityDate="2017-02-18T22:39:20.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22817" CreationDate="2017-02-18T22:53:58.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Agreed to tomriddle_1234.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Sometimes translating sentences like these, you may add extra Chinese words or adjust the order of some words in expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Original / Direct Translation / Alternative Translation&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. &quot;it sounds like your work is very interesting!&quot; / 听起来你的工作非常有意思! / 你的工作听起来很有趣.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. &quot;he looks like he is very tired&quot; / 他看起来非常累./ Better go with direct translation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. &quot;this book looks like a hard read&quot; / 这书想必是很难读的. / 感觉这本书会很难读.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4. &quot;this vase looks really heavy&quot; / 这花瓶看起来很重. / 感觉这花瓶会很重.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5. &quot;this soup tastes like it took a lot of work&quot; / 这汤尝着感觉下了很大功夫. / 这汤真不错, 应该下了很大的功夫(才做出来的).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;6. &quot;this flower smells like it should cost 1,000 dollars&quot; / 这些花闻起来像是它们值1000美元. / 闻闻这花, 感觉值1000美元.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;7. &quot;this blanket feels like it has never been used&quot; / 这条毯子感觉从来没用用过. / 感觉这条毯子从来没用过.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16473" LastActivityDate="2017-02-18T22:53:58.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22804" CreationDate="2017-02-19T00:20:16.093" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the scenarios you are facing? &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If the character can be copied and pasted on a computer, then search in Google/Wikitionary?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If it is in a physical form or you cannot copy it to a computer (e.g. in a book, or signs on the road), you can try &lt;b&gt;Google Translate mobile app&lt;/b&gt;, it utilises the camera on the phone and that can scan and translate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4663" LastActivityDate="2017-02-19T00:20:16.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20899" CreationDate="2017-02-19T09:23:15.057" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;他原来什么都不知道 &#xA;意思就是什么都不知道&#xA;meaning he know nothing at the whole time&#xA;没有过去时间的概念&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16480" LastActivityDate="2017-02-19T09:23:15.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22796" CreationDate="2017-02-19T09:50:35.163" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;视死如归 is more like second translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you want use first translation&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;i suggest use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;落叶归根&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16480" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-19T09:55:50.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22831" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-19T21:24:03.467" Score="2" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Chinese wikipedia entry for Julius Caesar (the play), there is this sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;凯撒死后，布鲁塔斯进行演讲为自己辩护，这时他得到了公众的支持&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, 进行演讲 means &quot;to make a speech&quot;/&quot;to carry out a speech&quot;. Why is 了 not placed after the verb 进行? I suspect it is because the sentence is not finished and the tendency is to place 了 after the final verb in the sentence (in this case, 得到), but please tell me if I'm wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, I don't understand when 了 is meant to come after the verb or at the end of the sentence. E.g. what is the difference between 这时他得到了公众的支持 and 这时他得到公众的支持了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16482" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-07T01:28:57.690" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T01:28:57.690" Title="How is it decided where 了 goes in 这时他得到了公众的支持?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22831" CreationDate="2017-02-20T09:05:57.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My take on this is that, as you say, the aspectual 了 is placed after the final verb of the sentence, but I'm not aware of the existence of a hard rule for that. I would say it is mainly a matter of style. Maybe there are linguists here who can confirm this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for how to use 了 and where to position it in a sentence, this has been asked many times and you can find some pretty good and accepted answers here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16/tense-and-use-of-%E4%BA%86&quot;&gt;Tense and use of 了&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;what is the difference between 这时他得到了公众的支持 and 这时他得到公众的支持了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one 这时他得到了公众的支持  is describing a completed action and sets the time in the past --&gt; That time he obtained the support of the crowd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second one 这时他得到公众的支持了 describes a change of state (and tells nothing about time) --&gt; This time he's got the support of the crowd. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Which implies that he usually doesn't have it. &#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, since this last one example describes a change, the sentence with 得到 - which I perceive as a punctual event - plus the absence of a context sounds a bit weird to me.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So I'd prefer the first version any way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2017-02-20T09:05:57.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22796" CreationDate="2017-02-20T09:42:54.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The proverb origin from an ancient quote：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《韩非子·外储说左下》：“三军既成阵，使士视死如归，臣不如公子成父。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Train the army to follow proper formation, make the general deal with death like normal, ChengFu is doing such job better than me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The proverb carry the meaning of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Know the dire consequences but not afraid to face it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be used to describe or emphasize either &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bravely&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bold&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;heroism&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fanaticism&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;naive stupid act&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-02-20T09:42:54.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22686" CreationDate="2017-02-20T10:09:16.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems you mother-in-law is taking a great effort to send a &quot;inter-cultural&quot; message.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;加油! (Keep up the good works) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我天天为你祈祷， 愿上帝保佑你。(May God bless you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一帆风顺（Bon voyage）心想事成(All the best)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just read the message with a smirk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-02-20T10:09:16.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22738" CreationDate="2017-02-20T10:38:46.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Complementary to @hinen answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lantern festival &lt;code&gt;灯节&lt;/code&gt; , is actually geographical cultural specific. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For ethnic &quot;Han&quot; and to the confusion of other cultural, Lantern festival may refer any of these day in agri-lunar(农历）Calendar &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;农历正月十五 元宵节 (1st month, day 15)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;农历七月七日 七巧节 (7th month, day 7 )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;农历八月十五 中秋节 (8th month, day 15)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-02-21T10:00:11.650" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T10:00:11.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22837" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-20T11:06:43.440" Score="0" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I understand the Chinese language makes heave use of tones and inclinations for oral conversation. How do people who have a stuffed nose or sore throat deal with the tones then? Do they become hard to understand to their peers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16488" LastActivityDate="2017-02-20T14:38:40.510" Title="Can Chinese people pronounce the tones correctly with a stuffed nose or soar throat?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22837" CreationDate="2017-02-20T14:38:40.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I am able to pronounce words with correct tones when my nose is stuffed since the pronunciation doesn't really rely on nasal sound but rather the sudden change in pitch. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16491" LastActivityDate="2017-02-20T14:38:40.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22840" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-20T15:56:27.313" Score="1" ViewCount="1038" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Hunan Province, how common in standard Mandarin? Or, more generally, where regional dialects are spoken, how common is Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to pass HSK 3 and be fairly competent at that level, would I be able to get by in Hunan Province? I.e. would I likely be able to read signs, menus, speak to random people on the street, etc.? If I understand correctly, everyone is taught standard Mandarin in school, and that it is the standard language everywhere, for example, in University environments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any references for the regional dialect (Hunanese/Xiang)? I just can't find anything online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please let me know if this question is ill-suited for this forum. 谢谢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T14:09:08.713" Title="Mandarin in Hunan Province" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22840" CreationDate="2017-02-20T17:37:45.790" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://career.eol.cn/news/201609/t20160914_1448769.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some sources&lt;/a&gt; citing the Ministry of Education, diffusion of Putonghua （普通话）in the country has reached 70% in 2015. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest issue that you might face in Hunan (and in almost any other province) is not that people would talk to you in dialect, but that they would talk to you in Mandarin with &lt;strong&gt;accent&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hunanese accent has a few distinctive traits, some of which in common with other southern speaks: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;zh/ch/sh&lt;/strong&gt; become &lt;strong&gt;z/c/s&lt;/strong&gt;: 诚 sounds like 层 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;eng/ong&lt;/strong&gt; --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;en/on&lt;/strong&gt;： 朋 sounds like 盆 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;n&lt;/strong&gt; --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;l&lt;/strong&gt; (el)：里 sounds like 你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and as others have pointed out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;h&lt;/strong&gt; --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;f&lt;/strong&gt;: 湖 sounds like 服&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's not a small hurdle for new learners. How quick you'll get used to it depends mainly on your proficiency level. With an HSK3 you might have some hard time at first. Especially the &lt;strong&gt;n&lt;/strong&gt; --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;l&lt;/strong&gt; change is tough for Mandarin students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One last note: asking for references to learning resources is somewhat discouraged here as it is difficult to maintain lists and links. I believe that you can find something by querying for 湘语 on Baidu. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-02-21T14:09:08.713" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T14:09:08.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22842" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22843" CreationDate="2017-02-20T19:24:43.840" Score="0" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to translate to Chinese this phrase: &quot;Please, write on the parcel  &quot;some-text&quot; &quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this variant correct? 请在包裹外面上写下 &quot;some-text&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16492" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T01:09:11.137" Title="Is the following sentence correct?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22842" CreationDate="2017-02-20T19:59:22.303" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, it is better to use 请在包裹上写下 &quot;some-text&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16493" LastActivityDate="2017-02-20T19:59:22.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22844" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-20T23:45:22.707" Score="3" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading Henry's question about 了 below, I thought I would look up 了。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fantizi5.com/ziyuan/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.fantizi5.com/ziyuan/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will have to enter 了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了是象形字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my mind, a child with no arms, or its arms cut off, is 'unfinished' or 'incomplete' not '完成'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did 了 acquire a meaning of 完成?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T07:59:33.410" Title="How does a body with no arms mean finished? 了子" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22844" CreationDate="2017-02-21T01:23:52.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;說文解字 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/sw/4E86.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/sw/4E86.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;.....亦卽許之了尦也。叚借爲憭悟字。从子無臂。象形。&lt;strong&gt;*象其足了戾之形&lt;/strong&gt;。盧鳥切。二部。凡了之屬皆从了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*象(symbolize) 其(it's) 足了(enough/satisfied) 戾(return) 之形(form of)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;*symbolize  'satisfied and return'&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone is playing, searching or gathering (whatever kids do), he would stretch his arm out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After he satisfied and finished, he would return home, no longer stretching his arms. That's where the meaning of &quot;completed /finished&quot; for 了 came from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-02-21T11:03:00.620" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T11:03:00.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22846" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-21T05:01:58.100" Score="1" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I say &quot;I'm going to smoke&quot; I would say &quot;我去抽烟&quot;, right? Or would I say &quot;我去抽烟了&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, 了 represents a change, so I suppose 我去抽烟了 makes sense. Any difference in nuance between the two? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16495" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T01:03:42.203" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T01:03:42.203" Title="Should I use modal (语气) &quot;了&quot; in: 我去抽烟 vs. 我去抽烟了?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22846" CreationDate="2017-02-21T05:32:59.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, they mean exactly the same. &quot;我去抽烟了&quot; is just more casual and that's what we will say in real life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16489" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T05:32:59.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22842" CreationDate="2017-02-21T05:35:37.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We don't usually say“外面上”，instead，we will say “包裹外面” or just “包裹上”, and they have the same meaning here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16489" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T05:35:37.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22849" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-21T06:02:09.370" Score="4" ViewCount="906" Body="&lt;p&gt;cynical as in &quot;believing the worst of human nature and motives; having a sneering disbelief in e.g. selflessness of others.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11858" LastActivityDate="2017-03-01T06:36:46.967" Title="In Chinese, how can I describe someone as being cynical?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22849" CreationDate="2017-02-21T06:47:10.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that &quot;愤世嫉俗&quot; is the right saying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16489" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T06:47:10.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22851" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22853" CreationDate="2017-02-21T09:33:45.353" Score="2" ViewCount="450" Body="&lt;p&gt;How come that the character 星 (star) is used in the word for week 星期?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;期 means a period of time, but why is week &quot;star&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T12:01:35.773" Title="How come 星 (star) is used in 星期 (week)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22840" CreationDate="2017-02-21T10:17:07.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usual Hunan accent to Mandarin is very distinct and can be hard to understand for non-Hunanese people. My own grandmother, for example, has a heavy Hunan accent when speaking Mandarin, which prevents me from understanding her well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The typical Hunan Mandarin characteristics are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No distinction between alveolar 平舌 (z/c/s) and retroflex 卷舌 (zh/ch/sh) consonants. This is common among Mandarin speakers south of the Yangtze river, and shouldn't be a big hindrance to comprehension.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No distinction between the alveolar 前鼻音 (n) and velar 後鼻音 (ng) nasal consonants.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No distinction between the r, n and l.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No distinction between f and h. Thus, the sentence 我是湖南人 is pronounced by many Hunanese as &lt;em&gt;wo si fu lan len&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Even worse, speakers of some Hunanese dialects do not distinguish between z/c/s, zh/ch/sh and g/k/h. This is actually contrary to general Sinitic historical-phonological rules, and can be very confusing. For example, my own grandmother pronounce the character 穿 as &lt;em&gt;kuan&lt;/em&gt; or even &lt;em&gt;kun&lt;/em&gt;, which can be hard to understand even for me, a native Mandarin speaker.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: all phonetic symbols I used above are Hanyu Pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T10:17:07.480" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22851" CreationDate="2017-02-21T10:22:56.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient China, makers of calendars tried to relate rotation of stars or star constellations with mythological deities. In fact, &lt;strong&gt;Chinese calendar doesn't carry the concept of &lt;code&gt;week&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;European names for &quot;week days&quot; are represented by Greek/Roman mythological deities. European creating the &quot;week&quot; concept from there.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese scholar use 星期 to represent &lt;code&gt;week&lt;/code&gt; when China adapt the universal international calendar, which means the day/period of the constellation/star deity complete their &quot;duty roster&quot;. Only Sunday 星期日/天 follow the Roman/Greek, which may be due to influence of European missionary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1905年，清朝学部的袁嘉谷筹建编译图书局，后任该局首任局长，编写官定各种教材，设立了一个新机构统一规范教科书中的术语，把七日一周制定为中国自己的“星期”。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 1905, Qing Dynasty education officer Yuan-Jia-Gu establish translation and library division for the education department to standardised technical jargon. This is when Chinese use &lt;code&gt;星期&lt;/code&gt; to represent the week. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, Japanese is using the Roman/Greek deity to represent days, as in Europe. Japan is using 曜 that carry similar meaning as constellation/star.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note : &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Adam_Schall_von_Bell&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Johann Adam Schall von Bell(May 1, 1592 – August 15, 1666)&lt;/a&gt; is helping Qing dynasty perfecting the Chinese calendar.  Chinese has stronger cultural interaction with Europe than many can imagine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(update) for those curious about Japan week days&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;星期一：月曜日 Monday, Máni, avatar of moon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;星期二：火曜日 Tuesday , The god Tiw, identified with Mars&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;星期三：水曜日 Wednesday, Germanic god Woden, avatar of Mercury&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;星期四：木曜日 Thursday, Thor's (Jupiter's) day&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;星期五：金曜日 Friday, goddess Frigg, Roman goddess Venus&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;星期六：土曜日 Saturday, Roman god Saturn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;星期日：日曜日 Sunday,   Sól, avatar of Sun &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-02-22T12:01:35.773" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T12:01:35.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22752" CreationDate="2017-02-21T10:29:33.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are the same thing. 民國 is an older translation of &quot;republic&quot; by Chinese scholars, and 共和國 a newer translation borrowed from Japan-coined Sino-Japanese (discussed below). They could, however, be used quite much interchangeably: the Republic of China Constitution 中華民國憲法 itself says in its first article that &quot;中華民國基於三民主義，為民有民治民享之民主共和國&quot; i.e. 中華民國 is a 共和國.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, 共和國 has pretty much superseded 民國 in almost all situations. Only the Republic of China and the Republic of Korea still use 民國 in their names (中華民國 and 大韓民國), but when people describe their form of government, they say they are 共和國. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only other occasion for which 民國 is used today occurs in reference to the Portuguese Republic in Macao, where &quot;Portuguese Republic&quot; was formerly officially translated as 葡萄牙民國 (now, the official translation is just 葡萄牙共和國). The Avenida da República (Avenue of the Republic) in Macao is translated as 民國大馬路 to day, where 民國 refers to 葡萄牙民國, not 中華民國.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to whether South Korea call themselves a 民國, the first government-in-exile of Korea, which later became the government of the Republic of Korea, was actually formed in the Republic of China and received assistance from the Chinese government. This is probably pretty much why South Koreans chose the name 民國.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, we'll discuss the Chinese-Japanese origin discrepancy. During the late 19th century, when Chinese scholars and Japanese scholars (all well-educated in Classical Chinese) studied western concepts, they came up with different translations using the same Chinese word-construction principles. However, later on, the translations borrowed Japanese began to dominate even in China. Other examples of such pairs besides 民國 and 共和國 include: &quot;economics&quot; 計學 (Chinese) and 經濟學 (Japanese) and &quot;sociology&quot; 羣學 (Chinese) and 社會學 (Japanese). Now, however, we only use 經濟學 and 社會學 in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastEditorUserId="16186" LastEditDate="2017-02-24T09:10:29.717" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T09:10:29.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22849" CreationDate="2017-02-21T11:14:01.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several words with close meaning: &lt;code&gt;愤世嫉俗&lt;/code&gt;、&lt;code&gt;犬儒主义&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;犬儒主义&lt;/code&gt; is most close to the word as &lt;code&gt;Cynic&lt;/code&gt; has the meaning of &lt;code&gt;犬&lt;/code&gt; in ancient Greek and Chinese. And one of the representative Greek philosophers is &lt;code&gt;Diogenēs o Sinopeus&lt;/code&gt; who proposed the philosophy which is very similar to &quot;&lt;code&gt;老庄哲学&lt;/code&gt;&quot; in ancient China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &quot;&lt;code&gt;犬儒主义&lt;/code&gt;&quot; is not a negative emotional word -- not so discouraging -- it describes someone who lives and satisfies to his own life style which is different from the rest part of the &quot;incorrigible&quot; world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastEditorUserId="2421" LastEditDate="2017-03-01T06:36:46.967" LastActivityDate="2017-03-01T06:36:46.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22849" CreationDate="2017-02-21T12:15:17.320" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although &lt;code&gt;愤世嫉俗&lt;/code&gt;may use to describe cynical, but it is not appropriate for many circumstances.  Because &lt;code&gt;愤世嫉俗&lt;/code&gt; sometimes are use to describe &quot;anti-social&quot; or &quot;outlier&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this is something better when you describe a person with cynical character: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他对人性本质善良有非议&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他常质疑人性(人性善良）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他认为人性本恶&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他比较赞同荀子【人性本恶】&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他是【性恶论】的信徒&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-02-21T12:21:41.193" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T12:21:41.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22849" CreationDate="2017-02-21T20:14:03.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is hard to find a phrase that exactly encapsulates the meaning of 'cynical'. That said, I think &quot;以小人之心度君子之腹&quot; is a good description.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16497" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T20:14:03.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22849" CreationDate="2017-02-21T20:48:40.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my comment to one of the other answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;愤世嫉俗 is in Google Translate result for 'cynical'. The fact is -- 愤世嫉俗 is mostly an attitude generated by emotional frustration; while 'cynical' is an egoistic thinking manifest itself in a sarcastic attitude toward the world.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;strong&gt;尖酸刻薄&lt;/strong&gt; (sarcastic / cynical) is a good translation because it only describes the attitude itself, unlike 愤世嫉俗, the motive of being 尖酸刻薄 is unstated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cynical is an attitude. It is mostly expressed through the way someone speaks-- same as 尖酸刻薄.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%96%E9%85%B8%E5%88%BB%E8%96%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;尖酸刻薄&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说话带刺，待人冷酷，不给人丝毫回旋的余地，使人感觉没有人情味&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speak thorny, treat people cold, do not give the slightest room for maneuver. Give people an impression of no human touch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T20:57:14.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21911" CreationDate="2017-02-22T03:34:38.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 600 多音字 in total according to 《新华字典》, but the amount of them be used in daily Chinese conversation is very limited, even native Chinese people also can't know all of them. I think it's enough for you to know the 多音字 if you can learn the 106 popular Chinese characters (listed as below) well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MQZ4N.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MQZ4N.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w3jnV.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w3jnV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are too many pics, if you are interested in these, I can send the rest to you by email. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16499" LastEditorDisplayName="user12885" LastEditDate="2017-02-22T07:05:30.203" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T07:05:30.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22844" CreationDate="2017-02-22T04:44:02.503" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;（東漢）許慎《說文解字》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了，尦也。从子，無臂。象形。凡「了」之屬，皆从「了」。盧鳥切。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JCVsj.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JCVsj.png&quot; alt=&quot;c1.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（清）段玉裁《說文解字注》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;了，尦也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 means 尦 [ ㄌㄧㄠˋ | liào ].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;尦，行，脛相交也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「尦」的意思是，行走時，小腿相互交叉。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;尦 means the shanks cross each other while walking.&#xA;Sometimes female models walk in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;牛行，腳相交爲尦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牛在行走的時候，後腳相互交叉稱為「尦」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;尦 means the rear shanks cross each other when an ox is walking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;凡物二股或一股結糾紾縳不直伸者，曰「了戾」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一個物品的一股或兩股糾結不直的樣子，稱為「了戾」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;了戾 means one or two strands of a matter are twined, bound and not straight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;紾 [ ㄓㄣˇ | zhěn ]：扭轉；拗折。 to twist; to bend.  &#xA;縳 [ ㄓㄨㄢˋ | zhuàn ]：捲；束。 to wrap; to roll up; to bind; to tie up.  &#xA;戾 [ ㄌㄧˋ | lì ]：這裡是「彎曲」的意思。crooked; curved.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;从子，無臂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（清）徐灝《說文解字注箋》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1E9Uj.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1E9Uj.png&quot; alt=&quot;c2.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;「从子，無臂」謂無左右曲筆。此釋字形，非謂人有是形也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not the left-right stroke, which represents two arms, of 子&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lm9w1.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lm9w1.png&quot; alt=&quot;c3.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. It interprets the shape of the character, not of the baby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;象形。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;象其足「了戾」之形。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;描繪兩腳糾結的樣子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It depicts the twined and bound shape of two feet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;凡「了」之屬，皆从「了」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凡是「了」這一類的字，都由「了」衍生而來。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The characters of 了 class are derived from 了.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example, 、孒、孑、孓. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WUJO1.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WUJO1.png&quot; alt=&quot;c4.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文解字注箋》也提到：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;凡「收束」謂之「結」，故曰：「了結」。《廣雅》曰：「了，訖也。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凡是「收合束縛」都稱為「結」，所以有「了結」一詞。《廣雅》解釋：「了」是「訖」的意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Everything related to &quot;collect and bind&quot; is called 結.&#xA;That is why we have the term, 了結.&#xA;《廣雅》 interprets 了 as &quot;finish, end, stop, complete, etc.&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由以上的資料可知，「了」的本義是「尦」；而「尦」的意思是，行走時，小腿相互交叉。&#xA;這兩腳糾結的形狀，類似「收束」的樣子，因而被歸為「結」，由此才延伸出「了結」一詞。&#xA;而「結」有&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/kangxi/pic.php?f=gxhz&amp;amp;p=1731&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;「終」、「止」、「成」之義&lt;/a&gt;，所以，「了」便有「結束、停止、完成」的意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;From the above information, we can see that the original meaning of 了 is 尦.&#xA;And, 尦 means that the legs cross each other when walking.&#xA;The tangled shape of the two feet is similar to the appearance of 收束.&#xA;It is thus classified as 結, and then extended to the word, 了結.&#xA;Furthermore, 結 also means 終, 止 or 成, so 了 may mean &quot;ended, stoped or complete&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;簡單講，「了」的原義是「走路時兩腳交叉」，而「結束、完成」是它的延伸義。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In short, the original meaning of 了 is &quot;to cross the legs when walking&quot;, and &quot;finished or complete&quot; is its extended meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可能是我的搜尋能力太差，這是我找到「了」和「結束」有關係的唯一古文。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Due to my poor search skills, this is the only classical article I found, which connects 了 to 結束.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至於現代人所編的解釋，有下面這些資料：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The following information is made by the modern people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/ziyuan_1605.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《汉字字源》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nukgs.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nukgs.png&quot; alt=&quot;a1.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/kangxi/pic.php?f=ziyuanlxq&amp;amp;p=1281&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《字源》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OkCy0.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OkCy0.png&quot; alt=&quot;a2.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/kangxi/pic.php?f=swjzjs&amp;amp;p=2133&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《说文解字今释》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/38WGu.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/38WGu.png&quot; alt=&quot;a3.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/kangxi/pic.php?f=ziyuan2&amp;amp;p=26&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《汉字字源－当代新说文解字》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UiPxe.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UiPxe.png&quot; alt=&quot;a4.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;依我個人的觀點，如果不是依據古文而來的解釋，其可信度較低。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In my opinion, the credibility is lower if it is not explained based on the classical text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2017-02-22T09:15:06.877" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T09:15:06.877" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22861" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-22T04:55:37.313" Score="2" ViewCount="343" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend left me this at work, I think it is a proverb but Google gave me different translations each time which confused me as none of it made sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CsUQa.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CsUQa.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16501" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-14T16:49:31.097" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T14:00:15.133" Title="Can anyone tell me what this means please? I think it is a proverb" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22861" CreationDate="2017-02-22T05:28:15.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;em&gt;Tao Te Ching&lt;/em&gt; (&quot;Canon of morality&quot;) attributed to Laozi. These words are excerpted from various parts. Various translation exists, and here I am just being literal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上善若水。水善利萬物而不爭。(part 8)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The utmost goodness [or benevolence] is like the water. Water is good at being benevolent to everything, and does not compete with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;守靜篤。(part 16)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is concrete to hold stillness.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[or better, &quot;Surely you must be calm.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;靜爲躁君。(part 26)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Stillness is the monarch of the movement.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[Or better, &quot;The waiting person rules the impatient person.&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清靜為天下正。(part 45)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Stilness is the right thing of the world.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[Or maybe &quot;Inactivity is the principle of reigning.&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems your friend admires Lauzi very much ; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T05:28:15.307" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22868" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22870" CreationDate="2017-02-23T00:24:15.970" Score="3" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was doing a sentence rearranging exercise and came across this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他英语讲得很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone explain the structure of this sentence?  I feel like it would be more properly written as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他会说英语说得很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was confused thinking that 英语 is the object of 讲 and so then would go after the verb. Could I say &quot;他讲英语。&quot;? Maybe &quot;他讲英语讲得很好。&quot;? And the explanation is that the first 讲 is just left out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why can't it be &quot;他讲得很好英语。&quot;? Is it just weird to have the adverbial phrase before the language being spoken?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-16T23:53:18.407" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T23:53:18.407" Title="Why is 讲 where it is in 他英语讲得很好?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22868" CreationDate="2017-02-23T08:30:19.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's use x-bar theory to examine the grammar of this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;S---他英语讲得很好&#xA; |&#xA; |--Noun Phrase---他&#xA; |--Verb Phrase---英语讲&#xA;               |--Noun---英语&#xA;               |--Verb---讲&#xA; |--Prepositional Phrase---得很好&#xA;                    |--Preposition---得&#xA;                    |--Complement---很好&#xA;                                 |--Adverb---很&#xA;                                 |--Adjective---好&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that this sentence has a SOV structure and there is a prepositional phrase that explain the relationship between the verb and object.&#xA;In most cases mandarin follows a SVO structure so here it's an inversion.&#xA;This inversion is quite common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T08:30:19.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22868" CreationDate="2017-02-23T09:38:34.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Maybe &quot;他讲英语讲得很好。&quot;? And the explanation is that the first 讲 is just left out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exactly this.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammatical rule here is pretty simple, but sometimes overlooked: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;with &lt;strong&gt;complements of grade&lt;/strong&gt; (得 + verbal phrase) the &lt;strong&gt;main verb is doubled&lt;/strong&gt;, in order to keep the strong bound between verb + object and between verb + grade particle, so your example would be actually written:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;讲&lt;/strong&gt;英语&lt;strong&gt;讲&lt;/strong&gt;得很好 &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, the first occurrence of the main verb (the one before the object) &lt;strong&gt;can be omitted&lt;/strong&gt;, so you end up with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他 (subject) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;s&gt;讲 (main verb)&lt;/s&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  英语 (object) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  讲 (verb doubled) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  得 (grade particle) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  很好 (verbal phrase)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-02-23T10:06:30.583" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T10:06:30.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22873" CreationDate="2017-02-23T09:41:24.693" Score="6" ViewCount="4644" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 怎么 and 怎么样 ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like both mean something like &quot;how&quot;. I also see that 怎么样 is often used to ask someone's opinion on something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In what contexts can 怎么 be used and when can 怎么样 be used? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any grammatical differences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16127" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T12:25:14.703" Title="What is the difference between 怎么 and 怎么样 ？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22871" CreationDate="2017-02-23T11:06:59.583" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are good explanations on the Web. I do not think I should copy them here. Please check &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%80%8E%E9%BA%BC&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;怎麼&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;and &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%80%8E%E9%BA%BC%E6%A8%A3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;怎麼樣&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, there is a good &lt;a href=&quot;http://ccs.ncl.edu.tw/chinese_studies_18_s/18_s_04.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; (pdf format) published by an associate professor, 蔡維天. I copy the abstract here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本文的題旨在於討論漢語疑問副詞的一個歧義現象：「怎麼」有時可當成「為甚麼」來用，如「她怎麼沒來？」。這種用法主要出現在助動詞之前，應屬句子頂層結構的一種現象。我們認為此處「怎麼」其實是整個句子的述語，問的是這個句子所表達事件的來由。相較之下，位於助動詞和動詞之間的「怎麼（樣）」則為修飾動詞組的狀語，表一個動作的樣貌或途徑。動詞之後的「怎麼樣」則為整個句子的補語，問的是事件的結果。從本體論的觀點來看，「怎麼」、「怎麼樣」在句法結構上的高低分布正反映出一種因果關係，也就是助動詞前的「怎麼」表「前因」，動詞後的「怎麼樣」表「後果」；中間則夾著表樣貌、途徑的「怎麼（樣）」。若以句法－語意介面的角度觀之，凡此種種不同的語意解釋正是由於「怎麼」、「怎麼樣」所處的句法層次不同，而產生的結果：也就是說，表原因的「怎麼」修飾事件，是整個句子的述語；表結果的「怎麼樣」修飾動作結束後的狀態，是動詞組內的補語；表樣貌、途徑「怎麼（樣）」則修飾動作本身，是動詞組的狀語，而和主語的主體意識（agentivity）相關。此外，表原因的「怎麼」在句法上的分布也和「為甚麼」相當一致，可採「無擇約束」（unselective binding）及「相對性近距原則」（relativized minimality）等概念加以規範。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aim of this paper is to examine an ambiguity of Chinese wh-adverbs:&#xA;zenme ‘how’ is sometimes construed as causal rather than method or manner,&#xA;as in Ta zenme mei lai?‘Why didn’t she come?’ We show that causal zenme&#xA;typically appears before modals, behaving very much like a matrix predicate.&#xA;By contrast, its postmodal counterparts are interpreted as method or manner&#xA;preverbally, and as result postverbally. From the viewpoint of ontology, the&#xA;structural distribution of zenme（yang）embodies a “cause-effect” relation, and&#xA;in-between, we have agent-sensitive concepts such as method and manner. In&#xA;terms of the syntax-semantics interface, it is demonstrated that the various&#xA;interpretations of zenme（yang）are conditioned by the syntactic projections it&#xA;occurs in. Namely, premodal zenme takes the whole sentence as its comple-&#xA;ment, which corresponds to an event. This results in the causal reading.&#xA;Postverbal zenmeyang, on the other hand, serves as a complement to VP,&#xA;corresponding to a resultant state. Hence the resultative reading. Furthermore,&#xA;when method/manner zenme（yang）serves as a VP-adverbial, it modifies an&#xA;action, thus sensitive to subject agentivity. Finally, we find that causal zenme&#xA;actually patterns with weishenme ‘why’ with respect to their syntactic behav-&#xA;ior, which can be accounted for by adopting the notion of unselective binding&#xA;and relativized minimality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T11:06:59.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22871" CreationDate="2017-02-23T11:38:19.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;怎么 is an interrogative substitute that means &quot;how (and sometimes &quot;why&quot;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个问题，我们应该&lt;strong&gt;怎么&lt;/strong&gt;解决？ &lt;strong&gt;How&lt;/strong&gt; are we supposed to solve this problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you use it as what it is: a substitute. You put in the same place that another adverb/complement of manner would occupy in the sentence, in order to make it the sentence a question. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;In the example above you could replace 怎么 with some element that specifies the manner and have an affirmative statement back:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个问题，我们应该&lt;strong&gt;想办法&lt;/strong&gt;解决  We should find a way to solve this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么样 is a phrase. 怎么 &lt;code&gt;how&lt;/code&gt; as I said above is used as a substitute of a adverb/complement, therefore it should precede something else. In 怎么样 you  have 怎么 preceding 样, which here works as a generic &quot;manner&quot; about which you are asking how. Therefore, 怎么样 means &quot;How is it&quot; or &quot;How about it&quot; or literally &quot;In what way&quot;, and can be used as a self-sufficient phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你好，今天怎么样？ Hi, how is it today?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  那你说怎么样才行！ Then you tell me in what way this'll be okay!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-02-23T15:40:00.617" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T15:40:00.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22875" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22876" CreationDate="2017-02-24T00:42:52.760" Score="2" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the sentence: &quot;我真的要走了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering why it has the 的. I didn't know 真 needed a 的 to be an adverb, or that it was even ok. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it equally correct to say &quot;我真要走了&quot;? Or is &quot;我真的要走了&quot; better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-16T22:44:59.573" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T22:44:59.573" Title="Use of 真的 as adverb: are 我真要走了 and 我真的要走了 equally correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22875" CreationDate="2017-02-24T00:50:40.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我真要走了&quot; and &quot;我真的要走了&quot; are both good expressions. They are in fact no different at all. &quot;真&quot; and &quot;真的&quot; are both adverbs here.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16520" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T00:50:40.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22842" CreationDate="2017-02-24T01:09:11.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This expression can be understood by Chinese. But usually native Madrin speaker will express it like this &quot;请在包裹上写下&quot; or &quot;请在包裹外面写下&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16520" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T01:09:11.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22879" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22881" CreationDate="2017-02-24T06:04:05.723" Score="3" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the most appropriate way to write both your non-Chinese, as well as your Chinese name, in one text line combined, e.g. at the bottom or top of a document.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Clarification:&lt;/strong&gt; by this, I mean that the document (e.g. a letter, a resume, or a report) is written by the person signing or 'heading' that document.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for the most appropriate answer, with regards to the &lt;em&gt;&quot;Chinese&quot;&lt;/em&gt;-language context, disregarding that the document itself might not be Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it one of the following options, and if so; which one please:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;FIRST NAME&quot; &quot;LAST NAME&quot; ‧ &quot;CHINESE LAST NAME&quot; &quot;CHINESE FIRST NAME&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;FIRST NAME&quot; &quot;LAST NAME&quot; · &quot;CHINESE LAST NAME&quot; &quot;CHINESE FIRST NAME&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;FIRST NAME&quot; &quot;LAST NAME&quot; • &quot;CHINESE LAST NAME&quot; &quot;CHINESE FIRST NAME&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;FIRST NAME&quot; &quot;LAST NAME&quot; ∙ &quot;CHINESE LAST NAME&quot; &quot;CHINESE FIRST NAME&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The inter-punctuation characters used in the options above are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;‧&lt;/code&gt; hyphenation point&lt;/strong&gt; (HTML-code: &lt;code&gt;&amp;amp;#8231;&lt;/code&gt;),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;·&lt;/code&gt; interpunct&lt;/strong&gt; (HTML-codes: &lt;code&gt;&amp;amp;#183;&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;&amp;amp;middot;&lt;/code&gt;),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;•&lt;/code&gt; bullet&lt;/strong&gt; (HTML-codes: &lt;code&gt;&amp;amp;#8226;&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;&amp;amp;bull;&lt;/code&gt;) and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;∙&lt;/code&gt; bullet operator&lt;/strong&gt; (HTML-code: &lt;code&gt;&amp;amp;#8729;&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;respectively ... even though this Stack Exchange website doesn't seem to format the bullet operator in a very standard way/font-size.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is there any other punctuation which is more standardized? Perhaps even using simple brackets &lt;code&gt;()&lt;/code&gt; (or is that not the &lt;em&gt;&quot;Chinese&quot;&lt;/em&gt; way)? Or should one simply use the Chinese point: &lt;code&gt;。&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also: should the punctuation marks or names receive a different font-size?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T19:56:16.177" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T19:56:16.177" Title="How to write your original (non-Chinese) and Chinese name, jointly" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22879" CreationDate="2017-02-24T07:46:47.597" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your best source is &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度 百科&lt;/a&gt; here's some examples of how they do it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=A-6HKfeV8CbWIFpz5BB1BxRcUspxpDOsooajTofKb4vCMGcV-3n53g8nbTUSVsGQg-vwWkvKHhAIdndzgla1pX3gs8cUzoY8F5RjUbxyOoAl-wKRP6qVijRNkm7nSnYMkJSRhu8ewEx7pZfiUkamr8UzquVV0DoxKzjo2OpBx49AHMif3sJlGP2jUFyJLXwmPPUuwW0Kb6RyMVEqJW108q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;基努·里维斯（Keanu Reeves）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=gJW3gsPlCk6z1wE2p0B4YziIYbxN5MmhoTdbA88zGapjUTHzkZ6iqsX9cpUp2vJDsUE-j706-9jnIkzLabBMFCknfzd6HZDiduBl33IfrSneGfWQtuHKoojVvL67mTKWdsgcz_An9lZnywWnDcu7D9HHoH_OKZ6v-vCXG9s3Di7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;布兰妮·斯皮尔斯（Britney Spears）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=kOmzPQ2sg9YVJbe5U11lFpWj93CvgOySeWi3cnxvjfThKurcerhTF0fTktgsVm0IFgzS0Hb88Bu4kE0sn2Q3szxcl-1gaiVEtc2P7rxn7-dRQmIq5HTalzuUwseIV6YAqkj9pYVgW0aK-Yfa6wFRYUmoars_G-B-BEKK_pQAgXdJWpxypmezq4XSnhOIo_RPmvyINKHbhf_iIS2NyDXnNa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;奥兰多·布鲁姆（Orlando Bloom）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the format here is: &lt;code&gt;transliterated first name&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;·&lt;/code&gt; (interpunct code point U+00B7 · MIDDLE DOT) + &lt;code&gt;transliterated surname&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;（&lt;/code&gt; (General purpose&#xA;(fullwidth East-Asian) / U+FF08 Fullwidth left parenthesis) + &lt;code&gt;）&lt;/code&gt; (General purpose&#xA;(fullwidth East-Asian) / U+FF09 Fullwidth right parenthesis)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you can see there is no space after the Chinese name and the left parenthesis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your name then would look something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文森特·费尔海恩（Vincent Verheyen）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the reverse would also work for said purpose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vincent Verheyen（文森特·费尔海恩）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out of curiosity, here's also an example of a famous westerner with a Chinese name - with his Chinese name and then western-name on a &amp;quot;single line&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=TOxY5jESaFfWWw5g2TtkYyKx34-hSLITHthK_lcQgg2QMCcxMa0mpOkgGSFF2MpN89OTtDIcHMq1PG30tt8HRFLQeABOcxx-Mw0AVtwBA0m&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大山（本名马克·亨利·罗斯韦尔，Mark Henry Rowswell）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T05:52:00.977" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22108" CreationDate="2017-02-24T09:12:43.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;本文章原以德文出版。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you proposed actually mean &quot;this article was originally published on (a magazine called) German&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T09:12:43.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22785" CreationDate="2017-02-24T09:23:01.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an example of a serial verb construction. Mandarin Chinese can have a transitive verb-object followed by an intransitive verb. The object of the transitive verb can become the subject of the intransitive verb. Or, in this case, the intransitive verb can share the subject with the transitive verb. (Note: In English, 'go' is an intransitive verb. In Mandarin, it's transitive.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去北京 is clearly a subject-verb-object. 旅行 is an intransitive verb. As such, it can be a 'serial' (i.e. added in a series) after a transitive verb and its complement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15525" LastEditorUserId="15525" LastEditDate="2017-02-24T12:47:12.457" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T12:47:12.457" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22884" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-24T09:43:57.247" Score="0" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any online database or printed reference work where it's possible to look up a character and see it written in many different styles, like different printing fonts, cursives and pictures from classic calligraphy works?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="16210" LastEditDate="2017-02-27T16:36:43.340" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T16:36:43.340" Title="Reference for different looking ways of writing a character?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22884" CreationDate="2017-02-24T09:54:49.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, we don't have so much different kind of handwriting styles in Chinese. Usually there are two types: regular script (楷体) or running script (行体). Regular script is just the standard writing style and the running one is something we write when we write faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16489" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T09:54:49.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22886" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22887" CreationDate="2017-02-24T14:18:33.260" Score="0" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which of these sentences is correct? Or are both acceptable? Which sounds more natural to a native Mandarin speaker?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他把书放在桌子上。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他在桌子上放书。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他把书在桌子上放。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他放书在桌子上。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess 在桌子上 is not where the 放 is occurring, so maybe the #2 &amp;amp; #3 don't make sense? I can't find a specific sentence structure rule, but is it generally:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;#4 seems to follow a pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(subject) + (verb) + (object) + (location of object after verb action)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That seems to make sense to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;#1 seems to follow a pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(subject) + 把 + (object) + (verb) + (location of object after verb action)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes sense to me if it is acceptable to put (location of object after verb action) at the end of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the primary questions summarize to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Is there a general sentence structure for actions on objects which change the location/state of the object?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Or is this case unique to &quot;putting an object in a place&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T03:47:48.947" Title="sentence structure: location of object after action applied to it" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22886" CreationDate="2017-02-24T16:12:49.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;1 and 2 are correct, but 2 is weird.&#xA;You can find a nice explanation &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Using_%22ba%22_sentences&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammatical role of 在桌子上 is sightly different though.&#xA;In: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他把书放在桌子上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase 在桌子上 is a &lt;strong&gt;result complement&lt;/strong&gt;. The verb 在 acts as a result of 放：the result of 放 &quot;putting&quot; the book is that it now 在 &quot;stays&quot; on the table.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Now the result verb must occur right after the main verb, therefore the object of the action gets pulled in front of it by 把， thus achieving a SOV structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In example 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他在桌子上放书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase 在桌子上 acts as a location complement, and therefore locates the action 放。The sentence is weird because it's not clear if being on the table is the result of the action or where the action is taking place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples 3 and 4 are not grammatical.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer your question, anticipation of the object with &lt;strong&gt;Subj. + 把 + Obj. + Verb Phrase&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt; happens mainly in two cases:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;when the main verb is followed by a result verb or a result complement&lt;br&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你把苹果吃掉吧。 Eat the apple. (result is 掉 = object has disappeared)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你把钱包拿出来。Take out the purse. (result is the purse comes out)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;when the main verb is ditransitive (direct and indirect object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我准备把&lt;strong&gt;这件礼物&lt;/strong&gt; (direct obj.) 给 &lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt; (indirect obj.) I'm going to give this present to him &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T16:12:49.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22884" CreationDate="2017-02-24T22:57:46.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are in fact a few websites out there, not to mention hundreds of book titles. You may want to try guoxuedashi.com, which has one overview page for each character (eg &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/672C.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/672C.html&lt;/a&gt;) and many sub-pages, one of them indeed with a nice overview of writing styles with pictures from historical sources, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://shufa.guoxuedashi.com/672C/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://shufa.guoxuedashi.com/672C/&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16530" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T22:57:46.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22886" CreationDate="2017-02-25T00:46:10.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It might be easier to understand the subtlety if you tried to translate it to English literally and see how it would sound like to native speakers (not exact translations, just to give you an idea why the first sounds most natural):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他把书放在桌子上。He put the book on the desk.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他在桌子上放书。 On the desk he placed (instead of put sounds better) the&#xA;book.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他把书在桌子上放。The book on the desk he placed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他放书在桌子上。He released the book on the desk.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T00:46:10.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22884" CreationDate="2017-02-25T01:13:42.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mobile software Pleco has this function, here's a look at the charter 好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nXF3b.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the order is something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;篆、草、行、楷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seal, cursive, running and regular scripts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(They're not all free though)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T01:13:42.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22886" CreationDate="2017-02-25T03:47:48.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is a language of subtlety, by &quot;subtle&quot; I mean you can use the same set of characters to form sentences (by changing the order) for a variety of circumstances. As to what is correct, it really depends on what you are trying to communicate (emphasize), and the situation you are in—a sentence that is perfectly ok in writing could be awkward or dull in daily communications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) If you want to describe the action itself, #1 is probably the most natural in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If you want to describe the result (e.g. in response to the question &quot;Where did he put the book?&quot;), add a 了:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把书放在桌子上了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many native speakers choose to omit 在 in &lt;strong&gt;daily conversations&lt;/strong&gt; nowadays:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把书放桌子上了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And when 桌/椅/架/车子 is used with 上, you can even omit 子. This sounds more comfortable to the Chinese ears (I'm Chinese so you can take my words for it :D). So if you want to impress people, try losing them in &lt;strong&gt;daily conversations&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把书放桌上了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) In response to the question &quot;Where does he (usually) put his books?&quot; Both #1 and #2 are ok, #2 is arguably better if you add an adverb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他（一般）在桌子上放书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) The &lt;strong&gt;structure&lt;/strong&gt; of #3 can be used (useful) in writing/saying rhyming verses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把书在桌上放，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;水泥包往肩上扛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to say it out loud (this verse makes more sense in the 60s). :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So again, instead of asking whether it is right or wrong, it is more sensible to ask which is more appropriate in which situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16532" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T03:47:48.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22892" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22905" CreationDate="2017-02-25T04:05:26.847" Score="2" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've asked a similar question before:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/8532/dialects-topolects-tone-marks&quot;&gt;Dialects/Topolects: Tone Marks?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I want to make this more specific here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know not everyone agrees with &lt;em&gt;tone accents&lt;/em&gt; in dialects/topolects - but just for the sake of argument - how should it be done? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know how &lt;strong&gt;tone accents&lt;/strong&gt; are dealt with in topolects/dialects when there are two falling tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what I've found, so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yale &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_phonology#Tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantonese&lt;/a&gt; seems to do it this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;siː˥˧ = sì &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;siː˨˩ = sìh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So high falling tone = grave accent | low dropping tone grave accent + h on the end&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while IPA does:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;sî&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;sìː&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;respectively &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_Hokkien#Tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hokkien&lt;/a&gt; seems to do it this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;˧˩ to ˨˩ (31~21) = à&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;˧˨ʔ (32) = ah&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bigger drop gets a grave accent, light drop gets an h without an accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple standard seems to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most obvious tone gets a grave accent - light drop gets an 'h'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my main question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is this a standard? Should all dialects follow suite?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't like that circumflex in the IPA one bit - seems quite confusing rather than anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm inclined to use grave and double grave to denote the differences, myself - but I'd rather go a more &quot;standard&quot; route if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T12:56:00.483" Title="how do dialects deal with two seperate falling tones accents?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;accent&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22893" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22894" CreationDate="2017-02-25T05:15:01.850" Score="0" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of the audio on the page at &lt;a href=&quot;http://stroke-order.learningweb.moe.edu.tw/characterQueryResult.do?word=%E7%95%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://stroke-order.learningweb.moe.edu.tw/characterQueryResult.do?word=%E7%95%AB&lt;/a&gt; which reads out 共十二畫/劃, which is more correct when referring to stroke count: 畫 or 劃?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that 畫 and 劃 are equivalent according to Yabla's Chinese English Pinyin Dictionary when looking up the term &quot;筆劃&quot;¹, but the more-complex 劃 character provides more accurate results when run through Google Translate. 畫 gets translated as &quot;painting&quot;. On the other hand, Google Translate seems to indicate the wrong tone (tone 2) when using 劃.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%AD%86%E5%8A%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%AD%86%E5%8A%83&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16406" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T05:40:12.060" Title="Which is correct when referring to stroke count: 畫 or 劃?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22893" CreationDate="2017-02-25T05:40:12.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1469/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;劃&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[4] [n] stroke (of a Chinese character&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/469/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;畫&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[3] [n] stroke of a Chinese character&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the meaning of 'pen stoke', it can be either. However, I prefer 劃.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 劃 is used as a noun, it can only mean 'stroke'. meanwhile when 畫 is used as a noun, it means 'drawing' primarily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T05:40:12.060" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22844" CreationDate="2017-02-25T07:59:33.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First notice that 了 is a sign for perfective aspect(完成时貌).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Mandarin Chinese doesn't have tense(时态), but rather aspect(时貌) instead. For more about this distinction, you can check &lt;a href=&quot;http://mcu.edu.tw/~ssmith/ling/chinese%20aspect.ppt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, which briefly listed several aspects in Mandarin Chinese including perfective aspect, imperfective aspect and experiential aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the question how 了 got the meaning &quot;finish&quot;, you can check this &lt;a href=&quot;http://tlmei.com/tm17web/res/wanchengmao.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;paper&lt;/a&gt;. I will lists the highlights from the paper here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot; 总起来说，我们还是拿《世说新语》作为根据，认为南北朝时代“终了、了结”义的“了”字虽然已经出现，但不常用，而且绝对没有“动+宾+了”句式。&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 gets the meaning &quot;finish&quot; since the age of Northern and Southern Dynasties (AD 420-589), though this use is rare. And 了 doesn't become the sign of perfective tense (verb+object+了) during this period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;从南北朝到唐代，“动十宾+完”这个结构的框子没变，填框子的词汇发生变化；“了”字在这框子里替代了其他词汇，变成最常用的完成动词；“竟、讫、已、毕”唐代还在用，但已渐被“了”字淘汰。这样就形成了变文和其他唐代文献中的“动+宾+了”。&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the time between Northern and Southern Dynasties and Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), the structure &quot;verb+object+perfective aspect modal verb&quot; persists. But the modal verb used in this structure is evolving over time. In Tang Dynasty, 了 become the most common modal verb for perfective aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The paper also mentioned that they cannot explain the origin of the structure &quot;verb+object+perfective aspect modal verb&quot; before the Northern and Southern Dynasty. There are two hypotheses trying to explain this. The first is that Chinese languages adopted this structure from Sanskrit, which is proposed by other researchers while this paper says it's not well supported. Another theory is that this structure evolves from more ancient Old Chinese grammar.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next is to explain how did the &quot;verb+object+perfective aspect modal verb&quot; evolved to &quot;verb+perfective aspect modal verb+object&quot; structure as in Modern Mandarin Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;在唐代“了”字没往前挪以前，动词和宾语之间，已经有了个表示完成貌的成分，但这成分是许许多多用作结果补语的动词或形容词&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before Tang dynasty, the structure is &quot;verb+object+perfective aspect modal verb&quot;. But sometimes there are verbs or adjectives acting as complement to the verb of main clause. These verbs or adjectives have meaning related to perfective aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;从中唐到宋代，完成貌“了”字挪到动词和宾语之间的位置，挪前的原因有二：(1)动宾短语后面的“(不)得”和结果补语同时也往前挪；(2)放在动宾之间的结果补语早就表示完成貌&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Between middle Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty (960-1297), the perfective aspect modal verb 了 moves forward (to form the structure &quot;verb+perfective aspect modal verb+object&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T07:59:33.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22898" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22908" CreationDate="2017-02-25T13:18:20.917" Score="11" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;p&gt;當我看 &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22844/how-does-a-body-with-no-arms-mean-finished-%e4%ba%86%e5%ad%90/22860#22860&quot;&gt;Hinen 的答案&lt;/a&gt;時，看到近代書將「了」分為象形字。&#xA;大概是因為《說文解字》曾提及「象形」二字如下：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了，尦也。从子，無臂。象形。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作者許慎的意思應該是將「了」判為象形字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文解字》的序文有象形字的定義：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;象形者，畫成其物，隨體詰詘，日月是也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;象形字是依物體的彎曲樣子將它的形狀畫出來，譬如，日和月。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;也就是說，象形字是直接描繪該物體。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是，段玉裁的《說文解字注》將許慎的「象形」二字解釋為：象「其足了戾」之形，而不是解為：象「子無臂」之形。&#xA;也就是說，段玉裁認為「了」是畫「兩腳糾結」之形，而不是直接畫「子無臂」之形。&#xA;段玉裁會如此解釋，大概是因為「了」的本義是「尦」。&#xA;（依 Hinen 的答案，「尦」的意思是，行走時，小腿相互交叉。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但這就暗示「了」不是象形字，因為不是直接描繪該物體。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是段玉裁解錯了嗎？還是許慎判錯了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「了」是象形字嗎？如果不是，那是哪一種字？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22844/how-does-a-body-with-no-arms-mean-finished-%e4%ba%86%e5%ad%90/22860#22860&quot;&gt;Hinen's answer&lt;/a&gt;, I see that 了 is a pictograph in the modern books.&#xA;It is probably due to that there are two characters, 象形, in the 《說文解字》 as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了，尦也。从子，無臂。象形。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author, 許慎, should mean that 了 is a pictograph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a definition of pictographs in the preface of 《說文解字》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;象形者，畫成其物，隨體詰詘，日月是也。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A pictograph is drawn by following the curved shape of an object, such as 日 (sun) and 月 (moon).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, a pictographic word is made by drawing the object DIRECTLY.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the 《說文解字注》, 段玉裁 interpreted 許慎's 象形 as 象「其足了戾」之形 rather than 象「子無臂」之形。&#xA;In other words, 段玉裁 thought that 了 was made by depicting the twined and bound shape of two feet, rather than by DIRECTLY depicting the shape of &quot;a baby without arms&quot;.&#xA;This is probably because the original meaning of 了 is 尦.&#xA;(According to Hinen's answer, 尦 means that the shanks cross each other while walking.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this implies that 了 is not a pictograph because it is not made by DIRECTLY drawing the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was the interpretation made by 段玉裁 wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did 許慎 make a wrong judgment?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 了 a pictograph?&#xA;If not, what category does it belong to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T11:49:57.123" Title="Is 了 a pictogram (象形字)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22898" CreationDate="2017-02-25T14:33:27.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, this implies that 了 is not a pictograph because it is not made by DIRECTLY drawing the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pictograph depict the form of an object and the form of an object can imply an action. For example, 入 was originally a form of a 'lid facing down' and that implies 'storage; enter' which became the primary meaning today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Various characters started out as a simple pictograph to depict an object or form. Acquired radical(部首) status when enough characters were formed around on these pictograph, for example: 土, 日 and &lt;strong&gt;子&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了 : 象形。从&lt;strong&gt;子&lt;/strong&gt;,无臂 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从子 means the radical (部首) of '了' is '子'(omitted arms). The original meaning of 了 was not 'baby without arms', just the word itself belongs to the modified form of '子' 字部 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 originally depicted the &lt;strong&gt;form&lt;/strong&gt; of 'bouned shape of two feet'. It qualifies 了 as pictograph even the primary meaning of 了(form of bounded shape of two feet) is 'finish; complete' -- just like the primary meaning of 入(form of a lid) is 'enter'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-02-25T14:38:58.760" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T14:38:58.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22900" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22901" CreationDate="2017-02-25T19:51:30.600" Score="3" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I started learning Japanese a while ago, I always found the onyomi pronunciation of 二, being 'ni', unusual compared to the Mandarin pronunciation of 'èr'. The Old and Middle Chinese pronunciations are also closely related to the Japanese pronunciation, with their respective pronunciations being '*ni[j]-s' and 'nyij&lt;sup&gt;H&lt;/sup&gt;'. The Hakka pronunciation of 'ngi' and the Wu pronunciation of 'nyi' are also very similar to the Old and Middle Chinese and Japanese pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone could enlighten on why this disparity exists in the pronunciations of 二 between Mandarin and other dialects of Chinese, I would greatly appreciate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16535" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T17:52:39.370" Title="二 Mandarin pronunciation vs. other dialects and Japanese" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22900" CreationDate="2017-02-25T22:01:15.677" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guokr.com/post/437766/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; there's some other people asked the same question. 忆珩 and Nimmer provided answers that maybe very helpful to your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忆珩:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二、耳等字属于日母止摄三等，日母古音是个舌面的鼻音ȵ，本来是从泥母n中分化出来的，后来北方方言中日母鼻音消失并且卷舌化成了ʐ，其中止摄三等字变成了零声母的er。而在南方吴语、闽语等方言里日母又归回了泥母n，就是现在这种状况了。简单的说大致就是这么个历史过程。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至于说历史因素，应该是宋金对峙导致的南北方言分离（这使得现在北方方言的几大特征都是在元朝开始显著起来），地理因素自然就是长江了吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nimmer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要了解这个问题必须有一些汉语音韵学的背景了。”二“是日母止摄三等，上古的声母应该是n。到了中古时期以前的发音应该是ȵi。”ȵ“是一个跟n接近的鼻音。对于日语中古的读音，各家有分歧。应该不是”ȵ“，就是”ȵʑ“。在北方，这个鼻音发生了擦音化，在元代变成了ʐʅ。之后成了现代的ɚ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在北方话的发展过程应该是这样的：ȵi&amp;gt;ȵʑi&amp;gt;ʑi&amp;gt;ʐɨ&amp;gt;ʐʅ&amp;gt;ɻʅ&amp;gt;əɻ&amp;gt;ɚ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Middle Chinese, 二's initial was ȵ. During the time when the northern China was ruled by Jin Dynasty and southern China was ruled by Song Dynasty, the separation makes the northern and southern Chinese language evolves on different path.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, ȵ first became ʐ and then further shifted to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wikiwand.com/zh-hans/%E9%9B%B6%E8%81%B2%E6%AF%8D&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zero consonant&lt;/a&gt;. Notice that characters with initial ȵ are pronounces as nj-. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wikiwand.com/zh-hans/%E4%BB%8B%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;medial&lt;/a&gt; is j/i. Though ȵ disappeared eventually, the medial persists in various forms. Eventually, this medial becomes ə and then becomes an &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wikiwand.com/zh-hans/%E5%85%92%E5%8C%96%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;erhua&lt;/a&gt; ɚ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In various southern Chinese languages, each of them evolves in their unique path. But due to the official status of Mandarin, southern Chinese are greatly influenced by the phonetical change is Mandarin. So roughly speaking, we quite often can observe that some southern Chinese maintains certain characteristics of Middle Chinese. That's why 二 still maintain the original initial ȵ, or it's variant n in some regions. (But notice that sometimes character with initial ȵ in Middle Chinese could have other initial such as ʐ or ə in southern Chinese.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Japanese on'yomi pronunciation, a great majority of them still maintains the origin pronunciation at the time the kanji was adopted into Japanese. That's why on'yomi shares many characteristics as Middle Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T22:01:15.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22892" CreationDate="2017-02-25T22:39:08.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that in each pair of tones you provided, the first of them is 去声 and the second of them is 入声. So they're two different tones rather than different ways of accentuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T22:39:08.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22903" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-26T01:23:06.480" Score="4" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not too sure what this 得 is doing here. If I rewrite as in 2. or 3. is that a) correct and b) still the same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;德里克.帕腓特有一个极端得空前绝后的假设，。。。。。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;德里克.帕腓特有一个极端的,空前绝后的假设，。。。。。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;德里克.帕腓特有一个极端地空前绝后的假设，。。。。。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, I'm not sure what 空前绝后 is describing. Either 极端 or 假设， or both?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate the phrase as: Derek Parfit presents the extreme（极端） and unprecedented（空前绝后） hypothesis that, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not good English to write 'extremely unprecedented'. Either something is unprecedented, or it is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T04:25:22.103" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T04:25:22.103" Title="Can I rewrite 德里克.帕腓特有一个极端得空前绝后的假设 using 的 or 地 instead of 得？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22903" CreationDate="2017-02-26T02:30:33.450" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For &lt;code&gt;极端得空前绝后的假设&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;空前绝后&lt;/code&gt; is describing &lt;code&gt;极端&lt;/code&gt;, to express the degree of &lt;code&gt;极端&lt;/code&gt;. And &lt;code&gt;极端&lt;/code&gt; is describing &lt;code&gt;假设&lt;/code&gt;. So &lt;code&gt;极端得空前绝后的假设&lt;/code&gt; could be parsed as &lt;code&gt;极端（得空前绝后）的假设&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;(unprecedentedly) extreme hypothesis&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And when describing the degree of verb/adj, &lt;code&gt;得&lt;/code&gt; should be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in the 2nd sentence, if you change &lt;code&gt;得&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;, the syntax is valid but the meaning changes; it becomes &lt;code&gt;极端的，空前绝后的假设&lt;/code&gt;, both &lt;code&gt;极端&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;空前绝后&lt;/code&gt; describe &lt;code&gt;假设&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;extreme and unprecedented hypothesis&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the 3rd sentence, I'll say that using &lt;code&gt;地&lt;/code&gt; is wrong syntax here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here're some references about the differences among &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;地&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;得&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/23579160&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「的、地、得」的用法有何区别？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.douban.com/note/100792312/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“的、地、得”的用法&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-02-26T12:26:32.643" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T12:26:32.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22892" CreationDate="2017-02-26T02:53:23.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In essence, if I understand you correctly, you are asking for a standard for romanisation of tone diacritics. The straightforward answer of course is that each system has its own standard: Hanyu Pinyin for standard Mandarin is different to traditional Yale for Cantonese, which is different to Jyutping for Cantonese, which is the same as Sidney Lau for Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With many learners whose first encounter with tone as a concept is with stnadard Mandarin Chinese through the orthography provided by Hanyu Pinyin, the diacritics are virtually &lt;em&gt;featural&lt;/em&gt;; it is as if each diacritic was designed to represent the pitch of each tone as pronounced in the standard way. Neat, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also works to an extent with Yale in Cantonese (including if you consider the high falling tone distinct from the high level tone, which is a minority in the 21st century). However, what to do with the low tones, which happen to be the same contours? Just add &quot;h&quot; after the vowel (or syllabic nasal consonant) and you're done! Not quite as featural as Hanyu Pinyin, but systematic enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Peh-oe-ji and its descendants are not very intuitive it comes to the representation of the tones in its orthography of Hokkien. If we look at the tones of Xiamen (Amoy) Hokkien, for which Peh-oe-ji was originally developed, through a strictly synchronic phonetic view, we get (in descending pitch order):&#xA; - high level [including obstruent endings];&#xA; - high falling;&#xA; - (high) rising;&#xA; - mid level;&#xA; - low falling;&#xA; - low with obstruent endings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have two level and one kind-of level tones, one rising tone, and two falling tones. However, Peh-oe-ji was &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; developed with this view of the tone system; instead, it allocated the tones according to the historical four tone 平上去入 system of Middle Chinese, broken down by 阴阳 register, with 阴 going first then 阳. This is also technically the same view (let's call it the &quot;historical&quot; view) as the tone numbers for Cantonese in Yale and Jyutping. &#xA;The allocation of the diacritics seems fairly random, although an explanation from &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NTtNAAAAcAAJ&amp;amp;pg=PR53&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WH Medhurst's pioneering 1832 dicionary&lt;/a&gt; on (what would later be Malaysian) Hokkien can be found. Essentially, his tone marks are very subjective, introspective descriptions, and not &lt;em&gt;directly&lt;/em&gt; related to pitch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2017-02-27T12:56:00.483" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T12:56:00.483" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22903" CreationDate="2017-02-26T03:39:28.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer provided by @songyuanyao seems to be correct for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll show you how to Let's use x-bar theory to decompose the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence = 德里克.帕腓特有一个极端得空前绝后的假设&#xA;Sentence = Noun Phrase(德里克.帕腓特) + Verb Phrase(有一个极端得空前绝后的假设)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Noun Phrase(德里克.帕腓特) = Noun(德里克.帕腓特)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Verb Phrase(有一个极端得空前绝后的假设) = Verb(有) + Noun Phrase(一个极端得空前绝后的假设)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Noun Phrase(一个极端得空前绝后的假设) = Determiner(一个) + Adjective Phrase (极端得空前绝后的) + Noun(假设)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adjective Phrase(极端得空前绝后的) = Adjective(极端) + Complement Phrase(得空前绝后) + Adjective Preposition(的)&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Complement Phrase(得空前绝后)= Complement Preposition(得) + Complement(空前绝后)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In serious writing, you should never misuse 的,地 and 得.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 is used between an adjective phrase and a noun phrase which the adjective phrase is describing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地 is used between an adverbial phrase and a verb phrase which the adverbial phrase is describing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得 is used between a noun phrase or a verb phrase and the complement which is describing the previous phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T03:39:28.110" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22898" CreationDate="2017-02-26T03:50:21.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people proposed this hypothesis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A unborn baby is 厶, whose oracle writing is similar to an inverted 了 and is depicting the fetus with the head down. This is because in a normal delivery the head of a baby comes out first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the baby is born, it becomes 了, which is an inverted 厶 because it's born.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子 is the baby with arms wielding. 孑 and 孓 are baby with only left or right arm wielding. 子, 了, 孑 and 孓 are four different depiction of a baby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T03:50:21.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22898" CreationDate="2017-02-26T06:55:02.057" Score="8" Body="&lt;h2&gt;「了」是象形字嗎？  Is 了 a pictograph?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丁福保所編的《說文解字詁林》收集了（清）王筠《說文句讀》中關於「了」的解釋。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;丁福保's 《說文解字詁林》 collected (Qing Dynasty) 王筠's 《說文句讀》, which has explained 了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;筠 [ ㄩㄣˊ | yún ]&#xA;句讀 [ ㄐㄩˋ ㄉㄡˋ | jù dòu ]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圖一&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rl6Ky.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rl6Ky.png&quot; alt=&quot;p1.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《集韻》引，無「象」字。然，「象形」二字竝當删。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  （完整文見圖三藍線）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;竝 ＝ 並 [ ㄅ〡ㄥˋ | bìng ]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意思是：《集韻》在引用《說文解字》的「从子無臂象形」時，沒有包括「象」這個字。&#xA;也就是：「从子，無臂形」。&#xA;而王筠認為應該連「形」字都不取。&#xA;亦即：「从子，無臂」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It means that when 《集韻》 quoted 从子無臂象形 from 《說文解字》, 象 was excluded.&#xA;That is 从子，無臂形.&#xA;王筠 thought that 形 should be removed too.&#xA;That is 从子，無臂.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;註：《集韻》是北宋時，仁宗命丁度等人編寫的官方韻書。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Note: 《集韻》 was an official rhyme book compiled by 丁度 and others under the 仁宗's order during the Northern Song Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朱駿聲的《說文通訓定聲》也沒有包括「象」字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;朱駿聲 also excluded 象 in his 《說文通訓定聲》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圖二&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ix0Z6.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ix0Z6.png&quot; alt=&quot;p2.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為什麼有這麼多的學者專家都删掉「象（形）」字？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Why did such many experts and scholars delete 象（形）?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大概只有一個解釋，就是他們不認為「了」是象形字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The only explanation might be that they did not consider 了 as a pictograph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;那是哪一種字？  What category does it belong to?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再看《說文句讀》後文。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Let's look at the subsequent contents in the 《說文句讀》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圖三&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wscaT.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wscaT.png&quot; alt=&quot;p3.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《後漢書˙孔融傳》曰：「小而了了」，則「了」字屬事，不屬物，安得有形可象？許說「了，尦」，亦是事也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;尦 [ ㄌㄧㄠˋ | liào ]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意思是：「了了」是指很聰明這件事，不屬於物體，根本沒有形體可以描繪。&#xA;許慎所說的「了，尦也」，也是指小腿交叉這件事。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It means that 了了 refers to &quot;very clever&quot;, which is not an object, so there is not a physical shape to depict at all.&#xA;了，尦也 mentioned by 許慎 also refers to the thing or affair of crossing the shanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再看《說文通訓定聲》後文。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Let's look at the 《說文通訓定聲》 again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圖四&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Fcf9.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Fcf9.png&quot; alt=&quot;p4.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;手之攣，曰「了」，脛之縶，曰「尦」。从子無臂，指事。&#xA;  （轉注）凡物結糾紾縳不伸者，曰「了戾」。&#xA;  （叚借）為憭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;攣 [ ㄌㄨㄢˊ | luán ]&#xA;縶 [ ㄓˊ | zhí ]&#xA;紾 [ ㄓㄣˇ | zhěn ]&#xA;縳 [ ㄓㄨㄢˋ | zhuàn ]&#xA;叚 [ ㄐ〡ㄚˇ ｜ jiă ] ＝ 假&#xA;憭 [ ㄌ〡ㄠˇ | liăo ] ＝ 瞭&#xA;縛 [ ㄈㄨˊ | fú ] 大陸可能讀四聲&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;束縛手臂稱為「了」，束縛小腿稱為「尦」。&#xA;「了」是從「子無臂」而來，屬指事字。&#xA;又被轉用來解釋物體糾結不直的樣子，稱為「了戾」。&#xA;也被「瞭」借用為「明白」的意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To bind arms is called 了. To bind shanks is called 尦.&#xA;了 is derived from 子 by removing the left-right stroke, and is one of the simple indicatives (ideograms).&#xA;了 is also transfered to explain the twined and bound appearance of an object, said 了戾.&#xA;In addition, 了 is borrowed by 瞭 that means &quot;to understand&quot; or &quot;clear&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文解字詁林》也收集了饒炯的《說文解字部首訂》。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《說文解字詁林》 also collected 饒炯's 《說文解字部首訂》。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圖五&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fc6P6.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fc6P6.png&quot; alt=&quot;p5.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;指事......&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  以尦說了，蓋因類爲釋。......是以，朱駿聲說：「手之攣，曰『了』，足之縶，曰『尦』；从子無臂，指事」，是也。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  若从段玉裁說「象其足了戾之形」，其事屬足，而篆省反在手，何能見其爲足之了戾乎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此文就說得很明顯了，一開始就直接定義是指事字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The statement is very clear, which directly defines 了 as one of the indicatives at the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用「尦」來解釋「了」，是用類似的形狀來解釋。&#xA;所以，朱駿聲會有如此說法，是這個緣故。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To explain 了 with 尦 is based on the similar shape.&#xA;Therefore, this is the reason 朱駿聲 explained it as above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果是依段玉裁的說法「象其足了戾之形」，這是在說&lt;strong&gt;足&lt;/strong&gt;。&#xA;然而篆文省去的卻是&lt;strong&gt;手&lt;/strong&gt;。&#xA;段玉裁怎能知道它是&lt;strong&gt;足&lt;/strong&gt;之糾結呢？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If it is in accordance with 段玉裁's statement, 象其足了戾之形, this talks about the LEGS.&#xA;However, the ARMS are omitted in the seal character.&#xA;How could 段玉裁 know that it was the twined and bound appearance of the LEGS?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意思是說，如果是象形字而不是指事字，段玉裁不能用&lt;strong&gt;足&lt;/strong&gt;之糾結來解釋&lt;strong&gt;臂&lt;/strong&gt;之省略。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It means that if it is a pictograph rather than an indicative, 段玉裁 could not explain the omission of the ARMS with the bound appearance of the LEGS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以，這些學者認為「了」應該是&lt;strong&gt;指事字&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore, these scholars believed that 了 should be one of the indicatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T06:55:02.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22909" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-26T13:20:02.830" Score="1" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;What songs do Chinese people sing during hiking? I'm both interested in traditional as well as contemporary songs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in German there is a song &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=25554&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The miller's joy is wandering&lt;/a&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13572" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T22:21:03.783" Title="Chinese songs for hiking" Tags="&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22911" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-27T01:08:33.907" Score="0" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;他是这样陈述自己的见解的：“我们的思想，是连续不断的认知组成的演变过程。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们的思想，是连续不断的认知组成的演变过程。&#xA;Our thoughts are evolving(演变） 【in】 a never ending process of &lt;em&gt;cognitive formation&lt;/em&gt;(认知组成）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not really sure what he means with ‘认知组成’, so it is hard for me to translate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe he means: The things which we are aware of, which we perceive, provoke/cause our thoughts. This process goes on and on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T03:58:52.990" Title="How should I translate 认知组成？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22911" CreationDate="2017-02-27T03:58:52.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would take&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“我们的思想，是连续不断的认知组成的演变过程。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and translate it, roughly, like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our thinking, is constituted [组成] by a constantly evolving cognitive [认知] process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not “认知组成” as a set-phrase or even a connected phrase but just two separate words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your understanding:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Our thoughts are evolving(演变） 【in】 a never ending process of cognitive formation(认知组成）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;absolutely works as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T03:58:52.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22903" CreationDate="2017-02-27T16:06:17.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;(1) 极端得空前绝后的 = unprecedentedly extreme&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 极端的，空前绝后的 = extreme and unprecedented&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends which you want to express. (They seem similar to me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say (3) is unacceptable. &lt;code&gt;极端地&lt;/code&gt; is an adverb that modifies a verb, but there is no verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I said corresponds with my memory of high-school textbook. Keep in mind that Chinese usage is far from uniform, and don't be surprised if you find something different from your books. Purist will hold that (3) is wrong, but many laypeople might be okay with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T16:06:17.980" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22914" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-27T18:32:26.167" Score="0" ViewCount="483" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;1 lb&quot; is 一磅 and &quot;half-pound&quot; is 半磅. And &quot;3/4&quot; is 四分之三. So far, so good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm not clear on how to read measurements like 3/4 lb, 1.5 lbs and 1.75 lbs in Chinese. My guesses below would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3/4 lb = 四分之三磅&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.5 lbs = 一個半磅&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.75 lbs = 一個四分之三磅 (?) - This is the one I'm most confused about. I'm not totally sure how to string together all the elements&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I'm specifically using pounds as the unit of measurement here because I live in the US and I frequently need to state fractions of a pound, but I'd be curious if there are any relevant differences with other units of measurements, in particular grams and kilograms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16548" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T20:14:15.853" Title="How to state fractions with units of measurement? (e.g. 0.75 lb, 1.5 lbs, 1.75 lbs, etc.)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;number&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22914" CreationDate="2017-02-27T19:35:48.330" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;在中文里他们正确的读法是下面这样：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3/4 lb = 四分之三磅&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.5 lbs = 一点五磅&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.75 lbs = 一点七五磅 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16552" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T19:35:48.330" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22916" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22920" CreationDate="2017-02-27T19:38:30.477" Score="0" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese here! I have a really rare symbol in my name. The symbol was originally in the ‘traditional’character set, written as 頔 (pronounced as ‘di’) , but later China came up with a simplified version of this symbol(shown below, picture of the symbol from my passport). I tried the drawing recognition on windows but was unable to find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am in urgent need to open a bank account but because the banks cannot type out the exact character shown on my passport they refuse to open a bank account for me. I am just wondering if the character exists in GB18030 standard so I could give the bank the encoding for this symbol. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or does anyone know how to write this symbol on the computer? Thanks lots!!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b1D0s.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b1D0s.png&quot; alt=&quot;this is the symbol I need&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16550" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T20:57:31.373" Title="Need help finding the character encoding for my name" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22903" CreationDate="2017-02-27T19:57:54.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.3 &lt;code&gt;德里克.帕腓特有一个极端地空前绝后的假设……&lt;/code&gt; also doesn't work well in Chinese. Although it can be reasonably analyzed, but it is not a usual way to say. The reason is like the one you gave for English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.1 &lt;code&gt;德里克.帕腓特有一个极端得空前绝后的假设……&lt;/code&gt; can even have two ways to understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;空前绝后&lt;/code&gt; is describing &lt;code&gt;极端&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both describing &lt;code&gt;假设&lt;/code&gt;. This may sound strange but it is more obvious with another example:&lt;code&gt;恐怖得可以吓死人的某物&lt;/code&gt;(Something terrifying enough to scare people to die). Both &lt;code&gt;恐怖&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;可以吓死人&lt;/code&gt; are describing the noun. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, with the context, it could mean 'unprecedentedly extreme hypothesis' or 'hypothesis which is extreme enough to call it unprecedented'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16551" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T19:57:54.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22914" CreationDate="2017-02-27T20:14:15.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.5 lbs = 一磅半 (only when 'and a half') or 一點五磅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.75 lbs = 一&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;四分之三磅 or 一點七五磅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 個 is actually a unit itself, there should not be 個 when there are units and should also be used after the number such as 一&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;四分之三個.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's more, if not with half, smaller units are preferred. e.g. &lt;code&gt;1.75 lbs&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;1 lb 12 oz&lt;/code&gt;(一磅十二盎司).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16551" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T20:14:15.853" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22692" CreationDate="2017-02-27T20:36:29.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A 瞧得起 B indicates A has a grace upon B (for how it is usually used).&#xA;e.g. &lt;code&gt;我这么做是因为我瞧得起你&lt;/code&gt; indicates that 这么做 is a patronizing behaviour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, it is different when using with 很. In &lt;code&gt;……当然他很瞧得起你&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;很瞧得起&lt;/code&gt; means 'look up to'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16551" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T20:36:29.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22916" CreationDate="2017-02-27T20:57:31.373" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/27/js/9814.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;頔&lt;/a&gt; U+9814&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hKPHz.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hKPHz.png&quot; alt=&quot;U9814.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/b8/js/2CC56.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; U+2CC56&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ixpyZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ixpyZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;U2cc56.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必需装含有“扩充-E”的字型才能显示。（请自己去找字型，noto 可能可以）GB18030 应该没有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T20:57:31.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22921" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-28T02:45:39.450" Score="3" ViewCount="4796" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker who wants to learn to read chinese.  I know just enough that I can probably start reading very basic text and can look up each character as I go,  so I'm looking for easy beginner level short stories,  children's stories,  or any other beginning level text.  However, everything I find is simplified Chinese and I'm looking for traditional Chinese. Do you guys have any resources you can point me to that has text in traditional Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16555" LastEditorUserId="21363" LastEditDate="2019-09-06T01:32:28.170" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T01:32:28.170" Title="Where to find online and easy reading material in traditional Chinese" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22921" CreationDate="2017-02-28T04:14:23.067" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use the Google Advanced Search.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;key words: 兒童故事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;language: Chinese (Traditional)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;region: Taiwan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://children.moc.gov.tw/animate_list?type=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;兒童文化館&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hi2100.com/Child/chd/chd01.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;中文兒童故事&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.play-kidsgames.com/flash/250/1.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;兒童故事&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.angelibrary.com/children/gt/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;格林童話集&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://storyfree.com/%E5%85%92%E7%AB%A5%E7%9D%A1%E5%89%8D%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;兒童睡前故事&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yfes.tn.edu.tw/yfesvi/story.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;兒童故事&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ananedu.com/a/1/chinese1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;安安免費教學網－國小國語&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ananedu.com/article/art-index.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;安安免費教學網－千篇文章共賞&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T04:14:23.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22909" CreationDate="2017-02-28T14:48:58.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The song that comes vaguely close is 让我们荡起双桨, which describes children rowing boats in a lake after school. This is an 1950s song which almost all mainland Chinese know.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%AE%A9%E6%88%91%E4%BB%AC%E8%8D%A1%E8%B5%B7%E5%8F%8C%E6%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%AE%A9%E6%88%91%E4%BB%AC%E8%8D%A1%E8%B5%B7%E5%8F%8C%E6%A1%A8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, there are pop songs, eg in this list, but they are not even remotely well known.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://y.qq.com/portal/playlist/1952753363.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://y.qq.com/portal/playlist/1952753363.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are lots of poems about hiking though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T14:48:58.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18156" CreationDate="2017-02-28T14:55:19.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;GB/T 15834-2011, Section 4.14.3.2 seems to be more relevant than the section cowboy referenced since it explicitly mentions chapters in addition to volumes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;标示书名与篇（章、卷）名之间的分界。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;示例： 《淮南子·本经训》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, a middle dot should be used between the title and chapter. As others have noted, the Taiwanese reference describes the middle dot character but is using an ideographic &lt;em&gt;full stop&lt;/em&gt; AKA &lt;em&gt;period&lt;/em&gt; character which is not semantically equivalent to a middle dot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no full-width middle dot character in Unicode and you're expected to achieve that effect using fonts and glyph selection tools such as CSS' relatively new &lt;code&gt;font-variant-east-asian&lt;/code&gt; property. That's easier said than done though since you first need to find a font that provides a full-width middle dot glyph and the only one I know of is Adobe Ming Std.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you have a chapter/section number, one example I've seen of that kind of labeling is at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.certifiedchinesetranslation.com/openaccess/rdfconcepts-tc.html#section-Literals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.certifiedchinesetranslation.com/openaccess/rdfconcepts-tc.html#section-Literals&lt;/a&gt; where a section title is labeled in the form of &amp;quot;第4節Early Uniform Normalization&amp;quot;. Of course, you can use 章 in lieu of 節 for both chapters and sections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16406" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T14:55:19.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13459" CreationDate="2017-02-28T18:09:02.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to add that there are some words in which 儿化 (erhua) optional and other words in which it is necessary. For example, earlier today I heard a Chinese person tell his friend that he had to write a letter to his boss. His friend replied, &quot;你给老板写信，有什么事？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last word &lt;em&gt;requires&lt;/em&gt; 儿化 at the end (although writing it is optional). If someone does not add 儿化 at the end his or her pronunciation will not be considered standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you don't add 儿化 at the end of 一点 your pronunciation will still be considered standard, because here 儿化 is optional. Here's a sample sentence: 我会说一点英语。(Once again, &lt;em&gt;writing&lt;/em&gt; 儿化 is optional.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16559" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T18:09:02.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22846" CreationDate="2017-03-01T16:34:57.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are trying to say &quot;I'm going to smoke.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我去抽烟  I'm going to smoke&#xA;我去抽根烟 I'm going to have a cig&#xA;我出去抽根烟 I'm going to have a cig outside.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去抽烟了 could be said when someone ask you &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Where were you?&quot; or &quot;What did you do?&quot; or &quot;Where did you go?&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I was having a cig/ I was smoking.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;了&quot; could imply a finished action when you put it at the end of a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16562" LastActivityDate="2017-03-01T16:34:57.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22921" CreationDate="2017-03-01T16:44:16.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about that you read the Traditional Chinese wikipedia (maybe print yourself to ease the reading process and take notes), and when you have difficulty guessing what a character is, just click the simplified version and read along; they have prepared auto transliteration feature. Before long you will have had basic familiarity with traditional Chinese characters, and you may read pretty much everything XD&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-03-01T16:44:16.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22785" CreationDate="2017-03-02T04:01:24.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我|去北京旅行（主谓）&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我（名词）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;去北京|旅行（动补）&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;去|北京（动宾）&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;去（动词）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;北京（名词）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;旅行（动词）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;旅行&lt;/code&gt; is actually a complement word that tells the purpose of &lt;code&gt;去北京&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another demonstration: when asking on &lt;code&gt;旅行&lt;/code&gt;, the question should be &lt;code&gt;你去北京干什么？&lt;/code&gt; (Why you go to Beijing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16551" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T04:01:24.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1685" CreationDate="2017-03-02T04:41:20.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I myself had been working as translator and am naturally keen on checking up the ratio between the Chinese character count and the English word count. An average result will be that 1,000 Chinese characters can be translated into about 600-700 English words, or 1,000 English words can be translated into about 1,500-1,700 Chinese characters, variying depending on the natures of the source contents and target writing styles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In regard to the specific topic about the ratio between English word count and Chinese character count, there is a special article (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.actranslation.com/chinese/chinese-wordcount.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;click to read it&lt;/a&gt;) dedicated for it with concrete evidences to support the conclusions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16574" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T04:41:20.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22930" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22931" CreationDate="2017-03-02T05:56:36.843" Score="0" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;知識 - means knowledge&#xA;分 - point&#xA;子 - son (or person of)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now 知識分子 is generally translated as &lt;code&gt;intellectual&lt;/code&gt;, person of intelligence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I wonder if the words can be interpreted in different conjunction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intuition is subtle, 'pointed' knowledge, so why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what is the general rule of translating complex words - is that appropriate way to pick them apart giving them slightly different meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16576" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T07:19:41.133" Title="知識分子 - can it be translated as `intuitive person`?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22930" CreationDate="2017-03-02T06:53:41.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;分 - point 子 - son (or person of)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, '分子' is a compound word. It means 'elements' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You already knew 知識 means 'knowledge'. Most Chinese words are compound words like it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal meaning of  知識分子 is 'intellectual element' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term 'element' here refers to 'element in the society' which refers to 'people'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Intellectual'; 'person of intelligence' are correct translation for '知識分子'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When describe the make up of a society, we often group people into fields or classes. For example,  工人(worker) are the majority of the population, therefore we would call them 工人階級(worker class) or 工人社群(worker group). The number of scholars in comparison, is quite tiny. That's why we don't usually see intellectual as a class or group in a population, but rather, as individual elements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Similarly, the number of criminals among the population is also very small,  that's why we call them 犯罪&lt;strong&gt;分子&lt;/strong&gt; criminals &lt;strong&gt;elements&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-03-02T07:19:41.133" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T07:19:41.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22909" CreationDate="2017-03-02T09:43:14.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Cantonese native speaker live in Hong Kong and probably we will sing the song of contemporary Canton pop during hiking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eason Chan's song are really good in the past decade. You can search for his song in youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;(singer)陳奕迅, eason chan (song name)我的快樂時代&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWxIAW5gwd4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWxIAW5gwd4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16579" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T09:43:14.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22933" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-02T10:47:29.867" Score="0" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;老板生气了为了员工都总是在玩手机。 他指着我：你说说，看了什么？比我说话还有意思？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我脸憋得通红， 说： 。。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我觉得‘脸憋得通红’得意思就是： 'my face went red' or 'I blushed' 但是‘憋’的意思是‘choke, stifle, hold back'. &#xA;‘我’ 发不发红呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到底这里的‘憋’是什么意思？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T12:33:50.000" Title="What does 憋得通红 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22933" CreationDate="2017-03-02T12:06:53.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;*憋 means 'to hold back'--  most commonly: 'holding breath' (憋氣) or 'holding back urine' (憋尿)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of '脸憋得通红', '憋' should be short for 憋氣 (holding breath), (too upset to breath)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脸(face) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;憋(holding back)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得(to the point of)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通(completely)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;红(red)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To translate this phrase literally would be  '&lt;strong&gt;face turns red from holding back&lt;/strong&gt;' . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to be precise, you can write '&lt;em&gt;face turns red from holding breath&lt;/em&gt;'. but it is not good English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the best way to translate this phrase is to interpret the reason of holding breath directly, and write: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;face turns red from embarrassment&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (having difficulty to breath due to embarrassment)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, if the reason for the redden face was 'anger' the translation should be &quot;face turns red from anger&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-03-02T12:33:50.000" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T12:33:50.000" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19468" CreationDate="2017-03-02T18:21:48.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because most chinese speakers (and APAC natives) cannot properly pronounce a strong 'r/R' sound. Therefore, they use their closest match: /ə/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16583" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T18:21:48.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22936" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22937" CreationDate="2017-03-02T20:39:55.483" Score="1" ViewCount="1087" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oEORE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oEORE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The picture above is 1 example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other variations of symbols that resemble TJ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16584" LastEditorUserId="16584" LastEditDate="2017-03-02T21:02:58.600" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T15:19:22.773" Title="What does TJ mean in the Chinese Language?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22936" CreationDate="2017-03-02T20:46:56.920" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The whole thing is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/23/js/884C.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;行&lt;/a&gt; character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pronunciation:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;háng 　ㄏㄤˊ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xíng 　ㄒㄧㄥˊ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;háng xíng:&#xA;to sail,&#xA;to fly,&#xA;to navigate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16584" LastEditDate="2017-03-02T21:36:18.357" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T21:36:18.357" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22846" CreationDate="2017-03-02T21:00:05.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 is signifies the &quot;perfective aspect&quot;. Note that there's no tense in Chinese language, but aspect. Perfective aspect in this context means a finished action. (Alternatively, experiential aspect also expresses similar meaning, but they're slightly different)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 我去抽烟了 emphasised that you've smoked. While 我去抽烟 means you're going to smoke with no aspect. (The four aspects of Modern Mandarin Chinese are perfective, imperfective (durative stative and durative progressive), and experiential.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12508" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T21:00:05.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22846" CreationDate="2017-03-03T01:48:23.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you'd use these sentences to tell people what you are going to do right now, I do not think there is any noteworthy difference between them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you'd use them to respond to someone who asks you what you're going to do, you should use the first one (without 了).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, as other answers say, you can use the second sentence to describe what you were doing just now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastEditorUserId="2484" LastEditDate="2017-03-03T01:53:38.283" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T01:53:38.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22846" CreationDate="2017-03-03T02:23:50.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;通常中文的&quot;了&quot; 等於英文的過去式&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A:你要去哪裡? B:我去抽烟&#xA;A:你剛剛去哪裡? B:我去抽烟了&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;現實使用時 &quot;了&quot;也被拿來當語氣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兩者只有一點點語氣上的差別 (just a little difference)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比較類似個人講話方式或語癖上的差異&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;C:好煩 我去抽菸&#xA;C:好煩 我去抽菸了&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16586" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T02:23:50.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22846" CreationDate="2017-03-03T02:24:17.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我去抽烟 is the standard way to express &quot;I am going to have a cigarette&quot;. You don't need a &quot;了&quot; at all. Adding a &quot;了&quot; emphasizes the fact that you are about to do it RIGHT NOW. Sometimes, it implies that you are asking for others' opinions. For example, “如果没什么事，我去抽烟了.” （If you don't have anything else for me, I am going to have a cigarette now(outside).)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16587" LastEditorUserId="16587" LastEditDate="2017-03-03T02:42:29.613" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T02:42:29.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22943" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22946" CreationDate="2017-03-03T02:36:12.070" Score="0" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following seem either incorrect or unprofessional:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;电脑支持人&#xA;电脑服务员&#xA;IT男&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is a common term &lt;strong&gt;used in business&lt;/strong&gt; for 'Computer Support Person'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3496" LastEditorUserId="3496" LastEditDate="2017-03-03T02:46:41.723" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T07:53:06.643" Title="How to translate 'Computer Support Person'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22943" CreationDate="2017-03-03T03:05:32.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you mean the person who provides assistance for others on computer-related things? I think it could simply be called &lt;strong&gt;技术支持人员&lt;/strong&gt;. But the problem with this translation is that 技术支持 is a little general rather than focusing on computer. In some companies people may say &lt;strong&gt;IT 人员&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T03:05:32.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22581" CreationDate="2017-03-03T03:11:26.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A possible translation is 家庭成员的汉语姓名.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that &lt;em&gt;Family member names in Chinese&lt;/em&gt; looks really like a section title on some form to be filled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T03:11:26.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22943" CreationDate="2017-03-03T03:50:21.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following seem either incorrect or unprofessional:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电脑支持人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电脑服务员&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IT男&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are right. It is like calling the person who provides computer related technical support 'computer guy' in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more professional term for a person who provides computer related technical support should be '&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=14&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjA_N2bs7nSAhXm1IMKHbyZCGIQFghWMA0&amp;amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebalance.com%2Fcomputer-support-specialist-526075&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNEdc70XJjCAuixsgjsz_l5tfFqR3g&amp;amp;sig2=XPW3PDq7rDPUIeZJ-ccWiw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Computer Support Specialist&lt;/a&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电脑支援专家 or 电脑技术支援专家 (Computer Technical Support Specialist)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*电脑技术支援专家 may be too long a title. We can shorten it to just '电脑技术支援' as the job title. It is perfectly normal in the business world to shorten overly long titles for efficiency. (&lt;em&gt;NASA personnel would call the Flight Director just 'Flight' during launch.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*支援(support/assist) is better choice than 支持(support/ endorse)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T03:50:21.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22948" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22950" CreationDate="2017-03-03T04:53:22.983" Score="1" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;[Perhaps this is a &quot;which came first - the chicken or the egg?&quot;-type question - but I'm left quite puzzled why anyone would describe things in this manner.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would anyone (or any material for that matter) describe dialects/topolects in terms of Mandarin? Most topolects/dialects would certainly be much older than MSM (Modern Standard Mandarin) - as a, relatively, new 'invented' language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 广安方言与民俗词典 describes a bunch of 广安方言 in terms of: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;声母变异&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;韵母变异&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;even going as far to describe some words as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自创音节&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;声母变异: “敲” kao1 - “qiao1”的音变。指打，击。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;韵母变异: “眉” mi2 - 眉“mei2”的音变。如“眉毛”、“峨眉豆”等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自创音节: “□” pie4 - &quot;指破烂，坏，不好。常写成“孬”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I &lt;strong&gt;highly&lt;/strong&gt; doubt that these are &quot;变异&quot; seeing as these pronunciations outdate the modern &quot;standard&quot; ones - so why would anyone go to the trouble of describing it this way? besides the fact that MSM is the, now, &quot;standard&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T10:11:56.837" Title="Why would topolects get described in terms of Mandarin? (声母变异、韵母变异)" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22943" CreationDate="2017-03-03T07:35:09.847" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;电脑技术人员 or 计算机技术人员&#xA;ps I don't think 支援 is a good idea as it means more &quot;help&quot;, often for emergency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16590" LastEditorUserId="16590" LastEditDate="2017-03-03T07:53:06.643" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T07:53:06.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22948" CreationDate="2017-03-03T10:11:56.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes or No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese linguistic study, there are three rules of distinguishing dialects from languages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Linguistically, mutual intelligibility&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Historically, derivation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Politically, anything except the standard&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dialects are picked out mainly because MSM gets politically recognized as a standard in China Mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, a minor reason is that they do not have matured or accurate writing system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13655" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T10:11:56.837" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22952" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-03T14:43:41.100" Score="1" ViewCount="811" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to start watching either Cantonese series or western series dubbed in Cantonese to improve my language level. Do you have some suggestions? I like comedy cartoons like the Simpsons or Family Guy, but these don't seem to be dubbed in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16592" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-03-20T04:19:44.617" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T04:19:44.617" Title="Cantonese comedy cartoons" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22953" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-03T20:30:17.807" Score="2" ViewCount="455" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;我不能睁开我的眼睛&quot; and &quot;我睁不开我的眼睛&quot; (不 obviously being the negation of the 得 potential form). What is the difference in nuance between these two sentences? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16593" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-29T12:44:44.740" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T12:44:44.740" Title="What is the difference between using the 能 and 得 potential forms?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22953" CreationDate="2017-03-03T22:59:38.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The opposite of '我睁&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;开我的眼睛'(I &lt;strong&gt;can't&lt;/strong&gt; open my eyes) is '我睁&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;开我的眼睛'(I &lt;strong&gt;ca&lt;/strong&gt;n open my eyes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[不] and [得] are [potential particles]. They have to be placed &lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt; the verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 去&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;到/去&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;到 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;去(go) is the verb; 得/不(can/cannot) is the potential particle; 到(arrive) is the resultative particle&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The opposite of &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;不能&lt;/strong&gt;睁开我的眼睛&quot; (I &lt;strong&gt;can't&lt;/strong&gt; open my eyes) is '我&lt;strong&gt;能&lt;/strong&gt;睁开我的眼睛'(I &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; open my eyes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[能] and [不能] are [auxiliary verbs] (can; able to/ can't; unable to). They have to be placed &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; the main verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;strong&gt;能&lt;/strong&gt;去 / &lt;strong&gt;不能&lt;/strong&gt;去 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;能(able to/can) is the auxiliary verb; 去(go) is the main verb&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-03-04T02:28:51.057" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T02:28:51.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22953" CreationDate="2017-03-04T01:19:00.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 得／不 potential form is used with result verbs. &#xA;As in your example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我睁不开眼睛 ---&gt; 开 (open, separated) is the result of 睁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore the potential form tends to express an objective ability or inability to do something. Eg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我打不开门 I can't open the door (it is too heavy, blocked, broken...) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我睡不着 I can't sleep (too anxious, there's noise...) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  今晚我做不了饭 Tonight I can't make dinner (I'm too tired)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 能 form sounds more like a subjective ability. It is used with generic actions that don't have a result (in the sense of a result complement), polite requests, to express moral/legal constraints. Eg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你能想象吗 Can you imagine it? (subjective non-physical ability)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你能帮我忙吗 Can you give me a hand? (request)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  今晚我不能做饭 Tonight I can't make dinner (generic action) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我丢了驾照，我不能开车 I lost my driver's license, I can't drive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T01:19:00.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22957" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22958" CreationDate="2017-03-04T03:24:01.343" Score="0" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems most punctuation marks in Chinese are automatically stylized with spaces. Periods (。), commas (，), question marks (？), exclamation marks (！) and even book title marks (《》), as oxford likes to call them, all have spaces either in front or behind them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Western-style quote marks (“”) on the other hand do not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should they be stylized?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back-to-back quotes look even worse. I'm working on the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《明珠缘》第三十七回：“体乾醉了，应星却未吃酒，兼之少年精壮，隔席把张体乾轻轻一把提过来，丢翻在地，拳打脚踢。”“丢翻”意为打翻或摔倒在地等，可能源于武林。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where we have this ugly looking &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;”“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the middle. An end quote mark followed by an opening quote mark with no spaces in between. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct? (It doesn't look so)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-03-04T03:56:14.600" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T11:21:22.600" Title="How to stylized back-to-back or consecutive western-style quote marks?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22957" CreationDate="2017-03-04T03:49:38.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chinese quotation mark is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E5%BC%95%E5%8F%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;引号&lt;/a&gt; 「」 『』 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“.......” =「......。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;單引号 (single quotation mark) 「」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Use 單引号 for quote「........。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;雙引号 (double quotation mark) 『』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Use 雙引号 for quote within quote...『....「...」....。』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;An end quote mark followed by an opening quote mark with no spaces in between.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this correct? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have to be space between back to back quote, Chinese quotation mark is automatically stylized with spaces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《明珠缘》第三十七回：『体乾醉了，应星却未吃酒，兼之少年精壮，隔席把张体乾轻轻一把提过来，丢翻在地，拳打脚踢。「丢翻」意为打翻或摔倒在地等，可能源于武林。』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use English quotation mark for quotes, you have to put space between back to back quotes as if it was Chinese quotation mark .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《明珠缘》第三十七回：&quot;体乾醉了，应星却未吃酒，兼之少年精壮，隔席把张体乾轻轻一把提过来，丢翻在地，拳打脚‌​踢。&quot; &quot; '丢翻' 意为打翻或摔倒在地等，可能源于武林。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-03-04T11:21:22.600" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T11:21:22.600" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22957" CreationDate="2017-03-04T10:16:32.727" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just use any chinese Pinyin input program like &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.sogou.com/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;搜狗拼音输入法&lt;/a&gt; to input chinese quotation, the quotation is different betweeen tradtional Chinese and simplified chinese.&#xA;《明珠缘》第三十七回：“体乾醉了，应星却未吃酒，兼之少年精壮，隔席把张体乾轻轻一把提过来，丢翻在地，拳打脚踢。”“丢翻”意为打翻或摔倒在地等，可能源于武林”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16597" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T10:16:32.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22960" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-04T16:02:47.287" Score="4" ViewCount="404" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many situations I'd like to say the following in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;That phone call was unexpected&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;I did not expect that meeting to be so difficult&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only approach I know of is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;我没想到那个电话“&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;”我没想到那个会议会是哪么难“&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know you can also use 突然, but it's not quite parallel. The best way I can think of applying it in this situation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;那个电话突然来了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Appreciate anyone's thoughts on this!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16599" LastEditorUserId="16117" LastEditDate="2019-04-20T02:02:30.253" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T02:02:30.253" Title="What are a few alternative ways to say &quot;to expect&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17306" CreationDate="2017-03-04T20:23:07.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;formally, &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Aspect_particle_%22zhe%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;听看 means 听 (to listen), and 着 implies a continuous aspect&lt;/a&gt; (e.g. &quot;i was listening&quot; rather then &quot;i listened&quot;). that said, the construct seems to be more idiomatic. i tend to see it more in verbal vernacular, when you are asking someone to listen to you. here is an example (with translation) from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/search2/sublanguageid-chi,zht,eng/moviename-shrek&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;subtitles of the 2001 movie shrek&lt;/a&gt; (00:09:14):&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;听着  驴子  看看我  我是什么?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tīng zhāo lǘzi. kànkan wǒ. wǒ shì shénme?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Listen, little donkey. Take a look at me. What am I?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;听见 and 听到 are interchangeable. 听 indicates that you are listening (trying to hear). &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complements_%22dao%22_and_%22jian%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;both 见 and 到 indicate that the listening is &quot;accomplished&quot; in some sense&lt;/a&gt;.  so 听到 means that you are listening and able to hear what you are listening for. as such, both are often translated as &quot;hear&quot;, thereby highlighting the result of listening (hearing) and discarding the information about the hearing person's intent (listening). here are examples again from the subtitles of shrek (01:01:44 and 01:13:02):&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你能听到我吗? 小驴&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;nǐ néng tīngdào wǒ ma ? xiǎo lǘ!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you hear me? Donkey!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我听见你们俩的谈话了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;wǒ tīngjiàn nǐmen liǎ de tánhuà le&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I heard the two of you talking.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also see: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/6655/what-is-the-difference-between-%E5%90%AC%E5%88%B0-%E5%90%AC%E8%BF%87-and-%E5%90%AC%E8%AF%B4&quot;&gt;What is the difference between 听到、听过 and 听说?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13261" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T20:23:07.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22960" CreationDate="2017-03-05T00:34:44.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;不可预知的情况 not can predict situation = an unexpected situation&lt;br&gt;&#xA;出乎意料的形势 unexpected circumstance&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不意外 not unexpected&lt;br&gt;&#xA;意外 unexpected&#xA;竟然 unexpected&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;’那个打过来的电话是意料之外的。‘ 或者 ‘没想到那个电话会打过来。’&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That phone call was unexpected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会议比我预料中的难很多。&#xA;The meeting was much more difficult than I expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2017-03-06T01:17:18.020" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T01:17:18.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22964" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23395" CreationDate="2017-03-05T10:38:46.360" Score="0" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does Chinese distinguish between western &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_dance&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pole dancing&lt;/a&gt; and what English calls &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_pole&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese pole&lt;/a&gt; dancing, if at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese edition of Wikipedia has an article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%92%A2%E7%AE%A1%E8%88%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pole dancing&lt;/a&gt;, using the word 钢管舞. However, it doesn't seem to have an article on Chinese pole dancing - only English, Arabic and French editions of Wikipedia have articles on it. (By the way, is Chinese pole dancing really of Chinese origin, or is it made up by non-Chinese?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wiktionary entry on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%8B%BC%E7%AE%A1%E8%88%9E#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鋼管舞&lt;/a&gt; translates it as only (western) pole dancing, though the etymology could apply to either type, with 鋼管 meaning pole and 舞 meaning dancing. I couldn't find &quot;Chinese pole&quot; in Wiktionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Background: I came across a native speaker of Chinese saying that their hobbies include pole dancing, and their native language version included the simplified Chinese &quot;钢管舞&quot;, and I wanted to know whether they had made a mistake in their English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T18:18:50.817" Title="Does Chinese distinguish between (western) pole dancing and Chinese pole dancing? If so, how?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22964" CreationDate="2017-03-05T11:11:03.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;钢管舞 is just the name Chinese picked for 'pole dance'. The pole looks like a 'steel pipe'(钢管)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pole dance originated as an erotic performance. People realized the acrobatic nature of the pole dance art, and adopted it as a fitness training method. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many women started to do it for a hobby. There's no unique dance style in pole dance in regard to nationality. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For fitness or hobby, as long as it looks artistic, people may incorporate any dance style in pole dance, but in its core, if we ignore its erotic performance origin, pole dance is more an acrobatic art than dance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We should call this hobby &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E9%92%A2%E7%AE%A1%E8%88%9E%E8%BF%90%E5%8A%A8%E8%AE%AD%E7%BB%83%E4%B8%AD%E5%BF%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;钢管舞运动&lt;/a&gt; (pole dance exercise)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-03-05T12:08:53.063" LastActivityDate="2017-03-05T12:08:53.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22966" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22967" CreationDate="2017-03-05T11:36:14.230" Score="2" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I say &quot;我是 john?&quot; (wo3 shi4 john). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be grammatically correct? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16604" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T00:26:24.537" Title="Is it correct to introduce yourself as &quot;我是 name&quot;" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22966" CreationDate="2017-03-05T12:18:51.933" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a grammatical point of view your sentence is correct. The pattern &lt;code&gt;我是 + name&lt;/code&gt; is a casual way of introducing yourself. Personally I heard that a lot.&#xA;However, in formal situations using the pattern &lt;code&gt;我叫 + name&lt;/code&gt; is probably the best option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like user3a said, I think it's true that the structure &lt;code&gt;我是 + name&lt;/code&gt; implies that the focus is on 我, whereas in a sentence experessed in the form &lt;code&gt;我叫 + name&lt;/code&gt; it is your name that receives the focus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10944" LastActivityDate="2017-03-05T12:18:51.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22968" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-05T17:12:07.213" Score="0" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering about the placement of &quot;这件事&quot; in these two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 这件事你做得越快越好。&#xA;2) 你做得越快越好这件事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English: &quot;The faster you do this, the better.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;#2 makes more sense to me since the object comes after the verb, but I assume that both are ok. Which feels more natural to a native Mandarin speaker?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if we remove the adverb phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) 这件事你做。&#xA;4) 你做这件事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or 事情你做。vs 你做事情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would 你做这件事&quot; and &quot;你做事情&quot; be more natural? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the adverb phrase cause the object to need to be placed differently, or am I missing some other rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2017-03-05T18:02:23.063" Title="Placement of object with adverbial phrase" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22968" CreationDate="2017-03-05T18:02:23.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) is natural. 2) sound unnatural without context. In certain contexts, 2) can be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) is an example of a topic-prominent sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这件事&quot; is the topic. Everything that follows the topic describes it. i.e. &quot;你做得越快越好&quot;. When there is a topic, you can usually translate it literally to English in the form of &quot;As for [topic], [things following the topic]&quot;. So here, 这件事你做得越快越好。 can be translated as &quot;As for this thing, the faster you do it, the better&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples of topic-prominent sentences include&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我头疼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lit. As for me, head hurts. (This is different from 我的头疼 where 我的头 is the subject and 疼 is the verb. In 我头疼, 头 is technically the subject)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;笔借我一下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lit. As for the pen, lend it to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will probably use 2) where I want to emphasize that you should really do it ASAP. That's why I tell you to do it fast first, then the thing that you need to do, just to be clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Would &quot;你做这件事&quot; and &quot;你做事情&quot; be more natural?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你做这件事 sounds like I am telling you to do &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; thing, instead of some other things. 你做事情 sounds unnatural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) is another topic prominent sentence, it translates to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As for this thing, you do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say that 3) puts more emphasis on &quot;you&quot; while 4) puts more emphasis on &quot;this thing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2017-03-05T18:02:23.063" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22970" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-06T03:22:49.407" Score="0" ViewCount="2013" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand they both translate to meaning, &quot;to learn, to study&quot; but what is the purpose of this distinction? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16609" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-03-08T23:06:25.510" LastActivityDate="2017-03-08T23:06:25.510" Title="What's the difference between xuéxí 学习 and xué 学?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-03-09T11:25:57.857" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22973" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22974" CreationDate="2017-03-06T14:09:48.793" Score="1" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 之为 mean in the following sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果把人生比之为杠杆，信念则好像是它的“支点”，具备这个恰当的支点，才可能成为一个强有力的人。   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T01:25:28.057" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T14:10:14.890" Title="What does 之为 mean in 如果把人生比之为杠杆...?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22973" CreationDate="2017-03-06T14:47:16.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In [人生][比之为][杠杆]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[人生] (life) is the main object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[比] short for [比喻] (metaphorize). It is the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[之] (it) functions as an objective pronoun. In this case, the object is '人生'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[为] (as being) is the auxiliary verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[杠杆] (lever) is the relative object, which is the 'metaphor' for ' '人生'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;之为&lt;/strong&gt;' means '&lt;strong&gt;it as being&lt;/strong&gt;' here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;把人生&lt;strong&gt;比之&lt;/strong&gt;为杠杆&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;Take life and metaphorize &lt;strong&gt;it as being&lt;/strong&gt; a lever.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Depend on the object, '之' can represent any objective pronoun (that, him, her them, it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;把日本視&lt;strong&gt;之为&lt;/strong&gt;敵人&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;Take Japan and see &lt;strong&gt;it as being&lt;/strong&gt; an enemy&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*You can omit  the objective pronoun '之' in these sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'把人生比为杠杆' ;  '把日本視为敵人'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*You can omit 'being' in these sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'metaphorize life as a 'lever' ; 'see Japan as an enemy'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T01:34:20.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22973" CreationDate="2017-03-06T23:57:04.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like Tang Ho says,之为 is not 1 word, you could write '之为 = it as' or just leave out 之。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果把人生比之为杠杆，信念则好像是它的“支点”，具备这个恰当的支点，才可能成为一个强有力的人。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If we liken life to a lever, faith then is the fulcrum, only with suitable leverage point can you become a powerful person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Did my best to alliterate!) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T23:57:04.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1263" CreationDate="2017-03-07T01:45:31.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;从前 (cónɡqián) always refers to a time far in the past, while 以前 (yǐqián) is closer to the present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以前 (yǐqián) can be used after time words while 从前 (cónɡqián) cannot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tiānliàng yǐqián, wǒ bìxū qǐchuáng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天亮         以前，我  必须    起床。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before dawn, I must get up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā shísuì yǐqián zhù zài Běijīng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他  十岁    以前   住   在   北京&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before he was ten years old, he lived in Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以前 (yǐqián) refers generally to a time before now, and it can be placed at the beginning or the middle of a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yǐqián, wǒ zài xiǎoxué jiāoshū.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以前，  我 在   小学       教书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to teach at primary school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从前 (cónɡqián) is always used at the very beginning of a story. It is similar to the English phrase &quot;a long time ago,&quot; or “once upon a time.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cóngqián, sēnlín lǐ zhùzhe yíwèi lièrén.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从前，        森林 里  住着    一位   猎人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A long time ago, there lived a hunter in the forest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.echineselearning.com/blog/how-to-use-yiqian-and-congqian-in-chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;eChineselearning.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16499" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T01:45:31.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22978" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23164" CreationDate="2017-03-07T02:55:45.380" Score="4" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've got different resources doing different things for er-hua, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;包儿&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;resource material #1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[pər]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;resource material #2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[pɚ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is [ɚ] and [ər] interchangeable for (儿化) er-hua?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would hazard to guess that [ər] is just a lazy [ɚ].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-03-07T06:51:21.777" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T21:18:02.333" Title="Are [ɚ] and [ər] interchangeable for (儿化) er-hua?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22909" CreationDate="2017-03-07T04:27:43.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question. For me as Hongkonger, I hike a lot but never sing. Anyway these lyrics may be related:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtIpggShheg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;關正傑: 天蠶變&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEOCahGzR08&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Beyond: 歲月無聲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16613" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T04:27:43.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22980" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-07T06:46:41.470" Score="3" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some instances, 為 and 是 is interchangeable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;未經許可而出口黃金就&lt;strong&gt;為&lt;/strong&gt;犯罪.&quot; ( exporting gold without permission would &lt;strong&gt;be&lt;/strong&gt; committing a crime). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;未經許可而出口黃金就&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;犯罪.&quot; ( exporting gold without permission would &lt;strong&gt;be&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;committing a crime).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since '為' means 'be' here, my question is: What role is '之' playing in '為之'. As in &quot;未經許可而出口黃金就為&lt;strong&gt;之&lt;/strong&gt;犯罪&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is 之 a modal particle just for emphasis?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is '為之' being a compound word for ' be equivalent to'?&#xA;&quot;未經許可而出口黃金就&lt;strong&gt;為之&lt;/strong&gt;犯罪&quot; ( exporting gold without permission would be equivalent to/ qualified as committing a crime).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is '之' functions as an objective pronoun.?&#xA;&quot;未經許可而出口黃金就為&lt;strong&gt;之&lt;/strong&gt;犯罪&quot;&#xA;&quot;exporting gold without permission, it would be committing a crime.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or it should be '&lt;strong&gt;謂&lt;/strong&gt;之' (be called as) , not '&lt;strong&gt;為&lt;/strong&gt;之'?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We are talking about '為之' in the context of '那就是為之犯罪', not in that of 好自為之/偶一為之, when '為' means 'do' and '之' being an objective pronoun;  or 為之氣結, when '為' means 'for' and '之' being an objective pronoun&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-03-07T07:58:16.330" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T11:43:45.670" Title="What is the role of '之' in '為之' ? As in &quot;未經許可而出口黃金就為之犯罪&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22981" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-07T09:31:08.790" Score="3" ViewCount="628" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some great ways to learn Chinese characters effectively? I recently have learnt Pinyin however; I find it quite difficult to learn the characters because of poor learning techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some great ways to learn characters and their meaning off by heart?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13239" LastEditorUserId="13239" LastEditDate="2017-03-07T09:42:54.293" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T06:57:36.010" Title="What are some ways I can learn Chinese characters effectively?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22980" CreationDate="2017-03-07T11:01:28.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are looking at as Classical Chinese/wenyan structure in which 為之 means roughly &quot;make it&quot; i.e. treat or regard it as. 之 is a third-person pronoun, which is one of its main roles in wenyan. 為 is not a copula here, but a verb meaning &quot;do/make&quot;. The whole sentence would then mean something like: &quot;(As for) not having permission and exporting gold, one makes it a crime.&quot;  In more smooth English: &quot;Exporting gold without permission is considered a crime.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16616" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T11:01:28.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9548" CreationDate="2017-03-07T11:22:09.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;@George Chen's answer is roughly correct, but not completely accurate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To fully answer this question, it would be interesting to know the etymology of the word '江'(jiāng in Standard Mandarin) and the word '河' (hé in Standard Mandarin) respectively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Old Chinese, the character 河 is pronounced as 'gaal', while the word '江' is pronounced as 'kroong'. It is speculated that 'gaal' is a Sino-Tibetan word, while 'kroong' is a loan word from Mon-Khmer languages. In ancient times, southern China was inhabited by Mon-Khmer speaking peoples, while northern China was inhabited mostly by Sinitic language speakers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, mostly rivers in the South are called '江', while rivers in the north are called '河'. However, it should be noted that rivers in North East China are mostly called '江'. This is due to the influence of Korean languages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most foreign rivers are called 河, with a significant exception: rivers in the Korean Peninsula are called 江：大同江、汉江, etc, as rivers in the North East.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2870" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T11:22:09.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17941" CreationDate="2017-03-07T11:35:26.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at dictionaries, it seems that the most common meaning of 觉 is to feel or to sense, be aware, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have only found it related to sleep in the word 睡觉 which means to go to sleep/bed or to sleep, where the character 睡 itself means sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So one can combine the two by assuming something like &quot;to feel (a)sleep&quot;, or &quot;to sense sleep&quot;, or instead to have your &quot;senses/awareness (falling) asleep&quot;. &#xA;This makes some sense to me and helps me remember, hope it helps you remember too, but please do correct me if I'm wrong here (and judging from the comment by @Lex above saying that jiào et jué are two different words that happen to be written the same, I may very well be wrong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16618" LastEditorUserId="16618" LastEditDate="2017-03-07T11:41:24.790" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T11:41:24.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22980" CreationDate="2017-03-07T12:15:18.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/16616/nickzi&quot;&gt;nickzi&lt;/a&gt; wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I think you are looking at as Classical Chinese/wenyan structure in which 為之 means roughly &quot;make it&quot; i.e. treat or regard it as. 之 is a third-person pronoun, which is one of its main roles in wenyan. 為 is not a copula here, but a verb meaning &quot;do/make&quot;. The whole sentence would then mean something like: &quot;(As for) not having permission and exporting gold, one makes it a crime.&quot; In more smooth English: &quot;Exporting gold without permission is considered a crime.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/16616/nickzi&quot;&gt;nickzi&lt;/a&gt; may has the right idea here (up vote!). However, I think &#xA;'為之' is actually shortened from '是為之' (is considered/ defined as) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是(is)+為(considered as/defined as)+之(objective pronoun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;未經許可而出口, &lt;strong&gt;是為之&lt;/strong&gt;走私&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Export without permission,  &lt;strong&gt;is considered as/ is defined as&lt;/strong&gt; smuggling&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;永不放棄原則, &lt;strong&gt;是為之&lt;/strong&gt;有風骨&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Never give up one's principle, &lt;strong&gt;is considered as/ is defined as&lt;/strong&gt; moral and dignified&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2017-03-08T23:07:37.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22981" CreationDate="2017-03-07T14:37:33.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest using &lt;a href=&quot;http://AnkiSRS.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anki&lt;/a&gt; to assist your memory, but don’t be impatient.  Change the new items per day to less than five, probably three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I would suggest downloading &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mandarintools.com/dimsum.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;DimSum&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.  The user interface isn’t the greatest, but it’s not bad.  On the look-up tab, if you look up a single character, there is a button that lets you see an aniation of the recommended way to write the character.  An interesting feature (disconcerting when it happens if not forewarned) is that if you selected a word, phrase, or character and use your copy-to-clipboard function, either Java or DimSum detects that, and automatically does a lookup.  At least that happens in MacOS, and I suspect it is portable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, in what order should you learn them?  I would suggest in order by the levels of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK&lt;/a&gt;.  Go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://wohok.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wohok&lt;/a&gt; and select HSK1.  Look over the links on that page (for future interest) and then select “Vocabulary.”  Add those to your Anki deck.  Note that there are two ways to do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Add them all, and tell Anki to give you new items in random order.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select a few days worth and add those.  Tell Anki to give you new items in the order added.  Add more after making some progress on the first group.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now there’s two more things you can do if you want an extra boost:  When you have mastered a character or word, click on it in the “Vocabulary” page mentioned.  Wohok will give you a list of sample uses.  You can make a separate Anki deck for learning those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And even though I offer it as an optional “extra boost,” what will help you more than any of the above is to &lt;strong&gt;use them&lt;/strong&gt; as you learn them.  Find one or more native speakers that you can write to, who will be willing to make suggestions on your usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T14:37:33.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22987" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22988" CreationDate="2017-03-07T14:57:13.580" Score="1" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;How often can 汉 be used for the English -er, person who does ____?  Google Translate¹ gives 流浪 for to wander or wandering which is supported by other sources, but for wanderer, tramp, hobo it gave 流浪汉.  That was surprising, but I did find a source that said &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%BC%A2#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉&lt;/a&gt; could be used for a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a not-too-complicated way to know when to use 汉 instead of 人？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/13620/can-you-apply-%E7%94%B7%E5%AD%90%E6%B1%89-and-%E5%A5%B3%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%90-to-non-chinese&quot;&gt;Can you apply 男子汉 and 女汉子 to non-Chinese?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹Yes, I know that reliable machine translation is still science fiction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T17:40:07.007" Title="汉 as &quot;person who …&quot;" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22987" CreationDate="2017-03-07T17:26:38.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How often can 汉 be used for the English -er, person who does ____?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not often. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'者'(person) as in '记者'(reporter)、'学者'(scholar), is one of a few words equal to -er in English. (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/6065/user6065&quot;&gt;user6065&lt;/a&gt;'s comment). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'夫'(man) as in '农夫'(fisherman), '渔夫'(farmer) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'人'(person) as in '中间人'(middleman), '保证人'(guarantor)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'汉' = 'man' or 'guy'. It is a noun for male exclusively when used to refer to a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉子(man) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男子汉(manly man) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;单身汉(single guy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大汉(big guy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壮汉(strong guy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, we can use 汉 for most terms that describe the characteristics of a  man,  For example: stupid man(蠢汉), boring man (无聊汉), brave man (勇汉), middle aged man (中年汉), but not for the job titles or things that one does. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'女汉子'(woman with male personality) has no direct counterpart in English, but 'tomboy' is a very good translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T17:40:07.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22993" CreationDate="2017-03-07T21:45:26.557" Score="8" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the glyph origin of 妖?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does it have a woman radical? Why is woman used in a word that means weird or supernatural?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a website to look up the evolution of characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12603" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:17:22.637" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:17:22.637" Title="What's the glyph origin of 妖?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22990" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-08T00:17:21.063" Score="0" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, in case you haven't noticed, not many ASCII keyboards have the German umlaut as a key. This doesn't tend to be too much of a problem, but whenever typing something like 绿色,  I can never seem to find the character for 绿.  Any tips?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16622" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-03-08T00:21:00.947" LastActivityDate="2017-03-08T04:12:49.943" Title="Typing ü on a pc" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-03-08T04:14:41.743" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22990" CreationDate="2017-03-08T01:18:15.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You type &quot;lv4se4&quot; into a HanYu Pinyin IME to generate the ideographs for &quot;lǜsè&quot;. If you type both syllables together, the relevant characters should be automatically selected by your IME.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16406" LastActivityDate="2017-03-08T01:18:15.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22990" CreationDate="2017-03-08T04:12:49.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese pinyin IME use &lt;code&gt;v&lt;/code&gt; in replace of &lt;code&gt;ü&lt;/code&gt;, as v is not used in pinyin alphabet.&#xA;You have got your answer in your comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2017-03-08T04:12:49.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22989" CreationDate="2017-03-08T09:04:33.727" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;《說文解字》沒有「妖」這一條目。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There is not an entry of 妖 in the 《說文解字》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文解字注》對「」的解釋有提到「俗省作妖」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The interpretation of  in the 《說文解字注》 mentions 俗省作妖.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6xtAU.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6xtAU.png&quot; alt=&quot;-01.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [ yāo | ㄧㄠ ]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意思是，民間習慣上，將「」省略為「妖」。&#xA;也就是，「妖」的本字是「」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It means that  is used to be simplified to 妖.&#xA;That is, the original form of 妖 is .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文解字》對「」的解釋如下：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《說文解字》 explains  as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/G3MC5.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/G3MC5.png&quot; alt=&quot;-02.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;，巧也；一曰，女子笑皃。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;皃 [ mào | ㄇㄠˋ ] 同「貌」。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以，「」有兩個意思：一是「巧」，二是「女子笑的樣子」。&#xA;這應該也是「妖」的本義。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore,  has two meanings: &quot;skillful or clever&quot; and &quot;the appearance of a female smile&quot;.&#xA;This should also be the original meaning of 妖.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至於，「妖」會有「邪異」的意思，是來自「祅」字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As for the &quot;demon&quot; meaning of 妖, it comes from 祅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同樣的，「祅」的本字是「䄏」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Similarly, the original word of 祅 is 䄏.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;祅、䄏 [ yāo | ㄧㄠ ]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文解字》對「䄏」的解釋如下：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《說文解字》 explains 䄏 as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z8Hmh.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z8Hmh.png&quot; alt=&quot;䄏-01.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;地反物爲䄏也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「䄏」是地上反常的物種。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;䄏 is the abnormal species on the ground.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文解字注》在解釋此句時有提到「經傳通作妖」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The interpretation of this sentence in the 《說文解字注》 mentions 經傳通作妖.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Coh93.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Coh93.png&quot; alt=&quot;䄏-02.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文通訓定聲》說這是一種假借。&#xA;（妖、、祅、䄏都是形聲字。）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《說文通訓定聲》 explains that this is a loan.&#xA;(妖, , 祅 and 䄏 are the picto-phonetic characters.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Coh93.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jw9Uw.png&quot; alt=&quot;-03.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「妖」的本義有兩個意思：一是「巧」，二是「女子笑的樣子」。&#xA;被「祅」假借，所以有「邪異」的意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA; has two original meanings: &quot;skillful or clever&quot; and &quot;the appearance of a female smile&quot;.&#xA;It is borrowed by 祅, thus it also means &quot;the demon&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Is there a website to look up the evolution of characters?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂-字形演變&lt;/a&gt; to look up the evolution of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小學：研究文字字形、字義及字音的學問，包括文字學、聲韻學及訓詁學等。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;小學 does not mean the primary or elementary school here. It means the study of the glyph, meaning and the pronunciation of the word, including philology, phonology and exegesis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Input the character in the 字形 field.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 中.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PGXG9.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PGXG9.png&quot; alt=&quot;中.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2017-03-09T09:15:58.010" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T09:15:58.010" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22970" CreationDate="2017-03-08T14:28:19.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are still a lot of differences in between I think.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For most cases, when you want a verb meaning &quot;to learn&quot;, either of them can be used. Only xuexi is having more syllables to make you sounds more formal and polite.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When used as a noun, xuexi is more frequently to be used to express &quot;learning&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Also, xue has more meanings rather than &quot;to learn&quot; as a verb. It also means &quot;to imitate&quot;, &quot;to perform as&quot;-e.g. shuoxuedouchang（说学逗唱）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16625" LastActivityDate="2017-03-08T14:28:19.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22970" CreationDate="2017-03-08T17:55:45.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;xuéxí 学习 Study&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;xué 学 Learn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;习 carry the meaning of &quot;practice&quot;.  So 学习 = Learn and practice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can acquire the meaning from dictionary.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Study&lt;/strong&gt; : the devotion of time and attention to gaining knowledge of an&#xA;  academic subject, especially by means of books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Learn&lt;/strong&gt; :&#xA;  gain or acquire knowledge of or skill in (something) by study, experience, or being taught.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-03-08T17:55:45.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22980" CreationDate="2017-03-08T18:21:51.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be the 4th meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect it is a either a bad listening error and people simply write it down without consulting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese , 为 speak exactly like 谓.  Always in mandarin, people who are poor command in word simple write down anything they assume correct. This is common mandarin 错别字 issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;未經許可而出口黃金就【谓】之犯罪&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides vocabulary deficiency that cause the listening and writing mistake,  sometime putting unwanted 【之】itself may cause further confusion. Some Hong-Kee simply put it inside a sentences to make it sound &quot;ancient like elegant &quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;未經許可而出口黃金【是为之】犯罪 &amp;lt;- mistake&#xA;&#xA;未經許可而出口黃金【视为】犯罪  &amp;lt;- Correction : 视 sound like 是&#xA;&#xA;未經許可而出口黃金【视谓】犯罪  &amp;lt;- Correction&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mandarin, it is clearer to say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;未經許可而出口黃金被视为犯罪&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the following 【为】【为之】show different meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;幼而不孙弟，长而无述焉，老而不死，【是为】贼。《论语》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不法常可，论世之事，【因为之备】《韩非子·五蠹》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;司寇行刑，君【为之】不举乐《韩非子·五蠹》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夫耕之用力也劳，而民【为之】者，曰：可得以富也。《韩非子·五蠹》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-03-09T09:04:43.740" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T09:04:43.740" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22997" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-09T04:36:43.423" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across a text. It is about shopping at a 商场. In Taiwan, I believe it's shang1 chang2, but in Mainland China, it's shang1 chang3, and I want to go with that one, however, it is causing me confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) So there was this phrase &quot;商场里&quot;, as in &quot;自选商场里的东西真多&quot;; the pinyin annotation was shang1 chang3 li3; now, I know that there are full third-tone （which I'll refer to as full-3) and half-third tone (which I'll refer to as half-3), so when I read, or when I teach someone to read, is it (A) shang1 chang(half-3）li(half-3) or (B) shang1 chang(2) li(half-3)? Or is it something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) And then there's this sentence: 收款的阿姨用电脑很快算出了要付的钱。“用电脑很快” is the part I am having trouble with. The pinyin annotation was yong4 dian4 nao3 hen3 kuai4, so is it (A) yong4 dian4 nao(half-3) hen(half-3) kuai4 or (B) yong4 dian4 nao2 hen(half-3）kuai4? I suspect (B) is wrong in this case, but I have a hard time justifying to myself why (A) is right. I believe (A) is right because you can separate the sentence like this, 收款的阿姨用电脑 // 很快算出了要付的钱, so because 脑 is part of 电脑 and 很 is part of 很快, both can be read in half-3 tone. Does this argument hold?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Speaking of which, it has been a very long time since I have been in weekend Chinese school, and weekend Chinese school is different Western schools' Chinese course (which I have never attended) in terms of teaching styles and materials, so I am wondering, now in Chinese education, when students see a 3-tone character by itself or at the end of a binome consisting of 2 3-tone characters, are they taught to read AND speak in half-3, or are they taught to read in full-3 and speak in half-3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16630" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T08:00:51.093" Title="Confusions with third-tone reading" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22998" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-09T06:32:33.503" Score="0" ViewCount="382" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've found these characters in an old dictionary about Classical Chinese / Sino-Vietnamese / Vietnamese. Although they can be analyzed pictorially (I don't know better words), I personally can't find their Unicode encodings. So, I wonder whether they or their variants have been coded. Moreover, are they really Classical Chinese characters, or were they just mistaken to be Classical Chinese by some Vietnamese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/a/lzRRa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Imgur album&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the description:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 巾, Right: 由&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 舟, Right: 者&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 米, Right: 欠&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 盎, Right: 瓦&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 口, Right: 召&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 扌, Right: 乖&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 舌, Right: 單&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 忄, Right: 省&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Up: 推, Down: 火&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Up: 其, Down: 巾&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 犭, Right: 長&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 歹, Right: 曹&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 魚, Right: 小&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 僉, Right: 鳥&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Up: 髟, Down: 兆&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 牜, Right: 霍&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 走, Right: 斗&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 米, Right: 周&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Up: 髟, Down: 忿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Left: 米, Right: 孛&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9417" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T08:37:34.723" Title="Has Unicode included these Classical Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22998" CreationDate="2017-03-09T07:06:57.673" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt; U+2208E&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+26A73&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+25E37&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+24B79&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+20C09&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+22BBF&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+269F4&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+2272B&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+24350&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+220DB&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+247D4&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+23A52&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+29D56&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+2A1C7&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+29B31&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+24705&lt;br&gt;&#xA;﨣 U+FA23&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+25E9D&lt;br&gt;&#xA;髟＋忿？(not found) ( U+29B64 U+29B6E  U+29B09)&lt;br&gt;&#xA; U+25E78&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of them are in the block of &quot;CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;﨣 is in the block of &quot;CJK Compatibility Ideographs&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you cannot see some Chinese characters above, I suggest installing the &lt;a href=&quot;http://fonts.jp/hanazono/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanazono font, 花園明朝體&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T07:06:57.673" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22997" CreationDate="2017-03-09T08:00:51.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very common tone sandhi pattern in Mandarin. When two &quot;rising&quot; tone (上聲), i.e. tone 3 in Standard Mandarin, characters follow each other &lt;strong&gt;in a word&lt;/strong&gt;, the first character is changed into &quot;light rising&quot; (陽平), i.e. tone two.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 商場裏 is pronounced shang1 chang2 li3. However, (2) is a bit contendable, since this sentence should be broken down into 用電腦/很快. Some people would say yong4 dian4 nao3 hen3 kuai4, and some would go with yong4 dian4 nao2 hen3 kuai4. I find myself using the latter most of the time, but either way should be comprehensible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, native Mandarin speakers don't usually recognize the difference between half-3 and full-3. I find myself pronouncing words with half-3 most of the time, but sometimes full-3, without myself recognizing it at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T08:00:51.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22998" CreationDate="2017-03-09T08:10:18.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;@hinen already answered the question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wanted to tackle this (you know, teach a man to fish and all that jazz):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I personally can't find their Unicode encodings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your best bet is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zslf.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;字海·两分&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you get a little search box like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mD2O8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mD2O8.png&quot; alt=&quot;hi&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;let's take your first character for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Left: 巾, Right: 由&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then we search:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tk9cL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tk9cL.png&quot; alt=&quot;to&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as easy as that and we get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jfRgl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jfRgl.png&quot; alt=&quot;okay&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then we can click on our character and see more details:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SjKoG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SjKoG.png&quot; alt=&quot;yup&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and we get our nice little:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;unicode码：2208E&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;复制字符：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s.: (Not all characters are broken down so easily - sometimes you'll need to use your noggin' to figure out the right components.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-03-09T08:37:34.723" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T08:37:34.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22980" CreationDate="2017-03-09T11:03:56.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Odd example, knowing where it came from would help. It is definitely not classical Chinese. (就 is never an adverb in classical Chinese and who would write classical Chinese in this context?) It is also definitely not Mandarin. As the OP observes, it is frequent in Cantonese. Alas, my Cantonese is almost non-existent. But, looking up the phrase in the Cantonese Wikipedia, there are numerous examples which seem very similar:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;相撲係日本傳統運動，由兩位肥獅大隻嘅人紮馬對打，推跌對方就為之贏&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;最後邊隊入得多啲就為之贏&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;手牌入面明暗牌同其他人捨牌(含加槓)或者本身嘅摸牌組成「五搭一對」就為之胡牌&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;進攻一方如果有三名球員出局嘅話，咁就為之完成一局（inning）&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;etc... So for sure it's not a careless mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to mean the same thing as 叫做 or the more literary form 稱之為. (Or perhaps it is more like 算是...?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the grammatical structure, 為之 must be v-o. 為 is very unlikely to mean 'be' here, since 之 is never used as a 表語 (predicate of a copular sentence). Functionally, 之 is being used as in 稱之為; it is the object of a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summary: looks like a Cantonese way of defining technical terminology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2017-03-09T11:43:45.670" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T11:43:45.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23004" CreationDate="2017-03-09T14:41:09.683" Score="5" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the correct pronunciation of 要?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've learned it as yao4 but a video said it is yao3. Then I checked it in an online dictionary and it provides 3 different pronunications: yao4, yao3 ,yao1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I just pick one of those tones arbitrarily? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o7kqi.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o7kqi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dictionary : &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=yao4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=yao4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16604" LastEditorUserId="16604" LastEditDate="2017-03-09T14:48:26.200" LastActivityDate="2017-03-12T14:20:41.867" Title="Pronunciation of 要" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23003" CreationDate="2017-03-09T21:36:07.780" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most cases, we cannot pick one of different pronunciations arbitrarily.&#xA;The reason is very simple.&#xA;If we can, we do not have to pronounce differently. Right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;DICT.TW 線上字典&lt;/a&gt; can give you the commnon definitions in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;資料來源: MDBG CC-CEDICT Chinese-English Dictionary 漢英字典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;要 [ㄧㄠˋ; yao4]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;important&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    vital&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    to want&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    will&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    going to (as future auxiliary)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    may&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    must&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    (used in a comparison) must be&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    probably  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;資料來源: MDBG CC-CEDICT Chinese-English Dictionary 漢英字典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;要 [ㄧㄠ; yao1]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;to demand&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    to request&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    to coerce  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要 [ yǎo | ㄧㄠˇ | yao3]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pronunciation is used in only one case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要褭：古良馬名。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The name of a kind of good horse in ancient times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;褭 [ niǎo | ㄋㄧㄠˇ ]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T21:36:07.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23003" CreationDate="2017-03-10T09:41:23.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First forget about yao3. As a Chinese I never heart yao3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second as yao1, maybe it's enough that just remember a few words, 要求(to demand)，要挟(to coerce).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think yao4 is more common. We often use it as the meaning of 'want'.&#xA;我要买个大房子（I want to buy a big house). &#xA;Sometimes it also means important.&#xA;重要人物(VIP)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And hinen is right, pronunciation is very important in Chinese, different pronunciation always has different meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12956" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T09:41:23.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23006" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23010" CreationDate="2017-03-10T09:47:31.943" Score="2" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;Came across this today:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《廣韻·平·江》：“，短敞衣也，丑江切。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; has MSM pronunciation chuāng but if we take 丑江切 that means we have ch + iang = chiang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other characters with 丑江切 seem to include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/13/kx/468E.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;䚎&lt;/a&gt; (MSM: also chuāng)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/kx/6183.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;憃&lt;/a&gt; (MSM: chōng)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;广韵 isn't exactly modern and 丑江切 seems to come out differently in different cases today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm mainly curious about here though is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did (modern) Mandarin Pinyin &lt;code&gt;chiang&lt;/code&gt; used to exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T00:12:11.480" Title="Did Mandarin Pinyin `chiang` used to exist?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23007" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-10T10:10:03.037" Score="0" ViewCount="1218" Body="&lt;p&gt;Particularly for &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_scoring_system#Scoring_a_tiebreak_game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;advantage set / tiebreaker set&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;set&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;match&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;love (the term used for 0 or a no score situation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;15/30/40&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;deuce&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;advantage in / advantage out&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16633" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T02:37:41.977" Title="What are the common tennis terms in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23008" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23028" CreationDate="2017-03-10T11:33:16.173" Score="0" ViewCount="371" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I am disabled, I thought, in case my Appartment doesn't have a western style toilet, I might want to buy one of these:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JaU3M.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JaU3M.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wonder what they are called and where one could hope to buy them. If the university provides free Appartments I thought it impolite to insist on a Western style toilet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T19:59:13.537" Title="How is this commode style toilet seat called in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22981" CreationDate="2017-03-10T12:00:26.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's good to understand the system behind their formation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One type of Chinese characters are the so-called phono-semantic compound characters, which make up the majority. Here it is all about the rebus principle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing how to decompose characters is really helpful and you'll need it to look them up in a dictionary if you don't know the pronounciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check it out to get started: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12128" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T12:00:26.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23006" CreationDate="2017-03-10T13:48:34.317" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 反切 in 廣韻 use Middle Chinese pronunciation, so one cannot take the modern readings of the 反切 上下字 as a guide to how a word might be pronounced.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, you are looking at words in the 江 rhyme category. These words have developed a -j- medial in Mandarin (when there is a velar initial) that was not present in Middle Chinese. Other dialects have not. Compare, for instance, the Cantonese pronunciation of 江 &quot;gong&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although  is not a &quot;living&quot; character, words which are in the same initial and rhyme categories are still around, such as 撞 zhuang. This is the regular development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin has never had retroflex initials followed by medial -j-; in fact, this would seem to be a very unlikely combination in any language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T13:48:34.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22981" CreationDate="2017-03-10T17:30:38.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker. When I was very young in primary school, to learn those characters, my teacher always let us write down each Chinese character hundred of times after class. So, first secrete is to repeat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, like this character &quot;远&quot;(yuan 3),means far away in English, the right part 元(yuan 1), represents its' pronunciation,for us,even we don't know what the meaning of a character, but we can still guess the pronunciation. So, the second secrete is to read more to help you remember.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last, maybe, try to imagine so that to figure out the meaning. like &quot;互相&quot;,the structure of left character is symmetric, which indicates some connection between two things. While the right character is more interesting, both &quot;木(mu 4 tree)&quot; and &quot;目”(mu 4 eye)，shear the same pronunciation, which indicates the relationship between two things. So the &quot;互相&quot; represents the relative response of two object. hahaha, good luck, keep happy  when you start learning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16438" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T17:30:38.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23012" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23014" CreationDate="2017-03-10T17:35:21.793" Score="0" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;My book, among other expressions we should read out, lists 一個上年 without explanation. Now, I have heard 上年 as a variant of 去年，but I can't guess the meaning of 一個上年！ I can't imagine when you would want to use this, since &quot;last year&quot; is unambiguous. There are no choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T01:43:37.777" Title="How to use the expression 一個上年" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23012" CreationDate="2017-03-10T17:43:53.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Somethings when I play the computer games for a whole morning, my friends would say:  你居然打了一个上午的游戏 ！(you should play the game for for a whole morning), here 一个 was used to emphasis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16438" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T17:43:53.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23012" CreationDate="2017-03-10T18:48:59.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most likely, &lt;strong&gt;年&lt;/strong&gt; here was a typo of &lt;strong&gt;午&lt;/strong&gt; in your book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一個上午 (a morning) make sense; 一個上年(a last year ) doesn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; year' can be any &lt;strong&gt;unspecific&lt;/strong&gt; year&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;Last&lt;/strong&gt; year' is a &lt;strong&gt;specific&lt;/strong&gt; year in the context of the speech. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The phrase '一個上年' (a last year) contradicts itself.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another explanation for '一個上年' to exist could be: '&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;年' here doesn't mean '&lt;strong&gt;last&lt;/strong&gt; year', but '&lt;strong&gt;good&lt;/strong&gt; year'( 上 as in 上等 - high quality). That is also unlikely, because '一個&lt;strong&gt;好&lt;/strong&gt;年'is much more common way to describe a '&lt;strong&gt;good&lt;/strong&gt; year' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 一個上年 was not a typo, then it can only mean '上年'(last year) was a special year that was marked as a particular reference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &quot;再来一個上年, 公司就要破產 &quot;-- &quot;one more (year like) last year, the company will bankrupt&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-03-10T19:16:55.407" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T19:16:55.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23016" CreationDate="2017-03-10T20:54:04.160" Score="4" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你怎么&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;睡在这里了呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching 就 up on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%E5%B0%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt; gives a pretty long list of usages, and I have no idea what (if any) is most applicable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16635" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T08:46:18.207" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T08:52:53.017" Title="What does 就 mean in 你怎么就睡在这里了呀？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23015" CreationDate="2017-03-10T21:38:46.137" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence still makes sense, even if you remove 就.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你怎么睡在这里了呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, 就 is an adverb here, and emphasizes the verb, &quot;sleep&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few more examples are from 现代汉语词典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表示加强肯定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;知道他会来的，今天他果然来了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    我&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;不信我学不会&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    那&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;是他的家&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    幼儿园&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;在这个胡同里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;现代汉语词典, page 697&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T08:52:53.017" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T08:52:53.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23015" CreationDate="2017-03-10T21:43:22.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do a Search Q&amp;amp;A (on the upper right field) on 就 and you will find extensive discussions on this character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put: '就' in '你怎么就睡在这里了呀?' Means 'just'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without further context, 'just' in &quot;Why are you just sleep here?' Can carry different meanings too. For example: 'simply; only; merely; right away; then; must' and so on. Or even as a particle for emphasis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T21:43:22.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23015" CreationDate="2017-03-10T21:46:16.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你怎麼&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;睡在這裡了呀? - figuratively,  &quot;of all places, why are you sleeping here?&quot; &#xA;vs&#xA;你怎麼睡在這裡了呀?  - &quot;why are you sleeping here?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very interesting question. In this sentence, I feel it's used to convey a sentiment for emphasis, similar to:&#xA;就是啊 就是啊! vs 是啊 是啊!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In preparing my answer, I went through a google search of my own. I did find this old post, and perhaps it could be helpful to you:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1903/how-is-%E5%B0%B1-ji%C3%B9-used&quot;&gt;How is 就 (ji&amp;#249;) used?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T21:46:16.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23019" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23024" CreationDate="2017-03-10T22:21:58.827" Score="2" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the other examples of our book, I can imagine three ways to say this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我跳舞跳了三個小時。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我跳了三個小時的舞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我跳了三個小時的跳舞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they all correct and do they have exactly the same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T14:50:45.650" Title="Three ways to say &quot;I danced for three hours&quot;." Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23019" CreationDate="2017-03-10T23:06:06.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我跳舞跳了三個小時。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a [topic]+[comment/opinion] structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[我跳舞](I dance) is the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[跳了三個小時] is the comment that provides more details on the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我跳了三個小時的舞。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a [subject]+ [verb] + [object] structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[我] (I) is the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[跳了] (danced) is the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[舞] (dance) is the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[三個小時的] (three hours of) is the relative clause for the object that makes [三個小時的舞] as a whole, the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Both sentences above are grammatically correct and have the same meaning.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.我跳了三個小時的跳舞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is grammatically incorrect. The second 跳 is not needed. You don't need two identical verbs for the same object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-03-10T23:11:16.253" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T23:11:16.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23021" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-11T00:32:49.733" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;This article is talking about Chinese cuisine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的饮食文化历经数千年，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Chinese cuisine is thousands of years old,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;始终具有魅力，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;it is always charming,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;是因为它不仅民族特性鲜明，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;not only because of its distinct ethnic characteristics,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;而且善于吸收不同国家、不同区域、不同民族的优异之处，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but also because it was good at absorbing different nations', regions' and ethnicities' culinary fortés,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以至辉煌至今。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. which (ability to absorb) is still true today.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. this (ability to absorb) still shines through today.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. it (Chinese cuisine) is still splendid today.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么事情，事物是‘辉煌的‘？这里‘辉煌’的形容词描述了什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以简述为：‘中国饮食以至辉煌至今。’吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为‘辉煌’我有：杰出的; 灿烂的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T04:07:24.167" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T04:07:24.167" Title="In an article talking about Chinese cuisine, what does 辉煌 describe in 以至辉煌至今?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23021" CreationDate="2017-03-11T01:44:21.057" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;辉: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(n) brightness; splendour; radiance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(v) to shine &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;煌:  splendid; brilliant; sparkling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辉煌 means ' to shine brilliantly'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time, 辉煌 is used as a compound, acting as an adjective for: &quot;splendid; glorious; brilliant&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;什么事情，事物是‘辉煌的‘？这里‘辉煌’的形容词描述了什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'辉煌' is an adjective when it is placed before a noun. For example: 'brilliant battle record' (辉煌战绩). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'中国饮食辉煌至今' - &#xA;  &quot;Chinese cuisine is still shining brilliantly till today&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, 辉煌 is either acting as a verb phrase: 'shine brilliantly'. In which, 辉 is acting as a verb: 'to shine'; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or the sentence just omitted the verb: 'still be' (仍是)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'中国饮食(仍是)辉煌至今' -- 'Chinese cuisine (is still) glorious till today&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;look at 'splendid battle record' (辉煌战绩) again,  辉煌 is clearly an adjective because it is placed before the noun 战绩. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in '战绩辉煌', 辉煌 could also be treated as a verb phrase (battle record shines brilliantly) with 战绩 as the subject. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or 辉煌 is still an adjective, with the verb omitted in the phrase:  '战绩(非常)辉煌'--  'battle record (is very) splendid'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为‘辉煌’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to say: 'for glory', 辉煌 is not the word, because it is not a noun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'For glory' in Chinese is '为荣耀'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-03-11T02:00:18.847" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T02:00:18.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23023" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23034" CreationDate="2017-03-11T04:12:32.647" Score="2" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any good resources for teaching our child Wu dialect. I'm looking for games / music / toys that have spoken songs or dialog so he can listen. He is 19 months and we have been speaking English, Mandarin and Wu with him but I think Wu has the least resources to support his education. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6707" LastActivityDate="2017-03-12T13:28:23.117" Title="Wu dialect children's learning materials" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;games&gt;&lt;shanghainese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23019" CreationDate="2017-03-11T08:13:54.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 1st one and 2nd one are both correct, and have almost same meaning; but different emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The emphasis of the 1st one is the lasting time, i.e. &lt;code&gt;三個小時&lt;/code&gt;. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q: 你跳舞跳了多长时间？ =&amp;gt; The question is focused on how long&#xA;A: 我跳舞跳了三个小时。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The emphasis of the 2nd one is what (sb. do). e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q: 你下午做什么去了？ =&amp;gt; The question is focused on what you did&#xA;A: 我跳了三个小时的舞。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 3rd one is wrong. At the end of the sentence a noun is expected; which should be the object of the preceding verb, i.e. &lt;code&gt;跳&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T08:13:54.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22981" CreationDate="2017-03-11T14:46:02.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can find a chinese native speaker in Internet.   Try to talk with him,like pen friend.Every language is used to communication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16637" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T14:46:02.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22981" CreationDate="2017-03-11T17:04:05.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The basics are just what they have always been: begin by writing characters, a lot.  And read as much as you can as soon as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get character work books and fill them in.  A lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get graded readers.  They exist even for complete beginners.  As soon as you can cope with maybe 200 characters get books from Chinese Breeze.  As soon as you are ready to read independently look at software like &lt;a href=&quot;https://wenlin.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wenlin&lt;/a&gt;.  Read your own choice of short stories, classical philosophy or poems, and news, in Chinese.  You will be slow at first.  Do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some books want to teach you characters by making up funny stories to remind you of the shape and pronunciation of each of them, some by giving you etymologies of various characters, some by starting you with useful phrases for travelers.  I would say do not choose among these. Just get a lot of them.  The funny stories are not really efficient in the long run, the etymologies are often not really true.  But the books are not expensive.  Read some and see what works for you. Consider using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digmandarin.com/anki-best-way-to-increase-chinese-vocabulary.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anki&lt;/a&gt;.  Buy character posters or stick post-its with  character names for things around your home on those things, if you like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, though, no tricks.  Write characters. A lot.  And read real Chinese works as soon as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-03-11T18:35:08.780" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T18:35:08.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23027" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26274" CreationDate="2017-03-11T17:26:28.370" Score="1" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is 就 doing here? And why is the sentence 然后特朗普就赢得了选举。 so short? What is the proper translation here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那位在场人士说，会议之后，许多人都认为班农的策略是在发疯。然后特朗普就赢得了选举。现在我们可以说，特朗普在许多方面都堪称第一位真正的硅谷初创公司候选人和总统。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T09:38:52.963" Title="A strange short sentence with 就" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23008" CreationDate="2017-03-11T19:59:13.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;坐便椅&lt;/strong&gt; can be the name you want, in a decent way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition you can find it in &lt;a href=&quot;https://s.taobao.com/search?q=%E5%9D%90%E4%BE%BF%E6%A4%85&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Aliexpress&lt;/a&gt;. Some big pharmacies also offer these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T19:59:13.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23027" CreationDate="2017-03-11T21:01:52.083" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/xs/5C31.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢典 就〈副〉(6)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用在动词前面，表示在某种条件或情况下自然怎么样。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [without…there can be no]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如：不斗争，就不能前进。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/kangxi/pic.php?f=xdhycd&amp;amp;p=697&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《现代汉语词典》Page 697 ❼ 副 d)&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;also shows some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rvNhZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rvNhZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;就-2.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not problem about the Chinese explanation above.&#xA;就 is an adverb here.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, I would say, &quot;after...then...&quot; or &quot;because...then...&quot; for the English translation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;After A happened, then B happened.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because A ..., B then ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;会议之后，许多人都认为班农的策略是在发疯。然后特朗普就赢得了选举。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 许多人都认为班农的策略是在发疯. And, 特朗普 then 赢得了选举.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;After many people thought that the strategy of Bannon was crazy, (and) Trump then won the election.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because 许多人都认为班农的策略是在发疯, 特朗普 then 赢得了选举.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because many people thought that the strategy of Bannon was crazy, Trump then won the election.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastEditorUserId="16050" LastEditDate="2017-03-11T21:53:38.947" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T21:53:38.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23027" CreationDate="2017-03-11T22:40:10.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;zdic.net has for 就： 依照现有情况或趁着当前的便利，顺便&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【依照现有情况】or【趁着当前的便利】or【顺便】为【就】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘情况’是：‘许多人都认为班农的策略是在发疯。’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在【依照现有情况】换了‘现有’为‘当时，那时’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然后特朗普【就】赢得了选举。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then： as a conjunction, &quot;in that case, therefore,&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T22:40:10.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22989" CreationDate="2017-03-12T00:15:55.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org&lt;/a&gt;. They show the ancient forms of most characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E5%A6%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;There&lt;/a&gt; the author says &quot;From woman (Chinese ghosts are women) 女 and phonetic 夭. Meaning female ghost.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't know where he's read that &quot;Chinese ghosts are women&quot;, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another great source is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhongwen.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt;. They even have a (very helpful) printed version. There they say &quot;Modern form shows woman 女 with 夭 phonetic. Bewitching, demon.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if you look for a definition of &quot;bewitching&quot;, you'll find &quot;cast a spell on and gain control over (someone) by magic&quot;. Considering that most characters were developed by males (consider 他/她, in the first &quot;person&quot; means &quot;male&quot;; or 安, a woman at home meaning &quot;tranquility&quot;; etc), it's easy to understand how women are able to &quot;cast a spell and gain control&quot; over men by their simply nature. Perhaps there are parallels with the way women were treated as witches in Western medieval times. Remember how &lt;a href=&quot;https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/10018966/Schaffer06.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lipstick were once considered bewitching&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Rather than merely discouraging lip rouge through taxation, as done to&#xA;  hair powder, Parliament declared that women who seduced men into&#xA;  matrimony through use of lip and cheek paints could have their&#xA;  marriages annulled as well as face witchcraft charges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastActivityDate="2017-03-12T00:15:55.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22952" CreationDate="2017-03-12T10:46:35.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ohhh! Cartoons is my favorite. Let's me answer it!&#xA;I made a list for you first. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.Comedy cartoons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1&#xA;我們這一家（My family）&#xA;MY childhood! Sooo adorable mum,a pretty body shape and humor to deal with any problems. A traditional Japanese family, nevertheless not too serious and rigid, and too much fun with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2&#xA;麥兜（McDull）&#xA;It's a original Hong Kong cartoon. About the dailylife of cute pig ! But honestly he speaks too little dialogue. And a lot of word about Hong Kong culture. I worry you canˊt understand so I put it no.2. It doesn't mean it is a bad cartoon. If you live in Hong Kong, you always find something similar with McDull.(maybe building, maybe food, maybemaybe activities ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3&#xA;多啦a夢（Doraemon）&#xA;It's a famous cartoon, no introduction.&#xA;However,&#xA;If you were to get a Doraemon, please wouldn't hesitate to share with me. I will appreciate it very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4&#xA;日式麵包王(Yakitate!! Japan）&#xA;That's funny story about a juvenile making amazing Japanese bread. &#xA;↓↓↓↓The first episode↓&#xA;:(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5&#xA;小倩（Xiaoqian）&#xA;Human and Ghost Love(don't know how to translate)&#xA;小倩&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/6t%20Df33HXAvk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小倩&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6 忍者亂太郎&#xA;Ninja's school daily&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7 keroro軍曹&#xA;A frog wants to occupy the earth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8&#xA;成語動畫廊&#xA;Awesome cartoon! Learn both  Chinese idioms and Chinese history.&#xA;I get lot of fun with it when I am primary school, becaue it means our Chinese teacher ask for leave and we can have a rest in a lesson.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成語動畫廊&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/txjhGVoXKSI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;成語動畫廊&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B.Adventure cartoon&#xA;1龍珠(Dragon Ball)&#xA;It is difficult to find Cantonese version on Youtube. Maybe search on tudou.com or youku.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C Horror animation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1&#xA;死亡筆記（Death Note）&#xA;Please don't write down your name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2&#xA;HunterXHunter(全職獵人)&#xA;Father where are u! I am your son.&#xA;There are two version of it.&#xA;Old version is easy to find Cantonese.&#xA;↓&#xA;:(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HOPPING THE ANSWER WON'T BE LATE FOR HELPING U! HAVE A NICE STUDY TOUR!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16605" LastEditorUserId="16605" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T08:01:25.380" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T08:01:25.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23021" CreationDate="2017-03-12T11:22:37.603" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q1 什么事情，事物是‘辉煌的‘？这里‘辉煌’的形容词描述了什么？&#xA;A: 辉煌的 describe中国的饮食文化。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q2 可以简述为：‘中国饮食以至辉煌至今。’吗？&#xA;A:No. It miss a reason. Seem to be &quot;Chinese cuisine cause brilliant untill now. &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correct answer(both are correct)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1&#xA;中国饮食 add reason ,以至辉煌至今&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（main clause）&#xA;中国的饮食文化历经数千年，&#xA;Chinese cuisine is thousands of years old,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(describe)&#xA;始终具有魅力，&#xA;it is always charming,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(reason)&#xA;是因为它不仅民族特性鲜明，&#xA;not only because of its distinct ethnic characteristics,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(reason)&#xA;而且善于吸收不同国家、不同区域、不同民族的优异之处，&#xA;but also because it was good at absorbing different nations', regions' and ethnicities' culinary fortés,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（result）&#xA;以至辉煌至今&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2中国饮食辉煌至今 is no grammar mistake, but is seem no mention of the next sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16605" LastActivityDate="2017-03-12T11:22:37.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23023" CreationDate="2017-03-12T13:28:23.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wu music in bilibili: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://space.bilibili.com/39228238/#!/video&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;吴语乐坛&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://space.bilibili.com/5083184/#!/video?keyword=&amp;amp;order=senddate&amp;amp;page=1&amp;amp;tid=3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;吴语微信平台&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dialog:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://space.bilibili.com/4835752/#!/index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;真纪&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.forvo.com/languages/wuu/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wu in forvo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15933" LastActivityDate="2017-03-12T13:28:23.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23003" CreationDate="2017-03-12T14:20:41.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try installing &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.perapera.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.perapera.org&lt;/a&gt;, Firefox/Chrome add-on. In it you can see:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要 yao1 - to demand, to request, to coerce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要 yao4 - important, vital, to want, will, going to (as future auxiliary), may, must, (used in a comparison) must be, probably&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means the first (yao1) is a common verb, followed by a noun (what you demand/request). The second (yao4) is either an adjective, a modal verb (may, must) or a verb followed by another verb (as in SleePy's 我要买个大房子).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastActivityDate="2017-03-12T14:20:41.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23012" CreationDate="2017-03-12T16:09:54.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;这是个错误的语法！你可以说上一个年头，或者去年，但绝对不可以说上一个年！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is wrong. You can say &quot;上一个年头&quot; or &quot;去年&quot;, but never &quot;上一个年&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16642" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-08-23T01:43:37.777" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T01:43:37.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23037" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-12T16:16:07.570" Score="4" ViewCount="948" Body="&lt;p&gt;The penis is translated as &quot;阴茎&quot; (literally &quot;yin stem&quot;), but it is a male organ. In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang#Meanings&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;traditional concepts of yin and yang&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;阴&quot; is generally associated with the female sex. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To support the idea, the term &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%B7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;阳具&quot;&lt;/a&gt; (literally &quot;yang tool&quot;) is also used to describe the penis (and scrotum).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the penis, a male reproductive organ, associated with the word &quot;阴&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8054" LastActivityDate="2017-04-08T09:08:13.180" Title="Why is the penis, a male organ, &quot;阴茎&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23037" CreationDate="2017-03-12T16:45:00.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;或者说在传统的观念里，头为阳，越往下即为阴。凑字数凑字数，凑字数。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阴是医学叫法，指的是平时遮住的地方。阳是传统叫法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为生殖器官所在的位置叫下阴，生殖器官中的“阴”和男女的“阴阳”是不能作对比的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16642" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2017-04-08T09:08:13.180" LastActivityDate="2017-04-08T09:08:13.180" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23042" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-12T20:37:43.727" Score="1" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gU8P2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;coin side 1 &quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eC2yd.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;coin side 2&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bought this beautiful coin and I have no idea what it says. I think it is Chinese. For the case it is not, please forgive my ignorance, there has been no intention to offend you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16643" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-03-13T01:29:34.410" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T15:33:06.597" Title="What does it say on this coin?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23043" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23047" CreationDate="2017-03-12T23:53:36.113" Score="1" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I say &quot;I think the Eastern culture is much wiser than Western culture&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried &quot;我想东文化比西文化很明智的&quot;, but Google is translating this as &quot;I think the Eastern culture is very wise&quot; (!!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm in doubt if I should use a 是, or if I could drop the final 的. Like &quot;我想东文化是比西文化很明智&quot;. If 的 is necessary, what's exactly its function in the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T17:53:46.390" Title="How can I say &quot;I think the Eastern culture is much wiser than Western culture&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23042" CreationDate="2017-03-13T00:18:34.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a medal, a prize for second place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first picture, on the outside says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;农,工,商,部,制 nóng, gōng,shāng, bù, zhì， basically: Farming, Workers' and Business Department made (by)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the middle of the first picture it says: 奖牌 jiǎngpái prize, medal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other side, between the dragons says : 二等 èrděng second prize&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not money, hope you did not pay too much for it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="3561" LastEditDate="2017-03-13T00:38:58.943" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T00:38:58.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22671" CreationDate="2017-03-13T02:14:08.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know two websites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eastling.org/oc/oldage.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;EastLing.org(东方语言学)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ytenx.org/dciangx/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YTenx.org(韵典网)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15933" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T02:14:08.373" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23043" CreationDate="2017-03-13T02:39:44.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the Eastern culture is much wiser than Western culture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I think&quot; can be translated as 我认为 我的想法是 我觉得 我的观点是 etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“much wiser than” can be translated as 比XX更聪明 比XX更有智慧 比XX聪明的多 etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1、我认为东方文化比西方文化更高明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2、我觉得东方文化比西方文化更有智慧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3、我认为，相比西方文化，东方文化更有智慧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15059" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T02:39:44.987" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23042" CreationDate="2017-03-13T02:52:52.817" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;獎牌 Medal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;農工商部 Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;製 make (made)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二等 2nd Class/Grade&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BE%B2%E5%B7%A5%E5%95%86%E9%83%A8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;農工商部&lt;/a&gt;是清朝政府於光緒三十二年（1906年）設立的中央機構。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce&quot; was the central government established by the Qing government in the thirty-second year during the Guangxu period (1906).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.xuite.net/coins888/twblog/336893504-1907%E5%B9%B4%E5%A4%A7%E6%B8%85%E8%BE%B2%E5%B7%A5%E5%95%86%E9%83%A8%E8%A3%BD%E4%B8%80%E7%AD%89%E3%80%81%E4%BA%8C%E7%AD%89%E5%8F%8A%E4%B8%89%E7%AD%89%E9%8A%80%E8%B3%AA%E7%8D%8E%E7%89%8C%E7%B0%A1%E4%BB%8B%E5%8F%8A%E6%88%90%E4%BA%A4%E5%83%B9&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Price in the August 2013 Hong Kong Auction&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://read01.com/EG8kK8.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;農工商部製 二等 獎牌&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T02:52:52.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23007" CreationDate="2017-03-13T03:16:34.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;tennis term：网球术语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;advantage set / tiebreaker set 长盘赛制&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;game 局&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;set 盘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;match 场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;love (the term used for 0 or a no score situation):零分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;15/30/40：十五/三十/四十&#xA;（一种计分方式）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;deuce：平分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;advantage in / advantage out：can‘t found 平分后本方得一分，平分后对方得一分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;solution:&#xA;when you got stuck on the tennis term,just use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;google&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baidu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;baidu&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;1、search like this &#xA;XX 网球  or  XX 网球术语 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2、where you can found like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B6%B2%E7%90%83%E8%A1%93%E8%AA%9E%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;网球术语&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/6559d6f59e31433239689329.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度网球术语&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15059" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T03:16:34.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1263" CreationDate="2017-03-13T04:23:23.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker，I think “之前” and “以前” is similar ,but “以前” is more common，more general。&#xA;“之前” used a little，especially in oral talking。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just some cases：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;以前&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;english used as Before or ago，and usually used to start a sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg：1、很久以前，有一座山  long time ago,there is a mountion over there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2、以前，我有一个洋娃娃 I used to have a doll。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;之前&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;usually used behind some preposition or sentence or subject&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.我希望我们能在最后期限之前完成这项工作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.I hope we can finish this before the deadline&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in conclusion：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;以前&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.usually the present or a certain period of time earlier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Refers to the past &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.比现在或某一时间早的时期。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.泛指从前，以往。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;之前&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in front of a time or place. Generally used in time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表示在某个时间或处所的前面。一般多指时间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;index:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;0、&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%E4%B9%8B%E5%89%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chinese wiki grammar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1、&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html5/z20m83j58396.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;在线汉语字典&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2、&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-8&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;tn=baidu&amp;amp;wd=%E4%B9%8B%E5%89%8D%20%E8%8B%B1%E6%96%87&amp;amp;oq=%25E4%25BB%25A5%25E5%2589%258D%2520%25E6%2596%25B0%25E5%258D%258E%25E5%25AD%2597%25E5%2585%25B8&amp;amp;rsv_pq=826475a800196ada&amp;amp;rsv_t=b827Rc2aCeVFwhoLBV%2Bt2TyBC2bAavvRCuNRbkY2LTTdxxL1Pp5ISlaK28U&amp;amp;rqlang=cn&amp;amp;rsv_enter=1&amp;amp;inputT=3859&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=38&amp;amp;rsv_sug1=30&amp;amp;rsv_sug7=100&amp;amp;bs=%E4%BB%A5%E5%89%8D%20%E6%96%B0%E5%8D%8E%E5%AD%97%E5%85%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;之前 英文&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3、&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.baidu.com/ns?ct=1&amp;amp;rn=20&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;bs=%E4%B9%8B%E5%89%8D%20%E8%8B%B1%E6%96%87&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;sr=0&amp;amp;cl=2&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;prevct=no&amp;amp;tn=news&amp;amp;word=%E4%B9%8B%E5%89%8D%20&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=2&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=65&amp;amp;rsv_sug1=2&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;inputT=1475&amp;amp;rsv_sug=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新闻&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4、&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B9%8B%E5%89%8D/9480093&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度百科 之前&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5、&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BB%A5%E5%89%8D/3627152&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度百科 以前&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15059" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T04:23:23.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22713" CreationDate="2017-03-13T05:48:53.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/sw/5929.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;『說文解字』says it's &quot;一大&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, and gives an explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从一大。至高無上。是其大無有二也。故从一大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, it means &quot;highest&quot;, &quot;biggest&quot;. You can interpret &quot;一大&quot; as &quot;number 1 in terms of size&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T05:48:53.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22738" CreationDate="2017-03-13T14:55:14.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“灯节”就是元宵节的非正式的非官方的民间叫法。就是正月十五这天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16642" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T14:55:14.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22936" CreationDate="2017-03-13T15:19:22.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;行，读作xíng或者háng如果偏旁写得离得太远的话会变成彳chì    亍chù&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16642" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T15:19:22.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23043" CreationDate="2017-03-13T15:29:46.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;不需要加“是”字，还有，明智在这里很拗口，用楼上的“智慧”是个不错的选择&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16642" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T15:29:46.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23042" CreationDate="2017-03-13T15:33:06.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“农工商部”“奖牌”“二等”It isn't a coin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16642" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T15:33:06.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23058" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23080" CreationDate="2017-03-13T17:46:37.600" Score="8" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Qieyun is a rhyme book written by the scholar Lu Fayan 陆法言 in 601 CE, during the Sui dynasty. In my degree thesis I'm trying to analyse some aspects of this particular work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, I managed to translate the preface of the Qieyun by myself. &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%88%87%E9%9F%B5%E5%BA%8F&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; you can find an online version of it. However, there are some obscure points. For the purpose of my thesis the most serious doubt I'm facing has to do with the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...] 先（苏前反）仙（相然反）、尤（于求反）、侯（胡沟反）俱论是切。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in the page I've just linked there is an explanation in modern Chinese of the contents of Lu Fayan's preface. If I scroll down I read that the previous sentence means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...] 还有把先、仙、尤、侯共用一个上字来切的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is: how should I interpret the phrase &lt;code&gt;共用一个上字来切的&lt;/code&gt;? The world 上字 has a specific meaning, it represents the first character used as an initial speller in a fanqie spelling. Nevertheless, as I've just said, 上字 refers to the initial consonant of a syllable or 声母, not to the rhyme or 韵母. It seems strange to me because in the previous sentences Lu Fayan was talking exactly about rhymes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;秦陇则去声为入，梁益则平声似去。又支（章移反）、脂（旨夷反）、鱼（语居反）、虞（语俱反）共为一韵，[...] (next comes the first sentece I gave you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In Qin-Long region (North-West China) the departing tone (去声) becomes the entering tone (入声), while in Liang-Yi region (South-West) the level tone (平声) is pronounced in the same way as the departing tone. Moreover, the rhymes 支, 脂, 鱼 and 虞 are considered identical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked my chinese friend who studied Linguistics and Historical Chinese Phonology. She looked the explanation proposed by Baidu Baike and concluded that 上字 here simply means &quot;the character 上&quot;. According to her, the sentence means that the character 上 could be used to write the fanqie spelling of the characters 先, 仙, 尤 and 侯 in some southern dialect of the time. In other words, they all rhyme with 上 (MC &lt;em&gt;dzyangH&lt;/em&gt;) which has the final -&lt;em&gt;jangH&lt;/em&gt; in Baxter's notation of Middle Chinese. However, I think she deduced it only based upon the explanation of Baidu because in the original text the character 上 is not mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, after all the above considerations, it seems to me that the foundamental question lies in the true interpretation of the phrase in the explanation. By only looking at Lu Fayan's original text I'm not able to give a meaningful translation of that sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your opinion, is my friend's view correct? If not, how should I interpret the sentence? What could an proper translantion be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10944" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T14:32:57.783" Title="The interpretation of a sentence in the Qieyun (切韵) preface" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;middle-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23043" CreationDate="2017-03-13T17:53:46.390" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this sentence ought to give people an accurate impression of the situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我认为中国人崇洋拜外比不上西方人搞东方主义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T17:53:46.390" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22909" CreationDate="2017-03-13T22:21:03.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know others ,but I like 《平凡之路》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16642" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T22:21:03.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22953" CreationDate="2017-03-14T01:55:16.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我睁不开我的眼睛 -- I'm not able to open my eyes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不能睁开我的眼睛 -- I cannot open my eyes (even though I am able to do it. Maybe I do not want to see something, or be threatened not to do so, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T01:55:16.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23063" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-14T01:56:20.280" Score="3" ViewCount="444" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been taught that ‘得’ can be used in situations such as, “我打篮球打得很好”, to describe the &quot;degree&quot; that the action has. But I've also been told that ‘得’ only works with single character verbs-- so rather than saying, “我游泳得很快”, I would say, “我游得很快”, instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is all fine and well for verbs like ‘游泳’ which can be replaced by ‘游’ but for other verbs whose individual characters don't mean anything on their own, I'm not sure what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am unable to say, &quot;I travel very fast,&quot; because I can't say “我旅行得很快”. What is the solution to this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15884" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-21T13:14:14.537" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T13:14:14.537" Title="How to use 得 without single-character verbs (e.g. 我旅行得很快)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23007" CreationDate="2017-03-14T02:06:21.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;advantage set 长盘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tiebreaker set 抢七&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;game 局&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;set 盘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;match 场&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;love (the term used for 0 or a no score situation) ：0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;15/30/40 ： 15/30/40 （the same）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;deuce : 平分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;advantage in： 发球占先&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;advantage out : 接发占先&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（btw. advantage is 占先）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-03-14T02:37:41.977" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T02:37:41.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23058" CreationDate="2017-03-14T05:05:32.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;first, &lt;strong&gt;the text quoted by baidu has several significant, unbearable errors&lt;/strong&gt;, beware :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Sf29e.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Sf29e.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;p3&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gNtxX.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gNtxX.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;p4&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the original preface of 切韻, by 陸法言; is quoted in 鉅宋廣韻 (printed in 1169), that the national archives of japan has a downloadable copy. it's page 3 &amp;amp; 4 of 卷一:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchives/0500000000/0511000000/00&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchives/0500000000/0511000000/00&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, for your thesis, rely on this one :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about how to interpret:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the verse &quot;支﹒脂﹒魚﹒虞﹒共為一韻&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;支&quot;, &quot;脂&quot;, &quot;魚&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;虞&quot; are name of  韻目.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;支&quot;, &quot;脂&quot; are in &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A2%E6%94%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;止攝&lt;/a&gt;; while &quot;魚&quot;, &quot;虞&quot; are in &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%81%87%E6%94%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;遇攝&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, in the verse of &quot;先﹒仙﹒尤﹒侯﹒俱論是切&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;先&quot;, &quot;仙&quot;, &quot;尤&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;侯&quot;, guess it? they're also name of  韻目.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;先&quot;, &quot;仙&quot; are in &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B1%B1%E6%94%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;山攝&lt;/a&gt;; while &quot;尤&quot;, &quot;侯&quot; are in &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B5%81%E6%94%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;流攝&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, here's my interpretation:&#xA;&quot;支﹒脂﹒魚﹒虞﹒共為一韻&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;characters &quot;支&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;脂&quot;; &quot;魚&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;虞&quot; share (共為) the same (一) 韻攝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;先﹒仙﹒尤﹒侯﹒俱論是切&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;characters &quot;先&quot;, &quot;仙&quot;, &quot;尤&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;侯&quot;, all (俱) is regarded (論) as (是) example of 反切.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, may i ask, do you have the full text of 切韻, in which version?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T05:05:32.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23067" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23068" CreationDate="2017-03-14T07:35:01.663" Score="2" ViewCount="684" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see both words used on modern websites.  Do 图片 and 照片 mean the same thing?  Are there cases where they are not interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11858" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T14:39:46.557" Title="图片 and 照片: are they interchangeable?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23067" CreationDate="2017-03-14T08:09:02.793" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, they are not interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;照片 is only the ones taken with a camera. 图片 can be any picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T08:09:02.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23037" CreationDate="2017-03-14T13:24:38.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According &lt;a href=&quot;http://fengshuichina.blog.sohu.com/93463692.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;to this fengshui expert&lt;/a&gt;, the penis and the vagina are both named not because of the gender of the bearer, but via Western medical terminology because they originate from the perineum &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%83%E9%99%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(会阴)&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“阴茎”这个称呼不是中国人发明的。它属于从西方医学中翻译过来的外来语，与我们中国的阴阳学说无关。从解剖学角度来讲，耻骨至肛门之前的区域叫会阴区。在这个区域的内在“通道”称作“阴道”，外在如茎之物称作“阴茎”，想一想也是很形象的。而以阴阳学说为基础的中国古典医学并不把男性生殖器叫阴茎，而是称为阳根、阳具或者阳物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8054" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T13:24:38.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23037" CreationDate="2017-03-14T13:56:32.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer by Chinese boy is right, 陰 is a technical term for the genitals, male or female. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etymologically, 陰 as genitals may very well have come from dark, hidden, etc. as Colin suggested above. Morohashi's Dai kanwa jiten cites 釋名, a late Han dynasty dictionary, for this meaning: 陰，蔭也。言所在蔭翳也。 Not so different from English 'privates' perhaps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of 陰 without regard to male or female include 陰部 'genitals', 外陰 'external genitalia', 陰毛 'pubic hair', 陰蝨 'crabs' and so on. Other male body parts using 陰 include 陰囊 'scrotum'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2017-03-14T14:02:33.413" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T14:02:33.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23067" CreationDate="2017-03-14T14:39:46.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;no,照片=photo,图片=picture,照片是用相机拍摄下来的，而图片可以是绘画等&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16642" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T14:39:46.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23063" CreationDate="2017-03-14T14:47:37.443" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“得”前面一般为动词，后面一般为形容词或者程度副词，用于修饰前面的动词&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16642" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T14:47:37.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19684" CreationDate="2017-03-14T18:54:11.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;这本书是新的（书） : this book is new (book) -- adjective+(noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这本书很新 : this book is new -- descriptive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16655" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-08-23T01:48:01.423" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T01:48:01.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23077" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-14T19:45:16.913" Score="2" ViewCount="1761" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could anyone tell me the meaning of the word 让 (ràng) in sentences like this one: 爸爸让我学开车.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure of the exact meaning; is it to wish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've looked it up on a dictionary but I couldn't figure out the exact meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clara&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16610" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-03-17T03:11:25.730" LastActivityDate="2021-03-13T22:50:26.407" Title="What is the meaning of 让?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23077" CreationDate="2017-03-15T00:27:56.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;让 in this context means &quot;ask&quot;, as in , &quot;Daddy asked me to learn to drive&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found it surprising that most online dictionaries didn't list this definition, when this usage is very common. I did find it in an extended definition list here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/24/xs/8BA9.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/24/xs/8BA9.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(13) 要求 [ask]。如:是他让我来的;她妈妈让她每天练钢琴八个小时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2017-03-15T00:27:56.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23077" CreationDate="2017-03-15T02:24:08.007" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence '爸爸让我学开车' is too short to be certain which meaning of 让 should be assigned here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'我恳求了很多次爸爸才&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;我学开车.' - 'I pleaded with my father many times  before he &lt;strong&gt;allowed&lt;/strong&gt; me to learn to drive.' (让 = &lt;strong&gt;allow&lt;/strong&gt;/let)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'父亲认为驾驶是一种有用的技能，因此他&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;我学开车.' - 'Father thinks driving is a useful skill, so he &lt;strong&gt;lets&lt;/strong&gt; me learn to drive.' (让 = &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt;/ allow/ ask/ make)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider learning to drive cost money, and often require permission from the parent, &amp;quot;LET&amp;quot; is the most likely meaning of '让' here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*ongusbongus' answer suggested  '让' means 'ask to'. But in reality, '要' is the more common word for the meaning of 'ask to' compare to '让'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even '叫' carrying the meaning of 'ask to' better than '让'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2021-03-13T15:34:53.773" LastActivityDate="2021-03-13T15:34:53.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23058" CreationDate="2017-03-15T04:01:51.960" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many errors in the 百度百科's article you gave, so I show my punctuation of the preface first.&#xA;The content comes from the 水巷孑蠻's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) 昔，開皇初，有儀同劉臻等八人，同詣法言門宿。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2) 夜永酒闌，論及音韻。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3) 以今聲調，既自有別，諸家取捨，亦復不同。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  4) 吳楚，則時傷輕淺；燕趙，則多傷重濁；秦隴，則去聲為入；梁益，則平聲似去。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  5) 又，支（章移切）脂（旨夷切）、魚（語居切）虞（遇俱切），共為一韻；先（蘇前切）仙（相然切）、尤（于求切）侯（胡溝切），俱論是切。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  6) 欲廣文路，自可清、濁皆通；若賞知音，即須輕、重有異。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  7) 呂靜《韻集》、夏侯該《韻略》、陽休之《韻略》、周思言《音韻》、李季節《音譜》、杜臺卿《韻略》等，各有乖互。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  8) 江東取韻與河北復殊。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9) 因論南北是非，古今通塞。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  10) 欲更捃選精切，除削疏緩，蕭、顏多所決定。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11) 魏著作謂法言曰：「向來論難，疑處悉盡，何不隨口記之？我輩數人定，則定矣！」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  12) 法言即燭下握筆，略記綱紀；博問英辯，殆得精華。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  13) 於是，更涉餘學，兼從薄宦，十數年間，不遑修集。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;14) 今反初服，私訓諸弟子：「凡有文藻，即須明聲韻。」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  15) 屏居山野，交游阻絕，疑惑之所，質問無從。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  16) 亡者，則生死路殊，空懷可作之歎；存者，則貴賤禮隔，以報絕交之旨。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  17) 遂取諸家音韻、古今字書，以前所記者，定之為《切韻》五卷，剖析毫氂，分別黍累。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;18) 何煩泣玉，未得縣金。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  19) 藏之名山，昔怪馬遷之言大；持以蓋醬，今歎楊雄之口吃。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  20) 非是小子專輒，乃述羣賢遺意。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  21) 寧敢施行人世？直欲不出戶庭。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;22) 于時，歲次辛酉，大隋仁壽元年。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 陸法言 stated the reason that he wrote this book.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1) and 2) were the story why the subject was raised. (The eight guests actually visited 陸法言's father, 陸爽.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3) to 8) were the phenomenons they found.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;9) and 10) were what they did after finding those phenomenons.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;11) and 12) were the reason that 陸法言 started to write. (Because he was the youngest one among them, I think.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;13) was the reason that the book was delayed about 18 years.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;14) to 16) were the situations 陸法言 faced after he was fired.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;17) was the way he wrote the book.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;18) and 21) were what he felt after finishing the writing.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;22) was the date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The punctuation of the sentence in question should be as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;支脂、魚虞，共為一韻；先仙、尤侯，俱論是切。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence has nothing to do with the previous and the next ones.&#xA;Its meaning is as follows.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;支、脂混用一韻。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;魚、虞混用一韻。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;先、仙混用一韻。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;尤、侯混用一韻。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are four groups here, not just two.&#xA;俱論是切 is the same as 共為一韻 in this case.&#xA;They all mean that the rhyme of each pair was mixed up.&#xA;The author used different expressions to avoid the repetition.&#xA;This 切 means the 下字 of the 反切, i.e. the 韻母.&#xA;This sentence states that the rhyme of each pair should be different in their opinions, but it was mixed up in some areas or books.&#xA;俱, 論, 是 and 切 are equivalent to 共, 為, 一 and 韻 respectively.&#xA;論為 means 被當成, that is to be treated as.&#xA;是 here means 此 or 這個, i.e. this.&#xA;Since it is singular, 是 means 此一 or 這一個, which implies 同一個, the same one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many errors in the 百度百科's interpretation you gave.&#xA;北京 首都师范大学 文学院 冯蒸教授 has a much better interpretation, 《切韻˙序》今譯與新注.&#xA;He is an expert in this field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although he is a native Chinese in China, this article was still written in Traditional Chinese.&#xA;It is a copyrighted article.&#xA;Open &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=AVQlAwAAQBAJ&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;大江東去&lt;/a&gt;, and search 切韻序今譯與新注.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2017-03-18T12:00:05.813" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T12:00:05.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23077" CreationDate="2017-03-15T06:16:29.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, &quot;让&quot; means &quot;to ask&quot; or &quot;require&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爸爸让我学开车 means &quot;My dad ask me to learn how to drive&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师让他不要再迟到了。“The teacher ask him do not be late again”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn more Chinese grammar on this video channel：&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/hsk_grammar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/hsk_grammar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13141" LastActivityDate="2017-03-15T06:16:29.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23082" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23085" CreationDate="2017-03-15T08:21:07.637" Score="3" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has been harder to find than I imagined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for any sort of phrase or quote that talks about how, very, complex interpersonal relationships are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best I've found so far is something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人情似纸张张薄，世事如棋局局新&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is okay, but I was wondering if there was anything better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T01:51:22.100" Title="phrase request: complexity of interpersonal relationships" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23077" CreationDate="2017-03-15T15:11:59.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你可以理解为“let”，和英文里差不多的，翻译成英文就是（My）father let me learn deriveing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16642" LastActivityDate="2017-03-15T15:11:59.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23084" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-15T15:19:47.410" Score="3" ViewCount="634" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Shadow&quot; meaning &quot;a person who accompanies someone in their daily activities at work in order to gain experience at or insight into a job.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16532" LastEditorUserId="16532" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T00:16:37.890" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T20:36:18.027" Title="Is there a word for &quot;shadow&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23082" CreationDate="2017-03-15T15:42:11.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A common phrase for 'complex' is &lt;strong&gt;錯綜複雜&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be used to describe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Relational complexity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 人際關係錯綜複雜 (interpersonal relationships are complex)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 兩人的關係錯綜複雜 (the relationship between the two men are complicated)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Logical complexity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 案情錯綜複雜 (the case is complicated)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Physical complexity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 江南河道錯綜複雜 (Jiangnan's River system is complicated)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another common phrase for 'complex' is '&lt;strong&gt;千絲萬縷&lt;/strong&gt;' (tangled/complicated)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 兩人的關係千絲萬縷 (the relationship between the two men are complicatedly tangled)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more phrase related to the question: '&lt;strong&gt;人心隔肚皮&lt;/strong&gt; '&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means everyone has their own agenda. No one really knows exactly what other people are thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chinese sayings like '满肚密圈', '心知肚明' suggested people keep their intentions and plans in their '肚' (belly)&lt;/em&gt; which is always inside a person and hidden from views.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T01:51:22.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23084" CreationDate="2017-03-15T15:57:08.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 学徒(apprentice) what you are looking for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16650" LastActivityDate="2017-03-15T15:57:08.923" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22802" CreationDate="2017-03-15T21:03:06.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think 棋圣 is correct. 棋圣 means someone who masters Go or chess (or any other games of this kind).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16650" LastActivityDate="2017-03-15T21:03:06.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23084" CreationDate="2017-03-15T21:43:57.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few verbs that can be used with the “師傅” “徒弟” relationship :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;跟班&#xA;隨從&#xA;跟從&#xA;侍從&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15592" LastActivityDate="2017-03-15T21:43:57.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23084" CreationDate="2017-03-15T22:06:05.237" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term &amp;quot; to shadow &amp;quot;(跟随/跟著) means 'follow (closely like a shadow)'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Today is your first day on the job, you don't have to do anything, just &lt;strong&gt;shadowing&lt;/strong&gt; John and watch how he works.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(今天是你工作的第一天，你不用做任何事情，只要&lt;strong&gt;跟著&lt;/strong&gt;約翰, 看看他是如何工作便可以了.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a noun that describes 'someone who does the shadowing'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest '&lt;strong&gt;見習生&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;you would be John's &lt;strong&gt;shadow&lt;/strong&gt; today&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(你今天就當約翰的&lt;strong&gt;見習生&lt;/strong&gt;吧)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;見習 (v) to watch and learn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;見習生(n) a person on job probation (watch and learn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;見習生 is a general term, It can be a student training in actual work place or a new employee starting a job on probation. Different companies have different training methods. Shadowing is one kind of 見習, which trainee can learn by observing, and not hamper the trainer's regular work routine.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T20:36:18.027" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23084" CreationDate="2017-03-15T22:36:41.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你跟着她做。 Follow her, watch what she does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-03-15T22:36:41.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23082" CreationDate="2017-03-15T23:15:11.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;人人关系扑朔迷离&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《乐府诗集·横吹曲辞五·木兰诗》：“雄兔脚扑朔，雌兔眼迷离，双兔傍地走，安能辨我是雄雌。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-03-15T23:15:11.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23092" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-16T00:11:44.470" Score="1" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this 得 doing the same job in both sentences? Maybe in 2. they should have used 地？ （I don't really think so, but maybe.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;把自己梳理得漂亮而迷人。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;会不会忧郁得生病？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1. I have 得[漂亮]而[迷人] [形容词]&#xA;In 2. I have 得(生病) (动词）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忧郁： sullen, depressed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T15:16:08.197" Title="In these 2 sentences does 得 have the same function?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23092" CreationDate="2017-03-16T01:04:53.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this 得 doing the same job in both sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. Both 得 are 'verb particle'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both sentences, 得 are following a verb. It is a [verb particle] of the verb before it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'漂亮而迷人' is the 'result/ degree' of the action '把自己梳理'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[把自己梳理] is the [verb phrase]; [得] is a [verb particle] (*used to express possibility or capability; to indicate the result or degree. Similar to English 'to' / 'to the point of' *)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[漂亮而迷人] here is an [adjective phrase]. It is the[result/degree] of the verb phrase [把自己梳理]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'生病' is the result/ degree of '忧郁'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[忧郁] is the main verb; [得] is a [verb particle] (*used to express possibility or capability; to indicate the result or degree. Similar to English 'to' / 'to the point of' *)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[生病] is the auxiliary verb. It is the [result/degree] caused by the main verb [忧郁].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T02:17:17.833" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T02:17:17.833" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23092" CreationDate="2017-03-16T06:32:48.807" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i know this forum today,so i sign up a account and learn english instead,&#xA;fo me  , i thinks chinese grammar is stanger, because, for us, i need not any grammar, so i think every sentence, i noly use &quot;的&quot; is ok, because, i never use &quot;得 地&quot; for a long time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16659" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T06:32:48.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23077" CreationDate="2017-03-16T13:25:36.357" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;让 could mean 'let' or 'ask'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I wonder if we can learn from each other? I learn english from you and you chinese from me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16660" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T13:25:36.357" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23092" CreationDate="2017-03-17T03:51:40.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(clause A)得(clause B) is a general grammar in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There must be clause A before 得 and clause B after it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clause B is the extent or degree used to describe clause A. It can be verbs or adjectives, doesn't matter at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 忧郁得生病。 =&gt; Depressed to the extent of being sick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 做得好。 =&gt; Doing to the extent of being good. =&gt; Well done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be understood, too, that 得 is used to convert a clause to adverb form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clause A: 裝饰 &amp;lt;==&gt; decorate (verb)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Clause B: 很漂亮 &amp;lt;==&gt; Very beautiful (adjective)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whole sentence: 裝饰得很漂亮。=&gt; Very beautifully (adverb) decorated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地 is put after a &lt;strong&gt;single word&lt;/strong&gt;, probably adjective to be an adverb. It is a different grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 忙碌地 =&gt; busily&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2017-03-17T03:58:36.160" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T03:58:36.160" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23101" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23104" CreationDate="2017-03-17T18:13:11.413" Score="4" ViewCount="299" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is this Chinese city called 泉州. Mandarin: Quánzhōu. Cantonese: Cyun4-zau1. Hakka: Chhièn-chû. Min Nan: Chôan-chiu. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B3%89%E5%B7%9E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pronunciations found here&lt;/a&gt;. Wikipedia adds a local Hokkien: Chôa&lt;sup&gt;n&lt;/sup&gt;-chiu. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mogher.com/dic/search/%E6%B3%89%E5%B7%9E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; I get Teochew: Zuan5-ziu1. Couldn't find Min Dong or Gan or other dialects, but those shouldn't matter. Postal romanization: Chinchew. Now, &quot;chew&quot; obviously renders the &quot;chiu&quot; of Min Nan and/or &quot;ziu&quot; of Teochew. But where did that &quot;chin&quot; come from? Is the postal romanisation a weird hybrid of a misheard Cantonese &quot;cyun&quot; (misheard as *cin and spelled chin consequently) and a correctly heard Min Nan / Teochew &quot;ciu&quot;/&quot;ziu&quot; or is there more to this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T04:42:45.203" Title="Where did &quot;Chinchew&quot; come from?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23101" CreationDate="2017-03-18T04:39:28.450" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B3%89%E5%B7%9E%E5%B8%82&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;泉州，簡稱泉或鯉，又稱刺桐城、清源、溫陵。&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Although 清 can be transliterated as chin, it does not seem to be the reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanzhou&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Quanzhou, formerly known as Chinchew.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The Postal Map name of the city was (note: should be &quot;is&quot;) &quot;Chinchew&quot;, a variant of Chincheo, &lt;strong&gt;the Portuguese and Spanish transcription of Chiāng-chiu&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is uncertain when or why British sailors first applied the name to Quanzhou. Variants include Kangiu, Chinchu, and Chincheu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以，Chinchew 是從葡萄牙語、西班牙語的 Chiāng-chiu 轉譯而來。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T04:39:28.450" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23101" CreationDate="2017-03-18T04:42:45.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the internet archive has a copy of the book &quot;the city of springs: or, mission work in chinchew&quot;, which is published in the year 1902:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/princeton_theological_seminary_3720_0539&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/princeton_theological_seminary_3720_0539&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on page 25, it stated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The name Chinchew, now so familiar to us, is merely an anglicised &#xA;  form of Tsuien-chow, being the northern or mandarin pronunciation &#xA;  of the name. In the Amoy language it is pronounced Tsoan- &#xA;  chiu. Tsoan — spring or fountain, and chiu — a city whose resident &#xA;  mandarin ranks as a prefect. The whole may be translated City of &#xA;  Springs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iowp4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iowp4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's an very interesting book, with numerous illustrations, have a read if you're not in that &quot;area&quot;. well, internet archive is blocked in . . . :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T04:42:45.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22978" CreationDate="2017-03-18T11:32:51.127" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first:&#xA;[ɚ]=[ər]=[ə^ɹ(as e^x )] [ər] for print convenience.&#xA;The second:&#xA;包儿 is [paur]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16672" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T11:32:51.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23058" CreationDate="2017-03-18T14:32:57.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, your female friend is totally wrong. 先（苏前反）仙（相然反）、尤（于求反）、侯（胡沟反）俱论是切 simply means, although 先,仙,尤,侯 are different 反, they are actually the same 韵，so you can 切 with them like the same thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还有把先、仙、尤、侯共用一个上字来切的。This means, a word that can be used to 切 anyone of these 反，can be used to 切 all of the above (上) because these are same 韵(sound)。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T14:32:57.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22978" CreationDate="2017-03-18T14:46:09.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;NO, [ɚ][ər] are interchangeable in the case of (儿化) er-hua because 儿 comes first. In other case, when 儿 comes last, then they are interchangeable, for instance, 包儿，花儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T14:46:09.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23110" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-18T19:52:59.770" Score="1" ViewCount="991" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am studying Chinese and I heard the phrase 'ni ma bi' from a native teenager. I am sure that it's an offensive phrase but I would appreciate your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How we could answer to such a phrase in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16673" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-03-19T11:43:54.567" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T03:33:01.090" Title="How do we answer to offensive phrases like 你 妈 bi?" Tags="&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23111" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-18T20:39:07.903" Score="5" ViewCount="1162" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will find that 爸 (bà) is father if I look it up in a dictionary, but I've never heard anyone say that or 媽, only 爸爸 and 媽媽.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But can I still say just 爸?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2020-12-02T17:17:33.230" Title="Can I say 爸, or do I have to say 爸爸?" Tags="&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23111" CreationDate="2017-03-18T21:53:29.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, may things are repeated for emphasis, etc. For example, 转转弯弯 is the same thing as 转弯. This is another one of those types of things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T21:53:29.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23111" CreationDate="2017-03-19T00:09:01.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my mind,I always say &quot;爸爸&quot; or &quot;妈妈&quot; when I was children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But now ,I always say them &quot;爸&quot; or &quot;妈“ .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because，&quot;爸爸&quot; or &quot;妈妈&quot;，It sounds very childish。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15492" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T00:09:01.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23111" CreationDate="2017-03-19T00:27:51.253" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;可以的，但是单独的“爸”字是一种比较口语话的，一般情况下，在比较正式的文章上并不能使用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16642" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T00:27:51.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23118" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23120" CreationDate="2017-03-19T11:17:41.007" Score="0" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to identify the type of tea contained in this package:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PFaAj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PFaAj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/G0w2R.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/G0w2R.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I already identified the character &quot;cha&quot; on the label (circled in blue on the pictures above), but I have a hard time translating the sinograms adjacent to this character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I already checked out the answers to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2616/%E8%8C%B6-how-to-identify-varieties-of-tea&quot;&gt;this related question&lt;/a&gt;, but these did not help me translate the label.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16675" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T11:50:33.083" Title="Can you please help me identify this type of tea?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23110" CreationDate="2017-03-19T11:28:02.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;你瞅你那个作(zuō)死的样子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how to translate, I use this get a friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That day, a new one came to us, and there was a fellow that we both know each other very well, that fellow want to show himself to the new one, so he made a bad joke with me, and laughed out loudly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was waiting for his laugh, and said &quot; XX(his nickname), 你瞅你那个作死的样子&quot;. That fellow turned out a balloon without air.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T11:28:02.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23118" CreationDate="2017-03-19T11:42:13.613" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;(SC: Simplified Chinese; &#xA;TC: Traditional Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;景谷 (SC and TC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生态大树茶 (SC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中國雲南勐河茶廠出品 (TC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中國雲南省景谷縣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;勐河茶廠出品&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Jinggu County, Yunnan Province, China&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Meng-he Tea Factory produced&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生态 ecological&lt;br&gt;&#xA;大树茶 big-tree tea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastEditorUserId="16115" LastEditDate="2017-03-19T11:50:33.083" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T11:50:33.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23092" CreationDate="2017-03-19T15:10:20.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simple pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;adj + 的 + noun&#xA;adv + 地 + verb&#xA;verb + 得 + adv&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;把自己梳理得漂亮而迷人。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梳理(verb) 漂亮(acting like a adverb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;会不会忧郁得生病？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忧郁(acting like verb), 生病(acting like adverb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2017-03-19T15:16:08.197" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T15:16:08.197" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23122" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-19T19:53:58.017" Score="0" ViewCount="953" Body="&lt;p&gt;I watched a Chinese drama a few years ago and one character was called 啊金. Then I got to know that it wasn't his name, but 金 sure was his name. Is that some kind of nickname? My Chinese teacher told me sometimes they call each other 小+surname, 老+surname. I am very curious O.O&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-03-20T04:16:48.813" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T06:13:40.723" Title="Why can a Chinese person have a nickname as 啊+surname?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23122" CreationDate="2017-03-19T21:35:23.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;啊+surname，means that person is not important. 啊谁=no body (谁=who). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小+surname，means that person is a kid. 小朋友=little kid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老+surname, mean that person is an old man. 老师=teacher. (A person with a lot of knowledge generally speaking is much older.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So language is interesting, but if you are not sure, just call anyone with last-name + 先生，or 小姐。for example, 黄先生，陈小姐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T21:35:23.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23111" CreationDate="2017-03-19T22:03:37.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be politer, you say 爸爸, although you can say 阿爸 with less formality and politeness, but 爸 is the worst. I get told off when I call my dad 爸. Hope this helps you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16101" LastEditorUserId="16101" LastEditDate="2017-03-20T15:45:52.193" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T15:45:52.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23122" CreationDate="2017-03-20T03:56:08.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;I watched a chinese drama ... Is that some kind of nickname?&lt;/code&gt; - Answer to this is yes. Calling someone by their full name is considered alienative (and also inconvient for too many syllables) in Chinese. To get rid of this, people ask to permit to call by such nickname, after they intrduced each other.&#xA;Just like the way English user do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;- Hi. I’m Christopher Stetson Wilson. Nice to meet you.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  - Hi. I'm 林树森. May I call you Christ?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  - Yes. So can I say 阿森?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  - Never mind.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note here &lt;code&gt;阿&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;啊&lt;/code&gt; is equivalent. Word-choosing varies with regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;小A&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;老B&lt;/code&gt; is an extended usage of above talking. But mostly use family-name instead of surname(&lt;code&gt;小林&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;老林&lt;/code&gt; but not &lt;code&gt;小森&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;老森&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Considered there are two persons A and B, B is elder (in age/title/etc.), They are both adults.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Then B can choose to call A as &lt;code&gt;小A&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;老B&lt;/code&gt; is applied alike contrarily.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A secondary usage is, when B talking to a third person C, he may refer A as &lt;code&gt;小A&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;老B&lt;/code&gt; is applied contrarily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A thirdly usage is, both A and B are old but close in age. They may call &lt;code&gt;老A&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;老B&lt;/code&gt; mutually. &lt;code&gt;小X&lt;/code&gt; is NOT applied this way, for this is impolite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T03:56:08.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23122" CreationDate="2017-03-20T05:24:57.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not 啊, is 阿. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿 + surname, or 阿 + given name can be a nickname. &lt;strong&gt;You can only attach one character&lt;/strong&gt; to 阿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.  李白 -&gt;  阿李, 阿白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 周树人 -&gt;  阿周, 阿树, 阿人.  no 阿树人. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿 + last given name used more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T05:24:57.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23132" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="39682" CreationDate="2017-03-20T06:07:39.143" Score="2" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;孔夫子旧书网 is selling &lt;a href=&quot;http://book.kongfz.com/10795/621624155/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;A Course of Lessons in Spoken Mandarin&quot; ( 《华英联珠分类集成》)&lt;/a&gt; for 13000.00元.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure who has that kind of dough to drop on a book, but it's certainly not me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some have used it to write papers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;文焕章《华英联珠分类集成》分析&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;传教士西南官话文献的罗马字拼音方案府&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is usually the sort of material that can be found on &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;archive.org&lt;/a&gt;, but, alas, it isn't there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently it is in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM662707&amp;amp;R=662707&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Toronto Public Library&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://library.soas.ac.uk/Record/557004&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SOAS University of London&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a digital version available that is somehow eluding me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="16117" LastEditDate="2017-03-21T00:45:41.210" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T13:01:38.347" Title="Where can I find &quot;A Course of Lessons in Spoken Mandarin&quot; ( 《华英联珠分类集成》)?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23134" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23140" CreationDate="2017-03-20T10:28:51.767" Score="4" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is 国语罗马字 romanized as &lt;em&gt;Gwoyeu Romatzyh&lt;/em&gt; in Gwoyeu Romatzyh? I mean, I understand the Gwoyeu: basic forms Guo and iu, second tone turns Vu or uV into Vw or wV (right?), hence Gwo, and third tone would turn i to e, but then the y is added because the i is syllable-initial; I understand that from a basic form of tzy an -h is added for fourth tone, giving tzyh. But what about Roma? Shouldn't it be Luoma? Luo has an initial sonorant, so the second tone form is the basic form Luo, and the same goes for ma. So how come it becomes Roma in Romatzyh?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-03-20T11:32:39.243" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T17:43:49.897" Title="Why Romatzyh and not Luomatzyh" Tags="&lt;transliteration&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23137" CreationDate="2017-03-20T11:15:29.910" Score="0" ViewCount="1276" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently trying to figure out how to begin a sentence in Chinese with, &quot;at the start of the year&quot;, my friend told me... etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard that &quot;at the start of the year&quot; is 今年伊始。But can you really say, &quot;今年伊始&quot;, or do you need to say, &quot;今年伊始的时候?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance to whoever can solve this one!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T11:46:50.737" Title="How to say &quot;at the start of the year&quot; in this context?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23135" CreationDate="2017-03-20T11:43:16.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“伊始”in chinese already includes the meaning of 'the starting of something'. So “时候” in “今年伊始的时候” is sort of redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16688" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T11:43:16.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23135" CreationDate="2017-03-20T11:46:50.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/8/12020.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;伊始&lt;/a&gt;' is mostly used in literal form, a classical counterpart of a common phrase '開始'(begin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[伊始] 开端;开始。伊,助词,无实义&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[伊始] 'start; begin.  [伊] auxiliary word, no real meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;At the start of the year,&amp;quot; should be translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;在年初&amp;quot;(at the start of the year)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;今年初&amp;quot;(at the start of this year).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;今年開始的时候&amp;quot; is grammatically correct but, too wordy for day-to-day speech.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;今年伊始&amp;quot;, or do you need to say, &amp;quot;今年伊始的时候?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;今年伊始&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;at the start of this year&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;今年伊始的时候&amp;quot; = at the time this year begun&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T11:46:50.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23138" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23147" CreationDate="2017-03-20T14:45:20.530" Score="4" ViewCount="890" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like they all mean &quot;register&quot;. Are there any differences between these three words? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2021-04-04T09:46:29.873" Title="What are the differences between 报名，登记，挂号？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23138" CreationDate="2017-03-20T15:49:41.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;报(submit); 名(name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;报名&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;to apply&lt;/strong&gt; (v)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;strong&gt;报名&lt;/strong&gt;入读多伦多大学 - &lt;strong&gt;apply&lt;/strong&gt; to enroll to University of Toronto&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;登(enter); 记(record)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;登记&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;to register&lt;/strong&gt; (v)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: '&lt;strong&gt;登记&lt;/strong&gt;成为选民' - '&lt;strong&gt;register&lt;/strong&gt; to be a voter'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挂 = 指定(assigned / appointed); 号(number)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;挂号&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;to assign&lt;/strong&gt;(v) / &lt;strong&gt;to register&lt;/strong&gt; (v)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;挂号&lt;/strong&gt;信' - '&lt;strong&gt;registered&lt;/strong&gt; mail' (a letter with &lt;strong&gt;assigned&lt;/strong&gt; recipient )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;挂号&lt;/strong&gt;看医生' - '&lt;strong&gt;be assigned&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;registered&lt;/strong&gt; (a number/ an appointment) to see the doctor'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;报名&lt;/strong&gt;成为选民 = &lt;strong&gt;apply&lt;/strong&gt; to be a voter&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;登记&lt;/strong&gt;成为选民 = &lt;strong&gt;register&lt;/strong&gt; to be a voter&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;挂号&lt;/strong&gt;见选民登记官 = &lt;strong&gt;be assigned&lt;/strong&gt; an appointment to see a voter registration officer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*For the meaning of 'making an appointment,'  it is more common to say 预约 or 约见 (as in 约见选民登记官; 约见医生). That means the only common use of '挂号' is 'registered' as in '挂号信'(registered letter) or '信要寄挂号'(want to mail the letter registered)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T16:33:38.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23134" CreationDate="2017-03-20T17:32:09.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to David Prager Branner (林德威) in &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20060903133711/http://www.languages.umd.edu/branner/yuenren/GwoyeuRomatzyh.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A Guide to Gwoyeu Romatzyh Tonal Spelling of Chinese&lt;/a&gt; it is just an ad hoc rule: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The name of the city of Rome and words derived from it are to be spelled &quot;Roma&quot;, even though they are pronounced (and ought to be spelled) Luomaa. Hence the name of this system of Romanization is spelled Romatzyh, not *Luomaatzyh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yuen Ren Chao was a great linguist, and in my opinion a great man.  But developing a romanization single handed is too much for anyone.  Apparently, on this point he felt an attachment to  Rome and its cognates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-03-20T17:43:49.897" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T17:43:49.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23142" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-20T22:19:02.863" Score="-2" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;Samples from the Internet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ntpu.edu.tw/admin/a9/org/a9-5/files/announce/20150527165203.PDF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1)&lt;/a&gt; 我對學校老師的專業程度戚到滿意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jiankang.com/ask/133082690.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2)&lt;/a&gt; 膝关节经常戚到有些酸软&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www3.ha.org.hk/cph/imh/doc/information/psychiatrists/L21.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3)&lt;/a&gt; 如果你因此戚到不開心或困擾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, &quot;戚&quot; is being used as a verb to mean &quot;feel&quot;.  But the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/621A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt; definition doesn't include any instances where it can be used as a verb, and the only verb definitions I can find in other dictionaries are for ancient classical meanings (&quot;to feel anxiety&quot;) which don't really fit here, in particular within the positive context in 1). Is this use of &quot;戚&quot; dialetical, i.e. representing a Cantonese or Taiwanese usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2017-03-21T15:21:08.707" Title="How is &quot;戚&quot; Being Used as a Standalone Verb to Mean &quot;Feel&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-03-26T06:54:43.160" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23142" CreationDate="2017-03-20T22:46:22.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an artifact of an OCR misreading 感 as 戚.  This is causing Google et al to hit on 戚到 when it's supposed to be 感到 as young99 notes in his comment.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I originally encountered the &quot;usage&quot; in an online book that was in text format, but that must have been scanned in and OCR'd using a similar engine. Hence the typo.  Will leave this question here so that anyone else getting tripped up by this won't be confused by it.  Thanks to young99 for helping me think through this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7016" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T22:46:22.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23111" CreationDate="2017-03-21T01:02:35.007" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure, there are many different ways to mean &quot;father&quot; in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;父亲：a formal and polite word, not usual for daily use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;令尊：a very polite word to replace &quot;your father&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家父: equals to “my father” when you are talking with someone else (more polite)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泰山 or 岳丈: a very polite way to call your wife's father，while &quot;岳父&quot; is more common&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公公: your husband's father&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爸爸 = 爸 = 老爹: just like &quot;dad&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16692" LastActivityDate="2017-03-21T01:02:35.007" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23110" CreationDate="2017-03-21T08:56:49.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think whatever words he says to you，you can always repeat his words with a louder voice and stronger momentum. That is a simple way，but it must lead to fight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15138" LastActivityDate="2017-03-21T08:56:49.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23142" CreationDate="2017-03-21T15:21:08.707" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“于我心有戚戚焉”。戚 是古语用法，现在很少会用到。现在一般会用 觉着，感觉 等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16695" LastActivityDate="2017-03-21T15:21:08.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23138" CreationDate="2017-03-21T21:50:09.497" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Definitions&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;报名&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To fill in personal information to the organizer in order to participate in the activities.&#xA;（参加活动时，向主办单位填写个人资料。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;登记&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To record the relevant matters in the form or the booklet of the organizer or the competent authority; to register for a service (such as to subscribe to a delivery service or a social networking website).&#xA;（将相关事项记录在主办单位或主管机关的表格或册子上。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挂号&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To get a number in order to do something in sequence.&#xA;（取得编号，以便依序进行某事。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Differences&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挂号 must involve the number, however 报名 and 登记 do not have to.&#xA;（“挂号”必定牵涉到号码，而“报名”和“登记”则不一定。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;报名 usually 登记 some information, and 登记 may not be a 报名, so 登记 is broader than 报名.&#xA;（“报名”通常会“登记”一些资料，而“登记”不一定是“报名”，所以“登记”的范围比较广。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relationship between 挂号 and 登记 is relatively close, because 挂号 usually 登记 some information in order to distinguish.&#xA;（“挂号”和“登记”的关系比较密切，因为“挂号”通常要“登记”一些资料，才能区别。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;报名 and 挂号 are less relevant. We use them in different areas, and do not mix them up.&#xA;（“报名”和“挂号”的关系比较小。各自用在不同的事件。我们不太会把这两个词混用。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Examples&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;报名&lt;br&gt;&#xA;考试 examination or test&lt;br&gt;&#xA;比赛 competition or game&lt;br&gt;&#xA;培训 training or course&lt;br&gt;&#xA;加入团队 to join a team&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挂号&lt;br&gt;&#xA;看病 to see a doctor&lt;br&gt;&#xA;寄信 to send a mail&lt;br&gt;&#xA;接受服务 to receive service&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;登记&lt;br&gt;&#xA;出生死亡 birth or death&lt;br&gt;&#xA;收养 adoption&lt;br&gt;&#xA;结婚离婚 marriage or divorce&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不动产 real estate&lt;br&gt;&#xA;土地房产 land or property&lt;br&gt;&#xA;车辆 vehicle&lt;br&gt;&#xA;开业 to open a business&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastEditorUserId="16787" LastEditDate="2017-04-03T04:46:23.903" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T04:46:23.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23152" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23155" CreationDate="2017-03-22T09:34:14.300" Score="1" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to use &amp;quot;as well as&amp;quot; in these cases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We go to play football today &lt;strong&gt;as well as&lt;/strong&gt; every sunday morning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see the road every bit &lt;strong&gt;as well as&lt;/strong&gt; you can.‎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moon &lt;strong&gt;as well as&lt;/strong&gt; the stars were shining down on them.‎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;As well as&lt;/strong&gt; I recollect, he was about six feet tall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they translated the same way or there should be used different translation of &lt;strong&gt;as well as&lt;/strong&gt; - 以及 / 及其 / 而?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T01:34:59.410" Title="How to use / translate &quot;as well as&quot; in next sentences?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23153" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23184" CreationDate="2017-03-22T09:50:41.943" Score="3" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;Variant characters are often called 异体字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about words? E.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歺厅 is a variant of 餐厅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歺厅:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;餐厅的异体词&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;餐厅的变体&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Specifically looking for XX的XX, i.e.: 餐厅的XX]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-04-10T15:54:14.550" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T10:00:22.747" Title="How to express words variants in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23152" CreationDate="2017-03-22T10:15:58.490" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;as well as: 和；以及；如同；像...一樣；既...又...；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depends on the context, you can choose a suitable one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We go to play football today as well as every sunday morning.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;和每周日上午一樣，我們今天也去踢足球。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我們今天和每周日上午一樣去踢足球。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We go to play football today and every sunday morning.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我們今天和每個星期天早上都去踢足球。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see the road every bit as well as you can.‎&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我可以像你一樣看清楚路上的一切。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moon as well as the stars were shining down on them.‎&lt;br&gt;&#xA;月亮和星星一樣照著他們。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The moon and the stars were shining down on them.‎&lt;br&gt;&#xA;月亮和星星都照著他們。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As well as I recollect, he was about six feet tall.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;根據（如同）我的記憶，他身高約六英尺。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如同我記的一樣，他約六英尺高。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;依我的記憶，他約六英尺高。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;據我回憶，他約六英尺高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastEditorUserId="15652" LastEditDate="2017-03-23T11:09:31.900" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T11:09:31.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23156" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23158" CreationDate="2017-03-22T10:16:39.033" Score="2" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a sentence with a list like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜歡飯、電視&lt;strong&gt;和&lt;/strong&gt;電影。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What are the different words for &quot;and&quot; that can be used, and how to they differ in usage?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen at least 及 and 和 being used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T10:42:55.907" Title="What are the different words for &quot;and&quot; that can be used in a list and how do they differ?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23157" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23159" CreationDate="2017-03-22T10:22:31.500" Score="1" ViewCount="1868" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm using the 漢語拼音 input metod in Google input tools. &lt;strong&gt;How do I get the enumeration comma (、)?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T10:48:28.710" Title="How do I get the enumeration comma (、) in Google input tools?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23156" CreationDate="2017-03-22T10:42:55.907" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;used to connect words: 和; 與; 跟; 及; 以及;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和 can be used everywhere.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;跟 is used in oral cases mostly.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;與, 及, 以及 are used mostly in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;used to connect clauses or sentences: 並且; 而且&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T10:42:55.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23157" CreationDate="2017-03-22T10:48:28.710" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can try the backslash &quot;\&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T10:48:28.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23160" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23161" CreationDate="2017-03-22T11:32:18.093" Score="3" ViewCount="294" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering whether the use of the word 告诉 is restricted to certain places in a sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering whether this sentence would be correct: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今年初，我的朋友告诉我他这个学期每个星期要打工三十个小时。Is 告诉 allowed to be used to quote what someone has said?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks very much in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T11:46:28.673" Title="Can I use 告诉 to quote what someone has said? Please help!" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23160" CreationDate="2017-03-22T11:46:28.673" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;今年初，我的朋友告诉我他这个学期每个星期要打工三十个小时。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is correct. You can use 告诉 in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can add a comma to make it clearer.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;今年初，我的朋友告诉我，他这个学期每个星期要打工三十个小时。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, the sentence can be simplified as follows.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;今年初，朋友告诉我，他这个学期每周要打工三十个小时。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;今年初，我朋友说，他这个学期每周要打工三十个小时。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T11:46:28.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22978" CreationDate="2017-03-22T21:18:02.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They should be the same. It is just differences in notation. [ər] is commonly used by Sinologists, while [ɚ] is actual IPA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Beijing dialect (and standard Mandarin), 包儿 should be pronounced as something like [paʊɻ] (probably written by Sinologists as [paur]). It looks like you're looking at something like Sichuanese, where 包儿 is pronounced as [pɚ].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; on erhua for more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12619" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T21:18:02.333" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23152" CreationDate="2017-03-23T03:45:11.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We go to play football today as well as every sunday morning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们今天去踢球， 就像每个星期天早晨那样&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated Style, OP gave a better one ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can see the road every bit as well as you can.‎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我可以跟你一样看清这条路上的一切.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The moon as well as the stars were shining down on them.‎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;月亮、还有星星在他们头顶上照耀着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As well as I recollect, he was about six feet tall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;据我的记忆，他应该是6英尺高左右. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastEditorUserId="6280" LastEditDate="2017-03-23T09:27:07.170" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T09:27:07.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23169" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23170" CreationDate="2017-03-23T06:55:38.620" Score="0" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Please write using &lt;b&gt;simplified&lt;/b&gt; Chinese characters.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been reading a short story in Chinese, with the task to translate it. Here's the passage I'm having trouble with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘看了，看了，他的那个女朋友真不像话，见他在报上登了几篇小说就主动爱上了他，课知道了他是一个清洁工，并打算干一辈子，就又甩了人家，真太可恶了。’&#xA;  左边的那位留波浪式发的抢看回答。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two issues I have with this piece. What I'm having trouble understanding is that last sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;左边的那位留波浪式发的抢看回答。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the meaning of this sentence, which is that the girl on the left was the first to answer. However, what role do the following bits of this sentence have?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;留&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;波浪 (wave?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;式发&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest, it's probably just another Chinese proverb I'm not aware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15304" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T11:01:20.473" Title="How do waves relate to this?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23169" CreationDate="2017-03-23T07:28:44.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;留 means 'maintain' ; 'keep'; 'grew (of hair or beard)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;波浪 means 'wave'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;式 means 'style'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发 means 'hair'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;波浪式= &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pinterest.com/explore/wavy-hairstyles/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wavy style&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;留波浪式发(型) = has wavy hair (style)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is common to identify someone by something unique in his or her appearance, like hair styles, clothes color, etc.  when we don't know his or her name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T07:37:26.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23169" CreationDate="2017-03-23T11:01:20.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;留波浪式发 is a perm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original Chinese has issues. We tidied them up like this. Maybe it is a conversation in a hairdresser's salon.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“看了，看了，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I know, I know,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他的那个女朋友真不像话，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;his girlfriend is really outrageous,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;她见他在报上登了几篇小说就主动爱上了他，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;she saw him publish a few short stories in the newspaper and decided to fall in love with him,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;可当她知道了他是一个清洁工，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but when she found out that he is a cleaner,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;并打算干一辈子后，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and plans to do that  all his life,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;就又甩了人家，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;she left him,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;真是太可恶了。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;she really is repulsive.”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;左边的那位留波浪式发的女士抢着回答。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the woman on the left with the perm rushed to answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T11:01:20.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23172" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23173" CreationDate="2017-03-23T12:14:29.473" Score="1" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;The passage in the analects, whence it came, reads: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;子曰：「弟子，入則孝，出則弟，謹而信，&#xA;  凡愛眾，而親仁。行有餘力，則以學文。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very broadly I understand it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Students and sons at home should be filial, leaving home they should be respectful towards elders, trusting and sincere, all encompassingly loving the people and inclined toward kindness. If they have strength left, then for refined studies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are points I don't understand. One of them is 行。it appears to be used like 若，but my dictionary, which contains many classical examples, says nothing of such a usage! What does it mean? Can you give some more examples for this usage of 行？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-03-26T01:47:33.623" Title="What is the 行 in 行有餘力？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23172" CreationDate="2017-03-23T12:43:50.867" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;行 here means &quot;to do&quot; or &quot;to perform&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行：實行；實踐 to do; to perform; to practice&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有：還有 still have&lt;br&gt;&#xA;餘：多餘的 superfluous; surplus; excess&lt;br&gt;&#xA;力：能力 ability; capability&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行有餘力，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;After doing these and still having surplus capability,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行有餘力，則以學文。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;After one can perform the above things, and has enough time and ability, one should study and learn some knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The above things&quot; mean 入則孝，出則弟，謹而信，汎愛眾，而親仁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先思而後行&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Think before you act.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Look before you leap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行之不懈&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do it with no remission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反其道而行&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do it in an opposite way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行之有年&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Has been performed for years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知行合一&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Unity of knowledge and practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知之者不如行之者。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To do is better than to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;言出必行&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do it after saying it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;No sooner said than done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勢在必行&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Must do it under such a circumstance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;親仁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;親近君子 Close to the gentleman&lt;br&gt;&#xA;親近有仁德的人 Close to benevolent people&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「仁」指「仁者」kind, merciful, benevolent, kindly, charitable people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastEditorUserId="15949" LastEditDate="2017-03-23T20:59:44.977" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T20:59:44.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13484" CreationDate="2017-03-23T13:05:53.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hvdic.thivien.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://hvdic.thivien.net/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Just type in google Hán Việt từ điển and a lot will come up. The above is the best though because it also tells you the usage of the word in literature and in compounded words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16711" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T13:05:53.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23175" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-23T17:24:13.277" Score="6" ViewCount="354" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 is a particle that indicates the perfective--the verb has no interior composition. This is different from the perfect aspect in English which focuses on the result of an action in the past that may or may not have interior composition. So why is it that I cannot say &quot;明年，我学了中文&quot; to indicate that by next near I would have learned Chinese? In Russian, the perfective aspect can be used in a future tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15884" LastActivityDate="2017-03-28T11:59:40.203" Title="Why can't 了 be used to indicate a completed action that has yet to come?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23172" CreationDate="2017-03-23T18:23:58.880" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;let's consider a conditional sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if / when ( condition a = true) &amp;amp; ( condition b = true ), then c&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which might be simplified to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if / when (a &amp;amp; b), then c&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;further:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a &amp;amp; b, then c&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now, replace these symbols with the sentence of analects:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if / when ( 入則孝﹒出則弟﹒謹而信﹒ 汎愛眾﹒而親仁 = true) &amp;amp; ( 有餘力 = true ), then ( 則 )以學文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;simplify it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if / when ( 入則孝﹒出則弟﹒謹而信﹒ 汎愛眾﹒而親仁 ) &amp;amp; ( 有餘力 ), then ( 則 )以學文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;since (condition a = true) implied that those actions are already performed, the original place is replaced by the character &amp;quot;行&amp;quot;; list these actions in front, so the sentence changed to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;( 入則孝﹒出則弟﹒謹而信﹒ 汎愛眾﹒而親仁 )﹒if / when  ( 行 ) &amp;amp; ( 有餘力 ), then ( 則 )以學文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;further, omit the &amp;quot;if / when&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;&amp;amp;&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;then&amp;quot; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;( 入則孝﹒出則弟﹒謹而信﹒ 汎愛眾﹒而親仁 )﹒( 行有餘力 ), 則以學文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, adding back the &amp;quot;子曰﹒弟子&amp;quot;, we'd have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弟子入則孝﹒出則弟﹒謹而信﹒ 汎愛眾﹒而親仁﹒行有餘力﹒則以學文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;based on james legge's translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;id=1107&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;id=1107&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行有餘力﹒則以學文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when he has time and opportunity, after the performance of these things, he should employ them in polite studies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行, in this context, it means &amp;quot;after the performance of&amp;quot; &amp;quot;入則孝﹒出則弟﹒謹而信﹒汎愛眾﹒而親仁&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the rationale of such arrangement, i would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1   it's classical chinese, complied in a few thousand years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2   it started with &amp;quot;子曰&amp;quot;, which implied it's authoritative, in an assertive manner, so the &amp;quot;if / when&amp;quot; is omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-03-26T01:47:33.623" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23111" CreationDate="2017-03-24T00:16:27.417" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;可以用单独的&quot;爸&quot;或者&quot;妈&quot;，只是&quot;爸爸&quot;和&quot;妈妈&quot;用得比较多一些&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15941" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T00:16:27.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23111" CreationDate="2017-03-24T01:15:38.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;actually,we use 爸爸 or 爸 as Dad.爸爸 and 爸,they are no difference.or you can say that 爸 is the abbreviation of 爸爸,the same as 妈 to 妈妈.but 爷 does not mean 爷爷,奶 does not mean 奶奶.usually,we translate father as 父亲,it is a very formal form of address.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T01:15:38.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23175" CreationDate="2017-03-24T01:31:37.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;i think it is because of that we use 了 to express that the status is really exist,mostly it is the status of something has done or over/ended/finished.as you can not make sure a thing has not happened definitely happen in the future,so you can not say 明年，我学了中文.that sentence also indicate that you have finished the learning of chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T01:31:37.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23152" CreationDate="2017-03-24T01:34:59.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;there is a quite simple way to translate this word,just use 就像,it fit any status of the way you use 'as well as'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T01:34:59.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23182" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-24T02:21:35.520" Score="1" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vbket.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vbket.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone translate the pottery mark shown below.  It is on an ornate Japanese? bakelite? bowl roughly 340mm round probably 20th century.  The bowl is very ornate and has bats and fruit on the inside of the bowl and flowers and foilage on the outside of the bowl.  Entire bowl is gold in color except for a black base.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16716" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T18:14:32.110" Title="Asian ornate bakelite? bowl that is prob 20th century" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23182" CreationDate="2017-03-24T02:52:54.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it is 清乾隆制,means it is made in the Chinese Qing dynasty over the Qianlong Emperor time.And in my opinion,it is fake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T02:52:54.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23153" CreationDate="2017-03-24T07:42:15.427" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Words variants in Chinese are &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BC%82%E5%BD%A2%E8%AF%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;异形词&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, there is a document published by the govenment of PRC, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tsinghuajournals.com/attached/file/20160615/20160615064016_261.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《第一批异形词整理表》(The First Series of Standardized Forms of Words with Non-standardized Variant Forms)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I think 歺厅/餐厅 is not a typical example of “异形词”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, 歺 is one of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_round_of_simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the second round of simplified Chinese characters&lt;/a&gt; (第二批简化字, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%8C%E7%AE%80%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;二简字&lt;/a&gt;), which is obsolete and non-standard now. The different between 歺厅 and 餐厅 is on the character, not the word. So in this example we may say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;歺厅的“歺”字是“餐”的二简字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better examples of “异形词” can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;树阴 vs 树荫&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;唯一 vs 惟一&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3754" LastEditorUserId="3754" LastEditDate="2017-03-24T07:49:20.467" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T07:49:20.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21911" CreationDate="2017-03-24T08:17:56.330" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, there is one dictionary for this: 《现代汉语频率词典》，1986，北京语言学院出版社.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this dictionary is a little old and difficult to find. What's more, some of the readings are outdated, because 《普通话异读词审音表》 was published after the dictionary gathered the data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://unicode.org/charts/unihan.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Unihan&lt;/a&gt; database contains the &lt;code&gt;kHanyuPinlu&lt;/code&gt; field which is from 《现代汉语频率词典》. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=%E5%92%8C&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;和&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;kHanyuPinlu     hé(9513) huo(38) he(24) hè(9)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=%E4%B9%90&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;乐&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;kHanyuPinlu     lè(283) yuè(54)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3754" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T08:17:56.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23187" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23196" CreationDate="2017-03-24T14:28:27.820" Score="0" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got a strange email entry that appears as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C47we.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C47we.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does it say?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9509" LastActivityDate="2017-03-25T18:58:27.433" Title="Got a strange email" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2017-03-26T06:54:04.350" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23189" CreationDate="2017-03-24T17:58:01.307" Score="1" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;左边一个 至 右边一个各 怎么念 是什么意思？&#xA;it would look like 至各&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T20:18:23.233" Title="跟您请教一个字(Do you know this Chinese word?)" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23188" CreationDate="2017-03-24T20:18:23.233" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;臵 （U+81F5） [ gé ｜ ㄍㄜˊ ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 《康熙字典》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《集韻》「各額」切，音「格」。與「」同。「至」也。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Same as . It means &quot;to arrive&quot; or &quot;to go to&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又《六書原》徦，俗作臵。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The original or formal form of 徦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徦 （U+5FA6） [ jiǎ | ㄐㄧㄚˇ ]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. 至；到。(to arrive; to go to)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. 來。(to come)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. 姓。(surname)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T20:18:23.233" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23175" CreationDate="2017-03-25T00:35:54.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'I would have learned ...' means 'I did not learn ..' it is subjunctive. Something got in the way.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'I will learn ...' means 'I have not yet learned ...' and you are looking to the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why is it that I cannot say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;明年，我学了中文&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to indicate that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are talking about the past&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First I studied Russian.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;首先我学了俄语。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The next year I studied Chinese.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;翌年我学了中文。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I was studying Chinese and getting good.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我当时正在学中文， 并且越来越好，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;by the next year I would have learned Chinese, but then the war started.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我本可以在次年学完中文，但是战争爆发了。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are talking about the future&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“By this time next year, I'm sure I will have learned Chinese.”  （wish I could say that!!)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;等到明年这个时候，我肯定我将学完中文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明年 is most definitely future. You need 将。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-03-25T00:35:54.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23175" CreationDate="2017-03-25T03:36:08.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard that 了 can serve to indicate actions to be completed in the future, if the action is to be completed by the time of some other action you also talk about.  I see this in several grammar books.  And as an on-line source. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_completion_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_completion_with_%22le%22&lt;/a&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;has several examples such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你 到 了 告诉 我。future action&#xA;Nǐ dào le gàosu wǒ.&#xA;When you have arrived, tell me.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The comment by user6065 says that  &quot;明年，我学了中文&quot; is wrong because it does not give any second action after the studying of Chinese.  But 了 can be used correctly to indicate a completed action that has yet to come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-03-28T11:59:40.203" LastActivityDate="2017-03-28T11:59:40.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23175" CreationDate="2017-03-25T09:43:44.207" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;了&quot; means something finish or is about to be finished. Can't use it in further tense. It is one words with two pronunciation and similar meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Accordibg to商务新词典p32-33&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A&#xA;△了 liao第三声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;懂，明白(understand)  &lt;em&gt;e.g了解，一目了然&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;完结，结束(finish)  &lt;em&gt;e.g不了了之、没完没了&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;完全(complete)  &lt;em&gt;e.g了无愧色、了不相干&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在动词之后，与“得”“不”连用，表示可能或不可能(“得了” “不了” indicate something possible or impossible)  &lt;em&gt;e.g干得了、办不了&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B&#xA;△了 le轻声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;用在动词或形容词后面表示动作或变化已经完成或将要完成(Behind the verb or adjective, indicate&#xA;the action or change finished or is about to be finished)  &lt;em&gt;e.g.&#xA;我喝了一瓶水（I have drunk a bottle of water  ）&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;用在句子末，表示肯定语气(It is used at the end of the sentence,indicate something you are sure) &lt;em&gt;e.g.  刮风了、可以走了&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;表示感叹语气(sigh)  &lt;em&gt;e.g太棒了(great!)、这下好了(thats right!)，有救了&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So,back to the question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Why is it that I cannot say &quot;明年，我学了中文&quot; to indicate that by next near I would have learned Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:&#xA;In the sentese,&quot; 了&quot; following a verb so it should pronounce &quot;le轻声&quot; . Because of matching B1 meaning “The action or change finished or have done”&#xA; If 明年and学了use in the sentence, it will be a grammar mistake.&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Like:I have learned Chinese next year.&#xA;明年，我学了中文&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So uncertain,have I learned it?Or I am going to learn it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“明年，我会去学中文”maybe better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16605" LastEditorUserId="16605" LastEditDate="2017-03-26T15:51:15.320" LastActivityDate="2017-03-26T15:51:15.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23193" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23197" CreationDate="2017-03-25T13:32:42.763" Score="1" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started preparing for HSK 3 and thought I review the grammar for HSK 2 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/schools/salc/centres/confucius/hsk/grammarlists/hsk-2-grammar-points-list.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/schools/salc/centres/confucius/hsk/grammarlists/hsk-2-grammar-points-list.pdf&lt;/a&gt;). In section 8, it explains the usages of 的, most of which are clear. The one I don't understand is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我买了一些吃的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my guess is that 吃的 is a noun describing something that was eaten. Although, in that case the sentence would mean: I bought something that was eaten, which sounds weird :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having read through some of the answers here, I found that in the 是。。。的 construct, the 是 can sometimes be omitted. So the &quot;complete&quot; sentence would be 我是买了一些吃的。 In this case, though, 吃 would have to be a noun and I couldn't find that in the dictionary. Of course, the meaning of that would be obvious but still, I was expecting to see it defined as a noun: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.pinpinchinese.com/definitions/s/%E5%90%83-chi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dictionary.pinpinchinese.com/definitions/s/%E5%90%83-chi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 的 here only to emphasise the whole sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&#xA;Norbert&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15765" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T11:11:25.143" Title="Meaning of 的 in 我买了一些吃的。" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23193" CreationDate="2017-03-25T18:01:52.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;吃的=food, something you can eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(subject)买了(verb)一些(quantifier)吃的(noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the sentese,you can't separate “吃” and “的”. It is a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16605" LastActivityDate="2017-03-25T18:01:52.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23193" CreationDate="2017-03-25T18:55:04.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can think the &quot;的&quot; is implicitly to include the words - &quot;Food&quot; or something else for eat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, sometime we will skip the word in daily use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;我是买了一些吃的 =  我是买了一些吃的(東西)&#xA;It mean: I have buy something to eat, so that without (東西) also the same meaning as well, but actually it is not a formal grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;see one more example:&#xA;我做了一些好吃的 = 我做了一些好吃的(東西)&#xA;It mean: I have make something delicious, same as above, skipping the (東西) have the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(東西) can be another words depend on what you refer to, it can be &quot;飯/Rice&quot;, &quot;蛋糕/Cake&quot;, &quot;雪糕/ice-cream&quot; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4037" LastEditorUserId="4037" LastEditDate="2017-03-25T19:03:11.603" LastActivityDate="2017-03-25T19:03:11.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2017-03-25T18:58:27.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It says &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The left side:COD - Cash on Delivery&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right side: Only $298, Video Recording Pen, Stealth camera, night-vision, movement detection (Video recording + voice recording + take photo + DV...) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4037" LastActivityDate="2017-03-25T18:58:27.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23193" CreationDate="2017-03-26T01:54:48.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have a look here for some examples of 吃的 (and any other words whose usage you want to check out):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dj.iciba.com/%E5%90%83%E7%9A%84-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dj.iciba.com/%E5%90%83%E7%9A%84-1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you'll hear '好吃的‘ a lot more often in China! 吃的 is a nominalized adjective phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了一些吃的。 I bought some eatables.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我买了一些好吃的。 I bought some delicacies.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我买了一些好吃的食物。 I bought some delicious food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-03-26T01:54:48.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23175" CreationDate="2017-03-26T03:53:25.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;了&quot; is usually used in describing something happened in the past. If you would like to say something in the future with &quot;了,&quot; there should be the other action to express that after you finish action one, and then you are going to make the action two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;明年我学了中文以后,我还要学法文&quot; (After I learn Chinese in next year, I'm going to learn French, too.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16723" LastActivityDate="2017-03-26T03:53:25.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23199" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-26T08:17:02.823" Score="8" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;然而当和尚走上石阶，禅房内却传来一声苍老的叹息：“长捷，虽为杀人事， 亦是菩提心，但若存了杀人念，&lt;strong&gt;你便落了下乘。&lt;/strong&gt;”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“落了下乘”是什么意思呢？我已经百度一下，但是还没明白。词典也无用了。&#xA;我知道“落了”有fall, drop的意思，然后“下乘“有”小乘佛教“的意思。但是”落了下乘“的意思不明白。&#xA;请你解说我一下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15990" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-03-26T08:46:03.070" LastActivityDate="2017-03-26T10:39:11.460" Title="What is the meaning of this expression (落了下乘)?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23199" CreationDate="2017-03-26T08:50:13.277" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;乘，梵语 Yāna，旧译为“衍”。有一乘、二乘、三乘、四乘、五乘之别。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以五乘来论，五乘也有多种说法；其中较常见的是指：人乘、天乘、声闻乘、缘觉乘、菩萨乘。这是由下品到上品的顺序。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文中先提到“虽为杀人事， 亦是菩提心”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“菩提心”是度众生之心、成佛之心，属“菩萨乘”，也就是最上品之心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“杀人念”是“人乘”的念头，是五乘中最下品之心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为有了杀人的想法，就由最上品的“菩萨乘”降成最下品的“人乘”，所以才会说“落了下乘”，堕落成为下乘。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乘 [shèng | ㄕㄥˋ] (Sanskrit यानम Yāna) the old transliteration is 衍那, simplified as 衍.&#xA;It means (noun) a vehicle or (verb) to carry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are five kinds of 乘: 一乘, 二乘, 三乘, 四乘 and 五乘.&#xA;It is better to answer the question in terms of 五乘.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五乘 also has a few kinds.&#xA;The more common one is: human beings, gods, श्रावक śrāvaka (hearers), प्रत्येकबुद्ध pratyekabuddha (beings who enlightened through reasoning on the riddle of life), and बोधिसत्त्व bodhisattva (conscious beings of or for the great intelligence).&#xA;This is the order from the lower level to the higher one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He first mentioned, &quot;Although it is a killing, is still a bodhichitta.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Bodhicitta&quot; is the mind of helping the sentient beings and of becoming a Buddha.&#xA;It is the highest level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Killing&quot; is the idea of human beings.&#xA;It is the lowest level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of the idea of killing, the mind falls from the highest to the lowest level.&#xA;Therefore, he said 落了下乘 (to fall to a lower level).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2017-03-26T10:39:11.460" LastActivityDate="2017-03-26T10:39:11.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23199" CreationDate="2017-03-26T09:54:22.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/4E58.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/4E58.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) 佛教的教义 [yana]。如:大乘,小乘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大乘佛教, 小乘佛教 are two different doctrines within Buddhism. Can't say which is superior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the terms 上乘 and 下乘 borrowed the Buddhism term 乘 to refer to 'superior level' or 'inferior level'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上乘 &lt;em&gt;[Great Vehicle]∶佛教用语,即大乘,一般借指高妙的境界或上品&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;下乘 &lt;em&gt;[Inferior Vehicle]: 借指平庸的境界或下品&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“落了下乘” means &quot;fall into the mediocre level&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the text in question, “落了下乘” refers to mediocre understanding of Buddhism. But this phrase can be borrowed to describe 'being mediocre' in other fields.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-03-26T09:54:22.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23202" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23203" CreationDate="2017-03-26T10:52:38.587" Score="4" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that CC-CEDICT uses a mixture. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;mian4: 前面, 对面, 里面&#xA;mian5: 后面, 上面, 下面, 外面&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC is similar except:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;mian4: 后面 (but also has mian5 as a less common pronunciation)&#xA;mian5: 前面&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any standard for these? Is it reasonable that the same dictionary would have a mixture like these do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.baidu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Dict&lt;/a&gt; has all 面 as 4th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3645" LastEditorUserId="3645" LastEditDate="2017-03-27T04:29:33.243" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T12:39:32.327" Title="Standard tone for 面 (mian4 or mian5) when used in words like 后面, 前面, 对面?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23202" CreationDate="2017-03-26T13:45:24.780" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry I can't tell the strict grammar rule (about the tone of &lt;code&gt;面&lt;/code&gt; when used for the meaning of &quot;side, aspect&quot;) as a native Chinese. I tried some research, but can't find any uniform and convincing explanation about it. So I tried to summarize it by myself as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;light tone only:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上面, 下面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;code&gt;上面&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;下面&lt;/code&gt;, without special context, when pronounced with the 4th tone &lt;code&gt;面&lt;/code&gt; tends to be considered as &lt;code&gt;noodle&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;4th tone only:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;对面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;code&gt;对面&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;面&lt;/code&gt; can't be pronounced with the light tone, it's just weird.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;both light tone and 4th tone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;前面, 后面, 里面, 外面, 左面, 右面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases &lt;code&gt;面&lt;/code&gt; is pronounced by light tone more commonly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-03-28T16:00:01.917" LastActivityDate="2017-03-28T16:00:01.917" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23204" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23206" CreationDate="2017-03-26T16:39:31.270" Score="3" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this simple sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He will be back soon.&#xA;他很快就会回来的。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that the 就 is expressing earliness, but what is the 的 doing here? In the textbook 新的中国 it doesn't say 的 is part of the 就 construction, or on the allgrammar wiki here &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_earliness_with_%22jiu%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_earliness_with_%22jiu%22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 的 turning the 会回来 into a sort of adjective? Since 会 is an adverb I expected it to be followed only be the verb 回 with the directional complement 来 without the 的. Any help would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15645" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T14:39:17.730" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T14:39:17.730" Title="What is the 的 doing in 他很快就会回来的?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23111" CreationDate="2017-03-27T20:03:06.173" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 爸爸 more like daddy in English. And 爸 likes dad...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16730" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T20:03:06.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23204" CreationDate="2017-03-28T10:32:43.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I seldom hear people say&quot;他很快就会回来。&quot; &#xA;Because without the word &quot;的&quot; it sounds weird and unnatural.&#xA;There is no meaning of “的” in the sentence.&#xA;I think “的&quot; use in the ending of this sentence is just make the sentence better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16736" LastEditorUserId="16741" LastEditDate="2017-03-29T03:47:04.767" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T03:47:04.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23204" CreationDate="2017-03-28T15:08:41.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;的&quot; here is to express the speaker is sure about what he/she said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in this sentence, it's more like, &quot;I'm sure he will come back soon.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this usage, 会 or 不会 is often used.&#xA;For example, 他不常迟到，他一定会准时到的&#xA;(He's not often be late. (I'm sure) he will be on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more examples, you can check the link below:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Using_%22de%22_(modal_particle)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Using_%22de%22_(modal_particle)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16723" LastActivityDate="2017-03-28T15:08:41.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23202" CreationDate="2017-03-28T17:36:35.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I pronounce mian (neutral tone) only to make my words soft, and miàn definitely when I want to emphasize. I think there's no difference, what other character stands before 面. When 面 stands before other characters, I constantly pronounce miàn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16740" LastEditorUserId="16740" LastEditDate="2017-03-30T12:39:32.327" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T12:39:32.327" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23209" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-28T23:50:40.863" Score="5" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is about the phrase 老氏讀易得間 which I have seen translated as &quot;Laozi's school read between the lines of the I Jing.&quot;  I am having trouble getting my reading of it to the point where that makes sense.  Can anyone guide me?  I'm open to that translation being wrong, no investment on my part, just trying to get it right and understand it.  Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T04:16:51.607" Title="老氏讀易得間 Help me understand this, not homework" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12446" CreationDate="2017-03-29T01:24:45.657" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general,when people ask:谁有问题？  you can answer：我有问题 or  我有个问题  。 but,When no one asked,and you need help.you can use the:我有个问题Rather than 我有问题.ok，This is my understanding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16742" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-03-31T03:18:50.213" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T03:18:50.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23209" CreationDate="2017-03-29T02:37:09.200" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;老氏讀易得間&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老氏：即老子 Laozi。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讀易：研讀《易經》 to study 《I Jing》，《Book of Changes》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得間： ㄉㄜˊ ㄐㄧㄢˋ , dé jiàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得：得到 to get, to find, to obtain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;間：是「間隙、孔竅」的意思，引申為「竅門、訣竅」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;間 means &quot;the gaps, orifices, openings or holes&quot;, and is extended to &quot;the tips, tricks or know-how&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得間：找到訣竅，了解其義。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To discover the tricks and understand the meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老氏讀易得間&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When Laozi studied the 《I Jing》, he figured out the knacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得間 also means 有隙可乘 or 得到機會, to get a chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastEditorUserId="16050" LastEditDate="2017-03-29T04:16:51.607" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T04:16:51.607" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23213" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23216" CreationDate="2017-03-29T10:00:29.837" Score="5" ViewCount="437" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to ask if this sentence is acceptable: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;只要我还头疼，就不能去上课。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I only saw sentences with 只要 in which the condition brings about a result (poisitive) but here the result is negative. Is it a correct sentence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12794" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-04-30T06:39:37.230" LastActivityDate="2018-04-30T06:39:37.230" Title="How to use correctly 只要?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23214" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-29T10:29:14.443" Score="1" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two closing phrases of 長爪梵志請問經(Dirghanakhasutra) in Taisho's Tripitaka go as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;皆大歡喜。信受奉行&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Although I haven't read all the texts of the Taisho'c compendium, the phrases are likely to be &lt;em&gt;standard closing sayings&lt;/em&gt;. Would this assumption be right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Would it be correct to translate these two phrases into English as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[Having heard this], all the [sentient beings] rejoyced greatly[, and] started practicing the teaching [they] received&lt;/em&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2469" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T12:16:29.437" Title="Any formula for final sentences in 長爪梵志請問經 (Dirghanakha-sutra)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;buddhism&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23215" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-29T10:41:09.083" Score="4" ViewCount="1604" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many languages, a tone conveys emotion. Thus, a word in the first tone might be perceived as conveying an easy-off emotion by a native Russian speaker; a word in the second tone might be most likely felt as a question by a native English speaker (provided both persons in both abstract examples are not familiar with Chinese), words in the third or fourth tone might be perceived by a native Russian speaker unaccustomed to Chinese as a question or command respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some languages, e.g. in Swedish (which is also a language of two-tone system, a little bit reminding that existing in Tibetan) an emotion is conveyed by intensity of speech, but not by tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Finnish, which is almost a zero-tone language, an emotional meaning is conveyed mainly by a grammatical structure and/or lexical units, and sometimes by intensity of speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my personal experience, I know that Chinese speakers, too, convey emotions in speech (e.g. when I was learning a Chinese verse, my teacher said that it sounds as if I were scolding somebody, so it's not about facial expression).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is, how do you convey emotions in Chinese? Is it possible to say something like 您好 but meaning actually 'go to hell', like in languages where an emotion is conveyed through a tone (e.g. in Russian / English)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do Chinese speakers perceive emotional states of each other in speech? Do they use tones, even altering them somehow, or do they use other means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the spectrum of emotions covered by such means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPD:&lt;/strong&gt; judging by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pnas.org/content/109/19/7241.abstract&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;, the emotional states are also culture-specific (e. g. there are no 'six basic facial expressions of six basic [Occidental] emotional states' for a native Chinese speaker) which complicates the issue a little bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2469" LastEditorUserId="2469" LastEditDate="2017-06-06T17:45:59.147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T17:45:59.147" Title="How do Chinese speakers convey emotions by speech?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23213" CreationDate="2017-03-29T10:57:18.917" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is acceptable.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要有人在说话，就不要插嘴。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As long as someone is talking, do not intervene.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要下雨，我们就不去了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As long as it rains, we will not go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要客户不满意，我们就不会停止服务。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If customers are not satisfied, we will not stop the service.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T10:57:18.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23214" CreationDate="2017-03-29T12:16:29.437" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Yes, &quot;皆大歡喜，信受奉行&quot; is one of the common closing sayings in the sutras. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;皆大歡喜，信受奉行。《金剛般若波羅蜜經》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;皆大歡喜，信受奉行。《大方廣圓覺修多羅了義經》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;悉皆歡喜，信受奉行。《占察善惡業報經》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;皆大歡憙，信受奉行，禮佛而退。《佛說月光菩薩經》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other common closing saying is &quot;皆大歡喜，作禮而去&quot;. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;諸比丘聞經歡喜，為佛作禮而去。《六度集經》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;諸比丘聞佛所說，皆大歡喜，為佛作禮。《佛說菩薩本行經》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;聞佛所說，歡喜信受，作禮而去。《佛說阿彌陀經》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一切大會，皆大歡喜，受持佛語，作禮而去。《妙法蓮華經》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;皆大歡喜，作禮而去。《楞嚴經》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;聞佛所說，皆大歡喜，禮佛而退。《佛說觀無量壽佛經》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;皆 all (the crowd)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;大 very; greatly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;歡喜 pleased; glad; joyful; happy; delighted; gleeful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;皆大歡喜: &quot;all the [sentient beings] rejoyced greatly&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yes, the translation is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信 to believe&lt;br&gt;&#xA;受 to accept&lt;br&gt;&#xA;奉 respectfully&lt;br&gt;&#xA;行 to perform; to practice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信受奉行&lt;br&gt;&#xA;believe, accept and respectfully perform/practice the teaching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作禮 to salute&lt;br&gt;&#xA;而去 then leave&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作禮而去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;salute and then leave&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T12:16:29.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23213" CreationDate="2017-03-29T15:04:40.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's acceptable.I think that you express it this way &quot;只要我头还疼，就没（办）法去上课。&quot;would be better.It could be less stiff.It sounds like that you are forced not to go to school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16746" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T15:04:40.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23193" CreationDate="2017-03-29T15:56:26.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;at here,the 吃的 you can consider that it is a abbreviated form of 吃的东西（something to eat)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16746" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T15:56:26.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23220" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23221" CreationDate="2017-03-29T19:51:07.767" Score="4" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing one project about an aspect in Chinese, but I have some difficulties in the Chinese variant of Continuous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please explain me a difference between the meaning of there 3 sentences:&#xA;1. 他在吃饭呢。&#xA;2. 他在吃饭。&#xA;3. 他吃饭呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for helping! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6703" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T03:03:19.593" Title="Could you please explain me a difference" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23220" CreationDate="2017-03-29T21:02:25.563" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is due to 在 and 呢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在 here is an adverb.&#xA;It means &quot;in the process of doing something&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呢 is a modal particle.&#xA;Since you use period instead of the question mark, they are declarative sentences.&#xA;呢 indicates the notion that an action is in progress.&#xA;呢 also expresses the confirmation or emphasis on the facts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他在吃饭呢。 What he is doing is eating meal.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This sentence indicates that the action of eating is in progress, and emphasizes the action.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他在吃饭。 He is eating meal.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This sentence simply shows that the action of eating is in progress.&#xA;It does not emphasize the action.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他吃饭呢。 He eats meal.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This sentence emphasizes the action of eating.&#xA;It does not indicate that the action is in progress.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastEditorUserId="16115" LastEditDate="2017-03-29T21:11:59.650" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T21:11:59.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="817" CreationDate="2017-03-29T22:50:20.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese language/dialect can easily come up with words for new things, events, phenomenon, etc. because the words are actually definitions of those new things or events that are taking place. A cellphone for example is called &quot;shou3 ji1&quot; (手机), which means hand (shou3手) machine (ji1机); email is &quot;dian4 you2&quot; (电邮), which means electricity (dian4电) mail/post (you2邮), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16749" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T22:50:20.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23220" CreationDate="2017-03-30T02:02:31.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;呢 at the end of the sentence is used when you expect the listener don't know the issue and will be somehow a bit surprised at knowing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲︰你知道他在干什么吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;乙︰噢，他在吃飯呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Do you know what he is doing?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: Oh, he is eating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A don't know the fact and B expects that A would be surprised at knowing the fact, so B used 呢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T02:02:31.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23215" CreationDate="2017-03-30T02:06:40.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is like you say &quot;Shit&quot;, &quot;Fucking&quot;. We are the same, we use &quot;幹&quot;,&quot;他媽的&quot; to convey strong emotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fucking hot weather!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;幹!這天氣真熱!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;幹!這天氣真他媽的熱!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In here we just curse the weather; that means the weather is very very hot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There, you can count how much &quot;curse words&quot; the man used, and know how much hot weather the man feels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can use the same word to express different meanings with different tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2017-03-30T13:43:47.693" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T13:43:47.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23215" CreationDate="2017-03-30T10:38:44.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can Chinese express emotion if tones determine the meaning of a word? This should be one of the top 2 or 3 items on a Chinese language FAQ. It seems to be a constant source of puzzlement and a goad to much odd speculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that the word 'tone' when applied to Chinese does not mean what people think it does. Or perhaps people do not think carefully about what they think tone means when speaking of it in their own language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For most people, it seems that tone is simply emotion embedded in language. This is much too simplistic to provide any insights into how we judge emotion in speech.  What is an angry or frightened tone? Put in these terms, it's purely subjective.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Chinese tones, however, it is possible to give a much more objective statement of what they consist of.  Jerry Norman's book Chinese (published by Cambridge UP) gave what I thought was a very clear description: Tone consists of primarily of pitch, but duration and volume (Norman says intensity) are &quot;important secondary cues.&quot; These are all relative, not absolute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much of what people tend to interpret as the emotional content of speech is in the departure of one of these from what has come before or what comes after.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might seem puzzling, but perhaps a comparison with English might help. English indicates interrogative with a rising pitch. In contrast, many people interpret angry or strong emphasis with a falling pitch.  Is it possible to ask an angry question in English? I think this is not at all difficult, using increased volume and duration and perhaps less of a rise in pitch than is common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emotional inflection in Chinese works in similar ways, with increased or decreased volume and duration. Pitch certainly does not work the way in Chinese that it does in English, and this can make it easy to misinterpret the emotional inflection of speech for those who do not know the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have often heard learners complain that it sounds like Chinese speakers are arguing or angry all the time, and this was certainly my first impression when I heard people speaking in the Minnan dialect. In fact, however, I think that misjudging emotional content is common with most languages that one is unfamiliar with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T10:38:44.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23193" CreationDate="2017-03-30T11:11:25.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;verb（+objective）+的 is common in Chinese. this structure makes a phrase using like a noun, meaning of the person/tool of doing sth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&#xA;洗衣服(wash cloth)的：the person who wash cloth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做饭（ cook meal）的：the person or tool for cooking meal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but sometimes you could meet another phrase as verb（+objective）+用的, which would only refer to the tools of doing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&#xA;洗脸(clean face）用的：something used for cleaning face, maybe soap or towel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个毛巾是洗脸用的，那个毛巾是洗脚用的: this towel is for cleaning face, while that one is for cleaning feet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T11:11:25.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23213" CreationDate="2017-03-30T11:13:30.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;只要refer to sufficient condition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要A，就B：if A then B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it has nothing to do with positive or negative conditions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T11:13:30.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23229" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-30T12:50:22.307" Score="1" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you please explain me, is it necessary to use 在?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand the meaning of these questions are:&#xA;你做什么？what do you do?&#xA;你在做什么？what are you doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is it possible to ask about what another person is doing without 在 or is it obligatory? Is the meaning of 你做什么？ of doing in general or could be understood as doing right now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you very much for helping! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6703" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T10:22:42.550" Title="Is it necessary to use 在？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23229" CreationDate="2017-03-30T13:31:40.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;你做什么？ and 你在做什么？have the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在 is not compulsory to use although we use often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me I can understand and I think general people also can understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16736" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T13:31:40.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23229" CreationDate="2017-03-30T13:41:53.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only the tone of the difference. 在 Have the feeling of questioning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16751" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T13:41:53.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23229" CreationDate="2017-03-30T13:42:32.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not necessary to use 在。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you give more context, it would be easier to see what is meant. When you just offer 2 separate sentences it is hard to know. Both could mean 'What do you do?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very often, you will just hear: '干吗？‘ What are you doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;该干吗干吗。 Do what you should do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean: 'What is your job?' you can say: 你做什么的？ or 你是做什么的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T13:42:32.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23229" CreationDate="2017-03-30T14:03:44.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, &lt;code&gt;在&lt;/code&gt; is necessary for expressing progressive tense here. According to relevant context, &lt;code&gt;你做什么&lt;/code&gt; might be used for the meaning of &lt;code&gt;what are you doing&lt;/code&gt;, but in general, &lt;code&gt;你做什么？&lt;/code&gt; is more close to &lt;code&gt;what will you do&lt;/code&gt; than &lt;code&gt;what are you doing&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, only &lt;code&gt;你做什么&lt;/code&gt; is a little dubious, that's why we usually add some additional words for disambiguation, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你在做什么？ (What are you doing?)&#xA;你做什么呢？ (What are you doing?)&#xA;你做什么了？ (What did you do? What have you done?)&#xA;你要做什么？ (What will you do?)&#xA;你做什么的？ (What do you do? i.e. What's your job?)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-03-30T14:10:07.480" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T14:10:07.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23234" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-30T14:08:36.430" Score="1" ViewCount="353" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning Chinese idioms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to say 上蹿下跳 in English? help me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16752" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T09:49:08.970" Title="How to say 上蹿下跳 in English?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23229" CreationDate="2017-03-30T15:50:59.973" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's my explanation:&#xA;“你在做什么？” = “你正在做什么？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在 can be normally used as abbreviation for 正在, which latter only means &quot;right now&quot;. Therefore, 在 can be constitutive for the present continuous tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你做什么？could have different meanings or tense in different contexts, for example:&#xA;1. 你做什么（工作）？&#xA;2. 你（刚刚）做什么？&#xA;3. 你（这些天）做什么？&#xA;4. 你（打算）做什么？&#xA;5. 你（在）做什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you add 在/正在, then You give a semantic restriction; the sentence can only mean: What are you doing? -- In this sense, it is necessary to add 在.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16740" LastEditorUserId="16740" LastEditDate="2017-03-30T17:28:58.663" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T17:28:58.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23236" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23241" CreationDate="2017-03-30T17:58:50.980" Score="5" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was listening to a pop song by the Chinese singer 那英.  The song is called 天生不完美.  I was curious to read the lyrics and so checked them at the following address: &lt;a href=&quot;https://mojim.com/twy100287x13x7.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://mojim.com/twy100287x13x7.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lyrics of the song show the string of characters in the question title: 阿ㄘㄟˊ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那英 sings these lyrics although apart from the first character I'm unsure as to what sounds she's actually singing or even if the characters each represent a syllable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched the characters online and can see that this question has also been asked by Mandarin speakers on other Q&amp;amp;A sites but because my reading ability is not advanced enough I don't understand the answers. An example site: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1510115037626460660.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1510115037626460660.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I was hoping somebody could enlighten me as to whether this phrase is Chinese (from a minority language or written in an alternative script) or if it's imported from another language (Japanese?) and what it actually means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The theme of the song it appears in seems to be: 'you're searching for perfection but it's human nature to be imperfect'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for any help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9814" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T03:19:01.080" Title="Is this Chinese and what is the meaning: 阿ㄘㄟˊ" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;&lt;taiwanese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23237" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23239" CreationDate="2017-03-30T18:19:08.273" Score="2" ViewCount="3227" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been looking at various explanations and definitions all over the Internet, but they seem mutually exclusive and quite chaotic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One explanation I got is that 要 generally means “going to”, or that something may or may not happen, while 将要 means that something is “about to” or “bound to” happen (making it similar to English “will”). Some sources, however, say that you can just use 将 instead of 将要 – yet another one indicates you can shorten 将要 into just 要. Some people on forums have suggested this is just a difference in register or formality. And then there's 会 and 将会.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; the difference (if there is any) between all of those?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2020-05-30T18:42:38.157" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T18:42:38.157" Title="Talking future tense: 将，要，将要， 会， 将会" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23238" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23240" CreationDate="2017-03-30T19:22:23.540" Score="5" ViewCount="4128" Body="&lt;p&gt;How is an ellipsis 省略号 written in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;。。。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;...&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;......&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reference I can find on this is &lt;a href=&quot;https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/punctuation-ellipsis-%E7%9C%81%E7%95%A5%E5%8F%B7%E3%80%80.1611958/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this word reference forum&lt;/a&gt; which states &lt;code&gt;......&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhongruige.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/the-art-of-punctuation-in-chinese/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; also says 6 dots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;在這裡輸入您的訊息......&lt;/code&gt; （Type your message here...）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T13:40:04.233" Title="Chinese ellipsis marks" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23237" CreationDate="2017-03-30T19:50:27.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;将 + [v] = will [v]/ will [v] soon &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 将死 = will die/ will die soon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;要 + [v] =  need to [v] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;要 + [v] =  about to [v]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 要死 = need to die &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 快要死了/ 要死了 = about to die &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;会 + [v] =   would [v]/ could [v] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 如果这样做的话，你会死 = if you do that, you would die /could die&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;将要 = will happen (inevitably)/ on the verge of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 将要取胜 = on the verge of winning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A general wrote in his war report saying: '将要取胜', it means he is on the verge of victory (it is inevitable). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;将会 = will happen (most likely)/ would happen/ could happen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 将会取胜 = will win/ would win/ could win&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A general wrote in his war report saying: '将会取胜'. It either means the general has confidence that he will win the war, or the general predicts a victory (suggests it is highly possible).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-03-31T20:23:03.590" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T20:23:03.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23238" CreationDate="2017-03-30T20:21:48.650" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Six dots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is called &lt;a href=&quot;http://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/FILES/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/HAU/h11.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;刪節號&lt;/a&gt; in Taiwan, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/appendix/f3.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;省略号&lt;/a&gt; in China. Both use 6 dots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T20:21:48.650" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23236" CreationDate="2017-03-30T21:02:14.740" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is Amis／Pangcah (阿美族語), the language of one of the Taiwanese aborigines (台灣原住民).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿ㄘㄟˊ ( ā céi ) means &quot;ridiculous; crazy; unreasonable; nonsense; goofy; outrageous; nuts&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿ㄘㄟˊ: You are nuts!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar phrases include 瘋了, 笨蛋, 不可理喻, 無理取鬧, 無稽之談, 胡說八道......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T21:02:14.740" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23237" CreationDate="2017-03-30T23:16:30.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Watch out for 要， sometimes it just means 'if'： 你要碰见他，替我问声好。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and sometimes it is used to express 'either ..... or' 要就同意，要就不同意，别模棱两可。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Watch out for 将 it sometimes subtitutes for 把(I miss that very often!):  将某物一分为二。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;会 has a a lot of uses too, not just as a way to indicate future. It may mean 能:  会做饭的人  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to say, if you see a Chinese sentence with 要 or 将 or 会, it does not automatically follow that this sentence refers to the future. As always, this depends on the context.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These 将要 sentences can't be successfully translated with 'will' or 'going to'， although they refer to the future:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谁知道总统将要面临什么？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;想到将要无所事事，他就非常害怕。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;将要做的事情列出来，然后决定其优先顺序。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T23:16:30.223" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23237" CreationDate="2017-03-31T01:37:47.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这几个词都可以表示在未来会发生的事情，需结合上下文关系来理解。例如：将 可以是将要的意思，但和‘军’组成词语‘将军’就是general的意思了。再比如：要 1)可以是打算做什么的意思。我要去散步。I'm going to take a walk.2)也可以是want的意思 我要一栋大房子。I want a big house. 建议不要太在意每一个字的意思，多结合词语、词组和整句话以及上下文关系来理解。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16746" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T01:37:47.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3257" CreationDate="2017-03-31T02:11:46.193" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a week?  I'm really interested in Chinese but I'd say don't even bother unless you plan on continuing after the trip.  If you must, get yourself a phrasebook with tape or CD.  There's got to be an app for that too.  Have a good trip!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T02:11:46.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23236" CreationDate="2017-03-31T03:19:01.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's taiwan pinyin.there is no actual character match the pronunciation of the minority language which the Amis speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16746" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T03:19:01.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23249" CreationDate="2017-03-31T04:12:22.617" Score="5" ViewCount="382" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any characters in Chinese that have the same radicals in their formation, but the position of those radicals result in different meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. A character made up of two radicals, AB, and another BA, that is also a valid character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional or Simplified is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="906" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T12:10:02.567" Title="Are there characters in which the radicals are the same but the position changes the meaning?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23246" CreationDate="2017-03-31T04:51:47.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can accept A = B:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;林&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if A != B:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杏 呆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;部 陪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16756" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T04:51:47.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23237" CreationDate="2017-03-31T05:06:13.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;将 is more formal. 要 and 会 seems interchangeable. They are all (将, 要 and 会) common in both colloquial and formal writings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They all have other meanings. 将 is originally &quot;to bring, to take&quot;; 要 to want to; 会 to meet. (Compare English &quot;may&quot;, which has meaning &quot;to be allowed to&quot; and &quot;possibly to&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将要 and 将会 seem to be old-fashioned and less common. Since they are redundant, you may want not to use them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T05:06:13.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23246" CreationDate="2017-03-31T05:09:35.950" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Same meaning:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;崕 = 崖 (ㄧㄚˊ / yá) = cliff; precipice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;峰 = 峯 (ㄈㄥ / fēng) = peak; summit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毗 = 毘 (ㄆㄧˊ / pí) = to adjoin; to border on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;群 = 羣 (ㄑㄩㄣˊ / qún) = group; crowd&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飃 = 飄 (ㄆㄧㄠ / piāo) = to float&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鄰 = 隣 (ㄌㄧㄣˊ / lín) = neighbor; adjacent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Different meanings:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早 (ㄗㄠˇ / zǎo) = early; morning&lt;br&gt;&#xA;旪 (ㄒㄧㄝˊ / xié) = 協 = agreement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吟 (ㄧㄣˊ / yín) = to chant; to recite&lt;br&gt;&#xA;含 (ㄏㄢˊ / hán) = to contain; to keep in mouth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;旱 (ㄏㄢˋ / hàn) = drought; dry&lt;br&gt;&#xA;旰 (ㄍㄢˋ / gàn) = 傍晚 = sunset; dusk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;岳 (ㄩㄝˋ/ yuè) = mountain; peak&lt;br&gt;&#xA;岴 (ㄑㄩ/ qū) = 嶇 = rugged; rough&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;星 (ㄒㄧㄥ / xīng) = star&lt;br&gt;&#xA;甠 (ㄑㄧㄥˊ / qíng) = 晴 = clear (weather)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啻 (ㄔˋ / chì) = only&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啼 (ㄊㄧˊ / tí) = cry; crow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many many others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T05:09:35.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23238" CreationDate="2017-03-31T07:09:58.037" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The last one is right，we use 6 dots in china，“。。。”is just three “。” sometimes will be used to have a chat online&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16757" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T07:09:58.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23238" CreationDate="2017-03-31T07:22:58.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;the formal type is ……and somtimes we use ... or 。。。to express the same meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T07:22:58.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23246" CreationDate="2017-03-31T07:24:12.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you're looking for &quot;difference positions of radicals / components&quot; with the same meaning, here're some more:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%85%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;慚 (u+615a)&lt;/a&gt;, 慙 (u+6159)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%B9%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;幕 (u+5e55)&lt;/a&gt;, 幙 (u+5e59)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%82%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;炮 (u+70ae)&lt;/a&gt;, 炰 (u+70b0)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in modern usage, the first character would be considered as &quot;the correct&quot; one, while the second character is variant (異體字).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;but&lt;/strong&gt;, in literatures of yore, it's the opposite. that, 慙, 幙 &amp;amp; 炰 are used more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, 4 more samples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%A3%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;裡 (u+88e1)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%A3%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;裏 (u+88cf)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%A8%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;稿 (u+7a3f)&lt;/a&gt;, 稾 (u+7a3e)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%85%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;慼 (u+617c)&lt;/a&gt;, 慽 (u+617d)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%B1%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;屻 (u+5c7b)&lt;/a&gt;, 岃 (u+5c83)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2017-03-31T12:10:02.567" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T12:10:02.567" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23253" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23555" CreationDate="2017-03-31T09:42:09.490" Score="-1" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hello I wanted to ask if someone knows the meaning of These characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rt8hc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rt8hc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16758" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T17:27:58.403" Title="Meaning of these characters" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23229" CreationDate="2017-03-31T10:22:42.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you use 在 or 正在 in a sentence in Chinese, you're basically making a present continuous sentence .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this is grammatically necessary but in daily life we rarely see people pay much attention to it . Like the use of the word 的 in 我的学校 and 我学校. both mean the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16759" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T10:22:42.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23260" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23278" CreationDate="2017-04-01T19:22:13.783" Score="4" ViewCount="3703" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I wish this question were not classified as off-topic...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for Chinese serial dramas or movies to improve my hearing skills in Mandarin. Such dramas may be available on YouTube as well as any illegal curation of streaming dramas. However, I don't like the illigal provider nor these contents are terrible in the quality, so I'm looking for Netflix-like streaming service in China where you can watch those movies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My requirement is the service that shows dramas (in Mandarin) with subtitles in Mandarin as well. Usually locals may not need the Mandarin subtitle so I'm not sure if there exists such service, but is there anything or any alternative service for those learning Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T09:24:09.357" Title="Is there Netflix-like service in China that lets you see Chinese dramas with subtitles for the learning purpose?" Tags="&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2021-04-10T12:04:40.993" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23261" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23263" CreationDate="2017-04-01T20:14:01.790" Score="6" ViewCount="1894" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've learned 朋友 as a unit for the word 'friend'. After looking the two characters up, I see that they both mean... &lt;em&gt;friend&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems 友 is often used as the latter part of words expressing something with &amp;quot;friend&amp;quot;, like 好友 for &lt;em&gt;good friend&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is the difference between 朋 and 友?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they have slightly different meanings when used separately, or are they identical in meaning and just used in different situations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-29T10:17:25.303" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T10:17:25.303" Title="Do 朋 and 友 differ in meaning?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23261" CreationDate="2017-04-01T23:37:04.993" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think anyone would say '他是我的朋。' nowadays. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might hear 他是我的好友。 or 他是我的好朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Old 孔子 said, 有朋自远方来 不亦乐乎。 but that was a long time ago!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, 朋 represents the wings of a legendary bird, like a phoenix. Maybe that means it brings luck or joy, like a good friend and&#xA;友 represents 2 right hands, like 'he's my right hand, my friend' or 'holding hands'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-01T23:37:04.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23261" CreationDate="2017-04-01T23:56:44.087" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a noun, both 朋 and 友 mean friends. While 朋 is mostly a noun, 友 is often be used as an adjective for 'friendly, ' as in '&lt;strong&gt;友&lt;/strong&gt;軍'(&lt;strong&gt;friendly&lt;/strong&gt; force); '&lt;strong&gt;友&lt;/strong&gt;方'(&lt;strong&gt;friendly&lt;/strong&gt; side)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;友&lt;/strong&gt; can also be a verb for '&lt;strong&gt;befriend&lt;/strong&gt;' in classical sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To find the subtle difference between two characters with similar meaning in a compound word, like 朋友，you can observe the other compound words they associate with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朋比為奸  friends collude in criminal acts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朋黨 circle (of friends); alliance (of friends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The phrases above show &lt;strong&gt;朋&lt;/strong&gt; emphasis on the '&lt;strong&gt;closeness&lt;/strong&gt;' and  '&lt;strong&gt;alliance&lt;/strong&gt;' between  friends&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;友善 (friendly), 友好 (friendly), 友愛 (friendship), 友誼 (friendship)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The phrases above, show &lt;strong&gt;友&lt;/strong&gt; emphasis on the ' &lt;strong&gt;fondness&lt;/strong&gt;' and '&lt;strong&gt;emotional tie&lt;/strong&gt;'  between friends'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T18:18:38.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23264" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-02T00:26:10.340" Score="0" ViewCount="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;The subject is '滇南红河的哀牢山‘ terraced fields.&#xA;话题是哈尼梯田。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1300多年，山民们用汗水，用心血，用日复一日的辛勤劳动完成了山脉上的雕刻，任何困难也阻拦不了它们。这幅画卷以其宝贵的生态、文化和审美价值，展示着它罕见和珍稀。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;罕见：rarely seen&#xA;珍稀：rare, precious&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;展示着它罕见和珍稀。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;reveals its rareness and preciousness.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;reveals its rare and precious nature.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;shows its uniqueness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T02:41:01.763" Title="Help with a better translation for 展示着它罕见和珍稀。" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23264" CreationDate="2017-04-02T01:06:02.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;reveal= 展露/显露 (&lt;em&gt;展示 means 'display'&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;rareness= 罕有性 or 罕有 (&lt;em&gt;罕见 means 'rarely seen'&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;preciousness= 珍贵性 or 珍贵 (&lt;em&gt;珍稀 means 'precious and rare'&lt;/em&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;uniqueness= 独特性 or 独特&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;you can omit 性&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;reveals&lt;/strong&gt; its &lt;strong&gt;rareness&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;preciousness&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;展露&lt;/strong&gt;着它的&lt;strong&gt;罕有性&lt;/strong&gt;和&lt;strong&gt;珍贵性&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;展露&lt;/strong&gt;着它的&lt;strong&gt;罕有&lt;/strong&gt;和&lt;strong&gt;珍贵&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~ 'rareness'(罕有性) and 'preciousness'(珍贵性) are nouns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;reveals&lt;/strong&gt; its &lt;strong&gt;rare and precious nature&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;展露&lt;/strong&gt;着它&lt;strong&gt;罕有&lt;/strong&gt;和&lt;strong&gt;珍贵的本质&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~ 'rare'(罕有的) and 'precious'(珍贵的) are adjectives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;shows&lt;/strong&gt; its &lt;strong&gt;uniqueness&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;显示&lt;/strong&gt;它的&lt;strong&gt;独特性&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T01:06:02.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23264" CreationDate="2017-04-02T02:41:01.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;shows how rare and precious they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;demonstrates how rare and precious they are. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16777" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T02:41:01.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23260" CreationDate="2017-04-02T06:31:54.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;yea, there are few but the most populor on compariable to netflix is  www.iqiyi.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T06:31:54.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23268" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23271" CreationDate="2017-04-02T08:15:20.867" Score="3" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the expression 丘壑 there is a valley and 凛凛  means detached. I found the expression in a poem where it describes the feeling of the poet compared to an eagle, who sees the world from the sky, far and distant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence is 我的丘壑凛凛的心. My question is: does it mean my vast and distant heart, my heart is vast as a valley and distant as the eagle in the sky, a kind of buddhist detachment from the world of mortals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rosa &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16781" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-04-02T08:32:59.580" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T11:15:47.123" Title="What is the meaning of the expression 丘壑凛凛?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23269" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-02T09:07:14.277" Score="0" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;翳 means 'to cover'(?), does it mean veiled red in the compound word 翳红? I couldn't find any reference in dictionaries&#xA;thank you, rosa&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16781" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T11:28:01.357" Title="how can I translate 翳红?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23268" CreationDate="2017-04-02T10:04:32.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;丘 is hill; 壑 is valley, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term 丘壑(hill and valley) describes 'rugged landscape'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凛凛 is an adjective that means 'cold/stern'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凛凛丘壑的心 means 'A heart like a cold, stern and rugged landscape' (a poetic description of a majestic, stern and stoic heart)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T10:04:32.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23268" CreationDate="2017-04-02T11:15:47.123" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;楊牧 《心之鷹》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鷹往日照多處飛去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  沒入大島向我地投影&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  陽台上幾片落葉窸窣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  像去年秋天刪去的詩&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  而鷹現在朝南盤旋&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  漸遠。我站起來&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  面對著海 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;於是我失去了它&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  想像是鼓翼亡走了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  或許折返山林&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如我此刻竟對真理等等感到厭倦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  但願低飛在人少，近水的臨界&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  且頻頻俯見自己以鴥然之姿&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  起落於廓大的寂靜，我丘壑凜凜的心 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「丘壑」的原義是「山峰與河谷」，因為它們常處於幽靜偏僻的地方，所以被引申為「隱居、孤獨、離世」的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「凛」和「凛凛」都是「寒冷」的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;楊牧在《心之鷹》一詩中，用「鷹」來描寫自己的「心」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「對真理等等感到厭倦」&#xA;是表達不滿、失望與心寒，所以楊牧用「凛凛」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「但願低飛在人少，近水的臨界 …… 起落於廓大的寂靜」&#xA;是表達「孤獨、離世」的意思，所以他用「丘壑」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「我丘壑凜凜的心」是指「我那離世而失望的心」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meaning of 丘壑 is &quot;peaks and valleys&quot;.&#xA;Because they are often in a quiet and remote place, 丘壑 is extended to &quot;seclusion, loneliness, or solitude&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 凛 and 凛凛 mean &quot;cold&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the poem, 《心之鷹》, 楊牧 described his mood with &quot;an eagle&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對真理等等感到厭倦 expressed dissatisfaction and disappointment, so 楊牧 used 凛凛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但願低飛在人少，近水的臨界 …… 起落於廓大的寂靜 expressed loneliness and seclusion, therefore he used 丘壑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我丘壑凜凜的心 means &quot;my secluded and disappointed mind&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;楊牧 was born on September 6, 1940 in Hualien County, Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T11:15:47.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23269" CreationDate="2017-04-02T14:58:52.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;翳红&#xA;1.一种颜色，类似暗红色；&#xA;2.指一种具有特殊暗红色斑点或花纹的玉石，产自缅甸或罗马尼亚（不确定）；&#xA;3.指一种常见眼病。&#xA;4....&#xA;...(maybe more meaning!)&#xA;Please translate based on the meaning on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16784" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T14:58:52.703" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23273" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23277" CreationDate="2017-04-02T20:46:46.027" Score="5" ViewCount="1035" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do you do when your Chinese friend say something that you don't know? You will ignore whatever that is, pretending you got it and move on. Most of the time, it's not even your fault that you can't understand it. I have this problem for so long. Chinese people love to use wrong words (错别字) to say something completely having different meaning. Recently, I finally understand what 卧槽 means. It means &quot;Fuck&quot;!!! I have also seen this word many time over the internet, but never look it up because there are just too many word wrong combinations that I don't get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question will be simply why? Why do Chinese use wrong words (错别字)? I know 操 is a censored word, but many times, Chinese will use wrong word choice on purpose even when it's not censored, such as 小盆友，菜鸟，and etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-07-14T21:41:02.307" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T00:27:58.810" Title="Why Chinese use too many 错别字?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23274" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23292" CreationDate="2017-04-02T23:04:20.087" Score="0" ViewCount="432" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a new student to learning Chinese and am having quite the problem using the internet. I am learning pinyin first and am wondering how I can change my Baidu account to pinyin from simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers,&#xA;Matt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16786" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T00:53:15.913" Title="I Want to Switch Baidu to Pinyin from Simplified" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23273" CreationDate="2017-04-03T00:44:16.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese use 卧槽 because Chinese websites will filter certain words, mainly taboo and abusive language. Using 卧槽 and other wrong words is a way to circumvent the filter. As for 小盆友, its pronunciation is kinda cute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T00:44:16.460" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23269" CreationDate="2017-04-03T01:43:02.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i would suggest &quot;dull red&quot;, or &quot;red with a low saturation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because, 翳 has a meaning of &quot;to shade&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%BF%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=翳&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imaging something that's underneath a tree on a sunny day, that it's color would be less bright, less clear; compare to others in direct sunlight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T01:43:02.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23273" CreationDate="2017-04-03T02:41:43.190" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The cases you mentioned is more or less like slang. If there is a urban dictionary it would be in there. Some of them are evanescent though. There are several cases I could think why they use those characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Funny accent: some people pronounce some words with their cute accent from their dialect. One day these thing gets viral, and popular. like 卧槽，蓝瘦香菇, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Internet sensation: for example, 小白 means beginner, 你是个好人 means sorry I can't say yes to your proposal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So these words are more common in younger generations I wouldn't say they are wrong. If you use them with old people they would possibly not understand. Also, sometimes we understand them by the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think similar things are in English as well. Like you say Netflix and chill for sex. Sis, bro, bae... too many.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Understand those gets you more comfortable in getting into Chinese contemporary culture for instance if you live in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16790" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T02:41:43.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23260" CreationDate="2017-04-03T02:45:16.813" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;youku.com, tudou.com, iqiyi.com, letv.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- 2017 Jun 28 Edit --&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok let me explain more to Chinese learners why these websites are probably more useful for studying Chinese (of course, in my opinion). Plus, the question specifically asked for sites for Dramas, which I think is a really good source for practicing listening and speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;These sites are where native Chinese people go for watching episodes. They have most up to date content and a wide range of category for you to choose.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Serials on these sites, unlike other illegal sources, are of high quality. A lot of serial dramas companies signed contracts with these sites so videos on these websites are genuine, provide 1080P streaming, some even provide Dolby audio effect.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Subtitles. According to 《无障碍环境建设条例》(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2012-07/10/content_2179864.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2012-07/10/content_2179864.htm&lt;/a&gt;), no. 21 stated that any published film and television programs are required to have subtitles. Since the videos on these websites are genuine, there will always be subtitles on it. This is because not everyone in China speaks Mandarin, and some people can't hear. This is very helpful if you are studying Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes: Probably the most important thing, if you are streaming from places other than Mainland China, is that due to copyright restriction, you may not be able to play some of the shows directly. Just install the plugin called &quot;Unblock Youku&quot; on your Chrome browser, then you can enjoy endless shows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A non-related note: Some people prefer watching News and some people prefer watching shows. That's alright. As a native Mandarin speaker and English learner, I think, for me, watching &lt;em&gt;Two Broke Girls&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;The Late Late Show&lt;/em&gt; is more effective than watching BBC news. The point is you should find what you like the most, and identify whether your goal is to gain communication skills or to acquire more academic language skill, then pick the best material and the learning will be a fun experience other than a dreary task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16790" LastEditorUserId="16790" LastEditDate="2017-06-28T04:20:34.123" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T04:20:34.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23234" CreationDate="2017-04-03T02:51:19.673" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;cavort&lt;/code&gt; is more accurate I think. You can also use &lt;code&gt;coltish&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16790" LastEditorUserId="16790" LastEditDate="2017-05-05T04:44:34.433" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T04:44:34.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23280" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-03T04:19:28.243" Score="2" ViewCount="821" Body="&lt;p&gt;The name itself is a bit strange, as if someone jumbled up the dialects. If &quot;Tao&quot; is the archaic Mandarin transcription for 道 (meaning &quot;the way&quot;), then it would either be &quot;Dao of Jie Quan Dao&quot; in Mandarin (&quot;Tao of Chieh Ch'üan Tao&quot; using the archaic transcription) or else &quot;Do of Jeet Kune Do&quot; in Cantonese (&quot;Dou of Zit-Kyun-Dou&quot; to use the current transcription).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do Cantonese-speakers refer to it as?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16284" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T07:57:53.730" Title="What is &quot;Tao of Jeet Kune Do&quot; known as in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23269" CreationDate="2017-04-03T04:48:09.473" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;楊牧 《十二月十日辭清水灣》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我探首看崖下潮來潮去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  讓記憶擱淺在那裏。正午&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  窗子裏空氣虛構一種寧靜&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  花瓣無懈可擊，紛紛拋落針織&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  刺繡上，暗微的香氣洴澼浮沉&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  湧進我多風的心裏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;光影在石礁一帶遊戲。遙遠&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  水鳥各自東西，隨我的意志&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  翻飛，有些在夢的邊緣失落&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  有些自動回歸。山勢略顯憂愁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  傾斜若時間之餘韻&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  太陽在翳紅與蒼黃間忐忑滑行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;By the cliffs, I overlook a tide that comes and goes&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  and leave my memory stranded there. At noon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  behind the window the air fabricates tranquillity&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  the petals are impeccable, their delicate&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  fragrance scattered over the stitching&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  floating, rushing down to my goustrous heart&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Light and shadow play around the rocks. Further out&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  seagulls break from each other, fluttering&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  by my grit some are lost at the edge of dreams&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  though others return. The ridge seems to dishearten&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  it lies aslant like the rests in a temporal cadence&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  with care the sun slides from crimson to straw &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wenchili.com/blank-8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;利文祺 和 Colin Bramwell 合譯&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翳紅 crimson&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蒼黃 straw&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T04:48:09.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23280" CreationDate="2017-04-03T06:09:52.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in chinese, this book is &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.books.com.tw/products/0010642662&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;截拳道之道&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there was a book named &quot;the tao of physics&quot;, which was published in 1970s. as i remember (might be wrong ;-); that, it's the first book used &quot;the tao of&quot; as the starting of title. then, there're books following this structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;tao of jeet kune do&quot; by bruce lee, is one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the romanisation of 截拳道 to &quot;jeet kune do&quot;, in nowadays' view, it's non-standard. well, it was invented in the 1960s, imo, this name has an exotic feel, and is quite good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;below, i used sydney lau scheme to show the logic of such romanisation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%88%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;截　jit6　&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/zit6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well it starts with j &amp;amp; ends with t, now change the &quot;i&quot; to &quot;ee&quot;, you'll have &quot;jeet&quot; (in english, try to pronounce &quot;jee&quot; of &quot;jeep&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;t&quot; of &quot;it&quot; together, very fast; then compare to the above sound file)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%8B%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;拳　kuen4　&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/kyun4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, &quot;kune&quot; is derived from &quot;kuen&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%81%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;道　do6　&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/dou6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;voila, at least this one is exact matched :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T06:09:52.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23280" CreationDate="2017-04-03T07:49:42.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bruce Lee was trying to create an original 'school' of martial art style of his own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What do Cantonese-speakers refer to it as?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We consider the &lt;strong&gt;道&lt;/strong&gt; in 截拳&lt;strong&gt;道&lt;/strong&gt; (Jeet Kune &lt;strong&gt;Do&lt;/strong&gt;) is the same ones in 跆拳道 (Tae Kwon &lt;strong&gt;Do&lt;/strong&gt;) and 柔道(Ju&lt;strong&gt;do&lt;/strong&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道 in 截拳道 actually represents 'school of martial art style'. It has very little real connection with the other 道 (Tao /the way) - &lt;em&gt;a school of Chinese philosophical thinking&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;截拳 - intercept fist &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'fist' represents 'strikes/ movements'  in martial art&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;道 - School of martial art style&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;之道 - philosophy of &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/42594/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;截拳道&lt;/a&gt;之道&quot; [zit6 kyun4 dou6 zi1 dou6] literally means &quot;The way (philosophy) of movements interception style martial art&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Actually the concept of 截拳(intercept movements) was not an original concept Bruce Lee invented. It was very much borrowed from the 詠春拳 (Wing Chun style martial art) he had studied under the famous Wing Chun grandmaster 葉問 Yip Man in his youth.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-04-03T07:57:53.730" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T07:57:53.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23269" CreationDate="2017-04-03T11:28:01.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/knsLO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;I can't find any interpretation about “翳红”.I think it's not a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16791" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T11:28:01.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23261" CreationDate="2017-04-03T12:36:11.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Japanese, just the word &quot;友&quot; means a friend, and &quot;朋&quot; is a additive (or supplemental) character of meaning a friend (not used as a single word, for example&quot;朋友&quot;, which is same as Chinese, I think). &#xA;Perhaps it will help your understanding, and I will hope that will be usefull.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15990" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T12:36:11.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23273" CreationDate="2017-04-03T13:06:33.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;mostly that is for fun on the internet.卧槽or握草is the same thing 我操.But in formal articles/situations,that usage is forbidden.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16746" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T13:06:33.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1087" CreationDate="2017-04-03T17:04:52.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should use 走街 in hk. Once i said 打包 and the woman got upset with me. It means wrapping the dead in hk, don't use it under any circumstances unless you want to make the person upset. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16793" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T17:04:52.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23288" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23289" CreationDate="2017-04-03T19:50:13.073" Score="4" ViewCount="1487" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, how would I say something like &quot;Harvard rejected me&quot; or &quot;Harvard accepted me&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15486" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T22:29:52.743" Title="How to say that you were accepted/rejected from a college in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23288" CreationDate="2017-04-03T20:05:52.663" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;reject: 拒绝, 驳回, 否决, 否认&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Harvard rejected me.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;哈佛拒绝了我。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;哈佛大学拒绝了我的申请。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;accept: 接受, 答应, 采纳, 采用, 接纳, 录取&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Harvard accepted me.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;哈佛录取了我。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;哈佛录取我了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;哈佛大学接受了我的申请。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T20:05:52.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23288" CreationDate="2017-04-03T22:29:52.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably the OP is thinking of 錄取. This is the verb that means 'admit'; 'give a place in a class', 'allow to register as a full-time student.' It is perhaps more common (in China) to say something like 考進某大學, meaning you have passsed the admission exam or just 進某大學 'to enter or get into a university'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opposite of 錄取 is simply 沒有錄取, there is no separate verb such as 'reject'. It is also of course possible that a school accepts/rejects your application for a job, or even accepts/rejects you or your ideas as good/smart/moral etc. These senses one would not use 錄取, but other words such as 聘請 or 雇用人 for jobs,  or 接收人 for your moral probity or fellowship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T22:29:52.743" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23273" CreationDate="2017-04-04T00:30:40.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;People in China are ashamed to speak &amp;quot;我操&amp;quot;, which is very rude, unfriendly, and aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, people would choose something has a similar pronunciation instead, eg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我靠  (wo kao )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我艹  ( 艹  is a transform for 草， which has the same pronunciation as 操)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the same reason for: 草泥马(CNM)，我去年买了个表(WQNMLGB)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These words are all &amp;quot;dirty words&amp;quot; and will be filtered on &amp;quot;forums&amp;quot; and BBS. So people have to transform these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3718" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-11-15T00:27:58.810" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T00:27:58.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23274" CreationDate="2017-04-04T00:53:15.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After reading around I realized my error. There are some browser addons that display the Pinyin but I had assumed wrong. Pinying is mostly used for pronunciation and typing but Chinese sites like Baidu normally display in simplified and there is no way to switch them. Simplified is for reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopes this helps anyone from feeling as dumb as me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16786" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T00:53:15.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23293" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-04T01:22:30.260" Score="0" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;This article is about IBE, Imaging Biodiversity Expedition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎样为野生动物保护尽一份责任&#xA;Maybe: How to best serve and protect wildlife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm having trouble with understanding:  尽一份责任  Possible answers:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. give the highest priority to all responsibilities&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. maximise (wildlife protection)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. fulfill all the duties (of wildlife protection)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4. meet all the demands (of wildlife protection)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand quite how they mean 尽一份责任 I think it is '尽 all the responsibilities', but then, what is '尽’here? Maybe 尽 is 'all' here? '尽一份’ is maybe 'each and every'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徐健和他的朋友曾苦苦琢磨，怎样为野生动物保护尽一份责任。他们不分昼夜地奔波，渴望拍出足以使人疯狂的照片，…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然后说：于是徐健成立了社会企业IBE，为保护区、政府等各类课题服务，…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T08:22:44.393" Title="How to interpret 尽一份责任？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23293" CreationDate="2017-04-04T02:15:32.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2662/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2662/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[3] [v] try one's best; devote to&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽 in 尽责任 means 'try one's best to  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fulfill&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fulfill&lt;/a&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;尽&lt;/strong&gt;一份责任' means '&lt;strong&gt;try&lt;/strong&gt; (their) &lt;strong&gt;best to fulfill&lt;/strong&gt; (their) share of duty'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples of 尽 (v):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;尽&lt;/strong&gt;一分努力 (&lt;strong&gt;devote all&lt;/strong&gt; effort one can summon )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;尽&lt;/strong&gt;人事 (&lt;strong&gt;exhaust&lt;/strong&gt; one's ability)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;尽&lt;/strong&gt;心&lt;strong&gt;尽&lt;/strong&gt;力 (&lt;strong&gt;exhaust&lt;/strong&gt; one's wit and strength)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T08:22:44.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23293" CreationDate="2017-04-04T05:23:39.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;to pull one's own weight&quot; may be fit 尽一份责任&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16746" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T05:23:39.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23273" CreationDate="2017-04-04T10:54:31.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The same reason as the usage of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pwn&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mainly a special language/word used by a particular group of people (eg youngsters) to distinguish themselves with others (eg elder people). Also lots of those words serve the purpose to pass censorship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T10:54:31.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23301" CreationDate="2017-04-04T13:01:28.150" Score="3" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently came across an article where a sinologist complained of not being able to understand the use of the character 㫬 in the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;彪亦是南人。唯有中大夫楊元愼、給事中大夫王㫬是中原士族。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article describing the sinologist's troubles identifying the reason for this character being in the sentence follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=31859&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=31859&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ever curious, I wondered if somebody here may be able to answer as to why this character is used in the sentence?  And which of the alternative pronunciations: xuan, shun, xun, or something else would be used to say it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9814" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T23:43:29.687" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T17:37:31.353" Title="What does 㫬 mean in 唯有中大夫楊元愼、給事中大夫王㫬是中原士族?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23299" CreationDate="2017-04-04T13:29:16.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here &amp;quot;㫬&amp;quot; is the given name, and &amp;quot;王&amp;quot; is the family name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So  &amp;quot;彪亦是南人。唯有中大夫楊元愼、給事中大夫王㫬是中原士族。&amp;quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中大夫楊元愼  means, someone named  楊元愼 has a job position named &amp;quot;中大夫&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;給事中大夫王㫬 means, someone named 王㫬  has a job position named &amp;quot;給事中大夫&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;㫬 's pronunciation is:   [xù]  , the same with 续。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For further pronunciation questions, come to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baidu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baidu.com&lt;/a&gt; and search this Chinese word. Frankly speaking, I don't know this word either. This word is used only as people's name.  &amp;gt;_&amp;lt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, when you are reading 文言文， the context is very important. The job position &amp;quot;给事中大夫&amp;quot; is a guess by me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3718" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T17:37:31.353" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T17:37:31.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23299" CreationDate="2017-04-04T13:41:02.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/char/1784&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;㫬&lt;/a&gt; is variant of &lt;a href=&quot;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/variants.jsp?cid=12880&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;昫&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/10/sw/3AEC.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;说文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;㫬&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;日出溫也。从日句聲。北地有昫衍縣。火于切。又，火句切&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;㫬: (日出溫也) warmth of the sun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(or warmth of sun rise? '日出' can mean 'sun produced' or 'sun rise').&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(从日)日 Radical&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(句聲) pronounce as 句 /&lt;em&gt;[粵] geoi3 | [國] ju4&lt;/em&gt;/&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(北地有昫衍縣) There is a '昫衍 county' in northern part of China&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the other answers mentioned, 㫬 is the first name of 王㫬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T13:56:57.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23303" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-04T15:33:55.787" Score="0" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know/recommend books/websites for learning to write business letters in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16723" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-25T17:37:10.977" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T13:00:30.393" Title="Books/websites for learning Chinese business letters" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-08-07T03:03:44.437" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23304" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-04T15:51:42.710" Score="1" ViewCount="51" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is a polite noun to refer to a colleague who is departing a company? &#xA;For example, in English I might simply refer to them as a &quot;leaver&quot;. (So someone who is leaving.) This is simple and non-offensive.  Is there a Chinese equivalent? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16802" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T16:07:05.667" Title="Polite noun to refer to a colleague who is departing a company?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23304" CreationDate="2017-04-04T16:07:05.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;离职员工 or 离职同事 is what we will use when referring to a leaving colleague, but this is very official and so only used when the audience is the general public.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually we only call their names and say they are leaving. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 志明不在这里工作了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T16:07:05.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22611" CreationDate="2017-04-04T19:11:50.773" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;自修 is a reference to &quot;original research&quot; or self-study.  Perhaps the author's own notes are being referenced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T19:11:50.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23261" CreationDate="2017-04-04T19:47:53.657" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;朋means those who share the same teacher &#xA;「同師曰朋」《說文註》&#xA;友means those who share the same goal &#xA;「同志曰友」 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16803" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T19:47:53.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="579" CreationDate="2017-04-04T23:53:39.340" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;X&quot; is not pronounced like &quot;sh&quot; but much closer to &quot;s&quot; but slightly softer. &quot;Xiexie&quot;, if pronounced correctly, should be close to &quot;sear sear&quot; not &quot;shear shear&quot; in American English (without the audible &quot;r&quot; at the end). &quot;星(xing)&quot; sounds almost the same as &quot;sing&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that &quot;q&quot; is confusing but I think they can change &quot;ch&quot; to &quot;tr&quot; and &quot;q&quot; to &quot;ch&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16804" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T23:53:39.340" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23299" CreationDate="2017-04-05T11:05:56.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ever curious, I wondered if somebody here may be able to answer as to why this character is used in the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, it ought to be very easy, to identify &quot;㫬&quot; as the given name of mr 王.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;though it's an uncommon character, it's used several times in literatures of yore:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 左傳杜林合注　卷一　&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06045837.cn#page/n56/mode/2up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;page 56&lt;/a&gt;　　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;又八世至熊儀﹒是為若敖﹒又二世至熊㫬﹒是為 . . . &lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uNkB4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uNkB4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 莊子注　卷二　&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06048962.cn#page/n128/mode/2up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;page 128&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;㫬﹒音舜﹒驚貌目動也&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p06Av.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p06Av.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;personally, i would stop here (for the pronunciation), and accept &quot;㫬&quot; is pronounced as &quot;舜&quot;, which is a common character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, for other meanings, there're several more steps, depends on my schedule, i might carry on, or skip it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T11:05:56.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23312" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25968" CreationDate="2017-04-05T15:56:32.733" Score="4" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm seeing this capital o (O) + subscript less-than sign (&lt;sub&gt;&amp;lt;&lt;/sub&gt;) combination in my list of finals in this book I just got:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v9emA.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v9emA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;u&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;O&lt;sub&gt;&amp;lt;&lt;/sub&gt;5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;iO&lt;sub&gt;&amp;lt;&lt;/sub&gt;5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book also has fake Chinese IPA to real IPA translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VEZKP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VEZKP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;op&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;O&lt;sub&gt;&amp;lt;&lt;/sub&gt;5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ʊ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does [ʊ] have to do with O&lt;sub&gt;&amp;lt;&lt;/sub&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T00:33:16.103" Title="What's this &quot;O&lt;&quot; (capital O and subscript less-than sign) Sinological IPA transcription?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23313" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-05T23:41:14.533" Score="3" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I look up 立体 at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/b/110/297322.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/b/110/297322.htm&lt;/a&gt; I get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) [solid]∶具有长、宽、厚的形体&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;立体图形&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(2) [three-dimensional; stereoscopic]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(3) 包括地面、水、空中的&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;立体战争&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(4) 指地面以上具有若干横向层次的&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I guess, in this sentence, 立体 takes meaning (3), but I'm really not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于是徐健成立了社会企业IBE，为保护区、政府等各类课题提供服务，他们的工作是建立野生动植物影像库，&lt;strong&gt;立体&lt;/strong&gt;还原一个地区的生态多样性。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe here 立体 just means 'completely'? Maybe 立体 is not 1 word here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;立体还原一个地区地生态多样性。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(to) completely reconstruct an area's ecological diversity&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(to) reconstruct an area's land-, water- and airborne ecological diversity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do they mean by 立体还原?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T23:38:03.247" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T23:38:03.247" Title="What is the meaning of 立体 in 立体还原一个地区地生态多样性？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23313" CreationDate="2017-04-06T00:54:43.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a relative work &lt;code&gt;平面&lt;/code&gt;, which might be helpful for understanding. &lt;code&gt;立体&lt;/code&gt; is three-dimensional, while &lt;code&gt;平面&lt;/code&gt; is two-dimensional. So we can use &lt;code&gt;立体&lt;/code&gt; to express the more dimensionalities (not has to be only three).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;立体还原&lt;/code&gt; can be interpreted as &lt;code&gt;to restore at most dimensionalities/aspects/levels...&lt;/code&gt;. Of course you can extend its meaning to &lt;code&gt;to completely restore&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-04-06T02:02:08.660" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T02:02:08.660" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23313" CreationDate="2017-04-06T00:55:57.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally think it counts as overblown &quot;purple prose&quot;, and that your intuition that it simply means &quot;completely&quot; is right, although that is influenced by its (already) extended use as land-, water- and airborne. Perhaps &quot;multifaceted&quot; (which collocates with English &quot;approach&quot;) might be a good equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning 3 of zdic.net is generally limited to 立体战争, which is basically triphibious warfare (the translation &quot;three-dimensional warfare&quot; is not correct in English, and could lead to severe misunderstanding). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The link between 立体, which at root means a &quot;raised or standing body&quot; and the semantic field of &quot;to do something completely via many methods&quot; is due to its roots as a calque of the technical root &quot;stereo-&quot; in English and other Western European languages, derived from Ancient Greek στερεός, meaning &quot;a solid&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being in the 3D world, a &quot;solid&quot; is therefore of greater complexity than plane objects, and thus in science and technology &quot;stereo-&quot; came to mean various modes of perception of 3D space. One of the earliest words based on this was &lt;em&gt;stereopsis&lt;/em&gt;, now generally referred to in English as &lt;em&gt;stereoscopic vision&lt;/em&gt;, which has the Chinese translation 立体视觉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English &quot;stereo-&quot; is not only rather opaque to the modern reader, used primarily in technical contexts, it is also a bound morpheme. The Chinese 立体 on the other hand has taken on a life of its own, and has expanded continuously to other niches not taken by &quot;stereo-&quot; in English. This accounts for meanings (3) and (4) in zdic.net. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what it's worth, this is actually the first time I've seen 立体 used with 还原, and I thought it was a technical term. I parsed it as &quot;stereoscopic neutralisation&quot;, and I was wondering &quot;is that even a thing?&quot;... Am now wondering whether there is something that counts as 立体还原 in photography and optics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2017-04-06T01:08:04.433" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T01:08:04.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23313" CreationDate="2017-04-06T01:26:32.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;In a multifaceted manner&lt;/strong&gt;' seems like a good choice. In '立体还原', '还原' is a verb 'restore'  ; that makes '立体' an adverb &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'立体还原'  can be translated as:  'restore in a multidimensional manner' or&#xA;'restore in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/multifaceted&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;multifaceted&lt;/a&gt; manner' (having many aspects or phases)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T01:26:32.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23313" CreationDate="2017-04-06T08:01:13.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;这里的立体，泛指多角度，多维，多层次&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;并不拘泥于长宽高&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16814" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T08:01:13.953" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23273" CreationDate="2017-04-06T08:21:47.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;错别字包含两部分：错字和别字。错字指用错的字，通常泛指书写错误，例如笔画不符合约定书写习惯，增删笔画等；别字的概念相对宽泛，更多的出现于被替代表述（即错用了别的字），不同的字用在环境中表示含义可能相近但不全相同，或者根本不适合。&#xA;至于楼主所提的网络用语，这里既有谐音导致的别字，也有省略缩短词组形成的口头语。并不适合一概而论。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two parts to 错别字: 错字 and 别字. 错字 refers to using characters that are written incorrectly and generally refers to errors in calligraphy, e.g. uncommon stroke usage, addition or removal of strokes. The concept of 别字 is relatively wider and more often appears as a substitution in expressions (erroneously substitutes another correct character) where different characters express similar but non-identical meanings or are simply inappropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to the particular Internet language mentioned by OP, they include both erroneous substitution of homophonic characters and slang formed by abbreviating phrases.  It is not suitable to lump 错别字 into a single phenomenon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15576" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-14T16:57:11.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23321" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23427" CreationDate="2017-04-06T08:55:48.337" Score="3" ViewCount="1855" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started learning Korean last year, and by now I'm pretty confident with the basic rules of the game; I'm also pretty interested in Chinese, and I've heard that many Korean words can be split up in terms of Chinese characters: for example, 도서관 (&quot;doseogwan&quot;) means library, and &quot;doseo&quot; should be associated to a Chinese word for book. The suffix &quot;-관&quot; is present at the end of words which denote a place, I don't know if this has a Chinese origin as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would naïvely think that starting Chinese in parallel could help me building up and memorizing a larger dictionary, and that already knowing the Korean phonetics could make my Chinese life easier. I should also mention that a similar question has already been asked here for Japanese-Chinese: I think in that case the learner would be more likely to get confused, because of Chinese characters being present (maybe altered in writing or pronunciation?) in the Japanese alphabet(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But: I admittedly know very little about both Chinese and Japanese, so I have no idea how sound these opinions could be. I welcome any feedback!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on your experience: could it be a good idea to start learning Chinese in parallel, right now? Would that be just confusing, ending up in a mix of both? Maybe somebody here tried and succeeded, or tried and failed - or know somebody who did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16815" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-26T11:34:58.623" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T11:34:58.623" Title="While learning Korean, is it a good idea to start learning Chinese in parallel?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="114" CreationDate="2017-04-06T09:32:21.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless you are interested in particular dialectal variations, a simple English &lt;em&gt;r&lt;/em&gt; ([ɹ]) would be most accurate for Standard Mandarin. By doing that alone, you might pass for native unless you have an attentive listener.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you tell the difference between English &lt;em&gt;sh&lt;/em&gt; and Pinyin &lt;em&gt;sh&lt;/em&gt;? If yes, do the same for the Pinyin &lt;em&gt;r&lt;/em&gt; and you will have perfect standard pronunciation. Otherwise, don't worry about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not listen to anyone talking about [ʒ] or French &lt;em&gt;j&lt;/em&gt;. Under certain circumstances, in certain dialects, the Pinyin &lt;em&gt;r&lt;/em&gt; might be realised with a more sibiliant character. But never simply [ʒ].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16816" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T09:32:21.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="114" CreationDate="2017-04-06T12:41:36.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe it will help someone...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is russian letter '&lt;strong&gt;ж&lt;/strong&gt;' which sounds exactly like chinese '&lt;strong&gt;r&lt;/strong&gt;'. &#xA;For example russian word &quot;жуй&quot;(to chew) sounds exactly as 锐. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for those not familiar with Russian, there is a Portugees analog - letter &lt;strong&gt;'j'&lt;/strong&gt; like in a word &quot;jovem&quot;. One can use google translation for the sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now there is a tricky part about '&lt;strong&gt;r&lt;/strong&gt;': sometimes chinese swallow part of the sound and it becomes barely audible, but others are pretty articulate about '&lt;strong&gt;r&lt;/strong&gt;'. Guess it depends of the dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T12:41:36.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23324" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23325" CreationDate="2017-04-06T19:28:05.970" Score="3" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could I use 网形成 to describe a &quot;network&quot; of things with arrows going between them, like this?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EzlIl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EzlIl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that sound right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries give 网络 for &quot;network.&quot;  But it seems to me that today 网络 mostly means the internet so it is not a good word for this.  Am I wrong about that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possiblity would be just 网.  But I am not sure how that would sound to people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact this is for an article on mathematical category theory. Google search shows that when Chinese language websites on category theory use  网络 they normally do use it for the internet, and not to describe networks of arrows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T18:25:14.460" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T18:25:14.460" Title="How to say network but not internet" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23324" CreationDate="2017-04-06T20:09:25.977" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Network&quot; means 网状组织.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can simply use only 网. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;television networks 电视网&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a communications network 通讯网&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a defense network 防卫网&lt;br&gt;&#xA;an intelligence network 情报网&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a network of railroads 铁路网&lt;br&gt;&#xA;networks of arrows 箭头网; 箭号网&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T20:09:25.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23303" CreationDate="2017-04-07T01:51:15.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can google '應用文'.&#xA;Because '應用文' is a method of writing a letters of Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T01:51:15.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23220" CreationDate="2017-04-07T03:03:19.593" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;实际上。。。在书面语中，这三个几乎没有区别，呢表示强调&#xA;Ａ问：他干啥呢&#xA;Ｂ回答这三种都是合乎语境的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们口语很少说“呢”&#xA;所以一般是说：他在吃饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16814" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T03:03:19.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23324" CreationDate="2017-04-07T03:10:05.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;上面说的很对了，network就只是网。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;网：1.用绳、线等结成的捕鱼捉鸟的器具：鱼～。～罗。～开一面（喻用宽大的态度来对待）。～漏吞舟（喻法令太宽，使坏人漏网）。&#xA;2.形状像网的东西：电～。发～。&#xA;3.像网一样的纵横交错的组织或系统：～点。通信～。天罗地～。&#xA;4.用网捕捉：～到一条大鱼。&#xA;5.像网似的笼罩着：眼睛里～着红丝。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;网络：网络是由节点和连线构成，表示诸多对象及其相互联系&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在书面特定语境下，网络代指internet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16814" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T03:10:05.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23261" CreationDate="2017-04-07T15:42:42.733" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;“志同为朋，道合为友，”&#xA;然而现代正常中国人并不区分朋和友，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16825" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T15:42:42.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23261" CreationDate="2017-04-07T17:37:03.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“朋” refers to the those who share a same period of education experience(classmates, schoolmates) 朋-&gt;同学 classmate, 朋党 -&gt; the alumni&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;友“ refers to those who have the common interests or goals and trust each other 友-&gt;同志 comrade, friend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In《论语》, the compound word 朋友 appears “与朋友交而不信乎”. The usage is very similar to what we use nowadays in modern Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16826" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T17:37:03.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13217" CreationDate="2017-04-07T19:52:37.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;More of an FYI than a response/advice, but in some more (rural?) parts of China, you'll hear the term 姑娘 (gu1 niang, meaning girl, usually younger) thrown around in restaurants. It sort of has a &quot;damsel&quot; connotation to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I probably wouldn't use it unless you are an old (chinese) person from the countryside, but if you are already a fluent speaker, might get you some street cred in certain circles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11275" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T19:52:37.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23324" CreationDate="2017-04-08T00:19:42.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend gave me the suggestion:树状图 but yours has more interconnections than a simple tree diagram, more like a 'bramble diagram'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We suggest: 关键路径法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://image.baidu.com/search/detailidlsimipic?tn=detailidlsimipic&amp;amp;dututype=similar&amp;amp;word=&amp;amp;pn=0&amp;amp;queryurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmt1.baidu.com%2Ftimg%3Fshitu%26quality%3D100%26sharpen%3D100%26er%3D%26imgtype%3D0%26wh_rate%3Dnull%26size%3D9%26sec%3D1491610492%26di%3D19c30d7c44ba2495bc15be71ece4d016%26cut_x%3D11%26cut_y%3D5%26cut_w%3D264%26cut_h%3D178%26src%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fa.hiphotos.baidu.com%2Fimage%2Fpic%2Fitem%2F622762d0f703918ff050dd0f583d269758eec476.jpg&amp;amp;querysign=3880323461%2C4003492081&amp;amp;objwidth=611&amp;amp;objheight=215&amp;amp;objurl=https%3A%2F%2Ftimgsa.baidu.com%2Ftimg%3Fimage%26quality%3D80%26size%3Db10000_10000%26sec%3D1491610493%26di%3D2a1d0ce5fdf3386cfa7299e7a5efa8b1%26src%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fimages.cnitblog.com%2Fblog%2F442008%2F201411%2F101627253979111.jpg&amp;amp;fromurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnblogs.com%2Fyangxia-test%2Fp%2F4087477.html&amp;amp;querytype=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://image.baidu.com/search/detailidlsimipic?tn=detailidlsimipic&amp;amp;dututype=similar&amp;amp;word=&amp;amp;pn=0&amp;amp;queryurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmt1.baidu.com%2Ftimg%3Fshitu%26quality%3D100%26sharpen%3D100%26er%3D%26imgtype%3D0%26wh_rate%3Dnull%26size%3D9%26sec%3D1491610492%26di%3D19c30d7c44ba2495bc15be71ece4d016%26cut_x%3D11%26cut_y%3D5%26cut_w%3D264%26cut_h%3D178%26src%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fa.hiphotos.baidu.com%2Fimage%2Fpic%2Fitem%2F622762d0f703918ff050dd0f583d269758eec476.jpg&amp;amp;querysign=3880323461%2C4003492081&amp;amp;objwidth=611&amp;amp;objheight=215&amp;amp;objurl=https%3A%2F%2Ftimgsa.baidu.com%2Ftimg%3Fimage%26quality%3D80%26size%3Db10000_10000%26sec%3D1491610493%26di%3D2a1d0ce5fdf3386cfa7299e7a5efa8b1%26src%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fimages.cnitblog.com%2Fblog%2F442008%2F201411%2F101627253979111.jpg&amp;amp;fromurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnblogs.com%2Fyangxia-test%2Fp%2F4087477.html&amp;amp;querytype=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-08T00:19:42.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22846" CreationDate="2017-04-08T09:48:27.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding unnecessary model, such as “了” does make it more casual.&#xA;for example，&#xA;了 means everything will be end soon。&#xA;both in tense and modal&#xA;so if it function as modal word ，it means you have solved almost every problem asked by others and you can do something to relax yourself&#xA;like     to  have a cig。。。了&#xA;or    to play game  了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16830" LastActivityDate="2017-04-08T09:48:27.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23337" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-09T04:34:41.153" Score="0" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;比如 This phrase was used to answer a question I had for a friend. She answered back with 比如. Is this a common practice or a colloquial use of an abbreviation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16836" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T06:31:22.357" Title="Use of 比如 to answer a question." Tags="&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23337" CreationDate="2017-04-09T05:52:43.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It just means: &quot;for example&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16489" LastActivityDate="2017-04-09T05:52:43.243" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21353" CreationDate="2017-04-09T07:08:16.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a question of being an interrogative sentence.  The problem is that &lt;strong&gt;Chinese tones in connected speech often sound different from their textbook forms&lt;/strong&gt;.  This is something most native speakers are unaware of, and even in the specialized literature it's hard to find detailed information about it.  (The third tone rules below are well-known in the literature.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm going to use Yuen Ren Chao's notation for tones: the scale goes from 1 (low) to 5 (high).  So 55 is a high level tone, 51 is a falling tone, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;third tone&lt;/strong&gt; (textbook 214 or 215) undergoes two well-known changes (search for &quot;third tone sandhi&quot; or &quot;half third tone&quot;).  First, if two third tones happen in a row (你好、我想、友好), the first of the words changes to second tone: ni35 hao214, wo35 xiang214, you35 hao214.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, all other third tones are pronounced as 21, not 214, in connected speech: low dipping, with no rise after.  Only &lt;strong&gt;very rarely&lt;/strong&gt; will you hear the full falling-rising contour -- usually for emphasis on the last word in a phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we get into tones which are less talked about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;first tone&lt;/strong&gt; (textbook 55) is always level, but how high it is depends on the level of emphasis.  It will be exceptionally high if you want to stress the word: 你喜不喜欢吃..中..餐 &quot;Do you like &lt;strong&gt;Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; food&quot; -- instead of some other option.  It will often sound quite low as the second syllable in a two-syllable word (亚洲 &quot;Asia&quot; ya51 zhou22) and in other contexts where it doesn't need emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;second tone&lt;/strong&gt; (textbook 25 or 35) often comes out sounding mid-level (33) or dipping-rising (434) -- this seems to be especially common at the end of a sentence.  (I struggled with this for a long time: I would hear second tones as third tones all over the place.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've discussed the &lt;strong&gt;third tone&lt;/strong&gt; above; the &lt;strong&gt;fourth tone&lt;/strong&gt; (51) is pretty straightforward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, to answer your question: 你喜不喜欢吃中餐？  I clearly hear 欢 as a first tone -- it's medium level (33) because it's &quot;light&quot; or &quot;lessed stressed&quot; but it's quite clearly a first tone.  As for 中餐, I hear it as 中 being emphasized, as if the guy had just suggested pizza, and she was saying &quot;how about something Chinese&quot;?  There's a natural tendency for pitch to fall over the course of the sentence, so in principle it's not surprising to hear 餐 be lower than 吃.  But this voice does sound unnatural to me, probably because it's machine-generated speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16837" LastActivityDate="2017-04-09T07:08:16.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23006" CreationDate="2017-04-09T07:47:39.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most words with Mandarin initial zh, ch, sh, or r had a medial -i- in Middle Chinese.  (If you know about 等 &quot;division,&quot; modern zh, ch, sh, r come from divisions II and III, with III being more common.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you read the old dictionaries naively, you will expect to see &quot;shiao&quot; &quot;zhiang&quot; &quot;rin&quot; and so forth.  The -i- was lost on the way to Modern Chinese.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that there were sounds like &quot;chiao&quot; in the Zhongyuan Yinyun (from 1324).  For instance there was a difference between 抄 (chao) and 超 (chiao).  (You can look up ZYYY and more on zdic.net -- but realize that the romanizations are the work of modern scholars.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also see evidence of the -i- in Cantonese, where for example 张 is pronounced the same as 将.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16837" LastActivityDate="2017-04-09T07:47:39.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23341" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23344" CreationDate="2017-04-09T10:21:44.290" Score="4" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm just wondering how to say &quot;it is actually (insert noun) that really (insert verb). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context is this: 有些人说，梦想点亮未来。我不同意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I want to say: 其实我觉得是注意点亮未来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my use of 是 correct? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks very much in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-04-10T04:05:12.713" LastActivityDate="2017-04-10T04:05:12.713" Title="How to say &quot;it is actually something that does something&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23343" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23345" CreationDate="2017-04-09T12:29:09.883" Score="2" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm just wondering whether I'm allowed to use 还 to mean, &quot;on top of that, also&quot;. Here's the context: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在经济方面，新思维能提高生产力,而且还能产生创新和发明。As in, &quot;in the economic sense, new ideas can increase productivity, and (on top of that) can also produce new innovations and inventions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this okay??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks very much in advance to whoever can help with this one!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13300" LastActivityDate="2017-04-09T20:06:56.633" Title="Use of 还 in reference to &quot;on top of that, also&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23341" CreationDate="2017-04-09T13:09:37.063" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usage of 是 is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是 ( shì ㄕˋ )&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  〈动〉&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (5) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/xs/662F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;表示肯定判断之词 [be]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is actually the idea that can really light up the future.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;其实我觉得是主意点亮未来。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我觉得其实是主意点亮未来。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我觉得其实是主意才能真正点亮未来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To emphasize it, you can add 应该. (contrast to 梦想)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;其实我觉得应该是主意点亮未来。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我觉得其实应该是主意点亮未来。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我觉得其实应该是主意才能真正点亮未来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use 想法 or 点子 for 主意.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastEditorUserId="15949" LastEditDate="2017-04-09T20:40:52.977" LastActivityDate="2017-04-09T20:40:52.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23343" CreationDate="2017-04-09T20:06:56.633" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/xs/8FD8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;还 ( hái ㄏㄞˊ )&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(7) 更加 [even more]。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (9) 不但(不仅,不光)…还… [not only ...... but also]。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the economic sense, good ideas can increase productivity, and can also produce new innovations and inventions.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在经济方面，好的想法能提高生产力，而且还能产生创新和发明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar words of 还能:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还可以&lt;br&gt;&#xA;好的想法可以提高生产力，(而且)还可以产生创新和发明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也可以、也能&lt;br&gt;&#xA;好的想法可以提高生产力，(而且)也可以产生创新和发明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;更可以、更能&lt;br&gt;&#xA;好的想法可以提高生产力，(而且)更可以产生创新和发明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不但(不仅、不光、不只)能……，还能(也能、更能)……&lt;br&gt;&#xA;好的想法不但能提高生产力，还能产生创新和发明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-04-09T20:06:56.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23346" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-10T08:38:20.923" Score="4" ViewCount="1398" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native Cantonese speaker, so in Cantonese I use 食 as a verb and hardly ever use 吃, but in Mandarin, 吃 replaces 食 as the verb &quot;to eat&quot;. Because of that I'm not sure when to use 食 in a correct grammatical sense in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm 100% sure 食 isn't just one of those Cantonese-only words (like 哋 or 唔) and is used in Mandarin, so my question is: when do I use 吃 and when do I use 食 in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16844" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-05-06T11:21:24.287" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T11:22:02.597" Title="吃 and 食 difference" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23348" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23350" CreationDate="2017-04-10T22:28:55.693" Score="0" ViewCount="1057" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two sentences should mean the same thing, so what exactly is the difference between them, and when should we use 好 VS 完？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃好了： I finished eating&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃完了： I finished eating&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16691" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T05:05:40.570" Title="What's the difference between 好 and 完？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23351" CreationDate="2017-04-10T23:55:17.420" Score="0" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you correctly say &quot;sth-shaped&quot;, such as &quot;heart-shaped&quot; or &quot;star-shaped&quot;? Do you say 心状？星星状？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16472" LastActivityDate="2017-04-11T00:27:51.413" Title="What is the correct way to say &quot;-shaped&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23348" CreationDate="2017-04-11T00:05:36.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;[V + 完 ] simply means to &lt;strong&gt;end&lt;/strong&gt;, to &lt;strong&gt;complete&lt;/strong&gt; or to &lt;strong&gt;finish&lt;/strong&gt; an action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[V + 好 ] means to &lt;strong&gt;accomplish&lt;/strong&gt; an action, that imply the action itself is an &lt;strong&gt;requirement&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;Finish (complete)&lt;/strong&gt; eating then launch the attack'- '吃&lt;strong&gt;完&lt;/strong&gt;了飯便出擊'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It simply describes the time line --  first, finish eating, then launch the attack&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;Finish (accomplish)&lt;/strong&gt; eating then launch the attack' - '吃&lt;strong&gt;好&lt;/strong&gt;了飯便出擊'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Since the soldiers need strength to fight, 吃飯 would be an order (requirement) that needs to be accomplished,&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 吃完飯再看電視 (finish eating, then watch tv.) but you cannot say 吃好飯再看電視 (accomplish eating, then watch tv.) if 'finishing eating' is not a requirement for watching TV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[V + 好 ] can also means  [V + adequately]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做&lt;strong&gt;完&lt;/strong&gt;準備 (&lt;strong&gt;finish&lt;/strong&gt; the preparation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做&lt;strong&gt;好&lt;/strong&gt;準備 (&lt;strong&gt;adequately&lt;/strong&gt; do the preparation/ &lt;strong&gt;accomplish&lt;/strong&gt; the preparation)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨&lt;strong&gt;完&lt;/strong&gt;刀 (&lt;strong&gt;finish&lt;/strong&gt; sharpen the knife)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨&lt;strong&gt;好&lt;/strong&gt;刀 (&lt;strong&gt;adequately&lt;/strong&gt; sharpen the knife / &lt;strong&gt;accomplish&lt;/strong&gt; sharpen the knife)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T05:05:40.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23349" CreationDate="2017-04-11T00:27:51.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;shape (n): 形狀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to shape (v): 塑造&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shaped (adj): 形状的 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;you can omit 状 in  形状的&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;heart-&lt;strong&gt;shaped&lt;/strong&gt;= 心&lt;strong&gt;形的&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;star-&lt;strong&gt;shaped&lt;/strong&gt; = 星星&lt;strong&gt;形的&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-04-11T00:27:51.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23346" CreationDate="2017-04-11T06:32:31.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra04581.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra04581.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;食 is not only for none if you say it in different sound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would use 食 in formal situation like  食用 eatable (used in article more)&#xA;吃 can be used in daily lives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16850" LastActivityDate="2017-04-11T06:32:31.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23348" CreationDate="2017-04-11T10:14:56.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;完：尽，无：用完了。煤烧完了。&#xA;   做成，了结：完毕。完成。完结。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好：完成，完善，完毕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完 只说明已经结束，用尽，完结。&#xA;好 带有一种褒义的，积极的，完善的完结含义，表示对完结的评估良好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例如：将军，我军的粮食已经吃完了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这儿完，就不能用好代替，因为这儿是负面情绪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16814" LastActivityDate="2017-04-11T10:14:56.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23354" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23361" CreationDate="2017-04-11T10:57:23.107" Score="1" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;During my last Chinese tandem, me and my study partner translated several sentences. It rather confused me than it helped. &#xA;There arose three main questions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How do you express “how many times” and “how often” in Chinese? How many times asks for a precise answer to frequency, numerically supported. &#xA;“How often” can be answered vaguely. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How does one express “how long”? This can be answered in either way.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are the following sentences translated correctly? If not, what is the correct word order and translation? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你多久去游泳? How long do you swim?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你每周多少次去游 永? How often a week do you go swimming?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你每周去游几次 永? How many times a week do you go swimming?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你每天去游泳吗? Do you go swimming every day?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你每天去多久游泳?   How long do you swim everyday?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你每个小时休息几次?  How many times a hour do you take a break? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你每个小时多少分钟 休息？How many minutes an hour do you rest?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你每个小时休息多长时间. How often an hour do you rest?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你多久休息. How long do you rest?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 一小时 休息三次。 I rest three times an hour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9323" LastActivityDate="2017-04-11T13:56:03.517" Title="How does one express frequency in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23346" CreationDate="2017-04-11T12:02:16.400" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, 食 is almost exclusively used as part of a two-syllable word like 饮食，食用，食品 and so on. It's basically never used as the verb &quot;eat&quot; in normal conversation, though it might show up in that sense in a very formal or written context.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you always use 吃 outside of fixed two-syllable words, you'll be on the safe side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2017-04-11T12:02:16.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23357" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23359" CreationDate="2017-04-11T12:47:47.830" Score="1" ViewCount="738" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm moving in two years to Yunnan. I'm learning Mandarin. But I've read that in Yunnan the official language is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Southwestern Mandarin&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference? Will they be able to understand me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16852" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T01:02:53.007" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T12:09:54.610" Title="Is Southwestern Mandarin different from Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23357" CreationDate="2017-04-11T13:32:57.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Southwestern Mandarin，西南官话，实则是西南方言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin，普通话，全国通用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在任何地方说普通话都可以交流&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Southwestern Mandarin只在西南部分地区交流&#xA;当然只是语调的部分不同&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16814" LastActivityDate="2017-04-11T13:32:57.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23354" CreationDate="2017-04-11T13:56:03.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;How do you express “how many times” and “how often” in Chinese? How many times asks for a precise answer to frequency, numerically supported. “How often” can be answered vaguely&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'how many times?' is '多少次?' or '几次?'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'how often' is '有多經常?' &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;How does one express “how long”? This can be answered in either way.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'how long' is ' 多久'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1.你多久去游泳? How long do you swim?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你游泳游多久? How long do you swim?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*'你游泳' is the topic &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*'游多久' is the comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2.你每周多少次去游泳? How often a week do you go swimming?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你每周有多經常去游泳? How often a week do you swim?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*多少次? means 'how many times?' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*多經常? means 'how often?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;3.你每周去游几次泳? How many times a week do you go swimming?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is grammatically correct. You can replace '几次?' with '多少次?' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;4.你每天去游泳吗? Do you go swimming every day?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is grammatically correct. You can omit 去 and write '你每天游泳吗?' (do you swim everyday?) or you can replace '去' with '都' and write  '你每天都游泳吗?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;5.你每天去多久游泳? How long do you swim everyday?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你每天游泳游多久? How long do you swim everyday?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;6.你每个小时休息几次? How many times a hour do you take a break?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is grammatically correct. You can omit the classifier 个 and just write '你每小时休息几次?' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;7.你每个小时多少分钟休息？How many minutes an hour do you rest?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你每个小时休息多少分钟？How many minutes an hour do you rest?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;8.你每个小时休息多长时间. How often an hour do you rest?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你每小时有多經常休息?. How often an hour do you rest?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Again, 'How often' is '有多經常';  '多长时间' is 'how long (&lt;em&gt;of time&lt;/em&gt;)?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;9.你多久休息. How long do you rest?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你休息多久? How long do you rest?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;10.我一小时休息三次。 I rest three times an hour.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is grammatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/6065/user6065&quot;&gt;user6065&lt;/a&gt; wrote:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;complements of duration (frequency) follow verbs &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the reason in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'一小时多久(how long)休息(rest)' is incorrect.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'一小时休息(rest for)多久(how long)' is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'一小时三次(three times)休息(rest)' is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'一小时休息(rest)三次(three times)' is correct.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/6065/user6065&quot;&gt;user6065&lt;/a&gt; wrote:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(adverbials precede verbs) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the reason in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'經常(often)休息(rest)' is correct. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'休息(rest)經常(often)' is incorrect.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-04-11T13:56:03.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23362" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23366" CreationDate="2017-04-11T15:57:48.563" Score="0" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/21456/whats-the-meaning-of-the-first-part-of-%E4%BB%96%E7%88%B1%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E6%83%B3%E5%B0%B1%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E6%83%B3-%E6%88%91%E6%89%8D%E4%B8%8D%E5%9C%A8%E4%B9%8E%E5%91%A2&quot;&gt;What&amp;#39;s the meaning of the first part of: 他爱怎么想就怎么想，我才不在乎呢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5575/is-%E6%88%91%E7%88%B1%E8%BE%A3-w%C7%92-%C3%A0i-l%C3%A0-a-correct-understandable-idiomatic-way-of-saying-i-like-my-f&quot;&gt;Is &amp;quot;我爱辣&amp;quot; (Wǒ &amp;#224;i l&amp;#224;) a correct/understandable/idiomatic way of saying I like my food spicy?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;suggest that 爱 can be used for things and abstractions, but that it may not be idiomatic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be common, sometimes, or never for pets?  Other animals?  Hobbies?  etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T02:12:23.083" Title="Is 爱 limited to people?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23363" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-11T16:39:35.837" Score="2" ViewCount="4615" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3496/neutral-terms-for-white-people&quot;&gt;Neutral Terms for &amp;quot;White People&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;got me thinking about someone (who knows less Chinese than I do) telling me that &quot;Big Nose&quot; is the Chinese term for westerners.  Is that true, and if so, is it considered racist, i.e., never said where we might hear and somewhat offensive even when we can't (like &quot;nigger&quot;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is &quot;harmless,&quot; is it written 大鼻子 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:06.093" LastActivityDate="2021-03-03T00:23:31.967" Title="Is &quot;Big Nose&quot; really used for Westerners?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22528" CreationDate="2017-04-11T19:24:25.183" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't know if it counts, but in mainland China, some people write on the street with a huge writing brush, half as long as an adult is tall. And they only dip the brush in water to write. After the water evaporates, the writing vanishes. It's the same principle as 水写布&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TVPJG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Beijing - Public calligraphy&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/roman-harak/5144030020&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Beijing - Public calligraphy&lt;/a&gt; by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/roman-harak/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Roman Harak&lt;/a&gt; licensed according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC BY-SA 2.0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16853" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T21:47:26.227" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T21:47:26.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23365" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-11T23:39:32.483" Score="0" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, the phrase is 其餘又何論矣. I've seen it translated as &quot;The rest is obvious.&quot; The way I read it is &quot;Beyond this what is there to discuss?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, I've never seen 矣 as the tag for a rhetorical question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone walk me through why I'm right or more likely why I'm wrong? It was written by someone born before the Republic and well educated in the Classics, so it's not modern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-06-12T06:57:30.280" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T08:34:29.620" Title="Can someone walk me through 其餘又何論矣?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23362" CreationDate="2017-04-12T02:02:40.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is my first answer on this website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他爱怎么想就怎么想,我才不在乎呢  = whatever he thinks/would like to think, I don't care.&#xA;In this sentence, 爱 is generally can be understanded as &quot;would like&quot;. &#xA;I prefer to say 我爱吃辣(I love eating spicy food) insted of 我爱辣&#xA;If you just only say 我爱辣, people may get confused when they hear this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爱 can be used for things/hobbies etc, but a verb often followed by 爱。Examples: I love sports = 我爱运动。 I love playing basketball =我爱打篮球。 I love playing games = 我爱玩游戏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, you can use 爱 for pets and animals. However, I prefer to say 喜欢. Examples: 我喜欢动物。我喜欢小狗。 我喜欢小猫。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16854" LastEditorUserId="16854" LastEditDate="2017-04-12T02:12:23.083" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T02:12:23.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23363" CreationDate="2017-04-12T02:17:52.227" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 大鼻子 is used for primarily white people, although it is regionally limited to the North East. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%A7%E9%BC%BB%E5%AD%90/940166&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%A7%E9%BC%BB%E5%AD%90/940166&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not really used these days; when it was used it was mostly used to refer, pejoratively, to Russians, due to the history of conflict with China's North East. Another similar pejorative (and antiquated) term is &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%80%81%E6%AF%9B%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;老毛子&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would argue that the term is racist, as it is pejorative and was originally intended to be offensive, even if current users don't intend to offend with the term. You should not use the term in polite company.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T02:17:52.227" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23368" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23372" CreationDate="2017-04-12T02:54:54.327" Score="0" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for the way to express the opposite of 儿化 in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's assume 老头儿（lǎotóur）is the standard and it's rarely ever without an 儿. 老头 in this instance would be an exception. I want to express this by saying it's the opposite of 儿化.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规范 seems to express this in a few ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;口语中多儿化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在口语中常读儿化音&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;口语中一般儿化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be happier with something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老头是老头儿的非儿化。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure that any such terminology exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T15:53:30.537" Title="What's the opposite of 儿化？非儿化？" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23365" CreationDate="2017-04-12T06:38:26.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;judging from the text i searched, the translation of &quot;the rest is obvious&quot; is quite good, at the same time, &quot;beyond this what is there to discuss&quot; is, appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;於彼微動﹒己先動之着手功夫﹒苟能於此嫻熟﹒則操縱在我不在彼﹒其餘又何論矣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in general, the &quot;style&quot; of mr 鄭's text, is mainly literary chinese, with occasional written vernacular chinese &quot;toppings&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, to decipher &quot;其餘又何論矣&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其餘 - the rest of . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又何論 - 需 is omitted / assumed, so it's 又何需論&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又 - and / further&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何需 - need to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;論 - discuss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;矣 is a 虛字 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_particles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;( chinese particles )&lt;/a&gt;, to indicate the end of a clause, in an affirmative manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, put it together with the text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(in 推手), if you're skillful in &quot;彼微動﹒己先動&quot;, you're in charge, not your companion (則操縱在我不在彼)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the rest of this (you're skillful in 彼微動﹒己先動), is not needed to discuss further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps: i skip some steps in this explanation, either in literary chinese, or in 太極拳.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, in lieu of comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, literary chinese is fuzzy. incorporate the context is important, and easier; to explain particular clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, the clause &quot;其餘又何論矣&quot; is not fine, it's not &quot;pure&quot; literary chinese. the introduction of &quot;需&quot; is &quot;needed&quot;, for easier comprehension.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyway, this interpretation is, based on my knowledge in literary chinese, and, 太極拳. others might understand the phase differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2017-04-12T08:19:26.130" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T08:19:26.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23368" CreationDate="2017-04-12T08:32:59.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, 儿化 isn't commonly used in 普通话(mandarin). It's basically a habit way of speaking among people in Beijing. For example, '您家里没人儿' is commonly used by Beijingers, while the standard way of mandarin is '您家里没有人'. So 儿化 is kind of a characteristic of the dialect in Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16688" LastEditorUserId="16688" LastEditDate="2017-04-12T11:32:36.230" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T11:32:36.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14873" CreationDate="2017-04-12T10:23:38.813" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;XXX, 是一个痛苦的漫长的过程，我们不能太着急&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;XXX is a struggling and long-time procedure, &lt;strong&gt;we shouldn't hurry&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but how it sounds I prefer this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;XXX is a struggling and long-time procedure, &lt;strong&gt;we need to be patient&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16859" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T10:23:38.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23368" CreationDate="2017-04-12T10:39:32.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cannot think of a term that exactly refers to the version without erization corresponding to the same word with erization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;非儿化&lt;/strong&gt;」 refers to the property of the sound:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「头儿」 is 「儿化的 / 儿化音」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「头」 is 「&lt;strong&gt;非儿化&lt;/strong&gt;的 / &lt;strong&gt;非儿化&lt;/strong&gt;音」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;去儿化&lt;/strong&gt;」 refers to the process in which the erization is removed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;↑ 「去儿化」 is to 「儿化」 as &amp;quot;decentralize&amp;quot; is to &amp;quot;centralize&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「老头儿」&lt;strong&gt;去儿化&lt;/strong&gt;之后得到「老头」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「老头」是「老头儿」&lt;strong&gt;去儿化&lt;/strong&gt;之后的结果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4551" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T10:39:32.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22713" CreationDate="2017-04-12T11:09:32.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I draw a picture before my lunch...&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ERJMy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ERJMy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6280" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T11:09:32.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23374" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-12T13:49:20.697" Score="8" ViewCount="2222" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a hard time wrapping about these specific words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know 所有 is most similar to &quot;all of the...&quot; like “所有的人”.&#xA;While 全部 is more or less like 所有 except you don't need 的 between it and the object like “全部时间&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, 整个 is most similar to &quot;the whole...&quot; &quot;整个下午&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 完整 is very similar to 整个 like &quot;完整的句子. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So can I ask how their specific usages differ? Are there times you should only use a certain one while other times it's fine to interchange? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15101" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-04-03T13:08:31.510" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T11:42:53.480" Title="When do you use 所有， 全部， 整个, 完整?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23374" CreationDate="2017-04-12T14:56:32.720" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's an interesting question. The answer basically boils down to differences in grammatical role of these words: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所有 “all (of the)”, refers to &lt;strong&gt;all entities pertaining to a certain context&lt;/strong&gt;. Given the meaning of 所 and 有 alone you can effectively think of it as meaning &quot;all (things) that are here&quot;. It is mainly used with 的 before a noun or in a relative sentence and it often comes with a 都 &quot;all&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们家被偷了，所有的在保险柜里的钱也被偷了 Our house was robbed, all (of the) money that was in the safe was stolen too.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我所有认识的人都念过大学 All the people (that) I know went to university.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general 全部 means &quot;everything, all&quot; and &lt;strong&gt;refers to one single entity&lt;/strong&gt; in its entirety. So for instance it can't be used to refer to a group of things, unless you use a collective noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他说什么，我没听到全部 I didn't hear everything he said&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这本小说，我还没全部看完 I haven't finished this book yet (haven't read it in its entirety)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这群人我并不认识全部 I don't know everyone in this &lt;b&gt;group&lt;/b&gt; of people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整个 &lt;strong&gt;&quot;whole“&lt;/strong&gt; is used in place of a number (actually 一 &quot;one&quot; can be omitted) and before a classifier to mean &quot;one whole thing&quot; (obviously you can change the number to say N whole things):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她吃掉了一整桶冰淇淋 She ate a whole bucket of ice cream.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一整天不够讲完这个故事 A whole day isn't enough to tell this story&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完整 &quot;complete&quot;. You often use it &lt;strong&gt;as an adjective in noun phrases&lt;/strong&gt; with 的, as: &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个完整的句子 a complete sentence &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一个完整的解决方案 a complete solution  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T14:56:32.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23374" CreationDate="2017-04-12T16:33:50.403" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;全部&quot; and &quot;所有&quot;, almost in the all situations, they are equivalent in grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between them is in the semantics.&#xA;&quot;全部&quot; means the sum of the various parts. It emphasizes the integrity of all parts in its scope.&#xA;&quot;所有&quot; means the sum of the number of things in a certain range. It emphasizes the ownership of the things in the scope.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we usually use &quot;所有&quot; to describe something made up of a number of individuals just like &quot;所有人&quot;. You might want to use &quot;全部的人&quot; but it sounds a little bit weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We usually use &quot;所有&quot; as an adjective or a pronoun just like &quot;所有人/所有的动物&quot;.&#xA;But &quot;全部&quot; could also be used as a adverbial. &quot;他们这些人全部都会功夫&quot; here you can't use &quot;所有&quot; instead of &quot;全部&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16778" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T16:33:50.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23377" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-13T07:08:05.710" Score="1" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know the translation of the word &quot;express&quot; (both characters and pinyin) as you would describe an express courier service? &#xA;Also, is there a new-invented word (maybe by the youth) that is used today to convey the meaning of express? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16868" LastEditorUserId="16868" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T07:26:10.760" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T16:27:25.220" Title="What is the translation express (adjective meaning fast) in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23377" CreationDate="2017-04-13T07:26:28.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Express for train: &lt;em&gt;特快列车(Te Kuai Lie Che)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Express for delivery service: &lt;em&gt;快递(Kuai Di)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T07:26:28.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23377" CreationDate="2017-04-13T08:13:03.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Express courier service' in Chinese is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/17879/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;速遞&lt;/a&gt;服務  or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/34435/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;快遞&lt;/a&gt;服務 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;速遞/快遞 is shortened from '快速遞送/ 快速傳遞' (express delivery) . It can functions as an adjectival noun as in   &lt;strong&gt;速遞&lt;/strong&gt;服務(&lt;strong&gt;express delivery&lt;/strong&gt; service); &lt;strong&gt;速遞&lt;/strong&gt;文件(&lt;strong&gt;express delivery&lt;/strong&gt; document)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T08:13:03.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23377" CreationDate="2017-04-13T15:34:23.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=9-IvMtoqbQsESxkyr2KND21GtoEjKUf1Ejsf_CQwroBT1n8Ks2cQaSB0OYMmkwCVbstqfF3MGz5dhtS3duDvdl3PzY4gl9eiyvfzsh_ZnsC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;快递&lt;/a&gt; （kuaidi)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, all generations in China call express &lt;code&gt;快递&lt;/code&gt;. We call it '快递' in many  cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16875" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T15:34:23.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23368" CreationDate="2017-04-13T15:53:30.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your argument is only theoretically acceptable. But it will be strange to a Chinese. Let me think... I think that &lt;strong&gt;儿化音&lt;/strong&gt; is a special form of spoken language. When you read a word like &lt;strong&gt;老头儿&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;儿化音&lt;/strong&gt;  make it very &lt;strong&gt;利索&lt;/strong&gt; (I don't know how to explain it in English, maybe &lt;strong&gt;Smooth&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;Agile&lt;/strong&gt;)to read. However read it without &lt;strong&gt;儿化音&lt;/strong&gt; （&lt;strong&gt;非儿化音&lt;/strong&gt; in your words) is actually OK as well, no one will be surprised or something else because it is the normal form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So don't keep in troubled in this question. If you really like labeling the way you speaking a word without &lt;strong&gt;儿&lt;/strong&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;非儿化&lt;/strong&gt;, I think &lt;strong&gt;去儿化音&lt;/strong&gt; will be better which is mentioned in other answers and that may be helpful for your learning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16875" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T15:53:30.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23382" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-13T16:11:58.400" Score="0" ViewCount="866" Body="&lt;p&gt;A dictionary says both chengyus being equal in meaining. Is it so, or is there any difference between these two idioms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2469" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T10:04:32.743" Title="揠苗助长 or 拔苗助长 ? Which one is correct?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23382" CreationDate="2017-04-14T04:21:33.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct and commonly use is 拔苗助长 ( bá miáo zhù zhǎng )&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/entry/0f8e55729f684c9ebde8e3a486669836&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is the mean of that phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16878" LastActivityDate="2017-04-14T04:21:33.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23382" CreationDate="2017-04-14T16:01:47.393" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;揠苗助长 is historically correct. 拔苗助长can also be understandable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16883" LastActivityDate="2017-04-14T16:01:47.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23385" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23392" CreationDate="2017-04-14T17:09:59.963" Score="1" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the connotation for gay蜜? Is the connotation literally that the two guys that it refers to are gay, or is it like the english 'man-date' where it is just two close friends going to do something together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same question for 闺蜜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this usually used for young adults (18-30 years old)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16080" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T03:31:07.887" Title="What is the connotation for gay蜜 and 闺蜜?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23386" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23397" CreationDate="2017-04-14T19:35:03.580" Score="0" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我與父親不相見已二年餘了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is from a text widely praised by my Chinese friends and you can find it &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pushkinskijdom.ru/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=f8PxhqYSkeQ%3D&amp;amp;tabid=11290&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. I don't think they share a dialect, except mandarin, so I assume it is not a dialect. According to my understanding,  the text means &quot;it's been more than two years, since father and I last saw each other.&quot; The author lived till 1948, so I assume this is not a form of very antiquated Chinese, but it puzzles me for two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use of 二年 and not 兩年，I have also seen 二位姑娘，but only in period dramata, so I assumed it was antiquated.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: it seems use of 二年 was not so unusual in the past. Compare also the Qing Dynasty work &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=119542&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;清宮禁二年記&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use of 不見，not 沒見。Is this the difference between &quot;it's been two years since I saw him&quot; and &quot;haven't seen him in two years&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-07-03T13:37:49.667" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T13:37:49.667" Title="Why is the phrase 我與父親不相見已二年餘了 correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23385" CreationDate="2017-04-15T00:09:13.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where did you get the meaning of gay for 蜜? I have never heard that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蜜 is honey, but you wouldn't call your gf 蜜 like we might in English. That would be 亲爱的， 宝宝。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闺蜜 is a woman's best friend, not a lesbian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男闺蜜 could maybe refer to an unmanly man, possibly gay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;基佬 is slang for a gay guy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two men who are friends might refer to each other with 兄弟 or 铁哥们。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T00:09:13.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23385" CreationDate="2017-04-15T03:17:00.657" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;gay蜜 is not a formal word, usually used on Internet or in oral languages by the young.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a girl has a gay male close friend, she will call him &quot;gay蜜&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &quot;他是我的gay蜜。&quot; means he's my close friend and he's gay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;gay蜜&quot;&quot;闺蜜&quot; usually used for young adults (18-30 years old)? Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16887" LastEditorUserId="16887" LastEditDate="2017-04-16T03:31:07.887" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T03:31:07.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23382" CreationDate="2017-04-15T03:30:42.367" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of them are correct, they share the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拔苗助长 is widely-used nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;揠苗助长 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;基本解释： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;揠：拔。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  把苗拔起，以助其生长。比喻违反事物发展的客观规律，急于求成，反而把事情弄糟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;词语分开解释： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;揠苗 : 1.见&quot;揠苗助长&quot;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  助长 : 1.帮助生长;促使增长。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html5/60564.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/html5/60564.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16887" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T03:30:42.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23390" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25538" CreationDate="2017-04-15T09:49:43.203" Score="2" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for some, mainstream, poetry that deals with wanting to be rescued. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China Baike gave me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;黄鹤洞中仙 继重阳韵&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拯救扶风活。逗引扶风耍。故遣扶风颠更狂。扶风马。家累扶风舍。业火扶风洒。云鹤扶风跨。这个扶风灵更灵，扶风马。真称扶风也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;蓦山溪&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;观公形貌，俊爽偏清秀。慷慨又雄豪，你肯把、清闲拯救。只知名利，前路做荣华，论文章，说佳吉，衣紫金章绶。肯来随我，闻早植休咎。切虑逐波流，但肯还、迷情恋酒。稍知玄妙，略得悟逍遥，明月里，弄清风，蓬岛同携手。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;清心镜 寄四舍弟马运甫&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;与人和，休打斗。慎勿迷迷，博弈饮酒。暗风病、谑杀傍人，疾些儿拯救。要病除，须拂袖。物外持修，亘初清秀。更有般、真个长安，待来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;题景范堂&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;曾子才高呈事能，就中一事最堪黎明。&#xA;  前贤拯救苍生，赖有斯人解服膺。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't necessarily feel that these are good examples of wanting to be rescued, nor very mainstream.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any pointers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-04-15T15:52:50.067" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T14:41:13.560" Title="Poetry that deals with wanting to be rescued?" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23390" CreationDate="2017-04-15T17:01:02.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, these three poem is not a good example in literature. But why? Let's look back who wrote these poems first:&#xA;黄鹤洞中仙 继重阳韵 by 马钰&#xA;清心镜 寄四舍弟马运甫 by 马钰 &#xA;题景范堂 by 袁燮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two people are not well known as a poet, but their contribution to the other field. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wikiwand.com/zh/%E9%A6%AC%E9%88%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;马钰&lt;/a&gt; sounds familiar with me.He is the 2nd Head of Quanzhen School. A really famous branch of Taoism even for ordinary people thanks to Jin Yong, who wrote a list of fictional wuxia novels. His collection is super popular in Chinese(both oversee and China mainland) starting from 1955.(Imagine how popular &quot;the Game of Throne&quot; in the western world.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wikiwand.com/zh-hans/%E8%A2%81%E7%87%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;袁燮&lt;/a&gt;, who less sounds familiar but seems play an important role in the Confucianism in Southern Song Dynasty. Southern Song Dynasty is a really important in the East Asia history. Its collapse not only leads the culture change of China, not also affect China's neighbors: Japan and Korea. You could check &quot;崖山之后无中国 明亡之后无华夏&quot; if you interested&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T17:01:02.027" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23385" CreationDate="2017-04-15T17:14:25.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usage is varied and depends on the scenarios so there's no strict definition.&#xA;But generally, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gay蜜 originally means a close gay friend of a girl, now it's applied to the non-gay group. Again it's not safe to say &quot;A is a gay蜜 of B&quot; unless you are close to A or B. Sometimes it's rude but it's ok to use this word safely within your friend circle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闺蜜 mean a close female friend of a girl. This word could track back a long time ago. gay蜜 and 男闺蜜 are originated from this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闺蜜 are used at all ages. gay蜜 are used by adult(born after 1980s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T17:14:25.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23063" CreationDate="2017-04-15T17:24:02.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;得：used after verb or adjective to show &quot;degree&quot;, and we usually one only 1 word before 得. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&quot; I travel very fast&quot;, we usually say&quot;我走得很快&quot; if you have to use得. &quot;我的旅程很快就完成了&quot; is more approachable saying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T17:24:02.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23386" CreationDate="2017-04-15T17:37:00.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's clearly a sentence of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Written_vernacular_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;vernacular Chinese&lt;/a&gt; but it can see the shadow of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Classical_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;classical chinese&lt;/a&gt;. And I think it's understandable since Chinese start using vernacular Chinese nationally after the 1900s and it took time to transform from classical Chinese to what we see today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 我與父親不相見已二年餘了&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't seen my father more than 2 year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T17:37:00.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22964" CreationDate="2017-04-15T17:51:36.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the Chinese for the dance or acrobatics described in the English edition Wikipedia article &quot;Chinese pole&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杂技马戏。Circus &amp;amp; Juggling &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to pics from Wikiwand page for &quot;Chinese pole&quot;, the person who performs the act is clearly not dancing but performing climb, slide down. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Chinese_pole&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikiwand page&lt;/a&gt; if you wonder. You can tell them from the pics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastEditorUserId="16891" LastEditDate="2017-04-15T18:18:50.817" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T18:18:50.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23182" CreationDate="2017-04-15T18:14:32.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rotate your pic 90 degree counter-clockwise. That's the right format of this pic. then you get&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;AB&#xA;CD&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 chars in traditional Chinese in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wikiwand.com/zh-hans/%E7%AF%86%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Seal Script&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;A:隆&#xA;B:清&#xA;C:製&#xA;D:乾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right reading order is： BDAC 清乾隆製, declared this bowl is made in the Chinese Qing dynasty over the Qianlong Emperor time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it's obviously fake antique to me. Since the official saying in 4 words would be:乾隆年制, if in 6 words would be:大清乾隆年制. Nearly no one would use 清乾隆制, it's an offense saying to emperor and it's a death penalty at that time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T18:14:32.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23386" CreationDate="2017-04-15T21:18:47.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Let me know if you read traditional characters better! I'll switch upon request.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Use of 二年 and not 兩年，I have also seen 二位姑娘，but only in period dramata, so I assumed it was antiquated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二年馀 is a Classical construction, and sounds formal / literary / etc. in colloquial Mandarin, which would normally say 两年多. But since this is a written text, the author went through solid classical education, and the author was generally not writing in the most vernacular way possible but communicating with some degree of Classical (i.e. written Chinese) tinges, yes there are some Classical constructions that do not appear in modern colloquial Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related phenomenon is that, sometimes people write generally in colloquial Mandarin, but write the characters used in Classical Chinese or formal Mandarin according to the actual meaning, instead of the sound. So you see people write&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我5月12日-6月3日在上海&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but hear them say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我5月12&lt;strong&gt;号&lt;/strong&gt;到6月3&lt;strong&gt;号&lt;/strong&gt;在上海.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same thing happens with pairs like 角 and 毛, 元 and 块, 已 and 已经, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 二位姑娘, that is a script that &lt;em&gt;actually faithfully&lt;/em&gt; transcribes the spoken language, so the issue there is that the use of 二位 instead of 两位 dates to an older era -- which is why you see that in period dramata.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Use of 不見，not 沒見。Is this the difference between &quot;it's been two years since I saw him&quot; and &quot;haven't seen him in two years&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose this is readily understood in English actually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我與父親不相見已二年餘了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Me and my father &lt;strong&gt;not seeing&lt;/strong&gt; each other...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There, you just can't mark the aspect of &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt;, or, in Mandarin, 没. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This syntactic choice (the construction of the whole sentence) is not frequently used, so that is probably why you think 没 should be used there. Indeed people normally say this using this construction:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我和我父亲已经两年多没见了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also an issue of Classical constructions: 相 + [verb] meaning &quot;to &lt;em&gt;[verb]&lt;/em&gt; each other&quot; is normal in Classical Chinese, but no longer active or productive in colloquial Mandarin. People speak colloquial Mandarin, so of course they don't say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我和父亲不相见...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because you need to do a Classical construction there, and that does not exist in colloquial Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastEditorUserId="16058" LastEditDate="2017-04-20T00:52:30.733" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T00:52:30.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23386" CreationDate="2017-04-15T22:42:39.130" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe because I was reading it rather than having it spoken to me my question was immediately &quot;Why is it &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; correct?&quot;  The more you read of the literary language the broader your idea of what is correct will be.  I know five words for &quot;I&quot; and have seen two different words for &quot;year&quot; &lt;em&gt;on the same page&lt;/em&gt;.  That said I find this passage barely &quot;literary&quot; at all with the exception of &quot;餘&quot;, &lt;em&gt;maybe&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T22:42:39.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23357" CreationDate="2017-04-15T23:36:02.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The official language everywhere in Mainland China is just &quot;Standardized Mandarin + other ethnic languages if applicable&quot;. So probably what they mean is that Southwestern Mandarin is the &lt;em&gt;common&lt;/em&gt; language there. The difference is like British (RP) and American English to some extent. Since education is in Standard Mandarin, younger generations will understand you without problem. SW Mandarin is similar to Standard Mandarin, so generally older generations will understand you as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is another issue whether you will understand them -- a perfectly fluent second-language American English speaker can often have difficulties understanding even American accents, and that will be similar to your situation. Younger people generally do speak SM, but if the other person happens to use SWM then I really do not know how that will sound to you. I personally have not had difficulty understanding SWM as a SM speaker, and navigated Chengdu and Chongqing without an issue (two major cities that nearly exclusively speak SWM), but that is in Sichuan instead of Yunnan, so I don't really know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The places you go also matters. If you stay in the largest city, you will have considerably less problem than if you are going to live in a remote underdeveloped village.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T23:36:02.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23006" CreationDate="2017-04-16T00:12:11.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to specify what you mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean the actual sound -- yes, it happens to have existed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean whether the sound existed in the history of Mandarin, not Middle Chinese -- yes, it happens to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean whether at some point the character 䄝 was pronounced like Modern Standard Mandarin &lt;code&gt;chiang&lt;/code&gt;, uh probably not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To go through some Middle Chinese reconstruction details, 丑 has onset 徹 in MC, reconstructed as *[ʈʰ], and 江 belongs to the final group 江, reconstructed as *[ɰɑwŋ], and has the &quot;Level&quot; tone. So in (my version of) the MC reconstruction, 䄝 was pronounced something like *[ʈʰɰɑwŋ] in some stage of (early) MC. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, this syllable eventually became MSM &lt;code&gt;chuang1&lt;/code&gt; through sound changes. But if you are wondering what happened to something close to *[tʂʰiɑŋ], the medial [-i-] became [-u-] in that particular position and became MSM &lt;code&gt;chuang&lt;/code&gt; as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might wonder what the heck happened so that you get superficially in MSM &lt;code&gt;ch + iang = chuang&lt;/code&gt; in this case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The onset 徹, reconstructed as a stop in Early MC, entirely became an affricate *[tʂʰ] at some point (and merged with the existing retroflex affricates). This is why you don't see this sound change superficially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final 江 developed differently depending on the conditions. In any case it was completely merged with the final set of 阳 *[ɑŋ]. The medial *[-ɰ-] disappeared in most cases, but turned into a [-u-] after retroflexes in Mandarin, and, distinctively, developed into an [-i-] after dorsals (i.e. velars, and glottals if your reconstruction has them) in historical Northern Mandarin dialects. Now, the character 江 happens to have a dorsal onset 见 *[k-] (velar), so the medial *[-ɰ-] there turned into [-i-], which, by the way is how you've got the palatalized onset &lt;code&gt;j&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T00:12:11.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15977" CreationDate="2017-04-16T02:51:04.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;History reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The history of China using *曜日 system could track back around AD 300ish. This system is not widely used by ordinary people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's Korea and Japan followed up with China because ancient Korea was a vassal state of ancient China most of the time, and ancient Japan are regarded less civilized then ancient China, thus, a lot of traditions of ancient China are preserved well in Japan and Korea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in late Qing dynasty, China started learned from western world so rename the system(or in other words, format the system and name it &quot;星期&quot; rather than &quot;曜日&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T02:51:04.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14666" CreationDate="2017-04-16T03:10:08.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like @Claw pointed out. This is the variant of 两. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike Latin characters, Chinese characters are graph-like characters. So it's easy to create a brand new character to describe the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the China history, Ordinary people could use whatever characters they want as long as they could identify them. Even though government introduced several dictionaries to standardized, there is no strict law to forbid using variants of character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T03:10:08.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22953" CreationDate="2017-04-16T03:12:43.610" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first sentence may have two possible meanings: that one is not able to open his eyes, or that he is not allowed to.&#xA;The second one may only infer the first meaning noted above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16893" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T03:12:43.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15960" CreationDate="2017-04-16T04:12:47.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not exist. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It is better to hit to kill than to hit and injure” is only because according to the statical calculation, the drive will pay more 400k RMB if they hit someone injured. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence just reflects the law need to be amended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T04:12:47.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8382" CreationDate="2017-04-16T04:41:22.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides 恶 e3, people also say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;噫 &lt;code&gt;yi&lt;/code&gt;, pronounced with a natural rising tone, with slight falling at the end  (like you'd sometimes do when saying &quot;ew&quot;). This is not restricted to &quot;ew&quot; specifically though, just that it covers the situations for &quot;ew&quot;, and people do use it frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin &lt;code&gt;i&lt;/code&gt; + pinyin &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; in sequence (one syllable), often with a rising tone, sometimes with a low tone that is like the third tone, or a falling tone that's like the fourth. This awkward way of spelling it is because you can't spell this syllable in Pinyin; &lt;code&gt;ie&lt;/code&gt; is totally different. If you can read IPA, it is roughly [iə]. There is no character to represent this syllable either. Again, this is not restricted to &quot;ew&quot; but covers it. Sometimes this is broken into two syllables, &lt;code&gt;yi3 (y')e2/4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some other more generic exclamations, like a permutation of &lt;code&gt;ei&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;ai&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;ya&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;you&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;y'e&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;, with the tone sequence of either &lt;code&gt;3&lt;/code&gt;-&lt;code&gt;2&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;2/1&lt;/code&gt;-&lt;code&gt;neutral&lt;/code&gt;. Most of these are more generic exclamations, so for most of them, just saying them flat does not get the meaning across, but I think in context and when you need to express the idea, the meaning would get across.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastEditorUserId="16058" LastEditDate="2017-04-16T19:11:26.633" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T19:11:26.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23337" CreationDate="2017-04-16T06:21:17.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I understand her meaning from your comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe she believed that your expression in Chinese isn't quite clear, so she asked you to explain your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your question, do you mean your love is stupid or hopeful, or you two can play games someday in the future is stupid or hopeful? I think she was confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16887" LastEditorUserId="16887" LastEditDate="2017-04-16T06:33:14.473" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T06:33:14.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23337" CreationDate="2017-04-16T17:07:42.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not an answer but a clarification question. This is common in spoken language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比如 means &amp;quot;for example&amp;quot;, and when used this way it means &amp;quot;what are some examples for your expected answer&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;what are some concrete examples for the options you've provided in the question&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: (After going to movie premiere with B) 下次有这种活动我们再一起来，好不好？(Will you be coming with me to more events like this?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &lt;strong&gt;比如？&lt;/strong&gt; (What type of events?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 比如电影、音乐会、球赛什么的。(Like movies, concerts, sports games, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 电影吧。(Movies are good.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 吃饭你想早点去还是晚点去？(Do you prefer to go to eat earlier or later?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &lt;strong&gt;比如？&lt;/strong&gt; (What time do you mean by &amp;quot;earlier&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;later&amp;quot;?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 早点是六点之前，晚点就七八点吧。(As early as before 6, as late as 7 or 8.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T17:07:42.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21353" CreationDate="2017-04-16T19:23:29.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I couldn't hear anything different. They are pronounced without noticeable variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing people might do to ask a question, is to say a statement and end with a high pitch after they finish the tone of the last syllable (if it has any). The high pitch for me is higher than that of my first tone, so I can still tell. But neither of them does that in the video.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T19:23:29.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23410" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-17T05:16:12.553" Score="-1" ViewCount="532" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say 捅人牛 in hokkien? In pinyin, please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16899" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T14:45:59.977" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T14:45:59.977" Title="How you say 捅人牛 in Hokkien?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21750" CreationDate="2017-04-17T06:11:48.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like &quot;Thank you&quot; in English, there's only one 谢谢/謝謝（xiè xiè ）. It's universally applied unless you want to make a customized thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T06:11:48.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23413" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23419" CreationDate="2017-04-17T13:38:22.667" Score="2" ViewCount="667" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some 成语 that mean something like &quot;little dogs always bark the loudest&quot;, or &quot;little dogs are mean&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13362" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T17:09:26.100" Title="Is there a 成语 that means something like &quot;Little dogs always bark the loudest&quot;?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21106" CreationDate="2017-04-17T17:11:45.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your idea is great. However, it's nearly impossible in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the pronunciation of Chinese characters mostly depends on the what's the word (consisted of two or more characters) means in a whole sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你们以四行队列步行到银行，我看是不行，而且也不内行。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 5行 in above sentence, 2 pronounce xíng, 3 pronounce háng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it comes to a dilemma, you need to collect what all people say and do statistics, which is impossible and &quot;might harmful to freedom of speech&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T17:11:45.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23415" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-17T17:15:26.777" Score="-2" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have written a short story in pinyin for a special person. As for grammar/vocab, feel free to suggest corrections. More importantly, what was your interpretation of the story? The recipient knows I am a beginner in Chinese but I want to get my &lt;em&gt;feelings&lt;/em&gt; across through this piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Liǎng ge jiǎozi&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yīge piàoliang de nǚshì zuò zài guì de fànguǎn. Tā diǎn liǎng gè jiǎozi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǎnshàng bā diǎn shí fēn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fúwùyuán shuō “Duìbuqǐ, wǒmen zhǐ yǒu yīge jiǎozi”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nǚshì chī bàn de jiǎozi, tā shuō “Zhè shì lěng de hé bù hǎo chī de jiǎozi. Wǒ yào dìèrge jiǎozi.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bā diǎn shí liù fēn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fúwùyuán shuō “Qǐng děng yīhuìr. Dì èr ge jiǎozi láizì tiāntáng”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bā diǎn shíqī fēn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nǚshǐ chī bàn de dìèrge jiǎozi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā shuō “zhè shì tài nèn hé tài tián”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā jiéhé liǎng bàn hé shuō: “kěshì yī qǐ zhè shì wánměi de jiǎozi”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/a/zRhF9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Original image&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16902" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T06:41:44.463" Title="Please critique my short story: Liǎng ge jiǎozi" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23321" CreationDate="2017-04-17T17:28:26.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning Chinese might help in learning Korean and Japanese, but if I were you, I would not count on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's all about history, before the Hunminjeongeum(finished 1443 or 1444), Korea using Chinese characters for writing, and use Korean for oral communication. And it's hard since Chinese and Korean are different language family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original of Japanese is still under debate. It's easy can tell Chinese did affects Japanese(same as Korean, ancient Japan use Chinese character for writing for a long time, however, they speak differently)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T17:28:26.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22981" CreationDate="2017-04-17T18:11:08.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No shortcut, hire a Chinese tutor or go to Chinese school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you only want to know some Chinese characters rather than learning Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest read through English-Chinese Dictionary multiple times until you can tell the meaning of that Chinese characters once you see it. There are 3000 Chinese characters in daily used Chinese, however, each character might have more than 4 different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/19793676&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; to a Q&amp;amp;A site, this post is about some experience of learning Chinese from non-Chinese perspective.  Good Luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T18:11:08.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23415" CreationDate="2017-04-17T18:22:32.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two Thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although you are a beginner in Chinese, please write in Chinese characters instead of pinyin. Pinyin system is not designed for writing but providing pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I can't tell your feeling from your article, but a story about 饺子.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T18:22:32.283" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23413" CreationDate="2017-04-17T18:30:20.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a direct translation, &quot;咬人的狗不叫&quot;, but it's not a 成语, it's a slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar 成语：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虚张声势: pretend to be strong to make others fear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;深藏不露: very talented or strong, but hiding from the others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不露锋芒: same meaning as above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;韬光养晦: Hide one's capacity and bide one's time(Not sure it's a good match but similar with 深藏不露)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastEditorUserId="16891" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T19:29:43.600" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T19:29:43.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23253" CreationDate="2017-04-17T18:43:48.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;维基大典 is a name of Wikipedia - Classical Chinese version.So it's The Encyclopedia writen in Classical Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literal meaning, Great Collection in Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T18:43:48.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17813" CreationDate="2017-04-17T18:55:52.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit: Thanks for @StumpyJoePete's pointing out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IPA could be applied to all languages, including Chinese. But it's hard to replace Pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the Pinyin is originally designed to replace Chinese Hanzi.(Obviously, it failed.) And I found a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/21436349&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Quora- like post (in Chinese)&lt;/a&gt; to comparing IPA with Pinyin. Very helpful to clarify IPA vs Pinyin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the conclusion is same: It's hard to find a Chinese dictionary supply IPA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another helpful &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/35129355&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;post(also in Chinese)&lt;/a&gt; to compare Pinyin and Wade–Giles system(also known as Wade's pinyin in China)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assume IPA stand for International Phonetic Alphabet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's less likely that you could find a Chinese dictionary supply IPA. Because the system is not the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IPA is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based on Latin alphabet. It works perfectly for Latin-like languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Chinese is not one of Latin language family. So IPA might not work in the Chinese system. That's why we invented pinyin system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IPA for Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; for helping. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it note: &quot;See &lt;strong&gt;Standard Chinese phonology&lt;/strong&gt; for more detail on the sounds of the language.&quot; And &quot;English equivalents given in this page may represent &lt;strong&gt;only loose approximations to the original pronunciations&lt;/strong&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastEditorUserId="16891" LastEditDate="2017-05-18T03:12:42.060" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T03:12:42.060" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23413" CreationDate="2017-04-17T22:17:24.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, I think the English saying is: All bark and no bite, which is 光说不练 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T22:17:24.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23413" CreationDate="2017-04-18T02:44:46.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend &quot;满瓶不动半瓶摇&quot;, which means a bottle full of water is quiet when you shake it, while a bottle with a little water makes sound when being shook. Alluding that people with rich knowledges always keep a low profile, while those people with superficial knowledge like showing off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="901" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T02:44:46.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21866" CreationDate="2017-04-18T02:58:40.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think only 血(xie3), no postfix 儿(er).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;血(xie3) in north-eastern China means 非常/很(very), and is always followed by an adjective (usually presents bad things). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;血亏:  亏 means 亏损/损失(loss)&#xA;这趟生意真是血亏  a great loss in the business&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the next example, 血 means 十足的/尽全力的(plenty of, make best effort)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下血本:  下 means 投入(invest)，  本 means 本钱（capital, not always money）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="901" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T02:58:40.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23413" CreationDate="2017-04-18T03:20:42.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's some supplement to Kevman's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;色厉内荏：&quot;A bully is always a coward，&quot; it literally means that looking tough outside but actually stuffed with straw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外强中干：&quot;outwardly strong and inwardly weak。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16907" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T03:20:42.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13805" CreationDate="2017-04-18T03:59:15.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first 10 Tibetan digits (1-10) are vaguely similar to Cantonese, and the Tibetan word for table if I remember correctly sounds similar to 桌子.  The Tibetan and Chinese for &quot;thank you&quot; may sound superficially similar (and they don't to me) but the underlying words are completely unrelated.  And unless you can read the alphabet or learn the system of transliteration  you can pretty much forget about gleaning pronunciation information from things like &quot;thugs rje che&quot; ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེ་.  And one can say Sino-Tibetan all day long... I prefer Tibeto-Burman, but it doesn't really get one anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastEditorUserId="11474" LastEditDate="2017-04-19T07:05:57.623" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T07:05:57.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23321" CreationDate="2017-04-18T11:04:08.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I speak Chinese, Korean and Japanese and it's not the grammar but the vocabulary which is similar. I learnt Chinese first so expected Korean to be very alike due to reading that 60% of all Korean vocab comes from Chinese. I was shocked when I found Korean so alien but in truth it is similar - to Classical Chinese and not Mandarin. I started learning Cantonese recently and indeed the vocab is far more similar to that than Mandarin. E.g. 학 / 学 which is pronounced xué in Mando but hak in both Korean and Canto.  大 is dà in Mando but dae in both Korean and Canto so University is daehak in Korean and Canto but daxue 大学 in Mando. Learning Canto made Korean make more sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other issue that I faced was the characters. Korean uses the traditional script so upon visiting Korea I was faced with not only Korean script but a multitude of shop names which they think look cool in the traditional Chinese script. So I was struggling with two scripts! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general though, I've enjoyed learning them side by side as they do inevitably compliment each other, yet are different enough to not confuse you. I got to the stage of learning a new word in Mando and then looking up the word in Korean to see how similar it was. I learnt that all Chinese words in Korean work with 하다 to make them a verb so essentially all 하다 verbs are Chinese, e.g. To regret = 후회하다 / 后悔 hòu huî. It becomes quite fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps! &#xA;Gareth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15808" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T11:04:08.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23415" CreationDate="2017-04-18T17:46:32.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried my best to convert the pinyin to characters and also added my translation in ()s and my comments (吐槽) in []s. Note that some of these comments are for fun only and should not be taken seriously. The XXX is where I can't read your handwriting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;两个饺子 (two dumplings)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个漂亮的女士坐在贵的饭馆。她点两个饺子。(a beautiful woman is at an expensive restaurant. She orders two dumplings.) [A better way to say this: 一位漂亮的女士坐在一个很贵的饭馆里。她点了两个饺子 yī wèi piāo liàng de nǚ shì zuò zài yī gè hěn guì de fàn guǎn lǐ 。tā diǎn le liǎng gè jiǎo zǐ][For a beautiful woman, use the counter word wèi] [Ordering just 2 dumplings at an expensive restaurant is kind of weird...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;晚上八点十分 (8:10 p.m.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;服务员说“对不起，我们只有一个饺子” (The waiter says, &quot;sorry, we only have one dumpling&quot;) [You should add a colon before the quote] [How does a restaurant have only &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; dumpling? Why?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;女士吃半的饺子，她说“这是冷的和不好吃的饺子，我要XXX饺子” (The woman eats half of the dumpling. She says, &quot;this is a cold and disgusting dumpling. I want a XXX dumpling&quot;) [You got the grammar of this sentence quite wrong, but it's still understandable. A better version: 女士吃了半个饺子，她说：“这饺子又冷又不好吃 nǚ shì chī le bàn gè jiǎo zǐ ，tā shuō ：“zhè jiǎo zǐ yòu lěng yòu bú hǎo chī] [How can disgusting and cold dumplings be served at an expensive restaurant?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;八点十六分 (8:16 p.m.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;服务员说“请等一会儿，第二个饺子来自天堂” (The waiter says, &quot;Please wait a minute, the second dumping is from Heaven&quot;) [This sentence's grammar feels natural, but... The waiter &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; said there is only one! And why is the second dumpling from Heaven? Is that even possible?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;八点十七分 (8:17 p.m.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;女士吃半的第二个饺子。(The woman eats half of the second dumpling) [As it is now, this sentence is ungrammatical but understandable. I can't think of a better alternative without using complicated grammar: 第二个饺子女士也只吃了一半 dì èr gè jiǎo zǐ nǚ shì yě zhī chī le yī bàn]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她说“这是太嫩和太甜” (She says, &quot;This is too tender and too sweet&quot;) [A better version: 这个太嫩太甜了 zhè gè tài nèn tài tián le] [How can a dumpling be too tender and too sweet? Is that even a dumpling anymore?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她结合两半和说“可是一起这是完美的饺子” (She combines the two halves and says, &quot;But together, this is the perfect dumpling&quot;) [A better version: 她结合了两半，然后说，“可是在一起，就是完美的饺子” tā jié hé le liǎng bàn ，rán hòu shuō ，“kě shì zài yī qǐ ，jiù shì wán měi de jiǎo zǐ ”] [I don't think a cold, disgusting, too tender and too sweet dumpling is perfect...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T17:46:32.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21579" CreationDate="2017-04-18T20:31:48.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not familiar with AP Chinese curriculum but I would recommend go by China's HSK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;HSK is designed for non-native speakers and is administered by an agency of Ministry of Education.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you adapted the HSK, you might lower your cost of authorisation. Even though I don't have the actual number, you could tell from the exam fees.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;HSK is harder than AP Chinese. It's not easy to get 'A' in HSK.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T20:31:48.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22718" CreationDate="2017-04-18T20:49:30.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Supplement to Tang Ho's answer:&#xA;Note:&#xA;Sometimes you can't tell the meaning of a word from a single character consisting that word. So the following explanation is applied to a character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;店：originally mean warehouse in ancient time, now expand to &quot;place sell goods or service&quot;, for example:  inn, shop, fair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;馆: Divided into two parts: left part is &quot;餐&quot;, right part is &quot;官&quot;. Guess it originally means an official place to provide meals and rest. &#xA;Now it could be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;accommodation for guests&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;live, reside (verb. Classical Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;hotel&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;house&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;collection e.g. 馆藏&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;restaurant e.g. 馆子&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T20:49:30.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23431" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23452" CreationDate="2017-04-18T21:20:16.457" Score="3" ViewCount="7656" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm learning some of Confucius' sayings, and one that I came across was 三人行，必有我师. I tried to translate it but I don't understand...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-12-11T13:57:55.803" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T13:16:40.637" Title="What does 三人行，必有我师 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23432" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23441" CreationDate="2017-04-18T22:45:23.430" Score="1" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a very poor grasp of Chinese, being only a beginner learning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are two parallel translations of John 1:17.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 因為律法是藉著摩西賜下的，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 律法本是藉着摩西传的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best I can make sense of them is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) because law is via moses bestow[ed] inferior[ly] clear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) law source is via moses propagate[d] clear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For proper context, the source text these lines are translating is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ὅτι ὁ νόμος διὰ Μωϋσέως ἐδόθη,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;oti o nomos dia moyseos edothi,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;for the law via Moses was-given,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What seems to differentiate these two in meaning, is the reading of 下的 that I have come up with. I seem to have, perhaps, made some amatuer error in generating that reading of the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is a proper rendering of 下的 here, and what is the meaning of 的 in this context in general? How does the 是---的 construction work here, if its wrong to read 的 as &quot;clear&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastEditorUserId="16909" LastEditDate="2017-04-18T23:26:11.437" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T01:05:15.793" Title="Question about the usage of 是---的 in Chinese Bible translation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23431" CreationDate="2017-04-18T23:50:09.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;三人行，必有我师 If 3 of us walk together, surely one of the others has something to teach me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about: There is always something new to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T23:50:09.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23431" CreationDate="2017-04-19T01:21:34.227" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two points that you should know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese culture, 3 does not often  mean a exact quantity. That is, there may be 2,3,4 or many persons around you. There are many other phrases,for example, 狡兔三窟, 三思而后行,三番五次.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;So this sentence means: We should keep modest to find out merit of the people around you and learn from them. There is a idiom in western culture, &lt;strong&gt;Stay hungry, Stay foolish&lt;/strong&gt;, which has the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16823" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T01:21:34.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23435" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-19T02:10:07.673" Score="0" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does that phrase 春德东更 mean? I found the writing on a t-shirt (which you can see below). When I look up the phrase on Google and Google Translate, the results doesn't come up with any satisfying one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, is that in Chinese or Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iF8sa.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iF8sa.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16910" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T08:49:56.593" Title="What does 春德东更 mean and in what language?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23436" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23438" CreationDate="2017-04-19T06:02:29.807" Score="0" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taken from the title of an article published in a Taiwanese governmental journal, related to Penghu County:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;防海固圉&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presumed pronunciation (without further background knowledge):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ㄈㄤˊㄏㄞˇㄍㄨˋㄩˇ&lt;/strong&gt; = fɑŋ2 xaɪ̯3 ku4 ɥu3 = fáng hǎi gù yǔ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastEditorUserId="16003" LastEditDate="2017-04-19T06:10:40.363" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T08:39:33.203" Title="What does 防海固圉 mean?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23435" CreationDate="2017-04-19T06:09:28.810" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese, this phrase does not mean anything to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16823" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T06:09:28.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23436" CreationDate="2017-04-19T08:39:33.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;防 ~ defence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;海 ~ sea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;固 ~ strong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圉 ~ prison in ancient time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly, &quot;nautical defence (防海) with a strong (固) fort (圉)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another possible translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the usage of (omitted) strong (固) fort (圉) in maritime (海) defence (防).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i guess it's a summering phrase in the article &quot;防海固圉：論明代澎湖和臺灣兵防角色之差異性&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T08:39:33.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23435" CreationDate="2017-04-19T08:49:56.593" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It isn't a Chinese idiom or other idiomatic expression, and doesn't mean anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春 spring&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德 morality; Germany&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东 east&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;更 change; more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16887" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T08:49:56.593" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22718" CreationDate="2017-04-19T09:50:23.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is difference between 店 and 馆. Actually, it is likely be the convention of Chinese expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;茶馆: a place where you can drink tea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;茶店: a place where you can buy tea, usually called 茶叶店.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咖啡馆=咖啡店，旅馆=旅店，理发馆=理发店&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but 饭馆≠饭店，酒馆≠酒店&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NF1z3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NF1z3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Jk9p.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Jk9p.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16887" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T09:50:23.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23432" CreationDate="2017-04-19T13:26:26.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I find the Chinese translation of the bible very hard to read. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some tips on understanding sentences ending with 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 as you may or may not know, can be used to create relative clauses. For example, 我看过的电影 (a movie that I have seen). The order is actually the reverse of that in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, we omit the stuff after 的. Usually, the sentence is in the form &quot;X是Y的&quot;. To understand this kind of sentence structure, you just need to add something appropriate after 的. Usually, adding 东西 (thing) works. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个电影是我看过的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you add the word 东西 after 的, it becomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个电影是我看过的东西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you can translate it as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This movie is a thing that I have seen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can make it more natural&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have seen this movie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's go back to the sentence in the bible. I will use the second one here because I have no idea what 賜下 means... I am an atheist who knows nothing about christianity...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;律法本是藉着摩西传的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we add 东西 after 的 again:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;律法本是藉着摩西传的东西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we translate each word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;律法 - law&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;本 - originally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;藉着 - via&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;传 - propagate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Great! Now we have the whole sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The law originally was a thing that is propagated via Moses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T13:26:26.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23442" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-19T14:01:06.667" Score="6" ViewCount="2602" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tend to see it a lot in text books and guides:&#xA;唱歌/唱歌儿&#xA;事/事儿&#xA;But it's always listed as optional, so what's the deal with it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16622" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T22:03:59.177" Title="Why does Chinese sometimes put 儿 after verbs and nouns?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23413" CreationDate="2017-04-19T16:25:44.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is similar but a bit different from &quot;Barking dog never bites&quot;. The Chinese phrase 丑人多作怪 would be a good translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T16:25:44.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23445" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23447" CreationDate="2017-04-19T18:20:46.807" Score="0" ViewCount="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been reading a text, that I broadly understand, but which is still too advanced for me to grasp in every detail. The complete text can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://popupchinese.com/data/227/short-stories-my-fathers-back-traditional.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the text there appears a passage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;回家變賣典質，父親還了虧空;又借錢辦了喪事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I interpret this as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;upon returning home, father pawned some （of our) belongings and called in a debt. Moreover he borrowed some money, to (be able to) tend to the matter of the funeral. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am very unsure, whether I translated 還虧空 correctly. I found 虧空 in several dictionaries, but never with 還！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T13:37:50.490" Title="What is the precise meaning of 還虧空？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23442" CreationDate="2017-04-19T18:28:25.267" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding the 儿 to the end of a word is known as 儿化 (er2hua4). Whether or not you use the 儿 really just comes down to regional accents/dialects, but the meaning of the word is unchanged. Generally speaking, northern mandarin dialects use the erhua more than southern ones; in some regions you'll almost never hear anyone use the erhua in speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some words where the added erhua changes the word's meaning, but these are usually regional/colloquial terms, such as 天儿, which means the same as 天气, not 天.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15520" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T18:28:25.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23445" CreationDate="2017-04-19T18:44:10.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;虧空 is debt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;還 is repay (還款) here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, 還了虧空 is repay the debt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T18:44:10.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23448" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23453" CreationDate="2017-04-19T21:02:38.927" Score="0" ViewCount="1196" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my American ears, traditional high pitched Chinese singing sounds strange. Also, in the movie 活着 when the protagonist Fugui sings in his puppet troupe he sounds so weird/funny to me, but it doesn't seem like his audience in the film thinks it sounds weird. Do native Chinese people view traditional singing as beautiful, such as the high pitched opera songs? Do they think some American/European music like Italian opera or others sound strange, while Americans/Europeans think it sounds beautiful? If so, what would be an example? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16472" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T02:59:25.817" Title="Chinese traditional singing" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23445" CreationDate="2017-04-19T21:02:46.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;回家變賣典質，父親還了虧空;又借錢辦了喪事。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;We went back home, liquidated some properties and valuable thing. My father used that cash to settle the debt. After that, he borrowed some money for the grandma's funeral. &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.businessweekly.com.tw/article.aspx?id=2344&amp;amp;type=Blog&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese to indicate how to use the verb and noun properly in English. You could think in a reversed way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“亏空” is a verb. But in this case, it is used as a noun.  It's similar to &quot;Jana's sleeping was sometimes an escape from studying.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T21:02:46.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8583" CreationDate="2017-04-19T21:07:33.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You translated your English name, and Google gave you &quot;一个泡子&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can tell you the meaning of your name is 100% not the meaning of &quot;一个泡子&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd better pay more attention to your Chinese class or ask your tutor about it. &#xA;Google translate is bad in some cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T21:07:33.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23431" CreationDate="2017-04-19T21:33:32.623" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;My ancient Chinese is terrible, but I think I am right about this one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三： three&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人：person &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行：walk, go, travel &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必：must&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有：have， be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我： I, my, me.. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;師：master, teacher&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Literally it would be &quot;(where) three people walk, (there) must be  my teacher (among them).&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume  Confucius meant to emphasise &quot;there is something to learn from almost anybody.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I also checked the famous translation by LEGGE. There the complete context is given:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“【廿一章】子曰、三人行、必有我師焉、擇其善者而從之、其不善者而改之。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Excerpt From: Legge, James. “The Chinese Classics — Volume 1: Confucian Analects.” iBooks. &#xA;  This material may be protected by copyright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And LEGGE translates it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“CHAP. XXI. The Master said, 'When I walk along with two&#xA;  others, they may serve me as my teachers. I will select their&#xA;  good qualities and follow them, their bad qualities and avoid&#xA;  them.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Excerpt From: Legge, James. “The Chinese Classics — Volume 1: Confucian Analects.” iBooks. &#xA;  This material may be protected by copyright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But see Jesse's answer about the &quot;three&quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2019-09-30T17:04:32.217" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T17:04:32.217" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23448" CreationDate="2017-04-19T21:36:10.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do native Chinese people view traditional singing as beautiful, such&#xA;  as the high pitched opera songs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's beautiful, not it's hard to be popular. The young generation is not favoring opera songs, but they might love the songs that perform opera songs in a modern/popular way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do they think some American/European music like Italian opera or&#xA;  others sound strange, while Americans/Europeans think it sounds&#xA;  beautiful? If so, what would be an example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not strange if the ACG use opera as BGM. And the fan of opera/classical song is not large. Most of the people love listening to these songs(mostly edited to 5,6 minutes version) from radio, but they might not go to a theater to listen to hour-long opera. Although the number of the audience is increasing, but it's still too small to call a mainstream culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Claims: 26-year-old Native Chinese, Now living in America.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T21:36:10.050" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23442" CreationDate="2017-04-19T22:03:59.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Erhua might differ in various dialects. Below I use Beijing dialect for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Erhua is hard to master, even for me(native southern Chinese). Sometimes I think it's unnecessary because the even the local might be wrong, but the wrong could be the right if everyone uses the wrong way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Meaning Difference. Put a 儿 after a word could have different meaning:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「宝贝」和「宝贝儿」: the First one normally mean a precious item, the later one usually mean close people, like lover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「汆」和「汆儿」: the First one mean a way to cook; 「汆儿」 usual means the marinade for dry noodle b.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Part of speech Difference:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Verb -&gt; Noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;托 → 托儿 | 乐 → 乐儿 | 约会 → 约会儿&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adjective -&gt; Noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 亮 → 亮儿 | 空 → 空儿 | 好 → 好儿&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Verb-&gt; Demonstrative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   下 → 下儿 | 摊 → 摊儿 | 拨 → 拨儿&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Noun -&gt;Demonstrative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 门 → 门儿 | 桌 → 桌儿 | 道 → 道儿&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etc.....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Show Emotion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. Positive &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;命 → 小命儿 | 灯笼 → 小灯笼儿 | 剪子 → 小剪子儿 | 镜子 → 小镜子儿 |发小 → 发小儿 | 家雀 → 家雀儿 | 心肝 → 心肝儿&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. Negative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;光棍 → 光棍儿 | 小偷 → 小偷儿 | 傻冒 → 傻冒儿 | 白丁 → 白丁儿 &#xA;&#xA;Bad place or bad thing, like &quot;Death死&quot;, there are several saying to 玩儿完了|蹬腿儿了|翻白眼儿了|嗝儿屁了|嗝儿了|&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T22:03:59.177" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23455" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23457" CreationDate="2017-04-20T04:24:51.607" Score="0" ViewCount="794" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, how do you translate this: &quot;All his wife wanted was a peaceful life. When he returned from the war, their lives could have been peaceful, but the government situation at that time prevented it.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no idea how to say these kinds of &quot;could have/would have&quot; hypotheticals in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16472" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T16:18:02.640" Title="How do you translate &quot;could have been&quot; sentences?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23455" CreationDate="2017-04-20T05:43:56.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'could have been' basically means “本来可以” while 'would have been' means “本来会”. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He &lt;strong&gt;could have been&lt;/strong&gt; there but there was an accident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;本(来)可以&lt;/strong&gt;到那里的，但是出了点意外。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He &lt;strong&gt;would have been&lt;/strong&gt; a doctor if he wasn't hurt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果他没受伤，他&lt;strong&gt;本会&lt;/strong&gt;成为一名医生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, hypotheses in Chinese include the character “&lt;strong&gt;本&lt;/strong&gt;”, like “本来”, “本会”,“本能够”,“本应该”,“本可以”,“本可能”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, there are several mistakes in Kevman's translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“妻子”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All his wife wanted was a peaceful life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的妻子只想要平静的生活。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'All his &lt;strong&gt;wife&lt;/strong&gt; wanted' means “他的&lt;strong&gt;妻子&lt;/strong&gt;只想要” rather than “他的&lt;strong&gt;妻子们&lt;/strong&gt;”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“他们”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;their lives could have been peaceful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们本可以平静地生活着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'their' means “他们的”, because it refers to the man and his wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it refers to people including &lt;strong&gt;male&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;female&lt;/strong&gt;, it should be translated into “他们的”. Work the same for 'they', 'them' and 'themselves'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest is just as Kevman said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;---------------divide-----------&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Kevman's translation is not shown, I will type the whole translation below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All his wife wanted was a peaceful life. When he returned from the war, their lives &lt;strong&gt;could have been&lt;/strong&gt; peaceful, but the government situation at that time prevented it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的妻子只希望过平静的生活。(但)在他从战场归来后，繁忙的政府公务没让他们过上&lt;strong&gt;本(来)该有&lt;/strong&gt;的平静生活。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This translation is more natural but not formally same. That's why you see “本该有” rather than “本可以”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more thing, just as Jesse said, there is a precondition that if everything was like before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16915" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T16:18:02.640" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23458" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-20T08:25:45.100" Score="-1" ViewCount="577" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does this name mean in Chinese? I am not Chinese-born but I never really knew what it meant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sheng Jicheng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16916" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T00:41:13.447" Title="What does this name mean in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23459" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23461" CreationDate="2017-04-20T14:31:36.257" Score="0" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have stumbled upon the following website: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zuowen8.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zuowen8.com/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to contain a daily-updated listing of school students' essays, categorized into groups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I figured out it would be good language practice. However, I would like to ask more able Chinese speakers about the website - I trust that a language user would be able to grasp things after a modest glance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the purpose of the website? E.g.:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;are the essays uploaded by students? Are they error-free?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is this meant to be a student resource, or a system to prevent plagiarism in essays?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does the website's catchphrase (让写作成为一种习惯) mean? My guess is: Let writing become (something of) a habit. (is 一种 a quantifier here?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12122" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T14:55:04.423" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T14:55:04.423" Title="What is the purpose of the website zuowen8.com, which contains student essays?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-08-07T02:10:18.717" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23458" CreationDate="2017-04-20T15:14:58.197" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;生即成 (sheng-ji-cheng)- born near success&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note: this is one of many possibilities. There are many characters associated with the pinyin 'sheng', 'ji', and 'cheng'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15593" LastEditorUserId="15593" LastEditDate="2017-04-20T15:27:28.030" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T15:27:28.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23459" CreationDate="2017-04-20T15:36:54.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's called 作文吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the purpose of the website? E.g.:&#xA;  are the essays uploaded by students? Are they error-free?&#xA;  is this meant to be a student resource, or a system to prevent plagiarism in essays?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this website is for primary school/secondary school/high school students. The purpose is to provide some good examples to show how to write a good article/essay. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a kind of student resource, and usually, make it easy to plagiarize. Not sure if it's bug-free. But it's &quot;high-grade&quot; in exam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What does the website's catchphrase (让写作成为一种习惯) mean? My guess is: Let writing become (something of) a habit. (is 一种 a quantifier here?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a slogan. Yes It's &quot;Let writing become a habit&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T15:36:54.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23462" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23520" CreationDate="2017-04-20T17:20:08.537" Score="0" ViewCount="1188" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I say the words fridge and freezer while keeping the distinction?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seem to be a lot of Chinese words for each, which is most accurate/natural?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't trust Google. But here is what I could find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google English to Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fridge -&gt; 冰箱，电冰箱 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Refrigerator -&gt; 冰箱，电冰箱&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Freezer -&gt; 冰箱，电冰箱&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Chinese to English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冰箱 -&gt; Refrigerator&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冰柜 -&gt; Freezer &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冷柜 -&gt; Freezer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冷藏箱 -&gt; Freezer &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冷藏室 -&gt; Refrigerated room&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冷冻室 -&gt; Freezer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冷冻机 -&gt; Freezer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雪柜 -&gt; Refrigerator&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冰箱冷藏室 -&gt; Refrigerator freezer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冰箱冷冻室 -&gt; Refrigerator freezer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16143" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T13:27:53.393" Title="Fridge and Freezer Beyond 冰箱" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23463" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-20T18:15:05.027" Score="1" ViewCount="812" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a half-width font for Chinese characters? I have a half-width font for Japanese and it covers a lot of Chinese characters but not all. By &quot;half-width&quot;, I mean you can display Chinese characters like English alphabet as shown in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://forest.watch.impress.co.jp/img/wf/docs/389/287/image1_s.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pic&lt;/a&gt;. I quickly looked it up in English but no result. I feel there must be some somewhere, since there are &lt;a href=&quot;http://merviemilia.com/sites/default/files/images/hotfont7_sixcaps.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;narrow fonts for English&lt;/a&gt; and Japanese at least, as far as I know? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13840" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T08:48:04.920" Title="Narrow fonts for Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23464" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-20T21:31:50.270" Score="2" ViewCount="1940" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a friend who is fond of including &quot;eh?!&quot; in his corresponding, including to native Chinese speakers.  An example would be &quot;That's quite a story, eh?!&quot;  So my question has several parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese equivalent to &quot;eh?!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do native speakers perceive that Chinese equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do native speakers perceive the English &quot;eh?!&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a native English speaker and &quot;eh?!&quot; rubs me the wrong way in English so I'm interested in how native Chinese speakers perceive it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T05:54:53.763" Title="&quot;Eh?!&quot; in Chinese and How Native Speakers React to It" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23464" CreationDate="2017-04-20T22:41:36.860" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The role of 'eh?' at the end of a statement is similar to the rhetorical 'isn't it?' or the confirmatory 'right?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, final particles '呵？'/ho2/  functions the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'呵？'/ho2/  &lt;em&gt;Cantonese only&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'he really is a good man.' -- '佢真係個好人.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'he really is a good man, eh?' -- '佢真係個好人,呵？'(呵?= isn't he? / right?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'嗯?'/ng2/ &lt;em&gt;for Mandarin and Cantonese&lt;/em&gt; also functions the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'he really is a good man.' -- '他真的是個好人'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'he really is a good man, eh? '--  '他真的是個好人, 嗯?'(嗯?= isn't he? / right?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do native speakers perceive that Chinese equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eh? 嗯? and 呵？ are just part of a sentence, it is there for good reason. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do native speakers perceive the English &quot;eh?!&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We just interpret 'eh?' as 'isn't it?' or 'right?' which mean the speaker is seeking approval or confirmation about his statement from the listener. That would make the statement sound more asserted &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-04-20T23:23:53.363" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T23:23:53.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12127" CreationDate="2017-04-20T23:12:24.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem as I see it is you didn't ask the question when you were in China.  There may be a deeper issue here.  Seems to me that just saying &quot;thank you&quot; should suffice and not give offense.  When they're correcting you you're not going to trick them into thinking you're a native speaker.  Keep it simple.  A valuable phrase in any foreign language is &quot;If I make a mistake, please correct me.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11474" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T23:12:24.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23480" CreationDate="2017-04-20T23:33:23.020" Score="4" ViewCount="10961" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning some of Confucius' sayings, and I've had trouble with this one: 己所不欲，勿施于人. I looked on a dictionary online, and it said both &quot;do not do to others what you would not have them do to you&quot; and &quot;doing is better than saying&quot;. Which one is it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorUserId="16117" LastEditDate="2018-03-03T21:19:44.050" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T09:18:16.130" Title="What does 己所不欲, 勿施于人 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23458" CreationDate="2017-04-21T00:05:06.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends based on which characters correspond to those pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16921" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T00:05:06.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23467" CreationDate="2017-04-21T00:21:50.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;己所(things that one self)不欲(don't want)，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勿(don't)施于(do to)人(others)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'you yourself don't want to be insulted, therefore you don't insult others'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You have to know being insulted hurt to not want to be insulted; if you know being insulted hurt and still do it to others, then you are a horrible person. &#xA;The phrase 己所不欲，勿施于人 is a Confucius teaching giving a guild line for people to be decent and moral-- ' if you don't know either you should or should not do something to other people, simply ask yourself if you want the same thing to be done to you, if the answer is 'no' then it is most likely wrong to do it to other people.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-04-21T03:21:20.987" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T03:21:20.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23432" CreationDate="2017-04-21T00:42:31.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;是...的 is one of several ways to translate English passive into Chinese. Zhang Peiji's book A Course in English-Chinese Translation (張培基英漢翻譯教程, p. 130) gives several examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The decision to attack was not taken lightly.&#xA;進攻的決定不是輕易作出的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sir Charles' body was found at the end of the alley.&#xA;查爾斯爵士的屍體就是在小道的盡頭發現的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the rest, 賜下 means to give (from one in a  higher position to one in a lower position) and 藉著 translates dia (through). This is the 中文標準譯本 (CSB) version, first published in 2008.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;傳 (传) means &quot;to teach; to preach,&quot; or more generally, &quot;to pass on; to make known.&quot;  This is the 中文和合本 (CUV) version, published in 1919, and the standard translation up until the 2000s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what it's worth I find the older version to be clearer; word for word is not always the best way of translating&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2017-04-21T01:05:15.793" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T01:05:15.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23467" CreationDate="2017-04-21T00:59:49.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;己所不欲，勿施于人 literally: self thatwhich not desire, not bestow on other people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Do as you would be done by.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15140" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T00:59:49.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22953" CreationDate="2017-04-21T02:29:56.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不能睁开我的眼睛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence means, &quot;I cannot open my eyes,&quot; with the implication that the speaker is not allowed to or otherwise constrained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我睁不开我的眼睛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence means, &quot;I am physically incapable of opening my eyes.&quot; (睁不开 sounds like, &quot;[my eyes] are unopenable&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16848" LastEditorUserId="16848" LastEditDate="2017-04-21T02:39:35.253" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T02:39:35.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23473" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-21T02:45:21.483" Score="0" ViewCount="2144" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the pinyin and simplified Chinese characters used for the word cupcake? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When looking it up there is no reliable answer. Some people seem to just call it by the chinese words for &quot;cake&quot; but others use the chinese words for &quot;small cake,&quot; &quot;cup cake,&quot; or &quot;cake in a cup.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I just wanted to ask for the word that actual Chinese people use most/recognize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16923" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T02:21:30.087" Title="How do you say &quot;cupcake&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23462" CreationDate="2017-04-21T03:17:03.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冷冻 leng3 dong4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This refers to freezing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冷藏 leng3 cang2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This refers to refrigeration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So while 冰箱 refers to a refrigerator, as in the whole appliance, if you want to refer to the freezer section you would say 冷冻室, with the other larger section for things you don't want to freeze being the 冷藏室.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16848" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T03:17:03.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23473" CreationDate="2017-04-21T03:24:42.133" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's my honor to offer the first answer of the community for you ：）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you mean to 纸杯蛋糕  zhǐ bēi dàn gāo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check out the imgs from baidu pics &lt;a href=&quot;http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&amp;amp;ps=1&amp;amp;ct=201326592&amp;amp;lm=-1&amp;amp;cl=2&amp;amp;nc=1&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;word=%E7%BA%B8%E6%9D%AF%E8%9B%8B%E7%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&amp;amp;ps=1&amp;amp;ct=201326592&amp;amp;lm=-1&amp;amp;cl=2&amp;amp;nc=1&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;word=%E7%BA%B8%E6%9D%AF%E8%9B%8B%E7%B3%95&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it？If so, I guess right :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16924" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T03:24:42.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23473" CreationDate="2017-04-21T03:35:14.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cupcake in Chinese should be &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.ca/search?q=%E6%9D%AF%E5%BD%A2%E8%9B%8B%E7%B3%95&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;tbo=u&amp;amp;source=univ&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwj-hLjjzbTTAhVh2oMKHdLpAxkQsAQIJA&amp;amp;biw=1416&amp;amp;bih=674&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;杯形蛋糕&lt;/a&gt; Bēi xíng dàngāo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since most of the 杯形蛋糕 is served in a paper cup,  it is also commonly called as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.ca/search?q=%E7%BA%B8%E6%9D%AF%E8%9B%8B%E7%B3%95&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwi87KjjzrTTAhVD9YMKHc88Aq4Q_AUICCgB&amp;amp;biw=1416&amp;amp;bih=674&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;纸杯蛋糕&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T03:35:14.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23463" CreationDate="2017-04-21T04:06:54.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;is that the effect you want to achieve？&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SGSHf.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SGSHf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;narrow down the characters&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;actually，I have searched some Chinese narrow fonts，but it seems not the effect.&#xA;So my advice is using Fonts function of Word/Excel,etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16924" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T04:06:54.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23463" CreationDate="2017-04-21T04:54:22.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the option to choose &quot;half-width&quot; or 半角, as opposed to &quot;full-width&quot; 全角, is used in Chinese input systems only for punctuation and other symbols, but not for Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read more about it here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.csdn.net/kevinhg/article/details/8702462&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blog.csdn.net/kevinhg/article/details/8702462&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I can discern, the original reason for having &quot;narrow-width&quot; and &quot;full-width&quot; characters was to make sure that CJK and English text could be properly aligned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16848" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T04:54:22.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23464" CreationDate="2017-04-21T05:54:53.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sound equivalent of eh in mandarin is 哎 or 欸, which usually appears at the start of a sentence, serving the purpose of calling for attention:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;哎, 你钱包掉啦! &#xA;Hey, you dropped the wallet!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it's put on the end of the sentence, it's usually meant to stress the point being made:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我的钱包丢了哎!&#xA;I lost my wallet!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the sound equivalent of &lt;code&gt;eh&lt;/code&gt; in mandarin serves totally different purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The function equivalent phrase in mandarin can sometimes be &lt;code&gt;嗯?&lt;/code&gt;, though I'd like to argue that few mandarin speaker actually say something like &lt;code&gt;他真的是個好人, 嗯?&lt;/code&gt; -- They usually say something like &lt;code&gt;是吧/对不对&lt;/code&gt; instead. Or, more eloquently:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;That's quite a story, eh?&#xA;这故事不错吧?&#xA;&#xA;he really is a good man, eh?&#xA;他这人真不赖吧?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sounds perfectly fine to me. Though if my friend says things like this in every other sentence, I would get annoyed pretty quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical Chinese ESL learner would presume that Chinese is the language in which it's normal to end a sentence with an interjection, while English isn't. So &lt;code&gt;That's quite a story, eh?!&lt;/code&gt; would strike him as a bit odd and even Chinese-like. If he happens to have Singaporean friends instead of Canadian ones he might even consider it to be Singlish. But that's about all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T05:54:53.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23467" CreationDate="2017-04-21T06:00:03.640" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a poor English expression level, so I can give you answers in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“己所不欲，勿施于人”是指：自己不想要的东西，切勿强加给别人。孔子所强调的是，人应该宽恕待人，应提倡“恕”道，唯有如此才是仁的表现。“恕”道是“仁”的消极表现，而其积极表现便是“己欲立而立人，己欲达而达人”。孔子所阐释的仁以“爱人”为中心，而爱人这种行为当然就包括着宽恕待人这一方面。《论语》中提到：夫子之道，忠恕而已矣。&#xA;　　这句话所揭晓的是处理人际关系的重要原则。孔子所言是指人应当以对待自身的行为为参照物来对待他人。人应该有宽广的胸怀，待人处事之时切勿心胸狭窄，而应宽宏大量，宽恕待人。倘若自己所讨厌的事物，硬推给他人，不仅会破坏与他人的关系，也会将事情弄得僵持而不可收拾。人与人之间的交往确实应该坚持这种原则，这是尊重他人，平等待人的体现。人生在世除了关注自身的存在以外，还得关注他人的存在，人与人之间是平等的，切勿将己所不欲施于人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, there is something annoying me, I should not shove it on my friend or other people, treat friends in the way treat myself....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16927" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T06:00:03.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23473" CreationDate="2017-04-21T10:13:11.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese. We just call it cake(蛋糕). Sometimes if others don't know what kind of cake is refering to, we'll add 'cake in a cup'“纸杯装的蛋糕”. Just like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16915" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T10:13:11.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19235" CreationDate="2017-04-21T11:57:50.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use a tool for Windows called NJ Pen (payware, but they offer a trial). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.njstar.com/cms/njstar-chinese-pen-download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.njstar.com/cms/njstar-chinese-pen-download&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just draw the strokes over the notepad page using your PC mouse (holding its left button until starting next stroke), and after you finally release the left button, the character will be typed in notepad (or in other editor you use). The tool is also provided as a part of NJ Star word processor (very useful for learners).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15956" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T11:57:50.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23467" CreationDate="2017-04-21T13:28:07.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;translate Literally: If you don't want or willing to do something by yourself, you should not force others to do these things.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It told us: One should be able to look at questions or things through somebody else's eyes and stand in their shoes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16823" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T13:28:07.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23445" CreationDate="2017-04-21T13:37:50.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;還了 &#xA;This means that 還 is a verb meaning &quot;repay&quot; rather than a adverb meaning &quot;still&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;虧空 means debt.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this sentence told us: My father repaid his debt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16823" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T13:37:50.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19235" CreationDate="2017-04-21T14:46:18.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would also suggest the app Pleco. You can hand write the character on a full-screen canvas. I used it when I studied in China. It also has a camera function (better than Google Translate) that you can point at the text and it overlays what it thinks is the correct character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16080" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T14:46:18.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19235" CreationDate="2017-04-21T15:52:59.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is where having a paper dictionary helps a lot... Low-tech wins every time. On the other hand when I am outside, I use a small Android app I wrote that accepts Wubihua 五筆畫 input. I input the strokes and it gives me options. I pick the one I want and I can display Unihan data. If I type &lt;code&gt;⼃⼃⼁⺂&lt;/code&gt; I get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tSWRo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tSWRo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then I pick 彿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ta7Zh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ta7Zh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All good. As suspected this character is pronounced fat6 in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T15:52:59.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23488" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23501" CreationDate="2017-04-21T15:59:35.123" Score="0" ViewCount="572" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in the title what is the difference in word usage/meaning between the following fours words: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;客&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;顾客&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;客户&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;客人&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16881" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T02:25:39.910" Title="Difference between 顾客, 客, 客户 and 客人" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23488" CreationDate="2017-04-21T17:23:48.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;顾客 and 客户 are customer(commercial ).&#xA;客人 means guest.&#xA;客 always means being guest/objective,which is contrast to  the owner/subjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16931" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T17:23:48.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23490" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-21T19:24:48.240" Score="3" ViewCount="2774" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was related to me that Tang Dynasty poetry is meant to be pronounced in the style of the Cantonese dialect.  Is this correct, incorrect, or a subject of contention? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16864" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T06:38:53.020" Title="Pronunciation of Tang Dynasty Poetry" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23491" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23492" CreationDate="2017-04-21T21:07:05.217" Score="1" ViewCount="790" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, how do you translate, &quot;Does anybody/anyone in the dorm have a vacuum I could use?&quot; Or, &quot;Can I borrow somebody's/someone's shoes?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how to say these types of questions that ask &quot;anybody&quot; &quot;anyone&quot; &quot;somebody&quot; or &quot;someone.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would appreciate help!! :))) Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16472" LastActivityDate="2017-04-23T18:27:37.493" Title="How to ask &quot;anybody/anyone/somebody/someone&quot; questions in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23491" CreationDate="2017-04-21T22:28:07.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically you want '有人‘ or ’谁‘。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody know the answer?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有人知道答案吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;谁知道答案吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone must know the answer！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;肯定有人知道答案！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody/anyone in the dorm have a vacuum I could use?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们宿舍有人可以借给我一台吸尘机吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Can I borrow somebody's/someone's shoes?&quot; &#xA;我能借一下别人的鞋子吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我能不能借一下谁的鞋子？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May I borrow someone's jacket?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我可以借别人的夹克吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我可否向别人借一下夹克？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who can lend me a jacket?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;谁能借我一件夹克衫？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who can lend me a vacuum cleaner?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;谁能借我一台吸尘器？有人可以借我一台吸尘器吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（Don't borrow other people's shoes, you might get a foot infection!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T22:28:07.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23493" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-21T23:18:03.693" Score="1" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;My sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未来商店的购物车把手上装有购物助手----一个可随意装卸的无线电脑工具。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;装卸的意思是: load-unload, transfer, assemble-disassemble&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe here '装卸‘ just means the 购物助手 'can be mounted on the shopping trolley if you wish'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or does 随意装卸的无线电脑‘ mean here 'the wireless computer can be freely programmed'? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case 装卸 means 'program, upload any data, transfer data to'? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T07:15:40.477" Title="What does 装卸 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23493" CreationDate="2017-04-22T02:01:47.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个可随意装卸的无线电脑工具&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important point to Wireless Computer Tools is that the tools don't need any wire to link with Shopping Cart. So they may link with each other through WiFi, Bluetooth or other wireless technology. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The linking progress is like that you link your Smartphone with computer or disconnect your phone from computer. So 装卸 means the linking progress that I said. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16823" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T02:01:47.170" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23490" CreationDate="2017-04-22T04:24:13.417" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is incorrect. Cantonese is a modern language just like Mandarin, English and every single other modern language is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exactly speaking, Tang Dynasty poetry &lt;em&gt;were&lt;/em&gt; pronounced back then in Tang Dynasty Chinese, which is called &lt;em&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Middle Chinese is different from any single existing Chinese language, and all contemporary Chinese languages have undergone drastic changes since then.&lt;/strong&gt; Generally speaking there is no difference which dialect you use to read the poetry. Beijing Mandarin is as good as Guangzhou Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes people think Cantonese is more conservative and closer to Middle Chinese than Mandarin. Well, this is not really true; it's a myth. Parts of the reason why people think so are, apart from cherry picking, misconceptions, smear attacks, and vague ethno-culturo-nationalist thoughts, and many other things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Most people speak Standard Mandarin, the de facto national language, so they take whatever that is in SM as granted. And when they see features in Cantonese not present in SM but present in Classical Chinese, they notice, but they don't when it's the other way around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One example is that Mandarin still uses the Classical existential word 在 (&quot;(be) at&quot;), but for the same function Cantonese has been using 喺 &lt;code&gt;hai2&lt;/code&gt; which lately developed from the Cantonese copula 系 &lt;code&gt;hai6&lt;/code&gt; with a grammatical tone sandhi. Here Mandarin is the &quot;orthodox&quot; or &quot;more Classical/archaic&quot; one, while Cantonese is the &quot;newer&quot; and counter-Classical one. But I have never seen ordinary people criticizing Cantonese or praising Mandarin for this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）The way historical Chinese linguistics has been describing how &quot;old&quot; a dialect is is by...checking how many sound changes the dialect has &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; shared with the contemporary lingua franca! Since Mandarin directly descended from practically all the lingua francas China has ever had, of course by this measure Mandarin is the &quot;youngest&quot; language of all Chinese. &lt;em&gt;But&lt;/em&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Essentially, when people in historical Chinese linguistics talk about how &quot;old&quot; a dialect is, they are actually talking about how much the dialect deviates from the lingua franca lineage. This is not a neutral measure, obviously.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People have asked me to give examples where Cantonese is much less close to Middle Chinese than Mandarin in sounds -- well, there are &lt;strong&gt;a ton&lt;/strong&gt;. I'll give two major example and a couple minor ones. The point of most of them -- &lt;strong&gt;Cantonese's vowel system is much more messed up compared to Middle Chinese than Mandarin's&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One major thing Cantonese uniquely has gone through is that &lt;strong&gt;it almost completely disposed of the rich medial system in Middle Chinese.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick recap, Chinese syllables are composed of maximally five to six parts, the &lt;em&gt;onset&lt;/em&gt;, the &lt;em&gt;medial&lt;/em&gt;, the &lt;em&gt;nucleus&lt;/em&gt;, the &lt;em&gt;coda&lt;/em&gt;, and a &lt;em&gt;tone&lt;/em&gt;. The last four collectively are known as the &lt;em&gt;rhyme&lt;/em&gt; 韵, and the last three as the &lt;em&gt;final&lt;/em&gt;. One such maximal syllable is &lt;code&gt;sian1&lt;/code&gt;, which has all five parts. This is the typical syllable structure for basically all Chinese languages today, including Mandarin. Some MC theories and also most of the Min language branch allow a glide before consonantal codas, so their maximal syllable is something like &lt;code&gt;siaung1&lt;/code&gt;, but this is now not seen outside of the Min language branch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Guangzhou Cantonese syllable has &lt;em&gt;no medial&lt;/em&gt;. Its maximal syllable structure is something like &lt;code&gt;siu2 /siːw35/&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;gwong2 /kʷɔŋ35/&lt;/code&gt;. This is because Cantonese &lt;em&gt;did&lt;/em&gt; do away with basically all its medials, and the only extant independent sound segments that correspond to MC medials are the &lt;code&gt;w&lt;/code&gt; thing seen after only two onsets -- &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;, and the initial consonants &lt;code&gt;j (y)&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;w&lt;/code&gt;. Modern acoustic experiments and phonological analyses agree that these are now either part of a single consonant (&lt;code&gt;kw&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;gw&lt;/code&gt;) or its own consonant, and so in Cantonese the medial structure does not exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middle Chinese, on the other hand, has an extremely rich medial system. Contemporary mainstream reconstructions have three basic medials, &lt;code&gt;*r&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;*i&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;*u&lt;/code&gt;, and these are combined in any manner you wish (a combination, not permutation), so &lt;strong&gt;in MC there were 8 distinct medials.&lt;/strong&gt; The words with medials are numerous as well. &lt;strong&gt;For just &lt;code&gt;*i&lt;/code&gt;, more than fifty percent of Early MC syllables have it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In fact, the MC rhymes were &lt;em&gt;arranged&lt;/em&gt; based on their medials in contemporary dictionaries.&lt;/strong&gt; People divided up rhymes into four tones, into many &quot;final groups&quot; according to the finals, and &lt;em&gt;into four &quot;levels/Deng&quot; 等 and two &quot;open-closed mouth&quot; classes 开合(口) according to their medials&lt;/em&gt;. The &lt;em&gt;third Deng&lt;/em&gt; 三等 had the &lt;code&gt;*i&lt;/code&gt; medial, the &lt;em&gt;second Deng&lt;/em&gt; 二等 had the &lt;code&gt;*r&lt;/code&gt; medial without &lt;code&gt;*i&lt;/code&gt;, and the &lt;em&gt;first Deng&lt;/em&gt; 一等 and the &lt;em&gt;fourth Deng&lt;/em&gt; 四等 had neither. The &lt;em&gt;first Deng&lt;/em&gt; was comprised of syllables with nuclei &lt;code&gt;*/ɑ/&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;*/ə/&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;*/o/&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;*/u/&lt;/code&gt;, while the &lt;em&gt;fourth Deng&lt;/em&gt; was comprised of those with the nucleus &lt;code&gt;*/e/&lt;/code&gt;; it merged into the &lt;em&gt;third Deng&lt;/em&gt; in later MC (i.e. these syllables acquired a medial &lt;code&gt;*i&lt;/code&gt;). The &quot;closed-mouth&quot; 合口 were syllables with the &lt;code&gt;*u&lt;/code&gt; medial, and the &quot;open-mouth&quot; 开口 were those without &lt;code&gt;*u&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;*r&lt;/code&gt; has disappeared in basically all dialects. In Northern Mandarin dialects it was idiosyncratically converted  to &lt;code&gt;i&lt;/code&gt; after dorsal sounds (&lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;ng&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;glottal stop&lt;/code&gt;, etc), preserving some traces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing that has further happened to Guangzhou Cantonese, however, is that, except when it began the syllable, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;*i&lt;/code&gt;  disappeared completely.&lt;/strong&gt; For some finals, &lt;code&gt;*i&lt;/code&gt; simply disappeared with no traces left, So GZC no longer distinguishes words like 九 (GZC &lt;code&gt;gau2&lt;/code&gt; MC &lt;code&gt;*/kiəu2/&lt;/code&gt; BJM &lt;code&gt;jiou3&lt;/code&gt;) and 狗 (GZC &lt;code&gt;gau2&lt;/code&gt; MC &lt;code&gt;*/kəu2/&lt;/code&gt; BJM &lt;code&gt;gou3&lt;/code&gt;), or words like 菊 (GZC &lt;code&gt;guk1&lt;/code&gt; MC &lt;code&gt;*/kiuk/&lt;/code&gt; BJM &lt;code&gt;ju2&lt;/code&gt;) and 谷 (GZC &lt;code&gt;guk1&lt;/code&gt; MC &lt;code&gt;*/kuk/&lt;/code&gt; BJM &lt;code&gt;gu3&lt;/code&gt;). For others, which is most finals, the &lt;code&gt;*i&lt;/code&gt; medial &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;merged with the nucleus&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, resulting in &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;different vowel qualities&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Middle Chinese &lt;code&gt;*/-iɛn/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;*/-yɛn/&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; GZC &lt;code&gt;in /-iːn/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;yun /-yːn/&lt;/code&gt;, and BJM &lt;code&gt;ian /-iɛn/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;yuan /-yɛn/&lt;/code&gt; if non-retroflex, and &lt;code&gt;an /-an/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;uan /-uan/&lt;/code&gt; after retroflex;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar things happened to the &lt;code&gt;*u&lt;/code&gt; medial: it was preserved only after &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;, and word-initially, and even then &lt;code&gt;hu-&lt;/code&gt; merged with &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt;, leaving only &lt;code&gt;ku-&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;gu-&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;w-&lt;/code&gt;. As said above, in Modern GZC &lt;code&gt;ku-&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;gu-&lt;/code&gt; have become single consonants &lt;code&gt;kw&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;gw&lt;/code&gt;. They no longer contain a medial segment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;As a result, for many finals MC first and third Dengs and/or open and closed classes no longer rhyme. So a large class of words do not rhyme in Cantonese while they did in Middle Chinese and they do in Mandarin.&lt;/strong&gt; For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Middle Chinese &lt;code&gt;*/-iɑŋ/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;*/-ɑŋ/&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; GZC &lt;code&gt;oeng /-œːŋ/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ong /-ɔːŋ/&lt;/code&gt; and BJM &lt;code&gt;iang /-iɑŋ/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;ang /-ɑŋ/&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The vowel quality for a vaster class words have also deviated much more from Middle Chinese than they are in Mandarin.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here there is another major thing in Cantonese: &lt;strong&gt;many finals split after dorsal/labial onsets (&lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;ng&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;p&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;m&lt;/code&gt;, ...) and coronal onsets (&lt;code&gt;t&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;s&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;l&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt;...), making them even no longer rhyme.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Middle Chinese &lt;code&gt;*/-ɑn/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;*/-uɑn/&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;GZC {&lt;code&gt;aan /-aːn/&lt;/code&gt; after coronals, &lt;code&gt;on /-ɔːn/&lt;/code&gt; otherwise} and {&lt;code&gt;yun /-yːn/&lt;/code&gt; after coronals, &lt;code&gt;un /-uːn/&lt;/code&gt; otherwise}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(&lt;code&gt;/y/&lt;/code&gt; is the vowel of French &lt;code&gt;u&lt;/code&gt; and German long &lt;code&gt;ü&lt;/code&gt;; it is also &lt;code&gt;/i/&lt;/code&gt;, English &lt;code&gt;ee&lt;/code&gt; with lips rounded)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;BJM &lt;code&gt;an /-an/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;uan /-uan/&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Middle Chinese &lt;code&gt;*/-ən/&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;*/-in/&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;*/-uən/&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;*/-yin/&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;GZC &lt;code&gt;an /-ɐn/&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;an /-ɐn/&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;eon /-ɵn/&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;eon /-ɵn/&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;BJM &lt;code&gt;en /-ən/&lt;/code&gt;, {&lt;code&gt;in /-in/&lt;/code&gt; if non-retroflex and &lt;code&gt;en /-ən/&lt;/code&gt; after retroflex)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;uen /-uən/&lt;/code&gt;, {&lt;code&gt;yun /-yn~yin/&lt;/code&gt; if non-retroflex and &lt;code&gt;uen /-uən/&lt;/code&gt; after retroflex);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Middle Chinese &lt;code&gt;*/-uo/&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;GZC &lt;code&gt;u /-uː/&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; and word initially, disappears after &lt;code&gt;ng&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;ou /-ou/&lt;/code&gt; otherwise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;BJM &lt;code&gt;u /-u/&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the minor ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese has lost the Middle Chinese retroflex consonants, which are preserved in Beijing Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For what would become sets of coronal affricates in Later Chinese, Early Middle Chinese makes a four-way distinction. It distinguished between &lt;code&gt;retroflex stops&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;retroflex affricates/fricatives&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;postalveolar affricates/fricatives&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;alveolar affricates/fricatives&lt;/code&gt;. All four sets collapsed into one in Guangzhou Cantonese, while Beijing Mandarin still preserves a two way distinction, largely the first three groups with the last.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese, like most Southern Chinese dialects, have shifted its MC &lt;code&gt;*/ɑ/&lt;/code&gt; completely to &lt;code&gt;*/ɔ/&lt;/code&gt;. This is only seen in Mandarin for MC syllables with nucleus &lt;code&gt;*/ɑ/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;em&gt;no coda&lt;/em&gt;. About the largest set of words in MC had &lt;code&gt;*/ɑ/&lt;/code&gt;, so this is pretty significant.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The second and third largest vowel class in MC were &lt;code&gt;*/e/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;*/ə/&lt;/code&gt;. Both Cantonese and Mandarin have messed around with &lt;code&gt;*/e/&lt;/code&gt;, but MC &lt;code&gt;*/ə/&lt;/code&gt; stays &lt;code&gt;/ə/&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin while it has become a more open &lt;code&gt;/ɐ/&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese, which sounds like British English (traditional Received Pronunciation) sound &lt;code&gt;uh&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;cut&lt;/code&gt;, instead of the first vowel in the English word &lt;code&gt;about&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since MC &lt;code&gt;*/i/&lt;/code&gt;, the fourth most common vowel, merged with &lt;code&gt;*/ə/&lt;/code&gt; in both Cantonese and Mandarin &lt;em&gt;when there is a coda&lt;/em&gt;, and in particular Cantonese does not retain the medial (MC &lt;code&gt;*/i/&lt;/code&gt; &gt; Mandarin &lt;code&gt;/iə/&lt;/code&gt; when there is coda), its effects are also not insignificant. i.e. MC &lt;code&gt;*/i/&lt;/code&gt; &gt; Cantonese &lt;code&gt;/ɐ/&lt;/code&gt; whenever there is a coda.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This can be compared with Mandarin, where &lt;code&gt;/iə/&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;[i]&lt;/code&gt; unless there is no coda (so MC &lt;code&gt;*/i/&lt;/code&gt; &gt; Mandarin &lt;code&gt;[i]&lt;/code&gt; anyway)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese diphthongized its original high vowels &lt;code&gt;/iː/&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;/uː/&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;/yː/&lt;/code&gt; in the 19th century, so they are now &lt;code&gt;/ei/&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;/ou/&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;/œy/&lt;/code&gt; (st&lt;strong&gt;ay&lt;/strong&gt;, kn&lt;strong&gt;ow&lt;/strong&gt;, st&lt;strong&gt;ay&lt;/strong&gt; with rounded lips). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Further, older Cantonese &lt;code&gt;*/uiː/&lt;/code&gt; has now become &lt;code&gt;/(w)ɐi/&lt;/code&gt; (North American English &lt;strong&gt;(w)i&lt;/strong&gt;fe). &lt;code&gt;*/uiː/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;*/iː/&lt;/code&gt; differ only by a medial and have the same final, so they used to rhyme like in MC, but now they no longer do.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The MC onset &lt;code&gt;*/kʰ/&lt;/code&gt; (English &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt;) have become &lt;code&gt;/h/&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese irregularly in large numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The earlier Cantonese sequence &lt;code&gt;*/hw-/&lt;/code&gt; became &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; in Modern Cantonese. Coupled with the change above you get pronunciations that do not appear to be regular but actually basically are: 科 MC &lt;code&gt;*/kʰuɑ1/&lt;/code&gt; Cantonese &lt;code&gt;fo1 /fɔː1/&lt;/code&gt;, 阔 MC &lt;code&gt;*/kʰuɑt1/&lt;/code&gt; Cantonese &lt;code&gt;fut3 /fuːt3/&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, as said at the beginning, &lt;strong&gt;every dialect has its own numerous innovations (=deviations) and accordingly preservations. The innovations of each dialect happen in different aspects and different directions, so every dialect preserves its own parts of Middle Chinese while having lost its own parts of the Middle Chinese traits. No dialect preserves &quot;objectively the closest&quot; sound system and correspondence to Middle Chinese, because in this reality it does not make sense to speak of this single, unitary &quot;closeness&quot; dimension relative to Middle Chinese.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for the rhyming myth...Let's try out a famous poem by 李绅, titled 悯农:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;锄禾日当午，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;汗滴禾下土。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谁知盘中餐，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;粒粒皆辛苦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contemporary Beijing Mandarin (obsolete literary readings are not featured):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;chu2 he2 ri4 dang1 wu3&#xA;han4 di1 he2 xia4 tu3&#xA;shui2 zhi1 pan2 zhong1 can1&#xA;li4 li4 jie1 xin1 ku3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conservative (i.e. preserving more older features, and still in use) Guangzhou Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;co4 wo4 jat6 dong1 ng5&#xA;hon6 dik1 wo4 haa6 tou2&#xA;seoi4 zi1 pun4 zung1 caan1&#xA;nap1 nap1 gaai1 san1 fu2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here you have BJM rhyming in &lt;code&gt;-u3&lt;/code&gt;, and GZC rhyming in...&lt;code&gt;ng5&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;ou2&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;u2&lt;/code&gt;? Clearly Guangzhou Cantonese does not rhyme here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, the arguably single best known Tang poem, by 李白, titled 静夜思:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;床前明月光，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;疑是地上霜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;举头望明月，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;低头思故乡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;chuang2 qian2 ming2 yue4 guang1&#xA;yi2 shi4 di4 shang4 shuang1&#xA;ju3 tou2 wang4 ming2 yue4&#xA;di1 tou2 si1 gu4 xiang1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While in Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;cong4 cin4 ming4 jyut6 gwong1&#xA;ji4 si6 dei6 soeng6 soeng1&#xA;geoi2 tau4 mong6 ming4 jyut6&#xA;dai1 tau4 si1 gu3 hoeng1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here again, in Cantonese this does not rhyme because it converted MC &lt;code&gt;*iɑŋ&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;oeng&lt;/code&gt;, but MC &lt;code&gt;*uɑŋ&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;(w)ong&lt;/code&gt;. In Mandarin this does rhyme; the MC &lt;code&gt;*ɑŋ&lt;/code&gt; final is simply preserved. In MC 霜 had the &lt;code&gt;*iɑŋ&lt;/code&gt; rhyme, which in Mandarin was converted to &lt;code&gt;uang&lt;/code&gt; after retroflex onsets. Cantonese actually went through this sound change as well; 霜's pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;soeng1&lt;/code&gt; is actually irregular, and would have been &lt;code&gt;song1&lt;/code&gt; if it were regular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastEditorUserId="16058" LastEditDate="2017-05-02T18:38:14.723" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T18:38:14.723" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23496" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23497" CreationDate="2017-04-22T05:21:29.340" Score="2" ViewCount="416" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there anything special I need to do to use nouns as adjectives in Chinese? As far as I can tell, such grammatical constructions are identical to English without any need for particles like 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;通知 + 選項 ≟ 通知選項 (Notification + Options = Notification Options)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;專輯 + 列表 ≟ 專輯列表 (Album + List = Album List)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There doesn't appear to be any information on the Web describing this, perhaps because it's seemingly straightfoward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16406" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T18:59:49.900" Title="How to use nouns as adjectives?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23496" CreationDate="2017-04-22T06:03:24.240" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is correct. The rule of using adjectival noun in Chinese is the same as in English. You can take any &lt;strong&gt;standard noun&lt;/strong&gt; and use it as an &lt;strong&gt;adjectival noun&lt;/strong&gt; to modify a &lt;strong&gt;main noun&lt;/strong&gt; as long as it make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;交通 (traffic) + 意外 (accident) = 交通意外 (traffic accident)&#xA;You don't need to use particles like 的 to link the two nouns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;交通意外(traffic accident) is a single noun * &lt;em&gt;with 交通 as the adjectival noun and 意外 as the main noun&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;交通的意外 (traffic's accident) is a phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Important:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many Chinese nouns are made up of two noun characters that combined into one stand-alone word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;車 (Car) + 禍 (disaster) = 車禍 (car accident)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 車禍 (car accident) is a noun on its own, you cannot break them up and treat them as two individual nouns and write 車的禍 (cars' disaster)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-10-09T18:59:49.900" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T18:59:49.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23493" CreationDate="2017-04-22T07:02:10.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;购物助手(shopping helper) is the topic&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一个可随意装卸的无线电脑工具。'&lt;em&gt;a wireless computer tool (device) that can be mounted and dismounted at will.&lt;/em&gt;'  is the comment on the topic. It explains what 购物助手 is.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 购物助手 is a device, 装卸(mount/dismount) here refers to the mounting and dismounting of the unit itself--  nothing to do with data upload and download.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'Data &lt;strong&gt;upload&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;download&lt;/strong&gt;' in Chinese would be '数据(data)&lt;strong&gt;上传&lt;/strong&gt;(up load)和&lt;strong&gt;下载&lt;/strong&gt;(down load)'.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not '数据(data)&lt;strong&gt;装上&lt;/strong&gt;(load up)和&lt;strong&gt;卸下&lt;/strong&gt;(unload)'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-04-22T07:15:40.477" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T07:15:40.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23490" CreationDate="2017-04-22T07:06:12.817" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;well,  this answer is &quot;limited&quot; only, in relation to poetry in 唐 dynasty &amp;amp; cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1   cantonese (and several southern dialects/languages) is highly correlated to middle chinese, which was used in 唐 dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2   cantonese still has 入聲 (entering tone), while mandarin lost it. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%B1%8B&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;屋 uk1&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/uk1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B2%83&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;沃 yuk1&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/juk1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%87%AD&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;燭 juk1&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/zuk1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in mandarin, these three are pronounced as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;屋　wū　(陰平, dark level)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沃　wò　(去, departing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;燭　zhú　(陽平, dark level)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3   韻書 (rime dictionary), e.g. 切韻, 廣韻; one can find character based on cantonese, or other southern dialects / languages, but not mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4   poetry in 唐 dynasty had rules and patterns. compare to a language without entering tone, characters &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; in accord with rime dictionary; &lt;strong&gt;cantonese is a better choice&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, there was a book 文鏡秘府論 by japanese monk 遍照金剛　(空海), which was written at about 809. it talks about the rules /  patterns of poetry &amp;amp; chinese phonology in details. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the internet archive has a copy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/search.php?query=%E6%96%87%E9%8F%A1%E7%A7%98%E5%BA%9C%E8%AB%96&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/search.php?query=文鏡秘府論&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.books.com.tw/products/CN11332401&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;文鏡秘府論匯校彙考&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have a read, please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T07:06:12.817" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23496" CreationDate="2017-04-22T14:15:16.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This kind of construction is very common in English, like chairman, ice-cream, horseshoe, fairy tales, bus stop, and so on. Pretty intuitive. It is a kind of compound noun as in English. In Chinese, it is free to construct new words in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some more examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中華人民共和國 = 中華 / 人民 / 共和國 (Three nouns)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;香港鐵路博物館 = 香港 / 鐵路 / 博物館 (Three nouns)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全國人民代表大會 = 全國 ／人民 / 代表 / 大會 (Four nouns)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason behind your question on &quot;nouns as adjectives&quot; is just because you try to fit English grammar in Chinese languages.  This is not necessary. When a pupil studies English in school, teachers teach much stuff on the part of speech and its morphology, and the way to judge a sentence is grammatically correct. Morphology is unimportant in Chinese languages. If you pick some Chinese dictionaries, the part of speech is not always mentioned. Chinese feels natural to word meaning and order, conversation and passage context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese tradition, it is advised to write as few words as possible. 的 is mostly optional but it sometimes enhances rhyme and rhythm, and acts as a pause in speech ,and functions as a word boundary in sentence.  Some writers immersing too much in Western morphology might overuse it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T14:15:16.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23488" CreationDate="2017-04-22T14:35:22.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;客, guest, visitor. For a shop, it is customer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;顧客, customer. (顧, look back -&gt; visit and revisit.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;客户, customer account, a customer with account. (户, the front door -&gt; household -&gt; account). Some ignore the concept of account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;客人, 人客. guest / visitor (of human).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T14:35:22.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23502" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-23T03:47:41.990" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ask this question, and provide my opinion as an answer, to reply to the comment of another tread in stack exchange:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23490/pronunciation-of-tang-dynasty-poetry&quot;&gt;Pronunciation of Tang Dynasty Poetry&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rationale is that it is difficult to write long answers ib the comments area, and, I've several arguments to express. Also it is too long to make it in the answer. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I ask again, to use a rime dictionary, e.g. 切韻, 廣韻, is Cantonese better than Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-04-23T04:45:05.397" LastActivityDate="2017-04-23T07:29:51.113" Title="Is Cantonese a better choice in looking for characters in rime dictionary (韻書)?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;middle-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23502" CreationDate="2017-04-23T04:03:12.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though I emphasize Cantonese here, any southern dialect / language that still have entering tone (入聲); e.G. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/checked_tone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hakka and Min&lt;/a&gt;, would have a similar scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The oldest rime dictionary (韻書) I found, is 鉅宋廣韻, printed in 1169; that the national archives of Japan has a downloadable copy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.Digital.Archives.Go.Jp/das/pickup/view/category/categoryarchives/0500000000/0511000000/00&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.Digital.Archives.Go.Jp/das/pickup/view/category/categoryarchives/0500000000/0511000000/00&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To look for a character in rime dictionary, you just need to know how to pronounce it, &lt;strong&gt;in Cantonese&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's try to find &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.Arts.Cuhk.Edu.Hk/lexis/lexi-mf/search.Php?Word=%E5%85%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;入 (u+5165)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I know it's pronounced as &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.Arts.Cuhk.Edu.Hk/lexis/lexi-mf/sound/jap6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;; which is straight &amp;amp; short (直而促). A clear, significant sign that 入 (u+5165) is in entering tone (入聲).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, if I try to write it's romanisation( I used sydney lay scheme, you may use others), it would be &quot;yap&quot;. It ends with -p, another significant sign that 入 (u+5165) is in entering tone (入聲).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pick up volume 5 of 鉅宋廣韻 {volume I &amp;amp; II is for level tone (平聲), volume III for rising tone (上聲), volume IV for departing tone (去聲); and volume V for entering tone (入聲)}.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.Digital.Archives.Go.Jp/das/pickup/view/detail/detailarchives/0511000000/0000000873/00&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.Digital.Archives.Go.Jp/das/pickup/view/detail/detailarchives/0511000000/0000000873/00&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Turn to the index page of volume 5, read from right to left, top to bottom; try to find any character that has a similar pronunciation with &quot;入&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Voilà, 緝第二十六; the character 緝 has a similar pronunciation, and, the &quot;七入&quot; above 緝 is used for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;反切&lt;/a&gt;, which has &quot;入&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, turn to 緝第二十六. Well, no page number in ancient Chinese books. You guess roughly, and turn the page :( read again from right to left, then top to bottom. Voilà, it's there:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lqykp.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lqykp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;p35.Png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, 緝第二十六 is page 34, 入 is page 35:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was written: 入﹒得也﹒ 内也﹒納也﹒人執切&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, 内 (u+5185) is not 內 (u+5167); anyone see the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, this comment is quoted from the above mentioned thread:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Point 3 is straight factually incorrect that people can use 韻書 (rime dictionaries) with Cantonese but not Mandarin. It is just factually wrong and unlike point 1, there even is no dispute about this. Rime dictionaries do not apply as much to Cantonese as they do not to Mandarin. – rethliopuks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, may I ask, how can anyone searches for the character 入 (u+5165), using Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Mandarin, 入 is pronounced as rù (去聲). So, anyone picking volume IV of 鉅宋廣韻 would be trapped, it's &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; in this volume.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used 入 as the only example to show the &lt;strong&gt;uselessness of Mandarin&lt;/strong&gt; in looking for characters in rime dictionaries. If anyone have time and effort, and wants to verify this context, try two more entering tone (入聲) characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.Arts.Cuhk.Edu.Hk/lexis/lexi-mf/search.Php?Word=%E5%93%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;哲 (u+54f2)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.Arts.Cuhk.Edu.Hk/lexis/lexi-mf/search.Php?Word=%E7%A6%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;福 (u+798f)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This answer is already quite long, I would say that most, or, all entering tone (入聲) characters would have the same scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last, I would conclude that, to look for character in rime dictionaries (韻書), Cantonese, or other dialects / languages that have entering tone (入聲); are a better choice than Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, a direct, maybe provoking statement would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Since Mandarin lost the entering tone (入聲), it's useless in looking up characters in rime dictionaries (韻書).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stay tuned, there'll be another thread about entering tone (入聲) and old Chinese; Cantonese is again better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-04-23T07:29:51.113" LastActivityDate="2017-04-23T07:29:51.113" CommentCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23490" CreationDate="2017-04-23T04:31:37.220" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;水巷孑蠻 and Rethliopuks gave quite a lot of details. But this does not address quite right to the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read the origin question:&#xA;&quot;It was related to me that Tang Dynasty poetry is meant to be pronounced in the style of the Cantonese dialect. Is this correct, incorrect, or a subject of contention?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is not about the actual pronunciation in Tang Dynasty. The keyword is &lt;strong&gt;Tang Dynasty poetry&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;the style of the Cantonese dialect&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some common senses&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We speak not like the people in a thousand year ago. A language evolves everyday by its speakers.  The discussion of actual pronunciation is not right. There were wide variety of Chinese languages in Tang Dynasty as in nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike Western languages, Chinese language writes no phonetic value. The rime books in Sui, Tang and Song just categorise types of rimes, it do not dictate its phonetic value. The preface of rime book 切韻 says that &quot;評論古今是非、南北通塞、編成《切韻》一書。&quot; They tried to distinguish the rimes in the past and now, the languages of north and south China as fine as possible. You can expected some categories indistinguishable in some Chinese languages in Sui, Tang, and Song. The language in 長安 is not the same as in 洛陽. Every village had its set of phonetic values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phonetic values in current publications about Middle Chinese are just a form of educated guess. They are derived from the rime of poetry, the Buddhist name in the translation of Sanskrit, the related documents in Korean and Japanese, and most importantly from the current Chinese languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among numerous rimes, they are grouped under four categories, namely 平 (flat), 上 (upward), 去 (leaving), 入 (entering). They are four tones in the Chinese languages. There are large number of words in 平 tone and some less in 上, 去, and 入. In poetry, 上, 去, 入 are grouped in 仄 (non-flat) in contrast to 平. The use of 平仄 is the basic construction of poetry from Sui and afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;入 tone is special that it must end in -p, -t, -k. On the contrary, No -p, -t, or -k are in 平, 上, 去 tones. Some degenerated in later languages ends with -?. Mandarin loses the 入 tone completely due to the loss of -p, -t, and -k.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tang Dynasty poetry&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tang poetry is musical. The core values of Tang Dynasty poetry is the strict use of 平仄 (the flat tone vs other tones, namely, non-flat tone)). The long and short, the high and low, produce some musical effect. The basic types of poetry are 絕詩 (four-line poetry) vs 律詩 (eight-line poetry), and 七言 (poetry seven-word in a line ) vs 五言 (poetry with five words in a line). There are some longer types like 樂府. Each have some rules on 平仄 to make poetry sounds good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;押韻 - Rhyme usually occurs in the last word of a line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 五言絕詩 is a poetry of four lines and each line with five words. &#xA;Its rules is not easy to explain in a few words. Here is some basic rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is not necessary to rhyme first line.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rhyme the last word of the second and fourth line. The rime must be in 平 tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The last word of the third line must be in 仄 tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some common patterns are in the following: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pattern 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（仄）仄平平仄，平平仄仄平。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（平）平平仄仄，（仄）仄仄平平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pattern 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（仄）仄仄平平，平平仄仄平。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（平）平平仄仄，（仄）仄仄平平。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pattern 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（平）平平仄仄，（仄）仄仄平平。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（仄）仄平平仄，平平仄仄平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pattern 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平平仄仄平，（仄）仄仄平平。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（仄）仄平平仄，平平仄仄平。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one in () is suggestion only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us examine an early Tang poetry《相思》by 王維&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;紅豆生南國，春來發幾枝。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;願君多采擷，此物最相思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We extract this the four tone first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平去平平入　平平入上平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去平平上入　上入去平平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then translate to 平仄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平仄平平仄　平平仄仄平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仄平平仄仄　仄仄仄平平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It deviates from the common patterns but it follows the rules above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;枝 and 思 is the in same rime of 平 tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;擷 is 入 tone and it is 仄 tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you see above, the use of 平仄 is essential to Tang poetry. Let's turn to examine Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The style of the Cantonese dialect&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese is not a dialect. It is a language, one of the Chinese languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese is a tonic language with 9 tones (or 10 tones). But it can be categorized like those old rime books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平 - 陰平 (high flat), 陽平 (low flat)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上 - 陰上 (high upward), 陽上 (low upward)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去 - 陰去 (high leaving), 陽去 (low leaving)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;入 - 陰入 (high upward), 中入 (middle entering), 陽入 (low entering) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't expect Cantonese sounds like those speeches in Tang. If one use this as augment to talk about Tang poetry, he got it wrong. When we come to Tang poetry, we concern only that &quot;how well Cantonese follows the rule of 平仄 and rhyme of Tang poetry?&quot; Cantonese largely obey these rules. There are tons of examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In compare to other Chinese languages, the 介音 (middle vowels) in Cantonese are degenerated. But when it comes to poetry, it does not affect rhyme much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most works of poetry like《相思》by 王維 rhyme well and follow the 平仄 rules well in Cantonese pronunciation. But we can't expect there is no exception as languages evolve. The poetry of 憫農 is an outliner and one should not use it to make the conclusion that Cantonese does not fit at large. It is misleading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all Chinese languages evolves equally but Cantonese evolves in the way fit well in Tang poetry. On the contrary, Mandarin evolves in the way that the loss of -m, -p, -t, -k, hurts the alignment to many families of rimes, and violates the 平仄 of Tang poetry. Mandarin does not fit well in Tang poetry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastEditorUserId="6158" LastEditDate="2017-04-23T09:27:52.383" LastActivityDate="2017-04-23T09:27:52.383" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23505" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23519" CreationDate="2017-04-23T05:12:39.747" Score="1" ViewCount="572" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, how do Chinese speakers normally say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your room is so clean!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your room is so dirty!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your room is so tidy!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your room is so untidy!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脏 Is this the most common way to say dirty?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16472" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T22:42:38.780" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T22:42:38.780" Title="What are the common words for &quot;clean&quot; and &quot;dirty&quot;, &quot;tidy&quot; and &quot;untidy&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;antonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23505" CreationDate="2017-04-23T05:19:05.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“clean” -- 干净&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“dirty”  -- 脏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“tidy” -- 整洁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“untidy” -- 邋遢、凌乱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastActivityDate="2017-04-23T05:19:05.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23505" CreationDate="2017-04-23T08:20:16.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your room is &lt;strong&gt;so clean&lt;/strong&gt;! - 你的房间&lt;strong&gt;真干净&lt;/strong&gt;！&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your room is &lt;strong&gt;so dirty&lt;/strong&gt;! -  你的房间&lt;strong&gt;真脏&lt;/strong&gt;！/ 你的房间&lt;strong&gt;真肮脏&lt;/strong&gt;！&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your room is &lt;strong&gt;so tidy!&lt;/strong&gt; - 你的房间&lt;strong&gt;真整洁&lt;/strong&gt;！&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your room is &lt;strong&gt;so untidy&lt;/strong&gt;! - 你的房间&lt;strong&gt;真不整洁&lt;/strong&gt;！/ 你的房间&lt;strong&gt;真凌乱&lt;/strong&gt;！/你的房间&lt;strong&gt;真乱&lt;/strong&gt;！&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;脏 Is this the most common way to say dirty?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, 脏 or 肮脏 is the most common way to say 'dirty' when it comes to describing a room or place. It can also describe object, thought or deed &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other term for dirty include: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;污穢 (place, thought or deed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嗱喳/揦鮓/揦苴(laa5 zaa2), 邋遢(la1 ta1), 污糟(wu1 zou1) are all Cantonese only&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-04-24T02:53:45.567" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T02:53:45.567" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23508" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-23T11:21:58.337" Score="3" ViewCount="571" Body="&lt;p&gt;Again, I ask this question, and provide my opinion as an answer, to reply to the comment of another thread in Stack Exchange:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23490/pronunciation-of-tang-dynasty-poetry&quot;&gt;Pronunciation of Tang Dynasty Poetry&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I ask again: in studying Classic of Poetry (詩經), is Cantonese better than Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any idea? Proof?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-04-24T05:28:00.990" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T16:08:40.723" Title="Is Cantonese a better choice in studying classic of poetry (詩經)?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23508" CreationDate="2017-04-23T11:29:56.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Odes of the Classic of Poetry (詩經) dated from 11th to 6th BC, occasionally, entering tone (入聲) characters were used, for the purpose of rhyming (押韻).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that there were much fewer entering tone (入聲) characters, this phenomenon (rhyming with entering tone 押入聲韻) should be highly appreciated while reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the last groups of verse in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&amp;id=15677&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小雅﹒正月&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佌佌彼有屋、蔌蔌方有穀。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;民今之無祿、天夭是椓。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哿矣富人、哀此惸獨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mean-like, those have their houses;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Abjects, they will have their emoluments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the people now have no maintenance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Heaven is pounding them with its calamities,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rich may get through,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But alas for the helpless and solitary!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, James League translated the meaning only, the beauty of rhyming with entering tone (押入聲韻) is totally lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if we use Cantonese to mark the end of the verses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佌佌彼有屋　(&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%B1%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;uk1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/uk1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　蔌蔌方有穀　(&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%A9%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;guk1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/guk1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;民今之無祿　(&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%A5%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;luk6&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/luk6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　天夭是椓　(&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%A4%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;deuk3&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/doek3.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哿矣富人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　哀此惸獨　(&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%8D%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;duk6&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/duk6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See that? These six verses, five of them end with the entering tone (入聲). Four of them rhyme with 屋韻 (-uk). Isn't it marvellous that after thousands of years, we can still discover this rhyming with entering tone, &lt;strong&gt;in Cantonese&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On contrary, if we use Mandarin, it would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;屋　wū (陰平聲)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;穀　gǔ (上聲)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祿　lù (去聲)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;椓　zhuó (陽平聲)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;獨　dú (陽平聲)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would describe it as &amp;quot;confusing&amp;quot; that using Mandarin, no one can discover the rhyming with entering tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I use one odes only, cause this answer is already long, there are other odes in Classic of Poetry with a similar phenomenon. If anyone is interested, I can list these out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, since Mandarin lost the entering tone (入聲), the rhyming with entering tone (押入聲韻) cannot be detected in Mandarin. Therefore, Cantonese is a better choice (or, other southern languages that still have the entering tone), in studying the Classic of Poetry (詩經).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%94%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蔌 (u+850c)&lt;/a&gt; is also in entering tone, pronounced as chuk1, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/cuk1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, this example can prove that entering tone exists in old chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T09:27:28.373" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23510" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-23T12:11:41.943" Score="2" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am fascinated by &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikibooks.org/zh-hant/%E5%AF%B9%E8%81%94/%E6%97%A0%E6%83%85%E5%AF%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;無情對&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is two of my attempts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;四川特產北菇&lt;/strong&gt; (Sichuan specialty mushroom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;三洋通用東芝&lt;/strong&gt; (Sanyo, GM, Toshiba)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;今朝書店晚開&lt;/strong&gt; (Bookstore open late today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;現代本田日產&lt;/strong&gt; (Hyundai, Honda, Nissan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;All in Cantonese&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think my matching of characters is acceptable, but not sure if they fit the 平仄 rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is as follows : What is the 平仄 rule in 無情對? Does my samples correctly followed this rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-23T21:02:20.567" Title="What is the 平仄 rule in 無情對" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23510" CreationDate="2017-04-23T17:30:02.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you just ask for tone pattern rule, the tone pattern of couplet also matches with the poetry. So I use tone pattern of middle Chinese for reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an ideal situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;国破山河在，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  仄仄平平仄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;城春草木深。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   平平仄仄平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes it's hard to match a pair of word in level (平) tones and oblique (仄) tones, so when it comes to normal couplet case, we just require the tone of last characters must match the tones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上联：雄黄酒    平平&lt;strong&gt;仄&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下联：牡丹烟    仄平&lt;strong&gt;平&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-23T17:30:02.310" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19235" CreationDate="2017-04-23T17:39:49.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stoke method require the user know how to write Chinese characters(Hanzi) in a right order. It's so high standard that even native Chinese rarely use this input method. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to type the hanzi without knowing the pronunciation, there's an input method - Wubi method is good for you. This method has the fastest speed for typing Hanzis, but it require you know the Hanzi well. And it's only for simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-23T17:39:49.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23463" CreationDate="2017-04-23T17:53:53.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters has halfwidth and fullwidth forms . But I guess that's not what you ask for: The normal Chinese characters you saw are all half-width.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 1st line are normal characters we see/use daily. It's half-width.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2nd line are full-width characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X4iow.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X4iow.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;pic&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-23T17:53:53.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23505" CreationDate="2017-04-23T23:43:57.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your room is spotless! 你的房间一尘不染。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your room is disgusting! 你的房间真恶心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your room is so neat and tidy! 你的屋子井然有序！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your room is soooo untidy, there's not even anywhere to stand!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的房间乱得连下脚的地方都没有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your room is a total mess! 你的房间一团糟！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-23T23:43:57.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23505" CreationDate="2017-04-24T01:37:28.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with @Tang Ho's answer but I'd like to add something here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Orally, people tend to skip the word &quot;的&quot; and may use &quot;好&quot; instead of &quot;真&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Your room is so clean! 你房间好干净啊。&#xA;2. Your room is so dirty! 你房间好脏啊。&#xA;3. Your room is so tidy! 你房间好整洁啊。&#xA;4. Your room is so untidy! 你房间好乱啊。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I added a modal word &quot;啊&quot; at the end of each sentence. This is because there is a slight difference between &quot;好&quot; and &quot;真&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;好&quot; is a milder tone and the speaker is trying to address their feeling about the cleanness or tidiness of your room. If the speaker uses &quot;真&quot;, the speaker emphasises more on the fact that the room is dirty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &quot;脏&quot; is the most common way to say dirty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16941" LastEditorUserId="16941" LastEditDate="2017-04-24T03:06:41.197" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T03:06:41.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23462" CreationDate="2017-04-24T02:01:28.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, when people refer to &lt;code&gt;冰箱&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;电冰箱&lt;/code&gt;, it most likely means a fridge-freezer or a fridge/refrigerator. Freezer is formally referred to as &lt;code&gt;冰柜&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;冷柜&lt;/code&gt;, although it can also be orally referred to as &lt;code&gt;冰箱&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;雪柜&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;冰箱&lt;/code&gt; in Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To sum up:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰箱，电冰箱，雪柜 -&gt; fridge, refrigerator, fridge-freezer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰箱，电冰箱，雪柜 -&gt; freezer (oral)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰柜，冷柜 -&gt; freezer (formal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷藏箱， 冷藏包 -&gt; ice storage, ice chest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(冰箱)冷藏室 -&gt; fridge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(冰箱)冷冻室 -&gt; freezer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷冻机 -&gt; refrigerating machine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A useful tip:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;冷藏 something&lt;/code&gt; means refrigerate something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;冷冻 something&lt;/code&gt; means freeze something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Although &lt;code&gt;冷冻机&lt;/code&gt; violates the above rules but there is no such thing called &lt;code&gt;冷藏机&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16941" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T02:01:28.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23448" CreationDate="2017-04-24T02:52:59.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;it doesn't seem like his audience in the film thinks it sounds weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is probably because we live in this culture and are used to such kinds of music. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, Chinese opera is more focused on storytelling and actors performance than being a beautiful piece of music for everyone to enjoy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for some beautiful traditional Chinese music, here are some examples:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMfBX2g9pyo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;无锡景&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai6fBVjMJB0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦淮景&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7D7opLqC5g&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;诗经&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2c4somJbLg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;越人歌&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诗经 and 越人歌 are probably modern compositions but they are close to the music style in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Spring and Autumn period&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Warring States period&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16941" LastEditorUserId="16941" LastEditDate="2017-04-24T02:59:25.817" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T02:59:25.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23553" CreationDate="2017-04-24T04:39:19.543" Score="1" ViewCount="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;Archive.org has a really pristine scan of &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/westernmandarino00grairich&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Western Mandarin, or, The spoken language of western China&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; by Grainger, Adam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's great. It really is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is completely comprised of &amp;quot;photos&amp;quot;, though, only. So, not really searchable, aside from a &lt;em&gt;Radical Index&lt;/em&gt;, if you get your thrills in the futility of stroke order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/westernmandarino00grairich/westernmandarino00grairich_djvu.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Full Text&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;ePub&amp;quot; options on archive.org are awful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T7Dww.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T7Dww.png&quot; alt=&quot;example&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the &amp;quot;Full Text&amp;quot; version:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;^ T and P? T&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;servants and door keepers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There must be a good OCR of this pdf, no?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T15:40:35.703" Title="Does a good OCR of &quot;Western Mandarin, or, The spoken language of western China&quot; by Grainger, Adam exist?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23523" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23524" CreationDate="2017-04-24T06:55:05.007" Score="2" ViewCount="5466" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does one say &quot;it's okay&quot; or &quot;it's alright&quot; along the lines of &quot;it's fine, don't lose hope&quot;. It could be a consolation or someone brushing something off going &quot;Oh, it's still okay&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone include the pinyin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16937" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T07:09:08.793" Title="How do I say &quot;It's alright&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23523" CreationDate="2017-04-24T07:09:08.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没事&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;méi​shì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%B2%A1%E4%BA%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;​&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;it's not important / it's nothing / never mind / to have nothing to do / to be free / to be all right (out of danger or trouble) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没关系&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;méi​guān​xi​&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%B2%92%E9%97%9C%E4%BF%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;it doesn't matter &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T07:09:08.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23525" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23538" CreationDate="2017-04-24T13:09:48.230" Score="2" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;In set theory, a &lt;strong&gt;singleton set&lt;/strong&gt; is a set with just one element.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term is not in any of my dictionaries, and the only online source I found is &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%97%AD%E9%9B%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;one page of zh.wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; which just transliterates it as 辛格尔顿.  A search on line shows this is hardly ever used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A friend who is not a set theorist suggests 单元 for singleton.  I wonder what Chinese set theorists usually use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T18:24:25.280" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T18:24:25.280" Title="What is &quot;singleton set&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23526" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-24T13:22:41.467" Score="1" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some other posts with similar questions, like &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/91/techniques-for-learning-and-retaining-characters&quot;&gt;Techniques for learning and retaining characters&lt;/a&gt;, but I'm looking for an answer that particularly focus on which &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorization&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;memorization techniques&lt;/a&gt; can be used to remember characters better. E.g. repetition, that is of course crucial to learning anything, is not a memorization technique in this sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So, which memorization techniques are useful when learning chinese characters?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, would a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_peg_system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mnemonic peg system&lt;/a&gt; be useful in any case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T23:03:54.010" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T23:03:54.010" Title="Which memorization techniques are useful for remembering characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23526" CreationDate="2017-04-24T14:10:44.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.memrise.com/courses/english/chinese-simplified/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;memrise.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found it helpful to hear and see characters / pinyin at the same time. Memrise uses a technique to build upon what you've learned in earlier courses to build upon your foundation. Also, learning radicals (character building blocks) is helpful to figure out meaning of more advanced characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15593" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T14:10:44.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23528" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23545" CreationDate="2017-04-24T14:34:48.700" Score="0" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;我只是为了让你觉得我在关心你，然后以此在逃避&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate it like: I just want you to think I care about you, and use this to escape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who is escaping, the person talking or the person she's talking to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然后以此在逃避 Could be referring to an escape route? Does the word route appear?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16945" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T15:31:08.833" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T15:31:08.833" Title="In 我只是为了让你觉得我在关心你，然后以此在逃避, who is escaping? Does it refer to an escape route?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23528" CreationDate="2017-04-24T15:35:22.043" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't understand the sentence, but i think the last sentence should be&quot; 因此我在逃避，&quot;rather than&quot;以此在逃避&quot; &#xA;So, its means I am escaping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16946" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T15:35:22.043" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23530" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-24T15:54:28.120" Score="0" ViewCount="1211" Body="&lt;p&gt;For 錢應該花在刀口上。刀口…… and spending money. How is spending money related to 刀口?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="940" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T08:25:04.730" Title="For 錢應該花在刀口上, 錢 and 刀口 are so different things... why associate 錢 with 刀口?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23531" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-24T16:13:56.773" Score="2" ViewCount="301" Body="&lt;p&gt;So much of what goes wrong with human behavior centers on this idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does Mandarin Chinese have the concept of what we call &quot;plausible deniability&quot;?  If so, what is the HanZi for it?  If not, is there a simple way to explain it in English (with references to Chinese culture) that a native Mandarin speaker could relate to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With respect to Kevman's comment about needing more context, I am asking about &quot;plausible deniability&quot; in the context of some mischievous or malicious behavior done to another person in such a way that it's impractical to demonstrate that the motive is malicious; such behavior would have &quot;plausible deniability&quot; because it's easy to hide the true intent of the act.&lt;sup&gt;Note 1&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;Note 1&lt;/sup&gt; &lt;em&gt;It's also worth noting that behavior which is plausibly deniable is not automatically mischievous simply because motives are opaque.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="139" LastEditorUserId="139" LastEditDate="2017-04-25T23:35:03.380" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T23:35:03.380" Title="What is the best way to explain &quot;plausible deniability&quot; to a Mandarin speaker" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23532" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23542" CreationDate="2017-04-24T20:56:29.907" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Buddhist Hybrid (Literary?) Chinese, 行 occupies several functions, including &quot;to walk&quot;, &quot;volitional fabrication&quot; (as a translation of the Sanskrit/Pāli: saṃskāra/saṅkhāra), &quot;[religious] practice&quot;, and a host of other things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, can 行 be used to mean &quot;walk to&quot; in addition to &quot;walk&quot;, or is another word required to make 行 mean &quot;walk to [something]&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like, take this constructed sentence: 佛行塔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Buddha walks to the pagoda.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Buddha acts as a pagoda.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Buddha's practice-pagoda (as in a place for Buddhadharma practice).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Buddha-practice pagoda (as in a place for Buddhadharma practice that is not the Buddha's specifically).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The pagoda of the Buddha's virtuous deeds (行)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it an utterly wrong sequence of characters to put together because 行 cannot function in this particular setting as a verb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastEditorUserId="16909" LastEditDate="2017-04-24T21:50:04.980" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T21:45:59.373" Title="Usage of 行 as &quot;walk&quot; in Literary Chinese" Tags="&lt;buddhism&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23533" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23539" CreationDate="2017-04-24T22:00:14.060" Score="3" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase 自以爲是 loosely means &quot;to think that one's self infallible&quot;. 自以为 makes sense to me, but the 是 confuses me. What does it mean here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it should mean &quot;fallible&quot;, but the dictionaries I have consulted give the opposite meaning (as in, they have 是 meaning things like &quot;is exactly&quot; or &quot;correct&quot;, meaning 爲是 would be incorrect, which is the opposite of infallible!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T06:23:53.343" Title="Usage of 是 in 自以爲是" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23530" CreationDate="2017-04-24T22:12:04.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/0/3f/99108.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/0/3f/99108.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刀口 means the right spot 花 means spend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;钱要花在刀口上 You should spend/use your money where it is most needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T22:12:04.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23533" CreationDate="2017-04-24T22:28:27.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have a look &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyu.baidu.com/zici/s?wd=%E8%87%AA%E4%BB%A5%E4%B8%BA%E6%98%AF&amp;amp;query=%E8%87%AA%E4%BB%A5%E4%B8%BA%E6%98%AF%E7%9A%84%E6%84%8F%E6%80%9D&amp;amp;srcid=28236&amp;amp;from=kg0&amp;amp;from=kg0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Change 是 for 对&#xA;Baidu give these 2 examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《荀子·荣辱》:“凡斗者必自以为是，而以人为非也。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《孟子·尽心下》:“众皆悦之，自以为是。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T22:28:27.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23531" CreationDate="2017-04-24T23:00:22.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Plausible: can be believed: 似乎有理的&#xA;deniability: can be denied: 可否定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plausible deniability: If an act or transgression can be denied such that the transgressor is not held responsible for it, or blamed for the negative consequences, then such an act has 'plausible deniability. &quot;Quick, hide the evidence!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sounds like Sean Spicer and all his predecessors! &quot;At no time did we ....&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe: plausible deniability: a believable lie: 令人相信的谎言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or : 诡辩轮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T23:00:22.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23531" CreationDate="2017-04-25T00:02:56.113" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://finance.sina.com.cn/column/international/20130214/101414553701.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在经济学领域，有一个概念叫既可以把它理解为‘合理推诿’(Plausible deniability)，也可以直观理解为“事后推卸责任的可能性”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the exact translation of &lt;code&gt;plausible deniability&lt;/code&gt; is 合理推诿. It can also be explained by 事后推卸责任的可能性 (the possibility of shirking responsibility after something bad happens).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16941" LastEditorUserId="16941" LastEditDate="2017-04-25T00:10:05.933" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T00:10:05.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23525" CreationDate="2017-04-25T00:25:35.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;单元素集合 is the correct and exact word for singleton set in Chinese, confirmed by a Chinese friend of my who is a mathematician. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a Baidu encyclopaedia entry for &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=Y8jBc-KXbrhnzdeEEu-wG2nv8EGAvF2iI6jSpQOBQsaw_yka3gh74RHw0O_Z7Uhj7d138noht8m6TRTP2HLXkOkHsWz7KFvUUmR5aSAD2NnYOwrQTLyPLR77Y3KbelKtkVxcOR8DAftDUo9OnAQK-a&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;单元素集合&lt;/a&gt;, where it is defined as &quot;由唯一一个元素组成的集合&quot;, i.e. a set containing a single element, followed by an example {0}.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16941" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T00:25:35.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23533" CreationDate="2017-04-25T00:43:58.273" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“自以为是”  is originated from classic Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Literally,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自: oneself &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以为：think&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是： correct / correct things. see &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wiktionary.org/zh-hans/%E6%98%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiki Chinese Dict&lt;/a&gt; the 2nd or 3rd. Similarly, the word &quot;是非&quot; originally means (arguing about)&quot;right and wrong&quot;, then means &quot;argument and debate&quot; nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to directly translate “自以为是”: ones always think he/she is right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means opinionated/full of oneself/fancies oneself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T00:43:58.273" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23530" CreationDate="2017-04-25T00:47:55.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;钱要花在刀口上&quot; is derived from a saying &quot;力量集中在刀刃上&quot;(Use your strength on the blade). Then become a saying &quot;**花到刀刃（口）上&quot;. =&gt; Use your ** on the needed/right spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T00:47:55.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23531" CreationDate="2017-04-25T00:55:43.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;plausible deniability&quot; is used in many areas. In Economics, like what @Anthony said, called 合理推诿。 But in Computer Science, there's a &quot;plausible deniability&quot; in encryption area. I get your point and there's no such direct Chinese translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would say No Chinese word(Hanzis) perfectly matches with this terminology(&quot;plausible deniability&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;But it's translatable. The corresponding Chinese word will depend on the scenario/field.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: If &quot;plausible deniability&quot; is act as a law terminology. It would be &quot;不可归责性&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ref:   &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.faxueyanjiu.com/ch/reader/create_pdf.aspx?file_no=20090605&amp;amp;year_id=2009&amp;amp;quarter_id=6&amp;amp;falg=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;lt;&amp;lt;重大过失理论的构建&gt;&gt; - 叶名怡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastEditorUserId="16891" LastEditDate="2017-04-25T01:50:20.083" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T01:50:20.083" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23532" CreationDate="2017-04-25T01:01:19.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;行&lt;/code&gt; cannot be used to mean &lt;code&gt;walk to&lt;/code&gt; unless it is paired with &lt;code&gt;走&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;步&lt;/code&gt;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Buddha walks to the pagoda.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;菩萨&lt;strong&gt;行走&lt;/strong&gt;到佛塔旁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;菩萨&lt;strong&gt;步行&lt;/strong&gt;到佛塔旁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first translation does not read well although the second also reads a bit awkward. Normally people would just write 菩萨&lt;strong&gt;走&lt;/strong&gt;到佛塔旁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, &lt;code&gt;行&lt;/code&gt; is not used alone to mean &lt;code&gt;walk&lt;/code&gt; either. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translating &lt;code&gt;he walks&lt;/code&gt; into &lt;code&gt;他行&lt;/code&gt; will likely confuse people. The most common word for &lt;code&gt;walk&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;走&lt;/code&gt;, no matter in oral or written Chinese. Therefore, &lt;code&gt;he walks&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;他走&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese, although it does not make much sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It can be translated differently depending on the scenario, such as &lt;code&gt;他会走&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &lt;code&gt;he can walk&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;他在走&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &lt;code&gt;he is walking&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;他走了几步&lt;/code&gt;, meaning &lt;code&gt;he walks a bit&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A single word &lt;code&gt;行&lt;/code&gt; can only mean &lt;code&gt;walk&lt;/code&gt; when it is used in an idiom or proverb. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;读万卷书，行万里路&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is a Chinese proverb directly translated as &lt;code&gt;read thousands of books and walk thousands of miles&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Its implied meaning is you have to read a lot to be knowledgeable and practice more to learn to use your knowledge.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;行&quot; when used alone, is more likely to mean &lt;code&gt;OK&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;sure&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;all right&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;be capable of&lt;/code&gt; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他行的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is &lt;strong&gt;OK&lt;/strong&gt; for doing something. He &lt;strong&gt;is capable of&lt;/strong&gt; doing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;-能帮我去买点东西吗？ - 行！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you buy me something? - &lt;strong&gt;Sure&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你行不行啊？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Are&lt;/strong&gt; you &lt;strong&gt;able to&lt;/strong&gt; do it or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;佛行塔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does not make sense in Chinese, although one may eventually understand the phrase after a deep thinking about the meaning of each individual word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to English, you usually need to use a preposition between a verb (intransitive) and a noun. When you say &lt;code&gt;Buddha walks to pagoda&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;to&lt;/code&gt; is the preposition. In Chinese, &lt;code&gt;到&lt;/code&gt; is the preposition equivalent to &lt;code&gt;to&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, &lt;code&gt;佛走到塔&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is better, a lot easier to understand, but not good enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, when you say &lt;code&gt;walk to pagoda&lt;/code&gt;, it means &lt;code&gt;keep walking until you are next/close to pagoda&lt;/code&gt;. The prepositions in Chinese has to be very specific. &lt;code&gt;到&lt;/code&gt; only means &quot;arrive at&quot;, but you have to explicitly use the preposition to tell the reader whether you arrive at the front of the &lt;code&gt;pagoda&lt;/code&gt; or the side of it. Use &lt;code&gt;前&lt;/code&gt; if it is the front or &lt;code&gt;旁&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;边&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;旁边&lt;/code&gt; if it is the side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, &lt;code&gt;佛走到塔前/旁/边/旁边&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry that I've gone a bit far from your original question. I only want to correct your mistake :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16941" LastEditorUserId="16941" LastEditDate="2017-04-25T01:23:16.360" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T01:23:16.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23532" CreationDate="2017-04-25T01:03:45.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, there's no &quot;佛行塔&quot;. And it's obvious for native Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行 has lots of meanings, it could mean &quot;walk&quot;, but it could also &quot;store&quot;(so &quot;佛行&quot; mean &quot;a store sell Buddha things, like sculpture etc...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correct/Native saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Buddha walks to the pagoda.&#xA;  佛走向那座塔。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Buddha acts as a pagoda. 佛立如塔。 （or a more native way, 站如钟）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Buddha's practice-pagoda (as in a place for Buddhadharma practice).&#xA;  佛堂/寺庙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Buddha-practice pagoda (as in a place for Buddhadharma practice that is not the Buddha's specifically).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I don't get your point...Because Chinese doesn't have article in grammar so I assume same meaning like above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T01:03:45.330" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23526" CreationDate="2017-04-25T01:14:55.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I'm a native Chinese speaker so I'm afraid my way is not universal applied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember Chinese characters(or Hanzi) is graph-like characters, which is totally different with the Latin language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I recommend checking the history of that Hanzi(Oracle bone script-&gt;small seal script-&gt;.....-&gt;traditional Chinese-&gt;simpilfied Chinese), think why it would be like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, read the Chinese history. Chinese characters are closely related to history. It might be hard but I happen to be a history fan so...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, you might need to forget the English(Latin) way. Try to think like a Chinese. And it's also super helpful if you have a Chinese friend(at least good at Chinese culture. As far as I know, lots of Chinese is not good at it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Expose yourself to Chinese culture as much as possible, just the way like Chinese learn English. For example, Watching TV drama, reading books,etc.. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-03-21T02:22:27.737" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T02:22:27.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23528" CreationDate="2017-04-25T01:26:40.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are almost there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我只是为了让你觉得我在关心你，然后以此在逃避&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want you to think I care about you, &#xA;and use this(refer the act&quot;you think I care about you&quot; or &quot;I care about you&quot;, both could be right. Can not know since the information is not given) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to escape(from something. [Escape from what? it's not given]).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T01:26:40.043" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23530" CreationDate="2017-04-25T04:14:49.637" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is another idiom in Chinese culture：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一分钱当两分钱花。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally, it means one spend one dollar as two dollars. It is usually used to describe that kind of people who are shrewd in money matters。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So,I think the connection between money and 刀口 is because if you intend to  一分钱当两分钱花, then you have to cut one dollar into halves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, we usually say 刀刃 rather than 刀口。 But the two words have basically the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16823" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T04:14:49.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23547" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23550" CreationDate="2017-04-25T06:10:24.583" Score="0" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first section of this phrase, namely, 當為汝說無為法, more specifically 當為汝說, I know what it is supposed to mean something along the lines of &quot;I speak to you [appositely]&quot;, but I am having some difficulty parsing the individual characters, how are we supposed to read 當為汝說 on a character-by-character basis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T09:42:31.123" Title="Structure of phrase: 當為汝說無為法，及無為道跡。" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23382" CreationDate="2017-04-25T07:04:22.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of them are correct.&#xA;&quot;揠苗助长&quot; is more official.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16951" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T07:04:22.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23530" CreationDate="2017-04-25T07:10:08.523" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence 刀口 doesn't means real blade, it means important things or right things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16952" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T07:10:08.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23547" CreationDate="2017-04-25T07:41:09.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;how are we supposed to read 當為汝說 on a character-by-character basis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當 = should/ shall &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為 = for/ to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汝 = you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;說 = talk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當(shall) 為汝(to you) 說(talk) 無為法(the method of inaction), 及(and) 無為道(the way of inaction) 跡(examples)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I shall tell you the examples of the method and dao of inaction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T07:41:09.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23530" CreationDate="2017-04-25T08:25:04.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;After some more research, I found out a reason why that phrase can make sense.  There is a saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好鋼應該用在刀刃上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When you have high quality steel, use it to make the blade of the sword&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then &quot;錢應該花在刀口上&quot; is a variant of the saying above.  Maybe it can mean, when you have limited money to improve a sword, spend it on the sword's blade (instead of on the handle or on the scabbard).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="940" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T08:25:04.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23552" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-25T14:08:33.620" Score="1" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have two watercolours (Birds &amp;amp; flowers blossom) but have not been able to find anything regarding who painted them.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/02yuW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/02yuW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16953" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T13:48:57.787" Title="ID the Artists signature" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23522" CreationDate="2017-04-25T15:40:35.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, most OCR software still has trouble dealing with this type of 'non-standard' typeface.  In my experience, Chinese that is not in one of the standard computer fonts always comes out with significantly more errors than roman lettered texts. Premodern printed works come off especially badly, so unless someone has made this particularly book the subject of a major project, I doubt there is anything useful out there. Let me know if you find something!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T15:40:35.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23508" CreationDate="2017-04-25T16:08:40.723" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cantonese might preserve more sound distinctions than Mandarin, but they're both derived (as are most, though not all, modern dialects) from Middle Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The current consensus, arrived at slowly over decades, appears to be that Old Chinese was toneless; this doesn't mean that predecessors of the entering &quot;tone&quot; didn't exist, but there were more endings than the -p, -t, -k that are currently retained by various dialects.  It had many more consonant distinctions, which over time were replaced by tone contour in Middle Chinese and all subsequent dialects (including the Min dialects, which are not derived directly from Middle Chinese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is certainly the case that if you read 詩經 in Mandarin, you will lose many of the rhymes and other phonetic consonances.  Probably, if you read it in Cantonese, you will lose fewer, though not all.  But in neither case will you hear it the way it was originally pronounced.  None of Old Chinese is directly attested, not even in the fanqie way that Middle Chinese was, so we don't even know for sure what the phonetic realizations were (although we have a generally good idea of what the phonemic distinctions were).  But it almost surely had initial and final consonant clusters that no modern dialect retains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some good references in this area are Axel Schuessler's &lt;em&gt;ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese&lt;/em&gt;, and William Baxter and Laurent Sagart's &lt;em&gt;Old Chinese&lt;/em&gt;.  The latter even has a discussion of the effects of phonetic evolution on the pronunciation and rhymes of old poetry, and the authors are of course responsible for one of the prominent reconstructions of Old Chinese in recent memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9824" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T16:08:40.723" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23253" CreationDate="2017-04-25T17:27:58.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;维基大典, as the comments shown, means Wikipedia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are two ways for translation in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;By their pronunciation&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;By their function&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first part &quot;Wiki&quot; is translation by its pronunciation. Thus, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Wi&quot; sound could be written as 维&#xA;&quot;Ki&quot; sound could be written as 基&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While in the second part, &quot;大典&quot; is translated by its function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suffix &quot;-pedia&quot; is from the greek root paideia, meaning education, culture. And in English &quot;-pedia&quot; is for something that have a knowledgeable collection for something.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;大典&quot; in Chinese equals to Encyclopedia. &#xA;&#xA;&quot;典&quot; in Chinese means a collection of influential and important works&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you have a Chinese dictionary, you will find it is called &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;eg.「字典」means word dictionary&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ie. a collection of words with elaborations and meanings, and it is important for language learners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also that's why &quot;Wiki-pedia&quot; could just get the name &quot;Wiki&quot; and &quot;-pedia&quot; is not directly translated by pronunciation as &quot;大典&quot; could already explain it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16956" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T17:27:58.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23556" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23563" CreationDate="2017-04-25T18:57:10.353" Score="3" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking through a text (SA 593, Buddhist scripture) and I encountered an absolutely puzzling string of characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作是念已，如力士屈申臂頃，於兜率天沒，現於佛前，稽首佛足&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my best attempt (I am a nonprofessional amateur learner):&#xA;&quot;Creating this [a?] view thereafter, thus warrior bend extend arm qing (a qing is a (small?) unit of measurement?), in/at/to/from Tuṣita deva end, manifest to [the] Buddha [in] front, prostrate [to] Buddha feet&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line 如力士屈申臂頃 is very very strange, I think it almost definitely has a foreign loanword in it rendered phonetically into Chinese characters irrespective of their Chinese meaning, but I do not yet know what this loanword would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: the context to this is someone deciding to visit the Buddha.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T01:53:14.213" Title="This string of characters: 如力士屈申臂頃" Tags="&lt;middle-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23552" CreationDate="2017-04-25T20:37:13.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like &lt;strong&gt;怀谷&lt;/strong&gt; , from the idiom 虚&lt;strong&gt;怀&lt;/strong&gt;若&lt;strong&gt;谷&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichacha.net/%E8%99%9A%E6%80%80%E8%8B%A5%E8%B0%B7.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;虛懷若谷&lt;/a&gt; means: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;have a mind as open as a valley -- very modest; be extremely open-minded; be in a receptive mood; be open to conviction; free from pride and prejudices; from a sense of one's inadequacy; modest and open-minded&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T20:37:13.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23558" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23559" CreationDate="2017-04-25T21:32:04.370" Score="0" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an image that is something wrote in chinese I think. Can someone translate it please? Thank you.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v1H8R.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v1H8R.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v1H8R.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16959" LastEditorUserId="16959" LastEditDate="2017-04-25T21:37:30.610" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T15:51:49.997" Title="Can someone translate me this to english?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23558" CreationDate="2017-04-25T22:19:13.630" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably the transliteration of a name like Micheala， Mikela&#xA;迈 mai&#xA;克 ke&#xA;拉 la&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;克拉 kela is the transliteration of carat, which for gold represents the purity of the gold. Maybe its the name of a store, or a joke &quot;this is my gold bracelet&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T22:19:13.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23560" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23561" CreationDate="2017-04-25T23:39:41.750" Score="1" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 虚怀若谷 mean? I'm learning some Chinese idioms and the translation that I was given was long and confusing, especially since my Mandarin isn't good. Can someone help me translate it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T02:05:00.643" Title="What does 虚怀若谷 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23560" CreationDate="2017-04-25T23:54:25.130" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;虚 = empty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怀 = chest (metaphorically represents the storage place for beliefs and ideas in a man )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;若 = like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谷 = valley ( a valley is vast and empty-- metaphor for one's mind not filled with preconceived notions )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虚怀若谷 means: 'one's ability to accept (new idea or different opinion) is as vast as a valley.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, a man who is 虚怀若谷, is a &lt;strong&gt;humble&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;open minded&lt;/strong&gt; man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T02:05:00.643" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T02:05:00.643" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23556" CreationDate="2017-04-26T00:32:44.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;i'm not dare to make translation of buddhism term, so this answer is mixed with chinese and english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;background:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when &quot;給孤獨長者&quot; died, he reincarnated in 兜率天, as &quot;兜率天子&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;he thinks :&quot;i should not stay here for long, i should meet Śhakyamuni Buddha (世尊)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in buddism, &quot;兜率天&quot; is a faraway from our world (人間), but, he overcomes this distance &amp;amp; time easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;作是念已﹒如力士屈申臂﹒頃﹒於兜率天沒﹒現於佛前&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作是念已 - just after this thought&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如力士屈申臂 - like a &quot;力士&quot; bends his stretched arm (a metaphor, bend a stretched arm is easy, and the distance is short, only &quot;an arm long&quot;. and, the time needed is short.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;an arm long distance&quot; vs distance between &quot;兜率天&quot; and &quot;人間&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;頃, is 頃刻 (very short time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;於兜率天沒 - disappear from Tuṣita (兜率天)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;現於佛前 - reappear in front of Śhakyamuni Buddha (that, he's in 舍衛國祇樹給孤獨園 at this moment)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kind of teleportation lah　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps: may i ask which version of &quot;雜阿含經&quot; you're reading now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T02:53:00.330" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T02:53:00.330" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23564" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23578" CreationDate="2017-04-26T02:03:58.840" Score="1" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;欛新床&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《成都方言》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喻指小男孩或未婚男青年睡新床：～又叫“压床”。亦作“铺新床”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why only boys? or unmarried men? What sort of implications are buried in this word? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T20:15:42.330" Title="Southwestern Mandarin: what does 欛新床/铺新床/压床 imply?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23558" CreationDate="2017-04-26T02:07:09.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;迈克拉 is a English name translated to Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are quite a number of English last name could be translated to 迈克拉, by the pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, there are quite a number of famous people where their last name translated to 迈克拉: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;乔丹-&lt;strong&gt;迈克拉&lt;/strong&gt;伊 (Jordan &lt;strong&gt;McRae&lt;/strong&gt;)  -NBA player&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this case, &lt;code&gt;迈-Mc 克-c 拉-Ra 伊-e&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扎恩·&lt;strong&gt;迈克拉&lt;/strong&gt;农 (Zahn &lt;strong&gt;McClarnon&lt;/strong&gt;)  -an actor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this case, &lt;code&gt;迈-Mc 克-cla 拉-lar 农-non&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16956" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T02:07:09.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23568" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-26T18:55:47.413" Score="0" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had a few friends take a look and they had very differing opinions.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/165Kv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/165Kv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16966" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T02:23:03.533" Title="Could someone translate this poster for me?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2017-05-04T04:16:15.240" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23532" CreationDate="2017-04-26T21:39:08.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;行 can mean 'journey(v/n)' or 'travel(v)' therefore, '佛行塔' could mean 'the tower that commemorated Buddha's journey. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行 can also mean 'deed', therefore, '佛行塔' could mean 'the tower that commemorated Buddha's deed'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, '行' is still being used for the verb 'walk' in Cantonese. (counterpart of '走' in Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If 行 in 佛行塔 is the verb 'to journey / to  travel' the phrase would make no sense. People don't say 'walk a tower', we only  say ' climb a tower or visit a tower'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T21:45:59.373" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T21:45:59.373" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23556" CreationDate="2017-04-26T21:52:52.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;如                         力士        屈申(phonetic loan for 伸)  臂     顷&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As if   [it was in a]   strong man   bending   [his]            arms'  time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3685" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T21:52:52.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23568" CreationDate="2017-04-26T22:01:19.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 3 black words mean&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不 = No&lt;br&gt;&#xA;易 = Easy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;滚 = Fuck off&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The words inside the box&#xA;狗神=Dog God&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the small black words are the name of the author and the picture created date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16970" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-04-27T02:23:03.533" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T02:23:03.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23568" CreationDate="2017-04-27T00:58:31.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the picture is part of a bigger poster of 狗神樂隊 (a rock &amp;amp; roll band) in shanghai, their web site is here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://goushen.bandcamp.com/album/-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://goushen.bandcamp.com/album/-&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the three big black character is &quot;不易滚&quot;. two small red characters in the &quot;seal&quot; is &quot;狗&quot; (dog) and an inverted &quot;神&quot; (god).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;滚 (u+6eda) is a variant character of 滾 (u+6efe)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rock &amp;amp; roll in chinese is 搖&lt;strong&gt;滾&lt;/strong&gt;樂.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;need more elaboration?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T00:58:31.797" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23564" CreationDate="2017-04-27T03:04:30.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What needs to be understood here is that 欛新床 or 铺新床 is not just talking about making a bed or changing the sheets - but is specifically referring to Chinese wedding customs where the &quot;new bed&quot; is made for the newlywed couple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu 百科 has the following article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=N2neMOo5M4guD5S4zsVqDC8jZa47LF1FZ13wtlSXTSOpkfvyKrCzuNwfjvZjnUb4jny83O7evZvRAa1Zz0vKhbqLr8Zxm3AgzTcSjOKJ3TG&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;压床（民间婚庆习俗）&lt;/a&gt; which explains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;压床又称压喜床，压新床等，中国汉族婚俗之一。青年男女结婚的头天晚上，新郎家要请儿女双全的老人把床铺好，然后新郎请一个或者两个弟弟和自己一起在新床上就寝。压床的人也有条件限制，不是任何人随便就能压的。首先，压床的人必须是小于新郎的青年，一般都是自己的亲弟弟，或者是叔伯弟弟和姨表弟弟。如果在自己的亲戚范围内没有这样的人选，新郎也可以找同村的朋友和要好的同学。压床人的第二个条件，必须是未婚青年。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The night before the couple-to-be get married, the entire family is supposed to make their bed after which the groom will chose one or two of his younger brothers to have a sleep over. The persons that the groom may choose from is limited, not just anyone can spend the night with him. First, the person must be younger than the groom, usually he will pick his own fleshly younger brother or his younger male cousins. If none of his relatives are applicable, the groom may find a friend or classmate from his town. The second requirement is that the person must be unmarried.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article also states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;对娶亲的人来说，压床是一件吉利的事情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This custom is thought to bring good luck to the new couple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and don't forget:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果男孩儿在压床的时候，不小心尿在了新床上，这是吉利加吉利，人们更是欣喜异常。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If during this custom the boy chosen to stay with the groom accidentally pees on the bed, this is considered luck upon luck and people will be even more delighted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T03:04:30.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23579" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23580" CreationDate="2017-04-27T04:11:30.440" Score="1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the passage with a rough translation of what I believe it is supposed to be saying, it is from 3-400AD, Buddhist scripture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;少欲者，少欲俱相類相聚相應相可；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;few are the chaste, the few chaste are altogether mutually ranked mutually congregated mutually responding mutually functioning;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are other issues with this rendering please feel free to address them, although my chief concern is the usage of 相. Should it be read as &quot;marked by [類/聚/應/可]&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T13:14:02.820" Title="Is the rendering of 相 into English as &quot;mutual(ly)&quot; sensible?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23579" CreationDate="2017-04-27T05:38:02.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The  core meaning of the character 相 is not ' mutual' but ' from one to the other'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;相授 (one person give to or teach another person)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;相送 (one person see another person off)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;相傳 (story retold from people to people)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'相' is used to describe 'mutually' because it can be the shortened form of '互相' (mutually from one to the other)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;兩人相聚( the two meet) is 相聚&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;眾人相聚 (everybody meet) is also 相聚&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人相食 means 'people eating people' (two people cannot mutually eat each other)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The examples above prove 相 does not mean 'mutually'  ( but 互 does)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the context of the sentence in the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;相類 (identify each others) means every similar things could identify each others&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;相聚 (stay together) means every similar things would stay together&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;相應 (react to each others) means every similar things would react to each others&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;相可 (agree with each others) means every similar things would agree with each others&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T05:38:02.790" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23579" CreationDate="2017-04-27T10:29:32.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;少欲者﹒少欲俱﹒相類﹒相聚﹒相應﹒相可&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少欲 is alpeccha, so  少欲者 is someone who has little or moderate wishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俱 is 俱全 (completely). 少欲俱, is completely full of alpeccha.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a math equation metaphor:ａ1+ａ2+ａ3+ａ4 = a (1+2+3+4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, 相類﹒相聚﹒相應﹒相可 is 相 (類﹒聚﹒應﹒可)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;類聚&quot; is group together, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000159962&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; 物以類聚 &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;應 - 應對, interact&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可 - 認可, affirm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, it's 少欲者(people full of alpeccha) would group together, affirm each other, interact &quot;in-group&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the usage of 相 in english, depend on the written style, &lt;strong&gt;mutually&lt;/strong&gt; is a good choice. cause that the text describes a situation of &quot;group&quot;, clearly, not a one - one scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, the original text of this excerpt from 雜阿含經:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聞如是：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一時佛在舍衛國祇樹給孤獨&#xA;園。佛告諸比丘：「比丘！諸不聞者，不聞俱相類&#xA;相聚相應相可，多聞者，多聞俱相類相聚相&#xA;應相可；慳者，慳俱相類相聚相應相可，布施&#xA;者，布施俱相類相聚相應相可；黠者，黠俱相&#xA;類相聚相應相可，癡者，癡俱相類相聚相應&#xA;相可；多欲者，多欲俱相類相聚相應相可，少&#xA;欲者，少欲俱相類相聚相應相可；難持者，難&#xA;持俱相類相聚相應相可，易持者，易持俱相&#xA;類相聚相應相可；難給者，難給俱相類相聚&#xA;相應相可，易給者，易給俱相類相聚相應相&#xA;可；不足者，不足俱相類相聚相應相可，足者，&#xA;足俱相類相聚相應相可；不守者，不守俱相&#xA;類相聚相應相可，守者，守俱相類相聚相應&#xA;相可。」佛說：「比丘！如是，黠人當分別是因緣，可&#xA;行者當為行，不可行者當為莫行。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T10:29:32.390" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18132" CreationDate="2017-04-27T11:57:27.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is meaningless machine translation. If you see the news report at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/10/16/superdry-popular-uk-fashion-brand-uses-gibberish-japanese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/10/16/superdry-popular-uk-fashion-brand-uses-gibberish-japanese/&lt;/a&gt; the company deliberately inserted gibberish Japanese text in a similar fashion to the Japanese practices of inserting nonsense English texts to decorate products. 今日/娱乐/节目 would be correct Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T11:57:27.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23583" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23584" CreationDate="2017-04-27T22:13:45.703" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;Foreigners in China naturally get a lot of kind compliments or treatment.  Sometimes the compliment is merely kind, and a person could reply with 哪里 or 别客气, or 不好意思了.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes gesture is so overwhelming that you really want to say the person need not have done it -- but at the same time show that you appreciate it.  So I learned the phrase  折杀 which might be good for those times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I look for it on-line I find a lot of sites explaining it and very few using it.  So I wonder if people do use it today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu calls it 民间用语：虚拟抬高别人生活状态的贬义用词。 I am not sure what they mean by 贬义.  It is really insulting?  Or is it just a little funny?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I am not sure what they mean by 民间用语.  Does it just mean the phrase is colloquial?  Or does it mean the phrase is a bit quaint or old-fashioned?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T01:32:48.393" Title="How serious is 折杀 today?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23583" CreationDate="2017-04-28T01:27:19.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;折杀 is a folk saying. It is invoked as a humble response when receiving high compliments or a great gift that one considers himself not deserving of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the olden time, Chinese believed one's fortune is tied to his deed and virtue, oversaw by the heaven. If you receive excessive reward in life that's not in an appropriate quantity or quality for your virtue, your fortune will balance things and make you suffer later in life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly being immoral will reduce your fortune. That's why people sometimes refer immoral deed as '折福事' (things that reduce your fortune ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;折 is short for 折福 (reduce fortune)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;杀 = 'greatly' (to the point of killing me)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;折杀 means 'it will greatly reduce my fortune'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you receive a high praise or great gift that you think you are not worthy of,  you can say '这真是折杀我了' (this really will reduce my fortune greatly) to show your modesty and humility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you suspected, this term is a bit old fashion. You can only hear people saying that in period dramas on T.V or movies nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-04-28T01:32:48.393" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T01:32:48.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23585" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-28T02:17:49.420" Score="2" ViewCount="1854" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common translation of weekday is: 工作日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate suggests 工作日 and 平常日 for weekday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 平常日 commonly used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would a native speaker normally say weekday? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be odd for a young child use 工作日 as weekday? Would a be more normal for a child to use 学习日? What about during school holidays?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15054" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T13:09:31.593" Title="Is there a generic way to say &quot;weekday&quot; without the concept of &quot;work/business/school day&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23585" CreationDate="2017-04-28T05:09:47.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact we usually say 平日 as weekday, but more frequent we just say 周一到周五. Maybe it is because we just distinguish weekend is 周末,and every weekday is regarded as a normal day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the holiday, children usually have no sense of days(LOL,at least me), so they just know today is 周几,like 周一 or 周五.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm new here, hope my answer can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16980" LastEditorUserId="16980" LastEditDate="2017-04-28T05:25:16.770" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T05:25:16.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23585" CreationDate="2017-04-28T06:11:15.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;周中&lt;/strong&gt; as opposed to &lt;em&gt;周末&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;midweek&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could say something like：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周中上班，周末休息&#xA;Work on weekdays and have weekends off&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T06:11:15.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22108" CreationDate="2017-04-28T09:55:30.960" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;本文原稿(this article originally)为德语(in German)所著(published)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16984" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T09:55:30.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23382" CreationDate="2017-04-28T10:04:32.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;拔苗助长 is usually colloquial expression, and 揠苗助长 is more official. Everyone knows the formmer. but less people know the latter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16984" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T10:04:32.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23585" CreationDate="2017-04-28T10:15:12.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, there may be regional differences. The common words I use is 平时 for weekday, but there are many words that mean weekend such as 周末，礼拜天，周六日，休息天. I think it is because we all look forward to weekend, but not weekday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16984" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T10:15:12.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23556" CreationDate="2017-04-28T14:15:49.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;譬如力士屈 申臂頃」 .... 伸ば したる 腕を屈するが如く， ...... 譬えば，. 阿難よ， balava purisoが容易に 弾指する が如 く… &#xA;I found this on a Japanese website referring to a similar Pali passage. 力士 is Pali balava puriso (arahan) and there the whole looks like a simile: ' Like the Arhant bending and stretching his arm' 顷 = 倾 to lean, incline (?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16388" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T14:15:49.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23592" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23594" CreationDate="2017-04-28T14:35:33.100" Score="2" ViewCount="2633" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I started to learn Mandarin, I learned on the Rosetta Stone program that it is 不谢 to say &quot;you are welcome&quot; in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when I met a Chinese girl in Shanghai, she said that 不谢 is &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; used and 不用谢 is the only correct word in Mandarin. She is from Nanjing, and we met at Shanghai for your information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, now I'm in Chongqing and the host of a room I rented via AirBnB used 不谢 to respond to my 谢谢. I don't know where he is from, for your information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now I'm confused. In Mandarin, which is the correct word to say &quot;you are welcome&quot;? Also, is there any difference between regions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2021-05-29T17:43:42.663" Title="Which of 不谢 and 不用谢 is correct?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23579" CreationDate="2017-04-28T22:13:09.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe the etymology of 相 could help: 木 plus 目: 'mu plus mu' to give a meaning of 'same, sameness, like'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'chaste' has only sexual connotations. A buddhist does not just try to contain his or her sexuality, but the roving roaming relentless mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相類 same kind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少欲者，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Those of few desires,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少欲俱相類相聚相應相可；&lt;br&gt;&#xA;have little desire to be with their kind, meet, interact or seek their peers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the Diamond Sutra:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Subhuti finds happiness abiding in peace, in seclusion in the midst of&#xA;  the forest. This is because Subhuti abides nowhere: therefore he is&#xA;  called, &quot;Subhuti, Joyful Abider-in-Peace,&#xA;  Dweller-in-Seclusion-in-the-Forest.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T22:13:09.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23592" CreationDate="2017-04-29T01:43:44.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;which is the correct word to say &quot;you are welcome&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 不谢 and 不用谢 are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MDBG&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E4%B8%8D%E8%B0%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不谢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;don't mention it / not at all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E4%B8%8D%E7%94%A8%E8%B0%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不用谢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You're welcome / Don't mention it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hell, I have had an old lady tell me: &lt;strong&gt;不用谢谢&lt;/strong&gt; - but I wouldn't recommend using this one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the north you might hear 甭(béng)谢, 甭 being a contraction of 不 and 用.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E4%B8%8D%E5%AE%A2%E6%B0%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不客气&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you're welcome / don't mention it / impolite / rude / blunt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-04-29T01:43:44.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23595" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-29T16:02:03.093" Score="2" ViewCount="393" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many Cantonese dramas titles contains the suffix 風雲. Examples include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;法外風雲 TVB&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;酒店風雲 Korean&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does it even mean? &#xA;A google translate gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Outrage Situation ( Makes sense)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hotel Situation?? What does this mean?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe there is another meaning. If there is, what is it? Obviously, apart from wind cloud. If not, could you explain 'Hotel Situation'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16101" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T13:59:31.703" Title="What does 風雲 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23595" CreationDate="2017-04-29T17:49:04.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A2%A8%E9%9B%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/風雲&lt;/a&gt; .   Just as  山水 (shān shuǐ) literally means mountain-water and in fact means a landscape painting, wind-cloud is a figurative term for storm.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these tv shows it means a stormy dramatic situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The actual hotel &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sunsweet.com.tw/room04.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.sunsweet.com.tw/room04.html&lt;/a&gt; uses &quot;mountain-water-hotel&quot; to mean a hotel as beautiful and restful as as a classical landscape.  So 酒店風雲 means the show is about dramatic situations in a hotel.  More fun to watch on tv than to stay at!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-04-29T20:36:43.300" LastActivityDate="2017-04-29T20:36:43.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23597" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-29T20:25:59.963" Score="1" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;你们好！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a student currently studying Chinese. We have an oral assessment where we will need to compare Chinese culture and China to the culture of the Western world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if it is grammatically correct to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人在中国喜欢乒乓球比踢足球, 但是人在美国喜欢踢足球比乒乓球.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is not correct, how could I change it so that it becomes right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16991" LastEditorUserId="4680" LastEditDate="2017-04-30T08:51:30.813" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T21:09:40.093" Title="Is it correct to say 人在中国喜欢乒乓球比踢足球, 但是人在美国喜欢踢足球比乒乓球?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23597" CreationDate="2017-04-29T22:36:28.623" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand what you mean, but this might be a better way of saying it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;中国人喜欢打乒乓球，而美国人更喜欢踢足球。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, if you really meant &lt;code&gt;people living in China/USA&lt;/code&gt; (and not Chinese people), then you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;在中国，人们喜欢打乒乓球。而在美国，人们更喜欢踢足球。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastEditorUserId="11542" LastEditDate="2017-04-29T22:44:11.927" LastActivityDate="2017-04-29T22:44:11.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23595" CreationDate="2017-04-29T22:55:32.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You will notice this pattern in a lot of titles translated in Hong Kong/Taiwan. The same movie translated in mainland China will have the &lt;code&gt;風雲&lt;/code&gt; removed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;賭城風雲 (From Vegas to Macau)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;無間道風雲 (The Departed)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;風雲&lt;/code&gt; can be translated to &lt;code&gt;局势&lt;/code&gt; (situation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the case of movie titles, it is simply a fancy way of saying &lt;em&gt;The story of ...&lt;/em&gt;. However emphasis on the mystery, the grandiose, and the ups and downs of the story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-04-30T11:49:15.117" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T11:49:15.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23597" CreationDate="2017-04-29T23:15:48.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many differences between the Chinese and the Americans.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;中国人和美国人有许多不同之处。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If we look at ball sports, the Chinese prefer to play ping pong, whereas Americans prefer football.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如果我们从球类运动来看，中国人更喜欢打乒乓球，而美国人更喜欢足球。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-04-29T23:15:48.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23597" CreationDate="2017-04-30T00:47:11.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;人在中国&quot; and &quot;人在美国&quot; are already complete sentences. So it's kind of weird to use them as subjects.&#xA;You may wanna use &quot;在中国的人&quot; and &quot;在美国的人&quot; to describe &quot;people in China&quot; and &quot;people in US&quot;. The “的” in &quot;在中国的人&quot; makes &quot;在中国的&quot; a description of &quot;人&quot;.&#xA;Or you can just use &quot;中国人&quot; and “美国人”， which means Chinese and American.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, it's better to say &quot;和足球相比， 在中国的人更喜欢乒乓球， 但是在美国的人更喜欢足球&quot;. You could think in as: compared with football, people in China prefer pingpang. However, people in US prefer football.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope my answer helps you.&#xA;Good luck for your oral assessment!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16992" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T00:47:11.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23602" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-30T02:24:18.423" Score="0" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;This text is about 'big data'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did they write &quot;这是人的智慧&quot;? What does that mean here? How does it fit into this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to mean something like 'this is common knowledge' or 'everyone knows that'. What does it really mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么是大数据？枯燥的名词解释会让“科盲”们更加摸不着头脑，有学者以通俗的例子这样告诉我们，“每个人乘飞机时，都是自己选择航线，这是人的智慧，当人们的选择结果反映到具体的航程中来，就会有大量的数据被记录下来。我们根据这些原始的、堆积如山的记录梳理出的航程设计方案，将是最卓越的。这就是大数据的方法。“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T03:08:20.807" Title="Why did they write &quot;这是人的智慧&quot; here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23463" CreationDate="2017-04-30T08:48:04.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, there ARE narrow Chinese fonts. Check out the whole family of 「方正兰亭黑 Pro」 or 「汉仪旗黑」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See one of the narrow fonts of the 旗黑 family: &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyi.com.cn/productdetail.phphttp://hanyi.com.cn/productdetail.php?id=671&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉仪旗黑X3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is a rather expensive approach, and probably not what you need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16070" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T08:48:04.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23604" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-30T13:05:09.907" Score="2" ViewCount="1428" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen number &quot;33&quot; in some of Chinese drama and novels. I wonder what is the historical meaning behind 33? Especially 33天？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, there is a drama named &quot;失恋33天&quot;, which has an English title version of &quot;Love is not Blind&quot;. However, I couldn't understand the meaning between 33天 still.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15622" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T23:16:38.790" Title="What does 33天 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23605" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23606" CreationDate="2017-04-30T13:32:20.420" Score="2" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference? 演讲, according to my dictionary, is either a speech (in general, like a politician would give) or a lecture (at a university or so), while 讲课 is just the lecture, as in a lesson. Is that the correct way to distinguish the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T03:42:04.700" Title="What is the difference between 讲课 and 演讲?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23605" CreationDate="2017-04-30T14:37:50.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;讲课&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is strictly a &lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt; meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to teach/to give lessons (in ....)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;演讲&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be a noun meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;speech&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or a verb meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to give a speech&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both could be translated as: &lt;strong&gt;lecture&lt;/strong&gt;, if you wanted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest difference is the 课 in 讲课 - meaning class or course. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-05-02T03:42:04.700" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T03:42:04.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23604" CreationDate="2017-04-30T14:49:13.993" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is meaning that the love story occurred in these days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 33 days, a story start and end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16997" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T14:49:13.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23597" CreationDate="2017-04-30T21:09:40.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人在中国喜欢乒乓球比踢足球, 但是人在美国喜欢踢足球比乒乓球.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you mean this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;People in China like Ping Pong more than soccer, but People in the US like soccer more than Ping Pong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, unless you strand them, modifiers in Mandarin basically all come before the &quot;substance word&quot;. So instead of saying &lt;code&gt;人 (people) 在 (in) 中国 (China)&lt;/code&gt;, people say something like &lt;code&gt;在 (in) 中国 (China) 的 人 (people)&lt;/code&gt;, except if you don't really mean &quot;people who are physically residing in China&quot; but more of &quot;Chinese people&quot;, you'd say, like in English, &lt;code&gt;中国人&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another problem is, while English says &lt;code&gt;(someone) A than B&lt;/code&gt;, Mandarin says &lt;code&gt;(someone) than B A&lt;/code&gt;. The last half of each part of your sentence should read as something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;相比/比起踢足球更喜欢乒乓球&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;相比/比起乒乓球更喜欢踢足球&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also if this helps: the verb for Ping Pong is 打, and if you are going for parallelism it is okay to leave out the verbs and just compare &lt;code&gt;足球&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;乒乓球&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general @hello_harry has put it very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T21:09:40.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23609" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-30T21:40:27.660" Score="1" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;I teach English online to children in China. One of my students has autism and cannot answer many questions. When I ask him what his name is, he always says &quot;My name is Drumpou (or Trumpou),&quot; which is not his name. He is trying to communicate something but I don't know what it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17001" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T12:54:32.200" Title="Word that sounds like dumpou or trumpou" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23602" CreationDate="2017-04-30T22:17:52.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like some of this comes from an August 2014 news story that Xinhua ran about big data, but I believe that there is probably an English original somewhere behind this. Perhaps 人的智慧 was an (odd) attempt to translate &quot;human intelligence&quot; (as opposed to artificial inteligence). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最卓越 is also odd, the August 2014 Xinhua story had a very similar sentence that used 最优 &quot;optimal&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“科盲”们 is even odder, an attempt to translate &quot;science illiterates.&quot; The Xinhua story used 技术盲, not quite as odd, since it doesn't try to make it plural. A lot of very perplexing Chinese originates from bad translations of English. Perhaps others will feel that none of this is very odd, though. This is how languages change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2017-04-30T22:51:52.603" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T22:51:52.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23602" CreationDate="2017-05-01T02:53:49.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“每个人乘飞机时，都是自己选择航线，【这是人的智慧】，……”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;firstly, 这 is a pronoun, means &lt;strong&gt;this&lt;/strong&gt;, is referring to &quot;每个人乘飞机时，都是自己选择航线&quot;. It can be interpreted as &lt;em&gt;the behavior/performance/handling&lt;/em&gt; that everyone chooses one's own airline when one travels by air.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;secondly, &quot;这是人的智慧&quot; means &lt;strong&gt;this is human wisdom or intelligence&lt;/strong&gt; via user6065 &amp;amp; wpt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thirdly, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;everyone chooses one's own airline when one travels by air&quot; → this → 这&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is → 是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;human wisdom or intelligence → 人的智慧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, this part of sentence means that &quot;everyone chooses one's own airline when one travels by air&quot; is/reflects human wisdom or intelligence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16887" LastEditorUserId="16887" LastEditDate="2017-05-01T03:08:20.807" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T03:08:20.807" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23609" CreationDate="2017-05-01T05:47:17.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trump sounds like Trump. Many Chinese speakers whose English is not so hot will say 'ah' or 'oh' after English words, like: goodah, coldah.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the character for 啊 a, this is 哦 o. They are often added at the end of sentences for reasons of prosody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say: 对 dui, meaning 'correct', but mostly you will hear 对阿 dui a 'correct'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe he is making a (political) joke:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What's your name?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Trumpoh!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T05:47:17.733" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23595" CreationDate="2017-05-01T06:14:58.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Existing answers are well written. I deem that you may render it &quot;romance&quot; (=legend) or even simply &quot;story&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T06:14:58.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23605" CreationDate="2017-05-01T06:16:15.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;講課 usually exclusively refers to a lecture in a school or university, while 演講 is not restricted to such context. Every kind of (somewhat formal) &quot;speech&quot; may be said a 演講.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T06:16:15.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23595" CreationDate="2017-05-01T07:41:19.017" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translate is not a dictionary, so don't be surprised if you get odd results for single words.  If you give it a whole sentence, you'll have better luck. Colin McLarty has the correct meaning for 風雲 above, but I thought I would add a little more because 風雲 is one of those Chinese words that doesn't have a real English equivalent, yet has a very concrete, vivid meaning that is not hard to explain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;風雲 refers to a dramatic moment in history or life when great changes come about in a short period. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where English uses 'hour' or 'day', Chinese will often use 風雲. An example is 'man of the hour', often translated as 風雲人物. Similarly, someone who brings about dramatic change in a situation is said to 叱吒風雲 'ride the wings of the storm' (Google translate says 'Reverbercy situation', another sign that you're looking in the wrong place). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a title, 風雲 is similar to English words such as 'crisis', 'drama', or 'melodrama': 'Manhattan Melodrama', 'Shanghai Drama', etc. In fact, ANY movie or television show that we might label a 'drama' can have 風雲 added at the end, just to make sure people know what kind of work it is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is VERY common: in addition to the examples Hello Harry gives below, Chinese Wikipedia lists movie examples such as Spartacus (風雲羣英會), Casino (賭國風雲), and Wag the Dog (桃色風雲搖擺狗), TV examples such as Peyton Place 小城風雲 (an older translation), Six Feet Under (六呎風雲), and Jailbreak (監獄風雲), and don't forget the board game Risk (戰國風雲), as well as a zillion computer/console games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides its use in titles to indicate a drama, 風雲 is often used proverbially. Sudden change presents opportunity so that a man of talent who seizes the moment is said to encounter 風雲際會, (風雲際會十年間，樊作諸侯劉作帝 Dramatic change in ten years time, Fan becomes prince , Liu the Emperor). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, the idea of a storm is also present (as when the wind blows clouds across the sky) giving expressions such as 天有不測風雲, where English might say 'a reversal of fortune'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general then, searching for a single unchanging English equivalent for vivid, dynamic Chinese words can often lead to odd or frustrating results; better to try and figure out the internal logic of the Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastEditorUserId="11279" LastEditDate="2017-05-01T13:59:31.703" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T13:59:31.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23617" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23619" CreationDate="2017-05-01T15:31:37.493" Score="2" ViewCount="1539" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard from somewhere that there are no voiced consonants in Mandarin. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; says that consonants like the pinyin &quot;d&quot;, &quot;b&quot;, &quot;g&quot; are &quot;unaspirated&quot;, whatever that means...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although my first language &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; Mandarin, I think I spoke too much in English and might have forgotten how do the &quot;unaspirated&quot; consonants sound. For example, I am not sure whether I am pronouncing the &quot;unaspirated&quot; pinyin &quot;b&quot; or the voiced consonant &quot;b&quot; in English when I say something like &quot;不&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia says that the pinyin &quot;b&quot; is the same as the &lt;code&gt;p&lt;/code&gt; in the word &quot;spy&quot;. But this didn't really help me understand &quot;unaspirated&quot; consonants. I have always been told that, in English, when &quot;s&quot; is followed by a &quot;p&quot;, the &quot;p&quot; usually turns into a &quot;b&quot; sound. I always thought that the &quot;p&quot; in &quot;spy&quot; is the same as in the &quot;b&quot; in &quot;but&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, I can't seem to distinguish between voiced and &quot;unaspirated&quot; consonants by hearing. So I need another way to check if I pronounced it correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the difference pronouncing a pinyin &quot;b&quot; and an English &quot;b&quot;? How can I check if I pronounced it correctly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T17:25:49.057" Title="What's the difference between voiced and &quot;unaspirated&quot; consonants and how can I check if I got it correct?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23617" CreationDate="2017-05-01T16:57:48.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a fairly technical problem to describe these sounds; for some of the details see the wikipedia article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortis_and_lenis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fortis and lenis&lt;/a&gt;. As a native English speaker, I find the aspirated unvoiced consonants (au) very easy to distinguish, but I may have trouble distinguishing between voiced unaspirated (vu) and unvoiced unaspirated (uu).  If you listen to a Hindi movie, you can hear the fourth possibility, voiced and aspirated (va) ; a very unusual sound to people who are not native speakers of such a language.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can one distinguish vu and uu? Two suggestions; Put your finger on your adams apple; vu has voicing almost immediately after release, while uu has a delay. the apple begins vibrating later after the -p- in spy than it does after the b in buy. In English, the b- lasts longer than -p- There is also more pressure or energy with the -p- than with the b- (very subjective, I know).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in Chinese, when uu is intervocalic, it becomes voiced.  For example, in the word baba 'father', the initial b is uu, but the second b is vu. Once my attention was drawn to this, I found that the two did indeed sound and feel different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T16:57:48.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23617" CreationDate="2017-05-01T17:25:49.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Voice-Onset Time&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you probably already know, the distinction between voiced vs unvoiced-unaspirated vs unvoiced-aspirated is the relative timing of articulation and voicing (called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice-onset_time&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;voice-onset time&lt;/a&gt; or VOT):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Voiced stops have a negative VOT (i.e., the voicing begins before articulation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unvoiced-unaspirated (sometimes called &quot;lenis&quot;) stops have approximately zero VOT (i.e., voicing and articulation co-occur).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unvoiced-aspirated stops have positive VOT (i.e., voicing begins after a delay relative to articulation).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In IPA, we use discrete symbols to indicate these distinctions (e.g., b/p/pʰ). Lumping VOT measurements into &quot;negative&quot;, &quot;zero&quot;, and &quot;positive&quot; is just a convenient simplification, though. In fact, there is a range of possible values that it can take on, and languages do, in fact, differ from one another in terms of how they realize &quot;voicing&quot; or &quot;aspiration&quot;. However, any given language only distinguishes at most 3 stops on the basis of VOT alone**, so IPA (e.g., b/p/pʰ) is sufficient to describe things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Measuring VOT&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is all great, but you say that you're learning Japanese (which has very negative VOT on its voiced stops), and as a speaker of Mandarin (zero VOT) and English (slightly negative VOT), you're not sure whether you're producing voiced or lenis stops. You can in fact measure VOT on an audio recording of yourself. &lt;a href=&quot;https://colangpraat.wordpress.com/part-6-measuring-vot-voice-onset-timing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here's&lt;/a&gt; a tutorial on using praat to measure VOT on audio recordings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that sounds too complicated, you put your hand on your throat and feel when you produce voicing. To practice making voiced consonants having very negative VOT, try to keep your lips closed while starting vibrate your vocal chords. It's hard to do this very long, as your mouth starts to fill up with air, but it can help you see how it feels to begin voicing earlier than releasing a stop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;* It's probably even more complicated than that, but I'm going to assume that VoT is good enough to explain everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** Hindi &quot;voiced aspirated stops&quot; are breathy voiced, to respond to the obvious rebuttal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T17:25:49.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5043" CreationDate="2017-05-01T22:23:56.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the Chinese Hui version of inshaallah (I have a Hui friend, she taught me that...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;印善安拉&lt;/strong&gt;: yìn shàn ān lā : inshaallah&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17011" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T22:23:56.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23622" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23624" CreationDate="2017-05-02T04:13:59.813" Score="1" ViewCount="300" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found the following definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怀疑 [doubt; suspect; scepsis]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;疑惑 [feel uncertain; be not convinced], and it is additionally defined as  &quot;Puzzle&quot; and &quot;Unpeaceful&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I feel the former is more about skepticism, while the latter is more about uncertainty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T07:57:38.393" Title="What is the difference between 怀疑 and 疑惑?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23622" CreationDate="2017-05-02T04:29:06.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yup, you've got a good handle on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the entries as they appear in &lt;em&gt;Pocket Oxford&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;﻿&lt;strong&gt;怀疑&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;动 名&amp;gt; doubt, suspect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;引起怀疑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;arouse suspicion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我怀疑他今天来不了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a hunch that he won't be able to come today&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt; &#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;疑惑&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;动&amp;gt; feel uncertain, not be convinced&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;疑惑不解&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;feel puzzled&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know where you get the meaning &lt;em&gt;unpeaceful&lt;/em&gt; from for 疑惑, but other than that you're going in the right direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T04:29:06.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23622" CreationDate="2017-05-02T05:18:09.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;怀疑&lt;/strong&gt; is a verb for '&lt;strong&gt;to suspect&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 我&lt;strong&gt;怀疑&lt;/strong&gt;他杀了他儿子 (I &lt;strong&gt;suspect&lt;/strong&gt; he killed his son)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;怀疑&lt;/strong&gt; is also a noun for &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/suspicion?s=t&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;suspicion&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;2.the state of mind or feeling of one who suspects&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 这只是我的&lt;strong&gt;怀疑&lt;/strong&gt; (It is only my &lt;strong&gt;suspicion&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;疑惑&lt;/strong&gt; is an adjective for '&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/uncertain?s=t&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;uncertain&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;2. not confident, assured, or free from hesitancy&lt;/em&gt;); &lt;strong&gt;puzzled&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 你这话使我感到&lt;strong&gt;疑惑&lt;/strong&gt; (these words of yours make me feel &lt;strong&gt;uncertain&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;疑惑&lt;/strong&gt; is also a noun for ' &lt;strong&gt;doubt&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/uncertainty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;uncertainty&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;puzzle&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 有&lt;strong&gt;疑惑&lt;/strong&gt; (have &lt;strong&gt;doubt&lt;/strong&gt;) ; 重重&lt;strong&gt;疑惑&lt;/strong&gt; (layers upon layers of &lt;strong&gt;uncertainty&lt;/strong&gt;); 这个&lt;strong&gt;疑惑&lt;/strong&gt; (this &lt;strong&gt;puzzle&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;嫌疑&lt;/strong&gt; is noun for '&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/suspicion&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;suspicion&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;' (&lt;em&gt;4.state of being suspected&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:他有杀了他儿子的&lt;strong&gt;嫌疑&lt;/strong&gt; (he is under the &lt;strong&gt;suspicion&lt;/strong&gt; of killed his son)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-02T07:57:38.393" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T07:57:38.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23625" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23626" CreationDate="2017-05-02T18:23:22.630" Score="4" ViewCount="335" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed that 別 / 别 have two slightly different variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference in how the respective variations are used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T09:01:53.410" Title="How are the two versions of 別 / 别 used?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23625" CreationDate="2017-05-02T18:39:43.300" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are just variants of the same character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别 is the one chosen in the standard of China Mainland. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;別 is the one chosen in the standards of Hong Kong, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-05-16T13:39:06.843" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T13:39:06.843" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23627" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-02T19:38:25.280" Score="7" ViewCount="1697" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Classical Chinese, the proper word for counting days is 日. In Southern Chinese languages, 日 is more prevalent in counting days. Why 天 is chosen for counting days in Mandarin instead of 日? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More, in Mandarin it is quite usual to replace 日 with 天 for some words related to day. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;星期日 禮拜日 (Sunday) to 星期天 禮拜天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;明日 (Tomorrow) to 明天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;改日 (another day) to 改天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;日日 (Everyday) to 天天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;當日 (At that day) to 當天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastEditorUserId="6158" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T10:13:12.080" LastActivityDate="2017-05-22T05:30:00.820" Title="Why 天 is chosen for counting days instead of 日 in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23564" CreationDate="2017-05-02T20:15:42.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This custom is about the offspring of a new couple, especially to have boys in the future. In the past, only male members of family could inherit property. This is the reason why it is a boy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before marriage, each couple would have a new bed in their room. There is a ceremony to fix the bed in the room. After this ceremony, no one touch this bed before marriage except asking a boy to piss to an urn on the bed. It symbolises that a baby make bed wet. Nowadays, a boy jumps twice and eats nuts on the bed instead. This prompts the new couple to have baby as soon as possible, and have many offspring in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T20:15:42.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23627" CreationDate="2017-05-02T22:48:15.610" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong or GuangDong, Cantonese still use 日 for 'day.' For example: ' 几日返来啊？' For Mandarin speakers, 天 tian is easier and more natural  to pronounce than 日 ri. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &lt;strong&gt;日&lt;/strong&gt; sounds like &lt;strong&gt;入&lt;/strong&gt; (enter). Which is the &lt;strong&gt;F word&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, it's also because of the Japanese invasion of China. Japan in Chinese is 日. Since general Chinese didn't like Japan, they unconsciously avoided using 日.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-02T23:29:02.860" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T23:29:02.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23627" CreationDate="2017-05-03T00:02:33.467" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion，天 is more often use on 白话文 and normal conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because 天 is more natural and easy to pronounce than 日 when talking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日 is more often use on 文言文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example in 佛说阿弥陀经,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;舍利弗，若有善男子、善女人，闻说阿弥陀佛，执持名号，&lt;strong&gt;若一日、若二日、若三日、若四日、若五日、若六日、若七日&lt;/strong&gt;，一心不乱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16736" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T00:02:33.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23631" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23632" CreationDate="2017-05-03T05:11:03.437" Score="1" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the ways of saying somebody helped you in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I want to say, &quot;My Chinese friend gave me some help for writing my Chinese essay.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct?: &quot;我的中国朋友给我帮助写我的中文文章”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16472" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T11:06:51.023" Title="Is it proper to say “她给我帮助”？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23631" CreationDate="2017-05-03T06:24:24.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Since 帮助 itself can be a verb for 'help', you can simply write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 我的中国朋友][2. 帮助][3. 我][ 4.写(omit &lt;em&gt;我的&lt;/em&gt;)中文文章]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. subject][2. verb][3. object][4. relative clause ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you use 帮助 as a noun for 'assistance' then the structure would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 我的中国朋友][2. 给][3. 我][4. 写中文文章的][5. 帮助]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. subject] [2. verb] [3. indirect object][4. adjectival clause for the direct object][5. direct object]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The problem with 我的中国朋友给我帮助写我的中文文章 is the placement of the adjectival clause for the direct object.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 我的中国朋友][2. 给][3. 我][4. 帮助][5. 写我的中文文章]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1.subject][2.verb][3.indirect object][4.direct object] [5.adjectival clause for the direct object]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It should be placed before the direct object with the possessive particle [&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 我的中国朋友][2. 给][3. 我][5. 写(omit &lt;em&gt;我的&lt;/em&gt;)中文文章][&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;][4. 帮助]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T11:06:51.023" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T11:06:51.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23631" CreationDate="2017-05-03T08:46:19.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's probably grammatically correct, but a native speaker would just say 她帮我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2870" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T08:46:19.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23635" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-03T16:26:23.017" Score="0" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been collecting memo sentences to distinguish between 活 and 话. The root  phrase is &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/example?query=%E4%BB%96%E8%AF%9D%E8%AF%B4%E5%BE%97%E5%A5%BD%E5%BF%AB%E3%80%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;他话说得好快&lt;/a&gt; and I know it's grammatical, because it's given in a courpus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What interests me is the grammaticality of another phrase, which we can get by changing (occasionally or intentionally) 话 into 活. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question will be, do native speakers understand the phrase 他活说得好快 as a grammatical utterance and, if yes, what would it mean in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2469" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T18:28:05.137" Title="Is phrase 他活说得好快 grammatical?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9683" CreationDate="2017-05-03T17:33:48.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Briefly speaking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;办法 is more about solving problems (solutions).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;方法 is more about the ways (methods) to do something.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10934" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T17:33:48.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23635" CreationDate="2017-05-03T18:28:05.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;[活] and [话] are completely different word and cannot be used interchangeably. &quot;他活说得好快&quot; is not a correct sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the reason you thought these 2 word can interchange is because of some common typos. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T18:28:05.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23640" CreationDate="2017-05-03T19:09:10.977" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term is from 红楼梦/Dream of the Red Chamber chapter 35.  I have found several translations and none is any more helpful that this: four sets of moulds for soups.  I do not know what soup molds (or moulds) are in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These ones have a decorative purpose which one translation expresses this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On the top, holes were bored of the size of beans. Some resembled&#xA;  chrysanthemums, others plum blossom. Some were in the shape of lotus&#xA;  seed-cases, others like water chestnuts. They numbered in all thirty&#xA;  or forty kinds, and were ingeniously executed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I have no idea what that really means.  Do such molds exist today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T02:14:53.423" Title="What is a 四副做汤的银模子?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23639" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-03T20:40:25.100" Score="2" ViewCount="336" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there is a more general principle at work here, I'd love to know, so I can find more resources. For many verbs, if there's an object, you use 给 beforehand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给他打电话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some, you can do it before or after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;给他送&#xA;&#xA;送给她&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other day in class, I tried to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;给我证明&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and was told I should have said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;证明给我看&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not doubting my teacher, I'm just trying to find a bit more rhyme and reason to how objects works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17022" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T15:56:53.470" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T15:56:53.470" Title="When does 给 object come before a verb, and when does it come after?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23638" CreationDate="2017-05-03T21:04:37.187" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those molds are for making '莲叶羹' (lotus leaf soup)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, there are not any real lotus leaves in lotus leaf soup.  Those molds are for making lotus leaf scented flour dough balls in the soup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the family in the novel was fabulously wealthy, they used silver molds instead of wooden molds (silver is expensive, and it turns black when in contact with poison).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;中国·海阳- 民俗文化&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;还记得《红楼梦》里宝玉挨打后要喝小荷叶莲蓬汤的章节吗？“薛姨妈先接过来瞧时，原来是个小匣子，里面装着四付明光烁亮银模子，都有一尺多长，一寸见方。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;汤模子&lt;/strong&gt; (soup molds)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ilKF9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ilKF9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;[汤模子&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/N8RqE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/N8RqE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;莲叶羹模子&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;《红楼梦》里的人夏天都在吃什么？&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;这是去年贵妃贾元春归省时吃过的一道汤菜——莲叶羹，需用[&lt;strong&gt;银质汤模子&lt;/strong&gt;(silver soup mold)]将湿面皮扎制出豆子大小的若干花型，再配以好汤 烧制，原文中说要“借点新荷叶的清香”，故名莲叶羹。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lotus soup&lt;/strong&gt; -- need to use silver soup mold to make moist dough into number of lotus leaf scented, bean sized flower pattern. Matched with a good soup. The original text wrote: &quot;borrow the new lotus leaf fragrance&quot;, hence the name of lotus leaf soup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;莲叶羹&lt;/strong&gt; (lotus leaf soup)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O0HHB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O0HHB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;莲叶羹&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T02:14:53.423" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T02:14:53.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23641" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23646" CreationDate="2017-05-03T21:18:02.373" Score="0" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching a Chinese kid's movie about Chinese mythology to practice my Mandarin and learn about mythology when one of the characters said &quot;什么人&quot;, which I interpreted to mean 谁. Is one more formal than the other? Do native speakers use them interchangeably or do they use one more than the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T03:55:16.820" Title="什么人 vs. 谁 usages？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23639" CreationDate="2017-05-03T21:30:45.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When &lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt; is placed before a verb, it means '&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;'. And it has a 'demanding or asserted tone' to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt;我打!= Beat (him) for me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt;他送 = give/ send (it) &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt;我证明 = prove (it) &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When &lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt; is placed after a verb, it means '&lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;送&lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt;她 = give/send (it) &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; her&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;证明&lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt;我看 = prove (it) &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T21:30:45.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23639" CreationDate="2017-05-03T23:03:24.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;给X is the Chinese version of accusative or dative case.  给X indicates X is passive, not active. Before or after a verb, it just shifts the action away from X. Otherwise, X would somehow also seem active and you may end up with a nonsense sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happens if you don't use it?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给他打电话 give &lt;strong&gt;him&lt;/strong&gt; a call&lt;br&gt;&#xA;打给他电话 give &lt;strong&gt;him&lt;/strong&gt; a call&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他打电话 &lt;strong&gt;he&lt;/strong&gt; calls&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给他送 send &lt;strong&gt;him&lt;/strong&gt;/give &lt;strong&gt;him&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他送 &lt;strong&gt;he&lt;/strong&gt; sends/gives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她试图给他剪指甲，他不让。 She tried to cut his fingernails but he didn't let her.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In German that would be: Sie wollte &lt;strong&gt;ihm&lt;/strong&gt; die Fingernägel schneiden, doch er ließ sie nicht. 'ihm' is the dative case of German 'er' = 'he', corresponding to Old English 'him' and Modern English 'him')  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她试图他剪指甲，他不让。 *She tried he/him cut his fingernails, ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;证明&lt;strong&gt;给我&lt;/strong&gt;看 We could translate: Prove it &lt;strong&gt;to me&lt;/strong&gt;. German: Beweis es &lt;strong&gt;mir&lt;/strong&gt;. 'mir' is the dative case of 'me' in German. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think this really says: 证明给我看 Proof let me see. / Give me proof to see. / Let me see (some) proof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Modern English has lost most of the case system that Old English had, it bypasses that using a prepositional phrase sometimes. I wouldn't just generalize and say 给X is 'to X' or 'for X'. That won't work in many cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T23:03:24.870" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22784" CreationDate="2017-05-04T00:40:02.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is better not to write Chinese in this way. Chinese languages are not like European languages. Do not stuff everything into a sentence. If you make sentences from those grammar books, you will end up with exceedingly long sentences with no break. As you know, Chinese do not break words with space and is very harder to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those grammar sentences should be limited to a few words. Otherwise, break a sentence into many short sentences. A topic sentence with many auxiliary sentences following to give more information, and put time and place in front of the topic sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 去天 打 我 幾個小時 (This one is short. No need to change)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 去天 愉快地 房子後 打 我 幾個小時 (This one is long, too much information, and need break it into several sentences)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;去天，你在房子後，打我幾個小時，打得很愉快。&#xA;time , place,  topic &amp;amp; duration, feeling&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can keep adding information with more sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;去天，你在房子後，打我幾個小時，用大頭棒打向踝，打得很愉快。&#xA;time, place, topic &amp;amp; duration, instrument &amp;amp; target, feeling&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T00:40:02.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23641" CreationDate="2017-05-04T03:48:37.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is quite fine but here they are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谁：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is more commonly used&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is more polite&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么人：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Used more in the olden days&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The person who says this may be a higher-class person or just arrogant&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Less polite          &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In some cases is a question of one's status&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17026" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T03:48:37.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23641" CreationDate="2017-05-04T03:55:16.820" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usage may overlap, but they are often used in different situations to ask for different information.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;誰 often asks identity, usually a name.  什麼人 often asks for status or role, 'what kind of a person' An example is this riddle: 什么人最笨？ 渔（愚）人. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also be used in the non-interrogative sense, as in 你是什麼人，便會吸引到什麼人. Whatever kind of person you are, that is the kind of person you will attract.  誰 would probably not be used in this type of sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11279" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T03:55:16.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23647" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23648" CreationDate="2017-05-04T05:52:59.837" Score="2" ViewCount="570" Body="&lt;p&gt;赞成&#xA;to approve;&#xA;to endorse;&#xA;(literary) to assist&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赞同&#xA;to approve of;&#xA;to endorse;&#xA;(vote) in favor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a forum where a native speaker suggests that 赞成 has an added meaning of 'help' (as in the definitions) and 赞同 is associated with participation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another response suggests that 赞成 is used with plans and proposals and 赞同 is used with ideas and methods&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T08:32:10.833" Title="What is the difference between 赞成 and 赞同?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23647" CreationDate="2017-05-04T06:57:31.233" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 赞成 and 赞同 mean: 'approve / support/ agree'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there's a subtle difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[赞同] = [赞成(agree/support) + 同意(agree/have the same idea)] * Therefore, 赞同 has the added meaning of 'be convinced'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you 赞成 (approve / support) an idea, you may or may not be totally convinced. For example, you can vote 赞成 on an issue because most people in your group have voted 赞成 already. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you say you 赞同 an idea, that indicates you have been convinced (to have the same idea as the other's). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;you can 'reluctantly agree' (勉强赞成); you cannot 'reluctantly agree and be convinced' (勉强赞同)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There can be 投票赞成 (vote to support) ; There can't be 投票赞同 (vote to support and agree)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T08:32:10.833" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T08:32:10.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17727" CreationDate="2017-05-04T08:24:03.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Chinese author I translate does this sometimes, although very rarely. The two instances in which I recall seeing it were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 她 to refer to a country/motherland (maybe to a car too, on one occasion, but I'm not sure, so don't quote me here - yes, I realize the similarity with English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 他们 to refer to 潜意识、无意识 (the subconscious and unconscious).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My cotranslator (native Mandarin speaker, unlike myself) told me that it was fine in both instances, and a type of personification (拟人的手法）. Confused the bejesus out of me while I was translating, though...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17027" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T08:24:03.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23650" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23659" CreationDate="2017-05-04T08:48:47.983" Score="4" ViewCount="413" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the grammar behind the sentence 你的脑子进水了?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because 你的脑子 here is the object into which 水 the subject entered, right?&#xA;Shouldnt it be the other way round then? I am a bit confused.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example &quot;I entered the room&quot; would be 我进（入）房间了, right?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17028" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:57:33.377" Title="Grammar behind “你的脑子进水了”。" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23651" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-04T13:29:57.403" Score="2" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between all these waving and shaking verbs?&#xA;My reseach gave me these results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;滚 - to roll (like a wheel does).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;晃 - to rock from left to right (like a wind blowing on the side of the boat).  Or, as some say, 晃 is connected to &quot;visual swinning&quot; like a lantern on a thread or tree leaves waving and  thus blocking and unblocking the sun's light which passing through the tree top.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;荡 - to rock from front to back making large swings? Nose dipping - back raising and so on.. Like a child on a swing (a hanging seat).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;摇 - to spin in one place (to spin on spot)? Etymology suggest it's a depiction of a process of making some pottery using potter's wheel. So spinning sence should come from this process. There is also a phrase 摇电话. Why use 摇 with电话? Maybe it comes from the old telephones with a disk number plate? But on the other hand some say it is &quot;to shake&quot; as a bell shakes when ringing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;摆 - to wag a tail (like a dog), but then what is the difference with 晃? Can a dog 晃 it's tail?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;抖 - ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;挥 - to wave, but what's so special about this kind of &quot;waving&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;颤 - ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the difference between all those verbs might be in the:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;direction of waving/swining. UpDown vs LeftRight vs BackForth.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ability to use those verbs in specific tense. (like 往往 is used for past and 常常 is for present and future tense)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;amplitude of movement.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. any etymology info which might help to differentiate between those verbs are much appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T14:10:23.860" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T12:07:49.337" Title="Difference between 晃, 摇, 抖, 荡, 摆, 挥, 颤 and 滚" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23652" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23655" CreationDate="2017-05-04T14:02:20.907" Score="1" ViewCount="359" Body="&lt;p&gt;连续&#xA;successive; &#xA;continuous; &#xA;consecutive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陆续 &#xA;in turn;&#xA;successively;&#xA;one after the other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;接连&#xA;on end;&#xA;in a row;&#xA;in succession&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一连&#xA;in a row;&#xA;in succession;&#xA;running&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I've read, 连续 is the most widespread term and would be the most accurate word for 'continuous', especially in science, as I have a book called 连续时间金融&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From examples, 陆续 is closer to 'one after the other' or consecutively&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't see what's unique about 接连 and 一连 but they seem different from the other two&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T16:05:55.277" Title="What is the difference between 连续， 陆续， 接连， and 一连？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23656" CreationDate="2017-05-04T15:09:30.147" Score="1" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translate:&#xA;&quot;Meet is the song&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that doesn't make sense in English, could somebody try to come up with a better translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see 相逢 probably means &quot;come across&quot; here&#xA;and 首歌 is really unclear what it means &quot;first song?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to say it means &quot;I came across a song&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's just really unclear to me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's from this song: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeuHZjz1FZY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeuHZjz1FZY&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T16:32:10.240" Title="What does 相逢是首歌 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23651" CreationDate="2017-05-04T16:04:44.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;滚 : to boil;&#xA;to roll;&#xA;Get lost!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E6%BB%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E6%BB%9A&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No definitions or words explicitly relating to waving or shaking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;荡 (dang4)： pond, pool; wash away, cleanse + shake&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E8%8D%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E8%8D%A1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The definition 'shake/swing' appears to be more literary. It resembles the swaying movement of a boat or reed in a pond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would add that in my experience it's counterproductive to seek differences in meaning of individual characters without context, as many characters are not used on their own but form parts of actual words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest of the question would be better phrased as the &lt;strong&gt;difference between 摇动 摆动 晃动 抖动&#xA;and 挥动&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;挥动&lt;/strong&gt; is used when a &lt;strong&gt;person&lt;/strong&gt; is waving &lt;strong&gt;some thing&lt;/strong&gt;, because 挥 is also used in words to mean &lt;strong&gt;to command&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;摆动&lt;/strong&gt; is used for &lt;strong&gt;oscillating&lt;/strong&gt; movement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;摇动&lt;/strong&gt; would be your typical word for shake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see &lt;strong&gt;晃动&lt;/strong&gt; used a lot with liquids. It expresses shaking &lt;strong&gt;to and fro&lt;/strong&gt;, oscillating &lt;strong&gt;up/down&lt;/strong&gt;, or shaking &lt;strong&gt;in waves&lt;/strong&gt; (that's why dogs don't 晃 their tail)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抖动 and 颤动&lt;/strong&gt; are both about &lt;strong&gt;trembling&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抖动 is simpler &lt;strong&gt;lower frequency&lt;/strong&gt; trembling, 颤动 is &lt;strong&gt;higher frequency&lt;/strong&gt; trembling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抖动 is &lt;strong&gt;local&lt;/strong&gt; 颤动 is &lt;strong&gt;global&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastEditorUserId="11602" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T16:19:46.933" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T16:19:46.933" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23652" CreationDate="2017-05-04T16:05:55.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As all four words have very similar meanings, here's an attempt to explain the slight differences: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;连续 emphasize on the consecutive-ness - there're no breaks in between.&#xA;陆续 emphasize on counting - in a sense of 'keep it coming'.&#xA;接连 emphasize on succession / connection.  'one after the other' fits here.      &#xA;一连 is the same as 连续 but in a sense of shorter range in terms of usage.    &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T16:05:55.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23653" CreationDate="2017-05-04T16:32:10.240" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does not make sense in Chinese either when it is without any context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After reading the lyrics, it just means &quot;(Our) meeting is like a song&quot;. And &quot;you and me are the singers of the song&quot;. It is metaphor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T16:32:10.240" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1737" CreationDate="2017-05-04T17:08:05.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Guangdong, especially in Guangzhou the term 老鄉 is used ironically as a derogatory term for someone from a different province or by Cantonese speakers for someone who don't speak the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17033" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T17:08:05.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23651" CreationDate="2017-05-04T21:15:09.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you consult dictionaries, you can see those characters have many overlapped meanings among them. To learn specifically which one to use in what sentences, the best way is to study the compound words those characters associated with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晃- 晃動(shaking), 摇晃(shake), 虛晃 (wave in the air), 一晃 (flash past; pass in a wink)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 往左邊虛晃 (wave to the left)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can try the same with the rest of the characters on the list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[搖]- 搖動(shake), 摇晃(wobble), 搖頭 (shaking head)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[抖]- 抖動(shake), 顫抖(trembling), &lt;strong&gt;抖開&lt;/strong&gt; (shaking off)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[盪]- 動盪(turmoil), 震盪(shock),  盪鞦韆(swing in a swing set)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[擺]- 擺動(swing), 搖擺(rock), 擺尾(shaking tail)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[揮]- 揮動(swing), 揮舞(waving/brandish), 揮手(waving hand), 揮劍 (swing a sword)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[顫]- 顫動(quiver), 顫抖(trembling) 冷顫 (shiver)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[滾]- 滾動(roll), 滾滾(rolling), 翻滾(tumble)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More details on 晃:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[晃] made up of [日]+ [光], mainly means 'to shine' . 'To flash' is an extended meaning that describes a sudden, quick movement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt; - answering a comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You see 搖 and 抖 are still too close. What kind of &amp;quot;shaking&amp;quot; each of them represents? As for 揮 and 擺, I guess 揮 is mostly for &amp;quot;waving made by the hand&amp;quot;, whereas 擺 is for &amp;quot;non hands waving&amp;quot;. The 抖 and 顫 are still too close. Maybe 抖 is used for shaking made by hands and 顫 is for other kinds of shaking (like head shaking, or body shaking)?– coobit&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of the listed character describes 'a movement. ' There's no distinction between hand or non-hand ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;搖(rock/shake/swing/sway) can be slow or fast, strong or gentle; 抖 is always a quick shark or jerk. It is never slow or gentle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;揮 can be a big or small movement e.g 狂揮(madly swing), 輕揮(gently wave); 擺 is mostly a more rhythmical movement - think 'pendulum'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;顫 is a smaller movement than 抖. Both describe a shark or a jerk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;胸肌一顫 - chest muscles jerk (small jerk)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;長矛一抖 - the long spear shakes (big shake)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T12:07:49.337" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23650" CreationDate="2017-05-05T01:13:59.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;[进水] is a compound word for [be flooded (v)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar structured terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漏水 = [leak (v)] / [leakage (n)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通电 = [electrify (v)] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;充气 = [pump air in (v) / inflate (v)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的脑子进水了 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means: &quot;Your brain is flooded.&quot;   -- 进水 in this sentence is a compound word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A flooded brain certainly wouldn't produce solid ideas&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-05T01:30:06.697" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T01:30:06.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23660" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23661" CreationDate="2017-05-05T04:47:32.987" Score="1" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;紧迫 urgent; pressing; imminent:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;急迫 urgent； pressing； imperative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have analyzed many words relating to urgency, but this is the only pair I was not able to distinguish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T07:29:28.733" Title="What is the difference between 紧迫 and 急迫？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23660" CreationDate="2017-05-05T06:17:00.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a Chinese thesaurus dictionary (现代汉语同义词词典) . It does not compare 紧迫 with 急迫 directly but compares 紧迫 with 紧急 and 急迫 with 急切.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;紧迫 is subjective and 急迫 objective. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;紧迫：～感|任务～|形势十分～ &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;急迫：情况～|～的任务&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;紧迫 is definitely much more widely used both in written and oral Chinese. It feels as if you can use 紧迫 to replace 急迫 and it is still fine but not vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the comparison mentioned above, it is dauntingly long even for a native speaker. If you are interested, check it here &lt;a href=&quot;https://pastebin.com/b8tGSeNF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pastebin.com/b8tGSeNF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T06:17:00.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23660" CreationDate="2017-05-05T07:57:05.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;紧迫&lt;/strong&gt; (tightly press) = &lt;strong&gt;pressing&lt;/strong&gt; ; &lt;strong&gt;urgent&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;紧 (tightly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;迫 (pressing/ forcing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 时间&lt;strong&gt;紧迫&lt;/strong&gt; (time is &lt;strong&gt;pressing&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;紧急&lt;/strong&gt; (seriously hurry) = &lt;strong&gt;urgent&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;emergency&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;紧(tightly /seriously)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;急 (hurry)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;情况&lt;strong&gt;紧急&lt;/strong&gt; (situation is &lt;strong&gt;urgent&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;紧急&lt;/strong&gt;会议 (&lt;strong&gt;emergency&lt;/strong&gt; meeting)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;迫切&lt;/strong&gt; = (immediately pressing) = &lt;strong&gt;urgent&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-迫 (pressing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-切 (serious/ immediate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;切 in 迫切 is the same one in 切身 (immediate to oneself)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is different from 切勿(seriously don't) and 切记(seriously / must remember)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.截止日期&lt;strong&gt;迫切&lt;/strong&gt; (deadline is immediately /seriously &lt;strong&gt;pressing&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;strong&gt;迫切&lt;/strong&gt;进攻 (&lt;strong&gt;urgently&lt;/strong&gt; attack)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;急迫 is not a common term, it is a combination of 紧急 and 迫切  (紧急而迫切 pressing and urgent)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T08:14:47.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23663" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-05T09:51:34.723" Score="2" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;I searched through dictionaries to understand magic related words and phrases, like in MMORPG games or Fantasy books/movies. But I'm so confused how to construct a sentence and I really want to learn. I also couldn't make proper sentences the words that I looked for like 咒语, 念咒, 咒文, 魔咒, 施法, 法術... I don't know which verb should I use with them to correspond verbs &amp;quot;to cast&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;to do&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;to put&amp;quot;...&#xA;I'm looking for the exact words to correspond magic, charm, spell and curse. And the phrases like &amp;quot;to cast a spell&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;to put a spell on someone&amp;quot;&#xA;Also I'm trying to make sentence with the phrases;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;To cast fire spell&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;Casting Light Spell&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;The witch casted a dark&#xA;spell&amp;quot;(I want to see the usage of it with adjectives)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;She put a    curse him&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;He cursed him with a spell&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;She put a spell on me&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;She    did lightning magic&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really need this community's help on this. Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17039" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T14:27:24.170" Title="Words and phrases related magic(like in fantasy movies&amp;MMO games)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17727" CreationDate="2017-05-05T13:18:39.770" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say it is arbitrary. You can write whatever you feel fit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese do not have gender for pronoun generally until some writers tried to copy European languages and did some experience on new type of Chinese writing around 1910s and afterwards.  In tradition writing, 她 does not exist and everyone writes 他 or its variant 它 for He/She/It/(They). 她 is new invention of that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In China, it does not assign gender to non-living things. There might be some deities with gender, but not the non-living things themselves. If gender is important, they would write it out explicitly. Say the deity of earth have gender, they write 地母 (lit. Earth Mother) or 土地公 (lit. Local Earth Grandfather) and use 他 afterwards, regardless of gender.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is absolutely no agreement on the assignment of gender to non-living things. This is unnatural to Chinese.  That's why you found contradictory usage. It is from author to author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The words such as 祖國 and 母校 are borrowed from European languages. The word 祖 in 祖國 means male ancestry. The example in your question 「我愛祖國, 她永遠連着我的心。」shows how contradictory usage is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some authors who do not use 她 at all. It is up to you to write 她 or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T13:18:39.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23663" CreationDate="2017-05-05T13:53:52.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese languages are not English. They are completely different languages. You might not find word-to-word correspondence in sentence construction. Even if you do, it sounds unnatural or unnecessary tedious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;To cast fire spell&quot;/&quot;Casting Light Spell&quot;/&quot;The witch casted a dark spell&quot;(I want to see the usage of it with adjectives)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;施火咒 / 施光咒 / 巫師施暗咒&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;She put a curse him&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;女子向男子施惡咒&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;He cursed him with a spell&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;男子向另一男子施惡咒&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;She put a spell on me&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;女子向我施咒&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;She did lightning magic&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;女子施電光法術&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually there are many words and ways to say the same thing. The above is just an illustration. It depends on the context. Say, what kind of action to put or cast a spell. Other than 施, it can be be 放, 下, 落, 念 etc. Or the objective to put or cast a spell / curse. Say, 咒他落地獄 (lit. curse him to fall into the hell)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T13:53:52.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23666" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23672" CreationDate="2017-05-05T14:32:23.987" Score="0" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for alternative translations of this short quote from chapter 45 (四十五回) Dream of The Red Chamber《红楼梦》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“气的我只要给平儿打报不平儿。忖夺了半日，好容易‘狗长尾巴尖儿’的好日子，又怕老太太心里不受用，因此没来，究竟气还未平。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;H. Bencraft Joly's translation is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My monkey was up, and I meant to have taken upon myself to avenge Ping’er’s grievance; but, after mature consideration, I thought to myself, ‘her birthday is as slow to come round as a dog’s tail grows to a point.’ I also feared lest our venerable senior might be made to feel unhappy; so I did not come forward. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any better translations out there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T15:07:14.333" Title="Alternative translations of ‘狗长尾巴尖儿’ et al" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23666" CreationDate="2017-05-05T17:32:11.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese, very happy to help you, but I am sorry, I can not speak English, can only use Google translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;“狗长尾巴尖儿”&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;birthday&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, he is the meaning of birthday, but a derogatory word. From a story &quot;legendary puppy in the bitch's stomach, covered with a tail tip will be born&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no problem with translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17040" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T17:32:11.973" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23346" CreationDate="2017-05-05T17:51:11.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;吃&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Send things into the mouth to swallow, or rely on something to live: ～饭。～药。～斋。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;destroy (used for military, chess): ～掉敌人一个连。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Suction: ～烟。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;feel: ～惊。～紧。～一堑，长（zhǎng ）一智。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;suffer: ～官司。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Support and support: ～不消。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;depth of the hull into the water: ～水深浅。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;was: ～那厮砍了一刀。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Talking stuttering: 口～。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;食&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃：～肉。～欲。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;eat something: ～品。粮～。零～。丰衣足～。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Salary: “君子谋道不谋～”。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The sun and the moon is missing or completely disappeared：月～&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17040" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T17:51:11.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23669" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23670" CreationDate="2017-05-06T05:19:18.443" Score="1" ViewCount="16106" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikivoyage's guide to Guangzhou, amongst others, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Guangzhou#Eat&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;says&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A well-known Chinese joke is that they eat anything that has four legs other than a table, anything that flies other than an airplane, and anything that swims other than a submarine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I've also heard it attributed to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/nitv-news/article/2017/05/05/all-things-he-said-legacy-prince-philip-and-his-all-too-often-racist-comments?cid=trending&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Prince Philip&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does Chinese have a saying about Cantonese people eating almost anything?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="200" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T16:00:54.937" Title="Does Chinese have a saying about Cantonese people eating almost anything?" Tags="&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23669" CreationDate="2017-05-06T06:14:36.707" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The saying I heard was: 「有四隻腳嘅除咗檯，有對翼嘅除咗飛機，廣東人都會食。」 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is quite wordy and very likely a direct translation from English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's however, an elegant saying about Chinese wide range of food choice. It is 「背脊向天人所食」(if something's back is facing the sky, it is for people to eat) &#xA;That includes almost every living creature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T06:14:36.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23660" CreationDate="2017-05-06T07:29:28.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native Chinese, I'd say 紧迫 is describing things while 急迫 is describing people more.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However you could use 急迫 for describing things as well, but 紧迫 is more formal in such case. But one would never use 紧迫 for describing people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. 紧迫的任务 or 急迫的任务: An urgent task.        #here 紧迫 is preferred&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. 他急迫的想回家: He want to go home urgently.    #here 紧迫 can't displace 急迫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17043" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T07:29:28.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23666" CreationDate="2017-05-06T08:46:29.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;气的我只要给平儿打报不平儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Angered me to the point of desperately wanting to file a grievance on behalf of little Peng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;忖夺了半日，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carefully deliberated half a day&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好容易‘狗长尾巴尖儿’的好日子，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a long awaited day of celebration for (someone's) birthday, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I didn't read the novel, so I don't know whose birthday it was&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;又怕老太太心里不受用，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so I'm afraid the old madam might feel displeased,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因此没来，究竟气还未平。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore I didn't come forward, however, my anger has not been subsided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-06T08:54:21.210" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T08:54:21.210" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23673" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23674" CreationDate="2017-05-06T08:48:37.487" Score="0" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;缩减: reduce; cut; run-down; decrement; economization; reduction; reducing; diminution; lessening; impansion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;削减: cut (down); reduce; slash; whittle down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T09:37:26.893" Title="What is the difference between 缩减 and 削减？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23673" CreationDate="2017-05-06T09:37:26.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;缩 = shrink; 缩减 = shrink / reduce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;削 = cut; 削减 = cut / reduce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;缩减預算&lt;/strong&gt; you can &lt;strong&gt;shrink the a budget&lt;/strong&gt; to reduce it's size. (budget as a whole shrinks )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;削减預算&lt;/strong&gt; you can cut the budget to reduce it's size (sum of money or items in the budget being cut away)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;缩减開支&lt;/strong&gt; you can &lt;strong&gt;shrink expenditures&lt;/strong&gt; to reduce it's amount (expenditures as a whole shrinks )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;削减開支&lt;/strong&gt; you &lt;strong&gt;can cut the expenditures&lt;/strong&gt; to reduce it's amount. (sum of money or items in the expenditures be cut away)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;削减僱員&lt;/strong&gt; you can &lt;strong&gt;cut employees&lt;/strong&gt; to reduce your company size. (individual employees being cut away)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;缩减僱員&lt;/strong&gt; you cannot &lt;strong&gt;shrink employees&lt;/strong&gt;  ;  you can only &lt;strong&gt;缩减僱員人數&lt;/strong&gt; (shrink the number of employees)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T09:37:26.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23153" CreationDate="2017-05-06T09:44:55.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am afraid they should not be considered as 「异形词」. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「异形词」 are multisyllabic words with the same pronunciation but written in different graphemes. The case of 「餐厅」 and 「歺厅」is not the same as the case of 「唯一」 and 「惟一」 or the pair 「按语」 and 「案语」, for 「唯」、「惟」、「按」、「案」are separated graphemes (all in-use standard Chinese characters), but 「歺」 is an abandoned variant of the standard character 「餐」, and the two should be considered as the same grapheme (but different glyphs). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【异形词】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「按」: press 「案」: table/desk/case&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are different graphemes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;→「按语/案语」: editorial comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exactly the same pronunciation and meaning but written in two forms consist of characters with different meanings. They are 异形词.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【异体字】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「餐」: meal 「歺」: meal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are different glyphs but the same grapheme. 「歺」is the abandoned simplified form of 「餐」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We often refer the two as 「异体字」, and of course, this term is only used to refer different glyphs, never multisyllabic words or phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the sayings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「『歺』是『餐』的异体字/二简字。」 - Correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「『歺厅』是『餐厅』的异形词。」 - Wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's better to say, 「『歺厅』中『歺』是『餐』的异体字。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Chinese_character&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Variant Chinese character - Wikipedia&quot;&gt;Variant Chinese Characters - Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Grapheme - Wikipedia&quot;&gt;Grapheme - Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16070" LastEditorUserId="16070" LastEditDate="2017-05-06T10:00:22.747" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T10:00:22.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23676" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23683" CreationDate="2017-05-06T11:36:18.813" Score="0" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是许晨曦，一个活泼开朗的小男孩，圆圆的脑袋，一头乌黑的短发，明亮的眼睛，大大鼻子，还有一张不怎么会说话的嘴巴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢打羽毛球，溜冰、下棋……但我最喜欢的是打羽毛球，每次和小朋友打得汗流浃背，痛快极了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我也有缺点，做作业马虎，&lt;strong&gt;有时不直接看节目就直接写下去。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这就是我，我想在这个学期改掉这个缺点，做一个好学生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zuowen8.com/a/275384.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zuowen8.com/a/275384.html&lt;/a&gt; (third text)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I study Chinese by translating children's essays. In this particular essay, the meaning of the emboldened phrase eludes me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The students begins the paragraph by saying: &quot;I also have weaknesses: I am carefree when it comes to school assignments...&quot;. I lose it shortly afterwards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am confused by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;直接 - immediate, direct, personal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;下去 - go down, continue (among others)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12122" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T18:37:01.433" Title="Translating the shortcomings of a primary school student" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23676" CreationDate="2017-05-06T12:28:19.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence sound ungrammatical and unidiomatic to me, and I'm not sure what the student means. When I was in grade school, third grade is about when students begin to learn to write prose, so mistakes are expected. Moreover, contemporary Chinese students no longer study grammar in school, so they tend to make more mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Short answer: just skip this sentence because it's wrong. Moreover, I suggest that you may want to translate school texts used to teach elementary school students instead of their own writings. Elementary students' writings contain lots of errors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T12:28:19.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23604" CreationDate="2017-05-06T12:30:31.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't watched the movie, but I know of it. To me, &quot;33 days&quot; sounds like an arbitrary interval and carry no special meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-05-06T23:16:38.790" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T23:16:38.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23679" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23680" CreationDate="2017-05-06T13:03:04.450" Score="2" ViewCount="454" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching a Chinese movie about the Monkey King (孙悟空）, and after he sprung out of the rock, he said &quot;我出世了&quot;. I looked it up and understood it to mean &quot;I was born&quot;. Are the two terms interchangeable or is one more formal than the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-05-06T14:26:12.690" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T00:11:53.577" Title="出生 vs. 出世 differences?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23679" CreationDate="2017-05-06T14:11:35.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/1e/47123.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;出世&lt;/a&gt; has more use scenarios than &lt;code&gt;出生&lt;/code&gt;. When used for people, it's same as &lt;code&gt;出生&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;出生&lt;/code&gt; is used more commonly for this case); but it could be also used for things which come into being.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) [vouchsafe;come into being;be born]∶人的出生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) [come out;be published]∶问世;产生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(3) [be above worldly considerations;be not involved in the material&#xA;  world]∶超脱超脱人世束缚。佛教用语,佛教徒以人世为俗世,故称脱离人世束缚为出世&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(4) [rise above this world]∶高出人世&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-05-31T14:22:35.870" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T14:22:35.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23681" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-06T14:26:03.677" Score="2" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;My professor teaches that duration of non action should come before the verb. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我三天沒來上課了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, native speakers have said both these sentences containing 已經 are correct：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我沒吃飯已經兩天了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我已經兩天沒吃飯了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference of meaning between the last two? Or else why can 已經 render the rule my professor teaches nought? Or is the rule wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I asked the same question inside my weixin group - there sentence one was labelled 2 and vice versa! Opinions diverged greatly. Some of the longer comments are the following. Unfortunately, I don't understand them completely, because they are in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Commentator A:&#xA;结果一样是三天无饭，但两句意思隐藏了无饭的选择关系有主动与被动，不知陆迪兄弟能否get 到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Commentator B:&#xA;第一个含义我很饿。第二个含义我可能吃了其它食物或我还可以继续不吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT 2:&#xA;Two native speakers claimed that one of them emphasised time, the other not eating. But they disagree as to which is which.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T14:33:58.347" Title="Does this placement of 已經 alter the meaning?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23681" CreationDate="2017-05-06T14:35:57.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the rule is not correct. It should be fine to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我沒來上課三天了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparing to &lt;code&gt;我三天沒來上課了。&lt;/code&gt;, the meaning is same but the former puts more emphasis on the duration, i.e. &lt;code&gt;三天&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then about the last 2 sentences, &lt;code&gt;已经&lt;/code&gt; doesn't change the meaning; it's used for emphasizing the duration further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-05-06T15:09:24.347" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T15:09:24.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23676" CreationDate="2017-05-06T17:58:09.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am guessing there's a typo here. &quot;节目&quot; is meant to be &quot;題目&quot; - question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that having two &quot;直接&quot; in a row is no good. So here's what I'll go with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;有时不看題目就直接写下去&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I don't read the question before writing (my answer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This flows well with the rest of the essay, and illustrates his sloppiness when doing his homewwork.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T17:58:09.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23681" CreationDate="2017-05-06T18:33:22.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the second example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我沒吃飯已經兩天了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sounds &lt;strong&gt;weird&lt;/strong&gt; to a native speaker, although people can understand what you are talking about and the meaning doesn't change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in another answer, the example above could be thought as emphasizing &lt;code&gt;三天&lt;/code&gt;. But it still sounds weird, since native speakers will just say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我已經&lt;strong&gt;兩天&lt;/strong&gt;沒吃飯了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Stressed at words in bold to emphasize it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my conclusion is that &lt;code&gt;已经&lt;/code&gt; will change neither the structure nor the meaning of a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not to confuse you, but the following examples from the comments are also correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他发现自己毕业了&lt;em&gt;没几年&lt;/em&gt;。(He found himself just graduated &lt;em&gt;a few years ago&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他&lt;em&gt;上任没几天&lt;/em&gt;，就成了公司里最不得人心的人。(He becomes a unpopular person in the company &lt;em&gt;for just few days of work&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那张海报贴上去&lt;em&gt;没几个小时就让人给偷走&lt;/em&gt;了。(The poster was posted, &lt;em&gt;but got stolen after a few hours&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammar order seems to violate the rules, but I consider the parts in italic are adverbs or clauses (which is not consider as using that rule). The reason is that you can delete the italic parts, and having no effect to the sentence structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15897" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T01:08:56.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23676" CreationDate="2017-05-06T18:37:01.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not have full context. My educated guess is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我也有缺点，做作业马虎，有时不直接看节目就直接写下去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I have my shortcoming too. My homework is sloppy. I just write my words without actually watch the programme.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the programme is a TV programme, but I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下去 : The pen (or pencil or brush) move down and touch the paper. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寫下去 : pen on the paper and start writing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;直接寫下去 ： write without many thought, that is &quot;directly&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 is a particle to connect to two phrases. The second phrase is the action following the situation in the first phrase. It is like &quot;and then&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有時不直接看節目 就 直接寫下去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T18:37:01.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23686" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-06T20:17:57.560" Score="5" ViewCount="970" Body="&lt;p&gt;My dictionary gives the meaning of 好自为之 as &quot;look out for yourself&quot;. This is a positive thing you might say out of genuine concern for another person, and I think this was also the case with the original meaning for 好自为之.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when investigating this, I discovered that many people (mis)use it to mean something negative. Under this usage (I think), you would say it to someone whose actions you disagree with and it conveys an unwillingness to take their side or take responsibility for their (bad) decisions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I understanding this right? If so, what would be an idiomatic English translation of this negative meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note: I'm not asking which meaning is proper or correct. I'm also not asking about which meaning is more common in your personal experience, but that is also useful information.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20050512000011KK02751&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;some links&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://new315com.blog.163.com/blog/static/69093108201071732910910/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;in Chinese&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/55101389&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;discussing 好自为之&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T12:47:51.913" Title="Translating the two meanings of 好自为之" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23686" CreationDate="2017-05-06T21:01:03.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, the info provided by the links is, &lt;strong&gt;incorrect&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the earliest appearance of &quot;好自為之&quot; is in &quot;淮南鴻烈解&quot;　卷九　主術訓, by 髙誘 of 漢 dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;君人者﹒不任能而好自為之﹒則智日困而自負其責也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好 : like to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自為之 : do everything by himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly, it's: if the emperor (君人者) don't let talents to help governing (不任能), do it all by himself (好自為之), his intelligence would be stranded . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, both the positive, &amp;amp; negative sayings , are not proper interpretation of &quot;好自為之&quot;. i would say these are, inventive, &amp;amp; severely derived from the original literary chinese meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2ZsFZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2ZsFZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T21:01:03.010" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23686" CreationDate="2017-05-06T21:10:17.470" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/58507/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;好自為之&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;em&gt;look out for oneself; conduct oneself well; do one's best&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,135995&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;discussion&lt;/a&gt; about 好自為之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;it is more like a warning / advice&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;好自為之 = &amp;quot;better act appropriately&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C Chiu wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;好自為之 could be used as a warning/advice. But it is definitely not rude or bad language.&#xA;From what I’ve learned, it is mostly used to encourage or inspire people to do better or make improvement. “我幫唔到你幾多﹐你好自為之啦”&lt;/em&gt; (There's not much I can help. You just have to do your best) &lt;em&gt;is a typical way of using the idiom in a sentence, with the meaning of &amp;quot;look out for oneself&amp;quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term '&lt;strong&gt;好自為之&lt;/strong&gt;' is  just like &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;you better watch out&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;you better look out for yourself&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; in English. It can be used as a friendly advice, but it can also be used ironically as a subtle threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A congressman's friend said to him: &amp;quot;Since you went against your own party and voted 'No' on the bill, you &lt;strong&gt;need to watch out for yourself (要好自為之.)&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; is clearly a genuine advice or a friendly warning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;However, if a fellow party member in the congress, who voted 'Yes', said to him: &amp;quot;Since you went against your own party and voted 'No' on the bill, you &lt;strong&gt;better lookout for yourself (好自為之吧!).&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;--  would be a subtle threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T21:25:19.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23686" CreationDate="2017-05-06T23:26:17.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you're looking for an idiomatic translation, I would offer this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to make the most of your (bad) situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somehow, &quot;look out for yourself&quot; does not seem to convey the full meaning of &quot;you are not in a good position, and there's not much one can do to help.&quot; I think this is what you mean by &quot;negative&quot; in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My two cents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T23:26:17.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23346" CreationDate="2017-05-07T15:16:29.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;食 in Classical Chinese has (at least) 3 different meaning&#xA;1. To feed another person or animal&#xA;(In this case the pronouncing ion is ㄙˋ sì）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To eat (also can use 饌 in Classical Chinese)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 food&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's awesome that Cantonese preserved the classical way of using 食&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, I think only the second meaning &quot;to eat&quot; is replaced with 吃 in daily conversation (in literature writing may or may not be different)&#xA;So if 食 is used as the noun FOOD then it's still 食&#xA;But when it describes eating, like 好吃， then it's 吃。 I'd say that in most daily conversation, mandarin speakers use only 吃 for the verb to eat, ate, eating… etc. 吃飯、吃飽、好吃、大吃特吃 But in writing, in order to be elegent, a writer may choose to use 食 instead of 吃， for example 「禁止飲食」。Same thing with the word 飲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17052" LastActivityDate="2017-05-07T15:16:29.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23692" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23694" CreationDate="2017-05-07T16:44:45.377" Score="0" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English the word &quot;crazy&quot; apart from &quot;being mentally ill&quot; may have a less negative meaning of &quot;being strange/weird/unconventional&quot;. Does chinese word 疯狂的 also have this connotation?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If not, what is the best chinese equivalent to it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15198" LastActivityDate="2017-05-07T23:10:41.903" Title="疯狂的 &quot;crazy&quot; meaning &quot;unconventional&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23650" CreationDate="2017-05-07T17:16:35.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first sight this seems to be a sentence with S-P predicate of type ＂这个士兵胸部受伤了＂or ＂兔子尾巴短＂with 进水 in unusual order P-S (cf. 来了人，发生事故，etc.). A sentence of undoubtedly S-P as predicate type might be 你的脑子水分含量太大 (our brain water content high, i.e. your brain has high water content), a sentence with usual verb predicate might be 脑袋生锈了 (has become rusty，see web), a sentence with nominal predicate (a noun as predicate might be）脑袋一片空白 (mind goes blank). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand as stated in the other answer, 进水 is a compound verb, cf. bkrs: 进水 (here) to have water get in (one’s ear, shoes etc), to get flooded;&#xA;similarly, 进贼 be burglarized (of a house/etc.), example 我们家进贼了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note however the following examples with 进 being combined rather freely with other objects (and  了 between 进 and object, see jukuu): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我的鞋里进了沙子. I' ve got some grit / a piece of grit in my shoe.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我眼睛里弄进了一粒灰尘。I've got a speck of dust in my eye.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他的齿缝里嵌进了一小片食物。He had a morsel of food caught between one tooth and another. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the last two cases are irrelevant since the verbs now are 弄进，嵌进 i.e.弄,嵌 with complement of result 进. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another compound using 进, 进货:  stock (a shop) with goods, 这星期没进货.&#xA;Also note (bkrs) 左边进人, 右边出人 apparently confirming the exceptional order P-S). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are examples of both 进水了 and 进了水 e.g. 笔记本电脑进了少量水, same for 进贼  e。g。家里进了贼？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that compounds (复合词）are of the following 5 types:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;并列 (coordinate; coordinating; juxtaposed),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;偏正 (endocentric),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;动补 (verb complement),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;动宾 (verb-object),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;主谓 （subject-predicate). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S in the case of 进水 only 4 or 5 could apply; in case of 4 水 would be object of verb 进, case 5 seems doubtful, since in 主谓 compounds the subject seems to always come first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T01:57:33.377" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:57:33.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23692" CreationDate="2017-05-07T17:24:56.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes the terms 疯狂的(adv/adj); 疯狂(adj/adv); 狂(adj/adv) has other connotations beside being mentally ill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;recklessly&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;beyond imagination&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;out of the word (unrealistic)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;疯狂的计划 / 疯狂计划 (crazy plan; reckless plan ; plan beyond imagination  )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;uncontrollably&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;earnestly&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;enthusiastically&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;疯狂地殴打 / 狂殴 ( crazily beat someone; uncontrollably beat someone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;疯狂购物 / 狂购  (shop crazily ; shop uncontrollably; shop enthusiastically)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;strange&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;weird&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;疯狂科学家 (crazy scientist/ weird scientist)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-07T23:10:41.903" LastActivityDate="2017-05-07T23:10:41.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23710" CreationDate="2017-05-07T21:01:04.770" Score="0" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was browsing &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%B9%B4%E9%BD%A1%E4%B8%80%E6%A8%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;juuku&lt;/a&gt; and I found the sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;李明的年龄和王林的年龄一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;萨莉：“他们年龄一样大吗？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this I assumed that, when the quantity of comparison (年齡）has been fixed, I am free to choose whether or not to add the corresponding adjective （大） after 一樣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I presented the following sentences to native speakers, there was no agreement, as to whether the 高 was superfluous or not：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我跟他身高一样高 / 我身高跟他一样高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you enlighten me, preferably citing from some book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T15:34:28.747" Title="To add or not to add adjective after 一樣。" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23696" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23718" CreationDate="2017-05-07T22:54:59.293" Score="2" ViewCount="1166" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of words for buttocks in mandarin (including those in the title). In which situations should they be used?  Which are medical terms, colloquial terms, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wanted to say to a doctor &quot;my buttocks are hurting&quot; which would you use?&#xA;If you wanted to say to a friend &quot;that guy/gal has a sexy butt&quot; which would you use?&#xA;If you wanted to say to a partner &quot;the kids bum is smelling, change their nappy&quot; which would you use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9814" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T00:24:11.510" Title="臀部，屁股和腚： When to use these and other words for buttocks?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23697" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23698" CreationDate="2017-05-08T02:03:36.677" Score="1" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why does 周瑜 not help 诸葛亮？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在在读‘草船借箭’的故事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诸葛亮和周瑜的关系怎样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周瑜说：“我得吩咐下属，造箭用的材料，不要给他准备齐全，也不能供应充足，故意给他拖延时间。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周瑜和诸葛亮不是敌人，战在同样的军队。为什么周瑜不帮诸葛亮？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T07:55:17.617" Title="What was the relationship between 诸葛亮和周瑜？" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23697" CreationDate="2017-05-08T07:33:22.713" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The enemy of my enemy is my friend.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They may be &quot;friends&quot;, but they are still enemies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are the minister of two different kingdoms, 蜀 and 吴, they just happen to have a stronger common enemy 魏 so they have to work together to keep each other alive for a while before they get stronger and can defend on their own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must have seen that 周瑜 keeps trying to kill 诸葛亮, because he sees 诸葛亮 as a threat in the future when 蜀 and 吴 goes against each other. Obviously when two Kingdoms work together, you can't just kill, that's why he keeps assigning impossible missions to 诸葛亮 so he can use that as an excuse to kill him, but 诸葛亮 never failed and it makes 周瑜 angrier and frustrated. In the end, 周瑜 just ordered his men to kill 诸葛亮 anyways but forseeing that, 诸葛亮 escaped before 周瑜 can catch him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But on a personal level, 周瑜 just can't stand the fact that there are someone as smart as him and this is what killed him, i think this is the biggest difference between the two, both are equally smart, but 周瑜 died because of &quot;Sickness&quot;(more like Jealousy), he is young after all, if the two have met at a different time, they could have become great friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much like The Republic of China and The People's Republic of China when they were fighting Japan, they have to put their disagreement aside for a while and fight together. After Japan surrendered, they started fighting against each other again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2017-05-08T07:55:17.617" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T07:55:17.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23699" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-08T08:07:13.167" Score="2" ViewCount="343" Body="&lt;p&gt;The definition from Yabla (which is prettier in &lt;a href=&quot;https://app.ninchanese.com/word/traditional/260803/%E8%B0%88%E6%83%85%E8%AF%B4%E7%88%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ninchanese&lt;/a&gt; ):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to discuss passion and talk of love (idiom); to express love with terms of endearment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;billing and cooing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to translate the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你的水准能跟四爷谈情说爱。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first part of the sentence without translating &lt;code&gt;谈情说爱&lt;/code&gt; would be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Based on your level, you can 谈情说爱 with fourth Lord. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, how should &lt;code&gt;谈情说爱&lt;/code&gt; be translated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T08:31:06.727" Title="How to translate 谈情说爱 in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23699" CreationDate="2017-05-08T08:21:51.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;谈恋爱 = fall in love&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;谈情说爱 = romancing (what people who fell in love do)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/romancing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Romance&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;a. To court, woo, or try to arouse the romantic interest of.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;b. To have a love affair with.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你的水准能跟四爷谈情说爱。&#xA;base on your level(quality), you can romance the fourth lord. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T08:31:06.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23701" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-08T09:06:20.090" Score="0" ViewCount="592" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你能向他撒娇。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How would &lt;code&gt;撒娇&lt;/code&gt; be translated?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;code&gt;撒娇&lt;/code&gt; is translated as flighty in the context of the sentence, it sounds a bit unnatural:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;You can get flighty with him.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17055" LastEditorUserId="17055" LastEditDate="2017-05-08T09:59:43.740" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T05:10:00.697" Title="How to translate 撒娇?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23702" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-08T09:12:39.130" Score="0" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;I already know the various Chinese phrases for &quot;bon appétit&quot; such as &quot;chi1 hao2 he1 hao2&quot; or &quot;man4 man4 chi1&quot; but they either seem to formal or like someone's scolding you to eat slowly. Is &quot;hao3 chi2 ba&quot; a legitimate way to express the sentiment? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16937" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T10:19:25.903" Title="Is saying hao3 ch1i ba rude?" Tags="&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23702" CreationDate="2017-05-08T10:19:25.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common way to express &lt;em&gt;bon appétit&lt;/em&gt; in more formal situations is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;请慢用&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请[qing3] = please&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;慢用[man4 yong4] = Enjoy your meal! / Bon appetit!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find this too formal you may take off the 'please' (请) and just say: &lt;strong&gt;慢用&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mind you this is most likely going to be said by a waiter/waitress in a restaurant or someone who is not joining the meal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;慢慢吃&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is an option, but also usually said by someone who has finished eating before the rest of the party. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;慢&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although, 慢 does mean slow(ly) in general in phrases like &lt;strong&gt;慢点&lt;/strong&gt; (take care/be careful) or &lt;strong&gt;慢慢X&lt;/strong&gt; (慢慢走(take care)、慢慢吃(enjoy!), etc.) it doesn't, literally, mean &lt;em&gt;slow&lt;/em&gt; but &lt;em&gt;to take your time&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;好吃吧&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好吃吧 is made up of two parts 好吃 + 吧 —or— tasty + (I) guess. So this phrase really means - (It's) good, I guess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T10:19:25.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23701" CreationDate="2017-05-08T10:30:42.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%92%92%E5%A8%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG:撒娇&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the first two definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to act like a spoiled child&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to throw a tantrum&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are the usual meanings of this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of a kid who has got a &lt;em&gt;boo-boo&lt;/em&gt;, it doesn't really, super, hurt, but the child would love the attention of his mom and dad. So the kid puts on a show, cries and wails a little - the parents come running over to coax their kid. This is 撒娇.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perhaps something like: act a &lt;em&gt;sourpuss&lt;/em&gt; / &lt;em&gt;whine&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你能向他撒娇。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can &lt;em&gt;whine&lt;/em&gt; to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can be &lt;em&gt;pettish&lt;/em&gt; with him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can &lt;em&gt;garner&lt;/em&gt; his attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can be &lt;em&gt;attention-seeking&lt;/em&gt; with him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: &lt;strong&gt;sulkily&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T04:05:59.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23705" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23717" CreationDate="2017-05-08T11:47:07.113" Score="0" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;I encountered this line: 色生，生故計是我，非不生。and as an amateur, I was confused by the two negatives in a row (非不), which was followed by 生, and when I tried to figure out what it might mean, I figured it might be a rhetorical way of saying &quot;no [this, referring to what was just talked about,] without 生&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone more learned than I corrected me and said 非不生 was, instead, &quot;not without 生&quot;. Forgive me if I ask too basic a question, but is this a common usage for 非不?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T04:00:11.283" Title="Usage of 非不 in Middle (?) Chinese" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23706" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23708" CreationDate="2017-05-08T12:41:22.480" Score="2" ViewCount="1309" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having a hard time explaining the concept of 吐槽 to a foreigner. How can I explain the nature of 吐槽? I tried something like this but it doesn't seem to convey the art of 吐槽 in full:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吐槽 is the act of making a random, half-serious comment on something, usually not relevant to the point of that &quot;something&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like this explanation is not good enough. Is there a better way to explain it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T15:16:17.660" Title="What is 吐槽? How should I translate it?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23609" CreationDate="2017-05-08T12:54:32.200" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe it is his &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B9%B3%E5%90%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乳名&lt;/a&gt;. Parents call their child using such 'nickname'. Kids aren't really aware that, whether to give their real-name or nickname to other to name him/her, sometimes.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is just a guess. You may better consult his parent to reveal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T12:54:32.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23706" CreationDate="2017-05-08T13:45:06.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%90%90%E6%A7%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG:吐槽&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(slang) to roast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to ridicule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also opt for &lt;strong&gt;to make fun of&lt;/strong&gt; sth/sb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T13:45:06.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23705" CreationDate="2017-05-08T15:15:07.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;色生，生故計是我，非不生。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This statement comes for a Buddhist Sutra, Saṃyukta Āgama (雜阿含經). It is not easy to understand if one has no training in Buddhism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As these words contains lots of logic in Buddhism translated from Pāḷi language, it is pretty obscure to most people. But it is required to distinguish everything in the logic of Buddhism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can view 非不生 this way. These is 不生 and one negates it to 非不生. It is like English, &quot;impossible&quot; and &quot;not impossible&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those double negatives are quite common in Buddhist writing. If you know 心經, there is a phrase &lt;code&gt;無無明，亦無無明盡，乃至無老死，亦無老死盡&lt;/code&gt;。無無明 is the negation of 無明.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T15:15:07.027" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23695" CreationDate="2017-05-08T15:34:28.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 高 is superfluous. There is no need to say two 高 in a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd rather say &lt;code&gt;我跟他一樣高&lt;/code&gt;. Although you can also say &lt;code&gt;我跟他身高一樣&lt;/code&gt;, the former one is a little bit shorter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say &lt;code&gt;我跟他一樣大&lt;/code&gt;, one might not know what kind of '大' it is. In this case, one might add 年齡 to the sentence. But if the context is known in conversation, it is no need to add 年齡 to the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T15:34:28.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23711" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-08T22:37:26.620" Score="-2" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/srbFv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AQPm8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please help translate this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17060" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-09-30T05:38:15.573" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T05:38:15.573" Title="Can someone please help translate this?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23711" CreationDate="2017-05-08T23:39:41.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It says:&#xA;渦流菜斯利迪化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;渦 guo&#xA;流 liu&#xA;菜 cai&#xA;斯 si&#xA;利 li&#xA;迪 di&#xA;化 hua&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what it is supposed to mean or why anyone would write that on their arm. Seems to say 'swirling current dish benefits/is good for Dihua'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;迪化,dihua seems to be an old name for 乌鲁木齐 wulumuqi or Ürümqi in NW China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T23:39:41.223" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23711" CreationDate="2017-05-09T02:45:22.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;渦流（traditional Chinese）= 涡流（simplified Chinese): eddy current; vortex; vortex flow (via Bing dictionary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The apparatus finds some technical applications and is known as an &quot;&lt;strong&gt;eddy current&lt;/strong&gt; brake&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这种装置有某些技术上的应用，即众所周知的“&lt;strong&gt;涡流&lt;/strong&gt;制动器。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;via Bing dictionary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;莱斯利: Leslie or Lesley, a western name written in Chinese following its pronunciation. 莱(lái) 斯(sī) 利(lì)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;迪伦: Dylan, a western name written in Chinese following its pronunciation.  迪(dí) 伦(lún)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16887" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-07-09T03:16:28.793" LastActivityDate="2017-07-09T03:16:28.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23063" CreationDate="2017-05-09T03:29:32.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that &quot;A得B&quot;(述语+补语) form does not add constraint on the number of characters of either A or B. But if encountering a choice between &quot;学得快&quot; and &quot;学习得快&quot; in oral language, most native speakers would select the former one since it's shorter, although both of them are correct from the view of grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the case of &quot;旅行得很快&quot;, I don't think it's incorrect in grammar. If you have a reasonable context, it can also appear in oral language, although people would prefer &lt;strong&gt;saying&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;旅游&quot; or &quot;玩&quot; to &quot;旅行&quot; (which sound too formal, like written language). Since people would not often talking about how fast their travelling is, many people may think this odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, although &quot;学&quot; and &quot;学习&quot; can be used as both noun and verb. In most cases orally, &quot;学&quot; uses as verb and &quot;学习&quot; as noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some more examples of &quot;A得B&quot; form with more than one character in A:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这个项目&lt;strong&gt;计划得很周密&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This project plans thoroughly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;高兴得眼泪都流出来了&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is happy into tears.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这首歌要&lt;strong&gt;好听得多&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This song is much better.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T03:29:32.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23705" CreationDate="2017-05-09T04:00:11.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;色生﹒生故計是我﹒非﹒不生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the logic is: &lt;strong&gt;if a=true, then b=true&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非 is used to indicate condition a = false, 不 is to show that condition b = not true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, rūpa, (色, one of pañca-skandha 五蕴) appears (生), &#xA;by this clinging (生), hence (故) one think (計) &quot;i am&quot; occurs (是我).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非 - if the condition is false --&gt; rūpa doesn't appears&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then 不生 (one would &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; think that &quot;i am&quot; occurs).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's my best try, the buddhism terms might not be proper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;an other example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;譬如士夫手執明鏡及淨水鏡﹒自見面生﹒生故見﹒非﹒不生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example (譬如)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a man (士夫) helds (手執) a mirror (明鏡),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;he sees 自見 his own face (面) appeared (生) in the mirror,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the clinging of a mirror (生) causes (故) the seeing (見) of one's face.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非 : if no mirror in hand, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, one cannot see his own face appeared (不生)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, &quot;不&quot; is not &quot;non&quot; (such as &quot;non-stick pan&quot;) in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;based on reading experience: &quot;buddhism text&quot; is closely related to literary chinese, but, it has its own styles, grammars, and developments. you used &quot;hybrid&quot;, middle (?) to decorate it, very nice try :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;生法計是我﹒非不生&quot; is &quot;upādāya asm-ti hoti no anupādāya&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T04:00:11.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23696" CreationDate="2017-05-09T04:49:17.227" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;屁股: the most common way to say butt. Sometimes may be thought as rude or uneducated when using in public. If you are going to a doctor, this is the word to go.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;臀部: (may be the only) elegant way of saying butt. The most formal way in written Chinese. When used in oral language in recent days, usually it's only used on woman, and sometimes people may think this word having sexual intimation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;腚: used in some Chinese accents.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尻: used in some Chinese accents and ancient literature.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T00:24:11.510" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T00:24:11.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23711" CreationDate="2017-05-09T04:50:04.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;渦(wo)[wɜː]流(liu)[ljuː] seems also a pronounce of western name, I guess it maybe Will/Willie/Willis/Worley or other name, most like Worley['wɜ:li].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the explanation of 莱斯利 and 迪伦 are quite nice by @Wol&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;莱斯利：Leslie or Lesley, a western name written in Chinese by its' pronounce. 莱(lái) 斯(sī) 利(lì)&#xA;&#xA;迪伦：Dylan, a western name written in Chinese by its' pronounce. 迪(dí) 伦(lún)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17061" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T04:50:04.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23669" CreationDate="2017-05-09T05:41:38.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. In China, such joke has many versions, and most young have hear about one or more version of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; &quot;广东人有三不吃:天上飞的不吃飞机;水里游的不吃潜艇;陆上跑的不吃汽车！&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese people eat much more kinds of things that other Chinese don't eat, even other Chinese can't image for eating. something dangerous, ugly to eat, such as snake, insect ... It is an exaggeration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17061" LastEditorUserId="17061" LastEditDate="2017-05-09T05:49:52.157" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T05:49:52.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23260" CreationDate="2017-05-10T01:31:18.083" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can stream CCTV: &lt;a href=&quot;http://tv.cctv.com/live/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tv.cctv.com/live/&lt;/a&gt; . Usually at least 1 channel will have dramas on. Note that this might not be accessible from all countries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15832" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T01:31:18.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23722" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-10T02:38:48.553" Score="2" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm struggling with a couple things...first is the ability to know when is the right time to use each of the above, each which seems to more or less mean &quot;to concentrate on&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I think&lt;/em&gt; 关注 has the meaning more of like, following the news, updates, or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I think 专心 is to concentrate in general, whereas 专注 might be to concentrate at the exclusion of other things... but I have no clue. And I'm struggling to figure out when you need 于 afterwards, and when you don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17022" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T09:24:37.297" Title="专心 VS 专注 VS 关注, with 于 in the mix" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23723" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23726" CreationDate="2017-05-10T03:44:41.723" Score="0" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen this mostly as dialect usage, but I'm wondering if there's a Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM) equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;倒...不...&lt;/strong&gt; - (seemingly) neither A nor B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倒男不女&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倒文不武&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倒明不白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;半...不...&lt;/strong&gt; - (seemingly) half A not B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;半死不活&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;半大不小&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;半生不熟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do similar constructs exist in MSM?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T09:49:13.860" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T09:49:13.860" Title="Modern Standard Mandarin equivalent of the 倒...不... and 半...不... constructs?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23722" CreationDate="2017-05-10T03:53:48.343" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;关注&lt;/code&gt; has different meaning with &lt;code&gt;专心&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;专注&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;关注&lt;/code&gt; doesn't mean &lt;code&gt;to&#xA;concentrate&lt;/code&gt;. Usually &lt;code&gt;关注&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;to care about&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;to pay attention&#xA;to sth&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;专心&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;专注&lt;/code&gt; are very similar. They can be alternative to each other most of the time, although there are some collocations you can only use one of them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As for &lt;code&gt;于&lt;/code&gt;, it is a preposition, same as &lt;code&gt;on&lt;/code&gt; here. If you use &lt;code&gt;专心&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;专注&lt;/code&gt; as a verb (usually a intransitive verb), then you may need it. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Though &lt;code&gt;专心/注&lt;/code&gt; can be verb, they are often used as adverb too. In such case, no more &lt;code&gt;于&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The (little) difference between &lt;code&gt;专心/注&lt;/code&gt;:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;专心&lt;/code&gt; is used more often to describe one's inner condition, while &lt;code&gt;专注&lt;/code&gt; is used for one's appearance, look or expression.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastEditorUserId="1124" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T04:11:23.780" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T04:11:23.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23722" CreationDate="2017-05-10T04:07:12.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;专 = exclusive/concentrate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心 = heart/mind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;专心&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;concentrate&lt;/strong&gt; (of mind set) *&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;not concern about anything else&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 专心读书 (concentrate on study); 专心工作 (concentrate on work)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;专 = exclusive/concentrate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;注 = pay attention&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;专注&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;concentrate&lt;/strong&gt; (of attention)  / pay full attention&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;pay no attention to anything else&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 专注读书 (pay full attention to one's study); 专注工作 (pay full attention to one's work)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;关注&lt;/strong&gt; = 关心 (concern) +  注视 (pay attention to) = &lt;strong&gt;pay serious attention&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于 is a preposition(on; at; to) before the object. It is better be omitted from phrases like 专心(于)读书 or 专注(于)工作 to make it less wordy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T04:15:37.940" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23723" CreationDate="2017-05-10T04:33:35.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only know [不...不...]  and [半...不] , never heard of [ 倒...不...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不男不女 (not a man nor a woman)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;半男不女 (not fully a man, not quite a woman)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T04:33:35.797" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23722" CreationDate="2017-05-10T09:18:23.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depend where you use the word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;专心 ----&gt; a general qualification about concentrate, can used in housework, in watching film, walking on the road etc etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;专注 ---&gt; we talk on a project, a work, or sth need to spend lots of mindwork.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope you understand the subtle diffr.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the farther one is: 关注 ---&gt; it's a bit formal word, used more or less in the reportage in news or some charitable activities, eg. we 关注 the degradation of the environement, the famine in some poor area; or eg. The mayor 关注 on the event of the traffic accident/strike.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4097" LastEditorUserId="4097" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T09:24:37.297" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T09:24:37.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23706" CreationDate="2017-05-10T10:14:44.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;吐槽 , in a general sense, means &amp;quot;to point out the flaws of something&amp;quot;, but in a more extended and &amp;quot;less serious&amp;quot; way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's mainly used for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;complaining about something, and then (sometimes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ridiculing about something&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of 吐槽:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“加载一个视频怎么这么慢？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the video taking such a long time to load?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我爷爷家的网络要比你们快得多！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My grandpa's house's internet is so much faster than yours!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm not sure if that's appropriate or not, but you get the idea.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17073" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T10:14:44.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23706" CreationDate="2017-05-10T11:14:02.497" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To explain it in chinese.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;抱怨，怨天尤人，发牢骚，说闲话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17075" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T11:14:02.497" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23346" CreationDate="2017-05-10T11:22:02.597" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;吃，口语化，日常用语多些；食，文雅一点。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这是从另外一个视野看这个问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17075" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T11:22:02.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23063" CreationDate="2017-05-10T12:26:06.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, you can use the &lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt; construction with two-syllable verbs. One example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他把街道打掃的乾乾淨淨。 &#xA;  He cleaned the street (until it was clean)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence &quot;我旅行得很快&quot; sounds off for two reasons - one, the verb 旅行 is not something you would normally do &quot;fast&quot;, and two, generally speaking, the 得 construction is mostly used in the following situations:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When there is an object before the modified verb:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他(彈)鋼琴彈得好。 &#xA;  He plays piano well.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the predicate is an adjective-verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這房間吵得讓我睡不著。&#xA;  This room is so loud that I can not sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T12:26:06.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23732" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-10T21:16:40.040" Score="1" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;For my Chinese language class, I need to go through this practice worksheet and fill out which uses of 了 are correct. However, while I think I know decently when to use 了， I am not sure about some of my answers, as we have not discussed some things in class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;| 我们现在一起吃饭了。       | I'm not sure about this one. I think it might be correct because it could say &quot;Now we can eat,&quot; which uses 了 to indicate a change.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;            |&#xA;| 我明天要跟你去健身房了。   | I don't think this one is correct because it uses 明天 and 要which  indicates it will happen in the future.                                          |&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;| 我已经吃了午饭。           | I think this one is correct, it says &quot;I already ate lunch.&quot;                                                                                          |&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;| 我看电影了。               | This one seems correct, &quot;I watched TV.&quot;                                                                                                              |&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;| 她穿新的裙子了             | This one also seems to use 了correctly, it says &quot;She wore a new skirt.&quot;                                                                              |&#xA;| 我去了中文课了。           | Again, this one also seems to use 了 correctly, I believe it translates to &quot;I have been going to Chinese class.&quot;                                     |&#xA;| 他会说中文了。             | This one also seems correct. &quot;He can now speak Chinese.&quot;                                                                                             |&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;| 你真的买了两个新的电视吗？ | I also think this is correct, because the 了 occurs before the numbers and  indicates a the past tense of 买。 “Did you really buy two televisions?&quot; |&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;| 他买四本书了               | This one isn't correct because 了occurs after the quantity and not before the quantity and after the verb like it should.                            |&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;| 你们回家了                 | I think this one is correct, it translates to &quot;You have returned home.&quot;                                                                              |&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17077" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T13:12:02.223" Title="Proper use of 了 in Chinese" Tags="&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23732" CreationDate="2017-05-10T22:42:33.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got this from another forum, I find it useful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了和过的区别&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了和过都能用在动词后面。   了 有表示过去时，现在进行时，将来时的意思。   如：我去了一趟超市。（过去）   我睡觉了。（现在）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我到了给你打电话。（将来）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  过 只表示过去发生的某些事情。不能表示现在时和将来时。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   如：我去过中国。   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了 和 过的用法是非常相似的，希望你能慢慢体会，多多练习。(ง •_•)ง,加油&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My take on your sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我们现在一起吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我明天要跟你去健身房了。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我已经吃了午饭。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我看电影了。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;她穿了新的裙子。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我去了中文课了。（第二个‘了’是语气助词）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他会说中文了。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你真的买了两个新的电视吗？  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他买了四本书。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你们回家吧。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T22:42:33.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23734" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-11T02:46:25.757" Score="2" ViewCount="1294" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know a phrase in Chinese that most native speakers would immediately understand to be a (thinly veiled) threat to their physical safety, very similar to &quot;You had better watch your back&quot; in English. I read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/23686/&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, but I am now sure &lt;em&gt;how subtle&lt;/em&gt; 好自为之 is. I also thought of 小心点儿 but that would depend heavily on context. Any phrases are appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15832" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T10:01:40.527" Title="How to give a thinly veiled threat?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23734" CreationDate="2017-05-11T05:08:41.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To make a subtle threat in Chinese is the same as in English-- just imply a threat without actually using threatening words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One frequently used method is  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/46202/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;反話&lt;/a&gt; (irony)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;終有一天，我會雙倍地償還你的恩典&quot; (There will be a day, I doubly repay your grace) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;This so call 恩典 might mean 'a stab to my back' , and the payback might mean 'a bullet to your head', but it is just an implied threat, The court cannot use these words as evidence against me if some horrible thing happen to you later.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-11T05:13:54.300" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T05:13:54.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23736" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23785" CreationDate="2017-05-11T19:52:59.890" Score="3" ViewCount="891" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I know that in Mandarin, 1/2 is 二分之一 or 一半. Is there a similar word to 一半 for 1/3? I mean, instead of 三分之一, something like 一——？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T01:25:56.787" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T01:25:56.787" Title="Is there a word for 1/3?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23737" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23739" CreationDate="2017-05-11T20:01:01.303" Score="0" ViewCount="388" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been watching a TV program &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 父母爱情 &gt;&gt; and a rather unsophisticated female character keeps repeating a phrase which I hear as '我的个娘' (I'm not sure if the '的' should be there or not?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's obviously a type of exclamation, presumably similar to 'Oh my God!'.  Does it actually just translate to 'my mother!' and why would that be an exclamation of surprise?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is this a regional phrase?  The character is living in Shandong province but is a military wife so could presumably be meant to be from a different province.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, is this something a foreigner could use unironically without seeming ridiculous?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9814" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T20:25:01.573" Title="我的个娘？ Does this really just mean 'my mother!' and why?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23736" CreationDate="2017-05-11T20:20:31.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;三分之一 can only be shortened to 三分一.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way to avoid saying 三分一 is using smaller measuring unit. For example: 二十分鐘 instead of 三分一小時; 四分 instead of 三分一尺. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, 一半 can only be shortened to 半, as in 半小時 (三十分鐘), or 半尺 (六分)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1/4 hour (a quarter of an hour) can be translated to 一刻鐘 or 一刻 instead of 四分一小時 in Chinese.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1/4 hour (a quarter of an hour) can be transliterated to 一個骨 in Cantonese; 3/4 hour&lt;/em&gt; (three quarters of an hour) = 三個骨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-11T21:29:59.673" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T21:29:59.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23737" CreationDate="2017-05-11T20:25:01.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you are right. 我的个娘 is just like oh my God. Chinese people don't curse their Gods, but do with their mothers, for example, 干你娘，草你妈，while these two phrases mean xxx your mother, but they also can be used to empathize the following sentence. For example, 干你奶奶的，他真有钱。xxx your grandmother, he is very rich. Obviously, the speaker doesn't necessary want to xxx your grandmother. What he want to expect is that person is super-duper rich!!! Nothing to do with grandma or xxx here. You can think 我的个娘 as &quot;damn it&quot;. This is not really regional because other region has the same phrase like that but in other words. For example, in GuangDong and HongKong, people use 你老母，different words, same meaning. Lastly, as a foreigner, you should just use OMG because your mother is not Chinese. It makes no sense to use 你的个娘 for exclamation!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T20:25:01.573" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23736" CreationDate="2017-05-11T20:27:30.900" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一比三，三分一，三分之一，一除三： all work!! but of course, is there a half word in English for 1/3? No, there isn't. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T20:27:30.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23741" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-11T23:03:18.003" Score="0" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I look up 饿 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zhongwen.com/&lt;/a&gt; I find 饿 = 食 + 我。 Further it says, '我 is phonetic'.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean that at some time in the past, 我 was pronounced 'è'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taken literally, 饿 should then be pronounced 'wǒ', which is not the case.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The nearest part to 'è' is in 我， 戈 ‘gē’. Is that where the 'è' comes from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:16:22.867" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:16:22.867" Title="Was 我 pronounced 'è' at some time in the past?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-05-12T21:45:57.293" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23741" CreationDate="2017-05-12T00:19:31.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right.&#xA;Pronunciation of 饿 came from 我[1]，我 from 俄[2]， and 俄 from 莪(é)[3].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are into ancient Chinese, here are two websites I highly recommend.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;references&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/28/js/997F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/28/js/997F.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2]&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/kx/6211.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/kx/6211.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3]&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/kx/4FC4.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/kx/4FC4.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-05-12T00:19:31.603" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1737" CreationDate="2017-05-12T07:02:07.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably best to use &quot;someone/people from the same/my hometown&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some other options which would work in specific contexts, though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;paisan&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is an Italian loanword to American English. It can mean someone from the same hometown or region. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could even use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;laoxiang&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;lao-hsiang&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as long as you explain it to anyone who might not be familiar. It has become used in English &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=paisan%2CPaisan%2Claoxiang&amp;amp;year_start=1960&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=15&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2Cpaisan%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CPaisan%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Claoxiang%3B%2Cc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;since the 1990s&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And perhaps, lightheartedly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;hometown mafia&lt;/strong&gt;, analogous to phrases such as &lt;strong&gt;PayPal mafia&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastEditorUserId="3183" LastEditDate="2020-03-23T04:37:25.773" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T04:37:25.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23533" CreationDate="2017-05-12T08:09:51.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;自以为是 is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chengyu&lt;/a&gt; derived from ancient Chinese literature. There is a very important thing you should bear in mind when learning chengyu, that is, in old Chinese, monosyllabic words are much more common than bisyllabic words. Normally you shouldn't try to interpret the structure of chengyu by morden Chinese grammar rules. 以为 is a bisyllabic compound word in morden Chinese, but it's not in old Chinese, at least not in 自以为是. Instead, 以 and 为 are two separate monosyllabic words. 自以为是 is a inverted sentence. The &quot;nomral&quot; order is 以自为是. It's made up of four monosyllabic words. 以 means think, 自 means oneself, 为 means be, 是 means right. This will be very obvious if you read @Pedroski's example carefully: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《荀子·荣辱》:“凡斗者必自以为是，而以人为非也。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence means: Those who fight will always think that they themself are right and others wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now comapre the word order of 自以为是 and 以人为非.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;自        以        为        是&#xA;oneself   think    be        right&#xA;&#xA;以        人        为        非&#xA;think     others   be        wrong&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, the meanings of 自以为是 and 以人为非 in &lt;code&gt;凡斗者必自以为是，而以人为非也&lt;/code&gt; are related to each other and it's easy the reason that the structure of these two 4-character phrases should be symmetric, and the syntatical functions of the corresponding characters in the two phrase should be the same. Now it's easy to get the conclusion that 自以为是 is actually 以自为是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then what's the reason for this inverted order? In fact, this is a very common structure in old Chinese. If the object is 自, it can sometimes be put before the verb for emphasis. Other examples are 情不自禁，不能自已，作茧自缚，扪心自问 and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a chengyu 自欺欺人, which means to deceive oneself as well as others. You can compare 自欺 and 欺人 with 自以为是 and 以人为非.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastEditorUserId="6043" LastEditDate="2017-05-13T06:23:53.343" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T06:23:53.343" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23745" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23748" CreationDate="2017-05-12T08:10:27.437" Score="0" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/J6nS6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hello! Could you please translate those writings on my pig.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17086" LastActivityDate="2017-05-12T09:05:53.620" Title="What's written on the pig?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23741" CreationDate="2017-05-12T08:18:18.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your observation is brilliant. However, there's no easy conclusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People summarize the formation of Chinese characters into &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;six categories&lt;/a&gt;, namely 象形, 指事, 会意, 形声, 转注, and 假借. For the case of &quot;饿&quot;, it's a phono-semantic compound (形声字) made up of &quot;食&quot; -- the semantic part, and &quot;我&quot; --- the phonetic part. Therefore, you may find the prononciations of 我 and 饿 are &lt;strong&gt;similar&lt;/strong&gt;. However, a phono-semantic compound does not neccessarily follow exactly the same prononciation. &quot;我&quot; is a ideograph (指事字), which has a more vague origin for its pronounciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The prononciation of Chinese characters can date back to more than two thousand of years ago. At that time, most researcher now believing, there was no tone system and the words use suffices to identify its speech, etc, like Latin does. It also uses suffices to distinguish between different phono-semantic compound words. For example in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt;, the prononciation for 我 and 饿 are &lt;code&gt;/ŋaːlʔ/&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;/ŋaːls/&lt;/code&gt; respectively(from &lt;a href=&quot;http://ytenx.org/zim?dzih=%E6%88%91%E9%A5%BF&amp;amp;kyonh=1&amp;amp;trngyan=1&amp;amp;tcyts=1&amp;amp;pyonh=1&amp;amp;dciangx=1&amp;amp;jtkb=1&amp;amp;jtdt=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;). It differs so much from modern days, and it developed a long way and changing from time to time. A thousand years later in Tang Dynasty, when we called the language &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt;, the prononciations of 我 and 饿 changes to &lt;code&gt;/ŋɑ/&lt;/code&gt; but with different tones (上声 and 去声 respectively).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 我 and 戈, they have some relationship in terms of origin. In the old days, &quot;我&quot; means one's own country. And country always has armies. &quot;戈&quot; is the arms made up long wooden stick and a metalic blade (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/sw/6211.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;说文解字&lt;/a&gt;). Today, we can only know that 我 and 戈 shares the same vowel in Middle Chinese, and this is related to the similar syllable coda in Old Chinese. But the root reason of the similarity is still unclear. We still lacking convinceable evidences to claim anything. Digging out the pronounciation of two thousand years without any audio documentation is a difficult thing, not to mention the prononciation system and rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-05-12T08:18:18.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23747" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23749" CreationDate="2017-05-12T08:27:39.577" Score="1" ViewCount="917" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt; 情势 situation; trend of events; circumstances:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;局势 situation; state (of affairs)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;形势 situation; circumstance; condition; state of affairs &gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt; 情形 circumstances; situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情况 circumstances; situation &gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;状况 condition; state; situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very confused. They obviously have a subtle difference as with all the analogous words in English, but I can't get the handle of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-05-13T05:45:56.333" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T20:27:30.383" Title="What is the difference between 情势, 局势, 形势, 情形, 情况 and 状况?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23745" CreationDate="2017-05-12T09:05:53.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It reads 相知永伴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相知 means knowing each other very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;永伴 means always together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-05-12T09:05:53.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23747" CreationDate="2017-05-12T10:43:07.247" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;情势&lt;/strong&gt; (situation) = 情 (details) + 势 (formations /form)= &lt;strong&gt;the form and details&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you look at a situation as an object. The form of it tells you what kind of situation you are looking at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 情势危急 (situation is critical) * &lt;em&gt;the form and the details tells us the situation is critical&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;局势&lt;/strong&gt; (situation) = 局面 (board surface)+ 势 (formations /form) = &lt;strong&gt;The formations on the board surface&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Metaphorizing a situation as a chess game. The formations of the chess pieces on the board tell us what is going on in the game (situation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 局势危急 (situation is critical) * &lt;em&gt;the formations on the chess board indicates the game(situation) is in a critical state&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;形势&lt;/strong&gt;(situation) = 形(shape) + 势(formations/ form) = &lt;strong&gt;shape and form&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a 'shape and form' description can apply to an actual object; or metaphorically, to a state of affairs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 形势危急 (situation is critical) * &lt;em&gt;the shape and form indicates the situation is in a critical state.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;情形&lt;/strong&gt; (situation) = 情(details)+ 形(shape)= &lt;strong&gt;shape and details&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;shape and details forms a 'situation'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example:看情形他不会来 (looks like he won't come)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The thing that's being looked at is details of the situation, which indicate he won't come&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;情况&lt;/strong&gt; (situation) = 情(details)+ 况(appearance) = &lt;strong&gt;appearance and details&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;appearance and details = 'circumstance'(situation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example:看情况决定 (make the decision depend on the situation)&#xA;  )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;see the appearance and situation then decide&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;状况&lt;/strong&gt; (situation) = 状態(status) + 况 (appearance) = &lt;strong&gt;appearance and status&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'appearance and status' = 'condition' (situation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这状况不能持续 (this situation cannot be maintained)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-24T20:27:30.383" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T20:27:30.383" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23771" CreationDate="2017-05-12T10:47:32.023" Score="1" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there anybody who can help me, please?..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have studied that in this setence: &quot;Zhongguo de youpiao&quot;  zhongguo characterizes youpiao e that's why we use the particle &quot;de&quot;, but I found this sentence: &quot;Zhongguo cha&quot; where the word Zhongguo seems to characterize the word &quot;cha&quot;, so why don't we use the particle &quot;de&quot; in this case? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非常感谢你的帮助!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16610" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T12:54:59.503" Title="The use of the particle &quot;de&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23750" CreationDate="2017-05-12T11:02:32.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's the same case as Engligh right? We can also say in English: China Tea, or Chinese Tea. As long as omitting &quot;de&quot; does not introduce ambiguity, it's fine. However, it will sounds more like a proper noun instead of adj.+noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-05-12T11:02:32.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23752" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23754" CreationDate="2017-05-12T17:32:35.773" Score="1" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading a short story (set around 1976) by 魏微 (born in 1970 in Jiangsu, studied in Nanjing). The word 衣衫 repeatedly occurs. I searched the net and found references from 紅樓夢 and 唐詩, but the short story is among the easiest I have ever read, making but sparse use of 成語 and fancy vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My dictionary defines 衣衫 as clothes. Is there a difference to 衣服？ Any regional flavour, literary flavour or era related flavour for which one may choose it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%A1%A3%E8%A1%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;jukuu&lt;/a&gt; and it seems to be rare outside fixed expressions. 魏微 uses it quite casually:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;⋯我母亲那时很喜欢我，为我做很多漂亮的衣衫⋯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我穿着最好看的衣衫，倚在家门口的一棵老槐树上,⋯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-05-13T05:43:20.263" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T23:58:52.200" Title="How does 衣衫 compare to 衣服 in terms of meaning and flavour?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23753" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23760" CreationDate="2017-05-12T18:39:04.260" Score="1" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;Newbie here. It makes sense that &quot;ài&quot; means &quot;love&quot; in the context of hobbies; you're doing what you love. What does &quot;hào&quot; mean here, though? Is it just a strange pronunciation of the standard &quot;hǎo&quot;? Or is it more like &quot;hào&quot; is used to mean &quot;lovely&quot;? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17088" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T03:53:20.833" Title="What does the &quot;hào&quot; mean in &quot;àihào&quot; for &quot;hobby&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23752" CreationDate="2017-05-12T20:20:52.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In olden time, there might be difference between the two terms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/23/xs/8863.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;衣&lt;/a&gt; 」[ &lt;em&gt;(2) [upper garment;jacket]&#xA;衣,所以蔽体者也。上曰衣,下曰裳。&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/23/xs/886B.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;衫&lt;/a&gt;」, [&lt;em&gt;(1) 古代指无袖头的开衩上衣 [sleeveless jacket with vent in the sides of a jacket]&lt;/em&gt;. ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese language, both 衣 and 衫 simply refers to 'clothes one wears on his upper body'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Together, 「衣衫 」is a compound word for the general term 'upper garment' much like 「刀劍 」(knife and sword) is a general term for 'weapons'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「服」as a noun, refers 'every article of clothing one wear on his person'. For example:  「軍服」(military uniform), 「制服」(uniform). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「服」is also a verb for 'to wear' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Together,「衣服」is a general term for 'clothes/clothing' just like 「刀斧」(knife and axe) is a general term for 'weapons'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「衣服」&lt;/strong&gt; is much more common than 「衣衫」 in day-to-day words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related term is 「衣裳」(upper garment + lower garment), which is also a general term for 'clothing'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-12T20:48:07.290" LastActivityDate="2017-05-12T20:48:07.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23753" CreationDate="2017-05-12T21:33:28.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/485/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;好&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[粵] hou2 | [國] hao3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) [adj] good; fine; nice | [ant] 壞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/485/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;好&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[粵] hou3 | [國] &lt;strong&gt;hao&lt;/strong&gt;4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[v] like; love; be fond of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[v] be liable to; be likely to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好(hao4)酒= like to drink&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好(hao4)賭= like to gamble&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;愛好&lt;/strong&gt;= 'love and like' = &lt;strong&gt;interest/ hobby&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-12T21:33:28.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23757" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23758" CreationDate="2017-05-13T01:37:04.530" Score="0" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing a short 1 minute speech for my school, but I am not sure if the grammar of this is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can somebody please tell me if it is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的家&#xA;  大家好！我叫Ian。我今年十四岁。我的家在Greenlane。我的家有四口人，爸爸，妈妈，一个姐姐和我。&#xA;  我的家有三个卧室，三个卫生间，一个厨房，客厅和一个饭厅。我也有一个小花园。我的花园很漂亮。&#xA;  我的客厅不大也不小。客厅里有三个沙发，一个棕色的桌子，椅子和一个电视。我不喜欢我的客厅一点儿。因为，在晚上，客厅很冷。&#xA;  我喜欢我的卧室因为卧室很暖和。还有，我的卧室比我姐姐的我是很大。我的房间里有床，两个白色的书架，一个书桌和两个椅子。书架上有英文书，韩文书和中文书。&#xA;  我最喜欢我的家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17089" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T03:38:17.993" Title="Is the grammar of this correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23757" CreationDate="2017-05-13T03:09:41.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I Assume this is the title. If it is, perfectly fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我叫Ian。我今年十四岁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Too many subjects. Sound redundant. Better to be: &lt;code&gt;我叫Ian，今年十四岁。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的家在Greenlane。我的家有四口人，爸爸，妈妈，一个姐姐和我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Redundancy problem again. Suggest to change to &lt;code&gt;我的家在Greenlane，家里有四口人——爸爸、妈妈、姐姐和我。&lt;/code&gt;（Note the correct usage of punctuation.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I changed your second &quot;我的家&quot; into &quot;家里&quot; because&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although in Chinese, 家 can refer to either family or the house, please avoid refer to both in the same context, which leads to confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We usually do not say &quot;我的家有四口人&quot;. Instead, we say &quot;我家有四口人&quot; or &quot;我家里有四口人&quot;。In the second form, 我 can be omitted if your last sentence already uses 我 as subject.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的家有三个卧室，三个卫生间，一个厨房，客厅和一个饭厅。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence does not have big problem in grammar. Maybe changing 我的家 into 我家 can may it more oral-like. Another thing to pay attention to is, you remove the quantity of 客厅 only, but keep all other ones with 一个. How about: &lt;code&gt;我家有客厅、饭厅、厨房、三个卧室和三个卫生间。&lt;/code&gt;. I also changed the order to make sure there's no ambiguity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我也有一个小花园。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也 is improper, since it implies other people also have a garden. If it's the only garden in your house, you should say &lt;code&gt;我还有一个花园&lt;/code&gt;. Another problem is, the garden does not belong to you only (in my point of view, it should belong to you family), so a better way to state is &lt;code&gt;我家还有一个花园&lt;/code&gt;. However, this would make the subject repeated. Therefore, you can change to another way around, saying &lt;code&gt;屋子外面还有一个花园&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的花园很漂亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的 can be removed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的客厅不大也不小。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Changing 我的 to 我家的, or simply removing it, would be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;客厅里有三个沙发，一个棕色的桌子，椅子和一个电视。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you choose to remove 我的 in your last sentence, you can also remove 客厅 in this sentence and change 里 into 里面。Joining together the two sentences: &lt;code&gt;客厅不大也不小，里面有三个沙发、一个棕色的桌子、?把椅子和一个电视。&lt;/code&gt;（There's no reason to omit the quality of chair. If you omit it, some people may think there's only one chair. If you don't want to mention the number, you can also say 几把椅子.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不喜欢我的客厅一点儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is too English. I assume you want to say: I dislike my living room a little bit. If this is the case, you should change into &lt;code&gt;我有点儿不喜欢我家的客厅&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因为，在晚上，客厅很冷。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢我的卧室因为卧室很暖和。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fine. But feel a little bit rigid/unnatural when moving from the last sentence. You can add some preposition, such as 相比之下。So the sentence becomes: &lt;code&gt;相比之下，我更喜欢我的卧室，因为卧室很暖和。&lt;/code&gt;. The second 卧室 can be swapped into 它 to remove repeating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还有，我的卧室比我姐姐的我是很大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typo? 我是 --&gt; 卧室. Again, the second 卧室 can be removed. Another problem, 很大 can not be used to describe comparison. You can say 大很多 instead. The full sentence: &lt;code&gt;还有，我的卧室比我姐姐的大很多。&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的房间里有床，两个白色的书架，一个书桌和两个椅子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please don't change subject from 卧室 to 房间. This may makes the audience misleaded. Just say &quot;卧室里有床、两个白色的书架、一个书桌和两&lt;strong&gt;把&lt;/strong&gt;椅子。&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;书架上有英文书，韩文书和中文书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我最喜欢我的家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better to be: &lt;code&gt;我最喜欢我的家了。&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;我非常喜欢我的家。&lt;/code&gt;. Because 最 makes people think you are making comparison.Either you like your home more than somebody else, or you like your home more than something else. Changing to &quot;非常&quot; would make it only mean the degree of your affection. &lt;code&gt;我最喜欢我的家了。&lt;/code&gt; is another way of saying it with more emotion, instead of plainly state the fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastEditorUserId="17065" LastEditDate="2017-05-13T03:21:35.447" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T03:21:35.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23757" CreationDate="2017-05-13T03:38:17.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的家:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I presume it is the title of your speech?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大家好！我叫Ian。我今年十四岁。*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家好, 我叫Ian,今年十四岁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You shouldn't use too many short phrases to express something you can put in one single sentence.  You do not need to repeat the subject 我 in a same sentence.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的家在Greenlane。我的家有四口人，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們一家四口住在 Greenlane.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Again, avoid breaking up a normal sentence too much.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;爸爸，妈妈，一个姐姐和我。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家庭成員包括爸爸，妈妈，姐姐和我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Add &quot;family member include&quot; to make it clear you are introducing your family.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的家有三个卧室，三个卫生间，一个厨房，客厅和一个饭厅。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我家有三个卧室，三个卫生间，厨房，客厅和饭厅各一个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You don't have to repeat 一个 three times when a single '各一个' (one each) can express the same concept.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我也有一个小花园。我的花园很漂亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我也有一个很漂亮的小花园。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, avoid breaking up a normal sentence too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的客厅不大也不小。客厅里有三个沙发，一个棕色的桌子，椅子和一个电视。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的客厅不大也不小，有三&lt;strong&gt;张&lt;/strong&gt;沙发，一&lt;strong&gt;张&lt;/strong&gt;棕色的桌子，椅子和一&lt;strong&gt;台&lt;/strong&gt;电视。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Notice the classifiers&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不喜欢我的客厅一点儿。因为，在晚上，客厅很冷。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我对客厅有一点儿不满意，那就是它晚上很冷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢我的卧室因为卧室很暖和。还有，我的卧室比我姐姐的我是很大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢我的卧室，因为它很暖和，而且比我姐姐那间大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的房间里有床，两个白色的书架，一个书桌和两个椅子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的房间里有一&lt;strong&gt;张&lt;/strong&gt;床，两个白色的书架，一&lt;strong&gt;张&lt;/strong&gt;书桌和两&lt;strong&gt;张&lt;/strong&gt;椅子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;书架上有英文书，韩文书和中文书。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的书架上有英文，韩文和中文书。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我最喜欢我的家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one seems fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should study the difference between your draft and my edition. It can help you find mistakes you repeatedly make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest, I think it is too soon for you to write a speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T03:38:17.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23753" CreationDate="2017-05-13T03:53:20.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a character have multiple similar pronunciations, such as 好 with different tones, it can means different part of speech for the same/similar concept. This phenomenon is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%9B%E8%81%B2%E5%88%A5%E7%BE%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;四声别义&lt;/a&gt;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;好(hǎo，上声): adjective. good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好(hào，去声)：verb. like.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;少(shǎo，上声): adjective. few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少(shào，去声): noun. young people.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;骑(qí，阳平): verb. ride.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骑(jì，去声): noun. rider (on horse).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;教(jiāo，阴平): verb. teach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;教(jiào，去声): noun. teaching.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your question, 好 of 爱好 is a verb. The meaning is similar to 爱. Therefore, people combine these two characters to mean a verb, to like. 爱好 can also be &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_conjugation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;conjugated&lt;/a&gt; (called 活用 in Chinese) as a noun, means hobby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T03:53:20.833" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23752" CreationDate="2017-05-13T04:35:20.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to answer this question in the perspective of accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Yangtze_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jiang-Huai Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;, clothes are more often to be call 衣裳. Maybe the author does not have a good knowledge of linguistics, and thought it as 衣衫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In standard Northern Mandarin, the most formal way to say clothes is 衣服. Although 衣衫/衣裳 is understandable, but it sounds genteel and not appropriate in oral language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T04:35:20.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23734" CreationDate="2017-05-13T10:01:40.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many different ways of saying a veiled physical threat. Depending on different situation, the phrase maybe different. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你什么意思？&lt;/code&gt; -- when the person do something making you annoying, and you want to stop them, just ask what they are doing, but with some emotions like this phrase, they would feel be threatened.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;咱们走着瞧！&lt;/code&gt; -- when the person do something bad, and you want to struggle with them in a long term, you can say this to threat them, it's never end.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;敬酒不吃吃罚酒啊？&lt;/code&gt; -- when you were doing something good to the person, but he/she refused the kindness. Then you may want to threat and punish them. Then goes for this one.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T10:01:40.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23736" CreationDate="2017-05-13T23:49:13.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some patterns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      English               Strictly in Mandarin(Cantonese in written)&#xA;1/3   one third               三(3)分之一(1)  &#xA;1/4   one fourth(quarter)     四(4)分之一(1)&#xA;2/5   two fifths              五(5)分之二(2)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the pattern? Even in written 三分之一, It's common to write &quot;3分之1&quot;. Since in Chinese, the number itself doesn't have the plural form, you can ignore the annoying&quot;-s&quot; or&quot;-es&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In accounting, since 一，二，三...etc. The number itself are easily to be modified, so we might use “壹，贰，叁，肆...”, but that's another sotry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advanced patterns when it comes to 1(1/3) cases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        English                     Strictly in Mandarin(Cantonese in written)&#xA;1+2/3   one and two thirds              一(1)又三(3)分之2(1)  &#xA;3+1/4   three and one fourth(quarter)   三(3)又四(4)分之一(1)&#xA;4+2/5   four and two fifths             四(4)又五(5)分之二(2)   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T23:49:13.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23752" CreationDate="2017-05-13T23:58:52.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Tang Ho have an excellent and detailed explanation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a word, 衣服 is more like a daily word we would use. 衣衫 is a word we might see in literature material. It's a little bit wired to say&quot;衣衫&quot; without using any idiom/set-phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when it comes to describing &quot;easily discovered, seen, or understood&quot;.&#xA;The words like &quot;obvious&quot;, &quot;apparent&quot; are more likely to be used than &quot;manifest&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T23:58:52.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23766" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-14T00:13:00.260" Score="2" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from the story 草船借箭 in 三国演义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诸葛亮：”三天，要十万支箭，你得帮帮我。“&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鲁肃：”你不要为难我，我怎么帮得了你？“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English we can say, &quot;How can I help you?&quot; which may have 2 meanings, depending on how we say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning 1. In what way can I be of service to you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we put strong emphasis on 'I' and 'you',&#xA;Meaning 2. 'I really don't think I am able to help you.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鲁肃的意思是什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T03:19:50.047" Title="Is 得了 the opposite of 不了？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23627" CreationDate="2017-05-14T00:13:51.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question. Is there a preference when it comes to using 天 for 日?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, there are no such a strict rules when it comes 天vs日.(I was born and raised in southern China, lived in the North for several years. I speak Cantonese, Mandarin, Hakka)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, 周天and周日, 星期日and星期天,明日and明天, 改日and改天 are all equivalent. But why people prefer one to another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're some reasons: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In some south-western dialects, 日and一 have similar pronunciation. So people prefer use 周天than周日。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Speaking in rhyme. 天tian1, 日ri4. So in some cases, it sounds weird to use天, but in another case, it sounds weird to use 日。That's depends.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T00:13:51.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23768" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23769" CreationDate="2017-05-14T00:34:03.697" Score="1" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I am talking about someone, and want to indicate that they are very old (not in a negative way, just stating a fact), how do I do that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like this?&#xA;他是老人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17094" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T13:20:10.310" Title="How to express that someone is old?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23768" CreationDate="2017-05-14T02:25:15.697" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;他是個老人&lt;/strong&gt;' - '&lt;strong&gt;he is an old man&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a plain statement. The classifier 個 should not be omitted because 老人 could be a noun or adjective. '他是老人' sounds like your sentence is incomplete. Using the classifier 個 indicates it is a noun and it is a complete sentence (not &amp;quot;他是老人... 恊會的主席&amp;quot; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;他是個老人家&lt;/strong&gt;' - '&lt;strong&gt;he is an elderly&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'老人家' is more respectful term than just '老人'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice '他老人家' - (he the elder) is a respectful way to address someone senior in age, or high in status.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;他是一名長者&lt;/strong&gt;'- '&lt;strong&gt;he is an elderly&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classifier for '長者' (senior/ elderly) should be those that reserved for human only, like '一位' or '一名'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;他是個上了年紀的人&lt;/strong&gt;' - '&lt;strong&gt;he is a man of advanced age&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A matter of fact statement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T02:25:15.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23768" CreationDate="2017-05-14T06:56:37.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also replace 他 with an inanimate subject &quot;他（的）岁数&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他岁数很大了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他上岁数了 or 他上年纪了 can also express the same idea and is common in daily use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T06:56:37.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23750" CreationDate="2017-05-14T07:19:46.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most 的 in the &quot;attribute+的+headword&quot; structure like 中国的邮票 can be omitted, except when the attribute is a superlative adjective or the modifier is too long. You have to refer to the context whether to omit it or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T07:19:46.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23766" CreationDate="2017-05-14T09:03:15.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Meaning 2 is right.&#xA;It is a rhetorical question to express negation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T09:03:15.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23766" CreationDate="2017-05-14T11:04:10.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鲁肃的意思是什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我怎么帮得了你？ = 我帮不了你。&#xA;Such kind of statement called &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%8D%E9%97%AE%E5%8F%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;反问句&lt;/a&gt;, usually the one ask this question already know the answer. The intent of such sentence is strengthen mood or emphasize the speaker's point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;反问句 in English&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17044" LastEditorUserId="17044" LastEditDate="2017-05-14T11:09:14.553" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T11:09:14.553" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23750" CreationDate="2017-05-14T12:54:59.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's happy that i can hele you to learn chinese,actually i m chinese,if i explain wrong with english grammar,hope you forgive me.ok,let's begin.in fact&#xA;'zhongguo cha' also mean 'zhongguo de cha',the first one is a abbreviation of'zhongguo de cha',the word 'de' in chinese means something belones somebody or something,or somebody do something using 'de' connect,for example:'shui faming le dengpao?' ,'Edison faming de.' --which in english means 'who create lights?','Edison create it'.     and i want to make a friend who major in software,because i want ask question in stackoverflow,but my english is not well to organize my sentences to ask in a good way.so i help you learn chinese when i m free,and you help me change my question into a better english sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17097" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T12:54:59.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23768" CreationDate="2017-05-14T13:20:10.310" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;first of all,Im chinese,if i express wrong in english grammar,hope to forgive me,welcome to make a friend to communicate chineses,english,just help each other，if you major in computer science or software,it's couldn't be better. ok,if you want to say old to people likely grandparents,you should say&#xA;'ta shi yi wei zhangbei'--'他是一位长辈'；'ta nianji henda'--‘他年纪很大’；'ta shangle suishu'--‘他上了岁数’；‘tashi zhangzhe’--‘他是长者’;'tashi laorenjia'--'他是老人家'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17097" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T13:20:10.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23627" CreationDate="2017-05-14T15:10:28.680" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;happy to help you learn chinese,im chinese if i express wrong in english grammar hope you can forgive me.ok,lets begin,in china,we use 日 in this condition:今天是5月14日 or 5月14号，as you see,usually use 日 to express date,use 天 to count,like ‘一年有365天’,‘第几个一百天’&#xA;and i want to make a friend to communicate,just help each other learn languages,if you major in computer science or software,it couldn't be better!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17097" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T15:10:28.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23777" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-14T23:20:43.670" Score="4" ViewCount="353" Body="&lt;p&gt;This text is 囊萤照读。 In this short text I found 5 'verb 了 verb' repetitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;擦了擦汗，晃了晃头，揉了揉脖子，挪了挪屁股，灯在耳边摇了摇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do these just indicate repeated action? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it 'verb 了 noun':&lt;br&gt;&#xA;擦了擦: wipe a wipe&lt;br&gt;&#xA;晃了晃: shake a shake&lt;br&gt;&#xA;揉了揉: rub a rub&lt;br&gt;&#xA;挪了挪: move a move&lt;br&gt;&#xA;摇了摇: shake a shake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T00:17:15.560" Title="What does the use of 'verb 了 verb' indicate?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23777" CreationDate="2017-05-15T00:17:15.560" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;[verb]+[verb] &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat a same verb once, is called 'redoubling'. A redoubled verb indicates the action happens in a slight degree and a short duration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;點頭 ( nod head); 點點頭 ( nod head slightly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;試 (try); 試試 (try a little )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看 (look); 看看 (look briefly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;[verb]+[counting word]+ [ verb] &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the cases of a verb following by a counting word and then the same verb again, the repeated verb is actually a [verb classifier] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;點頭 (nod head); 點一點頭 (nod one nod/ nod head once)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;試 (try); 試一試 (try one try / try once )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看 (look); 看一看 (look one look / look once )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The particle &lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;  following a verb indicate 'completion' &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;點了一點頭 (nodded one nod/ nodded head once)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;試了一試 (tried one try / tried once )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看了一看 (looked one look / looked once  )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Now come to your question: what [verb]+了+[verb] indicate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is similar to point (3) with the counting word omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;點了點頭 = 點了(一)點頭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;試了試 = 試了(一)試&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看了看 = 看了(一)看&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T00:17:15.560" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23781" CreationDate="2017-05-15T12:02:16.573" Score="0" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking at a definition for 心中 that reads: &quot;noun: in mind&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, the English phrase &quot;in mind&quot;, I don't really think of it as a noun, what does it mean to be a noun that means &quot;in mind&quot;, does it refer to the state of something so much as it is &quot;in mind&quot;? If so, wouldn't there be a much better word to describe that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does the character 心 &quot;mind&quot; relate to its partner, 中 (in, among, centre, etc) to form this compound two-part character that stands for a &quot;noun meaning 'in mind'&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T17:25:48.293" Title="&quot;心中&quot; as &quot;in mind&quot;?" Tags="&lt;middle-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23779" CreationDate="2017-05-15T14:23:55.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you better to add &lt;code&gt;在&lt;/code&gt; before, like &lt;code&gt;在心中&lt;/code&gt; to make this a complete phase, and which means &lt;code&gt;in mind&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16109" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T14:23:55.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23779" CreationDate="2017-05-15T18:06:22.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is better to translate it as a full noun phrase such as &quot;the inside of your mind&quot; to help your understanding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心中 is more of written Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bet you found the word 心中 from a song or poem etc since it is rarely used in a daily conversation. A colloquial synonym is 心里 which has the same meaning, where 里 means inside (for example, 里面 inside) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can also hear people saying 心里面 (the inside of your mind) which is more spoken form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17101" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T18:06:22.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23782" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23784" CreationDate="2017-05-15T18:09:14.163" Score="1" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;All seem to mean sharp in both a literal and abstract way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T12:34:34.640" Title="What is the difference between 锋利， 尖利， 锐利， 锋锐，尖锐？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23782" CreationDate="2017-05-15T18:13:01.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;锋利 describe a knife, something with a edge. 尖利 describe a needle, something with a point. 锋锐 is similar to 锋利, and 尖锐 is similar to 尖利. 锐利 probably would describe both, I am not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4389" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T18:13:01.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23782" CreationDate="2017-05-15T19:02:29.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;锋= edge ; 利= sharp; &lt;strong&gt;锋利&lt;/strong&gt;= &lt;strong&gt;sharp (of edge)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刀锋&lt;strong&gt;锋利&lt;/strong&gt; blade edge is &lt;strong&gt;sharp&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尖= pointy; 利= sharp; &lt;strong&gt;尖利&lt;/strong&gt;= &lt;strong&gt;pointy and sharp&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰錐是&lt;strong&gt;尖利的&lt;/strong&gt; ice pick is &lt;strong&gt;pointy and sharp&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;尖利的&lt;/strong&gt;工具 (&lt;strong&gt;pointy and sharp&lt;/strong&gt; tool)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;锐 = piercing; 利= sharp; &lt;strong&gt;锐利&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;piercingly sharp(of point)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眼光&lt;strong&gt;锐利&lt;/strong&gt; have (piercingly) &lt;strong&gt;sharp&lt;/strong&gt; eyes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;锐利&lt;/strong&gt;武器 &lt;strong&gt;piercingly sharp&lt;/strong&gt; weapon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;锋= edge; 锐 = piercing; &lt;strong&gt;锋锐&lt;/strong&gt;= &lt;strong&gt;piercingly sharp (of edge and point)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;锋锐&lt;/strong&gt;武器 &lt;strong&gt;piercingly sharp&lt;/strong&gt; weapons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尖= pointy; 锐 = piercing; &lt;strong&gt;尖锐&lt;/strong&gt;= &lt;strong&gt;piercingly pointy&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;說話&lt;strong&gt;尖锐&lt;/strong&gt; speak in a (piercingly) &lt;strong&gt;pointy&lt;/strong&gt; manner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;尖锐的&lt;/strong&gt;工具 &lt;strong&gt;piercingly pointy&lt;/strong&gt; tool&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T19:19:13.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23736" CreationDate="2017-05-16T10:35:36.740" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;因為十進制在中國已被使用了很長的時間，故比較少分數字詞；其中只有「半」作為單字詞，於中國古代應用如下。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because the decimal system has been used for a long time in China, there are fewer fractional words.&#xA;半 is the only single word, which was used as follows in ancient China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1/2 one-half 半、中半&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1/3 one-third 少半、小半&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2/3 two-thirds 太半、大半&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1/4 one-fourth, a quarter 弱半&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3/4 three-fourths, three quarters 強半&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中國數字分數系統中，稱呼分數時，先稱呼分母，後稱呼分子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In Chinese fractional system, the denominator is addressed first, and then the numerator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例如：其亡者三二 (Two-thirds people died)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E6%95%B8%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;中文數字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T10:35:36.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23779" CreationDate="2017-05-16T17:25:48.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an example, 心中 can be used as in the phrase &quot;记在心中,&quot; which translates to &quot;keep in mind.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one says &quot;I will keep this in mind,&quot; the Chinese version can be “我会把这个记在心中。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally, this would be &quot;I will put this into my mind/heart。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“心” is “mind/heart” and “中” is “in” or, in this context, “into.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the &quot;mind/heart&quot; is in noun form. That's why &quot;心中&quot; is described as a noun in your definition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11625" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T17:25:48.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23766" CreationDate="2017-05-16T17:39:08.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;得了 is more &quot;can&quot; and 不了 is more often than not &quot;cannot.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 鲁肃’s rhetorical question, &quot;我怎么帮得了你?&quot; would mean &quot;How can I (possibly) help you?&quot; And, as in caisil's answer, &quot;我帮不了你&quot; would mean &quot;I cannot help you.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, as a general rule of thumb, &quot;得了&quot; doesn't equal &quot;不了,&quot; in fact, they are opposites in meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.&#xA;Still, note that the 了 in both &quot;得了&quot; and &quot;不了&quot; is pronounced liao(3), instead of le(neutral tone), which would make the meanings of both phrases different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11625" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T17:39:08.140" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22095" CreationDate="2017-05-16T18:03:04.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer comes from personal experience as a Chinese native. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the radicals that you're trying to describe are Chinese characters in themselves (which is very common), we usually say &lt;em&gt;radical&lt;/em&gt; + &quot;字旁.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the character 张, we call the radical on the left side &quot;弓字旁。&quot; [gong(1) zi(4) pang(2)] Or, in the character 棒, we call the left radical &quot;木字旁。&quot; [mu(4) zi(4) pang(2)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This applies most often to the radicals that contribute to the meaning of the characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the same two characters, we simply call the right radical “长” for “张” and “奉” for “棒。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your own example, the radical would be 厂, pronounced chang(3rd tone), at least in mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the rare radicals that aren't characters in themselves, there are specific names for them that you'll just have to memorize. For instance, in the character “打,” the left radical would be called “提手旁。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11625" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T18:03:04.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23789" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-16T19:18:44.043" Score="1" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;Want to know sites where one can download ebook in different formats in chinese. Interested in those resources with western titles (chinese editions) mostly. Out-of-copyright edition of western classic and modern chinese literature will be much appreciated. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T22:59:13.477" Title="Sites with big collection of ebooks in chinese language, but western titles mostly" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23790" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23791" CreationDate="2017-05-17T06:34:20.257" Score="2" ViewCount="1858" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need a tool that is like Google's transliterate that will convert Pinyin to Chinese Character. It works like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://shawnwow.com/chineseCharacterHelpr/transliterateTest.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://shawnwow.com/chineseCharacterHelpr/transliterateTest.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But since it is discontinued there isn't much of an API.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative I found early on was this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://yuhanz.github.io/chinese-ime.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://yuhanz.github.io/chinese-ime.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that also didn't have much flexibility to its layout. It was made by a guy over the weekend while he was super kind he doesn't provide support.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically what I am looking for is the ability to grab the characters and display them how I want instead of in the box they provide. If you delete transliterateTest.htm from the URL of the first (limited to 2 URLs) and you type a Chinese character and click hint you will have a stronger idea of what I am looking for. What I need is to click a character and have the IME reset and do it all again. I tried to hack at this one but the functionality of the IME is acting funky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I would love is one that just goes out and grabs a Character array based on the JSON and gives me complete control on how I want to parse through the array. So far this site is entirely in JavaScript and while we will be getting Python later on I am only helping with the JavaScript phase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was asking on the stackoverflow (tech site) but I saw someone asking about Chinese to pinyin translation and having moderate luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I do not speak Chinese. This is for my University's Masters project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17118" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T07:20:05.360" Title="Need an API to convert Pinyin to Simplified Chinese characters" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23790" CreationDate="2017-05-17T07:20:05.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on Google  transliteration API:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/intl/en/inputtools/services/features/transliteration.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com/intl/en/inputtools/services/features/transliteration.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use http request &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/inputtools/request?ime=pinyin&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;oe=utf-8&amp;amp;app=translate&amp;amp;num=10&amp;amp;text=__wozaixuezhongwen__&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com/inputtools/request?ime=pinyin&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;oe=utf-8&amp;amp;app=translate&amp;amp;num=10&amp;amp;text=&lt;strong&gt;wozaixuezhongwen&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&quot; to convert text &quot;wozaixuezhongwen&quot; to &quot;我在学中文&quot; (I am learning Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so you can use any language (Python, JavaScript, Java, ...) to send the http request and read the response, and build you own application flexibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17061" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T07:20:05.360" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23789" CreationDate="2017-05-17T07:49:11.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are not restricted to &quot;free ebooks only&quot;, some online ebook stores are available, like amazon.cn, book.jd.com, and book.douban.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for free ebooks, it is highly unlikely to get free legal copies of the ebooks you mentioned, especially the western titles with Chinese translation. After all, China does not have a long history of EN to CN literate translation, and many of these venerated translators are still alive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T07:49:11.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23794" CreationDate="2017-05-17T10:55:47.627" Score="0" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient China,  among males there was the polite appellation 兄台。 Was there an equivalent term for women, or did it not develop due to 男女授受不親？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T11:55:50.333" Title="Female equivalent of 兄台" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23793" CreationDate="2017-05-17T11:59:40.200" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among the time when boys call each other 兄台, which should be around 唐宋年间, you can call girls 娘子/姑娘 in the same conversation context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another term similar is to call girls 小姐, which refers to young girls who usually have been properly educated and have a decent family. However, the corresponding word for 小姐 for males is 公子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17120" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T11:59:40.200" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23793" CreationDate="2017-05-17T12:39:25.843" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;兄台 is used to address one's &lt;strong&gt;peers&lt;/strong&gt; respectfully. To address a lady of the same age respectfully, one should use 大姐 or 大姐姐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays in China, 大姐 is almost only used to address elder ladies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To address other person's young sister, one should use 贤妹 or 令妹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T12:39:25.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23796" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-17T14:47:44.493" Score="1" ViewCount="4244" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you say &quot;别担心” or ”不担心” for &quot;don't worry&quot;? Or something else? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16472" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T18:26:29.547" Title="Do you say &quot;别担心” or ”不担心” for &quot;don't worry&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23797" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-17T16:09:50.360" Score="0" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone wrote this to a friend of mine.  Can someone please translate it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F61NZ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F61NZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;image&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17123" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T05:52:25.673" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T05:52:25.673" Title="Can someone please translate this note to a friend? (Characters identified: 你是我的嘘声)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2017-05-24T17:39:25.017" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23797" CreationDate="2017-05-17T16:15:35.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You are my hiss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters on the strip of paper don't look like a native speaker's work. Normally even foreigners will attain some ease in pencilling out frequent characters like 我。 I therefore  assume a foreigner with very little practice wrote this and possibly confused some characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2017-05-17T16:20:59.250" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T16:20:59.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3316" CreationDate="2017-05-17T16:35:22.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's actually a very similar expression in English &quot;my foot&quot;, as in the following conversation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: He said he's sorry. B: Sorry my foot. He did it on purpose!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can imagine an almost literal translation in Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 佢話對唔住。B:對佢個頭!/對佢條命! 佢根本係故意!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17124" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T16:35:22.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1737" CreationDate="2017-05-17T16:56:21.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't help but think of &quot;homeboys&quot;/&quot;homies&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17124" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T16:56:21.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23796" CreationDate="2017-05-17T17:27:01.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;别+[verb] = don't+ [verb]. It is  either a command or request&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不+[verb] = not + [verb] . It indicate negative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can say '我不担心'(I am not worry), '你不担心'(you are not worry) and '他不担心'(he is not worry) -- Opposite of  '我担心'(I am worry), '你担心'(you are worry) and '他担心'(he is worry)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can also say '你别担心'(don't worry) But you &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; say '我别担心' or '他别担心' because command or request is always directed to second person.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;However, you can say &quot;我叫他别担心&quot; in which '别担心' is a a quote from you directed toward a second person at the time.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T17:27:01.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23805" CreationDate="2017-05-17T17:33:06.927" Score="3" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;杨度的《君宪救国论》是要&lt;strong&gt;陷袁世凯于不义之地&lt;/strong&gt;吗？ 这是一个值得调查的假设。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an English counterpart just as idiomatic and expressive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T03:44:16.877" Title="Is there an English counterpart for 陷某某于不义之地?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23802" CreationDate="2017-05-17T17:57:53.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;[陷]某某[于]某[地] = [put]某某[in]某[position]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;陷&lt;/strong&gt;袁世凯&lt;strong&gt;于&lt;/strong&gt;不义&lt;strong&gt;之地&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;put&lt;/strong&gt; Yuan Shi kai &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; the &lt;strong&gt;position&lt;/strong&gt; of being unjust&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar structure: [置]某某[于]某[地] = [put]某某[in]某[position]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &quot;置袁世凯于死地&quot; = &quot;put Yuan Shi kai in the position of certain death&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 陷 and 置 is 陷 has the added meaning of 'to entrap' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;George Chen wrote: &lt;em&gt;Accurate but definitely not idiomatic or expressive.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some common expressions that might fit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_up_to_fail&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Set (someone) up to fail&lt;/a&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'Set (someone) up for the blame'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/paint+into+a+corner&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;'paint (someone) into a corner&lt;/a&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Origin of 'paint (someone) into a corner' is: &quot;A painter was paining a flood, he started from the exit, and at the end he found himself trapped into a corner. Any step he took would ruin his works. That's how the idiom came about. So, to put Yuan Shi kai in a position that no matter what step he took, would be seem as unjust (therefore, became a public enemy). Yuan was in effect, be painted into a corner,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-18T03:44:16.877" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T03:44:16.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17813" CreationDate="2017-05-17T21:19:35.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are unlikely to find such a resource. For languages that already have an unambiguous standard notation for pronunciation (which pinyin is), it's uncommon to find dictionaries that indicate pronunciation in IPA. Heck, it's even hard to find dictionaries with IPA for languages with incredibly complex orthography/pronunciation mappings!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, as the comments on your question suggest, you should find &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a resource&lt;/a&gt; that provides pinyin to IPA mappings, and then you can mechanically derive IPA from pinyin if you so desire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T21:19:35.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23802" CreationDate="2017-05-17T23:17:49.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't know enough about 袁世凯 and don't have time to read it all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;袁世凯的荣辱功过各有评说，有人说他是“独夫民贼”[1]  、“窃国大盗”[2]  ，也有人认为他对中国的近代化做出贡献，是真正的改革家。[3]  总之，袁世凯是中国近代史上最具争议的人物之一。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a saying 'hoist by his own petard' which originally meant &quot;blown up with one's own bomb&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically it means: someone's own misdeeds caused their downfall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For tis the sport to haue the enginer Hoist with his owne petar&#xA;  [&quot;Hamlet&quot; III.iv.207].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it fits, I don't know enough to be sure. 如果看袁世凯为‘不忠不义’ it might work!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;杨度的《君宪救国论》是要陷袁世凯于不义之地吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Does 杨度的《君宪救国论》 want 袁世凯 to be hoist by his own petard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T23:17:49.770" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23802" CreationDate="2017-05-18T01:49:03.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding of 陷某某于不义之地 is narrow. This expression is simply used by the defamed to express his resentment, whether it is an unfair defamation or well-deserved critique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This expression is available to anyone, not exclusive to governors. If treated unfairly, a commoner can also use it. But he will never be listed as an enemy to the public.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are asking for a preexisted translation not only equates with the source language but also prevails in the target language. Nah, there is no such thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T01:49:03.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22981" CreationDate="2017-05-18T17:00:03.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll assume that you want to learn vocabulary (written character form, pinyin pronunciation, and translated meaning).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll start off with a little about how I learned (just passed HSK 3 after 9 months of study from zero background). First I completed some smartphone apps (ChineseSkill, Hello Chinese, and Chinese InFlow), then I studied the review and flashcards provided with those apps. I then progressed to composing my own sentences usually using Google Translate along with Pleco dictionary. Then I started using Anki flashcards. I also made my own Excel spreadsheets for random quizzes and handwriting templates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some tips that have helped me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) In the initial stages go slow and try to learn a few characters and basic sentences like 我是男人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Try to figure out tricks to help you remember the characters. For me 是 looks like the word &quot;BE&quot;, so I instantly memorized it with no problems. I learned 我 by thinking of the saying &quot;woe is me&quot;. I learned 写 by thinking it looks like the letter &quot;E&quot; for french &quot;écrire&quot; I always thought in my head &quot;écrivez&quot;. I also invent my own little names for the characters/radicals 京 is &quot;beijing man&quot; because it looks like a little guy with a hat and mustache. 听 at first looked to me like a person hitting a hammer on an anvil or someone hitting a tuning fork, so it was natural for &quot;hear/listen&quot;. 近 looked like a person trying to avoid a cat with it's tail raised (who like's seeing a cat's but, really?!?!!? ;) &quot;too close for comfort&quot;, so it means &quot;near&quot;. Of course, some of this is inconsistent and silly, but it was a fun way to remember things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Also learning the decomposed radicals can be helpful. 要 is &quot;western women&quot; who are indoctrinated into materialistic culture and always &quot;want&quot; things. Some of this is meant to be funny, but it has worked for me. 好 is &quot;woman and child is good&quot; as in a woman who gives you a son is a good thing (yes, very sexist, but it is what it is and helps to remember). Sometimes I just remember the radicals like 照 is sun+knife+box+heat which I think of as taking a photo and cutting the film and developing it in a &quot;hot&quot; chemical solvent. I know the &quot;box&quot; is really mouth, but &quot;box&quot; is quicker for me to remember. Invent your own little mnemonics. Of course, ultimately it might be wise to learn the actual true radicals and their meanings, but initially I think anything that helps you remember is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Learn at least a few characters by handwriting with the correct stroke order. I think this is what really pushed me over the edge in terms of my understanding of the characters, what they mean, and why they are composed the way they are. I can write all 600 HSK 3 words by hand, and probably 100 other words. Make sure to get the stroke order correct!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Practice writing your own sentences, I use google translate and the standard android pinyin keyboard. It will help you recall the vocabulary better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) I have neglected tones and speaking, so I am bad at that. I can understand listening pretty well. But I am also a musician, so learning and remembering the tones is sort of easy if I try, but I have just neglected it. You would probably be advised well to concentrate on learning the tones as you go along and not do what I have done by neglecting them. I have perfect tone identification by hearing, probably due to my musical training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7) I have also neglected grammar. However, I can quickly read HSK sentences and know what they mean just by seeing the vocabulary involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8) Use Pleco, Anki, or other flashcard systems.&#xA;      - show character and test your recall of the pinyin and meaning&#xA;      - show pinyin and meaning, test your writing the character&#xA;      - play sound and test your recall of pinyin, character, and meaning.&#xA;   Do at least 100 flashcards a day for a year. Don't cheat yourself, &#xA;   make sure you are honestly recalling things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9) Practice speaking (I use Google Translate, Pleco, and ChineseSkill/HelloChinese). I speak a sentence or word into the app until it understands it. That helps to practices getting the tones correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10) Use MDGB for other flashcards/quizzes/dictionary. Look up character stroke/radical decompositions. You don't have to memorize these, but they are helpful with gaining an overall understanding of the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you build up a few hundred words of vocabulary it continually gets easier learning new words as they use many of the same characters, strokes, and radicals. It becomes easier to guess rough meanings and pronunciations. Grammar is more difficult as there are some many specific grammatical forms, but getting down the basics of grammar in terms of sentence/phrase order will enable you to compose sentences that a native speaker can understand even if not totally correct. Use AlleSetLearning website for awesome grammar lessons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for such a long post, but these are some things that helped me starting from scratch. Hope you find it helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T17:00:03.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23796" CreationDate="2017-05-18T18:26:29.547" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;别担心 is equivalent to don't worry, but with a little twist. You can only use 别担心 when you are talking to someone and addressing him/her at that moment; While 你别担心啦 is correct, 我别担心，他别担心，他们别担心 are all incorrect because 别 here is a soft command word which means 不要. Of course, you can't command yourself or themselves to not do anything. You can only command the one that you are currently talking to, which is 你。你别要想我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不担心 is easier; It simply means don't worry, there are no twist here. You can use it freely. So 我不担心，你不担心，他不担心 are all correct. 不 simply means No. No worry = don't worry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T18:26:29.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23810" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23812" CreationDate="2017-05-18T19:19:03.520" Score="2" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've found this beautiful poem &quot;口占&quot; by 區越 (Ming dynasty) on the internets:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;共酌小亭下&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  詩新酒倍濃&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  閑花爭兩岸&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  醉眼不朦朧  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wasn't able to find much information other that that it's from Ming dynasty...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good translation was also given, but I'd like to clarify a few details.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(This original translation is not in english, so I'll have to translate it as well, sorry if my translation of the translation is not very good)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;詩新酒&lt;/code&gt; the original translation is &lt;em&gt;new rhymes and wine&lt;/em&gt; but shouldn't it be the other way around - &lt;em&gt;rhymes and new wine&lt;/em&gt;? In modern chinese an adjective precedes a noun, probably in Ming times it was not so?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;倍濃&lt;/code&gt; in the original translation &lt;em&gt;they suit each other well&lt;/em&gt;, shouldn't it be like &lt;em&gt;they make each other more intense&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;閑花爭兩岸&lt;/code&gt; in the original &lt;em&gt;flowers filled both banks so carelessly&lt;/em&gt;, I'd like to clarify what is the closest translation of &lt;code&gt;爭&lt;/code&gt; here? In modern chinese it has a meaning &lt;em&gt;to struggle, to dispute&lt;/em&gt;, so is it that flowers &lt;em&gt;compete with each other&lt;/em&gt; over which one blooms better or something like that?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15198" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T22:46:06.623" Title="Poem &quot;口占&quot; by 區越" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23810" CreationDate="2017-05-18T20:18:23.990" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;共酌小亭下 means: &quot; drink together under a small pavilion&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1.)(2.) It is not '詩新酒.' It is '詩新(poem is new) 酒倍濃(wine is doubly strong) '&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;In modern Chinese an adjective precedes a noun, &#xA;probably in Ming times it was not so?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Adjective can be placed before or after the noun in both ancient and modern Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;詩新 (poem is new) / 新詩(new poem)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;酒濃(wine is strong) / 濃酒 (strong wine)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他人蠢(he as a person, is foolish) / 他是個蠢人(he is a &lt;strong&gt;foolish&lt;/strong&gt; person)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;詩新酒倍濃 means: &quot; when enjoying a new poem, the wine felt doubly strong&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3.) in &quot;閑花爭兩岸&quot;, '閑'= 'free' (not owned); 閑花 means wild flower; 爭 is short for 爭豔(one-up each other in beauty) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;閑花爭兩岸 means: &quot; wild flowers on both shores abundantly bloom, as if they're competing against each other in beauty&quot; (&lt;em&gt;to fight for people's attention&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;醉眼不朦朧 means: &quot;even we are drunk, our eyes are not yet hazy (&lt;em&gt;we can still appreciate the beautiful scenery&lt;/em&gt;)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-18T20:31:29.370" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T20:31:29.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23810" CreationDate="2017-05-18T20:25:34.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;詩新酒倍濃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would chop the verse into &quot;詩新&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;酒倍濃&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly, the freshly made poem (詩新) made alcoholic drink (酒) much (倍) stronger (濃)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;閑花爭兩岸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, wild flowers do not exist alone in real, natural environment, they are in groups, thousands of them blossom together at the same time, in the same place. so, for individual bud, it strive (爭) for bees' pollination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T20:25:34.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23810" CreationDate="2017-05-18T22:46:06.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I translated just for fun, 5 characters for 5 words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;共酌小亭下 sharing cups neath the canopy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;詩新酒倍濃 new verse like potent wine&lt;br&gt;&#xA;閑花爭兩岸 on both banks wafting flowers&lt;br&gt;&#xA;醉眼不朦朧 our inebriated eyes perspicaciously perceive  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T22:46:06.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23706" CreationDate="2017-05-18T23:39:11.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It appears to be the English colloquial equivalent of &quot;negging&quot;.  Making fun of something or someone lightheartedly to make a statement about something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17131" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T23:39:11.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22981" CreationDate="2017-05-19T04:58:55.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll provide one advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese character is organized in a totally different way than Pinyin or English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For lots of cases, characters could be divided into parts, some part will provide information about what this character means, while other parts will provide how this character is pronounced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example: 珠, the part of 王 means for Jade, which reflects the feature of it; while the part 朱 indicates the pronunciation of the character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paying attention to such pattern would help you to improve the learning efficiency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16649" LastEditorUserId="16649" LastEditDate="2017-05-19T05:04:07.323" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T05:04:07.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23818" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-19T16:04:00.877" Score="1" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 演绎 had been used by Chinese literati long before it acquired the precise modern meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder exactly who made the link between &lt;em&gt;演绎&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;deduction&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=mJJmgYH65gDdahdPEr-uSacYNtU7Z_mYpn35_JtmJlsdYmD1M_Dnif9mYTm7Uj-N--06CQ56QEHv5AW5_f0hcPU2vi_6zOXrHVcdkcjmaMa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;definition on baidu&lt;/a&gt; makes you want to puke. It gives ancient use cases followed by modern definitions. Did ancients understand 演绎 as modern Chinese do? What was the ancients' definition of 演绎?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2017-05-19T18:50:26.403" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T23:19:31.653" Title="Who translated &quot;deductive reasoning&quot; into 演绎推理?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23818" CreationDate="2017-05-19T18:48:31.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For Deduction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Definition of Deduction: (From Webster's Dict)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;a :  an act of taking away&#xA;  b :  something that is or may be subtracted &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;a :  the deriving of a conclusion by reasoning&#xA;  b :  a conclusion reached by logical deduction&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let check the 演绎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Definition of 演绎:(I don't have official Chinese dictionary on hand so I used my common sense)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;verb. Acting, Show&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;noun. the process of getting a conclusion by logical reasoning.(as poopsed to 'sum up')&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let be aware of the history of word'演绎'. For the English-Chinese translation experts(around the 1900s), using the '演绎' was the reasonable choice at that time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And since it's like more than 100 years. I believe nobody would remember who firstly use this word. It's naturally used because its meaning of so close(or even the same) to &quot;deduction&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same logic could be applied to &quot;米国&quot;(Japanese) and &quot;USA&quot;(English). No one ever remembers who created &quot;米国&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a detailed &lt;a href=&quot;https://notesbooks.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/%E3%80%8C%E6%BC%94%E8%AD%AF%E3%80%8D%E4%B8%8D%E6%98%AF%E7%8F%BE%E4%BB%A3%E6%BC%A2%E8%AA%9E/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog&lt;/a&gt; regarding ancient usage of 演绎 and演译.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastEditorUserId="16891" LastEditDate="2017-05-19T19:00:16.637" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T19:00:16.637" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23821" CreationDate="2017-05-19T20:21:59.957" Score="1" ViewCount="483" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a question about the grammar behind saying what seems like a simple thing, but is proving to be hard for me. &quot;The door is locked.&quot; In English it's an expression of state using an adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, research on  鎖 has not been very fruitful as it is apparently just a noun (actually it &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; act as a verb, my bad). The most consistent examples of &quot;the door is locked&quot; I have been able to understand from Jukuu have indicated this structure: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;門上了鎖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, is this correct? If so, what is the grammatical breakdown? I haven't run across a structure like this before, it doesn't fit a result complement or any other complement structure I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like 上 is the verb. Is this the same sense as its use in 上廁所？  I'm also confused by the 了。Is it indicating change? Completion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6285" LastEditorUserId="6285" LastEditDate="2017-05-19T20:34:36.270" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T07:20:59.693" Title="How to describe the state of a locked door" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23820" CreationDate="2017-05-19T23:48:42.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;‘门上了锁’ is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you can best understand '上' here as 'put, set'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/14/js/4E0A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; there are 16 different definitions for 上：&#xA;8，11，13 and 14 approach the meaning here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;门上了锁 door set lock = the door has been locked = the door is locked&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is a padlock on a door, it is also locked. (padlock is 挂锁）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'门上了锁。' could mean 'There is a padlock on the door.' or 'The door is locked.' or 'The door has been locked.' or even '(someone) put a padlock on the door.' depending on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'房门上锁是为了防盗。' was translated: 'The doors were padlocked to prevent theft.' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都可以：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;门锁了。The door is locked. / There is a padlock on the door.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;门被锁了.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;门上了锁。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;门锁上了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;门（被）上锁了。   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*门（被）锁了上。 【不好】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T23:48:42.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22095" CreationDate="2017-05-20T00:22:14.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;厂, this radical has few frequently used characters and you might not find any good name of it in practice. 偏廈 is probably the best one. I call it 厓字頭 because it is the radical of 厓 (cliff, which has derivatives of 崖 and 涯).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I now go a little deeper on this radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This radical is actually a character of its own. Inherently it read hɔn in Cantonese and han in Mandarin. In the evolution of characters, it turns into 厈 and 岸. It originates from stone and rock, and extends to the rocky side of hills. Most of characters under 厂 radical follow the meaning of 厂, like 厚, 原, 厲. These are some other readings of 厂. You can look them up in some great dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you notice, 广 and 厂 is so similar and some characters under 广 mistakenly goes into 厂, for example, 廈, 廠, 廁, 廚. 广 is some simple house and you can imagine a wall on the left side and A-shaped root. Those characters in this radicals follows the meaning of house, say 廈, 廠, 廁, 廚, 府, 庫, 廊, 廬, 廟.  广 has its reading too. It is jim in Cantonese and yan in Mandarin. I call it 廣字頭 as it is the radical of 廣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible to make of some commonly known characters under a radical, like 厓字頭, 廣字頭. For characters under 艸, it is named 草花頭. They all just mean the &quot;head&quot; or &quot;top&quot; of one or two particular characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A little bit more. The simplification of 廣 to 广 and 廠 to 厂 causes too much confusion in the understanding of Chinese characters. It is not only the confusion with meaning described above. 黃 and 敞 indicates the pronunciation of 廣 and 廠, and now they are eradicated in simplified characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T00:22:14.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23820" CreationDate="2017-05-20T00:32:59.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/56/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;上&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;[6] [v] fit; install; apply; put on&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;門 - door(indirect object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(被)上了 - (is) applied(v)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鎖 - lock (direct object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;門（被）&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;了鎖&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;door &lt;strong&gt;is applied&lt;/strong&gt; with lock&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It means either a lock is put on the door or the door lock is set to locked state&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;門 - door(object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(被）鎖上了 - (is) locked(v)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;門（被）鎖上了&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;door is locked&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;門 - door(object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 - is (v)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;锁著的 - locked (adj)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;門是锁著的&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;door is locked&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;锁著的 - locked (adj)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;門 - door(n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;锁著的門&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;locked door&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T07:20:59.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23824" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23825" CreationDate="2017-05-20T03:11:31.843" Score="5" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;你想要什么喝的吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen 的 used after a verb like this in other sentences. The only thing I could find about 的 after a verb was when it's used with 是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17139" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T01:53:37.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T01:53:37.587" Title="Why is 的 used in 你想要什么喝的吗?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23824" CreationDate="2017-05-20T03:35:43.677" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here, you could think that &quot;的&quot; converts a verb (i.e. &quot;喝&quot;/drink) into a noun, i.e. something for drinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But notice the &quot;的&quot; after &quot;是&quot; is different, it is more of an interjection, and does not have additional meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16649" LastEditorUserId="16649" LastEditDate="2017-05-20T12:59:42.507" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T12:59:42.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23824" CreationDate="2017-05-20T04:06:19.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;喝的 is something for drinking, simply some drinks. 的 is something, some stuff, unnamed stuff, something related to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is less bound to type of words comparing to English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;大的嗎？&#xA;用的嗎？&#xA;十號的嗎？&#xA;位元堂的嗎？&#xA;他的嗎？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, you can replace a verb with an adjective, a noun, or a pronoun.  的 is just something related to a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T04:06:19.257" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5796" CreationDate="2017-05-20T07:53:08.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A see lai is a (married) housewife - strictly taking care of kids&#xA;and household. A see lai has nothing to do with being middle aged. Whether you just got married and have young kids or older kids. This is no difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The husband brings in the dough. She receives money to spend. A see lai enjoys mainly the company of other see lai, because her working girlfriends of course don't have spare time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the explanation of a modern-day see lai.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17141" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2021-01-01T11:53:14.373" LastActivityDate="2021-01-01T11:53:14.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5796" CreationDate="2017-05-20T08:00:15.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;C lai further explanation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is sad that it has this negative vibe to being called a C lai.&#xA;Which most importantly means being a stay at home mother taking care of either their young or older children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further important to mention: C lai's do not want to work outside at a regular job.&#xA;They want to stricly take care of their kids - which is a more than tough job already too ofcourse (not being sarcastic).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C lai's do have spare time on hands and make sure they plan their days with mainly fun activities too. Because they don't like being alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17142" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T08:00:15.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22981" CreationDate="2017-05-20T09:06:20.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you need to learn Chinese characters is patient. Break through the initial stage. Here is my short advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese characters are not randomly developed. They are constructed by reusable components. They can be categorised by sound components, shape components and indication components. The structures for placing such components are pretty regular. If you know them well, it is very easy to go forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, start with copying characters. This helps you get familiar with various components of characters. It is essential to write them by your hand. These components repeatedly appear in other characters. You might consider they are alphabet within Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you get familiar those components, your learning will be easier and easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you known 白, it is not hard to write 伯泊鉑舶.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Complex characters like 變, 樂, 彎 actually are structurally the same and they are pretty symmetric.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;變&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;糸　言　糸&#xA;　　攵&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;樂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;幺　白　幺&#xA;　　木&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;彎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;糸　言　糸&#xA;　　弓&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Associate your character writing with meaning and sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you learn the basic, it is very interesting to dig into the evolution of each character. Have fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T09:06:20.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23830" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23836" CreationDate="2017-05-21T00:33:14.877" Score="0" ViewCount="510" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do you think should be done about it?&#xA;你觉得对此该做什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this is the translation online I found for this English sentence. The translation makes some sense, but I'm not quite sure what the point of &quot;对此&quot; is. I know it means &quot;towards this&quot; but I don't know why it's used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17139" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T03:29:26.603" Title="how to use 对此 in a sentence?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23830" CreationDate="2017-05-21T00:59:37.903" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's just an emphasis. Actually you can just leave it out if the context is clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17146" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T00:59:37.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23832" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23833" CreationDate="2017-05-21T01:07:42.340" Score="1" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been working my way through some Chinese text, I came to this line here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝曰 　　清净阿罗诃 清净大威力 清净（下残） 大秦景教宣元至本经&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can make sense of some of it, but what does the 下残 in brackets clarify in the text?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T01:48:08.380" Title="下残 in text on &quot;Jesus-sūtra&quot; (景教)" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23832" CreationDate="2017-05-21T01:47:53.473" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;下 means the following content.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;残 means incomplete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下残 means the following content is incomplete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T01:47:53.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23832" CreationDate="2017-05-21T01:48:08.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;it should be treated as &lt;strong&gt;remark&lt;/strong&gt; by someone, that the original text had missing characters / texts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T01:48:08.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23830" CreationDate="2017-05-21T01:52:19.113" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What 什么&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you 你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;think 觉得&lt;br&gt;&#xA;should 该&lt;br&gt;&#xA;done 做&lt;br&gt;&#xA;about 对&lt;br&gt;&#xA;it 此  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 对此 is used because of &quot;about it&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T01:52:19.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23830" CreationDate="2017-05-21T01:54:06.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;but I'm not quite sure what the point of &amp;quot;对此&amp;quot; is. I know it means &amp;quot;towards this&amp;quot; but I don't know why it's used here.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;此&lt;/strong&gt;(this)' short for '此事(this affair)'. It is the &lt;strong&gt;pronoun&lt;/strong&gt; for the &lt;strong&gt;topic&lt;/strong&gt; that's preceded the sentence itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[topic]: &amp;quot;老师们正在威胁罢工&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;teachers are threatening to strike&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[comment]: &amp;quot;你觉得&lt;strong&gt;对此&lt;/strong&gt;该做什么?&amp;quot; - what you think should be done &lt;strong&gt;toward (about) it&lt;/strong&gt;?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;此&lt;/strong&gt;(事) is the pronoun for &lt;strong&gt;this&lt;/strong&gt; (affair) : &lt;strong&gt;teachers are threatening to strike&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[topic]+[comment] is a common sentence structure, if you don't use the pronoun for the topic, you would end up with sentence like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;老师们正在威胁罢工&lt;/strong&gt;, 你觉得对[&lt;strong&gt;老师们正在威胁罢工&lt;/strong&gt;]该做什么?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;In this case, you can just omit the topic and make &amp;quot;你觉得对老师们正在威胁罢工该做什么?&amp;quot; a complete sentence on its own&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is just common sense to not repeat the topic in the comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;老师们正在威胁罢工&lt;/strong&gt;, 你觉得对[&lt;strong&gt;此&lt;/strong&gt;]该做什么?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T03:29:26.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23830" CreationDate="2017-05-21T02:47:03.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;對此&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此 is like a pronoun &quot;this&quot; in English for something mentioned before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對 is like &quot;refer to&quot;, &quot;point to&quot;, &quot;for&quot;, &quot;about&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By adding 對此, it is to specify this question which is related to something mentioned before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T02:47:03.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23838" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-21T19:47:50.003" Score="0" ViewCount="464" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/3zFS3Kr.png&quot; alt=&quot;One Piece t-shirt with Kanji text&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I received this t-shirt as a gift, but I have no idea what the text says. I would appreciate any help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17151" LastActivityDate="2017-05-22T00:47:05.463" Title="What does the Kanji on this t-shirt say?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23838" CreationDate="2017-05-21T20:14:23.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's the manga &quot;one-piece&quot;, with illustration of &quot;luffy&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Piece&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Piece&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the three characters is &quot;霸王色&quot; ( はおうしょくのはき ), the highest form of ability (or awareness)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ONE_PIECE%E3%81%AE%E7%94%A8%E8%AA%9E%E4%B8%80%E8%A6%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ONE_PIECEの用語一覧&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T20:14:23.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23818" CreationDate="2017-05-21T21:50:10.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English word &lt;em&gt;deductive&lt;/em&gt;'s Chinese counter part, 演绎, is the same as its Japanese counterpart 演繹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since China imported a lot of words from Japan in the early 1900s, it is very likely that this translation of &lt;em&gt;deductive&lt;/em&gt; was also imported from Japan. Therefore that remarkable individual I am looking for is very likely to be a Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastEditorUserId="6319" LastEditDate="2017-05-21T23:19:31.653" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T23:19:31.653" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23838" CreationDate="2017-05-22T00:41:45.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the anime One Piece, it means Conqueror's Haki or Haoshoku Haki:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Haoshoku Haki is a rare form of Haki that cannot be attained through training. Only one in several million people have this ability. This type of Haki allows the user to exert their willpower over others. It is said that whoever possesses this type of Haki has the qualities of a king.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Haki/Haoshoku_Haki&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Haoshoku Haki&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2017-05-22T00:47:05.463" LastActivityDate="2017-05-22T00:47:05.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23842" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23857" CreationDate="2017-05-22T01:52:35.017" Score="0" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder to enhance my rhetoric on my English. The Chinese classical idioms are elegance words to be a word to represent anything. To contrast, it is a word as adj. or adv. in English. Maybe there are some words hard to use one word to explain in all. But, I think it is not completely to translate every words in the idiom dictionary.(i.e. It is not possible to translate every words due to some words hard to be translate.) Anyway, I think it is good for Chinese-English communication. Because one word can represent anything that is simple and should be explicit. For an instance, the English word &quot;serendipity&quot;, is meaning a lucky encounter on seeing a good things. In Chinese, I will translate to be &quot;如獲至寶&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the derivate on making a book, I think it should include the possibility  or frequency about these words, no matter English or Chinese. Otherwise, it should have the synonym and antonym for readers to get the more reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any books such as my explaining? Please share its name. Thanks.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17154" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T10:14:30.127" Title="A wired idea: Are there any Chinese idioms dictionary which is specific to translate a English word?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23627" CreationDate="2017-05-22T05:08:27.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;we use 天 in oral Chinese, but 日 in writing Chinese, this is related to tone of  characters, pronouncing fourth tone (4 声，入声) takes more efforts, so that we pronounce other characters with same meanings. i.e. 两个 other than 二个. Pronouncing characters with 3rd tone lengthen time of pronunciation to decrease rhythm, so that we save some efforts when we need speak loudly or in a long speech &amp;amp; lecture, sometimes we also avoid pronouncing multiple adjacent 3rd-tone characters, i.e. pronouncing 处理 (chu2 li3) other than original tone chu3 li3 (which is hard to pronounce loudly/quickly), avoid opening your mouth wide frequently or persistently, we rather pronounce with with alternant open/close mouth combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2271" LastEditorUserId="2271" LastEditDate="2017-05-22T05:30:00.820" LastActivityDate="2017-05-22T05:30:00.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23793" CreationDate="2017-05-22T05:19:22.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient, females don't have formal society contact with others, they are limited to places near their home. Mostly they can contact with neighbors &amp;amp; relatives, so that no special/formal words for them, in their life, they only need titles like sister / brother in oral, no formal words in write/works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2271" LastActivityDate="2017-05-22T05:19:22.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23845" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23930" CreationDate="2017-05-22T07:28:24.147" Score="2" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;规规矩矩&lt;/strong&gt; seems to have two - not so agreeing definitions in guoyu and MSM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The MSM definition looks something like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E8%A7%84%E7%9F%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;规矩 - 互动百科&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2、[Well-behaved；Well-disciplined；Remain orderly；Have proper &#xA;  behaviour] 引申为称人的品行方正，谨守礼法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;靠右的一间正屋住着屋主罗斯托玛乞维列，一个规规矩矩的市民。——《第比利斯的地下印刷所》&#xA;  又如：没规矩；守规矩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;品行方正, 谨守礼法 equates to something along the lines of &lt;strong&gt;upright and upstanding&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Taiwanese Guoyu definition from the Ministry of Education:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MoE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;形容行為有條理、有次序, 合於法度。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有條理、有次序 - orderly / organized / prioritized&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;合於法度 - legally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guoyu seems to have the idea of orderly and organized where MSM doesn't. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are my asusumptions correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-07-15T12:40:47.880" Title="规规矩矩: 国语 vs. 普通话 (Taiwanese Mandarin vs. Mainland Mandarin)" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23845" CreationDate="2017-05-22T08:11:29.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guoyu seems to have the idea of orderly and organized where MSM doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;规 = divider&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;矩 = ruler&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;规矩 = regulation; rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;idiom: &amp;quot;无规矩不成方圆&amp;quot; literally means: &amp;quot;without ruler and divider, you cannot draw square and circle&amp;quot; metaphorically, it means:&amp;quot; without rule and regulation there can be no order but chaos&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/3226/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;规矩&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) [n] regulation; rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) [v] plan; map out; scheme&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) [v] advise; admonish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) [n] compasses; dividers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;regulation; rule&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; is the main meaning of &lt;strong&gt;规矩&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;upright; upstanding&amp;quot; (to follow rule) is an extended meaning base on the compound word 规矩(1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;orderly: organized&amp;quot; (to follow guidance, stay in order)is an extended meanings base on the individual meaning of 规 and 矩 - 规矩(4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the dictionaries you refer to simply omitted one of the two extended meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-22T08:17:21.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23847" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-22T13:08:11.443" Score="2" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a bit confused about the meaning of '侃大山’。 It means 'chat, chit-chat', 'gossip', 'brag'. Anything else? Is it still used or old-fashioned?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly does '侃大山‘ mean? Where does this phrase come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T05:13:38.667" Title="What can 侃大山 mean？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23854" CreationDate="2017-05-22T14:11:01.423" Score="6" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;深深的爱（詹雅雯）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Min Nan lyrics (spelling and romanization from twblg.dict.edu.tw, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj1O-UZKZ8w&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;video here&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想起行过的路： | Siūnn-khí kiânn-kuè ê lōo: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;阮的跤步， | Gún ê kha-pōo, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;虽然经过风雨， | Sui-liân king-kuè hong-hōo, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;毋惊寂寞， | M̄ kiann siok-bo̍k, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为囥在心中 | In-uī khǹg tsāi sim tiong &lt;br&gt;&#xA;是你的笑容 | Sī lí ê tshiò-iông &lt;br&gt;&#xA;陪阮面对困难佮艰苦。 | Puê gún bīn-tuì khùn-lân kah kan-khóo. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;交予时间替阮来安排 | Kau-hōo sî-kan thè gún lâi an-pâi &lt;br&gt;&#xA;唱出深深的爱。 | Tshiùnn-tshut tshim-tshim ê ài.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感谢你跕在这舞台， | Kám-siā lí liam tsāi tse bú-tāi, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;毋管起起落落，你的情阮拢知。 | M̄-kuán khí-khí-lo̍h-lo̍h, lí ê tsîng gún lóng tsāi. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;有时阵难免心头酸， | Ū sî-tsūn lân bián sim-thâu sng, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;受着命运来阻碍， | Siū-tio̍h miā-ūn lâi tsóo-gāi, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;但是阮了解 | Tān-sī gún liáu-kái &lt;br&gt;&#xA;是温暖的期待。 | Sī un-luán ê kî-thāi. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;感谢你跕在这舞台，| Kám-siā lí liam tsāi tse bú-tāi, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;对阮真心疼痛，陪伴一生的爱。 | Tuì gún tsin-sim thiànn-thàng, puê-phuānn it-sing ê ài. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;相信一定会有一工 | Siong-sìn it-tīng ē ū tsı̍t kang &lt;br&gt;&#xA;一切伤悲拢成空。 | It-tshè siong-pi lóng sîng khang. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;你敢知感谢你深深的爱。 | Lí kám tsāi kám-siā lí tshim-tshim ê ài.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千言万语一句话来表明。 | Tshian-giân-bān-gí tsı̍t kù uē lâi piáu-bîng. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;有你的鼓励关怀， | Ū lí ê kó-lē kuan-huâi, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;阮会认真为将来。 | Gún ē līn-tsin uî tsiong-lâi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感谢你跕在这舞台，| Kám-siā lí liam tsāi tse bú-tāi, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;对阮真心疼痛，陪伴一生的爱。 | Tuì gún tsin-sim thiànn-thàng, puê-phuānn it-sing ê ài. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;相信一定会有一工 | Siong-sìn it-tīng ē ū tsı̍t kang &lt;br&gt;&#xA;一切伤悲拢成空。| It-tshè siong-pi lóng sîng khang. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;你敢知感谢你深深的爱。 | Lí kám tsāi kám-siā lí tshim-tshim ê ài. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;你敢知感谢你深深的爱。 | Lí kám tsāi kám-siā lí tshim-tshim ê ài.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dialect notes | 方言注意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;行 kiânn: same as 走, “walk” | 跟「走」一样；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跤步 kha-pōo: same as 脚步, “steps” | 跟「脚步」一样；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;毋 m̄: negative element “not” | 否定词，跟「不」一样；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;惊 kiann: same as 怕, “fear” | 跟「怕」一样；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;囥 khǹg: same as 藏, “hide” | 跟「藏」一样；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;佮 kah (共 kā?): same as 和, “and” | 跟「和」一样；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;交予 kau-hōo: same as 交给, “hand over” | 跟「交给」一样；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;阮 gún: means “we (you are not included)”, as opposed to 咱 lán, “we (you are included)”; in songs, I think 阮／咱 are often the same as I/we | 意思是「我们（不包括你）」，相对「咱 lán」，「我们（包括你）」；在歌曲里，我觉得「阮／咱」常常跟「我／我们」一样；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;liạm: Not sure whether it’s “跕 | liam | tiptoe”, “膁 | liám | swing the hips (dance?)” or “唸  | liām | sing [a song]” | 我不肯定地知道这是「跕 | liam | 脚尖走」，「膁 | liám | 扭动腰部（跳舞？）」还是「唸  | liām | 念［～唱歌］」；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;拢 lóng: same as 都, “all” | 跟「都」一样；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;时阵 sî-tsūn: same as 时候, “times” | 跟「时候」一样；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;工 kang: same as 天, “day” | 跟「天」一样；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;敢 kám: same as 是否, an interrogative element, turning a statement into a question; read kánn to mean “dare” as Chinese 敢 | 跟「是否」一样；念kánn就有跟普通话的「敢」一样的意思。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember the road I have walked: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;My steps, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Though they went through wind and rain, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Did not fear loneliness, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because hidden in my heart &lt;br&gt;&#xA;It was your smile &lt;br&gt;&#xA;That accompanied me in facing hardships and toils. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;I hand it over to time to arrange in my place &lt;br&gt;&#xA;To sing of [your] deep love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for being [generic verb, see note 9] on this stage, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;With their highs and lows, I knew all of your feelings. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sometimes it’s hard not to feel pain, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;When fate hinders you, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;But I know &lt;br&gt;&#xA;It’s a warm wait. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thank you for being [generic verb, see note 9] on this stage, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Being really caring to me, accompanying me with lifelong love. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;I think there will surely be a day &lt;br&gt;&#xA;When all sadness will become empty [i.e. go away, vanish]. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you know I’m grateful for your deep love?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[We could] manifest thousands of words with a single sentence. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;With your courage and care, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;I can be serious in the future. &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for being [generic verb, see note 9] on this stage, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Being really caring to me, accompanying me with lifelong love. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;I think there will surely be a day &lt;br&gt;&#xA;When all sadness will become empty [i.e. go away, vanish]. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you know I’m grateful for your deep love? &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you know I’m grateful for your deep love?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above is a slight modification of part of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/notes/michele-gorro-gorini/traduzioni-cinese-lingue-slave/10211813030853810/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a facebook note&lt;/a&gt; I posted some days ago. If anyone has any comments on the translation, spelling, romanization, or Chinese version of the Dialect Notes, they are very welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What this question wishes to focus on is note 9. Online lyrics (I believe) generally write it as &lt;code&gt;站 | zhàn | &amp;quot;stand&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;, which makes perfect sense here. However, that character is only read tsām, and you definitely don't hear &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; in the video. Formerly, I thought I heard &amp;quot;tiam&amp;quot;, and linked it to &lt;code&gt;踮 | tiàm&lt;/code&gt;. The meanings given do not quite match &amp;quot;zhàn&amp;quot;, and do not perfectly fit the lyrics, but I just assumed there was another unlisted meaning matching &amp;quot;zhàn&amp;quot;. Then, relistening to the video, I noticed I heard &amp;quot;liam&amp;quot;, which definitely wasn't &amp;quot;tiam&amp;quot;. So I looked for all the &amp;quot;liam&amp;quot;s I could find on my reference, and singled out the possible fits for the lyrics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;跕 | liam | &amp;quot;tiptoe&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;, which would imply the presence of the loved one in the singer's life was not &amp;quot;invasive&amp;quot; but rather &amp;quot;delicate&amp;quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;膁 | liám | &amp;quot;swing the hips&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;, which could mean &amp;quot;to dance&amp;quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;唸  | liām | &amp;quot;sing&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;, which might be related to dancing (&amp;quot;stage&amp;quot; has &amp;quot;dance&amp;quot; as its first character).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you guys think that verb is? Any other suggestions, maybe?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T11:02:23.177" Title="What does &quot;liam&quot; mean in this song's lyrics?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23849" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23850" CreationDate="2017-05-22T17:16:01.543" Score="1" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I've seen 东西 is used when talking about food. Are there any other times where you use it instead of 件事？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想吃一点东西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我告诉你一件事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17139" LastActivityDate="2017-05-22T17:49:54.940" Title="when do I use 东西 instead of 件事 to express &quot;something&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23849" CreationDate="2017-05-22T17:49:54.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;「東西」 means a &quot;thing&quot;, a generic word for any object. 「那是甚麼東西？」 &quot;What is that thing?&quot; Food is obviously a subset of &quot;things&quot;. There are many times you can refer to an object as 東西, like a toy, a pen... you name it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「一件事」 is referring to an event (事件), or something that has happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastActivityDate="2017-05-22T17:49:54.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23848" CreationDate="2017-05-22T19:10:11.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;跕在这舞台&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's a metaphor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舞台 - stage, indicate the act of &quot;falling in love&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跕 - tiptoe, indicate the silent, low profile&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would interpret the context as someone who's falling in love &quot;secretly&quot;, without any fanfare. then, one of them write / sing the lyric to the other one for gratefulness .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典, 跕 is 為了不發出聲音而踮著腳走 (~ walk without sound)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=13417&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=%E8%B7%95&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=1&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=1&amp;amp;rowcount=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=13417&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=跕&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=1&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=1&amp;amp;rowcount=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-05-22T19:10:11.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23852" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23853" CreationDate="2017-05-23T02:39:08.007" Score="-1" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;他这个时候该到了.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming in this context 了 is being used to express a change of state. However, isn't obvious to the listener that if someone is arriving they were somewhere else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, I could be wrong and 了 is being used for some other reason in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side question: How often is 了 used in actual conversation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17139" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T05:31:01.657" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T05:41:41.243" Title="Why is 了 used in this context?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23852" CreationDate="2017-05-23T05:41:41.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose a literal translation may help. As a native speaker I never have to learn the grammar so I cannot help you with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;他这个时候该到了.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;He should have arrived by now.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他 &amp;gt; He&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个 &amp;gt; this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时候 &amp;gt; moment / time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;该 &amp;gt; should / should have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到 &amp;gt; arrive (Not &amp;quot;arrived&amp;quot;. Recall that Chinese doesn't have explicit past tense, or any tense at all.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 &amp;gt; have / already (Indicate completed action of &amp;quot;到&amp;quot; i.e. &amp;quot;arrive&lt;strong&gt;d&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; but modified by &amp;quot;该&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then of course plenty of questions about &amp;quot;了&amp;quot; have been asked on this site. Please do a search for more academic answers. For example this has similarly been answered in this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/766/why-cant-%E4%BA%86-be-used-to-complement-%E5%88%B0&quot;&gt;Why can&amp;#39;t 了 be used to complement 到?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answering your side question, &amp;quot;了&amp;quot; (and its counterparts) is used a lot in conversations. In addition to the other answers about &amp;quot;了&amp;quot; on this site regarding its literal meanings, it is often overused in daily conversations somewhat like &amp;quot;Hmm&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;OK&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;I mean&amp;quot; in English (bad analogy I know). Has meaning, maybe redundant, but often unnecessary. Doesn't make it incorrect usage though. Like when you learn about &amp;quot;兒&amp;quot;, it is being used (to the extend I would say &lt;em&gt;abused&lt;/em&gt;) in the North with no apparent meaning. TBH old Chinese (文言文) is way more efficient (and elegant), though it can be difficult to comprehend without context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a side note, the usage of &amp;quot;了&amp;quot; in your example provided is similar to &amp;quot;啦&amp;quot; in Singlish and &amp;quot;咗&amp;quot; &amp;quot;喇喎&amp;quot; in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T05:41:41.243" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23848" CreationDate="2017-05-23T09:23:05.060" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the video:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;想起走過的路&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  阮的腳步&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  雖然經過風雨&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  不怕寂寞&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  因為放在心中&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  是你的笑容&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  陪阮面對困難和艱苦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  交給時間替阮來安排&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  唱出深深的愛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;感謝你 惦在這舞台&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  不管起起落落&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你的情 阮攏知&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  有時陣難免心頭酸&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  受著命運來阻礙&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  但是阮瞭解&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  是溫暖的期待  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;感謝你 惦在這舞台&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  對阮真心疼痛&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  陪伴一生的愛&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  相信一定會有一天&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一切傷悲都成空&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你敢知 感謝你深深的愛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(repeat)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;千言萬語 一句話來表明&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  有你的鼓勵關懷&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  阮會認真為將來  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;感謝你 惦在這舞台&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  對阮真心疼痛&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  陪伴一生的愛&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  相信一定會有一天&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一切傷悲都成空&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你敢知 感謝你深深的愛  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your first thought is correct. It is tiàm, not liam. Most of Taiwanese do not have to watch the video, and will tell you this only based on the lyrics - 惦在這舞台.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惦, 踮,  (U+2B065, Ext. C) and 店 have the similar pronunciation, diàm or tiàm. 惦 is used in the video because of the sound, not the meaning. The formal word is 踮 or .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;踮在這舞台 means to stand (站在) or to stay (待在) on this (life) stage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=11508&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=%E8%B8%AE&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=1&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=1&amp;amp;rowcount=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;踮，足部，音 tiàm 或 tàm。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  踮; radical: 足; pronunciation: tiàm or tàm。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;釋義 (Interpretation):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;在…… (in; at; on; to present; to exist)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [閩南語] 我踮遮等你。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [發音] Guá tiàm tsia tán--lí.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [國語] 我在這裡等你。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [翻譯] I wait for you here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;居住 (to live)、過夜 (to stay overnight)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [閩南語] 今仔日踮遮，明仔載才轉去。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [發音] Kin-á-ji̍t tiàm tsia, bîn-á-tsài tsiah tńg--khì.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [國語] 今天住在這裡，明天再回去。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [翻譯] Live here today and go back tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/iongji/pdf/annesia538pdf.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;華語的「在、住」，臺灣閩南語說成 tiàm，漢字寫成「踮」或「」。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  在 or 住 is pronounced as tiàm in Taiwanese Minnan language, and written as 踮 or  in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「踮」和「」是較新的字。早期的字書，如《說文》、《廣韻》甚至《康熙字典》，都未收這些字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  踮 and  are new words. Early books, such as 《說文》, 《廣韻》 or even 《康熙字典》, have not included these words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;早期閩南語文獻中，如《廈英大辭典》的附錄、《廈門音新字典》、《臺日大辭典》，都以「站」做為 tiàm 的用字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  In the early Minnan language literature, such as the appendix of 《廈英大辭典》, 《廈門音新字典》, and 《臺日大辭典》, 站 is the character of tiàm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;依據《集韻》，「站」的音讀是「陟陷切」，意義是「久立也」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  According to 《集韻》, the pronunciation of 站 is 陟陷切, and the meaning is to stand for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;所以「站」的切音是 tàm / tiàm，官話音是 tsām。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Thus, the pronunciation of 站 is tàm or tiàm, and the official one is tsām (zhàn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;從音、義上看，「站」都可以說是 tiàm 的本字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  According to the sound and the meaning, we can say 站 is the original word of tiàm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不過「站」以官話音 tsām 發音，且長期做為火車、客運車停靠上下乘客的場所，故不適合再用來做為 tiàm 的用字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  However, the official pronunciation of 站 is tsām (zhàn), and it is used as the train or bus stops for a long time, therefore it is not suitable for use as the word of tiàm anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="15652" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T11:02:23.177" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T11:02:23.177" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23848" CreationDate="2017-05-23T09:51:38.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just the regular voicing of voiceless consonants. In a language where there is contrast. Dang it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My &lt;code&gt;liam&lt;/code&gt; was because /l/ and /d/ and /r/ are allophones in Min and all spelt as &lt;code&gt;l&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@user-487 is right: it's &lt;code&gt;diam&lt;/code&gt;, not &lt;code&gt;liam&lt;/code&gt;, I am hearing, and &lt;code&gt;diam&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;tiam&lt;/code&gt; after voicing the &lt;code&gt;t&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T09:57:50.163" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T09:57:50.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23847" CreationDate="2017-05-23T09:56:24.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means people chatting. Similar to &quot;聊天&quot;, &quot;闲聊&quot;. It's not a regular used word. &quot;侃&quot; can be used to describe a person is a chat-box, like &quot;他太能侃了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17159" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T09:56:24.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23842" CreationDate="2017-05-23T10:14:30.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can search the app store, like google play. There are loads of idiom dictionaries you can try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And like other people commented I don't think your translation of '如獲至寶' is proper. Serendipity is valuable discoveries are made by accident or luck. But '如獲至寶' is finding something which is very valuable, it can be found this thing by accident, but this idiom's main idea is emphasis find something very important. Maybe 机缘巧合 is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17159" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T10:14:30.127" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23858" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-23T11:23:31.067" Score="1" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently reading《碾玉觀音》and whilst I'm aware that Lin Yutang has produced a translation, I've been told it's not particularly loyal to the original plot and therefore am not keen on reading it as it might distort my understanding. Can anyone recommend a loyal translation of the text?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17160" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-01-28T10:45:38.830" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T10:45:38.830" Title="Has the story《碾玉觀音》been translated into English?" Tags="&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23859" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-23T13:08:08.663" Score="3" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my native language we use '(...)' to indicate that part of the quote was omitted. For example, in the paragraph below I would like to omit the bolded part, how should I write it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在波兰，我们充分了解这样的一体化过程所带来的益处。**波兰2004年加入欧洲联盟。欧盟已为一个历史上长久遭受冲突和战争之苦的欧洲大陆带来了繁荣和稳定，给包括波兰在内欧洲国家提供了一个良好的发展环境以及许多的发展机遇。**因此，我们欢迎中国为加强东亚与欧洲之间的经济纽带，并为了沿一带一路的国家创造新的发展机遇所提出的倡议。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was Polish, it would look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在波兰，我们充分了解这样的一体化过程所带来的益处。(...)因此，我们欢迎中国为加强东亚与欧洲之间的经济纽带，并为了沿一带一路的国家创造新的发展机遇所提出的倡议。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15945" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2017-05-24T19:49:12.723" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T09:38:58.813" Title="Punctuation - Omiting part of a quote" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23860" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-23T16:25:45.723" Score="4" ViewCount="1252" Body="&lt;p&gt;Under the entry 趟 my dictionary says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;For round trip &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;For single train trip&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean, when I see this word I must assume the speaker  went back and forth, except when he went by train, where I must assume a single trip? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This startles me very much, since knowledge of the means of transportation would be required, in order to correctly interpret the sentence!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 趟 imply that the speaker is now away from the place in question? So, does:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去過北京兩趟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mean I am not in Beijing? Is this a difference between 趟 and 次？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T01:11:36.817" Title="一趟 vs 一次、is there any difference?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23861" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-23T16:32:25.067" Score="-3" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if anyone would know who this artist is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M4G9q.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M4G9q.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17162" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-05-25T15:33:34.317" LastActivityDate="2017-05-25T15:33:34.317" Title="Can anybody tell me who this artist is?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-05-25T15:33:09.717" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23860" CreationDate="2017-05-23T17:50:58.380" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My English is not good. This answer translated by Google Translate.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays these two words are mixed and there is no serious mistake. But here are some explanations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;趟&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;趟&lt;/code&gt; is generally used for round trips in a specified time. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我今天去了兩趟超市。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I went to the supermarket twice today&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went and came back twice. Now I'm home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;次&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;次&lt;/code&gt; emphasizes &lt;strong&gt;number of travels&lt;/strong&gt; and your experience from the trip. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去過两次北京。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I went to Beijing twice.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to tell you that I have that trip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17163" LastEditorUserId="19858" LastEditDate="2020-03-17T01:11:36.817" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T01:11:36.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3668" CreationDate="2017-05-23T17:52:49.930" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes a font does exist with pinyin on top of every character and it can be obtained from the Chinese page at www.pinyinok.com/pyhzk.htm but I do NOT recommend it for learning, because taking only the most common reading of every character leads to too many fundamental mistakes (e.g. 音乐 &quot;music&quot; comes out as &quot;yīn lè&quot; instead of &quot;yīnyuè&quot;).  I came across one beginner whose techie friend had installed this font on her Windows PC for her to use with a reference CD-ROM and she honestly thought the resulting pinyin was official and definitive when it wasn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's much better to use a good pinyin annotator if the application supports it (e.g. a web browser can use plugins, bookmarklets or annotating proxies), or at least copy and paste your text into an application that can annotate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm not sure what to do about text that can't be copied though.  Jingshan Ciba on old versions of Windows might help but I've not tried it.  Learning to recognise a few basic characters can help, as can having an emergency backup in the form of a smartphone with Pleco on it, on which you can stroke or otherwise capture unknown characters.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes it is possible to design a font that accounts for some (but not all) context, rendering 音乐 as 1 word yīnyuè for example, but the bad news is it would have to use a font technology that supports automatic ligatures.  Modern Windows has OpenType, but OpenType automatic ligatures are supported only in applications that use WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) on NET 3+.  That leaves out an awful lot of Chinese CD-ROMs that still use the earlier GDI interface.  These applications will not get the ligatures if such a font were to be designed.  I don't know if anyone has done it; I was thinking of doing one myself but was put off when I realised it won't help GDI applications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17164" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T17:52:49.930" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23859" CreationDate="2017-05-23T20:07:38.453" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;在波兰，我们充分了解这样的一体化过程所带来的益处。……因此，我们欢迎中国为加强东亚与欧洲之间的经济纽带，并为了沿一带一路的国家创造新的发展机遇所提出的倡议。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23238/chinese-ellipsis-marks/23240?s=1|0.5265#23240&quot;&gt;It is called 刪節號 in Taiwan, and 省略号 in China. Both use 6 dots.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In Chinese, the ellipsis is six dots (in two groups of three dots, occupying the same horizontal or vertical space as two characters).&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastEditorUserId="16013" LastEditDate="2017-05-26T09:38:58.813" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T09:38:58.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23410" CreationDate="2017-05-23T20:52:01.027" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.syndict.com/w.php?item=hak&amp;amp;place=bo_luo&amp;amp;word=%E6%8D%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;捅&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.syndict.com/w.php?item=hak&amp;amp;place=bo_luo&amp;amp;word=%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;人&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.syndict.com/w.php?item=hak&amp;amp;place=bo_luo&amp;amp;word=%E7%89%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;牛&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tung31-ngin11-ngiu11 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use the sound button on each of the three webpages above to hear the correct pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17165" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-06-23T05:48:12.960" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T05:48:12.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23861" CreationDate="2017-05-23T21:03:16.397" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's Wu Guanzhong but I might be wrong!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17166" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T21:03:16.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23869" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-23T22:17:16.580" Score="0" ViewCount="525" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from a little text about 俞伯牙弹琴。 Travelling on a boat, they stop to wait for the wind and waves to calm down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚上，风浪渐渐平息，天气晴朗，江水清澈，景色十分迷人。 望着空中的明月，俞伯牙来了兴致，拿出琴弹了起来，一会儿他酒沉醉在了音乐之中。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zdic.net: 晴朗： 阳光充足,没有云雾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晴朗： sunny, fine and cloudless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He gazed at the bright moon on this evening and played his zither. &#xA;(Reminds me of Alice Through the Looking Glass: &quot;The moon was shining sulkily, because she thought the sun, had got no business to be there, after the day was done.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in ancient China, the sun did not shine at night, did it??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T17:17:11.073" Title="When does evening, 晚上， begin in China?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23861" CreationDate="2017-05-23T22:21:53.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously, it is 陳學&lt;a href=&quot;http://sf.zdic.net/sf/zs/1225/92b4b5a52a41959326c2b749d789bc82.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;信&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Chén xué-xìn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二千零三年秋寫園中一景&lt;br&gt;&#xA;学信并記&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二千零三年： 2003 A.D.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;秋： autumn; fall&lt;br&gt;&#xA;寫（写）： &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/5199.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;to draw; to sketch; to paint&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;園中一景： a scene in the Summer Palace (頤和園)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学（學）信： （署名） the signature of the author&lt;br&gt;&#xA;并（並）： and; also; together with&lt;br&gt;&#xA;記： to note; to comment; to remark &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寫并記 means &quot;painted and remarked&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="15652" LastEditDate="2017-05-24T07:57:17.507" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T07:57:17.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23860" CreationDate="2017-05-23T22:53:31.850" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;these two words are verb modifiers. they mean the same thing when you're modifying verbs with related to travel/move/go. 趟 can be used with moving verbs or verbs that are related to moving, going, traveling only, while 次 is an universal verb modifier that can be used with any verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here are four examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我和你妈出三趟街。 (good) I go out with your mom three times. 出 is the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我和你妈出三次街。 (good) I go out with your mom three times. 出 is the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我和你妈吃三趟饭。 (good) I go out with your mom three times to eat. 吃 is the verb here, but 趟 modified the verb 吃 into 出去吃。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我和你妈吃三次饭。 (good) I eat mom three times. 吃 is also the verb here, but 次 here only modified the number of time 吃。吃了 three times. Note, this sentence doesn't imply going out to eat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T22:53:31.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23869" CreationDate="2017-05-24T00:40:23.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, you're reading a bad example of written vernacular chinese, trying to pretend it has a classical chinese origin, with invented details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天氣晴朗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's an error. the possible choice of word is 清朗 or 澄朗; both means clear, crisp sky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000102154&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000102154&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the starting time of evening, in ancient; it's 1900 hrs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one night (一夜) is divided into 5 night-watches (五更); midnight is 三更, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;戌時 (1900 - 2100 hrs) is 一更&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子時 (2300 - 0100 hrs) is 三更, that's why we've &quot;三更半夜&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000144495&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000144495&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T00:40:23.503" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23701" CreationDate="2017-05-24T05:10:00.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To understand 撒娇, you need to understand 撒尿。撒尿 means peeing or urinating。note, 撒 is the ing part of peeing. the word, 尿， is pee part of peeing. so the word 撒 simply means giving out something very comfortably and naturally, just like what you feel when you pee. for example,.仙女撒花，means goddess giving out flowers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;娇 means loveliness, or cuteness. so 撒娇 means giving out your cuteness to someone very comfortably and naturally. in short, it can be translated to English with a single word, flirting. but there is a twist. a little girl can 撒娇 her daddy. In that case, flirting is not correct. you should just use showing cuteness instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T05:10:00.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23874" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23876" CreationDate="2017-05-24T09:12:02.107" Score="0" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is more appropriate translation of &quot;running store&quot; (as a writing on the store for chinese customers unfamiliar with the place, so it is not online store)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;跑步商店 OR 跑步机专卖店&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also it would be nice to see some explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for me the second one seems to be right version but it does not look laconic as the first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2017-05-24T09:24:16.290" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T10:28:23.650" Title="What is more appropriate translation of &quot;running store&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23874" CreationDate="2017-05-24T09:25:22.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does the store sell equipment for running or only sells running machines? If it is the first one, the translate should be more appropriate to be &quot;跑步用品商店&quot;；if it is the second one, then it is correct to say &quot;跑步机专卖店&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17169" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T09:25:22.617" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23874" CreationDate="2017-05-24T10:28:23.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Running store translated to &quot;跑步用品商店&quot; or &quot;跑步用品店&quot; is correct.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &quot;&lt;strong&gt;跑步用品专门店&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; sounds more professional and more attractive to consumers.  (everything related to the running sport is there)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;专门店 means a store is specialized in one subject. For example: 手机专门店, 皮革专门店, 婚礼服专门店 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;专卖店 should means a store is authorized to sell specific goods that needed to be authorized. For example: 香烟专卖店, 洋酒专卖店. But many people just use it interchangeably with 专门店.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T10:28:23.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23869" CreationDate="2017-05-24T12:05:08.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;晴朗 does mean sunny, but more essentially, cloudless, clear sky. Although it's not recommended to use for night in formal situations, I won't have problem using it casually for clear night sky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in your situation, the author is obviously talking about night, as you can see from &quot;望着空中的明月&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T12:05:08.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23869" CreationDate="2017-05-24T14:40:12.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might be somewhat enlightening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;规范&lt;/strong&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;晚上&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;日落后至深夜前的时间; 泛指整个夜晚。气象学上指17点至20点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Guifan's definitions there might be two seperate concepts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 - after sunset -or- night(fall)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 - meteorologic definition: 5pm to 8pm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could see a mixture of these definitions resulting in 5pm to next am = 晚上. If it really were anything after 5pm then it wouldn't be so surprising to see nice skies in the 晚上 either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T14:40:12.777" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23887" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23889" CreationDate="2017-05-25T15:06:19.217" Score="3" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the function of 所 in these two positions here 聽吾所說心中所以? Is this indicating a passive construction?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-03T23:39:49.960" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T23:39:49.960" Title="What is the function of 所 in 聽吾所說心中所以?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;middle-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23888" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23902" CreationDate="2017-05-25T16:20:45.803" Score="2" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may be somewhat inappropriate, but I have to talk about this short story （在明孝陵乘涼 by 魏微）at a seminar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinawriter.com.cn/56/2007/0123/2904.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link to original&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been taught &amp;quot;我喜歡你&amp;quot;, when said between people of opposite sexes, usually means a romantic kind of fondness. In this story it seems the girl likes her brother in a not so innocent kind of way. Is this clear to the brother, when she uses&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;炯，我很喜歡你呀！ ;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or is there enough room to interpret it as innocent fondness among siblings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T05:30:00.163" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T05:30:00.163" Title="我很喜歡你呀 in a specific context" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23887" CreationDate="2017-05-25T17:04:01.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聽吾所說心中所以&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;所以&amp;quot; is reason (#4 definition in the below link).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000145637&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000145637&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly, i would interpret this verse as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;please listen to (聽) what i say (吾所說)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the reason (所以) in my heart (心中)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;edited&lt;/strong&gt;, in lieu of long comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the context is set, in 雜阿含經卷第二十三 [0168b13]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/ko/T02n0099_023&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/ko/T02n0099_023&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;時﹒諸臣白王言﹒何故於此布施供養皆悉勝前﹒王曰﹒聽吾所說心中所以&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at that time (時), statesmen asked the king (諸臣白王言) &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;why (何故 )&lt;/strong&gt; donate (布施供養) more than before (皆悉勝前)?&amp;quot;. the king replied (王曰) . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, &amp;quot;所以&amp;quot; in this context should be interpret as reason. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, listen with your heart to what I say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in english, this verse is ok. but, &amp;quot;聽吾所說心中所以&amp;quot; can't be. in literary chinese, such english verse would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;故﹒汝當諦聽吾言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汝當諦聽 --&amp;gt; listen with your heart&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吾言 --&amp;gt; what I say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;故, 遂  --&amp;gt; as conjunction &amp;quot;therefore&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited again, in lieu of comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, one need to read from preceding paragraphs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0167c25]　時﹒王生大歡喜﹒捨十萬兩珍寶﹒供養其塔﹒而說偈言 . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0168a08]　時﹒王捨十萬兩珍寶﹒供養此塔﹒以偈讚曰 . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0168a19]　時﹒王捨十萬兩珍寶﹒供養是塔﹒以偈讚曰 . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0168a22] 　. . . 王曰：『以一錢供養。』. . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, for 阿難塔 [0168b04] :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0168b13]　王即捨百億兩珍寶﹒而供養其塔。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十萬兩 is $100,000, while 百億兩 is $10,000,000,000; see the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;immediately next, is the sentence of our interest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;時﹒諸臣白王言﹒何故於此布施供養皆悉勝前&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at that time (時), statesmen asked the king (諸臣白王言) :  &amp;quot;why (何故 ) donate (布施供養) to this one (於此) more than before (皆悉勝前)?&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the king donated difference amount of money to various stupas (塔), ranged from 一錢 to 百億兩 ($10,000,000,000). those statesmen (諸臣) wanted to know why the king donate 百億兩 to 阿難塔 (the stupa of Ānanda), which was significantly more than other donations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in english, &amp;quot;donate + to&amp;quot; is grammatically correct; so, &amp;quot;於此&amp;quot;, is roughly &amp;quot;to this one&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王曰﹒聽吾所說心中所以&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the king replied (王曰) : &amp;quot;please listen to (聽) what i say (吾所說), the reason (所以) in my heart (心中)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the scenario is, statesmen asked why, the king replied, revealing the reason in his heart (mind).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the suggested &amp;quot;literally translation&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;king say: 'listen i that which speaks heart in reason'&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unfortunately, based on my experience, i would say nope. such suggestion is ignoring the context; and, well, un-literary-chinese, maybe un-chinese interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-27T02:50:35.223" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23888" CreationDate="2017-05-25T19:37:28.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我很喜欢你&quot; has the almost same usage with &quot;I like you&quot; in English, depending on the scenario, could be treated as &quot;I love you&quot; but again, it's rare. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In daily case, we(native Chinese) rarely use(or used?) this sentence because comparing to the western people, Chinese usually are regarded as a group people who are shy, barely express emotion orally.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in this case, the author seems like depicture a little girl who has a crush on her brother. It's unethical but also natural considering their age. And it's far from incest since it's just an emotional activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-05-25T19:37:28.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23891" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-25T21:51:13.133" Score="1" ViewCount="328" Body="&lt;p&gt;Talking about topics related to contemporary sexual identity and identity politics has been tricky in Mandarin... obviously a lot of this is specific to the American cultural milieu, and I haven't been able to find good translations. Any advice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some words that stick out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;heteronormative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;heteronormativity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;patriarchy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm also curious if there are words specific to the Chinese context when discussing these topics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17022" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T20:54:40.063" Title="How to talk about identity politics in mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23891" CreationDate="2017-05-25T23:36:17.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sexual orientation = &lt;strong&gt;Sexual identity&lt;/strong&gt; = 性取向 or &lt;strong&gt;性向&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Identity politic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.ca/#en/zh-CN/identity%20politics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;identity politics&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Definitions of identity politics&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;a tendency for people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc., to form exclusive political alliances, moving away from traditional broad-based party politics.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translates &quot;identity politics&quot; as &quot;身份政治&quot; which is not a satisfactory translation to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &quot;政黨政治&quot;(party politics), people can easily understand it means &quot;&lt;em&gt;people making political choices or decisions base on their political party's direction&lt;/em&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is hard to connect &quot;身份政治&quot; with &quot;&lt;em&gt;people making political choices or decisions base on their particular religion, race or social background&lt;/em&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be much more accurate to translate it as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;群分政治&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people see this term, the idiom &quot;物以類聚，人以&lt;strong&gt;群分&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (things gather by type, people divide into groups) would come to their mind. They can easily put the two terms together and grasp the concept of &quot;群分政治&quot; means &quot;&lt;em&gt;people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc., to form exclusive political alliances....&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My other choice for &quot;identity politics&quot; is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;社群政治&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (society groups politics)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google's translations of [&lt;strong&gt;heteronormativity&lt;/strong&gt;] as [&lt;strong&gt;異性戀&lt;/strong&gt;] and [&lt;strong&gt;patriarchy&lt;/strong&gt;] as [&lt;strong&gt;父權制&lt;/strong&gt;] are acceptable.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-25T23:56:19.430" LastActivityDate="2017-05-25T23:56:19.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23547" CreationDate="2017-05-26T09:42:31.123" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Structure of 當為汝說無為法及無為道跡.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is only one section in this sentence as follows.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;當為汝說「無為法」及「無為道跡」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（我）應當為你們說明「無為法」及「無為道跡」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I) should explain to you the 無為法 and 無為道跡.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I) should show you the 無為法 and 無為道跡.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;無為法（Asaṃskṛta dharma; Unconditioned dharma）：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;離因緣造作之法。是無貪、瞋、癡、煩惱的境界。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Anything not subject to the principle of cause and effect (因果法), nor law of dependent origination (緣起法). It is the state or realm without any greed, anger, ignorance and affliction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;無為道跡 (The path to 無為法)：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;八聖道 (The eightfold noble path) or 八正道 (The eight right or correct ways)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(1) right view 正見&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(2) right thought 正思惟&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(3) right speech 正語&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(4) right action 正業&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(5) right livelihood 正命&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(6) right effort 正精進&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(7) right remembrance or mindfulness 正念&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(8) right concentration or meditation 正定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T09:42:31.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5172" CreationDate="2017-05-26T11:33:57.260" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a contracted form of 不一樣 bùyíyàng 'different'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17177" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T11:33:57.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23895" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23898" CreationDate="2017-05-26T12:19:17.600" Score="1" ViewCount="393" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have very similar definitions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;广阔 vast; wide; spacious; expansive; extensive; broad:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宽阔 broad; wide; roomy; spacious&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宽广 broad; extensive; spacious; vast:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辽阔 vast; extensive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-05-27T11:02:40.283" Title="What is the difference between 广阔，宽阔，宽广 and 辽阔?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23579" CreationDate="2017-05-26T13:14:02.820" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;少欲俱相類，相聚，相應，相可 《雜阿含經》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少欲&lt;strong&gt;者&lt;/strong&gt;俱相類，相聚，相應，相可 《佛說相應相可經》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少欲者: 貪欲少的人、欲望較少的人 People with less desire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俱: all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相類: 互相類似 They think and behave similarly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相聚: 互相聚集 They often get together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相應: 互相契合 They tally or correspond mutually.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;相應 means to tally or to correspond (契合) in Buddhism, not to react or to interact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相可: 互相許可 They agree with one another. They agree mutually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相 may mean &quot;mutually&quot; or &quot;each other&quot;.&#xA;However, one is an adverb, and the other is a pronoun.&#xA;I think the 相 in 相類, 相聚, 相應 and 相可 are more likely to be the adverbs, not the pronouns.&#xA;So, 相 means &quot;mutually&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T13:14:02.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19257" CreationDate="2017-05-26T13:18:46.910" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to emphasize what @user3306356 says in a comment.  Hanyu Pinyin (漢語拼音) is an officially established system and has explicit rules which you can see  &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.info/readings/zyg/rules.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. As @jdods remarks in a comment to this answer, that means tones are written as assigned and not as pronounced, while syllables are grouped as pronounced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is important because Hanyu Pinyin is not only a way to teach children in China to read, or a way to help foreign learners of Chinese.  It is also an international standard for rendering Chinese texts in a western alphabet.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should probably try to learn the actual international standard -- especially if you think you might later use Pinyin in transcribing anything for other people to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to the question &quot;why not write everything exactly as it is spoken?&quot; Here are three answers.  But in fact Hanyu Pinyin is the outcome of nearly a century of efforts by many scholars and linguists, and I am probably missing many of their reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, so far as two or three third tones in a row are concerned, Hanyu Pinyin &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; tell you exactly how they are normally spoken because you know the Hanyu Pinyin rules.  What you really meant was &quot;why not write each individual syllable exactly as spoken without relying on context?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, second, context is a very complex issue: As @michealyus notes, third tone sandhi on more than three successive third tones depends on how the sentence is meant to be broken into phrases.  More: the tone on a word may turn neutral at the end of a phrase, or may not if you want to emphasize that word for some reason (indeed even so common a phrase as 你好 can be spoken as ni3 hao3 in a context that calls for for special emphasis).  And the exact way a neutral tone is pronounced depends on the tone before it (see  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thoughtco.com/neutral-tone-in-mandarin-chinese-2279507&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;).  Thus, many words would have at least three spellings.  Now suppose you as writer want to quote something someone said.  You would have to choose how to spell each sentence by deciding how the sentence would have been broken into phrases (this is often ambiguous) and how much emphasis was intended (ditto).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, from the reader's viewpoint, consider the writer whose pseudonym is spoken lao2 she3.  Is the first word there a second tone word?  Or is it a third tone word being written as second?  Better to write it as Lao3 She3, and use the rule for third tone sandhi.  The ambiguities of phonetic representation of Mandarin are bad enough intrinsically.  Let's not make them worse by giving single words multiple spellings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-05-30T12:11:30.860" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T12:11:30.860" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23895" CreationDate="2017-05-26T15:50:54.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;广阔 vast; wide; spacious; expansive; extensive; broad:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;广= broad 阔= wide&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;广阔 (broad)&lt;/strong&gt; mostly describe: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;space - e.g 广阔空间 (broad space)  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;territory - e.g.  广阔领土 (broad territory) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;area - e.g. 广阔面积 (broad area) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宽阔 broad; wide; roomy; spacious &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宽= spacious 阔= wide&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;宽阔 (spacious)&lt;/strong&gt; mostly describe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;space  - e.g. 宽阔空间 (wide space); 宽阔房间 (spacious room)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;object - e.g 车身宽阔 (the car is wide) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宽广 broad; extensive; spacious; vast:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宽= spacious 广 = broad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;宽广(expansive)&lt;/strong&gt; mostly describe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;space - e.g 宽广空间 (expansive space)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;area - e.g 地方宽广(area is expansive)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;辽阔 vast; extensive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辽= distant = 阔= wide&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;辽阔 (vast)&lt;/strong&gt; mostly describe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;space  - e.g.  辽阔空间 (vast space)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;territory - e.g.  辽阔领土 (vast territory )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;area - e.g. 地方辽阔 (area is vast)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maria Efremova wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is there any difference in usage between 广阔 and 辽阔?&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;广阔 is more general, It can be used to describe area in a grand scale, for example: '广阔的宇宙'(wide universe) but it can also be used to describe area in much smaller scale, for example:  '广阔的足球场' (wide football field) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also be used metaphorically. For example 心胸广阔 (forgiving). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辽阔 is more specific. It is exclusively for describing area in a grand scale. (area that cover vast distance and require long time to travel) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辽 itself means 'distant' (far away in time or space) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can say '辽阔的宇宙' (vast universe) but you cannot say '辽阔的足球场' (vast football field) because it is too small in scale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-27T11:02:40.283" LastActivityDate="2017-05-27T11:02:40.283" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23891" CreationDate="2017-05-26T20:54:40.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not American specific. It comes from Europe. The Frankfurt School and its cultural left movement prevails in the post-WWII era in Western world. The leftists try to destroy everything in the tradition of Western Civilisation. They identifies those minorities and describes them as victims. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The black is minority and white is majority. Then they coins the word &quot;white supremacy&quot; and the black is the victim of white supremacy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The female is minority and the male is majority. Then they coins the word &quot;patriarchy&quot; and the female is the victim of patriarchy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The homosexual is minority and the heterosexual is majority. Then they coins the word &quot;heteronormativity&quot; and the homosexual is the victim heteronormativity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These ideas can extends to Muslim vs Christianity or anything you can imagine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, it borrow the idea of hegemony of Marxism, i.e. you can say anything like that as 霸權.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When talking about white, it is 白人霸權.&#xA;When talking about male, it is 父系霸權 (patriarchy) or your may come across the word 父權 in some literature. &#xA;When talking about heterosexual, it is 異性戀霸權 (heteronormativity).&#xA;When talking about Christianity, it is 基督教霸權. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;霸權 is the word to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mainland Chinese, there is no &quot;politically correct&quot; in Western sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T20:54:40.063" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23869" CreationDate="2017-05-26T21:32:59.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original words from the chapter &quot;俞伯牙摔琴謝知音&quot; in the book &quot;警世通言&quot; by 馮夢龍.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the original words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;時當八月十五日中秋之夜，偶然風狂浪湧，大雨如注。舟楫不能前進，泊於山崖之下。不多時，風恬浪靜，雨止雲開，現出一輪明月。那雨後之月，其光倍常。伯牙在船艙中，獨坐無聊，命童子焚香爐內，「待我撫琴一操，以遣情怀。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author of your quoted text translates words badly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, it is 清朗, not 晴朗. They original story told it was in the night with full moon. The rain was over and the moon shone exceptionally bright. You can expect it was a clear night sky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, in classical Chinese, there are some differences between 晚 and 夜. 夜 is night and 晚 is evening (in the sense of &quot;evening school&quot;, &quot;in the evening&quot; of English). The original text say it was 中秋之夜, the night of Mid-Autumn Festival. That means it was no sunshine at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastEditorUserId="6158" LastEditDate="2017-05-26T21:47:29.017" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T21:47:29.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23556" CreationDate="2017-05-27T08:50:21.257" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;作是念已，如力士屈申臂頃，於兜率天沒，現於佛前，稽首佛足&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他有了這個想法後，有如壯漢彎曲再伸直手臂的頃刻，在兜率天隱沒，並出現於佛陀之前，頂禮佛足。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After he had this thought, as fast as a strong man bent and straightened the arm, disappeared in Tuṣita Heaven, appeared in front of the Buddha, and bowed the Buddha's feet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如力士屈申臂頃 describes the speed is very fast or the period is very short.&#xA;屈 and 申(伸) are two different movements.&#xA;屈臂 means to bend the arm.&#xA;伸臂 is to straighten the arm.&#xA;A strong man does not need much time to do these movements.&#xA;Therefore, 如力士屈申臂頃 can be interpreted as &quot;as fast as a strong man bent and straightened the arm&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2017-05-28T01:53:14.213" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T01:53:14.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23888" CreationDate="2017-05-27T12:13:28.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Offering a Taiwan speaker's perspective here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜歡你 is (as I perceive) almost exclusively used as confession of romantic love. I believe 喜歡 becomes the conventional rendition of Japanese 好き(suki), which (I suppose, I don't know Japanese) is usually romantic if used with human beings as accusative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To translate &quot;I like you&quot; (expressing purely positive intention without romantic love) I suggest &quot;你很棒&quot; or &quot;我對你印象不錯&quot; or something like that, avoiding unintended connotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-05-27T12:13:28.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17201" CreationDate="2017-05-28T07:55:19.203" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Common tricks or old tricks.&#xA;I think your Chinese friend probably means &quot;you're just kidding me&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17183" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T07:55:19.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23904" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23913" CreationDate="2017-05-28T11:23:33.090" Score="2" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the name of this tonal marking system?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zkJDx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zkJDx.png&quot; alt=&quot;pic&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;please do not try to explain the picture&lt;/strong&gt; - the picture is clear enough itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T05:39:14.887" Title="What is the name of this tonal marking system?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;notations&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23905" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-28T20:17:28.913" Score="1" ViewCount="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two hardly visible postal cancels on a postcard from 1954. Can someone help me with this? (Zhejiang province perhaps?)&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HcWVp.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HcWVp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;postal cancels&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12890" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T01:57:22.313" Title="Postal cancels - city name unknown" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23906" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-28T21:08:01.400" Score="1" ViewCount="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone tell me the name of the city on this postal cancel? I believe it's from Anhui province from 1937, but I'm not sure.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GECJe.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GECJe.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12890" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T23:22:55.330" Title="Another unknown city - postmark -Anhui?" Tags="&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23906" CreationDate="2017-05-28T22:45:47.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;安徽Ān​huī 杨溪镇 Yángxīzhèn = Yángxī town&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T22:45:47.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23908" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-29T00:48:44.883" Score="0" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a pinyin chart which links to a dictionary? I can only find charts that link to audio files for pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My goal is to see in one page all the characters that have the same pronunciation, e.g. xiāng, 相香箱. Preferably having a link to dictionary entries. Pleco doesn't care when I type the accented English vowel, and it lists all entries with the same spelling and any tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T10:00:41.957" Title="Pinyin chart which links to dictionary" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23905" CreationDate="2017-05-29T01:57:22.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One the left, it is Zhejiang Province.  The county is Chun'an (淳安).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One the right, it is also Zhejiang Province. The county / town has no yet deducible. It is probably Wei (威) something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T01:57:22.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23888" CreationDate="2017-05-29T02:48:03.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Considering the age of the little girl, I think &quot;I like you&quot; can be called the family, not the expression of love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Her brother's love is a kind of family love expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because her brother is very good, so the little girl clear like his brother, but standing in the point of view, we generally only will this considered children don't understand the real men and women of love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other Chinese words, the expression of a deep affection is not a &quot;love&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in China, we express our love for men and women  is“爱”not“喜欢”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above answer, I hope to help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17188" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T02:48:03.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23888" CreationDate="2017-05-29T03:13:09.657" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mh8aG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mh8aG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;关于繁体汉字“愛”，中间一个心字，上下是一个受字，意思是用自己的心，感受到对方的心。用法并不仅仅在爱情，也在亲情与更大的一种无私的爱，不求回报。  像上帝爱世人一样的意味。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WLRa3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WLRa3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;后来，中华人民共和国成立后，发展了简体汉字“爱”，下面是一个“友”字，也意味着我们认为的爱情需要从友情开始，互相帮助，还有互相付出。代表了两性关系是从友情发展到爱情的路径。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为这个时期，中国更强调男女要有共同的方向与目标，然后在一起工作，彼此帮助的基础上，逐渐感受到对方的心，进而产生“爱情”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这部小说的写作年代在于中华人民共和国时期，所以这个时候作者提到的“我喜欢你” 更多的是表达亲情，因为彼此之间没有共同的人生目标，仅仅是最开始的少女喜欢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17189" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T03:13:09.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17201" CreationDate="2017-05-29T03:34:52.513" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This word doesn't make sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She is Express exclamation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like &quot;oh my god!&quot;   A more gentle expression&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17190" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T03:34:52.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23904" CreationDate="2017-05-29T05:39:14.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's called &lt;strong&gt;发圈法&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《内江市志 方言》：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UA1XV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UA1XV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;标调用传统的四角发圈法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so we have &lt;strong&gt;(四角)发圈法&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=KJBksxr98o3lESVeJvhro_PYu1LWiECw6bGWY2wwQIxGsr7Qf0OOGzsR_7y-nlfIJ3QeiUtxWAz4JgaxkddNfjPQqkuyNrSTOQPxBWFoIAr1duvfgpcmbMExroptJs1e&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度百科：发圈法&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;发圈法&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发圈法，是指一种标记声调的方法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能够独立区别意义的调值的类别称为调类。调类可以从共时角度编号并命名，也可以参考历时因素命名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉语方言的调类系统大多与中古汉语的平、上、去、入四声系统和声母的清浊系统有对应关系，通常根据这种历时对应关系来定调名：与平上去入四声对应的调类，今调名仍称平上去入；与中古清声母对应的调类今称阴调，与中古浊声母对应的调类今称阳调。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E5%8F%91%E5%9C%88%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度互动百科&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;标记声调的一种方法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能够独立区别意义的调值的类别称为调类。调类可以从共时角度编号并命名，也可以参考历时因素命名。汉语方言的调类系统大多与中古汉语的平、上、去、入四声系统和声母的清浊系统有对应关系，通常根据这种历时对应关系来定调名：与平上去入四声对应的调类，今调名仍称平上去入；与中古清声母对应的调类今称阴调，与中古浊声母对应的调类今称阳调。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用这种命名法命名的调类系统可以用发圈法标记，中国传统语音学是用附加在汉字的四角的四个半圆来表示；如果因古声母清浊影响而产生了声调分化，则在因受古浊声母影响而形成的调类号下加短横，这样，四个声调就变成八个。具体方法是：在音节或汉字的四角用带缺口的小圈标记，从左下角开始，按顺时针方向依次为阴平、阴上、阴去、阴入，相应的阳调则在小圈下加短横线表示。例如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阴平: 【半圆在左下】（诗 阴上: 【半圆在左上】（使 阴去: 试）【半圆在右上】 阴入: 识）【半圆在右下】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T05:39:14.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23906" CreationDate="2017-05-29T05:41:05.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please note that in that times, characters were written from right to left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The postmark says &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;廿六年 六月 廿一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means 21st June, 1937 (literally, 21st, June, 26nd year. Republic of China was founded in 1912. Hence 1912 was the first year and 1937 was the 26nd year.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big characters in the top are &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;安徽&#xA;  Anhui  province&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big characters in the bottom are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;揚溪鎮&#xA;  Yangxi town&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please look at the first character carefully by yourself. It may be 楊 as 楊 and 揚 are very very similar. Searching on the internet, I find there is a town by the name of 揚溪鎮 (simplified Chinese: 扬溪镇) in the county of 绩溪 (Jixi), prefecture-level city of 宣城(Xuancheng) , 安徽 province. Of course, there is still a chance that the first character is 楊 if the original name has been changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="91" LastEditDate="2017-05-29T23:22:55.330" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T23:22:55.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23915" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23916" CreationDate="2017-05-29T07:03:57.640" Score="1" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have referred to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/23/js/856D.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;China Mainland Online Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://stroke-order.learningweb.moe.edu.tw/characterQueryResult.do?word=%E8%95%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Online Stroke Order Dictionary of Ministry of Education of Republic of China&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are giving different numbers of stroke for this word.&#xA;China Mainland: 18 Total Strokes.&#xA;Republic of China: 16 Total Strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I counted myself, it is 17 strokes. &#xA;丨一 一丨乛 一 一丨丿丨丨乛丨一 乛 一丨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T07:23:27.287" Title="How many stroke does Chinese Traditional Word &quot;蕭&quot; have?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23915" CreationDate="2017-05-29T07:23:27.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;have a look of this pictures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10th stroke is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z9m5d.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z9m5d.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11th stroke is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v3mdk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v3mdk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12th stroke is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NkwZB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NkwZB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14th stroke is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kXcNM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kXcNM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;15th stroke is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p1SX8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p1SX8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;16th stroke is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uPvDr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uPvDr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;voila, 16 strokes :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T07:23:27.287" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23888" CreationDate="2017-05-29T08:25:42.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I totally disagree for what zhang just said, according to WIKIPEDIA, the simplified Chinese does not represent the meaning of the word at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;1952年，中国文字改革研究委员会编拟《常用汉字简化表草案》第一次稿，确定了“述而不作”的编选原则。但毛泽东看过后却很不满意，提出：“700个简体字还不够简，作简体字要多利用草体，找出简化规律，作出基本形体，有规律地进行简化。汉字的数量也必须大大减缩，一个字可以代替好几个字，只有从形体上和数量上同时精简，才算得上简化。”[1]&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What Mao wanted is that just simple. And after the China Civil War, people in China Mainland are suffering, they don't even have time to talk about 我愛你你愛我. The simplified Chinese was born after 文革, it does not contain any meaning &quot;后来，中华人民共和国成立后，发展了简体汉字“爱”，下面是一个“友”字，也意味着我们认为的爱情需要从友情开始，互相帮助，还有互相付出。代表了两性关系是从友情发展到爱情的路径。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为这个时期，中国更强调男女要有共同的方向与目标，然后在一起工作，彼此帮助的基础上，逐渐感受到对方的心，进而产生“爱情”&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are just trying to convince people to accept the ugly word, changing the history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And could Zhang, on my top, explain why 雞became鸡，難became难，準became准not淮，華became华？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T08:25:42.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23908" CreationDate="2017-05-29T10:00:41.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an online tool that does more or less what you want (and more).  It is based on the Unihan database, and links to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example with &lt;a href=&quot;http://sungnyemun.org/cgi-bin/otmb.cgi?x=m%20xiang1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;xiang1&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a bit clunky -- I wrote it a long time ago, and there's a few design bugs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T10:00:41.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17201" CreationDate="2017-05-29T10:32:34.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strategy. Another of those 'Internet lingo' that grew popular within the chinese circles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A5%97%E8%B7%AF/19444463&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A5%97%E8%B7%AF/19444463&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="218" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T10:32:34.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23921" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23924" CreationDate="2017-05-29T17:44:31.840" Score="2" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translation of Montevideo in most dictionaries appears to be: &lt;strong&gt;蒙得維的亞&lt;/strong&gt; (Méng dé wéi de yà) but in Pleco's dictionary it also says that in Taiwan is used: &lt;strong&gt;蒙特维多&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I am concerned, in Taiwan it should be used the same translation but with traditional characters, why does it have another translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1130" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T19:52:17.953" Title="Why does Montevideo has a specific translation in Taiwanese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23923" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-29T18:55:47.977" Score="-1" ViewCount="427" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BqJqI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BqJqI.png&quot; alt=&quot;Probably a virus&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need to uninstall a virus but this message keeps popping up. I can't uninstall it until I guess correctly what it is. I am assuming it is Chinese as Google Translate picked up the first word 'fun'. Any help would be highly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17197" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-07-19T03:28:50.270" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T04:23:23.033" Title="Need help! installed a virus need to uninstall it!" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23921" CreationDate="2017-05-29T19:52:17.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a fact that different countries and areas can have different translations or transliterations of a foreign word or name. It can only be resolved by the name's owner to give official translation or transliteration for other countries. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take Google for example, Google itself decided it would be '谷歌' in Chinese. That makes it official and universal in all countries and areas that use Chinese as their written language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example  is the name of a Canadian city, Montreal. It was transliterated as 蒙特利尔 in China but Cantonese transliterated it as 滿地可.  Since the early Chinese immigrants to Canada were mostly Cantonese, 滿地可 is the accepted name for Montreal among Chinese Canadian. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Canadian government just transliterate Montreal as 蒙特利尔 in Mandarin and  滿地可 in Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T19:52:17.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23923" CreationDate="2017-05-29T22:17:17.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why did you install a virus? Strange thing to do! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Must be a captcha. It says 乐 逗 边 蛀 lè dòu biān zhù so now you need Chinese input.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you enter it, your computer will be permanently, irretrievably linked to the Department of Homeland Security in Washington！ Have fun with that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T22:17:17.360" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23926" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24121" CreationDate="2017-05-29T22:46:56.960" Score="3" ViewCount="1143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I sometimes watch the news on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Wy9LXCapw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCTV LIVE&lt;/a&gt; youtube channel to improve my listening comprehension. Sometimes they provide subtitles in Chinese, and sometimes they don't. This is fine if I'm just trying to get the gist of the stories, but I know from experience that I improve a lot faster when I can go back over difficult parts in detail (e.g., with a dictionary). This is hard to do if there aren't subtitles or transcripts available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any place to watch or listen to the news in Chinese that either provides transcripts or always subtitles everything (in Chinese)? If not the news, something analytical and non-fictional?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2017-07-18T09:06:24.843" Title="News video/audio with transcripts (or consistent subtitles)" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23927" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23929" CreationDate="2017-05-30T02:57:41.313" Score="0" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/REeHv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Received this as a gift from a Chinese delegation who visited our office. Not sure what is it inside this box as still not able to figure it out.... Please translate and help.... Attached pic of the box&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17198" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T08:01:13.857" Title="Please help to translate the Chinese script from this box" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23927" CreationDate="2017-05-30T03:33:17.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;华拓金服(hua tuo Financial Services)-best business partner among the Chinese Financial Services companies &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17165" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T03:33:17.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23927" CreationDate="2017-05-30T03:35:07.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;华拓金服: China extension gold service&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国金融企业最佳合作伙伴: China 's best financial cooperation partners&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated by google haha&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17196" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-30T08:01:13.857" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T08:01:13.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23845" CreationDate="2017-05-30T10:34:54.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;規矩 doesn't mean exactly same as 規規矩矩. I don't quite agree how MSM uses 規規矩矩 to explain 規矩. 規規矩矩 and 規矩 share the same core meaning, but translated differently in different part of speech. In a nutshell, 規矩 =/= 規規矩矩, 有規矩 = 規規矩矩. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;規矩(n) - regulation, plan, rules, scheme, discipline,etc.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That's why when you want to say something is well disciplined you say 有規矩, it literally means &quot;it has discipline&quot;.  You need a adverb or adjective if you want to translate &quot;well disciplined&quot; literately.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;規規矩矩的(Adj) - regulated, planned, ruled, well disciplined, ordered, legal, etc.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;規規矩矩地(Adv) - regularly, orderly, legally, etc.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As you can see 規規矩矩 has more meanings simply because it functions differently in a sentence. Since &quot;well disciplined ~= do sth in order = orderly&quot;, 規規矩矩 seems to have more meaning than simply 規矩. Keep in mind that &quot;orderly&quot; has a different meaning from &quot;order&quot;, though in English they share they same root, in Chinese &quot;order' would have translated differently to for example 次序. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know my answer is quite messy but hope it helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17201" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T10:34:54.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23931" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23935" CreationDate="2017-05-30T12:56:47.560" Score="2" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the plane I see 就座后扣好安全带 (jiù zuòhòu kòuhǎo ānquándài) which is translated to &quot;fasten seatbelt while seated&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1TmwJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1TmwJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;就座后扣好安全带&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the bus I see 上车请系好安全带 (shàngchē qǐng jìhǎo ānquándài) which I think translates to something like &quot;after boarding the bus, please fasten seatbelts&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O8PF0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O8PF0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;上车请系好安全带&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 扣好安全带 (kòuhǎo ānquándài) and 系好安全带 (jìhǎo ānquándài), which both seem to mean &quot;fasten seatbelt&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-05-30T13:08:34.130" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T14:09:22.670" Title="What's the difference between 扣好安全带 (kòuhǎo ānquándài) and 系好安全带 (jìhǎo ānquándài), which both seem to mean &quot;fasten seatbelt&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13190" CreationDate="2017-05-30T13:11:22.263" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apologies for my late reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no formal training in classical Chinese, modern-day Chinese or something akin thereunto; however, in a Japanese sense, the answer should be more or less clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer is thus shown as follows (in a tentatively explanatory note):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone in question is/was merely not at home; therefore, he is/was not gone ([or] he has/had not left for anywhere else [for good]).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The [...] thread has not provided the entire excerpt or, better still, the entire article/account; therefore, I have no choice but to deem that, from these given words, the author of the original phrase ([or] the first-person character or any of the likes) seems to have responded to his or her listener(s)/reader(s), or seems to have provided an explanatory note in re the perceived departure, i.e., as to whether or not someone in question be/have gone. The author has apparently made it clear that the person in question merely was not at home, as opposed to having gone somewhere else (for good [or not]).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: In my opinion, whether or not one choose (chooses) to treat the first character (meaning in general: man, husband, this, etc.) as insignificant when being translated into English, it does not matter. The meaning in its essence remains clear that someone is/was merely not at home for the time being; thus, having gone nowhere (as possibly expected/assumed thus or so).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17203" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T13:11:22.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23931" CreationDate="2017-05-30T13:57:25.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;扣好 is more like &quot;to buckle up&quot;, we use this word because normally there is something like a buckle on the safe belt. &#xA;系好 is more like &quot;to knot&quot;, we use this word because normally the safe belt is shaped as a piece of string. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It works both ways, just sounds different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17120" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T13:57:25.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23931" CreationDate="2017-05-30T14:09:22.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;扣 means to &quot; to hook / to buckle&quot; &#xA;&quot;扣好安全帶&quot; means &quot;buckle up the seatbelt &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;系 means &quot;to tie /to fasten&quot; &#xA;&quot;系好安全帶&quot; means to &quot; fasten the seatbelt &quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although there are many ways to fasten a belt to something, when it comes to seatbelt, the only way to fasten it to the seat, is to buckle it up. Therefore, 系好安全帶 and 扣好安全帶 are essentially the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T14:09:22.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23937" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23940" CreationDate="2017-05-31T03:13:19.443" Score="3" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone asked me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你回天津了吗？ (nǐ huí tiānjīn le ma = have you returned to Tianjin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I replied 回了 (huí le = returned), but I'm wondering if I should have said 回来了 (huílái le = returned) instead, or if both are acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are both 回了 and 回来了 correct responses to 你回天津了吗 (have you returned to Tianjin)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T05:58:04.030" Title="Are both 回了 and 回来了 correct responses to 你回天津了吗 (have you returned to Tianjin)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23937" CreationDate="2017-05-31T04:14:47.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use 回了 when you speak to someone not in 天津 or when you are talking about past event. Use 回了/回来了 otherwise. 回来了 focus on current state that you are in 天津 now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T04:14:47.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23937" CreationDate="2017-05-31T05:44:26.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i think both are acceptable.in your case,回了 is a abbreviation of 回来了. for example,when someone ask me if i eaten a dinner(吃饭了吗), i usually say 吃了(eaten).it is equal to say 吃饭了(eaten).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17210" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T05:44:26.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23937" CreationDate="2017-05-31T05:45:02.970" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回 = back; 来 = come; 去 = go&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回来 = come back; 回去 = go back&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回天津去了 = &quot;have gone back to Tianjin&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回天津来了 = &quot;have came back to Tianjin&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你回天津了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the question is asked in 天津, that would mean it is actually asking &quot;你回天津(来)了吗？ (have you came back to Tianjin?), then you can answer &quot;回来了&quot; (yes, I have came back) or simply &quot;回了&quot; [yes, I have (came back)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the question is asked anywhere else, that would mean it is actually asking &quot;你回天津(去)了吗？ (have you gone back to Tianjin?) then you can answer &quot;回去了&quot; (yes, I have gone back) or simply &quot;回了&quot; [yes, I have (gone  back)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depend on either you are in Tianjin or not,  &quot;回了&quot; could means &quot;I had came back&quot;(if you are in Tianjin)  or &quot;I had gone back&quot;.(if you are not in Tianjin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-05-31T05:58:04.030" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T05:58:04.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23782" CreationDate="2017-05-31T12:34:34.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;锋利 and 锐利 are used for describing knives and swords, e.g.: a sharp knife. 尖锐 is now used for describing topics, viewpoints, or questions, e.g.: a sharp question. 尖利 and 锋锐 are rarely used, I hardly see these words. Theoretically you may create much more new words by these near synonym.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T12:34:34.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23679" CreationDate="2017-05-31T12:56:21.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;出生 is used for humans and animals mostly. 出世 is used in ancient novels for heroes and great persons, also used for lifeless things like treasures and rarities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T12:56:21.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23585" CreationDate="2017-05-31T13:09:31.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;周内：from Monday to Friday&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;周末：Saturday &amp;amp; Sunday&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;工作日、平日：workday&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;非工作日、法定节假日、节假日、假日：non-workday, holiday&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T13:09:31.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23488" CreationDate="2017-05-31T13:14:13.973" Score="-1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;客 is short for 客人 mostly, sometimes short for customer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;客人: guest, visitor&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;顾客: customer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;客户: client&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-06-07T02:25:39.910" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T02:25:39.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23462" CreationDate="2017-05-31T13:27:53.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;电 electronic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冰 ice, cool&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冷 cold&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冻 froze&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;箱 box&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;柜 cabinet, cupboard&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;机 machine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;藏 hide, store&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;室 room&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰箱 - fridge, common little ones with doors. 冰柜、冷柜 - refrigerating cabinet, ice chest, ice cuber, larger ones with movable cover. 冷藏室 - cold storage room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T13:27:53.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23238" CreationDate="2017-05-31T13:40:04.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;All are wrong. Three dots &quot;…&quot; is one single character in Chinese font, like the comment by @SLS under his answer. It's not correct to written to six English dots, or three Chinese period marks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T13:40:04.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10612" CreationDate="2017-05-31T22:29:10.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard most of Chinese (Mandarin) saying 等下 /deng xià/ to their friends...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17216" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T22:29:10.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23949" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-31T23:53:42.570" Score="2" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does this 去 mean reduce?&#xA;煤炭企业面临多方面的压力：&#xA;The coal industry faces many kinds pressure&lt;br&gt;&#xA;（1） 去产能压力。&#xA;（1） reduce production capacity pressure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T00:52:39.897" Title="Does this 去 mean reduce?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23949" CreationDate="2017-06-01T00:52:39.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;去 in this context means &quot; to remove&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去 never directly mean &quot;to reduce&quot;. You thought it does, because logically thinking, you know 'if you &lt;strong&gt;keep reducing&lt;/strong&gt; something, it will eventually be all gone (&lt;strong&gt;removed&lt;/strong&gt;).' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore you can say: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;keep reducing until all gone&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is one of the methods to &lt;strong&gt;remove&lt;/strong&gt;(去). But 去 itself doesn't mean &quot;to reduce&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you hang(吊) someone by the neck, you are  killing him. but 吊 (hang) itself doesn't mean &quot; to kill&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T00:52:39.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23951" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-01T01:03:32.583" Score="2" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in, when listing adjectives, for example a 愉快, 安全, and 环保 summer vacation, do you say 愉快, 安全, 和 环保 的 暑假 do you need the he at the end of the list? Is this how you would list adjectives in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17217" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T11:05:15.880" Title="Do you use 和 when listing adjectives the same way you do in english?" Tags="&lt;word-lists&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23952" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23955" CreationDate="2017-06-01T01:30:01.013" Score="2" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there any relationship between 田, 由, 甲, and 申?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%94%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;田&lt;/a&gt; (tián) = field; it seems rarely used&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%94%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;由&lt;/a&gt; (yóu) = ???; I've only seen it as a radical for &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%B2%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;油&lt;/a&gt; (yóu) = oil&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%94%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt; (jiǎ) = nails, as in fingernails &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%89%8B%E6%8C%87%E7%94%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;手指甲&lt;/a&gt; (shǒuzhǐjiǎ); it's also a radical in 鸭子 (yāzi) = duck&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%94%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;申&lt;/a&gt; (shēn) = ???; I've seen it used in 申请 (shēnqǐng) = application&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters appear similar, so I tend to get them confused often.  It might be there's a reason these characters are similar which might help me remember them better (or there might be no meaningful relationship).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T03:33:58.253" Title="Is there any relationship between 田 (tián), 由 (yóu), 甲 (jiǎ), and 申 (shēn)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23952" CreationDate="2017-06-01T03:16:37.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are not related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Oracle bone script, they are completely different shapes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T03:16:37.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23951" CreationDate="2017-06-01T03:26:28.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can. Also, like English, you have option not to use 和. It depends the syllabus rhythm that you like to present to audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can replace it with 及 or 與.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T03:26:28.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23952" CreationDate="2017-06-01T03:27:51.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The origin of 田 was a pictograph of a rice field&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/zy/7530.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/zy/7530.htm&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jTpoM.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jTpoM.gif&quot; alt=&quot;rice field&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The primary meaning of 田 is 'rice &lt;strong&gt;field&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The origin of 由 was a pictograph of a sprout &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/zy/7531.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/zy/7531.htm&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0Ao3q.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0Ao3q.gif&quot; alt=&quot;oil lamp&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The primary meaning of 由 is '&lt;strong&gt;from&lt;/strong&gt;; begin with'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The origin of 甲 was a pictograph of the intersection of a &lt;a href=&quot;http://battle-ready.com/home/wp-content/uploads/armour_short_plateD_1.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;planted armor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/zy/7532.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/zy/7532.htm&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YVjz4.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YVjz4.gif&quot; alt=&quot;planted armor&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The primary meaning of 甲 is '&lt;strong&gt;armor&lt;/strong&gt;; top class' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The origin of 申 was a pictograph of a man kneeing with pleading hands (to plead to gods)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/zy/7533.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/zy/7533.htm&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IfMth.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IfMth.gif&quot; alt=&quot;man kneeing with pleading hands&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The primary meaning of 申 is '&lt;strong&gt;plead&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-01T03:33:58.253" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T03:33:58.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23951" CreationDate="2017-06-01T06:25:25.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use it but it is not necessary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike English grammar, its elusive Chinese counterpart does not have a rule of prefixing conjunction to the last element of a string of parallel elements. In fact, Chinese tend to utter a really long string of nouns or phrases without using any conjunction, like 我曾经去过英国、法国、德国、意大利、比利时。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is now accepted by Chinese people to use the conjunction in an anglicized way, like 我曾经去过英国、法国、德国、意大利和比利时. However, some language purists disprove this usage. My college professor of EN to CN translation concurred with these views and explicitly demanded that we drop 和 when translating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastEditorUserId="16788" LastEditDate="2017-06-01T08:06:30.257" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T08:06:30.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5172" CreationDate="2017-06-01T06:38:52.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many more &lt;strong&gt;abnormal&lt;/strong&gt; syllable exist in various Chinese dialect but not in Mandarin. I'm from Xi'an city, Shaanxi province, aka, the cradle of the noodle shown in your picture. Also in Xi'an dialect, we pronounce &lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;nge&lt;/strong&gt; while Mandarin as &lt;strong&gt;wo&lt;/strong&gt;, we pronounce 维 as &lt;strong&gt;vei&lt;/strong&gt; while Mandarin as &lt;strong&gt;wei&lt;/strong&gt;, etc. So it is not strange that a character reads as &lt;strong&gt;biang&lt;/strong&gt; or other pronunciation you never heard. The pronunciation &lt;strong&gt;biang&lt;/strong&gt; describes the sound of the noodle knocking at the kitchen board when making it, not a short form of 不一樣/不一样 bùyíyàng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-02-25T01:49:19.693" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T01:49:19.693" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23958" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23960" CreationDate="2017-06-01T08:05:10.040" Score="0" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;势必 be bound to; certainly will&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必定 to be bound to; to be sure to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必然 inevitable; certain; necessity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T09:49:48.477" Title="What is the difference in usage between 势必， 必定 and 必然?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10342" CreationDate="2017-06-01T08:48:12.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learnt most of my Mandarin on a smartphone to start with. Download as many apps as you can, they all have different strengths and weaknesses. There is a great app with a screen reader called Pleco for android phones, you can hit one button and all hanzi on the screen (more or less) will become click-able and you can look up how it is said, what it means, the radicals, related words, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this, you can move on to children's books. Very basic ones, a few hundred words to start with, then slowly progress with more and more words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for typing methods, I think pinyin is fastest and used by all the young native Chinese people I know. Writing characters is useful to remember them clearly but you can learn Mandarin being able to read/speak/listen but barely write at all if you want a 'lite' version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've only been learning for 2 years or so and I can read ~1500 word stories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16143" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T08:48:12.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23958" CreationDate="2017-06-01T09:36:12.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;势必 be bound to; certainly will&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;势必 = 形势必然 (situation will certainly be) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;势必&lt;/strong&gt;(compound word):&lt;strong&gt;bound to&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 决赛:德国对巴西, 到時&lt;strong&gt;势必&lt;/strong&gt;有一场恶斗&#xA;(Final match: Germany vs. Brazil, when the time comes, there will &lt;strong&gt;certainly&lt;/strong&gt; be a tough fight) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;emphasize on:'the situation dictate a certain outcome' (the situation of Germany vs. Brazil ensure a tough fight)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;必定 to be bound to; to be sure t&lt;/em&gt;o&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必= certain; 定= 肯定 = sure &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;必定&lt;/strong&gt; (compound word):&lt;strong&gt;certainly&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;surely&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 每次德国遇上巴西, 都&lt;strong&gt;必定&lt;/strong&gt;有一场恶斗&#xA;(Whenever Germany runs into Brazil,  they would &lt;strong&gt;certainly&lt;/strong&gt; have a tough fight) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;emphasize on 'an absolute certainty' (The fact that 'Germany vs. Brazil is always a tough fight' is an absolute certainty)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;必然 inevitable; certain; necessity&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必= certainly; 然= naturally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;必然&lt;/strong&gt; (compound word):&lt;strong&gt;certainly&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 如果德国遇上巴西,那&lt;strong&gt;必然&lt;/strong&gt;是一场恶斗&#xA;(If Germany ran into Brazil, then it would &lt;strong&gt;certainly&lt;/strong&gt; be a tough fight) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;emphasize on 'a natural outcome of certainty' (the nature outcome of Germany vs. Brazil is a tough fight)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-01T09:49:48.477" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T09:49:48.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23961" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23963" CreationDate="2017-06-01T13:26:24.170" Score="2" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm newbie. I know “中国“ means &quot;the country on the Earth's center&quot;, so, &quot;the Middle-earth&quot; = ”中国“？ I mean John Tolkien's universe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17030" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T15:52:57.587" Title="The Middle-earth - how to translate?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23961" CreationDate="2017-06-01T15:52:57.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;维拉&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation based on &lt;em&gt;Vala&lt;/em&gt; rather than &lt;em&gt;middle-earth&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_(Middle-earth)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia: Vala (Middle-earth)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Valar [ˈvalar] (singular Vala) are characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. They are &quot;gods&quot; or &quot;angelic beings&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_(Middle-earth)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; subordinate to the one God (Eru Ilúvatar); they are the most powerful of the Ainur who chose to go into the World (Arda) and complete its material development after its form was determined by the Music of the Ainur (Ainulindalë). They are mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, but were developed earlier in material published posthumously in The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where the Chinese article translates to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%B6%AD%E6%8B%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;维拉：维基百科&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;维拉 Valar，是英国作家约翰·罗纳德·鲁埃尔·托尔金的史诗式奇幻小说《精灵宝钻》中的种族，意思是“阿尔达大有力量者” Powers of Arda，女性的维拉则被称为维丽 Valier。维拉是精灵和人类眼中的诸神，他们是伊露维塔的意念创造出来的埃努，其中十五位力量最强大的埃努，协助伊露维塔统治阿尔达，被人类和精灵称为维拉。后来其中一名维拉被除名，成为了天魔王。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;中土大陸&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia: Middle Earth&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Middle-earth is the fictional setting of much of British writer J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. The term is equivalent to the term Midgard of Norse mythology, describing the human-inhabited world,&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_(Middle-earth)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; i.e. the central continent of the Earth in Tolkien's imagined mythological past. Tolkien's most widely read works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, take place entirely in Middle-earth, and Middle-earth has also become a short-hand to refer to the legendarium or its fictional universe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Chinese equivalent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%9F%E5%A4%A7%E9%99%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中土大陸：维基百科&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中土大陆或中土世界（英语：Middle-earth），又译为中洲&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_(Middle-earth)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;，是出现在J.R.R.托尔金小说著作中的一块架空世界中的大陆和世界，这名称来自于古英语中的“middangeard”，字面含义是“中间的土地”，意指“人类居住的陆地”。在中土大陆发生的故事，有《霍比特人》、《魔戒》和《精灵宝钻》等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;alternatives to &lt;strong&gt;中土大陸&lt;/strong&gt; include: &lt;strong&gt;中土世界&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;中洲&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The History of Middle-earth&lt;/em&gt; is translated as &lt;strong&gt;中土世界的历史&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Peoples of Middle-earth&lt;/strong&gt; is translated as &lt;em&gt;中土世界的民族&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;see wikipedia's: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%9F%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E7%9A%84%E6%AD%B7%E5%8F%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中土世界的歷史&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T15:52:57.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23679" CreationDate="2017-06-02T00:11:53.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The quick answer is that 出生 means &quot;to be born,&quot; that is to emerge from a womb and live on. 出世 means &quot;to be reborn,&quot; in the Hindu/Buddhist sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17222" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T00:11:53.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23951" CreationDate="2017-06-02T11:05:15.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you can. It's necessary if you only have two items (安全和愉快的暑假). The conjunction is likely to be 和, but can also be other conjunctions based on meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more than 3 items, the conjunction is not necessary, but in formal situations people tend to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T11:05:15.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6329" CreationDate="2017-06-02T11:48:13.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is important to realize that identifying two syllable words is very different from monosyllable. Generally teaching material gives the impression it is just (with some tone changes) strung together, but somehow it is a different task for your brain.&#xA;So I recommend that you practice identifying two syllable tones. For a somewhat ok training site I use this one:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyinpractice.com/tones4.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://pinyinpractice.com/tones4.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17224" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T11:48:13.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23969" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23971" CreationDate="2017-06-02T14:00:10.310" Score="0" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my first question here so I don't even kwow if it's permitted to ask this kind of questions.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact is that I would like to know the meaning of my name: 费代里科 (fèi dài lǐ kē),  which is the phonetic translation of Federico, if I understood well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17225" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T15:29:34.673" Title="Meaning of the chinese translation of italian name Federico" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23969" CreationDate="2017-06-02T15:14:41.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, basically it's the phonetic translation. And no strange word is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17159" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T15:14:41.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23969" CreationDate="2017-06-02T15:29:34.673" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should be more &quot;费德瑞克&quot; than 费代里科, as Rico is normally translated into &quot;瑞克&quot;, and &quot;de&quot; sounds more similar to &quot;德&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I wish that you could understand that normally in Chinese, an individual word can have multiple meanings, and sometimes those meanings are not related.&#xA;For the 4 words you have presented:&#xA;费代里科&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;费 : If it is used as a noun, it can be a common chinese family name Or fees &amp;amp; fares Or costs; If it is used as a verb, it usually means cost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;代 : This word is usually considered as a verb, means represent/do someone else’s work in his or her place/replace; it can also be a rare Chinese family name, and the noun of represent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;里 : It’s similar to « Inside ».&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;科 : This is a noun. It can mean subject, family of animals &amp;amp; plants(biologics),  a unit of collaborators.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17120" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T15:29:34.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23973" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23979" CreationDate="2017-06-02T20:47:03.993" Score="2" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;If 纸巾 means &quot;paper towel&quot;, I can understand how it was combined with &quot;face&quot; 面 to mean &quot;tissue&quot;. But I'm curious as to why it's 面巾纸, not 面纸巾. I can't find any definition for 巾纸 on its own, so where did this word come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15160" LastActivityDate="2017-06-03T09:58:44.247" Title="Why is 面巾纸 different from 纸巾?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23974" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-02T20:59:13.763" Score="-2" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently reading some Chinese novels to improve my reading ability. There are sentences that I can understand roughly but can not describe them in English. I would love to understand the sentence completely. Here they are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;有点鸡冻! 传说中的备胎反击战?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;作为交换, 我们可以卖你个人情让你成为他们公司的签约插画师&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there will be more, but for now that's it. Thanks for reading, any help would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17228" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-06-04T03:10:42.560" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T03:10:42.560" Title="What are these sentences in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23974" CreationDate="2017-06-03T00:55:30.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;有点鸡冻! I'm a little excited! (Should be '激动‘， they use 鸡冻 for fun.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;备胎, ‘spare tire' is a girl's nr. 2 bf, when nr. 1 doesn't bring it, although could be applied to a boy's nr. 2 gf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反击战： strike back&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;传说中的备胎反击战? The legendary 'spare tire' strikes back? (Raises eyebrows questioningly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are your reading? Certainly ain't Chinese Literature, no peach blossoms by tinkling streams on mountaintops!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-03T00:55:30.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23976" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-03T02:03:13.530" Score="0" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out the meaning of this symbol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sxIAv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17229" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-06-04T03:10:01.837" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T04:41:37.623" Title="What does this symbol mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23976" CreationDate="2017-06-03T03:11:34.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;氏: clan/surname&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Refer to a clan. eg:曲阜孔氏，means:Qufu(曲阜 placename)'s family/clan with familyname: Kong(孔).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Refer to a person, usually a woman。王氏 means: Someone who is a particular surname Wang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15596" LastActivityDate="2017-06-03T03:11:34.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23976" CreationDate="2017-06-03T03:40:51.123" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is 氏 as in 姓氏 (family name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient time, China was a 母系社会 (matriarchal society). People got their family name from their mother side. That was called '姓'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, 父系社会 (patriarchal societies) started to develop. People began to add the family name from their father side in addition to their 姓 (family name from the mother side) and that family name from the father side was called '氏'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: A woman's family name was 杜 and gave her son the name 明, this 明 person would have a 姓 of 杜 and his full name would be 杜明. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, his father's family name was 李, and this 明 person could legally call himself  '杜姓李氏' (杜 was his family name from his mother's side, and 李 was his family name from his father's side)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, matriarchal society societies was replaced by patriarchal societies completely. The term 姓氏 was consolidated to mean family name (from the father side)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In modern Chinese, the term '姓氏' refers to 'family name' and '姓' is the standard shortened form of '姓氏'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you ask what is someone's family name, you only ask what is his 姓, never what is his 氏. The full term '姓氏' is rarely used colloquially. It appears mostly in written form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;氏 on its own refers to: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A woman's maiden name. For example: 杜门李氏 (married to the 杜 family and maiden name was 李)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Clan's name (interchangeable with 姓) -  both '杜姓一族'  and '杜氏一族' means 'the clan of 杜' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-05T04:41:37.623" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T04:41:37.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23973" CreationDate="2017-06-03T09:58:44.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;面巾 is also a kind of napkin. 面巾 is for face cleaning, 手巾 is for hand cleaning. So 面巾纸 is usually the small pack soft paper napkin you put in your pocket, used for cleaning face. you can think it is the same thing as 纸巾. Here are many things that have different names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This case, it is a combination of 面巾 + 纸. 纸+面巾 is also used. Though 面+纸巾 and other combinations are also logical, but less people use them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17230" LastActivityDate="2017-06-03T09:58:44.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9467" CreationDate="2017-06-03T15:49:47.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me just post the full lyrics and Chinese translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lyrics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Que se quede el infinito sin estrellas, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Y que pierda el ancho mar su inmensidad, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Pero el negro de tus ojos que no muera, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Y el canela de tu piel se quede igual. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;   &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Aunque pierda el arco iris su belleza, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Y las flores su perfume y su color, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  No sería tan inmensa mi tristeza, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Como aquella de quedarme sin tu amor. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;   &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Me importas tú y tú y tú &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Y solamente tú y tú y tú &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Me importas tú y tú y tú &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Y solamente tú, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ojos negros, piel canela, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Que me llegan a desesperar. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Me importas tú y tú y tú &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Y nadie más que tú.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[I'd rather] the infinite [sky] become starless, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  And the vast sea lose its immensity, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  But may the black [colour] of your eyes not die, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  And may the cinnamon [color] of your skin remain equal. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;   &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Even if the rainbow lost its beauty, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Or the flowers [lost] their scent and their colour, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  My sadness wouldn't be as immense &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  As that of finding myself without your love. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;   &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I care about you and you and you &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  And only about you and you and you &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I care about you and you and you &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  And only about you, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Black eyes, cinnamon skin, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Which lead me to despair. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I care about you and you and you &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  And about no one more than about you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese singable translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宁愿无边无际的苍昊来逝星， &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  广大的海岸也宁愿变得小， &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  却希望你眼中的黑色不消失， &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你屁股的肉桂色也来担保。 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;   &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  虽然彩虹可来失去它的美丽， &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  鲜花也可失去颜色和清香， &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我的悲哀一定不会这么天大， &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  不会像失去你爱情的一样。 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;   &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我在乎你和你和你 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  和只有在乎你和你和你 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我在乎你和你和你 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  和只有在乎你， &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  黑色的眼，肉桂色皮， &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他们一定会叫我失望。 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我在乎你和你和你 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  没人比你更爱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any comments are welcome. I tried to keep at least two rhymes per verse, but I must admit &lt;code&gt;danbao&lt;/code&gt; there doesn't convince me, and I fear implying the &lt;code&gt;sadness&lt;/code&gt; in the last line of the second verse might result in understanding trouble…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2017-06-03T15:49:47.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23981" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23985" CreationDate="2017-06-03T19:58:26.980" Score="1" ViewCount="387" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been going to a Chinese restaurant a lot lately, and the owner is a very friendly little old Chinese lady. Should I call her 小老婆 or 小老太? Is it rude to call her 小？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I think Chinese are confusing about their wives and mothers in general. For example, In Japanese, 娘 means young girl, but in Chinese 娘 means mother. 花姑娘 is actually young girl in Chinese. How come flowery-auntie-mother suddenly became a young girl??? Strange!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also，what is the difference between 小姐子 and 大妹子？ Who is older? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, I know 太太 means wife，and 婆婆 means old lady, but I believe 老婆 also can be referred to wife. So old-old lady suddenly become your wife?? So weird!!! There is yet another confusing term: 老太婆。 Does 老太婆 mean wife or old lady?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-26T05:27:56.113" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T05:27:56.113" Title="Difference between 小老婆 and 小老太" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23982" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-03T19:58:35.860" Score="-2" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a quote by Bao Yibo.  I understand the meaning of the quote, but the '之为' constrution is kind of throwing me off:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果把人生比之为杠杆，信念则好像是它的“支点”，具备这个恰当的支点，才可能成为一个强有力的人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would I translate this construction?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T09:42:17.573" Title="Question about 比之为 construction" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23982" CreationDate="2017-06-04T02:22:05.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[比] - [&lt;strong&gt;之&lt;/strong&gt;] - [&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;] - [杠杆]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[compare(v)] - [&lt;strong&gt;it&lt;/strong&gt;(pronoun)] - [&lt;strong&gt;as&lt;/strong&gt;(adverb)] - [lever(object-noun)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 here follows the verb 比. It functions as a pronoun for the indirect object 人生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 here functions as an adverb for the verb 比. [比为] = [compare as]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[教师] - [&lt;strong&gt;之&lt;/strong&gt;] - [&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;] - [教]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[teacher(n)] - [&lt;strong&gt;'s&lt;/strong&gt;(possessive particle)] - [preform(auxiliary verb)] - [teaching(v)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 (being) here is an auxiliary verb for the main verb  教&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 here follows the subject noun 教师 , it is a possessive particle that indicate 教师 possess the clause 为教&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T09:42:17.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23981" CreationDate="2017-06-04T03:02:12.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should I call her 小老婆 or 小老太? Is it rude to call her 小？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't use either of the two expressions to address ladies. 小老婆 means concubine. As for 老太, ladies' reactions towards that expression vary. Some ladies may feel insulted and others complimented. 小老太 is rather strange to me, although it might be used by areas I'm not native to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How come flowery-auntie-mother suddenly became a young girl??? Strange!!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not use 花姑娘 either. It is almost only portrayed as an expression used by Japanese invaders to refer to girls they wanted to insult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;what is the difference between 小姐子 and 大妹子？ Who is older?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think the expression 小姐子 exists. 大妹子 is quite similar to &quot;sister&quot; used by black females to talk to or about each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;So old-old lady suddenly become your wife??&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does not happen suddenly. 老婆 used to have meanings of both old ladies and one's wife but now the latter prevails. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does 老太婆 mean wife or old lady?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both. But it is offensive to call an old lady 老太婆 if you two are not close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, just call her 婆婆 or 奶奶. I have not seen an old friendly Chinese lady who does not like these two titles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T03:02:12.120" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23986" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23991" CreationDate="2017-06-04T09:46:33.833" Score="2" ViewCount="623" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in the ones with 然 and 旧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very hard to tell from example sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他仍旧住在那老房子里。 He still lived in the old house.&#xA;他仍然住在那条街上。 He is still living on that street.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有些问题仍旧没有解决。 Some problems remain to be solved.&#xA;我仍然相信他是无辜的。 I still believe he's innocent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it that one is relative to a shorter time and one is relative to a longer time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T17:05:32.343" Title="What is the difference in usage between the pairs 依然/仍然 and 依旧/仍旧?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23987" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23988" CreationDate="2017-06-04T09:56:54.190" Score="2" ViewCount="6539" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard &lt;em&gt;laoban&lt;/em&gt; being used multiple times when addressing shopkeepers. But who exactly do you refer as &lt;em&gt;laoban&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I suppose it's safe to address your boss as &lt;em&gt;laoban&lt;/em&gt; regardless of where you work, but if you're a costumer should &lt;em&gt;laoban&lt;/em&gt; be used only for the boss/owner, or can one safely refer to any employee like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a school setting, for example, if the director is the owner can you call them &lt;em&gt;laoban&lt;/em&gt;? What if it's the receptionist and you don't know who the boss/owner is? What if you work at that place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as ways of addressing go, are there more than one &lt;em&gt;laoban&lt;/em&gt; in a given shop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these scenarios, what would be some other forms of addressing if there are better ones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17172" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-06-06T02:14:35.860" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T05:45:37.607" Title="When is it appropriate to address someone as 老板 [laoban]?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23987" CreationDate="2017-06-04T11:12:42.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Laoban is often used in daily speaking language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People working in shop or restaurant often use this to address their customer to show some &quot;respect&quot; or to make you feel good. Like in the car washing shop, they often call you &quot;Boss&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The beginning uses the word was from late 80's, start from the south part of China, maybe GuangDong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are working in a high-tech or similar place normally don't directly use this word to call your boss. But it's absolute normal use it when chatting with your colleague. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For University, graduate school students often use laoban to address their director teacher. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally in daily life, you can use laoban to call anyone is in the manager place. Like you can call your partner laoban.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17159" LastEditorUserId="17159" LastEditDate="2017-06-04T11:20:23.753" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T11:20:23.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23994" CreationDate="2017-06-04T12:14:26.157" Score="2" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand this is not strictly related to Chinese Language but may be helpful for people taking the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetest.cn/gosign.do?lid=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/JaUpxel.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is what the test form looks like. The first part contains the personal info. The second part the answers to the test. Additionally, you will have a booklet with the questions (and that you will have to return). You will need to have a pencil to mark the right boxes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The form will be read and evaluated by a machine. What is the most appropriate way to mark the boxes? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16674" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T07:43:49.660" Title="HSK form machine readability" Tags="&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23986" CreationDate="2017-06-04T15:33:58.263" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;仍旧 means 'still (&lt;strong&gt;as always&lt;/strong&gt;/ same as the past)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;依旧/仍旧 is more specific term for 'still'. It express something '&lt;strong&gt;stay the same despite passing of time&lt;/strong&gt; '&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 1 : 五十年过去了, 他仍旧住在那条街上 (fifty years is a long time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 2 : 三年过去了, 我仍旧相信他是无辜的 (three years have passed, nothing changed, I still believe he is innocent)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仍然 means 'still (&lt;strong&gt;despite of&lt;/strong&gt;)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;依然/仍然 is more general term for 'still'. It express something '&lt;strong&gt;stay the same despite any opposing force or reason&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 3 : 五十年过去了, 他仍然住在那条街上 (despite the fact that many things would had been changed in 50 years)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 4 : 尽管有这么多证据,我仍然相信他是无辜的 (despite the fact that all the evidences are against him, I still believe he is innocent)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;*仍旧/依旧 is actually a shortened form of 依然如旧 / 仍然如旧(still like always/ still like before/ still like in the past)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Although they can be used interchangeably sometimes, they are not synonyms.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T19:30:56.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23989" CreationDate="2017-06-04T21:33:15.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using 4B pencil, mark the whole box with solid black. (For me, 2B is not dark enough and 4B+ is too soft, green 中华牌铅笔 is the best.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sharp your pencil with a knife (don't use pencil sharpener) and make sure the pencil top can cover the whole box with a single stroke, this can save your time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prepare 2 or more pencil for the test and protect your pencil top, also prepare a good eraser. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Print out or buy sample answer sheet and do some practice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally this sheet will give to you before the real test paper, immediately mark your personal information at this stage will save some time and double check your information is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://jingyan.baidu.com/album/4d58d5411d1ddf9dd4e9c0e3.html?stepindex=1&amp;amp;st=5&amp;amp;net_type=&amp;amp;bd_page_type=1&amp;amp;os=1&amp;amp;rst=&amp;amp;word=%E6%8B%9B%E8%A1%8C%E5%8D%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a Chinese Version Guide&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17159" LastEditorUserId="17159" LastEditDate="2017-06-04T22:08:20.377" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T22:08:20.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23995" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24002" CreationDate="2017-06-04T23:01:40.127" Score="5" ViewCount="2316" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see these two road signs at Nankai University (Jinnan campus), Tianjin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IeYDds.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IeYDds.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请勿泊车 = qǐng wù bóchē&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/INQzWs.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/INQzWs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;禁止停车 = jìnzhǐ tíngchē&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both seem to mean &quot;no parking&quot; with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%AF%B7%E5%8B%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;请勿&lt;/a&gt; meaning &quot;please no ...&quot; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%A6%81%E6%AD%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;禁止&lt;/a&gt; meaning &quot;forbidden ...&quot;, and&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%B3%8A%E8%BD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;泊车&lt;/a&gt; meaning something like &quot;anchor car&quot; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%81%9C%E8%BD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;停车&lt;/a&gt; meaning &quot;stop car&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 停车 (tíngchē) and 泊车 (bóchē), which both seem to mean &quot;park car&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-06-05T05:18:51.393" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T13:32:59.943" Title="What's the difference between 停车 (tíngchē) and 泊车 (bóchē), which both seem to mean &quot;park car&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23995" CreationDate="2017-06-04T23:12:26.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe they mean the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, &lt;code&gt;泊&lt;/code&gt; is pronounced &lt;code&gt;paak3&lt;/code&gt;, so I'm pretty sure that it's a phonetic loan from English &quot;park&quot;, with the character chosen to be at least suggestive of the meaning (as opposed to some other character pronounced like &lt;code&gt;paak&lt;/code&gt;). However, as you've noticed, both &lt;code&gt;泊车&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;停车&lt;/code&gt; are in use on the mainland, regardless of whether &lt;code&gt;泊车&lt;/code&gt; came via Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T23:12:26.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23997" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23998" CreationDate="2017-06-04T23:20:16.760" Score="0" ViewCount="1464" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VVIuzbpWEs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; guy says every Chinese character has a pronunciation that can be written in roman letters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to configure &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com.br/#en/zh-CN/hi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; so that when I type &lt;code&gt;hi&lt;/code&gt; it translates to &lt;code&gt;Ni hao&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17234" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-06-06T02:13:08.047" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T02:13:08.047" Title="Google Translate English to Chinese roman letters" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-06-20T11:01:18.990" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23997" CreationDate="2017-06-05T01:19:54.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No that does not seem to be possible. However, if you take a look at below the translation, it'll tell you the pinyin pronunciation: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H1icb.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H1icb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16173" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T01:19:54.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23995" CreationDate="2017-06-05T06:25:52.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stumpy is right. actually &quot;泊&quot; is transliteration of &quot;parking&quot;, so &quot;泊车&quot; is closer to the meaning of &quot;parking&quot;. In my opinion, the scope of &quot;停车&quot; is bigger than &quot;泊车&quot;, any action of &quot;stopping a car&quot; can be recognized as &quot;停车&quot;; When stop and get off the car to do something long term(go shopping or go to hospital...), we can consider it &quot;泊车&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17240" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T06:25:52.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23995" CreationDate="2017-06-05T07:42:05.893" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;泊 has the meaning of stop, which was used in term &quot;泊船&quot; (put a boat ship alongside quay / land), and &quot;泊車&quot; (stoping a chariot / car). both terms appeared in literatures of yore, describing the stopping status of vessels, or vehicles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;泊船&quot; was used in the book &quot;異苑&quot; volume 3, by mr 劉敬叔 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Song_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;劉宋 dynasty (420-479)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8k1Qw.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8k1Qw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;泊車&quot; was used in the book &quot;孫可之集&quot; volume 5, by mr 孫樵 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;唐 dynasty (618-907)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;樵起耒而遊﹒泊車而休﹒登降信宿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%AD%AB%E5%8F%AF%E4%B9%8B%E9%9B%86_(%E5%9B%9B%E5%BA%AB%E5%85%A8%E6%9B%B8%E6%9C%AC)/%E5%8D%B705&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/孫可之集_(四庫全書本)/卷05&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here, &quot;泊車&quot; had the meaning of &quot;stopping a vehicle&quot; (i guess it's chariot).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;though &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B3%8A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;泊 (u+6cca)&lt;/a&gt; in cantonese can be pronounced as paak3, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/paak3.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;, it's a deviation. in 廣韻, 泊 is 傍各切, which is bok6 :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would say that &quot;parking&quot; is translated to 泊 originally (according to the meaning), then with the influence of english, the cantonese pronunciation of &quot;泊&quot; (bok6) derived another pronunciation paak3, to stimulate the english pronunciation of &quot;park&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;泊 is not phonetic loan from &quot;parking&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T07:42:05.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23995" CreationDate="2017-06-05T08:23:39.627" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;People are missing an important point here. 停車 means stopping -- look at the sign, it is a cross: two red lines on blue. This means that not only you can't park, you're not allowed to stop at the curb (to drop off or pick up someone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kpokN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kpokN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;No parking vs No stopping&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-06-05T13:32:59.943" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T13:32:59.943" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23995" CreationDate="2017-06-05T08:35:06.360" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4k5j8.png&quot; width=&quot;100&quot; height=&quot;100&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;请勿泊车 = No Parking&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No Parking mean you can stop the vehicle there, and you can load or&#xA;  unload people and goods, but you can't leave the vehicle unattended&#xA;  and go off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/80zuT.jpg&quot; width=&quot;100&quot; height=&quot;100&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;禁止停车 = No Stopping&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No Stopping means no dropping people off or picking them up, and no&#xA;  loading/unloading. You're not supposed to be there unless you're&#xA;  moving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The signs above the text should clarify - they are international signs and there is only a slight difference between the individual meanings of &lt;code&gt;Stopping&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Standing/Waiting&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;Parking&lt;/code&gt;, anywhere in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;No Stopping&lt;/code&gt; signs are the strictest, and &lt;code&gt;No Parking&lt;/code&gt; signs are the most lenient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17241" LastEditorUserId="17241" LastEditDate="2017-06-05T08:50:07.670" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T08:50:07.670" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23666" CreationDate="2017-06-05T12:34:17.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  No translation is simply better in every way that Joly's.  Some are easier for westerners uninformed on China to read. Others are more literal.  Others are less literal.  Take your choice on that issue.  Many translate more of the book.  Joly's strength is that he is intent on conveying obscure references in the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently you think Joly got it wrong because he talks about a monkey and there is no monkey in the Chinese.  But look at it from a translator's point of view.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As 夜是美 explains, this passage uses a colorful Chinese idiom from a folk tale that westerners are not going to know, about a puppy tail.  The phrase  ‘狗长尾巴尖儿’ is actually not the usual way to refer to a birthday in China. More often you would say something plainer (and less insulting) like 生日. The author deliberately chose to express the idea in a colorful way--and Joly wants to convey that choice.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Joly gives you the literal puppy tail.  But how is he to convey that this dog's tail is part of a familiar tale?  Rather than explain the point in a footnote, he adds a reference to the one Chinese folk tale/classic story that westerners may know: the story of Monkey King.  Dog's tail and classic tale in one paragraph. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is even possible that some of the older Chinese texts actually mention Monkey.  But whether they do or not, each translator has to pick which texts to use.  Joly chose to convey the folktale character of this image.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-06-05T13:40:49.750" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T13:40:49.750" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24004" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24005" CreationDate="2017-06-05T12:45:09.303" Score="1" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I buy something and give the exact change, the cashier will almost always say &quot;[something] hǎo&quot;, but I'm not sure what [something] is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What are people saying when I buy something using the exact change?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like &quot;gèng hǎo&quot; or &quot;zhàng hǎo&quot; or something along these lines.  It might possibly be &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%9B%B4%E5%A5%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;更好&lt;/a&gt;, or it could be something else.  I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-06-05T13:16:59.563" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T13:41:10.277" Title="What are people saying when I buy something using the exact change?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24004" CreationDate="2017-06-05T13:22:02.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is most likely &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/30210/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;剛好&lt;/a&gt;&quot; [&lt;em&gt;gang1 hao3&lt;/em&gt;] - &quot;just exactly right&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Short for : &quot;不多，不少， 剛剛好&quot;  (not more, not less, just exactly right) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The cashier say that to confirm it is the exact amount of money for the purchase (so the purchase is accepted, but no change will be given)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5995/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;正好&lt;/a&gt;&quot;  [&lt;em&gt;zheng4 hao3&lt;/em&gt;] - &quot;just exactly right&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Short for : 正好 (X amount) - confirming the amount of money you give him or her is the exact amount for the purchase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chances are, you heard them both in different time from different cashiers. Both are what a cashier could say when someone pays with exact change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-05T13:41:10.277" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T13:41:10.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23986" CreationDate="2017-06-05T16:34:34.397" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Joining @Levin, I deem them identical (仍然=仍旧). Both are old-fashioned. A more colloquial term is 還是 (lit. remain to be).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T16:34:34.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24010" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-06T00:46:57.393" Score="0" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine I am in Beijing, and I just returned from a trip to Shanghai. A friend in Shanghai calls me and asks &quot;你回北京去了吗?&quot; I can't really say 对 or 没错 or 是的 to confirm his question, because I did not 回去, I 回来ed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it acceptable to respond with &quot;我回去了&quot; or must I say &quot;我回来了?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16787" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T13:34:04.557" Title="来 去 depending on location" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24010" CreationDate="2017-06-06T01:03:09.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please read this previously asked question : &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23937/are-both-%e5%9b%9e%e4%ba%86-and-%e5%9b%9e%e6%9d%a5%e4%ba%86-correct-responses-to-%e4%bd%a0%e5%9b%9e%e5%a4%a9%e6%b4%a5%e4%ba%86%e5%90%97-have-you-returned-to-tianjin&quot;&gt;Are both 回了 and 回来了 correct responses to 你回天津了吗 (have you returned to Tianjin)?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you are currently in Beijing, the answer should be ' Yes I have &lt;strong&gt;came&lt;/strong&gt; back to Beijing' (我回北京&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;了 or simply 回来了 or even 回了)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The answer is in your own perspective&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you replied: &amp;quot;Yes, I have gone back to Beijing&amp;quot; (我回北京去了) Then you are pretending you are in Shanghai with your friend, because your voice is heard in Shanghai via the telephone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The answer  would be in your friend's perspective&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion: both 回来了 ( your perspective) and 回去了 (your friend's perspective) are acceptable over the phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you omit 来 or 去 and just say : &amp;quot;回了&amp;quot; then it can be interpreted either way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be much simpler if both you and your friend were in the same location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T01:24:33.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24012" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-06T02:22:12.507" Score="1" ViewCount="193" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tones are of course essential to distinguish meaning in Mandarin. However, how important are they if you compare with vowels or consonants?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, to a native, what sounds &quot;more wrong&quot; - to mispronounce a vowel or a tone? And to what degree?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17172" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T16:27:07.517" Title="How important are tones in comparison with vowels or consonants in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;mistakes&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24012" CreationDate="2017-06-06T03:25:17.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel that tones are more important than pronunciations. I can still understand the speaker if he mispronounced 这(zhe) as 则(ze). In fact, such mispronunciations as using &quot;zi ci&quot; for &quot;zhi chi&quot; are invented deliberately and are quite popular among netizens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for tones, I have to admit I have not met with a native speaker with wrong or eccentric tones, regardless of his educational background. When someone with &quot;wrong&quot; tones shows up in a play, you can be sure that he is not native. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T03:25:17.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24014" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-06T03:48:22.353" Score="3" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;this question is made, and answer provided; in lieu of a long comment. though info might be controversial (from that &lt;strong&gt;area&lt;/strong&gt;'s view), i sincerely hope that it's helpful to anyone interested in chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the original question is here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23995/whats-the-difference-between-%E5%81%9C%E8%BD%A6-t%C3%ADngch%C4%93-and-%E6%B3%8A%E8%BD%A6-b%C3%B3ch%C4%93-which-both-seem-to-me/24000?noredirect=1#comment35565_24000&quot;&gt;What&amp;#39;s the difference between 停车 (t&amp;#237;ngchē) and 泊车 (b&amp;#243;chē), which both seem to mean &amp;quot;park car&amp;quot;?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;let's start: how to find particular words / clauses in literatures of yore (texts in classical / literary chinese)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are there any databases, sites that's suitable for this task?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T04:01:39.657" Title="how to search words / clauses in classical / literary chinese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24014" CreationDate="2017-06-06T04:01:39.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;to search words / clauses (combinations of 2-9 characters) in classical / literary chinese, it's straightforward; if you know the methods, and able to visit the recommended sites {some of them are blocked in that &quot;area&quot; :( }&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in short:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1   using traditional chinese is a must, no simplified chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2   knowledge of variant (異體字)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3   search by google&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4   using reliable, trustable databases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5   able to read classical / literary chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6   knowledge of cantonese is a plus, a big one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in details:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;using traditional chinese is a must, no simplified chinese&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as i know, databases containing texts of classical /  literary chinese are all in traditional chinese. and, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siku_Quanshu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;imperial collection of four (四庫全書)&lt;/a&gt; are written in traditional chinese. meanwhile, simplified chinese was introduce in 1950s, in that area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;occasionally, some modern chinese words has a long history, way back to thousand of years old. so, if one want to know &quot;did&quot; any particular words appear in literatures of yore, the search must be in traditional chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg  &quot;泊车&quot; ---&gt; &quot;泊車&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;knowledge of variant (異體字)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would recommend these two sites, for checking variant character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;教育部異體字字典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國際電腦漢字及異體字知識庫&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sometime, particular character would be used in ancient time, that, another one is used nowadays. so, if search cannot trigger desirable results, use the variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg  並 (u+4e26) ---&gt;　竝 (u+7add)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;based on my reading experience of numerous books of 四庫全書, 竝 (u+7add) was &quot;trendy&quot; in ancient time, that 並 (u+4e26) is rarely used. so, if &quot;並&quot; do not trigger any result, use &quot;竝&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg  &quot;沙上並禽池上暝&quot; ---&gt; &quot;沙上竝禽池上暝&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;search by google&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there're significant differences in searching, by google or bing (no noticeable difference in mac or windows)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sometime, there're hundreds, or thousands of results, my trick is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;searchword&quot; -china -.cn -baidu -baike&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;only using reliable, trustable database &lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now, this's the core of this answer. remember &lt;strong&gt;&quot;garbage in, garbage out&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as at june 2017, recommended sites for searching in literatures of yore are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kanripo.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kanseki Repository&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this database was opened to public in march 2016, the best in current time. there're minor caveats, for average usage, it scores 90 out of 100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢文大藏經&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;buddhism has a large influence in chinese culture, this one is important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;internet archive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the internet archive has full-text-search function now, searching words in traditional chinese would trigger interesting results :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chinese text project&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one is, 50 of 100; worth a try before &quot;surrender&quot; (rant: certain ocr scannings are &quot;full of errors&quot;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the only two &quot;dictionaries&quot; that i trust:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/search.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國語辭典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;粵語審音配詞字庫&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;personally, i do not believe any sources in simplified chinese; i might read, but, i always counter-check with other reliable sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reminder: &lt;strong&gt;garbage in, garbage out&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;able to read classical / literary chinese&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;though chinese texts are punctuated nowadays, text in literatures of yore are not. so any search results must be read carefully. do the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000096985&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;句讀&lt;/a&gt; independently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sometime, combination of characters might had other meaning, or, these characters are put together &quot;by chance&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;knowledge of cantonese is a plus, a big one&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, cantonese is highly correlated to middle chinese, some terms in ancient time is still used in cantonese today. further, if phonology is touched, cantonese has significant advantages over . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;stop here now, have fun 　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T04:01:39.657" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23987" CreationDate="2017-06-06T12:52:47.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, laoban is to address male and for female it's laobanniang 老板娘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In university, students often refer to their supervisor (male or female) as laoban when talking with other students. When addressing their supervisor directly or in formal situation, it's Prof. X (eg, 王教授)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, people address company owner as X总 (eg 王总), or anyone as C-level. And in fact to show respect and be flattery, people start to address each other X总 no matter the employment status.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T12:52:47.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24010" CreationDate="2017-06-06T13:24:39.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我回去了:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I am going back, or: I will go back (to the place I come from).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我回来了:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I am coming back, or, I have come back (from the place I had been to).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要回北京去了:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I am going back to Beijing, or: I will go back to Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我已经回北京了:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I am coming back to Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我从上海回来了:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I am coming back from Shanghai, or, I have just come back from Shanghai.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have arrived in Beijing, you may answer him:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我回来了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我回北京了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我已经回（到）北京了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you are still in Shanghai, and about to go back, you may answer him:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我(要)回北京去了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character in brackets can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-06-06T13:34:04.557" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T13:34:04.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23215" CreationDate="2017-06-06T14:42:06.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the other answers say, the whole story of expressing emotion though intonation is terribly complicated in any language.  But here is a very articulate discussion of one aspect from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesepod.com/lessons/express-delivery#comment-282272&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChinesePod&lt;/a&gt; concerning complex sandhi of third tones.  I quote it since the web page may be available only to subscribers.  It describes sandhi in a sentence, using 2 and 3 as tone numbers on the first four words 我 等你 等 as pronounced.  Of course all these characters have assigned tone 3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These tones below are what's usually said in this sentence and how it&#xA;  is meaningfully broken down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我 等 你 等了 10 分鐘 了 。 3   2  3  3  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, the start of the sentence, 我, sounded like a second tone&#xA;  because the sentence was said emotionally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It's same when you say 我想你 in just regular tone. It would be 323.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If somebody is really emotionally yelling this out it would sound like&#xA;  223 as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is in the context of a new series they put up on on pronunciation, called Say It Right, which is worth looking at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-06-06T15:17:51.230" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T15:17:51.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24012" CreationDate="2017-06-06T16:27:07.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mispronunciation of tones sounds &quot;more wrong&quot;, probably not because it is more wrong, but rather more random and so, harder to determine what the speaker means to say. Mispronunciation of sounds tends to be systematic, e.g. consistently mispronouncing &quot;zh&quot; as &quot;z&quot;, etc. This is called an accent.&#xA;Every language that we know of has consonant and vowel sounds. When one tries to learn a foreign language with unfamiliar sounds, one may substitute, thus resulting in an accent. Most people can understand someone who speaks with an accent because as I said above, it is a systematic substitution of one sound for another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tones, however, presents quite a different problem for learners whose native language does not have tones. The mistakes are likely more random, and so, harder for the hearer to decipher what the intended tone is. And because of this, it sounds &quot;more wrong&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said this, however, for learners whose native language has tones, for instance, a Cantonese speaker learning Mandarin, or the other way around, then the mistake will again likely be more systematic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A person who is learning Chinese should really think of the consonant/vowel/tone as a packaged deal. All components are essential to pronouncing a word correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Happy learning! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T16:27:07.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24020" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24137" CreationDate="2017-06-06T17:11:20.040" Score="1" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in learning Mandarin bit by bit via listening to music, having conversations with friends who are native to that language, movies and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some background I have many ethnic Chinese friends with whom I talk on daily basis.  I try to read into their conversation and ask about meaning of some words from them later on using them in my mixed English+Chinese speech which sounds funny!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am also a fan of Zhou Chieh Lun (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Chou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jay Chou&lt;/a&gt;) and some other singers. Plus, I have been following many Malaysian Chinese YouTubers because of my personal interest who sometimes make videos in Mandarin/Canton.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't have anyone with me interested in learning with whom I can easily discuss without annoying them. I miss that catalyst part in learning Mandarin.  I tried using YouTube but it was not that effective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there anything I am doing wrong in my approach to learning Mandarin?&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I haven't started thinking about writing style though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17250" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-22T01:45:26.207" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T01:45:26.207" Title="How do I improve Mandarin vocal conversation?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24020" CreationDate="2017-06-06T21:15:44.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Live in China and use it every day may be the best and quickest way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like learning everything, start from the beginning, learn some basic words, pronunciation, and grammar, then gradually increase the level, like Oxford Reading Tree for primary school pupils.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Watching TV, movie, listening music, reading a novel, all can be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17159" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T21:15:44.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24023" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-06T23:43:29.960" Score="4" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the phrase, it is from Buddhist scripture: 有比丘五下分結盡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know 有 as &quot;to be&quot;, &quot;to have&quot;, and as often serving as a translation for the Sanskrit &lt;em&gt;bhāva&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this usage something like &quot;being monks, [etc]&quot;?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T08:26:12.937" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T08:26:12.937" Title="What is the usage of 有 in 有比丘五下分結盡?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19171" CreationDate="2017-06-07T00:27:55.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;汉字分解。 Decomposition of the Chinese Character  火 huǒ  ‘fire’ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丷  bā eight,&#xA;人  rén man, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丷人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese, Character, Breakdown, Decomposition, Analysis, Strokes, Language, Dictionary, Textbook, Break Down, Split, Analyze, Decompose, Learn, Memorize, Broken Down&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More information: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/the-chinese-character-decomposition-guidance/18847104&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/the-chinese-character-decomposition-guidance/18847104&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/polina985&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/polina985&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15688" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T00:27:55.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24025" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24026" CreationDate="2017-06-07T00:35:28.403" Score="0" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to identify the first character in this image:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gzyL9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gzyL9.png&quot; alt=&quot;unknown character followed by &amp;quot;口棋&amp;quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it helps, the pronunciation is meant to be &quot;pong&quot; (the whole phrase is Cantonese &quot;pong hau kei&quot;). I've tried looking through some Jyutping dictionaries for &quot;pong&quot; but I can't figure out if any of the characters match – the right-hand side seems to be significantly simplified in the handwritten version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the following two characters are &quot;口棋&quot;, and the whole phrase is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong_Hau_K%27i&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the name of a simple game&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4048" LastEditorUserId="4048" LastEditDate="2017-06-07T00:45:34.383" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T02:19:32.673" Title="What is this handwritten character?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24025" CreationDate="2017-06-07T01:56:08.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found this word. Please refer to: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/13/js/4981.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simplified&lt;/a&gt; -- &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/a7/js/289DC.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Traditional&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified as [䦁] while Traditional as []&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;粵語：bong1, not &quot;pong&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English Meaning: a broad hoe, a mattock&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastEditorUserId="17191" LastEditDate="2017-06-07T02:19:32.673" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T02:19:32.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24023" CreationDate="2017-06-07T02:36:28.987" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;in 雜阿含經　卷二十九, [0209c13]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/T02n0099_029&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/T02n0099_029&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in this scripture &quot;有&quot; is used as &quot;there was / were&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;started from:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今此眾中諸長老比丘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now (今) the senior monks (諸長老比丘) in the audience (此眾中)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有得初禪﹒第二禪﹒第三禪﹒第四禪﹒慈﹒悲﹒喜﹒捨﹒空入處﹒識入處﹒無所有入處﹒非想非非想處具足住&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有比丘三結盡﹒得須陀洹﹒不墮惡趣法﹒決定正向三菩提﹒七有天人往生﹒究竟苦邊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有比丘三結盡﹒貪﹒恚﹒癡薄﹒得斯陀含&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有比丘五下分結盡﹒得阿那含﹒生般涅槃﹒不復還生此世&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有比丘得無量神通境界﹒天耳﹒他心智﹒宿命智﹒&#xA;  生死智﹒漏盡智&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有比丘修不淨觀﹒斷貪欲﹒修慈心﹒斷瞋恚﹒修無常想﹒斷我慢﹒修安那般那念﹒斷覺想&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the buddha (世尊) described that there was / were (有) some monk(s) (比丘) gain various level of achievements&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, i'm not dare translate these buddhism terms, please consult specialised dictionary :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T02:36:28.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23987" CreationDate="2017-06-07T05:07:13.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;老闆 (zh-Hant) or 老板 (zh-Hans), is the shopkeeper of a store, a restaurant, etc, even a street stall seller, or the few top leaders of a company/corporation, or the title of a businessman, etc. In other words, he/she must be the founder or owner or top leader of his/her business or career, no matter how much scale the business or career is. If a 老板 is male, you may call his wife as 老闆娘 or 老板娘. If female, you may also call her as 老板.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T05:07:13.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23987" CreationDate="2017-06-07T05:39:38.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;老闆 (老板)【lao2 ban3】 can be used when a customer addressing shopkeepers. On the other hand, 老闆娘 is used when a customer addressing a female shopkeeps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Cantonese Culture is different. 老闆 (娘) is used when a customer addressing shopkeepers &lt;strong&gt;OR&lt;/strong&gt; a shopkeeper addressing a customer (a wealthy or normal customer). Not just that, people often use 事頭【si6 tau4】 or 事頭婆 【si6 tau4 po4】 (for female) when calling a shopkeeper or a customer.  老世（細）【lou5 sai3】 can also be used to address 老闆 too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember 老闆 or 老闆娘 can be used when &lt;strong&gt;business trading&lt;/strong&gt;, a girl addressing her &lt;strong&gt;boyfriend&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;addressing the boss you are working with&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in some cases, 老闆 can be used as vulgar or in prostitution. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;- Vulgar: 你老闆！(Similar to 你媽的 or you mother f*cker.)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;- Prostitution: It is similar to business trading, paying for some goods or services, like 老闆，你今晚要不要特別服務 or Boss, do you want to have some s*x tonight?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems 老闆 these words can be used in everywhere, but be careful when you are using these, because different situation it would bring different meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you said in a school setting, for example, if the director is the owner can you call them laoban? &lt;strong&gt;We usually call him 校長，校監(different from 保安)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if it's the receptionist and you don't know who the boss/owner is?  &lt;strong&gt;We usually call him 經理，老總（rude）&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if you work at that place? &lt;strong&gt;We usually call him 經理，老總 (polite)，老闆&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 老總 is considered &lt;strong&gt;BAD&lt;/strong&gt; when a customer request to see workers' boss. May be the services they provided are bad.&#xA;老總 is considered &lt;strong&gt;POLITE&lt;/strong&gt; when a worker calling his/her boss/team leader. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastEditorUserId="17191" LastEditDate="2017-06-07T05:45:37.607" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T05:45:37.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24030" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24035" CreationDate="2017-06-07T07:52:53.953" Score="2" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the proper translation of 妖怪? Let's take the context of &lt;em&gt;Journey To The West&lt;/em&gt; for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妖怪 consists of two parts 妖 and 怪 - 妖 is short for 妖精 and 怪 is short for 怪物.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妖怪 often gets translated as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;monster, goblin, demon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Should it not be a combination of spirit and monster?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-06-07T08:42:53.453" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T20:09:58.423" Title="Proper translation of 妖怪?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24031" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24034" CreationDate="2017-06-07T07:56:44.390" Score="4" ViewCount="1373" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always translated 羊肉 as &lt;em&gt;mutton&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mutton is not really a protein eaten in the west. Lamb is eaten a lot but that is 小羊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Goat is said to be the most widely consumed protein in the world. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How often is 羊肉 goat in Chinese and not mutton?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T16:00:25.550" Title="How often is 羊肉 Goat in chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14629" CreationDate="2017-06-07T08:18:17.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;干(乾) means dry here, like 干果(乾果) means dry fruit. Here, 干货(乾貨) means dry foods. It means something like an opinion, a speech, or an article is helpful, pragmatic, practical, but not vacuous, theoretical, nonsensical, in Internet circles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T08:18:17.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24023" CreationDate="2017-06-07T08:52:42.980" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有比丘五下分結盡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有（些）比丘五下分結（已滅）盡。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有些比丘已滅盡五下分結。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Some&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; bhiksus (Sanskrit: bhikṣu) have completely eliminated five lower-realm bonds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此處之「下分」是指「欲界」。三界中，欲界處於最下層，低於色界、無色界，故稱之為下分。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;下分 here means Realm of Sensuous Desire (Sanskrit: kāma-dhātu). It is the lowest level in the Three Realms, lower than the Realm of Form and the Realm of Formlessness. Thus, it is named 下分(界).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「結」是「繫縛」之義，亦即「煩惱」。此等煩惱繫縛眾生於三界，令吾等無止盡地輪迴，故名之為「結」。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;結 (Sanskrit: saṃyojana; bandhana) here means the bond, whose alias is the affliction (Sanskrit: kleśa). The affliction fastens all beings in the Three Realms, and makes us transmigrate endlessly. Therefore, it is named 結.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五下分結 （Sanskrit: pañca-āvara-bhāgīya-saṃyojanāni, five lower-realm bonds）：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;貪 (desire)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;瞋 (anger; dislike)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;身見：執著實我 (real self)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;戒取：邪戒 (heretical precept or discipline)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;疑 (doubt)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T08:52:42.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24031" CreationDate="2017-06-07T09:03:43.467" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, 'lamb' is meat from young sheep and 'mutton' is meat from adult sheep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Young goat meat in Chinese is '小羊肉'  (a goat under a year old).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adult goat meat in Chinese is  '山羊肉' or simply '羊肉'.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Goat meat is commonly consumed by Chinese, but far less than pork and beef.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;How often is 羊肉 goat in Chinese and not mutton?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The term '羊肉' always refers to 'goat meat' in China.&lt;/strong&gt; 'Mutton' is translated as 绵羊肉 and 'lamb' is translated as 羔羊肉. Almost no one eats them in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since most of China has no sheep, the terms 'lamb' and 'mutton' in China are  adopted to describe 'young goat meat' and 'goat meat' respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put, 'lamb' and 'mutton' in Chinese should be 羔羊肉 and 绵羊肉, but most Chinese think 'lamb' and 'mutton' mean '小羊肉(young goat meat)' and '山羊肉(goat meat)'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;History of the_domestic sheep&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_domestic_sheep&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_domestic_sheep&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sheep are not an important part of China's agricultural economy, since the majority of China does not have the large open pastures required for sheep-rearing.[20] Sheep farming is more common in the northwestern provinces of the country, where such tracts of land exist.[21] China does have a native sheep breed, the zhan. The population of the breed has been in decline since 1985, despite government promotion of the breed.[22]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since China is quite hilly, sheep farming mostly confined to the minorities tribes in northern edge of the country. A typical Han Chinese might not had seen a sheep in his entire life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;China’s Goat Industry&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ccagr.com/content/view/115/179/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.ccagr.com/content/view/115/179/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;China is home to more than 100 million meat goats. Farmers produce a total output of more than 1.5 million tons annually. Most of the meat produced is consumed by the nation while little is exported on the world market.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the huge number of goats in China, we can safely presume almost everyone in China who say he had eaten 羊肉 before, meant he had eaten 'goat meat' (not sheep meat).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T16:00:25.550" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24030" CreationDate="2017-06-07T09:35:24.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For my information, 妖 is related to ...uhm temptress? Which means an alluring woman who seduces or exploits men &lt;strong&gt;OR&lt;/strong&gt; a woman considered sexually attractive by men. Often being used on female. Normally 妖 is able to control someone's (male's) mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怪 means something is really peculiar or weird. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妖物 or 妖怪 was born from a temptress and a peculiar thing, it does have its own mind or negative thoughts and extraordinary abilities. Hence, we called them monster, goblin, devil and so on，while spirit is just a force or energy which does not have a physical or virtual body and cannot do anything (don't confuse with ghost).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Should it not be a combination of spirit and monster?&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Answer: &lt;strong&gt;Well, it's so so.&lt;/strong&gt; People may say yes, while people may say no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spirit is meant by 靈魂 / 幽靈 (meaning approached to &quot;ghost&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, a combination of spirit and monster, I can't actually explain in full in English. But you can watch this movie: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2771800/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;See Here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to know more about the spirit and monster hybrid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A combination of spirit and monster, something like a spirit (more like ghost) conquers a monster's body which the monster's body does not have mind / thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope I did answer your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastEditorUserId="17191" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T02:24:34.813" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T02:24:34.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24036" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24067" CreationDate="2017-06-07T11:45:12.850" Score="0" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this English translation of: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.innerjourneytothewest.com/english/books/JTW/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Journey To The West&lt;/a&gt; on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.innerjourneytothewest.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Inner Journey To The West&lt;/a&gt; dot com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't see any information about the translation though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who did it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was it published?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it in the public domain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their main page doesn't say anything (that I can see) as regard to the translation itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: is it just Walther Sell himself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the copyright at the bottom writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;© copyright 2009 - 2017 Walther Sell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and there is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.innerjourneytothewest.com/english/en-book.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;new abridged version&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8VbeI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8VbeI.png&quot; alt=&quot;ed&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;edited by Walther Sell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-06-07T11:51:44.603" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T20:11:45.040" Title="What is this translation of &quot;Journey To The West&quot;?" Tags="&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24037" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24038" CreationDate="2017-06-07T17:04:44.617" Score="3" ViewCount="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does it means a prison that people is left for dead? Or does it means a prison to imprison a death-sentence criminal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15622" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T17:29:19.140" Title="What does phrase 死牢 refer to?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24037" CreationDate="2017-06-07T17:29:19.140" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;死牢 is a place for death sentence prisoner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T17:29:19.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24030" CreationDate="2017-06-07T17:55:37.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many myths have it this way:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妖 - Objects or living things, through absorbing spiritual energy (from the death / nature ) and training to 'evolve' and achieve greater powers.  Depends on the level they evolved, they became 妖:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妖怪 - pretty much a failure.  They do achieve power such as longevity and extraordinary strength, but that's about it.  Usually they lacks intelligent and are usually more ugly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妖精 - the success.  On top of a 妖怪's power, they also process magic / takes form of human being, same level or above human's intelligent.  Some have the power to possess other human being as a spirit, thus where is your question comes from.  Most of them appears as better looking female as it is easier for them to seduce (usually male) human, be it for feasting or other evil intends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &lt;strong&gt;Should it not be a combination of spirit and monster?&lt;/strong&gt;  妖 is not a spirit, so I would say no.  But some of them could have the power to take spirit form as well, so it is hard to give a definite answer.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:  it's worth noting that, 怪物 is differ from 妖怪, where it is one of the 4 'supernatual' or 'mythical' beings:  妖,魔,鬼,怪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T17:08:44.960" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T17:08:44.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24041" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-07T23:08:34.717" Score="3" ViewCount="4141" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read in various places on the internet that the average vocabulary of a Chinese person is around 5,000 words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about highly educated Chinese people? E.g. those with PhD's or holding top positions in the government or corporations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Estimating vocabulary size accurately is really difficult as far as I know. The average English speaker's vocabulary is estimated to be in the range of 10,000 to 30,000 words, but highly educated English speaker may possess a vocabulary of twice that. Of course estimates are highly variable depending on where you look and depending on what you count as a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So does a highly educated Chinese person know around 10,000 words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any references are appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I don't mean to compare vocabulary size between English and Chinese here. Personally I think Chinese is likely a more efficient language on one hand as it may be that more information can often be compressed into fewer words. That would explain why an English speaker needs to know more words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T03:05:27.300" Title="Size of vocabulary of highly educated Chinese person" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19171" CreationDate="2017-06-08T00:49:28.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;汉字分解。 Decomposition of the Chinese Character  能  néng     ‘be able to’  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厶  sī  private,&#xA;⺝  yuè    moon,&#xA;冂  jiōng  down box,&#xA;二  èr  two,&#xA;匕  bǐ  spoon,&#xA;丿  piě  slash,&#xA;乚  yǐ  second,&#xA;匕  bǐ  spoon,   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厶⺝ 冂 二 匕丿乚匕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese, Character, Breakdown, Decomposition, Analysis, Strokes, Language, Dictionary, Textbook, Break Down, Split, Analyze, Decompose, Learn, Memorize, Broken Down&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More information: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/the-chinese-character-decomposition-guidance/18847104&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/the-chinese-character-decomposition-guidance/18847104&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/polina985&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/polina985&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15688" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T00:49:28.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24030" CreationDate="2017-06-08T01:16:41.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &quot;Journey To The West&quot;, 妖 and 怪 are used interchangeably. It is no consistent usage and it is very common referring to same creature with both 妖 and 怪 in the book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 妖 and 怪 is supernatural. 妖 has some sense of evil and ominous. 怪 is something that looks weird and strange. 妖怪 is collectively description of these bad, weird and supernatural creatures. Monster is the generic translation of 妖, 怪 and 妖怪. Goblin and demon have extra context in Western source and might not be suitable for generic use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spirit is in another dimension. Spirit itself has no context of bad or good, weird or not. In Western sense, any human do have one's own spirit. It it non-physical. When one is dead, one's spirit is in form of ghost. Not only human, everything could have spirit its own. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Christianity, there is Holy Spirit and you can't associate it with 妖怪. 妖怪 has spirit or is a kind of spirit. It is not good for translation for generic use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妖怪 can practise hardly to 仙, the higher class of supernatural in the heaven. But it is another story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general monster by itself is pretty enough to translate 妖怪. It'd better look into the context before doing any precise translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T01:16:41.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24044" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24046" CreationDate="2017-06-08T01:21:33.253" Score="0" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see this sign near one of the cafeterias at Nankai University.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qvd4am.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qvd4am.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;二楼新宇餐厅由此上楼&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二楼新宇餐厅由此上楼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;èrlóu xīnyǔ cāntīng yóucǐ shànglóu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;second floor Sinew cafeteria; herefrom go upstairs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where 新宇 (xīnyǔ; Sinew) is the company name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%94%B1%E6%AD%A4%E4%B8%8A%E6%A5%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;由此上楼&lt;/a&gt;, and particularly how &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%94%B1%E6%AD%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;由此&lt;/a&gt; is being used.  I guess it makes sense, effectively meaning &amp;quot;go upstairs here&amp;quot;, although I would expect some combination of 这里 (zhèlǐ; here） and 上楼 (shànglóu; go upstairs) to work.  The question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/1827/8099&quot;&gt;Are there any online resources for learning Chinese 4-character idioms&lt;/a&gt; and its top answer makes me think it might be something special.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How is 由此 used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm seeking just the general idea about how 由此 is used, ideally with some other short examples.  The linked question gives this example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%94%B1%E6%AD%A4%E5%8F%AF%E8%A7%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;由此可见&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yóucǐ kějiàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from this, it can be seen that ... (dict.cn translation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to be quite different usage to 由此上楼, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T18:19:24.437" Title="How is 由此 (yóucǐ) = &quot;herefrom&quot; used?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24041" CreationDate="2017-06-08T01:32:39.790" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What differentiates Chinese characters from English words is that most Chinese characters are not only words but also morphemes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the English word &lt;strong&gt;unlikely&lt;/strong&gt;, there are three morphemes, &lt;strong&gt;un&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;like&lt;/strong&gt; and&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;ly&lt;/strong&gt;, but only &lt;strong&gt;like&lt;/strong&gt; is a word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In this Chinese compound word &lt;strong&gt;不可&lt;/strong&gt;能, there are also three morphemes,&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;、&lt;strong&gt;可&lt;/strong&gt;、&lt;strong&gt;能&lt;/strong&gt;, but each of them constitutes a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The estimated 5000-word vocabulary is not an indicator of the number of words like 不可能 one masters, but of morphemes like 不、可、能. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A senior high school student is requested to master at least 6600 common characters. A Ph.D. is likely to have a similar, if not higher, vocabulary, as however difficult the jargons he possesses are, these jargons can be translated into Chinese with common characters, for example, polychlorinated biphenyl is translated as 多氯联苯, which every junior high student should be able to recognize but perhaps not fully understand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T01:32:39.790" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24044" CreationDate="2017-06-08T02:10:05.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;由(from)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此(this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;由此&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;from this&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此 here is an adjective (this),  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Question: How is 由此 used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由此 (from this) can be used to modify many different omitted object &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;由此上楼 = '由此(&lt;strong&gt;處&lt;/strong&gt;)上楼' -  'from this (&lt;strong&gt;location&lt;/strong&gt;) go upstairs'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;由此可见 = '由此(&lt;strong&gt;事情&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;事实&lt;/strong&gt;)可见' -  'from this (&lt;strong&gt;affair&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;fact&lt;/strong&gt;) we can see'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;由此出发 = '由此(&lt;strong&gt;地&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;点&lt;/strong&gt;)出发' - 'set off from this (&lt;strong&gt;place&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;point&lt;/strong&gt;)' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;由此终结 = '由此(&lt;strong&gt;时&lt;/strong&gt;)终结' -  'end from this (&lt;strong&gt;moment&lt;/strong&gt;)'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T02:30:43.927" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T02:30:43.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24044" CreationDate="2017-06-08T02:21:34.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;由此上楼 - Go upstairs from here&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;You may go upstairs (to another place) from here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由此可见... - We can see that ... therefrom&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;We get it (a result, or a conclusion, from the foregoing)...&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由 means &quot;from&quot; or &quot;by&quot; here, 此 means &quot;this&quot; or &quot;these&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T18:19:24.437" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T18:19:24.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24041" CreationDate="2017-06-08T02:58:39.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is unlikely you can find any satisfactory statistics. What you get is most likely the vocabulary list for learning Chinese languages (or with other subjects) by the education department of government.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are three kinds of vocabulary in Chinese languages, namely character, word and proverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Character and proverb are more or less a closed set. It is possible to conduct extensive test on these two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, when it comes to word, it is very hard to write a list of word.  Chinese is more freely to create new words by combining characters as long as it makes sense. In English it considers &quot;wild flower&quot; as two words but in Chinese 野花 is a word.  One that knows 喜歡 could probably get the meaning of 歡喜. It is not necessary to know the word before. When 模型車 is a word, 模型船 is a word too, So as 模型飛機, 模型大炮, 模型戰船, 模型油并 and so on. Most people can immediate get the meaning right. But the set is open. It is no easy task to define words in consistent way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a list of Chinese word learning in school, there are a website &quot;Lexical items with English Explanations for Fundamental Chinese Learning in Hong Kong Schools&quot;. It contains 3171 characters and 9706 words (including proverb). This is fundamental and in real life the set is much larger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edbchinese.hk/lexlist_en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.edbchinese.hk/lexlist_en/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When one goes to work and goes into higher education, each will learn a set of words specially for daily work. It is unlikely to get an estimation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally, the Chinese writing system is efficient because it is designed to record in a concise way.  Its vast base of characters allows one to write in shorter word and construct word easier. But, its efficiency do not decrease the number of vocabularies needed in daily life.  If one need to distinguish 5000 ideas, one requires at least 5000 vocabularies, regardless of languages. Otherwise it would be a mess or describe idea in clumsy phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastEditorUserId="6158" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T03:05:27.300" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T03:05:27.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24049" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24068" CreationDate="2017-06-08T07:04:47.170" Score="1" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;At Nankai University, we have this sign:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ALqHDm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ALqHDm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;文科生活组团&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文科生活组团&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wénkē shēnghuó zǔtuán&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;humanities life block (the translation on the sign)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It breaks into &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%96%87%E7%A7%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;文科&lt;/a&gt; (liberal arts) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%94%9F%E6%B4%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;生活&lt;/a&gt; (life) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%BB%84%E5%9B%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;组团&lt;/a&gt; (form a team) using the dict.cn translations.  However, it's not clear to me how these pieces fit together to form &amp;quot;humanities life block&amp;quot;.  Nor is it clear to me what the actual meaning is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How does 文科生活组团 mean &amp;quot;humanities life block&amp;quot; and is there a better translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T10:56:29.570" Title="How does 文科生活组团 mean &quot;humanities life block&quot; and is there a better translation?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24050" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24054" CreationDate="2017-06-08T11:34:42.737" Score="0" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the characters shown in the following chopsticks packaging?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've no idea what the first character is and the Chinese speakers at the restaurant at which I was given this package couldn't identify it either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second character appears to be 箸, a classical and dialectical word for chopsticks. However, that leaves me curious as to why there's a dot at the right-hand side of the 者 component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R5kIC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R5kIC.png&quot; alt=&quot;Chopsticks Packaging&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16406" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T13:23:31.200" Title="What are these characters from this chopsticks packaging?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24049" CreationDate="2017-06-08T11:48:40.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think this is a better translation:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;activity area for liberal arts students&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;life area for liberal arts students&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I prefer to consider that 组团 is a noun here, it means block, field, area, etc, but not made up with the verb &quot;组&quot; (make, form) and the noun &quot;团&quot; (group).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched on the internet, I found one meaning of 组团 is:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A set of several buildings, a group of construction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-09-19T10:56:29.570" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T10:56:29.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23887" CreationDate="2017-06-08T12:12:00.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;聽吾所說心中所以&lt;br&gt;&#xA;听吾所说心中所以&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Literally: Listen to what I said, in your (somebody's) heart what you (somebody) feel.&lt;br&gt;If this is a full sentence, it means:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Listen to what I said, that I am thinking.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Listen to that I am saying what I am thinking.&lt;br&gt;or, in vernacular Chinese:&lt;br&gt;听我所说的我心中所想的事情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我所说的你都懂了吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you understand what I said just?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他兴奋的忘乎所以了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He is such excited that forget what is thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以 is not a word with the meaning: so, therefor.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;所 is a single word here, it is a conjunction.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;以 means 以为, 认为, consider, think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;所&lt;strong&gt;说&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;what &lt;strong&gt;I&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;said&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;所&lt;strong&gt;认为&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;what &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;think&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T13:02:26.030" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T13:02:26.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24053" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-08T13:08:47.653" Score="0" ViewCount="493" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like know where I can find a list of anagrams, which could be easily created from a corpus of words, just selecting those with the same number of the same characters yet in different positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, I'd like to know how this concept can be used for characters themselves, transposing radicals or even strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-06-12T06:57:54.170" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T06:57:54.170" Title="Chinese anagrams" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24050" CreationDate="2017-06-08T13:23:31.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;御 royal; imperial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;箸 chopsticks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dot at the right-hand side of the 者 component is due to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/20/zy/7BB8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;different typefaces&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qfY7v.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qfY7v.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T13:23:31.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24055" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24059" CreationDate="2017-06-08T15:27:20.767" Score="0" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;制订 work (map) out; formulate; draw up; evolve&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;制定 lay down; draw up; formulate; draft; establish; enact; work out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拟定 to draw up; to draft; to formulate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be correct to say that 制定 is when you make a more complete plan of something, while 制订 and 拟定 is when you make more of a draft of something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T18:36:15.790" Title="Is there any difference between 制定, 制订 and 拟定?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24056" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24103" CreationDate="2017-06-08T16:25:06.503" Score="0" ViewCount="982" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I used a translation engine to translate &lt;em&gt;You are beautiful&lt;/em&gt;, the result was 你好漂亮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that 你 means &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; and 漂亮 means &lt;em&gt;pretty&lt;/em&gt;. But we is there this 好 in the middle of the sentence. It means &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;well&lt;/em&gt;, and this doesn't fit into the sentence at all!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17264" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T05:42:50.643" Title="Why do we have 好 in translation of &quot;You're beautiful&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24057" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-08T16:41:27.370" Score="0" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 平台 is usually rendered as 'platform', but what is the 超流量?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The total context of the phrase is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是俄罗斯及市场最新颖的垂直跨境电商零售批发网站。未来平台注册用户数将超过1000万+，日均访问UV超过100万+，PV超过0.5亿+，最大化展现平台流量价值.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So would it be 'a site / a platform / an Internet space (Russian 'ploshchadka') with highest [Internet] traffic'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2469" LastEditorUserId="2469" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T17:01:28.880" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T10:21:12.393" Title="Meaning of the headline 超流量平台" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24057" CreationDate="2017-06-08T17:39:11.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;超 = super&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;流量 (flow volume): describes the volume of a moving body of water. It is often borrowed to describe &lt;strong&gt;交通&lt;/strong&gt;量 (&lt;strong&gt;traffic&lt;/strong&gt; volume) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;超流量 = 超(大)流量 - '&lt;strong&gt;super (high) traffic volume&lt;/strong&gt;' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T18:40:29.890" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T18:40:29.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24055" CreationDate="2017-06-08T18:29:05.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;制订 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5836/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5836/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;制定 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5830/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5830/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拟定 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/20601/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/20601/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;制 &lt;em&gt;[1] [v] &lt;strong&gt;establish&lt;/strong&gt;; institute; set up&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;订 &lt;em&gt;[2] revise; &lt;strong&gt;edit&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;amend&lt;/strong&gt;; make corrections&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;制订&lt;/strong&gt; means 'to work out; &lt;strong&gt;to formulate&lt;/strong&gt;' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 'The law makers &lt;strong&gt;制订&lt;/strong&gt; a bill'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The bill is &lt;strong&gt;formulated&lt;/strong&gt; (also edit, amend before finalize ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;制 &lt;em&gt;[1] [v] &lt;strong&gt;establish&lt;/strong&gt;; institute; set up&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;定 &lt;em&gt;[2] [v] &lt;strong&gt;decide&lt;/strong&gt;; fix; set; settle&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;制定&lt;/strong&gt; means 'to draw up; &lt;strong&gt;to formulate&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 'The law makers &lt;strong&gt;制定&lt;/strong&gt; a bill'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The bill is &lt;strong&gt;formulated and set&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拟  &lt;em&gt;[1] &lt;strong&gt;intend&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;plan&lt;/strong&gt;; decide&#xA;  [2] &lt;strong&gt;draft&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;draw up&lt;/strong&gt;; design&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;定 &lt;em&gt;[2] [v] &lt;strong&gt;decide&lt;/strong&gt;; fix; set; settle&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;拟定&lt;/strong&gt; means '&lt;strong&gt;to draft&lt;/strong&gt;; plan'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 'The law makers &lt;strong&gt;拟定&lt;/strong&gt; a bill'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The bill is &lt;strong&gt;drafted&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;planed&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T18:36:15.790" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T18:36:15.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24056" CreationDate="2017-06-08T21:12:44.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The direct translation of &quot;You're beautiful&quot;, of course, is 你漂亮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 你漂亮 sounds uncomfortable in the modern Chinese dialogue but more like ancient Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 汝美, is how ancient Chinese might say &quot;You're beautiful&quot;, where 汝 means &quot;you&quot; and 美 means &quot;beautiful&quot;. And 汝美 has the same structure as 你漂亮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make it sounds more like modern Chinese and differentiate from ancient Chinese, we add 好 to it. And in this case, 好 means &quot;very&quot; or &quot;so&quot;. It does not affect the meaning of the sentence but makes the compliment sound more sincere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17266" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T21:12:44.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24053" CreationDate="2017-06-08T21:19:53.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do you need that? We never use that in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, palindrome is more often to see but it is still rare. You might see palindrome in ancient Chinese literary poetry composition or in 对联.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17266" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T21:19:53.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24056" CreationDate="2017-06-08T22:39:57.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's rare to use &quot;noun + adj&quot; as a whole sentence in daily life. Usually, people will add &quot;adv&quot; before adj to make the sentence sound more comfortable and normal.&#xA;For example, in your example, people usually say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你好漂亮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你真漂亮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;好&quot; and &quot;真&quot; means &quot;very&quot; here, but the speaker doesn't intentionally want to express this meaning. These words are used here just because this is a common structure &quot;noun + adv + adj&quot; to say in daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天天气真好 What a good weather today&#xA;Without 真, it becomes 今天天气好, which sounds strange because of its core structure &quot;noun + adj&quot; as a whole sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13387" LastEditorUserId="13387" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T22:45:07.880" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T22:45:07.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24065" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24066" CreationDate="2017-06-08T23:23:01.630" Score="1" ViewCount="768" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Muslim and fasting for Ramadan (斋月 zhāiyuè).  I often explain this to people by saying 出太阳时候不能吃饭 (chū tàiyáng shíhòu bùnéng chīfàn) which is an attempt to say &quot;I can't eat when the sun is out&quot;.  I'm wondering if this is an accurate way of expressing this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does 出太阳时候不能吃饭 express &quot;I can't eat when the sun is out&quot; appropriately?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T08:32:32.673" Title="Does 出太阳时候不能吃饭 (chū tàiyáng shíhòu bùnéng chīfàn) express &quot;I can't eat when the sun is out&quot; appropriately?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24065" CreationDate="2017-06-08T23:43:38.927" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Question: Does 出太阳时候不能吃饭 express &quot;I can't eat when the sun is out&quot; appropriately?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not completely, because '出太阳' (sun is out) can refer to 'sun coming out after the storm' That implies you can still eat as long as you don't see the sun (when it rain or the sky is cloudy) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct way to explain it is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太阳仍在天空时不能進食 (can't eat when the sun is still in the sky)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太阳下山前不能進食 (can't eat before the sun had gone down)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天黑前不能進食 (can't eat before the sky is dark -meaning the sun has completely set)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日落前不能進食 (can't eat before sundown)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Replaced 吃饭(to have meal) with 進食 (to eat), because  不吃饭(not having meal) doesn't cover having something for a snack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;user6065 wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从日出到日落不进食、 (&lt;em&gt;不喝&lt;/em&gt;)水，不吸烟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;' &lt;strong&gt;Not eat, drink or smoke from sun rise to sun set&lt;/strong&gt;' is the more detailed explanation of fasting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mindless wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;出太阳时候 = daylight? Can't you just say 白天不能进食, can't eat during daylight？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白天 refers to 'daylight time' (after the sun has completely risen and the sky is totally bright, or before the sun started to sink below the horizon and the sky is still bright). The term 白天 does not including the twilight time of dawn and dust, therefore it is not suitable for describing the fasting hours&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-09T00:23:37.880" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T00:23:37.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24036" CreationDate="2017-06-09T02:23:08.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17575278-journey-to-the-west&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Good Reads&lt;/a&gt;, the book's authorship is listed as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;by Wu Cheng'en, W.J.F. Jenner (Translator), Walther Sell (Editor)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;W.J.F. Jenner is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_John_Francis_Jenner&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;William John Francis Jenner&lt;/a&gt;. His translation is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West#Notable_English-language_translations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;one of three notable English translations&lt;/a&gt; done on the work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T02:23:08.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24049" CreationDate="2017-06-09T02:28:05.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If this translation is not made deliberately, it is an apparent mistake.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A more proper translation will be:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Living Complex for Liberal Arts Students&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;where &quot;生活&quot; is &quot;live&quot;, “组团” is &quot;complex&quot;, and &quot;文科&quot; is &quot;liberal arts&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I visited Nankai University's website, and found that it is a complex area with dormitories and other facilities for student's daily life.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T02:28:05.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23260" CreationDate="2017-06-09T03:21:34.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/chineseclass101&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Learn Chinese with ChineseClass101.com&lt;/a&gt;, please refer this Youtube channel, you will be learning Chinese from Beginner level to Advanced Level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would not suggest people to watch drama for learning purpose, because for me nowadays the Chinese Language they used in drama is not standard and full of slang. If you are a beginner, I prefer learn the most basic and standard Chinese, until you are in Advance Level, you could differentiate which term, word or sentence is more proper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T03:21:34.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24065" CreationDate="2017-06-09T03:49:51.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although your expression is understandable, there is a minor flaw that can be fixed to make the sentence smoother.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You should add a &quot;的(de)&quot; between 出太阳 and 时候 to indicate the time you are referring to is when the sun is out.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Please note that although 出太阳 technically means &quot;the sun comes out&quot; as in the sun comes out (behind clouds etc.), your entire expression has the implication of &quot;whenever the sun is out&quot; rather than &quot;the moment the sun comes out&quot;, and that also implies &quot;during the day&quot;&#xA;In other words, your expression does say &quot;cannot eat when the sun is out&quot; and it has the implication of saying &quot;cannot eat during the day&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17268" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T03:49:51.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24065" CreationDate="2017-06-09T07:31:04.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Tang Ho's answer is absolutely correct, except it is formal and written styles of Mandarin, and would sound anything from stilted to incomprehensible when spoken. He also takes things a bit too literally, as sentences he criticizes actually mean what you want, even though I wouldn't say that is a bad thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While your sentence is not the way I would naturally put it, people would definitely understand what you mean. Yes, technically the sentence strictly means &amp;quot;whenever the Sun is visibly in the sky&amp;quot; and happens to most often refer to when the Sun re-emerges after e.g. rain, but people get what you mean because this literal interpretation is too twisted and unlikely. It is like how technically &amp;quot;the Sun is out&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;it is a clear day with few clouds&amp;quot; but people know you mean &amp;quot;when there is daylight&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白天不能进食&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes it technically means &amp;quot;daytime&amp;quot;. But it would be a bit silly to suggest that it does not include dawn and twilight, especially in practical senses. If someone said to me that they can't do something in 白天, for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我白天不能喝柠檬水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't drink lemonade in 白天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it is 6am when the day has dawned, or 7:20pm when it is still twilight, I would not be surprised at all that they would not like to have lemonade now. I would only be sure I could offer them lemonade and not be refused when it is completely the night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The colloquial way to put what @Tang Ho has is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太阳仍在天空时不能進食&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;→ 太阳还在天上的时候不能吃东西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;→ 太阳还在天上的时候不能进食&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 进食 part is fine, and you don't have to change that necessarily. 吃东西 &amp;quot;eat stuff&amp;quot; is just the colloquial way to put it. If you want to mean that you also can't drink stuff, just add (也)不能喝水 or 或(者)喝水 or 和喝水 [^1]. Technically 喝水 means drink water, but it is also a set phrase where 水 generally refers to consumable liquid. If someone tries to get around this by deliberately interpreting this literally, just respond to them by 什么都不能喝 &amp;quot;can't drink anything&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase 仍在天空时 is really a bit stilted in colloquial Mandarin, especially if you explain it in a casual setting, or sandwich this in a colloquial speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not actually need 还 &amp;quot;still&amp;quot;, but you also make complete sense including it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For any sentence with 前 that he has, those are fine, even though not entirely colloquial, like 进食. The way to be more colloquial  is to replace it with 之前 or 以前.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从日出到日落不進食、 (不喝)水，不吸烟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;→ 从日出到日落不吃东西、 不喝水、不吸烟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or 从日出到日落不能吃东西、 喝水、吸烟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, 进食 is fine. It's not listed just for brevity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there can't really be parentheses there in colloquial Mandarin, because you risk not being able to be understood. 进食 is a set phrase in Mandarin, and there is no set phrase as *进水 meaning &amp;quot;to have water&amp;quot;. 进 itself does &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; mean &lt;em&gt;consume&lt;/em&gt; [^2], which makes guessing the meaning a lot harder. People might be able to piece together what you mean still, especially if they know you are not a native speaker and hence would devote more attention to actively figuring out what you say, but you absolutely cannot just expect that to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[^1] Could you just say 吃 and 喝 like English can say &amp;quot;eat&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;drink&amp;quot; without objects? Yes, and you won't get misunderstood. Some people might interpret that as you are slightly suffering in some way, but that is all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[^2] &amp;quot;进&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;consume&amp;quot; only in a few set combinations related to eating, like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;进食 &amp;quot;eat&amp;quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;油盐不进 &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;lit.&lt;/em&gt; not taking in oil or salt; &lt;em&gt;meaning&lt;/em&gt; being stubborn and (in addition) refusing to listen or consider it / things&amp;quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;滴水不进 &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;lit.&lt;/em&gt; not taking in (even) a drop of water; &lt;em&gt;meaning&lt;/em&gt; not consuming / to consume / able to consume anything&amp;quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;滴水未进: 未 means &amp;quot;have not&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;did not&amp;quot; instead of 不 &amp;quot;not&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;粒米不进: 粒米 &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;lit.&lt;/em&gt; a grain of rice&amp;quot; instead of 滴水 &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;lit.&lt;/em&gt; a drop of water&amp;quot;. This may or may not suggest &amp;quot;not drinking anything&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rule of thumb deciding on what speech level or register to use: the more highly educated the other party, and the more familiar the other party is with written, formal styles of Mandarin, the more likely it is you will be understood saying something in the written or formal register. And it's not that a lot of people &lt;em&gt;can't&lt;/em&gt; understand, for example, 仍在天空时, it is just that they will need time parsing them because that is not the expected syntax or words in colloquial Mandarin, and at least I think both of you would appreciate a conversation with less hurdles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if someone looks like they may not be familiar with the written styles of Mandarin, e.g. if they have not received a lot of education, then try to stay clear of written or formal styles and try to speak as much in spoken / colloquial styles as possible. So, for example, do so when speaking to an illiterate person. This is not discrimination, but really just to facilitate understanding, because otherwise you literally do not get understood, and probably neither of you wants that. After all, you can't make the unreasonable assumption that everyone knows written styles of Mandarin well, which is usually not the way people speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T08:32:32.673" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18095" CreationDate="2017-06-09T16:41:08.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for Cantonese and Hokkien dialects, I believe that the prolonged encountering between Southern Chinese and Tai speakers (Zhuang ,Thai, Lao etc.) made their phonetic repertoire more rich than the Mandarin dialect. Many words in Cantonese and Hokkien sound very much like Thai, for example Number 1 - 10 or the names of common objects such as chair (Gao Ee), table (Tou), guest (Khaek/khek).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin has fewer sounds because the Chinese writing system has no phonetic information. You cannot make new sound with it. Chinese language appears phonetically pure because loan words and names are “dubbed” with closest sounding Chinese characters. Chinese used to borrow many words and terminologies from Sanskrit through Buddhism. But its writing system does not allow any systematic orthography which is needed in order to incorporate new linguistic elements from an Indo-European language. Japanese has the same problem, and though it now have separate kana scripts, Japanese language still have very few sounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17275" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T16:41:08.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23063" CreationDate="2017-06-09T19:53:52.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;adverb + 地 + verb:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;轻轻地走 - walk lightly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;verb + 得 + adjective:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;跑得快 - run fast&lt;br&gt;&#xA;干得好 - do well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see that you must use verb before 得. e.g.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;打&lt;/strong&gt;得好 - &lt;strong&gt;play&lt;/strong&gt; well&lt;br&gt;&#xA;打篮球 is not a verb, it is make up with 打(as a verb) + 篮球(object, as a noun) = play + basketball.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;游&lt;/strong&gt;得很快 - &lt;strong&gt;swim&lt;/strong&gt; fast&lt;br&gt;&#xA;游 (as a verb) - swim, 游泳 (as a noun) - swim.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;旅行&lt;/strong&gt;得很远 - &lt;strong&gt;travel&lt;/strong&gt; far&lt;br&gt;&#xA;旅行 is not only a verb but also a noun, both means &quot;travel&quot; here.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T19:53:52.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24076" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24077" CreationDate="2017-06-09T20:04:35.533" Score="0" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone please someone translate 舒心顺气茶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17278" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T04:23:42.690" Title="Could someone please someone translate 舒心顺气茶" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-06-12T06:56:54.030" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24076" CreationDate="2017-06-09T21:32:05.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;舒&lt;/strong&gt; + &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;心&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;comfort&lt;/strong&gt; (verb) + &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;heart&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (noun)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;be comfortable&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;顺&lt;/strong&gt; + &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;气&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;smooth&lt;/strong&gt; (verb) + &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;breath&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (noun)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;breath smoothly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;茶&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: tea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舒心顺气茶: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;The tea that comfort your heart and smooth your breath (after drinking)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is exaggerative practically, it is a beautiful name only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There some more similar medicine name prefix like 活血化瘀, 补气养血, 健胃消食, 舒筋活络, etc.&lt;br&gt;Generally they are all four characters with two words, the first word made up with former two characters, and the second one with later two characters.&lt;br&gt;The 1st and 3rd ones are verbs, they have similar meanings, or they are two different words in same scopes, or they are separated from one two-character-word, the 2nd and 4th ones are nouns, the same structure as above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, some Chinese 成语 (chengyu), or 四字成语 (Chinese 4-word idioms):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;身&lt;/strong&gt;强&lt;strong&gt;体&lt;/strong&gt;壮 means strong body, strong physique&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;身体&lt;/strong&gt;: body, corporeity, 强壮: muscular.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;筋&lt;/strong&gt;疲&lt;strong&gt;力&lt;/strong&gt;尽 means exhaust you physically and mentally&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;筋&lt;/strong&gt;: tendon, bone, 疲: tired, &lt;strong&gt;力&lt;/strong&gt;: force, strength, 尽: spent, used up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-06-12T02:24:03.760" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T02:24:03.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24079" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24081" CreationDate="2017-06-10T01:45:37.263" Score="0" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following signs, we have 高压电 (high voltage) and 低压电 (low voltage).  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineseconverter.com/en/convert/chinese-to-pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Converter&lt;/a&gt; gives the pinyin: gāo yā diàn and dī yā diàn (this has been wrong in the past).  However, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8E%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dict.cn&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://dictionary.writtenchinese.com/worddetail/ya/6667/1/1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WrittenChinese.com&lt;/a&gt; assign 压 two possible tones: yā (first tone) or yà (fourth tone).  So I don't know which is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What is the correct tone for 压 in 高压电 and 低压电?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aeWLmm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aeWLmm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rqt7ym.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rqt7ym.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T04:26:45.893" Title="What is the correct tone for 压 in 高压电 (high voltage) and 低压电 (low voltage)?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24079" CreationDate="2017-06-10T02:30:43.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Chinese daily habits,Chinese prefer the first tone and in many formal situations,like CCTV, the hoster speaks the first tone.But if you want to speak the fourth tone,they can also understand your idea.So you don't care whether the correct tone is first tone  or not (if you're talking with Chinese ).But if you're preparing for exam,I think you should choose the first tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17221" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T02:30:43.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24079" CreationDate="2017-06-10T04:26:45.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, both tones are possible. In different rigon in China, people have different pronunciation of the same word. However, yā is the official pronunciation of &quot;压&quot;. And it used in more scene than yà.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17279" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T04:26:45.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24076" CreationDate="2017-06-10T04:44:33.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a name of a product. And it is difficult to translate it directictly from Chinese to English. It is better to use the meaning of it to translate it.&#xA;&quot;舒心顺气&quot; is to make people feel comfortable and relax. Do not pay attention on 心 or 气. 舒心顺气 is not a 4-word idiom, it can be explain as an adj. It does not mean it will really help with people's heart or breath. It just discribe a kind of feeling that can make people feel relax.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17279" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T04:44:33.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24057" CreationDate="2017-06-10T10:21:12.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding (highest [Internet] traffic) seems correct, given that it is used on an e-commerce site. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I want to point it out that it is not a standard/correct word. Chinese have a lot of freedom in coining new words but not all of them are fine ones. Of most IT-related idioms, 超 is translated from hyper, so we have 超链接(hyperlink), 超文本传输协议(HyperText Transfer Protocol), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nobody can give an exact meaning of 超流量平台 because it is not a standard IT idiom published by 全国科学技术名词审定委员会（China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies ）. That's why I said in my previous answer, it is just an ill-devised fancy word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T10:21:12.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24053" CreationDate="2017-06-10T23:53:50.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are quite a few &lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/466108454&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We could start a list, just for fun:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;情人，人情&lt;br&gt;&#xA;手枪，枪手&lt;br&gt;&#xA;水泥，泥水&lt;br&gt;&#xA;产生，生产  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what if the characters remain the same, but the tone changes? The meaning alters, so is that an anagram? Like: 精神？&#xA;If you just consider the pinyin, jingshen will throw up quite a few results in different tone and character combinations. Are they anagrams? Strictly speaking, anagrams are different combinations of the same letters, like 'dog', 'god'. I think you would first need a definition of 'anagram' specifically for Chinese! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T23:53:50.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24086" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-11T01:17:08.283" Score="0" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from an interview with a sports teacher.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;记者： 王老师，您怎么好像在说我呢？ 我就不想虐待自己，所以很难坚持。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;王老师： 怎么会是虐待呢？ 您以后联系我，我带你锻炼。 咱们有计划，有落实。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks to me like '咱们有计划，有落实。' means 'We have a plan and (we have) practical experience.'&#xA;Literally, 落实 says 'lower into reality'. It is a very succinct expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zdic.net has for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/d/a8/199529.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;落实&lt;/a&gt;： （1） 使计划、措施、政策等得以实现 or (4) 实行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These don't really correspond to 'practical experience' which might be ‘实践经验’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it should be 'We have a plan and (we have) the ability to see it through' or 'make it happen'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then 落实 translates 'the ability to see it through' which fits with (1) I suppose. &#xA;Or am I totally wrong here? Is there some other meaning for '有落实‘ which fits?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T19:40:53.840" Title="What does this 落实 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24086" CreationDate="2017-06-11T01:38:26.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 落实&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落 = to implement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实 = actually / solidly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落实 (v): to (actually) implement; to (solidly) put into effect;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'咱们有计划，有落实'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'有计划' means 'have plans (which need to be implemented)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'有落实' means 'have implementation'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can interpret this sentence as :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(first,) we'll have plans , (then) we'll have implementation (of these plans).&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;using the verb 落实 (implement) as a noun: 'implementation'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(first,) we'll have plans , (then) we'll have these plans/ implemented.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到最后，这计划并没有&lt;strong&gt;落实&lt;/strong&gt; (At the end, this plan had not been &lt;strong&gt;implemented&lt;/strong&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T02:24:02.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23793" CreationDate="2017-06-11T11:55:50.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are referring to your friend with a third person, just call her 闺蜜, but rarely you call each other 闺蜜 face to face.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我和我兄台去吃饭了&#xA;  我和我闺蜜去吃饭了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17282" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T11:55:50.333" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24086" CreationDate="2017-06-12T03:26:25.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;落实&quot; means implementing things inside a plan and try your best to reach the goal of that plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you analyze 落实 from the very surface meaning, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;落&quot; means &quot;drop&quot;&lt;/code&gt; （落下）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;“实&quot; means &quot;fruit&quot;&lt;/code&gt; （果实）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These words combined means that you do something meaningful and try to reach the practical and beneficial end. You can imagine that after watering and caring the apple tree for months, finally, you get get the apples dropped down when they are ripened. Finally, this word takes the meaning of this whole process, which is &quot;do something for your plan and try to get the apple, a good result&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go back to practical meaning. You have a &lt;code&gt;&quot;计划&quot; (plan)&lt;/code&gt;, and finally, you need to &lt;code&gt;&quot;落实&quot; (apply)&lt;/code&gt; it. This is a similar process to caring for an apple tree and tryin to get the apples from it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you want to get an 'A' in Chinese class, this is called “计划”, a plan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(You have an apple tree and you expect to get an apple finally)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you never open the Chinese textbook after class, you never want to pay enough time on studying Chinese, then you didn't &quot;落实&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(You never water the apple tree and take care of it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You didn't get anything from this plan`&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(You don't get any apple)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, you want to date a girl/boy and &lt;code&gt;plan so many romantic things trying to reach her/him&lt;/code&gt;, this is &lt;code&gt;a plan ”计划“&lt;/code&gt;. And you did &lt;code&gt;reach her/him in the ways as you plan and talk with her/him&lt;/code&gt;, this is &lt;code&gt;a &quot;落实&quot;&lt;/code&gt;. Although you may not get her/him, you tried. You indeed &quot;落实&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, &lt;code&gt;&quot;咱们有计划，有落实&quot;&lt;/code&gt; has a hidden sequence behind it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We put &lt;code&gt;“计划” before &quot;落实“&lt;/code&gt; because you need to a plan firstly, then we are able to do something in action around this plan, just like the example above. 王教练 wants to say that he will give you a plan &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Give you an apple tree)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He will take it in actions. For example, take this 王记者 with him to do exercises every day (They mentioned about 锻炼 (exercise)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(And I will water and take care of it with you, trying to get&#xA;  an apple)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13387" LastEditorUserId="13387" LastEditDate="2017-06-12T19:40:53.840" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T19:40:53.840" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24076" CreationDate="2017-06-12T04:23:42.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just a name of a kind of tea. Same as &quot;red smooth ball&quot;. &quot;舒心顺气&quot; are&#xA;some words to describe the functions of the tea.It means that if you drink this kind of tea, you will be &quot;舒心 &amp;amp; 顺气&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17284" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T04:23:42.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21106" CreationDate="2017-06-12T04:40:26.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hope these would help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/zb/cc1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《现代汉语常用字表》常用字(2500字)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/zb/cc2.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《现代汉语常用字表》次常用字(1000字)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《现代汉语通用字表》(7000字) - including the above two (link available on those pages)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17285" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T04:40:26.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23063" CreationDate="2017-06-12T04:47:31.930" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say, 我旅行走得很快. (Not necessarily by walking)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, 我游泳游得很快 is also good Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17285" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T04:47:31.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24093" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-12T06:35:20.220" Score="4" ViewCount="1024" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the US you can specify the length of a short haircut by giving a number.  So a &quot;Number 2 Haircut&quot; means using the #2 guard on a clipper to cut the hair 1/4 inch long. A &quot;Number 4 Haircut&quot; will cut it 1/2 inch long; and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that clippers are used the same way in China but the numbering system seems to be different--and of course in China they use metric. I and a short-haired friend have both gone in sort of blind about exactly how say what we want in Chinese. (Well, travel is an opportunity to try new things!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But now I would like to know the right way to specify it. Suppose I want 1/2 inch, or more or less 1.5cm. What is the barber's terminology for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The site linked by @user3306356 has this list, which is true in the US also, but is humorously vague:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1号是光头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2号是1号长一点点的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3号也是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;0号是可以发光的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NS要1号&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will say I'd been getting haircuts in the US for a long time before I knew this system existed here.  A grumpy woman barber who wants men to pay more attention to their hair told me to remember it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-06-12T13:10:53.900" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T19:44:58.703" Title="How to specify the length of a short haircut in China?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24094" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-12T08:11:21.957" Score="0" ViewCount="542" Body="&lt;p&gt;It maybe very dumb, stupid and unwise that I have an interest in learning to write Chinese calligraphy when I can't write more than hundred Chinese words, but still I always think Chinese calligraphy is very beautiful kind of art that I want to get into and master someday. In my quest to this ambitious journey, What is an ideal Chinese poem that has good strokes (笔画) to practice my Chinese calligraphy?  (Also want it to have good and beautiful meaning, and so a love poem is preferred.) I only want to focus on 4x7=28 unique words instead of chasing the goose, since unlike English where there are only 26 geese (A-Z), Chinese have thousands if not millions of strange alien-like geese that Chinese people probably have not seem very frequently in their daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2017-06-29T15:58:35.067" LastActivityDate="2020-12-28T23:14:30.900" Title="Poem for Calligraphy Art" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24093" CreationDate="2017-06-12T10:22:03.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually there is not a term to describe the length of the haircut in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how to decide the length of the haircut? keep communicate with barber.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: 'please cut my hair with 毛寸(is an adjective for style, not length)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: after a while 'Is it fine?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: 'shorter'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 'Okay, let me see'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15153" LastEditorUserId="15153" LastEditDate="2017-06-12T10:32:12.283" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T10:32:12.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24096" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24097" CreationDate="2017-06-12T16:35:18.247" Score="2" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;Our book just introduced 風景 as scenic view, landscape. Now it introduces 風光 as &quot;scenery&quot;. The book is very basic. It typically doesn't introduce alternative vocabulary. So I am trying to spot any differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you perhaps use 風光 in a city and 風景 in nature? Like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天色很藍，雲都反映落日的紅光，落日時的北京真是一個漂亮的風光。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;西湖上有一座白色的橋，湖邊的樹很多，樹下的花紅紅綠綠，落日時的西湖真是一的漂亮的風景。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Feel free to correct. The sentences are mine and I always make mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T17:44:50.853" Title="Is there a difference between 風景 and 風光？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24096" CreationDate="2017-06-12T18:40:08.580" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;「風」 in 「風景」 and 「風光」 carries the meaning of :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'Style': as in 「和風」 (Japanese style) and 「作風」(style of behavior) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'air; atmosphere' - (something that creates moods and evokes feelings)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「景」 in 「風景」 carries the meaning of  'scene/ sight' -- the picture you see in your eyes, as in 「奇景」(strange sight)，「場景」(scene in a play)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The term 「風景」 (sight/ scenery) &lt;strong&gt;specifically&lt;/strong&gt; refers to 'the sight of a landscape or a natural scenery'  as in 「看風景」(watching the natural scenery )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「光」in 「風光」refers to 'light', which is needed to enable people to see -- in another word: 'sight'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The term「風光」 &lt;strong&gt;generally&lt;/strong&gt; refers to 'sight/ scene /scenery' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:「異國&lt;strong&gt;風光&lt;/strong&gt;」(sights and scenes of foreign country) ;「園林&lt;strong&gt;風光&lt;/strong&gt;」(sights and scenes of garden and forest)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course it includes 'landscape or a natural setting' For example:&#xA;「西湖&lt;strong&gt;風光&lt;/strong&gt;」. Therefore 「風光」and「風景」are interchangeable in this sense. (&lt;em&gt;You can write 「西湖&lt;strong&gt;風景&lt;/strong&gt;」instead of 「西湖&lt;strong&gt;風光&lt;/strong&gt;」&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike 「風景」, 「風光」can also be used metaphorically. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;風光&lt;/strong&gt;大葬」(scenic funeral = &lt;strong&gt;impressive, dignified&lt;/strong&gt; funeral) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;風光&lt;/strong&gt;了幾十年」( have been a sight to behold for decades = have been &lt;strong&gt;awesome&lt;/strong&gt; for decades)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-23T17:44:50.853" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T17:44:50.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24093" CreationDate="2017-06-12T19:44:58.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I studied in Chengdu for a school year last year and started with 0 Chinese ability. So, getting my first hair cut was quite imposing as I went by myself and was still in Level 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The guy asked what I wanted I said &lt;em&gt;me holding up index finger and thumb&lt;/em&gt; 我要这种长度。I showed a conservative length. Then, I just kept saying “短一点儿” until I got the length I wanted. (took three tries)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quick Chinese salon rundown. I got haircuts in two different cities. This is my experience and not the blanket truth.&#xA;They may wash your hair and cut your hair in two different areas of the shop, and possibly have two different people do it. They may also give you a neck, shoulder, arm, and hand massage before you hair cut, but after your hair is washed. Both places collected payment after, but the person at the door wanted to know what package I wanted. Both places had massage areas, so be aware that a package may include that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16080" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T19:44:58.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24099" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-12T23:32:25.133" Score="1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have: '男儿有泪不轻弹' and later: ',理智的男子汉再悲伤也不轻易哭泣, 爱哭的男人走到哪儿都会被一票否决‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;否决： 对事物作否认的议决&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一票： one ticket&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what does 一票否决 mean in this context? Seems to mean 'by everyone, completely rejected‘ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T23:34:01.803" Title="What does 一票 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24099" CreationDate="2017-06-13T00:28:56.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'一票' here has double meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一(same); 票(bill) = 'from the same shipment' = 'on the same side'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 你和他是一票人 (you and him are on the same side)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一票&lt;/strong&gt;否决 can be interpreted as '&lt;strong&gt;unanimously&lt;/strong&gt; reject'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一(one) 票(vote)= one vote&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since '否决' means 'to reject' and '投票否决'(vote to reject) is a common phrase,  &lt;strong&gt;一票&lt;/strong&gt;否决 can be interpreted as  '&lt;strong&gt;decisively&lt;/strong&gt; reject' because one vote can only has one choice, which is decisive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put, &lt;strong&gt;一票&lt;/strong&gt;否决 means '&lt;strong&gt;unanimously&lt;/strong&gt; (and &lt;strong&gt;decisively&lt;/strong&gt;) reject'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T00:59:26.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24099" CreationDate="2017-06-13T01:33:09.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;一票否决 means veto. 一票 here does not necessarily involve a voting process. It basically means prevent or forbid &lt;strong&gt;authoritatively&lt;/strong&gt;. It has a synonym with similar structure, 一枪枪毙, which literally means shoot to death with one bullet but figuratively means negate or repudiate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look the term 一票否决 up in the corpus of Chinese language compiled by Peking University, you will find that the expression is rather novel. Because It was translated from veto or veto power. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastEditorUserId="16788" LastEditDate="2017-06-13T01:38:18.747" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T01:38:18.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24099" CreationDate="2017-06-13T05:01:34.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;一票否决 means &quot;rejected just because of that thing alone&quot;, i.e. &quot;rejected by one vote&quot;. It comes from the sense of vetoing, but more specifically the kind of vetoing power the UN security council members get; i.e. whenever a single reject vote is cast, the entire thing is rejected. It is usually only in this sense that Mandarin uses the expression 一票否决. The vetoing power of the US president, for example, is simply expressed with 否决, and 一票否决 in that context would strike as highly unusual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you see, in an imagined &quot;holistic evaluation&quot;, many parts are considered. So if something has the 一票否决 power, then it means that as long as that one thing is unacceptable, then the entirety is rejected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does not mean &quot;rejected by anyone&quot;. In this sentence, the sense of &quot;anyone&quot; is conveyed by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;走到哪儿都会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. &quot;no matter where he goes&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastEditorUserId="16058" LastEditDate="2017-06-13T23:34:01.803" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T23:34:01.803" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24056" CreationDate="2017-06-13T05:42:50.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For some reason Mandarin thinks a degree qualifier is needed even when you just normally use adjectives. So, for the meaning to be same, Mandarin usually can't say structures like English &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You are beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which does not have a word to qualify the adjective's degree. [1]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin usually uses words / constructions like &lt;code&gt;很&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;挺(...的)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;满/蛮...的&lt;/code&gt; to express when there is not really any remarkable degree qualification. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;code&gt;好&lt;/code&gt;, it is used to mark &lt;em&gt;subjectivity&lt;/em&gt;: that the quality is a subjective feeling or evaluation, which varies from being just a subjective marker to meaning &quot;very&quot;, much like how the word &lt;code&gt;很&lt;/code&gt; is in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The counterpart to &lt;em&gt;subjective&lt;/em&gt; would be &lt;em&gt;objective&lt;/em&gt;: that you are merely stating a fact. English makes this kind of distinction with word pairs like &quot;very&quot; and &quot;so&quot;: &quot;You are so beautiful&quot; means roughly the same as &quot;You are very beautiful&quot;, except that the speaker is signaling a subjective opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; say your sentence with the objective counterpart: 你很美 would be stating something like &quot;you are beautiful as a matter of fact&quot;. Sure, it could ultimately still boil down to the speaker's subjective opinions if we talk philosophy, but the meaning being conveyed is different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/13925/what-is-the-nuance-of-%E5%BE%88%E5%A5%BD&quot;&gt;What is the nuance of 很好?&lt;/a&gt; Explains when the degree qualifier can be omitted. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, when you are stating some quality absolutely, as if attaching such a label -- which implies a comparison like the one described in the accepted answer.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T05:42:50.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24099" CreationDate="2017-06-13T05:52:26.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;爱哭的男人走到哪儿都会&quot;被一票否决&quot; in this context means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Everyone would hate&quot; the man who usually cries when he encounters some problems &#xA; or difficulties that he doesn't know how to solve them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17263" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T05:52:26.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24105" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24107" CreationDate="2017-06-13T07:01:14.347" Score="5" ViewCount="1256" Body="&lt;p&gt;干父母 (if I may use this term):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干爹 = 义父&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干妈 = 义母&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so 干父母 = 义父母&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but what does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拜认为父母&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English translations usually go like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干爹 = godfather &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干妈 = godmother&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;义父 = stepfather (adoptive father/foster mother)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;义母 = stepmother (adoptive mother/foster mother)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure where all the different definitions come from but according to Chinese definitions they all just mean to formally acknowledge (拜认) someone as father or mother. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godparent&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia Godparent&lt;/a&gt; entry defines a godparent as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In both Christian and secular views, a godparent tends to be an individual chosen by the parents to take an interest in the child's upbringing and personal development, and to take care of the child should anything happen to the parents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which doesn't seem to fit the above definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adoptive / foster seems like it could fit - in specified situations but not as a rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do these concepts equate to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-02T23:58:06.480" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T23:58:06.480" Title="干父母 vs. 义父母 translation/meaning?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24105" CreationDate="2017-06-13T07:47:52.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, I would like to say 干爹=Godfather and it's not 100% that chosen by the parents. For example, there's an old man who treats me very good and I asked him to be my godfather. 义父 means adoptive father but he' is not step father. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17289" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T07:47:52.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24105" CreationDate="2017-06-13T07:48:04.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had answered what is 干父母 here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22163/how-to-translate-%e5%b9%b2%e5%a6%88-%e5%b9%b2%e7%88%b8-%e4%b9%89%e7%88%b6-%e5%b9%b2%e5%84%bf%e5%ad%90-%e4%b9%89%e5%ad%90/22169#22169&quot;&gt;How to translate &amp;quot;干妈&amp;quot;,&amp;quot;干爸/义父&amp;quot;,&amp;quot;干儿子/义子“?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The concept of 乾媽 and 乾爹 in Chinese culture is almost the same as &quot; godmother and godfather in Western countries&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since there are no equivalent terms of 干父母 in English, 'Godfather' and 'Godmother' would have to do.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As for '义父母', it is just another name for '养父母' (adoptive parents)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking, you should address your adoptive parents as 义父, 义母; But you can refer other people's adoptive parents as 'his 养父' or 'her 养母'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern societies, adoptive parents enjoy the same status as actual parents. Most adopted children just address them as their parents, and only refer them as 义父母 or 养父母 to the third parties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Step father and stepmother in Chinese are 继父/继母 or 后父/后母&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-13T08:27:39.173" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T08:27:39.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23869" CreationDate="2017-06-13T10:22:36.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Complicated forms&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;凌晨 wee hours, from 0:00 (midnight) to sunrise.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;黎明,拂晓,破晓 foredawn, daybreak, period from darkness to daybreak, you may speak 凌晨 also.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;清晨 early morning, from daybreak to sunrise, you may speak 早晨 also.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早晨 morning, from daybreak to about 9:00, you may speak 上午 also.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;上午 morning, from sunrise to about noon.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;中午 noon, tens of minutes or one hour around 12:00.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;午后 afternoon, tens of minutes or one hour after lunchtime, you may speak 下午 also.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;下午 afternoon, from noon to sunset.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;傍晚,黄昏 nightfall, evening, period from sunset to darkness, you may speak 下午 also.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;晚上 evening, from darkness to normal sleeping time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;夜晚 night, after supper, before midnight, you may speak 晚上 also.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;半夜,午夜 midnight, tens of minutes or one hour around 0:00, you may speak 晚上 also.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;深夜 late night, from 22:00 to about 2:00, you may speak 晚上 or 凌晨.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There isn't absolute boundary between some words, the ranges indicated by them may be overlapped with each other, or included in another one, these are proximate time ranges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple forms&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;凌晨 from midnight to daybreak or sunrise.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早晨, 早上 early morning, or replace with 上午 simply.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;上午 morning, from sunrise to noon.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;下午 afternoon, from noon to sunset&lt;br&gt;&#xA;晚上 evening, from sunset to midnight.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-06-13T10:35:07.867" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T10:35:07.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24109" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24110" CreationDate="2017-06-13T12:55:49.530" Score="3" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am investigating the use of 知道 in the past tense. As &quot;知道了“ does not clearly mean &quot;knew&quot; but could be more closely translated as &quot;now I know!&quot;, a change of state from not knowing to knowing.&#xA;How would one translate &quot;I knew&quot;? (As in, I did know before, but now no longer do)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in Advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17290" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T16:59:54.250" Title="Can one use 过 in conjunction with 知道?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24109" CreationDate="2017-06-13T16:07:57.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do take note that some sentence meaning otherwise under special context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;知道了&quot;  is a good example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even 知道 carry out the meaning of &quot;know&quot;, but &quot;知道了&quot;  in some conversions mean &quot;okay&quot;(noded). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q：“如果经过超市，顺带买瓶酱油”  If you happens to pass the store, buy me a bottle of soyasauce.&#xA;&#xA;A：“知道了！” Okay （or you can reply &quot;好的!&quot;）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In different dialect such as Cantonese, sometimes it uses as &quot;understood&quot; rather than 清楚了， 了解了, 明白了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我知道了, 你是说如果把醋倒进去它就会溶掉。 Now I understood, you mean if you pour in vinegar, it will melt.  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because 过 in Mandarin carry the meaning &quot;over/pass&quot;(instead of before) in certain conditions, so you can't use it. As mentioned by @Alex, you can't &quot;un-learn&quot;, &quot;de-notify&quot; something.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case of &quot;know&quot;, to say &quot;I already know that&quot;, you can't say, &quot;知道过” ， but &quot;我【已经】知道了”， “我【早】知道了”。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you can say &quot;I learn it before but I forget&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这把戏， 我从前【学过】， 不过我忘了。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-06-13T16:59:54.250" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T16:59:54.250" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23869" CreationDate="2017-06-13T17:17:11.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;OH MY EYES!!!  MY EYES!!!!!!!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Honestly, that is horribles rewrite of the ancient story, where did you get it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is correct that 晴朗 only apply for broad daylight. Since the whole writing is so terrible, please, throw it away.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T17:17:11.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24105" CreationDate="2017-06-13T17:34:37.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, there is no such things as &quot;Godparent&quot; in Chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest definition is &quot;guardian&quot;, &quot;caretaker&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;干&quot; in Chinese relationship, it means non-bloodline relative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;义” also carried similars meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For adoption, 养 is used， 养父母&#xA;For remarried family, one of parent is called &quot;后&quot;, i.e. 后父 or 后母。 You can never say 后父母 (Nevertheless, there is some rare cases) . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-06-13T17:40:19.297" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T17:40:19.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24113" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25549" CreationDate="2017-06-13T20:21:38.640" Score="0" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the past I've came across a few websites that distribute Buddhist texts in simplified Chinese, which is somewhat unsurprising since there's active interest in Buddhism to propagate once again in China. I'm not aware of a full canon in simplified Chinese, but I know there are many texts already converted so simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about other formative texts in Chinese culture, such as Daoist and Confucianist? Or even Buddhist canons, since I'm not aware of one that was completely converted to simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What kind of projects are there to preserve these texts in the modern script? Published books, websites..? Either by the government or private companies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are classic texts still teached in schools the same way they were before the introduction of today's simplified characters and the cultural revolution? Do they use traditional characters at all? How does one go about studying the classics nowadays?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17172" LastEditorUserId="17172" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T03:33:04.157" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T09:27:10.310" Title="What's the state of Chinese classical texts in the mainland after Simplified Chinese (and the Cultural Revolution)?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24094" CreationDate="2017-06-13T21:22:04.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are four basic types of calligraphy: &#xA;   1.Regular Script(楷书)&#xA;   2.Semi-cursive Scrip(行书)&#xA;   3.Clerical Script(隶书)&#xA;   4.Cursive Script(草书)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally I'll recommend start with Yan Zhenqing - Duobaota Bei. But I think Ouyang Xun - Thousand Character Text is better for you to try. It's covering lots of basic knowledge and widely used as a primer for teaching Chinese characters to children. Below is the link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AC%A7%E9%98%B3%E8%AF%A2#/media/File:%E6%AC%A7%E9%98%B3%E8%AF%A2%E8%A1%8C%E4%B9%A6%E3%80%8A%E5%8D%83%E5%AD%97%E6%96%87%E3%80%8B.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AC%A7%E9%98%B3%E8%AF%A2#/media/File:%E6%AC%A7%E9%98%B3%E8%AF%A2%E8%A1%8C%E4%B9%A6%E3%80%8A%E5%8D%83%E5%AD%97%E6%96%87%E3%80%8B.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far I never see any Chinese calligraphy poem (ancient classic) is about love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17159" LastEditorUserId="17159" LastEditDate="2017-06-13T21:38:51.293" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T21:38:51.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24115" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-13T23:33:35.343" Score="0" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a comprehensive list of 语气词 or 语气助词? Or a place I can research more about them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Had an idea to do my dissertation on them but having trouble finding a list of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17293" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T05:03:21.293" Title="Is there a comprehensive list of 语气词 or 语气助词? Or a place I can research more about them?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24116" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-13T23:56:35.133" Score="3" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just reading about China's problem with rare given names and the absence of them in computer databases? For example, there was an individual with the given name pronounced &quot;cheng&quot; composed of 马 3 times horizontally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why hasn't software been developed to select a decomposed structure (e.g. 3 radicals event spaced and concatenated horizontally) and then to type the names of the individual radicals in place? If such software was developed, how many rare characters would it take care of? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems like it would certainly be a challenge for a developer to create software that scaled all radicals correctly (and the thousands of already extant compound characters as well), but a competent programmer could surely accomplish this at least to some level of satisfactory functionality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If such software already exists, what is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-02T23:54:35.367" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T23:54:35.367" Title="Character-component &quot;spelling&quot; software" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24116" CreationDate="2017-06-14T00:42:40.747" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xd2B9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xd2B9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, actually many input tools like Sogou and MSpinyin have already had such functions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know a lot of the database you referred to, but I guess it is the database of China's household registration department. I guess, in that system, not only do you need to register these antediluvian names, but you also have to select these obscure characters from the database, kinda like selecting from the menus. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T00:42:40.747" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24113" CreationDate="2017-06-14T01:56:02.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;are classic texts still teached in schools the same way they were before? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;classical texts are still taught in schools nowadays. well, &quot;before&quot;, you mean last century, &quot;before 1911&quot;, or hundreds / thousands of years ago?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;do they use traditional characters at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;clearly, using traditional script in macau, hongkong &amp;amp; taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;what kind of projects are there to preserve these texts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a few websites have classical texts &quot;collected&quot;, in &lt;strong&gt;traditional chinese&lt;/strong&gt; such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢文大藏經&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i'm not sure if this one is a &quot;complete&quot; buddhism text collection, well, it should be the largest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kanripo.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kanseki Repository&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;currently, it's the best sources for classical text, it included &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siku_Quanshu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; 四庫全書&lt;/a&gt; and more. further, it put buddhism texts &amp;amp; taoism texts into separate categories; ought to be easier to find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;internet archive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one had the cadal (china-america digital academic library), which had 78K+ books in classical text. unfortunately, the &quot;books provider&quot; made many unforgivable errors, that the meta-data for these books are, far from perfect :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, it was blocked in &quot;that area&quot; now. c'est la vie :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;second to last, as i know, the simplified chinese should be used for modern text only; all texts from the past (literatures of yore) should be use traditional chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;buddhism to propagate once again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are you kidding? or, a evil cult (邪教), pretending it's buddhism?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T01:56:02.043" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24115" CreationDate="2017-06-14T02:18:27.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese / Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;啊 a&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;噢 ao&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哎 ai&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;唉 ai&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吧 ba&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;呗 bei&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哦 o&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;喔 o&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哈 ha&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嚯 huo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;啦 la&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嘞 lei&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哩 li&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;啰 luo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;咯 lo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;喽 lou&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;咧 lie&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吗 ma&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嘛 ma&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哪 na&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;呐 na&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哇 wa&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;呦 you &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哟 yo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;唷 yo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吁 yu&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classic Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;呔 dai&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;呵 he&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;乎 hu&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;兮 xi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;矣 yi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;也 ye (means: too, also, in modern Chinese)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;哉 zai&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T04:08:55.240" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T04:08:55.240" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24113" CreationDate="2017-06-14T07:49:21.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to answer your questions one by one at first, but I decide to give you a comprehensive answer here. I'll take Buddhism for example. Daoism and Confucianism (NOT a religion) are similar.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Buddhism are still publishing books in Traditional Chinese (TC). In fact, you can find both Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese (SC) versions of books existing in China. It is a widespread opinion that reading books in TC will be more beneficial than Simplified Chinese (SC), since TC is the script used back to the foundation of the two religions. Similarly, if someone believes Tibetan Buddhism, many lamas will require him to chant in Tibetan language. Such phenomenon is still common.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, most experienced and renowned religious leaders (such as Master Jingkong and Dzongsar Rinpoche) are against such unnecessary restriction. Their opinions are: Since most Chinese now are taught SC, and religions should benefit as many people as possible, it's best to publish books and scriptures in SC, the most popular script in China. It should also be allowed to chant in Chinese language instead of Tibetan or Sanskrit, as it will make no difference except that Chinese people will find chanting much easier.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Traditional Chinese script is not taught in today's schools and universities in China, except for Chinese language major. However, it's not a big problem for the majority of Chinese to read TC due to the influence of Taiwan and Hong Kong(but most of them can't write it). For classical Chinese texts, they are still taught from primary school through high school, but they are all written in SC.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For Buddhism classics in Simplified Chinese, please visit:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fodian.net/index1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.fodian.net/index1.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This website cooperates with CBETA in Taiwan, which publishes corrected version of Buddhism classics.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can leave a comment below if you have any remaining questions. Don't forget to give me an upvote or accept this answer if you find it useful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T07:49:21.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23926" CreationDate="2017-06-14T07:55:43.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend you watch CCTV-4 (Chinese international). Many of its programs are subtitled in BOTH Chinese and English. Plus, its translation is professional and accurate.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, these programs are mostly documentaries and shows. I've not found any news program with English subtitle in China.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;EDIT: There is a Simplified Chinese subtitled news program on J5, a Hong Kong TV channel, called Putonghua Xinwen Baodao (Standard Mandarin News). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="11744" LastEditDate="2017-07-18T09:06:24.843" LastActivityDate="2017-07-18T09:06:24.843" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24122" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24131" CreationDate="2017-06-14T11:41:28.527" Score="2" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;If someone said '我之前知道【proposition】' would this imply that they knew it before, but no longer do? How about '我之前知道了【proposition】'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about when the time is specific such as ‘昨天我知道【proposition】’? Would this imply that I no longer know the proposition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17290" LastEditorUserId="17290" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T12:06:09.567" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T17:11:34.133" Title="What would the meaning of '之前知道' be? And '之前知道了'?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24122" CreationDate="2017-06-14T13:05:27.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The single sentence &quot;I knew it before&quot; isn't related to whether &quot;I did it (after know)&quot;.&lt;br&gt;If there is any relationship, it dues to the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: Shanghai Disney resort has been opened, had you been there?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;上海迪士尼已经开业了，你去过那里吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: I knew it before, but I have not been there.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我之前就知道了，但我没去过。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: Do you know that typhoon is coming?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;你知道台风要来了吗？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;B: I &lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt; knew it yesterday. (I knew it early than you think)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我昨天&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;知道了/我昨天&lt;strong&gt;已经&lt;/strong&gt;知道了/我昨天&lt;strong&gt;就已经&lt;/strong&gt;知道了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: Did you know that Olympic Games is about to close?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;你知道奥运会要结束了吗？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;B: I &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; knew it yesterday. (I knew it later than you think)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我昨天&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;知道。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T13:12:47.057" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T13:12:47.057" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24125" CreationDate="2017-06-14T15:04:19.843" Score="-1" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bCpCZ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bCpCZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Chinese symbol on a hoodie&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just got this hoodie and was wondering what the symbol meant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17298" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T15:12:55.657" Title="What does this symbol on my hoodie mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-06-19T17:30:34.910" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24124" CreationDate="2017-06-14T15:12:55.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means Love. It's traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17159" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T15:12:55.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24030" CreationDate="2017-06-14T20:09:58.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree mostly with Jacky X.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 妖 itself has the character 女 in it, which means female, and in traditional Chinese folklore there are female monsters called 女妖 (&quot;female monster&quot;) who may seduce men.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese monsters are referred to as 妖怪, and I've noticed that Japanese monsters (like the ones in Japanese folklore or anime) are often translated as 妖怪 in Chinese as well, while Western or European monsters like dragons, vampires, or the creatures in Harry Potter for instance tend to be translated as 怪獸 or 怪物 (&quot;monster&quot;). 獸 means beast, so the term 怪獸 would have more of a &quot;beast-like&quot; connotation to it.&#xA;If you type &quot;妖怪&quot; in Google search for pictures, it's likely that you might get more Japanese anime-related results than 怪獸.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17302" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T20:09:58.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24128" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24138" CreationDate="2017-06-14T21:19:44.873" Score="2" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw both 肉夹馍 (ròujiāmó) and 馍夹肉 (mójiāròu) being used in Shanxi province (photos below; neighbouring shops, with the same graphic).  It seems both refer to the same food item (what's sometimes described as a &quot;Chinese hamburger&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, the hanzi are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%82%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;肉&lt;/a&gt; = meat (ordinarily pork)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A4%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;夹&lt;/a&gt; = to place in between&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%A6%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;馍&lt;/a&gt; = small bread&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a distinction between 肉夹馍 and 馍夹肉?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I discussed this with my friends when we noticed this, but we couldn't identify any reason there's two different phrasings.  I think 馍夹肉 is incorrect, but I'm unsure since native Chinese speakers write 馍夹肉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XsAd4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XsAd4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;肉夹馍 for sale&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C2uLW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C2uLW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;馍夹肉 for sale&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update&lt;/em&gt;: Here's another photo I took of 馍夹肉 being used in Shanxi:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pthiqm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pthiqm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Another photo of 馍夹肉 being used in Shanxi&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shop 二丫头馍夹肉 is listed at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dianping.com/shop/63291088&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;DianPing&lt;/a&gt;, along with reviews writing e.g. &quot;店里馍夹肉真不错&quot; and &quot;馍夹肉的馍不错&quot;.  It could still be a right-to-left writing style, but this makes me unsure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-06-16T03:18:29.720" LastActivityDate="2017-06-16T21:19:15.293" Title="Is there a distinction between 肉夹馍 (ròujiāmó) and 馍夹肉 (mójiāròu)?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24128" CreationDate="2017-06-14T22:10:55.623" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The second is just right-to-left writing.  See  &lt;a href=&quot;http://Horizontal_and_vertical_writing_in_East_Asian_scripts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Horizontal_and_vertical_writing_in_East_Asian_scripts&lt;/a&gt; .&#xA;Historically, Chinese was written in vertical columns, with columns progressing from right to left.  In the 20th century a shift was made so that most writing is in rows, from left to right.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Today, the left-to-right direction is dominant in [Chinese, Japanese,&#xA;  and Korean] ... However, right-to-left horizontal writing is still&#xA;  seen in these scripts, in such places as signs [and]  stands selling&#xA;  food at festivals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of the right to left horizontal writing as showing just a top character in each of a series of columns from right to left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T22:53:39.413" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T22:53:39.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24122" CreationDate="2017-06-14T22:47:57.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be a cultural difference in usage here. ‘之前知道’ means you learned this before and still know it. 'I knew' often means 'I've forgotten', unless qualified like below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A：That girl married that boy.&#xA;A:这个女孩和那个男孩结婚了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B could answer:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B：I know.&#xA;B:我知道的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B：I already know/knew that.&#xA;B：我之前就知道了。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A：Who did that girl marry?&#xA;A:她和谁结婚了？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B：I knew, but I can't remember now.&#xA;B:我知道是谁，但是我忘了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-06-16T17:06:08.527" LastActivityDate="2017-06-16T17:06:08.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24132" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-14T23:38:56.183" Score="1" ViewCount="504" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 4 types of human emotion, 喜怒哀乐， seem to be 3. What difference do you see between 欢喜 and 快乐？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欢喜：欢乐心喜&lt;br&gt;&#xA;快乐：欢乐。指感到高兴或满意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-16T11:25:45.400" Title="What is the difference between 欢喜 and 快乐" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24132" CreationDate="2017-06-15T00:14:33.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;喜 delight; pleasure&lt;br&gt;&#xA;樂 happiness; joy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do not know the difference between 喜 and 樂, you can realize it from their antonyms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is pretty often to use two opposite words together in a Chinese phrase.&#xA;For example, (天地)玄黃, (天地)良心, (陰陽)怪氣, (陰陽)交錯, (緩急)(輕重), (緩急)相濟.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the same case in 喜怒哀樂.&#xA;There are two pairs of words here, which are 喜怒 and 哀樂.&#xA;Since the question mentioned 喜 and 樂 of 喜怒哀樂, let's just focus on this phrase. The antonym of 喜 is 怒 (anger), and 哀 (sorrow) is the opposite of 樂.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you certainly know the difference between anger and sorrow, then you should know the difference between 喜 and 樂.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「喜怒哀樂」的出處：《禮記·中庸》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天命之謂性，率性之謂道，修道之謂教。道者也，不可須臾離也；可離，非道也。是故，君子戒慎乎其所不睹，恐懼乎其所不聞。莫見乎隱，莫顯乎微，故君子慎其獨也。 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;喜怒哀樂&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 之未發，謂之中；發而皆中節，謂之和。中也者，天下之大本也；和也者，天下之達道也。致中和，天地位焉，萬物育焉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://edba.ncl.edu.tw/ChijonTsai/CEN/CEN-02.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《中庸》第一章&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上天賦於人的氣稟叫做性，順著本性去做叫做道，修明道的本末無偏私，就是教化。這個道是片刻不可離開的啊！如果可以離開，那就不是正道了。所以，君子在人看不到的地方也要警戒謹慎，在人聽不到的地方也常惶恐畏懼。沒有比隱暗處更顯現的，也沒有比細微處更顯著的，所以君子在獨處時特別謹慎。喜怒哀樂的感情在沒有發動前，叫做中；如果情感發出後都合乎節度，叫做和。中，是天下事物自然的本體；和，是天下人人共行的道路。能夠完全達到中和的地步，天地便可安居正位，萬物便可順遂生長了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastEditorUserId="15949" LastEditDate="2017-06-16T04:28:46.363" LastActivityDate="2017-06-16T04:28:46.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24132" CreationDate="2017-06-15T16:24:16.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not much. They are pretty much the same in meaning. If there is any slight difference, 喜 is like smile while 乐 is like laugh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But usage is a different matter. People use different words to express same thing under different situations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很快乐, not 我很欢喜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欢欢喜喜过大年， not 快快乐乐过大年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T16:24:16.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24128" CreationDate="2017-06-16T01:05:15.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point is the word &quot;肉夹馍&quot; comes from classical Chinese. It is a shorthand of &quot;肉夹于馍&quot;。 Translate &quot;肉夹于馍&quot; directly to English, it is &quot;the meat is clamped by the 2 pieces of bread&quot;. &quot;于&quot; is used in classical Chinese for &quot;Passive voice&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intuitively, when do not want to use the passive voice but directly discribe the fact that &quot;the 2 piecesof bread is clamping the piece of meat&quot;, we should say &quot;馍夹肉&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese person and actually some of native Chinese speaker do not know that why we say &quot;肉夹馍&quot; instead of &quot;馍夹肉&quot; since the latter seems more intuitively make sense. In fact, it is no harm to say &quot;馍夹肉&quot;, it is a correct expression. But for convention, we always use the expression &quot;肉夹馍&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17310" LastActivityDate="2017-06-16T01:05:15.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24020" CreationDate="2017-06-16T01:57:18.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my personal experience of learning English, if you want to learn how to speak it before learning how to read and write it, it's basically like building a house without any foundations, you will find it harder to learn in the long run, my opinion is to learn how to read, write and speak the language at the same time. I will just go through how you learn to speak, since you haven't start thinking about writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Speaking&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is always very tempting to learn to speak the language first, but sometimes you will find that what you think you mean doesn't appear to be what it actually means, plus the same sentence doesn't have the same meaning in different situations. This is why you need a good foundation, by that i mean learn the culture, learn what the words means, learn the different scenarios it is used in and then speak it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Follow books on how to read and write the words &lt;strong&gt;but don't count on memorizing the words when you want to speak the language&lt;/strong&gt;, it doesn't help at all. What i suggest is to listen to TV programs, listen to musics, listen to everything in Chinese and even if you don't understand it, your brain will start to adopt to the pronunciations and your brain will also starts to remember when to use them, you will also learn the culture, and also what i think is very important is getting updated on the pop culture, &lt;strong&gt;it is way more enjoyable if you know what's new in the current Chinese society, you feel like you are apart of the culture instead of just a learner&lt;/strong&gt;. What i enjoyed most is watching stand-up comedy when learning English, you get a lot of culture information from it, similar to a stand-up comedy in China is called 相声. I've watched actual stand-up comedy in China, but it is not the same, the comedians themselves kinda hold back a little bit and the Chinese culture is different, like talking about sex and relationships is normal in Western stand-up comedy, if it's funny, it's funny, but in China? NO, NO, NO, not yet at least, it's not like they are forbidden to talk about it, but because it's awkward. I'm a little bit going off topic, but this is exactly what i mean by learn the culture before you speak it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you've learned a little bit about China now what? &lt;strong&gt;Practice, Practice, Practice&lt;/strong&gt; 重要的事情说三遍(Repeat 3 times for important things, another funny phrase in China), talk to people, don't be afraid, don't just say 你好嘛(How are you?), try to have a decent conversation, if you don't understand, ask, people will explain, if you are stuck, ask how to say it properly. Yea, everyone knows practice makes you better, but this is really the key, no shortcuts, no set of learning procedures, if you don't practice how to speak, nothing else really matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2017-06-16T02:02:46.260" LastActivityDate="2017-06-16T02:02:46.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24128" CreationDate="2017-06-16T02:59:24.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Colin McLarty's answer clearly explained 馍夹肉 is just the Chinese writing direction ('right-to-left' instead of 'left -to- right' like English should) of 肉夹馍  , which is the correct name of this food item.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In '馍夹&lt;strong&gt;肉&lt;/strong&gt;' the main noun is '&lt;strong&gt;肉&lt;/strong&gt;' and '馍夹' is the adjectival phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'馍夹肉' = 'flatbread sandwiched &lt;strong&gt;meat&lt;/strong&gt;'(meat that is sandwiched by  bread)  which is misleading description of this food item.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main noun '肉' here is in the same role as 'the sausage' in a hotdog or 'the meat patty' in a hamburger. It doesn't describe the item accurately (a sausage without the bun is not a hotdog.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In '肉夹馍' the main noun is '夹馍' and  '肉' is the adjectival noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'肉&lt;strong&gt;夹馍&lt;/strong&gt;' = ' meat  &lt;strong&gt;sandwich bread&lt;/strong&gt;', which is the accurate description of this food item--&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'肉夹馍' is a [肉(meat pile)] &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; [&lt;strong&gt;夹馍&lt;/strong&gt;(sandwich bread)]' or simply: 'meat sandwich' (Northern China style)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Think of 'beef sandwich' (beef in sandwich bread).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the edited question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shop 二丫头馍夹肉 is listed at DianPing, along with reviews writing e.g. &amp;quot;店里馍夹肉真不错&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;馍夹肉的馍不错&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many examples of &lt;a href=&quot;https://hk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091108000051KK01801&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;huge mistakes in stores signs&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of mistakes found in actual store signs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.錯別字:&lt;strong&gt;梁&lt;/strong&gt;瓜 正字:&lt;strong&gt;涼&lt;/strong&gt; 出處:大成街市熟食中心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.錯別字:石&lt;strong&gt;班&lt;/strong&gt; 正字:&lt;strong&gt;斑&lt;/strong&gt; 出處:新都城新雅海鮮酒家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.錯別字:豬&lt;strong&gt;利&lt;/strong&gt; 正字:&lt;strong&gt;脷&lt;/strong&gt; 出處: 寶林紫荊大酒樓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.錯別字:&lt;strong&gt;栗&lt;/strong&gt;米 正字:&lt;strong&gt;粟&lt;/strong&gt; 出處:厚德萬有街市&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.錯別字:雞&lt;strong&gt;亦&lt;/strong&gt; 正字:&lt;strong&gt;翼&lt;/strong&gt; 出處:厚德萬有街市(佳寶)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.錯別字:&lt;strong&gt;朱&lt;/strong&gt;扖 正字:&lt;strong&gt;豬&lt;/strong&gt; 出處:綠河茶餐廳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.錯別字:麵&lt;strong&gt;飽&lt;/strong&gt; 正字:麵&lt;strong&gt;包&lt;/strong&gt; 出處:麵包先生(麵包鋪)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.錯別字:&lt;strong&gt;支&lt;/strong&gt;竹 正字:&lt;strong&gt;枝&lt;/strong&gt; 出處:喂食貓茶餐廳外賣單張&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.錯別字:&lt;strong&gt;九&lt;/strong&gt;菜花 正字:&lt;strong&gt;韭&lt;/strong&gt; 出處:喂食貓茶餐廳外賣單張&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.錯別字:痛&lt;strong&gt;証&lt;/strong&gt; 正字:&lt;strong&gt;症&lt;/strong&gt; 出處:元朗宏發徑生生保健中心.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.錯別字:人&lt;strong&gt;仕&lt;/strong&gt; 正字:&lt;strong&gt;士&lt;/strong&gt; 出處:天水圍聖腓力教堂佈道會&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.錯別字:禮&lt;strong&gt;卷&lt;/strong&gt; 正字:&lt;strong&gt;券&lt;/strong&gt; 出處:衛訊PhoneShow 9月p.21&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13.錯別字:拼&lt;strong&gt;盆&lt;/strong&gt; 正字:&lt;strong&gt;盤&lt;/strong&gt; 出處:元朗明星海鮮酒家.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May be the owner of 二丫头馍夹肉 saw a sign 馍夹肉 somewhere like you did and mistaken it was the correct term and put it in their store sign....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, The reviewer saw 馍夹肉 in the store sign, trusted the owner and called the 'meat sandwich bread' 馍夹肉 as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally: look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.ca/search?q=%E7%BE%8A%E8%82%89%E5%A4%B9%E9%A6%8D&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwj01pr6u8HUAhXqx4MKHXlPBPwQ_AUICigB#tbm=isch&amp;amp;q=%E7%89%9B%E8%82%89%E5%A4%B9%E9%A6%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;牛肉夹馍&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.ca/search?q=%E7%BE%8A%E8%82%89%E5%A4%B9%E9%A6%8D&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwj01pr6u8HUAhXqx4MKHXlPBPwQ_AUICigB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;羊肉夹馍&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.meishichina.com/recipe-260638.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孜然羊肉夹馍&lt;/a&gt;. That should clear up the confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-16T21:19:15.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24132" CreationDate="2017-06-16T05:47:48.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker of Chinese. I would like to explain the difference between &quot;喜&quot; and &quot;乐&quot; in English, but it's only my own opinion and the usage of English words may not that accuracy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The background you need to understand is how Chinese language user usually express their emotion. Most of time, we prefer not to show our emotion in a directly way. So, you can say a person is adultness with &quot;喜怒不形于色&quot;(you don't show joy or anger on your face).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, &quot;喜&quot; is a more inner emotion in one's mind like &lt;em&gt;joy&lt;/em&gt;,  while &quot;乐&quot; is the emotion you show to all people around you like &lt;em&gt;happy&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If someone is &quot;欢喜&quot;, he feels delight because something he looks for is achieved. It's an activity in his mind and he can choose to show it with smile or not.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If somesone is &quot;快乐&quot;, it expresses that he is so happy that he can't hide it and he would like to show it out. It's a stronger emotion than &quot;欢喜&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &quot;欢喜&quot; is a formal word usually used to writting article, &quot;快乐&quot; is a casual word used in both oral and written Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17312" LastActivityDate="2017-06-16T05:47:48.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24132" CreationDate="2017-06-16T08:53:55.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you just want to know the meaning of 喜, and 乐 in 喜怒哀乐，the root will tell you everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜 ： the word original mean something you prefer/desire. The word then later extend to anything that brings joys. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;喜欢 ：like something;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;喜好 ： hobby （some personal activities you desire)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;喜庆： festival/celebration&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/zy/4E50.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乐/樂&lt;/a&gt; : glyph shows a person handle some instruments. Meaning then extend to something that cheers you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, listen to a joke will cheer you up。  For example &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;读到了那则消息， 他心中大喜。  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;读到了那则消息， 他心中大乐。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both carry the different meaning. The first sentence showed the person is pleased.  The second sentence indicated the person feel joyful.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTH, 欢喜 and 快乐 are not appropriate to use to distinguish 喜 and 乐.  Because the usage of 欢喜 evolved over time, it can mean cheer, joy, happiness, delightful.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may read something like this 她很得祖父母的欢喜, here. You cannot translate it to  &quot;She is the favorite grand-daughter&quot;  without reading the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, when related to Buddism context like 皆大欢喜, it means delightful or satisfied instead of happiness.　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-06-16T11:25:45.400" LastActivityDate="2017-06-16T11:25:45.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24113" CreationDate="2017-06-16T18:44:53.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever something is newly published, it is usually in Simplified. That's probably just it. If something is in Traditional because it was made / written before Simplified was popularized, well the copies, if they exist, are just kept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is what you are wondering: it is not hard at all to convert Traditional to Simplified, especially for a human. If people want to publish something now, they typically type. Now, how do they type? They look at the original and essentially digitalize it. It is just that they probably usually just type in Simplified because that is how they have their input method configured. Thus a text body in Traditional is digitalized in Simplified seamlessly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastActivityDate="2017-06-16T18:44:53.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24142" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-17T03:21:58.897" Score="3" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not easy being a man in China, you need to have a lot of qualities!（I'll never qualify!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男人要有责任心、为人正直、宽容、刚毅，不背叛朋友; 男人要上进，有报复，有魄力； 男人要谦虚，诚实，大方；男人要有修养，心胸开阔，处境艰难而不退缩，面对打击而不脆弱；男人是生活中的榜样，家庭的靠山，社会的支柱。总之，男人要顶天立地，光彩照人，要有男人的气概。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘光彩照人’的意思呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T08:46:53.177" Title="What exactly is meant by 光彩照人？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24142" CreationDate="2017-06-17T04:25:32.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;光彩照人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Shine; Brilliant; Radiant  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%85%89%E5%BD%A9%E7%85%A7%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;用以形容人或事物十分美好，令人注目、敬仰。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;used to describe people or things are very beautiful, and make others impressive and respected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/clk/search/%E5%85%89%E5%BD%A9%E7%85%A7%E4%BA%BA/141468/238478&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;形容人外表亮麗或事物色彩鮮明，十分美好&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Describe a person's appearance bright or things are bright and very beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tw.websaru.com/%E5%85%89%E5%BD%A9%E7%85%A7%E4%BA%BA.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;光彩照人 coloured and dazzling&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. 公主光彩照人地穿著一身雪白的新禮服來了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The princess arrived, resplendent in a new white dress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. 阿勒頗的阿拉姆瑣瓦，他們講著一個關於前人哈卡姆•伊茲拉•哈馬威的傳說。這個故事說的是使他在非猶太人心目中光彩照人，在東方所有城市中名聲鵲起的某一功績。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In aram zova in aleppo they tell a tale about hakham ezra hamawi of blessed memory concerning a deed which exalted him in the eyes of the gentiles and won him a name in all the cities of the east.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E5%85%89%E5%BD%A9%E7%85%A7%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;光彩照人 Radiant&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He is sparkling and versatile in front of the camera.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;镜头前的他光彩照人，多才多艺。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He glimpsed Sonia, resplendent in a red dress.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他瞥了索尼亚一眼，见她一身红衣，光彩照人。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;She glittered at the elegant table.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;她坐在典雅的桌子旁边显得光彩照人.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T04:25:32.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24144" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-17T07:28:49.877" Score="2" ViewCount="503" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to dictionary, it translated as &quot;cut short&quot; or &quot;disappearing&quot; or &quot;vanishing&quot;. However, the phrase 太绝了 which I think it means &quot;perfectly!&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to ask if 绝 can be use with meaning of &quot;disappearing&quot; object like &quot;He disappear from the meeting&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anybody give mean an explanation on what 绝 really means? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15622" LastEditorUserId="15622" LastEditDate="2017-06-17T07:47:00.703" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T08:45:15.243" Title="What does 绝 means?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24142" CreationDate="2017-06-17T08:20:50.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase「光彩照人」is related to two better known phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「光彩奪目」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「光彩」means: 'light and color' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「奪目」means: 'blinding/ dazzling' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「光彩奪目」 means : 「blindingly brilliant (of light and color) 」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be used literally to describe objects like diamonds and gems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 「這鑽石光彩奪目」(this diamond is blindingly brilliant )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or metaphorically describe a person's brilliance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 「她的演出光彩奪目」(her performance is blindingly brilliant) - &lt;em&gt;comparing a person's brilliance to a gem's.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「她的&lt;strong&gt;光彩&lt;/strong&gt;」= 'her &lt;strong&gt;brilliance&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「明艷照人」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「明艷」means 'radiant beauty'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「照人」means 'shining (upon people)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「明艷照人」means ' radiant beauty shines'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;光彩照人&lt;/strong&gt;」means ' &lt;strong&gt;radiating brilliance; brilliance shines&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-17T08:46:53.177" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T08:46:53.177" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24144" CreationDate="2017-06-17T08:45:15.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/js/7EDD.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;basic interpretation of 绝 in 汉典&lt;/a&gt;, there are 7 meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;断&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  cut off; break off; discontinue; stop&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;尽，穷尽&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  exhausted; die&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;极，极端的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  extreme&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;独特的，少有的，没有人能赶上的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  unique; superb; excellent; rare; no one can catch up&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一定的，肯定的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  certain; absolute; for sure&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;越过&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  cross; surpass&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;旧体诗的一种体裁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A genre of classical Chinese poetry&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean &quot;He left the meeting&quot;, it would be 他从会议上离开了. We seldom use 绝 in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we say 他从会议上绝迹了, it means he will never show up again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;绝迹 usually means a creature is completely extinct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T08:45:15.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17813" CreationDate="2017-06-17T12:53:19.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  And there should not be.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IPA is used to study languages, including Chinese languages.  Linguists use it in intensive study of regional differences in pronunciation in China, and for detailed study of exactly how each standard Hanyu pinyin syllable is meant to sound and how it is to be produced in the mouth (tongue and jaw positions etc). These are complex questions and linguists do not entirely agree about any of them.  The best comprehensive source I know for that is Lin &lt;em&gt;Sounds of Chinese&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IPA is far too elaborate to use in a practical dictionary.  And there is too little consensus about the exact details of either the descriptive or prescriptive phonology of Chinese to make any IPA dictionary widely acceptable to linguists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right tool for the job of teaching practical modern Mandarin pronunciation to students, is precisely Hanyu Pinyin.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-06-17T14:35:55.407" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T14:35:55.407" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24116" CreationDate="2017-06-17T14:30:01.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There certainly have been approaches like the one you described. There's a relatively early prototype by Hobby and Goan (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb05-2/tb10hobby.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb05-2/tb10hobby.pdf&lt;/a&gt;) for a Chinese font defined in MetaFont (TeX's font description language) and another later attempt by a guy named Laguna (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb26-2/laguna.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb26-2/laguna.pdf&lt;/a&gt;). There's a commercial solution by WenLin (&lt;a href=&quot;http://guide.wenlininstitute.org/wenlin4.3/Character_Description_Language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://guide.wenlininstitute.org/wenlin4.3/Character_Description_Language&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://wenlin.com/cdl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://wenlin.com/cdl&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_description_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_description_language&lt;/a&gt;) that I can't judge. I remember there were attempts at Academia Sinica, Taiwan, in the 1980s and 90s to produce software that could generate character images on the fly from abstract definitions; I believe those were intended to be used for TV subtitles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, there are specialized operators defined in Unicode to describe the structure of characters called Ideographic Description Characters (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideographic_Description_Characters_(Unicode_block)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideographic_Description_Characters_(Unicode_block)&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode9.0.0/ch18.pdf#page=23&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode9.0.0/ch18.pdf#page=23&lt;/a&gt;). Using IDCs, it's straightforward to describe many characters; here's an excerpt of data provided by &lt;a href=&quot;http://kanji-database.sourceforge.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://kanji-database.sourceforge.net&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cjkvi/cjkvi-ids&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/cjkvi/cjkvi-ids&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;U+6946  楆 ⿰木要&#xA;U+6947  楇 ⿰木咼&#xA;U+694B  楋 ⿰木剌&#xA;U+245FA  ⿰片辟&#xA;U+24602  ⿰片夢&#xA;U+9E05  鸅 ⿰睪鳥&#xA;U+9E09  鸉 ⿱楊鳥&#xA;U+9E0A  鸊 ⿰辟鳥&#xA;U+9E0B  鸋 ⿰寧鳥&#xA;U+9E0C  鸌 ⿰鳥蒦&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above are the &lt;em&gt;shortest&lt;/em&gt; meaningful formulas that can be given for each character; below you can see a sample of how I recursively resolved formulas to obtain the &lt;em&gt;longest&lt;/em&gt; meaningful formulas; these of course depend on exactly which components you declare to be basic (which is often a bit arbitrary; e.g. 豆 can easily be further decomposed):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;乾 ⿸⿰乙&#xA;亀 ⿱⿱日电&#xA;亂 ⿰(⿱爫龴⿵冂⿱厶又)乚&#xA;亃 ⿰⿱米⿰夕㐄乚&#xA;亄 ⿰(⿱士冖豆)乚&#xA;亘 ⿱一⿱日一&#xA;些 ⿱⿰止匕二&#xA;亟 ⿱⿻了⿰口又一&#xA;亢 ⿱亠几&#xA;交 ⿱亠父&#xA;亨 (⿱亠口了)&#xA;亩 ⿱亠田&#xA;享 (⿱亠口子)&#xA;京 (⿱亠口小)&#xA;亭 (⿱亠口冖丁)&#xA;亮 (⿱亠口冖几)&#xA;亵 (⿱亠⿰扌丸)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be great if there was software to compose character shapes from these formulas; I certainly would love to have such a facility. However, all the attempts to write a character generator that I know of either use a much more concrete representation giving the metrics and locations for each component, or they produced extremely ugly shapes and never went beyond proof-of-concept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16530" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T14:30:01.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21096" CreationDate="2017-06-17T17:05:17.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;还要&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;more&amp;quot; here, so &amp;quot;还要清楚&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;clearer.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other expressions of &amp;quot;clearer&amp;quot; include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;更清楚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;更加清楚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清楚得多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming &amp;quot;释然&amp;quot; is a person's name (Shiran), the entire sentence means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shiran, I'm afraid I'm clearer about what you're thinking now than you are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17314" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T17:05:17.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24122" CreationDate="2017-06-17T17:11:34.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only thing you need to remember is that &quot;了&quot; is very similar to &quot;already,&quot; which explains the context of &quot;之前知道了&quot; that you knew something and you likely still know it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17314" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T17:11:34.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24094" CreationDate="2017-06-17T17:14:48.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very famous poem good for practicing calligraphy is&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8A%E9%82%AA/1270334&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《上邪》 (Shang Ye)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17314" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T17:14:48.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24155" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-17T18:57:32.757" Score="0" ViewCount="338" Body="&lt;p&gt;The famous character Judge Dee is based on the historical magistrate Di Renjie, according to Wikipaedia. But I have seen this name spelled as Ti Jentsjié in Dutch, pronounced roughly like /ti/ /jen.tsji.eː/. Now I am curious what it should sound like in Chinese. I don't know what the Chinese character are (or were, during the Tang).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interesting in the pronunciation in modern Chinese, in 18th-century Chinese, and in Tang Chinese, in as much as the pronunciation has changed over the past centuries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I see it spelled Ti Jen-Chieh on this page, but without an explanation: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poets_and_Murder&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poets_and_Murder&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17317" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T09:07:56.810" Title="Ti Pronunciation of &quot;Di Renjie&quot;" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24156" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24160" CreationDate="2017-06-17T20:18:13.320" Score="1" ViewCount="308" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to explain to English-speaking people how different classical Chinese (文言文) and modern Chinese (白话文) are. I would like to put this into scale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, if an average modern Chinese person sees a text in classical Chinese, how much of it would he be able to understand? Would he be able to understand as much as an average English person understands early modern English (like in Shakespeare's works)? Or maybe Middle English? Latin even?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T08:12:25.540" Title="How can I put the understandability of classical Chinese and modern Chinese into scale?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24156" CreationDate="2017-06-17T22:45:39.067" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically classic Chinese is a so broad topic. Like culture, religion, you can't simply compare two things and get a scale. If you can narrow down your question to a very specific topic, you may lucky guess an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like Oracle bone script, Bronze inscriptions, Large Seal Script, Small Seal Scrip, normal people may able to guess a few characters from an article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For philosophy book, like Laozi DaoDeJin, even all words are printed in simplified Chinese, and you may know each word, but you just don't know the meaning. Not only normal people don't understand, university graduate is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for some novel, like Journey to the West, I think most content can be understood by normal people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classic Chinese history can be traced from Shang Dynasty to early 20th century. Compare to classic Chinese, even Latin is a young language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17159" LastEditorUserId="17159" LastEditDate="2017-06-18T08:12:25.540" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T08:12:25.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24155" CreationDate="2017-06-18T00:58:51.727" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This character is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Di_Renjie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;狄仁傑&lt;/a&gt;, the original Chinese novel about his cases is &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=4434&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;狄公案&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different spellings are caused by different romanisation schemes, and which languages is used (from &amp;amp; to).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 唐 dynasty, it was Middle Chinese; nowadays Cantonese is still highly related to it. The pronunciation of this name is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%8B%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;狄 dik6&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/dik6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%BB%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;仁 yan4&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/jan4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%82%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;傑 git6&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/git6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may change the scheme used at the top right corner of the page, to IPA :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-06-18T07:19:21.490" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T07:19:21.490" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24156" CreationDate="2017-06-18T02:00:57.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in short, it's middle english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a long explanation, in general, roughly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would define classical chinese as &quot;text from bc770 to bc221 (春秋 - 先秦),  afterward, it's literary chinese. there're big differences between this two, mainly, the grammar, style, vocabulary &amp;amp; underlying assumption.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for classical chinese text, thought modern average people know most of the characters and words, they would have great difficulty to understand an article without help. if you ask them to write in the same style. it's no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's like asking a land buddy to read the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowditch%27s_American_Practical_Navigator&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bowditch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for literary chinese text, modern average people would have difficulty to understand the articles, they may guess the meaning of words, clauses. if they've help (dictionaries, mentors), they could grasp the meaning roughly. i guess there're very few people can write literary chinese now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's like asking a high school children to read university level textbook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next, types of articles has huge differences in the comprehension.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;poems, correspondences and novels are easier to understand; while religious, medical, astronomical related materials are, very very tough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T02:00:57.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24161" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24174" CreationDate="2017-06-18T09:49:32.080" Score="2" ViewCount="331" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was being taught Mandarin Chinese- quite a few years ago- we were only taught 家人 as meaning family or family member. However Google translate returns 家庭 as the best option for 'family' and 家庭成员 for 'family member'. What is the distinction between these? Are they used in different contexts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17320" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T17:32:21.507" Title="Different terms for 'family' and 'family member'" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24162" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24165" CreationDate="2017-06-18T11:20:21.547" Score="2" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw the road sign photographed below, but I'm confused about how 天津图书馆园区馆 (tiān jīn tú shū guǎn yuán qū guǎn) makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm mostly familiar with the components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A4%A9%E6%B4%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天津&lt;/a&gt; = Tianjin, the city I live in.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%9B%BE%E4%B9%A6%E9%A6%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;图书馆&lt;/a&gt; = library&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%9B%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;园&lt;/a&gt; usually refers to a park&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8C%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;区&lt;/a&gt; = district (what we would call a suburb in Australia)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%A6%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;馆&lt;/a&gt; = ???&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't recall seeing 馆 by itself before (always part of something else: 宾馆 （hotel), 博物馆 (museum), 体育馆 (gym), etc.), so I'm surprised as to what it's doing here.  This contributes to my confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm also unsure of how to piece these together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I parse 天津图书馆园区馆?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FyVlu.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FyVlum.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;天津图书馆园区馆 (along with the pinyin) on a road sign&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-06-18T14:53:22.030" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T14:53:22.030" Title="How do I parse 天津图书馆园区馆 (tiān jīn tú shū guǎn yuán qū guǎn)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24163" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-18T14:38:26.630" Score="3" ViewCount="7223" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I just found myself in a spot of bother. I decided to go to learn how to make some Chinese knots, but everything there was Chinese, so I had to speak Chinese. I understood the instructions that the teacher was telling me, etc. and it was all going well...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I realised that I had no idea how to ask for a random person's help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In England, we usually say. &quot;Excuse me&quot;, and then the thing that you need to say. I didn't know how to do it, sadly. So, I said 对不起, and then the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was it wrong for me to have said 对不起?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do they say 'excuse me' in China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15304" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T09:47:18.190" Title="How do I say 'excuse me'?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5956" CreationDate="2017-06-18T14:41:04.250" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I burn 3 incense to my ancestor but one of them did not burn.&#xA;I am very sure that i burned it throughly before placing for offering . But later on , one incense did not burn up. What does this indicate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17321" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T14:41:04.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24162" CreationDate="2017-06-18T14:45:46.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes this is confusing. If you search it you'll find the (complete) name should be &lt;a href=&quot;http://hhjyy.tjl.tj.cn/TJHHPortal/ArticleChannel.aspx?ChannelID=274&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天津图书馆海河教育园区图书馆&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;(天津)海河教育园区&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;Tianjin Haihe Education Park&lt;/code&gt;) is used for specifying the location of the branch library here. Note that &lt;a href=&quot;http://cidian.xpcha.com/23069nia41f.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;园区&lt;/a&gt; is usually used as a term, which means &quot;集中发展某种事业的地区&quot; (&lt;code&gt;key development area for some kind of enterprise&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess that the name &lt;code&gt;天津图书馆海河教育园区图书馆&lt;/code&gt; is just too long to write on the road sign so it's shorted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At last to answer your question directly the sentence should be parsed as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天津 = Tianjin, the city you live in.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;图书馆 = library&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(海河教育)园区 = (Haihe education) park &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;馆 = branch library&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-06-18T14:51:38.883" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T14:51:38.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24163" CreationDate="2017-06-18T15:02:53.497" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;对不起&lt;/code&gt; is not wrong. According to the scenario, it's fine if you intent to use it for the meaning of &lt;code&gt;I'm sorry&lt;/code&gt; (for bothering or disturbing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use &lt;code&gt;不好意思&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;打扰一下&lt;/code&gt; instead, if you won't bother the random people much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-06-18T15:16:35.037" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T15:16:35.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24168" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24169" CreationDate="2017-06-18T16:38:52.623" Score="2" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would the sentence &quot;我知道它，但是我忘了“ sound unnatural?&#xA;As in, 'I know it, but I've forgotten it' (I learnt it sometime ago, but have now forgotten it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17290" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-06-20T00:40:31.283" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T10:22:52.437" Title="Is the sentence &quot;我知道它，但是我忘了“ unnatural?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24168" CreationDate="2017-06-18T18:01:35.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We seldom say 我知道它&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我知道這個/那個 may be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the best answer depends on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9326" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T18:01:35.633" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24168" CreationDate="2017-06-19T00:15:22.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you are talking about some object you've seen before, maybe it seems weired, because in this case &lt;code&gt;忘了&lt;/code&gt; is too vague for any specific meaning. You need to mention what you forgot -- maybe the place, the shape, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if your friend is mentioning something old, and ask for your confirmation of knowning it. You have already forgot it, but suddenly think of it after this hint. Then, &lt;code&gt;我知道它，但是我忘了&lt;/code&gt; seems more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T00:15:22.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24173" CreationDate="2017-06-19T02:36:33.910" Score="2" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always find it hard to believe that there is no native Chinese term for &lt;strong&gt;stoning&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese execution methods are numerous and varied: 凌迟, 车裂, 斩首, 炮烙, etc, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stoning always gets translated as: 用石头砸, 拿石头打死, 用石头砸死, 被乱石砸死.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there really no native term for stoning? No equivalent execution method? Too pedestrian for the Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T15:58:01.830" Title="Is there *really* no native term for &quot;stoning&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24163" CreationDate="2017-06-19T02:47:10.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may use 唔該(Cantonese, pronunciation: m4 goi1) in Hong Kong or Cantonese speaking area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Way to use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese: 唔該, 我想要支水。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is equivalent to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin: (不好意思/打擾一下)/對不起，我想要一瓶水。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English: (Excuse me)/Sorry, I would like to have a bottled water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would say this to the worker when he/she is currently busy or did not pay attention to the customer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may search the words here, this is a bilingual webpage:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantonese Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T02:47:10.240" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24171" CreationDate="2017-06-19T02:51:05.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course it does. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We called it 石刑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please refer to:&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English Stoning&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E7%9F%B3%E5%88%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Stoning&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastEditorUserId="17191" LastEditDate="2017-06-19T02:52:01.710" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T02:52:01.710" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24161" CreationDate="2017-06-19T02:55:45.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;家人&lt;/strong&gt;' is a specific term for '&lt;strong&gt;one's family&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: '我的&lt;strong&gt;家人&lt;/strong&gt;在香港' (my &lt;strong&gt;family&lt;/strong&gt; is in Hong Kong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家人 can also refer to: 'individual(s) of one's family'. For example: '他是陳先生的&lt;strong&gt;家人&lt;/strong&gt;' (He is Mr.Chan's &lt;strong&gt;family&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;家庭成员&lt;/strong&gt;' is a specific term for '&lt;strong&gt;member(s) of a family&lt;/strong&gt;'/ &lt;strong&gt;family member(s)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We do not say: &quot; My family members are in Hong Kong.&quot; in English; therefore, we don't say: &quot;我的家庭成员在香港.&quot; in Chinese neither. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, we do not say: &quot;He is Mr. Chan's family member&quot; in English; therefore, we don't say: &quot;他是陳先生的家庭成员&quot; in Chinese neither.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We use the term '家庭成员' the same as 'family member(s) ' in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;Family members&lt;/strong&gt; of the Chan family includes:  Mr. and Mrs. Chan and their two daughters&quot; (陳家的&lt;strong&gt;家庭成員&lt;/strong&gt;包括：陳先生及夫人及其兩個女兒)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you say: &quot;Mr. Chan's &lt;strong&gt;family&lt;/strong&gt;, are his wife and two daughters&quot; then the translation would be: &quot;陳先生的&lt;strong&gt;家人&lt;/strong&gt;是他的妻子和兩個女兒”&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you say: &quot; Mr. Chan's &lt;strong&gt;family&lt;/strong&gt; include he himself, his wife and two daughters&quot; then the translation would be: “陳先生的&lt;strong&gt;家庭&lt;/strong&gt;包括他自己，他的妻子和兩個女兒”&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;家庭&lt;/strong&gt; is a specific term for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Family&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-19T17:32:21.507" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T17:32:21.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24171" CreationDate="2017-06-19T09:51:29.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stoning is rare in the China culture.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, Chinese society enters imperial dynasty(monarchy) one thousand years earlier than Europe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, this is not because it is more &quot;humane&quot;, but imperialism government wants to monopoly the power of capital punishment, with the hope of preventing the people enact the idea of hurling the stones toward the rulers.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even these may happen during a rebellion, but this is not considered as &quot;punishment&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-06-19T15:58:01.830" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T15:58:01.830" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24163" CreationDate="2017-06-19T11:22:29.313" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin Chinese, &quot;Excuse me&quot; is translated into &quot;抱歉&quot; normally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to ask for a random person's help, these words are also useful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不起 dù bù qǐ &#xA;不好意思 bù hǎo yì si&#xA;不好意思，打扰一下  bù hǎo yì si， dǎ rǎo yí xià (I'm sorry to disturb you.)&#xA;打扰了 dǎ rǎo le&#xA;劳烦问一下 láo fán wèn yí xià&#xA;麻烦问一下 má fán wèn yí xià&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17326" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T11:22:29.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24161" CreationDate="2017-06-19T16:34:49.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;家人 is a commonly used to describe close and family members, that have direct bloodline connection.  家族 resemble a whole &quot;tribes&quot;. i.e. 家人, 家里人，家族人员。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However，成員 actually origin from Japan. i.e. 成員.構成員 メンバー(Meh O Bah [sounds like English member isn't it]), 家庭成员／家族の構成員。  Not forgetting Japan かてい(Kah Ten) 家庭. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, you wouldn't see 成員 before the 18th century, nor 家庭. Chinese in various dialect rarely use 家庭成员 to describe the family members. In fact, 家庭成员 mostly used inside &lt;strong&gt;modern Chinese government document(China/Taiwan/HK )&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is awkward to say 我的家庭成员, Even though Mandarin speaker understands what you mean, but we will not use it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be careful that &quot;家人&quot; always means close ties than the word &quot;兄弟&quot;(brother, brotherhood).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-06-19T17:30:30.803" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T17:30:30.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24178" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24214" CreationDate="2017-06-19T17:56:55.100" Score="3" ViewCount="389" Body="&lt;p&gt;The hardest part of Chinese is that one Chinese word has so many definitions. Now take that countless possibilities and combine them into a component word, and the meaning will be impossible to comprehend. First of all, what exactly do 无奈 and 有奈 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my understanding, 无奈 can be translated into &quot;helpless&quot; or &quot;nothing anyone can do&quot;, and I believe 奈 is a verb here, which has a meaning of &quot;deal with&quot;, so 无奈 can be translated into &quot;No deal with&quot; or &quot;can't deal with&quot;, which is sort of like &quot;helpless&quot;. For example, 奈何天 simple means &quot;how to deal with God&quot; or &quot;can't deal with God&quot; (天 has the meaning of God in Chinese). 无奈我爱你 can be accepted as &quot;I can't help to love you&quot;? Correct me if I am wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then what about 有奈？ Google didn't show a lot of example for it. I think 有耐 can be considered &quot;being very capable&quot; or &quot;helpful&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, what is the meaning to &quot;无可奈何&quot;? Again, I believe it's also interpreted simply as &quot;helpless&quot;, but why added 可 and 何， when 无奈 does the job just fine？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T17:54:52.767" Title="无奈我爱你，How to use 无奈 and 有奈?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24178" CreationDate="2017-06-19T18:58:16.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there's either 有奈 or 有耐 in at least modern mainland Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17314" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T18:58:16.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24178" CreationDate="2017-06-19T19:03:53.597" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/12585/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;无奈&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;' &#xA;  is a compound word, commonly used in day-to-day conversation in modern Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It made up of '无'(no) and 奈(dealing with)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(1) cannot help it; to have no alternative; to have no choice&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1693/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;奈&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is a classical (archaic) term for '处理'; '应付'(deal with)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(1) &lt;strong&gt;deal with&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;cope with&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of 奈 in sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;奈&lt;/strong&gt;之若何 (&lt;strong&gt;deal with&lt;/strong&gt; it like how?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;奈&lt;/strong&gt;他不何 (can't &lt;strong&gt;deal with&lt;/strong&gt; him whatsoever)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;'有奈' is not a term. It doesn't exist.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some compound word just can't be changed to the opposite by simply replace 「無」 with 「有」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The opposite of  「無聊」 is not 「有聊」. It is 「有趣」 or 「有意思」&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The opposite of  「無稽」 is not 「有稽」. It is 「有根據」&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The opposite of  「無奈」 is not 「有奈」. It is 「即極」, 「自願」 or 「主動」&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Last but not least, what is the meaning to &quot;无可奈何&quot;?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无可(no way to)奈(deal with)何(whatsoever)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;无可奈何&quot; means: &quot;there is no alternative whatsoever; nothing can be done about it&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to use 无奈 and &lt;strong&gt;有奈&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can only be used in tongue in cheek manner for humor --it is kind of funny to think why can't we use 「有奈」 for the opposite term of「無奈」or 「有聊」 for the opposite term of 「無聊」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-23T17:54:52.767" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T17:54:52.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24181" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24182" CreationDate="2017-06-19T19:51:58.267" Score="2" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;What romanization system of what language or dialect is this from?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I've seen no other romanization of Mandarin or other Chinese languages or dialects use a final H.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or may it be just common english-speaking use to avoid being pronounced may-jong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="59" LastActivityDate="2020-03-14T00:44:58.057" Title="Why does the romanization Mahjong have a final H after ma?" Tags="&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24181" CreationDate="2017-06-20T01:21:54.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong#Mahjong_in_the_West&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mahjong In The West&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is just a translation problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the old times, romanisation in Chinese Language like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyutping&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantonese Romanisation&lt;/a&gt; is not really common, like in this case, Mahjong might be translated from the Wu Dialect or Northern Chinese Language, I'm not sure about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might also refer to this &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/176842/what-is-the-story-behind-the-word-mahjong&quot;&gt;The Mahjong Origin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope I did answer your question. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T01:21:54.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24168" CreationDate="2017-06-20T07:18:04.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &quot;我知道它，但是我忘了&quot; and &quot;我知道这个，但是我忘了&quot; sounds unnatural to me. I have no idea what you are talking about until I saw the English explanation: I learnt it sometime ago, but have now forgotten it. To me, the most natural way to say this is to say it with details, like &quot;我知道这个，但是我忘记具体的内容&quot; (I knew this, but now I forgot all the details) or even &quot;我记得我看到过这件事，但是其他的都忘记了&quot; (I know I have seen this, but I cannot remember anything else about it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17328" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T07:18:04.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24168" CreationDate="2017-06-20T09:53:58.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, 知道 is more complicated than &quot;know&quot;. 道 itself mean &quot;nature's rules&quot;. So implicitly, if you know the nature, you cannot &quot;forget&quot; it. It is almost similar to &quot;enlighten&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why it is not proper to use 知道 for something you already know/learn/heard.  You must specify the subject:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我听过这个说法， 但是我忘了具体的内容&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我曾经读过这本书，但我现在忘记了它说什么。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我学过这个算法， 但（现在）我忘了。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-06-20T10:22:52.437" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T10:22:52.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24185" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24208" CreationDate="2017-06-20T13:45:41.700" Score="2" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before moving to Hong Kong in 2 months, I want to learn Chinese and when considering Udemy, I came across a course &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.udemy.com/dc-level-1/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chinese Made Easy L1: Understand 65% of Chinese in 10 hours&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the description says &quot;Chinese (Mandarin)&quot;. Does this mean that it is a Mandarin course? Are Mandarin and Chinese very related?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this course is teaching Mandarin, and if Mandarin is a way different language than Chinese, would it have any use in Hong Kong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17332" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T00:34:49.650" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T00:46:33.693" Title="Is this Udemy course in Mandarin, are Mandarin and Chinese very related, and would Mandarin have any use in Hong Kong?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24185" CreationDate="2017-06-20T14:13:51.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I checked the website.  Yes, it teaches Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin is the formal language used in Taiwan and mainland China (including Guangdong).  Mandarin is written using &lt;em&gt;simplified&lt;/em&gt; Chinese in mainland China, while written using &lt;em&gt;traditional&lt;/em&gt; Chinese in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese is used in Hong Kong and Guangdong, written using &lt;em&gt;traditional&lt;/em&gt; Chinese in Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Chinese&quot; includes Mandarin and dialects used in some cities.  Among them, Cantonese is significantly different from Mandarin, and most of movies released in Hong Kong need to be dubbed so audiences from Taiwan and mainland China can watch them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17331" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T00:46:33.693" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T00:46:33.693" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24185" CreationDate="2017-06-20T16:06:00.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In two months only?  I recommend the FSI (foreign service institute) Cantonese course.  It was made by the US government, and follows a self-learning style.  Also importantly, it's free. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two sites which have pdf and mp3 files:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/FSI/fsi-cantonese.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/FSI/fsi-cantonese.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.livelingua.com/project/fsi/Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.livelingua.com/project/fsi/Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't worry, you won't have difficulty in Hong Kong, even you don't speak any Cantonese. However, if you can, it's more fun, and it might change the course of your life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, there's a book &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.hk/books?id=20zaDAAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PR14&amp;amp;lpg=PR14&amp;amp;dq=gweimui%27s+hong+kong+story&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=2SPBKFhdeO&amp;amp;sig=AszNJB2kqxD5zueRqeGqoMYF9uU&amp;amp;hl=zh-TW&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwiR9c-b5czUAhXDopQKHVCiCKoQ6AEIVzAJ#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=gweimui%27s%20hong%20kong%20story&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Gweimui's Hong Kong Story&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt; which describes a French girl's &quot;Hong Kong-ization&quot;.  I found it very interesting, so I suggest having a read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, the Hong Kong public library has a vast collection of learning materials, so I suggest checking the library first, before spending money on buying books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T00:42:26.257" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T00:42:26.257" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24189" CreationDate="2017-06-20T17:04:25.693" Score="2" ViewCount="829" Body="&lt;p&gt;风光 scene; view; sight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;景色 view; scene; landscape&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;风景 scenery; landscape&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People on other websites suggest there's no difference. Is that so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T19:36:31.347" Title="What is the difference in usage between 风光，景色 and 风景?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24188" CreationDate="2017-06-20T19:36:31.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I already answered this question here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/24096/is-there-a-difference-between-%e9%a2%a8%e6%99%af-and-%e9%a2%a8%e5%85%89/24097#24097&quot;&gt;Is there a difference between 風景 and 風光？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 景色:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「景」 in 「景色」 carries the meaning of 'scene/ sight' -- the picture you see in your eyes, as in  「景物」(sight and things), 「景象」(scene; image)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「色」in 「景色」 carries the meaning of 'color/ appearance' as in 「山光水色」(sight of the mountains and appearance of the water = scenery of mountains and river, lake or ocean )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The term「&lt;strong&gt;風光&lt;/strong&gt;」 generally refers to '&lt;strong&gt;sight&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;scene&lt;/strong&gt; /&lt;strong&gt;scenery&lt;/strong&gt;' (&lt;em&gt;natural or man made&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The term 「&lt;strong&gt;景色&lt;/strong&gt;」 generally refers to &quot;&lt;strong&gt;sight/ scene /scenery&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (&lt;em&gt;natural or man made&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The term 「&lt;strong&gt;風景&lt;/strong&gt;」 specifically refers to '&lt;strong&gt;the sight&lt;/strong&gt; of a landscape or a natural scenery' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;「西湖&lt;strong&gt;風景&lt;/strong&gt;」,「西湖&lt;strong&gt;風光&lt;/strong&gt;」or「西湖&lt;strong&gt;景色&lt;/strong&gt;」all mean &quot;&lt;strong&gt;scenery&lt;/strong&gt; of the West Lake&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T19:36:31.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24190" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24191" CreationDate="2017-06-20T20:24:41.210" Score="0" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this sentence: 你学习几年汉语了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I thought that the duration would go after the object like this: &#xA;你学习汉语几年了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also could I place the 了 directly after the verb: 你学习了汉语几年？?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After reading another thread here I though maybe there is a &quot;hidden 的&quot; and it could be 你学习了几年的汉语？?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T15:04:43.703" Title="Time duration in question" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24190" CreationDate="2017-06-20T20:49:27.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese grammar, &lt;strong&gt;duration&lt;/strong&gt; goes after '&lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt;'. The placement of the object is flexible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1. 你] [2. &lt;strong&gt;学习&lt;/strong&gt;] [3. &lt;strong&gt;几年&lt;/strong&gt;] [4. 汉语] [5. 了]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1. subject] [2. &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt;] [3. &lt;strong&gt;duration&lt;/strong&gt;] [4. object] [5. final particle indicates completion]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1. 你] [2. &lt;strong&gt;学习&lt;/strong&gt;] [3. 汉语] [4. &lt;strong&gt;几年&lt;/strong&gt;] [5. 了]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1. subject] [2. &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt;] [3. object] [4. &lt;strong&gt;duration&lt;/strong&gt;] [5. final particle indicates completion]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between the two phrases is the placement of the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;After reading another thread here I though maybe there is a &quot;hidden 的&quot; and it could be 你学习了几年的汉语？?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between &quot;你学习几年汉语了？&quot; and  &quot;你学习了几年的汉语？&quot; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;你学习几年汉语了？ emphasizes on the duration of the verb 学习 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Take away the object and write &quot;你学习几年了?&quot; (how many years have you been studying?) and the sentence is still grammatically correct.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;你学习了几年的汉语？&quot; emphasizes on the qualification of the object. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;几年的 in 几年的汉语 qualifies the object 汉语;  take away the object and write: &quot;你学习了几年&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (you have been studying for how many years &lt;strong&gt;of&lt;/strong&gt;...?&quot;) would make the sentence incomplete.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I stated before, the position of the object is flexible. You can even make it  a [topic] + [comment] sentence structure and write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;[汉语 (topic)] [你学习几年了 (comment)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Also could I place the 了 directly after the verb: 你学习了汉语几年？?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can write [你学习了][汉语几年?] or [你学习了][几年汉语?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 了 after the verb is a particle indicates completion of the action, similar to [ed] in English &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你学习 = you study&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你学习了 = you studied&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[verb (学习了)] follows by the [object (汉语)] is within the grammar rules. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-29T15:04:43.703" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T15:04:43.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24192" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-20T22:56:57.340" Score="1" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why does the Windows 10 HanYu Pinyin entry method for the 亅 (hook radical) character require typing &quot;jue3&quot; (juĕ) instead of &quot;jue2&quot; (jué)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciations at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BA%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%BA%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4E85.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢典&lt;/a&gt; are &quot;jué&quot;, so the discrepancy doesn't make any sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16406" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-09-19T06:46:35.423" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T07:45:43.390" Title="Why is the HanYu Pinyin entry method for 亅 &quot;jue3&quot; instead of &quot;jue2&quot;?" Tags="&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24192" CreationDate="2017-06-21T04:31:11.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have referenced to many online Chinese Dictionaries,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;basically it is &quot;jue2&quot; (jué), not &quot;jue3&quot; (juĕ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May be the programmer or editor of the HanYu Pinyin entry method is confused by the Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer to:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BA%85#Pronunciation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CANTONESE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because the pronunciation of 亅 in Cantonese is kyut&lt;strong&gt;3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope I did answer your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T04:31:11.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24181" CreationDate="2017-06-21T19:28:24.607" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's because the English spelling is based on an old Chinese romanization system called 'Wade-Giles' (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade%E2%80%93Giles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade–Giles&lt;/a&gt;) (I think).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17335" LastEditorUserId="17335" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T20:08:37.993" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:08:37.993" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24094" CreationDate="2017-06-21T20:32:05.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any of the &lt;i&gt;Three Hundred Tang Poems&lt;/i&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Hundred_Tang_Poems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Hundred_Tang_Poems&lt;/a&gt;) are a nice place to start... This link seems to have their text viewable online (&lt;a href=&quot;http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?l=Tangshi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?l=Tangshi&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17335" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:32:05.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5253" CreationDate="2017-06-21T20:38:40.777" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;妹妹 is good for a lot of mileage with women of a certain age across all social classes, I've found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9414" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:38:40.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24185" CreationDate="2017-06-21T20:58:59.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FSI courses recommended above are a sound idea.  Junior American diplomats, VoA people, and Mormon missionaries use them, and they are among the few Americans who don't make fools of themselves in Asia.  Be warned, however, that the basic self-training course for somebody going out to staff a Voice of America exhibition, say, is eight hours a day for three months.  Ver-ree boring, but they have no choice, and it does work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9414" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:58:59.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24181" CreationDate="2017-06-21T21:11:48.357" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a perfectly normal way of transcribing the long &quot;aahhh&quot; sound into English. In this case it tells us that the game is not mayjong, nor muhjong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No doctor ever asked you to &quot;Say a.&quot;  It's always &quot;Say `Ah'.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9414" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T21:11:48.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22789" CreationDate="2017-06-21T21:52:45.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a straightforward matter of status.  教师 is a job. 老师 is a profession.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 教师 is on the school's payroll but is not a parking lot attendant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9414" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T21:52:45.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1681" CreationDate="2017-06-21T21:58:52.947" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;He shivered at the memory.&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9414" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T21:58:52.947" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24203" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-21T23:48:32.520" Score="2" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are remembering their 小学时候。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;。。。，班里那个贵族气十足的男生，。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zdic.net has 气 5）人的精神状态 a person's spiritual state&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;maybe this 气 just means 'style, like' and so 'air, manner'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...,班里那个贵族气十足的男生,... that male student with a totally noble air,... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the same 气 as in 怪里怪气？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T22:48:34.603" Title="What is the meaning of 气 in 贵族气？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24203" CreationDate="2017-06-22T00:01:02.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;氣 --&gt; 氣質 temperament / manner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or 氣派 imposing style&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T00:01:02.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22449" CreationDate="2017-06-22T01:10:43.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;dda and hcheung make an excellent point here.  The cleaners will be at most a generation away from both poverty and the countryside, and an urban Chinese or an apparent foreigner leaving food on their plate may very well surprise them, and quite possibly stir hidden but deeply held feelings quite outside the realm of ordinary social discourse here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I once, in the 1970's, found myself at a table at a ski resort in Hokkaido with non-Japanese speaking American soldiers on &quot;R&amp;amp;R&quot; from somewhere in South East Asia.  They left large portions of their main meal uneaten, ate a dessert each and left more dessert on their plates.  The serving staff, upstanding intelligent farm people, were deeply shocked and appalled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would not surprise me if the social evolution of Japan in the 1970's were somewhat similar to that in China today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9414" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T01:10:43.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24203" CreationDate="2017-06-22T03:04:43.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;氣 can mean: air/ aura&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/aura&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;aura&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; : (noun)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese like to use the word '氣' to describe a perceived quality of someone, something or some place&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;此人豪氣十足 - This person is full of aura of pride&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;此劍寒氣迫人 - The sword's radiate air of chilling cold&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;此地鬼氣陰森 - This place emit ghostly aura&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;贵族气&lt;/strong&gt;十足的男生 means &amp;quot; Boys who are full of &lt;strong&gt;aura of nobility&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 氣 is wildly used in many compound words, like : 氣勢，氣度，氣質，氣息. All related to 'air of/ aura of'(perceived quality)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T03:04:43.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24185" CreationDate="2017-06-22T03:43:30.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Welcome to Hong Kong!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;tl;dr&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can communicate without issue using English in Hong Kong. You can optionally learn (spoken) Cantonese / Mandarin as you wish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;English&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, &lt;strong&gt;you will have no difficulties using English in daily life&lt;/strong&gt;, especially in university. Basically, everyone in university can speak English. Except, some professors / tutors from other countries speak English with dialects which maybe more difficult to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, basically all Hongkongers under age 40 can speak English, as it is compulsory to learn in school. And actually many over age 40 speak English as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The spoken official languages of Hong Kong are &lt;strong&gt;Cantonese and English&lt;/strong&gt;. (Hong Kong was &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hong_Kong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;British colony&lt;/a&gt; before 1997.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, most of the signs in public areas (like road signs) in Hong Kong are bilingual (Traditional Chinese + English). Some restaurant provides bilingual menus or English menu upon request.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no worries! There will be no problem using English in restaurants, shops and transportation. (Just don't speak too fast.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i2BYq.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i2BYq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Bilingualism in Hong Kong&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Chinese&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Chinese, it is more confusing! These are the basic classifications of &lt;em&gt;&quot;Chinese&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Written: Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Spoken: Cantonese, Mandarin, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Traditional Chinese + Cantonese:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wikitravel.org/en/Hong_Kong#Talk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hong Kong&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wikitravel.org/en/Macau#Talk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Macau&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Traditional Chinese + Mandarin:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wikitravel.org/en/Taiwan#Talk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taiwan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simplified Chinese + Cantonese:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Guangdong province of &lt;a href=&quot;http://wikitravel.org/en/China#Talk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;China&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simplified Chinese + Mandarin:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Other parts of &lt;a href=&quot;http://wikitravel.org/en/China#Talk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;China&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simplified Chinese + Cantonese &amp;amp; Mandarin:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wikitravel.org/en/Singapore#Talk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Singapore&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wikitravel.org/en/Malaysia#Talk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Malaysia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Maybe someone can further clarify the popularity of Cantonese &amp;amp; Mandarin in Singapore &amp;amp; Malaysia)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese is the mother language of Hong Kong (as well as Macau). People speak in Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, you will have no problem using Mandarin in Hong Kong as well (although most Hongkongers speak it less fluently).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;What to learn?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depends ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like to communicate well when having your Bachelor's degree / pursue your career in Hong Kong / Macau, I would strongly recommend you to learn (spoken) &lt;strong&gt;Cantonese&lt;/strong&gt; rather than Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, if you will pursue your career in China / Taiwan, or prefer to communicate with mainland Chinese / Taiwanese people, you can learn (spoken) &lt;strong&gt;Mandarin&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Written Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; is NOT really necessary in your case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The course you have suggested will teach Mandarin Chinese. As said above, it will be still useful in Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastEditorUserId="3511" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T06:44:27.287" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T06:44:27.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24209" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-22T04:23:19.620" Score="1" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at this dizi and was just wondering if someone could help me translate the writing :)&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RKGG2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17339" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T04:43:16.777" Title="Can someone please help me translate the writing on this dizi?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24210" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24213" CreationDate="2017-06-22T04:38:06.763" Score="5" ViewCount="1532" Body="&lt;p&gt;The CJK F block is displayed on the wikipedia page &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJK_Unified_Ideographs_Extension_F&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK Unified Ideographs Extension F&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried updating &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Babel Han&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; but they themselves say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Total Coverage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters / Percentage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CJK Unified Ideographs Extension F 1,141 / 7,473   15.3%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, only fifteen percent of Extension F characters are covered in Babel Han.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://fonts.jp/hanazono/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanazono&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; hasn't been updated in a while and only supports up to &lt;strong&gt;Extension E&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I display the CJK Extension F block in my browser?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T07:33:40.913" Title="How to display CJK Extension F?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24209" CreationDate="2017-06-22T04:43:16.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;《村晚》 雷震&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;草滿池塘水滿陂，山銜落日浸寒漪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;牧童歸去橫牛背，短笛無腔信口吹。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Rural Scene at Dusk&#xA;By Lei Zhen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Green grass overgrows the shore of the brimming pool;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sun pecked by hills sinks into ripples cool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A cowherd comes back astride on a buffalo&lt;/strong&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;He blows on his short flute a tune he may not know.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please refer to:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kekenet.com/kouyi/201704/502392.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;詩歌&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English translation has already explain the meaning. I just skip for the explanation part. :) hope you enjoy this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T04:43:16.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23260" CreationDate="2017-06-22T05:03:12.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure which country you are in right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can still suggest you some websites again, if the webpage show you something like &quot;You're not in this country territory&quot;, please kindly let me know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.viu.com/my/en/tag-chinese_dramas-9_2_16&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Viu.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Viu.com is currently available in Asia area (Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iflix.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iFlix.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;iflix.com is served in (Malaysia,Philippines,Thailand,Indonesia,Sri,Lanka,Brunei,Maldives,Pakistan,Vietnam,Myanmar,Saudi,Arabia,Jordan,Iraq,Kuwait,Bahrain,Lebanon,Egypt,Sudan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a lot of websites, some sort like -- illegal, but depends on the video uploader, some video is FULL HD, some is just only 240p. :| Comment below &amp;amp; I will follow up. :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I pretty sure you are mad at this. &#xA;&quot;本劇只限於在大陸地區播放&quot; (This drama is only allowed in the China Mainland.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T05:03:12.933" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24210" CreationDate="2017-06-22T07:26:50.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;天珩字库&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://yedict.com/download/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;【字海(叶典)】软件下载&lt;/a&gt; has a file called:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://yedict.com/download/TH-Tshyn-2.0.2.zip&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;天珩全字库V2.0.2(TH-Tshyn)&lt;/a&gt; (direct link) its description reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;目前字符数量最全的字体支持包，其中汉字部分支持大约12万汉字，主要设计为大陆风格，扩展EF主要为日本风格。另外本字库有Unicode10.0以内的几乎所有字符，包括表情符号(黑白色)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It contains almost all characters in Unicode 10!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When installed you will be able to display all Ext. F characters, have a look at a sample:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xeccv.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xeccv.png&quot; alt=&quot;pic&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-07-13T07:26:39.890" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T07:26:39.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24178" CreationDate="2017-06-22T12:24:45.893" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;《說文解字》似乎並無「奈」之條目。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It seems that 《說文解字》 does not have the entry of 奈.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「奈」由「柰」衍生而來，可能是新造字，也可能是誤寫。「柰」的本義是「果名」，借用為「柰何」，猶言「如何」。後來，分成「柰」表「果名」，而「奈」則專用在「奈何」之類的字詞。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;奈 was derived from 柰. It might be a new word, or due to miswriting. The original meaning of 柰 is the name of a fruit. 柰 is then borrowed and used in 柰何, which means 如何 (how; what; what way). Later, in most cases, 柰 represents the fruit name, and 奈 is dedicated in 奈何 and the like words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《古汉语常用字字典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;奈 nài&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ① &amp;lt;副&gt; 无奈。 (however; how can one help; how to handle it)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ② &amp;lt;动&gt; 通“耐”。禁得起；受得住。 (to stand; to bear; to endure)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ③ &amp;lt;动&gt; 处置；对付。 (to deal with)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to this, the 奈 of 无奈 is an adverb, and means &quot;how to handle it&quot; or &quot;with means&quot;. Then, 无奈 means &quot;not to know how to handle it&quot; or &quot;without methods&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《汉语大词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;无奈，亦作“无柰”。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ① 谓无可奈何。 (cannot help it; to have no alternative; to have no choic)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ② 犹无比。 (incomparable; matchless)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ③ 犹可惜。 (unfortunately; It's a pity.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无奈 may mean 无可奈何 or others. That is why we have two phrases instead of only 无奈. We also prefer different words/phrases to prevent repeats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《汉语大词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;奈何&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ① 怎么，为何。 (why)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ② 怎么样；怎么办。 (how; how to do)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ③ 犹言办法。 (method; means; way)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ④ 谓采取手段、办法整治对方。 (to adopt means or methods to handle others; to do something to others)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the context, 奈何 may be an adverb (① and ②), a noun (③) or a verb (④).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 无可奈何 is a brief term of 不知道该怎么办或不知道如何处理 (do not know how to handle it)，奈何 is ② an adverb phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 无可奈何 is a brief term of 没有可以用的办法 (there is no way to use it), 奈何 is ③ a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 无可奈何 is a brief term of 没有办法可以奈何得了他／它 (there is no way to treat him/it...), 奈何 is ④ a verb phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无奈我爱你 cannot be accepted as &quot;I can't help to love you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I can't help to love you&quot; means 我不能帮着爱你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I can't help loving you&quot; means 我不能不爱着你, 我没有办法停止爱你 or 我禁不住地爱着你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无奈我爱你 may mean 没有办法（改变），我就是爱你 ((there is) no way (to change), I just love you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it is not so common, we can still use 有奈. 有奈 is intentionally used as the antonym of 無奈. Thus, they are often used together. Otherwise, many people do not know what 有奈 means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;a href=&quot;https://read01.com/OmAA6.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;有奈無奈，赤腳跑到五寨&lt;/a&gt;」是清朝 康熙年間，雲南 鶴麗鎮 總兵 郝偉（1653—1718）的發跡故事 (the story of 郝偉)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/14/0307/08/9613109_358411947.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;变无奈为有奈，化奈何为何奈&lt;/a&gt;」是一篇文章的標題 (the title of an article)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/ch/news/2860094&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;因為無奈 台灣現在能有奈嗎？&lt;/a&gt;」是一則新聞的標題 (a news title)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T22:21:19.870" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T22:21:19.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23260" CreationDate="2017-06-22T12:34:03.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bet those movie/show will confuse you. Because those movie/film scripts are quite dramatic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your best bet is online programs produce by youku.com, tudou.com, which currently play some of their programs on youtube. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Documentary programs are highly recommended: you can guess some word from the narration.  E.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzxVU2M1F1o&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Intro of Taiwan Mandarin songs history(post 70's)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Food program such as 食尖上的中国 (Similar to Anthony Bourdain food programs) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T13:28:10.380" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T13:28:10.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24203" CreationDate="2017-06-22T13:02:00.140" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/262453v.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《汉语大词典》气 29&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;作风 style&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;习气 habits&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;贵族气 noble style&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怪里怪气 strange/weird style&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They all mean style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T13:02:00.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23260" CreationDate="2017-06-22T17:28:59.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently started using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kylintv.com/kylintv/gb/eng/home/home&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;KylinTV&lt;/a&gt; for very similar reasons to what you're describing. It offers both livestreaming of Chinese TV channels as well as a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kylintv.com/kylintv/ondemand?pageName=ondemand&amp;amp;mt=ondemand&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video-on-demand library&lt;/a&gt; with quite a number of Mandarin movies and TV dramas. All of the ones I've seen so far have Simplified Chinese subtitles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sound quality can be a little variable and the player's a little lacking in terms of functionality (it's a little fiddly to pause and go back a few seconds to hear a line again), but otherwise, it's pretty much exactly what I want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first episode of a lot of the drama series seems to be entirely free so you can try it out, but otherwise you pay a monthly subscription for access to the live channels (this is a prerequisite to accessing the full VOD library, as far as I can tell) and then you can either pay an additional subscription for unlimited VOD access or can buy them by the episode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it's available in a lot of different regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17347" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T17:28:59.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24203" CreationDate="2017-06-22T22:48:34.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(16) 指人、物的属性或一地的天然特点 [character]。如:气秀(气质优美);气昏(气昏混浊);气品(指万物);气习(气质,习性);气孱(气质虚弱)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/xs/6C14.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/xs/6C14.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17285" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T22:48:34.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24219" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-23T04:33:37.337" Score="4" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Chapter 23:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;若有女人聞是藥王菩薩本事品，能受持者，盡是女身，後不復受。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Burton Watson, a famous translator, renders the passage thusly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If there is a woman who hears this chapter on the Former Affairs of&#xA;  the Bodhisattva Medicine King and is able to accept and uphold it,&#xA;  that will be her last appearance in a woman’s body and she will never&#xA;  be born in that form again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: how does the 受 translate to &quot;born in that form&quot;? If 受 is not the character that is being read thusly, then how did Burton Watson arrive at his conclusion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastActivityDate="2017-06-24T11:18:01.253" Title="Question about 受 in the Lotus Sutra" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23410" CreationDate="2017-06-23T06:36:34.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on your words, the pronunciation for every word would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;捅 【thóng】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人 【lâng】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牛 【gû】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please refer to: &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Southern Min Language Dictionary of Republic of China 中華民國台灣區閩南語字典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And do remember, Hokkien, also known as 福建話 (泉州片), is one of the principal branches of Southern Min (閩南語). The dictionary which I have suggested to you is Southern Min (not really Hokkien). Something like inheritance, Hokkien is a child while Southern Min is his father, they are not really the same, but they are similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope you enjoy this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastEditorUserId="17191" LastEditDate="2017-06-23T09:55:41.973" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T09:55:41.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23410" CreationDate="2017-06-23T08:30:34.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkien&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hokkien&lt;/a&gt; is a group of Southern Min dialects spoken throughout Southeastern China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, and by other overseas Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B3%89%E6%BC%B3%E7%89%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;泉漳片&lt;/a&gt;也稱為泉漳閩南語、泉漳話、漳泉話、閩台片，是閩南語最大的一簇方言分片，也是最具有影響力和代表性的閩南語。狹義的閩南語指的是閩台片的閩南語。英語通常稱為 Hokkien。泉漳片緣起於中國福建南部，除分布於閩南本土，也廣泛流行於臺灣、新加坡、馬來西亞、菲律賓等許多閩南移民與其後裔的居住地。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following information belongs to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_Hokkien&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taiwanese Hokkien&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%87%BA%E7%81%A3%E8%A9%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;臺灣閩南語&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/default.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《臺灣閩南語&lt;strong&gt;常用詞&lt;/strong&gt;辭典》&lt;/a&gt; can show the relevant information. But this site does not have a link to each page, so the screenshots are given below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Input 捅 in the field and press [Enter]. The pronunciation is thóng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this is 統 in Mandarin, such as 統計 or 系統. So, we can not directly check 捅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming 捅人牛 means 撞人的牛, we should look up 撞 in Mandarin. Therefore, enter 撞, select 對應華語, and press [Enter].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y43vo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y43vo.png&quot; alt=&quot;t1.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation is tōng, like 通 in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, the 撞 of 撞到 in Hokkien is not so pronounced, but like 弄 in Mandarin. Fortunately, at the end of 釋義 1 in the above table shows 挵. Click the link to get the following table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QbA1Y.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QbA1Y.png&quot; alt=&quot;t2.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of 挵 is lòng. 釋義 1 also shows the meaning of 碰撞 (to collide).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人 also has two kinds of pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XwESe.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XwESe.png&quot; alt=&quot;t3.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of 人 in 人類, 人情 or 軍人 is jîn。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vkZoI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vkZoI.png&quot; alt=&quot;t4.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of 人 of 做人, 別人 and 好人 is lâng。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, the Hokkien pronunciation of 人 in 撞人 is lâng, like 郎 in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牛 also has two kinds of pronunciation, gû and giû。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qofjS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qofjS.png&quot; alt=&quot;t5.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, the vast majority of people read gû, like the second tone of ⻣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 捅人牛 means 撞人牛, the pronunciation should be lòng lâng gû。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T08:30:34.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24219" CreationDate="2017-06-23T10:15:22.980" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;(盡)(是)(女)(身)，(後)(不復)(受)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(結束)(此)(女性)(身形)，(後世)(不再)(承受)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After finishing this female form, she will not take/receive it again in the future lifes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(知道意思就好了，不要太在意細節。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T10:15:22.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24219" CreationDate="2017-06-23T10:52:22.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;burton's translation is not a &amp;quot;word by word&amp;quot; mode, imo, it's quite good, if you understand the assumptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;first, &amp;quot;受持&amp;quot; (vigrāhayati, to accept and maintain faith) is a specialised  term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the last character 受, i guess it's a short form of 受生 (utpadyamāna,     being produced or generated)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the verse quoted, i would interpret it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if (若) there's a woman (有女人)&#xA;hears (聞) this (是)&#xA;bodhisattva medicine king's 藥王菩薩&#xA;former affairs (本事)&#xA;chapter (品)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and (assumed)&#xA;able to (能)&#xA;accept and maintain faith (受持 vigrāhayati)&#xA;者 (article)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when (assumed) complete (盡 --&amp;gt; complete the life of) this (是) female body (女身)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;afterward, (後) not again (不復) being produced (受 --&amp;gt;受生, utpadyamāna) as woman (assumed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the underlying assumptions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in ancient buddhism, females are consider inferior than males. that, only males are able to attain buddhahood (成佛)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the verse emphasizes the greatness of lotus sutra (妙法蓮華經), that even an inferior being, such as &amp;quot;woman&amp;quot;, if she can &amp;quot;hear, accept and maintain faith&amp;quot; in one of its chapter, she made good karma. with such good karma, she can avoid to reincarnate again as female; that she would reincarnate as a male, so, have chance to attain buddhahood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;very appealing in ancient patriarchal society, for females who are able to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, to rectify my mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in chapter 12 &amp;quot;提婆達多品&amp;quot;, of lotus sutra (妙法蓮華經), there's a story of &amp;quot;dragon girl&amp;quot; (龍女).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sariputta&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sāriputta&lt;/a&gt; (舍利弗) said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女人身猶有五障&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一者不得作梵天王&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二者帝釋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三者魔王&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四者轉輪聖王&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五者佛身&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, a dragon girl (龍女) suddenly changed to male; afterward, &amp;quot;attained buddhahood&amp;quot; (成佛).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當時眾會﹒皆見龍女忽然之間變成男子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;. . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;皆遙見彼龍女成佛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope it's correct now :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oLYei.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oLYei.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-24T11:18:01.253" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24226" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-24T03:12:40.230" Score="0" ViewCount="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Google-fu and Cantonese brain selected these translations for “frequent abuse leads to restrictions”/“you abuse it, you lose it”:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;濫用多就邀請限制 (lànyòng duō jiù yāoqǐng xiànzhì) &lt;em&gt;frequent abuse invites restrictions&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;濫用請對策 (lànyòng qǐng duìcè) &lt;em&gt;abuse leads to countermeasures&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Basically, I try to find the combination of words that gives the most hits on Google and makes sense to me, a Cantonese speaker.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s supposed to come off in an admonishing/I-told-you-so kind of way. The idea is that frequent abuse has motivated the establishment of stricter measures (like a child taking too often from the cookie jar, resulting in the jar going under lock and key).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a an equivalent with more brevity? An equivalent that is more standard? I get a lot of characters for translations from English, but I don’t really have a good grasp of the nuances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4403" LastEditorUserId="4403" LastEditDate="2017-06-24T11:41:18.730" LastActivityDate="2017-06-24T23:07:16.893" Title="Best translation for: “Frequent abuse leads to restrictions”?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24226" CreationDate="2017-06-24T04:50:32.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;濫用 is only one of many aspects of abuse. Abuse is inappropriate way to use something. When you get the meaning, you are free from fixed expressions. Say, 愛用宜守規，違者得限制。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-06-24T04:50:32.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24228" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24229" CreationDate="2017-06-24T09:17:58.447" Score="7" ViewCount="415" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to do a cultural project on the city of Harbin. However, I'm not sure if it is correct to say this. I found out that Harbin was the capital of the province of Heilongjiang. If I said, 哈尔滨是黑龙江的首都, would it make sense since 首都 means capital.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17089" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-07-12T23:18:16.810" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T08:08:24.460" Title="Is it correct to use 首都 for capital of province?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24228" CreationDate="2017-06-24T09:30:17.243" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you should use &lt;code&gt;省会&lt;/code&gt; (provincial capital) instead, i.e. &lt;code&gt;哈尔滨是黑龙江的省会&lt;/code&gt;. You could also use &lt;code&gt;省城&lt;/code&gt; (in a little old-style), or &lt;code&gt;首府&lt;/code&gt; (especially for &lt;code&gt;自治区&lt;/code&gt;(autonomous region)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;首都&lt;/code&gt; is only used for the capital of a country, e.g.&lt;code&gt;北京是中国的首都&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T11:22:25.993" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T11:22:25.993" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24230" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24231" CreationDate="2017-06-24T11:46:45.983" Score="0" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 患者 and 病人 can mean patient. When would you prefer one over the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17353" LastActivityDate="2017-06-24T13:00:50.220" Title="Is there a difference between 患者 and 病人?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24230" CreationDate="2017-06-24T12:50:45.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;患 = contracted (of disease); 者= the one who&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;患者&lt;/strong&gt; = the one who contracted (disease) = &lt;strong&gt;patient&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The term 患者 describes 'a patient of a specific disease'. For example: '癌症&lt;strong&gt;患者&lt;/strong&gt;' (cancer &lt;strong&gt;patient&lt;/strong&gt;), '皮膚病&lt;strong&gt;患者&lt;/strong&gt;'(skin disease &lt;strong&gt;patient&lt;/strong&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We cannot use '患者' without referencing the disease&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;病人&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;sick person&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;patient&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The term &lt;strong&gt;病人&lt;/strong&gt; is a general term for '&lt;strong&gt;sick people/ patient&lt;/strong&gt;'. You can use this term to designate a unwell person without mentioning the disease. For example &quot;病人需要更多的休息&quot; (sick people/ patients need more rest). *-&lt;em&gt;doesn't matter what kind of sickness&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It can be used interchangeably with 患者 when referring a &lt;strong&gt;patient&lt;/strong&gt; of a particular disease. For example 癌症&lt;strong&gt;病人&lt;/strong&gt; (cancer &lt;strong&gt;patient&lt;/strong&gt;), 皮膚病&lt;strong&gt;病人&lt;/strong&gt;(skin disease &lt;strong&gt;patient&lt;/strong&gt;)  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-24T13:00:50.220" LastActivityDate="2017-06-24T13:00:50.220" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24226" CreationDate="2017-06-24T23:07:16.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Abuse it you lose it.&#xA;滥用失去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No takers for rule breakers.&#xA;犯了规不会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-24T23:07:16.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24233" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-25T04:41:30.883" Score="4" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a commonly used idiom that means rude; no respect for one's elders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I wonder why it is called 没大没小. I would like to know its origin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17358" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2017-06-25T22:05:41.290" LastActivityDate="2017-06-25T22:05:41.290" Title="Why it is called 没大没小?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24233" CreationDate="2017-06-25T05:00:03.667" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;大小 means the seniority or generation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒大沒小/没大没小&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/266566t.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;謂不顧長幼之分。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Regardless of seniority or generation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000028344&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;不顧長幼之分。形容欠缺禮數，不懂規矩。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Regardless of seniority or generation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To describe a lack of propriety and ignorance of rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chengyu.game2.tw/archives/38122&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;典故出處&lt;/a&gt; Origin: 《Journey to the West》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;明·吳承恩《西遊記》第23回：“好女婿呀！這等沒大沒小的，連丈母也都要了！”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Good son-in-law!&#xA;So impolite!&#xA;Even want your mother-in-law too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastEditorUserId="15949" LastEditDate="2017-06-25T07:03:50.427" LastActivityDate="2017-06-25T07:03:50.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24233" CreationDate="2017-06-25T07:20:31.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is like internet slogans; most of the time, you can't find its origin, but there is always a reason for it. For instance, 不分黑白, can't distinguish black or white? Black is bad and white is good, so somebody 不分黑白 means he/she is too foolish to tell who is good or bad. Of course, you there are many ways that you can say that in Chinese, such as, 不懂黑白，不知黑白，不明黑白，不别黑白，but these are awkward to pronounce, so eventually, people picked &quot;不分黑白&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same thing for your case. For, 没大没小，it's similar, of which has the meaning of can't distinguish who is older or younger. You can say, 不分大小，the same thing。不懂大小，不知大小，不明大小，不别大小 are all okay. Eventually people pick up 没大没小 as a more popular choice. 不懂尊卑 is also widely used in Hong Kong gangster movies. 尊=Big； 卑=Small； see？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2017-06-25T07:20:31.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24237" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24238" CreationDate="2017-06-25T08:27:24.530" Score="2" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can 使劲 (put in effort, strain at) only be used for physical effort? If no, how does its usage differ from 尽量?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17353" LastActivityDate="2017-06-25T17:18:36.987" Title="Can 使劲 only be used for physical effort?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24237" CreationDate="2017-06-25T09:31:03.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;使 = utilize/ apply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;劲 = force / power&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;使劲&lt;/strong&gt;' as a verb means '&lt;strong&gt;apply force&lt;/strong&gt;' ; as an adverb, it means  '&lt;strong&gt;forcefully&lt;/strong&gt;';  Since 'forcefully' is an adverb that modifies action verbs,  it is mainly be used for describing physical effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 使劲打(forcefully hit), 使劲拉(forcefully pull)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how does its usage differ from 尽量?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;使劲&lt;/strong&gt; is an adverb for '&lt;strong&gt;forcefully&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;尽量&lt;/strong&gt; is an adverb for '&lt;strong&gt;to the greatest extent / as far as possible&lt;/strong&gt;'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: '尽量不让人知道' (go to the greatest extent not letting people know)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'使劲' and '尽量' are not very similar in meaning&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May be you were thinking of '尽力' (with all of one's strength) which can be used to describe physical effort, similar to '使劲' .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: '尽力打' (hit with all your might),  '尽力拉' (pull with full strength)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In this sense, '使劲' and '尽力' are very similar.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 尽力 can also be used metaphorically for 'do one's best' or 'try one's best'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: '尽力忍笑' (do one's best not to laugh)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, '&lt;strong&gt;用力&lt;/strong&gt;' (用= utilize/ use) (力 = force/strength) is synonym to '&lt;strong&gt;使劲&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;出力&lt;/strong&gt; (出 = output /use) (力 = force/strength) is also a synonym&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-25T17:18:36.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24239" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-25T18:57:52.513" Score="0" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/q/395382/33497&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; over at ELU someone posted a picture of a ball with pictures seemingly illustrating the 26 letters of the English alphabet. The only picture that doesn't fit this description is a picture of an axe illustrating the letter Y. In the answers to this question several theories have been presented trying to explain this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EgKbPm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EgKbPm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Alphabet ball&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A recent &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/a/395521/33497&quot;&gt;attempt&lt;/a&gt; points to the Chinese word 鉞 (yuè) which seem to have the meaning axe. The theory is that this picture might have been used to illustrate the letter Y in a similar context for teaching pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't speak Chinese, but based on Google Translate, I get the impression that words starting with 斧, 斧头 (Fǔtóu), 斧 (Fǔ) and 斧子 (Fǔzi), would be more commonly used for axe. 鉞 seems to be used for axes used as weapons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would someone speaking Chinese intuitively associate this picture of an axe with the word 鉞?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it make sense to use this picture to illustrate the letter Y in a series of pictures illustrating pinyin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17359" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T12:06:14.697" Title="Would a picture of an ordinary axe be inuitively assoicated with the word 鉞 (yuè)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24239" CreationDate="2017-06-25T21:30:29.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After some discussion on the original thread, my conclusion is &amp;quot;one of the graphic meant to be printed on the Swedish version of that toy was mistakenly printed on the English version instead.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My original answer is as below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would someone speaking Chinese intuitively associate this picture of an axe with the word 鉞?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is no, we wouldn't&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it make sense to use this picture to illustrate the letter Y in a series of pictures illustrating pinyin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are not pictures that illustrate pinyin; The pictures are there as  visual aid to help children to remember &lt;strong&gt;English alphabet&lt;/strong&gt; more easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have to be a mistake somewhere --  Q-Queen, W-worm,  N-Nail pairings make sense, but 'Y' and 'Axe' pair doesn't, because the word Axe doesn't begin with Y.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the original design was [X-a&lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt;e].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of this design was to match an alphabet with an easily remembered common word, thus help children to better remember the &lt;strong&gt;English alphabet&lt;/strong&gt;; since there is no common word begin with the alphabet X, the designer made an exception and paired Axe with X, because the pronunciation of Axe is similar to X.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two rules in choosing a word to match an alphabet in this design. 1. the word has to begin with the same alphabet. 2. the word has to be common enough for kids to remember. The designer couldn't follow both rules for the alphabet X and decided rule #2 is more important because this is a design for helping kids to remember alphabets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the word 'axe' doesn't begin with 'X', but 'axe' does contains 'X' and it is the prominent alphabet in the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The handle of the axe is supposedly the missing lower left part of the alphabet X, which should be painted green to complete the alphabet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was either the designer's idea, thinking people would get the idea that the missing part of X was replaced by the axe's handle. Or it was a production error that painted the axe handle with different color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I am a retired graphic designer.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T08:54:26.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24241" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24255" CreationDate="2017-06-26T00:41:32.757" Score="3" ViewCount="1788" Body="&lt;p&gt;不错 is a composite word of 不 and 错, the former means &quot;NOT&quot; and the latter means &quot;wrong&quot;, if I understand it correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when I look up 不错 in my dictionary (macOS's built-in dictionary), it only shows &quot;right&quot; and &quot;pretty good&quot;, and not &quot;not bad&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 不错 never used to express &quot;not bad&quot;? And do you have nothing to do but just look up in the dictionary and memorize them one by one in case of these composite words? I happened to look it up today, but without that I would keep misunderstanding its meaning...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T06:53:59.207" Title="Is 不错 used only to mean &quot;good&quot; and never mean &quot;not bad&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24242" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-26T01:17:34.600" Score="2" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, if I want to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他写de是&quot;...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which &quot;de&quot; should I use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 isn't a noun, so that suggests using 得&#xA;but on the other hand, I've seen usages of &quot;写的是什么&quot; (on Google search at least)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12062" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T12:24:40.793" Title="Should I use 写的是&quot;...&quot; vs 写得是&quot;...&quot;?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24241" CreationDate="2017-06-26T01:28:57.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on which dictionary you use, on google translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E7KLI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E7KLI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不错 = pretty good, not bad, right, correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Give you a few examples:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这人不错 = This guy is not bad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这事做的不错 = Pretty good job/Not a bad job&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你说的不错 = What you are saying is not wrong/What you are saying is right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T01:28:57.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24242" CreationDate="2017-06-26T01:29:15.393" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many similar questions on this site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think we use 的 in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他写的是...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;is a simplified form of&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他写的内容是...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;内容 is a noun, therefore we can use 的 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T01:29:15.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24241" CreationDate="2017-06-26T01:41:02.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some compound word's extended meaning is more prominent than the literal one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take 不错 for example, '不'= not; '错' = wrong; therefore '不错' literally means 'not wrong' in other word: 'right'.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By extension, if something is not done wrongly, it is 'not done badly'.  That's how the meaning of '&lt;strong&gt;not bad&lt;/strong&gt;' is carried by '&lt;strong&gt;不错&lt;/strong&gt;' (&lt;em&gt;and 'not bad' implies it is 'decent' or 'good'&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depend on context, people do use the phrase '不错' for 'not wrong/correct'.&#xA;For example: Q: &quot;你十八岁?&quot; (you eighteen years old?) A: &quot;不错!&quot; (correct!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we mainly use '不错' as an adjective for 'not bad' in day-to-day conversation. For example: &quot;这辆车&lt;strong&gt;不错&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (this car is &lt;strong&gt;not bad&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(大= big); (力= force) '大力' literally means 'big force'. In other words 'strong force'.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By extension, '大力' is used as (1.) an adjective for '&lt;strong&gt;strong&lt;/strong&gt;' or (2.) an adverb for '&lt;strong&gt;strongly&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is 不错 never used to express &quot;not bad&quot;? And do you have nothing to do but just look up in the dictionary and memorize them one by one in case of these composite words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time 不错 means 'not bad'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do have to memorize the meanings of each compound word, but those meanings are all extensions from the literal meaning (they are logically connected). Therefore, it wouldn't be too hard to remember.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-27T15:26:36.230" LastActivityDate="2017-06-27T15:26:36.230" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24248" CreationDate="2017-06-26T02:20:36.140" Score="0" ViewCount="1542" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google Translate has a different pronunciation of 云 (yun) than this website: &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/pronunciation/Yun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/pronunciation/Yun&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Google Translate one sounds like more the Cantonese pronunciation of &quot;far&quot; whereas the other one is more like &quot;yween&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate: &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#en/zh-CN/cloud&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://translate.google.com/#en/zh-CN/cloud&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T02:38:07.523" Title="Which pronunciation of 云 (yun) is correct?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24246" CreationDate="2017-06-26T02:38:05.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/7688/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/7688/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;云&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wan4   (jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;yun2   (pinyin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] [archaic] say; speak&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] simplified form of 雲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 雲 and 云 are pronounced as /yun2/ (with raising end tone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T02:38:05.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24246" CreationDate="2017-06-26T02:38:07.523" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4E91.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt; to listen the sound files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 拼音 and 注音 pronounce the same sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the correct one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T02:38:07.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24250" CreationDate="2017-06-26T05:07:32.173" Score="3" ViewCount="1320" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;so-so&quot; in Mandarin? In Cantonese, you would say 麻麻地. What's the Mandarin equivalent of 麻麻地?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-26T06:00:01.060" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T02:12:55.000" Title="What is the Mandarin equivalent of Cantonese's 麻麻地 (so-so)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24249" CreationDate="2017-06-26T05:59:23.887" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;麻麻地 (Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;麻麻地 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1503/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1503/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;so-so&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;not too good, not too bad&lt;/strong&gt;; ho-hum; middling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 佢嘅英文&lt;strong&gt;麻麻地&lt;/strong&gt; (his English is just &lt;strong&gt;so-so&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;普通/ 普普通通&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;普通 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/2782/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/2782/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ordinary&lt;/strong&gt;; general; &lt;strong&gt;average&lt;/strong&gt;; standard; common&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example:他的英文程度算是&lt;strong&gt;普普通通&lt;/strong&gt; (his English level is considered &lt;strong&gt;average&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一般 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1495/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1495/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;strong&gt;ordinary&lt;/strong&gt;; common; general&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example:他的英文程度&lt;strong&gt;一般&lt;/strong&gt; (his English level is just &lt;strong&gt;average&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The term '麻麻' came from '馬馬虎虎'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;馬馬虎虎 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/41049/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/41049/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;careless; casual; &lt;strong&gt;just passable&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;so-so&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 他的英文只是&lt;strong&gt;馬馬虎虎的&lt;/strong&gt;程度 (his English is only at a &lt;strong&gt;so-so&lt;/strong&gt; level)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-26T13:38:36.117" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T13:38:36.117" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24242" CreationDate="2017-06-26T12:24:40.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding of what differentiates the various de characters is a bit flawed. A simple rule goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) If it comes between an adverb and a verb, use 地:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大聲地喊  shout loudly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  快地跑      run quickly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If it comes between a verb and a complement phrase, use 得:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;玩得開心 play until happy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  說得不對 say [something] untrue&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  忙得不得了 busy to an unbearable degree&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence construct doesn't have a direct equivalent in English, so you generally need to add words in the translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) In most other situations, use 的:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的自行車 my bicycle&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你喜歡的 that which you like&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他想說的是什麼 what does he want to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in your sentence, 他寫的 is the subject, meaning &quot;that which he wrote&quot;, and 是什麼 is the predicate, meaning &quot;is what?&quot;. It can be understood as an abbreviation of 他寫的字. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 他寫得是 is also correct, but it means something very different. Here, 是 has the meaning of &quot;correct&quot; and is used as a complement, so this phrase means &quot;He wrote [something] correct&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T12:24:40.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24253" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-26T14:09:17.457" Score="1" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand the overall meaning of this saying, but I don't understand the specific meaning of the characters 无觅处.  It literally would mean 'unsearched location,' which semantically doesn't make sense.  Can anyone explain the meaning of that bit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-06-26T15:34:01.340" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T15:34:01.340" Title="Meaning of 踏破铁鞋无觅处，得来全不费功夫" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24258" CreationDate="2017-06-26T14:25:45.580" Score="3" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;My first book (1987 Edition from Taiwan) taught &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你在那裡做事？ 我在中國大學教書。&#xA;  (Throughout the book the 口radical in 哪 was omitted.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ever since, I have been looking out for 做事 in my textbooks from the PRC, but haven't once noticed it. Is it just uncommon in the PRC, or does it convey a humble tone, as - I am told - 教書 does?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2017-06-26T14:33:31.850" LastActivityDate="2017-09-02T01:05:04.523" Title="Is 做事 just Taiwanese, or does it have a different flavour than 工作？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24241" CreationDate="2017-06-26T14:52:26.893" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the other answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exact phrase 不錯 is almost always used to mean &quot;pretty good&quot;. But there are variations on the phrase that mean &quot;not wrong&quot;, &quot;not mistaken&quot; without having the same positive implication:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;沒錯&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is still somewhat positive, but it's more of an agreement than an endorsement:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他說得沒錯 - What he said is correct.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他說得不錯 - He said it well / what he said is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;不是錯的&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use this phrase if you just want to say &quot;not incorrect&quot; without implying anything else about the quality:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這個答案很不錯 - This answer is pretty good.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  這個答案不是錯的 - This answer is not wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In response to your general question, most composite words do mean exactly what you'd think from looking up each individual character. But when it comes to this kind of nuance in their usage, you'll have to learn each compound word individually.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Occasionally you'll find a compound word where the meaning is quite far removed from the component characters, but this will normally be apparent from context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T14:52:26.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24253" CreationDate="2017-06-26T14:52:58.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It literally would mean 'unsearched location,'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is that &lt;code&gt;无&lt;/code&gt; is used for &lt;code&gt;处&lt;/code&gt; (place) here, not &lt;code&gt;觅&lt;/code&gt; (seek). So &lt;code&gt;无觅处&lt;/code&gt; should be parsed as &lt;code&gt;无|觅处&lt;/code&gt;, which literally means &quot;there's no seeking place&quot;, i.e. there's not such place for seeking, semantically means &quot;(something) can't be found at all (and you even don't know where to look for)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you parse it as &lt;code&gt;无觅|处&lt;/code&gt;, you'll get &quot;unsearched location&quot; which literally means &lt;code&gt;没有找的地方&lt;/code&gt;, which indicates that there're still places which could be sought; they're just not be sought by now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-06-26T15:33:32.603" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T15:33:32.603" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24254" CreationDate="2017-06-26T15:18:38.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is typically used in HK, Taiwan and rests of Mandarin speaking societies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To streamline with planned economy policies(government assigns jobs), PRC government use 上岗, 工作岗位 to replace 做事. Since PRC adopt open market economy,  上岗 is used in conjunction with 做事， 工作， 上班. There is no special preference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T15:18:38.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24254" CreationDate="2017-06-26T15:18:59.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are right - &quot;做事&quot; is probably only used in some areas of China, especially some southern areas where ancient Chinese has an influence, and not as commonly as &quot;工作&quot; in this sense. I would say it is more colloquial than the latter, too - for example, I think an interviewer will more likely to ask &quot;你之前在哪里工作？&quot; than &quot;你之前在哪里做事？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17366" LastEditorUserId="17366" LastEditDate="2017-06-26T15:35:36.250" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T15:35:36.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24259" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24260" CreationDate="2017-06-26T16:57:22.680" Score="0" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people seem to use 還好 and 還可以 interchangeably, but another said 還好 is more negative than 還可以. She said 還好 is more like &quot;so-so&quot; whereas 還可以 is more like &quot;pretty good&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone explain the proper usage of 還好 and 還可以?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-06-27T15:13:32.847" Title="Mandarin: difference between 還好 and 還可以?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24259" CreationDate="2017-06-26T19:26:15.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'還好' here is short for '還(算)好' - 'still (considered) fine/ good'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'還可以' here is short for '還(算)可以' - 'still (considered) acceptable/ okay'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone asked you &amp;quot;How is your college life?&amp;quot; you can reply: &amp;quot;還好&amp;quot; or '還可以' (life in college for me is fine / life in college for me is okay). The two terms are interchangeable in this sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone told you: &amp;quot;The cost of replacing the door is $500&amp;quot; and you replied: &amp;quot;還可以&amp;quot;. That meant you considered this charge is fair and within the limit of your acceptability; If you replied: &amp;quot;還好&amp;quot;.  Then it would mean you're feeling lucky that it is only $500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;還好&amp;quot; carries a tone of 'feeling lucky' ('still fine' means 'not bad yet'.  &amp;quot;還可以&amp;quot; doesn't carry this tone.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;還好 is more negative than 還可以.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Negative' only in the case of the alternates. If it is not &amp;quot;還好&amp;quot; (still fine) then it is 'already bad'; If it is not &amp;quot;還可以&amp;quot; (still okay) then it is 'already unacceptable'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I have to mention '還好' is short for '還(算)好' and '還可以' is short for '還(算)可以' here in your question,  because '還好' in different context could mean &amp;quot;luckily&amp;quot; and '還可以' in different context could mean &amp;quot; can also&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For Example:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1. &lt;strong&gt;還好&lt;/strong&gt;你沒有去上班，有人把辦公室燒了。 (&lt;strong&gt;fortunately&lt;/strong&gt; you didn't go to work-- Someone set the office in fire.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2. 不僅是日本，去韓國也&lt;strong&gt;還可以&lt;/strong&gt;。(Not only Japan, you &lt;strong&gt;can also&lt;/strong&gt; go to South Korea.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-27T15:13:32.847" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24261" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24262" CreationDate="2017-06-27T00:48:53.907" Score="1" ViewCount="1028" Body="&lt;p&gt;From dict.cn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%BC%80%E6%94%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;开放&lt;/a&gt; (kāi fàng) = open&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%BC%80%E9%97%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;开门&lt;/a&gt; (kāi mén) = open (the) door&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use 开门 in phrases such as 还没开门了吗 (háiméi kāiménle ma?), when I want to know if a shop hasn't opened yet, and 你几点开门 (nǐ jīdiǎn kāimén?), which can be used to ask when a shop opens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently encountered 西门开放时间 (xīmén kāifàng shíjiān) on signage, which translates to west gate opening hours, but I don't recall seeing 开放 before this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 开放 and 开门?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T08:40:35.797" Title="What's the difference between 开放 (kāi fàng) and 开门 (kāi mén) which both mean &quot;open&quot;?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24261" CreationDate="2017-06-27T01:39:20.143" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;开门 = open the door&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开放 = open to public&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开放 means if something is open to public and 开门 means if the &lt;strong&gt;DOOR&lt;/strong&gt; is open, this is the key difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For example:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公园开放了吗？Park's open to public yet?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公园开门了吗？Park's open yet?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first sentence will only be used if the park isn't officially open yet and you won't use it to check park's opening time everyday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example when you can use 开放 and not 开门:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经济开放。Open economy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously you can't use 经济开门 which means Economy open the door&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2017-06-27T03:02:28.707" LastActivityDate="2017-06-27T03:02:28.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24261" CreationDate="2017-06-27T01:45:03.143" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1a.) &lt;strong&gt;开门&lt;/strong&gt; is a &lt;strong&gt;verb phrase&lt;/strong&gt; for '&lt;strong&gt;open door&lt;/strong&gt;'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;strong&gt;开门&lt;/strong&gt;, 我要出去 (&lt;strong&gt;open the door&lt;/strong&gt;, I have to go out)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1b.) It can also figuratively mean '&lt;strong&gt;open&lt;/strong&gt; (for business)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 银行上午9时30分&lt;strong&gt;开门&lt;/strong&gt; (the bank &lt;strong&gt;open its door&lt;/strong&gt; at 9:30 A.M = the bank &lt;strong&gt;open&lt;/strong&gt; (for business) at 9:30 A.M)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2a.) &lt;strong&gt;开放&lt;/strong&gt;, as a &lt;strong&gt;verb phrase&lt;/strong&gt; means '&lt;strong&gt;open for access&lt;/strong&gt; ('open to the public' is implied ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 西门於上午9时30分&lt;strong&gt;开放&lt;/strong&gt; (the west gate &lt;strong&gt;open&lt;/strong&gt; (for access) at 9:00 A.M)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2b.) &lt;strong&gt;开放&lt;/strong&gt; as an &lt;strong&gt;adjective&lt;/strong&gt; means 'open/ liberal'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;strong&gt;开放&lt;/strong&gt;政策 (&lt;strong&gt;open&lt;/strong&gt; policy); &lt;strong&gt;开放&lt;/strong&gt;作风 (&lt;strong&gt;liberal&lt;/strong&gt; way)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-27T15:32:13.067" LastActivityDate="2017-06-27T15:32:13.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24261" CreationDate="2017-06-27T14:09:16.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;complementary to @Tang Ho answer: Don't use 开放 unless you are sure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开放 always mean &quot;open up&quot; for previously restricted events/venue/behavior. You cannot use 开放 for anything that is not previously restricted.  In addition,  开放 also carry subliminal meaning on freedom.  Nevertheless, there are bunches of people with poor command of language out there that misleading. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.1   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Events ticket is available from mm-dd-yyyy &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Correct: 节目在某年某月某日【开始】售票&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wrong: 节目在某年某月某日-开放-售票&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The counter is open at 8:00 am&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Correct: 柜台8点钟才开。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wrong: 柜台8点钟才开放。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-06-27T14:09:16.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24241" CreationDate="2017-06-27T16:31:17.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In British English, “not bad” can fairly often be used as a synonym for “pretty good”. It usually means something better than “so-so” / “medium” / “mediocre” /  “ok” / “passable”. Particularly in &quot;not bad at all&quot; which for me (a native British speaker) means “really quite good”.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I suspect that “not bad” is not often used in this way in American English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the question is related to “not bad” literally meaning “negation of bad”. But I’m not sure what that is. I can think of this: “It is not bad but also it is not good” but that is a quite an artificial example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s a bit of a grey area in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evidence/reference for the above: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/pretty-good-not-bad.19966/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/pretty-good-not-bad.19966/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wordreference.com/definition/not%20bad&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.wordreference.com/definition/not%20bad&lt;/a&gt;  “not (half, so, or too) bad, somewhat good;&#xA;tolerable: not half bad for a first effort.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my answer to the question ‘Is 不错 never used to express &quot;not bad&quot;?’ is: No! Actually, “not bad” is often a good translation of 不错, at least in British English. But it may well be clearer and less ambiguous to translate it as “pretty good” instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding another question: “And do you have nothing to do but just look up in the dictionary and memorize them one by one in case of these composite words?”. In this case, 不错 is a commonly-used  expression in spoken Mandarin and by familiarising yourself with sample texts / dialogues you can learn to get a feeling for its meaning and the context it tends to be used in; this feeling can be more valuable than the knowledge gained by looking it up in a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think about it, it’s quite natural to equate “negation/not” plus “bad” as something that is at the least ok (passable). So you can get the meaning from individual characters in this case; I think Chinese maps quite closely to (British) English here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2017-06-28T06:53:59.207" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T06:53:59.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24266" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-27T22:31:00.617" Score="3" ViewCount="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hadn't heard 有方 before. I was surprised to find it means 'competent'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A basic meaning of '方' is 'square'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this '方' actually 方法，方式？ Could I change '方' for '方式' in '他领导有方'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T00:37:44.763" Title="Is 有方 an abbreviation of 有方法？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24266" CreationDate="2017-06-28T00:37:44.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/xs/65B9.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;方&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;code&gt;方法&lt;/code&gt; (method) here, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/9/8d/157744.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;有方&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;code&gt;(do something) with the proper method/in the right way&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. &lt;code&gt;competent&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[with the proper method]∶得法&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  领导有方&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T00:37:44.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24268" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24270" CreationDate="2017-06-28T02:45:31.153" Score="0" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;一點 means &quot;a little&quot; when applied to adjectives. For instance, 快一點 means faster (i.e., fast a little) but often times people shorten 快一點 to 快點.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the principle for shortening 一點 to 點?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you always shorten it, or does it only apply to certain words like 快? &#xA;For example can you say 淨點 instead of 淨一點? or 吃點?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it only colloquial, or can you also shorten it in writing as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T08:18:23.863" Title="Mandarin: when is it okay to use only 點 instead of 一點?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24268" CreationDate="2017-06-28T03:59:14.377" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000002239&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;點&lt;/a&gt; 「吃點東西吧！」、「一點小事別在意！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000149061&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;一點&lt;/a&gt; 「也少盡一點子心哪。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000149062&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;一點點&lt;/a&gt; 「祇有一點點大。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000149065&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;一點兒&lt;/a&gt; 「大意一點兒」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases these are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We do not omit 一, if there is no verb, adjective or adverb in front of it. &#xA;For example, 一點小事別在意！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastEditorUserId="15949" LastEditDate="2017-06-28T04:17:24.520" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T04:17:24.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24268" CreationDate="2017-06-28T05:37:40.147" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Difference between [(adj/adv) + (點)] and [(adj/adv) + (一點)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'快' = 'fast'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'快點' = 'faster'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'快一點' = 'a little faster'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'早關門' = 'close early'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'早點關門' = 'close earlier'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'早一點關門' = 'close a litter earlier'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Difference between [(點) + (n)] and [(一點) + (n)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'有本事' = 'have skill'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'有&lt;strong&gt;點&lt;/strong&gt;本事' = 'have &lt;strong&gt;some&lt;/strong&gt; skill'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'有&lt;strong&gt;一點&lt;/strong&gt;本事' = 'have &lt;strong&gt;a little bit of&lt;/strong&gt; skill'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'給我好處' =  'give me benefit'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'給我&lt;strong&gt;點&lt;/strong&gt;好處' = 'give me &lt;strong&gt;some&lt;/strong&gt; benefit'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'給我&lt;strong&gt;一點&lt;/strong&gt;好處' = 'give me &lt;strong&gt;a little bit of&lt;/strong&gt; benefit'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;when is it okay to use only 點 instead of 一點?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason '點' and '一點' are often used interchangeably is because  both 'some' and 'a little bit' have the same implication of 'not a lot'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you just want to describe something that is 'not in considerable amount' or 'not to a great extend' you can use either 有點 or 有一點   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T08:18:23.863" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T08:18:23.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20846" CreationDate="2017-06-28T06:18:43.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;专心  focus(专) ones's mind(心) on something，means concentrate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;集中 1. gather(集）together(中）， means centralize things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;this could also means concentrate combine with mind, e.g.  集中精神 == 专心&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17375" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T06:18:43.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24272" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24274" CreationDate="2017-06-28T07:40:02.323" Score="1" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen 門 used as a 'radical' for many traditional chinese characters in Hong Kong. Is there a historical reason? I thought 門 means gate but what does gate have anything to do with 'happy', 開心 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T16:52:29.523" Title="Significance of 門 in traditional chinese" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24273" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24296" CreationDate="2017-06-28T08:20:46.877" Score="1" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do several mtr stations' chinese names (traditional chinese) contain characters with repeated radicals? These characters do not really form an english word but individually have a meaning, so I wonder the reason. My question may become clearer when  I provide the examples below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;銅鑼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金鐘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;葵芳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;筲箕(灣)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;石硤(尾)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastActivityDate="2021-04-04T00:50:18.997" Title="Radical repetition in MTR station names" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24272" CreationDate="2017-06-28T08:40:18.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;On the radical 門/门&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both the traditional and simplified font script, 門/门 is a fairly common radical. Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;閉/闭： shut (eyes...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;間/间： interval, space...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;閑/闲： fence, barrier; idle &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all these cases I find the door component very intuitive. There are of course plenty of cases where this is not the case (see the comment by user6065). The reason for your perceiving the radical as something predominantly traditional, may lie in cases such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老闆/老板：boss; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where characters were replaced by rather arbitrary other characters. There are also pairs such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;問/问;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is classified under 口 in traditional Chinese and under 门 in the PRC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article which user6065 posted is about explaining the usage of 門 in some characters by its ancient phonetic value. Let us see, whether he will explain it himself, before I offer my amateur's perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;On 開心/开心&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am no native speaker, but 開心 is composed of the characters &quot;open&quot; and &quot;heart&quot;. That &quot;open&quot; should feature a door or gate can hardly surprise. That the combination of these words means happiness is intuitive too. In both my native languages an analogous expression exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Greek:&#xA;Άνοιξε η καρδιά μου!&#xA;German:&#xA;Mir ging das Herz auf!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2017-06-28T10:29:10.540" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T10:29:10.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24275" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24276" CreationDate="2017-06-28T09:43:29.367" Score="1" ViewCount="509" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about some words in Chinese, it seems like most of the time there are multiple ways to say the same word by adding some &amp;quot;basic particles&amp;quot;  around it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like: &lt;code&gt;等&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;等下&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;等一下&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To an online translator, it seems to mean the same. Is there any difference? Why is it like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a new learner this makes listening and reading very complicated, because I never know where to cut the words in my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17370" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2021-03-17T02:03:27.267" LastActivityDate="2021-03-17T02:27:00.200" Title="Why are there multiple ways to express &quot;Wait a second&quot; such as 等、等下、等一下？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24275" CreationDate="2017-06-28T10:24:13.050" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English has the similar phenomenon. For example, the following phrases have the same meaning:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;wait a bit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;wait a mo&lt;br&gt;&#xA;wait a moment&lt;br&gt;&#xA;wait a second&lt;br&gt;&#xA;wait a minute&lt;br&gt;&#xA;wait a jiffy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;wait a jiff&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following phrases have the same meaning:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;等一下&lt;br&gt;&#xA;稍等一下&lt;br&gt;&#xA;稍等一等&lt;br&gt;&#xA;稍等一會兒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等下 is not so common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, 等 means &quot;to wait&quot;, not &quot;to wait a second&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example, 等人 means to wait for somebody.&#xA;It is different from &quot;to wait a second&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Wait&quot; can mean &quot;wait a second&quot; in English.&#xA;等 is not the same as 等一下 in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T10:24:13.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24272" CreationDate="2017-06-28T10:29:50.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't any relationship between &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;door&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;gate&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;happy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. When the two characters were created individually, they have respective meanings. 开/開 means to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;open&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; a door/gate (门/門) first, but later the meaning extends wide. When the word 开心/開心 was created, the meaning of 开/開 isn't the original meaning of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;opening a door&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; any more, like 开始/開始, 开放/開放, 开创/開創, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-06-28T16:52:29.523" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T16:52:29.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24278" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-28T12:37:28.040" Score="11" ViewCount="1441" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many languages, you can not be really sure how to pronounce a person's name, so you have to ask them first, and remember. For instance, &quot;Broglie&quot; can be brɔɪ or brɔˈgli, &quot;中島&quot; can be Nakashima or Nakajima.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Newbie question: Are there any Chinese names with different pronounciations in Mandarin?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If yes, what percentage of the population have such ambiguous names? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or do all Chinese names have &lt;strong&gt;only one possible reading&lt;/strong&gt; in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6792" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2017-06-29T09:31:29.013" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T23:44:47.520" Title="Are people's names always pronounced the same in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24278" CreationDate="2017-06-28T13:23:01.653" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation is the same for the last names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 華 must be pronounced as huà for the family name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it is in the first name, it can be pronounced as huā, huá or huà.&#xA;They can decide it, so we have to ask for the correct pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-06-23T08:17:20.973" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T08:17:20.973" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24280" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24288" CreationDate="2017-06-28T13:27:47.323" Score="2" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the 散文 which I am reading the following sentence occurs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最近两次听到新西兰的老人艾黎说：“中国有两个最美的小城，第一是湖南凤凰，第二是福建长汀……”他是&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;一个在中国生活了将近六十年的老朋友说这番话的我真是感激而高兴。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My troubles again stem from the 以. Is this the same usage as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以時啟閉 ;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning 艾黎 spoke in accordance with his friend? In other words 艾黎 may never have been to China, but still expresses opinions about which city is the most beautiful one, just because his friend told him?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T23:13:22.960" Title="Meaning of 他是以朋友說這番話的" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24280" CreationDate="2017-06-28T14:19:52.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence should be interpreted as &lt;code&gt;他是以一个...老朋友(的身份)说这番话的&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;he said that as a ... old friend&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And from &lt;code&gt;一个在中国生活了将近六十年的老朋友&lt;/code&gt; we can tell that 艾黎 has been lived in China for 60 years nearly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T14:19:52.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24278" CreationDate="2017-06-28T14:57:34.853" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Or do all Chinese names have &lt;strong&gt;only one possible reading&lt;/strong&gt; in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from first names (when &lt;code&gt;多音字&lt;/code&gt; (polyphone) is used they might pronounce differently), even for the last names, there're some (not much) with different pronunciations. Note that these names with different pronunciations almost means different origins. That means you have to confirm with the person about the pronunciation of his/her given name; on the other hand, if you know that you could get more informations, like how the name originated (from where or from who), and the informations about his/her ancestors. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;费（Bì，  Fèi）&#xA;覃（Tán， Xún， Qín）&#xA;郗（Chī， Xī）&#xA;贲（Bēn， Féi）&#xA;隗（Kuí， Wěi）&#xA;郇（Xún， Huán）&#xA;乐（Lè，  Yuè）&#xA;召（Shào，Zhào）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/12/0307/00/773384_192357857.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;这些姓氏你能正确读音吗？（汇编）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/supplement/columnist/16633979/art/20170106/19887487&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「費」姓該怎麼讀？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guokr.com/post/425775/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一个可能被误读的姓 乐姓&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T00:36:52.187" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T00:36:52.187" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24275" CreationDate="2017-06-28T18:30:32.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just like in English, you can say the same approximate meaning in different ways, as mentioned in another answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'why' behind this phenomenon is that it allows for differences in tone (not Mandarin tones, but the perceived emotional context of the phrase). For example, &quot;wait for awhile&quot; and &quot;hang on for a min&quot; have roughly the same meaning, but the latter is more casual. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17380" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T18:30:32.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24278" CreationDate="2017-06-28T18:33:58.827" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of a Chinese name is unique in almost all cases. Here are few particular cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are very few Chinese polyphonic family names, like the above example &lt;strong&gt;覃&lt;/strong&gt;, it pronounced &lt;em&gt;qín&lt;/em&gt; in 90% of the cases, meantime, it also pronounced &lt;em&gt;tán&lt;/em&gt; as a family name. This case is &lt;strong&gt;rare&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are also few Chinese family names are polyphonic characters, one pronunciation is used for family name only. Like my family name &lt;strong&gt;贾/賈&lt;/strong&gt;, pronounce &lt;em&gt;jiǎ&lt;/em&gt; as a family name, pronounce &lt;em&gt;gǔ&lt;/em&gt; in other cases, as well as &lt;strong&gt;单/單&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;朴/樸&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;仇&lt;/strong&gt;, etc. Almost all people pronounce these names right.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are very very very few Chinese family names are made up with two characters at least, like &lt;strong&gt;上官&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;诸葛/諸葛&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;司马/司馬&lt;/strong&gt;, etc. A few characters may pronounce differently in different names. &lt;strong&gt;万俟&lt;/strong&gt; is a family name, pronounced as &lt;em&gt;mò qí&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;strong&gt;尉迟&lt;/strong&gt; pronounced as &lt;em&gt;yǜ chí&lt;/em&gt;, but, the family name &lt;strong&gt;万/萬&lt;/strong&gt;, pronounced as &lt;em&gt;wàn&lt;/em&gt;, also, the family name &lt;strong&gt;尉&lt;/strong&gt;, pronounced as &lt;em&gt;wèi&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;yǜ&lt;/em&gt; as a one-character family name. This case is &lt;strong&gt;extremely&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;rare&lt;/strong&gt;, people may mistake the pronunciation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are also polyphonic characters in given name, like &lt;strong&gt;茜&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;朝&lt;/strong&gt;. When these characters appears in a person's name, most people may choose a common pronunciation first if they don't know which is right, or ask him/her directly or other persons.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-06-29T03:52:23.147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T03:52:23.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24285" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24295" CreationDate="2017-06-28T18:35:35.307" Score="2" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;When reading &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/24282/7033&quot;&gt;songyuanyao's answer&lt;/a&gt; on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/24278/7033&quot;&gt;Are people names always pronounced the same in Mandarin?&lt;/a&gt;, I suddenly wonder if Chinese has something similar to &lt;em&gt;nanori&lt;/em&gt; in Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanori&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;nanori&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; is a special reading for a Japanese Kanji used in a name. Examples according to Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;希 usually has the pronunciation &lt;em&gt;ki&lt;/em&gt; (or sometimes &lt;em&gt;ke&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;mare&lt;/em&gt;). However, as a female name it can be pronounced &lt;em&gt;Nozomi&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;飯田 (&lt;em&gt;Iida&lt;/em&gt;) uses the special &lt;em&gt;nanori&lt;/em&gt; reading of 飯 (&lt;em&gt;ii&lt;/em&gt;) and a standard &lt;em&gt;kun'yomi&lt;/em&gt; reading of 田 (&lt;em&gt;da&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, taking the first example from songyuanyao's answer, for Hanzi 費, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%B2%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; stated,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;fèi&lt;/em&gt; with 6 meanings + 2 historical placenames + surname&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;bì&lt;/em&gt; with 1 historical placename + surname&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking from this example, I concluded that it's used as a surname since it's preceded by a place name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wonder, are there readings exclusive for a name without any preceding usage (meaningless/not used in historical names)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7033" LastActivityDate="2021-03-27T17:08:42.777" Title="Are there readings exclusive used only for people name?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24285" CreationDate="2017-06-28T19:31:43.417" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So I wonder, are there readings exclusive for a name without any preceding usage (meaningless/not used in historical names)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is very unlikely to have a reading in a name with no meaning at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the character 樂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pinyin of 樂 in 快樂 (happy) is /le4/ ; in 音樂 (music) and surname, is /yue4/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which mean when reading 樂 in a surname, it is different from the 樂 in 快樂, but is the same as the 樂 in 音樂.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a surname 樂 also has a second pinyin /yao4/. (It means 'to love; be fond of; to delight in') &lt;a href=&quot;https://kknews.cc/history/kr5rzq.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;樂進&lt;/a&gt; /yao4  jin4/ is an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the /yao4/ pinyin can only be seen in classical text nowadays. For example:'仁者樂山，智者樂水', we can't say 樂/yao4/ in 樂進 has no preceding usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-28T19:50:26.953" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T19:50:26.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24163" CreationDate="2017-06-28T21:04:18.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The above answers are all great, I just have one more to add.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Growing up, I was taught 请问， (translates roughly to &quot;May I please ask,&quot;). This phrase would fit perfectly with asking for help (particularly directions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't have a large amount of experience speaking to Chinese strangers (mostly to family and friends only), so I do not know if this might be considered an informal way of asking for help or if it might even be part of t!he Beijing dialect only. I did, however, ask for directions from strangers several times using this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16213" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T21:04:18.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24280" CreationDate="2017-06-28T23:13:22.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there should be a comma in your sentence after 的 before 我, otherwise it could mean 我 lived in China 60 years:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最近两次听到新西兰的老人艾黎说：“中国有两个最美的小城，第一是湖南凤凰，第二是福建长汀……”他是以一个在中国生活了将近六十年的老朋友说这番话的,我真是感激而高兴。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could write 作为 ,‘as' instead of this 以.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是以一个在中国生活了将近六十年的老朋友说这番话的,&#xA;(When) he, as an old friend, who had lived in China nearly 60 years, spoke these words,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我真是感激而高兴。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I was really grateful and happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以時啟閉 is a bit difficult to interpret without more context, but this is probably 根据， ‘according to' giving a meaning 'open and close on time'. This 以 is not the same as the 以 in your sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T23:13:22.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24289" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-29T00:29:39.903" Score="0" ViewCount="482" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;感谢对一切生活给予我&quot; or &quot;感谢生活所给予我的一切&quot; a better translation for the proverb &quot;Grateful for everything life has given me&quot;. If both don't make sense what is the accurate translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17383" LastEditorUserId="17383" LastEditDate="2017-06-29T00:34:30.210" LastActivityDate="2017-07-09T14:02:14.207" Title="Better translation for &quot;Grateful for everything life has given me&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24289" CreationDate="2017-06-29T00:37:02.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The second sentence is exactly what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first sentence doesn't make any sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T00:37:02.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24163" CreationDate="2017-06-29T04:02:14.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.onlinechineselearning.com/resource/how-to-say-excuse-me-in-chinese.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Say Excuse Me in Chinese?&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;In Chinese, there are different expressions for &quot;excuse me.&quot; It can be translated into: Dǎ rǎo le （打扰了）、Shī péi yí huìr（失陪一会儿）、Duì bú zhù （对不住）、Láo jià （劳驾）、Qǐnɡ yuán liànɡ ， Dǎ rǎo yí xià（请原谅；打扰一下）、Qǐnɡ yuán liànɡ ， Duì bù qǐ （请原谅；对不起）、Qǐnɡ zài shuō yī biàn （请再说一遍）。Which one to choose depends on the different situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T04:02:14.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24094" CreationDate="2017-06-29T04:11:52.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can first learn some most popular poems and here are Poem for Calligraphy Art&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/top-5-chinese-poems/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/top-5-chinese-poems/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T04:11:52.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24289" CreationDate="2017-06-29T07:39:29.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am grateful for everything which life has bestowed upon me.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我十分感激生活赐予我的一切。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T07:39:29.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24273" CreationDate="2017-06-29T11:40:05.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is just my guess: In the beginning, a word with double consonant has no written form, and people borrow (假借) two characters for that, giving both the same radical (部首) in accordance of its category of meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/32244647&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;窟窿和孔是古汉语里一个词的两个不同写法吗？&lt;/a&gt; (If you cannot read much Chinese, I will try to find some other resource in English for you.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T11:40:05.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24285" CreationDate="2017-06-29T14:03:47.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some family names which are pronounced quite differently compared to normal usage. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;华：usually: hua2, family name: hua4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;仇：usually: chou2, family name: qiu2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;单：usually: dan1, family name: shan4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;任：usually: ren4, family name: ren2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;纪：usually: ji4, family name: ji3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;解: usually: jie3, family name: xie4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;查：usually: cha2, family name: zha1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;区：usually: qu1, family name: ou1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尉迟：usually: wei4, chi2, family name: yu4 chi2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;万俟：usually: wan4, si4, family name: mo4 qi2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the pronunciations above are indeed exclusively to family names, but they are pronounced so with a reason. For example, however, I believe these pronunciation all have historical reasons, either a place, or 四声别义, or another character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, I think 名乗り(nanori) in Japanese also have a reason and not exclusively for names without other meaning. For example, 希 in female names reads nozomi, it's actually 訓読み(kunyomi) of 望, which has a similar meaning as 希. And ii is the classic form (雅語) of meshi for 飯. Therefore, the basis where your extension based on is also unstable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2021-03-27T17:08:42.777" LastActivityDate="2021-03-27T17:08:42.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24273" CreationDate="2017-06-29T14:25:23.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because radicals indicate the meaning of the character. For example, 銅鑼 literally means bronze (銅) gong (鑼). Both are phono-semantic compounds and metal-related – the 金 radical on the left side, and their pronunciation on the right side. The name 銅鑼灣 came from the shape of the bay, which is like a gong. You cannot remove any radicals, otherwise the entire meaning of the word would be unclear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastEditorUserId="27428" LastEditDate="2021-04-04T00:50:18.997" LastActivityDate="2021-04-04T00:50:18.997" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23845" CreationDate="2017-06-29T14:32:08.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the dictionaries are just incomplete in terms of all generalized meaning from the original one. Your feeling of inagreement of Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Taiwanese Guoyu may be biased due to different preference of using words for people in different regions, just like northern and southern China differs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T14:32:08.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24298" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-30T02:39:27.817" Score="8" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to ask the Cantonese speakers about the 中山裝.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As we know, 中山裝 is similar to the western suit, 西裝, it is designed with the jacket (外套) and the inner shirt (長袖衫). However, my friends told me that the &quot;長袖衫&quot; is called 底 (pronounced as 桶底 tung2 dai2) in Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is it correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rUMd8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rUMd8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;中山裝&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T12:58:04.680" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T05:03:15.657" Title="Zhong Shan Suit Inner Shirt Cantonese Name" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24278" CreationDate="2017-06-30T08:33:51.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese names are unique and different in most cases, there are first name and the last name when Chinese choose a name for their kids. so Generally, a Chinese name is composed of two or three characters, Most people tend to have a well-known Chinese family name,  and this post will introduce the most popular Chinese family names for you.&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/most-common-chinese-family-names/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/most-common-chinese-family-names/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and here you can know the most common and best chinese names for boys,&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/chinese-name-for-boys&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/chinese-name-for-boys&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T08:33:51.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24261" CreationDate="2017-06-30T08:40:35.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;开放means：open-minded&#xA;开门means:open the door&#xA;it is different , do you want to know more words discrimination?&#xA;you can check here, lots of learning videos you can learn :&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/hsk_grammar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/hsk_grammar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T08:40:35.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24155" CreationDate="2017-06-30T09:01:09.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;h1&gt;ti vs. di&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese and English both do not have voiced alveolar stop. &quot;t&quot; and &quot;d&quot; is distinguished by aspiration. Therefore, when translating to English, simplity t-&gt;t, and d-&gt;d is OK. The former one &quot;t&quot; is an aspirated voiceless alveolar stop, while the latter consonant &quot;d&quot; is an unaspirated voiceless alveolar stop. In standard IPA, they should be written as &lt;code&gt;[tʰ]&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;[t]&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Dutch is a different story. Their &quot;t&quot; and &quot;d&quot; are both unaspirated, and they are distinguished by voiced/voiceless. In IPA, they are denoted as &lt;code&gt;[t]&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;[d]&lt;/code&gt;. Therefore, for Dutch speakers, a Chinese &quot;di&quot;, which is voiceless, sounds like &quot;ti&quot; to their ears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Chinese pronunciations of &quot;狄&quot;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese pronunciation changes over time and space. There is never only one pronunciation given a character. There are ancient phonological dictionaries, but they only told us the classification of characters in terms of their pronunciation. Although there are many research working on investigating ancient phonetics, for actual way to pronounce in a certain historical time at a certain location, there's no absolute answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest answer to your question may be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://ytenx.org/zim?dzih=%E7%8B%84&amp;amp;dzyen=1&amp;amp;jtkb=1&amp;amp;jtdt=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ytenx.org&lt;/a&gt;. For the pronunciation of Tang, 《廣韻》 is maybe the best source to refer to. For 18-th century Chinese, 《洪武正韻》 is the book you need. Related contents are listed below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《廣韻》&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;徒歷切 &amp;lt;- This is the pronunciation&#xA;荻小韻 &amp;lt;-This is the classification&#xA;定母 錫韻 四等 開口 &amp;lt;- This is property of the consonant, voxel, etc.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;Most researcher believe it pronounced as &lt;code&gt;/dek/&lt;/code&gt; (near the capital city Chang'an).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《洪武正韻》&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;杜歷切 &amp;lt;- This is the pronunciation&#xA;入聲七陌 狄小韻 &amp;lt;-This is the classification&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;The pronounciation is much like the contemporal Chinese. In northern China, it's &quot;dee&quot;, and southern China &quot;dik&quot; or something similar.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastEditorUserId="17065" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T09:07:56.810" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T09:07:56.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24278" CreationDate="2017-06-30T09:29:43.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Family names always have a fixed pronunciation, inherited from ancestry.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For given names, different pronunciations are possible, if a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteronym_(linguistics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;heteronym (多音字)&lt;/a&gt; is used. The actual pronunciation depends on the creator of the name.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Parents would avoid to use 多音字 in children's names to keep away from trouble in the future. Because unlike Japanese, Chinese do not list Pinyin in most documents or forms.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-11-20T23:44:47.520" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T23:44:47.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24298" CreationDate="2017-06-30T09:32:09.473" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The name Zhong Shan comes from the name of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, but this jacket is also known as Lenin suit (Lenin being the leader of the former USSR) or Indian suit (a little different though), so the inner shirt is no more than the shirt westerners wear for a suit. It is not the original product of Guangdong Province of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-25T16:50:19.203" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T16:50:19.203" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22609" CreationDate="2017-06-30T10:57:30.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ended up translating the whole song as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the heaven that we lived in,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Acting like a warm wall,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Is blocking all your dreams now,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Has our happiness become a prison&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Whence migrating birds can't flee?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  If you're longing for the sky&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  And craving for two wings&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  And could fly if you left me,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Then you shouldn't let your wings, like roses,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  See the time they wither off.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  If our romance now just keeps you tied,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I will choose my loneliness for you, love.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  If our bond has now become a chain,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I'll break my promise.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  There's a kind of love called parting,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Leaving endless things for true love.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  If my being with you makes you lose it all,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Let true love make me leave.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  There's a kind of love called parting,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Stopping endless things for true love.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  If my breaking with you makes you have it all,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Let true love make me leave.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now you can sing this in English if you want :). I uploaded it Chinese-English-Chinese to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9tTEJ5aJGc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Youtube&lt;/a&gt; just now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T10:57:30.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24306" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-30T13:57:18.697" Score="2" ViewCount="5147" Body="&lt;p&gt;The president of China, 习近平， is in 香港。 At the military parade， 阅兵时， he said, as he passed the troops, &quot;同志们好“， then '辛苦了‘。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;’辛苦了‘ 的意思是什么？ Perhaps： Thank you for your hard work。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T09:08:41.703" Title="What does 辛苦了 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24306" CreationDate="2017-06-30T14:14:19.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;辛苦&quot; as an adjective means &quot;exhausting&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But '了' is a particle that follows a verb to indicate completion of the action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &quot;辛苦&quot; as a verb means &quot;work hard&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, &quot;你們辛苦了&quot; as a greeting  should mean: &quot;you had worked hard/ you have been working hard&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T19:05:05.833" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T19:05:05.833" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24309" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24311" CreationDate="2017-06-30T19:36:58.273" Score="2" ViewCount="431" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, when do you use 那麼 vs 這麼? In Cantonese, there isn't this issue since you just use 噉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T04:19:26.997" Title="Mandarin: when do you use 那麼 vs 這麼?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24310" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-30T19:44:22.113" Score="0" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Red meat' literally means 紅肉 (e.g. beef, lamb) in Chinese, but it is typically used in a figurative sense in political commentaries. For Example: &quot;His outrageous statements are red meat for his supporters&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/red+meat&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/red+meat&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;red meat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;n.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Meat, such as beef or lamb, that is dark red before being cooked.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Language or discourse intended to stir the emotions of a given group, especially by appealing to or reinforcing partisan sentiments.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not believe that Chinese speakers use '紅肉' figuratively like English speakers use 'red meat' in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'投其所好的言論' would be my translation of the figurative 'red meat', but I wonder is there a Chinese counterpart of this term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T21:23:06.143" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T13:14:56.717" Title="What is the equivalent phrase of the figurative 'red meat' in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24309" CreationDate="2017-06-30T20:28:35.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;那麼/ 這麼 is the Mandarin counterpart of 噉 in Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 那麼辦好嗎? (is it okay to do it like that?) = 噉做好咩?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 這麼辦好嗎? (is it okay to do it like this?) = 噉做好咩?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 那麼 and 這麼 is the proximity. We use '這' when the object is near you; and use '那' when the object is not near you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'噉' in Cantonese doesn't make this distinction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can point at something right in front of you and say &quot;噉?&quot; which is from the point of your own perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can point at something in a distance and say &quot;噉?&quot; which is from the object's point of perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-01T04:19:26.997" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T04:19:26.997" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24312" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24313" CreationDate="2017-06-30T22:53:34.343" Score="3" ViewCount="407" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually say 《我也是》， but it feels like an awkward response, and maybe a bit cold.  Is there a common friendly or colloquial response? Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17305" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T00:52:46.120" Title="What is a polite response to 《很高興認識你》？" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24312" CreationDate="2017-07-01T00:52:46.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我也是很高興認識你。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;請多多指教。(I'm not really sure how to translate this phrase.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;能夠認識到你是我的榮幸。 (It's my honour / It's my pleasure to meet you here.) / (I'm delighted to meet you here.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a lot of response for this. Just comment below if you have further problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T00:52:46.120" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24314" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24316" CreationDate="2017-07-01T04:03:22.363" Score="2" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't find anything online. Would it be 全句子？&#xA;I'm also interested to know how to say 'sentence fragment'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17305" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T06:48:29.477" Title="How do you translate the phrase 'complete sentence'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24314" CreationDate="2017-07-01T04:41:50.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;'complete sentence' is translated as  '完整句子' in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;A complete sentence&quot; = &quot;一句完整的句子&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/8449/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/8449/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;完整&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wan2 zheng3   (pinyin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;jyun4 zing2   (jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;complete&lt;/strong&gt;; intact; whole&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T04:41:50.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24314" CreationDate="2017-07-01T07:40:46.253" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;complete sentence&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;完全句&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  《懶蟲簡明英漢詞典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;full sentence&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;完全句&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  《懶蟲簡明英漢詞典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;完整句子&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  《21世紀英漢漢英雙向詞典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;sentence fragment&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;句子片段&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  《21世紀雙語科技詞典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We usually use a shorter term for &quot;complete sentence&quot;, like 全句 or 整句.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T07:40:46.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24306" CreationDate="2017-07-01T09:08:41.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I've been watching TV for several years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When soldiers say &quot;首长好。&quot; (Greetings, our leader!) and Xi responds &quot;同志们辛苦了。&quot;, I think it's better to be translated as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Good job you've done. / You've been doing well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That sounds strange but reasonable to me. First &quot;辛苦&quot; should not be translated into &quot;exhaust&quot;, which means more &quot;wear out&quot; than &quot;hard work&quot;. When Xi says &quot;辛苦了&quot;, he means &quot;(你们为人民服务)辛苦了&quot;, so the whole sentence should be &quot;You've been &lt;strong&gt;working hard&lt;/strong&gt; and it's good for you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T09:08:41.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24318" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24319" CreationDate="2017-07-01T09:48:57.530" Score="0" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which is more common to express the notion of &quot;everywhere&quot;: 四處 or 周圍?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: The house will have your books everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T10:22:20.170" Title="Which is more common in Mandarin: 四處 or 周圍?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24318" CreationDate="2017-07-01T10:01:35.183" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;四處 is better than 周圍 in this case. However, I think you can consider 到處.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The house will have your books everywhere.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這房子將到處都有你的書。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Google Translate:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;everywhere 副詞&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      到處&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      everywhere, throughout, in all places&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      隨處&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      everywhere, anywhere&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      遍&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      all over, everywhere&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      隨地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      anywhere, everywhere&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      普&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      everywhere&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      廣泛地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      abroad, diffusely, everywhere, large, at large, proverbially&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      在在&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      everywhere&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T10:01:35.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24318" CreationDate="2017-07-01T10:13:37.330" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The '四' in '四處' is a 虛數 (symbolic number) that represents 'All' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;四處&lt;/strong&gt;' literally means 'all places/ every places' which means the same as '&lt;strong&gt;everywhere&lt;/strong&gt;' It can also describe '&lt;strong&gt;all over the place&lt;/strong&gt;' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'周圍' means 'around' , typically refer to the area around an object &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: '周圍都是樹' (tree are all around) &lt;em&gt;the object is omitted here&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'四周圍' means 'all around'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'房子裡&lt;strong&gt;四處&lt;/strong&gt;都有你的書'(there are books &lt;strong&gt;everywhere&lt;/strong&gt; in your house)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'房子裡&lt;strong&gt;四周圍&lt;/strong&gt;都有你的書'(there are books &lt;strong&gt;all around&lt;/strong&gt; in your house) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'房子&lt;strong&gt;四周圍&lt;/strong&gt;都有樹 (there are trees &lt;strong&gt;all around&lt;/strong&gt; the house)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Which is more common to express the notion of &quot;everywhere&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is 四處&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;young99 wrote: &lt;em&gt;I think you can consider 到處&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'到處' literally means 'Everywhere (you go)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-01T10:22:20.170" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T10:22:20.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24321" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24323" CreationDate="2017-07-01T13:10:55.643" Score="2" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I best translate the interjection &quot;Entertaining!&quot; as in &quot;This event is entertaining!&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used &quot;娛樂!&quot;; this seems safe since, at worst, it can be interpreted as &quot;Entertainment!&quot;, which has roughly the same meaning. I'm thinking that this should have been &quot;在娛樂!&quot; though based on usage described at &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_actions_in_progress_with_%22zai%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_actions_in_progress_with_%22zai%22&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All examples of the &quot;在 + verb&quot; construction that I've seen involve personal pronouns (such as &quot;我在...&quot; and &quot;你在...&quot;), however, which leads me to be skeptical that this rule is generally applicable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, is it good Chinese to say &quot;event + 在 + verb&quot; (where &quot;event&quot; is a personified object) (e.g., 端午節在娛樂!) and then shorten that to &quot;在娛樂!&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16406" LastActivityDate="2017-07-22T15:36:44.597" Title="How do I best translate the interjection &quot;Entertaining!&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24321" CreationDate="2017-07-01T14:56:15.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;娛樂&quot;, as you said, means &quot;entertainment&quot;. Since it is a noun, it cannot be used in the &quot;在 + verb&quot; construction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, the &quot;subject + 在 + verb&quot; form means that the subject is &lt;em&gt;doing&lt;/em&gt; the verb (for a lack of better wording). Even using the word for &quot;entertaining&quot;, which is best translated as &quot;有趣&quot; as pointed out by @young99, would not make sense, as the word &quot;entertaining&quot; in this sense is a &lt;strong&gt;gerund&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike english, gerunds are not equivalent to the present tense of a base word (entertain &gt; entertaining), and in this case originates from a completely different stem. In fact, the proper definition for &quot;有趣&quot; is &quot;interesting&quot;, but in this case means the same as &quot;entertaining&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, to answer your question, &quot;Event + 在 + verb&quot; is not a valid way to describe an event, as it implies that the event is coming to life and physically doing some action. You are instead looking for the construction &quot;Event + is + gerund&quot;, in which case the &quot;is&quot; should be replaced by &quot;很&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e.g. 端午節**很+*有趣！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. I'm glad you enjoyed the dragon boat festival!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17400" LastEditorUserId="17400" LastEditDate="2017-07-01T15:19:15.157" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T15:19:15.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24321" CreationDate="2017-07-01T15:30:12.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'This event is &lt;strong&gt;entertaining&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'這個活動很&lt;strong&gt;富娛樂性&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Entertaining' in this context is an adjective, which is translated as '富娛樂性(的)/有娛樂性(的)'in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[entertaining] = [富娛樂性]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[entertaining + noun] = [富娛樂性(的) + noun]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;Entertaining&lt;/strong&gt; event' is '&lt;strong&gt;富娛樂性的&lt;/strong&gt;活動/節目'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;Enjoyable&lt;/strong&gt; event' is  '&lt;strong&gt;讓人享受的&lt;/strong&gt;活動/節目'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;Fun&lt;/strong&gt; event' is '&lt;strong&gt;有趣的&lt;/strong&gt;活動/節目'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edition&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Patrick Dark wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I changed my text to &amp;quot;娛樂性!&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;富&amp;quot; would seem to be unnecessary since that's implied by use of an exclamation mark.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, 富  or 有  is necessary in this context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;娛樂性 means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(adj) ' of entertainment'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 這是一個&lt;strong&gt;娛樂性&lt;/strong&gt;活動 (this is an event &lt;strong&gt;of entertainment&lt;/strong&gt; / this is an &lt;strong&gt;entertainment&lt;/strong&gt; event)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(n)  'entertaining element'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 這個活動的&lt;strong&gt;娛樂性&lt;/strong&gt;不高 (this event's &lt;strong&gt;entertainment element&lt;/strong&gt; is not high)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;富/有娛樂性(的) literally means &amp;quot;~ that have entertainment element&amp;quot;. It is used as an adjectival phrase in a whole. Equal to 'entertaining'(adj) in English.&#xA;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T00:51:37.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24321" CreationDate="2017-07-02T00:53:00.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't translate the English too directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;very entertaining.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;真好看！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;真精彩！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T00:53:00.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24314" CreationDate="2017-07-02T01:17:29.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'sentence fragment' is not really a concept in Chinese I think. But then, define 'sentence', Western grammar has no solid definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;句 is a character formed from 口 and 勹。 勹 is perhaps an old version of 包. That fits nicely with 'wrap your lips around this = say this' 句子 would then be 'something you say' in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sentence fragment: 不完整的句子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T01:17:29.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24326" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24327" CreationDate="2017-07-02T05:11:57.503" Score="0" ViewCount="335" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently learning Mandarin in Simplified Chinese. I've just started learning so I cannot speak all that well. However, here is my problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a Chinese family coming over. They are proud that I am learning so I am making a greeting for them in Chinese. I also happen to have a pet moth, named &quot;Seven&quot;. I think in Chinese the kanji for moth is 蛾. To put it simply, I want to write &quot;Seven the Moth&quot; on its tank and am I confused now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way is literally 七蛾 (seven moth), like &quot;moth&quot; is the title of Seven, like a name with Mr. or Miss or the title at the end. But then, they may think there are seven moths.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I think for another way using &quot;de&quot; like 蛾的七 (moth de seven), but I don't think this is correct, as it refers to an adjective modifying a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last way I can think of is like the first but reversed: 蛾七 (moth seven) which sounds the most correct, but I have no idea what to write.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should I write on the tank?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17402" LastEditorUserId="7033" LastEditDate="2017-07-16T10:04:41.437" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T10:04:41.437" Title="How would you say &quot;X, the Y&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24326" CreationDate="2017-07-02T06:31:42.110" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Domestic animals like dog, cat, horse, cow, pig, goat, chicken and duck are often described with a single syllable word in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狗，猫，马，牛，猪，羊，鸡，鸭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;There are few exceptions, For example, snake is not a domestic animal, but it is still being called with the single syllable word 蛇&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other animals, it is customary to use two syllables words to refer them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tiger (虎), is always called 老虎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elephant (象) is always called 大象&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Monkey (猴) is always called 猴子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Frog (蛙) is always called 青蛙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of moth(蛾), it is always called 飛蛾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, your should refer your pet moth as  '飛蛾'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calling someone by a single syllable name is rare because it sounded blunt. Most of the time we would add title or a name prefix (indicates a noun is a name) to make it a two syllable name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The name '七' would be '小七, 阿七 or 七仔' in day-to-day conversation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, &quot;my pet-- Seven the moth&quot; should be translated as '我的宠物--  飛蛾小七 (or '阿七)' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can say: &quot; 小七, 我养的飛蛾&quot; (little Seven, the pet moth I keep)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: one more suggestion&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you called Chinese character as kanji, here is another suggestion-- 'Seven' in Japanese is なな (nana). You could call it '娜娜(Nana), which is a common female pet name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-03T18:15:15.550" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T18:15:15.550" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24310" CreationDate="2017-07-02T09:35:59.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, In Chinese, we don't have special terms have the same mean of 'read meat'.&#xA;we use 阿谀逢迎（a formal literary language），while in daily life, we just use 拍马屁. it is the mean of 'offer someone with red meat', but we don't have noun as the mean of 'read meat'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17404" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T09:35:59.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23732" CreationDate="2017-07-02T09:45:38.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我明天要跟你去健身房了 and 我明天要跟你去健身房 are not the same mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我明天要跟你去健身房了。 means in the past, I didn't need to go to gym, while I have to do it tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我明天要跟你去健身房。 it has nothing related to the past, just means that I will do that tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17404" LastEditorUserId="17404" LastEditDate="2017-07-02T13:12:02.223" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T13:12:02.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13243" CreationDate="2017-07-02T13:13:26.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They all means laugh, however, '呵呵' has changed this days, especially on the internet, when people say '呵呵', it usually means something is stupid, disgusting or stubborn. But it's not always like this, still depends on the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17405" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T13:13:26.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24326" CreationDate="2017-07-02T16:13:23.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically there is no concept of appositive (同位語) in classical Chinese. Modern usage, I believe, borrows from English (or other Indo-European languages).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;孔子師郯子、萇弘、師襄、老聃。&quot; 師襄: the music instructor Xiang (韓愈，師說)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;金谿民方仲永，世隸耕。&quot; 金谿民方仲永: A citizen of Jin Xi, Fang Zhongyong (王安石，傷仲永)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小熊維尼&quot;Winnie the Pooh&quot;, which is reversed also&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The traditional grammar would, thus, be &quot;蛾七&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;However&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, by saying &quot;蛾七&quot;, people can hardly understand (i.e. parse) what you are talking about. A more natural phrase is “我養的，名叫‘七’的蛾” but that is still awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the very reason that starting with Middle Chinese, words are almost exclusively consisted of two syllables. (See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/13344/what-does-%E8%80%81-in-%E8%80%81%E8%99%8E-and-%E8%80%81%E9%BC%A0-mean/22023#22023&quot;&gt;one answer of mine&lt;/a&gt; that explains this.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A native Chinese would probably have “小七”(?) or “阿七”(?), or “老七”(?), btw, each sounds very strange to me XD&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T16:13:23.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24326" CreationDate="2017-07-02T19:35:31.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;About your pet(or lab animal), it is up to you to speak their name in English, use the phonetic name or use Chinese nick name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For non-native Mandarin speaker, the adequate way to introduce your pet is using a phonetic name. For example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它英文叫做 Seven, 中文名叫做『斯文』。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your Chinese friend will love your humor. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-07-04T11:18:27.423" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T11:18:27.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24314" CreationDate="2017-07-03T06:48:29.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means, 完整的句子&#xA;learn more about Chinese here：&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/hsk_grammar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese learning&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T06:48:29.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24336" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24341" CreationDate="2017-07-03T11:02:11.197" Score="0" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I admit I was not familiar with the phrase 书籍, until I used Google translate now to translate 'I like reading all sorts of books' (of course, I take the Google translate translation with a pinch of salt!). But I was wondering why 书籍 was used as opposed to simply 书. I am familiar with the use of 籍 in 国籍 meaning 'country of citizenship' so have an idea of 籍 as meaning 'belonging to' or something of the sort (again, Google translate verifies this as 'membership'). So its use in the phrase 我喜欢读各种书籍 I assume to mean something like 'I like reading books belonging to various categories'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the general gist? In this case, is the 籍 omittable, or would I have to rephrase the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17320" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T20:41:06.637" Title="Use of 书 or 书籍 for 'books'" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24310" CreationDate="2017-07-03T13:14:56.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the verb 「挑動」, 「煽動」 or 「蛊惑（人心）」 might match the definition &quot;to stir the emotions&quot; in your dictionary, if you need derogatory terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「投其所好」 and 「奉承」 are about flattering someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2718" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T13:14:56.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24326" CreationDate="2017-07-03T13:15:32.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Chinese expression habits(I'm a Chinese), you can call your pet &quot;小七&quot;, &quot;七七&quot;, &quot;阿七&quot;, &quot;七仔&quot;，and write &quot;小七，我心爱的蛾子&quot;or&quot;七七——我的宠物飞蛾&quot; . All the translation above is okay without ambiguity.&#xA;The translate &quot;斯文&quot; by @mootmoot is interesting. You should know that &quot;斯文&quot; means &quot;gentle&quot;, &quot;refined&quot;, and &quot;polite&quot;, if you want to take that name for your pet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17413" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T13:15:32.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24336" CreationDate="2017-07-03T13:32:40.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;书: spoken/written language, can/can't be count&#xA;书籍: written language, very formal, usually can't be count&#xA;BTW, 书 can be a verb means &quot;write&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17413" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T13:32:40.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24336" CreationDate="2017-07-03T19:30:08.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;牛(cow) and 羊(goat) are both farm animal; The term '牛羊' is a general term for 'farm animal' including sheep, horse and all others farm animals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刀(knife) and 剑(sword) are both cold weapon; The term '刀剑' is a general term for 'cold weapon' including axe, spear and all other cold weapons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;书(book) and 籍(record) are both bound written material; The term '书籍' is a general term for 'bound written material'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To classify written materials more strictly, novel and textbook are 书,  not 籍; Accounting book and record book are 籍, not 书. The term '书籍' refers to everything in book form, including dictionary (典) and all other bound written materials.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'书籍' is a general term for 'book'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'书刊' is a general terms for 'printed publication'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'书册' and '书本' are general terms for 'bound printed material'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Examples of when to use '书' and '书籍' in sentences:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这是一本园艺&lt;strong&gt;书&lt;/strong&gt; (this is a gardening &lt;strong&gt;book&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;所有园艺&lt;strong&gt;书&lt;/strong&gt;都在这里 (all the gardening &lt;strong&gt;books&lt;/strong&gt; are here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有关园艺的&lt;strong&gt;书籍&lt;/strong&gt;都在这里 (all the &lt;strong&gt;books&lt;/strong&gt; related to gardening is here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In #1 and #2 you can use 书 or 书籍 interchangeably, but most of the time people would choose to use one less character and just say XX书 instead of XX书籍&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In #3. you can also use 书 or 书籍 interchangeably, but the more general 书籍 is preferred because a reference book or a novel might also relate to gardening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T20:41:06.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24342" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24343" CreationDate="2017-07-03T19:53:37.403" Score="0" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference in the usage between 懒惰 and 懒? Both can be translated as &quot;lazy&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17353" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T02:00:33.733" Title="What's the difference between 懒惰 and 懒?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24342" CreationDate="2017-07-03T21:09:42.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;懒 (lazy) is mainly an adjective (less often as a noun) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;懒&lt;/strong&gt;人 (&lt;strong&gt;lazy&lt;/strong&gt; person)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人&lt;strong&gt;懒&lt;/strong&gt; (the person is &lt;strong&gt;lazy&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;懒惰 (lazy/ laziness) can be an adjective or a noun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由于他&lt;strong&gt;懒惰&lt;/strong&gt;，他的花园里充满了杂草 (Due to he being &lt;strong&gt;lazy&lt;/strong&gt;, his garden is full of weeds )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由于他的&lt;strong&gt;懒惰&lt;/strong&gt;，他的花园里充满了杂草 (Due to his &lt;strong&gt;laziness&lt;/strong&gt;, his garden is full of weeds )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The adjective 懒惰 preceding a noun usually requires the adjectival prefix '的'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;strong&gt;懒惰的&lt;/strong&gt;人 (&lt;strong&gt;lazy&lt;/strong&gt; person)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The adjective 懒惰 after a noun doesn't require adjectival prefix '的'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:人&lt;strong&gt;懒惰&lt;/strong&gt; (the person being &lt;strong&gt;lazy&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-04T02:00:33.733" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T02:00:33.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24342" CreationDate="2017-07-04T00:56:39.807" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;懒 (lazy) can also be a noun. It is used more often in spoken language compared with 懒惰(lazy).&#xA;(Adding to @Tang Ho's answer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17413" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T00:56:39.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24345" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24348" CreationDate="2017-07-04T01:02:30.063" Score="2" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Chinese Buddhism, 方便 is used to translate the word/concept &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Upāya&lt;/a&gt;. Was 方便 an existing Chinese word that already meant &quot;convenient&quot; (or something else) and then given this technical meaning for translations? Or was it created as a technical Buddhist term and later took on the common everyday meaning it now has? Please cite sources (preferably that quote from ancient texts) in your answer, or I'm not likely to accept it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it was a borrowing, could it be described as a calque? Or would it just be a translation without any particular parallel morphological structure?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T04:02:53.230" Title="方便: a &quot;skillful means&quot; of translating upāya or not?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;buddhism&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24346" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24347" CreationDate="2017-07-04T03:28:42.220" Score="1" ViewCount="660" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GPpxa.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GPpxa.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The infamous &amp;#39;yin-yang&amp;#39; coffee&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鴛鴦 is a mix of tea and coffee commonly had in Hong Kong (amongst other south-asian countries).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering about how this drink came into being? Where does the title come from (especially the common radical at the bottom part of the character). What's the reasoning of the name behind the title? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could simply search this up on Wikipedia but I wanted to hear your opinions. I don't really trust Wikipedia as a reliable source of information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:12:25.770" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:12:25.770" Title="What's the etymology and significance of yuenyeung (鴛鴦)?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;food&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24346" CreationDate="2017-07-04T03:48:55.330" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;鴛鴦&lt;/strong&gt; is actually the name of a bird; more specifically, the mandarin duck. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an image:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AT7PF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;1]&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;(Look at how cute they are!)&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese culture, the mandarin duck is a symbol of &lt;strong&gt;lovers&lt;/strong&gt;, much like the lovebird in English culture. The term 鸳鸯 is often used to describe &lt;strong&gt;pairs of things&lt;/strong&gt; that make a good match. As for your drink, this most likely refers to the &lt;em&gt;tea&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;coffee&lt;/em&gt;, which, despite tasting very different (much like the colour difference between the male and female duck), are actually perfect for each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The common radical, 鳥, means &quot;bird&quot;. &quot;鴛&quot; refers to the male duck, and &quot;鴦&quot; refers to the female.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17400" LastEditorUserId="17400" LastEditDate="2017-07-04T05:06:21.653" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T05:06:21.653" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24345" CreationDate="2017-07-04T04:02:53.230" Score="5" Body="&lt;h3&gt;The meaning of 方便 (In the viewpoint of Buddhism)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明代《三藏法數》&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;方便&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;方即方法，便即便宜，猶善巧也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清末民初《丁福保 佛學大辭典》&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;方便&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;方者方法，便者便用，便用契於一切眾生之機之方法也。又方為方正之理，便為巧妙之言辭。對種種之機，用方正之理與巧妙之言也，又方者眾生之方域，便者教化之便法，應諸機之方域，而用適化之便法，謂之方便。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above content is translated in 《Soothill-Hodous Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms》 as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方便 upāya&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Convenient to the place, or situation, suited to the condition, opportune, appropriate; but 方 is interpreted as 方法 method, mode, plan, and 便 as 便用 convenient for use, i. e. a convenient or expedient method; also 方 as 方正 and 便 as 巧妙, which implies strategically correct.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;……&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The meaning is-- teaching according to the capacity of the hearer, by any suitable method, including that of device or stratagem, but expedience beneficial to the recipient is understood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Who came first?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One argument is shown below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://big5.xuefo.net/nr/article25/247254.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;“方便”一詞的來源，你知道嗎？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第二段第一行 The first line of the second paragraph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“方便”源於佛經。它的本義指佛普渡眾生時所採用的各種方法、手段。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;方便&amp;quot; is derived from Buddhist sutras. Its original meaning refers to the various methods and means used during the Buddha's salvation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最後一段第一行 The first line of the last paragraph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;施行方法、手段、見機行事，其目的、結果就是與人便利，使人舒適。所以“方便”又引伸有便利、舒適、適宜之義。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purpose and the result of the method, the means and the action are to give convenience to people or to make people comfortable. Therefore, 方便 is extended to convenient, comfortable or appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T04:02:53.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24346" CreationDate="2017-07-04T04:16:00.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鸳鸯 (n) mandarin duck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;鸳 is male; 鸯 is female&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term 鸳鸯 usually symbolizes 'lovers / couple' in Chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for your question, 鸳鸯 is used as an adjective to describe '&lt;strong&gt;non-identical pair of ~&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;male mandarin duck is bigger and more colorful than the female mandarin duck. They looked like two different birds but they are a pair nonetheless&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'鸳鸯刀' is always a pair of blades that are different in length (right hand blade is longer than the left hand blade);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'鸳鸯襪' means a pair of mismatched socks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'鸳鸯飯' is fired rice covered by two different looking toppings side by side - shredded chicken in red sweet &amp;amp; sour sauce on one side, shrimp in white sauce on the other side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The coffee and black tea mixed drink is named 鸳鸯 because it is a pairing of two very different things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鸳鸯飯&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R9P8I.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R9P8I.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;鸳鸯飯&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T04:46:49.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24351" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24352" CreationDate="2017-07-04T04:16:49.103" Score="0" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I just learned about the etymology of 'AA' from &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1777/the-origins-of-aa%E5%88%B6&quot;&gt;The origins of &amp;quot;AA制&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if anyone has a similar response for the phrase 'go dutch'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is hard to believe this originated from the Netherlands, seeing that it is quite commonly used in Hong Kong and Mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first heard it in a Mainland Chinese TV drama in the English subtitles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bonus points if anyone could provide me the traditional and simplified characters for 'go dutch'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-22T01:38:02.247" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T01:38:02.247" Title="Etymology of 'go dutch'" Tags="&lt;slang&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2017-09-06T04:20:51.827" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24351" CreationDate="2017-07-04T04:25:10.193" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;《懶蟲簡明英漢詞典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;go Dutch&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  verb&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  各人付自己的帳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, we simply say 各付各的 or 各出各的 in both TC and SC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.ichacha.net/go%20dutch.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Others&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    各付各的帳&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    各付一半帳&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    各付一半賬&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    各付帳&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    各人付自己的帳&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    各人自付錢&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    各人自己付錢&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    各自付錢&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    各自付帳&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    各自負擔自己費用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the legend of the Anglo-Dutch scramble for colonies and competition for the international trade market, because of the frequent conflict and dislike of the two countries, such usage appeared in English, contrary to the &quot;generous&quot; image of an English gentleman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastEditorUserId="15850" LastEditDate="2017-07-04T04:55:04.907" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T04:55:04.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24351" CreationDate="2017-07-04T07:28:45.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;各付各的钱，自己付自己的，也会直接说AA。&#xA;know more about chinese slangs, you can check here :&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/daily-chinese-learning-tips/chinese-slang-words-you-must-know/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/daily-chinese-learning-tips/chinese-slang-words-you-must-know/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T07:28:45.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24351" CreationDate="2017-07-04T08:04:04.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Etymologically, the &quot;AA&quot; in &quot;AA制&quot; is come from &quot;Algebraic Average&quot;.(There is no official verdict)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other origins:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Acting Appointment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Late Latin &quot;ana&quot;, from German, again&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to: &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/item/AA%E5%88%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://baike.baidu.com/item/AA%E5%88%B6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17413" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T08:04:04.973" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24289" CreationDate="2017-07-04T14:29:51.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The latter is correct. The former doesn't make any sence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing you should know is that &lt;strong&gt;the position of an attribute（定语）is different between English and Chinese.&lt;/strong&gt; As we all know, in English if the attribute is only one word, it should be placed before the noun. When the attribute is more than one word or a sentence, it should be placed after the noun instead. &lt;strong&gt;But in Chinese, no matter how long an attribute is, even it becomes a sentence, it showes before a noun forever.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question becomes easy to understand.&quot;Greatful for everything&quot; is the main of the sentence, which can be directly translated as &quot;感激一切&quot;. And &quot;life has given me&quot; is the attribute (clause) to decorate the word &quot;everything&quot;. So it should be place before &quot;一切&quot; like &quot;生活所给予我的一切&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastEditorUserId="17420" LastEditDate="2017-07-08T11:23:16.530" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T11:23:16.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24356" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-04T16:07:28.973" Score="1" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just have a quick question about a phrase I've come across twice now, but I'm unsure of it's meaning exactly, I found it in this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「这才是快给我住手。我可没那个意思陪你去自杀喔」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like it would translate as something like &quot;too quick for me to stop&quot; but I also feel that might be too literal and it doesn't seem to fit the context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17422" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T16:28:00.883" Title="What does the phrase &quot;这才是快给我住手&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24356" CreationDate="2017-07-04T16:41:40.350" Score="-1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「这才是快给我住手。我可没那个意思陪你去自杀喔」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think a punctuation mark is missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be: 「这才是! 快给我住手。我可没那个意思陪你去自杀喔!」&quot;Now this is the right thing to do! Stop at this instance. I really have no intention of committing double suicide with you!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T16:41:40.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24358" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-04T17:38:19.753" Score="0" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is said that today a university educated Chinese person knows some 5000-6000 different characters. In imperial times when the official language was literary/classical Chinese how many characters did an average scholar (someone who passed the official examinations or a government official for instance) know? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17423" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T11:44:41.167" Title="Number of Characters an Average Imperial Times Scholar Knew" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24359" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24363" CreationDate="2017-07-04T18:23:20.080" Score="0" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about a translation question. If I wanted to translate &quot;we won't be able to see you&quot; (the actual sentence isn't important, just future tense and then some action with 会), would I say 我们会不会看你？That sounds like a question, &quot;can we see you?&quot;. I've been taught to translate future tense to 会, is there another way to say an action is in the future? I've heard that &quot;要&quot; also works, but doesn't that mean &quot;want&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorUserId="16117" LastEditDate="2017-07-04T20:03:56.033" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T00:37:49.850" Title="Translation of &quot;we won't be able to see you&quot;? 我们会不会看你？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24359" CreationDate="2017-07-04T22:41:48.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;We won't be able to see you.&quot; is somewhat unclear without context. Why can't we see you? You are invisible? (&quot;Doctor, the Invisible Man wants an appointment for this afternoon.&quot; &quot;Tell him I won't be able to see him.&quot;:)) We are blind? We don't want to see you? The rules don't allow us to meet? We don't have the time? Most likely, 'We don't have enough time to meet you', which we will probably also say when we don't want to see you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Sorry, but we won't have enough time to meet you when we are in Beijing.'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很抱歉，我们将没有足够的时间在北京跟你见面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T22:41:48.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24361" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-04T22:56:35.067" Score="3" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in the topic, I would like to know what are the differences between 游学 and 留学. As far as I know a student going studying abroad could use any of them. Could he? When aren't they interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16881" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T16:11:25.060" Title="Difference between 游学 and 留学" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24362" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24368" CreationDate="2017-07-04T23:12:39.933" Score="3" ViewCount="657" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand for the most part, (perhaps not as a causative word like shi, rang, bei etc ENTIRELY..) how to use 叫　and when trying to see the difference between 叫　and 称为　　, I noticed that people compared 称为　with 叫做　, a term I had not actually seen before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, what is the difference between the inclusion/exclusion of the word 做　in 叫做　?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, as a bonus, does any one want to validate my research, and let me know if 称为　vs 叫做 is a matter of more formal writing and not convention ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it a more spoken vs written distinction as I beleeve the distinction between 叫做　and 叫作　　exists as ?  Is this distinction only in Cantonese?  I wonder because my Mandarin ABC input keyboard on Windows doesn't recognize the latter as a compound word.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T20:44:33.207" Title="What is the difference between using 叫　and 叫做　？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24359" CreationDate="2017-07-04T23:27:20.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as what you mean by see, the above answer is right in that context.  Do you mean meet at a certain time and place?  Do you mean at the moment?  Chinese requires a lot of specific information to be understood thoroughly..as you can probably ascertain, English is a relatively lazy language these days, as a matter of convention and every day speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as able, it is imho, most likely to be implying 能　or 可以　. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以　means does one have permission.  (i.e. Can I see you? [Am I allowed to])&#xA;能 means physically capable or able.  (i.e. Can I see you? [Or is something preventing me..time, physical restraints, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We won't be able to see you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们不能看见你。　Means physically unable..which is not a quality or happening that is very likely.  This would more be used in another light, for example:&#xA;我们不能看见彩虹。　　This would imply that, perhaps, from your side of town you are unable to see the rainbow that someone on the other side of town &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; see.  Otherwise, it doesn't really make sense..because if every one cannot see that rainbow, then it does not really exist, does it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们不可以看见你..This is another poor choice of word (see), that is where the issue lies.  This implies that we are not allowed to see you physically..which makes for a weird scenario.  It also is somewhat open ended..it could mean a number of things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to clarify what is meant by see, which is probably meet, and from there you can establish meet for what purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T23:27:20.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24361" CreationDate="2017-07-04T23:29:21.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you understand the meaning of the characters, and radicals and their importance..the former has a lot more of a fluid meaning, and frees up space.  As opposed to a more stressful situation.  That is my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T23:29:21.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24359" CreationDate="2017-07-05T00:37:49.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We won't be able to see you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we assume this means, at a particular time in the future, we will not have sufficient time to meet 'you', it could probably best be translated as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們到時候不會有時間見你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not helpful to think about future tense or anything like that derived from English. You just have to pick the right time phrase, e.g 到時候.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from 到時候 or 'at that aforementioned time [in the future]', you could use the month or a date or something similar as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們五月不會有時間見你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'We won't have time to see you in May'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can even say it with the same verb you would use for a present tense situation, as in 'I don't have time to see you' and 'I won't have time to see you in May':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我沒有時間見你 / 我五月沒有時間見你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case I would not focus on trying to figure out an underlying grammatical framework but recommend you find good example sentences and use them regularly until it seems natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16848" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T00:37:49.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24361" CreationDate="2017-07-05T01:05:01.177" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;留学 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/20426/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/20426/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to study abroad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'留' = 'stay'; '學' = 'study'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'留学' means 'stay (abroad) to study'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say: &amp;quot;我要去留學&amp;quot; (I am going to study abroad), it implies there is a clear destination. e.g. &amp;quot;我要去美国留学&amp;quot; (I am going to America to study). In this case, you are going to enroll to a particular college or university in a particular city in a &lt;strong&gt;foreign country&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'游学' is short for 一邊游历一邊學習 (learning while traveling). It is a very general term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'游学' could mean you are traveling across your own country and learn new things as you go, from serious study like taking college courses, to casual learning like learn to make wonton noodle soup from a restaurant owner; It could also mean you go to many foreign countries and studying in many different universities or taking apprenticeship under different masters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'四方游学' is a common phrase that describe 'go to many places to study' or 'traveling the world and study along the way'   . But there's no such thing as '四方留学'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T10:00:29.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24367" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24370" CreationDate="2017-07-05T01:17:04.557" Score="2" ViewCount="1974" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand what to do if you have a series of 3 third tones, and the rules are well explained &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesefor.us/lessons/mandarin-three-third-tones-change-sandhi/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. But what about 4 third tones in a row?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这件大衣很特别，&lt;strong&gt;我也想买&lt;/strong&gt;一件。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing it would be &lt;strong&gt;wó yě xiáng mǎi&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;Would that be correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16080" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-07-10T08:44:12.273" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T09:41:35.273" Title="What is the rule for a series of third tones?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2020-01-28T07:33:31.497" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24362" CreationDate="2017-07-05T01:33:40.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;叫&lt;/strong&gt;= &lt;strong&gt;to call&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;be called&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我叫彼得 could mean: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'I call Peter (e.g. I make a phone call to Peter) ' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'I am called Peter (my name is Peter)' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;叫做&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;be called as&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我叫做彼得 = I am called as Peter (my name is Peter) - &lt;em&gt;no ambiguity here&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;称&lt;/strong&gt;= [1] [v] &lt;strong&gt;call&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;name&lt;/strong&gt;; term; address as&#xA;  [2] [v] say; state; express; claim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人称(为) = people call (him/ her/ it) as&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;自称(为) = call oneself as / self proclaim as&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;称为 = be called as&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Abe Shudug wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Could you please also clarify how it becomes him/her/it with 人称为 ? Maybe an example sentence..do you mean 他　她　它　　ｎｅｅｄ　ｔｏ　ｂｅ　ａｄｄｅｄ?　　Ｏｒ　为　serves that function ??&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Some examples:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(他/她)被人稱為天下無敵 = (他/她)人稱天下無敵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;被人稱為 is often shortened to 人稱&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(他/她)自稱為天下無敵 = (他/她)自稱天下無敵 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;自稱為 if often shortened to 自稱&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[他/她/它] is the object, which is needed in a complete sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 acts as the conjunction 'as'&lt;em&gt;(without antecedent) in the degree, manner&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;称为 is more literal;  叫做 is more colloquial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-05T20:44:33.207" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T20:44:33.207" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24369" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24371" CreationDate="2017-07-05T02:06:57.437" Score="0" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this example on another website:&#xA;他们都拿着票。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tāmen dōu názhe piào.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They were all holding tickets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed that it said they &lt;em&gt;were&lt;/em&gt; all holding tickets.&#xA;Does that imply it is the past tense?&#xA;Or is it a narrative?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a sentence lacks a time indication is it always a certain way?&#xA;Should this sentence include 了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T02:46:11.463" Title="The absence of specifying when something happens in Chinese" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24367" CreationDate="2017-07-05T02:08:36.060" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It might be subtle, the series of tones would be 2-半三声-2-3. (半三声 means only the first half of the 3rd tone, without the rising tone part.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly 我也想买 could be separated as 我(也(想买)), and according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/21402/4072&quot;&gt;the rule about the 3rd tone sandhi&lt;/a&gt;, rule #4.1 (for 也(想买)) and #2 (for 我(...)) match and then leads to 2-半三声-2-3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T09:41:35.273" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T09:41:35.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24369" CreationDate="2017-07-05T02:46:11.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese sometimes a sentense may lack a time, which is quite different from English, which has a specific tense. In this case the tense depends on the text and the language environment but not always means a same way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, imagine that if you were buying a ticket and saw some people who hold tickets, &quot;他们都拿着票&quot; would mean progressive tense. If it is a narrative, it may means past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;了&quot;，&quot;了&quot; can be used in many tense.&#xA;See this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16/tense-and-use-of-%E4%BA%86&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tense and use of 了&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T02:46:11.463" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24374" CreationDate="2017-07-05T03:50:56.850" Score="0" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;一个人去很危险，带上这个吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yīgè rén qù hěn wéixiǎn, dài shàng zhège ba.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's dangerous to go alone — take this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this translation correct?&#xA;I don't understand the usage of a result complement in this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would the sentence make sense if one were to omit 上 ?&#xA;By extension, is 上 necessary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T05:33:16.033" Title="Result Complement" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24372" CreationDate="2017-07-05T04:33:33.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Result complement&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complement&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;There are endless examples of these 'attempt' or 'procedure' verbs in Chinese which don't include an outcome. The majority of Chinese verbs are like this, in fact. Some examples:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;看 means 'to look' but doesn't include the result 'to see'.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;听 means 'to listen' but doesn't include 'to hear'.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;写 is similar to the English verb 'to write', in that it doesn't specify what the result of writing was (e.g. whether it was correct or not).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;记 describes an attempt to remember, without specifying if the information was forgotten or successfully remembered.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;杀 means something like 'to try and kill', whatever the result is.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;All of these verbs need a result complement to describe a complete action with its result.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the same reason:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;带 means 'to carry/ to bring' but doesn't include which direction. Like the examples above. the verb 带 (carry/ bring) needs a result complement to describe a complete action with its result.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;带回 = bring back&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;带走 = carry away&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上 in 带上 implies 附上/ 加上 (along with / additionally)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;带&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt; = carry/ bring &lt;strong&gt;along&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个人去很危险，带这个吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(because)it is dangerous to go alone, (therefore) carry this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个人去很危险，带[&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;]这个吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(because)it is dangerous to go alone, (therefore) carry this [&lt;strong&gt;along&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A clearer Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这条路线很危险, 不带&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;几个保镖不行 (this route is dangerous, You must bring a few bodyguards &lt;strong&gt;along&lt;/strong&gt; with you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you just wrote '带几个保镖' 带 could mean 'guide', 'lead', or 'carry'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;带着 means 'carrying'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个人去很危险，带[&lt;strong&gt;着&lt;/strong&gt;]这个吧 (because)it is dangerous to go alone, (therefore) &lt;strong&gt;carrying&lt;/strong&gt; this (with you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T05:33:16.033" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24375" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-05T07:37:29.530" Score="0" ViewCount="506" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it correct if i say: Wo jiang you (the o in you has the v tone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that mean &quot;I have&quot; in future tense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17430" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T07:46:41.223" Title="How do you say &quot;I will have (something) in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24375" CreationDate="2017-07-05T07:46:41.223" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can use 我將有.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我將有一週的假期。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I will have a week of vacation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I will have a one-week holiday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T07:46:41.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24356" CreationDate="2017-07-05T08:13:01.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;These words came from the translation of a Japnaese manga, 死神 BLEACH Can't Fear Your Own World.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5180144581&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「这才是快给我住手。我可没那个意思陪你去自杀喔」&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original Japnaese words are shown below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dPqi7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dPqi7.png&quot; alt=&quot;manga-a.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/a/JFEwU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;それこそやめとけ。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stop it!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Just stop it!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That's it!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;停！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這就算了吧！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這就省了吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence may have the meaning of 才.&#xA;But, we don't have to translate it word by word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T08:13:01.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24358" CreationDate="2017-07-05T10:18:44.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;(For reference only)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bastillepost.com/hongkong/70446-%E6%AD%B7%E5%8F%B2%E9%95%B7%E6%B2%B3/978540-%E7%A7%A6%E6%BC%A2%E6%99%82%E4%BB%A3-%E5%8F%A4%E4%BA%BA%E5%A6%82%E4%BD%95%E8%AD%98%E5%AD%97%EF%BC%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦漢時代 古人如何識字？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;據了解，在沒有普及教育時，這批識字之人大多是世襲官員，在家裡受教育。&#xA;  他們在秦與西漢稱為「史」、「卜」及「祝」。&#xA;  按照職掌任務不同，基本上他們懂三千、五千或七千字，還能背誦文獻。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is understood that, in the absence of universal education, most of these literate persons were hereditary officials who were educated at home.&#xA;They were called 史, 卜 and 祝 in the Qin (221–206 BC) and the Western Han (206 BC – 9 AD) Dynasty.&#xA;In accordance with the different tasks, basically they understood 3,000, 5,000 or 7,000 words, and recited the literature too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 张德芳 said &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_67cc3b260102v9py.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;当时要做“史”得识九千字&lt;/a&gt;, which roughly translates into:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At the time, to be a 史，one needed to know 9000 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastEditorUserId="15850" LastEditDate="2017-07-05T11:44:41.167" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T11:44:41.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24379" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24380" CreationDate="2017-07-05T10:46:55.117" Score="2" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;蜀 has three components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;罒 - 网&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;勹 - 裹&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;虫&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How the kingdom of Shu become a wrapped bug in a net?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T17:01:44.697" Title="Why is 蜀 composed of net (网), packag(ed) (裹) and insect (虫)?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24379" CreationDate="2017-07-05T11:24:51.257" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;蜀漢領土主要在蜀地，故把它稱為「蜀國」。&#xA;蜀地最早是「古蜀國」。&#xA;開國之王名為「蠶叢」，他是位養蠶專家。&#xA;他為了養蠶事業到成都居住，因而建立了「古蜀國」。&#xA;這就是為什麼蜀漢之名會和蠶有關的原因。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The territory of 蜀漢 was mainly in 蜀地, so it was called 蜀國.&#xA;The first country in 蜀地 was 古蜀國.&#xA;The founder's name was 蠶叢, he was an expert in sericulture.&#xA;He moved to Chengdu for his sericulture, and thus established the 古蜀國.&#xA;This is why the name of 蜀漢 is related to silkworms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: wikipedia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T11:24:51.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24379" CreationDate="2017-07-05T11:54:47.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;说文解字 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/23/sw/8700.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/23/sw/8700.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【卷十三】【虫部】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;蜀&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;葵中蠶也。从虫，上目象蜀頭形，中象其身蜎蜎。《詩》曰：“蜎蜎者蜀。”市玉切&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蜀- Silk worm in sunflower [虫 Radical]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目 on top represents Silk worm's head,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勹 in the middle represents silk worm wiggling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虫 is the radical to indicate 蜀 is related to worm/bug/insect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/men2r.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/men2r.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was also a region's name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古蜀国的历史(History of old Shǔ region) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/27890526&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/27890526&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;黄帝之子昌意娶&lt;strong&gt;蜀山氏&lt;/strong&gt;女 (The son of the Yellow Emperor Chang Yi married the daughter of the &lt;strong&gt;Shushan&lt;/strong&gt; clan)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蜀山 was a family name that named after a mountain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the same article, it stated the first nation in the Shǔ region was founded by 蠶叢 about 34,000 years ago-- an ancient time that written language had not been created yet. The written term 蜀地 (Shu region) might be named after him in later years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T12:16:23.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24356" CreationDate="2017-07-05T16:13:08.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add to @young99's answer, the first half here means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(now) stop doing &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才 takes on the meaning of &quot;not (necessarily) (a lot of) others but &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, i.e. a form of (exclusive) emphasis. Here it acts on the word 这, &quot;this&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It corresponds to こそ in the original Japanese, which also places emphasis on a certain thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Idiomatic English might use &quot;that&quot; for this occasion, but here 这 is used to refer to something not necessarily close to the speaker, but which the speaker considers themself to be about as close to (or have about as much access to) as the other side (the listener) is / does. In the context 这 refers to a comment someone else has just made -- the rationale for using 这 is that the speaker kind of puts themself together with the listener on commenting the topic. To distance themself from the listener or the thing being referred to, the speaker could also use 那 which refers to something far from the speaker and close to the listener. I guess the translator did not use 那 because nothing in the original text is suggesting that the speaker is doing this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People also use 这 in this way in many other contexts, even in a phone call or a video call when the speaker and the listener are far apart. The choice of the pronoun doesn't necessarily show agreement, distance, or relation, because any of these could be a reason of the pronoun choice. For example, 这 can be used because both parties are &lt;em&gt;on&lt;/em&gt; the same topic, while 那 can be used to low-key indicate that the thing is more related to the listener's side (such as it is the listener that made the suggestion in question, and not (necessarily) that the speaker disagrees).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastEditorUserId="16058" LastEditDate="2017-07-05T16:28:00.883" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T16:28:00.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20900" CreationDate="2017-07-05T17:05:47.320" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;spend money  purchase with the unpleasant felling&#xA;花     钱    买              气         受&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's an idiom expressing, when you could have just be happy about purchasing item, but if you came across the toxic or unprofessional attitude  seller/cashier, you may have to bear the unpleasant experience even you're purchasing with your own resources, and they treat you like as if you're going to their home to take their item. so it's ironic idiom in Chinese, that even you spend money to purchase, cashier made you have to bare with anger and unpleasant feeling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17432" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T17:05:47.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23234" CreationDate="2017-07-05T17:08:11.590" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jumping up and down should be good! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17432" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T17:08:11.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24163" CreationDate="2017-07-05T17:15:20.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;对不起= sorry &#xA;不好意思 = excuse me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不好意思请问一下 or 麻烦请问一下 = excuse me, may i ask you (usually 一下 meaning it will be a quick question, and people likely to respond nicely than 不好意思 想问你个事 _&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17432" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T17:15:20.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24386" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24388" CreationDate="2017-07-05T18:57:28.420" Score="0" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between the two characters of 自己? They both seem to mean self, or one/one's self?  I don't know where the distinction is, but, I do know that to know self is 知己, is one more the person and the other a different feature like a soul?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T23:21:53.273" Title="What is the difference between the two characters of 自己?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6832" CreationDate="2017-07-05T20:04:07.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is blue-green, perhaps Azure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese have what they call the Four Symbols, which are basically four mythical creatures in the Chinese constellations.  Each one of them represents a direction and a season, and each has its own individual characteristics and origins. Symbolically and as part of spiritual and religious belief, they have been culturally important in China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Azure Dragon (青龍 Qīnglóng), also known as Bluegreen Dragon or Green Dragon, also called the Blue Dragon (蒼龍 Cānglóng), is one of the Dragon Gods who represent the mount or chthonic forces of the Five Forms of the Highest Deity (五方上帝 Wǔfāng Shàngdì).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This term: 青龙 also refers to a man with no pubic hair (a slang term)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T20:04:07.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24386" CreationDate="2017-07-05T20:16:44.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;自&lt;/strong&gt; self (adv)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;自動(self move/ automatic)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;自尊(self respect)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;自助(self help)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;動(to move), 尊(to respect) 助(to help) are all verbs, therefore 自 has to be an adverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;己&lt;/strong&gt; [1] [pron] oneself; one's own; personal &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;視天下事為己任 (see the world's affair as one's own responsibility)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;視為己出 (treat as one's own child)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;己所不欲勿施於人 (do not impose on others what oneself do not wish to be imposed upon)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;己 is a pronoun in all three examples above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;自己&lt;/strong&gt; oneself; self (i.e. 我自己 = myself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;but I do know that to know self is 知己, is one more the person and the other a different feature like a soul?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知己 (to know oneself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知己者 (the one who know me/ confidant) often shortened to 知己&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A famous quote from 《戰國策‧趙策一》: 士為知己者死  (A dignified man would die for the one who truly know him)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'know' here means 'truly understand'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-05T23:21:53.273" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T23:21:53.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24389" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-05T20:20:03.680" Score="2" ViewCount="1502" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching a Chinese student play pool against an American, and the American was getting destroyed, but ended up winning in the end by default (Chinese student scratched on the 8 ball).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the American jokingly said &quot;not even close&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I was trying to explain to the Chinese student that it was just trash talking, but wasn't sure how to say that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bonus question, what would be an equivalent translation of &quot;not even close&quot;, in a joking, trash-talking context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-07-08T14:55:45.757" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T03:58:09.933" Title="How to say &quot;trash talking&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24389" CreationDate="2017-07-05T20:28:38.163" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could say 休想, which means in your dreams..or never.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;废话 means to trash talk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use this resource to determine what is most suitable..you can add negation to any of those terms and use a term like 进　to mean close/near.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has a lot of room to work with your meaning, so it really is up to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also call someone 牛B &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T20:28:38.163" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24389" CreationDate="2017-07-05T21:46:10.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, what the American said was more a 風涼話 (the game was already over)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/52448/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;風涼話&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;sarcasm; cynical remarks (made after the fact)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for trash talk:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trash%20talk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;trash talk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;disparaging, taunting, or boastful comments especially between opponents trying to intimidate each other&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is similar to 吹牛皮 (boasting), 耍貧嘴 (babble with cynical words)  or 耍毒舌 (taunting with mean and provocative words)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/43058/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;牙斬斬&lt;/a&gt; ; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/50940/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;狗噏&lt;/a&gt; in Cantonese:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;More importantly&lt;/strong&gt;, the purpose of 'to trash talk' is '&lt;strong&gt;to trash your adversary&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most accurate translation of 'trash talking' should be: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;自我吹擂，貶損對方&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;quot; (boast oneself and disparage the other)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A O wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;what would be an equivalent translation of &amp;quot;not even close&amp;quot;, in a joking, trash-talking context?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be '&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.ca/#en/zh-TW/not%20even%20close&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;差遠了&lt;/a&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T02:24:32.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24389" CreationDate="2017-07-05T22:00:33.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trash talking means to treat the other side as trash verbally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we can say：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. (attack) 霸凌語, 霸凌的話&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. (joke/mock) 嘲笑/譏笑/譏諷/嘲諷的話&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. (irony) 尖酸/挖苦/諷刺的話&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Not even close&quot; means something is far away. So, we can say 差很遠 or 差很多.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes we also use 還差很遠的咧你. (The subject is intentionally moved to the end.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastEditorUserId="15850" LastEditDate="2017-07-06T02:34:01.950" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T02:34:01.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24393" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24394" CreationDate="2017-07-06T02:40:24.840" Score="1" ViewCount="425" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question is pretty straight-forward, but why do Hong Kongers (don't know if others too) refer to Mainland China as  daai6 luk6 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;any historical reason for this or etymology?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T23:55:50.037" Title="Why is Mainland China referred to as &quot;大陸&quot; (大陸)?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24393" CreationDate="2017-07-06T03:50:17.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's due to the one-China policy (一中原則).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both CPC (中國共產黨) and KMT (中國國民黨) think there is only one China.&#xA;Both refer their own places as countries, PRC and ROC, respectively.&#xA;Both treat the other side as an area or region, 台灣地區 and 大陸地區, respectively.&#xA;At the beginning, KMT called the other side as 淪陷區.&#xA;Because it is not a good term, KMT changed it to 大陸地區.&#xA;大陸 is a short form of 大陸地區.&#xA;Many people in HK also moved from 大陸 due to the civil war (國共內戰).&#xA;Therefore, these people tended to stand on KMT's side, and then used the KMT's term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%A4%A7%E9%99%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國大陸，中文使用上常通稱 &lt;strong&gt;大陸或大陸地區&lt;/strong&gt; ，是對中華人民共和國的實際統治領土之稱呼，也是海峽兩岸關係的常見用語之一。 &lt;strong&gt;此詞的產生肇因於第二次國共內戰後&lt;/strong&gt; ，1949年中華人民共和國成立所導致的海峽兩岸政治分立。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainland_China&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English version&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastEditorUserId="15850" LastEditDate="2017-07-06T07:38:48.483" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T07:38:48.483" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24395" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24398" CreationDate="2017-07-06T04:27:44.207" Score="1" ViewCount="700" Body="&lt;p&gt;I vaguely know that Cantonese is quite widely spoken in Kuala Lumpur and the peninsular area of Malaysia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the reasons why many Malaysian colleagues have surnames that are common in Hong Kong? (i.e Khoo Boo &lt;strong&gt;Leung&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fong&lt;/strong&gt; is also a surname used in Malaysia (&lt;strong&gt;Fung&lt;/strong&gt; would be the Cantonese variant).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-07-06T13:12:04.890" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T15:58:13.717" Title="Why do Malaysians have Cantonese surnames?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24396" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24399" CreationDate="2017-07-06T04:41:14.960" Score="0" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;Objects in sentences with potential complements can occur either after the complement or at the beginning of a sentence .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个大米我吃得完。&#xA;or&#xA;我吃得完这个大米。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They both work, but one sounds weird in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this just a distinction between Chinese and English?&#xA;Or am I missing the idea of correct interpretation??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T06:20:05.357" Title="Objects with potential complements" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24393" CreationDate="2017-07-06T04:50:45.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;大陸&quot; as a term referring to china, or, &quot;mainland china&quot; had a long history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there was an english newspaper &quot;the china press&quot; issued in shanghai, from 1911-1949; it's name in chinese is &quot;大陸報&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3796175&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3796175&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tbmc.com.tw/chinese/index.php/2011-03-12-08-33-55?sobi2Task=sobi2Details&amp;amp;catid=55&amp;amp;sobi2Id=247&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.tbmc.com.tw/chinese/index.php/2011-03-12-08-33-55?sobi2Task=sobi2Details&amp;amp;catid=55&amp;amp;sobi2Id=247&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the rationale of translating &quot;china&quot; to &quot;大陸&quot;, my guess is: viewing from the settlement (租界), the land out of the boundary (aka  china) is huge; so,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;big - (大)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;land - (陸 --&gt; 陸地)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;afterward, this term is still used in taiwan &amp;amp; hong kong, till nowadays, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陸委會 (大陸委員會) is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mac.gov.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mainland affairs council&lt;/a&gt;, an establishment in taiwan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;viewing from hongkong, with the same rationale, north of the &quot;border&quot;, that &quot;area&quot; is huge; so the term 大陸 is a vivid, and valid description.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, &quot;大陸&quot; as a term for referring to china, is not due to any policy, or, events after 1949.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2017-07-06T23:55:50.037" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T23:55:50.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24395" CreationDate="2017-07-06T05:06:17.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Historically, there were waves of emigrants from Southern China to Southeast Asia since 明 dynasty (1368-1644). So, their descendants shared the same Cantonese, Hokkien surnames with people in Southern China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, the British empire acquired Hong Kong &amp;amp; Malaysia in the 18th century. Both governments used the same / similar romanisation scheme to register people's names in English. That's why Malaysians with Chinese origin would have a Cantonese / hokkien surname, as those in Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, there are subtle differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陳 - Chan (hk), Tan (my)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黃 - Wong (hk), Ong (my)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited, adding info:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Several books, in literary Chinese, had info about Southeast Asia &amp;amp; China:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E6%9D%B1%E8%A5%BF%E6%B4%8B%E8%80%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東西洋考&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E8%A5%BF%E6%B4%8B%E7%95%AA%E5%9C%8B%E8%AA%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西洋番國誌&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E7%80%9B%E6%B6%AF%E5%8B%9D%E8%A6%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;瀛涯勝覽&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E6%98%9F%E6%A7%8E%E5%8B%9D%E8%A6%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;星槎勝覽&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read between the lines, you'll grasp the ideas :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2017-07-06T15:23:35.327" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T15:23:35.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24396" CreationDate="2017-07-06T05:30:24.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, 个 is not a classifier for 大米 , So I changed it to 些&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are only two potential particles for verbs.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;得 (able to) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不 (unable to)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃完 = eat all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃[得]完 = [able to] eat all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃[不]完 = [unable to] eat all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The placement of the object is flexible. When using [subject+ verb + object]sentence structure, the object is placed after the the verb, e.g. 我吃了米 (the verb particles 得 and 完 are part of the verb) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The object can also be placed before the verb in passive voice sentences e.g. '米被我吃了' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The object can also acts as the topic in [topic] + [comment] structure, and be placed at the beginning of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[S+V+O] sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1. 我] [2. 吃] [3. 得] [4. 完] [5. 这些大米]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1. subject] [2. verb] [3. potential particle] [4. resultive particle ] [5. object]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very straight forward--  'subject' then 'verb' then 'object'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Topic+ comment/opinion] sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1. 这些大米] [2. 我吃得完] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1. topic] [2.comment] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[这些大米(topic)] + [我吃得完(comment)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The object [这些大米] is the topic. the relative clause [我吃得完] is the comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both examples above are grammatically correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[O+S+V] sentence (passive voice):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1. 这些大米] [2. 被][3. 我] [4. 吃] [5. 完] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1. object] [2. passive marker] [3. subject] [4.verb] [5. resultive particle ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't use passive voice with potential particle. Potential particle only works in active voice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[这些大米被我吃完] is grammatically correct&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[这些大米被我吃得完] is grammatically incorrect&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Objects with potential complements&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;object must be placed after the verb in [SVO]  sentence, and potential complement is part of the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;object can be placed at the beginning of a sentence in [topic + comment] sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;in [OSV] (passive voice) sentence, we don't use potential complement&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-06T06:20:05.357" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T06:20:05.357" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2718" CreationDate="2017-07-06T07:48:26.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hey guys (and gals) learning Cantonese!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've recently started a resource on learning Cantonese, and am constantly updating it with more content. Here's a preview of what I have currently: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. The Complete Guide To Learning Cantonese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cantolounge.com/complete-guide-learn-cantonese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://cantolounge.com/complete-guide-learn-cantonese/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Cantolounge Jyutping Chart&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cantolounge.com/jyutping-chart/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://cantolounge.com/jyutping-chart/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Cantolounge Grammar Series&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cantolounge.com/cantonese-grammar-series/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://cantolounge.com/cantonese-grammar-series/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Cantonese resources for intermediate learners&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cantolounge.com/best-intermediate-cantonese-resources/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://cantolounge.com/best-intermediate-cantonese-resources/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope anyone who visits Cantolounge will find it a useful, comprehensive addition to their Cantonese learning repertoire. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Happy learning!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baggio&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17436" LastEditorUserId="17436" LastEditDate="2017-07-11T05:27:05.903" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T05:27:05.903" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2017-07-06T07:48:26.340" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24395" CreationDate="2017-07-06T15:58:13.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The potatoes cultivation cause China population increases rapidly.  The population pressures are especially Southern China hilly area unable to sustain the population growth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are few affected district in Southern China: GuangDong, GuangXi, Hainan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Hong Kong culture are pretty close to GuangDong, the people here mostly speak Cantonese.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Malaysia Chinese English phonetic surname pronuouce as their ancestor origins dialect, it just happens Cantonese is part of the origin traits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That why you heard surname for 黄 phonetic dialect as follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese：Wong (Wounk)  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Teochew : Ng, Ong (O-nk)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hakka : Wong  (Waung)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T15:58:13.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24404" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24428" CreationDate="2017-07-06T22:21:15.610" Score="2" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference between these sentences?&#xA;Are they all grammatically correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把作业写完了。&#xA;我正在写得完作业。&#xA;我写着作业到完了。　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-09T02:50:30.187" Title="Difference between 着 正在　and 把" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24404" CreationDate="2017-07-07T02:04:03.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我把作业写完了。 This is correct. I've finished my homework.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我正在写得完作业。→ 我正在写作业。I'm doing my homework. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我写着作业到完了。→ 我一直把作业写到完为止。I've been doing my homework until it was done. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 isn't used as much as people think, contrary to what grammar texts might explain. It's used more in written Chinese than in spoken Chinese, but that's just my opinion. Other natives might disagree. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17436" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T02:04:03.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24404" CreationDate="2017-07-07T02:07:24.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should also put what you want to say in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把作业写完了。 [OK】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我正在写得完作业。 &#xA;If you want to say ’I've almost finished my homework.‘&#xA;我就快要写完作业了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我写着作业到完了。 [Not good and I can't see what you want to say.]&#xA;　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T02:07:24.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24249" CreationDate="2017-07-07T02:12:55.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Tang Ho already gave a good answer, so I'll just add a bit of extra info on top of that. From my experiences, I hear 一般 the most often:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我觉得这餐厅一般吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;普普通通&lt;/strong&gt; I've literally never heard used in real life, so I can't comment on that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;strong&gt;马马虎虎&lt;/strong&gt;, I think it has more of an inclination towards &quot;doing things carelessly&quot;, to &quot;not be detail oriented&quot;, rather than &quot;so so&quot;, but others might want to pipe in for this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17436" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T02:12:55.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24408" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-07T02:21:54.370" Score="0" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find sentences with 把 intriguing. I wonder why the Chinese language developed this usage. I, wrongly, made the assumption all sentences that use 把 like this can be simply rearranged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence from my text book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它把灵魂塑造看得和学问同等重要。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if I rearrange:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;它看灵魂塑造得和学问同等重要。 Not good I'm told.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;它看灵魂塑造和学问得同等重要。 Also not good.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;它看灵魂塑造和学问同等重要。 Also not good, not said this way.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在它看来，灵魂塑造和学问同等重要。 Acceptable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What motivates the use of 把 in Chinese？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-07-08T14:56:49.807" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T14:56:49.807" Title="What motivates the use of 把 in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-07-09T02:40:03.100" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24408" CreationDate="2017-07-07T02:47:14.347" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000000023&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;把 ([介] 1)&lt;/a&gt; means 将.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) 表示处理、处置的意思。(treating) 如：“把门关上”、“把脸洗净”。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) 表示致使、导致的意思。(leading) 如：“把他惹恼了”、“把你气哭了”、“把我急疯了”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把 or 将 is used in front of the object when we move the object to the front of the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它把“灵魂塑造”看得和“学问”同等重要。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把...看得 = 视  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它视“灵魂塑造”和“学问”同等重要。(The verb is in front of the objects.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T02:47:14.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24404" CreationDate="2017-07-07T03:01:13.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我正在写作业.&#xA;我在写着作业.&#xA;我把作业写完了.&#xA;the first two sentence means that the thing is going on &#xA;and the last sentence is thing is done.&#xA;if you want to know more about the 把 sentences and 被 sentences， you can check this video&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/%E6%8A%8A-sentence-and-%E8%A2%AB-sentence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/%E6%8A%8A-sentence-and-%E8%A2%AB-sentence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T03:01:13.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24289" CreationDate="2017-07-07T03:25:32.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;感谢生活所给予我的一切 is better.&#xA;If you want to learn more, you can check here and study chinese with fun &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/chinese-immersion-course&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/chinese-immersion-course&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T03:25:32.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24408" CreationDate="2017-07-07T03:34:57.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“把”字句&#xA;S.+把+O.+V.+something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 把-sentence indicates that an action is applied to somebody or something with emphasis that action will bring about a result. So here “something” is result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她把鸡蛋吃了。&#xA;“她”is the Subject. “鸡蛋”is the Object. “吃”is the Verb. “了”is the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把书包放在桌子上。&#xA;“我”is the Subject. “书包”is the Object. “放”is the Verb. “在桌子上”is the result.&#xA;他 把 我的自行车 借 走了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to know about the 把 sentences and 被 sentences， you can check this video &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/%E6%8A%8A-sentence-and-%E8%A2%AB-sentence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/%E6%8A%8A-sentence-and-%E8%A2%AB-sentence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastEditorUserId="17385" LastEditDate="2017-07-07T04:08:06.803" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T04:08:06.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24367" CreationDate="2017-07-07T03:52:38.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese pinyin system includes three parts: shengmu (initial), yunmu (final), and shenɡdiào (tones), and the tones in Mandarin are very important. Even if the initial and final are the same but have a different tone, the meaning will be different. So if you really want to master this language, you must learn to make each tone very clearly, otherwise you may not be understood by Chinese speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are four different tones and one “natural” tone in Mandarin. So pronouncing each distinctly is important.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XxKij.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XxKij.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;how to learn Chinese four tones&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first tone should be high and flat without any change. The mark is “-” .&#xA;The second tone should go up, as when asking a question. The mark is “/”.&#xA;The third tone goes down first then up. The mark is “√”.&#xA;The forth tone goes from top to bottom. The mark is “\”.&#xA;The natural tone should be very light and short; there is no mark for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you practice the tones, here are some tips to help you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Practice the four tones one by one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read all the same tones together in order to remember the position of tones. In the beginning should be a single word, then a phrase, and last the whole sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, practice for the third tone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Single word: wǒ 我(I); kǎ 卡(card); děnɡ 等(wait)&#xA;Phrase: nǐhǎo 你好 (hello); shǒubiǎo 手表 (watch); xiǎojiě 小姐 (Miss)&#xA;Sentence: Wǒ xiǎnɡ mǎi shuǐɡuǒ。我想买水果 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After you understand how to pronounce each standard tone, the next step is learn how to pronounce them in combination within words.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1+2: jīnnián 今年 (this year)&#xA;1+3: duōshǎo 多少 (how much)&#xA;1+4: jīpiào 机票 (ticket)&#xA;2+1: huíjiā 回家 (go home)&#xA;4+4+3: duìbùqǐ 对不起 (sorry)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Once you get a feel for the standard tones of Mandarin, try to read some simple Chinese essays. Listen to a recording or follow along with a video to make sure your pronunciation is correct. Also, watching a Chinese drama or other TV show will be helpful to develop listening skills.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Listen to the tape and follow with the video to make sure your own pronunciation is correct. Watch Chinese drama and TV show, to see how did the Chinese talk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Videos about how to master the Chinese four tones&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/chinese-four-tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/chinese-four-tones&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T03:52:38.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24408" CreationDate="2017-07-07T04:25:32.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character [把] or [將] directly placed before an [object] is called 'dispositive marker'. The role of a dispositive marker is to dispose the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我殺了&amp;quot; (I killed) is a phrase with only subject and verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make &amp;quot;我殺了&amp;quot; a complete sentence and explain &amp;quot; who killed whom&amp;quot; we can place the object after the verb  and write &amp;quot;我殺了[他]&amp;quot; (I killed him). It is a simple SVO sentence. The emphasis is on the subject and it's action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can insert [ dispositive marker+object] between the subject and the verb  and write &amp;quot; 我[把他]殺了&amp;quot; (I killed him) . The emphasis is on the object that is being disposed by the verb. ('&lt;strong&gt;whom&lt;/strong&gt; was killed by me' is the more important information than 'I &lt;strong&gt;killed&lt;/strong&gt; someone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;送走他&amp;quot;, [送] is the main verb, [走] is the resultive verb particle that indicate result of the action. The object [他] is placed directly after both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;送他走&amp;quot;, the object [他] is inserted between  the verb, [送] and its resultive particle [走]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both phrases above focus on the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;把他送走&amp;quot; , the object is being disposed by the verb 送走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The focus in this sentence is the object being disposed by the subject in the method of the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;('&lt;strong&gt;whom&lt;/strong&gt; is being sent away' is the more important information than 'the subject &lt;strong&gt;send away&lt;/strong&gt; someone')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;打他一頓&amp;quot;, [打] is the verb, [他] is the object,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence focus on the verb 打.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;將他打一頓&amp;quot; the object,  [他] is disposed by the verb [打]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The focus in this sentence is the object being disposed by the subject in the method of the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;('&lt;strong&gt;whom&lt;/strong&gt; is being beaten' is the more important information than 'the subject &lt;strong&gt;beating&lt;/strong&gt; someone')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot use dispositive markers if the verb doesn't dispose the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看他一眼 cannot be rephrased as  將他看一眼. - look at an object doesn't change the object's situation (should be 對他看一眼)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回答他 cannot be rephrased as  把他回答 - 回答 is not an action verb that can dispose an object ( should be 向他回答)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T07:27:17.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24408" CreationDate="2017-07-07T04:34:00.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know how correct this source is, but, it could possibly be because it makes the sentence easier to understand because we know the object sooner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially, if one were to hear the object first, it gives them more time to decipher meaning, given the similarities in pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it stands, this is just accepted convention, and it is that way and we must follow it as such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T04:34:00.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11008" CreationDate="2017-07-07T09:34:22.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not only a dialect. 水分 means moisture first, later extends to mendacious or exaggerate things. This comes from that people buy sand, woods, vegetables, even meat, etc, if the moisture ratio is higher, people think that they may pay for the worthless water in them meanwhile. Now this word describes someone's words is exaggerate or mendacious, there are also some words with this meaning in the Chinese Internet circle, like 水帖 (literally: water-post) means meaningless thread or post in forum, 灌水 (literally: irrigate-water) means post many more meaningless content, you can also say that someone or something is 水 (adj).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T09:34:22.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24389" CreationDate="2017-07-07T17:16:41.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say :&quot;说/讲屁话&quot; / &quot;说/讲废话&quot; / &quot;在酸他&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;屁话 is literally translates to &quot;fart words&quot;, XD and is normally used when someone says something bad / rude / when you know someone well that when you say this they won't get offended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;废话 translates to useless words / may translate to trash talking (废 also means waste) and you can use it when someone says something that is obvious, or says something that is idiotic. In my country (Malaysia), we used to say 废话 when our friends are chatting about nonsense / stupid / not important / trivial matters. Talking gibberish if you'd prefer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吹牛could be boasting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the story you can say the American 在酸那个华人, 酸 meaning sour -&gt; to verbally pull one down in a sarcastic way because of their failure / weaknesses. Don't be that acidic guy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say 一点都不靠近 for not even close, but it would sound weird ,long and awkward (you're supposed to be the cool winning guy but then suddenly say too much and it doesn't seem cool anymore.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差得远would be better , since it's short and smooth, but it means long difference ( literall  translation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*I use simplified chinese and I use Malaysian style chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17443" LastEditorUserId="17443" LastEditDate="2017-07-08T02:58:37.873" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T02:58:37.873" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24419" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-08T01:41:58.103" Score="1" ViewCount="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the website to watch about talk /speech in Chinese, like TEDx ?&#xA;What's the keyword to type to find video people do presentation in Chinese in youtube ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15283" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T11:15:55.740" Title="Website about talk /speech in Chinese" Tags="&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24420" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-08T03:16:28.433" Score="0" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between these three and when to use them? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17445" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T05:11:26.450" Title="What is the difference between 把 吧 and 巴?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24421" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24426" CreationDate="2017-07-08T04:56:21.200" Score="1" ViewCount="1180" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=zhe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=zhe&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you click on the character zhe here, you will get an option to figure out what the stroke order is.  For some reason this zhe follows a different stroke order than the number/order of strokes of other characters that contain this component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the website's mistake, or is this an exception to the stroke order rule?  Are there other characters that take that many strokes to complete their chuo component part?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-04-26T00:34:31.497" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T00:34:31.497" Title="The stroke order for the component 辶 (Chuo)" Tags="&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24420" CreationDate="2017-07-08T05:00:26.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;把 is a structural particle.  There are many articles on here and the internet to further understand..it covers too broad a scope for me to answer here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吧 is usually a modal particle, and comes at the end of a sentence, usually indicating a polite suggestion.  It also is a loan word, which means a word borrowed from English to phonetically represent it's English equivalent.  It is the Chinese loan word for bar.  Another example of this is 沙发 which means sofa, and also can be used to describe the first person who responds to an online post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巴? According to mdbg.net,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;to long for / to wish / to cling to / to stick to / sth that sticks / close to / next to / spread open / informal abbr. for bus 巴士 / bar (unit of pressure) / nominalizing suffix on certain nouns, such as 尾巴, tail &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ba state during Zhou dynasty (in east of modern Sichuan) / abbr. for east Sichuan or Chongqing / surname Ba / abbr. for Palestine or Palestinian / abbr. for Pakistan &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T05:00:26.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24423" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24427" CreationDate="2017-07-08T07:22:37.477" Score="0" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the road sign below, we have the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非机动车靠右行驶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fēijīdòngchē kàoyòu xíngshǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4epovm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4epovm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;非机动车靠右行驶&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which breaks apart as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%9D%9E%E6%9C%BA%E5%8A%A8%E8%BD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;非机动车&lt;/a&gt; = bicycle (with &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%9C%BA%E5%8A%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;机动&lt;/a&gt; meaning &amp;quot;mobile&amp;quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%9D%A0%E5%8F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;靠右&lt;/a&gt; = keep right&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%A1%8C%E9%A9%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;行驶&lt;/a&gt; = travel along a route&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm not clear on how 非机动车 means bicycle.  Ordinarily, I would expect &amp;quot;bicycle&amp;quot; to be &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%87%AA%E8%A1%8C%E8%BD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;自行车&lt;/a&gt; (zìxíngchē), and I'm unfamiliar with this as an alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How does 非机动车 (fēijīdòngchē) mean &amp;quot;bicycle&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T09:18:58.823" Title="How does 非机动车 (fēijīdòngchē) mean &quot;bicycle&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24423" CreationDate="2017-07-08T07:57:22.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it doesn't mean bicycle.&#xA;the word 机动 means motorized or power-driven, the reason why you see a picture of bicycle in the sign is that bicycle is a very popular 非机动车 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17446" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T07:57:22.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24421" CreationDate="2017-07-08T08:08:59.887" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you talk about the method of writing 辶?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is caused by the typeface or font.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明体 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i3WZi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i3WZi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;楷书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qnIFP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qnIFP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T08:08:59.887" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24423" CreationDate="2017-07-08T09:18:58.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't only means bicycle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;非机动车&quot; is non-motorized vehicle, NMV, including tractors,human cargo vehicles, animal-drawn vehicles, etc., according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=KhzWSE65zC4MFwuMz2FNTx0vpNz-voCq2lYiALKbgt2rjrTPKx8cbcycm1fmW0xvEmfNZ2lkGUFeVDVkPDvyJrSKyS8HJNMD-4en9kOYHFNg25Yllnf4nB5aIwR-u_Bi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;the explaination of &quot;非机动车&quot; in Baidu Baike&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So bicycle is only one sort of NMVs and is used to reprensent NMV on the sign because it's very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T09:18:58.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24404" CreationDate="2017-07-08T09:48:38.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your situation (comparing 著正在 and 把)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be &quot;am having&quot; and &quot;have&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(I) 著正在(am having) 完成(complete/completed) 我的(my) 工作(work)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am having my work completed (Which means I am completing my work)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(I) 把(have) 我的(my) 工作(work) 完成了(completed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have my work completed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(I) 會(will) 把(have) 我的(my) 工作(work) 完成(completed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;著 正在 are both continuous tense, so we usually just use either one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看(look) 著(ing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正在(ing) 看(look)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first example emphasis the action (look)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second example emphasis the timing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17447" LastEditorUserId="17447" LastEditDate="2017-07-09T02:50:30.187" LastActivityDate="2017-07-09T02:50:30.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24421" CreationDate="2017-07-08T10:00:59.730" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's nothing wrong with the website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following picture showes the &quot;辶&quot;(Simplified Chinese) in different fonts and characters.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/McZrU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/McZrU.png&quot; alt=&quot;辶&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Accually although the &quot;辶&quot; sometimes looks different and a little bit strange, it is always same and there's no exception. It's assembled by three parts (as the second line in the picture) and you can follwing the third line in the picture, which is its stroke order, to write.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Are there other characters that take that many strokes to complete their chuo radical part?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did you mean this? &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanzizidian.com/bs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Click here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An online Chinese dictionary that sorted by the number of radical strokes.Click on a radical part and it will tell you which character has that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastEditorUserId="17420" LastEditDate="2017-07-08T10:19:42.690" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T10:19:42.690" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="24430" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25430" CreationDate="2017-07-08T14:25:20.213" Score="1" ViewCount="457" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there are thousands of chengyu (成语) (4 character proverbs in Chinese) out there, so obviously I would not have time to learn them all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I have 5 of these chengyu from you? (bonus marks if you could explain the meaning/context).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I appreciate it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of a useful Chengyu phrase is one which forms basis of everyday applications: 四通八達 (extend equally in all directions)  for example, is sort of where the 八達通 (octopus card in Hong Kong) got its name from. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="15816" LastEditDate="2017-07-08T14:47:22.650" LastActivityDate="2017-07-12T09:28:41.743" Title="What are five most useful or common Chengyu phrases in the workplace?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24430" CreationDate="2017-07-08T23:03:55.617" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A work place is also a social environment, almost all idioms can be incorporated into everyday conversations in the workplace. However, some idioms are more applicable in the work place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/43175/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;公事公辦&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;em&gt;to not let personal affairs interfere with business&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9A%87%E8%A6%AA%E5%9C%8B%E6%88%9A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;皇親國戚&lt;/a&gt; -&lt;em&gt;person having powerful connections&lt;/em&gt; (boss's daughter and  son-in-law, for example)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.18dao.net/%E6%88%90%E8%AA%9E%E8%A9%9E%E5%85%B8/%E5%81%87%E5%85%AC%E6%BF%9F%E7%A7%81&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;假公濟私&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;em&gt;under the guise of the name of the official affair, to seek personal benefits.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinabaike.com/article/81/82/146/2007/2007020939801.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;知人善任&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;em&gt;be good at recognizing people's character and talent, and use them appropriately.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;各司其職 - &lt;em&gt;Everyone perform their own duties&lt;/em&gt; ( no overstepping)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pedia.cloud.edu.tw/Entry/Detail/?title=%E7%9B%A1%E5%BF%A0%E8%81%B7%E5%AE%88&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;盡忠職守&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;em&gt;loyally fulfill one's duty&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.18dao.net/%E6%88%90%E8%AA%9E%E8%A9%9E%E5%85%B8/%E6%AC%BA%E4%B8%8A%E7%9E%9E%E4%B8%8B&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;欺上瞞下&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;em&gt;Deceive one's superiors and underlings alike&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/50455/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;開源節流&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;em&gt;to increase income and save on spending&lt;/em&gt; (when your boss say that, the company is about to cut benefit or lay people off)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-09T01:05:35.500" LastActivityDate="2017-07-09T01:05:35.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23467" CreationDate="2017-07-09T01:41:26.383" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It simply is the Golden Rule. Don't do unto others what you don't want others do unto you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17452" LastActivityDate="2017-07-09T01:41:26.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24289" CreationDate="2017-07-09T13:48:28.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;凡事感恩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凡事(Everything)感恩(Be grateful) &gt; Be grateful for everything&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a direct translation but it's from Chinese Bible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything includes &quot;everything life has given me&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your translation, you use &quot;感谢&quot;(Be thankful / Thanks). Which is fine. But thanks to whom?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感谢 is to someone.&#xA;感谢你 (Thank you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;感恩&quot; grateful is somewhat more spiritual&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17447" LastEditorUserId="17447" LastEditDate="2017-07-09T14:02:14.207" LastActivityDate="2017-07-09T14:02:14.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25434" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25441" CreationDate="2017-07-09T15:43:57.263" Score="4" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can 大家 be pronounced like dà a ? I heard lots of Chinese'd pronounced just like that. Who can help me with this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17457" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T02:15:50.640" Title="About pronunciation of 大家" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25435" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-09T15:56:21.347" Score="3" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a question about the placements of objects and targets in sentences. I am not sure if I understand the difference between &quot;target&quot; and &quot;object&quot;. I have tried search for it, but they both seem to be; &quot;the word or phrase which the verb is referring to&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What are the differences between a target and an object (if there is any)?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the sentence &quot;警察那天不停地在警察局对他审问了几个小时 (The police kept him in the police station for a few hours that day)&quot;, why isn't &quot;对他(to him)&quot; an object and placed after the verb, since the chinese language uses Subject-Verb-Object structure?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If possible, can someone give me an example where both a target and an object is placed in the same sentence, and describe why it should be this way?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the picture that I have posted below, you can see that the targets are placed before the verb. They have not included any place for the object, so where should it go? Or is the target an object? I'm confused! I hope someone can explain :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found my information on this website:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Word_order&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Word_order&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o4B0x.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o4B0x.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17456" LastEditorUserId="17456" LastEditDate="2017-07-09T16:04:58.290" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T12:29:03.787" Title="Should the object always be placed after the verb, and is a target and an object the same thing?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25434" CreationDate="2017-07-10T01:27:20.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Always da4 jia1 in mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17285" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T01:27:20.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25434" CreationDate="2017-07-10T02:14:45.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes in informal speech, in Beijing anyway, a &quot;j&quot; is pronounced so subtly as to be inaudible to the foreign ear.  In a restaurant yesterday the staff discussed my request to leave out soy sauce 酱油 (to keep down sodium).  To me they seemed to say &quot;iang you.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But they certainly did not pronounce it the way they would say 样油/yang you (if such a thing existed), or 羊油 （mutton fat, which does exist, but has yang with second tone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think renfeng is right that to the native ear the j is being pronounced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that, if these people who seem to drop the j in 大家 were to say 大鸭, then you would hear a more distinct i-onset to 鸭 than you are hearing to 家.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2017-07-10T02:27:29.627" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T02:27:29.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25434" CreationDate="2017-07-10T02:15:36.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In television programs people often speak very fast, then 大家 sounds like &lt;strong&gt;dà-yā&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;dà-ā&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T02:15:36.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24389" CreationDate="2017-07-10T03:58:09.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trash Talking Definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CN: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%9E%83%E5%9C%BE%E8%A9%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;EN: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trash-talk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the above are formal or polite translations of trash talking. &#xA;Besides, Cheryl0204's answer would be considered, erm... a bit rude, but it is not considered vulgar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since your tag is just translation, I would like to translate more on trash-talking in various Chinese Dialects (not for the &quot;not even close&quot;). For what I provided below are extremely informal, rude and impolite. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Following is the vulgar translate of trash-talking, just for references.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Please do not simply say it to Chinese, or else you will be in troubles. XD&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mandarin: 垃圾話 or 廢話 (Trash talking does not help solve anything, then&#xA;it is also considered nonsense, 廢話) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Eg; 你再加油的話肯定贏我。(You could win me if you put more effort on that.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;___ 這個大叫驢總是說這些垃圾話。(This f*cker's always trash-talking.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese: 撚話(nan2 waa6)、撚故(nan2 gu3) (Cock talk, Cock Story)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hakka: 淋話(lin55 fa53) (Penis Talks)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hokkien/Teochew: 爛交話（lan jiao ue）(Penis Talks)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T03:58:09.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25440" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25444" CreationDate="2017-07-10T06:32:53.353" Score="0" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was going through the grammar points for HSK 3 and I found this sentences. I understand (or so I think) every words but I still don't understand the sentence structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这道题：this issue/problem/question/etc.&#xA;其他：other&#xA;很容易：(very) easy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other examples I found 其他 is placed before the noun which it refers to, as in English. For example: 除了看书，他还有很多其他爱好。(&lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/entry/5f5af2c4bcd04bf79ff36504df0d8fdb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/entry/5f5af2c4bcd04bf79ff36504df0d8fdb&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there another meaning to 其他 in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&#xA;Norbert&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15765" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T07:24:57.293" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T07:24:57.293" Title="Meaning of 这道题其他很容易" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25434" CreationDate="2017-07-10T09:33:49.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This phenomenon is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%87%92%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;懒音&lt;/a&gt;. And it can be very common in casual spoken language and it's really a personal habit varies for different people. In the case of 大家, the consonant of 家 is omitted for an easier pronunciation, since the vowel of 大 and 家 are both open vowel &lt;code&gt;/a/&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;/ʨ/&lt;/code&gt; in the center is somewhat hard to articulate. Therefore, it becomes something like &lt;code&gt;/ta a/&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T09:33:49.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24419" CreationDate="2017-07-10T11:15:55.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Youtube is blocked in mainland china. The closest thing is &lt;a href=&quot;https://open.163.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;网易公开课&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T11:15:55.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24430" CreationDate="2017-07-10T11:18:15.513" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;a newbie&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;菜鳥應該自認 才疏學淺 孤陋寡聞 有如 井底之蛙 所知有限&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  對公司的文化習慣更是 一無所知 一竅不通&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  縱然是 三頭六臂 神通廣大 學富五車 才高八斗&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  也不可 恃才傲物 妄自尊大 目中無人 不可一世&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  更不可 自命不凡 自以為是 夜郎自大 剛愎自用&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  應當 虛懷若谷 謙卑自牧 移樽就教 不恥下問&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  同事 循循善誘 諄諄教誨 善意提醒 好心指點&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  自當 聚精會神 洗耳恭聽 聞一知十 舉一反三&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  不可 漫不經心 馬耳東風 囫圇吞棗 不求甚解  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;做事應 按部就班 有條不紊 兢兢業業 任勞任怨&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  若是想 出奇制勝 標新立異 好高騖遠 眼高手低&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  常落得 班門弄斧 不自量力 布鼓雷門 貽笑大方&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  真是 關公面前耍大刀 孔夫子門前賣文章&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  倘若是 敷衍塞責 文過飾非 避重就輕 好逸惡勞&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  終究是 水落石出 自取其辱 因小失大 得不償失  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才疏學淺 to have little talent and less learning&lt;br&gt;&#xA;孤陋寡聞 ignorant and ill-informed&lt;br&gt;&#xA;井底之蛙 a person with a very limited outlook and experience&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一無所知 to know nothing at all&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一竅不通 to be utterly ignorant of&lt;br&gt;&#xA;三頭六臂 three heads and six arms; superhuman powers&lt;br&gt;&#xA;神通廣大 to have great magic power&lt;br&gt;&#xA;學富五車 of great erudition and scholarship&lt;br&gt;&#xA;才高八斗 to have profound learning; of great talent&lt;br&gt;&#xA;恃才傲物 to be inordinately proud of one's ability&lt;br&gt;&#xA;妄自尊大 to be overweening; be too big for one's boots&lt;br&gt;&#xA;目中無人 supercilious; to consider everyone beneath one's notice&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不可一世 to be insufferably arrogant&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自命不凡 to consider oneself no ordinary; self-glorification&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自以為是 self-righteous; bumptious&lt;br&gt;&#xA;夜郎自大 extremely arrogant&lt;br&gt;&#xA;剛愎自用 headstrong; opinionated&lt;br&gt;&#xA;虛懷若谷 to be very modest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;謙卑自牧 to keep modest so as to cultivate one's moral character&lt;br&gt;&#xA;移樽就教 (to take one's wine cup to another person's table to seek his advice) to go to somebody for advice&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不恥下問 not to feel ashamed to ask and learn from one's subordinates&lt;br&gt;&#xA;循循善誘 to teach with patience and skill&lt;br&gt;&#xA;諄諄教誨 belecture; inculcate&lt;br&gt;&#xA;聚精會神 to concentrate one's attention&lt;br&gt;&#xA;洗耳恭聽 to listen with respectful attention&lt;br&gt;&#xA;聞一知十 to infer the whole matter after hearing but one point&lt;br&gt;&#xA;舉一反三 to draw inferences about other cases from one instance&lt;br&gt;&#xA;漫不經心 heedless; unmindful; inattentive&lt;br&gt;&#xA;馬耳東風 to go in one ear and out the other; to pay no attention to what one said&lt;br&gt;&#xA;囫圇吞棗 (to swallow dates whole) to lap up information without digesting it&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不求甚解 not to seek to understand things thoroughly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;按部就班 to follow the prescribed order&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有條不紊 systematically; methodically; in an orderly way&lt;br&gt;&#xA;兢兢業業 cautious and conscientious&lt;br&gt;&#xA;任勞任怨 to bear hardship without complaining&lt;br&gt;&#xA;出奇制勝 to win victory through unexpected moves&lt;br&gt;&#xA;標新立異 to do something unconventional or unorthodox&lt;br&gt;&#xA;好高騖遠 to reach for what is beyond one's grasp&lt;br&gt;&#xA;眼高手低 to have grandiose aims but puny abilities&lt;br&gt;&#xA;班門弄斧 to display one's slight skill before an expert&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不自量力 to go beyond one's depth&lt;br&gt;&#xA;布鼓雷門 to take things to a place where they already abound; to make a fool of oneself by foolish display&lt;br&gt;&#xA;貽笑大方 to make a laughingstock of oneself before experts&lt;br&gt;&#xA;避重就輕 to avoid the important and dwell on the trivial&lt;br&gt;&#xA;好逸惡勞 (love to go ease and hate to work hard) to despise labor and love ease&lt;br&gt;&#xA;敷衍塞責 to perform one's duty in a perfunctory manner&lt;br&gt;&#xA;文過飾非 to cover up one's mistakes&lt;br&gt;&#xA;水落石出 the whole things come to obvious&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自取其辱 to bring disgrace on one's own head; to ask for an insult&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因小失大 to try to save a little only to lose a lot; to spoil the ship for a halfpennyworth of tar&lt;br&gt;&#xA;得不償失 the gains do not make up for the losses; to be not worth the candle  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(tag line)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;關公面前耍大刀 being a snob in front of a true expert; to teach one's grandmother how to suck eggs&lt;br&gt;&#xA;孔夫子門前賣文章 to show off in the presence of an expert  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T11:18:15.513" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25440" CreationDate="2017-07-10T11:39:27.450" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;其他 should be a typo of 其实, which means &lt;em&gt;actually&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T11:39:27.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24361" CreationDate="2017-07-10T16:11:25.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, both 遊學 and 留學 mean &quot;study abroad&quot; but their periods are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遊學 means &quot;travel and study&quot;. It is usually brief and only lasts from a few days to a month. It is usually arranged by some travel agency or something alike under the name of 遊學團. The content varies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;留學 means &quot;stay and study&quot;. It usually spans over from one year to several years and stay in school, college or university.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Simplified Chinese merges two characters 遊 (travel) and 游 (swim) to 游. And that means 遊學 is simplified to 游學 in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T16:11:25.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24379" CreationDate="2017-07-10T17:01:44.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Current archeology finds 蜀 in oracle bone script. Actually it is combination of 目 (eye. a vertical eye), 人 (human) and 虫 (insect like animal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kyKdy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kyKdy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蜀 was the name of an ancient kingdom at the time of the empire of 商. This character depicts the founder (蠶叢) of ancient 蜀 kingdom who was famous for the breeding of silkworm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MxFiV.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MxFiV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ancient kingdom produced some great bronze works with emphasis on the eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this way, we know that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;目 : The emphasis on eyes in ancient 蜀 culture.&#xA;人 : The people of 蜀&#xA;虫 : The silkworm of 蜀&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蜀, is the characteristics of some people who emphasized on eyes and bred silkworm. The character 蜀 is still a geographic term referring to 四川, the location of the ancient kingdom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T17:01:44.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25447" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25468" CreationDate="2017-07-10T19:44:43.227" Score="2" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you meet someone you're supposed to use 認識 as in 很高興知道你, but someone said you can also use 知道 when talking about people or places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;I know that place&quot; or &quot;I know that person.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When discussing whether you know some person or some place (e.g., restaurant), what are the rules governing when you should use 知道 or 認識?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T01:02:30.180" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T01:25:32.480" Title="When do you use 知道 vs 認識 when discussing when you know someone or some thing?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25448" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25450" CreationDate="2017-07-10T22:44:27.767" Score="2" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the music video at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC_5uIQSYl0&amp;amp;t=42s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC_5uIQSYl0&amp;amp;t=42s&lt;/a&gt; is the lyric &quot;用你給我的翅膀飛&quot;. If my understanding of that sentence is correct, it translates directly to &quot;using&quot; + &quot;you-to-me's wings&quot; + &quot;fly&quot; which seemingly has the same meaning as &quot;Fly to me using your wings.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word order guide at &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Word_order#Placement_of_target_in_a_sentence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Word_order#Placement_of_target_in_a_sentence&lt;/a&gt; suggests the latter sentence should conventionally be written as &quot;用(你的)翅膀&quot; (instrument) + &quot;給我&quot; (target) + &quot;飛&quot; (verb).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, based on the structure of &quot;用你給我的翅膀飛&quot;, it seems that one can combine the &quot;target&quot; into the &quot;instrument&quot; by using the target as an adjective. Is this interpretation correct? Or am I missing some fundamental grammar point?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16406" LastEditorUserId="16406" LastEditDate="2017-07-10T22:50:22.423" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T23:59:13.293" Title="Interpreting the Grammar of 用你給我的翅膀飛" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25448" CreationDate="2017-07-10T22:55:27.617" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;用 with&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你給我 you gave me&lt;br&gt;&#xA;翅膀 the wings&lt;br&gt;&#xA;飛 fly  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你給我的翅膀 the wings you gave me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fly with 你給我的翅膀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用你給我的翅膀飛&lt;br&gt;&#xA;fly with the wings you gave me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you missed is the meaning of 用.&#xA;It is a preposition here and is &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000011930&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;equivalent to 以&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用...工具 ＝ 以...工具 ＝ with ... tools/instruments&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You won't miss it if the sentence is 以你給我的翅膀飛 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastEditorUserId="15752" LastEditDate="2017-07-10T23:26:52.063" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T23:26:52.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25448" CreationDate="2017-07-10T23:52:49.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A. 用翅膀飛:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 用] [2. 翅膀] [3.飛]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1.use] [2.wing] [3. to fly]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1.primary verb] [2.object] [3. secondary verb]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;用翅膀飛 = to use wings to fly.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B.用你給我的翅膀飛:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1.用] [2.你給我的] [3.翅膀] [4.飛]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1.use] [2.the one you gave me] [3.wings] [4. to fly]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1.primary verb] [2.adjectival phrase] [3.object] [4.secondary verb]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;用你給我的翅膀飛&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;use the wings that you gave me to fly.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/parts-of-speech/adjectives/adjective-phrase.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;adjectival phrase&lt;/a&gt; describes (or gives additional information about) the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;em&gt;It is a pair of wings-- it is a pair of wings that you gave me.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.grammar-quizzes.com/sent-verbs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Primary and Secondary Verbs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A primary verb can be marked for tense (walked), person (walks) and in some cases number (is, was, were). Present and past tenses are formed with verb inflection, the other tenses are formed in combination with auxiliary verbs.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A secondary verb is not marked for tense, aspect, mood, number and person, and it cannot serve as a predicate, nor can it be used in an independent clause.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 用 (use) in 用翅膀飛 is the primary verb, it can be marked for tense, (e.g. use used, have been using) . while 飛(to fly) is the secondary verb, it is not marked for tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example: in 'jump to reach', 'jump' is the primary verb and 'to reach' is the secondary verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T23:59:13.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25451" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25455" CreationDate="2017-07-11T01:27:13.323" Score="2" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder there is a comprehensive list of characters  that have more than 1 pronunciation. For example, 了 has le or liao, and 长 has zhang or chang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there such list? I wonder how many characters belong to such classes...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T15:46:00.253" Title="Is there a list of characters that have multiple sounds?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25452" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25454" CreationDate="2017-07-11T01:57:16.130" Score="0" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sign is on our campus's halal cafeteria:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V7DdW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V7DdW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;马大碗拉面 各种面食&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;马大碗拉面 各种面食&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mǎdàwǎn lāmiàn   gèzhǒng miànshí&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%8B%89%E9%9D%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;拉面&lt;/a&gt; = &amp;quot;pulled noodles&amp;quot;, famous noodles in China, often from Lanzhou (兰州)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%90%84%E7%A7%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;各种&lt;/a&gt; = every kind of&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%9D%A2%E9%A3%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;面食&lt;/a&gt; = flour-based foodstuffs (noodles, in this case)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what 马大碗 means here.  It's possibly a name; I'm not sure because the given name (名字) would be &amp;quot;big bowl&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%A9%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;马&lt;/a&gt; = horse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A4%A7%E7%A2%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大碗&lt;/a&gt; = big bowl&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 马大碗 (mǎdàwǎn) = &amp;quot;horse big bowl&amp;quot; mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T02:40:36.633" Title="What does 马大碗 (mǎdàwǎn) = &quot;horse big bowl&quot; mean in 马大碗拉面?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25452" CreationDate="2017-07-11T02:39:53.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;马大碗拉面 (Mr.Ma's Big Bowl Pulled Noodles) is the name of the restaurant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;马 is a common family name. Either the restaurant owner's last name is 'Ma' or the recipe of this noodle dish was created by someone named 'Ma'-- Most likely the owner came up with the recipe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;马大碗 is either the owner's nickname-- because he serves pulled noodle in huge bowls(大碗) or  马大碗拉面  is a description of the restaurant's famous noodle - 'Big Bowl of noodle created by Mr.Ma' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T02:39:53.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25452" CreationDate="2017-07-11T02:40:36.633" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;马 means 马氏, the family name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大碗 - big bowl; large quantity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(马氏)(大碗拉面)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The company was established in 1993.&#xA;It registered the name &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qzmstf.com/page/company.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;马师傅马大碗&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T02:40:36.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25451" CreationDate="2017-07-11T05:15:02.787" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to CC-CEDICT ( &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=cc-cedict&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=cc-cedict&lt;/a&gt; ) out of the 10710 simplified characters they have listed there are 777 simplified characters with different pronunciations (I'm counting pronunciation with different tones as a different pronunciation).  You could bump it up a bit by also counting the ones that are described with alternate pronunciations in the definition instead of getting a separate row in the data output (i.e. some are described in the definitions of having an alternative Taiwanese pronunciation).:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊、挨、唉、嗳、熬、把、吧、罢、伯、膀、背、呗、奔、绷、蚌、比、贲、萹、边、摽、别、浜、屏、剥、柏、薄、捭、簸、啵、卜、哺、钸、采、操、草、嚓、叉、差、杈、衩、孱、场、沉、噌、爯、称、裎、秤、尺、冲、处、揣、创、绰、刺、囱、瘥、答、打、歺、大、待、逮、疸、担、瘅、铛、挡、档、当、倒、帱、㝵、得、澄、的、镝、坻、底、氐、地、酊、钉、斗、都、读、肚、度、垛、阿、恶、诶、嗯、发、蕃、坊、菲、分、埄、缝、夫、佛、怫、払、拂、砩、芾、服、杆、干、杠、膏、搁、葛、盖、艮、更、供、枸、勾、毂、估、莞、冠、观、桄、过、蛤、哈、厂、汗、豻、夯、好、号、镐、呵、合、纥、閤、和、喝、荷、哏、桁、横、厷、哄、汞、吽、鹄、糊、哗、华、划、化、还、晃、虺、混、豁、几、给、纪、夹、嘏、贾、假、渐、监、閒、间、将、浆、剿、矫、徼、教、筊、偈、节、结、芥、藉、解、觧、价、尽、禁、丼、劲、炅、居、车、桔、锔、柜、据、句、锯、卷、圈、悁、嶡、脚、覐、觉、角、蹶、菌、隽、楷、槛、看、扛、峇、咳、颏、轲、可、磕、克、吭、倥、焢、爌、空、佝、楛、絓、会、窾、丱、卝、傀、匮、喇、剌、啦、灠、阆、唠、落、勒、累、擂、楞、樆、离、悝、蠡、豊、鬲、丽、哩、唎、歛、敛、倞、凉、踉、量、靓、撩、了、燎、咧、淋、令、馏、咯、隆、笼、搂、喽、碌、膔、蓼、陆、露、抡、论、络、啰、偻、捋、呒、呣、蚂、吗、么、埋、蔓、谩、茆、旄、坆、闷、氓、蒙、眯、糜、谜、靡、秘、眄、缪、忞、暋、摸、抹、没、磨、脉、貉、模、姥、牟、那、呐、哪、囝、难、馕、呢、袮、伲、泥、鸟、溺、恁、拧、宁、杻、拗、弄、呶、娜、哦、嚄、熰、沤、扒、杷、耙、钯、扳、番、湴、般、板、尨、胖、刨、炮、麃、跑、泡、喷、搒、裨、劈、匹、否、辟、扁、便、匾、片、猵、漂、莩、嘌、乀、撇、拚、苹、冯、泊、酦、陂、朴、掊、仆、脯、埔、堡、瀑、铺、缉、丌、奇、荠、跂、骑、檵、稽、岂、亟、妻、卡、浅、嵌、强、抢、镪、呛、跄、蹡、蕉、悄、翘、谯、茄、切、慊、趄、厪、廑、顷、亲、嬛、璚、仇、区、焌、渠、瞿、曲、弮、犮、炔、礐、阙、雀、儿、喏、厹、女、爇、撒、塞、散、潵、丧、缲、扫、臊、刹、嗄、帹、煞、色、掺、单、扇、禅、上、杓、芍、少、稍、奓、阇、舍、参、沈、甚、乘、晟、盛、什、拾、石、莳、适、掱、橾、丨、数、刷、衰、卛、率、泷、瞤、说、厶、伺、似、俟、厕、食、圱、尿、莎、沓、踏、苔、忕、啴、弹、澹、覃、汤、樘、倘、荡、趟、叨、绦、㲈、忒、弟、鬄、佃、钿、苕、调、挑、帖、町、铤、听、侗、峒、硐、同、通、斢、头、宊、吐、囤、褪、驮、媠、拓、凹、搲、哇、呙、歪、娩、万、王、崴、硙、亹、唯、委、媁、隗、喂、为、玟、免、揾、絻、涡、薶、喔、庑、芴、巂、腊、茜、裼、纚、系、咥、扢、郄、虾、吓、厦、纤、䕭、鲜、铣、见、夅、降、相、蛸、謏、校、肖、滊、猲、劦、挟、絜、颉、莘、镡、芯、行、省、兴、宿、臭、圩、欻、砉、畜、吅、旋、削、踅、丷、亽、卪、煆、哑、压、轧、阏、埏、剡、奄、傿、咽、燕、氜、飬、铫、疟、要、耶、掖、叶、荑、尾、迆、迤、仡、佚、艾、衣、谥、殷、洇、湮、唫、龈、窨、隐、饮、巆、应、唷、哟、涌、甬、佣、繇、於、菸、俞、畲、禺、予、与、吁、忬、蔚、语、雨、圜、媛、远、约、哕、楽、乐、趯、伝、芸、晕、熨、缊、载、咱、攒、脏、藏、咋、曾、缯、喳、扎、查、楂、皻、吒、炸、侧、翟、祭、呫、粘、鳣、崭、占、长、鞝、涨、嘲、朝、着、召、折、乇、乙、蜇、辙、褶、瑱、酖、怔、挣、正、症、氏、只、乿、擿、识、鉄、中、种、重、粥、轴、朮、竺、术、属、褚、拽、转、传、篹、奘、僮、幢、戆、獞、椎、追、缀、屯、棹、蝃、濯、蓔、仔、吱、呲、訾、子、综、熜、从、卒、崒、足、赚、钻、觜、俊、嘬、琢、撮、作、酢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't count pronunciation with different tones as a different pronunciation but count only those with pronunciations with either a different initial and/or final then the list drops down to 490 characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伯、呗、蚌、贲、浜、剥、柏、薄、捭、卜、嚓、差、孱、噌、爯、称、尺、绰、囱、瘥、歺、大、疸、铛、帱、㝵、得、澄、的、坻、底、地、都、读、度、阿、蕃、埄、佛、怫、払、拂、砩、芾、盖、蛤、厂、豻、夯、镐、呵、合、纥、閤、哏、桁、厷、汞、吽、和、鹄、还、豁、给、嘏、贾、剿、偈、芥、藉、价、丼、劲、炅、居、车、桔、枸、柜、句、嶡、脚、覐、觉、角、隽、楷、槛、扛、峇、咳、克、吭、焢、爌、佝、楛、絓、会、窾、丱、卝、傀、匮、落、勒、樆、离、悝、豊、鬲、歛、倞、靓、了、咯、碌、膔、蓼、陆、露、络、偻、捋、呒、埋、么、坆、氓、糜、谜、秘、缪、抹、没、脉、貉、模、姥、牟、囝、哪、呢、袮、鸟、溺、恁、杻、拗、弄、呶、娜、那、哦、嚄、扒、杷、耙、钯、扳、番、湴、般、板、膀、尨、胖、刨、炮、麃、搒、裨、否、辟、扁、便、匾、猵、莩、乀、拚、屏、苹、冯、泊、酦、陂、朴、脯、埔、堡、瀑、缉、丌、奇、荠、跂、骑、檵、稽、岂、亟、卡、浅、嵌、将、强、蕉、茄、慊、趄、厪、廑、亲、嬛、璚、仇、区、焌、渠、瞿、圈、弮、犮、炔、礐、雀、儿、喏、厹、女、爇、潵、缲、塞、刹、嗄、帹、色、掺、单、禅、杓、芍、奓、阇、参、沈、乘、晟、盛、什、拾、石、适、掱、橾、丨、衰、卛、率、泷、瞤、说、数、厶、伺、似、俟、厕、食、圱、尿、莎、沓、忕、啴、弹、澹、覃、汤、樘、倘、荡、叨、绦、㲈、忒、弟、鬄、佃、钿、苕、调、町、铤、侗、峒、硐、斢、宊、囤、褪、驮、媠、拓、凹、呙、娩、莞、万、崴、硙、亹、隗、玟、忞、免、絻、涡、薶、喔、恶、芴、巂、腊、茜、裼、诶、纚、系、咥、扢、郄、虾、吓、厦、纤、䕭、铣、见、夅、降、蛸、謏、校、滊、猲、劦、挟、絜、颉、解、觧、莘、镡、行、省、宿、臭、圩、欻、砉、畜、吅、削、踅、丷、亽、卪、煆、轧、阏、埏、剡、氜、飬、铫、疟、咽、叶、荑、尾、仡、佚、艾、谥、殷、洇、湮、唫、龈、听、窨、巆、涌、甬、繇、於、菸、俞、畲、禺、吁、忬、蔚、圜、约、哕、楽、乐、趯、伝、芸、熨、咱、攒、藏、咋、曾、喳、扎、查、楂、皻、侧、翟、祭、呫、粘、鳣、崭、长、鞝、嘲、朝、召、折、乇、乙、辙、褶、着、瑱、酖、氏、乿、擿、识、鉄、重、粥、朮、竺、术、属、褚、拽、转、传、篹、奘、僮、幢、戆、獞、椎、追、缀、屯、棹、蝃、濯、蓔、仔、吱、呲、综、熜、从、卒、崒、足、赚、觜、俊、嘬、琢、撮、酢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3720" LastEditorUserId="3720" LastEditDate="2017-07-11T15:18:16.943" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T15:18:16.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25457" CreationDate="2017-07-11T05:35:04.800" Score="2" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a word in Southern Mandarin dialects pronounced &lt;code&gt;ben1 ben1&lt;/code&gt; meaning 围巾 or 围嘴.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionary entries usually just give a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;□ □&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning that there is no known character for writing this word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is more than possible that there does, though, exist characters that could be used to write this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas what it might be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T00:11:24.437" Title="Characters for ben1 ben1 meaning 围巾 or 围嘴?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25456" CreationDate="2017-07-11T07:09:09.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It is just a guess&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;围巾 is a scarf; 围嘴 is a bib, also known as 圍兜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;围巾 and 围嘴/圍兜 are two different things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the pronunciation /ben1/ gave us a clue. You are probably thinking of 'bib'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.ca/search?q=bib&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwiJ1K3XyoDVAhUD3IMKHcDbAg4Q_AUICigB&amp;amp;biw=1361&amp;amp;bih=659&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bib&lt;/a&gt;  ( &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.ca/search?q=bib&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwiJ1K3XyoDVAhUD3IMKHcDbAg4Q_AUICigB&amp;amp;biw=1361&amp;amp;bih=659#tbm=isch&amp;amp;q=%E5%9C%8D%E5%85%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;圍兜&lt;/a&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Bib' sounded like 'ben1' in Mandarin. What you are looking for is probably a loaned word for 'bib'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is a loaned word, the character itself might have nothing to do with the actual item.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only character that is pronounced as/ben1/  in Mandarin is 奔 /ben1/; /ben4/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is just my guess, but to indicated  this loaned word  奔 is related to 'cloth' a 巾 radical might be added to 奔 and make it looked like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wfuxV.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wfuxV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;bib-loaned word&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wxXIH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wxXIH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;user3306356 wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;衯衯 could also be a possibility.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, most loaned words are just sounded like the original foreign words. It could be some other similar sounding words in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More importantly, I have no proof that it is actually a loaned word. We need someone who know the history of this item to give a definite answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, 'bib' is called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/44879/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;口水肩&lt;/a&gt;--  often shortened to just '肩' /gin1/ , which is the only single character that can mean 'bib' in Chinese (Cantonese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'肩肩' would be a baby talk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is pronounced /jian1/ in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T08:34:27.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24430" CreationDate="2017-07-11T09:37:43.530" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two seniors&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甲經理 老成持重 一絲不苟 實事求是 公正無私&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  看似 不苟言笑 態度嚴肅&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  其實 和藹可親 平易近人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  對公司 忠心耿耿 鞠躬盡瘁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  對部屬 寬大仁厚 一視同仁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  做人 推心置腹 以誠相待 心口如一 古道熱腸&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  做事 一板一眼 有條有理 深思熟慮 以身作則&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  團隊 心悅誠服 五體投地 一團和氣 事半功倍  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;乙經理 老氣橫秋 倚老賣老 大腹便便 腦滿腸肥&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  看似 和顏悅色 笑容可掬&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  其實 口蜜腹劍 笑裡藏刀&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  對公司 虛與委蛇 陽奉陰違&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  對部屬 吹毛求疵 厚此薄彼&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  做人 鉤心鬥角 錙銖必較 花言巧語 幸災樂禍&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  做事 患得患失 朝令夕改 舉棋不定 一意孤行&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  團隊 動輒得咎 怨聲載道 一盤散沙 無所適從  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老成持重 to be experienced and prudent&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一絲不苟 dot the i's and cross the t's; to do things carefully and seriously&lt;br&gt;&#xA;實事求是 to be practical and realistic&lt;br&gt;&#xA;公正無私 disinterested; to be impartial to&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不苟言笑 serious in speech and manner&lt;br&gt;&#xA;和藹可親 to be courteous and accessible; gentle and affable&lt;br&gt;&#xA;平易近人 easy of approach; common as an old shoe&lt;br&gt;&#xA;忠心耿耿 loyal and devoted&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鞠躬盡瘁 to spare no effort in the performance of one's duty&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一視同仁 to treat equally without discrimination&lt;br&gt;&#xA;推心置腹 to confide in somebody; to bare one's heart&lt;br&gt;&#xA;以誠相待 to treat somebody with all sincerity; to be honest with&lt;br&gt;&#xA;心口如一 to say what one thinks; to be frank and unreserved&lt;br&gt;&#xA;古道熱腸 considerate and warmhearted&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一板一眼 to follow a prescribed pattern in speech or action; scrupulous&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有條有理 systematical; methodical; orderly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;深思熟慮 to think over carefully; to mull&lt;br&gt;&#xA;以身作則 to lead by personal example; to set oneself an example to others&lt;br&gt;&#xA;心悅誠服 to feel a heartfelt admiration; to be sincerely convinced&lt;br&gt;&#xA;五體投地 to admire someone with the utmost sincerity&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一團和氣 to be full of goodwill toward one another&lt;br&gt;&#xA;事半功倍 to get twice the result with half the effort&lt;br&gt;&#xA;老氣橫秋 arrogant on account of one's seniority&lt;br&gt;&#xA;倚老賣老 to take advantage of one's seniority&lt;br&gt;&#xA;大腹便便 a big belly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;腦滿腸肥 the idle rich; one is fully fed and never uses his brain&lt;br&gt;&#xA;和顏悅色 with a kind and pleasant countenance&lt;br&gt;&#xA;笑容可掬 to show pleasant smiles&lt;br&gt;&#xA;口蜜腹劍 honey-mouthed and dagger-hearted; hypocritical and malignant&lt;br&gt;&#xA;笑裡藏刀 to hide a dagger behind a smile; a velvet paw&lt;br&gt;&#xA;虛與委蛇 to deal with somebody courteously but without sincerity&lt;br&gt;&#xA;陽奉陰違 to overtly agree but covertly oppose&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吹毛求疵 to find a quarrel in straw; carp; to cavil&lt;br&gt;&#xA;厚此薄彼 to favor one more than another; to make fish on one and flesh of another&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鉤心鬥角 to intrigue against each other&lt;br&gt;&#xA;錙銖必較 to haggle over every penny; to dispute over every detail&lt;br&gt;&#xA;花言巧語 blandishments; sweet words&lt;br&gt;&#xA;幸災樂禍 to take pleasure in others' misfortune; Roman holiday&lt;br&gt;&#xA;患得患失 to be swayed by considerations of gain and loss&lt;br&gt;&#xA;朝令夕改 to issue order in the morning and rescind it in the evening&lt;br&gt;&#xA;舉棋不定 to be unable to make up one's mind; to vacillate; to hesitate&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一意孤行 to take one's own course; to take the bit between one's teeth&lt;br&gt;&#xA;動輒得咎 to be blamed for whatever one does&lt;br&gt;&#xA;怨聲載道 complaints are heard everywhere&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一盤散沙 in a state of disunity; disunited&lt;br&gt;&#xA;無所適從 don't know what course to take  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T09:37:43.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24430" CreationDate="2017-07-11T17:56:19.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;畫蛇添足 adding legs when drawing a snake (meaning: adding unnecessary parts)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;馬到成功 attaining success upon arriving on a horse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五顏六色 colorful&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;守株待兔 waiting idly for opportunities&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;車水馬龍 heavy traffic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17467" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T17:56:19.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25435" CreationDate="2017-07-11T18:07:13.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese citizen &amp;amp; Chinese speaker, I can confirm that that placement is wrong, or at least partially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;警察那天不停地在警察局对他审问了几个小时 sounds quite weird. This sounds like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The police repeatedly &quot;interrogated him in the office&quot; for several hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...which errorneously overemphasized the place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My version (that makes sense):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;警察那天&lt;strong&gt;在警察局不停地&lt;/strong&gt;对他审问了几个小时。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, places and locations should come &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; manners. If they come after manners, the only case in which it makes sense is when you want to emphasize the place. Generally, whatever closer to the verb is more &quot;important&quot;. Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他高兴地在教室里跳了起来。(Emphasizing place)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他在教室里高兴地跳了起来。(Emphasizine manner)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T18:07:13.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25462" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-11T18:36:50.243" Score="3" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23931/whats-the-difference-between-%E6%89%A3%E5%A5%BD%E5%AE%89%E5%85%A8%E5%B8%A6-k%C3%B2uh%C7%8Eo-%C4%81nqu%C3%A1nd%C3%A0i-and-%E7%B3%BB%E5%A5%BD%E5%AE%89%E5%85%A8%E5%B8%A6-j%C3%ACh%C7%8Eo-%C4%81nqu%C3%A1nd%C3%A0/23935#23935&quot;&gt;This question&lt;/a&gt; reminded me the different ways Cantonese say &amp;quot;fasten the safety belt&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese only say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;攬安全帶&amp;quot; (loop the safety belt around oneself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;綁安全帶&amp;quot; (tie the safety belt)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;扣安全帶&amp;quot; (buckle up the safety belt)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we don't say &amp;quot;系安全帶&amp;quot; (fasten the safety belt)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, I don't think Mandarin speakers say &amp;quot;綁安全帶&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;攬安全帶&amp;quot;  like Cantonese speakers do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is : Does the word '攬' in Mandarin carry the meaning of &amp;quot; &lt;strong&gt;to loop ~ around&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; too? Or it is Cantonese only as I suspected?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;攬 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2151/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2151/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[粵] laam6 [國] lan3&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;loop (scarf, belt, etc) around&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples of 攬 /laam6/  as 'loop ~around' in Cantonese :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;佢沖完涼&lt;strong&gt;攬&lt;/strong&gt;條大毛巾喺頸就返房&amp;quot; &amp;quot;She just &lt;strong&gt;looped&lt;/strong&gt; (hung) a bath towel &lt;strong&gt;around&lt;/strong&gt; her neck and went back to her room after taking a bath.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;冬天要&lt;strong&gt;攬&lt;/strong&gt;條頸巾至好出街&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;Need to &lt;strong&gt;loop&lt;/strong&gt; a scarf &lt;strong&gt;around&lt;/strong&gt; the neck before go out in winter.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T08:07:27.170" Title="Does the word '攬' in Mandarin carry the meaning of &quot;to loop ~ around&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25462" CreationDate="2017-07-11T19:13:01.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word '攬' in Mandarin does not carry the meaning of &quot; to loop ~ around&quot;. It is probably Cantonese only as you suspected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17469" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T19:13:01.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25464" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-11T23:52:30.700" Score="2" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 犹如　　vs  有如?&#xA;They seem to mean the same thing, are they also the same meaning as 象　?&#xA;My Chinese is not good enough to understand dictionary translations.&#xA;Thank you :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T18:18:07.880" Title="Difference between 犹如 vs 有如" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25464" CreationDate="2017-07-12T00:39:23.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/895/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;犹&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; carries the meaning of 'like'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/503/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;如&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; also carries the meaning of 'like'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my answer to another question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Put two characters with similar meaning together and create a compound word can remove ambiguity. It is very common in coining Chinese words . For example: Both 刚 and 才 carry other meanings, (刚 also means 'hard'; 才 also means 'talent') but '刚才' can only mean 'just'.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;犹如&lt;/strong&gt;' is a compound word of two characters that carry the meaning of 'like'; 'as if'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;have/ possess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'有如'(possess the similar quality) = 'like' ; 'as if'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two terms seem to be interchangeable, different only in etmology&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;犹如&lt;/strong&gt;把錢扔進大海 (&lt;strong&gt;Like&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;As if&lt;/strong&gt; throw money into the sea)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有如&lt;/strong&gt;把錢扔進大海 (&lt;strong&gt;Like&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;As if&lt;/strong&gt; throw money into the sea)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T18:18:07.880" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25464" CreationDate="2017-07-12T02:52:59.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;With similar meaning, 犹如 is used more widely than 有如， which is only found in the writings like  the Four Classics, as far as I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-07-12T02:52:59.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25447" CreationDate="2017-07-12T06:20:47.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally we use 认识 when we say: I know this person.&#xA;And we use 知道 when we say: I know this place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知道 vs 认识:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;About &amp;quot;people&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;知道: Emphasis unilateral;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;认识: Emphasis bilateral.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SgudQm.png&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;知道 can always be used about knowledge or information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can check &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/course/demo/zhidao-renshi-mingbai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Hanbridge Chinese video&lt;/a&gt; about how to differentiate the 知道 and 认识.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T01:25:32.480" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T01:25:32.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25434" CreationDate="2017-07-12T07:30:24.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;大家 is pronounced as dà jiā &#xA;you can convert pinyin to chinese characters:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-characters-learning-tips/pinyin-to-chinese-characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-characters-learning-tips/pinyin-to-chinese-characters&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;and you can also convert chinese characters to pinyin&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/how-to-convert-chinese-characters-into-pinyin-online&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/how-to-convert-chinese-characters-into-pinyin-online&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-07-12T07:30:24.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24430" CreationDate="2017-07-12T09:28:41.743" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A boss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;董事長 大公無私 一言九鼎 樂善好施 德高望重&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  雖逾 古稀之年 雞皮鶴髮&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  但仍 老當益壯 生龍活虎&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  老人家 滿腹經綸 出口成章&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  常能 開誠布公 高談闊論 滔滔不絕 侃侃而談&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  因其 言之有物 發人深省 苦口婆心 頭頭是道&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  時為 春風化雨 時乃 當頭棒喝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  令人聽得 津津有味 興致勃勃 豁然貫通 茅塞頓開  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;對公司業務 來龍去脈 了如指掌&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  指導員工常 單刀直入 一針見血&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  勉勵大家&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  做事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  不可 虎頭蛇尾 半途而廢 投機取巧 得過且過 朝秦暮楚 優柔寡斷&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  要能 腳踏實地 精益求精 小心翼翼 明察秋毫 深思熟慮 當機立斷&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  寫報告&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  應該 提綱挈領 一目了然 行雲流水 井井有條&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  不可 語無倫次 不知所云 模棱兩可 空洞無物&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  失敗&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  不可 愁眉苦臉 怨天尤人 妄自菲薄 因噎廢食&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  應當 不屈不撓 痛定思痛 再接再勵 反敗為勝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  事在人為 人定勝天 撥雲見日 否極泰來&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  團隊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  休戚與共 同舟共濟 集思廣益 眾志成城 群策群力 戮力同心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  切莫&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  自命清高 獨來獨往 各持己見 各行其是 自私自利 各自為政&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  此外&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  力所能及 慷慨解囊 推己及人 助人為樂 嘉言善行 則是 多多益善  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大公無私 selfless&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一言九鼎 (one word is as heavy as nine tripods) to keep one's promise&lt;br&gt;&#xA;樂善好施 to be happy in doing good&lt;br&gt;&#xA;德高望重 to be of noble character and high prestige&lt;br&gt;&#xA;古稀之年 seventy years of age&lt;br&gt;&#xA;雞皮鶴髮 (wrinkled skin and white hair) advanced in age&lt;br&gt;&#xA;老當益壯 to become more vigorous with age&lt;br&gt;&#xA;生龍活虎 (a lively dragon and an active tiger) full of vim and vigor; vivid&lt;br&gt;&#xA;滿腹經綸 full of knowledge; profoundly learned&lt;br&gt;&#xA;出口成章 to have an outstanding eloquence&lt;br&gt;&#xA;開誠布公 to wear one's heart on one's sleeve; to speak frankly and sincerely&lt;br&gt;&#xA;高談闊論 to talk with eloquence; to speechify&lt;br&gt;&#xA;滔滔不絕 to talk fluently and endlessly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;侃侃而談 to speak with fervor and assurance&lt;br&gt;&#xA;言之有物 to have substance in speech&lt;br&gt;&#xA;發人深省 to stimulate deep thought&lt;br&gt;&#xA;苦口婆心 to advise earnestly and kindly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;頭頭是道 clear and logical&lt;br&gt;&#xA;春風化雨 salutary influence of education&lt;br&gt;&#xA;當頭棒喝 (a blow and a shout) to give sharp advice for one to wake up from error&lt;br&gt;&#xA;津津有味 with great interest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;興致勃勃 enthusiastically; full of zest; in spirits&lt;br&gt;&#xA;豁然貫通 suddenly see the whole thing in a clear light&lt;br&gt;&#xA;茅塞頓開 to come to a understanding all of a sudden&lt;br&gt;&#xA;來龍去脈 the beginning and subsequent development of; cause and effect&lt;br&gt;&#xA;了如指掌 to know something like the palm of one's hand; to be thoroughly familiar with&lt;br&gt;&#xA;單刀直入 to come straight to the point&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一針見血 to pierce to the truth with a single pertinent remark; to hit the nail on the head&lt;br&gt;&#xA;虎頭蛇尾 (a tiger's head and a snake's tail) fine start and poor finish&lt;br&gt;&#xA;半途而廢 to give up halfway&lt;br&gt;&#xA;投機取巧 to be opportunistic&lt;br&gt;&#xA;得過且過 to muddle along; to drift along&lt;br&gt;&#xA;朝秦暮楚 fickle; inconstant&lt;br&gt;&#xA;優柔寡斷 indecision; irresolution; yea and nay&lt;br&gt;&#xA;腳踏實地 (to stand on solid ground) to be down-to-earth; to do solid work&lt;br&gt;&#xA;精益求精 to constantly improve something; to keep improving&lt;br&gt;&#xA;小心翼翼 carefully; cautiously&lt;br&gt;&#xA;明察秋毫 to be able to examine the tiniest things; to see through a brick wall&lt;br&gt;&#xA;深思熟慮 to think over carefully&lt;br&gt;&#xA;當機立斷 to make a prompt decision; to decide in the nick of time&lt;br&gt;&#xA;提綱挈領 (to hold a net by the headrope or a coat by the collar) to concentrate on the main points&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一目了然 to understand fully at a glance; to be clear at a glance&lt;br&gt;&#xA;行雲流水 (like floating clouds and flowing water) a natural and smooth writing&lt;br&gt;&#xA;井井有條 in perfect order; methodical&lt;br&gt;&#xA;語無倫次 to speak incoherently; to talk in a confused manner&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不知所云 not know what is said; unintelligible&lt;br&gt;&#xA;模棱兩可 ambiguous; cut both ways; on the line&lt;br&gt;&#xA;空洞無物 to be devoid of content&lt;br&gt;&#xA;愁眉苦臉 a sad face; a worried look; a distressed expression&lt;br&gt;&#xA;怨天尤人 (to blame god and man) to blame everyone and everything but oneself&lt;br&gt;&#xA;妄自菲薄 to improperly belittle oneself; to underestimate oneself&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因噎廢食 (to refuse to eat for fear of choking) to give up making renovations for fear of a little trouble&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不屈不撓 unyielding; indomitable&lt;br&gt;&#xA;痛定思痛 to draw a lesson from a bitter experience&lt;br&gt;&#xA;再接再勵 to make untiring efforts; to continue to exert oneself&lt;br&gt;&#xA;反敗為勝 to turn defeat into victory; to turn the tables&lt;br&gt;&#xA;事在人為 It all depends on human effort.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;人定勝天 human can conquer nature&lt;br&gt;&#xA;撥雲見日 to dispel the clouds and to see the sun; restore justice&lt;br&gt;&#xA;否極泰來 out of the depth of misfortune comes bliss&lt;br&gt;&#xA;休戚與共 to stand together through thick and thin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;同舟共濟 People in the same condition help each other.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;集思廣益 to draw on collective wisdom and absorb all useful ideas&lt;br&gt;&#xA;眾志成城 unity is strength&lt;br&gt;&#xA;群策群力 to pool the wisdom and efforts of everyone&lt;br&gt;&#xA;戮力同心 to pull together and work hard as a team&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自命清高 acting as if one is morally better than other people&lt;br&gt;&#xA;獨來獨往 to have no contact with anyone&lt;br&gt;&#xA;各持己見 to stick to one's own view&lt;br&gt;&#xA;各行其是 to go one's own way&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自私自利 selfish; self-concern&lt;br&gt;&#xA;各自為政 to do things in one's own way&lt;br&gt;&#xA;力所能及 as far as one's capacity allows&lt;br&gt;&#xA;慷慨解囊 (to loosen one's purse strings generously) to give alms liberally&lt;br&gt;&#xA;推己及人 to treat other people as you would yourself&lt;br&gt;&#xA;助人為樂 to take pleasure in helping people&lt;br&gt;&#xA;嘉言善行 fine words and deeds&lt;br&gt;&#xA;多多益善 the more the better  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This is a good style because it not only gives the phrases but shows the example sentences. So, I made my own.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastActivityDate="2017-07-12T09:28:41.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25471" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25472" CreationDate="2017-07-12T10:06:11.297" Score="2" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;I seem to recall there being a 成语 to the effect of, &quot;Heaven brought them together,&quot; or something like that.  It expresses that the couple was truly meant for one another.  Do you know which 成语 I am thinking of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastActivityDate="2017-07-12T17:04:55.000" Title="成语 for expressing that a couple was meant for eachother" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25471" CreationDate="2017-07-12T10:22:05.297" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/30316/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;佳偶天成&lt;/a&gt; (a perfect couple that's made by heaven)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/53096/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天生一對&lt;/a&gt; (born to be a perfect couple)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/53097/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天造地設&lt;/a&gt; (a perfect couple created by heaven)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chengyu675.com/chengyudaquan/t/36980.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天賜良緣&lt;/a&gt; (a perfect marriage that was grant by the Heaven )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The_Anomaly wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;...which of these are perhaps more commonly used than the others?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佳偶天成, 天賜良緣, and 天作之合 are very literary phrases-- you usually find them in written form; and you only hear them commonly in wedding speeches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天生一對 and 天造地設 can also be heard in wedding speeches, but they are more applicable in day-to-day conversations. They can describe something other than 'perfect couple'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;天生一對 can refer to persons or things being extremely comparable or alike. For example: &quot;你們倆一個是瘋子，一個是狂人, 真是天生一對.&quot; (one crazy, one mad; you two really are born to be a pair) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;天造地設 can refer to persons or things being perfectly matched or perfectly suited in an arrangement. For example: &quot;這是個天造地設的安排&quot; (this is a perfect arrangement)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-12T17:04:55.000" LastActivityDate="2017-07-12T17:04:55.000" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25471" CreationDate="2017-07-12T10:34:06.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;《汉语成语词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天作之合&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  tiān zuò zhī hé&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【解释】好象是上天给予安排，很完美地配合到一起。祝人婚姻美满的话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【出处】《诗经·大雅·大明》：“文王初载，天作之合。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【用法】偏正式；作宾语、定语；含褒义，祝人婚姻美满的话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【英文】a heaven-made match; a union made by heaven; a match blessed by God&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2017-07-12T10:34:06.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24228" CreationDate="2017-07-13T06:10:38.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am afraid it is not very suitable,   首都 is capital，Beijing is the capital of china, the capital of province is 省会，guangzhou is the 省会 of guangdong province. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-11-17T08:08:24.460" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T08:08:24.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14729" CreationDate="2017-07-13T09:33:09.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To share, the HSK Locker app has all the official words and phrases listed as per the HSK lvl 1-6 exams. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.hsklocker&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.hsklocker&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17476" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T09:33:09.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25434" CreationDate="2017-07-13T09:51:41.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be pronounced like &quot;dà-jia&quot;.&#xA;I think you hear &quot;da-a&quot; word is because of fast speaking .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17478" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T09:51:41.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25477" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25478" CreationDate="2017-07-13T10:09:35.913" Score="2" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading this example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听众至少也有五千人。&#xA;The audience was not less than five thousand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionary gives only &quot;also, too&quot; meanings for 也 and it doesn't seem to fit in this example. So what is the role of this word here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17479" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T10:23:10.607" Title="Additional meanings of 也" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25477" CreationDate="2017-07-13T10:18:08.100" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is used to emphasize the verb 有.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can omit 也 and show the same meaning.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;听众至少(也)有五千人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000010776&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;也 [副] 3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;表示强调。如：“一点也不”、“再也不敢”、“连爸妈也乐得开怀大笑。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/_4E5F.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;也 yě 〈副〉(5)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 表示强调 [even]。如: 也须 (也应当; 也应该); 连老人也干活&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastEditorUserId="16050" LastEditDate="2017-07-13T10:23:10.607" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T10:23:10.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25480" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25482" CreationDate="2017-07-13T16:40:58.723" Score="0" ViewCount="1507" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 中国人 only refers to people having Chinese nationality while 华人 can be referred to any Chinese-descent people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one person is China-born and has Chinese nationality, should I always use 中国人? Is 华人 less common, or in the worst case, rude?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-08-28T23:05:06.970" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T23:05:06.970" Title="中国人 vs 华人 which should I use?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25464" CreationDate="2017-07-13T17:28:15.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese student, I also can't tell them exactly &#xA;犹如=好像（as if）&#xA;有如=就像（be like）&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vRVG0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V0Y7u.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17482" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T17:28:15.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25480" CreationDate="2017-07-13T17:30:44.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're correct - 中国人 is specific for nationality with People's Republic of China.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;华人 can refer to anyone from China / Taiwan / Hong Kong / Macau / etc.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In situation where nationality matters, one can use 中国人 for China-born + Chinese nationality.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I've a few suggestions on the above line;  People from the &quot;华人&quot; group can be refer to as 中国人 too.  The line above suggest that, say when you're going through customs (where nationality matters), 中国人 = Chinese nationality.  There's no contradiction arise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华人 is usually used while identifying group of people (mentioned above) when they're in a foreign country.  It's not rude at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2017-07-14T21:59:24.840" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T21:59:24.840" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1423" CreationDate="2017-07-13T20:00:30.693" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Specifically for Zhuyin Fuhao they add &quot;ㄦ&quot; as an erhua marker &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; the Zhuyin tone mark of the erhua-ized syllable e.g. 电影儿 is transcribed &quot;ㄉㄧㄢˋㄧㄥˇㄦ&quot;.  Usually this ㄦ is added with no tone mark (which in Zhuyin otherwise marks first tone) but some dictionaries will instead mark ㄦ with a neutral tone marker i.e. &quot;ㄦ˙&quot; instead.  Note that the full syllable 儿 never by itself is pronounced in either the first tone or neutral tone so in either case there is no possible ambiguity with the full syllable ㄦ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surprisingly hard to find Yale Romanization erhua rules or even erhua examples online.  Might need to go to library and physically look at old books published (by Yale Press) in the US before the 1980's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3720" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T20:00:30.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25488" CreationDate="2017-07-14T04:04:58.187" Score="0" ViewCount="1336" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both words express the meaning &amp;quot;just&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;just now&amp;quot; in time. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我刚刚回家了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我刚刚吃饭了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, should I use &lt;code&gt;刚刚&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;刚才&lt;/code&gt;? Is there any difference and/or which one sounds more natural?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T11:22:48.010" Title="What is the difference between 刚刚 and 刚才 in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25480" CreationDate="2017-07-14T04:25:39.007" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;中国人you must call zhongguoren ,this is the right one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T04:25:39.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25485" CreationDate="2017-07-14T04:50:14.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both means the same, but which one sounds more natural depends on what the questioner uses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if they ask: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;刚刚&lt;/strong&gt;去哪了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you answer with: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;刚刚&lt;/strong&gt;回家了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if they ask: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;刚才&lt;/strong&gt;去哪了？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you answer with: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;刚才&lt;/strong&gt;回家了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, it's not wrong to answer 刚刚 with 刚才, it's not that big of a deal, both works, just a matter of preference really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T04:50:14.733" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25485" CreationDate="2017-07-14T05:31:34.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;刚 itself already means 'just' (adverb- &lt;em&gt;only a very short time before&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &quot;你&lt;strong&gt;刚&lt;/strong&gt;回家，現在又要出去？&quot; (you've &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; came home, now you have to go out again?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刚刚 is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Reduplication_of_adjectives&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;reduplication&lt;/a&gt; of 刚. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &quot;你&lt;strong&gt;刚刚&lt;/strong&gt;回家，現在又要出去？&quot; (you've &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; came home, now you have to go out again?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Reduplication_of_adjectives&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reduplication&lt;/a&gt; makes the descriptive feeling of the adjective stronger.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'才' itself also carries the meaning of 'just' (adverb- &lt;em&gt;only a very short time before&lt;/em&gt;) like '刚' does. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &quot;你&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;回家，現在又要出去？&quot; (you've &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; came home, now you have to go out again?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put two characters with similar meaning together and create a compound word can remove ambiguity. It is very common in coining Chinese words . For example: Both  刚 and 才 carry other meanings, (刚 also means 'hard'; 才 also means 'talent') but '刚才' can only mean 'just'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'刚才' is a compound word made up of '刚' and '才'. It still means 'just' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'刚刚' is a reduplication of '刚' It still means 'just' but carries a stronger emphasis (more immediate sense) than just a single syllable '刚' or '刚才' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-14T05:43:07.033" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T05:43:07.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25480" CreationDate="2017-07-14T09:13:10.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国人: usally it refers to people who have PRC nationality. In Mainland China, this may also refer to citizens of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;华人: Chinese (race) people with the nationality of another country.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;华侨: 中国人 living abroad.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;华裔: the decendants of 华人 or 华侨.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T09:13:10.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25485" CreationDate="2017-07-14T11:22:48.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;刚 - means &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; or limitation marker&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;刚刚 - means &lt;strong&gt;just-only&lt;/strong&gt;. I mean it is a reduplication of &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; so as to stress that something really-really just happend. This is usual practice in some languages. For example in Russian: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;только только&lt;/strong&gt;(刚刚) вошёл сюда(entered here)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;才 - means &lt;em&gt;barely&lt;/em&gt; or nessesary marker. &lt;em&gt;你才回家，現在又要出去. You have &lt;strong&gt;barely&lt;/strong&gt; returned home, already you go?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就 - means &lt;em&gt;already&lt;/em&gt; or sufficient marker&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;刚才 - means &quot;just barely&quot; or &quot;just now&quot; (where &quot;now&quot; works as a substitute for &quot;barely&quot;). Just happend and only then&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;刚就 - means &quot;just (happend) but already (smth)&quot;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T11:22:48.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25494" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25495" CreationDate="2017-07-14T14:47:41.737" Score="0" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the character in the picture below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tiFpL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tiFpL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did not find it in the index of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Index:Chinese_radical/%E6%AE%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;殳&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="853" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T15:03:34.040" Title="Character with the 殳 radical" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25494" CreationDate="2017-07-14T14:57:38.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%88%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;般&lt;/a&gt; (bān).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that its 部首 (radical) is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Index:Chinese_radical/%E8%88%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;舟&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-07-14T15:03:34.040" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T15:03:34.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25494" CreationDate="2017-07-14T14:57:46.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;般 bān. I believe it's belong to index of 舟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T14:57:46.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25497" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25498" CreationDate="2017-07-14T17:01:08.373" Score="1" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading a novel linked below and there is a phrase the meaning of which is not entirely clear to me. To provide a little context, the phrase refers to the 12 year old girl Xiaofu, who has just confessed she is in love with her brother and her brother has replied &quot;me too&quot;. The phrase itself reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;知道那天自己被收拾得干净漂亮，便大胆地回过头来，让他看。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean she knew that she was neatly dressed that day, or does it mean that she put her love life neatly in order? I think the second can't be correct, but for the first one I also don't understand, why passive voice was used. The protagonist is 12. Surely she wasn't dressed by someone else! My best guess at a translation would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;knowing that she was neatly groomed that day, she turned around more emboldened for him to behold. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For context, the rest of the passage, which I think I understand, reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小芙撇了撇嘴，突然柔声说道：“炯，我很喜欢你呀！”&#xA;   炯害羞地低着头。半晌，他抬头看妹妹，点了点头，用轻微得连他自己都难以听到的声音说：“我也是。”&#xA;   小芙快乐得一下子跳了起来，沿着山坡疯跑。跑到山谷底下站住了，知道那天自己被收拾得干净漂亮，便大胆地回过头来，让他看。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone wants even more context, here's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiabook.com/xiandai/14751/936687.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link to the relevant section of the novel&lt;/a&gt;, the entire work can be read there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2017-07-14T17:06:16.290" LastActivityDate="2017-07-15T06:08:50.687" Title="Meaning of 自己被收拾得乾淨漂亮 in context and significance of passive voice" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25497" CreationDate="2017-07-14T19:01:01.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not illogical to have someone else to tidy her up- For example: her mother, a beautician or a servant if she had one would groom her&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wrote: &quot;他在学校被欺负得很可憐&quot; (he was bullied in school pitifully) you knew the subject must be the object's classmates. '他' is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;她自己被收拾得干净漂亮&quot; (she herself was tidied up neatly and beautifully -) , you can safely presume it was her mother or older sister who tidied her up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The object '她自己 (She herself)' in the sentence was only a twelve years old girl. What did she know about beautification?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-15T06:06:13.860" LastActivityDate="2017-07-15T06:06:13.860" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25497" CreationDate="2017-07-15T04:19:50.273" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;知道那天自己被收拾得干净漂亮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author left out the subjects because they are very obvious.  The sentence &#xA;will be easy to be understood if we add them back as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(她)知道那天(她)自己被收拾得干净漂亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她 she&lt;br&gt;&#xA;知道 know&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那天 that day&lt;br&gt;&#xA;她 she&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自己 herself (not another girl)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;被收拾得 be put in order&lt;br&gt;&#xA;干净 clean&lt;br&gt;&#xA;漂亮 beautiful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(她)(知道)(那天)(她)(自己)(被收拾得干净漂亮)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(She) (knows that) (that day) (she) (herself) (was neatened clean and beautiful)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She knows that she herself was neatened clean and beautiful that day.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;She knows that she was neatened clean and beautiful that day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;收拾 means 整理 - to put things in order; to order; to tidy; to neaten.&#xA;For example, to clean the face, to comb the hair, to sort the clothes, etc.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It does not necessarily mean to apply cosmetics or to put on another more beautiful clothes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2017-07-15T04:19:50.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25497" CreationDate="2017-07-15T06:08:50.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;that day is the wedding day.xiaofu will be overdressed/dressed up(收拾） as a bride.The 收拾 means 'dress up' as a dialect expression in somewhere of china.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16746" LastActivityDate="2017-07-15T06:08:50.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25501" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25502" CreationDate="2017-07-15T09:35:34.170" Score="1" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in the title. Are there any cases when these two are interchangeable? If yes, when? What are the nuances that distinguish them? It would be great if one can tackle the etymology of the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16881" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-09T17:28:49.723" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T17:28:49.723" Title="Difference between 傍晚 and 晚上 and their etymology" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25501" CreationDate="2017-07-15T10:06:01.917" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/508D.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;傍&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　1. 靠：依山～水。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　2. 临近：～晚。～黑。～亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉英互译&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◎ 傍&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;be close to　　　draw near&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by side of, beside, near, close&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/d/4/9503.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;傍晚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[evening;at dusk (nightfall);toward evening] 靠近晚上的时候。亦称“黄昏”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;傍晚 basically is compromised of 傍 &amp;quot;close (to)&amp;quot; + 晚上 &amp;quot;nighttime&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/a/14b/328050.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;晚上&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[evening;night] 从日落或晚饭至寝宴的一段时间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese literally says night is beginning at nightfall or &lt;em&gt;dinner&lt;/em&gt; time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/js/665A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;晚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太阳落了的时候&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;time after sunset&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as to whether they are interchangeable or not, well this really depends on the cognitive abilities of each person - my &lt;strong&gt;dusk&lt;/strong&gt; might be your &lt;strong&gt;nighttime&lt;/strong&gt; - it's hard to say for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as for the entomology of 晚 &lt;strong&gt;Outlier&lt;/strong&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;COMPONENTS&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日 In 晚, 日 is a semantic component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;免 In 晚 wǎn, 免 miǎn is a sound component, though this is not obvious in modern Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-15T10:25:33.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25506" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25507" CreationDate="2017-07-15T14:45:00.380" Score="0" ViewCount="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外交部发言人耿爽14日就两名中国公民在日本不幸遇害答记者问时表示，中国驻日本使馆已要求日方全力破案，缉拿并严惩凶手，还受害者及家属公道。“我们对两名中国公民遇害表示沉痛哀悼，对其家属表示诚挚慰问，对凶犯的残暴行径予以强烈谴责。”耿爽说。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I understand it correctly, the main clause in the first sentece is from &lt;code&gt;中国驻日本使馆已要求日方全力破案&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;外交部发言人耿爽14日就两名中国公民在日本不幸遇害答记者问时表示&lt;/code&gt; is a subordinate clause. And the subordinate clause says something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When the ministry of foreign spokesman 耿爽 answered to the question by the reporter on 14th,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, how does &lt;code&gt;就两名中国公民在日本不幸遇害&lt;/code&gt; function here? Is it the reporter that asks about the murder crime so the sentence should be like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When he answered to the reporter who asked about the murder crime,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or is it just added by the author of the post, so the sentence should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When he answered to the reporter regarding the murder crime,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;? If so why is it not expressed to use some &lt;code&gt;regarding...&lt;/code&gt; adverbs such as &lt;code&gt;关于&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;于&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T04:28:23.537" Title="Can't discern how a set of clauses function" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25506" CreationDate="2017-07-15T15:45:09.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/808/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;就&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[5] [prep] &lt;strong&gt;with (in) regard to&lt;/strong&gt;; concerning; as far as&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;subordinate clause:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[外交部发言人耿爽 | 14日 | 就两名中国公民在日本不幸遇害 | 答记者问时表示]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman 耿爽, | on the 14th, | in regard to two Chinese citizens unfortunately being murdered in Japan, | stated when answering the reporters questions ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;On the 14th, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman 耿爽, in regard to two Chinese citizens unfortunately being murdered in Japan, stated when answering the reporters' questions.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T03:06:42.287" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25508" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25509" CreationDate="2017-07-15T18:44:24.230" Score="1" ViewCount="3768" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the literal meaning, but could someone please tell me the meaning in english when it was used as an expression (for example, when someone see a huge mansion and he said: &quot;我的妈来! What a huge castle!&quot;)? thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-08-06T14:47:51.990" Title="What does the phrase '我的妈来' mean when it is used to express shock or surprise?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25508" CreationDate="2017-07-15T21:25:54.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我的妈来&quot; is a playful way to say &quot;去&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/150/how-offensive-is-%E4%BB%96%E5%A6%88%E7%9A%84&quot;&gt;他妈的&lt;/a&gt;&quot; in code &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a word game require a sense of humor and little bit of wit to get the punchline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simpler example would be &quot;小處不可隨便&quot; (can't be casual even on minor details). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people saw this phrase, it is very likely that they would think of &quot;不可隨處小便&quot; (Do not urinate anywhere). You just have to rearrange all the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for  &quot;我的妈来&quot; (my mother comes), Not only you have to rearrange all the characters to get &quot;来我妈的&quot;; you also have to replace '来(come)' with '去(go)'; '我(I)' with '他(he)' to get the punchline line &quot;去他妈的&quot;(damn it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.ca/#zh-CN/en/%E4%BB%96%E5%A6%88%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;他妈的&lt;/a&gt; is a vulgar exclamation similar to 'Damn it' in English&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichacha.net/%E5%8E%BB%E4%BD%A0%E7%9A%84.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;去你的&lt;/a&gt; is also an exclamation&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;去他妈的 is the combination of the above two phrases&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lydwinne Catherinne wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;So it is just an expression that doesn't have the exact english translation? People may read that as, for example, (sorry) &quot;WTF&quot; or &quot;Holy Sh&lt;/em&gt;t&quot;?*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, 他妈的 and 去你的 are exclamations. Literal meanings in exclamations are not important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他妈的&quot; literally means &quot;his mother's&quot;.  But it vulgarly implies &quot;他妈的X (His mother's X )&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;去你的&quot; literally means &quot;You be gone&quot; . Which can be understood innocently as:&quot; get out of here!&quot; or vulgarly implies: &quot;去你的卵蛋(be gone your testicles)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(去勢) = 'to castrate'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-21T17:21:13.650" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T17:21:13.650" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25510" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25511" CreationDate="2017-07-16T02:05:53.017" Score="1" ViewCount="578" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen a couple of shop keepers (in small - mid sized shops) in Hong Kong counting some routine things with this character : &quot;正&quot;. The actual tally would start off with the first stoke of that character and increase by 1 according to the stroke order of the character. So, one 正would effectively represent 5 people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the Western tally also counts to a maximum of 5 per tally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know why that particular character is used. (I have seen it used in stamps before too).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T18:35:20.147" Title="Why do the chinese count with 正?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25510" CreationDate="2017-07-16T02:47:39.093" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'd like to know why that particular character is used. (I have seen it used in stamps before too).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;正 is a common character&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;正 has five stokes&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;All five stokes are straight and no overlap, so it is easier to count each stoke.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The character neatly form a square shape, make counting multiple copies easier&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The stoke order and stoke type are simple . It just repeat two different straight stokes: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Left to right horizontal straight line &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Top to bottom vertical straight line&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One can write 正 faster than most other five stokes characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-16T18:35:20.147" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T18:35:20.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25512" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25515" CreationDate="2017-07-16T02:56:32.243" Score="0" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mq5c1.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mq5c1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;characters&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please help me identify these chinese or japanese characters and what they translate in english?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you could please answer in such a way to clearly distinguish between the large word and small word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13502" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T03:40:42.627" Title="Word translation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23766" CreationDate="2017-07-16T03:19:50.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;for &quot;Meaning 1. In what way can I be of service to you?&quot; what people usually would say in Chinese &quot;我怎么帮你？&quot; Remove 得了. And &quot;了（liao3）&quot; kinda means &quot;finish or done&quot;. 得了 could mean &quot;something you could get it done (past, present or future)&quot; while 不了 is something you could NOT get it done. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T03:19:50.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25508" CreationDate="2017-07-16T03:32:06.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say it could mean anything that could express surprise in English. eg, &quot;Oh Mine&quot; &quot;Wow&quot; etc. I don't think it means &quot;WTF&quot; and &quot;Holy sht&quot;. it's just a surprise. it could be either bad thing or good thing that happens to someone. Usually, people would say &quot;我的妈呀&quot; or &quot;妈呀&quot; instead of &quot;我的妈来&quot; to express surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T03:32:06.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25512" CreationDate="2017-07-16T03:40:42.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The small characters are 有田 (owns rice field)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big character is 雅 (elegant)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有田 (Arita) is a common Japanese surname&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有田雅 may be a Japanese name  'Miyabi Arita' in kanji&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T03:40:42.627" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25506" CreationDate="2017-07-16T04:28:23.537" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外交部发言人耿爽14日就两名中国公民在日本不幸遇害答记者问时……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not easy to understand a long sentence.&#xA;But, we can simplify it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外交部发言人耿爽 (title + name) can be simplified as 他, he.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The date, 14日, is not important here, so we omit it for simplification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两名中国公民在日本不幸遇害 is an event, so we use &quot;the event&quot;, 该事件.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use &quot;the/his/her/their question&quot;, 其问, to represent 记者问.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence then becomes &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他就该事件答其问时……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Don't you think it is much easier to interpret it now?&#xA;I suggest you using this method next time, when you read a looooong sentence.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When he answered the question regarding the event, ......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned, 就 means regarding, in regard to, with regard to, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can't we use to or for?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When he answered the question to the event, ......&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When he answered the question for the event, ......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we want to use another Chinese characters to replace 就, the most common one would be 对.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following two phrases/sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就事论事。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;对事不对人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 就 ＝ 对.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because we are used to them, it is not good to swith them.&#xA;But, the meaning is the same, and we can accept it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对事论事。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;就事不就人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他 &lt;strong&gt;对&lt;/strong&gt; 该事件答其问时……&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  外交部发言人耿爽14日 &lt;strong&gt;对&lt;/strong&gt; 两名中国公民在日本不幸遇害答记者问时……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T04:28:23.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25480" CreationDate="2017-07-16T05:39:58.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;中國人refers to the people who live in 大中華地區，which includes Republic of China &#xA;中華民國 (Taiwan and China Mainland), Hong Kong, and Macau.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中國人may also refer to the ancestor or the Chinese generation who live oversea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狹義：中國人=中國大陸人&#xA;廣義：黃皮膚，五族人士，即漢、回、滿、藏、蒙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T05:39:58.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9408" CreationDate="2017-07-16T06:51:04.753" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means run away quickly as if there is oil on the sole of your foot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17499" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T06:51:04.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25519" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28057" CreationDate="2017-07-16T09:01:46.373" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this quote that I’m looking for the original English of (although it may very well have not originally been in English even)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;词构成了精神治疗的本质性的工具。外行人很难理解精神与身体上的病理性躁动怎样能被简单的词所消解。他有一种被要求去相信巫术的感觉，如果真的如此，则他离真理不太远，因为我们日常所使用的词并非其它的东西、仅仅是弱化了的巫术。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Freud has a famous quote about words and magic and this is certainly part of it, but I’m having trouble locating the matiching beginning part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T06:56:46.113" Title="Original English Freud quote, “words and magic”" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25521" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25523" CreationDate="2017-07-16T11:13:05.140" Score="0" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;An example from a dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;讨不讨厌呀！Isn't that annoying?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first 讨 usage isn't clear here, as for beginner. Is it a special grammar structure? Maybe even an accidental mistake in the dictionary? (in case it happens sometimes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Partly reminds tag question, but then it probably should have been &quot;讨厌不讨厌&quot; not &quot;讨不讨厌&quot;, I'm not sure how it is used with multi-character words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17479" LastEditorUserId="17479" LastEditDate="2017-07-16T11:35:38.067" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T13:14:04.750" Title="讨 at the beginning of the sentence" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25524" CreationDate="2017-07-16T11:59:21.040" Score="4" ViewCount="427" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why does the above phrase (马马虎虎- lit. Horse horse tiger tiger） mean so-so or moderate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Curious as to how animals can represent expressions &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T18:51:18.180" Title="How did 马马虎虎 come to mean so-so?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25521" CreationDate="2017-07-16T12:18:38.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;討厭不討厭？&quot; is a substantially shortened version of &quot;討厭？還是不討厭？&quot;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, it is quite wordy. In practicality, &quot;討厭不討厭？&quot;  is still one character too long. The standard practice is to shorten it down to &quot;討(厭)不討厭?&quot; (the shorter the better) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;明白不明白？&quot; is  always shortened to 明不明白？or even further to &quot;明不明？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;知道不知道？&quot; is  always shortened to 知不知道？or even further to &quot;知不知？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avoid wordiness and omit as much as possible as long as the meaning is clear is consider good writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T12:18:38.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25522" CreationDate="2017-07-16T12:45:45.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From  &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wiktionary.org/zh-hant/%E9%A6%AC%E8%99%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wiktionary.org/zh-hant/%E9%A6%AC%E8%99%8E&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;詞源&#xA;  出自滿語 lalahuhu。&#xA;      《滿語雜識》並無此詞，但愛新覺羅‧瀛生在《滿語和漢語中的互相影響》一文曾提及有 lahu 一詞，滿語本義為「打獵沒本領」，北京等地方言謂「行事不利」、「抓不緊」為 lahu。lahu 在北京話就是「喇忽」（而不是「馬虎」），「喇忽」是粗心、疏忽、漫不經心的意思。同樣，王惠樵的《河東方言語詞輯考》中亦謂「河東俗謂人凡事不經意，大大列列為『喇忽』」，而其疊詞亦可引申為對什麼都不在意，如老舍《全家福》第一幕：「林三嫂三十好幾了，還像個孩子，喇喇忽忽的。」，胡零《識時務者》：「沒什麼，因為我這個人喇喇忽忽的，有很多不好的地方」。後轉為「馬馬虎虎」&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「馬馬虎虎」is sound-alike version of「喇喇忽忽」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It originated from 「喇忽」/「喇喇忽忽」in Beijing area dialect that meant  &quot;careless; negligent; casual&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually the reading of 「喇忽」/「喇喇忽忽」 evolved into「馬虎」/ 「馬馬虎虎」(easier to read and remember perhaps?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Manchu language expression 'lahu / lala huhu' which means &quot;no skill in hunting&quot;  was imported from this Beijing dialect phrase.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese term &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1503/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;麻麻地&lt;/a&gt; /maa4 maa4*2 dei6*2/ (so-so; not too good, not too bad) was in term, evolved from 馬馬虎虎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-16T18:51:18.180" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T18:51:18.180" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25522" CreationDate="2017-07-16T12:58:19.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;马虎 and 马马虎虎 means careless. well, 马马虎虎 has another meaning. It comes like &quot;you have done something not very well&quot; eg, how was your test result from the examination? if you answer 马马虎虎, you are trying to express it's not very good (but not that bad, could be at least acceptable) . I would rank it a bit lower than ok or just ok (not above ok). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T12:58:19.537" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25521" CreationDate="2017-07-16T13:14:04.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;people use shorten version mostly. full version is used very rare, but it does make sense too. it's kinda structurelised. besides the examples above, there are more: 烦人--烦不烦人？， 要脸-- 要不要脸？，上来-- 上不上来？..... it seems that these are always questioning (though the speaker may not expect the answer back.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T13:14:04.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25519" CreationDate="2017-07-16T13:24:26.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is really bad translation into Chinese. it seems to me the paragraph was translated by a machine. words --&gt; 词，but should be translated to 对话 in this context I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T13:24:26.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25510" CreationDate="2017-07-16T13:57:07.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character serves the purpose of easy calculation based on its structure without any misleading portion. Each addition can be traced with each stroke added and five is a very good base for doing counting, so that is why.&#xA;In the same token, &quot;工“or &quot;王” might be the choice, but one is only in three strokes and the other in four, both are not good in terms of counting.&#xA;Hope this is helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T13:57:07.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25522" CreationDate="2017-07-16T14:17:00.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a playful point of view, there was a story going that a painter is so careless that he could draw an animal which looks either like a tiger or a horse, so when asked if it is a tiger or a horse, he gave his answer as 马马虎虎, which means you can make your own judgment, but I woon't give you the exact answer. Chinese worldly wisdom can be seen from this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T14:17:00.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25519" CreationDate="2017-07-16T14:21:59.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The works of Freud are done in German as far as I know. If there are English versions, they are the works of translation but not original.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T14:21:59.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25531" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25535" CreationDate="2017-07-17T00:50:04.183" Score="0" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Word_order#Placement_of_place_words_in_a_sentence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Chinese grammar guide&lt;/a&gt;, the &quot;target&quot; of a verb should precede the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean the translation of &quot;I know you better than yourself&quot; is 我比你更你自己了解 instead of 我比你更了解你自己?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T12:24:35.303" Title="Which is the correct grammar: 我比你更了解你自己 or 我比你更你自己了解?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25531" CreationDate="2017-07-17T02:28:45.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我比你更了解你自己 is correct. this sentence articulates the structure difference btw Chinese and English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T02:28:45.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25462" CreationDate="2017-07-17T02:52:25.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the Cantonese. but 揽 in Mandarin is mostly used in a scenario, where you want &quot;pull sb. into your arms&quot; to show yr affection. it definitely has some other meaning too, but the idea of 揽 is kinda like &quot;to gather or collect all the things you want (image you pull everything you want around you into your arms.)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T02:52:25.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25539" CreationDate="2017-07-17T11:48:27.137" Score="2" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the novella I am reading this sentence appears:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他的瘦小的身体穿过时间之光，一寸一寸地长大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am rather sure that 「穿過時間之光」must mean &quot;with the passage of time&quot;. But If I try to translate it literally, I come up with: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;pierced by the rays of time ,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is a very odd metaphor for me. Is this a common saying in Chinese, or some kind of literary flourish? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author is 魏微，born in 1970. Hails from Jiangsu Province, studied in Nanjing. The relevant chapter can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiabook.com/xiandai/14751/936681.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-07-18T01:41:15.840" Title="What does the 光 in 时间之光 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25531" CreationDate="2017-07-17T12:24:35.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say in the following two different ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你自己 as the object of 了解. It's like the transit verb case in English. So V+O in normal order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我(subject) 比你 更 了解(verb) 你自己(object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你自己 as the target of the action. In this case, you need a preposition to specify it is a target.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我(subject) 比你 对你自己(target) 更 了解(verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T12:24:35.303" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25534" CreationDate="2017-07-17T12:29:22.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;时间之光 I think is just literary flourish. It's not commonly used, but people won't have problem understanding it. It certainly is related to the common word 时光 (meaning &quot;time&quot;, same as 时间).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;穿过 is probably better translated as &quot;went through&quot;, so literally &quot;His body went through time&quot;, there is no passive tense here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T12:29:22.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25534" CreationDate="2017-07-17T12:33:20.127" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;时间之光 is the long version of 时光.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时间之光 ＝ 时光 ＝ 韶光 ＝ 光阴 ＝ time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;光 ＝ 时 ＝ time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000004365&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《重编国语辞典》[名]4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;时间。如：“光阴”、“时光”。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  唐．李白〈前有一樽酒行〉二首之一：“青轩桃李能几何？流光欺人忽蹉跎。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/_5149.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt; 国学大师 - 光 〈名〉(8)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;光阴,时光 [time]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  始屏忧以愉思,乐兹情于寸光。——南朝宋· 鲍照《观漏赋》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They all have the same meaning, the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;穿过时间之光 is just a writing technique.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is the same as 随着时间, with time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can also interpret as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The light won't stop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;穿过时间之光 is similar to 经过时间的流逝 or 随着时间的流逝, as time goes by.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastEditorUserId="15752" LastEditDate="2017-07-17T13:19:49.027" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T13:19:49.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23390" CreationDate="2017-07-17T13:06:35.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are few examples I can think of that exactly match your request of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;wanting (the poet himself) to be rescued&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. I think the reason here is the Chinese culture, in which people usually express their personal hopes in a more euphemistic way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I think of a few related example that may be closest to your need:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《茅屋为秋风所破歌》 by 杜甫. In the poem, he described his poor status and he want to rescue all the poors in the world -- this kind of universal love makes it a well-known poem. The most famous segments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;安得广厦千万间，大庇天下寒士俱欢颜，风雨不动安如山。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《虞美人》 by 李煜, who is the last emperor of the Nan Tang dynasty. He wrote a lot of sad poems since his country is going to fall. His sadness mixed with his hope of returning to the old days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小楼昨夜又东风，故国不堪回首月明中。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《满江红》 by 岳飞. The poem express the feeling of the General Yue Fei, who wants to save his country (Nan Song) from being defeated by alien empire Jin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;靖康耻，犹未雪。臣子恨，何时灭。驾长车，踏破贺兰山缺。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T13:06:35.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25534" CreationDate="2017-07-17T14:12:49.393" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;时间之光 is not the long version of 时光. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时光 is short for 时间光阴  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;时间 (time + interval ) = time (time consist of countless moments)   &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;光阴 (light + shade) = day and night = 'time' (cycles of day and night mark the passing of time)  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly  寒暑 (cold + hot) = winter and summer = time (cycles of seasons mark the passing of time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时间之光 literally means 'the light of time'. Time itself is an abstract idea, the author metaphorically used 'light' to represent 'time's passing'. Light never stops and it only goes forward &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;光 in Chinese also means  'glory' 穿过时间之光 (through the light of time) literary express the sense of 'through the glory of time'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you suspected, it is a literary flourish &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-17T14:24:12.617" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T14:24:12.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25540" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25542" CreationDate="2017-07-18T00:07:58.290" Score="0" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;走进公园，我们感到春天真的来了。柳条迎着暖风轻轻地摆动，绿茵茵的草坪相扑了柔软的地毯。花都开了，&lt;strong&gt;有蛋黄的迎春花&lt;/strong&gt;，粉红的桃花，白色的玉兰花，还有紫色的丁香花。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm reading this story above about these students going into a park. The part in bold I don't understand- as far as I know, it means &quot;there were egg yolk winter jasmine flowers&quot;, but I'm sure that's not right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2017-07-18T09:06:49.807" Title="What does &quot;有蛋黄的迎春花&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25540" CreationDate="2017-07-18T00:18:25.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;蛋黄的 is 蛋黄色的 means color like egg yolk &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17504" LastActivityDate="2017-07-18T00:18:25.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25540" CreationDate="2017-07-18T01:33:56.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BF%8E%E6%98%A5%E8%8A%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;迎春&lt;/a&gt;（学名：Jasminum nudiflorum），又称金腰带，香港俗称串串金，是木犀科素馨属的植物。早春先于叶子开放出黄色鲜艳的小花(bright yellow flowers)，给人们带来春意，所以花名曰迎春。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasminum_nudiflorum&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Winter jasmine&lt;/a&gt; (Jasminum nudiflorum) is a slender, deciduous shrub native to China. It is widely cultivated as an ornamental and is reportedly naturalized in France and in scattered locations in the United States.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BkvDC.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BkvDC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's inspect the structure of the phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蛋黄的迎春花&lt;br&gt;&#xA;粉红的桃花&lt;br&gt;&#xA;白色的玉兰花&lt;br&gt;&#xA;紫色的丁香花  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are appositives.&#xA;They have the same pattern, color + flower name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author uses two words (+ 的) to describe a color.&#xA;Thus, 蛋黄色 is simplified to 蛋黄, and 粉红色 to 粉红.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蛋黄(色)的花 egg yellow flowers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastEditorUserId="15752" LastEditDate="2017-07-18T02:04:15.853" LastActivityDate="2017-07-18T02:04:15.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25534" CreationDate="2017-07-18T01:41:15.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's a figurativeness. image that little boy passed through the time tunnel, where you see the glare of time from the tunnel, like the one you see in a science fiction movie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-18T01:41:15.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="695" CreationDate="2017-07-18T04:12:57.310" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a half Chinese.I love my Chinese grandma. This is the reason why it made me so eager to learn her language. And it all started when she held my hand and taught me the right strokes and suddenly I came to remember on how to write it properly and nicely. I believe it is very important to learn the strokes, It creates a clear direction on how to write it in an easy manner. at first, I thought it was difficult. As time goes by, It made me to yearn for more. Practice makes perfect. When you learn the strokes by heart. I also have taught kids &quot;The Chinese Language&quot; Read and write, As a Tutor. I felt good after seeing them writing just like my handwriting. For My grandma left a legacy for me, And I want to continue it. So I also pass that legacy to my students. It created an impact on the lives of other people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17505" LastActivityDate="2017-07-18T04:12:57.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25540" CreationDate="2017-07-18T09:06:49.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EVcFN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EVcFN.png&quot; alt=&quot;淡黄&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;原文这里是出现了错别字,所以产生了歧义.所以原文这里 表示的只是淡黄色的花,与蛋没有关系.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17507" LastActivityDate="2017-07-18T09:06:49.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25547" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-17T19:38:10.360" Score="1" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to translate the following sentence in to Mandarin: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am playing tennis in a red jacket. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be correct to translate it like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我打网球，用红色的外套。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or are there any other solutions that might be better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17456" OwnerDisplayName="Vegar Reitan" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2017-07-18T10:11:36.313" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T08:12:31.473" Title="Help with correct translation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25547" CreationDate="2017-07-18T11:28:16.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I&amp;quot; (我) is the subject. It always go first&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[I am playing tennis] is the main clause. You translated it as [我打网球], but it should be [我&lt;strong&gt;正在&lt;/strong&gt;打网球] (you wrote &amp;quot;playing&amp;quot;, not &amp;quot;play&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[in a red jacket] is the relative phrase. (giving additional information on how you are playing tennis) You translated it as [用红色的外套] is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;用&lt;/strong&gt;红色的外套] should be [&lt;strong&gt;穿着&lt;/strong&gt;一件红色外套]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;的 in 红色的 can be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; red jacket&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;一件&lt;/strong&gt;红色的外套&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put it together we get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[我正在打网球]  [穿着一件红色外套]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[main clause] [relative phrase]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike in English, relative phrase usually precede main clause in Chinese grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct translation of &amp;quot;I am playing tennis in a red jacket.&amp;quot; should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot; 我正(穿着一件红色外套)打网球&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;在 in 正在 can be omitted&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It would be simpler if you wrote in present tense&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;I play tennis in a red jacket&amp;quot; --&amp;gt;&amp;quot; 我 (穿着一件红色外套)打网球&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vegar Reitan wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;How do I know where to put the relative sentence?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to decide which verb phrase in a sentence is the main phrase- If you wrote:&amp;quot; I eat apple at home&amp;quot;, You can see [eat apple] is the main action, [at home] is added info&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English sentence [ I eat apple (at home) ] would become [ I (at home) eat apple] [我(在家)吃苹果] in Chinese grammar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vegar Reitan also wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;And how do you know that &amp;quot;的 in 红色的 can be omitted&amp;quot;?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the functions of '的' is being an adjectival particle that mark a phrase or clause before as an adjectival phrase or clause&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The adjectival particle '的' in '红色的' can be omitted when it is followed by an object, because 红 or 红色 itself is an adjective, it doesn't require the adjectival particle '的' to function as an adjective.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: (红色的)外套 can be omitted to (红色)外套 or (红)外套&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The adjectival particle '的' in '红色的' cannot be omitted when it is preceded by an object&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 这外套是(红色的) cannot be reducted to 这外套是(红色) or  这外套是(红)--  That would mean &amp;quot;This Jacket is red(n)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T03:25:42.317" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24113" CreationDate="2017-07-18T11:43:07.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only textbooks, texts published by government and other formal texts, e.g. Company name registered &lt;strong&gt;are forced to be in SC&lt;/strong&gt;.  In other circumstance, TC or SC are just an economical problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you wrote a book, if you can make the publisher believe the TC edition will be sold more than SC, then you can publish the TC edition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are converted to SC, do not mean the TC edition will be deprecated, the TC edition could be still get published, if the publisher believe they could be sold out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many people like to read classical texts in traditional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the fist page of amazon.cn when you search '繁体版'(traditional edition), &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is Daoist, the 3rd is Chuang Tzu, they are all traditional and vertical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ew7Sk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ew7Sk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can not find it in store, you can find it in libraries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you in school, you will study the &lt;strong&gt;SC&lt;/strong&gt; edition.&#xA;And allmost all young people &lt;strong&gt;can read TC&lt;/strong&gt;, because you will meet TC texts in TV, games, books, everywhere in your life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So don't worry this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-07-24T09:27:10.310" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T09:27:10.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25550" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25551" CreationDate="2017-07-18T21:21:33.073" Score="0" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;她只觉得眼前一花，就里看到一个一身锦衣的男子&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She only saw patterns in front of her, and then she finally saw a man with brocade clothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it the correct translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused as why &quot;觉得&quot; is used instead of &quot;看到&quot;. I am also confused about &quot;一花&quot; and &quot;就里&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="17496" LastEditDate="2017-07-18T21:28:51.023" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T00:07:09.447" Title="Help translating &quot;她只觉得眼前一花，就里看到一个一身锦衣的男子&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25550" CreationDate="2017-07-18T22:35:06.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;花 also means 'burr' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眼花 means 'have blurred vision'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她只觉得眼前&lt;strong&gt;一花&lt;/strong&gt; - She just felt &lt;strong&gt;a burr&lt;/strong&gt; in front of her eyes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就看到一个一身锦衣的男子 - then she saw a man in brocade clothing &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;里 is a typo, it shouldn't be there&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'm confused as why &quot;觉得&quot; is used instead of &quot;看到&quot;.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say &quot;she 'felt' a burr in front of her eyes&quot; instead of &quot;she 'saw' a burr in front of her eyes&quot; because using '看到 (saw)' in this sentence would mean she has &lt;strong&gt;actually seen&lt;/strong&gt; something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 'felt' a burr' in this sentence implies she may or may not had actually seen something. It could just be something wrong with her vision.(for example, she might has fainted a little or  her eyes were watering for a moment)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The correct translation of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;她只觉得眼前一花，就看到一个一身锦衣的男子&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is &#xA;  &quot;&lt;strong&gt;She just felt a burr in front of her eyes, then&lt;/strong&gt; (she) &lt;strong&gt;saw a man in brocade clothing&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-19T00:07:09.447" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T00:07:09.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="695" CreationDate="2017-07-19T00:59:33.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides easier-to-guess-your-intended-character hand-writing knowing how to write characters &quot;correctly&quot; gives a Mandarin learner:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Better character lookup ability in dictionaries when using the &quot;hand-write&quot; character lookup in Pleco and other modern electronic dictionaries.  Especially useful when the scan lookup isn't working (because of a weird font or hand-written character).  The order you hand-write strokes on your smartphone will affect which characters the dictionary thinks you are writing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you know the right number of strokes added to the radical then better character lookup in paper dictionaries that organize characters by radical and number of strokes (also can be used to look-up characters with some electronic dictionaries like MDBG).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Better ability to guess the correct character meant when reading (somewhat sloppy) hand-written Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ability to use Character input methods that depend on knowing how to write the character &quot;properly&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3720" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T00:59:33.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25547" CreationDate="2017-07-19T08:12:31.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am playing tennis in a red jacket.&#xA;我  正在打    網球   著 紅色外套&#xA;=&gt;我穿著紅色外套打網球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T08:12:31.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25556" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-19T09:21:17.700" Score="2" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously, &quot;交通&quot; means transport or transportation in English. But in reality, there are various versions of the translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;交通银行&quot; = Bank of Communications (One of the key five State-owned commercial banks of China).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;上海交通大学&quot; = Shanghai Jiaotong University (One of the best colleges in China, offering a large number of degree majors besides those concerning transportation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;广西交通职业技术学院&quot; = Guangxi Vocational and Technical College of Communications (One of the many such colleges co-sponsored by local education authorities and local transportation authorities in China, with three-year diploma programs offered but no degree).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are they so different? Is there any principle for translation or nomenclature?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, China's national transportation authorities 交通部 now changed into 交通运输部. Its name in English was &quot;Ministry of Communications&quot;, but now it is &quot;Ministry of Transport&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-07-19T10:01:46.577" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T08:26:32.473" Title="Translation into English of “交通银行”, “交通大学” and “交通职业技术学院”" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25557" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-19T11:05:59.787" Score="0" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am really struggling with knowing where to place words in a sentence. In particular, I was trying to formulate some sentences using 什么 and the sentence 'What do you want to eat for lunch?' popped into my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I was trying to write this in Chinese, and am a bit stuck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I initially wrote : 你午饭要吃什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that seems wrong and unnatural to me. Either like there is something missing or I have the characters in the wrong place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought maybe instead : 午饭你要吃什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that is certainly wrong. I am pretty sure that 你要去哪里吃午饭？is correct (hopefully my intuition is correct!), but in the same vein I can't quite figure out what would be wrong with 吃午饭，你要去哪里？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can also think of 你在哪个地方要吃午饭？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But obviously these all mean something different to the original- these talk of place and not 'what do you want to eat'. I am still stuck on the original sentence!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I have seen &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12293/how-do-i-properly-place-each-character-in-this-sentence&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; SE post, but I am still unsure with regards to my specific question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17320" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T12:56:49.400" Title="Placement of characters in a simple question" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25556" CreationDate="2017-07-19T11:26:21.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;中国交通银行Bank Of Communications&#xA;交通大学Jiao Tong University（eg：Shanghai Jiao Tong University）&#xA;交通职业技术学院Communication Professional and Technical College（or communications technical college）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17514" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T11:26:21.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24321" CreationDate="2017-07-19T11:38:06.850" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few alternatives include for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;赞！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Zàn!&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;有趣！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Yǒuqù!&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;哦哟不错哦！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Ó yō bùcuò ó!&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;有意思！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Yǒuyìsi!&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;不错不错！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Bùcuò bùcuò!&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我很感兴趣！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Wǒ hěn gǎn xìngqù!&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;太好玩啦！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Tài hǎowán la!&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17514" LastEditorUserId="43" LastEditDate="2017-07-22T15:36:44.597" LastActivityDate="2017-07-22T15:36:44.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25560" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-19T11:44:29.567" Score="0" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;洲际&quot; literally means between continents or intercontinental, but AFC Championship is a competition staged by the Asian Football Confederation, the governing body of Asian football, with participating teams from within Asia, so it could be a continent-wise contest, but absolutely not an intercontinental championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But most of Chinese media, including CCTV, the national official broadcaster talked about the AFC Championship matches of Guangzhou Evergrande vs other Asian rivals as &quot;洲际比赛&quot;. Would it be appropriate to introduce such games as &quot;洲级比赛&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-07-20T10:41:17.993" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T10:41:41.877" Title="How come AFC Championship become a &quot;洲际比赛”" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25556" CreationDate="2017-07-19T12:07:15.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the universities, only &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上海交通大学 (Shanghai Jiaotong Univ)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西安交通大学 (Xi'an Jiaotong Univ)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北京交通大学 (Beijing Jiaotong Univ)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西南交通大学 (Southwest Jiaotong Univ, in Sichuan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;国立交通大学 (National Chiao Tung University, in Taiwan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;use pinyin for 交通 because of historical reasons. They all originated from one university, the old 交通大学, where 交通 here comes from an old literature and doesn't simply mean transportation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other &quot;交通&quot; universities will use the English translation, either transportation or communication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastEditorUserId="13814" LastEditDate="2017-07-27T08:26:32.473" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T08:26:32.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="695" CreationDate="2017-07-19T12:15:10.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are six basic strokes of Chinese characters, horizontal stroke, vertical stroke, left-falling stroke, right-falling stroke, dot and rising stroke. Other types of strokes are derived from the strokes mentioned above, and thus known as the derived strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One should be aware that in writing Chinese characters each stroke must go in a certain direction. It is important to understand this point and get oneself familiar with strokes. There are about 20-30 types of strokes that Chinese characters are composed of. The following is but a brief list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-characters-learning-tips/chinese-character-stroke-order/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chinese character stroke&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The great majority of Chinese characters are formed by more than two strokes. The stroke can only be written in certain directions. For example, the horizontal stroke should only go from left to right. the vertical stroke can only be written from top to bottom, never from bottom to top.&#xA;check here and learn the chinese stroke order &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-characters-learning-tips/chinese-character-stroke-order/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-characters-learning-tips/chinese-character-stroke-order/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T12:15:10.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25557" CreationDate="2017-07-19T20:32:50.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both '你午饭要吃什么？' and '午饭你要吃什么？' are proper sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;午饭你要吃什么？&lt;/strong&gt;' is in a &lt;strong&gt;[topic]+[comment/opinion]&lt;/strong&gt; sentence structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'午饭' (lunch) is the topic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'你要吃什么?' (what do you want to eat) is the comment. It is a complete clause with subject, verb and object on its own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;你午饭要吃什么?&lt;/strong&gt;' is also a &lt;strong&gt;[topic]+[comment/opinion]&lt;/strong&gt; sentence structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'(你)午饭' (lunch) is the topic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'要吃什么' (want to eat what?) is the comment. The subject (你) is moved to the beginning of the sentence, before the topic, but it is still the subject in the comment clause. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'什么' the pronoun is the object. You can replace it with another noun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'午饭你要吃炸雞?' /  '你午饭要吃炸雞?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-20T00:25:52.907" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T00:25:52.907" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25565" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-19T20:54:54.810" Score="1" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand the sounds and inflections are distinct, and that the only commonality is the initial consonant.  But what if it were a conversation between two speakers with different native dialects, where wine has been drunk, and the person speaking has a speech impediment, and the person mishearing is very old and hard of hearing. &lt;em&gt;(In other words, this question is about mistakes in communication and records as opposed to accuracy.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a serious question, per se, but more of a fun question for literary purposes, playfully looking for a speculative (non-materialist) connection between the game of Yi, mentioned in the Zuo Zhuan and Analects, and the Battle of Muye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16864" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T04:36:58.573" Title="Are there any circumstances in which 弈 (yì) could be mistaken for 野 (yě)?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;mistakes&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25566" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25567" CreationDate="2017-07-19T20:56:59.920" Score="2" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个赛一个不讲理的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean 'one competition, one unreasonable' or 'one is more unreasonable than the one before'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the word '的' important in sentence like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T09:19:50.977" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T17:21:26.370" Title="What does 一个赛一个不讲理的 mean? Does the 的 determine its meaning?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25566" CreationDate="2017-07-20T02:11:10.467" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/js/8D5B.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;赛&lt;/a&gt; is the same as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/js/6BD4.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;比&lt;/a&gt; in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个赛一个不讲理的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　↓&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一个比一个不讲理的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　↓&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一个比一个不讲理&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　　↓&lt;br&gt;&#xA;One is more unreasonable than another is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word '的' is not important, and can be removed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T02:11:10.467" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25560" CreationDate="2017-07-20T03:59:13.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because the member countries are not just located in the Asian continent now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Asian Football Confederation includes Australia (Oceania) and the Oceanian island of Guam, a territory of the United States.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洲级比赛 is not very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-07-20T10:41:41.877" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T10:41:41.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25565" CreationDate="2017-07-20T04:34:51.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, these two words are very distinctive and I had never encountered a case for these two words which confused my understanding. I just can't think of any occasion off the top of my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T04:34:51.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25565" CreationDate="2017-07-20T04:36:58.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may be possible if we say only one word, 奕 or 野, quickly and ambiguously. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When they are combined with other words, we have these words to judge it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牧野 is the name of a place, and we always use this term as a whole. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奕 usually goes with 博 or 對 to form 博奕 or 對奕 for games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even somebody mixes 奕 with 野. It is not so easy to mix 博奕 (Bó yì) or 對奕 (Duì yì) with 牧野 (Mù yě).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T04:36:58.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25560" CreationDate="2017-07-20T04:41:08.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think AFC Championship should be translated to &quot;亚俱杯&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T04:41:08.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5841" CreationDate="2017-07-20T05:32:14.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;See chinesebrowser.com, the app is available in the playstore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does its Chinese analytics in real time, highly accurate and does not impact the web content in any way. This means it's a fully functional web browser and secure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters in traditional/simplified are converted on the fly into your preferred encoding. The pinyin can be Hanyu pinyin or bpmf with numeral options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also save your web page with the pinyin in PDF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17517" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2017-07-21T05:35:33.740" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T05:35:33.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25556" CreationDate="2017-07-20T07:18:37.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;交 means crossing, intersection, 通 means connection, intercommunication, originally, later its major meaning changes to &lt;strong&gt;transportation&lt;/strong&gt; in modern Chinese. I think &lt;strong&gt;communication&lt;/strong&gt;, even &lt;strong&gt;jiaotong&lt;/strong&gt;, are better than &lt;strong&gt;transportation&lt;/strong&gt;, in 交通银行 and 交通大学.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T07:18:37.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25566" CreationDate="2017-07-20T07:38:26.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;一个赛一个不讲理的&lt;br &gt;&#xA;赛 means 'more than / better than'&lt;br &gt;&#xA;不讲理的 means 'someone who is unreasonable'&lt;br &gt;&#xA;so 一个赛一个不讲理的 means 'those people are unreasonable, and the degree of unreasonable is more and more'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17519" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T07:38:26.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25560" CreationDate="2017-07-20T07:46:13.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;AFC in Chinese is 亚足联冠军联赛 or in short 亚冠联赛/亚冠&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;洲际比赛 means games between continents&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;And AFC have countries like Australia, which is not a Asian country. So AFC became a 洲级比赛&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;2007赛季开始加入澳大利亚的俱乐部。&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%9A%E8%B6%B3%E8%81%94%E5%86%A0%E5%86%9B%E8%81%94%E8%B5%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;--Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17519" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T07:46:13.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21866" CreationDate="2017-07-20T11:45:09.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked a friend who is from NE China (一位来自沈阳人) about 太xie了 and they came up with this: 太邪了 (tai4xie2le5). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;邪 means &quot;demonic, nefarious&quot; but in 太邪了 I think it means &quot;good&quot; as in supernaturally, uncannily good (I think the English words &quot;wonderful&quot; and &quot;fantastic&quot; are related to this in some etymological/semantic manner). The friend didn't think 太血了 was correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T11:45:09.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25577" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-20T13:59:37.693" Score="2" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you know, &quot;藉贯”means the birthplace of oneself but &quot;祖藉&quot; means the place of living of one's ancestors, so when someone says “我的祖国”, does he mean the country of his ancestors or the country of his own (for example, he is an American Chinese born and living in the US)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latest edition of 新华字典 says that 祖国 is the country of one's own(对自己国家的亲切称呼）（Page 674,新华字典第11版，商务印书馆，2012）, so it is very confusing, what does 祖 here mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T01:52:47.623" Title="How do you explain the &quot;祖&quot; in &quot;祖国&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25577" CreationDate="2017-07-20T15:00:51.150" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;祖 generally means ancestor, 祖国 means someone's own country and MAY have the implication that his/her ancestors lived in the same country as well, although it doesn't always have to be the case. I think 祖国 is similar to &quot;motherland&quot; in English, an expression to imply close relation. As an analogy, although &quot;mother&quot; and &quot;land&quot; give you a feeling what the word &quot;motherland&quot; means, being really serious about the meaning of &quot;mother&quot; itself won't help much here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. As a Chinese, I usually perceive Chinese words as a whole rather than separating every character and studying them, but I'm not sure if this is the best way for learning Chinese as a foreign language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17521" LastEditorUserId="17521" LastEditDate="2017-07-20T15:24:04.723" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T15:24:04.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25579" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-20T18:13:18.120" Score="1" ViewCount="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;In other words, what am I missing by not analyzing the characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%89%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;牧 (mù)&lt;/a&gt; can be used in a very Chinese sense to connote a benevolent ruler, in that the term is also used for shepherd. (By this I mean to say that it seems to reflect a conception of legitimacy I've have gleaned from the Classical Novels, Three Kingdoms in particular, and the Analects, in regards to the central importance of both the conduct and the humanity of a leader.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牧 also seems to have a connection to the number 9, in that it was used to connote a ruler of one of the 9 states dating back to the Spring and Autumn Period.  But is this connection merely arbitrary?  &lt;em&gt;(This point is of particular interest as the inquiry relates to an entirely novel game in the same class as Chess and Go, which uses empty Sudoku as gameboards--classic Sudoku has nine regions. The intent is to use the game to commemorate an event of monumental importance in world culture in both the establishment of the new dynasty, and the explication of the Mandate of Heaven, which the game may be said to reflect, particularly in the &quot;west&quot;, where this history is little known.)&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%87%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;野 (yě)&lt;/a&gt; appears to be simpler, connoting an uncultivated topography, but also has additional meanings related to the general populace, and even coarseness and unofficiality to the point of illicitness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for correction, contextualization, and instruction on these characters individually and in combination.  I'm also interested to know how 牧野 alone might be interpreted differently than &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Muye&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;牧野之戰 (Mù Yě zhī Zhàn)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16864" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T02:52:29.830" Title="What is learned by analyzing the component and relationship of 牧野 in regards to The Battle of Muye?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25577" CreationDate="2017-07-20T19:14:09.150" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;祖 is composed from spirit(left) and penis(right). So the meaning is &quot;ancestry&quot; or more precisely - &quot;fatherhood&quot;, which are related with the above mentioned parts. Now 祖国 should mean &quot;Contry of fathers&quot; or &quot;fatherland&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T19:14:09.150" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25581" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-20T19:31:43.877" Score="2" ViewCount="1075" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just learned a German proverb: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen,&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which can be translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Whatever you can do today, don't postpone it to tomorrow&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a 成语 or 古语 which has the same meaning?  I might use it in the context of encouraging someone to not procrastinate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T08:42:20.870" Title="&quot;Whatever you can do today, don't postpone it to tomorrow&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25581" CreationDate="2017-07-20T21:57:13.570" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;Whatever you can do today, don't postpone it to tomorrow&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This common Chinese saying may had the same origin as the quote in the question:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;今天的事今天做&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today&lt;/strong&gt;.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This phrase is so common, it is in grade school textbooks&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;variant: &lt;strong&gt;今日事今日做&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The idiom 坐言起行 express a similar sentiment in a stronger sense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;坐言起行&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Once decided, act immediately&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;When plan is formulated, implement it without delay&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There's also a common Chinese expression expressing the similar sentiment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;有花堪折直須折&lt;/strong&gt;, (莫待無花空折枝)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Pick the flower when it is time&lt;/strong&gt; , (don't wait til there's no flower but stem left to be picked.)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original poem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;金縷衣(七言樂府詩)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;勸君莫惜金縷衣，勸君惜取少年時。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;花開堪折直須折，莫待無花空折枝。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;作者: 杜秋娘&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Gold Linen Jacket (seven words Yuefu poem)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;You should not cherish gold linen jacket, you should cherish youthful days.&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;Pick flower when it blooms, don't wait til there's no flower but stem left to be picked.&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Author: Du Qiuniang&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A completely opposite sentiment expressed in another poem is also very famous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;今朝有酒今朝醉，(明日愁來明日憂)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Drink when you have wine today, (worry about tomorrow's problems when tomorrow comes)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original poem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;唐·罗隐&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;得即高歌失即休，多愁多恨亦悠悠。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;今朝有酒今朝醉，明日愁来明日愁。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T00:17:23.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25581" CreationDate="2017-07-20T22:21:38.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;今日事，今日毕。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 今日 means &quot;today's&quot; or &quot;... of today&quot;. 事 means things in general, and 毕 means finish. So altogether, it means, literally but somewhat awkward in English, &quot;Finish the things to be done today within today&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17521" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T22:21:38.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25584" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25586" CreationDate="2017-07-21T00:16:24.957" Score="3" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;扰乱 harass; disturb; create confusion; cause havoc with; mess up; perturb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;捣乱 to disturb; to look for trouble; to stir up a row; to bother sb intentionally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T14:06:13.020" Title="What is the difference between 扰乱 and 捣乱?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25584" CreationDate="2017-07-21T00:36:48.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;扰乱 is followed by a noun, to elaborate what you are disturbing, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where as 捣乱 doesn't have to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小明, 别捣乱。Xiao Ming, Stop messing around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can't say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小明, 别扰乱。Xiao Ming, Stop disturbing...., because stop disturbing...what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you have to follow it by a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别扰乱别人上课。Stop disturbing the class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别扰乱我的生活。Stop disturbing my life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is the biggest difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from this, in everyday speaking, 捣乱 is a less serious term, it is usually used when nothing serious happens, i hear this term usually in classes where a teacher asks a student to simply stop messing around or between friends where you just want him to stop playing around when you want to concentrate on something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where if you use 扰乱, it means it is a bit more serious, used when the teacher really wants you to stop disturbing the class or you really means he/she is disturbing you on something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2017-07-21T00:43:24.037" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T00:43:24.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25584" CreationDate="2017-07-21T01:00:02.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;扰&lt;/strong&gt; in 扰乱 carries the meaning of '&lt;strong&gt;to disturb&lt;/strong&gt;'; '&lt;strong&gt;to disrupt&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;捣&lt;/strong&gt; in 捣乱 carries the meaning of '&lt;strong&gt;to smash&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;to crush&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5154/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;扰乱&lt;/a&gt;(to disturb; to disrupt) is usually in non-physical, non-violent forms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you talk with your classmate during class, you are disrupting (扰乱) the normal flow of the class&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when you look over someone's shoulder while he write, you are disrupting (扰乱) his concentration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/3489/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;捣乱&lt;/a&gt; (to create a disturbance) is often in physical, violent forms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you go smashing up a bar, it is an act of 捣乱 (to create a disturbance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you trashing someone's house, it is also an act of 捣乱 (to create a disturbance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course your teacher may consider you and your classmate's disrupting action as 捣乱, in a metaphorically sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, when the police arrest you for smashing up a bar, you cannot say you are merely disrupting (扰乱) its business. It is more serious than just getting drunk and talked loud.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T14:06:13.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25579" CreationDate="2017-07-21T02:52:29.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;牧野之戰 (Mù Yě zhī Zhàn)&#xA;in here,&quot;牧野&quot; is a place name.Don't think too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T02:52:29.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25588" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-21T03:25:06.200" Score="3" ViewCount="633" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;主体责任&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; has been a hot phrase since Xi Jinping came into power in 2013, but with too many repetitions of it appearing in many publications, there have been few explanations of the true meaning found online or off line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that &quot;&lt;strong&gt;主体&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; means an &lt;strong&gt;entity&lt;/strong&gt; or a &lt;strong&gt;host&lt;/strong&gt; that is expected to carry the reponsibility, but the other day I found in China Daily, the official media outlet of English language in China, a reporter translated the phrase as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;major responsibility&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; where obviously &quot;主体&quot; became &quot;大体&quot; or &quot;主要&quot; and made me believe it was totally wrong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you say?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T01:00:25.107" Title="What does &quot;主体责任&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25589" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25654" CreationDate="2017-07-21T03:36:44.470" Score="1" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SyijE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SyijE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need to insert the &quot;typed-in&quot; version of these words into my Word document (at work), but I know nothing about the Chinese language, and cannot type in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do these words mean? Please type them in, so I can copy and paste them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried an online OCR service, but it failed..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6753" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T17:54:51.110" Title="Could you please explain what these words mean and transcribe them in Chinese script?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-08-03T06:35:42.923" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25588" CreationDate="2017-07-21T04:32:47.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;主体 main body, essential part. when it is used as adjective, it becomes Major, Main, Essential, etc. 大体 is different from 主体 practically. 大体 is kind of knowing/understanding things from large scopes, eg. 识大体 means you understand it from very high level perspective or a large scope (so sometimes you could sacrifice small ones within that scope.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope this help a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T04:32:47.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25591" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-21T06:25:09.230" Score="3" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, I can write &quot;At &lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt; pages, &lt;em&gt;y&lt;/em&gt;.&quot; where &lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt; pages refers to a document consisting of &lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt; number of pages and &lt;em&gt;y&lt;/em&gt; is a description of the document. Example: At two pages, the proposed bill is short.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese equivalent of &quot;at&quot; is &quot;在&quot;, however it applies to locations. &quot;Pages&quot; isn't a location in this case, so what would I write to convey &quot;at&quot; here? Or can I use &quot;at&quot; as I do in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guesses (using the preceding example) are &quot;在兩頁，法案很簡短&quot; and &quot;包括兩頁，法案很簡短&quot;, but it's not clear to me whether either is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16406" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T09:10:47.397" Title="How Do I Write &quot;At [descriptor], ...&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25591" CreationDate="2017-07-21T07:18:37.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese way to say &amp;quot;At x pages, y.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1a. &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;x pages  就 y 而言&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 一百頁就小說而言真是很短&amp;quot; (one hundred pages for a novel is really short)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2a. &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;就 y 而言, x pages&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 就小說而言, 一百頁真是很短&amp;quot; (for a novel, one hundred pages is really short)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1b. &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;x pages 以&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;對 y 來說&lt;/strong&gt;, &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2b. &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;對 y 來說, x pages&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1a, 1b are more literary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2a, 2b are more colloquial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T07:24:04.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25591" CreationDate="2017-07-21T08:12:18.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese do not have equivalent expression.&#xA;Some similar ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;对于&lt;/strong&gt;法案来说, 两页不算长.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;针对&lt;/strong&gt;法案而言, 2页很短.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有两页的方案, 算短的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两页的方案算短的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T08:12:18.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25581" CreationDate="2017-07-21T08:42:20.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明日复明日, 明日何其多.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我生待明日, 万事成蹉跎.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tomorrow and tomorrow, tomorrow there are too many.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wait for tomorrow all my life,  and all things can not be done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明日歌, A famous poem written 钱鹤滩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今日复今日，今日何其少！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今日又不为，此事何时了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today and today, today is too less.&#xA;Not do it today, when will be done&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今日诗, written by 文嘉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T08:42:20.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25577" CreationDate="2017-07-21T09:46:49.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;By my native speaker instinct, 祖 is origin. 祖国 is the country where one comes from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By my favorite online dictionary, 祖 means ancestor. 祖国 is the country of one's ancestors. - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/20/js/7956.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/20/js/7956.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17285" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T09:46:49.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25596" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25597" CreationDate="2017-07-21T11:10:58.133" Score="2" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the way to emphasize personal pride or accomplishment in Chinese without sounding arrogant -- is there are a particle for this to put at the end of the sentence? For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just had a child!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just bought a house!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T14:23:50.740" Title="Particle to express pride or accomplishment / 自豪感的助词" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25596" CreationDate="2017-07-21T11:31:45.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could use 啦 with the exclamation mark at the end of a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I just had a child!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有孩子啦！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的孩子出生啦！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I just bought a house!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我买房子啦！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17527" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T11:31:45.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25598" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-21T12:32:34.077" Score="3" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;“首相” looks like the prime minister of a royal country, while “总理” is the premier of a republic, but in China's history, there is no official post of ”首相“,but of &quot;丞相“or &quot;宰相&quot;, and in the case of countries like Thailand and Malaysia, both of which are kingdoms with king or sultan as the head of state, but the heads of government are named in Chinese (mainland China) as &quot;总理&quot;,but not as &quot;首相&quot; like in the UK, Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, if you have seen pictures of prime minister of Japan, the official name in Kanji of Japanese is &quot;内阁总理大臣&quot;, so it should be &quot;总理&quot; but not &quot;首相&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T02:25:17.457" Title="Confusion of “首相” and &quot;总理&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25607" CreationDate="2017-07-21T13:37:23.097" Score="0" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;17日，国家统计局发布上半年中国经济数据，GDP增速为6.9%，延续了稳中有进、稳中向好的发展态势。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the 为 mean? How does it function in the sentence grammatically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T17:31:09.133" Title="What does 为 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25599" CreationDate="2017-07-21T13:53:30.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Means 是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的身高&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;8尺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的身高&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;8尺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T13:53:30.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25596" CreationDate="2017-07-21T14:07:03.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我有孩子啦!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我当爹啦~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yeah, 我赢啦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买房子啦,hoho.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes honorific express pride and your humor in modern usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I just bought a house!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不才, 小可新购入一座房子, 惭愧, 惭愧.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不才 = I am not clever,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小可 = I&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惭愧 = ashamed, but in today, it just show your pride, and humor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I just bought a house!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;在下家中新添人口. (do not add 惭愧 this case, otherwise ...)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在下 = I&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新添人口 = 添丁 = you have a baby&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我刚买一台新单反, 惭愧,惭愧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我刚中了一等奖, 惭愧, 惭愧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-07-21T14:23:50.740" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T14:23:50.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25447" CreationDate="2017-07-21T14:38:53.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;知道 means you have idea about something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认识 means you have seen something, so you can recognize it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I 知道 president Trump, But I don't 认识 him. (in life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I 知道 White House, and I won't say I 认识 it or not. Because I have never been there,  it does not make too much sense only seen it in photo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T14:38:53.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25598" CreationDate="2017-07-21T17:10:51.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the constitutional monarchy, 首相 is the the head of the cabinet, with the highest executive power. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;首, in ancient Chinese, means &lt;em&gt;the first&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;top&lt;/em&gt;. 相, short for &lt;em&gt;丞相&lt;/em&gt;, are the officials(usually with great power, just below the emperor) of the emperor. Therefore, 首相 is the top official of a central government.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the republican state, there is no prime minister, and 总理 run the central government.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Countries have 首相: Japan, UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Countries have 总理: China, Germany, India...&#xA;Most countries have a 总理, while USA has neither a 总理 nor a 首相, it has a 国务卿(Secretary of State). &#xA;States with 总理 usually have a 总统(president) or a 主席(chairman).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16445" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T17:10:51.643" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25556" CreationDate="2017-07-21T17:23:34.633" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Former answers are accurate, but I think it is necessary to figure out what &lt;em&gt;交通&lt;/em&gt; means. This word comes from &lt;em&gt;易经&lt;/em&gt;(I Ching) an very important ancient book of Chinese. It says &lt;em&gt;天地&lt;strong&gt;交&lt;/strong&gt;而万物&lt;/em&gt;通*，上下交而其志同*. It is full of philosophy and is very hard to be translate it into English.This sentence contains the Chinese ancient view and attitude of the natural and human society.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16445" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T17:23:34.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25599" CreationDate="2017-07-21T17:31:09.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;为&lt;/em&gt; means &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;, we can also say &lt;em&gt;GDP增速是6.9%&lt;/em&gt;. In a formal academic essay(e.g. mathematics, science), people usually choose &lt;em&gt;为&lt;/em&gt;, which is more serious and rigorous. This sentence is from a report of government, so it should be &lt;strong&gt;serious&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16445" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T17:31:09.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25608" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-21T21:15:28.437" Score="2" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;万绿丛中一点红&quot; : a single red among ten thousand of green/a single red flower in the midst of thick foliage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found some people wrote &quot;万红丛中一点绿&quot; (a single green among ten thousand of red).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is swapping words like that often used in mandarin? Does it have any special purpose?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do the two idioms I mentioned above act as metaphor? Would you mind explaining them to me?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="17496" LastEditDate="2017-07-21T21:24:05.397" LastActivityDate="2017-07-22T23:26:42.480" Title="Is swapping words within an idiom often done in chinese language? (example: &quot;万绿丛中一点红&quot; to &quot;万红丛中一点绿&quot;)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25608" CreationDate="2017-07-21T23:11:13.433" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Idioms are mostly elegant, memorable and meaningful phrases. Each character in an idiom has a part to play in depicting a vivid image or retold a historical story. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is difficult to swap any character in an idiom without making it sound forced. The phrase &quot;萬綠叢中一點紅&quot; depicts an image of a single eye- catching red flower among a field of green grass, that seem natural enough.  On the other hand, the image of &quot;萬紅叢中一點綠&quot; just does not seem natural. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is swapping words within an idiom often done in chinese language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to your question is-- &quot;&lt;strong&gt;rarely&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can only come up with one decent example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;鋤強扶弱&quot; (beat down the powerful to support the helpless) is an idiom describes 'just and heroic deeds'. Quite a romantic notion. But this kind of hero in real life is very hard to find. In fact, you would see people bully the helpless to support the powerful more often. &quot;鋤弱扶強&quot; describe this behavior perfectly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Another one that would work&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;直言不諱- speak honestly, not avoiding taboo subjects&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;諱不直言- avoid taboo subjects, not speaking honestly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-22T23:26:42.480" LastActivityDate="2017-07-22T23:26:42.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25608" CreationDate="2017-07-22T03:06:52.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it is not a common case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Idiom have fixed form, if you swap the character intentionally, you can make special effect to give a strong impression. Like your example. other example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鹤立鸡群 -&gt; 鸡立鹤群&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But some Idiom have different variation,  so this will not give that effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不亢不卑 &amp;lt;-&gt; 不卑不亢&#xA;不闻不问 &amp;lt;-&gt; 不问不闻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-07-22T03:06:52.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25611" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-22T04:08:47.343" Score="4" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only want to point out the family relation and asking a parents about their daughter (who is ~40 years old herself). Still not sure whether using 孩子 is appropriate here. is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17485" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T15:05:58.687" Title="can I use （女）孩子 even if the person in question is an adult?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25612" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25613" CreationDate="2017-07-22T05:32:52.167" Score="1" ViewCount="40" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that dictionaries cite 消费 as having the MW: 个 。  Is there a reason that this this particular noun has a measure word?  It doesn't seem as if it were to be a word that uses a measure word.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can any one help clarify this for me ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-22T07:28:24.730" Title="消费 coupled with the MW: 个" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25612" CreationDate="2017-07-22T06:56:44.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'消费' as a verb means 'to consume' and the measure word for this verb is 次, as in '消费一次'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'消费' as a noun means 'consumption; expenditure; expense' and the typical measure word for this noun is 項(item of), as in 一項消费, 多項消费&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;花一元买一杯咖啡也是一&lt;strong&gt;項&lt;/strong&gt;消费 - Spend a dollar to buy a cup of coffee is still &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; (item of) consumption&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;花一元买一杯咖啡也是一&lt;strong&gt;种&lt;/strong&gt;消费 - Spend a dollar to buy a cup of coffee is still &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; (kind of) consumption&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 个 as the measure word for 消费 is less common, but it is not incorrect:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;花一元买一杯咖啡也是一&lt;strong&gt;个&lt;/strong&gt;消费 - Spend a dollar to buy a cup of coffee is still &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; (item of) consumption&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a considerable amount of money is involved, you can use 笔 (sum of)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一大&lt;strong&gt;笔&lt;/strong&gt;消费 -  &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; huge (sum of) expenditure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-22T07:28:24.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25614" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25615" CreationDate="2017-07-22T07:42:52.173" Score="0" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;本月，一对中国姐妹在日本横滨遇害的事件引发了各界关注。据中国驻日本大使馆消息，案件发生后，日本警方以涉嫌非法拘禁罪逮捕一名30多岁的日本男子，7月21日下午，警方以涉嫌遗弃遗体罪再次逮捕该犯罪嫌疑人。目前警方已将最新进展通知遇害者亲属。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first I didn’t know the word 警方 so I didn’t understand the meaning. Later I found it is police but then what is the difference from 警察? Can I just replace 警方 with 警察 and the sentence still conveys the same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T14:27:57.580" Title="The difference between 警察 and 警方?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25614" CreationDate="2017-07-22T09:18:11.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;方 has the meaning of 'side'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;警察 can be the collective noun for the entire police force or a singular noun for one policeman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;警方 means '警察方面' (the police side). It can only be a collective noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中國 (China) - 中方 (the Chinese side/ The Chinese government)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日本 (Japan) - 日方 (The Japanese side/ The Japanese government)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中日雙方同意 (Both China's and Japan's government agree)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In &quot;警方以涉嫌遗弃遗体罪再次逮捕该犯罪嫌疑人。&quot;  '警方' refers to 'the police (department)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-22T09:31:58.293" LastActivityDate="2017-07-22T09:31:58.293" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25616" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25617" CreationDate="2017-07-22T09:46:00.913" Score="4" ViewCount="624" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why are the Chinese names of certain vegetables  based of off directions (North, South, East, West?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, why does a specific direction mean a certain vegetable? (I.e do watermelons come from the West?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There must be a historical significance of these names.&#xA; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gkd22.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gkd22.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;direction and vegetables&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="15816" LastEditDate="2017-07-23T16:09:18.230" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T16:09:18.230" Title="Etymology of 南/西/东瓜" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25616" CreationDate="2017-07-22T12:22:33.250" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The names of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zybang.com/question/982481ee93adf8c2bbf466e7094c7218.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西瓜&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://cul.qq.com/a/20150902/019610.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;南瓜&lt;/a&gt; seem to be relevant to the directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;四五世纪时,由西域传入我国,所以称之为“西瓜”.据明代科学家徐光启《农政全书》记载：“西瓜,种出西域,故之名.”明李时珍在《本草纲目》中记载：“按胡娇于回纥得瓜种,名曰西瓜.则西瓜自五代时始入中国；今南北皆有.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is said that 西瓜 was introduce from 西域 (the Western regions, a Han Dynasty term for the area west of Yumenguan 玉门关, including what is now 新疆 and parts of Central Asia), then was named as 西瓜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;南瓜原产于南美洲，已有9千年的栽培史，哥伦布将其带回欧洲，以后被葡萄牙引种到日本、印尼、菲律宾等地，明代开始进入中国。李时珍在《本草纲目》中说：“南瓜种出南番，转入闽浙，今燕京诸处亦有之矣。二月下种，宜沙沃地，四月生苗，引蔓甚繁，一蔓可延十余丈……其子如冬瓜子，其肉厚色黄，不可生食，惟去皮瓤瀹，味如山药，同猪肉煮食更良，亦可蜜煎。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;南瓜传入中国有多条路径，但以广东、福建、浙江为最早。国人初期误以为南瓜来自日本，故名之为“倭瓜”，因日本在中国之东，所以又称南瓜为“东瓜”，此外还有进一步误会为产自朝鲜半岛，名之曰“高丽瓜”，而日本人则以为南瓜来自中国，所以称它为“唐茄子”（当时日本人将中国产品概称为唐物）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;到了清代中后期，南方南瓜沿大运河向北移栽，特别是山东，成了北方南瓜种植重镇，人们开始意识到此瓜应自南来，“南瓜”之称开始流行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;南瓜 is supposed to be introduced from the south, then got the name 南瓜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: &lt;a href=&quot;http://mt.sohu.com/d20161107/118304143_395602.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;冬瓜&lt;/a&gt; is not &quot;东瓜&quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冬瓜是本土作物，其最早记载见于魏人张揖的《广雅》：“冬瓜经霜后，皮上白如粉涂；其子亦白，故名白冬瓜。”可见名字本与方向无关。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冬瓜因瓜熟之际，瓜皮表面会蒙上一层白粉状的东西，很像冬天的白霜，因此，冬瓜也称为“白瓜”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冬瓜's name came from the appearance and color of its peel, which looks like the hoar frost in the winter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-07-23T02:40:11.627" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T02:40:11.627" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25618" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25619" CreationDate="2017-07-22T16:28:48.707" Score="1" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I negate an adjective in the past?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;这是红色的。It is red. &#xA;这不是红色的。It's not red.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How could I say 'It was not red'? I read somewhere that 没有 only negates action verbs. If that's true, would the sentence in the past be the same (apart from time expressions) as the present?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15765" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-07-23T02:49:20.673" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T01:35:59.023" Title="How to negate an adjective in the past?" Tags="&lt;adjectives&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;&lt;negation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-08-03T06:37:09.240" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25618" CreationDate="2017-07-22T17:34:03.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22011/how-do-you-specify-past-tense-for-%e6%98%af/22016#22016&quot;&gt;How do you specify past tense for 是?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You have to remember, unlike in English, we do not have past tense for verbs in Chinese grammar. Both &quot;is&quot; and &quot;was&quot; is written as &quot;是&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-07-22T17:34:03.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25620" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-22T19:01:51.053" Score="4" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both seems to mean &quot;to enter&quot;.   I had a feeling that the  入 is more &quot;to put into&quot; while the 进 is &quot;to enter&quot; ? But I also saw the &quot;entrence&quot; using 入.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17535" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T04:43:48.120" Title="What is the difference between 入 and 进?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25620" CreationDate="2017-07-22T19:32:11.053" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;入 (to put &lt;strong&gt;into&lt;/strong&gt;/ to enter &lt;strong&gt;into&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;进 (to &lt;strong&gt;advance&lt;/strong&gt;/ to &lt;strong&gt;advance&lt;/strong&gt; and enter)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;进入&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;advance into&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;to enter&lt;/strong&gt;) is a compound word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;进(advance) is the main verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;入(into) is the resultative/ directional verb particle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-22T20:46:50.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25622" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-22T22:40:47.473" Score="2" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen it as usage of 很棒, but I don't get how that means thumbs up as it were?  Was I misunderstanding the comment on the video??           &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that on mdbg.net there is a different meaningg = = ~~~~ : )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says:  stick / club / cudgel / smart / capable / strong / wonderful / classifier for legs of a relay race &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever I search it on Google images, it only shows thumbs up..O_O&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seen this on a video about 楚辞, I think it is worth a share :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlkBPOX2u7I&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlkBPOX2u7I&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T02:18:36.023" Title="What is the colloquial/comman usage of '棒'" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25622" CreationDate="2017-07-22T23:53:44.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/41619434&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; which have over 600 people voted to agree&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;木棒的“棒”，乃是强盛的木&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'棒' (rod) is 'strong hard wood'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;你说一个人“棒势”，那么就是说他屌大&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you say someone &amp;quot;rob form&amp;quot; , it means he has &amp;quot;huge penis&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;棒 means 'baton / rod',  which is 'stiff and hard'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term “好棒&amp;quot; was originally a slang for '&lt;strong&gt;excellent&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;great&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;wonderful&lt;/strong&gt;' -- meaning something is as great as a 'good hard rod' (hard rod is a metaphor for stiff penis)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T00:15:27.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25622" CreationDate="2017-07-23T02:18:36.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means : You did a good job. Or well done. If I solved a problem for you, you can say &quot;棒&quot; to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17537" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T02:18:36.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25620" CreationDate="2017-07-23T04:43:48.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I have seen, personally, I see 入口 used as a noun, and 进 used as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T04:43:48.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21409" CreationDate="2017-07-23T07:07:07.777" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;for this conversation it's understandable but a little unnatural.&#xA;much better version:&#xA;如果我们用信息的话，交流应该没问题=&gt;&#xA;如果用信息的话，交流应该没问题=&gt;&#xA;用信息的话，交流应该没问题=&gt;&#xA;用信息的话，应该没问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17539" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T07:07:07.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25627" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-23T07:20:55.580" Score="2" ViewCount="454" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does it mean the policy is grounded,  getting nowhere, futile or scrapped?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And is it the same as 落地签证?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-23T07:43:52.200" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T16:26:10.133" Title="What does &quot;落地&quot; in &quot;政策落地&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25627" CreationDate="2017-07-23T08:01:50.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here 落地 means, if I don't get it all wrong, the policy, or policies, is no longer words on paper only but has been carried out, performed, or implemented by some agency, or agencies, somehow some time to some extent somewhere on the mainland China. Other similar words are 落实.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17503" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T08:01:50.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25627" CreationDate="2017-07-23T08:07:33.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2017-06/07/c_1121099775.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;国家税务总局近日召开全国视频会议，部署贯彻落实国务院6项减税新政策，要求各级税务机关采取切实有效措施，确保减税政策&lt;strong&gt;落地见效&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Policies are decided at the top (by the law makers in the central government).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'落地' means 'to land' or 'to touch down'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'政策&lt;strong&gt;落地&lt;/strong&gt;' means a Central government decided policy is passed down to the ground level (responsible agencies and local governments) for implementation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;政策落地见效 means a policy is immediately effective upon implementation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;And is it the same as 落地签证?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, they are not the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%90%BD%E5%9C%B0%E7%AD%BE%E8%AF%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;落地签证&lt;/a&gt; means 'visa on arrival '; '落地' means 'arrival' here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;落地签证是指申请人不直接从所在国家取得前往其他国家的签证，而是持护照和该国有关机关发给的入境许可证明等抵达该国口岸后，再签发签证，落地签证通常是单边的&lt;/em&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T08:21:06.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25627" CreationDate="2017-07-23T14:03:31.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;落地means landed,as 落地签证,get visa after landed.政策落地means the policy is being operating or working out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T14:03:31.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25616" CreationDate="2017-07-23T14:13:19.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;because our country is 中国.it means the country which is the center of the world.so if you are in the center then the things came from other place they must came from east or west or north.so we named them by the direction they came from.and we do have 北瓜 although I just heard it from my grandma and I dont know what it exactly is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T14:13:19.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25614" CreationDate="2017-07-23T14:27:57.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;警察 refers to a police or two or three or more.it refers to the officer or the group of officer,stress they are person.警方 stress it is the goverment institution,and official position.so you cant use 警察 instead of 警方.cause 警察 it is the person doing the exactly thing of what a police should do,like arrest a man,and 警方 the institution is operating the system or an act&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T14:27:57.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25633" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-23T14:33:29.953" Score="1" ViewCount="546" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have to make a presentation about my family. Would you mind checking the grammar for me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zhè shì wo de jiā rén. Wo jiā you liu kou ren. You bàba, māma, gege, jiejie, didi he wo. Wo bàba he māma dou xianzai tuìxiū le. Rújīn tamen xihuan lüxíng. Wo gege he jie jie dou jiéhūn le. Wo jiali mei ge ren hen cong ming, women jiali you san wei yisheng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17543" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-08T00:51:31.073" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T02:04:54.977" Title="Do you mind checking my grammar in a presentation about my family?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25611" CreationDate="2017-07-23T14:58:15.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;as a chinese.I can tell you,yes you can use the word 孩子 to describe their duaghter,like 您的孩子/您们的孩子,or use the word 子女,it is more official,no matter their son or duaghter is or not a adult.or if you want to point out the sex,you can use the word 女儿 to describe their duaghter,or more literarily,use the word 千金,as you can describe their son with 儿子 or the literarily word 公子.if we use 公子 or 千金,we dont say 您的公子/您的千金,we say 您家公子/您家千金.&#xA;but we dont use 女孩子 to describe one's 40 years old duaghter,if she is about 20 to 25 and still have not been a mom,you can use 女孩子 to describe her.cause in our culture,if you have or had a son or duaghter you are not a kid anymore.and if you have not had a 孩子 and you are young,you may still be a kid in your parents' opinion.young women like to be called as 女孩子 cuase it sounds they younger.but just young women.I dont think 40 is young,so if you use 女孩子,it may sounds like you are satirizing.&#xA;my english is not good.hope you can understand what I write and hope this help&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastEditorUserId="15909" LastEditDate="2017-07-23T15:05:58.687" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T15:05:58.687" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25633" CreationDate="2017-07-23T18:04:22.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zhè shì wö de jiā rén. Wö jiā yöu qī gè rén. Yöu bàba, māma, gēge, liäng gè jië jie, &lt;code&gt;hái yöu&lt;/code&gt; dìdi hé wö. Wö bàba he māma &lt;code&gt;xiàn zài dōu&lt;/code&gt; tuì xiū le, Rú jīn tā men xï huān lü xíng. Wö gēge hé liäng ge jië jie dōu jié hūn le, &lt;code&gt;suö yï&lt;/code&gt; tā men bú zhù zài wö men &lt;code&gt;jiā lï&lt;/code&gt; le. Wö dì di hën &lt;code&gt;cōng ming&lt;/code&gt;, tā shì yī shēng. Wö ài wö &lt;code&gt;de&lt;/code&gt; jiā rén.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I marked all the tones of the words, and correct some mistakes, such as grammar, words, and punctuations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15217" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T18:04:22.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25636" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-23T19:05:25.640" Score="2" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FT9sU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FT9sU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image hihere&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find a good translation for this since Google Translate with picture feature probably is not as good for such a long sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I came here: Google Translate says &amp;quot;Jingling children come and go in the wish&amp;quot; is google translate accurate at this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was unable to identify even the first character; see &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ssulj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my attempt here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17544" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-02T23:51:28.130" LastActivityDate="2020-07-02T23:51:28.130" Title="Is Google Translate image feature accurate at this? (Characters identified: 金陵子弟來相送，欲行不行各盡觴)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25636" CreationDate="2017-07-23T19:44:41.783" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two verses came from 李白 (Li Bai)'s poem&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://fanti.dugushici.com/mingju/9526&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://fanti.dugushici.com/mingju/9526&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;金陵子弟來相送，欲行不行各盡觴。&amp;quot; 出自於李白的《金陵酒肆留别》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朝代：唐代&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作者：李白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原文：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;風吹柳花滿店香，吳姬壓酒喚客嘗。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;金陵子弟來相送，欲行不行各盡觴&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請君試問東流水，別意與之誰短長。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;註釋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.金陵：我國今江蘇省南京市。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jinling: Today's  Nanjing City , Jiangsu Province, China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.子弟：指李白的朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子弟(sons): Refers to 'native sons of Jinling' -- Li Bai's friends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.欲行：要走的人，指李白自己。不行：送行的人，指金陵子弟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'欲行' (about to leave) refers to 'the person who was about to leave'. And that person was Li Bai himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'不行' (not leaving) refers to 'the people who were not leaving'. And they  were Li Bai's friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.盡觴(shāng)：喝盡杯中的酒。也指乾杯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盡(finish)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盡觴: drink down the whole cup of wine. Also refers to the cheers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;金陵子弟來相送，欲行不行各盡觴&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot; The native sons of Jinling (my friends) came to see me off; I, the one who is about to leave, and my friends who are not leaving, all drunk down a cups of wine (before we part). &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T16:16:42.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25639" CreationDate="2017-07-23T19:50:13.893" Score="0" ViewCount="387" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder whether 空姐 is still used now. Many countries have been getting aware of political correctness and this kind of words had not been used anymore, even in Japan/Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is it in China/Mandarin Chinese? If I use it what kind of reaction do I expect to get?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T14:47:10.013" Title="Is 空姐 still used?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25638" CreationDate="2017-07-23T20:12:25.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'空姐' (short for 空中小姐) literally means &quot;Miss/young lady in the sky&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My generation (middle aged) still use the term &quot;空姐&quot;( female flight attendant),  along with the more contemporary term '機艙服務員'(airplane cabin attendant)  or '航班服務員'(flight attendant)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The younger generation nowadays may prefer to use unisex terms like &quot;機艙服務員&quot; (literally means &quot;airplane cabin attendant&quot;  or '航班服務員' (literally means &quot;flight attendant&quot;) more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Some people in Hong Kong would call 'male flight attendant' as &quot;空中少爺&quot; (young master in the sky). But it is not a common phrase since 機艙服務員 can be used for both male and female flight attendant.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-23T20:28:16.080" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T20:28:16.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25556" CreationDate="2017-07-24T02:31:28.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;So many fake  Chiao Tung University in China&#xA;Only the five listed by jf328 are real&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15312" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T02:31:28.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25641" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-24T02:40:51.027" Score="2" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;床 is bed, on which people sleep or lie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 临床 has the connection with medical profession and 东床 seems to be in relation to in-laws, but why is so? Because these two do not have any express features of sleeping or work which needs to be done in bed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-02T23:47:07.037" LastActivityDate="2020-07-02T23:47:07.037" Title="How is 床 related to 临床 and 东床?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25627" CreationDate="2017-07-24T03:12:22.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;政策落地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;literally:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The policy has been &lt;strong&gt;landed&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;figuratively:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The policy has been &lt;strong&gt;in effect&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;carried out&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;implemented&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落地政策&lt;br&gt;&#xA;literally:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a &lt;strong&gt;landed&lt;/strong&gt; policy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;figuratively:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;an &lt;strong&gt;effective&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;operative&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;implemented&lt;/strong&gt; policy&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &lt;strong&gt;landed&lt;/strong&gt; here means that the policy is not only a proposal, a legal provision, a dead letter, or no news about it for a long time, but also implemented, performed immediately. It could be interpreted as &lt;strong&gt;落&lt;/strong&gt;实到&lt;strong&gt;地&lt;/strong&gt;方: &lt;strong&gt;implemented&lt;/strong&gt; in some &lt;strong&gt;place&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落地签证&lt;br&gt;&#xA;visa on arrival, visa on landing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-07-24T03:19:45.357" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T03:19:45.357" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25638" CreationDate="2017-07-24T04:28:10.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes it is commonly used in mainland China. It is polite and politically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17546" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T04:28:10.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25641" CreationDate="2017-07-24T04:58:50.967" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term '临床' means &amp;quot;in front of the patient's bed or operation bed &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'临' (facing/ in front of)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'床' ( bed) here refers to '手术床'(operation bed) or 病床 (patient's bed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'临床经验' means 'clinical experience'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term '东床' came from the idiom 东床快婿,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The story of &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%9C%E5%BA%8A%E5%BF%AB%E5%A9%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;东床快婿&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;郄鉴 heard the sons of 王导 were all handsome gentleman. So, he wanted to marry his daughter to one of them. For that very reason, 郄鉴 sent a messenger to 王导's house to observe the young men in 王导's household in order to select one of them to be his son-in-law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The messenger reported to 郄鉴 that all of them were pleasant gentleman and showed him great respect -- except for one.  There was one bare-chested young man lay there in a bed on the east side of the room,  ignoring all the commotion. 郄鉴 decided this bare-chested young man on the East-side bed was the finest young man among 王导's sons, and should be the husband of his daughter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That bare-chested man on the East bed turned out to be the famous &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Xizhi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;王羲之&lt;/a&gt; (Wang Xizhi).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the story of how '东床' (East bed) became a symbol of &amp;quot;worthy son-in-law&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in '东床快婿', '东床'(East bed)= '快婿'( a pleasant son-in-law)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T05:07:41.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25641" CreationDate="2017-07-24T06:21:44.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tang Ho has basically answered this already, I’ll just give what I have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;临床 is the same as the English &lt;em&gt;bedside&lt;/em&gt; as in &lt;em&gt;bedside manner&lt;/em&gt; of doctors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东床 is explained in A Chinese-English dictionary as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOUN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eastern bed—son-in-law (from an anecdote about the celebrated calligrapher Wang Xizhi 王羲之 (321-379), who as a young man remained eating bare chested on the eastern bed when an official came to choose a son-in-law for the minister's daughter, and who was selected for his independence of mind over his well-behaved brothers)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东床快婿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dōngchuángkuàixù&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a good son-in-law&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes, as you said 床 just means &lt;em&gt;bed&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T06:21:44.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25618" CreationDate="2017-07-24T07:43:43.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;它以前不是红色的&quot;. But it can imply somehow &quot;它现在是红色的&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17550" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-08-23T01:35:59.023" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T01:35:59.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25638" CreationDate="2017-07-24T09:40:56.113" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You should know that &quot;political correctness&quot; does't exist in China.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, I have watched a tv show, the host refered sponsor  as &quot;金主&quot; way frequently. &lt;strong&gt;SICK&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T09:40:56.113" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25633" CreationDate="2017-07-24T13:39:20.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;original:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;這是我的家人。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我家有六口人。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;有爸爸、媽媽、哥哥、兩個姊姊、弟弟和我。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我爸爸和媽媽都現在退休了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;如今他們喜歡旅行。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我哥哥和兩個姊姊都結婚了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;他們不住在我們的家了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我弟弟很聰。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;他是醫生。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我愛我家人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;suggest:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我爸爸和媽媽都(現在)退休了。 remove 現在&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;他們(現在)不住在我家。 add 現在&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我弟弟很聰(明)。 add 明&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我愛我(的)家人。 add 的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pinyin:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;這是我的家人。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(Zhè shì wǒ de jiā rén.)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我家有七個人。 有爸爸、媽媽、哥哥、兩個姊姊、弟弟和我。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(Wǒ jiā yǒu qī gè rén. Yǒu bàba, māmā, gēgē, liǎng gè jiě jie, dìdì hé/hàn wǒ.)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我爸爸和媽媽都退休了。 如今他們喜歡旅行。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(Wǒ bàba hé/hàn māmā dōu tuì xiū le. Rú jīn tā men xǐ huān lǚ xíng.)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我哥哥和兩個姊姊都結婚了。 他們現在不住在我家。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(Wǒ gēgē hé/hàn liǎng gè jiě jie dōu jié hūn le. Tā men xiàn zài bù zhù zài wǒ jiā.)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我弟弟很聰明。 他是醫生。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(Wǒ dìdì hěn cōng míng. Tā shì yī shēng.)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我愛我的家人。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(Wǒ ài wǒ de jiā rén.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastEditorUserId="22149" LastEditDate="2020-10-08T02:04:54.977" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T02:04:54.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25638" CreationDate="2017-07-24T14:47:10.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we never use a single sex term to mean the whole job position that includes the opposite sex. For example, when policemen in English is used to mean the whole police force, it becomes politically incorrect. But in Chinese 警察 is unisex. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;消防员 fire fighters male or female&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发言人 spokesperson male or female&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;主席 chairperson male or female&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So same here. 空姐 never means the whole flight attendant team, it only means female. And you cannot use it to mean male attendants. So there is no political problem here. As Jacky said, 空乘 is the word for the whole job position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T14:47:10.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25633" CreationDate="2017-07-24T15:44:04.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zhè shì wo de jiā rén. Wo jiā you qi ge ren. You bàba, māma, gege, liang ge jie jie, didi he wo. Wo bàba he māma &lt;strong&gt;xianzai dou&lt;/strong&gt; tuìxiū le. Rújīn tamen xihuan lüxíng. Wo gege he liang ge jie jie dou jiéhūn le. Tamen bu zhu zai women de jiā le. Wo di di hen &lt;strong&gt;cong ming&lt;/strong&gt;. Ta shi Yisheng. Wo ai wo jia ren.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T15:44:04.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25627" CreationDate="2017-07-24T16:26:10.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is difficult to confirm whether this is a new definition coming out of China media or bureaucratic articles, or just a bad listening error (China media proof-reading qualities are pretty terrible nowaday) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, 落地 only carry 3 meaning &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;falls to the ground&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;From (ship) Walk to the ground&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;metaphor for giving birth (呱呱落地）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落地签证 will take the meaning of 2). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, Chinese never use 落地 for anything that deal with policy.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here is two possible speculation &#xA; 1. It is a bad proof-reading&#xA; 2. It is possible abbreviation for “政策【落】实到【地】方政府”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for the second possibility is because China local governments are infamous of not following central government policies, a political cultural issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T16:26:10.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25656" CreationDate="2017-07-24T17:47:28.533" Score="2" ViewCount="728" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder there is any difference between two words to express &lt;code&gt;this&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;这个&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;此&lt;/code&gt;. What difference, if any, is there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-02T23:44:36.920" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T12:36:30.980" Title="What is the difference between 这个 and 此?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25589" CreationDate="2017-07-24T17:54:51.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word &lt;code&gt;欢迎&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%AC%A2%E8%BF%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;welcome&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and is typed as &lt;code&gt;huan ying&lt;/code&gt;. This is a pretty basic word in Chinese so you can easily look it up even via a quick Google search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;In case you encounter a similar case down the road...&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use macOS or iOS, you can add a handwritten Chinese keyboard, and write the character in the screen by handwriting it. Then tap on the correct character on the pop-up and search it via Google, or paste it on the dictionary (macOS has a default Chinese dictionary, for your information).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use iOS and download &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pleco.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an app called Pleco&lt;/a&gt; (which is available in Android as well), you can use the handwritten feature and dictionary together via an In-App Purchase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T17:54:51.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25655" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25659" CreationDate="2017-07-24T18:51:32.310" Score="2" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are one-character words for &quot;old&quot;, &quot;love,&quot; &quot;book,&quot; and many more important concepts. Why is 青年 the way to say &quot;young&quot; and not a one-word character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2017-07-24T22:56:47.880" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T22:56:47.880" Title="Why doesn't the Chinese language have a one character word for &quot;young&quot;?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25653" CreationDate="2017-07-24T21:22:05.380" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这 is more colloquial, usually followed by a classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;此 is more literary, it does not need classifier, and more often followed by a single character word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此人= 這個人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此事= 這件事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此地= 這個地方&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此物= 這件東西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此時= 這個時候&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此刻= 這個時刻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此心= 這顆心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此案= 這宗案&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classifier after 這 can often be omitted. For example: 這個地方--&amp;gt; 這地方; 這件東西--&amp;gt;這東西.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since classifiers work with counting words,  we can write 這一個地方; 這三件東西.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we don't usually use counting word with 此&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'此一地方' , '此三東西. just sound unnatural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T21:40:57.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25657" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25658" CreationDate="2017-07-24T21:29:16.420" Score="1" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this:&#xA;一边对着双桅小帆船呶呶嘴。“他帮我把船从巴拿马开过来。”&#xA;I nodded toward the ketch. &quot; He helped me sail her up from Panama. &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does '桅'mean here?&#xA;Does 呶呶嘴 mean 'nod'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T22:07:57.523" Title="Could you please explain the words in this '一边对着双桅小帆船呶呶嘴'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25657" CreationDate="2017-07-24T22:01:03.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'桅' is short for '桅杆', which is mast. So '双桅' means two-masted. &#xA;'呶呶嘴' literaly means 'Pout lips'(no sexual meaning here). It means instead of pointing that sailboat by hand, some one points the lips to the sailboat instead. Some time I do this kind of things when I'm being lazy or my hands are occupied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2017-07-24T22:07:57.523" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T22:07:57.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25655" CreationDate="2017-07-24T22:03:23.830" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does. 少 means young. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/3c/92426.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;少不更事&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also 幼 for children and 老 for old( you already know).&#xA;孟子 said: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/15f/358872.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;老吾老以及人之老,幼吾幼以及人之幼&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2017-07-24T22:15:44.497" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T22:15:44.497" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25660" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-25T02:01:23.827" Score="5" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually you can see in China, some buses, banks, hospitals and other service outlets have a sign attached to them, reading 青年文明号, that is quite beyond me. Especially the word 号 what does it mean here? Is it something like the name of a ship or an aeroplane?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T15:38:31.023" Title="What does &quot;青年文明号&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21397" CreationDate="2017-07-25T02:33:00.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the first two, I may call them 三字詞(詞語).&#xA;For the last one, I would call it 俗語.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But definitely not 成語. 成語should have a story behind it. Usually from history, fair tales etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;詞語 in brief means it's formed by words that can be used independently. While putting them all together make the phrase more descriptive. Different combination of words may be used for the same thing/situation in different eras or even different communities in China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17447" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T02:33:00.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25660" CreationDate="2017-07-25T03:51:52.957" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;号 is a common designation word for naming man-made vehicles like  ships, planes and trains. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ronald Reagan = 罗纳德·里根&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USS Ronald Reagan = 罗纳德·里根&lt;strong&gt;号&lt;/strong&gt; (super-carrier &lt;strong&gt;named after&lt;/strong&gt; Ronald Reagan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%9D%92%E5%B9%B4%E6%96%87%E6%98%8E%E5%8F%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;青年文明号&lt;/a&gt;&quot; is a youth organization that emphasize on &quot;Youth movement &quot; And the word 号 in the organization's name signified this fact. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is in fact, comparing itself to a ship or train (Something that move purposefully ; a vehicle for advancing development ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-26T02:55:07.773" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T02:55:07.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9819" CreationDate="2017-07-25T07:59:30.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你愿意嫁给我吗？is the way normally we will say when the man ask the loved one to marry him.&#xA;also we will say ,和我结婚，好吗” and “嫁给我好吗？it is also ok.&#xA;you can see this article to check more about Common Chinese Nicknames for Your Loved Ones&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/daily-chinese-learning-tips/chinese-nicknames-for-your-loved-ones/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/daily-chinese-learning-tips/chinese-nicknames-for-your-loved-ones/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T07:59:30.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25664" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-25T12:36:42.030" Score="3" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;融 means melting, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 融资 means melting capital? Some Chinese friends told me that it was the ancient practice where gold ingots from different sources are melted to become the property of somebody for public good. Is that true or is there any other justification for that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T09:05:23.793" Title="What does 融 in 融资 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25664" CreationDate="2017-07-25T18:59:33.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is true that, generally speaking, 融 means &lt;em&gt;to melt&lt;/em&gt;, but has other meanings too, especially in the economic context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, as 賈可 Jacky wrote, the character 融 can be translated as &lt;em&gt;circulation&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;to circulate&lt;/em&gt;. In the online Chinese Dictionary &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt; this character is defined as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;● &lt;strong&gt;融&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  róng  ㄖㄨㄥˊ&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt; 固体受热变软或化为流体：～化。～解。消～。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt; 调合，和谐：～合。～洽。～汇贯通。其乐～～。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt; 流通：～泄（飘动，浮动）。金～（货币的流通，即储蓄，信贷、汇兑、股票和证券交易等经济活动的总称）。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt; 长远、永久：～裔（形容声调悠长）。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning we are interested in is #3, which says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...]&lt;p&gt;3. &lt;em&gt;Circulation&lt;/em&gt; [流通]: like in the words &lt;em&gt;fluctuation&lt;/em&gt; [融泄] (floating, drifting) and &lt;em&gt;finance&lt;/em&gt; [金融] (circulation of money, namely savings, credit, remittances, buying and selling of stocks, and other economic activities of this kind)&lt;/p&gt;[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, this character 融 has to do with circulation (流通) of capital (资本), and that's why the meaning of 融资 is in fact &lt;em&gt;financing&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;funding&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This particular meaning of 融 can also be found in the 《汉语大字典》 and in the 《辞源》. Both dictionaries explain this character by saying that its meaning is basically 流通 (&lt;em&gt;to circulate&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find any reference to the ancient tradition your friend mentioned. Anyway, it seems to me that the word 融资 is quite a modern coinage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%9E%8D%E8%B3%87#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;融资 entry in Wiktionary (Traditional characters)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%9E%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;融 entry in Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/23/sw/878D.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;融 entry in zdic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10944" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T18:59:33.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20897" CreationDate="2017-07-25T19:28:13.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;向來&lt;/strong&gt; is from the beginning until now. It can also means &quot;it's always been like this&quot;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Ex.&lt;/em&gt; 我向來不吃魚。I never ate fish.&#xA;陳先生向來不打電話。Mr. Chen never calls.&#xA;他向來工作很認真。He's always doing his work diligently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一直&lt;/strong&gt; Means doing something continuously or endlessly.&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Ex.&lt;/em&gt; 他一直打我。He keeps beating me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;總是&lt;/strong&gt; also means always, but often used to imply something negative. Note that it can also be used for positive sentences also.&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Ex.&lt;/em&gt; 他總是不理我。He never gave me attention.&#xA;你為什麼總是遲到？Why are you always late?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他做事總是有始有終。He always finishes what he starts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17557" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T19:28:13.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25667" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25673" CreationDate="2017-07-25T23:00:47.563" Score="1" ViewCount="1693" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference between these two words - 经历 and 经验? Both mean &lt;code&gt;experience&lt;/code&gt; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is a difference, how can I use it accordingly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T07:14:58.553" Title="What is the difference between 经验 and 经历?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2017-07-26T18:40:16.317" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25667" CreationDate="2017-07-26T01:32:38.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;经历 stresses on the passive side, while 经验 on the active side. Like in a fire, it is not your intention to have such an experience because it is a disaster, but you get through it, so that is 经历， but when you tell others what you feel about or what you have learnt from it, that is 经验. That is my understanding, and hope it is helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T01:32:38.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25669" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-26T04:08:41.260" Score="1" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've encountered 眷顾 on several occasions but I am not sure how to distinguish it from 照顾 in terms of usage. I have seen an example sentence of 上帝眷顾我们的事业, so is 眷顾 usually used with God and deities?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17561" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T03:02:07.643" Title="How is 眷顾 used in spoken Chinese?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25669" CreationDate="2017-07-26T04:59:44.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8549/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;眷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) family dependent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) care for, have tender feeling for, take interest in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/3635/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;顧&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) [v] look after; attend to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/53127/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;眷顧&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(divine) protection and care; to take care of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 眷顧 and 照顾 mean &amp;quot;to take care of/ to look after&amp;quot;. But 眷 carries the meaning of 'family dependent' therefore 眷顧 also carries the meaning of &amp;quot; to take care of someone &lt;strong&gt;like family dependent&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; or &amp;quot; to protect and care for someone &lt;strong&gt;like family dependent&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can 照顾 a garden, but you cannot 眷顧 it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you say you 照顾家人, that means you look after your family. ( with or without emotional attachment)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you say you 眷顾家人, that means you love, protect and look after your family dependent.(with emotional attachment)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;神的眷顾 = God's protection and care (All man are God's children)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T19:00:13.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2718" CreationDate="2017-07-26T06:13:40.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another Cantonese learning resource you might want to try for building your Cantonese vocabulary from scratch is the Beginner Cantonese app, available at &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.beginnercantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.beginnercantonese&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17476" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T06:13:40.603" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2017-07-26T06:13:40.603" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25669" CreationDate="2017-07-26T07:04:01.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;眷顾 can be considered as the English word &quot;bless&quot;(verb) or &quot;blessing&quot; (noun), relevant to God and deities. well, 照顾 is normal word meaning &quot;take care of&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T07:04:01.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25667" CreationDate="2017-07-26T07:14:58.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a simple way to differentiate these two phrases. &quot;经历&quot; is something you have experienced in the past, whereas &quot;经验&quot; is conclusions, BKMs (best known method) or any useful knowledge you had gotten from those experiences (those 经历s). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T07:14:58.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25664" CreationDate="2017-07-26T07:28:04.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think if you understand the phrase &quot;融入&quot; (means gathering, collecting, blending into),you would have better idea of &quot;融资&quot;. So, &quot;融资&quot; could be interpreted as &quot;融入资金&quot;, which means gathering (or borrowing) money or capital (into a money pool for some purpose maybe).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T07:28:04.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25664" CreationDate="2017-07-26T21:00:38.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;融 can also mean &quot;fusion&quot;, c.f. 融合&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17571" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T21:00:38.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25577" CreationDate="2017-07-26T23:58:21.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;祖國 probably imported along with nationalism from Western world. You can find fatherland, vaderland, vaterland and many others in European languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imperial China is the centre of the world, containing vast of piece of lands. It is no need to use the term &quot;ancestor country&quot;. People under imperial China is clan-oriented, not country-oriented. Instead, they preferred to say their home &quot;village&quot; and &quot;county&quot; (not country!), and places where ancestors lived. This is why people refers to 祖藉 instead of 祖國.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In common speech, 鄉下 is more frequently used.  Even if one goes out of China, they refers China as 唐山.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is better not to use 祖國 as it has nationalism context. It is widely used in propaganda.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T23:58:21.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25456" CreationDate="2017-07-27T00:11:24.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would go for one of the following words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衯衯: 衣長的樣子。《文選．司馬相如．子虛賦》：「衯衯裶裶，揚袘戍削。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;繃繃：《前漢·宣帝紀》曾孫雖在襁緥。《註》師古曰：襁卽今之小兒繃也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17572" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T00:11:24.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25660" CreationDate="2017-07-27T01:01:04.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;號 in the sense of verb is &quot;calling&quot;. 號 in the sense of noun is the words that is used in &quot;calling&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In specific context, 號 is a name allowing others to call someone or something.  You can find this context in 名號, 稱號, 號稱 and 字號. 號數 is a number allowing others to call someone or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In imperial China, ships are not named. In Western world, ships are named. When China imports those big iron ships, Chinese also named it. But people at that time called it like 新華輪, where 輪 is 輪船 (wheel-ship) and 輪船 is extended to more advanced ships without wheels. It is no 號 at the end of name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of suffix on ships probably comes from Japan. Japanese enforced all the names of non-government ships to append 丸 as suffix. When Chinese writers translate these ship names, every 丸 is simply translated to 號.  This practice becomes the suffix of ship names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the eyes of Chinese, those big iron ships have implicit meaning the &quot;advanced&quot;.  Yes, 青年文明號 is like ship name, it is an implicit use of ship name. 青年文明號 is a youth organisation under Communist Party. This kind of metaphors are common in the party's language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T01:01:04.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25680" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-27T02:10:09.680" Score="1" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;My issue here is that I would struggle even in my mother tongue to repeat word for word a passage I just heard, let alone one in Chinese. Has anyone done this exam yet? Any tips on how to prepare for the first part? I'm assuming that you have the opportunity to write down notes as you hear the passage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17573" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T14:37:44.420" Title="For part 1 of HSKK高级 exam, do you really need to repeat word for word what is said in the recording?" Tags="&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25556" CreationDate="2017-07-27T02:33:26.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that  交通 doesn't so much &lt;em&gt;have a meaning&lt;/em&gt; as it &lt;em&gt;expresses an ideal&lt;/em&gt; for the educational institutions it was attached to at their hopeful foundings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term conveys what might have been meant by &lt;em&gt;Enlightenment&lt;/em&gt; in the America of the late 18th Century, &lt;em&gt;liberal arts&lt;/em&gt; in the world of John Dewey, and &lt;em&gt;the Humanities&lt;/em&gt; in the West today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem today is that &quot;Does the cat catch mice?&quot; is about as profound as any statement of Chinese ideals is allowed to get.  For the moment, then, it's probably safest to stick with &lt;em&gt;Communications,&lt;/em&gt; moronic though it be.  The thought &lt;em&gt;humanism with Chinese characteristics&lt;/em&gt; should certainly not be allowed to come to the surface of one's mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9414" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T02:33:26.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25680" CreationDate="2017-07-27T10:03:33.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is some information I found on the internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For part I of HSKK(高級), you have better repeat &quot;word to word&quot; and &quot;fluently&quot; what is said in the recording to get the higher score !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HSKK 评分说明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;听后复述&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;适用试题：HSKK（高级）第 1-3 题。&#xA;答题要求：每题播放一段话，要求考生听后复述。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;评分档次：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高：考生能完整、流利地复述材料的主要内容，较少停顿和重复。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中：考生能复述部分材料内容，停顿、重复较多，有语法错误。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;低：考生复述内容与原材料出入大，语言零乱，信息量小。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetest.cn/userfiles/file/HSKK-pingfen.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chinesetest.cn/userfiles/file/HSKK-pingfen.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;录 音 材 料&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（音乐，30 秒，渐弱）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你好！你叫什么名字？ （10 秒）&#xA;你是哪国人？ （10 秒）&#xA;你的序号是多少？ （10 秒）&#xA;好，现在开始第 1 到 3 题。每题你会听到一个句子，请在“嘀”声后重复这个句&#xA;子。现在开始第 1 题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1．（2 分钟）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有一天，小李在乡间的小路上开着车。正当他开心地欣赏美丽风景时，突然&#xA;迎面开来了一辆货车，更没想到的是，长相奇怪的货车司机还摇下窗户对他大喊&#xA;一声：“猪！”小李一听，越想越不明白，也越想越生气，于是他也摇下车窗回头&#xA;大骂：“你才是猪！”才刚骂完，他便迎头撞上一群过马路的猪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.（2 分钟）&#xA;  ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.（2 分钟）&#xA; ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ttcn.co.jp/hsk/contents/text/hskkouyugaojimoni9.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ttcn.co.jp/hsk/contents/text/hskkouyugaojimoni9.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17263" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T10:03:33.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25684" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-27T14:31:23.133" Score="1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;旗舰 is flagship, but 旗舰店 is not a shop where a flagship is on sale, right? If it is a shop in relation to flagship, the meaning is not very clear. Because a headquarter is a better choice for that. So what is the real meaning of this phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T23:22:07.807" Title="What does 旗舰店 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25684" CreationDate="2017-07-27T14:47:09.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;旗舰店 is just a direct translation of flagship store, which is used in english like this one: &lt;a href=&quot;http://visit5thavenue.com/category/flagship-stores/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;5th Avenue&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T14:47:09.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25684" CreationDate="2017-07-27T20:25:10.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taken from the online Dictionary of International Trade:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;In retail business the designation of flagship is given to a retailer’s primary location, a store in a prominent location, a chain’s largest store, the store that holds or sells the highest volume of merchandise, a retailer’s most well-known location, a chain’s first retail outlet, a store location with decor or merchandise mix that is distinctly different from the rest of the chain, or the store location in a chain which carries the most high-priced merchandise catering to the most upscale customers.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in English, a flagship store does not sell flagships either. And it differs from the headquarter in that a flagship store is a retail store whereas headquarter is usually offices where business decisions regarding the chain are made. Both in Chinese and in English, the word &quot;flagship -旗舰&quot; is used figuratively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T20:25:10.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23789" CreationDate="2017-07-27T22:59:13.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't mind reading on your phone, you could try 网易蜗牛读书.&#xA;It has many great books that usually have to be paid to read(many that are translated from English as well). Once you register, it gives you &lt;em&gt;one hour per day&lt;/em&gt; free reading time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or go to taobao.com and buy an eBook for as little as 1 dollar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T22:59:13.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25684" CreationDate="2017-07-27T23:22:07.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in e-commercials,like taobao's tmall,it means it is the brand's official e-shop.for the realistic shop,it means it is the mainly shop of the brand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T23:22:07.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24239" CreationDate="2017-07-27T23:30:39.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Would someone speaking Chinese intuitively associate this picture of an axe with the word 鉞?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&#xA;鉞 is not a commonly used character, and a hard one even for adults.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Would it make sense to use this picture to illustrate the letter Y in a series of pictures illustrating pinyin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 鉞 is not used to refer to the ax anymore nowadays. If the ax has to be on the ball, it will be paired with f.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.&#xA;I think the ax is put there because the Y resembles a tree and is even painted green.&#xA;It probably is a coincidence that 鉞 has the pronunciation of Yue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T23:30:39.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25692" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-28T00:43:30.547" Score="-1" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese &quot;词语&quot; don't have any relationship in many situation ,so how do you remember it like remember English words &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17582" LastActivityDate="2017-08-06T03:27:45.930" Title="How do you learn and remember Chinese words or &quot;词语&quot;" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-08-12T20:51:03.823" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25693" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-28T04:06:17.880" Score="3" ViewCount="14085" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Mr. Confucius said, 食色性也, food and sex play important roles in one's life, when you wants to eat, there is a word in Chinese 饿 to illustrate this state, but there seems no such a word in Chinese to describe the situation when you are horny, or perhaps there is, but beyond my knowledge. So anybody can help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T07:00:10.443" Title="What is the equivalent in Chinese for the English word &quot;horny&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25693" CreationDate="2017-07-28T04:41:33.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;发骚&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 horny&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 lecherous&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T04:41:33.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25705" CreationDate="2017-07-28T04:45:15.423" Score="1" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel like this might be another “Holmes”-type translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did “Jung” as in Carl Gustav Jung get translated as 荣格?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can’t hear the transliteration at all, myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did it turn out to be translated this way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T14:55:59.070" Title="Why is “Jung” translated 荣格?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25693" CreationDate="2017-07-28T05:11:21.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/horny&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Horny&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;4. (Slang: Vulgar): lustful; sexually excited&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/41781/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;發情&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;be horny; libidinous&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is &lt;strong&gt;horny&lt;/strong&gt; - 他在&lt;strong&gt;發情&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Horny woman -  &lt;strong&gt;發情的&lt;/strong&gt;女人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Horny man - &lt;strong&gt;發情的&lt;/strong&gt;男人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be subtle, you can use 亢奮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/57147/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;亢奮&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;very excited&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is &lt;strong&gt;horny&lt;/strong&gt; - 他&lt;strong&gt;亢奮&lt;/strong&gt;起來&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T05:11:21.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25697" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25790" CreationDate="2017-07-28T06:30:25.660" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend has a statue and there is some Chinese text on it. Can anyone translate it to English for me. Also, I would like to know more about this statue, any links, history about it, anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BtsPT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BtsPT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/km9Sy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/km9Sy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17583" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-26T11:33:06.697" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T11:33:06.697" Title="Can anyone translate this Chinese text? (Characters identified: 招財納福)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-08-03T06:34:45.807" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25693" CreationDate="2017-07-28T07:00:10.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;饥渴，example, “你太饥渴了！” meaning you are sexually thirsty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T07:00:10.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25699" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-28T07:13:58.100" Score="1" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm really confused about what the idiom '嬉笑怒骂' in this sentence means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17584" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-07-28T08:58:43.090" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T17:47:38.140" Title="Can anyone explain to me what &quot;热闹的嬉笑怒骂外加弹唱小曲&quot; means?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25699" CreationDate="2017-07-28T07:39:44.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;嬉笑怒骂 is a common expression&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嬉笑 (playfully laugh); 怒骂 (angrily scold)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;嬉笑怒骂&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;to ridicule&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (ironically and/ or bluntly )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[热闹的][嬉笑怒骂][外加][弹唱小曲]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[lively][ridicule][plus extra][playing of little song]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;弹唱小曲 (play little song)&quot; -- &quot;&lt;strong&gt;sing song about it&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is the third way of ridiculing beside &quot;&lt;strong&gt;playfully laugh&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; and &quot;&lt;strong&gt;angrily scold&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;热闹的嬉笑怒骂外加弹唱小曲” means: &quot; lively ridicule every which way and more&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-28T17:47:38.140" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T17:47:38.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25699" CreationDate="2017-07-28T11:03:19.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in china we never be quiet when we have dinner,even in the restautrant we do much worse,cause everyone is talking loud,if you want to your friends hear what you are talking you have to talk louder,then we get louder and lounder.so what you asking,it is qiute like you and your friends have dinner in a resraurant,you are talking about something funny or a joke,and some singer or singers sing a country music song&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T11:03:19.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25695" CreationDate="2017-07-28T11:07:35.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;荣格 is sounded like rongger.I think it is just try to seperate from the transkation of zhang which is translated as 张 in chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T11:07:35.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24239" CreationDate="2017-07-28T11:59:56.207" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really really hope you are good at chinese language so that I can explain this in chinese word which is far more better than I do this in english...&#xA;first of all,you are right,it is not a 鉞 in the picture,it is an axe.&#xA;this is a 鉞&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Nhg9h.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Nhg9h.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鉞 is not an common weapon which are used to fight in the war.it is a ritual object which only for showing the power and the glory of its master.&#xA;in ancient age of china,there are nine rank of the mandarin.you can not kill(usually is cutting off head) a mandarin up from the second rank by a simple weapon like a sword or a knife,you must use 鉞.so it often is an ritual object belongs to the emperor.if the emperor give the power of having 鉞 to a madarin,then the madarin can kill every other madarins without asking the emperor at first.so it is the most power of a madarin can get.in our history if a madarin can have 鉞,his emperor must be very powerless or just a puppet,he will instead him to be the emperor and intial a dynasty of himself's very soon.or you can understand as it is the last step of a mandarin to instead an emperor.&#xA;and emperors did not usually use 鉞 to kill mandarin if he want to kill a mandarin of second rank or upper,he would make him to be a normal person at first and kill him with a simple weapon or if the emperor is very kind and gentle,he will just hang him up or poison him,cause it can save the integrity body which is very important in chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastEditorUserId="15909" LastEditDate="2017-07-28T12:06:14.697" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T12:06:14.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25695" CreationDate="2017-07-28T14:17:36.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carl Jung was Swiss German. Jung is pronounced /jʊŋ/ (IPA), so I'd say 荣格 is pretty close, and a perfectly acceptable transliteration. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2017-07-28T14:55:59.070" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T14:55:59.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25706" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-28T17:28:51.357" Score="0" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would 董 be a possibility?  (Thinking a great deal about rulers in the context of conduct and character lately, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dong_Zhuo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;董卓&lt;/a&gt; keeps jumping to mind;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16864" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T02:53:00.443" Title="How may &quot;Donald&quot; be rendered in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25708" CreationDate="2017-07-28T19:29:10.560" Score="2" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;I &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.it/2017/07/chinese-poetic-sappho.html?m=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;am planning to translate all of Sappho to Chinese&lt;/a&gt;. I wanted to start from Sappho Campbell 31 / Edmonds 2 (which is fragment theta there as well as &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.it/2017/07/all-of-sappho.html?m=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, theta being the Greek way of writing 9), and that requires me to translate &quot;that man seems to me&quot;. As far as &quot;that man seems&quot;, I can get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那个人看起来 | Nà ge rén kànqǐlái,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or with &lt;code&gt;仿佛 | fǎngfú&lt;/code&gt; or even &lt;code&gt;显得 | xiânde&lt;/code&gt; (or other similar verbs like &lt;code&gt;似乎 | sìhu&lt;/code&gt;). But &quot;to me&quot;? The only thing I could think of was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我觉得那个人看起来 | Wô juéde nà ge rén kànqîlái,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but for some reason I don't like this. So how do I translate that indirect object into Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-07-28T20:18:24.470" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T11:00:45.053" Title="&quot;Seems to [...]&quot;: how to express tha indirect object?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25707" CreationDate="2017-07-28T20:53:17.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;那个人看起来&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;(that man seems) is perfectly fine &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can omit &quot;看起来&quot;  in &quot;我觉得那个人看起来&quot; and just write &quot;&lt;strong&gt;我觉得那个人&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;對我來說，那個人 ( to me, that man)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在我看來，那個人 ( from my point of view, that man)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我看那個人 ( I see that man/ that man, to me)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T20:53:17.547" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25710" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-29T02:16:02.583" Score="1" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does it mean style here? If so, the Chinese word should have been 风 as the shortened version of 风格.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other meaning might be department, as in a college, like department of foreign languages, but it is obviously impossible in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it means &quot;made in Japan&quot; or &quot;made in Germany&quot;, many vehicles are actually made in China, if they are imports, could they be so named as 日系 or 德系？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T04:07:30.050" Title="What does 系 in 日系车 and 德系车mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25710" CreationDate="2017-07-29T03:02:55.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;系 could be 'a system', 'a series' in its original meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, 系 could be understood as where those car brands from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Toyota, Honda cars are 日系車. GM, Tesla cars are 美系車. BMW cars are 德系車. Other car brands in Europe except for Germany are 歐系車. 德系車 is independent because BMW and Mercedes-Benz are much famous brands in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another case, Volvo was sold to Chinese firm. We still call Volvo as 歐系車 because the brand Volvo was started in Europe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17588" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T03:02:55.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25710" CreationDate="2017-07-29T04:07:30.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Originally, it means &quot;made in Japan&quot; or &quot;made in Germany&quot;. As you said, there are lots of vehicles assembled in China, so, now when people say &quot;日系&quot;, he/she means the parent company belongs. For example, Benz's parent company belongs to Germany, so people will say &quot;Benz is 德系车&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6443" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T04:07:30.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25692" CreationDate="2017-07-29T04:49:52.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chinese words don't have any relationship in many situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please let me introduce some history:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ancient Chinese use single character for word in most situations.&#xA;Thus character and word is equivalent for most part of Ancient Chinese.&#xA;Thus if you have seen two or more characters,&#xA;chances are you have seen a phrase, not a word (there are exceptions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, mainly due to the reduction of the phonetic system,&#xA;voices of a lot of characters become the same.&#xA;To avoid ambiguity in spoken language,&#xA;phrases become more and more used in place of single character,&#xA;and turned into words at the last.&#xA;(This is the main reason, there is other reason.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So from the history of evolution of the Chinese language,&#xA;we can conclude that most of words are frozen phrases from Ancient Chinese.&#xA;Parts of phrases are certainly have relationships.&#xA;Thus most Chinese words do have relationship of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some words are obvious:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;左 = left&#xA;右 = right&#xA;左右 = left (and) right&#xA;&#xA;书 = book&#xA;包 = bag&#xA;书包 = book bag&#xA;&#xA;走 = walk&#xA;路 = road&#xA;走路 = walk (on) road&#xA;&#xA;地 = earth&#xA;震 = quake&#xA;地震 = earthquake&#xA;&#xA;赶 = drive&#xA;走 = walk&#xA;赶走 = drive (sb. to make them walk away) = drive away&#xA;&#xA;书 = book&#xA;本 = volume&#xA;书本 = book in volumes&#xA;     = book&#xA;(It just means book. Why not say `book` 书 directly?&#xA;To avoid ambiguity in spoken languages,&#xA;there are so many characters share the same voice.)&#xA;&#xA;看看 = look look = look&#xA;&#xA;狮 = lion&#xA;子 = you can consider this as a mark for noun&#xA;狮子 = lion&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even some imported words are quite structural:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;反 = anti&#xA;全 = global&#xA;球 = ball&#xA;化 = -ize, -ization&#xA;反全球化 = anti globalization&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exceptions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;mimic sounds in other languages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;T恤 sounds like T-shirt&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;沙发 sounds like sofa&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not difficult to understand if you are familiar with the other language.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;mimic sounds in very ancient Chinese, maybe before characters was invented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 窈窕 have about more than 10 combinations of different characters (forms), a clear implication that it mimics a sound, and should be read as a whole. In the last the form 窈窕 wins and becomes the &quot;standard&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These words need to be memorize.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is most Chinese teachers are not linguists,&#xA;and have a very shallow understanding of Ancient Chinese languages.&#xA;So they may not be able to explain the structure of a word to you.&#xA;And they do not bother to search for references and papers to answer your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;国 is roughly country &#xA;家 is roughly state&#xA;国家 is roughly country or states&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the meaning &quot;state&quot; has been lost in modern Chinese&#xA;(meaning &quot;home&quot; solely in modern Chinese),&#xA;so you may find the word 国家 confusing.&#xA;In fact, I have heard Chinese teachers teaching kids as&#xA;&quot;国家 means 有国才有家, roughly &quot;without a country, there is no home&quot;.&#xA;Misinterpretation is much worse than no interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is 葡萄,&#xA;it is considered to be borrowed from a foreign language,&#xA;probably bādaga in Old Persian,&#xA;maybe bodhi in Sanskirt,&#xA;or bótrys in Greek.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this is more about a problem in education,&#xA;not in the language.&#xA;After all, Chinese is a widely used natural language.&#xA;Thus it cannot be too illogical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not many people want to learn a language as a linguist.&#xA;And few teachers can teach a language as a linguist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of native English speakers teaching English in China.&#xA;Although not many of them understand Latin or Greek,&#xA;at least some of them try to teach English words based on morphology.&#xA;And I hope more and more Chinese teachers will consider this approach of teaching Chinese words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17589" LastEditorUserId="17589" LastEditDate="2017-08-06T03:27:45.930" LastActivityDate="2017-08-06T03:27:45.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25715" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25716" CreationDate="2017-07-29T09:49:17.893" Score="0" ViewCount="362" Body="&lt;p&gt;So formally speaking , the times of day can be expressed as :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早上&#xA;上午&#xA;中午&#xA;下午&#xA;晚上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I want to know approximately what time can be considered 下午，晚上 etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, when it comes to meals:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it more common to say 下午飯 or 中午飯？ especially give the fact that usually people don't eat lunch exactly at 12:00 right .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would I call a late breakfast, brunch, late lunch (but not afternoon tea) in Chinese/Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T14:10:54.990" Title="Associating times of day with meals" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25715" CreationDate="2017-07-29T12:14:40.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;question 1 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;approximate time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   早上 -- 6:00--8:00&#xA;&#xA;   上午 -- 8:00 -- 12:00&#xA;&#xA;   中午 -- 12:00 --14:00&#xA;&#xA;   下午 -- 14:00 -- 18:00&#xA;&#xA;   晚上 -- after 18:00&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this my understanding(not formally), and splitted most by work time, i would say most people would agree&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;question 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;there are three meals in Chinese(as in the saying : 一日三餐):&#xA;&#xA;    早餐(breakfast) -- 早上 &#xA;&#xA;    午饭（lunch）--- 中午&#xA;&#xA;    晚饭（dinner）  -- 晚上 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;question 3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;late breakfast -- there is no such thing（is there a name for it in English?）&#xA;&#xA;brunch --  no such thing &#xA;&#xA;late lunch -- no such thing（is there a name for it in English?）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we Chinese kind of think this things unnormal, you should be woking during this time (8:00--12:00,14:00--18:00), and if you are eating there must be something wrong with your lifestyle, and we believe it is not good for your health, you should eat regularly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16812" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T12:14:40.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25715" CreationDate="2017-07-29T14:10:54.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Brunch in Chinese  -  from Wikipedia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese word “早午饭” is defined as brunch, “早饭” means breakfast and “午饭” means lunch in Chinese. The combination of “早饭” and “午饭” is “早午饭”, as known as brunch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a late breakfast today. 我今天比較晚吃早饭/早餐 or 我今天早饭吃的比平时晚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had brunch today . 我今天吃早午饭/早午餐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a late lunch today. 我今天比較晚吃午饭/午餐 or 我今天午饭吃的比平时晚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17263" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T14:10:54.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25718" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25720" CreationDate="2017-07-29T23:14:51.127" Score="2" ViewCount="1913" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both have come up in the course of learning HSK vocabulary, and the dictionary definitions and usage examples I've found for each seem to have a good deal of overlap. Where should they be used, and what differentiates the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17596" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T00:20:04.703" Title="What are the distinctions between 大概 and 大约？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25719" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25829" CreationDate="2017-07-30T00:05:17.650" Score="0" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;A number of Taiwanese universities, including 國立臺灣大學, follow the naming pattern 國立臺灣X大學. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This order, &quot;National Taiwan X University&quot; sounds awkward in English. A more natural order would be &quot;Taiwan National X University&quot; (or, more idiomatically, &quot;Taiwan State X University&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This reverse order also seems more common in Chinese, e.g. 莫斯科国立大学, 釜山国立大学, 。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even some of these Taiwanese universities used to have the opposite order, e.g. 臺北帝國大學, 臺灣省立師範大學. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Does the word order 國立臺灣X大學 sound unnatural to Chinese native speakers?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If so, my guess would be that the order 臺灣國立X大學 was pointedly avoided to prevent any possible implication that Taiwan is a nation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastEditorUserId="3183" LastEditDate="2017-08-08T12:40:12.240" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T12:03:32.807" Title="Strange order of 國立臺灣大學?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25718" CreationDate="2017-07-30T00:14:44.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;大概 is more general &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大約 is more narrow. Specifically be used to express estimation of numbers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 大概 and 大約 can mean &quot;approximately&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;There are &lt;strong&gt;approximately&lt;/strong&gt; fifty people&quot; can be translated as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;大概&lt;/strong&gt;有五十人&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;大約&lt;/strong&gt;有五十人&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大概二十英尺 / 大約二十英尺 (about 20 feet)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大概四十岁 / 大約四十岁 (about 40 years old)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大概三年/ 大約三年 (about 3 years)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 大概 also means &quot;probably&quot; and &quot;roughly&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 他&lt;strong&gt;大概&lt;/strong&gt;不会来了 (He &lt;strong&gt;probably&lt;/strong&gt; won't come), but you cannot say 他大約不会来了 (He approximately won't come)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say &quot;&lt;strong&gt;大概&lt;/strong&gt;說明一下&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;roughly&lt;/strong&gt; explain a little), but you cannot say &quot;大約說明一下&quot; (approximately explain a little)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Whenever numbers are involved, you can safely use either 大約 or 大概 for &quot;approximately&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-30T00:20:04.703" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T00:20:04.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25719" CreationDate="2017-07-30T00:28:26.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does the word order 國立臺灣X大學 sound unnatural to Chinese native speakers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it doesn't. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;國立 means &quot;national&quot; (Government ran)&#xA;臺灣 is where XX university is located. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 國立 and 臺灣 are description of 'XX university' . The order is not important since 臺灣 is not a nation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &quot;防空短程導彈&quot; (anti-air short range missile) and &quot;短程防空導彈&quot; (short range anti-air missile) are the same thing. Just the order of the descriptions are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;However, If it was &quot;中國國立大學&quot;, then the order would be important. (Since there is only one China, 中國國立大學 can only be one university representing the whole China )&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-30T00:49:36.827" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T00:49:36.827" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25719" CreationDate="2017-07-30T03:05:14.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the order depends. If &quot;臺灣大學&quot; is the school's name (as a whole), then it should go &quot;國立臺灣大學&quot;. And if &quot;臺灣&quot; is used as an attributive to the university's name, then &quot;臺灣國立X大學&quot; goes a bit more natural than &quot;國立臺灣X大學&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T03:05:14.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25707" CreationDate="2017-07-30T11:00:45.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;English «Equal to the gods he seems to me, / That man who in front of you / Sits, and, near you, to you sweetly speaking / Listens, / And [sees you] lovably smiling».&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese &amp;lt;那个男人--我心中的男神，他就站在你的眼前，然后慢慢靠近你，坐在你的身边说着甜言蜜语，聆听你的倾诉，看着你可爱迷人的微笑&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I try to make this translation for you. This is my understanding of the stanza. You can make reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T11:00:45.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25726" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-30T12:41:36.377" Score="0" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;After my effort, I haven't found the equivalent yet, and it should not be too vulgar, if you have any idea you might share with us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T01:46:58.597" Title="What is the equivalent in Chinese for the phrase &quot;get laid&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25727" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25728" CreationDate="2017-07-30T14:09:14.710" Score="3" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese Belarus is &lt;code&gt;白俄罗斯&lt;/code&gt;, which literally means &lt;code&gt;White Russia&lt;/code&gt;. But I don't understand why it is called as such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you get more rigorous with the pronunciation, it is more like &lt;code&gt;be&lt;/code&gt;, but since there seems to be no word to be pronunced &lt;code&gt;be&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese, maybe &lt;code&gt;bei&lt;/code&gt; might be preferrable. So &lt;code&gt;呗俄罗斯&lt;/code&gt; or something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also why is it not more direct, such as &lt;code&gt;被拉入式&lt;/code&gt; or something like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this related to some historical or political reasons? (Especially because &lt;code&gt;黑&lt;/code&gt; is considered a bad word)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-07-31T23:17:13.453" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T23:17:13.453" Title="Why is Belarus called &quot;White Russia&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25727" CreationDate="2017-07-30T14:54:25.353" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because the name is also translated according to its original meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;白俄罗斯在本土语言中是Беларусь，其中前面的Бела是“白“的意思，剩下的是“罗斯”的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;白&lt;/code&gt; comes from the front part of the original phrase &lt;code&gt;Беларусь&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. &lt;code&gt;Бела&lt;/code&gt;, which means &lt;code&gt;white&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;白俄罗斯人是东斯拉夫人的一支，根本不属于俄罗斯民族。白俄罗斯人称自己为“别拉罗斯”（音）人，如果完全按照音译国名就是“别拉罗斯”。“别拉罗斯”的俄语翻译是&#xA;  Беларусь 由“Бела”（白色）和русь（罗斯）两部分组成。应该翻译为“白罗斯”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;英语可能是从俄语再译，是 belarussia 。可能是因为当时的翻译者，从英文的russia联想到俄罗斯，又因为俄文中的 Бела&#xA;  （白色），再加上对白俄罗斯人的历史没有常识，就想当然地翻译为“白俄罗斯”了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;references:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://russian.dbw.cn/system/2015/05/25/000975350.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;【风俗文化】其实，每一个“斯坦”国都有自己名字的由来&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lookmw.cn/doc/ekkwni.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;国名的疑问为什么叫白俄罗斯?因为他的人比俄罗斯还白?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.docin.com/p-1121235499.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;俄罗斯、白俄罗斯、乌克兰等名称的由来及其它&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T14:54:25.353" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25726" CreationDate="2017-07-30T16:30:21.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only term I could think of is &quot;上床”, which literally means &quot;on the bed&quot;. It is used as a metaphor for &quot;get laid&quot; or sex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16137" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T16:30:21.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25730" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25735" CreationDate="2017-07-30T16:59:22.457" Score="1" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are the &lt;strong&gt;literal&lt;/strong&gt; translations of the two phrases the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they have the &lt;strong&gt;same meaning&lt;/strong&gt;, why would people use '的' in a phrase like this? Would it make a phrase more polite or beautiful?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T06:52:58.577" Title="The use of '的', please explain to me what is the difference between '自由翱翔' and '自由的翱翔'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25731" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25813" CreationDate="2017-07-30T17:12:53.043" Score="2" ViewCount="579" Body="&lt;p&gt;So Mandarin has a pretty regular syllable construction. Usually, it's consonant-vowel. It cheats a little sometimes in a few ways, like ending on an n or an r or beginning with a w or a y and pronouncing the glide in such a way that it sounds somewhat like a vowel sound. These things make pretty good sense. And one of the first things I learned in my classes on Mandarin was that Chinese syllable construction works in this particular strict way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then along comes the numeral 2, which is written as the character 二. In the romanized form, it's written as &quot;èr,&quot; which sounds like the English word &quot;are&quot; with a descending tone. That's an unambiguous vowel-consonant syllable, and it uses none of the standard tricks. It seems out of place. Is it a vestige of an earlier form of Mandarin that allowed for more lax syllable construction? Are there more words that break the rules? It's a natural language, so that would make sense. Has someone looked into this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might be more of a linguistics question than anything, but I'm curious about it and don't know how to Google it properly. Some answers would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17602" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T06:45:49.583" Title="Irregular syllables in Mandarin—how does 二 (&quot;èr&quot;) exist?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-08-15T02:03:20.180" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25732" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-30T22:09:08.023" Score="-1" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hsk.academy/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hsk.academy/&lt;/a&gt; which gives translations up to HSK2. But maybe there are other resources? Ideal variant would be translated news, they are especially hard to read without help. But any other variants are good too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17479" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T21:05:37.630" Title="Where one can find example sentences with translations?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25731" CreationDate="2017-07-30T23:12:00.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;there are word have the same pronounciation with 二 like 儿 而 耳 尔.and there are more vowel-consonant constuctions like 昂 肮 盎 pronoinced &lt;em&gt;ang&lt;/em&gt; .there are even more vowel-vowel constructions like 奥 凹 袄 pronouced &lt;em&gt;ao&lt;/em&gt; and 爱 矮 挨 pronounced &lt;em&gt;ai&lt;/em&gt;.it is nothing about ealier and I dont know the reason neither.but I hear some experts said the ancient chonese language is far more difference sounded like now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T23:12:00.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25730" CreationDate="2017-07-31T01:44:06.610" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If translated literally, your two phrases would be fly freely and freedom's flying. In this case (the way I'm interpreting it), the 的 functions as a bit of a possessive. If you meant 地, which in this case would turn the 自由 into an adverb (freely instead of free or freedom), then there isn't much of a difference in meaning. However, the four letter phrase is a common trend in Chinese and is often associated with more poetic and metaphorical statements, so would be more beautiful, yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If you are confused about the finer details of the 的、得、地 grammatical construct, in general 得 is used between adverb and verb when the verb is first, and 地 in the reverse situation, while 的 is usually between adjective and noun.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17604" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T01:44:06.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25577" CreationDate="2017-07-31T01:52:47.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;祖国 would mean the country of one's ancestors, rather literally，and this is how it is usually used in my experience. It does have some nationalistic connotations, but these are not necessarily negative. It's all about what you're discussing, and context, after all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17604" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T01:52:47.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25738" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25740" CreationDate="2017-07-31T02:33:56.657" Score="1" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我找到了我一直渴望的东西&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I have found what I've been longing for&quot;&#xA;&quot;I have found who I've been longing for&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which translation would be appropriate? Can 东西 refer to a person instead of thing in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15622" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T11:51:42.580" Title="Can &quot;东西&quot; refer to a person instead of thing?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25739" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-31T02:41:15.093" Score="0" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday China held a large scale field parade in the training base of 朱日和. Usually a place is named after something or someone, but that name sounds like a name of a former celebrity, but there was not such a person in China's history, so it is not surprising for me to think it might be a homophone of something. Do you think 诛日俄 is a justified choice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T10:12:28.100" Title="Is 朱日和 the homophone word of 诛日俄？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25738" CreationDate="2017-07-31T03:56:54.470" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;don't use 東西 for a person, it is for angry only and negative assessment. 他也不是個什么好東西。(he is not a good man). when you translate such statement into Chinese, you can just make sure appending a '的' at end. In Chinese '的' following a verb can be used for 'what xxx (a pronoun) yyyy (a verb)'. so 我找到了梦寐以求的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2271" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T03:56:54.470" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25738" CreationDate="2017-07-31T04:03:19.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;the first one is correct &quot;I have found what I've been longing for&quot; . It can not be interpreted as a person in the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T04:03:19.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25739" CreationDate="2017-07-31T04:08:44.960" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;sounds like 中日俄， representing three countries, China, Japan and Russia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a place's name, so skip my answer here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-07-31T13:36:45.253" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T13:36:45.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25730" CreationDate="2017-07-31T04:26:09.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;both are ok. in real practice, I will read them slightly different. I may put a very short pause in the middle of 自由-翱翔, whereas I will read it directly through for 自由的翱翔. but that really doesn't matter in terms of its meaning and other effects (beautiful or polite). what will make it more attractive is the way you read it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T04:26:09.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25744" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26108" CreationDate="2017-07-31T05:44:28.803" Score="0" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently Analects is made up of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《论语》共20篇，492章&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first &quot;chapter&quot; as it is called in English is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;学而第一 16章&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;said to have sixteen 章.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the English index:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JWgJc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JWgJc.png&quot; alt=&quot;index&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the first chapter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uOX7L.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uOX7L.png&quot; alt=&quot;chapter one&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in English if it's chapter one, what is 1-16 of chapter one? Verses? Sentences? Phrases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or would book / chapter be more appropriate? book 1 / chapter 1?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T21:06:28.450" Title="How is Analects split up in English? Chapters? Verses?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25731" CreationDate="2017-07-31T08:11:58.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as a remark, it is far from certain whether there 'is' in any meaningful sense a sharp boundary between vowels on one side and consonants on the other; also, a Chinese [-n] is not necessarily the 'same sound' as an [-n] in English (and it is not even clear whether, phonologically speaking, a Ch. initial [n-] is the 'same' as a final [-n], though it is probably wise to identify the two. Bear in mind though that there are only few morphophonemic processes in Mandarin that make sounds swap positions within syllables). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, [pa] clearly starts with a explosive/stop consonant and ends in what is unambiguously a vowel, but in Ch. [pan] the [-n] is reaching far into the vowel, causing it to be nasalized. The syllables ending in nasals have therefore been variously analyzed as 'essentially open'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for what is often written [r-], [-r], consider that this rhotaid may be analyzed not so much as the voiced counterpart to Pinyin 'sh-' (a sibilant obstruent), but as something akin to the &lt;em&gt;vowel&lt;/em&gt; of PY 'shi, si' (the apical vowel(s)). Indeed, PY 'ri' sounds very much like a single segment, not so much two segments. Let us write this thing @ for the moment, then PY 'shi, si' become /sh@, s@/ (fill in your favorite symbol in place of /sh/), 'rang' becomes /@aŋ/, PY 'er' becomes /e@/, and PY 'ri' becomes /@@/ or maybe /@/. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seen this way, the mysterious final consonant has evaporated; PY 'nan' starts with a nasal stop and ends with nasal approximation; 'rang' starts with a retroflex thing that is (close to) a voiced sibilant fricative, whereas PY 'er' starts with a zero initial / vowel / glottal stop as the case may be, and ends with retroflex, not very sibilant approximation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16530" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T08:11:58.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25731" CreationDate="2017-07-31T08:40:31.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.onlinechineselearning.com/resource/how-to-use-er-and-liang.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.onlinechineselearning.com/resource/how-to-use-er-and-liang.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;“两”and “二” are numerals that denote numbers, and they refer to the same number-“2”.However, the usage is not exactly the same. In daily communication, you often hear people who can't tell the difference between“两”and “二”. Today we are going to learn the usage of them.&#xA;The meaning of “两”and “二”&#xA;1.the basic meaning of “二”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1）The number of nouns-2: 1+1=2 (in the notes and documents, commonly used in the capital &quot;II&quot; generation).eg. 一百零二（102）；贰（2）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）pairs：独一无二（the only one）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3）others：二话不说（Without demur）；不二价（one-price）&#xA;2.the basic meaning of“两”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1）The number of nouns-2：Generally used before measure word and “个(unit)、半(half)、千(thousand)、万(ten thousand)、亿(billion)”.eg.两本书（twobooks）；两个杯子（two cups）;分成两半（Divided into two halves）；两千块（two thousand rmb）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)both sides:马路两边（Both sides of the road）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3）Weight-50grams：四两饺子（200 grams of dumplings）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4)Indicates an indefinite number:有两下子（have real skill）&#xA;The difference between“两”and “二”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;when read as numbers or in mathematics, we use “二”insteadof “两”. Eg.这是二不是三。（this is two, not three）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ordinal numbers, decimals and fractions are used in “二”instead of “两”. Eg.第二（second）； 三点二（three point two）； 五分之二（Two-fifths）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the general quantifier, we use “二” in the number of digits Eg.两杯咖啡（two cups of coffee）;and we use “两”in the number of digits. Eg.十二个苹果（twelve apples）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the traditional units of weights and measures, both of them can be used.eg. 二（两）亩地（two acres of land）. But pay attention to a special one-两（50 grams）, you need to use 二 only. Eg. 二两米饭（100 grams of rice）.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the multi-digit, we use“二” in hundred ,ten but we use “两” in thousand and million and billion.eg. 二十（20）, 二百（200）, 两千（2000）. However，we need use “二” if it is not in the first place.eg. 三百二十（320）；两千零2（2002）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T08:40:31.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25738" CreationDate="2017-07-31T08:44:04.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes, sometimes we will say : 你真不是个东西。&#xA;means you are really bad guy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17385" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T08:44:04.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25731" CreationDate="2017-07-31T11:33:32.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zein.se/patrick/chinen8p.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zein.se/patrick/chinen8p.html&lt;/a&gt; which has a lot of useful details. Quote: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In Chinese, each character corresponds to one syllable (which&#xA;  corresponds to a part of an English word, and entire word or more than&#xA;  one word). Chinese syllables consist of three elements: initial sound,&#xA;  final sound and tone. The initial sounds are consonants and the final&#xA;  sounds contain at least one vowel. Some syllables consist only of an&#xA;  initial sound or a final sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still it's not 100% correct as with 儿化音 (erhuayin) we also have a counter example to the above: two characters (X + 儿) which are pronounced as one syllable. (for instance the pinyin for 这儿 is &quot;zher4&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you misunderstood some of your classes; there are many syllables that start with a vowel. No &quot;cheating&quot; is involved. As for &quot;beginning with a w&quot; as you state, that's not quite true: for instance 五 (&quot;five&quot;, pinyin: &quot;wu3&quot;) is often pronounced &quot;oo&quot;, not &quot;woo&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a fairly complex topic. I would recommend keeping an open mind and listening closely to spoken Mandarin as much as possible, rather than studying articles about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, the following, which seems to be a pretty complete linguistic description of Mandarin phonology, is probably only useful to students with prior knowledge of linguistics: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T11:33:32.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25738" CreationDate="2017-07-31T11:51:42.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah ,you can refer somebody as 东西, but only in negative or question.&#xA;That means that one has surpassed the levels of 普通人 and 好人, however not yet reached 混蛋 and 垃圾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张三: 他经常背后说我坏话.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李四: 真不是东西.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张三: 你是个什么东西, 敢在背后说我坏话.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王五: 对, 我没素质, 我不是东西, 那又怎么样? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T11:51:42.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25730" CreationDate="2017-07-31T11:59:25.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are literally same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is subtle, 的 splits the adjective and noun, make the adjective/ noun stand out from the whole phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anytime you want to add more weight to the adjective/ noun , add 的.  If you want to be more concise or rhythmically with other phrase , omit 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在仰望, 自由翱翔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Omit 的 is better, since the first phrase is 4 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在仰望, 月亮之上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有多少梦想, 在自由的翱翔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here with 的, you can emphasis 自由 or 翱翔. And If you want to omit 的,  you can, it's a personal choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-07-31T12:08:52.827" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T12:08:52.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25739" CreationDate="2017-07-31T12:22:14.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The base is located in the 朱日和, which is a town in Inner Mongolia, it means 'courage' in mongolian language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This town includes 15 villages, the training base is built from a 1950s armored troops training base.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I don't think they give a new &quot;fancy&quot; name to that town.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T12:22:14.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25752" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-31T13:17:09.673" Score="1" ViewCount="1714" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit: This is a duplicate of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1875/how-does-tone-sandhi-apply-in-peoples-names&quot;&gt;How does tone sandhi apply in people&amp;#39;s names?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learned the rules for pronouncing tone pairs, I know that for a sentence like 我买花 the two third tones become a second and a third tone, the pronunciation would be wó mǎi huā. I learned this from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hackingchinese.com/optional-obligatory-tone-change-rules-mandarin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This site&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came across this sentence: 我可以看得很清楚. There are three third tones at the start of the sentence 我可以 (wǒ kěyǐ), how do the tones change in a case like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17607" LastEditorUserId="17608" LastEditDate="2017-07-31T17:00:14.067" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T17:00:14.067" Title="How to pronounce three third tones in a row?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-08-22T04:26:27.583" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25752" CreationDate="2017-07-31T13:46:29.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know this kind of pronunciation rules. it could be the rule for non Chinese speaker to learn pronunciations. As for 我买花，if you pronounce as &quot;wó mài huā&quot;, I would think you mean &quot;我卖花&quot;，opposing to 买. I will read the above sentences without changing any tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T13:46:29.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25752" CreationDate="2017-07-31T14:55:45.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I know that for a sentence like 我买花 the two third tones become a second and a fourth tone, the pronunciation would be wó mài huā&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/21402/4072&quot;&gt;rule of the 3rd tone sandhi&lt;/a&gt;, to be more precise, the tones should be 2-(半三声)-1. Note that the tone of 买 should be 半三声, which means only the first half of the 3rd tone, without the rising tone part. If you pronounced it as the 4th tone, it'll become 我卖花.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then for &lt;code&gt;我可以看~&lt;/code&gt;, the tones would be 半三声-2-半三声-4-~. 我可以 could be interpreted as 我+可以, and when three words with the 3rd tone are used together and with 1-2 construction rule #4.2 applies, the 1st word is pronounced as 半三声, the 2nd word is pronounced as the 2nd tone, so 我可 is pronounced as 半三声-2. And according to the rule #3, i.e. when word with the 3rd tone is used before other words with the 1st/2nd/4th tone, it's pronounced as the 半三声, so 以 is pronounced as 半三声 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T14:55:45.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25755" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25756" CreationDate="2017-07-31T17:15:39.187" Score="2" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried to find example sentences using 天资 tian zi (talent) online with no luck. I f I were to write 'he is a very talented pianist' or something of the sort, would it be correct to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弹钢琴他有很多天资&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17320" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T18:35:54.223" Title="Is this correct usage of the word 天资?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25755" CreationDate="2017-07-31T18:23:05.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For talent in a specific area, the word &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/6391/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天份&lt;/a&gt; is better choice than 天资, which can also means 'talent' but in a more general sense. When you say someone has 天份(talent), you need to specify in what subject the talent applies; When you say someone has 天资, it means that person has a nature ability to learn, doesn't matter what is the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't measure 天份' with '多 and 少',  We measure '天资 or 天份' with '有 and 沒有' ; '高 and 低'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有天份; 沒有天份 (have talent/ talented; have no talent)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;天份高: 天份低 (highly talented; low in talent/ not very talented)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;弹钢琴他有很多天资 should be written as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;弹钢琴他很有天份&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; which is a [topic]+[comment] sentence structure with &quot;弹钢琴&quot; as the topic and &quot; 他很有天份&quot; as the comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a more common [S+V+O] structure, the sentence should be written as &quot; &lt;strong&gt;他很有弹钢琴的天份&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is this correct usage of the word 天资?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of correct usage of the word 天资:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他&lt;strong&gt;天资&lt;/strong&gt;过人，學一年就能弹钢琴&quot; - His &lt;strong&gt;talent&lt;/strong&gt; is extraordinary, can play piano after only a year of learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;凭他的&lt;strong&gt;天资&lt;/strong&gt;，考上多伦多大学不成问题&quot; - With his &lt;strong&gt;talent&lt;/strong&gt;, be admitted to the University of Toronto is not a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-07-31T18:35:54.223" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T18:35:54.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25727" CreationDate="2017-07-31T19:13:40.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Беларусь = Белая + Русь&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Русь - is a short and ancient word for Russia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Бела - is a short adjective of Белая which is white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T19:13:40.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25732" CreationDate="2017-08-01T02:42:43.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;With a pop-up dictionary in your browser to help you pronounce characters, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/&lt;/a&gt; can be quite useful (especially for more rare words that might not be in a modest sized traditional, as opposed to primarily web-based) dictionary. Most (Chinese) words will have many example sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T02:42:43.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25706" CreationDate="2017-08-01T02:53:00.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't see any reason to rule out choosing 董 as part of a name. People may be impressed by your historical interest, which can be a good conversation starter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for more &quot;conventional&quot; options, one way to see different ways of rendering a name (such as &quot;Donald&quot;) is to look at how names of famous (or infamous) people with the name are transliterated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. Donald Knuth (a famous computer scientist) is 高德纳 &lt;em&gt;Gāo Dénà&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Donald Tusk (a Polish politician) is 唐纳德·图斯克 &lt;em&gt;Tángnàdé Túsīkè&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make one's name sound more &quot;Chinese&quot;, some people will try to keep 1 surname character, and then 1-2 given name characters, to have a 2-3 syllable name like most Chinese people. So Knuth's Chinese name will sound much more &quot;Chinese&quot; than Tusk's, comparing the examples above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T02:53:00.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25760" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25766" CreationDate="2017-08-01T04:01:08.857" Score="3" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do more people pronounce 你  as leih or neih?&#xA;In most textbooks, and practice dialogues I seem to see it is 'neih'&#xA;For some reason, leih comes more naturally to me, and I am feeling like I heard it more publicly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it have to do with region?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T07:13:11.020" Title="Which is more common in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25760" CreationDate="2017-08-01T04:20:10.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%BD%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;你 (u+4f60)&lt;/a&gt; is pronounced as nei5, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/nei5.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are several characters with the pronunciation as lei, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%9A%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;嚟 (u+569f)&lt;/a&gt;, lei4, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/lei4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;, which means &quot;come&quot;, and is used frequently in colloquial situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%9D%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;李 (u+674e)&lt;/a&gt;, lei5, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/lei5.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;. This one is the most common surname&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few more. Frankly, sometime it's quite difficult to distinguish amongst them, by the sound only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-01T13:55:03.237" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T13:55:03.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25760" CreationDate="2017-08-01T04:20:26.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_phonology#Historical_change&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Initial n- and l- are merged&lt;/a&gt; for many young HK Cantonese speakers. Obviously this is not the case for all dialects of Cantonese, but HK is influential. Also, as one might expect, this sound change is considered improper by some people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T04:20:26.480" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25730" CreationDate="2017-08-01T06:47:46.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This answer explains in an East Asian way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a common usage in East Asia, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;topic indicator&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, you can call it. &#xA;Although it can vary a lot structurally, (the specific usages may confuse you, ) the purpose are actually quite similar, to make the structure clearer and so that you can stress some part of your sentence. &#xA;And to some extent, Because tones are used for distinguish meanings, a few &quot;indicator&quot; word are special replacement for these &quot;**tone-based **&quot; structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyways, (if you prefer a short version),  the difference here(with or without 的) are usually expressed in different tones in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17611" LastEditorUserId="17611" LastEditDate="2017-08-01T06:52:58.577" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T06:52:58.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25739" CreationDate="2017-08-01T10:12:28.100" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我天朝华夏爱好和平，只会谴责，何来诛日俄这么大火气！何况俄罗斯是我战略合作伙伴，钓鱼岛争端也没敢说诛日啊。希望你汉语好能看懂。长者教育我们，你们这些个外国人啊，还是要加强学习，提高姿势水平…不说了，我已经感觉到了时间在飞快地流逝了-1s-1s-1s.....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T10:12:28.100" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25692" CreationDate="2017-08-01T11:28:50.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese tends to use double-character words instead of one-character words, which is frequently used in ancient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Chinese words will have the following forms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;玩玩 - play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat the characters to double it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;词语 - words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attach two similar characters to double it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新闻 - news&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adjective (新:freshly) + verb (闻:hear) to represent a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上学 - go to school&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;verb (上: go) + verb (学: learn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you see, you just combine two characters to make a new word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T11:28:50.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25760" CreationDate="2017-08-01T14:18:08.567" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Stumpy Joe says, N and L have merged. Even outside HK it is quite generalized now -- to the point that people below 40 have difficulties -- up to complete inability -- pronouncing initial N-. I don't know how many times I've heard &quot;What is your lame?&quot; or similar stuff...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I work in the wine business, and every time we have to translate a wine name in Chinese for the Chinese back label, if there's a syllable with an N or an L, it is a complete crapshoot. N- syllables sinicized as 利, L- syllables rendered as 呢, etc. When I point out the errors, my Guangdong clients, even the older &lt;em&gt;loubaan&lt;/em&gt;, seem to completely miss the issue: 一樣㗎! Not quite, brother. On the other hand, wines imported in the north usually get named with Ns and Ls in their proper places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, the famous vineyard Pont-Canet is usually transcribed 朋特卡&lt;strong&gt;內&lt;/strong&gt; (it's imported by just about every company in China, so a Mandarin sinicization prevailed), whereas the excellent La Tour Carnet vineyard, whose wines arrived in China mostly via the south, was named 拉图嘉利. I tried to get that changed to 呢 or similar -- my clients couldn't see what I was talking about. For both 嘉利 and 嘉呢 my clients said &lt;em&gt;gaa.Le(i)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, some of my friends, who speak average to good English, are vaguely aware of the L/N issue, but can't control it 100%. N- appearing in L- words happen regularly. A friend of mine is very fond of saying &lt;em&gt;nousy&lt;/em&gt; for &lt;em&gt;lousy&lt;/em&gt;. I tried to tell him it's Lousy. He said, &lt;em&gt;Yeah, nousy!&lt;/em&gt;. Hopeless...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-02T07:13:11.020" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T07:13:11.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25767" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-01T14:37:59.173" Score="1" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China's officialdom there is a penalty called 约谈, which roughly means an appointment between higher authorities and the official who is going to be held accountable for his misbehavior or wrongdoing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But really what kind of penalty is that? Does the boss threaten the firing of his subordinates during the dated talk? Could anyone share his opinion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-09-01T12:03:53.170" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T17:05:53.997" Title="What does 约谈 mean as a penalty?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25768" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25772" CreationDate="2017-08-01T15:23:39.327" Score="3" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently learning the 214 radicals and also the words for HSK1. I have noticed a few times that some characters in the radical list have a different pronunciation to the characters in the HSK1 vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in HSK1 the character 丨 is pronounced 'gǔn' but in the list of radicals it is 'shū'. My chinese keyboard recognises both pinyin spellings of the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is 丶 which is 'dian' in the list of radicals but 'zhǔ' in HSK1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone explain this to me? Is it just that when we are talking about radicals within a character we use one pronunciation and when using that radical as an independant character we use another pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17608" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T19:42:57.583" Title="Same radical/character with different pronunciation" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25769" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25770" CreationDate="2017-08-01T16:38:46.107" Score="0" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I have recently seen 对峙 used a few times in the Chinese shows that I watch, I decided to look it up and Baidu.com says it means&quot;两山相对耸立&quot; (two mountains standing and facing each other or at a stalemate) and I also used Jukuu.com and it said the meaning was &quot;to face off&quot;. So I am wondering how do native Chinese speakers use this word because most examples of this word only talk about mountains facing each other and in the shows I watch they are usually not discussing mountains. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17561" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T19:34:29.130" Title="Usage of 对峙 in colloquial Chinese." Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25769" CreationDate="2017-08-01T18:43:16.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/10351/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;对峙&lt;/a&gt; means &quot;confrontation; stand-off&quot; (&lt;em&gt;be locked in a confrontation or face-off, with neither side attacking or retreating&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a metaphor that means &quot;two sides standing still like two mountains facing each other; neither one would back down nor could they advance.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;So I am wondering how do native Chinese speakers use this word&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两军&lt;strong&gt;对峙&lt;/strong&gt;多日 - the two armies &lt;strong&gt;stood-off&lt;/strong&gt; with each other for days (&lt;em&gt;对峙 as a verb&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两军的&lt;strong&gt;对峙&lt;/strong&gt;已经持续多日 - The &lt;strong&gt;stand-off&lt;/strong&gt; between the two armies has been going on for several days (&lt;em&gt;对峙 as a noun&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;示威者与警方&lt;strong&gt;对峙&lt;/strong&gt; - the demonstrators &lt;strong&gt;stand-off&lt;/strong&gt; with the police (&lt;em&gt;对峙 as a verb&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;示威者与警方的&lt;strong&gt;对峙&lt;/strong&gt;最后以暴力结束 - the &lt;strong&gt;stand-off&lt;/strong&gt; between the demonstrators and the police ended in violence. (&lt;em&gt;对峙 as a noun&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-01T18:52:24.807" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T18:52:24.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25769" CreationDate="2017-08-01T19:34:29.130" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it is a very formal and official word,we do not use it in daily life.its original meaning is two mountains facing each other,which you can se there is a 山 in 峙,but nowadays we use it to describe two force confront each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T19:34:29.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25768" CreationDate="2017-08-01T19:36:36.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the test you did, typing in both pronunciation with your input method to see if you could generate the correct glyph reveals what you need to know. In short, there are different ways to refer to different elements (e.g. radicals) of Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my experience, there haven't really been any times where I would have to name a radical by its individual name (and I don't imagine most Chinese people would know these, except for maybe some very common ones). Usually I've encountered people choosing to referring to the part of a character (“语” 的左边) or simply drawing the radical on their hand, phone, etc. It would be interesting to find out if people on this site with more formal Chinese education from a Chinese speaking country are familiar with terms for radicals and such. I would guess most people that use Chinese writing frequently don't think too much about them, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A parallel in English to discussing radicals might be something like talking about what a &quot;descender&quot; is. (Google: In typography, a descender is the portion of a letter that extends below the baseline of a font.) While certainly some people with some design experience will be familiar with this term, most people just intuitively know what this thing is and work around it, by leaving room at the bottom of a piece of paper for descenders when space gets short, for example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T19:36:36.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25768" CreationDate="2017-08-01T19:42:57.583" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cant recall any character pronouced both gun and shu or dian and zhu...maybe I am a fake chinese&#xA;the reason why a character have two or more pronouciation is a very long story.my english is not good so that I can tell you it only in chinese.if you can read a long chinese text or you can find someone help you translate,let me know and I will write it for you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T19:42:57.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25767" CreationDate="2017-08-01T19:55:53.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BA%A6%E8%B0%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;baidu baike&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;约谈指的是颇具中国特色的一种制度。指拥有具体行政职权的机关，通过约谈沟通、学习政策法规、分析讲评等方式，对下级组织运行中存在的问题予以纠正并规范的准具体行政行为。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation attempt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Yuētán&lt;/em&gt; is a rather Chinese particular system. It refers to the use of concrete, executive political authority to meet up to &quot;negotiate&quot; (&lt;em&gt;yuē&lt;/em&gt;) and &quot;discuss&quot; (&lt;em&gt;tán&lt;/em&gt;). Studying policy legislation, analyzing criticism, etc. directed at the problems pertaining to operations within lower ranking organizations, &lt;em&gt;Yuētán&lt;/em&gt; applies administrable correctional and standardizing measures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This confusing jargon (any translation help here would be appreciated) suggests that 约谈 &lt;em&gt;Yuētán&lt;/em&gt; may involve any number things.  It is more likely than not a purposely flexibly designed term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T19:55:53.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25767" CreationDate="2017-08-01T20:04:46.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;约谈 is not a penalty, but it indicates or implies or leads to an subsequent penalty, like hold by authorities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;约谈 just means someone who are in a higher authority dated you to talk about some problems. In Chinese culture, it is not good, but not very serious. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may lead to a subsequent penalty, if the higher authority think your problem is serious or you are not honest on your problem. Sometimes 约谈 is just a warning, it depends on what you talked to them. You can't tell them all and you can't tell nothing, you can't tell them the truth and you can't tell them a total lie, they will all result in a very bad situation. So how to talk in a 约谈 is an art :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you see an officer is 约谈 in a newspaper or official website then his political life is in danger, he may be charged by some of his misdoings soon. But if he is an entrepreneur then he is OK, he just need to adjust his entreprises to follow the government's will or cooperate with the government. Sometimes government authority 约谈 entreprises or entrepreneurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastEditorUserId="18612" LastEditDate="2017-12-08T17:05:53.997" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T17:05:53.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25776" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25783" CreationDate="2017-08-02T00:03:04.960" Score="3" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;I met a woman four or so years younger to me at a conference (not work related). After getting to know her slightly more I later sent a text agreeing to meet tomorrow with &quot;好吧 明天见 小妹&quot;. We briefly discussed our age difference prior for some reason. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My intention was to be playful and friendly with &quot;younger sister&quot;. Is 小妹 rude and / or completely unfitting in this situation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastEditorUserId="2274" LastEditDate="2017-08-02T12:10:28.477" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T12:10:28.477" Title="Addressing an acquaintance as 小妹" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25776" CreationDate="2017-08-02T01:22:29.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;do not use it,it is very insulting.小妹 is associated to some prositutte nowadays.if you get into a KTV ordered some girls you can call them 小妹.and you do not need to appologize or explain for you had called her that,it only makes this worse.you just ignore that and do not call her like again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T01:22:29.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25776" CreationDate="2017-08-02T03:25:08.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A woman whom you want to respect should be called: 女杰．　　This is a woman of distinction/woman to be admired/respected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also call her 女士 which is something like Miss, but perhaps a little bit too formal for your situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't like either of them, you can always add the 阿　prefix and give her a name to your liking (something friendly), or make a play on words with her name even. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other terms of address (though imo usually reserved for between males) are 狗子　or 老兄．&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could perhaps call her 英雌　还是　那个好像的　　鹰雌体　&#xA;I mean you could say haha that she is 女磁体　and that your pole is attracted to her haha =))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastEditorUserId="17427" LastEditDate="2017-08-02T03:37:39.347" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T03:37:39.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25782" CreationDate="2017-08-02T03:26:01.313" Score="2" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14092/why-chinese-people-always-use-chinese-subtitles&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, in many Chinese videos, particularly those coming from large media outlets, there are subtitles. I am wondering to what extent experienced Chinese speakers (native or not) find these necessary. By necessary, I mean that you are able to with pretty good confidence &quot;recognize&quot; all the words that are being spoken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Naturally, it makes sense to add subtitles if the language being spoken is something else entirely. For example, Classical/Literary Chinese (in a historical drama, for instance), a different Chinese variety is being used (or the person speaking has a very strong accent), and so forth. Likewise, in music (where listeners don't have total access to tonal information among other difference), I could understand how subtitles might be necessary in these cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about in other genres, such as news reports, cooking videos, etc.? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a non-native speaker, I find reading subtitles as opposed to actually understanding what is being said as a hindrance to practicing listening comprehension, so I try to listen to things like podcasts or videos without subtitles. Nevertheless, I do spend some time watching (Chinese) subtitled videos and wonder if many of the spoken words in these videos can be understood &quot;on the fly&quot; by Chinese speakers without visual aid. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-08-03T02:57:54.843" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T03:58:33.230" Title="Are subtitles (often) necessary?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;reading&gt;&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25779" CreationDate="2017-08-02T03:50:53.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lol. It is our culture. There is a group of people who make some very impressive subtitles and the content often not very good, they are called subtitle party. Subtitle is necessary only if you need to attract a lot of people to view your content.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-02T03:57:16.657" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T03:57:16.657" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25779" CreationDate="2017-08-02T05:53:23.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese subtitles in Chinese movies are for different dialect speakers in different regions of China. The English subtitles are for oversea markets. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is just practical business decision to broaden the potential audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T05:53:23.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25779" CreationDate="2017-08-02T06:05:40.497" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subtitles are not necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Large media&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Large media and news programs often supply subtitles, because they have more resources. The TV companies in mainland China act like public services, so they have to think about people who are not good at Mandarin, or have trouble with listening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cooking programs, talk shows&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some do, some don't. Since these kinds of programs are more free-speaking, they don't have scripts, and it would take some extra work to add subs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Behavior of native speakers&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We like subs, it makes you easy to follow. Especially since we always watch foreign videos with subs, we are used to watching with subs, even when we watch Chinese videos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can we understand on the fly?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yeah, we won't have any trouble with watching videos in Chinese without subs, but that doesn't mean we can recognize 100% of the words, because of accent, background music, rare words, speed, etc. I think that happens among English-speaking people also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="11374" LastEditDate="2017-10-01T03:58:33.230" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T03:58:33.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25776" CreationDate="2017-08-02T06:36:38.423" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Just call her 姑娘&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If she does not have business relations with you, it is absolutely OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes 小妹 is romantic involved, so it is not fit formal speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小妹 is not very popular nowadays since it can be vague sometimes, but many chinese words can be vague like 小姐(young woman, also means whore), but 小姐 is still used in business and formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a list you can use from the very formal to very rude and cursing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女士 (formal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小姐 (careful, also means whore outside business environment)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姑娘 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妹子, 小妹, 老妹 (younger than you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姐, 大姐 (older than you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小妞 (rude, you don't want to be friends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;娘们, 小娘们, 老娘们(very rude, you want to have row)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;破鞋 (dissipated and unconventional, you want to have a fight)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;婊子(whore, you want to have a war)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-08-02T06:43:18.713" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T06:43:18.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25767" CreationDate="2017-08-02T06:54:05.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;约谈 means the boss have something to talk with you, it is can be regular meeting from a new boss. &#xA;&quot;Hey, I am your new boss, you don't want to make troubes, don't you.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes means the boss do not agree  with you, &quot;Hey, I have noticed your new policy, you want to revise it, don't you?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the most of the time,  is is a warning, &quot;Hey, I am watching you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T06:54:05.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25785" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25787" CreationDate="2017-08-02T07:21:40.117" Score="5" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;...真是一幅&quot;幅&quot;美丽的山水画...&#xA;VS&#xA;...真是一幅美丽的山水画...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am having some problems figuring out why there is a second ”幅” in the sentence and what it means? If I took out the second &quot;幅” what would the meaning then be in comparison? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17614" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T02:52:38.557" Title="What does the second &quot;幅” mean in the following sentence?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25785" CreationDate="2017-08-02T07:41:41.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一幅幅 means plural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you took out the second 幅, it would mean there is only one beautiful picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can not always express plural by doubling it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我画了一幅幅画 (wrong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一幅幅画呈现出来 (right)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-02T07:50:14.673" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T07:50:14.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25785" CreationDate="2017-08-02T08:19:56.727" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;一幅幅&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;一幅幅美丽的山水画&amp;quot; mainly means 'one after another', (indicates plural by extended logic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一幅幅 is short for 一幅又一幅 or 一幅接一幅 (one after another)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;一幅幅美丽的山水画&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;one beautiful landscape painting after another'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples of double classifier signifing 'one after another':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一個&lt;/strong&gt;愚蠢的決定 - &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; stupid decision&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一個個&lt;/strong&gt;愚蠢的決定 - &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; stupid decision &lt;strong&gt;after another&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一個&lt;/strong&gt;寒冷的冬天 - &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; cold winter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一個個&lt;/strong&gt;寒冷的冬天 - &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; cold winter &lt;strong&gt;after another&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一位&lt;/strong&gt;革命英雄 - &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; revolutionary hero&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一位位&lt;/strong&gt;革命英雄 - &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; revolutionary hero &lt;strong&gt;after another&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沿途看見&lt;strong&gt;一座&lt;/strong&gt;酒莊 - saw &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; winery along the way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沿途看見&lt;strong&gt;一座座&lt;/strong&gt;酒莊 - saw &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; winery &lt;strong&gt;after another&lt;/strong&gt; along the way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'One after another' can describe 'a group of things or people at one time' or 'one individual after another individual across time or distance'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To simply indicate plural, you can use '幾' or '數' as in &amp;quot;幾幅美丽的山水画&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T18:22:36.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25697" CreationDate="2017-08-02T11:50:01.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Attracting money and happiness. It's very common to find these words under this specific buddha as it's its specialty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17618" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T11:50:01.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25744" CreationDate="2017-08-02T11:55:52.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Analects is a collection of articles, with 20 articles in total. The first article Xue Er has 16 Chapters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnculture.net/ebook/jing/sishu/lunyu_en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this version&lt;/a&gt;, it translates articles into &quot;book&quot;s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17618" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T11:55:52.457" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25795" CreationDate="2017-08-02T16:19:30.023" Score="1" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to revive my knowledge of Chinese, having learned it some years ago. I was flicking through my old text book and came across the phrase &quot;放学回家以后，。。。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember reciting this (thinking back, we did a lot of phrase learning without understanding the characters involved and the sentence structure :/) but now when I am trying to pick apart the sentence, I don't understand what the 放 is doing. According to Google translate and line dictionary etc, 放 means to 'put/put in'. However 放学 is 'school'. But what about 学校, which is also 'school'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell, what does 放 mean in the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17320" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T18:19:16.707" Title="Use of 放 in 放学 to mean school?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25794" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25805" CreationDate="2017-08-02T17:17:17.233" Score="3" ViewCount="547" Body="&lt;p&gt;Evidently, &lt;strong&gt;tones&lt;/strong&gt; are a matter of concern for many learners of Chinese (see for example, this question on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/116/what-is-a-good-technique-for-remembering-tones&quot;&gt;remembering tones&lt;/a&gt;).  While learners struggle to describe the properties of tones (is the 3rd tone &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; falling and rising?), natives as well as many that choose to immerse themselves in sound more so than writing and theory can effectively bypass thinking about tones altogether and go about their days speaking Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Native speakers: If put to the test, could you write out &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt; with tones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Non-native speakers: As your Chinese learning has progressed, do you still intentionally analyze the tones of words you learn by speaking (e.g. remember 拼音 has two first tones)? Do you even think about things like &lt;strong&gt;tone sandhi&lt;/strong&gt; (which you may have learned complicated rules for at some point in your studyfing)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My impression is that (native) Chinese speakers have a grasp of rhyme (initials + finals, as is represented in &lt;em&gt;bopomofo&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt; spelling to a degree), but that explicit tonal knowledge is limited. This is reinforced through the current way most people write Chinese on the Internet, i.e. through &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt; input which &lt;em&gt;does not&lt;/em&gt; require tones. Learners, on the other hand, are likely to be able to easily name the tones for many words they studied via &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt; with tones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this impression capture some generalizations about knowledge of tones among different types of Chinese speakers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Related question&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/21351/do-native-speakers-learn-about-4-tones-in-school-or-do-they-naturally-pick-them?rq=1&quot;&gt;Do native speakers learn about 4 tones in school or do they naturally pick them up without formal education?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastEditorUserId="17609" LastEditDate="2017-08-03T17:53:55.820" LastActivityDate="2018-04-25T04:26:09.443" Title="Tones and Pinyin, Foreigners vs Natives" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25793" CreationDate="2017-08-02T18:19:16.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;放 has many meanings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;放 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/862/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/862/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[1] let go; &lt;strong&gt;release&lt;/strong&gt;; set free&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[2] &lt;strong&gt;let out&lt;/strong&gt;; dismiss; take leave&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学 in 放学 short for 学校 (school)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;放学(school out) simply means  'be let out of school' or 'be released from school '&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples for 放 as 'release ; let out':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;放监 = be released from jail&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;放工 = be released from work&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;放假 = be released for day off; take leave for holiday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T18:19:16.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25796" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25798" CreationDate="2017-08-02T19:07:42.737" Score="1" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a dialogue of a certain Chinese text, after being told the location of the nearest post office, a lost international student asks,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;走得到吗？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I've found the meaning online to be something along the lines of &quot;Is it within walking distance?&quot;, I'm struggling to parse how the sentence corresponds to that meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Observing, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 到 doesn't take the complement particle 得，as far as I'm aware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 得到 most directly means &quot;to obtain&quot;, and it doesn't seem like one could &quot;go to obtain (a post office).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not quite sure how to parse the words of this utterance onto their meanings in context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;em&gt;A New China, an Intermediate Reader of Modern Chinese&lt;/em&gt;, chapter 4, for reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15063" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T19:40:17.343" Title="Structure and Interpretation of 走得到吗？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25796" CreationDate="2017-08-02T19:35:32.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) 到 doesn't take the complement particle 得，as far as I'm aware&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;得 - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;has the meaning of 'can' when used after a verb or an adjective and&#xA;  before a complement; See&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;到 - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to arrive at a destination; to reach a destination; to get to; See&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%88%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 得到 most directly means &quot;to obtain&quot;, and it doesn't seem like one could &quot;go to obtain (a post office).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In this sentence the two words are not used as their combined meaning.&#xA;  A more completed sentence would be:  步行(走)可以(得)到达(到)吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T19:35:32.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25796" CreationDate="2017-08-02T19:35:45.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;走&lt;/strong&gt;'(to walk) is the &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;到&lt;/strong&gt;'(arrive/ to) in '走&lt;strong&gt;到&lt;/strong&gt;'(to walk &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt;) is the &lt;strong&gt;resultative verb particle&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Resultative verb particle completes the verb action. in this case- you walk to/ you walk and arrive&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;'(able to) in '走&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;到' is the &lt;strong&gt;potential particle&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;There are only two potential particles. They are 得(can) and 不(cannot). You are either potentially can or cannot walk there.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;吗&lt;/strong&gt;' in '走得到&lt;strong&gt;吗&lt;/strong&gt;？' is the &lt;strong&gt;final interrogative particle&lt;/strong&gt; (indicates the phrase is a question)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;走得到吗？&quot; means &quot;can (I) walk to (that place)?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T19:35:45.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25796" CreationDate="2017-08-02T19:40:17.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the '走' in this phrase means walk. While '得到' do means 'obtain', in this context you could also translate it as 'get' or 'reach'...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think:&#xA;'走得到吗?' means '(Can I) get there (the post office) by walking?' instead of 'go to obtain (a post office)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T19:40:17.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25800" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25801" CreationDate="2017-08-02T21:40:00.903" Score="1" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm confused. Does this '要之何用' mean 'Is there any use?', or could the '之' in this phrase be regarded as a possessive article and therefore the phrase would mean 'What is the use (for someone)'? Or did I get both of them wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-03T14:33:00.043" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T14:33:00.043" Title="Is the '之' in '要之何用' also regarded as a possessive article?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25800" CreationDate="2017-08-02T21:58:07.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 following a &lt;strong&gt;noun&lt;/strong&gt; is a &lt;strong&gt;possessive marker&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 following a &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt;  '要'(have) here is a &lt;strong&gt;pronoun&lt;/strong&gt; for 'it'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples of 之 as a pronoun when it follows a verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;叫他进来然后&lt;strong&gt;杀&lt;/strong&gt;(之) - ask him to come in and then &lt;strong&gt;kill&lt;/strong&gt; (him)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;没有酒就以水&lt;strong&gt;代&lt;/strong&gt;(之) - If there's no wine, use water to &lt;strong&gt;substitute&lt;/strong&gt; (it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要(钱)何用? = having (money) for what use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要(之)何用? = having (it) for what use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'之' is the pronoun for 'money'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T22:03:26.583" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25794" CreationDate="2017-08-02T23:55:05.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Non-Native Speaker:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As your Chinese learning has progressed, do you still intentionally analyze the tones of words you learn by speaking (e.g. remember 拼音 has two first tones)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As my Chinese has progressed (now on HSK level 5), I have discovered that I still &quot;analyze&quot; tones of words by speaking to a certain degree, but at my level I am more concerned with if the word sounds right or wrong rather than analyzing. For example, if I am speaking Mandarin to a friend and I say, &quot;I want to buy some handcrafted products&quot; &quot;我想买一些工艺品” (Wǒ xiǎng mǎi yīxiē gōngyìpǐn) BUT instead of &quot;买&quot;(mǎi-to buy) I accidentally say “卖” (mài-to sell), I will instantly have a weird feeling and notice that I said &quot;to sell&quot; instead of &quot;to buy&quot;. In short, the higher level you become in Chinese the better you get at noticing if a word sounds correct or not and quickly correct yourself based on the &quot;internalized&quot; tones rather than analyzing everything you say. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do you even think about things like tone sandhi (which you may have learned complicated rules for at some point in your studying)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally try not to overthink about things like tone sandhi (tone-change rules) because in the past it causes more harm to my spoken Chinese than it helps. Many of these tone sandhi rules can be solved by listening more to Chinese. The principle here is, the more I listen, the more I'll be able to notice mistakes in tones just because of how it sounds and then correct them. If you want to hear a professional Mandarin speaker talk about tones, then here is an interview from one of the most famous and fluent Chinese-speaking foreigners 大山 (Dashan) discussing Mandarin tones in English. &#xA;Here is a link &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/6rXGg8VkVKg?t=9m46s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Most Famous Foreigner in China&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17561" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T23:55:05.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25803" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-03T00:44:31.543" Score="1" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried to find out but I found that '痞' means constipation which I think would be highly unlikely in cases like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'痞痞的小小姐' or '痞痞的小家伙'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T02:20:55.770" Title="What does the phrase '痞痞的' mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25803" CreationDate="2017-08-03T02:20:55.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;痞 means bad, eg, 痞子 is like the English word &quot;rogue&quot;. I have seldom seen the phrase &quot;痞痞的&quot;, but i think it would mean somebody is naughty, like a scamp maybe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T02:20:55.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25794" CreationDate="2017-08-03T02:38:09.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;as a Chinese native, I am not quite aware of tone sandhi. And yes, If put to the test, i will write out pinyin with tones according to the standard tones as it in the dictionary (not the rules from tone sandhi). when i read, i try to read words as the correct tones in the dictionary (although it could apply the &quot;tone sandhi&quot; automatically, i am completely UNAWARE of that). I would suggest reading words with standard tones while you learn. and you could apply those &quot;tone sandhi&quot; naturally when you speak fast i guess. This way could avoid those weirdos and misunderstandings because of those tone sandhi. Good luck with that! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T02:38:09.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25669" CreationDate="2017-08-03T03:02:07.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;上天眷顾 Favorable Destiny&#xA;照顾[zhào gu]&#xA;1.（考虑到; 注意到） give consideration to; show consideration for; take account of; make allowance(s) for:&#xA;make allowance for the majority; think in terms of the majority; 照顾多数&#xA;be careful of one's respectability; 照顾面子&#xA;2.（关心; 照料） look after; care for; attend to:&#xA;look after the wounded 照顾伤员&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T03:02:07.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25808" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-03T04:00:27.440" Score="0" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;牌 is a sign or a board, 挂 is hanging, I understand that in a market where goods are to be sold, the seller would post a sign to tell potential buyers that here is the thing you want. But what is the sign of 督办 (supervision) posted? And where should the sign in this case posted? In the office? In a public square where everybody can see or on a LED screen of a train station?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T10:29:04.010" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T10:29:39.553" Title="What is the difference of the meaning of 挂牌 in 挂牌督办 and 挂牌上市?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25810" CreationDate="2017-08-03T05:10:45.057" Score="0" ViewCount="47" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the characters in this picture and what do they mean? I know the first one is 来    but I don't recognize the second one or know the meaning of these together. Thank you&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zyNja.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;![enter image description here&quot;&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zyNja.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16472" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T05:19:57.097" Title="What are the characters in this image and what do they mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25809" CreationDate="2017-08-03T05:19:57.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来唷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Come on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来 means come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唷 is a modal word that expresses the excited emotion of the speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T05:19:57.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25808" CreationDate="2017-08-03T05:37:14.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There won't be a real sign hanged.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挂牌 originally means setting up a sign as you know. When use it in 挂牌督办, since only authority department can 督办, 挂牌 means the department show the case to public to urge other lower department which is in charge of the case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The case under 挂牌督办 always has a deadline, so the lower department have to get it done in time, otherwise somebody would get things real bad. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As 挂牌上市, that is a totally different commercial definition, it means a company list their shares in stock market.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T10:29:39.553" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T10:29:39.553" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25731" CreationDate="2017-08-03T06:27:23.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I mentioned how the &lt;em&gt;er&lt;/em&gt; syllable came about in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1632/166&quot;&gt;my answer to a similar question&lt;/a&gt;, but I'll summarize it here too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These syllables started out with initial &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_nasal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;palatal nasals&lt;/a&gt; /ɲ/ in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt;, so 二 was pronounced something like /ɲi/. In Late Middle Chinese, palatal initials shifted to become retroflex so /ɲ/ became /ʐ/ (which is the pronunciation of modern pinyin &lt;em&gt;ri&lt;/em&gt;). Later on, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_(linguistics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;metathesis&lt;/a&gt; occurred which changed /ʐɨ/ to /ɨʐ/ (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://ishare.iask.sina.com.cn/f/18289792.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《北京音系解析》, p. 24&lt;/a&gt;), which is realized as [əɻ] (pinyin: &lt;em&gt;er&lt;/em&gt;) in modern Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also want to note that this metathesis must have occurred before Mandarin lost the final stop consonants /-p/, /-t/, and /-k/ in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checked_tone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;入聲 words&lt;/a&gt;. For instance, 日 (MC: /ɲjet/) is pronounced &lt;em&gt;ri&lt;/em&gt; rather than &lt;em&gt;er&lt;/em&gt; in Mandarin, indicating that the final -t originally blocked the metathesis and only got dropped later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastEditorUserId="166" LastEditDate="2017-08-03T06:45:49.583" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T06:45:49.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25815" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25819" CreationDate="2017-08-03T08:20:39.293" Score="0" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Advanced English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt; defines &lt;em&gt;good for you&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An exclamation of encouragement or congratulation. &quot;You got married? Good for you!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is usually used sarcastically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC’s E-C dictionary translates the phrase as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;干得好! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which doesn't really work because people don't necessarily have needed to done anything to get a nice &quot;good for you.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt; gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有你的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt; gives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;真有你的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;真有真的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been going with a sarcastic ** 恭喜你啊** but it doesn’t seem to accurately express this idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T05:55:00.697" Title="Colloquial equivalent of the English: “good for you”" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25816" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-03T01:03:07.867" Score="0" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is translated into Chinese as &quot;現在為什麼C ++使用了更快的語言（Go）？&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, it seems not close. I feel its Chinese translation should be &quot;現在有更快的語言 (Go)，為什麼還要用C++?&quot;&#xA;Or, I feel in English, it's close to &quot;Now, since there is faster language (Go)， why is C++ still used?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone rewrite this sentence into simpler English or translate it into Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17636" OwnerDisplayName="Stan Huang at Taiwan" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T03:44:35.740" Title="What does &quot;Why is C++ used at all now that a faster language (Go) has been created?&quot; really mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25816" CreationDate="2017-08-03T10:13:37.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;as a native chinese,I prefere your translation is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T10:13:37.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25815" CreationDate="2017-08-03T10:17:36.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;牛逼 is the best to express good for you,it fits any situation you want to say good for you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T10:17:36.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25815" CreationDate="2017-08-03T13:58:18.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;还是你行啊!&quot;, &quot;你行啊!&quot;,&quot;你牛啊！&quot;，“你多牛啊！” those phrases could be a bit &quot;sarcastic&quot;. In Chinese, you should seize the tone of a speaker to figure out if he/she is being sarcastic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T13:58:18.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25824" CreationDate="2017-08-03T15:03:07.977" Score="1" ViewCount="1256" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may or may not be Taiwan specific, but on all the order cards the option for take-out is &quot;外帶&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a Taiwanese vs Chinese Mandarin difference, or is this just a noun vs verb difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ie. If I'm ordering food to go, should I say &quot;我想要____带走&quot; or &quot;我想要____外帶&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17629" LastActivityDate="2017-08-04T04:49:57.240" Title="Ordering take-out in Taiwan 带走 vs 外帶?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25821" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25828" CreationDate="2017-08-03T15:04:26.597" Score="2" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;p&gt;Found some explanation online but it's not too clear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.迟疑：需要考虑，迟疑不决；他迟疑片刻，才接着说下去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.犹豫：拿不定主意；犹豫不定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3、踌躇：犹豫不决,不确定的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Need to think / can't decide on plan / indecisive or unsure &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T21:59:19.093" Title="What is the difference between 迟疑 犹豫 and 踌躇?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25816" CreationDate="2017-08-03T17:46:12.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your translation seems fine. Here's my try at translating this sentence into Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is C++ used at all now that a faster language (Go) has been created?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鉴于现在有更快的语言，为什么还要用C++?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original English sentence should probably have been stated similarly to how we are translating this in Chinese, where we mention the Go programming language first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that we have a faster language (Go), why is C++ used at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This way the context of the question &amp;quot;why is C++ used at all?&amp;quot; is clearly given first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T17:46:12.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25820" CreationDate="2017-08-03T18:38:25.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan &quot;外帶&quot; is used. It usually means to order something to-go. The difference between the two is mostly location. If you were in China, you might say the latter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17612" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-03T20:10:51.427" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T20:10:51.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25820" CreationDate="2017-08-03T20:50:27.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most of China, you can say 外卖 or 打包. But the wording changes as where you are, as Williej said, in Taiwan or Fujian you say 外带, in North East China you say 带走.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17618" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T20:50:27.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25821" CreationDate="2017-08-03T20:54:02.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;同为动词。指拿不定主意。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　迟疑：从时间角度说，是指在应该拿定主意的时候拿不定主意。 It focus more on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　踌躇：着重指行动，是在具体行动上拿不定主意。多用于书面语体。 It's more formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　犹豫：泛指拿不定主意，多指内心活动，也指行动，书面语体和口头语体都常用。 You can use this any where.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17618" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T20:54:02.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25732" CreationDate="2017-08-03T21:05:37.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree to haksayng, iciba is a good choice. However as a dictionary, nowadays dict.cn and more websites are better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to say one thing that is very useful when I learn English, and perhaps even more helpful when learning Chinese, is a function on iciba.com called 双语例句. You put the phrases you want to lookup in the iciba's search box, hit search and if you look at this 双语例句 section, you will find that they are accurately translated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's actually how it worked, at the beginning Kingsoft want to make a phrase based function that can translate not only words, from Chinese to English. So they collected a lot of professionally translated article, from English to Chinese and break them down. The problem is, this reverse look up usually ends up poorly because you usually say something in English in one way, but say it in Chinese in another way. So in this case, you don't find it super helpful to translate from Chinese to English. However, if you take the other side of this function, it works surprisingly well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17618" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T21:05:37.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25821" CreationDate="2017-08-03T21:26:49.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;迟疑 you got one option or idea,but you are not sure about it,so you can not decide it very quick.&#xA;犹豫 you got several options or ideas,but you dont know which one is the best or the right,so you think and think and again,still can not make decision.&#xA;踌躇 has the same meaning with 犹豫,but more formal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T21:26:49.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25821" CreationDate="2017-08-03T21:32:02.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three terms seem similar, they are mostly different in etymology and minor details in usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;迟= late, slow to; 疑= suspect, uncertain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/7486/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;迟疑&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;to hesitate&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hesitate to act because one feels uncertain of the consequence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Mainly used to describe hesitancy in '&lt;strong&gt;action&lt;/strong&gt;'. It can be for a brief moment. For example: 动作迟疑 (hesitant movement); or it can be delay of action for indefinite time period. For example: 迟疑不发 (hesitating, holding off action)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;犹= as if; 豫= happy and content&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5424/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;犹豫&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;to hesitate&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hesitate to act (as if content of the the current situation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mainly used to describe hesitancy in a '&lt;strong&gt;mindset&lt;/strong&gt;' For example: 心里犹豫 (cannot decide); &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/9/172/387091.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;猶豫不決&lt;/a&gt; (hesitant; indecisive)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It can also describe an '&lt;strong&gt;appearance&lt;/strong&gt;' of hesitancy. For example: 一脸猶豫 (hesitant look); &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;踌= (1) hesitant; shilly-shally (2) complacent; self-satisfied&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;躇= hesitant; undecided&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/7493/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;踌躇&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;hesitant; wavering; undecided&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hesitate to act (out of uncertain feeling or complacency, afraid of the action might bring change to the current situation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mainly used to describe hesitancy in a '&lt;strong&gt;mindset&lt;/strong&gt;'. For example: 心里躊躇 (wavering heart); &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.18dao.net/%E6%88%90%E8%AA%9E%E8%A9%9E%E5%85%B8/%E8%BA%8A%E8%BA%87%E6%BB%BF%E5%BF%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;躊躇滿志&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;【釋義】：躊躇：從容自得的樣子；滿：滿足；志：志願。形容對自己取得的成就非常得意。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(躊躇: leisurely, contented; 滿: Satisfied ;志; goal. 躊躇滿志 describes the proud feeling of one's achievements)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-03T21:59:19.093" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T21:59:19.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25719" CreationDate="2017-08-03T21:40:12.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To name a few:&#xA;中国科学技术大学&#xA;中国人民大学&#xA;中国地质大学&#xA;中国农业大学&#xA;中国石油大学&#xA;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, most universties are public university. As a matter of fact, the introduction of private universities happened only a few years ago. So there's no need to add public or nation owned as part of the name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also when you name a university, usually you put its location first. e.g. 湖南大学，香港中文大学. This applies for foreign universities too. e.g. 加州州立大学 California State University, 亚利桑那州立大学 Arizona State University.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what it looks like now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, In the Republic of China, I mean ROC almost a century ago, not Taiwan, universities are divided into two groups: public and private. So, for easier separating them, you add 国立 at the beginning for public schools. They are funded by the ROC government and when ROC moved to Taiwan, the universities are moved too, with their names unchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what you are asking, is really, why people name the universities like this 100 years ago. I guess the reason, is because before that, the country was run by the Qing Dynasty and naturally the universities, if there were any, would be named like Imperial Technology University 帝国科技大学. 孙中山 wouldn't like this and want to emphasis that the universities are run by the republic government, not the empire. If you want your government sustainable, you start with education.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fun fact, some universities in mainland China still has evidence of it's original 国立 name. For example &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3oNPi.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3oNPi.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;国立武汉大学&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17618" LastEditorUserId="17618" LastEditDate="2017-08-03T21:45:49.013" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T21:45:49.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25820" CreationDate="2017-08-04T04:49:57.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;both are well understood and they are interchangeable. it really doesn't matter in that sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-04T04:49:57.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25832" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-04T13:20:50.297" Score="1" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Google Translate the Pinyin for 这个 is 'Zhège' but the Pinyin for 个 is 'Gè'.  I've looked at several links referring to tone changes (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/mandarin1/4481&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;) but nothing I can find explains the different tone given to 个.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone clarify what is happening here?  Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17637" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T13:00:02.600" Title="这个 and 个 Pinyin" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25834" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-04T15:46:58.887" Score="0" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;May you live in interesting times&quot; is well-known to be a Chinese curse (and this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/19501&quot;&gt;may even be true&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English translation is interesting because, at least in the culture I was raised in, 'interesting' usually has a positive connotation, and so the phrase &lt;em&gt;sounds&lt;/em&gt; like a blessing if you don't know what it's getting at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm curious if the same is true in the original Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those unfamiliar with the phrase, &quot;interesting times&quot; are times where &lt;em&gt;interesting&lt;/em&gt; things happen like war, famine, unrest, et cetera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user17638" LastEditorDisplayName="user17638" LastEditDate="2017-08-04T16:47:34.640" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T09:58:22.670" Title="Connotation of &quot;May you live in interesting times&quot;" Tags="&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-08-22T06:23:23.110" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25834" CreationDate="2017-08-04T16:40:16.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native chinese,and I had never ever heard or read this before you typed it.I cant get it...what does it mean?I mean there is on chinese would say that,it make no sense at all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastEditorUserId="15909" LastEditDate="2017-08-05T09:58:22.670" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T09:58:22.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25844" CreationDate="2017-08-04T16:46:15.093" Score="0" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an century+ old sword which has this label:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4QzHo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4QzHo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese friend at work said she understood 光雲一刀 = &quot;Light cloud [something] sword&quot; but she couldn't figure out the third character, some kind of classifier, she thought maybe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me with that 3rd character please?&#xA;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17639" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T02:44:27.753" Title="What does the 3rd symbol on this sword label mean?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25837" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25850" CreationDate="2017-08-04T16:48:58.350" Score="0" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you express &quot;strolling/pacing back and forth&quot;? For example, if you are waiting for someone in front of a bus stop, you might walk back and forth a bit on a stretch of side walk. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I stumbled across 踱来踱去 &lt;em&gt;duó lái duó qù&lt;/em&gt; &quot;strolling/pacing back and forth&quot; while doing some reading a while back. However, I'm not sure how common this expression is because it took some effort to type, and the example sentences I could find seem a bit literary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there some more common ways to express this idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T08:19:20.037" Title="Strolling/pacing back and forth" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25834" CreationDate="2017-08-04T17:15:30.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It appears that while this phrase may have been called a &quot;well-known Chinese curse&quot;, nobody has ever been able to find a Chinese source confirming this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Fred R. Shapiro who is the editor of “The Yale Book of Quotations” has noted that: “No authentic Chinese saying to this effect has ever been found”. In addition, Ralph Keyes stated in “The Quote Verifier” that nobody has ever been able to confirm the Chinese origin claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/12/18/live/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Quote Investigator&lt;/a&gt; has a piece on this phrase (found via sources on English Wikipedia).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-04T17:15:30.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25832" CreationDate="2017-08-04T17:27:10.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Finding where &quot;words&quot; begin and end in Chinese is more challenging than in languages that are written with spaces, in which case we generally adopt the convention that a &quot;word&quot; is what is separated by spaces (major exception: Vietnamese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While most &lt;em&gt;words&lt;/em&gt; 词 in Chinese will be two or more characters, people often talk about individual &lt;em&gt;characters&lt;/em&gt; 字. Oftentimes, &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt; readings are presented as a series of character readings, rather than as guides to pronounce whole words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to learn to pronounce Chinese as it is spoken, it is important to pay attention to &lt;em&gt;words&lt;/em&gt; as they are spoken. Building up the pronunciation of a word by individual character pronunciations may work sometimes, but it is easier to get a more accurate pronunciation for some word by consulting a 词典 &lt;em&gt;word&lt;/em&gt; dictionary (as opposed to a 字典 &lt;em&gt;character&lt;/em&gt; dictionary) or, of course, by hearing the language in actual use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-04T17:27:10.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25837" CreationDate="2017-08-04T18:36:30.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;踱步&lt;/strong&gt;= &lt;strong&gt;pacing&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来回踱步= pacing around&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;踱来踱去= pacing back and forth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since '&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yourdictionary.com/pacing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pacing&lt;/a&gt;' means &lt;em&gt;&quot;repeatedly walking back and forth across. &quot;&lt;/em&gt; We can say 踱步, 来回踱步 and 踱来踱去 are basically describing the same action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在房间里踱步, 在房间里来回踱步, 在房间里踱来踱去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-04T18:43:14.790" LastActivityDate="2017-08-04T18:43:14.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25837" CreationDate="2017-08-05T00:03:55.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;徘徊&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 pace back and forth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他独自在江边徘徊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He wandered alone by the river.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T00:03:55.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25843" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25846" CreationDate="2017-08-05T00:29:25.390" Score="1" ViewCount="863" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read that phrase in a lot of stories and in a lot of different form; could you tell me the official form of that phrase (or maybe idiom) and its meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T09:15:09.067" Title="What does the phrase 'holding in the palm of hands' in chinese mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25836" CreationDate="2017-08-05T02:44:27.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;my initial guess, the 3rd character is 刻 (u+523b)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%88%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=刻&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the seal script in the picture is slightly deviated from standard one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyway, i guess your sword is made by 光雲堂, a japanese carving knife manufacturer; maybe you can ask them directly :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kouundou.com/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://kouundou.com/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T02:44:27.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25843" CreationDate="2017-08-05T03:44:52.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The common word is  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5866/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;掌握&lt;/a&gt; (hold in one's palm) meaning &quot; &lt;strong&gt;have possession and control of something&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;掌握&lt;/strong&gt;軍國大權 (&lt;strong&gt;hold control&lt;/strong&gt; of the government and the armed force)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;掌握&lt;/strong&gt;有力證據 (&lt;strong&gt;holding&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;have possession&lt;/strong&gt; of powerful evidence)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also an idiom &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;玩弄於股掌之上&lt;/strong&gt; (to toy with someone on one's thighs and palms)- meaning: &quot; &lt;strong&gt;play someone like a fiddle&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another idiom mentioned &quot;in the palm&quot; is  &quot;&lt;strong&gt;掌上明珠&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (pearl in one's palm). It means &quot; &lt;strong&gt;treasured daughter&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-05T05:47:26.350" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T05:47:26.350" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25834" CreationDate="2017-08-05T05:45:27.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;May you live in interesting time wiki&lt;/a&gt;. Wiki clearly explains everything. From my point of view, someone loved around 17~ 19 century tried to be a swagger, pretend he knew Chinese culture well and then he created saying. (Unlikely to be a She) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T05:45:27.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25815" CreationDate="2017-08-05T05:55:00.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@dan provide the causal saying of Mandarin, I add the casual saying of Cantonese: 「叻啦你」or「巴閉啦你」. Depends on the scenario, change the 「啦」 to any word that show one's emotion. My version is for sarcasm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T05:55:00.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25837" CreationDate="2017-08-05T08:19:20.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;踱 is a bit formal. 走来走去 or 晃来晃去 will be more colloquial.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T08:19:20.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25843" CreationDate="2017-08-05T09:15:09.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it is a setence of a poem wrote by William Blake.the whole poem is:&#xA;To see a world in a grain of sand. And a heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palm of your hand .And eternity in an hour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;its chinese translation is&#xA;在一颗沙粒中见一个世界，&#xA;在一朵鲜花中见一片天空，&#xA;在你的掌心里把握无限，&#xA;在一个钟点里把握无穷。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T09:15:09.067" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25852" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-05T12:22:48.733" Score="1" ViewCount="1034" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 一切， 都 and 全部？ Can you give some examples where the difference would be visible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17642" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T14:06:27.503" Title="What is the difference between 一切， 都 and 全部？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25832" CreationDate="2017-08-05T12:54:33.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is common in Chinese. it is called &quot;neutral tone&quot;. some characters(个，么，着，了，etc) , when they are used at the end of a word or sentence, will change to &quot;neutral tone&quot;: ge, me, zhe, le, etc. they will be pronounced in a brief/short way (sounds like the short version of the first tone) . Besides 这个, there are more: 看&lt;em&gt;着&lt;/em&gt;，知道&lt;em&gt;了&lt;/em&gt;，什&lt;em&gt;么&lt;/em&gt;，找不到&lt;em&gt;了&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-08-05T13:00:02.600" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T13:00:02.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25852" CreationDate="2017-08-05T13:21:38.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;都 is an adverb meaning: (is) all:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一切都准备好了。 &#xA;Everything is ready. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一切 is a noun meaning everything:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一切由他负责。 &#xA;He's responsible for everything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全部 is a noun meaning (the) whole (part):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他知道全部真相。 &#xA;He knows the whole truth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都 being an adverb is usually found at the end of words like 一切 and 全部3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一切都&#xA;it all is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全部都&#xA;the whole (thing) is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T13:21:38.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25852" CreationDate="2017-08-05T13:59:49.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5511/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一切&lt;/a&gt; : all; everything; every; all sorts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1012/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;全部&lt;/a&gt; : entire; all; whole; total&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/2507/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;所有&lt;/a&gt; : all; whatever there is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'一切' describes everything that's known or unknown, without confine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &amp;quot;一切後果由我來負&amp;quot;;  (All consequence will be handled by me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You don't necessary know what exactly they are, there's no confine&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'全部' describes everything that's known or in a confine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人體裡的全部器官 (all the organs in human body)- &lt;em&gt;You know what they are exactly; and it is in the confine of a human body&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圖書館裡的全部書籍 (All the books in the library)- &lt;em&gt;In the confine of the library&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所有 is more general, it can replace either 一切 or 全部&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;所有&lt;/strong&gt;後果由我來負 = &lt;strong&gt;一切&lt;/strong&gt;後果由我來負&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人體裡的&lt;strong&gt;所有&lt;/strong&gt;器官 = 人體裡的&lt;strong&gt;全部&lt;/strong&gt;器官&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;圖書館裡的&lt;strong&gt;所有&lt;/strong&gt;書籍 = 圖書館裡的&lt;strong&gt;全部&lt;/strong&gt;書籍&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/329/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;都&lt;/a&gt; is an adverb for [all; both; without exception]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圖書館裡的所有書籍&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt;要盖章 - Every book in the library &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; needed to be stamped&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一切 can be a noun for &amp;quot;Everything&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全部 can be a noun for &amp;quot;the whole thing/ the entire thing/ every parts&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/2507/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;所有&lt;/a&gt; is strictly an adjective  when it means 'all/ every'.  But it carries other meanings too. (see link)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T14:06:27.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25856" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25858" CreationDate="2017-08-05T15:58:27.843" Score="1" ViewCount="483" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder how I should use 其. To express possessive pronoun, you can use 他的，它的，他们的，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when should I use 其? Can it function as just a replacement for these possessive pronouns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(And I just found that it is also used as a subjective pronoun...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-08-06T04:18:35.197" Title="How can I use 其 properly?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25857" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-05T17:20:13.417" Score="2" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone please help explain to me what '收尸' means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm learning what this '收尸' words mean, I've looked in ichiba, ichacha and mdbg and I still couldn't understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They all said that the meaning is 'bury the dead', but when I saw some of the sentences they showed as examples, some of them showed '收尸' as 'corpse'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is '收尸' considered as one 'word'? Or is it: '收'=verb '尸'=object?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, one of the example I completely didn't understand is:&#xA;- '她是法络德.翁海尔的养女, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;为他的收尸人跑腿&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. '&#xA;- The adopted daughter of Pharod Wormhair, she runs errands for his Collectors.&#xA;I assumed it's supposed to be 'she is Fa Luo De, Wang Hai Er's adopted daughter, ....' I can't understand the '收尸人' in the continuation of that sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T03:43:45.083" Title="Could someone please help explain to me what '收尸' means?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25856" CreationDate="2017-08-05T17:57:43.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One challenge of Chinese is that the same characters may have literary/classical uses as well as contemporary uses. Often in modern usages, characters that are used as stand alone words only appear as parts of multiple character compounds (for example 其它).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其 is one such character that is frequently used in literary/classical Chinese, and often creeps up in those contexts in idioms or other allusions to older Chinese varieties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend not using 其 in speech except in words you know that use it (examples of some common words with it: 其他、其实、尤其、极其...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll await somebody else's explanation for its meaning in literary/classical uses, but my impression is that most speakers will just memorize fixed expressions or very short constructions and not use this form too productively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;其父 his/her father&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;劝其戒烟 advise him/her to quit smoking&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;正当其实 just at that time; at the opportune moment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T17:57:43.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25859" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25875" CreationDate="2017-08-06T01:10:30.810" Score="1" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both words seem to express &lt;code&gt;crab&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin. What is the difference between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(It is so difficult to discern these words in Mandarin, where one word seems a subset of the others...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T13:39:44.547" Title="What is the difference between 蟹 and 螃蟹?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25857" CreationDate="2017-08-06T04:04:09.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'收尸' 收 is a verb meaning &quot;collect&quot;. 尸 means ‘corpse’, 'dead body'. 收尸人 means the one who collects the corpse of someone else. if you can put a 的 in the middle:收尸的人, you might have a better understanding I guess.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-06T04:04:09.350" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25856" CreationDate="2017-08-06T04:18:35.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;其, in ancient Chinese, is used as a personal pronoun: he, she, it, his, her, its. nowadays, in Chinese, we partially inherited its usage. That means it will only make sense in some fixing words, phrases and sentences. besides examples by haksayng, there are more (which are commonly used in my quotidian world): 以其人之道，还治其人之身 （meaning &quot;fight fire with fire&quot; or &quot;tit for tat&quot;）, 有其父必有其子 （meaning &quot;like father, like son&quot;）, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-06T04:18:35.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25863" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-06T07:48:10.830" Score="3" ViewCount="708" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it is the name given by English users when they first reached that region, but as we know after 1949, China adopted the pinyin and unified the spelling of English of names of place, Peking was changed into Beijing, something like Bombay of India into Mumbai, as the result of the nationalist efforts to make special identity. But Tibet is still in use, but not as Xizang. Why is it so? Hope it is not a political question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T12:16:28.147" Title="Why is 西藏 Tibet but not Xizang in English as are other names of place in China?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25508" CreationDate="2017-08-06T14:47:51.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“我的妈来”更像是表示一种惊讶的语气，并不是&quot;my mother come&quot;，它应该被翻译成类似于&quot;Oh My God&quot;这样的表示惊讶的话语。&#xA;相似的还有“我的妈呀”，“我的妈”，“我的天”或者“妈呀”。&#xA;和“去他妈的”(&quot;damn it&quot;)意思不一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17647" LastActivityDate="2017-08-06T14:47:51.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25865" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25946" CreationDate="2017-08-06T17:24:08.317" Score="1" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;过家家 is a children's game, in which children mimic adults to run households. Activities includes preparing and serving make-believe dinners, looking after babies and pretending to be husbands and wives, doctors and cashiers. There is no rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T15:17:18.787" Title="Is there an English name for 过家家?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25866" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25881" CreationDate="2017-08-06T17:33:31.333" Score="2" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;那遍布的伤疤铬的她手指生疼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think '铬' in this sentence means chromium, but I couldn't find other meaning except chromium in dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a typo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T20:57:17.550" Title="Does the word '铬' have other meaning besides chromium/chrome?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25863" CreationDate="2017-08-06T17:35:55.043" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The name &lt;strong&gt;西藏 / Xīzàng&lt;/strong&gt; is fairly recent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_Tibet#In_English&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.britannica.com/place/Tibet&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Encyclopedia Britannica&lt;/a&gt; agree that the name &quot;Tibet&quot; is derived from a different language than Chinese, probably Persian &quot;Tubbat&quot;, but that may not be the original source of the name (Wikipedia). Britannica says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The name Tibet is derived from the Mongolian Thubet, the Chinese&#xA;  Tufan, the Tai Thibet, and the Arabic Tubbat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dr. Elliot Sperling wrote that &quot; in discussing Tibet as an integral historical unit the name is clearly of limited utility and can create confusion&quot; and that the Chinese edition of the book &lt;em&gt;Authenticating Tibet&lt;/em&gt; therefore uses a different name, namely &quot;Tubote&quot; (a name closer to the non-Chinese origin of the name &quot;Tibet&quot;): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Indeed, it is due to the specific limitations of that term that it was&#xA;  decided that the Chinese edition of Authenticating Tibet would employ&#xA;  the term “Tubote” 圖伯特, a name that is used now by a growing number of&#xA;  writers and bloggers on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. As a result,&#xA;  I prepared the following introductory essay for the Chinese-language&#xA;  edition of Authenticating Tibet in order to explain the choice while&#xA;  at the same time pointing out that the term “Tubote”is not a recent&#xA;  concoction: it has a history as a recognized Chinese-language&#xA;  designation for Tibet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His essay &lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/tibetanpoliticalreview/articles/tubotetibetandthepowerofnaming&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tubote, Tibet, and the Power of Naming&lt;/a&gt; also discusses the etymology of 西藏 / Xīzàng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The origin of the name &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Peking&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; instead of Beijing is a different story. European commercial travellers to China often came to the country through ports in south-east China, where dialects other than Mandarin are spoken. For this reason, some people think that the name &quot;Peking&quot; derives from one of those dialects, most likely Cantonese, where the pronunciation may have sounded like [pakkiŋ]. An alternative theory is that the European name was borrowed from Mandarin before the shift in pronunciation from [k] to [ʧ]. See Bill Poser's article &lt;a href=&quot;http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000583.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;BEIJING, PEKING, PEIPING AND ALL THAT&lt;/a&gt; on Language Log.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-08-07T12:16:28.147" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T12:16:28.147" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25868" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25870" CreationDate="2017-08-06T17:44:52.970" Score="1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;天嫁&lt;/strong&gt; | Marriage of the sky&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  流星划过天幕 | A shooting star streaks the canopy of the sky&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  长长的慧尾 | A long comet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  冰雪溶化汇成 | Snow melts and becomes&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  千年的泪 | The tears of a thousand years&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  亲人捎来的龙达 | The dragon brought by close relatives reaches&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  光耀苍穹 | The dazzling blue dome of heavens&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  阿妈告诉孩儿 | Mother, tell your child&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  故事的凄美 | The sadness and beauty of history&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  那是天上的桌玛 | This is the 桌玛 of the sky&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  骑着白驹要远嫁 | Riding a white horse wants to marry a wife from far away&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  离愁有多痛痛有多浓 | The grief of parting is too painful and the pain is too dense&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  那里的小草绿吗 | Is the grass there green?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  那里的天蓝云白吗 | Is the sky there blue? Are the clouds there white?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  那里的你 还像从前一样美吗 | Are you, there, still beautiful as you used to be?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  嗡嘛哩嘛哩班咩哄&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  嗡嘛哩嘛哩班咩哄&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  嗡嘛哩嘛哩班咩哄&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  嗡嘛哩嘛哩班咩哄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here are my questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the correct spelling of 慧尾? The captions of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTwXwobOwOg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Youtube video&lt;/a&gt; have 慧尾, but I found a &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BD%97%E5%B0%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike article&lt;/a&gt; which has 彗尾…&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is this 亲人捎来的龙 (dragon that close relatives bring in)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does 桌玛 mean? Is it one word or two?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The translation of the line 离愁有多痛痛有多浓 sounds just horrible, so what does it mean and how do I better translate it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I take it right, &quot;to marry&quot; is 嫁 for women and another verb for men, so why is the sky taken as female, with verb 嫁? (This question probably only arises from the fact that Italian and many other languages have &quot;sky&quot; as masculine gender)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: the last 4 lines are the mantra &quot;Om mani padme hum&quot; repeated 4 times, with &quot;mani&quot; repeated twice each time (om mani mani padme hum).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-08-06T19:14:35.747" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T13:54:46.507" Title="Help understanding song titled 天嫁" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25869" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25874" CreationDate="2017-08-06T19:00:51.330" Score="2" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any Americans out there have probably heard this lame but funny joke where someone asks what time it is and the other person replies &quot;time for you to get a watch&quot;. I've been looking for translations of this, but none of them sound funny or retain the comedic effect. How would I translate and keep the comedic effect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17612" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T06:24:02.307" Title="How to say this joke in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25868" CreationDate="2017-08-06T20:13:55.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'彗尾'  is short for '彗星尾巴'. It means &lt;strong&gt;comet tail&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'卓玛' should be the name of a girl, because the next line 骑着白驹要远嫁 (Riding a white horse, about to marry to far away place) indicated so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/17498/dan&quot;&gt;Dan&lt;/a&gt; wrote: &lt;em&gt;'卓玛' in Tibetan is like 'goddess'.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那是天上的卓玛, 骑着白驹要远嫁 - That is a goddess in the sky, riding a white horse, about to get married away to somewhere far far away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;离愁有多痛? 痛有多浓? - How painful is the grief of parting? And how deep is that pain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那里的小草绿吗 - Will the grass there green?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那里的天蓝云白吗 -  Will the sky there blue? Will the clouds there white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那里的你 还像从前一样美吗 - The you who will be there, will she still be as beautiful as before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 2:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/13440/jacob&quot;&gt;Jacob&lt;/a&gt; wrote: &lt;em&gt;龙达 is a series of flag for prayer&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;亲人捎来的龙达光耀苍穹 - The banners that the relatives bough along brilliantly lighten up the sky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is a description of a gathering of clan members from different parts of the land. Each party carry its own shiny prayer banners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;离愁有多痛痛有多浓 should be '离愁有多痛? 痛有多浓?'(How painful is the parting sorrow? And how deep is this pain?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, a man marrying a woman is to 娶 a woman. A woman marrying a man is to 嫁 a man. 娶 and 嫁 are verbs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'嫁' in '天嫁' is a noun for 'bride'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'花嫁' in Japanese means 'bride' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judging from the context in the lyrics, I think the title '天嫁' might has borrowed the Japanese term '花嫁'(bride) and simplified it to '嫁' and added '天' to make up a new term '&lt;strong&gt;天嫁&lt;/strong&gt;'(天空的花嫁- &lt;strong&gt;the bride in the sky&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;流星 and 彗星 (meteor and comet) are two different things, the author got them confused&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the tale,  a goddess in the sky is about to marry to a far away place.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天嫁 | The bride in the sky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;流星划过天幕 | Shooting stars streak across the canopy of the sky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;长长的慧尾 冰雪溶化汇成千年的泪 | The long long comet tail, is ice and snow melted into a thousand years of tears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;亲人捎来的龙达光耀苍穹 | The banners that the relatives bough along brilliantly lighten up the sky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;阿妈告诉孩儿故事的凄美 | Mothers tell their children the sadness and beauty of a story&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(the following is the story itself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那是天上的卓玛 骑着白驹要远嫁 | There is a goddess in the sky riding a white horse, about to be married off to a far away place&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;离愁有多痛? 痛有多浓? | &quot;How painful is the grief of parting? And how deep is that pain?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那里的小草绿吗 | &quot;Will the grass there green?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那里的天蓝云白吗 | &quot;Will the sky there blue and clouds white?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那里的你 还像从前一样美吗 | &quot;The you who will be there, will she still be as beautiful as before?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(imagining a conversation with the goddess)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I think the mothers were telling a folk tale to their children about  &lt;strong&gt;the comet&lt;/strong&gt;-- It is &lt;strong&gt;a bride in the sky&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-07T15:27:31.257" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T15:27:31.257" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25866" CreationDate="2017-08-07T00:03:10.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are lots of chemical elements with unique Chinese characters, newly created to represent them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Linked here is a very detailed post about the periodic table on &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=18877&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Language Log&lt;/a&gt;, a well-reputed linguistics blog, in case you are interested in learning more about the general challenges/issues of talking chemistry in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T00:03:10.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25868" CreationDate="2017-08-07T00:55:00.283" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My take to this is different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'桌玛' in Tibetan is like 'goddess'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can seize the meaning of '天嫁' from this two lines, 那是天上的桌玛, 骑着白驹要远嫁. It means the goddess from haven will go to a marriage （on the earth）faraway from her home(haven) by riding a white horse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, '天嫁' means the marriage of the goddess from the heaven. It seems that she suffered lots of hardship from there according to the song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T00:55:00.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25863" CreationDate="2017-08-07T02:21:28.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case it looks like it was taken from another language as Christophe Strobbe wrote. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many times the English is taken from previous romanizations. For example &quot;Peking&quot; was an earlier romanization of 北京. Now English uses the more accurate &quot;Beijing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17650" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T02:21:28.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25869" CreationDate="2017-08-07T02:49:59.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to understand that every language is different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, you ask for &quot;What time is it now?&quot; and you answer with &quot;Time for you to get a watch.&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's translate that to Mandarin, &quot;现在几点了?&quot; and you answer &quot;现在是该你买表的时间了。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;???? What are you even on about ??????&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, it's funny because you are asking for &lt;strong&gt;what time&lt;/strong&gt;, and you answer with &lt;strong&gt;time for you&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, there are several way to ask for time, the most common way is &quot;几点了&quot;, the joke will be weird because you are asking for &lt;strong&gt;几点了&lt;/strong&gt;, and you answer with &lt;strong&gt;时间&lt;/strong&gt;, see how it doesn't make sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would only be funny, if i ask &quot;现在是什么&lt;strong&gt;时间&lt;/strong&gt;？&quot;, which people rarely do, and i answer &quot;该你买表的&lt;strong&gt;时间&lt;/strong&gt;了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yea, unless people specifically ask for &quot;什么&lt;strong&gt;时间&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; instead of &quot;几点了&quot;, then you can answer with &quot;买表的&lt;strong&gt;时间&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, which is still a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lame but funny joke&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2017-08-07T06:24:02.307" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T06:24:02.307" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25859" CreationDate="2017-08-07T03:51:37.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many individual characters are said to mean something even though they are not (or rarely) used as independent words. I think user6065 pretty much summarizes what is going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;although 蟹 can be used by itself, it is also part of many compounds, e.g. 螃蟹 crab， 龙蟹 lobster (for more see 小马词典），螃蟹 would seem to be a more precise unmistakable term for crab&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;螃蟹 is preferred because it is easily identifiable as meaning &quot;crab&quot;, whereas &lt;em&gt;xiè&lt;/em&gt; uttered in a different context could mean many things. There is even a famous &lt;a href=&quot;http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/harmonization-%E6%B2%B3%E8%9F%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;play on words&lt;/a&gt; on 河蟹 illustrating this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;strong&gt;preference in Mandarin for two syllable words&lt;/strong&gt; where potential amiguity may arise. Standard Chinese (普通话) is a relatively innovative Chinese dialect in that it has lost many distinctions found in other Chinese dialects (for instance, in Cantonese, there are many more possible consonant sounds at the end of syllables; Mandarin only allows &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;ng&lt;/em&gt;. Additionally, Standard Chinese has less tones than many dialects (once again, c.f. Cantonese). But speakers have more strategies beyond more complicated syllables and more tones to distinguish words. Words may be made longer, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;孩子 &quot;child&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;茄子 &quot;eggplant&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;狮子 &quot;lion&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above words, the final character 子 doesn't contribute any meaning but rather serves to differentiate these words from others with the same first syllable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, there is a smallish class of Chinese words that were always (as far as we can tell) polysyllabic. The most well-know of these is likely 蝴蝶 &quot;butterfly&quot;, where neither the first nor second character are meaninful on their own, but they are now both understood to mean &quot;butterfly&quot; by virtue of mutual association. Perhaps 螃蟹 falls under this class as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T03:51:37.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25876" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25878" CreationDate="2017-08-07T04:38:15.823" Score="0" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chapter two of &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%AD%A6%E8%80%8C/6708208?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;學而&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有子曰：「其為人也孝弟，而好犯上者，鮮矣；不好犯上，而好作亂者，未之有也。君子務本，本立而道生。孝弟也者，其為仁之本與！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弟 &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/TheDiscoursesAndSayingsOfConfucius/The_Discourses_and_Sayings_of_Confucius_djvu.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;is translated by Gu Hongming&lt;/a&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a good citizen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the footnote translates it back into Chinese as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;做一個好公民&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/analects/xue-er&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Legg's translation&lt;/a&gt; of 弟 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;fraternal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it just an extension of this &lt;em&gt;fraternal&lt;/em&gt; duty that Gu takes to mean &quot;a good citizen&quot;? or what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-08-07T04:44:07.107" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T10:00:00.803" Title="Why does Gu Hongming translate 弟 as &quot;be a good citizen&quot; (做个好公民)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25876" CreationDate="2017-08-07T05:10:33.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;孝弟= 孝悌 (filial piety and brotherly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孝悌 was originally written as 孝弟 in ancient time. The ' 心 (heart)' radical was added  later around the Eastern Han Dynasty period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/24303512&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/24303512&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being 'filial piety and fraternal' was the hallmark of an 'upstanding, decent person' in traditional Chinese culture (a Confucian philosophy). Therefore, translate 孝弟 as &amp;quot;being a good citizen&amp;quot; is within reason in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8835/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;悌&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;em&gt;brotherly, respectful&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%AD%9D%E6%82%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孝悌&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;孝，指对父母还报的爱; 悌，指兄弟姊妹的友爱&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(孝 refers to filial piety; 悌 refers to the fraternity of brothers and sisters)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T05:21:38.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25876" CreationDate="2017-08-07T05:33:53.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;弟 is a 通假字, it should be 悌 nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient, the number of characters is less than today. These people sometimes have to borrow the meaning from another character.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孝: be good to your parents&#xA;悌: be good to your brothers and sisters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one be good to your parents, brothers and sisters, the one probably would not against higher,  if he never against higher, he would not rise in rebellion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T05:33:53.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25869" CreationDate="2017-08-07T05:46:49.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;现在几点了?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;到你买手表的时间了.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;几点了?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;2分50秒, 快去买手表&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T05:46:49.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25868" CreationDate="2017-08-07T06:04:03.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to figure out the backgroud of a song first when you try to understand each of the lines of any lyrics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a Tibetan song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;卓玛 is just a heroine name in Tibetan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;龙达 is a series of flag for prayer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;阿妈 is mother in Tibetan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No surprise: any song involving a girl will be a love song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嗡嘛哩嘛哩班咩哄 is a Sanskrit mantra for prayer. In Mandarin, it is called &quot;六字真言&quot; and is usually spelt &lt;code&gt;唵嘛呢叭咪吽&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-08-16T13:54:46.507" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T13:54:46.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25866" CreationDate="2017-08-07T06:11:20.020" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a typo, it should be 硌. &#xA;If you sit on a rock, you would feel the rock 硌 your butt. &#xA;If your hand hold a wooden stick that is not smooth, you feel 硌手.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T06:11:20.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25876" CreationDate="2017-08-07T10:00:00.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in short, 弟 is fraternal; translated as &quot;a good citizen&quot; is, imo, &lt;strong&gt;incorrect&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in long, i would inteprete the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有子曰﹒其為人也﹒孝弟而好犯上者﹒鮮矣﹒不好犯上而好作亂者﹒未之有也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as a human being (其為人也), someone (者) who is filial (孝), fraternal (弟), and (而) prefer (好) against authority (犯上), it's rare (鮮矣). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that, 孝 (filial), is 善事父母 (performing one's duty as a son), while 弟 (fraternal) is 善事兄長 (performing one's duty as a younger sibling; and to perform well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, a children would internalise a submissive attitude, which would be obedient toward parents, older siblings in family; afterward, they would conform to the authorities in society.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that's the norm of confucian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T10:00:00.803" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25883" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26258" CreationDate="2017-08-07T10:22:16.980" Score="2" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a song called 三声无奈, &quot;three times helpless&quot;. It is in Min, and it has lyrics that can be written as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一时贪着阿君仔媠 | A moment of craving, oh, you are beautiful&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  痴情目睭格眛眛 | [My] infatuated eyes [I] (ke-bui-bui = ??)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  为君仔假爱来吃亏 | Because of your false love I grieve&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  害阮目屎四喃垂 | Which makes my tears (si lang tsui = ??)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  二更过了月斜西 | Two _geng_s have past, the moon is westward slanted *&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  想阮那会命即歹 | I think of how I could have such a bad (sad?) life&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  花开专望阿君仔采 | The flowers blossoming, I hope you care [about me]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  无疑侥幸不应该 | Undoubtedly you shouldn't have changed your heart&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  站在窗边啊 | I stand by the window&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  举头看天星 | I look up and see the stars&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  哎哟心酸悲 | Ah I'm so sad&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  害阮每日 | Which makes me every day&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  为伊目屎滴是 | (shed? ti-si) tears for him&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  哎哟啊喂 | Ay goodness!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  心阿肝我苦啊 | Darling, I grieve&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  哎哟心肝 | Ah darling&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  哎哟我苦啊喂 | Ah I grieve&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  三声无奈哭悲哀 | Three times helpless I cry and am sad&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  月娘敢知阮心内 | Does the moon know my heart?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  失恋伤心流目屎 | I lost my love, I'm sad, I shed tears&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  好花变成相思栽 | Beautiful flowers become years of pining&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*A &lt;em&gt;geng&lt;/em&gt; is a part of the night, quoting my Min Nan reference «古代將一夜分為五更，每更約二小時» (the night was divided into 5 _geng_s equalling 2 hours each), so after 2 _geng_s we are halfway through the night and the moon is probably past the zenith and going down to the west (westward slanted).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand this song. Most of it is clear. There are those 4 expressions though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;格眛眛, as spelled over at &lt;a href=&quot;https://mojim.com/cny101577x13x2.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mojim&lt;/a&gt;, 格瞇瞇 in the video's captions, sounds something like &quot;ke-bui-bui&quot; in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07JGXvHLA-k&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt;; it looks like a set phrase of the Min-typical form verb + repeated syllable; my Min reference does't give that 格 as a verb, and the only verbs pronounced keh mean &quot;separate&quot; (e.g. 隔); for the repeated bui, I could only found 微 and 蝛; could it be 隔微微, keh-bui-bui, &quot;sepaate delicately&quot;, or &quot;open [a little] gently&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;四喃垂 in the Mojim spelling, 四洒垂 in the video's captions, sounds something like &quot;si lam sui&quot; (or maybe &quot;si lang sui&quot;) in the video; from the context it seems to mean something like &quot;fall copiously&quot; or &quot;shed in abundance&quot; (referred to tears); the given spelling transliterates to &quot;sì nauh suî&quot;, so the second character appears to be wrong; first one means 4, second one means &quot;mutter&quot;, last one means &quot;drip&quot;; the &quot;mutter&quot; character might be a Mandarin phonetic loan, being &quot;nán&quot; in Mandarin, whereas the 洒 | sá character could be a semantic loan, since it means &quot;shed&quot; (e.g. 洒眼泪, an equivalent of 流眼泪 found in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC24XAI8cj8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wang Jie's Ming-jat ngo si seoi&lt;/a&gt;); so what is that character? What does this mean:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;滴是 as in the captions, which seems about right, seen as that transliterates to &quot;tih sī&quot;, which matches what I hear; IIRC I just saw &quot;tih&quot; listed as a 近义词 of &quot;suî&quot; above, so that makes it mean &quot;drip&quot;; I'm not entirely sure what the &quot;sī&quot; is for though; my Min reference tells me that one sense is «加在詞尾，表示動作的進行狀態或表現一種情狀», which would mean it roughly means an ongoing action (think -ing forms in English); so the sentence would mean &quot;Which makes me every day go on crying for him&quot; or the likes; is that right?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三声 everywhere, &quot;sann siann&quot;; I took it for &quot;three times&quot;, meaning more or less &quot;extremely&quot;; is that correct? Is it to any extent common to use 声 for &quot;times&quot; instead of 次?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;专望 everywhere, &quot;tsuan-bāng&quot;; is this a single verb? And in any case, what does it mean? &quot;To hope&quot;, as I took it to?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;采 everywhere, &quot;tshái&quot;; since 無採 | bô-tshái means &quot;可惜&quot;, I thought 採 alone might mean &quot;to care&quot;, and translated accordingly; is this correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/22888347&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhihu.com&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;code&gt;悄咪咪&lt;/code&gt; is Sichuanese for &lt;code&gt;悄悄的&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;quietly&quot;. Now Sichuanese and Min are different dialects, and &quot;quietly&quot; doesn't quite fit the context (what is she doing quietly?), and 悄 is tshiáu in Min, not ke or similar, but could this have anything to do with my ke-bui-bui?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-08-29T12:09:24.337" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T13:36:42.720" Title="Min Nan expressions: spelling, meaning and pronunciation?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25884" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25890" CreationDate="2017-08-07T15:57:54.360" Score="4" ViewCount="454" Body="&lt;p&gt;I stumbled across this expression in the following context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;学世界语有没有意义，主要看你是什么目的。如果是想代替英语，&lt;b&gt;没门&lt;/b&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, I think the meaning of 没门 is pretty clear. I'm wondering how this expression may be used in other contexts though (or if it is uncommon, and probably shouldn't be used at all). Why would someone choose this expression over something else (e.g. 不可能， 不会).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking this expression up, it is often represented as 没门儿 (e.g. in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/3c/91858.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; dictionary entry.) Is &lt;em&gt;méiménr&lt;/em&gt; the most common way this expression is pronounced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T11:02:12.737" Title="What does 没门 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25884" CreationDate="2017-08-07T16:06:50.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This word normally isn't used in formal writing. But in spoken language, it generally means &lt;em&gt;I do not want to to do what you are trying to ask of me&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17656" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2017-08-19T11:02:12.737" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T11:02:12.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25866" CreationDate="2017-08-07T20:45:19.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is a typo, common mistake  in Chinese Simplified Characters usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the right word is 烙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烙 means : use fire to heat the iron then seal to the crimial's body, is a punishment, the brand will never fade on the skin and in their mind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other posibly is 銘，means carve&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烙 and 銘 here is almost the same meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;full sentence : 那遍佈的傷疤，烙的她手指生疼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17659" LastEditorUserId="17659" LastEditDate="2017-08-07T20:57:17.550" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T20:57:17.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25884" CreationDate="2017-08-07T22:41:32.570" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strict Translation of 没门 is NO, Void(没) + (Door, Entrance)门 = Void of Entrance&#xA;Which translate to us humans as: Absolutely, positively NOT b/c there is no way.  STOP TRYING (huge part of the expression).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The expression is very heavy on the confrontational side of the Chinese language, you often hear this before a huge family fight, considering Chinese people tries to be polite in the presence of others.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers :) and Hello World, I just joined the site. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17660" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T22:41:32.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-07T23:45:03.027" Score="2" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know they both mean this kind (of).&#xA;Is the latter more versatile or less?&#xA;Does that have any influence on the choice of word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it an etymological feature that provides or shows a differentiation, if such a differentiation is existent ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T03:42:43.503" Title="What is the difference between 这类 and 这种?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25888" CreationDate="2017-08-08T01:54:27.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;种类&lt;/strong&gt; (n): '&lt;strong&gt;kind&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;sort&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;kind&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;species&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;种 as a noun means carries the meaning of 'seed'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;种&lt;/strong&gt;: things came from the same origin and divert slightly, but still belong to the same &lt;strong&gt;kind&lt;/strong&gt; nonetheless. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, knife and sword are both a &lt;strong&gt;kind&lt;/strong&gt;(种) of cold weapon because 'created to be a cold weapon' is their origin; Football and basketball are both a &lt;strong&gt;kind&lt;/strong&gt; of a ball sport because 'created to be a ball sport' is their origin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;类 as a verb carries the meaning of 'to classify'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;类&lt;/strong&gt;: things that's being classified into the same &lt;strong&gt;sort&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;type&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;kind&lt;/strong&gt; based on similar origin, feature,  function or other qualities  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, knife and sword are both a &lt;strong&gt;kind/ class/ type&lt;/strong&gt;(类) of cold weapon ; Horse and cow are both a &lt;strong&gt;kind&lt;/strong&gt; of cattle; Football and basketball are both a &lt;strong&gt;kind&lt;/strong&gt; of ball sport. (we classify them based on their similarity)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-08T02:01:25.290" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T02:01:25.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25884" CreationDate="2017-08-08T02:02:50.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;in oral Chinese, you should use &quot;没门儿&quot; instead of &quot;没门&quot;. &quot;没门&quot; sounds odd/unnatural. I would use &quot;不太可能&quot; or &quot;可能性不大&quot; (meaning unlikely to happen) in this context: ...如果是想代替英语，可能性不大. It will sound more formal, professional  and mature. Using 没门 here sounds kind of immature, which make people doubt your statement (because you state it in absolutely no way with your own emotion attached and plus it's a verbal term). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没门儿 is an emotional word, meaning the speaker subjectively slams the door for something instead of being objective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T02:02:50.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25891" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-08T03:48:02.870" Score="0" ViewCount="473" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 能 might be misspelled, it might have been 熊, otherwise it doesn't make sense. But still &quot;There is a tall bear ahead&quot; is not good enough to get across, what does it really mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T07:55:29.417" Title="What does 前方高能 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25891" CreationDate="2017-08-08T04:09:30.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%89%8D%E6%96%B9%E9%AB%98%E8%83%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%89%8D%E6%96%B9%E9%AB%98%E8%83%BD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前方高能一般认为最早出自《机动战士高达》系列。指宇宙舰队在太空行军过程中为了安全，会时刻对前方的宇宙空间进行能量侦测。若有高能量反应，则及时规避。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而在各ACGN弹幕网的视频弹幕中经常会出现“前方高能”之类的弹幕，则是预示接下来会出现激烈的内容或画面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is apparently a Japanese phrase commonly seen in Japanese anime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Front high-energy&amp;quot; is generally considered the earliest from the &amp;quot;Mobile Suit Gundam&amp;quot; series. Refers to the space battle ships (or mobile suits) travel in space, for safety reason, will always sweep for high energy reactions. If detected a high energy reaction, The pilot can decide to take evasive action or prepare to engage enemy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the videos from ACGN network.  The message  &amp;quot;前方高能&amp;quot; (High energy reaction detected in front) would often appear on screen. Whenever it does, the two enemies are in a collision course, intense battle will begin shortly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Nowadays, they also use this phrase to announce upcoming exciting sequence of all kinds, not just for battle&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T06:24:32.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25891" CreationDate="2017-08-08T06:11:36.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is Japanese Kanji, in China, it means the upcoming will be exciting/ shocking/ amazing/.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another words is 高能预警: warn for upcoming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you watch an online video, you may see 弹幕 like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;前方高能&quot; (The upcoming scene is amazing/ shocking)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;高能预警, 非战斗人员速速撤退&quot; (warning, the following scene is amazing, you don't want to miss it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;太高能了&quot; (Amazing.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T06:11:36.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25884" CreationDate="2017-08-08T06:45:37.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is impossible, so the better translation can be &quot;no way&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17663" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T06:45:37.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25884" CreationDate="2017-08-08T06:57:43.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means no way.&#xA;If you want to date with a girl, she says&quot;没门&quot;， it means that she does'nt want to and reject your invitation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17664" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T06:57:43.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25884" CreationDate="2017-08-08T08:58:53.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This 没门儿 means 'fat chance'.I think it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16746" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T08:58:53.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25897" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-08T11:30:03.513" Score="3" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both words generally mean &lt;strong&gt;sincerity&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;honesty&lt;/strong&gt;, however their usage seems to be different, sometimes, but not always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to my understanding, you can say, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他对我有诚意。&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but can't say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他对我有诚信。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他有诚信。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone please explain the difference? Can someone please translate the above sentences accurately, and perhaps provide a few other useful examples? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T09:48:53.713" Title="What is the difference between 诚意 and 诚信?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25897" CreationDate="2017-08-08T12:22:42.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;诚意: your willingness towards something,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg: 我对这生意很有诚意；让我们看到你的诚意；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诚信: credits you got, (so people hold you accountable to do something.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg: 你很有诚信； 你的诚信很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-08-08T12:57:29.897" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T12:57:29.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25897" CreationDate="2017-08-08T12:31:30.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;诚信: means honesty &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; credibility&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诚意: means honesty only&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他对我有诚信。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because if somebody 有诚信, he/she will be always 有诚信, not only for you, but for everyone. So you just say 他有诚信 or 他没诚信.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他对我有诚意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意 means mood here. One can be 有诚意 &lt;strong&gt;now&lt;/strong&gt;, but wasn't other times, can be 有诚意 for &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt;, but not for others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;诚信 is a trait, 诚意 is a mood.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他今天有诚意.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他今天有诚信&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T12:31:30.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25897" CreationDate="2017-08-08T13:46:32.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In '诚意'(&lt;strong&gt;sincerity&lt;/strong&gt;); '诚'= '诚实'(honest) ; '意'= '意图' (intention)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有诚意&lt;/strong&gt;- having honest intention means you are &lt;strong&gt;sincer&lt;/strong&gt;e&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In '诚信' (&lt;strong&gt;integrity&lt;/strong&gt;);  '诚'= '诚实'(honest); '信'= '信用'(credibility/ trust- worthiness)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有诚信&lt;/strong&gt;- having honesty and credibility means you &lt;strong&gt;have integrity&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T16:33:28.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25901" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25908" CreationDate="2017-08-08T18:53:43.813" Score="2" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, we have an expression: &quot;the secret sauce&quot; to refer to a trick/hack/essential ingredient to doing something well. Literally, it is easy to see where this comes from – a food can taste very good because it uses a tasty (but little-known sauce). This expression can be used more generally too however (e.g. the &quot;secret sauce&quot; in a formula for financial independence/language study/etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What similar expressions exist in Chinese to express this idea? I am aware of&#xA;秘诀 &lt;em&gt;mìjué&lt;/em&gt;, but am wondering if there are more interesting/idiomatic ways to say this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T06:04:52.477" Title="The secret sauce" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25901" CreationDate="2017-08-08T20:06:29.433" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;秘诀 (secret method) is a good counterpart for &quot;the secret sauce&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;but am wondering if there are more interesting/idiomatic ways to say this.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some similar terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;秘方 (secret formula ) mainly refers to 'unique secret medicinal formula'.  It can also be used metaphorically to mean &quot;unique method&quot;. Example: The government's 秘方 of lower the housing cost but keep the interest rate high is to build more public houses. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'絕招' (ultimate technique) is a martial art term. It can also be used as a metaphor for 'unique way'.  Example: His 絕招 (unique method) in getting new clients is the 'iPad give-away move'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-09T06:04:52.477" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T06:04:52.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25903" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25906" CreationDate="2017-08-08T22:37:59.497" Score="5" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;I, among others, do not understand why this word would be chosen for jellyfish.  Is a jellyfish held in regard as some sort of cultural/spiritual analogue ?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A mother tries to be everywhere at once like all the tentacles of a jellyfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have also seen that this word means Medusa, but Medusa can also be 美杜莎.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is more common?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T00:53:59.633" Title="The origin of 水母" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25901" CreationDate="2017-08-08T22:47:59.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another expression that can be very interpretive, depending on if you are the lake or river can mean something similar =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;江湖一点诀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not a native speaker, so do not quote me on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also seen 要诀.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T22:47:59.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25901" CreationDate="2017-08-09T00:19:21.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most interesting verbal term I know is 杀手锏, which is something very special or a very unique skill you have over others; the key element to beat others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eg: 我还有一个杀手锏.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T00:19:21.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25903" CreationDate="2017-08-09T00:54:49.770" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wow it's a fascinating question. I have never thought about that before and this question intrigues me. Because it's a two characters word, meaning that it definitely has an origin, not like the word 猪 for example, which just reassembles the image of a pig.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After searching a while and came across many different sources and non-senses, you might actually be right. The earliest usage, that I can find, of the word 水母 means the goddess of water. First used in 先秦, which is the period from 221BC to the possible known beginning of China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the first record of using this word, again that I can find, appeared in Verses of Chu 楚辞, which is a collection of poets of a greater period of time. The word came from 王襃．九懷．思忠, written as：「玄武步兮水母，與吾期兮南榮。登華蓋兮乘陽，聊逍遙兮播光。」The author 王襃 was living at the time around 6 century AD (possibly 513 - 576). The word 水母 in this poet means the same, the goddess of water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more recent variation of the goddess, is called 水母娘娘, or the Old Mother of Water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;According to Chinese folklore, she is responsible for submerging&#xA;  Sizhou/泗州 (an ancient Chinese city located in today’s&#xA;  Jiangsu/江苏 Province) under the waters of lake Hongze Lake/洪泽湖 in 1574&#xA;  A.D. and is currently sealed at the foot of a mountain in Xuyi/盱眙&#xA;  District.[1]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my best guess is when people saw this amazing creature in the sea, they would see it as an avatar of the goddess of water, and thus call it 水母.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We also call it 海蜇 nowadays, but this word feels more like &quot;beef&quot;, while 水母 feels like &quot;cow&quot; or &quot;bull&quot;. Both names are quite common to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in 本草纲目, it's called 海䖳.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never seen this word being used as Medusa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Notes&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Werner, Edward Theodore Chalmers (1922). Myths and Legends of China (PDF). Courier Corporation. pp. 166–168.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17618" LastEditorUserId="20986" LastEditDate="2019-02-23T00:53:59.633" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T00:53:59.633" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25903" CreationDate="2017-08-09T04:01:32.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in the book &quot;嶺表録異&quot; by 劉恂 of 唐 dynasty (618-907)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水母&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;廣州謂之水母﹒閩謂之蛇[疑駕切]﹒其形乃渾然凝結一物﹒有淡紫色者﹒有白色者﹒大如覆帽﹒小者如盌﹒腹下有物如懸絮﹒俗謂之足而無口眼﹒常有數十蝦寄腹下﹒咂食其涎﹒浮汎水上﹒捕者或遇之﹒即歘然而沒﹒乃是蝦有所見耳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which gives a clear description of jellyfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Teosz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Teosz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T04:01:32.183" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25901" CreationDate="2017-08-09T05:14:26.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1 tricks&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;法门 = 诀窍 = 窍门 (trickest part)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;演讲的诀窍 / 窍门 / 法门就是把下面的听众当成白菜.&#xA;(The trick of speech is imagine  listeners as cabbages)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;秘诀, 窍门 common words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诀窍 not too common&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;法门 or 不二法门 literary composition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2 ultimate&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;必杀技 critical strike&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要使出我的必杀技了, 伪装成白菜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm gonna use my critical strike, pretend to be a cabbage.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看家本事 best skill&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这就是你的看家本事? 一颗白菜?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Is this your best? A cabbage?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;压箱底的, best and secret skill&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看来我要使出我压箱底的了, 伪装成土豆.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that I have to use my best and secret, pretent to be a potato.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吃奶的劲 all one's can do &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哇! 好强的力量, 我已经使出吃奶的劲了, 土豆的力量太强了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wow! What a powerful skill, this is all I can do, how strong the potato is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T05:14:26.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23234" CreationDate="2017-08-09T09:16:41.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;run around on sinister errands&lt;/code&gt;, the only one right answer, can not be used in other scene. It's a term of abuse, I'm chinese, trust me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17669" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T09:16:41.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25897" CreationDate="2017-08-09T09:48:53.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If anyone said he would do something and finally he did it. 他很有诚信&#xA;If anyone said he would do something and problaly he will do it. 他很有诚意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16869" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T09:48:53.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25911" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25913" CreationDate="2017-08-09T11:21:01.620" Score="6" ViewCount="1107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Indian. I'm trying to learn Chinese. I searched Google translate, it's showing Chinese simplified or Chinese traditional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between Chinese simplified and Chinese traditional?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is better for understanding? How to use both?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I  checked one word in google translate  &lt;code&gt;工作&lt;/code&gt; simplified  and traditional there is no change in output &lt;code&gt;工作&lt;/code&gt;. and I checked another word in google translate &lt;code&gt;什麼&lt;/code&gt; in traditional and same word in simplified &lt;code&gt;什么&lt;/code&gt; How to use these two words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17670" LastEditorUserId="17670" LastEditDate="2017-08-19T04:39:31.667" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T12:15:59.280" Title="What is the difference between Chinese simplified and Chinese traditional?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25911" CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:04:07.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditional written Chinese have thousands of years. But it takes a long time to write, since the characters are sometimes very complicated. Mao Zedong decided to use simpler, already existing variants, so that people could write faster (this was being &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters#China&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;debated since the beginning of the XX century&lt;/a&gt;, but hasn't been yet really implemented). In the communist spirit, he wanted that everybody could write, not just well educated, rich people. This was achieved on the cost of losing a few of the history and meaning of some characters (not all of them were simplified), but the final result seem to compensate for the problems. So, if you want to study Chinese language, I suggest you study both, simplified and traditional, with an emphasis on simplified (which has much more users nowadays).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastEditorUserId="3472" LastEditDate="2017-08-22T02:09:33.727" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T02:09:33.727" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25911" CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:17:17.240" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simplified is used in mainland China. Traditional is used in other areas, like Hongkong, Macau, Taiwan, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified, no surprise, simplified &lt;strong&gt;some&lt;/strong&gt; (not all) of the characters from traditional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some good movies recently?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最近有什麼好看的電影? (Traditional)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最近有什么好看的电影? (Simplified)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is all, they have same pronunciation, grammar, vocabularies in standard Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: The 'standard' could be argued.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited: Some words (not too many) have different pronunciation, but I think that is a topic about dialect or oral Chinese, and has nothing to do with the simplified/traditional characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-06-27T12:15:59.280" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T12:15:59.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25914" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:42:59.430" Score="0" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;这样真的容易累成胖子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Getting easily tired like this is (making me) turn fat?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really know how to understand this sentence, please help me. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15622" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T15:43:27.107" Title="What does this '这样真的容易累成胖子' means?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25914" CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:48:15.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这样真的容易累成胖子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Getting tired like this (making me) turn fat easily. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这样真的容易... &gt; ... like this really easily ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;累成胖子  &gt; Getting tired makes fat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;verb + 成 + noun &gt;  doing something (verb) then produces the result (noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: What sort of tired thing making people fat other than thin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-08-09T12:57:55.157" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T12:57:55.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25916" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-09T13:34:19.407" Score="2" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping to be able to provide better service to some Chinese customers I occasionally see at my night job (hardware store) who have difficulty describing what they're looking for in English. I can't be sure what variety they speak (and if they speak a regional dialect of Mandarin, I would still be up a creek), and anecdotally, I gather that some Chinese immigrants in the US do not speak Mandarin fluently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I understand, one of the difficulties of studying non-Mandarin languages such as Yue, Wu, or Min Nan is the fact that speakers of those varieties, from having to read Mandarin in everyday life, simply read and write Mandarin while speaking their own dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the common experience among Chinese immigrants? If so, I think I could focus particularly on reading and writing, which I'm already better at than speaking and listening, and have more of a guarantee of communicating effectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12868" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T09:59:28.397" Title="On average, how literate in Mandarin are overseas Chinese?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25916" CreationDate="2017-08-09T15:22:53.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For any non-mandarin speaker that doesn't understand the Mandarin culture, this is a common confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the unique characteristic of Mandarin language: in Chinese culture, people tend to communicate through the Chinese writing, instead of speaking. The &quot;Pu-tong-Hua 普通话&quot;(China) or &quot;华语“（Taiwan）is indeed a modern language that evolves from Beijing dialect with a history of no more than 200 years. While the official speech used by bureaucrats is called &quot;官话”. But intellectuals are still communicating with each other using the Glyph. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because China enters imperialism era way ahead of Europe (at least 1000 years), there is little need for &quot;nationalism&quot;, i.e. to promote a single language nationwide.  Nevertheless, the nationalism process is on the way. It is no different than many countries that teach &quot;national language&quot; together with localized dialect. This takes time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, many countries still maintain localized dialect. However, phonetic language cannot retain the same literacy level of Chinese glyph, thus localized dialects are still confusing for other languages.   Nevertheless, localized regional terms still appear in various Chinese dialects that enter the language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(update)&#xA;There is a book call  说文解字(shuo wen jie zhi) (written around year 100-121), which selects a number of words that user by various region. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The online &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic 汉典&lt;/a&gt; contains reference to some localized dialect, under the section 音韵方言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2017-08-10T09:59:28.397" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T09:59:28.397" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25914" CreationDate="2017-08-09T15:43:27.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some article claims tiresome desk job make people gain weights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this term only applies to any tiresome tasks/works that don't involve physical work out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T15:43:27.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25920" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-09T20:10:43.557" Score="0" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this on a reviewer's video, but I'm not sure if I understand the meaning or how you would parse it in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't catch everything the speaker said but I remember;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;说不好比起[name of character C]也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From context it seems like the speaker was comparing someone he's recently met (A) to two others (B and C), he said A was not like B, and then he says A is &quot;说不好比起[name of character C]也&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17673" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T01:38:41.473" Title="What does the phrase &quot;说不好比起~&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25920" CreationDate="2017-08-09T20:46:09.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'说不好' is a variant of '说不定' (can't state with certainty= &lt;strong&gt;may be&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'比起' means 'compare to'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'也' in this context means 'even'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;说不好比起 C 也&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;May be even(?) compare to C&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is an incomplete sentence, we don't know what quality is being compared between B and C&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following would be a complete sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;[&lt;strong&gt;说不好&lt;/strong&gt;]比起 C 也好不了多少&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;[&lt;strong&gt;May&lt;/strong&gt;] not even [&lt;strong&gt;be&lt;/strong&gt;] any better  compare to C&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好不了多少= not even any better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T20:46:09.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25922" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25930" CreationDate="2017-08-09T22:52:58.987" Score="0" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel that a very important difference could possibly be highlighted here.  I am not entirely sure.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For one, I do see the difference between the two with a grand scale.&#xA;With that said, I also under stand the importance of 路, especially when with the word 露. Hailing from a City of Rain, I had the question come to light.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this word have a con notation strictly on the MDBG site?&#xA;It also includes the definition of betray, is that then in the eye of the be holder?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;路  would seem to stem from foot, mouth and each/every .  Then does an implication exist that could be misused?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 路 then a step on the way to 道 through proper motions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:  The reason I came across this was because I was re minded of a girl with whom I played League with at a time. haha.  That was coupled with the fact that 露露 is also an almond milk, which I wrote along the line of yesterday. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original question stemmed from the line following:  &quot;锏是一种中国传统古代兵器之一。&quot;  Intrigued with the usage of 之一，　I had wanted to build a sentence using both the Chinese almond milk, and this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastEditorUserId="17427" LastEditDate="2017-08-09T22:59:13.747" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T11:06:20.617" Title="The difference between 路 and 道?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25920" CreationDate="2017-08-10T01:38:41.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;should add a comma: 说不好, 比起C....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比起：compare to/with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说不好=不好说 means &quot;it's hard to tell&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I figure the implication here is the speaker is hard to tell the differences between A and C; he may be able to identify the differences but not knowing how to tell/describe them, or just simply unable to identify any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T01:38:41.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25916" CreationDate="2017-08-10T02:19:13.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I know, everybody within the nation will be able to understand Mandarin, though some speak their own regional dialects. Very few people (typically very old people from southern area) have the hard time to speak mandarin (not fluent or even unable to speak), but they are still able to understand Mandarin you speak without any problems. I just met less than 10 people of this kind over 30 years, so just very few of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I speak Mandarin only and am having hard time to understand dialects from other regions: Cantonese, Min Nan, Shanghainese,etc. I will ask people to switch to Mandarin whenever they speak other dialects. It's not a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T02:19:13.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25891" CreationDate="2017-08-10T07:55:29.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase is currently mainly used for warning that &quot;something&quot; special/shocking is about to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前方: literally &quot;ahead&quot;, here meaning &quot;soon&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高能: literally &quot;high energy&quot;, here meaning &quot;great impact&quot; and further into &quot;something shocking&quot;, it could be either positive or negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being put together makes it sounds more like &quot;Warning: We are about to take great impact, please tighten your seat belts&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the phrase is often used as a notification when you want yourself prepared for what's about to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the phrase &quot;高能&quot; is also used seperatly for &quot;shocking&quot;(as adjective).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17681" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T07:55:29.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25911" CreationDate="2017-08-10T09:05:53.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 2 sets of Characters in the first place and are &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;used under different circumstances&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, where the same character may have different when written in 2 sets. Multiple simplification standards were applied, some were abandoned and some remain till today. The purpose of the simplification is to decrease the percentage of 文盲(uneducated people, lit. &quot;people that cant read&quot;) by decreasing the complexity of the characters.(Some of the linguists suggested latinization, but they didn't succeed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the process, some phonetically-similar Characters were simlipied into a single character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese Languages used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau regions adopts the traditional Characters, because those regions were not governed by the Chinese Gov in Mainland when the simplification took place only in China Mainland. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be more precise, the Simplified Chinese you saw when translating often refers to Manderin of China Mainland, and Traditional Chinese often refers to Manderin of Taiwan. You can see that they are assigned the names&quot;zh_CN&quot; and (often) &quot;zh_TW&quot;. And some phrases representing the same thing are different between zh_CN and zh_TW.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most widely spoken Chinese languages are Manderin and Cantonese. If you plan to learn Cantonese, i'd suggest you to learn the traditional Chinese Characters. But if you plan to learn Manderin, it depends on where and with whom you want to use the language. If you are to use Manderin with mainly Taiwanese, i'd suggest you to get to the traditional characters from the beginning. Otherwise(and more likely) you can just start with the simplified ones, they cause less trouble learning characters and you can thus take more time to adopt the other language features. If you have more passion, you can learn both in parellel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same text can be written in either set of characters. Note that for some other major dialects(Cantonese or Hakka and so on) have VERY different grammar and vocabulary from Manderin, and some of their written forms adopts the traditional characters and exclusive characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17681" LastEditorUserId="17681" LastEditDate="2017-08-10T10:57:15.107" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T10:57:15.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25927" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-10T09:22:59.650" Score="1" ViewCount="847" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only know about 上网 or 上线, that is, to go online the Internet.&#xA;But 上纲上线 can be heard from time to time, but the speakers often cannot clearly define the meaning. Neither can I.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T10:42:15.000" Title="What does 上纲上线 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25927" CreationDate="2017-08-10T10:11:32.050" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;上纲上线 means raise common things (actions, opinions) at the level of big issues about nation, society, morals or politics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A: 好啊, 你喜欢外国货是吗? 你怎么不买国货? 叛徒!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(A: Wow. You like foreign products? Why didn't you buy products made in our country? TRAITOR!)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;B: 别上纲上线, 完全没道理.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(B:stop, that's nonsense.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A: 我觉得不一定非要让座, 我也很累啊.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;B: 你真没素质.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A: 你总是喜欢上纲上线, 让不让座跟素质有什么关系?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T10:11:32.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25927" CreationDate="2017-08-10T10:42:15.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;上纲上线 means treating a small issue (action or opinion) as a big issue like nationale and belief, as Jacob has answered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to add that this is mostly used for objection to others' speeches or opinions, and has a negative meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even 上纲上线 is not spoken explicitly, there are some common phenomena and substitution expressions in China that has this meaning. For example when someone says he hates Huawei, others will blame that he's not a patriot. In this case, he can reply with &quot;别上纲上线，不就是一部手机嘛。&quot; (Don't overemphasize this. It's only (a matter of) a phone.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T10:42:15.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25922" CreationDate="2017-08-10T11:06:20.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your usage of character formation may not be always correct. E.g., 露 used to have that meaning (well before the 12th century AD), but now it means &amp;quot;water drops (on/from plants)&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, 道 is a bit more abstract than 路, silimar to &amp;quot;path&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;road&amp;quot; in English. 路 often means the road you're going on, and 道 can have the meaning of &amp;quot;method/approach&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;– 你从哪条路过来的？ Which road did you come from?&#xA;– 我从那条小道过来的。 I came from that small path.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually they are interchangeable, but sometimes...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;条条大路通罗马。 (not 大道)&#xA;All roads lead to Rome. (not &amp;quot;path&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(road name) XX大道 (Blah Boulevard)&#xA;XX大路？ (Blah &lt;s&gt;Big Road&lt;/s&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道 can also mean a social subject,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;混白道，混黑道 (do business and run gangs)&#xA;&lt;s&gt;白路/黑路&lt;/s&gt; (&lt;s&gt;white road and black road&lt;/s&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T11:06:20.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25931" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25932" CreationDate="2017-08-10T13:26:17.480" Score="1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;难得的一颗歪脖子灯杆站在了窗前&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A rare lamp pole that could break (someone's) neck stands in front of the window&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A rare crooked lamp pole stands in front of the window.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or neither of them is right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is '站在了窗前' the same as '站在窗前'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-25T11:27:47.573" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T11:27:47.573" Title="难得的一颗歪脖子灯杆站在了窗前: which translation is correct and is 了 needed?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25931" CreationDate="2017-08-10T14:16:06.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B is correct.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Right, it's same.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding 了 makes sentence more natural, I don't why but&#xA;it would be very odd without it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歪脖子 is a common word describing a long thing, tree more often. &#xA;a lamp pole is 歪脖子,that is definitely 难得的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there is a typo , 棵 instead of 颗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Answer the comment:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;脖子 represents the form of object. It must have a long part.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is very common to add 了 after 在, and other verbs, 留在了, 排在了, 放在了, 打在了...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 express 'past or perfect' tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他站在窗前.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他站在了窗前.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both is correct. But for your sentence, it would be odd without 了. So there is still some difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-08-10T17:50:50.000" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T17:50:50.000" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25931" CreationDate="2017-08-10T17:22:53.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[难得的] = rarely; coincidentally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[一枝歪脖子灯杆] = a streetlight with tilted neck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tilted-neck streetlights are mostly for road-side or highway-side. Some can be very tall, tall enough to reach second floor window ; Straight streetlights are mostly for parks or small areas, They are generally shorter than the highway-side streetlights. Some may just taller than a man by a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BBnSK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BBnSK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;streetlight with tilted neck&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[站在了窗前] = had stood in front of the window&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 is a word particle indicates completed action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃晚飯= eat dinner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃了晚飯 = had eaten dinner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[难得的] [一枝歪脖子灯杆] [站在了窗前]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[coincidentally] [a road-side streetlight] [had stood in front of the window]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a poor student, this situation can help you save some money on electricity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T03:11:50.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25857" CreationDate="2017-08-10T22:44:13.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like dan said, 收尸 is a verb, which means 'collecting (a) dead body'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The example in question only makes sense if you knew who Pharod Wormhair is. Basically he is someone who makes money from dead bodies, and he has his collectors, who collect dead bodies for him. Here is &lt;a href=&quot;http://torment.wikia.com/wiki/Pharod&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an introduction of him&lt;/a&gt; if you want to know more.&#xA;Here 收尸人 is used to describe his collectors. The translation from 'collectors' to 收尸人 is only specific to this context, otherwise 'collector' doesn't directly translate to this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, the word 收尸 is used between people who are relatives/very close.&#xA;For example, we have A, whose only acquaintance in the world is B. Then B dies. Now we say, A has no one to collect their body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ask if you're still unsure about this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T22:44:13.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25931" CreationDate="2017-08-11T00:04:22.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, 一颗灯杆 is a wrong expression. You should use 一根灯杆. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一颗 is used to describe small circular/granular things: 一颗糖，一颗珠子. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一根 is used to describe a rod of something: 一根铅笔，一根棒子，一根杆子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, 了 connotes something has been done or finished. 站在了窗前 means it has already stood in front of the window, while 站在窗前 is more like standing in front of the window. 站在窗前 describes the state of being there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 难得的一根歪脖子灯杆站在窗前 looks better to me. However, this sentence still sounds unnatural in some degree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T00:04:22.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25936" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25939" CreationDate="2017-08-11T02:14:19.117" Score="1" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm struggling to differentiate between the two. Can someone explain this? Perhaps include some example sentences too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17686" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-08-22T19:10:12.820" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T19:10:12.820" Title="Difference between 等待 and 等到" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25936" CreationDate="2017-08-11T02:43:49.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;等待&quot;&#xA;Waiting for someone or Waiting for something happened.&#xA;You still waiting~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;等到&quot;&#xA;I finally wait for that person!&#xA;I finally wait until that happened!&#xA;You don't need to wait and You can take the next step!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T02:43:49.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25936" CreationDate="2017-08-11T02:59:24.373" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;等候 means that you are greeting somebody or something, 等待 means you can do nothing except waiting，等到  means wait for person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T02:59:24.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25936" CreationDate="2017-08-11T03:22:52.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等待 simply means &amp;quot;to wait&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;strong&gt;等待&lt;/strong&gt;黎明 (&lt;strong&gt;Wait&lt;/strong&gt; for dawn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you wait for something to happn&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等到 means &amp;quot;wait until&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;waited till&amp;quot; depend on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;等到&lt;/strong&gt;: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;wait until&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;等到&lt;/strong&gt;太阳落山&amp;quot; (&lt;strong&gt;Wait until&lt;/strong&gt; the sun goes down)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You keep waiting until something happen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;等到&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;waited till&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 等了三天，终于&lt;strong&gt;等到&lt;/strong&gt;你回来了 (waited for three days, finally &lt;strong&gt;waited till&lt;/strong&gt; you came back)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You have successfully waited till something to happen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;user17686 wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Are there instances that 等待 &amp;amp; 等到 can be used interchangeably?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, 等待 and 等到 have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;等待&lt;/strong&gt;黎明 (&lt;strong&gt;wait for&lt;/strong&gt; dawn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;等到&lt;/strong&gt;黎明 (&lt;strong&gt;wait until&lt;/strong&gt; dawn)/ &lt;strong&gt;等&lt;/strong&gt;到黎明(&lt;strong&gt;waited&lt;/strong&gt; till dawn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 等, 等待 and 等候 can be used interchangeably sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;等&lt;/strong&gt;黎明, &lt;strong&gt;等候&lt;/strong&gt;黎明 and &lt;strong&gt;等待&lt;/strong&gt;黎明 all mean '&lt;strong&gt;wait&lt;/strong&gt; for dawn'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T16:32:05.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25940" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25941" CreationDate="2017-08-11T05:08:35.283" Score="2" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Shanghainese friend frequently says 外地人 in slightly negative/hostile context. I understand the meaning of 外地人, which is people from different city/province.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, is it a derogatory term? Or is it just a normal word in and of itself but sometimes used negatively depending on context (&lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/17543/is-%E7%94%B0%E8%88%8E-a-derogatory-term&quot;&gt;this is true in Japanese word&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And is it rude to say 外地人 to people from rural living in developed city (especially Shanghai but also Hangzhou, Beijing, etc...)? I only talk with 1980s and 1990s, FYI. And if it is not rude, is there any such word that is considered derogatory?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T10:47:17.450" Title="Is 外地人 a derogatory word?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25940" CreationDate="2017-08-11T10:47:17.450" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like what they said, 外地人 is a neutral word. But I think the meaning has changed, especially in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou where the economic level is higher than other cities. The natives whose father or grandfather or great-grandfather lived there don't like people from other place. So if you are from other place, and you talk with someone who are from other places too, it is ok to say the word. But if you are from Shanghai, but the one you are talking to is not, it is better for you not to say the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17690" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T10:47:17.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25943" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-11T13:19:58.377" Score="0" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I hear the news on radio that the pollution work in Hebei, China deteriortates when some public officers are involved in the scandal of discharging polluted water. Then an official of the local environmental authority said when interviewed by media that 我们将以XXX为切入点，以治污XX为突破口(sorry, some words are beyond my understanding), I think my script is nearly perfect or accurate, but what they mean really I like to hear what you say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T20:46:33.530" Title="What do 切入点 and 突破口 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25943" CreationDate="2017-08-11T15:12:59.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both mean &lt;em&gt;the point to start dealing with something&lt;/em&gt;. Usually it is for the point most important or effective to start working with in order to resolve the issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17693" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T15:12:59.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25943" CreationDate="2017-08-11T15:14:57.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;切入点: starting point, point of view&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;突破口: point of breakthrough&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们将以工业排放为切入点, 以污染源头为突破口.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(We will take industrial emission as our starting point, the source of pollution as breakthrough.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爆米花理论似乎是一个无聊的切入点.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The theory of popcorn might seem a boring view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-08-11T15:20:09.500" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T15:20:09.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25865" CreationDate="2017-08-11T15:17:18.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can be translated as  play house&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17694" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T15:17:18.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25660" CreationDate="2017-08-11T15:38:31.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;号 means title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青年文明号 is just an awarded title. It is given by communist youth league of china.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an outlet has 青年文明号,  means most of the crews are young, and they are in the CPC' good graces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to my searching, there are 1759 institutions titled 青年文明号 in 2017.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T15:38:31.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25943" CreationDate="2017-08-11T15:41:59.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well... without specifying the whole phrase, I suppose you mean &quot;we proceed with the front of...&quot; or &quot;we approach the problem first with...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們以減少工業排放為治污的突破口。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We approach the problem of pollution by reducing industrial carbon emission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T15:41:59.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25943" CreationDate="2017-08-11T17:06:40.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 切入点 (cut-in point) and 突破口 (breakthrough opening) are common military term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;切入点- treat a problem as an enemy. To attack an enemy frontally, it is best to choose a weak point to cut into the enemy line and defeat them from within. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;A cut-in point to get to the core of the problem and deal with it&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;突破口- treat a problem as an enemy. If the enemy has a well formed defensive line, you have to find an opening to breakthrough it; If you are surrounded by the enemy, you also have to find an opening to breakthrough in order to save the situation. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning: 1. &quot;&lt;strong&gt;A breakthrough opening to get to the core of the problem and deal with it&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; 2. &quot;&lt;strong&gt;A breakthrough opening to get out of the crisis&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们将以[XXX]为切入点，以治污XX为突破口&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我们将以[減少工業排放]为切入点，以治污[反腐]为突破口&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;We will use 'reduce industrial emissions' as the cut-in (starting) point; and use 'combat and eradicate corruption' as the breakthrough opening (to deal with the pollution problem).&quot; -- &lt;em&gt;and yes, pollution is our enemy and corruption is one of the causes&lt;/em&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-11T20:46:33.530" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T20:46:33.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25950" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-11T17:32:56.553" Score="0" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the US, there is this thing called the &amp;quot;five paragraph essay&amp;quot; consisting of an &lt;strong&gt;introduction&lt;/strong&gt; (1 paragraph), a &lt;strong&gt;body&lt;/strong&gt; (3 paragraphs), and a &lt;strong&gt;conclusion&lt;/strong&gt; (1 paragraph). Basically, you say what you are going to say in the introduction. Then you elaborate on why you said it in the body. And finally you say it again in the conclusion. Of course when you say the same thing in these different sections, you must say it in different ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What sorts of essays do school-age children (and test-takers, generally) in China have to write?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 5 paragraph essay is a curious thing because school children hardly ever read anything that looks like it (English class makes you read some novels, maybe some poetry, maybe some short non-fiction...), yet are expected to write them in school. I'm guessing it comes from some Western rhetoric tradition (Latin? Greek?). Are Chinese writing assignments similarly structured?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-02T03:10:40.940" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T03:10:40.940" Title="What sorts of essays do school-age children (and test-takers, generally) in China have to write?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25951" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-11T23:10:58.093" Score="2" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a Chinese common phrase database for my project, where can I find something like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;阿姨&#xA;菠菜&#xA;大法&#xA;风格&#xA;动物&#xA;森林&#xA;窗口&#xA;打开&#xA;回复&#xA;重播&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17695" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T04:46:39.247" Title="Where can I find a Chinese common phrase database?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-08-22T19:11:26.077" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25951" CreationDate="2017-08-12T03:49:30.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a word list for input method:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/dongxiexidian/Chinese/blob/master/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E5%88%86%E8%AF%8D%E8%AF%8D%E5%BA%93%E6%95%B4%E7%90%86/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E5%88%86%E8%AF%8D%E8%AF%8D%E5%BA%93%E6%95%B4%E7%90%86/%E5%9B%9B%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%87%E5%8F%AF%E7%94%A8%E6%90%9C%E7%8B%97txt%E8%AF%8D%E5%BA%93.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/dongxiexidian/Chinese/blob/master/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E5%88%86%E8%AF%8D%E8%AF%8D%E5%BA%93%E6%95%B4%E7%90%86/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E5%88%86%E8%AF%8D%E8%AF%8D%E5%BA%93%E6%95%B4%E7%90%86/%E5%9B%9B%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%87%E5%8F%AF%E7%94%A8%E6%90%9C%E7%8B%97txt%E8%AF%8D%E5%BA%93.txt&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;400 thousand words, that's enough for whatever purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T03:49:30.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25950" CreationDate="2017-08-12T04:51:11.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only Mainland.&#xA;Nowadays, children won't write in formation.Letter? That is not the case I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in history, we do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;骈文&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Sentences must be paired. Characters must be carefully chose.&#xA;After two big man of letters claimed that they shouln't write 骈文 anymore, cause it is only highfalutin, 骈文 was dead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the most famous 骈文 quote from &amp;lt;&amp;lt;滕王阁序&gt;&gt;, almost all educated Chinese&#xA;can recite it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;落霞與孤鶩齊飛，秋水共長天一色。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we take close look at the sentence, these word are pairing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落霞(sunset glow) vs 秋水(water in autumn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;與: (with, simplified is 与) vs 共(and)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孤鶩(single wild duck, simplified is 鹜) vs 長天(wide sky, simplified is 长)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;齊飛(fly at the same time, simplified is 齐飞) vs 一色 (one color, same color)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can imagine a picture, in autumn, a wild duck fly above a lake or river, its background is sunset glow, the sky has same color with water surface, that's beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;八股文&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;八股文 is a strict article. It must consist of 8 parts, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;破题: two sentences, interprets the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;承题: 4 or 5 sentences, talk about the key of 破题.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起讲: multiple sentences, descript the overall topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起股: 4,5 or 8, 9 sentences, start discussing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中股: pairing sentences, the essential part of the whole article&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;后股: pairing sentence, mention what you have not talkled about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;束股: 2 lines, 3,4 or 4,5 per line, pairing, restate your views, make conclusion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大结: multiple sentences, finale&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure of 八股文 is very good at argumentative writing, later people found it limits your thinking, cause 八股文 also limits the topic which is from confucianism book. In hundreds years, all the topics you can find from &amp;lt;&amp;lt;论语&gt;&gt; and &amp;lt;&amp;lt;孟子&gt;&gt; had been used, they begin to mess things up, grab one sentence from 论语, grab one from 孟子, combinate to one, ask students to write about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;八股文 is deprecated after the Qing dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the status of two main structured article in China.  Other structured texts: 格律诗, 对联.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-08-12T08:14:41.270" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T08:14:41.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25954" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25955" CreationDate="2017-08-12T05:21:50.430" Score="2" ViewCount="342" Body="&lt;p&gt;At Guangzhou airport recently, I noticed that &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%A9%BA%E6%B8%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;空港&lt;/a&gt; (kōnggǎng = literally &quot;air port&quot;) was being used to mean airport.  I'm familiar with &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%9C%BA%E5%9C%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;机场&lt;/a&gt; (jīchǎng) being used for airport.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PPbHUm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PPbHUm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;白云空港世界之家欢迎您&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a distinction between 空港 (kōnggǎng) and 机场 (jīchǎng) which both mean airport?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-08-12T05:23:59.323" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T08:42:55.740" Title="Is there a distinction between 空港 (kōnggǎng) and 机场 (jīchǎng) which both mean airport?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25954" CreationDate="2017-08-12T05:34:35.217" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;空港 is Japanese; 机场 is Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese learned Chinese characters from China in ancient times. They called those Chinese characters 'Kanji'. Most Chinese terms retained their original Chinese meaning in Japanese. But the Japanese also coined some unique terms with Kanji that are not being used in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 空港 sign you saw in China was reverse imported from Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E6%BC%A2%E8%AA%9E%E4%B8%AD%E7%9A%84%E6%97%A5%E8%AA%9E%E5%80%9F%E8%A9%9E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/漢語中的日語借詞&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;和製漢語&#xA;  由於漢語也是因為19世紀時急迫需要翻譯西文，而大量從日本輸入新詞，大部分進入漢語的日語借詞都是日語中的「和製漢語」。舉凡「電話」、「幹部」、「藝術」、「否定」、「肯定」、「假設[2]」、「海拔」、「直接」、「警察」、「雜誌」、「防疫」、「法人」、「航空母艦」都是屬於和製漢語日語借詞。[3]。 要注意的是，並不是所有日語中的「和製漢語」都在現代漢語中通用，如「介錯」、「怪我」、「油斷」這類和製漢語詞都沒有進入漢語。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空港(airport) was in the group of 'Japan coined Chinese' that are not in Chinese vocabulary - until now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-12T06:10:34.063" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T06:10:34.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25956" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-12T07:06:26.803" Score="3" ViewCount="336" Body="&lt;p&gt;The primary meaning of 板 is 'board'. So why does 老板 or 'old board' mean 'boss, chief'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17697" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T05:04:36.467" Title="Why is the boss called 老板?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="737" CreationDate="2017-08-12T07:38:11.977" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an Italian brother in law who is dyslexic. He can read fine but can't write even the simplest thing without mistakes because for instance he can't remember the difference between p and b. That is the condition of many of us learning Chinese, even quite advanced speakers. We constantly make mistakes that even small children wouldn't make. I don't think there is any real answer: we will just have to learn to live with our disability. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17697" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T07:38:11.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25956" CreationDate="2017-08-12T08:22:51.813" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question. In Traditional Chinese, boss is called &quot;老闆&quot; instead of &quot;老板&quot;. &quot;闆&quot; is simplified into &quot;板&quot; but they have different meaning, that is, they are two totally different words. Therefore, &quot;闆&quot; doesn't mean &quot;board&quot;. &quot;闆&quot;, reads &lt;em&gt;pàn&lt;/em&gt; here, means spy through the door. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/27/js/95C6.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/27/js/95C6.htm&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to MOE Dictionary of Taiwan, the word &quot;老板&quot; is also used nowadays. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000060086&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000060086&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for this question, it seems that there are &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%E8%80%81%E9%97%86+%E8%A9%9E%E6%BA%90&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;oe=utf-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;different opinions&lt;/a&gt; and you shouldn't trust them blindly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17610" LastEditorUserId="17610" LastEditDate="2017-08-13T05:04:36.467" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T05:04:36.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25954" CreationDate="2017-08-12T08:42:55.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;空港 (くうこう) is a standard Japanese word, 机场 is a standard Chinese word. According to &lt;em&gt;Xiàndài Hànyǔ Cídiǎn 7&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt; Ver&lt;/em&gt;, which is a authoritative Chinese dictionary in Mainland China, 空港 isn't included.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, 空港 is an unstandard and not-often-used word in Chinese, so that you'd better not to use it during comminication and you should not use it in Chinese examination host by Mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17610" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T08:42:55.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25960" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26214" CreationDate="2017-08-12T10:52:07.353" Score="1" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;The context describe a character as having disposition of 护短. What does this means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;性格特点：护短！护短！护短！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that 护短 means to hide own's shortcoming. Does this describe a person who does not accept one's mistake? Shameless?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15622" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T05:21:14.997" Title="What does having disposition of 护短 means?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25960" CreationDate="2017-08-12T11:00:33.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;护短 is said 3 times, because it is important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It conveys something like, &quot;Don't judge me, my friends or my family; Never blame me or criticize me; If I make a mistake, you must ignore it. Got it?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(nod)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;OK, now you are my friend.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-12T22:13:31.017" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T22:13:31.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25962" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-12T12:21:54.877" Score="2" ViewCount="357" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to learn some vocabulary and am looking at the radicals to help me remember.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is, the radicals in some characters don't seem to make sense to me at all. In &lt;strong&gt;肚&lt;/strong&gt;, the two radicals separately are &lt;strong&gt;月&lt;/strong&gt; meaning the moon, and &lt;strong&gt;土&lt;/strong&gt; meaning earth. Somehow &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;moon earth&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; does not seem all too related to the stomach to me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was curious about how the character came about, so I looked up Chinese character etymology. There don't seem to be very good resources on this, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&amp;amp;characterInput=%E8%82%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;one website&lt;/a&gt; did say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;From meat 月肉 and phonetic 土. Meaning stomach.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not seen meat as 月肉 before, only 肉. So if 月肉 is another word for meat, I'm not sure why the moon radical is in there either! And there doesn't seem to be any significance to the 土 part according to the website, but I fail to believe that part of a character was just chosen at random!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current ideas are that, sometimes 月 seems to be used for round things like in the character for face 脸, which may motivate its use in the character for stomach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 土, perhaps it dates back to some ancient Chinese belief about the stomach 'grounding' you, i.e. the brain/head represents a connection with the heavens, the heart with the emotional realm, and the stomach with earth? I'm only guessing here, but am very much interested if anyone knows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I'm curious in general if someone can comment on how well radical content reflects character meaning. As my repertoire of characters is rather limited still, I don't have much to go by myself to evaluate this; but I do suppose that in many cases the radical usage would make more sense to someone with a familiarity with ancient China and ancient Chinese beliefs...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17320" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T17:57:14.627" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T17:57:14.627" Title="Radicals vs glyph origins (specifically for character 肚 in 肚子)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25962" CreationDate="2017-08-12T15:06:28.637" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look at the middle parts, they are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;月 = 月 (moon)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肉 = ⺼ (meat)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%82%89%E9%83%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;⺼&lt;/a&gt; - 肉部首&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(俗稱「提肉旁」）：CJK RADICAL MEAT (U+2EBC)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;簡體將從此形的字歸入月部。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Simplified Chinese characters merged ⺼radical into 月 radical&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The '土' in '肚' is the phonics component&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T15:22:12.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25962" CreationDate="2017-08-12T15:18:02.760" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can offer you another way to remember this word. God made human beings by dirt, in Chinese, 土. I think in this way， it is easier for you remember the word. But it's not the correct explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17690" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T15:18:02.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25962" CreationDate="2017-08-12T16:10:50.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The radical 月 is transformed from 肉, not 月, although we still call it 月字旁(字旁 means radical).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;土 represents pronounciation, means 肚 has the same vowels with 土.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many characters belong to humans have 月字旁, 脑(brain), 腿(leg), 脏(internal organs). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, 退 represents the pronounciation of 腿(tui3). But for 脏, vowels are different, maybe it changed, this is very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宀 is a character in ancient times, it looks like 'roof', characters with this radical usually means something about 'house','home', 'living', e.g. 家, 宾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冖 is also a character in ancient times,  characters with this radical usually means something about 'covered by a piece of cloth ', e.g. 冠&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厂 in ancient times means big rocks of mountain that people can live with it. Characters with this radical usually means something about 'living', e.g. 厅, 厨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;贝: Shell is used as money in ancient, so it implies the characters means something about money. e.g. 贱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;殳: hit, clash, e.g. 殴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欠: mouth opening, e.g. 吹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;匚: container, 匮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;纟and 糸: silk, rope,  红, 绿, 紫 (Color is an abstract conception, you can imagin a piece of colored silk)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;彡: decoration, modification 修,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;礻: worship, ceremony, 祖, 社&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;广: house, building, 废&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;囗: wall, surround, 围&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;口: mouth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;页: head of human, 顿(nod), 颇(tiled head)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隹: bird, 鹤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酉: wine, 酒, 醋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卜: divination, 卦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冂: area, scope 同&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丷,ハ: splitting, opposition, 兑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阝(at left) : mountain, place, 陌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阝(at right): city, country, 邦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又: hand, 双&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;廴: walk, 建&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;士: male, 壮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歹: death, hurt 残&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;止: foot, walking, 步&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;攵: hit,  beat, 攻,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;斤: axe, 斧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方:flag, troop 放&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;釆: distinguish, recognition, 彩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辛: crime, peppery, 辜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T16:10:50.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25966" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-12T16:20:34.740" Score="1" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does this Chinese symbol mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o1w3Z.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o1w3Z.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;What does this Chinese symbol mean?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17699" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T10:37:31.073" Title="What's this chinese symbol mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-10-18T17:46:50.397" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25967" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-12T20:19:15.460" Score="0" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at some guitar music in Chinese, I noticed that a notation system called 简谱 &lt;em&gt;jiǎnpǔ&lt;/em&gt; &quot;simple (numbered) tablature&quot; is quite widespread. Is there any particular reason why this way of representing music is so common? It is virtually unseen in the West from my (not so deep) experience with music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Chinese only (fairly) recently began using the Latin alphabet for things (C, D, E...) I am curious if this preference for numbered representation reflects a tendency to reject alphabetic characters when possible (e.g. when &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/25706/how-may-donald-be-rendered-in-chinese/25759#25759&quot;&gt;transcribing names&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T04:02:34.547" Title="乐谱 Chinese music tablature" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23312" CreationDate="2017-08-12T21:39:10.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that [ʊ] is associated with &quot;latter part&quot; of the vowel (diphthong) trascribed as &lt;em&gt;-ou&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;-iu&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What does [ʊ] have to do with O&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ʊ] is usually used to represent a sound like the vowel in &quot;good&quot; or &quot;hood&quot;&#xA; (American English). This sound is also used to describe the second part of the diphthong in words like &quot;so&quot; and &quot;bow&quot;, something like [soʊ] and [boʊ], respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;O&amp;lt;5 and iO&amp;lt;5 correspond to &lt;em&gt;-ou&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;-i(o)u&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt;, I think. By this sort of analysis, as the [ʊ] comes together with an [o] in like in the English example above, it looks like it got abbreviated with a weird symbol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I think that this is probably just be a typographical error as pointed out in the comments, it is important to remember that even a phonetic transcription system like IPA is a practical tool, not an airtight system for describing speech sounds. Relatively narrow IPA transcriptions might describe two languages as having an [a] vowel, for example, but the actual sounds realized in these languages (or even saying the same word in different contexts) necessarily will differ, as sound is not digital. What is essential with any transcripiton system is to capture meaningful contrasts, which &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt; seems to do an adequate job at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T21:39:10.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25969" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-12T22:20:05.573" Score="1" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the Chinese word for time is 时间.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody know how to find out its origin? If there is a place where it is possible to know the origin of Chinese characters please share. Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17701" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T18:07:12.233" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T18:07:12.233" Title="What's origin of the Chinese word for &quot;time&quot; (时间)?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25969" CreationDate="2017-08-12T23:43:55.947" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The '日' radical of '時' indicates it is related to 'sun; day'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The '寺' /si4/ part in '時'/shi2/ is the phonics component&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;寺 means 'temple'.  As the phonics component of 時, the 'temple' meaning is irrelevant&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shuowen.org/view/4172&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;時&lt;/a&gt; means 'time; hour'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;四時也; 本春秋冬夏之稱。引伸之爲凡嵗月日刻之用&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally meant four &lt;strong&gt;seasons&lt;/strong&gt; (四&lt;strong&gt;時&lt;/strong&gt;), extended to mean 'years, months, days and hours' (&lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;間 means 'space between; interval'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;時間&lt;/strong&gt; means '&lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt;' (&lt;strong&gt;intervals of days, hours&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other time related words in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;光= light; 陰= shade&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;光陰&lt;/strong&gt;= light and shade= day and night= &lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt; (cycle of days and nights)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寒= cold; 暑= hot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;寒暑&lt;/strong&gt;= cold and hot= winter and summer= &lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt; (cycle of seasons)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歲= year; 月= month&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;歲月&lt;/strong&gt;= year and month= &lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt; (passing of years and months)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jeremy wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;if there is a place where it is possible to know the origin of Chinese characters please share&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find the origins of many Chinese characters in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shuowen.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt; or just wiki it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T23:55:02.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25960" CreationDate="2017-08-13T01:00:41.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;护短 is &quot;side with a disputant(your child maybe) who is in the wrong&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not the disposition of 护短 for hiding one's own shortcomings. It's for one's own members, either within your org or family. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most times, 护短 refers to protect your own member(s) (in your family or your organization) who is faulty in a dispute or fight. Let's say your kid quarreled with another kid of your neighbors'. You will speak for your own kid even though it is your kid's fault. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T01:00:41.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25972" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-13T02:12:28.563" Score="0" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am in doubt about the meaning of &quot;xiǎng&quot; and &quot;yào&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As per my research on the web, if I want to say &quot;I would like to ... &quot; I would write &quot;Wǒ xiǎng yào...&quot;. However, if instead, I wanted to say &quot;I would like to eat noodles.&quot; I would write &quot;Wǒ xiǎng chī miàntiáo.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why doesn't &quot;yào&quot; appear in the second sentence? I am a bit confused about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15947" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T13:29:35.547" Title="Proper form for &quot;I would like to...&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25972" CreationDate="2017-08-13T02:40:34.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are basically identical.&#xA;xiǎng is an idea, maybe only exist in your mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;willingness: yào &gt; xiǎng yào &gt; xiǎng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both is correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Wǒ xiǎng yào chī miàn tiáo.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Wǒ yào chī miàn tiáo.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Wǒ xiǎng chī miàn tiáo.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-08-13T03:10:34.130" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T03:10:34.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25969" CreationDate="2017-08-13T02:48:05.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;时: season&#xA;间: period&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Period of season is time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Helpful link for character details: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/xs/65F6.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/xs/65F6.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T02:48:05.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25976" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-13T03:41:59.250" Score="0" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've stumbled upon these words and I can't get the proper English translation for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first I thought the 翠 here describe the color of 烟衫, but after trying to find more example, I found that they are usually accompanied by 'color' in front of them. For example:&#xA;- 碧绿的翠烟衫&#xA;- 蓝色的翠烟衫&#xA;- 黄色的翠烟衫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T05:01:55.157" Title="What is a '翠烟衫'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25976" CreationDate="2017-08-13T04:18:14.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a kind of outfit a woman wears at ancient times.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.sg/search?q=%E7%BF%A0%E7%83%9F%E8%A1%AB&amp;amp;client=safari&amp;amp;rls=en&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwj2zpf-rNPVAhXKP48KHTeJAJE4ChD8BQgKKAE&amp;amp;biw=1440&amp;amp;bih=812&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com.sg/search?q=%E7%BF%A0%E7%83%9F%E8%A1%AB&amp;amp;client=safari&amp;amp;rls=en&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwj2zpf-rNPVAhXKP48KHTeJAJE4ChD8BQgKKAE&amp;amp;biw=1440&amp;amp;bih=812&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17703" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T04:18:14.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25976" CreationDate="2017-08-13T04:44:07.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;原句子：   碧绿的翠烟衫，散花水雾绿草百褶裙，身披&lt;strong&gt;翠水薄烟&lt;/strong&gt;纱，肩若削成腰若约素，肌若凝脂气若幽兰。娇媚无骨入艳三分。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翠 stands for 翠水 'blue green water' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烟 stands for 薄烟 'thin smoke'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翠烟衫 give people the impression of 'soft like flowing water in river and lake (water look green in lakes because it reflects the forested mountains surrounding the lake); semi transparent like thin smoke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would describe dress like that as &quot;loose thin summer dress&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Doesn't this dress look like flowing water and thin smoke?&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EvRnw.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EvRnw.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;翠烟衫&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-13T04:50:49.273" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T04:50:49.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25951" CreationDate="2017-08-13T04:46:39.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ministry of Education in Taiwan provides &lt;a href=&quot;http://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/PIN/yu7.htm?open&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some statistics&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表一：字頻總表&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 1: Character frequency&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表二：&lt;a href=&quot;http://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/PIN/biau2.htm?open&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;詞頻總表&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 2: Phrase frequency&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表三：本字彙部首出現情形說明表：依二一四部首序排列&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 3: Radicals, sorted by radical&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表四：本字彙部首出現情形說明表：依部首使用頻次高低序排列&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 4: Radicals, sorted by frequency&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表 五：本字彙表筆畫出現情形說明表：依筆畫多寡序排列&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 5: Strokes, sorted by the number of strokes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表 六：本字彙表筆畫出現情形說明表：依各筆畫使用高低序排列&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 6: Strokes, sorted by frequency&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表 七：本字彙表音節統計表&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 7: Syllable statistics&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表 八：本字彙表聲母符號出現情形說明表&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 8: Consonant statistics&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表 九：本字彙表韻母符號出現情形說明表&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 9: Vowel statistics&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表 十：本字彙表聲調符號出現情形說明表&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 10: Tone statistics&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表十一：本字彙表聲、韻出現頻次次比對表：依出現頻次高低序排列&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 11: Consonants vs. vowels, sorted by frequency&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表十二：本字彙表聲母符號發聲方法出現頻次統計表&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 12: Pronunciation methods of the consonants&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表十三：本字彙表韻母符號發音方法出現頻次統計表&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 13: Pronunciation methods of the vowels&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表十四：本字彙表構詞率統計表：依詞頭出現頻次排列&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 14: The first character of a phrase, sorted by frequency&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表十五：本字彙表構詞率統計表：依詞尾出現頻次排列&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 15: The last word of a phrase, sorted by frequency&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表十六：本字彙表構詞率統計表：依總構詞率排列&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 16: The word frequency in a phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表十七： 本字彙表與《常用國字標準字體表》比對表： 字頻表與常用字表共有之字&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 17: Characters shown in both Table 1 and the Common Character Table&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表十八：本字彙表與《常用國字標準字體表》比對表： 字頻表與常用字表未共有之字&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 18: Characters shown in Table 1, but not in the Common Character Table&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表十九：本字彙表與《常用國字標準字體表》比對表： 常用字表收字未見於本字彙表之字&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Table 19: Characters shown in the Common Character Table, but not in Table 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you are looking for is the Table 2.&#xA;You can download it by clicking the &lt;a href=&quot;http://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/biau2!.exe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;下載&lt;/a&gt; link.&#xA;It is a self-extracting .exe file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 64326 phrases in the table, which are sorted by frequency in descending order.&#xA;For your convenience, I copy the first thousand phrases and convert them to the simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These statistics were made by MOE in Taiwan long time ago, therefore&lt;br&gt;&#xA;they are in traditional Chinese of course;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the encoding may be in BIG5;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the symbols of pronunciation are &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B3%A8%E9%9F%B3%E7%AC%A6%E8%99%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bopomofo, ㄅㄆㄇㄈ&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;there are no recent phrases, especially the slang;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E5%9C%B0%E5%8C%BA%E7%94%A8%E8%AF%8D%E5%B7%AE%E5%BC%82%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some phrases are different&lt;/a&gt; from those in Mainland; and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the syntax of the htm files is different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to read the Web pages,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;save the pages first;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;open with a text editor;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;find the first &quot;width&quot;;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;remove the &quot;%&quot; in the values;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;save the file; and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;open with a Web browser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们, 台湾, 可以, 自己, 他们, 没有, 因为, 可能, 如果, 问题, 因此, 生活, 什么, 工作, 孩子, 美国, 广告, 经济, 社会, 活动, 开始, 大陆, 世界, 日本, 国小, 但是, 发展, 时间, 市场, 朋友, 公司, 电影, 儿童, 中国, 小朋友, 由于, 所以, 知道, 现在, 许多, 政府, 发现, 成为, 教育, 虽然, 认为, 企业, 地方, 必须, 如何, 目前, 不过, 影响, 已经, 政治, 投资, 就是, 关系, 未来, 重要, 出现, 引擎, 希望, 研究, 北市, 学生, 设计, 时候, 文化, 表现, 国家, 发生, 安全, 进行, 其他, 环境, 表示, 无法, 方式, 需要, 国内, 老师, 方面, 使用, 甚至, 今天, 国际, 一样, 同时, 而且, 非常, 这样, 成长, 一定, 一般, 历史, 相当, 当时, 过去, 举行, 然而, 应该, 台北, 故事, 总统, 电脑, 空间, 大家, 妈妈, 如此, 作品, 结果, 部分, 土地, 今年, 主要, 自然, 特别, 学校, 其中, 产生, 传统, 增加, 为什么, 产品, 提供, 举办, 中心, 比赛, 决定, 最后, 情况, 参加, 这些, 喜欢, 系统, 方法, 健康, 只有, 以及, 生命, 家庭, 比较, 能力, 经验, 时代, 造成, 技术, 艺术, 世纪, 是否, 地球, 出来, 管理, 快乐, 容易, 地区, 汽车, 运动, 成功, 怎么, 机会, 只是, 完全, 这个, 选择, 事实, 人员, 觉得, 先生, 开发, 经过, 东西, 感觉, 对于, 改变, 香港, 所有, 当然, 利用, 个人, 之后, 然后, 真正, 推出, 过程, 环保, 不断, 服务, 接受, 这种, 可是, 中共, 进入, 告诉, 一直, 其实, 动物, 经营, 人民, 另外, 一些, 包括, 去年, 于是, 注意, 组织, 开放, 父亲, 年代, 生产, 形成, 政策, 新加坡, 十分, 只要, 计划, 现象, 欧洲, 那么, 原因, 人类, 音乐, 精神, 一起, 成立, 教学, 要求, 任何, 指出, 严重, 继续, 处理, 父母, 例如, 学习, 品质, 国民党, 选举, 以后, 民众, 现代, 观念, 女性, 人生, 代表, 科学, 拥有, 功能, 了解, 似乎, 治疗, 相信, 几乎, 制度, 标准, 解决, 引起, 完成, 认识, 即使, 交通, 高市, 逐渐, 电视, 压力, 病人, 目标, 努力, 竞争, 建立, 根据, 都是, 台北市, 影片, 终于, 欢迎, 母亲, 保护, 获得, 医生, 人们, 准备, 大学, 一切, 女人, 自由, 尤其, 英国, 帮助, 也许, 后来, 合作, 还有, 身体, 美元, 面对, 提出, 提高, 业者, 价值, 专业, 不仅, 车型, 看到, 上市, 反应, 支持, 科技, 变化, 银行, 才能, 北县, 单位, 调查, 变成, 心理, 分析, 此外, 长期, 减少, 还是, 民主, 别人, 也是, 值得, 电话, 力量, 充满, 观众, 展开, 资金, 爸爸, 人物, 策略, 厂商, 民间, 事业, 超过, 声音, 同样, 青少年, 信托, 配备, 实际, 全国, 并且, 法国, 方向, 以前, 因素, 宇宙, 专家, 创作, 存在, 作用, 建设, 痛苦, 加强, 食物, 观察, 全球, 至于, 城市, 演出, 改革, 附近, 原来, 产业, 距离, 显示, 起来, 意义, 民进党, 直接, 重视, 资料, 性能, 高雄, 报导, 制造, 销售, 角色, 教授, 不再, 旅游, 控制, 积极, 亲子, 仍然, 建议, 太阳, 智慧, 资源, 游戏, 说明, 你们, 改善, 或许, 建筑, 教师, 媒体, 系列, 员工, 基本, 成本, 有关, 明显, 共同, 具有, 资讯, 男人, 股市, 得到, 医院, 成绩, 速度, 景气, 实在, 避免, 形象, 条件, 规划, 会议, 态度, 导演, 行为, 两岸, 美丽, 重新, 检查, 多少, 令人, 左右, 招生, 状况, 设备, 内容, 各种, 客户, 时期, 掌握, 曾经, 自我, 车身, 享受, 妇女, 价格, 立委, 死亡, 往往, 表演, 效果, 眼睛, 大量, 正式, 有些, 车系, 能够, 推动, 医师, 杂志, 通常, 人口, 公里, 保持, 降低, 这里, 德国, 调整, 考虑, 配合, 爱滋病, 办法, 小时, 行动, 情形, 集团, 感染, 独立, 简单, 那些, 每天, 业务, 所谓, 动力, 参与, 唯一, 工程, 不论, 公尺, 事件, 状态, 维持, 上海, 年轻, 家长, 结束, 制作, 加入, 永远, 经堂, 趋势, 知识, 不但, 星系, 特殊, 结构, 有效, 负责, 训练, 强调, 期间, 介绍, 以为, 儿子, 计划, 面临, 患者, 新闻, 工业, 困难, 突然, 追求, 实施, 机构, 谢谢, 小孩, 分别, 吸引, 官员, 相同, 女儿, 成熟, 缺乏, 离开, 少年, 地位, 利益, 事情, 根本, 创造, 报告, 失去, 申请, 持续, 校园, 创意, 运用, 读者, 生存, 安排, 明年, 基础, 统一, 提升, 整个, 中央, 文学, 平均, 都市, 发挥, 程度, 需求, 呈现, 冠军, 大约, 消费者, 清楚, 规定, 肯定, 森林, 登场, 人才, 品牌, 看见, 疾病, 人士, 今日, 水准, 目的, 名单, 阶段, 扩大, 心情, 生物, 校长, 毕业, 这是, 团体, 公布, 全部, 玻璃, 习惯, 证明, 正确, 民国, 全面, 空气, 特色, 感受, 不可, 本身, 正常, 回家, 如今, 西方, 那里, 相关, 风格, 透过, 绝对, 丰富, 反而, 参观, 国中, 理想, 达到, 学者, 一旦, 明天, 发表, 中国人, 印象, 良好, 当地, 公开, 好像, 属于, 有趣, 利率, 首先, 规模, 担心, 车种, 恐龙, 接触, 大众, 主管, 采用, 垃圾, 金融, 思想, 研习, 讨论, 轻松, 导致, 内部, 来自, 小学, 教室, 这么, 解释, 道路, 整体, 北京, 色彩, 行销, 花莲, 消失, 结合, 总经理, 挑战, 坚持, 部门, 兴趣, 总是, 丈夫, 回来, 法律, 原本, 从事, 获利, 怎样, 高中, 数学, 公园, 方案, 流行, 常常, 教部, 寻找, 贸易, 进口, 烦恼, 担任, 角度, 思考, 无论, 对象, 休闲, 植物, 适合, 它们, 我国, 消费, 情绪, 报纸, 紧张, 模式, 有时, 李登辉, 亚洲, 或者, 原则, 马力, 国外, 意见, 鼓励, 范围, 大部分, 充分, 限制, 办理, 聪明, 重大, 海外, 辅导, 人体, 危机, 青年, 相对, 接近, 采取, 暑假, 竞赛, 显然, 快速, 皇帝, 执行, 沟通, 确定, 大自然, 欢乐, 小心, 幼稚园, 名字, 稳定, 轿车, 自杀, 迅速, 到底, 家人, 破坏, 动作, 商品, 访问, 尽管, 下来, 比例, 立即, 再度, 回收, 西元, 星期, 阳光, 预算, 购买, 关键, 愿意, 大多数, 幼儿, 至少, 否则, 刺激, 争取, 恢复, 展现, 时刻, 症状, 商业, 意识, 爱情, 语言, 颜色, 老人, 差异, 针对, 措施, 晚上, 报名, 发行, 照片, 台北县, 类似, 天下, 出国, 同意, 背景, 数字, 确实, 观点, 加速, 正是, 而已, 车款, 或是, 长大, 看法, 博士, 对方, 台商, 权力, 不错, 危险, 回答, 投入, 股票, 信心, 节目, 台中, 澳洲, 各地, 成果, 考试, 免费, 受到, 妻子, 昨天, 现实, 跑车, 瞭解, 绘画, 关心, 只能, 民族, 取得, 房地产, 突破, 尊重, 普遍, 办公室, 婴儿, 工厂, 失败, 房子, 物质, 旅行, 讯息, 感情, 一生, 工具, 自动, 身上, 咖啡, 里面, 农民, 卫生, 分钟, 至今, 家族, 记者, 培养, 贷款, 进步, 实验, 复杂, 收入, 形式, 找到, 投资人, 男性, 依然, 夏天, 著名, 爱心, 经费, 人数, 小姐, 交易, 老板, 呼吸, 彼此, 计算, 气氛, 采访, 暴力, 器官, 大幅, 子女, 主题, 合理, 车子, 协助, 英文, 执政党, 符合, 演员, 之前, 位置, 保险, 纷纷, 设立, 整合, 礼物, 不管, 牙齿, 扭力, 玩具, 高雄市, 深入, 戏剧, 关怀, 严格, 反映, 立刻, 年龄, 行政, 衣服, 每年, 始终, 明白, 东京, 面积, 区域, 画面, 想像, 董事长, 预测, 演讲, 庆祝, 操作, 营养, 职棒, 下降, 大概, 反对, 主人, 同学, 即将, 吸收, 飞机, 组合, 造型, 项目, 意外, 照顾, 达成, 实力, 主任, 全省, 地点, 拍摄, 明星, 表面, 家里, 概念, 当年, 药物, 互相, 必要, 欣赏, 股价, 表达, 前往, 记得, 伟大, 义大利, 补助, 满足, 心灵, 打开, 成就, 早期, 并非, 命运, 星星, 重点, 气门, 马上, 强烈, 障碍, 激烈, 联合国, 关于, 少数, 巨大, 本来, 回忆, 批评, 究竟, 教厅, 深刻, 组成, 图书馆, 领域, 引进, 心中, 作者, 作业, 防止, 科学家, 预防, 舞蹈, 热闹, 悬挂, 小说, 以往, 平衡, 彷佛 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The MOE also had &lt;a href=&quot;http://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/MAINLAND/ch2.htm?open&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the statistics for the textbooks of the primary schools in Mainland&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T04:46:39.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25980" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25981" CreationDate="2017-08-13T10:21:37.087" Score="3" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;The name 淡菜 would suggest a meaning like &quot;bland vegetable&quot; or something like that. Why are mussels called 淡菜?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T12:15:30.310" Title="Why are mussels called 淡菜" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25980" CreationDate="2017-08-13T12:08:39.897" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;淡菜 is only the name for &lt;strong&gt;dried&lt;/strong&gt; mussels or &lt;strong&gt;dried&lt;/strong&gt; sea mussels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt;'s entry for 淡菜 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;贻贝的肉经烧煮曝洒而成的干制食品。味佳美, 以煮晒时不加盐, 故名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 淡 comes from the fact that 不加盐 (salt is not added).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;菜 must be for the fact that it is a &lt;em&gt;dish&lt;/em&gt; and not because it is a vegetable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-08-13T12:15:30.310" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T12:15:30.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25982" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25988" CreationDate="2017-08-13T12:09:58.117" Score="1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Full song lyrics with transliteration and translation attempt&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The spelling is not something I want to discuss here. Indeed, I discussed it &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.it/2017/08/on-my-spelling-and-transliteration-of.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. The transliteration is that given by &lt;a href=&quot;http://minhakka.ling.sinica.edu.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minhakka&lt;/a&gt;, plus the tones and sounds given by the admin of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/groups/hakkaverse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Hakka Verse facebook group&lt;/a&gt; in case of words not to be found on Minhakka.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;难忘记&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  两人相爱每日都欢喜&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  恁&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;开心 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;恁: 很&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  行街牵手唻&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;都去 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;唻: 哪儿&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  还将婚姻提&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  永远不分离&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  齐家&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;发誓心不移 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;齐家: 大家&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  结连理&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一下变心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  无&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt;讲分手个&lt;sup&gt;5&lt;/sup&gt;道理 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt;无: 没(有) &amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;5&lt;/sup&gt;个: 的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  涯&lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt;伤心 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt;涯: 我&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  人相思病係&lt;sup&gt;7&lt;/sup&gt;难医 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;7&lt;/sup&gt;係: 是&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  夜夜醉么人&lt;sup&gt;8&lt;/sup&gt;知 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;8&lt;/sup&gt;么人: 谁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  过去毋&lt;sup&gt;9&lt;/sup&gt;想提 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;9&lt;/sup&gt;毋: 不&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  每日都想着&lt;sup&gt;10&lt;/sup&gt;汝&lt;sup&gt;11&lt;/sup&gt; &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;10&lt;/sup&gt;想着: 想到 &amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;11&lt;/sup&gt;汝: 你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  人痴迷&#xA;  涯&lt;sup&gt;12&lt;/sup&gt;深深爱汝&lt;sup&gt;13&lt;/sup&gt; &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;12&lt;/sup&gt;涯: 我 &amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;13&lt;/sup&gt;汝: 你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  爱亲口讲汝&lt;sup&gt;14&lt;/sup&gt;知 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;sup&gt;14&lt;/sup&gt;汝: 你&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nân mông-kì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Lióng-nyîn siong-òi mui nyit tu fon-hí&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Àn khoi-sím&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Hâng kai khen-shíu nái tu hì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Hân tsiong fun-yin thì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yún-yén put fun-lî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tshê-ka fat-shì sim put yî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ket liên-li&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yit-hà pièn-sim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Mô kóng fun-shíu kài thàu-li&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ngâi shong-sim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nyîn siong-sii-phiàng hè nân-yì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yá-yá tsùi mài-nyîn ti&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Kwò-hì m sióng thì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Mui nyit tu sióng tó nyî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nyîn chi-mî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ngâi chim-chim òi nyî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Òi tshin-héu kóng nyî ti&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It's hard to forget&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  When we two loved each other and were happy every day,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Very happy,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  We walked holding hands and went everywhere,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  We also brought up marriage,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  We would never break up,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The two of us (?) had sworn our hearts wouldn't move&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (??)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Suddenly [you] changed your mind,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Didn't say your reason for breaking up&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I am sad&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Lovesickness is hard to cure&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Each night I get drunk, who knows?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I don't want to bring up the past&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I think of you every day&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Infatuated&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I love you deeply&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You should personally tell [me] you know (or &quot;I should personally tell you [so you will] know&quot;?)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question(s)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The main point is that I (and the admin of Hakka Verse as well) am uncertain about how to translate &lt;code&gt;结连理&lt;/code&gt;; what is the exact meaning and the best way to translate this part?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Secondly, is it a good idea to interpret &lt;code&gt;齐家&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;everyone&lt;/code&gt; (which is possible in Hakka, as per &lt;a href=&quot;http://minhakka.ling.sinica.edu.tw/bkg/hakyin/detail.php?hoan=47742&amp;amp;mode=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minhakka's entry&lt;/a&gt;, or should I take it as a Mandarin word, hence translate to &lt;code&gt;manage the family&lt;/code&gt;? Said admin suggests the spelling &lt;code&gt;结恋了 | ket-lièn-lí&lt;/code&gt;; is that it? What would that mean?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, which of the two translations of the last line is the correct one in this context?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-08-13T12:28:09.027" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T22:18:56.170" Title="Hakka song: problem translating a bit" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25983" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25984" CreationDate="2017-08-13T12:47:50.187" Score="2" ViewCount="427" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not long ago (a week at most), I bumped into &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-common-mistakes-that-learners-of-Mandarin-Chinese-make/answer/Qiong-Woo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this post by Qiong Woo on Quora&lt;/a&gt;. There, she says the two sentences 我昨天去图书馆的 and 我昨天去的图书馆 both mean &quot;I went to the library yesterday&quot;, and, from the way she explains the difference, I gather the first one emphasizes the action, whereas the second one emphasizes the place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My reaction: well, yeah, the first one is the 是…的 construction with 是 implied, so I know it means that… but the second one? «Doesn’t 我昨天去的图书馆 mean “the library I went to yesterday”, with “的” marking a relative clause?», I commented. «Not necessarily. If you mean to say “the library I went to yesterday”, it’s better to say “我昨天去的那个图书馆” when there are more than one library you are referring to, though it is still odd. But it’s clearer to take, say restaurant for instance, then “the restaurant I went to yesterday” becomes “我昨天去的那家餐厅”.», she replied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off, is it really necessary to add 那个 for this to be a relative clause, as her comment seems to suggest? Where does this way of making a past tense sentence come from? Is it really unambiguously &quot;I went to the library yesterday&quot;, or can it mean that as well as &quot;The library I went to yesterday&quot;? If so, how do I distinguish? If not, which is the actual meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-08-13T13:50:07.573" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T19:42:29.137" Title="我昨天去的图书馆: &quot;The library I went to yesterday&quot; or &quot;I went to the library yesterday&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25983" CreationDate="2017-08-13T13:08:36.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我昨天去图书馆的 sounds unnatural. I'd say 我昨天去了图书馆 or 我昨天去图书馆了, which means I went to the library yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我昨天去的图书馆 means the library I went to yesterday. You might have gone to several libraries or just one, because the sentence doesn't imply how many libraries you went. As you said 的 marking that relative clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say 我昨天去的那个图书馆, that means you are emphasizing that particular library you went.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-13T19:41:11.833" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T19:41:11.833" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25972" CreationDate="2017-08-13T13:29:35.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course, if you want to you can say '我想要一份面’ or even '请给我带来一份 ...‘&#xA;In 'I would like' 'would' is the imperfect subjunctive of 'will'. ‘I would like' is incomplete, because a subjunctive needs a condition 'if ...'. Out of a strange, twisted form of over-politeness, it became popular in English to say 'I would like' short for 'I would like, if it is not too much trouble, ....' or some other condition after 'if ...'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, you are in a restaurant. The restaurant sells food to make money. It is definitely not too much trouble to bring you what you want to eat. That is their job and how they make their living.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forget 'I would like', that is not Chinese. Try 'for me the ...' or  'I'm ordering ...' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Precede what you say with '请‘ and you are super polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try ‘给我来一份面’ 或者 ‘我点一份拉面’ neither would be considered impolite. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T13:29:35.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25986" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25989" CreationDate="2017-08-13T14:18:41.517" Score="2" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;From CEDict:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;MBP-WWG:~ Admin$ egrep &quot;\t石\t&quot; /Users/Admin/Downloads/cedict_1_0_ts_utf-8_mdbg.txt &#xA;石   石   Shi2    surname Shi&#xA;石   石   dan4    dry measure for grain equal to ten dou 斗&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;ten pecks&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;one hundred liters&#xA;石   石   shi2    rock&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;stone&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;stone inscription&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;one of the eight ancient musical instruments 八音[ba1 yin1]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the second one an error?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this what is meant by &quot;variant readings&quot; in  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16178/how-many-chinese-characters-have-multiple-readings-pronunciations-in-mandarin&quot;&gt;How many Chinese characters have multiple readings/pronunciations in Mandarin?&lt;/a&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T14:40:26.887" Title="Does 石 have two dissimilar pronunciations?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25982" CreationDate="2017-08-13T14:30:50.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;结连理 means &amp;quot;get married&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;become loving husband and wife&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'结' short for '结成'(form)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'连理' came from '&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%BF%9E%E7%90%86%E6%9E%9D/59549&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;连理枝&lt;/a&gt;' (intertwined trees)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;连理枝是指两棵树的枝干合生在一起的一种植物。连理枝又称相思树、夫妻树、生死树，比喻夫妻恩爱。连理枝在自然界已相当罕见。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%BF%9E%E7%90%86%E6%9E%9D/59549&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;连理枝&lt;/a&gt; (intertwined trees) refers to two trees planted next to each other and their branches intertwined as they grow. Also known as lovesick tree, husband and wife tree, life and death tree (two trees that live together, die together). Metaphor for &lt;strong&gt;husband and wife love&lt;/strong&gt;. It is quite rare in nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'连' means 'linked'; '理' short for '紋理' which means 'pattern'; '连理' refers to the pattern of the intertwined branches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related phrase: &amp;quot;在天愿为比翼鸟, 在地愿为连理枝&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest translate it as &amp;quot;t&lt;strong&gt;ill death do us part&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; which is a marriage vow perfectly match the spirit of 结连理 (become intertwined trees) - 连理枝 stay together for life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'齐家' in this context is a pronoun similar to '大家' in Cantonese (both of us)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'爱' might be a typo of '我' in '爱亲口讲汝知'. It could be '我亲口讲汝知' (I personally tell you); If 爱 is not a typo, then the phrase means &amp;quot; Love, I personally tell you&amp;quot; with 'love' as the topic and 'I personally tell you' as the comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T22:18:56.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25986" CreationDate="2017-08-13T14:40:26.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course it's not an error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any respectable dictionary will have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;石   shi2 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;石   dan4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Variant readings&lt;/em&gt; refer to when one character has more than one pronunciation - based, usually, on different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking 石 for instance: when we're talking about rocks and stones - it is pronounced shi2; when we're talking about a specific measurement unit it is pronounced dan4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T14:40:26.887" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25983" CreationDate="2017-08-13T15:02:05.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It'd be easier to distinguish the subtlety by interpreting them as reply to two questions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你是什么时候去图书馆的？ When did you go to the library?&#xA;我昨天去图书馆的。I went to the library yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你昨天去的哪里？ Where did you go yesterday?&#xA;我昨天去的图书馆。I went to the library yesterday. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first sentence has emphasis on the time, while the second one has emphasis on the place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17706" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-13T19:42:29.137" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T19:42:29.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25993" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-13T22:36:15.217" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;「我於五受陰觀察非我、非我所，而非阿羅漢者，我於我慢、我欲、我使，未斷、未知、未離、未吐。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above is translated by a Ven. Anālayo as &quot;‘I examine these five aggregates of clinging as not self and not belonging to the self, yet I am not an arahant, with the influxes being eradicated. I have not yet abandoned the ‘I am’ conceit, the desire [related to the notion] ‘I am’, and the underlying tendency towards ‘I am’, have not yet [fully] understood it, not yet become sepa­rated from it, not yet vomited it out.’”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If possible, I would like to know how 所 in 非我所 implies &quot;and not belonging to the self&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T03:30:13.550" Title="What is the usage of 所 here?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25994" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-13T22:57:54.270" Score="3" ViewCount="811" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Have you eaten?&quot; (你吃了/吃了吗/吃饭没有 etc) sounds like a Chinese equivalent of &quot;how are you?&quot;. However, I don't know what is the correct way to respond to the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do Chinese people expect me to answer when they ask it? Should I just answer it literally?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first thought they ask me to go in lunch together. But it is definitely not true... So if they want to ask me out, do they use a different approach or do I have to discern if they ask me out or just use the phrase as a greeting?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T04:06:22.297" Title="What response is expected to Chinese people's &quot;Have you eaten?&quot;?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25995" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25996" CreationDate="2017-08-14T00:14:03.427" Score="1" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/38102762&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the top answer over 知乎&lt;/a&gt; on the question &lt;em&gt;深度学习中 Batch Normalization为什么效果好？&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;顾名思义，batch normalization嘛，就是“批规范化”咯。Google在ICML文中描述的非常清晰，&lt;strong&gt;即&lt;/strong&gt;在每次SGD时，通过mini-batch来对相应的activation做规范化操作，使得结果（输出信号各个维度）的均值为0，方差为1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the 即 mean? Does this function as &lt;code&gt;be&lt;/code&gt;? In this case, is it necessary to use 即, instead of 在每次SGD时, and also why is 即 preferred to other words that mean &lt;code&gt;be&lt;/code&gt;, such as 是，为, etc...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T04:27:18.150" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T04:27:18.150" Title="What does 即 mean in ...Google在ICML文中描述的非常清晰，即在每次SGD时...?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25995" CreationDate="2017-08-14T00:47:27.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;即 itself can mean &quot;equal&quot;.  For example: '五人&lt;strong&gt;即&lt;/strong&gt;一伍' (Five men &lt;strong&gt;equal&lt;/strong&gt; one unit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~ &lt;em&gt;you can replace 即 (equal) with 為(be), For example:  '五人&lt;strong&gt;為&lt;/strong&gt;一伍' (Five men &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; one unit)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 即 can be short for 即是 (namely; that is to say; to be specific)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 軍隊將士兵分伍] [2. &lt;strong&gt;即&lt;/strong&gt;] [3.每五人組成一個單位]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. Amy divides soldiers into 伍] [2. &lt;strong&gt;to be specific&lt;/strong&gt; ] [3. Every five people become one unit]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. general statement] [2. &lt;strong&gt;to be specific&lt;/strong&gt;] [3. detail description]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-14T01:01:05.337" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T01:01:05.337" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25994" CreationDate="2017-08-14T00:50:55.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can just answer it literally. Usually, I will response: 吃过了（or 还没有），你呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If people want to ask you out, they will go further with additional questions/requests: 我们一起去吃饭吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T00:50:55.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25993" CreationDate="2017-08-14T02:17:57.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%91%E6%89%80%E5%9F%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我所包括我的财富资产、我的眷属(父母、伴侣、子女、亲友)、我的成就、我的世间智慧能力、我的名声等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我所：意指“我的所有”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我所 means 我的所有 or &lt;em&gt;my everything&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;anything that belongs to me&lt;/em&gt;.&#xA;非 means &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt;, thus 非我所 implies &lt;em&gt;not belonging to me&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17711" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T02:17:57.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25993" CreationDate="2017-08-14T02:52:29.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;◎ 所 suǒ&#xA;〈形〉&#xA;(1) 一切,所有 [all]。如:所事(亦作“所是”。凡事,事事);所有品(所占有的东西);所是(所有)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, 所 means possession here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T02:52:29.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25993" CreationDate="2017-08-14T03:30:13.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我所 is the short form of 我所有.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sanskrit: ममकारः mamakāraḥ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《丁福保：佛學大辭典》 （Ding Fubao's Dictionary of Buddhist Studies）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  「我所有」之略。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  自身為「我」，自身外之萬物謂為「我所有」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The world can be devided to two parts.&#xA;One part is 我, self, and the other one is 我所有, everything else except self.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《Soothill-Hodous Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我所有; 我所事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Mine, personal, subjective;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  personal conditions, possessions, or anything related to the self.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T03:30:13.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25994" CreationDate="2017-08-14T04:06:22.297" Score="-1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;吃了, 今天天气不错啊&quot; / &quot;吃过了, 你听说...&quot; / &quot;吃了, 真热啊&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm so starving, since we won't eat together, let's finish this topic and switch to whatever)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;没吃呢, 你吃了吗?&quot;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I can't eat anymore, but I like to go out, let me ask it too to comfirm you was inviting me, if you response &quot;我也没吃&quot;, deal. If you start to bullshit, that was just a greeting.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;没吃呢, 待会儿吃&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I am starving again, but piss off, I won't go out with you.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;没吃呢, 不知道吃什么.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm full, but I like you, I wish you can introduce an restaurant, so we can go out.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;对付一口&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Just put something in my stomach, I don't like guessing )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T04:06:22.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26003" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-14T04:11:17.260" Score="1" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was listening to this song by the group Yin Tsang (隐藏) -- &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvzAtKPF-Xk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvzAtKPF-Xk&lt;/a&gt;  At 4:17, the song ends and there is a brief interview with one of the rappers in the group.  The sound quality is scratchy and I can't really understand it all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone transcribe what the rapper is saying in the interview?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-08-21T05:00:07.653" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T05:00:07.653" Title="Question about Chinese hip-hop song" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26003" CreationDate="2017-08-14T04:33:54.047" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;你知道我们为什么签京文旗下的嚎叫唱片吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们这个乐队叫隐藏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么叫这个名呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们以前什——任何人不知道我们&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是我们知道我们自己的能力在哪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那么我们本身——我们自己听音乐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们自己什么音乐基础 什么音乐的意见都借鉴了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们会作比较&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别的东西跟我们的东西会作比较&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们会比出一个好坏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以我们知道我们自己能力在哪儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那 你知道你能力在哪儿以后 你有了信心以后&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你就可以 完全地去 发展你自己的东西了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不用顾忌太多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你 做一个音乐事儿 哎 我想有一万个人听我的音乐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那你这样你做不出来音乐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那你 如果你 第一你做音乐事儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我*这音乐是我自己做的 我都不敢相信&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在那个时候 那个就是艺术了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17711" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T04:33:54.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26005" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26006" CreationDate="2017-08-14T07:51:40.263" Score="1" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some random sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;海上画派的前源是以董其昌为代表的松江画派。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在师从鲁风老师的同时，亦在不停的上溯花鸟画艺术的前源，寻找滋养，丰盈自我素养，这就使其花鸟画作品逐步凸显出章法的大开大合，用笔则更加强化了 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... 也就是说，商代后期的殷墟文化应当另有其本土前源。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking it is some art term that I'm not familiar with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It certainly is not the same as the 前源 that appears in《望梅止渴》, which just means &lt;em&gt;the spring ahead&lt;/em&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so what is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T08:18:20.880" Title="What is 前源? If not the 'spring ahead'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26005" CreationDate="2017-08-14T07:59:23.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前源 = original source/source ahead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so it translates to ...&lt;strong&gt;originated from&lt;/strong&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前源 in 望梅止渴 doesn't necessarily mean spring ahead, because 源 in 望梅止渴 is 水源(water source). So 前源 in 望梅止渴 means 前面的水源(water &lt;strong&gt;source&lt;/strong&gt; ahead), where source is the definition of 源.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be anything, for example Japanese Kanji的前源是Chinese Hanzi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2017-08-14T08:18:20.880" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T08:18:20.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25995" CreationDate="2017-08-14T08:19:34.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use a &quot;be&quot;(is/am/are/was/were) to help you to understand the &quot;即&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It helps to display the same content(maybe is a explanation or a defination) of the front word/sentence(it depends the situation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17712" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T08:19:34.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26008" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26009" CreationDate="2017-08-14T08:33:45.080" Score="3" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder what the idea (etymology) is behind formation of this word 处决.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;to place + to decide = to decide a place for the convict?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-14T10:09:15.883" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T21:02:33.867" Title="What is the idea behind creation of a compound word - 处决?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26008" CreationDate="2017-08-14T09:26:58.417" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/779/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;处&lt;/a&gt;' in '处决' means &quot;to sentence/ to put to&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic meaning of the verb '&lt;strong&gt;处&lt;/strong&gt;' is '&lt;strong&gt;to place&lt;/strong&gt;', and '&lt;strong&gt;to sentence&lt;/strong&gt;' is an extended meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;处&lt;/strong&gt;以極刑&quot; = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;to place&lt;/strong&gt; someone in the situation of receive capital punishment&quot;= &quot;&lt;strong&gt;to sentence&lt;/strong&gt; someone to capital punishment&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/878/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;决&lt;/a&gt;' in '处决' means &quot;to execute&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic meaning of the verb '&lt;strong&gt;决&lt;/strong&gt;' is '&lt;strong&gt;to determine&lt;/strong&gt;' and '&lt;strong&gt;to execute&lt;/strong&gt;' is an extended meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to determine--&gt;  to put an end to--&gt; to put to death&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/9137/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;处决&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; as a compound word is a verb means 1.&lt;strong&gt;to decide a matter&lt;/strong&gt; 2. &lt;strong&gt;to execute/ to put to death&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;公司上下事情由他全權&lt;strong&gt;處決&lt;/strong&gt;-  He alone &lt;strong&gt;decides matters&lt;/strong&gt; on all affairs of the company &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;處決&lt;/strong&gt;某人 - &lt;strong&gt;Execute&lt;/strong&gt; someone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-14T21:02:33.867" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T21:02:33.867" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26010" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26012" CreationDate="2017-08-14T12:35:01.673" Score="1" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is this song called 不能讲的秘密 (well, technically it's best spelt as 袂使讲的秘密), &quot;Secret I cannot tell&quot;, and it is in Min Nan. At a certain point, there is this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;将你捏紧紧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's how the lyrics spell it. I already restored 絚絚 | ân-ân from &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;台湾闽南语常用词辞典&lt;/a&gt;, but I have a hard time figuring out 捏. I mean, according to the aforementioned dictionary, 捏 means &quot;pinch&quot;, so &quot;I pinch you tight&quot;? This is a love song, &quot;you&quot; is the singer's loved one, the lyrics continue with &quot;因为惊失去你&quot;, &quot;because I fear to lose you&quot;, so what is &quot;pinch&quot; doing there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surely it must be &quot;hug&quot;, right? But then what is the spelling, and how is it pronounced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;捏 transliterates to tēnn, so it fits what I hear, but the meaning is off. Looking for the Min version of 擁抱 with the 对应华语 feature of the dictionary only yields 相攬, looking for the Min version of just 抱 leads to many results with no trace of something sounding like &quot;te&quot;, my only suggestion (probably from looking for &quot;te&quot; in the dictionary) was 缔 | tè, but that has no entry on the dictionary, and doesn't seem to mean &quot;hug&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what verb is this? Am I right that it means &quot;hug&quot;? How is it spelt and how is it pronounced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-08-16T10:03:48.873" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T10:03:48.873" Title="What verb is the 捏 in the Min sentence 将你捏絚絚?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26010" CreationDate="2017-08-14T19:52:15.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;捏 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2049/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2049/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(1) pinch; &lt;strong&gt;hold with fingers&lt;/strong&gt; (2) knead; mould (3) bring together (4) fabricate; concoct; cook up (5) &lt;strong&gt;clench&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;hold with fingers / clench= &lt;strong&gt;grab&lt;/strong&gt; ; &lt;strong&gt;hold on tight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;因为惊失去你&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;because I fear to lose you&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Imagine a mother turns to leave after she dropped her kid off in daycare. The kid just grab holds of her pants leg and wouldn't let go.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T21:00:07.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26015" CreationDate="2017-08-15T03:48:52.540" Score="2" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to MDBG and Ichiba, 后位 could mean after/post-something, so what's the difference of '之后' and '后位'?&#xA;Which one is correct:&#xA;- 葬礼之后&#xA;- 葬礼后位&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 后位 have to follow a noun?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T09:30:35.987" Title="Do '之后' and '后位' have the same meaning?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26014" CreationDate="2017-08-15T05:02:23.580" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;...之后 is a normal term to express &quot;after...&quot;. So,  葬礼之后 is correct in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;后位 is short for 后面的位置. It refers to positioning, not timing sequence. It is only used in some particular areas. Someone had given enough examples above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;后位 could also be understood as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;皇后之位 in 宫廷剧 （Chinese royal opera);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another 后卫： the back (defense position) in sports: soccer, American football, and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-08-15T09:30:35.987" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T09:30:35.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26014" CreationDate="2017-08-15T06:12:10.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“后位” is not a common term in daily usage, we barely hear it. As Dan described, it can mean the position of Queen. “之后” and “后面” is commonly mistaken, “之后” is usually used when something happens after something. “后面” is used when something is behind something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17719" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T06:12:10.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26017" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-15T13:16:23.123" Score="1" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title pretty much says it all. It makes sense to me, but Google gives &quot;do it&quot; when I plug the Chinese phrase into it. If 做可做的 sounds awkward or stilted, what would be a better way to express it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12868" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T03:02:11.917" Title="&quot;Do what you can&quot;: Is 做可做的 natural?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;nuance&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26017" CreationDate="2017-08-15T13:27:47.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;做你能做的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做你可做的 sometimes means 'Do what you allowed'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做你力所能及的, Do what you are abled to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-08-15T13:39:30.283" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T13:39:30.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26020" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26022" CreationDate="2017-08-15T14:43:36.087" Score="5" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading a passage from 呂氏春秋. I think I understand the basic meaning of the three first quarters, but then it becomes difficult. The hard part is the tiny snippet below and especially the last five characters, where I cannot even guess what part each plays in the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;故廢其非君，而立其行君道者。&#xA;      君道何如？利而物利章&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below are the whole passage and my attempt at a translation (for everything but the last five characters). The last five characters pose the greatest challenge. I have no clue as to how to translate them! I saw a German translation saying something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The benefit of all beings becomes manifest &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I have no idea, why it should mean that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;昔太古嘗無君矣，其民聚生群處，知母不知父，&#xA;無親戚兄弟夫妻男女之別，無上下長幼之道，&#xA;無進退揖讓之禮，無衣服履帶宮室畜積之便，&#xA;無器械舟車城郭險阻之備，此無君之患。&#xA;故君臣之義，不可不明也。&#xA;自上世以來，天下亡國多矣，而君道不廢者，天下之利也。&#xA;故廢其非君，而立其行君道者。&#xA;君道何如？利而物利章。&#xA;&#xA;Previously, during high antiquity, people experienced the rulerless condition. &#xA;The lived in hordes, knowing their mother, but not their father, &#xA;nor any kinship, or distinctions such as the ones &#xA;between elder and younger brother, husband and wife, man and woman.&#xA;There were no principles of old and young, high and low, no rules of curtesy. &#xA;Nor were there comforts such as clothes, girdles, lodgings, &#xA;or preparations such as carts, vessels and walled cities to protect against dangers. &#xA;Such were the perils of the rulerless condition. &#xA;Hence the proper relation between ruler and subject must absolutely be clear.&#xA;Since the times of yore, there have been many kingdoms indeed!&#xA;But the (institution of the) ruler was never abolished. It is beneficial to the realm!&#xA;Hence, the countries waned, but not the (institution of the) rulers&#xA;and they established a system with a ruler. What does the ruler comprehend?&#xA;(He comprehends) benefit and ???&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2017-08-15T15:06:49.770" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T17:55:36.697" Title="How to translate the phrase 利而物利章 in context?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26020" CreationDate="2017-08-15T15:33:11.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this page: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wenyanhanyu.com/lvshichunqiu/10666.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.wenyanhanyu.com/lvshichunqiu/10666.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;利而物利章。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;物 通 勿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;章 通 “旃”（zhān）, 相当于 &quot;之焉&quot;(means 'as that', I think)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;故廢其非君，而立其行君道者。 君道何如？利而物利章。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be translate to: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So abolishing brutal rulers, hailing the rulers that are the ruling manner.&#xA;What is the ruling manner? That is (whether the ruler) is beneficial to (the people) or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-08-15T15:39:50.690" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T15:39:50.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26020" CreationDate="2017-08-15T16:38:30.583" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;after reading other literary chinese texts, here's my approach :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;君道何如 - what is the principle(s) of sovereign&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;利而物利章 - this verse is very tricky, i would interpret it as &quot;利而物利&quot; + &quot;章&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the first &quot;利&quot; is shortcut of &quot;利民&quot;, beneficial to people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而 - and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;物 --&gt; 勿 - not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the second &quot;利&quot; is shortcut of &quot;自利&quot;, beneficial to oneself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;章 --&gt; 彰 - 明顯 distinct, obvious&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;together, 君道何如﹒利而物利章 is roughly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what is the principle(s) of sovereign (君道何如)? [he should make it] obvious (章) that [his acts are] beneficial to people (利), and (而), not to himself (物利)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ludi kun, in volume 1 of 呂氏春秋, chapter 4 &quot;貴公&quot;, there's a verse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;利而勿利也&quot;, with a remark &quot;務在利民，勿自利也&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E5%91%82%E6%B0%8F%E6%98%A5%E7%A7%8B/%E5%8D%B7%E4%B8%80#.E8.B2.B4.E5.85.AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/呂氏春秋/卷一#.E8.B2.B4.E5.85.AC&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, info added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's very common in literatures of yore, 章 is used, in lieu of 彰. even in 呂氏春秋, there're several usages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孟春紀﹒本生: &quot;萬物章章&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/ben-sheng/zh?searchu=%E7%AB%A0&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/ben-sheng/zh?searchu=章&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孟夏紀﹒誣徒: &quot;學業之章明也&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/wu-tu/zh?searchu=%E7%AB%A0&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/wu-tu/zh?searchu=章&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;審分覽﹒勿躬: &quot;名號已章矣&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/wu-gong/zh?searchu=%E7%AB%A0&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/wu-gong/zh?searchu=章&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不苟論﹒博志: &quot;名之章也&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/bo-zhi/zh?searchu=%E7%AB%A0&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/bo-zhi/zh?searchu=章&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2017-08-15T17:55:36.697" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T17:55:36.697" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26023" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-15T18:49:04.850" Score="2" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;as in the title what is the difference between 妖魔 and 妖怪? Also, are there any similar words which have similar meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16881" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T01:15:22.763" Title="Difference between 妖魔 and 妖怪" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26017" CreationDate="2017-08-15T19:02:53.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;做(v): to do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可做的(adj): doable (able to do/ allowed to do)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase '&lt;strong&gt;做可做的&lt;/strong&gt;' literally mean '&lt;strong&gt;do the doable&lt;/strong&gt;' with the object 事/事情 omitted. It would be more natural and unambiguous to have the object intact. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;做事- do thing&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;做&lt;strong&gt;可做的&lt;/strong&gt;事- do the &lt;strong&gt;doable&lt;/strong&gt; thing &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;thing that you are able to do/ thing that you are allowed to do&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sound more natural, you should use the compound word 可以 instead of the single character 可 and write: &quot;做可以做的事&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T19:02:53.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26025" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-15T21:32:51.757" Score="1" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;When an embedded question is used as a relative clause, does the embedded question still have an interrogative function, or does it become purely descriptive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你看了大卫给谁的书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You read the book that David gave someone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You read the book that David gave someone, and who did he give it to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's the former, is this phenomenon completely general, wherein embedding a question makes the WH word interpretable as an indefinite pronoun?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15063" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-08-16T07:05:07.343" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T15:35:09.773" Title="Interpretation of Embedded Questions as Relative Clauses" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26025" CreationDate="2017-08-16T00:39:58.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, the sentence itself is stilted and ambiguous in meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你看了大卫给谁的书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way to express your first idea(You read the book that David gave someone):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你看了David给别人的书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the second one (You read the book that David gave someone, and who did he give it to?): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你看的那本书David给谁了？or 你看过的那本书David给谁了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both implies that you have read the book; you are questioning who David have given that book to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T00:39:58.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26023" CreationDate="2017-08-16T01:15:22.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I write this, someone already left feedbacks for your second question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the difference between 妖魔 and 妖怪:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妖怪: like a monster, its appearance looks quite different from other normal creatures (at least from what's in our minds).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妖魔: like a demon, having witch kind of looking, who can use the magic power in combat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, 妖魔 has more magic power than 妖怪. 妖怪 is more powerful physically than its magic power. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my understanding and impression and might not be that accurate. Just as a reference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T01:15:22.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26028" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26029" CreationDate="2017-08-16T01:54:38.400" Score="2" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;“最具社会责任教育家”开除患癌教师，要多讽刺就有多讽刺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does '要多讽刺就有多讽刺' here mean 'you have to be as ironic as you need to be' (which i think quite weird here, but i'm not sure) or does it mean 'it's very ironic'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T02:48:52.653" Title="The correct meaning for '要多讽刺就有多讽刺'" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26028" CreationDate="2017-08-16T02:00:16.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;as ironic as you could imagine&quot;. It implies to the largest extent (as you could possibly imagine) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T02:00:16.627" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26030" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-16T02:27:40.137" Score="3" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often hear people say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你给我放聪明点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你给我放老实点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand 放 usually means to place or to release, but in this context it is really confusing. Do people mean to place things clever or honest in the speaker?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is 放肆. The 放 is hard to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-31T04:13:34.890" LastActivityDate="2021-04-05T00:21:18.987" Title="What does 放 mean in contexts such as 你给我放聪明点 or 你给我放老实点?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26028" CreationDate="2017-08-16T02:29:51.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's much more ironical that &lt;strong&gt;the most social responsible educator&lt;/strong&gt; dismiss the cancerous teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要多少有多少&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Literally: How many you want, so many there are.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;You can get as more as you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宇宙要多大有多大&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Literally: How large is the universe you can imagine, so large it would be.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;The universe is as large as can imagine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-08-16T02:48:52.653" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T02:48:52.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26030" CreationDate="2017-08-16T02:54:06.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;放老实点 means put in a honest way. Similarly, 放聪明点 means put in a wise way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;放肆 means your behavior cross the line people just can not tolerate. it's kind of talk-down. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;放 is such a common word that it can be used in lots of circumstances. There will be a lot of meaning you will get from a dictionary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 放鞭炮，放牛，放纵，放荡，绽放， 放 in these phrases means differently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-08-16T03:09:53.663" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T03:09:53.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26017" CreationDate="2017-08-16T03:02:11.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a phrase &quot;盡力而為&quot; which means &quot;do your best&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17720" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T03:02:11.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26034" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-16T03:43:35.393" Score="2" ViewCount="765" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the Chinese term for a DGEN gambler or a Degen Gambler, this phrase is usually used not in a bad way by pro gamblers who considers themselves or others DGEN/Degen gamblers as they thrive and live on gambling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would this be translated into Chinese in a way that it does not mean Degenerate which is considered a very bad word in itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17721" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T05:35:21.603" Title="What is the Chinese term for a DGEN or Degen Gambler" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26035" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26039" CreationDate="2017-08-16T03:56:47.900" Score="2" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually the technological terminology is mapped to an equivalent word in Chinese. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deep Learning: 深度学习&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Linear Algebra: 线性代数&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Web Server: 服务器&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 深层学习 may also be a valid choice. In fact Japanese people use &lt;code&gt;层&lt;/code&gt; on the term (i.e. 深層学習).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how is which characters are used decided and by who? Is there any organization that lays it down?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T08:45:16.500" Title="How is it decided as to which character is used on the tech terminology?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26034" CreationDate="2017-08-16T04:05:45.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to gather a euphemism for Degen Gambler in Chinese. No best words/phrases I figure. 职业扑克玩家 (Professional Pokerist) is the best one I can get. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope this help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T04:05:45.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26034" CreationDate="2017-08-16T04:46:43.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;赌棍&lt;/strong&gt; is the best you're gonna get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are very few translations of &lt;em&gt;DGEN&lt;/em&gt; -or- &lt;em&gt;Degen&lt;/em&gt;. The only one I came across was on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pokerren.com/a/56&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;扑克人&lt;/a&gt; which says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;堕落故事&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;译注：原帖标题为“Degen Stories”。Degen是Degenrate的缩写，意思是“堕落的”、“落魄的”、“穷困潦倒的”。Degen Stories差不多就是“很衰的事情”、“很背的事情”的意思（还有一点no zuo no die的味道）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Degen here is translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;堕落 = worsening of morals&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;落魄 = to be down on one's luck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;穷困潦倒 = to be down and out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are all quite negative and mean exactly what you didn't want them to mean: &lt;strong&gt;degenerate&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The negative meaning of &lt;em&gt;DGEN&lt;/em&gt; -or- &lt;em&gt;Degen&lt;/em&gt; does seem to be pretty overwhelming in English as well, but obviously not exclusively, so our above translations are all out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CC-CEDICT translates &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E8%B5%8C%E6%A3%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;赌棍&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 hardened gambler&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 professional gambler&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;现代汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沉溺于赌博，并以此为生的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which very roughly translates as &lt;em&gt;an obsessive gambler, who does it for a living&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it can also refer to any obsessive gambler in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is the closest you'll get for what you want to express.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;赌徒&lt;/strong&gt; could also work but this is more of a derogatory term for a &lt;em&gt;hobby&lt;/em&gt; gambler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;赌神&lt;/strong&gt; could also work, borrowing from the movie, a word that literally means &lt;em&gt;gambling god&lt;/em&gt; but could refer to anyone who is masterful at gambling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T04:57:30.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26034" CreationDate="2017-08-16T05:11:25.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Definition of 'Degen Gambler'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pokerterms.com/degenerate.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://pokerterms.com/degenerate.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A personality type, common amongst poker players, that is typified by an abundance of self-destructive behavior.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Common Degen Habits&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;There are a variety of &quot;degenerate behavior&quot; patterns that poker players have been known to embrace. They include, but are not limited to:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pit gambling&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Drug use&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Excessive spending&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sports betting&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Hookers and strippers&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate Degen Gambler as &lt;strong&gt;病態賭徒&lt;/strong&gt; (sick/ symptomatic gambler)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Degen' stands for 'degenerate'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing that is degenerating in a degen Gambler is his mental health, which causes all kinds of symptoms in the forms of destructive behaviors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone's mental health degenerates to a certain point, his behaviors will become symptomatic of that mental illness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we say someone is a 病態賭徒, it means gambling has took over of his life, and he is on the path of self destruct. At this point, he really need professional help from psychology doctor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Matt Douhan wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This phrase is usually used not in a bad way by pro gamblers who considers themselves or others DGEN/Degen gamblers as they thrive and live on gambling.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously a professional gambler would not consider himself sick. A professional gambler calling himself 'degen gambler' or 'sick gambler' (病態賭徒) is akin to a scientist calling himself 'mad scientist' (瘋狂科學家) to express how devoted he is to his endeavor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A professional gambler may consider his devotion to gambling is so deep, it qualifies as a sickness-- 'sick gambler' (病態賭徒). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Borrowing the mad scientist example, 'degen gambler' may even be translated as '&lt;strong&gt;瘋狂玩家&lt;/strong&gt;' (mad player)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-16T05:35:21.603" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T05:35:21.603" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26035" CreationDate="2017-08-16T05:50:53.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'深度學習' = 'in-depth learning'  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'深層学習' = 'deep level learning'  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned, Japanese use '深層學習' instead of '深度學習' for 'deep learning'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(深層學習 is the preferred translation of 'Deep learning' in Hong Kong too) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different countries and regions have different translations of some technological terms from foreign language. Hard to say which is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blaszard wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I didn't ask which is better or what meaning each word exactly has; I asked how it is determined and by who.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a new terminology is coined in foreign language, different medias and publications  may have trouble deciding on an unified translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, they will follow the lead of the authority in that particular field. If the Science journal in China translates 'Deep learning' as 深度学習, the news would adopt it and the general public will follow.  Finally, dictionaries would make it official by listing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-16T06:47:18.737" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T06:47:18.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26035" CreationDate="2017-08-16T07:08:32.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is an organization, usually it is decided by the first guy that translate it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when translators translate a specified words, he need to find is this word have translated or not. If it does, he can use that translation or he can make a new one if he have a better one, in this case he should add a foot note or something like that to give readers enough infos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the early stage, these translations usually includes the original words to let readers know what is that translation is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the translating documents by different guys got more and more, a consensus will be made.It is a natural selection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compares 深度 with 深层. 深度 is more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T07:08:32.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26041" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-16T08:17:31.363" Score="6" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;this question is made, and answer provided; in response to a comment in another question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/26020/how-to-translate-the-phrase-%E5%88%A9%E8%80%8C%E7%89%A9%E5%88%A9%E7%AB%A0-in-context/26022?noredirect=1#comment36819_26022&quot;&gt;How to translate the phrase 利而物利章 in context?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cause, my explanation is too long to put in the comment area; sorry about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, let's start: how to translate &quot;何如&quot;, particularly in the book 呂氏春秋?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T08:24:10.873" Title="how to translate &quot;何如&quot; in 呂氏春秋?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26041" CreationDate="2017-08-16T08:24:10.873" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;there're 7 occurrences of &quot;何如&quot; in 呂氏春秋:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/zh?searchu=%E4%BD%95%E5%A6%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/zh?searchu=何如&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;translate &quot;何如&quot; as &quot;how&quot; is appropriate, in some of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１　季冬紀﹒不侵　&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/bu-qin/zh?searchu=%E4%BD%95%E5%A6%82&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/bu-qin/zh?searchu=何如&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;孟嘗君之好士何如&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何如 is how --&gt; how is (何如) mr maang (孟嘗君) fond of (好) gentlemen? (士)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;２　審應覽﹒應言　&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/ying-yan/zh?searchu=%E4%BD%95%E5%A6%82&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/ying-yan/zh?searchu=何如&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;公之事何如&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何如 is how --&gt; how (何如) is your (公之) business (事)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;３　離俗覽﹒離俗　&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/li-su/zh?searchu=%E4%BD%95%E5%A6%82&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/li-su/zh?searchu=何如&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;伊尹何如&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何如 is how --&gt; how (何如) about mr yi (伊尹)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;４　先識覽﹒悔過　&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/hui-guo/zh?searchu=%E4%BD%95%E5%A6%82&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/hui-guo/zh?searchu=何如&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;寡人興師，未知何如&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this 何如 can be shortcut to result, or outcome; from &quot;what's the result&quot;, or, &quot;how's the outcome&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i (寡人 is a specialised first person pronoun used by sovereign) send the troop, unknown (未知) the outcome (何如)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;５　貴直論﹒過理　&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/guo-li/zh?searchu=%E4%BD%95%E5%A6%82&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/guo-li/zh?searchu=何如&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我何如主也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this &quot;何如&quot; should be &quot;what&quot; --&gt; what type (何如) of sovereign (主) am i (我)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to be balance, treat &quot;何如&quot; as &quot;how&quot; is also possible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how do (何如) you think about me (我), as a sovereign (主)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;６　審分覽﹒審分　&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/shen-fen/zh?searchu=%E4%BD%95%E5%A6%82&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/shen-fen/zh?searchu=何如&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其轡何如&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this &quot;何如&quot; should be &quot;what&quot; --&gt; what's (何如) his (其) means (轡)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%BD%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;轡 (u+8f61)&lt;/a&gt; means bridle, a gear for a rider to &quot;control&quot; his horse. it was used here as a metaphor of sovereign's means to employ his officials. (有道之主﹒其所以使群臣者亦有轡)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, last one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;７　恃君覽﹒恃君　&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/shi-jun/zh?searchu=%E4%BD%95%E5%A6%82&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/shi-jun/zh?searchu=何如&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;君道何如&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;how should a ruler rules&quot; is good, in english. however, as a translation, it's not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;何如&quot; --&gt; &quot;how should, it's ok; but the remaining, &quot;君道&quot; --&gt; &quot;a ruler rules&quot;, well, improper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cause, &quot;君道&quot; as a noun here, is an entity, which is the same, in verses before this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而君道不廢者 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and (而), the principles of sovereign (君道) is not (不) discarded (廢)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而立其行君道者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and (而), support (立) the one who (其) carry out (行) [according to] the principles of sovereign (君道) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;briefly, &quot;何如&quot; can be translated to &quot;how&quot;, in most occurrences in the book 呂氏春秋. sometime, it's better to translate it as &quot;what&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about &quot;君道&quot;, it's an entity. divide it into subject + verb; well, would be betrayal :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T08:24:10.873" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26035" CreationDate="2017-08-16T08:45:16.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in taiwan, there is a institution &quot;國家教育研究院&quot;, which maintain the database 雙語詞彙資料庫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://terms.naer.edu.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://terms.naer.edu.tw&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this database contains most, if not all, bilingual terms, in english and chinese. there're specialised committees to consider the words used for translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i think that this database is authoritative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T08:45:16.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26044" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26045" CreationDate="2017-08-16T11:38:49.980" Score="2" ViewCount="715" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to parse this sign I saw at Beijing airport when catching the bus to Tianjin.  The sign indicates where to buy the bus ticket.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I9MOem.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I9MOem.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;清您先到13号门内省际购票厅购票&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清您先到13号门内省际购票厅购票&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hanzi 购 is confusing me.  I'm now aware of three ways of saying &quot;to buy&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B9%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;买&lt;/a&gt; (mǎi), which arises very early when learning Chinese,&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%B4%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;购&lt;/a&gt; (gòu), and&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%B4%AD%E4%B9%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;购买&lt;/a&gt; (gòumǎi).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a difference between 买 (mǎi), 购 (gòu), and 购买 (gòumǎi) which mean &quot;to buy&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T06:52:02.517" Title="Is there a difference between 买 (mǎi), 购 (gòu), and 购买 (gòumǎi) which mean &quot;to buy&quot;?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26044" CreationDate="2017-08-16T12:30:58.107" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;买 is more casual. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;购 is formal when forming up with other characters: 购买，购票厅，购物，申购，团购，and etc.. These terms are formal both in written and spoken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also consider 买 is short for 购买. 购买 is official term, so people just say 买... in our daily life instead of 购买. For example, 买菜，买车，买房子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As this sign is posted in the Beijing airport, they should make it formal by 购票厅, instead of 买票厅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T12:30:58.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26044" CreationDate="2017-08-16T15:19:05.737" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;购 and 买 can be roughly translated into &lt;strong&gt;purchase&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;buy&lt;/strong&gt;, respectively, and 购买 is the full word (more formal) of 买.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In daily Chinese, 买 tends to emphasize the &lt;em&gt;result&lt;/em&gt; of the action. For&#xA;example, 买菜 (buy food), while 购 has a tendency to emphasize the &lt;em&gt;procedure&lt;/em&gt; of the action, like 购物 (shopping).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们去逛街购物。 (We're going shopping.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他买了一双鞋。 (He bought a pair of shoes.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T15:19:05.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26025" CreationDate="2017-08-16T15:35:09.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First analyze the components of the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你看了大卫给谁的书？ (should be a question mark here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 你 is the subject, 看了 is the predicative, and the phrase 大卫给谁的书 is the object. Actually, 书 is the object, and 大卫给谁的 is the &lt;em&gt;attribute modifier&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the sentence is basically 你看了书. The question is located in the attribute modifier, so it's asking about &lt;strong&gt;Who David give the book to&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A reference translation is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Who&lt;/strong&gt; did David give the book (that you read) to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(It just seems to be as confusing as the original Chinese sentence.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T15:35:09.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25966" CreationDate="2017-08-16T15:45:35.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不屈：不屈服(于强大的对手) &amp;ndash; unyielding, unbending&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you don't surrender to a strong enemy/opponent, you are 不屈的. This word is often used to describe heroes/heroines in wars and battles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T15:45:35.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25966" CreationDate="2017-08-17T06:40:28.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不-非也(Means:Not!)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra00010.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra00010.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3673&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3673&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;屈-心意不順暢或彎曲身體部位(&#xA;There is something to force you to do what you do not want to do! Or Bend the body parts!)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra01083.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra01083.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=1579&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=1579&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不屈-不屈服於某人或某事&#xA;(Not succumb to someone or something!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T06:40:28.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26044" CreationDate="2017-08-17T06:52:02.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;购&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;购 original means you pour a lot of money to get what you what.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;买&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;买 simply means you buy things with your money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;购 can imply the buyer's status and dignity. &quot;购票厅&quot; have more politeness than &quot;买票厅&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;你买票了吗?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could be a blame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你购票了吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sounds like a confirmation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我买了一个花瓶.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's probably an ordinary vase in super market.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我购得一个花瓶.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's maybe an artwork.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去购菜. (X)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wrong, because food is so casual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去采购食材.(Right)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right, 食材 usually means food of good taste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T06:52:02.517" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26053" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26817" CreationDate="2017-08-17T10:02:24.003" Score="0" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;NOTE: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_entropy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;binary cross-entropy&quot;&lt;/a&gt; is a terminology used in Machine Learning field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;交叉熵 seems to mean &quot;cross-entropy&quot; in Mandarin Chinese. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinatt.news/6401326385628971521.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;According to this page&lt;/a&gt; however, it expresses the &quot;binary cross-entropy loss&quot; as 交叉熵损失. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &lt;a href=&quot;http://keras-cn-docs.readthedocs.io/zh_CN/latest/blog/autoencoder/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;according to Keras documentation on Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (Keras is a popular deep learning library on Python):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下面我们训练自编码器，来重构MNIST中的数字，这里使用逐像素的&lt;strong&gt;交叉熵&lt;/strong&gt;作为损失函数，优化器为adam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it uses &quot;binary cross-entropy&quot; as a loss function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, 交叉 means &lt;code&gt;cross&lt;/code&gt; and 熵 means &lt;code&gt;entropy&lt;/code&gt;. So there is no word for &lt;code&gt;binary&lt;/code&gt; to be fit into. &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.csdn.net/rtygbwwwerr/article/details/50778098&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page written in Chinese&lt;/a&gt; also shows it as &quot;cross-entropy&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;交叉熵（Cross-Entropy）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wonder if it is no problem to just use &lt;code&gt;交叉熵&lt;/code&gt; to mean &quot;binary cross-entropy&quot;. Or is there any other word to specifically mean &quot;binary cross-entropy&quot;? How about other jargons, such as &quot;categorical cross-entropy&quot;? If I use 交叉熵, does it always mean &quot;binary cross-entropy&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-01T13:58:06.757" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T13:58:42.003" Title="How can &quot;binary cross-entropy&quot; be expressed in Mandarin Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26055" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26058" CreationDate="2017-08-17T11:20:27.777" Score="2" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned the following sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你是从哪里听到这个消息的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to omit 的 here?  So is 你是从哪里听到这个消息？ wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that the particle is used to signal ownership, but is it necessary to use it here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Information seems to be a noun already?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17732" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-31T04:09:22.677" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T04:09:22.677" Title="When do you need the 的 at the end of sentences? E.g. 你是从哪里听到这个消息的？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26056" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26067" CreationDate="2017-08-17T11:22:45.750" Score="2" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the 大略 荀子 requires：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;君臣不得不尊，父子不得不親，兄弟不得不順，夫婦不得不驩，少者以長，老者以養。故天地生之，聖人成之。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My dictionary says this word 驩 is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a term for horse breeding&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A form of 歡&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am thinking, it must be the second meaning implied above. But 歡, too, carries so many meanings! There is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Happy, merry &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sweetheart, love, as in 另覓新歡&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And some dialect meanings are listed as well. I was tempted to think 荀子 means husband and wife must be sweethearts, but it sounds very extroverted for ancient Chinese; I am probably missing the real meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T07:52:38.090" Title="What is the relationship 驩 required by the 大略 between husband and wife?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26030" CreationDate="2017-08-17T11:25:22.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'放 usually means to place or to release' your consider is right, but 放肆 can’t split，because 放肆 is a entirety, for example 你太放肆了, translate to english you are realy lack of courtesy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about 你给我放聪明点 or 你给我放老实点，放 expression to rebuke,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17733" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T11:25:22.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26055" CreationDate="2017-08-17T11:39:10.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are almost the same meanings:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;你从哪里听到这个消息？&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;你从哪里听到&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;这个消息？&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;你从哪里听到这个消息&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;你&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;从哪里听到&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;这个消息？&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;你&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;从哪里听到这个消息&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T11:39:10.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26056" CreationDate="2017-08-17T11:41:02.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;说文解字:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(歡) 喜樂也。从欠。雚聲。呼官切。十四部。孟子借驩爲歡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just means 'happy'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T11:41:02.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26056" CreationDate="2017-08-17T12:44:49.430" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;水巷孑蠻 wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there's a remark &amp;quot;不得謂不得聖人之禮法&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;驩與歡同&amp;quot; after the verse &amp;quot;老者以養&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聖人之禮法 saint's etiquette&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;君臣不得不尊，without it, retainer  would not respect the ruler&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;父子不得不親，without it, father and son would not love each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兄弟不得不順，without it, brothers would not be agreeable to each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夫婦不得不驩(&lt;strong&gt;歡&lt;/strong&gt;)，without it, husband and wife would not &lt;strong&gt;please&lt;/strong&gt; each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In saint's etiquette, both 父 and 子 need to love each other; both older and younger brother need to be agreeable to each other. And it is as much a husband's responsibility to please his wife as a wife's responsibility to please her husband. As for 君臣, it is possible that the demand to respect is on the retainers only.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My original post before knowing there's a remark:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;君臣不得不尊，ruler and retainer must respect each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;父子不得不親，father and son must love each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兄弟不得不順，brothers must be agreeable to each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夫婦不得不驩(&lt;strong&gt;歡&lt;/strong&gt;)，husband and wife must &lt;strong&gt;please&lt;/strong&gt; each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少者以長，grow the young&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老者以養。take care of the old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;故天地生之，that's how the world is formed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聖人成之。saint is created&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;荀子's words mentioned 'mutually respect, love, follow and please' ; but in practice, a retainer is expected to respect his ruler, a son is expected to love his father, a younger brother is expected to follow his older brother and &lt;strong&gt;a wife is expected to please her husband&lt;/strong&gt;. The expectation on the other end is more often, treated like a suggestion.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T07:52:38.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26062" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-17T14:39:55.400" Score="1" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a phrase： XXX number of people are addicted to the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wrote this as: xxx 个人有（InternetAddiction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or could I use the phrase 上瘾用网络?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I am not sure if it is correct grammatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;XXX 个人上瘾用网络.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17735" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-17T17:43:31.663" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T09:23:42.257" Title="How do you phrase XXX number of people have Internet addiction in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26062" CreationDate="2017-08-17T14:56:09.283" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A more formal form to say it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幾千萬人有互聯網&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20050409000010KK06451&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;依存症&lt;/a&gt; - 'ten of millions of people have Internet Addiction'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more colloquial way to say it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幾千萬人上網成癮 - 'ten of millions of people getting online so much it became an addiction to them'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or simply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幾千萬人有上網癮 - 'ten of millions of people have internet addiction'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T14:56:09.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26062" CreationDate="2017-08-17T22:36:21.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;XXX number of people are addicted to the Internet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;XXX 个人上网成瘾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17738" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T22:36:21.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26056" CreationDate="2017-08-17T23:19:33.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/js/6B22.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/js/6B22.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 欢： 欢爱。指男女交合之事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it means 'husband and wife must have sexual relations'. Seems odd to say 'husband and wife must be happy'. You can't force happiness! 'Please' on the other hand could mean 'sexually please each other'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T23:19:33.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26062" CreationDate="2017-08-18T00:16:42.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;沉迷(于) is the term I heard most in medias. For example, 成千上万人沉迷于网络. 成千上万人沉迷于网游。成千上万人沉迷于手游。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T00:16:42.687" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26056" CreationDate="2017-08-18T02:31:52.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;君臣不得不尊﹒父子不得不親﹒兄弟不得不順﹒夫婦不得不驩﹒少者以長﹒老者以養﹒故天地生之﹒聖人成之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i think that there's severe misinterpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;the text is to emphasise the importance of saint's etiquette (聖人之禮法)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the scanned copy in internet archive: &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06072285.cn#page/n45/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/06072285.cn#page/n45/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VlXcI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VlXcI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;there's a remark &lt;strong&gt;&quot;不得謂不得聖人之禮法&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;&quot;驩與歡同&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; after the verse &quot;老者以養&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the orthodox way of interpretation should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;君臣不得不尊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&gt; 君臣﹒不得聖人之禮法﹒不尊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[in the relationship of] a ruler (君) and his minister (臣), [if] saint's etiquette (聖人之禮法) is not (不) learnt (得), the minister would not (不) respect (尊) the ruler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in this type of relationship, respect (尊) is one way only, a proper behaviour performed by a minister (臣, aka the lower strata one) to his ruler (君, aka the upper strata one).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夫婦不得不驩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&gt; 夫婦﹒不得聖人之禮法﹒不驩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[in the relationship of] a husband (夫) and wife (婦), [if] saint's etiquette (聖人之禮法) is not (不) learnt (得), the  wife (婦) would not (不) please (驩) her husband (夫).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in this type of relationship, please (驩) is one way only, a proper behaviour performed by a wife (婦, aka the lower strata one) to her husband (夫 aka the upper strata one).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the remark stated 驩 (u+9a69) is equal to 歡 (u+6b61). i would interpret it to &quot;please&quot;, as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about how can a wife &quot;please&quot; her husband, you may imagine it freely :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun 　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T02:31:52.837" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26073" CreationDate="2017-08-18T08:06:56.503" Score="1" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently took a Chinese test &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.easymandarin.cn/test-your-chinese-level&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;on EasyMandarin website&lt;/a&gt;. One of the question is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;明天晚上我___你吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They ask me to pick up a word that is suitable to the blank area, and I picked up 拿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the correct answer was 请. I found it sounds a better term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, is 拿 also suitable here? I meant the sentence is &lt;em&gt;&quot;Tomorrow evening I would take you to eat dinner.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 拿 only used to take a &quot;thing&quot;, or can I use it also to take &quot;person&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T08:46:59.123" Title="Is 拿 only used to take &quot;thing&quot; and not &quot;person&quot;?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26069" CreationDate="2017-08-18T08:15:11.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 拿 take a thing &lt;strong&gt;BY HAND&lt;/strong&gt; (please look at the glyph, a box on a hand, that is to say, you take a box, 一个 “合” box 放在 “手” 上面), generally, we don't take a man, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请 = invite.   you can check ancient glyph at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net&lt;/a&gt; ， some characters are Pictographic characters (象形字), you can check ancient glyph of them, some characters are combinations of Pictographic characters (会义字), and others are combinations with phonetic + Pictographic (形声字, one part is phonetic, others are 会义 or 象形).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2271" LastEditorUserId="2271" LastEditDate="2017-08-18T08:23:08.717" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T08:23:08.717" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26069" CreationDate="2017-08-18T08:26:13.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;明天晚上我_请_你吃饭!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above sentence means that in order to express my gratitude, I treat you to dinner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The object after &lt;code&gt;拿&lt;/code&gt; most is thing in Chinese language. If you use the person as an object, it will be very rude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17343" LastEditorUserId="17343" LastEditDate="2017-08-18T08:34:03.037" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T08:34:03.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26069" CreationDate="2017-08-18T08:46:59.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cannot imagine a situation where &amp;quot;拿&amp;quot; would take a human object. Daniel has already explained the etymology of the character, however &amp;quot;拿&amp;quot; not only takes physical objects, but can also be used metaphorically such as in the phrase &amp;quot;拿主意&amp;quot; (to brainstorm), which literally translated means &amp;quot;to grab ideas&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also like to point out that the main reason &amp;quot;拿&amp;quot; would not fit into that sentence is because it cannot be used in the same way &amp;quot;take&amp;quot; would be used in english. It should only be used in a picking-up-and-holding kind of way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentences that &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;take&lt;/em&gt; (heh) &amp;quot;拿&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I will &lt;em&gt;take&lt;/em&gt; the car to work. (you aren't picking up the car)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I will &lt;em&gt;take&lt;/em&gt; a break. (can't really pick up a &amp;quot;break&amp;quot;, either)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a general rule of thumb, anything too big to pick up shouldn't use 拿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use the word &amp;quot;拿&amp;quot; in that sentence would actually be quite comical. Since &amp;quot;拿&amp;quot; also means &amp;quot;with&amp;quot; as in &amp;quot;to use&amp;quot;, it would actually mean &amp;quot;Tomorrow night I will use you to eat dinner&amp;quot;. In fact, in the above situation, even if the object was not human, you shouldn't use &amp;quot;拿&amp;quot; at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you wished to say: &amp;quot;I will take my purse to dinner&amp;quot;, opt for something like &amp;quot;帶&amp;quot;, which means &amp;quot;to bring&amp;quot;. Otherwise people people might misunderstand it as you are literally using your purse to eat your food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17400" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T08:46:59.123" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26062" CreationDate="2017-08-18T09:23:42.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be &quot;xxx个人对网络上瘾&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this situation, people are addicated to internet, but not use internet to addicate. Actually, &quot;xxx个人上瘾用网络&quot; is just like &quot;xxx number of people are addicted use internet&quot;, which is a broken sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17744" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T09:23:42.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26075" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26078" CreationDate="2017-08-18T14:54:59.573" Score="1" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found that that form of phrase is used quite often.&#xA;I thought it could be read as &quot;What are you being .... for?&quot;.&#xA;But I'm still confused about the use of '没事' here and how to properly put it in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="17496" LastEditDate="2017-08-19T02:51:28.553" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T03:49:44.900" Title="What's the best way to phrase &quot;没事是......做什么?&quot; in english?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21311" CreationDate="2017-08-18T15:18:00.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry that the other answer is not correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this dictionary Chinese, Japanese or both?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Both&lt;/strong&gt;. Some words are not from Japanese kanji but from Simplified Chinese (Hanzi). Also, in many words the meaning doesn't make sense in Japanese, even if you map the simplified character to a Japanese equivalent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there seem to be a word that doesn't exist and/or make sense neither in Chinese nor Japanese. For example, 要法 is such word. I don't understand any reasons to use this dictionary...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T15:18:00.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26075" CreationDate="2017-08-18T16:05:34.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess it's a bit akin to, the good old:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the devil will find work for idle hands to do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没事&lt;/strong&gt; here means exactly what you probably think it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%B2%A1%E4%BA%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; lists one definition as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to have nothing to do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your above question the 没事 basically acts as, '&lt;em&gt;don't you have anything better to do than to....&lt;/em&gt;', '&lt;em&gt;are you so idle as to...&lt;/em&gt;', etc. -or- as you put it &lt;em&gt;What are you being .... for?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T16:05:34.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26075" CreationDate="2017-08-18T18:00:23.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you mean “没事…做什?&quot; If it is the case, then  没事 is short for '&lt;strong&gt;没事要做&lt;/strong&gt; (without thing that has to be done); or &lt;strong&gt;没事發生&lt;/strong&gt;(nothing has happened) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没事 means '&lt;strong&gt;for no reason&lt;/strong&gt;' or '&lt;strong&gt;with no purpose&lt;/strong&gt;' in this structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;没事&lt;/strong&gt;回來做什?&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;for no reason&lt;/strong&gt;, come back &lt;strong&gt;for what&lt;/strong&gt;?/ &lt;strong&gt;why&lt;/strong&gt; come back &lt;strong&gt;for no reason&lt;/strong&gt;?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;没事&lt;/strong&gt;去看醫生做什?&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;for no reason&lt;/strong&gt;, go to see the doctor &lt;strong&gt;for what&lt;/strong&gt;?/ &lt;strong&gt;why&lt;/strong&gt; go see the doctor &lt;strong&gt;for no reason&lt;/strong&gt;?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It should be' 没事...作什', but '没事...做什?' is also valid because 做 is the modern counterpart of 作 in classical writting for the verb 'to do'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-19T01:19:01.813" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T01:19:01.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21336" CreationDate="2017-08-19T03:29:10.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;发大财means make a lot of money. You can say 大here means a lot. Usually we don't use 大发财，because 大 is usually an adj.  to describe the noun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17747" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T03:29:10.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26075" CreationDate="2017-08-19T03:49:44.900" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'没事‘ = 'everything is ok' is this case.&#xA;‘做什么’ equates to 'why' here I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没事说那么恶心的话做什么?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Everything is fine, why are you uttering such profanities? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T03:49:44.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25966" CreationDate="2017-08-19T04:34:39.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese word 不屈 usually menas &quot;never give up, never surrender&quot; to describe someone that is very strong psychologically. The Chinese word is often used with 坚韧不屈or不屈不挠. Let us have an example as &quot;狼有三大特性：一是敏锐的嗅觉；二是不屈不挠、奋不顾身的进攻精神；三是群体奋斗的意识。&quot;, &quot;对于不屈不挠的人来说，没有失败这回事。&quot; On the other hand，不屈has two parts of speech, one is used as a verb, for example &quot;对于敌人的威逼利诱，他从不屈服。&quot; The other is an adjective. For example &quot;他虽然双腿残疾，但是他坚韧不屈的精神着实让我们感动”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17747" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T04:34:39.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26082" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26104" CreationDate="2017-08-19T05:10:38.267" Score="2" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple question, why does the lower half of 安全 (safe), have the female character: 女 ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it implying that safety pertains only to females being secure? Or is there no such implication?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know why 女 was chosen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-10-23T08:01:13.207" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T08:01:13.207" Title="Radical choice for 安全" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25884" CreationDate="2017-08-19T05:43:42.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just have an image like this: you are a fat man and want to get across the door, but as you are too fat to cross it. Doesn't it look like &quot;fat chance &quot; in English and 没门 in Chinese? So I think that is a way to remember the meaning of 没门（fat chance ）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17747" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T05:43:42.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26084" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26111" CreationDate="2017-08-19T06:37:01.143" Score="1" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to find out why certain (parts of) characters were replaced with others while developing the simplified Chinese writing system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know why 见 replaces 見? As in 问题，問題.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-20T11:02:44.927" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T20:12:36.630" Title="Why is 見 replaced with 见 from simplified to traditional Chinese?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26086" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26088" CreationDate="2017-08-19T08:46:34.587" Score="2" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently took a Chinese test on EasyMandarin website. One of the question was the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我看你红光满面，___精神的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I answered 好 but the correct answer was 挺. The other candidates are 太 and 多么.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, why is 挺 correct here? I also don't understand the sentence, either. How is the two sentences connected together? It is like &quot;I saw your face was red due to happiness, too spiritual...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T09:51:36.233" Title="Why is 挺 used in the following sentence?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26086" CreationDate="2017-08-19T09:26:53.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, we omit 你看起来 in  the second sentence. We don't usually use &quot;and&quot; (和) when linking two sentences.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;太，多么，非常 can be used to describe the adjectives but usually the character 的 in adjectives is omited. &#xA;Usually 太 is followed by an adjective and a character 了，for example &quot;太棒了，太好了，太贵了，太咸了&quot; which means too much.&#xA;多么 is usually followed by an adjective (with 的)and a noun. For example &quot;多么美好的一天，多么漂亮的人&quot;&#xA;非常is a common word to describe a noun. For  example &quot;天气非常好，这水很咸&quot; from which we can see the structure is: subject ＋非常＋adjective.&#xA;挺means a little low degree to describe an adjective and is usually followed by an adjective (with 的). For example &quot;这水挺好喝的，今天天气挺好的，我挺开心的&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17747" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T09:26:53.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26086" CreationDate="2017-08-19T09:28:30.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;太 is usually a compound with 了. So if 太 was the correct answer it would be: ___精神了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;好 would work in dialect/topolect in place of 很 - but is incorrect in MSM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多么 is just weird. maybe it work work with 啊 like ___精神啊 - but now were moving away from MSM again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;挺 is pretty much interchangeable with 很&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Spiritual&lt;/em&gt; is not the correct translation here for 精神.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E7%B2%BE%E7%A5%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;精神&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jīng​shen​&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vigor / vitality / drive / spiritual&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;红光满面，挺精神的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;glowing with health - looking full of vigor (energetic/lively/spirited)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T09:28:30.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26086" CreationDate="2017-08-19T09:45:09.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2044/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;挺&lt;/a&gt; as an adverb means: very; rather; pretty; quite&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我看你红光满面，___精神的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see your face is glowing with healthy color, you seem ___  strong and spirited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;very; rather; pretty; quite&lt;/strong&gt; are all correct answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好精神的 is incorrect in this context because 好 is the colloquial form of 很(very). 我看你红光满面，很精神的。would be grammatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;However, the sentence in the question ended with a period, indicates the sentence is completed. Which means the first part &amp;quot;我看你红光满面&amp;quot; is the observation, and the second part  &amp;quot;挺精神的&amp;quot; is the estimation (a conclusion from the observation), 很 sounds too definite&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我看你红光满面, 太精神的 (too strong and spirited) makes not much sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我看你红光满面, 多么精神的 (how strong and spirited it is) '多么' usually pair with an finish particle '啊' not '的'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T09:51:36.233" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26090" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26091" CreationDate="2017-08-19T10:12:47.363" Score="1" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to line dictionary, both of these mean 'language'. From looking at the examples list, 语言 seems to be a more literal translation of 'language', for example if one wanted to say &quot;Chinese is my favourite language&quot;, I think one could write this as 中语是我最喜欢的语言. On the other hand 言语 seems to be used when referring to someone's 'use of language' as opposed to languages from different countries. For instance if one wanted to translate &quot;he used aggressive language&quot; one would use 言语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the right kind of idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17320" LastEditorUserId="17320" LastEditDate="2017-08-19T17:08:31.733" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T03:25:53.430" Title="Difference between 语言 and 言语?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26090" CreationDate="2017-08-19T15:24:24.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;言语 is not a frequently used words. It is a spoken word in north(at least Beijing,north-easten).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means 'talk(talking), speak(speaking)' ,Depending on the context, it can take the place of any words that means 'talk or speak with someone'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你需要跟我言语一声儿. (言语 means consult, ask or notify... )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;he used aggressive language&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not incorrect to use 言语. But 语言 or 话 is more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-08-20T03:25:53.430" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T03:25:53.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26095" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26100" CreationDate="2017-08-19T19:11:46.277" Score="1" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure whether the phrase has a typo in it or not because I couldn't find the proper translation from MDBG, Ichacha or Ichiba. However, I did find an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国的5000年悠久历史、丰富多样的风俗文化以及无处不在的神秘感，让许多外国人心驰神往，遐想连篇。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China’s 5000 year history, the variety of its customs and cultures, and its general mystique, have always pulled on the hearts and imagination of westerners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I take '遐想连篇' here means making you imagining or drawing your imagination out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure I got the correct meaning though. I think sometimes it doesn't make any sense. For example: &#xA;'Pulling (your) imagination' make sense in 让人遐想连篇的小说, but not in 让人遐想连篇的话语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have a better way to put the phrase '遐想连篇' in english?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T00:25:55.227" Title="Help checking the correct meaning of '遐想连篇'" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26096" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-19T20:13:03.170" Score="1" ViewCount="477" Body="&lt;p&gt;三百六十五秒 让你受不了 站在&lt;strong&gt;麦上&lt;/strong&gt;顶你 继续我的小蛮腰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do I have to literally translate '麦上' as 'standing on the wheat'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm very sorry to ask about this song, we're learning about modern Chinese song, thanks in advance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17584" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T05:02:36.510" Title="What does '麦上' mean in 小蛮腰 song?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26097" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-19T22:40:15.910" Score="2" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English we rarely omit words, even if its obvious what we're referring to. But I've noticed Chinese speakers sometimes do omit them and sometimes don't. Should the words in brackets be omitted or added? E.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;你能证明（它）吗?&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;你认为中文难吗？&quot; &quot;因为（它的）口语比我所有学过的语言难多了，所以（我觉得）（它) 难&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;你想跟我一起去吗&quot; &quot;不想（去)&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;你为什么不想去呢？&quot; &quot;因为（我）感觉有点不舒服了&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;我没有准时提请他，（and?）（我）感到有点内疚&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;你感觉开心吗&quot; &quot;不感觉（开心）&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in the 2nd example, I am wondering whether it should be 很难 instead of just 难?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for answering questions, would I be right in saying that I should only ever answer using 是/是的 if the question uses 是 as well? E.g. 他是工程师吗？ 是/是的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17751" LastEditorUserId="17751" LastEditDate="2017-08-19T22:46:14.317" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T05:21:13.570" Title="Can I omit certain words if it is understood what I am talking about?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26095" CreationDate="2017-08-19T22:52:42.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;中国的5000年悠久历史、&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The Middle Kingdom's 5000 year long history,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;丰富多样的风俗文化&lt;br&gt;&#xA;rich and diverse customs and culture&lt;br&gt;&#xA;以及无处不在的神秘感，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;as well as its all-pervasive feeling of mystery,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让许多外国人心驰神往，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;fascinates and infatuates many a foreigner,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;遐想连篇。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;causing endless flights of fancy and imagination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T22:52:42.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26096" CreationDate="2017-08-19T23:15:28.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a 'I wanna have sex with you' song. Maybe not the best choice for Chinese study!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'麦‘ might be for short'麦克风' . '站在麦上' 'standing at the microphone' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T23:15:28.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26095" CreationDate="2017-08-20T00:07:30.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;遐想 means '&lt;strong&gt;reverie&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;fantasy&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;day dream&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;篇 is a classifier for 'article', as in 一篇文章 (an article)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;连篇 means 'one (article) after another' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since fantasy is an imagined story in one's head, 篇 is a correct classifier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;遐想连篇&quot; in English is &quot;one fantasy after another&quot; or &quot; one day dream after another&quot; (day dream is fantasy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples of 连篇 as &quot;one after another&quot; with 篇 as a classifier:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;谎话连篇 - one lie after another (a lie is a made-up story)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;废话连篇 - one bullshit after another (bullshit is the same as nonsensical article--  both are telling nonsensical story)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'遐' means &quot;far away&quot;; '&lt;strong&gt;遐想&lt;/strong&gt;' literally means &quot; &lt;strong&gt;far away thought&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (a thought that is far away from reality)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-20T00:25:55.227" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T00:25:55.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26097" CreationDate="2017-08-20T00:50:19.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the sentences are correct in both full version and omitted ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the second example, both 难 and 很难 work. However, 很难 is much harder. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the example of 他是工程师吗？ 是/是的, both 是 and 是的 work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, IMO, omissions in English are pretty common too. As you are a native, you are probably unware of them in fact. Let's say the most simple one. A:&quot;Are you a student?&quot; B: Yes, I am (a student). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T00:50:19.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26097" CreationDate="2017-08-20T02:31:59.790" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, in English word omission is quite common, especially in short conversations and answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&amp;ndash; Is he an engineer?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &amp;ndash; Yes / Yes, he is / Yes, he is an engineer (too redundant).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, however, word omission is even more common, as you've suggested. With my living experiences in mainland China (native Chinese), I can tell that both the full versions and the shortened versions are right, while shorter versions are more common in oral Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&amp;ndash; 你最近过得好不好？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &amp;ndash; ((我最近)过得)好。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another notice: In Chinese, when asking about feelings, people don't respond with &quot;I feel / I don't feel&quot;, but the actual feeling instead. So your last example should have been&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;你感觉开心吗&quot; &quot;(感觉)不开心&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People very rarely reply with 感觉 without the actual feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastEditorUserId="16738" LastEditDate="2017-08-20T05:21:13.570" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T05:21:13.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26090" CreationDate="2017-08-20T02:46:45.097" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese living in mainland China, I haven't heard or seen a single 言语 in the past 10 years. AFAIK this word is &lt;s&gt;almost&lt;/s&gt; extinct and can only be found in old books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to avoid saying 言语 because people will have an increased chance to get confused. Depending on your intention you can use 说 (v.), 话(n.), 提醒(notify, v.) instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;你需要跟我&lt;strong&gt;言语&lt;/strong&gt;一声儿&lt;/s&gt; ✖&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你要跟我&lt;strong&gt;说&lt;/strong&gt;一声儿 ✔&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你要跟我提醒一声儿 ✔ (less common, scenario dependent)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T02:46:45.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26082" CreationDate="2017-08-20T02:55:31.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Splitting the character 安, we get 宀 + 女.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In oracle bone script, 宀 stands for house, and 女 means bride. The whole caracter means &quot;bride in new house&quot; (i.e. marriage).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In traditional Chinese culture, marrying a girl is a &lt;em&gt;huge&lt;/em&gt; settlement in a man's life, so 安 means 安定 (settled), 安心 (relieved).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=3058&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt; is in full Chinese (so it's a bit hard for learners to read).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T02:55:31.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25911" CreationDate="2017-08-20T04:33:21.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because majority of the Chinese people were uneducated, the newly formed communist government back then tried to educate its people by making Chinese letters simpler, thus the name Chinese simplified. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, If American suddenly become stupid, then the US government will need to shorten most of the long alphabetic English words. For example, the word &quot;Education&quot; will be simplified to &quot;edu&quot; because it's easier to learn and write. So if you really want to learn Chinese and become a real scholar, then pick traditional Chinese. If you only want to communicate with Chinese people, pick Chinese simplified. Even people in HK and Taiwan who normally use Chinese traditional, can read Chinese simplified, so you are all good to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that being said, if you don't consider yourself stupid, then there is no reason why you should learn simplified version Chinese designed for stupid people rather than to learn &quot;Real Chinese&quot;. For example, When you learned how to spell &quot;education&quot;, you actually have learned more than one word. Many words in English has the suffix ending in -tion, so by learning the &quot;English Traditional&quot; rather than &quot;English Simplified&quot;, you learn faster!! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that makes any sense to you. Learning to spell longer words is actually faster? By faster, I mean not just by learning few words but every words!! Same thing to Chinese. When you know how to write a word in Chinese Tradition, you actually have learn many words in Chinese Simplified. With that being said, anyone who can write Chinese Traditional can easily write Chinese Simplified, but not via versa, so it's not totally wrong to say that majority of the Chinese people living in Mainland China are still uneducated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastEditorUserId="13713" LastEditDate="2017-08-20T04:55:13.613" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T04:55:13.613" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26096" CreationDate="2017-08-20T05:02:36.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couther interpretation of 站在麦上顶你 is 站在麦词的立场上顶持你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;麦 is a short form of 麦词.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;麦词 are the words of the rap music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The MC stands the microphone controller.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%96%8A%E9%BA%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;喊麦&lt;/a&gt; is the corresponding Chinese term in China.&#xA;The words are then called 麦词.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;顶 means to support, to agree, to say yes, to give a plus (Google+), to give the thumbs up (Facebook) or to give an upvote (here, Stackexchange).&#xA;The similar terms are 赞 (Weibo), 推 (Twitter), and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, 站在麦上顶你 may mean 用麦词支持你.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I support you from the standpoint of the rap words.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I support you with the rap words (so that you can continue ...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T05:02:36.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24192" CreationDate="2017-08-20T05:39:13.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This character is not often used in China. As a Chinese person, I don't know the character until I searched it on the internet. The electric dictionary says it should be jue(3).  At last, I have to say I really didn't recognize the character. If we want to express the word &quot;hook &quot;, we would directly use 勾子 instead of jue (3). Hope I did help you.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xkAPD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xkAPD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17747" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T05:39:13.840" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25744" CreationDate="2017-08-20T08:08:32.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Comparing with the Bible, I think Book/Chapter would be the most accurate.  Each 篇 revolves around one specific aspect of Confucius' ideas, and each 章 is a (mostly self-contained) event/story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike the Bible, in which the chapters/stories usually follow a chronological order within one book, there is little interdependence between chapters in 论语.  But I would argue that, if one is to extract Jesus's words from each chapter of Bible, one would probably get something of size comparable to a 章.  Therefore it is quite reasonable to make 篇/章 correspond to Book/Chapter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6697" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T08:08:32.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26109" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26110" CreationDate="2017-08-20T10:31:50.263" Score="1" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the word for reputation is 声誉, but how would I use this word to form sentences like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has a reputation &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; being a hard language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This boy has a reputation &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; being naughty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would 'for' be? How do I form this structure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15304" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T10:51:39.537" Title="A reputation for something" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26109" CreationDate="2017-08-20T10:51:39.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;《牛津現代英漢雙解詞典》 shows an example, &quot;have a reputation for laziness/for being lazy 以懶惰出名&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has a reputation for being a hard language.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;中文以困難而出名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This boy has a reputation for being naughty.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這男孩以淘氣而出名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for 以&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T10:51:39.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26084" CreationDate="2017-08-20T10:55:20.817" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;,&#xA;来自于行书与草书的楷书化.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[注 1] lists some examples, 许多偏旁如讠[訁]、饣[飠]、纟[糹]、钅[釒]、呙[咼]、见[見]、页[頁]、贝[貝]、车[車]、东[東]、门[門]、马[馬]等来自草书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms (草书) embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms. (from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English version&lt;/a&gt; of the Wikipedia page)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, 见 replaces 見 because 见 is the cursive form of 見.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T10:55:20.817" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26112" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26113" CreationDate="2017-08-20T12:28:40.430" Score="1" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are those turning tables called, that you often find in restaurants in China, that are used to hand around the dishes? We used them a lot when in China, but I can't seem to remember we ever talked about this specific piece of furniture. Can you just call it 转台 or 转桌 or something like that? I don't even know what to call them in another language, so it's pretty hard to find the right term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15647" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T13:08:34.533" Title="Turning tables in restaurants" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26112" CreationDate="2017-08-20T13:08:34.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some similar names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;餐桌旋转盘&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SomBG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SomBG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;旋转餐盘&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ZMHa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ZMHa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;转盘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tll1F.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tll1F.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T13:08:34.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26084" CreationDate="2017-08-20T20:12:36.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're asking &quot;why did a committee (委員會) make a specific decision?&quot;  The answer is &quot;because it was a committee.&quot;  There is no explanation, that's just what the committee decided.  It's important to remember that simplified characters were devised by a committee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case the committee went with &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Preserving the basic outline or shape of the original character&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might or might not be helpful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17757" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T20:12:36.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26119" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-20T20:57:37.523" Score="1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you please help me translate this in English. I tried using Google Translate and it seems inaccurate. Can you also emphasise what the meaning of 块子 and 还看到了小时候才看到“块子” is? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the message: 回来那么久还是第一次来&quot;五一路&quot;还看到了小时候才看到的&quot;块子&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's about a Chinese restaurant and food I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17708" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-22T16:32:40.267" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T17:30:04.903" Title="Help translating 块子 and 还看到了小时候才看到“块子”" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26121" CreationDate="2017-08-20T22:07:37.203" Score="3" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;In day to day conversation, I frequently use the word &quot;backup&quot; to refer to a dependable but perhaps slightly less desirable option.  For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When applying to college, you should apply to 10 dream schools and 10 &lt;em&gt;backup&lt;/em&gt; schools&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I know this is not your first choice, but it is a good &lt;em&gt;backup&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I translate the word &quot;backup&quot; used in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone once told me that 保底 has this meaning. Is that correct? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastEditorUserId="5792" LastEditDate="2017-08-20T22:14:04.397" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T08:00:43.797" Title="How to say &quot;backup (option)&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26120" CreationDate="2017-08-20T23:27:00.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;後備&lt;/strong&gt;(reserve/&lt;strong&gt;backup&lt;/strong&gt;) - opposite of 先發(starting) / 正選(primary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;副選&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;次選&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;secondary option&lt;/strong&gt;/ secondary selection) opposite of 首選 (first choice/ first option) or 正選 (primary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;北京大學是我的首選, 天津大學是&lt;strong&gt;後備&lt;/strong&gt; (Peking University is my first choice, Tianjin University is the &lt;strong&gt;backup&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;北京大學是我的首選, 天津大學是我&lt;strong&gt;副選&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;次選&lt;/strong&gt; (Peking University is my first choice, Tianjin University is my &lt;strong&gt;secondary option&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;先發球員 (starter)- 後備球員 (bench player)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;正選球員 (starter)- 副選球員 (second string player)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-21T00:18:22.557" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T00:18:22.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26119" CreationDate="2017-08-20T23:46:57.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't think it has much to do with a restaurant.  块子 means 'lump of earth', it must be a feature on the way, a lump of dry mud or stone or something. Nanjing has a '五一路， 1st of May Road' and there is a '块子桥， Lump/Stone Bridge' in it. I think a lot of towns in China will have a '五一路‘, maybe not all of them will have a '块子桥‘ in the street. Did you miss 桥 from ’块子桥‘？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(我）回来那么久&lt;br&gt;&#xA;（I） came back such a long time ago&lt;br&gt;&#xA;还是第一次来&quot;五一路&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;still this is the first time I came to &quot;May 1st Road&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;还看到了小时候才看到的&quot;块子&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;as a child I saw it, that's when I saw (the thing called) 'Lump'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T23:46:57.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26120" CreationDate="2017-08-21T00:01:06.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'backup' being short for 'backup plan', I would go with '备选方案’， which can be translated as 'alternative'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T00:01:06.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26119" CreationDate="2017-08-21T04:52:03.680" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;块子&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There are two possibilities, 炒面块子 and 大酱块子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E7%82%92%E9%9D%A2%E5%9D%97%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;炒面块子&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用炒过的糠粃，加在煮熟的红薯里捣烂和匀，压成块状晒干制成的食品。常为北方穷人家过冬的粮食。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The bran/chaff (糠 kāng) and unripe grains (粃=秕 bǐ) are stir-fried.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The red sweet potatoes are cooked and smashed.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mix together evenly and then press into blocks (块子).  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Insolate.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is often the winter food for the northern poor people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://read01.com/zh-cn/0MQmJj.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;东北大酱&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(November/December) The soybeans are cooked with water for two to three hours.&#xA;Crush and make into blocks (大酱块子).&#xA;Wrap with paper.&#xA;Ferment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(May) Clean the surfaces with brush.&#xA;Cut into small pieces and put them in a big container.&#xA;Add water and salt.&#xA;Cover with cloth.&#xA;Ferment.&#xA;Stir every day for more than a month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Korea has the doenjang (韩国大酱).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Japan has the miso (味噌).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They are all made out of the soybeans, the paste and fermentation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（我）还看到了小时候才看到（的）块子&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I also saw the chunks that I saw when I was a child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T04:52:03.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26129" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26131" CreationDate="2017-08-21T05:23:42.747" Score="1" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;Example:&#xA;人们会急火攻心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean 'heart was attacked with anxiety/anxiousness'?&#xA;Therefore in the example it would mean people's heart would be anxious?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T03:12:56.437" Title="The meaning of idiom '急火攻心'" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26129" CreationDate="2017-08-21T06:22:55.467" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;《國語辭典》  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000088131&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;急火攻心&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  因情緒太過激動，而造成身心一時的不適。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Because the emotion is too excited, and cause physical and mental discomfort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.ichacha.net/zaoju/%E6%80%A5%E7%81%AB%E6%94%BB%E5%BF%83.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;50 example sentences&lt;/a&gt; on the ichacha site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T06:22:55.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26129" CreationDate="2017-08-21T06:26:59.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a sudden heart attack by something unpleasant and unexpected, let's say a bombshell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T06:26:59.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26120" CreationDate="2017-08-21T08:00:43.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tuxi.com.cn/viewtsg-17-0326-10-40072632_640221808.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;AP2016高二年级College Research Project大学选校及信&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;says (emphasis my own):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;易楚崴William（高二1班）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是William同学根据自己的情况列出的选校目录，其中分为了Dream School（梦想冲刺学校）、Match School（匹配学校）、以及&lt;strong&gt;Backup School（保底学校）&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T08:00:43.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26119" CreationDate="2017-08-21T11:22:58.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it was someone from 长沙, I guess by saying 块子 they meant a &quot;place.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was someone from 武汉, however, it should be something you eat in the restaurant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I've done a research, in 五一 Road in 武汉, there are really restaurants offering 块子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;块子 looks something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t6GTb.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t6GTb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the translation goes: It was the first time I went to 五一 Road after I came back, and I've even seen 块子 that I recall only from childhood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;More about 块子:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems it's kinda like 米粉/面条, but smoother.  And it's disappearing in 武汉, so I guess that's why they say they found 块子 that they remember from childhood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3nC1P.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3nC1P.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Image source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://m.dian321.com/meishi/42472.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://m.dian321.com/meishi/42472.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17711" LastEditorUserId="17711" LastEditDate="2017-08-21T11:46:00.727" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T11:46:00.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26134" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-21T12:50:30.263" Score="2" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if there are websites for learning Chinese language that are similar to the following made for the Japanese language:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.imabi.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IMABI&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guidetojapanese.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Learn Japanese – Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are both a reference for grammar and writing system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17766" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-12-25T20:21:07.180" LastActivityDate="2020-12-25T20:21:07.180" Title="Complete end-to-end reference guide" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26137" CreationDate="2017-08-21T15:11:45.657" Score="1" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天晚上买了张彩票，结果中奖了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I understand it correctly, 张 means 一张 but 一 is omitted here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you want to mean it in plural (i.e. buy multiple lottery tickets), the sentence should be the following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天晚上买了些彩票，结果中奖了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, can I also omit 张 as well, to make the sentence the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天晚上买了彩票，结果中奖了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, does the sentence mean singular, plural, or both (which makes the meaning dependent on context)? Or is the sentence invalid grammartically in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T02:22:38.037" Title="The abbreviation rule of a measure word" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26135" CreationDate="2017-08-21T23:12:25.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my understanding, if you omit 张 as well then you only focus on the latter part, which is 中奖了.  It won't make a turning point that obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you add the 张 or 些, however, you not only focus on 中奖, but the tickets play an important role as well.  It's kinda like when you say &quot;tickets&quot; and &quot;the tickets.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Omitting 张 is more like when you are telling things calmly.  For example, 我昨天买了彩票、啤酒、炸鸡。  You don't need to focus on anything.  But if you say 我昨天买了瓶啤酒, then others would expect you tell something about it -- or it's related to the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you are right, it's grammatically correct though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17711" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T23:12:25.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26129" CreationDate="2017-08-21T23:26:00.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know anything about Traditional Chinese Medicine or 'excessive internal heat'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%80%A5%E7%81%AB%E6%94%BB%E5%BF%83/5968980?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; explanation, I think you could, at least in some contexts, simply translate '急火攻心' as 'stress'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;人由于在生活感情中遇到一些不舒心的事情，没有很好的适当的发泄出来，积压在心里。 最后导致疾病。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T23:26:00.487" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26135" CreationDate="2017-08-22T02:22:38.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“昨天晚上买了（一）张彩票，结果中奖了。”，it indicates you buy One ticket. You'd better use 几张 to indicate that you bought several tickets. I am not saying you are wrong by 买了些彩票, but in practice, 些 is often used to describe uncountable nouns. For example, 我买了一些水果。这些事情。说些什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can say '昨天晚上买了彩票', which conveys the fact/behavior itself you bought some/a lottery ticket(s) (how many you bought is not the point/important; Or you deliberately don't want to tell how many you bought; Or people don't care the number of tickets you bought.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T02:22:38.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26129" CreationDate="2017-08-22T03:12:56.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basic explanation refers to the mental illness caused by a person's lack of proper venting due to some uncomfortable things in life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17771" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T03:12:56.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25888" CreationDate="2017-08-22T03:19:09.910" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there is no difference between these words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17772" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T03:19:09.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26134" CreationDate="2017-08-22T05:38:12.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is your research effort?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many websites that teach aspects of the Chinese language &lt;em&gt;Putonghua&lt;/em&gt;.&#xA;One example is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_(Mandarin)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Wikibook Chinese&quot;&gt;Wikibook Chinese&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other sites provide dictionaries and, more importantly, example sentences, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichacha.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Ichacha&quot;&gt;Ichacha&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You won't, however, find a &quot;complete&quot; or &quot;end-to-end&quot; guide for any natural, living language. Despite many people stressing the simplicity of Chinese grammar, the fun only really starts after completing the basic structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T05:38:12.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25911" CreationDate="2017-08-22T10:48:17.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a senior school student in China.(* ॑꒳ ॑* )⋆*&#xA;We use Chinese simplified in the life.(〃'▽'〃)&#xA;Chinese traditional is used in ancient times.(,,•́ . •̀,,)&#xA;Chinese traditional is more complicated(๑•̀ω•́๑)&#xA;such as“晓”“曉”&#xA;But there is no difference  in some chinese(๑•̀ㅁ•́ฅ)&#xA;such as“你好(Hello)”chinese simplified and traditional are both“你好”&#xA;In the mainland we use simplified( • ̀ω•́ )✧&#xA;In HongKong Macao Taiwan they use traditional&#xA;I think simplified is better and it's easy to learn(&lt;em&gt;¯︶¯&lt;/em&gt;)&#xA;Hope I can.help you(*＾ー＾)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17772" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T10:48:17.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26149" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-22T11:11:26.873" Score="0" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am making a Chinese singable version of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.academia.edu/11434020/Si_maritau_Rosa_%E1%BE%A0%CE%B4%CE%AC%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%BF%CE%BD_%CE%A3%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%B5%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%BA%E1%BD%B8%CE%BD_%E1%BC%99%CE%BB%CE%BB%CE%B7%CE%BD%CE%B9%CF%83%CF%84%E1%BD%B6_%E1%BC%91%CF%81%CE%BC%CE%B7%CE%BD%CE%B5%CF%85%CE%B8%CE%AD%CE%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a Sicilian song&lt;/a&gt; called &quot;Si maritau Rosa&quot; (Rosa has gotten married). I have three questions about how to best render the last verse. Here are the lyrics of said verse:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Siđđu n'atturna pòrtunu | If people bring an &lt;em&gt;atturna&lt;/em&gt;*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nta lu quartèri miu, | In my quarter,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  M'affaccia 'nu disiu, | A desire is born in me,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nun pozzu cchiù durmì. | I can no longer sleep.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Alleggiu alleggiu apru | I quietly open&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  'A porta a vvaniđđuzza, | The door, making a little slit,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Vidu ca è p' Annuzza | I see it's for &lt;em&gt;Annuzza&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  E ttornu a llacrimà. | And go back to crying.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The asterisk is on a part that will be explained in one of the questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my current translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果在我四等分&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  有人来唱小夜曲,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  心里长大了愿望&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  就不再能睡觉.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  悄悄地将我的门&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  来打开得裂缝啊,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  看是为了小婷婷&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  就回到流眼泪.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 1: 四等分 | quarter&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found 四等分 via Google, I guess, and have just noticed it's under &quot;verb&quot;, so how do I translate &quot;quarter&quot; in the sense of &quot;part of a city&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quarter&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sense 2.1 here&lt;/a&gt;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 2: &lt;em&gt;atturna&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One version of the song is the above, another one reads «Siddu a nutturna portunu», other versions have «Quannu» for «Siddu». I prefer &quot;siddu&quot; (if) to &quot;quannu&quot; (when), but that is just me. As for &quot;a nutturna&quot; vs. &quot;n'atturna&quot;, I choose the latter because it uses an indefinite article (n') vs. the definite &quot;a&quot; of the former. Both seem to be a reference to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.siciliainfesta.com/feste/festa_dell_immacolata_concezione_a_siracusa.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Siracusan festival of Our Lady the Immaculate Conception&lt;/a&gt;, which starts with the band going around the roads playing cheerfully and waking everyone up. I thus interpret this &quot;to bring an &lt;em&gt;atturna&lt;/em&gt;&quot; as a group of people with instruments going up and down a road playing love songs for someone living in that road. This needs confirmation, but it's going to be hard to find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Admitting the above interpretation is the correct one, what is the best way to render this in Chinese? Is there a similar Chinese custom I could refer to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 3: &lt;em&gt;vanidduzza&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word is a diminutive of &quot;vanedda&quot;, which is found online to mean either &quot;slit&quot; or &quot;country road&quot;. The latter interpretation is what gave my very first traslation &lt;code&gt;我就悄悄来打开 / 小路上的那扇门&lt;/code&gt;. I prefer the former, however, because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I prefer the furtivity of the slit rather than the specification of where the door goes;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Another version of the song has «Tegnu la porta aperta / La mettu a padiduzza» which suggests this is the meaning of &quot;apru / a porta a vanidduzza&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://scn.wiktionary.org/wiki/chi%C3%B9diri_a_vanedda&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sicilian Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; has the expression &quot;chiùdiri a vanedda&quot;, &quot;close into a slit&quot; (horrible translation but you get the picture), so if that exists, I'm betting that with &quot;to close&quot; it means the door is open and you almost-close it, only leaving a slit between it and the wall, whereas with &quot;to open&quot; (as in the song) the door is closed, and you open it a little.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that, how do I render this &quot;apru / a porta a vvanidduzza&quot; into Chinese? Is my above attempt OK?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Extra&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full lyrics and translation &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.it/2017/07/vinni-la-primmavera.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, if anyone's curious about this song. Any comments are welcome. It should be noted that you can find wildly varying lyrics online (the &quot;padiduzza&quot; quote above is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.testimania.com/testi/testi_italian_folk_siciliano_78560/testi_other_136608/testo_si_maritau_rosa_1316830.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;from here&lt;/a&gt; and is an example of the &quot;wildly varying&quot; part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="23334" LastEditDate="2020-01-27T08:48:00.237" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T08:48:00.237" Title="Translating the last verse of “Si maritau Rosa” into Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26150" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-22T11:23:36.703" Score="1" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you please let me know if in this sentence &quot;说话人最可能 &lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt; 什么关系？&quot;, we can use 有 instead of 是 to be read as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说话人最可能 &lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt; 什么关系？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17776" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-22T16:30:19.297" LastActivityDate="2021-05-22T13:29:19.123" Title="Meaning of 说话人最可能 **是** 什么关系？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26151" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26152" CreationDate="2017-08-22T12:44:34.023" Score="0" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天晚上我们在一起聊天，___忽然停电了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To fill in the blank, I picked up 说着说着, but the correct answer was 躺着躺着. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other two candidates were 跳着跳着 and 走着走着, and I even think these are correct as well... because the electrocity can suddenly stop even if you jump, walk, speak, or laid down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 躺着躺着 correct here? And what is the reason the verb + 着 is repeated here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T13:07:30.967" Title="What is the meaning of 躺着躺着?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26151" CreationDate="2017-08-22T12:54:50.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We say &quot;verb 着 verb 着&quot; to express that &quot;In the middle of (our) doing sth.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 躺着躺着就停电了 means &quot;When we &lt;strong&gt;were&lt;/strong&gt; lying, the electricity went out.&quot; (Or &quot;In the middle of our lying...&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually this means &quot;In the middle something&quot; so don't use it if you mean &quot;when we have just started sth.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T12:54:50.547" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26150" CreationDate="2017-08-22T12:59:44.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Heavily dependent on the context, I guess it means 说话人最可能**(和谁)**是什么关系？ (omitted some words). The 谁 should refer to someone (or something) mentioned right above. Check the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T12:59:44.307" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26151" CreationDate="2017-08-22T14:01:02.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this context, 说着说着 is correct to me. 昨天晚上我们在一起聊天，说着说着忽然停电了。 The hint is 聊天, so either 聊着聊着 or 说着说着 makes sense in the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...着...着 means 'while (doing) ...'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T14:01:02.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26150" CreationDate="2017-08-23T00:25:43.077" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;是/有 can work in the sentence. 是 might sound a little bit better here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &quot;说话人最可能 是/有 什么关系？&quot;, '说话人' could be more than one person, maybe two or three. So, the questioner might want to check the relationship among these speakers (说话人s). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T00:25:43.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26159" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-23T06:38:50.440" Score="3" ViewCount="193" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I want to say &quot;When you say it like that, I feel confused&quot; would it be &quot;你这么说的时候，我就感到困惑&quot;? Also, if I just wanted to say &quot;saying it like that makes me confused&quot; would that be &quot;这么说让我感到困惑&quot;? Trying to get a feel for how sentences are constructed. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17751" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-22T01:36:30.953" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T01:36:30.953" Title="Should I use 就 in when translating &quot;when you say it like that, I feel confused&quot;, e.g. ...我就感到困惑?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26160" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-23T09:40:58.223" Score="1" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that 鐘 means clock so am I right in saying that 鐘頭 means head of clock which becomes hour?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's the head of the clock, is it referring to the minute hand being at the '12' (I.e the top of the clock?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so that would be very intuitive and makes me appreciate the Chinese language further!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-23T10:40:33.903" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T15:47:04.427" Title="How does 鐘頭 come to mean hour?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26159" CreationDate="2017-08-23T12:43:07.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你这么说的时候，我&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;感到困惑.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Whenever&lt;/strong&gt; you say it like that, I feel confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你这么说的时候，我(会)感到困惑.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;When&lt;/strong&gt; you say it like that, I feel confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T12:43:07.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26163" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26167" CreationDate="2017-08-23T12:56:53.997" Score="2" ViewCount="193" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary gives one usage of 鸟 as &quot;(dialectal) to pay attention; to heed; to take notice of&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which dialect, or what region is this, and how does it look in one or two sample sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T11:18:06.363" Title="Using 鸟 as a verb" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26151" CreationDate="2017-08-23T13:07:30.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are not wrong and I would actually prefer your answer to 躺着躺着, but of course as others suggested, 聊着聊着 is the best. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't worry about it, at your age, you should have seen loads of nonsense answers like this in art/literature subjects. The question setter is either foolish or careless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T13:07:30.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26163" CreationDate="2017-08-23T13:46:57.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;鸟 has some vulgar meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不鸟你 means I don't care about you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鸟人 means douchbag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditionally, it is a dialectal usage in north of China. It appears many times in the classical book &amp;lt;&amp;lt;水浒传&gt;&gt;, and becomes well known by the whole country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The truth is 鸟 means 屌.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T13:46:57.960" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26160" CreationDate="2017-08-23T14:36:18.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you got the idea of 鐘 means clock and 頭 means beginning. It means the beginning of a 60 min cycle in the clock. So it turns to mean hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17779" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T14:36:18.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26163" CreationDate="2017-08-23T15:11:54.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%B3%A5#.E8.AE.80.E9.9F.B3_3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%B3%A5#.E8.AE.80.E9.9F.B3_3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pls refer to 釋義 No. 10.  ==&gt; 〈俗〉 理會，答理&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The above meaning matches that in English. It is an expression used in Mandarin.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ex: 不鸟你。 ==&gt; 不理你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20050920000013KK13455&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tw.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20050920000013KK13455&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason 鸟 is used in conversations(not writings) simply because its pronunciation is derived from 理.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2017-08-23T15:46:05.743" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T15:46:05.743" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26159" CreationDate="2017-08-23T15:32:34.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Referring to one of my previous answers: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/21973/13501&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/21973/13501&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;就&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is used to denote the word in which the speaker do not want the listener to make mistakes or misunderstandings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the mistake the listener may make will be,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The listener will think MORE THAN the expected or correct one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Response with opposition the NEGATIVE thought by someone else. (Not applicable in your case)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 这就是台湾。 -&gt; Here is Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taiwan is not far away, it is right here. However, using 就, it could meaning the following 3 things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i. The listener may think Taiwan is still far away.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ii. The listener thinks Taiwan is still far away.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;iii. The speaker wants the listener to know Taiwan is NOT far away, but right here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the interpretations above, for your sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你这么说的时候，我就感到困惑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning should be interpreted as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will feel confused as long as you say it like that. (Don't think that I need more conditions to be confused, this condition suffices)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T15:32:34.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26169" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-23T15:48:56.833" Score="2" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;the translation for this sentence 你自以为的极限只是别人的起点 is &quot;your peak is just the beginning for others&quot;. this is about a love story the guy just gave up chasing the girl and the girl said this sentence to him. what i'm confused is does she mean your peak is the begining of other people to court her? or does she mean the guy's peak is suppose to be just the beginning as a reference in courting rituals here in China? so technically is the girl saying you and i dating is just the start you gave up too easily?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17708" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T04:01:11.587" Title="exact meaning of 你自以为的极限只是别人的起点" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26183" CreationDate="2017-08-23T16:58:27.627" Score="6" ViewCount="6385" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I most accurately say the simple sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have been studying Chinese for 4 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very simple phrase, and I am surprised at myself for not being confident in which one of the following is accurate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我已经学习中文四年了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我学习中文已经四年了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我已经学了四年的中文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regard to the first two, I am particularly confused about the placing of &quot;已经,&quot; and whether it should be before or after the verb.  As for the third, it is a different sentence structure, is it incorrect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-08-23T17:55:11.240" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:17:17.827" Title="How to say: &quot;I have been studying Chinese for 4 years.&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26172" CreationDate="2017-08-23T18:48:27.620" Score="1" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried to search for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%89%E4%B8%87+%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%B8%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a sample sentence at jukuu&lt;/a&gt; to understand the grammartical rule regarding which is ahead of the other, and got the following sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去广州的票价是人民币九十一元。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的债务共计为人民币五百元。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The order seems to be &lt;code&gt;currency&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;value&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in another sentence I got the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一美元价值8.2元人民币。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, it is &lt;code&gt;value&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;currency&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now I wonder which is the correct way to express the currency and its numerical value. Is there any rule regarding this? And is it consistent among different currencies and in all magnitudes of units?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T20:56:13.777" Title="The order of currency name and its numerical value (i.e. 人民币五十元 vs 五十元人民币)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26171" CreationDate="2017-08-23T19:32:15.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In '人民币九十一元',  '人民币' modifies '九十一元'- (91 dollar --&gt; 91 dollars &lt;strong&gt;in RMB&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In '九十一元人民币', '九十一元' modifies '人民币'- (RMB --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;91 dollars of&lt;/strong&gt; RMB)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They mean the same, and you can use either one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In '一美元价值8.2元人民币。', '一(元)' modifies 美元 (USD --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;1 (dollar) of&lt;/strong&gt; USD); '8.2元' modifies '人民币' (RMB --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;8.2 dollars of&lt;/strong&gt; RMB)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-23T20:56:13.777" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T20:56:13.777" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26169" CreationDate="2017-08-23T21:12:55.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你自以为的极限只是别人的起点&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The limit you thought you had reached, is just a starting point for some other people.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She was saying the guy gave up too easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He thought he had reached the limit of his ability to continue on with this relationship; The woman disagreed, suggesting the level of obstacle this guy facing was no more than a starting point of a challenge in many people's eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A challenge get harder and harder after it started. But the starting point of a challenge is easy--  all you have to do, is to 'decide to take it on.'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T21:12:55.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26170" CreationDate="2017-08-23T22:53:33.937" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;这三种表达在日常生活中都可以被中国人理解，中文是种意合的语言，而不是形合的结构性语言，我们的中文教学并不专门教授中文语法。书面表达上，我更接收第一和第二句翻译。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17787" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T22:53:33.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26180" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26182" CreationDate="2017-08-24T00:17:45.993" Score="1" ViewCount="638" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;保龄球我喜欢是喜欢，不过打得不好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does this sentence use two 喜欢 and what is the verb in this sentence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that &quot;the speaker likes bowling&quot; and &quot;the speaker nonetheless are bad at bowling&quot;. But I don't understand how 喜欢是喜欢 works grammartically...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T03:15:17.777" Title="What is the meaning of 喜欢是喜欢?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26180" CreationDate="2017-08-24T00:50:12.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;喜欢是喜欢 is used to emphasize you really like bowling （it implies you would say something different in later context '不过打得不好'）, equally as 我确实喜欢. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, it implies that you would say a 'but/however' after this expression. Like this example, 保龄球我喜欢是喜欢，&lt;strong&gt;不过&lt;/strong&gt;打得不好。 Another example， 这个人我讨厌是讨厌， &lt;strong&gt;不过&lt;/strong&gt;他人还是不坏的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T00:50:12.947" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26180" CreationDate="2017-08-24T01:16:31.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;喜欢= like to; love to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欢喜= happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;保龄球我喜欢是&lt;strong&gt;喜欢&lt;/strong&gt;，不过打得不好-- (As for bowling, It is true that I &lt;strong&gt;like it&lt;/strong&gt;, but I am not very good at it.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Subject XX 是 XX]= [granted/ It is true that subject is XX] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他&lt;strong&gt;贪心是贪心&lt;/strong&gt;, 但他不会为了钱做违法的事情&quot;= &quot;他&lt;strong&gt;贪心是真的&lt;/strong&gt;, 但他不会为了钱做违法的事情&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;It is true that he is greedy&lt;/strong&gt;, but he wouldn't do any illegal thing for money)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;能夠打保龄我是很&lt;strong&gt;欢喜&lt;/strong&gt;，但我必须先完成作业-- (I am very &lt;strong&gt;happy&lt;/strong&gt; for able to go bowling but I must finish my homework first.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-24T03:15:17.777" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T03:15:17.777" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26170" CreationDate="2017-08-24T01:34:00.270" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, all of your three sentences are correct, but different in emphasis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence 1 &quot;我已经学习中文四年了&quot; is the best match for &quot;I have been studying Chinese for 4 years.&quot; In this sentence, you just tell the fact and try not to emphasize anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence 2 &quot;我学习中文已经四年了&quot; emphasizes &quot;四年了&quot;. Once you said sentence 2, you would probably want to say more on the result of your learning. Like, 我学习中文已经四年了, 我现在可以用中文进行简单的日常沟通了(I can make simple communications in my daily life in Chinese)...blah, blah&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence 3 &quot;我已经学了四年的中文&quot; emphasizes &quot;学了四年&quot;. Once you said sentence 3 我已经学了四年的中文, you would probably want to say more on the negative side (different from sentence 2, where you say more on the positive side). Something like, 我已经学了四年的中文, 但我还是说不好(but I can't speak it well) or 但我还是什么都不会(but I still know nothing)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T01:34:00.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26180" CreationDate="2017-08-24T01:50:59.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;h2&gt;喜欢是喜欢&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be viewed as short for 你問我喜欢吗？我是喜欢的。(If you ask me if I like, I would say yes.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That implies the speaker don't want others to notice the fact as the speaker answers yes only when asked by others (i.e. not so willing to answer). So in your sentence, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;保龄球喜欢是喜欢，但我打得不好。 ==&gt; Yes indeed I like it, but then I don't play well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I don't play well, I may be reluctant to say I like bowling, as it is not good to know that (E.g. Will the listener look me down when he know I like playing bowling but do not play well? It is awkward to say that.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why using the pattern &quot;X是X&quot; is usually followed by &quot;but&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2017-08-24T01:56:07.940" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T01:56:07.940" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26169" CreationDate="2017-08-24T01:59:38.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I gather that there would be some other guys to chase that girl at the same time in that story, or that girl has the friend(s)(girls) who was/were chasing by someone else as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for comparison, the girl feels what that guy had done for her (court her) could not compete with other guys (who chasing her/others), although that guy thought he already done everything he could (reach the peak point). Others can go far further beyond what that guy could do (as his peak is just the beginning point of others).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T01:59:38.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26186" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-24T02:58:03.837" Score="2" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;This text discusses 众筹， especially relating to a group of people buying houses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用发起人的话说，众筹不是在筹房子，而是在凝聚人心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 questions really:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In 众筹不是在筹房子, the second ‘筹’, on its own, '筹' means what? Planning? Collecting? Finding?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;‘凝聚人心’的意思是什么？ ‘bringing people together'?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2017-08-25T06:24:37.550" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T05:56:20.387" Title="What is the meaning of 凝聚人心？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26186" CreationDate="2017-08-24T03:10:10.423" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;众筹 -- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;众 means many people; crowd;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;筹 means plan and prepare; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;众筹 in the context means plan and gathering money from many people to buy a house. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘凝聚人心’的意思是什么？ Bring the people's hearts together, so they can act as one unit and contribute together. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发起人initiator is trying to emphasize that more important thing than gathering money to buy a house is to bring the people's hearts together by doing so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T03:10:10.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17132" CreationDate="2017-08-24T03:47:04.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try chinesebrowser which annotates pinyin in realtime as you browse across the web. You can listen to yuedu.fm (there is a link in the app on the front page) where you can follow the text and listen to spoken text). Listen to the same text a few times and you will gradually get assimilated. You can also listen to music video on youtube and follow the lyrics with pinyin. Chinesebrowser (see google app store or chinesebrowser.com) also has an integrated chinese-english dictionary which will allow you to look up meanings of words quickly and seemlessly within the browser. Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17790" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T03:47:04.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26169" CreationDate="2017-08-24T04:01:11.587" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is also the title of a (translated?) book. The english title is &quot;break out&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D5A9C.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D5A9C.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17790" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T04:01:11.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26190" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26194" CreationDate="2017-08-24T13:07:20.213" Score="2" ViewCount="787" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most chinese words about the name of foreign places are mapped phonetically, such as 华沙, 纽约 or 首尔, I believe. But in some cases it is from the historical incident, such as 旧金山 (I don't know how many are from this rule). Also, Japanese places are directly from the equivalent Japanese characters, such as 东京 or 北海道.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why is Oxford called 牛津?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in general is there any rule regarding that the word should be mapped phonetically or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1160/official-place-names&quot;&gt;The related question&lt;/a&gt; focuses on who decides the names but I would like to ask how they are decided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T20:27:48.223" Title="Why is Oxford called 牛津?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26190" CreationDate="2017-08-24T15:31:08.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;牛 - is a cow or ox. Now look at the 津 closely. It has water on the left and hand holding a stick on the right + two horizontal lines belowe the hand, indicating water level. It means poking water with a stick to measure it's depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T15:31:08.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26159" CreationDate="2017-08-24T15:47:08.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short: 就 means AND. Yes, just AND with a salt of &quot;already&quot;. There are many ANDs in chinese, each AND marks different flavors of english AND.&#xA;就 must be used in cases where you want to stress consequece of an action. Like: &lt;em&gt;&quot;Do X &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; I do Y.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; which should be translated as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&quot;Do X, I 就 do Y&quot; Here 就 serves as &lt;em&gt;logical-consequence-AND&lt;/em&gt;. That means there are two interpretations for this sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I will do Y because of your doing &lt;strong&gt;X&lt;/strong&gt; (and not Z).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I will do Y because of your &lt;strong&gt;doing&lt;/strong&gt; X (and I was just waiting for this time to come, so I'll do my Y right after you)&quot;*&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English you can also drop AND from the sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Do X, I do Y.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning has ALMOST not changed but, by dropping &lt;strong&gt;stressed and&lt;/strong&gt; (mind you it's not any AND), you've intrioduced a couple of new interpretations to the sentence. That is,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You do X, I do Y but my doing Y has nothing to do with you doing X, it's just a consequence. There is no logical relation between us doing our thing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You do X and I do Y becuase you do X.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You do X and I do Y after you do X.&#xA;By dropping explicit steress on AND you maximize the entropy of your message here, that is, there are more interpretations now then was befor with &lt;strong&gt;stressed and&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2017-08-24T16:28:14.340" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T16:28:14.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26159" CreationDate="2017-08-24T17:03:10.173" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think you should add 就.&#xA;I am a nativie Chinese. Believe me .I don't feel good when I read the sentence 你这么说的时候，我就感到困惑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17793" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T17:03:10.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26190" CreationDate="2017-08-24T17:52:23.777" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a rare example of Chinese translation for foreign cities or the similar, there's no rule to govern this type. In short it translates literally the meaning of Oxford:&#xA;Ox: 公牛， 牛&#xA;Ford: ferry, 津,水渡也。——《说文》&#xA;Hence, Oxford == 牛津&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of ferry in 津 is not seen often in modern Chinese, here are a few examples:&#xA;天津， 天子之津渡。&#xA;城阙辅三秦 风烟望五津  ----送杜少府之任蜀川   王勃&#xA;无人问津 ---成语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also two examples of naming:&#xA;Little Rock, 小石城&#xA;Springfield， 春田市， 斯普林菲尔德 also work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5787" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T17:52:23.777" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26195" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26196" CreationDate="2017-08-24T23:07:27.677" Score="2" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese folklores, 城隍 often makes an appearance; the temple a 城隍 is worshipped is called 城隍庙. How do we translate into English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11652" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T21:09:16.243" Title="How to translate 城隍庙 into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26195" CreationDate="2017-08-24T23:28:23.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9F%8E%E9%9A%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;城隍&lt;/a&gt;' is an officer title in the after-world&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'城' stand for '城牆'(city wall); '隍' means 'moat'. '城隍爺' means 'officer of city wall and moat'. Therefore, '城隍庙' should be translated as '&lt;strong&gt;Temple of the civic deity&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I prefer transliterate '城隍' as'Cheng Huang' and '&lt;strong&gt;城隍庙&lt;/strong&gt;' as '&lt;strong&gt;Cheng Huang Temple&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;civic:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;relating to a city or &lt;strong&gt;town&lt;/strong&gt;, especially its administration; municipal&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;synonyms: municipal, city, &lt;strong&gt;town&lt;/strong&gt;, urban, metropolitan&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;deity:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;noun: deity; plural noun: deities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a &lt;strong&gt;god&lt;/strong&gt; or goddess (in a polytheistic religion)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I guess &amp;quot;Town god's Temple&amp;quot; is also a correct translation for '城隍庙'. However, Town god sounded more like a description of 土地公 (local god)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T21:09:16.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26195" CreationDate="2017-08-25T01:06:17.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find for '城隍庙' 'tutelary genie temple'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;tutelary （adj.): 1610s, from Late Latin tutelarius &quot;a guardian,&quot; from&#xA;  Latin tutela &quot;protection, watching&quot; (see tutor (n.)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T01:06:17.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26195" CreationDate="2017-08-25T08:20:37.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;town god's temple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;town god's temple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;town god's temple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;town god's temple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice any pattern?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T08:20:37.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26200" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26201" CreationDate="2017-08-25T11:25:21.363" Score="3" ViewCount="543" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters for 'buy' and 'sell',  seem to have a subtle difference in the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;買/买 (buy)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;賣/卖 (sell)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know, what's the significance of the radial  on top of the sell? How does adding that change 'buy' into 'sell'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-16T04:46:55.847" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T04:46:55.847" Title="Character difference between 'buy' and 'sell'" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26200" CreationDate="2017-08-25T12:37:44.433" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original form of the top part of 賣 is 出.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作。出物貨也。从出从買。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出物貨也：&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;出：拿出 take out&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;物：物品 goods&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;貨：交易 to trade&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/daxJN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/daxJN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;買&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;《說文》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作，市也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;市：做買賣。to trade&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「買」本指商品交易，兼有「買、賣」二義，後來專指交易中的買入。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;買 refers to the commodity trading activities, both &amp;quot;to buy and to sell&amp;quot;, and later refers specifically to purchase transactions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;source: 《康熙字典》《字源》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T12:56:49.720" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26202" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-25T12:54:09.113" Score="2" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just took an EasyMandarin test, and one of the questions is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飞机票买得___吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The possible candidates to fill in the blank is: 了，去，过，and 到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I picked up 了 but the correct answer was 到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/3057/6228&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;, the difference between 到 and 了 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 and 到/著(着) (zháo) serve different functions in sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 used after verbs implies a sense of &amp;quot;stopped, finished,completed, or done&amp;quot; on the action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到 and 著(着) used after verbs indicate the result of the action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then why is 到 correct here? It seems to me that the sentence is &amp;quot;Did you purchase a flight ticket?&amp;quot;, which is a completed action, so it seems 了 is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 到 the correct answer and what is the meaning of the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;UPDATE&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hmmm... I still don't get it. It seems that &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.pinpinchinese.com/definitions/s/%E4%B9%B0%E5%BE%97%E5%88%B0-maidedao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;买得到 as a phrase functions as a verb&lt;/a&gt; (but 买得了 not). So in this sentence is 得 not considered a degree complement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T12:10:20.977" Title="Why must 到 be chosen in the following sentence?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26202" CreationDate="2017-08-25T13:24:51.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;飞机票买得到吗&quot;  means &quot;Do I have any chance to get the ticket?&quot; (usually ask when you are not very sure whether if there is any ticket left)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;飞机票买得了吗&quot;  means &quot;Can I AFFORD a ticket?&quot; or &quot;Is ticket for sale?&quot; (this sentence is correct in grammar but it is meaningless to ask such a question)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16109" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T13:24:51.983" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26195" CreationDate="2017-08-25T13:29:25.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;城隍庙 is a specific tourist destination in Shanghai, China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is called &lt;strong&gt;Yu Garden&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16109" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T13:29:25.300" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26200" CreationDate="2017-08-25T13:32:27.547" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your post has typo, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should be like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;买/買(buy) 卖/ 賣 (sell)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former one is the simplified Chinese, the later one is traditional Chinese, the 1st pair simply means &quot;buy&quot; or &quot;purchase&quot;, the 2nd pair means &quot;sell&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16109" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T13:32:27.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26206" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26208" CreationDate="2017-08-25T14:08:55.407" Score="2" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context，someone wants a promotion and someone needs to 意思意思 his superior；意思意思 means bribery and it is supposed to invoke nepotism。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does English have a word or idiom like 意思意思？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11652" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T16:39:41.053" Title="Does 意思意思 have an English translation？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26206" CreationDate="2017-08-25T14:27:24.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;意思意思*&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;as a mere token&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;do sth as a token; serve as a token&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T14:27:24.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26206" CreationDate="2017-08-25T16:39:41.053" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;'In this context，someone wants a promotion and someone needs to 意思意思 his superior；'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fawn(v.): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Old English fægnian &quot;rejoice, be glad, exult, applaud,&quot; from fægen &quot;glad&quot; (see fain); used in Middle English to refer to expressions of delight, especially a dog wagging its tail (early 13c.), hence &quot;court favor, grovel, act slavishly&quot; (early 14c.). Related: Fawned; fawning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要讨好老板， 就是你得‘fawn'. 'fawn upon someone'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'grovelling' also has this meaning and 'curry favour with someone'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fawn: &#xA;to seek notice or favor by servile demeanor:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The courtiers fawned over the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1446521891194685020.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1446521891194685020.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T16:39:41.053" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26186" CreationDate="2017-08-25T20:42:50.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;众: crowd, multitude&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;筹: to raise/collect (funds)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;众筹: crowdfunding, crowd financing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凝: congeal&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;聚: gather&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;凝聚: agglomerate, cohere&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;凝聚人心: to cohere the people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the words of the sponsor/founder, crowdfunding is not funding for house, but cohering public feeling/mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-08-25T20:56:29.117" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T20:56:29.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26210" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-26T00:10:03.750" Score="4" ViewCount="465" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm mostly confused about the sentence structure. Would this be correct?&#xA;你做完上个星期老师给我们的作业了吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17801" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-26T14:08:07.120" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T14:08:07.120" Title="How to translate: have you finished doing the homework (which) our teacher gave us last week?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26210" CreationDate="2017-08-26T03:48:54.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that's correct! Although I think you can put the 'le' after the action verb 'zuo wan' to read:&#xA;你做完了上个星期老师给我们的作业吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17802" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T03:48:54.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26210" CreationDate="2017-08-26T04:53:25.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentences:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;你做完   上个星期  老师  给我们的作业  了吗?&#xA;你做完了 上个星期  老师  给我们的作业吗?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;are both correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;了&quot;，just emphasize whatever you want to emphasize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17803" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-08-26T08:15:59.347" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T08:15:59.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25960" CreationDate="2017-08-26T05:21:14.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;护短 is translated into to shield shortcomings or faults or to cover up one's mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word is usually used to describe people who stop others from pointing out and criticizing their own weakness or their family, relatives or friends' weakness and mistakes ,and meanwhile defend themselves and their mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;护短 is a very common and irrational phenomenon. Yes,it means people don't accept mistakes which are related to their family, relatives, friends and themselves. It's not a positive word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17805" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T05:21:14.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26210" CreationDate="2017-08-26T07:40:16.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your translation is correct. Let's see the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you finished doing the homework (which) our teacher gave us last week?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can divide the sentence into 2 parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have you finished doing the homework?你完成作业了吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Our teacher gave us the homework last week.（我们）老师上周布置的作业。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 老师上周布置的作业 is a noun. 老师上周布置的 is an adjective.  Then we combine these 2 sentences with the repeated word 作业.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你完成老师上周布置的作业了吗？   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is just one example and there are some other correct translation versions like 你做完了老师上星期给我们布置的作业吗，你完成了上星期老师给我们布置的作业吗，etc. Chinese people can understand your translation if there aren't many serious grammar mistakes. Usually we don't focus that much on grammatical problems when we use Chinese as Chinese people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17805" LastEditorUserId="17805" LastEditDate="2017-08-26T07:53:13.883" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T07:53:13.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26202" CreationDate="2017-08-26T11:48:12.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你听得到我吗？CAN YOU HEAR ME?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你看得到我吗？CAN YOU SEE ME?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你想得到吗？ CAN YOU THINK OF IT?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;VERB+得到&quot; 可以看做一种固定搭配，表示现在的状态&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DID YOU PURCHASE A FLIGHT TICKET? 问的是过去的事情，意思是:你买到票了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17793" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-08-27T00:34:03.993" LastActivityDate="2017-08-27T00:34:03.993" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25588" CreationDate="2017-08-26T12:21:33.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;习近平总书记在十八届中央纪委六次全会讲话中指出，全面从严治党是各级党组织的职责所在，各级党组织及其负责人都是&lt;em&gt;责任主体&lt;/em&gt;，必须担负起全面从严治党的&lt;em&gt;主体责任&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;责任主体is different from 主体责任&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“责任主体” 中的“主体”的意思是entity or a host that is expected to carry the reponsibility&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but “主体责任”中的“主体”的意思是major&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17793" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T12:21:33.183" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25557" CreationDate="2017-08-26T12:56:49.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both你午饭要吃什么？and 午饭你要吃什么？are right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two sentences all mean what do you want to eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你要去哪里吃午饭 ”is correct in grammer，but it means where do you want to have lunch，it does not means what do you want to eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃午饭，你要去哪里？Although we can understand what the sentence mean,we simply don't speak this way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在哪个地方要吃午饭？should be: 你要在哪个地方吃午饭？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17793" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T12:56:49.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26202" CreationDate="2017-08-26T13:15:28.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Comments' has some limitations, so I put it as an answer here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People tend to select 到 at the first glance because '飞机票买得到吗?' is very common. However, 飞机票买得了(liao3)吗?' can also make sense in some circumstances. If it only allows you to choose one as an answer, 到 is better choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;买 is a verb. 得到 as a phrase means 'getting something' in English. 买得到 as a whole means 'able to get it'. If you fill with 了 '飞机票买得了吗?'(了 here pronounced as 'liao3', not le), it implies you might already know the reason that makes you unable to buy a ticket. For example, the airport closed and there is no tickets being sold, so you can't buy any. Some asks you &quot;你为什么不乘坐飞机呢？&quot;(why don't you take an airplane?) and you might ask back with this &quot;飞机票买得了吗?&quot; The reason why you ask this way is that you know a reason(airport closed) which makes you unable to buy it, but you also unsure if he/she has an updated info (airport reopened). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, &quot;飞机票买得到吗?&quot; conveys the idea 'how hard', the difficulties of getting the ticket.  When you ask this way, you might already know there is some reason which makes you hard to get any and you also unsure if the people you are asking could overcome the difficulty to finally get it. Let's say 5000 people for 1000 tickets, and you might not stand the chance to get any. if you ask a friend &quot;飞机票买得到吗?&quot;, you are checking the possibility of getting a ticket and expecting an advice on how can possibly get one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-08-26T21:46:14.283" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T21:46:14.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26225" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26226" CreationDate="2017-08-26T14:52:38.783" Score="3" ViewCount="406" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the literal meaning of 头, but I'm confused about what it mean and what it's function is when it is placed in this structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;头一次遇到 I wrote is not a complete sentence, but 一次遇到 here means the first time (I) met....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T01:12:02.043" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T01:12:02.043" Title="What does the '头' in '头一次遇到' mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26225" CreationDate="2017-08-26T15:15:01.887" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;头 not only means 'head'.It also means 'the first order',also means 'leader' , 'the first class','the beginning'etc. Because(actually my guess) in Chinese culture, head is the first and important part of the human body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say&quot;头三个人&quot;，which means, the first three people. &#xA;Another example is '头排'，which means 'the first row'. Here '一' is missing because generally '头'and '一' refers to the same meaning.&#xA;You can replace '头'by'第'sometimes. e.p. you can say either '头一次遇到' or '第一次遇到'. &#xA;BUT! '头三个人' and '第三个人' have different meanings. '第三个人' means the third person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16479" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T15:15:01.887" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26160" CreationDate="2017-08-26T15:22:43.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it means nothing here, I mean the character'头'.&#xA;There are many Chinese words that end with '头'，which has nothing to do with the real meaning of the words. e.p.'想头'，'甜头'，‘念头’，‘年头’&#xA;If you really can't get used to this word, change it to '小时' instead. It's a more formal way to say 'hour'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16479" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T15:22:43.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26259" CreationDate="2017-08-27T13:02:03.440" Score="1" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm always confused how to split up/figure out the rhythm &amp;amp; rhyme of new Chinese materials like poems, limericks and rhymes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's more pedestrian, it's easier to figure out like: (where x is a character)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xxx&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xxx&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xxx&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xxx&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but usally they go something more like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xxxx&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xxxxx&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xxx, xxx&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xxx&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xxxxxxxx&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xxx, xxx&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xxxx, xxxx&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to figure out the rhythm of new materials (poems, rhymes, etc)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T04:26:21.897" Title="How to figure out the rhythm of new materials (poems, rhymes, etc)?" Tags="&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26230" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-27T13:34:25.400" Score="4" ViewCount="495" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;淡泊名利才能显示出自己高尚的志趣，保持心态平和宁静才能在思想上达到高远的境界。这是诸葛亮表达自己作为一个读书人志趣清高的名言，被历来的读书人所推崇。尽管不少人汲汲于名利焦头烂额，但其照样可以请人将此言书写悬于客厅，以显示自己志趣的不同凡俗.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to 'block' this according to its syntax units, but I keep getting stumped.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does 志趣 mean here?  (nciku gives it as 'aspiration,' but that doesn't seem appropriate in this context. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;这是诸葛亮表达自己作为一个读书人志趣清高的名言&quot; Does this mean that Zhuge Liang regards HIMSELF as a scholar?  Again, the 志趣 is confusing me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does 其 refer to here?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What would be a decent translation for these three sentences?  Everything I've attempted so far sounds terribly awkward.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your time.&#xA;Rachel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T01:42:43.023" Title="Translating a quote about Zhuge Liang" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26231" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-27T13:39:50.680" Score="5" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm now learning on emphasizing adjectives by the repetition (e.g. 你的脸&lt;strong&gt;红红&lt;/strong&gt;的。).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Reduplication_of_adjectives&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;some two-syllable words form &lt;code&gt;ABAB&lt;/code&gt; and others &lt;code&gt;AABB&lt;/code&gt; to emphasize the adjective&lt;/a&gt;. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;开开心心&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;好吃好吃&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;干干净净&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;便宜便宜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;麻烦麻烦&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I wonder whether it is possible to tell apart which word belongs to &lt;code&gt;ABAB&lt;/code&gt; famility and which to &lt;code&gt;AABB&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any rule regarding this, if not rigorous? Or do I have to bother to memorizing these adjectives one by one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T07:53:55.987" Title="How can I tell apart which two-syllable adjective forms &quot;ABAB&quot; to emphasize it?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26231" CreationDate="2017-08-27T15:20:48.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is called '叠词' in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an explanation with many examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8F%A0%E8%AF%8D/2942291?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8F%A0%E8%AF%8D/2942291?fr=aladdin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're more than two types actually, like ABB and AAxx etc. I am sorry to say that, as a native speaker, I don't know the rule for separating these annoying types. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the examples you listed, we don't usually say '便宜便宜'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'好吃好吃' is more likely used by a girl. It sounds kind of cute. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you say '麻烦麻烦'，that usually means you use it as a verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.p. 这事恐怕要麻烦麻烦你了！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an adjective? No. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to give you another funny(and confusing)example, you can also say '开心开心'. But it is different from '开开心心'. '开开心心' is an adjective, while '开心开心' is a verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.p. 祝你开开心心每一天！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; Wish you happy every day!&#xA;&#xA; 你有什么不开心的事，说出来让我们开心开心！ &#xA;&#xA; Why are you unhappy? Tell us and makes us happy! &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lol&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16479" LastActivityDate="2017-08-27T15:20:48.347" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26230" CreationDate="2017-08-27T23:38:31.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;志趣 can be understood as 志向（your goal/dream） 和 兴趣 (things you are interested in). Your goal/dream is often the things you are interested in. So, 志趣 conveys the sense, kind of combination of 'goal/thing you're interested in'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这是诸葛亮表达自己作为一个读书人志趣清高的名言. The main body of the sentence is 这是名言. '诸葛亮表达自己作为一个读书人志趣清高的' is attributive to 名言。Well, &quot;诸葛亮表达自己作为一个读书人志趣清高&quot; itself is a sentence too and its main body is 诸葛亮(subject)表达(verb)志趣清高(object). 自己作为一个读书人(himself as a scholar/reader) is an adverbial phrase. As for 志趣， refer to '1'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;其 is a personal pronoun. Here means 他们 the substitute of 不少人, which is mentioned in '尽管&lt;strong&gt;不少人&lt;/strong&gt;汲汲于名利焦头烂额'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Someone already did the translation in the comment above.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-08-28T00:56:51.010" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T00:56:51.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26231" CreationDate="2017-08-28T00:50:58.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My take is ABAB expresses &lt;strong&gt;dynamically&lt;/strong&gt; (表示动态感) or extent in degrees, while AABB is for &lt;strong&gt;statically&lt;/strong&gt; (表示静态感). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 舒服舒服 vs 舒舒服服。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舒服舒服 is kinda like 'Wow, I feel great!', it might imply that you feel that way constantly. For instance, someone is giving you a massage， and you feel great and enjoy it so much, and you would probably say 舒服舒服 to indicate that you are comforted by the massage constantly. You could say 舒服舒服 in a cutie way to express funny as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 舒舒服服 describes you are actually in the state of being comfortable (舒服). For instance, 我舒舒服服的躺在沙发上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more examples: 高高兴兴 vs 高兴高兴, 干净干净 vs 干干净净, 漂亮漂亮 vs 漂漂亮亮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, not all words can be used as AABB, like 好吃. 好好吃吃 sounds wired, because 好好吃吃 doesn't sound a state of being something. Well, 好吃好吃 makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to define a rule that could summarize what kind of words can be used in this pattern. Practically, I think those formal or official words usually can not be used like this. For example, 伟大, 光荣, 勇敢. Maybe it's not good to ruin the integrity of those words? That's why you could not use them like that? I am not quite sure about it indeed. Those 'normal' or more colloquial words usually can work either in the form of AABB/ABAB or both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-08-29T01:45:50.603" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T01:45:50.603" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26230" CreationDate="2017-08-28T01:42:43.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;志趣：志向与情趣;心意所向 (zdic.net)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汲汲: 形容急切的样子,急于得到 (zdic.net)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其：‘不少汲汲于名利焦头烂额的人’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My spin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;淡泊名利才能显示出自己高尚的志趣，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Being indifferent to mundane matters reveals ones noble aims,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;保持心态平和宁静才能在思想上达到高远的境界。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;only by remaining tranquil in thought can one aspire to higher ideals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是诸葛亮表达自己作为一个读书人志趣清高的名言，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This well known saying by Zhu Ge Liang expresses his aloof scholarly interest,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;被历来的读书人所 推崇。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;which has been esteemed by scholars through the ages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽管不少人汲汲于名利焦头烂额，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Although many people (nowadays) suffer from stress and are anxious for fame and fortune,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;但其照样可以请人将此言书写悬于客厅，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;nevertheless one can still ask them to write down these words and hang them in their living room,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;以显示自己志趣的不同凡俗.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;as a symbol of their transcendental aspirations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T01:42:43.023" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26236" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26240" CreationDate="2017-08-28T02:56:20.677" Score="3" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking through my text book and I came across some words like: &lt;strong&gt;游游泳, 化化妆, 散散步&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between those and their regular counterparts &lt;strong&gt;游泳, 化妆, 散步&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17614" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-08-28T05:39:20.590" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T05:39:20.590" Title="Why are there duplicates in the following words 游游泳, 化化妆, 散散步, ..., etc?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26236" CreationDate="2017-08-28T03:06:47.283" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say &quot;游游泳&quot; vs &quot;游泳&quot;, 游游泳 is more casual. Kinda 游游泳 is more like go swim, while 游泳 is just 'swim'. So, you could deem 'XXY' as 'go XY'. 散散步 kinda like go walk/go for a walk/go walking, something like this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T03:06:47.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26238" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-28T03:27:04.087" Score="-3" ViewCount="375" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b19vA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hi, &#xA;I was wondering what's the meaning of what's written on the shirt?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17818" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T06:33:46.647" Title="Hi, what is the meaning of what is written on the shirt?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-08-28T10:03:46.427" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26238" CreationDate="2017-08-28T03:29:30.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;海纳百川&#xA;[名]&#xA;all rivers run into sea; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T03:29:30.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26236" CreationDate="2017-08-28T05:27:21.310" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Reduplication_of_verbs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reduplication of a verb&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'with AA Pattern' indicates the action occur in a &lt;strong&gt;slight degree&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;brief time period&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;casual manner&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看- to look; 看看- to look briefly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走- to walk; 走走- to walk briefly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敲- to knock; 敲敲- to knock slightly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘗- to taste; 嘗嘗- to slightly taste &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another form of Reduplication 'with A一A Pattern' indicates the action occur &lt;strong&gt;in a single instance&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;slight degree&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;brief time period&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;casual manner&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看- to look; 看一看- take a look/ to look briefly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走- to walk; 走一走- take a walk/ to walk briefly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敲- to knock; 敲一敲- knock once/ to knock slightly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘗- to taste; 嘗一嘗- taste once/ to slightly taste &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For verbs that are made up of a two characters like  游泳, 散步, you only need to reduplicate the first character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;游泳- to swim; 游游泳- to swim casually (or briefly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;散步- to take a walk; 散散步- to talk a walk casually (or briefly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-28T05:38:09.787" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T05:38:09.787" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26238" CreationDate="2017-08-28T06:33:46.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“海纳百川”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literarily it means &quot;all rivers run into sea&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, it can be used to describe a person(or something else) with an open mind and tolerant heart. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use &quot;海纳百川&quot; as an adjective, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is our own example as diverse and tolerant societies that welcome the contributions of all people, including those of all faiths.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, &quot;our societies&quot; can be described as &quot;海纳百川&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17821" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T06:33:46.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26231" CreationDate="2017-08-28T07:30:20.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AABB&lt;/strong&gt;: It is used to express the action or status in a more &lt;strong&gt;visualized&lt;/strong&gt; or vivid way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舒服，漂亮，开心 are things that can be visualized, that's why you always see 舒舒服服，漂漂亮亮 and 开开心心. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For words like 偉大，勇敢，好吃, you can hardly visualize these things, so you will seldom see AABB form of these words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABAB&lt;/strong&gt;: Used to encourage the listener(listener could be the speaker himself)  to put interest in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 去开心开心吧。 =&gt; Let's go happy!  =&gt; Encourage the listener to be happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2017-08-28T11:39:53.427" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T11:39:53.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26243" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26245" CreationDate="2017-08-28T12:46:24.600" Score="3" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;司馬遷， 史記，&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/shiji/qin-shi-huang-ben-ji&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦始皇本紀&lt;/a&gt;： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;事不師古而能長久者，非所聞也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only understand the very broad meaning should be similar to: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That someone flourished without learning from the ancients, thereof I never heard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, to understand more clearly, I have to know what role 事 plays here. Is it the work of the government, like Confucianism says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;事君能致其身&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I have to translate &quot;learn from the ancients in governance&quot;. Or is it just the object of 張久，some matter that is supposed to flourish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2017-08-28T13:06:14.290" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T13:59:06.267" Title="What role does 事 play in 事不師古？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26243" CreationDate="2017-08-28T13:59:06.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;事不師古而能長久者﹒非所聞也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事 : working, you may shortcut it to governing in this context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 : not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;師 : learn, or imitate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古 : past&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而 : and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能 : can be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;長久 : long time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非: not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所聞: heard, maybe recorded&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, the verse is roughly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[if the] governing (事) is not (不) imitate (師) to the past (古), and (而)[such governing] can (能) [last] long time (長久), it's unheard (非所聞).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that 淳于越 suggested that nations not using feudalism, would not last long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some underlying asumptions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in ancient china, both &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商 dynasty (bc 1571 - 1046) &lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; 周 dynasty (bc 1046 - 770)&lt;/a&gt; used feudalism. compare to spring and autumn period (春秋), and warring states (戰國) period, these two dynasties lasted 400-500 years, which was a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the related text in 秦始皇本紀, would started from &quot;始皇置酒咸陽宮&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;仆射周青臣進頌曰：「他時秦地不過千里，賴陛下神靈明聖，平定海內，放逐蠻夷，日月所照，莫不賓服。以諸侯為郡縣，人人自安樂，無戰爭之患，傳之萬世。自上古不及陛下威德。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then one of the master 淳于越 refuted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;博士齊人淳于越進曰：「臣聞殷周之王千餘歲，封子弟功臣，自為枝輔。今陛下有海內，而子弟為匹夫，卒有田常、六卿之臣，無輔拂，何以相救哉？事不師古而能長久者，非所聞也。今青臣又面諛以重陛下之過，非忠臣。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, the prime minister 李斯 suggested:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丞相李斯曰：「五帝不相復，三代不相襲，各以治，非其相反，時變異也。今陛下創大業，建萬世之功，固非愚儒所知。且越言乃三代之事，何足法也？異時諸侯并爭，厚招游學。今天下已定，法令出一，百姓當家則力農工，士則學習法令辟禁。今諸生不師今而學古，以非當世，惑亂黔首。丞相臣斯昧死言：古者天下散亂，莫之能一，是以諸侯并作，語皆道古以害今，飾虛言以亂實，人善其所私學，以非上之所建立。今皇帝并有天下，別黑白而定一尊。私學而相與非法教，人聞令下，則各以其學議之，入則心非，出則巷議，夸主以為名，異取以為高，率群下以造謗。如此弗禁，則主勢降乎上，黨與成乎下。禁之便。臣請史官非秦記皆燒之。非博士官所職，天下敢有藏詩、書、百家語者，悉詣守、尉雜燒之。有敢偶語詩書者棄市。以古非今者族。吏見知不舉者與同罪。令下三十日不燒，黥為城旦。所不去者，醫藥卜筮種樹之書。若欲有學法令，以吏為師。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you may treat the text as argument of &quot;feudalism&quot; vs &quot;totalitarianism&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the text maybe further elaborated, if you need :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T13:59:06.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26253" CreationDate="2017-08-28T20:45:10.863" Score="3" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this citation in wiki&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Jean Pasqualini's book Prisonnier de Mao: &#xA;      &quot;Prison is not prison, but a school for learning about one's mistakes&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if it is a Chinese slogan of Cultural revolution time or was it coined by Pasqualini himself? If it was a slogan, can anyone give the original writing in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17826" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-08-29T01:48:36.647" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T09:40:29.780" Title="Jean Pasqualini's book Prisonnier de Mao" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26247" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26248" CreationDate="2017-08-28T21:07:08.927" Score="3" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the book titled &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;, the author writes the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, in informal speech, 个 can be used as the classifier for almost any noun, even those with an established classifier. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as 个化 &amp;quot;ge-ization.&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also shows some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个车 (not 一辆车)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个房子 (not 一所房子)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I wonder if it is permissible to use 个 in any nouns. What kind of impressions do you get if people use 个 in any nouns? Is it considered rude or looks childish? In what kind of &amp;quot;informal&amp;quot; situations is it OK to use 个 in any nouns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T00:57:45.360" Title="Is it permissible to use 个 in any nouns as a measure word?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26247" CreationDate="2017-08-29T00:57:45.360" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say somehow it's true in informal circumstances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't quite agree with the definition of 个化 above in which 个 as a classifier is going with nouns. When you say 一个车 or 一个房子 alone, it definitely sounds odd and ignorant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My take to this, instead, is 个 goes with a verb, being the form of &quot;verb+个&quot;. Then it becomes the casual way to express the action of verbs. &#xA;For example, 我去提个车， 我去打个水， 我去玩个电脑, 我去乘个车，我打个游戏， 我推个车， 我骑个马 ....... Those sentences sound definitely natural to a native ear. If you say 我去提一辆车，我去打一盆水......, it sounds more formal than the sentences above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost everything can express like that. Again, the point is that it has to go with a verb, instead standing alone. 一个车，一个水，一个电脑，一个马，those terms alone sounds ignorant. 一个游戏 sounds ok because 个/款 are right classifiers for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest you carefully use this rule in informal situations before you get the hang of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T00:57:45.360" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26249" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-29T01:01:08.567" Score="4" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;This text discusses '人体运动到底有没有极限？‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人的心理因素弹性很大，积极的精神状态可以激发身体潜能，从而让运动员在竞赛中超水平发挥。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弹性： 物体受外力作用发生形变、除去作用力能恢复原来形状的性质 （zdic.net)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;弹性： flexibility, elasticity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't think they want to say 'the mind is flexible' or 'psychological factors are flexible'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 弹性 means here 'ability to stretch, make elastic, increase', but I'm not really sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人的心理因素弹性很大,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Psychological factors have a great ability (性） to 'stretch, increase'（弹 (our sporting ability)), &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;积极的精神状态可以激发身体潜能&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a positive outlook can unleash our body's hidden power,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;从而让运动员在竞赛中超水平发挥。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and so allow the athlete in competition to display greater than normal ability. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T01:13:15.887" Title="What does 弹性 refer to in this sentence?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26249" CreationDate="2017-08-29T01:34:05.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, the later context (积极的精神状态可以激发身体潜能，从而让运动员在竞赛中超水平发挥。) explains 弹性 pretty well.  Reversely, if 运动员的精神状态不好，他就很难在竞赛总发挥得好。 In brief, 运动员发挥的好不好 fluctuates with his 精神状态, hence 精神状态 has 弹性。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T01:34:05.823" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26249" CreationDate="2017-08-29T01:51:38.317" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;《汉语大词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.比喻事物的可多可少、可大可小等伸缩性。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《懒虫简明汉英词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;flexibility&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人的心理因素(的)弹性很大&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The flexibility of human's psychological factors is great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a doctor tells a healthy man that he has cancer, he will get sick very soon.&#xA;If a woman has cancer, and the doctor tells her that she is healthy, she can live longer and healthier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the psychological effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人的心理因素弹性很大 also talks about this effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All coaches encourage the athletes before the competitions because an athlete may be confident or without confidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 弹性 here refers to this range, active or passive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastEditorUserId="16050" LastEditDate="2017-08-29T04:55:11.600" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T04:55:11.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26231" CreationDate="2017-08-29T07:53:55.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;ABAB is usually used when AB is used as a verb, it usually involves an action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你出去运动运动;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们来放松放松;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AABB, on the other hand, is used when you want to use AB as an adjective(or whatever decorative purpose)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;打扮得漂漂亮亮的;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;祝你们生活红红火火;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are situations when you simply want to express a strong feeling, usually when making a simple response to a question, in which case you would simply repeat a 2-character adjective, making it look like ABAB. &quot;好吃好吃&quot; will be an example.&#xA;You wouldn't say the following: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们的菜好吃好吃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you would rather say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们的菜很好吃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;using &quot;很&quot; to amplify the adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the following, i.e. when you are making a brief response to a question, is valid, like so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天的菜好吃吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好吃好吃!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even more commonly used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;让我们出去玩吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好啊好啊!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note how “好啊” is not even an adjective, you can literally ABAB anything that you want to emphasize when making a simple response. It shows your excitement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17827" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T07:53:55.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26246" CreationDate="2017-08-29T08:45:05.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't found the point about learning from one's mistakes but this is the closest Mao quote I've found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%9B%91%E7%8B%B1%E5%88%B6%E5%BA%A6%E7%9A%84%E6%94%B9%E9%9D%A9%E4%B8%8E%E5%8F%91%E5%B1%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中国监狱制度的改革与发展&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“我们的监狱不是过去的监狱，我们的监狱其实是学校，也是工厂，或是农场。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which roughly equates to something like: &lt;code&gt;Our prisons are not prisons of the past, our prisons are actually schools, they are factories, or farms.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jean Pasqualini might have taken some liberties or licenses since this has to do with &lt;strong&gt;劳改&lt;/strong&gt; (re-education through labor) with his translation, but I can't be sure yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;: So, the wiki quote is listed as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Behr, 1987 p.283&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is a reference from Edward Behr's 1987 book &quot;The Last Emperor&quot; - page 283, here is the excerpt in question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JqkCr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JqkCr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The difference lay in the overall approach of those in authority to all those accused of any kind of 'crime'. As Jean Pasqualini, author of &lt;em&gt;Prisoner of Mao&lt;/em&gt;, a uniquely insightful analysis of the Chinese penitentiary system based on his own prison and labour camp experiences, put it: 'Prison is not prison, but a school for learning about one's mistakes.' Chinese prisons were places 'where the prisoners reform the prisoners'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A translation of &quot;The Last Emperor&quot; (中国末代皇帝) was done by 黄群飞 (Huang Qunfei) and published in 1989, here is his translation of the above paragraph found on page 219 of the book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KY3dh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KY3dh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不同之点在于那些掌权者对那些被控犯有各种“罪行”的人的总的处理方法不同。《毛泽东的囚犯》一书的作者琼·帕斯加里尼，根据他自己蹲监狱和劳动集中营的经历，对中国的悔改制度作了与众不同的、独到的分析。他说：“监狱不是监狱，而是一所悔罪的学校”。中国的监狱是“囚犯改造囚犯的地方。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jean Pasqualini's quote is quite the resemblance of Mao's by saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“监狱不是监狱，而是一所悔罪的学校”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-08-29T09:40:29.780" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T09:40:29.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26257" CreationDate="2017-08-29T11:33:22.080" Score="2" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just learned that if you end the sentence with adjectival verb + 了, it means indicating a change. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你高了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means &amp;quot;You got taller.&amp;quot;, which is different from 你很高, which just means &amp;quot;You are tall.&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 太 can also be frequently used along with 了 to modify an adjectival verb. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东西太贵了。 (not 东西太贵。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你太聪明了。 (not 你太聪明。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my textbook, these two sentences seem to just mean &amp;quot;Things are too expensive.&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;You are too smart.&amp;quot;, without any stress on the change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wonder if 太 + adjectival verb + 了 doesn't indicate a change at all. Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if it doesn't indicate a change, how can I make the &amp;quot;太 + adjectival verb + 了&amp;quot; sentence indicate a change as well (e.g. “Thing got too expensive.&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;You got too smart.&amp;quot;)？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T16:41:11.637" Title="Does &quot;太 + adjectival verb + 了&quot; mean the change?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26254" CreationDate="2017-08-29T12:21:25.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually you put &quot;太&quot; before adjectival verb to emphasize the adjectival verb itself, does not change its original meaning, for example, &quot;你太高了&quot;, just means &quot;You are SO tall&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, as you said, sometimes it comes with the opposite meaning, but most time it is for &lt;strong&gt;sarcasm&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if someone likes to play fool or play tricks on the others, you probably could say &quot;你太聪明了&quot;, which means you have such smart that do not acceptable by common people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16109" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T12:21:25.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26254" CreationDate="2017-08-29T12:24:54.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The full form of 你高了! is 你变高了！. So, there is an omission here. you can also see the similar expressions: 你（变）瘦了， 你（变）胖了，你（变）漂亮了... ... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘太 + adjectival verb + 了’ has no omission of 变 there, so it doesn't convey a change. If you really want to indicate a change with this structure, you could add '现在'(now) in it. Like 你现在太聪明了!, it implies that you were not as smart as you are. It indicates you are getting smarter compared with the past. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T12:24:54.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26254" CreationDate="2017-08-29T12:40:03.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 你(長)高了, 高 is a resultative verb particle of '長高'(grow tall)-  the main verb 長 is omitted. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you know, 了 in [verb+了] indicates 'completion of action'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你(長)高= you grow tall&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你(長)高了= you have grown tall&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 你(是)高了, 是 is the omitted verb,  高 is the adjective, and 了 is the final particle that indicates 'change of status'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你(是)高= you are tall&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你(是)高了= you have gotten taller&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 你太高了, 太 is the adverb, 高 is the adjective and 了 is the final particle that indicates 'conclusion of statement'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你太高= you are too tall &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你太高了= you are too tall (really). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东西太贵= things are too expensive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东西太贵了= things are too expensive (really)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你太聪明= you are too clever&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你太聪明了= you are too clever (really)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Also, if it doesn't indicate a change, how can I make the &quot;太 + adjectival verb + 了&quot; sentence indicate a change as well (e.g. “Thing got too expensive.&quot; or &quot;You got too smart.&quot;)&lt;/em&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adjectival verb (I call it resultative verb particle) is part of a verb. &#xA;太 as an adverb modifies adjective, not verb. Therefore, 太 doesn't modify it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You cannot say &quot;你太長高了&quot; (高 as an adjectival verb) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can only say &quot;你長太高了&quot; or &quot;你太高了&quot; (高 as an adjective)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;了 in &quot;你長太高了&quot; or &quot;你太高了&quot; does not indicate change; it indicates 'conclusion'. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use 太~了 to indicate 'change' , you need a verb that actually indicate 'change' . For example, 变得(become) as in &quot;你变得太高了&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-08-30T16:41:11.637" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T16:41:11.637" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25883" CreationDate="2017-08-29T12:58:40.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://yifertw.blogspot.it/2010/10/blog-post_01.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This site&lt;/a&gt; will be the reference for the whole answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That site suggests &lt;code&gt;格微微 | keh-bui-bui&lt;/code&gt;: seems I guessed the &quot;bui&quot; correctly. Maybe the &quot;keh&quot; is some kind of suffix to &quot;bak-tshiu&quot;? Actually, that site seems to suggest writing &quot;keh&quot; as 激, glossed as &lt;code&gt;裝作&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;pretend&quot;. Given the gloss, I suggest &lt;code&gt;假&lt;/code&gt; would be better, so &quot;假微微 | ké bui-bui&quot;. The site glosses the whole sentence as &lt;code&gt;因為自己癡心貪愛，眼睛只微微張開，沒有認出情郎的真面目&lt;/code&gt;, or &quot;Because of one's infatuation and passionate love, only open one's eyes a little, and not recognize the loved one's true colors&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That site just gave me what is probably the correct character for &quot;lam&quot;: &lt;code&gt;湳 | làm&lt;/code&gt;… but &quot;mud&quot;? What would &quot;mud&quot; be doing here? Maybe this is in fact not the right character… Well it glosses the expression as &lt;code&gt;涕泗橫流&lt;/code&gt;, &quot;to weep uncontrollably&quot;. Maybe I should spell it &lt;code&gt;泗湳垂 | sì-làm suî&lt;/code&gt;, literally &quot;mucus-mud drip&quot;. Tone of &quot;sì&quot; uncertain, copied that of 四. Yep, that's the characters the site suggests.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Too bad the site doesn't have that part…&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;三聲無奈哭悲哀：「三聲無奈」，再三喊無可奈何，這種時候，我是不會只喊三聲。&lt;/code&gt; I don't get this. Does &lt;code&gt;三聲&lt;/code&gt; mean &lt;code&gt;再三&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;喊三聲&lt;/code&gt;? According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://cidian.911cha.com/dHY0Ng==.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, it &lt;code&gt;旧指军中用以传令的金鼓、笳、铎之声&lt;/code&gt; (used to indicate the sounds of the gold drum, whistle, and bell used in the army to transmit orders&quot;. I suppose that, if all three sounded, the order was &quot;complete&quot; (cfr. &lt;code&gt;三声既全&lt;/code&gt;, with the three sounds it's already complete), so in the song it might mean &quot;completely&quot;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/26260/what-does-%e4%b8%89%e5%a3%b0%e6%97%a0%e5%a5%88-mean&quot;&gt;Asked a follow-up&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;「專望」為「特別期望」&lt;/code&gt;, so &lt;code&gt;專望&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;特別期望&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. &quot;especially hope&quot;. So I was about right there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The site glosses the whole sentence as &lt;code&gt;一心想嫁給情郎，如同花朵只仰望你來採&lt;/code&gt;, but doesn't gloss &lt;code&gt;tshái&lt;/code&gt; separately. That big gloss means &quot;wholeheartedly wishes to marry her loved one, like a flower just looking up to you so you pluck it&quot;. So &lt;code&gt;tshái&lt;/code&gt; is literally &quot;pluck&quot;, and the flower to pluck is the singer. So the whole sentence should translate roughly to &quot;[I] have blossomed, and hope you will pluck [me]&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the metaphor of her being compared to a flower is in the last line too: &quot;A beautiful flower has become a pining plant&quot;, meaning she, the beautiful blossoming flower of verse 2, has turned to a sad plant full of lovesickness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-08-29T13:36:42.720" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T13:36:42.720" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26229" CreationDate="2017-08-29T13:13:51.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You do not have to and cannot figure out the rhyme of the majority of modern Chinese poetry.&#xA;Because the rhyme is not necessary for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E6%96%B0%E8%AF%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新诗&lt;/a&gt; can be classified into the following styles according to the Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.1 分行诗 (lined format)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      3.1.1 自由诗 (free verse) the most popular style&lt;br&gt;&#xA;      3.1.2 格律诗 (verse) out-of-date&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3.2 分段诗 (散文诗 prose poetry or prose verse) out-of-date&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3.3 图象诗 (calligram) out-of-date&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia also mentions that 自由诗的特点是没有固定的结构、节奏，也不一定要押韵。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Free verse is characterized by the absence of a fixed structure and rhythm, and does not have to rhyme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, don't bother yourself about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T13:13:51.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26260" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26272" CreationDate="2017-08-29T13:29:13.593" Score="4" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/25883/min-nan-expressions-spelling-meaning-and-pronunciation&quot;&gt;this Min song&lt;/a&gt; called 三声无奈, lit. &quot;three sounds helpless&quot;. This seems to be an idiomatic expression. I am not totally sure what it means though. It seems to mean &quot;completely helpless&quot;. This is also suggested by the fact 三声 is said &lt;a href=&quot;https://cidian.911cha.com/dHY0Ng==.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; to &lt;code&gt;旧指军中用以传令的金鼓、笳、铎之声&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. &quot;have originally indicated the (three) sounds of the golden drum, the whistle, and the bell used to transmit orders in the military&quot;, so after three sounds the transmission was complete, meaning that 三声 would mean &quot;complete&quot;, or &quot;completely&quot;. But this is pretty much guesswork. Does anyone know if the guesswork is correct or if it means something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-08-29T13:36:00.343" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T01:53:27.610" Title="What does 三声无奈 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26261" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-29T17:18:31.343" Score="-2" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are fluent in Chinese and also familiar with technology writing this challenge is for  you!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is a short text sample in English and 4 different translation samples of that source.  Have a look at them and share what you think.  Which is best, and why?  What is your critique of each?  What grade would you assign to each one if you were a teacher evaluating a student assignment?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the source, in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CLOUD SOLUTIONS&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether you are looking to leverage the cloud to enhance business functionality or to protect your information, IBM has you covered. We offer a wide range of solutions varying from optimizing your cloud spend to migrating your applications to a secure public cloud architecture designed just for you. Our cloud solutions are designed to save you money, make you more secure, improve your application performance, and make cloud adoption easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Want to get more out of your Amazon Web Services spend? IBM can help. Gain visibility across your AWS accounts to help allocate and forecast costs, manage Reserved Instances, proactively identify savings opportunities, and more. With Intelligent Cloud Plus, we provide consolidated billing services, custom billing reports, and powerful tools to ensure you are optimizing your cloud spend. Our cloud management tool unifies cost and security in a consolidated view of all your AWS accounts. IBM's solution is easy to use, provides the perfect complement to native AWS services, and enables you to better manage your cost while meeting your performance objectives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is TRANSLATION A (Chinese - Simplified):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;云解决方案&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无论您希望利用云来增强企业功能或者保护您的信息，IBM 都能满足您的需求。 IBM提供了一系列完善的云解决方案：从优化您的云支出，到将您的程序移至为您量身打造的云架构，我们都可以替您完成。我们的云解决方案始终致力于为客户提供安全的服务，合理降低花销，为客户的产品提供助力，并让云化变得更简单。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想要提高您的亚马逊网络服务（Amazon Web Services）的投资回报？ IBM 可以助您一臂之力。 让您看到各个 AWS 账户从而帮助您分配和预测成本、管理预留实例、主动发现节约成本的机会，还有更多其他功能。通过智能云+，我们提供合并账单服务、定制账单报告和其他高效工具，以确保您不断优化您在云服务上的花费。另外，我们结合了成本与安全的云管理工具让您可以更便捷地查看您所有的 AWS 账户。IBM 的解决方案不仅简单易用，还将使原有的 AWS 服务更为完善，让您在完成绩效目标的同时能更好地管理您的成本。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is TRANSLATION B (Chinese - Simplified):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;云解决方案&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无论您是想利用云方案提高您的业务功能，亦或是保护您的信息，IBM均可以帮助您实现这一愿望。 &#xA;我们提供广泛的解决方案，既优化云投入，也确保那些转移到为您定制的公共云结构中的应用程序的安全。我们的云方案旨在节省您的资金，保障您的安全，提高应用程序性能，使得云应用更加便捷。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望从 “亚马逊网络服务系统”的投入中获得更多回报吗？ IBM 可以助您一臂之力。&#xA;亚马逊网路服务系统（AWS）账户的可视化应用可以帮助您分配并预测成本、管理包年收费、 主动识别储蓄机会，更多功能不多赘述。 借助智能云+， 我们提供综合的结算服务、自定义结算报告和强大的工具，确保您能够优化云方案。 我们的云管理工具对您所有的亚马逊网路服务系统（AWS）账户从全局上进行统一成本核算和安全管理。 IBM的解决方案易于使用，为当地的亚马逊网路服务系统（AWS）服务提供完美的补充，使您能够更好地管理成本，实现性能目标。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is TRANSLATION C (Chinese - Simplified):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;云解决方案&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无论您是希望利用云技术增强业务功能，还是保护信息，IBM 都能让您如愿以偿。 我们的解决方案种类繁多，从优化云平台的费用支出，到将应用迁移至为您量身打造的安全公共云平台架构，可谓一应俱全。我们的云解决方案旨在为您节省资金、让您更加安全无虞、完善应用性能，以及让您轻松完成云计算的采纳。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想要您在 Amazon Web Services （亚马逊网络服务系统） 方面的支出更物有所值吗？ IBM 将助您一臂之力。 我们可大幅提升 AWS 账户的可视化， 这对于分配和预测成本、 管理预留实例及主动发现成本节约的契机等大有助益。我们通过采用 Intelligent Cloud Plus 提供综合计费服务、定制化的账单报告及各种强大的工具，以确保您实现云平台费用支出的优化。我们的云管理工具可将所有 AWS 账户中的成本与安全项目进行统一汇总，您在一个综合视图中即可查看所有项目。IBM 的解决方案操作简便，是对原有 AWS 服务的完美补充，可让您更有效地管理成本，同时满足所设定的性能目标。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is TRANSLATION D (Chinese - Simplified):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;云端解决方案&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无论您是希望利用云端来增强业务功能，还是想要保护您的信息，IBM 均可随时为您效劳。我们提供了大量解决方案，全面涵盖从优化您的云端投资到将您的应用程序迁移到为您量身打造的安全的公共云端架构等应用场景。我们的云端解决方案旨在帮助您节约投资，为您提供更强大的安全保护，提升您应用程序的性能，并简化云端的部署实施过程。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想要更加充分地利用您的 Amazon Web Services 投资吗？IBM 可助您一臂之力。通过全面掌控您的 AWS 帐户的使用情况，可帮助您分配和预测使用成本，管理 Reserved Instances（预留实例），前瞻性地识别成本节约机会，并为您提供更多实用功能。利用 Intelligent Cloud Plus，我们可为您提供统一的账单结算服务、自定义账单报告和强大工具，确保优化您的云投资。我们的云管理工具利用一个统一视图来管理您的所有 AWS 帐户的费用和安全性。IBM 解决方案简单易操作，可为原生 AWS 服务提供完美的补充功能，使您能够在满足性能目标的同时，更有效地管理您的使用成本。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17830" LastEditorUserId="17830" LastEditDate="2017-08-30T17:10:47.827" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T17:10:47.827" Title="Evaluating / Grading A Short Chinese Translation (tech writing) - 4 Versions" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26263" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26266" CreationDate="2017-08-29T23:26:16.043" Score="3" ViewCount="903" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of my favorite foods in China is &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%85%8E%E9%A5%BC%E6%9E%9C%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;煎饼果子&lt;/a&gt; (jiānbǐng guǒzi), which doesn't really translate well to English.  See &lt;a href=&quot;http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&amp;amp;word=%E7%85%8E%E9%A5%BC%E6%9E%9C%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu 图片&lt;/a&gt; for images.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing that seems strange to me is the use of &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%9E%9C%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;果子&lt;/a&gt; (guǒzi) meaning fruit, when there is no fruit in 煎饼果子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 果子 in 煎饼果子 (jiānbǐng guǒzi)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T01:02:03.833" Title="Why is 果子 in 煎饼果子 (jiānbǐng guǒzi)?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26261" CreationDate="2017-08-29T23:37:08.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I vote for Translation A. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have some comments on the last sentence in the first paragraph&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Our cloud solutions are designed to save you money, make you more secure, improve your application performance, and make cloud adoption easier.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'A' translated it to &quot;我们的云解决方案始终致力于为客户提供安全的服务，合理降低花销，为客户的产品提供助力，并让云化变得更简单。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;make you more secure&quot;, better to add 更 in ...为客户提供 &lt;strong&gt;更&lt;/strong&gt; 安全的服务..., because it's for &lt;strong&gt;more&lt;/strong&gt; secure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;improve your application performance&quot;, I am not sure what's the meaning of application here. Is it a software application installed in customers' machines or something else? If it is a software application, I suggest 提升应用软件性能，replacing 为客户的产品提供助力. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my translation for the last sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我们的云解决方案致力于为您降低花销，提供更安全的服务，提升应用软件性能，并使您的云化变得更容易。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made some other tweaks as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T23:37:08.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26263" CreationDate="2017-08-29T23:46:34.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I love 煎饼果子 too! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You know what 油条 is. One of my American friends interpreted it as &quot;straight salty donut&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;煎饼果子, in fact, is 煎饼 + 油条.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In northern areas, we call 油条 大果子. I don't know why. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then we got 煎饼果子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-08-30T00:45:47.200" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T00:45:47.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26263" CreationDate="2017-08-30T01:31:42.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;果子&quot; is a regional name for &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A4%9C%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;糖果糕點&quot;&lt;/a&gt; - any sugar, rice or wheat flour-based food that is not a staple food. This broad category includes sweet and savoury items, cakes and candy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 果子 in 煎饼果子 refers to the 油条 wrapped inside. Of course, regional varieties of the food can have different fillings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T01:31:42.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26263" CreationDate="2017-08-30T05:29:11.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just want to add some supplementary info as a Chinese who lived in Tianjin for a few years. You usually got two options for 煎饼 in Tianjin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;果子, which means 油条;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;果皮, which means 脆饼, also called 脆皮 or 薄脆.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the word 果子 is actually originated from &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%A4%9C%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;馃子&lt;/a&gt;. However, it seems to be used only with 煎饼 in Tianjin, and I've never seen such usage in any other region.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17835" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T05:29:11.403" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26270" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-30T08:26:25.837" Score="2" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;This expression is not the conventional one found in a normal dictionary, but in a large number of posts online. In my guess, it means somebody who is unsatisfied with the real world, right? I am not sure. Perhaps you can share your understanding of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-06T23:30:42.120" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T19:18:16.470" Title="What is the equivalent in English for 喷子？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26260" CreationDate="2017-08-30T08:59:09.890" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我想你因該看得懂我寫的中文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三聲無奈的意思是表示「喊了3次無奈」表示非常的無可奈何(3次並不是準確的數字只是代表很多,一個複數的概念)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;參考資料：&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://yifertw.blogspot.tw/2010/10/blog-post_01.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://yifertw.blogspot.tw/2010/10/blog-post_01.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讀中文的詩歌呢，重點不是字義（字面上的意思）：重點在於意境（作者想傳達的感情）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you should read and understand the Chinese I've written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;三聲無奈&lt;/code&gt; means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I shouted &quot;helpless&quot; three times&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and shows extreme helplessness (three times is also not a precise number, it's just to mean a lot, a plural concept).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I reference you to this resource:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://yifertw.blogspot.tw/2010/10/blog-post_01.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://yifertw.blogspot.tw/2010/10/blog-post_01.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading Chinese songs, the focal point is not the meaning of the characters. The focal point is on the artistic conception (the feeling the author wanted to convey).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-08-31T03:24:41.810" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T03:24:41.810" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26270" CreationDate="2017-08-30T09:13:11.037" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;噴子&quot; is a nick name,means &quot;Gun&quot;!&#xA;The reason is when you shoot with a gun,The gun always splay the bullet!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T09:13:11.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23027" CreationDate="2017-08-30T09:38:52.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;After long research I came to the conlusion that 就 simply means &lt;em&gt;&quot;and&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. There are many &lt;em&gt;&quot;and&quot;&lt;/em&gt; in Chinese (跟,及,并,与 ect.) and 就 is just another one with a slight semantic shift into &lt;em&gt;&quot;already&quot;&lt;/em&gt; meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the sentence 然后特朗普就赢得了选举 should be literaly translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;And after (that) Trump won the elections.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T09:38:52.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26163" CreationDate="2017-08-30T11:18:06.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the usage of the word 鸟 originally comes from the word 嬲 which is pronounced the same as 鸟. If you look up the dictionary, you can find that 嬲 means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;to make fun of（戏弄）&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;to torment or bother（纠缠）&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, 嬲 is pronounced as nau, which means &lt;strong&gt;to be angry with&lt;/strong&gt;. It's a verb that expresses an emotion. Though this word literally means &lt;strong&gt;emotional&lt;/strong&gt;，but it is usually used to express anger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我好嬲啊！ =I am so angry!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;我嬲你啊。= I am angry with you.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（These are Cantonese, which is used in Hong Kong, Guangdong province, Guangxi province, Hainan province in China, and some other regions and countries all over the world.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不鸟你了=我不理你了 These sentences are the same. They all convey a negative emotion  which means that I am speechless, I don't want to talk to you anymore, etc, and indirectly means that I am mad at you. I think it's just because 嬲 is more difficult to write and recognize, so people just replace 嬲 with 鸟.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: 鸟 is not polite compared to 理 in the sentence 我不鸟/理你了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17805" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T11:18:06.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26270" CreationDate="2017-08-30T11:18:22.920" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;troll&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by Alien Entity September 22, 2002&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=troll&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=troll&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T11:18:22.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26277" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26278" CreationDate="2017-08-30T11:49:15.650" Score="5" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, if you want to express &quot;three years after&quot; or &quot;after three years&quot;, 之 should be used such that it is 两年之后. This is also true of 之前 and 之内 (e.g. 第二次世界大战之前。, 我三天之内一定做得完。).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, now I wonder if it is possible to omit 之, and write it as 两年后 or 第二次世界大战前. Is this grammatically correct? Or is it wrong but nonetheless used everywhere? (I know these phrases are often used but would like to know if it is correct.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-08-31T02:11:53.940" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T02:11:53.940" Title="Can I omit 之 in 之后/之前/之内?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26277" CreationDate="2017-08-30T12:34:03.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;...前 and ...内 are the short version of 之前 and 之内 respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are completely interchangeable, ...前==之前， ...内==之内. &#xA;三天前==三天之前，三天内==三天之内，第二次世界大战前==第二次世界大战之前&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...后==之后 is the same thing. 两年后==两年之后 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference is longer ones look more formal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-08-31T02:07:57.347" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T02:07:57.347" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16199" CreationDate="2017-08-30T19:14:34.663" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你的中文学得怎么样？colloquial&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的中文学得咋样？dialect&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的中文学得如何？style of written language  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17845" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-08-31T01:46:59.547" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T01:46:59.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="826" CreationDate="2017-08-30T19:39:47.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;250， stands for Foolish.&#xA;666666 六六大顺&#xA;88888888 发发发&#xA;4，本来是不喜欢，因为sounds like death(Si). But,in music,it sounds like do re mi fa,fa=8=发财。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17845" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T19:39:47.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26263" CreationDate="2017-08-31T01:02:03.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct writing is 煎饼馃子. 果 is not correct but usual simplified writing among the people.&#xA;馃 means fried.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17846" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T01:02:03.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26249" CreationDate="2017-08-31T01:13:15.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;指心理因素对结果的影响相关性很大。&#xA;积极的状态有正面的影响，消极的状态有负面的影响，但是又没有明确客观的具体数据，这时候用弹性来表达一种定性的不确定的相关性关系。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17846" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T01:13:15.887" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26277" CreationDate="2017-08-31T01:32:39.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;之 mostly means 的&#xA;~之前 = ~的前面&#xA;~之后 = ~的后面&#xA;~之内 = ~的里面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if ~ is time，&#xA;~之前 = before~&#xA;~之后 = after~&#xA;~之内 = in/among~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美国之音 = 美国的声音 = VOA（Voice of America）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17846" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T01:32:39.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26260" CreationDate="2017-08-31T01:42:07.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;在汉语成语和古汉语文学性文章中的数字大多不代表实际数量，一般是为了语句的韵律，仅是一个大约的数字用来形容多次或者很多次。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比如“飞流直下三千尺，疑是银河落九天”，这里的三千和九均不是真实数值&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The numbers in Chinese set phrases (chengyu) and old Chinese literary texts mostly do not express an actual quantity, they are generally for the rhythm of the sentence, and are only approximate numbers used to describe &quot;many times&quot; or &quot;very many times&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example &quot;Flying and flowing down vertically for 3000 &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi_(unit)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, I suspect it's the Milky Way falling from the 9th Heaven&quot;, the &quot;3000&quot; and &quot;9&quot; here are both not real numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17846" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-09-01T01:53:27.610" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T01:53:27.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26186" CreationDate="2017-08-31T01:49:44.220" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;众筹：crowdfunding like Kickstarter&lt;br&gt;&#xA;凝聚人心：将人们团结起来， bring people together&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17846" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-08-31T05:56:20.387" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T05:56:20.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26292" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-31T21:46:39.077" Score="2" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard this phrase;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其空有名头~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm looking for some clarification as to what it means?&#xA;I've tried to break it down and parse it myself but I come up with something that seems quite unnatural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I had to guess, I think it could mean something like &quot;in name only&quot; ? Or &quot;just as a formality&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17851" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T16:50:35.950" Title="What does the phrase &quot;其空有名头&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26293" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26297" CreationDate="2017-08-31T21:51:41.930" Score="1" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese so many words look like the same and I could not understand which one to use. Now, I wonder in what kind of situations I should use 选择 or 选取 over the other to express &quot;choose&quot; or &quot;select&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases I saw 选择 used, but when you connect to Wi-Fi on iPhone, it shows &quot;选取网络&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the difference and how can I use it according to my needs properly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T00:27:25.493" Title="The difference between 选择 and 选取?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26293" CreationDate="2017-08-31T22:05:40.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't worry too much on this one. The only difference, if you really argue there should be any, is that 选取 sounds more formal and elegant, and you probably will see it more being used in publications like academic research papers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16670" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T22:05:40.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26292" CreationDate="2017-08-31T22:11:26.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means someone only has a title, but doesn't have the actual power. &#xA;Or, someone is known to be good at something, but actually is not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16670" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T22:11:26.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26292" CreationDate="2017-08-31T22:23:36.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;其 is a possesive pronoun. The subject in the phrase is not mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空有= have only; 名头= title/name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;空有名头&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;in name only&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (either 'in a position that have no real power' or 'enjoy a reputation that is undeserved')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“其空有名头” = &quot;his/her 'in name only'&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We need more context to decide which meaning we are talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are you sure it wasn't '空有其名?' because  '空有其名'(only has it's name/ in name only) is a common phrase along with '虛有其表' (only has it's appearance/ in appearance only)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-01T16:50:35.950" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T16:50:35.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26293" CreationDate="2017-08-31T22:40:50.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;选择 means 'to select'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g: 选择人才 - select talents (after selected the talented people, the selector can decided what to do with them.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;选取 means 'to select and take in (accept or employ)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g: 选取進士- select and taking in palace graduates&#xA;(It is an official government selection of officer candidates, all selected will be accepted as 進士)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wrote 选择進士, that would mean you are selecting someone among a group of 進士. (Again, after selected, the government can decide what to do with them) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In most cases I saw 选择 used, but when you connect to Wi-Fi on iPhone, it shows &quot;选取网络&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;选择网络&quot; = select network (after selected, you can decide to connect, disconnect or delete from list)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;选取网络&quot; = select and connect to this network&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 选择 can be a noun or verb; 选取 is a verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-01T00:27:25.493" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T00:27:25.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26292" CreationDate="2017-08-31T22:54:47.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;其 a personal pronoun. Here refers to 他/它.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空 here can be interpreted as 'merely'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有 here is the verb in the sentence, meaning 'have'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;名头 roughly means 'one's fame or one's title' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, 其空有名头 means 'He（ or it ） merely has his fame/title'. Implies one doesn't have the ability as one is known as, or is not as capable as one is thought. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for parsing it： 其（subject） 空(adverb modifying 有) 有(verb) 名头(object). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T22:54:47.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26292" CreationDate="2017-08-31T23:27:28.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I get: 浪得虚名： have an unearned reputation for 空有名头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I parse 其空有名头 as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其 she/he/it/they&#xA;空 for no reason&#xA;有 have&#xA;名头 reputation/(good) name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2017-09-01T01:37:32.000" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T01:37:32.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26293" CreationDate="2017-09-01T00:02:11.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There could some overlaps in usage of these twos, but there is a general opinion for the distinction between them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;选择 emphasizes that you should think deep/hard to make your choice and somehow must be more careful to your answer/choice in order not to make a wrong decision or bad choice. For example, there are 4 answers for a question you can select from. You have to think hard to get a correct one. That question is called 选择题， not 选取题. Once you decide, you would say 我选择A,B,C or D in this case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;选取 is somehow the formal way to say 'you could generally get one'. In oral Chinese, we just say 选. 选取网络 will be said like 选一个网络. So, 选取 could be based on your knowledge, feelings, opinions, rule of thumb and etc. 选取 also implies that you should go get it after the selection. 选取网络，for example, you should go click it after the selection. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T00:02:11.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26301" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-01T00:39:45.453" Score="5" ViewCount="440" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin if you use 地 to an adjective, it can change into an adverb. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我真喜欢你&lt;strong&gt;健健康康地&lt;/strong&gt;长大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;舒服地&lt;/strong&gt;躺在那里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I wonder whether all adjectives can be transformed into adverbs in this rule. Is this assumption true? If not, how can I know if one adjective can be transformed into an adverb with 地?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T09:45:27.023" Title="Can all adjectives be transformed into adverbs with 地?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26302" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26421" CreationDate="2017-09-01T00:42:42.230" Score="1" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;格秀拉康 is most likely a Chinese transliteration of Tibetan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English is more likely to reflect the Tibetan pronunciation rather than the Chinese one, e.g.: 甘孜 in English becomes something like: &lt;em&gt;Garzê&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't even know how to began to hazard a guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Information online is scant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: perhaps 拉康 is something like Lhakhang?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit 2: is it kartsog lhakhang?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-09-01T00:48:14.450" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T08:27:12.940" Title="Does &quot;格秀拉康&quot; have an equivalent proper noun in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26301" CreationDate="2017-09-01T03:33:06.077" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not transformed to a adverb, but to an adverbial or adjective phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends the word you want to modify upon. If the word to be modified is a noun, then it's an adjective phrase. And if it's a verb or adjective, then an adverbial phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in 舒服的躺着, 舒服的 is an adverbial phrase, while in 舒服的环境，it's an adjective phrase.  It's because 躺 is a verb whilst 环境 is a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, in modern Chinese, 的 can replace 地 in this usage. However, 地 can not replace 的 in other usages. So, 的 will be correct most of time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-01T04:29:47.280" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T04:29:47.280" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26053" CreationDate="2017-09-01T03:48:59.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Binary&quot; means 二元的 in Chinese. Such terminology appears at &quot;binary tree&quot;(二叉树, literally &quot;two-forked tree&quot;), &quot;binary distribution&quot;(二项分布, literally &quot;two-item distribution&quot;).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Please provide the explanation of &quot;binary&quot; in the context of &quot;binary cross-entropy loss function&quot; and I'll update my answer.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P.S. I know a little about ML and DL, so don't be afraid of using ML-specific terminologies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T03:48:59.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26305" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26306" CreationDate="2017-09-01T09:41:41.677" Score="2" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese literature there are four poems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;春林花多媚，春鳥意多哀；春風復多情，吹我羅裳開。 &#xA;朝登涼台上，夕宿蘭池裡。乘風采芙蓉，夜夜得蓮子。 &#xA;自從別歡來，何日不相思？常恐秋葉零，無復連條時。 &#xA;淵冰厚三尺，素雪覆千里。我心如松柏，君情復何似？ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the word 涼台 occurs. I used to live in a very hot country, so the idea of 涼台 seems much more natural than 陽台。But lately native speakers from both China and Taiwan tell me to use 陽台. Is 涼台 limited to ancient Chinese, or does it carry a different meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T12:22:34.207" Title="Is 涼台 not used anymore and does it differ from 陽台？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26305" CreationDate="2017-09-01T12:14:26.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 陽台 and 涼台 can be translated as 'veranda, balcony and deck' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose 陽台 refers to a deck you can sit on to enjoy sunshine, and 涼台 is a deck you sit on for cooling down. Which means the location of this deck determines how you call it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陽台 should locate in an area that is open and have access to plenty of sunshine. While 涼台 should locate in an area with shade. surrounded by tree, or near water. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陽台 is a more common term because most people live in cities don't have a backyard to build a deck for cooling, but most apartment buildings do have balconies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T12:14:26.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26305" CreationDate="2017-09-01T12:22:34.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;臺 has the meaning &quot;a structure that is high and flat, one can look in all directions&quot; (高而平﹒可供眺望四方的建築物)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000002479&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000002479&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, when reading &quot;朝登涼臺上&quot;, i would make a mental image of &quot;ascend a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.hk/search?q=lookout+tower&amp;amp;newwindow=1&amp;amp;c2coff=1&amp;amp;client=safari&amp;amp;rls=en&amp;amp;dcr=0&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjx57zO-IPWAhXKEpQKHcRECtEQ_AUICigB&amp;amp;biw=1276&amp;amp;bih=693&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lookout tower&lt;/a&gt; in the morning, look around the 360° scenario, let the summer breeze dry my sweat&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, nowadays, most people are familiar with 陽臺, or 露臺, which is part of a building (balcony, maybe veranda).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, these two are different from &quot;涼臺&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, may i ask, how do you choose particular poems from the 子夜四時歌?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T12:22:34.207" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26308" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-01T15:11:14.667" Score="2" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;China is a country of multiple ethnicities, some of which can also be found in its neighboring countries, like Russia and Koreas. So the same ethnic groups are named the same as that in such other countries, like 俄罗斯族 and 朝鲜族.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the case of a minority ethnic group which is also found in a central Asian country, it is named 乌兹别克 for the country, but 乌孜别克 for the race living in China, why is there the different spelling for the same thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.: 壮族in China is named 京族in Vietnam， but there are also 京族 living in Hainan and Guangxi of China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="17879" LastEditDate="2017-09-09T11:14:50.247" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T05:41:17.597" Title="What is the right spelling, 乌兹别克 or 乌孜别克?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26309" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-01T15:33:07.137" Score="0" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;Long ago, I ran into &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAW9YPnJo2E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the song 媽媽歌星&lt;/a&gt;, and in particular I have a download of a video where there were two spoken parts in Min, without captions. It is rather unfortunate that the video in question is now no longer retriavable on Youtube, or at least I cannot find it. Anyways, yesterday I tried transcribing it (as I heard it) with Tai-lo, getting the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lin ho. Mama tui lang kong | li si gua e siau ting. | Li i-king | kam-kak tsin khi-kuai mo? | So si kong | tshiu mama tsip kuan | lun liong e lu-sing. | Tsit-si-lang | kan-na oo a kho tshiu gua. | Tu hui si i gua, | ia ko - sing li khau long - ho tsui le. Li ia so tsai-iann | mama tsi ai - sit lin pa-pa tsit e lang, | ki-lian bo lin pa-pa, | gua | tsi ho kho tsu-pi, | kho tshiu gua, | tshiu gua - tng lai ko - kua le. | Ui-tioh bo guan hoo gua beh si-bong. | In ho. | Mama an-ne - mua pian lang, | li siunn. | Tioh m tioh? | Tioh m tioh le? (Part 1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lin ho. | Mama iong hui, | iong en tsi, | am khan lioh bin - sion me liau kun, | tann ban tioh iau kiann wei mou i. | M gun pat-lang - an tsong sim. | Mama tsi hi-bang lin | siong sim guo. | Liau-kai gua: | li si mama e sinn-mia. | Li kam tsai-iann mama | fui ia mng lin pan | ti e din mang - tiong. | Li si tsit e - tsin phiau-phiat e sim-nong. | Li e sin-khu-pi | kiau ua tsit e - tsin sui, | tsin sui e sinn-mia. | Ah, | m tsai siann-mih si-tsun, | tsi kho-i nai tsit tsi | na jin tsiann nai kau. | M si | e ting nai ka | nai kau | mama m tsai beh luann - huann-hi le. | Li tsai-iann bo? (Part 2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;|&lt;/code&gt;s and &lt;code&gt;-&lt;/code&gt;s indicate pauses and slow-downs in speech speed respectively. Then I tried giving this sound transcription characters, and got this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;林好。妈妈对人讲你是我的小^灯^。你已经感觉真奇^怪^无？鎖^匙^讲^就^妈妈 tsip kuan | lun liong 的女生。一世人干那 oo a kho tshiu gua. | Tu hui si i gua, | ia ko - sing li khau long 予碎^咧。你也所^知影，妈妈只爱识^林爸爸一个人。既然无林爸爸，我只好靠 tsu-pi, 靠 tshiu gua, | tshiu gua 转来 ko - kua 咧。为着无^愿^予我欲失望。林好。妈妈按呢 mua pian 人。你想。着毋着？着毋着咧？ (Part 1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;林好。妈妈 iong hui, | iong en tsi, | am khan lioh bin - sion me liau kun, 担 ban 着 iau 惊 wei mou i. 毋 gun 别人 an tsong sim. 妈妈只希望林 siong sim guo. 了解我：你是妈妈的生命。你敢知影妈妈 fui ia mng lin pan | ti e din mang - tiong. 你是一个真 phiau-phiat e sim-nong. 你的 sin-khu-pi 叫我一个真 sui, 真 sui 的生命。啊，毋知啥物时阵，只可^以^ nai tsit tsi | na jin tsiann nai kau. 毋是 e ting nai ka | nai kai 妈妈毋知欲 luann - 欢喜咧。你知影无？ (Part 2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically the transcription above involves a few tweaks done while giving it characters. Characters followed by &lt;code&gt;^&lt;/code&gt; are of uncertain choice. I suspect &lt;code&gt;lun-liong&lt;/code&gt; is some kind of adjective. I also suspect &lt;code&gt;tsip kuan&lt;/code&gt; might be &lt;code&gt;集權&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;sin-khu-pi&lt;/code&gt; might be &lt;code&gt;辛苦悲&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;mang - tiong&lt;/code&gt; might be a misheard &lt;code&gt;梦中&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;真 sui, 真 sui&lt;/code&gt; might be &lt;code&gt;真媠，真媠&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;khau long&lt;/code&gt; might have to end with &lt;code&gt;龙&lt;/code&gt; Anyways, could you help me complete this character spelling and finish understanding this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems the video I have on my computer &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-qeiBsc7yE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;is still online&lt;/a&gt; or has been put back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2018-05-25T14:22:01.817" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T14:56:28.530" Title="Spoken unsubtitled Min in a (now deleted) Youtube video: characters?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26310" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-01T15:57:37.883" Score="1" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;can someone please give me an exact translation of 转发两个，会有久违的惊喜 in english. it is about a book story of a girl and a guy who have not contacted in a week.&#xA;can someone also tell me if the girl is missing the guy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17708" LastEditorUserId="17708" LastEditDate="2017-09-01T16:38:37.573" LastActivityDate="2017-09-02T06:46:04.183" Title="translating in english 转发两个，会有久违的惊喜" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-09-24T21:43:47.637" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26311" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26316" CreationDate="2017-09-01T16:09:15.280" Score="2" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to write &quot;I have lost my camera&quot;, and looked this up on google translate, which gave 我失去了我的相机.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translte also gives 丢失 as equivalent to 失去 and meaning 'to lose'. So I suppose one could also write 我丢失了我的相机.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence structure is very similar to English, so would be easy to use. However looking on line dictionary, there were no such example sentences of the same form expressing loss. Instead there was 我把钥匙丢了, as in 'I lost my keys', so I presume from this we would say 我把相机丢了. Looking at the definition of 把, it seems this means more like 'I have lost hold of my keys', or more literally 'my hold on my keys is gone'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which might be the more natural way to say this, if both are acceptable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17320" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T00:04:44.747" Title="Basic sentence: &quot;I have lost my... (camera/keys etc&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26312" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-01T16:57:34.290" Score="2" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone please help me clarifying all the possible ways to say &quot;try&quot; in Chinese. As in &quot;try sth&quot; or &quot;try to do sth&quot;. I can come up with many translations but it's very hard for me to use them in context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17853" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T22:46:34.697" Title="Translations of &quot;to try&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26312" CreationDate="2017-09-01T17:51:13.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/try&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/try&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;try:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.to make an attempt at —often used with an infinitive-  &lt;em&gt;try to fix the car&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.ca/#en/zh-TW/try&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://translate.google.ca/#en/zh-TW/try&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;嘗試 - try, attempt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;企圖 - try, attempt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;試圖 - try, attempt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;嘗試 emphasizes on &quot;the action of trying&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;企圖 emphasizes on &quot;intention of trying&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;試圖 emphasizes on &quot;the uncertain nature of trying&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;他嘗試修理這輛汽車&quot; (he try to repair this car) emphasizes on his action of trying to fix it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;他企圖修理這輛汽車&quot; (he try to repair this car) emphasizes on his intention of trying to fix it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;他試圖修理這輛汽車&quot; (he try to repair this car) emphasizes on his uncertain attempt to fix it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;試著 is the colloquial counterpart of 嘗試&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;他試著修理這輛汽車&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘗試種花 (try to grow flower) - &lt;em&gt;let me see how you do it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;企圖謀殺 (try to murder)- &lt;em&gt;it is your intention, isn't it?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;試圖打敗職業拳擊手 (try to defeat a pro boxer)- &lt;em&gt;are you sure?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-01T18:00:53.483" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T18:00:53.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26312" CreationDate="2017-09-01T22:46:34.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple form of try is 试一试： ‘试一试某事’ = 'give something a whirl/shot'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I often hear:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我不会！ I can't do it!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;试一试！ Try!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can often replace 试一试 with 尝试。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use 试： 我可以试一下这双鞋吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;try hard (to do sth.) is 努力： 如果你努力就能够做到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also 尽力： try your hardest (to do sth.): 我们会尽力完成。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T22:46:34.697" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1300" CreationDate="2017-09-02T00:38:09.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;HanziCraft does the best job of breaking down characters into components (not just radicals) out of the sites I've tried, including the other answers here. It's not perfect (e.g. it doesn't do as great a job for traditional characters), but I've yet to find an alternative which provides as deep a level of component breakdown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 大:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanzicraft.com/character/%E5%A4%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hanzicraft.com/character/%E5%A4%A7&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Produces the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Decomposition:&#xA;Once :&#xA;大 =&amp;gt; 人, 一&#xA;Radical :&#xA;大 =&amp;gt; 大 (big)&#xA;Graphical :&#xA;大 =&amp;gt; 人, 一&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything is cross-referenced, so you can click on any component to break it down further e.g. if you click 人 from the above you get this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Decomposition:&#xA;Once :&#xA;人 =&amp;gt; ㇒&#xA;Radical :&#xA;人 =&amp;gt; 人 (human)&#xA;Graphical :&#xA;人 =&amp;gt; 人&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13062" LastActivityDate="2017-09-02T00:38:09.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26311" CreationDate="2017-09-02T00:50:03.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我丢失了我的相机 is the formal way to say I lost my camera, whilst 我把相机丢了 or 我把相机弄丢了 is more colloquial. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some differences between 丢失 and 失去. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丢失 means you lost something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;失去 means you can not keep something precious(often abstract things, like your love, someone's trust and kindness, etc.) any more because of some reason behind. For example, 你失去了你的爱人，meaning you can not get the hold of your lover. There should be some reason why she left you. It might be she wouldn't love you any more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, 丢失 means you lost something you don't know where it has gone, whilst 失去 most of time you know where it has gone and also the reason why.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-02T00:50:03.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24254" CreationDate="2017-09-02T01:05:04.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me 做事 looks like &quot;do business&quot; as opposed to 工作  as in &quot;work&quot;.  工作 sounds more like &quot;job&quot; to me.  Just my two cents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17757" LastActivityDate="2017-09-02T01:05:04.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26310" CreationDate="2017-09-02T06:46:04.183" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I quote from @dan from the comments: &quot;Forward these two pieces of messages, you would get long-waited surprise&quot;. This may have nothing to do with the main story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I will also add some background which I guess would be relevant here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in China, in some (many) social media, like WeChat, Weibo, etc., there are always posts/articles that encourage a reader to re-post it. (I would treat most of such posts as spam though.) So you will often see a message like &quot;you will get a reward if you re-post it twice&quot; or something like that, which is unrelated to the content of the post. Most of the time the said reward/surprise in the message is not real (you will not get such reward/surprise even if you re-post). (And you may even see messages like &quot;you will get cursed if you read but do not re-post&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not know if this phenomenon also exists in other parts of the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-02T06:46:04.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26309" CreationDate="2017-09-02T10:27:03.060" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.xuite.net/iamlindaliang/twblog/128855991&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The full lyrics&lt;/a&gt; can be found on the Web.&#xA;(But, there are a few minor errors.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MPt0r4NgRY&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A video with all subtitles&lt;/a&gt; can be found on the YouTube site.&#xA;(There are a few minor errors too.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lyrics are the words that a mother, who is a singer, tells her daughter whose name is 麗蘭, Lì-lán in Mandarin or Le-lán in Taiwanese Hokkien.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following lyrics have been modified to Mandarin so that more people can understand the meanings easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;媽媽歌星&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;含 口白 (narration; spoken parts)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note: (can be added) [can be omitted]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人若問 妳和我二人到底甚(麼)關係 (我都)介紹妳是我小妹 (而)不敢講坦白(話)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;雖然(我)是一直(在)掩蓋 (其實)心內感覺真(得很)難過 因為我待在歌壇 最需要(的)是歌迷&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;人若知(道)我有女兒 歲數又這(麼)多 恐怕可比秋天的落花 名聲飄飄墜落地&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【口白】&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;麗蘭，媽媽對人說，妳是我的小妹，妳一定感覺奇怪吧？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;事實講，像媽媽這種軟弱的女性，一世人只能依靠著唱歌的女人，除了這以外，又還有什麼工作好做呢？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;妳也[所]知道，媽媽只愛的是妳爸爸一個人。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;既然沒你爸爸，我只好靠自己，靠唱歌。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;唱歌總是要靠歌迷，為著不願給歌迷失望，&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;麗蘭，媽媽這樣瞞騙人，妳想對不對？對不對呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一切是環境來造成(這)無聊的命運 滿面的胭脂水粉 打扮(成正)當青春(的樣子)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;上舞台表演歌唱 引人迷魂笑紋紋 因為我待在歌壇 靠藝術賺錢[銀]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;母子[來]相依為命 勞苦無(可)議論 哪能怨嘆無情的郎君 (令人)每日心[肝]亂紛紛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【口白】&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;麗蘭，媽媽用粉用胭脂掩蓋[著]面上的皺紋，打扮著妖嬌的模樣，&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;不管別人怎麼想，媽媽只希望妳相信我，了解我。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;妳是媽媽的性命，妳可知道，媽媽每晚都做夢；&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;在[眠]夢中，妳是ㄧ個很美很美的新娘，妳的身邊也有一個很瀟灑的新郎。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;啊！不知何時，這種的場面會到？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;若真正來到，……&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;不是，ㄧ定會到。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;若到，媽媽不知有多歡喜咧，妳知道嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(因)興趣[著]唱歌(以)來 一唱已經十多年 親手來[襁]養女兒 不願靠別人&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;薄情郎離開[了]後 將[著]愛情都全放(下) 因為我待在歌壇 有能力再活動&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;期待著美麗前程 相信有好夢 用心栽培女兒花清香 是我一生的願望&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-02T10:27:03.060" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26309" CreationDate="2017-09-02T11:29:08.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taking from the other answer, I almost completed the characters. They should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蘭好。媽媽對人說，妳是我的小燈&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;，妳一定感覺真奇怪無？事實講，像媽媽這款軟弱的女性，一世人干焦好啊靠唱歌。除非是以外，也閣啥物頭路好做呢？妳也所知影，媽媽只愛的是蘭爸爸一個人。既然無蘭爸爸，我只好靠自己，靠唱歌。唱歌轉來靠歌迷，為著無願予歌迷失望。蘭好，媽媽按呢瞞騙人。妳想著毋著？著毋著呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; I heard &quot;siau-ting&quot; and 小妹 would end with &quot;mue&quot;, not &quot;ting&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess those &quot;lin&quot;s were &quot;lian | 蘭&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蘭好。媽媽用粉圓、用胭脂、暗崁著面上的皺痕，打扮著妖嬌的模樣，毋管別人按怎想，媽媽只希望蘭相信我，了解我。妳是媽媽的性命。妳敢知影，媽媽每晚眠夢，佇眠夢中，妳是一個真飄撇的新娘，妳的身軀邊也有一個真媠，真媠的新人。啊！毋知啥物時陣，这款的日子若真正爱到。毋是，一定愛到。若會到，媽媽毋知欲偌歡喜咧。你知影無？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will add transliteration and translation after I'm done with this blasted exam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Full simplified versions&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;恁好。妈妈对人讲妳是我的小灯，妳一定感觉真奇怪无？事实讲，像妈妈这款软弱的女性，一世人干焦好啊靠唱歌。除非这以外，犹阁有啥物头路好做咧？妳也所知影妈妈只爱的是恁爸爸。既然无恁爸爸，我只好靠自己，靠唱歌。唱歌转来靠歌迷，为着无愿予歌迷失望。恁好，妈妈按呢瞒骗人。妳想着毋着？着毋着咧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;恁好。妈妈用粉圆、用胭脂、暗崁着面上的皱痕，打扮着妖娇的模样，毋管別人按怎想，妈妈只希望兰相信我，了解我。妳是妈妈的性命。妳敢知影，妈妈每夜晚眠梦，伫咧眠梦中，妳是一个真飘撇的新娘，妳的身躯边也有一个真媠，真媠的新人。啊！毋知啥物时阵，这款的日子若真正爱到。毋是，一定爱到。若到，妈妈毋知欲偌欢喜咧。妳知影无？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Full translations&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hello. If mom tells others you are my little lamp, you'll surely feel pretty strange, right? To tell the truth, a woman as weak as mom can only depend on singing for her whole life. Besides this, what job could she do? You also know mom only loves your dad. Since your dad's no longer here, I can only rely on myself, on singing. Singing I come to rely on fans, because I don't want to let fans down. Hello, mama thus deceives people. Do you think it's right? Is it right or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hello. Mom uses tapioca balls and lipstick, covering the folds on her face, making up a tender and young look, no matter what others think, mom only hopes you believe in me, understand me. You are mom's life. Do you know that, every night, mom dreams, and in [her] dreams, you are a very aloof and charming new bride, and by your side there is also a very handsome, very handsome new groom? Ah! I don't know what time, [nor] if such a day can really come. No, it will surely come. If it comes, mom doesn't know how happy [she] will be. Do you know?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Full transliterations&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lín hó. Má-mah tuì lâng kóng, lí sī guá ê siáu ting, lí it-tīng | kám-kak tsin kî-kuài--bô? Sū-si̍t kóng, tshiūnn má-mah tsit-khuán | luán-lio̍k ê lú-sìng | tsi̍t-sì-lâng | kan-na hó--ah khò tshiùnn-kua. Tû-hui tsit í-guā, iah-koh ū siánn-mih thâu-lōo hó tsò--leh. Lí iā sóo tsai-iánn, má-mah tsí ài ê sī lín pa-pa tsi̍t ê lâng. Kì-liân bô lin pá-pah, guá | tsí-hó khò tsū-kí, khò tshiùnn-kua. Tshiùnn-kua - tńg-lâi khò kua-bê, uī-tio̍h bô-guān hōo kua-bê sit-bōng. Lín hó. Má-mah án-ne muâ-phiàn lâng. Lí siūnn tio̍h m̄ tio̍h? | Tio̍h m̄ tio̍h--leh?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lín hó. Má-mah iōng hún-înn, iōng ian-tsi | àm-khàm-tio̍h bīn siōng ê liâu-hûn, tánn-pān-tio̍h iau-kiau ê bôo-iūnn&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;. M̄-kuán&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; pa̍t-lâng án-tsuánn siūnn, má-mah tsí hi-bāng lín | siong-sìn guá, liáu-kái guá. Lí sī má-mah ê sìnn-miā. Lí kám tsai-iánn má-mah | muí iā-mńg bîn-bāng, tī-leh bîn-bāng tiōng, lí sī tsi̍t ê - tsin phiau-phiat ê sin-niû&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;, lí ê sin-khu-pinn | iā ū tsi̍t ê - tsin suí, | tsin suí ê sin-lâng&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt;. Ah, m̄ tsai siánn-mih sî-tsūn, tsit-khuán ê ji̍t-tsí | nā tsin-tsiànn ài kàu. M̄ sī: it-tīng ài kàu. Nā kàu, má-mah m̄ tsai beh guā&lt;sup&gt;5&lt;/sup&gt; huann-hí--leh. Lí tsai-iánn--bô?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; More like &quot;môo-īnn&quot; or even &quot;môo-uīnn&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; More like &quot;M̄-kún&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt; More like &quot;sin-niông&quot; or even &quot;sin-nòng&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt; More like &quot;sin-lìn&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;5&lt;/sup&gt; That is distinctly a non-sandhied &quot;guâ&quot;, that is, it has a clearly rising tone, which is what caused my &quot;-&quot; in the original transliteration attempt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2018-05-25T14:56:28.530" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T14:56:28.530" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26322" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26324" CreationDate="2017-09-02T14:02:30.560" Score="2" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, a friend asked me about some meaning of several sentences of classical Chinese, which I also can't understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对扬王休，用作尊彜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呜呼！余夙夜维商密，不显，谁和？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汝慎和称五权，维中是以，以长小子于位，实维永宁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今商孽竞时逋播以辅，余何循？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朕闻维时兆厥工非不显....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first sentence, I know it is about a 彜器，but especially the first part I cannot understand(I know 王is king)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second sentence, I know what 呜呼 and 夙夜means, but what is meaning of 密 ,显and 和 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the third sentence, I completely cannot understand what is 维中是以，is 维meaningless? And what is 长means here, to extend? And 小子means king?as 小子 means youngsters now(am I correct?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the  fourth sentence, from 孽to 播I completely cannot understand what the phrase means. And 余何循 means &amp;quot;how can I follow&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the fifth sentence I completely not understand everything after 闻.....&#xA;Also in all sentences I know 商 is Shang dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can somebody help me in this? This really show me incompetent in classical Chinese. No problem if explaining in Chinese. 先此致谢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:Seems nobody wish to continue the translation, so I try to use my limited knowledge to translate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呜呼 is a 叹词 ,no actual meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夙夜 day and night&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;维 no meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;密 to secret (overthrow)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;显 show&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和 be with(me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the rough meaning is :Ah! I am (trying to) secretly(overthrow) Shang dynasty day and night, I do not show this(to others),who will be with me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please correct me if I have done any mistake. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17858" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T15:32:49.040" Title="Problem in understanding classical Chinese sentences" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26322" CreationDate="2017-09-02T15:38:23.137" Score="-2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;对扬王休，用作尊彜。&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为了答谢和宣扬王的美意，做了这件尊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呜呼！余夙夜维商，密不显，谁知。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;&amp;lt;逸周书·大开武解第二十七&gt;&gt; “啊呀!我日夜在想灭商之事，保密而不公开，诸侯有谁响应呢?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;汝慎和，称五权，维中是以，以长小子于位，实维永宁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;&amp;lt;逸周书·五权解第四十六&gt;&#xA;你要认真协调衡量五权，用得适中，以抚养太子在位，实际上就有永久的安宁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今商孽竞时，逋播以以辅。余何循&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;&amp;lt;逸周书·成开解第四十七&gt;&#xA;今商纣余孽还在网罗逃亡流散之人以辅肋他们，我们当做些什么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;朕闻维时兆厥工，非不显，朕实不明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逸周书·大戒解第五十&#xA;我听说只有正直才兆示他的官职。并非此话不明显，而我实在是不明白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ref:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E5%85%8D%E5%B0%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E5%85%8D%E5%B0%8A&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://study.ccln.gov.cn/fenke/wenxueyishu/wxjpwz/wxwxpl/94442.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://study.ccln.gov.cn/fenke/wenxueyishu/wxjpwz/wxwxpl/94442.shtml&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://guji.artx.cn/article/46213.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://guji.artx.cn/article/46213.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gushiwen.org/GuShiWen_777415f262.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.gushiwen.org/GuShiWen_777415f262.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gushiwen.org/GuShiWen_c38c538e05.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.gushiwen.org/GuShiWen_c38c538e05.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xinfajia.net/2515.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.xinfajia.net/2515.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-02T15:38:23.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26322" CreationDate="2017-09-02T19:59:37.023" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;對揚王休﹒用作尊彝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this verse come from the inscription on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dpm.org.cn/collection/bronze/228134.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;免尊&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對 - 報答, to requite&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;揚 - 讚揚, to praise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王 - the king, or ruler&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;休 - 樹蔭 shade of a tree --&gt; 庇蔭 to shield --&gt; 美德 virtue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用作 - ~ use for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尊彝 - 彝 is ritual / sacrificial objects, &quot;尊彝&quot; together is a specialised term of ritual objects, roughly a bronze wine vessel needed two hand to hold ( a big goblet?), see the photo from the above link :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, the verse means roughly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to requite (對) [and] to praise (揚) the virtue (休) of [our] king (王), we make inscription (用作) on this goblet (尊彝).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the norm in ancient china was, when an ritual object (彝器) was made, some text would be inscribed onto it, for the purpose to state the rationale of manufacturing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;朕聞﹒維時兆厥工﹒非不顯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this verse is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/Page:Sibu_Congkan0250-%E5%AD%94%E6%99%81-%E6%B1%B2%E5%A1%9A%E5%91%A8%E6%9B%B8-1-1.djvu/127&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汲塚周書　大戒解&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there's a remark &quot;兆始工官言政治維是始正其官&quot; after &quot;朕實不明&quot;, in which roughly &quot;兆&quot; means &quot;始&quot;, &quot;工&quot; means &quot;官&quot;, 言 (said) 政治 ([good] governing) 維 是 (is) 始 (at the beginning) 正 (correctly [appoint]) 其(ruler's) 官 (official).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朕 - i, a specialised pronoun for ruler / king&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聞 - heard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;維 - particle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;時 - time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兆 - 始也, beginning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厥 - short of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;工 - labour, in context, 官也, official / civil servants&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非 - not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不顯 - inapparent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the context of this verse is, the 周 dynasty was just founded, there're not enough civil servants to fill the posts, in order to govern the nation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, i would interpret the verse as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i (朕, a specialised pronoun) heard (聞) [that]: at the beginning stage (時兆), there's shortage of (厥) labour (工); [such reasoning] is not (非) inapparent (不顯)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if incorporate the context directly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i (朕, a specialised pronoun) heard (聞) [that]: at the beginning stage (時兆) [of founding a nation], there's lack of (厥) officials (工 aka 官); [such reasoning] is not (非) inapparent (不顯)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今商孽競時逋播以輔﹒余何循&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this verse is from &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lost-book-of-zhou/cheng-kai/zh?searchu=%E4%BB%8A%E5%95%86%E5%AD%BD%E7%AB%B6%E6%99%82%E9%80%8B%E6%92%AD&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;逸周書﹒成開解&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今 - now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;商 - 商 dynasty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孽 - 餘孽, ~ rebel party&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;競時 - race against time, incessantly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逋播 - to flee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以 - by, through&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;輔 - assist, maybe alliance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;余 - i / we&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何 - what&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;循 - 遵循, follow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would interpret this one as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now (今), there're rebel party (孽) of previous dynasty (商), fleeing (逋播)  incessantly (競時) with (以) assistance (輔); what can (何) we (余) follow (循) [in this situation]?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;汝慎和稱五權﹒維中是以﹒以長小子於位﹒實維永寧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this verse is from &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/lost-book-of-zhou/wu-quan/zh?searchu=%E6%B1%9D%E6%85%8E%E5%92%8C%E7%A8%B1%E4%BA%94%E6%AC%8A&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;逸周書　五權解&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汝 - you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;慎 - cautiously&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和 - harmonious, aka &quot;river crab&quot; in that area :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;稱 - to weigh, this one is still used in colloquial cantonese nowadays&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五 - five&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;權 - 權術, art of politics. &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%AC%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;權&lt;/a&gt; also has the meaning of steelyard balance (秤錘); that's why &quot;稱&quot; is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;維 = 唯, only&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中 - 中道, middle path&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 - this, maybe &quot;being&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以 - 憑藉, to rely on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以 - thereby&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;長 - 養育, nurture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小子 - in context, my son, aka 周成王&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;於 - in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;位 - throne&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;實 - if realise, subjunctive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;維 - only&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;永 - long time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寧 - 安寧, peace&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you (汝) [must] weigh (稱) the five (五) art of politics (權) cautiously (慎) and harmoniously (和)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;only (維) the middle path (中), this (是) [is] reliable (以)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thereby (以), my son (小子) [could be] nurtured (長) in (於) the throne (位)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if [it's] realised (實), [there would] only (維) [be] peace (寧) for a long time (永)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that's all, i left the second one for others :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2017-09-03T20:08:44.307" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T20:08:44.307" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26325" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-02T22:05:36.030" Score="2" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;Older Chinese folks (古人) love to use 昔人，but they never use 古人 in their poem or lyrics. &lt;em&gt;(OR can someone give me an example where 古人 was actually using 古人 in their writing?)&lt;/em&gt; For instance, a favorite poem from the tang dynasty: &lt;strong&gt;昔人&lt;/strong&gt;已乘黄鹤去，此地空余黄鹤楼。黄鹤一去不复返，白云千载空悠悠。On the other hand, newer Chinese folks now rarely use the word 昔; instead, 古人 (昔人 old folks)，去年 (昔年 last year)，昨天 (昔日 yesterday)，前天 (昔日 the day after yesterday).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the preference of certain word choices shift over time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And since 昔 means 从前, technically, can we use 昔人 to replace 前妻/前女友？ OR does 昔人 have to be a 死人 (&lt;em&gt;an already deceased person&lt;/em&gt;)？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T15:37:05.630" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T15:37:05.630" Title="Modern and ancient word choice: 昔人 vs 古人 vs 前妻" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-07-16T02:47:06.697" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26325" CreationDate="2017-09-02T23:26:55.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;never? you're kidding :) the term &quot;古人&quot; is also used in poem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just a casual search: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06044428.cn#page/n72/mode/2up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;通典·卷三十二&lt;/a&gt; (end of p73, and start of 74):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;賦詩曰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;古人&lt;/strong&gt;云此水﹒一飲重千金&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;若使夷齊飲﹒終當不易心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next, 杜工部﹒ &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=71263&amp;amp;page=108&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;吾宗&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吾宗老孫子﹒質朴&lt;strong&gt;古人&lt;/strong&gt;風﹒耕鑿安時論﹒衣冠與世同&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在家常早起﹒憂國願年豐﹒語及君臣際﹒經書滿腹中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;later, 孟宗獻 wrote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;古人&lt;/strong&gt;借宅亦種竹﹒大是饕竒心未足﹒髙齋聞有萬琅玕﹒坐對懐山飲秋緑﹒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;官閒勝日無一事﹒尊酒不空仍有肉﹒他時剥啄叩君門﹒髙枕矮床容我宿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, characters are like fashion, &quot;trendy&quot; today, would out-of-date&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-09-02T23:26:55.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26311" CreationDate="2017-09-03T00:04:44.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我的钥匙/照相机丢了。 I've lost my keys/camera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我弄丢了我的钥匙/照相机。 I've lost my keys/camera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T00:04:44.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26325" CreationDate="2017-09-03T03:38:44.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;昔 becomes 书面语(literary word) nowadays.&#xA;昔人 can refer to anyone that has deceased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T03:38:44.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25816" CreationDate="2017-09-03T03:44:35.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;现在已经开发出了更快的语言Go, 为什么还要使用C++.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because Go is not developed for system level usage, it is not supposed to replace C++. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rust is the one. Use Rust.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T03:44:35.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26330" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-03T05:32:44.013" Score="8" ViewCount="2289" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some HSK test centres give the option of taking an online test (albeit supervised under exam conditions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What format does this take?  Is the audio played on a CD player to the whole room or do you get headphones connected to the computer?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The audio quality of some of the downloadable mock tests is very low — the ones I have are 11kHz MP3, and this makes comprehension unnecessarily harder.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17857" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T01:43:13.507" LastActivityDate="2021-03-25T20:29:58.727" Title="What's the format of official &quot;online&quot; HSK tests?" Tags="&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26331" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-03T11:15:48.493" Score="3" ViewCount="659" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 顿 and 道 as a measure word for meals? What each measure word stresses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃了一顿饭&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃了一道饭&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looks like 顿 used to mean 点头 diǎntóu or 鞠躬 jūgōng. If it's so, then presenting &quot;a dish&quot; with a 鞠躬 makes some sence and can explain why 顿 started to be used as a measure word for this type of thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 道 as far as I know is used for crooked thinks like roads and lightnings. Can 道 be used as &quot;a round&quot; like in boxing. &quot;Next round of meals&quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T13:32:26.223" Title="What's the difference between 顿 and 道 as a measure word for meals?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26331" CreationDate="2017-09-03T11:30:58.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;一道饭 is a wrong expression. It should be 一道菜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 顿 and 道 can be measure words. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;顿: 一顿饭，打一顿，揍一顿...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道：一道菜，一道题目，一道伤疤...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T11:30:58.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26331" CreationDate="2017-09-03T13:32:26.223" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;一頓饭 is one meal whereas 一道菜 is one course or one dish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這頓豐富的晚餐共有十二道菜。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sumptuous dinner is made up of twelve courses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T13:32:26.223" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26334" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26336" CreationDate="2017-09-03T13:59:43.397" Score="2" ViewCount="9611" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China, most people have one of 100 most common surnames (老百姓). So it is common that people have the same surname in a classroom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder how Chinese people call each other in a case where there are many people, and people are in the same hierarchy such as in a classroom, where kinship terms don't work properly, I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also learned that calling each other by given names are only allowed between closed acquaintances and good friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how do Chinese people call each other if there is no appropriate kinship terms (e.g. in a classroom, or possibly in workplace where people are in the same hierarchy)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T14:32:14.963" Title="How do Chinese people call each other?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26334" CreationDate="2017-09-03T14:24:18.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my situation,in classroom we call classmate by full name(surname  given name)(very unpolite if in workplace),but if you want to be formal than you can use full name  同学(or 先生 /经理/主任.....in workplace)Mainly in China you can also address somebody as 小surname(如：小王，小李) rather informally&#xA;As if you say address each other(face by face)than problem of surname is not important as the person knows you are talking to him.&#xA;And also 老百姓 means common people not somebody with one of the hundred common surnames(although maybe it literally means this, but not its practical meaning)&#xA;I would also like to state that not all regions of 华人(including中国人) have the same culture of addressing people because of culture of their own region&#xA;(especially 海外华人)so my answer maybe not right and you should watch more movies in china to get a more better view about how they address each other.&#xA;(This is my first post of answer so if any mistake occur please forgive me.万望海涵。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17858" LastEditorUserId="17858" LastEditDate="2017-09-03T15:10:42.903" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T15:10:42.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26334" CreationDate="2017-09-03T14:58:22.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If people are familiar with each other, they can call each other by full name, given name, nickname, etc ... There was once a new leader who came to my group and explicitly asked how we are calling each other now, and how we want to be called. The real situation in my group is that most of us call each other by a nickname (which is somehow derived from the proper name). The full name and given are also used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the two are not too familiar, they will use the full name. But the change from full name to given name or nick name can happen very quickly, maybe after only two or three conversations. One does not need permission to use the given name but should be careful with nicknames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But remember, Chinese rarely call someone with only one character. So is someone's given name has only one character, then there will be nobody calling him by only his given name (however close they are). Everybody will call him with the full name (two characters) unless there is a nickname that they like more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surname only is rarely used, as it usually contains only one character. But if the surname does have two characters, it can be used to call some one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surname + suffix can be used to call a leader, professor, teacher, etc., with suffix being the appropriate title, or to call a customer, with suffix being 先生、女士、etc. (There should be more situations that this should be used.) Classmates or colleagues do not call each other in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I went to college in Beijing and now work in a company in Beijing. The way of calling each other may be very different in different areas and may be different in different companies (this is the reason why the new-coming leader is asking about this). And this only describes how people call each other when they are familiar with each other (being classmates or colleagues), and no one is superior to the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T14:58:22.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26337" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26339" CreationDate="2017-09-03T15:43:18.250" Score="2" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;When do we use each of the following cases? Is there even a difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16137" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-09-03T15:53:25.513" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T18:19:04.580" Title="What is the difference between 中国歌, 中国之歌 and 中国的歌?" Tags="&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26337" CreationDate="2017-09-03T16:05:02.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;中国歌 means China Song&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Both 中国之歌 and 中国的歌 means song of china but the latter more like China's song rather than song of china.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17858" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-09-03T23:54:01.443" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T23:54:01.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26337" CreationDate="2017-09-03T21:14:32.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;中国歌&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;China song&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese song&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;; 中国 (China) is an adjectival noun-- the song is either about China or it is in the Chinese language. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;中国之歌&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;song of China&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;; 之 is a (relative or true) possessive determiner-- The song is either about China or China actually possesses the song. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;中国的歌&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;China's song&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;; 的 is a (true) possessive determiner-- China actually possesses the song. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Difference between true possessive and relative possessive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 in 将死之人 is a relative possessive determiner. 将死 is not a noun, therefore it can't possess the object 人. 之 only indicates 人 belong to the state of 将死.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 中国 in 中国之歌 is the subject noun, then 之 would indicate the song belong to China--it is China's song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 中国 in 中国之歌 is an adjectival noun, then 之 would indicate the song is about China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-27T23:49:04.233" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T23:49:04.233" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26340" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-04T01:06:16.360" Score="0" ViewCount="674" Body="&lt;p&gt;The information given in the Moments aka 朋友圈 of the application of WeChat often tries to show some 情怀 to catch the eyeball of readers,but what is the equivalent for this phrase? Passion? Compassion? Zeal? Enthusiasm?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T14:40:00.910" Title="What is the equivalent in English for 情怀？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26325" CreationDate="2017-09-04T02:54:19.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;昔人 doesn't have to be 死人. Honestly, I've never heard anyone calling his ex 昔人, but I think it's usable. Maybe too poetic for daily life, and so you might need to explain it to people further, unless you use it in a poem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;故人 is a little more common than 昔人 in modern Chinese, but still, quite poetic. If you call your ex 一位故人， than probably you are implying that you two had a subtle past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16479" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T15:10:44.737" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T15:10:44.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26334" CreationDate="2017-09-04T03:21:34.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't quite understand the word 'kinship', but let me try to answer your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First there's a mistake in your question. The 100 most common surname is not '老百姓'， it is '百家姓'。 ‘老百姓’ means 'people', 'civilians' or 'folks', somthing like that...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, you're right about the given name principle. If you're a close friend of your classmate, you can call her given name. Otherwise, you call her full name. Anyway, names are very short in Chinese. Or, you can call her nickname, students often have nicknames, as long as it's not harmful. If he/she is one(or more) grade higher than you, you call them '学长/学姐'， or '师兄/师姐'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adults always try to look mature...Instead of nickname, they use age to distinguish...appellation.(Do I use this word correctly?) If he/she is older than you, you call them X哥/X姐. If he/she joined the company earlier than you, ‘前辈’ is a good choise. Don't try to call X弟/X妹 to someone younger than you. I don't know why! Just don't! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be attention, this rules only applied to people in the same hierarchy, as you asked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16479" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T03:21:34.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26337" CreationDate="2017-09-04T06:17:39.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides the lexical differences identified by others, in daily circumstances, typically 中国歌 means a song published from China in Chinese by Chinese people with China style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国之歌 means the song is about 中国.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We are the Champions is a 冠军之歌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sweet Home Alabama could be a 阿拉巴马之歌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国的歌 means from China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;关于什么什么的歌 equal to 什么什么之歌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冠军之歌 = 关于冠军的歌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-27T23:50:17.513" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T23:50:17.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26344" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-04T09:55:13.483" Score="4" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is 俞敏洪 speaking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个问题两说，我建议想清楚了一件事情以后再去做，只要想清楚了，你就要不断往前， 只要资源允许，时间，能力没问题，你都要坚持去做。 这就和战争一样总是要看到当时当地的情况才能下决定，绝对没有一个规则套在这里，大家以后就不用去思考。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;绝对没有一个规则[套]在这里&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(there is) absolutely no rule/principle [hidden] in this,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(there is) absolutely no rule/principle [one can follow] here,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(there is) absolutely no rule/principle [applicable] here, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know of：&#xA;套用规则：apply a rule&#xA;自动套用：auto format&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this 套 mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-27T23:45:05.553" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T23:45:05.553" Title="What does 套 mean in ...绝对没有一个规则套在这里...?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26344" CreationDate="2017-09-04T10:16:15.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, '套' means &amp;quot;restrict&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;set&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;规则(rule) is a form of &lt;strong&gt;restriction&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;规则(rules) are being &lt;strong&gt;set&lt;/strong&gt; by people .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;被规则套着&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;be restricted by rule&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;绝对没有一个规则[套]在这里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is absolutely no rule/principle [&lt;strong&gt;is set&lt;/strong&gt;] here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He mentioned &amp;quot;it is like war, we can only make a decision after considering many different elements&amp;quot; suggested he meant &amp;quot;there's no set rules&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T10:21:41.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26344" CreationDate="2017-09-04T10:45:03.903" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that 套 is short for 套用 here, meaning &quot;apply mechanically&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, the author conveys there isn't such a rule/principle that could work for all the circumstances, so that we don't have to worry once applying it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that in mind, I gather you should be able to wording it much better than I do as an English native. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my shot:&#xA;(there is) absolutely no rule/principle fixing(or being applied) here, so we don't have to worry about it any more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On top of that, if the sentence is written as 绝对没有一个规则&lt;strong&gt;被套用&lt;/strong&gt;在这里, would it be more understandable to you? In fact, it's a passive voice sentence with some omissions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-04T13:11:08.293" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T13:11:08.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26344" CreationDate="2017-09-04T11:16:48.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with @dan's explanation on the meaning of 套, ie apply a rule mechanically without thinking, but I don't agree with his translation in the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the translation should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no universal rule to be applied here and we can't apply any rule without thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T11:16:48.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26330" CreationDate="2017-09-04T11:38:13.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We got headphones connected to the computers but this may depend on your test center. The quality was decent, but i think the tracks would only play once so you have to pay extra attention (i'm not sure though, maybe someone who took the test more recently can confirm).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17839" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T11:38:13.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26344" CreationDate="2017-09-04T14:17:03.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;套 means apply something blindly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我不会打排球.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 那你就把打篮球的方法套在这里.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when it is used as adjective, it means something that could be used blindly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: blablabla&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 别跟我说这些套话. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is usually negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T14:17:03.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26334" CreationDate="2017-09-04T14:32:14.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Strangers:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大哥, 大姐, 大妈, 阿姨, 叔叔...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Informal groups (classroom...)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;张三, 李四, complete name for daily  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;三儿, 四儿, given name for friends&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;二狗子, 大黄 nickname for best friends&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;formal groups (workplace)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;张工, 李总 title, 工 is short for 工程师, 总 for 总经理&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三儿, 四儿 given name&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;张三, 李四 comlete name&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I also learned that calling each other by given names are only allowed&#xA;  between closed acquaintances and good friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is not a big deal if it is not a business context.  There is a saying, &#xA;一回生, 二回熟 &#xA;You call someone given name twice, you will be &quot;good friends&quot;( seemingly )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T14:32:14.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26351" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26354" CreationDate="2017-09-04T16:29:37.397" Score="3" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I explained to my aunt (from Taiwan) that I could not attend the class in 台灣閩南語 in the past because my Chinese was very basic and the class was taught in Chinese. In this context I used a sentence like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的中文水平不夠了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My aunt remarked I should not use 水平，but 程度。 I searched the internet and found countless examples of 英語水平：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有私人教育集團今日（15日）公布本年度全球成人英語水平報告。(&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hk01.com/%E6%B8%AF%E8%81%9E/54402/%E6%B8%AF%E4%BA%BA%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E%E6%B0%B4%E5%B9%B3%E5%85%A8%E7%90%83%E6%8E%9230-%E9%81%9C%E6%98%9F%E9%A6%AC%E5%8D%97%E9%9F%93%E8%8F%B2%E5%BE%8B%E8%B3%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;香港人的英语水平为何不如上海？ (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001062730&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;测试您的英语水平，让您脱颖而出 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.efset.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why to opt for 程度 in the aforementioned context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T16:17:09.610" Title="水平 VS 程度 in the context of language proficiency" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26351" CreationDate="2017-09-04T18:15:43.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的中文水平不夠 (without 了)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is right absolutely.  With 了, it means 水平够 in the past, but nowadays 不够了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it is a problem about region difference, for example I know that some region prefer 水准 instead of 水平.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文程度 is wrong, it should be 中文XX程度, XX can be 掌握, 了解, 精通 or 熟悉....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, 水平 is equal to 程度: 中文水平不够 = 中文的掌握程度不够&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T18:15:43.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26351" CreationDate="2017-09-04T19:57:06.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 水平 and 程度 can be translated as &quot;level&quot; in the context of measuring personal or collective ability like proficiency, effectiveness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文水平 = &quot;Chinese language (proficiency) level&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文程度 = &quot;Chinese language (proficiency) level &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 程度 has broader range in usage. It can describe the degree or level of anything that can be measured or compared. For example, popularity, severity,  credibility and many more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;受歡迎程度 = popularity&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;嚴重程度 = severity&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;可信程度 = credibility&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since proficiency can also be measured, '中文程度' is a valid term. However, the term '中文程度', depend on context, can applied to: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;這個人的&lt;strong&gt;中文程度&lt;/strong&gt;很高-  &lt;em&gt;This person's Chinese language (proficiency) level is high&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;這所學校的&lt;strong&gt;中文程度&lt;/strong&gt;很高- &lt;em&gt;The (difficulty) level of Chinese language courses in this school is high&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You cannot say 受歡迎水平, 嚴重水平 or 可信水平, because none of them is a ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-04T20:50:10.630" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T20:50:10.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26351" CreationDate="2017-09-04T22:38:43.733" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are differences regarding the terminology usage from different regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, 我的中文水平不夠 sounds more natural. I guess 我中文程度不够 could be more natural to folks from Taiwan. If you add a modifier for 程度: 我中文&lt;strong&gt;理解&lt;/strong&gt;程度不够, then it would be more natural to me。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水平 means 'level' and it's typically measured by 高（high） and 低（low）. For example, you could say 我中文水平不高, 我中文水平比较低.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;程度 means 'extent', it's typically measured by 深（deep） and 浅(shallow) . For example, 我对中文理解程度不深, 我对中文理解的很浅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some other alternatives to express 我中文水准不够: 我中文水平不行， 我中文不行，我中文水准不行， 我中文水准不够, 我中文不够水准. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T22:38:43.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26355" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26356" CreationDate="2017-09-04T22:52:37.537" Score="3" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading my textbook and I notice that the the pinyin next to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;东边&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is written as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;dōng​bian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the &lt;strong&gt;first tone&lt;/strong&gt; not present on the &lt;strong&gt;bian&lt;/strong&gt;? The weird thing is that in my other textbook the pinyin translation of &lt;strong&gt;东边&lt;/strong&gt; shows both the first tones present? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain to me this, I do not remember there being a rule like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17614" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T01:39:26.173" Title="How come the first tone in the character of 边 in the word 东边 is not written?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26355" CreationDate="2017-09-04T23:55:36.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, there is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Neutral_tone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;neutral tone&lt;/a&gt; (轻声) which does not have any tone marks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the word 东边, the &quot;边&quot; can be pronounced with a neutral tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T23:55:36.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26357" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-05T00:24:44.737" Score="5" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there other Chinese cities besides 厦门 and 澳门 which end in 门 and what does 门 mean in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T06:25:15.913" Title="What is the 门 in 厦门 and 澳门？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26357" CreationDate="2017-09-05T01:22:47.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A place's name ended with 门 (gate/door) is usually an entry point of a city, providence or region. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first part of the name may not even necessary be the providence's name. For example, 鲤鱼门 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lei_Yue_Mun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lei Yue Mun&lt;/a&gt;) is the east gate of Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, but it isn't called Victoria Harbour Gate, because  the name Victoria Harbour didn't exist 200 years ago. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why it is called 鲤鱼门 (Lei Yue Mun), no one know for sure. May be it came from the legend of &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AF%89%E8%BA%8D%E9%BE%8D%E9%96%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鯉躍龍門&lt;/a&gt; (A carp that can jump over the top of Dragon Gate Fall would turn into a dragon), maybe it's because the terrain there looked like a 鲤鱼 (carp), or may be it was famous for carp fishing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-09-05T05:14:09.440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T05:14:09.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26355" CreationDate="2017-09-05T01:39:26.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;东边 in online 新华字典(the most authoritative dictionary in China) is marked with &lt;strong&gt;dōngbiān&lt;/strong&gt;. So the correct answer is &quot;dōngbiān&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, it could often be pronounced as dōngbian, but the standard mandarin should be &quot;dōngbiān&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you should fill with &quot;dōngbiān&quot; in any types of exams. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T01:39:26.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26351" CreationDate="2017-09-05T05:06:34.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/4/14a/323498.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdict&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水平:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(2) [standard; level]∶在某一专业方面所达到的高度&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore you should always use “水平” in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in real life, it would be quite strange to say “英语程度”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T05:06:34.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26363" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-05T05:08:45.553" Score="-1" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you guys tell me the meaning of this sentences in english&#xA;Its about a love story from a book. And the rich guy just gave the girl of gifts/money ( i dont know if its relevant) but the girl posted this probably for the guy to see.&#xA;Is it. A good or a bad sign? Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但便捷的本质 &#xA;并不是让你的麻烦凭空消失 &#xA;而是另一个特定的群体 &#xA;替你经历了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the girl hinted that she is testing this guy if he is a suitable partner for herself (i dont know if its relevant abot the sentences also)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17708" LastEditorUserId="17708" LastEditDate="2017-09-05T05:17:02.000" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T05:27:15.083" Title="Translation of a long phrase 但便捷的本质 并不是让你的麻烦凭空消失 而是另一个特定的群体 替你经历了" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26357" CreationDate="2017-09-05T05:21:37.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are just names.  But some stories can be found for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The name of 厦门 comes from 厦门城 (AD 1387). 厦门城 means “国家大厦之门”--the entrance of the nation &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8E%A6%E9%97%A8%E5%9F%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 澳门 comes from 濠镜澳, which means 盛产蚝且水域如镜的港湾 &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%BE%B3%E9%96%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, 门 means gate/port when is found in a city's name.  But sometimes it is from some historical events/location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T05:21:37.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26363" CreationDate="2017-09-05T05:27:15.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It basically means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The essence of convenience is not to make troubles disappear but to&#xA;  transfer troubles to others who would solve them for you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a bad sign.  It means that the girl thinks that the guy thinks money can solve any problem and does not see the effort of others who are paid to do the work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T05:27:15.083" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26357" CreationDate="2017-09-05T06:18:09.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Door/Gate/Outlet/Entrance&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiamen#Name&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Xiamen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The name was formerly written using the Chinese characters meaning &quot;Lower Gate&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lower Gate should equate to 下门.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When its port prospered under the Qing, the name was considered unrefined and changed to homophonous characters meaning &quot;Mansion Gate&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mansion Gate is the current name 厦门.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macau#Etymology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Macau&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The present Chinese name (Chinese: 澳門; pinyin: Àomén; Cantonese Yale: Oumún) means &quot;Bay Outlet&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Gate&lt;/strong&gt; exists in British English also but with a very different meaning (road), think:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Gate Helmsley&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Harrogate&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and second similar idea is found on the wiki page for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Toponymy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;George R. Stewart theorized, in his book Names on the Globe, that Hellespont originally meant something like &quot;narrow Pontus&quot; or &quot;entrance to Pontus&quot;, &quot;Pontus&quot; being an ancient name for the region around the Black Sea, and by extension, for the sea itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-09-05T06:25:15.913" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T06:25:15.913" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26351" CreationDate="2017-09-05T16:11:15.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is just my experience, and applies to the terms &lt;em&gt;shuiping&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;chengdu&lt;/em&gt; in the context of language proficiency only.&#xA;As Dan already mentioned in his answer, I believe the usage is regional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, the term &lt;em&gt;chengdu&lt;/em&gt; is used in the same way &lt;em&gt;shuiping&lt;/em&gt; is used on the mainland.&#xA;The term &lt;em&gt;shuiping&lt;/em&gt; is understood, but I have not heard it used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the mainland, &lt;em&gt;shuiping&lt;/em&gt; is much more frequently used than &lt;em&gt;chengdu&lt;/em&gt; to describe language proficiency, though I cannot vouch that &lt;em&gt;chengdu&lt;/em&gt; isn’t more common in some areas I didn’t visit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Skimming through different Chinese-Chinese dictionaries (some from mainland, some from Taiwan), I found that all of them have entries for both &lt;em&gt;shuiping&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;chengdu&lt;/em&gt;.&#xA;And while the term &lt;em&gt;chengdu&lt;/em&gt; is unambiguous, all dictionaries not only define &lt;em&gt;shuiping&lt;/em&gt; as (water) level (and related meanings), but also as &lt;em&gt;chengdu&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;shuizhun&lt;/em&gt; 水準. &lt;em&gt;Shuizhun&lt;/em&gt; seems to be used more in Taiwan, but I don’t recall hearing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionaries I checked are: Hanyu da cidian, Longman advanced Chinese, Guifan cidian, and the Ministry of education dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My background: I spent six months in Taiwan and a good year on the mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastEditorUserId="11341" LastEditDate="2017-09-05T16:17:09.610" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T16:17:09.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26368" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26370" CreationDate="2017-09-05T17:37:04.210" Score="5" ViewCount="833" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading a book in which the author used both 皇帝 and 皇上 to say 'The Emperor'. I'm a bit confused about why the author would use two words (that according to my knowledge have the same meaning) to refer to the same person in one story.&#xA;Could anyone please tell me the difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-09-06T04:00:24.657" Title="The difference between 皇帝 and 皇上" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26368" CreationDate="2017-09-05T19:29:39.240" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;'皇帝' is a title for 'Emperor' (n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'皇上' is an honorific (n), exclusively reserved for an emperor. It is like &quot;Your Majesty&quot; or &quot;His Majesty&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You address an emperor as '皇上/陛下/主上/聖上' (Your Majesty) when you are speaking to him&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You refer an emperor in third person by his honorific '皇上/陛下/主上/聖上' (His Majesty) or by his title '皇帝' (Emperor)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You do not address an emperor by his title '皇帝' (Emperor) in front of him&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The nickname '萬歲爺' (The great one who will live for ten thousand years) is also used to refer to the emperor in third person&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literal meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;皇上 (emperor above); 陛下 (The one who stands at the bottom of the stairs to the throne); 主上 (master above); 聖上 (virtuous one above)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'陛下' is the one still in use in modern Chinese language.  皇上, 主上 and 聖上 are all archaic terms. They can only be found in something like period dramas on T.V&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-06T04:00:24.657" LastActivityDate="2017-09-06T04:00:24.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26368" CreationDate="2017-09-06T00:34:05.927" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Compared with 皇上, 皇帝 is a bit more formal. That's why 皇上 could be used as a normal addressing term by his subjects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the word of 皇帝，皇 means emperor/sovereign and 帝 refers to empire(帝国, the country in the feudal system). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As 皇帝 connotes 'the country/empire' and his supreme power, it would be used when engaging the concept of country, emphasizing his supreme power, or both. Examples, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;An emissary from another country would call the empire 皇帝陛下, because there are two countries involved here. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我才是这个国家的皇帝！It emphasizes both his supreme power and the emperor of the country.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;封建帝国的统治者是皇帝！It emphasizes his supreme power and also engages the concept of 封建帝国.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;皇帝的尊严！ It emphasizes his supreme power.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of time, 皇帝 and 皇上 are interchangeable in other normal contexts. For example, 我是皇帝==我是皇上，皇上旨意==皇帝旨意，他想做皇上==他想做皇帝... ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-06T00:45:44.383" LastActivityDate="2017-09-06T00:45:44.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26372" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-06T00:44:44.760" Score="2" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just read &lt;a href=&quot;http://japan.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0901/c368584-29510335.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the article&lt;/a&gt; titled &lt;em&gt;睡眠时间男女不同 日本女性很难入睡&lt;/em&gt;, and in the article, I read the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;据《读卖新闻》下属的网络媒体报道，在几乎所有主要国家中，女性睡眠都比较好，尤其是北欧国家的女性&lt;strong&gt;处在&lt;/strong&gt;容易睡眠的环境中。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I learned that 处在 is a synonym of 处于, and the meaning of 处于 is &quot;be&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are also many similar words in Mandarin that mean &quot;be&quot; - 是，为，当, etc... (maybe 处在 includes the meaning of &quot;in&quot; in English but still, 是在 seems to work just like 处在). What is the difference of 处在/处于 from these words and in what kind of situation should these words be preferred? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;UPDATE&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry if my question is obscure, but I would like to know the difference between 处于/处在 and other similar words (e.g. 是，为，当), not the difference between 处于 and 处在.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-09-06T08:35:28.977" LastActivityDate="2018-02-17T07:22:18.573" Title="In what kind of contexts should you use 处于/处在?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26372" CreationDate="2017-09-06T00:56:34.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of time they are interchangeable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'处于/处在 ... XXXX' means 'be in the XXXX of ...'. In this context, it's &quot;be in the environment of&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 处在容易睡眠的环境中 == 处于容易睡眠的环境中 == be in the environment of &quot;easy-to-sleep&quot; or be in the easy-to-sleep environment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;处于 has more literary flavor than 处在, as 于 is a classical character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could be different according to the contexts, but basically, 是=be, 为=for, 当=as. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-06T01:30:02.733" LastActivityDate="2017-09-06T01:30:02.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26376" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-06T18:55:48.890" Score="1" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;范畴论&quot; seems to be the correct term for &quot;Category Theory&quot;, a relatively modern and popular branch of mathematics. Therefore I find the suggested translation &quot;general nonsense&quot;, I checked various dictionaries and platforms, a bit troublesome or maybe undiplomatic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a reason for this  suggestion of translation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9323" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T00:15:11.217" Title="Why is it suggested to &quot;范畴论&quot; translated with &quot;general nonsense&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26376" CreationDate="2017-09-07T00:15:11.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_nonsense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_nonsense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In mathematics, abstract nonsense, general abstract nonsense, and general nonsense are terms used by mathematicians to describe abstract methods related to category theory and homological algebra. More generally, “abstract nonsense” may refer to a proof that relies on category-theoretic methods, or even to the study of category theory itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T00:15:11.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26308" CreationDate="2017-09-07T03:50:25.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;對於上個回答我感到抱歉&#xA;I am sorry for the last answer!&#xA;我想最有可能的原因是&quot;口音&quot;的關係&#xA;The most reason is the 'Pronunciation'!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在古代中國的人口就不少,再加上氣候變遷戰亂造成的人口移動!&#xA;在冷兵器的時代大規模的人口的移動本身也很容易引發戰亂.扯遠了~&#xA;通常命名一個族群通常是因為商業上或官方上的需求&#xA;(雙方需要交易,且沒有一方有絕對的武力優勢)&#xA;通常會以地理環境,或者對方怎麼稱呼自己,發展出的命名法則!&#xA;當然名稱是會變得~但那又扯遠了,或者要說很多...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Uzbek&#xA;'乌孜别克'和'乌兹别克'以中文來發音,兩者並沒有不同,這明顯是個音譯(用聲音翻譯)而不是意譯(用意思翻譯)!&#xA;也就是說,你就算把Uzbek寫成'汙齜蹩剋'也是可以的!&#xA;只是'汙齜蹩剋'這些音沒有問題,但個別字的字義就有非常的糟糕!&#xA;如果我是個Uzbek的人且明白中文的字義,你的國家把我的國家翻譯成'汙齜蹩剋',我肯定會找你拼命的!所以在國家翻譯尤其是音譯不會選擇明顯帶有歧異的字眼!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastEditorUserId="13352" LastEditDate="2017-09-07T03:55:38.687" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T03:55:38.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26379" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26381" CreationDate="2017-09-07T09:22:59.060" Score="4" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is &quot;@&quot;  &quot;at&quot; called when giving an email over the phone?&#xA;Is it different in different regions?  I have heard it as &quot;XiaoLong ...&quot; or something similar to that in Taiwan, but not sure what exactly they are saying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17881" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-19T06:07:30.580" LastActivityDate="2020-08-20T01:35:54.797" Title="What is @ (&quot;at&quot;) called when giving an email address over the phone?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26379" CreationDate="2017-09-07T09:26:35.330" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard at least two versions personally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One is to use the English reading of &quot;at&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other is &quot;圈(儿)a&quot;. Meaning &quot;a&quot; with a circle around it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be different in different regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T09:26:35.330" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26379" CreationDate="2017-09-07T13:09:23.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As pointed out by @Daniel Yeung above, they call it 小老鼠 (Xiao3 Lao3 Shu3）in Taiwan, which means 'little mouse'. Takes a little imagination to see the resemblance. &#xA;I think that is precisely what you heard over the phone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17879" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T13:09:23.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26379" CreationDate="2017-09-07T13:31:57.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我觉得没有什么特别的叫法，只是音译（根据发音翻译）一般叫“艾特” means @&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T13:31:57.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26340" CreationDate="2017-09-07T14:40:00.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depicts a glimpse of private sentiment, or the emotional affinity that draws a person towards certain people or things. 情懷（情怀） is a very subjective term in the sense that it points to something essential within a person, that marks his or her individuality. The feeling can be subtle but it is always expressive; never the kind of private sentiment that is shy, covert or concealed. &#xA;The《漢語大詞典》gives three meanings for the term, ranging from very personal feelings to manifest disposition (English translations are my own): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;心情：personal feelings 　　唐杜甫《北征》詩：「老夫情懷惡，嘔泄臥數日。」 　　Tu Fu is not in a good mood because he's been bedridden from vomiting and diarrhoea for&#xA;  several days.  　　郁達夫《過去》：“兩旁店家的燈火，照耀得很明亮，反照出了些離人的孤獨的情懷。” 　　The bright&#xA;  lights from the shop-houses is contrasted with the loneliness of those&#xA;  who are leaving.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;情趣、興致：interest, enthusiasm, proclivity, a delight in things 　　清袁枚《隨園詩話補遺》卷五：“劉郎去後情懷減，不肯紅粧直到今。” 　　The maiden in question has lost&#xA;  interest declined to wear make-up ever since the male lead, a youth&#xA;  named Liu, left her. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;猶胸懷：disposition akin to high-mindedness 　　峻青《海嘯》第二章：“為革命事業而獻身，就是你畢生的高尚情懷。”    Self-sacrifice for the noble&#xA;  cause of the Revolution is a testament to your high-mindedness.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17879" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T14:40:00.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26384" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26385" CreationDate="2017-09-08T00:05:55.060" Score="4" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other day I went to a Chinese supermarket in Toronto to buy one and a half pound of minced meat. I told the meat department operator that I want &quot;磅半碎肉&quot; in Cantonese. That guy gave me half a pound instead. I repeated my request in English, but he didn't seem to understand it. Then I said &quot;磅半&quot; in Mandarin. He still thought I was asking for 'half a pound' instead of 'one and a half pound'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until a Mandarin speaking lady beside me said to him: &quot;他想要一磅半的碎肉&quot;, then he gave me the correct amount of minced meat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering, in Cantonese, omitting the counting word '一' before a measurement classifier followed by '半' is a common practice. We usually say &quot;寸半, 尺半, 磅半, 噸半&quot; instead of &quot;一寸半, 一尺半, 一磅半, 一噸半&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question : 'Is 一 not omitted in Mandarin when it comes to measurement classifiers followed by '半'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I don't think I pronounced my order so badly that he didn't know what I wanted, because he did give me half a pound of minced meat at first)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-09T03:51:48.673" LastActivityDate="2017-09-09T03:51:48.673" Title="Is 一 not omitted in Mandarin when it comes to measurement classifiers followed by '半'?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26384" CreationDate="2017-09-08T00:11:07.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. It is not omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, &quot;一寸半, 一尺半, 一磅半, 一噸半&quot; cannot be said as &quot;寸半, 尺半, 磅半, 噸半&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T00:11:07.093" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26386" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26388" CreationDate="2017-09-08T02:24:35.997" Score="2" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, you can use 一係 to present two options. For instance, you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Either eat or go&quot; =&gt; 一係食一係走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, someone said 或者 is similar but lacks the same emphasis and force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, Mandarin speakers wouldn't say 或者吃或者走 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's the Mandarin equivalent for 一係?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2017-09-08T06:57:56.003" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T06:57:56.003" Title="What is the Mandarin equivalent of Cantonese's 一係 A 一係 B?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26387" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26389" CreationDate="2017-09-08T02:24:50.227" Score="1" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the Chinese word for &quot;banana&quot; &quot;香蕉&quot;? Where did it come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17886" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T23:50:59.187" Title="What is the origin of the word &quot;香蕉?&quot;" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26386" CreationDate="2017-09-08T02:41:03.453" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;An equivalent expression is:&#xA;要麽 before each option&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要麽吃，要麽走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either eat or go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要麽你去，要麽他去，我不能去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either you go or he goes; I can't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T02:41:03.453" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26387" CreationDate="2017-09-08T04:27:00.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the 《&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=cb1cOJ&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec=sec1&amp;amp;op=v&amp;amp;view=0-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國語詞典&lt;/a&gt;》，the「香」in「香蕉」came from the sweetness of its fruit （果實香甜）。Chinese etymology does not draw a clean line between the sense of taste and the sense of smell, which is pretty scientific when you think of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-connection-between-taste-and-smell&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;close relation&lt;/a&gt; between the olfactory and gustatory system. Therefore, the honeydew,「香瓜」, is also known as「甜瓜」. The meaning and etymology of「蕉」is much more complicated. The short answer will be, the term generally denotes plants belonging to the Musaceae family（芭蕉科）, of which the banana is a very well known member. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17879" LastEditorUserId="17879" LastEditDate="2017-09-08T04:59:44.917" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T04:59:44.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26391" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26400" CreationDate="2017-09-08T08:51:14.417" Score="0" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you call “grammatical case” in Chinese? I mean the property of grammar where nouns change based on their function in sentence, for instance like in Russian or to lesser extent in German.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found 语义格 and 格语法, the second one seems better. Are there better ways to say that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also: how to say “case ending”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T23:42:05.220" Title="How to say “grammatical case” in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26308" CreationDate="2017-09-08T09:06:01.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The distinction is not a strict rule. According the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B9%8C%E5%85%B9%E5%88%AB%E5%85%8B%E6%96%AF%E5%9D%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B9%8C%E5%AD%9C%E5%88%AB%E5%85%8B%E6%97%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; Wiki, both spelling can be used to denote either the country or the ethnic group. A quick search for both terms will show that they can be used interchangeably. It is good practice, however, to standardize the spelling within a single document so as not to bring about unnecessary confusion. I would not recommend making the differentiation in formal writing, unless you have something to say about it. (Such as, needing a shorthand to differentiate between Uzbeks who are Chinese nationals and those who are not.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has its own convention for transliterating proper nouns from a foreign language. As long as the convention (primarily phonetic, often also lyrical) is followed and people can easily see what you mean from the context, you will be doing fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Uzbel Pass, for example, has been rendered as「烏仔別里」、「烏茲別里」and「烏斯別里」in the《西北邊界地名譯漢考》and《清續文獻通考》published respectively in the late Qing and early Republican period, less than two decades apart. These are encyclopedic documents which record both historical and contemporary spellings of the term, so you get an idea of how the language works over here.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The preference for「孜」in place of「茲」to name the people within Chinese administrative region in this case is likely to be based on lyrical and/or practical grounds rather than brute politics. The latter is usually used as a preposition or pronoun to mean this, here or now in formal writing. On the other hand, the former has the unambiguous positive meanings of diligence and meticulousness. Which, incidentally, makes the differentiation a good way of making distinctions between the specific (Chinese nationals) and the general (Uzbeks in general) . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@user6065 has provided a very good lead. 「茲」is actually a heteronym with an alternative pronunciation of ci2, which is commonly used in foreign place names like 「龜茲國」(qiu1 ci2 guo2, also written as 「兹」, to show its affiliation with 「慈」). The point of contention over here is that the Uzbeks call themselves Oʻzbek, with a voiced and inaspirated consonant 'z' (sounds like 'Ooh-ze-bek') in the middle, while the Russians call them узбек (sounds like 'Uh-s-bek') , with an unvoiced [s] sound in the middle. The [s] is deemed to be aspirated, like ci2. (It is not; aspirated [s] should sound like the front 'S' in 'States'.) Therefore the choice of 「孜」 in place of 「茲」 is deliberately made as a show of amity: by calling the Uzbeks as they call themselves, rather than as the Russians call them. In fact, the phonemic contrast in question over here between Oʻzbek and узбек is actually that of the voiced [z] and unvoiced [s] rather than the aspirated [tsh] and unaspirated [ts] (between ci2 and zi1). Moreover, 「兹」(ci2) is historically pronounced with the voiced consonant [z], like Oʻzbek. So there actually is a more erudite way (traditionally adopted by the Chinese) to express friendship - that is, to be loyal to the original transliteration, based on middle Chinese pronunciations and read it as it is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@hinen, check &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%9B%9B%E4%B8%96%E6%89%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; out: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;盛世才（1897年1月8日－1970年7月13日），字晉庸，滿族，中華民國陸軍將領，遼寧省開原盛家屯村人，中華民國新疆省政府主席，1933年至1944年間新疆軍事、政治首長，有「新疆王」之稱。盛世才早年為奉系軍人，後投靠新疆軍閥金樹仁，屢立戰功，1933年新疆發生兵變，陳中、白受之、鄭潤成、巴品古特等人驅逐金樹仁，盛世才乘機取得了大位。盛世才治下的新疆，雖未宣布獨立，但&lt;strong&gt;完全脫離中華民國國民政府的控制&lt;/strong&gt;，那一時期的新疆，拒絕懸掛國民政府的青天白日滿地紅旗，而是懸掛盛氏政權的「六角星旗」。**1941年1月，盛世才曾向蘇聯提議：成立突厥斯坦蘇維埃共和國，脫離中華民國，加盟蘇聯。**鑑於當時中蘇的同盟關係，史達林拒絕了這一提議。1943年，盛世才加入中國國民黨，並表示「矢志擁護中央，盡忠黨國，絕對服從領袖」。隨後，盛世才取消了六大政策，六角星旗亦換為中國國民黨的青天白日旗。但此後因國民政府主席蔣中正對新疆用兵，盛世才開始採取對策，準備把中國國民黨勢力逐出新疆。為尋找退路，盛世才企圖再次投靠蘇聯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As pointed out by @NanningYouth, China was still under the Nationalist Government in 1934. Xinjiang under Sheng's rule nonetheless refused to kowtow to the Nationalist government till as late as 1943. Even so, his submission did not last long. Moreover, Sheng suggested in 1941 that Xinjiang should join the Soviet Union and relinquish any relationship with China. This shows that Sheng is more likely to be pro-Russian than pro-China (Sheng was ethnically Manchu, not Chinese), and whatever considerations he had when he proposed a differentiation of the term, it was definitely not in service of the Chinese government at that time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The PRC government of today is merely an (possibly passive) inheritor of whatever custom that's been left behind. There's not doubt they may try to tweak the situation to their own advantage, but till now I've seen no concrete evidence that this has been done, as far as the naming of the ethnic group is concerned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the above, here's a summarized conjecture of the possible political motivation (if any) behind Sheng's choice when he proposed to make that differentiation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We know that 「茲」can be pronounced as zi1 or ci2, with zi1 closer to the s in the Russian name, узбек, (don't get confused with the 'z' in the hanyupinyin) and ci2 closer to the voiced [z] in the Uzbek name, Oʻzbek.（Contrary to what is proclaimed in this &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:%E4%B9%8C%E5%AD%9C%E5%88%AB%E5%85%8B%E6%97%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt;.) Some Chinese dialect still preserve the voiced「兹」ci2 today, such as the Shanghainese Wu dialect, which reads「兹」as [zɦ]. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「孜」shares with「茲」the former pronunciation. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Given that「茲」can be pronounced both the Russian way AND the Uzbek way, it is highly possible that Sheng chose「孜」to deliberately &lt;em&gt;pick&lt;/em&gt; the Russian way of pronouncing 'Uzbek'. (Our current English pronunciation of 'Uzbek' is also closer to the Russian reading.) That Sheng was pro-Russia made this even more possible. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All said, the above 'political motivation' remains a conjecture and awaits more evidence to prove if it is true or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17879" LastEditorUserId="17879" LastEditDate="2017-09-11T05:41:17.597" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T05:41:17.597" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26391" CreationDate="2017-09-08T09:26:42.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is just &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A0%BC_(%E8%AF%AD%E6%B3%95)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;格&lt;/a&gt;, while the Wikipedia page also lists 语义格 as a possibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;格语法 is not acceptable, as it would mean a &lt;strong&gt;grammar&lt;/strong&gt; of some kind, but not &quot;case&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;case ending&quot; might be 格词尾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T09:26:42.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26394" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-08T11:50:45.353" Score="0" ViewCount="491" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you guys translate this message for me. I used a translator and it's inaccurate. And I want to know who slipped the message inside the book. The grandfather, the girl (who posted the message) or another stranger? Or is the grandfather the stranger? And who owns the book? The girl, the stranger or the grandfather? It's about a story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please also give me a clear translation of everything, thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1⃣️又体会到有同桌的喜悦感&#xA;2⃣️来自一个陌生人的温暖 （本来将书放在门口老爷爷那里保管下 拿回来的时候老爷爷在书里夹了张祝福纸条  感动至极 ）❤️&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aqptf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17708" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-09-08T13:21:02.727" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T15:16:30.613" Title="Translation of message from Chinese to English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26394" CreationDate="2017-09-08T12:16:36.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;又体会到有同桌的喜悦感&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I felt the joy of sitting at the same table again.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(maybe the boy she is crush on)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;An old man probably sat by the door.&#xA;The girl asked him to keep (take care of) the book for her for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The girl didn't know him before.&#xA;The stranger is the old man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two people. (I think 1 has nothing to do with 2.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The old man left the message.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝你學習進步&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I wish you progress in your studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天天快樂&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Happy every day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastEditorUserId="15949" LastEditDate="2017-09-08T13:21:33.687" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T13:21:33.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26397" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-08T19:51:59.640" Score="2" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不是要求&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;小组&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;单位做报告吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Context: a conversation about an economics class in high school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese Grammar Wiki says &quot;以 A 为 B&quot; means &quot;using/taking A as B&quot;, but it still doesn't make sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16635" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T02:25:27.703" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T13:17:24.077" Title="Why is the meaning of 不是要求以小组为单位做报告吗?? (...以...为...)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26398" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26402" CreationDate="2017-09-08T21:29:32.843" Score="2" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, you can say 唔夾 to say A and B are not complementary. What's the equivalent in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不合 or 不搭?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-09-09T15:00:59.527" Title="What is the Mandarin equivalent of 唔夾 in Cantonese (i.e., not complementary)?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26398" CreationDate="2017-09-08T22:03:20.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;不合适，不般配， off the top of my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T22:03:20.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26391" CreationDate="2017-09-08T23:42:05.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &quot;标准德语语法 Lehr- und Übungsbuch der deutschen Grammatik&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;§ 1 名词的&lt;strong&gt;变格&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;带定冠词的单数名词的&lt;strong&gt;变格&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Singular   maskulin   feminin     neutral   man fragt  &#xA;Nominativ der Vater   die Mutter das Kind   Wer? / Was?  &#xA;Akkusativ den Vater   die Mutter das Kind   Wen? / Was?  &#xA;Dativ     dem Vater   der Mutter dem Kind   Wem?  &#xA;Genitiv   des Vaters  der Mutter des Kindes Wessen?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;变格： change case&#xA;格： case&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T23:42:05.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26387" CreationDate="2017-09-08T23:50:59.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An addition to the @sati's answer about etymology of the character 蕉: according to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.outlier-linguistics.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Outlier Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, only the top part of the character 艹 (cǎo) is related to the meaning (&lt;em&gt;semantic component&lt;/em&gt;) which is common for any kind of plants. And 焦 (jiāo) is merely a &lt;em&gt;sound component&lt;/em&gt;. It means that you shouldn't search for a semantic connection between 蕉 and 焦: the latter just gives the pronunciation to the former.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15637" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T23:50:59.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26398" CreationDate="2017-09-09T02:18:32.813" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;'People being incompatible' is 唔夾 or 合唔來 in Cantonese and  合不來 or 不合 in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two people have always been &lt;strong&gt;incompatible&lt;/strong&gt; with each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢哋兩個一向&lt;strong&gt;唔夾&lt;/strong&gt; (Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他們二人一向&lt;strong&gt;合不來&lt;/strong&gt; (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他們二人向來&lt;strong&gt;不合&lt;/strong&gt; (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Things being incompatible' in Cantonese can also be 唔夾, and 不般配 in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese medicine and Western medicine are incompatible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中藥同西藥&lt;strong&gt;唔夾&lt;/strong&gt; (Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中藥跟西藥&lt;strong&gt;不般配&lt;/strong&gt; (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-09T15:00:59.527" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26397" CreationDate="2017-09-09T04:28:17.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, when 以...为... is used as a verb phrase, it should be translated to &quot;using/taking A as B&quot;. For example, 他们以胖为美。== They take fat as beauty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it is used as a prepositional phrase, we could use the prepositional word by to interpret. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 以小时为单位 could be simply translated to &quot;by the hour&quot;. We are paid by the hour. == 我们以小时(为单位)计费。为单位 could be omitted in this case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, in this context, it's a prepositional phrase. So, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不是要求以小组为单位做报告吗? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one possible translation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Isn't the demand/request to do the reporting by group?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 以小组为单位 could be interpreted as &quot;by group&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-12T02:11:02.870" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T02:11:02.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26397" CreationDate="2017-09-09T05:46:57.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An appropriate translation will be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Aren't we supposed to do the report in small groups? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以小组为单位 literally means working as a unit (in small groups). The wiki is not wrong in translating 以 as 'using/taking'. The phrase simply means we should take 'small groups' as a unit to do the work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subject of the verb 要求 has been omitted in this case. Someone has apparently given the instruction to work in groups. That's why the speaker is asking to clarify the status of the instruction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17879" LastActivityDate="2017-09-09T05:46:57.370" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26405" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26407" CreationDate="2017-09-09T07:06:09.193" Score="4" ViewCount="358" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, when someone says something incomprehensible, one can say they &quot;spoke Greek&quot;. In Italian, the equivalente is &quot;parlare Arabo&quot; (lit. speak Arabic). What about Chinese? Is there a similar idiom?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T18:15:35.250" Title="&quot;Speak Greek&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26405" CreationDate="2017-09-09T08:00:07.927" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;说人话 (Shuō rénhuà | Speak people's language (not animals' language)!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 我去年...然后, 昨天...翠花, 那个...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 说人话!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 我跟翠花分手了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说什么鸟语 (Shuō shénme niǎoyǔ | Spoke some kind of bird's language)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 下午...然后, 她...翠花, 你...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 你说什么鸟语呢!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 翠花喜欢的是你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舌头捋直了再说话 (Shétou lǚzhíle zài shuōhuà | Stroke your tongue straight first, then speak)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 你把舌头捋直了再说, 你说翠花喜欢我?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 没错 气死我了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天上一脚, 地上一脚 (Tiān shàng yī jiào, dì shàng yī jiào | One foot in heaven, one foot on earth) equals to 前言不搭后语 (Qián yán bù dā hòu yǔ | The words before don't line up with the words after, i.e. there is no logic to what is being said)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 然后, 你知道, 我...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 你这天上一脚, 地上一脚(你说的前言不搭后语的), 你到底想说什么?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 其实我不喜欢翠花, 我喜欢你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-09-09T15:13:49.940" LastActivityDate="2017-09-09T15:13:49.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26405" CreationDate="2017-09-09T08:12:42.520" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;说天书/听天书 would be proper one in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means one talks about the book from the heaven and no one would actually understand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 他讲的话， 我就像听天书一样。 我听物理课像听天书。 他在说天书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-09T08:12:42.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1925" CreationDate="2017-09-09T16:41:32.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Originally both characters were quite different (...), but nowadays there are typically both written as 夂 by most people and most fonts don't make the distinction anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed &lt;a href=&quot;https://xuehanyu.wikispaces.com/Radicals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://xuehanyu.wikispaces.com/Radicals&lt;/a&gt; mentions that &quot;夊 (...) no modern characters; this radical is often omitted&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17892" LastActivityDate="2017-09-09T16:41:32.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26409" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26418" CreationDate="2017-09-09T17:48:00.367" Score="2" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;What among these sentences are correct, acceptable, or wrong?&#xA;The marks in the parentheses are my intuition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)我看這本小說了。(?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)我看了這本小說。(✓)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3)我看這本小說過。(✘)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4)我看過這本小說。(✓)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5)我看了這本小說過。(✘)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(6)我看過這本小說了。(✓)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(7)我有看這本小說了。(✘)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(8)我有看了這本小說。(✘)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(9)我有看這本小說過。(✘)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(10)我有看過這本小說。(✓)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(11)我有看了這本小說過。(✘)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(12)我有看過這本小說了。(✘)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) does seem weird to me, but I am not certain.&#xA;(2) and (4) shows that 過 and 了 can both mark the completeness of action only if they appear immediately after the verb, while 了 can appear in the very end of sentence. Such construction even works in (6) &quot;過...了&quot;.&#xA;(10) seems to suggest &quot;有...過&quot; is the only correct pattern for stressing the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why? I am native speaker from Taiwan, but I would like to know whether you share the same intuition with me, and the underlying principles.&#xA;(I would most appreciate your answer if you can provide some reference!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T02:02:09.573" Title="Difference of 了 and 過's usage" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26308" CreationDate="2017-09-09T20:00:48.693" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://m.golla.tw/a/yuce/fengsuxiguan/55992.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1934年，盛世才召開新疆第二次民眾大會，確定烏孜別克族為正式族名，把國外的烏孜別克族依然寫作烏茲別克。&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In 1934, 盛世才 held the second public meeting in Xinjiang, determining 乌孜别克 (wū zī bié kè) as the official ethnic name, and the foreign Uzbek still writing as 乌兹别克.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, 乌孜别克 usually refers to the race in China.&#xA;But, many people still use 乌兹别克 interchangeably, as shown in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gov.cn/test/2006-04/17/content_255738.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the government web page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 乌兹别克 mostly refers to the foreign country or race. 乌孜别克 is seldom used in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 孜 is more popular than 兹 in Xinjiang, and that's why 盛世才 chose it. For example,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;seasoning&lt;/em&gt; : 孜然 (cumin)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;festival&lt;/em&gt; : 肉孜节, 诺鲁孜节&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;place&lt;/em&gt; : 克孜尔千佛洞, 克孜尔尕哈, 柏孜克里克, 克孜尔魔鬼城, 克孜勒山, 克孜利亚, 克孜库尔干, 克孜勒苏, 牙通古孜&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;language&lt;/em&gt; : 柯尔克孜语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E7%9B%9B%E4%B8%96%E6%89%8D&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;盛世才&lt;/a&gt; (Shèng Shì-cái) (1897/1/8 - 1970/7/13)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1933年至1944年间新疆军事、政治首长，有“新疆王”之称。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sheng ruled the Xinjiang province from 1933 to 1944, and had the name of &quot;King of Xinjiang&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-09-09T20:00:48.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26411" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26414" CreationDate="2017-09-10T00:35:05.860" Score="7" ViewCount="1098" Body="&lt;p&gt;From dict.cn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%90%84%E4%BD%8D&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;各位&lt;/a&gt; (gèwèi) = everybody&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A4%A7%E5%AE%B6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;大家&lt;/a&gt; (dàjiā) = everyone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So they seem closely related, but I don't think they're identical. Today is Teacher's Day and messages like &quot;祝各位老师节日快乐&quot; are popping up in my WeChat feed, and I don't think we can just swap 各位 with 大家 here without changing the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What distinguishes 各位 (gèwèi) from 大家 (dàjiā)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T01:49:57.763" Title="What distinguishes 各位 (gèwèi) from 大家 (dàjiā)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26411" CreationDate="2017-09-10T01:16:59.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 大家 and 各位 can be used as a noun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家, referring to 'all' the people. 谢谢大家！大家一起.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;各位, referring to 'every' one. 谢谢各位！ 向各位解释。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家 is not used alone. We don't usually say &quot;大家&quot; alone to draw people attention, but we say &quot;各位&quot; for that purpose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;各位 can also be a determiner. In this context, 各位老师. Not say 大家老师 as 大家 is not used as a determiner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T01:16:59.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26413" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-10T01:24:30.340" Score="2" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from an interview with 航天员杨利伟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天的访谈我想和他聊聊他的这段奇妙的太空经历，以期更好地展现我国航天建设的辉煌成就，....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;建设 normally means 'build'. Do you 'build or construct (建设） accomplishments （成就）' in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'我国航天建设的辉煌成就'  'China's space flight project's glorious accomplishments'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I could replace this 建设 with 项目 here, so I have 'space flight (航天） project （建设， 项目）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this use of 建设 here seem strange at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-22T01:35:03.020" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T01:35:03.020" Title="What is 建设 in ...以期更好地展现我国航天建设的辉煌成就...?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26411" CreationDate="2017-09-10T01:27:31.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;中文&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“各位”和“大家”单独使用的时候基本没有区别。它们的主要区别在于“各位”可以接其他名词，而“大家”不能：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;各位家长、同学们&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;s&gt;大家家长、同学们&lt;/s&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同时，“各位”可以用于宾格，但“大家”听起来不太对：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以后怎么做就要看在座的各位了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;s&gt;以后怎么做就要看在座的大家了&lt;/s&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外，在使用中，“各位”比较正式，常用于称呼及正式场合；而“大家”则显得比较随意，在日常中一般都使用“大家”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还有一些习惯用法的不同：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大家好！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;s&gt;各位好！&lt;/s&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;English&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;各位&quot; and &quot;大家&quot; make little difference when used alone. Their primary difference is that &quot;各位&quot; can precede other nouns, whereas &quot;大家&quot; can't:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;各位家长、同学们&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;s&gt;大家家长、同学们&lt;/s&gt; (Wrong)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, &quot;各位&quot; can be used as object, while &quot;大家&quot; sounds strange if used like that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以后怎么做就要看在座的各位了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;s&gt;以后怎么做就要看在座的大家了&lt;/s&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, in practice, &quot;各位&quot; tends to be a little formal and is often used in serious appellations and formal scenarios, while &quot;大家&quot; tends to be more casual and is more prevalent in daily spoken Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also some difference in usual practice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大家好！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;s&gt;各位好！&lt;/s&gt; (We don't really call people like this even in formal scenarios, even if it's grammatically correct.)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastEditorUserId="16738" LastEditDate="2017-09-10T01:49:57.763" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T01:49:57.763" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26409" CreationDate="2017-09-10T01:43:46.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with you for most of them. I have some comments below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) would sound more natural when adding a '过'. 我看过这本小说了。which is the same as (6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(7), I did hear it was said by the folks from Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(12) sounds ok to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just one observation of mine. In the register of the mainland, we don't usually use 有 in this kind of sentences because it's kinda redundant. Like (10), 我有看过这本小说。== 我看过这本小说。 I've heard Taiwan folks typically used 有 in this kind of sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T01:43:46.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26413" CreationDate="2017-09-10T01:49:04.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, 建设 can have the meaning of &quot;cause&quot;, similar to 事业. It is often said that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在社会主义&lt;strong&gt;建设&lt;/strong&gt;的道路上…&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  On the road of the construction (cause) of the socialism society...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.thefreedictionary.com/%E5%BB%BA%E8%AE%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a random online dictionary&lt;/a&gt; from Google:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;建设 — &lt;strong&gt;创建新事业&lt;/strong&gt;或增加新设施&#xA;  (&lt;strong&gt;Construct new causes&lt;/strong&gt; or add new equipments)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in your case, 我国航天建设 is an elliptical phrase, where 事业 is omitted, which should look like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我国航天事业的建设&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The construction of our cause for spaceflight  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, you can translate 建设 into &quot;cause&quot; or &quot;the construction of xxx project&quot; (我国航天工程) depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastEditorUserId="16738" LastEditDate="2017-09-10T02:59:28.667" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T02:59:28.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26413" CreationDate="2017-09-10T01:57:25.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;建设 is a noun word here, and can be interpreted as &quot;construction&quot;. Like 中国建设银行 is translated to China Construction Bank. 项目 is not the same as 建设 here. 航天建设 would involve many projects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T01:57:25.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26409" CreationDate="2017-09-10T02:02:09.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also agree with you for most of them, and I'd like to point out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(1) is grammatically correct, despite sounding strange. It's sometimes heard in spoken language, but mostly because the speaker says it in a hurry.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(7)-(12) seems old-fashioned. People don't speak like those &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; often, but still there is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;— 有誰看過這本小說？ (Has anyone read ...)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  — 我有看過。 (I have.)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(10) is right, and as you have said, it's used to stress/emphasize the action having been done.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(12) is wrong. We don't use more than one word about perfect tense in an emphasizing context.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T02:02:09.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26229" CreationDate="2017-09-10T03:59:04.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As pointed out, this question will be relevant only if you are be referring to the Ci 詞 form, prevalent in the Song 宋 dynasty, which is traditionally sung by courtesans. Strictly speaking, this will not be 'new material'; nonetheless, modern songs do use the form occasionally. An example will be the Nian4 Nu2 Jiao1 by Su1 Shi4: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《念奴嬌》 蘇軾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大江東去，浪淘盡，千古風流人物。&#xA;故壘西邊，人道是，三國周郎赤壁。&#xA;亂石崩雲，驚濤裂岸，捲起千堆雪。&#xA;江山如畫，一時多少豪傑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遙想公瑾當年，小喬出嫁了，雄姿英發。&#xA;羽扇綸巾，談笑間，強虜飛灰湮滅。&#xA;故國神遊，多情應笑我，早生華髮。&#xA;人間如夢，一尊還酹江月。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The format for such literary form are usually given by the Ci2pu3 詞譜 or lyric score, which defines the number of letters in each phrase, the intonation of each letter, and where the rhyme should land. Nian4 Nu2 Jiao1 is the name of the song, or Ci2 Pai2 詞牌. Different songs will usually demand different phrasing, rhyming and intonation strategies, just as we do in song writing today. So, the Nian4 Nu2 Jiao1 format above, as given by the Bai2xiang1 ci2pu3《白香詞譜》will go like this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;八七、念奴嬌·石頭城　　薩都拉（用東坡赤壁韻）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;石頭城上，&#xA;●○○●&#xA;望天低、&#xA;●○○&#xA;吳楚眼空無物。&#xA;⊙●●○○▲&#xA;指點六朝形勝地，&#xA;⊙●⊙○○●●&#xA;惟有青山如壁。&#xA;⊙●⊙○○▲&#xA;蔽日旌旗，&#xA;⊙●○○&#xA;連雲檣櫓，&#xA;○○⊙●&#xA;白骨紛如雪。&#xA;⊙●○○▲&#xA;一江南北，&#xA;⊙○○●&#xA;消磨多少豪傑。&#xA;⊙○⊙●○▲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寂寞避暑離宮，&#xA;⊙●⊙●○○&#xA;東風輦路，&#xA;○○⊙●&#xA;芳草年年發。&#xA;⊙●○○▲&#xA;落日無人松徑冷，&#xA;⊙●⊙○○●●&#xA;鬼火高低明滅。&#xA;⊙●⊙○○▲&#xA;歌舞尊前，&#xA;⊙●○○&#xA;繁華鏡里，&#xA;⊙○⊙●&#xA;暗換青青發。&#xA;⊙●○○▲&#xA;傷心千古，&#xA;⊙○○●&#xA;秦淮一片明月。&#xA;⊙○○●○▲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each symbol corresponds to a letter. ▲ indicates where the rhyme lands while ●○⊙ indicates the intonation. Note the similarity in phrasing to the song quoted above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Ci2 is also known as the 長短句, or long-short verse, due to the varying number of letters in each phrase, as contrasted with the Shi1 詩, which is usually of uniform meter (such as the pentametric poem or 五言詩). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17879" LastEditorUserId="17879" LastEditDate="2017-09-10T04:26:21.897" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T04:26:21.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26302" CreationDate="2017-09-10T08:27:12.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.trace.org/field/dancing-mud&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kartsog Lhakhang&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;It means the &quot;Temple of the white [pure] assembly&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kartsog Lhakhang (格秀拉康) is the oldest and most important Buddhist temple in Yushu (玉树) town. Its exact origins are unknown, but a small temple on this site dates back to the founding of Jyekundo (Yushu) town by Sakya Pandita (萨迦·班智达, 1182-1251) in the thirteenth century. The present temple took its shape in the eighteenth century. Located in the heart of the historic town, it is the local community's neighborhood temple, the most important place in their daily life. It is also used for fasting practice (Tibetan: nyungney 斋戒), hence the name Kartsog Lhakhang, “&lt;strong&gt;temple of the white [pure] assembly&lt;/strong&gt;.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;康 (khang) means the house or building. For example,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;医院 (hospital) 门康&lt;br&gt;&#xA;商店 (store or shop) 村康&lt;br&gt;&#xA;旅馆 (hotel or inn) 准康&lt;br&gt;&#xA;书店 (bookstore) 贝村康&lt;br&gt;&#xA;银行 (bank) 威康  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拉 (lha) means the heaven or god.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, 拉康 (lhakhang) means the temple (神殿, 庙, 寺).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese name of Kartsog Lakhang (格秀拉康) is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chengduo.gov.cn/html/489/154988.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;格秀经堂&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.douban.com/group/topic/33655789/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;嘎措寺&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T08:27:12.940" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26422" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26435" CreationDate="2017-09-10T11:09:02.117" Score="0" ViewCount="47" Body="&lt;p&gt;When the postal worker arrives at your doorstep, but can't deliver your package - usually because you are not home and it is too big for your mailbox - you receive a notification asking you to retrieve your package at the post office. How is this notification called in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T09:38:54.357" Title="How are postal notifications called in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26423" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26425" CreationDate="2017-09-10T13:33:29.753" Score="3" ViewCount="781" Body="&lt;p&gt;A dict.cn example sentence for &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%83%AD%E7%83%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;热烈&lt;/a&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他因受到热烈欢迎而高兴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tā yīn shòudào rèliè huānyíng ér gāoxìng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was pleased by the warmth of his welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation is mostly straightforward:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BB%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;他&lt;/a&gt; (tā) = he&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8F%97%E5%88%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;受到&lt;/a&gt; (shòudào) = received&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%83%AD%E7%83%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;热烈&lt;/a&gt; (rèliè) = warm&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%AC%A2%E8%BF%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;欢迎&lt;/a&gt; (huānyíng) = welcome&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%AB%98%E5%85%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;高兴&lt;/a&gt; (gāoxìng) = happy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't understand what these two are doing in the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%9B%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;因&lt;/a&gt; (yīn) = reason (part of &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%9B%A0%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;因为&lt;/a&gt; = because)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%80%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;而&lt;/a&gt; (ér) = and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What are 因 and 而 doing in the sentence 他因受到热烈欢迎而高兴?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would probably phrase it like 他很高兴因为他受到热烈的欢迎.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T13:45:56.617" Title="What are 因 and 而 doing in the sentence 他因受到热烈欢迎而高兴?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26423" CreationDate="2017-09-10T13:54:08.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;因 ... 而 ...&quot; is just another way to say &quot;because&quot;. They come together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T13:54:08.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26423" CreationDate="2017-09-10T15:23:53.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;[因 A 而 B] = [because of A, therefore B]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[因 A (受到热烈欢迎) 而 B (高兴)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Because of A (受到热烈欢迎), Therefore B (高兴)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[B because of A] ; [B for A]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[B (高兴) because of A (受到热烈欢迎)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[B (高兴) for A (受到热烈欢迎)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When A is a reason; B is an action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When A is a cause; B is a result&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T03:02:24.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26423" CreationDate="2017-09-11T00:07:36.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your interpretation &quot;他很高兴因为他受到热烈的欢迎. &quot; is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I posted in the comment above, the &quot;because...so...&quot; structure is wrong in English, so we have to use one word (&quot;because&quot;, &quot;as&quot;, &quot;for&quot; and etc.) to interpret here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;因 A 而 B&quot; could be translated to &quot;B as(or for) the reason A&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare with &quot;because&quot; and &quot;as&quot;, I opt for &quot;as&quot; because &quot;as&quot; usually expresses the more casual reasoning than &quot;because&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation for the whole sentence might be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He is happy as he is warmly welcomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T00:07:36.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26427" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-11T01:36:54.273" Score="0" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;社会generally means society, community.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what is its real meaning in the following cases: 1. 社会力量办学；2.此为公交专用车道，社会车辆不得驶入; 3.走出校门，走进社会？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding is: 1. schools run by private sector; 2. this is the track for public transportation only, private traffic is denied. So 社会 means private? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for No. 3, I think it means I leave the school and enter the society, but isn't school part of the society?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T05:54:41.407" Title="What does 社会 mean in this context?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26422" CreationDate="2017-09-11T02:06:50.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the hong kong post office named it as &quot;領取郵件通知卡&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.1823.gov.hk/big5/FAQ/016008/ans_01.shtm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.1823.gov.hk/big5/FAQ/016008/ans_01.shtm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, there're different types of notifications, depend on the scenarios&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T02:06:50.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26429" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26432" CreationDate="2017-09-11T02:32:06.997" Score="3" ViewCount="952" Body="&lt;p&gt;I walk past this sign on the way to the lab:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bAR0P.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bAR0P.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I understand correctly, it says something like &lt;em&gt;the optics Master's lab (?) was founded in 1984 by the supervisor Guoguang Mu.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in the bottom sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;光学硕士点 (guāngxué shuòshì diǎn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which translates to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%85%89%E5%AD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;光学&lt;/a&gt; (guāngxué) = optics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%A1%95%E5%A3%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;硕士&lt;/a&gt; (shuòshì) = Master's (as in &quot;Master's degree&quot; and &quot;Master's student&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%82%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;点&lt;/a&gt; (diǎn) = dot&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused as to why 点 is in this sentence.  In context it seems to mean &quot;lab&quot;, but I would expect other words to mean lab.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 点 in 光学硕士点?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T12:10:00.027" Title="Why is 点 in 光学硕士点?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26427" CreationDate="2017-09-11T02:57:16.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;社会, in those contexts, refers to the public reference to/opposite the certain independent group. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;社会力量办学: means gathering the 力量（including money, labor, etc) from the public to 办学, not from the government.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;社会车辆 refers to any type of vehicles from the public. It excludes the special purpose of vehicles,  公交 in the above context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走出校门，走进社会. Here school is considered as a small community, while 社会 refers to the more wider 'community'. It implies students would face more when entering into 社会.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope I get this clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T02:57:16.403" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26429" CreationDate="2017-09-11T03:09:22.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;点 here means &quot;site&quot;. Like 网点。 They could have many sites or different kinds of sites, one of them is 光学硕士点.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T03:09:22.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26429" CreationDate="2017-09-11T03:14:44.477" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;点 means a unit here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 点 is the same as the one in 地点 or 景点.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, it is a place that they can confer Master's degrees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, it is a department of a university, which is also an organization (组织) or a unit (单位).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 硕士点 is authorized by the government that it can authorize a master's degree to the students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://terms.naer.edu.tw/detail/1313197/?index=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;碩士點&lt;/a&gt;係指經授權後能自行授予碩士學位的學科或專業 &lt;strong&gt;單位&lt;/strong&gt; （一般為 &lt;strong&gt;學系&lt;/strong&gt; ）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="15652" LastEditDate="2017-09-11T12:10:00.027" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T12:10:00.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26429" CreationDate="2017-09-11T04:46:21.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;点 can means a location or place, example: 售后点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17405" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T04:46:21.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26427" CreationDate="2017-09-11T05:54:41.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;社会力量办学；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;社会 VS 国家 or 政府&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.此为公交专用车道，社会车辆不得驶入;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;社会 means any 车辆 that not from 公交部门&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.走出校门，走进社会？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the typical usage of 社会.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of organizations was run by government before 改革开放, these organizations  are usually called 机关, 单位 or 组织 etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a man does not work in that kind of organizations, he lives in 社会, he is not 组织中的人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 社会人 is an interesting words, in some situation it means they do not have a formal job, they have complex relations with different kind of people... it is very complex, I did not prepare for this term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 学校 is opposite of 社会 in China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;社会 is not only society in China, it has some negative meanings from history periods.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T05:54:41.407" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26422" CreationDate="2017-09-11T09:38:54.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are called '邮件领取通知单' or '领取邮件通知单', and it also has other name.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XtExJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XtExJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17902" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T09:38:54.357" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26423" CreationDate="2017-09-11T13:45:56.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;他很高兴因为他受到热烈的欢迎.this stress his is happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他因受到热烈欢迎而高兴 this stress the reason maked he happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17905" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T13:45:56.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25857" CreationDate="2017-09-11T14:00:42.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It always means that someone dead and otherone to help to collect his body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17905" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T14:00:42.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26394" CreationDate="2017-09-11T14:20:06.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The  grandfather is the stranger. the one sitting at the same table owns the book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17905" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T14:20:06.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26394" CreationDate="2017-09-11T15:16:30.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The girl is the owner of the book. She sighed that she again has the feeling as if she had a table-mate 同桌 again (implying that anytime she loses or leaves something behind, her considerate table-mate (either male or female, it would be more romantic if it is an opposite sex) would help her to find the lost property).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The paper is slipped in the book by the grandfather, who serves as a security at the gate of the school. Unexpectedly, he not only keeps the book in good condition but also returns the same together with a piece of paper, on which there are words written &quot;Wish you progress in your daily study&quot;, and those words move the book owner, who thinks that only a table-mate can write such warm-hearted thing as that and that it is impossible for the old man to write down such words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is a story of surprise or suspense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T15:16:30.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26442" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26443" CreationDate="2017-09-11T21:17:19.813" Score="1" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which is better?  Or is it regional?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;请问，洗手间在哪里？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;请问，厕所在哪里？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;对不起，浴室在哪里？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T21:36:43.693" Title="When you gotta go…" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26442" CreationDate="2017-09-11T21:29:09.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Asking for 洗手间 (washroom) is more subtle (imply you might just want to wash your hands) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Asking for 厕所 (toilet) is very straight forward (clearly indicate you need to perform a bodily function)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 洗手间 and 厕所 are acceptable, but saying 洗手间 is considered more polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浴室 (the bath or shower) is not a correct term&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-11T21:36:43.693" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T21:36:43.693" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26444" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-11T21:52:23.540" Score="2" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few days ago, I was browsing around CCTV and I found this page labeled &quot;喜迎十九大&quot;, with the hammer and sickle next to it and I was immediately interested. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.cctv.com/special/xysjd/index.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://news.cctv.com/special/xysjd/index.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have yet to find a good translation for the phrase &quot;喜迎十九大&quot;, which I'm sure means something other than &quot;welcome nineteen big&quot;. Can anyone please help explain to me this event? Many thanks in advance for any responses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17906" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T15:27:03.960" Title="What is this 喜迎十九大 event all over the recent Chinese news?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25435" CreationDate="2017-09-12T01:24:59.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grammatical object in one language in a phrase, are not always expressed using grammatical object in another language. &quot;对他审问了几个小时&quot; is an example of this. (While &quot;审问了他几个小时&quot; is also correct).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the examples containing both targets and objects, there are already some in your table, only not explicitly marked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...给我介绍上海: &quot;给我&quot; is the target, &quot;上海&quot; is the object.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;...给我们做了饭: &quot;给我们&quot; is the target, &quot;饭&quot; is the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T01:24:59.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26446" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26448" CreationDate="2017-09-12T02:17:03.983" Score="1" ViewCount="577" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://law.nankai.edu.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;School of Law&lt;/a&gt; at Nankai Uni are welcoming new students with this banner:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i96vt.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i96vt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;允公允能 日新月异 法学院欢迎各位新同学&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  yǔngōngyǔnnéng rìxīnyuèyì fǎxuéyuàn huānyíng gèwèi xīn tóngxué&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I understand the last part: 法学院欢迎各位新同学 = School of Law welcomes &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/26411/what-distinguishes-%e5%90%84%e4%bd%8d-g%c3%a8w%c3%a8i-from-%e5%a4%a7%e5%ae%b6-d%c3%a0ji%c4%81&quot;&gt;all&lt;/a&gt; new students.  But for the first part (允公允能 日新月异), I don't have much of an idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what I've found out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%85%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;允&lt;/a&gt; (yǔn) = just (in the sense of justice), to permit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%85%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;公&lt;/a&gt; (gōng) = public&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;允公 (yǔngōng) = ???&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%83%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;能&lt;/a&gt; (néng) = capable of&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;允能 (yǔnnéng) = ???&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%97%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日&lt;/a&gt; (rì) = day; sun&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%96%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新&lt;/a&gt; (xīn) = new&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%97%A5%E6%96%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日新&lt;/a&gt; (rìxīn) = renew&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%9C%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;月&lt;/a&gt; (yuè) = month&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%BC%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;异&lt;/a&gt; (yì) = unusual&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;月异 (yuèyì) = ???&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Note&lt;/em&gt;: the hanzi 异 looks different on the computer vs. on the banner, but this seems to be the same hanzi, see: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/sinograms.html?q=%E5%BC%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;异 at Chinese-Tools.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This appears to be a poetic-style welcoming, which would explain why I can't just look it up piece by piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why are the new law students being welcomed with 允公允能 日新日异 (yǔngōngyǔnnéng rìxīnyuèyì)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;允公允能 = Allow fairness&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  日新月异 = With each passing day&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which doesn't mean much to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-09-12T02:39:32.473" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T13:01:34.900" Title="Why are the new law students being welcomed with 允公允能 日新月异 (yǔngōngyǔnnéng rìxīnyuèyì)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26446" CreationDate="2017-09-12T02:25:35.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;日&lt;strong&gt;新月&lt;/strong&gt;异， changing day by day and month by month, connoting able to make progress everyday. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some websites references 允 to promise, in this context it could mean 要求 （require or restrict）. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公 means 公德 == 公共道德, 允公: (the students should have)public morality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能 means 能力，允能:(the students should have)ability or capability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T13:01:34.900" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T13:01:34.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26446" CreationDate="2017-09-12T02:39:24.100" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, the welcoming sentence is 允公允能 &lt;strong&gt;日新月異&lt;/strong&gt;instead of 日薪日異.&#xA;This sentence is their school motto.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;允公 means that one should make himself/ herself capable of (允) thinking about the whole welfare of people (公,) and to avoid being selfish.&#xA;允能 means that one should apply (允) what he/she learns to what he/she do (能.) 能 usually means capability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日新月異 is a Chinese proverb meaning that to learn something more everyday and to keep up with the times. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, the motto is to encourage their students to keep learning, and use what they have learnt to help the society become a better place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17907" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T02:39:24.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26449" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26453" CreationDate="2017-09-12T03:01:09.773" Score="1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;The local mosque has a halal restaurant nearby with this sign:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Bd9i.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Bd9i.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;清真回回饺子羊汤馆&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清真回回饺子羊汤馆&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Qīngzhēn huíhui jiǎozi yáng tāng guǎn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this approximately to &quot;halal &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hui_people&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ethnic Hui&lt;/a&gt; dumplings and sheep soup restaurant&quot;.  (Google Translate gives: &quot;Halal back to dumplings sheep soup hall&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ordinarily, I would expect to see &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%BE%8A%E8%82%89%E6%B1%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;羊肉汤&lt;/a&gt; (yángròu tāng) = &quot;mutton soup&quot;, but the sign says 羊汤 (yáng tāng) = &quot;sheep soup&quot; which surprises me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is 羊汤 an alternative word for 羊肉汤?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu gives 17,200,000 hits for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E7%BE%8A%E6%B1%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;羊汤&lt;/a&gt; and 15,200,000 hits for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E7%BE%8A%E8%82%89%E6%B1%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;羊肉汤&lt;/a&gt;, which suggests both are in common usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-09-12T03:09:31.220" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T09:47:33.063" Title="Is 羊汤 (sheep soup) an alternative word for 羊肉汤 (mutton soup)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26449" CreationDate="2017-09-12T03:16:19.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BE%8A%E8%82%89%E6%B1%A4/2367562?fr=aladdin&amp;amp;fromid=7322991&amp;amp;fromtitle=%E7%BE%8A%E6%B1%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度百科&lt;/a&gt; also has the synonym:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;羊汤一般指羊肉汤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T03:16:19.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26449" CreationDate="2017-09-12T03:22:25.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;羊汤 is actually 羊肉汤， a type of mutton soup. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term 羊汤 is so widely used that it makes me to feel it's a special type of 羊肉汤 rather than common mutton soup. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T03:22:25.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26449" CreationDate="2017-09-12T04:00:06.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/24031/how-often-is-%E7%BE%8A%E8%82%89-goat-in-chinese/24034#24034&quot;&gt;羊肉&lt;/a&gt; in China refers to goat meat, not sheep meat &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;羊汤 is a common abbreviation of 羊肉汤. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But technically, 羊骨汤(goat bone soup) can also be called 羊汤 (goat soup). For example '羊汤饺子' (goat soup dumplings) may not contain goat meat. It is not unreasonable to put 饺子(dumplings) in 羊骨汤(goat bone soup) and call it '羊汤饺子'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, just looking at the name 羊汤 alone, you can reasonably expect to get '羊肉 in 羊骨汤'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I expect 羊汤 to be thin sliced raw goat meat in boiling hot goat bone soup that cook the goat meat medium rare right before you eat it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T04:00:06.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24031" CreationDate="2017-09-12T09:28:18.923" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a surprisingly complex question to answer. Here are some facts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/54/2583&quot;&gt;羊 means both sheep and goat&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese; the word doesn't differentiate.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This extends to official record-keeping - sheep meat and goat meat statistics are not differentiated.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_and_mutton&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Lamb&quot; and &quot;mutton&quot;&lt;/a&gt; refer to young and adult sheep meat. Some locales actually refer to goat meat as mutton as well, but let's ignore that for now.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;China produces and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.globalmeatnews.com/Industry-Markets/China-sees-surge-in-sheep-meat-prices&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;consumes&lt;/a&gt; large amounts of both &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep_farming#Sheep_production_worldwide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sheep&lt;/a&gt; and goat meat&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;China has very big regional differences in food production and consumption, especially the North-South divide&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that 羊 is both sheep and goat, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.haocai777.com/Article/ruchu/7174.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;China's regionality&lt;/a&gt; (Southerners are more likely to encounter goat, Northerners - particularly in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang - likewise with sheep), most Chinese would be unaware that there is a difference, or that they have been eating exclusively either sheep or goat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So does &quot;羊肉&quot; mean lamb/mutton or goat meat? Depending on context and who is speaking, it could be either, or both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T09:28:18.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26444" CreationDate="2017-09-12T15:27:03.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;喜迎 → Welcome (with fond)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;十九大 is an abbreviation for 中国共产党第&lt;strong&gt;十九&lt;/strong&gt;次全国代表&lt;strong&gt;大&lt;/strong&gt;会. The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's an upcoming event starting on October 18, 2017. As a bad custom, Chinese news media have started propagation about such important events since a few months ago. It'd be absolutely normal to see a truckload of these spams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T15:27:03.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26460" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-12T19:51:20.143" Score="1" ViewCount="423" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently started learning Chinese and was reading up on the structure of sentences here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Chinese_word_order#Placement_of_place_words_in_a_sentence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Chinese_word_order#Placement_of_place_words_in_a_sentence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I cam across this sentence, &quot;她去了中国很多地方&quot;, but according to the above site, wouldn't this, &quot;她在中国去了很多地方&quot;, sound better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked my dad who's fluent in Mandarin, and he says both are fine, but the first sentence is more commonly used. Why is that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17108" LastEditorUserId="17108" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T00:05:51.860" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T01:51:37.357" Title="Where to put location words in a sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26460" CreationDate="2017-09-12T20:38:11.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In &amp;quot;她去了中国很多地方&amp;quot;, 地方 (place) is the object, 中国(的) (China's) is an adjectival phrase, along with 很多 (many), modify the object 地方&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The break down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;她去了很多地方&amp;quot; -  &amp;quot;She went to many places&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;她去了(中国的)很多地方&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;She went to many (China's) places&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the possessive  的 is omitted in your original quote&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;她&amp;quot; is the subject &amp;quot;去了&amp;quot; is the verb;  &amp;quot;中国的&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;很多 are the adjectival phrases; &amp;quot;地方&amp;quot; is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Since &amp;quot;中国(的)&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;很多&amp;quot; are both in adjectival roles, you can change their order and write &amp;quot;她去了很多中国(的)地方&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In &amp;quot;她在中国去了很多地方&amp;quot; , &amp;quot;在中国&amp;quot; is the 'relative phrase' that provides additional information to the 'main clause'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The break down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;她去了很多地方&amp;quot; -  &amp;quot;She went to many places&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;她(在中国)去了很多地方&amp;quot; -  &amp;quot;She went to many places (in China)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;她去了很多地方&amp;quot; is the main clause; &amp;quot;在中国&amp;quot; is the relative phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question in your post title:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Where to put location words in a sentence?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, &lt;strong&gt;location&lt;/strong&gt; usually precede time, e.g &amp;quot;See me &lt;strong&gt;in Central Park&lt;/strong&gt; tomorrow&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese,  time usually precede &lt;strong&gt;location&lt;/strong&gt;, e.g  &amp;quot;明天在&lt;strong&gt;中央公園&lt;/strong&gt;見我&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I asked my dad who's fluent in Mandarin, and he says both are find, but the first sentence is more commonly used. Why is that?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither one is more common than the other. The two sentences have different emphasis. &amp;quot;她去了中国很多地方&amp;quot; emphasizes on her 'achievement' of visited many places in China; &amp;quot;她在中国去了很多地方&amp;quot; emphasizes on her 'actions' in China, which included visiting many places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T21:07:05.597" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26460" CreationDate="2017-09-12T23:11:39.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are applicable, but with some nuance in meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她去了中国很多地方&quot;, in English, she has been to many places of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她在中国去了很多地方&quot;, in English, she had been to many places when she stayed/lived in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the former 'China' is used as a attributive noun indicating those places are China's, while the latter 在中国 is a prepositional phrase denoting she has been staying/living in China for some time or maybe she is still living/staying in China now(we can't determine this unless more contexts approve it).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to be more clear on the latter sentence, I will put it as &quot;她在中国'&lt;strong&gt;这期间&lt;/strong&gt;'去了很多地方&quot;， &quot;她在中国'&lt;strong&gt;的时候&lt;/strong&gt;'去了很多地方&quot; or &quot;她在中国'&lt;strong&gt;居住期间&lt;/strong&gt;'去了很多地方&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparing the twos, the first one would be used more practically, as the omission in the  second sentence creates a bit ambiguity(but it may not be an issue). So, I tend to agree with your dad on that aspect.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T01:51:37.357" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T01:51:37.357" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26463" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26465" CreationDate="2017-09-13T00:30:44.127" Score="2" ViewCount="1411" Body="&lt;p&gt;Searching Baidu for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E5%A4%A7%E5%AE%B6%E4%BB%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大家们&lt;/a&gt; (dàjiāmén) gives 8,770,000 hits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 大家们 a thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is surprising because &lt;a href=&quot;http://8,770,000&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大家&lt;/a&gt; (dàjiā) means everyone, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BB%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;们&lt;/a&gt; (mén) is used to turn a few select words into plurals.  For example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%88%91%E4%BB%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;我们&lt;/a&gt; (wǒmén = us, we), &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%85%88%E7%94%9F%E4%BB%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;先生们&lt;/a&gt; (xiānshēngmén = gentlemen), and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%9C%8B%E5%8F%8B%E4%BB%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;朋友们&lt;/a&gt; (péngyǒumén = friends).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't seem to make sense to say 大家们 and take a plural of &quot;everyone&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T07:46:27.823" Title="Why is 大家们 (dàjiāmén) a thing?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26463" CreationDate="2017-09-13T00:47:29.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;大家们 is not correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all search terms with a lot of results are correct words/phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should notice that there are not many meaningful results in the search results. And the very first result is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/463384766.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Q/A site&lt;/a&gt; asking whether &quot;大家们&quot; is correct, and the accept answer says it is not. The second result is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-YWZS199711037.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a paper from a journal&lt;/a&gt; that discusses this kind of errors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T00:47:29.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26463" CreationDate="2017-09-13T00:53:23.290" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's one context where it is correct: when the subject is &quot;大家&quot;, as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;古希腊那些大家们几千万数量级的著作是如何流传下来的? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wiktionary.org/zh/%E5%A4%A7%E5%AE%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Under this definition&lt;/a&gt;, 大家 is an honorific, or a short form of 大作家, 大專家. So 大家们 would be the plural form of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T00:53:23.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26466" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-13T02:56:58.347" Score="0" ViewCount="782" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in finding out the best way to ask a Chinese person to give or leave me feedback about my services, on the Internet. (Like a restaurant review). I would like to ask in a respectful, polite way that gives me a good chance of them taking a moment to leave feedback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In simple or classic Chinese, how do I do this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17916" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T08:38:50.293" Title="What is the best way to ask a Chinese person to give / leave feedback" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26466" CreationDate="2017-09-13T07:49:02.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;您好，请对我们的服务提出宝贵建议，谢谢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您好，请问您对我们的服务有什么意见或建议吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您好，请问您对我们的服务满意吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您好，请问我们的菜合您的胃口吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17902" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T07:49:02.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26463" CreationDate="2017-09-13T08:04:11.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting question. there are at least two meanings for &quot;大家&quot;, one means &quot;we/us&quot;, and the other means a well-know person in a field.&#xA; so, if &quot;大家&quot; means &quot;we/us&quot;, you can't say &quot;大家们&quot;, it's not correct, because in this case &quot;大家&quot; has been represented &quot;we/us&quot;; but when you describe a group of people who are well known in a field, such as calligraphers, you can say &quot;大家们&quot;, here are the examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;English: The calligraphers from china have been sleeping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chinese: 从中国来的书法大家们已经睡觉了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but most of time we would like to say in chinese as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从中国来的书法家们已经睡觉了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in most case of chinese, adding the word &quot;们&quot; at the end of  a creature may means   the group of this kind of creature. &quot;人们&quot; means people, as &quot;人&quot; means human being.&#xA;However, it can't be described as a simple question, to understand all about that you may need to know more about china and chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17919" LastEditorUserId="17919" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T08:10:00.143" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T08:10:00.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26466" CreationDate="2017-09-13T08:37:50.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like any other language, to obtain feedback, first thing is to be polite.&#xA;here are few tips that I think might be helpful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to use &quot;你好&quot; or &quot;您好&quot; to start a conversation, it's like &quot;Hello&quot; but &quot;您好&quot; is more polite&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;followed by &quot;请问_____&quot; to politely ask a man or woman for help like&#xA;feedback, it's like &quot;excuse me, could you please____&quot; in English.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For now , the beginning better to be like &quot;你好/您好, 请问__balabala___&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next should ask for feedback, use the following examples to fill in the blanks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot; 你/您(means you)对***满意吗? &quot;——  (**** could be &quot;the food&quot;), this means if he is satisfied with ***? plus:***also could be &quot;the service&quot;(in Chinese, 服务) or &quot;our service&quot;(in Chinese, 我们的服务)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot; 你/您(means you)对***有什么意见建议吗? &quot; —— (**** same as above), this&#xA;means if he has any suggestions or complains with ***? plus:***same as above&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;usually these two is enough for feedback, of course there are also a lot different ways like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;请问, 你/您认为我们有什么地方可以改进呢?&quot;—— ask if he/she can give advice to improve&#xA;our service.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;请问, 可以对***做出评价吗?&quot;—— ask if he/she can comment on ***.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;请问, 可以耽误你/您几分钟时间吗?&quot;—— ask if he/she can spend several minutes to do&#xA;something.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17918" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T08:37:50.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26471" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26473" CreationDate="2017-09-13T11:28:54.540" Score="2" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've started using phrases with the structure 我[something]去 (wǒ [something] qù) with the meaning I'm going to do [something].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've picked this up while in China because other people seem to say these things.  We don't have this sentence structure in English, and I'm not sure it's legitimate in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples I've used are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%B7%91%E6%AD%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;跑步&lt;/a&gt;去 (wǒ pǎobù qù) = I'm going to run. (Baidu &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E6%88%91%E8%B7%91%E6%AD%A5%E5%8E%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;97,200&lt;/a&gt; hits)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%8A%E5%8E%95%E6%89%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;上厕所&lt;/a&gt;去 (wǒ shàng cèsuǒ qù) = I'm going to use the toilet (Baidu &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E6%88%91%E4%B8%8A%E5%8E%95%E6%89%80%E5%8E%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;506,000&lt;/a&gt; hits)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9D%A1%E8%A7%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡觉&lt;/a&gt;去 (wǒ shuìjiào qù) = I'm going to sleep. (Baidu. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E6%88%91%E7%9D%A1%E8%A7%89%E5%8E%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4,910,000&lt;/a&gt; hits)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%8D%A2%E8%A1%A3%E6%9C%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;换衣服&lt;/a&gt;去 (wǒ huàn yīfú qù) = I'm going to change clothes. (Baidu &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E6%88%91%E6%8D%A2%E8%A1%A3%E6%9C%8D%E5%8E%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1,460,000&lt;/a&gt; hits)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%A4%BC%E6%8B%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;礼拜&lt;/a&gt;去 (wǒ lǐbài qù) = I'm going to pray. (Baidu &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E6%88%91%E7%A4%BC%E6%8B%9C%E5%8E%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;240,000&lt;/a&gt; hits)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems common enough.  All of these examples could be rephrased 我去[something] and I think that would be legitimate.  But...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are phrases of the form 我[something]去 informal or slang (or just plain incorrect)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T12:36:21.283" Title="Are phrases of the form 我[something]去 informal or slang (or just plain incorrect)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26472" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-13T12:17:25.723" Score="2" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like this phrase means two persons wear the same or similar outfit, which is very embarrasing. But the word &quot;uniform&quot; seems not to serve such purpose because uniform doesn't make the wearers embarrassing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T07:55:28.677" Title="I can't find the equivalent for 撞衫, could you help?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26471" CreationDate="2017-09-13T12:36:21.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a correct usage of 我...去. It's usually used when asked &quot;你干什么去？&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &quot;你干什么去？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &quot;我跑步去&quot;；“我上厕所去”；“我睡觉去”；“我换衣服去”；“我做礼拜去” （more clear than 我礼拜去）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When asked with &quot;你（要）去干什么？&quot;， one usually uses 我（要）去...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &quot;你（要）去干什么？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &quot;我（要）去跑步&quot;；“我（要）去上厕所”；“我（要）去睡觉”；“我（要）去换衣服”；“我（要）去做礼拜”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those colloquial terms are commonly used in daily dialogues. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T12:36:21.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26472" CreationDate="2017-09-13T16:22:21.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/50983/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;撞衫&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;often used to describe movie stars, celebrity's who just happen to wear the same outfit&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'撞' in '撞衫' is the same one in '撞期' (scheduling conflict).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'撞期'(date clash) means two events scheduled at the same date, creating a &lt;strong&gt;scheduling conflict&lt;/strong&gt; between them. It is &amp;quot;(two scheduled events) dates run into each other&amp;quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'撞衫' (dress clash) means two people wearing identical outfits at the same event, creating a &lt;strong&gt;fashion faux pas&lt;/strong&gt; for both. It is &amp;quot;(two people) dress the same&amp;quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest simply translate 撞衫 as &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;dress the same&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;identically dress&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;安和瑪麗在頒獎典禮上&lt;strong&gt;撞了衫&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (Ann and Mary &lt;strong&gt;dressed the same&lt;/strong&gt; at the award show);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;穿成衣可能導致與某人&lt;strong&gt;撞衫&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (wear ready-to-wear dress many resulted in &lt;strong&gt;dressing the same&lt;/strong&gt; with someone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T04:34:05.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26476" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26478" CreationDate="2017-09-14T02:02:56.417" Score="1" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among the many banners for new students at Nankai Uni is this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s46ni.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s46ni.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;爱国 敬业 创新 乐群&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;爱国 敬业 创新 乐群&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Àiguó jìngyè chuàngxīn lèqún&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first three I can translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%88%B1%E5%9B%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;爱国&lt;/a&gt; (àiguó） = patriotism (literally &quot;love country&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%95%AC%E4%B8%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;敬业&lt;/a&gt; (jìngyè) = dedication to one's job&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%88%9B%E6%96%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;创新&lt;/a&gt; (chuàngxīn） = innovation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the fourth one doesn't appear on dict.cn.  (And I think I've managed to identify the hanzi characters here.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 乐群 (lèqún) mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we break it down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B9%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乐&lt;/a&gt; (lè) = happy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%BE%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;群&lt;/a&gt; (qún) = group&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess it means something like &quot;happy group&quot;, which sounds a bit strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T02:21:18.177" Title="What does 乐群 (lèqún) mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26476" CreationDate="2017-09-14T02:19:45.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;乐 here means 喜欢, like, enjoy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;群 means group&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乐群 means enjoy group-living, willing to go well with others, and that kind of idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T02:19:45.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26476" CreationDate="2017-09-14T02:21:18.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%95%AC%E4%B8%9A%E4%B9%90%E7%BE%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt; gives the origin of this expression as from 《礼记·学记》, and explains 乐群 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;乐群：乐于与好朋友相处&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Willing to socialize with friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T02:21:18.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26472" CreationDate="2017-09-14T03:32:21.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tang Ho's answer is good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literally it's clothing clashing, or just translate as &quot;dress the same&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;haha, in Chinese spoken language we also use 撞衫 a lot to describe wearing the same dress as others not only movie stars&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17918" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T03:32:21.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25857" CreationDate="2017-09-14T03:43:45.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For what I understand, 收尸 literally means collecting dead body&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;however, usually it is extended to means &lt;strong&gt;&quot;to clear up the mess for somebody&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;你做错了事，我替你收尸&quot;——you've done something wrong, and I clear up the mess&#xA;for you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17918" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T03:43:45.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2017-09-14T04:36:01.440" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just created &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pinyin-editor.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.pinyin-editor.com/&lt;/a&gt; a couple of days ago, that might help especially if you try to do things on mobile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17926" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T04:36:01.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26482" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26487" CreationDate="2017-09-14T06:30:29.653" Score="2" ViewCount="537" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, you use 先 to mean &quot;first.&quot; For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Eat first =&gt; 先食&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, most people use 才 so it becomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;才吃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes people also use 先 even with Mandarin, so what are the guidelines in Mandarin for using 才vs 先?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T13:13:09.913" Title="才vs 先: When to use each one in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26483" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26493" CreationDate="2017-09-14T06:40:31.880" Score="0" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this tattoo and I really want to know what it says. I'm not sure if it's Chinese or Japanese. What does it say and where can I find the symbols online?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tRtLy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17927" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2020-02-21T16:34:06.993" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T16:34:06.993" Title="What does this tattoo say and where can I find the symbols online? (Characters identified: 寵命力)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-09-14T12:15:20.793" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26482" CreationDate="2017-09-14T06:57:39.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have different meanings, I'm not familar with Cantonese, but in Mandarin, &quot;先&quot; means first, before, &quot;先吃&quot; and &quot;先食&quot; have the same meaning of &quot;eat first&quot;.&#xA;&quot;才&quot; indicates doings something late than normal, &quot;我三点才吃午饭&quot; means I had lunch at three pm, which delivered a message that I was busy at lunch time, and have to eat lunch late.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17915" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T06:57:39.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26482" CreationDate="2017-09-14T07:04:22.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;才 could mean 'a little late' or 'just now' according to the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才吃 means you just finish eating and possibly implying it's late according to the speaker's tone. The intonation plays a key role here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is hard for a Chinese language learner to distinct whether the speaker has the implication of 'late'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 你才吃完啊？ could just simply mean you just finish eating. Or if you put an emphasis on 才 while you speak, it means you just finish eating but emphasize more on &quot;you are actually late&quot; for eating. It could be a complaining sometimes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先 just means 'first', 'earlier'. It's not that hard as 才.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先吃 means you eat a bit earlier than others/normal; you eat first. Like in 我先吃；你先吃；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T07:04:22.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26486" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-14T07:05:21.700" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd always had this hunch! The bus recording was supposed to be 安全 but why did it sound like 安前.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I got affirmation from 《成都方言》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CK14P.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CK14P.png&quot; alt=&quot;ah&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刘前进&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此词源于《刘全进瓜》的古典故事，即与瓜傻同义，便指傻瓜。又由于地域读音关系，“前”与“全”不分，此词又为“刘全进”。歇后语：“～——瓜！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically: &lt;strong&gt;“前”与“全”不分&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This, though, is the only &lt;em&gt;evidence&lt;/em&gt; or documentation/reference I have come across talking about this phenomenon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other references or documentation exist talking about &lt;strong&gt;“前”与“全”不分&lt;/strong&gt; or 全 being pronounced &lt;em&gt;qian&lt;/em&gt; in Southwestern Mandarin, or more specifically Sichuanese/Chengduese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T08:46:04.520" Title="documentation/references: 全 being pronunced `qian` in Southwestern Mandarin" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26482" CreationDate="2017-09-14T07:19:50.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;才 and 先 are both very common words in Mandarin. Like you said, 先 means first in Cantonese, but it is the same in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;先&lt;/strong&gt; means first or &lt;em&gt;previous&lt;/em&gt; in time(or order), or means &lt;em&gt;earlier than&lt;/em&gt; ..., or means &lt;em&gt;in advance&lt;/em&gt;, or means &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; ..., the opposite word is 后(means later).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;examples:&lt;/em&gt; 早&lt;strong&gt;先&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;strong&gt;先&lt;/strong&gt;前 both mean previously(or in the past). &lt;strong&gt;先&lt;/strong&gt;人 means ancestor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她比我们&lt;strong&gt;先&lt;/strong&gt;到了那里——She got there before us.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt; has two kinds of character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it's used as noun it means&#xA;&lt;em&gt;ability&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;talent&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;gift&lt;/em&gt;. (example:你真有&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;——you really have talent! 多&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;多艺——be gifted in many ways.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it's used as adv, it&#xA;means just now (example:刚&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;——just now, &lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;开始——just start), &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or means&#xA;things happen or finish so late (example:你怎么&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;来——Why are you so late!,&#xA;他昨天&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;走——He doesn't leave until yesterday). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or means short in&#xA;number (example:你&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;十八岁——you are only 18 years old!) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or means only&#xA;...when (example: Only when you try hard, you can get good&#xA;results——努力&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;有好结果), &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or mean emphasize (example: I'm not buying what you&#xA;said at all——我&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;不信你说的呢)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this is all I know, hope it helps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17918" LastEditorUserId="17918" LastEditDate="2017-09-14T07:29:24.163" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T07:29:24.163" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26489" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-14T07:51:24.540" Score="1" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I surfed the internet to find such an interesting or funny lingistic problem, which I don't think I can have clear idea, so I'd draw your attention to it if you could give a hand.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f2VL0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f2VL0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T10:46:28.250" Title="Is it a pun intended here in the lyrics?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26489" CreationDate="2017-09-14T08:04:00.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally, I do not see a pun here. The lyrics does not contain the meaning of &quot;make love&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It just means when we loved each other, we were at that place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T08:04:00.197" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26489" CreationDate="2017-09-14T10:46:28.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with fefe's answer. Additionally, it might also indicate that they shared some important memories there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The writer used the word 浪 to describe the wheat field which could mean (a) the he/she has a lot of memories for them or misses his/her ex-lover a lot and (b) his/her love for that person was deep like the ocean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17913" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T10:46:28.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26492" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28803" CreationDate="2017-09-14T10:46:47.387" Score="0" ViewCount="347" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book &lt;em&gt;The Chinese Typewriter&lt;/em&gt; by Thomas Mullaney has the following Cartoon from the San Francisco Examiner (1900)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sadMD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sadMD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;8888&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The first mass-produced Chinese typewriter was a figment of popular imagination. It was first sighted in January 1900, when the San Francisco Examiner spread word of a strange new contraption housed in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood, in the back room of a newspaper office on Dupont Street. The machine boasted a twelve-foot keyboard complete with 5,000 keys. “Two rooms knocked into one apartment afford shelter for this remarkable contrivance,” the author explained, describing a machine so large that the “typist” was something akin to a general commanding forces over a vast terrain (figure 1.1). The piece was accompanied by a cartoon in which the caricatured inventor sat atop a stool and shouted Cantonese-esque gibberish at “four muscular key-thumpers through a large tin megaphone.” Lock shat hoo-la ma sho gong um hom tak ti-wak yet gee sam see baa gow!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize he calls it gibberish but does Lock shat hoo-la ma sho gong um hom tak ti-wak yet gee sam see baa gow!! Actually mean anything?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-16T13:02:52.697" Title="Does “Lock shat hoo-la ma sho gong um hom tak ti-wak yet gee sam see baa gow!!” mean anything?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26483" CreationDate="2017-09-14T11:08:08.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three characters from the picture look like &quot;寵&quot;, &quot;命&quot; and &quot;力“. The followings are the common usage of the words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寵：(verb) Love, favor, spoil, dote; (noun) things or person that is loved/favored (eg. 新寵，寵物)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;命：(verb) command, admonish, appoint (eg.命令); (noun) life, lifespan, fate (eg.命運)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;力：(noun) Strength, ability, power; (adv) doing something with the best effort (eg.力爭上游）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term &quot;寵命力&quot; does not look like anything meaningful to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17913" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T11:08:08.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26494" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-14T12:39:47.813" Score="2" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just read the following sentence on 人名网 mobile:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三文鱼寿司是&lt;strong&gt;很受&lt;/strong&gt;中国人欢迎的寿司种类，甚至有不少中国人到日本的回转寿司店也只点三文鱼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &lt;a href=&quot;http://world.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0914/c1002-29535768.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;on web version&lt;/a&gt;, the expression is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在中国，三文鱼是中国&lt;strong&gt;很受&lt;/strong&gt;欢迎的寿司种类，甚至有不少中国人到日本的回转寿司店只点三文鱼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand how 受 works in the first article. If it is a verb and the whole sentence is a modifier to &quot;寿司种类&quot;, then there should be a subject to a verb &quot;很受&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least on the second article, I understand that 中国 is a subject and 很受 is a verb, both of them modify 寿司种类 via 的. But on the first article, there is no subject on the &quot;很受中国人欢迎的&quot;... It might not be a verb to begin with, since if I remove 很受, it still seems to make sense (in this case 中国人 is a subject and 欢迎 is a verb...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T04:20:07.033" Title="How does 受 work in this context (on the first article)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26482" CreationDate="2017-09-14T12:41:39.423" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eat first =&amp;gt; 先食&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is correct, because 先 means 'first' in both Cantonese and Mandarin, so 先食 in Cantonese means the same as 先吃 in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Cantonese,  '先'(shortened for 先至) is also the counterpart of '才' in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/560/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/560/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[7] [粵] [adv] only then (shortened for 先至)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Only&lt;/strong&gt; after you finish them all, &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; you can get off work&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全部做完&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;可以下班 (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全部做完&lt;strong&gt;先&lt;/strong&gt;(至)可以放工 (Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Only&lt;/strong&gt; after I bought it, &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; I realized it was a fake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;買了&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;知是假貨 (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;買咗&lt;strong&gt;先&lt;/strong&gt;(至)知係假貨 (Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Your example sentence: &amp;quot;努力先有好结果&amp;quot; is a valid shortened version of  &amp;quot;努力先至有好结果&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才vs 先: When to use each one in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from using '先' as the shortened form of '先至' in Cantonese, the usage of 先 is basically the same in Mandarin and Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;先 cannot replace 才 in Mandarin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T13:13:09.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26494" CreationDate="2017-09-14T12:54:31.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main parts of the sentence is 三文鱼(subject) 是(verb) 寿司种类(object).很受中国人欢迎的 and 中国很受欢迎的 are the modifier of 寿司种类. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, the first sentence is better, because in the second sentence it repeats 中国 twice. 在&lt;strong&gt;中国&lt;/strong&gt;，三文鱼是&lt;strong&gt;中国&lt;/strong&gt;很受欢迎的寿司种类. It could be better to remove the second 中国. 在中国，三文鱼是很受欢迎的寿司种类. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受 is short for 受到， meaning 'to get or getting'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase 很受中国人欢迎的 means 'getting warmly welcomed by Chinese people'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a whole, 三文鱼寿司是很受中国人欢迎的寿司种类 can be translated to Salmon sushi is the type which is warmly beloved/welcomed by Chinese people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subject for 受 is 寿司种类. In fact, it's a passive voice here. That 寿司种类&#xA;is 受到中国人欢迎. This is the same as &quot;寿司种类&lt;strong&gt;被&lt;/strong&gt;中国人欢迎&quot;. Somehow, 受到 here is the nice way to express “被” I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-14T13:08:12.520" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T13:08:12.520" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26494" CreationDate="2017-09-14T14:23:03.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blaszard wrote: &lt;em&gt;I understand the whole sentence structure but what I don't understand is the modifier part. Why on the first sentence does 很受 not have a subject?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Active voice sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[中国人很欢迎三文鱼寿司]= [Chinese people very welcome salmon sushi ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[中国人 is the subject] [欢迎 is the verb] [三文鱼寿司 is the object]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~Passive voice sentence emphasizes the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[三文鱼寿司很受中国人欢迎]= [salmon sushi is very welcomed by Chinese people]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[三文鱼寿司 is the object] [很受 is the passive voice marker that marks 三文鱼寿司 as the object] [中国人 is the subject] [欢迎 is the verb]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/423/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;受&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; &lt;em&gt;[4] preceding a verb to form a passive voice&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T14:28:37.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26502" CreationDate="2017-09-15T02:30:14.370" Score="2" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another banner welcoming new students to Nankai University in the Law Building (I walk past these daily, so I'm hoping to practice reading them as I walk past each day):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TqERA.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TqERA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;励志勤学 德法兼修 祝新同学健康成长进步&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I transcribe this as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;励志勤学 德法兼修 祝新同学健康成长进步&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Lìzhìqínxué défǎjiānxiū zhù xīntóngxué jiànkāng chéngzhǎng jìnbù&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the last part 祝新同学健康成长进步 translates directly: &quot;wish (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%A5%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;祝&lt;/a&gt;) new students (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%96%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%90%8C%E5%AD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;同学&lt;/a&gt;) health (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%81%A5%E5%BA%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;健康&lt;/a&gt;), growth (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%88%90%E9%95%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;成长&lt;/a&gt;) and progress (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%BF%9B%E6%AD%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;进步&lt;/a&gt;)&quot;.  The first part seems adequately translated using dict.cn; we have: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8A%B1%E5%BF%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;励志&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;pursue a goal with determination&quot; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8B%A4%E5%AD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;勤学&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;study diligently&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand the middle part 德法兼修 (défǎjiānxiū).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%BE%B7%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;德法&lt;/a&gt; is listed as &quot;defa&quot;, and Google Translate translates it to &quot;Germany and France&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%85%BC%E4%BF%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;兼修&lt;/a&gt; is listed as &quot;minor in&quot;, and Google Translate translates it to &quot;minor&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got nothing; neither of these is meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;(If it helps, I noticed it was also mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;http://newsweb.nuaa.edu.cn/2017/0510/c741a41730/page.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a news article&lt;/a&gt; entitled 人文与社会科学学院举办“&lt;strong&gt;德法兼修&lt;/strong&gt;，点赞青春”普法教育实践课暨玄武区法院庭审进校园活动.)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T02:43:44.353" Title="What does 德法兼修 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26500" CreationDate="2017-09-15T02:42:51.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Split 德法兼修:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德 means 道德 virtue, morality;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;法 = 法律 law;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兼 = 并，一起， and or together;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;修 = 修行， study or major in the context;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T02:42:51.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26500" CreationDate="2017-09-15T02:43:44.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to understand every single character firstly,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;德：道德（morality)&#xA;法：法制/法律（law）&#xA;兼：同时涉及/具有多方面（simultaneously/concurrently）&#xA;修：学习/培养（study）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it could be literally translated as &lt;code&gt;study and improve both morality and legal knowledge&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T02:43:44.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26503" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-15T03:03:43.667" Score="3" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally, this means striding or walking, but it seems a polite term to urge people to move, e.g., 请移步到餐厅用膳, shall we say &quot;Please walk to the dining room for your meal?&quot; It sounds very awkward, because unless there is more than one mode of movement(as in an airport you can either walk or take a bus to get to the aeroplane), walk should not be mentioned or even stressed here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="17398" LastEditDate="2017-09-15T03:17:46.497" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T03:59:12.210" Title="What is the equivalent in English for 移步？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26503" CreationDate="2017-09-15T03:22:59.053" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, by saying &quot;移步&quot;, there is nothing implied here and it's just a polite term. It simply makes sense by removing 移步 from the sentence. 请到餐厅用膳。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I don't think it's a good usage of 移步 in the context. It's kind of redundant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T03:22:59.053" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26503" CreationDate="2017-09-15T03:46:41.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term 移步 is related to an formal expression &quot;请移玉步&quot;. It literally  means &quot;please move your noble feet&quot; (asking a noble to move his feet is ground for apologizing). It is a polite phrase for asking someone to move from his current location to a new one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请&lt;strong&gt;移步&lt;/strong&gt;到餐厅用膳 means &quot;Please &lt;strong&gt;relocate&lt;/strong&gt; yourself to the dining room for your meal&quot; (imply you are apologizing for the inconvenience) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-15T03:59:12.210" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T03:59:12.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26494" CreationDate="2017-09-15T04:01:51.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;在中国，三文鱼是中国很受欢迎的寿司种类&quot;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;I think it shuold be &quot;在中国，三文鱼是很受欢迎的寿司种类&quot;.&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;很受 do same work in two article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17933" LastEditorUserId="17933" LastEditDate="2017-09-15T04:20:07.033" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T04:20:07.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25462" CreationDate="2017-09-15T04:12:24.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Explanation from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/63FD.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　1. 把持：～持。独～大权。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　2. 拉到自己这方面或自己身上来：包～。招～。承～。～客。～活儿。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　3. 搂，捆：把孩子～在怀里。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　4. 取：～秀。～胜。摘星～月。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this and some other dictionaries (which may not be online) and my personal experience, I think 揽 in Mandarin does not have the usage you asked in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T04:12:24.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26508" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26509" CreationDate="2017-09-15T04:34:27.697" Score="2" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to say &quot;I went to Indonesia to give a talk at a conference.&quot;  My best attempt thus far is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去了Indonesia参加会议做报告&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;wǒ qùle Indonesia cānjiā huìyì zuò bàogào&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a fairly literal translation from English (&quot;I go[past tense] Indonesia attend conference give talk&quot;).  (I'm happy to say &quot;Indonesia&quot; in English, as the Chinese &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8D%B0%E5%BA%A6%E5%B0%BC%E8%A5%BF%E4%BA%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;印度尼西亚&lt;/a&gt; sounds basically the same.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's okay to say this, but I'm not sure if I should use &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%8A%A5%E5%91%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;报告&lt;/a&gt; (bàogào) or &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%BC%94%E8%AE%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;演讲&lt;/a&gt; (yǎnjiǎng) (or even &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%AE%B2%E6%BC%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;讲演&lt;/a&gt; (jiǎngyǎn)) which all basically mean &quot;talk&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: When should one use 报告 or 演讲 when saying &quot;to give a talk&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found some snippets online:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谢谢你们听我的演讲,英语怎么说？ (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1112790026200975419.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ref.&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Xièxiè nǐmen tīng wǒ de yǎnjiǎng, yīngyǔ zěnme shuō?&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I think translates to &quot;Thank you[plural] for listening to my talk; how do I say this in English?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谁上个星期听我的报告? (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/205509240.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ref.&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Shéi shàng gè xīngqí tīng wǒ de bàogào?&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I think translates to &quot;Who listened to my talk last week?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This suggests that both can be used in certain circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T05:32:55.403" Title="When should one use 报告 (bàogào) or 演讲 (yǎnjiǎng) when saying &quot;to give a talk&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26508" CreationDate="2017-09-15T05:31:10.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;报告 means &quot;report&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;演讲 means &quot;speech&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all depends on the content of your speech. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are reading a report to inform people about some facts, you should use  &lt;strong&gt;发表报告 (give a report)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are invited to educate people in the conference about some facts, then you can use  &lt;strong&gt;发表演讲 (give a speech/lecture)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are expressing your opinions in the conference,  then you should say  &lt;strong&gt;发表言论 (give my opinions/ comments)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In any case, 报告, 演讲 and 言论 are all spoken words, so all can be referred to  &quot;talk&quot; in English &quot; e.g. &quot;who listened to my &lt;strong&gt;talk&lt;/strong&gt; in the conference?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T05:31:10.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26508" CreationDate="2017-09-15T05:32:55.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I went to Indonesia to give a talk at a conference.&quot; 我去Indonesia在一个会议上做了演讲。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;报告 is like the word 'report' in English, while 讲演 is more like 'talk' in English. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your translation for &quot;谢谢你们听我的演讲,英语怎么说？&quot; is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The sentence &quot;谁上个星期听我的报告?&quot; has an issue. It should be 谁上个星期听我的报告&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;?. 了 here connotes the 'completion' and can not be omitted. Otherwise, it sounds like the speaker is asking &quot;who would go for my talk?&quot;, but it actually had been finished last week. It doesn't make sense. It would make sense if put &quot;谁&lt;strong&gt;下&lt;/strong&gt;个星期听我的报告?&quot;， which asking who will go for it next week.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T05:32:55.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26511" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26515" CreationDate="2017-09-15T07:32:50.973" Score="0" ViewCount="772" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, you can use 遲 to indicate someone is late (e.g., not punctual) or the time is late (e.g., past midnight so all restaurants are closed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it seems like Mandarin speakers use 晚 in place of 遲 most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the Mandarin guidelines for using 遲 vs. 晚? Should you just always use 晚?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T12:26:28.767" Title="遲 vs. 晚 in Mandarin: when to use which one?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26511" CreationDate="2017-09-15T07:41:14.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To indicate late, 晚 is more modern while 遲(迟) is more ancient. Cantonese has retained many ancient Chinese language components. &#xA;Both of them is understandable in nowadays communication. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17934" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T07:41:14.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26511" CreationDate="2017-09-15T07:51:03.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's meaningless to just compare them without context. Maybe know more phrases can be more helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm late.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;correct: 我来晚了，我迟到了，我迟到了&#xA;wrong: 我晚了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many case, they are very similar. But in other case, they different, and can't replace with each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;evening/night&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;correct:晚上/夜晚  (can't use 迟)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;delay&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;correct:延迟  (can't use 晚)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17935" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T07:51:03.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26511" CreationDate="2017-09-15T08:08:08.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;晚 and 遲 are interchangeable when it is used as an adverb for &quot;late&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 晚到= 遲到; 來晚了= 來遲了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 遲 have the additional meaning of &quot;delay&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can say &lt;strong&gt;遲遲&lt;/strong&gt;才回覆 (reply after &lt;strong&gt;long delay&lt;/strong&gt;/ reply &lt;strong&gt;very late&lt;/strong&gt;) but you can't say  晚晚才回覆&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can say &lt;strong&gt;遲&lt;/strong&gt;則有變 (situations change when you &lt;strong&gt;delay&lt;/strong&gt; your action/ situations change when you are &lt;strong&gt;late&lt;/strong&gt; to act) but you can't say  晚則有變 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T08:08:08.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26511" CreationDate="2017-09-15T08:25:42.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;迟(the standard simplified Chinese word, while the Chinese Traditional is 遲) and 晚 both have the meaning of late.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;迟&lt;/strong&gt; usually means &lt;strong&gt;late for the appointed time or a certain time&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;example: Party七点开始，你来&lt;strong&gt;迟&lt;/strong&gt;了!—— The party start at 7:00 pm, you came&#xA;late! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word '迟到' is frequently used to describe late for certain time&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;晚&lt;/strong&gt; is more complex&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has the meaning of &lt;strong&gt;late for a certain time&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;example: Party七点开始，你来&lt;strong&gt;晚&lt;/strong&gt;了!—— The party start at 7:00 pm, you came&#xA;late! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also have the meaning of &lt;strong&gt;just being late&lt;/strong&gt; but not for a&#xA;certain time. example: 他很&lt;strong&gt;晚&lt;/strong&gt;到家—— He arrived home very late. example:&#xA;他昨晚很&lt;strong&gt;晚&lt;/strong&gt;离开—— He left late last night. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or it means &lt;strong&gt;evening&lt;/strong&gt;. example:&#xA;晚上——evening, example:今&lt;strong&gt;晚&lt;/strong&gt;——tonight, example:昨&lt;strong&gt;晚&lt;/strong&gt;——last night.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fun fact: to describe public transportation's behind schedule, the word is 晚点, where '点' means the schedule time for public transportation to arrive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17918" LastEditorUserId="17918" LastEditDate="2017-09-15T12:26:28.767" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T12:26:28.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26486" CreationDate="2017-09-15T08:46:04.520" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working in Chengdu. But I don't think they don't really 前/全 不分, they can easily speak 全 though maybe sounds a little different on tone with 普通话. Maybe the pure ancient 四川话 has the difference as you talked. But nowadays, it's not so obvious. Maybe caused by the develop and immigrants from other place, the 四川话 also changed day after day. 所以，如果如今的四川话和过去的不太像了，你也不必感到奇怪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17935" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T08:46:04.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26519" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26520" CreationDate="2017-09-15T10:55:20.600" Score="2" ViewCount="594" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a newbie to Chinese. I'm learning it by myself. So I have some questions. Could you correct me if I'm wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to say &quot;It was nice meeting you yesterday&quot; or &quot;I was glad meeting you&quot; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I traslated it as 我昨天很高兴见到了你。Is it correct?  Can I say 我(昨天)很高兴见到了? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do I need to use 了  here? Or 我昨天很高兴见到 and 我昨天很高兴见到 would also be correct?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17940" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T07:12:56.440" Title="How to say &quot;it was nice meeting you yesterday&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26519" CreationDate="2017-09-15T11:06:30.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Way to go! You have made a perfect first Chinese sentence &quot;我昨天很高兴见到了你。&quot;! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 我昨天很高兴见到, you might have to put a target for the verb '见到', so it would be like “我昨天很高兴见到你。”, which has the same meaning as &quot;我昨天很高兴见到了你。&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘了’ in this case can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T11:06:30.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26521" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26579" CreationDate="2017-09-15T11:50:45.417" Score="2" ViewCount="2917" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen this phrase being used frequently on social media amongst the youth of Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I go to school by bus&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would anyone kindly explain how this phrase came to be and what it means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my understanding it's the result of deliberately transliterating the original Chinese phrase in a mocking manner, but I could be wrong. Thanks for your help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T17:49:23.053" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T17:49:23.053" Title="What's the origin of the Hong Kong colloquialism &quot;I go to school by bus&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;colloquialisms&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26523" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-15T19:06:07.073" Score="-1" ViewCount="430" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was hoping someone may know if &quot;6514&quot;, posted as a social network app status, has any meaning at all? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17941" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T14:34:36.083" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T14:34:36.083" Title="Does &quot;6514&quot; have a meaning?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26524" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-15T20:10:28.913" Score="0" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Daodejing 25:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有物混成，先天地生。寂兮寥兮，獨立不改，周行而不殆，可以為天下母。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen this translated as both:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;There is a being, wonderful, perfect; It existed before heaven and&#xA;  earth. How quiet it is! How spiritual it is! It stands alone and it&#xA;  does not change. It moves around and around, but does not on this&#xA;  account suffer. All life comes from it.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;There was something undefined and complete, coming into existence&#xA;  before Heaven and Earth. How still it was and formless, standing&#xA;  alone, and undergoing no change, reaching everywhere and in no danger&#xA;  (of being exhausted)! It may be regarded as the Mother of all things.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is 物 here precisely? And what does 混成 mean in relation to 物?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-17T20:57:12.577" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T20:57:12.577" Title="What is the usage of 物 here?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26525" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26962" CreationDate="2017-09-15T20:39:55.287" Score="1" ViewCount="647" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm doing a project for my Mandarin class, and we're designing a mall. One of the components I want to include is a level for health and beauty, like makeup, etc. I've looked up translations of &quot;beauty&quot;, but they all seem to be referring to a person, like a woman who is beautiful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you say &quot;beauty&quot; in the context above? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-17T20:57:38.277" LastActivityDate="2017-12-16T22:04:50.547" Title="How would I say &quot;beauty&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26526" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26808" CreationDate="2017-09-15T23:44:34.233" Score="3" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, sometimes 質 is pronounced with the 2nd tone (e.g., 質地, 特質) and other times it's pronounced with the 4th tone (e.g., 質疑, 質量, 品質).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two words pronounced with the 2nd tone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;質地 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/11242/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/11242/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;特質 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/48232/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/48232/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There doesn't appear to be a clear pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know any rules for when to pronounce 質 with 2nd tone vs. 4th tone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2017-10-02T04:49:14.910" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T04:05:56.220" Title="質: when to pronounce in 2nd tone or 4th (Mandarin)?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26525" CreationDate="2017-09-15T23:49:46.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Health and beauty literally mean 健康 与 美丽. 美丽 can describe everything beautiful, not just specific to a person. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a product of makeup, you could also consider 天然 纯净, meaning natural and pure, because natural and pure things stand for health. There are some other words you can reference: 清爽, 自然，白嫩，青春，靓丽，活力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T23:49:46.460" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26526" CreationDate="2017-09-15T23:59:51.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should always pronounce the 4th tone in the standard mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, I heard people wrongly pronounced the 2nd tone in the words of 质量，质地, which is probably acceptable to a native ear. But again that's wrong pronunciation.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you pronounce the 2nd tone for 质疑，品质, it's really bad (at least to me). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting observation, in a online dictionary, I search for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/8/152/337931.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;质地&lt;/a&gt;， and it's marked the 4th tone for simplified and 2th tone for traditional one.  So, I doubt this could be regional thing as fefe suggested in his/her answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-16T00:35:29.620" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T00:35:29.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26526" CreationDate="2017-09-16T00:02:59.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mainland China, 质 is always zhi4, the 4th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the words listed in cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1028/?full=true , you can see same [TW] marks (like the following) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;神經質  san4 ging1 zat1  shen2 jing1 [TW] zhi2 [PRC] zhi4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That may be where the zhi2 sound comes from (although some of the words do not have the mark). But I do not have a dictionary from Taiwan to check how it is regulated there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Google translate, it is not a great source for this kind research, and I want to report a bug if I can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Found an &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=ez90.5&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec=sec1&amp;amp;index=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;online dictionary in Taiwan&lt;/a&gt;, and 质 has two pronunciations there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=_8iQ.3&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec=sec1&amp;amp;op=v&amp;amp;view=0-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhi2&lt;/a&gt; :&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;[名]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;1 事物的根本、特性。如：「特質」、「流質」。《論語．衛靈公》：「君子義以為質，禮以行之。」《史記．卷二四．樂書》：「中正無邪，禮之質也。」&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;2 人的天性稟賦。如：「資質」。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;3 樸實的本性。如：「文質彬彬」。《論語．雍也》：「質勝文則野，文勝質則史。」《韓非子．解老》：「夫君子取情而去貌，好質而惡飾。」&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;4 形軀、形體。三國魏．曹植〈愍志賦〉：「豈良時之難俟，痛余質之日虧。」&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;5 箭靶、標的。《荀子．勸學》：「是故質的張而弓矢至焉。」《後漢書．卷六十上．馬融》：「流矢雨墜，各指所質。」&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;6 古代的一種刑具。《史記．卷九六．張丞相傳》：「蒼坐法當斬，解衣伏質。」&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;[動]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;詰問。《禮記．中庸》：「質諸鬼神而無疑。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=_8iQ.3&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec=sec1&amp;amp;op=v&amp;amp;view=0-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhi4&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;[動]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;用財物或人作保證以為抵押。如：「質押」。《戰國策．趙策四》：「於是為長安君約車百乘，質於齊，齊兵乃出。」&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;[名]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;拜見長輩時奉上的見面禮。通「贄」。《孟子．滕文公下》：「出疆必載質。」漢．趙岐．注：「質，臣所執以見君者也。」《史記．卷八四．屈原賈生傳》：「乃令張儀詳去秦，厚幣委質事楚。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T00:42:08.490" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26530" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-16T02:54:07.883" Score="0" ViewCount="2202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I never know what to say/write in Chinese when a friend tells me that one of their relatives or friends has passed away. I'm aware of the terms of politeness for referring to the death itself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/17175/politeness-in-referring-to-a-recent-death&quot;&gt;Politeness in referring to a recent death&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/21515/what-is-the-polite-way-to-say-a-grandparent-has-passed-away&quot;&gt;What is the polite way to say a grandparent has passed away?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't know what to say to the person who has just told me that someone they know just died. It is hard enough in English to know what to say, but I might say something like &quot;Oh, I'm really sorry to hear that.&quot; or &quot;I'm sorry for your loss.&quot; What can I say in Chinese that will be comforting, culturally appropriate, and won't sound trite?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know for both the situation of a very close friend/relative dying and also for a more distant friend/relative dying. I assume one might say different things depending on how close they were.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recent example of a more distant relative passing away:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Friend:&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;我们去【某地方】参加我四舅的葬礼去了，明天晚上十点左右才回来。谅！&quot; &lt;em&gt;(We had originally planned to meet the next day.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Me:&lt;/strong&gt; ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9823" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T07:03:51.370" Title="What do I say when a friend tells me about the death of a loved one?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26531" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-16T03:02:55.567" Score="-1" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today when  aboard a bus, I heard the following &quot;车开了请扶稳坐好&quot; from the paging, and the English version was also given &quot;The bus is leaving, please hold steady and sit well.&quot; Obviously, such an expression is far from making sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also I saw a sentence in a notice, which says &quot;在大厅前集体乘车前往”, and the English is given as &quot;take a bus in front of the lobby&quot;, which needs revision as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-17T04:06:48.120" Title="Looking for best rendition" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26530" CreationDate="2017-09-16T03:43:05.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are notified a distant relative of someone has just passed away, you don't need to say much, just a simple &quot;這樣啊&quot; (Oh, I see) and/or &quot;那真不幸&quot; (that's really unfortunate) to acknowledge you have just learned the bad news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are notified a close relative of someone has just passed away, you should add an condolences, and the most common phrase for offering condolences is &lt;strong&gt;節哀順變&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;節哀&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;這樣啊... 那真不幸，希望你能&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/54388/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;節哀順變&lt;/a&gt;&quot; (Oh, I see... That's really unfortunate, hope you can restrain your grief and accept the change)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;這樣啊... 那真不幸，請&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/49231/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;節哀&lt;/a&gt; (Oh, I see... That's really unfortunate, please restrain your grief)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-16T03:50:09.333" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T03:50:09.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26530" CreationDate="2017-09-16T04:41:56.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides what Tang Ho has provided. In a real practice (informal circumstances), if one's close friend/relative passed away, you could say these sentences: &quot;真的啊！/真的吗! 什么时候的事情啊？ 那现在怎么样了？ 太不幸了！有什么我可以帮忙的吗？&quot; If you feel your friend really sad, you could say: &quot;你也别太难过了！ 人死不能复生。&quot; You could apply those sentences according to the situations. These are all colloquial sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T04:41:56.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26535" CreationDate="2017-09-16T05:25:39.843" Score="2" ViewCount="193" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading a short story and I wondered what 五 means here but I guess it's 'slang'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 放肆！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B retorted back: 你爹放五! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Sorry for not putting any research result, can't find any, I only know that 五 is sometimes used to replaced 我 or 无).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T00:58:07.030" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T00:58:07.030" Title="Meaning of 五 in A: 放肆！B: 你爹放五!" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26534" CreationDate="2017-09-16T06:22:49.750" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a funny one! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As 5 (五) is bigger than 4 (肆)， it could imply B is one higher generation than A. That's why B said 你爹（your father, 放五）， implying &quot;I am your father&quot;(as you are &quot;放肆&quot; and I am &quot;放五&quot;！). This is like saying &quot;我是你爹，放五！&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really love this joke! Couldn't help laughing...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS： better put a comma in the middle &quot;你爹，放五！&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-16T06:35:47.590" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T06:35:47.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14476" CreationDate="2017-09-16T07:25:51.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you hear is correct, but its has a little different. When a parent says to a child, slow down. It means letting the kids out of the house and being safe. It's a caring one. Statement ，When you come out of a store. That boss usually speaks to u slowly. What he means is a polite expression. I'm a Chinese  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17943" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-09-18T05:27:19.337" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T05:27:19.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26531" CreationDate="2017-09-16T17:38:50.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;车开了请扶稳坐好&quot; - &quot; Bus is now leaving, please sit down or hold on to safety handrail &quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在大厅前集体乘车前往” - &quot;Please gather in front of the main hall for groups departure&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-17T04:06:48.120" LastActivityDate="2017-09-17T04:06:48.120" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26545" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26546" CreationDate="2017-09-16T18:57:28.203" Score="0" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;Typically, Chinese word order is &lt;code&gt;Subject + Location + Verb + Object&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Special_cases_of_%22zai%22_following_verbs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; indicates the location may follow the verb with certain exceptions. That is, there are location complements for 在 (zài).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an exhaustive list of all verbs which are exceptions to the standard word order, and which cause the location to follow the verb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, would 跳舞 qualify as an exception? How about 游泳?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2017-09-16T20:41:36.600" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T20:38:08.510" Title="List of all verbs that accept location complements?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26545" CreationDate="2017-09-16T20:00:09.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The page clearly stated: &quot;&lt;em&gt;These are verbs that imply movement or location. Technically, the structure is called a location complement&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to your question is: &quot;&lt;em&gt;Any verb that &lt;strong&gt;imply movement or location&lt;/strong&gt; can use '在' as a &lt;strong&gt;location complement&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are too many to count.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;跳 (jump) - you can jump on somewhere. E.g &quot;他的貓&lt;strong&gt;跳在&lt;/strong&gt;我身上&quot; (His cat jumps on to my body)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;掉 (drop) - you can drop something on somewhere. E.g &quot;我把鑰匙&lt;strong&gt;掉在&lt;/strong&gt;街上&quot; (I dropped my keys in the street)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;放 (put) - you can put something on somewhere. E.g &quot;約翰把書&lt;strong&gt;放在&lt;/strong&gt;桌子上&quot; (John put the book on the table)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;丟失 (lost)- you can lost something on somewhere. E.g &quot;我把鑰匙&lt;strong&gt;丟失在&lt;/strong&gt;街上&quot; (I lost my keys in the street)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;放置 (place)- you can place something on somewhere. E.g &quot;約翰把書&lt;strong&gt;放置在&lt;/strong&gt;桌子上&quot; (John places the book on the table) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For instance, would 跳舞 qualify as an exception? How about 游泳?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跳舞 and 游泳 do not qualified as exceptions. No location complement is needed for these two words. Dance or swim is not a single movement that  apply to a location. You can't dance, swim, sing or talk yourself (or an object) to a location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Crashalot wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;why is jump on somewhere an exception, but dance is not? 跳舞 even uses 跳 as part of the word. in the same way you can jump on somewhere, you can dance on somewhere (e.g., dance on street, dance on grass)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding the  location complement '在' after  a verb,  is to indicate the action is a movement that put the subject or object on a location, which mean the action is associated with a location.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跳舞 only describes the action of 'dance'. It is not a movement to put object on a location.(you know that because 跳舞 doesn't even take object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, verbs like  '放置' (place) and 丟失 (lost) are movements that put object on a location-- when you 'place' something, there's always a location where you place it; When you 'lost' something, there is always a location where you lost it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 跳舞 on its own with no object, but you must use '放置' with object. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Verbs like 跳舞, 工作 and 游泳 do not take object, therefore cannot be an exception from the 'location before verb' rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to add the information of where the verb takes place, you have to do it the regular way  by adding a relative phrase. For example:  &quot; 他在大廳裡跳舞&quot; (he dances in the hall) but not &quot;他跳舞在大廳裡&quot;; &quot;他在銀行工作&quot;(he works in a bank) but not &quot;他工作在銀行&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-18T20:38:08.510" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T20:38:08.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26547" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26557" CreationDate="2017-09-16T20:48:51.010" Score="2" ViewCount="816" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, you usually use 面 to mean &lt;code&gt;face&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it seems like in Mandarin, people use 臉 (e.g., 我的臉很紅) sometimes and other times use 面 (e.g., 面對面).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the guidelines around using 面 or 臉?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2017-09-16T20:59:03.430" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T03:47:55.303" Title="Mandarin: when to use 面 (mian) or 臉 (lian)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26548" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26549" CreationDate="2017-09-16T20:58:49.457" Score="2" ViewCount="377" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Connecting_nouns_with_%22shi%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This Chinese grammar page&lt;/a&gt; states &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是 (shì) is only used to link two nouns. It cannot be used to link a&#xA;  noun and an adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, you should not say this in Mandarin: &lt;code&gt;我是高&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Cantonese, it seems like you can say &lt;code&gt;我係高&lt;/code&gt;, and it would be considered grammatically correct. This seems like a common way to emphasize some quality as in &lt;code&gt;Yes, I *am* tall&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is the grammar page correct, that is you cannot use 是 to link a noun and adjective?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the grammar page is correct, does this mean Cantonese and Mandarin differ in this regard, or is it wrong even in Cantonese to say &lt;code&gt;我係高&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T23:43:55.177" Title="Difference between Cantonese and Mandarin: using 係/是 to link noun with adjective?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26548" CreationDate="2017-09-16T22:11:27.210" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我(高)是高 in Mandarin and 我(高就)係高 in Cantonese are both common phrases. They are always followed by a contrasting statement &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put, you have to follow &quot;我是高&quot; or &quot;我係高&quot; with a &quot;but&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;我(高)是高&lt;/strong&gt;, 但還沒高到可以打職業籃球&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;I am tall&lt;/strong&gt;, but not tall enough to play pro basketball)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same goes to Cantonese: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;我(高就)係高&lt;/strong&gt;, 但仲未高到可以打職業籃球&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;I am tall&lt;/strong&gt;, but not tall enough to play pro basketball)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Both &quot;我是高, 因此可以打職業籃球&quot; and &quot;我係高, 高到可以打職業籃球&quot; are grammatically incorrect because there are no contrasting statement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我高是高&quot;(It is true that I am tall) is not usually reduced to &quot;我是高&quot; in Mandarin , even it is not technically wrong;  on the other hand, &quot;我高就係高&quot; is routinely shortened to &quot;我係高&quot; or even &quot;我高&quot; in Cantonese&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-16T22:41:52.800" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T22:41:52.800" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26547" CreationDate="2017-09-16T23:14:29.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;面 could mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;face: 抛头露面，笑容满面&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;surface; top: 路面，地面，平面&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;outside: 布面&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;side; aspect: 方面&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;extent; scope: 知识面&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;flour； powder: 白面, 胡椒面&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;noodle: 面条，牛肉面&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脸 could mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;face; facial expressions: 笑脸，圆脸&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;feelings &amp;amp; sensibilities: 脸面&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 脸 and 面 could express feelings &amp;amp; sensibilities: 面子，不给面子， 脸面，给脸不要脸， 不长脸。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a phrase 脸皮厚 or 厚脸皮, meaning thick-skinned or have a audacity to do something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's pretty what I can think of. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T23:14:29.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26548" CreationDate="2017-09-16T23:43:55.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nothing impossible in a language. It depends how people usually use them, which is what it called natural and idiomatic.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;he is tall&quot; is natural, but &quot;他是高&quot; in Chinese is not (could imply different meanings as Tang ho mentioned). What the idiomatic way to express &quot;he is tall&quot; is &quot;他（的）个子高&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, In English &quot;noun + be + adjective&quot; is correspondent to &quot;noun + (adv.)adjective&quot; or &quot;noun + 是 + (adjective)noun&quot;most of time in Chinese. Besides the aforementioned example, &quot;he is nice&quot; -&gt; &quot;他人（很）好&quot;.; &quot;she is beautiful&quot; -&gt; &quot;她真漂亮&quot;，&quot;她是美女&quot;; &quot;he is fat&quot; -&gt; &quot;他很胖&quot;，&quot;他是胖子（胖子 is a noun）&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T23:43:55.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26552" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26553" CreationDate="2017-09-17T04:03:33.810" Score="1" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for an English term for &quot;厚脸皮&quot;. The best I can get from the web is &quot;a thick skin&quot;. As &quot;厚脸皮&quot; connotes derogatory and could be used as an insult sometimes, can &quot;a thick skin&quot; convey the same thing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there some other terms which could be more appropriate for it?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T07:47:44.690" Title="Seeking the equivalent in English for &quot;厚脸皮&quot;" Tags="&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26552" CreationDate="2017-09-17T04:26:02.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;thick-skinned&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/thick-skinned&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/thick-skinned&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Someone who is thick-skinned does not appear to be easily hurt by criticism:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Thick-skinned&quot; synonym&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/thick-skinned&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/thick-skinned&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;callous&lt;/strong&gt; : insensitive; indifferent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Thick-skinned&quot; is the best translation for &quot;厚脸皮&quot;. Both can be neutral or  derogatory &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: '厚顏無恥' (brazen) - 'Thick-skinned and shameless' is definitely derogatory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-18T02:40:13.240" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T02:40:13.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26554" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-17T07:49:20.003" Score="0" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of a video lecture/vodcast/... how to translate the English sentence &quot;(In this video) &lt;strong&gt;I would like to talk to you about&lt;/strong&gt; ...&quot; this or that topic ... into Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please use traditional Chinese characters in your answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T05:46:01.747" Title="In the context of a video lecture/vodcast/... how to translate &quot;I would like to talk to you about ...&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26555" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26556" CreationDate="2017-09-17T11:59:21.070" Score="2" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the song 记得忘记 (jìde wàngjì, memories and forgetfulness / remembering and forgetting), there is the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你赠我太多见闻 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 拿不走的热吻 | Nǐ zèng wǒ tài duō jiànwén &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; ná bù zǒu de rèwěn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would instinctively interpret 见闻 (jiànwén) as an adjective going with 拿不走 (ná bù zǒu) to refer to 热吻 (rèwěn). However, I cannot find any adjective sense of 见闻 (jiànwén) on the Wiktionary nor on Google, and since the lyrics are usually given with a linebreak after 见闻 (jiànwén), it might be that 见闻 (jiànwén) is actually another noun going with 热吻 (rèwěn) to be the object of 赠 (zèng). So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Translation 1: &quot;You gave me too many  warm kisses I couldn't take away;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Translation 2: &quot;You gave me too many experiences [and] warm kisses I couldn't take away.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is the best (or possibly the only correct one)? And if the best is option 1, what  should I use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T02:24:03.977" Title="Best way to translate 见闻 in a sentence" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26555" CreationDate="2017-09-17T13:36:17.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;见闻 is a noun word in the context, meaning &quot;what one sees and hears; knowledge and information&quot;. Interpreting as &quot;experiences&quot; in this context is ok I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your statement is correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;since the lyrics are usually given with a linebreak after 见闻&#xA;  (jiànwén), it might be that 见闻 (jiànwén) is actually another noun&#xA;  going with 热吻 (rèwěn) to be the object of 赠 (zèng). &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Small tweaks on your translation 2: &quot;You gave me too many experiences [and] warm kisses &lt;strong&gt;that couldn't be taken away&lt;/strong&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-17T13:36:17.897" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26547" CreationDate="2017-09-17T16:09:29.333" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese, when it comes to the meaning of &amp;quot;face, they basically are the same. However, in classic Chinese, they mean differently. Knowing the origin of them may help you understand how they are used in words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面 meant &amp;quot;face&amp;quot;; however, 脸 is used to refer to face now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脸 meant &amp;quot;cheek&amp;quot;; however, 脸颊 is used to refer to refer to cheek now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is an abridge of a Ci poem written by 晏殊 in Song dynasty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原是今朝斗草赢,笑从双脸生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Loose translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the case that (she) won the game of 斗草 this morning, (so) smiles come out of her two cheeks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, a man can not have two &amp;quot;faces&amp;quot;.&#xA;Since southern dialects remain more classic Chinese elements, you can find 面&#xA;more when it comes to face. As far as I know, in shanghai dialect, 面 is also used that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a rough guideline is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in literary and archaic words (for example, idioms), 面 is used more; while in colloquial words, 脸 is used more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, there is a word 面目 (meaing: appearance,looking). However, you would say 脸和眼睛 when you refer to &amp;quot;face and eye&amp;quot;. Regarding your example of &amp;quot;面对面&amp;quot;, you can actually say &amp;quot;脸对脸&amp;quot;. However, they are different.&#xA;you can say：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想和他面对面地谈一谈。I wan to talk with him face to face.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他们俩脸对脸地站在那里。They two stand over there face to face.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case 1,&amp;quot;面对面&amp;quot; actually means &amp;quot;physically close&amp;quot; (e.g., not on the phone). Your face is not neccessarily opposite his face. While in case 2, &amp;quot;脸对脸&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;facing each other&amp;quot;, so their faces are opposite. If you use &amp;quot;脸对脸&amp;quot; in case 1, it sounds very strange. If you use &amp;quot;面对面&amp;quot; in case 2, it sounds too formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-17T16:09:29.333" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26558" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-17T18:03:02.150" Score="1" ViewCount="1834" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed that for words like 饭馆 (fànguǎn), 一点 (yīdiǎn)，and 玩 (wán) natives add 儿 (er) to the end while speaking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; about the character says that the phenomenon is called &quot;r-coloring&quot; and that it is dialectical for Beijing and other parts of Mainland China. My Mandarin teacher, who is a Beijing native, insists that we use it while speaking and writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Outside of Beijing (and my classroom), how commonly is it used? Should I use it in writing as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17948" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T01:46:41.990" Title="When do I use 儿 to modify a word?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26555" CreationDate="2017-09-17T22:53:44.277" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a soul song, right? Soul songs need lots of 'oh baby'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你赠我太多见闻&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You gave me so much (we should put an 'oh baby' here)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;拿不走的热吻&lt;br&gt;&#xA;your warm kisses linger in my mind (oh baby)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们为什么分手&lt;br&gt;&#xA;why did we break up? （oh baby)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;记得呢你有口臭&lt;br&gt;&#xA;oh I remember, you have bad breath (oh baby)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-17T22:53:44.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26554" CreationDate="2017-09-17T23:11:43.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想通過這個視頻告訴你們 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="17400" LastEditDate="2017-09-18T05:46:01.747" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T05:46:01.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26558" CreationDate="2017-09-17T23:59:01.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a regional thing I think. In the mainland, the standard mandarin does engage the &quot;r-colouring&quot;. So, you will hear them from those broadcasts on TV, radio and other medias. It's not likely you would to hear them from shows of Taiwan and Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;R-colouring&quot; is very common in north China. While you were travelling from North to South, the less it would be used.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I was born in north and now live in south. While speaking, I try to minimize the usage of 儿 in the place I live now, but still keep some of them, which I think it's necessary. I still say 一点儿， 玩儿， 去哪儿，在哪儿 and etc, because I think those 儿s take some effects. For example, I say 一点儿 meaning a bit and 一点 meaning a dot. I say 去哪儿 and 在哪儿，instead of 去哪里 and 在哪里， because 去哪儿 and 在哪儿 sounds brief and quick. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In written, it's ok you use &quot;r-colouring&quot; in your books and essays. In a serious TV news broadcast, I would suggest avoiding use &quot;r-colouring&quot; because it sounds a bit colloquial and folksy. Let's take those terms above as examples, in a very serious and formal writing, I would paraphrase: 一点儿 to 一些， 玩儿 to 玩耍/玩乐，在哪儿 to 在哪里，去哪儿 to 去哪里.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-17T23:59:01.547" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26558" CreationDate="2017-09-18T00:16:24.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese mandarin, 普通话 is based on words from northern Chinese and pronunciations from Beijing dialect. Hence, some words are fixed with 儿化, and when you speak Chinese mandarin,  you should pronounce -er (actually,  the exact pronunciation may vary according to the last syllable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's even hard for native Chinese speakers, especially speakers used to southern chinese dialects,  to tell which word should use er and which not. You do not  have to concern over it too much unless you need to pass the 普通话水平测试 in order to get the certificate to be a TV host or a teacher. When I speak in mandarin, I only speak -er of these words familiar to me(very very few). For example, 一会儿 (it takes some time for me to come up with this word) 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other regions, at least in Sichuan, the local dialect (classified into northern dialect , despite Sichuan is in the southwest geographically ) contains a lot of -er ending. However, the applications are different and I feel it is used more than in Chinese mandarin. For example, 灯泡儿(light bulb),  指姆儿(finger )，滚滚儿(wheel), 栏杆儿(hand rail). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T00:16:24.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26554" CreationDate="2017-09-18T00:21:43.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the audience you would target is important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To the people from mainland, I suggest putting this like &quot;在這裡，我要和大家聊一下（關於）...&quot; or &quot;在這裡，我們要聊的話題是...&quot;. Using 我們 is a good choice because the audience may feel you were with them. 大家 and 聊 can pull you closer to your audience on the topic, as if you were chatting, instead of teaching. If you want to talk about 牛肉麵, you could say &quot;在這裡，我要和大家聊的話題是'牛肉麵'&quot; or &quot;在這裡，我們要聊的話題是'牛肉麵'&quot; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-18T02:33:23.560" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T02:33:23.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26558" CreationDate="2017-09-18T01:33:46.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many words in the central plains to the north, where there are many words and vowels that have been altered by the action of the tongue. This phenomenon is called the triage.The rhyming mother is called &quot;rhymes,&quot; which is marked by an r behind the rhyme.The pronunciation of the children after the children is still a syllable, but it is usually written by two Chinese characters, such as Taro (yùr), the old man (lǎotóur), etc.The representative of the children's voice is Beijing dialect, followed by Tianjin dialect and Kaifeng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;The pronunciation of the children's pronunciation&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term &quot;child&quot; refers to a particular sound variation of the suffix &quot;baby&quot; and its previous syllable, which is made up of a syllable.The phenomenon of &quot;consonant&quot; in tone.To put it simply, it is to attach the roll action to the end of the syllable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Refined classification:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;the pronunciation characteristics of children&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a, o, e or the final vowels directly add the tongue action.For example: the children of the novel are not available.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the end is not a, o, e, but with a, o, e, the finals, after losing the end of the rhyme in a, o, e, and the rolling action.For example, the name brand (ai) baby petals (an) children's (ong) children's (cheng) children's (beng) children's (tan) children's small stands (tan)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, the children after，[i]→ [ə]；[ui]→ [uə] after [u].&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the birth mother and the final vowel I, in and ing of the tongue, when the syllables are formed, the end n, ng, I, ie, and the tongue movements are taken out. For example: baby chicks with baby chicks and baby feet &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tongues:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A consonant of the front of a tongue that is near or against the front of the door, the gingiva, and the hard palate.In putonghua speech, z, c, s, d, t, n, l, zh, ch, sh, r are all tongue tongues.There are z, c and s in the front of the tongue, and the tip of the tongue is d, t, n, l, and the tip of the tongue is zh, ch, sh and r. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with u as the final vowels (u, iu, ou), with the addition of the rolling tongue (&quot; daughter-in-law &quot;, except for &quot;daughter-in-law&quot;);After ellipsis (UI, UN, ueng), u, u, u, and then the tongue movement.For example: there is no such thing as a thief&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;after u or ellipsis, u is the final vowels (UN), all u, ue, rewinding.For example: the little girl has interesting little fish and little fish&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-09-18T02:17:37.340" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T02:17:37.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26565" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26566" CreationDate="2017-09-18T03:09:00.570" Score="2" ViewCount="821" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's common for Western women to get their eyebrows tinted.  The process basically involves dying your eyebrows (although it varies from place to place).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found it difficult to get this done in China.  I attempted to describe it as 染眉毛 (rǎn méimao) thinking it's the same as 染头发 (rǎn tóufa) literally &quot;dye hair&quot;, but with &quot;hair&quot; replaced by &quot;eyebrow&quot;.  (Jukuu.com examples: &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%9F%93%E5%A4%B4%E5%8F%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;染头发&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%9F%93%E7%9C%89%E6%AF%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;染眉毛&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that 染眉毛 is plain wrong, but I'm wondering why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's wrong with saying 染眉毛 to mean &quot;color eyebrows&quot; when 染头发 means &quot;dye hair&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate gives 着色眉毛 (zhuósè méimáo) as the phrase to use, combining &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%89%B2%E8%B0%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;着色&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;tint&quot;) with &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9C%89%E6%AF%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;眉毛&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;eyebrow&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T08:33:57.790" Title="What's wrong with saying 染眉毛 (rǎn méimao) to mean &quot;color eyebrows&quot; when 染头发 (rǎn tóufa) means &quot;dye hair&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26565" CreationDate="2017-09-18T03:20:49.947" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see nothing wrong with 染眉毛. You could also say 给眉毛染色 and everybody would understand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着色眉毛 sounds odd. The common way to say 着色 is 给...着色, and 给眉毛着色 for this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T03:20:49.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26565" CreationDate="2017-09-18T03:33:55.820" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nothing wrong with 染眉毛. The issue is Chinese don't use that word usually, they prefer 纹眉(毛). The process is similar to 纹身.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 画眉毛 to describe your coloring action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你眉毛是怎么画的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我画了半小时的眉毛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-09-18T05:06:38.933" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T05:06:38.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1224" CreationDate="2017-09-18T05:34:19.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add on accepted answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;语 can be used not only as a reference to language, but as a reference to actually speaking/communicating. E.g. 低语 (diyu, whisper).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas 文 can refer to anything written. For example 文件 (wenjian, generic for documents).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese language many [single] characters do not carry directly translatable meaning, but more of a concept, idea (for example 道, depending on a context and/or pairing with other characters can provide many translations). Only a few [single] characters have clear direct meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17950" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T05:34:19.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19731" CreationDate="2017-09-18T05:35:38.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have good citations right this second,  but I'll look for some.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I can give a personal answer as someone in-country.&#xA;Do they think others must see it as difficult?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;yes&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are very aware and proud of the written language likely being the hardest.  They don't expect foreigners to be able to learn it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Everyone that goes through high school learns at least some English, and so has an idea of alphabetic language.  They understand the difference, and understand that Chinese is one of the only non-alphabetic modern languages.   (are there any others?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This uniqueness makes it difficult for all foreigners, and this is understood.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they feel like it is difficult?  I don't think they long for an easier way.  As their first language, I would have to guess it is as natural for them as anyone's first language.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But it would be good to find some research.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a more objective standpoint about difficulty...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As far as using the language, once you know it --- if you count the number of strokes to write the same sentence in Chinese and English it's usually pretty close.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And that's if you write the Chinese characters the perfect, standard way.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because Chinese is often more efficient than English in the number of words, a native writer of Chinese using a reasonable handwriting style - with an abbreviated number of strokes - is probably faster than someone writing in English.&#xA;So we could infer they don't have a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5986" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T05:35:38.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26552" CreationDate="2017-09-18T06:49:32.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;cheeky&lt;/strong&gt;：Ex: You're getting far too cheeky!  Ex: You did that on purpose, you cheeky little devil! Ex: Now don't be cheeky to your elders, young woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;gall&lt;/strong&gt;: Ex: the bank had the gall to demand a fee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;chutzpah&lt;/strong&gt;: Ex: “has the chutzpah to claim a lock on God and morality” – &lt;i&gt;New York Times&lt;/i&gt; Ex: It took a lot of chutzpah to talk to your boss like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;nerve&lt;/strong&gt;: Ex: You have a lot of nerve. Ex: You've got some nerve! Ex: she's got a nerve wearing that short skirt with those legs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;have the neck to do sth.&lt;/strong&gt;: Probably BrE No written evidence is provided in the &lt;i&gt;New Oxford English Dictionary&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;hide&lt;/strong&gt;: Ex: 'I'm sorry I called you a pig.' 'My hide's thick enough; it didn't bother me.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;bold-faced&lt;/strong&gt;: Ex: a bold-faced lie. Ex: He had the bold-faced effrontery to ask for a raise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17503" LastEditorUserId="17503" LastEditDate="2017-09-18T07:47:44.690" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T07:47:44.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26565" CreationDate="2017-09-18T08:33:57.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;See, you are mentioning yourself that in English there are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;dye hair&lt;/em&gt; vs &lt;em&gt;color eyebrow&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what's wrong with color your hair and dye your eyebrow? Actually, nothing. It's pretty much understandable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you must ask, it seems 染 make you think of a bigger amount and more fluid dye, whereas 画眉毛 or 纹眉毛 involves dry dye that is slowly drawn (rather than dip into)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17952" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T08:33:57.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26547" CreationDate="2017-09-18T10:59:16.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;rule of thumb.&#xA;when you see a character with '月' component that describes a body part, it usually refers to the organ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so in your case, '脸' refers to face as a person's body part, while '面' refers to the person him/herself in a social situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;take '面对面' vs '脸对脸' as example. '面对面' can be translated to 'face to face' or 'in person' as the two parties are physically close to each other, while '脸对脸' can only be translated to 'face to face' and emphasizes the fact that two faces are facing to each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13458" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T10:59:16.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26492" CreationDate="2017-09-18T11:18:04.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's definitely Cantonese since 'yet gee sam see baa gow' sounds exactly like 'one two three four eight nine' in Cantonese, and 'tak ti-wak' sounds like 'make a phone call'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't speak Cantonese, so I cannot give more information on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13458" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T11:18:04.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26574" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26577" CreationDate="2017-09-18T15:59:08.140" Score="3" ViewCount="1094" Body="&lt;p&gt;On WeChat, I noticed one of my friends wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是哪？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;zhèshìnǎ？&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning &quot;where is this?&quot;  This surprises me as I would have expected&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是在哪？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;zhèshìzàinǎ？&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these are easily found used online. I'm wondering if they're the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are 这是哪 and 这是在哪 different questions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also other variations I found online:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是（在）哪里？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这是（在）哪儿？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这里是（在）哪里？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这里是（在）哪儿？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it's quite possible every combination of these (and maybe more) has the same meaning too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T01:36:07.977" Title="Are 这是哪 and 这是在哪 different questions?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26574" CreationDate="2017-09-18T17:37:12.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是哪? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A declarative form might be: 这是公园.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是在哪?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A declarative form might be: &lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;公园.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;e.g.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: (show a photo)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 这是在哪(拍的照片)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The declarative form can be &quot;这是我&lt;strong&gt;在公园&lt;/strong&gt;拍的照片&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪里 = 哪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是哪里 = 这是哪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪儿 is 儿化音&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-09-18T17:45:06.593" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T17:45:06.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26574" CreationDate="2017-09-18T17:46:15.710" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;这是哪？&amp;quot; short for &amp;quot;这是哪里？&amp;quot;; It means  &amp;quot;where is this place/ what place it is?&amp;quot; (you want to know the name of a place)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A and B are at a park,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A asks B: &amp;quot;这是&lt;strong&gt;哪(里)&lt;/strong&gt;?&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;where&lt;/strong&gt; is this &lt;strong&gt;place&lt;/strong&gt;?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B answers: &amp;quot;这是佛光山公园&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;This is Buddha Light Mountain Park&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It would be easier to understand if you say &amp;quot;这是什么地方&amp;quot; instead of &amp;quot;这是哪？&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;这是在哪？&amp;quot; short for &amp;quot;这是在哪里？&amp;quot; It means &amp;quot;where it is at?&amp;quot; (you want to know where an object is located or where an event took place)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pointing at a poster and asks B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &amp;quot;佛光山公园？ 这是在哪？&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;Buddha Light Mountain Park? Where is it located?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &amp;quot;佛光山公园当然在佛光山&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;Buddha Light Mountain Park is in Buddha Light  Mountain of course&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &amp;quot;不，我的意思是佛光山公园在哪个城市&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;No, I meant Buddha Light Mountain Park is in which city&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;曹操刚跟呂布战斗？这是在哪(里发生的)？&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;Cao Cao just fought with Lu Bu? Where was it (took place)?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T01:36:07.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26574" CreationDate="2017-09-18T23:56:00.693" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key to differentiate between 这是哪（儿） and 这是在哪（儿） is to understand the different usages of the character '这'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这 have several meanings, I just listed two of them relevant to this topic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;referring to a person, thing, or place, like the word 'this' in English. For example, 这是我家。 means &lt;strong&gt;This&lt;/strong&gt; is my home.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;used to emphasize 现在, like the word 'now' in English. For example, 我这就来. means I am coming &lt;strong&gt;now&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是哪？, 这（subject）+ 是（verb）+ 哪（target）, simply means &quot;where is it?&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是在哪？, 这（intensifier like an adverb in English, modifying 是）+ 是（verb）+ 哪（target）, implies &lt;strong&gt;现在&lt;/strong&gt;是在哪, apparently the sentence omits a subject &quot;我们&quot;. The complete sentence should be &quot;我们这是在哪&quot;, and the equivalent sentence in English is &quot;where are we now?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, I gather your friend asked this question in your moments of WeChat, where you might post some scenery photos. So, 这是哪(&quot;where is it&quot;) is more accurate here.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some explanations on these sentences you quoted above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是（在）哪里？: This is the same as &quot;这是（在）哪&quot;，as talked above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是（在）哪儿？: This is the same as &quot;这是（在）哪&quot;，as talked above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这里是（在）哪里？: 这里是哪里 == 这是哪里==这是哪（儿）， 这里是在哪里 is unnatural and it should be either 这里是哪里 or 这是在哪里. The difference has already been talked about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这里是（在）哪儿？: 这里是哪儿==这是哪儿==这是哪里， 这里是在哪儿==这里是在哪里， which is unnatural and should be either 这里是哪儿 or 这是在哪儿. The difference has already been talked about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: In this case, 这是在哪 could be short for 这是在哪里拍摄的 or 这是在哪里照的. But people usually won't apply the omission(just use the full version), because the short version &quot;这是在哪&quot; could mean differently as mentioned above. So, 这是哪 is better than 这是在哪，because 这是在哪 creates a bit ambiguity. It might be ok to put 这是在哪 here, but people need to think a bit to interpret what you mean is 这是在哪里拍摄的 (where had the photo been taken?). In practice, people really don't care that much. It might just be a little nitpick to determine whether 这是哪 or 这是在哪 should be used in this case. But natives would use &quot;这是哪（儿）&quot;, &quot;这是在哪里拍的？&quot;, &quot;这是在哪里照的？&quot; etc...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-19T02:14:38.753" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T02:14:38.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26558" CreationDate="2017-09-19T01:00:41.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;tl;dr  In speech, use it or not -- either way is fine.  In formal writing, best to avoid it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speech: It varies by region (even among the educated Mandarin speakers I hear on US college campuses).  I know people from south and central China (Shanghai, Wuhan etc.) who never use the suffix 儿, even in words like 一点 哪里 玩.  People from Beijing / NE China use 儿 quite liberally.  In fact if you hear a lot of 儿 that's often a sign you're listening to a Beijing speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The national standard is based on Beijing pronunciation, but standard Mandarin has much less 儿 than Beijing dialect. (Beijing people have a strong sense of local pride, and I think they often overlook the differences between Beijing dialect and standard Mandarin.) I don't think I've ever heard a news broadcaster say 饭馆儿, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were you, I'd keep 儿 in the places where its use is very common: 有一点儿 哪儿 那儿 这儿 玩儿, but avoid it on nouns (饭馆儿 门儿 and so forth) unless I was in Beijing, or talking to people from Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Writing:  Avoid the suffix 儿.  It's probably comparable to English &quot;wanna&quot; in this regard: it's just not used in formal writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A side note: Another notable feature of Beijing / NE speech is the pronunciation of &quot;-ing&quot; (as in &quot;ying xing jing ling ding&quot;).  It often comes out sounding something like &quot;ieng&quot;.  (Here I'm trying to use the &quot;e&quot; to represent the vowel in pinyin &quot;ge&quot;.)  This is also a regionalism, and if you travel to other parts of China you may want to pay attention to how locals make this sound.  (In other parts of China &quot;-ing&quot; often ends up exactly the same as &quot;-in&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16837" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T01:00:41.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26521" CreationDate="2017-09-19T01:28:45.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was a troll response commonly used in the Hong Kong Online Forum &quot;HKGolden&quot;. The line was originally from a Primary School Textbook's dialogue and was usually being used as a ridiculous and nonsense reply to English-related questions on the forum. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check &lt;a href=&quot;http://evchk.wikia.com/wiki/I_go_to_school_by_bus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for the Hong Kong Local Encyclopedia page on this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17954" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T01:28:45.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26547" CreationDate="2017-09-19T01:40:01.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically they can mean the same meaning. But there are phrase where only one of them works. They are more or less a kind of custom and no specific rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;洗脸&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;洗面奶&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;脸谱&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;面具&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or both works: &lt;code&gt;脸颊&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;面颊&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is even a phrase &lt;code&gt;脸面&lt;/code&gt;, but you can never say &lt;code&gt;面脸&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, generally speaking, 面 is a more literal/abstract/elegant form than 脸, and 面 can mean more than just face, e.g., 对面(the other side), 全面(total).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T01:40:01.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26558" CreationDate="2017-09-19T01:46:41.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the standard mandarin that is regulated by mainland China, the &quot;r-coloring&quot; is part of it. There is an official test for speaking mandarin, &quot;r-coloring&quot; is mentioned in its guideline(&lt;a href=&quot;http://wenku.baidu.com/view/a8cd882acfc789eb172dc8c8.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《普通话水平测试(PSC)大纲》&lt;/a&gt;) and must be tested:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2·2 读双音节词语50个。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;        目的：除考察应试人声母、韵母和声调的发音外，还要考察上声变调、&lt;strong&gt;儿化韵&lt;/strong&gt;和轻声的读音。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.2 Read 50 two syllable words. Tone sandhi, &lt;strong&gt;&quot;r-colored&quot; final&lt;/strong&gt;, and neutral tone should be tested, aside from testing how well one pronounces each initial, final, and tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About when should one read or write as &quot;r-colored&quot;, let me quote something form 《现代汉语词典》, which is explaining the notations within the dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6 书面上有时儿化有时不儿化，口语里必须儿化的词，自成条目，如：【今 &lt;em&gt;儿&lt;/em&gt; 】、【小孩 &lt;em&gt;儿&lt;/em&gt;】。书面上一般不儿化，但口语里一般儿化的，在释义前加‘（~ &lt;em&gt;儿&lt;/em&gt;）’，如【米粒】条。 ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a word is sometimes written with &quot;儿&quot; and sometimes not, but must be spoken as &quot;r-colored&quot;, it would have its one entry, e.g. 【今 &lt;em&gt;儿&lt;/em&gt; 】、【小孩 &lt;em&gt;儿&lt;/em&gt;】。When a word is usually not written with &quot;儿&quot;, but usually spoken as &quot;r-colored&quot; in speech, ‘（~ &lt;em&gt;儿&lt;/em&gt;）’ will be appended to explanation, e.g. 【米粒】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note, the dictionary used a small font for the above italic &lt;em&gt;儿&lt;/em&gt; in the quote. I don't know how to type it here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary's notation may be irrelevant here, but we can see there are words in standard mandarin that written “儿” is optional, or usually not written with &quot;儿&quot;, but should be spoken as &quot;r-colored&quot;. Examples are given in the quote. The written form and the spoken form sometimes do not match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About how it is applied in real life, you should remember that most people in China do not speak standard mandarin (very well). The application of &quot;r-colored&quot; tones is quite regional and may differ a lot from place to place. Some people do not use them at all, and some use a lot. I think you should follow your teacher as when to use &quot;r-colored&quot; tones in speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As when to use it in writing, though the dictionary listed a lot of words as &quot;sometimes written with 儿 and sometimes not&quot;, there is, in fact, a small set of words that are usually written with &quot;儿&quot;. You can drop all &quot;儿&quot; in writing with words outside the set. I cannot list all words in the set. The most common one that usually written with &quot;儿&quot; might be &quot;一会儿&quot;. You can follow your reading materials as when to &quot;儿&quot; in written form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T01:46:41.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26582" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-19T01:48:14.067" Score="1" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two idioms appear multiple times in the news stories of Xinhua News Agency and other official media of Chinese governments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there seem no direct explanation of them in Chinese, but I guess Chinese people all know about them without being told. I think they try to illustrate something like strong determination, but &quot;to leave your footprint on a rock&quot; (rough translation, probably wrong) doesn't make sense in real life, does it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T02:27:59.533" Title="What do 抓铁有痕 and 踏石留印 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26582" CreationDate="2017-09-19T01:59:45.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%8A%93%E9%93%81%E6%9C%89%E7%97%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike article&lt;/a&gt; about it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;常作褒义词应用，与“蜻蜓点水”一词互为反义。一般是用以形容人的工作扎实，不管干什么工作都能留下自己业绩。应用中常与“踏石留印”连用，如：要让“踏石留印，抓铁有痕”成为我们推进各项工作的“规定动作”，而且要成为一种“工作常态”，使实效见诸“终端”。形容做事情不达目标不罢休,有坚持到底,做就要做好的精神。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a figurative way of saying a person would leave solid results in his work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;He can even leave footmarks when he is walking on a stone&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T01:59:45.537" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26582" CreationDate="2017-09-19T02:24:44.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;抓铁有痕: The original meaning is that a person who catches a piece of steel can leave a deep impression.&#xA;踏石留印 :The original meaning is that a person can leave a mark on a hard stone.&#xA;抓铁有痕，踏石留印:&quot;If you want to do something, you have to do it well.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T02:24:44.047" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26582" CreationDate="2017-09-19T02:27:59.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As fefe quoted from Baidu, it's a figurative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It emphasizes 3 key aspects of doing things: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One's determination;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One's perseverance; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Result orientation;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T02:27:59.533" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26574" CreationDate="2017-09-19T03:31:06.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这是哪: Where is this place, The answer can also be a specific location or not a specific location.&#xA;这是在哪: Where is it, the answer is a specific location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T03:31:06.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26547" CreationDate="2017-09-19T03:47:55.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;面:Used in written language. 脸:use in spoken language.&#xA;Face: 1. The face of the person, the front of the head.&#xA;      2. The adjective refers to a person's dignity and face.&#xA;      3. Relative to face, such as: back mountain water.&#xA;      4. In person, direct contact.&#xA;      5. The shape of the line movement of geometry.&#xA;      6. Aspects, such as: fear of all aspects.&#xA;      7. Quantifiers, such as: a mirror.&#xA;      8. Flour made from grain.&#xA;      9, the food fiber is small and soft.&#xA;Face: 1. The person's face, the front of the head, from the forehead to the chin.&#xA;      2. The front of the object, such as the face.&#xA;      3. The adjective refers to a person's dignity and face.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T03:47:55.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26591" CreationDate="2017-09-19T07:23:48.803" Score="2" ViewCount="641" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two sentences are similar, both meaning &amp;quot;read with me&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跟我读&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(gēn wǒ dú)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跟我念&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(gēn wǒ niàn)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've said the first one when I teach English to kids.  (They don't usually 跟我读, but you know...）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Do 跟我读 and 跟我念 have the same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translations on jukuu.com for &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%AF%B7%E8%B7%9F%E6%88%91%E8%AF%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;请跟我读&lt;/a&gt; is &amp;quot;please read after me&amp;quot; and for &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%AF%B7%E8%B7%9F%E6%88%91%E5%BF%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;请跟我念&lt;/a&gt; &amp;quot;repeat after me, please&amp;quot;, which suggests they're the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T12:22:46.730" Title="Do 跟我读 (gēn wǒ dú) and 跟我念 (gēn wǒ niàn) have the same meaning (&quot;read with me&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26588" CreationDate="2017-09-19T07:44:50.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;跟我读:(gēn wǒ dú）Passive acceptance.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;跟我念：（gēn wǒ niàn）Active pursuit of knowledge. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“念”的义项有：“读、学习、回忆、思想、考虑”的含义，如：“大声念出来、去学校念书、念他的好、念头、念及他当年的功劳”等。观察汉字的偏旁部首，从“心”，应为“用心读”之义。&quot;Read&quot; the meanings are: &quot;reading, learning, memory, thinking, thinking of&quot; meaning, such as: &quot;loudly read aloud, to go to school, his good, idea, concept and his credit&quot;, etc. Observe the side of Chinese characters, from &quot;heart&quot;, should be &quot;heart read&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“读”的义项有：“学习、阅读”的含义。如：“读书破万卷、默读、朗读”等，观察偏旁部首从“言”，应为强调“发音行为”。 The meaning of &quot;reading&quot; is the meaning of &quot;learning and reading&quot;. For example, &quot;reading books, reading books, reading aloud, reading aloud&quot; etc., observing the side of the side of the side from &quot;speech&quot;, should emphasize &quot;pronunciation behavior&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-09-19T08:03:50.517" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T08:03:50.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26588" CreationDate="2017-09-19T07:54:55.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;跟我读 and 跟我念 mean the same in the setting you are applying at. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to make it more clear to kids, you could put more words like &quot;大家一起跟我读，我读一句，你们读一句, 好吧？&quot;. If you could get an acknowledge of that &quot;好吧&quot;， there you go! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T07:54:55.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26588" CreationDate="2017-09-19T10:56:46.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context of '跟我念', the standard version should be 唸 (recite). However, 念 is also an acceptable variant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 跟我读 and 跟我念&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;读出 = &lt;strong&gt;read out&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;念出 = &lt;strong&gt;recite&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;read out&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 跟我读 (follow me and read) ,  there have to be some written text for you to read it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 跟我念 (follow me and read/ follow me and recite), you can either read from some written text or recite words from memory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;念 literally means &amp;quot;recite &amp;quot;.  For example 念經, 念诗, 念咒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We can use 念 interchangeably with 读 (read out)  because &amp;quot;recite&amp;quot; can mean &amp;quot;recite what you are reading&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T12:22:46.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26524" CreationDate="2017-09-19T11:30:19.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that &quot;the thing&quot; can't be explianted precisely. We can't give it a name because&quot;名可名，非常名&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When it comes to the relationship between &quot;混成&quot; and&quot;物&quot;.It's naturally to say  that &quot;混成&quot; is the adverbial of &quot;物&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;混成&quot; have several meanings at the same time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1： 混杂而成：Everything is contained in &quot;the thing&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2： 混然一体：However,&quot;the thing&quot; can't be separated as it makes no sense—— just like &quot;ok&quot; is not a part of &quot;book&quot; although &quot;o&quot; and &quot;k&quot; is 2 letters of the word &quot;book&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3： 自然形成：&quot;自然&quot; is more suitable to be explained as&quot;by itself&quot; than &quot;naturally&quot; here. The orign and reason of &quot;the thing&quot; is itself so it's a perfect thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17961" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T11:30:19.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26593" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26594" CreationDate="2017-09-19T19:58:17.500" Score="0" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, you often hear people say this phrase 你而家做嘢做成點.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would the Mandarin equivalent be for this phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T21:16:12.327" Title="Mandarin equivalent to 而家做嘢做成點?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26593" CreationDate="2017-09-19T21:09:37.750" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;而家 = 現在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做嘢 = 做事/工作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做成 = 做成/做得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;點 = 怎樣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;而家做嘢做成點?&amp;quot; (how is work going?) in Mandarin is &amp;quot;現在工作做得怎樣?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做嘢 or 做事 in Cantonese can mean either 'doing things' or &amp;quot;working a job&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'做嘢' in '去做嘢' (go do things)  refers to &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;do things&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;work on things&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'做嘢' in '而家做嘢做成點' (how's work going now?)  mostly refers to &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;work in job&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'去做嘢' in Mandarin is '去做事' or '去幹活'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T21:16:12.327" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26595" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26599" CreationDate="2017-09-20T01:55:52.600" Score="3" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;A jukuu.com example sentence for &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%88%91%E5%90%83%E4%B8%8D%E4%BA%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;我吃不了&lt;/a&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我看我吃不了这么大一条鱼。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   I don't think I can manage a huge fish like that.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(wǒ kàn wǒ chībuliǎo zhèmedà yītiáoyú)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It makes sense to me to say 我吃不了这么大一条鱼 (which I translate to &quot;I can't finish this big of a fish&quot;) without the initial 我&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9C%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;看&lt;/a&gt; (wǒkàn).  Judging from the translation, 我看 means &quot;I think&quot; in this context, but then I would expect 我&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%83%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;想&lt;/a&gt; (wǒxiǎng) or 我&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%A7%89%E5%BE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;觉得&lt;/a&gt;, as 我看 ordinarily means &quot;I see...&quot; （e.g. 我&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9C%8B%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;看一下&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[NB. The English is non-literal, with &quot;manage&quot; instead of &quot;eat&quot;.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;： What does 我看 do in the sentence 我看我吃不了这么大一条鱼?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T13:30:46.213" Title="What does 我看 do in the sentence 我看我吃不了这么大一条鱼?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26595" CreationDate="2017-09-20T02:05:11.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/chinese-english/%E7%9C%8B#%E7%9C%8B_2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Collins&lt;/a&gt;, you can find this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(= 认为) think (pt, pp thought)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ⇒ 看成 (kànchéng) consider&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ⇒ 你看这事儿怎么办？ (Nǐ kàn zhèshìr zěnme bàn?) What do you think we should do about this?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure of the second example is the same as your sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a common usage of &quot;看&quot;. But perhaps only used after &quot;我&quot;, &quot;你&quot;, &quot;你们&quot;, &quot;您&quot;. But not after &quot;他&quot;, a name, a noun, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The comment reminds that when used in &quot;怎么看&quot;, it can be used with &quot;他&quot; or others, like in &quot;这事他怎么看&quot; (How does he think of this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-09-20T13:30:46.213" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T13:30:46.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26595" CreationDate="2017-09-20T02:43:22.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我看我吃不了这么一大条鱼。I don't think I can eat such a large fish. So 我看 means I think.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我看：我认为[wǒ rèn wéi] 认为:Make certain judgments about people or things；&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我想[wǒ xiǎng] 想：Suppose;guess；&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我觉得[wǒjué de] 觉得：Feel, Aware of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-09-20T04:04:18.573" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T04:04:18.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26595" CreationDate="2017-09-20T03:02:29.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我看: think; gather; Speculate or estimate from what you see;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see the similar usage in English, where &quot;let me see&quot; could mean &quot;let me think&quot;. However, 看, as the sense of 'think' in Chinese, is more widely used. The sentence you quoted is a good example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 我想 or 我感觉 in the sentence, 我想我吃不了这么大一条鱼。or 我感觉我吃不了这么大一条鱼。. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these sentences are similar in meaning. If you really want to differentiate the nuance among them, you could consider 我看 as 'estimate based on what one sees', 我想 as 'I think...' and 我感觉 as 'I feel...'. Another point is 我看 might be less formal and more colloquial than 我想. That's why it's used more often in daily usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T03:02:29.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26600" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26602" CreationDate="2017-09-20T04:12:40.400" Score="4" ViewCount="1626" Body="&lt;p&gt;An early question in Chinese people learn is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你家有几口人？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How many people are there in your family?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(nǐjiā yǒu jǐkǒurén)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Chinese text book contains these example responses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五口人。他们是我爸爸，我哥哥，我弟弟和我。你呢？&lt;br&gt;(Five people. They are my father, mother, older brother, younger brother, and me.  And you?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我家有三口人：我丈夫，我儿子和我。&lt;br&gt;(My family has three people.  My husband, my son, and me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你家有三口人，你爱人，你儿子和你，是吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(Your family has three people, your spouse, your son, and you, right?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm confused...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Who should be counted when responding to 你家有几口人?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused in particular about the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm unsure if aunties, cousins, brothers-in-law, nieces, ex-husbands, half-sisters, etc., are included.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if living separately affects things (since &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%AE%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;家&lt;/a&gt; also means home).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I go home &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%9B%9E%E5%AE%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;回家&lt;/a&gt; (huíjiā) it's just me, but my sisters (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A7%90%E5%A7%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;姐姐&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A6%B9%E5%A6%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;妹妹&lt;/a&gt;) are still my family members &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%AE%B6%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;家人&lt;/a&gt; (jiārén).  Both of these use &amp;quot;家&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T18:52:43.437" Title="Who should be counted when responding to 你家有几口人 (nǐjiā yǒu jǐkǒurén) &quot;how many people are there in your family&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26600" CreationDate="2017-09-20T04:34:37.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你家有几口人[nǐ jiā yǒu jǐ kǒu rén ]&#xA;How many people are there in your family?&#xA;4个，分别是爸爸、妈妈、弟弟和我。&#xA;There are four people in my family. my father, my mother, my younger brother and me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;So“你家有几口人” it includes you and your family.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T04:34:37.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26600" CreationDate="2017-09-20T04:40:35.690" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is simple-- The &quot;家&quot; in  &quot;你家有几口人？&quot; always refers to &quot;家庭&quot; (household) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your answer should only list the family members living in the household .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 口 as a classifier also indicates it only count people who eat their meals in the household.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as someone living in a household long term, he or she is counted as 一口&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you read Chinese novel, you would often see phrase like &quot;我家一百一十八口性命&quot; (One hundred and eighteen lives in my household) You can see they even counted servants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If the question was &quot;你家中有什麼人?&quot; (who are in your family)  Then you can include your immediate family who no longer live in the household, for example, married sister or brother who had moved out.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you are single and live alone, you are considered independent. When people ask you &quot;你家有几口人？&quot; You can say &quot;我單身一人生活&quot;.  If you want to introduce your family, then you can say &quot;我家中還有 (list of immediate family) &quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-20T06:36:59.257" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T06:36:59.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26600" CreationDate="2017-09-20T06:19:21.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In theory, '你家有几口人？' means '你家 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;住&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 有几口人？'. Everybody lives in the same house.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, if you are single, you might want to add your siblings though they might have their own families. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you live separately from your family(you are still single),  when asked '你家有几口人？', you would be expected to introduce your immediate family including your father, mother, sisters and brothers. Not counting aunts, uncles, and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-20T08:29:22.520" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T08:29:22.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22171" CreationDate="2017-09-20T06:46:31.857" Score="5" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;access level - 存取權限 (访问级别)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;algorithm - 演算法 (算法)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;array - 陣列（数组）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;array index - 陣列索引 （数组索引）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;async - (异步)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;binary tree - (二叉树)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;build - (构建)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;catch (like try/catch) - (捕获)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;char - 字元 (字符)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;class - 類別 （类）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;class method - 類別方法 (类方法)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;class variable - 類別變數 (类变量)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;compile - (编译)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;construct - 建構 （构造）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;curly bracket - (花括号)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;database - 資料庫/數據庫 (数据库)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;double -  雙精度浮點數（双精度浮点数）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;double quotes- 雙引號 （双引号）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;escaped chars - 跳脫字元（转义字符）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;exception - (异常)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;floating point value - 浮點數（浮点数）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;function - 函數/函式 （函数）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;foreign key - (外键)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;graph - 圖 （图形）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GUI - 圖形使用者界面 （图形用户界面）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;hardware - 硬體 (硬件)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;loop - 迴圈（循环）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;macro - 巨集 (宏)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;multithreaded [program] - (多线[程])&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;object - 物件 （对象）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ORM (Object Relational Mapping) - (对象关系映射程序)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;parenthesis - (圆括号)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;primary index - (主索引)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;primary key - (主键)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;program - 程式 (程序)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;query - (查询)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;repository - (存储库) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Row + Column - 行和列 (行和列) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;single quote- 單引號 （单引号）  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;software package - 軟體包 (軟件包) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;square bracket - (方括号)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;String - 字串 (字符串)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;table join - (表连接)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;throw (as in throw exception) - (抛出)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Thanks to feedback in the comments I made a bunch of changes to traditional + simplified. Parenthesis is simplified (PRC) and non parenthesis is traditional (ROC/Taiwan). I removed the ones I'm not sure about so some of them only have one or the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17794" LastEditorUserId="17794" LastEditDate="2018-08-23T06:55:59.683" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T06:55:59.683" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26595" CreationDate="2017-09-20T06:56:22.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 2 meanings of Chinese word &quot;看&quot;.&#xA;1: equals to &quot;look&quot; or &quot;see&quot;.&#xA;For example,我看见你，means I see you;看着我，means Look at me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2: equals to &quot;I think&quot; or &quot;In my opinion&quot;&#xA;For example,我看你是太大意了，means I think you are too careless;&#xA;关于这件事，你怎么看？means What's your opinion regarding this matter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your sample,我吃不了这么大一条鱼（I can't manage a huge fish like that.）&lt;strong&gt;It's telling a fact&lt;/strong&gt; that I really can't finish such a huge fish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 我看我吃不了这么大一条鱼(I don't think I can manage a huge fish like that)&lt;strong&gt;It's telling an estimation or guess&lt;/strong&gt; based on your experience that I can't finish such a huge fish.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17965" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T06:56:22.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26606" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26608" CreationDate="2017-09-20T12:07:31.143" Score="1" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;A commonly used phrase is 没关系 (méiguānxi) which means &quot;it doesn't matter&quot;; it's used respond to 谢谢 (thank you) and 对不起 (sorry).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/23931/8099&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; that 系 can also be pronounced jì, as in 系好安全带 (jìhǎo ānquándài) meaning &quot;fasten your seatbelt&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%B3%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;系&lt;/a&gt; is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.so.com/doc/1543904-1632144.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;多音字&lt;/a&gt; (duō yīnzì) or a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteronym_%28linguistics%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;heteronym&lt;/a&gt; (multiple pronunciation word).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: When is 系 pronounced xì/xi and when is it pronounced jì？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing a bit of Googling, I find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E7%B3%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中文系&lt;/a&gt; = Zhōngwén xì (Chinese department)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A4%AA%E9%98%B3%E7%B3%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;太阳系&lt;/a&gt; = tài yáng xì (solar system)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%B3%BB%E7%BB%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;系统&lt;/a&gt; = xì tǒng (system)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%81%94%E7%B3%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;联系&lt;/a&gt; = lián xì (to contact)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like xì/xi is the default pronunciation.  I didn't find much with jì, except possibly 系好&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%9E%8B%E5%B8%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鞋带&lt;/a&gt; (jìhǎo xiédài) = &quot;tie your shoes&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T00:49:30.070" Title="When is 系 pronounced xì/xi and when is it pronounced jì？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26606" CreationDate="2017-09-20T12:34:16.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you already got it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of time, it's pronounced as xì/xi 系. When pronounced as（jì）, it means 'fasten' and 'tie'.  系安全带. and 系鞋带. are good examples. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T12:34:16.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26606" CreationDate="2017-09-20T13:26:17.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;系&lt;/strong&gt;] is a traditional character as well as the simplified form for both [&lt;strong&gt;繫&lt;/strong&gt;]  and [&lt;strong&gt;係&lt;/strong&gt;] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没关&lt;strong&gt;系&lt;/strong&gt; = 沒關&lt;strong&gt;係&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文&lt;strong&gt;系&lt;/strong&gt; = 中文&lt;strong&gt;系&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;系&lt;/strong&gt;统 = &lt;strong&gt;系&lt;/strong&gt;統&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;联&lt;strong&gt;系&lt;/strong&gt; = 聯&lt;strong&gt;繫&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2831/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2831/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;系 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pinyin: xi4 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] system; series; set&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] department; faculty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2881/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2881/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;繫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pinyin:  xi4 | ji4 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] tie; connect; fasten; bind up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] relate to; bear on; depend on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] be concerned; miss; bind to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[粵] hai6 | [國] ji4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;button up; wear; knot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/601/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/601/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;係&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pinyin:  xi4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] [粵] [v] to be; is; are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] [粵] yes, it is; indeed; right; positive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] [n] relation; relationship; consequence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question: When is 系 pronounced xì/xi and when is it pronounced jì？&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;系 is pronounced /xi4/ when it is a traditional character (no difference in simplified form ), and means: system; department&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;系 is pronounced /xi4/ when it is the simplified form of 係, and means: relation; relationship; consequence &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;系 is pronounced /ji4/ when it is the simplified form of 繫, and means: button up; wear; knot&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-20T13:43:31.680" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T13:43:31.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26610" CreationDate="2017-09-20T13:55:10.503" Score="2" ViewCount="491" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm quite confused to see how the country name is sorted in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pictures below are names of countries that show at the first and last of the total list. Ignore China and its administrative regions since it automatically puts them at the top of the list from my country settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X2Orh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X2Orh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OVziH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OVziH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T14:26:35.860" Title="What order does the country name sort by in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26609" CreationDate="2017-09-20T14:05:04.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sort by radical.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 belongs to 一 radical (#1) therefore listed first&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黑 belongs to 黑 radical: (#203) therefore listed last&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the first characters are the same, the radicals of the second characters will be ranked&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-20T14:26:35.860" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T14:26:35.860" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26606" CreationDate="2017-09-21T00:49:30.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;系:This is a multiple pronunciation word.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;系[xì] 系统；世系。谱系；直系亲属。 某些学科中分类的名称。汉藏语系；印欧语系。 高等学校按专业性质设置的教学行政单位。数学系；历史系。 地质学名词。地层系统分类的第二级，小于界，相当于地质年代的纪。 姓。System;Lineage.Spectrum;Immediate family.The names of categories in certain subjects. Sino-tibetan language family; Indo-european. The teaching administrative unit of higher education is set according to the professional nature.Department of mathematics;The history department.Geological terms.The second level of stratigraphic system classification is less than the boundary, which is equivalent to the period of geological time.Last name.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;系[xì]是。联缀，涉及，关系。挂念，牵记。[xì] is.Affix, involving, relation.Hang up, worry。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;系[jì]打结或扣上。Tie [ji] knots or buckles.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T00:49:30.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26612" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26613" CreationDate="2017-09-21T01:16:55.560" Score="0" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to dissect this sentence on &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%B9%B4%E7%BA%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;照他的年纪看来,他显得年轻。 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  He looks young considering his age.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(Zhào tāde niánjì kànlái, tā xiǎndé niánqīng.)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%85%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;照&lt;/a&gt; (zhào) I think is short for &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%AF%94%E7%85%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;比照&lt;/a&gt; (bǐ zhào) = in contrast with&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B9%B4%E7%BA%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;年纪&lt;/a&gt; (niánjì) = age&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9C%8B%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;看来&lt;/a&gt; (kànlái) = seems&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%98%BE%E5%BE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;显得&lt;/a&gt; (xiǎndé) = seems [again (!?)]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B9%B4%E8%BD%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;年轻&lt;/a&gt; (niánqīng) = young.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm puzzled as to why &quot;seems&quot; appears twice here.  I think 他显得年轻 makes sense by itself (&quot;he seems young&quot;), so adding 看来 doesn't make sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 看来 in the sentence 照他的年纪看来,他显得年轻？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking it might be used to indicate some suspicion of his age, e.g., if a child was buying alcohol with a fake ID.  Or maybe I'm reading too much into this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T11:02:03.540" Title="Why is 看来 in the sentence 照他的年纪看来,他显得年轻？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26612" CreationDate="2017-09-21T01:31:55.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although this sentence seems good to me, I think it can be better phrased as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;照他的年纪&lt;strong&gt;来看&lt;/strong&gt;,他显得年轻。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 照 ... 来看 can be considered as a set phrase meaning “considering”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T01:31:55.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26612" CreationDate="2017-09-21T02:08:19.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;first,照...看来this is a chinese idiom(习惯用语)。e.g:照我看来，这件事可以这样做，user6065 's moment is what it mean,依据某人的看法/想法来判断。&#xA;second,they are different things,there arent two &quot;seems&quot;,the meaning between them is different in Chinese。&quot;显得&quot;是一种动作性(verb)，e.g:u looks very young.带着与某些参照而表现出来的样子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17971" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T02:08:19.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26555" CreationDate="2017-09-21T02:24:03.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;见闻,i  would like to separate it into 2 word &quot;见&quot;and&quot;闻&quot;&#xA;见，in chinese,it usually means looks or read,experience.&#xA;闻，simply is hear.we all know that when we learn something,we should see and hear .so &quot;&quot;见闻 can easily explain as 看到的事和听到的事，more is means &quot;knowledge&quot;&quot;or experience&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17971" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T02:24:03.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26612" CreationDate="2017-09-21T02:36:30.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, as an interpreter for 'considering' or 'in contrast with' in the context, the phrase 和...相比 is more clear than 照...来看/看来. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I would translate this to 和他的年龄相比， 他显得很年轻. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T02:36:30.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25888" CreationDate="2017-09-21T03:42:43.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这类and这种， the difference between 类and 种.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;类：[lèi]种类；具有某种共同属性的事物的集合。Species;A collection of things that have some sort of common property. eg 物以类聚，人以群分。Birds of a feather flock together.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;种：[zhǒng]种类；类别。剧种；曲种；兵种；工种。Species;Category.My character;Sort of quyi.;Type of work.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T03:42:43.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26618" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-21T07:33:09.063" Score="3" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wondered how a character originally representing animal skin could appear in words such as 沿革、革命、變革. &#xA;Ripping off the skin from an animal, thereby &quot;removing the old and getting the new&quot; seems a little far-fetched.&#xA;Or was there just a mechanism as profane as sound loan at work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All ideas are much appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17974" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:16:13.063" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:16:13.063" Title="How did 革 get the meaning &quot;change&quot; 變革？" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26618" CreationDate="2017-09-21T08:53:14.000" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Languages evolve over time, When a new character was coined for a simple definition, it only represented that particular definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By extension of logic, additional meanings can be added to that character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;革 was originally a verb for &amp;quot;remove animal skin&amp;quot;. When people needed a word for ' leather',  they put 皮(skin/ outer layer) and 革(removed skin from animal ) together and coined the word &amp;quot;皮革&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by association, the word &amp;quot;皮革&amp;quot; also gave '皮' and '革' the meaning of ' leather'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people needed a word for 'cast out' they just borrowed the 'remove' meaning from 革, (to cast out someone, is to remove someone from his position) broaden the possible object from a specific one 'animal skin'  to indefinite ones, thus 革 also carry the meaning of 'cast out' and 'remove'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;變 means 'change'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;革 means 'remove'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;變革 means 'change' (by remove existing system or rules)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;改 means 'alter'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;革 means 'change'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;改革 means 'reform' (by alter and remove existing system or rules)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most characters went through evolution like this. I can list virtually thousands of examples. Take the character '日'. It was originally coined to represent only 'the sun'. Since people were using sun raise and sun set to mark passing of days, the character '日' was naturally given the meaning of 'day' as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T11:18:08.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26620" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26624" CreationDate="2017-09-21T10:25:52.733" Score="0" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, how would you say: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;But only X years ago, in month Z of Year Y ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Now, they say the sun is red.&#xA;But only two years ago, in September 2015, they said the sun was blue.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that I would like to convey the meaning of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;on the contrary (of the situation earlier), now the opposite situation ...&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. If possible, I am looking to say so as one would say it in Taiwan, not as one would say it in China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please answer using traditional characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastEditorUserId="16003" LastEditDate="2017-09-21T11:07:23.863" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T11:14:03.157" Title="How would you say: &quot;But only X years ago, in month Z of Year Y ...&quot; in Taiwan" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26618" CreationDate="2017-09-21T10:49:34.287" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;说文解字:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;革、更也。二字雙聲。治去其毛。是更改之義。故引伸爲凡更新之用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to 说文解字, that is truely how it works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T10:49:34.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26612" CreationDate="2017-09-21T11:02:03.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This 照 is 按照 in my opinion, and yeah, I agree with fefe, sounds much better with 来看。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（按）照他的年纪来看,他显得年轻。 &#xA;He looks younger than he is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a Chinese linguist checking what jukuu puts on its webpage. Take it with a pinch of salt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T11:02:03.540" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26620" CreationDate="2017-09-21T11:07:54.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we use 'Y-M-D' format for stating date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;But only two years ago&quot; - &quot;祗不過兩年前&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;in September 2015&quot; - &quot;在二零一五年九月&quot; (In Chinese, we state year before month)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt; 2015 年 &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;九月&quot; - &quot;&lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; September &lt;strong&gt;of&lt;/strong&gt; 2015 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Emphasize the month if it is an important information. For example, September is the end of summer holiday&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-21T11:14:03.157" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T11:14:03.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26625" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26626" CreationDate="2017-09-21T11:09:52.167" Score="1" ViewCount="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Because it was predicted that the typhoon would pass over PLACE-X on DATE-Y?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A probably very problematic translation could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;因為預計DATE-Y颱風來PLACE-X&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I would like to ask if the sentence should be re-ordered, as well as what is a more specific word to use in this case, instead of the generic 來. Lastly I am not sure at all whether or not it is OK to use 預計.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T11:37:56.547" Title="How to say &quot;Because it was predicted that the typhoon would pass over PLACE-X on DATE-Y&quot;?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26625" CreationDate="2017-09-21T11:37:56.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it was predicted that the typhoon would pass over PLACE-X on DATE-Y&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因為預計颱風會在 Y月Y日 吹襲 X市&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Do you really need '因為'(because) in this sentence? If you use 'because' to start a sentence, you have to use '所以' (therefore) to end the sentence&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;因為預計颱風會在 Y月Y日 吹襲 X市&amp;quot; is an incomplete sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;預計颱風會在 Y月Y日 吹襲 X市&amp;quot; is a complete sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When describe a 颱風 hitting a place, we use the term '吹襲'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T11:37:56.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26627" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26630" CreationDate="2017-09-21T11:43:20.223" Score="8" ViewCount="3940" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two words seem very similar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;拍照 (pāizhào) = &quot;to take a picture&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%8B%8D%E7%85%A7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;dict.cn&lt;/a&gt;） or &quot;take a photograph (pt took) (pp taken)&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/chinese-english/%E6%8B%8D%E7%85%A7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Collins&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;照相 (zhàoxiàng) = &quot;take a photograph&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%85%A7%E7%9B%B8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;dict.cn&lt;/a&gt;） or &quot;take a picture (pt took) (pp taken)&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/chinese-english/%E7%85%A7%E7%9B%B8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Collins&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 拍照 and 照相?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jukuu.com gives many example sentences for &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%8B%8D%E7%85%A7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;拍照&lt;/a&gt;; here's some simple ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你不要动, 我给你拍照 (Nǐ bùyào dòng, wǒ gěi nǐ pāizhào)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  爸爸为她拍照 (Bàba wèi tā pāizhào)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  禁止拍照 (Jìnzhǐ pāizhào)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你喜欢拍照什么? (Nǐ xǐhuān pāizhào shénme?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judging from Baidu results, in the first two cases above, we can replace 拍照 with 照相, but not in the second two cases.  So there seems to be some difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T11:54:29.047" Title="What's the difference between 拍照 (pāizhào) and 照相 (zhàoxiàng) which both mean &quot;to take a photo&quot;?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26628" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26633" CreationDate="2017-09-21T12:19:55.123" Score="0" ViewCount="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to say: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;This advice/guideline was distributed via&lt;/strong&gt; (newspaper X、Y and news agency Z)&quot; please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I mean with &lt;code&gt;advice&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;guideline&lt;/code&gt; is a set of principles propagated by a certain research institution or government agency to e.g. prepare your home for the impact of a natural disaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.: It's not necessary to translate &quot;&lt;em&gt;(newspaper X、Y and news agency Z)&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, nor the words &quot;&lt;em&gt;newspaper&lt;/em&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;em&gt;news agency&lt;/em&gt;&quot; (I am just trying to clarify the context)  Feel free to translate it as e.g. &lt;strong&gt;XYZ&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that the purpose of this sentence is to be spoken out loud. And the summation of all the newspapers and news agency might take a long while to pronounce. Therefor, it is my intuition that the summation of these news channels would best occur at the utmost end of the sentence, while all other parts of the sentence have already been placed beforehand? I think it will be easier for the listener to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastEditorUserId="16003" LastEditDate="2017-09-21T12:55:24.043" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T13:19:16.070" Title="How to say: &quot;This advice/guideline was distributed via (newspaper X、Y and news agency Z)&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26629" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-21T12:23:18.510" Score="1" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you know, when you say 无期徒刑, that means it is a lifetime prisonment or the term is limitless until your death, but recently the news said a Chinese singer claimed that he would 无限期 stay out of career due to his wife getting videoed having an affair with a male model, but two or three months later, he resumed his singing career at the jeer of fans, who thought he broke his promise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T21:15:07.030" Title="Are 无期 and 无限期 same?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26627" CreationDate="2017-09-21T12:24:09.053" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two terms have the same meaning of &quot;take photograph&quot; in modern Chinese, they just describe the same action differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'照' in '照相' refers to 'reflect with mirror' and 相 is short for 相片 (portrait/ photograph). Taking photograph with early cameras required the subject to stand still for few minutes, facing the lens like facing a mirror; even with modern cameras, the subject still need to stand still in front of the camera lens to have his or her picture taken.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'拍' in '拍照' refers to the 'clicking' sound of the camera. and '照' is short for '照片' (photograph). when you push the camera button, the shutter would open and shut and make a 'clicking' sound. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;it might also refers to the loud flashing sound the early camera flashlight made&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;照相 probably was coined before 拍照. In early days of cameras, the only way to take a photograph of yourself is  go to 照相館-- We never heard of '拍照館' And taking picture of a person or a family was the sole function of 照相館. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, we have 禁止拍照 signs but not 禁止照相 signs. 禁止拍照 mainly targeted handheld cameras. With handheld cameras, we can take picture other than people, therefore, 拍照 can mean taking picture of people, scenery or object; While 照相 mainly means taking portrait of people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-21T12:43:44.623" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T12:43:44.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26627" CreationDate="2017-09-21T12:33:52.227" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's one subtle difference between them; when &lt;code&gt;照相&lt;/code&gt; is used it tends to mean &lt;em&gt;taking picture of sb&lt;/em&gt;, while &lt;code&gt;拍照&lt;/code&gt; might be used for taking picture of people/scenery etc. For example, &lt;code&gt;照相馆&lt;/code&gt; basically refers to &lt;em&gt;photo studio&lt;/em&gt; taking picture for people, so we don't say &lt;code&gt;拍照馆&lt;/code&gt;, which sounds not making much sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T12:33:52.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26627" CreationDate="2017-09-21T12:54:41.087" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In theory, both means the same thing and interchangeable. In my opinion, it's really a nitpick to distinguish these two words .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But some usage guideline from my experience: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People tend to use 照相 for a person, while 拍照 usually with a scenery.  That's why people tend to put '禁止拍照', but '禁止照相' is also acceptable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last sentence 你喜欢拍照什么? is unnatural. It sounds like you have two targets for the verb 拍： 照 and 什么. So, you might have to remove one, and it will become 你喜欢拍什么? .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update on another point: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used as an attributive or modifier to a noun, 拍照 and 照相 are usually fixed in those phrases. For example, 拍照手机（not 照相手机）, 照相机（not 拍照机），照相馆（not 拍照馆），and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-21T23:34:38.447" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T23:34:38.447" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26628" CreationDate="2017-09-21T13:15:22.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Guideline for  natural disasters' could be translated to 自然灾害的防護準則. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;via: 通過&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;distributed: 傳播 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, as a whole: 自然灾害的防護準則 通過 xyz 來 傳播 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T13:15:22.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26628" CreationDate="2017-09-21T13:19:16.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;[此=this]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[項 = item of] (classifier for 指引)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[指引= guideline]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[經由 = via]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[發佈 = distribute]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;此項指引經由 衛生部 發佈&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;此項指引經由 運輸署 發佈&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T13:19:16.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26629" CreationDate="2017-09-21T13:28:30.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They mean differently in these two settings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无期徒刑, as you quoted, means life-long time in prison.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, what the singer means by saying '无限期 stay out of career' is he could stay out of career as long as the affair of his wife resolved. He conveys he could be very patient and also shows his determination. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But he resumed his singing after two or three months. It might imply he already got that affair resolved.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T13:28:30.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26627" CreationDate="2017-09-21T14:51:37.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the first term &quot;拍照&quot;, the character &quot;拍&quot; is the verb, means take and the character &quot;照&quot; is the noun means the picture. &#xA;In the second term &quot;照相&quot;, the character &quot;照&quot; now become the verb, and the character &quot;相&quot; is the noun indicates to the picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, they mean &quot;take picture(s)&quot;. The previous one is a more casual way then the second one. (As indicated in one of another answer people say &quot;照相館&quot;, but they will never say &quot;拍照館&quot; even they should have the same meaning theoretically).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17979" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T14:51:37.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26629" CreationDate="2017-09-21T17:56:37.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think they are same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无限期 means no deadline, it means forever, but if you read 无 as &quot;unspecified&quot;, that would  mean &quot;deadline does not set&quot;, I can set it later and at any date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 无期徒刑 can be reduced to 17 years. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another word you can find in news, 无限期整改, obviously you can not 整改 forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T17:56:37.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26629" CreationDate="2017-09-21T20:47:08.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;无期 (without time limit) in '无期徒刑' is short for '无限期' . However, the term '无期徒刑' itself is a common set phrase for 'life sentence' . Therefore '无限期徒刑' is considered incorrect phrasing of &quot;life-sentence' , although it is not grammatically incorrect. ('无限期' as an adjectival phrase that modifies the noun '徒刑')&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无限期 (without time limit) is a phrase made up of 无 (without) and 限期 (time limit). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When used as an adjective, it requires an adjective marker '的' as in '无限期的徒刑' (jail sentence that without a time limit)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When used as an adverb, it requires an adverb marker '地' - as in '无限期地監禁' (indefinitely imprison)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'无限期' can also be an adverbial phrase, and modifies a verb without marker, as in '无限期罢工'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;无期 (never) in '會再无期'(no date/ never to meet again) is an adverb&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-21T21:15:07.030" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T21:15:07.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26639" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26640" CreationDate="2017-09-21T20:55:32.343" Score="1" ViewCount="680" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been learning some Chinese songs to help boost my vocabulary - most recently I learned &quot;当你老了&quot;.  There are a few lyrics tripping me up, and I only found one English &quot;translation&quot; online (which looks like it is actually a Chinese translation of a poem by William Butler Yeats, which shares the first couple of lines but diverges after that).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the full lyrics of the &lt;em&gt;song&lt;/em&gt; with my (probably very faulty) translation. I added some 'and's and subjects to try to make what is implied in Chinese clearer in English.  The two places I'm having trouble are identified by the question marks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;当你老了,头发白了            When you are old, and your hair is white&#xA;睡意昏沉                    And drowsy [??]&#xA;当你老了,走不动了            When you are old, and you can't walk&#xA;炉火旁打盹回忆青春           Dozing by the fire, remembering your youth&#xA;&#xA;多少人曾爱你青春欢畅的时辰    How many people have loved the delightful moments of your youth&#xA;爱慕你的美丽,假意或真心       Loved your beauty, whether insincere or sincere&#xA;只有一个人还爱你虔诚的灵魂    Only one person still loves your pious spirit&#xA;爱你苍老的脸上的皱纹         Loves the wrinkles on your old face&#xA;&#xA;当你老了,眼眉低垂            When you are old, and your eyebrows droop&#xA;灯火昏黄不定                 Lights are dim and indistinct&#xA;风吹过来,你的消息            The wind blows over with your news [??]&#xA;这就是我心里的歌             This is the song in my heart&#xA;&#xA;当你老了,眼眉低垂            When you are old, and your eyebrows droop&#xA;灯火昏黄不定                 Lights are dim and indistinct&#xA;当我老了,我真希望            When I am old, I really hope&#xA;这首歌是唱给你的             This song is sung for you&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First question:&lt;/strong&gt; In the first verse:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;睡意昏沉&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand &quot;睡意&quot;, but I can't quite follow how &quot;昏沉&quot; fits in there - dict.cn has it as &quot;muddled&quot;, so I thought perhaps something like &quot;muddled with drowsiness&quot;.  The aforementioned translated version has &quot;睡意沉沉&quot; there instead, designed to match &quot;full of sleep&quot; in the poem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Second question:&lt;/strong&gt; The other part that is causing me issues is in the second verse:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;风吹过来,你的消息&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be the best way to translate &quot;消息&quot;?  &quot;News&quot; in English is in all the dictionaries, but it seems too mundane for this lovely sentimental song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. Sorry for the code block, I couldn't figure out another way to make the line breaks stay put.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6285" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T23:03:48.747" Title="Translation particulars in “当你老了”" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26639" CreationDate="2017-09-21T23:03:48.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you have 睡意(wanting to sleep), you would feel 昏沉(drowsy; unable to get everything clear in your mind, and that kind of mood). So, I think the word 'drowsy' can fit here. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Besides 'news', you could also interpret 消息 as 'message', 'information'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T23:03:48.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26627" CreationDate="2017-09-22T01:32:04.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;拍照[pāi zhào] 摄影；照相。photograph: photography; photographic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;照相[zhào xiàng] 指相片。拍照。picture: taking pictures.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;拍照又称为摄影、照相，一般指通过物体所反射的光线使感光介质曝光的过程。Photography, also known as photography and photography, generally refers to the process of exposure of a light-sensitive medium by the light reflected by an object. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;照相，也称摄影，是使用照相机将物体、景物、人物拍摄下来进行保存的过程。Photography, also known as photography, is the process of using a camera to capture objects, and characters for preservation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T01:32:04.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26627" CreationDate="2017-09-22T02:22:35.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The people age 40 ~ 80 will say &quot;照相&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The people age 3 ~ 30 will say &quot;拍照&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17984" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T02:22:35.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26618" CreationDate="2017-09-22T02:48:36.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the term &quot;變革&quot; is used in the book of rites (禮記), which was &quot;published&quot; several hundreds of years before the book 說文解字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 禮記﹒大傳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;立權度量﹒考文章﹒改正朔﹒易服色﹒殊徽號﹒異器械﹒別衣服﹒此其所得與民變革者也﹒其不可得變革者則有矣﹒親親也﹒尊尊也﹒長長也﹒男女有別﹒此其不可得與民變革者也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/liji/da-zhuan/zh?searchu=%E8%AE%8A%E9%9D%A9&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#n10075&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/liji/da-zhuan/zh?searchu=變革&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#n10075&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which, &quot;變革&quot; means change&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, in the book of change (易經), the 49th &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching#Hexagrams&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; hexagrams &lt;/a&gt;is 澤火革:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;革卦 (䷰) is composed by a upper ☱ , with a lower ☲. the basic, core messages of 革卦 is &lt;strong&gt;change&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;id=25876&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;id=25876&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, if one need to speculate the etymology, using older materials is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T02:48:36.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26627" CreationDate="2017-09-22T05:41:13.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most cases, 照相and拍照, they can replace each other without any problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, there are 4 tiny difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.照相is a little older word than 拍照.Nowadays, 拍照is used more often than 照相.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Sometimes, 照相can be used as a noun, for instance,照相馆（photostudio）,we never say 拍照馆.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.I think that 照相emphasize the process of taking a photograph, but 拍照emphasize the instantaneous action of taking a photograph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.我去照个相 usually means I am going to take a photograph of myself &lt;strong&gt;by others&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;我去拍个照means I am going to take a photograph &lt;strong&gt;by others or myself&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17965" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T05:41:13.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26645" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26658" CreationDate="2017-09-22T09:55:26.033" Score="1" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I use &quot;溺水&quot; for liquids other than water? How would you say: he drowned in Coca-cola?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T01:33:39.083" Title="Does 溺水 only mean &quot;to drown&quot; in relation to water?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26645" CreationDate="2017-09-22T10:27:46.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you can't. For people whom are unfortunate and stupid to be deceased causing by coca-cola, it's called 食物中毒, food poisoning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T10:27:46.590" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26645" CreationDate="2017-09-22T11:04:57.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although you can not say 溺可乐, you can say 溺死在可乐中, which is more romantic anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;溺于可乐 is acceptable, because now it is not a fixed word but a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-09-22T11:23:34.313" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T11:23:34.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13785" CreationDate="2017-09-22T22:42:00.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for the last part of the original question, what tools do exist for learning Chinese ...   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as everyone has said, pinyin can't be &quot;translated&quot; automatically, but there's a ton of help out there for learning Chinese.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/2437&quot;&gt;Here is the page in this website with many, many tools to consider&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and the section specifically for dictionaries is&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/1195#1195&quot;&gt;this one :-)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5986" LastEditorUserId="5986" LastEditDate="2017-09-22T22:59:49.157" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T22:59:49.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26645" CreationDate="2017-09-22T23:39:47.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;他掉进了一大缸可口可乐里面溺死了。 He fell in a big vat of coca-cola and drowned.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(That should make the cola taste piquant.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T23:39:47.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26655" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-23T00:49:34.023" Score="1" ViewCount="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't quite see what the phrase 唯物史观 really means here. Could someone please reformulate it with other words or just longer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;任何一门学科，包括理科，都是知识体系和价值体系的结合统一。物理学科的科学精神、唯物史观，不都是思想教育的重要内容吗？ 所以，教育工作者要有整体的育人观念。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the text 科学精神 and 唯物史观 are separated with a listing comma '、' for which I use 'and'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唯物： materialistic ??&lt;br&gt;&#xA;史观： historically speaking ?? historical??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;物理学科的科学精神、唯物史观，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the scientific mind of physics and (、) historical materialism,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不都是思想教育的重要内容吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;are they not both important parts of ideological education?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T00:53:50.567" Title="What does 唯物史观 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26655" CreationDate="2017-09-23T00:53:50.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8E%86%E5%8F%B2%E5%94%AF%E7%89%A9%E4%B8%BB%E4%B9%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikepedia page&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;历史唯物主义（英语：Historical Materialism）是马克思主义哲学的重要组成部分，也被称为唯物主义历史理论（materialist conception of history）或&lt;strong&gt;唯物史观&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T00:53:50.567" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26657" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-23T01:22:26.483" Score="0" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;The popular Chinese reality show gives its official translation for the above as &quot;Where are we going, dad?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it should be &quot;Where has dad gone?&quot; or &quot;Where is dad?&quot; in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T02:22:33.297" Title="What is the real meaning of 爸爸去哪儿?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26645" CreationDate="2017-09-23T01:33:39.083" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;溺 is a formal word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;淹 is a colloquial word in daily usage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 淹死；老鼠淹死在可乐里面了（for your case）；小心别被（水）淹到；淹死你！；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the sentences that are used often in practice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some set phrases: ...被...淹了； ...让...淹了； For example, 老鼠&lt;strong&gt;被&lt;/strong&gt;可乐&lt;strong&gt;淹了&lt;/strong&gt;；蔬菜&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;水&lt;strong&gt;淹了&lt;/strong&gt;；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another phrase 淹没 meaning overwhelm. For example, 他被淹没了 means he is overwhelmed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T01:33:39.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26657" CreationDate="2017-09-23T01:40:53.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;爸爸去哪儿? sounds more like 爸爸(我们)(要)去哪儿? or 爸爸(你)(要)去哪儿?, while 爸爸去哪儿了 sounds like 'where has dad gone'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-23T02:22:33.297" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T02:22:33.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26663" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26665" CreationDate="2017-09-23T11:01:16.780" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;TK-421 (pronounced Teekay four two one) is the serial number of a character in a science fiction movie (and also my charming cat). What would be the most natural way to write this down?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TK-四二一?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TK-四百二十一?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should anything be done with the letters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17998" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T11:26:35.853" Title="How can I write my cat's name, TK-421, in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26664" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-23T11:12:40.240" Score="-2" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I read a piece of news in which a delivery man was invited by a young housewife into her room &quot;进来吹空调&quot; and which led to a dirty ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吹空调 is hard to understand, it might mean someone blows (perhaps it is one of the methods used by electricians to do cleaning)the air cooler, but in this context, the woman got the man in to enjoy the coolness of the a/c, so the subject should be 空调, not the man, and the word order is apparently wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T06:28:44.383" Title="The wrong word order" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26663" CreationDate="2017-09-23T11:26:35.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;TK-421, as a serial number, is ok in Chinese. But pronounce differently from English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T11:26:35.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26664" CreationDate="2017-09-23T11:36:20.170" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an idiomatic usage. 吹空调 means 被空调吹. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar usage in 吹风. For example, 我们出去吹吹风. You are not going to blow the wind, but wind blows you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, relying on the context, 吹... could mean either 让...吹 or 吹... . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning '让...吹'in those phrases: 吹空调; 吹风扇; 吹风;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning '吹...' in those phrases: 吹头发； 吹号； 吹气球；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-23T11:45:57.123" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T11:45:57.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26664" CreationDate="2017-09-23T12:47:29.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After some search, I found a terminology which describes this: &lt;a href=&quot;http://open.xrtvu.com/rpx/hyxx/Downloads/04/main01-02-03-02.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;施事宾语&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　②施事宾语&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　施事宾语是发出动作或行为的主体，或者是存现、消失的主体。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　述语与施事宾语之间常用动态助词或补语。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　下雨了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　出太阳了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　跑了两只羊。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　来了一个警察。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　这一锅饭能吃五个人。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　这座桥可以过大卡车。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　死了一位中毒严重的患者。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　施事宾语一般可以转化为施事主语。上面的句子可以变换为：&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　雨下了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　太阳出来了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　两只羊跑了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　一个警察来了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　五个人能吃这一锅饭。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　大卡车可以过这座桥。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;　　　　一位中毒严重的患者死了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where the object is what does the action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BF%B0%E8%B3%93%E7%9F%AD%E8%AA%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia Page&lt;/a&gt;, you can see the object can serve various relations to the verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;述宾短语的成分在语义上是支配或关涉的关系。所谓的支配、关涉，其意义相当广泛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;承受动作。例：“打|麻将”“喝|酒”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;动作的产物、结果。例：“写|硬笔字”“(这本书)卖|三块钱”（主语“这本书”承受动作，“三块钱”是动作的结果）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;事物的存缺。例：“没有|钱”“坐满|人”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;使动（尤见于古文中，现多以兼语短语表示）。例：“跑|狗、跑|马”“先破泰入咸阳者王|之。”“惊|天地，泣|鬼神”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;工具、方式。例：“写|毛笔”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;处所。例：“游|花园”“出|国”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;施事。例：“走出来了|两个人”&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;判断。例：“是|统一的国家”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以上只是支配或关涉的关系的例子。事实上，从按语义上的分类，把所有述、宾之间的关系全部举出来，是没有一定的准则。例如可是把宾语分类为施事、受事和当事（即不能归入前两类者）。上面所举出的各种关系只是大略的分类，以显示出支配或关涉的关系之广泛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this may not be a complete list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T12:47:29.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26668" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26670" CreationDate="2017-09-23T23:00:27.887" Score="3" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;When explaining to someone if you can speak Mandarin, there are people who suggest saying 我會講國語 and others who suggest 我講國語.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Appparently, 會講 suggests a higher level of competence whereas 講 alone suggests only a basic level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone shed more light on when to use 會講國語 vs. 講國語?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T03:35:27.297" Title="會講國語 vs. 講國語: when to use one or the other?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26668" CreationDate="2017-09-23T23:49:41.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;‘會講國語’ Sounds like Hongkong speak!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我会讲汉语。  or 我会讲中文。 might be more appropriate, at least in 江苏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T23:49:41.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26668" CreationDate="2017-09-24T00:05:06.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我會講國語 means you are able to speak Mandarin(probably be good at it), which is often used when explaining to someone if you can speak Mandarin. You might put 我可以講(一點)國語, in case that you might not be very good at it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared with 我會講國語, 我講國語 doesn't imply whether you are good at it or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我講國語 is often used when asked what type of/how many languages you use or speak. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你講幾種語言 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 我講國語，英語，...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你講什麼語言 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 我講國語&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A side note: in mainland, we say 普通话 or 中文 for Mandarin. I heard TWN folks said 國語, and maybe HK folks as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-24T02:17:58.020" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T02:17:58.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26671" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-24T02:08:59.783" Score="0" ViewCount="1577" Body="&lt;p&gt;I notice that in the recent evaluation of first-rate universities and disciplines in China, no colleges of vocational education are granted the honor. But I learn from other sources that such colleges are the integral part of higher education of this country, which have outnumbered the traditional colleges that offer four-year long undergraduate education.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They say such colleges were changed from the former secondary schools of vocation, so that they are simply 大专, not 本科. But I understand that all colleges are known in Chinese as 大专院校, so what is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T16:24:08.053" Title="What is the meaning of 大专?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26671" CreationDate="2017-09-24T02:29:29.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding of &quot;大专院校&quot; is probably right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &quot;大专&quot; used alone is different from &quot;大专院校&quot;. It is probably the short form of &quot;大学专科&quot;, and is a kind of education after secondary schools but has shorter terms (usually 2~3 years) and does not provide a bachelor's degree. On the contrary, &quot;大本&quot;, or &quot;大学本科&quot; usually takes 4~5 years and will provide a bachelor's degree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T02:29:29.420" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26673" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26675" CreationDate="2017-09-24T02:58:22.753" Score="1" ViewCount="918" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 製作 and 製造 mean &quot;to make&quot; according to this dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/2913/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/2913/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/6021/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/6021/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like 製造 might refer to physical items like a shirt or shoes, but not digital items like software or music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this true, or are they interchangeable? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference in usage between Mandarin and Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T05:29:02.443" Title="Difference between 製作 and 製造?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26673" CreationDate="2017-09-24T03:28:28.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;製造: to manufacture; Most of time referring to make hardware products. For example, 機器製造，服裝製造, 電腦製造 and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;製作: to make; It's often used for software, art craft, work of art, music, movie and etc. For example, 軟件製作， 電影製作， 工藝品製作.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;製作 engages more manual labor, while 製造 engages more machine work and products are often produced in product-lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their scale is different; 製作 is limited in number, while 製造 is vast in number. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T03:28:28.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26673" CreationDate="2017-09-24T03:31:41.003" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 作 contains the meaning of 'create' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;製作 refers to crafting, creating or making something that require skilled hands or creative mind (usually a single piece or in modest quantity) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;making jewelry&quot;  you should say  &quot;製作首飾&quot; instead of &quot;製造首飾&quot; because jewelry making is a fine craft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 'big movies' is a '大製作' (big production) - making movies is a creative art. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'製作' can be a noun for 'production'; 製造 is strictly a verb&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;製造 refers to manufacturing, producing or making something with or without skilled hands (from single piece to industrial scale)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;iPhone is made by Apple&quot; You should say &quot;iPhone 是由蘋果製造的&quot; instead of &quot;iPhone 是由蘋果製作的&quot; because the production of iPhone is certainly in industrial scale &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;There are no difference in usage between Mandarin and Cantonese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-24T03:36:51.327" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T03:36:51.327" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26676" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26778" CreationDate="2017-09-24T10:20:28.647" Score="0" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1fwV12InJ0&amp;amp;list=RDY1fwV12InJ0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The song in the title&lt;/a&gt; is by Wang Jie. The lyrics can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.it/2017/08/all-chinese-songs-i-have-met.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. However, ever since I first met this song, I was puzzled by this bit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谁飘涌这里未能别去？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This should transliterate to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Seoi4 piu1 cung1/zung2 ze5-leoi5 mei6 nang4 bit6 heoi3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I hear in the video linked above, 00:50-00:54, is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Seoi piu-hyup ze-leoi mei nam pið heoi?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the &lt;code&gt;nam&lt;/code&gt; could be explained away by assimilation, the &lt;code&gt;pið&lt;/code&gt; has the weird /ð/ instead of /t/ at sytllable end which may be just a quirk of the singer's pronunciation, and the &lt;code&gt;p&lt;/code&gt; which is probably just the root voiceless value of Jyutping &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; surfacing as sometimes happens - and similar things happen in Wang Jie's mandarin singing too. But the &lt;code&gt;hyup&lt;/code&gt; is puzzling. Is there any explanation besides &quot;Wang Jie made a weird mistake in his native tongue and this should actually be &lt;code&gt;cung&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;zung&lt;/code&gt;&quot;? Perhaps another word with similar meaning in Cantonese starting with the same &lt;code&gt;piu&lt;/code&gt; and ending in &lt;code&gt;hyup&lt;/code&gt; or something close to it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:51:37.713" Title="上帝也哭泣, Cantonese version, is this bit of lyrics correct?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26677" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26707" CreationDate="2017-09-24T11:48:40.260" Score="1" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sichuanese contains a lot of words from other topolects (Hakka, Min, Cantonese, etc.) thanks to the great migration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a bunch of 阿-prefixed forms of address&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《四川方言词典》explains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nib1l.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nib1l.png&quot; alt=&quot;阿&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿 a1 (缀)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用在某些亲属名称的前面（川西部分地区）：～爹|～伯|～哥。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While also offering the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GWuCm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GWuCm.png&quot; alt=&quot;阿&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿爸 a1 ba2 (名) 叔父。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿伯 a1 be2 (名) ①上了年纪的父亲。②伯父。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿爹 a1 die1 (名) 指年轻的父亲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿兄 a1 xiong1 (名) 弟弟 (同“阿哥”相对)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 阿哥 is clearly, also marked as a an 阿-prefixed Sichuanese Hakka form of address - meaning 哥哥 presumably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《雨城方言》also lists&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿妹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿姐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿妈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿孃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿祖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do these words mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿妹, 阿姐, 阿妈, 阿孃, 阿祖?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can guess, but I'm sure I won't be right. (They very well might differ from proper Hakka, as well).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T05:56:05.907" Title="Some 阿-prefix Sichuanese Hakka words (阿妹, 阿姐, 阿妈, 阿孃, 阿祖) - what do they mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26678" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26753" CreationDate="2017-09-24T12:47:14.947" Score="0" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the song &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GMgbfZLy_g&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;忘不了&lt;/a&gt; by Teresa Teng (lyrics &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.it/2017/08/all-chinese-songs-i-have-met.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;), one line goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;偷看一眼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, according to online lyrics. Except in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GMgbfZLy_g&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt;, both at 00:25-00:26 and at 1:18-1:20, I hear:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ta kan yi yan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So are the lyrics wrong, or is it me mishearing, perhaps its /t&lt;sup&gt;h&lt;/sup&gt;au/ with the /u/ being almost undetectable, and that is some regional/dialectal pronunciation? How should it be spelt if &quot;Ta kan yi yan&quot; actually makes sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While browsing Youku to respond to @dan's comment with a Youku video, I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjA5NTQ3MTky.html?spm=a2h0k.8191407.0.0&amp;amp;from=s1.8-1-1.2&amp;amp;f=20081278&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, where the line is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他看一眼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That certainly matches the sounds I hear, but what does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-09-24T13:06:41.013" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T02:22:59.910" Title="偷看一眼 sounds like &quot;Ta kan yi yan&quot;: wrong lyrics (as happened with 一切都这么美好 which is sung as 一切都变得美好) or weird pronunciation?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26677" CreationDate="2017-09-24T14:24:56.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/934/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/934/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[1] [n] prefix to a name or term of address&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do these words mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿妹, 阿姐, 阿妈, 阿孃, 阿祖?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;prefix to a name&lt;/strong&gt;: adding 阿 before a noun indicates it is a name, e.g. 阿豬, 阿狗 (if you only say 豬 or 狗, people would presume you are talking about an anime)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;term of address&lt;/strong&gt;: adding 阿 before the name or title of someone indicates you are addressing that person. ( if you only say 妹, 姐, 孃 or 祖, they might not know you are addressing them or just acknowledging their present, like a kid looking at an apple and say  &amp;quot;Apple!&amp;quot; ) ; you can also address 阿妹, 阿姐, 阿妈 in third person, for example, 我阿妹, 我阿姐, 我阿妈 instead of 我的妹妹, 我的姐姐, 我的妈妈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T14:47:56.737" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26680" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26685" CreationDate="2017-09-24T19:55:41.410" Score="1" ViewCount="332" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Let me first write in Mandarin)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;关于这个句子：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;据悉，9月16日是安室奈美惠的出道纪念日，而今年的9月20日&lt;strong&gt;则&lt;/strong&gt;是安室奈美惠40岁的生日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;关于“则”的用法，我的词典有这些说明：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rule, standard (noun)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;follow an example (verb)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;item (measure word)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些都看来不合适。所这个句子上“则”是什么意思？此外“则”的词性是什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(The original sentence in English, in case my Mandarin doesn't make sense)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;据悉，9月16日是安室奈美惠的出道纪念日，而今年的9月20日&lt;strong&gt;则&lt;/strong&gt;是安室奈美惠40岁的生日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my dictionary, 则 means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rule, standard (noun)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;follow an example (verb)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;item (measure word)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of them seem to be not the case here. So what does 则 mean here and what does it function as (e.g. adverb, noun, verb, etc...)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please write an answer in English since I'm not sure if I understand it yet...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T13:43:29.187" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T13:43:29.187" Title="What does 则 mean in ...而今年的9月20日则是安室奈美惠40岁的生日?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26681" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26687" CreationDate="2017-09-24T20:12:29.160" Score="1" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi4t_jiwsv4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;能否不想你&lt;/a&gt; (lyrics &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.it/2017/08/all-chinese-songs-i-have-met.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;), Wang Jie pronounces (or so it seems to my ear)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;门若闭上了 变再会无期&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mun joek pei-soeng-liu &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; bin zoi-wui mou-kei&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this just this video or is this pronunciation actually in any way widespread, or even another word perhaps?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T00:31:40.583" Title="闭上 pronounced pei-soeng in Cantonese: just Wang Jie in this song or something more?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26682" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26688" CreationDate="2017-09-24T21:27:05.327" Score="0" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Hokkien song &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9BZ5GuIwhk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;男人的汗&lt;/a&gt; (Min title 查埔人的汗, lyrics &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.it/2017/08/all-chinese-songs-i-have-met.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, there is the following line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人生行到遮 地位亲像山&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should sound:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lin-sing kiann kau tsia &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; te-ui tshin-tshiunn suann&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, in the video, both at 00:31-00:38 and at 2:04-2:10, it sounds:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lin-sing kiann kau tsia &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; tek-ui/te-kui tshin-tshiunn suann&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First thing that comes to mind is to fix it as 地塊, but that would be &lt;code&gt;te-khuai&lt;/code&gt;, and no &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; is heard, nor any aspiration. So I tried browsing &lt;a href=&quot;https://twblg.dict.edu.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my reference&lt;/a&gt; for characters read &lt;code&gt;kui&lt;/code&gt;, and found the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;關 | kuinn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;刮 | kuih&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;規 | kui&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;歸 | kui&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;胿 | kui&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;龜 | kui&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;機 | kui&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;圭 | kui&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鬼 | kúi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;癸 | kúi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;幾 | kúi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;軌 | kúi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;詭 | kúi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;貴 | kuì&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;癸 | kuí&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季 | kuì&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;挂 | kuì&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;劌 | ku`&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;瑰 | kuì&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;桂 | kuì&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季 | kuì&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;膭 | kuī&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;櫃 | kuī&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跪 | kuī&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;饋 | kuī&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;葵 | kuî&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could any of these be the right character here? If so, which? Otherwise, how can I explain this &lt;code&gt;tek-ui/te-kui&lt;/code&gt; which should be &lt;code&gt;te-ui&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T05:57:11.353" Title="地位 sounds like tek-ui or te-kui: singer's mistake or lyrics should be different?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26680" CreationDate="2017-09-24T23:12:28.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't know what bits of her name belong together. She is Japanese I believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 则 just emphasizes the close connection in time, anniversary - birthday, both in September, only 4 days apart. You could just leave it out. In English you might just say the 'and' with more emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;据悉，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;According to reports,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;9月16日是安室奈美惠的出道纪念日，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;16th September is the anniversary of An Shi Nai Mei Hui's first public performance,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;而今年的9月20日则是安室奈美惠40岁的生日。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and this year on the 20th of September，An Shi Nai Mei Hui will also be 40 years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T23:12:28.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26680" CreationDate="2017-09-24T23:56:33.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;则 here, as an adverb, means 'yet'. The structure of 而...则... could be interpreted as 'while'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &quot;而今年的9月20日则是安室奈美惠40岁的生日。&quot; is &quot;while Sep. 20th this year will be the 40th birthday of Anshinaimeihui's.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T23:56:33.740" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26686" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26689" CreationDate="2017-09-25T00:20:23.237" Score="3" ViewCount="824" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/242/how-do-we-choose-the-correct-characters-for-a-westerner-name&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; titled &lt;em&gt;&quot;How do we choose the correct characters for a westerner name?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, the accepted answer says the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It's your name and you can arbitrarily pick characters to be your name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other answers also say that they can choose whatever they like, by its original meaning and/or its sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Japanese people already have names written in kanji. In fact I find that any name of Japanese people are simply mapped to its equivalent Chinese characters, and it seems to be that the sound never plays a role here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it true that the name of Japanese people in Chinese must follow its Japanese kanji, or is it just a convention?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if that is not the rule, is there anyone who breaks this convention, say among famous people in China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T14:26:59.503" Title="Must Japanese people's name be mapped to equivalent Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26681" CreationDate="2017-09-25T00:20:58.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is '门若闭上了 &lt;strong&gt;便&lt;/strong&gt;再会无期'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/987/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;闭&lt;/a&gt; only has one Cantonese Jyutping /bai3/ , and it is never pronounced as /pei3/ . Wang Jie pronounced it wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;譬, 屁, 媲, 嬖 all pronounced as /pei3/,  but none of them carry the meaning of 'close'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/56/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;上&lt;/a&gt; is pronounced as /soeng6/ when it is used as a noun or an adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. upper, superior, previous&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上 is pronounced as /soeng5/ when it is used as a verb or verb particle indicating direction or achievement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'上' in '闭上' is a verb particle indicating achievement (close shut)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore '闭上' is pronounced as /&lt;strong&gt;bai3 soeng5&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T00:31:40.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26682" CreationDate="2017-09-25T00:29:38.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The [q]/[k] sound came from the glottal stop [ʔ] which must be placed between「地」and「位」when speaking the word. Contrary to its conventional phonetic notation,「位」actually has a glottal plosive consonant before the vowel. So 'te-ui' is actually read as [te11ʔui22] rather than [te11ui22] without separation between the two letters. The difference is similar to that between &quot;come in&quot; [k&lt;sup&gt;h&lt;/sup&gt;amʔin] and &quot;comin'&quot; [k&lt;sup&gt;h&lt;/sup&gt;amin]. Because this guy is singing, it is easy for the glottal stop to corrupt into an uvular [q] or a velar [k] plosive. (Having a full glottal stop in the middle of a phrase will spoil the legato. )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17879" LastEditorUserId="17879" LastEditDate="2017-09-25T05:57:11.353" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T05:57:11.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26686" CreationDate="2017-09-25T00:44:22.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, if a Japanese name can be written in kanji, it is customary to read these kanji in its Chinese character pinyin, the Japanese pronunciation play no part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Japanese pronunciation of &quot;田中&quot; is &quot;Tanaka&quot;,  But 田中 in Mandarin is read as / tian2 zhong1/ using Mandarin Pinyin and    /tin4 zung1/ in Cantonese using Cantonese Jyuping&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a Japanese named 田中 (Tanaka), your Chinese name should always be 田中 (tin4 zung1) also. Picking a different Chinese name, for example 田 (tin4) so your name can sound more Chinese, is considered insulting to your heritage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some Japanese first names do not have fixed corresponding Kanji, for example  あかね (Akane).  In this case, we have to choose among all the Kanji that is pronounced  あかね,  and 茜 is the most common one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-25T05:15:39.633" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T05:15:39.633" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26686" CreationDate="2017-09-25T00:46:05.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A person can have an English name, a Chinese name, a Japanese name or whatever other names, which are totally unrelated and picked only by himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a famous actor in China with a Chinese name &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E5%B1%B1_(%E6%BC%94%E5%93%A1)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大山&lt;/a&gt;, who is actually a Canadian with the name Mark Henry Rowswell. Some ambassadors in China also have their own Chinese name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But except for that, there is a guideline for translating a non-Chinese name into Chinese in China (I cannot find a reference now). It is mainly based on reading, or transliteration, except names from certain countries. Japanese names will use their original characters if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-09-25T05:42:02.987" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T05:42:02.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26673" CreationDate="2017-09-25T01:02:00.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;制作[zhì zuò] fabrication; make; manufacture: make furniture; 制作家具；&#xA;elaborately wrought silverware; 精心制作的银器&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;制造[zhì zào]  a.（对原材料进行加工） make; manufacture; produce:produce lathes; 制造车床  make machines; 制造机器  b.（人为造成的气氛或局面等） engineer; create; fabricate; fabrication; manufactory: raise one obstacle after another; 制造重重障碍; create disturbances; 制造动乱&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;制作：制造；指文艺作品的创作。make; the creation of literary works.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;制造：制作，将原材料加工成器物；人为地造成某种气氛或局面等，多含贬义。making,processing raw materials into objects; to create an atmosphere or situation, contains derogatory sense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T01:02:00.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26692" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26693" CreationDate="2017-09-25T03:29:09.403" Score="-2" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading a construction plan from a Chinese contractor. The following word was not translated to English and I cannot understand it. I cannot copy it also because it was saved as image. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does it say? Thank you. I found this in the electrical equipment schedule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dueqd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dueqd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another one is below: Look like the one says &quot;phase&quot; (electrical term). Am I right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ENlF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ENlF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18003" LastEditorUserId="18003" LastEditDate="2017-09-25T03:36:08.460" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T12:01:44.047" Title="Please translate the chinese word" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26692" CreationDate="2017-09-25T03:43:18.737" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;天花 is short for 天花板 (ceiling)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;檢 means 檢查 (inspect)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;修 means 修理 (repair)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;囗 (mouth) refers to 'opening'.  In construction term, it means &quot;access panel&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天花檢修口 Means 'ceiling maintaiance access panel&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;配電箱 means ' electricity distribution box' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漏保 is short for 漏電保險掣 (circuit breaker)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-25T09:56:00.277" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T09:56:00.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26692" CreationDate="2017-09-25T09:33:49.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;天花 is short for 天花板(not 版)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparison table:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese &amp;lt;----&gt; Traditional Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;检&amp;lt;----&gt;檢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电&amp;lt;----&gt;電&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;保险&amp;lt;----&gt;保險&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18004" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T09:33:49.550" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26449" CreationDate="2017-09-25T09:47:33.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;People are lazy. So we offen use 羊汤 instead of 羊肉汤! ^_^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18004" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T09:47:33.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26696" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-25T11:28:13.090" Score="3" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a current commercial ad of bird's nest aired by China's National Radio, two women identified as former classmates had the following conversation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲：我妈快70岁了，我要买礼物回去过中秋。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乙：是呀，好久都没见到咱妈了。。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is clearly the two speakers are not sisters or daughters of the same woman which they both call mother, but 我 and 咱 are both first person nouns, what is the relation of the two words? Does one of the speaker try to endear herself to the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T04:32:47.647" Title="The relationship of 我 and 咱们" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26697" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26704" CreationDate="2017-09-25T11:30:58.610" Score="3" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have just started learning Chinese and I know that 姓 can be both a verb and a noun. I wondered whether there are a lot of other Chinese verbs that can also be used as nouns. &#xA;For example, is a sentence like 我要吃 a grammatically correct sentence in Chinese? Or better (since in this example 吃 cannot be interpreted as a verb): 这个 吃很好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18005" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-11-12T00:37:31.927" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T00:37:31.927" Title="Flexibility of word classes in Chinese" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26698" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26702" CreationDate="2017-09-25T12:05:22.427" Score="4" ViewCount="1313" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to learn when to use 都 and when to use 也 in the 连。。。都／也 structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current understanding is that 都 is often used for positive sentences whereas 也 is generally used for negative sentences, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他 什么 都 吃，连 狗肉 都 吃。&#xA;我们 连 一 次 也 没 见 过。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I can see many exceptions to this 'rule'. Any more hints on when to use 都 or 也? Does it matter in general?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18007" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T12:36:08.660" Title="都 vs 也 in &quot;连。。。都／也&quot; structure" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26686" CreationDate="2017-09-25T12:08:58.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you said above, it is a tradition that Chinese would find the equivalent for the Japanese names more by forms than by sounds. But there are exceptions, like a famous brand name &quot;Yamaha&quot;, which could be written as “山下&quot; if by the above rule, but it has been translated as &quot;雅马哈” in Chinese mainland and &quot;跃马” in Hong Kong. Another brand name &quot;Nissan&quot; is either “日产” or &quot;尼桑&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T12:08:58.230" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26697" CreationDate="2017-09-25T12:22:09.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are lots of words that can be both verb and noun. As you said， 姓 is one of them. I don't have a full list for all of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 吃， most of time it's a verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 我要吃, 吃 is a verb. To be more clear, you can put a target for it, like 我要吃&lt;strong&gt;饭&lt;/strong&gt;；我要吃&lt;strong&gt;水果&lt;/strong&gt;； etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个吃很好 is unnatural. It should be 这个很好吃. 很好 is an adverb modifying the verb 吃. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One case in which 吃 is used as a noun is 口吃，meaning stutter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T12:22:09.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26696" CreationDate="2017-09-25T12:22:52.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you are right!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, 咱 has the same meaning as 咱们.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咱们 means One's own side (I or us) and each other (You).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18004" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T12:22:52.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26698" CreationDate="2017-09-25T12:36:08.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;连...都... and 连...也... are interchangeable as a structure. In fact, in the structure 连...都..., 都, as an adverb, means 也! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, the sentence could be rephrased as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他什么都吃，连狗肉 &lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt; 吃。 我们连一次 &lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt; 没见过。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the first sentence, 他什么都吃, 都 can not be replaced by 也. Here, 都 means 'all'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T12:36:08.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26696" CreationDate="2017-09-25T12:55:42.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context, what 乙 said could be interpreted as either 是呀，好久都没见到&lt;strong&gt;咱们的妈妈们&lt;/strong&gt;了 or 是呀，好久都没见到&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;妈了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, 乙 agreed with what 甲 had said, and 乙 decided to see her own mother during 中秋 festival just as what 甲 would do for her mother. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically, by saying 咱, you could endear yourself to your interlocutor. For example, 有空去咱家坐坐？; 这是咱家的东西； I see 咱 is used a lot in Shenyang city. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-25T13:08:55.367" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T13:08:55.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26697" CreationDate="2017-09-25T13:20:49.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In classic Chinese, the part of speech of a character often changes. Even a number can be used a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;士也罔极,二三其德&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 二三(lit. two and three) means &amp;quot;vary, change&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese, since many words consists of two or moer characters, this phenomenon is much less common than that in classic Chinese. Some other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;画 (v) to draw;  (n) picture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;锁 (v) to lock;  (n) lock&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爱 (v) to love;  (n) love&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梦 (v) to dream; (n) dream&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your question, &lt;code&gt;我要吃&lt;/code&gt; is correct. However, here it's a verb indeed, and in most cases, you need the object, as @dan already pointed out. In some contexts, the object may be omitted, and hence &lt;code&gt;我要吃&lt;/code&gt; sounds perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:我有巧克力，你要吃吗？ &lt;em&gt;I have some chocolate, would you like some?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B:我要吃 &lt;em&gt;I want to eat (it)&lt;/em&gt;, or more idiomatically, &lt;em&gt;yeah, please&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some verbs, you can use the structure &amp;quot;Verb+的&amp;quot; to nominalize it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃的= something edible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;穿的 = cloth, something to wear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T13:20:49.937" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26686" CreationDate="2017-09-25T14:09:59.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm the one who answered the question mentioned in your question. I think I have to make a clarification fist. I think you misunderstand that question. The poster is asking how to choose Chinese characters for a &lt;strong&gt;Chinese name&lt;/strong&gt; if a foreigner wants one, not how to &amp;quot;translate&amp;quot; a foreign name into Chinese. They are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your specific interst in how Japanese names are mapped into Chinese. Here is my two cents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to historical reasons, Chinese language and culture deeply affect east Asia, more specifically, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Among them, Japan still perserves many Chinese characters (Japanese, 漢字｛かんじ｝) in Janpanese language. In many cases, a Japanese name fully consists of Chinese characters, so it's would be straightforward to keep the name the same when &amp;quot;translated&amp;quot; into Chinese. In few cases, when the name consists of some hiragara/katakana （Japanese，平仮名/片仮名; Chinese, 平假名/片假名), a character commonly used in names would be chosen to &amp;quot;translate&amp;quot; the Japanese name into Chinese character, as Tangho pointed out. Some exapmples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安室　奈美恵{あむろなみえ Amuro Namie} (a female Japanese singer)　in Japanese = 安室　奈美恵 in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;初音ミク{はつね　ミク　Hatsune Miku}　(a virtual figure famous for &amp;quot;her&amp;quot; singing) in Japanese = 初音未来 in Chinese, since ミク is the nanori (Japanese:名乗り, a special pronunciation used in Japanese names) of Chinese characters 未来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;長渕 剛 {ながぶち　つよし　Nagabuchi Tsuyoshi｝(a male Japanese singer) in Japanese = 长渊 刚 in Chinese. Here, Standard Chinese characters in Simplified Chinse are adopted after the &amp;quot;translation&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, in case you just want a Chinese style name even when you are a Japanese, you can &amp;quot;arbitrarily&amp;quot; choose your Chinese name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, for Korean and Vitamnese, they have their name of the &amp;quot;version&amp;quot; in Chinese characters, so their name always looks like an original Chinese name. No &amp;quot;translation&amp;quot; is needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T14:26:59.503" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25680" CreationDate="2017-09-25T14:37:44.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks to @Xuannn I don't have to search for the instruction again. I'll include the quote at the end of this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the quote, the word used is &amp;quot;复述&amp;quot; but not &amp;quot;背诵&amp;quot;. The difference is, with &amp;quot;复述&amp;quot;, you retell the story with your own words. With &amp;quot;背诵&amp;quot;, you'll have to recite it word by word, character by character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So no, you do not have to recite it word by word. Just try to understand what the story says, and retell the story in your own words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HSKK 评分说明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听后复述&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;适用试题：HSKK（高级）第 1-3 题。 答题要求：每题播放一段话，要求考生听后复述。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;评分档次：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高：考生能完整、流利地复述材料的主要内容，较少停顿和重复。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中：考生能复述部分材料内容，停顿、重复较多，有语法错误。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;低：考生复述内容与原材料出入大，语言零乱，信息量小。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetest.cn/userfiles/file/HSKK-pingfen.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chinesetest.cn/userfiles/file/HSKK-pingfen.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T14:37:44.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26677" CreationDate="2017-09-25T23:31:53.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.syndict.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;釋義： 1.放在稱謂（如爸、嬸、公、姐等）前，表尊敬。2.放在名字前，表親切，同輩之間或長輩稱呼晚輩時使用。  用例：&#xA;  1.阿爸、阿媽、阿公、阿婆、阿叔、阿嬸……2、阿明、阿小珠、阿飛……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿妹: 1. 孩子（不管晚輩男女，長輩都可稱其阿妹）。2. 女孩子。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿姐: 姐姐（部分地區也指姑姑）。許多地區稱姐姐為“阿姊”。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿妈: 媽媽，母親。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿孃: 1、伯母，伯父的妻子（五華、惠州等地）。2、泛指老婦女。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿祖: unable to find; I guess it might belong to meaning 2: &quot;放在名字前，表親切，同輩之間或長輩稱呼晚輩時使用。&quot; So, 祖 might be just a person's name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-09-25T23:38:49.897" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T23:38:49.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26708" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26710" CreationDate="2017-09-26T01:24:34.253" Score="0" ViewCount="46" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin as used in Taiwan, how to say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some more prominent figures who have led the protests are ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastEditorUserId="16003" LastEditDate="2017-09-26T01:30:20.770" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T01:51:33.840" Title="How to write &quot;Some more prominent figures who have led the protests are ...&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26696" CreationDate="2017-09-26T01:46:36.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我[wǒ]  代词  a.（称自己） I; my; me. in my humble opinion 以我之见    b.（指称我们） we; our; us. we two; 我等二人   our university; 我校  c. （“我、你” 对举， 表示泛指）: Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 d. （自己） self: self-criticism; 自我批评 selfless labour 忘我的劳动&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;名词（姓氏） a surname: Wo Zi 我子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;咱们[zán men]（我们） we:&#xA;Let's talk it over. 咱们商量一下。&#xA;Let's go together. 咱们一块去。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-09-26T10:04:49.567" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T10:04:49.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26708" CreationDate="2017-09-26T01:51:33.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“領導這次抗議活動的傑出知名人物還有：”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;還有 implies 'besides' to interpret 'some more';&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;prominent figures: 傑出(知名)人物; I think putting 知名 here is ok, because prominent figures are often well-known persons. You can remove it based on your considerations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;who have led the protests: 領導這次抗議活動的  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T01:51:33.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26696" CreationDate="2017-09-26T09:02:58.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning of 咱 is different in northern China and the rest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In east-north China, 咱 is the same as 我. People there say 咱 to refer&#xA;to him/herself. And it depends whether the speaker is endearing&#xA;him/herself. This usage is actually a little bit weird for Chinese&#xA;from southern areas.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the rest provinces of China, 咱 is different from 我。咱 refers to the&#xA;both sides of a conversation, and is often used to show closer&#xA;relationship or endearment. 咱 is much less frequently used than 我们&#xA;there.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in your example, I think this conversation happens in east-north China since 咱妈 is rare in southern area and it simply refers to 我的妈妈. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18010" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T09:02:58.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26523" CreationDate="2017-09-26T09:31:27.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;6514 is not one of the popular numbers like 521(我爱你) or 1314 (一生一世), so the meaning is not clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tend to think it could mean something else than Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it really means something, it could be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;搂我一次： 6 -&gt; hug, 5 -&gt; me, 14 -&gt; once&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18010" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T09:31:27.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26696" CreationDate="2017-09-26T10:42:54.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;咱们 - &lt;strong&gt;you and me&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e. &quot;you&quot; included.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们 - &lt;strong&gt;we&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e. &quot;you&quot; might or might not be included.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T10:42:54.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26714" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26717" CreationDate="2017-09-26T11:49:16.777" Score="5" ViewCount="1745" Body="&lt;p&gt;After pointing out the many bugs in an online Chinese &quot;how to give a presentation in English&quot; webpage, one of my colleagues wrote this on WeChat:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;尽信书不如无书&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Jìn xìn shū bùrú wú shū&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 尽信书不如无书 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breaking this down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B0%BD&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;尽&lt;/a&gt; (jìn) = &quot;exhausted&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BF%A1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;信&lt;/a&gt; (xìn) = &quot;evidence&quot; (maybe (?))&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;书&lt;/a&gt; (shū) = &quot;book&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%8D%E5%A6%82&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;不如&lt;/a&gt; (bùrú) = &quot;not as good as&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%97%A0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;无&lt;/a&gt; (wú) = &quot;no&quot; (in the sense of &quot;the absence of&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;书 (shū), as above.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My closest guess is &quot;a book of misinformation is worse than no book&quot;.  One of the (Chinese) students said &quot;sort of&quot; when I asked if this was okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T04:56:31.673" Title="What does 尽信书不如无书 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26692" CreationDate="2017-09-26T12:01:44.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;FYI, for your future translations, google translate allows you to draw characters with your mouse. You just have to copy the strokes even if you don't understand them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18011" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T12:01:44.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26714" CreationDate="2017-09-26T12:24:19.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%BD%E4%BF%A1%E4%B9%A6%EF%BC%8C%E4%B8%8D%E5%A6%82%E6%97%A0%E4%B9%A6/556876?fr=aladdin&amp;amp;fromid=1611707&amp;amp;fromtitle=%E5%B0%BD%E4%BF%A1%E4%B9%A6%E4%B8%8D%E5%A6%82%E6%97%A0%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;泛指读书不要拘泥于书上或迷信书本。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;要求读者善于独立思考问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic idea is that one should not always believe in books and should build up one's own point of view, thoughts or ideology. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T12:24:19.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26714" CreationDate="2017-09-26T12:30:33.360" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;尽 (jìn) = &amp;quot;completely&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信 (xìn) = &amp;quot;believe in&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;书 (shū) = &amp;quot;book&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不如 (bùrú) = &amp;quot;better off&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无 (wú) = &amp;quot;without&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;书 (shū) = &amp;quot;book&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;尽信书不如无书&amp;quot; mean &amp;quot;It is better to have no book at all than blindly believe in everything in the books&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prejudice is worse than ignorance; wrong information is worse than no information&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;prejudice&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ignorance&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;lack of knowledge or information&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase is not telling you not to read. It is telling you to also think for yourself when you read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T12:37:18.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26714" CreationDate="2017-09-26T14:03:43.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Tang Ho explains the meaning very well. I'd like to share the story behind this idiom with anyone interested in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This idom first appears in the chapter 尽心 of the book 孟子 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mencius_(book)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mencius&lt;/a&gt;). The original texts are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;孟子曰：“尽信书，则不如无书。吾于《武成》，取二三策而已矣。仁人无敌于天下，以至仁伐至不仁，而何其血之流杵也？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My rough translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mencius says, &quot;It is better to have no book at all than blindly believe in everything in the books (Thanks to @Tang Ho). For the chapter 武成 (a chapter of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Documents&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;尚书&lt;/a&gt;), I only believes in few pages of it. Since a man with benevolence is invincible in the world, when King Wu of Zhou, the benevolent king, was fighting against the cruel King Zhou of Shang, how could it be that there is so much blood (in the battlefield) that even the wooden club is floating (on the blood)?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explanations on the context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chapter 武成 describes that the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Muye&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;battle of Muye&lt;/a&gt; (牧野之战) between King Wu of Zhou and King Zhou of Shang is so bloody that even the wooden club is floating. However, in Mencius and other Confucian's opinion, King Wu of Zhou is a man with many virtues (a paragon in Confucian's eye) while King Zhou of Shang is a brutal tyrant. The people is standing on King Wu of Zhou's side and King Zhou of Shang is doomed to be overthrown. It shall be easy for King Wu of Zhou to defeat his opponent, and the battle between the two parties shall not be so bloody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I accept the viewpoint that we need to think over what we see and read, so I do believe that battle was bloody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T14:03:43.457" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26719" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26720" CreationDate="2017-09-26T14:54:39.343" Score="3" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;此前的摩拜单车以橙色为主色调，此次发布的新车型改用了白色。另外，&lt;strong&gt;在零部件的更换以及坚固性上也有所优化&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the sentence bold above, if I understand it correctly, the meaning is something like the follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The parts have been upgraded to more robust ones and to some extent optimized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand the grammartical structure of the bold part. Specifically, what I don't understand are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What does 零部件 (parts) modify via 的? Is there something omitted here? For me 更换 seems to be a verb so it is awkward that 零部件的 modify it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;以及 means &quot;as well as&quot;, and works as a conjugate. But what does it concatenate here with what? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How does 上 work here?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T23:26:34.407" Title="The sentence structure of the following sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26719" CreationDate="2017-09-26T15:46:42.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;零部件的更换&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;零部件=(mechanical, electrical, etc) part; 更换 = replace/replacement (it can be a noun), so 零部件的更换 = replacement of parts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;坚固性&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;= ruggedness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you noticed the structure &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;在...上&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; used here? It means &amp;quot;with respect to; regarding; in terms of&amp;quot;, so the sentence may be split into (I think 零部件的 modifies 更换以及坚固性 here):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在[零部件的(更换/以及/坚固性)]上也有所优化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some optimizations regarding the replacement and ruggedness of parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T15:56:53.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26668" CreationDate="2017-09-26T17:35:19.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is exactly the same as I speak English vs. I can speak English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can appropriately distinguish the uses for above phrases, you can do the same for 會講國語 vs. 講國語. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whoever tells you that you are wrong, does not know what s/he is talking about. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18018" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T17:35:19.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26714" CreationDate="2017-09-26T18:17:20.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For plain translation, it means 'If you believe everything on the book, you'd better not read the book'. For further translation, it means 'You should trust the book(other people's experience) based on your own experience and exploration, otherwise you'll just be the slave of the book.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18019" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T18:17:20.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26719" CreationDate="2017-09-26T23:26:34.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would render your sentence like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此前的摩拜单车以橙色为主色调，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Previously, Mobike attached importance to its distinct orange colour,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;此次发布的新车型改用了白色。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the newly released models have changed to white.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;另外，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在零部件的更换以及坚固性上也有所优化。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;both the replacement of components and their durability have been improved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Huang先生 says in his reply, 在 ... 上 is a common collocation. Sometimes you can translate it as 'in' or 'on' or 'concerning', but sometimes that doesn't really fit. Very often you see: 在历史上 = in history. An example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们首先应大致看一下该理论在历史上的前身。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在历史上的前身 here translates something like 'historical antecedents'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 is 零部件的更换 and 2 is 坚固性: 1 以及 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally in your sentence we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在零部件的更换&lt;br&gt;&#xA;in (在） component's (的) replacement&lt;br&gt;&#xA;以及坚固性上也有所优化&lt;br&gt;&#xA;as well as solidness on (上） also have some improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T23:26:34.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26714" CreationDate="2017-09-27T01:08:26.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尽信书不如无书 Jìn xìn shū bùrú wú shū&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尽（Jìn）means 完全=all,the whole&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;信（xìn）means 迷信=believe&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;书（shū）means 书，这里指尚书。=book&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;So, 尽信书不如无书 means When we read, we should analyze, not blindly believe in the book, not fully believe it, we should see the problem dialectically.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T01:08:26.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26726" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26729" CreationDate="2017-09-27T01:26:06.793" Score="7" ViewCount="1822" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%B8%81&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt; example sentence for 人民币 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我把十块美元换成人民币&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   I change ten dollars into Renminbi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(Wǒ bǎ shí kuài měiyuán huàn chéng rénmínbì)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What role does 成 play in the sentence 我把十块美元换成人民币?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything else seems to translate naturally:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%88%91&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;我&lt;/a&gt; (wǒ) = I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%8A%8A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;把&lt;/a&gt; (bǎ) = take&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8D%81&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;十&lt;/a&gt; (shí) = ten&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%9D%97&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;块&lt;/a&gt; (kuài) = pieces of&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%BE%8E%E5%85%83&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;美元&lt;/a&gt; (měiyuán) = US dollars&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%8D%A2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;换&lt;/a&gt; (huàn) = exchange&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%88%90&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;成&lt;/a&gt; (chéng) = ???&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%B8%81&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;人民币&lt;/a&gt; (rénmínbì) = a formal way of saying Chinese yuan (Chinese money).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dict.cn translates 成 to &quot;succeed&quot;, etc., so it could mean something along the lines of how &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BA%86&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;了&lt;/a&gt; is used.  I'm not clear on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T04:51:06.977" Title="What role does 成 (chéng) play in the sentence 我把十块美元换成人民币?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26726" CreationDate="2017-09-27T01:38:32.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/6210.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;变为：长～。变～。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;(change) into&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T01:38:32.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26726" CreationDate="2017-09-27T01:40:18.303" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我把十块美元换成人民币（Wǒ bǎ shí kuài měiyuán huàn chéng rén mín bì）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我（Wǒ） =I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;把 （bǎ）=take&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;十块（shí kuài）=ten pieces of&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;美元（měi yuán）=US dollar&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;换成（huàn chéng）=change into&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人民币（rén mín bì）=RMB&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我把十块美元换成人民币 I change ten dollars into RMB.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T01:40:18.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26726" CreationDate="2017-09-27T01:42:13.460" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;成 (into) is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complement&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;result complement&lt;/a&gt; of the verb 换(change)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;换 = change&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;换成 = change into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兑换 = exchange&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兑换成 = exchange into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;兑换 mostly refers to 'currency exchange'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;换 can refer to exchange between anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;我把十块美元换成人民币&amp;quot; (I exchanged $10 USD into RMB), '换' is obviously short for '兑换'. You can even replace '换' with '兑' (convert) and write: &amp;quot;我把十块美元兑成人民币&amp;quot; (I converted $10 USD into RMB)and the meaning would still be the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T06:16:33.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26726" CreationDate="2017-09-27T02:55:00.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, in English &quot;exchange&quot; is barely a verb that is applied onto two objects directly. You need a preposition like &quot;for&quot;, and 成 here has exactly the same use as &quot;to&quot;, so 美元换成人民币 is like change dollar &quot;to&quot; yuan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18025" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T02:55:00.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26668" CreationDate="2017-09-27T03:35:27.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you say '會講國語', you are saying that you have the capability of speaking Chinese. Maybe someone asked whether you could or someone doubted about that. When you say '講國語', it means Chinese is your mother tongue, or Chinese is your preferred language for communication, it's just like 'I speak Chinese' in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, I think '講國語' is right absorbed from English though most people may not be aware of that. It's not quite native from a traditional view. But people accept that in recent years. Chinese uses adverbs a lot while English prefers tenses. '講國語' is more like an example of simple present tense in English. In English, simple present tense express rich meanings in a simple form. Well-educated people 'transplant' this in their own language without even noticing that. But it sounds a little bit weird to a person who does not speak any foreign language at all. Anyway languages are evolving all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18026" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T03:35:27.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26732" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26733" CreationDate="2017-09-27T04:08:12.470" Score="1" ViewCount="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate an activist &lt;strong&gt;campout&lt;/strong&gt; (as in a protest site where people also camp)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full sentence I would like to translate (it would be great if you could help me out):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The activists feared that the police would destroy their &lt;strong&gt;campout&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  before the first anniversary of the inauguration of president 蔡英文 on&#xA;  May the 20th.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-09-28T16:09:33.907" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T16:09:33.907" Title="How to translate a non-recreational but activism/protest &quot;campout&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26732" CreationDate="2017-09-27T04:17:57.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;激進分子怕警詧在蔡英文五月二十日的總統就職一周年之前搗毀他們的露營抗議活動。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T04:17:57.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26696" CreationDate="2017-09-27T04:32:47.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically '咱' means we or our. But in your context, '咱妈' just means your mother. Taking your mother as mine shows you have close relationship with the other side or are trying to build such a relationship. If it is the latter case, the other side may appreciate that, may not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the tricky part of the language. I think a learner should avoid speaking that way for some reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't think this is common Chinese. It's quite local. People from many areas of China don't speak that way though they know what that means. I don't think textbook makers should use this example to teach the language. And you should also avoid using '咱' in a serious context. Use '我们' instead.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some(if not many) people may feel uncomfortable if you try to build close relationship without knowing them well. Others may appreciate that. This also reflects cultural diversity in different areas in China. It is safe not to use that.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18026" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T04:32:47.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26714" CreationDate="2017-09-27T05:29:26.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While 尽信书不如无书 is well translated as &quot;It is better to have no book at all than blindly believe in everything in the books&quot; the more common English idiom is just 'you can't believe everything you read&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T05:29:26.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26726" CreationDate="2017-09-27T05:46:03.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'我把十块美元换成人民币'的‘成’is 'become' in my opinion.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我换了十块美元成人民币。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I changed ten dollars into Renminbi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just because we don't say it like that in English, the 成 gets lost in translation. I don't think it is correct to equate 成 with 'to' or 'into'. Try and translate those words as 成 in other sentences!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;变成 is another example. It gets translated as 'change into', 'turns to'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由于没有消耗卡路里，你吃的所有东西都会变成脂肪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T05:46:03.557" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26714" CreationDate="2017-09-27T09:05:29.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Better scan nothing ever than believe in whatever in tomes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Might as well read nothing at all as believe whatever printed in books&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Believing whatever in books falls far short of reading nothing at all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17503" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T09:05:29.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26738" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26739" CreationDate="2017-09-27T09:46:03.150" Score="3" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that if you want to express &amp;quot;X-tenth(s)&amp;quot;, you can use 成. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;增产三成&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上座率有九成。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, these only express the figure at one decimal point. If you want to express any figure at two or more decimal points, can you still use 成? For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黄金周五成北京市民选择的是4至6天的行程。 # one-decimal point (0.5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黄金周五十五成北京市民选择的是4至6天的行程。 # two-decimal points (0.55)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if you can't, how can you express the figure usually?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T10:08:50.030" Title="Can I express the numbers at more than one decimal point using 成?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26738" CreationDate="2017-09-27T10:08:50.030" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, you could say 五成五 for 0.55 or 55%. 99% could be 九成九. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 九成九的人会参加这会议, meaning 99% of people will attend the meeting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, people won't put that accurate. They may just say 大约五成, meaning 50% or so. But 几成几 is a normal expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T10:08:50.030" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26740" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-27T11:58:09.207" Score="2" ViewCount="1067" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand it is sort of a State-owned business, but it should be 国企 in Chinese, 央 does not make sense here, it seems. And in dictionaries and practical usage, the Chinese character 央 is not a word used singlehandedly, so it is hard to understand the real meaning of the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-09-27T13:07:11.233" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T01:10:19.887" Title="What does 央企 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26740" CreationDate="2017-09-27T12:27:07.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1923753689671999187.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;央企： 属于中央部委&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;国企： 国家作为投资主题成立的企业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T12:27:07.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26740" CreationDate="2017-09-27T12:38:49.913" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;央 means 中央; 央企 is the shortened form of 中央企业. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, 国有企业 are owned by the country; among them, those owned by 中央 (central government), more specially, by 国务院国资委 (the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council) are called 中央企业, those owned by 地方政府 (local government) are called 地方企业.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can get a list of 央企 from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sasac.gov.cn/n2588035/n2641579/n2641645/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;央企名录&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/125669513_499647&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;什么是央企？和国企有什么区别？哪个的待遇更好？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-18T01:10:19.887" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T01:10:19.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26726" CreationDate="2017-09-27T18:21:01.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Mandarin speaker. In my point of view, &quot;成&quot; means transferred to or treated as/like. There is no accurate translation in English. We usually add &quot;成&quot; after a verb to indicate &quot;transferred to&quot; or &quot;treated as/like&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你快吃成猪了 -&amp;gt; you eat too much and you look like a pig now&#xA;天气太冷，我们大家都被冻成冰了 -&amp;gt; It's too cold and we are frozen like a piece of ice. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just my two cents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18035" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T18:21:01.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26746" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26747" CreationDate="2017-09-27T21:41:36.633" Score="4" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tone sandhi is a phonological change occurring in tonal languages, in&#xA;  which the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes change based&#xA;  on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example &lt;code&gt;不是&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the original tone for each character is: &lt;strong&gt;bù shì&lt;/strong&gt; (4 4)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After tone sandhi: &lt;strong&gt;bú shì&lt;/strong&gt; (2 4)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some say that it can be confusing to write it as if it is written, it would be confusing to know what the original tone is supposed to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an standard practice to address this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1130" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T13:15:32.157" Title="Should tone sandhi be written in pinyin?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26746" CreationDate="2017-09-27T23:01:51.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tone Sandi rule should merely apply to spoken. In written, you should always put original tones in any forms of exams except that those exams are testing the rule itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, I doubt most of natives are aware of the existence of Tone Sandi indeed. But they do apply the rule naturally in practice. I suggest you study by phrase, not by character. That way you will know how each character will be used and the way to pronounce in practice.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T23:01:51.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3305" CreationDate="2017-09-27T23:06:48.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In you sentence, 土 means old-fashioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18037" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T23:06:48.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3305" CreationDate="2017-09-28T00:57:13.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个名字有点土（zhè gè míng zì yǒu diǎn tǔ ）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;土（tǔ）has a lot of meanings, so,这个名字有点土 is 不合潮流 unfashionable, out of the swim, unenlightened, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dress like a country bumpkin; countrified dress 打扮得真土&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T00:57:13.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26751" CreationDate="2017-09-28T01:06:45.340" Score="1" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a sentence I wrote on WeChat to another teacher at Nankai University:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;可是我不是一个学生。我是&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8D%97%E5%BC%80%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;南开大学&lt;/a&gt;的教师。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  But I'm not a student.  I'm a teacher at Nankai University.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(Kěshì wǒ bùshì yīgè xuéshēng. Wǒ shì Nánkāi Dàxué de jiàoshī.)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm worried that saying 南开大学 instead of the shortened version 南大 (Nándà) is too formal.  (Analogous to saying &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%9B%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中华人民共和国&lt;/a&gt; &quot;The People's Republic of China&quot; instead of simply &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中国&lt;/a&gt; &quot;China&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it overly formal to say 南开大学 instead of its abbreviation 南大 to people at 南开大学?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked some Chinese friends, but I didn't get a precise response.  They pointed out that &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8D%97%E5%A4%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;南大&lt;/a&gt; is often used as an abbreviation for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_University&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;南京大学&lt;/a&gt; (Nánjīng Dàxué) &quot;Nanjing University&quot; (nowhere near Nankai University, in Tianjin), but when two people are actually at 南开大学, there's not much of a risk of confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T05:27:52.310" Title="Is it overly formal to say 南开大学 (Nánkāi Dàxué) &quot;Nankai University&quot; instead of its abbreviation 南大 to people at 南开大学?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26750" CreationDate="2017-09-28T01:20:54.000" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unlike 中华人民共和国, the name of “南开大学” does not carry that level of formalness. It is alright to use it in conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the short form of &quot;南开大学&quot; is usually &quot;南开&quot;, at least that is the one I always heard. You can use &quot;南开&quot; to make it more casual. This is what we often use to refer to &quot;南开大学&quot; in conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E5%8D%97%E5%BC%80%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%A6#cite_note-1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia page of 南开大学&lt;/a&gt; has such a note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《南开大学章程》中明确：南开大学的简称为“南开”。在民国时期，南开大学曾简称“南大”。目前，在天津等地区南开大学仍时常被简称为“南大”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And by the way, in casual talk, I would use &quot;老师&quot; instead of &quot;教师&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T01:20:54.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26750" CreationDate="2017-09-28T01:36:49.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It wouldn't be confusing if you say 南大 in 南开大学 and the same thing as you say it in 南京大学, although 南开 is well-known across the country. In a formal register, apparently you should use the full version. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides the formality, stating 南开大学 is more clear than 南大.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you have put is good, because sometimes you have to be a bit formal in order to clarify ambiguities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another casual way to express in this case is that if you WeChat another teacher, he/she is supposed to know you belong to the school and just unsure whether you are actually a student or teacher. You could simple put (可是)我不是学生，我是老师。.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T01:36:49.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26678" CreationDate="2017-09-28T02:06:04.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trying to make sense of a tweet-length song is hard, but since the song is from a romance movie in 1980, it could be a boy meeting a girl for the first time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;His first glance warmed her and brightened her world. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;His second glance established the fond love and sealed her fate. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is all I can think of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2017-09-28T02:22:59.910" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T02:22:59.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26750" CreationDate="2017-09-28T02:31:18.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your analogy does make some sense. People who study or work in the same university rarely use its full name when they talk to each other. But I don't think it's big deal here. I think one thing you could improve is to remove '一个' from your sentence. That could be more of an issue than the abbreviation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other answers focus on what '南大' is short for because that's always an interesting topic. People made a lot of jokes of abbreviations of universities on Internet. But that's not the key point here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18026" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T02:31:18.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26600" CreationDate="2017-09-28T02:39:04.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just asking how many people are living with you(yourself included).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18026" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T02:39:04.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26726" CreationDate="2017-09-28T02:39:43.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, literally, 成 means become. 换成 means change and become, in English, change into. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18030" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T02:39:43.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25598" CreationDate="2017-09-28T05:05:54.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.co.uk/china/lifeintheuk/story/2009/02/090226_culturegap_primeminister.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; post may shed some light on your question.&#xA;Calling prime ministers of some royal countries '总理' while others '首相' is not coherent. I saw in this post some people comment that the Chinese community in Malaysia decide to call their prime minister '首相'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18026" LastEditorUserId="18026" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T02:25:17.457" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T02:25:17.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25598" CreationDate="2017-09-28T07:08:57.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;首相[shǒu xiàng]  prime minister; premier.   &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;首相 means Some of the heads of the central government of the sovereign state are sometimes referred to as the prime ministers of the cabinet.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;总理[zǒng lǐ] premier; prime minister:  the Premier of the State Council 国务院总理&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;总理 means : 1. A person in charge of a department or business. 2. The name of the head of the central government.&#xA;3.In addition, some party leaders also call prime minister.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T07:08:57.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25598" CreationDate="2017-09-28T15:54:03.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%80%BB%E7%90%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiki article&lt;/a&gt;, PM in countries with a monarch is translated to 首相, otherwise 总理. Unfortunately there are exceptions as you listed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can assure you that lots of Chinese are also confused with this, so just remember the ones for major countries and don't worry if you used the wrong one -- people will understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T15:54:03.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26750" CreationDate="2017-09-28T16:06:52.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two questions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 Whether you can use 南大 as a shorthand for 南开大学 IN the uni. For this one, you have to ask people from the uni, or observe what term they use. Outside the uni, you can't. 南大 is mostly associated with 南京大学, and as @fefe said, you should you 南开&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 Whether it is overly formal to use the full name. I think it is, under informal situations. And chatting on Wechat is likely informal. So yes, you should use whatever shorthand your group agrees to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T16:06:52.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26761" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26764" CreationDate="2017-09-28T16:11:32.413" Score="1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is in the title. Does it mean, if the canal is for boats or ships (transportation), it is called &quot;运河&quot;? If the canal is for watering the land, is it called &quot;渠&quot;? I am confused. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T03:52:48.247" Title="Why is the word &quot;canal&quot; called 运河 in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3840" CreationDate="2017-09-28T20:25:05.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Joke: Similar as the Roman &quot;IV&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Serious Answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's 4 lines at first according to Oracle bine script. But then Chinese ancestor found the relationship of 4 and 2: 4 is Two 2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 2 is like 2 lines, 4 is like 4 lines, they merge these 2 characters together. Look like &quot;四&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same as @Cong 's answer   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;四: First |||| (four bars), then combines with 二 to avoid ambiguity:&#xA;  enter image description here, like being mistaken to be two ||.&#xA;  Reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T20:25:05.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26761" CreationDate="2017-09-28T20:35:55.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You got the point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;运河&quot; must refer the &lt;strong&gt;human-made&lt;/strong&gt; channels in &lt;strong&gt;a large scale&lt;/strong&gt;, f&lt;strong&gt;or water conveyance/transportion&lt;/strong&gt;. That's what &quot;运&quot; emphasize. &lt;strong&gt;Usually, it connects big lake/river/ocean or through the peninsula or isthmus&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the meantime, &quot;渠&quot; just refer all human-made channels. &quot;渠&quot; is more like a superset of &quot;运河&quot;; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why we don't just call all channel to 渠? Same reason like the water is a superset of the ocean, but you would never call &quot;the Pacific Ocean&quot; to &quot;the Pacific Water&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you can tell the difference between &quot;运河&quot; and &quot;渠&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T20:35:55.770" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26765" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26767" CreationDate="2017-09-28T20:42:30.537" Score="4" ViewCount="1867" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding 男朋友 and 男性朋友(or 男的朋友), I don't understand how to use these words appropriately. At least I understand that 男朋友 can mean both &quot;boyfriend&quot; and &quot;male friend&quot; and the meaning depends on the context, and 男性朋友 means &quot;male friend&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what I don’t get about these words is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;男朋友 means both &quot;boyfriend&quot; and &quot;male friend&quot;. Can 男性朋友 also mean &quot;boyfriend&quot; as well as &quot;male friend&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are 男性朋友 and 男的朋友 synonyms?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you have multiple &quot;boyfriends&quot; or &quot;male friends&quot;, how would you express this?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If a man uses &quot;男朋友&quot;, does this mean he is gay? Or does this &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; mean &quot;male friend&quot;? (and would there some other word to express &quot;boyfriend in a gay relationship&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are all of the above the same in the case of 女朋友/女性朋友?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="11374" LastEditDate="2017-09-30T15:10:08.333" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T15:10:08.333" Title="The words for &quot;boyfriend&quot; and &quot;male friend&quot; - 男朋友，男性朋友，男的朋友" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25598" CreationDate="2017-09-28T20:50:07.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on the form of government of that country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Constitutional monarchy, the head of the administration usually refers to &quot;首相&quot;, in English we called it Prime Minister, which makes sense to me coz that country has a ruler - King/Queen. Even in Japan, the PM, which is called &quot;内阁总理大臣&quot;, still need to be call &quot;首相&quot; but not &quot;总理&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in the Republic, which means the country is considered a &quot;public matter&quot;, not the private concern or property of the rulers, the head of the government should refer to &quot;总理&quot;, Premier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The head of the Chinese government(中国总理) should be called Premier, not PM. The official statement has a clear rule on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T20:50:07.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26765" CreationDate="2017-09-28T21:27:06.633" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;男朋友 mean both &quot;boyfriend&quot; and &quot;male friend&quot;. Can 男性朋友 also mean &quot;boyfriend&quot; as well as &quot;male friend&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;男朋友&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; means '&lt;strong&gt;boyfriend&lt;/strong&gt;' exclusively. For both men and women. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A woman would refer to her male friends as &quot;男性朋友&quot; or &quot;朋友&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A man would refer to his female friends as &quot;女性朋友&quot; or &quot;朋友&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time men and women just use the unisex term  &quot;朋友&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are 男性朋友 and 男的朋友 the synonym?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you have multiple &quot;boyfriends&quot; or &quot;male friends&quot;, how do you express?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have multiple &quot;boyfriends&quot;, they are all your &quot;男朋友&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have multiple &quot;male friends&quot;, they are all your &quot;男性朋友&quot; or &quot;朋友&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a man uses &quot;男朋友&quot;, does this mean he is a gay? Or does this always mean &quot;male friend&quot;? (and is there any other word to express &quot;boyfriend for gay&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a man calls someone &quot;男朋友&quot;, that means he is his 'same sex partner', and yes, they are gay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are all the above the same in the case of 女朋友/女性朋友?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No,  women sometimes call their female friends &quot;女朋友&quot;,  but usually just &quot;朋友&quot; ; Men never call their male friends &quot;男朋友&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Women do not call their female friends as &quot;女性朋友&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Men do not call their male friends &quot;男朋友&quot; or &quot;男性朋友&quot; , they just call them &quot;朋友&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In summary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Men and women usually call their friends &quot;&lt;strong&gt;朋友&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;男朋友&quot; to a man (in a gay relationship) or a woman, means &quot;boyfriend&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;女朋友&quot; to a man, can only mean &quot;girlfriend&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;女朋友&quot; for a woman, can mean &quot;girlfriend&quot; (in a lesbian relationship) or &quot;female friend&quot; (in joking manner)  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-09-28T21:50:25.947" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T21:50:25.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26750" CreationDate="2017-09-28T23:08:27.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stop stealing our name!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-07/10/c_134401424.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-07/10/c_134401424.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When your university discovers a new asteroid, you can't call it 南大 that name is taken!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nju.edu.cn/english/05/b3/c99a1459/page.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.nju.edu.cn/english/05/b3/c99a1459/page.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T23:08:27.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26726" CreationDate="2017-09-28T23:59:51.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;approval.成→into,change into 变成 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18044" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T23:59:51.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26765" CreationDate="2017-09-29T00:05:02.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is a real cultural topic other than language itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to apply those terms well, first, you should build up a Chinese perspective about homosexuality. Basically, homosexuality is really unusual in China. Most of time people only make jokes on it. In fact, I haven't seen a real case in all of places I lived. I've only seen it on TV shows and movies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that in mind, here is some usage guidelines: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;people tend to use 朋友 for ordinary friends, just like saying my friend, his friend.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it's necessary to indicate the gender of your friend, you could put 男的朋友，女的朋友，男性朋友，女性朋友, or you could put two sentences for the introduction 这是我朋友，他是男的 or 她是女的.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;男朋友 and 女朋友 are often used as an indication of the relationship. They are equivalents of boyfriend and girlfriend separately. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a man says someone is his 男朋友 or a girl says someone is her 女朋友, my first impression is that he/she is joking (basically they are just ordinary close friends from my perspective) unless they explain that kind of relationship in later conversations. If they say it seriously, I will ask 【你们真的是那种(同性恋)关系吗？】to check if that relationship is really true. This is because that kind of relationship is really unusual in China. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T00:05:02.103" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26765" CreationDate="2017-09-29T02:09:51.340" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@dan has explained a lot. One thing I would like to add is that in some context girls use '女朋友' to refer to ordinary female friends instead of '女的朋友' or '女性朋友' especially in recent years. For example, they may say '我的一个女朋友'. It's safe to use '女朋友' here. There is no ambiguity because of the word '一个'. Anyway I never hear males speak this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18026" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T02:09:51.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26750" CreationDate="2017-09-29T05:27:52.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless you friend(or stranger) has zero idea about the &quot;南大&quot; you're about to refer, I will go for &quot;南大&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if your friend basically does not follow the &quot;南大&quot;, which he/she might thought it was “南京大学”.... “南*大学”, &quot;南开大学&quot; is fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2 words vs 4 words. Not verbose at all. Don't be lazy mate&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Easter egg: abbreviate this one : &quot;Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T05:27:52.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26765" CreationDate="2017-09-29T05:36:26.067" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, no such word like “男的朋友&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For boyfriend/girlfriend, I think the usage today is 99% similar to how US people use.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're safe to refer any good friend as your boyfriend/girlfriends in your gang. (Of course this is more popular in the youth, sorry elder)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in China nowadays, you're safe to do the same thing just like American, as long as you don't have any people misunderstood. (IN YOUR GANG!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what if you meet a stranger or you're in a professional circumstances, now you need &quot;male/female friend&quot;, just like “男/女性友人”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T05:36:26.067" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26677" CreationDate="2017-09-29T05:56:05.907" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's keep it &lt;strong&gt;simple&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a American or familiar with them, you must hear that someone whose name is Lawrence/Timothy/George..... sometimes also can be referred by Larry/Tim/Georgie....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you're witnessing the Chinese version of it. And the Chinese version also add rules like Father-&gt;something like &quot;Fatherie&quot;? I make it up myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T05:56:05.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26676" CreationDate="2017-09-29T06:03:27.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;He pounced it correctly and match with lyrics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Multiple pronunciation of 涌. &quot;yung2&quot;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ykyi.net/dict/index.php?char=%E6%B6%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ykyi.net/dict/index.php?char=涌&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 暗涌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastEditorUserId="16891" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T06:31:19.293" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T06:31:19.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26671" CreationDate="2017-09-29T06:19:40.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most direct translation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大专学位 99% equals to &quot;Associate Degree&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Drop the mic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The College(A school, not &quot;those colleges(schools) under a university) in China, is &lt;strong&gt;totally different&lt;/strong&gt; from College you heard in USA. And why? That's another good question that out of the scope of your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T06:19:40.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26664" CreationDate="2017-09-29T06:28:44.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think like it's like Yodish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.:&#xA;&quot;When 900 hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;进来吹空调 -&gt; come in and enjoy the AC -&gt; come on it and chilling &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T06:28:44.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26676" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:51:37.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just relistened to the song (in perhaps another video) and realized I was mishearing (probably because of instruments): he actually pronounces &lt;code&gt;jung&lt;/code&gt;, which makes it a &lt;code&gt;piu1-jung2&lt;/code&gt; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://ykyi.net/dict/index.php?char=%E6%B6%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:51:37.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26779" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-29T11:34:52.463" Score="3" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you write &amp;quot;hacker&amp;quot; in Chinese?...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For purposes of this question, here is the definition in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hacker /ˈhækər/ (noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One who likes to program.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One who utilizes technology to go beyond the limits inherent to the design of an application.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not talking about only black-hat hackers (&lt;em&gt;which is unfortunately the public perversion of the word &amp;quot;hacker&amp;quot; and has an evil connotation, in addition to usually referring incorrectly to mostly script kiddies and not true Black Hats anyways&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead I'm referring to the definition above, which may include the entire gambit Black-Grey-White, but is not limited to those subsets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18043" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-21T20:25:56.653" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T01:25:10.150" Title="How do you write “hacker” in Chinese?… (where hacker doesn't have an evil connotation)" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26779" CreationDate="2017-09-29T11:45:52.127" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;黑客&lt;/strong&gt; is the Chinese word for Hacker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;黑&lt;/strong&gt; can work as a &lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt; meaning &lt;strong&gt;to hack&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;客&lt;/strong&gt; is a suffix that means person here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does also include the different definitions you're looking for, almost practically the same as English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%BB%91%E5%AE%A2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;黑客&lt;/a&gt; on Wikipedia says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“黑客”一词最早是用来称呼研究如何盗用电话系统的人，这一类人士也被称作“飞客”（Phreak）。[3]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;在计算机软件方面，“黑客”是对于计算机及计算机网络内部系统运作特别感兴趣并且有深入理解能力的一种人。[4]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;在业余计算机DIY方面，“黑客”是指研究如何修改计算机相关产品的业余爱好者。从1970年代起，有很多这一类社区聚焦于硬件研究。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;在信息安全里，“黑客”指研究如何智取计算机安全系统的人员。他们利用公共通讯网路，如电话系统和互联网，在非正规的情况下登录对方系统，掌握操控系统之权力。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The wikipedia page also has translations of the different types of hats aswell:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;白帽黑客（White Hat）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;灰帽黑客（Grey Hat）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;黑帽黑客（Black Hat）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might as well check out the entire page, I'm sure you'll find more information that would be helpful/useful for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘Hack’ in words like &lt;em&gt;lifehack&lt;/em&gt; often get translated more like 妙招 or 小技巧 or 小窍门.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T11:51:37.267" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T11:51:37.267" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26779" CreationDate="2017-09-29T11:51:55.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China, we call &quot;hackers&quot; with a word with negative meaning, 黑客.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually it's not the original word, which is now used specifically for hackers without an evil connotation, 骇客.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively you can call 骇客s as &quot;白帽黑客&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T11:51:55.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26779" CreationDate="2017-09-29T13:34:12.737" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hacker: 黑客 (universal word), 骇客 (black-hat hacker)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Geek: 极客&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Script kiddie: 脚本小孩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-09-30T00:14:43.033" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T00:14:43.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26765" CreationDate="2017-09-29T13:45:14.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why so complex? 我记不得那些 (said 诸葛亮的门童)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want it be simple when you talk about 'sex', so the short ones like 男朋友, 女朋友 means 'sex partner'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will be complex when you take about 'social relations', so the long ones like 男性朋友, 男的朋友 are friends which are man in biology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T13:45:14.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26671" CreationDate="2017-09-29T16:24:08.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the closest match in English would be a diploma vs a degree. The courses that finish with a diploma instead of a degree are 专科 and the schools that can only issue diplomas but not degrees are 专科院校&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T16:24:08.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26787" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-30T00:49:24.687" Score="1" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;微笑是一种真实的、热诚的、发自内心的快乐的情绪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take away the descriptive elements and it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;微笑是情绪。 （A) smile is (a) mood. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe if they said: ‘一个微笑表示着一种真实的、热诚的、发自内心的快乐的情绪。’ Would that be acceptable??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A smile is an expression of a mood, but not a mood in itself. I have to think of these lines from a song: 'I smile when I'm angry, I cheat and I lie, I do what I have to do to get by.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing some meaning here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-03T13:14:24.240" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T13:14:24.240" Title="Is there some other meaning in 微笑是一种真实的、热诚的、发自内心的快乐的情绪。?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26779" CreationDate="2017-09-30T01:09:51.200" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;黑客 is the Chinese word for Hacker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17983" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T01:09:51.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26787" CreationDate="2017-09-30T01:12:05.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct, &quot;微笑&quot; (smile) is an &quot;expression&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;表情&lt;/strong&gt;) not a &quot;mood&quot;(情绪)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;happy&quot; (愉快/快乐) is a mood. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一个微笑 (A smile) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;代表 (represents) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一个愉快的心情 (a happy mood)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;微笑是一种真实的、热诚的、发自内心的快乐的情绪。&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;should be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;微笑(&lt;strong&gt;代表着&lt;/strong&gt;)一种真实、热诚、发自内心的快乐情绪。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(you can omit most of the '的' to make it less wordy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T01:12:05.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23711" CreationDate="2017-09-30T02:36:41.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;渦流菜斯利迪化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means Chai Ser Li loves Di Lun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 渦流 alone means vortex&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually it part of the title of a famous song (1957) &#xA;by Fang Qing Yin 方靜音&#xA;The song is 愛的渦流&#xA;&quot;the vortex of love&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18050" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T02:36:41.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26761" CreationDate="2017-09-30T03:52:48.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right！You can distinguish “运河” from “渠” as you think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17983" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T03:52:48.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26765" CreationDate="2017-09-30T04:02:40.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;男朋友 = boy friend&#xA;男性朋友 = male friend&#xA;男的朋友=male friend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17983" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T04:02:40.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26787" CreationDate="2017-09-30T04:10:25.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be honest, this is a bad sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could short to “微笑是个*****情绪&quot;. It doesn't make sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what @TangHo added make the whole logic right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or we could break this sentence down into 2 sentence:&#xA;&quot;The emotion that make people smile&quot;&#xA;&quot;And this emotional is ..............&quot; -Definition of this emotion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T04:10:25.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26787" CreationDate="2017-09-30T06:56:48.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;微笑[wēi xiào]   smile:1. a sweet smile; 甜蜜的微笑   2. friendly service; smiling service; 微笑服务&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;情绪[qíng xù]   1. （心理状态） mood; sentiments; morale; feeling: antagonistic sentiments; 对立情绪。rashness; 急躁情绪。&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（不愉快的情感） depression; moodiness; sulks:&#xA;be in a fit of depression; be in low spirits; have a fit of the sulks; 闹情绪&#xA;rather sulky; 有点儿情绪。&#xA;3.(心理) emotion: Emotion swells and subsides. 情绪忽高忽低。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T06:56:48.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26795" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-30T07:45:57.713" Score="4" ViewCount="643" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a noun, it means the blood of a dog, which might be used for a lot of purposes, I guess, but not for makeup or health? Some Chinese-made TV dramas are often known as 剧情狗血,which is quite beyond me. Does that mean the plot of the drama is larger than life, like one Chinese villager can easily kill a number of Japanese soldiers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also if possible, you can tell me more about this animal or pet, because there are now many phrases in association with it, like 撒狗粮 or 单身狗 or 远光狗, Why do people use the word in this manner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2021-01-03T07:46:30.873" Title="What does 狗血 mean as an adjective?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26796" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27884" CreationDate="2017-09-30T08:09:22.590" Score="0" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the movie, 'Wolf Warrior 2', the protagonist was stripped of his ranks before being sent to military jail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How could the stripping of rank be described concisely in mandarin? I was thinking something along the lines of 扯官。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17754" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T23:37:34.713" Title="Chinese phrase for 'stripped of one's rank'" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26795" CreationDate="2017-09-30T08:37:55.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;狗血(gǒu xuè) A dog blood. It is imitated by constantly remake plot in TV, to describe those who often appear similar to the plot, parody, or very exaggerated false show Till now, it is often said excessive emotional performances and purposely to plot the dog blood.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In our daily life, we see some very pretentious and contrived behaviors, also known as dog blood.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T08:37:55.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26796" CreationDate="2017-09-30T08:44:37.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;More like '被剥夺了‘ or an officer '被免去军阶'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他被剥夺政治权利5年。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T08:44:37.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26795" CreationDate="2017-09-30T11:29:22.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think (洒)狗血 is from Taiwan originally. 狗血 could be short for 洒狗血.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洒狗血 could be interpreted in Chinese as 瞎搞 or 乱搞. In English, it could be something illogical, trying to be funny in a silly way, utter nonsense and etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 剧情狗血 could be the plot of the drama is ridiculous, utter nonsense, stupid and something like that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;撒狗粮 means a couple try to show how they love each other in front of a single person. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;单身狗 means one who is single. So, you could say 在单身狗面前撒狗粮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;远光狗 refers to those always turning on the high headlight beams while driving, which dazzles vehicles from the opposite direction.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't usually hear 远光狗, 单身狗, 撒狗粮. I hear 剧情狗血 and 洒狗血 occasionally.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;远光狗 is considered to be an insult, while 单身狗 and 撒狗粮 take some humorous effect I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T11:29:22.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26795" CreationDate="2017-09-30T12:10:17.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 狗血, or 洒狗血 is orginally used by people working on traditional operas to describe playing unnaturally in the old times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In old times, some 道士 works as a ghost busters, after they do a lot of fancy works in the whole actions, they will pour a bowel of black dog blood. It is believed that dog blood can dissolve ghosts, which is really inconceivable, yet creative though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 相声, 洒狗血 means actors play freely, not follow scripts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, 狗血 means something is far away from what is normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狗 is usually refered to person that is not acting like a human, associate with either of bad behavior(远光狗), vile condition (单身狗), mean actions or simply anyone that you hate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T12:10:17.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26801" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-30T13:42:05.460" Score="4" ViewCount="1077" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I learned growing up was that words with the pinyin “er”, like 儿, 二, and 耳 were pronounced [ɚ], but younger/more native speakers of Standard Chinese seem to pronounce it as [aɚ], and I was wondering if I should switch my pronunciation over to that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia’s page on erhua&lt;/a&gt; has some nice information on these “non-erhua r-colored syllables” but is still a bit vague about exactly which type of people are using which pronunciations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;All of the non-erhua r-colored syllables have no initial consonant, and are traditionally pronounced [ɚ] in Beijing dialect and in conservative/old Standard Mandarin varieties. In the recent decades, the vowel in the toned syllable &quot;er&quot; has been lowered in many accents, making the syllable come to approach or acquire a quality like &quot;ar&quot; (i.e. [aɚ̯] with the appropriate tone). In some new accents and some different accents than Beijing, all the non-erhua r-colored syllables (may) use &quot;ar&quot;-like qualities regardless of tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what are the different connotations of the two pronunciations? How recently did the shift happen? Does [aɚ] make you sound young and [ɚ] make you sound old? Is one pronunciation more prestigious than the other, and the other more casual? Is there a Northern/Southern divide?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastEditorUserId="11374" LastEditDate="2017-09-30T23:52:13.767" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T23:52:13.767" Title="Should I pronounce “er” as [ɚ] or [aɚ̯]?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26801" CreationDate="2017-09-30T14:25:52.350" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The whole syllable 'er' and the retroflex syllables 'er' (as in 'ler', 'ger' ...) behave differently regard to this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the whole syllable 'er', 'er2'(而), 'er3'(耳) and 'er4'(二) are in fact different. 'er4' is pronounced as 'ar4'. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.sjtu.edu.cn/info/1003/86240.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;. As when the difference came I do not know. I only begin to notice this when I started doing research in TTS (Text-to-Speech).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For retroflex syllables, I haven't noticed similar phenomena. Every syllable seems to be pronounced the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as said in the wikipedia article, the mentioned shift happens in certain dialects/accents. I am not familiar the variation of sound in dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not think the pronunciation difference can make one sounds younger or older, or more formal or mare casual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T14:25:52.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26801" CreationDate="2017-09-30T15:31:13.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not an expert, I would not explain it in professional views, but in my observation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;er(而, 耳) and erhua are different.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;二 is a special one, it fall in the category of er, but its pronounciation is [aɚ]. In some areas, people say [ɚ], in 普通话, it should be [aɚ].&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;erhua,  for me, is just a lazy way to speak. You drop the last phoneme, substitute it with a easy one [ɚ].&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 一会(yi hui), drop the last 'i' in 'hui', then it becomes 'yi hu' which sounds strange, so you  curl your tongue naturally to make a sound similar to '[ɚ]' , 'yi huir'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;erhua is originally used by Manchu in Beijing in Qing dynasty, their speech sounds lazy. They tend to omit the last phoneme, then form a new way to talk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T15:31:13.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26801" CreationDate="2017-09-30T16:04:24.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The IPA article for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; on wikipedia has a clear example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;IPA | Pinyin | Wade–Giles | Bopomofo | Chinese Example | English approximation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/APcbX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/APcbX.png&quot; alt=&quot;er&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ɚ  | er    | êrh   | ㄦ     | 二     | sir (American English)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no instances of [aɚ] on the Wiki page, either. The [aɚ] mentioned on the page you are referring to is for &lt;strong&gt;儿化&lt;/strong&gt; (erization) and not individual syllables like 儿, 二, and 耳.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-09-30T16:09:30.083" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T16:09:30.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26805" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-30T17:41:30.677" Score="1" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;Or the 西 (xi1) in 东西 (dong1xi0) is pronounced with no tone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18052" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T23:46:26.617" Title="Tone Change: Why is 欢 (huan1) in 喜欢 (xi3huan0) pronounced with a neutral tone? Would you do that for all words ending in a first tone?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26806" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26963" CreationDate="2017-09-30T22:51:08.080" Score="0" ViewCount="656" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for any news websites (or better, WeChat's 订阅号) that show English translation side-by-side. There is &lt;a href=&quot;http://j.people.com.cn/n3/2017/0929/c95961-9275505.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a Japanese version of 人民网&lt;/a&gt;, but I'm looking for such news agency that show the English translation side-by-side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any such website, or if not, is there any such website that focuses on the opposite (i.e. any English-based websites that show the Mandarin side-by-side for Chinese people learning English)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T15:46:12.920" Title="Is there any news website that shows English translation side-by-side?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26805" CreationDate="2017-09-30T23:46:26.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. It does not always apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xi0 might be another way of writing the neutral tone. I haven't seen it before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 东西, dong1xi1 (east and west) and dong1xi(thing) have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make sure whether a word ends with a neutral tone, without hearing how natives are using it, you'll have to look it up in a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T23:46:26.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26526" CreationDate="2017-10-01T00:14:36.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;質(quality/ hostage) has only one pinyin /zhi4 / in Mandarin. the link &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1028/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1028/&lt;/a&gt; you posted also confirmed this fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;質(quality) is read as  /jan4/ as in '品質'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;質(hostage) is read as /zi3/ as in '人質'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'質' in both '品質' and '人質' are pronounced /zhi4 /&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Taiwan dictionary listed /zhi2/ as the pinyin for noun and /zhi4/ as the pinyin for verb seem to be an archaic practice. Apparently, the two different readings of verb and noun for 質 had been consolidated into only one in modern Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My conclusion is, modern Mandarin only read '質'  as /zhi4/ ; The /zhi2/ pinyin is either archaic or limited in regional use in Taiwan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edition:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When the meanings of 質 are related to Jyutping ‘zat1’ (quality), both zhi4 (China) and zhi2 (Taiwan) are standard readings;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When the meanings of 質 are related to Jyutping 'zi3 ' (hostage) ,  'zhi4'  is the standard in both China and Taiwan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T04:05:56.220" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26810" CreationDate="2017-10-01T02:47:50.033" Score="1" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/show-%E5%88%BB-6.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt; example sentence for &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%88%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;刻&lt;/a&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她说话很刻&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  She's got a sharp tongue&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(Tā shuōhuà hěn kè)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vk550.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vk550.png&quot; alt=&quot;她说话很刻 at Jukuu.com&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't encountered this usage of 刻 before, so I'm wondering how it might be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: In what contexts would someone say 她说话很刻?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would guess it could be used to describe a particularly strict teacher, perhaps.  Just a guess though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T03:45:01.663" Title="In what contexts would someone say 她说话很刻 (tā shuōhuà hěn kè) (&quot;she's got a sharp tongue&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26809" CreationDate="2017-10-01T03:02:13.653" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be honest, &lt;code&gt;她说话很刻&lt;/code&gt; is hard to understand; I think &lt;code&gt;她说话很刻薄&lt;/code&gt; would be more natural. Basically it means saying something unkind/acerb/acrid etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an explanation about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/b/144/315494.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;刻薄&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;◎ 刻薄 kèbó&#xA;(1) [cutting;harsh;caustic;mean;acrimony]∶待人处事挑剔、无情&#xA;那个人为人奸狡诡谲,残忍刻薄&#xA;刻薄话&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-01T03:17:01.213" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T03:17:01.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26809" CreationDate="2017-10-01T03:10:15.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;「刻」here is short for 「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/57048/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;刻薄&lt;/a&gt;」&lt;em&gt;unkind, harsh, mean, acrimonious&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/16522/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;尖酸刻薄&lt;/a&gt;」&lt;em&gt;sharp and unkind (words)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many two-characters words can be shortened to a single character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can shortened a two-characters word into a single character word if the two characters have similar meaning.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「她手段很毒辣」 --&amp;gt;「她手段很毒」 (shorten「毒辣」 to「毒」)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「她詞鋒很銳利」 --&amp;gt;「她詞鋒很銳」 (shorten「銳利」 to「銳」)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「她说话很刻薄」/「她说话很尖酸刻薄」--&amp;gt; 「她说话很刻」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shortening 「刻薄」or 「尖酸刻薄」 to 「刻」 is not a common practice of abbreviation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The common phrase「尖酸刻薄」 can be shortened to 「尖刻」and still be understood. But 「刻」 can form too many different terms. For example, 「刻苦」「刻意」, 「刻板」. It is hard to guess which one you mean by just saying 「刻」 alone&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T03:45:01.663" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26812" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26816" CreationDate="2017-10-01T10:00:16.253" Score="3" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if there is any Hakka word that functions the same as Mandarin 把, that is, marks the direct object when it is placed before a verb. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我把我的电脑放在桌子上了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hakka:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;涯__涯个电脑放在桌上忒&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ngâi __ ngâi kài thiàn-náu piòng tshoi tsok shòng thet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: The romanization system is my version of Phak-fa-sii, meaning that, w.r.t that system:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I write &quot;ch&quot; and &quot;chh&quot; as &quot;c&quot; and &quot;ch&quot; respectively;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I switch the uninputable u with umlaut below with &quot;ii&quot;, which I can input;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I replace the uninputable vertical line above with a dot above, which I can input.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The spelling rules are described &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.com/2017/08/on-my-spelling-and-transliteration-of.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-10-01T13:12:07.257" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T07:35:40.350" Title="Hakka equivalent of 把" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26301" CreationDate="2017-10-01T11:48:43.493" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, there is no such thing as an equivalent to adverb in English. Chinese basically and mainly use adjective, 形容词， to describe everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the Sentence, &amp;lt;他舒服地躺在那里。&gt;, can be rewritten as &amp;lt;他躺在那里很舒服。&gt;， which means you don't need a 地 or 的 at all，which is sort of the -ly  equivalent to English. You don't need that. Chinese grammar is easy and not as strict as English grammar. When it makes sense, then it's correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance：&lt;strong&gt;他在那里舒服的躺着躺着睡着了后慢慢的做了一个很长很长的关于爱情的美梦。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand: &amp;lt;他舒服地躺在那里。&gt; translation to English would be &amp;lt; He is comfortably laying there.&gt; or &amp;lt; He is laying comfortably there.&gt; or &amp;lt; He is laying there comfortably.&gt; While all the above three English sentences are correct, Chinese is not the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;他舒服&lt;strong&gt;地&lt;/strong&gt;躺在那里。&gt; Good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;他躺&lt;strong&gt;着&lt;/strong&gt;舒服的在那里。&gt; Weird&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;他躺在那里&lt;strong&gt;很&lt;/strong&gt;舒服。&gt; Good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why the second one is bad writing? Technically, it's okay, but it's bad. For instance, in English, a bad way to call 中国人 &amp;lt; &lt;strong&gt;Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; would be &amp;lt; &lt;strong&gt;the People of China&lt;/strong&gt; &gt;，or even worst, &amp;lt; &lt;strong&gt;People living in Mainland China&lt;/strong&gt; &gt;. Why would you use this awkward long phrase when there is a single simple word to describe the same thing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will give you another example why you should never use English Grammar as an analogy when trying to learn Chinese or any other Language. For instance, the word &quot;Red&quot;, it's an adjective or a noun in English, but in Chinese， 红，can be used as everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她喜欢吃猪&lt;strong&gt;红&lt;/strong&gt;。 Noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她的脸&lt;strong&gt;红&lt;/strong&gt;了。Verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她爱带&lt;strong&gt;红&lt;/strong&gt;花。Adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她在网上走&lt;strong&gt;红&lt;/strong&gt;了。Adverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13713" LastEditorUserId="13713" LastEditDate="2017-10-01T12:01:17.547" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T12:01:17.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26814" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-01T11:59:23.280" Score="0" ViewCount="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;从使用年份起免征城镇土地使用税5年，第6年至第10年减半征收；超过500万元部分，减半征收企业所得税;国家重点扶持的高新企业，减按15%的税率征收企业所得税。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are excepts from the favorable policies given by a local government in China. I do not really and fully understand the meaning, especially the words 减半, which literally means cutting half, but what is the total? 减按15% means what? The rate or the total?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T13:00:21.363" Title="Questions about policy of taxation" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26814" CreationDate="2017-10-01T13:00:21.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;u have to read that all,combine them and think what it means.&quot;减半&quot;,when u compare to above,u will know it is half of the originl。(比原来减少一半).e.g:the first year to fifth year u have to pay tax to goverment like 5 yuan,th sixth to 10th u only need to pay 2.5 yuan(减半).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;15％,when u see above,u know that when  ur company is not in the goernment's support project,ur have to pay like 25% tax,but if ur company is in the special project,u just happily need to pay 15% tax.｡◕‿◕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17971" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T13:00:21.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26812" CreationDate="2017-10-01T15:49:55.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Converting @user3306356's &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EWdF5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;comments&lt;/a&gt; into an answer here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possibility is &lt;code&gt;摎 | lau&lt;/code&gt;. This is reported by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/:%E6%91%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;moedict&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://minhakka.ling.sinica.edu.tw/bkg/hakyin/detail.php?hoan=19744&amp;amp;mode=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minhakka&lt;/a&gt; as only 和/跟, but maybe it can be used (@user…) seems to think so) the way I asked for. He reported the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;工人用石鏨摎字刻在石碑頂。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Kung-nyin yung shȧk-tshàm lau sìi khat tshoi shȧk-pi tang.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  工人用鑿石的工具把字刻在石碑上。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Workers carve characters on steles with carving tools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今晡日下班以前，一定愛摎天光日開會个資料準備好勢。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Kim-pu-nyit hà-pan yi-tshiên, yit-thin òi lau thien-kwong-nyit khoi-fù kài tsii-liàu cún-phì háu-shè.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  今天下班以前，一定要把明天開會的資料準備好。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Before I stop working today, I will surely prepare the resources with which I'll attend a meeting tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This use is confirmed by both the above-mentioned dictionaries for his &quot;better bet&quot; &lt;code&gt;將 | tsiong&lt;/code&gt;, which is used this way in Mandarin too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will ask confirmation from Hakka speakers on the Facebook group Hakka Verse about these usages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@user... commented on this answer with &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/:%E7%9F%B3%E9%8F%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, which has one of his example. Weird that the same dictionary giving this as an example for another word fails to mention the usage of &lt;code&gt;lau&lt;/code&gt; in said example in the article about &lt;code&gt;lau&lt;/code&gt;. Anyways, I guess that is confirmation of the usage. Hakka Verse hasn't responded yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-10-01T20:30:43.157" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T20:30:43.157" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26053" CreationDate="2017-10-02T01:09:22.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cannot find the Keras page you linked now. But I can still find the Keras document through search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Binary cross entropy in the document is just a special case when the output can take only one of &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; classes. Make the context clear, there is no need to distinguish them in normal text. The mathematical formula of cross entropy just can deal with any number of classes (2 and above). So whether it is &quot;binary&quot; is implied in the problem you want to solve. There is no need to make it explicit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why the Keras documents explicitly distinguish them? This is because when the output can take only two classes, the input can take a different format than when there are multiple classes, and may save some space. So they have &quot;binary_crossentropy&quot; and &quot;categorical_crossentropy&quot;, which deals with different input. Note that even you have only two classes, you can still use &quot;categorical_crossentropy&quot; by manipulating your input format to fit the requirements of &quot;categorical_crossentropy&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the translation, you may use &quot;二类的交叉熵&quot; and &quot;多类的交叉熵&quot;. But these are only words that I coined up. There is no specific term for this, as this is only a software thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-01T13:58:42.003" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T13:58:42.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26819" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-02T05:04:46.413" Score="1" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a sentence in Mandarin either traditional or modern that uses all the strokes. Similar to &quot; The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog&quot; used to teach typing &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18048" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T11:12:26.560" Title="Stroke practice" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26819" CreationDate="2017-10-02T05:38:27.277" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To &lt;strong&gt;practice&lt;/strong&gt; strokes, buy some 書法字帖 (copybook for calligraphy) or 書法練習簿 (Calligraphy practice book)   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Write the characters stoke by stoke with 毛筆 (writing brush).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This way, you can practice all the stokes and acquire good penmanship in Chinese too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;書法練習簿:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JzixT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JzixT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;書法練習簿&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毛筆:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/541i3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/541i3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;毛筆&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;書法字帖:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KQ2SN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KQ2SN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;書法字帖&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-10-02T05:38:27.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26819" CreationDate="2017-10-02T06:41:43.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;traditionally, people used the character 永 (u+6c38) for practicing chinese calligraphy, by brush pen; in which, it's called 永字八法, that, all &lt;strong&gt;eight (8)&lt;/strong&gt; strokes were used in this character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K6dOH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K6dOH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, a hard nib of pencil, ball pen, or fountain pen; cannot show the beauty of &quot;softness&quot; of a brush.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, the internet archive has a book named &quot;書法正傳&quot;, the volume 3 is talk about &quot;永字八法&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06067106.cn#page/n106/mode/2up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/06067106.cn#page/n106/mode/2up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, info added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, there's another book &quot;御定佩文齋書畫譜&quot;, again volume 3, in the internet archive talked about &quot;永字八法&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06067076.cn#page/n30/mode/2up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/06067076.cn#page/n30/mode/2up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aGGmv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aGGmv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would believe the first verse, that's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;禁經云八法起於隸字之始&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other claimings are, imo, &lt;strong&gt;fake&lt;/strong&gt; info.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2017-10-02T08:04:14.897" LastActivityDate="2017-10-02T08:04:14.897" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26854" CreationDate="2017-10-02T09:09:25.047" Score="1" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English when thinking (and sometimes when unsure) we use the filler word &quot;uhh&quot; (sometime written as the variant &quot;er&quot;), pronounced as a prolonged &lt;code&gt;/əː/&lt;/code&gt;.  What sound is used in Mandarin, and how is it written?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16528" LastEditorUserId="16528" LastEditDate="2017-10-02T12:05:23.267" LastActivityDate="2017-10-05T11:03:23.407" Title="Hesitation noise and how to write it?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;orthography&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26823" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26825" CreationDate="2017-10-02T16:59:20.030" Score="0" ViewCount="643" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are the full lyrics of the song in the title as found &lt;a href=&quot;http://peachberries.com/blog/%E7%88%B1%E6%8B%BC%E6%89%8D%E4%BC%9A%E8%B5%A2-with-hokkien-lyrics-and-translation/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, where a video is also found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一时失志不免怨叹&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一时落魄不免胆寒&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  那通失去希望&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  每日醉茫茫&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  无魂有体亲像稻草人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  人生可比是海上的波浪&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  有时起  有时落&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  好运 歹运 总嘛要照起工来行&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  三分天注定 七分靠打拼&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  爱拼才会赢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here is my translation attempt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you're disappointed for a moment, don't grumble and grudge&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  If you're panick-stricken for a moment, don't stay struck with terror&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [Na-thang] lose hope&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Be drunk every day&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Have a body but not a soul, like a scarecrow&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Life is like the waves of the sea:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Sometimes it raises, &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; sometimes it falls&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Good luck &amp;nbsp; bad luck &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; will all pass as destined&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3 parts are decided by heaven &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 7 parts rely on [your] fighting&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [You] should fight, only then will you win&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, I have two questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does that &quot;na-thang&quot; mean and how should it be spelt? The translation in the link, &quot;Going through times without hope, we may drown our sorrow in liquor&quot; doesn't convince me, because it seems to suggest 通 means &quot;go through&quot;, which is not documented in &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my Min reference&lt;/a&gt;, and it has a &quot;may&quot; that is nowhere to be found in the following line; one suggestion it gives is to write &quot;na&quot; with 若, and take it as &quot;if&quot;; on that lead, I would guess 若通 is a word for &quot;if&quot;, like 若準 | nā-tsún, but this is not recorded in my reference; another track might be to interpret 通 as a classifier of occasions or time, something like 次 or 时, and read this as «In such times you lose hope, etc», or interpret 失去希望 as what the classifier is classifying, and read this as «In those times of losing hope / You get drunk every day / …»; which of the three guesses is correct? Or is it none of them? And in this case, what is the correct interpretation and spelling of the line?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I am guessing 醉茫茫 is just a way to intensify 醉, something like &quot;dead drunk&quot; or &quot;drunk-ass&quot; in English; is this correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my source, entry on 茫:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;形容人神智不清的狀態。例：袂曉啉酒閣啉並濟的，這馬咧茫矣乎？Bē-hiáu lim-tsiú koh lim phīng tsē--ê, tsit-má teh bâng--ah--honnh? (不會喝酒還喝那麼多，這下子可喝醉了吧？)；醉茫茫　tsuì-bâng-bâng(醉得神智不清)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 茫 is essentially a synonym of 醉, and 醉茫茫 means exactly what I thought (醉得神智不清: drunk to the point that the mind isn't well-functioning, lit. &quot;clear&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So question 2 is solved, and only question 1 remains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2020-05-05T18:12:59.743" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T04:15:06.453" Title="About a line in 爱拼才会赢" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22529" CreationDate="2017-10-02T19:19:22.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks to me like maybe 你抽烟吗 is &quot;Do you smoke in general?&quot; and 你吸烟吗 is &quot;Are you smoking right now?&quot;  But I'm often wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17757" LastActivityDate="2017-10-02T19:19:22.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26823" CreationDate="2017-10-02T19:20:34.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am from Taiwan, and 閩南語 is one of my mother language.&#xA;I think &quot;na tang&quot;(那通) is simplified from &quot;na e dang&quot;(怎麼可以).&#xA;The translation of“那通失去希望 每日醉茫茫” should be&#xA;&quot;How can you get drunk all the day after losing a hope.&quot;&#xA;I found a blog which explains this song clearly, though it was written in Chinese.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.cn/dpool/blog/s/blog_4e97365d0100b7c1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blog.sina.cn/dpool/blog/s/blog_4e97365d0100b7c1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am curious why you don't ask the translation of 照起工來行...&#xA;It is so strange.&#xA;Give you a reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/iongji/pdf/annesia311pdf.pdf&amp;amp;gws_rd=cr&amp;amp;dcr=0&amp;amp;ei=3ZLSWbfqI4TO0gS9jquQAg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/iongji/pdf/annesia311pdf.pdf&amp;amp;gws_rd=cr&amp;amp;dcr=0&amp;amp;ei=3ZLSWbfqI4TO0gS9jquQAg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18059" LastEditorUserId="18059" LastEditDate="2017-10-02T19:31:48.333" LastActivityDate="2017-10-02T19:31:48.333" CommentCount="19" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26827" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-03T00:13:28.103" Score="0" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;This little text is talking about types of clouds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夏天，雷雨到来之前，在天空先会看到厚厚的积云。积云如果迅速地向上凸起，形成高大的云山，群峰争奇，耸入天顶，就变成了积雨云。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From zdic.net I see that 争 can mean： 4。 怎么，如何（多见于诗、词、曲）：～不。～知。～奈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;形成高大的云山，群峰争奇，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. form big high cloud mountains, (whose) peaks are very (争, 怎么， 这么） strange&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or it means:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;form big high cloud mountains, (whose) peaks compete (争） in strangeness (of form)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or something else entirely?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T06:17:42.323" Title="What does 群峰争奇 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26828" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27689" CreationDate="2017-10-03T11:00:27.557" Score="0" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;光盘上在这首歌的结束又多一句话：“na li bo sua tsong lai thi pue tua”（若你无线总来？袂大？）; maybe “tsong ai”, maybe “na bo sua”…就是“若你无线总爱紩袂煞” | Nā lí bô suànn tsóng ài thīnn buē suah | 如果你没线总要缝不完… but it sounds like it ends with thinn pue tuann…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what I annotated in my list of Chinese songs from a particular year about the song &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYclxoRNQns&amp;amp;pbjreload=10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;针线情&lt;/a&gt;. Said song is found, along with many others, on one of a couple of CD's of Min Nan songs that were given to me by a friend a few years ago. The lyrics in the CD match the video exactly, except that at the end there is this extra sentence which, to my ears, and modulo nasal vowels which I cannot distinguish from the CD, sounds like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Na li bo sua tsong lai thi pue tua.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A sensible reconstruction that would fit (more or less) the rest of the song would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;若你无线总爱紩袂煞 | Nā lí bô suànn tsóng ài thīnn buē suah | 如果你没有线总都要紩不完 | If you have no thread you will never end sewing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are three non-matches with the above rough transcription:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 爱 which reads ài and not &quot;lai&quot;, but that was already regarded as a possible mishearing in the annotation, and it is anyway easily fixed by replacing 爱 with 来 | lâi;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 袂 which reads buē and not &quot;pue&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 煞 which reads suah and not &quot;tua&quot;; my problem is not much with the final (which from hearing could be either -ua, -uann, -uah, -uat, -uap, -uak, -uannh), but with the initial, which I hear as &quot;t&quot; and not &quot;s&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just relistened, and here is my revised rough transcription:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Na bo sua tsong ai thi pue tua&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the first part is definitely 若无线总爱, but the second part definitely doesn't match the pronunciation of 紩袂煞. So which of the following is the case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The singer in the CD mispronounced or I misheard;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is actually not 紩袂煞 but something (then what?) that matches &quot;thi pue tua&quot; as a rough transcription.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T14:52:32.857" Title="About an extra sentence in a Min song in a CD" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26829" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-03T12:35:23.160" Score="0" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess below college there are only 学科, and in college or even higher (if any) both 学科 and 专业 are merged as the same. That's why this year's first-rate university and 学科 evaluation does not include 专业. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T16:59:56.763" Title="What is the difference between 学科 and 专业?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3602" CreationDate="2017-10-03T13:45:05.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一 slant up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O4kMf.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O4kMf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丨have two types.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PJBm2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PJBm2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;捺 have a clear ending.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AnFIM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AnFIM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shorten the middle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wmllT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wmllT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Squeeze the left&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jge8u.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jge8u.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Only touch the left side&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9jXsl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9jXsl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Equally divide&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vDiOQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vDiOQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my daily writing, if you want to know.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GMxK0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GMxK0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T13:45:05.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26829" CreationDate="2017-10-03T13:54:17.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, 学科 means 'subject/ course' For example, 'mathematics'(数学科) and 'art' (艺术科) are both subject/ course you can pick in university. One can be 'major in mathematics' and 'minor in Art'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;专业 is short for '学科专业'(subject major)' as in 'major in physics' (物理专业/主修物理)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.ca/#zh-CN/en/%E5%AD%A6%E7%A7%91%E4%B8%93%E4%B8%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;学科专业- major&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T15:11:54.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26829" CreationDate="2017-10-03T13:54:28.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When we talk about the courses we choose in college, they are pretty much the same thing, but actually they are just different from the purposes of their courses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;学科&lt;/code&gt; is for academic purpose, studying a certain science or academic field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;专业&lt;/code&gt; is based on social professions and the social division of labor, learning skills and knowledge of a certain industry or business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18064" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T13:54:28.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26833" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26834" CreationDate="2017-10-03T14:41:20.517" Score="1" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm asking about this &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/show-%E6%89%93%E7%AE%97-8.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt; example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不打算做决定&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(wǒ bù dǎsuàn zuò juédìng)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Jukuu.com's translation is &quot;Susan, I don't plan to make any decisions Susan&quot; which is clearly wrong.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It breaks down logically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%88%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;我&lt;/a&gt; = I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不&lt;/a&gt; = don't&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%89%93%E7%AE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;打算&lt;/a&gt; = plan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%81%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;做&lt;/a&gt; = to make&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%86%B3%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;决定&lt;/a&gt; = to decide&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it means something along the lines &quot;I don't plan to make a decision&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is 做 necessary in the sentence 我不打算做决定?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure why 做 is in this sentence, but it seems unnecessary to me.  I.e., I would expect 我不打算决定 to be an acceptable sentence, but I'm unclear on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T15:45:31.557" Title="Is 做 necessary in the sentence 我不打算做决定 (wǒ bù dǎsuàn zuò juédìng)?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26833" CreationDate="2017-10-03T14:51:59.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;决定 in 我不打算决定 is a verb (I don't plan to decide)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;决定 in 我不打算做决定 is a noun (I don't plan to make decision)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'做&lt;strong&gt;决定&lt;/strong&gt;' means 'make &lt;strong&gt;decision&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;in 我不打算决定 the object is omitted, It emphasizes the verb 'to decide'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我不打算做决定 is a complete sentence. It put emphasis on the object 'decision'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-03T15:45:31.557" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T15:45:31.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26833" CreationDate="2017-10-03T14:55:40.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes &lt;code&gt;我不打算决定&lt;/code&gt; is acceptable, and has the same meaning with &lt;code&gt;我不打算做决定&lt;/code&gt;. But with the usage of &lt;code&gt;做&lt;/code&gt; (which makes &lt;code&gt;决定&lt;/code&gt; a noun, i.e. the decision) the emphasis is put on the action of &lt;em&gt;making the decision&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt; BTW: As a native Chinese I'm curious too; do &lt;code&gt;decide&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;make the decision&lt;/code&gt; have the same meaning in English? Is there any nuance?&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T14:55:40.417" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26836" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-03T23:48:50.780" Score="0" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;Talking about 滑雪： I think maybe they mean 'nerve-tingling' for '动感强‘ but I am far from certain. 动感强 might mean 'very dynamic'. Skiing down a mountain, you can reach very high speeds, you need fast reactions. Because of the risk involved, it is very thrilling and exciting, aka 'nerve-tingling'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zdic.net has this for 动感， but this text is talking about skiing, not people：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;动感： 形容人活潑熱烈、魅力十足&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高山滑雪由于具有惊险、优美、动感强、可参与面广的特点，因此被人们视为滑雪运动的象征，是旅游滑雪的首先。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高山滑雪由于具有惊险、优美、动感强、可参与面广的特点，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;High altitude skiing, because there are many different aspects to take part in, is thrilling, graceful, and nerve-tingling （??动感强）, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, when I have been stuck for a translation, people have said 'this is not good Chinese.' How about this sentence, is it ok?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T05:45:24.680" Title="How to translate 动感强？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26836" CreationDate="2017-10-04T00:15:44.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;动感 means 动态感觉 =  'dynamic feel' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这幅画有强烈的动感- This painting has a strong dynamic feel to it&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;此照片色彩鲜艳, 动感强烈 - His photo has vivid color and strong dynamic feel&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;她一身紧身赛车服, 散发出强烈动感- She in a tight car-racing suit, exudes a strong dynamic feel.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 动感强 (dynamic feel is strong)  to describe 'high altitude skiing' is kind of inappropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Skiing is a motion . Saying an actual motion make people feel it is moving is an oxymoron.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is better to say &quot;高山滑雪由于&lt;strong&gt;动态强&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (Because high altitude skiing is &lt;strong&gt;highly dynamic&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-04T05:45:24.680" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T05:45:24.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26838" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26839" CreationDate="2017-10-04T02:02:27.017" Score="1" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;One &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/show-%E5%86%B3%E5%AE%9A-8.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt; example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们决定早动身&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  We determined on an early start&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(Wǒmen juédìng zǎo dòngshēn)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This breaks up into: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%88%91%E4%BB%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;我们&lt;/a&gt; = we, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%86%B3%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;决定&lt;/a&gt; = to decide, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%97%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;早&lt;/a&gt; = early, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8A%A8%E8%BA%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;动身&lt;/a&gt; = to leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%87%BA%E5%8F%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt; example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们决定早些出发&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  We determined on an early start&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(Wǒmen juédìng zǎo xiē chūfā)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This breaks up into: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%88%91%E4%BB%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;我们&lt;/a&gt; = we, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%86%B3%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;决定&lt;/a&gt; = to decide, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%97%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;早&lt;/a&gt; = early, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BA%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;些&lt;/a&gt; = a few, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%87%BA%E5%8F%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;出发&lt;/a&gt; = start off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, I think &quot;we decided on an early start&quot; sounds better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a distinction between 我们决定早动身 and 我们决定早些出发?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I'm confused as to why 些 is used in the second example.  And I'm wondering if there's any difference between 动身 and 出发 in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T04:36:17.623" Title="Is there a distinction between 我们决定早动身 and 我们决定早些出发 which mean &quot;we decided on an early start&quot;?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26838" CreationDate="2017-10-04T02:57:46.160" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 出发 and 动身 means &quot;depart/ move out&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;出发 literally means 'launch out' . It is more colloquial&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;动身 literally means 'move oneself' . It is more literary&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;动身 emphasizes on the action of 'moving oneself from his current location' (imply starting a journey to a destination)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;动身去北京 (depart for the journey to Beijing)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;出发 emphasizes on the action of 'moving out' .  You can 出发 to a journey or 出发 to fulfill a mission&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;出发去北京 (depart for the journey to Beijing)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;出发去打仗 (off to fight a war)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;出发去打猎 (off to hunting)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We don't say '动身去打仗' or '动身去打猎'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我们决定早动身 and 我们决定早些出发 which mean “we decided on an early start”?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both mean &quot;we decided to depart early.&quot;  The difference between 动身 and 出发 is stated above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you meant &quot;off to a hunting trip&quot;, &quot;off to fight a battle&quot; or &quot; depart for a sight seeing tour&quot; , you can only use '出发'. If you meant &quot;depart for a journey&quot;,  then either would be suitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-07T04:36:17.623" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T04:36:17.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26840" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-04T03:13:09.453" Score="2" ViewCount="350" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started out learning only the simplified versions of Chinese characters, so I now I am trying to learn the traditional variants as well. For this purpose I downloaded a list of the simplifications and studied it through Anki, which worked well for most one-to-one conversions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's difficult, however, is when a simplified character has more than one traditional equivalents, i.e. when it depends on which word the character is used in. &#xA;For instance, 签 has two traditional equivalents, 簽 and 籤. The Anki deck I am using does give some clues on how to use the traditional versions (&quot;I. to sign one's name; label II. inscribed bamboo stick (used in divination, gambling, drawing lots etc&quot;) but it would still be nice to see the usage in actual Chinese words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know if anyone has compiled such a list already? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18070" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-01-25T19:46:56.857" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T14:13:17.647" Title="Simplified-traditional conversion; character disambiguation" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26829" CreationDate="2017-10-04T03:56:49.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There also seems to be a diffence in usage betweeen Taiwan and mainland China: In the latter, 专业 generally refers to your major or field of study, while in the former 主修 (more literally &quot;major&quot;) is used instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question (as a non-native), you could say something like 虽然我的专业是数学，但我还是觉得别的学科都是有价值的。(&quot;Even though my major is maths I still think that other academic disciplines have a certain worth.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18070" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T03:56:49.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26842" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-04T04:42:52.750" Score="3" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning and etymology of the LEFT component of this character: 敢 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have already checked Wiltionary and Chinese Text Project. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for the help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18071" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:13:47.483" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T17:25:38.263" Title="Glyph origins and meaning of 敢" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26843" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-04T16:42:27.510" Score="-1" ViewCount="332" Body="&lt;p&gt;My husband currently speaks cantonese at an elementary school level, and would like to upgrade this knowledge of being able to read a chinese menu at least. He's able to recognize alot of the very basic characters and speak it in cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm seeing that alot of flashcard programs are in mandarin and in simplified form. It's kind of tricky to figure out the best way to go about this since he already speaks cantonese and has a very basic knowledge of traditional characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should he stick with learning traditional or go simplified?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a good program to learn this quickly that shows the characters but speaks in in mandarin and cantonese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many characters should one know to read at least a chinese menu at a restaurant?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12038" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T17:35:22.943" Title="How many traditional chinese characters needed to know how to read a basic restaurant menu only?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26844" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-04T17:16:47.610" Score="2" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that watching karaoke videos accelerates learning Chinese characters, even though you might not understand the characters fully. Is there a list of Mandarin and Cantonese karaoke videos for kids to learn characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12038" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-26T05:27:00.313" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T05:27:00.313" Title="Are there Chinese language-learning karaoke videos at a basic conversation level?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-11-18T03:41:22.970" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26844" CreationDate="2017-10-04T17:28:03.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Karaoke is more like combining the MV and lyrics together, most of them afford the instrumental version, which means that you can find them in Music Company. Of course, there is a faster way, if you know a karaoke store owner, he/she know how to get you a list of karaoke. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI -&#xA;Most karaoke videos are properties of music companies, but due to some reasons lots of people have access to the pirate. So you might need to be cautious to avoid the legal issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T17:28:03.030" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26843" CreationDate="2017-10-04T17:35:22.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no data about how many characters that need to read a restaurant menu(I would say about 100 or 200 at most, that depends on the how many dishes on that menu ;) ), but according to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;《现代汉语常用字表》 - Mainland China  Simplified Chinese    &#xA;《常用国字标准字体表》 - Taiwan China  Tradition Chinese&#xA;《常用字字形表》      - HSK China     Tradition Chinese&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing 5000 characters is more than enough to read any ordinary things in Chinese today. Becuase nowadays the normal educated Chinese people should know about 1000 ~ 5000 characters without looking the dictionary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think the tricky/hardest part is knowing the vocabulary, not the characters itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T17:35:22.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26842" CreationDate="2017-10-04T17:45:26.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;敢&quot; is basically never changed from Hans dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The left part is more like a man and a wild boar who is trapped. As @Tang Ho mentioned.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T17:45:26.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26822" CreationDate="2017-10-04T17:49:59.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have to put sounds in written, that should be &quot;X.....&quot;, X is the sound-alike word, &quot;....&quot; mean the length of hesitation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T17:49:59.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17351" CreationDate="2017-10-04T18:51:22.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese people use a character to distinguish replica and fake indirectly: “仿&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a product claims it's &quot;仿xxx&quot;, which means it's a replica. It's definitely not genuine one; &quot;赝” is more like claiming it's fake/bad. Not suggested to put it on &quot;replica&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some replica is also expensive - Imagine someone who lived in Song dynasty made a Hans vase replica - It's a genuine historic antique anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since replica means &quot;Exact copy of that object&quot;, I guess it loses its true meaning here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T18:51:22.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26850" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-04T22:32:08.573" Score="2" ViewCount="3548" Body="&lt;p&gt;Worldwide, do most people use simplified or traditional Chinese writing? This can be either in the number that &lt;em&gt;tend&lt;/em&gt; to use one over the other, or total number using each even though there will be overlaps of people who use both in different situations. If possible, does anyone have specific numbers? Are these numbers trending to exaggerate the difference or is the gap closing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many resources which provide which countries/cities/areas tend to use which system. However, I'm having a surprising amount of difficult finding numbers, or even an authoritative answer on which one is more commonly used worldwide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18078" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T07:37:11.427" Title="Do more people use simplified or traditional Chinese worldwide?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26851" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-05T02:04:22.133" Score="1" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Chinese scholar living in the US tells in her article that for some disciplines in the west, especially those of humanity and social sciences, researchers are simply doing something not worth the efforts, that is, their conclusion of the study is bullshit if you read it carefully, or that they have spent a lot of time and efforts and money for something which is not unusual, like &quot;if you do not eat, you will die.&quot; Such is known as 精致的平庸, a phrase she translated from the original of English. So what is the English original?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-10-05T15:17:23.460" Title="What is the English original of 精致的平庸?" Tags="&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26851" CreationDate="2017-10-05T04:42:02.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with  user3306356.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Liu (2010) characterises as ‘exquisite mediocrity’(精致的平庸) the kind of&#xA;  research that is centred on determining the accuracy and elegance of&#xA;  norms and procedures rather than on creating something of functional&#xA;  value to society.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14708477.2017.1261642#aHR0cDovL3d3dy50YW5kZm9ubGluZS5jb20vZG9pL3BkZi8xMC4xMDgwLzE0NzA4NDc3LjIwMTcuMTI2MTY0Mj9uZWVkQWNjZXNzPXRydWVAQEAw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14708477.2017.1261642#aHR0cDovL3d3dy50YW5kZm9ubGluZS5jb20vZG9pL3BkZi8xMC4xMDgwLzE0NzA4NDc3LjIwMTcuMTI2MTY0Mj9uZWVkQWNjZXNzPXRydWVAQEAw&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-05T04:42:02.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26842" CreationDate="2017-10-05T07:28:53.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;会意。本义:勇敢,有胆量. 同本义〖bold;courageous〗 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Logical aggregate. Original meaning: brave, having courage. [English] for the original meaning:〖bold; courageous〗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;造字本义：徒手持械迎击野兽。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original meaning of the aggregate: face beasts bare-handed armed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18082" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-10-06T13:50:26.493" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T13:50:26.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26822" CreationDate="2017-10-05T11:03:23.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;There are some dictionaries （e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%91%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/js/5463.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;) that list this character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;呣 m2&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;m4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as being an onomatopoeic word used to express a humming sound one makes when thinking. And yes, that would be an &quot;m&quot; sound with 2nd or 4th tone. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;I recall having seen other sources listing also &lt;strong&gt;呒 m2&lt;/strong&gt;, even though this is also used some times as a contraction of 没有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the key point is that western languages regard onomatopoeias as &quot;naive&quot; words that kids use, because they resemble sounds and are easy to learn. Whereas sounds in Chinese are often represented with dedicated uncommon characters or even words, e.g. 潇潇 （xiao1xiao1, pattering of light rain), and therefore confined to the written language. Personally, I've never seen any of those in colloquial writings. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;When people text me over Wechat that they have to think, they just write 我想一想 or something on the line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-05T11:03:23.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26855" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26857" CreationDate="2017-10-05T11:54:17.263" Score="0" ViewCount="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fdHIk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fdHIk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need help understanding this title. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;國家 in this case is China. &#xA;部委 are ministries and commissions &#xA;某司： a certain department (of the above)&#xA;項目：project &#xA;處長：head （of department）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why is there a second 處 and is he head of only one project in the department?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-10-05T18:38:11.753" Title="Translating ministerial job title" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26855" CreationDate="2017-10-05T14:58:04.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i used the hong kong police force as an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_tc/01_about_us/os_chart.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_tc/01_about_us/os_chart.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;commissioner of police --&gt; 警務處處長&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deputy Commissioner of Police --&gt; 警務處副處長&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;commissioner is the #1 of the police force, deputy commissioner is the #2;&#xA;in chinese, these're 處長 &amp;amp; 副處長.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, the term &quot;police&quot; is translated to 警務處, that's why there're two 處 in a short title, one is from the department name, the second is from the job title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now, the trickiest one, there're 5 &quot;departments&quot; (divisions) in the police force, which is also translated to &quot;處&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;director of operations a department --&gt; 行動處處長&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, if we put together &quot;director of operations of hong kong police (force)&quot;, we could get 香港警務處行動處處長, that 3 &quot;處&quot; in the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fortunately, it's acceptable to translate &quot;police force&quot; to &quot;警隊&quot;, that the above title is 香港警隊行動處處長.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;back to your question, i think he's a project manager, or the head of projects, in particular government department.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-10-05T14:58:04.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26851" CreationDate="2017-10-05T15:17:23.460" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd, daring to be different here, like to offer my two cents on 精致的平庸, i.e.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;chic cliché&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17503" LastActivityDate="2017-10-05T15:17:23.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26855" CreationDate="2017-10-05T15:42:08.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;项目处处长 means 项目处&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;处长, he is a 处长 of a 项目处. Similarly, 某村村长, 某局局长.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mainland&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a structure images.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lnzve.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lnzve.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-05T15:42:08.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26855" CreationDate="2017-10-05T18:38:11.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very easy to understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure of current State Council is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General Office &gt; &#xA;Cabinet-level Department Constituting the State Council (Ministries)部/委 + Special Organization -&gt; &#xA;Department 司 &#xA;-&gt; Division 处 &#xA;-&gt; Section 科&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;国家部委某司项目处处长&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;国家部委某司&quot; here refer it's an anonymous department of an anonymous ministry of PRC. But according to the plot, it's easy to tell it's either Ministry of Land and Resource or Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;项目处&quot; here refer the Project Division. &quot;项目处&quot; is the name of that Division. Probably using a faking name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;项目处处长” here refer the head of Project Division.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the Department-Divison-Section relationship could be applied to the most organization of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's a good show btw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-05T18:38:11.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26850" CreationDate="2017-10-05T18:44:54.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;China Mainland has 1.4 Billion population(and increasing), and the official language is Simplified Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/04/23/the-worlds-languages-in-7-maps-and-charts/?utm_term=.65b10e7e18d6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Washington Post&lt;/a&gt;, there are about 1.5 Billion Chinese native speakers, 50 Million non-native speakers. You can do the math.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, you can't find another 1.4 billion group of people use Tradition Chinese on the earth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-05T18:44:54.330" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26862" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-06T03:51:28.243" Score="3" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;This text is talking about sharks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很多鲨鱼口中都有成排的利齿。 只要前排的牙齿有脱落，后方的牙齿便会补上，而且新牙齿更大、更耐用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脱落： 脱掉;落下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要前排的牙齿&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;脱落， Why not just write '只要前排的牙齿脱落，'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this supposed to be some kind of Chinese Past Perfect Tense 'have fallen out'? Has the author been reading too much English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I hear that in Chinese people might say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你去过上海吗？ 或者 你有去过上海吗？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;你吃过苹果吗？ 或者 你有吃过苹果吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is this use of 有？ Something else omitted? '的经验‘ maybe？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T01:01:06.087" Title="Why use 有 in 只要前排的牙齿有脱落... about shark teeth?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26862" CreationDate="2017-10-06T03:59:41.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as you said, &quot;脱落&quot; here is more like past tense, but not past perfect tense. To refer the condition of the teeth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like die - dead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest, &quot;只要前排的牙齿脱落，&quot; is also make sense to me. So what I would say both way are OK. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T03:59:41.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26862" CreationDate="2017-10-06T04:21:56.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;前排的牙齿脱落&quot; means &quot;the entire front row of teeth drops off&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;前排的牙齿&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;脱落 is short for &quot;前排的牙齿&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;脱落(的部分)&quot; which&#xA;means &quot;the front row of teeth &lt;strong&gt;has&lt;/strong&gt; dropped off (parts)&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;脱落&lt;/strong&gt; in the second sentence is in effect a &lt;strong&gt;noun&lt;/strong&gt; for &quot;脱落(的部分)&quot; - &quot;dropped off (parts)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't want &quot;前排的牙齿&quot; to imply it is &quot;the entire front row of teeth &quot;  it  has to be changed to &quot;前排有牙齿&quot; (the front row has some teeth)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike in English, Chinese language doesn't use verb tenses. For example, both 'is' and 'was'  is written as '是' in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-06T05:04:26.683" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T05:04:26.683" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26850" CreationDate="2017-10-06T07:37:11.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;here's a metaphor:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the wiki has a page &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_distribution_on_Earth&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;water distribution on earth&lt;/a&gt;, which stated that seawater is 96.5% of all water on earth. factually, all people survive, depend on the 2.5% fresh water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it shows that &lt;strong&gt;quantity means nothing, the quality is more important&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;though, currently, there're more people know simplified chinese, but; &lt;strong&gt;all classical texts are in traditional chinese&lt;/strong&gt;. if one cannot read traditional chinese, one cannot understand the history, culture, maybe all aspects of the writing records of the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;traditional chinese is the key to understand the past; without it, how can one inherits &quot;la culture chinoise&quot;?　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T07:37:11.427" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26866" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26870" CreationDate="2017-10-06T08:41:34.927" Score="1" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a comment by my friend, when I post it on my WeChat moment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: 乌克兰有太多绝代美女，你来吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friend: 什么叫绝代美女？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand what this means. Having google up a little, it seems 什么叫 has a sort of idioms, but I don't get what it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal translation is &amp;quot;What calls 绝代美女?&amp;quot; but it doesn't make sense. I copied and pasted 绝代美女 from my dictionary so I'm sure it is a valid Chinese word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what does 什么叫 mean and what does the entire sentence mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I'm male and my friend is female. We are both 20s, if that is relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T05:53:57.537" Title="What does 什么叫 mean?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26866" CreationDate="2017-10-06T08:50:50.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you say “我叫Blaszard” to introduce yourself, you don’t mean to say “I call Blaszard,” but “I &lt;em&gt;am&lt;/em&gt; Blaszard” or “I’m &lt;em&gt;called&lt;/em&gt; Blaszard.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same goes for “什么叫绝代美女?”: “What &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; 绝代美女?” or “What &lt;em&gt;is called&lt;/em&gt; 绝代美女?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 什么叫 is a colloquial way of saying 什么是, &lt;em&gt;What is...&lt;/em&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T08:50:50.520" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26868" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26869" CreationDate="2017-10-06T10:08:06.390" Score="1" ViewCount="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the show I am watching the protagonist asked a person with the surname 猴：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你是代表你的猴山還是代表最高反貪總局？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, he means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are you expressing your private opinion, or the order of the supreme anti corruption office?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why can the opinion of someone named 猴 be called 猴山？ none of mydictionaries list this！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GbRZ0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GbRZ0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mtCFJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mtCFJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/j2mGi.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/j2mGi.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2017-10-06T10:17:48.087" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T04:36:17.297" Title="代表你的猴山; why can it be used in this way?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26868" CreationDate="2017-10-06T10:23:54.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;猴山 is the metaphor for his interest group, his friends are treated as monkeys, his group are treated as a mountain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T10:23:54.500" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26866" CreationDate="2017-10-06T12:46:10.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think of the term 絕世高手  (Master out of this world/ extraordinary master); 绝代美女 would mean (Beauty out of this generation). Which means you may only see beauty like this once in a generation. It is an exaggerated adjectival phrase, a more realistic version of this phrase would be 'top class' or 'extraordinary' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Exaggerated adjectival phrase is very common in Chinese, for example, 惊天 (shock heaven) is an exaggerated phrase for &quot;shocking&quot;; 万能 (ten thousand usage) is an exaggerated phrase for &quot;multi-functions&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;太多绝代美女&quot; means &quot;there are so many extraordinary beauties &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your question, depend on the context, &quot;什么叫&quot; can mean &quot;what calls&quot; (with &quot;what&quot; as the subject) or &quot; what is called&quot; (with what as the object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context : &quot;什么叫绝代美女？&quot;,  she is asking &quot;what is called extraordinary beauties?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;什么叫绝代美女？&quot; (what is called extraordinary beauties?) is asking what qualified someone as an extraordinary beauty (asking for your opinion, implies some doubt)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;什么是绝代美女？&quot; (what is extraordinary beauties?) is asking what is the  definition of extraordinary beauties (asking for a definite definition)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you claimed Ukraine have many 绝代美女, she was asking you to make clarification on this statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She knew what the term '绝代美女' means-- &quot;an extraordinary beautiful woman; a rare beauty&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-06T12:54:48.717" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T12:54:48.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26873" CreationDate="2017-10-06T13:06:31.887" Score="0" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/17/1006/02/41953174_692519599.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;news article&lt;/a&gt; I found through Baidu, we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%AF%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;对&lt;/a&gt;Victoria&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;的&lt;/a&gt;爱，所有人都看在眼里。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(Tā duì Victoria de ài, suǒyǒu rén dōu kàn zài yǎn lǐ.)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how to translate this; maybe something like &quot;everyone can see his love for Victoria in his eyes&quot;, but I'm just guessing.  I've seen this style of sentence before (&lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%A5%B9%E5%AF%B9%E6%88%91%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%AF%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;对&lt;/a&gt;我&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichacha.net/m/%E5%A5%B9%E5%AF%B9%E6%88%91%E7%9A%84%E7%83%AD%E6%83%85%E5%B7%B2%E7%BB%8F%E5%86%B7%E4%B8%8B%E6%9D%A5%E4%BA%86.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;的&lt;/a&gt;热情已经冷起来了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   Her passion for me has cooled down.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(Tā duì wǒ de rèqíng yǐjīng lěng qǐláile.)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both have the style of beginning [someone]对[someone else]的[something]...  I'm confused as to how this works. In particular, it seems the 的 particle in the second example above applies not to 我 but to 她.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How does 他对我的... work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping to get a basic explanation and some simple illustrative examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm familiar with e.g. 他对我不公平 (tā duì wǒ bù gōngpíng) = &quot;he is unfair to me&quot;, but it seems different with the particle 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-10-07T01:25:31.167" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T01:25:31.167" Title="How does 他对我的... work?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26871" CreationDate="2017-10-06T13:31:56.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a language phenomenon called “&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_and_comment&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;topic and comment&lt;/a&gt;” (or: “theme and rheme”) that exists in many (if not all?) languages, but is realized differently from language to language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both of your examples, the first part (他对Victoria的爱 and 他对我的热情) is introduced as the topic and then commented upon in the second part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make it look more correct, you can imagine an omitted 至于 (“As to...”) in the beginning of the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;至于&lt;/strong&gt;)他对Victoria的爱，所有人都看在眼里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As to his love for Victoria, everyone could see it in his eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;至于&lt;/strong&gt;)她对我的热情已经冷起来了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As to her warmth for me, they had already cooled down&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since your second example does not end in a period, one could expect it to continue. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;至于&lt;/strong&gt;)她对我的热情已经冷起来了[我干什么也没办法。]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As to her warmth for me having already cooled down [there is nothing I can do about it.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This structure does not necessarily follow the typical SVO structure of Chinese grammar, but there are many very typical Chinese patterns which do not follow SVO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, your second example could be read as a simple sentence:&#xA;她对我的热情 is the (extended) subject, 已经冷起来了 is the predicate (with adverbial).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Her warmth for me has already cooled down&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastEditorUserId="11341" LastEditDate="2017-10-06T13:50:11.020" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T13:50:11.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26871" CreationDate="2017-10-06T13:39:59.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question: How does 他对我的... work?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Simple phrase: [Subject + 的 + object]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她的爱&quot; = &quot;Her love&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他的恨&quot; = &quot;His hate&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Simple phrase: [Subject + 的 + object] with (relative phrase)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她(对我)的爱&quot; = &quot;Her love (for me)&quot; --  对我 is the relative phrase for 她的爱 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他(对你)的恨&quot; = &quot;His hate (for you)&quot; -- 对你 is the relative phrase for 他的恨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Relative clause/phrase add additional information to the main clause /phrase&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;More examples:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他的爱&quot; = &quot;his love&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他 [对 Victoria] 的爱&quot; = &quot;his love [for Victoria]&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她的热情已经冷起来了&quot; = &quot;her passion had cooled down&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她[对我]的热情已经冷起来了&quot; =  &quot;her passion [for me] had cooled down &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T13:39:59.250" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26874" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26875" CreationDate="2017-10-06T14:15:50.257" Score="2" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my dictionary, &lt;code&gt;已&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;already&lt;/code&gt; or/and &lt;code&gt;afterwards&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for the translation of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我已无法忘却。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've &lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt; been unable to forget (it).`&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;seems to be a little awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seems this one is right one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I &lt;em&gt;won't&lt;/em&gt; be able to forget (it) &lt;strong&gt;afterwards&lt;/strong&gt;. (I cannot forget (it) &lt;strong&gt;any more&lt;/strong&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;, but is it right to understand the sentence as the future tense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17749" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T21:43:34.890" Title="Is it possible for 已 to make a sentence into the future tense?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26874" CreationDate="2017-10-06T14:52:22.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;已 means 'already' (not 'afterward', which is '之後' or '以後' in Chinese ) You don't have to worry about what tense it is in, because it is an adverb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, you don't have to worry about what tense a verb is in, because Chinese do not use tense for verb, see this answer: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22011/how-do-you-specify-past-tense-for-%e6%98%af/22016#22016&quot;&gt;How do you specify past tense for 是?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To use 已 in pass tense, you can write: &quot;在三年前我&lt;strong&gt;已&lt;/strong&gt;畢業&quot; (I &lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt; graduated three years ago)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To use 已 in future tense, you can write: &quot;明天走&lt;strong&gt;已&lt;/strong&gt;太晚了&quot; (leaving tomorrow will be too late &lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the sentence &quot;我已无法忘却&quot; doesn't provide any time reference, you can read it as in present tense by default --  &quot;I can't forget it already&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to  put &quot;我已无法忘却&quot; in different tense, you have to put time reference in the context that associates with this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-06T21:43:34.890" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T21:43:34.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26876" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26877" CreationDate="2017-10-07T00:52:01.797" Score="0" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你如此特别，如此与众不同，是那样的特别。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no idea how to properly separate this sentence into words.&#xA;I want to understand it word by word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 / 如此 / 特别， // 如此 / 与众不同， // 是 / 那样的 / 特别。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 / 如此 / 特别， // 如此 / 与众不同， // 是 / 那样 / 的 / 特别。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 / 如 / 此 / 特别， // 如 / 此 / 与众不同， // 是 / 那样的 / 特别。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 / 如 / 此 / 特别， // 如 / 此 / 与众不同， // 是 / 那样 / 的 / 特别。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My tries... :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17749" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T06:14:05.620" Title="Parsing “你如此特别，如此与众不同，是那样的特别。” into words" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26876" CreationDate="2017-10-07T01:06:24.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你(是)如此(的)特别，如此(的)与众不同。&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;You are so special (&lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;'special like this'&lt;/em&gt;), so extraordinary&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(的) is optional&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third part &amp;quot;是那样的特别&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;is so special (&lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;'is special like that'&lt;/em&gt; )&amp;quot; is redundant. It should be removed and be a separate sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T01:12:52.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26866" CreationDate="2017-10-07T04:33:19.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many meanings of 意思, such as thought; mind, meaning, reason. Intention, meaning; will; look; taste; fun and so on.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“意思”的意义有很多，如思想；心思，意义，道理。意图，用意；意志；神情；情趣；趣味等等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么 is a Chinese word, a question, a question of a noun, usually a question of a question&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“什么”是一个汉语词语，表示疑问，是对名词的提问用语，通常表示对事物的提问&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Differentity, such as this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;that asked someone, something or something itself or nature.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What information did you get from  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ask about something or something&#xA;What are you telling me?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;imaginary means that something is not sure&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Such as: smell what kind of flowers.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Negative.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What is he? You miss him!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;that blame&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What do you laugh like?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;indicates the possibility of asking the word or a series of words in front of it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Such as: is this reptile, amphibian, or something else?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;expressed surprise or excitement.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Such as: what, do not eat breakfast!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All things.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Such as: no matter the earth - fertility of all mothers - what is produced.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;used in the &quot;also&quot; before that within the scope of the said no exception.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He is not afraid of anything.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;used in the &quot;all&quot; before that within the scope of the said no exception.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Such as: as long as serious study, what can learn. [1]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;for the pronoun with: all, all, everything; for example: as long as you agreed, I give you anything. .... I'm not afraid of anything.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不同情况不同意思，如这个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;表示询问某人、某物或某事的本身或性质。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　如：你从那里得到了什么消息？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;表示询问某物或某事的情况&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　如：告诉我你在找什么？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;虚指，表示不肯定的事物&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　如：闻到一种什么花香。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;表示否定。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　如：他算什么？你竟挂念他！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;表示责难。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　如：你笑什么?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;表示询问在它前面的词或一系列的词中所未包括的可能性。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　如：这是爬行动物、两栖动物，还是别的什么东西？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;表示惊讶或激动。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　如：什么，不吃早餐啦!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一切事物。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　如：无论大地——生育一切的母亲——出产什么。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;用在“也”前，表示所说的范围之内无例外。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　如：他什么也不怕。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;用在“都”前，表示所说的范围之内无例外。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;　　如：只要认真学，什么都能学会。[1]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;作代词用：所有、全部、一切；例如：只要你答应了，我什么都给你。 ....我什么都不怕。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese translation, yes words to see Chinese, English is not very sorry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文翻译的，可以的话看中文，英语不是很好抱歉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18082" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-10-08T05:53:57.537" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T05:53:57.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26880" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-07T05:05:25.760" Score="0" ViewCount="751" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like &quot;I played this game earlier.&quot;&#xA;I'm indicating a time about a few hours ago. 过去和以前seem like too long ago. I guess I could say 几个小时前but in Cantonese there's 头先 which is shorter and I want to convey the same meaning. Like when I'm talking to someone and referring to an experience we shared a short while ago like &quot;你头先说的是对的”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18088" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T03:52:57.690" Title="How do I say &quot;earlier&quot;? (头先 in Cantonese)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26876" CreationDate="2017-10-07T06:14:05.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你如此特别，如此与众不同，是那样的特别。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你 He&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;如此 so&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;特别， special, unusual, unique&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;如此 so &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;与 with&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;众 masses, other people&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不 not&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;同， same&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;是 is&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;那&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;样的 way&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;特别。 special, unusual, unique&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T06:14:05.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26882" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26883" CreationDate="2017-10-07T07:12:49.027" Score="3" ViewCount="317" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chinese book has this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4KnPK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4KnPK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;丁波： 她家离学校是不是不太远？ 阿里： 对。 她家就在学校附近。 你怎么知道？&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;丁波： 她家离学校是不是不太远？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(Dīng bō: Tā jiā lí xuéxiào shì bùshì bù tài yuǎn?)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  阿里： 对。 她家就在学校附近。 你怎么知道？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(Ālǐ: Duì. Tā jiā jiù zài xuéxiào fùjìn. Nǐ zěnme zhīdào?)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This confuses me, as I thought it is incorrect to respond &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%AF%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;对&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;correct&quot;) to a &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%98%AF%E4%B8%8D%E6%98%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;是不是&lt;/a&gt; question.  I.e., one should reply &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%98%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;是&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%8D%E6%98%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不是&lt;/a&gt; (or &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不&lt;/a&gt;), or even possibly &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%98%AF%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;是的&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%8D%E6%98%AF%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不是的&lt;/a&gt;.   But maybe I'm wrong about this (or maybe this is a bug in the book).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it incorrect to answer a 是不是 question with 对 or 不对?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T09:05:45.140" Title="Is it incorrect to answer a 是不是 question with 对 or 不对?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26882" CreationDate="2017-10-07T08:59:39.733" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;阿里 took 丁波's question &quot;她家离学校是不是不太远？&quot; (Is her home not too far from school?) as a rhetorical question--  a statement await confirmation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿里 presumed 丁波 knew the girl's house was near by the school.  Therefore,  he replied &quot;对&quot;  to confirm 丁波's statement was correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was a real question that 丁波 did not know the answer, the reply of '是不是' should be either '是' or '不是' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她家离学校是远还是不远？&quot; (She wants to know is the girl's house far away from school or near by it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the answer should be either &quot;是很远&quot; or &quot;不是很远&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why 阿里 presumed 丁波 knew the girl's house was near by the school, it could be some indication in 丁波's earlier statement, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丁波: &quot;She told me that she always go home for lunch, but the school lunch time is only one hour, is her house not far from school?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the details in the question, we know &quot;is her house not far from school?&quot; is a rhetorical question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿里 can then replies : &quot;是&quot;(yes), &quot;她家离学校不是太远&quot; or &quot;对&quot; (correct), &quot;她家离学校不是太远.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-07T09:05:45.140" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T09:05:45.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26880" CreationDate="2017-10-07T09:27:25.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1280/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;头先&lt;/a&gt;&quot; means &lt;em&gt;just now; a moment ago&lt;/em&gt; in Cantonese. It is the counterpart of 剛才，剛剛 in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 头先 if few hours is considered a short time in the situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If few hours is considered a long time in the situation, it is better to simply say: &quot;几个钟头之前&quot; (few hours ago)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;你头先说的是对的” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is &quot;頭先你講得啱&quot; or &quot;頭先你講得冇錯&quot; in Cantonese &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence in this context implies a very short time has passed--   within the length of a short conversation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-07T10:11:58.407" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T10:11:58.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26885" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26886" CreationDate="2017-10-07T10:30:22.927" Score="0" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;As with the case on many words in Mandarin, 妥善 and 妥当 both mean &quot;appropriate&quot; or &quot;proper&quot; in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what is the difference between these two words, and how can I use it properly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T12:53:29.670" Title="What is the difference between 妥善 and 妥当?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26885" CreationDate="2017-10-07T12:53:29.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both '妥善' and '妥当' means  &quot;appropriate&quot; or &quot;proper&quot; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are minor difference: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'妥善' implies  &quot;(satisfactorily) appropriate&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'妥当' implies &quot;(correctly) appropriate&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;對員工遣散有妥善安排 = There is a proper arrangement for severance. (everyone should be satisfied)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;對員工遣散有妥当安排 = There is a proper arrangement for severance. (everything by the book without mistake)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;妥善地佈防 = properly set up defensive positions (satisfactory on all accounts)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;妥当地佈防 = properly set up defensive positions (follow all protocols correctly)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone said he will give you a 妥善的補償, he is trying to assure you that the compensation will be fair and satisfactory; If he said he will give you a 妥当的補償, it means you will get whatever you are entitled to. No more, no less.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T12:53:29.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26887" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-07T13:11:12.167" Score="3" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hear Mr. Xi Jinping in his address to villagers spoke 老少边穷地区 in the fourth tone (i.e., 少 as 绍）, but I think he might have made a mistake here, out of instincts, without any real understanding.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-08T01:11:13.907" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T01:11:13.907" Title="What is the tone for 少 in 老少边穷地区?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26887" CreationDate="2017-10-07T13:26:07.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here’s 现代汉语规范词典’s entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老少边穷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PY lǎo-shǎo-biān-qióng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老解放区､少数民族地区､边疆地区和穷困地区的合称。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;注意 “少”这里不读shào, 不当“年少”讲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T14:20:32.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26887" CreationDate="2017-10-07T13:27:53.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be pronounced as the 3rd tone, i.e. &lt;code&gt;shǎo&lt;/code&gt;. Because &lt;code&gt;少&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%80%81%E5%B0%91%E8%BE%B9%E7%A9%B7%E5%9C%B0%E5%8C%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;老少边穷地区&lt;/a&gt; refers to 少数民族自治地区.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老少边穷地区：主要指革命老区、少数民族自治地区、陆地边境地区和欠发达地区。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/149/321548.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;老少&lt;/a&gt; (pronounced as &lt;code&gt;lǎo shào&lt;/code&gt;) is another word which means &lt;code&gt;the old and the young&lt;/code&gt;. So pronouncing &lt;code&gt;老少边穷&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;lǎo shào biān qióng&lt;/code&gt; would be quite confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyu.iciba.com/a/20090806/1851.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“老少边穷”的“少”怎么读？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-08T01:10:02.020" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T01:10:02.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16702" CreationDate="2017-10-07T15:59:44.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since some nouns are different for their culture, such as motorbike. Taiwanese call it &quot;機車&quot;，Hong Kong people call it &quot;電單車&quot;. Therefore, there are a few kinds of traditional Chinese for them to choose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18092" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T15:59:44.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26891" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-07T18:32:24.783" Score="0" ViewCount="343" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking up the meaning of &lt;code&gt;咬人猫&lt;/code&gt; on google translate. &lt;code&gt;咬人猫&lt;/code&gt; translated to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bite the cat&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a little bit of kanji and know that &lt;code&gt;人&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;person/human/man ...&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;猫&lt;/code&gt; means cat. So &quot;Bite the cat&quot; surprised me as there is nothing related to &quot;person/human ... &quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unconvinced, I tried &lt;code&gt;咬猫&lt;/code&gt; which also translated to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bite the cat&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I realised Google is just messing me with, LOL. Anyway, jokes aside, I tried the &lt;code&gt;人猫&lt;/code&gt; next, which translated to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Human cat&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This made more sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking up further, I got the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;咬 yǎo&#xA;    （指用牙）bite&#xA;&#xA;   被狗/蛇咬了一口&#xA;     get bitten by a dog/snake&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So after all this, I was pretty sure it is thing related to &quot;bite&quot; and &quot;human cat&quot;. So, I believe &lt;code&gt;咬人猫&lt;/code&gt; should be something like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;biting human cat&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So what is the actual meaning?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS&lt;/strong&gt;: No idea of Chinese language and sub-par knowledge of kanji. Was just curious, so ended up here :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18093" LastEditorDisplayName="user18093" LastEditDate="2017-10-07T18:51:57.500" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T06:06:49.963" Title="What is the meaning of 咬人猫" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26892" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26912" CreationDate="2017-10-07T22:38:26.623" Score="1" ViewCount="454" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a test called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_kentei&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Nihon Kanji Nōryoku Kentei&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; or 日本漢字能力検定 , that tests Japanese kanji (characters that came from Chinese). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was originally meant for &lt;strong&gt;native&lt;/strong&gt; speakers of Japanese, and it measures the ability to correctly use kanji, their readings, meanings, stroke order, four-character idioms etc. Korea also has a quite similar test for their Hanja called 全國漢字能力檢定試驗. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These tests should not be confused with other certifications like JLPT (日本語能力試験) or TOPIK (韓國語能力試驗) that are indeed meant for foreigners and that are comparable, I guess, to the HSK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do we have any similar certifications in Chinese (that tests primarily Hanzi, their correct usage and pronunciation and were intended for native speakers)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17246" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T00:23:54.577" Title="Is there a Chinese equivalent of the Japanese Kanji Kentei?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26891" CreationDate="2017-10-07T23:34:48.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, an Australian women I know, here in China, took in a cat from the streets, because she felt sorry for it. It turned out to be a 咬人猫，it bit her arm badly and she had to pay 2000 RMB for an anti-rabies injection!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, we use relative clauses a lot for description:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;That is the cat [that bites people]. [relative clause]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese mostly puts this kind of description in front of the noun, so we get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;That is a [bites people] cat   &#xA;那是只[咬人的]猫。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A person who bites cats (probably not many of them！) would be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一个咬猫的人&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Batman is 蝙蝠侠 which is 'bat knight/hero'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Superman is 超人 which is 'surpass person'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a hypothetical Catman were a hero, you could maybe call him '猫侠‘, but if he was evil than possibly '恶猫人’ and if this villain bites people, that could be expressed as thus: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  恶猫人再次咬了一个人&#xA;  Catman has bitten someone again&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did I just hear a bloodcurdling 'Meow'? Oh no, it's Catm ..... arrrgh!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorDisplayName="user18093" LastEditDate="2017-10-08T04:00:27.277" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T04:00:27.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26894" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26913" CreationDate="2017-10-07T23:57:22.547" Score="2" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/6390/how-to-say-i-prefer-x-over-y&quot;&gt;This question is similar&lt;/a&gt; but doesn't address this question of comparing different ways to express the notion of preferring A to B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are all these ways valid grammar for asking if someone prefers A to B? (In this case A is Chinese food while B is American food.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Expression #2 seems like it might be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;妳喜歡中國菜多過美國才嗎?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中國菜比美國菜妳喜歡多嗎？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;妳覺得中國菜比美國菜好吃嗎?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T19:11:51.237" Title="Mandarin: different ways of asking if someone prefers A to B" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26895" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-08T00:24:14.393" Score="1" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very good fisherman taught his 3 sons his technique but he did not teach them 教训。 What does this 教训  mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Earlier, in the text, it says: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;可他三个儿子的捕鱼技术都很平庸。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别人告诉他：“你只传授给儿子们捕鱼的技术，却没有传授给他们教训。 没有教训与没有经验一样，都不能使人成功！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;教训：   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;指从错误或挫折中得到的经验  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;教育训练  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;训导;训戒  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think this 教训 is 3. That leaves either 1 or 2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The person said, &quot;你只传授给儿子们捕鱼的技术&quot;, so the father taught them the technique. Maybe this 教训 here means 'training'? He taught them, but he did not train （训练） them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or 却没有传授给他们教训 means: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;but you did not teach them what you learned from your mistakes&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-10-08T05:57:01.910" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T18:48:42.160" Title="What is the meaning of 教训 here？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26891" CreationDate="2017-10-08T01:49:21.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, in Taiwan, &quot;咬人猫&quot; is the local name of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urtica_thunbergiana&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; urtica thunbergiana (蕁麻)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a poisonous plant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7CM3J.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7CM3J.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IY7PW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IY7PW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moral is: don't rely on google translate solely :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorDisplayName="user18093" LastEditDate="2017-10-08T03:04:31.007" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T03:04:31.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26897" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-08T03:06:49.723" Score="0" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;公安 should be the shortened form of 公共安全 and English language media outlets of China give the official translation as Ministry of Public Security for 中国公安部. But the original Chinese is not so formal which should be 中国公共安全部 because there are counterparts 国家安全部，安全生产监督总局, which are not presented in shortened forms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike cases of 发改委,工信部 that are informal and have their full-length official title,  公安部 is a formal title which is a little awkward. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorDisplayName="user18093" LastEditDate="2017-10-08T04:00:07.650" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T03:09:38.937" Title="Is 公安 an informal expression when used in the title?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26898" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26900" CreationDate="2017-10-08T09:46:42.057" Score="3" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://adm21.cmu.edu.tw/news_detail.php?sn=1572&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://adm21.cmu.edu.tw/news_detail.php?sn=1572&lt;/a&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;不聽勸告即請其出場，該科成績以零分計；&lt;b&gt;拒不&lt;/b&gt;出場，情節重大者，取消其考試資格，並報請有關機關處理。&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ssdo.gov.taipei/ct.asp?xItem=6344506&amp;amp;ctNode=46432&amp;amp;mp=124011&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ssdo.gov.taipei/ct.asp?xItem=6344506&amp;amp;ctNode=46432&amp;amp;mp=124011&lt;/a&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;如&lt;b&gt;拒不&lt;/b&gt;參加全民健康保險，是否會受到處罰？&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above examples, I can see that &quot;拒不&quot; means &quot;to refuse to do something&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if I look at the words individually,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;拒 = refuse&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不 = not&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If one uses &quot;拒不&quot;, shouldn't it be a double negative, i.e. refuse not to do something?  If it is just to emphasize the meaning, wouldn't “堅拒” be a better choice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18095" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T10:21:19.643" Title="Why does &quot;拒不&quot; mean &quot;to refuse to do something&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26899" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26903" CreationDate="2017-10-08T10:18:17.957" Score="3" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;When talking about colours both 乌 and 黑 seem to mean &quot;black&quot;, what is the difference between them?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;ex&lt;/strong&gt;. there is 乌龙茶 but there is also 黑龙江, both 乌龙 and 黑龙 mean &quot;black dragon&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15198" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T02:58:44.057" Title="黑 and 乌 talking about colours" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26898" CreationDate="2017-10-08T10:21:19.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guokr.com/question/608649/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;there are some teachers in school think the same as you do&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also shows that there may be still debate in Chinese academia about how to explain this, so there might be not a definite answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 拒不 &lt;a href=&quot;http://kns.cnki.net/KCMS/detail/detail.aspx?dbcode=CJFQ&amp;amp;dbname=CJFD2014&amp;amp;filename=HYXA201401010&amp;amp;v=MDUwNjdTN0RoMVQzcVRyV00xRnJDVVJMMmVaK1puRnk3aFdyM0tMVFRUYjdHNEg5WE1ybzlFWklSOGVYMUx1eFk=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;is still not considered a word&lt;/a&gt;. But as it is used more and more frequently, it is becoming one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kns.cnki.net/KCMS/detail/detail.aspx?dbcode=CJFQ&amp;amp;dbname=CJFD2014&amp;amp;filename=NXDX201403010&amp;amp;v=MTEzODdlWitabkZ5SGxVTC9JS3pYUGRyRzRIOVhNckk5RVpJUjhlWDFMdXhZUzdEaDFUM3FUcldNMUZyQ1VSTDI=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Another article on CNKI&lt;/a&gt; might shed some light on how to understand it, (but I cannot access the full article, only the abstract) which lists some similar phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拒不VV&lt;br&gt;&#xA;拒而不V&lt;br&gt;&#xA;拒绝不VV  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(a little hard to decipher the symbols in the abstract without the full article) The author seems to be claiming that it is two negative sentences &quot;mixed&quot; together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T10:21:19.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="103" CreationDate="2017-10-08T15:23:59.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;above comments already address that &quot;Excuse me&quot; / &quot;Hey&quot; are a result of shortened phrases.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So with respect to &quot;Thanks&quot; (casual), this is what i was taught as a kid...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多谢 and 唔该 are spoken in cantonese but both written in chinese as 谢谢&lt;br&gt;&#xA;多谢 is used when receiving a gift &quot;thanks&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;唔该 is used when someone does you a favour - i understand it to be another case of shortened phrase possibly from 你唔应该... or “you shouldn't have...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18096" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T15:23:59.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26902" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27335" CreationDate="2017-10-08T15:37:10.507" Score="4" ViewCount="846" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only learnt HK Cantonese from my mother, and did not have the environment to speak or use it otherwise.  She would tell me that certain Cantonese words are only spoken colloquially, but would not be expressed in written form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;食饭 is spoken and should be written as 吃饭&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;斟茶 is spoken and should be written as 倒茶&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;唔该 is spoken and should be written as 谢谢&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However recently, I have encountered people from China using the phrase&#xA; 斟茶 in Mandarin, and I was told upon asking that this usage is normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I was wondering there are any other colloquial cantonese phrases that are actually used by the Mandarin speaking population.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Added 20180308: just heard 我对不住你 in a period China drama, which I would say 我对不起你 in Mandarin or  我對唔住你 in Cantonese.  What is used in China these days?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18096" LastEditorUserId="18096" LastEditDate="2018-03-10T15:38:30.687" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T15:38:30.687" Title="What phrases in Cantonese are thought to be colloquial but are actually used in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26899" CreationDate="2017-10-08T15:50:36.330" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1d/sw/70CF.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1d/sw/70CF.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/REZ5y.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/REZ5y.gif&quot; alt=&quot;乌&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;孝鳥也。象形&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;乌 was a pictograph of a crow (烏鴉) . Since crow is black, the character 乌 was sometimes used as an adjective for 'dark' , 'black', or a verb for 'to blacken'  in classical text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F72wM.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F72wM.gif&quot; alt=&quot;黑&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;火所熏之色也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;黑 was a pictograph that depicted  'object being burned by fire' . It was used to represent the color 'black'.  This meaning remain unchanged today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese, 黑 is the primary word for 'black'(noun or adjective); 乌 is used for 'black' or 'dark'  only in some set phrases , idioms and names&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烏煙瘴氣- black smoke and miasma&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烏雲 - dark cloud&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烏衣 - classical version of 黑衣 (black clothes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-08T16:00:53.937" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T16:00:53.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26902" CreationDate="2017-10-08T16:17:42.173" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually,斟茶 is special phrases in these example.It's often used in formal place.so, it's okay as well as more polite.And, yes,we use a slight another account in daily talk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16672" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T16:17:42.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26891" CreationDate="2017-10-08T16:30:53.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're enough to make jokes... 咬人猫 just a nikename of an account of famous website.She's a cute girl,and made some videos.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/afK1s.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/afK1s.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16672" LastEditorUserId="16672" LastEditDate="2017-10-09T06:06:49.963" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T06:06:49.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26829" CreationDate="2017-10-08T16:59:56.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;學科 has two general meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Subjets that are distinguish due to the content of the knowledge.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A collectively calling of all the paper knowledge, to apart from 術科 (subject or course in military/physical/design training, any training that is not associated with studying books)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;專業 we normally take it's meaning as &quot;Profession&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When talking about &quot;專業&quot; in college courses, we normally refer to the category of &quot;專業科目&quot; (professional courses), which normally happens to be the courses related to students major, or even more difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15886" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T16:59:56.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26895" CreationDate="2017-10-08T17:07:59.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 1, you might feel awkward or unfamiliar because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we take the meaning as 1,&#xA;we seldom says that someone teach others &quot;教訓&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more often way to use this meaning is to learn by someone itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex: 我從上次的失敗吸取教訓了，下次不會再犯同樣的錯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'v learned my mistake from last failure, and I won't make it again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15886" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T17:07:59.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26827" CreationDate="2017-10-08T17:36:11.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;積雲如果迅速地向上凸起，形成高大的雲山，群峰爭奇，聳入天頂，就變成了積雨雲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the cumulus bulged quickly forming huge mountain clouds, the peaks fight for their exquisiteness way up to the sky's zenith, they then become the Cumulonimbus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15886" LastEditorUserId="15886" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T04:36:46.307" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T04:36:46.307" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17752" CreationDate="2017-10-08T18:50:09.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the Beijing dialect of Haney uses slangs that sound like slurs; it is very hard to understand if you don't speak that dialect even for Mandarin speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think with Hanyu(the Chinese language) you can read, write, and speak it. But there is a huge problem with the reading and writing since most of the Chinese in the old days say 500 to 2000 years ago did not go to school--they were illiterate. They use slangs to talk to others; slang words were invented or borrowed from others. Hek, these slangs are still widely used in Cantonese which makes perfect since to a Cantonese person, but hard to understand for non-Cantonese person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slangs are not standard Hanyu (Chinese) that is why it is not used in writing; it is  used only in a local area for speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is Standard Hanyu? I would say these are the words found in the Hanyu or Chinese Mandarin or Cantonese dictionary. The Hanyu words has not changed in thousands of years; the meanings and usage has remained the same; but the pronunciations some are similar and some are different. Some people may think this pronunciation is a big issue; Since the writing words in both Cantonese and Mandarin are still the same and its meaning remain the same, I tink in the long run it is not an issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if I may add:&#xA;In English, 1 + 1 + 1 = 3;&#xA;In Cantonese 1 + 1 + 1 = 3;&#xA;In Mandarin 1 + 1 + 1 still equal to 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the math meaning and concept has not changed. Each group of speaker can understand it. So the math language is still the same. Like wise, Hanyu (the standard Chinese language over the past couple thousand of years is still the same notwithstanding the slangs of course) is like this math, it just sounds a bit different when it is read out by each group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slangs was created because the older generation of people were working in the farms, they did not go to school, and most of them were wen mang.  Yes, Cantonese people love to speak in slangs, which are passed down for generation to generation. I think the Chinese does not like people speaking in slangs because they don't understand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18097" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T18:50:09.103" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26910" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26911" CreationDate="2017-10-08T19:02:45.647" Score="3" ViewCount="1432" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference between 目前 and 现在 in Mandarin? Especially regarding the use with the tense, such as &quot;these days&quot; vs &quot;recently&quot; in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just found a sentence of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;”银座养蜂项目“始于2006年，目前在银座的三个大厦屋顶都没有养蜂场，各有20-30万只蜜蜂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I understand it correctly, the sentence means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Ginza Bees Project* started in 2006. Now, the roof of the three buildings in Ginza don't have the place to cultivate bees; they only have 200 to 300 thousands of bees. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I replace it with 现在? Also, are these words different from other such words, such as 如今, 眼前, and 眼下?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;UPDATE&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just found out that the original sentence was not 没有 but 设有. My English translation was based on my misunderstood presumption, and that's why it wrote &lt;em&gt;&quot;don't have&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-08T20:55:21.527" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T03:25:12.823" Title="What is the difference between 目前 and 现在?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26910" CreationDate="2017-10-08T20:47:52.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, 没有(without) in the sentence is a typo, It should be 设有 (with)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 目前 and 现在 can mean 'now','currently' or 'presently'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目前 literally means &amp;quot;in front of eyes&amp;quot; which implies 'the current situation you can see'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;目前在银座的三个大厦屋顶都设有养蜂场&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;Currently, the roofs of the three buildings in Ginza are all set up with bee farms&amp;quot; (currently observable fact)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在 literally means &amp;quot;in the present&amp;quot;  or &amp;quot;at present&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/in-the-present-at-present.1576445/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/in-the-present-at-present.1576445/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;In the present&amp;quot; = as they are happening/now.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;At present&amp;quot; = at the moment/now.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在在银座的三个大厦屋顶都设有养蜂场 means &amp;quot;Now, the roofs  of the three buildings in Ginza are all set up with bee farms&amp;quot; (in the present time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;如今(as of now) is similar to 现在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;眼前 can replace 目前 for &amp;quot;now&amp;quot;; but 眼前 can also mean &amp;quot;in front of one's eyes&amp;quot; which cannot be replaced by 目前&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;眼下 has the same function as 眼前&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T03:25:12.823" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26892" CreationDate="2017-10-09T00:23:54.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a similar test in mainland of China. But only targeting on people who looking for the specific job position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's called &quot;汉字应用水平测试&quot;. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sppc.edu.cn/2e/8a/c66a11914/page.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.sppc.edu.cn/2e/8a/c66a11914/page.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this is an official test. It's managed by ministry of education of the PRC.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.moe.gov.cn/s78/A18/yys_left/moe_803/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.moe.gov.cn/s78/A18/yys_left/moe_803/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5869" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T00:23:54.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26894" CreationDate="2017-10-09T00:29:52.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sentence 3 is correct in grammar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;妳覺得中國菜比美國菜好吃嗎?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would probably put: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;中国菜和美国菜，你更喜欢哪一种？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你喜欢吃中国菜还是美国菜？ &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;中国菜和美国菜，你觉得哪个更好吃？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T00:29:52.053" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26910" CreationDate="2017-10-09T01:24:16.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;目前 is a formal term usually used in a report, meaning 'according to the current status'. For example, 我们公司目前经营情况很差；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在 just means 'now'. For example, 我们现在要去哪？; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如今 means 'as now or as today'. For example, 事到如今（meaning things have been going as it's today）； &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眼前 and 眼下 are colloquial terms, meaning 'from what we can see now'. For example, 眼前(/下)我们没有什么可做的；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T01:24:16.010" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26910" CreationDate="2017-10-09T02:36:32.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;目前[mù qián]&#xA;at present; at the moment; now:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the present situation; the existing situation; the current situation; 目前形势.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;up till the present moment; up till now; so far; to date; 到目前为止&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们不赞成目前的政策变动。&#xA;We deprecated changing the policy at present.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;现在[xiàn zài]&#xA;now; at present; today; nowadays; these days; this day and age:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;from now on; 从现在开始.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;up to now; 到现在为止&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他现在可能在我的家里。&#xA;He should be in my house now.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastEditorUserId="17622" LastEditDate="2017-10-09T03:11:03.303" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T03:11:03.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26917" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26918" CreationDate="2017-10-09T03:05:38.040" Score="-1" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;For this assignment, we were tasked to create a dialogue with the following criteria:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Talking about oneself, family and time.&#xA;In this dialogue students will exchange basic information about oneself&#xA;and family members. Be sure to include dates and times.)&#xA;&#xA;(1) 姓⋯⋯贵姓         叫          名字                  &#xA;(2) Questions ending with 呢 and 吗&#xA;(3) 是&#xA;(4) 不&#xA;(5) 也&#xA;(6) 个&#xA;(7) The usage of “二” and “两”&#xA;(8) Question words 谁、什么、几个?&#xA;(9) 有 and 没有&#xA;(10) 都， 不都，都不&#xA;(11) Talking about date and time:&#xA;今天是几月几号，星期几？&#xA;你的生日是几月几号？&#xA;你今年多大？&#xA;现在几点(钟)？&#xA;星期四晚上八点(钟)见。(Time + 见) &#xA;(12) 请 + Person + VO&#xA;(13) …, 还是 (Alternative questions)&#xA;(14) A-not-A questions&#xA;(15) 还有&#xA;(16) 可是&#xA;(17) 为什么 ， 因为&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was just wondering if someone can proofread the following dialogue.&#xA;There are three characters A, B, and C. As for the dashes we plan on filling those later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;START OF THE DIALOGUE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;: 你好&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;: 你好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;: 我叫 钱贝儿，你叫什么名字&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;: 我叫那厮其。钱先生，你是中国学生吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;: 不是，我是美国学生，你呢？&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;: 我也是美国学生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;: 你家有几口人？&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;: 我家有五口人，我爸爸，妈妈，一个姐姐，一个弟弟，和我。钱先生，你家有几口人吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;: 我家有四口人，爸爸，妈妈，弟弟，和我. 这是我的照片。&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;: 这是谁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;: 这是我爸爸&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;: 你爸爸做什么工作?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;: 我爸爸是经理, 你爸爸呢？&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;: 我爸爸是医生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;: 我妈妈也是医生。你姐姐和弟弟都是大学生吗？&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;: 他们不都是大学生。你弟弟呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;: 他是中学生。&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;: 钱贝尔，现在几点？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;: 两点中，为什么?&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;: 因为，我的朋友来了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=====Third Person Comes in=====&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;：你好，那厮其。&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;：他是谁？&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;：你好，他是我的朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;：Oh，请问，你贵姓？&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;：我姓－－，我叫－－。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;：你是中国大学生吗？&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;：不是，我是美国大学生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;：－－先生，你家有几口人吗？&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;：我家有六口人，我爸爸，妈妈，一个弟弟，两个妹妹和我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;：那厮，今天是几月几号，星期几？&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;：今天是－－月－－号，星期－－。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;：明天，我弟弟的生日。&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;：太好了，－－先生，你弟弟今年几岁?&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;:---&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;: 钱先生,你明天忙不忙?&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;: 早上，明天我很忙可是晚上不忙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;：很好，晚上我请你们吃晚饭因为我弟弟的生日。&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;：谢谢&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;：谢谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;：你们喜欢中国菜还是美国菜？&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;：我喜欢美国人，可是喜欢中国菜。&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;：我还喜欢中国菜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;：明天晚上，七点三刻，怎么样？&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;：不好，八点半，怎么样？&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;：很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;：好，明天晚上见。&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;：再见！&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;：再见！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;END OF THE DIALOGUE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17969" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-10-09T04:03:15.897" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T05:59:18.800" Title="Chinese Dialogue Assignment" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;reading&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26917" CreationDate="2017-10-09T05:59:18.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;X: wrong, V:suggest&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;START OF THE DIALOGUE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你好 B: 你好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我叫 钱贝儿，你叫什么名字 B: 我叫那厮其。钱先生，你是中国学生吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 不是，我是美国学生，你呢？ B: 我也是美国学生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你家有几口人？ B: 我家有五口人，&lt;strong&gt;我爸爸，妈妈，一个姐姐，一个弟弟，和我。钱先生，你家有几口人呢(X吗)？&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我家有四口人，爸爸，妈妈，弟弟，和我. 这是我的照片。 B: 这是谁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 这是我爸爸 B: 你爸爸做什么工作?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我爸爸是经理, 你爸爸呢？ B: 我爸爸是医生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我妈妈也是医生。你姐姐和弟弟都是大学生吗？ B: &lt;strong&gt;(V他们)不都是大学生&lt;/strong&gt;。你弟弟呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 他是中学生。 B: 钱贝尔，现在几点？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &lt;strong&gt;两点钟(X中)&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;怎么了(X为什么)&lt;/strong&gt;? B: &lt;strong&gt;(V因为)&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;我的朋友要来(X来了)&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=====Third Person Comes in=====&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C：你好，那厮其。 A：他是谁？ B：你好，他是我的朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A：Oh，请问，你贵姓？ C：我姓－－，我叫－－。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A：你是中国大学生吗？ C：不是，我是美国大学生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A：－－先生，你家有几口人呢(X吗)？ C：我家有六口人，我爸爸，妈妈，一个弟弟，两个妹妹和我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C：那厮，今天是几月几号，星期几？ B：今天是－－月－－号，星期－－。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C：&lt;strong&gt;(V)明天是我弟弟的生日。&lt;/strong&gt; A：太好了，－－先生，你弟弟今年几岁? C:---&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 钱先生,你明天忙不忙? A: &lt;strong&gt;我明天早上很忙, 可是晚上不忙。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C：很好，晚上我请你们吃晚饭, &lt;strong&gt;(V)我弟弟的生日。&lt;/strong&gt; A：谢谢 B：谢谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C：你们喜欢中国菜还是美国菜？ A：&lt;strong&gt;(V)虽然我喜欢美国人&lt;/strong&gt;，可是喜欢中国菜。 B：&lt;strong&gt;我也(X还)喜欢中国菜。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C：明天晚上，七点三刻，怎么样？ B：**(V不好，)**八点半，怎么样？ A：很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C：好，明天晚上见。 A：再见！ B：再见！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;END OF THE DIALOGUE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T05:59:18.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26795" CreationDate="2017-10-09T08:37:13.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the 90s of last century, Hongkong TV series often captured supernatural works. One of the recurring plot is the ghost possessed to humans, people must  spill the dog's blood（狗血）to expel it. The Hongkong ghost movies and TV series  has become more and more popular, so there have been repeated use of this plot.  Then “狗血” is used to ridicule the immutable and stupid plot.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The dog of 远光狗...That's for swearing.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;单身狗 means one who is single.In China, the term is commonly used for self-mockery.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18100" LastEditorUserId="18100" LastEditDate="2017-10-09T10:12:52.887" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T10:12:52.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26920" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26921" CreationDate="2017-10-09T10:55:45.043" Score="2" ViewCount="1099" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand there is a difference between 可以, 能, and 会 in Mandarin. But is there any difference between 能 and 能够?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is there any case where one word can be used but the other cannot?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least I just got to know that 能够 cannot take a one-syllable verb (while 能 can). So it is not correct to say &lt;code&gt;她能够吃&lt;/code&gt;, but is there any other difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T01:27:00.647" Title="What is the difference between 能 and 能够?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26920" CreationDate="2017-10-09T11:22:42.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 能 and 能够 mean 'can/ able to'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subtle difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;能 mostly refer to 有能力 (capable/ able)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;够 in 能够 carries the additional meaning of '足夠' (enough to)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Three inch of water can (is capable of) drown a person&quot; 三英寸的水能淹死一個人 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Three inch of water can (be enough to) drown a person&quot; 三英寸的水能够淹死一個人 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;one dollar can (is able to) buy one Doughnut&quot; 一美元能買一個甜甜圈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;one million dollar can (be enough to) buy a persons principle&quot; 一百萬美元能够買一個人的原則&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-09T11:34:43.920" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T11:34:43.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26920" CreationDate="2017-10-09T14:07:31.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &quot;能&quot; and &quot;能够&quot; means the capability of doing things. I would say there's &lt;strong&gt;nearly no difference between &quot;能&quot;&amp;amp;&quot;能够&quot;, except under some circumstances.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when one surprisedly said &quot;他(很)能吃啊！&quot;， it doesn't mean &quot;he is able to eat&quot;, but indicate &quot;he eats a lot!/ have a great appetite&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You need to get the true meaning with the scenario/context.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To @TangHo&#xA;And for me, there is no difference between &quot;三英寸的水能淹死一個&quot;人 &amp;amp; &quot;三英寸的水能够淹死一個人&quot;, &quot;一百萬美元能够買一個人的原則&quot; and &quot;一百萬美元能買一個人的原則&quot;. &lt;strong&gt;In these cases (be enough to) equals to (is capable of)&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T14:07:31.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26925" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26937" CreationDate="2017-10-09T14:37:28.150" Score="3" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;My soon-to-be sister-in-law is Chinese. My future wife is her older sister, so she doesn't feel comfortable calling me by my given name. In Chinese she would call be 姐夫, for which the nearest English translation seems to be &quot;brother in law&quot; or &quot;husband of older sister&quot;, which is a bit of a mouthful to say the least. Even just &quot;brother in law&quot; is a bit much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there are more appropriate term in English that I can suggest? I don't want her to feel uncomfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18102" LastEditorUserId="18102" LastEditDate="2017-10-10T08:43:18.243" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T09:44:40.853" Title="What is a comfortable English translation of 姐夫" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26925" CreationDate="2017-10-09T15:25:55.903" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, respect can be shown by calling someone by their title, followed by last name. So, if you were named Smith, she could call you Mr. Smith, or Dr. Smith, or Professor Smith, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also explain to her that your community's tradition is to address all brothers-in-laws by their first name and that you and your family will be honored if one day she feels comfortable to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18086" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T15:25:55.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26897" CreationDate="2017-10-09T18:40:02.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a convention or a result by the consensus of the mass. And no, &quot;公安&quot; is an official title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, &quot;国家安全部&quot;, which you refer, we usually call it &quot;国安&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, what is your question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T18:40:02.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26895" CreationDate="2017-10-09T18:48:42.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I happen to Google the &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=Iu9nCQAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA72&amp;amp;lpg=PA72&amp;amp;dq=%E4%BD%A0%E5%8F%AA%E4%BC%A0%E6%8E%88%E7%BB%99%E5%84%BF%E5%AD%90%E4%BB%AC%E6%8D%95%E9%B1%BC%E7%9A%84%E6%8A%80%E6%9C%AF%EF%BC%8C%E5%8D%B4%E6%B2%A1%E6%9C%89%E4%BC%A0%E6%8E%88%E7%BB%99%E4%BB%96%E4%BB%AC%E6%95%99%E8%AE%AD&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=4tTApOVktx&amp;amp;sig=_A_uzxvZhTud0PJuZOAcFffKKZQ&amp;amp;hl=zh-CN&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwie1ML4mOTWAhUMKyYKHY9QAQoQ6AEIMjAD#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%E4%BD%A0%E5%8F%AA%E4%BC%A0%E6%8E%88%E7%BB%99%E5%84%BF%E5%AD%90%E4%BB%AC%E6%8D%95%E9%B1%BC%E7%9A%84%E6%8A%80%E6%9C%AF%EF%BC%8C%E5%8D%B4%E6%B2%A1%E6%9C%89%E4%BC%A0%E6%8E%88%E7%BB%99%E4%BB%96%E4%BB%AC%E6%95%99%E8%AE%AD&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the old man has taught his sons everything. 'Technique' is unlikely the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the whole context is about how to &lt;strong&gt;deal with 'the failure'&lt;/strong&gt;. So it's 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T18:48:42.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26925" CreationDate="2017-10-09T18:53:02.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you go over just calling name. Simply &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Brother-in-law&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you know the limits of English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T18:53:02.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26894" CreationDate="2017-10-09T19:11:51.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There're hundreds of way to say 'prefers A to B' in Mandarin, consider we really love making 'hint'. That's not the scope of this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中國菜比美國菜妳喜歡多嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is not correct in grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ways to say 'Do you prefer A to B?&quot; in genal. &lt;strong&gt;It does not strictly follow 'A to B'&lt;/strong&gt;. Pretty much like a daily conversation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    1. 你喜欢A, 还是喜欢B?&#xA;    2. 喜欢A吗？还是B?&#xA;    3. A好还是B好？&#xA;    4. 你选A还是B?&#xA;    5. A和B, 你倾向哪个？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T19:11:51.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26925" CreationDate="2017-10-09T19:18:49.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're marrying her older sister, you're not her older sister's brother-in-law.  Little Sister is calling you &quot;Sister's Husband&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18104" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T19:18:49.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26933" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26934" CreationDate="2017-10-09T20:03:15.200" Score="3" ViewCount="7842" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few of the translation apps I use show both to mean happy.  Are these synonyms or is there a deeper level for one, like joy might be considered deeper than happy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18105" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T20:02:46.533" Title="Gaoxing (高兴) vs. Kaixin (开心)" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26933" CreationDate="2017-10-09T20:57:38.370" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高 = highly; 兴= delighted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;高兴&lt;/strong&gt; = happy; &lt;strong&gt;glad&lt;/strong&gt;; delighted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;describe a  emotional state of being delighted&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开= open; 心 = heart&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;开心&lt;/strong&gt; = happy; &lt;strong&gt;joyful&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;metaphorically describe an effect of being happy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 高兴  and 开心 means 'happy', but with different emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you are glad that you didn't get killed in a car accident, you can say: &amp;quot;我很高興我還活著&amp;quot; (I am glad that I am still alive), but you wouldn't say: &amp;quot;我很開心我還活著&amp;quot; (I am joyful that I am still alive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example,  We use 我很高興見到你 (I am glad to see you) as a polite greeting, but &amp;quot;見到你我很開心&amp;quot; (seeing you make me happy) would be a more passionate expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;开心 is also more personal, e.g. &amp;quot;今天是我最开心的一天&amp;quot; is more natural than &amp;quot;今天是我最高興的一天&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another word for 'happy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快 = satisfactory; 樂 = delight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;快樂&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;happy&lt;/strong&gt;/ joyful/ cheerful (describe a joyful emotional state). It can be a noun or an adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T16:41:25.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26935" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26947" CreationDate="2017-10-09T21:18:09.047" Score="3" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;”银座养蜂项目“始于2006年，目前在银座的三个大厦屋顶都设有养蜂场，各有20-30万只蜜蜂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Ginza Bees Project&quot; started in 2016. Now the roof of all three buildings in Ginza have the bees farms, and each has 200 to 300 thousands of bees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, the 只 is a measure word for 蜂蜜. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to express it as &quot;each has &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; 200 to 300 thousands of bees&quot;, can you still use 只? Or should you use a different word to express &quot;only&quot; in order to avoid the duplicate of 只 (or possibly the confusion as well)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, how should the whole sentence be if you add &quot;only&quot; in the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-10-10T00:23:39.193" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T11:32:50.043" Title="Is it OK to use 只 (only) when it already uses 只 as a measure word?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26925" CreationDate="2017-10-10T00:21:27.600" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese word 姐夫 is both a referent term and an address term. You can refer to someone as your 姐夫 (e.g. 我姐夫是中國人）as well as call him 姐夫 （e.g. 姐夫，你好嗎？）. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English equivalent &quot;brother-in-law&quot;, however, is only a referent term. You can say &quot;Peter is my brother-in-law&quot; or &quot;my brother-in-law is Chinese&quot; etc., but I have never heard of anyone using &quot;brother-in-law&quot; as an address term (as in: How are you, Brother-in-law?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you are looking for an equivalent of 姐夫 as a direct address. I suppose the best way is for her to use whatever a normal English speaker would use to address his/her brother-in-law. In my understanding, this would be his given name or some kind of nick name that the brother-in-law would like to be called by. Addressing somebody as &quot;Brother-in-law&quot; would sound odd, IMO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-01-07T09:44:40.853" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T09:44:40.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26933" CreationDate="2017-10-10T00:46:36.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;高兴[gāo xìng]&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(愉快而兴奋) glad; happy; pleased; elated; joyful; cheerful:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm very glad to see you. 我见到你很高兴。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He is sure to be pleased [happy] at the news. 他听到这个消息一定很高兴。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;开心[kāi xīn]&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（快乐; 舒畅） feel happy; rejoice; joyful; be delighted; have a grand time:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;His joy was immense. 他开心极了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The children dance round him in delight. 孩子们开心地围着他跳舞。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T00:46:36.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26939" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26954" CreationDate="2017-10-10T01:19:00.147" Score="3" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking up their definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/compound.php?cp=%E5%AE%A2%E6%B0%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;客气&lt;/a&gt; (kè qi) = polite&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/hanzi.php?hz=%E5%AE%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;客&lt;/a&gt; (kè) = customer; visitor; guest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/hanzi.php?hz=%E6%B0%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;气&lt;/a&gt; (qì) = gas; air; smell; weather; vital breath; to anger; to get angry; to be enraged&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seems to be no logic behind combining 客 and 气 to give 客气.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How does 客 and 气 combine to give 客气?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T16:51:30.407" Title="How does 客 (kè, &quot;customer, guest&quot;) and 气 (qì, &quot;gas, anger&quot;) combine to give 客气 （kèqi, &quot;polite&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26920" CreationDate="2017-10-10T01:27:00.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 能, as a single character, carries more meanings than 能够. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;能 could be short for 能够, meaning able to do or achieve something.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;能 could be used as an intensifier and often used with 真，很 and etc. For example, 真能干！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;能 could mean 'could' or 'would'， like 会. For example, 他能去哪儿？==他会去哪儿？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;能 could mean 才能. For example, 逞能，各尽其能, etc. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;能 could mean 能量. For example, 电能，光能， etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, it relies on the context to determine whether the speaker refers to meaning 1 or 2. For example, 他能吃 could mean either 'he could eat it as his food' or 'he could eat a lot of it'. The former is the same as 他能够吃, and the latter is the same as 他真（/很）能吃. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T01:27:00.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26935" CreationDate="2017-10-10T01:30:53.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is perfectly fine to use 各&lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;有20-30万&lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;蜜蜂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Natives will not misunderstand or get confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T01:30:53.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26939" CreationDate="2017-10-10T01:36:58.530" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the logic is like 口气，语气. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;口气 is tone in English. 气 is air. 口气 is air from your mouth. Figuratively, it becomes your tone with which you speak. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my thought for 客气 would be you speak in a guest's tone, which implies you are being polite. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T01:36:58.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26933" CreationDate="2017-10-10T01:54:20.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;不管说哪一个都能 了解你的意思&#xA;no much difference, whichever you use could make people know you are happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18111" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T01:54:20.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26897" CreationDate="2017-10-10T03:09:38.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We don't call &quot;公安&quot; short for &quot;公共安全&quot;.&#xA;In life, &quot;公安&quot; always means the police.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17846" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T03:09:38.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26935" CreationDate="2017-10-10T03:10:51.737" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;有20-30万&lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;蜜蜂&quot; is a valid sentence in simplified Chinese. You just have to read the two 只 differently, because they have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The first &quot;只&quot; in the sentence means &quot;only&quot; in both simplified and traditional Chinese and it is read as /zhi3/.  &lt;em&gt;(It can also be written as &quot;祇&quot; in traditional Chinese)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The second &quot;只&quot; in the sentence, is the simplified version of 隻 (classifier for certain animals) and it is read as /zhi1/&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence &quot;&lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;有20-30万&lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;蜜蜂&quot; is actually &quot;&lt;strong&gt;祇&lt;/strong&gt;有20-30萬&lt;strong&gt;隻&lt;/strong&gt;蜜蜂&quot; in traditional Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-10T11:32:50.043" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T11:32:50.043" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26935" CreationDate="2017-10-10T06:51:34.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both previous answers (Tang Ho and fefe) are correct:&#xA;the two words are not confused by native speakers if they stand in a context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’d like to add that 只 (adverb: only) and 只 (measure word) are two different words which happen to be written with the same simplified character, rather than one character which has two meanings.&#xA;When spoken, they have different tones, although it would not be a problem even if they had the exact same sound:&#xA;there are plenty of homophones in Chinese, and the context is unambiguous in most cases.&#xA;In written, they same applies:&#xA;the context (the position in the sentence) clarifies its meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, these words are written with the same character in simplified characters only:&#xA;using traditional characters, the adverb zhǐ is mostly written as 只 (or sometimes 衹, or some variant) wheras the measure word zh­ī is mostly written as 隻 (or, to add to the confusion, sometimes 只).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T06:51:34.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26939" CreationDate="2017-10-10T09:36:15.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'polite' comes from the Latin politus &quot;refined, elegant, accomplished,&quot; literally &quot;polished,&quot; past participle of polire (polish, not Polish), but that doesn't mean someone who is polite is shiny!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it originated from 'in the spirit or air of a guest', the assumption being, a guest is very well behaved. (Back then the Chinese never had English guests perhaps, or they might not have used this metaphor)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/xs/6C14.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/xs/6C14.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;气: (19) 指精神状态,情绪 [morale;spirit] or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;气： (25) 中医学术语。指脉气和营卫 [energy of life;vital energy]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T09:36:15.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26951" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26952" CreationDate="2017-10-10T11:34:12.083" Score="3" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinanews.com/gj/2017/10-04/8346455.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this news&lt;/a&gt; over 中国新闻网:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中新网10月4日电 据日本媒体报道，日本新党“希望之党”党首、东京都知事小池百合子3日再次否定自身会参加众院选举，称“百分之百不会，从一开始就这么说”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小池&lt;strong&gt;说明称&lt;/strong&gt;，前首相小泉纯一郎对她说“作为都知事加油”。她断言道：“虽然(小泉)进次郎叫着(要我参选)，但我向他父亲承诺不会出马。我将作为都知事继续切实努力。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 说明称? 说明 means &amp;quot;explain&amp;quot; while 称 means &amp;quot;call&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;say&amp;quot;. So I feel that the words are duplicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I don't understand is why it duplicates the words as 说明称. Why not use just one, which I think enough...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;BTW what is the meaning of 从一开始...? Why is it not 从开始? Well I might pose a separate question...&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T20:48:25.867" Title="Why do you use 说明称, not either 说明 or 称?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26951" CreationDate="2017-10-10T11:47:20.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;说明 is used as a noun word here, meaning 'illustration or explanation'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 说明称 means 'say in her/his illustration/explanation'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从一开始 means 'from the &lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt; beginning', while 从开始 means 'from the beginning'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T11:47:20.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26933" CreationDate="2017-10-10T19:24:23.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just like the difference between Happy and Delighted/Pleased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a word, when comes to daily usage, no difference, unless bringing up to an academic/professional level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastEditorUserId="16891" LastEditDate="2017-10-10T20:02:46.533" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T20:02:46.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26939" CreationDate="2017-10-10T20:10:18.860" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;客气&quot; can be traced back to a story in The Spring and Autumn period(I did search this term....what an awkward name). This term was to describe actions that not from the heart, just for being polite. Now it becomes a neutral term - &quot;you're welcome&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;source:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4aa115950100f0tz.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4aa115950100f0tz.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T20:10:18.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26955" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26956" CreationDate="2017-10-11T00:10:29.633" Score="3" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit&lt;/em&gt;:  This question was based on a misunderstanding: I installed Chinese fonts in Ubuntu, where the default behaviour is to show Japanese characters.  (I managed to fix this problem following the instructions here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://askubuntu.com/q/901486&quot;&gt;https://askubuntu.com/q/901486&lt;/a&gt;; it was considered a bug.)  Not realizing this was a software issue, I believed this problem related to 异体字 (yìtǐzì), or variant Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've rephrased the question so the question is technically correct, related to the Chinese language, and so that the current answers actually answer the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No wonder I struggle to remember how to write &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/hanzi.php?hz=%E5%96%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;喝&lt;/a&gt; (hē; to drink); this is what it looks like on my phone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mvk2a.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mvk2a.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;喝 written on my phone&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this is what 喝 looks like on my computer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rE14A.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rE14A.png&quot; alt=&quot;喝 written on my computer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the same character on the same website, but it's written in two different ways.  It seems this is a common obstacle for people learning to write Chinese; see: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/792/8099&quot;&gt;Characters which have several different shapes&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strike&gt;These are &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Chinese_character&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;variant Chinese characters&lt;/a&gt; 异体字 (yìtǐzì)&lt;/strike&gt;.  I'm concerned about whether one is preferred over the other for the HSK.  This would affect the reading and writing components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: For the HSK, what do I need to know about characters which appear differently?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T07:27:29.343" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T07:27:29.343" Title="For the HSK, what do I need to know about characters which appear differently?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26955" CreationDate="2017-10-11T00:43:46.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese characters are used not only in Chinese but also several other languages (such as Japanese). The written form of the same character may differ in these languages. And on a computer, these differences are usually controlled by fonts (as they use the same code point).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second form in your original post is a Japanese version of 喝, which will be considered wrong if used in Chinese. You might be using a font designed for Japanese to display the character. Try change to a font that is designed for displaying Chinese (like SimSun), you will get the correct Chinese written form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T00:43:46.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26955" CreationDate="2017-10-11T01:07:07.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't have to concern it at all for HSK. In China, only the standard form is used and the variants won't appear in any official exams. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only case that I can come up with where you may concern it is the display on computers or other electrical devices.  Take myself for example, when I first use the software Solidworks, the default font displays Chinese characters in Japanese version, which would be annoying when I print the engineering drawings. However, by using the correct font, everything goes well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T01:07:07.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26958" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26983" CreationDate="2017-10-11T03:55:35.427" Score="1" ViewCount="1112" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Rush Hour Jackie Chan's character is called Yan Naing Lee:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rush-hour.wikia.com/wiki/Yan_Naing_Lee&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rush Hour Wiki:Yan Naing Lee&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chief Inspector Lee is one of two main protagonists of the Rush Hour series. He is a Chief Inspector with the Hong Kong Police Force (H.K.P.F). Lee appears in all three of the films. He is partnered with Detective James Carter, who at first doesn't get along with, but later befriends. Lee is portrayed by Jackie Chan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He's often called Lee in the film, so most likely that means his surname is Lee or 李 (can't imagine it'd be anything else).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for NAING, it seems to be a romanization of a Burmese name - if anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese searches bring up names like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;YAN NAING OO陈馨丰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where NAING would, assumably, be 馨, based on allignment. This, though, seems to be made-up Chinese name - rather than a translation or a transliteration - what have you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only other thing I can find with Naing (and even Yan together!) is this translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;博杨莱-德钦通盛(Bo Yan Naing-Tun Shein)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what this romanization system is either. If it was a true translation then that would make the characters name something like: 李杨莱.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not finding much online - as the Chinese just refers to him as Officer Lee (李警官).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;————&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: saw 有道 also lists:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;n. (Naing)人名；(缅)乃；(柬)宁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would a movie character from HK have Burmese or Cambodian romanization in his name? Bizarre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-10-11T06:29:32.213" LastActivityDate="2019-06-28T14:45:34.930" Title="What's Jackie Chan's Character's Chinese Name (in Characters) in Rush Hour?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9833" CreationDate="2017-10-11T08:20:52.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;牛逼 Northern dialects, idioms, life with a swearing, describe the other behavioral or know of a state, said the heartfelt sigh to speakers of other languages, appreciated very much The commendatory word belongs to, need not be derogatory term. For example: you are very cow force means you're good, which can contain language heartfelt admiration, when others admire to you are or can be used to describe the cow force. Sometimes also contains arrogance. The meaning of pride too&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T08:20:52.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26960" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-11T12:03:26.163" Score="2" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just found that 挣 has two variants of pronunciation - zhèng and zhēng. However, both seem to express &amp;quot;struggle&amp;quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some words express different meanings depending on the pronunciation - e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/26935/is-it-ok-to-use-%E5%8F%AA-only-when-it-already-uses-%E5%8F%AA-as-a-measure-word&quot;&gt;my recent question on 只&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, it might be slightly different, since according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?wdqt=%E6%8C%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MBDG dictionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;挣 zhēng: see 掙扎｜挣扎&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;挣 zhèng: to struggle to get free / to strive to acquire / to make (money)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So zhēng is equivalent only to 掙扎 or 挣扎, but these two words also mean &amp;quot;struggle&amp;quot;. So I don't understand how you can decide whether the 挣 you see in a sentence is zhèng or zhēng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you see 挣 in a sentence, how can you discern which pronunciation is correct? Also, does it make any difference regarding the two words (e.g. on usage)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-10-17T20:37:40.360" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T20:37:40.360" Title="What is the difference between zhèng and zhēng in 挣?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26955" CreationDate="2017-10-11T12:56:48.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just treat it as variant like the English / American spelling: colour/color, flavour / flavor, even pronunciation differ slightly, eg. &quot;flour&quot;pronunced as &quot;flower&quot; in USA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The French in France and in Canada differ too: eg. Number 70 is (60+10), 90 is (4x20+10) in Math-crazy France, the Canadian French say them differently (using Old French equivalent words without the +, x)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has been borrowed by Japanese and Korean thousand years ago, while the originator Chinese evolves (simplified over 3000 years, notably after the 1911 Revolution), the borrowers still keep the borrowed form from 6CE Tang dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18123" LastEditorUserId="18123" LastEditDate="2017-10-11T13:37:52.200" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T13:37:52.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26525" CreationDate="2017-10-11T13:23:44.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;美妝would be the all encompassing term. It's a general term for beauty and cosmetics, with beauty being things like hair accessories, makeup applicators, etc. &#xA;If it is a department store you're designing, you'd likely break it down into more specific categories such as cosmetics, hair care, and so forth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T13:23:44.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26806" CreationDate="2017-10-11T15:46:12.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found that the resource curation post has &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1213/6228&quot;&gt;a section&lt;/a&gt; on newspapers and it includes exactly the English-Chinese side-by-side websites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two websites are featured there, and both have WeChat 订阅号.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;纽约时报 (NY Times) - &lt;a href=&quot;https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20171011/xi-jinping-military-china-purge/dual/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FT中文网 (Financial Times for Chinese) - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001074610/ce#adchannelID=1100&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like the 纽约时报 side-by-side is an amazing resource. FT looks like a bit limiting in terms of articles available for side-by-side lookup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T15:46:12.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26939" CreationDate="2017-10-11T16:51:30.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;气 Has many uses, just as &quot;air&quot; does in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;an air of insouciance &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;give someone the air &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the radio station is on the air &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;putting on airs&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;take a sweater or jacket out for an airing&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17757" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T16:51:30.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26966" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26981" CreationDate="2017-10-11T21:44:19.417" Score="2" ViewCount="791" Body="&lt;p&gt;This isn't just a simple translation question--I've already run &quot;exactly&quot; through Google translate, but it didn't give me quite the usage I'm looking for. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hypothetically, let'ts say I have a friend who posts on Facebook that he got engaged every year on April Fool's Day. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In our (theoretical) scenario, if I wanted to say &quot;It's like you got married to her exactly a year ago!&quot;, I would say something like &quot;好像你一年前已經訂婚了&quot; However, in my vocabulary, the &quot;一年前&quot; denotes &quot;roughly one year ago&quot;, instead of &quot;Exactly one year to the day ago.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would I best communicate that he (potentially) pulled the same prank one year ago to the day? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16404" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T12:09:19.747" Title="How to say &quot;Exactly&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26967" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26973" CreationDate="2017-10-11T21:44:59.167" Score="-2" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many characters should the absolute beginner learn and how many years does it take to learn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read that number between 3000-4000 characters, but I do not know how everyone with the same number of characters can read different subjects?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18126" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:33:28.720" Title="how many characters should i learn?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-10-12T07:37:00.457" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26966" CreationDate="2017-10-11T23:11:21.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try '整整‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We've been married exactly one year.&#xA;我们整整结婚一年了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T23:11:21.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26960" CreationDate="2017-10-11T23:52:26.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you might ask yourself, 'What is the difference between struggle and strive?' In the definition of strive you will find struggle. Both imply applying effort to achieve a goal. What differences do you see? Mainly in usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bits Chinese leaves out always confound me! So if they say 挣， they probably mean 挣钱， although it might be 挣脱， depending on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is all from zdic.net&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挣：&#xA;1. 用力支撑或摆脱：～脱。～开。 (struggle to keep away, get away)&#xA;2. 出力取得：～钱。～饭吃。 (strive to get)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挣扎： 竭力支撑或摆脱 （do one's best to support or get away)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 挣 for the most part is connected with earning money. You can find many example sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zheng4 is found in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挣脱： 用力擺脫束縛，以獲得自由。 (use strength to break out and obtain freedom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T23:52:26.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26970" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26971" CreationDate="2017-10-12T00:12:07.770" Score="3" ViewCount="1493" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just found &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5218/meaning-of-%E5%B7%AE-in-sentence&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, on which the OP asked the meaning of 差一刻九点. The answer is &quot;a quarter to nine&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I wonder how you can express &quot;a quarter past nine&quot; in Chinese? The first thing I came up with is 过一刻九点, but is it correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is there any variations by region?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T06:33:59.763" Title="How to say &quot;a quarter past nine&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26970" CreationDate="2017-10-12T00:18:52.623" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;九点一刻&lt;/strong&gt; is 9:15 - but more often you'd just heard/use 九点十五分.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;差一刻九点&lt;/strong&gt; is okay, but again more likely you'd just heard/use 八点四十五。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T00:18:52.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26960" CreationDate="2017-10-12T00:24:10.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you already got the point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;挣 zhēng: see 掙扎｜挣扎&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;挣 zhèng: to struggle to get free / to strive to acquire / to make (money)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挣 will only be pronounced as 'zhēng' in 挣扎 and 'zhèng' for the rest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T00:24:10.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26967" CreationDate="2017-10-12T00:51:29.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From childhood, I was told it's really something if you could know 5000 Chinese characters for daily based usage. I wouldn't think it would take long to grab 5000 characters, probably 1 or 2 years if you work hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the difficult part of the Chinese language is the &lt;strong&gt;collocation&lt;/strong&gt; of characters, which will form up lots of words or phrases. For example, the character 手 (hand) can have different meanings depending on the characters it is combined with, e.g. 手套 (glove), 手枪 (gun), 手绢 (handkerchief), 手机(cellphone), and many more. It would take you lots of time to practice those collocations, so that you could use them accurately and precisely.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another difficult part is the structures, syntax, conventions and culture. Those are time-consuming too and might take many years. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just my two cents and hope it could help you a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T01:33:28.720" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:33:28.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6655" CreationDate="2017-10-12T01:01:07.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;听到[tīng dào]&#xA;listen in; meet the ear; hear; notice:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;get wind of 听到风声&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;听过[tīng guò]  means you have heard &#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes, I have heard your explanation before, Maestro. 是的，大师，我以前听过你的解释。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;听说[tīng shuō]&#xA;be told; hear of:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have heard that he has been married before. 我听说他过去结过婚。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is only hearsay.; It's nothing but hearsay. 这只不过是听说而已。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T01:01:07.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26970" CreationDate="2017-10-12T01:10:49.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the casual situations, I would say like 九点十五, 九点零四， 八点二十， 四点半(never say 四点半分)， 三点四十，两点（整）。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;九点一刻 or 九点三刻 sounds a little bit formal than 九点十五 or 九点四十五. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;分 is omitted most of time and 九点十五分 sounds a bit formal, for you are trying to be accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you add 秒, you should not omit anything, like 九点十五分三十六秒, not 九点十五 三十六.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 'a quarter to nine', it's usually put 差一刻九点, 差十五分钟九点，还有十五分钟九点， 还有一刻钟九点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-12T01:45:29.717" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T01:45:29.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26966" CreationDate="2017-10-12T01:22:29.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“（It's like） you got married to her exactly a year ago！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（好像）你和她结婚刚好一年整。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（好像）你和她结婚正好一年（时间）。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（好像）你和她结婚整整一年了。（This variation implies it's been long time(one year) since he got married）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T01:22:29.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26977" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-12T01:27:18.083" Score="1" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;谈谈的是‘2008年的现代五项世界锦标赛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这次比赛成绩不是很好，整个冬训主要是以基本功的训练为主，所以关于实战训练方面，冬训抓得不是太多。在这次比赛当中，几个运动员应该尽到自己的努力了，但是有个别项目，个别人出现了问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the phrase below have a critical tone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;几个运动员应该尽到自己的努力了，&#xA;I suppose / guess some （几个） of our participants must have tried their best,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T15:04:18.000" Title="Does '几个运动员应该尽到自己的努力了，' have a critical tone in this sentence?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26977" CreationDate="2017-10-12T01:40:28.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“几个运动员应该尽到自己的努力了” here is to add an reason/excuse before saying the bad result (但是有个别项目，个别人出现了问题。). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the author feel sorry to say the bad result, so he put an positive thing and praise our 运动员 first before addressing the bad result. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, there is a phrase “not to rain on your parade”. I think they are the same kind of idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T01:40:28.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26967" CreationDate="2017-10-12T05:34:12.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't mind the characters number.Each Chinese does not know how many Chinese characters he knows.As a 27 year old Chinese, I still have a lot of characters that I don't know.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Even if you know 5000 Chinese characters, you probably won't understand it when you read an article.Because there are often two characters in Chinese that make a completely different meaning.So the words are more important than characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18129" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T05:34:12.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26970" CreationDate="2017-10-12T06:33:59.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add to the accepted answer, at least in Southern Malaysia and Singapore, we also use the pattern &lt;code&gt;H点N个字&lt;/code&gt; where &lt;code&gt;H&lt;/code&gt; is the hour and &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt; is the number that the minute hand is pointing to. For example, 九点一个字 means 9:05, 三点五个字 means 3:25. Exceptions are the 0 and 30 minute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6339" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T06:33:59.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26966" CreationDate="2017-10-12T07:06:46.613" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your scenario, I would say &quot;今天正好是你订婚一周年&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正好 &#xA;Exactly, and you can also say 正正好好 'absolutely exactly'(don't know how to say it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a common word which can be proved by &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李同志依了好婆的话去做,果然,&lt;strong&gt;正正好好&lt;/strong&gt;的到了头。(文匯月刊, 第 111-115 卷 第25页)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太晚了人家也要怪的,五分钟&lt;strong&gt;正正好好&lt;/strong&gt;, (新华文摘 第 7-12 期 第86页)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;正正好好&lt;/strong&gt;戴在唐僧的脑袋上 (另眼看四大名著: 西遊記、水滸傳、三國演義、紅樓夢&#xA;作者：馬亞麗)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-10-12T12:09:19.747" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T12:09:19.747" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26977" CreationDate="2017-10-12T08:12:27.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Does the phrase below have a critical tone?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;几个运动员应该尽到自己的努力了， I suppose / guess some （几个） of our participants must have tried their best,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it does have a critical tone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;几个运动员 means &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;a few&lt;/strong&gt; athletes&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;应该 here means &amp;quot;likely&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽到自己的努力了 = &amp;quot; had tried their best&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What he actually wanted to say was &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;most of them&lt;/strong&gt; had not tried their best&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(He didn't want to say most of them were bad directly, so he turned it around and said a few of them were good. It is like saying someone have a good heart to avoid answering is he ugly or not--of course he is ugly!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是有个别项目，个别人出现了问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are particular individuals having problems in particular events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He had made an understatement. Again, to avoid calling out most of them directly-- He didn't make it clear that these 'particular individuals' happens to be 'most of them'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T08:12:27.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26958" CreationDate="2017-10-12T11:24:23.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jackie Chan's character only has one name, Lee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither the script, original screenplay, credits, of all three movies give any other name for Lee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Yan Naing Lee&quot; is a piece of Wikipedia vandalism that sadly hasn't been caught, until now. See this revision: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rush_Hour_(film_series)&amp;amp;diff=prev&amp;amp;oldid=598230485&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rush_Hour_(film_series)&amp;amp;diff=prev&amp;amp;oldid=598230485&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And related Movies &amp;amp; TV question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://movies.stackexchange.com/q/81411/11183&quot;&gt;https://movies.stackexchange.com/q/81411/11183&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T11:24:23.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26984" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26986" CreationDate="2017-10-12T16:21:51.347" Score="1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最&lt;strong&gt;具&lt;/strong&gt;魅力的市区町村排行榜前三位依次为京都市，函馆市，札幌市。这是自2013年以来，京都市时隔4年第二次位居榜首。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=1&amp;amp;wdqt=%E5%85%B7%0D%0A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG dictionary shows the following meanings&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;tool / device / utensil / equipment / instrument / talent / ability / to possess / to have / to provide / to furnish / to state / classifier for devices, coffins, dead bodies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand what meaning 具 takes here. At first I thought it works as a measure word, but the classifiers on the dictionary are &lt;em&gt;devices, coffins, dead bodies&lt;/em&gt;, so the word 市区町村 may not qualify for taking the classifier, I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But otherwise, I don't understand what 具 works for here. So what does 具 work as here (e.g. noun, verb, adverb, adjective, measure word, etc...) and what is the meaning of it? And what is the difference between 最具魅力的 and 最魅力的?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T19:24:34.070" Title="What is the meaning of 具 in 最具魅力的市区町村?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26984" CreationDate="2017-10-12T16:47:42.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;具 is 具有; roughly to have, to possess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000097022&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000097022&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T16:47:42.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26984" CreationDate="2017-10-12T18:23:20.797" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;具 here short for 具有(possess/ have) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;具 can be short for 具備 (equip with) in other context&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;魅力&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;charm&lt;/strong&gt; (n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;具&lt;/strong&gt;魅力 = &lt;strong&gt;have&lt;/strong&gt; charm (verb + noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;具魅力&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; (the adjective marker 的 turns the verb phrase 具魅力 into an adjectival phrase (&lt;strong&gt;that&lt;/strong&gt; with charm) = &lt;strong&gt;charming&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;最&lt;/strong&gt;][具魅力的] = [&lt;strong&gt;the most&lt;/strong&gt;] [charming]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;And what is the difference between 最具魅力的 and 最魅力的?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最魅力 put the adverb 最(most) directly before the noun 魅力 (charm). It is grammatically incorrect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Although people do say &quot;most fun&quot; in English, turning the noun &quot;fun&quot; into an adjective, &quot;charm&quot; is not this kind of noun&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you shorten 具魅力的  to 魅力的, then the two phrases would mean the same:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[最][具魅力的] ([adverb] + [adjective]) = [the most charming]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[最][(具)魅力的] ([adverb] + [adjective]) = [the most charming]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't think it is a good practice. If you could shorten 具魅力的都市 to 魅力的都市, you could shorten 有勇氣的人 to 勇氣的人. That would sound really awkward. Not to mention 魅力的都市 could be interpreted as &quot;Charm's city&quot; and 勇氣的人 could be interpreted as &quot;Brave's people&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the answer to this question is - &quot;最具魅力的 and 最魅力的 mean the same, but it is better not omitting 具&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-12T19:24:34.070" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T19:24:34.070" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26925" CreationDate="2017-10-13T00:05:49.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My cousins in Asia address me as 姐姐，and for fun, they'd call my husband &quot;Jeff&quot;. They speak Mandarin for the most part. When interacting with us, they definitely use 姐夫。I believe when not interacting with us, they refer to him by his name, which makes sense to me. &#xA;My younger siblings and cousins in Canada have no problem addressing my husband by his first name. However, when they do greet me in Cantonese/Mandarin, I've noticed they will also greet my husband as 姐夫。&#xA;I don't believe there's a straight answer. Whatever makes you, your future wife, and your future sister-in-law most comfortable, will be the best solution for you guys. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T00:05:49.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26988" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-13T00:37:32.870" Score="1" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an extract from an interview:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女： 现代五项这个项目最早在哪个国家推广的？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;男： 这个项目起源于欧洲，最早在瑞典推广的这个项目。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He did &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; say: 最早于欧洲起源的这个项目&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why did he say: 最早在瑞典推广的这个项目 ？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase order seems odd to me, 这个老外. Is it odd? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best answer I have so far is: 'He is a sportsman, sportsmen are not necessarily good at talking. He would not write this way.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: The bit that confuses me is '的这个项目’ tacked on the end, seems strange to me, because he already said '这个项目起源于欧洲,'. I see no point or purpose in saying '这个项目' at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did a search for ’的这个‘。 I found 1, which I think is OK when I rearrange it as 2. From the others, I only like 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;法国西南部的这个地区是干红葡萄酒的产地。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个法国西南部的地区是干红葡萄酒的产地。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个项目起源于欧洲，最早在瑞典推广的这个项目。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个项目起源于欧洲，这个最早在瑞典推广的项目。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个项目起源于欧洲，最早在瑞典这个推广的项目。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个项目起源于欧洲，这个项目最早在瑞典推广的。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个项目起源于欧洲，最早在瑞典推广的。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T12:17:36.957" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T13:30:40.007" Title="Is the phrase order in this sentence correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26988" CreationDate="2017-10-13T00:57:26.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;项目 is the subject of 起源 (and cannot be used an object), but the object of 推广 (and probably cannot be used as subject).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can say 项目推广, but this is used as noun phrase which means the &quot;the promotion of the event&quot;. It is like a short form of 项目的推广, where 推广 is a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;现代五项这个项目最早在哪个国家推广的？&quot; This may be treated as implicit passive voice, &quot;现代五项这个项目最早在哪个国家（被）推广的？&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T00:57:26.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26988" CreationDate="2017-10-13T01:07:13.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Under this particular circumstance you are talking about, &quot;最早在瑞典推广的这个项目&quot; is actually the same as &quot;这个项目最早是在瑞典推广的” which sounds more natural to native ears. In most cases, everything that is before the character &quot;的” is attributive. So &quot;最早在瑞典推广的这个项目&quot; would, without any context, mean &quot;the project that was first promoted in Sweden&quot;. Hope you like my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4377" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T01:07:13.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26925" CreationDate="2017-10-13T01:10:38.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In US, I would suggest you call your “姐夫” directly by name. In China, that may sound disrespectful when age difference is too big.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4377" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T01:10:38.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26827" CreationDate="2017-10-13T06:17:42.323" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;群means all , together&#xA;峰 means， peaks， here mountain peaks&#xA;争, means 争斗， compete， have a competition&#xA;奇， means 奇特， grotesquely amazing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here is my translation.&#xA;形成高大的云山，群峰争奇，&#xA; form big high cloud mountains whose peaks are taking an active part in the most grotesque-looking mountain peak competition. ( Everybody wants to be the winner.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope you'll like my answer. Very anthropomorphic way to display the uniqueness and strangeness of clouds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4377" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T06:17:42.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26977" CreationDate="2017-10-13T06:22:11.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;几个运动员应该尽到自己的努力了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Means   it should be anticipated that the athletes have already worked their butts off (with the implication that the final result is far from satisfactory but no one is to blame)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4377" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T06:22:11.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9833" CreationDate="2017-10-13T06:30:48.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;牛逼 can also be replaced by  牛B、NB、牛掰、牛X、流弊，which is extremely commonly used in spoken Chinese. You can use it to show your surprise or praise towards someone(something) really amazing or sometimes dislike towards someone being too arrogant. BTW, 逼 can mean pussy which is offensive. So in very formal situations, I suggest you omit 逼， just say 牛 which is fairly OKAY.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4377" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T06:30:48.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26998" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-13T11:26:10.610" Score="3" ViewCount="910" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been using pinyin in my study, but a Taiwanese co-worker recently arrived.  I see that Taiwan only made pinyin official in 2009, so I wonder how likely she is to have mastered pinyin, having finished college before 2009.  I do know that at least one university there uses pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course I can ask, but I don't know how reliable her self-assessment will be.  I wouldn't mind learning bopomofo, but I don't want it to slow down my learning to actually &lt;strong&gt;speak&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="15442" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T23:09:15.837" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T03:42:04.823" Title="How well is pinyin known in Taiwan?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="26999" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27012" CreationDate="2017-10-13T12:18:11.467" Score="4" ViewCount="6980" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I learn to talk like my co-worker from Taipei, is that likely to make things difficult for me on the mainland (whether by impeding understanding or by arousing suspicions)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no idea if and when I'll visit either China, but I've been considering it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2018-05-13T04:06:19.643" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T04:06:19.643" Title="How &quot;bad&quot; is a Taiwanese accent on the mainland?" Tags="&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;accent&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2017-10-15T04:41:06.920" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26999" CreationDate="2017-10-13T12:23:40.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not &quot;bad&quot; at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People speak mandarin in Mainland China and Taiwan can understand each other without difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some word usages differences though, but usually it is not a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T13:21:28.157" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T13:21:28.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27001" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27004" CreationDate="2017-10-13T13:15:07.157" Score="2" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it just &quot;星期四会阴天&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also if you say &quot;Thursday will be cloudy&quot; it translates to &quot;星期四有风”, so do you also say &quot;星期四会有热”？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17139" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T18:02:13.633" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T18:02:13.633" Title="How do you say &quot;Thursday will be cloudy&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26746" CreationDate="2017-10-13T13:15:32.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Standard practice is not to change the tone diacritics to represent tone sandhi. So &lt;code&gt;bù shì&lt;/code&gt; keeps the fourth tone on &lt;code&gt;bù&lt;/code&gt; in spite of the pronunciation as &lt;code&gt;bú shì&lt;/code&gt;. The same applies to the tones on 一 / yī, even though some learners dictionaries diverge from this rule. The rule also applies to third-tone sandhi. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/pronunciation/Tone_change_rules&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tone change rules&lt;/a&gt; in the Chinese Pronunciation Wiki. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T13:15:32.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26988" CreationDate="2017-10-13T13:30:40.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You got it right. '的这个项目’ is redundant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, a better version is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个项目起源于欧洲，最早在瑞典推广。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't have to put 的 at the end of 最早在瑞典推广, because 推广 is used as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;法国西南部的这个地区是干红葡萄酒的产地。&quot; sounds better than &quot;这个法国西南部的地区是干红葡萄酒的产地。&quot; It's because we take 这个地区 as a whole. 法国西南部的 modifies 这个地区.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T13:30:40.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27001" CreationDate="2017-10-13T13:38:34.207" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;thursday will be cloudy&quot; means &quot;星期四（是）阴天&quot; or &quot;星期四（是）多云&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有风 means 'windy', not 'cloudy'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We usually say &quot;星期四（天气）（会）很热”, &quot;星期四有风”, &quot;星期四(是)晴天”， &quot;星期四有雨”， &quot;星期四（可能）（会）下雨” and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T13:43:42.483" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T13:43:42.483" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26977" CreationDate="2017-10-13T15:04:18.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The whole sentences are anything but empty words that often appear in any many interviews.  It is typical &quot;the sportsmen try their best&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just can't tell the reporter that ask stupid question, &quot;shits happens, f*ck off&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T15:04:18.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27006" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27021" CreationDate="2017-10-13T15:26:50.333" Score="1" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some Cangjie codes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;母 = WYI&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每 = OWYI&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;海 = EOWY&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the first two.  The YI encodes 亠 and 丶 which makes sense.  Shouldn't 海 be EOWI instead of EOWY?  OWI would be the first, second, and last codes for 每 the same way a character like 語 (YRMMR) is decomposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11206" LastEditorUserId="11206" LastEditDate="2017-10-14T01:18:23.337" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T01:18:23.337" Title="Why is the Cangjie code for 海 inconsistent?" Tags="&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21433" CreationDate="2017-10-13T16:48:45.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;哥哥 is the real brother of yours. 哥 is much more like  a call for male strangers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18138" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T16:48:45.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27008" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27010" CreationDate="2017-10-13T17:24:37.803" Score="2" ViewCount="523" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am designing a logo for my company, starting from a chinese word (which i am not mentioning not to influence you, i am including it below in a spoiler).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I simplified the ideograms a lot and I wonder if in the process the original meaning was lost:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RNUZ9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RNUZ9.png&quot; alt=&quot;logo from chinese word&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are both versions undestandable?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The second version, the vertical lower one, is very simplified, would a Chinese person be able to read it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is that little stroke on top of the first character needed or can i remove it? It triggers my OCD&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution to the enigma is down here, if possible answer with a spoiler not to influence other commenters! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18140" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T17:59:02.377" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T18:03:57.450" Title="Are these chinese characters understandable?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27008" CreationDate="2017-10-13T17:35:16.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both designs are recognisable. However, for the first one, the &quot;layout&quot; of individual strokes is, IMO, unacceptable for your purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first stroke (the dot) of the first character &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, although it's recognisable, I would suggest you try, using clerical script, bronze script, or small seal script (in sequence) for company logo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T18:00:43.267" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T18:00:43.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27008" CreationDate="2017-10-13T17:38:13.263" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is plain as day that the two characters in both version of the logo are 烏黑 (pitch-black)in native Chinese's eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The top stroke of 烏 doesn't need to touch the frame, but you can't remove it if you want the character to remain legit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Invert the color can make it stand out more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have the option of reducing the four dots at the bottom of both 烏 and 黑 to one straight stroke. That make it more abstract looking. (&lt;em&gt;native Chinese would take a second to recognize the characters, but they will recognize them no doubt&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VAOct.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VAOct.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I was a graphic designer too, I suggest you try different fonts to get different feel. Your current design is basically a seal. I am sure you have more different concepts)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T18:03:57.450" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T18:03:57.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27011" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27222" CreationDate="2017-10-13T17:58:22.653" Score="1" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence &lt;a href=&quot;http://japan.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0927/c35421-29563365.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;from an article on 人民网&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;收费方面，近距离的心理在15千克以下收入2000日元（约合人民币118元），15-25千克收费2500日元（约合人民币147元）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what is the meaning of 心理 here? It means &quot;psychology&quot;, but I don't understand what the &quot;psychology&quot; here mean in this context...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rough translation would be likely something like the follows (excluding the &lt;code&gt;近距离的心理&lt;/code&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Regarding the price, any baggage under 25kg is 2,000 JPY and 15-25kg is 2,500 JPY.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T14:21:15.027" Title="What is the meaning of 心理 in this context?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26999" CreationDate="2017-10-13T18:22:41.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;below is based on my experience only, read it with caution :) btw, the sampling size is 100,000+, over recent decades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;personally, i think that people from &lt;strong&gt;taipei&lt;/strong&gt; have the highest marks in comparison.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;taipei - 100&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pronunciation is crisp, clear, amongst all generations. people are civilised, polite and tolerance to mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rest of taiwan - 97&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with accent, very slightly, others are same as above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i can guess the origins from hearing their mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;native of peking - 95&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pronunciation is clear, just the para-language aspects are inferior to taiwanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;residents of peking have a mixed result, from average to good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;foreigners learning mandarin in peking; errr, they're too &lt;strong&gt;feminine&lt;/strong&gt;. i suspect that the teaching is deliberate, trying to &quot;internalise&quot; a coordinate attitude into the language for foreigners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;shanghai - 90&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with accent, still easy to comprehend, again, the para-language aspects are, aiii, you guess it :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, foreigners learning mandarin in shanghai, too &lt;strong&gt;feminine&lt;/strong&gt; in expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;people from hunan, sichuan and fujian, their mandarin are quite difficult to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the rest, the young generation (20 - 40) are good, older one are poor to average.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you can learn mandarin from a taiwanese colleague, don't miss the chance; you made good karma in the past :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, may i ask, who choose the chinese name for you? it's a very good one for foreigner 　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T18:22:41.800" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26999" CreationDate="2017-10-13T18:54:22.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taiwanese accent are totally OK, easier to understand than half of mainland accents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, Taiwanese accent is the only accent that others can understand beyond the sourth of Yellow River. Thank Chiang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T18:54:22.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27024" CreationDate="2017-10-13T19:02:57.520" Score="3" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between the characters 会 (huì) and 说 (shuō), for example in these simple closed questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你会英文吗？ [Nǐ huì Yīngwén ma?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你说英文吗？ [Nǐ shuō Yīngwén ma?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering since various online resources give both of them as examples of the verb 'to speak' or 'to say' but I want clarification on whether this is correct and if there are any rules on when to use them in different contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18139" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T01:00:18.530" Title="What is the difference between 会 and 说 in 你会英文吗？ vs. 你说英文吗？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27014" CreationDate="2017-10-13T20:00:57.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In spoken language, 吗 at the end and with a rising tone , in most cases, represents a question. Without 吗 at the end but in a rising tone, also is a question. No big difference. But it sounds natural and better with 吗 but not necessary when you ask a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under some particular circumstance, 吗 at the end, read in a little prolonged way, can mean something different. Like a daughter who is pestering her Daddy to buy her some candy might say &quot;爸爸, 给我买些糖吗, 恩, 求求你了吗. &quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There might be other special uses. They have not crossed my mind at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope you like my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4377" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T20:00:57.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26999" CreationDate="2017-10-13T20:05:47.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;taiwanese Chinese sounds pretty lovely just like a lolita pestering her dad to buy some candy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4377" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T20:05:47.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26999" CreationDate="2017-10-13T20:06:04.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This would be the equivalent of asking which English accent is the best, or if one is better than the other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Mandarin is from northern Taiwan, and my Cantonese is from Hong Kong, with a bit of Hakka tossed in. I've been told my speaking voice and mannerism is far more 溫柔 in both Cantonese and Mandarin, compared to my English. I guess it's because I use Chinese at home and English everywhere else. Not having to conduct business meetings in Mandarin makes me much more pleasant to converse with, I'm sure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience with the Taiwanese Mandarin, there is less distinction between 紙 and 子, 詩 and 思, no added 兒, and minimal distinction between 分 and 風. So if I'm speaking to someone from China, I do my best to enunciate, because I naturally don't stress the differences. Some Northerners will laugh at me, while others tell me my Mandarin is easy on the ears, and feminine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most native North American speakers would agree that the generic British English accent is lovely to hear. I've been told my Canadian English accent is charming, but to me, it's just English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really enjoy listening to Mark Rowswell's (aka Dashan) Mandarin. I'd like to have the equivalent of that, in my French, one day when I'm ready to pick it up again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is it &quot;bad&quot; to learn Mandarin from a native Taiwanese Mandarin speaker? If you find her speech and mannerisms to be pleasant, it's not &quot;bad&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T20:06:04.213" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27011" CreationDate="2017-10-13T20:08:59.320" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very obvious, it is mis typing. The editor is rather neglectful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4377" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T20:08:59.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6680" CreationDate="2017-10-13T20:11:19.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;突然 忽然 exactly the same. 忽然 is more for writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4377" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T20:11:19.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26951" CreationDate="2017-10-13T20:48:25.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is probably 连谓短语 where they are both used as verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;称 is only used to specify what exactly someone is saying, though it can be implied that the action of actually saying that has happened. Without it, the following sentence could still only be understood as what she says, but the author may feel it isn't clear enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说明 means to explain, a more specific word than 说, which you may think is implied by 称 (but there might be some subtle differences). So it does contain more information than simply 称. And if something else happens:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小池停止了说明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you can use only 说明 alone, not 称 or 说明称. Omitting 说明 makes it more difficult to express these ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11444" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T20:48:25.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27006" CreationDate="2017-10-13T21:52:44.377" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many rules for the Cangjie input method.&#xA;The one you don't understand thoroughly is the rule of omission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cangjie_input_method&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Omission in enclosed forms&lt;/a&gt;: when part of the character to be decomposed and the form is an enclosed form, only the shape of the enclosure is decomposed; the enclosed forms are omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=%E5%80%89%E9%A0%A1%E8%BC%B8%E5%85%A5%E6%B3%95%2F%E5%8F%96%E7%A2%BC%E5%8E%9F%E5%89%87&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;倉頡輸入法/取碼原則&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 省略大原則&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2 The rule of omission&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2-2 包含省略：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2-2 Omission in enclosed forms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;尾碼被「外框」字根包住，且「外框」尚未被取完時，以「外框」的尾碼取代之。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  When the last code is enclosed by the frame radical and the codes of the frame are not completely taken yet, it is replaced by the last code of the frame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8y7ZH.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8y7ZH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The left and right ends of the &quot;亠&quot; protrude outward, therefore it is counted in the frame.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TuSTQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TuSTQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T21:52:44.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27014" CreationDate="2017-10-13T22:16:42.917" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is exactly what I stuck in at the very early stage of learning Mandarin!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会 is usually used as an auxiliary verb (mean &quot;can&quot;, &quot;will&quot;, etc...) and thus take a verb after that, but it can also function as a verb, to mean &quot;know&quot; or &quot;understand&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why in your example, both mean &quot;Do you speak English?&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you want to use 会 as an auxiliary verb, you can also say &quot;你会说英语吗？&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T22:16:42.917" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27014" CreationDate="2017-10-14T00:00:21.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;会, as a verb, has a lot of meanings. You could interpret 'be able to' in your context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, you'd better add a verb after 会 for this usage in order to be more clear. For example, 我会跳舞（I'm able to dance）；我会手机 is unnatural and vague, it doesn't tell what you are able to do with 手机. So, you could put 我会玩手机，我会使用手机. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in your example, &quot;你会英文吗？&quot;; it doesn't tell whether you 会（be able to） speak or write. People have to guess what you mean according to the context. In order to be more clear, you'd better put &quot;你会讲英文吗？&quot; or &quot;你会写英文吗？&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, when 会 is used as &quot;be able to&quot;, you should put a verb or verb phrase as its target in order to be clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 你说英文吗？, it's kind of a vague question too. It could mean either &quot;are you able to speak English&quot; or &quot;Do you want to speak English&quot; according to the context. So, in order to be more clear, you could put &quot;你会说英文吗？&quot;(are you able to speak English) or &quot;你要 用/讲 英文吗？&quot;(do you want to speak English.). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T00:00:21.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27025" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-14T03:47:28.510" Score="0" ViewCount="559" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have already met this phrase on many occassions, I guess it means a ranking less than the No. 1 boss when it is used in an official title, like常务副校长 is less or lower than 校长.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I read a report made by a local government official at the 14th China-ASEAN Expo, I saw that he mentioned &quot;中国国务院常务副总理张高丽“, but as far as I know, there is no such an official title like that for this man or this post in Chinese Cabinet. But perhaps he wants to make others notice this man is the important person, with a ranking higher than other vice premiers his colleagues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T19:20:28.290" Title="What does 常务 mean in an official title?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16590" CreationDate="2017-10-14T04:02:49.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“穷则变，变则通，通则久” is just the poetic way of saying &quot;变通&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;变通&quot; means be flexible and improvise. Direct translation of each character means; &quot;变&quot; to change, &quot;通&quot; to get through (the problem).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Poetic translation:&#xA;When you are poor (穷) in resources, you will need to innovate with changes (变). Once you got through (通) the problem, your changes will last (久).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18145" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T04:02:49.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27025" CreationDate="2017-10-14T04:52:22.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;常务 is short for 日常/寻常/常规 事务. 常务副校长 is the position who would deal with those 日常/寻常/常规 事务. For more important things you have to go through 校长 or most authoritative group or department.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T04:52:22.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27028" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-14T05:33:13.287" Score="3" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can this 倒 be omitted in this sentence? Does it work together with 也？ Is it some kind of passive marker?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Edit: This was the previous sentence:&#xA;如果我们的主席也正好在华盛顿的话，我想他会感觉到非常自豪的，能有这么好的中午餐提供给华盛顿这些首脑。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在我们也倒没有透露我们到底为哪个峰会准备这个午宴。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Made a mistake copying; it should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在也倒没有透露我们到底为哪个峰会准备这个午宴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate '也倒没有透露' as 'we still don't know', although it is really more like '(they) still have not revealed to us' which is passive as far as '我们' are concerned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T09:22:44.357" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T09:22:44.357" Title="What does 倒 mean in 现在也倒没有透露我们到底为哪个峰会准备这个午宴?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27028" CreationDate="2017-10-14T06:32:27.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without 倒, it is a statement describing a basic fact.&#xA;With 倒, it implies that we should have have or hoped to have revealed ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4377" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T06:32:27.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27028" CreationDate="2017-10-14T07:28:03.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no passive marker in the sentence. Purely from this one sentence, it means that &quot;we&quot; know the fact (who we are preparing lunch for) and &quot;we&quot; didn't reveal the fact to others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel &quot;倒&quot; here should imply &quot;at least&quot;, or &quot;although&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At least/Althogh we haven't revealed who we are preparing lunch for ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T07:28:03.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27028" CreationDate="2017-10-14T09:42:21.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;倒 is such a tricky word! I don't think(at least from I know) we have an English equivalent for it. The closest translation to English I think is &quot;Well, (that one is different) ...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think about this dialogue: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 可以吸烟吗？    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 不可以。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 可以喝酒吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 不可以 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 那吃东西也不行了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 这个倒没有限制。(Well, that might be ok.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, 倒没有 is usually used, when a serial of questions has been asked/talked about, and at some point the questioner asks the very question which he would expect the same kind of answer but the replier knows it would be a bit surprise(to the questioner) because his answer would be reverse(倒) from those answers he had given previously. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this case, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在我们也倒没有透露我们到底为哪个峰会准备这个午宴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There could be some other things that have been discussed in the previous context. After they have confirmed (or answered yes to) those things, and when comes to this one, they reversed the tone(倒没有) because they want to give a heads-up that this answer would be different from those previous ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I would think 倒 in this context is expressing the idea &quot;heads-up! the tone/answer is reversed&quot;. Or compared with the previous answers, this one is reversed(倒过来了).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more tricky part is 也 in the sentence, implying there could be another previous question which has a reversed answer already. So, this one is the second one and that's why 也 is being used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Updates after thinking a bit deeper(which I think this question deserves):&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word 倒 is used when the speaker feel it's necessary to reverse the tone. This could be because of following reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the tone is consistent for the preceding questions and at some point it changes. This is like the virtual example above. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the speaker feels his answer would be the exact reversed from what his listeners expect. The OP's example could fall into this reason. 现在也倒没有透露我们到底为哪个峰会准备这个午宴。It implies that the speakers feel that normally people would think they've already revealed 我们到底为哪个峰会准备这个午宴, but reversely they have not. This reason could just be the speaker's assumption(Maybe, it doesn't matter if it's true). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It could be a matter of idiolect. Some would use it casually without thinking that deep of the usage, especially in spoken. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-15T01:44:21.253" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T01:44:21.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27033" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27043" CreationDate="2017-10-14T10:46:41.510" Score="3" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, there are too many words to express &quot;if&quot;. Here is a brief list of such words, as far as I recall:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;如果&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;如&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;假如&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;只要&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;即便&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;要说&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some words such as 尽管 have different meanings, such as &quot;although&quot;. In these cases I understand the difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if these words just mean &quot;if&quot; in English, is there any difference on the usage and context where some of these words are appropriate while others are not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T23:33:33.400" Title="What is the difference among many &quot;if&quot; words?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27033" CreationDate="2017-10-14T11:15:20.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;即便，即使，mean the clause following the words is not true at least to the speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果，如，要是，假如 is just same but with different style, where 要是usually appears in speech，如果 and 假如 usually appears in writting， 假如 and 如 is more likely to appears in writting, it is shorthand of 如果 or 假如。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要 just expresses a sufficient condition without supposition where 如果，如，要是，假如 imply supposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要说 almost usually expresses true fact ，a case among several situations which may have happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T11:15:20.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27028" CreationDate="2017-10-14T11:18:50.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means but, which expresses the fact is not what people usually think of, or is different from what people suppose to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T11:18:50.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27036" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27039" CreationDate="2017-10-14T13:02:40.917" Score="0" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/9DBw6gN05Dc?t=99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the lyrics of a Chinese translation of the song&lt;/a&gt; &quot;Dana Dana (דאַנאַ דאַנאַ)&quot;/&quot;Dos Kelbl (דאָס קעלבל)&quot;, we find the line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;藍天高高雲兒飄飄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I presume that &quot;&lt;strong&gt;雲&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (&lt;code&gt;ㄩㄣˊ&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;yún&lt;/code&gt;) stands for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;clouds&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in this context, but then how to translate &quot;&lt;strong&gt;雲兒&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; as a whole please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T14:28:56.120" Title="How to translate &quot;雲兒&quot; into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27037" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27041" CreationDate="2017-10-14T14:16:46.690" Score="-2" ViewCount="979" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the question &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/1213#1213&quot;&gt;Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, there is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1213/16003&quot;&gt;an answer which lists some &lt;strong&gt;Newspapers&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and in particular mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;纽约时报中文网 &lt;em&gt;[紐約時報中文網]&lt;/em&gt; - New York Times - displays articles as English-Chinese parallel text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the top of the mentioned Chinese-conscious website of The New York Times (&lt;a href=&quot;https://cn.nytimes.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://cn.nytimes.com/&lt;/a&gt;), one can switch between &quot;&lt;strong&gt;简体&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (simplified characters) and &quot;&lt;strong&gt;繁體&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (traditional characters). It works as expected when viewing the articles in Chinese-only mode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But ... when entering the dual side-by-side English-Chinese parallel mode (once you find an article of interest, one can do so by adding &lt;code&gt;/dual/&lt;/code&gt; trailing to the URL, or simply click on &quot;&lt;strong&gt;中英对照&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;), all of the characters switch to &quot;&lt;strong&gt;简体&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (simplified characters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anything I am missing here, or is this really a technical issue/bug? Is there no way to show the parallel English-Chinese version of the article with &quot;&lt;strong&gt;繁體&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (traditional characters)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastEditorUserId="16003" LastEditDate="2017-10-14T14:24:40.200" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T23:39:54.097" Title="The New York Times - English-Chinese side-by-side bug? No 繁體 traditional characters in parallel mode?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27037" CreationDate="2017-10-14T14:16:46.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Work-around ...&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is really overseen by The New York Times, one could convert the characters into Traditional Characters using Google Translate, or another translator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just paste the '&lt;code&gt;.../dual/&lt;/code&gt;'-URL of interest into the text-field at Google Translate using the options: &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/zh-TW/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;from &lt;strong&gt;Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; into &lt;strong&gt;Traditional Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, after doing so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cn.nytimes.com/world/20171013/india-buddhist-muslim-marriage/dual/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://cn.nytimes.com/world/20171013/india-buddhist-muslim-marriage&lt;code&gt;/dual/&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;will become&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&amp;amp;tl=zh-TW&amp;amp;u=ttps://cn.nytimes.com/world/20171013/india-buddhist-muslim-marriage/dual/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&amp;amp;tl=zh-TW&amp;amp;u=&lt;/code&gt;ttps://cn.nytimes.com/world/20171013/india-buddhist-muslim-marriage&lt;code&gt;/dual/&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;... or boycott until fixed&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is too much a hassle, until The New York Times fixes this glitch, one can switch to another newspaper such as FT中文網 (FT中文网) - The Financial Times. To read an article in side-by-side English-Chinese parallel mode, just add &lt;code&gt;/ce&lt;/code&gt; to the main part of the URL. As in e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://big5.ftchinese.com/story/001074653/ce&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://big5.ftchinese.com/story/001074653/&lt;code&gt;ce&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; The site allows you to choose between Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters (currently at the utmost top-left) without a glitch: simply change &quot;&lt;strong&gt;简体中文&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (meaning simplified Chinese characters) into &quot;&lt;strong&gt;繁體中文&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (meaning traditional Chinese characters) or vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastEditorUserId="16003" LastEditDate="2017-10-14T23:39:54.097" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T23:39:54.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27036" CreationDate="2017-10-14T14:28:56.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;兒&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/90/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/90/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[4] final particle / suffix, placed after many commonly used nouns to avoid employing one-syllable terms in speech (very common in the Beijing dialect 北京話, see: 兒化, 兒化韻)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;藍天高高雲兒飄飄&quot; --&gt; &quot;High, high blue sky, little cloud float around&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary only mentioned 兒 can be used as a suffix, placed after many commonly used nouns to avoid employing one-syllable terms in speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, adding the 兒 suffix to an object, can also humanize the object. For example, calling a goat '羊兒' or '羊羊' instead of '羊' give it a hint of youthful, human character. (like in typical baby talk)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T14:28:56.120" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27040" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27042" CreationDate="2017-10-14T20:28:10.310" Score="2" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tested my simple translation skills and searched for an example English complex sentence on the internet...can someone judge my translation of this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Although I like to go camping, I haven't had time to go recently, and have nobody to go with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然 我喜欢去露营, 我不没时间去最近 还有我没有有人去跟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Corrections (grammar, word order, word choice) very much appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18139" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-09T00:55:25.200" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T00:55:25.200" Title="Verify/correct my sentence: 虽然 我喜欢去露营, 我不没时间去最近 还有我没有有人去跟。" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27037" CreationDate="2017-10-14T20:43:57.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An easy way to work around: install the extension, 新同文堂 (New Tong Wen Tang), for your browser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After clicking on &quot;中英对照&quot; on the web page, you then click the &quot;繁&quot; button in the 新同文堂 toolbar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use this extension to switch between SC and TC for any Chinese web pages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you open the text documents in your hard disk with the browser, you can convert them too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend all the Chinese learners installing this extension.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T20:43:57.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27040" CreationDate="2017-10-14T21:25:06.610" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;When a sentence is started with a 虽然 (although), it is always followed by a &quot;but&quot; (但, 但是, 不过, 可是)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然 我喜欢去露营 &lt;strong&gt;但&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Unlike in English, time is mentioned at the beginning of a clause, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然 我喜欢去露营 但 &lt;strong&gt;最近&lt;/strong&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Most of the time, the subject 我 only need to be mentioned once in a sentence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然 我喜欢去露营 但 最近&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;我不没时间去&lt;/em&gt; - '不没' is a 'double negative'- delete '不'  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然 我喜欢去露营 但 最近 &lt;strong&gt;没&lt;/strong&gt;时间去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;却  usually follows 但 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然 我喜欢去露营 &lt;strong&gt;但&lt;/strong&gt; 最近 &lt;strong&gt;却&lt;/strong&gt;没时间去,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;还有我没有有人跟&lt;/em&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is correct that 还有 means &quot;also/ and&quot; but in this case, use '也' make better connection between clauses in the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;omit 我&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;跟 (with) should follow by the subject and verb [go &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; me]=[&lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt;我去]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;没有人&lt;strong&gt;跟我去&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Correct grammar&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;虽然 我喜欢去露营 但 最近 却没时间去, 也没有人跟我去。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simplify&lt;/strong&gt;: (You only need the verb '去' once)(没有 can reduced to 没)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;虽然 我喜欢露营 但 最近 却没时间, 也没人跟我去。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-14T23:28:30.263" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T23:28:30.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27033" CreationDate="2017-10-14T23:33:33.400" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;如果: simply means 'if'. For example, 如果我知道，我就会告诉你。 If I knew it, I    would tell you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;如： is short for 例如, meaning 'for example', 'like' or 'as'. It's used    when you give some examples. For example (如)： 手字可以和很多字组词，如：手机.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;假如: supposing or in case. For example: 假如生活欺骗了你, in case/supposing    life deceived you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;只要: only if or as long as. For example: 只要你做完工作就可以走了。You could go as long as you finish the work.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;即便: even if/even though. For example: 即便是老板，我也不怕。 Even though he is    the boss, I wouldn't fear.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;要说: as for; want to say something; For example, 要说他这个人，没人知道。As for    this person, no one knows. 我没有什么要说。 There is nothing I want to say.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T23:33:33.400" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27044" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27045" CreationDate="2017-10-15T02:27:37.080" Score="5" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know both 道 and 路 mean &quot;road, highway&quot;, but I am always confused which one to use in a certain condition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, since &quot;highway&quot; in Chinese language is 公路. Is it more logical to call &quot;National Highway&quot; &quot;国路&quot;? Maybe I am missing something here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T17:40:21.173" Title="Why is China National Highway called &quot;国道&quot;, instead of &quot;国路&quot;?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27044" CreationDate="2017-10-15T02:45:53.070" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The common term is 国道 for national highway, which would be across the provinces or cities. another term is 高速 short for 高速公路， which is also highway across the provinces. The difference between 国道 and 高速 is the speed limit, speed limit on 高速 is typical 120km/hour, and 国道 typical 80 or 100km/hour. 国道 has traffic lights, while 高速 doesn't have it. You have to pay money for driving on 高速, while you won't pay money for 国道.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for ‘why not 国路’, I don't have a good reason for it. It's just a convention I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Within the city, we call it &quot;高架&quot; or &quot;高架桥&quot;， for example, 沪闵高架 in Shanghai. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T02:45:53.070" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27046" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-15T03:01:58.313" Score="3" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the dictionary, it seems that the word for &quot;dice&quot; in Mandarin is either &quot;骰子&quot;, pronounced &quot;tóu zi&quot;, or &quot;色子&quot;, pronounced &quot;shǎi zi&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, the character for dice is pronounced &quot;sik1&quot; (Jyutping), and apparently written &quot;骰&quot;, according to the written Cantonese sources I can find, which is odd because something pronounced as &quot;tóu&quot; in Mandarin would normally be pronounced as &quot;tau4&quot; in Cantonese. Curiously, the character &quot;色&quot; is pronounced as &quot;sik1&quot; in Cantonese, so it would seem to fit better if &quot;sik1&quot; were actually written as &quot;色&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some connection between the Cantonese pronunciation &quot;sik1&quot; and the character &quot;色&quot; and/or the Mandarin pronunciation of &quot;shǎi&quot;? Or is it just some coincidence with no underlying connection?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5978" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T00:39:04.030" Title="Character for dice in Cantonese" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27046" CreationDate="2017-10-15T03:13:53.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;骰&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/3676/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/3676/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;dice&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;jyuping: /sik1/ ; /tau4 /&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pinyin: /tou2 /&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jyutping tau4 is literary reading ; sik1 is colloquial. The latter one is much more common in usage.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, 骰 in Mandarin has only one reading (tou2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese,  the literary (tou2) and colloquial reading (sik1) of 骰 are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;色(color) and 骰(dice) are just homographs that share the same reading /sik1/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I have never heard any Cantonese read 骰 as /tau4/ in my life.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-10-15T07:14:21.740" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T07:14:21.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25462" CreationDate="2017-10-15T05:32:52.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only with your arms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;揽客(wave your arms , or pull others)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;揽在怀里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T05:32:52.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27044" CreationDate="2017-10-15T05:57:25.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;路: path&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陆路(path on the ground)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水路(path on river)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;海路(path on sea)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天路(path to heaven, special one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;死路(path to die)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;活路(path to live)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生路(path to survive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;道: way&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水道(waterway)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天道(nature law)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大道(boulevard, major/main way/road)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大路(clear path, main road)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T05:57:25.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27050" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-15T11:44:30.007" Score="0" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a regular listener of car radio, I notice that in recent weather reports of the national radio of China, a new phrase 增水 is used to describe the rainfall, e.g., 台风卡努将会为海南带来100毫米增水, but if it was in the past, the same would be 降水. So what is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-06-20T14:13:35.580" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T14:13:35.580" Title="What is the difference between 降水 and 增水?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27040" CreationDate="2017-10-15T12:02:20.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I like to go camping, &#xA;尽管我很喜欢露营，&#xA;I haven't had time to go recently,&#xA;但是我最近都没有时间去，&#xA;and have nobody to go with&#xA;而且也没有人陪我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T12:02:20.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27044" CreationDate="2017-10-15T13:42:05.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;道&quot; is bigger than &quot;路&quot; normally in Chinese. such as &quot;康庄大道&quot;, &quot;死路一条&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18150" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T13:42:05.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27050" CreationDate="2017-10-15T13:53:41.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They refer to different things. 降水 means rainfall; but 增水 means 风暴增水(风暴潮) here, from which coastal cities&#xA;might suffer. e.g. from this news &lt;a href=&quot;http://hi.people.com.cn/n2/2017/1015/c231190-30831299.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;台风“卡努”：海口今夜至明晨将出现风暴增水&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人民网讯 受台风“卡努”外围环流影响，近三小时，海口全市普降小到中雨，最大累积雨量出现在新埠岛13.8毫米。10月15日潮位：最高潮在上午11点53分，是2.27米，最低潮在凌晨零点51分，是0.82米。预计今天夜间到明天凌晨，海口一带沿岸将出现80～150cm的风暴增水。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A3%8E%E6%9A%B4%E6%BD%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;风暴增水/风暴潮&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;风暴潮或称暴潮（英语：storm surge）是由热带气旋、温带气旋、冷锋的强风作用和气压骤变等强烈的天气系统引起的海面异常升降现象，又称“风暴增水”、“风暴海啸”、“气象海啸”或“风潮”。风暴潮会使受到影响的海区的潮位大大地超过正常。如果风暴潮恰好与影响海区涨潮相重叠，就会使水位暴涨，海水涌进内陆，造成巨大破坏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A storm surge or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low pressure weather systems (such as tropical cyclones and strong extratropical cyclones), the severity of which is affected by the shallowness and orientation of the water body relative to storm path, as well as the timing of tides. Most casualties during tropical cyclones occur as the result of storm surges. It is a measure of the rise of water beyond what would be expected by the normal movement related to tides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two main meteorological factors contributing to a storm surge are a long fetch of winds spiraling inward toward the storm, and a low-pressure-induced dome of water drawn up under and trailing the storm's center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T14:15:01.583" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27044" CreationDate="2017-10-15T16:33:21.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of names coming from Japan in the course of modernisation of China. Chinese characters are common treasure in the East Asia and it is very easy to share idea among East Asian states.  Japan government picks the name 國道 for the national highway / expressway of Japan, and Taiwan (ROC) and China (PRC) follows. It is similar to numbered highways in the United States and Great Britain road numbering scheme. You might expected 國道 is funded by nation. Japan prefixes name with 國 to represent the mandatory or establishment of nation, for example, 國語 (national language) and 國立 (national establishment). China borrows this idea well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公路 means public road and it is not necessary highway or expressway. But with the advance of technology it now become the synonym of modern highway and expressway. Chinese does not name it 公道 as 公道 has another meaning in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T16:33:21.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27057" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27071" CreationDate="2017-10-15T20:30:47.960" Score="0" ViewCount="620" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the radicals that make up the character &quot;地&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just from looking at it, it looks like &quot;土&quot; and &quot;也&quot; but &quot;也&quot; is a word not a radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=1&amp;amp;wdqt=%E5%9C%B0%E7%90%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; also has this  break down, and in turn breaks &quot;也&quot; down to the &quot;line&quot; radical (&quot;丨&quot;) and &quot;乜&quot; but as far as I can tell and also according to MDBG, &quot;乜&quot; isn't a radical or made up of radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To return to my question: What are the radicals that make up the character &quot;地&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context to this is that I have just started using mnemonic stories to help me learn new words and their characters. This question has come up with 地球, which means &quot;Earth&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current mnenomic story uses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;地: soil, &quot;also&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;球: king, demand&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so I have, &quot;the soil was also the king's demand&quot;. But I'd rather use the canonical radicals and learn things properly!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18152" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T23:37:22.057" Title="What are the radicals that make up 地?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2017-10-15T22:20:13.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have a look here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com/bushou.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zhongwen.com/bushou.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where it says pinyin, enter ye then press the button with o&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T22:20:13.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27059" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-16T03:35:53.260" Score="2" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I was the translator, the title should be 《朋友们》or 《好朋友》or 《哥儿们姐儿们》. Why was it 《老友记》? And what does the word 记 mean in such a phrase? Could it mean a record/diary of old friends? Is it the same with a drama of China 《红灯记》?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T05:52:28.550" Title="Why is the American TV Drama &quot;Friends&quot; translated into 《老友记》?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27059" CreationDate="2017-10-16T04:37:03.467" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title &quot;Friends/ 老友記&quot; is most likely translated by Hong Kong Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;老友 means 'old friend' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;記 means 'brand' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老友/ &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/35448/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;老友記&lt;/a&gt;  is a colloquial Cantonese term that means &quot;old friends&quot; or &quot;good friends&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;老友 can also be used as an adjective for &quot;friendly&quot; For example, &quot;無端端同佢咁老友?&quot; (Be so friendly with him for no reason?)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Using 記 to form a nickname is very common in Hong Kong Cantonese,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The nickname for &quot;香港&lt;strong&gt;廉&lt;/strong&gt;政公署&quot; (Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption) is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;廉記&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (the 'incorrupt' brand)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The nickname for &quot;有組織罪案及三合會調查科&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;O&lt;/strong&gt;rganized Crime and Triad Bureau) is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;O 記&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; ( the 'O' brand)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a person is named  &quot;陳家強&quot;, his common nickname could be &quot;小強&quot; or &quot;老陳&quot; in Mandarin and &quot;&lt;strong&gt;強記&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;  or &quot;阿陳&quot; in Hong Kong Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Friends&quot; is a comedy, and the colloquial term 老友記 carries an informal (casual ; relax) tone, which fits the series very well; On the other hand, the literal term &quot;朋友們&quot; sounds too formal, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interpret 老友&lt;strong&gt;記&lt;/strong&gt;  as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;journal&lt;/strong&gt; of good friends' would sound too formal for a sitcom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-16T05:52:28.550" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T05:52:28.550" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27059" CreationDate="2017-10-16T05:01:48.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;记 here literally means record, you can often see it in story names, XX记 = story of XX.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;such as 西游记,&#xA;and the original name of 红楼梦 is 石头记, story of a stone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translating is not always word-for-word, I guess 老友记 may be more attractive than 朋友们 as a TV Drama name. BTW Friends has several different translations, another one is 六人行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastEditorUserId="18144" LastEditDate="2017-10-16T05:15:13.673" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T05:15:13.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2017-10-16T05:11:08.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;as what you describe ,i guess you have already known that &quot;地&quot; is only made up by  left part and right part，and the right part should be as the whole part which cannot be divided.&#xA;so how to remember ,only practice ,practice and practice. &#xA;however, what i will tell you is that chinese charactor writing has 6 basic &quot;drawing&quot;(we call &quot;bihua笔画&quot;): [1:一(heng /横)]、[2:丨(shu \竖)]、[3:丿(pie v撇)]、[4:丶(na \捺)or (xie / 斜)]、[5: (zhe /折or wan -弯)] and [6:(gou -钩)or （ti / 提）]&#xA;then 4:丶(na ) has two kinds:short(also call &quot;dian v 点&quot;(dot in english)) and long.&#xA;5: (zhe /) and 6:(gou -) should be combited with  [1:一(heng /)] OR [2:丨(shu )].&#xA;such as :1+5 we call hengzhe(),2+5 we call shuzhe()，2+6 we call shuti()or shugou(亅),1+6 we call henggou(乛), 5+6:wangou(㇁),2+5+6:shuwangou(乚);1+5+6:hengzhegou横折钩（㇆）、1+5+5+6:hengzhewangou横折弯钩（㇈、乙）、2+5+5+6:shuzhezhegou竖折折钩（㇉）、hengzhezhezhegou横折折折钩（）、hengpiewangou横撇弯钩（㇌）、shuwan竖弯（㇄）、hengzhezhe横折折（㇅）、hengzheti横折提（㇊）、hengpie横撇（㇇、フ）、hengzhezhepie横折折撇（㇋）、shuzhepie竖折撇（ㄣ）、shuzhezhe竖折折（）、piedian撇点（）、piezhe撇折（）、zhengzhezhezhe横折折折（㇎），xiegou斜钩（㇂）,hengxiegou横斜钩（⺄）&#xA;these are almost inclueded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so let us back to your question , how to remember? for 地，you know its radical is 土，writing and read ： heng一shu丨ti/(ti is the deformation of heng which has the 45 angle),hengzhegou㇆,shu丨,shuwangou(乚).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ok,just write and read and practice. you will remember all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;more about “bihua”:&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%AC%94%E7%94%BB/3040863&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%AC%94%E7%94%BB/3040863&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18149" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-10-16T05:42:47.767" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T05:42:47.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27059" CreationDate="2017-10-16T05:31:43.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;there are 3 principles in translating：in chinese we call 信达雅：信&#xA;means the translating should be right first ,then 达，which means the sentence should be fluency,last 雅，which means the sentence should be beautiful and graceful .so 信is easy to us,达is more difficult and 雅 is most difficult. As the friends to be 老友记，maybe you will have your own opinion whether it is good or not based on the above three principles .记in the title of a book usually means the story of...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18149" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T05:31:43.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27065" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27068" CreationDate="2017-10-16T05:43:35.343" Score="3" ViewCount="418" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I need a taxi, I need to say “打的” instead of &quot;打车&quot;。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the meaning of &quot;的&quot;？How to understand &quot;的&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When can I use it?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17807" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-16T18:46:36.083" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T18:50:22.267" Title="what's mean of &quot;打的&quot;？ How to understand &quot;的&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27065" CreationDate="2017-10-16T05:51:03.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I remember right, the word is borrowed from Cantonese at 80s. Then it gradually be accepted by the other areas in China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18153" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T05:51:03.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2017-10-16T05:53:49.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;地 = 土 + 也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to some researches, 也 means vagina in 甲骨文.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《説文解字》：也，女陰也。象形。秦刻石也字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That makes sense, earth is mother of nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;球 = 玉(originally) + 求&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Handiwork of a ball of jade&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T05:53:49.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27065" CreationDate="2017-10-16T05:55:36.487" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;打车&quot;. Whether to use &quot;打的&quot; or &quot;打车&quot; might be only personal/regional preference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 的 is pronounced as di1&lt;sup&gt;[1]&lt;/sup&gt; , and it shorten from &quot;的士&quot; which means taxi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently I can think of only a few words which uses this meaning of &quot;的&quot;: 打的, 的士, 的哥(male taxi driver), etc。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] My dictionary says the pronunciation is di2. While in everyday life (in Beijing), what I hear and use is di1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T05:55:36.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27065" CreationDate="2017-10-16T05:56:33.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;打的 means 打的士, 的士 is transliteration for taxi in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mainland, we call 打车.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T05:56:33.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27065" CreationDate="2017-10-16T06:00:07.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is short for 的士, and 的士 is the translation of taxi in pronounce, which comes from Cantonese. The original should be 搭车 or 搭的士. When it comes to mainland China, 搭 changes to 打, so if you need a taxi, you just say 打的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say 打车, we can also understand you need a taxi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18149" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-16T18:50:22.267" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T18:50:22.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2017-10-16T06:17:33.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;地, the radical is 土.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is made up of two parts, 土 and 也.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is 形声字（&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Phono-semantic compound characters&lt;/a&gt;）, which means it is made up of two parts, one shows it meaning, the other shows its sound. According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/sw/5730.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;说文解字 tab in zdic&lt;/a&gt;, 也 is the sound part, though 也 and 地 sound very differently now:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;元气初分，輕清陽爲天，重濁陰爲地。萬物所陳也。&lt;strong&gt;从土也聲&lt;/strong&gt;。墬，籒文地从■。徒内切〖注〗埊、■、嶳、埅，亦古文地。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;■ is a character that cannot be displayed here. Please check the site of zdic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;球 is also a 形声字. The 王 part (which is the radical) carries the meaning, which was originally 玉 (jade), and the 求 part carries the sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T06:17:33.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13209" CreationDate="2017-10-16T11:29:37.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those puns are mainly slang. People online use words of similar pronunciation to replace an one word when chatting online, therefore puns are formed. But if you check up with a dictionary, the pronunciation is not changed.&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;1. Pronunciation still matters. Having more slang does not mean that people no longer value pronunciation. If you pronounce a word wrongly, which is different from he original word and the pun, people may have difficulty understanding you as Chinese is a language with a lot of words of same sound.&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;2. There used to be a lot of different languages in China. But now everyone speaks Mandarin so I don't hink people are more custom to accents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18157" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T11:29:37.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27025" CreationDate="2017-10-16T15:02:43.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This term &quot;常务&quot; is originally from a Japanese term &quot;常務取締役&quot;. The Chinese and Korean are still using the direct translation. For Chinese, it's &quot;常务董事&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an organization, the &quot;常务&quot; is more like &quot;Executive&quot;. As the title suggests, they need to participate the daily operation of the organization rather than just providing dispassionate and objective criticism. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since &quot;常务&quot; seems closer to an organization from &quot;someone within an organization&quot;'s perspective. So usually &quot;常务&quot; rank higher than normal vice-title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastEditorUserId="16891" LastEditDate="2017-10-16T19:20:28.290" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T19:20:28.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26998" CreationDate="2017-10-16T15:11:52.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't provide an exact answer. I think that all depends on how well that person can type Simplified Chinese - since Pinyin input is the most popular input method for Simplified Chinese currently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience, if your friends always response in traditional Chinese, and she's like 30+ years old, I am sure she's probably not good at Pinyin/Unwilling to use Pinyin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, &lt;strong&gt;no matter she uses Pinyin or Bopomofo, that's only the ways of typing. That won't affect the communication as long as you know both Simplified/Tradition Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;.  But if you need phonetics to learn, you may have difficulty. At that case, you'd better leverage the online Dictionary tool like yellowbridge.com or even YouTube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Learning phonetics or pronunciation with Bopomofo seems less efficient&lt;/strong&gt; to me since all modern Chinese dictionaries provide pronunciation in Pingyin in general. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a blog &lt;a href=&quot;http://yolanda1206.pixnet.net/blog/post/12351523-%E6%B3%A8%E9%9F%B3%E7%AC%A6%E8%99%9Fvs%E6%BC%A2%E8%AA%9E%E6%8B%BC%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt;, we can tell even in Taiwan, &lt;strong&gt;people start teaching Pinyin over Bopomofo. According to her view, Pinyin is more friendly to a new learner.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you learn Simplified Chinese, I would definitely recommend Pinyin&lt;/strong&gt;. I tried to learn Bopomofo myself but I found it difficult. &lt;strong&gt;From my point of view, the language itself should be a tool, not a purpose.(Unless you have an academic study purpose)&lt;/strong&gt;     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastEditorUserId="16891" LastEditDate="2017-10-18T19:46:54.190" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T19:46:54.190" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26998" CreationDate="2017-10-16T15:23:13.977" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not very well known. I lived in Taiwan for a year in 2015, and there were times where I had asked a few Taiwan natives to type words I couldn't understand on my phone. When they saw my phone keyboard input, which was pinyin, they couldn't understand it. Almost all Taiwanese still use bopomofo to type Chinese on their phones. Honestly you don't have to learn bopomofo. Pinyin is easier to learn and the majority of Chinese speakers use it. Just focus on using pinyin, memorizing characters, and speaking to Chinese speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11006" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T15:23:13.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27076" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27095" CreationDate="2017-10-16T18:44:48.323" Score="1" ViewCount="541" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;经常有人问“一天应该吃几个鸡蛋”，其实这个没有固定答案，要根据自己的饮食结构&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;整体分析。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel the sentence means something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;People often ask &quot;How many eggs should people eat a day?&quot;, but actually it doesn't have a fixed answer. The answer must be analyzed by each person's eating habits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the last sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;要根据自己的饮食结构来整体分析。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel the verb here is 来 (or maybe 要 or 分析...?). But I don't understand how it functions grammatically here and hence what it means. Is this use of 来 something special on the grammatical aspect? Is this &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Using_%22lai%22_as_a_dummy_verb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;what is treated as a dummy verb&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any link to the explanation of the use of 来 in this case shall be welcomed as well...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T10:47:36.823" Title="The grammatical component of 来 in this sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13209" CreationDate="2017-10-16T19:04:59.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To focus on the pronunciation aspect of this question:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am an American living in Shanghai, my mandarin is early intermediate at best, and I'm very poor with implementing tones, consequently, I get stares and non-replies more often than not because the citizens do not understand what I'm saying.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So YES, as with any language, if your accent (or poor comprehension of pronunciation) is way off, people will have a hard time understanding what you are saying.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To add to what was said about the internet 'speech', it is also done to avoid the monitors who are looking for controversial dialogue so they can curtail it.  It's just a good habit to be in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18159" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T19:04:59.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27076" CreationDate="2017-10-16T19:30:15.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;来&amp;quot; here functions as the preposition &amp;quot;to&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/to&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;to&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2--(a)used as a function word to indicate purpose, intention, tendency, result, or end&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2--(b) used as a function word to indicate the result of an action or a process&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The intention of '根据自己的饮食结构' is to '整体分析'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The role of '来' in  [&lt;strong&gt;根据&lt;/strong&gt;(...)&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;(...)] is the same as [&lt;strong&gt;base on&lt;/strong&gt; (....)&lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt;(...)] in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;根据&lt;/strong&gt;(体重)&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;(分级)] = [&lt;strong&gt;base on&lt;/strong&gt; (weight) &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; (divide classes)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;(数目大小)&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;(定胜负)] = [&lt;strong&gt;according to&lt;/strong&gt; (size of of the number) &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; (decide winner and loser)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;用&lt;/strong&gt;(重武器)&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;(攻击)] = [&lt;strong&gt;use&lt;/strong&gt; (heavy weapon) &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; (attack)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all the examples above, the preposition '来' can be omitted in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;根据体重分级 ; 以数目大小定胜负; 用重武器来攻击&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For longer clause like the one in your question, '来' is needed to separate the two clauses [根据(自己的饮食结构)来(整体分析)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T20:21:09.590" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27076" CreationDate="2017-10-16T23:32:52.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know what language you normally speak.  In German, we have exactly the same usage of ‘来’and '去'. These are the words 'her', pronounced like English 'hair' and 'hin'. They correspond exactly to this kind of use of '来' or '去'. It is therefore very easy for Germans to understand this structure and usage. Maybe you have the same usage in your language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This '来’is 'from'. Not really a contradiction of Tang Ho. If you think of 2 points, A and B, and something moves from A to B, then, depending on whether the observer is standing at A or B, the thing 'moves from 动来' or 'moves to 动去'. This is 'her' or 'hin', '来' or '去'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经常有人问“一天应该吃几个鸡蛋”，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;People often ask, &quot;How many eggs should a person eat in one day&quot;,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;其实这个没有固定答案，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;actually there is no fixed answer,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;要根据自己的饮食结构来整体分析。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;one should analyse this question according to one's whole dietary structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Modern English, I would not translate this '来' or it gets too wordy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one should analyse this question according to and from (=来） the point of view of one's whole dietary structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In German, on the other hand, I would translate this '来', because we use 'her' a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;man sollte diese Frage von der ganzen Diätstruktur her (von ... her = 来) untersuchen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another common example, easy to see that '从 。。。。来' is 'from' and it corresponds neatly with German 'von ... her' (both of which mean 'from' on their own). Chinese uses '在 。。。。中’and many similar structures where English just uses 'in':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;试着从我的角度来看这件事。&#xA;Try to look at this from my point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T23:32:52.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27076" CreationDate="2017-10-17T00:57:23.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;来is a structural auxiliaries , usually be used between two verbs . the former verb is to describe method/attitude/etc. and the latter verb is purpose.&#xA;back to this sentence, 要（verb）｛根据自己的饮食结构method｝来整体分析(Verb).verb（method）+来+verb（purpose） another example:我能用(Verb)什么办法来帮助(V)你呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18149" LastEditorUserId="18149" LastEditDate="2017-10-17T01:05:01.103" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T01:05:01.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26880" CreationDate="2017-10-17T03:00:19.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several expressions which could fit the context. However, since I'm not a linguist, I'm not sure how to precisely describe the grammar here.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have played this game earlier.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我最近/刚刚玩过这款游戏。(Choose &quot;刚刚&quot; if it happened just minutes or an hour ago, choose &quot;最近&quot; if it was days ago)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your earlier words are correct.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你先前/早先/刚才的话是对的。(If it was just moments ago, both are correct. Otherwise, choose &quot;先前/早先&quot; instead of &quot;刚才&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T03:00:19.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26525" CreationDate="2017-10-17T03:06:05.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“美容” is the best translation I can find in your context.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Literally, it means &quot;beautify faces&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T03:06:05.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26524" CreationDate="2017-10-17T03:21:56.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can be described as an abstract being, or, colloquially, just a &quot;thing&quot;. According to the Taoism philosophy, this &quot;thing&quot; is the root of everything of the present day. Because of this, it must be a mix of everything, and should be a perfect being.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;混 and 成 should be two attributes of the &quot;thing&quot;: 混 means &quot;mixed&quot;, and 成 should be &quot;perfect/complete&quot;. Since it's a mix of Everything and it's a perfect, omnipotent existence, it becomes the root of everything in the world.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;BTW, I think both translations are very straightforward and clear. Perhaps the only difficulty for you is that you can't understand the philosophy of Taoism. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T03:21:56.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27084" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27085" CreationDate="2017-10-17T04:45:12.790" Score="2" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trying to figure out the laymans phonetic spelling for 秋子 (Qiūzi: Autumn Child.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest I've been able to come is Chee-Oh-tsö (because the umlaut 'o' makes an oo sound).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this still seems wrong. Any help for a newbie? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18161" LastEditorDisplayName="user18161" LastEditDate="2017-10-17T05:40:22.750" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T09:11:20.083" Title="Phonetic pronunciation help for &quot;秋子/Autumn Child&quot; - Chinese trad" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27084" CreationDate="2017-10-17T07:26:36.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't hear a &quot;oo&quot; sound in 子。 It's more like a &quot;z&quot; without much of a vowel sound after it. To spell it out in laymans phonetic, I suggest: chee-Oh-Tzz  (or just one z) (Edit: or chee-Oh-Tzh, so as not to imply a buzzing sound?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18086" LastEditorUserId="18086" LastEditDate="2017-10-17T09:11:20.083" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T09:11:20.083" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27086" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27097" CreationDate="2017-10-17T07:56:38.207" Score="1" ViewCount="673" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a distinction between 怎样 (zěnyàng) and 怎么样 (zěnmeyàng)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, 怎样 seems like a shortened version of 怎么样.  However, let's look at some Jukuu.com examples for &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/show-%E6%80%8E%E6%A0%B7.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;怎样&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你知道&lt;strong&gt;怎样&lt;/strong&gt;处理这个问题吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you know how to deal with this problem?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(Nǐ zhīdào zěnyàng chǔlǐ zhège wèntí ma?)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们今年是&lt;strong&gt;怎样&lt;/strong&gt;庆祝五一节的？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How did you celebrate May Day this year?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(Nǐmen jīnnián shì zěnyàng qìngzhù wǔyī jié de?)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E6%A0%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;怎么样&lt;/a&gt;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些日子你&lt;strong&gt;怎么样&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How are you doing these days?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(Zhèxiē rìzi nǐ zěnme yàng?)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他法语学得&lt;strong&gt;怎么样&lt;/strong&gt;了？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How is he coming on with his study of French?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(Tā fǎyǔ xué dé zěnme yàngle?)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems the usage is different between the two.  I asked a Chinese friend about it and he indicated they're mostly similar, but there's a difference in usage.  I didn't fully understand though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;(PS. This is not a duplicate of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/22871/8099&quot;&gt;What is the difference between 怎么 and 怎么样 ？&lt;/a&gt; because that question asks about 怎么, not 怎样.)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T00:33:05.697" Title="Is there a distinction between 怎样 (zěnyàng) and 怎么样 (zěnmeyàng)?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27086" CreationDate="2017-10-17T08:45:49.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the first two examples for 怎样, it's totally OK to use 怎么样 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 他法语学得怎么样了, also you can use 怎样 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些日子你怎么样 seem to be an exception, where using 怎样 feels a bit unnatural, though acceptable still. I think it's because 怎么样 serves as a verb in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T08:45:49.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27088" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27089" CreationDate="2017-10-17T10:22:12.567" Score="4" ViewCount="614" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the show 人民的名義 the suspect doesn't want to accompany the protagonist on account of his soup getting cold. The protagonist replies &quot;講究啊&quot;（meticulous！）and then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;原湯化原食&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of my many Pleco dictionaries lists 原湯 or 原食，although 原湯 was my phonetic keyboard's first suggestion!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PVivm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PVivm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T02:40:12.547" Title="What is the meaning of 原湯化原食？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27088" CreationDate="2017-10-17T10:37:23.907" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.douguo.com/article/detail/496&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;原汤化原食&lt;/a&gt; is a kind of eating habit, especially exists in northern areas; means drinking the soup of the dumplings (or noodles etc) after eating them. e.g. for the case of dumplings, 原汤 refers to the water (or you can think it as soup) which used for boiling dumplings, 原食 means dumplings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一般来讲，“原食”指的是淀粉类食物，比如饺子、面条、馄饨、汤圆等，“原汤”就是水煮这些食物后得到的汤，而“化”有“消化”的意思。所以“原汤化原食”的意思是，汤能够帮助淀粉类食物消化吸收。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In general, 原食 refers to starchy foods, like dumplings, noodles, wontons, glue puddings etc, 原汤 refers to the water which used for boiling these foods. 化 means digestion, so 原汤化原食 means the soup could help digesting starchy foods.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're several various explanations about why people doing this, someone believe 原汤 could help digestion; someone believe 原汤 is nourishing. I prefer to that it's just a habit; people like drinking something after eating and with 原汤 you don't need to cook the soup separately. And I think &lt;a href=&quot;http://songshuhui.net/archives/37485&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; gave a nice summary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;所以，真要较真的话，“专家”们提供的“原汤化原食”的“科学道理”实在是很牵强附会。当然，面汤本身并没有什么不好，与白开水相比，它其中还有一些淀粉甚至维生素。吃完面后喝点面汤，多少也算是节约粮食的表现。如果真的喜欢喝，“喜欢”就是最好的理由。如果非要堆砌一些科学术语来给它一个“科学解释”，可能就是弄巧成拙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T02:40:12.547" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T02:40:12.547" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27086" CreationDate="2017-10-17T13:01:53.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no difference in meaning.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;怎样 is written and 怎么样 is spoken, though sometimes it doesn't matter. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18157" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T13:01:53.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27091" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-17T14:41:28.867" Score="7" ViewCount="1683" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, there seems to be two forms of comparison statements. &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Basic_comparisons_with_%22bi%22#Pattern_Using_.E6.AF.94_.28b.C7.90.29_and_.E6.9B.B4_.28g.C3.A8ng.29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The first is 比～更&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22much_more%22_in_comparisons&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the second is 比～多了&lt;/a&gt; (or other variants such as 很多 and 得多).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我更好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我厉害多了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐高铁比坐飞机更方便。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐高铁比坐飞机方便很多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that 更 must precede the adjective while 很多 must be put after the adjective. However, except it what kind of differences between these two forms of comparison statement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;By the way, should 了 be put after 更好 and 更方便 as well...?&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;UPDATE&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me clarify the point here. My question is about the difference between 比～更 and 比～多了, regarding the degree of the strength. So for example, suppose the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我更好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我厉害多了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should you order them by the degree of the strength? I know the first sentence is the weakest, and just means &amp;quot;better&amp;quot; But the second and third sentences both mean &amp;quot;much better&amp;quot;, and I don't understand which looks stronger regarding the degree, and also I would like to know any differences, if any (e.g. nuances, etc...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T14:21:24.170" Title="The difference between 比～更 and 比～多了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27091" CreationDate="2017-10-17T15:14:45.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thay both are forms of comparison statements. Similar to English, the &quot;多&quot; just equal to &quot;much&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me translate into English word by word that you would know the difference at once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EP1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我更好。     He plays &lt;strong&gt;better&lt;/strong&gt; than me (in basketball).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我厉害多了。 He plays &lt;strong&gt;much/way better&lt;/strong&gt; than me (in basketball). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EP2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;坐高铁比坐飞机更方便。   Taking high-speed railway is &lt;strong&gt;more&lt;/strong&gt; convenient than taking&#xA;  aircraft. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;坐高铁比坐飞机方便很多。 Taking high-speed railway is &lt;strong&gt;much/way more&lt;/strong&gt; convenient&#xA;  than taking aircraft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T15:14:45.280" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27091" CreationDate="2017-10-17T15:30:32.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's some nuances in the meaning, such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;他打篮球比我好。       -&amp;gt; He plays basketball better than I do.&#xA;他打篮球比我更好。     -&amp;gt; (I plays basketball well, but) He plays even better than I do.&#xA;他打篮球比我还（要）好。-&amp;gt; ditto&#xA;&#xA;他打篮球比我厉害多了。  -&amp;gt; He plays basketball much better than I do.&#xA;他打篮球比我厉害很多。  -&amp;gt; ditto&#xA;他打篮球比我厉害得多。  -&amp;gt; ditto&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;By the way, should 了 be put after 更好 and 更方便 as well...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can, but it doesn't work the same way as &lt;code&gt;厉害多了&lt;/code&gt;, but would indicate change in state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;坐高铁比坐飞机更方便了。-&amp;gt; (Taking high-speed train had been more convenient than airplane,) it became even more convenient than airplane.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="798" LastEditDate="2017-10-18T07:49:19.547" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T07:49:19.547" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27044" CreationDate="2017-10-17T17:40:21.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also think of 道 as corridor, more of a mean to connect parts and ways, both methodically and physically. 国路 Would instead just be the national street, a physical artifact. As mentioned by @Omnibus, 公道 means fair way, and is not associated with movement at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18166" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T17:40:21.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27076" CreationDate="2017-10-17T23:50:34.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a great question! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来 here is used like &lt;strong&gt;a modal auxiliary&lt;/strong&gt; in English, to express what one's intention/or going to do with/according to/about/... aforementioned stuff. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 我们要用自己的双手来建设祖国。 （We will build our country with our own hands）. Here what our intention or going to do is 建设祖国（build our country）, with aforementioned stuff 要用自己的双手.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the case OP quoted, 要根据自己的饮食结构来整体分析, what our intention or going to do is 整体分析 according to 自己的饮食结构. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/js/6765.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt; for definition 6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T23:50:34.380" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27091" CreationDate="2017-10-18T00:06:18.843" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比～更: even (more)；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比～多了：much (more)；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我更好。： he plays basket ball even better than me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我厉害多了。: he plays basket ball much better than me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐高铁比坐飞机更方便。: Taking high-speed railway is even more convenient than taking a flight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐高铁比坐飞机方便很多。: Taking high-speed railway is much more convenient than taking a flight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Updated according to the updates from OP:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared these three sentences: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我好。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我更好。 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我厉害多了。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 and 3 are stronger than 1. 2 and 3 are hard to compare, because they are used for different purposes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T01:37:09.260" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T01:37:09.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27086" CreationDate="2017-10-18T00:33:05.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are completely interchangeable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would probably say their effects are a &lt;strong&gt;very little bit&lt;/strong&gt; different, (which people indeed wouldn't care most of time). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎样做 vs 怎么样做， the longer version(the latter) sounds like it might engage a bit more procedures or processes than the shorter version(the former). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, that's just an effect, which couldn't be even a matter in practice.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T00:33:05.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27091" CreationDate="2017-10-18T00:51:31.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;He play better basketball than me&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence only stated his skill is above you; there's no reference to the level of either yours or his. You can write &quot;I play worse basketball than him&quot; meaning both of you are bad, but he is better in comparison; or both of you are good, but he is better in comparison.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我更好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;He play ever better basketball than me&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence implies you are good too, but he is even better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他打篮球比我厉害多了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He play far better basketball ball than I&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence implies his skill is far above you; his skill being great is a certainty, but your skill could be either good or bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me give you an example: Team Germany is far better than Team Japan. Team Japanese is far better than Team Hong Kong;  The extremely strong Germany team is far stronger than both the good team Japan and the weak team Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Question:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Let me clarify the point here. My question is about the difference between 比～更 and 比～多了, regarding the degree of the strength. So for example, suppose the following sentence:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The answer:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[A 比 B + adjective] describes a difference in degree between A and B; but the size of the gap is not mentioned; and there's no mention of what level either object is in.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[A 比 B 更 + adjective] describes a difference in degree between A and B, but the size of the gap is not too great ; Object A's degree is certainly high, but object B's degree is also high.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[A 比 B + adjective +多了] describes a &lt;strong&gt;great&lt;/strong&gt; difference in degree between A and B. although object B's level is not mentioned, object A's level or degree is certainly very high. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-18T01:07:03.050" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T01:07:03.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25966" CreationDate="2017-10-18T10:37:31.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can be dated from the 《左传·襄公二十九年》：“至矣哉！直而不倨，曲而不屈。”I think it commonly to describe a strong mind and you will never change you dream, give up to tough environment or the powerful man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T10:37:31.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6105" CreationDate="2017-10-18T16:56:09.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I did an immersion at UC-Berkeley a long time ago I was told my name, George, had the equivalent 乔治 Qiáozhì because that name was already established in school books for George Washington. It always sounded to me closer to the French Georges. My family name is Lang and I was given the choice between forest 林 Lín or blue 蓝 Lán. I chose the former, for obvious reasons of stroke number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18172" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T16:56:09.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27101" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27103" CreationDate="2017-10-18T17:47:15.640" Score="1" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三十年前，邓小平&lt;strong&gt;之&lt;/strong&gt;所以推动改革开放，一来是为了提高人民的生活水平，二来是为了让中国经济从计划经济转变到市场经济。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found that &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%82%93%E5%B0%8F%E5%B9%B3/116181&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;邓小平&lt;/a&gt; is a name for a person. But I don't understand what 之 works for here. So what is the meaning of it and how does it function here grammatically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is it required to use 之 here, or if you omit it, does the sentence change into a different meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T05:06:17.750" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T05:06:17.750" Title="What does 之 mean in 邓小平之所以推动改革开放...?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27102" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27106" CreationDate="2017-10-18T18:20:18.373" Score="1" ViewCount="904" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然练习做 ( ) 很多，但是我还是不懂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have a small discussion with our teacher. Which one should be used in the bracket and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6842" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T00:11:58.367" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T00:11:58.367" Title="In 虽然练习做 ( ) 很多，但是我还是不懂, should we use 的 or 得？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27101" CreationDate="2017-10-18T19:05:38.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;所以 means 'because' but it can also be used as a noun for &amp;quot;reason&amp;quot; , as in &amp;quot;不明所以&amp;quot; (don't understand the reason)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;邓小平 is a noun,  之=(的),  所以=reason&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;邓小平(之)所以 = Deng Xiaoping('s) reason (for)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;推动改革开放 (promote reform and opening up) is the action that the reason resulted in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一来是为了提高人民的生活水平，二来是为了让中国经济从计划经济转变到市场经济。 is the description of the reasons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/18291/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;之所以&lt;/a&gt;' is a common phrase for '&lt;strong&gt;the reason why&lt;/strong&gt;'; '&lt;strong&gt;therefore&lt;/strong&gt;' because it is so commonly used in literary form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(The reason why) he resigns&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;他(之所以)辭職&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(The reason why) he ran away&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;他(之所以)逃跑&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The two examples above must be followed by the description of the reason&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T20:11:53.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27102" CreationDate="2017-10-18T19:54:37.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context 得 should be used. It works as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Degree_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;degree complement&lt;/a&gt;, and takes as a form of &quot;verb + 得 + adjective&quot;. The phrase after 得 expresses the degree of the adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in this case,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然练习做&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;很多，但是我还是不懂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;, where 得 expresses the degree of &quot;做&quot; is &quot;很多&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You shall also refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/89/%E7%9A%84-%E5%9C%B0-%E5%BE%97-when-do-you-use-which&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, which explain the difference betwen 的, 得, and 地.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T01:11:00.560" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T01:11:00.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27102" CreationDate="2017-10-18T19:55:33.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;得。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A little trick when I learned &quot;的，地，得&quot; in school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;的&quot; follow by a noun,&lt;/strong&gt; like &quot;她的妈妈&quot;，&quot;美妙的天空&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;地&quot; follow by verb&lt;/strong&gt;, like &quot;用力地哭&quot;, &quot;开心地笑&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;得&quot; f&lt;strong&gt;ollow by terms to describe the &quot;action&quot; or verb in front of the &quot;得&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, like your example： &quot;练习做得很多&quot;, &quot;扫得真干净&quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T19:55:33.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27102" CreationDate="2017-10-18T19:57:24.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be '得'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;做 (得) 很多&quot;,  '得' functions as an &quot;(degree/extend) particle&quot; that indicate the degree or extend of the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'很多'(a lot) is the degree or extend of the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;做得多/ 做得少&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;做 (verb)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;得 (particle that indicate the degree of the verb)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多(a lot); 少(little) [&lt;em&gt;degree&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;跑得快/ 跑得慢&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;跑(verb) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;得(particle that indicate the degree of the verb)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;快(fast) ; 慢(slow) [&lt;em&gt;degree&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people using 的 instead of 得 in this role because the two words sound similar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at the follow sentences, and you can see 的 and 得 are not interchangeable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'要做的很多'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'要做' means 'need to do' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'要做的' means 'things need to be done'(pronoun)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'要做的(事)很多' means &quot;a lot (of things) to do&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'要做得很多' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;要做= verb&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;得 = (particle that indicate the degree of the verb)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;很多 (degree)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It  means &quot;need to do a lot&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-18T20:02:33.430" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T20:02:33.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27107" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27110" CreationDate="2017-10-18T21:07:42.820" Score="1" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;调查显示，32%的海外民众认为中国是对世界经济影响最大的国家。与5年前相比翻了&lt;strong&gt;一番&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一番 might mean &quot;one time&quot; (at least my dictionary on macOS says &quot;一倍&quot; while Pleco only lists &quot;one kind&quot;). However, 翻 I believe means &quot;double&quot; as a verb here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I feel that the sentence is contradictionary... At least from the context, the influence of China would be &quot;doubled&quot;. But then what is the meaning of 一番 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T13:13:04.383" Title="What does 一番 mean in 与5年前相比翻了一番?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27107" CreationDate="2017-10-18T22:56:59.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your intuition is correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新招聘信息翻了一番。&#xA;New job ads doubled.&#xA;结果日产量翻了一番。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As a result output doubled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与5年前相比翻了一番。&#xA;(This percentage) compared with 5 years earlier has doubled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T22:56:59.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27102" CreationDate="2017-10-19T00:35:32.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;得 is probably ok, but I would use 了 or 过 for this context. It would become 虽然练习做 &lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;（or 过）很多，但是我还是不懂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得 is used for leading a degree complement, while 了 is used for the completion of a verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Logically, putting 了 or 过 as a completion is more appropriate I think. The logic is that although you &lt;strong&gt;have done(了)&lt;/strong&gt; lots of practices, you still can not get it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T00:35:32.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27107" CreationDate="2017-10-19T00:55:54.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;翻（了）n番 is common phrase, meaning 2^n. For example, 翻一番 = 2, 翻两番 = 4， ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the interesting phrase is 翻n倍. Some would take 翻n倍 = 翻n番, and some would take 翻n倍 = 1*n, and some take 翻n倍 = 1*(n+1). For example, 50翻3倍 could be 150, 400 or 200. This is really a moot point. Personally, I would take 翻n倍 = 1*(n+1) and 50翻3倍 would be 200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T02:00:44.547" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T02:00:44.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27107" CreationDate="2017-10-19T04:04:10.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct phrasing should be 与5年前相比翻了一翻. The first 翻 is the verb, the second 翻 is a verb classifier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;斬一斬 (chop one chop = take one chop /chop once)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看一看 (look one look = take one look/ look once)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翻一翻 (flip one flip = take one flip/ flip once = doubling once)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A measure word (e.g. 一, 幾) followed by a 'verb classifier' describe how many times the action verb occurred. If it wrote &amp;quot;翻了幾翻&amp;quot;, then it would mean &amp;quot;flipped a few flips&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;doubled the original number a few times&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E7%BF%BB%E5%80%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;翻倍&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;double up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翻了一翻 actually means &amp;quot;翻(倍)了一翻&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T12:15:38.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27112" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27113" CreationDate="2017-10-19T04:59:24.880" Score="0" ViewCount="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is how to translate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;師資培訓&lt;strong&gt;授竹&lt;/strong&gt;典禮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;into English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I do not know how to translate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;授竹&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tdk_xu9uDg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an infomercial&lt;/a&gt; from a Buddhist university.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T05:39:16.003" Title="How to translate 師資培訓授竹典禮 into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27112" CreationDate="2017-10-19T05:33:29.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tw.tzuchi.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp;amp;view=article&amp;amp;catid=92%3Aeducation-project&amp;amp;id=6432%3A2011-06-22-07-54-55&amp;amp;Itemid=385&amp;amp;lang=zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tw.tzuchi.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp;amp;view=article&amp;amp;catid=92%3Aeducation-project&amp;amp;id=6432%3A2011-06-22-07-54-55&amp;amp;Itemid=385&amp;amp;lang=zh&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「師者，傳道、授業、解惑也。」實習老師的授竹，取「竹」閔南語諧音「德」之意，期許老師為人師表要「高風亮節」，傳授品德教育。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「竹」(bamboo) in Minnan language pronounced the same as 「德」(virtue)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Giving the graduated teachers- in- training a piece of bamboo symbolically giving them 'virtue' (a high moral standard) -- to reminder them to live a virtuous life and teach moral lessons to their own students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;師資培訓授竹典禮 = Teacher qualifications training 'bamboo award' ceremony&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T05:39:16.003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T05:39:16.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27107" CreationDate="2017-10-19T13:13:04.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found that Pleco has the entry. The entry is on neither 一番 or 番 but 翻番.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;increase by a specified number of times&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the example sentences are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翻两番 // quadruple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十年内学生人数翻了一番。 // The school's enrollment doubled in ten years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T13:13:04.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27115" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27123" CreationDate="2017-10-19T14:31:26.407" Score="0" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这次来中国，一来是提高中文水平，二来是更深度&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;了解中国文化。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning should be something like the follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The reason I came to China this time is, for one reason in order to raise my Chinese proficiency, and for another to understand the Chinese culture more deeply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also understand that 地 can be used to make the adjective work as an adverb. But this is 的, not 地. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I break down the components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;更深度的 - adverb? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了解 - verb&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国文化 - object&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also understand 的 can make the adjective to a noun phrase, but in that case, it becomes a form of O-V-O, which doesn't make sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why is 的 needed in the sentence above and how does it work there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T07:02:25.627" Title="Why is 的 needed in 二来是更深度的了解中国文化?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27115" CreationDate="2017-10-19T17:38:36.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The author used &quot;的&quot; incorrectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously should use&quot;地&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16891" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T17:38:36.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27118" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27122" CreationDate="2017-10-19T22:15:56.247" Score="2" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found that in Pleco, there is one special usage of 所:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[noun or pronoun + 所 + verb]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a [with 的 to modify a noun]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我所认识的人 // the people I know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;大家所提的意见 // the opinions various people put forward&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I feel that even without the 所, the meaning is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我认识的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;大家提的意见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the added benefits of using 所 in this use case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T00:55:05.313" Title="What is the added benefit of using 所 in 我所认识的人?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27119" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-19T22:45:26.813" Score="0" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;If not how would it be corrected using the exact same characters? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what is the issue with the original sentence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Struggling a bit with word order! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18176" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T23:15:45.197" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T03:41:41.473" Title="Is this sentence correct? 打扫大客厅这么多累的啊" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27119" CreationDate="2017-10-19T23:11:03.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you can't count 累 probably not good to use 这么多累。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打扫完一个大客厅，好累哦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T23:11:03.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27118" CreationDate="2017-10-20T00:14:43.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 所 in this context according to the dictionary indicates passive voice. You won't hear &lt;code&gt;大家所提的意见&lt;/code&gt; by itself, but usually with something along with it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大家所提的意见都被接納。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The ideas you suggested are all accepted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=.mCn6D&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec=sec1&amp;amp;op=v&amp;amp;view=1-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dictionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;與「為」或「被」合用，表示被動的意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如：「他的 作品 為 一般 青年人 所 喜愛。」(His works are loved by young people.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I feel that using 所 somewhat emphasizes the objects in the sentence, like you really want to point them out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="541" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T00:14:43.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27118" CreationDate="2017-10-20T00:55:05.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an advanced question I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所 here loans the sense of 所有(的)（owned by）. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure 'pronoun + 所 + verb + 的( + noun)' indicates a subject-predicate-object relationship. In my opinion, this could have some &lt;strong&gt;exclusive&lt;/strong&gt; effect or a bit emphasis on subject-predicate-object relationship. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我所认识的人 // the people I know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我所认识的人 excludes：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Subject 我， not others like 你，他, and etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Verb 认识， not other verbs like 信任，尊敬, and etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Target 人， not other thing like 东西，事情， and etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare the two phrases below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我所认识的人&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我认识的人&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 shows the preciseness of each component, subject, predicate, and object. 2 is just a casual way to say it. That being said, 1 is used when you are trying to be formal, clear or precise, while 2 is used when you don't have to be that formal and precise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T00:55:05.313" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27115" CreationDate="2017-10-20T01:08:04.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say in modern Chinese, 的 is often used to replace 地 in this kind of sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 深度的了解中国文化 and 深度地了解中国文化 are acceptable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally prefer 深度的了解中国文化.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could refer to the definition 5 for 的 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/js/7684.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this dictionary&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This example demonstrates my point to your &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/26301/can-all-adjectives-be-transformed-into-adverbs-with-%E5%9C%B0/26303#26303&quot;&gt;previous question 26301&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the screenshot from the dictionary of my handset, which defines it clearly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9ZiLR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9ZiLR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-20T07:02:25.627" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T07:02:25.627" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27119" CreationDate="2017-10-20T01:13:37.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Few variations: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这么(样)打扫大客厅多累啊! // Cleaning a big living room in this way tires (me)&#xA;out.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打扫大客厅多累啊! //  Cleaning a big living room tires (me) out.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打扫大客厅这么累啊! //  Cleaning a big living room tires (me) out.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The issue with your original one 打扫大客厅这么多累的啊 is that you put two modifiers 这么 and 多 for 累，so you might have to remove one. And also 的 is misused and should be removed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 这么多（的） + noun is the correct structure, like 这么多（的）爱，这么多（的）人. However, 这么多（的) can not modify an adjective, so 这么多（的）累 is a wrong expression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-20T02:27:29.627" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T02:27:29.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27119" CreationDate="2017-10-20T03:24:34.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the rule of the game is all characters must be used, I guess I can play it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;打扫这么大的客厅多累啊!&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (cleaning such a big living room, how tiring!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what is the issue with the original sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打扫大客厅这么多累的啊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;打扫大客厅&amp;quot;(cleaning the main living room) is the topic, followed by the comment/opinion &amp;quot;多累啊&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'这么' and '的' are not needed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T03:41:41.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27127" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-20T04:03:09.383" Score="0" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the latest document of the 19th National Congress of CPC, 高举。。。旗帜 was translated as “hold high the banner of...&quot;, and the translated work was said to have been revised and finalized by experts who are native speakers of English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a banner is something one put on words to show their emotion and request, which is not the 旗帜 usually used by Chinese and if you watch mangas illustrating Romance of Three Kingdoms or other related warring topics in ancient China, you know that the family name of the head of the force in fight is marked on a flag （帅旗）, which is not a banner at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-20T15:10:11.203" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T20:02:03.417" Title="What does 高举旗帜 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27127" CreationDate="2017-10-20T04:42:28.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is totally a chinese features metaphor.  「旗帜」in here is neither banner or flag,  but  means &quot;standpoint&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18180" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T04:42:28.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26372" CreationDate="2017-10-20T05:37:36.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The different between 「处于」and 「处在」is answered well in @dan, and I prefer to explain why Pleco use &quot;be&quot;.&#xA;Actually the mean of the two word can be explained to &lt;strong&gt;&quot;be in&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, and it's used to &lt;strong&gt;in a condition or situation&lt;/strong&gt;.That means it's usually used as &lt;strong&gt;「处于/处在...... 中」&lt;/strong&gt;，but it is not in this form absolutely. We can also use like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「我们必须和一切爱好和平自由的国家和人民团结在一起……使我们的保障人民革命胜利成果和反对内外敌人复辟阴谋的斗争不致&lt;strong&gt;处于&lt;/strong&gt;孤立地位。」 ————毛泽东 《中国人民站起来了》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you want more further explanation，you can visit &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hydcd.com/zidian/hz/10444.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hydcd.com/zidian/hz/10444.htm&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18180" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T05:37:36.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27130" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-20T08:34:02.243" Score="0" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is a picture of part of a notice about housing project in China, in which there are some sentences ending with the marker of adjective 的 that make the sentences incomplete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it is due to the special usage of legal Chinese, but what are the parts or words that are missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hVa3P.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hVa3P.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-20T15:09:48.810" LastActivityDate="2018-02-17T16:24:09.023" Title="What are the words that are missing after the 的 so that the sentences make sense？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27130" CreationDate="2017-10-20T09:06:32.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The omitted word is the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;主動放棄購買的&quot; can mean 主動放棄購買的(人), 主動放棄購買的(買家) or &quot;主動放棄購買的(申請者)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the subject is not omitted, for example,  in &quot;主動放棄購買的買家&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;買家&quot; is the subject noun&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;主動放棄購買的&quot; is the adjectival clause, &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;主動放棄購買的&lt;/strong&gt;][買家] = [the buyer][&lt;strong&gt;who gave up the purchase on his or her own&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can translate &quot;主動放棄購買&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;the one who&lt;/strong&gt; gave up the purchase on his or her own&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T09:06:32.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27130" CreationDate="2017-10-20T12:49:45.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 主动放弃购买的， 反悔的 and 最终未能通过自治区房改部门资格审核的， 的 is used, at the end, to set a condition or a scope. That scope could be any single person, family, company or any other groups/organizations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why they don't mention the target for those attributive phrases is that the target could involve all kinds of peoples/groups. In this way, the certain criteria, condition or scope would be set.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T12:49:45.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27130" CreationDate="2017-10-20T13:02:13.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The omitted word in all three cases is 人。&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese it is common practice in written and in speech to omit &lt;strong&gt;generic nouns&lt;/strong&gt; after a 的，i.e. when the generic noun is modified by a noun phrase, like a relative clause or an adjective. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In case of a relative clause, as your examples are, you could translate the ~ 的（人） into something like &quot;those who [...]&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, other generic nouns that admit this behavior are 事 (thing, matter) and 东西 (physical thing, stuff).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我很饿的，我想吃好吃的  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I'm hungry, I want to eat tasty &lt;i&gt;stuff&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T13:02:13.487" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27134" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-20T13:24:49.100" Score="2" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this a colloquial way to say this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我与的朋友在二月份去中国&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or what about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我二月份与的朋友在去中国&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18184" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T00:06:31.947" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T00:06:31.947" Title="Is e.g. 我与的朋友在二月份去中国 a colloquial way to say &quot;I'm going to China with my friends in Feburary&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27101" CreationDate="2017-10-20T13:34:32.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In structure 之所以……（结果:result）是因为……（原因: reason）, 之 is used as a conjunction, indicating 因果关系.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare the two structures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;之所以……（结果: result）是因为……（原因: reason) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;因为……（原因: reason）所以……（结果: result）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Structure 1 states the result first, while structure 2 states reason first. There could be some literary effects for this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;when there are more than one reason for the result, structure 1 is often used. This is like OP's example.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the context determines whether structure 1 or 2 should be used.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T13:34:32.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27134" CreationDate="2017-10-20T13:40:07.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;的朋友 doesn't make sense, should be 我的朋友, 我的 = my.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我与我的朋友在二月份去中国 is OK, though 我和我的朋友二月份去中国/二月份我和我的朋友去中国 would be more natural, and the 我的 can also be ommitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我二月份与我的朋友在去中国 is not understandable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T13:40:07.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27134" CreationDate="2017-10-20T13:56:01.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, both &quot;我与的朋友在二月份去中国&quot; and &quot;我二月份与的朋友在去中国&quot; are not correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you emphasize &quot;I am going to&quot;, you can use &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我将在二月与我的朋友去中国&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you emphasize &quot;in February&quot;, you can use &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;二月份我将与我的朋友去中国&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you emphasize &quot;with my friends&quot;, you can use &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我将与我的朋友在二月时去中国&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18183" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T13:56:01.993" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27138" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27958" CreationDate="2017-10-20T14:13:15.593" Score="2" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;This word is found in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y12_ecvVJgA&amp;amp;pbjreload=10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;爱拼才会赢&lt;/a&gt;, where I hear it as undoubtedly m̄-mián, yet when I look it up on &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;台湾闽南语常用词辞典&lt;/a&gt; or on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%AF%8B%E5%85%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;, I only find the pronunciation m̄-bián.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I was wondering: is he getting it wrong, or is there really an alternate pronunciation m̄-mián which is unrecorded in either dictionary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-20T15:09:02.867" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T20:28:29.710" Title="Min 毋免: m̄-bián only, or possibly m̄-mián?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27134" CreationDate="2017-10-20T15:08:35.557" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, 的 is not needed and doesn't make sense. Omit it altogether (or make it 我的朋友).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second, 在 is to express what is happening right now. It is close to &quot;is doing ~&quot; in English (e.g. 我在看书。). If you talk about what will happen in the future, 要 should be the word for it. So replace 在 with 要.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the one answer should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我二月份要与朋友去中国。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-20T15:55:16.803" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T15:55:16.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27141" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27142" CreationDate="2017-10-20T17:51:30.283" Score="1" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;From HiNative it's something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The food I give you is very sweet, if you died from the sweetness don't blame me...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I still don't get what the phrase refer to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it something like 'you personally search for trouble'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T03:48:52.977" Title="What does the term '死人不偿命' mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27141" CreationDate="2017-10-20T20:58:20.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the structure [adjective + 死人], the term '死人'(people die) functions as an adverbial phrase that mean &quot;extremely&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;笑死人&quot; = &quot;extremely laughable/ funny&quot; (so laughable that people could die from laughing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;急死人&quot; = &quot;extremely worrisome&quot; (so worrisome that people could die from worrying)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The food I give you is very sweet, if you died from the sweetness don't blame me...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, it is short for &quot;甜死人&quot; which mean &quot;extremely sweet&quot; (so sweet that people could die from sugar overload)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[adjective + 死人不偿命] is extended version of [adjective + 死人] . Jokingly add: [不偿命] as if you really could die.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(甜)&lt;strong&gt;死人不偿命&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;seriously&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;extremely&lt;/strong&gt; (sweet)&quot;  (It is so sweet that people could die from it, don't say I didn't warn you) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Important&lt;/strong&gt;: don't use a verb that can actually kill people before [死人不偿命].  &quot;打死人不偿命&quot; literally means &quot;beat people to death without paying with one's own life&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'笑' in '笑死人' is not a verb, it functions as the adjective '可笑' (laughable)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-20T21:14:37.187" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T21:14:37.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27050" CreationDate="2017-10-20T21:07:38.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my recollection of secondary Geography classes, 降水／降雨 = precipitation, which means the amount of rainfail. But, this is not equivalent to 增水, how much the dam or the reservoir will accumulate. They're probably two different ways of measuring rainfall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17066" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T21:07:38.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27144" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-20T22:55:38.857" Score="1" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading a Chinese book when I came across the word 麪粉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't know how to read the first character,&#xA;so I performed a search on Google translate.&#xA;According to Google translate,&#xA;both 麵粉 miànfěn and 麪粉 miànfěn have the same pinyin,&#xA;and both mean flour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My impression from living in Hong Kong&#xA;is that only the first word &quot;麵&quot; is encountered in everyday usage,&#xA;e.g., wonton noodles is written as 雲吞麵.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any real differences between 麵粉 and 麪粉?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3999" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T13:02:20.313" Title="What is the difference between 麵粉 and 麪粉?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27145" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-20T23:04:52.740" Score="3" ViewCount="362" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where do people use 来着 a lot? Is that typical of 北京 or where？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来着 seems to be a kind of substitute for 吗 (是几号来着？). Is that correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T00:58:27.900" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T01:44:52.703" Title="Where do people use 来着 a lot?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2017-10-20T23:37:22.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just here to say that there's a misconception about 'radicals'—部首—in play here. Radicals are not what many people think of: &quot;the things that Chinese characters are made out of&quot;; rather, they are &quot;the part of a given character that it gets sorted under in some dictionaries&quot;. Radicals as they are used today were invented by Mei Yingzuo and first appeared in his 1615 dictionary, Zihui 字彙. His idea was not to collect all the parts that might appear in any character, but rather to present a manageable catalog of (mostly) high-frequency components to make locating characters by appearance easier. While many characters did end up under the section header that also acts as the semantophore (the &quot;meaning-part&quot; of phono-semantic compounds) of that character, this is by no means true for all characters, and in many cases the choice is arbitrary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW when you say &quot;也 is a word not a radical&quot;, that's mixing up things, I'm afraid. 也 is a perfectly cromulent character, one that may be &lt;em&gt;used to&lt;/em&gt; write one or more words. Any given character can (potentially) appear as a component in another character, it doesn't have to be in any list of dictionary radicals to do that. When you look under the hood (and maybe you should), things quickly get more complicated, because many components got abbreviated and / or conflated with other components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16530" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T23:37:22.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27145" CreationDate="2017-10-20T23:45:40.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I can tell it's been widely used in the northern areas. And you would hear it in TV shows. Of course, it's an oral term.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not used to substitute for 吗. It's been used when you can not recall something from your mind, and then you ask out while you are still trying to think it out. For example, 几号来着？ means you can't recall 几号, and then you ask while you are still trying to think it out. In this case, you are expecting someone could remind you while you're thinking. 几号来着？ is kind of like saying &quot;那是几号了？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T23:45:40.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27145" CreationDate="2017-10-21T01:44:52.703" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000059525&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;來著／来着&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;助動詞&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Auxiliary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;它被用在句末&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  It is used at the end of a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;它表示特定行為與事件的完成&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  It represents the completion of a specific behavior or event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T01:44:52.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27150" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27153" CreationDate="2017-10-21T03:06:48.317" Score="1" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does &lt;strong&gt;第四台&lt;/strong&gt; mean, in the context of an immovable property site which e.g. rents out or sells rooms and buildings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T04:01:00.933" Title="What does 第四台 mean in the context of immovable property?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27151" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27154" CreationDate="2017-10-21T03:33:22.827" Score="3" ViewCount="2960" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 这么 and 那么 mean &quot;so&quot; or &quot;such&quot; (among other meanings). For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你这么高，你这个男朋友是不是矮了点儿?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these contexts, is there any difference if you replace 这么 with 那么?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, generally is there any difference between 这么 and 那么, and how can I use it properly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T04:28:31.270" Title="How can I use 这么/那么 properly?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27141" CreationDate="2017-10-21T03:48:52.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you should discern whether it's used as its literary meaning or metaphorical meaning from a given context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally, '死人不偿命' means one wouldn't compensate for other's death.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Metaphorically, don't come to me (for reasoning) if you would 'die' of it. The typical example is 笑死人不偿命，for example 笑死人不偿命的笑话.  The similar phrase in English could be 'something that could laugh your ass-off'.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 笑死人不偿命的笑话 sometimes could be a way of tempting, in which they suggest you not taking a shot of it otherwise it would 'kill' you by too much without any compensation. This could have the effect of the psychological inversion, and finally you wouldn't wait to take a shot of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some other similar phrases in our daily usage, like 笑死人了，笑死了， 吵死了， 烦死了, ... . You could say 我最近烦死了！（I've been bored to death recently.）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T03:48:52.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27150" CreationDate="2017-10-21T04:01:00.933" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a Taiwanese term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were only three wireless TV stations in Taiwan long ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;台視, 中視, 華視 (with the 教育頻道)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All other channels went to cable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 第四台 means the cable TV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you see 老三台, it means the above original three stations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T04:01:00.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27151" CreationDate="2017-10-21T04:15:47.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;[这么 + adjective] = [this + adjective] referring to something close by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[那么 + adjective] = [that + adjective] referring to something that is not close by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;这么&lt;/strong&gt;高，means &quot;you are &lt;strong&gt;this&lt;/strong&gt; tall&quot; (talk about here and now) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;那么&lt;/strong&gt;高，means &quot;you are &lt;strong&gt;that&lt;/strong&gt; tall&quot; (talk about a situation not in the present) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For example, the reason you were accepted into the basketball team is because you were &lt;strong&gt;that tall&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;这个&lt;/strong&gt;男朋友是不是矮了点儿? &quot;Isn't &lt;strong&gt;this&lt;/strong&gt; boyfriend of yours a little bit too short?&quot; (the boyfriend is either right there with them or they are referring him as the object of discussion in front of them)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;那个&lt;/strong&gt;男朋友是不是矮了点儿? &quot;Isn't &lt;strong&gt;that&lt;/strong&gt; boyfriend of yours a little bit too short?&quot; (the boyfriend is not right there with them)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'this tall'  and 'that tall' can be replaced by 'so tall'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T04:22:07.070" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T04:22:07.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27151" CreationDate="2017-10-21T04:19:08.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say 这么 is more 'closer to you' than 那么.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你和我关系这么好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你和他关系那么好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare 你这么高 with 你那么高. 你这么高 sounds that you are standing the viewpoint of your interlocutor, it's like saying 你这么高(or 咱这么高)，他能比得了吗？. 你那么高 sounds that you are trying to exclude yourself from your interlocutor, it's like saying 你那么高， 我可比不了。. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你这个男朋友 is referring to &lt;strong&gt;this&lt;/strong&gt; boyfriend, which might imply this is kind of characteristic of his boyfriend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T04:28:31.270" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T04:28:31.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23357" CreationDate="2017-10-21T04:42:50.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just use standard Mandarin, all of them would understand you without problem.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And there is no SWM in fact (as I live here for 20+ years).  Yunnan is a mountainous province which is the perfect place for language diversity.  The accent in different rural parts of Kunming (distance less than 40km) can lead to misunderstanding, not to mention the difference between accents of residents of Kunming and Dali.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But in general, all of those accent is similar to standard Mandarin.  The only problem is elder residents would have problem pronouncing correctly in standard Mandarin, which might lead to a mixture of standard and localized pronunciation of Mandarin.  But in general it is not a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T04:42:50.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27144" CreationDate="2017-10-21T11:44:10.427" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;「麪」is a variant type of「麵」（「麪」is a more standard form in the old ages, and both are simplified to「面」now）and the meaing between them is not quite different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18180" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T13:50:17.327" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T13:50:17.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21470" CreationDate="2017-10-21T11:58:12.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, I prefer to translate to &quot;could you/I, may I &quot; before the favor speaker wants to ask from you. It's a polite form to ask for something. And the 「麻烦」is more like verb &quot;bother&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18180" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T11:58:12.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27159" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-21T13:57:34.223" Score="0" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;卖 means to sell. But in the above five phrases, it is very difficult to get the point. If 国 can be sold to some extent，as a piece of land are illegally sold by the authorities to foreigners for personal gains, the other fours look ridiculous, as nobody would sell his or others' stupidity or foolishness?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T16:47:24.033" Title="Is the meaning of 卖 the original meaning in 卖力，卖萌，卖国，卖傻，卖弄?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27159" CreationDate="2017-10-21T16:10:29.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;「貝」(shell) in ancient China was used as a currency. The original meaning of 「買」was 'take money to the market to trade for goods (to buy)'  The top part of 「買」was originally representing 'goods displayed in the market' ; the character 「賣」 added a hand behind the goods to represent 'handing out goods at the market to trade for money (to sell)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「買賣」means 'to trade' (include the buyer and seller). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 「賣」was originated in an 'market activity' namely 'to &lt;strong&gt;display&lt;/strong&gt; and sell' therefore, it can be used as a verb for 'to display; to show; to promote'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「賣力」 means 'show off one's hard labor to impress' = 'work very hard (to impress)'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「賣萌」means 'show off one's cuteness' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「賣傻」 (display dumbness) means 'play dumb'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「賣」in  「賣國」short for 「出賣」which means &quot;to betray&quot; (to betray someone like you are selling him like goods)  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「弄」in 「賣弄」means 'to handle', 「賣弄」(display and handle) means 'to show something off'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-21T16:25:39.150" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T16:25:39.150" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27161" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27163" CreationDate="2017-10-22T00:26:08.717" Score="0" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quoting &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/10800/is-%E6%98%AF-being-used-as-a-measure-word-in-this-sentence?rq=1&quot;&gt;another question here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在，中国网民总数已经超过美国人口总数，但美国网购人数占其全部人口的75%，中国则只有25%左右，而且，中国网购消费者年均消费额仅为美国消费者的1/5。&lt;strong&gt;于刚认为，这是差距， 更是中国电子商务的潜力&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one of the comment there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also: 这是...更是... could be seen as a pattern. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, my Pleco dictionary doesn't have an entry for the idiom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what does the 这是 ～ 更是 mean, and what is the meaning of the bold sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T03:56:40.957" Title="What does 这是 ～ 更是 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27162" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27165" CreationDate="2017-10-22T00:30:52.333" Score="0" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/28396027&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;following sentence from an answer on 知乎&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们四个人没有一个会说西班牙语，感觉这像&lt;strong&gt;个&lt;/strong&gt;文盲一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 个 mean in this context and how does it function grammatically? Is it safe to assume it is an abbreviation of 我感觉这像一个文盲的人一样...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if it is an abbreviation of 一个, then why does the former clause use 一个 while the latter doesn't?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T12:33:33.737" Title="What does 个 mean in 感觉这像**个**文盲一样" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27161" CreationDate="2017-10-22T03:56:40.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why are you digging up such old questions? That was nearly 4 years ago! What a pity my Chinese has not improved in all that time! Pleco is none too good. My advice: first, ask your Chinese friends. Also try Hanping Chinese Dictionary Pro.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是 ....， 更是 .... this is ..... , but it is also .....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nowadays&lt;br&gt;&#xA;中国网民总数已经超过美国人口总数，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;China's total number of Internet users is more than the population of America,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;但美国网购人数占其全部人口的75%，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but America's online shopping users make up 75% of America's population,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;中国则只有25%左右，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;whereas China's online shopping users only make up about 25% (of China's population)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;而且，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;moreover,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;中国网购消费者年均消费额仅为美国消费者的1/5。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;China's online consumers' annual average spending only represents about one fifth of America's online consumer spending.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;于刚认为，这是差距， 更是中国电子商务的潜力。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yu Gang believes, this is a (big) disparity, but it is also China's e-commerce (development) potential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T03:56:40.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27164" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-22T05:53:04.007" Score="2" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;A completed action with 把 sentence - I saw some sentences with 了 and some without 了. Is there a rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把课本放在桌子上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把病人送到医院。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姐姐把照片存在电脑里了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把我的新书丢在公共汽车上了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and is there a difference where the 了 is placed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小明把礼物送给了妈妈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12794" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T11:50:12.937" Title="When should I use &quot;了&quot; in “把”字句 and where should it be placed?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27162" CreationDate="2017-10-22T07:27:49.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;文盲 (illiterate) can be a noun on its own, no need to add 的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/illiterate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;illiterate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;an illiterate person (noun)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我们四个人(之中)没有一个&quot; = &quot;no one (among) the four of us&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;会说西班牙语&quot;=  &quot;can speak Spanish&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;感觉这像个文盲一样。&quot; = &quot;Felt like an illiterate&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are many problems with this sentence, Since the subject is not mentioned, it can either be &quot;all four of us&quot; or &quot;I&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the subject was &quot;all four of us&quot; then the singular &quot;一个文盲&quot; (an illiterate) would have to be changed to &quot;一群文盲&quot; (a group of illiterates)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the subject was &quot;I&quot;, it should not be omitted because people would get confused  by &quot;我们四个&quot; (we four) at the beginning. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我感觉像个文盲一样&quot; (I felt like an illiterate) lacks an object after the verb, therefore we should add &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &quot;自己&quot; (myself) as the object to clarify &quot;I myself&quot; is the object that I felt like an illiterate -- The sentence would then become &quot;我感觉自己像个文盲一样&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &quot;我们&quot; (we) as the object to clarify &quot;we four&quot; is the object that I felt like a group of illiterates-- The sentence would then become &quot;我感觉我们像群文盲一样&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can replace 感觉(feel) with 觉得(feel), because  感觉 can also be a noun, but 觉得 is clearly a verb &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence should then become &quot;&lt;strong&gt;我觉得自己像个文盲一样&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (I felt I was like an illiterate) or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;我觉得我们像群文盲一样&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (I felt we were like a group of illiterates)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-22T07:46:11.023" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T07:46:11.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27164" CreationDate="2017-10-22T08:42:43.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Compare these sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我把课本放在桌子上。 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他把病人送到医院。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我把课本放在桌子上了。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他把病人送到了医院。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence 1 and 2 don't indicate the tense and tell whether those events happen in the present, past or future. Sentence 3 and 4 clearly indicate those events happened in the past because they have 了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practically, you could put 了 after verb. If you see a prepositional phrase in the end, you can attach 了 at the end of the prepositional phrase or sentence.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我把课本放在桌子上了。 在桌子上 is a prep phrase, so you attach 了 at the end. The same thing for 姐姐把照片存在电脑里了。 我把我的新书丢在公共汽车上了.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他把病人送到了医院。in this case, it doesn't have any prep phrase in the end, so you can put 了 after the verb 送到. In 小明把礼物送给了妈妈。送给 is the verb, so&#xA;  you can put 了 after it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T08:42:43.537" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27162" CreationDate="2017-10-22T12:33:33.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since it refers to 4 people, it is necessary to quantify how many of them cannot speak Spanish. Therefore, 一个. It's not all four of them, not 3 and not 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second part of the sentence is a bit tricky. Strictly speaking, the feeling of being an illiterate is the feeling of the 'subject', i.e. all four of the people (我们四个人). In this case, 个 in &quot;感觉这像个文盲一样&quot; is not needed.  (我们四个人)感觉这像文盲一样. However, if the sentence is constructed in the first persion, 个 is needed to make it singular - &quot;(我)感觉这像个文盲一样&quot;. 一个 is redundant because 我 already implies 一.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4300" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T12:33:33.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27175" CreationDate="2017-10-22T13:10:48.667" Score="1" ViewCount="613" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked a Chinese friend if the measure word for 油条 (yóutiáo) is 条 (tiáo).  They said I should use 根 (gēn), but I'm unsure why.  It might be because it's plain wrong, or perhaps just that 根 is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are 根 and 条 both measure words for 油条?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小马词典&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/hanzi.php?hz=%E6%9D%A1&amp;amp;fhz=%E6%9D%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;条&lt;/a&gt; classifier for long thin things (ribbon, river, road, trousers etc)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/hanzi.php?hz=%E6%A0%B9&amp;amp;fhz=%E6%A0%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;根&lt;/a&gt; classifier for long slender objects, e.g. cigarettes, guitar strings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to make sense to use 条 (especially since it's called 油条), although it also seems to make sense to use 根.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is 油条 being cooked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WKulAm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WKulAm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;油条&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;sub&gt;Image source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/VM_5119_Gaoqiao_Township_breakfast_youtiao_stall.jpg/800px-VM_5119_Gaoqiao_Township_breakfast_youtiao_stall.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikimedia commons&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T02:48:52.480" Title="Are 根 (gēn) and 条 (tiáo) both measure words for 油条 (yóutiáo)?" Tags="&lt;food&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27171" CreationDate="2017-10-22T17:42:45.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say 一条, 两条 without 油条 at the end,  since 一条油条 sounds like a tongue twister. You can even say 一个油条. But 跟 is still the most common counter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yo , 我刚刚码完代码, 点开这页网页, 想起我用一斤黄金, 买了两条油条, 吃完又含着, 一块冰块,说: 这真奇怪.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I am watching 中国有嘻哈....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T17:42:45.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27173" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27174" CreationDate="2017-10-22T20:52:42.267" Score="0" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;My hobby is to collect the wind chimes and the one I have recently bought had a pretty complex character on its pendant. I've tried to look it up by the radical 辵/辶, but to no avail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first I thought the upper part of the character is &quot;family&quot;/家, but now I am rather unsure... As for the other elements I believe I can identify bird/隹 and shellfish/貝. The one on the far right is probably 拓 (?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If my guesses are right, this character consists of around 33 strokes. zdic.net/z/zxjs gives some interesting characters with 辶 radical, but with maximum strokes count of 25... I've also tried Google Translate recognition, but the app crashes each time I try to upload the pic. Too much magic in the air :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was my trail of thoughts which didn't bring me to desired result. So,&#xA; my question is if anyone finds this character familiar and can help me to find out its meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another question I have is concerned more with the traditions but is related through the above-mentioned wind chime. When I bought it the plate with this character was hanged upside down. I read somewhere that the Chinese hang characters like 福 upside down to attract luck. However, I am suspicious the shop workers might have turned it over accidently. How to hang it properly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be very grateful to those who answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wjGmJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;mysterious character&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18199" LastEditorUserId="18199" LastEditDate="2017-10-22T21:29:40.727" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T23:26:57.437" Title="Please help to identify the character" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-10-23T14:21:27.430" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27173" CreationDate="2017-10-22T22:41:37.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have answered a very similar question before. Please refer to the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12410/an-unknown-traditional-chinese-character-on-a-decorative-piece-for-lunar-new-yea/12411#12411&quot;&gt;An unknown Traditional Chinese character on a decorative piece for Lunar New Year&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to the proper way to hang this, I have never seen this hung upside down, unlike the character &quot;福&quot;, which is often hung upside down because of a play on the words &quot;福到&quot; (blessings arrive) and &quot;福倒&quot; (blessings upside down).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T22:41:37.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27171" CreationDate="2017-10-22T23:05:27.833" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the main reason is that 油条 already includes the character 条, so to avoid double use, we say 一根油条. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the same as we say 一根面条，一根薯条，一根木条，...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T23:05:27.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27173" CreationDate="2017-10-22T23:26:57.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Took a bit of baiduing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is 4  characters written together, mixed up. They are traditional characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 招 2 財 3 進 4 寳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern, mainland characters are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 招 2 財 3 进 4 宝&#xA;come money, enter riches&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might stick this on your wall for Spring Festival. Means something like: 'get money, get rich'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T23:26:57.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27177" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27179" CreationDate="2017-10-22T23:50:43.483" Score="2" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.voachinese.com/a/news-japan-election-20171022/4081156.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the following sentence&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;日本一家电视台的民调显示，&lt;strong&gt;以安倍的自民党为首的联盟&lt;/strong&gt;将保持三分之二的“绝对多数”，与安倍九月份解散议会下院之前的比例相当。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bold sentence starts with 以, and it also has 为. So at first I assumed it is 以～为 pattern, which is &quot;regarding A as B&quot; or &quot;taking A as B&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I also found that 为首 means &quot;serve as the head&quot;, and it should exactly refer to 安倍. And I understand the meaning then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is this sentence 以～为 pattern or not? If not, what does the leading 以 mean and work in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T00:49:53.397" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T00:49:53.397" Title="Does 以安倍的自民党为首的联盟 use the 以 ~ 为 pattern?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27177" CreationDate="2017-10-23T00:33:01.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;以～为: take...as... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 为首， 首 means head or leader, while 为 means as. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 以瘦为美：take thin as beauty; 以他为首： take him as leader;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 以安倍的自民党为首: take 安倍的自民党 as leader. 以安倍的自民党为首的 is attributive to modify 联盟. 安倍的自民党 is the head. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T01:08:39.553" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T01:08:39.553" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27177" CreationDate="2017-10-23T00:47:50.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, [&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;][安倍的自民党][&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;][首][的联盟] fits the pattern of [&lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt;][A] [&lt;strong&gt;as&lt;/strong&gt;] [B] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;首&quot; is short for &quot;首领&quot;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[A - 安倍的自民党] = [B - 首领]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'为'+'首(领)' simply means 'as leader' (preposition + noun)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;为首&lt;/strong&gt;' as a set phrase, is a common adjective &quot;&lt;strong&gt;leading&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;top ranked&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'在这次会议上, &lt;strong&gt;为首&lt;/strong&gt;官员是北京市长'-- 'In this meeting, the &lt;strong&gt;leading&lt;/strong&gt; (top ranked) officer is Beijing mayor'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T01:17:23.600" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T01:17:23.600" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27180" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-23T01:00:16.070" Score="0" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard a TV host said in his comment that 他是一个非常经验丰富的队员, but which sounds weird, perhaps he wanted to say 他是一个经验非常丰富的队员? Which is correct or accpetable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T11:34:02.950" Title="Which is correct, 经验非常丰富or 非常经验丰富？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27181" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27182" CreationDate="2017-10-23T01:17:10.180" Score="4" ViewCount="864" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this sentence: &quot;我觉得奇怪的是&quot;, which translates to &quot;I feel weird&quot;. But wouldn't &quot;我觉得奇怪&quot; suffice? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is &quot;的是&quot; supposed to do in this sentence? From my research, the best conclusion I came up with was that it turns &quot;奇怪&quot; into a noun and therefore makes the sentence follow the subject + verb + object paradigm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;EDIT&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My bad for not posting the complete sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想学习普通话，因为我觉得奇怪的是，即使我是中国人，但当我去中国旅行时，我却无法与人沟通。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I wanted to learn Mandarin because I find it odd that I cannot communicate with people when I travel to China even though I'm Chinese.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought since it was sectioned with the commas it would have been fine and could act on its own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should also be noted this was extracted from a conversation, so I don't know if this would be officially grammatically correct or not. With this new info in mind, does the sentence sound right in a conversation, and, again, what is &quot;的是&quot; doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17108" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T18:25:30.850" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T18:25:30.850" Title="What is the use of 的是?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27181" CreationDate="2017-10-23T01:40:31.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 (refer to definition 2 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/js/7684.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this dictionary&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;代替所指的人或物：唱歌～。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我觉得奇怪的 here refers to &lt;strong&gt;things&lt;/strong&gt; I feel weird. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 我觉得奇怪的是 could be interpreted as &quot;things I feel weird are:&quot; or &quot;What I feel weird are:&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T01:40:31.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27183" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-23T02:31:59.023" Score="2" ViewCount="1020" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't evey type this word out, because I do not know how to pronouce it. I notice this word when seeing it in the name of an actor for a TV drama, then I thought it to be 功，but it turned out it was not 工 on the left but 王, then I checked Xinhua Dictionary but couldn't get the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T03:00:05.833" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T03:20:04.173" Title="Do you know the Chinese character which is formed by 王 on the left and 力 on the right?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27183" CreationDate="2017-10-23T02:46:41.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/738F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;玏&lt;/a&gt; (lè ㄌㄜˋ), means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;似玉的美石 [jewel-like stone]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T02:46:41.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27183" CreationDate="2017-10-23T02:50:24.813" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;玏  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/738F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/738F.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin: lè&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;基本字义 (basic meaning)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See : 瑊 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/744A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/js/744A.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瑊 - 似玉的美石 (jade-like gemstones)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;康熙字典 (Kangxi Dictionary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O6xf1.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O6xf1.gif&quot; alt=&quot;玏&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本作。&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EJqPm.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EJqPm.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; 也。今省作玏，謂石之次玉者。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original character: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EJqPm.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EJqPm.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. Now simplified as '玏'.  It means &amp;quot;lesser gemstones that is similar to jade&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In my opinion, naming a child '玉' emphasis his or her nobleness and being precious--(賈寶玉 is a good example).  Some modest people might feel that is too boastful, opt for the more humble word  '玏' instead. wishing the child will has noble-like quality, but can also relate to the common people.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T03:20:04.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27181" CreationDate="2017-10-23T05:11:57.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just incomplete, there should be something or somethings named after 是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我觉得奇怪的是[男人穿着迷你裙]/[笨蛋的老外总是想要开个笑话]！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T05:11:57.830" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27180" CreationDate="2017-10-23T05:39:54.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are correct. In grammar，经验非常丰富 means （拥有）非常丰富(的)经验. We usually use a Noun+Adjective to express [Noun] is [Adjective]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The TV host is wrong in fact. We should say 他是一个非常有经验的队员/他是一个经验丰富的队员, but can not say 一个非常经验丰富的队员. Howerver, chinese would understand his informal expression casuse we just take it as an error in speak. May be he wanted to say 非常有经验, and suddenly associated 经验丰富, so...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18202" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T05:39:54.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27188" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-23T06:01:17.757" Score="1" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;While construction began in China, people hadn't thought of the pollution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this an accurate use of the grammar: shi4 ... de&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18176" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T18:35:36.967" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T18:21:51.760" Title="Is this sentence grammatically correct? 中国的建设开始的时候，人人是不以为过环境污染的。" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27188" CreationDate="2017-10-23T06:47:43.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国的建设开始的时候，人人是不以为过环境污染的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incorrect, verb is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以为 -&gt; 考虑, remove 是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国的建设开始的时候，人人都没有考虑过环境污染.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Retouch. 人人 -&gt; 人们都&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在中国的发展初期, 人们都没有考虑过环境污染的问题.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to use 是....的 structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在中国的发展初期, 人们是没有考虑环境污染的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以为 followed by a statement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在中国的发展初期, 人们是以为&lt;strong&gt;环境污染没有什么大不了的&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T06:47:43.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1087" CreationDate="2017-10-23T09:21:05.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;带走 [dài zǒu]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;take away 带走，拿走，取走；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;carry off 夺去；获得；使丧命；成功地处理；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;spirit 精神；心灵；情绪；志气；烈酒；鼓励；鼓舞；诱拐；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;walk off  离开；带走；用散步消除；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;go away with 带走……；与……一同离开&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打包[dǎ bāo]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.Packing items. Packing and packing;Baling press.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2.When you eat in a restaurant, you can wrap it up or put it in containers for taking away.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T13:35:19.477" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T13:35:19.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27192" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27195" CreationDate="2017-10-23T11:12:53.453" Score="0" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, in Chinese, the erhwa changes a verb into a noun : 吃儿 (something to eat), 喝儿 (something to drink).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwanese, except for disyllabic words like 饮食 and 食物, how can I express something to eat maintaining the word 吃? Maybe 吃物?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18198" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T03:01:07.400" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T03:01:07.400" Title="In Taiwanese, what can the erhwa be replaced with when it means something?" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27181" CreationDate="2017-10-23T11:16:30.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most obvious explanation is that the sentence is incomplete. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我觉得奇怪的是 [?] &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I think that what's strange is [?] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility that I want to point out is that it's a very colloquial way of putting emphasis on the 奇怪。It happened to me to hear (young) people use that construction when they are excited. So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;奇怪 or any other adjective they want to emphasize (...strange) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  的 final particle that expresses certainty (...strange for sure!) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  是 strong emphasis, colloquially placed at the end of the sentence (...strange for sure, I swear!) &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though that arguably isn't what you'd call standard language. Other natives might tell you that's not grammatical at all, and it probably isn't. Just something someone could yell out when they are agitated (e.g. my wife when we fight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As always, only the context could help you tell. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T11:16:30.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27180" CreationDate="2017-10-23T11:34:02.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you divide that sentence up into 他是一个非常 and 经验丰富的队员 and consider the 经验丰富 an adjective it might make a little more sense. You could most definitely say 一个经验（很）丰富的队员 and perhaps adding the 非常 to precede that seems a little odd at first as in western languages we wouldn't really consider 经验丰富 an adjective if translated literally, however in this sentence you could almost say that it acts like one. While it might not be &quot;grammatically correct&quot; and you likely wouldn't see it written in a news paper or used in any other formal setting, in my experience it's not an uncommon way to phrase it colloquially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that made enough sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18207" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T11:34:02.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27192" CreationDate="2017-10-23T11:45:10.187" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 吃的，喝的 etc. That would be the most common way to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Assuming you mean Taiwanese Mandarin and not Taiwanese Hokkien. I wouldn't know about Hokkien.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18207" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T11:45:10.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27188" CreationDate="2017-10-23T11:59:42.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When construction began in China, people didn't think about pollution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当工业在中国兴起时，人们并没有想到污染的问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T11:59:42.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="793" CreationDate="2017-10-23T12:04:43.897" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the Simplified Chinese script, there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://compling.hss.ntu.edu.sg/cow/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Open Wordnet&lt;/a&gt; which you can &lt;a href=&quot;http://compling.hss.ntu.edu.sg/omw/cgi-bin/wn-gridx.cgi?gridmode=cow&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;search online&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is part of &lt;a href=&quot;http://compling.hss.ntu.edu.sg/omw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Open Multilingual Wordnet&lt;/a&gt;, which also links to a smaller project called Chinese WordNet which was produced in Taiwan in 2010 and uses the Traditional Chinese script.  That one also has a 2012 version called Chinese WordNet 2, but the license of Chinese WordNet 2 is much more restrictive than that of the original Chinese WordNet or Chinese Open Wordnet.  Chinese WordNet 2 is non-commercial use only and no redistribution without permission, which means others have not integrated it with their online query systems and such.  You can still &lt;a href=&quot;http://lope.linguistics.ntu.edu.tw/cwn2/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;download it&lt;/a&gt; if you don't mind doing a bit of programming to read out the data (I suggest use the &quot;CWN DataBase&quot; link and the &lt;code&gt;output.sqlite&lt;/code&gt; file; if you want to process it as text do &lt;code&gt;echo .dump|sqlite3 output.sqlite &amp;gt; output.txt&lt;/code&gt; on GNU/Linux).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However if you can convert your input to the Simplified Chinese script then you might as well just use Chinese Open Wordnet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17164" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T12:04:43.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27188" CreationDate="2017-10-23T14:43:03.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Shorten as much as possible as long as the meaning remains the same, &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;中国的建设开始的时候&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; can be reduced to : &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;中国的建设开始时&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (avoid two 的 in the same sentence)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;人人(everyone)&lt;/em&gt; - use '&lt;strong&gt;人们&lt;/strong&gt;'(people) as the subject instead is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;人们是不以为过&lt;/em&gt; - the verb '是' should be omitted because 不以为 (didn't consider) is also a verb, so the sentence should be &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;人们不以为过&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;人们不以为过&lt;/em&gt; - you tried to use '不' to indicate 'had not' but the correct term here should be 未曾 or &lt;strong&gt;没有&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;人们没有以为过&lt;/em&gt; - You try to use '以为' for 'considered' but the primary meaning of '以为' is 'thought' , the correct word for 'considered' is &lt;strong&gt;考虑&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(a)  &lt;em&gt;人们没有考虑过环境污染的。&lt;/em&gt; -- 境污染的 is an adjectival phrase, you need a noun after it, for example. 人们没有考虑过环境污染的&lt;strong&gt;问题&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(b). You can simply use '环境污染' (environmental pollution) as the noun and write &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;人们没有考虑过环境污染&lt;/strong&gt;。&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Original sentence:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;中国的建设开始的时候，人人是不以为过环境污染的。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edition&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;中国的建设开始时，人们并没有考虑到环境污染的问题&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Add word particle '&lt;strong&gt;并&lt;/strong&gt;' before  the verb '没有考虑' to emphasize ' something should had been done but hadn't)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;没有考虑过&amp;quot;(had never considered) implies people deliberately ignored the problem;  replace 过 with 到 and write &amp;quot;没有考虑到&amp;quot; (had not considered) implies it was an oversight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T15:15:55.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27192" CreationDate="2017-10-23T15:34:33.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience 儿 doesn't really perform the role you mention about changing a verb into a noun, it just reinforces that something is a noun when it's ambiguous. For example 画 is 'to paint' or a painting, so if you mean a painting you say 画儿 to be clear you don't mean 'to paint'. But 吃 doesn't mean food, it means 'to eat', so 吃儿 doesn't need to exist to distinguish the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Beijing I've found that most of the words with extra 儿's at the end are nouns that sound like other words. Adding the 儿 reduces the ambiguity when speaking by reducing the entropy of the language. That being said, there are lots of exceptions, 玩儿， 那儿， 这儿 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16143" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T15:34:33.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26330" CreationDate="2017-10-23T16:07:26.887" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I took the computer version HSK4 test.&#xA;Audio was only played once as standard for levels 4-6.&#xA;You get some small headphones which did cut out the exam room background noise a bit. (If all the levels are being held in the same room then there can be chatter as the lower level test finish earlier.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pros:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't have to write characters (this is probably only a pro for levels 4-6 because the testable characters in HSK3 are usually very simple, 米， 大， 小， etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can mark reading questions you're not sure on and quickly click back to them when you have some time at the end. (You might be able to do this on paper anyway.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also if you can't remember the pinyin for a character but you know what it means this can be frustrating. But you can cycle through all of your guesses to try and find it in the entry system.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading font was not the one I was used to and took a little longer than normal (for all parts).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can not skip ahead on the listening part and read all of the questions if you answer one quickly, you must wait. This is especially annoying for the two part audio questions, as you have to remember the whole audio snippet and wait for the second question to come.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The writing entry system for typed pinyin was not the one I was used to and would struggle to automatically generate words.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is a character limit on the written test which is not mentioned on the mocks for written exercises.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Extra:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The test centre I was in had a technical failure and the tests wouldn't start. When they did start the audio had already played for the first 2 questions and wouldn't replay, which wasted time and stressed me out for the 3rd question etc. The staff said they couldn't do anything to adjust the marks or retest the questions because it's a centralised test.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16143" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T16:07:26.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27201" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27231" CreationDate="2017-10-23T17:55:38.137" Score="0" ViewCount="397" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence, which is from a comment on &lt;a href=&quot;http://slide.news.sina.com.cn/w/slide_1_2841_211969.html#p=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;安倍金山你为什么没有死&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be an Internet slang, but what does the 金山 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to many dictionaries for Chinese-English (Pleco, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=1&amp;amp;wdqt=%E9%87%91%E5%B1%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;, etc), it only lists the meaning as the place names. So I resorted to Chinese-Chinese dictionary, where I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://cidian.wenku1.com/%E9%87%91%E5%B1%B1/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the following&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;比喻人的仪表英俊、德行崇高。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is 金山 a word that includes a derogatory connotation and usually is used to mock a person? I'm sure the Chinese netizen here mocks Abe, and the meaning is something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;God bless Abe, why have you not died yet, huh?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my understanding correct? And also, is 金山 in these cases only used on the Internet or also used in daily life?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T00:14:32.200" Title="What does 金山 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27201" CreationDate="2017-10-23T20:34:07.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 4 character is a name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安倍金山&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prime minister of japan I think&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is better to baidu this name rather than google this name. While there are sarcastic remarks in chinese, this isn't one of them :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the comment is just asking why he isn't dead yet. Not really surprising given the countries history but whoever said it probably doesn't mean it in a bad way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="863" LastEditorUserId="863" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T20:36:27.893" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T20:36:27.893" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27203" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-23T23:19:29.253" Score="1" ViewCount="729" Body="&lt;p&gt;My text is talking about charity. It contains this old saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(儒家提出)“穷则独善其身，达则兼济天下。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The Confucian School suggests)&quot;When you are poor you can only help yourself,&#xA;when you become rich you can (simultaneously 兼??) help the whole world.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is 兼 here? Is 兼济 1 word, something like 'multi-help'? (Not that that word exists in English， at least not yet!)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I think:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;独： 独自， alone (but it has to become 'only' in English.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;达： 发达， get rich&lt;br&gt;&#xA;兼： 兼顾， do more than 1 thing at a time&lt;br&gt;&#xA;济： maybe 救济： help the needy  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T08:29:54.677" Title="What is the meaning in this 兼？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27203" CreationDate="2017-10-23T23:30:35.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;兼济: 兼顾救济. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兼顾: give consideration to/take account of two or more things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;救济：relieve; succor;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/c/f/24801.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;普遍救濟，使天下蒼生皆受益。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T23:30:35.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27205" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27206" CreationDate="2017-10-24T00:14:06.417" Score="2" ViewCount="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;When talking about the definition of high speed railway, it is often said 初期运营速度不小于200公里/小时. I don't understand what 初期运营速度 mean? I come out a few possible meanings, but not sure which is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Option 1: The designed speed (if so, it implies the real running speed might be either faster or slower) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Option 2: the speed of early stage (if so, it implies there will be a later stage of this railway and in later stage the running speed will be either faster or slower.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Option 3: the starting speed when a train departs from the railway platform. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T01:56:28.473" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T01:56:28.473" Title="What does 初期运营速度 mean when we talk about high speed railway?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27205" CreationDate="2017-10-24T01:21:38.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;初期运营速度 means operative speed in early phase. The early phase could be a trial run to see if everything works okay. And later on, they might increase the speed based on the data they collected from that trial run, or they would fix if any issues are identified. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T01:21:38.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27203" CreationDate="2017-10-24T01:34:45.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;窮則獨善其身﹒達則兼善天下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;original&lt;/strong&gt; verse should use the character &quot;&lt;strong&gt;善&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, which is from &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/text.pl?node=13823&amp;amp;if=gb&amp;amp;show=meta&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孟子　盡心上&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the verse &quot;窮則獨善其身﹒達則兼濟天下&quot;, using the character &quot;&lt;strong&gt;濟&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is a deviation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the earliest one i found, is from the letter &quot;與元九書&quot;, written by &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%BD%E5%B1%85%E6%98%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;白樂天&lt;/a&gt;, which was in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;chapter=542002&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;白氏長慶集　卷四十五&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;古人云﹒窮則獨善其身﹒達則兼濟天下﹒僕雖不肖﹒常師此語﹒大丈夫所守者道﹒所待者時﹒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;時之來也﹒為雲龍﹒為風鵬﹒勃然突然﹒陳力以出﹒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;時之不來也﹒為霧豹﹒為冥鴻﹒寂兮寥兮﹒奉身而退&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;進退出處﹒何往而不自得哉﹒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;故僕志在兼濟﹒行在獨善﹒奉而始終之則為道﹒言而發明之則為詩﹒謂之諷諭詩﹒兼濟之志也﹒謂之閒適詩﹒獨善之義也﹒故覽僕詩﹒知僕之道焉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;first of all, it's &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; talking about charity. then, such claim, implying it's confucianism; is falseness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;intepreting &quot;達&quot; as rich, &quot;濟&quot; as &quot;help the needy&quot;, &quot;relieve&quot; is, imo, imaginative, and severely derived from orthodox.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fortunately, the character &quot;兼&quot; is correctly interpreted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;let's examine the version of mr 白.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a manly man (大丈夫) behave (所守) according to the proper way (道), wait (所待) for [his] times (時).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when his times do not come (時之不來也), it's 窮; then (則), he make good (善 ) himself (其身) alone (獨)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when his times comes (時之來也), it's 達; which means he become high official, then (則), his governing accords to the proper way, brings goodness (濟) to all people in the nations (天下)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兼 (both), is used, because, in such state &quot;達&quot;, he do goodness to himself, and, to others peoples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, though the character &quot;善&quot; was replaced by &quot;濟&quot;, mr 白's usage was similar to mr 孟's, without great difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;classical text were interpreted, remarked through out history; so, it's better to use these remarks to understand the classical text. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that's culture heritage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now, my rant, related to the comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1　he know the orthodox meaning, and ask for a government post from the communist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2　he does not know the orthodox meaning, use current usage of character meanings, mislead other by implying it's confucianism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;it's no virtue, or cheating :(&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, a metaphor:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;dog&quot;, &quot;green&quot;, &quot;hot&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;house&quot; are words taught in kindergarten, everyone know the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now, a &quot;rich&quot; man claims that &quot;greenhouse&quot; is a house with green color, &quot;hotdog&quot; is a dog that is hot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how do you response?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T08:29:54.677" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T08:29:54.677" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27208" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-24T02:15:24.820" Score="1" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is short:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any university in Scandinavia where one can study the Chinese language using Traditional Chinese characters (繁體字)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T00:52:02.260" Title="Is there any university in Scandinavia where one can study Traditional Chinese (繁體字)?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-10-28T00:48:05.227" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27209" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-24T03:31:13.420" Score="1" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;This text is talking about a man who adored a film star for a long time when he was a young man. Ten years later he met her and was not impressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find for 美妙：beautiful; marvellous; nice; splendid; wonderful. I don't find this word as a noun.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I am tempted to write 'splenditity', except that word does not exist! 'splendidness' also sounds awkward. I don't like 'beauty', because '向往给你带来的' 就是 'beautiful feelings' or 'beautiful moments' rather than actual beauty, in my opinion. You won't be more beautiful because you dream about a film star.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1. I thought 'He means '美妙的感觉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2. he refers to 这美妙 with 它, which very clearly makes it a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天下许多事，你都可以尽性地去向往，向往给你带来的无穷美妙其实已经足够了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这美妙，就是在于它不真实的一面，一旦实现，便要大打折扣。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you think this may be a typo for 秒？ Then I could translate 美秒 as 'beautiful seconds' = 'beautiful moments' and '这美秒' as 'these beautiful moments'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T06:43:28.730" Title="Which word is correct 秒 or 妙" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27210" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27211" CreationDate="2017-10-24T04:31:59.027" Score="1" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference in meaning and grammatical structure between ‘谁是你？’ and ‘你是谁？’?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/145519/which-one-is-you-vs-which-one-are-you&quot;&gt;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/145519/which-one-is-you-vs-which-one-are-you&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17749" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T04:49:07.443" Title="What's the difference between ‘谁是你？’ and ‘你是谁？’?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27210" CreationDate="2017-10-24T04:40:19.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;‘谁是你？’= &quot;who (which one) was you&quot; - For example,  your friend looking at a picture in your high school yearbook, wondering which one in the photo was you at the age of sixteen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid confusion, it is better to say &quot;哪一个是你&quot; (which one was you) instead of  &quot;谁是你?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘你是谁？’ = &quot;who are you?&quot; (if you know English, you understand what it means)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'在这张照片的二十人中, 谁(&lt;strong&gt;哪一个&lt;/strong&gt;)是你?' - Among the twenty people in this photo, who (&lt;strong&gt;which one&lt;/strong&gt;) was you?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better to use &quot;哪一个&quot; (which one) than &quot;谁&quot;(who) to make thing more clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T04:49:07.443" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T04:49:07.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27209" CreationDate="2017-10-24T06:28:53.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;「美秒」is not a word. It also doesn't make any sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, 美妙 means &quot;awesomeness&quot;, &quot;wonderfulness&quot;. Noun or adjective isn't that important in Chinese as long as it makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天下許多事，你都可以盡性地去嚮往，嚮往給你帶來的無窮美妙其實已經足夠了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;There are a lot of things that you can long for in this world. The unlimited wonderfulness you get when dreaming about it is actually already enough. &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這美妙，就是在於它不真實的一面，一旦實現，便要大打折扣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;This wonderfulness comes from the fact that it is not real. Once you reached the goal of having the things you longed for, that feeling will get discounted (will no longer be this wonderful).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These sentences sound like they are from a novel. The full text I found&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人生在世，有許多解不開的結，也有許多莫須有的煩惱。因為天下許多事情，你都可以盡情地去嚮往，嚮往給你帶來的無窮美妙，其實已經足夠了。不要為嚮往的沒有實現而遺憾，實現了也許更遺憾！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人世間有許多事情，只有一直嚮往著才是最美好的。這美妙就是在於他有不真實的一面，一旦實現便要大打折扣。如果真的讓他實現了，最好只有一天，一夜，一會兒，或是短短的一瞬間，真的不能再長了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have some deep meaning. Feels like it's something that young girls like to read in a coffee shop. It's basically saying you don't need to reach your goal to be happy. The journey is often more enjoyable than the short moment of you reaching the goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Some people are saying this is not a good text and I don't see why. This style of writing is quite common in novels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="541" LastEditorUserId="541" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T06:43:28.730" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T06:43:28.730" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27214" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27217" CreationDate="2017-10-24T07:59:30.840" Score="3" ViewCount="423" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently both are measure words for flat objects, are they interchangeable or is there a difference to the types of flat objects they are used for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17614" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T13:03:50.607" Title="What is the difference between the measure words 面 vs 张" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27215" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27216" CreationDate="2017-10-24T08:25:11.750" Score="0" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;When 奉 is used as the sense of &quot;politely&quot;, as the words 奉托, 奉告, which are usually used, can I attach 奉 to every verb that influences the other person? For example, what about 奉给 or 奉按摩?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18198" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T09:51:26.420" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T12:22:24.960" Title="Can 奉 be attached to verbs I want to use?" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27215" CreationDate="2017-10-24T08:32:06.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不能，Chinese used as the sense of &quot;politely&quot;，usually used 请 to every verb，For example 请给 or 请按摩，not used 奉给 or 奉按摩，&#xA;thanks，hahaha&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18213" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T08:32:06.670" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27214" CreationDate="2017-10-24T08:37:12.597" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;张 literally means 'extend'. It is a classifier for something with a thin, flat surface , typically in rectangular shape&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Typical objects with 张 as classifier&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一张纸 = a sheet of paper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一张刀 = a knife (refer to the broad side of the knife)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一张桌子 = a table (refer to the surface of the table)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一张照片 = a photograph (which has a flat surface)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;面 literally means 'face'. It is a classifier for something with a 'face-side'.  It can be in rectangular, oval, circular or other irregular shapes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Typical objects with 面 as classifier&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一面镜子 = a mirror (only the face-side reflects image)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一面奖牌 = a medal plate (which has a face-side)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;雷达 (radar) has a 'face side', but due to its huge size ,  座 is used for its classifier, as in  一座雷达.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;硬币 (coin) has a 'face side' but due to it's small size, 枚 is used for its classifier, as in 一枚硬币&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T09:29:30.257" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T09:29:30.257" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27214" CreationDate="2017-10-24T08:46:59.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;面 as a measure word is used for only a handful of objects, 墙 镜子 鼓 and 旗 are all I can come up with. It stresses that the object has a flat surface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张 indicates that the object is flat and &lt;strong&gt;thin&lt;/strong&gt; (usually can be held with two fingers, like paper or cards), while 面 doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually they are not interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T08:46:59.060" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27215" CreationDate="2017-10-24T12:22:24.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's quite ancient-style, we don't use 奉 as &quot;politely&quot; any more today, except for several remaining set phrases, as dan listed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T12:22:24.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27214" CreationDate="2017-10-24T13:03:50.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;张 (zhang1)&lt;/strong&gt; is used for different objects, that may or may not be related with each other, e.g. sheets and flat furniture. If we really want to find a common denominator, I think that would be objects that are &lt;strong&gt;spread open&lt;/strong&gt; [1]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;纸 paper (一张纸 a sheet of paper)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;地图 map&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;照片 photo, picture&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;桌子 table&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;床 bed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;木板 plank&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;脸 face （一张脸）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嘴 mouth （一张嘴）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;弓 (gong1) bow （一张弓）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;面 (mian4)&lt;/strong&gt; is used for flat objects with a &lt;strong&gt;face&lt;/strong&gt; or a &lt;strong&gt;surface&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;镜子 mirror&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;旗子 flag&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墙、墙壁 wall&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鼓 drum&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;锣 （luo2) gong&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;盾 (dun4) shield&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[1] that's not a dictionary definition. It's personal advice that hopefully makes enough sense to you to work as a reasonable rule of thumb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T13:03:50.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27221" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27223" CreationDate="2017-10-24T14:15:38.747" Score="2" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小编&lt;strong&gt;遍搜多名&lt;/strong&gt;日本时尚博主的推文和美图，盘点了一下2017秋季日系时尚关键词，和爱美的&lt;strong&gt;盆友&lt;/strong&gt;共享。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the meaning, which is something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Our) bloggers search for recommendations and pictures posted by many popular Japanese bloggers, and compiled the crucial points on Japanese fasion on fall 2017. So here we share them with you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand some grammatical points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is 遍? How does it function as a grammar here?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;搜多名 is I think the abbreviation of 搜索很多有名, but is this correct? In that case, is it common to abbreviate the long words to such a compact one?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What does the 盆友 mean? My dictionary and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=1&amp;amp;wdqt=%E7%9B%86%E5%8F%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; doesn't have the entry, FYI.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-12-17T14:12:30.270" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T14:12:30.270" Title="What does 遍 mean in 小编遍搜多名?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27011" CreationDate="2017-10-24T14:21:15.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to many comments here, 心理 is just a typo for 行李. If you replace it with 行李, the sentence makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;收费方面，近距离的行李在15千克以下收入2000日元（约合人民币118元），15-25千克收费2500日元（约合人民币147元）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T14:21:15.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27221" CreationDate="2017-10-24T14:26:18.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/xs/904D.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;遍&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;code&gt;allover;everywhere&lt;/code&gt; here. &lt;code&gt;遍搜&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;search allover/everywhere&lt;/code&gt;. Basically it has the same meaning with &lt;code&gt;搜遍&lt;/code&gt;, but with the &lt;code&gt;遍&lt;/code&gt; being put ahead OP wanted to emphasize the degree of how many bloggers he checked.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;多名&lt;/code&gt; is not the abbreviation of &lt;code&gt;很多有名&lt;/code&gt;, but just &lt;code&gt;很多名&lt;/code&gt;, i.e. &lt;code&gt;many&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;名&lt;/code&gt; is just the measure word of the people, i.e. 博主.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9B%86%E5%8F%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;盆友&lt;/a&gt; is a net slang, means &lt;code&gt;朋友&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T14:51:04.923" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T14:51:04.923" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10489" CreationDate="2017-10-24T15:36:57.283" Score="-1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no smoke without fire&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;where there’s smoke there’s fire&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there are no waves without wind&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;nothing is born in a vacuum&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17503" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T15:36:57.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27208" CreationDate="2017-10-25T00:52:02.260" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn  Traditional Chinese characters (繁體字), go to Taiwan.&#xA;If you want to learn  Simplified Chinese characters (简体字), go to China Mainland.&#xA;And MS office can easily convert those two types of characters for your comparison.&#xA;Taiwanese accent sounds pretty the same as PUTONGHUA(Chinese mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4377" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T00:52:02.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27228" CreationDate="2017-10-25T02:37:02.063" Score="2" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is about the technique to remember tones via spelling in pinyin with the unaccented letter followed by the tone number as opposed to the superscript.  For example, remembering nǐ as ni3 or lǎoshī as lao3shi1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the pros and cons of this method?  Would you recommend it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18217" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T23:04:40.480" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T23:04:40.480" Title="Is spelling with numbers a viable option to remember tones?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27226" CreationDate="2017-10-25T03:05:41.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For natives, I think the learning path would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Speaking/talking -&gt; Pinyin -&gt; Characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when we see a word like 你好，we would think about what it's pronounced like and then figure out what tone should apply to them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this could be a good way for non-natives to remember tones for characters as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the way(lao3shi1) OP suggested, you have to remember tones by rote, and it's very easy to forget, and you might not apply those tones well when you speak, because you have to think about the tones all the time while you are speaking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T03:05:41.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27226" CreationDate="2017-10-25T04:54:15.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is viable, but not necessarily the most intuitive way to learn tones. A diacritical mark (above the vowel) offers a visual cue to the tone - a level mark indicates a level tone, a stroke from upper left to lower right indicates a falling tone, etc. The mark serves an important function, that is to help learners recognize the contour of the tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number system, on the other hand, is quite arbitrary. There is no logical reason why the first tone has to be the level tone, and the second rising ... Because of this, it requires the learner to recite all the tones in a certain arbitrary order, and then pick out the one that matches what he sees. To me, it is less direct, and takes longer and more (unnecessary) effort. Imagine trying to learn a language with six or seven tones. You'll find that it's much more time consuming and tedious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only pro I can think of for the number system is that it is a lot easier to type :):) But it's probably not a very good reason to opt for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T04:54:15.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27201" CreationDate="2017-10-25T13:42:02.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a typo. &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinz%C5%8D_Abe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shinzo Abe&lt;/a&gt;'s name is 安倍晋三. Here they replaced 晋三 (jin4 &lt;strong&gt;san1&lt;/strong&gt;) with 金山 (jin1 &lt;strong&gt;shan1&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-26T00:14:32.200" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T00:14:32.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27226" CreationDate="2017-10-25T13:56:13.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is spelling with numbers a viable option to remember tones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Yes&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, if compared to spelling without any tone information (i.e. &lt;code&gt;lao3 shi1&lt;/code&gt; is better than &lt;code&gt;lao shi&lt;/code&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;No&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, if compared to spelling with the superscript (i.e. &lt;code&gt;lǎo shī&lt;/code&gt; is better than &lt;code&gt;lao3 shi1&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tone with superscript should always be more intuitive than the tone with numbers. Why do we have to map the numbers into the tone within our minds?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only downside of writing in a superscript tone is its relative difficulty to type in. It is not a part of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theasciicode.com.ar/extended-ascii-code/majuscule-c-cedilla-uppercase-ascii-code-128.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ASCII-128&lt;/a&gt; so you must remember which modifier key to trigger in order to type in these extensive character sets. (In fact I tried more than 6 key combinations to type in &lt;code&gt;ǎ&lt;/code&gt; character just now....)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-25T14:01:16.623" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T14:01:16.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27201" CreationDate="2017-10-25T14:48:44.057" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Native speaker here. It could be a typo made unconsciously, or made deliberately to show disrespect to 安倍晋三. Anyway, it's just a typo, with nothing to do with the meaning you found about the word 金山.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the meaning you found about 金山 is somewhat a Buddhism-related jargon, which is actually rarely used nowadays. For common people 金山 just means &amp;quot;gold mountain&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;rich places with resources&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;绿水青山就是&lt;strong&gt;金山银山&lt;/strong&gt;。——习近平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lucid waters and lush mountains are &lt;strong&gt;invaluable assets&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Xi Jinping&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其国有&lt;strong&gt;金山&lt;/strong&gt;，石皆赤色，其中生金。——《南史》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a &lt;strong&gt;gold mountain&lt;/strong&gt; in that country, where gold comes from stones that are all red. &lt;em&gt;History of the Southern Dynasties&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/145/319352.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/145/319352.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cctb.net/bygz/zywxsy/201511/t20151113_331161.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cctb.net/bygz/zywxsy/201511/t20151113_331161.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18221" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T14:58:15.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16365" CreationDate="2017-10-25T16:28:29.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It just strikes me to write a Python program to generate some possible translations because there are so many possible ways of saying this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;# the subject I (optional)&#xA;Im = ['', '我']&#xA;&#xA;# the adverb 'so'&#xA;so = ['超', '超级', '真', '真的', '非常', '好', '很']&#xA;&#xA;# slang (optional)&#xA;fucking = ['', '他妈']&#xA;&#xA;# the adjective &quot;great&quot;&#xA;great = ['棒', '厉害', '强', '牛', '牛逼', '给力', '伟大', '优秀', '屌']&#xA;# 屌 is actually another slang, which is sometimes written as 吊&#xA;&#xA;# the modal particle as ending (optional)&#xA;ending = ['啊', '哦', '的'] &#xA;# 的 is actually not a modal particle&#xA;# I don't know how to explain this but it is often used at the end&#xA;&#xA;for subject in Im:&#xA;    for adverb in so:&#xA;        for slang in fucking:&#xA;            for adjective in great:&#xA;                for end in ending:&#xA;                    print (subject+adverb+slang+adjective+end)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;......&#xA;我超他妈优秀哦&#xA;我超他妈优秀的&#xA;我超他妈屌啊&#xA;我超他妈屌哦&#xA;我超他妈屌的&#xA;我真棒啊&#xA;我真棒哦&#xA;我真棒的&#xA;......&#xA;我很他妈棒的&#xA;我很他妈厉害啊&#xA;我很他妈厉害哦&#xA;我很他妈厉害的&#xA;我很他妈强啊&#xA;我很他妈强哦&#xA;......&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, some of them would seem unnatural, and there are certainly a lot more ways of expressing the same feeling, especially if you dig into the deep mysterious dialects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This answer is just for reference and fun. :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18221" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T16:28:29.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27233" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27236" CreationDate="2017-10-25T17:22:43.190" Score="0" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, there exist similar words to express &quot;note&quot; - 便条，笔记，备忘录.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least I understand that 注释 is a different word from them, as it means an annotation, not an entire post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I use them properly? For example, if I create an article that takes note of programming tips in order to refer to sometimes in the future, which word fits the best?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T19:34:11.773" Title="What is the difference between different words of &quot;note&quot; - 便条，笔记，备忘录?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23321" CreationDate="2017-10-25T17:36:33.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I don't recommend to learn both Chinese and Korean in parallel&lt;/strong&gt;. They are quite different languages (far more different than Germany-English or French-English), and although some vocabularies have the same roots, the characters are different, so it is not intuitive enough to map which Chinese words into which Korean ones, and vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So I would naïvely think that starting Chinese in parallel could help me building up and memorizing a larger dictionary,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having an knowledge of Chinese would definitely help, but that doesn't mean you should learn them in parallel. Some Chinese words are similar to Korean, but then why not learn these words directly in Korean? So if your goal is to get proficient in Korean, focus on Korean first. The same is true of any languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T17:36:33.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27235" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27237" CreationDate="2017-10-25T18:50:52.880" Score="2" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning《让我们荡起双桨》right now and at the beginning of the second verse it goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;红领巾迎着太阳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阳光洒在海面上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What function is 上 serving in the second line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three possibe translations I can imagine are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sunlight spills on &lt;strong&gt;top of&lt;/strong&gt; the sea surface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sunlight &lt;strong&gt;from above&lt;/strong&gt; spills on the sea surface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sunlight spills on the sea surface &lt;strong&gt;ahead&lt;/strong&gt;. (I only think this is a possibility because the 红领巾 in the first line gives that forward to glory vibe)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 上 can have any three of the above bolded meanings and my grammar is terrible, can someone illuminate me as to which of those translations is the most correct and what grammatical principle is at play in this sentence that I'm missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17861" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-04-17T23:41:36.843" Title="What does 上 mean in the lyrics 红领巾迎着太阳 阳光洒在海面上?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27233" CreationDate="2017-10-25T19:26:24.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;便条&lt;/strong&gt; (note; scrip)  mostly refers to a 'short informal handwritten note' that is written in very short time to deliver a simple message- usually contains no more than a sentence or two, sometimes even just one word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A note on the table that said: &quot;&lt;em&gt;Back at ten, dinner in the fridge. - Mom&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is a typical 便条. A stranger handed you a piece of paper that said &quot;&lt;em&gt;RUN!&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is also a 便条&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;笔记&lt;/strong&gt; (note; notes) as a noun can be short for '笔记本'(notebook). The most typical one is school notebooks where students write down summaries of lectures, main points of a lesson or any useful information that can help them study later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes written on loose paper can also be called 笔记. For example, copy of written text on blackboard, notes took from a speech are all 笔记 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The act of taking notes is 做笔记&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;备忘录&lt;/strong&gt; (memorandum; memo) mostly refers to a document that serves as a  'reminder'.  It can be personal or official; hand written or printed; in single sheet of paper or a whole book long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;How can I use them properly? For example, if I create an article that takes note of programming tips in order to refer to sometimes in the future, which word fits the best?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That would be your 'personal notebook' (个人笔记)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-25T19:34:11.773" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T19:34:11.773" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27235" CreationDate="2017-10-25T21:33:18.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;在 。。。 上 = 'in' or 'on' or 'to' or 'upon' maybe more possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在历史上 'in history'&#xA;在桌子上 'on the table'&#xA;在某种程度上 'in a way, to an extent'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;红领巾迎着太阳&#xA;Young Pioneers welcome the sun,&#xA;阳光洒在海面上&#xA;sunlight spills upon the sea,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(我更好去喝点茶， me, I'd rather drink some tea)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T21:33:18.743" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27235" CreationDate="2017-10-25T21:36:23.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Means all over the sea surface, the sun light has made the sea look like red. So 2 I would say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18224" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T21:36:23.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27241" CreationDate="2017-10-26T08:44:32.523" Score="1" ViewCount="732" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be a large number of ways of saying &amp;quot;I'm from Australia&amp;quot; or similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;I'm an Australian&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是澳大利亚人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是澳大利亚的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是个澳大利亚人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是个澳大利亚的人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是一个澳大利亚人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是一个澳大利亚的人&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;I'm from Australia&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我来自澳大利亚&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是来自澳大利亚的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我从澳大利亚来&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是从澳大利亚来的&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also I was born in Australia 我生在澳大利亚, along with variants such as 我在澳大利亚生了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And basically all of the above with &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%BE%B3%E5%A4%A7%E5%88%A9%E4%BA%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;澳大利亚&lt;/a&gt; replaced with &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%BE%B3%E6%B4%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;澳洲&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are these all correct ways of explaining I'm from Australia?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T13:51:25.223" Title="Are these all correct ways of explaining I'm from Australia?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27239" CreationDate="2017-10-26T09:31:30.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;all correct except 我在澳大利亚生了, which means I gave birth in Australia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T09:31:30.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27239" CreationDate="2017-10-26T10:47:06.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;the first part&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是澳大利亚人  -- Correct and formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是澳大利亚的  -- Correct and somewhat informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是个澳大利亚人 -- Correct and formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是个澳大利亚的人 -- Native speaker would understand you but it is weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是一个澳大利亚人 -- Correct and formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是一个澳大利亚的人 -- Native speaker would understand you but it is weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我是(一)个澳大利亚的人&quot; makes listener confusing by having a meaning of &quot;Australia owns you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;the second part&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All expressions are valid and can be used in most cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;the third part&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我生在澳大利亚&quot; is kind of weird but is acceptable, but &quot;我在澳大利亚生了&quot; is wrong.  You'd better use &quot;我在澳大利亚出生&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A single &quot;生&quot; generally means &quot;give birth to/happen&quot;. Examples: &quot;A生了B&quot;: &quot;A gave birth to B&quot;.  &quot;无中生有&quot;: &quot;Something happens/appears out of nowhere&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;About 澳洲 and 澳大利亚&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;澳洲 can be treated as 澳大利亚 in most cases.  But you should use 澳大利亚 to refer to Australia (country) and 澳洲 to Australia (continent) if needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastEditorUserId="16354" LastEditDate="2017-10-26T11:07:26.277" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T11:07:26.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6419" CreationDate="2017-10-26T11:43:13.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It basically means the same thing, so you can use either one&#xA;它们几乎没什么区别，在各种场合中用哪种都可以。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18085" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T11:43:13.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27164" CreationDate="2017-10-26T11:50:12.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;了&quot; Equivalent to the past perfect tense,Means the end of things, the completion of actions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把面包吃了!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is not added, it is a command, a request, a recommendation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你把电脑打开。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18085" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T11:50:12.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27239" CreationDate="2017-10-26T13:51:25.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我是澳大利亚人(All Human)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是澳大利亚的 (young girl)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是个澳大利亚人 (cool guy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是个澳大利亚的人 (nagging old guy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是一个澳大利亚人 (lonely one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是一个澳大利亚的人 (a lonely nagging old guy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我来自澳大利亚 (All human)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是来自澳大利亚的 (a elegent and enervated princess)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我从澳大利亚来 (a tired strugglling with jet lag guy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是从澳大利亚来的(a tired strugglling with jet lag but still trying to be nice guy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我生在澳大利亚 (a wild guy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我出生在澳大利亚 (all human)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在澳大利亚生了 (I gave birth in Australia)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T13:51:25.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16365" CreationDate="2017-10-26T14:15:53.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Warning, these are Internet slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;必须的: supposed to be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: You are so great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 必须的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没毛病: no shortcoming&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Let's...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 没毛病/必须的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T14:15:53.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27246" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-26T14:31:36.763" Score="0" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to write a letter to a friend I haven't seen for ages. And it would be nice to remind who I am because I am not sure my name is just enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'd like to write the next sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is your sports friend Xxxxx from [some country] writing to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Word order does not matter, the main purpose is clear chinese language to address to a friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2017-10-26T16:01:53.783" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T13:03:05.570" Title="How to start a letter with self introduction to a friend you haven't seen for ages?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27246" CreationDate="2017-10-26T23:22:39.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你好，我是 Ivan Gerasimenko。&#xA;Hello, I am Ivan Gerasimenko.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们之前在XXX的比赛第中见过一次面， 你还记得吗？&#xA;We met once before at the XXX sports competition, do you still remember?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;距离上次见面已经很久了，你现在过得怎么样？&#xA;It's been a long time, how are you getting on these days?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(PS: Are you from Serbia? We just found out, Chinese people can go to Serbia without a visa.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T23:22:39.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27248" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27261" CreationDate="2017-10-26T23:59:09.280" Score="4" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高考那天，我紧张极了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the meaning. But I don't understand why 那天 is used in such a way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why is it 高考那天, not something like 高考之天 or 高考的天 (the &quot;of&quot; equivalent in Mandarin)? Or 那高考的天? Is there any difference if you say it as 高考那天 or 高考的天?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T03:45:05.733" Title="Why is it 高考那天, not 高考的天?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27248" CreationDate="2017-10-27T00:23:40.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/xs/5929.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天&lt;/a&gt; in &lt;code&gt;那天&lt;/code&gt; refers to &lt;code&gt;day&lt;/code&gt;, so &lt;code&gt;高考那天&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;the day of 高考&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/xs/5929.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天&lt;/a&gt; could refer to &lt;code&gt;sky&lt;/code&gt; too, such as &lt;code&gt;高考的天&lt;/code&gt; (and &lt;code&gt;高考之天&lt;/code&gt;), which means &lt;code&gt;the sky of 高考&lt;/code&gt; and doesn't make sense. (It's same for &lt;code&gt;那高考的天&lt;/code&gt;, which could be literally translated as &lt;code&gt;that sky of 高考&lt;/code&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T00:23:40.950" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27250" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27251" CreationDate="2017-10-27T02:40:18.523" Score="3" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;A book I have from 1987 uses 象 to mean &quot;to be like&quot;/&quot;to resemble.&quot; For instance it defines 粗沙沙 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;形容感觉不细腻，象沙一样粗糙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays this would be considered a wrong 错别字. The book, though, is only thirty years old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When did 像 become the 'proper' form for &quot;to be like&quot;/&quot;to resemble&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-27T03:13:39.183" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T03:16:33.940" Title="When did 像 become the 'proper' form for &quot;to be like&quot;/&quot;to resemble&quot;?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27250" CreationDate="2017-10-27T03:04:09.330" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From 1986/10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“像”字有这么多含义，但在《现代汉语词典》中只有第一个“画像、雕像”的意思，这是因为《现代汉语词典》是在1964—1968年期间出版的。 1964年，经中国国务院批准，公布了《简化汉字总表》。在这个总表中，“像”是作为“象”的繁体字出现的，但注明“象和像意义可能混淆时，仍用‘像’ 字”。所以在此之后出版的词典仍保留了“像”字，但是只有第一个含义，也就是说，只有在涉及到“人像、画像、塑像”等情况时，才用“像”，其余都用 “象”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以后来经专家学者研究讨论，在1986年重新公布《简化汉字总表》时，对个别字作了调整，其中就包括恢复“象、像”的原状，“象”不再作“像”的简化字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the 《简化汉字总表》 published in 1964, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/50CF.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;像&lt;/a&gt; is treated as the traditional character of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/24/js/8C61.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;象&lt;/a&gt;, only used for the meaning of &lt;code&gt;appearance;looks;statue;picture&lt;/code&gt;. For other cases &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/24/js/8C61.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;象&lt;/a&gt; should be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 1986 it's repealed, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/50CF.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;像&lt;/a&gt; was not treated as the traditional character of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/24/js/8C61.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;象&lt;/a&gt; again, and regained its meaning of &amp;quot;resemble;be like;take after;similar;alike&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even it has benn corrected but the confusion still continues. That might be why the book in 1987 still used &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/24/js/8C61.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;象&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/e3583717974bcf84b9d528ea81c758f5f61f2974.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;像和象的用法有什么区别&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/66901824.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;像和象的区别&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T03:16:33.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27248" CreationDate="2017-10-27T04:18:42.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;那天&quot; is used to stress the importance of that day and makes readers to concentrate on that certain day in this particular sentence.&#xA;When this sentence is said as &quot;那天高考&quot;,it aims at stressing what happened at that certain day.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18229" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T04:18:42.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27248" CreationDate="2017-10-27T05:40:35.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First you should know the mean of 天 could be &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;day&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;sky&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; as @songyuanyao's answer.&#xA;And then, when we take 天 as &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;day&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, 那天 could be translated as:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a shortland for 那一天. We use 那天 in the beginning of a sentence to express 那一天. For example, 那天我迟到了 means 那一天我迟到了.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a shortland for (的)那一天. We use 那天 in the end of a sentence to express (的)那一天. For example, 高考那天 means 高考(的)那一天.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we take 天 as &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;sky&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, 那天 just means the sky. For example, 那山那人那天那地 means that hill that guy the sky the land. To be frank, we seldom use 那天 to express the sky. It sounds queer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We seldom use 天 separately to express day. So 高考之天 or 高考的天 seemed stranged to us too.天 usually be used with Quantifier/Article such as 一天/那天. When you want to used a single world to express day, 日 would be a good choice as follows:高考之日/结婚之日/胜利之日.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;那高考的天&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is somewhat alike to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;高考的天&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, they are not exactly correct in collocation. Even if people dont take this 天 as sky because of the context 高考, people will still be confused when seeing these expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forgive me for my pool english ^_^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18202" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T05:40:35.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27258" CreationDate="2017-10-27T08:05:50.427" Score="3" ViewCount="638" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference beteween 并 and 和 in sentence (S. V. and V.)? Which one is correct. E.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们在一起跑步(并/和)参加了铁人三项赛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2017-10-27T11:20:22.540" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T11:20:22.540" Title="What is the difference beteween 并 and 和 in sentence (S. V. and V.)?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27254" CreationDate="2017-10-27T08:17:35.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我们在一起跑并参加了铁人三项赛&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...run and then...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;并: plus&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more nature one is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们一起跑步并参加了铁人三项赛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和: need two same sentence structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们参加了&lt;strong&gt;跑步(比赛)**和铁人三项赛&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T08:17:35.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27254" CreationDate="2017-10-27T08:27:21.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;S V1 并 V2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们在一起跑步(V1)并参加(V2)了铁人三项赛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S V O1 和 O2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们一起参加(V)了跑步(O1)和铁人三项赛(O2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T08:27:21.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27248" CreationDate="2017-10-27T08:34:23.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高考之天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is grammatically correct. 之 is more often used in fixed phrases in modern chinese. If we are writing some classical texts, we might use &quot;会考之日&quot;. You can say 高考之日 to get an old style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高考的天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sounds like a day that is good to 高考, or make you have a sense of 高考(高考般的天). This is a bad expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高考那天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The day that one attand an examination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T08:34:23.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27254" CreationDate="2017-10-27T09:27:11.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We don't usually use 并/和 to interpret (S. V. and V.) in English if two actions are not really relevant. Instead, we can use 又...又... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We sing and dance： 我们又唱又跳。 Not 我们唱 并/和 跳. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We eat and drink. = 我们又吃又喝。 not 我们吃 并/和 喝.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, we use 和(not 并) to interpret (S. and S. + V.) and (S + V + O. and O.). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他和我去买东西。： he and I go shopping. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我吃苹果和香蕉。： I eat apple and banana. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;并 is short for 并且, and could be used as conjunction, meaning 'and'. It often connects the two sentences or clauses. It could also connect two verbs if the two actions are logically relevant. (S. + V. and V. + O. ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我完全赞成并乐于接受这一安排。 I fully agree to the arrangement and take it delightfully. // connecting two clauses. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我赞同并接受这个决定。 I agree and accept the decision. // The two actions are relevant in this case. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, 并 should be used as a conjunction for two clauses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们在一起跑并参加了铁人三项赛. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T09:27:11.733" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27259" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27484" CreationDate="2017-10-27T10:35:43.007" Score="-1" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the context 奇牛 appears to mean something like customized or &quot;one of a kind&quot;, but it's not in my (rather old) dictionary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: context: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奇牛机械，专注小而精机械五金加工，值得信赖，６年老店，高于行业好评率和回头率，您发送图纸给客服，有专门的技术人员为您定制服务&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it just a strange proper name? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9242" LastEditorUserId="9242" LastEditDate="2017-10-27T12:10:57.050" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T05:58:47.380" Title="What is the meaning of 奇牛? (odd + cow)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27260" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27290" CreationDate="2017-10-27T11:53:00.990" Score="0" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in the first stroke of characters like 司, 习, and 可.  This is how it looks on my computer (but I don't know if this is a matter of fonts):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可 starts off with a single horizontal stroke, whereas&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;司 and 习 do not (it starts off horizontal, then proceeds downwards, then hooks).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My handwriting of 可以, 学习, and 司机 (where I've deliberately used the two &quot;styles&quot;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oEsAnm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oEsAnm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;可以, 学习, and 司机&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if it's simply wrong to write this, or if they're acceptable alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Do characters like 司, 习, and 可 have different first strokes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-10-28T13:04:22.600" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T18:08:41.460" Title="Do characters like 司, 习, and 可 have different first strokes?" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27248" CreationDate="2017-10-27T11:58:11.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key is that you should understand the English word &quot;OF&quot;. OF itself could mean differently in English according to the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, I think the reason is that 高考（exam） can not owner a day logically. Similarly in English, the exam's day is logically incorrect. However, 'OF' in English could be used when referring to the day, moment when something happened. For example, the day of the accident. So, in &quot;the day of the exam&quot;, it does not express the ownership, but the exam happened in that day or the day in which the exam happened. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike English, we don't have &quot;OF&quot; phrase. So, in Chinese, to interpret &quot;the day of the exam&quot; is equally to interpret &quot;the exam happened in that day&quot; or &quot;the day in which the exam happened&quot;. We can use the prep phrase 在...那天，and then it will become 在高考那天. If you omit 在, it will become 高考那天. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, OF could be interpreted differently in Chinese according to the context. It could be ...的 denoting the ownership or a prep phrase. For example, &quot;the length of the bench&quot;: 凳子的长度. a cup of tea: 一杯茶（you shouldn't translate this to 一杯的茶）. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, there is not a dedicated equivalent in Chinese for the word &quot;OF&quot;. You have to make it differently according to the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-28T03:45:05.733" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T03:45:05.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27260" CreationDate="2017-10-27T11:58:37.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt;'s 笔顺 for this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/js/53F8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;司&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;フ一丨フ一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4E60.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;习&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;フ丶一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/js/53EF.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;可&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一丨フ一丨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So technically 司 and 习 begin with a 折 stroke, while 可 begins with a 横 stroke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笔顺 works like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笔顺名称    一（横）    丨（竖）    丿（撇）    丶（点）    乛（折）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笔顺编号    1   2   3   4   5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T11:58:37.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27260" CreationDate="2017-10-27T12:10:01.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The link has been provided to you for your reference in another answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there is a generic rule which I think it's good for you to know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the one from the web:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新编笔顺规则歌诀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;  从上到下为主，从左到右为辅。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;  中央凸出先写，右上有点后补。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;  横竖交叉先横，撇捺交叉捺收。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;  上包下时先外，下包上时先内。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;  三框首横末折，大口后封底部。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;  多重复合结构，根据层次分组。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;  特殊不合规则，源于从草从古。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;  熟记规则特例，笔画正确无误。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;  写字流畅美观，检字准确迅速。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先上后下， 先左后右, 先中间后两边， ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-27T13:05:38.220" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T13:05:38.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27246" CreationDate="2017-10-27T13:03:05.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hi xxx, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  你好！&#xA;&#xA;  还记得我吗，俄罗斯的球友-Ivan Gerasimenko？ ... ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can replace 球友 with other words if you guys were not playing a ball game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T13:03:05.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27265" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27267" CreationDate="2017-10-27T13:08:10.820" Score="3" ViewCount="457" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;祢&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google says it means &quot;you&quot; and is pronounced &quot;mí&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary says it is &quot;you&quot; but only for deity and pronounced “nǐ”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My pinyin input method offers it for &quot;mi&quot; or &quot;ni&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CEDICT makes it a &quot;memorial tablet in a temple commemorating a deceased father&quot;（or a surname) and pronounced &quot;mǐ&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing all three meanings are correct, but that would mean at least one of the pronunciations is wrong (since Google and Wiktionary give it the same meaning with different sounds).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T14:13:58.823" Title="Meaning/pronuncation of 祢" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27266" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-27T13:47:49.247" Score="0" ViewCount="469" Body="&lt;p&gt;I notice from my observation  that the tones of words of mandarin in military drills are different from the normal ones given by dictionary, which is best illsutrated by a forum post of a local Chinese. What he said is true? Or is there any story or history behind this phenomenon?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Glndz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Glndz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T09:28:00.270" Title="Tones of Mandarin words in military drills" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27265" CreationDate="2017-10-27T14:11:24.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;新华字典 only gives mí, meaning the temple of one's deceased father, an ancient word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in some Christian texts, 祢 is used as a variant of 你 to address the god, I'm not sure but I think it's because the character 祢 happens to be 神 and 你 combined. In this case, of course, it's pronounced same as 你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither meaning is widely used today. In fact, the most possible place where you may still see this charactor is 祢衡, name of a Chinese historical figure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T14:11:24.057" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27265" CreationDate="2017-10-27T15:20:23.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你 and 祢 are pronounced nǐ. Just like 他 她 祂 ,which are pronounced tā.祢and祂 are formal callings for gods. These two words can also be changed by 他 你 in some informal occasions. Frankly speaking, these formal words are not used very frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18229" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T15:20:23.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26840" CreationDate="2017-10-27T15:33:54.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker in Traditional Chinese.&#xA;I thought that the wiki link in the comment has already provided a good list to what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, i suggest you to actually find some examples in the usage of traditional chinese.&#xA;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;籤 (Please refer to your dictionary for the following vocabulary on your own)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;竹籤 抽籤 &#xA;Here 籤 is a long stick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;簽&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;簽名 簽署&#xA;Here 簽 has a meaning of signature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is very different from English. English constructs all the vocabularies on the alphabets you have already known, while Chinese requires you to learn many characters. Then Chinese constructs them into some vocabularies.&#xA;It might seem a great consumption of time to remember so many different characters in simplified Chinese, not to mention how much time you might spend in traditional Chinese.&#xA;However, once you've understand a word, you can guess the meanings of other vocabularies using the same character for most of the time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you've already had some understandings in simplified Chinese, the best way to connect it to traditional Chinese is to memorize some traditional Chinese vocabularies instead of remembering the corresponding characters in simplified Chinese.&#xA;It should be easy for you to distinguish and recognize those words once you start memorize traditional Chinese.&#xA;Always remember that traditional Chinese is the way to understand a character's 部首 and 起源, in spite of the fact that simplified Chinese has less 筆畫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this will help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, a fact of how Taiwanese children learn Chinese is searching every unknown characters in dictionary, writing some vocabularies of that character and memorize it. &#xA;Learning Chinese takes time for a native speaker, too. Haha&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18235" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T15:33:54.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27270" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27277" CreationDate="2017-10-27T17:16:28.157" Score="0" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned that 以 can also function to mean &amp;quot;a certain time&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;a fixed date&amp;quot;, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我以三月一日返。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I also know that 于 can work in the same purpose, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生于上海&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来信于十五日收到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;em&gt;All the example sentences are from Pleco.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that in these usages, 以 is used only to express &amp;quot;time&amp;quot;, and not &amp;quot;place&amp;quot;. So 生以上海 is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if it means &amp;quot;a fixed date&amp;quot;, is there any difference (and if it is what is it) between 以 and 于?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is there any such prepositions that function for the same purpose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T04:02:31.047" Title="What is the difference between 于 and 以 to express &quot;a certain time&quot; or &quot;a fixed date&quot;?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27248" CreationDate="2017-10-27T17:33:50.537" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高考的天：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gramatically 的 can be used in different situation. Here it is in the form: noun(高考）+ 的 + noun(天). However, in this form, the second noun should be belongs to the first noun. For example: 圖畫的顏色。天 is not belonging to 高考, therefore the sentence &quot;高考的天&quot; must be wrong. It is not correct even in gramatical sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高考之天：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 is not a modern word when we want to say &quot;of&quot; in English. We seldom say this word in daily conversation unless we want to quote traditional phrases. In ancient time, when we refer to a particular day, &quot;日&quot; is the right word. Therefore it is fine to say 高考之日, because we are using it in an old way. However we cannot say 高考之天，because &quot;天&quot; can only be refer to day in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高考那天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact we can also say 那天高考，but the meaning is a little bit different. The focus of 高考那天 is the day. For example 高考那天不斷下雨。 on the other hands the focus of 那天高考 is the examination. For example 那天高考很容易。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18237" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T17:33:50.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27270" CreationDate="2017-10-27T18:03:51.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a preposition, 以(with)  and 于(at/ in) are very different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我以三月一日返。&lt;/em&gt;(I take March the first come back)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is plain wrong, the sentence make no sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way you can use 以 with a fixed date or period of time is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In a [&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt; (A) &lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt; (B)] structure -- Example: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;三月一日&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;限期&amp;quot;  (&lt;strong&gt;take&lt;/strong&gt; March the first &lt;strong&gt;as&lt;/strong&gt; the deadline)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;use '以' as preposition 'with' -- Example: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;三日时间完成这工作&amp;quot; (finish this job &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; three days time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;生于上海 (born &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; Shanghai)&lt;/em&gt; is correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;来信与十五日收到&lt;/em&gt;。There must be a typo. It should be &amp;quot;来信&lt;strong&gt;于&lt;/strong&gt;十五日收到&amp;quot; (your letter arrived &lt;strong&gt;at&lt;/strong&gt; the fifteen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;于&lt;/strong&gt; can be a preposition for &lt;strong&gt;date&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;location&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;生&lt;strong&gt;于&lt;/strong&gt;上海&amp;quot; (born &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; Shanghai) - &lt;em&gt;location&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;生&lt;strong&gt;于&lt;/strong&gt;一九一二年&amp;quot; (born &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; 1912) - &lt;em&gt;date&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;于&lt;/strong&gt;上午五点死亡&amp;quot; (died &lt;strong&gt;at&lt;/strong&gt; 5:00 AM) - &lt;em&gt;time&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T18:08:37.703" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27273" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-27T19:15:52.103" Score="0" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o96u7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o96u7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;can you guys please help me translate the meaning of this picture and words&#xA;does it mean 1. like the kind you want to marry(refering to the person in the picture) or 2. like the type that likes to marry you (meaning she likes someone who wants to marry her) thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17708" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T22:47:25.987" Title="translating the word and picture from Chinese to english" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27273" CreationDate="2017-10-27T19:37:39.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me add punctuation to the sentence so you can understand more easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot; '喜欢'-- 就是 '想嫁给你' 的那种喜欢.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot; 'Like',  is 'I want to marry you' that kind of like.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Better English phrasing would be: &quot; When I said 'Like', It meant 'I wanted to marry you', that kind of like.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The first '喜欢' is the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;就是 '想嫁给你' 那种喜欢 is the comment (clarification) of the topic&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She was clarifying what degree of 'like' she was talking about. Apparently, She likes you to the point of wanting to marry you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-10-27T19:48:17.493" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T19:48:17.493" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27275" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-27T22:04:36.587" Score="0" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it natural to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不知道你为什么不常回我信息 (I don't know why you take so long to text me back).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17940" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-28T02:05:13.793" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T02:05:13.793" Title="Could you correct me if I'm wrong" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27273" CreationDate="2017-10-27T22:47:25.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;喜欢&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I am fond of you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;（心脏）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(pulls on my heart strings)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;就是&lt;br&gt;&#xA;that is&lt;br&gt;&#xA;想嫁给你的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;want-to-marry-you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那种喜欢。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;that kind of fondness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Romantic music tinkles in the background, advertisements for diamond rings appear. In the next scene, they are in Las Vegas. My advice: if she doesn't say 'I love you' directly, she probably doesn't. She is beating around the bush.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T22:47:25.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27270" CreationDate="2017-10-27T23:00:07.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In old saying, 以 could mean 在 or 于. For example, 余以3月1日返：I returned on March 1st. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer to the definition 4 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4EE5.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this dictionary&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, nowadays, we don't usually use 以 for this kind of purpose any more. Instead, 于 or 在 is more common. But you could possibly hear it in those old movies. 余以3月1日返 is classic literature, and people might apply this usage of 以 when they write a classic essay, novel, and etc.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T23:00:07.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27275" CreationDate="2017-10-27T23:01:02.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would write something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想不通为什么你回复我的信息要这么久！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T23:01:02.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27275" CreationDate="2017-10-27T23:08:58.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your sentence is fine. 我不知道你为什么不常回我信息. However, your English translation doesn't match with your Chinese sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't know why you take so long to text me back. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不知道你为什么不常回我信息. means &lt;strong&gt;I don't know why you don't text me back usually&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The neat way to say &quot;why you don't text me back usually&quot;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你怎么总不回我信息呢？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你怎么老不回我信息呢？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你为啥经常不回我信息？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你为啥总不回我信息？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way to say &quot;I don't know why you take so long to text me back&quot;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你为什么信息回得这么慢！&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the one like Pedroski suggested: 我想不通为什么你回复我的信息要这么久！&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-27T23:17:57.630" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T23:17:57.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27280" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27282" CreationDate="2017-10-28T01:21:52.053" Score="4" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, if I have the idiom:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一路平安&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the tone of the 一 change to a second tone because 路 is fourth tone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17614" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-28T04:04:51.357" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T08:13:43.833" Title="Are idioms affected by tone changing rules?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27281" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-28T01:52:07.897" Score="2" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me as a non-Chinese, I often find Chinese quite cryptic, which I admire, but that makes it hard for me to get the meaning. Like this morning, looking at this:&#xA;（should have written 经历， keyu gan is right)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上班族常常会有这样的&lt;strong&gt;经历&lt;/strong&gt;：今天难得工作轻松些，但是一整天待在办公室里，往往不明原因地感到头晕、心烦，注意力不集中。出现这些情况，往往与办公室噪音有关。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first I thought: 'Nowadays it is difficult to find and easy job' but then I looked more carefully at what followed and changed my mind. I think it goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天  难得  工作  轻松些, 但是 。。。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Today   rare    work    easier, but ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Today (is one of those) rare easy days at work, but ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Today (is one of those) rare easier workdays, but ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Today is / was a rare easier workday, but ....  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the structure is:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;今天  noun        难得  adjective   工作    noun  轻松些   adjective &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you agree?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I gave you &quot;Today is one of those rare easy days at work,&quot; to translate into Chinese, would you arrive at '今天难得工作轻松些，'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempt at back-translating: 今天是一个那种稀有的轻松些的工作日，但是 ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2017-10-29T01:14:54.177" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T02:52:55.773" Title="Word function and back translating '今天难得工作轻松些‘" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27280" CreationDate="2017-10-28T01:58:54.290" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it should be pronounced as the 2nd tone because it's put before character with the 4th tone. The sandhi rule applies with idioms too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The cases &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; should be pronounced as the 1st tone, i.e. shouldn't change the tone, are listed as the follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;单独念时。如：一，一、二、三&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;用在一词或一句的末尾。如：统一祖国，唯一条件，单一成分，表里如一，不论三七二十一&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;表示年、月、日。如：1911年1月1日，一二•九运动，九•一八事变&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;表示序数。如：第一村，第一名，第一等，第一位&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1. when used alone; 2. when used at the end of the word or sentence; 3. when used in date; 4. when used as ordinal number with the meaning &quot;first&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“一”在上述语境中，不管它后面跟的字是什么声调，“一”的读音都保持其原调阴平，不发生变调。特别要引起注意的是第四种语境，因为许多序数在表述时采用了省略“第”的格式，这时“一”字也应读原调。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Under the above circumstances, no matter what the following character's tone is, &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; should keep its original tone (i.e. the 1st tone) and doesn't change.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gzu521.com/campus/article/qualification/200609/106883.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;试析“一”声调的读法&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-29T08:13:43.833" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T08:13:43.833" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27281" CreationDate="2017-10-28T03:17:09.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Congratulations! You got the exact meaning of what the sentence wants to express.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the very begining, &lt;code&gt;难得&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;hard (难) to come by (得)&lt;/code&gt;, e.g. &lt;code&gt;难得的机会&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;a chance that is hard to acquire&lt;/code&gt;; &lt;code&gt;这场考试难得高分&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;It is difficult to get a high score in this exam&lt;/code&gt;. Here, it is an adjective (or a verb), obviously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, &lt;code&gt;难得&lt;/code&gt; is used to modify a sentence. &lt;strong&gt;From my point of view&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;code&gt;今天难得工作轻松些&lt;/code&gt; leaves out the subject &lt;code&gt;我(I)&lt;/code&gt;, which should be &lt;code&gt;[(我)今天(难得)工作轻松些]&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;难得&lt;/code&gt; as an inserted component) / &lt;code&gt;[今天]难得[(我)工作轻松些]&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;难得&lt;/code&gt; as a sentence adverb). And it can be understood as &lt;code&gt;Today is a rare day when I am easy with work.&lt;/code&gt; My opinion can be validated from the point that all the following senetences don't have a subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, in the first sentence &lt;code&gt;上班族常常会有这样的精力&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;精力&lt;/code&gt; (spirit, energy) should be &lt;code&gt;经历&lt;/code&gt; (experience) here. I guess it's a typo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it is more natural to say &lt;code&gt;这些情况往往与办公室噪音有关。&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;出现这些情况，往往与办公室噪音有关。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13655" LastEditorUserId="13655" LastEditDate="2017-10-28T03:36:21.317" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T03:36:21.317" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27483" CreationDate="2017-10-28T05:45:00.463" Score="-2" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it okay to say both 冷清清 and 冷清冷清? Can adjectives that can be used into ABB be also used into ABAB or, in a certain case, AABB?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18198" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T05:57:31.257" Title="Is it okay to say both 冷清清 and 冷清冷清?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27285" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-28T08:28:59.307" Score="1" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Xinhua News Agency, China Daily and other official media outlets of English language of China, 中央纪律检查委员会 is Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, but 中央政法委员会 is Committee of Polictical and Legal Affairs,发展和改革委员会 is National Development and Reform Commission,中央直属机关工作委员会 is Work Committee for Departments Directly Under the CPC Central Committee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Commission and committee are both used to mean 委员会, what is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T01:51:52.687" Title="Which is the proper translation for 委员会？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27286" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-28T10:19:08.523" Score="2" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask this (but I don't know where else).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I'm taking the AP Chinese this year, and my other grades are pretty okay except for the listening. I think a part of that may be because I have some degrees of hearing loss and another part is that (even the teacher admitted it) the audio sound is really small. But I really want to improve my listening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any advice as to what I should do? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17657" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-10-28T23:33:46.780" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:28:05.870" Title="Chinese Listening" Tags="&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27286" CreationDate="2017-10-28T11:57:35.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;还是多听听，最根本的原因还是因为你练习得不够，多花点工夫肯定行的，书读千遍，其义自见嘛。加油&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18085" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T11:57:35.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27288" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-28T12:42:12.347" Score="0" ViewCount="489" Body="&lt;p&gt;Writing Chinese characters is difficult, but I can copy them easily enough.  Presumably, I won't be able to utilize my mobile phone, a dictionary, etc., during the HSK, but it seems there might still be one legitimate source where I could copy characters from: the exam materials themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reading and listening sections would contain a vast number of characters which I can read, but for which I haven't memorized how to write.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: If I forget how to write a character during the HSK, can I copy it from the supplied exam materials?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested if this is prohibited, or somehow thwarted by the examiners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T14:20:32.100" Title="If I forget how to write a character during the HSK, can I copy it from the supplied exam materials?" Tags="&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27286" CreationDate="2017-10-28T13:50:08.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Listen to those material that you have written in your hand. First, you read it and understand its meaning. And then listen to it(from a video, mp3, etc) to see how those words/characters/sentences are pronounced in practice.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep changing topics you listen to and practicing, and you would improve definitely. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you could read Chinese very well, you could see those TV Shows with Chinese subtitles as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help you a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T13:50:08.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27260" CreationDate="2017-10-28T18:08:41.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if it's simply wrong to write this, or if they're acceptable alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's simply wrong. 横折勾 does not equal to 横 + 竖折勾. Even in artistic or decorative writing, they are clearly distinguished for the most of the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answers about stroke order (笔顺) are not what was asked here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T18:08:41.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27288" CreationDate="2017-10-28T18:17:26.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember when I was in middle school 语文 test, I forgot how to write a character, I jumped to following questions, then occasionally I found that character in question descrpition. That moment..., it is like I found Blackbeard's treasure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think it is cheating, it is a gift. No one would stop you to look at your exam paper and copy them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T18:17:26.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27293" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27325" CreationDate="2017-10-28T23:28:30.960" Score="0" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following excerpt is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/26290171?sort=created&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the top answer on 知乎&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;丈夫每天吃自己做的&lt;strong&gt;便当&lt;/strong&gt;（没错，是他自己做的，不是他妻子做的）她吃大餐，去一次美容院就能花4.2万。看表情就知道，这位太太毫无愧疚之心，可能还觉得自己萌萌哒。两人摊牌后，妻子没有道歉，而是要求丈夫以后更努力工作赚钱。最后以这男人跳下站台自杀，妻子改嫁结束。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 便当 here means a bento-box. However, since it is clear that &quot;bento&quot; in English is a loanword from Japanese, I feel that it is a loanword from Japanese in Mandarin as well, not a word that had been incorporated into Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the Japanese word is 弁当, not 便当. So my question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is my assumption correct that it is a loanword from Japanese?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If that is true, then why is it called 便当 in Chinese? And when did it start to be called as such?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T07:30:39.087" Title="The etymology of 便当 in Chinese" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27286" CreationDate="2017-10-29T01:31:33.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do listening practice every day for at least 30 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also try to touch those topics that you are interested in.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In order to improve my English listening ability, I listen to podcasts and Youtube channels like CNN 10. But Chinese TV shows always use some local idioms with mysterious meaning, because  we are not native speaker. So don't force yourself to understand every single words but just listen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps you; this also the way I used to improve my English  listening:-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18241" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T01:28:05.870" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:28:05.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27285" CreationDate="2017-10-29T01:51:52.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are not the first person to wonder about the difference between 'commission and committee.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-commission-committee-and-council&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-commission-committee-and-council&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems to me, in English, the difference is how they are formed: a committee is formed of volunteers, a commission is appointed. In China this distinction seems not so apparent, so they use 委员会 for both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meaning of committ-ee was 'person to whom something is committed/entrusted'.&#xA;The original meaning of commission was 'authority entrusted to someone'.&#xA;So, actually, there is not much difference in English either! Both come from Latin 'committere'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T01:51:52.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27281" CreationDate="2017-10-29T01:54:11.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &amp;quot;sparsely&amp;quot; is an appropriate word to interpret 难得 in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It goes like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Today, I sparsely had a relatively-easier day at work.&lt;/em&gt; // 今天(我)难得工作轻松些&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Or&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;Sparsely/Rarely, I had a relatively-easier day at work today.&lt;/em&gt; // 今天(我)难得工作轻松些&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;轻松些 connotes that that day is just easier in some degree compared with those hard-working days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been thinking about the word &amp;quot;scarcely&amp;quot;, but I found it connotes a negative meaning like &amp;quot;hardly&amp;quot;. Does &amp;quot;Today, I scarcely had a relatively-easier day at work&amp;quot; sound good? This need an English native to confirm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS, I invented the word &amp;quot;relatively-easier&amp;quot; and hope people would understand it. Feel free to correct or comment if it's good or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T02:52:55.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27297" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27300" CreationDate="2017-10-29T05:01:15.350" Score="0" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is a title of a post over 人民网.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;15岁女孩出版6万字英文小说！不就&lt;strong&gt;膝盖&lt;/strong&gt;吗？拿去！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://m.jy1377.com/a/100/32674.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://m.jy1377.com/a/100/32674.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My dictionary (Pleco) only has &quot;knee&quot; as the meaning. The same is true of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=1&amp;amp;wdqt=%E8%86%9D%E7%9B%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it doesn't make sense to have &quot;knee&quot; there. So what is the meaning in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-12-02T14:20:21.183" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T14:20:21.183" Title="What does 膝盖 mean in this context?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27297" CreationDate="2017-10-29T05:30:38.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a net slang, refers to knelt/kowtow, extends to means worship/adore/idolize. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;给大神跪了，请收下我的膝盖！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.549090.com/zclz/10357.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;请收下我的膝盖什么意思&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-29T05:37:38.150" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T05:37:38.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27297" CreationDate="2017-10-29T06:11:11.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes from a net slang &amp;quot;给你跪下了&amp;quot;(I'm kneeling down to you) or &amp;quot;给跪&amp;quot; for short, to show one's admiration when something is far beyond his ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你能吃六碗饭？我给你跪下了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你微积分考试得了满分？给跪了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this has variants like &amp;quot;献上我的膝盖&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;给你我的膝盖&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;膝盖给你&amp;quot;, where &amp;quot;give you my knees&amp;quot; just means &amp;quot;kneel to you&amp;quot;. So basically you can take 膝盖 as a metaphor for admiration, e.g.请收下我的膝盖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T06:11:11.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27297" CreationDate="2017-10-29T06:33:52.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A meme derived from 'The Elder Scrolls'. an NPC dialog: I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee.&quot; (译为：“我以前和你一样也是个冒险家，直到我的膝盖中了一箭。”)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T06:33:52.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27302" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27303" CreationDate="2017-10-29T07:52:49.000" Score="0" ViewCount="52" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do the words, such as 冰凉冰凉, 雪白雪白, and 通红通红, each have a netural tone on the second word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 漂漂亮亮 [piào piao lìang lìang]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18198" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T12:00:38.067" Title="Is it true that a word that consists of two adjective words has a neutral tone on the second word?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27302" CreationDate="2017-10-29T11:48:12.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰凉冰凉, 雪白雪白, and 通红通红 might or might not have neutral tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漂漂亮亮 often have neutral tones, but loot at 浑浑噩噩.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think neutral tone is a phenomenon in speaking, words like 浑浑噩噩 that is not often used in speaking don't have neural tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, I did not say they have or they don't have,  it depends on your tone of voice. If people want to be clear or serious, they don't use neutral tone. If they want to be lazy or natural, they use neutral tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no strict rules.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to use neutral tone, it will be the B in ABAB and AABB. Since neutral tone always on the last character of a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-10-29T12:00:38.067" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T12:00:38.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27305" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-29T12:48:22.000" Score="0" ViewCount="43" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my research, I find there are two institutions in China now which might have the shorter name as 中央军委, one being 中华人民共和国中央军事委员会, the other being 中国共产党中央军事委员会. Both of the bodies might be made up of the same and exact people, but it is unusual or impossible to have the same shorter name for two different bodies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T15:42:20.103" Title="What is the full name of 中央军委?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27306" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27314" CreationDate="2017-10-29T13:37:03.103" Score="0" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;雪白雪白 &#xA;(1) xuě-bai-xuě-bái (such as 漂漂亮亮)&#xA;(2) xuě-bái-xuě-bai&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If ABB and AAB adjectives also have neutral tones, please let me know where tones should be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18198" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T02:53:35.747" Title="Where should I put a neutral tone in 雪白雪白?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27305" CreationDate="2017-10-29T15:02:40.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're the same organization in fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中央军事委员会与中国共产党中央军事委员会事实上是同一机构两块牌子，不是合署办公。对武装力量发布的命令一般仅使用中国共产党中央军事委员会名义、或以中央军委的作为统称。与中华人民共和国国务院联合发布命令是使用中华人民共和国中央军事委员会的名义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(中央军事委员会 and 中国共产党中央军事委员会 is the same organization with two plates in fact, but not merging work in one official. Orders to armed forces are usually issued under the name of 中国共产党中央军事委员会, or 中央军委 as the general name. When orders are jointly issued with 中华人民共和国国务院 (the State Council) the name of 中华人民共和国中央军事委员会 is used.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1377520.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中共中央军事委员会和中华人民共和国军事委员会有何区别&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-29T15:42:20.103" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T15:42:20.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27308" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-29T17:25:59.990" Score="1" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both appear in my dictionary (CC loaded by pleco). The first definition reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Form, shape, type, style, pattern”. No examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second reads: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Form, shape, pattern, morphology”. One example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;社會經濟形態&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The native pleco dictionary (PLC) contains only 形態。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evidence for the use of 型態：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E7%94%9F%E6%B4%BB%E5%9E%8B%E6%85%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Wikipedia 生活型態&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E6%84%8F%E8%AD%98%E5%BD%A2%E6%85%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Wikipedia 意識型態&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://openhome.cc/Gossip/CGossip/Datatype.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;資料型態&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found  &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20050907000013KK19581&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; question about exactly the same thing in Chinese with a couple of answers I have trouble understanding. The answer I understand best seems to suggest 形態 is applicable to material things，while 型態 is more general. This seems hard to reconcile with my dictionary defining both as shape, but at least agrees with the occurrences of 型態 I provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T14:53:35.467" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T19:40:23.070" Title="Is there a difference between 型態 and 形態？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27309" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27333" CreationDate="2017-10-29T19:06:52.687" Score="1" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the gesture called where you put a fist in a flat hand and slightly shake it to show gratitude? Here is an example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/cB59VmnK52I?t=15m47s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/cB59VmnK52I?t=15m47s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have any other examples where it is still used today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16080" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T12:50:22.033" Title="Hand and Fist gesture of gratitude" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27310" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27324" CreationDate="2017-10-30T00:24:40.573" Score="0" ViewCount="509" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an English expression, &quot;If you can't beat them, join them.&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After competing with Microsoft for so many years, he finally accepted the lucrative offer and joined as their head of software development. You know what they say, &quot;if you can't beat them, join them!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a 成语 or 俗语 to this effect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T10:36:16.313" Title="&quot;If you can't beat them, join them&quot; 成语 or 俗语" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27311" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27317" CreationDate="2017-10-30T01:55:34.093" Score="0" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;When using an electric water cooker/boiler, how to translate the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The water is boiling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be arguably the most common way in Mandarin to say this in Taiwan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T02:44:33.893" Title="How to say: &quot;the water is boiling&quot; in Taiwanese Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27312" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27318" CreationDate="2017-10-30T01:57:25.003" Score="0" ViewCount="743" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's use 難過 to translate &quot;sad&quot;, then, in Mandarin as spoken in Taiwan, what would be the most common way to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't want you to be sad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you might say when you notice that someone is sad who you would like to be happy instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T04:53:58.703" Title="How to say &quot;I don't want you to be sad&quot; in Taiwanese Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27310" CreationDate="2017-10-30T02:31:55.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;无力胜之则从之&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;21c's entry for &lt;strong&gt;join&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you can't beat them join them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[谚语]无力胜之则从之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/112877141_109401&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;souhu&lt;/a&gt; has an article entitled:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无力胜之则从之，亚马逊说：不服，我要半价称王！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/%E8%83%9C%E4%B9%8B/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;youdao&lt;/a&gt;'s entry on 胜之 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唱片业现在开始意识到，在对付侵权这档子事儿上，他们必须得采取“无力胜之则从之”的思路了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The music industry is beginning to realize that they must adopt the &amp;quot;If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em&amp;quot; mentality when it comes to dealing with pirates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another example of usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;迷上了自拍照,怎么办?我们也许还没有研究出如何治疗这种病方法,但是《国家地理》在最新宣传广告中则采用了一种“无力胜之则从之”策略。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't seem altogether too common, and most likely is copied over and over from 21c, but if it is showing up in headlines on souhu I would imagine it is quite &lt;em&gt;acceptable&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a qq article even put:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正如俗话说所:无力胜之则从之。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as the saying goes - if you can't beat them, join them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T02:31:55.637" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27306" CreationDate="2017-10-30T02:53:35.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not all words apply neutral tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雪白雪白: xuě-bái-xuě-bái &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漂漂亮亮: piào piào liang liang &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see in 漂亮, 亮 is a neutral tone, while 白 is the second tone in 雪白. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checking in dictionaries is a good way to make sure you apply neutral tone correctly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T02:53:35.747" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27315" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27316" CreationDate="2017-10-30T03:22:48.333" Score="1" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most &lt;em&gt;chengyu&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;xiehouyu&lt;/em&gt; have a literal meaning and a figurative meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take 鸡飞狗跳 for instance, it literally means [the] chicken[s] fly [and the] dog[s] jump, figuratively it stands for chaos and confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or 孔夫子搬家——净是书 literally means Confucius moves house —— there's nothing but books, but figuratively books sounds the same as loss or lose (输) giving the meaning of always losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With these &lt;em&gt;xiehouyu&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;chengyu&lt;/em&gt; the emphasis is always placed on the figurative meaning and not the literal meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there chengyu that only have a literal meaning with no figurative meaning at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps 泥菩萨过河 would count as one - it seems that its literal meaning already does the trick of conveying what it wants to say without any other necessary added meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T04:13:39.457" LastActivityDate="2018-02-08T03:01:06.453" Title="Are there any chengyu or xiehouyu that only mean their literal meaning?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27315" CreationDate="2017-10-30T04:07:33.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think all chengyus should have their figurative meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xiehouyu  usually has two kinds: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;逻辑推理式 // logical type, For example, 哑巴吃黄连, 有苦说不出.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;谐音 // homophony, For example, 外甥打灯笼, 照旧(舅)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泥菩萨过河 should fall into logical type. So, there are lots of that type if you go Baidu. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Couple of links for your reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yuwenmi.com/xiehouyu/39346.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;逻辑推理式&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/329852278.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;谐音&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T04:07:33.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27311" CreationDate="2017-10-30T04:50:18.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The water is boiling.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say 水開了 in Taiwan. Nothing else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們都說「水開了」，好像沒有人用其他講法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T04:50:18.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27312" CreationDate="2017-10-30T04:53:58.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I don't want you to be sad.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say 別難過了 in Taiwan. The most common one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們說「別難過了」。這是最常用的講法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T04:53:58.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27319" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-25T03:01:25.723" Score="0" ViewCount="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Xinhua News Agency, China Daily and other official media outlets of English language of China, 中央纪律检查委员会 is Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, but 中央政法委员会 is Committee of Polictical and Legal Affairs,发展和改革委员会 is National Development and Reform Commission,中央直属机关工作委员会 is Work Committee for Departments Directly Under the CPC Central Committee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Commission and committee are both used to mean 委员会, what is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" OwnerDisplayName="NanningYouth" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T07:33:59.977" Title="Is 委员会 a commission or a committee?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27319" CreationDate="2017-10-25T04:27:56.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;commission&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is a group appointed by the government to accomplish a certain task. The commission can cease to exist when the task is completed (e.g., the 9/11 Commission, which investigated the events surrounding 9/11). Or the commission can be ongoing indefinitely (e.g., the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees Wall Street).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In government, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;committee&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is a group of people who meet to make a certain decision or to gather information and produce documents. Committees, too, can be short-lived or long-term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A committee can also be a commission, and vice-versa. Because the term &quot;commission&quot; is more specific than &quot;committee,&quot; a group of people that fit both descriptions would usually call themselves a commission. For example, when a crisis affects a city or state, the mayor or governor will usually appoint a commission to gather information, make decisions/recommendations, and accomplish certain other tasks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://painintheenglish.com/case/3801&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://painintheenglish.com/case/3801&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-commission-committee-and-council&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-commission-committee-and-council&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="Ringo" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T04:27:56.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27321" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27322" CreationDate="2017-10-30T05:26:12.283" Score="3" ViewCount="868" Body="&lt;p&gt;The excerpt is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/26290171?sort=created&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the top answer on 知乎&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;再加上「真假TV」里爆出来的，&lt;strong&gt;什么&lt;/strong&gt;每天用老公的牙刷刷马桶，把排泄物混到料理里微笑着看他吃下去之类的，可以拿去回答「人性到底可以有多阴暗」了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=1&amp;amp;wdqt=%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG dictionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;什么 what? / who? / something / anything&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the 什么 here means &quot;what the hell&quot; or something like that. So the meaning of the entire sentence is something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How can she use her husband's toothbrush to brush a toilet every day&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is my understanding correct here? What is the meaning of 什么 here and can it be used as such? Maybe more explanations about the usage in general would be helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T07:32:43.217" Title="What does 什么每天 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27321" CreationDate="2017-10-30T06:02:51.720" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the usage of &quot;什么...之类的&quot; or &quot;什么...啊，什么...啊&quot;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichacha.net/hy/%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;什么&lt;/a&gt; is used for citing examples, with the connotation that there're so many such kind of things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;⑦用在几个并列成分前面，表示列举不尽：～送个信儿啊，跑个腿儿啊，他都干得了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(used before several parataxises, expressing can't list all of them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this sentence it could be translated as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;such as 每天用老公的牙刷刷马桶，and 把排泄物混到料理里微笑着看他吃下去 etc，可以拿去回答「人性到底可以有多阴暗」了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T06:15:30.147" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T06:15:30.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27321" CreationDate="2017-10-30T06:26:45.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;什么每天用老公的牙刷刷马桶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a colloquial usage. It's not a serious/formal writing I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么 here could be interpreted as 像什么, 像，比如像什么， or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;something/things like&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence could be rephrased as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;像什么&lt;/strong&gt;每天用老公的牙刷刷马桶, ... ...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;像&lt;/strong&gt;每天用老公的牙刷刷马桶, ... ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Things like&lt;/strong&gt;, she uses her husband's toothbrush to brush a toilet every&#xA;  day, ... ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T07:32:43.217" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T07:32:43.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27310" CreationDate="2017-10-30T07:06:59.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The essence of  &amp;quot;If you can't beat them, join them.&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;It is better to be  practical and join the winning side than being stubborn and stick to one's own position.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The example you gave for this idiom, describes &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20050201000010KK02612&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;識時務者為俊傑&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; (Ones who understand situations and act accordingly, are the elites) very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;所謂「識時務者為俊傑」，當對手強橫無比，而自己又一無所有時，唯有順應時勢，才不致因彼此對峙而有所耗損。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Ones who understand situations are elites&amp;quot; means when the opponent is too strong to overcome, you can only conform to the situation to avoid meaningless lost&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T07:06:59.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27293" CreationDate="2017-10-30T07:30:39.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I try to make a rough translation here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;便当， originated from the Southern Song Dynasty, meaning &quot;convenient&#xA;  things, convenient, smooth&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When introduced into Japan, it became “便道”、“辨道”、“辨当”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Later, when the term “便当” was transplanted back to China from Japan,&#xA;  it's referenced to 弁当(bentou/bento). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The term 盒饭, (that is 盒装餐食), is used in mainland, while&#xA;  便当 is usually used in Taiwan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, there is a nuance between 盒饭 and 便当. 便当 is more delicate than&#xA;  盒饭.  盒饭 is usually just simple and normal food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T07:30:39.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27309" CreationDate="2017-10-30T09:22:01.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;拱手作揖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't just shake your fist at them! Bow a bit or you might get your head chopped off! Emperors can be very touchy people!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T09:22:01.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27310" CreationDate="2017-10-30T10:36:16.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跟你的朋友走得近，跟你的敌人要走得更近。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Walk close with your friends, walk even closer with your enemies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T10:36:16.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27328" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27341" CreationDate="2017-10-30T11:23:03.477" Score="4" ViewCount="443" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the correct word order for words 跑步 and 轻快?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跑步轻快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跑步的轻快 (seems like this version is extremely incorrect, also because of wrong character &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;de&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; usage)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;轻快的跑步&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T07:52:29.170" Title="What is the correct word order for words 跑步 and 轻快?" Tags="&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27328" CreationDate="2017-10-30T11:32:29.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;轻快地(not &quot;的&quot;)跑步 is the correct order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use “地” here because “轻快” modifies the status of “跑步”(verb) as an adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T11:32:29.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27328" CreationDate="2017-10-30T11:32:46.990" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the correct version is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;轻快&lt;strong&gt;地&lt;/strong&gt;跑步 (Brisk walking / running)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where you might want to use &lt;strong&gt;地 de&lt;/strong&gt;, as &lt;code&gt;轻快 qing1kuai4&lt;/code&gt; here is modifying a verb &lt;code&gt;跑 pao3&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T11:32:46.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27331" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-30T11:54:12.600" Score="3" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to say &quot;season's best (result in sport for athlete)&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean there could be personal best (all time, does not matter this or past or past-past year), and seasonal best result (only this year). How to say this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T23:28:46.893" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T02:11:22.353" Title="How to say &quot;season's / personal best (result in sport for athlete)&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;sport&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27331" CreationDate="2017-10-30T12:10:20.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;年度最佳(best in this year)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;季度最佳(best in this seanon)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;个人最佳 (personal best)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all 佳 can be replaced by 好, the first 2 words can be prefixed with 上(last year), 2007 (in 2007).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T12:10:20.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27309" CreationDate="2017-10-30T12:49:34.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;作揖 has 3 variations. One is hold your fists, the other is touch your fists with your palm. The last one is the typical 作揖.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, only A and B are still used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their usages are roughly same, for greeting, appreciation, say goodbye...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The differences are B is prefered by martial arts people, A is a gesture which anybody could use, C is a traditional gesture used by scholars.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jYwec.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jYwec.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T12:49:34.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27331" CreationDate="2017-10-30T13:35:35.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seasonal best(only this year): 赛季最佳（球员/队员/选手） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its sister term 'MVP': 最有价值（球员/队员/选手）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T13:35:35.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26902" CreationDate="2017-10-30T15:41:35.087" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;唔該 has two meanings: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Please&quot; as in 請 (e.g 唔該你幫我開門 -&gt; 請你幫我開門 -&gt; &quot;Would you please open the door for me?&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Thank you&quot; as in 謝謝 (e.g 唔該晒 -&gt; 謝謝 -&gt; &quot;Thanks so much!&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other terms are colloquial in Cantonese I can think of off the top of my head:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;發夢 is written as 做夢 (dreaming)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;老闆/老板 (interchangeable, means boss/owner) is usually written as 上司 (boss) and/or 東主/店主 (owner, usually referring to small business owners), though 老闆/老板 is also in use in Mandarin/written Chinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;行街 is normally written as 逛街 (literally means walking on the streets, usually means shopping)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;餸 is normally written as 菜 (means cooking ingredients/cooked dishes here, not vegetables) e.g. 買餸 is 買菜 in Mandarin (grocery shopping), 煮餸 is 做菜 (cooking), 隔夜餸 is 剩菜 (leftovers)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;餐牌 (dining menu) is normally written as 菜單&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Umbrella is called 遮 in Cantonese, but written as 傘&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Jacket/coat is generally called 䄛 in Cantonese, but usually called 衣 in Mandarin&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;䄛/大䄛 is 大衣/外衣 (outer jacket/coat)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雨䄛 is 雨衣 (raincoat)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;皮䄛 is 皮夾克 (leather jacket)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;衫 means tops in Cantonese but also used as the general term for clothes, whereas 上衣 is normally used for tops in Mandarin, and the general term for clothes is 衣服&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;波 is in general written as 球 (e.g. 乒乓波 -&gt; ping pong/table tennis)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, most ball-type of sports use 球 in the name of the sport in Cantonese, such as 足球 (football/soccer) and 網球 (tennis), the act of playing them still use 波: 踢波 (play soccer, literally translates to &quot;kick ball&quot;), 打波 (play ball, the specific type is generally inferred in the context).  In Mandarin, these would normally be 踢球 and 打球.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;日 is almost exclusively used in Cantonese when referring to &quot;day&quot;, whereas in Mandarin/written Chinese 天 and 日 are used more interchangeably:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;今日 (today) -&gt; 今天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尋日 (yesterday) -&gt; 昨天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;聽日 (tomorrow) -&gt; 明天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;前日 (the day before yesterday) -&gt; 前天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;後日 (the day after tomorrow) -&gt; 後天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大前日 (the day before the day before yesterday, i.e. three days ago) -&gt; 大前天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大後日 (the day after the day after tomorrow, i.e. three days later) -&gt; 大後天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also many newer terms and names (from the last 100 years or so) where the Cantonese name is phonetically adopted from a foreign language (normally English), or even left as English in Cantonese, but the Mandarin term is either adopted from meaning, adopted phonetically differently due to differences in pronunciations.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cab/taxi is 的士 in Cantonese, 出租車 (Mainland China) or 計程車 (Taiwan) in Mandarin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bus is 巴士 in Cantonese, 公車 in Mandarin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;wrench is 士巴拿 (from British English &quot;spanner&quot;) in Cantonese, 扳手 in Mandarin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tie (as in necktie) is usually called 呔 or 領呔 in Cantonese, 領帶 in Mandarin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tire/tyre (as in car tires) is called 呔 (yes, same as above) or 車呔 in Cantonese, 胎/車胎/輪胎 in Mandarin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11511" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T15:41:35.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27308" CreationDate="2017-10-30T16:47:25.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We could firstly define the differences between 形 and 型.  While both defining as shape, I will say 型 is more toward 'shaped' in a sense:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;形 focus on the description of appearance, like a circle (圆形), square (正方形) which are&#xA;  mostly tangible, where 型 refers to standardizing of&#xA;  form / shape / pattern.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 人的形態 - the form of a man - describe the appearance / gesture of a man.  Same goes for 社會經濟形態 - description of the economic form of a society.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;資料型態 - data type - the types of data defined such as integer / float / etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that 形 can be used as a verb which has various meaning depends on usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T16:47:25.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10608" CreationDate="2017-10-30T17:07:29.400" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;原地踏步 basically means &quot;going around in circles&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11511" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-10-31T16:19:58.437" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T16:19:58.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27328" CreationDate="2017-10-30T18:16:40.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“轻快地跑步” sounds the most natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“跑步得轻快” (notice that here the auxiliary is '得' for the adjective is placed after it) will sound rather strange, for '得' is usually followed by a one-character adjective, and preceded by a one-character verb. But it could be still changed to “他跑步跑得很轻快”, adding a '很' to cease the strangeness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both sayings, the elements placed in latter positions are emphasized: “轻快地跑步” emphasizes the action “跑步” (He is swiftly running rather than walking/jumping...) while “跑得很轻快” emphasizes the adjective “轻快” (He is a swift runner, not a slow one).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“跑步轻快” is also correct in another scenario, which is the parallel structure: “他跑步轻快，走路潇洒” (He runs swiftly and walks handsomely). Here “跑步” is more like a noun or the English gerund, and “轻快” is a predicate that modifies it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16893" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T18:16:40.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27308" CreationDate="2017-10-30T19:29:40.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;现代汉语词典（第5版）&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【形态】xínɡtài 名词 ①事物的形状或表现：意识～｜观念～。②生物体外部的形状。③词的内部变化形式，包括构词形式和词形变化的形式。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【型态】(not included)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess 型态 is a ill-formed variant of 形态. Since 形 and 型 are pretty similar, it's no surprise that many people mistakenly write 形态 as 型态.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many other dictionaries include the word 型态. However, considering that 现代汉语词典 is the authoritative Chinese dictionary in &lt;strong&gt;Mainland China&lt;/strong&gt;, I suggest that you use 形态 instead of 型态 all the time if you are communicating with Mainland Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the case of &lt;strong&gt;Taiwan&lt;/strong&gt;, it seems that 型态 is used quite often with other meanings such as 资料型态. That's another story, I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18221" LastEditorUserId="18221" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T19:40:23.070" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T19:40:23.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27331" CreationDate="2017-10-30T20:07:03.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I mean there could be personal best (all time, does not matter this or past or past-past year)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;个人最佳 (personal best)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;and seasonal best result (only this year).&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本季最佳/ 今季最佳 (best &lt;strong&gt;this&lt;/strong&gt; season)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is a term ball-sport, we can call it 本球季最佳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all other sports, we say 本赛季最佳 or 今个赛季最佳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T20:07:03.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27328" CreationDate="2017-10-30T23:19:07.583" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see no issue with 轻快的跑步 when you consider 跑步 (as a whole) a noun word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you take 跑步 as a verb, then 轻快地跑步 is ok. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;轻快的跑步能让我们的身心得以放松。 // used as a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们在操场上轻快地跑步。 // used as a verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, I'd rather say 跑步 is used as a noun more often than a verb. For example, 跑步是一项很好的运动. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The single character 跑 is often used when serves as a verb, instead of 跑步. For example, 他跑得很快。We wouldn't say 他跑步得很快. This is because we take 跑步 as a noun usually. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 轻快的跑步 does make some sense in some circumstances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跑步轻快 is a possible usage too, because 跑步轻快 could be considered to be the short version of 跑步跑得轻快. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 跑步的轻快 is not valid in any case, because 轻快 is adj or adv. You could say 跑步跑得轻快， but 跑步得轻快 is wrong because (as mentioned above) 跑步 is often used as a noun word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T23:55:41.470" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T23:55:41.470" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27319" CreationDate="2017-10-31T07:33:59.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;委员会means committee.&#xA;You can say 班委会 it means a group of students elected to run the class under the supervision of headmaster in a class.But committee means a lot more in a general sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18257" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T07:33:59.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27343" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27347" CreationDate="2017-10-31T07:35:04.657" Score="-1" ViewCount="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikisource has a copy of &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E8%BA%8B%E6%98%A5%E8%87%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;躋春臺&lt;/a&gt; (or &quot;Mounting Spring Platform&quot; as I've seen it crudely translated before) online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is missing &lt;em&gt;rare&lt;/em&gt; characters though. Here is one example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《四川方言词源》has the entry &lt;strong&gt;门&lt;/strong&gt; which gives historical literary usage from 躋春臺:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清刘省三《跻春台》卷一《东瓜女》： “将近门， 正逢东瓜女抱儿在外。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if we look at wikisource's page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E8%BA%8B%E6%98%A5%E8%87%BA/03&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東瓜女&lt;/a&gt; it only reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;將近門，正逢東瓜女抱兒在外&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are tons of txt / epub / text turned pdf versions floating all over the web, but they all contain the same errors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any scanned copies of this original text in pdf format anywhere? Including the four volumes of 躋春臺 (元集, 亨集, 利集, 貞集)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-10-31T07:40:35.367" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T20:15:24.030" Title="&quot;躋春臺&quot; PDF version?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27345" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27346" CreationDate="2017-10-31T09:24:35.420" Score="1" ViewCount="498" Body="&lt;p&gt;What could be the context of banners put up in front of a hospital with the following text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;主治陳進陽草菅人命&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  插管插到死&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  腎臟料 人命&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the name and location of the hospital, or a high resolution version, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banners_reading_%E4%B8%BB%E6%B2%BB%E9%99%B3%E8%B0%81%E9%99%BD%E8%8D%89%E8%8F%85%E4%BA%BA%E5%91%BD,_%E6%8F%92%E7%AE%A1%E6%8F%92%E5%88%B0%E6%AD%BB,_%E8%85%8E%E8%87%9F%E6%96%99_and_%E4%BA%BA%E5%91%BD,_put_up_on_Section_2,_Shipai_Road_(%E7%9F%B3%E7%89%8C%E8%B7%AF%E4%BA%8C%E6%AE%B5)_in_front_of_the_Taipei_Veterans_General_Hospital_(%E5%8F%B0%E5%8C%97%E6%A6%AE%E6%B0%91%E7%B8%BD%E9%86%AB%E9%99%A2)_seen_on_31_October_2017.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the image as I uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons today&lt;/a&gt;, which shows the banners:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DuoKv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DuoKv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banners_reading_主治陳谁陽草菅人命,_插管插到死,_腎臟料_and_人命,_put_up_on_Section_2,_Shipai_Road_(石牌路二段)_in_front_of_the_Taipei_Veterans_General_Hospital_(台北榮民總醫院)_seen_on_31_October_2017.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-05T18:11:17.857" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T18:11:44.137" Title="What could be the meaning of 主治陳進陽草菅人命, 插管插到死, 腎臟料 and 人命?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27345" CreationDate="2017-10-31T10:12:48.127" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;草菅人命 (disregard for human life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;插管插到死 (cause death due to intubation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;腎臟科 (Division of Nephrology)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人命 (human life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the website of the 台北榮總腎臟科, 陳進陽 is an attending physician (主治醫師) of the Division of Nephrology (腎臟科).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xxfEE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xxfEE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone claimed that the doctor, Jinn-Yang Chen (陳進陽), has caused death of a patient because of medical malpractice (intubation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-05T18:11:44.137" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T18:11:44.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27343" CreationDate="2017-10-31T10:59:46.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/so.php?sokeytm=%E8%BA%8B%E6%98%A5%E8%87%BA&amp;amp;ka=100&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;djvu version&lt;/a&gt; can be downloaded from the 國學大師 site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/96lv5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/96lv5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="15652" LastEditDate="2017-10-31T20:15:24.030" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T20:15:24.030" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27265" CreationDate="2017-10-31T14:13:58.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some personal pronouns in traditional Chinese:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;我: I, me.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;你: you, for male. 妳: you, for female. 祢: you, for god, nymph, etc.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;他: he, him, for male. 她: she, her, for female. 祂: he or she, for god, nymph, etc.&lt;br/&gt;它: it, for lifeless, 牠: it, for any animals, except human.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;They changed to English style in simplified Chinese:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;我: I, me.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;你: you.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;他: he, him. 她: she, her.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;它: it.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T14:13:58.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27353" CreationDate="2017-10-31T21:11:47.907" Score="2" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as the title says, would it be correct to use “它” in a sentence like this &quot;它在外面下雪了.&quot; or I could just say &quot;在外面下雪了&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18260" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T02:20:41.923" Title="Would it be correct to use “它” in a sentence like this &quot;它在外面下雪了.&quot;？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27349" CreationDate="2017-10-31T22:13:28.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not correct. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;The correct sentence is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外面（在）下雪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, as in some other European languages, weather verbs have &lt;strong&gt;zero valency&lt;/strong&gt;, which means that they take no arguments, neither object nor subject. Therefore you must omit &lt;code&gt;它&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T22:13:28.313" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27349" CreationDate="2017-11-01T00:06:57.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, 'it' refers to 'weather' in &quot;it's snowing outside.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we interpret this 'it' as '天', since 天 could refer to 天气（weather） in this setting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(外面)天正在下雨 // it's raining outside&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(外面)天正在下雪 // it's snowing outside&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(外面)天正在刮风 // it's windy outside&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天，天（气/儿）很好！ // today, the whether is good!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 天 could be omitted most of time. They will become:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外面正在下雨 // it's raining outside&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外面正在下雪 // it's snowing outside&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外面正在刮风 // it's windy outside&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天，天（气/儿）很好！ // in this case, 天 can not be omitted. Otherwise, there is no clue for what subject is being talked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your issue with 它在外面下雪了 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;you should replace 它 with 天。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;外面 is used as adv or adj, so 外面 itself is ok. No need 在.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the sentence order; you could consider 外面 as 外面(的)天， so 天(S) + 下雪(V)+ 了(C) . 外面（的） serves as an adj. to modify 天. So, either 外面(的)天下雪了 or 外面下雪了 works. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-11-01T00:28:56.267" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T00:28:56.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27352" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27444" CreationDate="2017-11-01T02:16:00.777" Score="4" ViewCount="1763" Body="&lt;p&gt;He and she in Mandarin looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Male tā: 他 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Female tā: 她&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What would a non-binary tā look like?&lt;/strong&gt; 也? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它 is for animals and inanimate objects, not exactly fitting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祂 is for gods, not really appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牠 is the same as 它.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For practicality purposes 你 could work the same:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;male nǐ: 你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;female nǐ: 妳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;non-binary nǐ: 尔?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="16210" LastEditDate="2018-01-24T02:27:07.260" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T02:15:38.823" Title="What would a non-binary tā （他／她） look like?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27349" CreationDate="2017-11-01T02:20:41.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;it&quot; in &quot;it is snowing&quot; does not refer to anything. It is there because a subject is needed in a declarative sentence in English. Chinese, however, is different in that subjectless declarative sentences are perfectly fine. When we try to translate a sentence such as &quot;it is snowing&quot;, it's best to simply ignore the &quot;it&quot;. You won't lose anything semantically. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is snowing.  下雪了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is snowing outside. 外面下雪了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T02:20:41.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27354" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27355" CreationDate="2017-11-01T06:28:47.823" Score="2" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;太 + adjective + 了 means &amp;quot;too ~&amp;quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个女人太漂亮了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个星期我太忙了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, how can I express the &amp;quot;too ~&amp;quot; phrase in a verb? For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I love her too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possible solution is to use 很:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很爱她。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possible solution is to use the degree complement - 得.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爱她爱得太好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But neither might not be the best choice here (I don't know). So is there any other or possibly more natural way for natives to express 太～了 pattern in a verb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T07:49:51.850" Title="How should I express 太 ~ 了 in a verb?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27354" CreationDate="2017-11-01T06:40:41.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;太 + verb + 了 can be a correct usage for some verbs. Like, 我太爱她了！ 我太喜欢了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, not all verbs can work in the structure of 太 + verb + 了.  So far, I don't have a good rule to sort out all the verbs that can work in this structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that those verbs about one's feeling like 高兴，激动，兴奋，喜欢，爱，感动，can work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能/会+verb can also be placed in  太 + 能+verb + 了, such as 太能/会玩了， 太能/会吃了，太能/会打了， ...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subject + verb + 太 + adv + 了 is also possible. Like, 你球打得太棒了！ 太棒了！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-11-01T07:49:51.850" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T07:49:51.850" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27356" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27357" CreationDate="2017-11-01T07:23:46.547" Score="2" ViewCount="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on the, topolectical, word 出沾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《四川方言词语续考》explains it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;秋分後遇壬叫入霑，十日滿叫出霑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李實's《蜀語》defines it as;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;秋分後逢壬謂之入霑，十日滿謂之出霑○霑謂雨多也。逢壬十日內謂之霑天。諺云： ‘入霑有雨 出霑晴。’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is pretty much the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part I don't get is the whole 遇壬/逢壬 part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壬 could be talking about 壬年, but in the same manner it could also refer to 壬日 and I suppose 壬月 as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When exactly is 秋分后遇壬 or 秋分后逢壬?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T02:56:30.120" Title="When does 秋分后遇壬/逢壬 refer to?" Tags="&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27356" CreationDate="2017-11-01T07:52:23.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It refers to &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/324851187.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;壬日&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;秋分后遇壬&lt;/code&gt; means after &lt;code&gt;秋分&lt;/code&gt;, from the 1st &lt;code&gt;壬日&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;霑&lt;/code&gt; starts (i.e. &lt;code&gt;入霑&lt;/code&gt;), after 10 days &lt;code&gt;霑&lt;/code&gt; ends (i.e. &lt;code&gt;出霑&lt;/code&gt;). In other words, the period of &lt;code&gt;霑&lt;/code&gt; is 10 days lasting from the 1st &lt;code&gt;壬日&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;秋分&lt;/code&gt; to the next &lt;code&gt;壬日&lt;/code&gt;, which is called &lt;code&gt;霑天&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the &lt;code&gt;入霑&lt;/code&gt; of this year (2017) is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wannianli.net/2017/2017-10-2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;10/2(壬戌日)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: In traditional calendar, &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B9%B2%E6%94%AF%E7%BA%AA%E6%97%A5/1457609?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;干支地支&lt;/a&gt; is also used for days, from &lt;code&gt;甲子&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;癸亥&lt;/code&gt;, circulate with the cycle of 60 days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-11-02T02:56:30.120" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T02:56:30.120" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27270" CreationDate="2017-11-01T10:06:11.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我以三月一日返 sounds like some Classical Chinese thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not able to compare with Modern chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you must translate it to &quot;Chinese&quot; first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do so, this sentence will be “我于三月一日返回” or “我以三月一日为返回的期限”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note the secound usage is “以X为Y”, not related with time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2980" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T10:06:11.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26819" CreationDate="2017-11-01T11:03:17.593" Score="-2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我能吞下玻璃而不伤身体&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Project homepage: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/utf8/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/utf8/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T11:03:17.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27360" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-02T02:41:38.370" Score="0" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;This text is talking about the contrast between students in the past and now. In the past students blindly sat for exams whether or not they were relevant to their future job. Now, they are more choosy about what exams they take.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因此现在考证的人 更加注重考证的实用性，有更准确的目的性。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I can break this sentence into 2 sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1。 因此现在考证的人更加注重考证的实用性。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实用性： usefulness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2。 因此现在考证的人有更准确的目的性。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目的： goal, purpose, aim,&#xA;目的性： goal ？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore today's examinees have a more precise 'sense of purpose （目的性）'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or did the writer just write 目的性 because he wrote 实用性？ Or is there some other meaning in '目的性’？ Could we just forget the 性 and write 有更准确的目的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T03:54:28.143" Title="How to translate 目的性？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27360" CreationDate="2017-11-02T03:35:51.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;性, in this context, means 有...性质， having the characteristic/sense of ...   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 目的性：有 &lt;em&gt;目的&lt;/em&gt; 性质， 实用性： 有 &lt;em&gt;实用&lt;/em&gt; 性质.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could translate 性 according to your contexts, and sometimes you could even ignore it when you feel it's unnecessary. It's all at your own discretion.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, I suggest using noun words, like 实用性: practicality, 目的性: purposiveness. And purposiveness is the same as &quot;sense of purpose&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有更准确的目的性。could be &quot;be more clear/precise on the sense of purpose/purposiveness&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-11-02T03:54:28.143" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T03:54:28.143" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27270" CreationDate="2017-11-02T04:02:31.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most widespread and traditional usages of &lt;strong&gt;于/於&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt; are best translated as &lt;strong&gt;at&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;using&lt;/strong&gt;, respectively. 以 was originally a picture of a person holding an object, which is an abstraction of the person &lt;em&gt;using&lt;/em&gt; the object. The form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;以XVY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;captures this meaning well, and translates to &lt;em&gt;using X to V Y&lt;/em&gt;, where V is some generic verb; X could be any kind of noun, including abstract nouns like &lt;em&gt;methods/ways of doing things&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于/於 is the best choice to expresses a situation at a certain date/location. While you &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; use 以, it is quite unnatural to do so normally unless you're trying to emphasise that the date/location is equivalent to a some generic noun. To use your example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我以三月一日返。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while grammatically correct, sounds about as awkward as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm returning by way of March 1st&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18269" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T04:02:31.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27363" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27375" CreationDate="2017-11-02T04:12:13.927" Score="2" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I attempted to write a joke in Chinese that begins:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我今天26岁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I'm 26 today&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(Wǒ jīntiān 26 suì)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And after some confusion about it being my birthday, it continues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我昨天也是26岁的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I was also 26 yesterday&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(Wǒ zuótiān yěshì 26 suì de)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The joke is that the first sentence implies it's my birthday, but it's still technically correct even if it's not my birthday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(These are my sentences, so I can't be 100% sure the grammar is correct.)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does saying 我今天26岁 imply it's my birthday today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, if I say &quot;I'm 26 today&quot;, it implies it's my birthday today, because otherwise I wouldn't say &quot;today&quot;.  I'm wondering if it is the same in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;(P.S. I'm not 26, and today is not my birthday.)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T16:04:59.423" Title="Does saying 我今天26岁 imply it's my birthday today?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27364" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27366" CreationDate="2017-11-02T04:17:20.517" Score="3" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;The typical 很 + adjective phrase example is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;俄罗斯女人很漂亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these sentences, is it OK to add 了 to the end of the sentence, to emphasize the adjective?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;俄罗斯女人很漂亮了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that if you like to emphasize it, usually what you should use is 太, not 很. The correct sentence should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;俄罗斯女人太漂亮了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you use 很, is it also OK to add 了? Or is it not correct grammatically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22excessively%22_with_%22tai%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Chinese grammar wiki on 太～了 page&lt;/a&gt; writes the following, but it doesn't include 很.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note for the more advanced learner: This pattern can be used with modal verbs (e.g. 会 (huì), 能 (néng)) as well as psychological verbs (e.g. 喜欢 (xǐhuan), 想 (xiǎng), 爱 (ài)) to intensify the degree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I would like to know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it OK to use 了 along with 很?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;code&gt;1&lt;/code&gt; is true, then if there is any difference on the meaning between the with and without 了?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does it make a confusion with the 了 as a  completion particle?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T05:02:57.467" Title="Is it OK to use the word 了 on 很 + adjective phrase, to emphasize?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27363" CreationDate="2017-11-02T04:48:26.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple answer is 'yes', which is the same reason as you said for English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, when you say 我今天26岁, it implies that you just reach the point of being 26, that is your birthday. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T04:48:26.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27364" CreationDate="2017-11-02T05:02:57.467" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;很...了 is not that common. When you say 俄罗斯女人很漂亮了, it could mean either 俄罗斯女人确实很漂亮(truly beautiful) or 俄罗斯女人已经很漂亮了(beautiful enough already). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you add 已经， it will be natural. 俄罗斯女人已经很漂亮了，which implies 俄罗斯女人 is beautiful enough already, (and you might not have to look for other women.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe, you could take 已经很...了 as a structure, meaning it's already ... enough. For example, 已经很好了(it's already good enough)，已经很强了(It's already strong enough)，已经很喜欢了('I' already liked it enough)，.... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T05:02:57.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27368" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27618" CreationDate="2017-11-02T08:12:07.937" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chicken dinner games or 吃鸡游戏 seem to have become a kind of &lt;em&gt;genre&lt;/em&gt; thanks to &lt;strong&gt;PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What originally only only referred to one, specific, title can now be seen in sentences like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;各种各样的吃鸡游戏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吃鸡游戏大全&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is what specifically is this genre? Battle royal or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T20:27:17.177" Title="Does 'chicken dinner games' refer to all battle royal type games?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27369" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-02T09:35:45.550" Score="4" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference between 重大 VS 重点 when they are used as adjective? Or is it just a thing to remember: this time use 重大 and that time use 重点:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重大事件 (and 重点事件?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重大进展 (and 重点进展?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重点工程 (and 重大工程? - this version sounds correct, but still is there any difference?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重点扶持 (and 重大扶持?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T02:30:48.137" Title="Is there any difference between 重大 VS 重点 (used as adj.)?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27369" CreationDate="2017-11-02T11:34:00.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;重大 means &amp;quot;important (adj) / serious (adj)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重点 means &amp;quot;focused (adj)/ focal point (n)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Important thing might not be focused at the moment; focused thing at the moment might not be very important in the grand scheme of things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, stopping gun violence is an important issue, but Americans just don't focus on it at the moment; On the other hand, American is focus on the issue of 'should the football players kneel during the national anthem.' It is not an important issue compare to other real issues, but it is the focal point at the moment nonetheless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重大事件 (and 重点事件?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重大进展 (and 重点进展?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重点工程 (and 重大工程? - this version sounds correct, but still is there any difference?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重点扶持 (and 重大扶持?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;重大事件 (serious incident) and 重大进展 (important development) are valid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;重点事件 (focused incident) and 重点进展 (focused development) are not valid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;重点工程 (focused project)  and 重大工程 (important project) are valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;重点扶持 (focused support) is valid;  重大扶持 (serious support) is not valid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T11:34:00.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27369" CreationDate="2017-11-02T11:44:58.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;重大&quot; means somehow generally important or big. -- It is generally speaking. While &quot;重点&quot; means we put emphasis on this point or we focus on this point, as compared to other, less emphatic points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if we build 10 high buildings in an area, they can all be &quot; big constructions&quot; so they are all &quot;重大工程&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But maybe one of them is built for hospital or school, compared to others, this is the really really important one, then this is a &quot;重点工程&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17501" LastEditorUserId="18450" LastEditDate="2018-01-02T02:30:48.137" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T02:30:48.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27369" CreationDate="2017-11-02T13:07:47.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;重点: noun or attributive noun, means &lt;strong&gt;key or key point&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, 工作重点: key point of the work; 重点工程： the key projects;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重大：adjective, means &lt;strong&gt;extraordinary big&lt;/strong&gt;, and extraordinary big things are also important things. For example, 重大工程：important and big projects; 重大事件：important and big affairs;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, you should know the difference between 重大工程 and 重点工程. It's like &quot;Key projects&quot; vs &quot;important and big projects&quot;. Sometimes, they could be overlapped because those key projects could be those important and big projects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T13:07:47.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27363" CreationDate="2017-11-02T16:04:59.423" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;'我今天26岁' seems very strange to me, but it &lt;strong&gt;does&lt;/strong&gt; transmits the sense that today is the birthday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you would like to imply that it is your birthday today, a more proper expression could be '我今天26岁了', where '了' puts in a sense of completion or perfectness so that the sentence would imply 'I turned 26 today', thus revealing that today is the speaker's birthday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you simply want to tell your age, '我今年26岁' would seem more natural to native Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T16:04:59.423" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10186" CreationDate="2017-11-02T16:20:20.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usages F, G and H are technically wrong. They should all be written as '的', and most Chinese are loose about the usages of the three 'de' auxiliaries in daily typing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage E could be a legal usage to some extent: in some dialects and literature '不是' can mean '不对' (wrong, incorrect) as an adjective, so the sentence could be interpreted as 'What she said is not right', where the '不是' serves as the complement. You could frequently encounter sentences like '您说得极是' (What you said is extremely right) in early 20th century Chinese literature, and there is an idiom '所言极是' that uses this sense of meaning of '是'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T16:20:20.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27368" CreationDate="2017-11-03T01:22:34.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you survive in PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUND at last. There will be a sentence on your screen: Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! which is translated as “大吉大利，晚上吃鸡”。According to this,吃鸡 maybe a Battle royal as you have described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18229" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T01:22:34.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27378" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-03T01:34:23.757" Score="0" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a sentence excerpted from a notice posted at the official website of the Consulate-General of China in Toronto on Nov 1, 2017 as follows &quot;中国驻多伦多总领馆再次郑重提醒广大华侨华人和中国留学生注意防范电信诈骗。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do we differentiate 华侨 and 华人 and 中国留学生？Doesn't 华人 include 华侨 and 中国留学生？If 华人 means Canadians of Chinese blood, then is it the proper and legal business of the diplomatic office of China to handle matters in their connection?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-11-04T04:05:38.780" Title="Words that have confusing meanings in a diplomatic notice" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27378" CreationDate="2017-11-03T02:03:15.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;华人 means &quot;Chinese people&quot; regardless of nationality&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;中国留学生 means &quot;Foreign Students who came from China&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edited:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1778/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1778/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;华侨 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;overseas Chinese; ethnic Chinese residing abroad, usu a citizen in the country of residence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;Someone claims China and Taiwan citizens believe 華僑 only means &quot;Chinese people who live in other countries but are still citizens of China,&quot; but many older generation immigrants, would still refer themselves as 華僑 regardless of nationality&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-04T04:05:38.780" LastActivityDate="2017-11-04T04:05:38.780" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27378" CreationDate="2017-11-03T02:58:55.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;华侨； Chinese people who live in other countries but are still citizens of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华人（广义）: people of Chinese blood &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华人（狭义）：Chinese people who become citizens of other countries &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(e.g.  美籍华人)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-03T04:29:10.583" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T04:29:10.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27381" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-03T03:33:10.543" Score="2" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many aphorisms in ancient chinese literature. One of them goes somewhat like: &#xA;&quot;An angry fist does not hit a smiling face&quot; &#xA;Please help me to translate it into Chinese correctly. Google translated it like that:&#xA;愤怒的小拳头不会撞上的一个笑脸 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18261" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T03:38:24.960" Title="Chinese aphorism about smile" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27381" CreationDate="2017-11-03T03:38:24.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BC%B8%E6%89%8B%E4%B8%8D%E6%89%93%E7%AC%91%E8%84%B8%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;伸手不打笑脸人&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pmume.com/yanyu/nyrbg.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;举手不打笑脸人&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意思是当你举起手要打有错的对方时，对方已经在向你赔着笑脸认错了，这时候你就不忍心，也不好意思再去打人家了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谓不欺侮老实善良的人。或谓要宽恕已知理亏而以礼待人的人。也说“举手不打笑脸人”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T03:38:24.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27383" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27384" CreationDate="2017-11-03T04:25:09.287" Score="2" ViewCount="1143" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I say &amp;quot;who&amp;quot; as in &amp;quot;I have a few friends who are in that class&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, I want to write this sentence, but I can't figure out how to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems fine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有一些朋友&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I have a few friends&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Wǒ yǒu yīxiē péngyǒu&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8F%82%E5%8A%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;参加&lt;/a&gt;那个&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%8F%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;班&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Attend that class&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Cānjiā nàgè bān&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't understand how to combine them to mean &amp;quot;I have a few friends who are in that class&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some guesses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Just stick them together: 我有一些朋友参加那个班.  Chinese grammar can be flexible, so this might work.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use a 是...的 grammar construction: 我有一些&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;参加那个班&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;朋友.  Seems a bit unnatural to me, but this might just be because we don't often use an adjective-made-from-a-phrase grammar style in English.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We could rewrite the sentence: 在那个班，我有一些朋友参加 meaning &amp;quot;in that class, I have a few friends who attend&amp;quot; (although, we still have the same &amp;quot;who&amp;quot; problem).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T08:27:08.580" Title="How do I say &quot;who&quot; as in &quot;I have a few friends who are in that class&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27383" CreationDate="2017-11-03T04:52:21.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use '的' to make the second phrase an adjective phrase for the object noun(朋友).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我有一些朋友 (I have some friends)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;参加那个班 (attend that class)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我有一些(&lt;strong&gt;参加那个班的&lt;/strong&gt;)朋友 = I have some friends (&lt;strong&gt;who attend that class&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我那个哥哥 (That older brother of mine)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;踢足球 (play football)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(&lt;strong&gt;踢足球的&lt;/strong&gt;)那个哥哥 = (That older brother of mine &lt;strong&gt;who plays football&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T04:52:21.903" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8512" CreationDate="2017-11-03T04:54:34.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Qiang_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Northern Qiang language&lt;/a&gt; a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Northern Qiang is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Qiangic branch spoken by approximately 60,000 people in north-central Sichuan Province, China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;is not a tonal language&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and weirdly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Unlike its close relative Southern Qiang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T04:54:34.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27383" CreationDate="2017-11-03T06:07:53.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have a few friends who are in that class. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First step: split it into two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have a few friends. // 我有几个朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a few friends are in that class. // 几个朋友在那个班级里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second: combine the two sentences into one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有(几个)朋友在那个班级里. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel if the two clauses/sentence are not that correlated with each other, we don't have to make it to be attributive strictly. In this case, we don't have to make it like 我有几个在那个班级里的朋友， which sounds stilted.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence you made, 我有一些朋友参加那个班, is a good one I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T06:07:53.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27383" CreationDate="2017-11-03T07:46:02.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我有朋友在那个班&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在那个班有朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有在那个班的朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;these are the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3526" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T07:46:02.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27383" CreationDate="2017-11-03T08:27:08.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answer: you do not use 'who' or 'that' or any relative pronoun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a few friends who are in that class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Your friends are in that class)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有一些朋友在那个班上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Your friends are in that class right now.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有几个朋友正在那个班上上课。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T08:27:08.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27378" CreationDate="2017-11-03T08:44:51.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;華者﹒chinese 也, it's up to you to define it¹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;僑者﹒寄也﹒客也﹒have a domicile out of &quot;china&quot; (taiwan or p.r.c.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;華僑 should be any chinese whom live in other countries for long time, or permanently. they may has nationality of their domicile, or multiple nationalities; or, they still have p.r.c. passport, or taiwan passport.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;华侨； Chinese people who live in other countries but are still citizens of China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's &lt;strong&gt;false&lt;/strong&gt; info.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;華僑華人和中國留學生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it should be interpreted as &quot;華僑&quot;, &quot;華人&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;中國留學生&quot;; with underlying assumption that they're han chinese (漢族)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;中國留學生&quot; are students studying in canada, with origins from p.r.c.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;華人&quot; is referring to the groups of people that's staying in canada temporary. e.g. tourists, persons on business trip, officials on visit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;these types of people have their domiciles in taiwan, or p.r.c. no matter how long they stay in canada (from a few days to months), they will leave. so, technically they're not &quot;華僑&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹   if you treat &quot;華&quot; as &quot;中華民族&quot; (the chinese people), it's tricky to interpret tibetan, mongolian, uyghurs &amp;amp; manchurian. claiming they're &quot;chinese&quot; is . . . :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T08:44:51.930" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27390" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27391" CreationDate="2017-11-03T10:16:00.963" Score="1" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;发言人表示，该公司目前&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;多达80款不同菜系提供外卖，“这一点足以说明我们英国人是全世界菜肴的吃货。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the meaning, which is something like the follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The spokesman said that the company now provides 80 different types of delivery foods. This is more than an enough explanation of why British people are the best gourmet in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what does the 为 mean in this sentence? I feel that the subject is 该公司 and the verb is 提供外卖, so 为 would be a preposition...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean &quot;with&quot; or something others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T07:51:49.803" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T07:51:49.803" Title="What does 为 mean in 该公司目前为多达80款不同菜系提供外卖...?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27390" CreationDate="2017-11-03T10:34:04.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You almost get it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为...提供 means &quot;provide ... with&quot; or &quot;supply ...with&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, the correct pronunciation here is wei4, not wei2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the verb, 为, as a preposition, can mean &quot;for, to, with&quot;. Prepositions in English and Chinese are quite different I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T10:34:04.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27390" CreationDate="2017-11-03T12:34:19.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;该公司目前为多达80款不同菜系提供外卖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence is grammatical, but illogical. &lt;em&gt;为&lt;/em&gt; 菜系 &lt;em&gt;提供&lt;/em&gt; 外卖, you can not provide 外卖 to 菜系， but you can only provide 外卖 to 人. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence could be paraphrased as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;该公司目前有多达80款不同菜系（可）提供外卖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T12:34:19.060" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27390" CreationDate="2017-11-03T23:47:55.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;发言人表示，该公司目前为多达80款不同菜系提供外卖（服务），“这一点足以说明我们英国人是全世界菜肴的吃货。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without context it is always a bit dodgy interpreting. That said, it is extremely unlikely that any one kitchen would prepare and provide more than 80 different cuisines. Therefore, the company in question is a delivery service like 饿了吗. They provide their service for the dishes, so I think '为多达80款不同菜系提供外卖（服务）' is not illogical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, to describe the British as gourmets is not just illogical, it is counter-factual! (&quot;I'm hungry, help me open this can of baked beans!&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为多达80款不同菜系提供外卖（服务） we provide takeaway service for more than 80 different cuisines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T23:47:55.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27396" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27397" CreationDate="2017-11-04T00:04:06.913" Score="2" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at &lt;a href=&quot;http://inews.ifeng.com/52929172/news.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; which has the title:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从前我有一个不会拍照的男友，后来他走的很安详…&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Cóngqián wǒ yǒu yīgè bùhuì pāizhào de nányǒu, hòulái tā zǒu de hěn ānxiáng…&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in breaking down 一个不会拍照的男友:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一个&lt;/a&gt; (yīgè) = one&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%8D%E4%BC%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不会&lt;/a&gt; (bùhuì) = will not &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%8B%8D%E7%85%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;拍照&lt;/a&gt; (pāizhào) = to take a picture&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;男友 (nányǒu) seems to be short for &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%94%B7%E6%9C%8B%E5%8F%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;男朋友&lt;/a&gt; (nánpéngyǒu) = boyfriend&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the person writing the article had a boyfriend who will not &quot;take a picture&quot;.  I don't know if this means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the boyfriend refuses to be photographed, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the boyfriend refuses to take photographs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does a 不会拍照的男友 not want to be photographed or not want to take photographs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T17:21:59.563" Title="Does a 不会拍照的男友 not want to be photographed or not want to take photographs?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27396" CreationDate="2017-11-04T00:14:14.177" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;会 means 能，善于, 'able to'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不会: 不善于，不能，unable to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不会拍照的男友 means the boyfriend who does not know how to take photographs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-04T00:14:14.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27398" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27399" CreationDate="2017-11-04T06:41:00.833" Score="4" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary gives the stroke order for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%94%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;男&lt;/a&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JDIdD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JDIdD.png&quot; alt=&quot;Stroke order for 男&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if it's wrong to merge the two vertical strokes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QokmK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QokmK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;writing 男 by combining two strokes&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it legitimate to write 男 merging the two vertical strokes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T08:58:37.830" Title="Is it legitimate to write 男 merging the two vertical strokes?" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27398" CreationDate="2017-11-04T08:32:47.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple answer is 'wrong'. 男 is 田 + 力. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be ok for daily writing, but it would be wrong for any type of exams. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-04T08:32:47.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27401" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27406" CreationDate="2017-11-04T11:10:05.460" Score="0" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;曾有朋友戏称，脱发已经成为了当代青少年担忧的最大问题！&lt;strong&gt;屏幕前的你&lt;/strong&gt;，是否也在感概”头发都去哪儿了“？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand what 屏幕前的你 means. 屏幕 means &quot;screen&quot;, but then I don't understand the part 前的你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what does the phrase and the whole sentence mean and how does it work grammatically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-05T08:48:13.023" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T04:20:05.810" Title="What is the meaning of 屏幕前的你?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27401" CreationDate="2017-11-04T12:15:20.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;屏幕前的你&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Split it like this: 屏幕 前 的 你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;屏幕：Screen&#xA;前：before&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;屏幕前 means &amp;quot;before the screen&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that 'The one (you) on the other side the screen'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence seems to be in an advertisement.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some friends (of the speaker) joked about baldness being the most worrying problem among adolescents.  And are you, who are on the other side of the screen, also worrying about where have your hairs went?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-04T12:26:05.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27403" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-04T12:17:09.303" Score="5" ViewCount="2415" Body="&lt;p&gt;On some of my Chinese school worksheets, we're supposed to use &amp;quot;弄&amp;quot; in the following sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't make the child cry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Loosen the belt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one more problem that has yet to be clarified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've researched it and I understand it means 做, but I don't know how to use it in the sentences above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T21:03:20.467" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T21:03:20.467" Title="How to use 弄 in a sentence?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27403" CreationDate="2017-11-04T12:33:00.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;弄 could mean: make, manage to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't make the child cry: 别把小孩弄哭了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Loosen the belt: 把腰带弄松.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one more problem that has yet to be clarified: 还有一个问题尚有待于弄清楚. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-04T12:33:00.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27403" CreationDate="2017-11-04T12:48:24.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;弄，搞，做 have similar meanings. It is hard to memorize which one to use in all cases.  And in many situations, these words can have meanings which might not be listed in the dictionary.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, 弄 means an action.  You can treat it as &quot;make something/somebody + adjective&quot; structure.  The correct action (example: 弄伤=make sb. injured=injure sb.=伤害) can be inferred from the context in most cases.  弄 is more similar to 搞 than 做.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I suggest you directly memorize the usual combination of 弄, 搞, 做 with other words to save your time. (You could search the web to see which expression is the most accepted one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in some cases, these three words have different meanings when you exchange one for another in a phrase.&#xA;For example, “搞事情” means doing something (possibly illegal/destructive/chaotic), but &quot;做事情&quot; means doing something (constructive, positive).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2017-11-04T12:48:24.667" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27401" CreationDate="2017-11-04T12:54:46.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;屏幕前的你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 here refers to people in general. In this context, it refers to 当代青少年, the youth of today. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, here 屏幕前的你 could be translated to &lt;em&gt;the youth of today who are still sitting in front of screens&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;屏幕前的你，是否也在感概”头发都去哪儿了“？: &lt;em&gt;For those youth of today, who are still sitting in front of screens, are you still sighing with emotions and thinking &quot;where your hair has gone?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-04T12:54:46.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27407" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27408" CreationDate="2017-11-05T01:32:55.510" Score="0" ViewCount="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/show-%E6%B8%85%E6%A5%9A-6.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt; example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;图14．34清楚地表明了这一点。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   Figure 14.34 illustrates this point rather nicely.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Tú 14.34 qīngchǔ dì biǎomíngle zhè yīdiǎn.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breaking this apart:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%9B%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;图&lt;/a&gt;14．34 (tú 14.34) = Figure 14.34&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%B8%85%E6%A5%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;清楚&lt;/a&gt; (qīngchǔ) = clear&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%9C%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;地&lt;/a&gt; (dì) = -ly (turning &quot;clear&quot; into the adverb &quot;clearly&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%A1%A8%E6%98%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;表明&lt;/a&gt; (biǎomíng) = to make clear&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BA%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;了&lt;/a&gt; (le) = (past tense marker)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%BF%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;这&lt;/a&gt; (zhè) = this&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%80%E7%82%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一点&lt;/a&gt; (yīdiǎn) = a little&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So maybe my translation would be &quot;Figure 14.34 clearly makes clear this a little.&quot;  However, the repetition of &quot;clear&quot; in 清楚地表明 seems strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 表明 and 清楚地表明?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T01:52:42.587" Title="What's the difference between 表明 (biǎomíng) and 清楚地表明 (qīngchǔ dì biǎomíng)?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27407" CreationDate="2017-11-05T01:48:05.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;清楚地 (adv) = clearly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表明 (v) = show/ demonstrate/ indicate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question: What's the difference between 表明 and 清楚地表明?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;图14．34 &lt;strong&gt;表明&lt;/strong&gt;了这一点。= Figure 14. 34 &lt;strong&gt;indicated&lt;/strong&gt; this point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;图14．34 &lt;strong&gt;清楚地表明&lt;/strong&gt;这一点 = Figure 14. 34 &lt;strong&gt;clearly indicated&lt;/strong&gt; this point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T01:48:05.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27407" CreationDate="2017-11-05T01:52:42.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;表明 only means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to make known, to state, to disclose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表明态度 for instance means to show ones attitude or state ones attitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn’t necessarily mean that you did it in a &lt;strong&gt;clear&lt;/strong&gt; way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清楚地 means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;clearly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;oxford translates 清楚地表明 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;clearly indicat(ed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or as a &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;clear signal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T01:52:42.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27410" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-05T03:40:17.483" Score="0" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit: typo, wrote '必需‘ instead of '必须’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is '必须要有‘ 2 or 3 words? What does it mean? It seems to say 'must have (必需） must （要） have （有）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人必需要有自己的追求，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English we use 'needs must', for example, often heard in 'Needs must when the devil drives', although it is somewhat old-fashioned, but not archaic. It is still heard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is ’必需要有‘ 'needs must'? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人必需要有自己的追求， 'a person needs must have a pursuit'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cf: Shakespeare's 'All’s Well that Ends Well': The Clown says to the Countess: “My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-05T08:51:19.720" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T08:52:59.590" Title="How to parse and translate 必须要有?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27410" CreationDate="2017-11-05T03:47:55.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;ABC dictionary defines &lt;strong&gt;要有&lt;/strong&gt; as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;need; require&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;giving the example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开箱子要有钥匙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kāi xiāngzi yàoyǒu yàoshi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One needs the key to open the suitcase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;必需&lt;/strong&gt; you can think of as essential, indispensable or necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your translation:&#xA;人必需要有自己的追求， 'a person needs must have a pursuit'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while not &lt;em&gt;wrong&lt;/em&gt; - could probably be better thought of as &lt;strong&gt;definitely necessary&lt;/strong&gt; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T03:47:55.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27410" CreationDate="2017-11-05T06:13:04.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are difference between &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22009/what-is-the-difference-between-%E5%BF%85%E9%A1%BB-%E5%BE%97-and-%E9%9C%80%E8%A6%81&quot;&gt;必须 and 必需&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必需要有 = (必需)(要有)= (need)(need to have) is not a meaningful phrase(redundant). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can either say 必需金錢(need money) or 要有金錢(need to have money) but 必需要有金錢 would mean &quot;need, need to have money&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 必需 and 要有 in sentence like this: &quot;做奶酪&lt;strong&gt;必需&lt;/strong&gt;時間, &lt;strong&gt;要有&lt;/strong&gt;耐性&quot; (making cheese &lt;strong&gt;need&lt;/strong&gt; time, &lt;strong&gt;need to have&lt;/strong&gt; patience)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必须 = must/ need to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要有 = need to have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必须要有= &quot;must need to have&quot; [is also structurally redundant, but people often use this phrase instead of 必须有(&lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; have) or 须要有 (need to have).] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 必须要有 is the combination of 必须有 and 须要有-- they all mean &quot;need to have&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is ’必须要有‘ 'needs must'?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, 'needs must' is a proverb that means &quot;sometimes you have to do something you would rather not.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-05T06:45:40.650" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T06:45:40.650" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27410" CreationDate="2017-11-05T08:52:59.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, 人&lt;em&gt;必需&lt;/em&gt; 要有自己的追求 is wrong. The correct one should be 人&lt;em&gt;必须&lt;/em&gt; 要有自己的追求. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必须: must, have to; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要 is a modal word, which connotes 'need', 'want', 'require' and 'demand'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有：have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, 要 and 必须 have some overlaps in meaning, but if they are put it together(必须要), it conveys a stronger emphasis.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 必须要有 and 必须有 mean 'must have'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必须要有 is a bit stronger than 必须有， and 必须有 is more casual than 必须要有. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人必须要有自己的追求, as a whole, could be translated to &quot;one must have one's own pursuit/dream.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T08:52:59.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27414" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27419" CreationDate="2017-11-05T09:45:34.190" Score="-2" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working on a self-introduction, and say where I was born. How could I correctly say that I moved house when I was 8 years old?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18282" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-07T05:01:05.307" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T05:01:05.307" Title="How could I correctly say &quot;I moved here when I was eight years old&quot;?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;introductions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-11-05T16:37:07.670" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27415" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27832" CreationDate="2017-11-05T10:41:19.627" Score="0" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the words 发蒙 and 上学 can be seen together as a single phrase: 发蒙上学.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Working with the topolectical words &lt;strong&gt;穿牛鼻子&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one defintion says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喻指小孩到学校读书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while another says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比喻儿童发蒙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any, fundamental, difference between 发蒙 and 上学 for children?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is this just more of a countryside (乡下) vs. urban idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://book.ifeng.com/a/20150531/15324_0.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ifeng&lt;/a&gt; article says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自古以来，孩子上学叫“发蒙”，早期教育叫“蒙学”。从文字角度，“蒙”这个字最早的含义，本身就与幼童启蒙有关。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not super clear if it is &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt; the same or if there are subtle differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T02:08:30.720" Title="Any difference between 发蒙 and 上学 for children?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27416" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-05T11:40:01.387" Score="1" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;The picture here shows the evaluation instruction given to English-speaking native judges of the famous annually held &quot;FLTRP&quot; (外研社）Cup English Speaking Cup of Chinese college students。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;PK&quot; looks like English, but its origin is in China, something like &quot;AA&quot;, which can be understood without any distortion by Chinese people, but makes no sense to English speakers, who only know &quot;go dutch&quot; or &quot;split bills&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the real meaning of PK?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aKcUI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aKcUI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T18:12:58.660" Title="Some words look like English, but they are Chinese" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27396" CreationDate="2017-11-05T11:48:56.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding is without problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could mean both or more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the article you gave, it is obvious that the man the author called to be her boyfriend turns out to be a lousy camera operator, who always makes the author an uglier girl than she really is in life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese language is tricky, not good for law, but good for game. There are tons of stories of match-makers and fortune-tellers in this regard in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T11:48:56.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27415" CreationDate="2017-11-05T11:52:11.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;上学is more easily understood by modern people while 发蒙 now means more &quot;at a loss&quot; than its original meaning to the public, but if you say 启蒙, more people will understand you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T11:52:11.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27414" CreationDate="2017-11-05T11:57:37.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In everyday Chinese:我八岁时搬来这儿；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In scholar Chinese: 本人八岁移居此地；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In snobbish Chinese: 在下八岁乔迁至此；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In pre-Qin Dynasty Chinese：吾自八龄谪居本地。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your reference only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T11:57:37.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27403" CreationDate="2017-11-05T12:07:34.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt; have different nuances. It is easy to see this by looking closer at character etymology:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;弄 depicts two hands &lt;strong&gt;廾&lt;/strong&gt; playing around with a piece of jade &lt;strong&gt;王&lt;/strong&gt; (reduced from &lt;strong&gt;玉&lt;/strong&gt;), extended to mean &lt;em&gt;fiddling around/tinkering with&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;doing trivial or unimportant things&lt;/em&gt;. Note that, in the latter sense, 弄 is sometimes interchangeable with &lt;strong&gt;玩&lt;/strong&gt;, which also has the semantic component &lt;em&gt;jade&lt;/em&gt; (王).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;做 originated as a differentiated character from &lt;strong&gt;作&lt;/strong&gt;, which compounds a person &lt;strong&gt;亻&lt;/strong&gt; with a combination of (a blade &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=14&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;刀&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; written upside down + a piece of wood) &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=472&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;乍&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, depicting woodchopping. 作 has been extended to mean &lt;em&gt;to work&lt;/em&gt;, and importantly, 做/作 does not have the sense of triviality compared to 弄.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This clearly indicates that there are situations where 弄 and 做 can or shouldn't be interchanged:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For actions which are clearly important, it is improper to use 弄; e.g. you shouldn't say 弄作業 for &lt;em&gt;doing homework&lt;/em&gt; or 弄工作 for &lt;em&gt;doing a job&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For actions which are ambiguously important, 弄 and 做 are mostly interchangeable; e.g. a child might describe a hobby of theirs with 做, while a parent might disparagingly discourage them by describing it with 弄.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For actions which to do with fiddling/tinkering around with, it is appropriate to use 弄, e.g. &lt;strong&gt;弄鬆&lt;/strong&gt;腰帶 (&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;loosen&lt;/strong&gt; the belt&lt;/em&gt;). As an extension, this can be extended to people (via the meaning &lt;em&gt;to tease/harass&lt;/em&gt;), hence 別把小孩子&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;哭 (&lt;em&gt;don't &lt;strong&gt;tease&lt;/strong&gt; the child till he/she cries&lt;/em&gt;). Since 做 is a rather ambiguous action word, it is inappropriate to use 做 here.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18269" LastEditorDisplayName="user18269" LastEditDate="2017-11-05T12:34:20.230" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T12:34:20.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27352" CreationDate="2017-11-05T12:07:36.507" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;TA (exactly what you see here in Pinyin, not in Chinese character) is widely used by media in China when the gender is not certain.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z3kkD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z3kkD.png&quot; alt=&quot;孩子的眼睛需要你和TA共同守护&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  孩子的眼睛需要你和TA共同守护&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.youth.cn/sh/201910/t20191010_12090489.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;news.youth.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 is good for both sexes in mainland China, in Taiwan and Hong Kong, some people like to change the left side to be a 女 if it refers to a female, but with too much exchange and communication with mainland, things have been changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in mainland, there is not a special word for the third person noun for God or deities or fairies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-10-15T05:42:51.913" LastActivityDate="2019-10-15T05:42:51.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27416" CreationDate="2017-11-05T12:29:35.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the real meaning of PK? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, &lt;a href=&quot;http://fz.ganji.com/waiyupeixun/2781013008x.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PK&lt;/a&gt; is a kind of Chinglish (Chinese English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;日常生活中，PK的常见含义有：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;对决，对抗；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;击败，淘汰；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;泛指两件对等事物的比较，对比。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(PK's common meanings include: 1. confrontation/battle; 2. knock out; 3. comparison).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个词较初起源于MUD游戏中的Player Killer（PKer，指游戏中专门杀害其他玩家的人），后衍生出Player Killing（指随便杀人之意），引申为“玩家对战”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The word stemmed from &quot;Player Killer&quot; in MUD, then derived as &quot;Player Killing&quot;, extended in meaning of battle between Players (Player VS Player).)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还有一种说法称，PK起源于足球里的罚点球，即Penalty&#xA;  Kick的缩写，引意为一对一单挑，只有一方能赢。但这一起源的认可度不及网络游戏起源说。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Another version is that PK stemmed from &quot;Penalty Kick&quot; in soccer game, extended to meaning of one-on-one challenge.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-05T18:12:58.660" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T18:12:58.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27416" CreationDate="2017-11-05T12:31:29.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;PK: &quot;Player Kill&quot;; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the definition in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=PK&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;urban dictionary&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;PK&#xA;  Pronounced &quot;Pee-kay&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Originally meaning &quot;Player Killing,&quot; the term PK is now also&#xA;  colloquially used in China and Taiwan as a verb form of the word&#xA;  versus in situations where there may actually be no avatar/player&#xA;  killing. It is most used in 1v1 situations like 1v1 basketball, 1v1&#xA;  starcraft, 1v1 league of legends, 1v1 chess, 1v1 eating contests, 1v1&#xA;  footrace etc. PK can also be applied to situations where one team is&#xA;  against another in a 1 team vs 1 team scenario like in the NBA,&#xA;  soccer, baseball, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T12:31:29.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27424" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27434" CreationDate="2017-11-05T12:31:53.897" Score="0" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%8A%9E%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt; example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还有一种办法，他可能会到地址目录中查找。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Alternatively, he could look the address up in a directory.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Hái yǒuyī zhǒng bànfǎ, tā kěnéng huì dào dìzhǐ mùlù zhōng cházhǎo.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything here makes sense to me except 到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What is 到 doing in the sentence 他可能会到地址目录中查找?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breaking it down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;还有一种&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8A%9E%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;办法&lt;/a&gt; = still have one kind of solution&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8F%AF%E8%83%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;可能&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BC%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;会&lt;/a&gt; (tā kěnéng huì) = he possibly can ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%88%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;到&lt;/a&gt; (dào) = to arrive (???)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%9C%B0%E5%9D%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;地址&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9B%AE%E5%BD%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;目录&lt;/a&gt; (dìzhǐ mùlù) = &quot;address table of contents&quot; likely means &quot;address book&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中 (zhōng) = within&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%9F%A5%E6%89%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;查找&lt;/a&gt; (cházhǎo) = to look up&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems possible that I might be breaking this up incorrectly: instead 到地址 go together as &quot;destination address&quot;, which is separate from 目录.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T22:39:28.887" Title="What is 到 doing in the sentence 他可能会到地址目录中查找?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27424" CreationDate="2017-11-05T12:41:52.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;到...中 in this context could be interpreted as &lt;strong&gt;'get into'&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他可能会到地址目录中查找?: he might get into the address catalogue to have a search. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T12:41:52.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27426" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27427" CreationDate="2017-11-05T12:49:05.090" Score="1" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an &lt;a href=&quot;http://world.people.com.cn/n1/2017/1101/c1002-29621431.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article over 人民网&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;据日本TBS电视台报道,这名女大学生就读于东京都内某大学4年级,涉嫌违反野生动物保护法&lt;strong&gt;被逮&lt;/strong&gt;。泰国警察介绍，这名日本女大学生当天打算搭乘返回成田机场的航班，被机场工作人员发现在行李中藏匿了10只水獭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;被捕&lt;/strong&gt;女大学生交代“水獭是在曼谷市场附近地摊购买，打算当特产送给朋友。自己是第一次来泰国旅行，并不清楚不能带水獭”。 由于这名日本女嫌疑人的护照是10月25日刚发行，泰国警方目前怀疑这是一起有组织的走私水獭案。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first paragraph, the author uses 被逮 while in the second paragraph, the author uses 被捕. I understand that both mean 逮捕 in a passive form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, why does the author write it differently between these two paragraphs? In English, it is generally considered a good writing style to paraphrase a word in later sentences, but does that kind of convention exist in Mandarin as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, what is the reason the author uses different words to mean the same thing in an article?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T17:52:00.653" Title="Does the convention to paraphrase a word in an article exist in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27426" CreationDate="2017-11-05T13:39:19.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I suppose &lt;code&gt;被逮&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;这名女大学生...被逮。&lt;/code&gt; is a typo, for the meaning of &lt;em&gt;arrest&lt;/em&gt; it should be &lt;code&gt;这名女大学生...被逮捕。&lt;/code&gt;. And &lt;code&gt;被捕&lt;/code&gt; could be used too, i.e. &lt;code&gt;这名女大学生...被捕。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;code&gt;被捕女大学生&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;被捕&lt;/code&gt; is used for qualifying the noun &lt;code&gt;女大学生&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;被逮捕&lt;/code&gt; could be used too as &lt;code&gt;被逮捕的女大学生&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;does that kind of convention exist in Mandarin as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll say yes, if for same context. But for this case, the application scenarios are different. e.g. In the 2nd case, it's quite reasonable to use &lt;code&gt;被捕&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;被逮捕的&lt;/code&gt; for the conciseness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-11-06T00:43:03.457" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T00:43:03.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27424" CreationDate="2017-11-05T13:54:57.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're breaking the sentence down correctly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/xs/5230.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;到&lt;/a&gt; might mean &lt;code&gt;go to&lt;/code&gt;, for indicating &lt;em&gt;where&lt;/em&gt; to do sth. So &quot;到地址目录中查找&quot; means &quot;to look up in the address book&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T13:54:57.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27429" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27436" CreationDate="2017-11-05T15:03:18.537" Score="1" ViewCount="500" Body="&lt;p&gt;MDBG lists &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E8%BF%87%E5%BE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;过得&lt;/a&gt;, but during my time in China, I have never heard this expression. Where in China is it used and what are the local meanings of it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过得    guò dé  How are you getting by? / How's life? / contraction of 過得去|过得去, can get by / tolerably well / not too bad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15647" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T07:47:30.497" Title="Where are people using the expression 過得 / 过得?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27431" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27459" CreationDate="2017-11-05T16:43:54.503" Score="2" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this sentence in an essay written by a translator. I wonder if 多用心译 means 'translate a lot by heart', or 'translate diligently'? 心译 doesn't exist as a word, but could be created by the author as bisyllabic word because it is similar to 多改, 多试, 多想. '多用心译' can mean also 多用心翻译。in the two ways the sentence has a meaning. Which one of the two is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rosa&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16781" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-05T18:10:31.520" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T01:35:08.717" Title="What does the sentence 多用心译 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27431" CreationDate="2017-11-05T22:08:25.410" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A whole sentence would clarify the meaning. Do you have the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, '多用心译' just means 'be careful when translating'. I can definitely empathize! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People say that the German President Heinrich Lübke once said to Queen Elizabeth II, &quot;Equals goes it loose.&quot; They were at a horse race, he wanted to say, &quot;It will start in a moment.&quot; but his English was not good and he translated from German literally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T22:08:25.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27424" CreationDate="2017-11-05T22:39:28.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;到。。。。中 quite literally says 'to .... in'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese nearly always has these double-barrelled prepositions, like here, 到。。。中 = in, into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还有一种办法，他可能会[到地址目录中]查找。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人们应该将正确的理论应用[到实践中]。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到事业中去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;到打字机中&lt;br&gt;&#xA;到空气中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T22:39:28.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27426" CreationDate="2017-11-05T23:09:24.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;被逮 could be considered as a short version of 被逮住， meaning 被抓住; be caught; For example, 我被老师逮（住）了， 我考试作弊被逮了(I was caught for cheating in the exam), 他被逮了个正着(meaning he was just caught while he was doing something bad).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 被逮 usually is not that formal as 被逮捕 or 被捕. It's not a good idea to use it in a serious/formal writing, like in a report. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese writing does apply that convention OP mentioned, avoiding the same word being used multiple times. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if I were the writer for that article, I would put ... 涉嫌违反野生动物保护法被逮捕, ... 被捕女大学生交代... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T23:09:24.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27429" CreationDate="2017-11-05T23:20:47.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 过得 and 过得去 are common in China, but 过得 and 过得去 can have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过得: 生活得(怎么样), how one's life lives; For example, 你过得怎么样？：How are you getting along? or how is your life (you live)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过得去: to get through or get by; It has literal and metaphorical meaning. The literal meaning is to physically get through and metaphorically, it means to get through a difficult situation. For example, 我过得去 could simple mean 'I can get it through'. 我生活还过得去： 'Things in my life are able to get through.' It implies that your life is okay or not too bad. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="15647" LastEditDate="2017-11-07T07:47:30.497" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T07:47:30.497" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27437" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-05T23:35:09.160" Score="2" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say I have a friend that I like a lot and haven't seen in a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to say &quot;I miss you&quot; &lt;strong&gt;without any risk&lt;/strong&gt; of a romantic interpretation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想念你 or 我想你 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe something more like &quot;I hope we meet again&quot; but still that might be interpreted the wrong way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18287" LastEditorUserId="18287" LastEditDate="2017-11-06T00:37:09.823" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T19:08:19.110" Title="Missing someone (but not romantic)" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27437" CreationDate="2017-11-05T23:48:26.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say you should be careful of using 我想念你 or 我想你 , especially to a opposite gender. Usually, we say 我想念你 or 我想你 jokingly to avoid the confusion, except saying it to your 'real honey'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you put 我们都很想（念）你， meaning you are missed among all of our friends, that would get you out of the confusion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T23:48:26.850" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27439" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27442" CreationDate="2017-11-06T08:32:19.973" Score="4" ViewCount="1323" Body="&lt;p&gt;For many questions in Chinese, it's best to respond by repeating the verb.  Here's a few I just made up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 你&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;哪儿国人？ A: 我&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;中国人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 刘老师&lt;strong&gt;找&lt;/strong&gt;什么？ A: 刘老师&lt;strong&gt;找&lt;/strong&gt;她的老公。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Q: 她&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;老公吗？ A: 对，她&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;老公。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 小王&lt;strong&gt;怕&lt;/strong&gt;什么？ A: 小王&lt;strong&gt;怕&lt;/strong&gt;狗。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I can think of many others (你&lt;strong&gt;想吃&lt;/strong&gt;什么？ 你在&lt;strong&gt;看&lt;/strong&gt;什么？你在&lt;strong&gt;学&lt;/strong&gt;什么？你的牙&lt;strong&gt;疼&lt;/strong&gt;吗?).  But this one breaks the rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: 你&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;什么工作？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A: 我&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;医生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or we might respond 我&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;老师 or 我&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;校长, or 我&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;职员, etc., depending on our job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a way to respond to 你做什么工作？ starting with 我做...？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps there's something inherently wrong with answering the question starting with 我做....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T11:41:06.077" Title="Is there a way to respond to 你做什么工作？starting with 我做...？" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27439" CreationDate="2017-11-06T08:52:42.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;做 is like the English word 'do'. So, 'do' could stand for any verb in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this concept works for Chinese as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 你在做什么？ // what are you doing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 我在玩游戏。 // I am playing a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, when you response to 做， you should answer what you are actually doing. It could be any verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case,  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 你做什么工作？ // what do you do? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 我是医生。 // I am a doctor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the same as you response in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to use 做 in your answer, you could say 我是做医生的. But it's not as concise as 我是医生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T08:52:42.543" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27439" CreationDate="2017-11-06T09:23:45.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because 医生 is &lt;strong&gt;what you are&lt;/strong&gt;, not &lt;strong&gt;what you do&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can respond with 我教英语, 我卖面包, 我开出租车, if you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, 我是XX sounds more natural if your job has a simple and direct name, such as 医生, 教师, 司机, 厨师, etc. The other pattern is more likely to be used when you want to specifically describe what you do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T09:23:45.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27437" CreationDate="2017-11-06T12:16:18.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say in a formal speech like 我们后会有期吧 would be much safer. Or just make it explicit as friend: 很高兴认识你这样的朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T12:16:18.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27352" CreationDate="2017-11-06T13:28:24.483" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best candidate for a non-binary TA is in fact &lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt;. This is particularly obvious in the word &lt;strong&gt;他們&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;them&lt;/em&gt;), which definitely does not refer to a group of specifically males. 他 did not acquire the specific meaning &lt;strong&gt;he&lt;/strong&gt; until well after &lt;strong&gt;她&lt;/strong&gt; was invented, and 他 originally was a generic word meaning &lt;em&gt;other&lt;/em&gt; (e.g. &lt;strong&gt;他人&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;the other person&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她 did not actually exist before the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Culture_Movement&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;new culture movement&lt;/a&gt;; its creation was from the direct influence from European languages. This is commonly seen in older popular novels like Dream of the Red Chamber, where 她 makes no appearances and it is incorrect to assume that 他 means &lt;strong&gt;he&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;him&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: In Taiwan, 他 is still sometimes used to refer to both he/him and she/her, although this practice is declining.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18269" LastEditorDisplayName="user18269" LastEditDate="2017-11-06T15:26:45.437" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T15:26:45.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27445" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-11-06T15:12:47.300" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-11-06T15:12:47.300" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T15:12:47.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27446" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-11-06T15:12:47.300" Score="0" Body="This is a special tag that is designed to be used only by the system for questions that have had all of their other tags removed. Do not add this tag to existing questions, it is reserved for use by the system to identify posts with no valid tags." OwnerUserId="15684" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2017-11-07T00:42:42.470" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T00:42:42.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27447" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-06T16:00:32.490" Score="2" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;研究成果认为，适度的睡眠时间与合理饮食、积极运动&lt;strong&gt;一样&lt;/strong&gt;，能为人体补充能量，调节各项生理功能，降低患上心血管疾病的风险。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一样 usually means &quot;like&quot; or &quot;the same as&quot;. However, I don't understand the meaning here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel I understand the two points below correctly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since it is an enumeration comma (、), 合理饮食 and 积极运动 can be concatenated.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;与 then concatenates 适度的睡眠时间 and 合理饮食、积极运动.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, then my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How does the 一样 work here? Does it modify &quot;合理饮食、积极运动&quot; or just &quot;积极运动&quot; or the entire &quot;适度的睡眠时间与合理饮食、积极运动&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 一样 in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that &lt;em&gt;&quot;A 与 B、C 一样&quot;&lt;/em&gt; mean &lt;em&gt;&quot;A, and B and C as well&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, but am not sure...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T22:26:05.193" Title="What does 一样 mean in &quot;适度的睡眠时间与合理饮食，积极运动一样&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27447" CreationDate="2017-11-06T17:18:36.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;适度的睡眠时间与合理饮食、积极运动一样&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;适度的睡眠时间 is the same as '合理饮食 and 积极运动'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18295" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T17:18:36.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27439" CreationDate="2017-11-06T17:40:05.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, if you make things, but even then it's not the job name but the name of the thing.  For example: 我做游戏. (I make games)  我做最好吃的蛋糕 (I make the best cakes)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use it with a superlative and the name of the job, although it's a little awkward:&#xA;我做世界上最好的老师。我做一个很了不起的运动员。&#xA;(I am / serve as the world's best teacher)&#xA;(I am / serve as a great athlete)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18297" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T17:40:05.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27437" CreationDate="2017-11-06T17:48:08.233" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend you a very good Mandarin Chinese Learning Twitter.&#xA;&quot;Tony Song&quot;&#xA;You can ask any questions through it.&#xA;And you can learn oral Mandarin Chinese from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18296" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T17:48:08.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27437" CreationDate="2017-11-06T19:08:19.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese culture people usually don't express their feelings directly unless they really feel they need to. Instead in your situation, people usually start with 好久不见 or 久疏问候 which means &quot;long time no see&quot; to someone they haven't seen for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By saying 我想念你 or 我想你, it is more likely the relationship between two are couples or at least toward to be a couple. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17979" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T19:08:19.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27447" CreationDate="2017-11-06T22:26:05.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;与 。。。 一样 = just like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;研究成果认为，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Research shows&lt;br&gt;&#xA;适度的睡眠时间与合理饮食、积极运动一样，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(that) the appropriate amount of sleep, just like a balanced diet and exercise,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;能为人体补充能量，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;can replenish one's strength,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;调节各项生理功能，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;regulate our physiological functions,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;降低患上心血管疾病的风险。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and lower the risk of cardio-vascular disease.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T22:26:05.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27431" CreationDate="2017-11-07T01:23:55.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;然后多用心译，多改、多试、多想、多留心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, I tend to interpret it as 多 用心 翻译 'translate diligently as much as possible'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could also be interpreted it as 多用 心译 'use 心译 as much as possible'. The thing is what would be 心译 like? Is it someone translating within his heart/head? If so, it would lose the consistency from other context: 多改、多试、多想、多留心.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 多改、多试、多想、多留心 conveys that translators should be very careful to make sure they could get all the translations accurate. That all suggests 多 用心 翻译 'translate diligently as much as possible'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-11-07T01:35:08.717" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T01:35:08.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27398" CreationDate="2017-11-07T07:33:54.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;even for daily writing, I think it's a bad choice, since you break the consistency of writing any character with a 田&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18295" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T07:33:54.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27439" CreationDate="2017-11-07T11:17:06.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;你做什么工作 doesn't sound smooth in Chinese. The correct expression and the one native speakers usually say is 你&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;什么工作&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;, which can be furtherly shortened into 你&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;什么&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;. In this case, you can respond it with 我做...的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Q: 你&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;什么工作&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;？ // what job do you do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 我&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;医生&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。 // I am a doctor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Q: 你&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;什么&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;？ // what job do you do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 我&lt;strong&gt;教&lt;/strong&gt;英语&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。 // I teach English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answering these kind of questions, you just need to pair the verb with 的 placed at the end of the sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;弹&lt;/strong&gt;钢琴&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。 // I play piano.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;游戏&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。 // I make game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;开发&lt;/strong&gt;软件&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。 // I develop software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;踢&lt;/strong&gt;足球&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。 // I play soccer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18305" LastEditorUserId="18305" LastEditDate="2017-11-07T11:41:06.077" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T11:41:06.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27401" CreationDate="2017-11-07T12:05:18.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This picture tells the story. 体会体会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3gjJQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3gjJQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18305" LastEditorUserId="18305" LastEditDate="2017-11-07T12:11:01.310" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T12:11:01.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27398" CreationDate="2017-11-07T14:19:40.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your question can only be answered if framed right, i.e.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I write a given character this or that way, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;will people be able to read it? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;will I get bad marks in an exam?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;will many people consider it wrong?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;am I following/violating a long-standing tradition? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and so on. One way to answer your question is the easy way out: just adhere to a well-known, published standard. In that case, there's clearly one right and many wrong ways to write a character, and @dan basically answered it: &quot;The simple answer is 'wrong'. 男 is 田 + 力&quot;. Unfortunately, those prescriptive standards are often wrong or problematic themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more interesting way to answer your question is to look at how writers in the past and present actually do write a given character, and then decide whether you want to break or bend the apparent rules or rather follow them. In your specific case, I'd look at the many samples given at &lt;a href=&quot;http://shufa.guoxuedashi.com/7537/1/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://shufa.guoxuedashi.com/7537/1/&lt;/a&gt; (kaishu), &lt;a href=&quot;http://shufa.guoxuedashi.com/7537/2/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://shufa.guoxuedashi.com/7537/2/&lt;/a&gt; (xingshu) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://shufa.guoxuedashi.com/7537/3/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://shufa.guoxuedashi.com/7537/3/&lt;/a&gt; (caoshu); I think what you can easily see there is that while there's plenty of evidence for a historical variant of 男 that has something like  under the 田, there's not a single sample where 田 and 力 share the vertical stroke. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leads me to answer your question with &quot;you probably don't want to write 男 with a single vertical stroke because you'd be the only one to do so&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@nichijou's answer (&quot;you break the consistency of writing any character with a 田&quot;) is generally reasonable, but then there &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; singular characters that are habitually or even prescriptively written in ways that are inconsistent, e.g. look at 所; it is often written like  even in kaishu, and at any rate the left part retains the form 戶 although it should be 户 in the PRC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16530" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T14:19:40.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27464" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27466" CreationDate="2017-11-08T06:45:36.903" Score="1" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to learn Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to be able to say (speak, not write) after a meal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am full.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I could translate directory to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ngo5 hai6 baau2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, my local (student in HK) friend says this is incorrect and that the following is preferred:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ngo5 hou2 baau2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I would read as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I very full&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentences like this come up quite often, where sometimes I need to say the verb hai6, or sometimes a &quot;degree&quot; such as hou2 and additionally gei(unsure of tone or meaning) has been suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the correct structure of a sentence where you want to tell somebody your current state of being?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18315" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T01:24:20.797" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T01:24:20.797" Title="When is a degree required? or: hai6 vs hou2 vs gei" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27465" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="40279" CreationDate="2017-11-08T07:34:04.167" Score="3" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;This children's(?) book is using mūdra (手印) to make some eastern vs. western jokes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E4Lle.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E4Lle.png&quot; alt=&quot;little tarzan&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The guy says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小泰山！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Little Tarzan!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and sticks up his middle finger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &amp;quot;Little Tarzan!&amp;quot; a real mūdra? What does it mean? What's it's usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T09:36:56.483" Title="Is the mūdra &quot;little tarzan&quot; a real thing? what does it mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27464" CreationDate="2017-11-08T08:53:57.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ngo5 hai6 baau2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&gt; 我係飽 is &quot;unnatural&quot;, hmmm, non-native way to express.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ngo5 hou2 baau2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&gt; 我好飽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;native way to say it :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just like the english &quot;being&quot;, in other language, the verb changes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;i'm 70 years old&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(being is used to describe age), which is translated to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;j'ai 70 ans&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(avoir [to have], is used, not être [to be]; then, in cantonese, it should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我七十歲&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;technically, the verb is omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;gei(unsure of tone or meaning) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it is 嘅(u+5605), roughly &quot;my, his, her, their&quot;; ask you friend how to pronounce it ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, i would suggest learning cantonese from dramas, videos, and news, forget grammar books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T08:53:57.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27468" CreationDate="2017-11-08T11:55:12.173" Score="3" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youdao.com/example/%E8%BA%AB%E4%BD%93/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao.com&lt;/a&gt; example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的身体会告诉&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;应该做什么&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Your body will tell you what to do&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Nǐ de shēntǐ huì gàosù nǐ yīnggāi zuò shénme&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence makes sense to me, except that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;会告诉&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt; = will tell you,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;应该做什么 = what you should do&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but the sentence only contains one 你 in 会告诉你应该做什么.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems like it should be written:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的身体会告诉&lt;strong&gt;你你&lt;/strong&gt;应该做什么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Should the second 你 in 你的身体会告诉你应该做什么 actually be 你你?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this is a mistake, some kind of abbreviation (or something more suitable in spoken Chinese), or perhaps we can conclude from context that 应该做什么 means 你应该做什么.  Or maybe something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see we don't have two &quot;you&quot;s in the English, so perhaps an alternative translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Your body will tell you what should be done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this doesn't clarify if two 你s are better than one.  In English, it (arguably) sounds better as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Your body will tell you what you should do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which has two &quot;you&quot;s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T08:43:34.803" Title="Should the second 你 in 你的身体会告诉你应该做什么 actually be 你你?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27467" CreationDate="2017-11-08T12:22:52.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;你的身体会告诉你&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;(Your body will tell you)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;'你应该做什么'&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;(what should you do)&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is indeed grammatically correct. However, consider three '你' in one sentence, especially two '你' back to back just look weird. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better writer would rephrase it to make reading easier, for example:  &quot;&lt;strong&gt;你的身体会讓你知道&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;(your body will let you know)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;你应该做什么&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;(what you should do)&lt;/em&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot; &lt;strong&gt;'你应该做什么'&lt;/strong&gt;(topic), &lt;strong&gt;你的身体会告诉你&lt;/strong&gt;(comment)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;有人告诉你你很漂亮&quot; (the first 你 is the object, the second 你 is the subject of the relative clause)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;父親告訴我我出生時的事&quot; (the first 我 is the object, the second 我 is the subject of the relative clause) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-08T12:41:30.393" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T12:41:30.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27467" CreationDate="2017-11-08T13:36:52.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Compare the two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你的身体会告诉你应该做什么。 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你的身体会告诉你你应该做什么。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence 2 is wordy because of that double 你. It's not a good style. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence 1 could be parsed as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的身体会告诉&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt; -- 应该做什么。 // Your body will tell &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; -- what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-11-10T08:43:34.803" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T08:43:34.803" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27470" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27472" CreationDate="2017-11-08T13:38:54.080" Score="2" ViewCount="375" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;调查中，11.1%的受访青年自认为已经是“斜杠青年”，46.3%的受访青年想成为“斜杠青年”，21.4%的受访青年不想，还有21.2%的受访青年&lt;strong&gt;说不好&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The transcribed script writes &lt;em&gt;&quot;neither yes nor no&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I wonder why it becomes such meaning. At first I though that it should mean something like &quot;I could not answer.&quot;, as I feel 不好 is a degree complement to 说. But &quot;I could not answer.&quot; is definitely not the same as &quot;neither yes nor no&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it correct that 说不好 mean &quot;neither yes nor no&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why does it become such meaning, despite the fact that if you decompose each word grammartically, it would more likely lead to &quot;can't answer&quot; or &quot;don't like to answer&quot;, instead of &quot;neither yes nor no&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T14:03:11.977" Title="The meaning of 说不好" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27470" CreationDate="2017-11-08T13:52:33.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;说不好==不好说, in the context, means 'hard to say', 'not quite sure', or 'hard to determine'. 'Hard to say' denotes 'neither yes nor no' or 'yes or no'. They just can't decide whether it's yes or no。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;21.2%的受访青年说不好: 21.2% of young people, who were interviewed, are 'neither yes nor no'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T13:52:33.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27470" CreationDate="2017-11-08T14:09:40.533" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it correct that 说不好 mean &quot;neither yes nor no&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a difficult question; IMO, it's not 100% correct (accurate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说不好 means literally &quot;can't say well&quot;, i.e. &quot;can't tell clearly / definitely&quot;. So it tends to mean &quot;the answer is not determinate&quot; or &quot;don't know the answer (themselves)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-11-10T14:03:11.977" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T14:03:11.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27473" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27474" CreationDate="2017-11-08T15:10:57.780" Score="3" ViewCount="1739" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters below belong only to Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嚟, 咁, 哋, 畀, 佢, 唔, 睇 or 冇.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a list on the web where I can find all these characters and their meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16176" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T13:30:28.110" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T13:30:28.110" Title="Is there a list on the web where I can find Cantonese special characters and their meaning?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27473" CreationDate="2017-11-08T15:44:32.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can check out wikipedia's page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Written Cantonese&lt;/a&gt; which contains a lot of information like borrowed characters, marked phonetic loans and workarounds but the page I'm guessing you're looking, mostly, for is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese#Derived_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;derived characters&lt;/a&gt; which contains things like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冇 móuh (v. not have). Originally 無. Standard written Mandarin: 沒有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;係 haih (v. be). Standard written Mandarin: 是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢 kéuih (pron. he/she/it). Originally 渠. Standard written Mandarin: 他, 她, 它, 牠, 祂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乜 māt (pron. what) often followed by 嘢 to form 乜嘢. Originally 物也. Standard written Mandarin: 什麼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T15:44:32.777" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27398" CreationDate="2017-11-08T16:09:05.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wrong, even if you want to be faster or lazily. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a convention that some strokes can be linked, some can not, some components can be reduced, some can not. If people break that convention in daily writings, he will not get a good impression from others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't know how, it is always a good habit to write strokes one by one.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tn5ls.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tn5ls.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2017-11-09T08:58:37.830" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T08:58:37.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27473" CreationDate="2017-11-08T17:37:11.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The national central library of Taiwan has the pdf of &quot;廣東俗語考&quot; by 孔仲南:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://taiwanebook.ncl.edu.tw/ebkFiles/NCL-002426263/NCL-002426263.PDF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://taiwanebook.ncl.edu.tw/ebkFiles/NCL-002426263/NCL-002426263.PDF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, the Hong Kong public library has the book &quot;廣州語本字&quot; by 詹憲慈:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://webcat.hkpl.gov.hk/lib/item?id=chamo:949958&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://webcat.hkpl.gov.hk/lib/item?id=chamo:949958&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simpler one is 廣東俗語正字考 by 彭志銘.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://webcat.hkpl.gov.hk/lib/item?id=chamo:2987758&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://webcat.hkpl.gov.hk/lib/item?id=chamo:2987758&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is for laymen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, both &quot;廣州語本字&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;廣東俗語考&quot; are kinda &quot;textual research&quot;, authors links the cantonese syllables to rare characters in literatures of yore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the dilemma is: nowadays, cantonese speaking people don't use these rare characters, even there're supporting research findings. well, at least in hong kong, we create new characters to suit the need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, unless you're in academic field, these two books are &quot;very difficult&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's a page of &quot;廣州語本字&quot;, let you have an idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gkaHV.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gkaHV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2017-11-09T07:33:54.767" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T07:33:54.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27477" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27478" CreationDate="2017-11-08T21:58:31.620" Score="0" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m making the program booklet, and one thing they are playing is 苏三起解.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is there a commonly used English name for it?  I have “Su San Under Escort” but see others when I search for it, like “Susan left Hongtong county”.&#xA;That’s not a pretty or poetic name.  So is there a better name I should use?&#xA;Also, Su San, not &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Susan&lt;/a&gt;, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also,&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chncpa.org/NEWS/wzxw/201710/t20171017_178104.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Story of SU San&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2017-06/27/content_29924816.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Susan’s Redemption&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=EO7LgHBYmHcC&amp;amp;pg=PA114&amp;amp;lpg=PA114&amp;amp;dq=Peking+opera++Su+San&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=eg8seDaE3e&amp;amp;sig=A-D6NP2cqW04iJmz-06vquh9YIw&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjb1q2y_rHXAhWEJiYKHZVQBT4Q6AEIZjAP#v=onepage&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Su San Sets Out for a Retrial&lt;/a&gt; (But I don’t know if that’s the name of one scene or song within the opera, or the opera itself)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/culture/traditional-operas.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Woman Prisoner 女起解&lt;/a&gt; (does appear to be the name of a specific aria, not the whole opera)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9436" LastEditorUserId="9436" LastEditDate="2017-11-09T17:24:21.333" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T17:24:21.333" Title="English name for this musical piece?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27477" CreationDate="2017-11-09T00:49:36.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%B5%B7%E8%A7%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%B5%B7%E8%A7%A3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;起解” 如果要简单的翻译成现代汉语，那就是：“提审”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If we want to simply translate &quot;起解&quot;  into modern Chinese, it is: &quot;提审&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“提审”。提审程序如果按照目前的诉讼法理论，是上级法院根据自己的意志做出的、对下级法院生效判决重新审理的司法程序 (It means a higher court initiates a retrial of a case that was adjudicated by a lower court)   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;起解 also means [start sending prisoner away under escort]∶押送罪犯或货物上&lt;/em&gt;路&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Since Su San was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, there was no reason to send her somewhere else, Therefore, 起解 in 苏三起解 should mean &quot;retrial&quot; not &quot;escort away&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苏三 is a woman's name (she was the heroine of the Chinese opera 苏三起解)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苏三起解 can be translated as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;The retrial of Su San&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;  or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Exoneration of Su San&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-09T01:29:46.337" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T01:29:46.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27477" CreationDate="2017-11-09T01:12:10.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;起解&quot; should be interpreted as &quot;起程&quot; + &quot;押解&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起程 &quot;start&quot; + &quot;journey&quot; --&gt; to set out, to leave&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;押解 --&gt; convey under detention&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would suggest, maybe &quot;su's journey under detention&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rationale: &quot;under escort&quot;, well, someone would misinterpret it as &quot;escort service&quot;, provided by females.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;under detention&quot;, implied that subject lost his freedom, constrained by law enforcing agents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T01:12:10.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27480" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-09T01:43:10.820" Score="1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;‘给人以’ is a common phrase. I think this ’以‘ works like ’而‘ to give a sense of 'cause'. Can I replace ’以‘ with ’而‘ in 1.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;给人以诚恳、自信的印象&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浴室给人以明亮通风之感。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这座桥无法给人以美的享受。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为某事而受苦&#xA;因某事而出名  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;  &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4EE5.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt; 6. 文言连词，与“而”用法相同：梦寐～求。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T09:13:23.627" Title="What is the 以 in 给人以？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27480" CreationDate="2017-11-09T02:04:43.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;以 here works like 'with', not 'cause'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your examples, these '以' can't be replaced with '而', but can be ommited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T02:04:43.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27470" CreationDate="2017-11-09T05:48:15.340" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A better translation for this sentence is:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In this survey...(omitted)and 21.2% of the interviewees &lt;strong&gt;couldn't give a definite answer.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Here, 不好 is an modifier for 说, which literally means &quot;can't say well&quot;. These interviewees may not know what is a &quot;斜杠青年&quot;, or can't decide whether they are &quot;斜杠青年&quot; or not, or simply refuse to answer.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Here is another usage for &quot;说不好&quot;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;今天晚上一起去那家自助餐厅吃饭好不好？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Would you like to go to that buffet restaurant with me tonight?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我&lt;strong&gt;说不好&lt;/strong&gt;，我可能没时间。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I &lt;strong&gt;don't know&lt;/strong&gt;. I might have no time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T05:48:15.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27284" CreationDate="2017-11-09T05:57:31.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simple answer:  No, you can't.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Extended answer:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In this example, no. 冷冷清清 is the only right expression in common usage.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Most of the time, ABB words can't be converted to AABB form. However, there ARE some exceptions. Example: 大咧咧/大大咧咧.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also, I can't think of an ABB word that can be converted to ABAB form.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;土气 is so unnatural when you convert them to ABB, AABB or ABAB form. They're simply wrong. However, 土里土气 is a right expression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T05:57:31.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27259" CreationDate="2017-11-09T05:58:47.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It has no special meaning! It's just a brand of the store or the factory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T05:58:47.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27486" CreationDate="2017-11-09T08:50:33.943" Score="3" ViewCount="724" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sign is in the hallway near our lab.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0JceH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0JceH.png&quot; alt=&quot;南开大学：现代光学研穷&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;南开大学：现代光学研究所&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Nánkāi dàxué: Xiàndài guāngxué yánjiū suǒ&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the 开 is written inside a 门.  I thought it would be a traditional character, however, that is 開, which is not what is written.  It's like a semi-simplified character.  (研 is written strangely too.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 开 written within a 门 in this sign?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: here's two more examples I've seen around campus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QTCSO.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QTCSO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;南开大学&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EcF41.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EcF41.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;南开大学&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these examples, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%AD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;学&lt;/a&gt; seems to be written as the traditional &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%AD%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;學&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-11-18T08:23:03.900" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T14:28:51.887" Title="Why is 开 written within a 门 in this sign (without being written 開)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27485" CreationDate="2017-11-09T10:08:11.083" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;BabelStone wrote a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babelstone.co.uk/CJK/N3695.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Proposal to Encode Obsolete Simplified Chinese Characters&lt;/a&gt; which also contains a lot of history and other important information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under the heading &lt;strong&gt;2.2&lt;/strong&gt; we find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Table of First Batch Simplified Characters&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The table below lists all 324 first batch simplified characters in the order that they occur in the published table of simplifications. The reference number is prefixed “DJ” for Dìyīpī Jiǎntǐzì. Mappings to the corresponding standard simplified and traditional character forms are given in the columns marked “Simp.” and “Trad.” respectively. Characters that are proposed for encoding are given a Unicode number of U+XXXXX and printed in red. Unicode points marked with an asterisk are for CJK-D characters, and as of writing are still provisional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/spPR6.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/spPR6.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DJ‑89  U+2B52D*      开   開   kāi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Background about these simplifications also on the BabelStone proposal explain under &lt;strong&gt;2.1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First Batch Simplified Characters (1935)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In January 1934 at the 29th meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Unification of the National Language (Guóyǔ Tǒngyī Chóubèi Wěiyuánhuì 國語統一籌備委員會) of the Ministry of Education, Qián Xuántóng 錢玄同 (1887–1939) submitted a draft table of simplified characters (Sōucǎi gùyǒu ér jiào shìyòng de jiǎntǐzì àn 搜採固有而較適用的簡體字案). These were approved by the committee, and Qián Xuántóng was delegated to edit a table of simplified characters for publication. In August 1935 the Ministry of Eductaion published a first batch of 324 simplified characters (see Appendices A and F), with the intention of publishing a series of further batches of simplified characters. However, in February 1936 the Ministry of Education issued a directive halting the simplification program, and no further batches of simplified characters were issued. Although this first batch of simplified characters was not widely used, it was historically very important as it represented the first centralized attempt to promote the use of simplified characters in China, and was a precursor to the simplification movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the People’s Republic of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fig.1 Jīngběn Tōngsú Xiǎoshuō 11:2a&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EewEY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EewEY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;picture&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;DJ‑228:  (錢)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplifications in this table were based on commonly used vulgar form characters (e.g. 宝 for 寶), ancient forms of characters (e.g. 无 for 無) and cursive form characters (e.g. 为 for 為). Most of the 324 first batch simplifications are identical to modern standard simplified characters or Japanese simplified characters, but some are different to a greater or lesser extent; and those characters that are not currently encoded need to be encoded in order for scholars to discuss this pioneering episode in the history of Chinese character simplification. Moreover, some of the currently unencoded “first batch” characters are commonly found in early printed texts (see Fig.1), so it would also be useful to encode these characters for scholars of such texts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Most likely the building was founded during Aug '35 - Feb '36 by some forward thinking intellectuals who were keeping up with the times.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in your picture we can see that 學 is also simplified but 現 is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can find 學 as the 38th character on BabelStone's First Batch Simplified Characters table:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SL7TC.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SL7TC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DJ‑38  U+05B66     学   学   學   xué&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it stands to fit in our timeline here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Funnily enough the same character can also be found in the BabelStone proposal under &lt;strong&gt;3.2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Table of Singapore Simplifications&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The table below lists only those 77 characters in the 1969 table of 502 simplified characters that differ from standard PRC simplifications (see Appendix D). The reference number is prefixed “SJ” for “Singapore jiǎntǐzì”). Characters that are proposed for encoding are given a Unicode number of U+XXXXX and printed in red. Unicode points marked with an asterisk are for CJK-D characters, and as of writing are still provisional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KdsBq.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KdsBq.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SJ‑26  U+2B52D*      开   開   kāi     Also DJ‑89&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This, in all likely-hood, has nothing to do with Nankai - a university established 1919 in Tianjin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slightly unrelated: Another funny thing is that these &amp;quot;aborted&amp;quot; characters can sometimes also be seen from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_round_of_simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Second Round of Simplified Chinese Characters&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's this fun blog post from Sinoglot called &lt;a href=&quot;http://sinoglot.com/2010/02/park-that-simplification/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Park that simplification&lt;/a&gt; - but it seems that it hasn't been maintained very well since it was posted in '10 seeing that the original image is now missing, which mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I stumbled across this No Parking sign*…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMAGE_300 [can't load]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's probably what it looked like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GSwTW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GSwTW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;sorry&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;… 禁止仃车 (jìnzhǐ tíng chē), in which the third character is 仃 instead of the proper 停, I immediately assumed it was an uneducated mistake propagated by one of society’s fringe characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it turns out to be a fringe character of a different sort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked Sinoglot’s Kellen Parker if he’d run across 仃 used this way. where is my ip ask edd Not only had he run across it, he had the Wikipedia reference! According to that article (which has some fascinating-looking references — I just expanded my Amazon wishlist) 仃 was used for a few years as a completely legitimate simplification of 停 in the so-called “second round” of character simplifications. The simplifications didn’t stick and were repealed in 1986, but it’s possible, if our No Parking writer was educated between 1977 and the mid-80s, that 仃 was simply how they learned to write it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is this image in one of the comments though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/faUie.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/faUie.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;yo&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with the comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I snapped this down the street from where I live. One second-round character (亍 for 街) and one non-standard simplification (柚 for 楼). The community across the street has attractive building signs with the inside of 源 written as 元, which you’d think would be a second-round character, except that the standard was in no way systematic: 原 became [厂+元], but 源 was overloaded on 沅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I first became aware of the characters when I noticed a simplified version of 部 (卩 whose top stroke extends further to the left) cast into some of the iron benches in Jilin’s Longtanshan Park. Or maybe when a friend wrote 量 as 旦 over 力. Fun stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another comment wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ones I’ve seen most commonly in the wild are 歺 (on hand-lettered breakfast stall signs) and 伩 (in a handwritten note from someone who teaches at Beida). I’d be curious to know how many of these existed previously as folk simplifications: I have no problem believing in 伩 and 歺 (餐 really is a pain in the ass to write by hand when you’re hungry and all you want is some cheap and cheerful 歺); 亍 existed previously as part of 彳亍. 旦 over 力 is just weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and another interesting one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Great post. I am actually doing research on “Second Round Simplifications”. My favorite is 氿. Even as a Mandarin learner rather than a native speaker, this character (meaning of course good old 酒) looks just absurd to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A second Sinoglot post &lt;a href=&quot;http://sinoglot.com/2010/02/wut-if-ur-kids-skool-thot-this-wuz-fine-spelling/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wut if ur kid’s skool thot this wuz fine spelling?&lt;/a&gt; attacks this in more detail - but the pics are missing (again!). Shame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia's page of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_round_of_simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Second Round of Simplified Chinese Characters&lt;/a&gt; has quite a bit of explanation too, of how it began:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1975, a second round of simplifications, the Second Scheme, was submitted by the Script Reform Committee of China to the State Council for approval. Like the First Scheme, it contained two lists, one (comprising 248 characters) for immediate use and another (comprising 605 characters) for evaluation and discussion.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/faUie.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;9&lt;/a&gt; Of these, 21 from the first list and 40 from the second also served as components of other characters, which caused the Second Scheme to modify some 4,500 characters.&lt;a href=&quot;http://sinoglot.com/2010/02/wut-if-ur-kids-skool-thot-this-wuz-fine-spelling/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;10&lt;/a&gt; On 20 December 1977, major newspapers such as the People's Daily and the Guangming Daily published the second-round simplifications along with editorials and articles strongly endorsing the changes. Both newspapers began to use the characters from the first list on the following day.&lt;a href=&quot;http://sinoglot.com/2010/02/wut-if-ur-kids-skool-thot-this-wuz-fine-spelling/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;10&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and ended:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Second Scheme was received extremely poorly, and as early as mid-1978, the Ministry of Education and the Central Propaganda Department were asking publishers of textbooks, newspapers and other works to stop using the second-round simplifications. Second-round simplifications were taught inconsistently in the education system, and people used characters at various stages of official or unofficial simplification. Confusion and disagreement ensued.[11]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Second Scheme was officially retracted by the State Council on 24 June 1986. The State Council's retraction also emphasized that Chinese character reform should henceforth proceed with caution, and that the forms of Chinese characters should be kept stable.[12] Later that year, a final version of the 1964 list was published with minor changes, and no further changes have been made since.&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_round_of_simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes these things caught in &amp;quot;time warps&amp;quot; are easy to come out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T10:55:16.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27487" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-09T14:19:11.697" Score="3" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning complements of duration (CoD) at the moment, and I've been taught the following structures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;S V + 了/过 + CoD*&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;S V Obj. V + 了/过 + CoD* (used for personal pronoun objects)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;S V + 了/过 + CoD (的) Obj.*&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I keep encountering sentences such as 我等了他半个小时, which contain personal pronoun objects but appear to fit into the structure below (which they have not taught in class):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;S V + 了/过 + Pron. CoD*&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I add the above structure to my repertoire for personal pronoun objects, or is it not always valid? Any explanation as to why we don't have to repeat the verb for such cases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18007" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-11-09T14:54:07.333" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T21:02:01.570" Title="Personal Pronouns and Complement of Duration" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27487" CreationDate="2017-11-09T20:36:54.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is a structure  [S V O + V 了 + CoD*] (repeat the same verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &quot;我吃晚飯&quot; (I eat dinner);  &quot;我等我父親&quot;(I wait for my father)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put it in [S V O + V 了 + CoD*] structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我吃晚飯吃了一小時&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我等我父親等了一小時&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course personal pronouns can be objects (e,g. 我等他等了一小時 ), but the structure is not limited to just personal pronouns-- It can use any noun or noun phrase &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The structure [S V 了/过 + CoD*] Can always followed by an object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我學了/过三年(的)英語 - 英語 is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我畫了/过一整天(的)街景 - 街景 is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'的' is optional&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-09T21:02:01.570" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T21:02:01.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27497" CreationDate="2017-11-09T21:14:57.783" Score="4" ViewCount="331" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did the name &quot;白俄罗斯&quot; for Belarus exist in Chinese language before 1991 or was it created only when Belarus became an independent state in 1991? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15973" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-20T06:33:04.880" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T06:33:04.880" Title="Did the name &quot;白俄罗斯&quot; exist in Chinese before 1991?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27489" CreationDate="2017-11-09T22:32:18.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Presumably it already existed. Prior to the present-day republic,&#xA; there was the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%BD%E4%BF%84%E7%BE%85%E6%96%AF%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%9C%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Belarusian People's Republic&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%BD%E4%BF%84%E7%BE%85%E6%96%AF%E7%A4%BE%E6%9C%83%E4%B8%BB%E7%BE%A9%E8%98%87%E7%B6%AD%E5%9F%83%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%9C%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia&lt;/a&gt;, and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%BD%E4%BF%84%E7%BD%97%E6%96%AF%E8%8B%8F%E7%BB%B4%E5%9F%83%E7%A4%BE%E4%BC%9A%E4%B8%BB%E4%B9%89%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%9B%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic&lt;/a&gt;. All of the official Chinese names for these states/provinces include 白俄罗斯. There seem to be &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=_DtSAQAAMAAJ&amp;amp;q=%E7%99%BD%E4%BF%84%E7%BD%97%E6%96%AF&amp;amp;dq=%E7%99%BD%E4%BF%84%E7%BD%97%E6%96%AF&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwin6t-4xrLXAhWCLmMKHXApBBwQ6AEIWjAI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pre-1991 Chinese books that use the term&lt;/a&gt;, but Google Books is not a perfect source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T22:32:18.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27491" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27533" CreationDate="2017-11-10T00:22:52.180" Score="3" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a random example sentence which uses 比如 from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youdao.com/example/blng/eng/%E6%AF%94%E5%A6%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Youdao.com&lt;/a&gt; (trimmed):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比如&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%95%B0%E5%AD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;数学&lt;/a&gt;、&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%89%A9%E7%90%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;物理&lt;/a&gt;和&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%8B%B1%E8%AF%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;英语&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Such as mathematics, physics and English&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;bǐrú shùxué, wùlǐ hé yīngyǔ&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, we can put &amp;quot;for example&amp;quot; at the end, so e.g. we could equally say the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, mathematics, physics and English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mathematics, physics and English, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is convenient when you forgot to say &amp;quot;for example&amp;quot; initially.  I'm wondering if this is possible in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it possible to use 比如 at the end of a list of examples?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't find any examples on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youdao.com/example/blng/eng/%E6%AF%94%E5%A6%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Youdao&lt;/a&gt; nor &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%AF%94%E5%A6%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;, so I think it's not possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T02:06:37.313" Title="Is it possible to use 比如 at the end of a list of examples?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27473" CreationDate="2017-11-10T00:30:46.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can look at this page &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E7%B2%B5%E8%AA%9E%E6%9C%AC%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;粵語本字表&lt;/a&gt; on the Written Cantonese Wikipedia, which listed a number of characters that academics believe what those characters were originally like, and also how people commonly write them nowadays. Note that, people in Guangdong could write them differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4177" LastEditorUserId="4177" LastEditDate="2017-11-10T07:53:56.527" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T07:53:56.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27046" CreationDate="2017-11-10T00:39:04.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mandarin, 骰 can actually pronounce as Shai too, at least in Taiwan, according to the MOE of ROC. &lt;a href=&quot;https://pedia.cloud.edu.tw/Entry/Detail/?title=%E9%AA%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pedia.cloud.edu.tw/Entry/Detail/?title=骰&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it was PRC government that decided to drop the pronunciation in recent times?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4177" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T00:39:04.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22333" CreationDate="2017-11-10T00:50:26.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would consider the opinion that say &quot;The Mandarin pronunciation ju1 of 車 only refers to the Chinese chess piece. Even in Cantonese, it is incorrect to use [geoi1] in idioms. 閉門造車, 車水馬龍, 前車可鑒, 螳臂擋車, 學富五車 and 舟車勞頓, are all supposed to be [che1].&quot; in the other answer as biased. It is just wrong to dictate how others speak their native language and anything you perceive as &quot;wrong&quot; actually have some rationale behind them. Stop trying to tell people how their language should be spoken because &quot;some old literature say it should be this way&quot;. Language would change. (This should be a comment instead but I don't have enough rep to write a comment say I have to write an answer instead)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4177" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T00:50:26.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27491" CreationDate="2017-11-10T01:05:04.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;no,you can't say like :&#xA;数学物理和英语比如&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18326" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T01:05:04.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27489" CreationDate="2017-11-10T01:22:21.970" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;the internet archive has the book 瀛環志畧, in volume 4, &lt;strong&gt;&quot;白峩&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; was used to translate belarus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/02087085.cn#page/n43/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/02087085.cn#page/n43/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/82Qw6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/82Qw6.png&quot; alt=&quot;pic&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this book was published in 1849.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the 峩 (u+5ce9) was a variant of 峨 (u+5ce8), both of them share the same pronunciation with the character 俄 (u+4fc4), that is used in modern days translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, the internet archive has another book 海國圖志, in volume 54, &lt;strong&gt;&quot;白峩羅斯&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; was used in lieu of belarus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/02087117.cn#page/n50/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/02087117.cn#page/n50/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yeizy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yeizy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this book was published in 1843, maybe the first geographic / atlas type of book in imperial china.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, minsk was translated as &quot;閔士其&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T01:22:21.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27491" CreationDate="2017-11-10T03:15:13.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We usually say the following:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  比如数学、物理和英语。&#xA;  例如数学、物理和英语。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are equal to &lt;code&gt;Such as mathematics, physics and English&lt;/code&gt;. We dont use &lt;code&gt;比如&lt;/code&gt; at the end of a list of examples as I konwn.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I wonder that it's possible to use &lt;code&gt;Such as&lt;/code&gt; at the end of a list of examples?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In oral Chinese, you could use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  数学、物理和英语，这些&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to express the meaing of &lt;code&gt;Mathematics, physics and English, for example.&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;But we dont use this in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to find some words for using at the end of a list of examples, maybe &lt;code&gt;等等&lt;/code&gt; would be ok.&#xA;But note that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  数学、物理和英语，等等 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is not equal to &lt;code&gt;Mathematics, physics and English, for example.&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;And you should not say &lt;code&gt;等等, 数学、物理和英语&lt;/code&gt; too(so sad). To be more exact, &lt;code&gt;数学、物理和英语，等等&lt;/code&gt; is equal to &lt;code&gt;Mathematics, physics and English, etc.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18202" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T03:15:13.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27467" CreationDate="2017-11-10T04:38:43.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. &lt;strong&gt;你的身体会告诉你你应该做什么&lt;/strong&gt; is technically right. Usually if we have to say the sentence like this, there will be a comma between the double &lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;. The first &lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt; is the object of &lt;strong&gt;告訴&lt;/strong&gt;, and the second one is the subject of the clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However this is just one of the meanings of the sentence. We emphasize the importance of the subject of the clause, &lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;, by not omitting it. The thing, which &quot;what to do&quot; implies, should be done by you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, another meaning of &lt;strong&gt;你的身体会告诉你应该做什么&lt;/strong&gt; is that we don't care about &quot;who&quot; is going to do something. Instead, we put the point at &quot;what&quot; should be done. In this case, you can't put double &lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt; inside the sentence. Because &lt;strong&gt;应该做什么&lt;/strong&gt; is the second object of &lt;strong&gt;告诉&lt;/strong&gt;. Just like the &quot;story&quot; in the following example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我告诉你一个故事。   I tell you a story&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我告诉你将要发生的事。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我告诉你-你将要发生的事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;I will tell you what will happen &lt;strong&gt;to you&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我告诉你-将要发生的事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;I will tell you what will happen. Maybe happen to the country, to your friends, or unspecific ones.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18320" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T04:38:43.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27502" CreationDate="2017-11-10T05:28:06.220" Score="3" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;Came across this phrase in episode 35 of Growing up with Chinese on CCTV. The father is having trouble sending an email and he says to his son,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;咳，看我这脑子，我怎么把这事忘了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage: I feel like 看我这脑子 would be roughly translated as &quot;Where's my head&quot; in the sense of forgetting something obvious, but I only think that from the context of the passage since I can't find much information on the phrase as is. Is there a more accurate English equivalent to this phrase? Does it have any other implications than forgetting something obvious? And is it commonly heard beyond the Beijing dialect they use in the above-mentioned TV show?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grammar: The placement of 我 and 这 next to each other confuses me because I (probably wrongfully) translate them both to be articles for the noun 脑子. Alternatively, I'm thinking I ought to seperate 看我 as &quot;Look after me&quot; and  这脑子 as &quot;This brain&quot; and the rough translation I came to makes some sense, but I know 这 can sometimes mean &quot;now,&quot; so I'm not sure. Which, if either, 我 or 这 is the article for 脑子?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17861" LastEditorUserId="17861" LastEditDate="2017-11-10T06:40:01.050" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T09:36:41.527" Title="Usage and Grammar of 看我这脑子" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27480" CreationDate="2017-11-10T09:13:23.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, it's more like the definition 8 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4EE5.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　8. 用在动词后，类似词的后缀：可～。得～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think about the words: 给以 and 予以. In this case, you just add a person in the middle of 给以. So, you can ignore 以 when you translate it into English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T09:13:23.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27500" CreationDate="2017-11-10T09:36:41.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看我这脑子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看： see or look;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我： here means 我的，mine;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这： such;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;脑子： head;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a whole, &quot;Look, (that is) such a head of mine!&quot; or &quot;See, (that is) such a head of mine!&quot; It means I am not that intelligent or brainy. In this context, it is specifically referring to one of the functionalities of a head, memorizing things, and it's just like to say &quot;oh, my bad memory&quot; or &quot;look, my bad memory&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T09:36:41.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27503" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27551" CreationDate="2017-11-10T10:41:47.560" Score="3" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the differece between 朘 (U+6718) and 脧 (U+8127)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They seem to be interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(They display almost identically here for me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=6718&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zisea&lt;/a&gt; displays 6718 as 月:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Amzcj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Amzcj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=8127&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;8127&lt;/a&gt; as 肉:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AGMi8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AGMi8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pleco put's it that 月 is simplified and 肉 is traditional:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ug9m1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ug9m1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it that simple? or should they be treated as separate characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that they should, technically, be separated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朘 (U+6718) [月] as: 削减、剥削&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脧 (U+8127) [肉] as: 男阴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 古汉语大词典 seems to clump them together and differentiate by pronunciation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1IlEh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1IlEh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;using 月: 朘 (U+6718) as &lt;strong&gt;the&lt;/strong&gt; character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: to complicate matters further:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikitionary&lt;/a&gt; also claims that 朘 (U+6718) is a variant of 脧 (U+8127):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etymology 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For pronunciation and definitions of 朘 – see 脧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This character, 朘, is a variant form of 脧.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T12:34:04.937" Title="What's the differece between 朘 (U+6718) and 脧 (U+8127)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27505" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27508" CreationDate="2017-11-10T16:28:30.743" Score="1" ViewCount="39" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, can I change the word 见面 into 见他的面 or 见帅面 or 见这面?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18198" LastEditorUserId="18198" LastEditDate="2017-11-10T17:54:57.543" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T09:28:31.697" Title="In a word combined with two morpheme, can I use a adjective in front of the noun?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27506" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-10T21:21:16.697" Score="1" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cannot understand in this sentence the various functions of the components. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德国人不习惯他们旁边围满了人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understood the meaning (&quot;Germans are not used to be surrounded by a lot of people&quot;, non-literally) but I can't well understand the structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Up to 他们旁边 it's fine: &quot;their side&quot;. Now there's 围, and I can't understand if it's here as a verb or as another noun. In this last case, it would be determined by 他们旁边, and we could maybe translate it as &quot;their immediate surroundings&quot;, since 旁边 gives me the idea of &quot;very close&quot;. At this point though, 满 must be the verb, but Pleco says that, as a verb, you can use it only to express the meaning of &quot;to fill&quot; (unlike 充满， that actually would work better since it expresses &quot;be filled with&quot;). But if this is the case, its object should be the object that it fills, like a cup. 人 has no sense as an object in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe 满 is a complement for 围? Can be used as a complement? And why the use of 了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18277" LastEditorUserId="18277" LastEditDate="2017-11-10T22:53:23.437" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T22:53:23.437" Title="I have problems analyzing the constituents of the following sentence: 德国人不习惯他们旁边围满了人" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27506" CreationDate="2017-11-10T22:40:55.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;德国人不习惯他们旁边围满了人。&#xA;Germans are not used to having a lot of people around them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(whoever wrote this has never been to the Oktoberfest or any Bierfest)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese sentence does not have to conform to the grammatical standards of English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德国人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Germans&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不习惯&lt;br&gt;&#xA;not used to&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他们旁边围&lt;br&gt;&#xA;their surroundings&lt;br&gt;&#xA;满了人。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;full people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T22:40:55.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27505" CreationDate="2017-11-10T23:04:25.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If they can write it in Revelations, must be ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;启二二4 也要见他的面；他的名字必在他们的额上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rev . 22:4 And they will see His face, and His name will be on their forehead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there is a meaning shift from 见面 'meet' and 见他的面 'see his face'. 2. below would not work, which is what you are suggesting, I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1。 我们明天和他见面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2。*我们明天见和他面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T23:04:25.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27509" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27510" CreationDate="2017-11-11T00:05:29.717" Score="3" ViewCount="424" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend sent me this on WeChat, and I'm told this is an amusing Chinese-language joke:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一、请写出下面两句话的&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8C%BA%E5%88%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;区别&lt;/a&gt;在哪里？ &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1、冬天：能穿多少穿多少；夏天：能穿多少穿多少。  &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2、&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%89%A9%E5%A5%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;剩女&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BA%A7%E7%94%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;产生&lt;/a&gt;的&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8E%9F%E5%9B%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;原因&lt;/a&gt;有两个，一是谁都看不上，二是谁都看不上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3、女孩给男朋友打电话：如果你到了，我还没到，你就等着吧；如果我到了，你还没到，你就等着吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4、&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8D%95%E8%BA%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;单身&lt;/a&gt;的&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8E%9F%E5%9B%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;原因&lt;/a&gt;：&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8E%9F%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;原来&lt;/a&gt;是喜欢一个人，现在是喜欢一个人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二、附加题：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%B6%B3%E7%90%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;足球&lt;/a&gt;和中国&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B9%92%E4%B9%93%E7%90%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乒乓球&lt;/a&gt;，一是谁都&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%B5%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;赢&lt;/a&gt;不了，二是谁都&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%B5%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;赢&lt;/a&gt;不了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I translate and find the humor in this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my translation below (&lt;em&gt;spoiler alert&lt;/em&gt;), but I don't understand much of the humor:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Winter: Can wear how much wear how much?  Summer: Can wear how much wear how much?  (穿多少穿多少)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No idea why this is funny, or how it's even grammatical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Left over women&amp;quot; arise in two ways: one is that nobody sees them (?), one is that everyone hates them (?).  (谁都看不上)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I probably didn't translate this well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A girl gives her boyfriend a phone call: If you arrive, and I'm not there, you wait for me.  If &lt;strong&gt;I&lt;/strong&gt; arrive, and &lt;strong&gt;you're&lt;/strong&gt; not there, you wait for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confident my translation is close to correct, but I don't see why this is funny (or even logical).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The reason for being a bachelor: at first, you like one person (一个人), but now you like being by yourself (一个人).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I've both translated this accurately, and understand the humor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Additional question: Chinese football and Chinese table tennis: one nobody wins, the other nobody wins. (谁都赢不了)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the idea is that the Chinese football team always loses, so 谁都赢不了, but the Chinese ping pang team always wins, so for the other team 谁都赢不了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T03:59:16.387" Title="A Chinese-language joke where near-identical sentences have different meanings: how do I translate this and find the humor?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27509" CreationDate="2017-11-11T01:04:43.987" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaker. Let me explain for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The humor&lt;/strong&gt;: Every two sentences look the same but having totally different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1、冬天：能穿多少穿多少；夏天：能穿多少穿多少。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translate&lt;/strong&gt;: Winter: Put on as much clothing as you can. Summer: Put on as fewer clothing as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Explain&lt;/strong&gt;: In the Winter sentence, 多少 is interpreted together, means &quot;the quantity of the things that you have&quot;. In the sentence, it is exaggerated, and translate to &quot;as much as you can&quot;. In the Summer sentence, 多少 should be interpreted separately as: 多 is an adjective &quot;much&quot;, and 少 &quot;a few&quot;, 多 is an adjective for 少, so 多少 means &quot;very few&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2、剩女产生的原因有两个，一是谁都看不上，二是谁都看不上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background&lt;/strong&gt;: 剩女 is a noun, means old girls (often older than 30) who are still single/unmarried. This is a slightly offensive word. 看上 means &quot;falls in love with&quot;, 看不上 means &quot;not falls in love with&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translate&lt;/strong&gt;: There are two reasons for being a 剩女: first, (she does) not fall for anybody; second, nobody falls for her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Explain&lt;/strong&gt;: The first sentence the &quot;She&quot; is an omission. For the second sentence, there is no omission, so 谁 is the body who is doing 看不上, and hence translates to &quot;nobody falls for her&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3、女孩给男朋友打电话：如果你到了，我还没到，你就等着吧；如果我到了，你还没到，你就等着吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background&lt;/strong&gt;: Most Chinese girlfriends are spoiled, and would demand much more from their boyfriends. And most Chinese take it for granted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translate&lt;/strong&gt;: A girl gives her boyfriend a phone call: If you arrive, and I'm not there, you wait for me. If I arrive, and you're not there, you are going to wait for my punishment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Explain&lt;/strong&gt;: In Chinese, 等着 is a special word. In some occasions (depends on the context), 等着 translates to &quot;give somebody a lesson&quot;. If someone is angry, he would say: 你给我等着. This means &quot;I gonna get some helps and come back to punish you, you'd better stay here and do not go away.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4、单身的原因：原来是喜欢一个人，现在是喜欢一个人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yours is perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国足球和中国乒乓球，一是谁都赢不了，二是谁都赢不了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your translation and understanding are both perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18332" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T01:04:43.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27509" CreationDate="2017-11-11T01:11:09.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1、冬天：能穿多少穿多少；夏天：能穿多少穿多少。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A play on the two meanings of 多少; How(ever) many/much vs. 多 as adverb, as in &quot;how + adjective&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See how beautiful I am!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看我多漂亮！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, the adjective is 少.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See how little he's wearing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看他穿得多少！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冬天：能穿多少穿多少&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the winter, however many (clothes/layers) you can put on, put them on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夏天：能穿多少穿多少&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the summer, however little you can wear, wear that. (This is word-for-word translation, a little awkward in English. A more natural way to express this is &quot;in the summer, wear as little as you can (get away with.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2、剩女产生的原因有两个，一是谁都看不上，二是谁都看不上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The humour of this one is that 谁 can be either subject or object of 看不上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剩女产生的原因有两个，一是(她）谁都看不上，二是谁都看不上（她）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &quot;left over woman&quot; arises in two ways: one is that she's not interested in anybody, the other is that nobody is interested in her. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same goes for the additional sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国足球和中国乒乓球，一是谁都赢不了，二是谁都赢不了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(About) Chinese football and Chinese table tennis: one of them (presumably this is talking about the Chinese football team) can beat nobody, the other (table tennis team) nobody can beat them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3、女孩给男朋友打电话：如果你到了，我还没到，你就等着吧；如果我到了，你还没到，你就等着吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is quite difficult because there is an implied threat in the second 等着吧, whereas there is none in the first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A girl gives her boyfriend a phone call: If you arrive, and I'm not there, you wait for me. If I arrive, and you're not there, you &lt;strong&gt;wait and see&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4、单身的原因：原来是喜欢一个人，现在是喜欢一个人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You nailed this one. Congratulations!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T01:11:09.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27512" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27514" CreationDate="2017-11-11T03:47:08.573" Score="0" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;almost all words are stand alone in classical texts. Only modern Chinese tend to use multi characters to form a word.  Your examples would be 明身/明体， 明心. But  明我的心 is not a traditional way.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why can't 心 be modified with a adjective in Classical Chinese??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18198" LastEditorUserId="18198" LastEditDate="2017-11-11T04:57:06.920" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T05:17:24.203" Title="Why can't I use 我的 in Classical Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27509" CreationDate="2017-11-11T03:59:16.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting question. Some wordplay have been used in those jokes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those sentences could be easier to understand if they are rephrased as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;冬天：能穿多少(&lt;em&gt;衣服&lt;/em&gt;)(&lt;em&gt;就&lt;/em&gt;)穿多少（&lt;em&gt;衣服&lt;/em&gt;）；夏天：(&lt;em&gt;衣服&lt;/em&gt;)能穿（&lt;em&gt;多么地&lt;/em&gt;)少(&lt;em&gt;就&lt;/em&gt;)穿（&lt;em&gt;多么地&lt;/em&gt;)少。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;剩女产生的原因有两个，一是（&lt;em&gt;她&lt;/em&gt;）谁都看不上，二是谁都看不上（&lt;em&gt;她&lt;/em&gt;）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;女孩给男朋友打电话：如果你到了，我还没到，你就(&lt;em&gt;在那里一直&lt;/em&gt;)等着(&lt;em&gt;我出现&lt;/em&gt;)吧；如果我到了，你还没到，你就等着(&lt;em&gt;我怎么来惩罚你&lt;/em&gt;)吧。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;单身的原因：原来是喜欢一个(&lt;em&gt;男/女&lt;/em&gt;)人，现在是喜欢一个人(&lt;em&gt;单身生活&lt;/em&gt;)。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;中国足球和中国乒乓球，一是（&lt;em&gt;中国足球&lt;/em&gt;）（&lt;em&gt;无论对上&lt;/em&gt;）谁都赢不了，二是谁都赢不了（&lt;em&gt;中国乒乓球&lt;/em&gt;）。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T03:59:16.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27512" CreationDate="2017-11-11T05:17:24.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why can't 心 be modified with a adjective in Classical Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course it can. In your case, 明吾心、明吾之心、明我心、明我之心 are all correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;的&quot; is not common in classical texts, you can use &quot;之&quot; instead or just omit it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T05:17:24.203" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27515" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27516" CreationDate="2017-11-11T06:32:21.907" Score="0" ViewCount="40" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I use it into 脱我的衣 脱黄衣 脱这衣 although it's 离合词 and 衣 can't stand alone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18198" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T09:17:18.017" Title="In 脱衣, can I put an adjective between it?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27515" CreationDate="2017-11-11T09:17:18.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;脱衣 seems to be a set, not a 离合词. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 见面 is a 离合词. You could say 见上一面（meet once）；连面也没见(even unable to meet once)；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T09:17:18.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27505" CreationDate="2017-11-11T09:28:31.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 见面, 面 usually doesn't mean 'face', and it's like a classifier, referring to 'times of meeting'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we don't usually say 见他的面, 见帅面 or 见这面. 见他的面 might be ok, but better say 见他一面 or 见他（本）人.  You could say: 见他一面(meet him one time)， 见一面(meet once)， 见几面(meet several times)， 见不到（一）面(can't meet even one time). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T09:28:31.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27518" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-11T10:14:29.123" Score="1" ViewCount="329" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today is the Singles' day, so I want to say something like &quot;Today is my day. I accept your congratulations&quot;. Sure, it's some kind of a joke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you correct me, please, if I'm wrong:&#xA;今天我的日子！ 接受你们的祝贺。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this sounds ok? Or it's gonna sound strange for chinese people?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17940" LastEditorUserId="17940" LastEditDate="2017-11-11T10:43:50.200" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T06:37:16.967" Title="Please correct my chinese &quot;Today is my day&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27518" CreationDate="2017-11-11T11:42:33.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;今天是我的日子！&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;今天是我&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;接受你们的祝贺的&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;日子！&lt;/strong&gt; 。(the relative clause should be placed before the noun &quot;日子&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However. “Today is my day” is a common English expression that means “Today is my lucky day” or “today is the day I success”. &#xA;It would be &quot;今天是我走運的一天&quot; (today is my lucky day) or &quot;今天是我吐氣揚眉的日子&quot;(today is the day I success) in Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Singles' day is a day &lt;strong&gt;for me&lt;/strong&gt;,&quot; is &quot;單身日是&lt;strong&gt;為我而設的&lt;/strong&gt;日子&quot; or simply &quot;單身日是我的日子&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T11:42:33.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27534" CreationDate="2017-11-11T13:48:52.023" Score="3" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about the use of 这些地方 in the following dialogue in my Chinese text book (click for larger image):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3jDsm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3jDsmm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Chinese dialogue&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll transcribe it below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;马克：&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BD%93%E6%A3%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;体检&lt;/a&gt;时&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%A3%80%E6%9F%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;检查&lt;/a&gt;什么？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  丁波：很多。&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%80%B3%E6%9C%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;耳朵&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9C%BC%E7%9D%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;眼睛&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%BC%BB%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鼻子&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%89%99%E9%BD%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;牙齿&lt;/a&gt;，还有&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%83%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;胃&lt;/a&gt;等等。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  马克：以前我总是&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%82%9A%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;肚子&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%96%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;疼&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  丁波：可能是胃疼吧。你去&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8C%BB%E9%99%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;医院&lt;/a&gt;检查一下儿吧。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  马克：体检时&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%83%B3%E8%86%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;胳膊&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%89%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;手&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%84%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;脚&lt;/a&gt;要不要检查？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  丁波：这些&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%9C%B0%E6%96%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;地方&lt;/a&gt;一般没有大问题，看一看就行了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's my translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mark: When you get a health check, what is checked?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ding Bo: Lots. Ears, eyes, nose, teeth, also stomach, and so on.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Mark: In the past, my tummy has been always painful.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ding Bo: It could be your stomach that's painful.  You go to the hospital for a check [suggestive particle].&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Mark: When you get a health check, are arms, hands, feet inspected?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ding Bo: These places generally have no big problems, have a look and it'll be okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I'm unclear if &quot;these places&quot; (这些地方) means the places you go to get 体检 (health checks), or if &quot;these places&quot; means these places on your body (胳膊，手，脚).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 这些地方 mean in this dialogue about health checks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T00:21:09.410" Title="What does 这些地方 mean in this dialogue about health checks?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27520" CreationDate="2017-11-11T14:50:36.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, '这些地方'(these places) refers to '&lt;strong&gt;areas&lt;/strong&gt;' on a human body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'upper arm area' (上臂一带)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'left wrist and left lower palm area' (左腕及左掌底部一带)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'neck and spine area '(颈椎一带) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-11T14:57:34.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T14:57:34.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27522" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-11T18:51:12.347" Score="5" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;In dictionaries 很 is translated as 'very' but I'm not sure this is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I want to say &quot;I am happy&quot; the mandarin is 我很高兴. The character 很 is used even though the english phrase shows no sign that I am very happy or extremely happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been told to say 我非常高兴 if I am feeling more happy than normal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So does the character 很 show any indication that I am 'very' happy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17608" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T08:07:06.647" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T08:27:50.583" Title="Does 很 actually convey a meaning of very/extremely?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27522" CreationDate="2017-11-11T20:03:26.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both yes and no :) Speaking from my 3 semesters of Mandarin, we still do use it when to emphasize a degree of &quot;very&quot;, but later on some stronger adverbs arrive, e.g. 非常 or 更. So, with the time 很 might become redundant in the translation from Chinese to other languages cause its degree of &quot;very&quot; is smaller comparing to the other adverbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18335" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T20:03:26.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27524" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27527" CreationDate="2017-11-11T20:18:54.170" Score="0" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在追求&lt;strong&gt;这一&lt;/strong&gt;目标的过程中，赛事转播和媒体是基本要素，国际足联与央视的合作伙伴关系发挥着至关重要的作用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the 这一 here mean? I understand it modifies 目标, but does that mean 一 here works as a measure word for 目标？If that is true, what is the difference between 这一 and 这个, and why does it use 这一 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;PS: Is the 着 in 发挥着 a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Aspect_particle_%22zhe%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;continuous aspect particle&lt;/a&gt;...?&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T01:33:07.033" Title="What does 这一 mean in 在追求这一目标的过程中?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27525" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-11T20:28:43.507" Score="2" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding for the pronunciation of 將 is 4th tone for verb (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E9%81%8E%E7%A7%A6%E8%AB%96/%E4%B8%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;將數百之衆，轉而攻秦&lt;/a&gt;) and 1st tone for noun (e.g. 將軍; 將 in 象棋).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why is it that for 上將 as in 海軍上將, the character is in 4th tone? My hypothesis is that it is from the usage of 將領 as a noun without a change in tone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11211" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T06:22:28.660" Title="上[將] in 4th tone instead of 1st tone?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27524" CreationDate="2017-11-11T22:07:22.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The '一' here is for emphasis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;在追求这目标的过程中 = In the process of pursuing this goal &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;在追求这(&lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt;)目标的过程中 = In the process of pursuing this (&lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;single&lt;/strong&gt;) goal &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two sentence basically have the same meaning, but the &quot;一&quot; in the second sentence emphasizes the singularity of the object 目标. Affirm it is the 'one' goal stated earlier and stress its importance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此理想 = this goal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此一理想 = this one goal (affirm it is the 'one' goal stated earlier and stress its importance.  )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此人 = this person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此一人 =  this one person (stress the importance of this person in the context, for example, &quot;this one person holds all the keys to your future success&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-11T22:13:42.700" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T22:13:42.700" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27525" CreationDate="2017-11-11T23:17:43.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question. Why change tone? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English is called a stress-timed language. In English, we often shift the stress to change from verb to noun as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;v. produce, n. produce, v. refuse, n. refuse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if this is also generally true for Chinese? It is worth looking into.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;My understanding for the pronunciation of 將 is 4th tone for verb &quot; you may be a little confused there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jiāng has a lot of possibilities. Here are some.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;快要：～要。～至。～来。即～。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;带领，扶助：～雏。扶～。～军。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;拿，持：～心比心。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;把：～门关好。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jiàng does not have so many, but, for simple cases, it is nominal in nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　1. 军衔的一级，在校以上，泛指高级军官：～领。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　2. 统率，指挥：～百万之众。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/xs/5C06.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; has so many uses for 将 you could get dizzy! There is no clear distinction verb/noun -- jiāng/jiàng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw is Vibius Vibidius Zosimus really your name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T23:17:43.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27522" CreationDate="2017-11-11T23:41:14.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我很高兴， 我挺高兴，我真高兴， 我非常高兴 are commonly used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我高兴 is valid too, but not that common as the sentences above. You could say 我今天高兴（I am happy today）, 我高兴你能来 or 你能来我高兴（I am happy with your coming.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很高兴 and 我挺高兴 are interpreted as &quot;I am quite happy.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我非常高兴 is &quot;I am very happy.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我真高兴 is &quot;I am really happy.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我高兴 is &quot;I am happy,&quot; but people might use '我很高兴' to interpret 'I am happy' too because 我很高兴 sounds more natural from Chinese perspective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T23:41:14.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27520" CreationDate="2017-11-11T23:50:18.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Putting 这些地方 in this setting is not that good technically. It's okay in spoken. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些部位 is more technical for 'body parts'. So, 这些部位一般没有大问题... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T23:50:18.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27524" CreationDate="2017-11-12T00:02:53.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;literarily, 这一 is the best choice in 在追求这一目标的过程中, because 这一 connotes more and enlarge a vast of imaginations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这一 could be interpreted as '这样一'，'这样一个'， '这一个',... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it connotes more than other variations: 这， 这个.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-11-12T01:33:07.033" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T01:33:07.033" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27525" CreationDate="2017-11-12T01:17:23.770" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, in modern Chinese, 将 is a noun when it pronounced as jiàng, and a verb as jiāng. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in traditional Chinese, 将 jiàng could be used as verb, meaning  统率，指挥, leading as a general. Say, 将百万之众.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将 jiàng as a noun means 'senior general' or 'high-ranking officer' in military. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;將軍 or 將 in 象棋 are pronounced as jiāng when it means to check (attacking to 將 jiàng). A chess man in 象棋 is called 將 jiàng as a noun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;將軍 or 将军 (jiāng), as a set, can also be a noun, meaning general or admiral.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T01:17:23.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27491" CreationDate="2017-11-12T02:06:37.313" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;在文章中，我們通常不那麼用。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We usually don't write in that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但在口語上，這是可能的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But, it is possible in speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它的目的是用來補充句子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Its purpose is to supplement the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因為一開始講太快，沒能把順序講對，所以，在最後補上。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When we speak too fast at the beginning, and the order is not right, we supplement it at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原本想要問：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Originally, I want to ask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你昨天到哪裡去了？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但因說得很急，講成：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But I put it in a hurry, and say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你到哪裡去了？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;突然發覺不完整，就再補上「昨天」，變成：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I suddenly notice incomplete, then make up &quot;昨天&quot;, to become:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你到哪裡去了，昨天？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「比如」也是一樣。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is the same for 比如.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;列出一些項目，但發覺這些只是其中的一部分，所以在最後補上。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;List some items, but find that these are just a few of them, so make a final supplement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;問：妳喜歡什麼？  &#xA;Q: What's your favorite?&#xA;&#xA;答：游泳、爬山、吃美食，比如（說）。  &#xA;A: Swimming, hiking, eating fine food, for example.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We usually don't write in this way because the grammar is not correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T02:06:37.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27520" CreationDate="2017-11-12T05:07:07.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%8C%87%E7%A4%BA%E4%BB%A3%E8%AF%8D/19411158#viewPageContent&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;指示代词&lt;/a&gt; (demonstrative pronoun) (like &quot;这些&quot;) is usually used in place of things mentioned in the context, to make the sentence terse and economical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;这些地方&quot; refers to &quot;胳膊，手，脚&quot; mentioned in Mark's question, the sentence is equivalent as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;马克：体检时胳膊、手、脚要不要检查？&#xA;丁波：胳膊、手、脚一般没有大问题，看一看就行了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-11-22T00:21:09.410" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T00:21:09.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27525" CreationDate="2017-11-12T06:22:28.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in 廣韻, 將 has two pronunciations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one is in volume 2, lower level tone (下平聲), 陽韻:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;將﹒送也﹒行也﹒大也﹒助也﹒辝也﹒又姓﹒後趙録有常山太守將容﹒即良切﹒又子諒切六&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another one is in volume 4, departing tone (去聲), 漾韻:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;將﹒將帥﹒子亮切&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;according to the usage, difference tone was used for long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;most of the time, when 將 is used as verb, adjective, or surname, it was pronounced as level tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when it was used as noun, in a military title, it was pronounced as departing tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T06:22:28.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27537" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27538" CreationDate="2017-11-12T07:49:17.333" Score="-3" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate &quot;at first sight&quot;, for example in the sentence (no need to translate the whole thing): &quot;at first sight, one might think that there is no life on the exoplanet, but after closer examination...&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16003" LastEditorUserId="16003" LastEditDate="2017-11-12T08:00:37.003" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T09:43:38.173" Title="How to say &quot;at first sight&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-11-21T02:41:32.553" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27537" CreationDate="2017-11-12T07:57:52.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;初看&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;头一眼看&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一见之下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乍看&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一见就&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;take your pick&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T07:57:52.557" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27539" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27544" CreationDate="2017-11-12T08:15:30.783" Score="-2" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;跳那舞&#xA;跳华尔兹&#xA;跳奇怪舞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these three words can be used?&#xA;I think the second word is possible&#xA;Thank you in advance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18198" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T10:47:51.323" Title="Can I use 跳舞 into these three words?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-11-13T04:44:40.093" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26301" CreationDate="2017-11-12T09:51:14.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out these dictionary entries for 地[de5]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(adv.-forming, like English -ly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很快地&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hěn kuài de&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;very quickly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AUXILIARY&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[used with an adverb or adverbial phrase]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;合理地安排和使用劳动力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dispose of available manpower rationally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;应该历史地评价一个人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We should judge a person from the historical point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford Pocket&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;助&amp;gt; [used after an adjective, a noun or a phrase to form an adverbial adjunct before the verb]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狐狸偷偷地跑进果园&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fox sneaked into the orchard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他喝醉酒似地叫嚷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He shouted as if he were drunk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{grammar} (variant pronunciation of -dì) (forming an adverb from an adjectiv, e.g., gāoxìng 高興/高兴 &amp;quot;happy&amp;quot; + de 地 yields gāoxìngde 高興地/高兴地 &amp;quot;happily&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CC-CEDCIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 -ly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 structural particle: used before a verb or adjective, linking it to preceding modifying adverbial adjunct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The simple answer to your question is: yes&lt;/strong&gt;. The more complicated answer is that many things can be turned into an &lt;strong&gt;adverbial adjunct&lt;/strong&gt; by adding 地[de5].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T09:10:27.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27541" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27545" CreationDate="2017-11-12T10:14:44.500" Score="-1" ViewCount="37" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, in 明心 that each can't stand alone, can it be used into 明完心 or 明了心? If not, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18198" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T11:05:05.313" Title="In a set word, can't I use a complement between it?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2017-11-14T15:42:46.860" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="83" CreationDate="2017-11-12T10:37:43.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;ZhengMa is a very powerful IME, as it doesn't really distinguish between 'simplified' and 'traditional' so one can type both scripts without having to switch between modes. It's designed to be a system which can include all HanTzu漢字 used in China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, so it's really convenient for people who enjoy reading old literature and want to type out phrases in Classical Chinese or in dialects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Yes, there are people on the Internet who actually learn and communicate in Classical Chinese. I found such people online - foreigners, not Chinese - (for example this room here &lt;a href=&quot;https://discord.gg/Mn2Mcy3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://discord.gg/Mn2Mcy3&lt;/a&gt; ),  and there are also blogs like this one &lt;a href=&quot;https://kuiwon.wordpress.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://kuiwon.wordpress.com/&lt;/a&gt;. On QQ groups also one can find Chinese people who are learning 古文 and 文言文.  )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ZhengMa is not mainstream, and the reason for this is its power ;) Just like the LISP programming language is not mainstream. (and at the same time the 'mainstream' languages keep pilfering decades old features from LISP and present them as 'new' and 'cool' :D )  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As someone in the 20th century said: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;My whole religion believes it; so many people cannot be wrong.&quot; This&#xA;  argument I have heard so many times that I have made my own argument:&#xA;  If there are so many people agreed on something, they MUST be wrong!&#xA;  So many people cannot be right. Right belongs to very rare people:&#xA;  crowds cannot be right, they cannot have the truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the most comprehensive guide available: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pan.baidu.com/s/1mgFsuA8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pan.baidu.com/s/1mgFsuA8&lt;/a&gt; (ZM_PDF(2010).rar or 郑码实用手册2010.pdf) and really you don't need more teaching materials. Just get the basics then start practicing, it'll get into your bones and you'll love it and appreciate it more and more as you discover how much it helps you to learn and remember the Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(UPDATE: here are some oldschool tuts in EXE and XLS format which teach you ZhengMa and help you to practice it: &#xA; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.soongsky.com/download.php/zm/zmrm-exe.rar?id=1510473254&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.soongsky.com/download.php/zm/zmrm-exe.rar?id=1510473254&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From that website you can also download the tutorials in swf format and other ZhengMa related tools  )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other useful links:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zhengma.911cha.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zhengma.911cha.com&lt;/a&gt;    use it to display one or more characters' ZhengMa code&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net&lt;/a&gt;          an online dictionary that doesn't suck too much and shows the ZhengMa code along other useful info about the 漢字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John Cikoski in his Notes for a Lexicon of Classical Chinese said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Reading Classical Chinese we rely heavily on character dictionaries&#xA;  that vary in quality from poor to execrable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for a good reason. Btw I recommend his book, it is VERY non-mainstream. Just reading the introduction can make one tremble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhengmashurufa.51240.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zhengmashurufa.51240.com/&lt;/a&gt;   an online ZhengMa IME for people who are in some desperate circumstance and need to type something without having the IME installed &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.augsky.com/860.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.augsky.com/860.html&lt;/a&gt; more ZhengMa lessons &amp;amp; stuff &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Of course other IME's are great and useful too. Pinyin has its uses, handwriting IME's can sometimes be very _handy as well ;) It's best to combine all these tools and methods. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ZhengMa鄭碼 is one of the best tools available to help a Chinese student learn faster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18336" LastEditorUserId="18336" LastEditDate="2018-02-20T06:21:54.657" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T06:21:54.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27541" CreationDate="2017-11-12T10:45:41.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;明完心，明了心，there are not expressions like this in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18337" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T10:45:41.510" CommentCount="27" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27539" CreationDate="2017-11-12T10:47:51.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;跳舞 is 离合词, so you could separate. Example: 跳个舞，舞你会跳吧， 跳拉丁舞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is some corrections for your examples: 跳那种舞 instead of 跳那舞；跳华尔兹 is good; 跳奇怪的舞 sounds better than 跳奇怪舞; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T10:47:51.323" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27541" CreationDate="2017-11-12T11:05:05.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;明心 can mean:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;心思清明纯正: purity in mind; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;表明心迹: express one's thought;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明心 is not that common. It's often heard in 明心静气. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't heard 明完心 so far. But 明了...心 is possible because 明了 [míng liǎo] is a set word meaning 'be clear about'. For example, 明了你的心 meaning I understand what you think.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T11:05:05.313" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27546" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-12T11:15:55.577" Score="0" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;This irreverent rat sits on the Buddha's head and laughs at the people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它常常爬到人们不敢正视的佛像头上，看到有善男信女们烧香叩头， 它就得意地暗喜：“可笑的人类， 竟然向我下跪！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why bother to use ’有‘ here？ Could it just be left out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see that the collocation '看到有’ is fairly frequent, but in my sentence it seems a bit odd. Is it ok?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was told it might just be a short version of '一旦它看到有善男信女们‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this ’有‘ equivalent to Spanish 'hay'? 'hay' is used where English uses 'there is, there are', but comes from the verb haber = have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T12:11:53.653" Title="Why use 有 in 看到有？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27547" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27549" CreationDate="2017-11-12T11:28:25.020" Score="2" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;In so many cases I have used 逗号（，） to enumerate a list, which 顿号（、) should be used instead. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我要去食品杂货店买&lt;strong&gt;苹果，香蕉，和西瓜&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the correct punctuation should be 顿号:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我要去食品杂货店买&lt;strong&gt;苹果、香蕉、和西瓜&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is just that I could not type in it in my Mac. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it not correct to use 逗号 to enumerate a list? Or even though it is not correct, nonetheless is it actually used frequently among natives? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What kind of impressions would I make if I use 逗号 in cases where 顿号 should be used?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does it have a chance of making a confusion if I use 逗号? In what kind of cases is it acceptable, and in what kind of cases should I refrain from using it?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T11:53:09.463" Title="Is it not correct to use 逗号 (punctuation) in a place where 顿号 should be used?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27546" CreationDate="2017-11-12T11:38:00.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;看到善男信女&quot;= &quot;saw believers&quot;--&gt; seeing the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;看到(&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;)善男信女烧香叩头&quot;= &quot;saw (&lt;strong&gt;there are&lt;/strong&gt;) believers burning incense and kowtow&quot; --&gt;  observing a fact &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;看到(&lt;strong&gt;没有&lt;/strong&gt;)善男信女烧香叩头&quot; = &quot;saw &lt;strong&gt;(there are no)&lt;/strong&gt; believers burning incense and kowtow&quot; --&gt;  observing a fact &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-12T11:56:19.547" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T11:56:19.547" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27547" CreationDate="2017-11-12T11:53:09.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically, 顿号 should be used to punctuate for &lt;strong&gt;words&lt;/strong&gt; enumerating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As we all text on computers today, it's more convenient to just type a comma, instead of 顿号. Most of time, it's acceptable nowadays unless some would nitpick. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In theory, 顿号 would pause shorter than a comma. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T11:53:09.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27546" CreationDate="2017-11-12T12:11:53.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you could leave it out most of time for the translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, it would become natural when you add 有 in those sentences, but indeed I don't know why. For example, 看见有人在读书 sounds more natural than 看见人在读书, and both could be translated to 'find someone reading a book.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T12:11:53.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27503" CreationDate="2017-11-12T13:11:34.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This kind of confusion is one example among a broader category involving the graphical conflation between &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E2%BA%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;⺼&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;肉&lt;/strong&gt;) and &lt;strong&gt;月&lt;/strong&gt; and the Taiwan Ministry of Education's (MoE) near-monopoly on typefaces for Traditional Chinese Characters combined with the MoE's insistence on introducing &lt;em&gt;written&lt;/em&gt; features to &lt;em&gt;printed&lt;/em&gt; (now digital) characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Block) printing was invented in the Han Dynasty and has been around for around 1800 years. As a result, Chinese characters have always had at least two different aesthetic standards - that is, those surrounding printed characters and those surrounding written characters. To be brief, handwritten characters (including obscure variants you sometimes see in calligraphy) contain more ancient and etymologically correct features, whereas printed characters emphasise graphical balance, sometimes at the cost of these etymological features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters which contain the simplified flesh component ⺼ were correctly &lt;em&gt;handwritten&lt;/em&gt; this way, that is, with the inner two strokes &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; horizontal (although this non-horizontal rule was commonly not obeyed over the course of history), whereas characters which contain the moon component 月 were always handwritten with straight strokes. Contrast this to the printed form, where these two were always &lt;em&gt;traditionally&lt;/em&gt; nigh-indistinguishable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KE2UA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KE2UA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Excerpt from the History of Ming&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;明史&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;em&gt;. Note the circled characters; the&lt;/em&gt;&#xA; 月 &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;明&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; ⺼ &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;肥&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;are indistinguishable.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time, there is no confusion, as 月 as a semantic component to do with &lt;em&gt;moon&lt;/em&gt; is overwhelmingly found on the &lt;em&gt;right&lt;/em&gt; hand side, where characters with the flesh component do not usually put ⺼ on the right hand side. On the rare case that there is potential for confusion, at least someone in history has erred in some official document somewhere, which then sets a precedence for two easily confuse-able characters to be interchanged. This should answer your first statement (&lt;em&gt;'They seem to be interchangeable'&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast to Japan, which maintained the tradition of keeping the aesthetics of the printed and written forms separately, both the PRC and the ROC (Taiwan) have instituted reforms which bring the printed form 'closer' to the written form. The new character forms in Mainland China are called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xin_Zixing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;新字形&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and Taiwan's MoE made an official promulgated list of characters in 1982 (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B8%B8%E7%94%A8%E5%9C%8B%E5%AD%97%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E5%AD%97%E9%AB%94%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;常用國字標準字體表&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;) and a revision in 1998 (for a brief overview of the final standard in Taiwan, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9C%8B%E5%AD%97%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E5%AD%97%E9%AB%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;國字標準字體&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;). The Mainland's 新字形 left the printed non-difference between ⺼ and 月 untouched but merged separate characters which originally contained ⺼ or 月 in the same position (all other parts of the character being the same), while Taiwan's 國字標準字體 forced ⺼ to look like the traditional handwritten version. Note that Unicode references the Taiwan MoE's standard in their standardisation of Traditional Chinese character glyphs; Taiwan's treatment of printed forms has not been without criticisms, and there has been at least one incident involving an official Microsoft Packaged font (MingLiu); see &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0%E7%B4%B0%E6%98%8E%E9%AB%94%E6%9B%B4%E6%96%B0%E5%A5%97%E4%BB%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference in policy between China, Taiwan, and Japan explains why&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The PRC is more likely to treat and even print those two characters identically and list two definitions under the one merged character;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The ROC is more likely to treat them as two different characters;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pleco treats the one with 月 as the &lt;em&gt;simplified&lt;/em&gt; form of the one with ⺼, because Taiwan is the biggest player in setting the standard on 'Traditional Chinese Characters', and has insisted on creating a separate character with ⺼;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Japanese treatment of these characters (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%98#Japanese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;朘&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%84%A7#Japanese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;脧&lt;/a&gt;) has the left component appearing almost identical. However, they are not considered variants in Japan, and are listed under two entries.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2017-11-18T12:34:04.937" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T12:34:04.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27552" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-12T23:29:10.160" Score="0" ViewCount="6242" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, someone I respect has followed me back on social media, and I was hoping to thank them directly. I can't really figure out how to word &quot;Thank you for following me&quot;/&quot;Thank you for following me back&quot;/&quot;Thank you for the follow&quot;. What's the best way I can say this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18339" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T03:07:36.653" Title="How to thank someone for following you back on social media?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27552" CreationDate="2017-11-13T00:48:14.597" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be 感谢大家(/你们)(长期以来一直)追随我、支持我! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感谢大家追随我: thank everyone/you for following me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感谢大家支持我: thank everyone/you for supporting me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感谢你们长期以来一直追随我、支持我: thank you for keeping following me and supporting me for such a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;感谢大家： thank everybody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;感谢你们： thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;长期以来一直： being for a long time;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;追随我: follow me;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;支持我：support me, back me;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T00:48:14.597" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27554" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33654" CreationDate="2017-11-13T02:31:32.790" Score="3" ViewCount="596" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to show Simplified Chinese stroke order animation with unity or C#, is there an open source library?&#xA;If not, is there paid repository of stroke order diagrams in unity or C#?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18341" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T04:04:15.473" Title="Simplified Chinese Stroke order animation" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="83" CreationDate="2017-11-13T05:35:32.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find some Chinese manual in its official website &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.china-e.com.cn/main/zhengma/xz-1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.china-e.com.cn/main/zhengma/xz-1.htm&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Its a half dead input method，Even the developer don't maintain its website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17846" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T05:35:32.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27552" CreationDate="2017-11-13T07:38:54.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;谢谢你关注我呀！！！&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's actually an article that kind of talks about this on &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/o0v0o/20569063&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhihu&lt;/a&gt;, funnily enough. Their translation there is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;thank you follow me --&gt; 谢谢你关注我呀！！！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also have a picture of automated thanks for following me in action:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WWSJb.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WWSJb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;qqqfome&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;strong&gt;social media&lt;/strong&gt; 关注 is always the term for &lt;em&gt;follow&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-11-14T03:07:36.653" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T03:07:36.653" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27537" CreationDate="2017-11-13T17:50:12.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;乍看之下 I think is most common here. I'm from Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18345" LastEditorUserId="18345" LastEditDate="2017-11-14T11:50:22.323" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T11:50:22.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27560" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27569" CreationDate="2017-11-14T03:04:16.710" Score="0" ViewCount="615" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 也 (ye3) vs. 又 (you4)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two links, &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_%22also%22_adverb_%22ye%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link1&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22again%22_in_the_past_with_%22you%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link2&lt;/a&gt;, discuss them individually but do not contrast them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22zai%22_and_%22you%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;last link&lt;/a&gt; contrasts 又 with 再 (zai4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T06:04:32.180" Title="Using 也 (ye3) vs. 又 (you4)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27572" CreationDate="2017-11-14T03:19:24.670" Score="0" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google Translate says &lt;strong&gt;frustrating&lt;/strong&gt; translates into 洩氣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CantoDict doesn't list an entry for &lt;strong&gt;frustrating&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;洩氣 doesn't seem very natural, at least from a Cantonese perspective. Is Google Translate correct that this is the proper translation for &lt;strong&gt;frustrating&lt;/strong&gt; (for both Cantonese and Mandarin)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T06:09:17.503" Title="洩氣 for frustrating?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27562" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27563" CreationDate="2017-11-14T03:24:04.303" Score="0" ViewCount="610" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are 走去, 走路, and 步行 interchangeable? Specifically, are they all valid variations of saying &quot;to walk?&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, are all these identical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我們走去了三分鐘&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我們走路了三分鐘&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我們步行了三分鐘&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T05:34:06.733" Title="Difference among 走去 vs 走路 vs 步行?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27562" CreationDate="2017-11-14T03:37:52.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我們走去了三分鐘 and 我們走路了三分鐘 are unnatural. The common way to say it is 我們走了三分鐘.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走去 is not a good set. We don't really use it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More often, 走路 is more like a gerund, and 走 alone is usually used as a verb. You can say 我們走路走了三分鐘. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;步行 could be used as a verb as it's in your example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, these sentences convey the same thing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們走了三分鐘.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們走路走了三分鐘.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們步行了三分鐘.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T03:37:52.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27564" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-14T03:54:33.567" Score="2" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am analysing the sentence below in order to gain an understanding of when 了 is omitted, in sentences which have several verbs in sequence within a given time context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有一天，她在图书馆看书，一个男生从她身边走过，看到她的手套掉在地上，那位男生就很有礼貌地帮她捡了起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know 了 indicates the termination (i.e. completion) of a verb within a given time context. From this, I am interpreting every action without a 了 as still in progress in the given time context. It seems to me that each verb without a 了 merely makes the time context more specific, as in my translation below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;One day, while the girl was reading a book in the library, a boy was walking past her, and he was seeing her glove, which was falling to the ground, after which that boy, while very politely helping her, picked it up.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will notice I've avoided any sense of termination for every verb except 捡, since 了 has only indicated termination of &lt;strong&gt;that&lt;/strong&gt; action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My specific questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For verbs which have 了 omitted in sentences such as the example given, can termination of these actions be implied without 了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 了 following the final verb of a sentence imply termination of previous verbs in the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18007" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T10:33:39.077" Title="Omitted 了 for multiple verbs in sequence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27560" CreationDate="2017-11-14T05:16:45.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;也 means &quot;too&quot;, &quot;also&quot;: 我也是. Me too.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又 means &quot;again&quot;: 今天又下雨了. It rained again today. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In informal speech, 也 is more neutral. It simply conveys the information that something is the same as something else. 他也是一个学生。He is also a student.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又 can have a negative connotation. 他又这样! He is doing it again! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18288" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T05:16:45.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27518" CreationDate="2017-11-14T05:27:38.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;今天是我的日子 is not something a Chinese person would say, because it is a direct translation of an English colloquial phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to express your happiness on this day, you can say: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;光棍节真是为我设计的 (Single's Day was created for me). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;光棍节了真开心， 都来祝贺我啊~ (I am so happy that it is Single's Day. Everyone congratulate me). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are informal ways of talking, which may have better results if you want to make a joke :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18288" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T05:27:38.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27562" CreationDate="2017-11-14T05:34:06.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;走去(walk to) is followed by &amp;quot;somewhere&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;do sth&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走去车站&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走去买衣服&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;走去了三分鐘&amp;quot; doesn't make sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走路 is a V+O structure, in which &amp;quot;了&amp;quot; should always be put directly after the V.&#xA;So it's 走了三分鐘路, not 走路了三分鐘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;步行了三分鐘 is correct, and 步行 here can be replaced with 走.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T05:34:06.733" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27564" CreationDate="2017-11-14T05:45:33.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should use &quot;了&quot; when you are implying an event has happened (completed) in the past. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看到她手套掉在地上 makes sense on paper, but when I am talking, I would always say &quot;看到她手套掉在地上了。&quot; The &quot;了&quot; does not have to be really pronounced. You can pronounce it very briefly, similar to &quot;the&quot; or &quot;a&quot; in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But since &quot;了&quot; is somewhat informal, in writing it can be omitted. However, there are cases that 了 is never omitted, such as 捡起来了 or 捡了起来, unless you are trying to say &quot;someone is picking something up.&quot; When to omit 了 does not really follow a clear rule, because it is something &quot;we just do.&quot; It just sounds right. I would suggest always using 了 if an action has been completed in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她在图书馆看书: She was reading in the library.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她在图书馆看了书: She has read (and finished reading) in the library. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18288" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T05:45:33.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27560" CreationDate="2017-11-14T05:53:24.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 也 and 又 can mean &amp;quot;also&amp;quot; . (也 is more literary, 又 is more colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(既~也~) is a common structure that connect two verb or adjective phrases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;他既教油畫, &lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;教中國畫&amp;quot; (beside teaching oil painting, he &lt;strong&gt;also&lt;/strong&gt; teaches Chinese painting)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(又~又~) and (既~又~) are common structures that connect two verb or adjective phrases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;他又教油畫, &lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;教中國畫&amp;quot; (first 又 can be omitted )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;既殺人&lt;strong&gt;又&lt;/strong&gt;放火&amp;quot; - &lt;em&gt;beside killing people, he also burning down villages&lt;/em&gt; (既 can be omitted )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However both 也 and 又 have other meanings that are not interchangeable. Most noticeably 又 can mean &amp;quot;again&amp;quot; , while 也 cannot; 也 can mean &amp;quot;still/ even&amp;quot; while 又 cannot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/333/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;也&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;also&lt;/strong&gt;; besides; either; too&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;as well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;still&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;even&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/750/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;又&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;and; &lt;strong&gt;also&lt;/strong&gt;; again; in addition to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;moreover; furthermore&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T06:04:32.180" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27564" CreationDate="2017-11-14T05:55:33.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a tough question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;when it's best to use 了,&quot; in my opinion, it's about the time you can't determine the tense without 了. When you could clearly determine the tense without 了, you can omit or imply it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when you say 我出去, we can not determine if you mean '我要出去'，'我现在出去' or '我已经出去过'. So, in this case, you have to add 了 to indicate you have been out already--我出去了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她在图书馆看书: 在 already denotes tense, you don't have to add 了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个男生从她身边走过: 走过 already express completion. 了 is not needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看到她的手套掉在地上: 掉在地上 connotes it already fell to the ground. 了 can be&#xA;  omitted. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那位男生就很有礼貌地帮她捡了起来: 捡了起来 sounds like a completion for a whole sequence.&#xA;  The sentence itself could work without 了 in this case,&#xA;  &quot;那位男生就很有礼貌地帮她捡起来&quot;, because 捡起来 denotes the verb 捡 has the result of 起来&#xA;  already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T05:55:33.867" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27561" CreationDate="2017-11-14T06:06:28.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;洩氣(泄气)&quot; is a correct and natural translation of &quot;frustrated&quot;, so is &quot;沮丧&quot;(might be slightly better).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;frustrating&quot;, it's &quot;令人泄气&quot;（or &quot;令人沮丧&quot;）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T06:06:28.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27561" CreationDate="2017-11-14T06:09:17.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;洩氣 could be a variation of 泄气. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泄气 is very common. The literal meaning of 泄气 is 'air leakage', but its metaphorical meaning is more common, deflating or losing one's heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be used as a verb: like 别泄气！meaning 'don't lose your heart!'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T06:09:17.503" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27573" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27578" CreationDate="2017-11-14T06:28:42.543" Score="1" ViewCount="860" Body="&lt;p&gt;This excellent answer explains the differences between 成语, 俗语, and 谚语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it doesn't discuss which one -- if any -- translates into &quot;slang.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do any of these mean &quot;slang&quot; in Cantonese and Mandarin? The dictionary definitions are not clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成语&#xA;俗语&#xA;谚语&#xA;俗話&#xA;熟語&#xA;俚語&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T07:58:01.523" Title="How to say &quot;slang&quot; in Cantonese and Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27574" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27605" CreationDate="2017-11-14T06:37:09.623" Score="0" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;For &quot;amusing/funny,&quot; CantoDict lists these two variations: 搞笑 and 攪笑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, these two words are listed as variations of each other for &quot;to confuse, to mess up&quot;: 搞亂 and 攪亂.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese they are pronounced the same, but in Mandarin, they are pronounced differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Which should be used for each meaning? Are both variations interchangeable or is one preferred (for both Cantonese and Mandarin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Are 搞 and 攪 interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T10:20:17.523" Title="Which one to use: 搞笑 vs. 攪笑 and 搞亂 vs 攪亂?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27575" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27576" CreationDate="2017-11-14T06:40:28.577" Score="0" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain the difference between 商店 and 店舖? The dictionary differences are not clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) For instance, if you want to say, &quot;My friend works at a store in the downtown area,&quot; which would you use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Are there any key differences between 商店 and 店舖?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T06:59:38.240" Title="Difference between 商店 and 店舖?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27575" CreationDate="2017-11-14T06:59:38.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;商店 refers to &quot;store&quot; that sell goods, for example, a book store where books were sold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;店舖 refers to &quot;commercial establishment&quot;.  A restaurant, a DVD rental store (younger generation might not had seen one ), and of course, a book store,  are all 店舖 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T06:59:38.240" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27577" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27579" CreationDate="2017-11-14T07:40:25.637" Score="1" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like authors choose &quot;biān&quot; or &quot;bian&quot; as the pinyin for &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;边&lt;/a&gt; haphazardly at dict.cn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%9C%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;东边&lt;/a&gt; = dōng biān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%8A%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;上边&lt;/a&gt; = shàng biān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8F%B3%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;右边&lt;/a&gt; = yòu bian&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B7%A6%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;左边&lt;/a&gt; = zuǒ biān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%97%81%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;旁边&lt;/a&gt; = páng biān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A4%96%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;外边&lt;/a&gt; = wài bian&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%80%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一边&lt;/a&gt; = yī biān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%A4%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;两边&lt;/a&gt; = liǎng biān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%82%A3%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;那边&lt;/a&gt; = nà biān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%BF%99%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;这边&lt;/a&gt; = zhè biān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%87%8C%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;里边&lt;/a&gt; = lǐ biān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A4%A9%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天边&lt;/a&gt; = tiān biān&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(There's also &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%B5%B7%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;海边&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%BA%AB%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;身边&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%86%85%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;内边&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%B0%81%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;谁边&lt;/a&gt;.)  It likewise seems haphazard at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/compound.php?uni=%E8%BE%B9&amp;amp;fhz=%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;xiaoma.info&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Can the pinyin for 边 be either &quot;biān&quot; or &quot;bian&quot; in general?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question basically generalizes &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/26355/8099&quot;&gt;How come the first tone in the character of 边 in the word 东边 is not written?&lt;/a&gt;.  Maybe there's cases where &quot;biān&quot; xor &quot;bian&quot; is the only strictly correct pinyin (or pronunciation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-11-14T07:45:40.817" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T05:31:30.163" Title="Can the pinyin for 边 be either &quot;biān&quot; or &quot;bian&quot; in general?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27573" CreationDate="2017-11-14T07:45:49.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For &quot;slang&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俚語- &lt;em&gt;Mandarin&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;俗称&lt;/strong&gt;- 'slang' (n) &lt;em&gt;Cantonese&lt;/em&gt; e.g.「孖煙囪係男裝短內褲嘅&lt;strong&gt;俗称&lt;/strong&gt;」('Double chimney' is a &lt;strong&gt;slang&lt;/strong&gt; for men's short under pants)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗称 (v) 'commonly called' e.g, 「男裝短內褲俗称孖煙囪」 (men's short under pants is commonly called 'Double chimney'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗语 = 'folk saying/ as the saying goes' e.g. 俗語都有話：「牛唔飲水點㩒得牛頭低」( As the saying goes: &quot; If a bull doesn't want to drink water, there's no way you can force its head down&quot;)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-14T07:58:01.523" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T07:58:01.523" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27577" CreationDate="2017-11-14T10:26:09.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I answered in another question you are referring to, those 边s should be pronounced as the first tone biān in standard mandarin except when 边 connotes 'positions' and 'directions', such as 里边 前边 东边 左边 这边 and 那边 in your list. Other than that, the rest are all first tone biān. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in spoken or daily usage, lots of people often pronounced it as neutral tone even for those that should be pronounced as first tone as dictionaries indicate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to get it correct all the time is to look up any authoritative dictionaries, such as 新华字典, 现代汉语词典 and etc. Some on-line dictionaries might not be right all the time because they are not well proofread. Usually, they just copy here and there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Updates:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After I looked up in the latest dictionary 现代汉语词典， I have some updates on this answer above accordingly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-11-17T05:31:30.163" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T05:31:30.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27580" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27582" CreationDate="2017-11-14T12:37:13.247" Score="2" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can 吃的人 mean both a person who eats something and a person who someone eats?&#xA;If a subject or a object is omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18349" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T04:10:25.773" Title="Can 吃的人 mean both a person who eats something and a person who someone eats?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27581" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27588" CreationDate="2017-11-14T13:12:24.117" Score="-1" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of statistical trends, what is the English translation of &lt;code&gt;周同比&lt;/code&gt;? This phrase appears as an annotation on a chart, which shows upward and downward trends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Google Translate&lt;/strong&gt; translates it as &lt;code&gt;Week of the same week&lt;/code&gt;, which does not make any sense to me. Breaking it down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;周&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;noun&#xA;week, periphery, circumference, cycle, Zhou Dynasty, circuit&#xA;&#xA;adjective&#xA;all, attentive, thoughtful, whole, all-around&#xA;&#xA;adverb&#xA;all over&#xA;&#xA;verb&#xA;circuit, help out&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;同&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;preposition&#xA;with&#xA;&#xA;pronoun&#xA;same&#xA;&#xA;adjective&#xA;similar, like, alike&#xA;&#xA;adverb&#xA;together&#xA;&#xA;noun&#xA;lane&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;noun&#xA;ratio&#xA;&#xA;verb&#xA;compare, contrast, compete, emulate&#xA;&#xA;particle&#xA;particle used for comparison&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the above information, as well as what I would expect to appear on a trend chart, and the assumption that the Chinese sentence is probably a set of nouns, my closest guess is that &lt;code&gt;周同比&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;Compared to Last Week&lt;/code&gt;. Is that a good translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18350" LastEditorUserId="18350" LastEditDate="2017-11-15T06:23:07.830" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T06:23:07.830" Title="How to translate 周同比 into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-11-15T05:40:41.430" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27580" CreationDate="2017-11-14T14:38:15.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;这些吃的人觉得怎么样?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do these persons, who eat it, think of it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些&lt;strong&gt;用来&lt;/strong&gt;吃的人味道不错, 鸡肉味.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These persons who are for eating are not bad, like chicken. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T14:38:15.457" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27522" CreationDate="2017-11-14T18:18:26.743" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;很 is often pronounced lightly, so it is actually without any real information. It seems to fill the role of a predicate marker (e.g. 'copula') with adjective phrases. However, if it's stressed, then it does mean 'very'. &#xA;(Mandarin Chinese does have stress; however, it seems to get ignored in many language classes.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18352" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T18:18:26.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27577" CreationDate="2017-11-14T18:40:49.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a dirty secret, but even with 'Standard Mandarin', there is no universal consensus on this. I checked two standard reference grammars (e.g. &lt;em&gt;Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Chinese: An Essential Grammar&lt;/em&gt;, both from Routledge), and examples use both tone diacritics and none.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a fact that northern Mandarin dialects tend to use more toneless elements in disyllabic compounds (e.g. 北边儿 běibianr) and southern Mandarin varieties tend use pronounce almost all syllables with tone (e.g. 北边 běibiān). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was living in Beijing, I mostly encountered toneless locative suffixes: 海滩上面 hǎitān shàngmian &quot;on the beach,&quot; and, in Shanghai or Taipei, I encountered locatives suffixes with full tones: 海滩上面 hǎitān shàngmiàn &quot;on the beach.&quot; Textbooks used at universities in Beijing, Shanghai, and Taipei are all inconsistent in usage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I prefer the cadence of northern Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: {r}-suffixation, or 儿化, doesn't seem to affect this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18352" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T18:40:49.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27585" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-14T19:33:49.417" Score="0" ViewCount="322" Body="&lt;p&gt;Such as in an essay. Considering 再说 (moreover) won't be referring to something that was actually spoken (说).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18228" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T10:18:57.387" Title="Can 再说 be used in a written context?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27585" CreationDate="2017-11-14T20:10:12.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;再说&quot; is more like a spoken language, and in spoken language, &quot;再说&quot; does not really mean &quot;moreover&quot;, &quot;besides&quot;, etc, and it means &quot;I will consider that later (and usually it is a polite way to say no or refuse)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you would like to use words to express &quot;moreover&quot;, and something like this, better to use &quot;另外&quot;，&quot;其次&quot;,etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16109" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T20:10:12.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27581" CreationDate="2017-11-14T22:42:46.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quite literally it says: 'period same compare', so what will you make of that? You need a context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过去24周的同比销售额下降了7%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;comparing sales volumes over the last 24 weeks （we see） a drop of 7%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 周 does not have to mean week, but any cyclic period， 周期, depending on the context, you might write 'cyclic fluctuation' 'periodic swing' 'comparative variation' or things along that line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T22:42:46.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27580" CreationDate="2017-11-14T23:08:35.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the right context, '吃的人‘ can mean 'the person who we are eating'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reminds me of that old joke:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 cannibals are eating a clown, one says to the other, &quot;Does this clown taste funny to you?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两个食人族正在吃一个小丑，其中一个问另一个：“我们吃的这个小丑，味道有趣吗？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very funny in English, not so sure in Chinese， humour does not translate well!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T23:08:35.867" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27581" CreationDate="2017-11-14T23:20:42.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically, 周同比 means 'to compare with the week of last year'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say， this is the 25th week of this year, so you want to compare the data (of this week) with the 25th week of last year. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T23:20:42.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27591" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27592" CreationDate="2017-11-15T00:07:29.927" Score="10" ViewCount="3558" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you respond to a text message on Apple Watch, there are a number of autoreply options. One of them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个字。非常棒！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to English as &quot;One word. Excellent! &quot;. This makes a lot of sense in this translation. However, can the entire phrase &quot;非常棒&quot; (excellent) be considered one 字 (word)? Or is a 字 strictly considered a single character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18355" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T06:48:16.357" Title="Apple Watch has a built in response of &quot;一个字。非常棒！&quot;. Is this correct?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27591" CreationDate="2017-11-15T00:51:09.767" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;No it's not correct. &quot;非常棒&quot; are definitely three 字s. So the proper form should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个字。棒！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三个字。非常棒！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the context this kind of wording might be used on purpose for joking; you might not need to take them seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-07-23T06:48:16.357" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T06:48:16.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27591" CreationDate="2017-11-15T00:54:28.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, a 字 is strictly considered a single character. 非常棒！ should be 三个字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence can be rephrased as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个字。棒！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两个字。很棒！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三个字。非常棒！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非常棒 can be taken as a phrase or a short sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非常: very&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;棒: good; excellent;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T01:01:45.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27591" CreationDate="2017-11-15T01:00:41.730" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.字 = character, 词 = word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&quot;一个字，非常棒&quot; can be either an incorrect translation (which is not rare in big companies' products)  or a net slang phrase(&quot;一个字，XXX&quot; where XXX is  intentionally more than one character, similar to &quot;brief comment: XXX&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T01:00:41.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27580" CreationDate="2017-11-15T01:50:04.397" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to other answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The form &quot;吃的x&quot; is not disambiguated by syntax, but by semantics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In common sense, a person is not to be eaten, so &quot;吃的人&quot; would only mean &quot;man who eats&quot; (except when there is very explicit context to let it mean otherwise).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other side &quot;吃的鱼&quot; would mean &quot;the fish to be eaten&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T01:50:04.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27577" CreationDate="2017-11-15T01:59:06.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 《现代汉语词典》, the 边 with possible neutral tone has only the following meaning: &quot;方位词后缀&quot; (suffix to location word).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples include 里边 前边 东边 左边.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the words you listed, 旁边 一边 两边 天边 would not use the neutral tone. Not quite sure with 这边 and 那边, but I won't use neutral tone for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T01:59:06.500" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27580" CreationDate="2017-11-15T03:27:34.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By default, 吃的人 would mean 吃xxx的人， like 吃肉的人. Example, 这东西吃的人很少 means 吃这东西的人很少. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you truly want to denote 'a person who someone eats', you could say '所吃的人' or '所吃之人'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of usage of 所 is to precede a verb to indicate the following object is the receiver or accepter of that action. In this case, 所吃的人, 吃 is a verb and 人 is the target. So, 所吃的人 clearly denotes 'a person who was eaten'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他所吃的人 // the one who he ate;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你知道他所吃的人是谁吗？ // do you know the person who he ate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On top of that, if you say 吃的东西(食物)， it would mean 所吃的东西(食物)--something（food） that was eaten. Like, 我们吃的东西==我们所吃的东西==something we eat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-11-15T03:36:41.047" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T03:36:41.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27580" CreationDate="2017-11-15T04:10:25.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;probably, you mean that a man is eating. we usually say: 那个人正在吃东西，but we don't say: 那个在吃的人. I'm a native speaker of Chinese, hope it will help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18356" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T04:10:25.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27600" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-15T09:01:04.360" Score="6" ViewCount="4300" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which one is correct 你说的对 or 你说得对？ Especially to express meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You are right in terms of ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T12:14:22.303" Title="Which one is correct 你说的对 or 你说得对？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27601" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-15T09:14:25.327" Score="1" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it correct ot use 以前 in sentence with meaning of future plans 我以前打算去北京?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我打算去北京 - I am going to go to Beijing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will it become:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我以前打算去北京 - Before I was going to go to Beijing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or do I need to replace &quot;打算去北京&quot; part to also express past tense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2017-11-15T10:35:17.920" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T20:03:38.003" Title="Is it correct ot use 以前 in sentence with meaning of future plans 我以前打算去北京?" Tags="&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27537" CreationDate="2017-11-15T09:43:38.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;初见 初见&#xA;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第一眼 第一眼&#xA;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第一次看到 第一次看到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第一次遇见 第一次遇见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18359" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T09:43:38.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27591" CreationDate="2017-11-15T09:57:13.327" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of above answers are definitely correct but I just want to say apple watching might be making a joke. Let me clarify,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese seriously - 字 = character. So 非常棒 is three 字s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But humorously we usually make a joke like what your apple watch did&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个字，非常好！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个字，你真的很棒！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个字，北国风光,千里冰封,万里雪飘。望长城内外,惟余莽莽;大河上下,顿失滔滔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18360" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T09:57:13.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27574" CreationDate="2017-11-15T10:20:17.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two words have different meanings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;搞 is to do something in a very generic sense, with mostly no attached meaning. 攪 is also to do something, but it implies making a mess and sometimes with the intent to do so. 攪 have another meaning as mixing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular cases, 搞笑 is used in mandarin but not 攪笑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;搞亂 and 攪亂 both means to mess up, but 攪亂 implies the entity who does so have the intent, whereas 搞亂 have no such implication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;攪局 means to make the make a mess out of the scenario, but 搞局 is &quot;do the scenario&quot; which doesn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So no, they are not interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18361" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T10:20:17.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27601" CreationDate="2017-11-15T10:49:45.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not too sure exactly what you want to say. Lets assume you want to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wanted to go to Beijing, but now I am not going.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我本来打算去北京的，但是现在不想去了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T10:49:45.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27601" CreationDate="2017-11-15T11:35:23.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我打算去北京 - I am going to go to Beijing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我以前打算去北京 - I was going to go to Beijing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我打算去北京以前(...) - I want to (...) before going to Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在我打算去北京以前... - Before I was going to go to Beijing...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are also valid:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以前的我打算去北京 - The old me was going to go to Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我打算去以前的北京 - I am going to go to the old Beijing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我打算先去北京 - I am going to go to Beijing first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我打算去北京的以前 - I am going to go to the precursor of Beijing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T11:41:05.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27600" CreationDate="2017-11-15T12:14:22.303" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 你说的对 and 你说得对 could be valid. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你说的对 means 你说的&lt;em&gt;内容&lt;/em&gt;对：what you said is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你说得对 means either 'you said it right' or 'it's right/correct for you to say it'. 得 here is an effect or result complement.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 'you are right' should be interpreted as '你是对的'. Specially for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;You are right in terms of xxx&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;: &lt;strong&gt;在xxx方面，你是对的&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;从xxx角度(来看/来说), 你是对的&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you are right in terms of time or money: 从时间或金钱的角度来说， 你是对的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T12:14:22.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27601" CreationDate="2017-11-15T12:34:36.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it correct to use 以前 in sentence with meaning of future plans 我以前打算去北京?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simple answer for your question is &quot;YES, it's correct&quot;. You can use 以前 in sentence with meaning of future plans. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, your English translation below is not that right. 'Before' is not needed because 'was' already connotes the past tense (which 以前 here stands for). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我以前打算去北京 - '&lt;em&gt;Before&lt;/em&gt;' I was going to go to Beijing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the correct translation should be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我以前打算去北京 - I was going to go to Beijing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T12:34:36.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27601" CreationDate="2017-11-15T12:56:59.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我打算去北京&lt;br&gt;I am going to go to Beijing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我以前打算去北京&lt;br&gt;I was going to go to Beijing before (adv.).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我打算去北京以前&lt;br&gt;Before (prep.) I am going to go to Beijing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T12:56:59.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27612" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27622" CreationDate="2017-11-15T14:31:48.690" Score="0" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;em-dash: — (U+2014) looks a lot like 一 (U+4E00) in many fonts.  What is typically used instead in Chinese print?  Or do they just rely on context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other punctuation alternatives should I learn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T00:25:42.130" Title="What to use instead of em-dash (U+2014), etc" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27613" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-11-15T17:01:16.867" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-11-15T17:01:16.867" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T17:01:16.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27614" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-11-15T17:01:16.867" Score="0" Body="Hanzi in Chinese means &quot;Chinese Character&quot;. Use this tag when your question directly relates to characters." OwnerUserId="18367" LastEditorUserId="18367" LastEditDate="2017-11-16T06:46:09.040" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T06:46:09.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27615" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27619" CreationDate="2017-11-15T17:01:33.653" Score="1" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am very much a beginner, and one of my learning methods is to listen to audio and follow along in text.  But generally, my texts are in Hànzì.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's easy enough to &lt;a href=&quot;http://mandarintools.com/dimsum.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;convert Hànzì to pīnyīn&lt;/a&gt; but I want to start getting familiar with the Hànzì also.  Manually merging Hànzì and pīnyīn into ruby tags looks like a tedious job.  I could write a program to do it, but I suspect someone already has done so.  However, thanks to the programming language called Ruby, finding it in a web search is the proverbial &quot;needle in haystack.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that such a program could get &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3668/are-there-any-free-fonts-designed-to-help-learn-read-chinese&quot;&gt;up to 23% wrong&lt;/a&gt;, but manually correcting such errors will be far less tedious than manually generating the entire document.  Using a font with the Ruby built-in is undesirable because then the errors cannot be corrected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that Firefox and Opera support is lagging, but since the results are for my own use, that doesn't matter.  (And if I ever need to pass on a conversion, I can print to PDF.)_&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, where can I find such a converter?  Or if someone is working on one, perhaps I could help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see that Japanese.SE has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/806/how-should-i-format-my-questions-on-japanese-language-se&quot;&gt;markup for furigana&lt;/a&gt; that has a much simpler syntax than HTML5's Ruby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T06:39:05.500" Title="Generating ruby markup for HTML" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27601" CreationDate="2017-11-15T20:03:38.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it correct to use 以前 in sentence with meaning of future plans&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我以前打算去北京?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, It is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the translation for 我以前打算去北京 is not accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我以前打算去北京&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 以前 has two different meaning. It can mean either 'before (something happens'), or 'in the past'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it means: I once planned to go to Beijing. (This action was in the past.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or: I used to want to go to Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before I was going to go to Beijing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence translates to 我去北京以前, where 以前 is used to express 'before this action happened'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打算 can be dropped from the translation because this word sometimes implies that the action following it is in a planning stage, not necessarily going to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or do I need to replace &amp;quot;打算去北京&amp;quot; part to also express past tense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, because 以前 is defining the whole sentence. There is not need to change the action part of the sentence (like switch to past tense in English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you're wondering, 以前打算去北京 is the past tense:p&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T20:03:38.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27396" CreationDate="2017-11-15T20:22:32.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(LOL this article)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The breakdown translation is not accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence 不会, it means 'don't know how' because here 会 means 'know how to do something'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, this combined with 拍照 means that: don't know how to take a picture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have a boyfriend who doesn't know how to take a (good) photo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T20:22:32.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27368" CreationDate="2017-11-15T20:27:17.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Winner winner...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 吃鸡游戏 refers to games that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In first person POV&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Action oriented&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Put x players together and make them kill each other till there's only one left&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mostly just things that look like PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T20:27:17.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27615" CreationDate="2017-11-16T04:15:35.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try to search harder. I only typed &quot;generate pinyin ruby markup&quot; in google and found this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ethantw/az&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;az&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same search string in DuckDuckGo yielded&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cjkware.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Key&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastEditorUserId="15442" LastEditDate="2017-12-10T06:39:05.500" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T06:39:05.500" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27612" CreationDate="2017-11-16T04:22:13.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.moe.gov.cn/ewebeditor/uploadfile/2015/01/13/20150113091548267.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中华人民共和国国家标准 标点符号用法&lt;/a&gt; PRC standard of general rules for punctuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can go to section 4.13 to see the examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3.13 连接号&#xA;3.13.1 连接号的形式为“－”，占一个字的位置，连接号还有另外三种形式，即长横“__”（占两个字的位置）、半字线“-”（占半个字的位置）、和浪纹“～”（占一个字的位置）。&#xA;3.13.2 两个相关的名词构成一个意义单位，中间用连接号。例如：&#xA;a) 我国秦岭－淮河以北地区属于温带季风气候区，夏季高温多雨，冬季寒冷干燥。&#xA;b) 复方氯化钠注射液，也称任－洛二氏溶液（Ringer-Locke solution），用于医疗和哺乳动物生理学实验。&#xA;3.13.3 相关的时间、地点或数目之间用连接号表示起止。例如：&#xA;a) 鲁迅（1881－1936）中国现代伟大的文学家、思想家和革命家。原名周树人，字豫才，浙江绍兴人。&#xA;b) “北京－广州”直达快车&#xA;c)梨园乡种植的巨峰葡萄已进入了丰产期，亩产1000公斤～1500公斤。&#xA;3.13.4 相关的字母、阿拉伯数字等之间，用连接号，表示产品型号。例如：&#xA;在太平洋地区，除了已建成投入使用的HAW－4和TPC－3海底光缆之外，又有TPC－4海底光缆投入运营。&#xA;3.13.5 几个相关的项目表示递进式发展，中间用连接号。例如：&#xA;人类的发展可以分为古猿－猿人－古人－新人这四个阶段。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;破折号:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3.10 破折号&#xA;3.10.1 破折号的形式为“——”。&#xA;3.10.2 行文中解释说明的语句，用破折号标明。例如：&#xA;a) 迈进金黄色的大门，穿过宽阔的风门厅和衣帽厅，就到了大会堂建筑的枢纽部分——中央大厅。&#xA;b) 为了全国人民——当然包括自己在内——的幸福，我们每个人都要兢兢业业，努力工作。&#xA;3.10.3 话题突然转变，用破折号标明。例如：&#xA;“今天好热啊！——你什么时候去上海？”张强对刚刚进门的小王说。&#xA;3.10.4 声音延长，象声词后用破折号。例如：&#xA;“呜——”火车开动了。&#xA;3.10.5 事项列举分承，各项之前用破折号。例如：&#xA;根据研究对象的不同，环境物理学分为以下五个分支学科：&#xA;——环境声学；&#xA;——环境光学；&#xA;——环境热学；&#xA;——环境电磁学；&#xA;——环境空气动力学。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastEditorUserId="1124" LastEditDate="2017-11-16T05:25:53.607" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T05:25:53.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27621" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27623" CreationDate="2017-11-16T04:42:03.430" Score="1" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 河岸 vs 河畔?  Don't they both mean river bank?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18228" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T17:32:41.827" Title="Difference between 岸 vs 畔?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27612" CreationDate="2017-11-16T04:46:20.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess by &quot;in print&quot;, you mean in (normal) computers, as you also mentioned Unicode code point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A0%B4%E6%8A%98%E5%8F%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;破折号&lt;/a&gt; for this. And in computers, it is not one Unicode character, but &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The symbol used is still U+2014, as I tested with my IME in Word. Two consecutive U+2014 form one 破折号 in Chinese. When Chinese fonts are applied, there usually no gap between the two U+2014 symbols, and it is two times longer than a normal character. (However, you might see a gap in between if non-Chinese fonts are used).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Chinese fonts are used: To distinguish with 一 (one, U+4E00), double U+2014 is two times longer. And there is almost always a gap between two U+4E00 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be a different story if specialized printing systems (computers), character sets, fonts, ... are used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-11-19T00:25:42.130" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T00:25:42.130" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27621" CreationDate="2017-11-16T05:28:50.273" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;河岸 = river bank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;畔 means &quot;beside something / near something&quot;, not just rivers, e.g. 耳畔、桥畔.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can take 河畔 as a literary version of 河边.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T05:28:50.273" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27624" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27627" CreationDate="2017-11-16T08:23:25.380" Score="6" ViewCount="1590" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的同屋睡觉时候想开屋门一点点.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ de tóngwū shuìjiào shíhòu xiǎng kāi wūmén yīdiǎndiǎn.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was meant to mean &quot;when my roommate sleeps, they like to open the door a little&quot;. Our teacher 张老师 made these corrections:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AJjEL.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AJjEL.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;我的同屋睡觉时候想开屋门一点点&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So she corrected it to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%90%8C%E5%B1%8B&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;同屋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9D%A1%E8%A7%89&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡觉&lt;/a&gt;&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%97%B6%E5%80%99&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;时候&lt;/a&gt;想开&lt;strong&gt;一点点&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B1%8B&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;屋&lt;/a&gt;门.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ de tóngwū shuì jué de shíhòu xiǎng kāi yīdiǎndiǎn wūmén.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not clear as to why.  Judging from Baidu searches for related grammar constructs (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E7%9D%A1%E8%A7%89%E6%97%B6%E5%80%99&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡觉时候&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E8%AF%B4%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E4%B8%80%E7%82%B9&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;说汉语一点&lt;/a&gt;), what I wrote is plain wrong, but I don't understand why.  It looks important, so...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What is wrong with my sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T05:31:48.240" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T05:31:48.240" Title="What is wrong with my sentence 我的同屋睡觉时候想开屋门一点点?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27564" CreationDate="2017-11-16T08:27:03.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should use &quot;了&quot; when you are implying an event &lt;em&gt;has happened&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;in reality&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;了&quot; is not about past. It's a marker, rendering verb's result to reality realm. Verbs can be in imaginary state, you know... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex: &quot;I would have done that...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ask your self: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;What chinese bare verb mean? How to translate 她在图书馆看书?&#xA;Is she reading right now? was reading? will read? The correct answer is : it's all at once!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best translation will be using some kind of indefinite forms (maximum ambiguity). Imagine that a freind of yours tells you about a girl: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;So I walk in and she is like.. reading in the library&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ask a question about this picture: &quot;Did it take place or will it take place? Are you telling me about factual past or telling me about probable future? &lt;strong&gt;Have you&lt;/strong&gt; walked in and saw her or &lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt; you walk in and see her&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, about your sentence:&#xA;有一天，她在图书馆看书，一个男生从她身边走过，看到她的手套掉在地上，那位男生&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;很有礼貌地帮她捡&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;起来 (no 了, no 就)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation should be indefinite in some sence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;There is a day once, and a girl reads in a library and the other guy passes her by. He sees that she drops a glove, he picks it up.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you see the mood here? It looks like a fairy tale of some sort, it's not real. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if you add 了 at the end, it comes with 就 (since it's a stiff structure here). i.e. 了 is linked with 就 and not with the rest of the sentence, and thus addition of THIS 了 will not render the whole sentence from a fairy tale realm to this world. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有一天，她在图书馆看书，一个男生从她身边走过，看到她的手套掉在地上，那位男生&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;很有礼貌地帮她捡&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;起来. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now translation changes a bit: the first part stays the same and we can't tell if it's an imaginive or real situation (took place in the past), but the last part translates like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;He sees that she drops a glove and &lt;strong&gt;then就&lt;/strong&gt; he picks&lt;strong&gt;了(for real)&lt;/strong&gt; it up. (He will do it if situation is\was\will be real&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, unless you add 了 to  the first part of the sentence 有一天，她在图书馆看书，一个男生从她身边走过，看到她的手套掉在地上 you can't tell that situation took place or will take place. &#xA;You know 有一天 makes you think that a fairy tale is about to start, so lack of 了 reality makers makes sence! The last 了 is not a marker for the whole sentece but for 就_了 part, there it just stresses logical consequence of the actions (real or imaginary), but it never answers to the question: &quot;Is the WHOLE story a reality or are you imagining things?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2017-11-16T10:33:39.077" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T10:33:39.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27624" CreationDate="2017-11-16T09:07:26.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your issue is 一点 here modifies the verb 开， not 开门. So, you have to pull it closer to 开. It's not an big issue with that additional 的 before 时候. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roommate can be interpreted as 室友，which is more common than 同屋. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a little can be translated to 一点 or 一点点. 一点点 sounds a bit cutie sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the whole sentence can be translated to: 我（的）室友睡觉(的)时候，喜欢开一点（屋）门.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T09:07:26.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27624" CreationDate="2017-11-16T09:08:02.043" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since  睡觉 (to sleep) is a verb that doesn't take object, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时候 (time) as a noun cannot follow 睡觉 directly. To resolve the conflict, we  have to add 的 after 睡觉 to make it an adjectival phrase '睡觉的' as in &quot;睡觉的时候&quot; (sleeping time) -- That would then be grammatically correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, the &lt;strong&gt;object&lt;/strong&gt; is usually placed &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt;  the adverbial phrase -- as in   &quot;open the &lt;strong&gt;door&lt;/strong&gt; a little bit&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chinese, the &lt;strong&gt;object&lt;/strong&gt; is usually placed &lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt; the adverbial phrase -- as in &quot;开一点点&lt;strong&gt;屋门&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; ( the object '屋门' follows the adverbial phrase '一点点' )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-16T11:35:32.763" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T11:35:32.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27585" CreationDate="2017-11-16T10:18:57.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me do some wrap-up and clarificaitons here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再说 or 再者说 can mean moreover, and most of time it's been used in spoken register. It's casual way to say moreover and rarely used in formal written. In formal written, 而且 is commonly used for moreover. Jason Swift has a good example in his/her comment &quot;我不喜欢喝酒，再说我还要开车&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再说 can also mean to take/consider later as LONG indicated in his answer. For example, 回头（/以后）再说（I will take that later).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再说 also has its literal meaning: to say sth again. For example, 你（把这话）再说一遍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question &quot;Can 再说 be used in a written context?&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not for formal writing, but it might be used for other types of written, such as an essay, novel, and etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T10:18:57.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27624" CreationDate="2017-11-16T12:42:43.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Replace &quot;同屋&quot; with &quot;室友&quot; roommate &#xA;Replace &quot;想开屋门一点点&quot; with &quot;想让屋门开着一点点&quot;, want to leave the door open a bit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18375" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T12:42:43.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27624" CreationDate="2017-11-16T12:51:58.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, that is still not Chinese i have to say.&#xA;Here is somthime interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开 is the verb. 屋门 is the object (noun). So a genuine Chinese is:&#xA;我的同屋睡觉的时候，想把屋门开一点点。&#xA;Here 把 similiars  to ‘to’ in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开屋门 together is an imperative  or a command&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18377" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T12:51:58.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27624" CreationDate="2017-11-16T13:31:18.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;同居 is not an ideal way to express roommates. 室友 should be a better word.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;想把屋门打开一点点 makes sense to me.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;‘我的室友睡觉的时候会把屋门打开一点点‘ would be the way I say it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'My roommate will leave the door open a little when he/she goes to the bed.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18380" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T13:31:18.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27632" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27634" CreationDate="2017-11-16T13:31:53.817" Score="3" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the antonym of 不如? E.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今年我旅游很少, 不如去年 (situation is worse than last year)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I need a word for the reverse situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今年我旅游很多, ???去年 (situation is better than last year)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不如 has a negative meaning so it does not suit here, as far as I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-30T06:45:18.567" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T06:45:18.567" Title="What is the antonym of 不如?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;antonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27632" CreationDate="2017-11-16T13:36:52.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since 很多 has a positive meaning, simply 比起 (compared to) works：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今年我旅遊很多，比起去年。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18381" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T13:36:52.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27632" CreationDate="2017-11-16T14:06:07.387" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use 超过 or 胜过(more positive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今年我旅游很多, 超过去年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T14:06:07.387" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27635" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27639" CreationDate="2017-11-16T15:48:15.603" Score="1" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;People use the idiom 杀人如麻 all the time but hemp is no longer a familiar scene to most people, and I doubt anyone ever saw a hemp in his whole life. Exactly what mental imagery is 麻 supposed to invoke? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6319" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T20:01:00.170" Title="What mental imagery does 如麻 invoke?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27632" CreationDate="2017-11-16T17:28:57.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今年我旅游很多, 比去年还多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This year I traveled a lot, even more than (how much I did) last year. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18385" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T17:28:57.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27621" CreationDate="2017-11-16T17:32:41.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would add to Jason's answer that 畔 is more used in literature and is very rarely used in daily spoken language (unless maybe to invoke sort of a poetic feeling). Otherwise literally both mean the same thing to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18385" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T17:32:41.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31129" CreationDate="2017-11-16T18:20:20.927" Score="2" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;For instance, on &lt;a href=&quot;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jun Da's table.&lt;/a&gt; 高 (tall) is listed at 134, while 矮 (short) is listed at 2027, 新 (new) is listed at 161, and 旧 (old) is listed at 915. It's worth noting that 老 (old) is listed at 179.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An exceptions to the rule includes 近 (near) and 远 (far) (374 and 386 respectively). You might also consider 大 (17)  小 (83) an exception; they are only 66 slots apart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this because of a Chinese preference for the more positive quality, even though in theory, they should be &quot;symmetrical?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2018-08-18T16:28:52.093" Title="Why do characters for &quot;opposites&quot; often have very different frequencies on frequency tables?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27635" CreationDate="2017-11-16T18:44:17.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 杀人如麻, 杀人： killing people; 如: 'like'; 麻(hemp): 乱麻(Baidu translates it as 'habijabi').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乱麻 is like this picture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sxA4g.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sxA4g.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you count how many lines of 麻 in this picture??? If you can't, Can you imagine the same number of people were killed? That's what 杀人如麻 describes here.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T18:44:17.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27638" CreationDate="2017-11-16T19:01:54.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an interesting statistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the reason is that those words also have multiple other meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 高(134) vs 矮(2027),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高 could mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　1. 由下到上距离大的，与“低”相对：～峰。～空。～踞。～原。～耸。～山流水（喻知己、知音或乐曲高妙）。～屋建瓴（形容居高临下的形势）。～瞻远瞩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　2. 高度：他身～一米八。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　3. 等级在上的：～级。～考。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　4. 在一般标准或平均程度之上：～质量。～消费。～价。～档。～手。～能物理。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　5. 声音响亮：引吭～歌。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　6. 敬辞，称别人的事物：～见。～就。～论。～寿。～堂。～徒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　7. 热烈、盛大：～昂。兴～采烈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　8. 显贵，道德水平高：崇～。清～。～风亮节。～尚。～雅。～洁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　9. 宗族中最在上之称：～祖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　10. 酸根或化合物中比标准酸根多含一个氧原子的：～锰酸钾。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　11. 姓。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;矮 could mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　1. 人的身材短：～人。～矬。～个儿。～墩墩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　2. 高度小：～林。～墙。～屋。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　3. 等级地位低：工资他比我～一级。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, 高 has much more meanings than 矮, 11 vs 3. So, it's no surprise to see 高 holds the position of 134, while 矮 just 2027.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T19:01:54.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27635" CreationDate="2017-11-16T20:01:00.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in literatures of yore, the term &quot;殺人如*&quot; has several variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&amp;amp;chapter=200084&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;陳拾遺集卷九&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;殺人如麻﹒血流成澤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;chapter=75078&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;太白詩　白馬篇&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;殺人如剪草&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;chapter=246910&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;建炎以來繫年要錄　卷四&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;殺人如刈麻﹒臭聞數百里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would make a mental image of &quot;殺人如麻&quot; as &quot;killing people like mowing hemps&quot;. such metaphor would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sickle - the sword, knife&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mowing - killing (people) without considerations, massively&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when mowing hemps, or grasses, no one spend time to examine particular grass, appreciate it's beauty; or consider the rationale of mowing.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hemps - life is worthless, without value&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, in mowing, one would consider cutting / clearing as many hemps / grasses as possible, with minimum efforts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T20:01:00.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27642" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-16T21:50:09.920" Score="1" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed both 度 and 量 mean &quot;amount, number&quot;. It looks like they are not exchangeable. Am I right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I saw 温度，湿度，长度，宽度，高度，角度， but never saw 温量，湿量，长量，宽量，高量，角量。I also feel 重量，容量，含量，数量 are fixed combinations too. Is there a rule about where to use which?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T08:30:17.990" Title="When should &quot;度&quot; be used? When should &quot;量&quot; be used?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27642" CreationDate="2017-11-16T21:56:27.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;度 is measurement for length, height or level  (difference between levels is measured in distance )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;量 is measurement for volume (something to do with space available or occupied)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As nouns, they are not interchangeable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;量度 (v ) to measure ( length or volume)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;量 (v) to measure ( length or volume)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;度 (v) to measure ( length)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-16T22:34:52.610" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T22:34:52.610" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27645" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27647" CreationDate="2017-11-17T07:29:03.547" Score="1" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the sentence 我觉得你说的是真的 in my studies, which I was told translates to &quot;I think what you say is true&quot;. I'm not sure how you parse this sentence though. In particular, what function do each of the 的 serve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18392" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T07:43:13.713" Title="How do you parse 我觉得你说的是真的。" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27645" CreationDate="2017-11-17T07:42:21.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我觉得你说的是真的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I think that the words that you say, those are true words.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I think what you say is true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我觉得你说的（话）是真的（话） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T07:42:21.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27645" CreationDate="2017-11-17T07:43:13.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我觉得你说的是真的 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'我' (I) is the 'subject'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'觉得' (think) is the 'verb'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'你说的(话)' (the words you said) is the 'object'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'是' (is/was) is 'auxiliary verb'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'真的' (true) adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'你说的' is shortened from '你说的话', which is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I think the words you said were true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T07:43:13.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27648" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27652" CreationDate="2017-11-17T08:01:57.133" Score="0" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The sentence&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We are looking at the first sentence of the part of &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/WFJX3_xji2k&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Liû-lõng kàu Tām-tsuí&lt;/a&gt; sung solo, which is typically found written:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扞着风琴提着吉他    双人牵做伙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to my research, noting that I cannot find 扞 in my reference so I guessed the syllable from the video and marked it as unknown tone, the sentence has the following Tai-lo:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kuạnn-tio̍h hong-khîm thê-tio̍h gì-ta    Siang-lâng khan tsuè-hué&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Playing accordion and guitar    let us dance in pairs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 1 is naturally about that unfindable verb. I hear either &lt;code&gt;kua&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;kuann&lt;/code&gt; in the video, and since the character is &lt;code&gt;hàn&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin I guess it's the latter. It should mean &quot;play&quot; like &lt;code&gt;thê&lt;/code&gt; shortly after. So I was wondering:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the tone? Is that the correct syllable? How should I spell it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume that character is not correct because Wiktionary gives me no matching meaning, but maybe it's a Min-specific meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question two is about &lt;code&gt;双人牵做伙&lt;/code&gt;. AFAIK the single words translate to &quot;pair of people - pull - together&quot;, with &quot;pull&quot; being &quot;hold&quot; when coupled to &quot;hand&quot; (i.e. qian shou is hold hands). So &quot;pull pairs of people together&quot;. My take is that &quot;pull&quot; refers to certain dance movements where the man pulls the woman towards himself, and this idea of dancing is also suggested by the instruments playing, probably accompanying the dance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this idea correct? If not, what does this mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T10:12:02.013" Title="Two questions on a sentence in a Min song" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27642" CreationDate="2017-11-17T08:30:17.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;度 - measure length&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;量 - measure volume&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衡 - measure weight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9807" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T08:30:17.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27650" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27651" CreationDate="2017-11-17T13:15:00.247" Score="2" ViewCount="453" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a question about the order of adjective and noun in Chinese. In this phrase 生活奢侈 the order is noun+adjective. But in this phrase 奢侈品 the order of noun + adjective is reversed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between the two structures? There are lots of such examples, which I get confused with every time when I want to use them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17871" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-18T03:21:50.563" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T03:21:50.563" Title="Order of adjective and noun" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27650" CreationDate="2017-11-17T15:49:10.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Placing adjective before the noun, like '奢侈品' is a normal grammar structure, you cannot go wrong with that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you put an adjective after a noun, the noun is acting as the topic, and the adjective is acting as a comment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的生活奢侈 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的生活 (his life) is the topic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很奢侈 (is luxury) is the comment, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can replace 'is luxury' with other adjective (comment), for example '艰难' --&gt; &quot;他的生活艰难&quot; (his life is difficult)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all noun can be a topic, especially a single character noun like 品. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all adjective can be a comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'这家公司的发展非常迅速' make sense;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'这家公司的发展非常海外' doesn't make sense, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;although '海外'  is a legit adjective for '发展' as in '这家公司的海外发展'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Without clear context, 生活奢侈 can also be interpreted as a [verb + adverb] structure, with 生活 as a verb, and 奢侈 as an adverb. That's why I add a subject and possessive 的 to clarify '(他的)&lt;strong&gt;生活&lt;/strong&gt;' is a noun&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-17T16:06:32.580" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T16:06:32.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27648" CreationDate="2017-11-17T21:57:07.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The official MV of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9plPMDcD4dU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;流浪到淡水&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Published: 1997&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;扞著 ná-tio̍h&lt;br&gt;&#xA;提著 thê-tio̍h&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Both mean &quot;to bring&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;扞著 = 拿著&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;影片中的兩位盲人（金門王 和 李炳輝）是本歌的原唱者。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The two blind people in the MV (Jīnmén Wáng and Lǐ Bǐnghuī) are the original singers of the song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（金門王：金門人，姓王。）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(金門王: A Jīnmén person with surname Wáng.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「牽」並不一定是手牽手。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;牽 does not have to be hand in hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;code&gt;他用狗鏈牽著狗散步&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;He walks the dog on a leash&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;影片中（1:00 - 1:12），金門王用手搭在李炳輝肩上。這就是一種「牽」。和跳舞無關。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In the MV (1:00 - 1:12), Jīnmén Wáng puts his hand on Lǐ Bǐnghuī's shoulder. This is a kind of 牽. It has nothing to do with dancing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小學五年級時，因為一時的好奇，出生在戰地的金門王誤觸一枚信管而炸斷了左手，並且造成雙眼的失明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜歡音樂的他，在好友李炳輝的帶領下，來到了&lt;strong&gt;淡水&lt;/strong&gt;，開始了二十多年在茶室裡的走唱生涯。&#xA;帶著幾許滄桑的歌聲，他們唱出了市井小民的心聲和辛酸。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;後來，透過歌手陳明章（本歌的作者）的引薦，兩人合作的第一張專輯「流浪到淡水」，紅遍了大街小巷。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During his fifth year of primary school, because of a momentary curiosity, Jinmen Wang, who was born on a battle field, accidentally hit a fuse, and lost his left hand and both eyes' sight in the explosion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since he liked music, under his friend Li Binghui's guide, he came to &lt;strong&gt;Danshui&lt;/strong&gt;, and began singing of his life in tea rooms for over 20 years. With a few worldly songs, they sang the common people's feelings and bitterness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, through a recommendation of the singer Chén Míngzhāng (the author of this song), those two people's first album &quot;Roaming to Danshui&quot; became popular all over the city.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hyes.tyc.edu.tw/~sk7/s60.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ref&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-11-20T10:12:02.013" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T10:12:02.013" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27654" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-18T01:25:27.837" Score="0" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;《诗经》共有风、雅、颂三个部分，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they just chapter titles? Do they have more significance? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2017-11-18T02:38:02.203" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T13:38:55.057" Title="What do 风、雅、颂 refer to in 《诗经》" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27650" CreationDate="2017-11-18T02:36:25.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, as in other languages, adjectives can come before or after a noun:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That woman (is) beautiful.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那位女士很漂亮。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That beautiful woman.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那位漂亮的女士是我的女朋友！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Simple_%22noun_%2B_adjective%22_sentences&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for some tips.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English has all kinds of suffixes to change words from noun to verb to adjective to adverb and back again. Chinese does not do that. This begs the question, 'How do you identify which word is what in Chinese sentences?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生活奢侈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是否生活奢侈，却对有需要的人不闻不问？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you live in luxury, not caring about the needy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can translate 生活奢侈 as 'live luxuriously' or 'live in luxury'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的生活很奢侈。 His life(style) is luxurious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas 'His life is luxury.' means 'the goal and sole aim of his life is to attain and enjoy luxury'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奢侈品 is a compound noun 'luxury goods'. Chinese makes no distinction between luxury and (luxury + -ous) = luxurious and in 'luxury goods', neither does English! While the phrase 奢侈的品 is unlikely or at least unusual, 奢侈的 is not unusual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1。 谁会为她奢侈的假日买单？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Who is paying for her extravagant holiday?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in 2。,  奢侈的 is probably not an adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2。 你能分出慷慨与奢侈的区别吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Can you tell the difference between generosity and luxury?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Not: *Can you tell the difference between generosity and luxurious difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how do you know what kind of word you are dealing with? Could you write a computer program to do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T02:36:25.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27654" CreationDate="2017-11-18T06:32:42.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;風 is general mood (風氣), or social custom (風俗).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in ancient times, there're regional differences between vassal states (諸侯國); after confucius's editing, fifteen &quot;lessons from the state&quot; (國風) were preserved. each groups of poems from the vassal state, shown that particular state's social custom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雅 is odes of the kingdom (周朝), where the ruler were.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;頌 is odes for the purpose of praising in the ancestral temple (宗廟).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the contents, styles of these three groups of poems / odes are significantly different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T06:32:42.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27658" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27659" CreationDate="2017-11-18T11:37:45.730" Score="1" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible I'm reading too much into this, but there seems to be a lot of body parts which contain the 月 radical:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%85%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;腿&lt;/a&gt; (tuǐ) = leg&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%84%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;脚&lt;/a&gt; (jiǎo) = foot&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%85%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;腰&lt;/a&gt; (yāo) = waist (also &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%85%B0%E9%83%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;腰部&lt;/a&gt; (yāobù))&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%84%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;脸&lt;/a&gt; (liǎn) = face&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%83%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;胸&lt;/a&gt; (xiōng) = chest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%82%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;股&lt;/a&gt; (gǔ) = thigh (also &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A4%A7%E8%85%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大腿&lt;/a&gt; (dàtuǐ))&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%83%B3%E8%86%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;胳膊&lt;/a&gt; (gēbó) = arm&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%84%82%E8%82%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;脂肪&lt;/a&gt; (zhīfáng) = body fat&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%82%9D%E8%84%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;肝脏&lt;/a&gt; (gānzàng) = liver&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%86%80%E8%83%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;膀胱&lt;/a&gt; (pángguāng) = bladder&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%84%96%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;脖子&lt;/a&gt; (bózi) = neck&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%82%9A%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;肚子&lt;/a&gt; (dùzi) = abdomen&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%84%91%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;脑子&lt;/a&gt; (nǎozi) = brain&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%85%8B%E4%B8%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;腋下&lt;/a&gt; (yèxià) = armpit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%86%9D%E7%9B%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;膝盖&lt;/a&gt; (xīgài) = knee&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%82%8C%E8%82%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;肌肉&lt;/a&gt; (jīròu) = muscle&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%89%8B%E8%85%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;手腕&lt;/a&gt; (shǒuwàn) = wrist&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%82%A9%E8%86%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;肩膀&lt;/a&gt; (jiānbǎng) = shoulder&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B1%81%E8%82%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;屁股&lt;/a&gt; (pìgu) = bottom&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9A%AE%E8%82%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;皮肤&lt;/a&gt; (pífū) = skin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%89%8B%E8%82%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;手肘&lt;/a&gt; (shǒuzhǒu) = elbow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%84%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;脉&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%83%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;胆&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%82%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;肠&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%85%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;腑&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%84%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;脬&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%85%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;腱&lt;/a&gt;.  You get the idea; there's lots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a reason the 月 radical occurs many times in body part names?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's others that don't have it, e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A4%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;头&lt;/a&gt; (tóu) = head, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9C%BC%E7%9D%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;眼睛&lt;/a&gt; (yǎnjing) = eyes, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%80%B3%E6%9C%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;耳朵&lt;/a&gt; (ěrduo) = ear.  Nevertheless, 月 does seem surprisingly common among body parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T15:57:23.760" Title="Is there a reason the 月 radical occurs many times in body part names?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-11-19T00:28:18.773" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27658" CreationDate="2017-11-18T12:32:38.000" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Similar questions have been asked in both &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/7236/why-is-%E6%9C%88-used-when-speaking-about-anatomy/7237#7237&quot;&gt;Chinese&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/44763/is-there-any-reason-a-lot-of-body-parts-use-the-month-moon-radical/44766#44766&quot;&gt;Japanese&lt;/a&gt; StackExchange before. In summary, what appears as &lt;strong&gt;月&lt;/strong&gt; in &lt;em&gt;printed&lt;/em&gt; text is actually the graphical merger between &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%82%89#Translingual&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;⺼&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (simplified form of &lt;strong&gt;肉&lt;/strong&gt; (meat; flesh)) and 月 (moon). Traditionally, you wouldn't handwrite characters with the ⺼ radical with two horizontal lines as the inner two strokes; they would be diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The similarity in appearance is normally not a source of confusion, as the vast majority of characters which contain a ⺼ component does not have ⺼ appearing on the right, and the vast majority of characters which have a proper 月 component appears on the right, with some rare exceptions (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/27503/whats-the-differece-between-%E6%9C%98-u6718-and-%E8%84%A7-u8127/27551#27551&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a final note, if you wish to understand why characters are written a certain way, looking at the Simplified Chinese form is generally not helpful. &lt;strong&gt;头&lt;/strong&gt; has undergone a very contrived simplification from the traditional &lt;strong&gt;頭&lt;/strong&gt; (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/24660661&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; excellent answer on Zhihu), and like 頭, characters to do with 'head' may be written with the &lt;strong&gt;頁&lt;/strong&gt; component instead of ⺼ (e.g. &lt;strong&gt;頸&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;neck&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2017-11-18T15:57:23.760" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T15:57:23.760" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27485" CreationDate="2017-11-18T13:56:14.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answer has dealt with &lt;strong&gt;開&lt;/strong&gt;, so this answer is in response to your other query (&quot;&lt;em&gt;研&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;is written strangely too&lt;/em&gt;&quot;). &lt;strong&gt;研&lt;/strong&gt; is traditionally written &lt;strong&gt;硏&lt;/strong&gt;, which is what the image shows. 硏 is a semantophonetic character comprised of &lt;strong&gt;石&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;幵&lt;/strong&gt;, where 幵 (graphically, two 干 side-by-side; pinyin: jiān, qiān) provides the sound of 研. Note that the character has nothing to do with &lt;strong&gt;开&lt;/strong&gt; in the sense of the meaning &lt;em&gt;open&lt;/em&gt;; this sense is strictly a Simplified Chinese invention (i.e. not applicable to all other characters containing 开 bar 开 itself), and traditionally 开 is just a graphical simplification of 幵.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that all characters &lt;em&gt;actually&lt;/em&gt; containing 开 traditionally came from 幵 (e.g. 形). Note that &lt;strong&gt;開&lt;/strong&gt; does not actually contain the component 开/幵, but is derived from the components &lt;strong&gt;閂&lt;/strong&gt; (a bolted/latched/locked door) and &lt;strong&gt;廾&lt;/strong&gt; (two hands), indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;two hands opening a latched door --&gt; open&lt;/em&gt;. This is most obvious in some ancient forms of the character, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jlUpW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jlUpW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From all this, you can gather that the text in your first image is written in Traditional Chinese shorthand, not Simplified Chinese. &lt;strong&gt;現&lt;/strong&gt; appears as-is (not simplified) and &lt;strong&gt;学, 门&lt;/strong&gt; has long been used as shorthand versions of &lt;strong&gt;學, 門&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2017-11-18T14:28:51.887" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T14:28:51.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27662" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27663" CreationDate="2017-11-18T20:42:28.410" Score="1" ViewCount="668" Body="&lt;p&gt;An English translation of  &quot;听上去不错&quot; is &quot;sounds good&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand ”不错“ as &quot;not bad&quot;, i.e. &quot;good&quot; (the literal expression &quot;not bad&quot; is quite common in Britain and has the same meaning).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't understand why and how &quot;上去&quot; function in this saying. Can someone please explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In more detail, I understand the individual meaning of these characters but not why together, with 听, they equate to &quot;sound&quot; in the phrase &quot;sound good&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18152" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-18T20:53:52.060" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T04:41:23.253" Title="What is the grammar behind &quot;上去“ in 听上去不错?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27662" CreationDate="2017-11-18T21:28:41.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;上去 here functions as preposition (to),  in this case, the object 'words' is omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听 (listen) + 上去 (to) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(听&lt;strong&gt;上去&lt;/strong&gt;)不错 = &quot;It is not bad (listen &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; it).&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of other [verb +上去] phrases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;看上去 (look at it)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;摸上去 (touch on it)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can use 起来 instead of 上去 in this sentence&#xA;- (听起来)不错 = &quot;It is not bad (listening to) it. &quot;&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-18T22:46:19.430" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T22:46:19.430" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27664" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27665" CreationDate="2017-11-18T23:24:29.407" Score="1" ViewCount="965" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference the following sentences? They seem the same to me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你吃饭没有?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你吃饭了没有?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17614" LastActivityDate="2019-01-01T09:05:51.770" Title="What is the difference between 没有 vs 了没有in sentence?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27664" CreationDate="2017-11-19T03:31:20.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你吃饭没有?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你吃饭了没有?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are correct! Both are natural and mean the same thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also say 你吃饭没?, 吃饭没？， 吃饭了没？, 吃完饭没？，... Those colloquial sentences are used in daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T03:31:20.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27662" CreationDate="2017-11-19T04:41:23.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... with 听, they equate to &quot;sound&quot; in the phrase &quot;sound good&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This interpretation is not correct. 听 itself just means 'to listen'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 'sound' is defined in merriam-webster dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to make or convey an impression especially when heard; i.e. &lt;em&gt;it sounds&#xA;  good to me&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;to make or convey an impression especially when heard&quot; is the exact equivalence of 听上去 or 听起来 in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听 is a verb. 上去/起来 is a verb complement here, expressing/implying what your impression is after you heard something or what you feel after you heard it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T04:41:23.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27667" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27672" CreationDate="2017-11-19T06:53:57.340" Score="1" ViewCount="552" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youdao.com/example/blng/eng/%E4%B8%8A%E8%AF%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao.com&lt;/a&gt; (sourced from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bigear.cn/res-1679-7777700080311.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;BigEar.cn&lt;/a&gt;) gives the example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢你上课&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I like your class&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ xǐhuān nǐ shàngkè&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not confident this translation is accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ordinarily &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/%E6%88%91%E4%B8%8A%E8%AF%BE/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;我上课&lt;/a&gt; means &quot;I am attending class&quot;, so 你上课 should mean &quot;you are attending class&quot;.  Therefore, 我喜欢你上课 should mean &quot;I like it when you go to class&quot; (or something similar like &quot;I'd like for you to attend class&quot; or &quot;I'd like you to go to class&quot; or &quot;I like that you go to class&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does 我喜欢你上课 mean &quot;I like your class&quot; or something like &quot;I like it when you go to class&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T03:47:12.027" Title="Does 我喜欢你上课 mean &quot;I like your class&quot; or something like &quot;I like it when you go to class&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27664" CreationDate="2017-11-19T07:17:56.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In these two sentences the meaning are the same. But“了没有” is not a commonly used phrase. “了” is a word which is used for making the sentence more convenient to speak out orally. “了” itself has no real particular meaning in many sentences    ,including this one. But it can also translated as a past tense. Also in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18229" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T07:17:56.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27667" CreationDate="2017-11-19T07:43:40.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我喜欢你上&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;课&quot; = &quot;I like the class you go to&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我喜欢你上课&quot; doesn't seem to be a complete sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;YouDao.com (sourced from BigEar.cn) gives the example sentence: 我喜欢你上课&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means &quot; I like you going to class&quot;.  Certainly not &quot;I like your class&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T07:43:40.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27667" CreationDate="2017-11-19T08:33:06.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;上课&lt;/strong&gt; can mean both taking lessons and giving lessons, depending on whether the subject is a student or a teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Question: Does 我喜欢你上课 mean &quot;I like your class&quot; or something like &quot;I like it when you go to class&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without any context, it can mean both, but the former one tends to be more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T08:33:06.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27667" CreationDate="2017-11-19T08:40:49.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢你上课&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of time, it means 我喜欢你上的课 &quot;I like you to teach the class， instead the class is taught by other teachers&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It rarely means &quot;I like you to take the class&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T08:40:49.547" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26902" CreationDate="2017-11-19T11:29:35.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given that languages are living things this gets arbitrarely twisted. An example of a Cantonese/English phonetical loanword borrowed into colloqial Mandarin is 的士 (Taxi), used in Beijing as 去的士 (taking a Taxi ride).&#xA;You may also assume that your mothers Cantonese is not up to date and many colloquial expressions you learned have fallen out of fashion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18407" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T11:29:35.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27674" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-19T15:32:03.523" Score="-1" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to translate this into Chinese but I don't know if my translation is correct. Please make the necessary corrections if needed. It's a poem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Relationships, of all kinds, are like sand held in your hand. Held loosely, with an open hand, the sand remains where it is. The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers. You may hold on to some of it, but most will be spilled. A relationship is like that. Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and its lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;各种关系就像手中的沙子一样。松散地举起，张开手，砂仍然在那里。当你闭上你的手紧紧握住时，沙子就会通过你的手指流下。你可以坚持一些，但大多数会被泄漏。关系就是这样。松散地举行，尊重和自由的对方，它可能保持完好。但是，也要坚持得过于紧张，这种关系就会消失，失去了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17708" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-11-20T10:22:27.443" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T21:04:22.613" Title="Is my translation correct? If not, please correct me" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27674" CreationDate="2017-11-19T18:12:11.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Relationships, of all kinds, are like sand held in your hand.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;各种关系就像手中的沙子一样。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'关系' in Chinese does not automatically imply 'relationship between people' you have to spell it out like '人与人的关系'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人与人的关系就像手中的沙子一样&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Held loosely, with an open hand, the sand remains where it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;松散地举起，张开手，砂仍然在那里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No problem here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;松散地举起，张开手，砂仍然在那里。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;当你闭上你的手紧紧握住时，沙子就会通过你的手指流下。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通过你的手指 could mean through your fingers like bullet goes through a wall, better make it clear that it is 'between your fingers  '从你的手指之间'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;当你闭上你的手紧紧握住时，沙子就会从你的手指之间流下。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You may hold on to some of it, but most will be spilled.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;你可以坚持一些，但大多数会被泄漏&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'hold on to' here means 'to keep' not ' to persist' therefore, the Chinese translation should be '保留' not '坚持'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'一些' means 'some' , but It can be mistaken for an adverb (a little) for '坚持'  I think '一小部分'(a small part) sound better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泄漏 mainly means 'leak' (of information), It is better to use '溜走' (slip away)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你可以保留一小部分，但大多数会溜走&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A relationship is like that. Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;关系就是这样。松散地举行，尊重和自由的对方，它可能保持完好&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;举行 mainly means 'to hold' (an event) , it is better to use '维持'(maintain)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尊重 is a verb, 自由 is a noun. '尊重和自由的对方' should be changed to '尊重和给予对方自由'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尊重 along as a clause has only one word, and is very odd as an expression. Meanwhile, it can mean &lt;em&gt;respect loosely&lt;/em&gt; because it is immediately after 松散地维持&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A dash or a comma is more appropriate in this context, as the two sentences belong to one group (意群)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the original sentence features the three aspects as the conditions for intact relationships. 便能 can reflect this as it include a implicit meaning of &lt;em&gt;thus&lt;/em&gt;. 就能 serves as &lt;em&gt;thus&lt;/em&gt; as well, but too explicit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人与人的关系就是这样——松散地维持，相互尊重，并给予对方自由，它便能保持完好&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and its lost.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;但是，也要坚持得过于紧张，这种关系就会消失，失去了。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也要 means 'also' ; 'too' in 'too tightly' is '太'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;但是，太坚持，太紧张，人際关系就会一一消失而去&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is your work, I don't want to rewrite it for you. Therefore I only  make corrections  that's absolutely necessary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T21:04:22.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27676" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27680" CreationDate="2017-11-19T21:14:34.890" Score="2" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I know a fair amount of Mandarin speaking people, and I notice that for some of them they do not pronounce the silent initials like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'y'i&#xA;'y'ing&#xA;'y'in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;however, my other Mandarin speaking friends actually do pronounce the initials. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read through my textbooks and it says they should be silent so I'm a bit confused here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am then assuming that for example that it is correct to pronounce 意思 is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;ee se&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;yee se&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17614" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T02:04:15.183" Title="In daily casual conversations in Mandarin are silent initials often ommitted or spoken?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27667" CreationDate="2017-11-19T23:07:03.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without more context, it's just a guessing game, but I would bet on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢你上课。 (你很好伙子！)&#xA;I'm pleased (that) you go to class. (You're a good lad!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/c/72/114289.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/c/72/114289.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜欢(2) [happy;elated]∶愉快;高兴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knee-jerk reaction 喜欢 == like may be misleading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like your class.&#xA;我喜欢你的课。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm glad you've come to class.&#xA;我很高兴你来上课！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T23:07:03.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27678" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27679" CreationDate="2017-11-20T00:09:17.893" Score="1" ViewCount="659" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other day, someone sent me a WeChat sticker which implied I was &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B8%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;帅&lt;/a&gt; (shuài; handsome).  I wasn't exactly thrilled by this, since being called &quot;handsome&quot; in English implies you're kind of mannish.  However, they insisted that women can be called 帅, possibly in an effort to save face.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does describing a woman as 帅 imply she is mannish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judging from &lt;a href=&quot;https://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&amp;amp;word=%E5%B8%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Images&lt;/a&gt;, it seems to be a very masculine word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thefreedictionary.com/mannish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mannish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: (of a woman) having or displaying qualities regarded as typical of a man.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T06:53:28.010" Title="Does describing a woman as 帅 (shuài; handsome) imply she is mannish?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27678" CreationDate="2017-11-20T01:18:21.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;帅&lt;/strong&gt; can also mean &lt;em&gt;cool&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even when referring to men it doesn’t necessarily equate 100% to handsome because it could also mean &lt;em&gt;cool&lt;/em&gt; as well based on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phrases like: 太帅了 also mean &lt;em&gt;cool&lt;/em&gt; not handsome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most likely when used with a woman it just means she’s pretty cool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If people were going to be mean and say a girl looked like a man they’d probably say something like 男人婆.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T01:18:21.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27676" CreationDate="2017-11-20T01:26:07.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if you meant the English or Chinese pronunciation of 'y'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;y, in Chinese, is just pronounced as 'ee'.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 意思 should be pronounced as 'yi4 si', like 'ee se' in English.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T01:26:07.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27678" CreationDate="2017-11-20T01:43:54.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally, I think your friend was just trying to be a bit joking, and especially he/she used a WeChat sticker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it's commonplace to use 帅 for a man, it's still possible that girls use it among their friends. It could be a joking way to say 'cool' among the girls.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, the word 'dude' in English is usually used by men. But I see a woman colleague used it a lot. I think it has some funny effect because of 'that unusual'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T01:43:54.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27676" CreationDate="2017-11-20T02:04:15.183" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pinyin&lt;/em&gt; is just a guide and cannot be taken literally. Most initials should be taken fairly straightforwardly though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Y on the other hand shouldn’t.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at the ipa for 意:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/i⁵¹/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there is only an: i.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Y basically equals i.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next look at the ipa for 因:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/in⁵⁵/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again y basically equals i.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yi is easily said that the y is silent but if you take something where the final doesn’t start with i like 羊/阳/洋 ipa becomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/i̯ɑŋ³⁵/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It still maintains this i sounding initial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T02:04:15.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27683" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-20T05:07:28.810" Score="0" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you help identify the artist?  The art was framed back in 1952 by the Jean Bohem Gallery in New York City.  These are on scroll paper which is attached to something (cloth/ linen?) Beautiful Chinese rubbing of two of the Emperor's horses.  I matched up the calligraphy and I believe that portions identifies the horses, Baitiwu (白蹄烏) and Shifachi 什伐赤.  I am not able to identify the artist mark in red?  Can anyone translate that or do you recognize what it says? &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PImkh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;enter image description here&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JEKqS.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JEKqS.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18411" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T14:14:15.150" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T14:14:15.150" Title="Can you help identify the artist for these Taizong horse rubbings? (Characters identified: 長安市隱李月溪手搨金石章)" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27683" CreationDate="2017-11-20T05:54:13.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the characters of the picture are 长安市隐李月溪手搨金石章.it is a seal or stamp of a person whose name is 李月溪 Li Yuexi.you can google him if you want to know more.I think the two horses you mentioned are from a tomb of a chinese emperor name 李世民 Li Shimin.I heard the relievoes were sold from china since early last century.It is not good.As a chinese I think you should return the paper to my country.I am not good at english.if you can speak chinese and want to know more about this please contact me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T05:54:13.430" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27678" CreationDate="2017-11-20T05:59:53.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes.it is not good to say a woman or girl 帅.it is only to discribe man.some feminist may insist that you can use it to discribe a woman or a girl,yes,if she is a lesbian,and she is the man in her relationship.normal woman wont be happy to be discribed 帅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T05:59:53.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27678" CreationDate="2017-11-20T06:53:28.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. As for me, '帅' used on a women &lt;strong&gt;does&lt;/strong&gt; imply that there is a sense of masculine beauty or character on her which is not common for women, particularly when she does some perfect job which would seem harder for women in traditional Chinese view (e.g. some physical work, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of people around me have said that western women tend to be more &quot;independent of men&quot; or rely less on men than Chinese women do (no offense...), so it is natural for a Chinese to feel a western woman shows more masculine beauty than feminine, or is more '帅', as compared with Chinese women.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T06:53:28.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27266" CreationDate="2017-11-20T07:21:51.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The essential part for military drills is to sound loud and vibrant. It is hard to sound loudly when the drill is given in tones rising and falling, so all the characters in drills are pronounced in a level tone, only with the pitch varying. So those of higher pitch will seem like the #1 tone, and those lower pitch will seem like the #3 tone as compared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;向右转 443 -&gt; 331 “想有——专——” or 131 “香有——专——”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;齐步走 243 -&gt; 331 “起补——邹——” or 131 “七补——邹——”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T07:21:51.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26828" CreationDate="2017-11-20T10:17:36.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning of the last sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果沒有線，要如何補被單？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How do I mend the sheets if there is no thread?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we put it in Min Nan, the sentence is 若無線，怎樣補被單.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, we can use 添 instead of 補 in 閩南語.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YRw5f.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YRw5f.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it becomes 若無線，怎樣添被單.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUzXiO5Yl-Y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;nā bô suànn, tsuánn iūnn thinn phuē tuann?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2019-01-21T14:52:32.857" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T14:52:32.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27690" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-20T14:05:40.310" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;据上海迪士尼乐园度假区方面消息，从2017年11月15日起，上海迪士尼乐园对游客须知进行调整，禁止游客携带食品和酒精饮料入园，非酒精饮料容量不得超过600毫升。&lt;strong&gt;而在此前&lt;/strong&gt;，迪士尼乐园允许未拆封的食品入园。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the meaning of 此前, which means &quot;before this&quot; or &quot;until this&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what is the meaning of 而在此前, specifically 而在? I feel that 而在 were to be omitted, the sentence would make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is the 而在 needed here? And if so, what is the meaning and how does it function grammartically in the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T04:00:36.610" Title="What does 而在此前 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27690" CreationDate="2017-11-20T14:44:01.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;而: 然而 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在: 在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此: 这&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前: 之前&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而在此前 = 然而在这件事发生之前&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而在 can be omitted, then it will be 这件事之前.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T14:44:01.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27692" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-20T16:37:47.387" Score="0" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it meaningful to say &quot;谢&quot; only? Google Translate implies that it may also mean &quot;wither&quot;. I want to use it to say &quot;thanks&quot; instead of both characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for single characters that I can use for some mandarin emojis, one of which is to mean &quot;thankyou&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18415" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T03:47:06.550" Title="Can 谢谢 be abbreviated to a single syllable 谢?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27692" CreationDate="2017-11-20T16:39:32.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say &lt;em&gt;谢了&lt;/em&gt; to mean thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T16:39:32.370" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27694" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-20T18:45:10.097" Score="1" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried to research this topic for many nights, but I cannot&#xA;find any resources. I know it's a very old but i've always been&#xA;intrigued by Tangut.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More specifically, i'd like to go about learning the script, rather&#xA;than the language (Although the language would be a nice bonus).&#xA;This may come off as ignorant, but I assure you i'm genuinely intereted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18417" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T18:45:10.097" Title="How To Go About Learning Tangut" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-11-23T14:45:35.333" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27696" CreationDate="2017-11-20T19:08:33.717" Score="5" ViewCount="819" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I can tell, &lt;code&gt;一个年&lt;/code&gt; is completely wrong because you can never use a classifier together with &lt;code&gt;年&lt;/code&gt;. The situation is different from a phrase like &lt;code&gt;一个朋友&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: why? Is there a reason why &lt;code&gt;年&lt;/code&gt; is different from &lt;code&gt;朋友&lt;/code&gt; like this? Are there other nouns which behave like &lt;code&gt;年&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is &lt;code&gt;年&lt;/code&gt; really syntactically more like &lt;code&gt;个&lt;/code&gt;? Is &lt;code&gt;年&lt;/code&gt; actually usable as a measure word? Can you for example say &lt;code&gt;一年时间&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;两年工作&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15898" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-11-21T16:48:39.220" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T03:17:54.533" Title="What's wrong with 一个年?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27695" CreationDate="2017-11-20T19:50:19.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot say 一个年, but you can say 一个年头 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 年 and 年头 had been explained here  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/21066/understanding-%e5%b9%b4%e9%a0%ad-in-context/21068#21068&quot;&gt;Understanding 年頭 in context&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, 年 itself can be a classifier  '一年时间' and '两年工夫' are both valid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T19:50:19.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27692" CreationDate="2017-11-20T20:07:08.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use '谢' as a short form of the verb '感谢' and write 谢他 instead of 感谢他, but using it as a short form of the expression '谢了' or '谢谢' would sound very blunt. Why use a blunt tone when you try to express gratitude? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-21T03:47:06.550" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T03:47:06.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27692" CreationDate="2017-11-20T23:59:17.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it is not polite to use 谢 to someone.so if you really want to express your thankness,use 谢谢 or 谢谢你.谢了 is also not very polite but much better than 谢.in our culture,abbreviated words are usually used in the case when superior talk to subordinate or senior talk to junior,like father talk to son.if you want to show your respect to someone use more characters instead single,like if you want to say ok,use 好的 instead of 好.&#xA;and never use 谢他,it is the transcription of &lt;em&gt;shit&lt;/em&gt; in china.who told you use that must be joking you or he dont know chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T23:59:17.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27695" CreationDate="2017-11-21T00:05:39.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because 年 is a count word or classifier. In our language it is called 量词. You can't use a count word to count another count word, like we never say 一个粒 or 一条只. But you use the double count words to express &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt;, like 一年年 means every year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-22T03:17:54.533" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T03:17:54.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27695" CreationDate="2017-11-21T00:59:42.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the other answers said, 年 is a measure word when it refers to 'year', i.e. 一年时间, 两年工作.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, when 年 is used as a noun, it specifically refers to the Spring Festival, 新年.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在中国过了几个（新）年了？ // How many Spring Festivals have you spent in China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这（一）个年怎么过 or 这（一）个新年怎么过 // How are we going to celebrate this Spring Festivals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T00:59:42.497" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27701" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-21T01:34:02.500" Score="0" ViewCount="596" Body="&lt;p&gt;冲 is a word with many nuances. In my sentence, does this 冲着 have any sense of 'rush'? I take '冲着 ...... 去' to mean 'because' here, although maybe 'intent on', 'aiming at' might be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当初，你考美元的时候，是冲着美院油画系，但是您现在画的都是国画。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当初，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Originally,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你考美院的时候，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;when you took the Arts College entrance exam,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;是冲着美院油画系去的，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a) (that) was because you wanted to study oil painting,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;b) you were intent on the Faculty of Oil Painting,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;c) you were aiming at the Faculty of Oil Painting,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;但是您现在画的都是国画。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but now all you paint is Chinese Painting.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请别冲着我大喊大叫！冲着 = at&lt;br&gt;&#xA;海潮冲着峭壁。冲着 = dash against&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那幢房子冲着大海。冲着 = faces&lt;br&gt;&#xA;其实我就是冲着她来的。冲着 = for&lt;br&gt;&#xA;是冲着美院油画系去的，冲着 = because?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T05:01:34.270" Title="What is the meaning of 冲着" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27692" CreationDate="2017-11-21T02:03:54.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're talking or typing, a single 谢 is impolite. It feels like you're so unwilling to thank that you don't even want to say/type one more character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're using it in a symbol/icon/emoji picture, then it's OK, and won't cause any confusion, nobody would take it as &quot;wither&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T02:03:54.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27701" CreationDate="2017-11-21T02:46:53.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;冲 is merged from two different characters, 沖 and 衝, notice that 衝 was merged to 沖 and then simplified to 冲 in simplified Chinese. It is very common that using a simple homophone Chinese character replace another complex one in classic Chinese among ordinary people, this is one of the Chinese simplifying rules. We can see the meanings of the characters 冲 or 沖 is about &lt;strong&gt;water&lt;/strong&gt;, yes, it means water (verb), flush, etc. But 衝 is another verb, it means &lt;strong&gt;toward (for somebody or something)&lt;/strong&gt; generally. e.g.: 衝向/冲向: run toward, 衝動/冲动: impulse, 衝着/冲着: for (something).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;请别&lt;strong&gt;冲&lt;/strong&gt;着我大喊大叫/請別&lt;strong&gt;衝&lt;/strong&gt;著我大喊大叫:&lt;br&gt;Please don't shout &lt;strong&gt;at&lt;/strong&gt; me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;海潮&lt;strong&gt;冲&lt;/strong&gt;着峭壁/海潮&lt;strong&gt;沖&lt;/strong&gt;著峭壁:&lt;br&gt;The tide is &lt;strong&gt;eroding (flushing)&lt;/strong&gt; the cliff.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;那幢房子&lt;strong&gt;冲&lt;/strong&gt;着大海/那幢房子&lt;strong&gt;衝&lt;/strong&gt;著大海:&lt;br&gt;The house &lt;strong&gt;face to&lt;/strong&gt; the sea.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;其实我就是&lt;strong&gt;冲&lt;/strong&gt;着她来的/其實我就是&lt;strong&gt;衝&lt;/strong&gt;著她來的:&lt;br&gt;Actually I'm coming &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; her.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;是&lt;strong&gt;冲&lt;/strong&gt;着美院油画系去的/是&lt;strong&gt;衝&lt;/strong&gt;著美院油畫系去的:&lt;br&gt;(Someone) is going &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; oil painting department of fine arts academy.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second 冲 is corresponding to 沖 in traditional Chinese, the others are 衝.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2017-11-21T05:01:34.270" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T05:01:34.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27701" CreationDate="2017-11-21T02:55:10.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;冲 has two pronunciations chōng and chòng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冲 chōng(verb): rush; charge; pour boiling; flush; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冲 chòng（adj）: Strong(of smell); bluntly, ie 他说话很冲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冲 chòng（prep）: facing; towards; aim at(metaphorically);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冲南走 // go south&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冲前走 // go straight up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these example of yours, it means facing or towards(chòng):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请别冲着我大喊大叫！冲着 = at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那幢房子冲着大海。冲着 = towards; facing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;海潮冲着峭壁。冲着 = dash against, 冲 is pronounced as chōng(verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these examples, it means aim at(chòng)(verb):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其实我就是冲着她来的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是冲着美院油画系去的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, 冲 has some other meanings too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T02:55:10.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27705" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27706" CreationDate="2017-11-21T05:04:29.493" Score="5" ViewCount="1296" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/show-%E9%AA%91-9.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我并不否认，你姐姐老是象个暴君似的&lt;strong&gt;骑在我们头上&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't deny that your sister comes the mogul over us, now and then. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Wǒ bìng bù fǒurèn, nǐ jiějiě lǎo shì xiàng gè bàojūn shì de qí zài wǒmen tóu shàng.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems an unusual usage of &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%AA%91&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;骑&lt;/a&gt; (qí; to ride).  Usually, we e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%AA%91%E9%A9%AC&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;骑马&lt;/a&gt; (qí mǎ; ride a horse) or &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%AA%91%E8%87%AA%E8%A1%8C%E8%BD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;骑自行车&lt;/a&gt; (qí zìxíngchē; ride a bicycle), but in the above example, someone &amp;quot;rides on our heads&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;rides above our heads&amp;quot;.  It sounds metaphorical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 骑在 someone's 头上 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天津：江苏骑在我们头上打。 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2013-09-03/022028114427.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Tiānjīn: Jiāngsū qí zài wǒmen tóu shàng dǎ.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小羊骑在你头上打一字。 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1542413213157266107.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Xiǎoyáng qí zài nǐ tóu shàng dǎ yī zì.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骑在你头上真好玩。 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://yule.yjcf360.com/egaotupian/528724.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Qí zài nǐ tóu shàng zhēn hǎowán.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found &lt;a href=&quot;http://ask.yaolan.com/question/151007225657ec02b365.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; (我老公喜欢让我骑在他头上...) which sounds literal and sexual (among other examples).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T09:23:31.947" Title="What does 骑在 someone's 头上 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27705" CreationDate="2017-11-21T05:16:57.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;骑在 xxx 头上 has both literal meaning and figurative meaning. the literal is 'rides on xxx's heads'. The figurative is 'to bully xxx'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你姐姐老是象个暴君似的骑在我们头上 // your sister always bullies us like a 暴君 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我老公喜欢让我骑在他头上 // the literal meaning is used: rides on her husband's shoulder. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小羊骑在你头上打一字 // still literal meaning; the whole sentence is a riddle &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;骑在你头上真好玩 // more likely literal, but it's possible figurative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wrap it up. You have to determine in a given context if its literal or figurative meaning is used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T05:16:57.830" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27705" CreationDate="2017-11-21T07:55:43.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The figurative meaning  of 骑在~头上 (ride on top of someone) is not 'to bully ~' , It is 'to dominate/ to rule over' For example: &quot;Mr.A graduated one year before you(have been your senior schoolmate for all your college life); entered the same company one year before you and has always been your boss.&quot; -- You can say Mr.A  一直骑在你的头上 (always ride on top of you) meaning he's always been your boss or having authority over you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one day, you got promoted to higher position than Mr.A, then you are in fact 反过来骑在他头上 ( turn around and ride on top of him)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more example: &quot;他一直被妻子骑在头上&quot; (he has been ridden on top by his wife) meaning his wife is the head on the household over him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as she always at the top of the family, no matter how well she treats him, the fact that she's riding on top of him remains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-21T18:34:19.020" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T18:34:19.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27708" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27710" CreationDate="2017-11-21T08:33:39.707" Score="1" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chinese text book says this about using &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;什么的&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;and so on&quot;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/G7ddJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/G7ddJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;photo from Chinese text book&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I transcribe and translate this below (ignoring the first line; it's an example of using 什么的 continuing from the previous page):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%B3%A8%E6%84%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;注意&lt;/a&gt;：”什么的“&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8F%AA%E8%83%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;只能&lt;/a&gt;用于&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%89%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;物&lt;/a&gt;，不能用于人。&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BE%8B%E5%A6%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;例如&lt;/a&gt;，不能说：“我们&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%8F%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;班&lt;/a&gt;有&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%9F%A9%E5%9B%BD%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;韩国人&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%BE%8E%E5%9B%BD%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;美国人&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日本人&lt;/a&gt;什么的。” &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Attention: &quot;什么的&quot; can only be used with things, not with people.  For example, we cannot say &quot;our class has Korean people, American people, Japanese people, and so on.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Zhùyì: ”Shénme de“ zhǐnéng yòng yú wù, bùnéng yòng yú rén. Lìrú, bùnéng shuō: “Wǒmen bān yǒu Hánguórén, Měiguórén, Rìběnrén shénme de.”&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why can't we use 什么的 with lists of people, and what can we use instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book doesn't discuss why we can't say this, only that we can't.  I guess it's because it's impolite to say this, but I'm just guessing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also don't know what we can use as an alternative (e.g. 等等 instead of 什么的), since whatever reason we should not use 什么的 might also apply to the alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T09:20:56.867" Title="Why can't we use 什么的 (&quot;and so on&quot;) with lists of people, and what can we use instead?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27708" CreationDate="2017-11-21T08:41:46.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess it's because it's impolite to say this, but I'm just guessing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you guessed is right. More precisely, when &lt;code&gt;什么的&lt;/code&gt; is used for listing it has negative connotations. Such as the sentence you showed,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;课余时间写写信、打打球、洗洗衣服什么的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During spare time (I only) write letters, play balls, wash clothes, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[connotation]&lt;/strong&gt; I don't have much time to do those interesting things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means, according to the context, if it matches your intent you can also use it with people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an alternative &lt;code&gt;等等&lt;/code&gt; is fine, basically it's a neutral word, doesn't have any negative or positive connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T08:56:48.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27708" CreationDate="2017-11-21T09:02:31.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can't be used for people because 什么的 means &amp;quot;things like&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;写写信、打打球、洗洗衣服&lt;strong&gt;什么的&lt;/strong&gt; =  &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Things like&lt;/strong&gt; writing letter, playing basketball, washing clothes&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To list specific individuals, we can use '等人'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:  陈博士，李教授，王法官&lt;strong&gt;等人&lt;/strong&gt; (Dr. Chen, Professor Li, Judge Wang and &lt;strong&gt;others like them&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To list different kinds of people or things, we can use '之類'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'医生，律师 和警察&lt;strong&gt;之類&lt;/strong&gt; ' (&lt;strong&gt;people like&lt;/strong&gt; doctor, lawyer and police)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'足球，篮球 和网球&lt;strong&gt;之類&lt;/strong&gt;' (&lt;strong&gt;things like&lt;/strong&gt; football, basketball and tennis)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'and so on' = &amp;quot;等等&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'足球，篮球, 网球&lt;strong&gt;等等&lt;/strong&gt;' (football, basketball, tennis &lt;strong&gt;and so on&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'医生，律师, 警察&lt;strong&gt;等等&lt;/strong&gt;' (doctor, lawyer, police &lt;strong&gt;and so on&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To list different kinds of dishonorable people, we can use '之流'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &amp;quot;小偷, 騙子和走私客&lt;strong&gt;之流&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (&lt;strong&gt;the like of&lt;/strong&gt; thief, con man and  smuggler)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T09:20:56.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27711" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-21T14:40:33.583" Score="0" ViewCount="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;What conjunction could be used to express extension (of area):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In Moscow and also in the whole Russia there are lots of folk festivals being held.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I need construction for: &quot;In A &lt;strong&gt;and also&lt;/strong&gt; in the whole B ...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在莫斯科(而且?)在全部俄罗斯有很多民间节日.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T07:13:44.050" Title="Conjunction to express extension (of area) &quot;In Moscow and also in the whole Russia there are...&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27712" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27731" CreationDate="2017-11-21T19:56:00.150" Score="0" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am listening to a recording of the Analects in Mandarin recommended by several of my Chinese friends (so, good quality, I hope). In the 學而第一 there is the saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;子曰：「弟子入則孝，出則弟，謹而信，汎愛眾，而親仁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My inquiry concerns the pronunciation of 汎 here. The recording says fa4 but  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/kx/6C4E.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; only contains fan4。 Unihan, as part of pleco, also lists fa2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What pronunciation should I use when reciting the Analects in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T14:03:18.910" Title="Pronunciation of 汎 in the Analects" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27711" CreationDate="2017-11-21T23:09:38.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Moscow, as in other parts of Russia, there are many folk festivals.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在莫斯科和俄罗斯其它地区一样有很多民间节日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T23:09:38.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27711" CreationDate="2017-11-22T00:16:34.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;莫斯科 ~ 俄罗斯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由莫斯科(&lt;strong&gt;以至&lt;/strong&gt;)全俄罗斯 = From Moscow (&lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt;) the entire Russia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;look at Moscow first, and then extend your view to look at the entire Russia&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You cannot reverse the order and write &amp;quot;由全俄罗斯(&lt;strong&gt;以至&lt;/strong&gt;)莫斯科&amp;quot; because 莫斯科 is already included in 全俄罗斯&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;songyuanyao wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;在莫斯科(&lt;strong&gt;以及&lt;/strong&gt;)全俄罗斯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means &amp;quot;In Moscow (&lt;strong&gt;and also&lt;/strong&gt;) the entire Russia&amp;quot; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mainly indicate things happen in Moscow. Mentioning of Russia as a supplementary information. You cannot reverse the order and write &amp;quot;在全俄罗斯(&lt;strong&gt;以及&lt;/strong&gt;)莫斯科&amp;quot; because 莫斯科 is already included in 全俄罗斯&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage difference between 以至 and 以及:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;From Boston, New York, Chicago &lt;strong&gt;以至&lt;/strong&gt; the whole America&amp;quot; sounds natural. You are extending your view from one city to another and eventually extend to every city in the country&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;In Boston, New York, Chicago &lt;strong&gt;以及&lt;/strong&gt; the whole America&amp;quot; sound strange, It is easier just say &amp;quot;In the whole United States&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T07:13:44.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27715" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27718" CreationDate="2017-11-22T01:01:33.047" Score="1" ViewCount="383" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes when I take a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didi_Dache&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;滴滴打车&lt;/a&gt; taxi to the university campus, the driver asks me if I'm a student, and I reply something along the lines of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是老师&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I'm a teacher&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ shì lǎoshī&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, this is grammatically correct.  However, more than once, the driver replied:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你当老师&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You're a teacher&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Nǐ dāng lǎoshī&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It feels almost like they're correcting me, but I don't really understand why.  It's possible 我是老师 sounds more along the lines of what a child might say as it's very simple.  (It's also possible I simply misheard them.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 我是老师 or 我当老师?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among the zillions of meanings of &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%BD%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;当&lt;/a&gt;, one is &quot;to act as&quot;, so maybe 我当老师 has a meaning closer to &quot;I perform the role of a teacher&quot;.  But I still see no concrete reason that 我是老师 is wrong or inferior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2017-11-22T01:11:02.267" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T02:01:51.513" Title="What's the difference between 我是老师 or 我当老师?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27712" CreationDate="2017-11-22T01:03:56.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried some research and, according to another dictionary (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zidian.911cha.com/zi6c4e.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新华字典&lt;/a&gt;),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;汎&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  拼音fàn 注音ㄈㄢˋ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/sw/6C4E.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;说文解字&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;浮皃。从水凡聲。孚梵切&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and another &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/137871462_584699&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;live audio&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it should be pronounced as &lt;code&gt;fàn&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-11-22T01:11:37.377" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T01:11:37.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27715" CreationDate="2017-11-22T02:01:51.513" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;老师 = I &lt;strong&gt;am&lt;/strong&gt; a teacher&quot; It is completely correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当 is a verb that means 'to be/ working as/ take on the role or position of' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;当&lt;/strong&gt;老师= you &lt;strong&gt;being&lt;/strong&gt; a teacher&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;来当&lt;/strong&gt;老师 = you'll &lt;strong&gt;be&lt;/strong&gt; a teacher&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;去当&lt;/strong&gt;老师 = you go and &lt;strong&gt;be&lt;/strong&gt; a teacher&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;当上了&lt;/strong&gt;老师 = you've &lt;strong&gt;became&lt;/strong&gt; a teacher&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The driver's question &quot;你当老师?&quot; (you being a teacher?) was a rhetorical one. That imply &quot;It is hard to believe people as young as you would be a teacher.&quot; He could had asked &quot;你是老师?&quot; and the meaning would be the same.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T02:01:51.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27719" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-22T03:36:37.843" Score="2" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a more informal way than the standard 你好 to say &quot;hi&quot; or &quot;wazzup&quot; when meeting friends or equal age people of the same age, or is 你好 always appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T06:11:23.753" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T06:11:23.753" Title="Informal way of saying hello?" Tags="&lt;greetings&gt;&lt;informal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27720" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27724" CreationDate="2017-11-22T09:22:49.200" Score="0" ViewCount="650" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often when I interact with chinese folks coming from mainland China, they called cantonese &quot;white language&quot; (Ba Hua).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe my understanding is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone let me know if I'm mistaken and if not, why is it called &lt;code&gt;White language&lt;/code&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16176" LastEditorUserId="16176" LastEditDate="2017-11-22T10:20:55.980" LastActivityDate="2018-03-24T11:03:42.430" Title="Cantonese called white language by mainland chinese" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27721" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27726" CreationDate="2017-11-22T09:49:32.640" Score="0" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;My grammar could be wrong, but it feels like in Cantonese you would typically say something like 食多啲 to mean eat more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Doing_something_more_with_%22duo%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Mandarin grammar page&lt;/a&gt; says you should usually put 多 before the verb, not after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In English we like to say things like &quot;eat more&quot; and &quot;drink more beer&quot;&#xA;  and &quot;I need to exercise more.&quot; Notice that in every one of these&#xA;  cases, the word &quot;more&quot; (equivalent to this use of 多) comes after the&#xA;  verb in English. In Chinese, it's more natural to put the 多 before the&#xA;  verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Is my Cantonese grammar wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If not, does this mean Cantonese grammar and Mandarin grammar differ regarding 多?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T11:18:00.790" Title="Understanding how to use 多 properly" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27722" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27728" CreationDate="2017-11-22T09:51:32.820" Score="0" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word &lt;strong&gt;tradeoff&lt;/strong&gt; is not listed in Google nor in CantoDict.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it 折衷?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's the Cantonese translation?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's the Mandarin translation?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-11-22T15:28:42.197" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T02:20:46.317" Title="How to say tradeoff in Cantonese and Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27723" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27727" CreationDate="2017-11-22T09:54:26.523" Score="1" ViewCount="655" Body="&lt;p&gt;CantoDict lists 扔掉 as the translation for &quot;throw away&quot; as in &quot;throw away the can,&quot; but I often hear people use 扔 by itself or 掉 by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is 扔掉 the formal way of saying &quot;throw away&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference between using 扔 or 掉?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-11-22T15:28:15.630" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T15:28:15.630" Title="How to say throw away: 扔掉?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27720" CreationDate="2017-11-22T10:05:08.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Standard Cantonese speakers like myself sometimes call '广东话' as '白话', which literally means &amp;quot;plain speech&amp;quot;,  in contrast to all other regional dialects (方言) and local dialects (鄉下話) within Canton province.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;in Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, the language is referred to as &amp;quot;Guangdong speech&amp;quot; (广东话; 廣東話; Gwóngdūng wá)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Guangdong speech&amp;quot; (广东话; 廣東話) is &amp;quot;plain speech&amp;quot;(白话) to us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T10:05:08.530" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27725" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-22T10:19:24.463" Score="1" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL0CKd8cX5E&amp;amp;pbjreload=10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Min song mentioned in the title&lt;/a&gt; has the following lyrics (conformed to the &quot;guidelines&quot; of &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;台湾闽南语常用词辞典&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在阮的心目中&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  伊是一个男子汉&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  在阮的一生中&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  只爱伊一人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  伊的船只已经欲出航&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  毋知何时才会阁再入港&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  虽然装着笑容&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  来共伊相送&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  阿～～心爱的人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  暗中目箍红&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  踮故乡真稀微&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  孤单一个过日子&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  踮海边轻轻来&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  叫着伊名字&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  阮的心肝已经缀伊去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  毋知何时才会阁再相见&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  虽然装着笑容&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  来共阮安慰&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  阿～～心爱的人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  心肝像针威&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (Repeat first verse and first &quot;chorus&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the help of the above dictionary, I get the following Tai-lo:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tsāi gún ê sim-bo̍k-tiong&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I sī tsi̍t ê lâm-tsú-hàn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tsāi gún ê it-sing tiong&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tsí ài i tsi̍t lâng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I ê tsûn-tsiah í-king beh tshut-hâng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  M̄ tsai hô-sî tsiah ē koh-tsài li̍p-káng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Sui-liân tsng-tio̍h tshiò-iông&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Lâi kā i sio-sàng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ah~~ sim-ài ê lâng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Àm-tiong ba̍k-khoo âng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tiàm kòo-hiong tsin hi-bî&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Koo-tuann tsi̍t ê kuè li̍t-tsí&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tiàm hái pinn khin-khin lâi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Kiò-tio̍h i miâ-lī&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Gún ê sim-kuann í-king tuè i khì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  M̄ tsai hô-sî tsiah ē koh-tsài sio-kìnn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Sui-liân tsng-tio̍h tshiò-iông&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Lâi kā gún an-uì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ah~~ sim-ài ê lâng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Sim-kuann tshiūnn tsiam ui&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (Repeat first verse and first &quot;chorus&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I render this in English as follows (note that this is not literal because it's supposed to fit the original tune):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As far as my thoughts go&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  He is a hero for me&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  As far as my days go&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I'll love him alone&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  His boat's already about to leave&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I don't know when he can come back on land&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Though I make a happy face&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  As I see him off&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ah~~ he's my one love&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I'm crying secretly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Back home I'm so lonely&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Living my days all alone&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  And on the beach I call&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Call his name softly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  My heart has gone off to sea with him&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I don't know when I can see him again&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Though I make a happy face&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I now comfort myself&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ah~~ he's my one love&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (My heart is strong like a needle ??)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (Repeat first verse and first &quot;chorus&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, if there are any glaring mistakes in the above (keeping in mind it must fit the tune), please let me know. This question focuses on the sentence 心肝像针威. Now, 心肝 has a number of meanings, from &quot;heart&quot; to &quot;character&quot; to (in Min) &quot;mind&quot; to &quot;darling&quot;, so that's already a choice to make; 像 means &quot;like&quot;; 针 means &quot;needle&quot;; 威 is given as &quot;power&quot; by Wiktionary. Hence my translation in brackets. But what does this mean? Is &lt;code&gt;ui&lt;/code&gt; supposed to be 偎 as in &lt;a href=&quot;https://mojim.com/twy100026x33x30.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this song&lt;/a&gt;, with which this would be &quot;Heart like needle cuddle&quot;, or in English &quot;My heart feels like a needle is cuddling to it&quot;, implying utmost pain due to the needle stinging the heart? But then why do captions get it wrong? Also, I am skeptical of this guess since 偎 is not ui but ue (says Wiktionary at least), so it doesn't rhyme… Maybe it's even another character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-11-22T17:02:48.297" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T19:41:01.967" Title="About the last non-repeated sentence in 爱人是行船人" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27721" CreationDate="2017-11-22T10:41:48.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, 多(more) functions the same in both Cantonese and Mandarin  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Eat fish &lt;strong&gt;more often&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;= &quot;&lt;strong&gt;多&lt;/strong&gt;吃鱼&quot; (Mandarin) = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;多&lt;/strong&gt;食鱼&quot; (Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese term &quot;多啲&quot;(more) is equal to &quot;多些&quot;(more) in Mandarin. It can be placed before or after the verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;多些&lt;/strong&gt;吃鱼 = eat fish &lt;strong&gt;more often&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吃&lt;strong&gt;多些&lt;/strong&gt;鱼 = eat &lt;strong&gt;more&lt;/strong&gt; fish&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;多啲&lt;/strong&gt;食鱼 = eat fish &lt;strong&gt;more often&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;食&lt;strong&gt;多啲&lt;/strong&gt;鱼 = eat &lt;strong&gt;more&lt;/strong&gt; fish&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;The real difference between Cantonese and Mandarin here are '食' vs.'吃' ; '多啲' vs. '多些'&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-22T11:18:00.790" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T11:18:00.790" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27723" CreationDate="2017-11-22T10:55:21.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) Is 扔掉 the formal way of saying &quot;throw away&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'掉' in  '扔掉' is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;result complement&lt;/a&gt;, not a verb itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) Is there a difference between using 扔 or 掉?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;扔 mainly mean 'throw'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;掉 mainly mean 'drop' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can 扔 forward, backward, upward or downward; But you can only  掉 downward&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T10:55:21.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27722" CreationDate="2017-11-22T11:05:11.820" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Trade-off &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trade-off&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trade-off&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1 : a balancing of factors all of which are not attainable at the same time&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2 : a giving up of one thing in return for another : exchange&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trade-off as a noun is 代價 in both  Cantonese and Mandarin ('trade-off' basically means &quot;in exchange&quot; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Thicken the armor would provide better protection, but the &lt;strong&gt;trade-off&lt;/strong&gt; is your speed would slow down.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;加厚护甲会提供更好的保护，但&lt;strong&gt;代價&lt;/strong&gt;是你的速度会减慢。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use &quot;作為交換&quot; (in exchange) instead of &quot;代價是&quot; e.g. &quot;加厚护甲会提供更好的保护，但&lt;strong&gt;作為交換&lt;/strong&gt;, 你的速度会减慢。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-23T02:20:46.317" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T02:20:46.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27723" CreationDate="2017-11-22T13:27:35.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native Cantonese and I have always used 掉 to represent 'throw'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18254" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T13:27:35.277" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27719" CreationDate="2017-11-22T13:55:41.727" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say ‘嗨’, which is equivalent to ‘hi’ in English or ‘哈咯’ which translates to ‘hello’ or even ‘哟‘ like another user had mentioned in the comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18429" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T13:55:41.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27712" CreationDate="2017-11-22T13:57:21.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The important thing to realise is that &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt; descriptions of characters representing ancient words are prescriptive in accordance to ancient literature. This means that as long as you have the ancient text to back up your pronunciation, it makes no sense to question your choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first step is to determine what &lt;strong&gt;汎&lt;/strong&gt; actually means in this context. Remember that characters are not the same as (spoken) words; one word can potentially be represented by a multitude of characters. In this specific &lt;em&gt;Analects&lt;/em&gt; quote, &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/analects/xue-er?searchu=%E5%AD%90%E6%9B%B0%EF%BC%9A%E2%80%9C%E5%BC%9F%E5%AD%90%E5%85%A5%E5%89%87%E5%AD%9D%EF%BC%8C%E5%87%BA%E5%89%87%E5%BC%9F%EF%BC%8C%E8%AC%B9%E8%80%8C%E4%BF%A1%EF%BC%8C%E6%B1%8E%E6%84%9B%E7%9C%BE%EF%BC%8C%E8%80%8C%E8%A6%AA%E4%BB%81%E3%80%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ctext&lt;/a&gt; gives a vernacular translation of 汎 as &lt;strong&gt;廣&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;broad&lt;/em&gt;), and an English translation by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Legge&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;James Legge&lt;/a&gt; as &lt;em&gt;overflowing&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second step is to find written records of &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fanqie decompositions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; of this character, which will tell you how to pronounce it. The site that you linked in your question, zdic, normally has a Kangxi dictionary section for any character that you look up. For &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/kx/6C4E.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汎&lt;/a&gt;, we can see that several &lt;em&gt;Fanqie&lt;/em&gt; decompositions, along with the meaning of the character for that particular decomposition, have been given:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《集韻》竝孚梵切，音氾。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《說文》浮貌。一曰任風波自縱也。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;又汎灑也。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;又《揚子·方言》汎剽，輕也。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;又《廣韻》房戎切《集韻》《韻會》符風切《正韻》扶中切，竝音馮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;亦浮也。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;又《集韻》扶法切，音乏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;汎，聲微小貌。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一曰波急聲。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《玉篇》同渢，今爲汎濫字，通作泛。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the total options for pronunciation of 汎, as given by the Kangxi Dictionary, are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pronounce it like the character &lt;strong&gt;氾&lt;/strong&gt;, which could mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The appearance of floating, extended to mean &lt;em&gt;going with the flow&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Overflowing&lt;/strong&gt; (this matches James Legge's translation);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gentle, swift, nimble.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pronounce it like &lt;strong&gt;馮&lt;/strong&gt;, which could mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Float&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pronounce it like &lt;strong&gt;乏&lt;/strong&gt;, which could mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Small, quiet sounds;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The sound of rushing waves;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Same as &lt;strong&gt;渢&lt;/strong&gt; (float). (The rest of the line says that the meaning &lt;em&gt;flood; overflowing&lt;/em&gt; is contemporaneously written as &lt;strong&gt;泛&lt;/strong&gt;. This usually means that by the time of this reference, the meaning &lt;em&gt;flood, overflowing&lt;/em&gt; is no longer associated with the character, and the pronunciation bound to this meaning is also dropped.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From these given examples, the best choice is to pronounce it like &lt;strong&gt;氾&lt;/strong&gt;, which itself has multiple pronunciations; but a good dictionary will tell you that 氾 is used as a variant of 泛, which is unambiguously pronounced as &lt;strong&gt;fàn&lt;/strong&gt; in the sense of &lt;em&gt;to flood; to overflow&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most importantly, this only shows that pronouncing it like fàn &lt;em&gt;is not wrong&lt;/em&gt;, and does not mean that there aren't other choices available. As long as you can back it up with examples in literature, it cannot be deemed wrong. Unfortunately I could not find an example that shows that it should be pronounced &lt;strong&gt;fà&lt;/strong&gt;, but if an example exists, then it is also &lt;em&gt;not wrong&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2017-11-22T14:03:18.910" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T14:03:18.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27732" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27741" CreationDate="2017-11-22T15:27:32.370" Score="0" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin there are a variety of adjectives that express &amp;quot;rich&amp;quot; - 富，丰富，肥，充实，阔，丰盛，浓郁，富足，etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of them I believe don't fit in a person; 肥 is an equivalent to &amp;quot;fertile&amp;quot; in English, 浓郁 is &amp;quot;dense&amp;quot;, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can't decide which is the correct adjective among 富，丰富，富足，丰盛, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;年轻中国女人很___。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么华人那么___?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, which adjective is the most suitable to express &amp;quot;rich&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in these cases (irrespective of the term &amp;quot;rich&amp;quot;), how can I know which adjective is the most suitable in a context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T00:45:53.487" Title="Which adjective is the most suitable to express &quot;rich&quot; for a person?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27667" CreationDate="2017-11-22T18:27:34.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我喜欢你上课&quot; is usually said by teachers who would like you to attend class.But it is a little bit strange to say in this way. However, if you want to say 'I like your class' in chinese, you can say '我喜歡上你的課‘ instead. Which means you like and enjoy the class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18431" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T18:27:34.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27735" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27749" CreationDate="2017-11-22T20:06:12.540" Score="0" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading the following poem by Meng Haoran, whose translation is still troubling me. For a start I thought, I should identify the rhymes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;李氏园林卧疾&#xA;唐代：孟浩然&#xA;&#xA;我爱陶家趣，&#xA;园林无俗情。&#xA;春雷百卉坼，&#xA;寒食四邻清。 &#xA;伏枕嗟公干，&#xA;归山羡子平。&#xA;年年白社客，&#xA;空滞洛阳城。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Naively I was sure the rhymes should be 情，清，平，城. However, I thought there must be a way to test this. I know different rhyme dictionaries were developed by the Ancients, as the preferences changed over time. I thought 廣韻 was a famous one and I was lucky to find &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;file=77411&amp;amp;page=60&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this digitalisation &lt;/a&gt; online. I found the character 清 and was directed to the corresponding page of the dictionary. I expected a list of rhymes to 清， but I guess the result is something different, since there are lots of sentences like 「山海經曰⋯」. Some characters are printed bolder than others, but below them seems to be something other than a complete list of rhymes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how exactly to use the above or an other book to test if 清，情，平，城 were considered rhymes during Tang or at least Song?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T05:06:16.457" Title="How to identify rhymes in a Tang poem?" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27722" CreationDate="2017-11-22T22:44:47.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think you will find one Chinese equivalent for trade-off. In English you could also use disadvantage, downside, drawback, handicap, problem, weak point, trouble, nuisance, flaw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like 权衡 but I would not limit myself to that for a translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T22:44:47.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27738" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-22T22:59:59.410" Score="0" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm on Linux and using Sunpinyin and Linpinyin input methods. In both, when I input &quot;tai&quot; I never get any suggestion of the character that I somethimes want: 台. I must be doing something wrong, but what? How do I write 台?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I try to input it I get all other characters &quot;tai&quot; but not 台. I'm on Xubuntu 16.04 and using a &lt;code&gt;libpinyin&lt;/code&gt; based input method in &lt;code&gt;fcitx&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I changed to iBus input method with &quot;Intelligent pinyin&quot; and there everything works as expected with &quot;tai&quot;. Seems like it might be a bug in the version of Fcitx that's in the Debian repository.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="16210" LastEditDate="2017-11-27T03:39:11.930" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T03:39:11.930" Title="Why can't I write the character 台 in my pinyin input method?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27738" CreationDate="2017-11-22T23:24:34.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have Ubuntu 17.10, and using the Sunpinyin, it comes up right away as number 1 or 2: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gRCUy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gRCUy.png&quot; alt=&quot;IME output&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is your particular Linux version?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18432" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T23:24:34.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27735" CreationDate="2017-11-22T23:59:09.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the character's zdic entry, there is a section labelled &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/yy/57CE.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;音韻方言&lt;/a&gt;, which will have the character's rime group (韻目). In the 廣韻 section, &lt;strong&gt;城&lt;/strong&gt; is labelled under the header &lt;strong&gt;清&lt;/strong&gt;. Ctext further has a more organised version of &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/guangyun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣韻&lt;/a&gt;, which you can quickly Ctrl+F your way into &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/text.pl?node=296839&amp;amp;if=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;清&lt;/a&gt;, which will list all the characters under that rime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have some knowledge of other Chinese languages, or some understanding of how &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Xenic_pronunciations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sinoxenic vocabulary&lt;/a&gt; works in Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese, you can corroborate the fact that, at least in some non-Mandarin pronunciations, those characters that you listed did indeed rime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, 清 and 靑 did &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; rime in Guangyun, as evidenced by the fact that it had its own rime entry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T23:59:09.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27732" CreationDate="2017-11-23T00:45:53.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;年轻中国女人很___。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为什么华人那么___?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your context, among those words you listed,  only 富 is appropriate. 富 means 富有；有钱；having lots of money. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肥 can also fit, but it will mean fat, which would be an insult. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阔 might be also ok, meaning &quot;having lots of money or able to spend lots of money&quot;. But it's not that common as 富 or 有钱.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest 丰盛，浓郁，富足 are usually used to describe things, conditions and etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T00:45:53.487" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27742" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27775" CreationDate="2017-11-23T01:47:16.770" Score="2" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 一日千秋 a chengyu? I have tried searching for it using google with mixed results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is a chengyu, what is its grammatical function?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17290" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-11-23T20:53:23.623" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T06:24:56.797" Title="Is 一日千秋 a chengyu?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27742" CreationDate="2017-11-23T02:19:03.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Never heard of 一日千秋. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most likely, you're thinking of the idiom &quot;&lt;strong&gt;一日三秋&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; , which came from an expression &quot;一日不見，如隔三秋&quot; -- &quot;Not seeing (each other) for just one day, feels like it has been three autumns (three years)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一日三秋&quot; express the sentiment of &quot;time seems moving painfully slow when you are waiting anxiously&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T02:19:03.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27742" CreationDate="2017-11-23T03:09:24.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a chengyu. We always say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一日不见，如隔三秋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is you've been missing someone，and finally you see him or her, then that is always said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where did you find this expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15726" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-11-24T06:24:56.797" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T06:24:56.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27745" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27746" CreationDate="2017-11-23T03:54:07.037" Score="1" ViewCount="1086" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an example from my Chinese textbook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jyi6w.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jyi6w.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I transcribe it below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BE%8B%E5%A6%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;例如&lt;/a&gt;：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Lìrú:&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  丁波的姐姐又高又漂亮&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Dīngbō de jiějiě yòu gāo yòu piàoliang&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  马克又会&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉语&lt;/a&gt;又会&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%97%A5%E8%AF%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日语&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Mǎkè yòu huì hànyǔ yòu huì rìyǔ&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence takes me by surprise; it looks like an error to me.  I think 会汉语 (huì hànyǔ; &quot;can Chinese&quot;) should be 会说汉语 (huì shuō hànyǔ; &quot;can speak Chinese&quot;) or a variant like 会讲汉语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is 马克又会汉语又会日语 an error in my Chinese book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T09:04:38.460" Title="Is 马克又会汉语又会日语 an error in my Chinese book? Isn't 会汉语 incorrect?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27745" CreationDate="2017-11-23T03:57:32.040" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt; here is a verb meaning &lt;em&gt;to know&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two sample sentences from A Chinese-English Dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他还会两出京戏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā hái huì liǎng chū Jīngxì.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He knows a few airs of Beijing opera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我会英语, 不会日语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ huì Yīngyǔ, bù huì Rìyǔ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know English but not Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC dictionary defines it as &lt;em&gt;to understand&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;to grasp&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你会吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nǐ huì ma?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T03:57:32.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27745" CreationDate="2017-11-23T03:59:34.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's correct. Note that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/4F1A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;会&lt;/a&gt; doesn't mean &lt;code&gt;can&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;be able to&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;know&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;understand&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;grasp&lt;/code&gt; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(8) 懂得 [know]。如:他会英文;他会做思想工作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, &lt;code&gt;会说汉语&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;会讲汉语&lt;/code&gt; limits the ability to &lt;em&gt;speaking&lt;/em&gt; only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-11-23T04:05:46.293" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T04:05:46.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27748" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27750" CreationDate="2017-11-23T04:29:10.787" Score="1" ViewCount="800" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: In the grammar structure 又 [adjective] 又 [adjective], is there anything wrong with combining a negative adjective with a positive one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like it would make a confusing sentence to mix both positivity and negativity.  Such sentences might be better off being written using the grammar structure 虽然 ... 但是 ...  But perhaps they're perfectly okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples I made up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的女儿又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%BC%82%E4%BA%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漂亮&lt;/a&gt;又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%B7%98%E6%B0%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;淘气&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My daugther is both beautiful and naughty&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Wǒ de nǚ'ér yòu piàoliang yòu táoqì&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这辆车又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%BF%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;快&lt;/a&gt;又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%97%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;旧&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This car is both fast and old&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Zhè liàng chē yòu kuài yòu jiù&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的作业又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%9A%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;难&lt;/a&gt;又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%9C%89%E5%85%B4%E8%B6%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;有兴趣&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My homework is both difficult and interesting&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Wǒ de zuòyè yòu nán yòu yǒuxìngqù&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The examples I've read never seem to mix negative adjectives with positive ones.  Some examples I &amp;quot;borrowed&amp;quot; from jukuu.com:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他有点成问题，又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%87%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;懒&lt;/a&gt;、又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%82%8B%E9%81%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;邋遢&lt;/a&gt;、又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%8D%E8%AE%B2%E5%8D%AB%E7%94%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不讲卫生&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Tā yǒudiǎn chéng wèntí, yòu lǎn, yòu lātà, yòu bù jiǎng wèishēng&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%AB%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;高&lt;/a&gt;又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%98%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;瘦&lt;/a&gt;，穿得很差&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Tā yòu gāo yòu shòu, chuān dé hěn chà.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这就是为什么糖块是又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%BF%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;快&lt;/a&gt;又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A5%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;好&lt;/a&gt;的能量来源&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Zhè jiùshì wèishéme táng kuài shì yòu kuài yòu hǎo de néngliàng láiyuán&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她听说白兰德家族又&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%9C%89%E9%92%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;有钱&lt;/a&gt;又有&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%9C%B0%E4%BD%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;地位&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Tā tīngshuō báilándé jiāzú yòu yǒuqián yòu yǒudìwèi&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-08-22T00:19:07.877" Title="In the grammar structure 又 [adjective] 又 [adjective], is there anything wrong with combining a negative adjective with a positive one?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27735" CreationDate="2017-11-23T05:06:16.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;rhymes should be 情，清，平，城&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you guess it. the problem is, in mandarin, it's not; so, you want to testify it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fortunately, it's rhyming in &lt;strong&gt;cantonese&lt;/strong&gt;, even nowadays:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%83%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;情　ching4&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/cing4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B8%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;清　ching1&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/cing1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%B9%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;平　ping4&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/ping4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%9F%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;城　sing4&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/sing4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the above, sydney lau scheme is used, that 1 is high level tone, 4 is low level tone. the most important, these four are in level tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So, how exactly to use the above or an other book to test if 清，情，平，城 were considered rhymes during Tang or at least Song?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;frankly, when we read the poem by cantonese, we know it's in rhyming immediately, by the pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's a 首句平仄腳五言律詩, roughly, the first verse (首句) 4th, 5th character is level tone (平), non-level tone 仄; 8 verses, each has 5 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how to translate it, well, good luck lah :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ludi kun, some advices for you: use proper, authentic tools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for rime dictionary, i would recommend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kanji-database.sourceforge.net/dict/sbgy/v1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣韻上平聲卷第一&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kanji-database.sourceforge.net/dict/sbgy/v2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣韻下平聲卷第二&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kanji-database.sourceforge.net/dict/sbgy/v3.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣韻上聲卷第三&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kanji-database.sourceforge.net/dict/sbgy/v4.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣韻去聲卷第四&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kanji-database.sourceforge.net/dict/sbgy/v5.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣韻入聲卷第五&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;download these five xhtml files to your computer, then you can search it locally, off-line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in case, you want a pdf file of the oldest one (printed in 1169), try 鉅宋廣韻:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchives/0500000000/0511000000/00&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchives/0500000000/0511000000/00&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, there's &quot;刊謬補缺切韻&quot; by 王仁昫 of 唐 dynasty, well, i can find any copy online :( however, the hkcu has a &quot;唐寫全本王仁昫刊謬補缺切韻校箋&quot;, a revision of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T05:06:16.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27748" CreationDate="2017-11-23T05:16:36.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Question: In the grammar structure 又 [adjective] 又 [adjective], is there anything wrong with combining a negative adjective with a positive one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, there's something wrong with combining a negative adjective with a positive one in the [又 [adjective A] 又 [adjective B] structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is -- You can't do that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the examples you made up are wrong. [又(A) 又 (B)] is equal to [(A) and (B)] in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(A) and (B) have to be both positive or both negative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(both positive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[又(迅速)又(准确)] = [(fast) and (accurate)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't say  &quot;his punch is fast but accurate&quot; in English ; We only say &quot;his punch is fast and accurate&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(both negative)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[又(贪心)又(愚蠢)] = [(greedy) and (stupid)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't say &quot;this man is greedy but stupid&quot; in English; We only say &quot;this man is greedy and stupid&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(one positive, one negative)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[(迅速)但(不准确)] = [(fast) but (inaccurate)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't say &quot;his punch is fast and inaccurate&quot; in English. For the same reason, we don't say &quot;他的拳头又快速又不准确&quot; in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[(贪心)但(守法)]= [(greedy) but (law abiding)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't say &quot;he is greedy and law abiding&quot; in English. For the same reason, we don't say &quot;他又贪心又守法&quot; in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-23T05:29:22.010" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T05:29:22.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27751" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27752" CreationDate="2017-11-23T07:01:33.270" Score="0" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, you often say &quot;後尾&quot; to mean &quot;in the end.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the Mandarin equivalent of 後尾? Is it 最後？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T07:12:05.917" Title="Mandarin equivalent of 後尾 (in the end)?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27751" CreationDate="2017-11-23T07:12:05.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;广州话普通话&lt;/strong&gt; defines 後尾 as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;粵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表示時間或空間上居後&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with two sample sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢後尾卒之簽咗字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他最後終於還是簽字了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢排隊排到最後尾。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他排隊排到最末尾。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;广州话方言词典&lt;/strong&gt; starts of with pronunciation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hau6 mei5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it has the first definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 後來；最後&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with one example sentence in Cantonese and Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢後尾點樣ǜ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他後來怎樣了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and one Cantonese example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;後尾大家都同意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;definition two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 末尾；最後（指位置）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and one example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最後尾樖係李樹。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最末尾的那棵是李樹。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it also lists pronuncation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hau1 mei1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;後來；最後；後面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with two sample sentences in Cantonese and Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢後尾點呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他後來怎麼樣了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你高, 企後尾啦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你高, 站在後面吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the context you could choose something like 最后、末尾、后来、后面.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T07:12:05.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27753" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-23T07:22:04.980" Score="1" ViewCount="193" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Verbs_preceded_by_%22gei%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;According to this page&lt;/a&gt;, 給 usually precedes the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Verbs_followed_by_%22gei%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;On this page&lt;/a&gt;, it says 給 sometimes follows the verb, and often these exceptions are single-syllable verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Is there a list of these exceptions somewhere? If not, are there suggested rules for knowing when 給 should follow a verb instead of precede it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The two pages lists conflicting examples for 發. One example lists 發 as preceding the verb; the other lists 發 as following the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Preceding: 请 把 那些 照片 都 发给 我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following: 我 给 你 发 了 一 封 邮件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a mistake in these examples, or can 發 both precede and follow a verb? If both, when does it precede and when does it follow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T05:12:53.547" Title="List of verbs followed by 給" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27754" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27766" CreationDate="2017-11-23T07:27:44.417" Score="1" ViewCount="1018" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Verbs_preceded_by_%22gei%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; lists the following sentence in Mandarin: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在 不要 给 我 打 电话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in Cantonese it feels like the grammar would be more like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[now do not]打電話被我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, the &quot;target&quot; part of the sentence -- 被 for Cantonese, 给 for Mandarin -- comes at different parts: after the verb for Cantonese, and before the verb for Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a difference in grammar between Cantonese and Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T20:56:02.717" Title="Example of grammar difference between Cantonese and Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27755" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-23T07:37:44.520" Score="1" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/979/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This CantoDict page&lt;/a&gt; for 熟 says：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pinyin shu2 is literary reading; shou2 is colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this mean? More importantly, how are you supposed to pronounce 熟 in Mandarin? :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T08:14:50.993" Title="What is the difference between colloquial and literary readings of characters?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27756" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27771" CreationDate="2017-11-23T07:47:38.467" Score="3" ViewCount="1367" Body="&lt;p&gt;效率 means efficient, but what is the word for productive in Cantonese and Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CantoDict does not have an entry, and Google lists 生產的 which feels wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, let's say you want to translate this sentence into Cantonese and Mandarin: &quot;Don't procrastinate then you can be productive.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin: 你別拖延先可以。。。？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese: ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T20:08:50.490" Title="How to say &quot;productive&quot; in Mandarin and Cantonese? Google Translate says 生產的" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27745" CreationDate="2017-11-23T07:51:39.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;the sentence is correct but it usually appears in book or article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18435" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T07:51:39.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27755" CreationDate="2017-11-23T08:07:17.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_and_colloquial_readings_of_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters&lt;/a&gt;  gives us a simple overview:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Differing literary and colloquial readings for certain Chinese characters are a common feature of many Chinese varieties, and the reading distinctions for these linguistic doublets often typify a dialect group. Literary readings (文讀; wéndú) are usually used in formal loan words or names, when reading aloud, and in formal settings, while colloquial readings (白讀; báidú) are usually used in everyday vernacular speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in Mandarin the character for the word &amp;quot;white&amp;quot; (白) is generally pronounced bái ([pǎi]), but as a name or in certain formal or historical settings it can be pronounced bó ([pwǒ]); this example is particularly well-known due to its effect on the modern pronunciation of the names of the Tang dynasty (618–907) poets Bai Juyi and Li Bai (alternatively, &amp;quot;Bo Juyi&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Li Bo&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The section for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_and_colloquial_readings_of_Chinese_characters#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; also goes into more details, saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike most varieties of Chinese, literary readings in the national language are usually more conservative than colloquial readings. This is because they reflect readings from before Beijing was the capital,&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_and_colloquial_readings_of_Chinese_characters#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt; e.g. from the Ming Dynasty. Most instances where there are different literary and colloquial readings occur with characters that have entering tones. Among those are primarily literary readings that have not been adopted into the Beijing dialect before the Yuan Dynasty.&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_and_colloquial_readings_of_Chinese_characters#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt; Colloquial readings of other regions have also been adopted into the Beijing dialect, a major difference being that literary readings are usually adopted with the colloquial readings. Some differences between the Taiwanese Guoyu and mainland Chinese Putonghua are due to one standard[which?] adopting a colloquial reading for a character while another standard adopts a literary reading.[citation needed]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also includes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of literary readings adopted into the Beijing dialect:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which contains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese character  | Middle Chinese1   | Literary reading  | Colloquial reading&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;熟  | ʑǐuk入     | ʂu˧˥  | ʂɤʊ˧˥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems that shu2 was once the literary reading while shuo2 used to be the colloquial reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays you'd be more likely to hear shu2 than shuo2 though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E7%86%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; defines 熟 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shú&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cooked (of food) / ripe (of fruit) / mature (of seeds) / familiar / skilled / done / also pr. [shou2]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here shou2 is just a footnote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entry for 熟 shu2 in &lt;strong&gt;规范词典&lt;/strong&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;注意 shú是文读, shóu是白读, 一般通用的词语均可用这两种读音。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does mention that shu2 is the literary reading and shou2 is the colloquial reading and most words can interchange the readings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entry for 熟 shou2 in &lt;strong&gt;规范词典&lt;/strong&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;义同“熟(shú)”, 用于口语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same meaning as shu2 just used colloquially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T08:14:50.993" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27756" CreationDate="2017-11-23T08:44:34.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't speak Cantonese, so I am not familiar with it.&#xA;For Mandarin, &quot;productive&quot; means &quot;多产的&quot; or &quot;高效的&quot; which means very efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can translate this:&#xA;&quot;Don't procrastinate then you can be productive.&quot;&#xA;as:&#xA;&quot;别拖延，你可以变得更加有效率一点&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And by the way, &quot;效率&quot; means efficiency, not efficient, it's a noun, not adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I'm looking for a partner who speaks English and also wants to learn Chinese. So we can learn from each other via Skype or WeChat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18436" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T08:44:34.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27745" CreationDate="2017-11-23T08:55:08.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's correct. 会 means know, understand, have the ability to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He can speak Chinese. 他会说中文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She knows how to play guitar. 她会弹吉他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18436" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T08:55:08.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27745" CreationDate="2017-11-23T10:01:56.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't say it's wrong, but I would personally say : 马克既会汉语又会日语。as using two 又 sounds a bit silly... maybe just a feeling/habit thing tho. btw I am Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18440" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T10:01:56.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27756" CreationDate="2017-11-23T10:07:23.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/productive&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;productive&lt;/a&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;producing or able to produce large amounts of goods, crops, or other commodities&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For factory that is producing or able to produce large amounts of goods or other commodities  'productive' Should be translated as '&lt;strong&gt;具生產力的&lt;/strong&gt;' e.g '具生產力的工廠' (productive factory)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For people who are being productive, e.g. &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;the most productive employees&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; 'productive' can also be translated as '&lt;strong&gt;具生產力的&lt;/strong&gt;' e.g '具生產力的僱員' (productive employees), but it can also be translated as '&lt;strong&gt;多產的&lt;/strong&gt;' as in &amp;quot;多產的小說家&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For land that is producing or able to produce large amounts of crops, productive' Should be translated as '&lt;strong&gt;多產的&lt;/strong&gt;' e.g '多產的土壤' (productive soil)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many English words contain different meanings coordinate with more than one single Chinese term. Take the word productive for example, it can be used to describe factory, people and land, but no single Chinese term can do that, that's why we translate the word productive differently depend on the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T12:43:27.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27396" CreationDate="2017-11-23T10:12:20.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, I agree to the above answers that the 不会 here means 'not be able to'. It can also be replaced by 不知道 or 不懂 or 不晓得 etc in this context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, anyone wondered what happened to the boyfriend? Why did he 走得很安详?! Clicked into the linked article...is that a...poem? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, yes I wrote 走&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;很安详 in stead of 走&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;很安详 as 的 shouldn't be used if it's after a verb. So I was told back in school. But not many seem to care about that anymore...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18440" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T10:12:20.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27754" CreationDate="2017-11-23T10:46:48.553" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is 畀我 (give me/ to me) not 被我 (by me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;畀我 is the Cantonese equivalent of 给我 in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is this a difference in grammar between Cantonese and Mandarin?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most grammar structure are the same in Cantonese and Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;而家 唔好 打電話 畀我&quot;  (Cantonese) = &quot;Don't make phone call to me now&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;现在 不要  打电话 给我&quot;  (Mandarin) = &quot;Don't make phone call to me now&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;现在 不要  给我 打电话 到警察局&quot; (Mandarin) = &quot; Don't make phone call to the police for me now&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;而家 唔好 同我 打電話 畀警察局&quot; (Cantonese) = &quot; Don't make phone call to the police for me now&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some exception:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'给我 打电话' in Mandarin can mean 'give me a phone call' or ' make phone call for me' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'同我 打電話' in Cantonese can only mean ' make phone call for me' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to say 'give me phone call'  in Cantonese, you can either say '打電話 畀我' or ' 同我 通電話' (it is rarely used)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some unique Cantonese grammar structure that's not found in Mandarin (mostly involve final particles that do not exist in Mandarin) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;而家 唔好 同我 打電話 畀警察局(住)&quot; = &quot; Now, don't make phone call to the police for me (yet)&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Mandarin doesn't use the final particle '住' for 'yet' , the same phrase in Mandarin would have to be &quot;现在 (先) 不要  给我 打电话 到警察局&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/852/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;俾&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/749/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;畀&lt;/a&gt; are often regarded as variants of each other. However, some people suggest that 俾 means &quot;by (passive voice)&quot; whereas 畀 means &quot;give&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-23T20:56:02.717" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T20:56:02.717" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27753" CreationDate="2017-11-23T13:23:02.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When 給 precede a verb and  then the final particle 了 ,  it means 'be'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;strong&gt;給&lt;/strong&gt;杀害了 = &lt;strong&gt;be&lt;/strong&gt; killed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When 給 follow a verb, it acts as a result complement 'to'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 交&lt;strong&gt;給&lt;/strong&gt;你 = hand (it) &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When 給 precede a subject then a verb, it means 'for' &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;給我&lt;/strong&gt;走&quot; = &quot;go away, &lt;strong&gt;for me&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (it is actually a command, not a request) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;給你&lt;/strong&gt;煮晚餐&quot; = &quot;cook dinner &lt;strong&gt;for you&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is there a mistake in these examples, or can 發 both precede and follow a&lt;/em&gt; verb? If both, when does it precede and when does it follow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;给你&lt;/strong&gt;发邮件&quot; mainly mean  &quot;send mail &lt;strong&gt;to you&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; but it can mean &quot;send mail &lt;strong&gt;for you&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; if followed by an object that's not you, e.g.  &quot;&lt;strong&gt;给你&lt;/strong&gt;发邮件到法院&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T13:23:02.780" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27745" CreationDate="2017-11-23T14:24:46.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;i from to china ,my english is not good,but i can chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;马克又会汉语又会日语，这句话是正确的&#xA;马克又会汉语又会日语，it's correct。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在中国，可以这么省略这说&#xA;in china you can omit it;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会 说 汉语=会 汉语 ，&#xA;can=会(true/false)&#xA;speak=说(action)&#xA;chinese(language)=汉语(language)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;speak just an action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i english is so bad,i hope this will help you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18444" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T14:24:46.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27753" CreationDate="2017-11-23T15:28:51.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can place 给：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; the main verb when it's used as a &lt;strong&gt;preposition&lt;/strong&gt; (usually &quot;to&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt; the main verb when it expresses the &lt;strong&gt;result&lt;/strong&gt; of an action&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first case you are not expressing the result of the action, just the target of the action:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;照片，我给你已经发好了 --- I already sent you the pictures (&lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; you) &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你打算什么时候给你父母介绍你的女朋友 --- When do you plan to introduce your girlfriend &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; your parents? &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我不知道怎样给我的领导提建议 --- I don't know how to provide suggestions &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; my boss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In the other case you are expressing a result that stems from the main action, and you can find some implied temporal order in it, sometimes explicitly marked by other particles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;照片，我已经发给你了 --- I've sent you the pictures (results in you having them) &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;申请单必须提交给商务局批准 --- The request form must be submitted to the commerce bureau for approval (results in them having it; which leads to the approval)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't think you can find an exhaustive list of the verbs that support either construction. What you can do is to consider whether 给 expresses a target or a consequence/order. For verbs that support both, usage depends on what meaning you want to emphasize. In your examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Preceding: 请 你 把 那些 照片 发给 我 --- (result of sending: I have the pictures) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Following: 我 给 你 发 了 一 封 邮件 --- (target of sending: you, not someone else)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T15:28:51.940" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27756" CreationDate="2017-11-23T15:40:20.473" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to say that some&lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; is productive, as in your example, you are basically saying that they are very efficient, therefore 效率 is the best term. &#xA;&lt;br&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你效率很高 you are very productive (efficient)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example: 先别拖延，你就可以提高（你的）效率。 &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For inanimate objects, 生产力 (productive strength) is the way to go, only difference being in Chinese you are using it as a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国的生产力很高 China is a very productive country &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T15:40:20.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27772" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30426" CreationDate="2017-11-23T16:44:19.020" Score="0" ViewCount="509" Body="&lt;p&gt;I caught this phrase in a Chinese novel. Based on my understanding, the literal translation would be &quot;The law of asking and discussing Heaven&quot;, which sounds really clumsy and lengthy. Is there any comfortable translation for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/6065/user6065&quot;&gt;user6065&lt;/a&gt; commenting below, I decided to go with &quot;Principles of Heaven&quot;, which sounds best imo. Feel free to reply if you have a better one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: This was just a name taken from a novel. The full paragraph is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“这本《&lt;strong&gt;天论问宪&lt;/strong&gt;》我花了一个月时间才看完，其中道理讲的都好，可唯独‘以德报怨’这四个字，我万万不能苟同！”罗征轻声低语，看着豆丁大的灯焰，脸上透出哀伤的神色：“若不是父亲宅心仁厚，信了这四个字，我长房一脉也不会落到如此下场，父亲更加不会死去……”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which I translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“A month reading this &lt;strong&gt;‘Principles of Heaven’&lt;/strong&gt;, all of the principles are great. But only these four words – ‘repay cruelty with kindness’ – I absolutely cannot agree with!” Luo Zheng whispered softly to himself. Staring at the bean-sized flame of the lamp, his face revealed a sad expression: “Had my father not been kind, not believed those words, how could I, the main house’s direct bloodline, have fallen into such a situation? And he – he wouldn’t have died...”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The novel name is &lt;strong&gt;百炼成神&lt;/strong&gt;. I'm trying to make an English translation that is comfortable to the native. How is the translation? Is it fluent, correct to the meaning or something else? I would be really thankful if someone could make a nice title out of this. As of now I was planning to name it &quot;Refining to God&quot;, which lacks a lot of meanings imo, but sounds rather nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18448" LastEditorUserId="18448" LastEditDate="2017-11-24T20:14:14.537" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T07:41:38.707" Title="How is 天论问宪 translated in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27725" CreationDate="2017-11-23T18:56:50.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cross-posted on Quora this morning, and the answer came in soon. I was told &quot;ui&quot; means &quot;prick&quot; (the verb, not the noun), so I turned that into Mandarin 刺, and my reference gave me 揻, with precisely that sentence as an example: 心肝像針揻。Sim-kuann tshiūnn tsiam ui. (心像被針刺一樣。); (other example: 揻一空　ui tst khang(戳一個洞)). So that's it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literal translation: My heart feels like pierced by a needle.&#xA;Singable translation: A needle's piercing my heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2017-11-23T19:41:01.967" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T19:41:01.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27774" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27776" CreationDate="2017-11-23T20:39:35.383" Score="1" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.huarenjie.com/thread-5510973-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;on this article&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;加拿大是一个很美的国家，领土面积特别大，但是人口才4000万，&lt;strong&gt;过得&lt;/strong&gt;比较舒服，所以现在也有越来越多的人选择留学这裡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 过得 mean here? And how does it work grammatically in this context? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T23:39:39.917" Title="What does 过得 mean in 过得比较舒服?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27742" CreationDate="2017-11-23T21:08:18.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;一日千秋 is a Japanese idiom. When I searched for the term on Google, almost all of the websites were in Japanese, and the top Chinese website explains it is a Japanese idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hujiang.com/jpciku/je4b880e697a5e58d83e7a78b/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一日千秋是什么意思 - 沪江&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the website above, 一日千秋 means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一日三秋。（1日が非常に長く感じられること。待ちこがれる気持ちが著しく強いこと。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This reads as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The feeling that it takes too long for a day to end. The strong sentiment to wait for someting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;I think the &lt;em&gt;一日三秋&lt;/em&gt; on the website is a typo... &lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T21:08:18.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27774" CreationDate="2017-11-23T21:17:40.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;过得舒服&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;生活 过得舒服&amp;quot; omitted the topic &amp;quot;生活&amp;quot;(life) or  &amp;quot;过生活&amp;quot;(living life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得 in 过得舒服 is a 'degree/result verb particle' that indicate the degree or result of the verb 过&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;过生活 过(得) 舒服&amp;quot; = live life (to the point of) being comfortable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;过生活&amp;quot; can be omitted if it is clearly implied in the context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or you can just remove the first 过 and use 生活 as the topic directly and write &amp;quot;生活 过(得) 舒服&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;看电影 看(得) 高興&amp;quot; = watch movies (to the degree of) being happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;看电影&amp;quot; can be omitted if it is clearly implied in the context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T21:43:30.060" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27138" CreationDate="2017-11-23T22:03:26.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When pronouncing, both of them are okay since we can tell what (s)he says. But it is informal and incorrect to say mián. We know that /p/ in hokkien is same as b in chinese pinyin, and /b/ in hokkien sounds near /m/. Therefore, /b/ sometimes sounds like /m/. But it is wrong to pronounce or write /b/ as /m/. &lt;a href=&quot;http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=53843&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=%E5%85%8D&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=1&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=1&amp;amp;rowcount=19&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pā-bián&lt;/a&gt; sounds like mián.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18447" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T22:03:26.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27778" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-23T23:39:37.480" Score="0" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find for 靓丽： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;liànglì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;jìnglì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the difference in pronunciation, is there a difference in meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T04:37:54.407" Title="Does the meaning of 靓丽 change depending on how 靓 is pronounced？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27784" CreationDate="2017-11-24T00:15:04.277" Score="2" ViewCount="608" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many hanzi have a roof on top, including a dot.  From the HSK2 list, we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;客 家 字 完 室 安 它&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The commonly used hanzi 写 is unlike these because it does not have a dot on top.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese-tools.com lists hanzi with the radicals &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/sinograms.html?r=%E5%AE%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;宀&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/sinograms.html?r=%E5%86%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;冖&lt;/a&gt;.  On the list for 冖, the only other one I've seen before with 冖 on top is 农, although I would never had realized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there's a reason the hanzi 写, in particular, does not have a dot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why does 写 not have a dot on top?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Another exception I can think of is 买, which has the radical 乛 on top, but it has a counterpart 实 with a roof.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:17:52.760" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:17:52.760" Title="Why does 写 not have a dot on top?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27779" CreationDate="2017-11-24T00:51:02.060" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure why, but the traditional form &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/js/5BEB.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;寫&lt;/a&gt; has the dot. But in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://sf.zdic.net/sf/ks/0917/d0b4255ef0441353bc95268d712d59d2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;calligraphy&lt;/a&gt;, there were some styles that don't have the dot before. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eOCoi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eOCoi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And one of these styles, i.e. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/5199.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;写&lt;/a&gt;, is selected as the simplified form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is said that in the calligraphy, according to the artistic sence one more stroke or one less stroke is not uncommon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: There're also some common characters with the radical &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/jbs/?jbs=%E5%86%96#2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;冖&lt;/a&gt;, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冗 农 军 罕 冠 冥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-11-24T01:05:12.137" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T01:05:12.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27778" CreationDate="2017-11-24T01:20:21.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just trying to point out what is indicated by the comment from user6065, the correct pronunciation of 靓丽 is liànglì, not jìnglì. When 靓 is pronounced as jìng, it means 妆饰；打扮. 靓丽 is clearly defined in 现代汉语词典.    &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ZkUm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ZkUm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-11-24T04:37:54.407" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T04:37:54.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27778" CreationDate="2017-11-24T02:33:55.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the 两岸 dictionary, the pronunciation for 靓丽 works like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【臺拼】jìnglì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【陸拼】liànglì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this is mostly a Taiwan vs. Mainland pronunciation difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;em&gt;Students Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese&lt;/em&gt; normally jìng means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 make up one’s face (woman), apply cosmetics, rouge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) prink, adorn, embellish, trim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 ⦿ 靜 jìng 1, quiet, still, tranquil, calm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While according to &lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt; liàng means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{dialect} attractive, good looking, pretty, handsome, beautiful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Longman's also notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;〈粵〉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;❶ 漂亮﹐好看：靚女／靚樣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;❷ 美味的：靚湯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems this Cantonese pronunciation has somewhat taken over on the mainland while not influencing Taiwan as much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T02:43:49.753" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27779" CreationDate="2017-11-24T02:50:50.263" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The, new, &lt;strong&gt;Outliers&lt;/strong&gt; dictionary provides some insight as to how 寫 became 写:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FORM&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;写 is shorthand for 寫. The top part, 冖, is a common abbreviation for 宀. The bottom part is a shorthand abbreviation for 舄 (see the diagram below for how that works).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K67I5.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K67I5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is referenced from:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;邵源、邵冠勇，2010《簡化漢字解說》，济南：齐鲁书社 2010年12月第一版。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also continues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COMPONENTS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 写, 冖 is an empty component. It was originally 宀 “building,” a meaning component, hinting at the original meaning “to move something from one location to another.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplified version is just simply old shorthand that was in turn made into a Chinese simplified character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T02:50:50.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27753" CreationDate="2017-11-24T05:12:53.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1)&lt;/strong&gt; Is there a list of these exceptions somewhere? If not, are there&#xA;suggested rules for knowing when 給 should follow a verb instead of&#xA;precede it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is there is no rule for that purpose, because one could be paraphrased to the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我给你发了一封邮件 can be paraphrased as 我发了一封邮件给你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在不要给他打电话 can be paraphrased as 现在不要打电话给他.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天他送给老师一束花 can be paraphrased as 昨天他送一束花给老师.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the two structures(preceding and following) are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2)&lt;/strong&gt; The two pages lists conflicting examples for 發.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example lists 發 as preceding the verb; the other lists 發 as&#xA;following the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Preceding: 请把那些照片都发给我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following: 我给你发了一封邮件&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I point out, both structures are interchangeable(though 把 is used in the first sentence). So the two sentences can be paraphrased as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请把那些照片都给我发过来 or 请发给我那些照片&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我发了一封邮件给你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T05:12:53.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25588" CreationDate="2017-11-24T14:58:53.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe 主体 here means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;subject&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;agent&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. The individual (main) body, be it a natural or a juridical person. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The descriptions of this principle that you can find on Baidu Baike stress the fact that responsibility must be carried by all party organizations（各级党组织）, that responsibility must be capillar （细化责任）and that it must trickle from the top down to all levels （以上率下，层层传导压力，级级落实责任）. &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It makes sense in the anti-corruption campaign. It's not hard to see how corruption can be effectively fought only if everyone at all levels is accountable within their own jurisdiction （种好自己的“责任田”, i.e. they must sow their &quot;responsibility field&quot;）. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this can be done if they all really bear their own load （真正把担子担起来）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So given all this, it's not very easy to translate this concept into English, but I think we can agree that the one you mention appears inaccurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate this as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;agentive responsibility&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, or, more simple, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;subjective responsibility&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T14:58:53.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27788" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-24T19:25:24.403" Score="0" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the proper way to say &quot;I don't know what the problem is&quot; in Mandarin?&#xA;Not sure if this is a “问题” or a &quot;关系“ structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18453" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T22:08:52.120" Title="Proper way to say &quot;I don't know what the problem is.&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-11-27T01:51:55.407" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27788" CreationDate="2017-11-24T22:08:52.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Paraphrase as 'Dunno where the problem lies, (but it won't start.)'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我（也）不知道问题出在哪里,（但是它启动不了。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T22:08:52.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27790" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-25T00:35:07.080" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which characters belong together here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们一定要把写字和书法区分开来。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We must differentiate between writing and calligraphy.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We must draw a distinction between writing and calligraphy.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We must separate (区分开来） writing from calligraphy.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;区分：differentiate, distinguish between, draw a distinction&lt;br&gt;&#xA;分开：separate&lt;br&gt;&#xA;区分开来：separate from??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In () may belong together. I think 3. is maybe the correct analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1a. 我们一定要把（写字区）和（书法区）分开来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1b. 我们一定要把写字和书法区（分开来）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我们一定要把写字和书法（区分）开来。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我们一定要把写字和书法（区分开来）。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T15:33:36.557" Title="Which characters belong together in 区分开来？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27790" CreationDate="2017-11-25T02:02:22.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi I'm not 100% sure this is what you are asking, but I'll try to explain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We must differentiate between writing and calligraphy.&#xA;我们一定要把写字和书法区分开来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breakdown to the phrases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们(we)一定(must) 要把 写字(writing)和(and)书法(calligraphy)区分(differentiate)        开来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the core phrases of the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;区分开来&quot;, &quot;开来&quot; carried meaning &quot;split&quot;(in context, means seeing writing and calligraphy separately). However if you say that sentence in Chinese without &quot;开来&quot;, the sentence still means the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10902" LastEditorUserId="10902" LastEditDate="2017-11-29T15:33:36.557" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T15:33:36.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27790" CreationDate="2017-11-25T02:20:42.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“区分开来”经常简写成“区分”或“区分开”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它和“分开”有些区别，可以这样理解：“区分=区别+分开”，同义词是“辨别”；“分开”，即你所说的“separate”，重点是“分离”，缺少了“辨别”的意味。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17626" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T02:20:42.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27794" CreationDate="2017-11-25T07:02:51.937" Score="1" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend on WeChat sent a funny example of foreigners writing Chinese (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/206310345_425113&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).  Here's one image from that site (click for larger image):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xyK0o.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xyK0om.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Foreign Chinese-learning materials&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I transcribe the passage below (I tried to make sure I copied it correctly), and I offer my translation (which might not be accurate).  I presume there's something wrong with the underlined phrases.  I'm not fully clear on this though; I add my comments below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What is wrong with the four underlined phrases, and what should it say instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%8F%90%E6%A1%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;提案&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;Yīgè tí'àn&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A Proposal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;星期日&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;Xīngqírì&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sunday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本班同学&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%87%91%E9%9B%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;凑集&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%AC%BE%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;款子&lt;/a&gt;买一具钟，作为毕业&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%BA%AA%E5%BF%B5%E5%93%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;纪念品&lt;/a&gt;案。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;Běn bān tóngxué còují kuǎn zi mǎi yī jù zhōng, zuòwéi bìyèjìniànpǐn àn&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This class's classmates gather money together to buy a bell, as a graduation momento.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate suggests &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%AD%B9%E9%9B%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;筹集&lt;/a&gt; (chóují; collect money) instead of &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%87%91%E9%9B%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;凑集&lt;/a&gt; (còují).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是&lt;strong&gt;前两班&lt;/strong&gt;的同学&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BF%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;修&lt;/a&gt;的，校园里的&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%8C%85%E4%BA%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;茅亭&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;是去年毕业的一班同学&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%80%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;造&lt;/a&gt;的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;Shì qián liǎng bān de tóngxué xiūde, xiàoyuán lǐ de máotíng shì qùnián bìyè de yī bān tóngxué zào de.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is what the students in the first two classes made; the campus's pavilion was made by the students who graduated last year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 前两班 is a bit confusing, e.g., maybe it means &amp;quot;two classes prior&amp;quot; instead.  I don't know what's wrong with &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%8C%85%E4%BA%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;茅亭&lt;/a&gt; (máotíng) = pavilion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;这些都&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%A1%A8%E7%A4%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;表示&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;毕业生&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%AF%B9%E4%BA%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;对于&lt;/a&gt;母校的依恋，现在&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%BD%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;轮&lt;/a&gt;到我们毕业了，我们当然也要留一件纪念品。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;Zhèxiē dōu biǎoshì bìyè shēng duìyú mǔxiào de yīliàn, xiànzài lún dào wǒmen bìyèle, wǒmen dāngrán yě yào liú yī jiàn jìniànpǐn.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;These both indicate the graduates' attachment to their almamater, and now that it's our turn to graduate, we, of course, also want to leave a momento.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what's wrong with &amp;quot;这些都表示&amp;quot; simply meaning &amp;quot;these both express&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们学校里上课下课都&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%91%87%E9%93%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;摇铃&lt;/a&gt;，我们的意思是买&lt;strong&gt;一具钟&lt;/strong&gt;来&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BB%A3%E6%9B%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;代替&lt;/a&gt;铃。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;Wǒmen xuéxiào lǐ shàngkè xiàkè dōu yáo líng, wǒmen de yìsi shì mǎi yī jù zhōng lái dàitì líng.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We ring a bell at the start and end of class on our campus, we mean to buy a bell instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%85%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;具&lt;/a&gt; is the wrong measure word for 钟 = bell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;钟&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;Zhōng&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Bell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T11:51:05.277" Title="What's wrong with the four highlighted parts of this foreign-written Chinese passage about campus bells?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27793" CreationDate="2017-11-25T07:46:59.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Google Translate suggests 筹集 (chóují; collect money) instead of 凑集 (còují)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凑集 means a 'group of people footing the bill together' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;筹集 means 'raise funds'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Here 前两班 is a bit confusing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the context, '前两班' in &quot;是前两班的同学修的&quot; seems to refer to &quot;previous two school years of the same class&quot;   It should write &quot; 是&lt;strong&gt;前两屆畢業的&lt;/strong&gt;本班同学修的 (built by the graduated students of this class from the previous two school years) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I don't know what's wrong with 茅亭 (máotíng) = pavilion.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'茅亭' is a pavilion with a thatch roof. There's nothing wrong with using '茅亭' here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what's wrong with &quot;这些都表示&quot; simply meaning &quot;these both express&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'都' here means 'all'. The sentence &quot;这些&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt;表示&quot; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;All&lt;/strong&gt; these indicate&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It looks like 具 is the wrong measure word for 钟 = bell.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;摇铃 is small handheld or hanging bell&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;钟 (or 吊钟) is a bigger bell that you ring it by hitting it with a mallet.  usually sit on a table or hanging in a frame, but not handheld&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classifier for 钟 like this should be '口' as in &quot;一口钟&quot;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-25T08:08:12.190" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T08:08:12.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27790" CreationDate="2017-11-25T07:58:19.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;区分 is the verb, &lt;em&gt;to differentiate&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开 is a resultant complementary, &lt;em&gt;apart&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来 is another resultant complementary, &lt;em&gt;henceforth&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开来 commonly appear together in phrases similar to this one, but they do not form a word. (There is a word 开来 as in 继往开来 which is different).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The affinity of characters is (((区分)开)来) where only 区分 is a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T07:58:19.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27790" CreationDate="2017-11-25T08:44:56.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The structure is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;区分 main verb (= differentiate) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  开来 composite &lt;strong&gt;directional complement&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Directional complements are movement verbs as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;出 (out)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;进 (in)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;开 (apart)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;回 (back) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;过 (past, over)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;起 (rise)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上 (up)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;下 (down)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They work pretty much as result complements, i.e. placed after the main verb, except that they express the direction in which the verb proceeds. Sometimes the meaning is figurative, as in 下去 (= continue).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, directional complements can be &lt;strong&gt;simple&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;composite&lt;/strong&gt;. &#xA;In the latter case they are followed by either 去 (go) or 来 (come) to specify the direction of the movement. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;A few directional verbs may take only one direction to make the composite form, e.g. 起来 and 开来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage of the composite form is often required with two-character main verbs, therefore here you have 区分开来 (literally, differentiate apart).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-11-25T08:50:20.257" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T08:50:20.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27793" CreationDate="2017-11-25T11:51:05.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Building on the above (because I lack the reputation points to comment):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the pavilion is in fact not thatched, use 亭子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 這 as a straight demonstrative pronoun (&quot;this&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct quantifier for the kind of 钟 in the picture is 座.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18345" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T11:51:05.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25719" CreationDate="2017-11-25T12:03:32.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The name of these universities is 臺灣大學, 臺灣師範大學, 臺灣藝術大學, etc., and 國立 as mentioned above just points to the source of funding; others include 台北市立, 台南市立, etc., but these are more common for grade schools and usually translated as &quot;Taipei Municipal [Name] Senior High School.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18345" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T12:03:32.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27799" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27800" CreationDate="2017-11-25T13:02:59.353" Score="2" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often in English when we decide between options that all seem favorable, we'll say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I like them all, but if I had to choose, I'd go with that one!&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the Chinese equivalent of &quot;if I had to choose&quot; ? It does not need to be a direct translation, just whatever you would use in that scenario. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18455" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-11-25T22:08:49.880" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T22:08:49.880" Title="How to phrase &quot;If I had to choose...&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27799" CreationDate="2017-11-25T13:16:46.883" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;“（如果）非要我选的话”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这些我都喜欢，非要我选的话，我要那一个！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T13:16:46.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27790" CreationDate="2017-11-25T16:42:19.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, I find it very happy to see this question, let me answer this XD&#xA;Sentence is '我们一定要把写字和书法区分开来。' &#xA;In Chinese semantics, It equals '我们一定要把写字和书法区分开。' so the right result is '我们一定要把写字和书法（区分开来）。'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18458" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T16:42:19.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27805" CreationDate="2017-11-25T16:43:04.497" Score="0" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm preparing a presentation for my Mandarin class. The idea is to stage a situation. Basically the point is to create a situation which begins with a Chinese person asking for two foreigners to take a picture for him. Since the situation is to happen in China, this seems very unrealistic, so I decided to start the stage with the Chinese person talking to himself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'd like to take a picture of me and my family, but there is no one around except those two foreigners. I will ask them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I say that in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18456" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2017-11-26T21:18:11.363" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T21:18:11.363" Title="How to say the following phrase in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2017-11-26T23:12:54.937" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27802" CreationDate="2017-11-25T16:53:52.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This: '我想给我和我的家人拍照，但是这里除了那两个外国人没有别人了，我想让他们帮我。'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18458" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T16:53:52.340" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27799" CreationDate="2017-11-25T17:06:19.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say '如果我不得不选一个' or '如果非要让我选一个' For example, 我喜欢足球，也喜欢篮球，如果非要让我选一个的话，我还是去踢足球吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18458" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T17:06:19.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27802" CreationDate="2017-11-26T00:27:36.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;I'd like to take a picture of me and my family, but there is no one around execpt those two foreigners. I will ask them.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想找人帮我们拍一张全家福，但周围除了两个外国人就没有别人了。我去问问他们。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T00:27:36.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27806" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-26T02:25:50.277" Score="-2" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often when I have a simple assignment that involves answering a few questions, I'll title the page with something like this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;[Topic] Questions&quot; or &quot;[Topic] Reflection&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you do that in Chinese? Let's say the assignment was a reflection on a group activity you recently completed. In English I'd write something like &quot;Reflection on Last Week's Group Activity.&quot; (I mean, that's super boring, but sometimes you've just got to get the job done!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18455" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-11-26T17:54:18.387" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T22:56:11.667" Title="How to write basic titles for your assignments in Chinese? (such as &quot;[Topic] Reflection&quot;)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-11-26T23:12:41.870" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27806" CreationDate="2017-11-26T04:26:45.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/reflection&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;collins&lt;/a&gt; dictionary, &lt;em&gt;'reflections on'&lt;/em&gt; means: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reflections on something&lt;/strong&gt; are comments or writings that express&#xA;  someone's ideas about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reflection here is like 评论 in formal writing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Reflection on Last Week's Group Activity: 关于上星期集体活动的评论&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T04:26:45.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27806" CreationDate="2017-11-26T18:07:35.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In that case, the title usually is 'xx感想 or xx有感'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'上周活动有感', '集体活动的感受' or '小组活动的感想'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some typical titles for reading and watching, &amp;lt;双城记&gt;读后感, &amp;lt;超人&gt;观后感&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are the equivalent boring titles in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T18:07:35.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27809" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-26T22:33:24.543" Score="1" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please see my 3 questions inscribed in the screenshot from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%A6%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r7qdj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r7qdj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:15:46.837" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:15:46.837" Title="How does 馬 resemble a horse?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27806" CreationDate="2017-11-26T22:56:11.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a great believer in 'less is more', so I like what Jacob wrote best. Just as alternatives I would proffer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上周小组活动的反馈&lt;br&gt;&#xA;上周小组活动的反思与检讨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反馈：response, feedback&lt;br&gt;&#xA;反思与检讨: review and retrospection (‘what could we have done better?’) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T22:56:11.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27809" CreationDate="2017-11-26T23:15:42.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If Picasso had painted it that way, it would be worth $50 million dollars! One must allow for artistic license, not demand 100% depictual accuracy, especially when scratching in tortoise shells! Also Wiktionary may err from time to often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look &lt;a href=&quot;https://image.baidu.com/search/detail?ct=503316480&amp;amp;z=0&amp;amp;ipn=d&amp;amp;word=%E9%A9%AC%E5%AD%97%E7%9A%84%E5%8E%9F%E6%9D%A5&amp;amp;step_word=&amp;amp;hs=0&amp;amp;pn=0&amp;amp;spn=0&amp;amp;di=155562526681&amp;amp;pi=0&amp;amp;rn=1&amp;amp;tn=baiduimagedetail&amp;amp;is=0%2C0&amp;amp;istype=0&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;oe=utf-8&amp;amp;in=&amp;amp;cl=2&amp;amp;lm=-1&amp;amp;st=undefined&amp;amp;cs=748579235%2C552334805&amp;amp;os=2084884917%2C173652846&amp;amp;simid=3596994304%2C390828847&amp;amp;adpicid=0&amp;amp;lpn=0&amp;amp;ln=1948&amp;amp;fr=&amp;amp;fmq=1511737609209_R&amp;amp;fm=&amp;amp;ic=undefined&amp;amp;s=undefined&amp;amp;se=&amp;amp;sme=&amp;amp;tab=0&amp;amp;width=undefined&amp;amp;height=undefined&amp;amp;face=undefined&amp;amp;ist=&amp;amp;jit=&amp;amp;cg=&amp;amp;bdtype=0&amp;amp;oriquery=&amp;amp;objurl=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.taopic.com%2Fuploads%2Fallimg%2F131216%2F234716-131216214S197.jpg&amp;amp;fromurl=ippr_z2C%24qAzdH3FAzdH3Fooo_z%26e3Bpw5rtv_z%26e3Bv54AzdH3Fejvp56AzdH3Fda8n8dAzdH3F99l0nc_z%26e3Bip4s&amp;amp;gsm=0&amp;amp;rpstart=0&amp;amp;rpnum=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T23:15:42.890" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27809" CreationDate="2017-11-27T06:28:39.327" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%A6%AC&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;馬&lt;/a&gt; existed in oracle bone script, there're numerous versions of it. then, the info quoted has some errors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;let's start:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jk9Zw.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jk9Zw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;first, rotate left 90°&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a877p.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a877p.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now, you've a side view of a horse: head at the left, tail pointing right, 3 strokes upward represent the mane, the circles are horseshoe, the line (leg) connected it to the body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it emphasised the big eye of a horse, the mane on its' back, and the &quot;hairy&quot; of a horsetail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;considering it's created several thousand years ago, with the &quot;writing tech&quot; of bones &amp;amp; stone knife, forgive the abstractness :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T06:28:39.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6000" CreationDate="2017-11-27T12:05:58.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dzkbw.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;電子課本網&lt;/a&gt; seems to provide content of textbooks that are used in schools in Mainland China. In particular, character lists found in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dzkbw.com/books/rjb/yuwen/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;語文電子課本&lt;/a&gt; might be useful in the context of this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3966" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T12:05:58.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27815" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27819" CreationDate="2017-11-27T12:13:28.247" Score="0" ViewCount="603" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this joke on bliubliu.com:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那不直的时候呢 (爱情笑话）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;Nà bù zhí de shíhòu ne (àiqíng xiàohuà)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男：我一直就很爱你啊！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;Nán: Wǒ yīzhí jiù hěn ài nǐ a!&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女：那不直的时候呢？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;Nǚ: Nà bù zhí de shíhòu ne?&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to make sure I've understood the joke correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The man says 我一直就很爱你 meaning I have always loved you (I think).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the woman thinks the man is using the 一。。。就。。。 grammar construction, and consequently thinks that the man means that when 直 occurs, his love follows.  This is why she asks about when 直 is not happening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, it doesn't make sense to talk about &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9B%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;直&lt;/a&gt; happening or not happening, and the woman's question is nonsense.  But maybe I'm missing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Have I understood this joke correctly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T06:07:23.817" Title="Have I understood the joke 男：我一直就很爱你啊！ 女：那不直的时候呢？ correctly?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27816" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27818" CreationDate="2017-11-27T12:39:07.190" Score="3" ViewCount="642" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was taught that so as to say &quot;after&quot; in Chinese one should use 以后, like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吃饭以后&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today I came across a bare 后, like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;15分钟后&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between these two words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17264" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T03:11:00.007" Title="What's the difference between 后 and 以后?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2017-11-27T13:24:19.493" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;直 could mean heterosexual(informal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This comes directly from &quot;straight&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T13:24:19.493" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27816" CreationDate="2017-11-27T13:51:30.720" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;后= after &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃饭后 = after eating dinner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;15分钟后 = after 15 minutes &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以后 = after &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以后 (after) emphasizes on 'time after a specific event or action'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃过&lt;strong&gt;那顿&lt;/strong&gt;晚饭以后 = after eating &lt;strong&gt;that&lt;/strong&gt; dinner (a specific dinner is emphasized)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;15分钟的沉默&lt;/strong&gt;以后 = after &lt;strong&gt;15 minutes of silence&lt;/strong&gt; (the event- 15 minutes of silence is emphasized)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以后 = 此后 (hereafter); 其后 (thereafter) ; 以来(since)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 自二战&lt;strong&gt;以后&lt;/strong&gt; = 自二战&lt;strong&gt;以来&lt;/strong&gt; = since WWII&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以后 = 今后 (from now on)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;以后&lt;/strong&gt;不再和你说话 = I won't talk to you &lt;strong&gt;from now on&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-27T13:56:58.463" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T13:56:58.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2017-11-27T14:05:51.320" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;直 here is short form of 挺直 (erect)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The woman was jokingly suggesting the man was saying &quot; Whenever I get an erection, I love you very much&quot; (meaning he only loves her when he is horny)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are correct to think [一。。。就。。。] structure is in play. Just didn't have the mindset to connect '直' with 'erect' (of male penis)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a playfully dirty joke &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我&lt;strong&gt;一直&lt;/strong&gt;就很爱你&quot; should means &quot;I &lt;strong&gt;have always&lt;/strong&gt; been loving you deeply&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The woman twisted the meaning of '一直' (&lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt;) to '一'(&lt;strong&gt;whenever&lt;/strong&gt;) '直'(&lt;strong&gt;erect&lt;/strong&gt;)&quot; and interpreted the sentence as &quot;I love you very much whenever I get an erection&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-28T04:42:03.690" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T04:42:03.690" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27820" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-27T14:31:54.130" Score="2" ViewCount="7269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I searched it from a translator and it said 神仏. Is that correct? I need the text for my hoodie that im making. There is so many answers and I dont want to write something that I dont 100% know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18466" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T04:23:29.097" Title="What is &quot;god&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27820" CreationDate="2017-11-27T14:38:13.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;神 shén is the character for spirit or god, but 上帝 shàng dì is closer to the Judeo-Christian sense of the word. The former could be translated as &quot;the gods,&quot; whereas the latter would translate as &quot;God&quot; or &quot;The Lord.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18467" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T14:38:13.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27823" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-27T16:15:55.853" Score="3" ViewCount="985" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.ca/books?redir_esc=y&amp;amp;id=plYeAAAAMAAJ&amp;amp;focus=searchwithinvolume&amp;amp;q=suico&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Life in Old Parian&lt;/a&gt; says the Cebuano family name Suico has Chinese origin, and I'm looking for the original Chinese characters. I'm trying to narrow it down based on the Hokkien pronunciation of common Chinese family names, but it's hard to find what the characters were for sure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Philippines, it &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Filipino#Name_format&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;was common&lt;/a&gt; for Filipino-Chinese to take both parents' family names as the Spanish did so I'm trying to narrow it down to a combination of surnames that look like Sui and Co combined. From the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_name#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; on Chinese names in the Philippines it looks like 謝(Sia/Saa) and 孫 (Suan) are good candidates for the Sui part and 許 (Co), or 郭 (Guo) for the Co part. There seem to be other candidates like 蕭 which is pronounced as siau/sio in Hokkien which confuses things further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18469" LastEditorUserId="16264" LastEditDate="2021-04-11T12:08:06.013" LastActivityDate="2021-04-11T12:08:06.013" Title="What are the original Chinese characters for the Filipino-Chinese family name Suico?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;hokkien&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27820" CreationDate="2017-11-27T16:22:33.050" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on your context. It could be 神 (deity), 老天爷 (Boss of Heaven), 上帝 (God), 主 (The Lord, used by Christians; other people just use 上帝). 真主(God of Islam), 佛祖(God of Buddhism, Sakyamuni specifically), 太上老君(Boss of Taoism)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other neutral words&#xA;仙, 神仙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T04:23:29.097" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T04:23:29.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27825" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-27T20:03:24.547" Score="-1" ViewCount="276" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an online description of Test Of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL) in Spanish or English that's better than &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_of_Chinese_as_a_Foreign_Language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both Wikipedia and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sc-top.org.tw/english/eng_index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;official site&lt;/a&gt; say that the final level adds no new words to the previous levels.  Wikipedia has two tables that disagree on the numbers of words in each level, and another site has a third set of numbers.  The official site agrees with the first Wikipedia table.  But the official site also has two word lists for what appears to be pre-test levels.  I'd like to know more about them.  That site's levels:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;準備一級  Pre 1    145 words&#xA;準備二級  Pre 2    171 words added&#xA;入門級    Lev 1    186 words added&#xA;基礎級    Lev 2    496 words added&#xA;進階級    Lev 3   1481 words added&#xA;高階級    Lev 4   2490 words added&#xA;流利級    Lev 5   2986 words added&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T11:36:33.247" Title="Details of TOCFL online?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27816" CreationDate="2017-11-27T22:49:07.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the main difference is, 后 can also mean behind, the back, the last, whereas 以后 does not take such a meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;后面： behind&lt;br&gt;&#xA;*以后面 X （not a word)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;房后有个车库。 Behind the house is a garage.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我坐在后排。 I'm sitting in the last (the behind) row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;后, 以后 both can mean after, afterwards, later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;后 can also mean children, as in 后生，'those born after' 九零后 'the children of the 90s'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course, 'the woman behind the king' i.e. the queen: 帝王的妻子：皇后，太后&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T22:49:07.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27827" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-28T00:11:13.200" Score="1" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read that 將 is used for actions or events in the near future, but in some other definitions of the word, it is simply used for a future action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18478" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T02:47:36.500" Title="Can 將 (or 将) only be used for events/actions that will take place in the near future?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27827" CreationDate="2017-11-28T00:51:31.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Xinhua dictionary, it means the near future.&#xA;快要：将要。将至。将来。即将。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. &quot;The winter is coming.&quot; is translated to &quot;凛冬将至&quot; is Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think 将来 is simply used for future action.&#xA;E.g. 我将来要成为一个科学家. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18463" LastEditorUserId="18463" LastEditDate="2017-11-28T01:08:02.690" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T01:08:02.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27827" CreationDate="2017-11-28T02:24:05.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;将&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt;'- e.g.  &lt;strong&gt;将&lt;/strong&gt;获得奖励 = (&lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt; get awarded) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;usually [将 + verb + object], e.g. 将失去目标; 将赴远方&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;short for '将快'or '即将'(&lt;strong&gt;will soon&lt;/strong&gt;)  - e.g &lt;strong&gt;人将&lt;/strong&gt;死 = 人快要死了 (the person &lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt; die &lt;strong&gt;soon&lt;/strong&gt;); 国&lt;strong&gt;将&lt;/strong&gt;亡 = 国家快要灭亡了 (country &lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt; be destroyed &lt;strong&gt;soon&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;将来 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;future&lt;/strong&gt;'(n) - e.g. 你和我没有&lt;strong&gt;未来&lt;/strong&gt;= 你和我没有&lt;strong&gt;将来&lt;/strong&gt; (you and I have no &lt;strong&gt;future&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;will in the future&lt;/strong&gt;' (adverb phrase) - e.g. &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;将来&lt;/strong&gt;要成为一个科学家&quot; (I &lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt; become a scientist &lt;strong&gt;in the future&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-11-28T02:47:36.500" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T02:47:36.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27816" CreationDate="2017-11-28T03:11:00.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;后(after,behind), a single character, connotes &lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;position&lt;/strong&gt; according to the context. When it refers to &lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt; sequencing, it's the same as 以后. It's like in your examples: 吃饭（以）后, 15分钟(以)后. But in 身后，房后 and etc, you can not replace 后 with 以后， because it stands for the location. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以后(after) only connotes &lt;strong&gt;position&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T03:11:00.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27286" CreationDate="2017-11-28T04:29:09.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience, you can start with watching videos you are interested in. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bilibili.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bilibili&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18463" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T04:29:09.073" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27415" CreationDate="2017-11-28T04:43:58.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;发蒙 is not used constantly in Chinese anymore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上学 means receive education in a general way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you want to say education at an early age, maybe &quot;启蒙教育&quot; fits better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18463" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T04:43:58.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27833" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27838" CreationDate="2017-11-28T05:19:44.207" Score="1" ViewCount="510" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 艹 (grass radical) is present in for example 歡　and 貓 and 喵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some fonts it's rendered as two separate crosses 十十， in some as one horizontal line with two vertical lines crossing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can I always write the grass radical in either way, or are there certain characters/situations that demand either way of writing it to be correct?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-28T05:33:32.490" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T13:25:37.837" Title="Can I always write the 艹 (grass radical) with three lines only?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27833" CreationDate="2017-11-28T05:34:47.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rendering it as two separate crosses 十十 is kind of traditional writing. In modern writing, we write one horizontal line with two vertical lines crossing it. Some would write traditionally in the calligraphy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T05:34:47.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27835" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27836" CreationDate="2017-11-28T08:10:59.197" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/65337840.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In the following page&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“网络用语”，即多在网络上流行的非正式语言，经常引发社会热潮，多为谐音、错别字改成，也有象形字词，以及在论坛上引起流行的经典语录。&lt;strong&gt;如&lt;/strong&gt;通常在论坛比较普遍的部分网络用语：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 如 in the final sentence mean and how does it work grammar-wise? At first I thought it means &quot;if&quot;, but then I fail to detect the main clause. So maybe I'm missing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what does the sentence mean? I feel I understand the sentences until the last one, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T08:27:27.323" Title="What does 如 in 如通常在论坛比较普遍的部分网络用语 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27835" CreationDate="2017-11-28T08:27:27.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here, 如 can be roughly translated into &quot;like&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, even as a Chinese, I fail to analyze the sentence grammatically...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence can be roughly (or not-so-roughly) translated into: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Internet Slang&quot; is the slang language that is popular on the Internet and may often gains popularity over the whole society. They're mostly derived from homophones, misspelled words, pictograms, and popular quotes on Internet forums. Below are some common Internet slangs on forums:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(omitted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well...I don't use &quot;like&quot; in my translation in order to convey more precise meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T08:27:27.323" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27833" CreationDate="2017-11-28T08:41:49.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Writing two crosses is the &quot;canonical&quot; type, which adheres to the origin of the radical. When you're in Taiwan or Hong Kong, this is the best choice.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Writing it together as a laid-down two-barred cross is the only accepted writing in Simplified Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T08:41:49.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27833" CreationDate="2017-11-28T13:25:37.837" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;艹&lt;/strong&gt; is 4 strokes in Taiwan and Hong Kong &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt;. It is less helpful to think of it as a &quot;traditional&quot;/&quot;simplified&quot; difference, as among other standards which use &quot;traditional characters&quot; (e.g. Korean Hanja), it is also 3 strokes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;歡&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;does not&lt;/em&gt; strictly contain 艹; it is historically written with &lt;strong&gt;卝&lt;/strong&gt;, commonly known as &lt;strong&gt;羊頭&lt;/strong&gt;. In modern times, the distinction may be relaxed, and many fonts may display it with 艹. Please refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-meaning-significance-of-the-%E5%8D%9D-component-in-traditional-Chinese-characters-as-in-%E8%8C%8D-distinct-from-the-%E8%89%B9-in-%E8%8B%9F/answers/59717808?srid=Qog4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; Quora answer detailing what kinds of characters contain 卝 rather than 艹.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To &quot;write things correctly&quot;, you need to understand what kind of regional Han character standard you're adhering to and look up the character in their official list. Otherwise, you should stick to the most recent common ancestor of all Han character standards, which is the Kangxi Dictionary standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T13:25:37.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27839" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-28T13:59:59.273" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below is a list of sentences. Some might be a bit strange, but I would like to hear a way to mend them using only 在着了 and other such particles (i.e. no time words and other adverbs).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my translation right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墙上挂一幅画。-&quot;Picture hangs on the wall&quot; as a rule, usuall it does.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墙上在挂一幅画。- &quot;Picture is being hang on the wall&quot;, the process of hanging is not yet over.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墙上挂着一幅画。- &quot;Picture is hanging on the wall&quot;, as a result of being hanged in (3).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墙上挂了一幅画。- &quot;Picture &lt;strong&gt;IS&lt;/strong&gt; hanging&quot;, i.e. the picture is indeed as a fact reality is hanging there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墙上挂着了一幅画。 - ??? i'm stuck here...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T03:03:42.483" Title="A question about 了 and a verb 挂" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27839" CreationDate="2017-11-28T15:43:42.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.墙上挂一幅画&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just a neutral description and the meaning is context-dependent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.墙上在挂一幅画&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your translation is correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.墙上挂着一幅画&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.墙上挂了一幅画&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't see any difference.Both means &quot;A picture is hanging on the wall&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5.墙上挂着了一幅画&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is gramatically incorrect and doesn't make any sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T15:43:42.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27823" CreationDate="2017-11-28T16:27:52.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;隋 is a more probable candidate for Sui. It is (some form of) Sui in Hakka and Hokkien. There's a 睢 too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;郭 is not a good candidate for Co -- in southern Chinese languages (Hakka, Minnan/Hokkien, Cantonese) it has a final -k. Some variant of Kwok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T16:27:52.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27842" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-28T20:30:08.487" Score="1" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of Confucius' 一以貫之 yī yǐ guàn zhī &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Literary Chinese :孔子 禮記 論語 請問何謂孔子吾道一以貫之？曾子曰：唯；夫子之道忠恕而已矣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18480" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-11-29T11:31:14.687" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T12:37:36.137" Title="What is the meaning of Confucius' 一以貫之" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27843" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27845" CreationDate="2017-11-28T21:34:32.603" Score="5" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many Indo-European languages metaphors of temperature are used to describe people. Is it the same in Chinese,  can we say '他很热' and not mean that they have a high temperature?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17290" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-11-29T00:04:24.003" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T15:07:01.760" Title="Can one use 热 and 冷 to describe people?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27843" CreationDate="2017-11-28T22:53:00.227" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my experience, we can say '他很冷' to mean that he is the person who doesn't care. But we do not say ‘他很热’. Instead, we say ‘他很热情’. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18483" LastEditorUserId="18483" LastEditDate="2017-11-28T23:03:02.750" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T23:03:02.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27843" CreationDate="2017-11-28T23:12:03.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may need words of 2 characters, but I'm sure Chinese can do that. Specifically, what do you want to express? Hot or cold: passion, zeal, enthusiasm, interest, love, desire, hate? Here are some pairs of opposites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;热情 —— 冷静&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;热心 —— 冷淡&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;热门 —— 冷漠&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, you can write:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他冷冷地对我说了 ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我热情地微笑着, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-11-29T11:38:01.597" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T11:38:01.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27839" CreationDate="2017-11-28T23:21:19.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you want to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;画被挂在墙上.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The picture was hung on the wall. (We are not interested in 'by whom')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: 2. &quot;The picture is being &lt;em&gt;hung&lt;/em&gt; on the wall&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T23:21:19.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27843" CreationDate="2017-11-29T02:48:30.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, I heard of usage like (他)手很热/(他)手很冷, which are used in PC games to describe players in a good/bad state. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-30T09:38:56.350" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T09:38:56.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27839" CreationDate="2017-11-29T03:03:42.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墙上挂一幅画 sounds like a incomplete sentence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墙上挂着一幅画: The picture is hanging on the wall. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墙上挂了一幅画: The picture was hung on the wall. // indicating completion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墙上在挂一幅画 sounds incorrect, because the subject(a person) should not be omitted in this case. It should be like: 有人正在往墙上挂一幅画.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;墙上挂着了一幅画: this sentence is incorrect. It should be either 墙上挂了一幅画 or 墙上挂了一幅画. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T03:03:42.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27286" CreationDate="2017-11-29T08:31:17.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Language learning requires a lot of listening input , usually you can look at the programs of china central television, the host pronunciation is very standard.&#xA;语言的学习需要大量的听力输入，平时你可以看看中国中央电视台的节目，主持人发音都很标准。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18189" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T08:31:17.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27853" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27854" CreationDate="2017-11-29T10:34:32.690" Score="0" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was asked this in my Chinese class and have to write a mini paragraph on it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;解释一下“纸”这个字部首是什么？最早纸是什么意思？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that the first part of 纸 means 丝绸, but what does the second part of the character mean? Also, I don't exactly get what 最早纸是什么意思 is asking for...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17657" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-30T04:30:17.287" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T04:30:17.287" Title="Meaning of 纸 in radicals" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27853" CreationDate="2017-11-29T11:10:13.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;氏(Shì) is the phonetic component in 纸(Zhǐ), which is a '&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;phono-semantic compound character&lt;/a&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phono-semantic compound characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;形聲 xíng shēng &amp;quot;form and sound&amp;quot; or 諧聲 xié shēng &amp;quot;sound agreement&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are often called radical-phonetic characters. They form the majority of Chinese characters by far—over 90%, and were created by combining two components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a phonetic component, also called &amp;quot;rebus&amp;quot;, Japanese 音符 (onpu), that is, a character with approximately the correct pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a semantic component, also called a determinative, one of a limited number of determinative characters which supplied an element of meaning (in most cases this is also the radical under which a character is listed in a dictionary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T11:10:13.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27855" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27856" CreationDate="2017-11-29T11:38:21.090" Score="1" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following two English sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The song is called &quot;Name 1&quot; on &quot;Website 1&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The song is called &quot;Name 2&quot; on &quot;Website 2&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can combine these two sentences to read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The song is called &quot;Name 1&quot; on &quot;Website 1&quot; and &quot;Name 2&quot; on &quot;Website 2&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subject and verb are dropped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now consider the same two sentences in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這首歌在「Website 1」上線被稱為「Name 1」。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這首歌在「Website 2」上線被稱為「Name 2」。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I similarly join clauses in Chinese if a different location is specified in the two clauses? Does it work the same as if no location was specified (i.e., just use 和)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這首歌在「Website 1」上線被稱為「Name 1」和在「Website 2」上線「Name 2」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The preceding text seems like it may be incorrect to me because the omitted verb occurs between the location and object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that I can also use 也, but that apparently requires repeating the verb, which I’d like to avoid to reduce verbosity:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這首歌在「Website 1」上線被稱為「Name 1」, 也在「Website 2」上線被稱為「Name 2」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16406" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T15:24:05.643" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T15:24:05.643" Title="How do I avoid repetitions when combining two sentences with the same subject and verb?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27855" CreationDate="2017-11-29T11:50:43.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use &lt;strong&gt;同时 (at the same time)&lt;/strong&gt; if you just want to state that the two are equally true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这首歌在「Website 1」上被称为「Name 1」，&lt;strong&gt;同时&lt;/strong&gt;在「Website 2」上被称为「Name 2」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Use &lt;strong&gt;反而 (instead) or 而 (and/but)&lt;/strong&gt; if you want to stress the opposition between the two. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这首歌在「Website 1」上被称为「Name 1」，&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;在「Website 2」上被称为「Name 2」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can avoid further repetitions by simplifying the second verb or using a synonym. I think you can also omit the location verb after the second 在: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而在 [ Website 1 ] （上）（它）叫 / 是 / 被称 [ Name 2 ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-11-29T11:57:57.700" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T11:57:57.700" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27857" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27858" CreationDate="2017-11-29T11:53:34.827" Score="2" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.huarenjie.com/thread-5510973-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In the following sentence over 华人街&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从我这几天的观察来看，大部分都比较喜欢欧美国家，所以我把意大利早点介绍，&lt;strong&gt;意大利文化真的是没有最好只有更好的&lt;/strong&gt;，意大利的强势专业绝对是艺术，美院也是特别的有名气，佛罗伦萨美院等等，但是缺点就是经济比较弱，大学毕业以后工作确实不是特别好找，意大利人很懒，生活节奏比较慢，但免学费。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand the bold part. Specifically, what does the sentence including 没有最好只有更好 mean? I'm fine with all the other sentences, but don't understand what it means in the bold part...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It starts with something like - &lt;em&gt;Italian culture is really not only the best...?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-11-29T12:16:06.107" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T12:16:06.107" Title="What does 没有最好只有更好 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27857" CreationDate="2017-11-29T12:05:11.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;意大利文化 // 真的是 // 没有最好 // 只有更好的 &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Italian culture really doesn't have the best (thing), only better (things). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 《没有最好，只有更好的》 is the quality linked to by the copula 是。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With some more thought you could surely find a more fluent translation.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Anyway, it's an elegant way of saying that Italian fine arts and cultural heritages are so many (common, widespread) that you can't just single out THE best one, but they all rival each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T12:05:11.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27855" CreationDate="2017-11-29T13:23:41.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use '而 ~ 则 ' (and then) structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;这首歌在「Website 1」上被称为「Name 1」，&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;在「Website 2」上&lt;strong&gt;则&lt;/strong&gt;被称为「Name 2」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or simply use '则' (then)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;这首歌在「Website 1」上被称为「Name 1」，在「Website 2」上&lt;strong&gt;则&lt;/strong&gt;被称为「Name 2」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use '但 ~ 却' (but) structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;这首歌在「Website 1」上被称为「Name 1」，&lt;strong&gt;但&lt;/strong&gt;在「Website 2」上&lt;strong&gt;却&lt;/strong&gt;被称为「Name 2」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or simply use '却' (but)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;这首歌在「Website 1」上被称为「Name 1」，在「Website 2」上&lt;strong&gt;却&lt;/strong&gt;被称为「Name 2」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T13:23:41.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27860" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27865" CreationDate="2017-11-29T14:44:52.283" Score="0" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can somebody help me translate this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是足不出户的半宅体&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using a dictionary, I guess it describes a person who doesn't want to leave his house. But I am not sure what is the exact meaning of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18498" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T04:32:36.450" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T07:01:40.770" Title="What does 我是足不出户的半宅体 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27861" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27870" CreationDate="2017-11-29T17:14:43.007" Score="1" ViewCount="564" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using the Google Cantonese Input and Google Pinyin Input on my phone and cannot find a way to type .  Even when I switch to the handwriting method,  does not come up as an option and I get them separated as 門小 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would I type  with Pin Yin or Yale/Jyutping input?  For now, I'm just using 屌你 instead of 你.  Otherwise, I would have to copy and paste  and it gets annoying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18500" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T08:41:51.800" Title="How do I type  on a keyboard?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;yale-romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27861" CreationDate="2017-11-29T21:48:52.033" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use the handwriting keyboard or 屌 is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18506" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T21:48:52.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27860" CreationDate="2017-11-29T22:39:22.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look up 宅男，宅女， that will point you in the right direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是足不出户的半宅体?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm a never-goes-out kind of half a nerd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T22:39:22.193" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27853" CreationDate="2017-11-29T23:00:20.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the question, you should only need to describe the radical (found in this case as the left hand component) &lt;strong&gt;糸&lt;/strong&gt;, not &lt;strong&gt;氏&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &lt;strong&gt;部首&lt;/strong&gt; is literally translated as &lt;em&gt;section header&lt;/em&gt;, and strictly refers to the header under which the character is grouped in dictionaries. Each character has only &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; 部首, just like each English word has only &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;first letter&lt;/em&gt; under which they are found in dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your teacher also asks you to describe 氏, then that should be done in a separate question; if they think that 氏 is a 部首 in the character &lt;strong&gt;紙&lt;/strong&gt;, then they are unequivocally wrong. 紙 is a semantophonetic (&lt;strong&gt;形聲&lt;/strong&gt;) compound character under the traditional &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;liushu&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; scheme of classifying characters. You can only refer to 氏 as a &lt;strong&gt;聲部&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;sound component&lt;/em&gt;) in 紙, not a 部首.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;最早&quot;紙&quot;是什麽意思&lt;/strong&gt; (punctuation added) is asking you to find out what 紙 meant in its first appearance in historical literature. This may be trying to get you to appreciate that many characters have changed meaning over the course of history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T23:00:20.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27867" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27868" CreationDate="2017-11-30T01:13:39.657" Score="1" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;Original context: 礼物不需挑最贵 只要香榭的落叶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18228" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-11-30T02:58:12.333" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T02:58:12.333" Title="What type of tree is 香榭?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27867" CreationDate="2017-11-30T01:28:02.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;香榭 refers to 香榭丽舍大道, i.e. Champs Elysees of Paris.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;礼物不需挑最贵 =&amp;gt; Don't need to choose the most expensive present,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要香榭的落叶 =&amp;gt; just want the fallen leaves from (the trees at) Champs Elysees&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, even though fallen leaves are free, money is still required for the air ticket and hotel to go to Paris. (which should be what OP wants indeed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, you can buy 香榭的落叶 at &lt;a href=&quot;https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z10.5-c.w4002-2622410893.47.46c86d9dMsCdjc&amp;amp;id=536824753684&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;淘宝&lt;/a&gt;. (which shouldn't be what OP wants)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.163.com/16/0807/15/BTSHE7S100014TUH.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;七夕快了，来自香榭丽舍的落叶居然成了告白神器&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T02:45:45.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27855" CreationDate="2017-11-30T02:36:23.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Or simply, 这首歌在 &lt;em&gt;新浪&lt;/em&gt; 上名为&quot;你好&quot;， 在&lt;em&gt;搜狐&lt;/em&gt;上为&quot;你好吗&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新浪 and 搜狐 are the names of websites. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T02:36:23.933" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27861" CreationDate="2017-11-30T03:38:21.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 「」 is in the Unicode CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B, which may not be supported by all operating systems and IMEs. Some IMEs support it but the feature is disabled by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a Cangjie IME that supports &lt;em&gt;extension B&lt;/em&gt;, the code is &lt;code&gt;日弓火&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;anf&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2718" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-11-30T04:28:51.743" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T04:28:51.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27861" CreationDate="2017-11-30T04:09:36.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One could always argue that if you find it annoying to copy/paste , you're using it too much, and should clean up your vocabulary :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all depends on the platform you're using. I'm on a Mac (laptop) and Android (phone/tablet). On my Mac, I have customized an old &lt;a href=&quot;http://blyt.net/domingo2/Chinese.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jyutping IME by Dominic Yu&lt;/a&gt;, based on the LSHK table. I added  (and many other things) to the IME. You can get it &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/dda/jyutping&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On my Android, I use MultiLing, which is good in most cases, but its fuzzy logic makes it very hard to input single-syllable words that are not common (at least in their idea of common). I usually resort, for such characters, to trying first pinyin, then Japanese, or, if everything fails, hand-writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;EDIT&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On MultiLing, typing &lt;code&gt;diunei&lt;/code&gt; gives 屌你, which is the fastest way I found to type 屌 – if 你 isn't needed just erase it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T08:41:51.800" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27843" CreationDate="2017-11-30T05:34:04.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without a context, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他很热&quot; means: He feels hot (due to high temperature or catch a fever)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他很冷&quot; means: He's feeling cold (due to cold weather or catch a cold)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18509" LastEditorUserId="18509" LastEditDate="2020-02-15T15:07:01.760" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T15:07:01.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27632" CreationDate="2017-11-30T05:37:17.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;像 = 如 in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今年我旅遊很多，&lt;strong&gt;不像&lt;/strong&gt; 去年。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18509" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T05:37:17.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27876" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27877" CreationDate="2017-11-30T10:22:11.573" Score="-1" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VBVx0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VBVx0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw this as a tattoo and I wish to know what it means, please.&#xA;Thanks a lot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18518" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T10:42:37.307" Title="Can someone tell me what this Chinese symbol means?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-12-01T01:22:36.933" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27876" CreationDate="2017-11-30T10:42:37.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character is 求, pronounced qiú.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionary definition is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;n. request&#xA;vt. beg ; seek ; demand&#xA;misc. look for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18516" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T10:42:37.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27843" CreationDate="2017-11-30T10:48:36.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely, you can use &quot;他很热&quot;to indicate &quot; he is very hot&quot;.But, in English, &quot;he is hot&quot; could mean &quot; he is sexy&quot;.In Chinese&quot;他很热&quot;do not have mean of &quot;he is sexy&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18519" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T10:48:36.610" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27879" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27880" CreationDate="2017-11-30T17:06:48.420" Score="2" ViewCount="445" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://carlgene.com/blog/2010/12/33-proverbs-that-translate-well-between-english-and-mandarin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;From here&lt;/a&gt;.  The literal translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Person no 1000 days good (人无千日好).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author says this translates into:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is no person that has 1000 good days in a row&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's a bit of added words and meaning.  I don't see anything to do with &lt;code&gt;in a row&lt;/code&gt; in the sentence and it's not clear that the 1000 days belongs to the person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why doesn't this sentence require a &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; to indicate that the 1000 days belongs to the person (or &lt;code&gt;person has no 1000 days good&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18105" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T11:26:55.063" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T11:26:55.063" Title="人无千日好: Literal Translation Is Completely Different" Tags="&lt;proverb&gt;&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27879" CreationDate="2017-11-30T18:42:37.590" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an old Chinese proverb, that's why there are some words missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In old times, as long as people can understand what you mean, you can omit as many as words you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人无千日好，花无百日红。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, &lt;code&gt;好&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;happy&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;happy life&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;good life&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;easy life&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;百&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;千&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;万&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese proverbs or idioms usually refers to &lt;code&gt;a very long time&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the whole sentence's meaning is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is no person can be happy for a thousand days, and there is no flower can bloom for a hundred days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Someone is happy for now doesn't mean he can be happy forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it also means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Someone (maybe your friend) is nice to you now doesn't mean he can be nice to you forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's like the proverb in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For age and want save while you may; no morning sun lasts a whole day&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16104" LastEditorUserId="16104" LastEditDate="2017-12-01T17:17:23.830" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T17:17:23.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27820" CreationDate="2017-12-01T01:59:56.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, there is no single, direct translation of &quot;god&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-If you are a Christian, or live in the West, the word 上帝 perhaps is your best bet for &quot;god&quot; in Chinese, as it is the usual translation for the Western god, regardless of denomination (e.g. &quot;god&quot; in Gogol's books are all translated as 上帝);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-The cosmic power/spirit: 上天 (as in: 上天保佑--sort of like &quot;may the force be with you&quot;） or 老天爷;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Christian prayers (esp the older translations) refer to god as 主 or 神 （I've seen hand-copied Christian prayers that use both）；but 神 also means &quot;spirit&quot; (if you think of &quot;the holy spirit&quot;, it makes sense that 神 is used to refer to god). However, unlike 上帝, the character 神 alone doesn't unambiguously mean &quot;god&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T01:59:56.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26796" CreationDate="2017-12-01T02:52:45.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;免职：removed from position;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;降级: demoted;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;免级: remove ranks (though not necessarily &quot;stripped&quot; of ranks)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T02:52:45.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21866" CreationDate="2017-12-01T02:57:22.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could the word be 玄 （xuán)? In Beijing, it means &quot;improbable&quot; or &quot;unbelievable&quot;, &quot;out there&quot;. If spoken with a Beijing &quot;er&quot; attached, it sounds like xuán-er.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastEditorUserId="18531" LastEditDate="2017-12-10T00:21:46.960" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T00:21:46.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27690" CreationDate="2017-12-01T03:00:34.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;而在此前 is used to highlight contrast, meaning: &quot;whereas in the past&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T03:00:34.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27690" CreationDate="2017-12-01T04:00:36.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;而在此前&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;Before this&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, that means before this date (2017年11月15日) or before this rule became effective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt; = 然而 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%80%A3%E8%A9%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;conjunction 連詞&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt; = at / on / in (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BB%8B%E8%A9%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;preposition 前置介詞&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;此&lt;/strong&gt; = this (this date / this rule became effective)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;前&lt;/strong&gt; = before&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase can be expanded to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;然而，在此之前&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T04:00:36.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-01T04:24:35.627" Score="0" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new to Chinese so please forgive me if this question it's dumb.&#xA;I read this frase on a lyrics' song: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;我好想你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And when I search for the pinyin I got this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;wo3 ha3o xia3ng ni3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a little bit about tone-shifting and I think that when the there are two third tones together the first one change to a second tone. An example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;你好 ni3 ha3o changes to ni2 ha3o&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in my case, how do tones shift?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18492" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T08:06:29.887" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T08:06:29.887" Title="我好想你 and tone shift" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2017-12-17T21:28:59.040" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27888" CreationDate="2017-12-01T05:33:26.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;wo2 ha3o xia2ng ni3, in chinese, it's called as &quot;上声变调&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18528" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T05:33:26.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27888" CreationDate="2017-12-01T05:39:15.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just divide the characters into pairs(&amp;quot;我好&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;想你&amp;quot; in your case), and apply the tone-shifting rule on each pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so it becomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wo2 ha3o xia2ng ni3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尺有所短 chi2 you3 suo2 duan3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;岂有此理 qi2 you3 i2 li3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有板有眼 you2 ban3 you2 yan3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T05:45:14.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27891" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-01T10:38:09.880" Score="2" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my &lt;a href=&quot;https://chdict.zydeo.net/en/edit/existing/l66oa8L&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;open-source dictionary&lt;/a&gt; a contributor has suggested a verbal reading for 块: to cut/chop into pieces, noting that in this 'verbal sense' it is always reduplicated. I cannot find this in either CC-CEDICT or ABC. In my corpus of movie subtitles I find 10 attestations of 块块 (see below), all of them preceded by 一, and often as 成一块块 or as 块块的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am asking for an analysis and suggestions. Does 一块块 belong in a dictionary as a headword? Should it be marked as an adverb, a complement (&amp;quot;into pieces&amp;quot;), or something else? Or, is there in fact a verbal reading of 块?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attestations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一块块的找&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把躯体一块块进行肢解&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哦,把他们砍成一块块?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要是再玩大男人的鬼把戏 我把你从头到脚一块块切下来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;灰熊的领地被公路切分成一块块 使他们限制在很小的范围内&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要把你剁成一块块 交给吉迪恩，你这个淫妇！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唯见一块块血淋淋的你和我&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这里面一块块的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把她的脸割成一块块&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还有一块块的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16280" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T18:12:26.707" Title="Verbal reading of 块?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27891" CreationDate="2017-12-01T14:38:57.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, it's not a verbal reading of 块.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, 一块块 could be used as adjective, adverb or a complement, meaning 'into pieces' or 'pieces of'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples(as an adjective， modifying a noun): 一块块肉，一块块面包，...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples(as an adverb， modifying a verb): 一块块地找，一块块地切下来，...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples(as a complement): &quot;哦,把他们砍成一块块?&quot;, &quot;灰熊的领地被公路切分成一块块&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T14:38:57.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27879" CreationDate="2017-12-01T14:48:50.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“人无千日好，花无百日红”比喻好景不长或友情难以持久。现指人生不是一帆风顺的，会遭受大大小小的挫折与磨难，英雄自古多磨难。同时会有许多落魄的凤凰不如鸡，更会有虎落平阳被犬欺的人生之路。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that the proverb connotes more meanings: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;it expresses friendship could not be lasting very long time. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Life is not easy; Something bad could happen and etc. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T14:48:50.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27891" CreationDate="2017-12-01T17:26:31.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一块块&lt;/code&gt; is just short for &lt;code&gt;一块一块&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to speak very fast, &lt;code&gt;一块一块&lt;/code&gt; just sounds like &lt;code&gt;一块块&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there is nothing else about this. And like :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一种种，一个个，一份份，一点点，一句句&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To many of them. Almost all words like &lt;code&gt;一...&lt;/code&gt; can be said like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16104" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T17:26:31.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27896" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-01T22:47:51.593" Score="0" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;柳云龙 is being interviewed. The interviewer asked: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;柳（云龙）先生，谁给你取的这个名字？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mr Liu (Clouddragon or Speakingdragon, not sure??), who chose this name for you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She used 的. Why not write 了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;柳（云龙）先生，谁给你取了这个名字？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I can rearrange thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;柳（云龙）先生，这个名字是谁给你取的(名字）？ Is that where 的 comes from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I know a guy called 许成龙， I always ask him when he will finally become a dragon. He's not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T00:57:11.867" Title="Why didn't they write 取了 here?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27899" CreationDate="2017-12-01T23:51:11.047" Score="1" ViewCount="335" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've tried to find the characters seen in this picture (from a Blade Runner prop), using online Chinese OCR and other online tools but it's a real struggle for someone as clueless as me in Chinese...&#xA;(I've found the following characters from the first line : 接着X製品XX部 )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone help me figure what the characters are and, possibly translate it? Coming from an american movie, I wouldn't be surprised if it is a very approximative Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VkL7v.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VkL7v.png&quot; alt=&quot;Blade Runner phone card&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; I feel bad for mistaking Japanese for Chinese, especially because I first thought of Japanese seeing the characters, but Blade Runner's setting being immersed in Chinese culture, I guess I fought my own instinct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15473" LastEditorUserId="15473" LastEditDate="2017-12-02T12:21:43.237" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T12:21:43.237" Title="Chinese writings in Blade Runner movie" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-12-05T01:58:08.253" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27896" CreationDate="2017-12-02T00:57:11.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;谁给你取的这个名字？ conveys where you got the name or &lt;strong&gt;who&lt;/strong&gt; give you that name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谁给你取了这个名字？ sounds like who have given you &lt;strong&gt;such&lt;/strong&gt; a name, implying who have done that naming because that name might sound &lt;em&gt;unusual&lt;/em&gt;, weird/ridiculous/etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T00:57:11.867" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27897" CreationDate="2017-12-02T01:23:37.263" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;接着剤製品営業部&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;glue - 接着剤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;product - 製品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sales department - 営業部&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東京都世田谷區玉川台 2 - 33&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tamagawadai (玉川台), Setagaya-ku (世田谷區) in Tokyo 東京都.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.hk/search?client=safari&amp;amp;rls=en&amp;amp;q=%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E9%83%BD%E4%B8%96%E7%94%B0%E8%B0%B7%E5%8D%80%E7%8E%89%E5%B7%9D%E5%8F%B0+2+-+33&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;oe=UTF-8&amp;amp;gfe_rd=cr&amp;amp;dcr=0&amp;amp;ei=Z_8hWrnmCvOiX6vkr4gH&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com.hk/search?client=safari&amp;amp;rls=en&amp;amp;q=%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E9%83%BD%E4%B8%96%E7%94%B0%E8%B0%B7%E5%8D%80%E7%8E%89%E5%B7%9D%E5%8F%B0+2+-+33&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;oe=UTF-8&amp;amp;gfe_rd=cr&amp;amp;dcr=0&amp;amp;ei=Z_8hWrnmCvOiX6vkr4gH&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Osaka - 大阪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nagoya - 名古屋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sendai - 仙台&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hiroshima - 広(廣)島&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2017-12-02T12:15:28.520" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T12:15:28.520" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27902" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27903" CreationDate="2017-12-02T10:35:04.973" Score="3" ViewCount="818" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried looking up online dictionary but cannot find the meaning of 男猪脚? Its literal meaning is &quot;I am a male pig's foot&quot; and it makes no sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18498" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-12-02T14:23:21.670" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T04:03:47.650" Title="What does this sentence mean 我是男猪脚?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27902" CreationDate="2017-12-02T10:38:39.937" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%92%E8%81%94%E7%BD%91%E7%94%A8%E8%AF%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;internet slang&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;code&gt;猪脚&lt;/code&gt; refers to &lt;code&gt;主角&lt;/code&gt; (they have similar pronunciation), i.e. &lt;code&gt;protagonist&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;leading role [character]&lt;/code&gt;. The original meaning of &lt;code&gt;猪脚&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;pig feet&lt;/code&gt;; as @NS.X. commented, as internet slang it's usually used for playfulness, sarcasm or self-mockery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我是男猪脚&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;em&gt;I am the leading man (main actor)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related terms: &lt;code&gt;男猪&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;男主角&lt;/code&gt;), &lt;code&gt;女猪&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;女主角&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-12-03T04:03:47.650" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T04:03:47.650" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27904" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27905" CreationDate="2017-12-02T11:24:29.313" Score="1" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently watched a show where Chinese actors read &quot;留言&quot; from netizens. I wonder if 留言 can be translated as &quot;comment&quot; (e.g in blog comment, forum comment) or it only has the meaning &quot;message&quot; according to dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18498" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-12-02T12:01:40.443" LastActivityDate="2017-12-05T04:19:44.053" Title="Does 留言 mean &quot;comment&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27904" CreationDate="2017-12-02T11:51:33.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;留言 literally mean leave messages. In your context, it could be interpreted as 留的言, the messages left by netizens. Sometimes, 留言 can be a form of comment, or vise versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T11:51:33.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27906" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27907" CreationDate="2017-12-02T12:00:45.967" Score="1" ViewCount="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因森发·加计学院问题&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;曝光率增高的「sontaku」一词，也已经成为了日常用语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the use of 而 as &quot;and&quot;, but I feel it doesn't make sense here to use 而, since I don't understand what it connects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how does 而 work here? Also, is my understanding correct that 而 here doesn't express &quot;and&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-12-02T12:43:50.180" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T12:55:32.620" Title="What does 而 mean in 因森发·加计学院问题而曝光率增高的?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27906" CreationDate="2017-12-02T12:38:48.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;而&lt;/code&gt; is not used as &lt;code&gt;and&lt;/code&gt; here, but &lt;code&gt;as a result;with the result that;thus&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;因A而B&lt;/strong&gt; is a common usage; &lt;code&gt;因&lt;/code&gt; is used to emphasize that &lt;em&gt;A&lt;/em&gt; is the cause, &lt;code&gt;而&lt;/code&gt; is used to represent that &lt;em&gt;B&lt;/em&gt; is the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use &lt;code&gt;因为&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;由于&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;因&lt;/code&gt; in this usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-12-02T12:55:32.620" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T12:55:32.620" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27908" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-12-02T13:14:29.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Internet slang (互联网用语/網絡語言) refers to a variety of slang languages used by different people on the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Resource&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E6%B5%81%E8%A1%8C%E8%AF%AD%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中国网络流行语列表&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%A4%A7%E9%99%86%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E7%94%A8%E8%AF%AD%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中国大陆网络用语列表&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E7%B6%B2%E7%B5%A1%E7%94%A8%E8%AA%9E%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;香港網絡語言列表&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%8F%B0%E7%81%A3%E7%B6%B2%E8%B7%AF%E7%94%A8%E8%AA%9E%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;台灣網路語言列表&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-12-02T13:47:11.603" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T13:47:11.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27909" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-12-02T13:14:29.310" Score="0" Body="Questions concerned internet slang (互联网用语/網絡語言)." OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-12-02T13:47:11.603" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T13:47:11.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27910" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27911" CreationDate="2017-12-02T19:34:38.777" Score="6" ViewCount="417" Body="&lt;p&gt;每隔一周 means &quot;every two weeks&quot; or &quot;every other week&quot; in English. So, it looks like “每隔 x” is equivalent to &quot;every x+1&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I noticed many online dictionaries have 每隔两天 equivalent to &quot;every two days&quot;. But I thought 每隔两天 should be &quot;every three days&quot;. Can anyone explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T22:05:24.593" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T22:06:14.510" Title="What does 每隔 mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27910" CreationDate="2017-12-02T23:57:52.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tricky that. I think you are right and the dictionaries are wrong!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;间隔： gap, interval&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隔开: separate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每 间隔 一周 &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;every gap 1 week: Something happens week 1, not week 2, again week 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每 间隔 两天 &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;every gap 2 days: Something happens day 1, not day 2, not day 3, again day 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T22:06:14.510" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T22:06:14.510" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27910" CreationDate="2017-12-03T03:15:37.323" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;每隔 means &quot;every&quot;. It can be used as &quot;每隔&quot; + quantity + unit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;For example:&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; - every + 2 + days = 每隔+两(2)+天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I drink a cup of coffee every two days. = 我每隔2天喝一杯咖啡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means you consume a cup of coffee every 48 hour interval. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; - every 500 meters = 每隔 + 五百(500) + 米&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I stop every 500 meters. = 我每隔500米停一次。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means you stop at 500 meters, and stop again when you reach 1000 meters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, as my understanding, &quot;每隔两天&quot; means  &quot;every 2 days&quot;(not 3).&#xA; However, your concern is legit. It is a vague way of saying things. Thus, if it is a more serious situation (e.g. contract), instead of a day to day conversation, you should clarify. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10902" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T03:15:37.323" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27910" CreationDate="2017-12-03T03:55:31.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @user6065 said in comment, 每隔X means 'with interval of X', which does not specify duration of the event. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每隔一周 does not necessarily mean 'every two weeks'. If the event takes place for a week every time, which is the common assumption when someone says 每隔一周, then it means that. But it is possible the the event takes only 1 hour, then it means every one week, although people tend to say it in a different way in the first place. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, 每隔两天 might be used commonly with an event that has one day duration, hence every three days. But again it could be different, e.g. “每隔两天一次，每次10分钟” then it is an inaccurate way of saying every two days. (It is inaccurate because strictly speaking the interval is 2 days less 10 minutes.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T03:55:31.180" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27914" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27919" CreationDate="2017-12-03T05:37:28.977" Score="1" ViewCount="533" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这家小资的咖啡店本身&lt;strong&gt;不仅仅&lt;/strong&gt;是一间咖啡店，还是首个提出咖啡情绪疗法的品牌。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know 不仅 means &quot;not only&quot;, and 不仅～还是 means &quot;not only ~ but also ~&quot;, similar to English idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this sentence uses 不仅仅, not 不仅. I wonder if it is a typo, or correct sentence. In that case, what is the difference between 不仅 and 不仅仅?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-12-03T17:20:15.433" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T17:22:16.993" Title="Is 不仅仅 the correct word?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27915" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27917" CreationDate="2017-12-03T07:17:00.310" Score="1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently watched a celebrity show where an actor said: 我还会演雨戏 我还会演风戏 我不光会演雷剧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are 雨戏, 风戏, 雷剧?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess that these are some kind of television dramas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18498" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-03T07:26:32.873" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T07:37:10.477" Title="What is the meaning of these words?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27916" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27918" CreationDate="2017-12-03T07:33:23.833" Score="1" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just learned 堪 on the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这种损伤是长期，可能无法逆转的损伤，对身体的危害&lt;strong&gt;堪&lt;/strong&gt;比心脏病发作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;I extracted the relevant part only but this sentence talks about 心醉.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The auxiliary verbs to express &quot;may&quot; that I have learned so far include 可能. I might miss something others, though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the difference between 堪 and these auxiliary verbs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is there any more auxiliary verbs that express &quot;may&quot; (or &quot;might&quot;) in Mandarin? As far as I search, there is little or no words to express &quot;may&quot; in Mandarin, especially compared to will/would/can/could/must/ought in English (e.g. 要，需要，应该，该，会，将，能，可能，可以，必须，可以，etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T12:58:30.357" Title="How is 堪 different from other auxiliary verbs?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27915" CreationDate="2017-12-03T07:37:10.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;雷剧 is short for 雷人电视剧，which means this drama is just one of the worst,making you feel 'shocked'.&#xA;雷 also means thunder in Chinese.So 雨戏 and 风戏 actually mean nothing, the actress was just playing with language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18582" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T07:37:10.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27916" CreationDate="2017-12-03T08:29:18.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1661/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;堪&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) endure; sustain; bear; stand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) may; can; capable of; fit for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'堪' in '对身体的危害堪比心脏病发作' is definition #(2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'堪' usually combine with a single character verb like '称' or '作', as in '堪称'(may be called as/ fit to be called as) or '堪作' (may be/fit to be)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[堪 + single character verb] are more classical and literary terms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For two characters verbs like  '作为' , it is more common to use '足以'(enough to), as in '足以作为'(capable of being/ enough to be ) instead of  '堪作为'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;'堪称为' is an exception, it is as common as '足以称为'&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[足以 + two character verbs] are more modern and colloquial terms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T08:29:18.877" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27914" CreationDate="2017-12-03T08:59:59.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 不仅...而且/还是...  is equivalent to &quot;not only... but also...&quot;. I think 不仅仅 fits here. Because the author really wants to emphasize the achievement of this coffee shop, which is '首个提出咖啡情绪疗法的品牌'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他不仅是一个模特，还是一个大学教授。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This just tells you that he has two jobs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他不仅仅是一个模特,还是一个大学教授&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this means that being both a model and a university professor is really impressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18463" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-12-03T17:22:16.993" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T17:22:16.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27916" CreationDate="2017-12-03T09:40:00.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;is there any more auxiliary verbs that express &quot;may&quot; (or &quot;might&quot;) in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are 能，可以. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T09:40:00.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27916" CreationDate="2017-12-03T12:58:30.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 'can' and 'may? 'may' basically stems from an old root meaning 'have the power to, be able to' which is pretty much the modern meaning of 'can', making them synonyms. The old form of 'can' originally meant 'know, know how to do something'. You already have '可能‘ in your sentence. A funny phonetic coincidence in your sentence is also '堪比’ and 'can be'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种损伤是长期，可能无法逆转的损伤，对身体的危害堪比心脏病发作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对身体的危害堪比心脏病发作。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. can be compared to the harm caused by a heart attack.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. may be compared to the harm caused by a heart attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you note any difference in meaning between 1. and 2.? I do not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T12:58:30.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27922" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27923" CreationDate="2017-12-04T02:56:34.300" Score="2" ViewCount="1415" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since Chinese nouns can be both singular and plural depending on context (i.e. 牙齿), what is the difference between 朋友 and 朋友们.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有很多朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我给我的朋友们说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我给我的朋友说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T19:24:53.060" Title="The Phrase 朋友 vs 朋友们" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27922" CreationDate="2017-12-04T03:01:18.050" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;朋友们 is always being plural, while 朋友 can be either plural or singular depending on the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我给我的朋友说 doesn't indicate if there is/are one/many friend(s). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T03:01:18.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22315" CreationDate="2017-12-04T12:17:20.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;气&quot; is a suffix which turns an adjective to a noun. But nouns ending with it often describe a quality that may offend people, called &quot;咄咄逼人&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18596" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T12:17:20.640" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27843" CreationDate="2017-12-04T12:32:05.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;热&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;冷&amp;quot; are used to describe temperature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both &amp;quot;热情&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;热心&amp;quot; mean enthusiastic, but the former can be used to describe one's quality; we often use the latter when expressing one's attitude to specific people or affairs. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这位服务员待客十分热情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他对集体活动一点也不热心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;热门&amp;quot; means popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18596" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T12:32:05.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27842" CreationDate="2017-12-04T12:37:36.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The expression can be a verb, meaning using a principle to handle all kinds of affairs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18596" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T12:37:36.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27888" CreationDate="2017-12-04T12:48:15.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When &quot;好&quot; is emphasized, the shift is not needed. Try to break the sentence into meaningful bricks, and each brick has a stressed character (without tone shift). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18596" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T12:48:15.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27861" CreationDate="2017-12-04T12:59:58.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character is not supported by most of the fonts and IMEs. You can set up a proper font or just type &quot;屌&quot; (Pinyin: diao，Jyutping: diu) instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cangjie IME KH.Lee referred to is an IME that supports over 70,000 characters. You have to have a good understanding of the structure of a character before you type it correctly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cangjie is provided in Windows and Mac OS and is widely used in Hong Kong and Macau for most people have not learned Pinyin or Jyutping. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18596" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T12:59:58.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27286" CreationDate="2017-12-04T19:26:50.093" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are several ways to improve listening skills. I used them when I studied for my TOFEL test and got a decent score. These are listed from the easiest way to the hardest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note: TL;DR. Method II and III will be the most helpful and effective ones to improve your listening before your test is due.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note is added after I finished answering lol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I. Watching/listening to Chinese programs/shows FROM CCTV&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As many answers have mentioned, listening to Chinese programs will definitely help with your listening by letting you get used to the Chinese way of speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend you find programs from CCTV with bilingual subtitles because those are guaranteed to have more correct/clear content than programs from other channels or online. They should also be more similar to your test material than other programs(since they use standard Mandarin.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you pick an interesting program, you won't get bored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;II. Dictation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While preparing for a listening test, I find the most effective way is to do dictation, meaning that you listen to an audio and type/write down what you hear sentence by sentence, then compare what you have to what is actually being said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you are actively participating in hearing(you have to focus or you won't be able to write down the sentence), when you see the correct transcript of a sentence, you will immediately know what you got wrong, and why you got that wrong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You mentioned that you have some hearing loss and the audio sound is small, so I think this method will help you the most. It focuses more on pronunciation not comprehension. This takes a very long time, especially for the first few tries, but it pays well. (It took me an hour to do my first two-minute audio:p)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;III. Converse with real people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is listed as the third just because I assume it's hard to find a native speaker to talk with. I know you are only looking for improving your listening not speaking, but the merit of talking to a real person is you can ask questions any time. This you cannot get from any other methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversation basically is the way to learn a language. Go for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;IV. Watch Shows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is put as the last because I think most Chinese shows that are meant for entertainment either don't have good bilingual translations or don't have translations at all. Also most of them use too much slang and is edited so that sometimes it's hard to hear even for a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, shows will sure grab your attention and you won't be focusing on the language. (But you can do this after your test if you still want to improve. Shows are fun!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T19:26:50.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27922" CreationDate="2017-12-04T22:08:03.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;朋友们 is not exactly used as a plural. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should only use 们 when you are trying to use pronouns/adjectives in front of it. Such as (我的朋友们， 他的孩子们， 该死的地主们， 草原上的人们， 不太在乎的人们）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are trying use quantifiers in front of &quot;friends&quot;, you would not want to use 们. (很多的朋友， 极少的人， 一半的人）。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastEditorUserId="4263" LastEditDate="2017-12-06T17:21:58.800" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T17:21:58.800" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27904" CreationDate="2017-12-05T04:19:44.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your case, I agree that 留言 means comments, that are often from popular social networks like Weibo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastActivityDate="2017-12-05T04:19:44.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27935" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-05T12:58:38.567" Score="0" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;俗话说的好，&lt;strong&gt;要不不留学要留学就要留出个性&lt;/strong&gt;。。。。。。这是我编的。。&#xA;   我们来看看我们社会主义坚实伙伴的古巴。古巴是西班牙语国家，抽雪茄，晒太阳都是家常便饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence would be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... This is what I wrote. We see Cuba, our socialism's solid mate. Cuba is a country where Spanish is spoken, and a cigarette and sunlight are all in everyday meal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand the start of the sentence. Specifically,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How should it be divided grammatically? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why does it use 不 consecutively?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of the whole sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-12-05T23:39:55.870" Title="What does 要不不留学要留学就要留出个性 mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27935" CreationDate="2017-12-05T15:44:40.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;要不 / 不留学 / 要留学就要留出个性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;otherwise / don't study abroad / if you study abroad you should do it with personality&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or more idiomatically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;if you're going to study abroad you should do it with personality, or not at all&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 要...就要... is a common grammar pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18621" LastActivityDate="2017-12-05T15:44:40.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27938" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27940" CreationDate="2017-12-05T15:44:43.517" Score="2" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence - 他读书很用功。 - why is there no 地, which should transform the 用功 from an adjective to an adverb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learned 地 changes an adjective to an adverb, so it should be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他读书很用功地。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他很用功地读书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Not sure which order is correct, though...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T17:38:39.277" Title="Why is there no 地 in 他读书很用功?" Tags="&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27938" CreationDate="2017-12-05T16:14:38.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他读书很用功。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, 用功 is actually used to describe 他, instead of the action 读书. The main sentence is 他很用功, where 读书 can be regarded as a subject clause, so you need an adjective. You can also say 他读书很用功的, but it is kinda informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他很用功地读书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you said, 用功 is transformed from an adjective to an adverb, in this sentence, in order to modifier the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not familiar with how to analyze the grammar, if I'm wrong, feel free to point out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18463" LastEditorUserId="18463" LastEditDate="2017-12-05T16:43:57.493" LastActivityDate="2017-12-05T16:43:57.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27938" CreationDate="2017-12-05T16:31:13.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Many adverb do not require the adverb marker 地. 用功 is one of them&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他很用功读书&quot; is the same as &quot;他很用功地读书&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the adverb is placed after the verb, 地 is never used.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;他用功地读书&quot; or  &quot;他读书用功&quot; but you cannot say &quot;他读书用功地&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example of adverb with and without 地 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用功读书 (study hard)- emphasize the action(verb) 读书&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用功地读书 (study hard)- emphasize the manner(adverb) 用功&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;坚决反对 (firmly object) - emphasize the action (verb) 反对&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;坚决地反对 (firmly object) - emphasize the manner(adverb)- 坚决&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-12-06T13:39:42.740" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T13:39:42.740" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27941" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27947" CreationDate="2017-12-05T19:24:34.277" Score="5" ViewCount="745" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I went to a language exchange and a nice lady from Beijing told me to use 掙錢 instead of 賺錢。 I asked whether the latter was 口語 and she replied 賺錢 was something one said “just like that”. So now I am confused. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 掙錢 pleco defines: earn (or make) money&#xA;For 賺錢 make money (or a profit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one does sound a bit more like involving work, but I cannot really be sure of the distinction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2021-02-16T17:16:53.790" Title="What is the difference between 賺錢 and 掙錢？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27941" CreationDate="2017-12-05T23:33:12.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no significant difference between 挣钱 and 赚钱.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="23116" LastEditDate="2021-01-12T07:32:07.253" LastActivityDate="2021-01-12T07:32:07.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27935" CreationDate="2017-12-05T23:39:55.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are saying, if you want to study abroad, go to Cuba, it's a cool place. (I agree! Viva Cuba! Vive la revolución!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗话说的好，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There is a good saying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要不(要么)不留学,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;either don't study abroad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要留学就要留(学）出个性&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or study abroad with flair&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是我编的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(Actually) I just made this (saying) up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们来看看我们社会主义坚实伙伴的古巴。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We came to see our loyal socialist comrades from Cuba.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古巴是西班牙语国家，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Cuba is a Spanish-speaking country,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抽雪茄，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;smoke cigars,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晒太阳都是家常便饭。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;bask in the sunshine, those are everyday things (in Cuba)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-05T23:39:55.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27938" CreationDate="2017-12-05T23:41:01.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他读书很用功 vs 他读书很用功地&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter sentence is more emphatic (很用功地&#xA;) than the former. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-05T23:41:01.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27941" CreationDate="2017-12-06T04:50:21.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 挣钱 and 赚钱  can mean &quot;to earn money&quot;(by working) or &quot; to make money&quot;(by trading) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;赚钱 can refer to making tiny, modest or huge amount of money&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;挣钱 usually refer to making modest amount of money&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赚钱 can also be use as an adjective for &quot;profitable&quot; as in &quot;赚钱的生意&quot; (profitable business )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We cannot use 挣钱 as the adjective &quot;profitable&quot;. There's no &quot;挣钱的生意&quot;,  only &quot;赚钱的生意&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-12-06T05:25:50.837" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T05:25:50.837" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27941" CreationDate="2017-12-06T05:33:05.870" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to make a supplement based upon previous answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, 挣钱 and 赚钱 are exactly the same. But in some special cases, 挣钱 could reflect a scenario of hard working, since making money is not easy, while 赚钱 could mean that making money is easy, compared with 挣钱. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the verb 挣 sounds like you have to make great effort to, you can see the verb 挣扎, which means struggle. The verb 赚 means making a profit, it can also be used as an adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have the following phrases: 努力挣钱，working hard to make money (though 努力赚钱 is also possible) and 躺着赚钱, making money while lying on the bed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastEditorUserId="18612" LastEditDate="2017-12-06T05:43:10.573" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T05:43:10.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27938" CreationDate="2017-12-06T05:43:00.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;他读书很用功地&quot; is not correct, since &quot;地&quot; phrases rarely appears in the end of a sentence. We use &quot;的&quot; here to emphasize &quot;用功&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18596" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T05:43:00.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27286" CreationDate="2017-12-06T06:02:39.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may choose easy topics (greetings, supermarket) first, and with the development of your vocabulary, you can begin to listen to longer and harder materials.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words with the same sound can be told apart in the environment. So it is important to learn more words and be more sensitive to tones. For example, it is difficult to tell the following words apart when they do not appear in a meaningful sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;实施, 试试, 事实, 时事, 史诗, 实时&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to be familiar with their usages, like &quot;实施计划, 试试这个办法吧, 时事新闻, 壮丽的史诗&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18596" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T06:02:39.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27745" CreationDate="2017-12-06T09:04:38.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's correct.&#xA;&quot;会&quot; is to show the ability of doing something, however usually put with a verb at the back to show &quot;can do&quot; something, such as &quot;我&lt;code&gt;会说&lt;/code&gt;汉语&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a special usage(without a verb at the back) almost only for languages. &#xA;In languages the ability contains listening, speaking, reading and writing. &#xA;So for saying &quot;我会汉语&quot; it means &quot;I'm capable of listening, speaking, reading and writing Chinese&quot;, it's the overall skill rather than just speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18635" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T09:04:38.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27705" CreationDate="2017-12-06T09:23:31.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;骑&quot; itself means ride; the word has a &quot;马&quot; (horse) on the left, indicating that the transportation before was horses. So usually the words following after are animals or other modern transportation(basically with your legs on the two sides) such as 骑摩托车(motorcycle)、骑自行车(bicycle)、骑马(horse).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;骑在X头上&quot; on the other hand has developed into a metaphorical meaning. &quot;Riding above me&quot; means &quot;rule over me&quot;. It's shows that a person is in a higher position(that's why it's &lt;code&gt;head&lt;/code&gt; not &lt;code&gt;back&lt;/code&gt;) than the others. So &quot;你姐姐老是象个暴君似的骑在我们头上&quot; is saying that whatever your sister requests, others have to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another expression &quot;我老公喜欢让我骑在他头上&quot; you could say it's a recreation. It means the husband lets his wife to be on top when they're having sex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be careful, though, &quot;我老公骑在我头上&quot; simply means the wife does whatever her husband says, without any sexual meaning, for there are no &quot;let me&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18635" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T09:23:31.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27667" CreationDate="2017-12-06T09:58:11.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我喜欢你上课&quot; isn't what people usually say, it's not complete and even confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“I like your class” (means you're the teacher) can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢你的课(I like your class)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢你上的课(I like the class you teach)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢上你的课(I like to go to your class)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“I like it when you go to class” (means you're the classmate) can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢你来上课(I like you coming to the class)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18635" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T09:58:11.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16199" CreationDate="2017-12-06T10:28:39.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would just say this: 你最近中文学习怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18621" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T10:28:39.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27938" CreationDate="2017-12-06T17:38:39.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we often add 地 to make adverb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EX: 我用功地读书。 他努力地工作。 你勤勤恳恳地做事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Structure: Subject ＋ Adverb (which is composed by adjective + 地） ＋ Verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you may remove 地 and change the position of adverb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EX: 我读书用功。 他工作努力。 你做事勤勤恳恳。 (Even though this sounds weird without 很， but this is legit。 ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Structure: Subject + verb + adverb (without 地). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS You may chain adverbs as you wish such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很少用功地读书 （Chain 很少(地） with 用功地）&#xA;他工作非常努力 （Chain 非常 with 努力）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T17:38:39.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27188" CreationDate="2017-12-06T18:21:51.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Corrected Version: 中国工业兴起时，人人认为污染环境是不以为过.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is such thing as 中国建设。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不易为过is an adverb which should be modifying an action. 污染环境 is an action, 环境污染 is an issue (noun). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T18:21:51.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27956" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27963" CreationDate="2017-12-06T19:21:03.660" Score="3" ViewCount="537" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a conversation with my friend and she started to live in Moscow recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: 你莫斯科生活怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She: 就那样吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pleco showed 那样 means &amp;quot;like&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;that kind&amp;quot;, but in this case that doesn't make sense. I feel this is an idiom, but what does 就那样吧 mean in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-07-23T01:29:47.547" Title="What does 就那样吧 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27756" CreationDate="2017-12-06T20:08:50.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add on to TXV's answer, in Cantonese, you can use a similar construction:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你效率好高 you are very productive (efficient)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Don't procrastinate then you can be productive&quot; can be translated in Cantonese as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你唔拖延時間，咪可以提高效率囉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, if you want something more colloquial:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你唔揼[dam1]嗮啲時間，效率咪可以高啲囉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12619" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T20:08:50.490" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27138" CreationDate="2017-12-06T20:28:29.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might be a case of assimilation, where the &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; nasalizes because of the &lt;em&gt;m&lt;/em&gt; in front. Technically speaking, the syllable &lt;em&gt;mián&lt;/em&gt; is &quot;not allowed&quot; because in most varieties of Hokkien, [b] and [m] are allophones of /b/, where [m] only shows up with a nasalized final, e.g., 滿 /buã/ → [muã ~ mua].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12619" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T20:28:29.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27959" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-06T21:03:46.507" Score="0" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please help me translate this message. What does it mean in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;得了考前放弃症 可能无药可救了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here is the situation. I have been seeing this girl for about almost a year now and today we went out and she bought me a medicine. I told her I'm sick because I think I smoke too much. Night time comes and I saw her post a message on social media saying “”得了考前放弃症 可能无药可救了“”. My translation was stop it before the test sickness, maybe next time there is no medicine for it anymore. My question is, is she telling me to stop smoking or telling me to stop courting her? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17708" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-12-07T09:09:01.303" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T20:58:45.030" Title="Please help me translate this message" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27960" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-06T22:01:54.003" Score="0" ViewCount="515" Body="&lt;p&gt;A recruiter wrote me over Linkedin and I'd like to ask for more details, but my Chinese is completely rusty. Linkedin's predefined answer is &quot;您好，感谢与我联系！我希望了解更多信息。&quot;. I would like to use another one, if there is any suitable, plus this one sounds a bit too 'canned'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about &quot;您好，谢谢你发给我的消息，请你解释一下&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18639" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T15:33:45.743" Title="How to reply to a recruiter ‘thanks for reaching out, I'd like to hear more’?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27959" CreationDate="2017-12-06T22:53:26.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wrong 证, should be 症&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得了考前放弃症可能无药可救了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;get 'before-exam-give-up-sickness' possible no medicine can help&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always get pre-exam nerves and want to give up, it's possible there is no medicine which can help that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think your love life is not in danger!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T22:53:26.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27960" CreationDate="2017-12-06T23:15:30.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps better not to mix up 您 and 你. Stay with one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First part is ok. &quot;您好，谢谢您发给我的消息，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion for the second part is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please give me more details?&#xA;您是否能够给我更多的详细信息？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T23:15:30.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27956" CreationDate="2017-12-07T00:29:06.887" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;就那样吧 is the same as 也就那样吧 in this case, which is a colloquial phrase, not an idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means: &amp;quot;just so-so&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;it's just ok&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;things going just like that&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It conveys her life in Moscow is not that good, or not as good as she — or someone else — expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can take it as a shortened form of 生活就那样吧 or 生活也就那样吧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T19:11:35.503" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T19:11:35.503" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27960" CreationDate="2017-12-07T00:41:43.277" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Out of ambiguity, you'd better tell what kind of details you want to know from them. It can be something like: 你好，感谢与我联系！能把这职位的详细信息发给我看一下吗？ or 我想了解一下这个职位的详细信息。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T00:41:43.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27959" CreationDate="2017-12-07T06:24:05.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;考前放弃症 means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pretest abandonment or &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Abandonment before examination&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, 症 means disease, or syndrome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The message means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've got pretest abandonment, perhaps incurable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is no more serious than a joke, I think. In your case, her message is not correlated with the story happened between you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T06:24:05.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27966" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27970" CreationDate="2017-12-07T12:11:23.187" Score="3" ViewCount="1536" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chinese friend said 哈批 but I don't understand what it means. When I googled, it showed 哈麻批 and it seems a dirty word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence is something like the follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This person is bullshit! He doesn't understand my language??? (with a screenshot from 微信）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: Because it is not human; it must be AI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She: 哈批&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, what is 哈批? Is it different from 哈麻批?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And on what kind of situation is it used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI she is Chongqingnese and she seems to like such a dirty word...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T04:42:34.827" Title="What does 哈批 mean?" Tags="&lt;slang&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27966" CreationDate="2017-12-07T13:08:31.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哈批 &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%93%88%E6%89%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%93%88%E6%89%B9&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“哈批”是、贵州、四川、重庆的方言，带有贬义色彩，可以用来骂人，有“笨蛋、傻瓜”的意思。比如你要说一个人傻的话！你就可以说你是个哈批“你是个哈批”就意思是你是傻瓜或者笨蛋的意思。还有意思相近的口语哈麻批&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;哈批&amp;quot; is, Guizhou, Sichuan, Chongqing dialect, with a derogatory tone, can be used to curse people, &amp;quot;idiot, stupid&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you want to say a person is silly, You can say that &amp;quot;you are a 哈批&amp;quot; which means &amp;quot;you are a fool or idiot&amp;quot;. Another version of this term is &amp;quot;哈麻批&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Short, &amp;quot;哈批&amp;quot; is a slang for &amp;quot;stupid&amp;quot; in Guizhou, Sichuan, Chongqing regions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T13:08:31.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27966" CreationDate="2017-12-07T13:09:45.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a dirty word from dialects of central China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the equivalent of 笨蛋 &quot;stupid&quot; or 傻瓜 &quot;idiot&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%93%88%E6%89%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;search on Uncle Google&lt;/a&gt; reveals the mystery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T13:09:45.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27960" CreationDate="2017-12-07T13:38:04.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thanks for reaching out,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;您好，谢谢您发给我的消息&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;消息 mainly means &amp;quot;news&amp;quot; you should write &amp;quot; 來函 (formal term for &amp;quot; the letter you sent&amp;quot; or 來訊 (formal term for &amp;quot;the message you sent&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A formal reply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;谢谢您的來訊&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to hear more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请你解释一下&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;解释 mainly means &amp;quot; explain&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To reply formally, you can write&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;还望告知详情&amp;quot; (Please tell me the details/ Please tell me more)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it is about the details of a job, you should add the topic &amp;quot;this job&amp;quot;  in your reply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;还望告知此职位之详情&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (Please tell me the details of this job/ Please tell me more about this job)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More modern wording: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;谢谢您的來訊, 请告欣我有关这职位的更多详情&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T14:37:50.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27966" CreationDate="2017-12-07T14:26:37.247" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is pretty much just the South Western Mandarin pronunciation of: 傻逼/傻屄/傻毴.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check out these two entries from Guang'an Topolect dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《广安方言与民俗词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;词语: 傻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发音: ha3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;定义: 傻“sha3”的音变。常说成“哈”。指愚蠢、老实、呆。如“哈儿”、“哈巴儿”、“哈戳戳”、“哈宝器”、“哈婆娘”、“哈得很”、“哈话”、“吃哈亏”等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗语：“哈人有哈福”，指傻子往往有福气、好运。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《广安方言与民俗词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;词语: 屄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发音: pi1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;定义: 屄“bi1”的音变。指女性外阴，又说“麻屄”、“麻批”，常用“麻花儿”一词含蓄替代，容易与成语“麻痹大意”发音闹笑话。民间常用女性生殖器骂人，这种语言现象，应当大力清除。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗语：“屄话”，指废话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“屄娃儿”，骂不懂事、不中用的男子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“屄嘴巴”，骂人嘴巴爱乱说或贪吃。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“卖屄的”，骂女人生活作风不检点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“好吃屄”，指特别喜欢吃的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歇后语：“笋壳卡裤裆——屄垮卵垮”，指多嘴，废话多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“牛屄上的虱子——两边吃”，比喻左右两边的利益都能占。常用于开玩笑或骂人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“内裤头撒花椒——麻屄”，指女性私处。也常作为骂人粗俗语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“尿桶头起波浪——屄风&amp;lt;疯&amp;gt;发了”，又说“尿桶头起波浪——屁眼儿风&amp;lt;疯&amp;gt;发了”，均为极其粗俗的骂人语，比喻言语、行为似乎发疯，让人难以接受。“尿桶”，指盛装尿便的木桶。旧时的农家房屋，厕所大都在室外，为了方便晚上大小便，卧室内大多会放上尿桶临时解决内急。同时，担运动物粪便等农家肥时，尿桶也是一种运输工具。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that we've got the pronunciation part figured out what does SB mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally it means stupid (傻) + cunt (屄) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=shabi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; corroborates the literal meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;傻屄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shǎ​bī​&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;stupid cunt (vulgar) / also written 傻逼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as a side note &lt;code&gt;批&lt;/code&gt; in the Chongqing dialect is more likely to be pronounced &lt;code&gt;pēi&lt;/code&gt; than &lt;code&gt;pī&lt;/code&gt; - for instance: 批发 is read as &lt;code&gt;pēi fá&lt;/code&gt; not &lt;code&gt;pī fá&lt;/code&gt; because of the vulgarity connected to the &lt;code&gt;pī&lt;/code&gt; pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T14:32:52.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27971" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27972" CreationDate="2017-12-07T14:47:02.980" Score="3" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently read the following comment about a Chinese actress:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;除了有林青霞的俫气更有仙气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the whole sentence, I can guess that it's sort of compliment (the actress has charisma like Brigitte Lin). But I don't know what the exact meaning of 俫气更有仙气 is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18498" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-12-08T00:43:21.740" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T00:43:21.740" Title="What is the meaning of the phrase 俫气更有仙气?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27971" CreationDate="2017-12-07T15:32:33.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose it's a typo and should be &lt;code&gt;侠气更有仙气&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/0/6b/103000.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;侠气&lt;/a&gt; (chivalrous / heroic spirit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;侠气 xiáqì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [chivalrous] 豪侠的气概&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/9/3d/94283.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;仙气&lt;/a&gt; (unworldly temperament)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;仙氣 xiān qì    ㄒㄧㄢ ㄑㄧˋ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  靈秀脫俗的氣質。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the sentence could be translated as &quot;besides chivalrous like 林青霞, (she) also has unworldly temperament&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-12-07T15:58:36.550" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T15:58:36.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27971" CreationDate="2017-12-07T15:38:10.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the dictionary definitions, 俫 does not make sense here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that it is a typo of 侠气. If we add a comma, this sentence could be more comprehensive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;除了有林青霞的俫气，更有仙气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides chivalry / heroic spirit (like 林青霞, an actress), she also has charisma.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T15:38:10.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27975" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27977" CreationDate="2017-12-07T17:15:38.383" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a kid's book for learning &quot;378汉字.“  Each page has six or eight entries, each comprising a photo, the character, and what I suppose is an example of use.  But none of the examples make any sense.  I have looked up the words (according to how a segmenter program divides them) but cannot come up with any reasonable English translation.  I've only tried one page, which has:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;刀   刀口刀柄&#xA;勺   马勺铁勺&#xA;筷   筷筒火筷&#xA;尺   格尺尺度&#xA;叉   交叉叉烧&#xA;帘   纱帘帘幕&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also tried Google Translate, but (no surprise) the results there were worse than my attempts—and I can't even pass HSK 1 yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T19:35:45.947" Title="The examples make no sense (translation)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27976" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27978" CreationDate="2017-12-07T18:20:17.070" Score="1" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;Person A: 你快乐吗? - Are you happy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Person B: 我常常是。-I often am.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Person A: 有意思。- Interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Person B: 你没有不对。- You are not wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would this exchange make sense to a 中国人？ Does it sound natural and are the translations correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18643" LastEditorUserId="18643" LastEditDate="2017-12-07T18:43:31.620" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T23:04:39.963" Title="Does this conversation/exchange of words make sense?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27975" CreationDate="2017-12-07T19:06:55.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The punctuation marks are missing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刀 :  刀口; 刀柄 = knife : knife edge; knife handle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勺 :  马勺; 铁勺 = spoon : ladle; iron spoon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;筷 :  筷筒; 火筷 = chopsticks : chopsticks canister; stove chopsticks &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尺 :  格尺; 尺度 = foot (measurement)/ ruler : ruler; criterion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;叉 :  交叉; 叉烧 = fork : cross; BBQ pork&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帘 :  纱帘; 帘幕 = curtain : screen; window curtain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-12-07T19:35:45.947" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T19:35:45.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27976" CreationDate="2017-12-07T19:31:41.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;你快乐吗?&quot; &lt;em&gt;sounds normal enough&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我常常是&quot; &lt;em&gt;sounds too 'English' . Native Chinese would reply: &quot;我常常都很快乐&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;有意思&quot; &lt;em&gt;sounds normal enough, but it implies the answer is somewhat unexpected&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last line has the most problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;你没有不对&quot; means &quot;you didn't do anything wrong&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;you are not wrong&quot; in this context, native Chinese would say: &quot; 你说得对&quot; or &quot;你说得没错&quot;. Both mean &quot;you are right&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T19:31:41.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27956" CreationDate="2017-12-07T19:55:02.540" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It literary translates to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就  那   样  吧 =&#xA;&lt;em&gt;&quot;And that like !&quot;&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;&quot;Thus that like !&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where 吧 is a kind of &quot;!&quot; sign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in human language it should be something like this: &quot;And like that!&quot; or &quot;Aaaand it's like that. Do it!&quot; or &quot;Thus (it should) be like that!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T19:55:02.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27959" CreationDate="2017-12-07T20:58:45.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me it seems like she is just making a joke. It means that she just has some type of exam coming up and is saying there is no cure for her despair/nervousness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18644" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T20:58:45.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27976" CreationDate="2017-12-07T23:04:39.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid I fail to see why that is 'interesting'. I'd put it like this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Are you happy? 你开心吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: I often am. 我通常很开心。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A: (That is) Interesting. 这很有趣。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: You're not wrong. 你没说错。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;（Me: Really? Why? That's very normal.真的？为什么？ 这很正常丫！）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, alternatively:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A: Are you Happy? 你是开心果？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: No, I'm Sleepy? 不，我是瞌睡虫。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T23:04:39.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27971" CreationDate="2017-12-07T23:31:29.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably talking about an actress in a particular role. I agree with the other 2 answers. I interpret it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;除了有林青霞的俫气更有仙气。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Apart from her Lin Qingxia-esque dashing spirit, she also has an air of unworldly mystery about her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;演员是谁？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T23:31:29.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27983" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27985" CreationDate="2017-12-08T01:31:04.100" Score="5" ViewCount="866" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a gender neutral word for a person that you are in a romantic relationship with, but not married to. Similar to &quot;partner&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also want it to be fairly neutral regarding age and to work in formal settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which word can I use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T23:08:00.657" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T23:08:00.657" Title="Gender and age neutral word for partner (not married) in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27966" CreationDate="2017-12-08T02:39:23.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a phonogram word in many dialects, not only in Sichuan. In my home, Xi'an, people speak 哈 instead of 坏, but 哈 is not the real word, it is a phonetic symbol of the word &lt;strong&gt;bad&lt;/strong&gt; (坏) in our dialect. The character 批 is similar as 哈. The word 哈批 or 哈皮 just like the common word 傻逼, the character 逼 is also a phonetic symbol. The sound 批 or 皮 has the same meaning as the character 逼. So, we speak 这个人哈得很, which means 这个人很坏, and using 你妈的批 instead of 你妈的逼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T02:39:23.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27983" CreationDate="2017-12-08T02:44:37.300" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;恋人 perfectly fits your need, its gender and age neutral, and can be used in formal settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情人 somehow fits your need, but is not as good, because it could also mean an extramarital lover, which may cause misunderstanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爱人 is also gender neutral, but usually refers to partner in marriage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T02:44:37.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27956" CreationDate="2017-12-08T09:02:01.143" Score="-1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就那样吧 has two means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.It means Just so so .&#xA;2.the words mean:something happaned is that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18648" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T09:02:01.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27987" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27988" CreationDate="2017-12-08T09:15:44.337" Score="0" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the song 'Vincent', it sings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I understand&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What you tried to say to me&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And how you &lt;strong&gt;suffered for your sanity&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And how you tried to set them free&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, 'suffer from your sanity' can translated as '难得糊涂',&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to translate it directly and elegantly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18167" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T00:45:15.397" Title="Translate 'suffered for your sanity' in precise chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-12-24T16:59:55.030" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27987" CreationDate="2017-12-08T09:44:46.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'suffered for' = '因~而受苦'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'your' = '你的'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'sanity' = '理性'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;insanity = 疯狂 (n). The opposite of '疯狂' is '理性' (rationality) or '清醒头脑'(sound mind)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;suffered for your sanity&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;因你的理性而受苦&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;因你的清醒头脑而受苦&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yumi Tada wrote: &lt;em&gt;make sense.but not like a song lyrics&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can give up some accuracy for style and wrote: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot; And how you suffered for your sanity&quot; -- &quot;&lt;strong&gt;你何以因清醒而受罪&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-12-08T10:30:04.467" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T10:30:04.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27990" CreationDate="2017-12-08T11:29:06.283" Score="2" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你不必下班后还忙着应酬，一身酒气回家，家人都睡了，&lt;strong&gt;连句话也没人说&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence would mean something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You don't need to cater to the drinking party after the work, which makes you go back home while your family is sleeping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't understand the last part. What does it mean and specifically how does 也 work in this case? Does it mean &quot;too&quot; or &quot;also&quot; in this case? And what does 连句话 here mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="18612" LastEditDate="2017-12-08T17:05:48.963" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T13:45:55.877" Title="What does 连句话也没人说 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27989" CreationDate="2017-12-08T11:45:35.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The structure is 连...也... which means something like &quot;not even&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 也 can be replaced by 都 without changing the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;连句话 should have an 一 in it but the writer is speaking casually/lazily so they omitted it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;连  一句话  也  没人说&#xA;even a word no-one speak&#xA;No-one speaks a word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In context:&#xA;家人都睡了，连句话也没人说&#xA;Family all gone to sleep, no-one speaking a word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18621" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T11:45:35.197" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27989" CreationDate="2017-12-08T12:51:33.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not agree with Angus' translation in the last phrase &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;连句话也没人说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the translation in this context might be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Since all your family fell asleep), you have no one to talk with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this sentence is somehow a bit vague, I have to read it again and again to decide its exact meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T12:51:33.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27987" CreationDate="2017-12-08T23:51:18.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;starry starry night&lt;br&gt;&#xA;夜晚充的星&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I understand&lt;br&gt;&#xA;现在我知道&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What you tried to say to me&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你要说的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And how you suffered for your sanity&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你多过了苦难仍然正常&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And how you tried to set them free&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你要解放他们&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But they would not listen,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他们没听你的话&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They're not listening still&lt;br&gt;&#xA;还没听着你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Perhaps they never will&lt;br&gt;&#xA;也许他们永远不会明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or a more complicated version:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;starry starry night&lt;br&gt;&#xA;满天星星的夜空&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Now I understand&lt;br&gt;&#xA;现在我懂得&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What you tried to say to me&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你那时想要对我说什么&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And how you suffered for your sanity&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你是如何在遭受磨难之后还保持你的理智&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And how you tried to set them free&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你是如何努力地解放他们&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But they would not listen,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;可惜他们不听你的话&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They're not listening still&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他们现在依然不听&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Perhaps they never will&lt;br&gt;&#xA;也许他们永远不会懂  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2017-12-09T00:45:15.397" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T00:45:15.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27989" CreationDate="2017-12-09T00:07:33.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你不必下班后还忙着应酬，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You don't need to go socializing after work,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一身酒气回家，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;then, reeking of alcohol, return home,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;家人都睡了，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;when your family are all asleep&lt;br&gt;&#xA;连句话也没人说。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;without a word being said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Better stay out all night, who wants a drunkard at home?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T00:07:33.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27994" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-09T00:37:44.023" Score="0" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to say &quot;Then I no longer have to listen to the native speaker whose pronunciation I can refer to&quot;, but then I realized that I had no idea how to express that sentence in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I translate this in Chinese? I couldn't make up a sentence better than this&quot; 那么, 我不必听到外国人, 这个人的发音我可以参考. But this sentence sounds a little awkward to me, since it consists of two different clauses, while the English sentence doesn't. Is there any more adequate or sound way to convey this sentence in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18651" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-28T16:39:21.110" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T18:01:31.760" Title="How can express a sentence containing relative pronoun in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27994" CreationDate="2017-12-09T01:13:36.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;In English, the relative clause follow the object&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Then I no longer have to listen to the native Chinese speaker('s pronunciations), [whose pronunciations I can refer to]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;然后我就不再须要听, 母语为中文的人(的发音)[那些我可以参考发音的]&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;Then I no longer have to listen to the native Chinese speaker('s pronunciations)&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is the main clause, and  &quot;&lt;em&gt;native Chinese speaker('s pronunciations)&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;whose pronunciations I can refer to&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is the relative clause that add information about the object &quot;Chinese speaker('s pronunciations)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;In Chinese, the relative clause precede the object&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Then I no longer have to listen to [&lt;strong&gt;whose pronunciations I can refer to&lt;/strong&gt;] &#xA;  the native Chinese speaker('s pronunciations)&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; 然后我就不再须要听[&lt;strong&gt;那些我可以参考发音的&lt;/strong&gt;], 母语为中文的人(的发音了)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice you have to add '的' after the relative clause to indicate it is a relative clause for the following object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-12-09T01:22:26.430" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T01:22:26.430" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3677" CreationDate="2017-12-09T05:45:23.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of words that basically means Chinese (language) and can usually be used interchangeably but do convey subtle differences in meaning and situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.中文 (Chinese language)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most popular one. Can be used in almost any situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中文听起来真好听。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;新加坡说中文吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中文难写难认。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.汉语 (Han Chinese language)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prominent in academic and formal circumstances. Also used by people who prefer a more formal style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;汉语音韵悦耳。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;新加坡使用汉语吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;古代汉语&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;X古代中文&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;学汉语，要听说读写兼顾。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is focused on the spoken part. When you are specifically referring to the written script, 汉字(Chinese characters) is used instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;汉字难写难认。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;X汉语难写难认。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉字 as a form of writing is also used in some other languages. In this sense, do not use 中文.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;传统上，日语、朝鲜语和越南语也部分使用汉字书写。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;X传统上，日语、朝鲜语和越南语也部分使用中文书写。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.国语 (National language), 华语 (Hua language), 普通话 (Common Tongue)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the same thing, namely Mandarin (官话), but used by different people. 国语 is used in the Republic of China (Taiwan), 华语 in Southeast Asia by ethnic Chinese immigrants, and 普通话 in the Republic of China (mainland China). They are as different as Received Pronunciation and General American Accent are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 中文 and 汉语 includes 粤语 (Cantonese) and other dialects of Chinese(some would say they are languages in the Chinese language family).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18654" LastEditorUserId="18654" LastEditDate="2017-12-09T06:02:05.643" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T06:02:05.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27989" CreationDate="2017-12-09T08:49:25.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well,i am in Hubei,China now.I am a Chinese student.My English is too bad,but i will try my best to tell you what “连句话也没人说” is.Sorry!&#xA;“连” means &quot;even&quot;&#xA;“句” means &quot;sentence&quot;,but you can't understand like this.You know that,in Chinese,there is always a quantifier before each noun,whether it is countable or not.You can understand it as &quot;a&quot; or &quot;an&quot;.&#xA;“话” means &quot;words&quot;.&#xA;“也没” means &quot;not&quot;.&#xA;“人” means &quot;person&quot; or &quot;people&quot;.&#xA;“说” means &quot;speak&quot; or &quot;say&quot;.&#xA;In the correct English order,it's &#xA;连 没人 说 句 话&#xA;translate in English,it's&#xA;even nobody says a word.&#xA;I think it is easier to understand it as &quot;there is nobody you can talk with&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18656" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T08:49:25.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27998" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28010" CreationDate="2017-12-09T14:04:56.517" Score="0" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;俗话说的好&lt;/strong&gt;，要不不留学要留学就要留出个性。。。。。。这是我编的。。&#xA;  我们来看看我们社会主义坚实伙伴的古巴。古巴是西班牙语国家，抽雪茄，晒太阳都是家常便饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does it mean? 俗话 means &quot;proverb&quot; and 俗话说 means &quot;as the saying goes&quot;, but I don't understand the 的好 part. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel I understand the meaning, which actually doesn't change the meaning of the 俗话说 that much I think, but I would like to grasp it more grammatically. So how does the 的好 work grammatically in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T11:50:17.173" Title="What does 俗话说的好 mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28001" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28027" CreationDate="2017-12-09T17:03:36.890" Score="-1" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used Pleco on iOS to recognize the characters in the table of contents of a book. The font was a simulation of handwriting, so I was quite surprised at better than ninety percent accuracy. Although, irritatingly, it attempted to recognize 汉字 in the Arabic page numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the OCR feature has disappeared from the app (and I have a philosophical objection to buying a feature I already bought).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/18031/meaning-of-text-on-a-picture&quot;&gt;Meaning of text on a picture&lt;/a&gt; mentions two online tools. One failed miserably, and the other has a long-expired SSL certificate which I am not willing to bypass.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen things saying that Google Translate can do it, but that they have somehow made it only work on Android devices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For small samples, I just use the iOS handwriting recognition, but I'd like to put sentences from a book into &lt;a href=&quot;http://AnkSRS.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;spaced repetition tool&quot;&gt;Anki&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T01:40:10.433" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T01:40:10.433" Title="Decent OCR for Chinese?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-12-18T11:43:32.023" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28002" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28003" CreationDate="2017-12-09T21:37:05.687" Score="0" ViewCount="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should 飽飽 and 小朋友们 be treated as single words in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;山羊喜欢青草，&#xA;肚子饱饱才回家。&#xA;小朋友们别学它，&#xA;努力做个好宝宝。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Segmenting software that I use splits 飽飽 and separates 们.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T23:51:01.830" Title="Segmenting question" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28002" CreationDate="2017-12-09T22:22:01.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;飽飽 and 小朋友们 should be treated as single words, but the segmenting is reasonable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飽 (full) and 小朋友(child/children) are single words. 飽飽(really full) is a modified form of 飽; 小朋友们(the children) is a modified form of 小朋友, so yes, you can treat them as single words, The segmenting software just separated the modification elements '&lt;strong&gt;reduplication&lt;/strong&gt;' and '&lt;strong&gt;plural suffix&lt;/strong&gt;' from the general word &lt;strong&gt;飽&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;小朋友&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it does that to finely segment the word itself, not just segmenting the sentence into words and clauses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;飽飽 is &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Reduplication_of_adjectives&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;reduplication&lt;/a&gt; of 飽&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;小朋友们 is general term 小朋友(child/ children) followed by plural suffix 们 which indicate plural&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;們 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%80%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%80%91&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Suffix indicating plural for pronouns, some animated nouns and personifications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   我們 / 我们  ―  wǒmen  ―  we&#xA;    孩子們 / 孩子们  ―  háizimen  ―  children&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-12-09T23:51:01.830" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T23:51:01.830" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28001" CreationDate="2017-12-09T22:54:17.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use command line tesseract chi-sim or cuneiform when I need to do that. The picture has to be high enough resolution or you will get a lot of errors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T22:54:17.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28002" CreationDate="2017-12-09T23:03:28.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doesn't your dictionary also mention, 'machine segmenting is never 100% accurate'?? If it doesn't, remember that anyway!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;山羊喜欢青草， goats like new grass,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;肚子饱饱才回家。 only go home when their bellies are full,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;小朋友们别学它， little friends don't be a goat,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;努力做个好宝宝。 try hard to be a little darling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T23:03:28.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27998" CreationDate="2017-12-09T23:13:11.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Didn't you ask about this sentence just a couple of days ago? Have you already forgotten?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗话说的好，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As the proverb expresses well (好 = well)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There is a proverb, &#xA;(Actually, it was not a proverb, the guy just made it up!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should not try to express every Chinese word in an interpretation. That will make your life difficult, if not impossible!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I can see the problem. Quite literally we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗话 Proverb&lt;br&gt;&#xA;说的 (what) it says&lt;br&gt;&#xA;好， right, true, good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2017-12-09T23:48:16.383" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T23:48:16.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27998" CreationDate="2017-12-10T00:31:07.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;俗 means &quot;common&quot;, as in &quot;common folks&quot;-- as opposed to &quot;cultured&quot; (or &quot;learned&quot;). 俗话 may take the form of a proverb, as one of the responses has indicated, but it need not. It may just be a widely accepted (but perhaps unproven) truism. And it may also be a convenient way of saying &quot;everyone knows (this)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T00:31:07.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27315" CreationDate="2017-12-10T00:48:45.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;An expression would not be chengyu（成语) or xiehouyu (歇后语) if it didn't have additional layers of meaning. Imagine one asks &quot;Can't metaphors be taken literally?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T00:48:45.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25967" CreationDate="2017-12-10T00:58:04.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original idea behind 简谱 jiánpǔ was to make music scores accessible to &quot;the masses&quot;. If one has never laid one's hands on a musical instrument and has had no other exposure to music aside from listening to it, 简谱 jiánpǔ (consisting of Arabic numbers 1 to 7) may be indeed more accessible. After all, who can't read the Arabic numbers 1 to 7? But even in the 60s in China, musicians who played an instrument used the Western style music score. Ironically, not knowing the Western style music score was a real impediment to learning Western music instruments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T00:58:04.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27998" CreationDate="2017-12-10T11:50:17.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;俗话说的好 vs 俗话说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗话说: As the proverb express. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗话说的好 means what the proverb says is exactly right or exactly fitting the circumstance/setting in the following statement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From grammar point of view, the form should be 俗话说得好. The structure is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;verb + 得 + extent/result complement&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some pedants would argue 俗话说 &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; 好 is a wrong expression. It looks that it's a common mistake by misplace 得 with 的. Personally, I wouldn't care about it since it's been widely used after all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T11:50:17.173" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28011" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28012" CreationDate="2017-12-10T15:05:28.547" Score="2" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it true that 伴 comes from the word, 半(half) and thus can be interpreted as (significant other person)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:15:26.407" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:15:26.407" Title="Why is 伴 used for buddy?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28011" CreationDate="2017-12-10T15:37:03.700" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;伴  is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BD%A2%E5%A3%B0%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;形聲字&lt;/a&gt; (Semantic-phonetic compound character) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 亻 radical means 人 (person/ people) ; it is the semantic component of the character '伴' ( the word 'companion' is related to 'people') &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;半(bàn) is the phonetic component of the character 伴(bàn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is it true that 伴 comes from the word, 半(half) and thus can be interpreted as (significant other person)?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, you can have many companions, and a servant accompanies you is not your significant other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-12-10T21:19:38.137" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T21:19:38.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27989" CreationDate="2017-12-10T15:59:20.327" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;你不必下班后还忙着应酬，一身酒气回家，家人都睡了，我连句话也没人说。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;连句话也没人说。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Means &quot;I got nobody to talk with&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18663" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T13:45:55.877" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T13:45:55.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28018" CreationDate="2017-12-10T23:50:59.973" Score="4" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很多人因为害怕穿秋裤显胖，宁愿冻死&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;不穿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 也 mean in the sentence? The entire sentence should mean something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of the fear that wearing one more pants behind the trousers make you look fat, so many people rather want to...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand the last part of the sentence, especially on the 也 part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According no Pleco, 也 has the following entry (as an adverb):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[for emphasis, often before a negative expression]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她一天假也没请过。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then how does it connect 冻死 and 不穿 and what does the sentence mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is my understanding that 也 here works as an emphasis correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T00:48:21.363" Title="How does 也 work in 宁愿冻死也不穿?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28015" CreationDate="2017-12-11T00:50:37.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Refer to the definition 3 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4E5F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this dictionary:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;在复句中表转折意：虽然你不说，我～能猜个八九不离十。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也 is used as the adverbial of concession, like the English word &lt;strong&gt;although&lt;/strong&gt;. 也 follows the result or conclusion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T00:50:37.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28015" CreationDate="2017-12-11T01:30:20.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it makes it easier to remember, you can relate this usage to the more common gloss of 'also': &quot;[in situations where] people are freezing to death, they'd also prefer not to wear [them].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or in more natural English: &quot;... won't wear them even if they're freezing to death.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18666" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T01:30:20.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28015" CreationDate="2017-12-11T01:49:38.033" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence &lt;code&gt;也&lt;/code&gt; should not be understood individually.In Chinese &lt;code&gt;宁愿...也...&lt;/code&gt; is a coordinating conjunction. It means a choose relationship. You choose the option behind &lt;code&gt;宁愿&lt;/code&gt; and you give up the option behind &lt;code&gt;也&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I think it seems like &lt;code&gt;rather...than...&lt;/code&gt; in English.&lt;code&gt;宁愿冻死也不穿&lt;/code&gt; may be translated to &lt;code&gt;rather be dead than be wearing the long underwear&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;More examples about &lt;code&gt;宁愿...也...&lt;/code&gt;could be see in &lt;a href=&quot;http://fanyi.baidu.com/#zh/en/%E5%AE%81%E6%84%BF%20%E4%B9%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And More examples about coordinating conjunction in Chinese could be see in &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B9%B6%E5%88%97%E8%BF%9E%E8%AF%8D/6573724?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18202" LastEditorUserId="18202" LastEditDate="2017-12-11T03:41:48.287" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T03:41:48.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28015" CreationDate="2017-12-11T02:49:59.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be better understood as &quot;still&quot; here in our context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if I get frozen, I &quot;still&quot; would not wear it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16649" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T02:49:59.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27966" CreationDate="2017-12-11T04:42:34.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;哈皮 can also mean “happy”.  It is more likely the case in online chat.  Special dirty words from dialects are seldom used online.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T04:42:34.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28001" CreationDate="2017-12-11T04:58:17.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try tencent cloud &lt;a href=&quot;https://cloud.tencent.com/product/ocr?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; or baidu cloud &lt;a href=&quot;https://cloud.baidu.com/product/ocr.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; if you're able to code a computer program.   And aliyun also host third-party OCR APIs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T04:58:17.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28015" CreationDate="2017-12-11T09:29:38.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit: in the cold light of morning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with Jian: 宁愿 A 也不愿B： would rather A than B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally: 宁愿A也不愿B would want A and not  want B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很多人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A lot of people&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为害怕穿秋裤显胖，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;because they are afraid of appearing fat if they wear long-johns,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;宁愿冻死也不穿。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;would rather freeze to death than wear them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I prefer fat-looking but warm!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2017-12-12T00:48:21.363" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T00:48:21.363" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28023" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-11T09:37:27.053" Score="2" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pursuant to the question below about 伴：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What intrigues me is what 8 八 and a cow 牛(or 2 cows) have to do with this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chineseetymology.org says for 半: 'Augmented pictograph 半. Augmentation 八 (indicating separation) and cow 牛.' （WTF is an 'augmented cow??)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zhongwen.com says 半: divide 八 an ox 牛 (share it? cut it up??)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An old version of 伴 &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MW0Ca.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MW0Ca.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is this 2 'augmented cows'??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see what looks like 2 people to me, but the dictionary says it is 2 times 半， =  八 (8 or divide) and 牛 (ox, cow) twice. Later we see 伴 as 人 + 半 Maybe on a notion of 'a man's best companion is his cow?' （In ancient times I think, a cow was regarded more valuable than a wife, at least in many societies.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:19:01.003" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:19:01.003" Title="The glyph origins of 半" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28023" CreationDate="2017-12-11T09:56:48.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps those etymologies are not quite &lt;em&gt;correct&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The, current, definition in the new &lt;strong&gt;Outliers&lt;/strong&gt; dictionary gives the following explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FORM&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ancient form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nWKlz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nWKlz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;yeahyeah&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;半 was originally composed of 八 “to divide; cut into two parts” and 斗 “measuring spoon,” indicating the original meaning “a spoon used to serve alcohol with a capacity of half a 斗 (dǒu).”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They give the following reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杜忠誥，2002《說文篆文訛形釋例》，台北市：文史哲出版社，2009年2月初版修訂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p. 191-195&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then under &lt;strong&gt;Meanings&lt;/strong&gt; they continue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 (orig.) a spoon used to serve alcohol with a capacity of half a 斗 (dǒu)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 → half&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess a 半 is almost like a &lt;em&gt;half-pint&lt;/em&gt; - if we’re to put it in modern terms westerners could understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: I would imagine 伴 is comprised of 亻/人 [a meaning component] and 半 [a sound component].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T10:21:41.873" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10411" CreationDate="2017-12-11T12:15:08.490" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may use these expressions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;说汉语/說漢語&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;说中文/說中文&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;讲汉语/講漢語&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;讲中文/講中文&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;讲國語/講國語&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉语/漢語: The language of the Han nationality&lt;br&gt;&#xA;中文: The text of China&lt;br&gt;&#xA;国语/國語: The national language (commonly seen in HK, TW)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the foundation of PRC, the government of ROC draw up the China's common language called 国语 (national language), later its name changes to 普通话/普通話 (universal common speech) in mainland China, but the name is still used in HK &amp;amp; TW. People in mainland China in these days prefer to use 说中文/說中文 or 讲中文/講中文, 说汉语/說漢語 and 讲汉语/講漢語 are commonly used in the past tens of years, but less used nowadays, it is still acceptable. The word 中文 is not suitable name in theory, for there are many languages in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T12:15:08.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28001" CreationDate="2017-12-11T22:03:57.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was intending to try the command-line options mentioned by Pedroski, but I stumbled on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cisdem.com/resource/best-chinese-ocr-software.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cisdem PDF Converter OCR&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does a better job than Pleco with worse image quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the vendor of Pleco says they have licensed the same engine for their next major upgrade.  Turns out that the one I used before wan't Pleco (though I am not sure what it was).  So I went ahead and bought the Pleco add-on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="15442" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T01:54:13.657" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T01:54:13.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28028" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-12T03:54:12.023" Score="1" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking up the saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;登东山而小鲁，登泰山而小天下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%99%BB%E6%B3%B0%E5%B1%B1%E8%80%8C%E5%B0%8F%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8B/2043905&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;explanation&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用超然物外的心境来观看世间的变幻纷扰。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please expand 超然物外?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe: 超过自然，物质外边 ？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-12-14T12:28:53.403" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T12:28:53.403" Title="How to translate 超然物外?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28028" CreationDate="2017-12-12T04:10:27.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hold aloof from the world&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hold oneself aloof from the world; be above worldly considerations; stay away from scenes of contention&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 置身事外 be above worldly considerations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 超脱于社会 shun social disputes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 be above all material desires&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 be detached&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 be above the fray&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Duogongneng Chengyu Cidian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;解释&lt;/strong&gt; 超然:不站在对立各方的任何一方;物:指客观世界｡超脱于尘事之外｡也指置身事外｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;语见&lt;/strong&gt; 宋·叶梦得《石林诗话》卷下:“渊明正以脱略世故､超然物外意,顾区区在位者何足累其心哉!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;例句&lt;/strong&gt; 这一种仪式既经举行,即倘有后患,各部都该负责,不能超然物外,说风凉话了｡(鲁迅《而已集·谈所谓“大内档案&amp;quot;》)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;近义&lt;/strong&gt; 置身事外&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;反义&lt;/strong&gt; 同流合污&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;辨析&lt;/strong&gt;〔参见〕置身事外&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;超然 is just &amp;quot;independent&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;物 is the &amp;quot;objective world&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;外 is &amp;quot;outside of&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T04:10:27.313" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28028" CreationDate="2017-12-12T04:44:39.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;超然 = Go beyond&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;物外 = outside of Material world&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;超然物外 = Go beyond the mundane world = &lt;strong&gt;Spiritual&lt;/strong&gt; (not necessary  religious)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T04:44:39.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28032" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-12T14:59:53.057" Score="3" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I noticed that a young girl waited for several hours, so as to be able to pass the break with my younger colleague. So my friend and I took a walk outside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though this is not something I expect to have to explain, I still wondered how to politely express it. Obviously I don’t mean they had anything improper in mind. But they could talk without everyone listening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would 尊重兩人隱私 sound improper? What are polite expressions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-12T15:54:31.237" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T06:13:15.110" Title="How to express giving two people some privacy?" Tags="&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28032" CreationDate="2017-12-12T15:18:26.860" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Give them some privacy&quot; = &quot;給他們一點私人空間吧&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;私人空間 means &quot;private space&quot;, To give a person some private space means to leave him alone for a while. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-12-12T16:38:03.967" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T16:38:03.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28032" CreationDate="2017-12-12T17:52:30.133" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;你（你们）能回避一下吗？or&#xA;你（你们）方便回避一下吗？more politely asking.&#xA;If you meant they want to have some privacy and can nicely ask others to leave. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18674" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T17:52:30.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28032" CreationDate="2017-12-12T23:29:56.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I get your gist correctly, 3 people are waiting, then a boy arrives, who the girl really wants to see. You say to the other person or persons present: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's go outside so they can talk in private.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们到外面去，让他们单独谈谈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T23:29:56.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10411" CreationDate="2017-12-13T03:09:25.500" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most natural way to say it (preserving all context):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你可以跟我說中文。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You can speak with me in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T03:09:25.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10968" CreationDate="2017-12-13T03:27:06.330" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;凡事都有兩面。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  There are always two sides to every story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凡 = every&lt;br&gt;&#xA;事 = issue (story)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;都 = always&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有 = has&lt;br&gt;&#xA;兩 = two&lt;br&gt;&#xA;面 = sides&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T03:27:06.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28032" CreationDate="2017-12-13T06:13:15.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about a less direct translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不要在那儿当电灯泡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which roughly translates to something like: don't be a third-wheel over there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T06:13:15.110" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28039" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28040" CreationDate="2017-12-13T06:52:52.637" Score="1" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;The movie name &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E5%88%AB%E5%AF%B9%E6%88%91%E6%92%92%E8%B0%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lie to me&lt;/a&gt;, should be directly translated to &lt;code&gt;对我说谎&lt;/code&gt;. But the Chinese translation is &lt;code&gt;别对我说谎&lt;/code&gt;, which is opposite to the expected translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this common? When should we opposite the meaning when translating English to Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18671" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T09:05:19.910" Title="Why &quot;Lie to me&quot; is translated as &quot;别对我说谎&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28039" CreationDate="2017-12-13T08:58:27.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Lie to Me&quot; sounds like a challenge (feel free to lie to me and I will see through you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;别对我说谎&quot; sounds like a warning (Never lie to me or I will see through you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are not that contrary but actually quite close in this particular context,  since both convey the subtext &quot;I will see through you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &quot;对我说谎&quot; isn't as strong as &quot;Lie to me&quot; in English, unless you say &quot;来，对我说谎&quot; or &quot;对我说谎试试&quot; to stress that it's an imperative sentence. I guess this is why the translator chose 别对我说谎 rather than 对我说谎.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T08:58:27.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28039" CreationDate="2017-12-13T09:05:19.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This translation is rendered to cater to the market demand. I think &lt;code&gt;别对我说谎&lt;/code&gt; can actually draw more eyes on the movie poster. I can't tell the rationale but it is a rhetorical technique. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, &lt;code&gt;对我说谎&lt;/code&gt; alone makes nonsense since this imperative sentence is not logically reasonable, at least in Chinese context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general cases, &lt;code&gt;对我说谎&lt;/code&gt; is proper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T09:05:19.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28042" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28043" CreationDate="2017-12-13T09:10:26.753" Score="2" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;悠久&quot; is often used to describe a period of history (I read it from ), and I wonder how does the adv &quot;悠&quot; work in &quot;悠久&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've searched, the complete word means,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;悠久，汉语词汇，形容词（褒义）。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  拼音：yōu jiǔ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  词义：长久；久远。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can't figure out what does &quot;悠&quot; mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18671" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T09:18:40.973" Title="What does &quot;悠&quot; mean in &quot;悠久&quot;?" Tags="&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28042" CreationDate="2017-12-13T09:18:40.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;悠&lt;/code&gt; has the same meaning as &lt;code&gt;久&lt;/code&gt; in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a kind of word making method in Chinese, which combines two synonymic characters together. Perhaps the terminology &lt;code&gt;tautology&lt;/code&gt; can be used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;code&gt;亲吻 拥抱 战斗 早晨 林木&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T09:18:40.973" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28044" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-13T12:51:28.727" Score="1" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to say: &quot;It's not true. You are sitting the fourth from the right side&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那不是真的。 你坐在第四个右边。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17940" LastEditorUserId="17940" LastEditDate="2017-12-13T14:37:19.093" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T16:20:42.797" Title="Correct the sentence" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28044" CreationDate="2017-12-13T14:07:00.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @user6065 suggested in the comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你坐在第四个右边&lt;/code&gt; is weird in its word order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By your context， I think you should say &lt;code&gt;你坐在右起第四个（座位）&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;你的座位是从右数第四个&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastEditorUserId="18612" LastEditDate="2017-12-13T15:13:16.473" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T15:13:16.473" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28044" CreationDate="2017-12-13T16:20:42.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;没有啊，你就是右边第四个人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's not (hard) at all, you're (right here -) the 4th person from the right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18621" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T16:20:42.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28047" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-13T17:42:37.623" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is hard for me to find out one general or exactly English word for '样' in different contexts, it is so common in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16325" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T01:22:07.303" Title="What's the general word for '样‘ in '这样，那样’，‘小样’, ‘怎样', ‘好样的’?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28048" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-13T19:29:34.137" Score="3" ViewCount="613" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do think that '叶公好龙’ is very image, and very vividly for describing someone who is faking passion, and is a very common word, are there any English one for '叶公好龙'?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16325" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T13:53:46.543" Title="Is there an proverb or saying in English for '叶公好龙'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28047" CreationDate="2017-12-13T20:50:41.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;样 means 模样 or 样子 (manner/way; appearance/ look) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这样 = this way/ like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那样 = that way/ like that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎样 = what way/ like what/ how&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小样的 = small looking one (mock people for being small minded or undignified)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好样的 = good looking one (use in positive way to praise someone looking good by doing something or use in ironic way to mock someone looking bad by doing something)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-12-14T01:22:07.303" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T01:22:07.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28048" CreationDate="2017-12-13T21:06:51.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;葉公好龍 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/3/11/2/n404356.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/3/11/2/n404356.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;從這個故事演變的成語“葉公好龍”常用來比喻人說一套，做一套，口是心非&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, it is similar to &amp;quot; talk the talk, but not walk the walk' meaning someone's words doesn't match his action' (說一套，做一套)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T13:53:46.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28048" CreationDate="2017-12-14T00:32:17.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;这很难说。 我个人认为这并不意味着假装有激情，更像是害怕面对现实, 生活在梦境中。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他喜欢龙的形象，但现实中的龙，一条真正的龙，把他吓死了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps we should be afraid of dragons， but please don't kill them!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe a saying from that old Greek slave Æsop: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T00:32:17.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28052" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28114" CreationDate="2017-12-14T01:53:13.893" Score="3" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;In his book &lt;em&gt;Selfie&lt;/em&gt; Will Storr claims that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In Chinese, there isn’t a word for individualism (the nearest they have translates to ‘selfishness’.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m pretty sure there is a, modern, word for individualism and it is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;个人主义&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I’m also pretty sure it doesn’t translate to selfishness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His concept is a good one and I would love to buy into it, but I’m not really seeing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T08:20:48.243" Title="Is there really no word for individualism in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28054" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-14T02:59:25.020" Score="2" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese text has 渗透渲染 as a compound noun. This is a bit difficult to render in English. I split it up. Any suggestions on how to keep it as 1 word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;渲染： 画国画时用水墨或淡色涂抹画面以加强艺术效果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泰山位于山东省中部，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Taishan lies in the middle of Shandong Province,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自然景观雄伟高大，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(its) natural scenery is of imposing heights,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有着数千年精神文化的渗透渲染&lt;br&gt;&#xA;permeated (渗透) by a backwash (渲染) of millenia of spiritual culture&lt;br&gt;&#xA;和人文景观的烘托(offset)。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and offset (烘托) by man-made places of cultural interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T16:04:58.433" Title="How to translate 渗透渲染？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28054" CreationDate="2017-12-14T03:18:58.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 渗透 and 渲染 are juxtaposed here, so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;permeated (渗透) by a backwash (渲染) of millenia of spiritual culture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;permeated and rendered by millenia of spiritual culture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T03:18:58.440" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27667" CreationDate="2017-12-14T03:47:12.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe this translation is more proper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢你的课。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I like your class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢上你的课。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I like attending your class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;　 = I&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;喜欢&lt;/strong&gt; = like&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;　 = attending&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;你的&lt;/strong&gt; = your&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;课&lt;/strong&gt;　 = class&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T03:47:12.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25519" CreationDate="2017-12-14T06:56:46.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Freud's essay &quot;Psychical (Or Mental) Treatment (1890)&quot;. I found the quote below with Google's help:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Foremost among such measures is the use of words; and words are the essential tool of mental treatment. A layman will no&#xA;      doubt find it hard to understand how pathological disorders of the body and mind can be eliminated by ‘mere’ words. He will&#xA;      feel that he is being asked to believe in magic. And he will not be so very wrong, for the words which we use in our everyday&#xA;      speech are nothing other than watered-down magic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13110" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T06:56:46.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28060" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-14T18:17:32.000" Score="1" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does the expression 赶马驭树 mean? Is it correct to understand it as: to gather firewood and transport it with horses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16781" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-15T05:51:08.900" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T02:03:41.337" Title="An expression found in a short story by contemporary writer Han Shaogong" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28061" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28062" CreationDate="2017-12-14T18:19:34.963" Score="0" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I started learning Chinese, my language partner (from Taiwan) taught me that the phrase 很會 can be used to indicate ability. I don’t use it all the time, because in Chinese there are alternatives such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小姐文字寫的很清秀。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes an expression such as 很會 comes in handy because you don’t need to know the associated verb. Such a case would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;學妹很會甌繡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it has happened a few times that people say 很會 sounds strange. I opted to replace it with 善於，工於，長於，but it seems people don’t immediately understand me (perhaps because these expressions are too literary as compared to the overall level of my Chinese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 很會 regional or slang? What should I pay attention to, when replacing it with 工於，善於，長於？ Are these limited to set phrases? Which of these last three is most universally applicable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-15T05:50:39.793" LastActivityDate="2017-12-15T15:32:13.523" Title="To be good at something. Is 很會 appropriate?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28061" CreationDate="2017-12-15T06:01:08.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;很會&amp;quot; emerged in modern time, used in vernacular chinese. imo, it's ok in most usages, just plain dull :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, to enrich your vocabulary, here're some alternatives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;閑熟&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;况及今刷選得人﹒猶須按舊制演習禮儀﹒非數月不能閑熟﹒比及閑熟﹒两宫已告成矣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我何人斯又能閑熟六藝﹒以求全儒林之宗旨哉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;閑熟六藝 is roughly &amp;quot;skilled at six arts&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;精, 究&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有究韜略精武藝者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;究韜略 is roughly &amp;quot;good at strategy&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;精武藝 is roughly &amp;quot;skilled in martial arts&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;善&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丞相達之妹善畫﹒巧妙無雙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly &amp;quot;the sister of prime minister was good at drawing&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-15T06:01:08.850" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28060" CreationDate="2017-12-15T10:06:33.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Han Shaogong uses a lot of topolect phrases in his writings. This could be one of those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently 赶马驭树的人 means &quot;people who pass by&quot; in context. 赶马驭树 doesn't make literal sense, especially the 驭树 part, but a lot of things in language make no literal sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar, but more widely know case could be 偷鸡摸狗. It's just a general term of thieving. You don't need to steal a hen and touch a dog to be called a 偷鸡摸狗的人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The story background is at Jiangxi, Han Shaogong himself is from Hunan. Perhaps someone from those regions could explain it a bit more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastEditorUserId="6603" LastEditDate="2017-12-17T02:03:41.337" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T02:03:41.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28065" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-15T10:19:10.030" Score="2" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since visiting the museum, I've been very curious about these three characters (shown below). I've unsuccessfully tried to search it on the Internet. Their pretty calligraphic style is one of the reasons why I failed. Also, there is a possibility that these characters are &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_N%C3%B4m&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chữ Nôm&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm here to seek help. What are these characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VZKqI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VZKqI.png&quot; alt=&quot;Three characters&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9417" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-27T01:33:59.907" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T01:34:41.903" Title="Three Chinese characters (?) on the entrance of the History Museum of Ho Chi Minh city (Characters identified: 寶藏院)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28065" CreationDate="2017-12-15T11:19:39.860" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's 寶藏院, roughly &amp;quot;the courtyard (院) of treasure (寶藏)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the right one is 寶:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%AF%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%AF%B6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;middle one is 藏:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%97%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%97%8F&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;left one is 院:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%99%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%99%A2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-27T01:34:41.903" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T01:34:41.903" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28067" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28070" CreationDate="2017-12-15T15:03:19.410" Score="4" ViewCount="287" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase &lt;em&gt;preaching to the choir&lt;/em&gt; is explained nicely in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/preach_to_the_choir&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikitonary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;preach to the choir&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(idiomatic) To speak as if to convince a person or group of something they already believe. quotations ▼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage notes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often used to imply that a speaker is addressing the wrong audience or is deliberately addressing a compliant, non-challenging audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first translation on &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/preaching_to_the_choir&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt; translates it very literally:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给唱诗班传道&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the second translation is completely wrong (你和唱诗班说吧) and the third is quite literal as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对唱诗班说教&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While, seemingly, correct - the above translations could hardly express the nuances of addressing the wrong audience by trying to convince them of something they already believe in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas for a good colloquial translation of &amp;quot;preaching to the choir&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ed: 给和尚念经 -or- 念经给和尚听 are quite good alternatives!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-16T04:37:00.083" Title="Colloquial translation of &quot;preaching to the choir&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28061" CreationDate="2017-12-15T15:32:13.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;很会&amp;amp;很is similar. but &quot;很会&quot; is usually used before a verb, such as 她很会做饭（she is good at cooking）. &quot;很&quot; always used before a adjective，such as 她很美（she is beautiful.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18687" LastActivityDate="2017-12-15T15:32:13.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26149" CreationDate="2017-12-15T16:44:46.173" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;sorry, don't have any ideas about the song. UR translation is very good, except “quarter”、“desire”. &#xA;1、Quarter may mean “角落”、“世界”、“地盘” in this song, so &quot;In my quarter&quot; means &quot;在我的世界，我的地盘，我的心里&quot;. &#xA;2、Desire is a very strong, and true feeling at present，but“愿望” in Chinese is just a hope for future, and isn't strong as desire in English. so &quot;desire&quot; means &quot;渴望、强烈的欲望，强烈的愿望&quot;&#xA;3、my translation for your reference:&#xA;If people bring an atturna* In my quarter|他哼着小情歌闯入我的世界。&#xA;A desire is born in me|炽热的心开始按耐不住，&#xA;I can no longer sleep|（使我）不再入眠。&#xA;I quietly open The door, making a little slit|忐忑地打开一丝心扉。&#xA;I see it's for Annuzza，And go back to crying|而他，只是路过。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18687" LastActivityDate="2017-12-15T16:44:46.173" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28067" CreationDate="2017-12-15T18:34:51.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say the Chinese 4 characters idom &quot;班门弄斧&quot; could be best for &quot;preaching to the choir&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“班门弄斧&quot; basically means &quot;display one's slight skill before an expert.&quot; &quot;班&quot; here represents the best carpenter in China ancient history whose name is '鲁班', '弄斧' means display somebody's axe skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another one comes into my mind  is '关公面前耍大刀', '关公' was a big hero in China ancient history who can do '大刀broadsorwd' very well, and if you show your sword skill before him, that's really not a right thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16325" LastActivityDate="2017-12-15T18:34:51.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28071" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28072" CreationDate="2017-12-15T23:57:13.727" Score="0" ViewCount="597" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently my Chinese friend rephrased my use of 美容院 with 理发店 during the conversation, on which I said I'm looking for a hairdresser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Japanese there are two types of hair salons - 美容院 and 理容院. Both cut your hairs but the service is different. The former focuses on the aesthetic and used by women and most of younger men. The latter is for men who don't care about the aesthetic (mostly middle-aged and elderly men), and often offers the shaving service as well as the hair cut, and cheaper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, is this distinction applied in the same way? Or are these words more like the synonym and thus can a (fashionable) girl use 理发店?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, does it sound awkward for men to use 美容院? I wonder why my Chinese friend rephrased it... (she is female and I'm male, and both of us are 20s, FYI)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T03:51:11.450" Title="How to express a hairdresser in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28071" CreationDate="2017-12-16T00:47:19.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;理发店 is more of a general term for hair salons. If it were for a girl, then we usually say 美发中心，美发院。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2017-12-16T00:47:19.710" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28067" CreationDate="2017-12-16T01:48:16.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of the time, I would not say this in relation to an audience, but when you are telling me something I already know or believe to be true. &quot;You are preaching to the choir. 向教徒传教.&quot; There is just the allegory, or comparison, of a priest talking to his already devout flock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bit like standing in the People's Congress and telling the delegates that Marxism is the best way forward. You are wasting your time and energy. They are already convinced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徒劳无益: a futile endeavour&lt;br&gt;&#xA;徒劳无功: work to no avail&lt;br&gt;&#xA;劳而无功: work hard with little or no result&lt;br&gt;&#xA;心劳日拙: get nothing for one's efforts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and as a waste of time and appearing foolish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;画蛇添足&lt;br&gt;&#xA;布鼓雷门&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你说的话让我生气，我不会回答“向教徒传教”而是“不要说话”（我常常听到有人这么说！）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-16T01:48:16.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28067" CreationDate="2017-12-16T04:37:00.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Preaching to the choir&amp;quot; is a waste of effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it a waste of effort?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it is unnecessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And why is it unnecessary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is unnecessary because people in a choir are believers already, to try to convince believers to believe is just an redundant act.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The core logic of &amp;quot;preaching to the choir&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;engage in redundant act&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; and the main extended meaning is &amp;quot;waste of time and energy&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Engage in redundant act&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; in Chinese is &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;多此一舉&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rallying your die-hard supporter for their votes, is like &lt;strong&gt;preaching to the choir&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爭取死硬支持者的選票, 就像&lt;strong&gt;向詩歌班傳道&lt;/strong&gt;一樣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rallying your die-hard supporter for their votes, &lt;strong&gt;is really an redundant act&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爭取死硬支持者的選票, 真的是&lt;strong&gt;多此一舉&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-16T04:37:00.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28075" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28078" CreationDate="2017-12-16T11:00:48.707" Score="0" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kekenet.com/kouyu/201501/350964.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;KeKeNet&lt;/a&gt; translates &quot;beating a dead horse&quot; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;多此一举&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.iciba.com/study/bilingual/1562072.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ICIBA&lt;/a&gt; translated it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;无济于事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other &lt;em&gt;better&lt;/em&gt; alternatives to this translation for beating a dead horse? Hopefully more idiomatic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-12-16T23:19:06.290" Title="colloquial idiomatic translation of: &quot;beating a dead horse&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28071" CreationDate="2017-12-16T11:28:02.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in Chinese, 理发店is where to make a hair-cut or hair-dressing, both for male or female. 美容院is where to do some activity about cosmetology, usually for female.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18687" LastActivityDate="2017-12-16T11:28:02.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28052" CreationDate="2017-12-16T11:40:47.990" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes, you are right. In Chinese selfishness is 自私&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, individualism is 个人主义&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18687" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T13:47:10.770" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T13:47:10.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28075" CreationDate="2017-12-16T11:49:01.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Beating a dead horse' implies 'on and on, endlessly debating or citing a same tired subject' (doesn't matter if the subject is settled or not)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it can be described as '沒完沒了' in Chinese. To be specific 'beating a dead horse' is &quot;沒完沒了地重複相同的話題 &quot; (endlessly repeating the same topic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2017-12-16T11:54:48.863" LastActivityDate="2017-12-16T11:54:48.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28079" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28080" CreationDate="2017-12-16T12:16:13.207" Score="5" ViewCount="960" Body="&lt;p&gt;My first impression to this word is something like &quot;enemy&quot; or &quot;enemies&quot;, because the letter &quot;死&quot; is used and it means death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I do some search, it means &quot;sworn followers&quot;?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I really doubt at it. Can anyone explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18671" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2017-12-16T12:51:31.487" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T06:39:12.013" Title="What does &quot;死党&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28079" CreationDate="2017-12-16T12:29:54.687" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;死&lt;/strong&gt; means 赴死 or 尽死力 ((worth) dying for / giving all one's strength).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;党&lt;/strong&gt; means 朋党 (clique; cabal; faction).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/b/13b/301064.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;死党&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; means &amp;quot;pursue private ends&amp;quot; at first,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[pursue private ends]∶ 为自己的朋党拼死竭力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;案后将军朱博、 钜鹿太守 孙闳,故光禄大夫 陈咸( 王)立交通厚善,相与为腹心,有背心死党之信,欲相攀援,死而后已。——《汉书·瞿方进传》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And means &amp;quot;sworn followers; diehard followers&amp;quot; (with derogatory sence),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[sworn followers; diehard followers]∶效死的党羽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;网罗死党&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays it usually means &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;best friend&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比喻情誼深厚的朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://wemedia.ifeng.com/21700187/wemedia.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;文化漫谈：为什么好朋友又称为“死党”？有何典故由来？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T06:39:12.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28075" CreationDate="2017-12-16T23:19:06.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're flogging a dead horse there. He won't listen.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你对牛弹琴。他不听你的话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-16T23:19:06.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28071" CreationDate="2017-12-16T23:56:04.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think the distinction really applies in China. Maybe the difference is the amount of pop music they play!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hairdressing salon, hairdresser's salon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;美发沙龙&lt;br&gt;&#xA;理头店&lt;br&gt;&#xA;剃头店 （This one maybe indicates a simple lob-off-your-hair place for older guys.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-16T23:56:04.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28083" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28084" CreationDate="2017-12-16T23:58:56.020" Score="3" ViewCount="2298" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw one of my friends used &quot;你是哪个人&quot; to ask where you are from in China. I thought it is the valid expression to date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I just used it to a Chinese people and she didn't understand it. So I wonder whether it is a correct way to ask where she is from in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is 你是哪个人 the valid sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it is not, what is the correct way of asking &quot;Where are you from (in China)?&quot;? I know 你是哪国人 is what you use to ask where she is from, country-wise. Maybe 你是哪里人 is close to it but is it correct? Otherwise what is the best way to ask where a person is from within a country, without a chance of getting an answer as &quot;中国&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T06:47:39.580" Title="Is 你是哪个人 the correct way to ask where you are from in China?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28083" CreationDate="2017-12-17T00:22:53.067" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, &quot;你是哪个人&quot; doesn't make much sense here. It translates into &quot;Which one you are?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, you shall say &quot;你是哪里人&quot; as you have put.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking at the picture and you cannot recognize which one is your friend. You will probably ask &quot;哪个人是你&quot; literally means &quot;Which one (in the picture) is you?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastEditorUserId="3511" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T06:47:39.580" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T06:47:39.580" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28085" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28101" CreationDate="2017-12-17T03:59:35.893" Score="3" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to say &quot;museum curator&quot;. &quot;museum&quot; is &quot;博物馆&quot;, while &quot;curator&quot; is &quot;馆长&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So it should be &quot;博物馆馆长&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I heard someone say &quot;博物馆长&quot;, ignoring the repeated word.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is that a correct term? What's the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18671" LastActivityDate="2017-12-19T04:56:13.737" Title="What's the difference between &quot;博物馆长&quot; and &quot;博物馆馆长&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28083" CreationDate="2017-12-17T04:03:15.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Native speaker here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Is 你是哪个人 the valid sentence?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grammatically, yes, but it doesn't make much sense, as the other answer says. It can be used, however, casually when you start talking over the phone with someone you don't recognize. Formally used as 你是哪位 or &quot;Who am I speaking with&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;If it is not, what is the correct way of asking &quot;Where are you from (in China)?&quot;?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你是哪里人&quot; is absolutely correct and commonly used. Variants including &quot;你是哪里的&quot;, &quot;你是哪儿的&quot; sounds more natural and less formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18697" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T04:03:15.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28088" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-17T04:25:05.897" Score="3" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;《輶軒使者絕代語釋別國方言》has a couple of different names including《方言》and《揚子方言》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English it mostly just gets called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fangyan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fangyan&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entire Chinese text has been put up on &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/fang-yan/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ctext&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the first Chinese dictionary of dialectal terms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I imagined there would be an English translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia does have a short translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(虎, 陳魏宋楚之間或謂之李父, 江淮南楚之間謂之李耳, 或謂之於菟. 自關東西或謂之伯都.) &quot;Tiger: in the regions of Chen-Wei Song-Chu [Central China], some call it lifu; in the regions of Jiang-Huai Nan-Chu [Southern China], they call it li'er, and some call it wutu. From the Pass, east- and west-ward [Eastern and Western China], some call it also bodu.&quot; (adapted from Serruys 1967: 256)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that I'm not seeing anything of the like on wikipedia or in other &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Science/fangyan.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;references&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Has there ever been an English translation of 《輶軒》&quot;Fangyan&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-12-17T09:35:02.123" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T23:28:13.480" Title="Has there ever been an English translation of 《輶軒》&quot;Fangyan&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28089" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-17T04:28:12.173" Score="2" ViewCount="524" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_kinship#Common_extended_family_and_terminology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;terms for aunts and uncles&lt;/a&gt; are pretty specific, depending on the exact relationship:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Father's older brother's wife: 伯娘&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Father's younger brother's wife: 嬸嬸&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Father's sister's husband: 姑丈&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mother's brother's wife: 舅母&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mother's sister's husband: 姨丈&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what terms should be used for spouses of aunts and uncles in same-sex relationships?  (I assume that neologisms are required for these &quot;novel&quot; concepts.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2600" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T09:40:09.987" Title="What kinship terms to use for spouses of aunts and uncles in same-sex relationships?" Tags="&lt;kinship&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28089" CreationDate="2017-12-17T05:01:42.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Same sex marriage is a relatively new concept to Chinese. Different people may address the same sex partners of their aunts and uncles differently. Most likely people would call them by the general term 姨姨 and 叔叔 like they would call a stranger who is close to their father's age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your (mother's sister) aunt's partner is also your aunt (姨姨) To tell them apart, you can add the last name before 'aunt' If your aunt married a woman whose last name was Chan. you would call her 'Aunt Chan' (陳姨姨)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your (father's brother) uncle's partner is also your uncle (叔叔). You also call them 'last name + uncle' (e.g. 陳叔叔)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your father's sister is your 姑姑, and you can call her partner '(last name)+姨姨'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your mother's brother is your 舅舅, and you can call his partner '(last name)+叔叔'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T05:01:42.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28079" CreationDate="2017-12-17T06:26:41.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means best friends or very close friends. No bad meaning involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18157" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T06:26:41.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28085" CreationDate="2017-12-17T06:31:17.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are correct, but in some organization, they usually say the word馆 twice and some usually say it once only. All you need to do is to follow the practice of that organization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18157" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T06:31:17.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28083" CreationDate="2017-12-17T08:36:02.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, &quot;你是哪个人&quot; is a wrong sentence in any way, not a valid sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to ask people come from which city or province, you can ask&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;你是哪里人？&lt;/code&gt;，&lt;code&gt;Where you come from?&lt;/code&gt;, People will answer&#xA;&lt;code&gt;country/province/city&lt;/code&gt; depends on what he/she wants to answer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;你来自中国哪里？&lt;/code&gt;，&lt;code&gt;Where you come from in China?&lt;/code&gt;, People will &#xA;answer &lt;code&gt;province/city&lt;/code&gt; depends on what he/she wants to answer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;你来自哪个省？&lt;/code&gt;，&lt;code&gt;Which province you come from?&lt;/code&gt;, People will only &#xA;answer &lt;code&gt;province&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;你来自哪个城市？&lt;/code&gt;，&lt;code&gt;Which city you come from?&lt;/code&gt;, People will only&#xA;answer &lt;code&gt;city&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can make the sentence: &lt;code&gt;Subject+是+哪里/哪国／哪个省／哪个城市+（with or without“的”）+人？&lt;/code&gt;，&lt;code&gt;Subject+来自+“country／province／city”+哪里？&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the question above for asking people‘s &lt;code&gt;born&lt;/code&gt; location or Where they &lt;code&gt;grow up&lt;/code&gt; or even Where they &lt;code&gt;admit&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18698" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T22:41:00.483" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T22:41:00.483" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13805" CreationDate="2017-12-17T13:23:54.597" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have correctly pointed out, the Tibetan expression for 'thank you' is ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེ་ (Wylie: thugs rje che). The approximate phonetic pronunciation in the Lhasa dialect is thu-je-che (the 'gs' and 'r' being silent). Literally, ཐུགས་རྗེ་ (thu-je) means 'compassion' and ཆེ་ (che) comes from the word ཆེན་པོ་ (chen-po), which means 'great'. So when you are thanking someone, you are basically telling them that they have 'great compassion'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it may sound like the Chinese phrase 多謝, the similar pronunciation is just a coincidence and the two expressions have nothing in common whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18704" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T13:23:54.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28095" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28096" CreationDate="2017-12-17T15:07:48.473" Score="4" ViewCount="7788" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like, when I see a Chinese character in this picture (link is broken and redirected):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://avatars0.githubusercontent.com/u/16398479?s=100&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best way to find more information about this character (unlike English, there're only 26 letters, and I can type them and google. Chinese characters cannot be typed if I don't know its pinyin)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18671" LastEditorUserId="18671" LastEditDate="2021-04-08T09:44:51.877" LastActivityDate="2021-04-08T09:44:51.877" Title="How can I search for a Chinese character when I see it on a picture?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28095" CreationDate="2017-12-17T16:17:48.113" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;With pictures &lt;strong&gt;OCR&lt;/strong&gt; is your best bet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s a screenshot I took of the front page of baidu just now:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M8JF0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M8JF0.png&quot; alt=&quot;yoyoyo&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I use Pleco’s OCR software to see what the titles Chinese characters are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fa4EO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fa4EO.png&quot; alt=&quot;looklooklook&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here you can see that the characters have been correctly identified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It works for more than just words too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s a whole headline deciphered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CbqW4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CbqW4.png&quot; alt=&quot;yup&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Pleco they can even look up the words one by one for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BNWJO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BNWJO.png&quot; alt=&quot;fancy right?&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fancy! Right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Method number two: &lt;strong&gt;Handwriting Recognition&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...and again we’re using Pleco (and really why would you need any other software? Really?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let’s stick with out original picture - we don’t know the characters for &lt;em&gt;baidu&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So first we write our &lt;em&gt;bai&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tDTYr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tDTYr.png&quot; alt=&quot;hahaha&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then we write our &lt;em&gt;du&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VVRaB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VVRaB.png&quot; alt=&quot;yes&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and now we have our two characters! And thankfully we’re using dictionary software so we have plenty of definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RfXZb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RfXZb.png&quot; alt=&quot;un-hunh&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Method three: &lt;strong&gt;two part character search&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We're getting more advanced now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's take the 娱 from 娱乐圈 in the OCR example above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we know a little bit about Chinese characters - we don't know 娱 yet - but we know it's comprised of 女 and 吴.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what can we do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is were &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea&lt;/a&gt; comes in handy. We can use their &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zslf.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;两分&lt;/a&gt; (or &amp;quot;two part&amp;quot;) character system to find what we're looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fKUfD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fKUfD.png&quot; alt=&quot;yuss&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in the &amp;quot;two part&amp;quot; search box we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女吴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then we see our results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IHWJP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IHWJP.png&quot; alt=&quot;how?&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and there we see our 娱 right at the very top with a brief description!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if we click into it we get a page like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bN3wZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bN3wZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;yo!&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with the character, pinyin, descriptions, definitions and alternative characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Method number four: &lt;strong&gt;笔顺&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is, &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt;, not my favorite - but I've used it enough times to make to worth mentioning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If OCR, handwriting recognition and two-part searches are failing you - you can try &lt;em&gt;bishun&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules for &lt;em&gt;bishun&lt;/em&gt; are simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gepZK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gepZK.png&quot; alt=&quot;oooo&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solely based off how to write the character we can convert it to a number that can be searched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's take: 乐 we don't know to read it but it's stroke order is obvious:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ノフ丨ノ丶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so according to the above table that gives us:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;35234&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if we go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and click on the second tab:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;字典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7j0KP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7j0KP.png&quot; alt=&quot;like this&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then click on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;笔顺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qCf93.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qCf93.png&quot; alt=&quot;noa&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now we can enter out number&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RnVYj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RnVYj.png&quot; alt=&quot;![enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and here are our results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1L20M.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1L20M.png&quot; alt=&quot;uop&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;搜索结果：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乐 35234&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;right at the top&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these methods would work with any character you don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as you have a clear enough picture you can run OCR on any character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While handwriting, two-part search and &lt;em&gt;bishun&lt;/em&gt; methods can also work with any characters you find out there in the wild.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T16:52:25.973" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28097" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-17T19:00:04.757" Score="3" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the text for lesson 20 in &lt;em&gt;New Practical Chinese Reader&lt;/em&gt;, 林娜 and her friend 王小云 are waiting for 丁力波 (another student). They plan to take a taxi to somebody else's house, where they have been invited to celebrate New Year. The dialogue contains the following exchange (emphasis added):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王小云： 你又来晚了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丁力波： 真不好意思。 &lt;strong&gt;二位小姐&lt;/strong&gt;别着急，出租车已经来了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二位小姐 uses 二 instead of 两 before the measure word 位. I have been told that this is typical of Shanghai. What do speakers of Standard Chinese outside Shanghai typically say? Do they say 两位小姐 (which would be the expected alternative based on Standard Chinese grammar) or use a totally different expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T09:29:31.117" Title="Alternative expression for 二位小姐" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28097" CreationDate="2017-12-17T19:46:52.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Shanghai Dialect, “两” is closer to what we pronounced.We do speak as &quot;两位小姐&quot; than &quot;二位小姐&quot;, which sounds awkward. I think the usage of &quot;二&quot; is for written Chinese purpose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T19:46:52.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28100" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-17T23:02:52.360" Score="0" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday I was reading 孟母三迁。 (Your environment has a big effect on your development seems to be the underlying theme.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;’... ，孟子常常玩修筑坟墓或学别人哭拜的游戏。‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find 哭拜， so I suppose it is a contraction of something. Maybe 哭泣 + 膜拜，祭拜。 Together I presume it means 'mourn'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Asking around I find, in China it is not unusual to pay someone to cry at a funeral. Are these people professional mourners? 哭拜者？ Is that what 孟子 was studying, professional mourners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T09:51:39.977" Title="Can I translate 哭拜 as mourn?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28085" CreationDate="2017-12-18T02:49:51.637" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You may ignore the repeated characters only if the last character of the first word can be omitted conventionally without changing its meaning.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 北京市市长 can be shortened as 北京市长, because 北京 can already carry the meaning of 北京市 in this context. The 省, 市, 县 suffix is usually omitted when the length of the place name has more than one characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you could not name 沙县县长 as 沙县长, because 沙 doesn't sufficiently carry the meaning of 沙县. This rule may be applied to the case you've mentioned. People may think 国防部长 is acceptable while 央行长 sounds strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, if the first word (even short form) is made up of one character in the name part, like 央行 (the name part is 央, the role part is 行), and second word starts with 行, it is not correct to reduce two 行-s to one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the first word (even short form) is made up of at least two characters in name part, like 国防部 (the name part is 国防, the role part is 部), and second  word starts with 部, use one 部 or two are both acceptable. &lt;strong&gt;But finally, it is recommended using the full form, like 央行行长, 国防部部长, after all these are the exact right address.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="3511" LastEditDate="2017-12-19T04:56:13.737" LastActivityDate="2017-12-19T04:56:13.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28097" CreationDate="2017-12-18T03:05:04.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know we might be slaying the slain but seeing as you're asking for an&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[a]lternative expression for 二位小姐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it might as well be said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; defines 小姐 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;young lady / miss / (slang) prostitute / CL: 個｜个, 位&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with prostitute being the operative definition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seeing as 小姐 is so stigmatized - I believe most people tend to stay far away from it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二位 on the other hand is usually better put as 两位.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两位 is a very common expression for two people you don't know and you don't even need to classify it with guys/gals/whatever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;两位，慢走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T03:05:04.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28100" CreationDate="2017-12-18T03:23:16.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One quick translation I found on google books from &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=XwI9DgAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA88&amp;amp;lpg=PA88&amp;amp;dq=%22%E5%93%AD%E6%8B%9C%22%20english&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=jjZDdYohGo&amp;amp;sig=3oygIJgF3vOOzSF5nYI09WBzNH8&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjnmaaFzJLYAhUQxmMKHTDqB0gQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%22%E5%93%AD%E6%8B%9C%22%20english&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Two Thousand Zhuang Proverbs from China with Annotations and Chinese and English Translation&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Daxnuengx bingzciengz yaek doxgyaez, ndei gvaq daengz seiz daejhenz moh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姐妹平时相疼爱，胜过坟前相哭拜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dear love between sisters when alive is better than crying sadly in front of the grave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does go to show that 哭拜 is often associated with graves, like your sentence above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would doubt these are professional &lt;em&gt;criers&lt;/em&gt; - especially with the Zhuang proverb talking about sisters &lt;em&gt;mourning&lt;/em&gt; for one another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;edit&lt;/strong&gt;: Here's another instance I found from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rockyenglish.com/Ziliao/detail/16744&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rocky English&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When RuanJi was mourning for his mother, one day his friend PeiKai came to grieve for Ruan's mother. He saw that Ruan was in great silence and refused to stand up to grieve, just sitting aside without having his hair teased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;记得阮籍守丧期间，有一天朋友裴楷前去吊唁，在阮籍母亲的灵堂里哭拜，而阮籍却披散着头发坐着，既不起立也不哭拜，只是两眼发直，表情木然。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it gets translated as &lt;em&gt;grieve&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also there's a translation here on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cslpod.com/LearnChinese/Lesson/Translation/TranslationResult.aspx?Id=1526&amp;amp;Language=English&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CSLPOD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不久，英台被迫出嫁，当花轿绕道至梁山伯坟前，英台执意下轿，哭拜亡灵，一时之间风雨大作、阴风惨惨，梁山伯的坟墓突然裂开，英台见状，奋不顾身地跳进去，坟墓马上合拢起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Soon, Yingtai was forced to get married. The bridal sedan chair made a detour to get to Liang Shanbo's grave. Yingtai insisted on getting off the sedan chair. All of a sudden, it became chilly and gloomy with wind and rain. Liang Shanbo's grave burst open. Yingtai fearlessly jumped in and suddenly the wind stopped and the rain too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the translation is more just like &lt;em&gt;to go to the grave&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 常常玩...学别人哭拜的游戏 just means that he often made a game of copying the mourners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might want to try and add it to &lt;a href=&quot;http://mdbg.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;. Here is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://cc-cedict.org/editor/editor.php?handler=InsertSimpleEntry&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Add / change CC-CEDICT entry&lt;/a&gt; page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can fill out the submission form with your findings and comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T04:54:04.183" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28104" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-18T06:44:51.153" Score="2" ViewCount="2691" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idiom 降维攻击 is quite popular in Chinese chatting rooms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, it's used almost in any context. What's the origin and meaning of it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18167" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T20:59:50.687" LastActivityDate="2020-09-26T17:14:30.180" Title="What does 降维攻击 mean?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28104" CreationDate="2017-12-18T08:37:59.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've never heard anyone around me using this high-end idiom...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So I searched the Internet, and found the idiom coming from Liu Cixin's renowned sci-fi novel &lt;em&gt;The Three Body Problem&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The original explanation is not easy to understand, so people just use its derived meaning: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;attacking others in a 'vulgar/despicable' way&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T08:37:59.597" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28071" CreationDate="2017-12-18T08:52:21.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China, hair salon with emphasis on fashion and beauty is relatively new. Before 1980s and 1990s, most hairdressers provided only haircutting and shaving services. It is not until late 1990s did the western-style hair salons rise.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;People may call a shop with haircutting service only 理发店, and a hair salon 理发店/美发店.&lt;/strong&gt; Hair salons may call themselves 造型 (lit. styling), but this is not used by common people.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In Chinese, 美容院 is a beauty salon, which provides skincare services, and doesn't necessarily include hair-related services. &lt;strong&gt;So it's wrong to call a hair salon 美容院.&lt;/strong&gt; Also, 美容院 usually sets for women, since there are so few men in China have the need to &quot;beautify&quot; themselves. Therefore, &lt;strong&gt;it is weird that a man goes to a 美容院, no matter how you call it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Those who provides personal hairstyle services(i.e. for certain actors and singers) are called 造型师(lit. &quot;stylist&quot;). Unlike publicly available hair shops, this name is commonly accepted. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T08:52:21.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27994" CreationDate="2017-12-18T09:15:05.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translating English sentences with clauses, especially long, complex clauses into Chinese is quite difficult. Chinese has no attributive clauses, so it will be &lt;strong&gt;incredibly hard&lt;/strong&gt; to conclude the rules of translating such sentences into several handy rules. Each time I encounter such sentence, I will spend quite a long time to find an expression that fits the meaning of the sentence and doesn't sound too weird or too &quot;Anglicized&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A good tip is to try &lt;strong&gt;breaking the sentence with attributive clause into parts&lt;/strong&gt;, which means that you should use two or more simple clauses instead of a long sentence with multiple long attributives.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Example:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Then I no longer have to listen to the native speakers whose pronunciations I can refer to.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;于是，那些可供我参考发音的母语人士，我已无需再听（他们的发音）了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(Literally: Then, those able for me to refer to (their) pronunciation(, who are) native speakers, I no longer have to listen. )&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Although it's not so apparent in this example, it's better than the following translation, which almost directly translates the entire structure as-is:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;于是，我已无需再听那些我可以参考发音的母语人士（的发音）了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P.S. Avoid using two or more attributives with 的 for one head in Chinese! Although it's not wrong to do so, it will make your words weird. If two or more attributives must be used, try to use compound words to replace some  attributives. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T09:15:05.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28108" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28909" CreationDate="2017-12-18T09:19:07.540" Score="4" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can a neutral/fifth tone appear in a word syllable other than the last one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, as a lexical tone, a sandhi tone or both? Adding a few examples would be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T20:48:07.000" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T20:48:07.000" Title="Can a neutral tone appear on a non-final syllable?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28097" CreationDate="2017-12-18T09:29:31.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well...another seemingly simple but actually complex question...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The usage of 二 and 两 can make most foreigners confused. We don't use 二 before a classifier, but there are exceptions:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;给我来二斤/两斤米。  (&quot;Give me two &lt;em&gt;jin&lt;/em&gt; of rice. &quot; both are correct, while the former is more colloquial)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;给我来二尺布。 (&quot;Give me two &lt;em&gt;chi&lt;/em&gt; of cloth. &quot; 两 is rarely used)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your 二位/两位 problem is the &quot;rarer in the rare&quot;. In practice, 二位/两位 are both right. However, 二位 is quite common to show respect to the receiver, and strangely more proper and polite in your case. I can not think of any other examples except this.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T09:29:31.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28089" CreationDate="2017-12-18T09:40:09.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Such term simply doesn't exist in Chinese.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Homosexual marriage is still illegal in China (though such &lt;em&gt;de facto&lt;/em&gt; relationship won't be punished either). If one MUST call someone in a homosexual marriage by a kinship term, it will be the same as if he/she is calling a stranger.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore, if one's aunt is a lesbian, he/she can only call her partner &quot;阿姨&quot; (which is also used by calling a stranger whose age is close to the one's mother). If one's uncle is a gay, he/she can only call his partner &quot;叔叔/伯伯&quot; (which is also used by calling a stranger whose age is a little younger/older than the one's father). If the one's uncle/aunt's partner is not quite old, it will be called &quot;哥哥/姐姐/弟弟/妹妹&quot;, just as calling the one's siblings.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So this is the tragic fate of Chinese homosexuals...they even don't have a calling for their relatives...(I don't know if such terms exist in other languages)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T09:40:09.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28100" CreationDate="2017-12-18T09:51:39.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;presume it means 'mourn'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no. you missed the actions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the classic &quot;the book of rites&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/liji/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;禮記&lt;/a&gt; defined many ritual behaviours, particularly in the 喪禮, 葬禮 (funeral, burial); in many relationships &amp;amp; situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the chapters 檀弓上, 檀弓下, 喪服小記, 喪大記, 奔喪, 問喪, 喪服四制, 服問, 間傳, 三年問, ... these are all funeral, burial related. &lt;strong&gt;have a read&lt;/strong&gt; :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would interpret 哭 as crying, from &quot;no cry&quot; to &quot;unstoppable crying&quot;; from sob silently to loudly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拜 as the behaviour from bow one's head, standing; to kowtow (叩頭), hands and head touching the ground.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the rituals were so complex, so, kids would simulate adults's behaviours as games. junior 孟 was playing the games of pretending one as the remaining relatives of the dead (with &quot;proper&quot; level of crying), or the one who salute the dead (with proper actions of bow, or kowtow).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;aiiiii . . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T09:51:39.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28095" CreationDate="2017-12-18T10:02:49.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word in the picture is a combination of two words, 脑 and 残, as shown in the image. Somebody made it up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1q1Yi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1q1Yi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脑残 is a new phrase in the modern world, so I don't think you can find any method to input the word in the picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know the Cangjie input method (倉頡輸入法), the input keys of 脑 are 月b, 卜y, 山u and 大k. And, those of 残 are 一m, 弓n, 戈i and 手q.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the rules of the Cangjie IM, the input keys of the word in the picture are 一m, 月b, 戈i, 十j and 山u.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T10:02:49.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28104" CreationDate="2017-12-18T10:48:48.550" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;降维攻击&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;降维打击&lt;/strong&gt; is from 刘慈欣 (Liu Cixin)'s famous sci-fi novel &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;三体 (The Three-Body Problem)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means that an advanced civilization uses a dimension reduction weapon 二向箔 to destroy a low-grade civilization by crushing their stellar system into a 2D plane.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone is not familiar with young netizen's culture or fashion, he won't know this idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned, this so called idiom can derive to any meaning and apply to any context, it doesn't need to express an exact meaning. Instead, it can express any relative meaning depending on its context. If we talk about this idiom, we should first talk about not only its context, but also its users.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T20:59:35.287" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T20:59:35.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28052" CreationDate="2017-12-18T14:06:55.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the term 个人主义 might be a valid direct translation of the word individualism, but I don't think it always conveys the same meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The suffix &lt;strong&gt;主义&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese hints to an actual ideology or ideological system. Whereas in English it can have a narrower application, as you can call an individualist someone who lives an independent life. So that would be 独立。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;西方人比中国人独立很多 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Westerners are more individualists than the Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you can argue that 独立 here is used as an euphemism but what they mean is actually &quot;individualist&quot;, which - also in English - means an independent person who doesn't need much support from others without being maliciously selfish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T14:06:55.443" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28079" CreationDate="2017-12-18T15:26:32.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means sb is your follower. also same with &quot;老铁&quot;. u guys know each other very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18708" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T15:26:32.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2017-12-18T20:59:00.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not to disagree with the excellent responses given so far, but it is important to point out that the word &quot;滚&quot; is a rather blunt, rude word, quite different from “走开” or “去”. One would only say “你给我滚” when extremely angry and isn't concerned about burning bridges. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the equivalent of “你给我滚” in English is &quot;F*** off!&quot; Of course, one may say it jokingly to a friend, but, if you have just learned this expression, it wouldn't be a good idea to use it too soon,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T20:59:00.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28118" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28120" CreationDate="2017-12-18T22:39:16.550" Score="0" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;TensorFlow 既提供了高层级的 API 以便让您轻松构建和训练您的模型，也提供了低层级的控制功能&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;尽可能提高灵活性和性能。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tensorflow.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TensorFlow documentation&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the 以 mean in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence would mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;TensorFlow already offers the high-level API for you to constitute and train your model, and also offers the lower-level API to control the function and ...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽可能 means &quot;as ... ao possible&quot;, but I don't understand what the 以 mean in this context...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-12-19T02:18:11.917" Title="What does 以 mean in 也提供了低层级的控制功能以尽可能提高灵活性和性能?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28118" CreationDate="2017-12-18T23:54:17.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have 以便 and 以。 Both mean pretty much the same  'in order to, so that, so as to'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tensor Flow既提供了高层级的 API 以便让您轻松构建和训练您的模型，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也提供了低层级的控制功能以尽可能提高灵活性和性能。&#xA;(The API) also provides low-level control capability in order to maximise flexibility and performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;既提供了.... 以便 .... 也提供了....以....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T23:54:17.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28118" CreationDate="2017-12-19T01:28:33.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally speaking, you could translate 以 into &quot;so that&quot;&quot;in order to&quot; or some other words that introduces the goal or objective of something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. It seems that this sentence is obtained from direct translation [i.e. word-by-word] with minor modification according to grammar. Usually the structure of these translated Mandarin sentences is fairly close to the that of the original English, so you could try to check each word one-by-one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastEditorUserId="18711" LastEditDate="2017-12-19T02:18:11.917" LastActivityDate="2017-12-19T02:18:11.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28095" CreationDate="2017-12-19T04:33:49.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, the background is too noisy/complex for it be even worth giving OCR a try. Instead, use any Chinese IME (input method editor/soft keyboard) that supports handwriting recognition and hope that it is forgiving enough to allow for errors in stroke order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the background is clean and the font not too stylised, then a Chinese OCR would probably be the best option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3645" LastActivityDate="2017-12-19T04:33:49.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26998" CreationDate="2017-12-20T03:42:04.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not so well! Taiwanese learn Mandarin through Zhuyin instead of pinyin. They even use Zhuyin to text. On top of that, even the romanization of language is done without pinyin in Taiwan. 高雄 is not &quot;GaoXiong&quot; but rather &quot;KaoHsiung&quot; so they don't even see it on English signs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18717" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T03:42:04.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22597" CreationDate="2017-12-20T03:47:55.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One common answer is “哪里哪里” which literally translates to &quot;Where? Where?&quot; But it is kind of a coy way to humbly accept the compliment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18717" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T03:47:55.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24031" CreationDate="2017-12-20T03:50:34.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have said - 羊肉 refers to lamb. Lamb is eaten very prevalently throughout China, especially in places like XinJiang, Beijing, and the northeast. Goat is not that widespread. Interestingly enough, there is a market for 'donkey meat' and there are niche restaurants that only serve donkey-based dishes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18717" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T03:50:34.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27127" CreationDate="2017-12-20T07:33:38.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a little more context is necessary to answer this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The theme of the Congress is: &lt;em&gt;Remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind, &lt;strong&gt;hold high the banner of socialism&lt;/strong&gt; with Chinese characteristics ... and work tirelessly to realize the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Ah.&lt;/em&gt; So it's not a literal flag we are talking about here, but rather a symbol of socialism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we take a look at definition 1.2 of the word &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/banner&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;banner&quot;&lt;/a&gt; given by OED, we will see that it means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Used in reference to support for a belief or principle.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;‘the government is flying the free trade banner’&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using this definition, the term &lt;em&gt;banner&lt;/em&gt; definitely seems appropriate in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;But isn't there already a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_(politics)#Communist/socialist_Red_Flag_as_name_or_title&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;flag for socialism&lt;/a&gt;? Why complicate things by calling it a banner?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others have pointed out, the phrase “高举 ～ 旗帜” can't be taken literally here. Xi is not asking everyone to physically wave a red flag around, but rather to carry high and proud a representation of one's beliefs. If we pull out the &lt;s&gt;prescriptivist bible&lt;/s&gt; OED again, we can see that the english word &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/flag&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;flag&quot;&lt;/a&gt; is less commonly used to represent an ideology, but rather a physical landmass or position marker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't to say that the word &quot;flag&quot; doesn't make sense in this context. Sure, most people would understand the metaphor anyway. However, since the word &quot;banner&quot; has stronger connections to &quot;symbol for one's beliefs/ideologies&quot; than the word &quot;flag&quot;, I believe that the word choice they have made is more suitable in a pragmatic, if not literal sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17400" LastEditorUserId="17400" LastEditDate="2018-04-24T20:56:30.160" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T20:56:30.160" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28126" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28136" CreationDate="2017-12-20T07:46:18.467" Score="0" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve only ever known 刀削面 as dāoxuēmiàn, maybe that says something about the company I keep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’ve noticed recently a lot of people, though, actually say dāoxiāomiàn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt; dictionary lists both pronunciations, with slightly different meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dāoxiāomiàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shaved noodles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M: wǎn / 碗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also dāoxuēmiàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dāoxuēmiàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hand-cut noodles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M: wǎn / 碗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also dāoxiāomiàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, quite bizarrely &lt;strong&gt;汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt; has&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dāoxuēmiàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面食之一。先将面加水和成硬面块, 然后用刀削成片状, 煮熟食用。此法盛行于 山西 一带。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While &lt;strong&gt;现代汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt; has almost exactly the same definition (minus the spaces around Shanxi) under a different pronunciation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dāoxiāomiàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面食之一。先将面加水和成硬面块, 然后用刀削成片状, 煮熟食用。此法盛行于山西一带。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, ABC says that they are two different things - while the two big dictionaries say they’re the same thing and differ in pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who says what? And are they the same thing even? Or are they separate entities?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T03:02:56.060" Title="刀削面: who says xuē and who says xiāo?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28127" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-20T08:12:47.693" Score="3" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have only used 浪费 to express waste (time, effort, energy, etc) but recently have come across 白费. It seems to be more a waste on intangible items, but I am having trouble differentiating the two. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="938" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T04:15:27.037" Title="What's the difference between 浪费 and 白费？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27266" CreationDate="2017-12-20T08:29:19.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tones used in military training actually do not correspond to any tones in chinese - &quot;以哦以&quot; and &quot;起补奏&quot; are close, but not accurate descriptions of the tones used in military drills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a (very simplified) tonal diagram of how I shout the two commands mentioned before.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CboEfm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CboEfm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;*Tones range from mid-high to low&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This most likely happens because the rising and falling tone matches the rhythm of the marching and is much more breath-conserving than yelling in high/extra high tones. The differences between the tones is also greater than the original (first and second tones), making it easier to differentiate between each number. This would also explain why &quot;向右转&quot; (xiang4you4zhuan4) has its tones completely changed (follows roughly the second pattern I drew).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17400" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T08:29:19.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28127" CreationDate="2017-12-20T09:07:44.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The crux is in the 白.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浪费 is similar to &lt;em&gt;squander&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s a good example from &lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浪费自然资源&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;squander natural resources&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To understand 白 I think it’s best to look at &lt;em&gt;白白&lt;/em&gt; check out &lt;strong&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;’s definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in vain; to no purpose; for nothing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here are two sample sentences they give:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白白丢掉一次机会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;báibái diūdiào yīcì jīhuì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;let a chance slip through one’s fingers; miss an opportunity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不要让时光白白过去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bùyào ràng shíguāng báibái guòqu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don’t let time slip aimlessly by.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here we’ve got words like &lt;em&gt;slip&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;miss&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;aimlessly&lt;/em&gt; and that is really what 白费 is made up of: slip/miss and squander - giving us: to do something in vain, to do something to no avail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two more examples from AC-ED:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白费力气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;báifèi lìqi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;waste of energy; all for nothing; plough the sand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白费心思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;báifèi xīnsi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bother one’s head for nothing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T09:07:44.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28130" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-20T19:17:39.113" Score="4" ViewCount="731" Body="&lt;p&gt;Was wondering about ZAI and ZHE markers and their meaning.&#xA;So we know that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在穿 - dressing. In other words we are in the process of obtaining\realizing the state of being dressed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;穿着 - wearing. In other words we are in the state of being dressed which was obtained\realized.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but what are the best single word translations for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在想 -？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;想着 -？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在雨 -？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雨着 -？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;门在开 - The door is opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;门开着 - The door is open.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在坐 - Taking a seat.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;坐着 - Sitting.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I would welcome anyone to append similar &quot;pairs&quot; to the list. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2017-12-21T11:11:07.953" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T00:45:25.123" Title="Effect of 在 and 着 on verbs. What are the best single word translations?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28130" CreationDate="2017-12-20T19:31:54.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The nuance between &quot;在穿&quot; and &quot;穿着&quot; is that the former emphasizes on my action and the latter on my status with clothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;在穿&quot; is associated with time. &#xA;- &quot;可以走了吗？&quot;            Are we ready to go now?&#xA;- &quot;等一下，我还&lt;strong&gt;在穿&lt;/strong&gt;衣服&quot;     One sec, I am still putting clothing on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While &quot;穿着&quot; indicates the status quo of with clothing on&#xA;- 不懂为啥会着凉，我明明&lt;strong&gt;穿着&lt;/strong&gt;很厚的衣服   Not quite sure why I got cold, I got lots of clothing on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, baware of &quot;穿着&quot; indicates dress code as well, and 着 is pronounced as zhuo / 2nd tone rather than zhe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastEditorUserId="5839" LastEditDate="2017-12-20T21:48:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T21:48:59.497" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28132" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28137" CreationDate="2017-12-21T00:47:45.210" Score="2" ViewCount="468" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence on &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2017-12/05/c_1122061095.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ＬＡ　ＬＩＳＴＥ国际美食排行榜于２０１５年由法国人首创，收录１６５个国家的１６０００个优秀美食地点，参考５００&lt;strong&gt;多个&lt;/strong&gt;专业美食指南和民众在线点评，得分靠前的１０００家餐厅进入下一年度全球美食排行榜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pleco says the following on the entry for 多个 (the same as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=1&amp;amp;wdqt=%E5%A4%9A%E4%B8%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;many&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;multiple&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;multi-&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, all of them seem to make no sense. I feel it is either &lt;em&gt;as many as&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;more than ~&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So which one is the correct? Or does &lt;em&gt;500多个&lt;/em&gt; mean &lt;em&gt;more than 500&lt;/em&gt; (like 535) or &lt;em&gt;as many as 500&lt;/em&gt; (emphasize the number)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, does the reverse expression exist (e.g. 多个500)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T04:14:43.607" Title="What does 500多个 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28130" CreationDate="2017-12-21T01:00:37.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;在 indicates an action is happening exactly right now. In English it is in correspondence with &lt;code&gt;be V-ing&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在穿衣服。 # I'm wearing the clothes. (or 我正在穿衣服)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 indicates a state that is archived by an action and remains for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我穿着衣服。 # I wear the clothes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2008/08/29/figuring-out-chinese-%E5%9C%A8-vs-%E7%9D%80/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this blog post&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T01:00:37.150" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28134" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28135" CreationDate="2017-12-21T01:43:40.143" Score="1" ViewCount="336" Body="&lt;p&gt;One time, I watched a film and noticed a different use of &quot;本&quot;. As I know, &quot;本&quot; is generally used as classifiers. But this time, I learned that &quot;本&quot; here used as pronoun. Here's the example I took from the film.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请于&lt;strong&gt;本&lt;/strong&gt;月八日上午九时，准时前来&lt;strong&gt;本&lt;/strong&gt;公司录音部试音.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the sentence above, after &quot;本&quot;, &quot;月&quot; and &quot;公司&quot; is added as noun. I have done some research and I found some resource at &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22your_side%22_with_%22ben%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;, but I don't clearly understand. Question from me: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What kind of noun can be used after &quot;本&quot;? Will any kinds of noun be fit after followed by &quot;本&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On what case should we use &quot;本&quot; as pronoun?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastEditorUserId="18719" LastEditDate="2017-12-21T01:49:57.710" LastActivityDate="2017-12-23T18:12:45.443" Title="Questions about &quot;本&quot; as Pronoun" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28134" CreationDate="2017-12-21T01:51:27.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a pronoun 本 has two meanings, here’s oxfords definitions and example sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; PRONOUN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 自己方面的 one's own&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本单位&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one's own department&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本校&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;our school&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;▶ 本地, 本国, 本人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 这 this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本案被告&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;defendant in this case&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本合同&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the present contract&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本星期&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second meaning you can see it means the same as 这 - so to answer question number one: yeah pretty much any noun can come after it but this is markedly more formal than 这 or 这个 - might sound very 官腔 if you were to use it in casual speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer question number two, when should we normally use 本 as a pronoun there are quite a few instances:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;本周&lt;/strong&gt; if you’re a Starbucks guy this is a big one - this is their terminology for &lt;em&gt;brewed coffee&lt;/em&gt; as opposed to espresso based drinks. If you’re preparing public speaking addresses 本周 is okay for &lt;em&gt;this week&lt;/em&gt; as well but a bit stuffy for my liking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;本人&lt;/strong&gt; is good for addressing others personally like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你本人怎么想呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;本地&lt;/strong&gt; is another common one used often in conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T02:14:27.643" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28126" CreationDate="2017-12-21T02:30:37.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe xiāo is the correct pronunciation, although xuē can also be correct in certain regions; it depends on how you pronounce 削 in its &amp;quot;shave&amp;quot; meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/js/524A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;削&lt;/a&gt; has two pronunciations depending on usage, although both can mean &amp;quot;shave&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;削 xiāo 　ㄒㄧㄠˉ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　1. 用刀斜着去掉物体的表层。～苹果皮。～铅笔。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　2. 打乒乓球时用球拍平而略斜地击球：～球。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;削 xuē 　ㄒㄩㄝˉ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　1. 义同削（xiāo），用于一些复合词：～铁如泥。～足适履。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　2. 减少；减弱：～减。～弱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　3. 除去：～职为民 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　4. 搜刮；掠取：剥～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xiāo is the pronunciation used for the &amp;quot;shave&amp;quot; verb, but as you can see, xuē also means &amp;quot;shave&amp;quot; in certain phrases, like 削铁如泥. Apart from that, xuē is usually used in the &amp;quot;pare&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;reduce&amp;quot; meaning, as in words like 削减.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 刀削面 is supposed to mean &amp;quot;knife-shaved noodles&amp;quot;, the pronunciation should be based on the one for &amp;quot;shave&amp;quot;. This is usually xiāo, but in some dialects it is xuē.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T02:30:37.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28132" CreationDate="2017-12-21T02:32:14.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;N 多 个 = over N:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pleco has a bunch of sample sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you type 多个 open the entry then click &lt;strong&gt;SENTS&lt;/strong&gt; you’ll get something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XNZSc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which features sentences like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一百多个人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yībǎi duō ge rén&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;more than 100 people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们有保留曲目二十多个。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have a repertoire of over 20 songs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 500多个 can be 501 - 599, basically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T02:32:14.707" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28130" CreationDate="2017-12-21T04:29:58.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The functions of 在 and 着 are only superficially similar, and only when we translate into English. They can both be represented by -ing sometimes.  German, for example, does not have this crazy -ing form and therefore you cannot translate using an -ing form, but you can of course translate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is known as the Present Tense in English is almost never used to represent the present time and perfectly indicates continuous action: Example: I live in China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation of combinations of 在 and 着 depends entirely on the context and to some extent on the translator. A one-word translation for 在想 is 'think'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在想：I think / (German: Ich denke. (There is no 'I am thinking' in German.))&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我想着：I think / Ich denke&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每天都在下雨：It rains every day.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每天都下着雨：It rains every day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 在 and 着 together:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在想 / 他在想着，各种影响能不能相互抵消。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 在 when you are talking about the past, so don't assume it only applies to the present: (I borrowed moiaussi06's sentence and changed it a bit. Bonjour Moiaussi! Me too is a strange name.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我当时在穿着很厚的衣服，所以我的胳膊动不了。(当时 puts this event clearly in the past.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seems to be some confusion here about 'wearing' and 'dressing'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phone rings, you answer.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Q: 你在做什么？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A: 我在穿（着）衣服。 I am getting dressed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phone rings, you answer.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Q: 你在穿着什么衣服？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A: 我在穿（着）红色的外套。 I am wearing a red coat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T04:29:58.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28141" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28143" CreationDate="2017-12-21T18:38:40.560" Score="2" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consulting a dictionary on the meaning of 貽 makes the meaning of the expression rather clear. I would say “give (others cause for) great laughter”, “become laughingstock”. Yet I have trouble understanding 方。 The only function I can guess is that of a classifier. But there are two problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, it occurs in somewhat literary Chinese, which, I am given to understand, does not use classifiers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清·李汝珍《鏡花緣》第17回：“才女才說學士大夫論及反切尚切瞠目無語，何況我們不過略知皮毛，豈敢亂談，貽笑大方！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand the use of 我 perhaps shows it is not really classical, but a hybrid literary Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lesser problem is that none of my Pleco dictionaries （PLC, TL, CC, UNI) list 方 as a classifier for 笑。 Google search of 一方笑 doesn’t remotely support it as a classifier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T03:51:18.527" Title="What is the role of 方 in 貽笑大方？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28141" CreationDate="2017-12-21T18:58:48.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; 水巷孑蠻's answer seem legit, but the modern usage of 貽笑大方 is basically the same as my interpretation below. Since the term 大方家  itself had became archaic, common folks no longer associate 大方 with 'famous experts'. The meaning of 貽笑大方 changed from the original to &amp;quot;become laughingstock in famous experts' mind&amp;quot; to the more common &amp;quot;become laughingstock in everyone's mind&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/425/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/425/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] [n] region; area; place&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 貽笑大方,  大 means 'great/vast' ; 方 means 'region/ area'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;貽笑大方 means 'give laughter (become laughingstock) to vast area'. Meaning it is so laughable that people everywhere are laughing at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T03:51:18.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28141" CreationDate="2017-12-21T19:42:53.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;the 國語辭典 listed: 貽笑大方 is derived from 見笑大方&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000093396&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000093396&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then 見笑大方 is derived from 莊子﹒秋水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/floods-of-autumn/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/floods-of-autumn/zh&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吾長見笑於大方之家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's a comment made by 河伯 (uncle river), when he reached the sea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, the 國語辭典 explained &quot;大方之家&quot; as &quot;懂得大道理的人&quot; (~ experts)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000040658&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000040658&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &quot;大方&quot; as &quot;有名的大家&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000040654&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000040654&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;方&quot; is not a classifier in this usage. as i &quot;google&quot;, some remarks of &quot;方&quot; in literatures of yore were &quot;道&quot; (tao, the proper way).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T19:42:53.370" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28130" CreationDate="2017-12-22T00:45:25.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我在想：I am thinking (about an idea)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想着：(rarely used)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想着：while I am thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 我在想，地球是圆的还是方的呢？想着想着，就到家了。I am thinking whether the earth is round or square.  While I was thinking, I arrived home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨 is a noun. 下 is a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外面正在下雨 normal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外面下着雨呢 more casual&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both mean “It is raining outside”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;门在开：Invalid. 门 cannot take action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;门正被打开： The door is being opened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正在开门： [Someone] is opening the door.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;门开着： The door is open. 开 is a status.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在坐： (rarely used)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐着： sitting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 坐着的那个人是老张。The one sitting is Mr Zhang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在座： in seat, seated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 在座的各位观众，晚上好。 Good evening, ladies and gentleman (audience who are seated).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T00:45:25.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28145" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-22T02:35:06.750" Score="-3" ViewCount="783" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used Google translate but it shows &quot;Gan&quot;, which cannot be its true meaning (it's just the pronunciation). Is that the liquid state of gold? But I think it should be a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18671" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-22T15:31:46.997" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T01:28:50.960" Title="What does &quot;淦&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2017-12-26T01:26:38.960" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28145" CreationDate="2017-12-22T03:54:10.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B7%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;淦 - wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Han character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;淦 (radical 85 水+8, 11 strokes, cangjie input 水金 (EC), four-corner 38119, composition ⿰氵金)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;river in Jiangxi province&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;water leaking into a boat&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;References&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;KangXi: page 630, character 25&#xA;     Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 17667&#xA;     Dae Jaweon: page 1033, character 5&#xA;     Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 3, page 1653, character 3&#xA;     Unihan data for U+6DE6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T03:54:10.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28145" CreationDate="2017-12-22T08:19:33.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know exactly what you mean, as you thought it should be a verb, but I'm not sure if it's possible to explain such a rude slang here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The true verb which has the same pronunciation as &lt;code&gt;淦&lt;/code&gt;, is a verb involved with sexual harassment or verbal violence. That's all I can tell. Hope you're unintentional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Note: The usage is mostly dominant in Taiwan and rarely in other Chinese speaking areas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastEditorUserId="4177" LastEditDate="2017-12-31T01:28:50.960" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T01:28:50.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28145" CreationDate="2017-12-22T08:26:06.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some cases, it means “fuck.” Beacuse its pronunciation is just the same as “干,” which is a verb, means &quot;do something,&quot; but some people use it to insult other people, in this case it means fuck...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18733" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-12-22T16:09:11.140" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T16:09:11.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28132" CreationDate="2017-12-22T11:10:36.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, it is “500多/个” instead of “500/多个”. “500多” means slightly more than 500. If the number is relatively small, like 10, 20 or 30, and is a whole number, use “几”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As another example: 200多个人吃了20几桌菜，喝了500多瓶啤酒，一共吃了3个多小时，花了十几万块钱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T11:10:36.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28152" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28154" CreationDate="2017-12-23T03:11:30.703" Score="1" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently learning Mandarin and simplified characters, but as I am studying abroad in Hong Kong next year, should I start learning traditional characters? Or are simplified characters widespread enough now that I should continue focusing on simplified?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am in my second year of study at university. I will be taking a Cantonese course when I study abroad in addition to a Mandarin course. I will not be studying abroad until the Fall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16402" LastActivityDate="2017-12-23T07:25:26.213" Title="Study abroad in Hong Kong, should I start learning traditional?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28127" CreationDate="2017-12-23T03:31:02.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;白费： you made a lot of efforts but those efforts hadn't take any effect. For example, you have done a lot of work for a project, but in the end the project is cancelled. Those work you have done is 白费了 and no one would use it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浪费:  like the word squander or waste, it conveys that you spend more (time, money, resource, etc) than it's necessary, but those resources might not be fully in vain. For example, you spend 20000 just to buy a small bag, which most of people would think it does not deserve. This is a type of 浪费. Another example is that you spend one hour just to write one word! That's kind of 浪费时间. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-23T03:31:02.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28152" CreationDate="2017-12-23T03:39:37.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;simplified characters widespread enough&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They're not. Most, if not all, road signs, newspapers are in traditional Chinese, and English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Web sites are in traditional, simplified Chinese and English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend learning traditional Chinese, not for surviving in HK. It's the culture, the literature of yore are recorded in this script. If you need to study further, you need to know it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, if you know it, you may compare the difference between Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and &quot;that area&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, learning Cantonese and Mandarin together, well, good luck lah :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-23T07:25:26.213" LastActivityDate="2017-12-23T07:25:26.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22750" CreationDate="2017-12-23T04:03:22.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best Way to Remember Chinese Characters?&#xA;Remembering words is always the most important and difficult thing for language learners. It is the same with Chinese. Many chinese learners complain to me that Chinese words are rather difficult to remember. Here I will introduce the way of how to learn Chinese characters that Chinese people usually use. Actually it can be included as three steps: write Chinese characters, remember Chinese pinyin, and understand characters’ meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 1. Write Chinese Characters – remember what characters look like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To remember a Chinese character, you should remember what it looks like at first. To achieve it, you can resort to Chinese characters practice notebook, which we usually call 字帖 (zì tiě). There are two parts for each notebook: one is printed Chinese character, and the other is transparent paper. When you put the transparent paper on the printed characters, you can imitate the characters easily. That is a good way to remember the shape of a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 2. Practice Chinese Pinyin – remember how characters pronounce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for this step, I think you should build a solid base, that is, mastering Chinese alphabets. The combination of different alphabets form different pinyin. Then you can practice the pinyin of each character. Here for modern mandarin language, I suggest use the Chinese News channel as materials. You can download some Chinese news resources from the Internet and follow their pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 3. Understand Characters’ Meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my own perspective, I think this step is closely related to step 2. When you practice the pinyin of each character, you can try to remember and understand its meaning. Here I have to repeat one point: not all characters have clear meaning. Many characters mean something only when they are combined with other characters, such as “么” “哦” “了”. When 么 is combined with 什, it is formed 什么 (means what); when 了is combined with 好, it is formed 好了 (means it’s ok). Do not try to distinguish all single characters, which will make you feel tired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18736" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T01:46:33.653" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:46:33.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14746" CreationDate="2017-12-23T04:18:00.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, there are many number combinations used as an abbreviation such as 666, 88 and 2333. Today I will introduce you 666. 666, in web terms, means 牛牛牛 or 溜溜溜 in Chinese. It is usually used to describe someone or something excellent or amazing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Origin of 666&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, 666 has been generated for a long time (the specific time is not clear). And it became popular and was used widely in a game named LOL (League of Legends). For example, if someone plays quite good in a game, you can say 666 to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Other Common Abbreviations in China&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except for 666, there are also some other abbreviations that we use often in daily life or games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1). 88: it means bye bye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2). 5555: as the pronunciation of 5 is similar to the sound of crying, we usually use 555, 5555, 55555 to describe our sadness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3). 520: it means “I love you”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4). 5201314: it means “I love you for a whole life”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5). 1314: it means “one’s whole life”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6). 888: it can be used as a blessing, which shows your good wish of wealth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7). 2333: this number combination is originated from a forum (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mop.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;www.mop.com&lt;/a&gt;). The No. 233 emoji from the MP forum is a picture of laughing, so many users like to add a “2333” when they post in the forum. Now  “2333” is a popular web term used to express laughter.&#xA;Resource from Sino5000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18737" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T01:44:08.810" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:44:08.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28132" CreationDate="2017-12-23T08:07:23.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The expression set a base, so people can get a rough idea on how much/many they should spend or have. For example, A: how much is it? B: 500多。Basically, B feels that it's unnecessary to tell the exact number, because A may not want to be that accurate as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The similar in English: A: what's the temperature? B: in the 40s. B means the temperature falls into 40 ~ 49. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-23T08:07:23.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28134" CreationDate="2017-12-23T10:36:51.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;本 connotes 本源, 本质，origin, source, essence or that kind of idea. 本公司 means our company. 本人 means oneself. 本周：this week(the week itself) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-23T10:36:51.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24298" CreationDate="2017-12-23T18:04:59.543" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know you are asking for Cantonese, but perhaps this word in Mandarin may lead you (or another Cantonese speaker) to the actual term: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衬衫 chen4shan1  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a generic term for single-layer shirts, including undershirts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2017-12-23T18:04:59.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28134" CreationDate="2017-12-23T18:12:45.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;本 is a modifier, as others have explained. It would be a stretch to call it a possessive pronoun, and it definitely is not a pronoun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本 is used the same way other modifiers are used--right before the noun it modifies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本 tends to be used more in written texts, because it &quot;sounds&quot; formal. In conversations, 本 may be used, but with a wink (or equivalent), to acknowledge its formal tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2017-12-23T18:12:45.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28163" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-23T23:19:20.027" Score="2" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;If someone says to me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;您打算这么干吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would assume they were asking me &quot;what are you planning to do&quot; but the 这么 is throwing me off, would it be more accurate to assume they were asking me &quot;in what way are you planning to do it?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18739" LastActivityDate="2017-12-24T11:21:51.650" Title="The function of 这么 in this line" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28163" CreationDate="2017-12-23T23:58:33.057" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bit more context would be helpful, but you could be right, 这么 can be translated as 'so, this way, like that'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您打算这么干吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Did you mean to do that?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Did you mean to do it like that?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you intend to do this?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Are you going to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你应该这么做.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is how you do it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That's what you should do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-23T23:58:33.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28163" CreationDate="2017-12-24T11:13:09.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;您打算这么干吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English equivalence should be &quot;Are you sure you want to do this thing in this way?&quot; Or are you going to do it in this way? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone says that sentence, he knows you might do it in some way and he is trying to confirm about it. Basically, he is not asking whether you would do it or not, but you would do it in the way (you might have planned originally or you appear you tend to be )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这么: in this way &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-12-24T11:21:51.650" LastActivityDate="2017-12-24T11:21:51.650" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28166" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-25T00:47:28.007" Score="5" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/28141/what-is-the-role-of-%E6%96%B9-in-%E8%B2%BD%E7%AC%91%E5%A4%A7%E6%96%B9&quot;&gt;Below&lt;/a&gt; was a question about the role of 方 in 貽笑大方.  I'm sure our learnéd friends correctly advised. Just as a gut reaction, I would have said 大方 meant 'everywhere'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know about 方 in 方向。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方 seems to mean square. Its etymology is a bit uncertain I think. I read it shows two ships tied together, or it shows a plough, or it shows that ancient punishment tool, a wooden square fixed around someone's neck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In方向，meaning 'direction, orientation' does this 方 mean 'facing'?  In English we can say, &quot;The two opponents squared off,&quot; basically meaning 'they directly faced each other.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 方向 a contraction of a longer phrase? Maybe 地区，地方 + 走向？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圣诞节快乐！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T04:36:42.363" Title="What is the meaning of 方 in 方向？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28166" CreationDate="2017-12-25T02:39:46.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;方 connotes side.  方, 方向 just  means direction. They are not a contraction of any longer phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T02:39:46.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28166" CreationDate="2017-12-25T03:06:18.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The second definition in &lt;strong&gt;规范&lt;/strong&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 名 目标所在的方位; 前进的目标&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the word you're looking for is: &lt;em&gt;方位&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方位 is defined in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%96%B9%E4%BD%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-CEDCIT&lt;/a&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;direction / points of the compass / bearing / position / azimuth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;strong&gt;规范&lt;/strong&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;名 物体在空间所处的方向或位置。如东､南､西､北､上､下､左､右､前､后等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would opt to say it means &lt;em&gt;bearing&lt;/em&gt; more than it does &lt;em&gt;facing&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T03:06:18.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28169" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28172" CreationDate="2017-12-25T04:00:29.250" Score="4" ViewCount="418" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which personal pronouns can I use in an instruction in Chinese to replace the English &quot;one&quot; or &quot;you&quot; when used as meaning &quot;you, we or anyone else&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Examples in English:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;One can always be sure to find tasty tea in that shop.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;One should not spit on the sidewalk.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;You/one are allowed to smoke in the shop.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T01:07:20.900" Title="How do I write &quot;One can ...&quot; / &quot;You can ...&quot; (general personal pronoun) in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28169" CreationDate="2017-12-25T04:10:45.717" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pronouns are often omitted in Chinese when the context is clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I’m so tired&lt;/em&gt; is often just said as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好累啊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Are you okay?&lt;/em&gt; can be rendered as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还好吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and so on and so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the examples you gave the place would become the main subject and not &lt;em&gt;某人&lt;/em&gt; (some person) or &lt;em&gt;某某&lt;/em&gt; (someone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some rough ideas of how you would express these ideas in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;One can always be sure to find tasty tea in that shop.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那家店的茶很好喝 (that shops tea is tasty)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;One should not spit on the sidewalk.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人行道不是吐痰的地方 (the sidewalk is not for spitting)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;You/one are allowed to smoke in the shop.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;店内严禁吸烟 (smoking is forbidden in the shop)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2017-12-25T04:55:55.823" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T04:55:55.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28166" CreationDate="2017-12-25T06:28:25.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, 方 does not stand for the shape which has equal sides and right angles. While it may represent some contracted meanings in  ancient times, we don't do this now. In modern mandarin we simply use this word &quot;方向&quot; to mean &quot;direction&quot;, and we do not use the single character 方 to express meaning now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as modern Chinese, we would use “方”to express the meaning of “慌”, i.e. worried and nervous, which is simply a fun way to use similar pronunciation when we talk informally. This is a new trend started from the Internet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And at last, 同乐同乐！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T06:28:25.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28169" CreationDate="2017-12-25T07:15:33.283" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which personal pronouns can I use in an instruction in Chinese to replace the English &amp;quot;one&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;user3306356's answer did not answer this question. Yes, the subject (or it's pronouns) can be omitted if the meaning is clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chinese grammar, the[ one can + main clause] structure does exist, it is [你可以 + main clause]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 is not restricted to mean 'you' only, it can be a general pronoun that mean 'anyone'-- And it is usually omitted just as user3306356's answer suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in '&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;可以在这里抽烟' (&lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; can smoke here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt; here refers to &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;everyone else&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这家工厂，&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;只有25分钟的午餐时间 (In this factory, &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; only have 25 minutes lunch time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt; here refers to &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;everyone else&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'你可以在这里抽烟' can be rephrase to '这里可以抽烟' omit '你' and '在' because we know who we are speaking to and 这里 strongly implies 在这里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'在这家工厂，你只有25分钟的午餐时间' can be rephrase to '这工厂只有25分钟午餐时间' (We know who only get 25 minutes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I said it many times, &amp;quot;it is considered good form to omit everything you can omit, as long as the meaning is clear.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T01:07:20.900" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28166" CreationDate="2017-12-25T08:56:40.243" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;「方」 originally meant &lt;em&gt;side, surroundings&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;surrounding area&lt;/em&gt;. Before compass directions were invented, one of the ways to refer to a direction was through nearby landmarks or surrounding villages/states, and hence 「方」 also carries the meaning &lt;em&gt;direction&lt;/em&gt;, now surviving in words like 「東方」, 「西方」, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can therefore treat 「方向」 as a word where both characters carry roughly the same meaning (as is common in Chinese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GKrQf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GKrQf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鐵&lt;/a&gt;122.3&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=8667&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集8667&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yQ1zj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yQ1zj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Gong_ding&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;毛公鼎&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2841&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2841&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KlEpT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KlEpT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;秦131&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/szaZc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/szaZc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「方」 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_%282014%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*paŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;) is a derivative of &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=33&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「亡」&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;/*maŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;blade tip&lt;/em&gt;, now written as 「鋩」). Both 「方」 and 「亡」 come from an additional mark drawn on &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=14&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「刀」 (&lt;em&gt;picture of a knife/blade/weapon&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;. The meaning &lt;em&gt;side, surroundings&lt;/em&gt; is either a phonetic loan (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus#Rebus_principle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rebus&lt;/a&gt;) or semantic extension; &#xA; compare 「劃」, which uses a &lt;em&gt;knife&lt;/em&gt; 「刀」 to &lt;em&gt;draw boundaries&lt;/em&gt; 「畫」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「方」 extensively appears in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shang Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;oracle bones&lt;/a&gt; as part of state names surrounding the Shang state, and these state mentions serve as an invaluable record of Ancient Chinese interstate relations. Collectively, these states are called &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E6%96%B9%E5%9B%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「方國」&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-29T04:36:42.363" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T04:36:42.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22032" CreationDate="2017-12-25T09:47:19.400" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because “去” is an achievement verb - it is instantaneous. English has tenses such as &quot;going&quot;, but Chinese has no tenses in that respect. The lexical meaning of QU is more like &quot;remove&quot; than it is like the English &quot;go&quot;. The action of &quot;qu&quot; is instantaneous, so you cannot make it progressive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Lai&quot; is the same. It's instantaneous. 回來 modifies how the person is &quot;lai&quot;, but the main verb is still &quot;lai&quot; and is instantaneous. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your translation of &quot;aren't you going?&quot;, a better way to say that would be &quot;你們不是要去嗎“。Something like, &quot;Aren't you going to go?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see some people have responded with talking about the locative &quot;zai&quot;. These are different meaning of &quot;zai&quot;. If you say 我在去北京的路上，it is saying &quot;I am on the way to Beijing&quot;. The zai means you are literally ON the road. It is not the progressive zai, although the intended meaning is similar in that you're saying you're currently on the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18743" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T09:47:19.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28166" CreationDate="2017-12-25T10:18:52.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard that 方 either a &lt;strong&gt;square&lt;/strong&gt; chinese raft or a &lt;strong&gt;knot&lt;/strong&gt; holding many raafts together. 方向 might be &quot;a way of the raft&quot; or &quot;a side of a square = direction - S N W E&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T10:18:52.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28176" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28200" CreationDate="2017-12-25T11:00:55.357" Score="0" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for any well-known poem that talks about the beauty or wonder of nature, the world or the universe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The beginning of《醉翁亭记》isn't a bad place to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;环滁皆山也。其西南诸峰，林壑尤美，望之蔚然而深秀者，琅琊也。山行六七里，渐闻水声潺潺而泻出于两峰之间者，酿泉也。峰回路转，有亭翼然临于泉上者，醉翁亭也。作亭者谁？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just fear that the whole 醉翁 part will detract from the allure of the natural world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions would be helpful, certainly as I don't have much of a grasp of what or wouldn't be &quot;well-known.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-28T06:18:45.410" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T06:18:45.410" Title="(Well-known) poem request: the wonder/beauty of nature/world/universe" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28169" CreationDate="2017-12-25T17:26:00.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would probably refer to One as &lt;code&gt;人们&lt;/code&gt;. In chinese, it is most polite to refer to people as more than one. For example, instead of using 你, you would use 您. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T17:26:00.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28166" CreationDate="2017-12-25T18:49:05.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the term &quot;方向&quot; existed in 漢 dynasty, with a difference meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/shiji/ji-zheng-lie-zhuan/zh?searchu=%E6%96%B9%E5%90%91&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;史記　汲鄭列傳&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上方向儒術﹒尊公孫弘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the emperor (上, 漢武帝) just (方) yearn for (向 --&gt; 向往) confucianism &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/hou-han-shu/cai-yong-lie-zhuan-xia/zh?searchu=%E6%96%B9%E5%90%91&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;後漢書　蔡邕列傳下&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;見螳蜋方向鳴蟬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;saw (見) a manti (螳蜋 --&gt; 螳螂) just (方) move towards (向) a chirping (鳴) cicada (蟬)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the modern usage as &quot;directions&quot; was appeared in &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E8%91%AC%E6%9B%B8/%E9%9B%9C%E7%AF%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;葬書 by 郭璞&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;又其次莫如方﹒方者方位之説﹒謂某山來合坐作某方向之類是也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the most interesting one was in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctext.org/text.pl?node=556637&amp;amp;searchu=%E6%96%B9%E5%90%91&amp;amp;searchmode=showall&amp;amp;if=gb#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;通典　禮四十三&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其告喪之禮﹒使至所在﹒集州縣官及僧道﹒將吏﹒百姓等於州府門外﹒並素服﹒各以其方向京師重行序立&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which described the rites of the funeral of the emperor. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;各 --&gt; people in each cities, municipals &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以其方 --&gt; according to their position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;向 --&gt; facing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;京師 --&gt; the capital (長安, in 唐 dynasty)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重行序立 --&gt; queue up in double line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;further elaborate would be: cities, municipals would have different directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg in canton, 長安 is roughly in the north, so &quot;以其方向&quot;, people would be facing north.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, in nanking (南京), 長安 is roughly in the west, so, people would be facing west.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;currently, i'm reading the search results (1100+). at this moment, i would suggest 方向 is a contraction of 方位 + 面向 (position + facing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wait :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T18:49:05.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28176" CreationDate="2017-12-25T21:55:53.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just an FYI, this is more of a diary of traveling rather than a poem. The poem follows certain rhyme. You can try &quot;唐诗三百首&quot; if you would like to learn the poem. Below would be a good example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gushiwen.org/gushi/tangshi.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;唐诗三百首&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;江雪&#xA;&#xA;唐代：柳宗元&#xA;&#xA;千山鸟飞绝，万径人踪灭。&#xA;孤舟蓑笠翁，独钓寒江雪  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T21:55:53.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28180" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28181" CreationDate="2017-12-26T02:54:08.997" Score="2" ViewCount="363" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;来自西北民族大学的小郑也选择到北京找工作，她问记者展示了她的“求职基金”，“我在研二时获得了国家奖学金，除去学费还剩1万多元，这些钱我存在了一张卡里，&lt;strong&gt;专门用来找工作&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the meaning before the bold part, which tells a student stocked money for job searching. But what does the bold part mean and how can I breat down the components grammatically? 专门 likely means the speciality of jobs, but then the sentence doesn't make sense for me...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2017-12-26T04:24:54.240" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T07:06:32.560" Title="What does 专门用来找工作 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28180" CreationDate="2017-12-26T02:57:58.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/3/16/33464.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;专门&lt;/a&gt; - specially&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;用 - use (&quot;used&quot; here)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;来 - for&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;找工作 - job searching/seeking&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the whole sentence means &quot;(the stocked money) is used for job searching specially&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="13939" LastEditDate="2017-12-26T07:06:32.560" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T07:06:32.560" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28182" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28189" CreationDate="2017-12-26T05:22:12.727" Score="2" ViewCount="777" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was helping a friend from Pakistan to improve his English translation for a long, complicated assignment. He had the sentence below. I'd like to know where '镜中花，水中月' comes from. I just translated it as 'illusions'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果没有切实可行的行动方案和具体有效的执行措施，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If we do not have a feasible plan of action and specific, effective measures (to achieve our goals),&lt;br&gt;&#xA;再美好的目标都将是镜中花，水中月，难以实现。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;however admirable our goals, they will remain unachievable illusions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T19:20:40.790" Title="Where does the phrase 镜中花，水中月 come from?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28182" CreationDate="2017-12-26T05:28:10.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes from an idiom 镜花水月（jìng huā shuǐ yuè）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example: 《说岳全传》第六一回：“阿弥陀佛，为人在世，原是镜花水月。”《白雪遗音·玉蜻蜓·游庵》：“我和你镜花水月闲消遣，何必名贤胜地逢。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;镜子里的花；水中的月亮。&lt;/code&gt;  Flowers in the mirror, moon in the water. I think the translation illusion is proper in your case. You can also translate it as unpractical, unrealistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Provenance:&#xA;  唐·裴休《唐故左街僧录内供奉三教谈论引驾大德安国寺上座赐紫方袍大达法师元秘塔碑铭》：“峥嵘栋梁，一旦而摧。水月镜像，无心去来。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T05:28:10.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28182" CreationDate="2017-12-26T05:37:05.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Flowers in the mirror, Moon in the water.we have seen through surface of water, mirror is the reflection of light and image. Images are not real objects.  All stuffs within water and mirror are just projections. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18747" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T05:37:05.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28182" CreationDate="2017-12-26T08:46:30.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The proper phrase seems to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;水中月，镜中花&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IDIOM&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;moon in the water, flowers reflected in the mirror—fantasy; illusion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PHR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;moon in the water, flowers reflected in the mirror&amp;quot;—fantasy, illusion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;现代汉语大词典&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比喻无法得到的美好事物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姚雪垠《李自成》&#xA;乱点鸳鸯…使小张鼐心上的人儿登时成了水中月, 镜中花。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T08:46:30.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21126" CreationDate="2017-12-26T13:47:46.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, this is a &lt;strong&gt;complicated&lt;/strong&gt; question if we want to be &lt;strong&gt;accurate linguistically&lt;/strong&gt;, even most native chinese speakers dont't really realize and know how to describe this. I will try my best to be accurate and clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;zi&quot; and many other chinese &quot;i&quot;, it is actually a close &lt;strong&gt;close central(central-back in some occurrences) unrounded vowel&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_central_unrounded_vowel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_central_unrounded_vowel&lt;/a&gt;), you can find the same vowel in some languages, like Russian and Romanian...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To pronounce it properly, you can start with the front version([i]), and slowly push your tongue back towards the central part of your mouth, the muscule less tighten: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a video to show the position when we pronounce it &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kf38DDGB_g&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kf38DDGB_g&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, this is a vowel that does NOT exist in English, you have to create a new sound not used to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you get the i(close central unrounded vowel), you will find easy to tell zi and ze. In ze, the vowel is almost the same in firm(british accent, if you want to be more accurate, it is less opened than &quot;ir&quot;, it is a close-mid back unrounded vowel (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_back_unrounded_vowel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_back_unrounded_vowel&lt;/a&gt;)). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But ATTENTION, the chinese pinyin can be tricky with &quot;i&quot; , in some cases it means the front vowel i (which is e in english), some other cases it is the central one (like in Romanian)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18754" LastEditorUserId="18754" LastEditDate="2017-12-26T14:45:54.003" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T14:45:54.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28204" CreationDate="2017-12-26T19:09:59.787" Score="0" ViewCount="1136" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a light conversation over Christmas dinner, a question was brought to me as &quot;Is there a word in English to describe 忽悠 in Chinese&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-28T15:58:02.357" LastActivityDate="2018-01-07T02:00:01.683" Title="How to express 忽悠 in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28182" CreationDate="2017-12-26T19:20:40.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;水中月&amp;quot; is a buddhism translation. the &lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/palishengdian/refer/dic/sanskrit-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;梵漢辭典&lt;/a&gt; has entries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ambu-candra 水中月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ambu-candraka 水月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &lt;a href=&quot;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/T25n1509_032&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大智度論　釋初品中四緣義第四十九&lt;/a&gt;, there're 3 occurrences of &amp;quot;水中月&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0297a23] . . . 譬如小兒見水中月﹒心生愛著﹒欲取而不能得﹒心懷憂惱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0297a28] . . . 如水中月﹒雖為虛誑無所有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0298a05] . . . 譬如小兒見水中月﹒入水求之﹒不得便愁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this version of 大智度論 is translated by Kumārajīva (鳩摩羅什), at about ad 405.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another one, in &lt;a href=&quot;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/T09n0278_025&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大方廣佛華嚴經　卷第二十五&lt;/a&gt;, there're 2 occurrences of &amp;quot;水中月&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0558b01] . . . 九﹒以幻夢影響水中月故﹒一切法平等&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0561a16]. . . 隨順諸法如幻﹒如夢﹒如水中月不二相﹒而起分別種種煩惱及不失業果報&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this version of 華嚴經 is translated by buddhabhadra (佛馱跋陀羅), at about  ad 412&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about 鏡中花, imo, it's an &amp;quot;inspired&amp;quot; term, derived from &amp;quot;ādarśa-maṇḍala-pratibhāsa&amp;quot; (鏡像).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &lt;a href=&quot;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/T25n1509_006&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大智度論　大智度初品中十喻釋論第十一&lt;/a&gt;, there're several occurrences of &amp;quot;鏡中像&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0101c08] 解了諸法如幻﹒如焰﹒如水中月﹒如虛空﹒如響﹒如犍闥婆城﹒如夢﹒如影﹒如鏡中像﹒如化&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0104c07] . . . 如小兒見鏡中像﹒心樂愛著﹒愛著失已﹒破鏡求索﹒智人笑之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[0104c26] . . . 諸法從因緣生﹒無自性﹒如鏡中像&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;鏡中花&amp;quot; as a term, the earliest one i find is in poem &amp;quot;徐州送丘侍御之越&amp;quot; by 皇甫冉, of 唐 dynasty:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;時鳥催春色﹒離人惜歳華﹒遠山隨擁傳﹒芳草引還家﹒北固潮當濶﹒西陵路稍斜﹒縱令寒食過﹒猶有鏡中花&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my guess (might be wrong, need evidence to prove) is: zen monks in 唐 dynasty used &amp;quot;鏡中花&amp;quot;, instead of &amp;quot;鏡中像&amp;quot; (the correct, original term); pair with &amp;quot;水中月&amp;quot;, to talk about buddhism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;花&amp;quot; &amp;amp; &amp;quot;月&amp;quot; (flower &amp;amp; moon) is a perfect match :) better than &amp;quot;像&amp;quot; &amp;amp; &amp;quot;月&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tired now, have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T19:20:40.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28188" CreationDate="2017-12-26T23:55:49.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the English word 'fool' or 'deceive' has the closest meaning to 忽悠. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fool can be used as verb, meaning to trick someone into believing something that is not true. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, don't fool/deceive me！ // 别忽悠我！don't be fooled // 不要被忽悠了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T23:55:49.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28191" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28192" CreationDate="2017-12-27T02:17:00.100" Score="2" ViewCount="1360" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the conversation with my Chinese friend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: I passed the application!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She: 你申请过啦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She: 恭喜&lt;strong&gt;哟&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Pleco:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[at the end of an imperative sentence]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[as a syllable filler in a song]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it also writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 (sentence-final particle expressing exhortation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the &lt;em&gt;exhortation&lt;/em&gt; sounds awkward in this context (why does she have to urge me to do something?). So&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How 哟 should be used in the conversation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What kind of nuances it has?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the sentence ending with or without 哟, what differences would the reader (local) get?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2021-02-28T20:18:36.097" Title="How should I use 哟?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28191" CreationDate="2017-12-27T02:37:46.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恭喜哟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the exhortation sounds awkward in this context (why does she have to urge me to do something?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beside expressing exhortation '哟' also emphasizes the topic and add an earnest tone to the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恭喜 (flat, plain)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恭喜哟 (passionate, keen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How 哟 should be used in the conversation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As dictionary defined, 哟 is a final particle that expressing exhortation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;過馬路要小心 Be careful when crossing the street&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;過馬路要小心(哟) Be careful when crossing the street (I meant it!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What kind of nuances it has?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is similar to exclamation like 'please!' , 'really!' in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the sentence ending with or without 哟, what differences would the reader (local) get?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the example in this post&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-27T02:37:46.227" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28191" CreationDate="2017-12-27T02:39:34.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%96%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;哟 - Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation for &amp;quot;哟&amp;quot; is not just &amp;quot;yo&amp;quot;, but it could be spelled like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yō, yāo, yōu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According  to Wiktionary, it means an exclamation when one feels surprised on something. I think it's pretty much the same as &amp;quot;呀&amp;quot;, e.g. &amp;quot;哎呀&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;哎哟&amp;quot; are the same thing, so both &amp;quot;哟&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;呀&amp;quot; can be interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2021-02-28T20:18:36.097" LastActivityDate="2021-02-28T20:18:36.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28188" CreationDate="2017-12-27T04:23:38.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;忽悠&lt;/code&gt; was from north-east dialect in China, and became well known since 赵本山's series of displays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赵本山 figured himself as a fraudster, playing tricks to kite or tease someone. However, simply translate it as &lt;code&gt;deceive / fool&lt;/code&gt; is in some degree inaccurate. Perhaps &lt;code&gt;Convincing with Confusing&lt;/code&gt; is more accurate, because it is not always &lt;code&gt;lying&lt;/code&gt;, it can be &lt;code&gt;windbaggary&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;nonsense&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;flubdub&lt;/code&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastEditorUserId="18612" LastEditDate="2017-12-28T15:24:12.693" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T15:24:12.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28191" CreationDate="2017-12-27T04:53:13.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To augment the other answers, 哟 sounds too cutie to my ear. I only say it when I try to pretend to be girly. But it could be different in the areas of TWN and HK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-27T04:53:13.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28196" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28198" CreationDate="2017-12-27T05:00:39.403" Score="3" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;What’s the difference between 円 and 月 as character components?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we look at 青 and 靑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bottom of 青 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and if we look at 靑, it's bottom is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;円&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;靑 is said to be an 异体字 of 青 and &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=9751&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea&lt;/a&gt; says that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拼音qing1【青】的旧字型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just old form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What’s the difference between 円 and 月 as character components?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2017-12-27T07:35:09.207" Title="What’s the difference between 円 and 月 as character components?" Tags="&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28169" CreationDate="2017-12-27T06:07:01.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;You can&quot; can be directly translated into &quot;你能&quot;/&quot;你可以&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;One can&quot; can be translated into &quot;(大家/每个人/谁/我们) 都 (可以/能).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate &quot;you&quot; to &quot;你&quot; is a good choice in most cases. But for &quot;one&quot;, &quot;每个人&quot; is a generally good choice.  If something can be taken for granted or is obviously easy/trivial, you can use &quot;谁&quot;.   Use &quot;大家/我们&quot; if you want to emphasize everybody including yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2017-12-27T06:07:01.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28196" CreationDate="2017-12-27T07:01:21.817" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;円&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;月&lt;/strong&gt; are both graphical corruptions. The original form of the character did not have those components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;靑&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;青&lt;/strong&gt; was originally comprised of &lt;strong&gt;屮&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;sprouting plant&lt;/em&gt;) and &lt;strong&gt;井&lt;/strong&gt;, which gave the sound. The bronze script form looked like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Cs1TX.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Cs1TX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient scripts, 井 as a component was frequently interchanged with &lt;strong&gt;丹&lt;/strong&gt;. The graphical form of 丹 originated as 井 plus a small horizontal stroke in the middle. See, for example, the oracle bone forms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;井:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rVKgO.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rVKgO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丹:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K76w1.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K76w1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 靑/青, this happened as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lY1eE.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lY1eE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the bottom part, the form which came from 井 morphed to 月, while the form which came from 丹 morphed to 円.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the top has actually been written with several similar components; you may find 青 variously written with 屮/生/木 on the top in ancient times. For clarification, the bronze script forms shown here actually contains &lt;strong&gt;生&lt;/strong&gt;, but 生 ultimately comes from 屮 with the addition of two horizontal strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2017-12-27T07:35:09.207" LastActivityDate="2017-12-27T07:35:09.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28176" CreationDate="2017-12-27T14:07:36.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hope you'll enjoy this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;独怜幽草涧边生，上有黄鹂深树鸣。&#xA;春潮带雨晚来急，野渡无人舟自横。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This well-known poem was written by 韦应物 in 唐 Dynasty, with the title of 滁州西涧 (the west ravine of 滁 prefecture). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I think it suits 《醉翁亭记》 well, because both places described by them are located in modern 滁州 city in 安徽 province.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastActivityDate="2017-12-27T14:07:36.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28201" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-27T17:50:43.390" Score="4" ViewCount="922" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a few English sentences I'm struggling to translate to Chinese, although I'm HSK5 level. Here they are, along with my attempted translations (please be strict and critical cos I want to know the most natural way of expressing these things):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll know when you get to Beijing 你到了北京就会知道的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next month I'll have been married for 3 years 等到下个月我就结婚三整年了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next year I'll have been to Beijing (and left) 等到明年我就去过北京的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will have learned English for 12 years before I graduate from university … don't know how to translate this one :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After I've gone to Beijing, I'll plan where to go next 我去了北京以后就打算后面去哪里 (can I use 打算 like this? Meaning &quot;the act of planning&quot; rather than talking about a specific plan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll have finished by that time 那时候我已经做完了 (is the 了 right here even though I'm talking about the future?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help on better understanding how to deal with translating English future perfect sentences to Chinese, or examples of such sentence translations, or corrections/alterations to my example sentences would all be hugely appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks 哥们儿s&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-01-03T19:34:45.197" Title="Future perfect tense sentences in Chinese (eg. &quot;Next month I will have been married 3 years&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28201" CreationDate="2017-12-27T19:43:34.180" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll know when you get to Beijing 你到了北京就会知道&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll know when you get to Beijing 你到北京就会知道&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 is not the right choice of final particle here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就会知道 = will then know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 就会知道(的), '的' is a final particle that emphasizes the verb, stating it is in an existing state', that contradicts 就会(will then).  You can say &amp;quot;他是知道的&amp;quot; (he knows/ he knew) but not &amp;quot;他將是知道的 (he will knows/knew)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 就会知道(了), '了' is a final particle that indicates completion of the verb. Meaning 知道了 indicates the verb 知道 will be 'completed'. Since '了' is an 'aspect marker' not a 'tense marker', it can be used in any tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next month I'll have been married for 3 years 等到下个月我就结婚三&lt;strong&gt;整&lt;/strong&gt;年了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next month I'll have been married for 3 years 下个月我就结婚&lt;strong&gt;整整&lt;/strong&gt;三年了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is [整整 X year (X years no more no less)], not [整 X year]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your English sentence didn't state 'wait until' so you shouldn't write '等到' In your Chinese translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next year I'll have been to Beijing (and left) 等到明年就去过北京&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next year I'll have been to Beijing (and left) 明年我就&lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt;去过北京一趟&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the context, we know you've never been in Beijing, therefore &amp;quot;去过北京(一趟)&amp;quot; can make it more clear that you mean 'go and leave Beijing (been in Beijing)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is English-Chinese, Native Chinese would phrase it as &amp;quot;明年我会去北京一趟&amp;quot;  - &amp;quot;I will take a trip to Beijing next year (and leave)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After I've gone to Beijing, I'll plan where to go next 我&lt;strong&gt;去了&lt;/strong&gt;北京&lt;strong&gt;以后&lt;/strong&gt;就打算后面去哪里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After I've gone to Beijing, I'll plan where to go next &lt;strong&gt;去过&lt;/strong&gt;北京&lt;strong&gt;之后&lt;/strong&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;才再想&lt;/strong&gt;下次要去哪里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You said: &amp;quot; After I've gone to Beijing&amp;quot; meaning &amp;quot; After you had been in Beijing and back&amp;quot; (&lt;strong&gt;去过&lt;/strong&gt;北京&lt;strong&gt;之后&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(then) I'll plan where to go next&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才 = &amp;quot;only then&amp;quot; (you won't make plan for the next destination until you finished visiting Beijing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打算 means &amp;quot;intend to&amp;quot; But you already intended to go somewhere else after the Beijing trip, so you should either use 计划 (to plan) or simply use 想 (think about/plan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll have finished by that time 那时候我已经做完了 (is the 了 right here even though I'm talking about the future?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll have finished (&lt;strong&gt;my traveling plan&lt;/strong&gt;) by that time 那时候我就完成了&lt;strong&gt;我的旅行计划&lt;/strong&gt;了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'完成了' (completed) already indicate the action is completed, no need to add '已经' (have been already)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 is an aspect marker that indicates 'completion of an action' it can be used in any tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-03T19:34:45.197" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28201" CreationDate="2017-12-28T01:37:17.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I should first mention: The future is &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; perfect! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often you can translate 'I will have' as '我将已经‘, but that will definitely depend on the context. My advice to you is, try to forget about English Tenses. When writing Chinese, wear a Chinese hat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, with its Germanic roots, we can often write  (time) [event] or [event] (time).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Chinese (and Spanish) seem less flexible, or rather, more consistent, in this respect: (time) [event]. Maybe our Chinese friends here can give examples of Chinese [event] (time) sentences that don't sound weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[You will know] (when you get to Beijing.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(When you get to Beijing) [you will know]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[Sie werden es wissen] (wenn Sie in Beijing sind.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(Wenn Sie in Beijing sind,) [werden Sie es wissen]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(Una vez llegar a Beijing) [tu lo sabrás.]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(你到北京的时候)[会知道。]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Next month) [I'll have been married for 3 years.]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(到下个月)，[我们将结婚三周年]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Next year) I'll have been to Beijing (and left)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(明年这个时候)[我将已经到过并且离开北京。]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[I will have learned English for 12 years] (after I graduate from university.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(大学毕业后，)[我将已经学了十二年英语。]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[I will have been learning English for more than 12 years] (after I graduate from university.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;（大学毕业后），[我将已经连续学习12年英语了。]   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(After I've gone to Beijing,) [I'll plan where to go next.]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(等我去了北京后，)[我将计划下一次去哪儿。]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[I'll have finished] (by that time.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;（到那个时候，）[我将已经做好/做完了。]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T01:37:17.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28188" CreationDate="2017-12-28T07:10:49.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some advanced words: bamboozle, hoodwink. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T07:10:49.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28201" CreationDate="2017-12-28T11:20:29.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin grammar is an essential part that you need to master when you are learning Chinese language. However, unlike English, the form of a Chinese verb never changes, regardless of whether it is present, past or future tense. So it is quite difficult for some Chinese beginners to recognize them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Chinese Past Tense&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese past tense, just like English, is used when the thing you are describing happened in the past. There are some characters in the sentence that will prompt you, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese: 我昨天去医院了。 Pinyin: wǒ zuó tiān qù yī yuàn le。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence means I went to hospital yesterday. zuó tiān means yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese: 我吃过早饭了。Pinyin: wǒ chī guò zǎo fàn le。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this kind of sentence, the particle “le” will be added at the end of the sentence in order to indicate the completion of an action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except for “zuó tiān” “le”, there are also some other characters to indicate the tense of the sentence such as “qù nián” “gāng gāng” “céng jīng” “yǐ jīng” etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Chinese Present Tense&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The present tense in Mandarin Chinese is usually used to describe the present action or action commonly happens.  We can usually see some special characters that can help us to figure out its present tense, such as 经常 (jīng cháng) often, 有时 (yǒu shí) sometimes, 每天(měi tiān) everyday, 每周 (měi zhōu) every week, 每年 (měi nián) every year. Below is some examples for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese: 我喜欢看电影。    Pinyin: wǒ xǐ huān kàn diàn yǐng。   English: I like watching movie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese: 我每天骑车上学。     Pinyin: wǒ měi tiān qí chē shàng xué。    English: I ride a bike to school everyday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Chinese Future Tense&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin does not have a future tense, so something that has yet to occur is expressed by using time phrases that indicate the future, such as 明天 (míng tiān) tomorrow, 今天晚上 (jīn tiān wǎn shang) this evening, 后天 (hòu tiān) the next day tomorrow, 下个星期 (xià gè xīng qī) next week, 下个月 (xià gè yuè) next month, 明年 (míng nián) next year, 将来 (jiāng lái) in the future, 下次 (xià cì) next time. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese: 我明天回家。    Pinyin: wǒ míng tiān huí jiā。   English: I will go home tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese: 我打算去游泳。     Pinyin: wǒ dǎ suàn qù yóu yǒng。    English: I plan to swim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18737" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T11:20:29.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28201" CreationDate="2017-12-28T12:51:12.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the verbs in Chinese does not change forms together with the adverbial modifier representing time, you may have to complete the meaning that are implied by the tense of the verbs in English. Sample translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你到了北京就知道了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下个月我就结婚三周年了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明年我会去一趟北京。&#xA;[“一趟”implies that you will come back, while “我去北京”may not imply any other plans after you arrive  in Beijing. If you want to be explicit, you add more details like “然后我再回来” or “然后我再去上海”, which could be modified to be a whole sentence like“明年我先去北京，然后去上海”. If you will stay in Beijing, you would not use “一趟”in general cases] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去过 [or 我去了]北京以后再考虑我接下来去哪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我到时候就[已经]做完了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude, if you want to express something implied by future perfect tense, you may use a combination of word representing a future time and a character “了”[sometimes “过” also make sense] following the verb to express the implicit meanings of future perfect tense in English.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastEditorUserId="18711" LastEditDate="2017-12-28T13:09:07.090" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T13:09:07.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27994" CreationDate="2017-12-28T13:00:52.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不用再去参考[那些][中文]母语人士的发音了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would also make sense, since &quot;refer to pronunciation&quot; implies that you would &quot;listen to those native speakers&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to save all words in your sentence, you may translate the attributive clause like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不必再听那些可用来参考的母语人士的发音了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastEditorUserId="18711" LastEditDate="2017-12-28T13:10:30.393" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T13:10:30.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28208" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28211" CreationDate="2017-12-28T14:29:52.953" Score="2" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been watching a TV show set in Beijing where many of the characters keep saying things like &lt;code&gt;你別打狗了你&lt;/code&gt; (probably a bad example), putting a seemingly redundant &lt;code&gt;你&lt;/code&gt; at the end. What is this used for? Is it used outside of Beijing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6403" LastEditorUserId="6403" LastEditDate="2017-12-28T17:19:00.543" LastActivityDate="2017-12-29T04:25:46.920" Title="你 &lt;verb phrase&gt; 你" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28208" CreationDate="2017-12-28T15:16:56.987" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is widely used across China, but I think it is mainly used in the northern part of China, maybe Beijing, I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你...你&lt;/code&gt; in this case is not different from simply using &lt;code&gt;你...&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;你...你&lt;/code&gt; could express a stronger tone, or willing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &lt;code&gt;你別打狗了&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;你別打狗了你&lt;/code&gt;, both of them mean &lt;code&gt;Don't beat that dog&lt;/code&gt;, but the last one is more urgent and anxious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T15:16:56.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28212" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-28T23:39:03.733" Score="1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the sequence X得他 2 times. What confuses me is the 得他。 I think 1. can be rewritten as shown, but in 2. I'm not sure. It seems more like 使得 is just 'make, cause'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is said 'after X得 is an adverbial, but how can 他 be part of an adverbial?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吓他： frighten him 使他： make him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吓得他[拔腿就跑]。 = 他被吓得[拔腿就跑]。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;使得他[闭上眼睛，心理就有竹子的影子]，= 他被使得[闭上眼睛，心理就有竹子的影子]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2。 （他）对竹子非常熟悉，使得他闭上眼睛，心理就有竹子的影子，因此他画的竹子徐徐如生，远近闻名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;使得： 某事物引起一定的结果： make&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-29T11:13:02.323" Title="What is relation between 得 and 他 in these sentences?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21917" CreationDate="2017-12-29T01:40:12.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, there are many characters that are very similar. One situation is that a character has different meanings on the basis of different pronunciations, like 长 (“chánɡ” and “zhǎnɡ”) and 假 (“jiǎ” and “jià”). The other situation is that several characters look like but have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Differences in Meaning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肯定&#xA;1). approve or accept something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 领导对你的表现非常肯定。(Pinyin: lǐnɡ dǎo duì nǐ de biǎo xiàn fēi chánɡ kěn dìnɡ.  Meaning: The leader gives high praise to your performance.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2). ensure, be sure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 我肯定他会准时来的。(Pinyin: wǒ kěn dìnɡ tā huì zhǔn shí lái de.  Meaning: I ensure that he will come here on time.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3). unquestionably and indisputably&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 你肯定能顺利通过这次考试的。(Pinyin: nǐ kěn dìnɡ nénɡ shùn lì tōnɡ ɡuò zhè cì kǎo shì de.  Meaning: You can unquestionably pass the exam.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;确定&#xA;1). ensure, be sure (in this situation, 确定 is the same with 肯定)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 我确定他会来。(Pinyin: wǒ què dìnɡ tā huì lái.  Meaning: I’m sure he will come.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一定&#xA;1). definitely, must&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 你一定是个好学生。(Pinyin: nǐ yí dìnɡ shì ɡè hào xué shenɡ.  Meaning: you must be a good student.) In this situation, 一定 is equal to 肯定.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2). a certain degree/extent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 在一定程度上，男性更容易找到工作。(Pinyin: zài yí dìnɡ chénɡ dù shànɡ, nán xìnɡ ɡènɡ rónɡ yì zhǎo dào ɡōnɡ zuò.  Meaning: To a certain extent, it’s easier for men to get work.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3). a certain amount&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 在达到一定金额的情况下，必须报关。(Pinyin: zài dá dào yí dìnɡ jīn é de qínɡ kuànɡ xià, bì xū bào ɡuān.  Meaning: Declaration is to reach a certain amount of cases must be declared.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Differences in the part of speech&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肯定&#xA;1). verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means “approve or accept something”, or “ensure and be sure”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2). adverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means unquestionably and indisputably&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;确定&#xA;1). verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means “ensure and be sure”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一定&#xA;1). adverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means “definitely”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2). adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means “certain”, such as a certain amount, a certain degree and a certain extent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK. above are all content that I want to share with you. If you have any questions about Chinese characters “肯定” “确定” and “一定”, just leave messages below or contact me via my facebook page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18737" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T01:35:40.137" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:35:40.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28212" CreationDate="2017-12-29T01:44:27.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;cause : &lt;code&gt;（他）对竹子非常熟悉&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;effect: &lt;code&gt;他闭上眼睛，心理就有竹子的影子&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;使得&lt;/code&gt; can express causal relation. If you read the sentence this way, maybe it is more comprehensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 1: &lt;code&gt;热使得气体膨胀&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Heat makes gases expand&lt;/code&gt;, where:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cause : &lt;code&gt;热&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;effect: &lt;code&gt;气体膨胀&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 2: &lt;code&gt;因为你的说明，使得我弄清楚怎么一回事&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Your explanation makes me clear&lt;/code&gt;, where:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cause : &lt;code&gt;你的说明&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;effect: &lt;code&gt;我弄清楚怎么一回事&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastActivityDate="2017-12-29T01:44:27.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28212" CreationDate="2017-12-29T02:54:14.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;得 as a verb particle can be used as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;potential particle (to express possibility or capability)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are only two potential particles. They are '得'(able) and '不'(unable)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;做得來(can do) -  做不來 (can't do)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;看得清(can see clearly) - 看不清(can't see clearly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;resultative/degree particle (to indicate the result or degree)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;做得有聲有色 - [做(verb)+ 得(resultative particle)+ 有聲有色 (result/ degree)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;打得他頭破血流 - [打(verb)+ 得(resultative particle)+ 他頭破血流 (result/ degree)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'他' in &amp;quot;我打得他頭破血流&amp;quot; is the object of the phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can replace 他 with any object, for example, &amp;quot;打得約翰頭破血流&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'到' is another resultative particle,  as in &amp;quot;打到他頭破血流&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;but in 2. I'm not sure. It seems more like 使得 is just 'make, cause'.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'使' already indicates 'cause',  '得' is redundant if you just want a [cause phrase + effect phrase] structure; - [使他 (cause him to)][闭上眼睛，心理就有竹子的影子]is enough&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in [使&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt; (verb + &lt;strong&gt;resultative particle&lt;/strong&gt;)] [他闭上眼睛，心理就有竹子的影子 (result)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'得' indicates the result or degree of the verb &amp;quot;使&amp;quot;(make); and &amp;quot;他闭上眼睛, 心理就有竹子的影子&amp;quot; is the result or degree of the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 2:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why '得' here is redundant when the verb is '使':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;使(&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;)他闭上眼睛，心理就有竹子的影子&amp;quot;  = [(cause)+ (&lt;strong&gt;to the degree of&lt;/strong&gt;) + (someone to became/ to do something)] can be expressed without the resultative particle '得'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in &amp;quot;使他闭上眼睛，心理就有竹子的影子&amp;quot; = [(cause) + (someone to become/ to do something)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-29T11:13:02.323" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28208" CreationDate="2017-12-29T04:25:46.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, 你别打狗了你 is more emphatic than just one 你, and you might hear it occasionally in spoken. It connotes that I won't allow you to do so or expressing imperative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another similar expression that puts the subject into the end of a sentence. For example, 别走了你. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-29T04:25:46.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28191" CreationDate="2017-12-29T06:02:18.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;哟&lt;/strong&gt; in Sichuanese has slightly different connotations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《成都方言》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;词语: 哟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发音: yuo2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;定义: 叹词，表示惊异、不满等：啥子（东西）～？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Expressing astonishment and/or dissatisfaction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《广安方言与民俗词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;词语: 哟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发音: yuo2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;定义: ①用于疑问句或感叹句末，表示反问、责问、不以为然或不满等。例：你在搞啥子～？②表示否定语气。例：我还不晓得哟！以否定语气表示说“我晓得”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carrying a somewhat disapproving tone for reproving-like questioning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or expressing &amp;quot;as if I didn't know&amp;quot; -or- &amp;quot;duh&amp;quot;-type negation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-29T06:02:18.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28218" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-29T06:58:14.033" Score="0" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China there is a kind of tea called &lt;em&gt;Longjing&lt;/em&gt;. But can we call it Dragon Well tea? Because I heard that in foreign countries a dragon does not have a positive image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18773" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2017-12-29T09:35:24.590" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T03:29:08.833" Title="Longjing tea in English" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-01-01T21:09:50.197" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28218" CreationDate="2017-12-29T07:16:17.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, Longjing is a term of tea. It is a specific type of tea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you talk to people Dragon Well, they don't think you are talking about tea but a real well called Dragon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2017-12-29T07:16:17.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28220" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-29T19:39:57.870" Score="2" ViewCount="741" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about how or when to use 乘 and 坐 when discussing vehicles. It seems like you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐火车 or 乘火车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐巴士 or 乘巴士&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐出租车 or 乘出租车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If these are interchangeable, what is the difference between the two, and when should you use them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15160" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T08:12:43.480" Title="What is the difference between 乘 and 坐?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28221" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28229" CreationDate="2017-12-29T20:37:54.193" Score="2" ViewCount="435" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to mdbg.net, both characters have a meaning of &quot;to tease&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%AC%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;嬲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;to tease / to disturb&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%AB%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;嫐&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;to tease / to play around with&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are both of them primarily used as synonyms for &quot;tease&quot;?  Or are they commonly understood to have the connotation difference of &quot;bothersome&quot; vs. &quot;playful&quot; teasing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the latter is true, as a comparative Google Image search of the two characters suggests, I'm rather curious about the etymology of &quot;man-woman-man = bothersome&quot; and &quot;woman-man-woman = playful&quot;.  But my main question is about current common usage of the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18777" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T02:12:44.800" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:12:44.800" Title="What is the difference between 嫐 and 嬲?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28220" CreationDate="2017-12-29T20:48:28.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乘 = to board&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐= to sit (in)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐火车= sit in a train (take seat on train )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乘火车= board a train&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐巴士= sit in a bus (take seat on bus)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乘巴士= board a bus&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use '乘' , '坐' or '乘坐' when you &lt;strong&gt;take&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;ride&lt;/strong&gt; any transportation that you can board and has seats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use 騎 (mount/ ride) when the transportation has a saddle instead of seats. For example, horse and motorcycle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;騎&lt;/strong&gt;馬 (mount/ &lt;strong&gt;ride&lt;/strong&gt; horse)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;騎&lt;/strong&gt;摩托車 (mount/ &lt;strong&gt;ride&lt;/strong&gt; motorcycle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-29T20:54:44.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28223" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-30T03:10:43.517" Score="-1" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sec1H.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to get a translation on the seal to determine the artist's name. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18781" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T15:22:31.867" Title="Need help translating artist seal" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-01-01T21:09:13.457" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28218" CreationDate="2017-12-30T03:23:20.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not really sure what the question is asking, but here’s what I’ve pieced together anyway:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.panix.com/%7Eperin/babelcarp/babelcarp.cgi?phrase=%E9%BE%99%E4%BA%95&amp;amp;define=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Babelcarp&lt;/a&gt; does have this entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;龙井 (Long2 Jing3) = (龙井 or 龍井) Dragon well (wok-fired flat-leaf lücha, canonically from Xi Hu in Zhejiang)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would assume in some circles it’s a &lt;em&gt;valid&lt;/em&gt; translation but I wouldn’t know which circles those would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longjing_tea&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; also mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Longjing tea.....sometimes called by its literal translated name &lt;strong&gt;Dragon Well tea&lt;/strong&gt;, is a variety of pan-roasted green tea from the area of Longjing Village near Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B01FUUN01U&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt; (USA) is also selling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Golden Moon Tea - Dragon Well Tea - Organic - Loose Leaf - Non GMO - 2oz Tin - 24 Servings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the words &lt;strong&gt;Dragon Well&lt;/strong&gt; printed largely on the label.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T03:29:08.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28220" CreationDate="2017-12-30T04:11:13.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see the difference the same as &quot;take the bus&quot; (&quot;乘车&quot;) vs &quot;ride the bus&quot; (&quot;坐车&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course one can specify what kind of &quot;车&quot; it is-&quot;火车&quot;, &quot;汽车“(“巴士”), or &quot;马车&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T04:11:13.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28127" CreationDate="2017-12-30T04:15:27.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;浪费: wasteful&#xA;白费：wasted (money, resources, effort etc); (all) for nothing; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T04:15:27.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28052" CreationDate="2017-12-30T04:21:39.870" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am going to throw in another word: 个性, which is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; an exact translation of &quot;individualism&quot; (it doesn't contain the &quot;-ism&quot; part), but it imparts uniqueness of an individual and it is not as abstract-sounding &lt;em&gt;in Chinese&lt;/em&gt; as &quot;个人主义&quot; (which is often used as the equivalent to &quot;individualism&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the usage would be: &quot;So and So 有个性&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T04:21:39.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28220" CreationDate="2017-12-30T04:55:57.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think they are interchangeable. I could not get a case where you can only use one over the other in this sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They can be translated as 'take' or 'by'. For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们乘/坐火车去北京。 // we will go to Beijing by train. Or we will take a train to go to Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2017-12-30T05:03:46.810" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T05:03:46.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28221" CreationDate="2017-12-30T06:22:19.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid there is no &quot;common usage&quot; of these two characters in contemporary Chinese. They are used only in colloquial dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For exapmle:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;我嬲都不嬲你&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;I don't fuck with you&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may hear this sentence, but you can hardly see it in the written Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To find out their difference, just consider them as pictographic characters, then what is the difference between teasing scenarios &quot;Man-Woman-Man&quot; and &quot;Woman-Man-Woman&quot;? You can imagine it, right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; Perhaps &lt;code&gt;嫐&lt;/code&gt; is more sexy(coquettish) than &lt;code&gt;嬲&lt;/code&gt;, according to 《康熙字典》: &lt;code&gt;“娆，嫐也。”&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastEditorUserId="18612" LastEditDate="2017-12-30T06:42:30.243" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T06:42:30.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28221" CreationDate="2017-12-30T14:28:13.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure about other Chinese dialects, but in Cantonese, only the character 嬲 is used while the character 嫐 is not used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, the two characters do not exist in standard Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like the character 嫐 is in use by dialects around Hubei? But I am not too familiar with the dialects in that area and as such cannot specify about it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regardless, the character seems to carry different meaning in different dialects, so OP might want to clarify which dialect's meaning was he looking at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4177" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T14:28:13.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28188" CreationDate="2017-12-30T14:47:23.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Misguide / misguiding / misguided, is probably a proper word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the original sentence you want to translate use the word 忽悠 in the context of 打哈哈, then it would probably match to say you (or the subject) waived/shrugged it (or the object) off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4177" LastEditorUserId="4177" LastEditDate="2018-01-07T02:00:01.683" LastActivityDate="2018-01-07T02:00:01.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28132" CreationDate="2017-12-30T15:06:58.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add on top of what others have mentioned, &quot;500多个&quot; basically means five hundred and something piece of X. (Edit: Be careful that &quot;多个&quot; is not a word here, the correct way to separate the word would be &quot;500多&quot; + &quot;个&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;500多&quot; Literally means 500 (and) something, or five hundred (and) something, in this context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some personal rant below&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this kind of usage has already become relatively common nowadays,  I would like to advise against writing it out this way with Arabic numbers personally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Writing the word out with Chinese numbers, like &quot;五百多个&quot; is ok and everybody would understand it directly and immediately, however, if you write &quot;500多个&quot;, then it could be confusing to readers even if the reader is native in Chinese, especially at first sight, because all the zeroes have been spelled out in the form of Arabic number despite the &quot;and something&quot; part in the original sentence, and what's worse in Chinese compared to similar English usage is that there isn't even a word function like (and) is this kind of expression. Therefore, Reader might be tempted to think those Arabic numeral zeroes in the sentence might actually mean the round number before they actually read the sentence clearly. To avoid such a situation, it would probably be better to use Chinese numerals instead of Arabic numerals in this expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4177" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T15:06:58.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28233" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-30T17:14:25.973" Score="1" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know as much as possible about how tone contours (T2, T3, T4) are distributed along Mandarin/standard rhyme diphthongs, especially ai ei ao ou, with references to academic articles if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastEditorUserId="15764" LastEditDate="2018-01-01T13:29:12.733" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T13:29:12.733" Title="Tone contours along diphthongs" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-07-27T00:05:21.683" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28234" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28235" CreationDate="2017-12-30T21:29:35.187" Score="2" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;助人者得人助。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am mostly concerned about the meaning of &lt;code&gt;者&lt;/code&gt;. Its explanation is very blurry on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?word=%E8%80%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YellowBridge&lt;/a&gt;, and there's no article on its usage in he Chinese grammar wiki.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18783" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-29T08:35:23.127" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T08:35:23.127" Title="What does 助人者得人助 mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28234" CreationDate="2017-12-30T22:01:58.430" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;助人 = help people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;助人&lt;strong&gt;者&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;those who&lt;/strong&gt; help people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人助= people's help&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;人助 = &lt;strong&gt;get&lt;/strong&gt; people's help&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;者 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/591/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/591/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] he who; those who&#xA;[2] a particle combining with some words to form adverbials&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some example terms with 者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;死 = dead; 死者 = deceased (person)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;長 = elder; 長者 = elderly (person)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偽善 = hypocritical; 偽善者 = hypocrite (person)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;違抗規則 = defy the rule; 違抗規則者 = those who defy the rule (person)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edition:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example for  &lt;em&gt;[2] a particle combining with some words to form adverbials-&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;兵者，凶器也&amp;quot; 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兵&lt;strong&gt;者&lt;/strong&gt;=(&lt;strong&gt;definition of&lt;/strong&gt;) army;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凶器也 = is instrument of destruction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T12:06:57.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28234" CreationDate="2017-12-30T23:52:51.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would put 助人者得到人助 somewhere under bible quotes, probably Proverbs: 'He who giveth receiveth.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lots of examples for 者 &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/aa2928e14b524f69bfde62d56f07f877&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电影爱好者 film freak&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一群快艇爱好者 speedboat lovers&lt;br&gt;&#xA;获奖者如下 and the winner/s is/are ..  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T23:52:51.947" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28237" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-31T00:05:57.870" Score="2" ViewCount="469" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference in meaning? Usage or formailty or common colocations? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that 顶多 is more colloquial but I don't know if it's more common in normal speech and I don't know any other difference between these words. Same for 至少，最少，顶少。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T11:13:23.627" Title="至多，最多，顶多 … what's the difference?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28237" CreationDate="2017-12-31T01:16:45.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is the occasion they were used.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“至多”is a formal expression.while“顶多”an oral expression.“最多”is something between them which can be used in different place，but not too formal or oral at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17961" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T01:16:45.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28237" CreationDate="2017-12-31T11:13:23.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;最多 and 顶多 can mean ' to the largest extent'. For example, we say 我顶多/最多花点钱来搞定，but we don't usually say 我至多花点钱来搞定.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three words are interchangeable when expressing ' to the largest number'. For example, 这件衣服至多/最多/顶多50元。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;顶多 is more colloquial. 至多 is more formal, but it's not used as often as 最多/顶多. 最多 is common both colloquially and formally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T11:13:23.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28223" CreationDate="2017-12-31T13:03:52.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is my guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;马驷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;馬駟 in traditional Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/28/js/9A77.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;more for 駟&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/khyeJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/khyeJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18785" LastEditorUserId="18785" LastEditDate="2018-01-01T10:47:39.293" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T10:47:39.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28234" CreationDate="2018-01-01T09:54:50.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;助人者得人助。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;助，帮助。help ,it can be verb or Noun.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;者，人。person&lt;br&gt;&#xA;得，得到。 obtain or get &lt;br&gt;&#xA;助人者得人助。 &lt;br&gt;This is the Chinese classical usage,&lt;br&gt;Translated into the form of modern Chinese  ：&lt;br&gt; 经常帮助别人（的人）往往也会得到（别人的）帮助。&#xA;&lt;br&gt;In english: If you often help some person,you can be helped by some person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18789" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T09:54:50.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28220" CreationDate="2018-01-01T10:17:50.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chinese,when you express : travel by public transport &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;乘&quot;=&quot;坐&quot;=”乘坐“ &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;坐&quot; or &quot;乘&quot;， it is usered in oral。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;乘坐&quot;，used in formal occasions&lt;br&gt;&#xA;for example。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我坐火车去纽约 = 我乘火车去纽约,     I go to New York by train&lt;br&gt;&#xA;when you in airport,the Aircraft broadcasting will say:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;欢迎乘坐飞机。welcome to board  plane.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;when you express someone sit in something,you only say:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你坐在床上 ,you sit in bed.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你乘在床上，or 你乘坐在床上，they are wrong express.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18789" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T10:17:50.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28243" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28269" CreationDate="2018-01-01T10:35:32.997" Score="0" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2W3CE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2W3CE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;I have absolutely no idea about the words that are circle in black. So the cycle starts, I will use Pleco dictionary  to scan the word and I will know the meaning of that word for a while. Obviously, I wouldn&amp;#39;t be able to do that on test time &quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have absolutely no idea about the words that are circled in black. So the cycle starts, I will use Pleco dictionary to scan the word and I will know the meaning of that word for a while. Obviously, I wouldn't be able to do that on test time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18758" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-02T12:14:03.667" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T06:36:26.957" Title="What Chinese lesson (Category of words) should I be studying?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28244" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-01T10:38:17.590" Score="4" ViewCount="1199" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese writing - that of Mandarin - does not seem anything like picture language as that is represented by Egyptian hieroglyphs. Nor does it seem ideographic in the sense that each character represents an idea. Is there is an accurate, brief characterisation of the language ? Perhaps there is not. I ask my question from a position of, as you will have realised, very considerable ignorance. But I would appreciate any guidance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18790" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T05:42:29.193" Title="Is Chinese writing pictorial, ideographic - or neither?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28245" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28250" CreationDate="2018-01-01T11:00:26.077" Score="1" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have often found in Hong Kong that the written version of words are used in spoken context (while speaking Cantonese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being aware of the fact that Cantonese and written Chinese are pronounced differently, I am curious as to why the above happens and in what situations it does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in some popular Cantonese songs, such as '喜歡你' by Beyond, he literally says 喜歡你 (hei2 fun1 nei5 - I like you). However, the proper way in Cantonese to say I like you is (ngo5 oi3 nei5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, why does Beyond, among many popular cantopop singers, borrow from traditional Chinese in certain contexts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-01T16:08:44.403" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T16:08:44.403" Title="Use of written Chinese in spoken context" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28247" CreationDate="2018-01-01T12:03:39.443" Score="0" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小王：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你好！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最近我在云南的大森林里工作了五个月，今天才回信，请原谅。、&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;云南省非常好玩儿！云南菜也很好吃，“过桥面”是我最喜欢的。我最喜欢昆明市，因为那儿的气候很好，四季如春。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在云南人们用大象搬远树木，很有趣！森林里有很多动物：小熊猫、黑熊等等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;云南还有世界闻名的石林。那儿的风景很美，有山有水，像中国的山水画儿一样。我很想再去云南画那里的风景。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请尽快回信！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小李&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(transcribed from &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XXP6s.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;original photo&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;云南石林的风景怎么样？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小李为什么想再去云南？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the meaning of every word in these two questions, but struggle to understand them as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What are these two questions asking about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18758" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T00:25:45.157" Title="What are these two questions asking about? 云南石林的风景怎么样？ and 小李为什么想再去云南？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-01-03T00:57:36.300" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28246" CreationDate="2018-01-01T12:24:50.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;云南石林的风景怎么样？ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is the scenery in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Forest/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Shilin, Yunnan&quot;&gt;Shilin, Yunnan&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;小李为什么想再去云南？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does Xiao Li want to go to Yunnan again?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this what you are asking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16137" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T12:24:50.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28245" CreationDate="2018-01-01T13:31:25.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Colloquial Mandarin and literary Chinese are often the same, but sometimes there are difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我喜歡你&quot; is [colloquial Mandarin] as well as [standard written Chinese]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cantonese speak [colloquial Cantonese] but write [standard written Chinese] (SWC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我鐘意你&quot; is [colloquial Cantonese]. But when we put it in written, we usually change it to [Standard written Chinese] &quot;我喜歡你&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Colloquial Cantonese can be written in text form in casual setting.&#xA;  For example, entertainment news or comedy dialogue script&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Standard written Chinese (SWC) can be read colloquially (with Cantonese pronunciation) in formal setting. For example, Poem, official speech, news report and song lyrics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T13:31:25.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28245" CreationDate="2018-01-01T13:53:21.773" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong officially uses Standard Written Chinese as the written language, but in reality all shades of writing fall on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saam_kap_dai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Saam kap dai&lt;/a&gt; spectrum, which combines Classical Chinese, Standard Written Chinese, and Written Cantonese into one piece of writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relative proportions of those styles are changed depending on the tone the author wishes to set. Increased use of Classical expressions variously give off a literary/archaic/learned impression, increased use of Standard Written Chinese give off a proper/stiff/formal/serious impression, and increased use of Written Cantonese give off a casual/informal/relaxed impression. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;News items may largely use Standard Written Chinese but occasionally inject a few Cantonese expressions;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gossip magazines will largely use Written Cantonese but occasionally inject expressions from Standard Written Chinese and/or Literary Chinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Song lyrics are written first then sung exactly how they are written, not spoken on-the-fly, so it is probably worth looking at it from a saam kap dai spectrum point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T13:53:21.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28252" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-01T20:06:02.960" Score="6" ViewCount="994" Body="&lt;p&gt;And can I just say: &quot;哪里买票？&quot;? This is what I used when I was in China and everyone seemed to easily understand. Is this shorter sentence incorrect or non-native sounding? How do native speakers ask this kind of question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-05T00:28:49.767" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T00:28:49.767" Title="In this sentence &quot;请问，哪里可以买到票？&quot; is the character 到 necessary?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28253" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-01-01T21:02:54.423" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-01-01T21:02:54.423" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T21:02:54.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28254" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-01-01T21:02:54.423" Score="0" Body="Questions related to using sources that contain definitions, information or translations of words." OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2018-01-02T02:30:28.547" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T02:30:28.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28255" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-01-01T21:03:37.583" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-01-01T21:03:37.583" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T21:03:37.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28256" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-01-01T21:03:37.583" Score="0" Body="Questions regarding the rules for the formation of sentences." OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2018-01-02T02:30:19.040" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T02:30:19.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28252" CreationDate="2018-01-01T21:11:20.823" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;“哪里买票”(1) sounds perfectly native to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between these two sentences lies in: (1) doesn't address the likely scenario where you can't get a ticket even if you tried to buy one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas “哪里可以买到票”(2) clearly states “Where (can I) buy and get a ticket?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18450" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T21:11:20.823" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28252" CreationDate="2018-01-01T21:38:11.170" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;买票: is all about the act of purchasing a ticket.&#xA;买到票: is about where a ticket can be &lt;em&gt;successfully&lt;/em&gt; purchased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the two are often used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T21:38:11.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28252" CreationDate="2018-01-02T03:24:03.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you add &quot;到&quot; into the sentence, it shows that you need to find a place that can guarantee that you can buy a ticket, thus shows that you are in a hurry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6332" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T03:24:03.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28260" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28263" CreationDate="2018-01-02T03:28:47.277" Score="1" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;How are analogies made in Chinese? Maybe the best way to understand would be by the translation of some examples. So, how would these examples be translated? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strong like a bull &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Smart like a fox &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dumb like a rock &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Funny like a clown &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fat like a balloon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Brave like a soldier&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kind like a mother&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Calm like a monk&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tall like a lamp post&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Small like an ant&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ugly like a bat&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to use 像 in all of the examples? Is it possible to use 像 and 如 interchangeably?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18795" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-01-02T03:31:03.477" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T03:48:49.727" Title="How to make analogies?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28252" CreationDate="2018-01-02T03:34:03.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see some nuances when I use those sentences/phrases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would use these sentences '哪里买票'，'在哪里买票'， or '请问, 在哪里买票', when I try to ask where the ticket office(售票处) is. Most likely, I would use '请问, 在哪里买票' because that sounds more polite than the other twos. Those sentences can be paraphrased as (请问)买票的地方在哪里， and they are usually used when you arrive a site(say a station), but you are not sure exactly where the ticket office is located in there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would use 哪里可以买票 and 哪里可以买到票, when I am not sure where I should go to get tickets(train station, Internet or any other places). The latter connotes that you are asking for a place where can surely get tickets, the former is just to ask where you can buy tickets but unsure if you can get tickets successfully. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T03:34:03.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28260" CreationDate="2018-01-02T03:45:00.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 像 and 如 can be used to make analogies to interpret those phrases you listed. However, the structures are different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 像, you should use 像...一样..., for example, 'smart like a fox' -- '像狐狸一样聪明'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 如， you can use ...如..., for example, 'smart like a fox' -- '聪明如狐狸'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can translate the rest phrases with the same pattern above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T03:45:00.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28260" CreationDate="2018-01-02T03:48:49.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;You can translate them as:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;力大如牛/像牛一样强壮&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;像狐狸一样聪明&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;像石头一样木讷&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;像小丑一样好玩&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;胖得像个气球&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;像军人一样勇敢&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;像母亲一样善良&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;像僧人一样冷静&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;像路灯一样高&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;像蚂蚁一样&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.像蝙蝠一样丑陋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, you can use &quot;像&quot;. &quot;如&quot; is more literal and formal than &quot;像&quot;.&#xA;But be careful. Some of the analogies do not make sense in the Chinese cultural context. For example, &quot;bat&quot; is neutral in the Chinese cultural background and does not carry a cultural implication of ugliness so that it does not make sense to say something is ugly like a bat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18796" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T03:48:49.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28252" CreationDate="2018-01-02T05:14:25.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;买票= buy ticket&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;买到票 = buy and get ticket&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, these two phrases are both acceptable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T05:14:25.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27983" CreationDate="2018-01-02T07:47:55.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is another suggestion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;另一半 (literally, another half)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;男人都喜歡保護另一半。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Men like to protect their partner (another half).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://google.com/search?q=%E5%8F%A6%E4%B8%80%E5%8D%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;More examples...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T07:47:55.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28052" CreationDate="2018-01-02T08:20:48.243" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that author's statement is accurate. The opposite of individualism (个人主义) is collectivism (集体主义). Individualism becomes a bad word in China only because of the ruling of the Communist party. Because the Communists are absolutely collectivists and totally against individual thinking and actions, so they call lots of bad things on individualism. Selfishness is just one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the communist China is not the same as China. Chinese communists are not the same as Chinese. When people talk about Chinese cultural, usually they mean Confucianism, which is obviously not Communism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under Confucianism, it is true that the family, community, and the state is important, but it never says anything indicating that individual means nothing. Actually the moral value of individuals is important in Confucianism. In a corrupted system, maintaining your own moral value , holding on to your belief, and not letting the environment corrupt you is called 独善其身. Is this a form of individualism? No Confucian will ever tell you just blindly follow the leader, or do what ever the leader tell you to do, or always sacrifice yourself for the good of the group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more details, you can read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinausfocus.com/culture-history/confucius-more-individualistic-than-you-think&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chinausfocus.com/culture-history/confucius-more-individualistic-than-you-think&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iep.utm.edu/ind-chin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.iep.utm.edu/ind-chin/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no, in Chinese individualism does not mean selfishness, if you can differentiate the Communist China from China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="524" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T08:20:48.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28243" CreationDate="2018-01-02T09:59:42.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, let's begin with the question itself.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Below are the meanings of the words you encounter:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;健康 - noun, &quot;health&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;马 - noun, &quot;horse&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;安全 - adj./noun, &quot;safe/safety&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;美丽 - adj., &quot;beautiful&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;环境 - noun, &quot;environment&quot;(may have better translation when used elsewhere)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;难看 - adj., &quot;ugly&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;便宜 - adj., &quot;cheap&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;自行车 - noun, &quot;bicycle&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The text is about riding a bicycle to Xiangshan. It has several advantages, as the text indicates. The question requires you to fill the blanks with the words above, which can be easily found &quot;as is&quot; in the original text. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T09:59:42.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28243" CreationDate="2018-01-02T12:12:57.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have difficulties identifying words and recognizing patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;香山公&lt;code&gt;园风&lt;/code&gt;景美丽。 vs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;香山 ／ &lt;strong&gt;公园&lt;/strong&gt; ／ &lt;strong&gt;风景&lt;/strong&gt; ／ 美丽。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The landscape at Xiangshan Park is beautiful.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公园 is a very common noun. You should be able to identify it. And look at the sentence rhythm: 2 / 2 / 2 / 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;骑自行车: If you don't know this expression, you already have a hint in the question. The expression appears twice, and 自行车 alone, without 骑, appears in the table of 8 words. Reading a problem carefully is always a good idea.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there's a hint: 自行车 is a single, 3-character, word. So you have a structure like this: 骑+自行车. If that doesn't announce &lt;code&gt;Verb+Noun&lt;/code&gt; I don't know what does. You might not know what a 骑兵 is, but since you didn't circle 马 I assume you know what it means. 骑 has the horse radical, so it's not too wild to imagine it has to do with riding . Especially with a &lt;code&gt;xx车&lt;/code&gt; vehicle... Context is always important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you need to do is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Improve your vocabulary. Read more. Spend time with a dictionary. Paper dictionaries are usually more useful for learning. If you spend time looking up characters by hand, you'll get more familiar with their radicals and stroke numbers, stroke orders. And reading through a paper dictionary is far more interesting than online.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Focus. Don't panic. As you have discovered, just scanning words in an app doesn't work. Identify patterns. I've mentioned 骑自行车, but #14 for instance is just a question of writing down the exact same word as in the original text: 香山公园风景........[美丽]. How hard can that be?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look up the vocabulary requirements of HSK 1 &amp;amp; 2 to start. Make sure you know all the words in there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-04T06:36:26.957" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T06:36:26.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28243" CreationDate="2018-01-02T15:53:19.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;香山公园风景美丽&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above sentence can be broken down into 4 parts: 香山，公园，风景，美丽. &quot;园风” is incorrect. The first three words are nouns, while the last is an adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;骑自行车&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above sentence can be broken into 2 parts: 骑，自行车. The first word is a verb, while the last word is a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16137" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T15:53:19.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28252" CreationDate="2018-01-02T16:27:41.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;哪里买票 = where can I buy ticket? (tell me somewhere I can try, but you don't have to be 100% sure that I can get the ticket, maybe they sold out, or they are not selling the ticket now, but they were before)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪里可以买到票 = where can I buy ticket? (you are 100% sure that I can buy a ticket there - but still there might be something happened that I could not get the ticket)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18800" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T16:27:41.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28272" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28274" CreationDate="2018-01-02T23:17:41.280" Score="5" ViewCount="215" Body="&lt;p&gt;男朋友 and 女朋友 have the same thought process as their English counterparts, as in both words are compounded of &lt;em&gt;(the gender) + (&quot;friend&quot;)&lt;/em&gt;, even though they're actually used to refer to a romantic partner of said gender. Are there any linguistic reasons for that? Did English and Chinese-speaking nations have any contact in the past or have these 2 isolated and totally different nations had the same logic for this word specifically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18802" LastEditorUserId="18802" LastEditDate="2018-01-04T15:55:15.130" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T15:55:15.130" Title="Was the word 男朋友 borrowed from English (or maybe the opposite)?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28272" CreationDate="2018-01-03T02:22:50.123" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think in English we say boy/girl friend for friendship and boyfriend/girlfirend for relationship. In Chinese, the counterpart is 男性(Xing )朋友/女性(Xing )朋友 for friendship. 男朋友/女朋友 indicates relationship in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2018-01-03T02:22:50.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28272" CreationDate="2018-01-03T02:34:41.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English words boyfriend/girlfriend are &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girlfriend#Etymology&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;modern&lt;/a&gt;; their usage to refer to romantic, unmarried relations dates to around 1922. This is also where other terms like &quot;dating&quot; arose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, in Chinese, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A5%B3%E6%9C%8B%E5%8F%8B#%E8%AF%8D%E6%BA%90&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;男朋友/女朋友 do not exist in pre-modern times&lt;/a&gt;. Other terms like 佳人 would be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_the_Republican_era_in_China&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Republican Era&lt;/a&gt; saw big changes in Chinese culture and adoption of Western culture and language. It would be easy to conclude, therefore, that the words 男朋友/女朋友 were borrowed from English during this time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2018-01-03T02:34:41.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28275" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-03T04:39:10.257" Score="0" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be a habit of dropping /ŋ/ initials in topolects/dialects for fear of seeming like a redneck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Canto: 屋 nguk1 vs. uk1 [the new ABC Cantonese dictionary only gives the &lt;em&gt;uk1&lt;/em&gt; even]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Southwest Mandarin: 欧 ngou1 vs. ou1 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some claim this is 老派 vs. 新派 but from my experience it's been considered 土 vs. 洋.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the /ŋ/ initial give people a hillbilly-type feeling?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T11:59:02.417" Title="Why is inital /ŋ/ considered hick-ish?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28275" CreationDate="2018-01-03T11:40:12.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that there's a tendency to drop initial /ŋ/ in Wu (Shanghainese), but I always ascribed it to the proximity of the word to Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mandarin: wo3 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wu: (吾) ngu34&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mandarin: wai4 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wu: nga53&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas it is clearly voiced when it occurs in more language-specific words or single syllables (obviously):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;硬 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mandarin: ying4 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wu: ngang53 &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mandarin: wu3 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wu: ng34&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鱼 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mandarin: yu2 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wu: ng34&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-03T11:40:12.140" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28277" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-03T23:37:23.243" Score="1" ViewCount="1412" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got a seemingly Chinese painting from a thrift shop some time ago and would like to know what the seal stamps and characters on it mean. I have to admit that I don't have any prior knowledge of the Chinese language so I'm out of my element concerning the matter at hand. Amateurish research on my behalf proved to be unsuccessful and rather overwhelming so I'm turning to you for answers as my last choice option now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GQEWD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GQEWD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here a close-up of the two seal stamps. Sadly the left one is rather unrecognizable for the most part. With bare eyes you can make out more of the lines than visible here on the photo but I guess I would be content with someone just deciphering the right one. I could try to make a better photo of the left side seal stamp if someone sees the need for one, but I doubt it would be much better than that one. I guess these two are just normal name seals of the artist/collector, am I right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Di6bF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Di6bF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you have a good look of the three characters I mentioned earlier. I guess they mean the title of the painting or they stand for some Chinese proverb or phrase. The meaning of these seal stamps and characters shouldn't be anything overly sophisticated though, considering the quality of the painting overall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uPRSQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uPRSQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The painting itself depicts floral motives (cherry/plum blossom? and something else). I'm pretty confident that this is a Chinese painting because of the four-toed dragons as ornaments on the frame, the style in general and some other clues. It seems to be from the 1890s-1920s I guess, if this information is of any help in that context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be very grateful if someone of you could shed light &#xA;upon this matter since it would be very interesting to know what this is all about, regardless of wether these stamps and characters mean something &quot;special&quot; or just something trivial. I already want to thank you for your time, effort and expertise in my case. I hope this proves to be as interesting for you as it is for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many greetings from cnt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18810" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-06T06:09:05.407" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T18:09:43.730" Title="What do these two seal stamps and these three characters on my Chinese painting mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28252" CreationDate="2018-01-04T06:49:55.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some differences between them.you may use “买票”when you are close to the place where you can get tickets and “买到票” is opposite &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18813" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T06:49:55.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28277" CreationDate="2018-01-04T07:17:01.620" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters are &lt;code&gt;壽民畫&lt;/code&gt;. 壽民 is the name of the painter, 畫 is a verb, to draw. And the stamp is the symbol of the painter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18814" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-06T06:10:58.043" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T06:10:58.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28277" CreationDate="2018-01-04T17:07:09.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters in the clearer seal may be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;墨志&#xA;寶紋&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which should be read as &quot;志紋墨寶&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%BF%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=志&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%A2%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=墨&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%AF%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=寶&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first character &quot;志&quot;, I'm not sure, it's just my best guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-06T06:10:00.873" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T06:10:00.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28288" CreationDate="2018-01-04T18:25:32.903" Score="1" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does the 的 mean/indicate/do in sentences like &quot;我会死的&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hear things like this in the Chinese movies I'm watching for listening practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say something like &quot;我会死亡&quot; or just &quot;我会死&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example I just heard is: &quot;爸爸不做饭的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2287" LastEditorUserId="2287" LastEditDate="2018-01-04T19:24:45.260" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T09:31:48.963" Title="What does 的 mean in sentences like &quot;我会死的&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28284" CreationDate="2018-01-04T18:48:42.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;的 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/6/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/6/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[dik1 &amp;amp; de5] [1] possessive; adjectival suffix [2] &lt;strong&gt;final particle&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'的' in  &amp;quot;我会死的&amp;quot; is a final particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我会死 (plain statement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我会死(的) (1.indicates phrase ends. 2. put emphasis on the phrase and/or adds affirming tone to it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The meaning of a final particle can change, depend on the context and tone of the voice&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;的 has other usage in different context, check the link in this post&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T18:48:42.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28286" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-04T19:33:41.987" Score="1" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this sentence and I assume the meaning is &quot;how can I (learn to) sing well?&quot;. What I don't fully understand is the grammar of 唱好歌.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that 好 can be used as a result complement like 我做好作业了 I've finished my homework. The meaning I've learned for 好 when used this way is &quot;finished to a satisfactory standard&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume that 唱好歌 is simply 唱歌 with 好 inserted in the middle because 唱 is the verb and 歌 is the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first question is - is this the normal grammar for asking this type of question, or is there an alternative structure? For example, if I want to ask how can I (learn to) cook well, is 我怎么才能做好饭 correct? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second question - does the above sentence carry a meaning of &quot;how can I cook (this specific meal) well&quot; or &quot;how can I generally cook well&quot;? Or can it be either depending on context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third question - I've learned that I can insert 得 or 不 between a verb and complement to make a potential complement structure. Therefore, if I want to say &quot;I can't sing well&quot; is it 我唱不好歌? If not, why not? If yes, what's the difference between this and 我唱歌长得不好?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks very much in advance to anyone who can help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T01:50:36.680" Title="Grammar/meaning of 好 in ”怎么才能唱好歌?“ ？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28286" CreationDate="2018-01-04T20:44:30.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My first question is - is this the normal grammar for asking this type of question, or is there an alternative structure? For example, if I want to ask how can I (learn to) cook well, is 我怎么才能做好饭 correct?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your third question, you mentioned potential complement 得, and it is what missing in the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么才能唱好歌 could mean &quot;how can I sing well&quot; or &quot; How can I get to sing the good song&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么才能唱(得)好歌 can only mean &quot;how can I sing well&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Second question - does the above sentence carry a meaning of &quot;how can I cook (this specific meal) well&quot; or &quot;how can I generally cook well&quot;? Or can it be either depending on context?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to the first example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么才能燒好菜 could mean &quot;how can I finish cooking(this specific meal)&quot; or &quot;how can I cook well&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么才能燒(得)好菜 strongly imply &quot;how can I cook well&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么才能燒(得)一手好菜 can only mean &quot;how can I cook well&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Third question - I've learned that I can insert 得 or 不 between a verb and complement to make a potential complement structure. Therefore, if I want to say &quot;I can't sing well&quot; is it 我唱不好歌? If not, why not? If yes, what's the difference between this and 我唱歌长得不好?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you just use 不 instead of 得 as the potential complement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I (can't) sing well&quot; = 我唱(不)好歌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same structure as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I (can) sing well&quot; = 我唱(得)好歌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For clearer expression, it is better to use a longer form&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[(1.verb + object) + (2.verb + potential complement) + (3.result complement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[(1.唱歌) + (2.唱得) + (3.好)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[怎么才能][唱歌][唱得好]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[怎么才能][燒菜][燒得好]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;what's the difference between 我唱不好歌 and 我唱歌唱得不好?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in this post, both&quot;我唱不好歌&quot; and &quot;我唱歌唱得不好&quot;  mean &quot;I can't sing well&quot; just using different grammar structures&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我唱不好歌&quot; --&gt; [(subject 我) + (verb 唱) + (potential complement 不) +(result complement 好) + (object 歌)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我唱歌唱得不好&quot; --&gt; [(subject 我) + (verb + object 唱歌) + ( verb + potential complement 唱得) +(result complement  不好)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-04T20:54:56.133" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T20:54:56.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28284" CreationDate="2018-01-04T21:55:30.820" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a particle like 呢 or 了 etc. Obviously 的 also has several other uses and it can sometimes be difficult to tell them apart especially if you have no context to the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way it's used here is as a MODAL particle. Meaning that it alters the mood of the sentence. It makes the sentence feel like a a confident prediction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T21:55:30.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28289" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28296" CreationDate="2018-01-04T22:25:19.583" Score="1" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original sentence is：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;周末那两天他看电视。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周末那两天 means both Sunday and Saturday? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18819" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T03:39:34.953" Title="Does 周末那两天 means both Sunday and Saturday?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28289" CreationDate="2018-01-04T23:08:06.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周末 Weekend&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那 that/those&lt;br&gt;&#xA;两天 2 days&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他看电视 he watches telly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T23:08:06.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28289" CreationDate="2018-01-05T00:14:34.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say yes to your question, if you think the whole weekend is made up of two days Sat and Sun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T00:14:34.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28286" CreationDate="2018-01-05T01:50:36.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think, for Western ears, 怎么才能唱好歌 is ambiguous, whereas, for Chinese ears, it just means 'How can I sing well?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean 'sing a good song', or 'sing well'? I asked a Chinese friend, she immediately said, &quot;All songs are good.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could write 怎么才能把歌唱（得）好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q1 Yes, fairly normal grammar&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Q2 我怎么才能做好饭 How can I learn to / cook well / be a good cook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a specific dish: 我怎么才能做好[name of dish]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q3 我唱歌唱得不好。 or 我不会唱歌。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you remember an old song, 'Killing me softly'? In that song, it says, &quot;I heard he sang a good song.&quot; There is no sense in this that he only sings one song well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means 'He sings well.' 他唱歌唱得很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, 'She bakes a mean cake.' says: 'She bakes well.' not: her cake is somehow unpleasant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T01:50:36.680" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28293" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-05T02:47:19.267" Score="1" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been having trouble constructing statements containing question words. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a friend who can speak English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most translation software writes this as.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你有一个能讲英语的朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which sounds more like &amp;quot;If you have an English speaking friend&amp;quot; and completely leaves out the question word &amp;quot;who&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was trying to construct sentences in a similar way to how they are said using the &amp;quot;When, 当。。。的时候” structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I return home I'll give you phone call.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当我回家的时候我给你打电话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only know how to say some other sentences this way such as.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know when I should go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不认识, 我应该什么时候去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to use other question words in this way? Or should the question word be left out and be said another way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples that I though of are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She's the one who owns this car.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He told me what you said.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I will decide when I leave.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He will tell you where to go.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is why I arrive early everyday.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is how I use my phone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for the long question and thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18822" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T12:37:15.400" Title="How to use a question word in a statement that isn't a question?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28293" CreationDate="2018-01-05T03:09:08.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;If you have an English speaking friend&quot; should be translated to &lt;code&gt;如果你有一个讲英语的朋友&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, &lt;code&gt;能讲英语的朋友 a friend who can speak English&lt;/code&gt;  is much different from &lt;code&gt;讲英语的朋友 an English speaking friend&lt;/code&gt;, since there is a &lt;code&gt;能&lt;/code&gt; which literally means &lt;code&gt;can&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I don't know when I should go&quot; should be translated to &lt;code&gt;我不知道我应什么时候去&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that &lt;code&gt;我不认识&lt;/code&gt; usually means &lt;code&gt;I don't know (who he/she is)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll try to both directly and natively translate your six sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“She's the one who owns this car&quot; &lt;code&gt;她是（这辆）车的主人&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;He told me what you said&quot; &lt;code&gt;他告诉了我你说了什么&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;他告诉了我你所说的话&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;I will decide when I leave&quot; &lt;code&gt;我将决定我什么时候离开&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;我将决定我离开的时间&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;He will tell you where to go&quot; &lt;code&gt;他将会告诉你（应该）去哪&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;This is why I arrive early everyday&quot; &lt;code&gt;这就是为什么我每天早到&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;这就是我每天早到的原因&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;This is how I use my phone&quot; &lt;code&gt;这就是我用自己手机的方式&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;我就是**这么**（accent）用手机的&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attributive clause or other forms of clauses exist in Chinese but are much different from English, they could be more implicit, differently structured. You can read this article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.luotuo.net.cn/a/guanli/jibenlilun/2010/1206/25816.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Translate English Attributive Clauses&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;As a native Chinese speaker, I did not learn much Chinese grammar, so I suggest you find more in a textbook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastEditorUserId="18612" LastEditDate="2018-01-05T03:20:01.440" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T03:20:01.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28289" CreationDate="2018-01-05T03:30:05.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes, both Sunday and Saturday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18823" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T03:30:05.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28289" CreationDate="2018-01-05T03:39:34.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;周末那两天&lt;/code&gt; literally means &lt;code&gt;Those two days of the weekend&lt;/code&gt;, hence, Saturday and Sunday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, numbers in Chinese is not always real numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;code&gt;周末那两天&lt;/code&gt; could mean not only  &lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt; those two days of the weekend， but also &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt; day of those two days, &lt;strong&gt;maybe&lt;/strong&gt; both of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, &lt;code&gt;周末那两天他看电视&lt;/code&gt; could mean &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;He watches TV on Saturday and Sunday&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;He watched TV on those two days of the weekend&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;He (often) watches TV on weekends&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More contexts are essential to understand a sentence precisely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T03:39:34.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28220" CreationDate="2018-01-05T03:40:37.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no different in sense of taking public transport, Just a habit. even though, you can use both them in a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18823" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T03:40:37.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31495" CreationDate="2018-01-05T04:20:29.120" Score="1" ViewCount="871" Body="&lt;p&gt;Onra's &quot;Like the Seasons&quot; on &lt;a href=&quot;http://music.163.com/#/song?id=477839399&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;网易&lt;/a&gt; has a few guesses to it's lyrics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;风，在外面淫……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你……在外面你……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought it sounds like 不在外面营, I did think it sounded like 淫 at first but I don't think it's a song for sex ed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://genius.com/Onra-like-the-seasons-lyrics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Genius&lt;/a&gt; says it's just an:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Instrumental]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but there are obviously samples with &lt;em&gt;speech&lt;/em&gt; on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtzYqBs4bLE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube&lt;/a&gt; comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有人听出采样在唱什么吗？求采样﻿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;anyone know what the sample is singing?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Anybody have a translation?﻿ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-01-08T08:01:24.120" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T02:20:34.653" Title="What's the lyrics to Onra's &quot;Like the Seasons&quot;?" Tags="&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28293" CreationDate="2018-01-05T04:42:49.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a way to translate from the word-by-word method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you have a friend who can speak English&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Word-by-word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;如果 你 有 一个 朋友 | 谁 能 说 英语&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First pick the clause out and translate. Then you could understand that the part &quot;who can speak English&quot; describe the word &quot;friend&quot; which is 朋友 in Mandarin. To complete the translation, you put the &quot;who can speak English&quot; just in front of the word &quot;friend&quot;, since in Mandarin the modifiers of objects are always put in front of the object. Finally you omit the question word [since in Mandarin there exists almost no clauses] and you have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;如果你有一个 能说英语的 朋友&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same method could also applied to other sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When I return home I will give you phone call&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Word-by-word: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当 我 回 家 [的时候] | 我 会 给 你 打电话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the part &quot;when I return home&quot; describe the time. Then you could just leave it be. To be natural, you could omit &quot;当&quot; and the second &quot;我&quot;, since the speaker and the audience know that the speaker, i.e. 我, would &quot;give you phone call&quot;, hence you could omit this to be succinct. Finally you have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我回家的时候给你打电话。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我回家就给你打电话。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她 就是 人 | 谁 拥有 这辆 车 ==&gt; &lt;strong&gt;她就是拥有这辆车的人。&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;她就是这辆车的主人。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他 告诉 我 | 什么 你 说过 ==&gt; &lt;strong&gt;他告诉我你说过什么。&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;他告诉我你说过的话。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 将 决定 什么时候 | 当 我 离开 [的时候] ==&gt; &lt;strong&gt;我离开的时候会决定这个时间。&lt;/strong&gt; [here we need more background to specify the first &quot;when&quot;, otherwise the whole sentence would not be complete in meaning]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他 会 告诉 你 | 哪里 去 ==&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他会告诉你[要]去哪。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这 是 | 为什么 我 到达 早 每天 ==&gt; &lt;strong&gt;这就是为什么我每天都早到。&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;这就是我每天早到的原因。&lt;/strong&gt; [&quot;why&quot; lead the cause, hence we translate the &quot;cause&quot; explicitly]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这 是 | 怎么 我 用 我的 手机 ==&gt; &lt;strong&gt;这就是我怎么用我的手机。&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;这就是我用[我]手机的方式。&lt;/strong&gt; [&quot;how&quot; specifies the method or the way, and we translate it explicitly]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T04:42:49.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27956" CreationDate="2018-01-05T05:12:16.510" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two senses in which it's used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;modesty:  it implies [something is] very general, or ordinary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;just like that&amp;quot; and we needn't worry about it anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18823" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-23T01:29:02.577" LastActivityDate="2020-07-23T01:29:02.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28303" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28305" CreationDate="2018-01-05T08:46:00.303" Score="0" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does 都 refers to the 天天 or to the 晚上 in the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天天晚上都很忙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18819" LastEditorUserId="18819" LastEditDate="2018-01-05T08:58:25.463" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T15:53:57.940" Title="Does 都 refers to the 天天 or to the 晚上 in the following sentence?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28303" CreationDate="2018-01-05T08:55:20.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;天天&quot; has the same meaning as &quot;每天&quot;. Because &quot;天&quot; is a classifier, &quot;都&quot; here refers to &quot;晚上&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see the details &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22every%22_with_%22mei%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastEditorUserId="18719" LastEditDate="2018-01-05T09:12:26.343" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T09:12:26.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28303" CreationDate="2018-01-05T08:56:04.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;天天晚上&lt;/strong&gt; is a single set phrase meaning every night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt; refers to it [each evening].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus we have: [I'm] very busy every night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T08:56:04.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28303" CreationDate="2018-01-05T09:25:18.850" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 都 refers to 每天晚上 or 天天晚上, or you may consider it refers to 晚上 not 天天. We repeat &lt;strong&gt;somethings&lt;/strong&gt; (a one-character noun) for &quot;every &lt;strong&gt;somethings&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in Chinese, like 天天, is the same as 每天, which means &lt;strong&gt;everyday&lt;/strong&gt;, also you may speak 人人 for 每个人, and 月月, 年年, etc. You may repeat Chinese &lt;strong&gt;measure word&lt;/strong&gt; as well, like 个个 means &lt;strong&gt;each one&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;every one&lt;/strong&gt;, 条条(大道) means &lt;strong&gt;all (roads)&lt;/strong&gt;, 次次 means &lt;strong&gt;every time&lt;/strong&gt;. You may also speak 一个个(人), which means &lt;strong&gt;(persons) one by one&lt;/strong&gt;, and 一条条(鱼), 一栋栋(大楼), 一辆辆(车), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T09:25:18.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28307" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28308" CreationDate="2018-01-05T09:42:30.577" Score="0" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look at this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt;那刘姥姥进了大观园，还要土里土气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some reason I translate this sentence as &quot;Compared to A, B is more ...&quot;, though this doesn't make any sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I found this sentence in a song (which I think could be incorrect), I'm curious if this is a correct and valid sentence. Is this a correct sentence? If it is correct, what nouns are being referred to? Any help would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T15:08:44.673" Title="Can &quot;比&quot; go without a subject?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28307" CreationDate="2018-01-05T10:03:15.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt; (object)，还要 (adjective)] = [ more (adjective), &lt;strong&gt;compare to&lt;/strong&gt; (object)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;比[那刘姥姥进了大观园]，还要[土里土气]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;那刘姥姥进了大观园 is  the object phrase&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;土里土气 is the adjective phrase&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The subject is omitted&lt;/strong&gt; in this sentence, but it is there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to have a subject to compare to an object: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Subject&lt;/strong&gt;' (omitted) &lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt; [那刘姥姥进了大观园]，&lt;strong&gt;还要&lt;/strong&gt; [土里土气]&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subject can be a noun, or another &lt;strong&gt;phrase&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T10:03:15.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28307" CreationDate="2018-01-05T15:08:44.673" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;比那刘姥姥进了大观园，还要土里土气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it is correct,but is not commenly use in modern now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is means something(A) is lower than the (B)刘姥姥进了大观园,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but the subject(A) is missing,you should fond in the context!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18825" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T15:08:44.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28299" CreationDate="2018-01-05T15:41:51.747" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is just a joke, a sense of humor in which our chinese people use homophone to mislead the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the true meaning is tough to guess,because it maybe the 上海 local accent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;侬，怀念你 maybe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18825" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T15:41:51.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28303" CreationDate="2018-01-05T15:53:57.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;天天晚上都很忙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;he do is very busy in the evening everyday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(does english has this sentence? may be you can modify to a even fitable sentence)&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天天 is just like everyday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚上 is evening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都  is do . it represent the empathize the work is busy &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18825" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T15:53:57.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28312" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28313" CreationDate="2018-01-05T16:58:35.740" Score="2" ViewCount="461" Body="&lt;p&gt;Continuing from my previous &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/28307/can-%E6%AF%94-go-without-a-subject&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt;, here's another sentence I picked from a song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一件件新衣向身上&lt;strong&gt;比一比&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to search through &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.pinpinchinese.com/definitions/t/%E6%AF%94%E4%B8%80%E6%AF%94-biyibi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pinpin Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, it means: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To make a comparison&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To engage in a contest&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To compare a little&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is rather odd and not making any sense to the sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also think that &quot;比一比&quot; is a reduplication of &quot;比&quot;, which could have the same meaning as &quot;比比&quot;. I found one in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%AF%94%E6%AF%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;, it means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Everywhere; All over&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All the time; Again and again&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which has a better translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum up, what does &quot;比一比&quot; mean in this sentence? Could it mean &quot;everywhere; all over&quot;? Or do you have any other translation? Any help would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T01:51:52.677" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T06:11:23.840" Title="What is the meaning of &quot;比一比&quot; in 一件件新衣向身上比一比?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28312" CreationDate="2018-01-05T20:34:34.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/674/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;比&lt;/a&gt; in most context means &quot;to compare&quot; e.g. 比大小 (compare the size) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the sentence, &quot;一件件新衣向身上&lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt;一比&quot; , '比' means '&lt;strong&gt;to cling to&lt;/strong&gt; or '&lt;strong&gt;lie next to&lt;/strong&gt;' (&lt;em&gt;in order to compare or match&lt;/em&gt;)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very common for a person to pick up a new clothes and  'cling' it to his body to check if the size and the style is for him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see it more clearly without reduplication of '比'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;把那件新衣往身上比一下, 看看大小是否适合&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-05T20:52:19.403" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T20:52:19.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28314" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28328" CreationDate="2018-01-05T21:31:31.627" Score="1" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen a text where 20-year-old woman was called 女孩子, is it usual in China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The text I'm referring to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我大哥认识一个女孩子，她的名字叫李明英。李小姐今年二十岁，是大学生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18819" LastEditorUserId="18819" LastEditDate="2018-01-06T20:15:14.077" LastActivityDate="2018-01-08T11:31:58.393" Title="At what age one stops calling a person 孩子？" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28314" CreationDate="2018-01-05T23:07:16.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do you think these sentences are related? I think they are 2 different, unrelated sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我大哥认识一个男孩子，他个名字叫李明英。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My big brother knows a boy whose name is Li Mingying&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;李小姐今年二十岁，是大学生。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Miss Li will be 20 years old this year, she is a student at university.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小姐 = Miss&lt;br&gt;&#xA;男孩子 = boy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T23:07:16.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28312" CreationDate="2018-01-05T23:53:42.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;first&#xA;看一看=看，&#xA;试一试=试，&#xA;比一比=比，&#xA;谈一谈=谈。。。&#xA;Second&#xA;In this sentence，“比” means compare the size of clothes with your shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18766" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T23:53:42.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28314" CreationDate="2018-01-06T00:48:14.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我大哥认识一个男孩子，他个名字叫李明英。李小姐今年二十岁，是大学生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I try to correct your text as below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我大哥认识一个&lt;strong&gt;女孩子&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;她的&lt;/strong&gt;名字叫李明英。李小姐今年二十岁，是大学生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To your specific question, when we were in the college, we were in the age of the 20s and we often call ourselves 男孩子 or 女孩子. For example, 女孩子喜欢个子高的男孩子. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, you can call a teenage or one in the age of puberty 男孩子 or 女孩子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line at which they were not called 孩子 is obscure indeed. The circumstances , contexts and perspectives play important roles in this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-01-06T00:53:14.820" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T00:53:14.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28319" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-06T02:28:19.027" Score="1" ViewCount="528" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the book &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.ca/Far-Away-Reporting-Brink-Change/dp/1476795045/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1515205400&amp;amp;sr=8-1-fkmr0&amp;amp;keywords=far%20and%20away%20Andrew%20Salomon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Far and Away&lt;/a&gt; page 369, the author (Andrew Salomon) cite a Chineese proverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Food comes first for the people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could not find trace of this proverb online but I don't speak Chineese and could not translate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it a real proverb?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it used often?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does the proverb mean?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18827" LastActivityDate="2018-01-08T16:19:00.383" Title="Is this a proverb: &quot;Food comes first for the people&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28319" CreationDate="2018-01-06T02:31:08.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's the prargraph from the book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Food comes first for the people,” says an ancient Chinese proverb, and foodie culture has blossomed in China as hedonism has grown less stigmatized. The average Chinese citizen spent more money on food in 2015 than at any time in the past, and food TV shows such as A Bite of China have soaring ratings. Nearly two-thirds of Chinese mobile-phone users consistently photograph their food before eating, then share these photos through food-oriented apps and social media; fluency in food culture is deemed a mark of sophistication. The China Cuisine Association has asked UNESCO to place the country’s cuisine on the Intangible Cultural Heritage List. Demand for premium and organic foods keeps increasing. Recent research has found that people who eat spicy food all the time live substantially longer; though the exact causality is unclear, the study has been warmly received. Torrents of fabulous new restaurants have opened for wealthy Chinese and Westerners; in Shanghai alone, five recently made the list of Asia’s Best Restaurants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously referring to this &lt;strong&gt;real&lt;/strong&gt; proverb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;民以食为天&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a very well-known, common proverb or idiom; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E6%B0%91%E4%BB%A5%E9%A3%9F%E4%B8%BA%E5%A4%A9%22&amp;amp;client=firefox-b-ab&amp;amp;source=lnt&amp;amp;tbs=li:1&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjVzYabp8LYAhXHTbwKHfIiBmgQpwUIIQ&amp;amp;biw=1280&amp;amp;bih=676&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;verbatim search on Google&lt;/a&gt;, alone, gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1,120,000 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E6%B0%91%E4%BB%A5%E9%A3%9F%E4%B8%BA%E5%A4%A9&amp;amp;rsv_spt=1&amp;amp;rsv_iqid=0x91192f51000040db&amp;amp;issp=1&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=0&amp;amp;rsv_idx=2&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;tn=baiduhome_pg&amp;amp;rsv_enter=1&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=1&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;inputT=535&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=535&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt; gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12,000,000 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The masses regard food as their prime want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%B0%91%E4%BB%A5%E9%A3%9F%E4%B8%BA%E5%A4%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/a&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Food is the God of the people. (idiom); People view food as the primary need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Food first, ethical niceties second&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a whole question about it over here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/629/4136&quot;&gt;What does 民以食为天 mean?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Huang's answer is also a good source for more information:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/630/4136&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/630/4136&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC Proverbs also has the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;国以民为本；民以食为天。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lit  A country depends on [its] people as [its] base, [just as] the people depend on food [to survive].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples of this usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.english4tw.com/blog/post/85-hsinchu-city-god-temple-where-food-comes-first-for-the-people&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;english4tw&lt;/a&gt;'s artle:  Hsinchu City God Temple, where food comes first for the people/新竹城隍廟:民以食為天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a saying in the Chinese-speaking community, &amp;quot;Food comes first for the people&amp;quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;華人社會常說，民以食為天;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.labbrand.com/brandsource/china%E2%80%99s-digital-powered-foodie-revolution&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;labbrand&lt;/a&gt;'s article &lt;em&gt;China’s Digital Powered Foodie Revolution&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Through the best of times and the worst of times, food is always on the mind of Chinese people. As a famous Chinese proverb goes, “Food comes first for the people” (民以食为天). Today, Chinese people’s relationship to food and food products is changing. Every week new trends and behaviors emerge that present new challenges but also new opportunities for brands in the F&amp;amp;B industry. In this article, we look at how digital channels have changed the way modern Chinese consumers purchase and use food products along with how food has become one of the most important elements of contemporary Chinese pop culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T09:15:41.457" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28284" CreationDate="2018-01-06T09:31:48.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Refer to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/js/7684.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, definition 4: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;助词，用在句末，表示肯定的语气，常与“是”相应：这句话是很对～。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T09:31:48.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28319" CreationDate="2018-01-06T13:23:37.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me put it in a shorter answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Food comes first for the people&amp;quot; can be rephrased as &amp;quot; For the people, food always come first&amp;quot; which express the meaning of &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;food security is the utmost important issue for the people&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;民以食为天&amp;quot; is the Chinese proverb that express this same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal meaning of  &amp;quot;民以食为天&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;民(the people) 以 (take) 食(food) 为(as) 天(sky = highest authority). Which means it always comes first&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;国以民为本 &amp;quot;The foundation of a nation is its people&amp;quot; (for a nation, the people always comes first)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;民以食为天 &amp;quot;For the people, food is the most importing issue in the world (for the people, food always comes first)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-08T16:19:00.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28323" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28329" CreationDate="2018-01-06T14:48:01.157" Score="2" ViewCount="652" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to complete some Chinese homework, and in it, one of the assignments includes a comic. We're supposed to write a story based off the comic. The comic includes a girl introducing various friends to her Chinese grandmother. The friends are Sara, Rose, and Robert. The grandmother, being fluent in Chinese, misinterprets the various names as &quot;salad&quot; (I assume &quot;沙拉&quot;)，a form of meat (I assume &quot;肉丝&quot;), and &quot;carrot&quot;. I have no idea how &quot;Robert&quot; sounds like any form of &quot;carrot&quot; in Chinese. The various translations I've found are 胡萝卜, 红萝卜, and 胡萝匐, none of which sound anything like &quot;Robert&quot;. What other translations of &quot;carrot&quot; are there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2018-01-07T23:49:00.657" Title="What translation of &quot;carrot&quot; sounds like &quot;Robert&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28323" CreationDate="2018-01-06T15:05:00.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 萝卜, not 胡萝卜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW there're many terms for 萝卜 in Chinese, such as 胡萝卜, 红萝卜, 白萝卜, 青萝卜, 水萝卜, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-01-06T15:23:15.890" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T15:23:15.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28323" CreationDate="2018-01-06T15:10:53.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;蘿蔔&quot; in &quot;紅蘿蔔&quot; (carrot) / &lt;em&gt;hung4 &lt;strong&gt;lo4 baak6&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;/ (Cantonese); hong2 &lt;strong&gt;luo2 bo&lt;/strong&gt; (Mandarin) sounds like &quot;Robert&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;沙拉&quot; (salad) /&lt;em&gt;saa1 laai1&lt;/em&gt;/ (Cantonese) ; /&lt;em&gt;sha1 la1&lt;/em&gt;/ (Mandarin)  sounds like &quot;Sara&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When I said a Chinese word '&lt;strong&gt;sounds like&lt;/strong&gt;' an English word, I meant it is the closest sound-alike Chinese character we can find to match the English pronunciation of a specific English word.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term '蘿蔔' alone means &quot;radish; turnip&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;carrot&quot; is always '紅蘿蔔' in Cantonese and '胡蘿蔔' in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T15:10:53.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28326" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28327" CreationDate="2018-01-06T15:14:25.657" Score="1" ViewCount="1958" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the following sentence: 如果不是这样的话，那你为什么生我的气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't seen 生气 as a verb before and was confused by the grammar of 生我的气 but didn't know how to google it as I don't even have the language to describe the situation well. Can someone point me in the right direction to this aspect of Chinese grammar? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11293" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T20:52:20.987" Title="生气 -&gt; 生我的气 . 的 in a certain grammatical structure" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28326" CreationDate="2018-01-06T16:04:51.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4615/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;生气&lt;/a&gt; is a verb for &quot;get angry; take offence&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'的' in  生我的气 is an 'adjectival particle' that turns the noun '我'(I) into  '&lt;strong&gt;对&lt;/strong&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;'(&lt;strong&gt;toward me&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'生气' (get angry) --&gt; '生(对)我的(怒)气' = ( 生气 *at me**) = (get angry &lt;strong&gt;at me&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'生气' is a two characters verb, but '气' in '生我的气', is treated as a noun '怒气'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;more example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'发火' (get mad) --&gt;'发&lt;strong&gt;不必要的&lt;/strong&gt;火' = (发 &lt;strong&gt;unnecessary&lt;/strong&gt; 火) = (get mad &lt;strong&gt;unnecessarily&lt;/strong&gt; ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'发火' is a two characters verb, but '火' in '发不必要的火' is treated as a noun '怒火'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more telling example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;问话 [ask word] = &lt;strong&gt;questioning&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;问&lt;strong&gt;你的&lt;/strong&gt;话 [ask &lt;strong&gt;your&lt;/strong&gt; word] = questioning &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'话' here is treated as a noun 'words' instead of part of the two characters word 问话 (questioning)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-16T20:52:20.987" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T20:52:20.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28314" CreationDate="2018-01-06T16:48:44.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;when some young adult talk such subject, it possibly refer to “not married（never married）” other than “child”, especially there are romatic or marriage related stories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2271" LastEditorUserId="2271" LastEditDate="2018-01-06T16:54:11.490" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T16:54:11.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28323" CreationDate="2018-01-06T22:37:00.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very amusing! This is the problem with Pinyin! Once on my way to 南昌， almost there, the conductor on the train came walking through, saying loudly: Lan Chang dao le, Lan Chang dao le! I thought for a minute I got on the wrong train.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has not been decided whether R is R or L.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It has not been decided whether L is L or R.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It has not been decided whether F is F or H.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It has not been decided whether H is H or F.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, 萝卜(Luó​bo) is an approximation to Robert and 沙拉（Shā​lā) equates to Sara.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you come from a province whose name begins with H, you may be from Fujian! (Old Chinese joke.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: yesterday, in the kitchen, listening to the radio news. My Chinese friend said, &quot;Oh, they say Inter has problems.&quot; Me. &quot;Inter?&quot; &quot;You know, the American company that makes computer processors.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2018-01-07T23:49:00.657" LastActivityDate="2018-01-07T23:49:00.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28330" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-07T01:46:01.533" Score="1" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for Chinese language soft subtitles for domestic tv dramas (e.g. 白夜追凶) for language learning purposes. While domestic tv has captions hardcoded onto the broadcast, it is inconvenient to use these with dictionary tools as handwriting recognition is cumbersome and optical character recognition is unreliable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Search engine efforts have not been fruitful as the vast majority of Chinese language soft subtitles appear to be for foreign media. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for reading! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18836" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T18:24:06.773" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T18:24:06.773" Title="Where can I find Chinese language soft subtitles for domestic television programs?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28331" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28374" CreationDate="2018-01-07T13:30:43.653" Score="5" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a while now I've been noticing and trying to figure out how to correctly pronounce several first tone characters in a row. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;機車 jīchē&#xA;公車 gōngchē&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The speech synthesis of Quizlet pronounces 機車:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;High pitch&#xA;4 ji&#xA;3    che&#xA;2&#xA;1&#xA;Low pitch&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, the first syllable is pronounced at a higher pitch than the second. But in school, when my teacher speaks slowly I notice she pronounces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;High pitch&#xA;4 ji che&#xA;3&#xA;2&#xA;1&#xA;Low pitch&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;At which pitches should I pronounce several first tones in a sequence?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T07:57:51.670" Title="In which pitches do I pronounce several first tones in a sequence?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28331" CreationDate="2018-01-07T14:31:06.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your teacher is correct they should both be high and flat - but technically it’s be 55 not 44.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only time it might sound like there is a drop on the second character is if it is a first tone followed by a neutral tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-01-07T15:12:16.420" LastActivityDate="2018-01-07T15:12:16.420" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28277" CreationDate="2018-01-07T18:03:50.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters written in black ink is the first name of the painter (寿民 Shoumin). If you Google it, there is a painter named 边寿民(Bian Shoumin) in Chinese Qing Dynasty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a link to Wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bian_Shoumin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bian_Shoumin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also Google the word “边寿民” by image to see his other paintings.&#xA;If this painting is not counterfeit, It would worth around 500,000 in Chinese Yuan ($80,000).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The clearer seal is “志紋墨寶”. In my understanding, 志紋is also a person’s first name. 墨 means ink, 寶 means treasure. Therefore, “志紋墨寶” means 志紋’s treasured painting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18841" LastActivityDate="2018-01-07T18:03:50.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28326" CreationDate="2018-01-07T19:10:01.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;生气&quot; is a verb, or often used as a verb: ”他生气了。” “怎么又生气了？” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;”生我的气“ specifies the target (or cause) of &quot;生气&quot;. So if &quot;生气&quot; means &quot;mad&quot; (or &quot;upset&quot;, or &quot;angry&quot;), &quot;生我的气&quot; means &quot;mad/upset &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;at me&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another instance of a similar structure: &quot;沾我的便宜“ =&gt; take advantage of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;me&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases, &quot;我的“ appears to mean &quot;my&quot; (possessive) in Chinese, but &quot;我的“ actually translates into &quot;at me&quot; or &quot;of me&quot;, making &quot;me&quot; the target/object of the action (vs the owner/cause of the action).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2018-01-07T19:10:01.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28335" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28340" CreationDate="2018-01-08T04:42:01.970" Score="3" ViewCount="2788" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen both the western comma &quot;,&quot; and the eastern comma &quot;、“ used in Chinese before, although the &quot;eastern comma&quot; seems to be used more frequently (correct me if I'm wrong). Which is more proper to use in general?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16402" LastActivityDate="2018-01-08T16:53:52.220" Title="Commas, which one is proper?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28335" CreationDate="2018-01-08T06:26:09.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Always use full-width comma (&quot;Eastern&quot;) when the context is all Chinese.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, use half-width comma (&quot;Western&quot;) in the following situations:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. Academic use, when commas appear in formulae and mathematical expressions.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. Quotations, when you need to quote someone in its original language, which always use half-width comma.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is worth noting that there is still &lt;strong&gt;NO&lt;/strong&gt; standard usage on foreign punctuations in Chinese context. I mean, it hasn't been standardized on national level.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; The &quot;comma&quot; in your OP is actually a &lt;strong&gt;caesura mark&lt;/strong&gt; (顿号), which is totally different from the real &quot;Eastern&quot; comma &quot;，&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-01-08T06:26:09.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28299" CreationDate="2018-01-08T06:35:53.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I searched on Onra, who is apparently a Frenchman. This song is collected into his 3rd Chinoiseries album. I found no lyrics for this track.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My best guess is that the album is just mimicking Chinese, not real Chinese (Mandarin) nor any dialects.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The &quot;lyrics&quot; on comments are just Soramimi (homophone). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-01-08T06:35:53.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28330" CreationDate="2018-01-08T08:25:58.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P4XIV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P4XIV.png&quot; alt=&quot;example&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are you looking for subtitles like this?&#xA;You can try to &lt;a href=&quot;http://subhd.com/search0/%E7%99%BD%E5%A4%9C%E8%BF%BD%E5%87%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18846" LastActivityDate="2018-01-08T08:25:58.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28314" CreationDate="2018-01-08T11:31:58.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a lot of people in China, you are a 女孩子 until you are married, but there isn't a specific defining mark. I would roughly say around age 30 or upon marriage (whichever occurs first) is when a single person stops being a 孩子, but that is a very rough heuristic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try thinking of it less like &quot;female child&quot; and more like &quot;girl.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16787" LastActivityDate="2018-01-08T11:31:58.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28335" CreationDate="2018-01-08T16:53:52.220" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In proper use of the Chinese language, you're talking about the difference between the true comma &lt;strong&gt;逗號&lt;/strong&gt; 「，」 and the enumeration comma &lt;strong&gt;頓號&lt;/strong&gt; 「、」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between the two can be illustrated in a sentence from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A0%93%E8%99%9F&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Wikipedia article on 頓號&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;分隔同類的並列的事，通常是單字、詞語或短句，當中的停頓較逗號短。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Enumeration commas are) used when separating similar items consecutively, such as single characters, words, or short sentences/phrases, where the pause is shorter than that given by the True Comma&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list begins with the word &lt;strong&gt;單字&lt;/strong&gt;, continues on with &lt;strong&gt;詞語&lt;/strong&gt;, then finishes with &lt;strong&gt;短句&lt;/strong&gt;, after which the true comma is used to create a pause between the previous part of the sentence and the next part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Very rarely will you see enumeration commas everywhere and true commas not used at all. In this case, you're most likely looking at a Japanese rendition of a Classical Chinese text, because in the Japanese language they use 「、」 for everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-01-08T16:53:52.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28341" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28354" CreationDate="2018-01-08T18:23:13.197" Score="1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do write the Cantonese name below in Chinese? I only know them in the &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ho Ling (first name, I only know the &quot;English phonetic version&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cheung (last name)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18848" LastEditorDisplayName="user18848" LastEditDate="2018-01-09T15:53:31.990" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T17:21:45.343" Title="Names in original Chinese" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28341" CreationDate="2018-01-08T20:50:52.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In case it's Cantonese (which looks like it):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ho Ling - 何玲 / 可玲 (I should add that there are actually multiple words that can be fit into these phonetic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheung - 張 / 蔣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2018-01-08T20:50:52.370" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28343" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28344" CreationDate="2018-01-09T01:59:58.023" Score="1" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is 张东阁 speaking. I think to understand this, I need to understand the mentality of China in the 1970s, but still, &quot;主题先行&quot; puzzles me. &quot;Themes go first&quot;?? What themes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是在上世纪70年代开始剪纸创作。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I started doing paper-cutting last century in the 70s.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;当时收到“主题先行”的创作思潮影响，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;At that time I was influenced by the &quot;big themes come first&quot; creative tide of thought,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一味追求服务于时代，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I only wanted to serve our country at that time,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;抓大题材，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;take up the important themes,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;抓时代气息，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;grasp the Zeitgeist,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因此，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;therefore,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在表现手法上大都抛弃了传统剪纸的影响。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;in my expressive technique I mostly abandoned the influence of traditional paper-cutting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T02:12:58.110" Title="How to interpret 主题先行？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28343" CreationDate="2018-01-09T02:12:58.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E4%B8%BB%E9%A2%98%E5%85%88%E8%A1%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;主题先行&lt;/a&gt;, as you said, it literally means &quot;Themes go first&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, &quot;70年代&quot; is the Cultural Revolution period, I suppose it refers to the situation that before artistic creation, the central theme has been decided by political factors; people has to do the creation accord with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“主题先行”指十年动乱期间，根据政治需要，先确定所谓的“主题”，然后再根据“主题”的要求填进“人物”和“情节”，使“主题”得以表现的一种文学创作方法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T02:12:58.110" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="629" CreationDate="2018-01-09T07:48:06.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;民以食为天mín yǐ shí wéi tiān&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;食 means food, eat Also refers to food and suggested operation production resources required for food, etc &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天 means the sky, and god The most important thing to the survival of metaphor. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The people with food for their own lives, extended to the people life necessities such as food production resources are needed to survive.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T07:48:06.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28346" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-09T08:45:46.833" Score="1" ViewCount="322" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking up chopstick and chop-chop (meaning 'quickly' in English), I find: the original word for 筷子 is 著 pronounced the same as 住, which has a meaning of stop. This was considered unlucky, so 著 was, at some stage, changed to 快 and later 竹 was added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese for 急 is gap1, I believe. Maybe in Cantonese it sounds a bit like chop. Foreigner traders and sailors took 筷子 and made the partial translation chopstick in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do people say 急急 gapgap in Cantonese? Is 急, gap1,  really the origin of chopstick and chop-chop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T22:43:37.273" Title="The origin of the word chopstick" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25967" CreationDate="2018-01-09T09:16:14.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three points why 简谱 prevails in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tonality.&#xA;Most music pieces are tonal music. And 简谱 is essentially a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge#Variations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;movable&amp;quot; do&lt;/a&gt; notation system, which makes it easier for reader, esp. amateur, to grasp the melody.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;History reason.&#xA;In Chinese traditional music, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gongche_notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;工尺谱&lt;/a&gt; is the main notation system, which is comparable to 简谱. 工尺谱 is also a &amp;quot;movable&amp;quot; do notation system.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Culture. (Why 1, 2, 3 not C, D, E)&#xA;Chinese is more familiar which the order of number than the English alphabets. Using Arabic number makes it easier for beginners in China to establish mapping from 1, 2, 3 to do, re, mi and easy to spread and learn. I don't think it has anything to do with the rejection of alphabetic characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of 简谱 was common in &lt;em&gt;Chinese traditional instrument&lt;/em&gt; performance. But now conservatories in China use staff more. Now 简谱 is more common in music score for amateurs (esp. guitar scores, or chorus scores).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18785" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T09:39:09.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28346" CreationDate="2018-01-09T13:10:21.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original character is actually &lt;strong&gt;箸&lt;/strong&gt;, not &lt;strong&gt;著&lt;/strong&gt;. The latter is a derivative character of the former, and the former is not used anymore in Mandarin Chinese as a word for 'chopsticks', but is still used in some other Chinese languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chop-chop#English&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, chop-chop comes from &lt;strong&gt;速速&lt;/strong&gt; (Cantonese &lt;em&gt;cuk1 cuk1&lt;/em&gt;), but it's been too long since that word was invented, and since its earliest usage was probably among pidgin communities in Southeast Asia, which is a melting pot of cultures and languages, its true origin is very unlikely to be convincingly determined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-09T22:43:37.273" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T22:43:37.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28346" CreationDate="2018-01-09T13:28:21.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Do people say 急急 gapgap in Cantonese?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;急急 means &quot;hurriedly&quot; (adv) In Cantonese. It has nothing to do with chopstick&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is 急, gap1, really the origin of chopstick and chop-chop?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, the English term 'chopstick' most likely came from the description of set of 筷子. (筷子 always come set in pair, and a set of chopsticks is like one stick chopped in half in the middle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Chop chop' (quickly) either came from '速速' in Cantonese, as in &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/51395/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;速速磅&lt;/a&gt;&quot;  /&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;cuk1 cuk1&lt;/strong&gt; bong6&lt;/em&gt;/ (hand over the money &lt;strong&gt;quickly!&lt;/strong&gt;) or came from the 'chop chop' sound that people made when cutting food quickly on a cutting board. In either case, it has nothing to do with chopsticks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T13:28:21.070" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28350" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-09T14:29:06.263" Score="2" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder if someone could help me correctly parse the following and explain why it should be parsed that way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然我觉得他是想象不出来的就是了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the speaker saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Though, I think he can't imagine (that)/I think it's unimaginable for him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it more accurate to say;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Though, I think I can't imagine him (like that/doing that etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18856" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T05:07:58.110" Title="Parsing &quot;他是…&quot; in this short sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28350" CreationDate="2018-01-09T14:41:32.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence is quite oral,&#xA;&lt;code&gt;虽然我觉得他是想象不出来的就是了&lt;/code&gt; == &lt;code&gt;虽然我觉得他想象不出来&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;That is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Though, I think he can't imagine (it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;code&gt;Though, I think it is unimaginable for him&lt;/code&gt;, you should say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然我觉得这对他来说是不可想象的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;Though, I think I can't imagine him (like that/doing that etc)&lt;/code&gt; should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然我觉得我无法想象他（是那样的/做了那件事）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastEditorUserId="18612" LastEditDate="2018-01-09T14:48:46.027" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T14:48:46.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28352" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-01-09T17:10:31.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This tag is for questions about the graphical origin and history of Chinese characters, as part of the discipline of Chinese paleography.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's related to, but distinct from, [etymology], which is for sounds and spoken words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to trace the origin of a Chinese character&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the recommend resources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=278&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂字形演變&lt;/a&gt; for pre-Han scripts&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/search_source_inner.html?word=%E7%9F%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中華語文知識庫&lt;/a&gt; for Han dynasty onwards.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A correct general idea of the evolution sequence of a glyph can be found by picking examples in the following order (not all of them need to be present):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shang (商朝)&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;oracle bone script (甲骨文)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Western Zhou (西周)&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bronze inscriptions (金文)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Warring States (戰國)&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bronze inscriptions (金文)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One of the following:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qin (秦朝)&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;slip script (秦系簡牘文字)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)&lt;/a&gt; small seal script (說文小篆), from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Han period (漢朝)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Han period's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;clerical script (隸書)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;regular script (楷書)&lt;/a&gt;, from year 600 CE onwards&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notes for answerers&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please consider that the small seal script 說文小篆 alone might not work for many, many cases as a demonstration of glyph evolution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prefer Qin slip script 秦系簡牘文字 when possible, and fall back on 說文小篆 when the Qin version is not recorded, or when you understand the history behind 說文小篆 and can roughly explain what's going on in those shapes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What about Simplified Chinese?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese can't be taken as evidence of glyph evolution, as it's an artificial stroke reduction effort which came about only in modern times. If your question is about character forms used in Simplified Chinese, please consider tagging it [simplified-chinese] instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T18:57:35.177" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T18:57:35.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28353" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-01-09T17:10:31.037" Score="0" Body="Questions about the graphical origin and evolution of characters. Use [etymology] for the origin and history of Chinese words." OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T18:56:30.530" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T18:56:30.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28341" CreationDate="2018-01-09T17:21:45.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;cheung&quot; is a common cantonese surname, most of the time, it's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;張 (u+5f35), 章 (u+7ae0), or 蔣 (u+8523)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about &quot;ho ling&quot;, there're choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;ho&quot; - 豪, 濠, 浩, 灝, 顥, 好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;ling&quot; - 玲, 凌, 靈, 齡, 翎, 令&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T17:21:45.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28350" CreationDate="2018-01-09T20:23:41.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What did they say before this? Without knowing what came before, my guess is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Despite the fact that&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我觉得&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I think&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他是想象不出来的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;he has no imagination&lt;br&gt;&#xA;就是了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;it is just as you say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T20:23:41.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28356" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28359" CreationDate="2018-01-09T23:11:18.860" Score="1" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this as a comment on a video and I would like to know the meaning of this expression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18860" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T01:30:19.780" Title="What does 这鸡儿啥东西 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28357" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-09T23:39:34.087" Score="1" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;要用两条腿走路&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this saying comes from 周恩来 or is it older? I presume it means 'do 2 things at the same time'. I just think, it's hard to walk anywhere on 1 leg! Maybe it had a deeper meaning in the time of the 大跃进?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: More context: the subject is 剪纸的发展： 我以为可以两条腿走路：一面抓好继承，一面去抓发展。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T08:57:08.293" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T03:06:52.267" Title="What is the meaning of 两条腿走路？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28357" CreationDate="2018-01-10T00:39:47.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;要用两条腿走路&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Metaphorically, it means we should be developing with two aspects and only focusing on one could not go very far. This sentence is used when the developing can be identified as two key aspects. And it won't be used if there are many aspects, because one only has two legs. For example,  我们要用两条腿走路，生产和质量都要做好，...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T00:39:47.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28356" CreationDate="2018-01-10T01:23:16.243" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess the only &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; confusing part here is &lt;strong&gt;鸡儿&lt;/strong&gt;, the other parts are quite self-explanatory:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这 = this&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;啥 = what&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;东西 = thing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;鸡儿&lt;/strong&gt; is a curse word from Southwest Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an entry from 《四川方言词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;词语: 鸡儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发音: ji1 er2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;定义: (名) ①雏鸡。②&amp;lt;粗&amp;gt;男阴，骂人语，有的地方只有此义 ▷啊哟!你才香喃?比五香狗肉还香!只默到想巴结你么?哼，一条臭～! (山259)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's essentially the same as 鸡巴 (cock) and is used almost in the exact same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side-note: although the given pronunciation is ji1 er2 - you're more likely to hear it as a single syllable jier1 and even juer1 in some locales.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 这鸡儿啥东西 basically means: &lt;em&gt;wtf is this thing?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T01:30:19.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25967" CreationDate="2018-01-10T02:36:45.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Agree with Moods and YCode. But I think there is also a technical reason, printing staff(五线谱) is much harder before modern printing technology developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18844" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T02:36:45.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28361" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29782" CreationDate="2018-01-10T02:40:16.683" Score="1" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;《现代汉语大词典》defines 凉薯 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;方言。即豆薯。有的地方也叫地瓜。藤本植物, 花色浅蓝或白色, 结荚, 种子有毒, 块根像甘薯, 可食。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was the 方言 part that threw me off here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%87%89%E8%96%AF/6491956?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt; just calls it a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别称&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other resources also just say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;又名&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I figured 凉薯 was just MSM but apparently it isn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What dialect/topolect is 凉薯 a part of? (if not Modern Standard Mandarin.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T17:57:11.670" Title="What dialect/topolect is 凉薯 a part of?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28350" CreationDate="2018-01-10T05:07:58.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, if no more context provided, then this sentence could be interpreted in two different ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他是想象不出来的&quot;means that he is the person that you can not imagine [what he looks like, or what he would do, etc]. If the speaker are talking about someone that at least one of the speakers never met, then this part might have this meaning, and a clearer way to say is &quot;虽然我觉得你想象不出来他[会做这种事|长什么样子]就是了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他是想象不出来的&quot;==&gt; &quot;他想象不出来XXX&quot;, i.e., you think that he can not imagine certain objects or events. This might occur in the scenario that both speakers are familiar with this man &quot;he&quot;. A better way to express is &quot;虽然我觉得他想象不出来就是了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of them are possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T05:07:58.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21091" CreationDate="2018-01-10T07:17:57.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;署 = has something orderly on top 罒网 (a net) + Pictograph 者 burning tree from which ink soot is collected) and mouth-speaking-yue 曰 (- ink is used to write what is said)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;署 originally it meant &quot;officials&quot; maybe because all they did was to write down in ordely fashion or weaving Zi as a net. To arrange letters on the paper, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 糬 - I GUESS it means &quot;arranged rice&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T07:17:57.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28364" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-10T09:03:02.947" Score="2" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;（So many questions lately, sorry. Saturday I go on holiday!）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A gatecrasher is a person who turns up uninvited at a party or function. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉语说：不速之客&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;速： speed&#xA;不速之客: no speed guest = gatecrasher ??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T08:08:53.750" Title="How does 速 come to mean invite?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28364" CreationDate="2018-01-10T09:22:58.320" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;多功能成语词典 explains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;解释 速:邀请｡指未经邀请而突然自己来的客人｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and also gives the note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;提示 “速&amp;quot;不要解释成“速度&amp;quot;或“迅速&amp;quot;｡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese&lt;/em&gt; also notes that 速 has the meanings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 lead to, induce to; beckon toward; invite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt; also notes this meaning, with many examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 召, 请。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《诗·小雅·伐木》&#xA;既有肥羜, 以速諸父。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;郑玄 笺&#xA;速, 召也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《文选·张衡〈思玄赋〉》&#xA;速燭龍令執炬兮, 過 鍾山 而中休。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;旧注&#xA;速, 徵也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清 顾禄 《清嘉录·冬至大如年》&#xA;是夜, 人家更速燕飲, 謂之節酒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杨树达 《〈凌虚岛〉小说序》&#xA;近者得君札, 速余序君書。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s not that 速 came to mean &lt;em&gt;invite&lt;/em&gt; - but rather that it meant this as early as &lt;em&gt;I Ching&lt;/em&gt;, which came out roughly 1100 BC - over three thousand years ago:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《周易·需》:“有不速之客三人来｡&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T08:08:53.750" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28366" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28382" CreationDate="2018-01-10T20:19:46.920" Score="2" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I want to practice writing Chinese couplet poetry. I have been reading about the character count matching in each line, with parallel meanings, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, my question is, are there limits to what characters can be combined in couplets to be understandable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I tried writing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;明月&#xA;明思&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;明月&#xA;明脑&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is supposed to translate to &quot;Bright moon, Bright mind&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would these character combos be allowed? Are there any limits?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18865" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T20:46:53.030" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T20:46:53.030" Title="What rules are there for combining characters in couplets? (对联)" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28367" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28369" CreationDate="2018-01-10T21:58:05.307" Score="1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What are the meanings of &lt;em&gt;BS&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;BH&lt;/em&gt; as seen in the screenshot below?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/91XcU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/91XcU.png&quot; alt=&quot;example of BS and BH used in 现代汉语词典&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2287" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T23:57:49.100" Title="What do &quot;BS&quot; and &quot;BH&quot; mean in the 现代汉语词典?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12611" CreationDate="2018-01-10T22:31:49.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this link to a bunch of StarDict dictionaries: &lt;a href=&quot;http://download.huzheng.org/zh_CN/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://download.huzheng.org/zh_CN/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can convert these to text files in linux using &lt;code&gt;sudo apt install stardict-tools&lt;/code&gt; and then run &lt;code&gt;stardict-editor&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2287" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T22:31:49.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28367" CreationDate="2018-01-10T23:57:49.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I originally thought my guess was just a wild stab, but after checking the 现代汉语词典 website, it didn't look as wild as I had thought.&#xA;I think BS stands for &quot;bu shou&quot; (radical), and BH stands for &quot;bi hua&quot; (strokes). In your example, 你·has five strokes, not counting the two in the radical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please check other entries to verify this. If my guess is correct, 她 should read: BS:女  BH:3 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T23:57:49.100" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28370" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28383" CreationDate="2018-01-11T01:15:09.483" Score="1" ViewCount="2046" Body="&lt;p&gt;I simply want to know why Chinese names from Mainland China  are only two words (they can be 2 or 3 syllables) when written in their romanised or pinyin form). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile almost all Hong Kong names I have come across are 3 words (and obviously  3 syllables).In other words I have not come across a Hong Kong citizen with a two syllable name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a cultural reason for this? Did Mainland Chinese names used to be 3 syllables long before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T06:10:39.213" Title="2 word (Mainland) versus 3 word (Hong Kong) Chinese names" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28371" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28375" CreationDate="2018-01-11T07:54:13.700" Score="2" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching a Taiwanese's drama. In the beginning of the first scene the young women was laughing and saying 对不起嘛. I know that 对不起 mean sorry. I heard of 嘛 being used in 在干嘛. I am learning mandarin and I'm just wondering if it is only used in Taiwanese dialect. If not， does the meaning change？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17799" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T12:32:39.733" Title="In the simplest way what's the difference between 对不起 and 对不起嘛?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28373" CreationDate="2018-01-11T08:30:11.003" Score="0" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can see that it have an equal number of strokes above and below the yi stroke not part of the blood radical.  I am not sure of what this character is..I mean..I know 高兴, that is the closest that I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you would like read at where this question a rose from, you are invited for a reading.  haha.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恰合&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;叶 部 让 拟 囡 过  烨 补 让 袮 囝 过 也 不 让 倪 难 国。&#xA;伙 的 保 护 神 真 格 潨 聚 合 和 合 力 合 合 理 威 容 故 亦 变 奕 闻 达 的 问 答。&#xA;圈 圏 变 変 合 圆 也。&#xA;尔 过。&#xA;翼 加 医 家 一 家 怡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T01:30:10.207" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T01:30:10.207" Title="Determining what the meaning of part of a character '益' is" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28372" CreationDate="2018-01-11T09:31:10.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Outlier&lt;/strong&gt; gives the following definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FORM&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;益 depicts a bowl (皿) with water (&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fInno.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fInno.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;) flowing out of it, representing the original meaning “abundant, more than enough.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a reference to page 147 of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;裘錫圭，1991《文字學概要(再版)》，臺北市：萬卷樓，2006年2月再版8刷。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It then continues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COMPONENTS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fInno.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fInno.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 益, &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fInno.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fInno.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  “flowing water” is a form component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;皿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 益, 皿 “bowl” is a form component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original forms looked something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QQn1L.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QQn1L.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It goes to show that the entire thing was originally the &lt;em&gt;meaning&lt;/em&gt; part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T09:36:15.337" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28331" CreationDate="2018-01-11T09:46:44.810" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to some researches there is a declination effect (pitch lowering) in Mandarin Chinese. Fundamental frequency (F0) of a speach is decreasing as a speach goes on, with greater downsteps of pitch at the beginning of phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In sequence of first tones, e.g. &quot;老王蒸冬瓜&quot; (...zhēng dōngguā) the first syllable [zhēng] has higher pitch then the last one [guā] in native speakers' speach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;From &quot;Declination in Mandarin&quot; (Chilin Shih)&lt;br&gt;Bell Labs – Lucent Technologies, 1997&lt;/h3&gt; &#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://faculty.las.illinois.edu/Cls/Paper/declination.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This study&lt;/a&gt; shows overall lowering of pitch from start of the sentence to its ending. The sentence that was used (in some variations) is &quot;老王蒸冬瓜&quot; [Lǎo Wáng zhēng dōngguā] (so you can see here several first tones in a sequence)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were four speakers: two females and two males, two from northern China and two from Taiwan). And &lt;strong&gt;all fourspeakers show a clear decline in tone 1 pitch values&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This figure shows F0 (tone 1) declination for different speakers (B, C, D) on different sentences (solid and dotted lines):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PNBre.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PNBre.png&quot; alt=&quot;declination of pitch, different speakers, LHHHH pattern&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;From &quot;Downstep and Pitch Range of High-Low Tones in Chinese&quot; (Maolin Wang and Wei Xiong)&lt;br&gt;International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 2015&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4090/2378172e7abcf3446075bb2dc17e20e10b14.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This study&lt;/a&gt; uses only sequences of HL tones (High and Low tones, only tone 1 and tone 3 used), the patterns are &lt;em&gt;HLHL, HLHLHL, ...&lt;/em&gt; And the authors also come to the result that there is a prominent gradual lowering of H tones strongly resembling downstep throughout the utterances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lCNJl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lCNJl.png&quot; alt=&quot;Decreasing of pith in HLHLHLHLHL pattern&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;To answer your question&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you (or children in China) study Chinese, intonation is supposed to be perfect (but the world in not perfect). So you study &lt;em&gt;&quot;how it should be&quot;&lt;/em&gt; (5555555* - tone 1 pitch level) and later it is turning to &lt;em&gt;&quot;speak as everybody does&quot;&lt;/em&gt; (5443333...** - tone 1 pitch level)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;* &lt;em&gt;five-bar scale of pitches is used here, going from lowest (1), to highest (5)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** &lt;em&gt;scale is not correct, just to show declination of the first tone!!! Five-bar scale is not enough to show correct declination, see pics for correct scale&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2018-01-16T07:57:51.670" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T07:57:51.670" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28371" CreationDate="2018-01-11T12:32:39.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 嘛 here has actually no real meaning but just a modal particle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese culture, there is a word 撒娇, which is not easy to find the direct translation in English. This happens mainly on girls, who would like to act like tender and sensitive to some intimate friends or partners. With 嘛 the young woman could transfer this additional meaning to others. If a boy act like this, he would be said girlish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is widely used not only in Taiwanese dialect, but also in other dialects from mainland. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9540" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T12:32:39.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28331" CreationDate="2018-01-11T19:34:53.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be “theory versus practice”. I noticed this happening after a year or so of learning Chinese, mostly self-study. AFAIK it's quite common in everyday normal speech. I remember a textbook with an audio CD where the speaker very clearly put the 鲜 in 新鲜 about a tone lower than the 新 (here by &quot;tone&quot; I mean &quot;a whole tone; the sum of two semitones&quot; in the sense of Western classical music).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many optional tone change rules in Mandarin: in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hackingchinese.com/optional-obligatory-tone-change-rules-mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog post&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Olle Linge describes a few but he doesn't mention this particular case (of successive first tones). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like this example he gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When several second tones appear in a row, the middle one (and sometimes also the first one if speech is very fast) turns into flat, high tones. For example, my name ought to be líng (35) yún (35) lóng (35), but turns into líng (35) yún (55) lóng (35).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that this case (successive first tones pronounced lower than the first first tone) is a good example of such an optional tone change rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T19:34:53.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28377" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28379" CreationDate="2018-01-12T02:13:36.593" Score="2" ViewCount="416" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22youdian%22_and_%22yidian%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Language grammar wiki&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Used with Nouns&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一点 (yīdiǎn) can be placed before a noun to mean &amp;quot;small quantity,&amp;quot; like 一点水，一点钱 while 有点 (yǒudiǎn) can't be used this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Used with Adjectives&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有点 (also 有点儿) is placed before an adjective, and it usually expresses something that the speaker doesn't want or his own negative feelings about something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一点 (also 一点儿) cannot be placed before an adjective. Instead, it is placed after adjectives. The adjectives that can be used are particularly limited. 一点 is often used when comparing, or expressing speaker’s wish or expectation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, how can you use these words when you want to use it on verbs? For example, in order to add &lt;em&gt;a little&lt;/em&gt; to the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我会说汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is the correct adverb and in what position should it be placed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T08:14:42.347" Title="How can I use 有点 or 一点 to add &quot;a little&quot; to a verb?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28377" CreationDate="2018-01-12T02:28:33.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If asked&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你会说汉语吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the positive side, you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;会一点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我会一点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我会说一点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我会说一点汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the negative side, you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(我)一点也不会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These mean you know nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T02:28:33.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28377" CreationDate="2018-01-12T02:48:01.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to say some action &quot;a little bit&quot;, you can put &quot;一点儿&quot; or &quot;点儿&quot; after a verb. In your case, you may say: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我会说(一)点汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/yi-dianr-placement/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for other examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T02:48:01.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28331" CreationDate="2018-01-12T04:12:48.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are two examples of sentences made up of first tone characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;今天吃蒸包（子）。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;今天喝高汤。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read out loud examples in 1st tones (like a TV announcer) without sounding weird at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With native speakers, things don't follow strict rules. For example, a Beijing &lt;em&gt;native&lt;/em&gt; might add an &quot;er&quot; here and there or drag out a particular sound so that he/she would not sound monotone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are learning the language, learn it whichever way you can--mimic your teacher or follow a recording. As you get deeper into the language, especially once you have spent some time among native speakers, you will naturally figure these things out--and depending on which part of China you are, you may figure things out quite differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T04:12:48.743" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28366" CreationDate="2018-01-12T04:34:15.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you familiar with Shakespearean sonnets--specifically, the couplets in the sonnets? You know how the couplets use a matching meter (iambic pentameter), have the same number of syllables, have compatible/matching imagery, and rhyme? That's more or less how the Chinese 对联 works (plus the middle 联).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that, no rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some 对联 writers write great couplets which become classics and get copied widely. Some may not be great, but they get posted nonetheless (for all sorts of reasons). That is true of sonnets as well--after all, there is only one Shakespeare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I say: Go to town with it. Have a blast. If you write enough 对联, you are bound to come up with some good ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastEditorUserId="18531" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T16:59:29.453" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T16:59:29.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28370" CreationDate="2018-01-12T06:15:15.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese names are made up of &quot;characters&quot;, not &quot;words&quot;, and pinyin is a way to represent the pronunciation of those characters. Romanized names from Mainland China are written in such a way that the Family name is separated from the Given name by a space. The given name, no matter how many characters it's made up of, is spelled as one unit. The reason is that in the PRC, there are officially approved rules and guidelines regarding the writing of pinyin. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pinyin.info/readings/zyg/rules.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.pinyin.info/readings/zyg/rules.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Scroll down to section 2.3 for an answer to your specific question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no such guidelines for Hong Kong, so people tend to transliterate in the most convenient and logical way to them. In most cases, this would be one character at a time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a convention for orthography, and has little to do with culture. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also understand that whether you write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chan Tai Man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chan TaiMan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chan Taiman&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chan Tai-Man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chan Tai-man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chen Dawen, or a myriad of other spellings, they are but different ways to represent the sounds of the same Chinese name 陳大文.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T06:15:15.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28384" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-12T08:08:48.497" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are lots of synonims in Chinese for &amp;quot;evaluate, estimate&amp;quot;, so my question is: what is the best match for &amp;quot;evaluate/estimate time needed for something&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to estimate how long it will take me to prepare for examination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要 [评定] 准备好去应考需要多少时间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE (15.01.2018)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Till now there are four answers and comments and all of them give different versions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;@Diaph - &lt;strong&gt;估计 or 评估&lt;/strong&gt; (我想要[评估]准备应考需要多少时间?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;@user6065 - &lt;strong&gt;计算、估算，琢磨&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;@Pedroski - &lt;strong&gt;预测&lt;/strong&gt; (我想预测准备这场考试要多长时间。)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;@dan - &lt;strong&gt;预估&lt;/strong&gt; (我想预估一下我要花多长时间来备考。)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So please provide some prove or explanation why this translation is used in your answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE (some examples from internet; English translation is mine):&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;估计 [gūjì]&lt;/strong&gt; is mostly used as a noun:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;时间估计&lt;/strong&gt;能准确一些 &lt;em&gt;(Time estimation could be more precise)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;估计&lt;/strong&gt;备份处理&lt;strong&gt;时间&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;(Estimate backup processing time)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;正在&lt;strong&gt;估计时间&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;(Estimating time...)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T07:26:25.047" Title="How to translate &quot;evaluate, estimate&quot; [time for smt.]?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28377" CreationDate="2018-01-12T08:14:42.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, &quot;我会一点&quot; here means &quot;我会一点汉语&quot;, so it's also the way &quot;placed before a noun&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, &quot;有点&quot; sometimes could means &quot;have a little&quot;, so, in fact, you can say &quot;有点钱&quot; or &quot;有点水&quot; if you mean you have some money or water. You can judge it as a short form of &quot;有一点&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18844" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T08:14:42.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28366" CreationDate="2018-01-12T08:14:55.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you combining characters, you have to ensure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Others know what you are talking about&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it is a rare words, you can give source(典故, 化用) to proof you did not invent it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 明思, most people don't know the meaning, but if one can find the usage in books, the word still make sense, otherwise, you are inventing words, that is not a good writings, in ancient national test, that is fail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T08:23:11.570" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T08:23:11.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28366" CreationDate="2018-01-12T10:07:56.907" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general rule is simple, you just need to make sure the type of characters in same position be the same. But in good couplets characters need to be filtered carefully to make it poetic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;明月&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;清风&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“明” and “清” here are all adjectives, “月” and “风” are all nouns，so this couplets have a correct format. Also the characters are beautiful, too. They together create a scene of lonely night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;see this example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;海阔凭鱼跃&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;天高任鸟飞&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;海-sea， 天-sky; 阔-board，高-high; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凭 and 任 here are all acts as verb, means let someone do something freely. But &#xA;do what? do 跃-jump and 飞-fly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;| sea | is board | allows | fish | jump |&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;| sky | is high  | lets   | birds| fly  |&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it implies the world is large allow me do something great! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another interesting one, hope you like it :) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;海水朝朝朝朝朝朝朝落&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;浮云长长长长长长长消&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know you want to cruse now, but actually it is pretty neat!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets decompose it. This couplets is written by ancient people, and they were allowed to write wrong words! Which is knew as 通假字. you can use character with same pronunciation to replace another one. Not sure why, maybe that time it is hard to learn every characters? Anyway, here 朝 actually has two pronunciation and three meanings, holy crab!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;朝(chao2) replace 潮(chao2), means tide.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;朝(zhao1) just means day, and you can think it as 天.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;朝(zhao1) means daytime.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also 长 here has several meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;长(zhang2) replace 张(zhang2), means rise&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;长（chang2）replace 常(chang2), means often &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;长(chang2) replace 常(chang2), means long period.&#xA;// yes, the meaning of 长 didn't be used! I guess it just because 长 is simpler.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But even when know the meaning of characters, we still don't know which one means what. What should we suppose to do??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can separate the sentence in to pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;海水朝 朝朝朝 朝朝朝落&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;浮云长 长长长 长长长消&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;read as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;hai2  shui3  chao2  zhao1  zhao1  chao2  zhao1  chao2  zhao1  luo4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;fu2   yun2   zhang3 chang2 chang2 zhang3 chang2 zhang3 chang2 xiao1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then replace them with original characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;海水潮 朝朝朝 朝潮朝落&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;浮云涨 常常涨 常涨常消&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now the meaning is much easier to grab.&#xA;PS: there are tons of other way to separate, but I just make one example here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;海-sea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水-water --&gt; 海水-sea.&#xA;//just for simplicity. 海 here suppose to be an adjective to describe a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;潮-tide. here used as verb means high-tide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朝-daytime&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朝-day&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;潮-tide, also used as verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朝-day, here means everyday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;潮-tide, used as verb again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朝-day, means everyday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落-down, here used as means low-tide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浮-flowing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;云-cloud --&gt; 浮云-could  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;涨-rise， here means spreading&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常-long period&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常-often &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;涨-rise, means spreading here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常-often&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;涨-rise， means spreading here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常-often&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;消-disappear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So translate in English is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;| sea | rise tide | everyday | daytime | rise tide | everyday | rise | everyday |fall&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;| cloud | spread | in long period | often | spread | often | spread | often | disappear&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In human language is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Sea tides up, tides up daytime everyday. tides up everyday, tides down every day.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;cloud spread, spread quite often all the time. spread often, disappear often.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18876" LastEditorUserId="18876" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T10:21:59.653" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T10:21:59.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28389" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28390" CreationDate="2018-01-12T14:38:28.220" Score="0" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;At university, she studied biology.&quot;, correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far I've learned that location goes after the subject, but I've seen this construct twice now. The other time it was in a sentence that was translated (not by me) to &quot;We are not allowed to eat inside the subway&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;inside the subway&quot; bit was again at the front of the sentence. It's not really any harder for me to read, but if I was asked write this sentence I'd probably forget and put the location after the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the 在...里 construct lead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16905" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T15:22:00.820" Title="Why is 在...里 in the front of 在大学里她学习了生物?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28389" CreationDate="2018-01-12T15:22:00.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming your question is about the placement of 她, either way is fine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她在大学学习了生物 (she studied biology at university)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在大学她学习了生物 (at university, she studied biology)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter has somewhat more focus on it happening &lt;em&gt;at university&lt;/em&gt;, but in this sentence it doesn't make much of a difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This basically goes for all kinds of situations, not just explicit 在, for example &quot;我今天要去中学&quot; and &quot;今天我要去中学&quot; are both equally valid, but the latter has more focus on the time at which the action will occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4709" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T15:22:00.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28361" CreationDate="2018-01-12T15:56:08.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my knowledge, 凉薯 is part of Modern Standard Mandarin.&#xA;As far as I know people in 陕西(Shaanxi)、贵州(Guizhou) call it 地瓜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13831" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T15:56:08.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28392" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-12T18:13:36.643" Score="2" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the best words that approximate the meaning of &quot;cynical&quot; closest? The traditional &quot;憤世嫉俗&quot; sounds not quite to-the-point; &quot;憤世嫉俗&quot; can be attached a positive meaning that describes the character of an upright man. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5952" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T16:28:05.280" Title="Best words in Chinese characterizing &quot;cynical&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28392" CreationDate="2018-01-12T18:53:34.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尖酸 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/57853/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/57853/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;acrid; acrimonious; tart; &lt;strong&gt;sarcastic&lt;/strong&gt;; mordant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尖= sharp (tongue); 酸= sour (tone). It is how '&lt;strong&gt;cynical&lt;/strong&gt;' feels like. A '尖酸' person is a 'cynical' person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尖酸刻薄 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/16522/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/16522/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sharp and unkind (words)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also be used as an adjective to describe a personality&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T19:09:17.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28384" CreationDate="2018-01-12T23:43:52.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to estimate how long it will take me to prepare for the examination.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我想预测准备这场考试要多长时间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T23:43:52.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28395" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28396" CreationDate="2018-01-12T23:59:38.557" Score="0" ViewCount="1051" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's start with an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你是学生吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 不是，我是老师。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C: I thought you are student!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;Note that C is a different person from A.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, how can I say &amp;quot;I thought...&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know in Mandarin, you usually use an adverb or an adverbial phrase to express the past tense (e.g. 以前), but in this case, I don't know how I should express the past tense. At least I feel it is awkward to say 以前我认为你是学生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe I should add 过 to say 我认为过你是学生, but I'm not sure and still feel a bit awkward...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I say 我认为你是学生, I feel like the person C thinks the person B is lying and is actually a student. This may lead to the misunderstanding, I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how should I express the past tense in these cases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T06:37:58.517" Title="How to say &quot;I thought you are...&quot; to a response?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28395" CreationDate="2018-01-13T00:23:30.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is &quot;我还以为你是学生&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认为 (consider; think) can be in any tense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but 以为 already mean &quot;(previously) thought&quot;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/815/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;还&lt;/a&gt; is a common adverb with many meanings. In this case, it means 'even'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还以为 = '(even) thought'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T00:23:30.763" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28392" CreationDate="2018-01-13T01:39:32.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;犬儒&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cynic (esp. as Greek philosophical school)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;strong&gt;汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原指古 希腊 犬儒学派的哲学家。他们提出绝对的个人精神自由, 轻视一切社会虚套、习俗和文化规范, 过着禁欲的简陋生活, 被当时人讥为穷犬, 故称。后亦泛指具有这些特点的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s an example of usage by 鲁迅 from &lt;em&gt;Miscellaneous Thoughts&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《小杂感》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蜜蜂的刺, 一用即丧失了它自己的生命；犬儒的刺, 一用则苟延了他自己的生命。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which translates to something roughly like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sting of a bee, once used terminates his life; the sting of a cynic, on the other hand, is able to prolong his existence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=uuczDwAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA208&amp;amp;lpg=PA208&amp;amp;dq=Once%20a%20bee%20uses%20its%20sting,%20it%20loses%20its%20life%20immediately.%20Once%20a%20cynic%20uses%20his%20sting,%20he%20drags%20out%20his%20life%20momentarily.&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=vpA7j2RlPc&amp;amp;sig=Lg5sq0u1esvH_YaGe3UyxW4FEK4&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjsmO7w69PYAhXJtI8KHfV-AJAQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=Once%20a%20bee%20uses%20its%20sting%2C%20it%20loses%20its%20life%20immediately.%20Once%20a%20cynic%20uses%20his%20sting%2C%20he%20drags%20out%20his%20life%20momentarily.&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Eileen J. Cheng's&lt;/a&gt; translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once a bee uses its sting, it loses its life immediately. Once a cynic uses his sting, he drags out his life momentarily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is good enough for Mr. Lu Xun then it should be good enough for anyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T02:01:50.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28395" CreationDate="2018-01-13T03:29:43.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need the subjunctive 'were' for this sentence in English, because the apparent state is not real, or you would not have said this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought you were a student.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我本来以为你是个学生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T03:29:43.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28399" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-13T03:30:03.513" Score="1" ViewCount="436" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my understanding, &quot;biáng&quot; is not a sound that exists in Mandarin, though there's some argument on the hypothetical phonological possibility of such &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5172/is-biang-a-phonologically-possible-syllable-in-mandarin-chinese&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. One might assume therefore that it is a character either unique to or else created within Shaanxi dialect (given the alleged origins of the word). If such a character is read by a speaker of another dialect, how would it be pronounced? How might, say, a Cantonese-speaker or Hokkien-speaker read it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16284" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T04:43:05.610" Title="How is &quot;biang&quot; as in &quot;biáng biáng miàn&quot; pronounced in other dialects?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28392" CreationDate="2018-01-13T04:37:49.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;玩世不恭 could be the one that  comes to my mind. It has a similar meaning as 愤世嫉俗, which is cynicism or be cynical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T04:37:49.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28384" CreationDate="2018-01-13T04:47:09.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I want to estimate how long it will take me to prepare for examination&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, I will use 预估. &#xA;我想预估一下我要花多长时间来备考。 备考 is short for 准备考试.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T04:47:09.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27518" CreationDate="2018-01-13T06:31:30.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;今天是我XX的日子. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天是我大喜的日子 (for wedding).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天是我的幸运日. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T06:31:30.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28395" CreationDate="2018-01-13T06:37:58.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idiomatic ways in this situation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我(还)以为你是学生呢！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;之前，我还以为你是学生呢！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还 can be omitted. If you want to put an exclamation mark at the end, you'd better add 呢. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T06:37:58.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28406" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28435" CreationDate="2018-01-13T17:28:35.137" Score="1" ViewCount="4639" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for an equivalent of &quot;Thank you for your attention&quot;, to be said/shown at the end of a conference presentation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 感谢您的关注 adequate in this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16280" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T05:28:14.273" Title="Translation of &quot;Thank you for your attention&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28407" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28412" CreationDate="2018-01-13T19:05:39.597" Score="0" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Master_Race&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Master_Race&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surely a meme like this would find its way into eastern culture one way or the other.  I've only seen a reddit user with this attempt: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/27xix4/spreading_the_word_of_the_master_race_to_other/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/27xix4/spreading_the_word_of_the_master_race_to_other/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T09:23:08.820" Title="How does one translate expressions like &quot;PC Master Race&quot; or &quot;Ultrawide master race&quot; into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28408" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28416" CreationDate="2018-01-14T00:39:22.703" Score="0" ViewCount="1083" Body="&lt;p&gt;毕竟, 究竟, 到底, 终究, and 总归 - these words mean &quot;after all&quot; in Chinese. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;毕竟&lt;/strong&gt;我每次去巴黎，从来没有感到任何不适，有的只是满满的幸福感。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I wonder whether there is any difference between these words. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9497/what-is-the-difference-between-%E7%A9%B6%E7%AB%9F-and-%E5%88%B0%E5%BA%95&quot;&gt;the question and answers here&lt;/a&gt;, you can get to know the difference between 究竟 and 到底, but how about the other words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, can I just replace the 毕竟 with one of the other words it the example sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T08:06:56.470" Title="What is the difference between 毕竟, 究竟, 到底, 终究, and 总归?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28408" CreationDate="2018-01-14T02:35:33.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only real answer to this is reading a stack of Chinese texts and picking it up by osmosis. It's a gut-feel thing. But there are at least two cheats you can use to build intuition fast. Check out the raw frequency on google ngram viewer (to look at all your terms at once, make sure you're typing English commas as separators not Chinese ones). Two interesting things there: 终究 and 终归 are dramatically rarer than the other three, so they're probably formal or jargon-y. Worth avoiding unless you have extra special motivation. Also 到底 spikes massively from the 60's to the 80's. Sometimes google ngrams spike for no reason at all, or butterflies-flapping-their-wings-in-brazil reasons, but also, things that spike like that over that time period are often anti-pretentious earthy language of the 老百姓. （See also 革命，前进， and the spectacular crash in the frequency of 之... these can't all be brazil butterflies, right?)&#xA;A better way is to check out usage-in-context, ichacha.net has a good collection of these, there are plenty of other good sources. From their example lists you can see things like the way 究竟 appears very often in rhetorical questions, where 毕竟 is much more associated with statements.&#xA;&quot;You're my mistress, not my wife&quot; feels very different from &quot;However did you get here without a car?&quot;, although they're both sort of in the &quot;after all&quot; zone, the first is much more typical of 毕竟 and the second is much more typical of 究竟. Check out the full lists on ichacha and see for yourself!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18891" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T02:35:33.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28408" CreationDate="2018-01-14T02:48:56.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of them are synonyms. Refer to below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毕竟: after all;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;究竟, 到底: on earth &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;终究, 总归: eventually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, if you  replace with other words, the meaning would change or it doesn't make sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T02:48:56.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28407" CreationDate="2018-01-14T04:24:11.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Master_Race&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the term is used by PC enthusiasts both to describe themselves as a&#xA;  group, as well as their belief in the superiority of the PC platform&#xA;  in comparison to consoles, often citing features like more advanced&#xA;  graphics, smoother framerates, free online play, backwards&#xA;  compatibility, modifications, upgradability, customization, lower&#xA;  cost-over-time, open standards, multitasking, and performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I have to mention two words that is related to this term in Chinese culture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;鄙视链 a chain of contempt&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;优越感 superiority&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Naturally, &lt;code&gt;PC Master Race&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;PC优等民族&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Glorious PC Gaming Master Race&lt;/code&gt; can be directly translated to &lt;code&gt;高贵的PC玩家&lt;/code&gt;, which is often seen among Chinese gamers, and is less &quot;racism&quot;. To &lt;code&gt;Ultrawide master race&lt;/code&gt; you can say &lt;code&gt;高贵的超宽屏用户&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastEditorUserId="18612" LastEditDate="2018-01-14T04:46:34.267" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T04:46:34.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28406" CreationDate="2018-01-14T04:30:29.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;谢谢您的关注\感谢您的关注&lt;/code&gt; is adequate, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;however if there are many people attending the conference, you can also say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;谢谢 大家\各位\你们\ 的关注&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm too confused why you have to say this at the end of a presentation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T04:30:29.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28399" CreationDate="2018-01-14T04:39:59.420" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think we don't need to consider its pronunciation in other dialects, because this character Biáng doesn't even exist in the formal Chinese, it is brand new to people from other regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;入乡随俗 Do in Rome as Rome does &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As &lt;code&gt;Biángbiáng miàn&lt;/code&gt; is a Shaanxi speciality, it took its name from the sound made in the production, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/biangbiang%E9%9D%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for details, in my view it doesn't matter where you come from, you should be interested in learning their culture and history&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18612" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T04:39:59.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28406" CreationDate="2018-01-14T04:48:34.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;关注&quot; and &quot;注意&quot; do means attention, but 感谢各位(的)聆听 will do better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;聆听&quot; has the meaning of &quot;listening to&quot; (paying attention to) to music or lectures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's just different expressions between languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18893" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T04:48:34.693" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28408" CreationDate="2018-01-14T05:55:35.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting, all of them can be translated as &quot;After all&quot;. That shows how general the term &quot;After all&quot; can be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;毕 = finish; end &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;竟 = state; situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;毕竟 = situation in the end = &lt;strong&gt;After all&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;In the end&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e.g. &quot;&lt;strong&gt;毕竟&lt;/strong&gt;你是我的朋友, 我不会要你支付租金的&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;In the end&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;After all&lt;/strong&gt;, you are my friend, I will not ask you to pay rent)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;究 = trace back ; exam the reason&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;竟 = state; situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;究竟 = exam the reason for a state to exist = &lt;strong&gt;Exactly&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;After all&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e.g. &quot;你要我付租金, &lt;strong&gt;究竟&lt;/strong&gt;我们是不是朋友? &quot;(You want me to pay rent, are we friends or not &lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;after all&lt;/strong&gt;?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;到 = to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;底 = bottom ; end&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;到底 = &lt;strong&gt;In the end&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;after all&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;你要我付租金, &lt;strong&gt;到底&lt;/strong&gt;我们是不是我朋友? &quot;(You want me to pay rent, are we friends or not &lt;strong&gt;in the end&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;after all&lt;/strong&gt;?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;终= end&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;究 = trace back ; exam the reason&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;终究 = exam the reason for thing end up at this state = &lt;strong&gt;Eventually&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;After all&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e.g. &quot;你&lt;strong&gt;终究&lt;/strong&gt;是我的朋友, 我不会要你支付租金的&quot; (You, &lt;strong&gt;in the end&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;after all&lt;/strong&gt;, are my friend, I will not ask you to pay rent)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e.g. &quot;不管我们是不是朋友，租金&lt;strong&gt;终究&lt;/strong&gt;是要付的&quot; (No matter we are friends or not, rent needed to be paid &lt;strong&gt;eventually&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;after all&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;终 = sum up/ end&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;归 = end up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;终归= in the end; eventually  = &lt;strong&gt;After all&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e.g. &quot;你&lt;strong&gt;终归&lt;/strong&gt;是我的朋友, 我不会要你支付租金的&quot; (You, &lt;strong&gt;in the end&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;after all&lt;/strong&gt;, are my friend, I will not ask you to pay rent)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e.g. &quot;不管我们是不是朋友，租金&lt;strong&gt;终归&lt;/strong&gt;是要付的&quot; (No matter we are friends or not, rent needed to be paid &lt;strong&gt;eventually&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;after all&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总归(sum up in the end)= 终归&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-14T06:10:49.647" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T06:10:49.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28419" CreationDate="2018-01-14T07:26:16.173" Score="1" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi, I just watched a street interview where girls are asked &quot;when is a man most useful?&quot; 男人什么时候最有用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a response that I don't understand: 暖被窝吧 暖被窝最有用 . 就是那种又泡又回吃的那种&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me clarify it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T17:42:55.787" Title="How to translate this conversation? 就是那种又泡又回吃的那种" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28408" CreationDate="2018-01-14T08:06:56.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, they are different type of words, can not be replaced by each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毕竟 after all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;究竟 indeed,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到底 finally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;终究 at the end&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总归 above all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以, 这些词究竟有什么区别呢? 我解释不清楚, 毕竟我英文不咋地, 不过, 随着你阅读量的增加, 你终究还是会明白的, 总归就是熟能生巧而已, 我这样的答案到底行不行呢?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T08:06:56.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28417" CreationDate="2018-01-14T08:42:01.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;哈哈，这是一个玩笑。原文应该是“暖被窝吧 暖被窝最有用就是那种又胖又会吃的那种”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12470" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T08:42:01.500" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28417" CreationDate="2018-01-14T15:06:21.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;As a quilt, they're most useful as a quilt. So most the useful is a nice fat one who can eat a lot.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Following Delen's re-transcription!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18891" LastEditorUserId="18891" LastEditDate="2018-01-14T17:42:55.787" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T17:42:55.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28399" CreationDate="2018-01-14T16:38:56.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think this is the answer you want but it's the answer you're getting, at least from me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi%C3%A1ngbi%C3%A1ng%E9%9D%A2#%E6%98%8E%E6%9C%AB%E6%B4%AA%E5%B8%AE%E5%9B%BE%E7%AC%A6%E7%A0%94%E7%A9%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;明末洪帮图符研究&lt;/a&gt; on the Wikipedia page for &lt;strong&gt;Biángbiáng面&lt;/strong&gt; notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;流传于四川盆地的两个妇孺皆知的复杂汉字“&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wvu4a.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wvu4a.png&quot; alt=&quot;Zuí Chongqing.svg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;”和“&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x0o7D.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x0o7D.png&quot; alt=&quot;Zuí Sichuan.svg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;”，其内部结构与“缺字图片”字十分类似。类似结构的汉字流传于10多个省市，300多年来均有出现，却仅限民间相传，从无传统典籍收录。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重庆一带的“&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wvu4a.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wvu4a.png&quot; alt=&quot;Zuí Chongqing.svg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;”字和四川一带的“&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x0o7D.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x0o7D.png&quot; alt=&quot;Zuí Sichuan.svg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;”字，均念为“ zuí ”，即当地方言中的“贼”，意指强盗。为了方便记忆，它们同样也有歌谣对应[注 8][注 9][注 10]，在当地乡村中人人均能背诵。[14][13]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;余云华. 怪字“&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wvu4a.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wvu4a.png&quot; alt=&quot;Zuí Chongqing.svg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;”、“&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x0o7D.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x0o7D.png&quot; alt=&quot;Zuí Sichuan.svg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;”、“&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Biáng.svg.png&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;”考. 民俗研究. 2002, (02).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王纯五. 洪门·青帮·袍哥——中国旧时民间黑社会习俗. 四川: 四川人民出版社. 1993: 71. ISBN 7-220-02058-9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;biáng&lt;/em&gt; character is used for the pronunciation &lt;em&gt;zuí&lt;/em&gt; in Sichuanese and Chongqingese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters, though, have slight variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the Chongqing variation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重庆一带zuí字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ON8Xg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ON8Xg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the Sichuanese variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四川一带zuí字[13]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yejWd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yejWd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the materials they mean the same as 贼 or thief.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sichuanese/Chongqingese words like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;贼呵呵&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;贼脚摸手&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;贼脚摸爪&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;贼眉贼眼&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;贼娃子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;贼货&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could, in theory, be written with &lt;em&gt;biáng&lt;/em&gt; instead of 贼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Funnily enough, though,《广安方言与民俗词典》from Sichuan has also recorded an entry for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;biáng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which they have defined as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;普通话中无“b-i-ang”发音，属于群众自创方音。象声词，本义指用力扯面中面条击打案板之声。生活中常作为口语化的象声词，如巴掌打在脸上的声音、面积较大的东西摔在地上的声音等。为了方便记忆，民间还有此字歌谣：“一点一横长，二字下来口字方，两边丝绕绕，中间马大王，你也长，我也长，心字底，月字旁，打把金钩挂衣裳。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rhyme matches &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi%C3%A1ngbi%C3%A1ng%E9%9D%A2#cite_note-21&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the footnote&lt;/a&gt; on Wikipedia for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重庆一带“&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wvu4a.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wvu4a.png&quot; alt=&quot;Zuí Chongqing.svg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;”字歌谣为：“一点一横长，二字下来口字方；两边丝绕绕，拉根板凳来坐倒；你也长，我也长，中间夹个马儿郎；心字来打底，月字来包墙，打个金钩银钩挂衣裳。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in Sichuan/Chongqing, is it zuí or biáng?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess it depends on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi%C3%A1ngbi%C3%A1ng%E9%9D%A2#%E8%BE%9E%E4%B9%A6%E6%94%B6%E5%BD%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;辞书收录&lt;/a&gt; on the Wikipedia page for &lt;strong&gt;Biángbiáng面&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《都市方言辞典（陕西卷）》[16]收录此词条，并详细介绍了相关饮食文化：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Biáng.svg.png&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; biáng[piaŋ24]     ①“&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Biáng.svg.png&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;儿面”的biáng。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;②指人死掉，含庆幸语气：狗日的这回才～了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Biáng.svg.png&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Biáng.svg.png&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;面 biángbiangmiàn[piaŋ24piaŋ24-31miã55] 详见下边词条&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Biáng.svg.png&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/278fV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Biáng.svg.png&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;儿面 biángbiangrmiàn[piaŋ24.piẽr miã55] 陕西最爱吃的面食之一……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would go to show that the majority of dialects would follow the rising tone of [piaŋ24] because after all it is a 陕西 thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T17:00:08.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28417" CreationDate="2018-01-14T17:10:00.780" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the following interpretation is suitable for 18 or above, read with cautions :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;暖被窩吧 暖被窩最有用 . 就是那種又泡又回吃的那種&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;started from 吃, it's the metaphor of &quot;sexual intercourse&quot;, so, &quot;回吃&quot; is &quot;sexual intercourse&quot; again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;泡&quot;, there's a word &quot;泡妞&quot;, which means making friend with girls:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000023468&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000023468&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's pronounced similar to another character &quot;抱&quot; (u+62b1), which means embrace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%8A%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=抱&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, together, the girl expressed that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a male (男人) is useful (有用) when, after sexual intercourse; he embrace his female partner (又泡) and eager for xxxking again (回吃).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one might workout the assumption: that it's in the context of cold environment, that two people holding each other together is warmer (暖被窩) than each one sleeps alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T17:10:00.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21343" CreationDate="2018-01-14T18:06:53.130" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Interface Language: Simplified or Traditional, that's your choice&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can select add simplified Chinese to your languages and also add it in your profile. Then the Google interface will be in simplified. So Google will interact with you in simplified. And the reverse is true for traditional. That covers how the Google interface interacts with you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Queries returned: it depends on your input script and is always limited to Google reach&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now about the queries being returned. If you type a query in simplified, the results will be mostly from simplified Chinese sources. Bear in mind that simplified sources are in China proper. If you type a query in traditional script, the reverse is true, the results would then mostly be from Hong Kong and Taiwan. So it depends what you want. Should you want China proper results, use simplified script in the query. If you want Hong Kong or Taiwan results, use traditional script in the query.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Google reach in China is very limited: want real Chinese sources? Use baidu instead...&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The truth of the matter, however, is that Google is not good for returning sites from China. And the Google maps for China are not accurate. The street level views also don't work. If you want to know about China, use baidu.com The sites this search engine returns are good and the maps are accurate and street level view works like a charm. You can use Baidu from the US without any problems. Some non-Chinese speakers while in China insist on trying to use Google over vpn (because Google is blocked in China -that is another story-). I personally don't think it's worth the trouble; the samples Google returns about China are not anywhere as useful as Baidu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Google could be a whole lot better for Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think if Google wanted to truly make a useful product, it would provide an option to switch the delivery script on the fly, no matter where the source is. In essence, truly treat the simplified/traditional as a user-selected delivery font. So if the source was say, Hong Kong (in traditional) but you were a simplified script user based in the US, you could still read it with ease. And of course the reverse could also be done. That would open up the mainland to 华人 (Chinese established outside China for generations, therefore still using traditional). Or maybe you could be a Google user in China using Google over VPN to read Hong Kong sites ;-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the bottom line is that Google's hits from China sources are not anywhere as good as Baidu's. So, it's not just about script...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Traditional vs Simplified is a complex question&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I speak Mandarin and have traveled a lot to China and also lived in China. I learned Chinese in the US using simplified script. Most schools in the US rightly teach simplified script because that is what is used in China. Bear in mind 1.3 billion people use simplified script in China. So it is important to understand that the vast majority of Chinese speakers in the world today use simplified script. Also, the truth is that many outside China people of Chinese&#xA;origin (华人, huaren) actually cannot hand-write Chinese anymore. This is certainly true of American Born Chinese (ABCs). Also, another aspect of this, is while traditional characters are &quot;in use&quot; in Hong Kong and Taiwan, one has to realize that in these places, unlike China, English is essentially on par with Chinese. In other words not only do most people also speak English in Hong Kong and Taiwan, they &lt;strong&gt;use&lt;/strong&gt; English in their daily lives. English is everywhere on public signs. English is prevalent at the working place. For example, English is the language of work in Hong Kong. You can live and work there and not speak one word of Chinese. This is not true of China. The fact that in Hong Kong and Taiwan, English is the de-facto language of education/work/business etc. has an impact on the effective literacy, to be more precise, on the ability to hand- write Chinese characters. In China, the ability to hand-write Chinese characters and to use Chinese is complete, and is never competing with English on an on-par basis. This high level of education relies on the simplification of the script. This is why simplified is such a good thing. It has been extremely successful. This is perhaps one of the most successful social advances that China implemented. Bear in mind that the Chinese written language has undergone many modifications in its history; ancient Chinese characters are very different than so-called traditional ones. So the issue of traditional vs. simplified is rather complex.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Limiting your view to one script is limiting your reach into Chinese diversity&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read some comments here that basically go along the lines of &quot;I don't want to see simplified when I do my searches etc... etc...&quot; Again, this is not simply a font issue: if you limit your view to traditional script, essentially all you see is Hong Kong and Taiwan material. So you don't see anything mainland Chinese: you don't really see China. The issue is whether Google, despite having itself kicked out of China, can find a way to get back in somehow. Facilitating segregation of material is not the right way to go I think. Actually, Bing.com is doing a pretty good job in China, they don't seem to have any problems there -they found a way to work while respecting Chinese law-, so maybe Google could learn a thing or two from the competition...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18898" LastEditorUserId="18898" LastEditDate="2018-01-16T14:48:10.910" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T14:48:10.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28370" CreationDate="2018-01-15T06:10:39.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose that's mere romanization stuff. Different regions have different romanization rules and/or conventions. In Korean names which usually consist of a one-syllable surname and a two-syllable given name, usually a hyphen is added in the romanized form (e.g. Ban Ki-moon, Moon Jae-in, etc), and that's yet another convention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16893" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T06:10:39.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28426" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28429" CreationDate="2018-01-15T08:55:15.453" Score="1" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;When referring to old texts should their characters be modernized?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example if I were to quote/use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;㕥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should 㕥 be “updated” to 以? Even if the text is written in traditional?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps another good example is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs. 叫?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should the original texts be mainted? Or updated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T09:29:54.723" Title="Should old texts characters be modernized?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28384" CreationDate="2018-01-15T09:11:18.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;evaluate means to form an opinion of the amount, value or quality of sth after thinking about it carefully, in Chinese '评估'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;estimate means to form an idea of the cost, size, value etc. of sth, but without calculating it exactly, in Chinese '估计'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18906" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T09:11:18.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28428" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28468" CreationDate="2018-01-15T09:18:52.820" Score="2" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;The saying &lt;code&gt;既要做婊子，又要立牌坊&lt;/code&gt; is used derogatorily to describe someone who does bad things but want to have good reputation. Does it have a reversed or non-derogatory version which is also a saying or idiom? For example, when you want to praise someone who tells truth about something, meanwhile hurting someone/some people's feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18905" LastActivityDate="2018-01-21T05:32:11.767" Title="What's the reverse version of the saying &quot;既要做婊子，又要立牌坊&quot;?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28426" CreationDate="2018-01-15T09:29:54.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This seems more suitable for a meta question, but in any case I'm heavily against the idea of changing the original text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, an advanced question in ancient literature should primarily be targeted towards seasoned experts in the language, with question exposure being a secondary concern, to get the best possible answer. Many obsolete variants reveal information about the text that wouldn't have been captured using the modern variant, including alternative semantic interpretations, geographical or era-specific usage (as many variants were created during eras of fragmentation) that may greatly aid in the interpretation of the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, StackExchange in general heavily favours a well-researched Q&amp;amp;A dialogue with emphasis on brevity, so if readers on the side cannot read a piece of text due to unfamiliar characters, they should take the opportunity to conduct their own research and learn something new, not to expect others to simplify the text for them (and in the end still not being able to contribute anything meaningful).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, there is no automatic detection and conversion for archaic variants to their modern forms, so this places undue weight on the question-asker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only time I think it is acceptable to change the variant is if it causes display problems on many computers due to encoding. However, even then it is better to provide an image of the character or describe it using ideographic description sequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T09:29:54.723" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28430" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28436" CreationDate="2018-01-15T10:04:56.230" Score="2" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having a hard time figuring out what this guy is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m0P0L.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m0P0L.png&quot; alt=&quot;hahaha&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The equivalent Wikisource page for the material I'm working with says that it is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3iMHg.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3iMHg.gif&quot; alt=&quot;yes?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=000302&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea&lt;/a&gt; says it is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;同【甚】字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is &lt;code&gt;七 + 丶 + 丶&lt;/code&gt;, where did this character come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(It's a pain to search, the character isn't even encoded into Unicode)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was it shorthand or did it have another history?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-16T09:26:09.213" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T05:56:59.040" Title="What's this character that looks like 七 with a ～ in the middle? And what's its history?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28430" CreationDate="2018-01-15T11:20:23.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it could be the character 正. 行书或草书的&lt;a href=&quot;https://m.baidu.com/sf/lj?ext=%7B%22url%22%3A%22%2Ffrom%3D1086k%2Fbd_page_type%3D1%2Fssid%3D0%2Fuid%3D0%2Fpu%3Dusm%25402%252Csz%2540320_1001%252Cta%2540iphone_2_7.0_3_537%2Fbaiduid%3D6CC8030E70C4F4D46B07D66AAFB84FEC%2Fw%3D0_10_%2Ft%3Diphone%2Fl%3D3%2Ftc%3Fref%3Dwww_iphone%26lid%3D11384531760824639920%26order%3D1%26fm%3Dalop%26waplogo%3D1%26h5ad%3D1%26srd%3D1%26dict%3D32%26tj%3Dwww_normal_1_0_10_title%26vit%3Dosres%26waput%3D4%26cltj%3Dnormal_title%26asres%3D1%26nt%3Dwnor%26title%3D%25E6%25AD%25A3%25E5%25AD%2597%25E7%259A%2584%25E4%25B9%25A6%25E6%25B3%2595%25E5%2586%2599%25E6%25B3%2595_%25E6%25AD%25A3%25E5%25AD%2597%25E6%2580%258E%25E4%25B9%2588%25E5%2586%2599_%25E6%25AD%25A3%25E5%25AD%2597%25E7%259A%2584%25E5%2590%2584%25E7%25A7%258D%25E5%2586%2599%25E6%25B3%2595...-%25E4%25B9%25A6%25E6%25B3%2595%25E7%2588%25B1%25E7%25BD%2591%26w_qd%3DIlPT2AEptyoA_ykz9QEc-hO5IixTe7QoxjkZfAXV6A3%26tcplug%3D1%26sec%3D26915%26di%3D58709ed8d035ef55%26bdenc%3D1%26tch%3D124.210.243.364.1.0%26nsrc%3DIlPT2AEptyoA_yixCFOxXnANedT62v3IGtiCLTlS1ze895qshbWxBdUfEFXpKXuPIkewdoSYeAoDljrzOjh6hhZ1rqw0snN8nyC-%26eqid%3D9dfdfb51921ae000100000025a5c8d41%26wd%3D%26clk_info%3D%257B%2522srcid%2522%253A1599%252C%2522tplname%2522%253A%2522www_normal%2522%252C%2522t%2522%253A1516014931029%252C%2522xpath%2522%253A%2522div-a-h3%2522%257D%22%2C%22frame_only%22%3A1%2C%22lid%22%3A%2211384531760824639920%22%7D&amp;amp;pd=mms_mip&amp;amp;actname=introduction&amp;amp;ms=1&amp;amp;title=%E6%AD%A3%E5%AD%97%E8%8D%89%E4%B9%A6%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E5%86%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;正&lt;/a&gt;就这么写。better you have a context to figure out. Otherwise, it is very hard. It might also be like Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could also be 甚 as you said. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oulNo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oulNo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-01-15T11:44:06.487" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T11:44:06.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28428" CreationDate="2018-01-15T12:00:42.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“既要做婊子, 又要立牌坊” describes someone commits to do something without the resolution of facing its consequence. For example, someone sells snake oil but feel bad about taking money from poor people (if you really want to be a con man, you can't avoid being ruthless)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opposite expression would be &quot;吃得咸魚抵得渴&quot; (since you committed to eat salted fish, being thirsty is expected)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T12:00:42.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28392" CreationDate="2018-01-15T16:28:05.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of the Chinese words used to translate the word &quot;cynical&quot; don't seem to convey the idea of &quot;not trusting a given (or accepted) answer&quot; or &quot;questioning&quot;. &quot;愤世嫉俗&quot;, for example, really has to do with feeling outraged at social injustice (and lack of enlightenment). &quot;玩世不恭&quot; describes the type of person/attitude where one takes nothing seriously (esp. in regard to social, political matters). &quot;犬儒学派&quot; goes to the ancient Greek root of the word &quot;cynic&quot; (&quot;dog&quot; or &quot;dog-like&quot; - which describes someone like Diogenes)--which is not wrong, but how many English speakers associate the word &quot;cynic&quot; with &quot;dog&quot;? &quot;非信非疑&quot; isn't quite right either, because it simply states &quot;neither believe nor disbelieve&quot;-not exactly &quot;actively questioning&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest I have come across is &quot;持怀疑态度&quot;. Although this is not a catchy 成语 (proverb), it expresses the idea of &quot;actively not believing&quot;. &quot;怀疑&quot;, by the way, means &quot;suspecting&quot; by itself, but &quot;怀疑态度&quot; is the &quot;attitude of not believing/accepting without questioning&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T16:28:05.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28331" CreationDate="2018-01-15T16:45:00.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Really depend on multiple fatcors, first of all if you want to accent a concept or a word you must mantain every single tone at the same pitch, but normally speching when you pronunnce multiple first tones, the first  tone  gradually low each tim you pronunce it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17050" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T16:45:00.367" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28406" CreationDate="2018-01-15T18:38:42.280" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question was also asked on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.italki.com/question/106548&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;italki&lt;/a&gt; in 2011. A native speaker of Chinese (from Taiwan) pointed out that (with my editorial corrections and added emphasis):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At the end of a presentation, we say &quot;Thank you for your attention!&quot; for the end. But in Chinese we say, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Thanks for your time&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; / &quot;&lt;strong&gt;感謝諸位的時間&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. The Chinese are a polite people. (It means that that we did NOT point out that you paid attention to my speech, so we only say, &quot;Thank you for for your time&quot;. FYR)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The suggested expression in simplified Chinese characters is then &lt;strong&gt;感谢诸位的时间&lt;/strong&gt; (gǎnxiè zhūweìde shíjian̄).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T18:38:42.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28430" CreationDate="2018-01-15T19:56:08.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OsDxB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OsDxB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is recorded in the following titles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《漢簡文字類編．甘部》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《中華字海．一部》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The paleographer 季旭昇 analyses it to be a 草書 variant of「甚」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QTAyNjIx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;entry of 甚 from the Taiwan Ministry of Education's variants dictionary&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The earliest form of「甚」compounds「匕」(&lt;em&gt;a ladle or spoon&lt;/em&gt;) with either「甘」or「口」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ZXKe.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ZXKe.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note: the difference between「甘」and「口」in this context doesn't make a big&#xA;  difference, as「甘」(&lt;em&gt;sweet&lt;/em&gt;) was originally「口」with a mark, representing a piece of food in a mouth:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OIcgY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OIcgY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The meaning of &lt;em&gt;sweet/good flavours&lt;/em&gt; is extracted from the idea of tasting the food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entire compound form of「甚」meant &lt;em&gt;contentment, happiness, at peace&lt;/em&gt;, as a result of being satisfied from being fed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later on, decorative marks (飾筆)** were added on to the character, in the shape of「八」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mnQFP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mnQFP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since characters weren't standardised back then, sometimes「口」and「八」were switched around:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i0ZBN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i0ZBN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This last form is the direct ancestor of the modern form of「甚」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note: The Shuowen Jiezi explanation of「甚」comes from the misinterpretation of 「八」and「匕」as merging into「匹」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「甚，尤安樂也。从甘，从匹耦也。」&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the above doesn't explain the cursive form that appears in the question. &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;My personal speculation&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is that &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OsDxB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OsDxB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is a result of (1) character corruption (訛變) and (2) character simplification (簡化/省略).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(1) Corruption&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「匕」was commonly corrupted into「七」or「」very early on, as in the&#xA;  Eastern Han stele 《曹全碑》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VPOIE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VPOIE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What looks like「合&lt;strong&gt;七&lt;/strong&gt;首藥神明膏」should be interpreted&#xA;  as「合&lt;strong&gt;匕&lt;/strong&gt;首藥神明膏」(&lt;em&gt;miraculous knife-wound-healing medicine&lt;/em&gt;),&#xA;  where「匕首」means &lt;em&gt;dagger&lt;/em&gt;. Many modern forms have retained this&#xA;  corruption, such as in the character「化」, which was originally「⿰亻匕」.&#xA;  See, for example, the modern Chinese (left) form vs. the modern&#xA;  Japanese (right) form of 「化」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e3MKJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e3MKJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hR3Bq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hR3Bq.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(2) Simplification&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「口」was simply omitted from the final form in rapid 草書 writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, take all this with a grain of salt; I haven't found a detailed academic commentary on the character &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OsDxB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OsDxB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and welcome any corrections to this answer by anyone who has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;**The addition of &lt;em&gt;decorative marks&lt;/em&gt; is one of the least-known, at least among general knowledge, of Chinese character components. One of the most common characters which was formed as a result of decorative marks is the character「魚」. Compare, for example, some of the earliest forms of the character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A detailed drawing of a fish in oracle bone script:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D9jgf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D9jgf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Still quite detailed in the middle of the bronze inscription period:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hxlE3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hxlE3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sometimes, not so detailed and more stylised:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y3Njt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y3Njt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stylised with addition of decorative marks around the tail:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D46vs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D46vs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shape of the bottom looked very similar to and was later merged with the shape of「火」, eventually turning into「灬」and causing the tail to be detached to the rest of the body. This latter form can be considered as the direct ancestor of the modern form of「魚」:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zjnHT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zjnHT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If these marks weren't added, we might see something like this today:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W5emZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W5emZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-20T05:56:59.040" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T05:56:59.040" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7149" CreationDate="2018-01-15T20:36:21.353" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;oracle bone form&quot; that the OP posted looks fake, and no paleography titles that I can find seem to support that「奇」was the original character of「騎」or that「可」originally represented a horse, and all say that the character just uses「大」as a semantic component and「可」as a phonetic component. This is believable from their Old Chinese Reconstructions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;奇, Baxter-Sagart /*[k](r)aj/&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可, Baxter-Sagart /*[k]ʰˤa[j]ʔ/&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it came from「馬」, then there should be other examples of「可」morphing into「馬」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;劉釗《古文字構形學》&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R43mn.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R43mn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;李學勤《字源》&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/73Vm4.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/73Vm4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure of the character itself doesn't tell us too much about why it came to mean &quot;strange&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Zhongwen.com explanation has over-interpreted the character as a compound ideogram. &quot;A person exhaling in wonder&quot; plausibly interprets「大」as a person and 「可」as &quot;to exhale&quot;, and note that「可」is viewed by some paleographers as a very ancient and possibly original character of「歌」, &quot;to sing&quot;. However, this compound ideogram theory lacks evidence, as if「奇」indeed depicts a person exhaling in wonder, there would be textual examples of「奇」being used as a verb meaning &quot;to exhale (whether or not &lt;em&gt;in wonder&lt;/em&gt;)&quot;. The best thing to do is to wait on more evidence to be gathered rather than subject the character to wild interpretations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%A5%87&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%A5%87&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-15T20:49:05.563" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T20:49:05.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28438" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28527" CreationDate="2018-01-16T06:09:03.230" Score="1" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English parts or fragments of sentences can simple be duplicated with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditto_mark&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ditto marks&lt;/a&gt;, here's an example from Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black pens, box of twenty   .....      $2.10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blue  ”     ”   ”  ”        .....      $2.35&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese has &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iteration_mark#Japanese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dōnojiten iteration mark&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;code&gt;々&lt;/code&gt; - which works similarly to &amp;quot;same as above&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;same as the last one&amp;quot;: 人々, 山々, 個々.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia page talks about &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iteration_mark#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese iteration marks&lt;/a&gt; saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 二 (usually appearing as 〻) or 々 is used in casual writing to represent a doubled character, but it is never used in formal writing or printed matter. In a tabulated table or list, vertical repetition can be represented by a ditto mark (〃).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;History&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Iteration marks have been occasionally used for more than two thousand years in China. The bronze script from the Zhou Dynasty, shown right, ends with “子二孫二寶用”, where the small 二 (“two”) is used as iteration marks in the phrase “子子孫孫寶用” (&amp;quot;descendants to use and to treasure&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MRNek.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MRNek.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;foto&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I have something that seems more like 上 than 二 though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EJfLi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EJfLi.png&quot; alt=&quot;hey-yo!&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/%E8%BA%8B%E6%98%A5%E8%87%BA/00&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikisource&lt;/a&gt; has written it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;熙熙然受天之祜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So presumably this mini-上 looking character is also an iteration mark but Wikipedia only talks about 二、〻、or 々.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is 上 also an iteration mark? and Can 上 always be used like English ” ” (i.e.: same as above)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T13:15:39.943" Title="Can 上 always be used like English ” ” (i.e.: same as above)?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28428" CreationDate="2018-01-16T08:36:36.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One reverse version would be &lt;code&gt;大义灭亲&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you put your family member into jail because of his/her guilt, that definitely hurt your family feelings but this behavior usually be praised (usually by others).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2279" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T08:36:36.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28440" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-16T09:23:03.567" Score="4" ViewCount="350" Body="&lt;p&gt;几 has two meanings: &amp;quot;several&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;how many?&amp;quot; But I have no clear understanding of separation one from another. E.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;后面有几个人笑起来了. - &lt;em&gt;declarative&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你家有几口人? - &lt;em&gt;interrogative&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that the first sentence is declarative and the second one is interrogative but I don't know why. There is no difference in 几 usage here so why is the first sentence declarative?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few people laughed behind [us].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;And not interrogative:&lt;/strong&gt; How many people laughed behind [us]?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;几个人&amp;quot; could be as well &amp;quot;a few people&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;how many people?&amp;quot;, how to distinguish which one is used? (An example of interrogative sentence with &amp;quot;几个人&amp;quot; would be useful)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.: please do not give explanation like &amp;quot;后面有几个人笑起来了.&amp;quot; is declarative because &amp;quot;后面有多少人笑起来了?&amp;quot; is interrogative. I also can say that in the case &amp;quot;你家有几口人&amp;quot; is declarative (&amp;quot;There are some people in your family&amp;quot;) because there is no &amp;quot;多少人&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, you are speaking to a person and he says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上海有几个火车站(。/？)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only context can help you to understand whether it is a question or a declaration, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(on the street)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请问, 上海有几个火车站(？) - &lt;em&gt;defenetely interrogative&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;- 到火车站要10分钟, 不要着急。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;- 上海有几个火车站(。)我去上海南站, 到那儿要半个小时。 - &lt;em&gt;declarative&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T15:16:46.120" Title="几 in declarative and interrogative sentence" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28440" CreationDate="2018-01-16T10:57:08.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;几&lt;/strong&gt;' in '你家有&lt;strong&gt;几&lt;/strong&gt;个人?' means '&lt;strong&gt;几多&lt;/strong&gt;个人'(&lt;strong&gt;how many&lt;/strong&gt; people?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;几&lt;/strong&gt;' in '后面有&lt;strong&gt;几&lt;/strong&gt;个人笑起来了' just means '&lt;strong&gt;few&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;几 is 'declarative' (few/ several) when the sentence ends with a period; and it is 'interrogative' (how many) when the sentence ends with a question mark&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去了几次. (went there a few times.)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去了几次? (went there how many times?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'interrogative' sentence  is always in question form, end with a question mark, including rhetorical question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-16T11:14:56.213" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T11:14:56.213" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28442" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-16T11:24:59.667" Score="1" ViewCount="620" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a method available to type all the secondary signs for Cangjie as listed in these two charts:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pascal-man.com/navigation/faq-java-browser/image-cangjie/cangjie-1.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.pascal-man.com/navigation/faq-java-browser/image-cangjie/cangjie-1.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pascal-man.com/navigation/faq-java-browser/image-cangjie/cangjie-key.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.pascal-man.com/navigation/faq-java-browser/image-cangjie/cangjie-key.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did a search and found this thread but I am still unsure of how to type these specific signs.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5581/typing-chinese-radicals&quot;&gt;Typing Chinese radicals?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18917" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T03:48:07.947" Title="method to type Cangjie secondary signs?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23" CreationDate="2018-01-16T14:59:02.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No one has mentioned this, so I'm doubting myself a bit, but 很 is likely used because 好 is a single character adjective. As I understand it, grammatically that just doesn't work very well and so 很 works as a generic first syllable. If an adjective is already two syllables (高兴) you can more safely assume that 很高兴 means &quot;very happy&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My books haven't explained precisely &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; a single character adjective is bad, but I've always assumed that it is issues of ambiguity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16905" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T14:59:02.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28444" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-16T15:18:55.617" Score="2" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;When someone responds to something I've said with「您是指？」is it accurate to assume they're saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;What do you mean?&quot; - As in they want me to explain/give more info on something I've just mentioned, so it would be interchangeable with 你的意思是什么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;What's that?/come again?/huh?&quot; - More in the sense that the listener is confused or surprised by what I've just said, maybe they want me to make myself a bit clearer because they a bit taken aback by something that I just said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if neither of these are correct assumptions, how would you translate 您是指？in English and what instances could it be used in?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18918" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T06:31:53.700" Title="Correct usage of 「您是指？」" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28445" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28448" CreationDate="2018-01-16T16:06:33.993" Score="1" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/180271228.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Some people&lt;/a&gt; say you can&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;打“摄氏度”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to get: &lt;code&gt;℃&lt;/code&gt; but that seems to be a sogou IME thing only - and boy does that celsius degrees C look ugly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/180271228.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Others suggest&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“插入”“特殊符号”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but that just seems to be a Word thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any idea how to do this, easily, on ios and mac os?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="2279" LastEditDate="2018-01-17T08:54:20.873" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T15:19:26.800" Title="how to type the degree sign (°) using Chinese IME on iOS/(mac)OS?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28445" CreationDate="2018-01-16T16:36:01.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i &quot;fixed&quot; my input method as &quot;unicode hex input&quot; on my macbook, so, to type celsius symbol, just press &quot;option&quot; + &quot;2&quot; + &quot;1&quot; + &quot;0&quot; + &quot;3&quot;; the &lt;strong&gt;℃&lt;/strong&gt; would appear immediately :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, it's convenience; provided you know the code point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T16:36:01.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28444" CreationDate="2018-01-16T16:56:52.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is used when someone uses some pronouns like 这件事 or 那间房子 or else to refer to something, which is not definite enough for the hearer to figure out which entity exactly the speaker is referring to. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我很欣赏您的那幅作品。 I really appreciate that piece of yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;您是指（哪一幅）？ Which one exactly are you referring to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;画了三匹马的那幅。 The one of three horses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;指 usually can mean 'refer to'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16893" LastEditorUserId="16893" LastEditDate="2018-01-16T19:29:11.030" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T19:29:11.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28445" CreationDate="2018-01-16T17:17:01.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Shift-Option-8&lt;/code&gt; produces ° on my UK Mac simplified Chinese pinyin input keyboard. I don't have experience with the standard iOS chinese keyboard, but on the chinese Google gBoard you can hold down 0 to get °. Caveat- I'm not sure if these symbols are precisely degree symbols. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18920" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T17:17:01.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28399" CreationDate="2018-01-16T17:24:13.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This character is exclusive to the northwestern mandarin, and read in other dialects simply mimicking the pronunciation in the original dialect. It is just treated like loan words in many languages borrowed from English words, e.g. Computer in German.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exclusive characters are not typical to the northwest, and in fact every dialect has its exclusive words. The character 覅 (fiào) is the only character with its pinyin beginning with fi- in 《新华字典》 and 《现代汉语词典》, and it is an exclusive character to Wu dialects, pronounced as [viau13] in Shanghainese. Due to its frequent appearance the authorities of Chinese dictionaries choose to include it, to some extent as a 'loan word' from Wu dialect to the modern standard mandarin, which is only a variant of generalized Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16893" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-01-25T04:43:05.610" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T04:43:05.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28450" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-17T03:36:01.350" Score="5" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some Chinese verbs are separable (also called verb-object compounds), that is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他今天&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;三個鐘頭的&lt;strong&gt;課&lt;/strong&gt;　(He/she had three hours of &lt;strong&gt;class&lt;/strong&gt; today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where 上課 is a separable verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;As there is no rules on which verbs are separable and not, I'm looking for an online resource where I can look that up.&lt;/strong&gt; For example, does &lt;a href=&quot;https://cc-cedict.org/wiki/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/a&gt; contain info about which verbs is separable and not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="16210" LastEditDate="2018-01-17T04:12:42.357" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T08:10:42.760" Title="Which online resources (preferably open source / cc) does contain info on which Chinese verbs is separable?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;separable-verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28451" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-01-17T03:39:35.243" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-01-17T03:39:35.243" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T03:39:35.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28452" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-01-17T03:39:35.243" Score="0" Body="Separable verbs (or: verb-object compounds) are verbs that can be separated, such as 睡觉 within 睡一个好觉." OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T05:37:24.863" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T05:37:24.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28453" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-01-17T04:15:00.253" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-01-17T04:15:00.253" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T04:15:00.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28454" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-01-17T04:15:00.253" Score="0" Body="A verb-object compound (also called &quot;separable verb&quot;) can be separated. Example: 游泳：　他游兩個鐘頭的永。" OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="16210" LastEditDate="2018-01-17T18:04:28.350" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T18:04:28.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28455" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28457" CreationDate="2018-01-17T04:21:49.400" Score="4" ViewCount="849" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English you say eat soup, not drink soup. But how about Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Drink&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這個菜湯很香！　你喝喝看！　（This vegetable soup is really tasty! You try it!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;or eat？&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這個菜湯很香！　你吃吃看！　（This vegetable soup is really tasty! You try it!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Or are both valid?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T04:15:34.833" Title="Do I drink (喝) or eat (吃) a soup in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28464" CreationDate="2018-01-17T04:52:30.040" Score="2" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a non-Chinese speaker looking into wú wéi(無爲) as part of my own philosophical searchings.  As part of stripping away my own English-centric understanding, I'm trying to look at the words as more than just &quot;not doing,&quot; which is a typical English translation.  That means finding decent references on the meanings of the words in the context of the Chinese mindset.  That takes far more words than a mere phrase or sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can find plenty of documents which go on and on about the subtleties of 無 when it is used in philosophical discourse, but I can't seem to find anything which discusses the meaning of 爲 any deeper than Wikitionary is willing to give me.  Plenty of sites will provide meanings for 無爲 together, but the point of the exercise is to glean more information from understanding them apart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone provide a reasonable reference which gives 爲 a more in-depth treatment which might provide more insight than a simple English translation to &quot;doing?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15778" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T17:31:54.850" Title="Deeper meaning of 爲 (beyond one sentence definitions)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28455" CreationDate="2018-01-17T06:13:36.193" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idiomatic way to say 'try it' in Chinese is 尝一下，尝尝，尝一尝. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say 你吃一口(试试/尝尝) and 你喝一口(试试/尝尝) for eating and drinking respectively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your version 你喝喝看 is good too. But 你吃吃看 is not suitable for drinkings and soups. This is different from English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-01-17T06:18:58.170" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T06:18:58.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28444" CreationDate="2018-01-17T06:31:53.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it could mean either 'what are you referring to' or 'what do you mean' according to the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one doesn't understand the whole thing and need more explanations, it's like saying what do you mean? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one doesn't understand the specific thing someone else talks about, it will be like saying what are you referring to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T06:31:53.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28459" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28460" CreationDate="2018-01-17T06:40:53.563" Score="2" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们在等船来渡我们过河。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Supposedly this translates to “We are waiting for the boat to cross the river.” But what does the second 我们 mean? Is there maybe more nuance than this English translation shows?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="375" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-29T08:32:45.753" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T08:32:45.753" Title="Why are there two 我们 in 我们在等船来渡我们过河?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28459" CreationDate="2018-01-17T07:07:07.330" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe this translation would be more understandable: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We are waiting for the boat to &lt;strong&gt;take us to&lt;/strong&gt; cross the river.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T07:07:07.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28456" CreationDate="2018-01-17T08:15:45.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMHO: 爲 - is a hand holding elephants trunk. It meant &quot;to do heavy work&quot;. In Asia elephants are commonly used to do heavy lifting and building in remote areas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some paleoglythers (&lt;a href=&quot;http://hanziyuan.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://hanziyuan.net/&lt;/a&gt;) say that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern invention: new cursive 为為爲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Decomposition: Pictograph from 爲 of a hand-zhua 爪爫爫 zhuǎ (feeding 喂 wei) an elephant 象 xiàng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original meaning: Meaning (orig) to feed an elephant BFS meaning to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example in use: 為何 wèi hé (why)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern meanings: do, handle, govern, act; be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T08:15:45.253" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28462" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28467" CreationDate="2018-01-17T10:02:25.230" Score="1" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is simple: is it a coincidence that Yunnan and Vietnam (yue nan) are pronounced very similarly because they are geographically close? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would the nan(南) in (越南,云南) both be referring to a common southern region which categorizes the region of Southwestern China and neighboring countries?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T17:28:20.370" Title="Similarity in geographically close areas (越南,云南)" Tags="&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28440" CreationDate="2018-01-17T12:08:52.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think all the sentences with 几 above can turn into interrogative sentences. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;后面有几个人笑起来了? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你家有几口人?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上海有几个火车站?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the mainland mandarin, we usually put 好 in front of 几 in the declarative sentence to indicate that there are more than one. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;后面有(好)几个人笑起来了。// 好 can be omitted without changing the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你家有好几口人。// 好 can not be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上海有好几个火车站。// 好 can not be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 好，you can differentiate if it's a declarative or interrogative sentence.  In some sentences (like the first one above), 好 is omissible. You'd better not omit 好 in the sentence 2 and 3, otherwise they would sound like interrogative sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T12:08:52.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28456" CreationDate="2018-01-17T12:20:07.310" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many meanings for 為.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「為」有非常多的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is to ask the deeper meaning of 為 in 無為.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;此問是問「無為」之「為」有何深義。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So，we should understand the meaning of 無為 first.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;故需先了解「無為」之義。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 無為 is mostly used in Taoism or Buddhism.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;「無為」多為道家或佛家所用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following content is based on the Buddhist point of view.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;以下所述乃基於佛教觀點。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 無為 in the Dharma means 無因緣的造作.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;佛法中的「無為」是指「無因緣的造作」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means not doing something for any reason, condition or circumstance.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;意謂：非因任何理由、條件、環境而做某事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, 為 refers to 造作, in particular 有因緣的造作.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;是故「為」指「造作」，尤其是「有因緣的造作」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is to do something for some cause, condition or dependence.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;也就是基於某些理由、條件、環境才做某事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 為 shows the phenomenon of creating, staying, changing and extinguishing.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這種「為」有生、住、異、滅的現象。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that it occurs when the karma is sufficient, then it maintains for a period of time, it starts to change when the karma begins to diminish, and it perishes when the karma is completely gone.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;亦即：因緣具足時，開始產生，而後維持一段時間；當因緣開始減弱時，會產生變化；而當因緣完全消失時，就會滅亡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, this 為 is impermanent.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;簡言之，此「為」係無常的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the Great Wall.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;譬若萬里長城。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the sake of defense (因), a lot of people, materials and tools were gathered (緣), and then it's built. (生)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;當初，為了防守（因），聚集眾多人民、材料、工具（緣）而建造了它。（生）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the 為.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;這就是「為」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It still exists. (住)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;目前尙存。（住）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, due to various reasons, it has been damaged. (異)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;但因種種原因，已有損壞。（異）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excuse me: Will it still exist 100 million years later? A trillion years later? (滅)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;敢問：億年後仍在否？兆年呢？（滅）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15850" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T12:20:07.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28466" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28470" CreationDate="2018-01-17T14:29:56.727" Score="1" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering about the Pinyin syllable &lt;code&gt;ne&lt;/code&gt; (specifically, &lt;code&gt;nè&lt;/code&gt;), because it is the ending of the name of a friend of mine. We are searching for a Chinese character that accurately represents this sound -- &lt;code&gt;那&lt;/code&gt; is too strong because it sounds like &lt;code&gt;na&lt;/code&gt; and I am not sure if &lt;code&gt;呢&lt;/code&gt; is really appropriate for a name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any characters appropriate for a name that have this sound &lt;code&gt;ne&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;nè&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="28" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T08:11:52.207" Title="Is &quot;ne&quot; used as a pronunciation for any character except 呢?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28462" CreationDate="2018-01-17T17:28:20.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the key to looking at the two (越南 and 云南) is in &quot;南&quot; as these regions were all remote and to the south of most ancient Chinese empires/kingdoms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There once was a kingdom called &quot;越&quot;, which existed roughly from 2032 BC to 222BC (Baidu). It occupied most of eastern coastal areas of modern day China (you can see it on a map on Baidu-the 越 Kingdom is the bright yellow area labeled with a red character&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/pic/%E8%B6%8A%E5%9B%BD/24727/0/b7003af33a87e950c7d9a59a19385343faf2b47e&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/pic/越国/24727/0/b7003af33a87e950c7d9a59a19385343faf2b47e&lt;/a&gt;?) If you read stories from the Warring States era, you will encounter references to the kingdom of 越. In fact, at one point, one of the Kings of 越 took on another kingdom to its north (齐 Qi- roughly modern day Shandong Province), but failed to wipe out (齐)-which might have led to the demise of 越. By the way, in the same era (millennia), there were references to the existence of 东越 as well as 南越 -- 越 may be an ethnic name as well as a political (aka state/country) one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now could it be that the people who occupied 云南 were the same who also occupied 越南? Somebody may be able to dig out some historical documents to verify that. However, historically, 云南 had been called 南夷, &quot;夷&quot; being one of the many derogatory categorical terms used by ancient Chinese to refer to the &quot;barbarians&quot;, aka non-Chinese. I am mentioning this because &quot;越南&quot; had been referred to by other names (other than &quot;夷&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Baidu, the name &quot;云南&quot; came about in the Tang Dynasty when a Tang emperor asked an emissary from that region &quot;where did you come from?&quot; The emissary responded with a gesture &quot;from the south, beyond the clouds.&quot; (&quot;王问：君在何方？使遥指南曰：南边云下&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T17:28:20.370" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28428" CreationDate="2018-01-17T20:35:48.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not entirely sure what should be the opposite of 既要做婊子，又要立牌坊 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some suggestion:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) opposite of &quot;doing bad deeds but asking for good reputation&quot; in a&#xA;  sense of &quot;doing good deeds but ends up in bad reputation&quot;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   - 好心着雷劈 - meaning trying to help others but ends up [being strikes by lightning] - another idiom usually meaning people do bad things and&#xA;  punished by god via lightning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) opposite of &quot;doing bad deeds but asking for good reputation&quot; in a&#xA;  sense of &quot;doing good deeds but bad results&quot;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   - 殺人放火金腰帶，修橋鋪路無屍骸  - meaning those that murders and burn down house ends up being rich and powerful, and those that helps with repairing road and&#xA;  bridge ends up dying with their body not found&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Honestly I do not find my answer a better fit than others, but more options for you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T20:35:48.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28442" CreationDate="2018-01-18T01:42:10.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are auxiliary glyphs (輔助字形).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UGYOz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UGYOz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikibooks.org/wiki/%E5%80%89%E9%A0%A1%E8%BC%B8%E5%85%A5%E6%B3%95/%E8%BC%94%E5%8A%A9%E5%AD%97%E5%BD%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikibooks&lt;/a&gt; the rules to input them are as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;倉頡字母單獨成字時，取一碼即可。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The basic glyph (radical) that forms a word just takes ONE code.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  For example, 日 is input with the key &quot;A&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;輔助字形單獨成字時，則須依拆碼規則拆碼。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  An auxiliary glyph that forms a word should be decomposed according to the rules of decomposition.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  For example, ⺜ is split into 冂(B), 一(M) and 一(M).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are two more requirements in order to input them.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is coded in Unicode.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(otherwise you have to make your own fonts)  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The input method engine you use includes it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(or you can make your own table)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⺜, ⺝ and 冃 are encoded and can be input with the keys BMM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bZDch.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bZDch.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; must be decomposed into 囗(W) and 丨(L).&#xA;Since it is not encoded, it cannot be input directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T01:42:10.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28466" CreationDate="2018-01-18T02:15:31.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you could reference the name &lt;strong&gt;Zinedine，Zidane&lt;/strong&gt;, which has been translated as &lt;strong&gt;齐内迪纳, 齐达内&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you can use either 内 or 纳 to transliterate &lt;strong&gt;ne&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T02:15:31.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3602" CreationDate="2018-01-18T03:41:55.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning Chinese alphabet, pinyin and characters, making sentences and practicing handwriting are three essential stages if you plan to learn Chinese well. As for Chinese handwriting, here I provide three tips to help you improve your Chinese handwriting ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Memorize Chinese Character’s Stroke Order Rules&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before starting to write Chinese characters, I suggest you learning the stroke order rules at first, which will make it easier for your Chinese writing practice and minimize your time and effort to memorize the stroke order of individual character. Here they are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1). From Top to Bottom Rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We take “二” as an example to explain this rule. As you can see, “二” has two strokes, a short “一” and a longer “一”. Therefore, under “from top to bottom” rule, we write the short “一” at first and then the longer “一” when writing “二”. You can understand this rule better through the images below. Except for “二”, there are a large amount of characters with above-to-below structure, such as 李, 早, 旦, 兄, etc.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F9Meh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F9Meh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2). From Left to Right Rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second rule to write Chinese characters is from left to right. If you pay enough attention when you are memorizing Chinese characters, you will notice lots of characters with left-to-right structure, like 明, 找, 到, 打, 吗, etc. Here I will take “明” as an example to explain rule. As we can see, “明” consists of “日” and “月”, the obvious left-to-right structure, therefore, we should write “日” at first and then “月” when writing “明”. Details please see the images below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wneWv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wneWv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3). Horizontal before Vertical Rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most typical Chinese character accorded with this rule is “十”. Here we take this character as an example. To write “十” well, you should write the horizontal “一” at first and then the vertical “一”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zNdf9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zNdf9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4). Diagonals right-to-left before Diagonals left-to-right Rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many Chinese characters accorded with right-to-left (丿) and left-to-right (乀) strokes such as 人, 八, 大, 个, 父, etc. Taking “人” as an example, we usually write the right-to-left stoke at first and then left-to-right stroke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4ckjh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4ckjh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5). Outside before Inside Rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To write Chinese characters with outside-and-inside stokes, we usually write the outside part, followed by the inside part. These characters include 国, 囚, 围, 庆, 同, 句 and so on. Check the images below to learn how to write this type words.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BxnpE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BxnpE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6). Inside before Outside Rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you feel a little confused by this rule after learning outside-to-inside rule. But if you observe carefully charcters with inside-to-outside rule like 函, 画, 凶, you will find that it’s not difficult to get the point at all. Take “凶” as an example, and we write this word usually first with “×” and then the outside frame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UCS7g.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UCS7g.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7). Center verticals before outside “wings” Rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before getting down to explaining how to write this kind of characters, I will give you some examples, 永, 水, 办, 乘, 小. Do you find their similarities? Yes, all of them consist the main part like a column and two “wings”. When writing these characters, we usually write the column-alike part and then the “wings”, similar to the steps below:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Eetfd.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Eetfd.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Practice your Handwriting with Copybook&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese Handwriting Copybook is a book containing models of handwriting for readers to imitate. And almost all of Chinese children will employ this tool to help them get better in Chinese handwriting. If you are in China, it’s very easy for you to get one via the online store or the genuine bookstore. If you are outside of China, you can buy one on eBay, Amazon, Walmart, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Try to Write by Yourself&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Copybook is just a tool helping you be familar with Chinese characters strokes when you are just starting with Chinese handwriting. But when you practice one character with copybook more than ten times, I suggest you starting to write it without the help of copybook. That’s is not easy, but it’s a essential step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18737" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T01:29:50.570" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:29:50.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28442" CreationDate="2018-01-18T03:48:07.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @hinen said, they are auxiliary glyphs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To type some auxiliary glyphs, you can try 輸入法整合器(&lt;a href=&quot;https://support.microsoft.com/zh-tw/help/2838160&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://support.microsoft.com/zh-tw/help/2838160&lt;/a&gt;) and see how to type them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others may use unicode to type them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T03:48:07.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28474" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-18T08:56:35.237" Score="1" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Chinese Novel translator and and I'm sort of having problems translating this: 这是瘤売肉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18936" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-01-20T08:33:55.120" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T08:33:55.120" Title="What's the translation of 这是瘤売肉?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28474" CreationDate="2018-01-18T09:08:23.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously it's something that the author made up. It doesn't hurt if you use pinyin or any funny sounding word you come up with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T09:08:23.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28476" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-18T09:39:28.927" Score="5" ViewCount="907" Body="&lt;p&gt;And the same with 下个年? Ok 明年 has some logic in in because of 明天, but 去年 is off for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3608" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T04:07:53.730" Title="We say 上个星期, 上个月 and 去年 why not 上个年?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28476" CreationDate="2018-01-18T13:04:50.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'个' is a classifier for object, it can be used for big thing like '(一个)社交网络'; or small thing like '一个苹果'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'年' is a noun, therefore, in theory, it can be treated as an object and we should be able to apply classifier to it. However  '年' itself can also be a classifier (for a 'length of time') , as in &quot;一年工夫&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When an object (noun) can also be a classifier, we generally don't add classifier before it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say '一个拳头' (a fist) but not '一个拳' because 拳 itself can be a '(action) classifier' , so 'one punch, two punch' is '一拳, 两拳', but not '一个拳, 两个拳' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'一年, 两年' is 'one year, two years &lt;em&gt;long&lt;/em&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'上(一)年, 下(两)年' is 'previous year (that passed) , next two years (to come) ; both refer more to 'length of time'  than a unit 年 (year)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We do use 个 for 年, when 年 is clearly refers to the unit 'year' , for example, 一个好年 (a good year) or 一个财政年(度) (a financial year). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-18T18:38:52.853" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T18:38:52.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28476" CreationDate="2018-01-18T15:17:44.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from 年 not taking a classifier because it itself often functions as a classifier, there is another &quot;reason&quot; which, I believe, is really more general. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I ask you why is it that you say &quot;last/next year, last/next month, last/next week&quot; but &quot;yesterday/tomorrow&quot;, not &quot;last/next day&quot;, your answer is probably something along the line of &quot;that's the way we say it in English&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Language is by and large a convention that has developed over time. If we use the structure, vocabulary of one language (usually our native language) to try to interpret another language (usually the language we are trying to learn), we will run into a lot of questions like this. Most of the time, there simply isn't a good, logical answer because the two languages have developed differently, have different ways of looking at the world, and use different ways to express concepts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T15:17:44.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28479" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-18T20:53:24.413" Score="0" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't read Chinese but sometimes access the film database of Douban. I've noticed that they always place the original titles just next to the Chinese title - separated by a simple space, with no parentheses or anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They do this even when the title is in Japanese and starts with the same ideogram used by Chinese, as in this example with &lt;strong&gt;千与千寻 千と千尋の神隠し&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SL0mO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SL0mO.png&quot; alt=&quot;千与千寻 千と千尋の神隠し&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Isn't it confusing to place Japanese kanji just next to a Chinese word? This example includes の and maybe other obviously Japanese kanji, which may help a little, but the space between 寻 and 千 is barely noticeable, and they do it with titles in kanji-only too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18938" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T18:24:22.983" Title="Isn't it confusing to have Japanese words just next to Chinese words?" Tags="&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28480" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28481" CreationDate="2018-01-18T20:59:12.073" Score="2" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know in Chinese people sometimes use other common words or phrases to tell people what characters their Chinese name has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Chinese name is Yuan Li Heng (袁禮恒)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Li I can say Li Wu 禮物 and for Heng I can say Yong Heng 永恒. Yuan is a little harder because from I've heard, it's more just a common surname.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's usually the best way to tell people what character it is in Chinese if the character itself doesn't really have any associated meanings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2386" LastActivityDate="2018-01-19T02:05:24.207" Title="What famous word or phrase can I use to tell people my surname is 袁?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28480" CreationDate="2018-01-18T21:23:07.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just mention a famous person with that surname, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Shao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;袁紹&lt;/a&gt; from the Three Kingdoms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Chonghuan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;袁崇煥&lt;/a&gt;, patriot, martyr, and brilliant military commander who was instrumental in repelling the Jurchens for the Ming Dynasty&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Shikai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;袁世凱&lt;/a&gt;, first president of the Republic of China&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T21:23:07.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28482" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28502" CreationDate="2018-01-18T22:19:33.497" Score="2" ViewCount="923" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading up on 木孜塔格峰 &lt;em&gt;(Muztagh peak)&lt;/em&gt; and came across a reference to the reformer 周穆王 &lt;em&gt;(King Mu of Zhou)&lt;/em&gt; being the first mortal to visit 崑崙 &lt;em&gt;(Mt. Kunlun)&lt;/em&gt; where he met 瑤池金母 &lt;em&gt;(the Queen Mother of the West)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/24058/pg24058-images.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;I found the Chinese source text here&lt;/a&gt;, but I can't find an English (ideally Chinese&amp;amp;English) translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Does anyone know of a translation or online resource with this material?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16864" LastActivityDate="2018-01-21T03:22:17.497" Title="English text of 穆天子傳 (Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28480" CreationDate="2018-01-19T01:24:47.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Referencing famous names is a good idea. But if it still doesn't work, you might have to describe the radicals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, my surname is 张. I was often asked to clarify whether it's 立-早 章 or 弓-长 张, when I told them my surname pronounced as 'zhang'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-19T01:24:47.963" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28487" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28495" CreationDate="2018-01-19T03:42:43.063" Score="3" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;My middle name that everyone has always called me by, is Wesley.  Since my parents said I was named for that English preacher, I looked up how he is normally called in Chinese.  But a Chinese friend (who I am sure is familiar with John Wesley), suggested I use instead 伟思礼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, would 伟思礼 be considered a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_name&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;courtesy name&lt;/a&gt; and if not, what should it be called in English and 普通话?  (Spanish, if you happen to know)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should it just be called “my Chinese name”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="15442" LastEditDate="2018-01-19T14:14:56.807" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T06:14:07.950" Title="Courtesy name or?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28488" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28492" CreationDate="2018-01-19T04:43:44.850" Score="5" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I use 又 to express more than two properties that something has?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this is ok:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這個貓又快又好看。　(This cat is fast and good looking.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But can I write?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這個貓又快又好看又很高興。 (This cat is fast, good looking and very happy.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or should I rather use write it with comma?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這個貓快、好看也很高興&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T06:27:32.583" Title="Can I use 又 to give more than two properties of something?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28487" CreationDate="2018-01-19T06:12:29.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;john wesley is normally translated as 約翰 (john) 衛斯理 (wesley). nowadays, the methodist church in hong kong is called 循道衛理會.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, &quot;偉思禮&quot; is just transcribe phonetically the sound of the name &quot;wesley&quot; to chinese. it's &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a courtesy name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's an example of name (名), courtesy name (字) &amp;amp; art name (號) of &quot;non-chinese&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the german jesuit Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592-1666), in chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;his &lt;strong&gt;name (名) was &quot;湯若望&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, which was transcribe from &quot;johann adam&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;his &lt;strong&gt;courtesy name (字) was &quot;道未&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, which was derived from the verse &quot;望道而未見之&quot; in the book 孟子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the rationale is at that time, chinese people thought that their kingdom is perfect, all foreigners are barbarian, so when johann adam arrived, they thought that he's a monk seeking for tao (望道), but he's not yet learnt (而未見之). that's why they assign &quot;道未&quot; as his courtesy name (字). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;道未&quot; is to declare &quot;seeking for tao, but not yet finished&quot;, it had no connection with the name (名).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;further, he had an &lt;strong&gt;art name (號) as &quot;通玄法師&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, which is not mentioned in the wiki.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the art name (號) &quot;通玄法師&quot; is assigned by the emperor, cause his calendar was better than the chinese one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E6%B1%A4%E8%8B%A5%E6%9C%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/汤若望&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-01-19T06:12:29.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28488" CreationDate="2018-01-19T08:35:39.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This cat is fast and good looking.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if it's a good writing in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would write it like: &lt;strong&gt;This cat runs fast and has good looking.&lt;/strong&gt; In Chinese: 这只猫跑得快，长得也漂亮。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think 又... 又... structure is suitable for this context. Usually, the structure is used when the two properties share the same verb. For example, 她长得又高, 又瘦。； 他的字写得又快, 又好看。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use the structure when you describe more than two properties. For example, 她人长得又高，又瘦，又漂亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-19T08:35:39.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28488" CreationDate="2018-01-19T10:12:11.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a set phrase in Cantonese which goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;又平又靓又正&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC Canto defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;STATIVE VERB&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(for goods or services) to be not only cheap and attractive, but also good-quality; to be not only cheap and nice-looking, but also reliable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and gives the examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其實呢度都幾好買,啲衫又平又靚又正&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kei4 sat6 ni1 dou6 dou1 gei2 hou2 maai5, di1 saam1 jau6 peng4 jau6 leng3 jau6 zeng3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact buying here is quite good, the clothes are not only cheap and attractive, but also good-quality&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大陸人好鍾意嚟香港買嘢,係因為啲嘢又平又靚又正㗎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;daai6 luk6 jan4 hou2 zung1 ji3 lai4 hoeng1 gong2 maai5 je5, hai6 jan1 wai6 di1 je5 jau6 peng4 jau6 leng3 jau6 zeng3 gaa3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China-mainlanders like to come to Hong Kong to buy things, it's because the things are not only cheap and nice-looking, but also reliable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which should go to show that more than two 又s is okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The issue you have with your example sentence that people are trying to correct you on is that the descriptors surrounded by the 又s need to &lt;strong&gt;go together&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fast and good looking is lacking any sort of logical connection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could say: fast and nimble or good looking and cute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slightly unrelated but you might want to know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There’s also the &lt;em&gt;new&lt;/em&gt; expression:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;又双叒叕&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you4 shuang1 ruo4 zhuo2 -or- you4 you4 you4 you4 you4 you4 you4 you4 you4 you4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To express that somethings happened yet again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s a headline from the recent news:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Windows10免费升级又双叒叕延期了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-19T10:25:31.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28488" CreationDate="2018-01-19T13:35:16.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;這個貓又快又好看 means 'this cat is fast and the running action is good looking'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This cat is fast and good looking should be 这只猫跑得快长得又好看.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这只猫又胖又可爱. or 这只猫又快又灵活 is right, either describe the same property.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to add more..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这只猫又胖又可爱, &lt;strong&gt;同时&lt;/strong&gt;还很白, &lt;strong&gt;并且&lt;/strong&gt;眼睛很漂亮, &lt;strong&gt;而且&lt;/strong&gt;还很傲娇、礼貌、黏人、聪明、...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare it to this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这只猫又胖又可爱又白又漂亮又傲娇、礼貌、黏人、聪明， which sounds a little naive， usually used by children。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-01-19T13:35:16.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28488" CreationDate="2018-01-19T13:42:04.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;[又 X 又 Y] is a common structure for [X also Y] or [X but Y]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For [X also Y] structure, X and Y have to have similar property, usually both positive or negative adjective (or adjectival phrase). For example: 又快又準, 又慢又不凖; 又高又瘦, 又矮又肥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For [X but Y] structure, X and Y have to be verb or adjective that contradict each other . For example: 又想又怕; 又要臉又孤寒. And you can only use two 又 here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is grammatically acceptable to extend the [X also Y]  structure and use more than two 又 as long as the third one also follow the pattern. For example: 又高又瘦又漂亮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But too many 又 in one phrase would sound awkward, therefore 又便宜又好用又好看又不佔地方 is usually rephrased as &quot;便宜, 好用, 好看又不佔地方&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-19T13:53:54.273" LastActivityDate="2018-01-19T13:53:54.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28487" CreationDate="2018-01-19T15:36:13.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say naming your child after a relative, or someone important to you, is not a Chinese concept. In the olden days, if your name happened to be the same as, say, the emperor's name, you would be forced to change it. Perhaps your friend was trying to help you avoid the commonly accepted translation of Wesley's name 衛斯理 /Wei4 si1 li3/? One problem I can think of using 衛斯理 would be that people might think you are a descendent of the Wesley family, and you will need to explain every time you introduce yourself in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question about whether your Chinese name is a courtesy name: No, I don't think so. If I were you, I would simply call this &quot;my Chinese name&quot;, and depending on the situation, if you wish, go deeper and explain the origin of your name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And by the way, 伟思礼 is a lovely name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-01-19T15:36:13.093" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-19T23:24:01.343" Score="2" ViewCount="373" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning Cantonese (native Danish speaker, I use traditional Chinese characters) and I'm compiling a list of characters that I've learned. I have two questions about creating this list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since (many) single characters can be words, what is the most logical way of organizing such a dictionary? I figure that I should not group by nouns, verbs, adjectives etc. since that would lead to many repetitions. What do you think?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I simply create a list of characters (with translation, phonetics, etc.), then what is the most logical way of ordering this list? Using the Latin alphabet, I would simply use the alphabet ordering.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18848" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T12:35:18.377" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T16:46:00.283" Title="Ordering and grouping of Chinese characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28496" CreationDate="2018-01-20T01:45:02.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because I do not know your competence in Chinese / Cantonese, here's some vague advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe 2 lists. The first list of characters / words are grouped by function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. number (1, 2, 3 ...), location / direction (here, there, east, west).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look at the Lonely Planet Cantonese phrasebook; you'll know what I mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/china/cantonese-phrasebook-7/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/china/cantonese-phrasebook-7/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, another list is sorted by alphabet, just like a dictionary. Again, have a look at these free resources from the internet archive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/anenglishandcan00chalgoog&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;An English and Cantonese pocket-dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/cantoneseforbegi01jianuoft&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantonese for beginners&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/en00glishcantonesechalrich&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English and Cantonese dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/cu31924023344256&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Cantonese made easy vocabulary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just a reminder, these books are published in the 18-19th centuries, some terms are not politically correct nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another source: the &lt;a href=&quot;http://resources.publicense.moe.edu.tw/dict_reviseddict_download.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國語辭典&lt;/a&gt; from Taiwan is authoritative. You may download 3 Excel files, sort all volumes, then find a suitable way for yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T12:38:54.237" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T12:38:54.237" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28487" CreationDate="2018-01-20T06:14:07.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually,伟 is not commen in the first name. I guess 魏 is a pretty first name.Anyway 伟思礼 is also a good name. As for courtesy name, in ancient China, people get thier courtesy name from their parents (most father), in thier coming-of-age ceremonies.Most of the courtesy name are explainations to their names, for you, I get a saying, &quot;不学礼，无以立&quot;.So I think you can use 立身as your courtesy name. If I get your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18942" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T06:14:07.950" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28488" CreationDate="2018-01-20T06:27:32.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure you can,both are right.but you also can use 不仅……而且(又)……（还……).Which means like &quot;more than&quot;. Like 这只猫不仅快而且(又)好看还高兴,or 这只猫既快又好看还高兴.They mean the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18942" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T06:27:32.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28476" CreationDate="2018-01-20T07:25:16.920" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We sometimes use 上一年 which means the same with 去年.And we say 上个星期，上个月，also means 上一个星期，上一个月，and we ignore 一 for easy expressions. At the same time，we ignore the 个 in 上一个年 for the same reason. With time passing by, we use them for regulations. As for 去年，昨日，in the ancient time, we use 去，昨 mean past or 过去的，nowadays we remain those words. In my memory, we alse use 去月 means past month. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18942" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T07:25:16.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28482" CreationDate="2018-01-20T10:14:32.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesereferenceshelf.brillonline.com/ancient-literature/entries/SIM-300288;jsessionid=1B8A0C84EDB9F8C83691AC6A4092307D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Brill&lt;/a&gt; lists three translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Translations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Eitel, E.J. “Mu-t’ien-tzu chuan.” China Review 17 (1888): 223–40; 247–58.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cheng Te-k’un. “The Travels of Emperor Mu.” JNCBRAS 64 (1933): 124–42; 65(1934): 128–49.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mathieu, Rémi. Le Mu tianzi zhuan, traduction annotée, etude critique. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1978.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presumably with the first two being English and the third being French.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.J. Eitel's translation entitled &lt;em&gt;Mu T'ien-tzu Chuan&lt;/em&gt; (Muh-T'ien-Tsze Chuen) -or- &lt;em&gt;The Chronicle of Mu, Son-of Heaven&lt;/em&gt; was split into two parts and both are hosted on the &lt;em&gt;Hong Kong Journals Online&lt;/em&gt; section of the &lt;em&gt;Hong Kong University&lt;/em&gt; website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Part one: &lt;a href=&quot;http://hkjo.lib.hku.hk/archive/files/9dc5097a30e2c27b29c5edb0394017bc.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;translation by E.J. Eitel in 1888 in China Review 17, no. 4, PP. 223-240&lt;/a&gt; pdf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Part two: &lt;a href=&quot;http://hkjo.lib.hku.hk/archive/files/34233ed92e13b03262a6ad8405800e07.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;translation by E.J. Eitel in 1888 in China Review 17, no. 5, PP. 242-258&lt;/a&gt; pdf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the &lt;strong&gt;Cheng Te-k’un&lt;/strong&gt; translation the best I've got so far is found in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=IE-u0zSrZ84C&amp;amp;pg=PA57&amp;amp;lpg=PA57&amp;amp;dq=Travels%20of%20the%20Emperor%20Mu%20Cheng%20Te-k%27un&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=PNVX6lwGOJ&amp;amp;sig=Z2n-4hPOZZPG7ZeCIyZ0Tq0qMao&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjvuebZpubYAhVF-GMKHXddAEgQ6AEIOTAG#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=Travels%20of%20the%20Emperor%20Mu%20Cheng%20Te-k%27un&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Classical Chinese Literature: From antiquity to the Tang dynasty&#xA;edited by John Minford, Joseph S. M. Lau&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wheels of His Chariot, The Hoofs of His Horses Selections from The Travels of Mu, Son of Heaven&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated by Cheng Te-k'un&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starts on page 59:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the day mou-yin the emperor made his way to the west, marching on as far as the Yangyu Mountain, where in ancient days Wu Yi, the God of the River, had established his family, the house of Hezong. A member of this house, Bo Yao, welcomed the emperor at the Yanren Mountain, offering as presents a piece of silk ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's only selections but they say the full length is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VGFmy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VGFmy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also matches the, more specific, Brill tag. It seems to be split between journals, much like the Eitel translation, and it should be found in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;volume 64 (1933): pages 124–142;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;volume 65 (1934): pages 128–149.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (皇家亚洲文会北华支会会刊) has combined and &amp;quot;photocopied&amp;quot; (read:re-printed(?)) all 75 volumes of their journals and you can get it on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.cn/dp/B00C9UDCK4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1516504667&amp;amp;sr=8-2&amp;amp;keywords=%E7%9A%87%E5%AE%B6%E4%BA%9A%E6%B4%B2%E6%96%87%E4%BC%9A%E5%8C%97%E5%8D%8E%E6%94%AF%E4%BC%9A%E4%BC%9A%E5%88%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt; for ￥25,900.00.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But really you're only looking for the 33rd volume in the new printings because it contains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.cn/dp/B00DVDDRFI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1516504667&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;keywords=%E7%9A%87%E5%AE%B6%E4%BA%9A%E6%B4%B2%E6%96%87%E4%BC%9A%E5%8C%97%E5%8D%8E%E6%94%AF%E4%BC%9A%E4%BC%9A%E5%88%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;第三十三册&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.S.VOL.LXIV（1933）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.S.VOL.LXV（1934）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Volumes 64 and 65 of the original journals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-21T03:22:17.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28505" CreationDate="2018-01-20T11:57:13.083" Score="2" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2月头的样子，有一起去泰国的朋友吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would mean something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Any friend who can travel to Thailand together at the start of February?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what does the 样子 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary says appearance, shape, pattern, etc... as the meaning, and they are what I know on the word 样子. But they don’t seem to be a good fit in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what does it mean and what is the difference with or without 的样子?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T04:15:40.280" Title="What does 2月头的样子 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28504" CreationDate="2018-01-20T16:53:09.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;的样子 = seem like/ look like/ apparently&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2月头的样子 (seems like early February) doesn't look like a complete sentence because we don't know 'what' seems like early February&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wrote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;2月头的样子, (我会有一个长假)&amp;quot; --&amp;gt; It seems like early February, (I will have a long vacation time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or rephrase it as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;It seems like I will have a long vacation time early February&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then it would make more sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you insist on just write &amp;quot;2月头的样子，有一起去泰国的朋友吗？&amp;quot; Then a topic must had been mentioned in the context earlier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: &amp;quot;你什么时候去旅行？&amp;quot; ( When will you travel?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &amp;quot;2月头的样子&amp;quot; (something like early February)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blaszard wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;So it is similar (or same) to 左右?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 左右 (around) in this context would be fine, but the wording is different. As I stated in the beginning of this post, 的样子 means &amp;quot;seem like/ look like/ apparently&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;2月头&lt;strong&gt;左右&lt;/strong&gt;, 有一起去泰国的朋友吗？&amp;quot; (Are there any friend who would go to Thailand with me &lt;strong&gt;around&lt;/strong&gt; early February?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be a complete sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T17:21:52.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28504" CreationDate="2018-01-20T22:33:06.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means “about the beginning of February ” &#xA;”二月头的样子” means “大概二月初” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18947" LastEditorUserId="18947" LastEditDate="2018-01-20T22:38:40.617" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T22:38:40.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28428" CreationDate="2018-01-21T05:32:11.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;May be 良药苦口，忠言逆耳？&#xA;This means the good medicine tastes terrible, and the sincere advice sounds vicious. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18942" LastActivityDate="2018-01-21T05:32:11.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28459" CreationDate="2018-01-21T06:00:32.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you translate the sentence into &quot;We are waiting for the boat to cross the river.&quot;You don't get the word 渡，maybe the meaning is the same, you can translate the 渡 into &quot;carry somebody to someplace&quot; so you should add 我们 for &quot;carry us  to the other side of the river&quot;.In a word,in that sentence, we can get two actions, one is &quot;wait for the boat&quot;,the other is &quot;carry us away&quot;.So you should use two 我们.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18942" LastActivityDate="2018-01-21T06:00:32.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28455" CreationDate="2018-01-21T06:08:43.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, we only use 吃 in ancient times, nowadays we use 喝 more. You can simply translate all into &quot;drink&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18942" LastActivityDate="2018-01-21T06:08:43.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28479" CreationDate="2018-01-21T06:10:06.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The person who designed the website must assumed that the majority of the Douban users are Chinese. As native speakers, we can identify Chinese letters without any effort, and this design doesn’t bother us at all (although I think its a bad design). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18947" LastActivityDate="2018-01-21T06:10:06.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28479" CreationDate="2018-01-21T11:30:30.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, context is key. Seeing this on the front of a DVD presents no problems for me. I have ability in both languages but even if I didn't and I only understood Chinese, it still would not be an issue because the Japanese characters (hiragana here) are immediately discernible even without understanding the meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18917" LastActivityDate="2018-01-21T11:30:30.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28514" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28517" CreationDate="2018-01-21T20:08:02.910" Score="3" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was trying to write a short text about 姜子牙。Due to my limited success, I searched for Chinese materials and found a folktale &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%AA%E5%85%AC%E6%9C%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. It says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;周文王請呂尚上車，屏退拉車手，親自將姜尚請回都城&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My problem is with the last part. Is the 將 here the written equivalent of 把，or is it something different, because a 把 feels superfluous. Is it just a reformulation of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;周文王親自請姜子牙與他回都城&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or is there any special meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T14:40:39.367" Title="Understanding the role of 將 in a sentence" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27127" CreationDate="2018-01-22T01:39:00.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;旗帜&quot; should  be interpreted as &quot;battle flags&quot;, rather than &quot;banners&quot; that are used today (e.g. for celebrations or for marking special occasions). Both in China (as late as in the early 20th century) and in the West (from the Romans till WWI (?)), armies (&amp;amp; regiments) carried flags to distinguish themselves from their enemies--in ancient times, drummers would be right next to (or right behind) the flags.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;旗&quot; and &quot;帜&quot; aren't exactly the same, but they overlap in meaning--enough that together they mean &quot;flag&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;高举旗帜&quot; is a metaphor that means &quot;to carry on (whatever the flags (旗帜) represent&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T01:39:00.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28516" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28519" CreationDate="2018-01-22T02:01:49.800" Score="3" ViewCount="2504" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are 打算 (dǎ suàn) and 计划 (jì huà) both synonyms for &quot;plan,&quot; or are there some additional nuances here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18217" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T20:58:11.980" Title="What is the difference between 打算 (dǎ suàn) and 计划 (jì huà)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28514" CreationDate="2018-01-22T02:06:06.553" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the 將 here the written equivalent of 把&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, and it's more formal than 把. According to the context, especially &quot;屏退拉車手&quot;, &quot;親自將姜尚請回都城&quot; indicates that &quot;周文王&quot; pulled the cart by himself; while &quot;周文王親自請姜子牙與他回都城&quot; doesn't have such intent strongly. With the usage of &quot;將&quot; (or &quot;把&quot;), the object of the action, &quot;姜尚&quot; (and then the action, &quot;親自拉車&quot;) gets emphasized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T14:40:39.367" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T14:40:39.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28516" CreationDate="2018-01-22T02:27:50.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;“计划” is more formal and “打算” is more used in oral language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;计划&quot; means : You have a goal and you create a plan to achieve that goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: “我计划去学习” (I want to study and I have a study plan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;打算&quot; means： You have a goal but you haven't take any actions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example：“我打算去学习” (I want to study,  but It’s just a thought)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18947" LastEditorUserId="18947" LastEditDate="2018-01-22T03:41:24.817" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T03:41:24.817" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28516" CreationDate="2018-01-22T02:58:49.390" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;打算 means 'intend to'(v) ; 'intention'(n) .  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'打算' can mean 'to plan' (e.g. 为将来打算) or 'intend to' (e.g. 打算将来去英国) in English &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A '打算' can be an 'intention' or a 'plan'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;计划 means 'to plan' (v) ; 'plan' (n). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you 计划 (plan) something, you are formulating a workable plan with at least some form of mental calculations, and the objective should be a specific one. For example, 政府計劃[&lt;em&gt;十年內逐步削減赤字, 達到收支平衡&lt;/em&gt;]. Which is a very specific objective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A '计划' is a 'plan'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-22T20:58:11.980" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T20:58:11.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28455" CreationDate="2018-01-22T04:37:47.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker. 這個菜湯很香！　你吃吃看！doesn't really sound too bad since you can actually eat things in the soup. If it is just pure liquid like water, it will sound odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18950" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T04:37:47.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28521" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-22T07:44:34.790" Score="2" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been in Taiwan for about two weeks.  Some of my shopping receipts have &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minguo_calendar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;民国&lt;/a&gt; dates, some have Gregorian, and some have both. What I find confusing is that when there is both, the &lt;strong&gt;day&lt;/strong&gt; is not always the same on both. And I have at least two receipts with the same 民国 date but the Gregorian dates differ by two or more days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T12:33:20.833" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T12:34:26.787" Title="Confused about 民国 dates on receipts" Tags="&lt;calendar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28521" CreationDate="2018-01-22T08:16:09.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;民国 (Republic of China) era starts from 1912. Therefore, just add 1911 to the 民国 year number and you'll know the Gregorian year number. For example, 民国106年(ROC Year 106)=1911+106=2017 A.D.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, 民国 is omitted for simplicity. To distinguish ROC year from Gregorian year, follow this rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a year number is relatively small (no matter whether it's larger than 100), it's an ROC year number. (Therefore, 98年 (Year 98) is not Year 1998, it's Year 2009).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above rule only applies to daily life, not for academic use. However, the date of the year &lt;strong&gt;should remain the same&lt;/strong&gt; on both ROC date system and Gregorian date system. If you see differences, it must be produced by &quot;magic&quot; reasons rather than different date systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T12:34:26.787" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T12:34:26.787" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28438" CreationDate="2018-01-22T08:26:03.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't let the written characters fool you!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The character which works as iteration mark is definitely not a 上(lit. &quot;up&quot;). Rather, it looks like Chinese character 二(lit. &quot;two&quot;) with a small vertical stroke on the left. The vertical stroke could be some redundant stroke which is unintentionally produced by the author, or a small piece of anomaly which could occur during scanning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T08:26:03.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28521" CreationDate="2018-01-22T09:12:04.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I have figured it out.  What I &lt;strong&gt;thought&lt;/strong&gt; was the day in the 民国 date was &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; the day.  The ones with the apparent discrepancy were showing the 民国 &lt;strong&gt;months&lt;/strong&gt; of a lottery system.  I did not know about the lottery at the time, so when I saw three numbers, I interpreted them as year, month, day.  But actually, it was year and two different months:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;107&lt;/strong&gt;年&lt;strong&gt;01-02&lt;/strong&gt;月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The numbers were more prominent than the 汉字 and so I thought I was seeing the second day of the first month, when it actually refers to the lottery cycle of the first and second months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="15442" LastEditDate="2018-01-22T10:45:38.017" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T10:45:38.017" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28516" CreationDate="2018-01-22T10:53:21.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;计划 vs 打算&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both can be used as verb and noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is overlap in meaning for these two words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;计划 sounds more formal,  implying you have deep thought on it and well planned, maybe you have made a list for things you intend to do, and you might have detailed schedule, budget and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打算 is more colloquial or less formal. It's usually just rough idea about what you are going/wanting to do, and you might not have it well planned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we say 周密的计划，but not 周密的打算. We tend to use 打算 in spoken when you are going to  do something specific(not that complicated or important), like 我打算去逛街，我打算找个朋友聊聊天. We don't usually say 我计划找个朋友聊聊天 in this case, which sounds a bit pretentious I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T10:53:21.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28438" CreationDate="2018-01-22T12:06:09.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;sup&gt;[Everyone is trying to warn me off of 上 but sometimes the heart just wants what it wants.]&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The MoE variant characters page&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/L0ewS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/L0ewS.png&quot; alt=&quot;yoyoyo&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is saying that this slightly &lt;em&gt;unconventional&lt;/em&gt; number two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zoKng.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zoKng.png&quot; alt=&quot;two?&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is a variant of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's 研订说明 goes on to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;音讀&lt;/strong&gt;     ㄕㄤˋ　＃ㄦˋ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;漢語拼音&lt;/strong&gt;   shàng　＃èr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;研訂者&lt;/strong&gt;    李鍌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;內容&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「二」為「上」之異體。上，段注本《說文解字．一部》：「&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zoKng.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zoKng.png&quot; alt=&quot;two?&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;，高也，此古文&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YTIkW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YTIkW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;three&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;。指事也。，篆文上。&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YmkpF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YmkpF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;four&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;」按甲金文「上」皆作「二」，是則「二」為「上」之異體可確認。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＃「二」另兼正字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under their 形体资料表 they also have a document entitled 金石文字辨異:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FusMA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FusMA.png&quot; alt=&quot;yoyoyo&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 上 and 二 were somewhat interchangeable it wouldn't be surprising if 上 was also used as an iteration mark like 二.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T12:06:09.133" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28438" CreationDate="2018-01-22T13:15:39.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this kknews article &lt;a href=&quot;https://kknews.cc/zh-mo/culture/9ygzznl.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(找薦004.疊字符/重字符這麼用，有沒有錯？)&lt;/a&gt;, many variants were used for the iteration marks, including marks that were or looked like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「S」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「々」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「&lt;strong&gt;匕&lt;/strong&gt;」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「上」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「乙」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「=」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It goes on to state that what looks like「匕」is normally thought of as a result of rapid writing leading to graphical corruption, or degradation of the engraving medium (for steles). We know that「々」came from a variant of「同」, but the origin of「=」is conjecture without any hard evidence. It may be later surmised as「上」or「二」, but it is probably impossible to ever know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, if you search your copy of 躋春臺, it will have more examples of「匕」as the iteration mark. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T13:15:39.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28479" CreationDate="2018-01-22T16:56:57.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very hard for an internet-savvy Chinese to grow up without any exposure to Japanese. So for the target audience, this is not at all a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I think this is quite a common practice. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.co.uk/Principe-Prince-Open-Source-Classics/dp/1937847039&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.co.uk/Principe-Prince-Open-Source-Classics/dp/1937847039&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the book front page, you have Il Principe and The Prince together&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T16:56:57.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28530" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28546" CreationDate="2018-01-22T21:20:54.303" Score="2" ViewCount="442" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was curious when I noticed that 暖 contains the character 爱, so I thought that in the traditional form, it would have 愛, the traditional form of 爱. But it appears that 暖 has the same form in both simplified and traditional - as far as I'm aware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question is, what is the relationship between these characters? Does 暖 contain the same character as in 爱, love, or is the simplified form of 愛 simply the same as the right part of 暖 by coincidence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15160" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T08:44:25.477" Title="What's the relationship between 暖, 爱 and 愛?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28542" CreationDate="2018-01-23T02:28:39.693" Score="0" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it ok to use 他 as a gender neutral personal pronoun (as it used to be before 她 was introduced) even if I know that the subject is female?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: 他是我妹妹　vs　他是我妹妹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T03:41:24.350" Title="Is it ok to use 他 as a gender neutral personal pronoun (instead of 她) when the subject is known to be female?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28536" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28972" CreationDate="2018-01-23T02:40:42.757" Score="0" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've learned that 有一點 can only be used for negative things, such as 有一點累，　有一點不好吃　etc　but not 有一點漂亮，　有一點好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how about if I say only 一點？ Is that the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, are the following sentences valid?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這個甜點只一點甜，不太甜的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This dessert is only a little bit sweet, not too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這本書一點有意思，可是那本書真有意思！　你看看！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This book is a little interesting, but that one is really interesting! You should read it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T01:01:46.710" Title="有一點　can only be used for bad things, but how about 一點？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28530" CreationDate="2018-01-23T02:51:05.503" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The right part of 暖(nuǎn) is 爰(yuán) and it's not 爱 or the traditional form 愛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient Chinese, 爰 is a kind of pronoun, like &quot;where/which&quot;. And it also has other meanings, one is &quot;to change&quot;. But if you saw &quot;爰爰&quot; in ancient articles it meant &quot;leisurely&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, there is few relationship between 暖（or 爰）/爱(愛). Or one can say by force, they have the same Chinese character component, the first four strokes on top of 爰/爱. It means 爪(tail), and in ancient Chinese it also means &quot;hand&quot;. See? &quot;to change&quot; one should use his hand, and to love one might cook/make a gift by his hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must distinguish 暖 and 暧(曖, ài). For 爰 there is no traditional form. 暖 means &quot;warm/to warm&quot;, and 暧 means dim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ready for higher order? Try these! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;㬊(huǎn) is not 暖(nuǎn) even one puts 日 over 爰, it is the opposite of 暧(dim), &quot;bright&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;暖(nuǎn) has another pronunciation, xuān. &quot;暖姝&quot; （xuān shū）means &quot;have a high opinion of oneself&quot;. BUT &quot;暧昧&quot; (ài mèi) means &quot;ambiguous/dubious/shady&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;暧 also means &quot;warmly&quot;, so it is 暖... (Of cause this is contentious!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-01-23T08:44:25.477" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T08:44:25.477" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28126" CreationDate="2018-01-23T03:02:56.060" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I search this word in Pandarow dictionary, and it shows that the pinyin is [dāo xiāo miàn],you can click this link to listen to the pronunciation.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.pandarow.com/dict/%E5%88%80%E5%89%8A%E9%9D%A2-daoxiaomian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chinese.pandarow.com/dict/%E5%88%80%E5%89%8A%E9%9D%A2-daoxiaomian&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18963" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T03:02:56.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28191" CreationDate="2018-01-23T03:10:51.173" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is always used in the end of a sentence as a modal particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18963" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:33:05.750" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:33:05.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28536" CreationDate="2018-01-23T03:12:50.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically in oral, they have no difference, and we Chinese take 一點 as the abbreviation of 有一點. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;This book is a little interesting&quot;=&quot;這本書有一點意思/有點意思/有意思&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;This book is little interesting&quot;=&quot;這本書没一點意思/没意思&quot;. &quot;没點意思&quot; is unusually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &quot;有一點 can only be used for negative things&quot; that is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a scene, a boy asks &quot;Do you like me?&quot; to a girl, and the girl answers shyly. “你喜歡我嗎？” “有一點……” ⁄(⁄ ⁄ ⁄ω⁄ ⁄ ⁄)⁄ (OS: VERY MUCH!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See? Not negative!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T03:12:50.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28534" CreationDate="2018-01-23T03:18:42.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you can't if you already know she is a woman. However, if you don't know the gender, you can use 他.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T03:18:42.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28534" CreationDate="2018-01-23T03:41:24.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, there is only 他 in ancient Chinese. The invention of the font 她 comes from the influence of foreign languages in 1900s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there is no word in ancient Chinese contains the usage of IT as a gender neutral personal pronoun. Consulting foreign languages we borrow 它 as IT. 它 is actually the ancient word of 他. 它 means &quot;other&quot; in common use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, when you use 他/她/它, try to think about it in your language and that's all clearly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But someone uses 他 instead of 她 online, that's because they type too quickly to select the word...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T03:41:24.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28476" CreationDate="2018-01-23T04:07:53.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;上年=去年，上月=去月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上 means &quot;previous&quot;, 去 means &quot;last&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an idiomatic usage. We use 上年/去年/上月, don't use 去月(but in ancient Chinese we do).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上一个月=前一个月, 前 means &quot;previous&quot;, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in idiomatic usage, 前年 doesn't mean “the last year”. It is &quot;the year before last year&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And we use 上一年/上一月/上一日/上两年/上两月/上两日, don't use 上三年/上三月/上三日 in common. But it's not a rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, we often use 前一年/前一月/前一日/前两年/前两月/前两日/前三年/前三月/前三日.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T04:07:53.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28455" CreationDate="2018-01-23T05:40:41.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously need to chew -&gt; 这碗汤吃吃看/吃粥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Around the ambiguity -&gt; 这碗汤喝喝看/喝粥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No usage of “吃汤” leads to safety~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T05:40:41.257" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28530" CreationDate="2018-01-23T05:54:38.167" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look carefully the components are different:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;爰&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;爱&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爱 has a 冖 where 爰 is just a 一.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;Outlier&lt;/strong&gt; dictionary gives us the origins of 暖: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COMPONENTS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;日 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 暖, 日 “the sun; light; period of time” is a semantic component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;爰 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 暖 nuǎn, 爰 yuán is a sound component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can compare it with &lt;strong&gt;Outlier&lt;/strong&gt;'s entry for 愛:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FORM&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;愛 was originally composed of 心 “heart, mind” and 旡 jì, a sound component. 旡 has become &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in the modern script, and 夊 has been added. &#xA;  [Reference, p. 792]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COMPONENTS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 愛 ài, &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is an empty component. It was originally 旡 jì, the sound component, though the sound relation is not obvious in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;心 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 愛, 心 “heart” is a meaning component, pointing to the original meaning “benevolent love.” &#xA;  [Reference, p. 792]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夊 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 愛, 夊 “foot” is an empty component. Many variants are created by adding 夊, while the meaning expressed by the character is not changed. It’s very likely that this is the case here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the simplified version has been given some extra added meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FORM&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;爱 ài contains &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and 友 “friend” to express the original meaning “benevolent love.” &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is a corruption of 旡 jì, which gave the sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COMPONENTS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 爱 ài, &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njBJK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is an empty component. It was originally 旡 jì, the sound component, though the sound relation is not obvious in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;友 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 爱, 友 “friend” is a meaning component, hinting at the original meaning “benevolent love.” &#xA;  [Reference, p. 792]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T05:54:38.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8688" CreationDate="2018-01-23T06:36:59.593" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;咸 doesn’t mean salty here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word “salty” in traditional Chinese is 鹹. The left component 鹵(lǔ) is pictographic for the halides (actually the halides carried by a pouch). And the right component 咸(xián) is phonetic in this case. So 鹹 pronounced xián.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From traditional to simplified, 鹹 omitted the left component to 咸 retaining the pronunciation. But this character means “all” originally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;减 is irrelevant with any flavor. It is “water” + “all”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you can think about that the water flux takes off a part of all, such as a tiny piece of a big rock in the river. This is reduce/substrate/decrease/diminish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-01-23T09:16:22.827" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T09:16:22.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7236" CreationDate="2018-01-23T07:05:27.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This component we Chinese called “肉月旁” in oral. The component of meals which seems like moon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T07:05:27.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28536" CreationDate="2018-01-23T11:09:01.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“這本書一點有意思，可是那本書真有意思！　你看看！” is not valid, But you may say “這本書有一點意思，可是那本書真有意思！　你看看！” it is more Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 有一點 means not being positive when it is used with adj or VP. You are right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T11:09:01.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28551" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28554" CreationDate="2018-01-23T13:11:23.970" Score="2" ViewCount="517" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;想, 觉得，以为&lt;/code&gt; all mean to think. But is there any subtle difference between the three or tense difference? When would you be more likely to use them in context? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18955" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T00:13:52.940" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T00:13:52.940" Title="Is there any difference between 想, 觉得 and 以为?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28552" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28553" CreationDate="2018-01-23T14:21:49.573" Score="2" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English (and Spanish), &quot;or&quot; (&quot;o&quot;) can be between things.  In Spanish, if negating, both items are preceded by &quot;ni&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking at sample sentences in Chinese, and sometimes I see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或____或____&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but in others, the first 或 is not there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this arbitrary, or is there a simple or complex rule to know which to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was about to write 我沒有或姐姐或哥哥。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T05:27:38.903" Title="&quot;or&quot; usage for choices" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28552" CreationDate="2018-01-23T15:21:45.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;____或____&quot; = &quot;____or____&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我沒有姐姐&lt;strong&gt;或&lt;/strong&gt;(者)哥哥 (I don't have sister &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; brother)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;是____或是____&quot; = &quot;is ____or____&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;來的&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;姐姐&lt;strong&gt;或是&lt;/strong&gt;哥哥都不要緊 (It doesn't matter the one who comes &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; sister &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; brother)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;或____或____&quot; = &quot;either____ or____&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全部隊員&lt;strong&gt;或&lt;/strong&gt;(者)死&lt;strong&gt;或&lt;/strong&gt;(者)傷，我们已經沒法再戦 (All team members &lt;strong&gt;either&lt;/strong&gt; died &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; injured, we can fight no longer) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;或是____或是____&quot; = &quot;is either____ or____&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&#xA;來的&lt;strong&gt;或是&lt;/strong&gt;姐姐, &lt;strong&gt;或是&lt;/strong&gt;哥哥, 總之不會是父母 (The one who comes &lt;strong&gt;is either&lt;/strong&gt; sister &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; brother, in short, will not be parents)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I was about to write 我沒有或姐姐或哥哥。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As user6065 stated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;既沒有&lt;/strong&gt;姐姐&lt;strong&gt;也没有&lt;/strong&gt;哥哥 (I have &lt;strong&gt;neither&lt;/strong&gt; sister &lt;strong&gt;nor&lt;/strong&gt; brother)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;既有&lt;/strong&gt;姐姐&lt;strong&gt;也有&lt;/strong&gt;哥哥 (I have sister &lt;strong&gt;and also&lt;/strong&gt; brother)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-23T15:27:37.200" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T15:27:37.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28551" CreationDate="2018-01-23T16:06:05.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;[我想 + statement] the statement is what I think is true&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[我觉得 + statement] the statement is what I feel is true&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[我以为  + statement] the statement is what I thought was true&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[我認为  + statement] the statement is what I concluded to be true&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[我相信  + statement] the statement is what I believe to be true&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;想&lt;/strong&gt;他不会来了 = I &lt;strong&gt;think&lt;/strong&gt; he won't come&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;觉得&lt;/strong&gt;他不会来了 = I think (&lt;strong&gt;feel&lt;/strong&gt;) he won't come&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;以为&lt;/strong&gt;他不会来了 = I &lt;strong&gt;thought&lt;/strong&gt; he wouldn't come&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;認为&lt;/strong&gt;他不会来了 = I think (&lt;strong&gt;concluded&lt;/strong&gt;) he wouldn't come&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;相信&lt;/strong&gt;他不会来了 = I think (&lt;strong&gt;believe&lt;/strong&gt;) he wouldn't come&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-23T16:14:53.320" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T16:14:53.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28551" CreationDate="2018-01-23T16:13:46.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;以为&lt;/strong&gt; is mostly used for: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;wrongly thought/believed &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like: &lt;code&gt;我以为你死了！&lt;/code&gt; I thought you were dead!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;觉得&lt;/strong&gt; is closer to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;feel/think (of an opinion)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like: &lt;code&gt;你这样说，我觉得非常不靠谱&lt;/code&gt; What you said is totally unreasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想 is close to the English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;think&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like: &lt;code&gt;我想这个案子肯定有猫腻。&lt;/code&gt; There's something fishy about this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese the idea of English 'think' is hardly ever used - even in English it's mostly just a buffer or fluff; if anything 觉得 is the closest. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T16:13:46.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28552" CreationDate="2018-01-23T16:38:41.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese seldom use 或.  There is usually other ways to express the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not have any sisters &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; brothers.&#xA;我&lt;strong&gt;既&lt;/strong&gt;没有姐妹&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;没有兄弟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You’d better hurry, &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; you will be late.&#xA;快点，&lt;strong&gt;要不然&lt;/strong&gt;就迟到了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They &lt;strong&gt;either&lt;/strong&gt; died &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; escaped.&#xA;他们&lt;strong&gt;不是&lt;/strong&gt;死了&lt;strong&gt;就是&lt;/strong&gt;逃了。&#xA;Note that the Chinese sentence literally means “if they did not die, then they escaped.”  If you have some mathematics or logic background, you may have noticed that in English, the primitive logical operators are “and”, “or”, and “not”.  But in Chinese, the primitive logical operators are “and”, “implies” and “not”.  “If not A, then B” is logically equivalent to “A or B”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="558" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T16:38:41.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28557" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28559" CreationDate="2018-01-23T17:17:16.187" Score="4" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm often finding differences in the printed form of the character than the written form, and I'm not sure which one to use. For example, in 窗, the typed character sometimes contains legs 儿, but the written character (shown in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/c3ff4335b92845d39f2985762c8f4300&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stroke diagrams&lt;/a&gt;) contains these 丷, or possibly 八.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then 隔, in its typed form sometimes contains 儿 and 丅, and sometimes contains 丷 and 丅. ...It seems mostly to do with the legs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the question is, which version is right, and how do I know?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15160" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T18:07:05.970" Title="How do I know whether to write the written character or printed character?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28558" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-23T17:39:33.557" Score="5" ViewCount="330" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain why 们 is used in the word 哥们 to mean buddy/dude, even if it's referred to a single person? Would it be possible to add 们 to any other family name, like 妈们，姐们，爸爸们 etc.? And if possible, is it just a plural form or does it carry a different meaning like  哥们?&#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18926" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T13:30:53.303" Title="Plural marker 们 in 哥们（儿）" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28557" CreationDate="2018-01-23T18:01:02.880" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is a tautology - of course you would write the written character and not the printed character!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The written characters and printed characters nowadays are both &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;typeface/font&lt;/a&gt; variations of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Regular Script (楷書)&lt;/a&gt;, originally a style written using a calligraphy brush, and which is what that stroke diagram shows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jIZ9D.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jIZ9D.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Regular script font imitating a calligraphy brush&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The written character is now written using a pen, but still largely follows the stroke order of the original calligraphy styles, so it mainly just appears thinner than calligraphy-based fonts, and should look like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u04iO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u04iO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  Japanese textbook font (教科書體, &lt;strong&gt;きょうかしょたい&lt;/strong&gt;), designed specifically to imitate pen handwriting in regular script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The printed character in your example originated in the 1100's CE Song dynasty, when &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_printing_in_East_Asia#Movable_type&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;movable type&lt;/a&gt; was first invented, and is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_(typefaces)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Song or Ming typeface (宋體/明體)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RYodH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RYodH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Characteristics of this typeface are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Thick vertical strokes and thin horizontal strokes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Triangles at the end of single horizontal strokes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Geometrical regularity&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the emphasis of Song/Ming typeface on geometrical balance that makes it divergent from natural handwriting, and there are deliberately introduced strokes in Song/Ming typeface characters that don't actually exist in regular handwriting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct form of the character always defers to a calligraphy brush or pen based font, but there are also regional variations in what is considered 'correct'; that is, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan all have different ways of writing Chinese characters, so you need to be clear as to what standard you're following and follow that closely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-23T18:07:05.970" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T18:07:05.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28560" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-23T21:14:45.703" Score="3" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;And, more broadly, is there a pattern when words like 空 have the same pronunciation but different tones, depending on the word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15160" LastActivityDate="2018-02-03T06:08:44.877" Title="Why does 空 have a fourth tone reading in 空格, but a first tone reading in 空调, 空气 etc" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28558" CreationDate="2018-01-23T21:26:15.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 哥们 means &quot;men&quot; or &quot;buddies&quot;  But you can still call a single person '你们哥们' (you men). Which refers him as  &quot;one of the men/ men like you&quot;. You are not technically addressing him, but addressing his group &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, saying to a person: &quot;You men are useless&quot; suggest &quot;&lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; being one of them is also useless&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你也是我的哥们儿了&quot; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; too are (one of) my buddies now&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have more than one older sister, you can refer them as 我家的姐们 (my older sisters). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can refer a single female as 姐们 (one of the women/ women like her) similar to 哥们&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot say 我家的妈们 or 爸们 because you only have one mother and one father.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;爷们 (males/men) can be used the same way as 哥们. As in  &quot;你们爷们&quot; (you men)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-03-26T11:03:06.613" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T11:03:06.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28562" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-23T21:37:07.623" Score="0" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;I separated &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Big_Soldier&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this film name&lt;/a&gt; by newlines &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/%E5%A4%A7%0A%E5%85%B5%0A%E5%B0%8F%0A%E5%B0%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;in Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; and I see:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大 Big&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兵 Soldiers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小 small&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将 will&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the meaning of 大兵小将 , character by character?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the &quot;will&quot; character for?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why are &quot;little&quot; and &quot;big&quot; on different sides of &quot;soldier&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Isn't &quot;Big Little Soldier&quot; translation as correct as &quot;Little Big Soldier&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18971" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T12:32:28.470" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T18:58:38.773" Title="大兵小将 Little Big Soldier" Tags="&lt;adjectives&gt;&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28562" CreationDate="2018-01-23T21:50:53.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;将 here mean &quot;general&quot; (将领). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;大兵&quot; is a general term for &quot;soldier&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The term 大兵 is kind of dated; 士兵 is the more common term for soldier&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;大兵小将&quot; means &quot;Big soldier and little general&quot; (the soldier is old; the general is very young)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T21:50:53.250" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28560" CreationDate="2018-01-23T22:29:09.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure, there is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tone and stress in some languages can change the meaning of words in the way that phoneme contrasts do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient Chinese, some adjectives and nouns would be taken as verb, then their tone ought to fall down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空气-air its originals is 气. 空 is the adjective component means “empty” which extended in meaning of “sky/under the sky”. It pronounced at the first tone, kōng. 空 in 空调 is the abbreviation of 空气.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空格 its originals is 格-space/room/cell/vacancy/blank. The adjective component ought to fall tone down to be the fourth kòng. It means “to make a space/room/vacancy/blank” (you should take 空 first as a verb to fall down then think about it turns to be a verb-as-adjective without rising up) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, there are also other words with falling-tone-down-rule and all of them carried on as ancient Chinese. Like,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衣, yī, cloth -&gt;衣, yì, wear   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;解衣(yī)衣(yì)我 put off his cloth to wear on me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衣(yì)锦还乡 wearing one’s brocade and return one’s native place (with honor)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We often say 有个空(kòng, there is a space/ an empty seat/a vacancy/a blank, and 有空 also means “be free at some moment”) for short in oral. But rarely say 衣(yì) today, some people says 衣(yī)锦还乡.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tone in ancient Chinese and dialects are variety in contrast with in Mandarin, the standard one of the modern Chinese languages. And this falling-tone-down-rule is the pattern you seek.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be familiar with that “abuse(/s/) is to abuse(/z/)”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The comments below showed the discussion between me and @XL_at_China who had offered some good advises, of cause, critically. Makes I have to revise some inaccuracy above.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-02-03T06:08:44.877" LastActivityDate="2018-02-03T06:08:44.877" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28558" CreationDate="2018-01-24T00:05:56.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tang is right~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爷（爺）is complex than grandfather, it also meanings a man who has a higher opinion on himself or a lord. So 爷们 could be “lords” or “men” or even “a man with manliness”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient Chinese 爷 is also father, the lord of family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-01-24T00:11:24.193" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T00:11:24.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28558" CreationDate="2018-01-24T02:25:54.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;们，is just not only plural, but also is related to relationship or relatives, like 姊妹们，姐妹们，妯娌们，兄弟们。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;interpreting 们 as plural,is just what linguists or book of Chinese language regard  as true, in fact, it is not natural and  not true, both from view of  historic Chinese and Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T02:25:54.757" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28552" CreationDate="2018-01-24T02:40:07.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may compare 或 in Chinese with &quot;⋁&quot; in logic or &quot;or&quot; in the languages in Europe. In Chinese it does not express choice, but rather express something or someone else is the same,or express enumeration. To express choice is a simulation to the languages in Europe. It is not natural in speech of the illiterate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One historic reason for such a usage is that in ancient Chinese, 或 mean there are someone, or someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2018-01-24T05:27:38.903" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T05:27:38.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28455" CreationDate="2018-01-24T04:15:34.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are both valid, see “请吃茶，吃酒”，someone even say &quot;吃烟&quot;（smoke ）. Angels are on your side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T04:15:34.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28569" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-24T04:54:15.263" Score="2" ViewCount="524" Body="&lt;p&gt;CEDICT shows 兆 as &quot;… / million / mega- / trillion / tera- / billion (old)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it ever actually used numerically, or is it standard to use Arabic numbers (or M/T for prefixes) to eliminate ambiguity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking of ambiguity, an answer and a comment say it is more commonly used for million/mega, while another answer says trillion/tera is standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="15442" LastEditDate="2018-01-24T06:53:21.783" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T12:32:51.483" Title="兆 as (part of) a number" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28569" CreationDate="2018-01-24T05:21:02.540" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Outside the IT world, 1兆 is 10^12, or 1万 x 1亿. But you won't see this use very much now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Inside the IT world, (when you talk about the size of hard disk, memory, etc ...) 1兆 is 1M, which is 1024k, approximately 10^6. The might be the more common use nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%BD%E9%99%85%E5%8D%95%E4%BD%8D%E5%88%B6%E8%AF%8D%E5%A4%B4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;When used in SI unit&lt;/a&gt;, 兆 mean 10^6 in mainland China and 10^12 in Taiwan. The use in IT world actually comes from this usage, with an altered value. It is actually part of the unit, not the number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2018-01-24T08:17:59.003" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T08:17:59.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28569" CreationDate="2018-01-24T06:04:46.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I might had misunderstood the question. I think the OP is askeing '兆' as '&lt;strong&gt;part of&lt;/strong&gt;' a number(unit), for example &lt;strong&gt;兆&lt;/strong&gt;瓦 (MW) . Not '兆' as a number itself, for example &quot;一&lt;strong&gt;兆&lt;/strong&gt;日圆&quot; is &quot;one &lt;strong&gt;trillion&lt;/strong&gt; yen&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The text below therefore did not answer the original question, but adding additional information on the character 兆 instead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1420/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1420/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;兆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;million million (China)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;trillion (Taiwan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Trillion  (short scale) = 1,000,000,000,000; one million million; SI prefix: &lt;strong&gt;tera&lt;/strong&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the current meaning&lt;/strong&gt; in both American and British English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Trillion (long scale) (1,000,000,000,000,000,000); one million million million; SI prefix: &lt;strong&gt;exa&lt;/strong&gt;-), the &lt;strong&gt;former meaning&lt;/strong&gt; in British English and current usage in many non-English-speaking countries&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the current meaning of 兆 (trillion) is 'one million million'(China's standard) It should be our standard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-24T10:17:07.937" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T10:17:07.937" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="488" CreationDate="2018-01-24T13:29:31.500" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Dec 2018) I tried the NTU link (Thanks Hiro, 2012) but it didn’t work for me.  I think now the NTU system has been incorporated into MyET-MyCT from LLabs.  This system listens to your pronunciation and gives you a score and tries to tell you what you did wrong.  You can still try certain units free.    You need good broadband speed and good microphone.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The user interface is dreadful, but if you want to try for yourself, download and install from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.myet.com.tw/MyETWeb/Download.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.myet.com.tw/MyETWeb/Download.aspx&lt;/a&gt;.   Register, and navigate to 'Survival Business Chinese’ &gt; Contents&gt;  ‘Unit 5.2 Impressions on China',  which is one of the free units.  Quickly select ‘Sentences’ button (You must be quick or you will be launched into a test), select a sentence, and try to repeat it.  You will receive a score .  You can see the example pitch compared with your pitch,  and you can select buttons for Pronunciation, Pitch, Timing and Emphasis and listen to the example sound compared with your voice and the system will try to tell you what you did wrong.  Sometimes I still could not understand how to improve (due to my personal deficiencies or microphone I think).  Although the user interface is dreadful, this bit is neat to try.  I have now paid for this course ($51 via paypal)  and I am working my way through it.  I still don’t know if it will help my pronunciation.  Time will tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18976" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T13:29:31.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28573" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28580" CreationDate="2018-01-24T16:29:17.933" Score="4" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below both statements supposedly translate to &quot;I am like the sun&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我像陽光燦爛著 &#xA;Wǒ xiàng yángguāng cànlànzhe &#xA;&#xA;我像太阳&#xA;Wǒ xiàng tàiyáng&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one comes from a song, the second one is more straightforward. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand how to correctly translate the first one to &lt;code&gt;I am like the sun&lt;/code&gt;. Why isn't it I am like the brilliant sunshine? Should I just remember that &lt;code&gt;yángguāng cànlànzhe&lt;/code&gt; is another word for &lt;code&gt;The Sun&lt;/code&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13644" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T23:59:11.417" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T23:59:11.417" Title="What is the difference between 我像太阳 and 我像陽光燦爛著?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28573" CreationDate="2018-01-24T16:47:14.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我像陽光燦爛著 &#xA;Wǒ xiàng yángguāng cànlànzhe &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陽光燦爛 -&gt; yángguāng cànlàn -&gt; the sun is shining brightly (idiomatic phrase) 成语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 is a particle for gerund -ing form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;演讲 -&gt; Speech&#xA;演讲着 -&gt;Speaking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the first expression is a very poetic expression describe te people as a shining and brightly sun using a chengyu(idiomatic 4 char expression).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A possible translation is: &lt;strong&gt;I'm brightening and shining as sun.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second is a simple  affermative declaration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17050" LastEditorUserId="17050" LastEditDate="2018-01-25T07:54:30.290" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T07:54:30.290" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28575" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28576" CreationDate="2018-01-24T19:58:17.633" Score="0" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;并与当地青年一同BBQ，边烧烤边交流。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the 边～边 the synonym for &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Simultaneous_tasks_with_%22yibian%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一边～一边&lt;/a&gt;, which mean &quot;doing ~ while doing ~&quot;? Or is there any difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T20:57:06.863" Title="Is the 边～边 the synonym for 一边～一边?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28575" CreationDate="2018-01-24T20:57:06.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;[边 (verb A) 边 (verb B)] is the shortened form of  [一边 (verb A) 一边(verb B)]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both mean (verb A) and (verb B) are being carried out concurrently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If (verb A) and (verb B) are single words or very short verb phrases, it is better to use [边 ~ 边~]. For example: &quot;边走边吃&quot; (short and direct)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If (verb A) and (verb B) are long verb phrases, then using [一边~ 一边~] is better. For example &quot;一边工作謀生, 一边照顧他生病的父母&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Add a comma to break a long sentence in half for easier reading)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;边工作謀生边照顧他生病的父母&quot; is grammatically acceptable, but it make the sentence too long and doesn't emphasize the two verb phrases individually like using 一边 does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T20:57:06.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28577" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28610" CreationDate="2018-01-25T00:48:17.037" Score="3" ViewCount="331" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Taiwanese Facebook page I read a conversation under a post from a hospital. A lot of people of course write 保重 (get well), and the poster answers 甘蝦 to all of them. When looking up this in a dictionary all I can understand is that it means &quot;sweet shrimp&quot; ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So what does 甘蝦 mean?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T12:30:30.117" Title="What does 甘蝦 mean when used as an answer to 保重? (Taiwan)" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28569" CreationDate="2018-01-25T02:24:18.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the decimal system we have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一 10^0, 十 10^1, 百 10^2, 千 10^3, 万 10^4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember, the power indicates the quantity of zero appears behind a single number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We array these units when reading a big number, as 万千百十个 (where 个/个位 means single digit or the unit). For example, 96,128 is reading as 九万六千一百二十八.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A number which is bigger than (or equal to) 10^5, will be presented circularly by these units as 千百十万千百十个. For example, 75,896,128 is reading as 七千五百八十九万六千一百二十八.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;THE KEY is, we use four digits as a &lt;em&gt;loop&lt;/em&gt; for convenience, 千百十万,千百十个. We don't say 七千万五百万八十万九万, actually we omit the anterior units of 万 and hold only one to indicate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万万 for 10^8 is not used today, commonly. We have 亿. And again,  346,275,896,128 is reading as 三千四百六十二亿七千五百八十九万六千一百二十八.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;After that is 兆, the unit you asked. So it means 10^12. Thus, there are 12 zeros behind 一兆, as 1,000,000,000,000.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a different way to show a number bigger than 万, and I think it may be the reason beset you and many people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;十万为亿，十亿为兆，十兆为京.&quot;  亿=100,000, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;兆=1,000,000,&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 京=10,000,000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then 75,896,128 is reading as 七京五兆八亿九万六千一百二十八.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chaos comes, for we don't follow &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;the original rule that each digit has its own unit&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. We use four digits as loop to reach 100,000,000,000 in the economic region on daily life. With the total amount of GDP in China rising over that much, 兆 will be used as a new current unit in the mainland. And the past problems of the units will still troubled people even then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-01-25T05:12:55.070" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T05:12:55.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28577" CreationDate="2018-01-25T03:13:38.493" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a similar pronunciation of Hokkien 感謝/感谢, so the meaning is to thank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典 shows that the pronunciation is kám-siā.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wh5uF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wh5uF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a style of humor, not a joke.&#xA;We use them a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is 蝦米/虾米.&#xA;It is the similar pronunciation of Hokkien 什麼/什么 (what).&#xA;This one has been spread to China already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastEditorUserId="15949" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T01:42:50.463" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T01:42:50.463" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28573" CreationDate="2018-01-25T08:03:55.037" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;我像陽光燦爛著 means &quot;I'm shinning like sunshine.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我像太阳 means &quot;I'm like the Sun.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I am like the brilliant sunshine.&quot; would be 我像燦爛的陽光&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陽光燦爛著(yángguāng cànlànzhe) means &quot;The Sun is shining.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;著 is used for Present Progressive Tense or Present Participle. To put it simply, -ing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;brilliant&quot; in the &quot;I am like the brilliant sunshine.&quot; is a Adjective, so it should use 的(de)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18981" LastEditorUserId="18981" LastEditDate="2018-01-29T02:15:04.337" LastActivityDate="2018-01-29T02:15:04.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28569" CreationDate="2018-01-25T09:12:59.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, 兆 could be million, trillion, or 10 quadrillions. In China mainland, the word is usually used to indicate million. Like the sentence &quot;The file is 1MB&quot; could translate to &quot;这个文件（的大小是）一兆&quot;（although, we usually just write &quot;1M&quot; or &quot;1MB&quot; instead of &quot;一兆&quot; since it's simpler）. The &quot;兆&quot; in &quot;兆瓦&quot;, &quot;兆赫&quot;, &quot;兆帕&quot; also means million.&#xA;But I heard in Taiwan, it usually means trillion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18844" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T09:12:59.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28583" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28589" CreationDate="2018-01-25T16:55:54.600" Score="1" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;沙溢、胡可与安吉、小鱼儿&lt;/strong&gt;一家四口集体亮相，同时《捉妖记2》视效制片人Ellen Poon也透露了电影幕后制作的花絮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the use of &quot;、&quot; should be A、B、C与D. In other words, it should be put between each word except the last one, in which case 与 or 和 (etc...) should be used instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However in this sentence, it is in the form of A、B与C、D, so now I wonder what is the correct form, and whether there is any difference on the meaning regarding how you put the &quot;、&quot; to concatenate words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T04:15:26.503" Title="The use of &quot;、&quot; in more than three items" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28584" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28585" CreationDate="2018-01-25T20:47:00.190" Score="3" ViewCount="1187" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assume a friend earns a promotion, and you want to say, &quot;I'm happy for you.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, there is a difference in meaning when you say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am happy because of you: suggests you do things that make me happy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am happy for you (or on your behalf): suggests something good happened in your life, and i share your joy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, it seems like the way to say &lt;em&gt;I am happy for you&lt;/em&gt; is 當妳開心。&#xA;為你開心 would mean I'm happy because of you. The Cantonese reply to a friend receiving a promotion would be 當妳開心.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are these Cantonese meanings and interpretations correct?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If so, is it the same for Cantonese and Mandarin, or in Mandarin does 當妳開心 carry the same meaning as 為你開心?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T02:25:25.730" Title="I am happy for you (on your behalf): difference between 為你開心 and 當妳開心？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28584" CreationDate="2018-01-25T21:04:09.293" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, 戥你開心 is the most common way to say &amp;quot;happy for you&amp;quot; (not 當)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;戥 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8501/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8501/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1). &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; (a person) | [華] 替, 為&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As this entry stated, the counterpart in Mandarin is 替 or 為, as in 替你開心, 為你開心. All mean &amp;quot;happy for you&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;戥's meaning as a verb is 'to counter balance'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two unbalanced load of goods at two side of a &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%93%94%E6%8C%91&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;擔挑&lt;/a&gt; is hard to carry . So you have to &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;戥&lt;/strong&gt;均&amp;quot; (to make balance by &lt;strong&gt;counter balance&lt;/strong&gt;  one side )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's how '戥' acquired the meaning of &amp;quot;for (a person)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A counter balance is something '&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;' something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;戥 someone happy is happy '&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;' someone else&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;替 (in your stead)--&amp;gt;替你開心 (Happy in your stead= happy for you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為 (because of) --&amp;gt; 為你開心 (happy because of you &lt;em&gt;are in certain situation&lt;/em&gt;, e.g. 'graduating')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T21:35:20.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28586" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28588" CreationDate="2018-01-26T00:34:54.617" Score="2" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been searching the web and tried using Google Translate and have been unable to find the term for Anaphrodisiac.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia Anaphrodisiac is something that reduces &quot;sexual desire.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15322" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T01:41:40.743" Title="Anaphrodisiac in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28586" CreationDate="2018-01-26T01:19:39.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;制欲剂&#xA;制慾劑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t know if that’s a clinical term, but I’m doing what I can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T01:19:39.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28586" CreationDate="2018-01-26T01:41:40.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;anaphrodisiac [ænˏæfrә`dIzIæk; ænˏæfrәˋdiziæk]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;&amp;lt;形容詞&gt;&gt;adjective&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  抑制性慾(欲)的; 鎮慾(欲)的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;&amp;lt;名詞&gt;&gt;noun&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  鎮慾(欲)藥; 制慾(欲)劑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eMYnD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eMYnD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T01:41:40.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28583" CreationDate="2018-01-26T01:42:39.400" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess the reason why it is put in this way, as through a search, you will find that 沙溢、胡可 are the parents and 安吉、小鱼儿 are the children in the family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, the &quot;correct&quot; form is A、B、C与D. But it may not the only acceptable way, especially when you can divide the words into groups. Like in this one, parents and children. The four words are not equivalent now, and &quot;与&quot; is used between groups but not between the words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T01:42:39.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26840" CreationDate="2018-01-26T02:51:52.147" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@cindy is right~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I just want to say something after her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, you can set you iPhone (if you have) in language of any type of Chinese. Then you take a long click on the inputs of (any type of) Chinese, to select the characters then find “简⇔繁” . This is a convenient way to check/learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, the traditional Chinese carried on the early stage of Chinese. Like that of English of Shakespeare’s era, Chinese also had uncertainty once. Sometimes a word had several forms of characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The case is 算 vs 筭. They are two calculate tools. 算 is balls in a wooden tray which has horizontal lines to separate and looks like 目. 珠算 means the calculation using balls. 筭 is wooden sticks which often used in strategy since it conveniently carried in army. 籌筭 means the calculation using sticks. But both of them are calculation and we keep 算 as the main one in both types of Chinese nowadays (since 筭 was replaced by abacus a long time ago).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following the falling of the central government of Zhou (Chou, 周) and the rising of many stats which merged into seven powerful and prosperous stats 2500 years ago, different national cultures of their own were rising up. And they all had their characters. New characters were made for new stuffs, the scholars wanted to keep name (名) fitted on form (形) and reality (实). That’s the origin of uncertainty. Such as 簽 vs 籤 you asked and @cindy answered well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in my suggestion, using a dictionary of ancient Chinese, instead of a list of simplified-to-traditional characters, it would be helpful. You don’t need to learn much unusual forms of characters. Or just follow the first point I gave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-01-26T03:50:56.717" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T03:50:56.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28583" CreationDate="2018-01-26T03:44:54.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Balance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Chinese teacher taught me when I was a pupil. And that is written in the appendix of each Chinese dictionary for pupil.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“沙溢、胡可与安吉、小鱼儿” is balanceable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“沙溢、胡可、安吉与小鱼儿” is not balanceable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take 与/或 as the equilibrium point, please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there were odd items, tried to find equilibrium point to get balance approximately. Like, “A、B、C 与/或 D、E” or “A、B 与/或 C、D、E”. Otherwise, never use 与/或.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-01-26T04:15:26.503" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T04:15:26.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3602" CreationDate="2018-01-26T09:37:22.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;描(miáo)红(hóng)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the practice on a copybook printing with red ink, and the characters is a little bigger than the size you writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ztdF6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ztdF6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Red ink printed copebook&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is for hard-tipped pen.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TMH7H.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TMH7H.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NjLug.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NjLug.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BA28H.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BA28H.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I say, is, that most Chinese children practice on it day by day to advance their handwriting. Not only you foreigner have headaches, we all have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is, if you try to enhance the skill, please don’t COPY, but TRACE each stroke directly on the printed characters. Using pencil at the beginning. This method can help you not only experience the artistic style and structure of the characters but also learn Chinese poems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The higher order of handwriting is to regard the characters even the sentences as a drawing of structuralism. And like Gothic, Chinese printings are varieties of handwriting. Again, like Gothic, you should select your pen and paper and practice the usage of tools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, this is my own handwriting.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QisMc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QisMc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-01-26T10:16:15.247" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T10:16:15.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5014" CreationDate="2018-01-26T10:37:19.543" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;砲 is mangonel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 炮 is cannon (using gunpowder).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;石=stone, 火=fire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient Chinese, 炮(páo) means barbecue or a technique of preparing medicines or a cook-man. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the invention of gunpowder, 炮 had the same tone with 砲(pào).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8n3Yr.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8n3Yr.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Mechanisms in Ancient Chinese Books with Illustrations&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;by Kuo-Hung Hsiao and Hong-Sen Yan, p.108&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-01-26T10:59:11.010" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T10:59:11.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19588" CreationDate="2018-01-26T11:29:35.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First you should know 犭 is not the meaning of all animals but some.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one hand, 犭 means dog or a dog-like creature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In another hand, 犭 is simplified of 豸 and 豕 as a radical. It replaced the other two in most of characters in simplified Chinese. BUT here’s an inconspicuous fact that 犭 replaced the other two before the appearance of simplified Chinese. In ancient China, traditional Chinese is official among the publications. In contrast, there is a kind of running write, a cursive script in Chinese so-called 草書. The replacement of 犭 does exist in this cursive script so that simplified Chinese carries on. That is why most of 豸 and 豕 as radicals disappeared in simplified Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the question is, what do 豸 and 豕 mean? And what the relationship between the meaning and the original question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;豸zhì (犭) are kinds of vertebrate beasts with a wiggle to tuck their legs in and hunchbacked when hunting, like worms without feet (lions 獅, wolves 狼, leopards 豹, etc.), or specially the primates (猿) or some beasts with furs (cats 貓, foxes 狐, sables 貂, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except 貌 (face), it is double of 皃.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;豕 shǐ (犭) is pig (豬) or animal looks like pig (badger 獾).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《說文》：「豸，獸長脊，行豸豸然，欲有所司殺形。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In another question I answered, the ancient scholars wanted the name (名) to fit on the form (形) and reality (实). The appearance of 豸 and 豕 reflects this idea. So you can easily distinguish different kinds of animals. Since that, you would understand why do 牛 and 羊  and 鸡 not use 犭.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-02-02T04:25:20.487" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T04:25:20.487" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19588" CreationDate="2018-01-26T13:15:57.243" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Although @Colin's answer has touched on this, I feel like this needs to be emphasised more, especially for learners of Simplified Chinese.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「犭」only means &lt;em&gt;dog&lt;/em&gt; or a dog-like creature. It was originally a graphical variant of「犬」, as seen with the following ancient forms for 犭/犬:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GK9at.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GK9at.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To emphasise, these were originally derived from a picture of a dog; they did not mean &lt;em&gt;animal&lt;/em&gt; in general. However, usage of「犭」was sometimes flexible for non-dog-like animals, but only when there was no other component were deemed suitable, and thus may also appear in characters describing uncivilised people e.g. 狄. This is also true of some other components such as「豸」and「虫」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese has forced several characters which didn't originally use the「犭」component to use it, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;貓, originally used the component「豸」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;豬, originally used the component「豕」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, the structure or history of the characters for animals and mythical beasts can be categorised as either 'basic' animals, which were derived from a picture, and 'other', which are mostly phono-semantic compounds and which use one of the basic animals as a component. There are a large number of basic animal or beast characters which can't be broken down further at all:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鳥/隹 (&lt;em&gt;bird&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;象 (&lt;em&gt;elephant&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;魚 (&lt;em&gt;fish&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鹿 (&lt;em&gt;deer&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;馬 (&lt;em&gt;horse&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;龜 (&lt;em&gt;turtle&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;能 (&lt;em&gt;bear&lt;/em&gt;, now written as 熊) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;虫 (&lt;em&gt;poisonous snake&lt;/em&gt;, now written as 虺; 虫 is now mostly used for insects and arthropods)&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For reference, a bronze script variant:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SDZm8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SDZm8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is also the reason why「蛇」(&lt;em&gt;snake&lt;/em&gt;) uses the「虫」component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;牛 (&lt;em&gt;cow&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;羊 (&lt;em&gt;sheep/goat&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鼠 (&lt;em&gt;mouse/rat&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;龍 (&lt;em&gt;dragon&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;豕 (&lt;em&gt;pig&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;犬 (&lt;em&gt;dog&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;虎 (&lt;em&gt;tiger&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many animals are specific kinds or similar to the above, and are mostly phono-semantic compounds which consist of the components「虫」,「魚」,「鳥」, or「豸」, not just「犭」. The other animal components that appear are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「隹」; occasionally used for birds, e.g. 雞, but mostly phonetic loan characters for what were originally names of different types of birds that are not used in that sense anymore, e.g. 舊, 雚.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sometimes used in characters with the meaning of &lt;em&gt;capture&lt;/em&gt;, extended from &lt;em&gt;capturing a bird&lt;/em&gt;, e.g. in the characters 獲, 隻, 穫 (&lt;em&gt;to harvest&lt;/em&gt;), through the addition of 「又」(&lt;em&gt;a hand&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「馬」, used for characters like &lt;em&gt;mule&lt;/em&gt; (驢) and &lt;em&gt;camel&lt;/em&gt; (駱駝), but otherwise mostly appear in characters describing &lt;em&gt;swiftness&lt;/em&gt; (as in swiftness in war), or characters describing horse-related equipment.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「鹿」, appears in 麒麟 (The mythical beast &lt;em&gt;Qilin/Kirin&lt;/em&gt;); occasionally seen in some other characters, e.g. 麗, 塵.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「虎」, not really used for animals; variously used as a phonetic component in 處, 虛, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「羊」, describes sheep/goats in general; 羊羔 (&lt;em&gt;lamb&lt;/em&gt;)，羶 (&lt;em&gt;smell of mutton&lt;/em&gt;).&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Occasionally appears in characters to do with docility and morality, sometimes as the component forms , , e.g. 義, 乖. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「牛」, mostly used in characters to do with animal farming, e.g. 牧 (&lt;em&gt;shepard&lt;/em&gt;), 牝 (&lt;em&gt;female animal&lt;/em&gt;), 犧/牲 (&lt;em&gt;sacrifice&lt;/em&gt;). Originally also used as part of characters which were names for different types of cows, e.g. 物 (cow with multiple colours/patterns), 特 (male cow/bull), but these characters are not used in this sense anymore.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, please don't get the impression that「犭」is used to describe most animals!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-01-26T13:42:43.603" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T13:42:43.603" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26840" CreationDate="2018-01-26T14:13:17.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use simplified Chinese so I know the most difficult part to learn traditional Chinese is to memorize the correspondences of a simplified character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some characters with the same pronunciation (but diffetent meanings) were reduced to a single one, like 發 and 髮 are both reduced to 发. So it is important to note the meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are familiar with Chinese dictionaries(新华字典，现代汉语词典, etc.), you can use directly dictionaries published by Taiwan authorities. As the largest region to use traditional Chinese, Taiwan has forward-lookingly published some online dictionaries. 萌典 would be a good reference! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different regions have different standards of traditional Chinese, which you may have found via wiki. Follow your heart to form your style of using traditional Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you write traditional Chinese on electronic devices? Input methods developed by mainland China may have mistakes to convert simplified characters to traditional ones. So I recommend you to learn a input method of Hong Kong or Taiwan(Zhuyin, Cangjie, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18596" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T14:13:17.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21623" CreationDate="2018-01-26T14:33:21.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;N and NG are both nasal sounds. The difference is also found in English. The air does not escape from the mouth(as it is blocked by the lips or the tongue) but the nostril. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When pronouncing ［n］, put your tip of tongue onto thre upper gum. Let the air come out from the nose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When pronouncing ［ng］, low your back of tongue, then the air will escape from the back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18596" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T14:33:21.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28600" CreationDate="2018-01-26T14:38:48.050" Score="0" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose that the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;报名截止日期&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;2月17日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases that take a date as the predicate, I usually see 为 instead of 是. Both mean &quot;is&quot; and I already learned 为 is more formal than 是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I feel I have only seen 为 if it takes a date on its predicate. So I wonder whether it must be 为 if you take a date as the predicate or it is just a coincidence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is there any case that 为 must be used in the usage of “is” or “be”, not just because of &quot;formal&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-01-26T20:27:28.223" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T14:05:51.597" Title="Should I use 为 instead of 是 to mean &quot;is&quot; on a date?" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28599" CreationDate="2018-01-26T19:59:00.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/466/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/466/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] [v] be; is; be equivalent to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 has many different meanings, &amp;quot;is&amp;quot; (是) is just one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can replace '为' with '是' if you are using it as 'is' in the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;报名截止日期为2月17日。(literary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;报名截止日期是2月17日。(colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Also, is there any case that 为 must be used, not just because of &amp;quot;formal&amp;quot;?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must use '为' instead of '是' when  '为' doesn't mean 'is' in the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'为' in &amp;quot;印刷术、火药、指南针、‌​纸统称为四大发明&amp;quot; follows the verb 称(be called). '为' here is not equivalent to 'is' but '&lt;strong&gt;as&lt;/strong&gt;'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You cannot say &amp;quot;印刷术、火药、指南针、‌​纸[统称&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;]古代中国四大发明&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;But you can say &amp;quot;印刷术、火药、指南针、‌​纸, [&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;]古代中国四大发明&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;印刷术、火药、指南针、‌​纸[&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;]古代中国四大发明&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because [印刷术、火药、指南针、‌​纸] [&lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt;] [古代中国四大发明]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is a written announcement, no matter what the predicate is, you should use 为.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Posting '报名截止日期[是]2月17日' or '报名费用[是]成人二十元，老人和儿童半价' is considered bad vocabulary choice (using colloquial term when it should be literary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is an oral conversation, no matter what the predicate is, you should use 是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Telling someone '报名截止日期[为]2月17日' or '报名费用[为]成人二十元，老人和儿童半价' is also considered bad vocabulary choice (using literary term when it should be colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T14:05:51.597" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28601" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28629" CreationDate="2018-01-26T22:00:19.437" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to explain the concept of &quot;留守儿童“ for a school project and am not sure how the translation should go. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you don't know, 留守儿童 are the left-behind children of parents who go&#xA;  to cities as workers. Legally, if the parents don't have a home,&#xA;  they're not allowed to bring their children with them, so the children&#xA;  stay in the Chinese countryside alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to translate the sentence: 留守儿童 are the children left behind of parents who go to cities to work. However, I've tried &quot;留守儿童是父母留工作在市里的孩子&quot; and various online translations: &quot;留守儿童是那些去城市工作的父母留下的孩子&quot;, but I'm really not sure which makes sense and is clearest. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T11:15:42.010" Title="Explaining “留守儿童”？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28602" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28603" CreationDate="2018-01-27T05:10:43.060" Score="2" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've learned that 咖啡色 now is the most common way of saying &quot;brown&quot;. &lt;strong&gt;Does that mean that saying 茶色 now is outdated, and not used any more, or are both words still used?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would also be interesting to know if these are considered to be the same color, or if there is indeed a difference between what shade of brown they are used to describe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T15:11:14.217" Title="Has 咖啡色 replaced 茶色 in everyday use for &quot;brown&quot;, or can I use both?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;colors&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28602" CreationDate="2018-01-27T06:05:19.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Their colors are similar and close. Usually, 茶色 is short of 茶叶色(color of red tea) and used for glass. For example, 茶色玻璃.  Well, 咖啡色 is usually used for other objects. Like, 咖啡色皮夹克. But it's not wrong if replace one with the other in any case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T06:05:19.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28605" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28606" CreationDate="2018-01-27T10:27:35.973" Score="2" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some street names end with 路 and some with 街. I was curious to know if there is any difference in the meaning of the two words. When I look them up in a dictionary both say &quot;street&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Are they the same?&#xA;Is one used over another in particular situations?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T11:09:10.927" Title="What is the difference between the different words for street: 街，路 etc?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28605" CreationDate="2018-01-27T10:42:08.977" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E8%A1%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;街&lt;/a&gt; = street&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过街 - cross the street&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逛大街 - to go window shopping/to have a stroll&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E8%B7%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;路&lt;/a&gt; = road&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走错路 -or- 走弯路 take the wrong path (both literally and figuratively)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走投无路 - to be at an impasse/to have no way out/to be at a dead end (again both lit. and fig.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;街 is more like a literal street, while 路 is equivalent to &lt;em&gt;road&lt;/em&gt; but it can also be used figuratively for paths/directions in life, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T11:09:10.927" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T11:09:10.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28607" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-27T11:02:12.477" Score="3" ViewCount="691" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I express that something happens if another condition is true? (Eng: &amp;quot;Subject ... but if ... subject ...&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I usually get up at six o'clock, &lt;strong&gt;but if&lt;/strong&gt; I'm really tired, I sleep until eight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我常起來六點，但是很累到八點睡覺。　（Can I write this?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T15:12:05.497" Title="How do I write &quot;but if&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28607" CreationDate="2018-01-27T11:14:15.517" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A literal translation to &quot;但要是&quot; is fine here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I usually get up at six o'clock, but if I'm really tired, I sleep until eight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我一般六点起床，但要是很累，我会睡到八点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18760" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T11:14:15.517" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28616" CreationDate="2018-01-27T11:15:24.537" Score="1" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is &quot;skate ramp&quot; in Chinese? I can't seem to find this in any dictionaries, and most skate parks in Taiwan are called &quot;Extreme Sports Training Park&quot; or simply &quot;Sports Park&quot;, so I don't really know where to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there isn't an established name for a skate ramp in Chinese, how can I say it in Chinese in a way that is understandable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16210" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T12:27:16.547" Title="What is &quot;skate ramp&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28577" CreationDate="2018-01-27T11:22:04.457" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is because Taiwanese Hokkien doesn't have its own official written form. It has a romanization, but none of the Taiwanese know it, despite most speaking the language fluently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when they want to express something in Taiwanese while writing, they would either use ZhuYin 注音, or for the more common words, Chinese characters that sound similar in Mandarin, chosen randomly but turned into a kind of standard slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甘蝦,  多蝦 are common (感謝, 多謝), there is even &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/DpkmUnF8O7s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a song by Mayday&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;金多蝦&quot; (真多謝).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples include 拍寫/拍謝 (歹勢) &quot;sorry, excuse me&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三小,沙小 is a very rude way of saying &quot;what&quot;, a bit like wtf (啥潲).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some more examples &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E8%87%BA%E7%81%A3%E9%96%A9%E5%8D%97%E8%AA%9E%E5%B8%B8%E8%A6%8B%E6%B5%81%E8%A1%8C%E8%AA%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's just another internet slang phenomenon, not only Taiwanese words get this. 三Q = thank you, common to both Chinese and Japanese, or romanizing random words hen=很 (you'll see things like 我hen開心) or der=得, sometimes derrrr.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18991" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T12:30:30.117" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T12:30:30.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28607" CreationDate="2018-01-27T11:48:30.877" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just translate it word by word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但 要是/但 如果/但 假如/不过 要是/不过 如果/etc. are all correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 但是 or 但 as you like， both are correct. It just depend on how many syllables you want to say. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16479" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T11:48:30.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28607" CreationDate="2018-01-27T11:48:36.753" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several ways to say this. Literal translations of &quot;but if&quot; works fine. That is, any combination of &quot;but&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可是&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;但是&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;但&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不過&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Followed by &quot;if&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;如果&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;要是&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我通常六點起床，&lt;strong&gt;但如果&lt;/strong&gt;很累會睡到八點。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although that's sufficient, a construction using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9A%84%E8%A9%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;的話&quot;&lt;/a&gt; conditional particle sounds perhaps somewhat more natural to me. That is, you can use any of the but / but if options above, followed by your condition (being tired), and then 的話. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我通常六點起床，&lt;strong&gt;但&lt;/strong&gt;很累&lt;strong&gt;的話&lt;/strong&gt;會睡到八點。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that with the particle, a separate &quot;if&quot; after the &quot;but&quot; is not necessary, but can be used nonetheless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="5721" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T15:12:05.497" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T15:12:05.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28613" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28614" CreationDate="2018-01-27T11:52:48.280" Score="2" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;据一位遭遇拥堵的人介绍说，隧道里一小时只能行进几百米，也去不了厕所，有的人下车走向紧急出口，还有的人把车&lt;strong&gt;扔下&lt;/strong&gt;不管。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;扔 means &quot;throw&quot; or &quot;hurl&quot;, but &quot;throwing a car away&quot; doesn't make sense. From the context, I feel it means people get out of the car and push it from the back of the car.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is this assumption correct?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If that is true, why doesn't an author write a clearer way, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还有的人把车推下不管。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T02:57:54.673" Title="What does 扔下 mean in 还有的人把车扔下不管?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28613" CreationDate="2018-01-27T11:58:01.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not. &quot;扔&quot; here means something like &quot;discard&quot; or &quot;abandon&quot;. They are now suffering from a (terrible) traffic jam, not a faulty engine, so they don't need to push the car anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means that the people got so impatient that that left the car where they were and walked away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18760" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T11:58:01.420" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28560" CreationDate="2018-01-27T12:08:37.200" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, first tone means it is related to air/sky/vaccuum/or stressing its emptiness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空调-air conditioner，空气-air,天空-sky 航空-aviation 真空-vaccuum，空虚-emptiness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fourth tone usually means something related to blank/room or space/emptiness, and stressing that it can be used or filled&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空格-space 空当-free time or space，填空-fill in the blank &#xA;空白-blank/空缺-vacancy/空隙-slot/空出时间&#xA;(may not be appropriate translation,sorry)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another interesting example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个房间是空的。 This room is empty.(first tone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪个房间空出来？ Which room is available(so that I can use)?(fourth tone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16479" LastEditorUserId="15160" LastEditDate="2018-01-30T23:51:45.953" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T23:51:45.953" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28609" CreationDate="2018-01-27T12:27:16.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you mean half-pipe? &#xA;That'd be 半管. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vert ramp? &#xA;U型池. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English is equally acceptable though, not a lot of Chinese terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The broadest term you'll get is (滑板, etc.)道具, or if you want to be slightly more specific you can say 木制道具.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T12:27:16.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28617" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28618" CreationDate="2018-01-27T14:20:58.820" Score="2" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read a lot of answers to questions about 比 but I didn't see anything about 跟.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently had a class where the 老师, in three days, three hours a day, FLEW through enough material for two weeks if not more.  But he also gave me lots of printouts of what we would have gone through in his normal (one month) class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We spent ten or fifteen minutes comparing things.  This is not a &quot;state a grammar rule and then make sure they can apply it&quot; class.  More of a &quot;lots of input until it sinks in&quot; class.  Which is actually a good method if you have time to give enough input.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ANYWAY, here are four things from the comparisons¹ paper.  I have put in the nouns and adjectives randomly where the paper had blanks to fill in.  Is there a different in connotation or denotation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你的衬衫**比**我的衬衫好看。&#xA;你的手机**比**我的手机好用。&#xA;你的衣服**跟**我的衣服都便宜。&#xA;你的房子**跟**我的房子都贵。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also notice on this site, examples of comparisons¹ are different and shorter than in these handouts, which had only these two formats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹As the answers reveal, it wasn’t actually a paper of &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; comparisons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="15442" LastEditDate="2018-01-29T03:24:54.257" LastActivityDate="2018-01-29T03:24:54.257" Title="比 vs. 跟 for comparisons" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28617" CreationDate="2018-01-27T14:49:00.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;跟 in &quot;你的衣服&lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt;我的衣服都便宜&quot;。 and &quot;你的房子&lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt;我的房子都贵&quot;。is not 'compare to' but 'also/and' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In face, 跟 doesn't contain meaning of 'compare to' . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You thought so because in [X &lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt; Y 比] (&quot;X compare &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; Y&quot; ) structure '跟' is always paired with '比'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的衬衫&lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt;我的衬衫好看。- &lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;compare to&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的手机&lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt;我的手机好用。- &lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;compare to&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[(item A) &lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt; (item B) + (adjective)] = [ (item A) &lt;strong&gt;compare to&lt;/strong&gt; (item B) is (adjective)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的衣服&lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt;我的衣服都便宜。- &lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的房子&lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt;我的房子都贵。- &lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[(item A) &lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt; (item B) + 都 + (adjective)] = [ (item A) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; (item B) are both (adjective)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;also notice on this site, examples where the adjective is at the end. There were none like that in the handouts. All were in these two formats.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the adjective is at the end in this two formats too. 好看, 好用, 便宜 and 贵 are all adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Add 跟 in a comparisons structure instead of using 比 alone:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(你的衬衫)&lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt;(我的衬衫)&lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt;, (你的衬衫好看得多)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;take (item A) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; (item B), and &lt;strong&gt;compare&lt;/strong&gt;, + (opinion/ statement)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Another way to use 比 in a comparisons structure is  &quot;compare to A, Y is (opinion/ statement)&quot;:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[(&lt;strong&gt;比起&lt;/strong&gt;)(我的衬衫), (你的衬衫)(好看得多)]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[(&lt;strong&gt;compare to&lt;/strong&gt;) (A), (B) (opinion/ statement)]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T15:26:12.697" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T15:26:12.697" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21623" CreationDate="2018-01-27T14:54:42.860" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you looking for help with Mandarin or English?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In American English, /n/ is made by pressing the tongue against the alveolar ridge (this is the roof of the mouth, behind the teeth).  We also make the t, d, and l sounds with the tongue in this location.  For/n/, you need to completely seal the tongue against the roof of your mouth in the front.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;ng&quot; /ŋ/ sound is also made by sealing the tongue against the roof of the mouth, but with the back of the tongue rising up to the make the seal, the the front of the tongue down. The k and g sounds are also made in this location in the mouth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can get even more detailed help to differentiate the n and /ŋ/ sounds in this video:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/-DZ5GICTHVU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/-DZ5GICTHVU&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18985" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T14:54:42.860" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28496" CreationDate="2018-01-27T16:46:00.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My experience comes from learning Mandarin.  Like  水巷孑蠻  I suggest not mixing up Characters with Words.  I ended up with 2 lists:  one for Characters for learning to write, and one for Words for learning to speak.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I also suggest using Excel spreadsheet:  using SORT function you can easily sort any column into any order you want, i.e you don’t have to make a decision about the order.  (I know there is a learning curve for Excel but in the end it could save you hassle.  )&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I found the most useful Columns for sorting on (for words) to be:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1/ Chinese Character word 2/ Pinyin (or similar for Cantonese),  3/ Pinyin but with the numbers taken out (useful for me for finding a word where I could remember the sound but not the tone.)  4/ an order based on logical learning order.  I used HSK level for Mandarin, but you could use a level from a Cantonese learning system, or word frequency.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I too recommend looking for lists of words or characters that are already available on the internet.  You can read comma separated lists into excel columns and sort anyway you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18976" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T16:46:00.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28617" CreationDate="2018-01-28T00:29:21.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的衣服跟我的衣服都便宜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的衣服和我的衣服都便宜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare 跟 and 和 here, 跟 connotes slightly comparison or following. 跟 is more like &lt;strong&gt;the same as&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;following&lt;/strong&gt;. It's like saying 你的衣服&lt;strong&gt;和&lt;/strong&gt;我的衣服&lt;strong&gt;一样&lt;/strong&gt; 都便宜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides the structure &lt;em&gt;xxx 跟 xxx&lt;/em&gt;, there are other forms: &lt;em&gt;跟 xxx&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;跟 xxx 比&lt;/em&gt;, meaning &lt;em&gt;competing with&lt;/em&gt;. For example, 跟我比; 跟我玩; 跟我斗; etc. 跟我玩 sounds like either following me to play or competing with me depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T01:17:45.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28617" CreationDate="2018-01-28T01:41:02.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;for comparison insert 一样 before adjective ：你的衣服跟我的衣服(都)一样便宜。你的房子跟我的房子(都)一样贵。&#xA;＂外国人实用汉语语法＂第八章 表示比较的方法 第二节 &lt;strong&gt;用＂跟＂表示比较&lt;/strong&gt;、&lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt;、用介词＂跟＂表示比较的意思 区别两个人或两种事物的异同，可以用价词＂跟＂引出比较的对象，再用谓语表示比较的结果。用＂跟＂表示比较的句子基本格式是：（主语）｛被比较的人或事物｝_____ （状语）｛介词＂跟＂_____ 比较的人或事物｝_____ （谓语）｛比较的结果（异同）｝例如：这张画跟那张画一样。他学的专业跟你学的专业一样。他的爱好跟我的爱好差不多。我的想法跟你的想法相同。去他那儿跟来我这儿一样。你买跟我买一样。二、用＂跟＂表示比较的特点（一）介词＂跟＂和比较对象构成的介词结构主要是在谓语前作状语。例如：她的围巾跟你的围巾一样。这件衣服的颜色跟那件衣服的颜色差不多。这篇文章的观点跟那篇文章的观点相同。&lt;strong&gt;（二）&lt;/strong&gt;＂跟＂和＂一样＂常用再一起，构成固定格式＂跟。。。一样＂，可以作定语、补语，也可以在其他形容词或某些动词谓语前作状语。例如：这座桥跟那座桥一样雄伟。（作状语）我跟他一样喜欢文艺。（作状语）他写汉字写得跟你一样好看（作状语）我要买一本跟他那本一样的词典。（作定语）她长得跟她母亲一样。（作补语）&lt;strong&gt;（三）&lt;/strong&gt; 介词＂跟＂前边和后边的词或词组一般是同类的。例如：面包跟米饭一样好吃。（名词）我们跟你们一样要全心全意为人民服务。（代词）这个湖跟那个湖一样深。（名词性偏正词组）他们俩跟她们俩一样爱唱歌。（同位词组）游泳跟滑冰一样是很有意思的体育活动。（动宾词组）&lt;strong&gt;（四）&lt;/strong&gt;＂跟。。。一样＂的否定形式是在＂一样＂前（或＂跟＂前）用否定副词＂不＂。例如：我的意见个他的意见不一样。我买的照相机跟你的不一样。她的裙子不跟你的一样。&#xA;Web search using e.g. &quot;Chinese grammar: comparison&quot; will yield online help, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://chineseffect.com/grammar/comparison/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chineseffect.com/grammar/comparison/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2018-01-28T01:59:44.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T01:59:44.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28623" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28627" CreationDate="2018-01-28T04:43:59.620" Score="1" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the song 老鼠爱大米 (Lǎoshǔ Ài Dàmǐ; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9njO8cyo-M&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube&lt;/a&gt;; see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mice_Love_Rice&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mouse Loves Rice&lt;/a&gt; on Wikipedia) we have the following lyrics (English translation from the YouTube link):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我听见你的声音&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wǒ tīngjiàn nǐ de shēngyīn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Whenever I hear your voice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有种特别的感觉&lt;br&gt;&#xA;yǒu zhǒng tèbié de gǎnjué&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There's a kind of special feeling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让我不断想不敢再忘记你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ràng wǒ bùduàn xiǎng bù gǎn zài wàngjì nǐ&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That makes me think I'll never forget you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first two sentences translate literally into English, but I'm puzzled how the last sentence pieces together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do the words in 让我不断想不敢再忘记你 piece together?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breaking it down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%AE%A9%E6%88%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;让我&lt;/a&gt; (ràng wǒ) = let me, but in this context it means &amp;quot;makes me&amp;quot; (or &amp;quot;causes me&amp;quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%8D%E6%96%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不断&lt;/a&gt; (bùduàn) = uninterrupted&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%83%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;想&lt;/a&gt; (xiǎng) = to think&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%8D%E6%95%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不敢&lt;/a&gt; (bù gǎn) = dare not&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%86%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;再&lt;/a&gt; (zài) = again&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%BF%98%E8%AE%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;忘记&lt;/a&gt; (wàngjì) = forget&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BD%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;你&lt;/a&gt; (nǐ) = you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm particularly confused about (a) what 不断 applies to (it looks like 不断想 meaning something like &amp;quot;uninterrupted thinking&amp;quot;, which doesn't make much sense), and (b) why it's &lt;strong&gt;再&lt;/strong&gt;忘记你 (&amp;quot;forget you again&amp;quot;), which suggests the person who it's being sung to was forgotten once before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-29T17:26:46.703" Title="How do the words in 让我不断想不敢再忘记你 piece together (from the song Mouse Loves Rice, 老鼠爱大米)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28623" CreationDate="2018-01-28T05:00:33.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;不断 is short for 不间断. It means keep thinking or having no intervals in the process of thinking of you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再 means again or any more/longer. Here it implies I will dare not to forget you going forward. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, the whole sentence means &lt;em&gt;That makes me keep thinking of you and dare not to forget you going forward.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-01-28T05:27:15.833" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T05:27:15.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28625" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28632" CreationDate="2018-01-28T07:18:13.473" Score="5" ViewCount="504" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to translate this sentence to Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She's trying to recover the torn photo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I was trying to find a meaning of &quot;to try&quot; in Pinpin Dictionary, and I came up with three different words, “嘗試”，“試圖”，and “企圖”. All of them mean &quot;to try&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any difference between these words?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Based on the context, which one is more appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;她&lt;strong&gt;嘗試&lt;/strong&gt;修復被碎照片。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;她&lt;strong&gt;試圖&lt;/strong&gt;修復被碎照片。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;她&lt;strong&gt;企圖&lt;/strong&gt;修復被碎照片。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-02-22T00:48:08.137" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T04:35:43.913" Title="What is the difference between 嘗試，試圖，and 企圖?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28625" CreationDate="2018-01-28T07:38:28.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;她嘗試修復被撕碎的照片。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她試圖修復被撕碎的照片。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她企圖修復被撕碎的照片。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first sentence is appropriate to interpret the English sentence you quote. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;試圖 and 企圖 connote one's intention, pursue something. 企圖 has negative meanings sometimes. It sounds you plan something that will benefit you from others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, there is a mistake in your sentence. 被碎 should be 被撕碎.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-01-28T07:43:59.457" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T07:43:59.457" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28623" CreationDate="2018-01-28T08:47:25.850" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you could break them down like such to get a better understanding:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;让我不断想, 不敢再忘记你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first clause, “不斷” is an adverb, meaning &quot;continuously; without stopping&quot;, that applies to “想”. That leaves us a meaning of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;continuously thinking (of you)&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second clause, you forgot to include “不敢” here, so the meaning should be &quot;&lt;strong&gt;not dare to forget you again&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T08:47:25.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28625" CreationDate="2018-01-28T09:17:42.767" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;嘗試 (v) to try (one's hand at)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;試圖 (v) attempt to /seek to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;企圖 (v) plan to /intend to ; (n) plan/ intention&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她&lt;strong&gt;嘗試&lt;/strong&gt;修復被撕碎的照片。means &quot;she &lt;strong&gt;tries her hand&lt;/strong&gt; at restore the torn picture.&quot; (she actually acts upon her intention)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她&lt;strong&gt;試圖&lt;/strong&gt;修復被撕碎的照片。means &quot;she &lt;strong&gt;attempts to&lt;/strong&gt; restore the torn picture.&quot;  (using 試圖 imply the action is either unlikely to success or not supposed to be carried out)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她&lt;strong&gt;企圖&lt;/strong&gt;修復被撕碎的照片。means &quot;she &lt;strong&gt;plan to&lt;/strong&gt; restore the torn picture.&quot; (using 企圖 also imply the action is either unlikely to success or not supposed to be carried out; but with a more deliberate and determined mindset than 試圖)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-01-28T09:23:23.960" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T09:23:23.960" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28601" CreationDate="2018-01-28T11:15:42.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first option,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;留守儿童是父母留工作在市里的孩子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doesn't make sense, because you're saying &quot;the parents left work at the city's children.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your second option,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;留守儿童是那些去城市工作的父母留下的孩子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This works, although it implies the children are left &lt;em&gt;here.&lt;/em&gt; You could amend the 留下 into 留在乡下 or 留在家里. You can also take out &quot;那些&quot; which sounds a bit too verbose to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T11:15:42.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28630" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28631" CreationDate="2018-01-28T11:26:00.407" Score="2" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这次降雪给交通带来了严重影响，一些高速公路封闭，一些地段出现&lt;strong&gt;拥堵&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, another word I already knew is 堵车, which I have seen more times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now I wonder whether there is any difference between these two words, and if there is, what is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T06:36:48.653" Title="What is the difference between 拥堵 and 堵车?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28630" CreationDate="2018-01-28T12:33:02.593" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main difference between 堵车 and 拥堵 is that 堵车 is usually used as a &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt;, while 拥堵 is usually used as a &lt;strong&gt;noun&lt;/strong&gt;.  For example,  前面堵车了 and 前面交通出现了拥堵; 防范交通拥堵, not 防范交通堵车; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T12:33:02.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28625" CreationDate="2018-01-28T15:34:47.963" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;嘗試&lt;/strong&gt; means simply &quot;to try&quot; or &quot;have tried&quot;. For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Try something new&quot; =&gt; &lt;strong&gt;嘗試&lt;/strong&gt;新事物&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;試圖&lt;/strong&gt; is synonymous with 打算, and means &quot;planning to do something&quot;. It can be translated as &quot;try&quot; or &quot;attempt&quot;, but implies more of a plan. For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Trying to write a book.&quot; =&gt; &lt;strong&gt;試圖&lt;/strong&gt;寫本書.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;企圖&lt;/strong&gt; has the same meaning with 試圖, but with a negative connotation. For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Planning to rob the bank.&quot; =&gt; &lt;strong&gt;企圖&lt;/strong&gt;搶銀行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your case, both 她 嘗試 / 試圖 修復被撕毀的照片 can be acceptable. If she has not yet begun working on the photo, 試圖 sounds most natural. If she's already in the act, I would suggest  &lt;strong&gt;正&lt;/strong&gt;試圖 or &lt;strong&gt;正在&lt;/strong&gt;嘗試. If she has already finished, go with 嘗試.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5721" LastEditorUserId="18719" LastEditDate="2018-06-11T04:35:43.913" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T04:35:43.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14092" CreationDate="2018-01-28T17:19:23.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese has a lot of dialects, but most of them are written the same way. And in the country with the most people in the WORLD, some of them are deaf or hard-of-hearing. Hardcoded subtitles are also the best option, because some people mightn't be able to switch on optional subtitles because they might have a very old TV or can't find the remote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19004" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T17:19:23.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28634" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28635" CreationDate="2018-01-28T17:43:43.980" Score="5" ViewCount="1119" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was given a pair of gold cufflinks by my grandfather who was in Shanghai 100 years ago. Each shows a Chinese character (Mandarin, I guess) and I would like to know what these mean. However I have searched with possible English words (left/right, prosperity/health, sun/moon, man/woman, east/west etc) and not seen anything similar in either simplified or traditional. I have tried via OCR (baidu.com and others) with no meaningful results (mostly none at all) even when rotated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I appreciate that this site is not a free translation service but have asked on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1551/without-breaching-on-topic-guidelines-is-it-possible-to-receive-assistance-here/1552#1552&quot;&gt;meta&lt;/a&gt; and understand that a concession may be allowed where reasonable effort has been made to obtain a translation independently. In addition to trying to guess the translation and working backwards, I have tried:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Uploading the images to Google Docs with the option &lt;code&gt;Convert uploaded files to Google Docs format&lt;/code&gt;. This merely inserted the images as images. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://ocr.space/blog/2015/03/best-ocr-software-for-chinese.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The OCR Software Blog&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Just like with English Google OCR disappoints and is clumsy to use. It seems to be some kind of black magic if or if not the OCR conversion is triggered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Each of OnlineOCR, NewOCR and i2 OCR. The first returned &lt;code&gt;No recognized text !&lt;/code&gt; for both orientations of both images. NewOCR offered no response and i2OCR showed just the uploaded images (and anyway clicking &lt;code&gt;Translate&lt;/code&gt; , then &lt;code&gt;Google&lt;/code&gt; returned: &lt;em&gt;The page isn’t redirecting properly&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept cookies.&lt;/em&gt; I do have AdBlock Plus installed but since only to remove from sight the ad mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/339789/should-so-jobs-advertisement-have-appropriate-comment-format&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (that was still appearing on Web Applications about a year after &lt;em&gt;This appears to have been updated.&lt;/em&gt;) the settings are not strict (supposed to be only applicable to Stack Exchange but I admit I have seen a few sites asking me to disable AdBlock).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I tried the demo version of &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.ocrsdk.com/Demo/#&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ABBYY Cloud OCR SDK&lt;/a&gt; but Chinese in any form isn’t available under &lt;code&gt;Recognition languages&lt;/code&gt;. I did have ABBYY software but am reluctant to replace it after a change in hardware just for the sake of two characters.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A scan of the cufflinks is shown and the sketches I took in the hope they might aid identification and hence translation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DyyoW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DyyoW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Scan of cufflinks&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HUSZI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HUSZI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Sketch of one cufflink&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vmUhG.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vmUhG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Sketch of other cufflink&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that I would be very grateful for &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; of the following:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A technique for ‘solving’ such a problem without a human translator.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Advice of which way is ‘up’.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The name of the language.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whether Simplified or Traditional.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Readable character versions (not images!).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So something other than translation would be very acceptable. I just don’t fancy wading through what I believe are some ~5,000 symbols trying to find matches!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19002" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T23:09:31.293" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T23:09:31.293" Title="What do these two characters on cufflinks signify? (Characters identified: 福 and 壽/夀)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28634" CreationDate="2018-01-28T18:08:11.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's 福 (u+798f) &amp;amp; 壽 (u+58fd), both in traditional chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;福 is &quot;happiness; good fortune; prosperity; blessing&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壽 is &quot;age, life, longevity, birthday&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%A6%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=福&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%A3%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=壽&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the technique, well, i learn traditional chinese since childhood, there's no difficulty in recognising it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;your sketch is correct, to show which way is up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="18955" LastEditDate="2018-02-01T09:36:39.390" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T09:36:39.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28634" CreationDate="2018-01-28T18:13:15.210" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A technique for ‘solving’ such a problem without a human translator&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I pretend I did not know Chinese, I use 'Chinese hand writing input' on my iPad to mimic the brush strokes in the image you posted with my finger movement. I got a list of suggestions, Use your judgement to see which one is closest to the original image. Among all the suggestions,  '壽' and '福' are the closest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Advice of which way is ‘up’&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;familiarize yourself with Radi­cal &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/radicals.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/radicals.php&lt;/a&gt; you can tell which side is up generally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The name of the language&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Copy and paste whatever words into Google Translate and click 'detect language' button. It will tell you what language the words are in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Whether Simplified or Traditional&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Copy and paste '壽' and '福' into &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/zh-CN/%E5%A3%BD%20and%20%E7%A6%8F&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; and set target result as 'Simplified Chinese', you will get '寿' and '福'. Then you know '壽' is a traditional Chinese characters and '福' is used in both traditional and simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, check online dictionary to learn the meaning of the character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壽 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1686/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1686/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;福 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1102/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1102/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T18:35:38.423" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28634" CreationDate="2018-01-28T18:19:16.163" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;@水巷孑蠻 has already provided the correct answer - I just want to provide some additional methods for getting the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I took your written characters and put them into &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt;'s OCR software:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9n19k.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9n19k.png&quot; alt=&quot;fu&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your 福 was recognized almost straight away and you can see the definition above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your 壽 was recognized as 毒, originally, but the OCR software has an option where you can press &amp;amp; hold and finger draw over the character - helping the software to detect the actual character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hegq3.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hegq3.png&quot; alt=&quot;test&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T18:19:16.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27415" CreationDate="2018-01-29T01:05:44.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;蒙 has several meanings and one of them is “ignorance”. So 启蒙/发蒙/开蒙 （啟蒙/發蒙/開蒙） mean “enlightening”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 蒙 is the imagery of covering (of course it has this meaning). The verb ahead of  蒙 (启蒙/发蒙/开蒙) corresponds to “dis-” so that you can think it as “discovering”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I would chosen this translation if I were the first generation of translators.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蒙学 specially indicates the early education of children at the old time which must not be done at school, to teach at home is okay, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this is not more of a countryside vs. urban idea. We just, rarely, use 发蒙/开蒙/蒙学 in popular education nowadays but use 启蒙 frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;启蒙 does not indicate the early age only at all, it also fits the first time on a lesson. 启蒙老师 is the first teacher on any lesson whatever age you are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-01-30T02:08:30.720" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T02:08:30.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22784" CreationDate="2018-01-29T06:22:23.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In situations like this, it IS better to make it a full sentence than just combinations of whole bunch of adverbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the examples OmniBus provide above, it will create some kind of &quot;emphasize&quot; feeling if you put so many comma in it. If the sub-sentence belong to the same flow of actions and logics, the comma could be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, the example above would be better if the order is changed to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;昨天，你在房子後用大頭棒打我的腳踝，打了好幾個小時，打得很愉快。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;向 means &quot;Toward&quot;, so 打向踝 means &quot;Hit toward ankle&quot;. Even in English, it's &quot;off&quot;. And, who's ankle!? Yourself's!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了(Re) is some how complicated, it often used for stating that the action is an ongoing process and it's done deal! Deal with it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好(Hao)幾個 is an often used phrase meaning &quot;Many of, a lot of, whole bunch of&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the whole sentence means &quot;Yesterday, you bit my ankle with a bat behind the house, for many hours, and you enjoy it!&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But! The OP's sentence COULD be put into one single sentence. It would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你昨天愉快地用大頭棒在房子后打了我的腳踝好幾個小時。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, I have to ask, who is this perverted person!?!?!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18981" LastEditorUserId="18981" LastEditDate="2018-07-10T02:17:38.593" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T02:17:38.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28623" CreationDate="2018-01-29T08:08:03.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question: How do the words in 让我不断想不敢再忘记你 piece together?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer: It does NOT!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a typical result of a bad translation!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular translation, 不断, 敢, and 再 are ALL redundant and NOT in the original meaning of the sentence!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you want to say that you'll never do something, use 不会(Hui) is better!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the better translation should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;让我想我不会忘记你&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have to use 让我不断想不敢再忘记你, it becomes &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Let me keep thinking that I'm not dare to forget about you again!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18981" LastEditorUserId="18981" LastEditDate="2018-01-29T08:38:05.077" LastActivityDate="2018-01-29T08:38:05.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28623" CreationDate="2018-01-29T17:13:43.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do take note that many mandarin pop lyrics are practical grammar junks. It is the rhythm that rescue most of these pop junks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase should be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让我不断想, 不敢再忘记你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, @Pikachu620 almost touch the truth. Such rubbish is IN FACT plagiarise and translate from popular English Lyrics such as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;I can't stop thinking of you&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, and more accurate : Shakira and Rihanna &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Can't Remember To Forget You&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scramble it slightly, you get the Mandarin lyrics rubbish. There is no problem if you sing it out in Karaoke/singalong. But please never ever use this is writing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-01-29T17:26:46.703" LastActivityDate="2018-01-29T17:26:46.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19355" CreationDate="2018-01-30T02:40:32.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;难道 is used to express “can it be possible that…” or “maybe” with the subtext that “it should be” or “someone should”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometime with an exaggerated tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T02:40:32.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3658" CreationDate="2018-01-30T04:07:49.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Claw had provided a great answer, this is just a collections of measure words/classifiers for reference. In Traditional Chinese. The number in the pronunciation guide means the pitch number, in case you have learned about it, if not, you can just ignore it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;本(Ben3): Books&#xA;冊(Ce4): Volume of books &#xA;輛(Liang4): Vehicles&#xA;杯(Bei1): Cups&#xA;瓶(Ping2): Bottles&#xA;隻(Zhi1): Animals, Stick like objects (Pen, Straw, etc.)&#xA;顆(Ke1): Ball like objects&#xA;台(Tai2): Machines&#xA;粒(Li4): Smaller ball objects, pebbles&#xA;帶(Dai4): Bags&#xA;架(Jia4): Flying vehicles&#xA;列(Lie4): Trains, columns&#xA;行(Hang2): Rows&#xA;段(Duan4): Paragraphs&#xA;個(Ge0): Units&#xA;位(Wei4): Persons&#xA;條(Tiao2): String like objects (Rope, snake, Chinese dragons)&#xA;份(Fen4): Newspapers, copies, reports, documents&#xA;張(Zhang1): Papers, beds&#xA;艘(Sao1): Ships, shuttles&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's it for now, I'll come update it if I remember more! If you find out something I missed, PLEASE let me know! Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18981" LastEditorUserId="18981" LastEditDate="2018-01-31T01:07:36.333" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T01:07:36.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28406" CreationDate="2018-01-30T05:28:14.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;打扰您了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dǎ rǎo nín le&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just in oral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T05:28:14.273" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2018-01-30T06:07:23.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase “一直就” means “always” and this part you have already understood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could also be considered as “一…就…”=“if…then” and the girl assumed at once that the boy said “if he was straight then he loved her.” So she punned that “what if you are NOT STRAIGHT?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A “straight/bent” joke~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T06:07:23.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23860" CreationDate="2018-01-30T09:27:48.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does this mean, when I see this word I must assume the speaker went back and forth, except when he went by train, where I must assume a single trip?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither one is indicating a &quot;went back and forth&quot; situation. You can't tell that from just this one sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does 趟 imply that the speaker is now away from the place in question? So, does:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage of 一趟 and 一次 are quite similar, 趟 is more often used for trips or travels. 次 serve a more general purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6633" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T09:27:48.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28649" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28654" CreationDate="2018-01-30T15:13:29.407" Score="2" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence (from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xineurope.com/thread-1371549-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.xineurope.com/thread-1371549-1-1.html&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最近正在找语言学校，发现好多人也在找，正好把信息整理出来，欢迎补充&#xA;  比较有名的开始&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the last sentence, the meaning is clear from the context, which means “starting from relatively famous schools”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don’t understand it grammatically. If the 的 means “of” and modify 开始 here, then it means something like “relatively famous schools’ start”, which doesn’t make sense. Instead, it should be something like 从比较有名的开始.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or possibly does the 的 modify 语言学校 and is the 语言学校 omitted here? In that case it makes more sense, but then is it OK to also omit some prepositions, such as 从 (or something others like 以)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m not sure if I understand it grammatically correctly, but also don’t understand when it is OK to omit the preposition (if it is actually omitted).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T00:10:38.900" Title="The grammatical construction of 比较有名的开始" Tags="&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28650" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28651" CreationDate="2018-01-30T15:19:42.170" Score="5" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have encountered the following usages of 叉 and 岔 when dealing with forked roads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;叉路口&#xA;交叉路口&#xA;叉路&#xA;三叉路口&#xA;&#xA;三岔路口&#xA;四岔路口&#xA;岔路口&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any rhyme or reason to when to use 叉 vs. 岔? Is one more correct than the other? or only in certain usages? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on a google image search, it seems like 岔路 is used on road signage more often than 叉路.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3912" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-01-30T15:44:27.770" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T04:54:37.377" Title="When should 叉 or 岔 be used when talking about a forked road?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28650" CreationDate="2018-01-30T15:40:36.467" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a similar question here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/326153419.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/326153419.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that asks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;岔路口 叉路口有什么区别 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the answer reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;岔路口有方向概念，也即你面朝的方向有两条以上的分岔路；叉路口（一般不这样叫）一般称为交叉路口，指两条以上的路相互交叉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;岔&lt;/strong&gt; = forked (road) like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6ISLC.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6ISLC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the road splits in front of you, like crossroads.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;叉&lt;/strong&gt; = intersect like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r0DOq.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r0DOq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like a junction or an intersection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T15:40:36.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28562" CreationDate="2018-01-30T18:58:38.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's start by answering all four questions, and we'll look at the actual meaning of the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 大兵小将 , character by character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大 means big when looked at alone, however in this phrase, it also has the meaning of important&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兵 means soldier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小 means small, but in this phrase, it also means unimportant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将 means General(将领) like Tang Ho said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the &quot;will&quot; character for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's for 将领. (This 将 character has two pronunciations, one of them means &quot;will do something&quot;, the other means &quot;commander/General&quot;. In this title, since it's used with &quot;soldier&quot;, we'll know it's taken the latter.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why are &quot;little&quot; and &quot;big&quot; on different sides of &quot;soldier&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;big&quot; is for the 将, not for soldier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Isn't &quot;Big Little Soldier&quot; translation as correct as &quot;Little Big Soldier&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. But this is not relevant to this movie title (given the correct translation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Then what's the correct translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First we need to know that there's a traditional phrase 小兵大将, using the exact character by character translation above, we get &quot;unimportant soldiers, important General&quot;. Made more readable, it becomes &quot;(In the field,) one good General is more important than (the number of) soldiers.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase is used to emphasize the vital affects a commander will have on a war.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this in mind, we look at 大兵小将, which is the reverse of 小兵大将. The main character in this movie (Jackie Chan) is a soldier, so this title is a twist of the traditional phrase, meant to emphasize that &quot;soldier(Jackie) is also important&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last bit of information: popular movie/song/shows sometimes use something derived from slang/proverbs/ancient stories, and it can be hard for Google to translate the correctly. (Similar example in English: Zootopia -- Utopia)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T18:58:38.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28330" CreationDate="2018-01-30T20:15:16.147" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't any site dedicated to translate Chinese to English. But there are some programs on YouTube that has bilingual subtitles. Try searching for iApartment on YouTube, it's a show like Friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T20:15:16.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28649" CreationDate="2018-01-31T00:10:38.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You got it: “starting from relatively famous schools”. This is not great written Chinese tho, it's more like spoken Chinese written down - I wouldn't read too much into it. You already know what it should be, you wrote it above: 从比较有名的开始. 有名的 is referring to the schools here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So is it OK to omit the preposition in these cases? Or grammatically not correct but nonetheless commonly used, especially in these blog posts? It is still a bit difficult to make a transition from a rigorous textbook Chinese to a live sentence used on the Web... -@Blaszard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yeah, especially when Chinese makes such a large distinction between written (书面语) and oral (口语) language. Day-to-day speech is basically a free for all. Sometimes you'll even hear words like 其实 or 而且 at the end of sentences almost like an after thought. As for your 从 preposition here, yeah you can drop it here, but in written language it is always better to keep it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T00:10:38.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28630" CreationDate="2018-01-31T02:54:14.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;堵车 is oral, while 拥堵 is formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18844" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T02:54:14.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2" CreationDate="2018-01-31T06:20:42.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;做 (pinyin: zuò)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做 (pinyin: zuò) can only be used as a verb. Its meanings include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1). create; make&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 做衣服(zuò yī fú, means “make clothes”); 这把凳子是塑料做的(zhè bǎ dèng zǐ shì sù liào zuò de, means “this chair is made of plastic”)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2). pretend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 做样子(zuò yàng zǐ)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3). to have relationship with somebody&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 做朋友(zuò péng yǒu, means “become friends”)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4). used as…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 这块木板可以做椅子(zhè kuài mù bǎn kě yǐ zuò yǐ zǐ, means “this board can be used as a chair”)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5). to be…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.: 做演员(zuò yǎn yuán, means “to be an actor”)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;作&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except for verb, 作 can be used as a noun as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1). as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作 comprises lots of meaning when being a verb, such as “write” in 写作, “bestir” in 振作, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2). as a noun (pinyin:zuò).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a noun, 作 mainly refers to works such as 作品、作业、杰作、著作, and career such as 工作.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3). as a noun (pinyin:zuō).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under this condition, 作 is different from 作 above. It pronoounces zuō and only used in “作坊”. Except for 作坊, all 作 pronounce zuò.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Differences between 作 and 做&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When speaking of the differences between 作 and 做, it primarily lies in when they are used as a verb. The differences can be summerized as three points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1). 做 is usually used to refer to something specific which you can see or touch such as 做衣服 and 做作业, while 作 is to describe something abstract like 作弊, 作曲, 作孽.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2). The objects following 做 tends to be neutral, like 做衣服, 做梦, 做东, while 作 usually describes something negative like 作弊 and 作假.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3). 做 can be only used as a verb, while 作 can be used as a verb as well as a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18310" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T06:20:42.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28613" CreationDate="2018-01-31T06:32:49.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“Throw” and “abandon” are both correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Throw” has the meaning of “send suddenly into a particular state or condition” in the Oxford Dictionary of English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the same is 扔.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-02-01T02:57:54.673" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T02:57:54.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28630" CreationDate="2018-01-31T06:36:48.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;拥堵 implies there is too many vehicles on the road,so that they move slowly.yes,it does not refer to human.when we talk about human or animal with the same meaning we use 拥挤.堵车 means there is a traffic jam,and sometimes it does not mean there are too many vehicles,maybe an accident cause that.拥 implies there are too many things.one of its orginal meaning is that something very many from a wide area or big space going through a small gate or a small hole like a bottleneck,so that they crowding about the one side of the hole or gate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T06:36:48.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28450" CreationDate="2018-01-31T17:00:34.427" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you learn mandarin, you should learn all possible meaning of verb noun, then counter check with your mother tongue language, and think whether it is logical even you speak with you mother tongue language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, in mandarin, you will have less confusion if you try to understand individual glyph.  Once you get use to each glyph meaning, then you can start learn combination verb/noun/proverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take 上课 as example, from young, native speaker learn the verb 上. Then there will be no surprise when one saw the variance , i.e. when 上 mean &quot;go to do something&quot;, then it is obvious the noun like  课 make it an an action. So &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上课, 上课学习 (sound redundant but valid) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上学&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上堂（Cantonese ),  上堂学习&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike English, German, etc  you don't need to deal with abnormal verb changes. thus learning the root glyph let you understanding most written article without knowing tons of mandarin nouns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-02-01T08:10:42.760" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T08:10:42.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28450" CreationDate="2018-01-31T18:13:33.950" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Pleco app contains this information. It was actually confusing me for a while, but the //'s in the pinyin indicate verb separability. Pleco includes some free dictionaries, but it also allows you to download others for a price. I'm not sure if the verb-separation indications are tied to any particular dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4PZQd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4PZQd.png&quot; alt=&quot;Pleco app showing 上课 with pinyin shàng//kè&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T18:13:33.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28664" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28665" CreationDate="2018-02-01T05:33:17.280" Score="1" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it a 成语?  I'm wondering about its range of meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One source suggests, &quot;use the rhetorical tone to indicate that you have no time or no mood to think about your family problems.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another says, &quot;usually said during a national crisis.&quot;  Is that sarcastic, i.e., the crisis threatens to make you homeless?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would &quot;何以家为?&quot; be appropriate when someone (who doesn't understand a nomadic lifestyle) is a bit pushy about asking for my address?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T07:47:41.440" Title="Meanings of 何以家为?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28664" CreationDate="2018-02-01T07:47:41.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Would &quot;何以家为?&quot; be appropriate when someone (who doesn't understand a nomadic lifestyle) is a bit pushy about asking for my address?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt;. In fact, it doesn't need an answer for it at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your first interpretation is correct. It's a rather rhetorical question. 何以家为 is used to express that you would not consider to form/build your family till you could really achieve something you think more important. For example, 男人事业不成，何以为家?！; 匈奴不灭，何以家为?！; etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T07:47:41.440" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28666" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28667" CreationDate="2018-02-01T09:29:17.457" Score="5" ViewCount="910" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen the word &quot;嗯&quot; many times in conversations and songs. I know that it pronounces like &quot;&lt;strong&gt;hm&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, expressing curiosity. But when I check the pinyin of it, according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%97%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;, it is like such:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ńg, ń, en&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which for me doesn't seem to sound like the way it pronounces. Why do they differ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what's more, I've never seen the pinyin like &quot;&lt;strong&gt;ńg, ń&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, particularly for the tone mark, which should be placed on top of vowels instead of consonants. They seem to pronounce like &quot;&lt;strong&gt;éng, én&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, which are valid &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/mandarin1/4417&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;nasal finals&lt;/a&gt;. Are those pinyin valid? If so, why it's not written as such: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;éng, én&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T22:08:36.567" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T22:08:36.567" Title="Pinyin vs. Pronunciation of 嗯?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28666" CreationDate="2018-02-01T11:33:07.627" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very interesting question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嗯 is pronounced as &lt;strong&gt;ǹg，ńg，ňg，ǹ，ń，ň&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ńg, ń: means &lt;em&gt;what？&lt;/em&gt;, or 什么？It expresses surprise or raise a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ǹg，ǹ: means &lt;em&gt;I get it, I know it&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;好，我知道了&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ňg，ň: means &lt;em&gt;no, I don't want that&lt;/em&gt;, we say 嗯，不是，... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way to pronounce ǹ，ń，ň is that you put your tongue in the place while you pronounce the phonetic notation /n/ in English and then apply the tones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To pronounce ǹg，ńg，ňg , put your tongue in the place while you pronounce [ŋ] and then apply the tones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, &lt;strong&gt;ǹg，ńg，ňg，ǹ，ń，ň&lt;/strong&gt; are unusual pronunciations in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-02-01T11:40:31.887" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T11:40:31.887" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28668" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-01T11:51:11.307" Score="0" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I learned that the UK established a &quot;minister for loneliness&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42708507&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42708507&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_for_Loneliness&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_for_Loneliness&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought of &quot;孤獨大臣&quot;, which simulates &quot;minister for finance&quot; (財務大臣); or,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;孤獨部長&quot;, which simulates &quot;defence minister&quot; (國防部長). But neither suit the needs. Any ideas about how to imply &quot;cope with&quot; into this title in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-02-02T02:23:11.893" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T02:23:11.893" Title="How to translate &quot;minister for loneliness&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28668" CreationDate="2018-02-01T12:07:57.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you're right:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;“孤独大臣”&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/218690515_370262&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SoHu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你是否也是一只孤独的&quot;旅行青蛙&quot;｜英国设部级孤独大臣的社会责任启示&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为解决这一问题，最近英国政府史无前例地创设了“孤独大臣”（Minister for Loneliness）这一部长级职位，由体育大臣特蕾西·克劳奇兼任。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1590167450763464855&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百家号&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;英国人太寂寞？政府任命“孤独大臣”，帮民众解决孤独寂寞冷&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个职位，就叫做“孤独大臣”(Minister for Loneliness)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wanted to get &lt;em&gt;cope with&lt;/em&gt; into the title probably something like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抗孤大臣&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抗寂大臣&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抗寞大臣&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would be more appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-02-01T12:27:11.857" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T12:27:11.857" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28671" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28672" CreationDate="2018-02-01T12:52:59.087" Score="0" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 男女结合在一起, how does the 在 work grammatically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure it does not mean &quot;~ing&quot;, which should be before the 结婚 (and the meaning gets awkward then).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence should mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A man and woman got married together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand for what purpose the 在 exists here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I omit the 在, what difference does it make?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T07:41:48.437" Title="How does 在 function in 男女结合在一起?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28671" CreationDate="2018-02-01T13:06:13.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the best explanation I think.&#xA; In this case, prep. 在 can't be omitted.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zYMp0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zYMp0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Updates:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, you have to differentiate with the meaning, instead of grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 一起 can mean &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;in the same place &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;at the same time or in company. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;in all; altogether;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it refers to in the same place, it has to be preceded by 在. While it refers to at the same time or in company, it will be used alone without 在. For example, 我们一起去的。When it refers to in all or altogether, it's just 一起, like 一共. For example, 这些商品一起多少钱？== 这些商品一共多少钱？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorDisplayName="user19168" LastEditDate="2018-02-24T07:41:48.437" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T07:41:48.437" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28666" CreationDate="2018-02-01T13:07:55.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;嗯&lt;/strong&gt; pronunciations with meanings and sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ǹg&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;INTERJECTION&#xA;  [expressing agreement or assent] m-hm; uh-huh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你有空吧？——嗯。 &#xA;  Nǐ yǒukòng ba？ —— ǹg.&#xA;  Are you free?—M-hm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他嗯了一声, 就走了。 &#xA;  Tā ǹg le yī shēng, jiù zǒu le.&#xA;  He murmured assent and left. -(PLC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ń&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;INTERJECTION&#xA;  [in questions] eh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;嗯, 你说什么？ &#xA;  Ng, nǐ shuō shénme？&#xA;  Eh? What did you say? -(PLC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ńg&lt;/strong&gt; (similar to: ń)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;INTJ.&#xA;  What?; Huh? -(ABC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ňg&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;INTERJECTION&#xA;  [showing surprise or disapproval] hey; what!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;嗯！怎么又不见了？ &#xA;  ňg! Zěnme yòu bù jiàn le？&#xA;  Hey! It’s disappeared again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;嗯, 你怎么还没去？ &#xA;  ňg, nǐ zěnme hái méi qù？&#xA;  What! Haven’t you left yet? -(PLC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ň&lt;/strong&gt; (similar to: ňg)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;{interjection} Why,...! Hey,...! (used to express surprise) -(KEY)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ǹ&lt;/strong&gt; (similar to: ǹg)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;EXCLAM&#xA;  {interjection} hm, then... (indicates thinking, often prefacing a question) -(KEY)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;en&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;interjection indicating approval, appreciation or agreement -(CC-CEDCIT)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;g&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;EXCLAMATION [expressing agreement] -(oxford)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ēn&lt;/strong&gt;​&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(a groaning sound) -(CC-CEDCIT)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ěn&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;see: ňg -(PLC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;èn​&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 (nonverbal grunt as interjection) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 OK, yeah &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 what? -(CC-CEDCICT)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;éng&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;叹 &amp;lt;口&gt; 表示疑问&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;嗯?你怎么不说话了? | 你说什么, 嗯? -(规范)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ěng&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;叹 &amp;lt;口&gt; 表示不以为然或出乎意料&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;嗯, 没有那么严重吧! | 嗯, 怎么会呢! -(规范)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;èng&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;叹 &amp;lt;口&gt; 表示应诺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;嗯, 就照你说的办吧 | (在电话中)嗯, 嗯, 你说吧。 -(规范)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ng&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;INTERJ&#xA;  (used after a question to reinforce questioning)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你把自行车借给谁了, 嗯? &#xA;  Nǐ bǎ zìxíngchē jiègei shuí le, ng?&#xA;  Who did you lend your bicycle to, eh? -(Tuttle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T13:07:55.157" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28671" CreationDate="2018-02-01T13:19:35.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'结合'(to join) is a verb and  '在' is an preposition for '&lt;strong&gt;into&lt;/strong&gt;/ at/ in/ on' that indicates the 'location' the verb applies to. and the location is '一起'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A and B join in at 一起(the same place)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'结合'= join&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'结合在一起' = join into one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is: '一起' here functions as a noun (one) instead of an adverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把落葉 take the fallen leaves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;堆 pile (them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在 onto&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一起 one (heap)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We are not piling fallen leaves '&lt;strong&gt;together&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;落葉 were piled into &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;heap&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T00:03:18.353" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27311" CreationDate="2018-02-01T18:55:01.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many ways to describe water boiling, depends on the situation, say temperature or some flow within, of water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;水開了：water has reached at 100°C&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;水滾了: water has reached at 100°C&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;水在沸騰: water is going up to 100°C&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one is the most common way to describe the water is boiled already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11026" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T18:55:01.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28677" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28678" CreationDate="2018-02-01T19:36:32.460" Score="2" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;To clarify, I mean Chinese schoolchildren who may, for whatever reason, need to express a word that they haven't learned the character for, e.g., 餐 in 晚餐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would they use pinyin, like 晚cān, or substitute another character in, like 晚参?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12868" LastActivityDate="2018-02-17T13:43:13.490" Title="How do Chinese students write words whose characters they haven't learned?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28677" CreationDate="2018-02-01T19:56:14.750" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a person didn't know, or forgot how to write 餐 in  晚餐, he would not knowingly use a wrong word for substitute. The first thing he would do is to ask people who know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there's no one to ask, he would substitute 晚餐 with a synonym that he did know is correct. For example '晚飯'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he can't think of a synonym, he would use pinyin 'cān' inplace of the actual character '餐' and write '晚 (cān)'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he didn't even know the pinyin, then he would leave it blank with a question mark  like so: '晚(?)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sometimes, people knowingly use similar sounding words instead of the correct ones for humor effect. For example, '神馬' instead of '什麼' ; '魂淡' instead of '渾蛋'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-01T20:39:06.673" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T20:39:06.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28679" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28682" CreationDate="2018-02-01T22:43:42.493" Score="2" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ended up writing such a sentence, with some help of Google Translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用中文与我联系不是一个好主意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Contacting me in Chinese is not a good idea&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since my Chinese is pretty basic, I was wondering if that 与 here is needed for this sentence to be grammatically correct? Or can I skip it altogether?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T02:07:53.733" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T02:07:53.733" Title="Does 与 change the meaning of 用中文与我联系不是一个好主意?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28679" CreationDate="2018-02-01T23:05:21.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;与&lt;/strong&gt; means together or with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用中文与我联系不是一个好主意 = use + Chinese + with + me + contact + not + good + idea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;与&lt;/em&gt; here is not necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, 用中文与我联系 can be better written as 用中文联系我 which means &lt;strong&gt;contacting me in Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English you probably wouldn't write &lt;em&gt;contacting with me in Chinese&lt;/em&gt; and it's the same here in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sidenote: the only reference I found to &quot;用中文与我联系&quot; online is from a Japanese guy &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ucl.ac.uk/resilience-research/people/fujiyama&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dr Taku Fujiyama&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果您对我的研究有兴趣， 欢迎您用中文与我联系。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T23:05:21.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28679" CreationDate="2018-02-01T23:49:41.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用中文与我联系不是一个好主意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence you wrote makes perfect sense to me. Actually, it is a right one. 与 can't be omitted in this case. That reminds me of a typical caption translation from an English movie or TV show.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some other variations which a native Chinese might put for this context: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你最好不要使用中文和我联系，我中文不太好。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;联系我时，请用英文，我中文不好，谢谢！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T23:49:41.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28679" CreationDate="2018-02-02T00:16:33.133" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'与' in '与我' means 'with'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can't be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[用中文][&lt;strong&gt;与&lt;/strong&gt;我联系][不是一个好主意]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[using Chinese] [(to) contact &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; me] [is not a good idea]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English grammar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is not a good idea to contact &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; me using Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence is grammatically correct. Nothing wrong with that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can replace the relative clause [用中文] with other context and the grammar is still correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[在午夜] [&lt;strong&gt;与&lt;/strong&gt;我联系][不是一个好主意]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[At midnight] [ contact &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; me] [is not a good idea]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English grammar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is not a good idea to contact &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; me at midnight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;联络 is the better choice than 联系 for 'to contact' in this case because 联络 only means 'to contact' while '联系' could also mean 'to connect' as in 'connect and form a relationship'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-02T00:24:01.540" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T00:24:01.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27311" CreationDate="2018-02-02T02:44:33.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“水開了/沸了/滾了” are all used in oral. Even “水好了” goes well (好了=燒好了, and you can use it in preparing for bath, either).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T02:44:33.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28650" CreationDate="2018-02-02T03:42:39.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translating the word “forked road” is something interesting!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, let’s go and look the English word “fork”. In Oxford Dictionary of English, it means “&lt;em&gt;an implement with two or more prongs used for lifting food to the mouth or holding it when cutting&lt;/em&gt;” or “&lt;em&gt;the point where something, especially a road or river, divides into two parts&lt;/em&gt;”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And “forked” means “&lt;em&gt;having a divided or pronged end or branches; bifurcated&lt;/em&gt;”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, the character 叉（chā） doesn’t mean a implement originally. It means “crossing fingers”. In ancient etiquettes, 叉手 is not the way that western people crossing fingers but actually folding one hand onto the other hand. And it’s expanded meaning is “cross”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the implement so-called 叉 might not be the original production in Chinese agricultural history. Because we had our own. Something like “耒, 耜, 耒耜, 铲, 锛”. Only “耒” had been described as “formed like a fork” by later generations. So that 叉 might be imported along some road on the western and northern grasslands of China. How about the ancient Chinese fork-like implement using in fishing? I have no idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;岔（chà）specifically indicates “&lt;em&gt;the point where something, especially a road or river, divides into two parts&lt;/em&gt;”. 岔 is taken about mountain as far as 汊（chà）is about river. While you see, 叉 is taken the meaning of “cross” in 汊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;岔, a bifurcated(分) mountain(山). &#xA;汊, a crossed(叉) river(氵).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（明）方以智《通雅·諺原》：「山歧曰岔，水歧曰汊。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, it should be written as 岔路(口), and 交叉路(口).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s one more thing, we speak fēn chàr but mostly write it as 分叉(儿) because it’s easy to write but weird to pronounce as fēn chār.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-02-02T04:54:37.377" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T04:54:37.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28679" CreationDate="2018-02-02T07:22:24.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grammatically, 与 here is a word connecting the hidden subject &quot;你&quot;(you) and “我”(me). It cannot be omitted.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also, it's quite common for any foreign language learner (e.g. a Chinese learning English, or a Canadian learning Chinese) to write a sentence that is grammatically correct, but not quite natural or native.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can translate your sentence as the follows:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;最好别用中文跟我联系。(You'd better not communicate with me in Chinese. )&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, you can use a milder expression if you'd like to ask them to contact you in other languages:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;请用英文与我联系。(I'd like you to contact me in English. )&lt;br&gt;&#xA;See? It's a better practice to ask them &quot;to do&quot; something, rather than &quot;not to do&quot; something.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T07:22:24.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19277" CreationDate="2018-02-02T12:40:11.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;被续 is a China internet meme. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A hasty investigation and verdict on a mysterious death of a (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E9%87%8D%E6%85%B6%E7%B4%85%E8%A1%A3%E7%94%B7%E5%AD%A9%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;kid in Chongqing&lt;/a&gt;) had spark many speculation back in Jiang Zemin authoritarian era.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the ridiculous speculation/conspiracy theory is about making use of black magic to prolong(续命) the life of some prominent figure, where the kid is the &quot;sacrificial lamb&quot;.   I.e. &quot;我想这个穿着红色衣服的男孩已经被续了.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China netizen think the conspiracy theory is damn funny :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese is a communist country, where some superstitious should be eradicated by the communist party itself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is related to a story in Chinese popular literature &quot;The Three Kingdoms&quot;, where a prominent character attempt to use magic to prolong his own life.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So China Netizen keep making fun of the ridiculous 续命(prolong another life) with sarcasm,  thus some come out with 续命一秒 (prolong the life by 1 second). &#xA;Thus 续命一秒 become a sarcasm for some vain action. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T12:40:11.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28688" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28689" CreationDate="2018-02-02T14:31:48.033" Score="1" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following conversation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 小湖，这几天你怎么没来下棋呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 为了搬家我忙得焦头烂额。哪儿有时间下棋呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你可以委托搬家公司呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 搬家公司只管大件，小东西还&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;我亲自动手。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure the 得 here means &amp;quot;have to ~&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;must&amp;quot; (so it is &lt;code&gt;dei&lt;/code&gt;, not &lt;code&gt;de&lt;/code&gt;). However, the subject is likely 我, not 小东西.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why is place of 得 not after 我 in this sentence? Is it OK and if that is the case, how can I know in what case should I put 得 before the subject?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-03T13:12:36.830" Title="Why is 得 put before 我 in 搬家公司只管大件，小东西还得我亲自动手?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28688" CreationDate="2018-02-02T14:41:52.263" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it OK and if that is the case, how can I know in what case should I put 得 before the subject?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is OK. You can change the order of words for the purpose of emphasis; note that the object being emphasized changes according to the position of 得. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还得亲自动手（搬）小东西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小东西我还得亲自动手（搬）。 =&amp;gt; for emphasizing the object, i.e. 小东西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小东西还得我亲自动手（搬）。 =&amp;gt; not only emphasizes the object but also the subject, i.e. 我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW 得 is not the verb; as you said it means &amp;quot;need&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;have to&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;must&amp;quot;, the verb is 搬 which is omitted. This is a kind of 宾语前置 (object fronting), i.e. change from S-V-O structure to O-S-V structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T15:10:59.277" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28671" CreationDate="2018-02-02T15:40:06.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, it is NOT a proper mandarin. Traditionally, Chinese never use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a bad translation perhaps by Hongkee, i.e. &quot;May God join these man and woman together&quot; in their soap opera. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to the Hongkee soap opera popularity, the bad grammar spread.  It continue to pollute the language and you will find in some pop song, and even China inherit this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-02-02T15:45:14.970" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T15:45:14.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28688" CreationDate="2018-02-02T21:57:03.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;搬家公司只管大件，小东西还得我亲自动手。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;搬家公司只管大件，小东西我还得亲自动手。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two sentences mean the same. If you don't understand the grammar of the first one, you can think about this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小东西(&lt;em&gt;他们&lt;/em&gt;)还得 &lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt; 我亲自动手。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where 我 is the indirect object of 让 and virtual subject 他们 could be 搬家公司. So, the whole translation can be &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;For those things small, (they) have to let me to handle&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-03T13:12:36.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28693" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28698" CreationDate="2018-02-02T22:21:44.610" Score="3" ViewCount="429" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cross-post notice&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it has been 25 days since I posted this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/unanswered/On-Chinese-Wikipedia-%E2%80%9C%E5%A4%9C%E6%9D%A5%E9%A6%99%E2%80%9D-is-mapped-to-some-5-different-plants-see-source-Which-of-those-four-is-Teresa-Tengs-song-referring-to&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;on Quora&lt;/a&gt;, and all that happened was it was marked as needing editing (and perhaps also as needing to be in English), I chose to cross-post here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question text on Quora&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On Chinese Wikipedia, “夜来香” is mapped to some 5 different plants (see source). Which of those four is Teresa Teng's song referring to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The source comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wikipedia link: 夜来香 (歌曲) - 维基百科，自由的百科全书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Options therein given for Yelaixiang:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Cestrum nocturnum (aka night-blooming jasmine, the one I suspect the song is referring to);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;葉香木 (what is that?) ;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Polianthes tuberosa;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Telosma cordata;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Oenothera biennis.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The song:&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/t_-ljVn6oLI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/t_-ljVn6oLI&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what plant is this Yèláixiāng? Is it the night-blooming jasmine (cestrum nocturnum), as I suspect, or one of the other 4? And what is 葉香木?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv5VDUahAzQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Japanese version&lt;/a&gt; of the song calls the Yelaixiang:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夜来香白い花 | Yeraishan shiroi hana | Yelaixiang white flower&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of the above, number 4 is a yellow flower, and so is number 5. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-8&amp;amp;fr=bks0000&amp;amp;wd=%E5%8F%B6%E9%A6%99%E6%9C%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt; gives the following image for number 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CjxpU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CjxpU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So number 2 isn't even a flower. That leaves us with number 1 (Cestrum nocturnum aka night-blooming jasmine) and number 3 (Polianthes tuberosa).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2018-05-22T07:27:39.757" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T07:27:39.757" Title="What is 夜来香 in the song by Teresa Teng?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28694" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28697" CreationDate="2018-02-02T22:28:14.723" Score="1" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cross-post notice&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another Quora cross-post, this one 21 days old and marked as needing to be in English. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/unanswered/In-the-Chinese-song-in-the-source-titled-%E7%88%B1%E4%B8%8D%E8%B5%B7-what-is-the-meaning-of-%E8%B1%AA%E5%8D%8E%E5%90%8D%E8%B4%B5-in-the-final-phrase-%E2%80%9CThe-more-youre-fascinated-with-me-haohua-minggui-the-more-I-find-I-can%E2%80%99t-love-you%E2%80%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Quora post&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Enz5egwcAA&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;爱不起&lt;/a&gt;, there is the sentence &quot;越是迷住我 豪华名贵 越是发现爱不起&quot;. The first and third segments are &quot;The more you are fascinated with me&quot; and &quot;the more I discover I cannot love you&quot;, unless I'm much mistaken. The middle segment is a set phrase I cannot figure out the meaning of in this sentence. So I ask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the Chinese song in the source, titled 爱不起, what is the meaning of 豪华名贵 in the final phrase “The more you're fascinated with me, [haohua minggui], the more I find I can’t love you”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T23:32:34.603" Title="What does the phrase 豪华名贵 mean in Dave Wong's song &quot;爱不起&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28696" CreationDate="2018-02-02T22:35:33.660" Score="2" ViewCount="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cross-post notice&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I usually wait for a week before cross-posting, but it's been 6 days, so I decided not to wait till tomorrow. Again, asked on Quora, no response, marked as needing editing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What classifier is best suited for the word 莢蒾, &quot;guelder rose&quot;? In particular, is there a better choice than the general-purpose 个?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: I know &quot;guelder rose&quot; is actually 欧洲荚谜, but I used this in a song translation where I do not have enough syllables for that 4-syllable name, so I dropped Ōuzhōu, hoping the difference won't be excessive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NOTE 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While &quot;guelder rose&quot; suggests a flower and hence 朵, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viburnum_opulus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this is 欧洲荚谜&lt;/a&gt; (aka viburnum opulus) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viburnum_dilatatum&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this is just 荚谜&lt;/a&gt; (aka viburnum dilatatum). Both of these are more like bushes than flowers, so I feel 朵 would not be correct. One might argue that 一朵荚谜 would be a flower of viburnum dilatatum, but in the song I need this for I believe the whole plant is what is being referred to, not just the flower, so 朵 doesn't feel right to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2018-02-02T23:03:56.117" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T23:10:21.970" Title="Classifier choice for 荚谜" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28695" CreationDate="2018-02-02T23:10:21.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i would suggest 叢 (u+53e2):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=vZFQLg&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec=sec1&amp;amp;op=v&amp;amp;view=0-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=vZFQLg&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec=sec1&amp;amp;op=v&amp;amp;view=0-2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg 一叢莢蒾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T23:10:21.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28694" CreationDate="2018-02-02T23:32:34.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;豪華名貴&quot; roughly is luxury &amp;amp; precious goods &amp;amp; lifestyles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the theme of the song is a poor male like / love a rich female. so, there's the lyric &quot;而能力上永遠付不起&quot; (can't never pay); which accord with the song title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;愛不起&quot; is caused by &quot;付不起&quot; :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T23:32:34.603" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28693" CreationDate="2018-02-03T00:34:02.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the book 小山畫譜 has an entry &quot;夜來香&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;藤本﹒植必用架蔓延環繞﹒葉長而末圓﹒花一叢百朶﹒五出﹒色綠微黄﹒蒂托管有柄﹒開亦下垂﹒日落則香氣襲人﹒六七月開&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/45Q97.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/45Q97.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the 5 wiki entries, only the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cestrum_nocturnum&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;centrum nocturnum (夜香木) &lt;/a&gt; matched the above description (&quot;花一叢百朶&quot; &quot;色綠微黄&quot; &quot;開亦下垂&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/L8Bra.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/L8Bra.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, i would suggest option 1 (centrum nocturnal) as the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-02-03T00:34:02.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28699" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28701" CreationDate="2018-02-03T05:58:25.987" Score="6" ViewCount="1151" Body="&lt;p&gt;They started selling this at the local shop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uIcJ4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uIcJ4m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chaoshi.detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=556003881595&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;TianMao&lt;/a&gt;.)  I thought this product contained squirrel, so I took a closer look, and it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我才不是吃货 只是这个好吃~&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ cái bùshì chīhuò zhǐshì zhège hào chī&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the squirrel is saying &quot;I'm not edible, just that this is tasty.&quot;  Dict.cn gives alternative definitions for &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%90%83%E8%B4%A7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;吃货&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;good-for-nothing&quot; and &quot;buy in&quot;, and I don't know if they're relevant here.  I'm also confused about the use of &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%89%8D&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;才&lt;/a&gt;, which I'm used to meaning &quot;just&quot;/&quot;only&quot;, such as in 我昨天才见到他 (&quot;I saw him only yesterday&quot;) at dict.cn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why does the squirrel say 我才不是吃货?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T03:07:52.490" Title="Why does the squirrel say 我才不是吃货?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28699" CreationDate="2018-02-03T06:14:13.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%90%83%E8%B2%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;吃货&lt;/a&gt; could be used for the meaning of &amp;quot;good-for-nothing&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;buy in &lt;em&gt;(finance)&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;, but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Mandarin, the original meaning of 吃貨／吃货 (chīhuò) as &amp;quot;good-for-nothing&amp;quot; has largely been superseded by the new slang meaning of &amp;quot;foodie&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And note that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%B2%A8#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;货&lt;/a&gt; could also refer to people (well squirrel is not though),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;貨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;goods; commodities; products&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(derogatory) used to refer to a person&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/xs/624D.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;才&lt;/a&gt; is used for emphasizing the negative connotation,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(11) 才[+不]+动+呢。肯定句少用。如:我才不去呢!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So more precisely, the squirrel is saying &amp;quot;I'm NOT the one (货) who only interested in 吃 (eating), but this is really delicious&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-03T06:26:58.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28699" CreationDate="2018-02-03T06:19:26.410" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/529/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/529/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[4] &lt;strong&gt;certainly&lt;/strong&gt;; indeed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;货&lt;/strong&gt;' can be used as a 'derogatory term (貶詞)' for &lt;strong&gt;'person&lt;/strong&gt;'. (货 = goods = thing) referring a person as a 'thing'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'这货' = '这傢伙'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'这(货)沒救了' = This (person) is beyond help&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吃货 is a term for 'gluttony' (a person who can really eat alot)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我才不是吃货&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;I certainly am not a gluttony&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;只是这个好吃&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;But this thing is delicious&amp;quot; (therefore I can't stop eating it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we use '才' for 'certainly' the following is always a negative rebuttal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我才不信 =  I certainly don't believe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我才不幹 = I certainly won't do it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我才沒向老師告密 = I certainly did not rat to the teacher&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-03T09:14:51.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28699" CreationDate="2018-02-03T06:30:18.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It usually describes a man sitting around and eat and eat so is “a good-for-nothing man”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, 货 means cargo and 吃 is the abbreviation of 吃进 which means “handle/buy in”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃货 actually should be translated as “chowhound/foodie”. And you know, we are happy to admit that we are foodies for Chinese foods. 吃货国 is the self-appointed font of our country. It’s an adorable word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才 strengthens the (negative/positive) tone here. （我才不是/你才是）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18964" LastEditorUserId="18964" LastEditDate="2018-02-12T03:07:52.490" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T03:07:52.490" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28699" CreationDate="2018-02-03T07:04:49.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;才 here is used to emphasize, and can be interpreted as [&lt;strong&gt;indeed or certainly&lt;/strong&gt;] in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃货 is used to describe a person who can only eat a lot of food, but can't really achieve anything. For example, 你是个吃货 means you are useless (because the only thing you can do is eat). This is an insult if you say it seriously. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, nowadays 吃货 is frequently used in its funny sense. For example, 吃货们可以来买了！ It will mean people who like food such as 美食家（foodie）now can come to buy it! There is no derogatory sense here, but funny or humorous. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your sentence: 我才不是吃货, 只是这个好吃. It connotes that I am not a fan of food typically, but this one is great! -- Implying I want to eat a lot of it just like a 吃货 usually does to food! It's a way of advertising or hyping to attract customers to buy it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-02-03T07:04:49.250" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28704" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28705" CreationDate="2018-02-03T10:53:55.750" Score="2" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotient&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; defines &quot;quotient&quot; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In arithmetic, a quotient (from Latin: quotiens &quot;how many times&quot;, pronounced /ˈkwoʊʃənt/) is the quantity produced by the division of two numbers.[1]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the character 「商」 have the meaning of &quot;how many times&quot; from its origin?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Why is &quot;quotient&quot; translated as 「商」?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18167" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-28T15:48:08.910" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T15:53:38.710" Title="Why is &quot;quotient&quot; translated as 「商」 in mathematics?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28704" CreationDate="2018-02-03T12:05:15.820" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1HGtG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1HGtG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;河&lt;/a&gt;687&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=24225&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集24225&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「商」 (&lt;em&gt;to measure&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;calculate, approximate, discuss&lt;/em&gt; &gt; (1) &lt;em&gt;quotient&lt;/em&gt;, (2) &lt;em&gt;commerce&lt;/em&gt;) was originally comprised of &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=706&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「辛」 (&lt;em&gt;picture of a chisel or torture weapon&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;hardship, difficulty&lt;/em&gt;) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=157&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「丙」 (&lt;em&gt;picture of a workshop table&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;, indicating trade professions involving &lt;em&gt;measurement&lt;/em&gt; (e.g. of raw materials and dimensions). This is one of the earliest and most literal meanings of the word 「商量」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「口」 was later added as a &lt;em&gt;proper noun mark&lt;/em&gt;, referring to the name of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shang Dynasty&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B11kZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B11kZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;商婦甗&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=867&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成867&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZrRKD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZrRKD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;曾侯乙鐘&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=290&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成290&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2PyhR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2PyhR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日甲&lt;/a&gt;145&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5UAtx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5UAtx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; 　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Compare the similar addition of 「口」 (or its derivatives &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=264&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「甘」&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=137&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「曰」&lt;/a&gt;) in the characters &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=802&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「周」&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Zhou Dynasty&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;), &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=2172&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「曹」&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;State of Cao&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;), &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=2606&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「曾」&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;State of Zeng&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;To measure&lt;/em&gt; was later extended to mean &lt;em&gt;approximation&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;calculation&lt;/em&gt;, and then specialised to mean &lt;em&gt;quotient&lt;/em&gt;, derived from its use as a kind of jargon in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_calculus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rod calculus&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;See a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_calculus#Extraction_of_Square_root&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rod calculus tutorial on computing the square root of 234567&lt;/a&gt;. The top row in this calculation layout is called 「商」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-28T15:53:38.710" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T15:53:38.710" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26796" CreationDate="2018-02-03T20:31:54.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;被免去了军衔&quot; sounds best to me. &quot;军阶&quot; is less commonly used than &quot;军衔&quot;. &quot;剥夺&quot; doesn't convey the implication that the rank is taken away by 上级 (authority, upper-level leader) like &quot;被免去&quot; does. 剥夺 sounds more like its taken away unmorally, as in &quot;剥夺了我的自由&quot; (forcefully take away my freedom). So it has the implication that the guy is actually a good guy but somehow some bad people decide to frame on him and take away his rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2018-02-03T20:31:54.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28709" CreationDate="2018-02-04T00:51:21.817" Score="5" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I say 不是很多人 to mean &quot;not many people&quot;; it's basically a direct translation from English.  But it feels clunky to me, and I don't recall a native-Chinese speaker saying this.  I found an example of it used on &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/example/8823202fea3c4bf99088f6d2fda8a6c3/detail&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Line Dict&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;绿腰带&lt;strong&gt;不是很多人&lt;/strong&gt;喜欢佩戴的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Not many people&lt;/strong&gt; like to wear green belts&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;lǜ yāodài &lt;strong&gt;bùshì hĕnduō rén&lt;/strong&gt; xĭhuān pèidài de&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard native-Chinese speakers say 不多, but I wouldn't know how to adapt that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found an example with 没有很多人 at &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/example/d518167e6f7f48b5bc0584733057023c/detail&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Line Dict&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;似乎这里&lt;strong&gt;没有很多人&lt;/strong&gt;会手语&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I don't meet a lot of people who sign here.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt; sìhū zhèlĭ &lt;strong&gt;méiyŏu hĕnduō rén&lt;/strong&gt; huì shŏuyŭ&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Google Translate also suggests this.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is just as clunky.  There's &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/example?query=%E5%BE%88%E5%B0%91%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;很少人&lt;/a&gt; (hěnshǎo rén) = &quot;very few people&quot;, but it doesn't feel like it means &quot;not many people&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How can I say &quot;not many people&quot; smoothly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T11:39:53.820" Title="Saying 不是很多人 or 没有很多人 sounds clunky; how can I say &quot;not many people&quot; smoothly?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28707" CreationDate="2018-02-04T02:18:14.127" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way we express in Chinese is different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Not many people like to wear green belts&quot; is a natural way in English. In Chinese, we say 喜欢扎绿色腰带的人不(是很)多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I don't meet a lot of people who sign here.&quot; We say this in Chinese: 我遇到过的人中会手语的不(是很)多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the structure is not necessarily agreed between the two languages while interpreting each other IMO. This is a good example to demonstrate this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-02-04T02:27:32.287" LastActivityDate="2018-02-04T02:27:32.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28707" CreationDate="2018-02-04T02:20:20.443" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact IMO 不是很多人 and 没有很多人 both sound pretty natural to me, and I think they are the right translation of &quot;not many people&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;绿腰带不是很多人喜欢佩戴的&quot; sounds a bit odd but mainly that's because you would usually say &quot;不是很多人喜欢佩戴绿腰带&quot; or “喜欢佩戴绿腰带的人不多&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;似乎这里没有很多人会手语&quot; sounds perfectly natural to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2018-02-04T02:20:20.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28713" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28736" CreationDate="2018-02-04T10:44:41.507" Score="0" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;p&gt;I keep seeing this - probably in some B站 (BiliBili) type of videos:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6OnTp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6OnTp.png&quot; alt=&quot;hehe&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like the Mars Symbol to me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;♂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;although the orientation is a bit off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This clearly is not a Chinese character - but what is it doing here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the Mars symbol (♂) mean in Chinese (subtitles)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T19:32:24.013" Title="What does the Mars symbol (♂) mean in Chinese (subtitles)?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28713" CreationDate="2018-02-04T11:09:52.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;♂ is a 'male' symbol. The one in the subtitles had the arrow pointing up may just be a variant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hKtUF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hKtUF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Venus symbol represents 'woman'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mars symbol represents 'man'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contemporary Chinese people recognize these two symbols too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three 'Man' symbols in the subtitles may indicate that person is feeling 'manly'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-04T21:21:17.360" LastActivityDate="2018-02-04T21:21:17.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28715" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28720" CreationDate="2018-02-04T13:37:46.580" Score="3" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;I encountered the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们都一直&lt;strong&gt;相濡以沫&lt;/strong&gt;，患难与共。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked up the entry on Pleco, and although it shows the meaning, it also redirects toward 以沫相濡, which seems to have the same meaning (as well as 濡沫).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wonder whether it is OK to assume that these are just synonyms and have no difference, or have any meaningful (even if tiny) difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is this kind of Chengyu (the first and last two characters are flipped) common? And if it is practically same, why do these different forms exist in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-02-04T13:43:57.170" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T02:47:15.410" Title="Is there any difference between 相濡以沫 and 以沫相濡?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28715" CreationDate="2018-02-04T13:46:55.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are just variants of one another - with no real differences in meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although 相濡 and 以沫 technically aren't real words, you can split them up into two different phrases. Often these kind of phrase types are easily moved around or changed in phrases, expressions and the type.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-04T13:46:55.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28715" CreationDate="2018-02-04T15:04:34.240" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, is this kind of Chengyu (the first and last two characters are flipped) common? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it's not common. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相濡以沫 is the most people would use. 以沫相濡 is not that common, though we can understand it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't usually flip the character order in idioms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-02-04T15:04:34.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28719" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-04T23:58:42.410" Score="5" ViewCount="969" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have Sogou Pinyin on Ubuntu and things work fine, but I haven't been able to figure out how to type Pinyin with tone marks, e.g. 'mǎ', etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've looked into the settings but found no option like that. I've searched online (in Chinese) but results I get show that Windows Sogou has a very different, more comprehensive menu structure with more options. The Ubuntu version seems like a dumbed down version of that, nothing close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried typing U + Unicode, e.g. U+0101 for 'ā' but that's a hassle. Copying from an online tool is also cumbersome, I have to type a lot of tone marked pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone run into this issue?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Screenshot of Sogou Settings menu on Ubuntu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W6v70.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W6v70.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19061" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T11:48:55.113" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T16:42:22.627" Title="Sogou IME (on Ubuntu): How to output pinyin with tone marks?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28715" CreationDate="2018-02-05T02:33:12.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;They have the same meaning, even the point of emphasis might be subtle different. For &quot;以沫相濡&quot;, the emphasis is placed more on &quot;以沫&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chinese often change the order of characters or use abbreviation for matching words in same sound, sense or number of characters, especially in poem or libretto; e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宋．范成大．次韻龔養正病中見寄詩：「激水要令風在下，涸泉翻以沫相濡。」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  鲁迅 《题〈芥子园画谱〉三集赠许广平》诗：“十年携手共艰危，以沫相濡亦可哀。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  韩愈 叉鱼招张功曹：濡沫情虽密，登门事已辽。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  柳宗元 酬娄秀才将之淮南见赠之什：好音怜铩羽，濡沫慰穷鳞。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The original words from 《庄子》 is 相濡以沫, which is used generally; 以沫相濡 is seldom used.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-02-05T02:47:15.410" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T02:47:15.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28677" CreationDate="2018-02-05T14:45:32.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For 1st grade and 2nd grade students, people usually use pinyin mark or dictionary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Tang Ho They don't use 神马instead of 什么 because this is a slang word, and their Chinese teacher will be very mad at them if they write this in their homework. They also wouldn't ask other people in most cases, because it's common for young children to not know how to write a word, and it would probably take forever to write a paragraph if they do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mainland China I've never heard people put ? mark when they don't know a word, but it might be different in Taiwan or other places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19065" LastEditorUserId="19065" LastEditDate="2018-02-09T00:08:33.370" LastActivityDate="2018-02-09T00:08:33.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16708" CreationDate="2018-02-05T22:25:59.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When talking about English and Chinese, we will find that there are many English words stand for more than one meaning in Chinese, such as other(s) in Chinese. It means 其他 or 其它. Although they look like, they are quite different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese: 其他/其它&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pinyin: qí tā&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning: other(s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Similarities of 其他 and 其它&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1). Same pronunciation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 其它 and 其他 are pronounced qí tā.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2). Same meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of them mean “other” or “others”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3). Same part or speech&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of them are pronoun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Difference between 其他 and 其它&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其它 and 其他, generally speaking, are almost the same. They differenciate with each other in two aspects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1). Indicate different objects&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其他 can refer to any creatures, including human, animals and stuff without life, such as 其他学生(other students), 其他城市(other cities), 其他电脑(other computers). While 其它 can’t refer to human, for instance 其它动物(other animals), 其它桌子(other desks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2). Appear at different time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the beginning, there is only 其他 available. Gradually, 其它 was created out of the actual requirement. Hense, 其他 emerges before 其它.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18310" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T01:47:24.203" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:47:24.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28723" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28727" CreationDate="2018-02-06T00:05:46.487" Score="2" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious if it's grammatically correct to make suggestions with passive verbs. Like &quot;Let's get killed&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All I can think of is a suggestion with the causative verb &quot;让我死吧&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19067" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-02-06T13:32:14.710" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T13:32:14.710" Title="吧 with the passive voice" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28723" CreationDate="2018-02-06T00:43:12.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it would be grammatically correct but wouldn't sound right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using (ba) which is called a tone softener is used to add causality or make the language sound less severe; adding it on to a sentence such as 'Let's get killed' would sound funny, almost jokingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你看书吧。meaning: Read. To make this seem more polite, consider adding 请.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你看书。（！）Read(./!) normal severity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你现在看书！Read now! extreme severity &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19068" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T00:43:12.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28723" CreationDate="2018-02-06T01:15:00.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;吧 is mostly used as '&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Modal_particle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;modal particle&lt;/a&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Modal particles are words used at the end of sentences to indicate mood, or attitude.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be used in active or passive voice. Depend on the context or the tone of the speech, it can express a range of subtle mood or attitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Active voice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;警察拘捕了他&quot; = &quot;the police arrested him&quot; (plain statement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;警察拘捕了他(吧)?&quot; = &quot;(seem like/ may be) the police arrested him?&quot; ('吧?' here indicates doubt)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;让警察拘捕他吧&quot; = &quot;let the police arrest him!&quot; (吧 here adds mood or attitude to the sentence. Depend on the context or the tone of the speech, it can either add passion to the sentence or soften it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Passive voice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他被捕了&quot; = &quot;he was arrested&quot; (plain statement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他被捕了(吧)?&quot; = &quot;(seem like/ may be) he was arrested?&quot; ('吧?' here indicates doubt)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;让他被捕吧&quot; = &quot;let him be arrested&quot; (吧 here adds mood or attitude to the sentence. Depend on the context or the tone of the speech, it can either add passion to the sentence or soften it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Just like in English, active voice is preferred over passive voice when constructing sentences. There's nothing wrong with &quot;让他被警察拘捕&quot;, but most of the time we would rather say &quot;让警察拘捕他&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T01:15:00.313" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28723" CreationDate="2018-02-06T03:07:17.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand your question, you are asking &lt;em&gt;Can 吧 work with passive voice (verbs), like let's get killed&lt;/em&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is &lt;em&gt;yes&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;Yes&lt;/strong&gt; in interrogative sentences &#xA;. For example, 你被打了吧？ &lt;strong&gt;No&lt;/strong&gt; in affirmative sentences. The way we interpret &quot;let's get killed&quot; is 让我们死了算了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T03:07:17.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28728" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-06T04:51:55.020" Score="1" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;Similar meanings. What (if any) are the subtle differences? Which would be best for a self-description of someone who retired, sold his house, and has been traveling since then (this is the fourth year)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not wealthy; not even close. But have enough income to get from place to place and not starve. Would others describe him (me) with the same term?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-03-09T03:44:23.637" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T11:39:31.993" Title="行旅 vs. 流浪者 vs. 游民?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28728" CreationDate="2018-02-06T05:18:41.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;amongst the three options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;游民&quot; means homeless people, not suitable for &quot;tourist&quot; (any foreigners in travelling).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;流浪者&quot; is vagabond, or wanderer; it's ok to use this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;行旅&quot; is used in literary chinese, it's elegance; but most people would feel strange to &quot;hear&quot; it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;浪客&quot; - extracted from &quot;流浪&quot; + &quot;遊客&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T05:18:41.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28731" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28732" CreationDate="2018-02-06T16:07:48.847" Score="1" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;Heard &lt;code&gt;&quot;kao se&quot;&lt;/code&gt; on Taiwanese TV where the subtitles read: &lt;code&gt;&quot;挖苦&quot;&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's probably a Hokkien word but what can it be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not finding anything when searching&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;kao se&quot; and &quot;挖苦&quot; in Baidu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T16:07:48.847" Title="What is &quot;kao se&quot; in Taiwanese for &quot;挖苦&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28731" CreationDate="2018-02-06T16:07:48.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%27%E5%89%BE%E6%B4%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;剾洗&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剾洗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;khau‑sé&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;khau‑sué&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ㄎㄠ　ㄙㄨㆤˋ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;動&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;諷刺、挖苦人家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伊誠共人剾洗。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ㄧㄐㄧㆩˊㆣㄠˊㄍㄚ˫ㄌㄤˊㄎㄠㄙㆤˋ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很會諷刺人家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The proper spelling would be &lt;code&gt;khau‑sé&lt;/code&gt; and not &lt;code&gt;kao se&lt;/code&gt; unfortunately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T16:07:48.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28677" CreationDate="2018-02-06T17:40:38.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First we try to find other words to avoid writing that particular character, if we can't, then we'd use pinyin. It's like when you don't know a word and just try to spell it by how it's pronounced (gramar - grammar for example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't use character with the same pronunciation as a substitute because that will usually produce a wrong word(doesn't make sense) or a sensible word but with a different meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T17:40:38.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26902" CreationDate="2018-02-06T18:01:31.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, whoever told you that 斟茶 is a normal usage probably was referring to literature/movies that were set before the modern time. It is a word that you'd see much less frequent in real life. I personally haven't heard anyone use it in my 21 years(and counting) of living in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese is so different from Mandarin (seeing from a Mandarin-speaking-only perspective) that I'd think most of its phrases are different from Mandarin in both writing/pronouncing. If you really want to find their similarities, the best way is to learn Mandarin yourself, for most mainlanders(is that a thing) can't speak Cantonese and most people who have Cantonese as their first language speak Mandarin with an accent***.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;***: Speaking from personal experience. I think this only applies to people who learn Mandarin after their early teenage years. (Almost all my HK school friends speak perfect Mandarin, but not adults that I've met.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T18:01:31.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28479" CreationDate="2018-02-06T18:24:22.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regardless of whether it's a good design (good for displaying both original title and a understandable one, bad for mixing them), just consider if it's a confusing way for displaying this one particular title, the answer is no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are few reasons. Having only one of which will help distinguishing between titles, but having all of them ensures that it's readable and not confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Space is not a usual divider in sentence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In written Chinese, space has no place except for at the beginning of a paragraph. We don't use space to separate words or sentences in formal writings(despite it being more popular in chatting apps). The space between these two 千 means there's some reason for there to be a space, and they might be two different translations/the translation and the original/some other relations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Context&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since we read Chinese really quickly, we find at first glance that the second part is not (completely) in Chinese. Where does it change to not-Chinese? From the space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Here's an extra example(if English is your first language).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider French movie Maddam Cute(which is completely made up).&#xA;Now we have the display:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;maddam accent; accent de maddam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we have ; as the unusual divider in English, and I think it's easy to tell the latter is not in English(for the use of de).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T18:24:22.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28713" CreationDate="2018-02-06T19:32:24.013" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a long story but TLDR is it indicates that the content being shown has male homosexual connotation (in a humorous way)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The story probably starts with GV actor Billy Herrington's video being uploaded onto a video sharing websites in China (probably B站 or A站). In the video there are a lot of wrestling scenes for some reason and the 弹幕 will say “摔♂跤” with a mars(male) symbol in it to indicate the homosexual element in a funny way, because people generally don't really understand why wrestling scenes would be present in such videos and people start to wonder &quot;what exactly are they doing.&quot; They go ahead and push that thought to a philosophical level and start considering that as funny, not comprehensible and humorous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then it kinda goes beyond that scope, and anything that can be remotely related to that sense, you can insert ♂ in it to indicate that humorous effect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T19:32:24.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17169" CreationDate="2018-02-07T07:32:39.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There will not be an official writing system for hakka if there is no country using it as their official language. Although recently Taiwan has acknowledged Hakka as one of their national languages, the standard is still a long way to go. Taiwan cannot go out and dictate the whole hakka diaspora on how they want to write Hakka in each region on the planet. The only way to solve this is to set up a World Hakka language Commission, which should be responsible for compiling and approving a united writing system for all the variety of Hakka on the planet. IMHO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17710" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T12:25:13.360" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T12:25:13.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28739" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28741" CreationDate="2018-02-07T09:26:45.330" Score="1" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although their noun/verb differences have been covered in other posts, is there any specific difference between using them as nouns only?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, is there any difference between:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;城市已经发生了很大的&lt;strong&gt;变化&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;城市已经发生了很大的&lt;strong&gt;改变&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T14:12:53.647" Title="As nouns, is there any difference between 变化 and 改变?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28740" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28742" CreationDate="2018-02-07T10:11:06.677" Score="2" ViewCount="567" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I understand from other posts that 打算 is plan in the sense of ‘intend’, i.e. the details of the plan aren't yet finalised, while 计划 is more formalised such that the details of the plan are relatively fixed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is therefore: how does 安排 fit into this?! Is this 'plan' more 打算, more 计划, or something completely different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-09T12:01:12.300" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T12:01:12.300" Title="Difference between 打算, 安排 and 计划?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28739" CreationDate="2018-02-07T10:26:28.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. 城市已经发生了很大的变化。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. 城市已经发生了很大的改变。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparing 变化 with 改变 in this context, 改变 connotes 城市 is &lt;strong&gt;being changed&lt;/strong&gt; (say by people) from the past. Well, 变化 connotes that we see or identify some difference from what the city used to be. 改变 describes the action, &lt;em&gt;change&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T10:26:28.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28740" CreationDate="2018-02-07T10:39:09.217" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;安排 means &lt;em&gt;arrange or arrangement&lt;/em&gt;, a verb or a noun. For example, 安排你们住下 means arrange your lodging. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;计划 and 打算 are as you said. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T10:39:09.217" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28739" CreationDate="2018-02-07T12:44:44.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;变化 is a noun only, 改变 is a verb commonly, but also a noun. They are interchangeable as a noun in most cases, 改变 usually carries the meaning of positive changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T12:44:44.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28744" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32407" CreationDate="2018-02-07T15:07:36.997" Score="4" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;Words like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;OK&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;好的&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;诶&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are often used in response to other people's requests, proposals and the like. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese they're often referred to as &lt;code&gt;应答用语&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 应答用语 a part of speech? If so what would it be abbreviated as? &lt;code&gt;答&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it more likely to just be an interjection? 感叹词?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2018-08-29T11:26:51.907" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T02:30:54.377" Title="What part of speech are 应答用语?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28745" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-07T16:14:21.777" Score="1" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am curious whether there is some good app or a website for practicing pronunciation of Chinese tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a way to practice pronunciation on HelloChinese but I find the tone recognition quite inaccurate. For instance, I can say an entire sentence with the same tone, which is clearly wrong, and still the app would show half of the tones as correctly pronounced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19077" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-06-29T20:21:45.790" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T20:21:45.790" Title="Chinese Pronunciation App" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28744" CreationDate="2018-02-07T16:20:00.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not intended to be a 感叹词. I consider them more like a slang for 应答用语:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哦&#xA;哎&#xA;嗯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These words are may sounds like 感叹词 but they should never be used as 感叹词.  They are just a form of yes or acknowledged. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T16:20:00.330" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28666" CreationDate="2018-02-07T16:22:59.893" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are asking for Pinyin, it should be &quot;en&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T16:22:59.893" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28748" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28749" CreationDate="2018-02-07T16:56:18.800" Score="2" ViewCount="338" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm also curious about 祖母 vs 奶奶 , 父亲 vs 爸爸 ， and other family words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19076" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T04:54:46.310" Title="What situations would one use 祖父 as opposed to 爷爷?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28748" CreationDate="2018-02-07T17:02:11.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of standard Mandarin, the main difference is that the former one listed in all your three groups are used in more formal situations while the latter ones are more colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides those you have mentioned, in colloquial Mandarin it is also common to use monosyllable words when talking with family members or referring to family members. Such as 爸，我回来了。and 我爸去年刚退休。Monosyllable words like 父 and 母, on the other hand, are usually used to form compound words like 父母, 生母, 养母.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other words that refer to family members that sounds old-fashioned and are used as the honorifics. For example, 令尊 is &quot;your father&quot; and 令堂 are &quot;your father&quot; and &quot;your mother&quot; with honorific tones, respectively. It is not suggested to use these unless you are sure that it is the appropriate situation to use them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18760" LastEditorUserId="18760" LastEditDate="2018-02-07T17:25:49.850" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T17:25:49.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28745" CreationDate="2018-02-07T18:30:18.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I highly doubt it's a good idea to rely on such apps. Try to mimic high quality recordings or even record yourself for comparison purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forvo is good for words and phrases, textbooks with an audio CD like Integrated Chinese, Učebnice čínské konverzace and such for whole sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also try if some machine translators will get what you're saying by voice, but only for the lulz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19067" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T18:30:18.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13325" CreationDate="2018-02-07T18:38:52.363" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dogs of grass are wild, loose dogs.  In other words, they're the bad ones.  The good ones are on the leash.  Consider the times.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19078" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T18:38:52.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28748" CreationDate="2018-02-08T00:09:44.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;祖父 and 祖母 are old-fashioned and they are usually used in written to tell a old story in the old days. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爸爸, 爷爷 and 奶奶 are frequently used in our daily life. The single character 奶, 爷 or 爸 is common in more casual situations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 父亲 and 母亲 are usually used to formally clarify the father or mother relationship. For example, 这是我的父亲/母亲。You are trying to introduce your father or mother formally, indicating father-and-son or mother-and-son relationship. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-02-08T00:09:44.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28739" CreationDate="2018-02-08T08:39:33.220" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;变化 happens objectively , 改变 happens subjectively (even in your example the object is omitted).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9737" LastActivityDate="2018-02-08T08:39:33.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28748" CreationDate="2018-02-08T08:59:18.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;祖父 父亲 is like grandfather, father, while 爷爷 爸爸 is like grandpa, dad. I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11090" LastActivityDate="2018-02-08T08:59:18.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28759" CreationDate="2018-02-08T10:06:56.987" Score="2" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I can tell, they seem to be pretty interchangable, you can do both for a visa, passport, etc. Just wondering whether you can 办 something but not 申请 it, or vice versa?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T04:17:09.693" Title="Is there any difference between 办 and 申请？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28758" CreationDate="2018-02-08T11:04:21.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;申请&lt;/strong&gt;护照&quot; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;to apply for&lt;/strong&gt; a passport&quot; It describes the action of file an application for obtaining passport&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;办&lt;/strong&gt;护照&quot; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;make arrangement to obtain&lt;/strong&gt; a passport&quot; It describes the whole procedure of obtaining passport&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-02-08T11:04:21.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28758" CreationDate="2018-02-08T12:29:45.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;办 is short for 办理 in this context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, 办理 and 申请 are used quite differently. Say you apply for (申请)a visa, the staff  will (办理) make it ready  for you, which might include inspecting your application form and other relevant documents. For example, 我提出申请，请您帮我办理。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-02-08T12:29:45.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28758" CreationDate="2018-02-08T20:14:00.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO 办 is a general statement for &quot;deal with / ask people to handle some license related stuff&quot;, which includes 申请. So &quot;申请&quot; (apply for) is a subset of &quot;办&quot;, whereas you can also say &quot;办手续&quot; but here 办 doesn't mean 申请. Also &quot;办&quot; is more colloquial, and 申请 is more formal. The formal version of 办 is 办理. Additionally, 办 is only for license (usually government related) stuff, but 申请&#xA; can be &quot;apply for&quot; for anything. i.e. you can say &quot;申请大学&quot; (apply for college) but you can't say 办大学.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2018-02-08T20:14:00.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29512" CreationDate="2018-02-09T12:14:05.820" Score="0" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I can tell, 嘉馬電腦 means &lt;em&gt;The Auspicious Horse Computer&lt;/em&gt;. Is this a reasonable translation? Is 嘉馬電腦 a normal-sounding brand name to Chinese-speakers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LVnx0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LVnx0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;嘉馬電腦&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series#/media/File:Taiwanese_Apple_II_clone_Cosmo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series#/media/File:Taiwanese_Apple_II_clone_Cosmo.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15898" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T13:05:40.217" Title="Taiwanese brand of computers called 嘉馬電腦" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28770" CreationDate="2018-02-09T18:12:57.823" Score="2" ViewCount="52" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google Translate gives 我不需要我认为我需要的东西 as a translation of 'I do not need what I think I need'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that accurate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 的东西 necessary or is 我不需要我认为我需要 sufficient to convey the meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18786" LastActivityDate="2018-02-11T19:56:43.357" Title="Translation of 'I do not need what I think I need'" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28764" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28766" CreationDate="2018-02-09T20:30:03.453" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you interpret the phrase: &quot;你的美如日; 你的智若猫头鹰&quot; (&lt;em&gt;Nǐ dì měi rú rì; nǐ de zhì ruò māotóuyīng&lt;/em&gt; in Mandarin)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to say something like: &quot;Your beauty is like the sun; your wisdom is like an owl's&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19091" LastEditorUserId="19091" LastEditDate="2018-02-10T08:40:13.843" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T08:40:13.843" Title="How would you interpret: &quot;你的美如日; 你的智若猫头鹰&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28764" CreationDate="2018-02-10T03:47:41.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的美如日; 你的智若猫头鹰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say the grammar of your sentence is correct. It's another point as to whether your analogy, beauty to sun; wisdom to owl, is good or not.  I can get wisdom to owl, and I have the difficulties to imagine beauty to sun. You might put some explanation for it in your text I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美如日月，睿智如鹰 might sound better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-02-10T03:57:40.177" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T03:57:40.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28764" CreationDate="2018-02-10T06:30:24.347" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;i would suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其妍也﹒如冬之日﹒和煦可人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其智也﹒若夜之鴞﹒慎默覃思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's a brief explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;his/her's beauty (妍), is like (如) the winter sun (冬之日), warm (和煦) &amp;amp; pleasant (可人)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;his/her's wisdom (智), is like (若) an owl (夜鴞), think (覃思) carefully (慎) and silently (默)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如冬之日 do not indicate the sun itself, it implied the sunshine in winter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, 鴞 is one of the name used in ancient time for owl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T06:30:24.347" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28767" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-10T13:10:55.473" Score="2" ViewCount="375" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently starting to learn to use a cangjie keyboard for typing Chinese (倉頡) and I'm struggling to find the combinations for characters. I would like a resource where I can use my slower handwriting recognition keyboard to type in a character and it'll return the correct key combination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before you suggest for me to use a zhuyin keyboard or other, I wasn't born in Hong Kong / China, and neither have I had the adequate education to know enough Chinese, as I was taught it by my parents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16101" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-02-11T03:54:03.793" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T20:12:47.547" Title="Cangjie reference" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26301" CreationDate="2018-02-11T09:37:02.327" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;的、得、地 are sharing a same meaning, but the way we use is quite different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的, is used when there is a pronoun or a noun behind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我的鉛筆。My Pen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;臭臭的臭豆腐。The smelly fermented bean-curd.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;害羞的我。The shy me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得，is used when there is an adjective behind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;別讓大家過得太輕鬆。輕鬆 is an adjective.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地，is used when there is a verb behind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我真喜欢你健健康康地长大。長大 is a verb, means grow up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他舒服地躺在那里。 躺 is a verb, means lying (lye on the floor).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17191" LastActivityDate="2018-02-11T09:37:02.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28769" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-11T13:04:36.630" Score="2" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll be concise for those knowledgeable, and refer to brief and basic bibliography for those who are not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese elasticity/flexibility is a lexical property of Chinese terms, two sides of the same coin, which must be reflected in the very same entry for a certain lemma.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, for example the fifth version of the prestigious XDHYCD (Xiandai Hanyu Cidian) applies mutual annotations in the respective entries (however, this criterion is not enough for a comprehensive treatment), so that the entry for 煤 mei ‘coal’ reads &quot;noun, … also called 煤炭 mei-tan ‘coal-charcoal’&quot;, and the entry for 煤炭 meitan ‘coal-charcoal’ is annotated as &quot;noun, 煤 mei ‘coal’&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, it would improve greatly studying resources to add the relationship between such &quot;elasticity&quot; and the surviving morphemes in truncated abbreviations and similar phenomena, such as what Prof. Ceccagno coined &quot;metacompounds&quot;. For example, the apparent surviving morphemes that appear in 卫视 'satellite T.V.' are at least the bound short version of the disyllabic elastic words 卫星 'satellite' and 电视 'television'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please, before commenting, read &lt;a href=&quot;http://www-personal.umich.edu/~duanmu/2014Elastic.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the following brief article&lt;/a&gt; (and if necessary further references within it); if you still have any questions, I'll be glad to try and answer them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, elasticity from Xiandai Hanyu Cidian 2005 has been tabulated in the following open access &lt;a href=&quot;http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116629/1/yandong_1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;thesis&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope an enriching discussion ensues for this critical lexicographical and pedagogic issue.         &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2018-02-15T11:51:40.517" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T12:40:57.080" Title="How to deal with elasticity/flexibility in HSK vocabulary?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-07-16T02:50:46.180" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28763" CreationDate="2018-02-11T19:56:43.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不需要我认为我需要的东西 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is 的东西 necessary or is 我不需要我认为我需要 sufficient to convey the meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anything &lt;code&gt;东西&lt;/code&gt; is unnecessary. &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; on the other hand is essential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; has the function to turn verbs into nouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;需要 means “to need,” 的 turns &lt;code&gt;to need&lt;/code&gt; (需要) into 需要的 and means into something more like - &lt;code&gt;what (I) need&lt;/code&gt; -or- &lt;code&gt;the things (I) need&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;我不需要我认为我需要的东西&lt;/code&gt; could be better phrased as &lt;code&gt;我不需要我认为我需要的&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be more natural to put it in a flipped order though (i.e.: what I think I need - I don’t (actually) need).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-11T19:56:43.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28775" CreationDate="2018-02-12T00:34:42.437" Score="1" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working through the entry for 耳巴 in《四川方言词语续考》and I don't have my paper copy around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is I only have my crappy OCR'd digital version which is giving me �� where a proper character should be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the part I'm struggling over:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;或作“耳��”。民國十八年《榮縣志·禮俗》： “《說文》： ‘獸足謂之番。’ 附袁切。古無輕唇音，番讀如班，今音如板， 手掌謂手番， 足掌曰足番，雙聲轉��。《說文》： ‘��， ��擊 也。 ’ 今��掌、耳��，北人强以刮字當之， 非也。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A variant bā character for 巴掌 I figured would be quite easy to find, but nothing is showing up in searches for &lt;code&gt;北人强以刮字當之&lt;/code&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only variant I know for 巴 is  but I can't seem to find any《說文》material for .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone fill in the blanks (read: question marks)? What is the variant bā character for 巴掌?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T04:36:05.783" Title="What is the variant bā character for 巴掌?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28772" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28773" CreationDate="2018-02-12T01:52:45.663" Score="2" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best I could come up with was 等他们的耳朵不响了, which just seems wrong and inadequate. I was wondering whether there was a specific term for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17604" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T02:48:23.777" Title="How to say &quot;when their ears stopped ringing&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28772" CreationDate="2018-02-12T02:48:23.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Ears ringing&amp;quot; translated into Chinese is &amp;quot;耳嗚&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%80%B3%E9%B8%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%80%B3%E9%B8%A3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;係指外在環境沒發出聲音卻聽見聲音的一種狀況&lt;/em&gt; (hearing sound when there is no external source of such sound)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;最常見的原因是因噪音型聽力損失&lt;/em&gt; (most common cause of this impairment of  hearing ability is loud noise )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“when their ears stopped ringing” could be translated as &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;等他们的耳嗚停止时&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &amp;quot;耳嗚&amp;quot; is quite a formal (medical) and literary term. The more colloquial term for &amp;quot;ear ringing&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;耳中嗡嗡作响&amp;quot; therefore,   your sentence could be translated as &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;等他们耳中的嗡嗡响声停下來时&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (when the buzzing sound in their ears stopped)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T02:48:23.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28771" CreationDate="2018-02-12T03:48:33.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/8c/sw/220F3.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;」 fulfils the statement &lt;code&gt;《說文》：‘��，��擊也。’&lt;/code&gt; (check the Shuowen entry on zdic), and also everything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;耳巴&lt;/strong&gt;，或作 “耳「」”。民國十八年《榮縣志·禮俗》：“《說文》： ‘獸足謂之番。’ 附袁切。古無輕唇音，番讀如班，今音如板， 手掌謂手番， 足掌曰足番，雙聲轉「」。《說文》： ‘「」，「&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/8f/js/22C67.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;」（批）擊也。’ 今「」掌、耳「」，北人强以刮字當之， 非也。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Zdict lists「」with the third tone, not the first tone (bā). I can't confirm with an external resource about this tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;北人强以刮字當之&lt;/code&gt; is saying that there are multiple words for「耳巴」, like「&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%80%B3%E5%85%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;耳光&lt;/a&gt;」,「&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%80%B3%E6%8E%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;耳摑&lt;/a&gt;」,「&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%80%B3%E5%88%AE%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;耳刮子&lt;/a&gt;」, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-02-12T04:36:05.783" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T04:36:05.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28776" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28778" CreationDate="2018-02-12T05:18:33.760" Score="1" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to translate this caption and description. However, I am not entirely sure if my translation is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caption: &quot;When I was in San Francisco's Chinatown&quot;&#xA;Translation: 当我在旧金山的唐人街&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Description: Last year, my cousin and I went to San Francisco's Chinatown. We ate Chinese food and drank boba milk tea. It was a great day!&#xA;Translation: 去年我和我表姐一起去了旧金山的唐人街。我们吃了中国早餐，也喝了波霸奶茶。那天真不错！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19105" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T12:06:10.007" Title="Trying to Write a Short Photo Caption and Description" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28776" CreationDate="2018-02-12T11:56:22.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You did very well translating it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some minor suggestion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Caption: When I was in San Francisco's Chinatown&quot; Translation: 当我在旧金山的唐人街&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;When&quot; indicates 'time', therefore, your translation should be &#xA;&quot;当我在旧金山唐人街的时候&quot; (you can omit 当)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Description: Last year, my cousin and I went to San Francisco's Chinatown. We ate Chinese food and drank boba milk tea. It was a great day! Translation: 去年我和我表姐一起去了旧金山的唐人街。我们吃了中国早餐，也喝了波霸奶茶。那天真不错！&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;去年我和表姐一起去了旧金山的唐人街。我们在那里吃了中式早餐，还喝了波霸奶茶。真是不错的一天！&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the second 我 in 去年我和我表姐 can be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我们(在那里)吃了中式早餐 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I suggest using &lt;strong&gt;还&lt;/strong&gt;(also) instead of 也(also/ too) in  &quot;吃了中式早餐，还喝了波霸奶茶&quot;。to indicate Boba milk tea is in addition of having Chinese breakfast (which is the main event).  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;中国早餐  could mean &quot;breakfast from China&quot;,  you should use &lt;strong&gt;中式&lt;/strong&gt;早餐  (Chinese breakfast) here, because you are in Chinatown, not in China&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;那天真不错！(sound too matter of fact, the day was good, but how good?) --&gt; 真是愉快的一天！(describe your feeling about that specific day)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-12T12:06:10.007" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T12:06:10.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28781" CreationDate="2018-02-12T21:19:00.093" Score="3" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most dictionaries say 寨 = 塞 + 木, but on its face, we could just as easily have 塞 = 寨 + 土.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T04:54:54.003" Title="What is the relation between 寨 (zhài, &quot;stockade, stronghold, fort&quot;) and 塞 (sài, &quot;place of strategic importance; pass; fortress&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28779" CreationDate="2018-02-13T01:26:53.373" Score="-1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1778/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;寨&lt;/a&gt;  (pinyin) zhai4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;stockade; fence; stronghold; camp&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The radical of 寨 is 宀 (#40), which means  屋頂 (roof), it describes a temporary or semi-permanent building structure for people to gather for specific purpose. For example, 营寨 (camp) &lt;em&gt;营 means 'camp' and there's no such thing as 营塞&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1666/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;塞&lt;/a&gt;  (pinyin) sai4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;frontier; strategic stronghold along the frontier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The radical of 塞 is 土 (#32) , which means soil, it describes a permanent building structure of strategical importance. For example 要塞 (fortress) &lt;em&gt;要 means 'important', and 要寨 would mean 'important camp'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, 塞 is a &lt;strong&gt;base&lt;/strong&gt; and 寨 is a &lt;strong&gt;camp&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T01:32:41.557" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28779" CreationDate="2018-02-13T03:05:02.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There doesn't seem to be much relation between「寨」and「塞」, although it takes some evidence to demonstrate why this is the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, the reason why many dictionaries say that「寨」is「塞」plus「木」is because「塞」is popularly but very likely &lt;em&gt;mistakenly&lt;/em&gt; interpreted as the modern character for what was originally「賽」. The evolution of「賽」from oracle bone script to modern form is considered by some paleographers to be the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ciYWH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ciYWH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, what appears as「工」in this character (and some others) is considered by several experts as a simplified form of「玉」, and sometimes was written as「玉」, while the two hands「廾」were sometimes removed in certain variants and「貝」was sometimes added as a semantic indicator. The character was a compound ideogram depicting the offering of objects to spirits inside a temple, and the primary meaning was to do with some kind of ritual, preserved in the ancient words「&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%B5%9B%E7%A5%9E/5578221A5%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;賽神&lt;/a&gt;」and「&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%A5%AD%E8%B5%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;祭賽&lt;/a&gt;」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As stated near the beginning, many important sources however say that the first two forms is the ancient form of「塞」(&lt;em&gt;plug, fill in&lt;/em&gt;). For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;段玉裁注：“凡填塞字皆當作。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(「」is the second form in the evolution sequence depicted above. With a bit of stroke joining and simplification, 「」becomes「」, which is the top part of「賽」and the other characters mentioned in this question.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that these sources, although traditionally very well reputed, do not appear to provide any paleographic or lexical evidence for this assertion, and so cannot be trusted for this specific character. Despite this, many dictionaries will follow these sources and treat「」as the original character for「塞」, and subsequently interpret「寨」as「」(mistakenly thought as 塞) plus「木」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interpreting the primary meaning of「賽」as a religious ritual, it is then very likely that「寨」and「塞」merely use「」(賽) as a phonetic component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「塞」uses「土」as a semantic component to indicate the meaning &lt;em&gt;stuff, plug, fill in&lt;/em&gt;. This is an ancient definition that has survived very well intact to the present. Note that the synonym「填」uses the same semantic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「寨」is only one possible form of the word it represents, the other commonly seen one being「砦」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The only time when the two characters have anything to do with each other is for the meaning &lt;em&gt;fortification&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further reading:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;于省吾《甲骨文字釋林》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;何琳儀《戰國古文字典》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Please note that this explanation is tentative, and there will undoubtedly be differing opinions on these characters. More evidence is required to make a more solid case.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-02-13T04:54:54.003" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T04:54:54.003" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28782" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-13T14:22:01.507" Score="4" ViewCount="519" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across 若 from my lessons today, as in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;若天下雨，我就出发。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being familiar with 如果, I immediately assumed 若 is just a short/abbreviated/spoken form of 如果.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I broached the idea to my Chinese colleagues and they immediately pointed out instead that 若 in practice is a bit more stodgy version of 如果 primarily used among &quot;elite&quot; or pretentious types (more &quot;formal&quot; was their wording).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, this left me wondering if perhaps there's some historical truth to my initial suspicion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9480" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T21:36:01.330" Title="Etymology of 若 vis-a-vis 如果" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28783" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28838" CreationDate="2018-02-13T17:06:29.033" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normal characters are (汉)字 and &lt;em&gt;nonstandard&lt;/em&gt; characters are 俗子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wrongly written words or nonstandard forms of written words can be referred to by using &lt;em&gt;俗作&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, the entry for &lt;em&gt;耳食&lt;/em&gt; in《南充方言词语考释》says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“耳食”俗作“耳屎”、“耳视”等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are these types of words called? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;异形词 is an, obvious, option. I would like to be more specific noting that it is a 俗 problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗词 would just talk about current terms or expressions, vulgarities or familiar language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the proper term for nonstandard forms of written words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T03:35:48.390" Title="What are nonstandard forms of written words called?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28783" CreationDate="2018-02-13T17:17:05.160" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;aren't they called 異體字 (variant character)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/home.do&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/home.do&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if this one doesn't suit your need, maybe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;後起字&quot;, &quot;分化字&quot;, &quot;古今字&quot;,  or &quot;訛變&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T17:17:05.160" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28785" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-13T20:30:43.390" Score="2" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to improve my reading comprehension and I was curious about something I have read in Japanese to Chinese translation of a manga light novel:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;实际上，对不断变化的模式无法继续追加观察，而吃了经由茧利在纳贾库普身体中设置的装置产生的电气刺激。&lt;a href=&quot;https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5460760186?lp=5028&amp;amp;mo_device=1&amp;amp;is_jingpost=0&amp;amp;pn=60&amp;amp;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;full context.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to understand why does it say &quot;吃&quot; here? What is the target of 吃 if it is meaning &quot;eating?&quot; / Who is doing the &quot;吃&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone can break the sentence down and help me understand and parse it, I will be thankful! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19110" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T03:09:31.070" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T03:09:31.070" Title="Parsing and understanding 吃 in 对不断变化的模式无法继续追加观察，而吃了经由茧利在纳贾库普身体中...?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28787" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28788" CreationDate="2018-02-14T00:30:51.880" Score="5" ViewCount="566" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as Mainland China can be referred to as 中国, 大陆 or 内地, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering whether Hong Kong has any alternative names (official or just as slang).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, we refer to Hong Kong in slang as 'the concrete jungle' or more officially, 'Pearl of the Orient'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I was wondering if there are any Chinese names other than 'fragrant harbor'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-02-14T14:08:02.863" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T14:08:02.863" Title="Alternative name for Hong Kong 香港" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28787" CreationDate="2018-02-14T00:40:14.040" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;香江&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC Canto:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;PLACE WORD&#xA;  another name for Hong Kong; refers to especially to Victoria Harbor which resembles a river separating Hong Kong Island from the Kowloon Peninsula&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是次畫展於香江舉辦 &#xA;  si6 ci3 waa2 zin2 jyu1 hoeng1 gong1 geoi2 baan6&#xA;  This time the exhibition of paintings is held in Hong Kong &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Notes: elegant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;See also 本港 bun2 gong2 香港地 hoeng1 gong2 dei2 太平山下 taai3 ping4 saan1 haa6 幻彩詠香江 waan6 coi2 wing6 hoeng1 gong1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some additions from the above notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;本港&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;NOUN&#xA;  another name for Hong Kong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呢隻藥喺本港冇註冊,間舖頭唔應該賣俾人 &#xA;  ni1 zek3 joek6 hai2 bun2 gong2 mou5 zyu3 caak3, gaan1 pou3 tau2 m4 jing1 goi1 maai6 bei2 jan4&#xA;  This medicine isn't registered in Hong Kong, so the shop shouldn't sell it to people &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;本港冇自己嘅空軍,根本冇呢方面嘅人材,結果係航空公司需要請外籍機師 &#xA;  bun2 gong2 mou5 zi6 gei2 ge3 hung1 gwan1, gan1 bun2 mou5 ni1 fong1 min6 ge3 jan4 coi4, git3 gwo2 hai6 hong4 hung1 gung1 si1 seoi1 jiu3 ceng2 ngoi6 zik6 gei1 si1&#xA;  Hong Kong doesn't have its own air force, and basically has no talented people in this area, the result is that airline companies need to hire foreign pilots &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Notes: literally this harbor; figurative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;太平山下&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;PLACE WORD&#xA;  another name for Hong Kong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;NOTES: literally below Victoria Peak which is located on Hong Kong island&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T00:40:14.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28789" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28791" CreationDate="2018-02-14T02:58:45.143" Score="3" ViewCount="456" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across a comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巴西柔术被误以为女子防身术, 怎么怼回去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 怎么怼回去?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18498" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T11:08:30.297" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T11:08:30.297" Title="What is the meaning of 怼回去?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28789" CreationDate="2018-02-14T05:23:24.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;怼回去: Someone said something you do not agree, then you give your opinion  (usually opposite to his/hers) to show your disagreement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19115" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T05:23:24.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28785" CreationDate="2018-02-14T06:03:45.430" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The text you posted is extended from a simple sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; &lt;strong&gt;Subject&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;omitted&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;strong&gt;吃了&lt;/strong&gt; (took) &lt;strong&gt;电气刺激&lt;/strong&gt; (an electric shock)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;from the simple sentence above, additional relative clauses are added to give more information:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;对不断变化的模式无法继续追加观察&quot; stating the cause of the subject took an electric shock, was the subject couldn't track and observe the continually changing mode (&lt;strong&gt;of an object&lt;/strong&gt;, which is also omitted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;经由茧利在纳贾库普身体中设置的装置产生的&quot; is a adjectival clause for the noun &quot;电气刺激&quot;. It describes the origin of the electric shock (which was generated by the device that 茧利 implanted in 纳贾库普's body)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'吃' in '吃了' doesn't mean 'to eat' , it means 'took' as in  'took a left hook' (吃了一记左钩拳)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[实际上，] &quot;In fact&quot; (opening proclamation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[subject] (omitted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[对不断变化的模式无法继续追加观察，] (relative clause, stating the &lt;strong&gt;cause&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[而] &quot;Therefore&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[吃了] &quot; took&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[经由茧利在纳贾库普身体中设置的装置产生的] (relative clause, adds details information on the following noun &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[电气刺激。] electric shock (noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[吃了电气刺激。] &quot;took an electric shock&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;result&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T06:03:45.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28789" CreationDate="2018-02-14T07:25:45.600" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;怼= 懟 as in 怨懟 (resent; resentment )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%80%BC/4505099&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%80%BC/4505099&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;怼是一个汉语字，拼音为duì，基本意思是会意字，说文，心部，从对声。对，相持也，意为互相对峙，底下加“心”，表示心里抵触，对抗。引申为怨恨，&lt;strong&gt;故而怼，怨也&lt;/strong&gt;。(therefore 怼 means 'resent')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'对' in '怼' means '对抗' (to confront) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'心' in '怼' indicates 'from the heart; emotionally; mentally'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'怼' means '&lt;strong&gt;resent&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'怼&lt;strong&gt;回去&lt;/strong&gt;' seems to mean  '&lt;strong&gt;respond&lt;/strong&gt; with bitter confrontation'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-14T07:36:22.367" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T07:36:22.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28789" CreationDate="2018-02-14T12:40:00.070" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;怼 is fairly new internet slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%80%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;duǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Internet slang) to attack verbally / to publicly criticize / to call out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;notice: it is read in the third tone here and basically means &lt;em&gt;to lay into&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the rise of popularity of 怼, many new words came out and have started popping up everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not to get off topic too much, but another common new word is 怒怼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=nudui&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怒怼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nùduǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Internet slang) to chastise / to angrily denounce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This hopefully gives a better overall view of what 怼 actually means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another new word, that would answer your question more clearly, that has come out is 回怼:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%9B%9E%E6%80%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回怼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;huíduǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to retaliate verbally / to hit back (at critics)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So back to your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么怼回去?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has been attacked and now they’re asking how to &lt;em&gt;retaliate&lt;/em&gt; or how to &lt;em&gt;hit back at&lt;/em&gt; their attackers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T12:46:24.517" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28789" CreationDate="2018-02-14T13:34:36.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;duǐ,  in fact, should be written as 㨃. It's originated from the northeast dialect. It's been written as 怼 on internet now for some reason. I guess it might be because we don't know the correct writting originally and just find one from any Pinyin Input. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of 㨃 is that: to push, to knock against, and figuratively to talk against, or fight back, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T13:34:36.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28787" CreationDate="2018-02-14T13:53:50.823" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;东方之珠&lt;/strong&gt; (Pearl of the Orient) is a common alias (nickname) for &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;香港&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;香港是全球重要的国际金融、服务业及航运中心，连续多年蝉联全球最自由经济体，并以优良治安、廉洁社会、简单税制和健全的法律制度而闻名于世，因此有“东方之珠”的美誉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T13:53:50.823" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28769" CreationDate="2018-02-14T19:00:11.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the difficulties for learners is becoming familiar with when to use the short and when to use the long form. In most cases, at least for beginner/intermediate levels, my impression is the rule “use the long form, not the short form” is generally a good heuristic. I think most students learn this by experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let’s take a basic, concrete example: 学/学习. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the ABC English-Chinese Dictionary as reference we have the following for 学:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Verb: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1: study; learn; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;学文化 xue2wen2hua4 learn to read and write&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2: imitate;mimic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bound form: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1: learning; knowledge in 学问&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2: subject of study; branch of learning in 学科&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3: school; college in 学校,大学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It probably would indeed be better if the above entry were completed by adding “Long form: 学习” to the “Verb: 1 Study…” section. But generally students are taught the long form, 学习, first and so learn the short form at the same time. So I don’t think it’s a critical issue for people learning the language, but perhaps it would be helpful for some students to have some explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only other usage I can think  of (I’m about B1/B2 level) for the short form is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学到老，学不了 / 活到老，学到老。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s not a vital thing to be able to say… But still, it’s good to be able to understand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my take on this is that it’s an interesting notion for linguists, but not a vital concept that has to be explained to all students of the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2018-02-15T00:51:13.427" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T00:51:13.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28798" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-15T16:29:36.320" Score="6" ViewCount="1827" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner in Chinese (Mandarin), and I am following a phone app to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I cannot understand what is the difference between 正在 and 在 ? For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你正在干什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你在干什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The app says that they are interchangeable... is it always the case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19123" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T03:37:08.743" Title="Difference between 正在 and 在?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28798" CreationDate="2018-02-15T17:06:25.420" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;For what you are asking 在 and 正在 are basically interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will rarely hear &lt;strong&gt;正在&lt;/strong&gt; in colloquial, normal, conversation - it is quite &lt;em&gt;formal&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;elaborate&lt;/em&gt;. For instance looking up &lt;code&gt;你正在干什么？&lt;/code&gt; gives a result from Google Books reading:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;此时你正在干什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No one would &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; talk like this unless you're playing a role in an old-timey kind of show or something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt; you could contest is an abbreviation of &lt;strong&gt;正在&lt;/strong&gt; in your given scenario and is the most down-to-earth way to express something currently being underway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T17:06:25.420" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28800" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28802" CreationDate="2018-02-15T17:27:02.320" Score="5" ViewCount="983" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a very interesting entry on Pleco:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日本人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Sichuanese expletive) fuck me (日 here means cào [肏])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never heard it but is this explanation correct? What is the etymology of this usage and when did it start to be used as such? Does this have any connection with the historical issue with Japan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also, in what kind of sentences is it used? Since Pleco doesn’t have any sample sentences, it would be highly appreciated if you could show me some.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T11:47:29.987" Title="In Sichuanese does 日本人 mean “fuck me”?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28800" CreationDate="2018-02-15T17:34:18.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a fossilised phrase/word so it doesn't have a unique etymology. It can be decomposed into &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/7003/what-is-the-origin-of-%E6%97%A5-as-a-curse-word&quot;&gt;日&lt;/a&gt;, 本 (&lt;em&gt;this, present&lt;/em&gt;) and 人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%AC%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;本人&lt;/a&gt; is a formal way of saying &lt;em&gt;me&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;I&lt;/em&gt;. Of course, this phrase is a vulgar slang and there's nothing formal about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T17:34:18.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28800" CreationDate="2018-02-15T17:36:42.917" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, absolutely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;日&lt;/strong&gt; is the Sichuanese variant of 肏 and it can also be written: 㒲.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an entry from《广安方言与民俗词典》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ri2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;定义: 不文明语。指性交，交媾。常说成“搞”、“操”等词，民间骂人时，常说“～你妈”、“老狗～的”、“～妈的”、“～妈捣娘”、“～你先人板板”等，均指极粗野的谩骂。两人对骂时，也可谓“你有来言，我有对语”、“不假思索，配套成龙”、“骂人不打草稿”。例：甲：“日你妈！”乙：“吃得哟？！叫你妈回家多烧几把火嘛！”甲：“你妈卖屄！”乙：“你妈杀鸡我扯脚！”甲：“锤子！”乙：“锤子是你老汉儿！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歇后语：“妓女罢工——抗日”，字面指拒绝性行为，引申为抗击日本军国主义行为。这些语言垃圾，虽然客观存在，但与文明社会格格不入，应当大力抵制与消除。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and an entry from 《南充方言词语考释》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ri2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[rí(ʐɿ31)] 性交。动词。关汉卿 《包待制三勘蝴蝶梦》第三折： “两边 厢列着祗候人役，貌堂堂都是一伙洒肏娘的! 隔牢撺彻墙头去， 抵多少平空寻觅上天梯。(带云) 张千，(唱) 等我肏你奶奶歪 屄!”这是粗话。俗谓交媾，通常指男性主动对女性实施的性行 为。南充人说 “肏你妈”、“肏屄”、“老狗肏的”、“肏你妈卖屄”、 “肏你先人板板”等。《金瓶梅词话》第四回： “婆子骂道： ‘贼肏 娘的小猢猴，你敢高则声，大耳刮子，打出你去。’” 《红楼梦》 第十二回： “忽然灯光一闪，只见贾蔷举着个蜡台，照道： ‘谁在 这屋里呢?’ 只见炕上那人笑道： ‘瑞大叔要肏我呢!’”《歧路灯》 第六十四回： “我把狗吢儿使的往河北去了一个月，这老狗肏的 不得见他儿与他媳妇，每日只是在我庄上寻饭吃，晚上住在村头 牛王庙。”《大词典》例证为 《金瓶梅词话》，时代较晚。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又俗记音多作 “日”。《关汉卿戏剧词典》： “日，秽辞。交 媾。”①又加旁写作 “㒲”。 如关汉卿 《蝴蝶梦》三： “等我㒲你 奶奶歪屄。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又记音讹误写成 “直”，《大词典》收 “直娘贼”，解释为 “詈语”，虽不准确，但符合文雅的要求。《水浒传》第五回： “那 大王却待挣扎，鲁智深把右手捏起拳头，骂一声 ‘直娘贼’! 连 耳根带脖子只一拳。”《水浒传》第十七回： “这直娘贼恨杀洒家， 吩咐寺里长老不许俺挂搭。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;注释&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;① 蓝立蓂. 关汉卿戏剧词典 [K]. 成都: 四川人民出版社,1993: 229.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;本人&lt;/strong&gt; just means me or myself the same as it does it MSM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out of speculation it probably arouse from a part hatred of Japanese and the fact that it sounds &lt;em&gt;almost&lt;/em&gt; the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The proper pronunciation in Sichuanese (Pinyin) would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日·本人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ri2 · ben3 ren2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with a slight pause in the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is just used as an exclamation: when you stub your toe, when you hit a pedestrian with your car, etc. the same as it's English counterpart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T00:09:20.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26492" CreationDate="2018-02-16T05:38:06.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My mother-tongue is Cantonese. As far as I understand, this is not anything in Cantonese (at least modern Cantonese). Although some of the words sound like Cantonese, for example “Lock shat” sounds like 落實 (lok6 sat9), I can’t think of any meaningful content when they are put together with the words after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4360" LastEditorUserId="4360" LastEditDate="2018-02-16T13:02:52.697" LastActivityDate="2018-02-16T13:02:52.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28804" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-16T18:28:00.227" Score="0" ViewCount="1200" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CQeOD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CQeOD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot; I&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to translate this signature from a watercolor painting I bought many years ago at a thrift store.  I've tried google translate along with searching Asian artist seals, but no luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19126" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-02-17T17:09:41.313" LastActivityDate="2018-02-21T23:30:06.480" Title="Can you please help me translate this title and signature?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28806" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28807" CreationDate="2018-02-17T16:21:56.270" Score="2" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once upon a time there was a logical game &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.classicdosgames.com/game/Shih_Dao.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shih Dao&lt;/a&gt; - I liked it and got curious: what does the game title mean and what are the signs on tiles? Unfortunately, game help doesn't say a word about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vLFiC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vLFiC.png&quot; alt=&quot;Game screen&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are six different signs used, by browsing Chinese signs lists I managed to identify &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大&lt;/a&gt; but failed to find the other four. As I have no idea about Chinese alphabet, I think of them as &quot;house&quot; (several ones in top-right of the screen), &quot;zigzag&quot; (one purple in top-right), &quot;dancer&quot; (several in the center) and &quot;basket&quot; (four in bottom-right), which probably has nothing to do with their actual meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19128" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-02-17T17:09:12.053" LastActivityDate="2018-02-17T17:09:12.053" Title="What does Shih Dao name and tiles mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28806" CreationDate="2018-02-17T16:54:23.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the link you provided already shown the answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;shih dao is a clone of ishido: the way of stones&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so shih dao is 石 (stone) 道 (way)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the six characters on the tiles are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大 - big&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中 - middle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小 - small&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春 - spring&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由 -cause&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東 - east&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-02-17T16:54:23.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28808" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-02-17T17:59:06.753" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-02-17T17:59:06.753" LastActivityDate="2018-02-17T17:59:06.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28809" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-02-17T17:59:06.753" Score="0" Body="For questions about a discrete unit of written or spoken text of the smallest size to convey distinct meaning. In English but not Chinese will usually be separated from other words by a space when written or printed. Other tags that may be more appropriate include [word-choice] and [word-requests]." OwnerUserId="19002" LastEditorUserId="19002" LastEditDate="2018-02-18T01:01:25.917" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T01:01:25.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28810" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-17T23:40:26.257" Score="2" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a feeling what I'm writing is either wrong order or unnatural sounding. Can someone verify?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我也在英國&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm also in england)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你是很快速&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(You are very fast)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你不真的在咖啡廳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(You arent really at the cafe.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these examples they feel correct to me, but the last one I am particularly unsure of, and also, in the second one, I suspect the 是 is unnecessary and makes it sound unnatural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19130" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-11-19T10:21:13.257" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T10:21:13.257" Title="Is the word order in 我也在英國 and 你是很快速 and 你不真的在咖啡廳 correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28798" CreationDate="2018-02-18T01:39:05.840" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I learned, 在 means you're doing something, while 正在 means you're doing something right now. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在学习中文。&#xA;I'm studying Chinese language (this year, this month, not necessarily in this moment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我正在学习中文。&#xA;I'm studying Chinese language right now (the book is open in front of me, please don't disturb).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this difference exists all the time, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T01:39:05.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28812" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-02-18T02:03:07.343" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-02-18T02:03:07.343" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T02:03:07.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28813" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-02-18T02:03:07.343" Score="0" Body="For questions about representing the letters or glyphs of one script in those of another. The emphasis is on avoiding ambiguity rather than matching sounds for which there are tags [pronunciation] and [tones]. For representing meaning across languages there is the tag [translation]." OwnerUserId="19002" LastEditorUserId="19002" LastEditDate="2018-02-18T09:50:28.017" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T09:50:28.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28810" CreationDate="2018-02-18T02:19:21.570" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First sentence is good. For the second, &quot;快速&quot; is more commonly used as a adverb not an adjective, so you can say &quot;这辆车可以快速地移动&quot; but usually not &quot;这辆车很快速&quot;. Also I would omit the &quot;是&quot;. So instead of &quot;你是很快速&quot; I would say &quot;你很快&quot;.&#xA;As for the last one &quot;你不是真的在咖啡厅&quot; would sound more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T02:19:21.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28739" CreationDate="2018-02-18T04:11:51.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;改变 always means a better change than before. 变化 just means something changed, it could be better or worse than before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19131" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-02-18T14:12:53.647" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T14:12:53.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28758" CreationDate="2018-02-18T04:17:09.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometime they are the same. But they are always different. 办 Means deal with, 申请 means apply for, weather sth can be done depends on the person whom you applied for!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19131" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T04:17:09.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28800" CreationDate="2018-02-18T08:07:53.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;日 is used as a verb ,meaning fuck. 本人 means &quot;me&quot;，so  its meaning is fucking me! It's not polite! While 日本人 is used as a noun. It means Japanese persons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19131" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T08:07:53.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28827" CreationDate="2018-02-18T14:53:43.747" Score="1" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;阙&lt;/strong&gt; in 现代汉语大词典 says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;quē&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[....]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 缺乏；稀少。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with the excerpt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鲁迅《狂人日记》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;分隔多年, 消息渐阙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which seems strikingly similar to the pronunciation and meaning of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;缺&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;quē&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[....]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 短少。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鲁迅《牺牲谟》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在什么‘欧化’‘美化’的邪说横行, 人们的眼睛只看见物质, 所缺的就是你老兄似的模范人物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two characters pronunciation in Cantonese seem to be the same (kyut3) and Middle Chinese reconstructed pronunciations also seem to be the same (khwet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible that there was ever any sort of mixing up of 阙 and 缺 for the meaning of 'lack' or 'short of'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T00:00:07.423" Title="Was there ever any mixing up of 阙 and 缺 for the meaning of 'lack' or 'short of'?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28821" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28824" CreationDate="2018-02-18T20:57:29.410" Score="1" ViewCount="654" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) What's the difference between 須要 and 需要? Are they interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/28625/what-is-the-difference-between-%E5%98%97%E8%A9%A6-%E8%A9%A6%E5%9C%96-and-%E4%BC%81%E5%9C%96&quot;&gt;This question&lt;/a&gt; illustrates the differences among 嘗試，試圖， and 企圖, but omits 試試看. Can someone explain how 試試看 differs from 嘗試?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T08:48:44.583" Title="Difference between 須要 vs 需要 and 嘗試 vs 試試看?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28826" CreationDate="2018-02-18T21:01:10.570" Score="1" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese a common saying is 冇屈得就屈, which roughly translates to, &quot;Don't accuse/frame me without evidence.&quot; (Literal: not able to frame then frame.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's used in contexts where A accuses B without much, or any, evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the Mandarin version of this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T22:40:37.567" Title="Mandarin version of 冇屈得就屈 (Don't accuse me without evidence)?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28823" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28825" CreationDate="2018-02-18T21:07:31.180" Score="2" ViewCount="650" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, often times you hear people say 全靠你 (to mean &quot;thanks to you&quot; or &quot;because of you&quot; (e.g., Because of you, I was able to meet my goal.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22thanks_to%22_with_%22duokui%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; suggests 多虧 is the Mandarin equivalent, but someone else said this is not a common phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the Mandarin equivalent of 全靠你?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T22:09:53.507" Title="Mandarin version of &quot;because of you&quot; or &quot;thanks to you&quot;" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28821" CreationDate="2018-02-18T21:35:36.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'須要' (need to) applies to 'verb' e.g. '須要付錢' (need to pay)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'需要' (need) applies to 'noun' e.g. '需要金錢' (need money)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'試試看 means 'try and see' e.g. '&lt;strong&gt;試試看&lt;/strong&gt;不付账单' (&lt;strong&gt;try&lt;/strong&gt; not to pay the bill &lt;strong&gt;and see&lt;/strong&gt;); '加些糖&lt;strong&gt;試試看&lt;/strong&gt;' (&lt;strong&gt;try&lt;/strong&gt; add some sugar &lt;strong&gt;and see&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you remove 看 and write '試試' then it would become reduplication of '試' (try/ test) ; 試試 = 'slightly try/ test a little '&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'嘗試' means  'to try (one's hand at)' As stated in the other question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T21:35:36.613" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28823" CreationDate="2018-02-18T22:04:12.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;多虧 means 'largely owe to' ; 全靠 means 'all depend on (thanks to)' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What's the Mandarin equivalent of 全靠你?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, 全靠你 can be used in both Cantonese and Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to '全靠' are  '全仗' and '全賴' . All mean 'all depend on'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'全仗' and '全賴' are more literary; '全靠' is more colloquial&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-18T22:09:53.507" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T22:09:53.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28822" CreationDate="2018-02-18T22:31:59.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'冇屈得就屈; is short for '唔好屈得就屈' which means 'Don't frame me (accuse without evidence) just because you can'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Word to word transfers to Mandarin would be &quot;別能冤枉就去冤枉&quot; , However, in practice, '唔好屈得就屈' is  close to '不要隨便冤枉好人'  in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-18T22:40:37.567" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T22:40:37.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28820" CreationDate="2018-02-18T23:16:42.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They were definitely context-dependent variant representations of a single word and interchangeable to a large degree. According to various dictionaries that Pleco references in its entry to「闕」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pleco Chinese-English&lt;/em&gt; (PLC): &lt;code&gt;Variant of 缺&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/em&gt; (CC): &lt;code&gt;Used in place of 缺 (old)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Cross-Straits&lt;/em&gt; (LAC): &lt;code&gt;脫漏。通「缺」。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;MOEDict&lt;/em&gt; (MOE): &lt;code&gt;脫漏的。闕字有二音，音ㄑㄩㄝ時義同「缺」。但使用習慣上仍見分別，如「拾遺補闕」、「疑闕」、「闕文」專詞多作「闕」，少用「缺」。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last definition describes the modern usage differences between the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &lt;em&gt;to lack&lt;/em&gt; is unlikely to be the original meaning of either「闕」or「缺」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;闕, 門觀也。从門，欮聲。〔去月切〕(Basically,「闕」is a watchtower on a city wall; this is the Shuowen definition and AFAIK there's no evidence contradicting this.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%BC%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「缺」：從「缶」，「夬」聲。本義是器物破損。〔傾雪切〕&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;To lack&lt;/em&gt; could be interpreted as an extension of the original meaning of「缺」, and sometimes authors used「闕」for this meaning instead as a phonetic loan. Later on, the usage of「闕」and「缺」somewhat became differentiated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-02-19T00:00:07.423" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T00:00:07.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28828" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28831" CreationDate="2018-02-18T23:18:13.007" Score="2" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Connecting_nouns_with_%22shi%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; describes how to use 是 properly in sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是 (shì) is only used to link two nouns. It cannot be used to link a&#xA;  noun and an adjective. This is a very common mistake for people just&#xA;  beginning to learn Chinese. For that kind of sentence, you'll want to&#xA;  use a different structure with the linking word 很 (hěn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It makes sense, but one pattern is not clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take for example: &quot;All her clothes are black.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you say， 她什麼衣服都很黑色，since you cannot say， 她什麼衣服都是黑色？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems strange to say 很黑色 in this context, so confirmation would be most appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T23:34:35.937" Title="Using 是 properly in sentences" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28829" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28833" CreationDate="2018-02-18T23:28:17.483" Score="1" ViewCount="287" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese 剩翻 often means left over or surplus, as in 剩翻好少錢 （only a little money remains) or 剩翻好多飯 （lots of rice/food left over). What's the Mandarin equivalent of 剩翻? Would it be 留下？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CantoDict page: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/48306/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/48306/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T04:02:36.667" Title="Mandarin version of 剩翻 (left over)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28830" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-18T23:33:04.380" Score="2" ViewCount="655" Body="&lt;p&gt;CantoDict is awesome, and often contains translations from Cantonese phrases to their Mandarin equivalent, but sometimes it lacks Mandarin entries for words like 剩翻: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/48306/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/48306/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other Cantonese resources or dictionaries that also help Cantonese speakers learn Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T00:07:03.443" Title="Resources for Cantonese speakers learning Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28828" CreationDate="2018-02-18T23:34:35.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The confusion here lies with the fact that「黑」(&lt;em&gt;black&lt;/em&gt;) is an adjective, but「黑色」(&lt;em&gt;black &lt;strong&gt;colour&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;) is a noun. So, the correct way to say your example meaning is one of these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她什麼衣服都很黑 (not 黑色)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她什麼衣服都是黑色的 (not 黑)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「的」should be appended on the end of the second example to make it a nominalised adjective, and「色」is optional:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她什麼衣服都是黑的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This syntax equates the following two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黑色的衣服&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;衣服是黑色的&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T23:34:35.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28832" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28835" CreationDate="2018-02-18T23:38:08.360" Score="1" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the right grammar to translate, &quot;You flew such a long distance for such a short visit.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你飛那麼遠為了那麼短的探訪 feels quite wrong, pretty much like English grammar crammed poorly into Mandarin. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, are there any guidelines for breaking up long English phrases like this? Prepositional phrases (e.g., for this, for such, during the trip) seem to cause the most trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2018-02-18T23:43:11.237" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T00:51:02.483" Title="Grammar for &quot;You flew such a long distance for such a short visit'?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28829" CreationDate="2018-02-18T23:51:24.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;剩翻 can also be written as 剩番&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;广州话方言词典&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剩下；只剩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剩番兩個&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剩番地理未考完。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只剩地理還沒考完。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《广州话-普通话》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;留下；剩下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剩番佢兩個喺度值班&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;留下他兩個值班&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;份稿剩番幾頁未抄。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;稿子剩下幾頁沒有抄完&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we have 剩下, 留下 and 只剩 all used in different translations of 剩番 or 剩翻.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T23:51:24.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28830" CreationDate="2018-02-19T00:07:03.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt; is selling two unique dictionaries that could help you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Guangzhouhua Fangyan Cidian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;$9.99 (version 3 only)&#xA;  Chinese-Chinese dictionary of Cantonese-specific vocabulary with approximately 8000 entries, from Commercial Press. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Guangzhouhua-Putonghua Cidian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;$9.99 (version 3 only)&#xA;  Cantonese-to-Mandarin (focused on diffs between them), 10k entries&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A problem you might find in Cantonese is that, while there is a measure of standardization, overall standardization is lacking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take 剩翻 for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you search it by character in Pleco you will only get one result:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cccanto.org/search.php?q=%E5%89%A9%E7%BF%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;剩翻&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;剩翻 zing6 faan1 {shèng fān}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;this is what's left&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That might work for you if you're looking for English results and even if so maybe not because of the poor quality of the English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if we use Jyutping:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1VvtO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1VvtO.png&quot; alt=&quot;image&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we can see all the results with the sound we're looking for and may even find out that 剩翻 is written 剩番 in most dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt; also has a number of Cantonese to English or English to Cantonese based products as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ABC Cantonese Dictionary&#xA;  $29.99 (version 3 only)&#xA;  Brand new (published in 2017) Cantonese-to-English dictionary, the first new one in several decades; featuring 16,000 Cantonese-specific vocabulary entries and a whopping 15,000 Cantonese example sentences (all with Jyutping/Yale pronunciation). Edited by Robert S. Bauer and produced by Wenlin Institute. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Right Word in Cantonese&#xA;  $9.99 (version 3 only)&#xA;  English-to-Cantonese dictionary focused on idiomatic translations; 6500 entries &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;CC-Canto Cantonese-English Dictionary&#xA;  Free&#xA;  Pleco's first self-published dictionary project, an open-source Cantonese-to-English dictionary with about 25,000 entries, designed as a Cantonese extension to the open-source Mandarin dictionary CC-CEDICT that's built into Pleco. (basically, we only define words when they don't, or when their definition differs from the Cantonese one). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also available online at our website cantonese.org - much more information on the project is available at &lt;a href=&quot;http://cantonese.org/about.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://cantonese.org/about.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T00:07:03.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28832" CreationDate="2018-02-19T00:43:30.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The preferred order of elements in Chinese grammar is often reverse of the English grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;you flew such a long distance for such a short visit&quot; is an example of placing the comment before the topic is common in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;you flew such a long distance for such a short visit&quot; (common English grammar)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;you flew such a long distance&quot; (你飛這麼長的距離) is the comment.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;for such a short visit&quot; (為了這麼短的探訪) is the topic&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is more common to place the topic before the comment in Chinese grammar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;為了這麼短的訪問, 你飛這麼長的距離&quot; (common Chinese grammar)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;為了這麼短的探訪&quot; (for such a short visit)-  topic first&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你飛這麼長的距離&quot; (you flew such a long distance) comment follows&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the order of comment and topic in both English and Chinese can be reversed with some modification&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can write &quot;For such a short visit, you flew such a long distance&quot; in English (which break the sentence in two) or &quot;你飛這麼長的距離&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;為了這麼短的探訪&quot; (you need a conjunction to connect the two phrases. In this case, you can use '就'(merely)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Long distance&quot; can be translated as &quot;長的距離&quot; , &quot;長途&quot; or &quot;遠&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你飛這麼&lt;strong&gt;長的距離&lt;/strong&gt;' can be rephrased as &quot;你飛這麼&lt;strong&gt;長途&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;你飛這麼&lt;strong&gt;遠&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-19T00:51:02.483" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T00:51:02.483" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28836" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-19T02:25:37.600" Score="6" ViewCount="368" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%88%BB%E5%A5%87&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;刻奇&lt;/a&gt; is said to be a loanword from English meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;kitsch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch_(disambiguation)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kitsch&lt;/a&gt; in short is said to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kitsch is garish and sentimental art or other objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;long&lt;/a&gt; it is defined as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kitsch (/kɪtʃ/; loanword from German), also called cheesiness or tackiness, is art or other objects that appeal to popular rather than high art tastes. Such objects are sometimes appreciated in a knowingly ironic or humorous way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese it is usually just simply translated: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%AA%9A%E4%BF%97&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;媚俗&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we have questions on Zhihu popping up like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/27039705&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;刻奇（Kitsch）是什么？如何克服刻奇？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and articles online like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://edu.sina.com.cn/zl/edu/2017-05-24/doc-ifyfkkme0347367.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;刻奇陷阱：你为何总是热泪盈眶？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which all seem to be talking about some type of &lt;code&gt;group emotional contagion&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can see &lt;code&gt;kitsch&lt;/code&gt; has no &lt;em&gt;established&lt;/em&gt; psychological meaning in English &amp;amp; as 刻奇 is a loanword it is boggling to me where this meaning came from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did &quot;kitsch&quot; (刻奇) come to stand for emotional contagion in a group?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many references claim that the idea is from the novel &lt;em&gt;The Unbearable Lightness of Being&lt;/em&gt;. But, even &lt;strong&gt;if it is&lt;/strong&gt; supposed to come from the Milan Kundera novel - the ideas don't seem to really match up with the original novel itself, See: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.shmoop.com/unbearable-lightness-of-being/kitsch-symbol.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera Home Literature The Unbearable Lightness of Being Analysis Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory Kitsch&lt;/a&gt;. There is quite a discrepancy between Kundera was saying and the way it is used in Chinese now. Perhaps it just comes from one misunderstanding after another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-02-19T02:33:36.190" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T10:17:29.153" Title="How did &quot;kitsch&quot; (刻奇) come to stand for emotional contagion in a group?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28767" CreationDate="2018-02-19T02:35:45.977" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;至少有兩種資源：網站和對照表&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;五個網站資源&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanculture.com/dic/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢文庫典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漢文庫典的資料庫及字詞、成語等典籍，係以【朱邦復工作室】所發展的倉頡系統製作、轉換。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朱邦復是倉頡輸入法的發明人。這像是官方最新的版本。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HDA5g.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HDA5g.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesecj.com/cj5dict/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;馬來西亞 倉頡之友&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以第五代倉頡碼為主，有時會有第三代的編碼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ltwI.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ltwI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;維基詞典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這似乎是第三代的編碼。有時會有第五代的編碼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q1v6B.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q1v6B.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/97Jhn.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/97Jhn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0T2L3.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0T2L3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6yBHx.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6yBHx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;国学大师&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M7LDy.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M7LDy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;六個對照表資源&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;輸入法的對照表可以下載並存放在自己的電腦中，離線查詢。但是這些對照表都是複製來複製去的，有些又是開發者自己修改的，所以錯誤的機率較高。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這些對照表可以去其原始碼庫下載。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesecj.com/forum/forum.php?mod=viewthread&amp;amp;tid=2596&amp;amp;extra=page%3D1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;馬來西亞 倉頡之友 倉頡平台2012&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下載外掛版本： CJSYS-20110919.zip&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;a href=&quot;https://code.google.com/archive/p/ibus/downloads?page=9&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ibus&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;直接下載連結： &lt;a href=&quot;https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-archive-downloads/v2/code.google.com/ibus/ibus-table-cangjie-1.2.0.20100305.tar.gz&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ibus-table-cangjie-1.2.0.20100305.tar.gz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scim/files/scim-tables/0.5.14/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;scim&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;直接下載連結： &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scim/files/scim-tables/0.5.14/scim-tables-0.5.14.1.tar.gz/download&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;scim-tables-0.5.14.1.tar.gz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) &lt;a href=&quot;https://download.fcitx-im.org/fcitx-table-extra/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;fcitx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;直接下載連結： &lt;a href=&quot;https://download.fcitx-im.org/fcitx-table-extra/fcitx-table-extra-0.3.8.tar.xz&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;fcitx-table-extra-0.3.8.tar.xz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) &lt;a href=&quot;http://hyperrate.com/gcin-source/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;gcin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;直接下載連結： &lt;a href=&quot;http://hyperrate.com/gcin-source/gcin-2.8.5.tar.xz&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;gcin-2.8.5.tar.xz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(6) &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/hime-ime/hime/tree/master/data&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;hime&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;直接下載連結： &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/hime-ime/hime/blob/master/data/cj5.cin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;cj5.cin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T02:35:45.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28783" CreationDate="2018-02-19T02:56:23.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;异形词&lt;/strong&gt; is the broad term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more specific, albeit obscure and probably not widely accepted term would be: &lt;strong&gt;俗体词&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage of 俗体词 can be found on this Zhihu question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/24394835&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;英译中里俗体词和异音词如何处理？&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;俗体词（比如错音错意、用词不当等）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it is talking about English, it should be clear enough to be understood in Chinese as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T02:56:23.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28829" CreationDate="2018-02-19T04:02:36.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know much about Cantonese, but based on your description, I believe the appropriate translation for Mandarin would be 剩下.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T04:02:36.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28800" CreationDate="2018-02-19T04:02:53.960" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Sichuanese and have been living in Sichuan for decades.&#xA;I personally have never heard of anyone using this phrase and don't think I ever will.&#xA;Instead of a everyday phrase, this is more like a joke playing a pun on the character “日”(used both as a noun and a verb in Sichuanese) that you may find on some sites online. And I don't recommend using it in your daily conversations with anyone, because a)it sounds extremely awkward to me and b)it's very rude (and racist) to talk like this.&#xA;As for the slangy use of “日” as an exclamation, yeah, you can hear it here like every day. An equivalent in English would be &quot;shit&quot; or the F word. But still, it sounds rude. I would not recommend this usage to people you are not familiar with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19135" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T04:02:53.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28748" CreationDate="2018-02-19T04:54:46.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Side note in addition to other answers: Beware in the Cantonese context, 奶奶 does not mean 祖母 but rather the mother-in-law of the wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19137" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T04:54:46.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28821" CreationDate="2018-02-19T08:48:44.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;须要 is always used as 要， so in daily communication，we Chinese don't use 须要。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19131" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T08:48:44.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28843" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28844" CreationDate="2018-02-20T00:06:50.577" Score="6" ViewCount="578" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard this claim a lot, from Chinese teachers in real life, and on this &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Traditional_classification&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;, where the claim &quot;At present, more than 90% of Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds&quot; lacks a citation. It seems reasonable, but I can't find any real evidence to back up this claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this number one of those popular urban myths, or is there a factual basis to it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15160" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T16:02:44.653" Title="Is there any evidence that 90% of characters are phono-semantic compounds?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28843" CreationDate="2018-02-20T01:03:26.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is actually not possible to provide an unambiguous statistic like this without either being ignorant of the complexity of character development, or pushing some kind of agenda. Victor Mair and John DeFrancis have been spouting this kind of idea for a long time, but I suspect that they've either (1) focused too much on lexicography and not nearly enough on paleography to make such a conclusion, or (2) wanting to blow up the significance of spoken language and diminish the role of written language in the history of a language's development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In real life, characters are not cleanly divided into the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;liushu&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; categories, and the classification is quite deficient to fully describe many characters. 90% seems like an overestimation, but one can actually arrive at this number by interpreting any character with any amount of history of involvement with phonetic components, no matter how slight, as a &quot;phono-semantic compound&quot;. However, if someone follows this interpretation, it is misleading to use vocabulary from &lt;em&gt;liushu&lt;/em&gt; (like phono-semantic compound) to describe these characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are example of characters (e.g. 「源」, 「採」) being both compound ideograms and phono-semantic compounds, as categorised as a type of the latter, but there is rarely an obvious mention that it is a type of the former as well. There are also non-obvious cases; for example the characters「喪」and「鬱」, under an opaque interpretation, can both be described as &quot;phono-semantic compounds&quot; (and indeed have been in traditional sources):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「喪」had a history of development with phonetic components「桑」and「亡/亾」(see an &lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/53930/why-is-there-two-different-ways-of-writing-the-%E8%A1%A3-component/55660#55660&quot;&gt;answer I wrote at Japanese StackExchange&lt;/a&gt;, about halfway down), but note that「亡」also provides a semantic indicator;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「鬱」was originally a graphically simple compound ideogram, but became complexified over the years (see the &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=5398&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Xiaoxuetang entry&lt;/a&gt; for a rough overview of the evolution).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nobody recognises the phonetic components in these anymore, as they are either very rare components or have been graphically corrupted too much over the years, but they're categorised as &quot;phono-semantic compounds&quot; anyway. I personally find such a liberal interpretation as bordering on meaningless, as it is equally possible to provide a liberal interpretation of &quot;pictogram&quot;, &quot;ideogram&quot;, or &quot;compound ideogram&quot; to misleadingly inflate a statistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T01:03:26.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28845" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-20T01:03:33.133" Score="1" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正如我们之前&lt;strong&gt;所&lt;/strong&gt;说，Alphabet在企业投资者中似乎有些另类。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assumed the usage of 所 in this case is, according to Pleco:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[as a noun without 的, esp. when the verb is monosyllabic]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;据你所说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in this sentence there is no preposition such as 据. The whole sentence would work fine even without 所 I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what does the 所 work for and what meaning does it have, compared to the case where 所 is not used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T14:46:33.400" Title="What does 所 mean in 正如我们之前所说?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28845" CreationDate="2018-02-20T01:25:41.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;正如我们之前(说)= Just as we (said) previously- 说 is a verb here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正如我们之前(所说)= Just as (the words) we (said ) previously&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我们所说&quot; is short for &quot;我们(&lt;strong&gt;所&lt;/strong&gt;)说的話&quot; = &quot;the words (&lt;strong&gt;that&lt;/strong&gt;) we said&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, &quot;我们所说(的話)&quot; is a noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When you say &quot;正如我们之前(说)&quot; you have to follow it with a quote of what was said&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When you say &quot;正如我们之前(所说)&quot; you can follow it with a quote of what was said or omit it and presume it is known&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-20T01:32:13.430" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T01:32:13.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28845" CreationDate="2018-02-20T01:28:54.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CONS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 ~ V de that which&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我所说的（话）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what I said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if we want to get into semantics I think that 我所说的 would be better put as: &lt;code&gt;the things that I said&lt;/code&gt;, especially looking at ABC's definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like you said, taking away 所 would still be valid: 我说的 but that would just be the difference between &lt;code&gt;what I said&lt;/code&gt; (我说的) and &lt;code&gt;the things that I said&lt;/code&gt; (我所说的).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now coming back to &lt;strong&gt;据你所说&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;据&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CONV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;according to; on the grounds of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;据他说...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to him...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but if we add 所: &lt;code&gt;据他所说的&lt;/code&gt; now becomes: &lt;code&gt;according to what he said&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T01:35:49.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28845" CreationDate="2018-02-20T06:33:19.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;＂汉语８００虚词用法词典＂所二，用在做定语主谓词组的动词前面，表示中心词是受事 used before the verb in a subject-predicate structure to make it passive (applies to #1)所＋动词／动词词组＋的＋名词／名词词组（１）我所认识的人中没有叫彼得的。（２）我把自己所想到的几个问题都说了，希望大家商量一下，看怎么解决。（３）我们所提的意见和建议不一定对，希望领导考虑吧。（４）现在，大学生们所关心的问题主要是毕业以后就业问题。（５）现在群众所关心、所议论的热点问题还是教育改革、医疗改革和住房改革问题。（６）一些留学生给学校领导所提的这些意见和建议，学校领导一定会认真研究，然后给大家一个满意的答复。四、用在动词前面，跟动词组成体词结构used before the verb to form a substantive structure (applies to #2) 1.所＋单音节动词（１）来了四五个学生，我包了一百多个饺子差不多都吃完了，所剩无几。（２）今天是自助餐，大家随便吃，各取所需（３）所说那里不错，我们就去了，结果大失所望（bkrs:greatly disappointed）。（４）传说这首诗为大诗人李白所作，其实不是。（５）随着经济改革的成功，政治改革就是大势所趋，人心所向（６）看人不能只看他怎么说，还要看他怎么做，从一个人的所作所为，就能看出他到底是个什么样的人。（７）如这篇文章所说，一个人做点儿好事并不难，难的是一辈子做好事，不做坏事。（８）他视金钱如粪土，你说做官是受苦，真是英雄所见略同（bkrs:have similar views）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T06:33:19.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27654" CreationDate="2018-02-20T13:38:55.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;《诗经》根据乐调不同分为风雅颂三类。&#xA;“The Book of Song” divided into three categories according to music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.风 - different areas of music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.雅 - the music of the Zhou Dynasty rayons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.颂 - the Confucian ritual dance song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T13:38:55.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28785" CreationDate="2018-02-20T18:51:00.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before we look into the explanation of 吃了, we need to acknowledge that&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;translations, unless done by professionals, most of the time will sound/look weird even/especially to native speakers.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for the 吃. Like Tang Ho said, 吃了 in here means took.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can see similar usage in 吃我一拳 which means take my punch.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest of the sentence doesn't really make sense. A little advise, if you want to improve Chinese reading skills, read something that's written in Chinese, not translated into Chinese.(I've done Eng-to-Ch translations before, and some things just can't be translated perfectly into normal Chinese(grammar-wise) without spending a ton of time. A manga light novel just doesn't sound like it can afford the time and money it needs to be translated.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A fun fact: Translation style writing/speaking is something we can pretty easily recognize. Sometime when writers want to create a foreign character without writing in another language, they will use this style so that their 'foreign-ness' pops.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: If you really want to read Japanese novels, read those that are super famous so you can get better translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-23T03:35:41.480" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T03:35:41.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28851" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-20T20:03:33.807" Score="1" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;For my Chinese class, I have to make a film recording an exchange in a restaurant. I'm trying to say &quot;This is a lot of money! Goodbye college money...&quot; in reference to someone spending too much on their meal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19145" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T20:24:08.920" Title="Does &quot;这很大钱! 再见大学钱....&quot; make sense? Or have I written it wrong?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28851" CreationDate="2018-02-20T20:24:08.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That does not really make sense. &quot;A lot of&quot; here means a great amount, while 大 means big as in size. Also 大学钱 does not make sense either. Instead you would say &quot;大学学费&quot; (college tuition)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a better translation would be “这好贵啊！再见我的大学学费” (this is so expensive! goodbye my tuition)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T20:24:08.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28855" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-20T22:14:06.587" Score="1" ViewCount="1262" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could somebody please explain what the following statement means, if possible paraphrasing and adding examples?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;hao de pengyou&quot; is grammatical when used contrasting &lt;em&gt;hao&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;em&gt;huai&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;in &quot;huai de pengyou&quot; ‘bad friends’ that is perhaps not lexicalized.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;pag. 375 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.es/books?id=YqT4BQAAQBAJ&amp;amp;lpg=PA375&amp;amp;dq=chaofen%20huai%20de%20pengyou&amp;amp;hl=es&amp;amp;pg=PA375#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=chaofen%20huai%20de%20pengyou&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author is contrasting the grammatical &lt;em&gt;hen hao de pengyou&lt;/em&gt; vs *hao de pengyou. In a different article, the author alternatively proposes for hao de pengyou the meaning such as 'a friend of good influence', but I do not quite get this second one either, could sb. please elaborate on 'a friend of good influence'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastEditorUserId="15764" LastEditDate="2018-02-21T00:27:44.610" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T01:17:35.953" Title="hao de pengyou vs huai de pengyou" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28855" CreationDate="2018-02-21T01:56:34.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;很好的朋友（henhao de pengyou）basically means a 'good friend', that is, someone who is close to you, who you can share your feelings with etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg  “他是我很好的朋友。”（ta shi wo henhao de pengyou）means 'He's a good friend of mine.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好的朋友（hao de pengyou）on the other hand, mostly means someone who has good qualities, is kind, generous, faithful etc. And it is mostly used to contrast with 坏的朋友(huai de pengyou), who is the opposite of those good qualities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg. “好的朋友能让你受益匪浅，坏的朋友也可能让你误入歧途。” basically means 'a hao de pengyou will have a good influence on you, while a huai de pengyou may make you go astray (have a bad influence on you.)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, there's a Chinese saying which means almost the same. “近朱者赤，近墨者黑。” （jin zhu zhe chi jin mo zhe hei）means you'll get a good influence being around a hao de pengyou（朱）and a bad one being around a huai de pengyou (墨).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But note that the distinction between the two is not always so clear. As is “他会是个很好的朋友。”（ta hui shi ge henhao de pengyou）, which means that the person is a person of good qualities, and therefore you can trust them to become a good friend of yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19135" LastActivityDate="2018-02-21T01:56:34.563" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28857" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28858" CreationDate="2018-02-21T02:37:50.630" Score="3" ViewCount="503" Body="&lt;p&gt;Referring to Cantonese Sheik, 北 is normally pronounced as 'bak', as in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/9276/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;北角&lt;/a&gt; (bak gok - a train station in Hong Kong). However, I have seen instances where it is pronounced as 'pak' as in  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pak_Tam_Chung&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;北潭涌&lt;/a&gt; (Pak Tam Chung- a place in Hong Kong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is 北 officially pronounced as '&lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt;ak'? or as '&lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt;ak'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I want to know for 白 as well, is it &lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt;aak? (as in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pak_Nai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;白泥&lt;/a&gt;- a place in Hong Kong) or '&lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt;aak' as in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/112/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;白色&lt;/a&gt;(baak sik - white color)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can &lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;p&lt;/strong&gt; be used interchangeably or is there an official pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="22149" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T12:05:31.853" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T12:05:31.853" Title="Correct pronunciation for 北, 白 in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28857" CreationDate="2018-02-21T03:23:26.427" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cccanto.org/search.php?q=%E5%8C%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;北&lt;/a&gt; is definitely bak1. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cccanto.org/search.php?q=%E7%99%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;白&lt;/a&gt; is baak6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this b/p issue is probably just a romanization problem. Remember 北京 was Peking in times past. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words that start with &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; are usually represented by letter [p] in IPA and that is how many romanizations started, from IPA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Meyer–Wempe Cantonese romanization system is one such pinyin that does write the IPA initial [p] as &lt;code&gt;p&lt;/code&gt; and not &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-02-21T03:30:19.380" LastActivityDate="2018-02-21T03:30:19.380" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28859" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28860" CreationDate="2018-02-21T05:30:10.173" Score="2" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried understanding 苟且偷欢 word by word.&#xA;However, I don't think 'improperly stealing happiness' is the correct answer, does the word '欢' have slang/idiomatic meanings except joyous or happy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T06:53:56.763" Title="What does the '欢' in '苟且偷欢' mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28859" CreationDate="2018-02-21T05:41:48.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;「偷」has a less negative meaning (than &lt;em&gt;stealing&lt;/em&gt;) of &lt;em&gt;finding time&lt;/em&gt; (to do something), which is the meaning in this context. For example,「偷暇」means to &lt;em&gt;find a (fleeting) moment of leisure&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「苟且」, in this context, is more accurately translated as &lt;em&gt;perfunctory&lt;/em&gt; (doing something to attain minimal standards, or doing something with minimal effort), so「苟且偷歡」is &lt;em&gt;to be content with temporary happiness&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Since the OP has posted the context of the phrase as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;王八妻子与单身雄蛇便苟且偷欢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(My) bastard wife and that sneaky bachelor&lt;/em&gt; &quot;苟且偷欢&quot; &lt;em&gt;whenever they can&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then Tang Ho's point about illicit relations is the correct interpretation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(My) bastard wife and that sneaky bachelor jump into bed whenever they can&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-02-22T06:26:09.880" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T06:26:09.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28857" CreationDate="2018-02-21T06:08:40.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The /b/ in Cantonese and /b/ in IPA are not the same sound. Cantonese /b/ is more like an unaspirated IPA /p/ or if you want, an unvoiced IPA /b/. The 北 in 北京 and 北角 are exactly the same sound. 白 is /baak6/, same /b/ sound as in 北 , unvoiced and unaspirated bilabial stop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-02-21T06:08:40.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28859" CreationDate="2018-02-21T08:41:33.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The common idiom is &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.18dao.net/%E6%88%90%E8%AA%9E%E8%A9%9E%E5%85%B8/%E8%8B%9F%E4%B8%94%E5%81%B7%E7%94%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;苟且偷生&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【名稱】：苟且偷生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【拼音】：gǒu qiě tōu shēng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【注音】：ㄍㄡˇ　ㄑ｜ㄝˇ　ㄊㄡ　ㄕㄥ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【釋義】：苟且：得過且過；偷生：苟且地活著。得過且過，勉強活著。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【出處】：《荀子·榮辱》：“今夫偷生淺知之屬，曾比而不知也。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;苟且偷欢&quot;  is not a standard idiom. It replaces '偷生' (barely avoid death/  improbably stay alive) with '偷欢' (secretly coupling)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/46402/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;苟且&lt;/a&gt; as an adverb means &quot;perfunctorily&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/60894/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;苟且偷生&lt;/a&gt; means &quot;disgracefully stay alive&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The phrasing of 苟且偷欢 implies 苟且(adv) (perfunctorily) + 偷欢 (v)(secretly coupling) which doesn't make much sense, but 苟且 also mean 'illicit (sexual relations)' 苟且偷欢 would means &quot; illicit coupling&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not a common phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偷欢 synonyms 偷情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-22T06:53:56.763" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T06:53:56.763" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28857" CreationDate="2018-02-21T09:25:04.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I have seen instances where it is pronounced as 'pak' as in 北潭涌 (Pak Tam Chung- a place in Hong Kong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pak Tam Chung in Cantonese &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; pronounced as (bak1 taam4 cung1), when Cantonese is romanised, b is usually turned into p. For example, 白田 (place in Hong Kong) is romanised as &amp;quot;Pak Tin&amp;quot; while the pronunciation is baak6 tin4 and 寶達 (another place in Hong Kong) is romanised as &amp;quot;Po Tat&amp;quot; while the pronunciation is bou2 daat6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember, the romanisation is not the pronunciation!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16335" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T10:49:30.160" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T10:49:30.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28857" CreationDate="2018-02-21T09:54:57.433" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is actually no /pak/ in Cantonese. At all. There are a few characters that are pronounced /paak/ [long a:], 拍, 啪, 泊, 帕, 魄, 珀, 舶, 檗, 蘗, 汃, but that's about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others have mentioned, romanization != pronunciation. 北 (which is, by the way, the only character pronounced /bak/), is always /bak/, and nothing else. 北角, 北京, 北潭涌, 北海, it's all /bak/. If you hear anything else, you need to listen again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same goes for 白 (and 百, 伯, 迫, 柏, 蔔, 佰, 舶, 帛, 匐, 菔, 踣). The only (but important) difference is that it's a long [a:].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-02-21T13:14:31.277" LastActivityDate="2018-02-21T13:14:31.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28865" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28880" CreationDate="2018-02-21T13:59:07.383" Score="2" ViewCount="6949" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;code&gt;Ecxel&lt;/code&gt; I can set &lt;code&gt;Calibri&lt;/code&gt; font and enter Chinese characters, which look straight. In &lt;code&gt;PowerPoint&lt;/code&gt; I have Chinese characters set font as &lt;code&gt;STXinwei (Body)&lt;/code&gt; and they look very &quot;stylish&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AfinV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AfinV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't get &quot;straight&quot; font in PowerPoint and can't change font to &lt;code&gt;Calibri&lt;/code&gt; (it turns back to &lt;code&gt;STXinwei (Body)&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to fix?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T11:42:35.300" Title="How to set normal Chinese font in MS Power Point 2016?" Tags="&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28865" CreationDate="2018-02-21T19:54:16.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;strong&gt;黑体&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my power point and your pic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sWDn7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sWDn7.png&quot; alt=&quot;yup&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say it looks like the same font.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or set it to &lt;strong&gt;宋体&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my PP next to your excel picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gR7FL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gR7FL.png&quot; alt=&quot;yeah&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not a perfect match but it's a surefire way to give you the look you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-02-21T21:59:43.533" LastActivityDate="2018-02-21T21:59:43.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28804" CreationDate="2018-02-21T23:30:06.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translation of 水鄉 is &quot;water town&quot;. In China, &quot;水鄉&quot; usually refers to &quot;江南水鄉&quot;, which are the villages/ town in the Yangtze River Delta (e.g. Suzhou Zhouzhuang Water Town). &quot;鐵&quot; is iron. &#xA;According to Kangxi Dictionary, &quot;堃&quot; means compliance, obedience, female and is the variant of &quot;坤&quot;. &quot;坤&quot; is one of the Bagua(&quot;八卦&quot; or the eight trigrams) and it represents &quot;地&quot; (earth/ground/floor).  &quot;寫&quot; is writing or painting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19153" LastActivityDate="2018-02-21T23:30:06.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28843" CreationDate="2018-02-21T23:57:41.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find what @droooze wrote is interesting, but also incomplete, and sorry but &quot;90% seems like an overestimation&quot; is the description of a feeling, not a citation of evidence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that many people will agree to answer your question as, roughly, &lt;em&gt;&quot;a majority of characters used in modern Chinese are made up from recurring parts, of which typically one hints to the very broad meaning or semantic category (of which there are but a few hundred), and one other may be understood as a mnemonic for the sound (the reading) of the character, with varying degrees of accurateness, and not infrequently clustering around more than a single 'type' of syllabic setup (of these sound-indicators, one of my sources (school material, 3900 characters listed) has around 750).&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@droooze is quite right in that many characters that have been or should be characterized as containing one or more parts that hint at the character's reading are either (1) not classical and straightforward 形聲字, or (2) have lost the utility of a 'plain' 形聲字 to the modern speaker due to historical sound changes, or are (3) just too obscure or too rare to be a useful, practical (as opposed to 'originally created as') 形聲字 in an operational sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So no, this is definitely not an urban myth; there are many, many false assertions floating around when it comes to Chinese language and writing, but this is not one of them. To establish reliable figures, though, is quite a bit harder; let me just ask you, before you even start counting, what is it you're asking for: the number of phono-semantic compounds in the totality of all Chinese characters? or only those as used on in mainland China? in Taiwan? the proportion of phono-semantic compounds among all (repeating) &lt;em&gt;occurrences&lt;/em&gt; in typical modern texts? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Worse, how will you go and count, say 工 gong as it appears in 貢 gong, 江 jiang, 項 xiang, 紅 hong, 扛 kang, 邛 qiong? That 邛 'is' a phono-semantic compound may indeed matter very little to people who struggle with this character's unusual structure, rare occurrence, and aberrant reading! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16530" LastEditorUserId="16530" LastEditDate="2018-02-22T00:03:41.117" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T00:03:41.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27171" CreationDate="2018-02-22T00:10:39.497" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say that 根 is the most common unit word for long, straight objects, such as  一根葱 (spring onion), while 条 is used for things that may be long and wiggly, such as 一条河, 一条路, or 一条鱼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, though, your meaning wouldn't be confused. In terms of normal speech, measure words don't matter so much as long as you don't use one that's blatantly wrong. In this case 条 is pretty close to correct, so I wouldn't worry as long as you're not in an academic or formal situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19155" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T00:10:39.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28132" CreationDate="2018-02-22T00:16:51.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have 500多 of something, it just means that it is over 500, but fairly close to that. It's similar to saying &quot;over 500.&quot; If the number of people were something like 521, saying 500多 would make a lot of sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19155" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T00:16:51.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28357" CreationDate="2018-02-22T00:32:07.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;要用两条腿走路 uses legs to symbolize developing two aspects together, it stresses the importance to develop two aspects. We need to walk with 2 legs and we'll fall if we only have 1 leg, just like China needs to develop the 2 aspects in order to improve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19153" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T00:32:07.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26301" CreationDate="2018-02-22T02:28:08.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depend on the property of the adjective. For example &quot;不明的&quot; means unknown, But if use &quot;地&quot; to replace it, it will be ridiculous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the meaning of the adjective is also suitable to verb or other adjective. It can be replaced to adverb, otherwise it can't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be noticed that some word have a flexible meaning. Even if it both have form in adjective and adverb but there meanings are different.&#xA;For example:&#xA;文明的  ---&gt;   1,advanced development of knowledge;2, always behave gently&#xA;文明地  ---&gt;   gently &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19156" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T02:28:08.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28873" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28876" CreationDate="2018-02-22T02:59:03.947" Score="6" ViewCount="2400" Body="&lt;p&gt;I refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Map_of_sinitic_languages_full-en.svg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this map&lt;/a&gt; (also shown below), which depicts that &lt;strong&gt;Yue&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Hakka&lt;/strong&gt; variants of Chinese are geographically very close to each other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we take &lt;strong&gt;Hong Kong&lt;/strong&gt; for example, how similar would the language be to the &lt;strong&gt;Hakka&lt;/strong&gt; spoken in the neighbouring parts of Guangdong? (see red circle below)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3RR9F.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3RR9F.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T12:52:07.127" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T12:52:07.127" Title="How similar are Hakka and Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28357" CreationDate="2018-02-22T03:03:34.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This metaphor is mostly used in formal contexts such as politics and economics, and the tone of speech is often assertory. Literally it means &quot;to walk with both your legs&quot;, and it stresses on &quot;both&quot;(两条) in order to draw the audience's attention to the importance of the equality of both of the aspects. It is a good way to introduce a new aspect, if hasn't been discussed before.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Interestingly enough, when it's in answer to questions like &quot;which one do you think is more important, A or B&quot;, it is just a diplomatic way to avoid conflicts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19157" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-02-22T03:06:52.267" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T03:06:52.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28873" CreationDate="2018-02-22T03:12:28.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quoting from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hakka is &lt;strong&gt;not mutually intelligible&lt;/strong&gt; with Yue, Wu, Southern Min, Mandarin or other branches of Chinese, and itself contains a few mutually unintelligible varieties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same could really be said of any of the southern Chinese language groups. Lots of linguistic diversity in a small geographic area (in comparison to Mandarin languages/dialects, which cover a very large area and are often quite similar to one another).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T03:12:28.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28873" CreationDate="2018-02-22T03:15:31.867" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we take Guangzhou to represent Cantonese and Meixian to represent Hakka we can get an idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Isolated-word-intelligibility test&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/05b3z.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/05b3z.png&quot; alt=&quot;IWIT&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;With Hakka as the speaker people from Guangzhou only understood 35% of isolated words.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;With Guangzhou speakers Hakka listeners only understood 40% of isolated words.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sentence intelligibility test&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IYHyu.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IYHyu.png&quot; alt=&quot;SIT&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Guangzhou speaker were only able to get Meixian listeners to understand 55% of spoken sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Meixian speakers were only understood 12% of the time by Guangzhou listeners in spoken sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The standard for mutual intelligibility works like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If two languages are 80% intelligible (or more) with each other, then they are dialects of one language rather than two separate languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two certainly don't meet the requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that Hakka speakers can understand more Cantonese than vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you'd like to know more about the intelligibility tests you can check out this PDF &lt;a href=&quot;https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/14919/Tang_Heuven_Lingua2009.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Where section &lt;em&gt;3.1. Isolated-word-intelligibility test&lt;/em&gt; goes over table 2 and section &lt;em&gt;3.2. Sentence intelligibility test&lt;/em&gt; goes over table 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T03:15:31.867" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28810" CreationDate="2018-02-22T04:20:14.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我也在英國 &amp;rarr; correct  . To make it more natural and lovely you can add （呢/哦/哟/呀） at the end of the sentence, a.e. &lt;strong&gt;我也在英國呢。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你是很快速 &amp;rarr; 你真快/你好快. To make it more natural you can add （啊/呀/哦） at the end of the sentence, a.e. &lt;strong&gt;你好快呀。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你不真的在咖啡聽 &amp;rarr; 你（才）不（是）在咖啡厅/你（才）没（有）在咖啡厅, if you use the complete forms, you can add （呢） at then end of the sentence, a.e &lt;strong&gt;你才不是在咖啡厅呢。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19157" LastEditorUserId="19157" LastEditDate="2018-02-22T06:25:05.240" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T06:25:05.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28878" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28879" CreationDate="2018-02-22T10:40:49.417" Score="3" ViewCount="726" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there additional context, in which one is used in a specific situation as opposed to the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm used to only hearing 只 for &quot;only&quot;, but when I was using a Chinese learning app, it told me that 仅 or 仅仅 was the more common translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-02-24T07:45:38.243" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T07:45:38.243" Title="When to use 只 or 仅" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28878" CreationDate="2018-02-22T11:26:19.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m not professional linguist in Mandarin Chinese, but a native speaker to it. So I can &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; give you some examples and share some of my own opinions about 只 and 仅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, for the sentence above, it is translated to native Mandarin Chinese using 只, as in “我只能给你举一些例子，以及分享一点我个人关于只和仅的看法”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, in my opinion, 只 is used in more situations, as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Only you can save us. → &lt;strong&gt;只有&lt;/strong&gt;你才能拯救我们。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That is only an excuse. → 那&lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;是个借口。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Garbage is collected only on Mondays. → 垃圾&lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;有星期一&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;收。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using 只 only is often not enough by itself. → 单单&lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;用“只”通常是不够的。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could have notice that, to make it a native expression, using 只 only is often not enough. There are many other expressions that used usually together with 只, such as 只有，只……才，只有……才. That’s beyond this question and may be answered separately in another thread.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, on the other hand, 仅 is used much less, and usually in fixed phrases like 仅限, 仅仅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仅限 can usually be used when translating &lt;em&gt;only for&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Only for PlayStation → &lt;strong&gt;仅限&lt;/strong&gt;用于 PlayStation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case above, it is not good to use 只.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Single 仅 or double 仅仅 is usually used when talking about quantity. Let’s see examples below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This project was done in only 3 days. → &lt;strong&gt;仅仅&lt;/strong&gt;三天，这个工程&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;完工了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This project was done in only 3 days. → &lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;用了三天，这个工程&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;完工了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This project was done in only 3 days. → 这个工程完工&lt;strong&gt;仅&lt;/strong&gt;用三天。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This project was done in only 3 days. → 这个工程完工&lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;用了三天。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are all correct ways to say the same thing. However, 仅仅 is much less colloquial and more formal. As you could see, if you use 只 instead of 仅, 了 must be added after 用 to make it more colloquial and therefore more native.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, do not use 仅 or 仅仅 in colloquial situations. Let’s review the examples for only:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I can only give you some examples. → 我只能给你举一些例子。(OK but not native. 只能 is much more common than 仅能)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Only you can save us. → &lt;strong&gt;只有&lt;/strong&gt;你才能拯救我们。(DO NOT USE 仅)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That is only an excuse. → 那&lt;strong&gt;仅&lt;/strong&gt;是个借口。(OK but not native. 只是 is much more common than 仅是)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Garbage is collected only on Mondays. → 垃圾&lt;strong&gt;仅&lt;/strong&gt;星期一收。(OK but sounds very formal. Maybe you can see it on a notice, but do not expect it to be heard when speaking)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using 只 only is often not enough by itself. → &lt;strong&gt;仅&lt;/strong&gt;用“只”通常是不够的。(Sounds OK but you have to remove &lt;em&gt;by itself&lt;/em&gt; because that word is too colloquial and do not match 仅 at all)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That’s all. Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;UPDATE 1&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You said that your Chinese learning app told you that 仅 or 仅仅 was the more common translation. Maybe it is correct when translating written things, such as forms, manuals and warnings. I wonder if you can show me your app and let me check how it says exactly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19122" LastEditorUserId="19122" LastEditDate="2018-02-22T11:32:44.350" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T11:32:44.350" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28865" CreationDate="2018-02-22T11:42:35.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Calibri does not contain Chinese characters. When you set your font to Calibri, Microsoft Office automatically choose a Chinese font for Chinese you’ve entered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, it seems that Excel automatically chose Microsoft Yahei (微软雅黑), while Powerpoint automatically chose STXinwei (华文新魏).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are both correct behaviors. In Excel, people expect to see more general fonts in sheets, while, in PowerPoint, people expect to see more stylish fonts in presentations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though what PowerPoint did is correct, if you do want to change the font in PowerPoint, you have to keep in mind that &lt;strong&gt;Calibri does not contain Chinese characters&lt;/strong&gt;. Therefore, you have to &lt;strong&gt;choose another Chinese font&lt;/strong&gt; for it so that the appearance would change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally recommend Microsoft Yahei (the font Excel uses) and STZhongsong (a very bold serif font suitable for presentation titles).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19122" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T11:42:35.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28800" CreationDate="2018-02-22T11:47:29.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take puns for fun, not seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only native way to interpret 日本人 is 日本-人, which means Japanese (people). I know a lot of people making fun using this pun by splitting 日本人 into 日-本人, which means fuck me, and it is understandable when thinking twice, but this is not the &lt;em&gt;normal&lt;/em&gt; way to interpret it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19122" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T11:47:29.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28878" CreationDate="2018-02-22T15:44:56.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;＂汉英虚词词典＂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;仅&lt;/strong&gt;（副词）同＂只＂A,B.C,D,限制范围或数量：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;１。不但我自己的，便是子君的言语举动，我那时就没有看得分明，～知道她已经允许我了。（鲁迅［伤逝］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;２。为了～能糊口的月薪，男人们在舞台上象疯子一样发神经，女人们以卖弄风骚博得喝彩。（徐怀中［我们播种爱情］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;３。这～是猜测，不足为据。（茹志鹃［剪辑错了的故事］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;４。～就他们没有呼唤彼此的姓名这一点来看，就是见这绝非同学之间的那种别而相逢。（徐怀中［我们播种爱情］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;５。沟沟岸。。。人口处形势险峻，两山对峙，其间距～十数米。（戴妆潜［沟崖漫话］）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;仅仅&lt;/strong&gt;（副词）同＂仅＂，但口气更重。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;１。要有同志式的批评，探讨，论战。～给以暴露，是不够的。（王蒙［生活、倾向、辩证法和文学］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;２。他想起了正歧利剪刀铺子的东家，～因为他看了一场戏，就把他辞退了。（欧阳山［三家巷］）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;３。看来，他们不～是平平常常的同学。（徐怀中［我们播种爱情］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;４。不～我一个人对他的工作深切地关心着；数不清的不相识的普通人们，也都关心他的工作。（鄂华［自由神的命运］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;５。她离家～一天的时间，这里又发生变化。（李惠薪［活寡］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;６。河～离城门有一里来地，可是河岸上极清静，连个走路的人也没有。（老舍［四世同堂］） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;７。这～是一霎间的事。（杨沫［青春之歌］）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;（副词）表示限制。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;只限于某种动作：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;１。他什么不说，而～这么愣着。（老舍［四世同堂］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;２。她伸头想看看我手上的账本，又不好意思走近，～远远地瞟瞟。（吴晨笳［姐妹］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;３。我～觉得雨下太多了。（艾芜［雨］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;参看＂只是＂&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;所限制的是动词的宾语，但＂只＂也必须用于动词前：The restriction refers to the object of a verb,but 只 must also occur before the verb:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1.周炳留心听着他父亲的回答，可是什么回答也没有，～听见他父亲时不时用手轻轻拍打着蚊子。（欧阳山［三家巷］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;２。一个月～省出五百块钱左右。（曹禺［日出］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;３。实际这里已经看不出什么阵地，～看见密密麻麻相联结的巨大弹坑（刘白习［在朝鲜的第一夜） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;４。他骨瘦如柴，～穿着一条夹裤和一件败色的旧薄棉袍。（曹禺［日出］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;所限制的是状语或补语或二者；如所限制的是状语，则＂只＂必用于状语前，如是补语，＂只＂不能用在补语前，则仍在动词前：The restriction refers to the adverbial or the complement or both.If it refers to the adverbial,只 must precede it and if it's the complement,只cannot precede the complement but must precede the verb:&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 1.这话也～在你我之间说说。（火笛［在茶馆里］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;２。她在里边房里做她熟手的熔烘工作，～偶尔偷空从人缝中悄悄朝炒茶机这边看看。（吴辰笳［姐妹］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;３。老实说，这个药方，跟二表姐不大好谈的，～能跟你谈。（欧阳山［三家巷］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;４。在浑源～住了两个月，他就回美国了。（张扬［第二次握手］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;５。我～在那儿粗略地看了一遍，没有细刨。（王汶石［黑风］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;D&lt;/strong&gt; ＂只＂可直接用在数量短语前，或名词、代词（有时加数量短语）前，意思是＂只有＂，而＂有＂被省略：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;１。他们一个住豹子沟，一个住南梁子，相隔～三四里地。（欧阳山［高干大］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;２。我们～三个人，当然还可以容你。（叶圣陶［潘先生在难中］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;３。他才觉着世界上～小常是第一个好人，可是只认识了一天就又不在了。（赵树理［李家庄的变迁］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;４。我望了又望，望来望去就～她一个人，又烧火，又摇机，忙的两脚不沾灰。（吴晨笳［姐妹］） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;５。这些都没有什么，困难的是～我一个人。（曹平［三月雪］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;参看＂仅＂。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;E&lt;/strong&gt;＂只＂和＂不＂构成四字短语，嵌入意义相反的两个单音节形容词或动词。重点在＂只＂后的形容词或动词：只 and 不 are separately inserted before two monosyllabic adjectives or verbs opposite in meaning to form a four-character phrase. In such a case, the stress is laid on the adjective or verb which comes after 只：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;１。我给的～多不少。（有可能超过需要的，不会不足）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;２。那双鞋你穿～大不小。（有可能大，不会小）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;３。虽然遇到了困难，大家的干劲却～增不减。（有可能增加，不会减少）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;F&lt;/strong&gt;＂只见＂常用于描述从某人眼中见到的景物，＂只＂已无实际的意思：只见 is used to describe the sights which reach the eyes, and 只 has no actual meaning;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;１。从前面望进去，～见一般的黑暗。（叶圣陶［外国旗］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;２。～见那窗前的垂柳，迎着凛冽的寒风，看不到店堂上的货物。（陈登科［风雪］）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;３。爬上山顶，～见山下茫茫一片草原到处点缀着五彩缤纷的野花。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;４。他的眼前～见白茫茫的一天大雾。（叶圣陶［一个练习生］）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂汉语８００虚词词典＂&lt;strong&gt;［比较］仅 只 ＂仅＂&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;用于书面，＂只＂口语，书面都用；＂仅＂可以重叠使用，＂只＂不能重叠。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）这个月我仅／只剩下二百元了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（２）我们班仅／只有五个男生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（３）这个教室仅／只能坐下二十个人。（４）今天的作业我仅仅／＊只只用了一个小时就做完了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（５）黄河是中国的第二大河，仅／＊只次于长江。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［错句］&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）＊这本书里只是有一些没意思的故事，我不喜欢。&#xA;（要说：这本书里净是一些没意思的故事，我不喜欢。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（２）＊你别只说很多没有用的话，得帮我想个办法呀。&#xA;（要说：你别净说一些没有用的话，得帮我想个办法呀。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（３）＊这个月只有电话费我花了一千多块。&#xA;（要说：这个月光电话费我就花了一千多块。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（４）＊院子里停着只一辆汽车。&#xA;（要说：院子里只停着一辆汽车。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（５）＊他得了很严重的病，大夫说他可以只活几个月。&#xA;（要说：他得了很重的病，大夫说他只能活几个月。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2018-02-23T03:14:26.027" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T03:14:26.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2858" CreationDate="2018-02-23T01:37:40.183" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had asked a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/28873/how-similar-are-hakka-and-cantonese&quot;&gt;similar question&lt;/a&gt;, comparing the actual similarity of Cantonese and Hakka. You can look it up if interested. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/4136/user3306356&quot;&gt;user3306356&lt;/a&gt; 's  answer inspired me to answer this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, Cantonese is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a dialect but in-fact a language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It works by using the standard for mutual intelligibility. &lt;em&gt;&quot; If two languages are 80% intelligible (or more) with each other, then they are dialects of one language rather than two separate languages.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like  to draw your attention to the two tables below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will assume 'Chinese' to be speakers in &lt;strong&gt;Beijing&lt;/strong&gt; and 'Cantonese' to be speakers in &lt;strong&gt;Guangzhou&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MtfAD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MtfAD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Guangzhou listeners could understand 63% of isolated words from Beijing speakers, Beijing listeners could only understand a mere 34% of isolated words in the Guangzhou dialect (i.e Cantonese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It gets more interesting here, while looking at comprehension of entire sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E9xd7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E9xd7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guangzhou listeners were able to understand 93% of spoken sentences from Beijing speakers. Wow! It exceeds 80% and is tempting to consider Cantonese as a dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beijing speakers were able to understand 3% of spoken sentences from Guangzhou speakers.Yes, just 3%. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The results are summarised below, for sentences:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8gWpk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8gWpk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the 80% test, because the two languages are less than 80% intelligible with each other,  &lt;strong&gt;Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese are two separate languages.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So while Guangzhou speakers (Cantonese) can understand Beijing speakers (Mandarin) very well, the converse is not true. With scores exceeding 90%, Beijing speakers and Guangzhou speakers can understand each other very well- showing that there is not much diversity of Mandarin and Cantonese in itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T01:37:40.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28878" CreationDate="2018-02-23T03:20:51.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorting by level of formality: 仅仅 &gt; 仅 &gt; 只。 The more formal the variation is used, the stronger the tone is, and the more severity of limitations it convey.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仅 and 仅仅 are more formal in written contexts. In contrast 只 is more common in daily use. E.g. 我只吃了一个面包。(Weird: 我&lt;em&gt;仅&lt;/em&gt;吃了一个面包。)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, you can use 仅仅只 together to emphasis the extremity of the limitation. In this case, 仅仅 is used as a modifier to 只.  E.g. &lt;strong&gt;仅仅只&lt;/strong&gt;用了一天，大楼就建成了。(So quick it is.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, another substitution to 只/仅仅 is 才。When used for emphasizing the limitations, 才 will implicitly convey a mood of surprise. E.g. &lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;用了一天，大楼就建成了。(How did they even make it!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19157" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T03:20:51.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28878" CreationDate="2018-02-23T03:30:41.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In English, we can use 'only' to express 'merely' &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &quot;Three days hotel &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; cost $250&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, this phrase can be translated to &quot;三天酒店&lt;strong&gt;只&lt;/strong&gt;需 250美元&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to emphasize the fact that it is &quot;merely $250&quot;, you can use 仅 instead of 只 and write &quot;三天酒店&lt;strong&gt;仅&lt;/strong&gt;需 250 美元&quot; (Three days hotel &lt;strong&gt;merely&lt;/strong&gt; cost $250)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In English, we can use 'only' to express 'solely/ just' &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; he came to the rescue&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, this phrase can be translated to &quot;&lt;strong&gt;只得&lt;/strong&gt;他来救援&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to emphasize the fact that it is &quot;just him&quot;, you can use  仅 instead of 只 and write &quot;&lt;strong&gt;仅得&lt;/strong&gt;他来救援&quot; (Just he came to the rescue )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;仅 can also express &quot;barely&quot; while 只 (only) cannot&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 仅胜 (barely win); 他的步伐仅比蜗牛快 (his pace is barely faster than a snail)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;他的步伐只比蜗牛快&quot; implies his pace is only faster than a snail and nothing else, which lack the emphasis of 'barely'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-23T03:41:03.657" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T03:41:03.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28887" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28888" CreationDate="2018-02-23T09:12:43.687" Score="3" ViewCount="1012" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Sorry, we have to let you go&quot; is a nice way to tell somebody they are fired&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you directly translate it, it becomes &#xA;&quot;我们必须让你走&quot;, which doesn't seem right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some ways to fire somebody in the nicest way possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T10:21:42.987" Title="How can you say &quot;We have to let you go&quot;, in the context of firing somebody?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28887" CreationDate="2018-02-23T09:26:58.757" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我们必须让你走&quot; is correct literally, but sounds straightforward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use &quot;不得不&quot; instead of &quot;必须&quot; because it's more passive; and use &quot;离开&quot; instead of &quot;走&quot; to make the sentence euphemistic. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们不得不让你离开公司&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or make it more euphemistic by using &quot;可能需要&quot; (may need), (if you don't stick to the original English sentence and its translation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们可能需要你离开公司&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-02-23T09:39:05.413" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T09:39:05.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28887" CreationDate="2018-02-23T10:13:57.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is &quot;很抱歉，公司決定不再留你&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;很抱歉 (regretfully) - &lt;em&gt;express sympathy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;公司決定 (the company decided)- &lt;em&gt;saying 'the company decided' instead of 'we decided' to imply it is not a personal decision, no one in the company wanted this to happen.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不再留你 (no longer keeping you) - &lt;em&gt;instead of telling someone that he has to leave, telling him the company can no longer stop him from leaving, implying he will have many job options elsewhere (maintain his dignity). It is for his own good that the company let him go.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-23T10:21:42.987" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T10:21:42.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28891" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28892" CreationDate="2018-02-23T14:08:47.463" Score="2" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a bit confused with '非' here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.'not': which the sentence then would mean the numbers of people wouldn't change anything&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.'mistake': 'a lot of people = A lot of mistakes'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, from the example I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'过节人多，人多就是非多，请问各地警力有保障吗？愿大家都高高兴兴出门，平平安安回家！'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Either 'trash' or 'criminal'?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T14:16:44.393" Title="Please correct me for this '人多就是非多'" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28891" CreationDate="2018-02-23T14:16:44.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/f/14b/326880.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;是非&lt;/a&gt; should be interpreted as an unbroken word here, it means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) [discord]∶口舌;纠纷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;人多就是非多&quot; should be interpreted as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;人多 (when/if) there're many people&#xA;就 then&#xA;是非 discord (would be)&#xA;多 much&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T14:16:44.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28893" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-23T14:30:00.577" Score="1" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;『还』字的这两个读音，韵母不一样，实际意思差别也挺大的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当它读作&lt;code&gt;huan2&lt;/code&gt;是指『回归』之意，可以译作『return』，是个动词；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是若以&lt;code&gt;hai2&lt;/code&gt;音来翻译，应当是代表了一种『当下并没有，但以后可能会这样』的状态，译作『still/yet』等副词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我私下里就想，这俩意思之间有着千差万别，从上古汉语追溯下来，应该不是同源的吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然后我就去网上搜了一圈，在《说文》和《康熙字典》里也没找到什么特别的注解。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我这作为一个北京人，在汉语上遇到了问题，还要来国际网站上发帖，真是惭愧。不过子曾经曰过：『敏而好学，不耻下问』，这不懂的就要问。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还是麻烦您帮着解答一下我的疑惑了，谢谢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw be free to answer/discuss in English, I was just thinking that this website is just all about Chinese, so I posted this question in Chinese. :-D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19163" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T05:59:26.007" Title="请教一下『还』字（huan2、hai2 两者）的语源" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28855" CreationDate="2018-02-23T14:40:43.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just saying, we don't usually express it as '好的朋友', but '好朋友' instead.&#xA;It means a friend who's got a really close relationship with you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you're thinking of somebody like a mentor, the correct word is '益友', it's opposite is '损友', where '益' means benefits and '损' means damages (to your personality).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19163" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T14:40:43.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28845" CreationDate="2018-02-23T14:46:33.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;所x&lt;/code&gt; is referring to the object of the verb &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt;, and makes the phrase nominal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;所见 what we see&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;所言/所说 what we say&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;所闻 what we hear&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;所想 what we think&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;日有所思，夜有所梦 what you thinking in the day is what you dreaming in the night&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19163" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T14:46:33.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28893" CreationDate="2018-02-23T22:47:44.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;「還」（&lt;code&gt;huan2&lt;/code&gt;），从「辵」（辶），「睘」（瞏）聲。「回歸」、「復也」是「還」字的本意，古文也偶爾用「睘」字假借爲「復也」之意。現代普通話 &lt;code&gt;hai2&lt;/code&gt;、 &lt;code&gt;huan2&lt;/code&gt; 二者有分工作用，前者是表示副詞的讀法，但古文竝不出現這種用法，&lt;code&gt;huan2&lt;/code&gt;、&lt;code&gt;hai2&lt;/code&gt; 的上古、中古等先音混用在「復也」、副詞之意。&lt;code&gt;Hai2&lt;/code&gt; 先音不現於反切記錄，可能是白讀。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「睘」部在「還」裏衹是聲符，「睘」从「目」，「袁」省聲，本意是「目驚視也」，跟「復也」的意思不同。「睘」字在古文多被爲「還」、「環」、「縣」、「煢」詞的假借字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「還」也當過假借字。例：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「環」&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;散氏盤：「道以東一奉（封），還（環），以西一奉（封）。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《馬王堆．五十二病方》第101行：「取井中泥，以還（環）封其傷。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「懷」&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《郭店簡．尊德義》簡25：「治民非還（懷）生而已也。」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Axel Schussler 認爲「還，復也」本从南亞語系，跟高棉語 &lt;em&gt;raṅvā’na&lt;/em&gt; &lt;code&gt;repayment; return; recompense&lt;/code&gt; 同源。「還」副詞意的詞源不明，可能在荀子之前就出現這種用法：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《荀子．王霸》：「如是則禹舜還至，王業還起。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當副詞，現在衹能釋「還」爲假借，有新證據之後文學家再可復考。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-02-24T05:59:26.007" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T05:59:26.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28898" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28899" CreationDate="2018-02-24T00:09:00.817" Score="3" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder if, like in English, the words for colours (red, yellow, green) just formed arbitrarily in Chinese? Or is there a story behind choosing 红色 for red, 蓝色 for blue, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s also interesting how they add the character 色 after each colour. Does this mean that 红，蓝，绿 represent something else as standalone characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It becomes more interesting when we think of compound colours like 粉红色，咖啡色. Surely they came much later than primary colours?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T17:48:11.240" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T17:48:11.240" Title="Where did the words for various colours originate from?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;colors&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28898" CreationDate="2018-02-24T00:39:01.597" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Colours&lt;/em&gt; are an abstract concept, and ancient Chinese largely used words for objects &lt;em&gt;with&lt;/em&gt; the colour to describe the colour itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;紅, 綠 originally referred to silks dyed in those colours, hence the use of the 糸 semantic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;藍 originally referred to a plant used to make blue dye, hence the use of the 艹  semantic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黑 originally referred to a punishment called 黥面, in which a criminal had the name of their crime tattooed on their face in black, and was originally a pictogram depicting this;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;青 originally referred to the colour of grass/plants, and the top was originally 屮 or 生, indicating this meaning;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;赤 originally depicted a person (大) being scorched (火) maybe as a form of punishment, indicating the colour of burnt skin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes characters were used as a phonetic loan for colours, and had no connection to the original meaning, e.g. 黃, 白. 粉紅 and 咖啡, as you've pointed out, are modern terms, but they reflect the same idea of using things that have the colour as a word for the colour itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it did appear with the meaning &lt;em&gt;colour&lt;/em&gt;, the use of 色 was unnecessary in ancient texts. However, in a general trend of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3820/reasons-for-chinese-changing-from-monosyllabic-to-disyllabic?noredirect=1&amp;amp;lq=1&quot;&gt;words evolving from single syllables to double syllables&lt;/a&gt;, 色 came to be used in conjunction with the above characters to form a combined meaning of &lt;em&gt;X (colour)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-04-23T14:35:00.683" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T14:35:00.683" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28855" CreationDate="2018-02-24T01:17:35.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers are already pretty good but I see OP is having a little bit of confusion still so I will try to take a stab at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First part: &lt;strong&gt;[...]is grammatical when used contrasting[...]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let’s take it from the opposite POV first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他是个好的朋友&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is ungrammatical and grating to the ears, as would the opposite be (他是个坏的朋友).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, like in music this is our &lt;em&gt;dissonance&lt;/em&gt; - by itself it is not okay, but it can be &lt;em&gt;resolved&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how do we use the idea of musical resolution to be turn our dissonance in to &lt;em&gt;consonance&lt;/em&gt;? &lt;strong&gt;Comparison&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;他是个好的朋友&lt;/code&gt; alone is just nosie but we can compare it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他是个好的朋友，不是个坏的朋友&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and now we have a grammatically and audially okay sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may slightly change the meaning though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part two: OP wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The author states in another article &quot;It may be all right to use 好的朋友, meaning ‘a friend who can bring some positive inﬂuence/beneﬁts.’ But it does not mean ‘a good friend’, as 好朋友 a good friend can be a bad friend 坏朋友&quot; ​ I do not undertand how &quot;好朋友 a good friend can be a bad friend 坏朋友&quot;. Could you please try to clarify that point?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the neuances at play here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;好朋友 = buddy/pal/homie -or- a close friend&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;好的朋友 = a good quality/type friend&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your buddy (好朋友) could have a corrupting influence over you - objectively he couldn’t be considered a “good quality” friend (好的朋友) but would be thought of as a bad friend (坏朋友).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also take a look at the word: &lt;strong&gt;损友&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T01:17:35.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28901" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-24T03:26:25.060" Score="1" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding so far is that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;巴 means a huge snake.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;拉 means like a crop (wheat) and barn (store house).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;斯 - this one is hardest to understand as it’s quite ancient.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word in its entirety means something on the lines of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The hope to draw/pull to heaven/present &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am no scholar and my knowledge of Mandarin or Cantonese is very poor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19170" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-02-25T06:36:49.473" LastActivityDate="2018-02-25T06:36:49.473" Title="Can anyone explain the pictograph representation of 巴拉斯 please?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28902" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28903" CreationDate="2018-02-24T06:01:47.630" Score="1" ViewCount="1989" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following conversation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: 你住在首尔吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X: 来玩的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: 那你到几天在这边吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X: 对啊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to ask &amp;quot;Then until when (which day) do you stay here?&amp;quot;, but the opponent seems to take it differently, possibly she thought I asked &amp;quot;Then do you stay here for several days?&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought 到 means &amp;quot;until&amp;quot;, so it is correct grammar-wise. But it seems to not make sense, given the reaction of the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the correct way to ask &amp;quot;Until when do you stay here?&amp;quot; in Chinese? And why does my sentence not make sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T08:55:51.037" Title="How to say &quot;until when do you stay here?&quot; correctly?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28902" CreationDate="2018-02-24T06:13:00.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Better ideas of what you want to convey include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;待到什么时候 - when will (you) stay till&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;待几天 - stay for how long&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;待多少天 - stay for how long&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;几 - is only a number 0-9, not above ten.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;几天 - is then thusly less than ten days, technically. Also, this doesn't work like &lt;code&gt;几号？&lt;/code&gt; if you want to ask which or what day it would be &lt;code&gt;哪一天？&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only use this if you know that you've got your numbers right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;多少 - on the other hand contains most all numbers, it's a safer bet.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence (那你到几天在这边吗？) is missing a verb, specifically 待 -or- 呆 - the &quot;stay&quot; you wanted to translate from your English sentence. 待到 would be better - here 到 indicates completion of 待.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;places usually come near the beginning of sentences - 在这边 should come after 你.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also another more direct way to ask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;什么时候走？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T06:13:00.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28901" CreationDate="2018-02-24T06:16:31.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;巴 (u+5df4) originally means &quot;legendary gigantic snake&quot;, when it eats an elephant, it looks 3 year to excrete the skeleton of the elephant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%B7%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=巴&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拉 (u+62c9) originally means &quot;break&quot;, it does not mean &quot;like a crops (wheat) and barn&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%8B%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=拉&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;斯 (u+65af) originally means &quot;cleave with an ax&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%96%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=斯&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;these these characters have difference meanings now, the above explanation would be correct only in the context of etymology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, &quot;巴拉斯&quot; together, sounds similar to your name &quot;bharath&quot;; at least in cantonese. interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-02-24T06:37:52.347" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T06:37:52.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28901" CreationDate="2018-02-24T07:18:20.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;@水巷孑蠻's answer has the correct information on 拉 and 斯. However, I'd like to point out that 巴 being a gigantic snake is a traditional explanation that has little evidence supporting it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巴 originally depicted a person in a kneeling position holding something in their hand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AiElC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AiElC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is most likely the original character for 把, which originally meant &lt;em&gt;to grasp something in the hand&lt;/em&gt;. A similar depiction can be seen in the ancient character for 以 (&lt;em&gt;with&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;using&lt;/em&gt;, as in &lt;em&gt;doing X with Y&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;using X to do Y&lt;/em&gt;), except that the person is standing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q4MQw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q4MQw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kneeling depiction is also seen in the characters 色 (&lt;em&gt;facial impression&lt;/em&gt; -&gt; &lt;em&gt;colour&lt;/em&gt;) and 邑 (&lt;em&gt;city&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;色 was originally a graphical variant of 印 (&lt;em&gt;press down&lt;/em&gt; -&gt; &lt;em&gt;print&lt;/em&gt;),&#xA;  and, as seen below, both 色 and 印 originally depicted a person being&#xA;  pressed down by a hand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cR618.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cR618.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CegqR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CegqR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;邑 originally depicted a person kneeling outside a city wall (囗):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u3I0H.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u3I0H.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, these characters don't mean anything in your context, as they're just a sound representation of your name as @user3306356 said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;References:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;裘錫圭《文字學概要》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-02-24T07:28:04.250" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T07:28:04.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28902" CreationDate="2018-02-24T12:44:00.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to say it in Chinese is 什么时候走 (When do you leave).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“直到”, though literally means &lt;em&gt;until&lt;/em&gt;, is a rarely used word in Chinese, and is usually considered the last choice to use when translating English. In many cases where you use &lt;em&gt;until&lt;/em&gt; in English, you have to use other phrases in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This did not happen until 1998. → 1998 年&lt;strong&gt;以前&lt;/strong&gt;没有发生过。(&lt;em&gt;until&lt;/em&gt; here means &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt;, so translation of before is used instead)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wait until two o'clock. → 等到两点&lt;strong&gt;再说&lt;/strong&gt;。(&lt;em&gt;until&lt;/em&gt; here means that you will &lt;em&gt;do something else&lt;/em&gt; after two o'clock, so doing something else is used instead)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't come in until I tell you to. → 我&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;叫你进来&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;别进来。(&lt;em&gt;until&lt;/em&gt; here means that the former part (come in) will never happen &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; the condition in the latter part (I tell you to) is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; met, so if-not-then is used instead)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, for your case, the best translation is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Until when do you stay here? → 什么时候走？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is totally different than its English counterpart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, my opinion is, whenever you want to translate something with &lt;em&gt;until&lt;/em&gt; from English to Chinese, &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; try to use some other expressions &lt;strong&gt;without&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;until&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;UPDATE 1&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say 你在这儿待到哪天 or 你在这儿待到什么时候, which are closer to your original sentence. They are totally fine, but might take the listener a bit longer to respond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19122" LastEditorUserId="19122" LastEditDate="2018-02-24T12:55:55.660" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T12:55:55.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28907" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28910" CreationDate="2018-02-24T22:42:04.757" Score="1" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just working on a Chinese review app and came across the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他游泳游得很快。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I was wondering if the doubling of the first character is unique to certain kinds of verbs or all 2 character verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or can I also say 他游泳得很快。?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2018-02-25T04:57:19.000" Title="Two word verbs with adverb" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28907" CreationDate="2018-02-25T00:04:16.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is mostly just for clarity rather than anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他游泳得很快 is not okay but 他游得很快 is okay. Without any context though who could understand a random &lt;code&gt;他游得很快&lt;/code&gt;? No one, really. Hence we get our doubling up: 他游泳游得很快。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-02-25T00:04:16.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28108" CreationDate="2018-02-25T00:22:22.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taking the definition of &quot;word&quot; as &quot;an entry in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=cc-cedict&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, the answer to the first question is Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a little script (I could share it if there's any interest) that I adapt to go through CC-CEDICT, looking for words that match a few criteria. Here's the output I got for 2-character words starting with the neutral tone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nb matches: 8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nb tone patterns: 5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4   5, 5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1   5, 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1   5, 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1   5, 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1   5, 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5, 1   嗯哼 嗯哼 [en5 heng1] /uh-huh/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5, 2   個頭 个头 [ge5 tou2] /(coll.) (suffix) my ass!/yeah, right!/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5, 3   得很 得很 [de5 hen3] /very (much, good etc)/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5, 4   的話 的话 [de5 hua4] /if (coming after a conditional clause)/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5, 5   出來 出来 [chu5 lai5] /(after a verb, indicates coming out,&#xA;  completion of an action, or ability to discern or detect)/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5, 5   著呢 着呢 [zhe5 ne5] /comes at the end of the sentence to indicate&#xA;  a strong degree/quite/rather/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5, 5   起來 起来 [qi5 lai5] /(after a verb) indicating the beginning and&#xA;  continuation of an action or a state/indicating an upward movement&#xA;  (e.g. after 站[zhan4])/bringing things together (e.g. after 收拾[shou1&#xA;  shi5])/(after a perception verb, e.g. 看[kan4]) expressing preliminary&#xA;  judgment/also pr. [qi3 lai5]/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5, 5   麼麼 么么 [me5 me5] /kissing sound (slang onom.)/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: the output starts with some statistics (number of matches, number of tone patterns) along with the different tone patterns (aka tone contours) ordered by frequency. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are too many 3-character words containing a neutral tone not at the end for me to put them here - there are 445 of them - but here are the first lines of the output of my search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nb matches: 445&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nb tone patterns: 22&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;49   4, 5, 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;48   1, 5, 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;29   2, 5, 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;27   2, 5, 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;26   3, 5, 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;26   4, 5, 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;25   1, 5, 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;23   2, 5, 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;21   1, 5, 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;21   3, 5, 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;18   1, 5, 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;18   3, 5, 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;18   3, 5, 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;17   4, 5, 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;16   4, 5, 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;14   4, 5, 5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;13   1, 5, 5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;13   3, 5, 5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11   2, 5, 5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10   2, 5, 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1   5, 3, 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1   5, 4, 5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   吃不消 吃不消 [chi1 bu5 xiao1] /to be unable to tolerate or&#xA;  endure/to find sth difficult to manage/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   吃不開 吃不开 [chi1 bu5 kai1] /be unpopular/won't work/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   吃得消 吃得消 [chi1 de5 xiao1] /to be able to endure (exertion,&#xA;  fatigue etc)/to be able to afford/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   吃得開 吃得开 [chi1 de5 kai1] /to be popular/to be getting on&#xA;  well/much in demand/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   夾肢窩 夹肢窝 [ga1 zhi5 wo1] /armpit/also written 胳肢窩|胳肢窝[ga1 zhi5&#xA;  wo1]/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   媽媽桑 妈妈桑 [ma1 ma5 sang1] /mama-san, middle-aged woman who&#xA;  runs a brothel, bar etc (loanword from Japanese)/madam/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   尖子生 尖子生 [jian1 zi5 sheng1] /top student/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   書記官 书记官 [shu1 ji5 guan1] /clerk of a law court/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   梔子花 栀子花 [zhi1 zi5 hua1] /cape jasmine (Gardenia&#xA;  jasminoides)/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   椰子汁 椰子汁 [ye1 zi5 zhi1] /coconut water/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   椰子貓 椰子猫 [ye1 zi5 mao1] /Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus&#xA;  hermaphroditus), also called toddy cat/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   歐巴桑 欧巴桑 [ou1 ba5 sang1] /older female/woman of mature years&#xA;  (Japanese loanword)/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   滴答聲 滴答声 [di1 da5 sheng1] /tick (tock)/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   玻璃心 玻璃心 [bo1 li5 xin1] /(slang) overly sensitive/butthurt/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   玻璃杯 玻璃杯 [bo1 li5 bei1] /drinking glass/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   玻璃砂 玻璃砂 [bo1 li5 sha1] /siliceous sand (geology)/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   玻璃鋼 玻璃钢 [bo1 li5 gang1] /glass-reinforced&#xA;  plastic/fiberglass/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   生意經 生意经 [sheng1 yi5 jing1] /knack of doing business/business&#xA;  sense/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   眵目糊 眵目糊 [chi1 mu5 hu1] /(dialect) gum (in one's eyes)/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   胳肢窩 胳肢窝 [ga1 zhi5 wo1] /armpit/also pr. [ge1 zhi5 wo1]/also&#xA;  written 夾肢窩|夹肢窝[ga1 zhi5 wo1]/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1, 5, 1   芝麻包 芝麻包 [zhi1 ma5 bao1] /sesame bun/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the second question about the neutral tone being lexical or sandhi, I think the answer is &quot;lexical&quot;. I'm not aware of any sandhi rule governing the neutral tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2018-02-26T09:19:33.287" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T09:19:33.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28907" CreationDate="2018-02-25T04:57:19.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with comment 1 &amp;amp; 2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;游泳 is &lt;strong&gt;Separable Word&lt;/strong&gt;(离合词). There are some other 离合词: 吃饭， 睡觉， 散步， etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammar here is that 离合词 can not be followed with an object or a complement directly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Followed by an object, it has to add a prep word. For example, 我和他见面， not 我见面他. Unlike in English, where we can say &lt;strong&gt;I met him&lt;/strong&gt;, but not &lt;strong&gt;I met with him&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Followed by a complement, it should repeat the verb character out of 离合词( 游 is a verb character out of 游泳 in this case). So, the correct phrasing of your sentence should be 他游泳&lt;strong&gt;游&lt;/strong&gt;得很快.  More examples : 他吃饭吃得很慢; 他跑步跑得很快; 他结婚结得很草率; 游泳，吃饭，跑步 and 结婚 are all 离合词(separable word).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also note that &lt;strong&gt;not all two-character verbs&lt;/strong&gt; are separable(离合词), hence follows the rules above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-02-25T04:57:19.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28911" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30494" CreationDate="2018-02-25T06:52:21.280" Score="3" ViewCount="539" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering about communication and typing speed in common scenarios.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How fast can one communicate using Simplified Chinese on a phone or a computer?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How does it relate to speed of communication in English or other popular languages?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there any research on this topic?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us assume the computer in question is just a regular modern laptop without any advanced keyboard dedicated for Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, some multiword English ideas can be expressed by one character, but perhaps time needed to type it out varies on different devices. So even if one can read faster on all devices, writing time would depend on device in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19173" LastEditorUserId="2600" LastEditDate="2018-06-30T02:47:55.497" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T04:40:19.320" Title="Written electronic communication speed in Simplified Chinese vs English" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28912" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28916" CreationDate="2018-02-25T18:02:29.543" Score="1" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that the phonetic part of 我 (wo3) is pronounced 戈 (ge1). It seems also that it means (or used to mean) &quot;Dagger&quot;/&quot;Sword&quot;, however the only references I can find to this character says that that is an old, defunct usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to what degree is this character used in common Mandarin? Is it just thought of as a radical, or does it have some other usage in speech?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19178" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T09:06:13.863" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T09:06:13.863" Title="To what degree is 戈 used in common Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28913" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28915" CreationDate="2018-02-25T19:05:18.470" Score="1" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If we, all the students, never had our teachers, we would never be able to stand and speak Chinese in front of an audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My variation in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果我们，所有的学生，没有我们的中文老师，我们就永远不能站起来在听众前面说中文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know if this sentence is correctly translated and makes sense in terms of Chinese grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. This is for a spoken performance in a competition. I would also like to know if I can actually say it like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18260" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T02:22:47.147" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T03:32:44.637" Title="Is 如果我们，所有的学生，没有我们的中文老师，我们就永远不能站起来在听众前面说中文 grammatical and does it makes sense?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28912" CreationDate="2018-02-25T19:14:59.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in oracle script, 我 (u+6211) is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R6vS8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R6vS8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%88%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=我&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, 戈 (u+6208) is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/91F5p.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/91F5p.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%88%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=戈&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which, the right half of 我 is 戈.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;further, in cantonese (sydney lay scheme), &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 (u+6211) is ngoh5, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/ngo5.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;戈 (u+6208) is gwoh1, &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/gwo1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sound file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both share the same final &lt;strong&gt;oh&lt;/strong&gt;. we might say that &quot;戈&quot; is the phonetic component of the character of &quot;我&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;most of the usages of &quot;戈&quot; are weapons / arms related, like &quot;干戈&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000069665&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000069665&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and yes, it's one of the 214 radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-02-25T19:14:59.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28913" CreationDate="2018-02-25T22:05:43.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;如果我们，[&lt;em&gt;所有的学生&lt;/em&gt;]，没有[&lt;em&gt;我们的中文&lt;/em&gt;]老师，我们就[&lt;em&gt;永远&lt;/em&gt;]不能站[&lt;em&gt;起来&lt;/em&gt;]在听众前面说中文。&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ ] parts can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subject and object can often be omitted to make the speech flow smoother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The first 我们 already indicated 'all the students' therefore '所有的学生' is not needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No need to state it is 'our Chinese language teachers' (我们的中文老师) just '老师' is enough, we know whose teachers they are and what subject they teach from the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;永远&lt;/em&gt; is not needed, the phrase 'if there's no teachers, we can't...' already indicated 'never'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不能站[&lt;em&gt;起来&lt;/em&gt;]在听众前面说中文。&amp;quot;  = &amp;quot;stand up and speak Chinese in front of the audience&amp;quot; can be reduced to &amp;quot;stand in front of the audience and speak Chinese&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;面前 is better than 前面 for 'in front of' when you mean 'facing' ; &lt;em&gt;'站在听众前面' could mean you are facing the same direction with the audience&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would make your speech more native sounding:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;如果没有老师，我们就不能站在听众面前说中文(了)。&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first  '我们' can be omitted because the subject is clearly indicated in the following sentence. We don't need to repeat the subject in the same context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(add final particle '了' to make the sentence sound complete)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;To construct a fluent sentence, you should look for anything that can be omitted, as long as the meaning remain unchanged.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-25T22:12:25.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28912" CreationDate="2018-02-26T02:07:13.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It seems also that it means (or used to mean) &quot;Dagger&quot;/&quot;Sword&quot;, however the only references I can find to this character says that that is an old, defunct usage.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/747/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戈&lt;/a&gt; as a noun, simply mean 'dagger-axe or halberd'&#xA;The reason that it is an old, defunct usage, is no one are using it in modern warfare. Therefore the term 戈 as a weapon had disappeared from common vocabulary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;So, to what degree is this character used in common Mandarin? Is it just thought of as a radical, or does it have some other usage in speech?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;戈 beside being a common radical, is also part of some 'warfare' related compound words and idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干戈  = warfare&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同室操戈 = infighting; fight between family members, partners or allies (&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Two athletes from the same nation fighting for the Gold medal can be described as 同室操戈&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;止弋為武 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;toes + dagger-axe = advance with weapon = 武 (force); &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;止(stop)+ dagger-axe = stopping war = force&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;#1 is the more likely origin of 武&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;戈 is often used as a transliteration word, for example: 戈壁 in 戈壁沙漠 is a transliteration of Gobi; 探戈 in 探戈舞 is the transliteration of Tango&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-26T02:27:11.623" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T02:27:11.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28913" CreationDate="2018-02-26T02:41:39.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually we should consider re-arranging the structure of the sentence, and remove some redundant emphasizing expressions, to conform it naturally to Chinese speaking habit, a.e.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Change:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If we, all the students, never had our teachers, we would never be&#xA;  able to stand and speak Chinese in front of an audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Had it not been our Chinese teachers, we all the students would never be able to stand and speak Chinese in front of an audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;如果不是因为我们的中文老师，我们这些学生是不可能站在观众面前说中文的。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the expression &quot;&lt;strong&gt;would never be able to&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is translated into &quot;&lt;strong&gt;不可能&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in favor of &quot;永远不能&quot; as the original sentence is to stress on the &lt;strong&gt;impossibility&lt;/strong&gt; rather than the infinity of time. Also, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;all the students&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is translated into &quot;&lt;strong&gt;这些&lt;/strong&gt;学生&quot; instead of &quot;所有学生&quot; to avoid it from racing against &quot;不可能&quot;, which is the main stress of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19157" LastEditorUserId="19157" LastEditDate="2018-02-26T05:48:49.360" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T05:48:49.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28918" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-26T05:10:30.343" Score="2" ViewCount="1149" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I want to say &quot;working out&quot;, &quot;exercising&quot;, or &quot;training&quot; in Chinese, I come across these two words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;锻炼&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;运动&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the similarities and differences between these two words and their English counterparts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T22:08:46.240" Title="What are the differences between 锻炼 and 运动 for &quot;exercise&quot;, &quot;work out&quot;, &quot;train&quot;, etc?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28919" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29024" CreationDate="2018-02-26T05:45:11.333" Score="0" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've got this entry from 《广安方言与民俗词典》which goes as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;□&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fei3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;指呕吐。例：他中午吃醉酒了，fei3了一地。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;□ is as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E2%96%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Used as a placeholder for an unknown hanzi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a good chance though that this character &lt;em&gt;word&lt;/em&gt; does have an actual representational character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've not been able to find any MSM &lt;em&gt;fei&lt;/em&gt; readings that mean to throw up/to barf, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notes&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;fei3&lt;/em&gt; is equivalent to [fei⁵³] - so almost the same as fei4 in MSM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas on what it can be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My leaning at the moment is that &lt;em&gt;fei3&lt;/em&gt; is actually a contraction (合音) of something like &lt;em&gt;发呕&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;发哕&lt;/em&gt; - not that I have any proof for it but it seems to be the most likely at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T19:45:14.473" Title="What character can &quot;□&quot; [fei3] meaning 呕吐 be?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28918" CreationDate="2018-02-26T05:55:37.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;运动 means &quot;to exercise&quot; or &quot;to work out&quot; . It is basically a method of strengthening one's muscles through body movements, to gain power and  or improve endurance in sport.  It can also just for keeping one's body healthy and fit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;锻炼 means &quot;to train&quot; or &quot;to practice&quot; . It refers to &quot;improve skill and ability through training and practicing&quot; It can apply to any thing that require skill and physical ability. For example, you can 锻炼 your language skill, chess playing skill or  your eye sight.  运动 is one of a methods for someone to 锻炼 his physical ability. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;运动 as a verb can be used without object. e.g. &quot;you need to exercise more&quot; (你需要多运动)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;锻炼 as a verb usually be used with object. e.g. &quot;you need to train your hand eye coordination more (你需要多锻炼你的手眼协调)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-27T21:44:34.717" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T21:44:34.717" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28918" CreationDate="2018-02-26T06:02:04.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;strong&gt;Tuttle Learner's&lt;/strong&gt; does a good job explaining these two terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;运动&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[comp: 运 move + 动 move]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;do physical exercises&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你经常运动吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nǐ jīngcháng yùndòng ma?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you exercise often?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;锻炼&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[comp: 锻 shape metal + 炼 smelt]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;undergo physical training, do physical exercises&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要成为一名好运动员, 就得天天锻炼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nǐ yào chéngwéi yì míng hǎo yùndòngyuán, jiù děi tiāntiān duànliàn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to become a good athlete, you have to train every day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also a helpful note in &lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt; for 锻炼 that says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to temper, to steel, to toughen (oneself) up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;运动 = movement -or motion in general / exercise&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;锻炼 = to train / to body build&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An easy way to remember is that 运动 can also be the word for movements (political, artistic, social), for instance The African-American civil rights movement is known as the 非裔美国人民权运动.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T06:12:46.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="170" CreationDate="2018-02-26T10:24:46.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a singer and raised bilingual speaking English and Cantonese. The simple answer would be yes, native speakers would be able to hear tone differences in songs if they listen closely, but how well this can be done will very much depend on quality of the song, namely on how well integrated are the tones between every Chinese spoken lyric to its paired pitch of the melody. Chinese songs, due to the tonal nature of its spoken words, are the one significant issue–which makes them more difficult to write due to the nature of song–and must be written well in order for the lyrics not clash with the melody, thereby making what is sung harder to understand. Singing in Chinese, there is only limited inflections a singer could do to improve the clarity of lyrics in a poorly written song since singing naturally must take over most of the tonal responsibilities in producing resulted sound at the end. The one other thing which Chinese singing would perhaps differ from western singing is that Chinese singing tends to go into its diphthongs earlier when holding a note. Because most Chinese words have diphthong inflections at the end, this does improve diction but sometimes at the expense of fuller tone production, and to choose how far one takes this one way or the other will heavily depend on the technical progression of music and lyrics in each phrase sung at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19182" LastEditorUserId="19182" LastEditDate="2018-02-26T10:41:37.283" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T10:41:37.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="170" CreationDate="2018-02-26T10:36:09.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. In fact, there are a lot of jokes about misunderstanding of lyrics, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iqiyi.com/w_19rrbd82th.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18844" LastEditorUserId="18844" LastEditDate="2019-09-24T04:46:31.423" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T04:46:31.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28925" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28929" CreationDate="2018-02-26T11:37:33.353" Score="4" ViewCount="275" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example:  someone who is '二十来岁'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Someone in his twenties (20-29)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Someone in his early twenties (20-23 or 25)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Someone who is about twenty years old (might be 19, 20, 21 etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(sorry for not putting any research, can't find any)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T04:41:23.577" Title="What does '来' means when it is used to describe age?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28926" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-26T13:12:33.170" Score="1" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;For those familiar, I am curious to what extant holy Jewish texts have been translated into Chinese. Of course, the Bible is translated but that understand by on its own. Now, obviously, the extant of the Jewish diaspora has not really extended into Chinese speaking countries or areas. (Except for that small window ever there:) I’d be curious if there was, for example, a translation of the Talmud ever attempted. I don’t know who the people who have to be with such a particlar set of skills. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19184" LastEditorUserId="19184" LastEditDate="2018-09-22T20:46:11.623" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T20:55:48.027" Title="Jewish texts in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28925" CreationDate="2018-02-26T16:03:13.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;see grammars (or dictionaries):&lt;strong&gt;＂外国人实用汉语语法＂&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;概数（４）数词＂十、百、千、万＂等后边常加＂来＂表示接近前边的数词。例如：这儿有三十来把椅子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;＂实用现代汉语语法＂&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;概数的表示法&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（二）１。［来］＂来＂表示接近前面数词所表示的数目，可能略多，也可能略少，相差不能太远，只用于整数。如＂十来个＂表示八九个到十一二个，＂一百来个＂表示比一百多几个或少几个。用＂来＂表示概数时，应该注意以下几点：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）＂来＂如在量词后，它限制整个数量短语，如＂十斤来肉＂，＂来＂限制＂十斤＂，表示大约九斤八九两到十斤一二两；如果＂来＂在数量短语中间，它只限制前面的数词，如＂十来斤肉＂表示八九斤到十一二斤。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（２）＂来＂的位置。＂来＂用在名量词后，位置与名量词的种类有关。我们把名量词分为两大类：一类表示连续的量，可以再分割的，如度量衡单位＂斤＂、＂两＂、＂尺＂、＂寸＂，表示时间的＂年＂、＂月＂、＂天＂，表示组织机构的＂连＂、＂排＂、＂班＂等，这类量词所表示的单位是由更小的单位组成的。＂如＂一斤有十两＂，＂一年有十二个月＂等等。另一类是表示非连续的量，不能再分割的，用个体量词表示，如＂个＂、＂只＂、＂把＂等。＂来＂与表示连续量的量词连用时，有两种位置，可分别称为A式和B式：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A式：数词（只能是以０结尾的，如１０、１００、２００００）＋＂来＂＋量词（＋名词）。如＂五十来里（路）＂、＂三百来斤（米）＂、＂四千来尺（布）＂、＂三十来年（时间）＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B式：数词（以１、２。。。９结尾的及１０）＋量词＋＂来＂＋名词。如＂五里来路＂、＇六斤来肉＂、＂十尺来布＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A式中量词后的名词有时可省略去不说。B式中的数词以１- １０为多，１０以上的有时也可以，如＂二十五里来路，一会儿就到了＂，但比较少用。数词为１０时，＂来＂有两种位置：＂十来斤米＂、＂十斤来米＂。但如前所述，所表达的意思不同。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂来＂与表示非连续量的量词连用时，只能位于数词后，数词只限于以＂０＂结尾的，即A式：数词（以０结尾）＋＂来＂＋量词（＋名词）。如＂十来个（人）＂、＂三十来本（书）＂、＂三千来棵（树）＂，名词可以省略不说。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（３）当数字超过＂十万＂时，一般不在＂万＂、＂亿＂后边用＂来＂，如一般不说＂一百三十万来人＂、＂十二亿来人口＂，但可以在＂万＂、＂亿＂前用＂来＂，如＂一百三十来万人＂、＂十来亿美元＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（４）多用于口语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;＂汉语８００虚词用法词典＂&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来（助）（aux) used after round numbers such as 十，百 and 千 to indicate approximation &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.用在＂十、百、千＂等数词后面表示概数。（１）看样子，我们老师已经五十来岁了。（２）现在每个班都是二十来人。（３）你顶多就就一百来斤重，胖什么呀，一点儿都不胖。（４）今年我们学院有两千名留学生。（５）绕操场跑一圈也就四百来米。（６）他来中国已经十来年了，难怪他汉语说得那么好。２。用在个位数后，表示概书。＂来＂要放在量词后。used after a numeral under 10 to indicate approximation;来 should occur after the measure word （１)校园里这个湖也就五米来深。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（２）这条河大概有八米来宽。（３）游泳池最深的地方也就两米来深。（４）这个阳台三米来长。（５）你要有两米来高的话，篮球队可能就来找你了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;according to &quot;实用现代汉语语法&quot; the answer is 3 (or maybe 18--22)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2018-02-26T19:57:08.703" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T19:57:08.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28925" CreationDate="2018-02-26T21:08:46.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost identical to the English &quot;twenty-something&quot;&#xA;Definitely more than 20, would be slightly odd to use for someone in the upper end of that decade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18891" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T21:08:46.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28925" CreationDate="2018-02-26T21:52:26.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Base on the two different answers from user6065 and steveLangsford, my conclusion is, &quot;the dictionary definition of 来 really should be a '概数' (approximate number) synonym to '上下' or '左右'. Which mean 二十來岁 = 二十岁左右 (approximately twenty)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in practice, most people see 来 as a synonym of 几 and eventually became accepted fact that &quot;二十来岁&quot; means &quot;二十几岁 (twenty something)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T21:52:26.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28931" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-27T01:16:17.077" Score="2" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to upload a video of me learning a dance but I make several mistakes so I want to say something like 'I need more practice' or 'more practice needed'. is  我还需要多加练习 a natural way of saying this or would I need change it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19186" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T01:29:30.267" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T16:29:03.587" Title="Is '我还需要多加练习' okay as a dance video caption?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28926" CreationDate="2018-02-27T03:39:14.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is. For example, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://book.douban.com/subject/2999785/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;. Although, according the comments, it seems it's only a small part of the Talmud.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18844" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T03:39:14.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28925" CreationDate="2018-02-27T04:41:23.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My take to 来 in this context is that it's equivalent to &lt;strong&gt;or so&lt;/strong&gt; in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 二十来岁 is the colloquial phrasing, meaning &lt;em&gt;twenty years old or so&lt;/em&gt;. The phrase is typically used when we try to estimate one's age by his looking and we believe his age is around twenty(but usually listeners might think his age would be a bit above twenty). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T04:41:23.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28935" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28937" CreationDate="2018-02-27T07:45:03.707" Score="1" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of dialectical words are actually just taboo renditions of common words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;旺子 [&lt;em&gt;wang zi&lt;/em&gt;] in Sichuanese comes from taboo on saying the ominous, inauspicious word blood &lt;strong&gt;血&lt;/strong&gt; and probably morphed from the actual character 衁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously blood &lt;strong&gt;血&lt;/strong&gt; could have been used and could have been said but out of taboo a new &amp;quot;word&amp;quot; was created.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found one in &lt;strong&gt;汉语大词典&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倒头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谓人死。旧俗忌讳“死”字，讳称死为“倒头”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would imagine that 死 isn't as taboo as it used to be though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What common MSM words now are the result of taboo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T11:18:19.897" Title="What common words in MSM actually come from taboo?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28935" CreationDate="2018-02-27T10:42:43.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the more common one in Cantonese is substitute 空 with 吉. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'空' sounded like '凶', to avoid saying 空屋 (凶屋) , people would call an available house '吉屋' instead. As in &quot;吉屋招租&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吉 is also used as a verb for 'leave blank' . For example: &quot;唔識嘅題目就吉咗佢&quot; instead of &quot;唔識嘅題目就空咗佢&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%81%BF%E8%AE%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%81%BF%E8%AE%B3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;改字法：遇到要避諱的字時使用其他別字代替。例如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 避漢高祖劉邦諱，“&lt;strong&gt;相邦&lt;/strong&gt;”改“&lt;strong&gt;相國&lt;/strong&gt;” (I only knew, in ancient time,  there's an government official title 相國 . Never heard of 相邦)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6 避漢昭帝劉弗陵諱，否定詞“&lt;strong&gt;弗&lt;/strong&gt;”改“&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;” (不 replaced 弗. Now, no one use 弗 anymore )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;20 孔子之名丘曾經是金朝的聖人諱，所以有些&lt;strong&gt;丘&lt;/strong&gt;姓人士改为&lt;strong&gt;邱&lt;/strong&gt;姓。( All because of 孔子's first name was 丘, now we have the 邱 family name co-exist with the 丘 family name )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;21 避明太祖朱元璋諱，「元年」改為「始年」、「原年」，「&lt;strong&gt;元來&lt;/strong&gt;」改為「&lt;strong&gt;原來&lt;/strong&gt;」。(I didn't even know the term 元來 existed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-27T11:18:19.897" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T11:18:19.897" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28938" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28939" CreationDate="2018-02-27T14:13:50.370" Score="1" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;计算机历史博物馆从1987年起每年颁发会员奖，授予&lt;strong&gt;其&lt;/strong&gt;创意改变世界和影响今天所有人类的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning would be something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The computer history museum issues the prize from 1987, giving it to people who changed the world and made an influence on all the people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand what 其 here refers to. According to a dictionary, it means &quot;that&quot; or &quot;it&quot; or &quot;theirs&quot; or any such demonstrative pronouns, but in this case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;其 here refers to 会员奖 and 创意 is a verb, making the sentence 授予(V)会员奖(O)人(O)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;创意 is a noun, and 其 modifies 创意, making the sentence 授予(V)其创意(O)人(O)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or anything others that I missed&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is the correct decomposition of grammar in this sentence? And generally how should 其 be used in these cases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T22:24:21.913" Title="What does 其 mean in 授予其创意改变世界和影响今天所有人类的人?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28938" CreationDate="2018-02-27T14:37:40.893" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/5176.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;其&lt;/a&gt; means 他/她的 (his/her), it modifies 创意, so 其创意 means &quot;his/her 创意&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure of the whole sentence is V+O, i.e. 授予(verb) + 人(object). &quot;其创意改变世界和影响今天所有人类的&quot; is a long modifier which modifies &quot;人&quot;. The museum award the prize to &quot;people&quot;, what kind of people they are? The people &quot;whose 创意改变世界和影响今天所有人类&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-02-27T15:00:52.703" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T15:00:52.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28941" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28945" CreationDate="2018-02-27T19:43:03.387" Score="1" ViewCount="622" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Background&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So my friend, who’s Chinese, cried a few weeks ago.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, a boy(let’s call him Bobby) in our class said a ‘bad word that will curse a family and their generation forever’. I asked what it was but all she said was...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do you want me to curse your family? &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;sniff&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then broke down in tears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I was her, I would have just ignored it and laughed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Question&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the word/phrase that Bobby used? Is it really bad? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19192" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T22:22:47.490" Title="Bad word that will curse a family" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28918" CreationDate="2018-02-27T22:08:46.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;运动, as a noun, usually refers to a certain sport activity, like 乒乓球是一项流行的运动 (Table tennis is a popular sport.), as a verb, it means doing sports, like 我下午去运动 (I'm going to do sports this afternoon.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;锻炼 can also be used as a noun or verb. It usually refers to a certain activity or the action that can improve your ability, no matter it's regarded as a sport or not, like 学生们在体育课上得到锻炼 (The students take exercises on physical education classes.), where the students may simply do something asked by their teacher like stretching their arms, or, 你应该多锻炼你的平衡感 (You should improve your sense of balance.), where the objective to optimize is not a sport at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Training&lt;/em&gt; would be 训练 in Chinese, which is (at least to me) a series of systematically arranged activities aiming at strengthening or improving an ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, I think saying both 我去锻炼 or 我去运动 are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T22:08:46.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28941" CreationDate="2018-02-27T22:22:47.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it was Cantonese, it would obviously be 冚家剷 (entire family die)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it was Mandarin,  the only common phrases that curse someone's entire family I can think of are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;絕子絕孫 (no male descendants, the family line ends) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;男盜女娼 (one's male descendants will be thieves and female descendants will be prostitutes)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or it can be any cursing phrase with '你全家' before it. For example &quot;你全家不得好死&quot; (all of your family members will die a horrible death) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T22:22:47.490" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28938" CreationDate="2018-02-27T22:24:21.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;So it seems that you've understood the first half so I'll only explain the second half.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;授予  [(其创意 改变世界 和 影响今天所有人类)  的人]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The part in square brackets tells you who gets the prize, basically it's 人 (some people)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The part in parentheses, acting as an attribute clause, modifies 人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subject of the attribute clause is 其创意 (their innovation/creativity), so 其 here refers to the same people as the one who gets the prize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's sort of like the use of the word &lt;em&gt;dont&lt;/em&gt; in French. (... dont la créativité ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T22:24:21.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28947" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28965" CreationDate="2018-02-28T00:20:15.997" Score="1" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is as the title. To make my question clear, the 楼 in the context is not referring to the floors of a building, such as 我住6楼。It is referring to those such as 岳阳楼, 黄鹤楼. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After searching online, I think 塔 is a kind of 楼 when it is built inside a Buddhist temple. But I don't know whether my understanding is correct or not.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T06:38:26.340" Title="What is the difference between 楼 and 塔？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28947" CreationDate="2018-02-28T02:10:52.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think we can call any kind of sharp triangle building as 塔, no matter it embraces any floors within. Like 灯塔, 艾弗尔铁塔, they don't have any floors within. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 塔 has floors within, we can call them 楼塔. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another point might be that when the building is more flat(not very high, stiff) just like 岳阳楼, 黄鹤楼, we tend to call them 楼. If it's high and thin, we tend to call them 塔, 塔楼 or 楼塔. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-02-28T02:10:52.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28949" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28950" CreationDate="2018-02-28T03:28:30.087" Score="2" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;我对养宠物没有兴趣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;养宠物没有意思.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When to use one over the other? Don't they mean the same thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兴趣 definition is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Interest (directed towards, not inherent in something).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does that even mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18228" LastEditorUserId="18228" LastEditDate="2018-02-28T03:35:28.753" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T12:24:40.623" Title="Difference between 兴趣 vs 意思?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28949" CreationDate="2018-02-28T04:20:48.923" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;没有兴趣 means &quot;has no interest&quot;  or &quot;not interested&quot; (not something you like to do or care about)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;没有意思 means &quot;meaningless&quot;, if something is meaningless to you, it is a given that you are not interested in it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The implied meaning in the sentence &quot;养宠物没有意思&quot; is  &quot;对我來説, 养宠物没有什么意思.&quot; (To me, keeping pet is meaningless)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at it the other way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这玩意很&lt;strong&gt;有趣&lt;/strong&gt; This stuff is very &lt;strong&gt;interesting&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我对这玩意&lt;strong&gt;很有兴趣&lt;/strong&gt; I am &lt;strong&gt;very interested&lt;/strong&gt; in this stuff&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这玩意&lt;strong&gt;很有意思&lt;/strong&gt; This stuff is &lt;strong&gt;very meaningful&lt;/strong&gt; (therefore, your are &lt;strong&gt;interested&lt;/strong&gt; in it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When to use one over the other?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you say &quot;没有兴趣&quot; (I am not interested), you are expressing your personal preference about a topic, e.g. 'you may not like fishing, but you are not saying fishing is boring' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you say &quot;没有意思&quot; (meaningless to me), you are giving your low opinion on the topic, e.g. 'you really think fishing is waste of time'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-03-01T12:24:40.623" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T12:24:40.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28951" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28960" CreationDate="2018-02-28T05:39:24.127" Score="2" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Rossum创造的Python语言自1991年发布以来已演变为程序员强大&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;灵活&lt;strong&gt;且&lt;/strong&gt;易于学习的“瑞士军刀”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://eng.ichacha.net/%E8%80%8C%E4%B8%94.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The meaning of 而且&lt;/a&gt; is generally &quot;but also&quot;, and used as the compound. But in this case, they are separated and used in the form of A而B且C.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, does it mean &quot;A and B and C&quot;, and thus the sentence mean the following?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Python language, which was created by Rossum in 1991, since evolved for developers into &quot;Swiss knife&quot; that is powerful, flexible, and easy to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least it seems that 且 can mean &quot;both A and B&quot; with 既, in the form of 既A且B. But in this case it is in the form of A而B且C.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or does the A而B且C mean something others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-03-07T17:51:41.820" Title="Does A而B且C mean &quot;A and B and C&quot;?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28951" CreationDate="2018-02-28T07:34:58.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;A而B且C&quot; means A and B and C. We use &quot;A而B且C&quot; instead of &quot;A且B且C&quot; simply due to the reason that we do not want to use the same word twice in the phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;既&quot;,&quot;且&quot;，“而” can all mean &quot;and&quot;, while sometimes, the word &quot;而&quot; can means &quot;but&quot; (when &quot;而&quot; is used alone to link two sentences). One thing for sure is that in the form of &quot;既A且B&quot; and &quot;A而B且C&quot;, they all mean &quot;and&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19195" LastActivityDate="2018-02-28T07:34:58.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28953" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-28T07:39:09.410" Score="1" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am referring to the figure below, obtained from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_surname#Origin_of_Chinese_surnames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SpWUh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SpWUh.png&quot; alt=&quot;list of surnames&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am aware that about 40% of all Chinese can be characterised into 10 or so surnames. However, breaking it down, there are particular surnames that are common in certain provinces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if anyone knows the history behind this geographic distribution?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that certain surnames, such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;陳&lt;/a&gt; were named after their vassal states of China (pre warring state). But obviously, the geography has changed significantly since then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other reasons for the high concentration below?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T12:53:07.880" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T12:53:07.880" Title="Why are certain Chinese surnames common in certain provinces?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;surnames&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28953" CreationDate="2018-02-28T11:17:54.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When the Chinese children grow up, usually they don't leave their hometown. And there is an old saying &quot;父母在，不远游&quot;. It's just our culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18844" LastActivityDate="2018-02-28T11:17:54.873" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28949" CreationDate="2018-02-28T14:50:08.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a complement to Tang Ho's answer, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我对养宠物没有兴趣. (I'm &lt;strong&gt;not interested in&lt;/strong&gt; keeping a pet.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;养宠物没有意思. (Keeping a pet is &lt;strong&gt;not interesting&lt;/strong&gt;. Or, Keeping a pet is &lt;strong&gt;not attractive&lt;/strong&gt; to me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2018-02-28T14:50:08.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28956" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28958" CreationDate="2018-02-28T19:58:08.653" Score="2" ViewCount="1197" Body="&lt;p&gt;Difference between 家(home) and 家里(home) bcs both also means the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another question is, difference between 家人 and 家里人 bcs both means family members.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it 100% means the same? I have search everywhere but still couldn't find the difference. Would be really grateful if you guys can help me out. Thanks!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19199" LastEditorUserId="19199" LastEditDate="2018-02-28T22:15:29.447" LastActivityDate="2021-02-13T10:04:17.947" Title="Difference between 家 and 家里? Also 家人 and 家里人?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28931" CreationDate="2018-02-28T20:35:20.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我还需要多练习 (I still need to practice more) already expressed what you wanted to say, but the statement seem plain, and in a matter of fact tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还需要多&lt;strong&gt;加&lt;/strong&gt;练习 (I still need to &lt;strong&gt;increase&lt;/strong&gt; practice &lt;strong&gt;more&lt;/strong&gt;) .  emphasize the keenness in your intention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'加' in '我需要多加' (+ verb without object), just like your caption, is short for '增加' (increase) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there was an object, then '加' would be short for '施加'  or '加以' (apply to), for example,  对你的孩子&lt;strong&gt;多加&lt;/strong&gt;管教 (&lt;strong&gt;apply more&lt;/strong&gt; discipline to your child) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;is 我还需要多加练习 a natural way of saying this or would I need change it?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very natural, nothing wrong at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-28T20:40:55.593" LastActivityDate="2018-02-28T20:40:55.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28956" CreationDate="2018-02-28T20:35:40.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;家 means the family or the place the family lives, so we say 回家 (going home), 我家 (my home).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, as a native speaker, 家里 seems nearly the same as 家里人. Like I would say 我得跟家里说一声这事 (I have to tell my family about this), or 我家里都知道了 (My family has known), or 我家里人很支持我 (My family is very supportive to me). You see here 家里 and 家里人 both mean the people in a family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to mention that I am not 100% sure about the nuance between 家里 and 家里人, with respect to the meaning &quot;a group of family members&quot;. Of course when meaning something else, you should be able to distinguish them, like you should say 在家里 (at home) rather than 在家里人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2018-02-28T20:35:40.773" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28956" CreationDate="2018-02-28T23:37:53.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;家 = home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家人 = family; family members (See  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/24161/different-terms-for-family-and-family-member&quot;&gt;Different terms for &amp;#39;family&amp;#39; and &amp;#39;family member&amp;#39;&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家里 = 1. in my home (example: &quot;他家里没有养宠物&quot; =&quot;there's no pet in his house&quot;) 2. in the family (example: &quot;我家里有父母和两个姐妹&quot; = &quot;In my home, I have parents and two sisters&quot;  or  &quot; I have parents and two sisters in my family )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家里人 = people in my home = &lt;strong&gt;family&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;family members&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-02-28T23:43:10.107" LastActivityDate="2018-02-28T23:43:10.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28951" CreationDate="2018-03-01T00:43:14.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your example I'd prefer to dismantle 强大而灵活且易于学习 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;强大而灵活 且 易于学习&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes this means 强大 AND 灵活 AND 易于学习, but I think you shouldn't regard 而..且.. as a fixed collocation like 既..且.., because the 而 in this sentence is used as a usual way to connect two adjectives/adverbs. For example you can say 新鲜而美味的水果 (fresh and delicious fruits).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T00:43:14.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28961" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28967" CreationDate="2018-03-01T04:04:56.670" Score="2" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;可以说“发达的教育”或者“先进的教育吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比如：......的教育是民族兴旺的标记。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What word would be appropriate to use in the above sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T14:30:50.867" Title="Is it ok to say “发达的教育”或者“先进的教育”？" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28961" CreationDate="2018-03-01T04:47:26.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think each of them will be ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19200" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T04:47:26.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28961" CreationDate="2018-03-01T05:31:45.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What word would be appropriate to use in the above sentence?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depend on you want to say 'developed' or 'advanced'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;发达 = developed (having a strong and extensive system)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;先进 = advanced ( having the latest technology, at the leading edge of the field)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;发达的教育(系统)” = developed education system&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“先进的教育(系统)&amp;quot; = advanced education system&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this will illustrate the difference better:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;发达的&lt;/strong&gt;肌肉 = &lt;strong&gt;developed&lt;/strong&gt; muscles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;先进的&lt;/strong&gt;科技 = &lt;strong&gt;advanced&lt;/strong&gt; technology&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T05:31:45.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28961" CreationDate="2018-03-01T06:20:29.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to me, both “发达的教育” and “先进的教育” can be used. I mean, if you use either of these two in an informal situation, we can totally understand. However, the latter one would be more appropriate. The adj &quot;发达的&quot; is usually used to describe muscle, economy, and brain (intelligence), while the adj &quot;先进的&quot; is a better match for education or technology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19195" LastEditorUserId="19157" LastEditDate="2018-03-01T14:30:50.867" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T14:30:50.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28947" CreationDate="2018-03-01T06:38:26.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many Chinese people's minds, 塔 are buildings with triangle shape, and 楼 are more flat, which is usually true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While, if you are into the formal differences in terms of architecture. The difference between 塔 and 楼 is that 塔 has Sōrin (which is the vertical shaft which tops a Japanese pagoda, whether made of stone or wood) while 楼 does not. Certain 楼 may have a triangle shape but does not have Sōrin is called 楼, such as 黄鹤楼. And any architecture with Sōrin is called 塔，even it has only one floor, such as 山东历城神通寺四门塔。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that this definition may only suit traditional Chinese architectures, and may not necessary fit our naming for modern architecture such as (Eiffel Tower). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19195" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T06:38:26.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26053" CreationDate="2018-03-01T06:57:26.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I happen to be a computer science guy and Chinese, so I think I may answer your question. Yes, your doubt is correct. These suppose to be an adjective for &quot;binary&quot;. Using &quot;交叉熵&quot; as the translation for &quot;binary cross-entropy&quot; is not precise. &quot;交叉熵&quot; should be the translation for &quot;cross-entropy&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did some quick search, and it seems that there's no formal Chinese translation for the term &quot;binary cross-entropy&quot;, may be because the term &quot;binary cross-entropy&quot; is not used as frequently as &quot;cross-entropy&quot;. Also, I did not see a formal translation for the term &quot;categorical cross-entropy&quot;. So, I guess you can use direct translation, such as &quot;0-1交叉熵&quot; or “二元交叉熵” for &quot;binary cross entropy&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19195" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T06:57:26.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28961" CreationDate="2018-03-01T07:15:05.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please pay attention to some related collocations in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发达的 is to describe the degree of development: &lt;strong&gt;发达的系统&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;经过几十年的不懈努力，我国已经建成了&lt;strong&gt;发达的&lt;/strong&gt;教育&lt;strong&gt;系统&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先进的 is to describe the superiority: &lt;strong&gt;先进的理念&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这所学校的教师们有着&lt;strong&gt;先进的&lt;/strong&gt;教育&lt;strong&gt;理念&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;教育 itself can only be evaluated in a general way, such as good/normal/bad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;该地区的居民接受了&lt;strong&gt;良好的（一般的/较差的）教育&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence you made can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;发达的教育系统(的建立)是民族振兴的标志。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;民族兴旺 is unconventional, and it should be 民族振兴, as we always say 振兴(中华)民族&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;XXX 是 XXX 的&lt;strong&gt;标志&lt;/strong&gt;, rather than 标记. This is also by convention.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19157" LastEditorUserId="19157" LastEditDate="2018-03-01T07:28:57.943" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T07:28:57.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28931" CreationDate="2018-03-01T07:33:33.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's perfect. No more improvements are needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19157" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T07:33:33.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28951" CreationDate="2018-03-01T08:48:14.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some common ways of connecting &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; modifiers are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A而B = 即A又B = 又A又B = 不仅A而且B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Chinese language loves the number &lt;strong&gt;three&lt;/strong&gt;, so if you want to supplement a 3rd modifier, here are what you can do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A而B且C = 即A又B又C = 又A又B又C = 不仅A而且B还很C&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, if you want to describe something with more than 3 modifiers, the common way in Chinese is, first we make sure there are even numbers of adjectives/adverbs, and then group them by 2, and then follow a pattern of either 对偶(&lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; groups) or 排比(&lt;strong&gt;three&lt;/strong&gt; groups or more).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Python语言强大而灵活，简洁而直白，通俗而易懂，是一门值得初学者好好学习的编程语言。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19157" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T08:48:14.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28602" CreationDate="2018-03-01T15:11:14.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve always thought the formal way to indicate the colour brown was with “棕色”, which I had picked up through text. In everyday speech while growing up, my family had always used “咖啡色”. In Cantonese, we would say “啡色”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T15:11:14.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28971" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-01T15:28:44.850" Score="2" ViewCount="1370" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just learn Mandarin from songs whenever I find the time. I have recently discovered this JC's song called Shuo San Jiu San. In the last sentence of the last paragraph of the song, which goes&quot;因為成長 我們忽爾間說散就散&quot;, I understand most of the characters' meanings except 忽爾間. Google translate says &quot;time flies&quot; but I don't think that's the case. My personal translation of that line would be &quot; because we have all grown up, let's break up if you say break up&quot;. I have no idea where that 忽爾間 would interact with other characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lyrics link - &lt;a href=&quot;https://musicacrossasia.blogspot.com/2017/10/jc-shuo-san-jiu-san-lyrics-with-pinyin.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://musicacrossasia.blogspot.com/2017/10/jc-shuo-san-jiu-san-lyrics-with-pinyin.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19201" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-02T07:00:33.407" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T16:54:21.643" Title="What is the meaning of 忽爾間 in the song &quot;說散就散&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28536" CreationDate="2018-03-01T15:30:54.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, people try to soften a negative assessment, or if you’re shy, downplay the intensity of your response. &#xA;“The dish was too salty!” vs “The dish was a bit salty.”&#xA;“It’s too noisy, let’s get out of here!” vs “It’s a bit noisy in here, shall we go elsewhere?”&#xA;As you can see, no matter the language spoken, it’s not what you say but how you say it that matters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“有一點” serves this purpose in colloquial Chinese. I can’t imagine this phrase would be used in a professional or formal Chinese setting. It’s meant to downplay the intensity of your response. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, it’s not necessarily the case that this phrase is used to denote a negative connotation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“還不錯” 、”還可以” are other phrases used to downplay intensity of response. These are used to denote “is ok”. &#xA;Example: 這本書還不錯，那本書很有意思！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand you were looking to highlight usage of “有一點”, but for your other example regarding desserts, I would favour something closer to:&#xA;這道點心不是很甜。&#xA;The tone is more assertive, appropriate for when you don’t care about offending the chef/dessert purchaser. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastEditorUserId="13086" LastEditDate="2018-03-02T01:01:46.710" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T01:01:46.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28973" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28974" CreationDate="2018-03-01T17:59:43.223" Score="3" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first, I only knew about 特朗普 for representing the US President's name, since it follows Xinhua's transliteration scheme. However, the World Journal uses 川普 exclusively, even in its articles written in simplified characters. That makes sense for World Journal, considering that 川普 sounds like a Taiwanese transcription to me, but Google gives almost as many results for 川普总统 as for 特朗普总统, making me wonder: which is more immediately recognizable to Chinese speakers? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would using one or the other sound particularly regional, or politically biased?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12868" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-02T06:59:34.020" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T06:59:34.020" Title="Which is more common: 川普 or 特朗普?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28973" CreationDate="2018-03-01T20:20:41.183" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Haha, funny question. &quot;特朗普&quot; is the official transliteration, used most commonly in official media of China, such as CCTV（新闻联播）and People's Daily(人民日报), while &quot;川普&quot; is more often used in social media or among people's casual talking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;川普&quot; is transliterated based on the pronunciation of &quot;Trump&quot;, which is reasonable. However, &quot;特朗普&quot; has been used as the transliteration for &quot;Trump&quot; for a long time. According to 《英语姓名翻译手册》（新华通讯社译名室，商务印书馆，2004年）, which is an authentic book for transliterating English name, Donald Trump should be transliterated as 唐纳德。特朗普. In mainland China, the official medias usually follow that rule, so they usually use &quot;特朗普&quot;. Other media, such as VOA or Taiwanese media does not necessarily follow this rule. So, the use of &quot;川普&quot; is also correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19195" LastEditorUserId="19195" LastEditDate="2018-03-02T03:09:30.283" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T03:09:30.283" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5841" CreationDate="2018-03-01T20:59:26.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Android you could try the &quot;Pinyin Web Browser&quot; app in the Play Store (free and no ads), or &quot;Cantonese Web Browser&quot; for Sidney Lau / Yale.  Both apps print their romanisation with word-groupings, formatted as large as the characters, and cope with on-page changes made by Javascript etc (the two apps also share their bookmarks with each other).  &lt;em&gt;But&lt;/em&gt; because every line of text ends up being twice as high as the webmaster intended, sites &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; break if they use too much &quot;pixel-perfect&quot; vertical positioning (which was not part of Tim Berners-Lee's original plan for the web, but too many webmasters do it anyway).  The app does contain a couple of kludges for the layout code of sites listed on its start page, but one dev can't fix the entire web so YMMV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The underlying annotators were trained using a variant of the Yarowsky algorithm and therefore take context into account for things like 差 (chāi or chà) and 为 (wèi or wéi) although it still makes some mistakes.  Training data included proprietary documents, so, although the apps are free, the data cannot be fully open-source, and annoyingly CC-CEDICT could not be used because its CC license conflicted with this situation.  But there are some limited English definitions available, or the apps will link to Pleco or Hanping if you have either installed (tap on any word to access the popup definitions and Pleco/Hanping button, unless that word is part of a web link, in which case tapping on it just opens the link as normal).  The code without the data is Apache-licensed if you want to re-train it on another corpus yourself, but the results are not likely to be as good unless you have access to a better corpus than I do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There exists code for an iOS version, but the Apple developer programme is incredibly unhelpful (1 they only accept apps compiled on a decent Mac with latest OS, not a few-years-old one, 2 they demand 100 pounds a year to subscribe to the programme, universities can be exempt but individual university members cannot, and 3 I have no idea how much extra they invoice for testing new releases).  There are however a couple of established iOS developers who have been given the back-end code, so let's hope they release browsers soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for desktop browsers, I have had some success making &quot;bookmarklets&quot; (like mini browser extensions), but these rely on sending the page to a third-party server to get the pinyin and are therefore not great for privacy unless you can also set up the annotation server on your own machine.  Also an increasing number of sites are blocking the use of bookmarklets altogether in their &quot;Content Security Policy&quot; (CSP), so if you want bookmarklets you now need a browser extension to turn off CSP as well (or a proxy that does the job, but then the proxy has to rewrite secure HTTPS into insecure HTTP; an increasing number of sites have user-side scripts that break when this happens).  There is however a Windows 10 developer who has the back-end code and is making a Win10 &quot;universal app&quot; for both desktops and mobile devices.  In all cases the problem remains of fixing up the sites that are too fussy about layout.  (You could work around this by cramming pinyin into the very small existing space between the lines, but the result would not be half as easy to read.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17164" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T20:59:26.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28971" CreationDate="2018-03-01T23:04:19.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is more common to say 忽然间 than 忽尔间，but it is a song!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忽然间他看见了我,就往回走, 伸出手来.&#xA;Suddenly he saw me, and walked towards me, holding out his hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因為成長, 我們忽爾間說散就散&#xA;Because (we had) grown, changed, we suddenly said break up then broke up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also 忽而 。。。 忽而，but that is a different kettle of fish!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T23:04:19.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28956" CreationDate="2018-03-02T04:07:47.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In colloquial context, 家 is short for 家里. For example, 我家(里)有人。我家(里)养狗了。I can't think of a case where you can only use 家里, instead of 家. However, you can't replace 家 with 家里 in some context. For example,  我想有个家。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 家人 vs 家里人， they are pretty much the same in meaning. The nuance is 家人 is treated as a common set phrase for family members, while 家里人 sounds more folksy and affable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T04:07:47.590" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28978" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-02T06:43:01.247" Score="1" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“现在大家坐上‘复兴号’，不仅更&lt;strong&gt;宽敞明亮舒服&lt;/strong&gt;、速度更快，在车上打电话的信号也更好了，这些都是能感受到的变化。” 丁荣军说，“我们正在研究怎么接入媒体，让视频也能到车上去。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relevant part means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Not only it is more spacious, lighter, and more comfortable, and faster, but the signal of the phone is also better. All of them are the changes you can sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, the adjectives are concatenated with a conjunction, such as 和 or 并. But in this case the adjectives are not concatenated with any conjunction, and it is in the form of &quot;ABC&quot;, not &quot;A、B和C&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does it use no conjunction, and how can I know in which situations it is required to use a conjunction to concatenate adjectives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, does the meaning get different if I add 和 in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T18:02:19.633" Title="The connection of multiple adjectives" Tags="&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28973" CreationDate="2018-03-02T06:58:08.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, when I googled by 川普, I got the search results showing the Baidu Baike uses &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%94%90%E7%BA%B3%E5%BE%B7%C2%B7%E7%89%B9%E6%9C%97%E6%99%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;唐纳德·特朗普&lt;/a&gt;, and the Wikipedia redirects the page to &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%94%90%E7%B4%8D%C2%B7%E5%B7%9D%E6%99%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;唐纳德·特朗普&lt;/a&gt;, even though the search result page shows 川普. The same Wikipedia page writes the following on the top of the page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“川普”和“特朗普”均重定向至此。关于简称为川普的普通话变体，详见“四川普通话”。关于其他用法，详见“川普 (消歧义)”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the search result of the 川普 includes many pages written in Traditional characters (even though my macOS and Google account are set to &lt;em&gt;Simplified Chinese&lt;/em&gt;, FYI).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T06:58:08.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28978" CreationDate="2018-03-02T07:30:16.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You do not always need 和 between adjectives.&#xA;You could use 宽敞明亮、舒服.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;宽敞明亮 usually works together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;现在大家坐上‘复兴号’，&#xA;Now (for) everyone sitting on the 'D train'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不仅更宽敞明亮舒服、速度更快，&#xA;it is not only bigger, brighter, more comfortable, faster,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在车上打电话的信号也更好了，&#xA;the phone signal in the train is also better,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些都是能感受到的变化。”&#xA;these are all perceptible changes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丁荣军说，&#xA;Ding Rong Jun said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我们正在研究怎么接入媒体，让视频也能到车上去。&#xA;We are researching how integrate media&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让视频也能到车上去。&#xA;(and) also make video work on (the train).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T07:30:16.553" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28978" CreationDate="2018-03-02T12:37:53.517" Score="-1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... 不仅更宽敞明亮舒服、速度更快，...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I take this as a punctuation issue. I would punctuate it like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... 不仅更宽敞 &lt;strong&gt;、&lt;/strong&gt; 明亮 &lt;strong&gt;、&lt;/strong&gt; 舒服 &lt;strong&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; 速度更快，...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better add the conjunction 而且 between the two clauses, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... 不仅更宽敞、（更）明亮、（更）舒服, &lt;strong&gt;而且&lt;/strong&gt;速度更快，...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T12:37:53.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28982" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29102" CreationDate="2018-03-02T13:54:08.673" Score="7" ViewCount="504" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always had an inkling that the Cultural Revolution drastically changed the Chinese language (think: TW 国语 vs. mainland 普通话). [Some even claim TW doesn't even have the concept of &lt;code&gt;书面语 pk 口语&lt;/code&gt;, it's not hard to buy into either].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then today I came across these two entries in《四川方言词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盖盖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gai4 gai4-1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(名) ①盖子。②(～儿) 小盖子。③(～儿) &amp;lt;粗&amp;gt;指男朋友。(文革期间产生的新义，与*盒盒儿相对。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;钢鞭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gang1 bian1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(名) 比喻能置对方于死地的证据(文革期间产生的新义) ▷老人把刀交给公安人员说 ▷“这是我那逆子犯罪的～!”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both specifically mention: &lt;strong&gt;文革期间产生的新义&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously there were changed to the Chinese language, including topolects, during the Cultural Revolution but to what extent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A second thought: if intellectuals were attacked wouldn't that lead to a automatic dumbing-down of language, to avoid being attacked?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T23:20:57.567" Title="How much did the Cultural Revolution change the Chinese language on the mainland?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28971" CreationDate="2018-03-02T16:54:21.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to my comments from yesterday, here in a proper post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked at a couple of sources online, to confirm a few things. Funnily enough, when I Google searched &amp;quot;忽爾間&amp;quot;, Google gave me the translation as well as links related to the song &amp;quot;說散就散&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.ichacha.net/hy/%E5%BF%BD%E7%88%BE.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tw.ichacha.net/hy/%E5%BF%BD%E7%88%BE.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chengyu.game2.tw/archives/188440#.Wpl6RWrwaM8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chengyu.game2.tw/archives/188440#.Wpl6RWrwaM8&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;^ to confirm the meaning of 忽爾. Looks to be a rather archaic way to say &amp;quot;all of a sudden&amp;quot;. It means 忽然、突然, and both of these are the more common terms used today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like &lt;a href=&quot;http://lj.hkej.com/lj2017/artculture/article/id/1346485/%E6%B7%BA%E7%99%BD%E8%AA%AA%E8%A9%B1%E5%90%AB%E7%BE%A9%E8%B1%90%E5%AF%8C%EF%BC%88%E6%96%B0%E9%80%B2%E5%A5%B3%E6%AD%8C%E6%89%8BJC%E3%80%8A%E8%AA%AA%E6%95%A3%E5%B0%B1%E6%95%A3%E3%80%8B%EF%BC%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link here&lt;/a&gt; as it does a great job of dissecting the meaning of the song lyrics, imo. Here, the author explains well the song lyrics are well-written, and how the build up of the lyrics accumulated to its last line:&#xA;&amp;quot;因為成長 我們忽爾間說散就散&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;In context, the translation to &amp;quot;我們忽爾間說散就散&amp;quot; would be: We broke up out of the blue.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Throughout the song, the singer is the voice of a woman trying to make sense of a relationship that ended abruptly by the other party.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The beginning of the song sounds like the goodbye hug one may receive if the relationship is ended in person. She's thinking back to what could have gone wrong, she had put so much into the relationship and lost sight of her identity, but even so, was it one-sided all along? Was it still not enough?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;We see her replaying the events and really, feeling hurt that she was dumped even though she did nothing wrong, as evidenced by how the following two lines are repeated:&#xA;說不上愛別說謊 就一點喜歡&#xA;說不上恨別糾纏 別裝作感嘆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following lines belong together. It's how the woman is choosing to move forward with her life; she accepts what has happened, no one did anything wrong, it's just they've grown apart, and so the relationship has ended out of the blue.&#xA;將一切都體諒 將一切都原諒&#xA;我嘗試找答案 而答案很簡單&#xA;簡單得很遺憾 因為成長&#xA;我們逼不得已要習慣&#xA;因為成長 我們忽爾間說散就散&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My interpretation of course, after listening to the song on repeat as I write this post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T16:54:21.643" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28978" CreationDate="2018-03-02T18:02:19.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe it's not the case here, but I'd like to mention that Chinese is a language that emphasizes cadence, at least to me. Sometimes putting together adjectives only serves for keeping the sentence more readable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example changing the adjectives to A、B 和 C does not affect the meaning of the sentence. But if I was the person who wrote that sentence I would probably not put three two-character words together as it tends to become too long unless the phrase following it has a comparative length, like 宽敞明亮舒服，干净卫生整洁. Or I'd say 宽敞明亮舒服，运行速度更快 to match the cadence here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker rather than a linguist I don't think it's a issue about grammatical correctness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T18:02:19.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28985" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28988" CreationDate="2018-03-02T18:48:23.567" Score="0" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你不敢吃我 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the meaning of this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it something like don't fool me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19045" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-06T13:23:09.897" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T13:23:09.897" Title="你不敢吃我 What's the meaning of this?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28986" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30050" CreationDate="2018-03-02T23:54:25.520" Score="1" ViewCount="450" Body="&lt;p&gt;These brass stamps were found by a relative in China ~1917.&#xA;I'm wondering what the inscriptions mean.&#xA;The smaller one in the likeness of an elephant is worn and discolored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vuTWt.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vuTWt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EjROl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EjROl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v7YLG.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v7YLG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19211" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-03T18:57:10.240" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T19:01:34.767" Title="What are these characters on old brass stamps?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28987" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28989" CreationDate="2018-03-03T02:34:24.233" Score="3" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E8%B1%8E%E7%B7%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;vertical bars&lt;/a&gt; only talks about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Math&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Physics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Computing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the book《成都方言》I'm seeing this type of &lt;em&gt;xiehouyu&lt;/em&gt; with a vertical bar in the middle of the &quot;注&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DVaJZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DVaJZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;缸钵头的泥鳅儿——耍团转│滑不了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess is that it meant either/or but then under the entry for 钵 it's written the same way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aFZlS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aFZlS.png&quot; alt=&quot;bo&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;钵 bo 钵钵，钵儿，陶盆：鸡吃一撮，狗吃一～。歇后语：“缸～头的泥鳅儿——耍团转│滑不了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No indications of different usage that I can see here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the vertical bar do here? What does it mean? Is it either/or?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-03-03T11:45:39.800" Title="Usage of &quot;│&quot; (vertical bar) in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28985" CreationDate="2018-03-03T02:42:22.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This 吃 means to take.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 1: Chess game 西洋棋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你吃我的騎士，我就吃你的王后。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  If you take (attack) my knight, I will take (attack) your queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 2: Go game 圍棋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;諒你不敢你吃我那一子，否則我就吃你整片地。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I dare you to take (capture) that stone, otherwise I will take (capture) your whole piece of stones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 3: Business competition 商業競爭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你應該不敢吃下我的公司，不然我會讓你吃官司，讓你破產。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You should not dare to take (occupy) my company, or I will sue you and make you bankrupt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 4: underworld 黑道&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;黑吃黑&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  double cross; stealing from thieves; dog eats dog&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, we can treat 我 in 你不敢吃我 as a pronoun.&#xA;It means my stuff, 我的某樣東西.&#xA;The real object of this sentence is the stuff, 某樣東西.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check your context, and you should be able to find the real object, which is not 我 (me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You dare not take my stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility is to bully, 欺壓 or 欺負.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不敢吃我。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你不敢欺負我。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I dare you to bully me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2018-03-03T02:42:22.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28987" CreationDate="2018-03-03T04:23:48.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right, it means either or.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;缸～头的泥鳅儿——耍团转&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;缸～头的泥鳅儿——滑不了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;equal to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;缸～头的泥鳅儿——耍团转│滑不了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-03-03T04:23:48.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28990" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28995" CreationDate="2018-03-03T10:19:39.747" Score="3" ViewCount="4343" Body="&lt;p&gt;呀 and 啊 both seem to be used in the end of sentences for exclamation, and the only difference that I can think of is that the pronunciation in Putonghua (Mandarin) is different. In Cantonese, even the pronunciation is the same. Do 呀 and 啊 mean the same thing and can be used interchangeably or are their meaning different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16335" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-08-09T19:48:11.393" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T19:48:11.393" Title="What is the difference between 呀 and 啊?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28990" CreationDate="2018-03-03T10:42:07.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a hard question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are interchangeable most of time in this usage without affecting meaning. I can't think of an example in which you can only use one over the other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, 呀 sounds more folksy, while 啊 sounds a bit more formal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-03-03T10:42:07.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28992" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-03T11:21:50.880" Score="1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to translate the title “修路致富” into English? I want to use it as the title of my paper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15468" LastActivityDate="2018-03-03T11:52:06.653" Title="Translate “修路致富” into English" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-03-03T12:06:10.130" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28987" CreationDate="2018-03-03T11:45:39.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no standard usage for  vertical bar │ in mandarins. So, its usage is defined by the author of the text. You can usually find the usage key from the footnote written in the early pages of a book. For example, │is used in 现代汉语词典 to separate examples. Like this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[蹉跎] ...... 岁月~ | 一再~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you can define your own usage based on your need and you might want to provide some usage note as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-03-03T11:45:39.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28992" CreationDate="2018-03-03T11:52:06.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Wealth Follows The Extension of Motorways&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; is an expression that's been attributed as a &lt;em&gt;&quot;Chinese saying&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first heard it on this video&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/HTrg9fTJvmA?t=2m30s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;China’s Super Highway: MEGAPROJECTS (Part 6)&lt;/a&gt; by The Daily Conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting at around ~2:30 the narrator says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It seems the whole country's embracing the Chinese saying &lt;em&gt;lu tong cai tong&lt;/em&gt; - Wealth Follows The Extension of Motorways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost the exact same quote can be found in &lt;a href=&quot;http://iiiprojects.blogspot.com/2015/04/national-trunk-highway-system-china.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; blogspot post:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It seems the whole country is embracing the Chinese saying, “Lutong Caiton,” wealth follows the extension of motorways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all seems to be based of the saying &lt;strong&gt;路通财通&lt;/strong&gt;. Which with the current announcements and actual extensions &amp;amp; building of highways and superhighways certainly fits your 修路致富.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't seem to be a well known &lt;em&gt;phrase&lt;/em&gt; yet in English, but the Daily Conversation has almost racked up 1.5 million views on their youtube video, so it might very well become a &quot;Chinese saying&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-03-03T11:52:06.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28990" CreationDate="2018-03-03T11:56:11.947" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;'s entry for 呀 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ya5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(replacing &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; (啊) when preceding word ends in &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;e&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;i&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;o&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;(y)u&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快来呀!&#xA;Kuài lái ya!&#xA;Come quickly!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;呀 is a replacement for 啊 when it comes after a vowel&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also corroborated by《规范》's entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;助 “啊(a)”受前一个音节末尾音素ɑ､e､o､i､ü的影响产生音变而采用的不同写法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说话(huà)呀 | 车(chē)呀 | 你说(shuō)呀 | 起来(lái)呀 | 快去(qù)呀。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-03T12:01:29.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28996" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28997" CreationDate="2018-03-03T19:43:01.713" Score="2" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of getting onto an elevated highway, I've heard a misunderstanding between two native speakers about the phrase 我上不去.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For one of the speakers, the phrase meant an impossibility:  the subject had tried and failed to get on, or at least it was clearly impossible to get on the highway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the other, the phrase just meant that the subject would not get on, but didn't imply impossibility. The reason for not going might have been because it was impossible, or it might just have been that the subject didn't want to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is the correct meaning? Is there regional variation in this respect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15071" LastActivityDate="2018-03-03T22:36:13.633" Title="Does 上不去 mean &quot;can't get on&quot; or &quot;won't get on&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28996" CreationDate="2018-03-03T22:14:47.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, the first one is correct - &quot;I can't get onto the highway&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我上不去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(subject: I)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上(verb: get) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不(potential particle: indicate 'unable') &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去(result/ direction particle: onto)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上去= get onto; 上得去=（can get onto); 上不去= (can't get onto)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;see comment from user6065 explaining &lt;strong&gt;potential complements&lt;/strong&gt; (there's only two: 得 and 不)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For the other, the phrase just meant that the subject would not get on&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this interpretation to be correct, the phrase had to be &quot;我不上去&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other context, &quot;上去&quot; could mean &quot;go up&quot; or &quot;advance&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;上(二樓)去&quot; = &quot;go up to (second floor)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;上(前面)去&quot; = &quot;advance to (the front)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;上(高速公路)去&quot; = &quot;get onto (the highway)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-03-03T22:36:13.633" LastActivityDate="2018-03-03T22:36:13.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="28998" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28999" CreationDate="2018-03-04T04:19:50.323" Score="5" ViewCount="1153" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I learned most of my Chinese through speaking, and I swear (especially in a service setting), people say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Sao Wei Deng Yi Xia&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等一下 is obvious, but I have not been able to find anything in the dictionary for this term, &amp;quot;Sao Wei&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have I been hearing people wrong all of these years? Does anybody know the two characters I'm talking about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T20:42:25.560" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T20:42:25.560" Title="Is this an actual phrase, &quot;Sao Wei Deng Yi Xia&quot; (please wait a moment)?" Tags="&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28998" CreationDate="2018-03-04T04:25:54.790" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;稍微等一下&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E7%A8%8D%E5%BE%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;稍微&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;shāo​wēi​&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a little bit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;HSK 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a more detailed entry from &lt;strong&gt;Tuttle&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;稍微&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[comp: 稍 slight + 微 tiny]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ADV&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;slightly, just a little bit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你能不能把电视机的声音开得稍微大一点? &#xA;  Nǐ néng bu néng bǎ diànshìjī de shēngyin kāi de shāowēi dà yìdiǎn?&#xA;  Could you turn the TV up a bit? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我稍微有点儿头疼, 休息一会儿就会好的。 &#xA;  Wǒ shāowēi yǒu diǎnr tóuténg, xiūxi yíhuìr jiù huì hǎo de.&#xA;  I've a slight headache. I'll be all right after a short rest. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E7%AD%89%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MoE&lt;/a&gt;'s entry for 等一下 has the following example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如：「吳醫師馬上就會來為您診斷病情，請您稍微等一下。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taiwan's Ministry of Education certainly thinks that 稍微等一下 is a common phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-03-04T07:21:09.850" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T07:21:09.850" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28998" CreationDate="2018-03-04T07:03:57.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I think it is more likely what you heard was '稍為' instead of '稍微' because 稍為 is more common due to it's more general usage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;稍為 = slightly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;稍微 = slightly (more or less by tiny margin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say 稍為 turn down the volume of the T.V, it can be from 50 down to 40 or from 50 to 49 ; if you say 稍微 turn down the volume of the T.V, it can only mean down by one or two degree (almost negligible degree).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Telling someone to 稍為等一下 could mean a few seconds or half an hour&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Telling someone to 稍微等一下  imply the wait is extremely brief, like few seconds or a minute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;稍為等一下 can be reduced to 稍等一下. But if you reduce 稍微等一下 to 稍等一下, you lost the 'extremely brief' meaning.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-03-04T07:19:37.360" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T07:19:37.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28573" CreationDate="2018-03-04T08:30:15.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first statement “我想陽光燦爛著”maybe means that I am warm-hearted or I have been devoted to the school,the society or the country,so the people around you regard you as pride.you are just like the sun shining around them. It emphasizes the inner good quality of a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second statement seems quite strange. Few Chinese say in this way. The sentence itself has no grammar mistakes,but it gives people a feeling that you haven’t completed your words. We often add something in the sentence. For example,“我現在像太陽&lt;em&gt;一樣熱&lt;/em&gt;”to describe you are now pretty hot(physical temperature). What you add express your state and feeling ,which makes the sentence more lively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes we only use “像太陽”,but the speaker is not myself but someone else. He says “你就像我的太陽！”. This means he thinks you’re his “hero”. In Chinese, “the sun”also means brightness and the one which leads you to success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19219" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T08:30:15.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29002" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29009" CreationDate="2018-03-04T09:52:12.223" Score="3" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;The below is the partial lyrics of &amp;lt;童话镇&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;总有一条蜿蜒在童话镇里七彩的河&#xA;沾染魔法的乖张气息&#xA;却又在爱里曲折&#xA;川流不息扬起水花&#xA;又卷入一帘时光入水&#xA;让所有很久很久以前&#xA;都走到幸福结局的时刻&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problematic line is this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;沾染魔法的乖张气息 却又在爱里曲折&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's difficult for me to parse it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[沾染(verb)][[魔法]的[乖张气息]]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[[沾染(adjective)魔法]的[乖张气息]]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[却][又][在[爱里]][曲折(verb)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[却][又][在[爱里曲折(noun)]]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seem to be not having &lt;em&gt;enough&lt;/em&gt; pre/postpositions; is it usual in Mandarin sentences? How do I parse it and what does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17749" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T23:08:59.807" Title="Understanding a line from a song: ‘沾染魔法的乖张气息 却又在爱里曲折’" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29002" CreationDate="2018-03-04T10:27:13.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First: Lyrics have poetic license, they don't need to be grammatical or altogether logical - quite like in most languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second: There's a translation &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.douban.com/note/607455000/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here on douban&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;沾染魔法的乖张气息&#xA;  Tainted by the wildest of magic &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;却又在爱里曲折&#xA;  It twists and turns in love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third: We can break down the first part like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沾染 = corrupted by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;魔法的 = magic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乖张 = odd&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;气息 = flavor/spirit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which would roughly give us something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(I) was corrupted by the odd influences of magic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or the better translation above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tainted by the wildest of magic &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the second part:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;却又 = yet/never the less&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在爱里 = in love&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曲折 = winding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which roughly equates to something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;but winds in love&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or the better:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It twists and turns in love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T10:27:13.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29004" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29005" CreationDate="2018-03-04T11:26:07.047" Score="3" ViewCount="380" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, both of these seem to mean detailed / carefully and texts seem to use them in much the same way. Are they therefore largely interchangeable or is there a difference as to when these adjectives/adverbs should be used?&#xA;Many thanks!&#xA;Hahsamyim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T20:02:45.883" Title="详细 vs. 仔细 - are these interchangeable？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29004" CreationDate="2018-03-04T13:18:21.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an adverb, both 详细 and 仔细 contains the meaning of '&lt;strong&gt;thoroughly&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;carefully&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;detailed&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can use &quot;详细檢查&quot; or &quot;仔细檢查&quot; for  &quot;thoroughly inspect&quot; or&#xA;   &quot;carefully inspect&quot;; You can use &quot;详细分析&quot; or &quot;仔细分析&quot; for  &quot;thoroughly analyze&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;详细 and 仔细 are interchangeable in these cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 仔细 also contains the meaning of  '&lt;strong&gt;concentrate&lt;/strong&gt;'  and '&lt;strong&gt;pay close attention&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can use 仔细欣賞 for &quot;concentrate and enjoy; pay close attention and enjoy&quot; but not &quot;详细欣賞&quot;; You can use 仔细聆聽 for &quot;concentrate and listen&quot; or &quot;pay close attention and listen&quot; but not &quot;详细聆聽 &quot; (which mean thoroughly listen') &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;详细 and 仔细 are not interchangeable in these cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another difference between 详细 and 仔细 is  详细 can be an adjective, 仔细 is mainly an adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say 寫一份詳細報告 but not  寫一份仔細報告&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T13:18:21.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29004" CreationDate="2018-03-04T15:43:47.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;详 means 'complete',antonym is 'brief', 详细 covers every corners, every possibilities, every considerations...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仔 means 'careful'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;详细 is an objective description, 仔细 includes attitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people may say &quot;做得仔细点&quot; to others work, which means they do not satisfied their attitude and want others 做得认真点, in this case, 做得详细点 can not be used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically, 详细 means detailed, 仔细 means carefully &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T15:43:47.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29007" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-04T17:43:40.017" Score="2" ViewCount="788" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am very alarmed! At university, as far as I can remember, we learned 同屋 as “roommate” and 室友 as a synonym, particularly popular in southern China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now this &lt;a href=&quot;https://hinative.com/zh-CN/questions/1674117&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;site&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;claims that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;同屋&quot; usually refers to two people or a couple who live in the same house/bedroom and are most likely in a sexual relationship. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that true? I don’t want such misunderstandings to arise, possibly insulting people!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-03-05T02:58:13.477" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T06:11:59.623" Title="Difference between 室友 and 同屋" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29007" CreationDate="2018-03-04T19:55:49.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm from southern China. I would usually say 室友 or 舍友 to refer to my roommate. That's only a personal preference. I can still understand if someone says 同屋. But I would be unsure that if that person and his/her roommate are a couple. I do not know if 同屋 in northern Chinese dialects may mean couples, at least from my own experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T19:55:49.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29002" CreationDate="2018-03-04T23:08:59.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;总有一条蜿蜒在童话镇里七彩的河&lt;br&gt;&#xA;there is always a 7-coloured river meandering through the town in fairy stories,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沾染魔法的乖张气息 （沾染: tainted 乖张：odd 气息：aura, air)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;tainted with an odd magical aura,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;却又在爱里曲折 (曲折: meander)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but somehow meandering in love,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;川流不息扬起水花 ( 扬起: the dappled surface of turbulent wind-blown water)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;flowing on and on, dappled and splashing,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又卷入一帘时光入水&lt;br&gt;&#xA;drawn into the mists of time slip into the water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让所有很久很久以前&lt;br&gt;&#xA;hope all of us (in this river of love) from long long ago&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都走到幸福结局的时刻&lt;br&gt;&#xA;are all headed for a happy ending someday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T23:08:59.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29007" CreationDate="2018-03-05T06:11:59.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I live in north, we only use 室友, when I see your question, I have to check dictionary for 同屋( I have never heard of it) to make sure I know it right, cuz we can not rely on the literary meanings, for example 家里那人 refer to husband or wife, not any other family members.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would better avoid 同屋, because that is a slang, they always have other meanings in different areas. For example 同一个屋檐下 usually refer to neighbors, relations but not rootmates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T06:11:59.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5247" CreationDate="2018-03-05T07:36:53.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;制 and 製 are two different characters in traditional Chinese, and were merged to one single 制 in simplified Chinese. 制 is a noun and verb, while 製 is a verb, like 制度: institution, 机制: mechanism, 制服 means &lt;strong&gt;suppress&lt;/strong&gt; while 製服 means &lt;strong&gt;uniform&lt;/strong&gt;, as well as 製造: make, produce, etc. The meaning of 制服 in simplified Chinese is ambiguous, depending the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T07:36:53.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29013" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29032" CreationDate="2018-03-05T13:44:56.467" Score="-1" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help me interpret the meaning of these lines&lt;br&gt;&#xA;绊着三生草 白露湿黄叶&lt;br&gt;&#xA;青丝易被尘俗染 唯白发不怯  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These lines are taken from the song name &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%84%9A%E5%9F%8E%E9%9B%AA#reference-[1]-23020520-wrap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;焚城雪&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18498" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T06:29:08.800" Title="What's the meaning of these 2 lines of this song (焚城雪)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29015" CreationDate="2018-03-05T14:45:08.203" Score="11" ViewCount="2224" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays a Chinese person seeing a character for the first time can look it up in a dictionary (it doesn't matter how) and get the phonetic or Pinyin transliteration, so that the pronunciation is obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did people get the correct pronunciation of unknown Chinese characters without Latin or phonetic alphabets? I mean, I would expect the language to be &quot;self-contained&quot;, so to say, without resorting to external alphabets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19225" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T17:48:26.613" Title="How did Chinese people know in the past the pronunciation of words?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-03-05T22:03:47.117" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29014" CreationDate="2018-03-05T15:51:25.653" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of characters was glossed using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fanqie&lt;/em&gt; (反切) system&lt;/a&gt;, which uses two existing characters whose pronunciations are known to determine the pronunciation of the unknown character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose that I wanted to know the pronunciation of「東」. Looking this character up, I'd see that it was phonologically glossed in dictionaries as &lt;strong&gt;德紅切&lt;/strong&gt;, which means to take the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllable#Onset&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;onset&lt;/a&gt; (basically the initial consonant) of the first character, in this case「德」, and the &quot;final&quot; (which really is everything after the onset) of the second character, in this case「紅」. In Pinyin,「東」is &lt;code&gt;dong&lt;/code&gt;, and reconstructing this syllable with the &lt;em&gt;fanqie&lt;/em&gt; system we'd get the initial of「德」(Pinyin &lt;strong&gt;d&lt;/strong&gt;e) and everything after the onset of「紅」(Pinyin h&lt;strong&gt;ong&lt;/strong&gt;) to get &lt;strong&gt;dong&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, &lt;em&gt;fanqie&lt;/em&gt; dictionaries were compiled by scholars in consideration of all the varieties of Chinese, not favouring any particular topolect, which means that they work equally well for all these varieties. In addition, they also work for Sinoxenic pronunciations of Chinese-originated vocabulary in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. This is possible because the two characters used to construct the pronunciation are not phonetic symbols like alphabet letters, but have their own unique pronunciation in all the varieties of Chinese (as well as Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, due to centuries bordering on millenia of cultural and language diffusion across East Asia). The caveat is that the phonology guide is a good approximation but not always an exact match, as the sound evolution of the different varieties of Chinese from the ancestral language is not always consistent everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This requires the reader to be somewhat literate already, of course - but then again, which dictionary in any language doesn't?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Demonstration that it is a good approximation for other languages which have used Chinese characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東, 德紅切:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Japanese: 東 (tō), 德 (&lt;strong&gt;t&lt;/strong&gt;oku) 紅 (k&lt;strong&gt;ō&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Korean: 東 (dong), 德 (&lt;strong&gt;d&lt;/strong&gt;eok) 紅 (h&lt;strong&gt;ong&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vietnamese: 東 (đông), 德 (&lt;strong&gt;đ&lt;/strong&gt;ức) 紅 (h&lt;strong&gt;ồng&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-03-05T16:04:22.350" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T16:04:22.350" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29014" CreationDate="2018-03-05T15:56:22.897" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient China, there're two ways for phonetic annotation mainly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;读若法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用一个汉字来注另一个汉字的读音方法。(Use a character to annotate another character's pronunciation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比如：儡，相败也，……读若雷。（《说文解字》）(e.g. 儡 is pronunciated as 雷.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;反切法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用一个汉字或注音符号表示“声”，用另一个汉字或注音符号表示“韵”和“调”，把它们拼合成被注字的读音的方法。(Combine one character's consonant and another character's vowel to annotate the pronunciation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比如：缓，胡管切。（《广韵》） 　　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“缓”字的读音，就是取“胡”字的声（h）,取“管”的韵和调(uan),然后拼合成（huan=h+uan）。(The pronunciation of 缓 is combined by the consonant of 胡 (i.e. &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt;) and the vowel of 管 (i.e. &lt;em&gt;uan&lt;/em&gt;), then &lt;em&gt;huan&lt;/em&gt;=&lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt;+&lt;em&gt;uan&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z2981m4642j19530.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;古代注音方法&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T16:02:46.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29017" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-05T17:07:56.810" Score="2" ViewCount="1462" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine that I know nothing about the language. I open a book and look at some Chinese text. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What’s the easiest (and deterministic) way to tell if I'm looking at simplified or traditional Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any common radicals that appear in one and not the other? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16547" LastActivityDate="2018-03-13T18:13:17.277" Title="How to tell Simplified and Traditional Chinese apart?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29014" CreationDate="2018-03-05T17:15:38.283" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know specifically about Chinese, but one thing all researchers into historical phonology can use to help them is rhyme. Where two words in a poem or song no longer rhyme where clearly they were meant to when authored, it is an indication of sound change, either in the past, or between dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19226" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T17:15:38.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29017" CreationDate="2018-03-05T17:41:30.913" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if it was published in mainland China, it would be 99% simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the pages was flipped from left to right, it might be traditional, except comic books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can know the text are reading from top to bottom, it is probably traditional, (vertical text usually don't have common punctuations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you found the text is more black, it may be traditional. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-03-13T11:55:33.503" LastActivityDate="2018-03-13T11:55:33.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29017" CreationDate="2018-03-05T17:45:13.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many words are shared among Simplified and Traditional Chinese.  Some easiest way to tell them apart:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Where it is published - e.g. China vs Hong Kong vs Taiwan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) Strokes - Most simplified Chinese has less strokes.  So if the words looks like a complex symbol to you (in case you know nothing about the language), chances are it is traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a paragraph i borrowed in SE, where one is Traditional and the other is Simplified.  See if you can tell the differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1)總有一條蜿蜒在童話鎮裡七彩的河&#xA;沾染魔法的乖張氣息&#xA;卻又在愛里曲折&#xA;川流不息揚起水花&#xA;又捲入一簾時光入水&#xA;讓所有很久很久以前&#xA;都走到幸福結局的時刻&#xA;&#xA;2)总有一条蜿蜒在童话镇里七彩的河&#xA;沾染魔法的乖张气息&#xA;却又在爱里曲折&#xA;川流不息扬起水花&#xA;又卷入一帘时光入水&#xA;让所有很久很久以前&#xA;都走到幸福结局的时刻&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2018-03-12T21:28:51.227" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T21:28:51.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29014" CreationDate="2018-03-05T17:48:26.613" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you study all the languages in China, you'll realize that, if you go into the history of the local dialect, they'll use very similar, and sometimes identical, written words, but the pronunciation are completely different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even the history of the written words have a history of diversifying significantly.  It was only unified relatively recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19228" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T17:48:26.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28919" CreationDate="2018-03-05T19:45:14.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking it could be a word similar to 淝 in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8979/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8979/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;淝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  fe4 fei4 jyutping&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  fei2 pinyin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [粵] fe4 - Cantonese only&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [1] [v] spray/sprinkle (water)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [2] [v] shoot; gun down&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [粵] fei4 [國] fei2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [n] name of a river in Anhui province, famous in Chinese history for Battle of Fei River (AD 383)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of usage:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;淝到周圍都係&lt;br&gt;&#xA;淝啲成身濕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T19:45:14.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29004" CreationDate="2018-03-05T20:02:45.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question. I've never thought about it before, but the two aren't interchangeable in my mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.ichacha.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tw.ichacha.net/&lt;/a&gt; as source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;細 means fine, intricate, detailed, thin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仔 means young ones, when applied to living creatures. When applied to plants, it means seed, seeds. So, it means &quot;tiny&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;詳 can be used as adjective, noun, verb. It means detailed, details, known. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say 詳細調查 to mean thorough investigation, but 仔細觀察 to mean carefully observed. From this, I guess this means imo 詳細 means thorough, and 仔細 is careful, such that @Tang Ho described (one is an adjective, and the other is an adverb).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T20:02:45.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29026" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29027" CreationDate="2018-03-06T01:35:28.193" Score="1" ViewCount="588" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Basic_comparisons_with_%22bi%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; explains how to state simple comparisons, but doesn't address how to ask about more complex comparisons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, what's the right Mandarin equivalent of the English question structure: &quot;Do you like A more than B?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Do you like Chinese food more than Japanese food?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Do you like planes more than trains?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you deal with the verb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you duplicate it like this: 妳喜歡中國菜比喜歡日本菜多嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a &quot;cleaner&quot;, more concise grammatical form where you don't duplicate the verb? For instance, could you do this: 妳喜歡中國菜比日本菜多嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T04:56:49.367" Title="Grammar structure for &quot;which do you like more?&quot; questions" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-03-06T05:08:12.457" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29026" CreationDate="2018-03-06T02:21:13.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grammar structure for [like A more than B]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;insert &amp;quot;多過&amp;quot; (more than) between object A and object B:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[妳喜歡中國菜][&lt;strong&gt;多過&lt;/strong&gt;][日本菜] = [you like Chinese food] [&lt;strong&gt;more than&lt;/strong&gt; ][Japanese food]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I think it is the &amp;quot;cleanest&amp;quot; grammar structure you are looking for, to express &amp;quot;[(verb)(object A) (more than) (object B)]&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The verb act on both object A  and object B.  Therefore, we don't need to repeat the verb for object B. As in &amp;quot;[妳喜歡中國菜][&lt;strong&gt;多過&lt;/strong&gt;][(喜歡  )日本菜]&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Topic and opinion structure:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;Compare to&lt;/strong&gt; object B] as a topic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[like object A &lt;strong&gt;more&lt;/strong&gt;] as the opinion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;比起&lt;/strong&gt;日本菜], [我][&lt;strong&gt;更&lt;/strong&gt;喜歡中國菜]= [&lt;strong&gt;compare to&lt;/strong&gt;  Japanese food] [I] [like Chinese food &lt;strong&gt;more&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;更 short for 更為. You can replace 更 with 較, which in term is short for 較為&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T02:52:43.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29026" CreationDate="2018-03-06T04:09:12.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some very clean ways to express this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你喜欢[...]，还是[...]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你更喜欢[...]，还是[...]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[...]好，还是[...]好&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T04:09:12.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29029" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29031" CreationDate="2018-03-06T04:50:27.713" Score="1" ViewCount="709" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Pleco, there are two entries for the word Silicon Valley, 硅谷 and 矽谷.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One is 硅谷, the other is 矽谷. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T05:10:51.783" Title="The word for Silicon Valley in Chinese" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29026" CreationDate="2018-03-06T04:56:49.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'like' is very subjective, so can be replaced with 'think, feel'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你觉得日料更好，还是中餐更好吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you think Japanese food is best, or Chinese food?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你觉得中餐比日料更好吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you think Chinese food is better than Japanese food?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think you really mean 'like planes' but 'like to travel in planes'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你觉得乘飞机更好，还是乘火车更好？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you like to travel in planes or trains more?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T04:56:49.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29029" CreationDate="2018-03-06T04:58:12.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;「硅」(Pinyin &lt;code&gt;guī&lt;/code&gt;) is the Mainland Chinese word for &lt;em&gt;silicon&lt;/em&gt;, while「矽」(Pinyin &lt;code&gt;xī&lt;/code&gt;) is the Taiwan and Hong Kong word for &lt;em&gt;silicon&lt;/em&gt;. This difference in the word for &lt;em&gt;silicon&lt;/em&gt; transfers over to their respective names for &lt;em&gt;Silicon Valley&lt;/em&gt; as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%83%E7%B4%A0%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E8%AA%9E%E5%90%8D%E7%A7%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Japanese Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;; top character is PRC chemical element name, bottom character is Taiwan chemical name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/25qeQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/25qeQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ランタノイド: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanthanide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lanthanide series&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;アクチノイド: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actinide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Actinide series&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Don't know why English and Chinese Wikipedia doesn't provide this naming difference periodic table between PRC and Taiwan&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-03-06T05:10:51.783" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T05:10:51.783" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29013" CreationDate="2018-03-06T06:18:11.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A main characteristic of classical style song is that lyrics are composed by images, few story-telling and statement, so it is hard to tell the meanings of the lyrics, just like it is hard to tell the meanings of a painting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;绊 tie&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三生草  a fictional plant for love, inspired by 三生石 I think,  三生 means 前生, 今生, 来生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白露 dew, dew links to &lt;code&gt;sad&lt;/code&gt; in tradition.e.g. 玉阶生白露，夜久侵罗袜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黄叶 yellow leaves are links to &lt;code&gt;fades&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;beauty ages&lt;/code&gt; in tradition, just like flower withers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青丝 means &lt;code&gt;hair&lt;/code&gt;, 青丝 白发 always links to &lt;code&gt;time slip away&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. a famous poem &lt;code&gt;君不见高堂明镜悲白发 朝如青丝暮成雪&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不怯 do not worry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-03-06T06:29:08.800" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T06:29:08.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29033" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29034" CreationDate="2018-03-06T08:09:30.173" Score="2" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;《四川方言词典》contains the following entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干□儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gan1 ler1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(名) 不渗汤的面条(川西南) ▷我不要汤，我要一碗～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《成都方言》has a similar entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干溜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gan1 liu1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不加汤：肝片儿还是～好吃。亦作“干熘”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where &amp;quot;□&amp;quot; [ler] from above could be 溜儿 or even 熘儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm leaning towards 溜 since 熘 seems to be quite specific in MSM (&lt;em&gt;一种烹调法，跟炒相似，作料里搀淀粉&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T08:48:37.320" Title="What character might ler1 be for &quot;不渗汤的面条&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29033" CreationDate="2018-03-06T08:48:37.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of the words are correct. 干溜儿/干熘儿 is a kind of noodle in Chongqing. It's &quot;real&quot; name is 干溜面/干熘面, as you can see in &lt;a href=&quot;http://m.meishichina.com/recipe/180009/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; recipe. It seems that the locals like to call it 干溜儿/干熘儿, as you can see from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.xiaohongshu.com/discovery/item/59521851b46c5d4049e7d478&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; page or &lt;a href=&quot;https://m.toutiao.com/a3643210169/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A search for both terms returned the same kind of noodles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16335" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T08:48:37.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29035" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-06T15:49:19.200" Score="2" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I only understand Vietnamese, but I guess this phenomenon is an influence of ancient Chinese.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, we say &quot;table-chair&quot; to mean furniture, &quot;month-year&quot; to mean time, &quot;land-water&quot; to mean country, &quot;spring-summer-fall-winter&quot; to mean the cycle of time, &quot;birth-old-sickness-death&quot; to mean the cycle of life...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The concept being mentioned is at least a name of a category that individual listed member belongs to it, or in the two latter cases there is also a subtle connotation of never ending within it, and these are the first step to Eastern philosophy. Is there a name for this phenomenon? What would be a good source to learn it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;Related: &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/q/434516/80007&quot;&gt;Open-ended concepts in Chinese usually be alluded by listing specific examples. Would native English speakers find it hard to grasp the connotation?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19233" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T05:18:56.853" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T05:18:56.853" Title="What is the term for alluding to a more formless concept by listing its specific members?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;linguistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29038" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29039" CreationDate="2018-03-07T07:46:56.247" Score="2" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the conversation my friend and I had:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X：你多大年纪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I：我还27岁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X：还？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I：27岁是1990年出生的，跟你同一的90后&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X：那应该说，我才27岁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was going to make an impression that I'm &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; 27, which implies that I'm not so old yet, even from her stardard. But she said 还 is not the correct word and I should use 才 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还 has the meaning such as &amp;quot;still&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;yet&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 还 not correct in this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-07T17:36:33.333" Title="Why is 才 correct but 还 not in 我才27岁?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29038" CreationDate="2018-03-07T08:54:12.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although you are trying to say &quot;I'm still 27.&quot;, &quot;还&quot; does not work in this context, since it is only used to imply &lt;em&gt;an action is still ongoing&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;something still exists&lt;/em&gt;. Grammatically speaking, it should be used before a verb, not a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, &quot;才&quot; in this context is used to emphasize &lt;em&gt;a (merely) small quantity&lt;/em&gt;. Therefore, it should be put before a noun. There are other usage of &quot;才&quot;, making it can be put before a verb, but that's a different case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe this example will help you to notice the usage of &quot;还&quot; and &quot;才&quot; (example from &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Using_%22cai%22_for_small_numbers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;一百斤，&lt;strong&gt;还&lt;/strong&gt;要减肥？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastActivityDate="2018-03-07T08:54:12.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29038" CreationDate="2018-03-07T08:56:14.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;还 has the meaning such as &amp;quot;still&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;yet&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why is 还 not correct in this situation?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For 还 to mean &amp;quot;still&amp;quot; you need to use it before a verb like 是 (is / be)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &amp;quot;我的生日是明天，所以凌晨前我&lt;strong&gt;還是&lt;/strong&gt; (is still) 二十七歲&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For  还 to mean &amp;quot;yet&amp;quot; you need to use it with 未 and before a verb&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &amp;quot;我&lt;strong&gt;还未&lt;/strong&gt;到二十七歲&amp;quot; , &amp;quot;我&lt;strong&gt;还未&lt;/strong&gt;滿廿七歲&amp;quot; or  &amp;quot;我&lt;strong&gt;还未&lt;/strong&gt;足二十七歲&amp;quot; (all mean I am not 27 yet)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我才廿七歲&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;I am only 27&amp;quot; implies it is a young age from your point of view. It is in fact short for &amp;quot;我才(只有-only)二十七歲&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplest answer to the question &amp;quot;你多大年纪?&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;我今年二十七歲&amp;quot; or simply &amp;quot;我廿七歲&amp;quot; This answer already indicated you are currently 27, which mean you are still 27, not 28 yet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I was going to imply is not if I'm (still) 27 or 28 but if I'm also as young as the friend.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be &amp;quot;我也祇是二十七歲&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[我也 (I too)] [祇是 (is only)]  [二十七歲 (27 years old)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter your friend is 21 years or 30 years young, the above statement implies you are also young at the age of 27&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-07T12:27:25.043" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29038" CreationDate="2018-03-07T17:36:33.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nobody says &quot;我还27岁&quot;, but you can say &quot;我还 ‘不到’ 27岁 &quot;(I am not 27 yet).&quot;我还 ‘不到’ 21岁, 我不能喝酒 &quot;&#xA;&quot;我还未到二十七歲&quot;  is way to formal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19241" LastActivityDate="2018-03-07T17:36:33.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28951" CreationDate="2018-03-07T17:51:41.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If somebody says &quot;你很 A而B且C &quot;，he means you are too &quot;ABC&quot; (American-born Chinese). It is very negative these days. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19241" LastActivityDate="2018-03-07T17:51:41.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29044" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29045" CreationDate="2018-03-07T22:20:39.743" Score="0" ViewCount="1269" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it correct that 几点 is for asking specific time in oclock...while 什么时候  is more general and can be answered specifically in oclock or a period of time such as morning, noon, night ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often heard 现在几点. But, is 现在是什么时候 or 现在什么时候 can also be used ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can i also replace &quot;你什么时候有空&quot; with &quot;你几点有空&quot; ???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would means a lot if you guys can help me out..thanksss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19199" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T00:00:45.920" Title="Difference between 几点 and 什么时候?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-03-09T01:19:01.017" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29044" CreationDate="2018-03-07T22:58:13.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it correct that 几点 is for asking specific time in oclock?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;几点&quot; = &quot;what hour&quot;. It could be 10:04 or 10:24, so it is only specific for the 'hour', not the specific 'time (moment)'. You can just answer by stating the hour; However, people asking 几点 is actually wanting to know  &quot;&lt;strong&gt;what hour and minute&lt;/strong&gt; (the precise time)&quot;. We usually reply to this question with the precise time on the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;while 什么时候 is more general and can be answered specifically in oclock or a period of time such as morning, noon, night ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;现在是什么时候&quot; = &quot;what time is it now&quot;, it can mean specific time on the clock. For example, &quot;现在是 10:24&quot; ; it can also be used generally to refer to a period of time such as morning, noon. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can i also replace &quot;你什么时候有空&quot; with &quot;你几点有空&quot; ???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, &quot;你什么时候有空&quot; refers to &quot;which day and what time&quot; ; &quot;你几点有空&quot; doesn't ask what date it will be. You can only replace  &quot;你什么时候有空&quot; with &quot;你几点有空&quot; when the date in known&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It can refer to any specific moment. For example &quot; 现在是&lt;strong&gt;时候&lt;/strong&gt;回家了&quot; (it is &lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt; to go home)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;to specifically ask for the precise time on the clock, you can say &quot;现在是什么钟数?&quot; or &quot;现在是几点钟? &quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-03-08T00:00:45.920" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T00:00:45.920" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29046" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29048" CreationDate="2018-03-08T03:05:07.330" Score="3" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is my situation: I have learned Mandarin mostly from reading news articles and chatting with friends, as well as reading a grammar book and memorizing vocabulary. That makes only my reading and writing skills improved, while my speaking and listening skills are practically useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So these days my friends started to make a speech on WeChat, instead of writing a message. However, in almost all cases I don't understand what they say. That makes me wonder if there is any way to transcribe the speech my friend made for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any app or software, or otherwise any ways, to make the speech transcribed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use WeChat, for your information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-03-08T04:36:23.477" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T09:16:41.183" Title="Is there any way to make a Chinese speech transcribed to written format?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29047" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-08T05:52:12.617" Score="3" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Google you can put in a word and it will give you the English on the right hand side with &amp;quot;translation&amp;quot; and explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's take &lt;code&gt;半挂货车&lt;/code&gt; for instance. It gives me back:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Semi-trailer truck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A semi-trailer truck is the combination of a tractor unit and one or more semi-trailers to carry freight. A semi-trailer attaches to the tractor with a fifth wheel hitch, with much of its weight borne by the tractor. Wikipedia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I put in &lt;code&gt;小型客车&lt;/code&gt; I get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Minibus&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A minibus, microbus, or minicoach is a passenger carrying motor vehicle that is designed to carry more people than a multi-purpose vehicle or minivan, but fewer people than a full-size bus. Wikipedia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These all seem to be Wikipedia references, I would assume they would be of better quality than Google Translate itself but this is the first time I'm seeing this function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas as to the quality of these pulls?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T05:05:00.580" Title="How is the quality of Google's automatic &quot;translation&quot; for single words?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29046" CreationDate="2018-03-08T07:12:37.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;WeChat could convert the voice accepted from others to text. By 长按 (touch and hold) on the voice, and select &quot;转换为文字（仅普通话）&quot; (for Android) or &quot;转文字&quot; (for iOS), you'll get the text showed under the voice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that it works only for 普通话 (putonghua), and the language of WeChat (maybe the language of the system, depending on the settings of WeChat) needs to be set to 简体 (simplified Chinese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uzzf.com/news/27142.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for more screen captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-03-08T09:16:41.183" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T09:16:41.183" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3668" CreationDate="2018-03-08T12:37:48.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I created a project to gerenate such font for chinese and other scripts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/parlr/hanzi-pinyin-font/releases&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hanzi-pinyin-font&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (first release):  Chinese font displaying Hanzi (汉字) characters with by transliteration/pronunciation (Pīnyīn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/1212392/24731098/3c0a8c8a-1a68-11e7-9999-4c4cf7988e96.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/parlr/tifinagh-font&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tifinagh-font&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (work in progress): Tifinagh font with pronunciation (abjad/alphabet used to write the Berber languages) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/1212392/25067335/525c72f2-2240-11e7-91fa-8fc9f26625d2.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/parlr/ruby-font-creator&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ruby-font-creator&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;:  Generate rich Unicode open fonts with custom annotations, transliterations, pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3207" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T12:37:48.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28728" CreationDate="2018-03-08T12:42:21.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;旅行者 is more suitable, and may need more explanations to 'sold my house, and has been traveling...'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行旅, most people won't know what it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;流浪者: besides these homeless, 流浪者 always refer to artist. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;游民: means jobless, no fixed home. 贬义词&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浪客: not a typical Chinese words, more used by Japanese. Most people won't know it. Never use it in daily talking, very strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you like, you can use 旅行家, that's what do you mean exactly, but Chinese do not call himself XX家, that is not 谦虚.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T12:42:21.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28728" CreationDate="2018-03-08T13:21:39.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, &quot;游民&quot; and &quot;流浪者&quot; are all good for self-description. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you say &quot;我是个流浪者&quot;, it is not negative. &quot;流浪者&quot; is different from &quot;流浪汉&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我是个游民&quot; is like &quot;I'm Like a Gypsy&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;游民&quot; could  mean a way of life - moving around a lot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;流浪者&quot; could be a way of life, or a stage of spirit or feelings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;行旅&quot;, most people don't know what it means, don't use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;旅行者&quot; &quot;浪客&quot; are not for ordinary people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, &quot;游民&quot; is the best suitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19241" LastEditorUserId="19241" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T11:39:31.993" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T11:39:31.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28782" CreationDate="2018-03-09T01:50:21.297" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, I would like to say that there are big difference between 若 and 如果.&#xA;若 comes from traditional Chinese  in the history, and it represents IF. After we have been in moderntime, we use 如果 as an oral communication way.&#xA;And it is not welcomed to use 若 in daily life, as you said that is has a meaning of ELITE, which means I KNOW MORE THAN YOU.&#xA;PS. In fact not everyone can do well in tradition Chinese, because it is difficult for we Chinese as well. Of course, if you are in a formal occasion, it is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19244" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T01:50:21.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5841" CreationDate="2018-03-09T05:05:20.217" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several browser extensions now do this. For Chrome try &quot;Convert Chinese to Pinyin (Mand)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19245" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T05:05:20.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29054" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-09T05:30:28.903" Score="2" ViewCount="690" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, usually 为什么 is used to express &quot;why&quot;. Sometimes 怎么 is also used to mean the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes them different? Most grammar books I beleive introduce 为什么, but I feel many Chinese use 怎么 on WeChat. Since 怎么 also means &quot;what&quot; or &quot;how&quot;, sometimes I got stuck to understand what it means on a context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is there any other words to mean &quot;why&quot;, except them and 为何 (which is the same as 为什么 but literary, right?) and 为啥...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T23:42:30.317" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T23:42:30.317" Title="The word &quot;why&quot;: what's the difference between 为什么 and 怎么?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29054" CreationDate="2018-03-09T05:44:33.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think they use 怎么 means 'what happened', 'how come', not 'why', &lt;code&gt;why&lt;/code&gt; is always '为什么', I don't know other words means '为什么'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T05:44:33.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28782" CreationDate="2018-03-09T06:36:12.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is interesting, I never realize 如果 sounds like 若. But I don't think it is a contraction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can find 若 in very old book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;若&lt;/strong&gt;反国,将为乱。——《史记·赵世家》 (about B.C. 90)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We all know multiple-characters words arise in modern Chinese. We can not find &lt;code&gt;如果&lt;/code&gt; in classical text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儒林外史．第十六回：「&lt;strong&gt;如果&lt;/strong&gt;文章會做，我提拔他。」 (about A.D. 1749)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a more old-fasioned word than 如果, 若果.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这英莲受了拐子这几年折磨,才得了个路头,&lt;strong&gt;若果&lt;/strong&gt;聚合了,倒是件美事。——《红楼梦》 (about A.D. 1744)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-03-09T06:44:09.353" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T06:44:09.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29054" CreationDate="2018-03-09T06:40:22.230" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;什么 = what&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;怎= how&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;怎么 = how / how is that (how come)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;为什么&lt;/strong&gt; = for what = &lt;strong&gt;why&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;为什 is short form of 为什么&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;为何 is the literary form of 为什么&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;何故 or 何以 is the literary form of 什么原因 or 什么导致 (for what reason = why)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;什么我不能去？&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;What? I can't go?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;what (you mean) I can't go&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;怎么我不能去?&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;How is that I can't go?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot; how (come) I can't go?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;为什么我不能去?&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;For what (reason) I can't go?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot; why I can't go&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically 为什么 (why) emphasizes the reason itself ; 怎么(how is that) emphasizes 'in what manner' or 'with what method'  the cause exist&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T07:00:56.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29054" CreationDate="2018-03-09T08:40:00.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;因何 and 何以 was used more often in ancient Chinese, it evolved to 为何 in modern Chinese. 為甚麽(为甚么) was also used once in Hong Kong, 为啥 is also common in dialects currently. However, the official expression 为什么 is mainly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T08:40:00.827" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29061" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-09T14:26:01.547" Score="4" ViewCount="1458" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was listening to a Chinese song the other day. The song name is 謝謝妳愛我, sung by R.chord(謝和弦). In the second line of the first chorus, which goes &quot;脾氣壞 固執任性機歪 還有點變態 &quot;, I don't understand the word Ji Wai(機歪) here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have looked this word up in many dictionaries but still no luck. However, I have seen someone translating it as &quot;bitchy&quot;. Is it correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also, both 固執 and 任性 mean stubborn/headstrong right? Then why use two words with the same meaning? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the link for song lyrics - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/%E8%AC%9D%E5%92%8C%E5%BC%A6/%E8%AC%9D%E8%AC%9D%E5%A6%B3%E6%84%9B%E6%88%91/translation/english&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/%E8%AC%9D%E5%92%8C%E5%BC%A6/%E8%AC%9D%E8%AC%9D%E5%A6%B3%E6%84%9B%E6%88%91/translation/english&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19201" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T08:05:40.397" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T08:05:40.397" Title="What is the meaning of 機歪?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29064" CreationDate="2018-03-09T14:45:55.817" Score="0" ViewCount="5767" Body="&lt;p&gt;你好, I have hard time finding books and material to &lt;strong&gt;prepare specifically for TOCFL &quot;Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, NOT HSK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am interested in the first level and of course traditional characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, books with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;detailed grammatical points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;listening comprehension &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;list of vocabulary &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;exercices&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Similar format to what we could find about TOEIC/TOEFL).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Amazon shows practically nothing bout the subject except some general knowledge material and dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I 've visited the site of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;code&gt;sc-toporg.tw&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; I 've found only some&#xA;  online material, but not books:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sc-top.org.tw/english/study.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.sc-top.org.tw/english/study.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any hints?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6398" LastEditorUserId="6398" LastEditDate="2018-03-09T16:13:22.793" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T23:54:46.100" Title="Book and material to prepare for TOCFL &quot;Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language&quot;" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29061" CreationDate="2018-03-09T18:18:18.737" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;機歪&quot; (simplified Chinese: 叽歪), means that a person talks too much (probably complaining about something) so that it annoys people around him/her. This is not a formal word that you could find out in a dictionary, and more like a word from spoken language. Besides, another word often used in spoken language is 機機歪歪 (simplified Chinese: 叽叽歪歪) has a similar meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;固執&quot; and &quot;任性&quot; have different meanings. &quot;固執&quot; means stubborn, while &quot;任性&quot; means capricious. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the song, &quot;固執任性機歪&quot; means 固執，任性，and 機歪.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19195" LastEditorUserId="19195" LastEditDate="2018-03-10T06:25:59.297" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T06:25:59.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29062" CreationDate="2018-03-09T20:53:02.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mtc.ntnu.edu.tw/book/book-show-2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;看圖學中文語法系列（2冊）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DIPRm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DIPRm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.shtabook.com/product_2116-%E8%8F%AF%E8%AA%9E%E6%96%87%E8%83%BD%E5%8A%9B%E6%B8%AC%E9%A9%97%E6%A8%A1%E6%93%AC%E8%A9%A6%E9%A1%8C2:%E5%85%A5%E9%96%80%E5%9F%BA%E7%A4%8E(Band%20A).html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;華語文能力測驗模擬試題2:入門基礎(Band A)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XW6vM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XW6vM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.shtabook.com/product_4328-%20%E8%8F%AF%E8%AA%9E%E6%96%87%E8%83%BD%E5%8A%9B%E6%B8%AC%E9%A9%97%E6%A8%A1%E6%93%AC%E8%A9%A6%E9%A1%8C3:%E5%85%A5%E9%96%80%E5%9F%BA%E7%A4%8E(Band%20A).html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;華語文能力測驗模擬試題3:入門基礎(Band A)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YzGiX.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YzGiX.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T20:53:02.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29061" CreationDate="2018-03-10T02:12:37.577" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;機車 and 機歪 are indecent words. As time changes, the meanings are already different. The following is one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 機歪 refers to the female genitalia - 膣屄 (cunt). The Hokkien pronunciation is tsi-bai.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it is too indecent to directly write 膣屄, it has been written as &quot;機掰, 機歪, GY&quot; and so on. Later, some people thought that they were still indecent, so 機車 came out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meaning is lack of being fucked. Because 幹 has the meaning of to beat, it also means lack of being beaten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, recently they usually mean very annoying, very picky, not straightforward, indecisive, or doing stupid things depending on the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你很機車&lt;br&gt;&#xA;can represent&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You are very annoying.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You are a real pain in the butt!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Do not say these words to anyone.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;固執: adamancy; bigotry; obstinate; stubborn; pigheaded; stick to one's guns and refuse to change&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;任性: willful; wayward; caprice; self-indulgence; self-will; unruliness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「機車」和「機歪」是屬於不雅的詞。隨著時間的改變，它的意思已經不太一樣了。底下是其中一種說法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「機歪」是指女性生殖器——膣屄。閩南語的發音是 tsi-bai。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因為直接寫「膣屄」很不雅，所以被寫成「機掰、機歪、GY」等。後來有人覺得還是不雅，就再演變成「機車」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原意是「欠幹」。又因為「幹」有「打、揍」的意思，所以也有「欠打、欠揍」的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是現在這些詞依不同的情況大多表示「很討厭」、「很挑剔」、「不乾脆」、「猶豫不決」、「做了蠢事」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你很機車。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;可以表示&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你很討厭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;不要對任何人說這些話。&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「固執」是「堅持己見，不肯變通」的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「任性」是「放縱性情，恣意而為」的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T02:12:37.577" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29066" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29067" CreationDate="2018-03-10T04:16:49.567" Score="3" ViewCount="1115" Body="&lt;p&gt;A saw a translation of spoken English saying: &lt;code&gt;hashtag fun&lt;/code&gt; to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;微话题 乐趣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m not seeing a lot of results for &lt;code&gt;微话题&lt;/code&gt; online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know hashtag is usually translated as 话题 or 标签 or some combination of both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming people don’t go around saying things like “hashtag [...]” in Chinese &amp;amp; if someone said “话题...” or “标签...” it probably wouldn’t be readily understood - then perhaps 微话题 is a better option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;微话题 could be considered as overly specific, as a weibo topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is all speculation though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-03-10T04:25:25.777" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T06:54:08.173" Title="Is 微话题 an acceptable translation of “hashtag”?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29066" CreationDate="2018-03-10T06:54:08.173" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;「微話題」is literally &lt;em&gt;microblog discussion topic&lt;/em&gt;, where「微」comes from「微博」(&lt;em&gt;microblog&lt;/em&gt;). Note that &lt;strong&gt;Weibo&lt;/strong&gt; is a proper noun also using these two characters, but before Weibo was invented「微博」was just a generic word meaning &lt;em&gt;microblog&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Netizens put the discussion topic (話題) between &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; hashtags, much the same way the single twitter hashtag is used (possibly because Chinese doesn't use word spacings). In the sense that it is an announcement of a discussion topic on some board/forum/social media then translating it as &lt;em&gt;hashtag&lt;/em&gt; is fine, but this translation may be confusing for people coming from the PRC if one uses it to point to &quot;western&quot; apps/media that are possibly banned or relatively unknown/unpopular in the PRC such as Twitter and Facebook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also the Baidu article &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BE%AE%E8%AF%9D%E9%A2%98/2799122&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;微话题&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T06:54:08.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29068" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29069" CreationDate="2018-03-10T09:43:17.520" Score="5" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, it is common to ask &amp;quot;You mean XXX...?&amp;quot; when a person does not understand enough what the conversation opponent said. I'm now in China, and to express the same thing I usually say the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X: 和啊你呢啊哈你哈看明日开幕韩人口日民哦那人口仍然要卖烤肉日日易容让粑粑你和那会让扣扣密码全牛皮光荣日光浴热卖款日日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: 你的意思是XXX？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: 你意味着XXX？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I feel this is quite awkward and just a silly translation from the equivalent English. In fact I have never seen any Chinese to say in the same way, although I should have rarely seen any Chinese are in these situations, so actually I'm not sure if my impression is correct or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how can I express &amp;quot;You mean ...?&amp;quot; in Mandarin, to ask what they mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T19:03:18.330" Title="How do you say &quot;You mean ...?&quot; to respond to what you don't understand enough?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29068" CreationDate="2018-03-10T10:27:50.297" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;So how can I express &quot;You mean ...?&quot; in Mandarin, to ask what they mean?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你的意思是XXX？&quot; means you are making a guess, and asking for a confirmation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't understand a person's single statement, the simplest way to ask for clarification is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;你的意思是...?&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (you meant....?) and let that person explain. or you can say &quot;&lt;strong&gt;这是什么意思&lt;/strong&gt;？&quot; (what does it mean?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't understand a person's speech, you can just say &quot;我不知道你在说什么&quot; (I don't know what are you saying)  , &quot;我不明白你在说什么&quot; or 我听不懂你在说什么&quot; (I don't understand what you are saying)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is the perfect response to the speech in your example&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Come back to &quot;你的意思是XXX？&quot; (you meant XXX?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage are the same in Chinese and English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &quot;我讨厌生鱼!&quot; (I hate raw fish!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &quot;你的意思是你讨厌吃鱼生?&quot; (you meant you hate eating Sashimi?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It can't be you hate living fish, right?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;你的意思是XXX?&quot; can be replaced with  &quot;你是指XXX&quot; (are you referring to XXX?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-03-10T20:59:26.237" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T20:59:26.237" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29068" CreationDate="2018-03-11T00:29:06.627" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的意思是...&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;You mean...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是在说... &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;You're trying to say...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不是很懂你的意思。 &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I don't really get what you mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你想表达什么？&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;What are you trying to say?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T19:03:18.330" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T19:03:18.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29071" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29072" CreationDate="2018-03-11T05:29:22.957" Score="0" ViewCount="1105" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, there are many words to express the meaning &amp;quot;usually&amp;quot; - 通常，平常，平日，素，率，素来，往往，常，etc... (actually there are way more, but I don't list all of them here).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are too many to choose the correct word. How are all of them different and more importantly, how can I know which word fits the best for my specific purpose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;At least for me it feels that 通常 and 平常 are used more often, but I'm not sure.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in these contexts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you usually go to the cafe?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you usually do after work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you usually come to Shanghai on your holiday?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, how can I know which one to use? Or are these more or less the same and which to choose does not affect that much?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T07:28:06.297" Title="The word for &quot;usually&quot; in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29071" CreationDate="2018-03-11T07:28:06.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just like &amp;quot;usually, typically, normally and often&amp;quot; in English, &amp;quot;通常, 平日, 素来, 往往 and 常常&amp;quot; In Chinese have overlapping meanings but they all have subtle differences with each others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;通常&amp;quot; = usually /typically (&lt;em&gt;emphasizes on normalcy&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example : &amp;quot;他通常不做好事&amp;quot; (usually, he doesn't do good things - &lt;em&gt;not doing good things to him is normal&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;平日&amp;quot;= &amp;quot;in normal days/ normally&amp;quot;  (&lt;em&gt;emphasizes on regularity&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example : &amp;quot;他平日不做好事&amp;quot; (normally, he doesn't do good things  - &lt;em&gt;it is a regular routine for him to not do the good things&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;素/ 素来&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;always&amp;quot; (&lt;em&gt;emphasizes on constancy&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example : &amp;quot;他素来不做好事&amp;quot; (always, he doesn't do good things- &lt;em&gt;he has always been like that&lt;/em&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;往往&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;often&amp;quot; (&lt;em&gt;implies 'ironically'&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example : &amp;quot;他往往不做好事&amp;quot; (often, he doesn't do good things- &lt;em&gt;despite other's expectation&lt;/em&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;常/ 常常 &amp;quot; = often  (&lt;em&gt;implies more often than not&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example : &amp;quot;他常常不做好事&amp;quot; (often, he doesn't do good things- &lt;em&gt;he is like that more often than not&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T07:28:06.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29073" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-11T10:51:05.110" Score="1" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know in Ancient Chinese there often was no classifier. But sometimes I notice the same phenomenon in modern Chinese. Today I heard the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一女子跟着自己的包进了安检机&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For which words is such a usage idiomatic? What decides when to omit the classifier?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T22:51:31.277" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T22:51:31.277" Title="When can a classifier be omitted? E.g. in 一女子跟着自己的包进了安检机" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29073" CreationDate="2018-03-11T11:33:23.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, 一女子 can mean &quot;&lt;em&gt;there's one woman&lt;/em&gt;&quot;， 有一名女子 or 某女子. The measure word can be omitted &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; when the number is &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; 一. We don't usually say 两女子，三女子， and we say 两名女子，三名女子 instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples: 一小孩 == 一个小孩; 一老人 == 一个老人; 买一玩具 == 买一个玩具; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I wouldn't suggest such omissions since the rule might not work very well for all the noun words. We'd better add the measure word and it will work all the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-03-11T11:41:47.560" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T11:41:47.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29075" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-11T12:10:28.960" Score="4" ViewCount="405" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do both of them mean &quot;difference?&quot; Not sure if they are the same part of speech or if they are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19255" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T22:48:07.287" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T00:00:42.747" Title="What's the difference between 差異 and 差別?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29075" CreationDate="2018-03-11T13:08:54.780" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 差異 and 差別 mean &quot;difference&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;差異 = (physical) difference &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;差別 = (physical or metaphorical) difference  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这两张牌全无&lt;strong&gt;差異&lt;/strong&gt;/这两张牌全无&lt;strong&gt;差別&lt;/strong&gt;  (these two cards have no difference)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the two cards are physically the same&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对我而言，有机食品和普通食品之间並无&lt;strong&gt;差别&lt;/strong&gt;  (to me, there's no difference between organic foods and common foods)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the two products have the same food value to me&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you cannot replace 差别 with 差異 here because the difference between them is not physical but of value in your opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more example for 差别 used to describe metaphorical difference: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;输给彼得或输给保罗是一样的，没有什么差别 (lose to Peter or lose to Paul are the same, there's no difference)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the main point is you lose&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Again, you cannot use 差異 instead of 差别 here because the focus is not on the physical difference between 'lose to Peter' and 'lose to Paul' . The focus is on the win or lose result)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-03-16T00:00:42.747" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T00:00:42.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29077" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29080" CreationDate="2018-03-11T14:12:20.233" Score="5" ViewCount="534" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference between the use of these two? In my book, a sentence says '木屋里总共只有两个房间和一张床' - could you say 一共 here instead of 总共?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T00:14:46.023" Title="Is there a difference between 一共 and 总共?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29073" CreationDate="2018-03-11T15:27:58.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually we do not omit the classifiers. The sentence in your example, I guess, probably comes from a news title, where brevity matters so there may be omission of the classifiers. But it's also correct to replace it with 一名女子 in your example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, omission can happen in oral Chinese. For example I may say, 饿死我了，我中午就吃了一苹果。(I'm starving, I only ate an apple for lunch.) In this case (oral language), I don't think there's any restriction on which classifiers are allowed to be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T15:27:58.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29077" CreationDate="2018-03-11T15:43:20.803" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;could you say 一共 here instead of 总共?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes you can, '总共两个房间和一张床' means &amp;quot;two rooms and one bed in total&amp;quot; &lt;strong&gt;room and bed are grouped as features&lt;/strong&gt; in the house, therefore '一共两个房间和一张床' (altogether) is also correct&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it would be weird to say &amp;quot;一共一张床&amp;quot; because &amp;quot;一共&amp;quot; should apply to more than one item (which you add them up together)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总共 = in total&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我们这里总共有十个房间&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;we have ten rooms here in total&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我们总共十个人&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;we have ten people in total&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一共 = altogether&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我们这里一共有十个房间&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;we have ten rooms here altogether &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我们一共十个人&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;we have ten people altogether &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The only difference between 总共 and 一共 is 总共 can be used to describe a single item but 一共 cannot. We say &amp;quot;总共只有一人&amp;quot; , but not &amp;quot;一共只有一人&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice: you can say &amp;quot;一共一元&amp;quot; because a dollar is one hundred cents add up together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;一共一元&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;合共一元&amp;quot; ($1 altogether)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T00:14:46.023" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29081" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29082" CreationDate="2018-03-11T17:56:49.473" Score="2" ViewCount="405" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have always learnt that 'to get out of bed' is 起床, but a book of mine says that two elderly people 从来不下床. Is there a difference between the two or is it just a dialect thing?&#xA;Also, if you can say 下床, can you say 我上床 to mean 'I am going to bed'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-12T03:51:50.733" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T07:04:51.410" Title="Is the opposite of 上床 下床 or 起床?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29081" CreationDate="2018-03-11T19:37:05.037" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alright, to me, 起床 means the end of sleep and getting up. 下床 means the opposite of being on the bed, as in your example, two elderly people 从来不下床 may mean that they have health problems so they have to be lying on the bed, but they may not be asleep when they are on the bed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上床 can be used to refer to the action of going to bed, like 我一般晚上 11 点钟上床。(I usually go to bed at 11 pm.) Also 上床 is the common saying of &lt;em&gt;having sex&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastEditorUserId="2484" LastEditDate="2018-03-12T00:39:48.210" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T00:39:48.210" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6147" CreationDate="2018-03-11T20:12:45.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iso639-2&lt;/a&gt;, the Chinese language is chi (B) or zho (T), where &quot;B&quot; for (bibliographic) and &quot;T&quot; for (terminology).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, don't ask me about the difference, I really don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19258" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T20:12:45.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29077" CreationDate="2018-03-11T23:44:48.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with comment 1. The key difference between 一共 and 总共 is that 总共 can be used as attributive, whereas 一共 can not. They're interchangeable in other usages. For example, 总共的价钱，not 一共的价钱. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, in your case, they're pretty much interchangeable. &#xA;So, '木屋里一共只有两个房间和一张床' is also correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-03-11T23:51:53.187" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T23:51:53.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29081" CreationDate="2018-03-12T07:04:51.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;上床 generally means that you have moved to bed, but not necessarily to sleep. You can read books and other activities in bed. For example: 我上床去睡觉。&#xA;下床 is you leave the bed, first, there is a temporary departure and will come back within a short time; second, the location of the move, for example, you just read in bed, and now get out of bed to the sofa to read a book. For example: 我下床穿衣服。&#xA;And 起床 often is used to represent a series of actions that awaken from sleep. The coherent behavior of sleeping from bed, sleeping and opening your eyes, sitting up, getting out of bed, and washing yourselves can all be called up. For example: 我起床去工作了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19260" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T07:04:51.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29087" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29089" CreationDate="2018-03-12T08:02:14.017" Score="2" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chinese teacher (a native speaker) told me that when using &quot;chà&quot;, I need also to use &quot;&quot;dào&quot;, like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;chà shí fen dào 4 diăn. (3:50).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I cannot find a single reference to this online. Everywhere, only chà is used, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;chà shí fen 4 diăn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4 diăn chà shí fen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15781" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T13:01:42.427" Title="Does &quot;chà&quot; requires &quot;dào&quot; when expressing time?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29087" CreationDate="2018-03-12T08:42:56.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;chà&lt;/strong&gt; shí fen &lt;strong&gt;dào&lt;/strong&gt; 4 diăn. (3:50)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;差&lt;/strong&gt;十分&lt;strong&gt;到&lt;/strong&gt;四點 = &amp;quot;(&lt;strong&gt;still&lt;/strong&gt;) ten minutes &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; four o'clock&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;ten to four&amp;quot; in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is English grammar directly applied to Chinese language. Chinese do not usually describe clock time this way. (Although it is based on English grammar, most Chinese would have no problem accepting it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The normal way to describe 3:50 is &amp;quot;三點五十分&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is fine to say  &amp;quot;還有十分鐘就四點&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;還差十分鐘就四點&amp;quot; (still ten more minutes, and it will be four o'clock) to emphasize how close it is to four o'clock&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chà shí fen 4 diăn 差十分四點 (it shorten 還差十分鐘就四點 too much, sound very blunt)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 diăn chà shí fen 四點差十分 (no one say it like this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;when using &amp;quot;chà&amp;quot;, I need also to use &amp;quot;&amp;quot;dào&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes there's a [差(chà) XXX 就到(Jiù dào) YYY] structure in Chinese grammar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example &amp;quot;差(十分鐘)就到(四點)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes people do omit 就 (Jiù) and say &amp;quot;差十分鐘到四點&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes people also omit '鐘' in '十分鐘' and just say '十分' in this structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T10:45:18.453" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29087" CreationDate="2018-03-12T13:01:42.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting question. Imho, colloquially, most of time I would say: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;四点差十分。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;差十分钟四点。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;还有十分钟四点。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;距离四点还有十分钟。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I omit 到 most of time there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't be against to your Chinese teacher. But 差十分钟四点 is used much more often than 差十分钟到四点 in practice. I would even think 差十分钟到四点 is a little unnatural, because 到 often goes with 就 (就到).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 还有/差十分钟就到四点了, with that 就到， it sounds like something going to happen or time is up at 4 o'clock, and only 10 minutes left. It emphasizes urgency. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this would help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T13:01:42.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29090" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29094" CreationDate="2018-03-12T20:57:20.653" Score="2" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried sentence ordering exercises from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thechairmansbao.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TCB&lt;/a&gt; for HSK 5. Below the second sentence was considered wrong. Is it simply unidiomatic or is it wrong? Does the problem come from the preferred placement of 和⋯結成連理, or the preferred placement of 於？&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/octdo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/octdo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-03-12T21:11:41.583" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T08:39:55.553" Title="Is this placement of 於 wrong or just unidiomatic?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29090" CreationDate="2018-03-12T22:30:22.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;徐良泉於1937年和妻子結婚 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, [&lt;strong&gt;徐良泉&lt;/strong&gt;] is the subject. and the rest of the sentence &quot;於1937年和妻子結婚&quot; is in order&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;徐良泉和妻子於1937年結婚 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence [&lt;strong&gt;徐良泉和妻子&lt;/strong&gt;] is the subject, and the rest of the sentence &quot;於1937年結婚&quot; is in order&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'re-organise sentence into correct sentence order' here seem referring to the correct order of the four sentences, not the word orders in each sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The couple now have children, grand children and great grand children&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He married his wife in 1937&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The old man was born in Jiangsu&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This hundred years old couple have been through a lot of hardship&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct order of these four sentences is 3, 2, 1, 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The goal of this exercises is to use your comprehension skill to construct a logically coherent paragraph. All you need to do is to figure out the correct time-line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;None of the sentence is grammatically incorrect&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ludi wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Thank you. The goal is to arrange the words of the sentence, but I had already done that. There is no possibility to choose the order.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May be they think 和 in &quot;於1937年&lt;strong&gt;和&lt;/strong&gt;妻子結婚&quot; should had been 與. As in &quot;徐良泉於1937年&lt;strong&gt;與&lt;/strong&gt;妻子結婚&quot;(which is a better preposition when 徐良泉 was the subject) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;presuming 和 is incorrect (or not the optimal choice), the only option is to rearrange the sentence into &quot;徐良泉和妻子於1937年結婚&quot; and make &quot;徐良泉和妻子&quot; the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A likely explanation is the author already set the answer as &quot;徐良泉和妻子於1937年結婚&quot; but overlooked the fact that 和(and) can function as 與 (with) too. That meant there could be two correct answers, but the author only allowed one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-03-12T23:40:21.460" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T23:40:21.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29090" CreationDate="2018-03-12T22:45:24.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say the following are all acceptable and have the same meaning, but I prefer 4.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;徐良泉于1937年和妻子结成连理。 （结了婚）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;徐良泉和妻子于1937年结成连理。 （结了婚）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;徐良泉和妻子在1937年结成连理。 （结了婚）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;徐良泉和妻子1937年结成连理。 （结了婚）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T22:45:24.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29095" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-13T06:42:44.410" Score="2" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose that a Shanghainese husband and Hangzhounese wife gave birth to their child at a hospital in Chengdu, but raised the child in Shanghai (from age 0 to 18).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, is the child still considered 上海人 or 外地人 in Shanghai? Or is the child considered 成都人 since it is the place of the birth, even if he or she didn't come again to 成都 after the birth? And how about the child whose parents are both NOT shanghainese but he or she grew up in Shanghai (e.g. if the husband is Hangzounese is the child also considered Hangzhounese?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%96%E5%9C%B0%E4%BA%BA/10798295?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度百科&lt;/a&gt; doesn't seem to mention it...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-03-13T09:51:58.867" Title="Does 外地人 include those who were born outside but grew up inside?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29095" CreationDate="2018-03-13T08:17:16.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Most important of all: unlike 土生上海人 (native Shanghainese), any permanent resident of Shanghai is considered 上海人  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A person is considered 本地人 if he was born and/or raised in that place and is a long time permanent resident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A person is considered 外地人 if he was not born or raised in that place and is not a permanent resident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a person was born and/or raise in that place, lived elsewhere for a long time then come back to take up permanent residency, he is still considered 本地人 (local) or  土生 (native)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a person was born and/or raised in that place, lived elsewhere for a long time then come back for a visit, he is neither 本地人 nor 外地人. He is a 回鄉客&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a person was born and raised elsewhere, but is a long time permanent resident, he is certainly not a 外地人. Depend on how much he adapted to the local culture, he can be considered 本地人 (local) or 老移民 (long time immigrant)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Suppose that a Shanghainese husband and Hangzhounese wife gave birth to their child at a hospital in Chengdu, but raised the child in Shanghai (from age 0 to 18).&#xA;  In this case, is the child still considered 上海人 or 外地人 in Shanghai?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since he is a permanent resident, he is considered 上海人 in Shanghai.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Since he was raised in Shanghai, he is also considered a 本地人 (local)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-03-13T08:17:16.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29095" CreationDate="2018-03-13T09:51:58.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different people may take this differently. Based on my observation, from a traditional Shanghainese perspective, the criteria of 上海本地人 are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;户口 is registered in Shanghai. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Live in Shanghai starting from the very early ages. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Able to communicate in Shanghai dialect. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Understand the tradition of Shanghai. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your parents are Shanghainese (this criteria may not be that strict. )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds &lt;em&gt;bias&lt;/em&gt;, but that's the reality I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-03-13T09:51:58.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29017" CreationDate="2018-03-13T17:47:46.030" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some regular simplification rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;釒(金)→钅: 針→针, 鈴→铃&lt;br&gt;&#xA;飠(食)→饣: 飲→饮, 飯→饭&lt;br&gt;&#xA;糹(糸)→纟: 紅→红, 絲→丝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;訁(言)→讠: 計→计, 語→语&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;貝→贝: 貨→货, 貴→贵&lt;br&gt;&#xA;見→见: 視→视, 現→现&lt;br&gt;&#xA;頁→页: 項→项, 題→题&lt;br&gt;&#xA;東→东: 陳→陈, 棟→栋&lt;br&gt;&#xA;車→车: 軟→软, 輩→辈&lt;br&gt;&#xA;門→门: 問→问, 閑→闲&lt;br&gt;&#xA;烏→乌: 鎢→钨, 塢→坞&lt;br&gt;&#xA;魚→鱼: 漁→渔, 魯→鲁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鳥→鸟: 鴨→鸭, 鷹→鹰&lt;br&gt;&#xA;馬→马: 媽→妈, 騰→腾&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some simplified examples of complex components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爿→丬: 壯→壮, 將→将&lt;br&gt;&#xA;豐→丰: 灃→沣, 艷→艳&lt;br&gt;&#xA;風→风: 瘋→疯, 諷→讽&lt;br&gt;&#xA;長→长: 張→张, 帳→帐&lt;br&gt;&#xA;堯→尧: 燒→烧, 饒→饶&lt;br&gt;&#xA;䜌→亦: 戀→恋, 彎→弯&lt;br&gt;&#xA;睪→: 澤→泽, 驛→驿&lt;br&gt;&#xA;炏→艹: 營→营, 榮→荣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;蘭→兰: 欄→栏, 爛→烂&lt;br&gt;&#xA;羅→罗: 蘿→萝, 邏→逻&lt;br&gt;&#xA;買→买: 買→买, 賣→卖&lt;br&gt;&#xA;產→产: 鏟→铲, 滻→浐&lt;br&gt;&#xA;齊→齐: 擠→挤, 濟→济&lt;br&gt;&#xA;幾→几: 機→机, 譏→讥&lt;br&gt;&#xA;柬→拣(the right part): 煉→炼, 練→练&lt;br&gt;&#xA;盧→户: 廬(广+～)→庐(广+户), 驢(馬+～)→驴(马+户)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;盧→卢: 鱸(魚+～)→鲈(鱼+卢), 顱(～+頁)→颅(卢+页)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;戔→戋: 錢→钱, 棧→栈&lt;br&gt;&#xA;咼→呙: 鍋→锅, 窩→窝&lt;br&gt;&#xA;樂→乐: 爍→烁, 櫟→栎&lt;br&gt;&#xA;豈→岂: 鎧→铠, 凱→凯&lt;br&gt;&#xA;肅→肃: 蕭→萧, 嘯→啸&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also many irrational simplifications, such as cursive writing, or homophonic substitution, and some characters are combined by these simplified components. If you see Chinese characters with a lot of these parts, you can be sure that this is traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2018-03-13T18:13:17.277" LastActivityDate="2018-03-13T18:13:17.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28982" CreationDate="2018-03-14T05:52:52.840" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1、What I understand is not change, but new words added. The words in the income dictionary are usually the words we encounter in life. If you have the opportunity to read the latest Xinhua Dictionary, you will find a lot of new “trend” words(房奴、晒工资etc). Many of these words come from online pop words. There are many people who use this word, and they also have representatives of certain aspects of the time so they choose to add it to the dictionary. This was also the case during the Cultural Revolution, and a special era background would inevitably produce new words (not to mention that it was a very long time), so we should not be too entangled with this issue.&#xA; 2、In addition, agree with Steve Yang. TW Mandarin and Mandarin are due to geographical differences and lifestyle differences (of course there are certain historical reasons). Chinese is a macrolanguage, he can be divided into a variety of languages: Gan Chinese [gan]赣语; proverb Hakka Chinese [hak] 客家话; Huizhou Chinese [czh] 徽语; Jinyu Chinese [cjy] 晋语; Literary Chinese [lzh] 文言文; Min Bei Chinese [mnp] 闽北语; Min Dong Chinese [cdo] 闽东语; Min Nan Chinese [nan] 闽南语;Min Zhong Chinese [czo] 闽中语;Pu -Xian Chinese [cpx] 莆仙语; Wu Chinese [wuu] 吴语; Xiang Chinese [hsn] 湘语; Cantonese [yue]粤语; TW 国语; Mandarin and so on. For the convenience of communication, Mandarin is selected as the common language in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19260" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T05:52:52.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29100" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-14T11:16:03.190" Score="3" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from T263, the Lotus Sūtra, eight groups of 4 characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如來所詔 常以知時 為其眾生 而行智慧&#xA;||  以何方便 而受道法 何因令獲 從佛經教&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 何, particularly in 以何方便, mean that there is a question being asked here? Or is it simply the word &quot;which&quot;? How does 以 interact with 何 here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastEditorUserId="16909" LastEditDate="2018-03-14T11:21:03.510" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T22:12:20.670" Title="Usage of 何 in Buddhist Hybrid Chinese" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;&lt;middle-chinese&gt;&lt;buddhism&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29100" CreationDate="2018-03-14T12:18:48.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;以何 can be found in the Chinese to French &lt;em&gt;Grand Ricci&lt;/em&gt; dictionary as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以何&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yǐ hé&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avec quoi? par quel moyen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which roughly translates as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With what? In what way? By what means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;以 = by / with / based on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;何 = what / who / how, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s a slightly more modern day example from &lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你以何为生？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what do you do for a living?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and another from &lt;em&gt;New Century English-Chinese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们想要了解的是, 我们究竟要以何种基本策略来改善这个国家的状况并使其再度向前发展。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What they want is the meat and potatoes of how we're going to improve this country and get our country moving again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s not technically a word or word-phrase but you might see it together every now and then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T15:11:55.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28982" CreationDate="2018-03-14T14:30:44.000" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I understand, there are indeed some new words created, or given a new meaning, during the years of cultural revolution. However, those words quickly lose their popularity soon after the arrest of &quot;Gang of Four&quot;. Actually, as someone who is born many years after that period, I can hardly think of any word that is still used in the ordinary context, be it oral or written language. And even the Communist Party government tries to avoid using those words, due to the special meanings attached to them. So you can hardly see them apart from the history book, or people telling stories of that era.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are a few exceptions in the recent years, notably the use of &quot;篡党夺权&quot; from the remarks by Liu Shiyu, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission during the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.&lt;sup&gt;[&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.voanews.com/a/china-xi-jinping-anti-corruption-drive-prevent-coup-attempt/4079310.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;sup&gt;[&lt;a href=&quot;https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20171020/china-sun-zhengcai-disgraced/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/sup&gt; And there has been a rise in the use of &quot;伟大领袖&quot; in local newspapers as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a comprehensive list of new words or words given a new meaning during the cultural revolution, I've found a paper from search engine &lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/ed6a8002fad6195f312ba6be.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. But it's in Chinese, and it also requires purchasing to read further from page 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to the difference between TW国语 and mainland普通话, they are completely irrelated to the cultural revolution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2018-03-17T23:20:57.567" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T23:20:57.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29100" CreationDate="2018-03-14T16:54:30.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;以何&quot; was used in classical chinese roughly as &quot;by (以) which / what (何)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg 禮記﹒問喪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;或問曰﹒杖者﹒以何為也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三國志﹒董昭傳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;問﹒禦以何術&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;though, it's not 100%, most of this usages were questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the verses &quot;以何方便　而受道法　何因令獲　從佛經教&quot; is from 正法華經　卷第七&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/mobile/index.php?index=T09n0263_007&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/mobile/index.php?index=T09n0263_007&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which 方便 is upāya-mukha (方便門), since there're many ways to learn buddhism, &quot;以何方便&quot; in this context means by (以) which [one] (何)  of the ways (方便).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the question mark, it depends on the version of translation. here's one that text are punctuated with dot only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hyf6J.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hyf6J.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T16:54:30.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29100" CreationDate="2018-03-14T22:12:20.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me quote more sentences so that we can know the whole story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;竺法護《正法華經》第七卷〈如來現壽品〉第十五&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;受諸等友，而自由用，世吼療治，眾生之病，開導癡騃，令離愚冥，而現泥洹，亦不滅度。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  何故慇懃，欲得現已，人常闇弊，使意信樂，以放逸故，墜墮三處，其心踊躍，欲令覺了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如來所詔，常以知時，為其眾生，而行智慧，以何方便，而受道法，何因令獲，從佛經教。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is not easy to understand these, we can take a look other translations.&#xA;Another version of the same sutra was translated by one of the best translators in the history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鳩摩羅什《妙法蓮華經》第五卷〈如來壽量品〉第十六&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我亦為世父，救諸苦患者，為凡夫顛倒，實在而言滅。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  以常見我故，而生憍恣心，放逸著五欲，墮於惡道中。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我常知眾生，行道不行道，隨所應可度，為說種種法。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  每自作是意：以何令眾生，得入無上慧，速成就佛身。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last line shows the following meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I myself often have the following thought.&#xA;  I should use what methods to make all sentient beings to get the supreme Wisdom and to become Buddhas quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, 以何方便 means to use (以) what (何) methods (方便).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T22:12:20.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29105" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29107" CreationDate="2018-03-15T00:41:51.713" Score="2" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?word=%E6%9B%B4%E8%BF%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; lists an example sentence for 交替:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨天與晴天交替更迭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the site, 交替 means &lt;code&gt;to replace; alternately; in turn&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 更迭 means &lt;code&gt;to alternate; to change&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Isn't 交替更迭 then redundant?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If 交替更迭 is redundant, could you change the example sentence to 雨天與晴天交替?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How would you say the example sentence in Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-15T10:20:56.990" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T13:27:46.320" Title="Is 交替更迭 redundant? Would this be proper grammar: 雨天與晴天交替?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29090" CreationDate="2018-03-15T01:58:13.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Then I'm sorry to say that that's the &lt;strong&gt;LEAST&lt;/strong&gt; correct answer!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm just speaking from a native Chinese speaker (Taiwan), the 4th answer &lt;code&gt;徐良泉和妻子1937年结成连理&lt;/code&gt; feels like it had &lt;strong&gt;missed something&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was like saying &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;John and Kate married 1937&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;instead of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;John and Kate married &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; 1937&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did you see the difference!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That software is made by people, and so is &lt;strong&gt;NOT perfect&lt;/strong&gt;! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Try&lt;/strong&gt; NOT to take too much of it to heart!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as you keep practicing it and, most importantly, keep &lt;strong&gt;using&lt;/strong&gt; it. &lt;strong&gt;(EVEN IF IT'S WRONG!)&lt;/strong&gt; Then the time will come when you got the &lt;strong&gt;AHA!&lt;/strong&gt; moment and can &lt;strong&gt;feel&lt;/strong&gt; the &quot;rightness&quot; of the language!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's how I learned English!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep at it! Good luck! 加油!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18981" LastEditorUserId="6004" LastEditDate="2018-03-15T08:39:55.553" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T08:39:55.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29105" CreationDate="2018-03-15T02:52:25.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;交替 and 更迭 are two similar terms that complement each other in an four characters idiomatic phrase. Using four characters idiomatic phrase is a very common practice in Chinese speech. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小心 (careful) and 謹慎 (cautious) have similar meaning, it is often put together as an idiomatic phrase (but not a true idiom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;你要小心&quot; or &quot;你要謹慎&quot;, they deliver a similar message, and both are to the point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also combine the two adjectives into one idiomatic phrase &quot;小心謹慎&quot; and say &quot;你要小心謹慎&quot; to illustrate a more detailed message and add literary flair to your speech.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;雨天與晴天交替更迭&quot; is grammatically correct and detailed. However, it would be more elegant to say &quot;晴雨交替&quot; or &quot;晴雨更迭&quot; (&lt;em&gt;another way to make idiomatic phrase is reduce a long phrase into four characters phrase&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;縱横 (intersecting) 交錯 (crossing) --&gt; 縱横交錯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聰明 (intelligent) 伶俐 (smart)  --&gt; 聰明伶俐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We do it in English too, e.g. &quot;He is a clever, smart man&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-03-15T13:27:46.320" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T13:27:46.320" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29108" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29109" CreationDate="2018-03-15T09:16:55.193" Score="6" ViewCount="1202" Body="&lt;p&gt;On my last &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/29090/11365&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt;, there is a hint not to treat 於 as the traditional variant of 于。However, my keyboard (Tw) never proposes 于。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also noted that the commentary on the 學而 on this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.taiwanus.net/E/E_4/E_4_01.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;site&lt;/a&gt; uses 于 twice. The text and commentary combined use 於 nine times. Can anyone enlighten me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-03-15T09:24:22.220" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T11:40:28.273" Title="When to use 于 and not 於 in traditional Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29108" CreationDate="2018-03-15T09:30:24.273" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out the two entries in &lt;em&gt;A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese&lt;/em&gt; for when to use 于 and not 於:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;於&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;MC 'jo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 (GP) typically occurs after a VB or VB-phrase and before a noun or noun-phrase, indicating any indirect or locative relation: in, at, from, to, on, with regard to, vis-à-vis, etc.; e.g. 王坐於堂上 wáng zuò yú tángshàng, The king was sitting in the hall; 千里之行始於足下 qiānlǐzhi xíng shǐ yú zúxià, A journey of a thousand li starts from under one’s foot; 敏於事而慎於言 mǐn yú shì ér shèn yú yán, diligent vis-à-vis affairs and careful vis-à-vis speech; cog. yú 于 in, at, from, to, on, with regard to, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;N.B. Fom the Warring States period on 于 yú and 於 yú are generally interchangeable, save for stylistic preferences; prior to the Warring States period 於 yú is rare, and the two are not equivalent to each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a) (GP) after a VB or VB-phrase and before a noun or noun-phrase, indicating comparative sense: than; e.g. 民少於今日 mín shǎo yú jīnrì, The citizens were fewer in number than [those of] the present day; 青於藍 qīng yú lán, bluer than indigo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 (Budd.) (GP) in Budd. texts often simply a marker preceding the obj, with no translatable meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;于&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;MC hju&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 typically occurs after a VB or VB-phrase and before a noun or noun-phrase, indicating any indirect or locative relation: in, at, from, to, on, with regard to, vis-à-vis, etc.; e.g. 入于幽谷 rù yú yōugǔ, entering into a dark valley; 君告于天子 jūn gào yú tiānzǐ, The lord reported it to the Son of Heaven; cog. yú 於 in, at, from, to, on, with regard to, etc.&#xA;  N.B. From the Warring States period on 于 yú and 於 yú are generally interchangeable, save for stylistic preferences; prior to the Warring States period they are not equivalent to each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a) preceding a time-word (and often after zhì 至): arriving at, up to, at [the time in question]; e.g. 而至于今 érzhì yú jīn, and still it continues up to the present; 于時以為蜀得其龍 yú shí yǐwéi shǔ dé qí lóng, by that time they figured that Shu had gotten its dragon; 二世三世至于萬世 èrshì sānshì zhì yú wànshì, for two generations, three generations, up to a myriad of generations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b) after a VB or VB-phrase and before a noun or noun-phrase, indicating comparative sense: than; e.g. 多于前功 duō yú qiángōng, more than previous merit; 異于今人 yì yú jīnrén, more unusual than people of the present day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 pre-classical VB prefix of uncertain meaning, possibly an inchoative sense or rhetorical emphasis; e.g. 黃鳥于飛 huángniǎo yú fēi, The yellow birds are taking to flight; 之子于歸 zhīzǐ yú guī, That fellow is on his way home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 (bn.) 于闐 yútián (MC hju-den), Khotan, oasis city on the southern Silk Road in the Tarim Basin, the main source of nephrite imported to China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4 arch-shaped rim or sound-bow of a chime-bell’s mouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see from the reconstructions that 於 and 于 didn't even share a common pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are classical and medieval usages though. In modern Chinese the difference is less obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage of 致力于 and 歸于 on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.taiwanus.net/E/E_4/E_4_01.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;that site you linked above&lt;/a&gt; is somewhat baffling. 两岸 has entries for: 致力於 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/~%E8%87%B4%E5%8A%9B%E6%96%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.moedict.tw/~%E8%87%B4%E5%8A%9B%E6%96%BC&lt;/a&gt; and 歸於 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/~%E6%AD%B8%E6%96%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.moedict.tw/~%E6%AD%B8%E6%96%BC&lt;/a&gt; Taiwan's Ministry of Education certainly doesn't see any reason to use 于 over 於.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MoE does make some distinctions as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/~%E4%BA%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;于ㄩˊ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;介詞：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;➊ ​引進時間、地點、範圍等，相當於「在」。例 「生于1949年」、「發源于黃河」、「耿耿于懷」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;➋ ​引進方面、原因、目的。例 「勇于承擔」、「死于車禍」、「急于做到」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;➌ ​引進方向、目標。例 「言歸于好」、「嫁禍于他人」、「獻身于教育」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;➍ ​引進對象，相當於「向」、「給」、「對」。例 「忠于國家」、「有益于人民」、「無濟于事」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;➎ ​引進比較的對象。例 「重于泰山」、「輕于鴻毛」、「高于樓臺」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;➏ ​引進行為的主動者。例 「死于槍手」、「限于篇幅，暫不刊登」、「國家隊竟敗于默默無聞的隊伍」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;➐ ​引進來源、起點，相當於「從」、「自」。例 「青出于藍」、「佛教發源于印度」。&#xA;      ∥也作「於」（陸 今不用）​。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;助詞。用在句首或句中，無意義。例 「鳳凰于飛」、「之子于歸」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;姓。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/~%E6%96%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;於ㄩˊ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;简于&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;介詞：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;引進地點、範圍、時間等，相當於「在」。例 「飯店位於機場對面」、「於無意中發現這個祕密」、「生於70年代」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;引進對象，相當於「向」、「給」、「對」。例 「問道於盲」、「於事無補」、「己所不欲，勿施於人」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;引進來源、起點，相當於「從」、「自」。例 「青出於藍」、「佛教發源於印度」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;引進行為的主動者。例 「地主隊敗於客隊」、「見笑於大方之家」、「限於篇幅，忍痛割愛」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;引進方向、目標。例 「天氣逐漸趨於穩定」、「致力於學術研究」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;引進方面、原因、目的。例 「勇於負責」、「苦於沒有機會」、「執著於實現理想」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;引進比較的對象。例 「重於泰山」、「苛政猛於虎」、「成長率高於預期」。&#xA;      ∥也作「于」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the definitions are more or less the same and it's quite hairy in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-03-15T10:05:56.300" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T10:05:56.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29110" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-15T10:15:47.997" Score="5" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%8F%E8%B5%84/93009?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In the following sentence&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;也有一些“小资女人”的领军人物开始&lt;strong&gt;不屑于说英文了&lt;/strong&gt;，偶尔来句日文或法文才能彰显自己的不同。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence uses 不屑于, not 不屑, but the meaning would be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, some leaders of “小资女人” started to look down on speaking English, and they sometimes think that to speak Japanese or French makes it clear that they are different from others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;The translation might be a bit awkward so feel free to edit it.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that the 于 here takes an object (说英文) after that. But in other usages, 不屑 just takes an object directly, without any preposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if you relate it to English, it looks like 不屑 here works as an intransitive verb, and 于 is a preposition. But in other uses I have seen, it works as if a transitive verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, why does 不屑 need to take 于 here, even though in other cases it does not need?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note:&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8D%E5%B1%91/3178&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8D%E5%B1%91/3178&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="18660" LastEditDate="2018-04-17T06:31:28.013" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T11:01:30.263" Title="Why is 于 needed after 不屑 (but sometimes not)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29110" CreationDate="2018-03-15T10:33:27.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不屑于&lt;/strong&gt; is a set phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check out《现代汉语规范词典》's distinctions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不屑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 动 不值得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不屑一切 | 不屑与之争辩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 形 形容轻视的样子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一副不屑的神情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不屑于&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;动 认为不值得做或不值得理睬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很自负, 好像不屑于做这种具体工作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《规范》defines the two slightly differently while treating 不屑于 as a separate independent word and not a construct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T14:33:45.303" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29108" CreationDate="2018-03-15T10:37:22.150" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This answer details a bit of history of the development of&lt;/em&gt;「于」&lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt;「於」, &lt;em&gt;and addresses why they overlap. It is purely meant to be a complement to @user3306356's answer, which has responded to the question directly.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Modern Chinese language shared across all Chinese-using regions,「于」and「於」largely represents the same overlapping preposition/adposition function. &lt;em&gt;For this function only&lt;/em&gt;*, any proposed &quot;rules&quot; specifying the difference in usage between the two are very unlikely to be accepted across all Chinese-speaking regions, mainly complicated by the fact that PRC has made「於」obsolete and Taiwan has a habit of using「於」and not「于」. This is also why you wouldn't find「于」on all but the most thorough Taiwan-Chinese input methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「于」and「於」are both phonetic loans; they both originally represented something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;Glyph origin of 于&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「于」was originally a picture of a wind instrument:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z73v1.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z73v1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It was later simplified to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RiSOR.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RiSOR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;then further simplified to「于」. The original sense of the wind instrument is now written「竽」after「于」became extensively used for its grammatical function meaning and had lost its original meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;Glyph origin of 於&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「於」and「烏」were originally the same character, but have been graphically differentiated. For reference, their development looked something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/arG0a.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/arG0a.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oGK75.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oGK75.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There was absolutely no difference between the characters「於」and「烏」before the Qin dynasty, and「烏/於」was used for its current grammatical function long before they became different characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The historical usage of「于」and「於」goes in accordance to something like the following timeline:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Western Zhou&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Only「于」is used for the grammatical function.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;During the same period,「於」is used as an exclamation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is especially obvious when both「于」and「於」appear simultaneously: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SPP6X.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SPP6X.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Late Western Zhou to end of the Spring and Autumn period:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「于」sees an additional use of a filler syllable to match rhythms across commonly used phrases.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「於」gains the grammatical function of what was previously「于」, but「于」still sees higher usage frequency for this function, and there is no difference between the two in this context.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「於」still kept its previous meaning (as an exclamation).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Warring States and later:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「於」overtakes「于」in frequency in the grammatical function sense, but both were still used and neither was permanently dropped.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/clrc/crcl_94_1/yang.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;從“于 / 於”用法上的變化看複合詞“於是”的產生&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*There are differences between「于」and「於」when they're not used in the grammatical function sense, which this answer touches upon but doesn't explain thoroughly - detailed dictionaries will provide a more comprehensive explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-03-15T11:40:28.273" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T11:40:28.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29105" CreationDate="2018-03-15T12:54:41.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Despite their meaning being very similar to one another, I don't think they are the same, especially in your example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;更迭 is more about people, time, dynasty and such. E.g. 朝代更迭，人事更迭 etc. Synonyms would be 更替 or 变迁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;交替 is more about natural phenomena or the alternation between one of a few states. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明暗交替&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在正弦曲线中，波峰与波谷交替出现&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in your example, I think 交替 would be more suitable. And 晴雨交替 suggested by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/13882/tang-ho&quot;&gt;Tang Ho&lt;/a&gt; is a very good answer in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But using them as 交替更迭 is definitely redundant. It's something we're taught to avoid since primary school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T12:54:41.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29075" CreationDate="2018-03-15T15:37:57.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to Tang Ho's answer, one of the major difference between these 2 words is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;差異 is usually used when measurement is involved.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say if you're comparing the weather between 2 countries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The weather between Canada and Africa differ greatly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;加拿大和非洲之間的天氣差別很大  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The temperature between Canada and Africa differ greatly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;加拿大與非洲之間的氣溫差異很大  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that some of the metaphorical differences (as mentioned from Tang) might not be as 'measurable', such as culture, knowledge, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-17T02:22:31.323" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T02:22:31.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29115" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-15T19:20:46.710" Score="3" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've sometimes earned laughter when I used 一个女人 or 一个男人. Does it have a derogative connotation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it better to use 女的/男的 or 女生/男生? Are there regional differences in the usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19266" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-04-19T18:22:21.833" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T18:22:21.833" Title="Do 男人 and 女人 have an unfavourable connotation?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29115" CreationDate="2018-03-15T23:26:20.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;男人 and 女人 are used when talking about the relationship between women and men or when talking about specific characteristics of 男人 or 女人. Without knowing your detailed context, my best guess would be that you use them to indicate a serious situation where the generic gender terms should be used, which are 男的 and 女的, or just 男 and 女. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-03-16T02:34:38.823" LastActivityDate="2018-03-16T02:34:38.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29483" CreationDate="2018-03-16T07:46:25.210" Score="4" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;發 and 髮 have been simplified into one single character: 发.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发 contains the separate meanings of 發 and 髮 but differentiates by tone: fa1 (fā) and fa4 (fà).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most topolects (西安，武汉，洛阳，乌鲁木齐，贵阳，济南，柳州，万荣，etc.) don't have a tonal differentiation and 发 only has one pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the origin of the tonal differentiation in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T17:52:47.327" Title="Why does Mandarin differentiate 发[發/髮] fa1/fa4 when most topolects don't?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29118" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29122" CreationDate="2018-03-16T10:27:46.623" Score="0" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;While exploring Taiwan (Taipei and Sanchong specifically), I've seen many Buddhist temples named with 宮, and on maps there also seem to be some named with 寺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between (from what I can tell) a Buddhist 宮 and a Buddhist 寺? I recognize the latter character, from Japanese, as &quot;temple&quot;; the former I haven't really seen before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T02:30:40.963" Title="In Taiwanese place names, how are 宮 vs. 寺 used?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29117" CreationDate="2018-03-16T10:47:47.413" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two characters pronounce the same in some dialects may be a coincidence. I come from Xi'an, you are right, we really read 发 in 头发 and 发展 in same tone. But there are also characters with different tones in our dialect, but the same in Mandarin. Dialect does not necessarily correspond to Mandarin one by one, it usually has its own rules. The tones of most characters in northern dialects correspond to Mandarin one by one usually, but not all of the characters. Comparatively, the tones of most southern dialects are not regular like northern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2018-03-16T10:47:47.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29118" CreationDate="2018-03-16T11:29:13.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are the terms as defined by &lt;strong&gt;Soothill&lt;/strong&gt; in &lt;em&gt;A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;寺&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;vihāra, 毘訶羅 or 鼻訶羅;saṅghārāma僧伽藍; an official hall, a temple, adopted by Buddhists for a monastery, many other names are given to it, e. g. 淨住; 法同舍; 出世舍; 精舍; 清淨園; 金剛剎; 寂滅道場; 遠離處; 親近處 'A model vihāra ought to be built of red sandalwood, with 32 chambers, 8tāla trees in height, with a garden, park and bathing tank attached; it ought to have promenades for peripatetic meditation and to be richly furnished with stores of clothes, food, bedsteads, mattresses, medicines and all creature comforts.' Eitel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;宫&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A palace, mansion; a eunuch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寺, technically would be a very specific thing while 宫 mostly just refers to a palace. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think in reality 寺 can refer to any temple, while 宫 can also refer to just about any temple as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-03-16T11:35:17.380" LastActivityDate="2018-03-16T11:35:17.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29118" CreationDate="2018-03-16T11:42:37.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佛寺 = Buddhist temple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道觀 = Taoist temple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宮 = palace&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;神社/ 神宮 = shrine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;廟 = temple (polytheism)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching 'Taiwan Buddhist temples' and I found a list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many entries with the name 宮  in it are labeled as 'Buddhist temples' but they are in fact,  temples for individual gods in Chinese polytheism&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yelp.com/biz/%E5%A4%A7%E9%BE%8D%E5%B3%92%E4%BF%9D%E5%AE%89%E5%AE%AE-%E5%A4%A7%E5%90%8C%E5%8D%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大龍峒保安宮&lt;/a&gt; (Dalongdong Baoan Temple)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see the idol is a Chinese god, not Buddha.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oiGf5.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oiGf5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yelp.com/biz/%E6%9D%BE%E5%B1%B1%E6%85%88%E7%A5%90%E5%AE%AE-%E5%8F%B0%E5%8C%97%E5%B8%82%E6%9D%BE%E5%B1%B1%E5%8D%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;松山慈祐宮&lt;/a&gt; (Ciyou Temple)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The photo from its web site clearly showed 燒衣 and 求簽 equipment. Buddhist temples do not have that.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xWrRJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xWrRJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/llpDB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/llpDB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yelp.com/biz/%E7%AB%B9%E6%9E%97%E5%B1%B1%E8%A7%80%E9%9F%B3%E5%AF%BA-%E6%96%B0%E5%8C%97%E5%B8%82%E6%9E%97%E5%8F%A3%E5%8D%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;台北天后宮&lt;/a&gt;  (Taipei Tianhou Temple) is a place to worship '天后', it is in the temple's name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大龍峒保安宮, 松山慈祐宮 and 台北天后宮 are not Buddhist temples but Chinese polytheism temples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Japan, shrine are called 神社, 神宮,  Since Taiwan has deep tie to Japanese culture, using 宮 in temples name is understandable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-16T11:53:19.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28982" CreationDate="2018-03-16T18:55:19.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there are any firm agreed on measures of language similarity, so in that sense the question is unanswerable. But here's an attempt to use the term-usage-frequency data in google ngrams to partially answer your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First question, is the cultural revolution visible at all in the google ngram corpus? There are some obviously revolutionary terms like 阶级 or 斗 that you'd expect to spike in the 60's-70's range if the corpus has any sane connection with current events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E9%98%B6%E7%BA%A7&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E9%98%B6%E7%BA%A7%3B%2Cc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E9%98%B6%E7%BA%A7&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E9%98%B6%E7%BA%A7%3B%2Cc0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E6%96%97&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E6%96%97%3B%2Cc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E6%96%97&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E6%96%97%3B%2Cc0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok so that test passes. For this particular measure of language change, rather than trying to find cultural-revolution neologisms, a better yardstick might be to look at the &lt;em&gt;most common&lt;/em&gt; words &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the popularity of 之, which I'd expect to be associated with high-register 'fancy' Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E4%B9%8B&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E4%B9%8B%3B%2Cc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E4%B9%8B&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E4%B9%8B%3B%2Cc0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It crashes when baihua takes over and flatlines after that. So the cultural revolution didn't have much impact on that particular change that was already going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had hours of fun trying this with a bunch of different words, but I think 警惕 is a nice representative example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E8%AD%A6%E6%83%95&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E8%AD%A6%E6%83%95%3B%2Cc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E8%AD%A6%E6%83%95&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E8%AD%A6%E6%83%95%3B%2Cc0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It explodes into the corpus around the baihua-takeover time when 之 first crashes, then spikes for the cultural revolution when being 警惕 to all sorts of things was very important, then basically drops back to 1950's levels in the '80s. To get a proper answer you'd need a much more systematic review than I have time for, but my impression is that this pattern is pretty typical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One interesting case is earthy dongbei-style terms like 到底 and 啥. These are things I'd associate most strongly with distinctively 'mainland' usage, and they're also &quot;peasant's own&quot; terms that definitely did spike during the cultural revolution when everyone was competing to be more 老百姓 than their 99 neighbors. But check out the trajectory of 到底. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E5%88%B0%E5%BA%95&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E5%88%B0%E5%BA%95%3B%2Cc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E5%88%B0%E5%BA%95&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E5%88%B0%E5%BA%95%3B%2Cc0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think just like 警惕 it's reasonable to draw a straight line between the 50's the 80's, only this one is a sloping line rather than a flat one. Although these earthy terms were definitely sensitive to the politics of the cultural revolution, their rise pre-dates it and continues after it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a shame ngrams doesn't have a 繁体 corpus, the comparison would be really interesting and give a much better answer to your question. But I think the ngram-scraping perspective suggests the answer to &quot;how much did the cultural revolution change the Chinese language on the mainland&quot; is that language changed dramatically during the revolution itself, but basically returned to 50's baselines by the 80's, although there are other (quite possibly mainland specific)  language-change trends going on over that time, like the rise and rise of dongbei influence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18891" LastActivityDate="2018-03-16T18:55:19.507" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29118" CreationDate="2018-03-17T02:30:40.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;simple to say：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宫：a palace（宫殿）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;refer dict：&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jayxun.com/what/7vZH&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.jayxun.com/what/7vZH&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寺：a temple（寺庙, 少林寺）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;refer dict：&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jayxun.com/what/7tmL&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.jayxun.com/what/7tmL&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19286" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T02:30:40.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29075" CreationDate="2018-03-17T02:37:25.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;simple to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;差異&lt;/strong&gt; = difference; divergence; discrepancy; diversity; odds; variation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;气候差异&#xA;difference in climate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文化差异&#xA;cultural diversity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看法上的差异&#xA;difference of opinion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;refer：&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jayxun.com/what/7AHT&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.jayxun.com/what/7AHT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;差別&lt;/strong&gt; = difference; division; distinction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;缩小城乡差别&#xA;narrow the gap between town and country&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;年龄差别&#xA;difference in age&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;质量与数量上的差别&#xA;qualitative and quantitative differences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你去不去没什么差别。&#xA;It makes little difference whether you go or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;refer dict： &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jayxun.com/what/7AJv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.jayxun.com/what/7AJv&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19286" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T02:37:25.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29110" CreationDate="2018-03-17T05:59:15.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不屑于说英文了 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于, refer to the definition in the dictionary: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　2. 后缀（ａ．在形容词后，如“疏～防范”；ｂ．在动词后，如“属～未来）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence can be paraphrasing as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;对于说英文很不屑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, better not omit 于, as 于 here specifies the thing you disdain 不屑. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T05:59:15.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29127" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29132" CreationDate="2018-03-17T08:24:17.037" Score="1" ViewCount="980" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose that I want to express the following (sample) sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is still 3 hours until the departure of the flight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use a dictionary, the matched entries for &amp;quot;until&amp;quot; would be something like the follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到飞机起飞还有三个小时。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I feel it is a bit awkward, and also feel that 到 is not the appropriate word here, at least I don't think Chinese people use it much often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X: 下次等到假期准备在那多玩几天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: Then until you come here I should improve my speaking skills!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With my limited writing skills, I might write it like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那到你下次来的时，我应该学多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, is 到 the appropriate word or how should I express &amp;quot;until ~&amp;quot; better in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-18T00:34:40.160" Title="How to express &quot;until ~&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29128" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-17T08:52:48.980" Score="0" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;Web page wants me to write some English.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“千里走单骑” 的“骑”是什么意思？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“几天时间里，单骑千里，过五关斩六将，威风八面，气概冲霄。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;关羽厉害的！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还有：‘威风八面 = 威风凛凛’了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T00:24:07.130" Title="What pronunciation is '骑‘ in 千里走单骑’的‘骑’是什么的骑？qi 或者 ji?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29128" CreationDate="2018-03-17T11:39:57.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8D%83%E9%87%8C%E8%B5%B0%E5%8D%95%E9%AA%91/15797&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;千里走单骑&lt;/a&gt;是中国古典小说《三国演义》中的故事情节之一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Ride a thousand miles alone' is one of the storylines in the classic Chinese novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千里 (thousand miles) is a figurative term for &amp;quot;vast distance&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走 in this context means &amp;quot;travel&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;单 means &amp;quot;single&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骑 means &amp;quot;horse&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;单骑 mostly mean 'a lone horseman' (Since it is a noun, It should read as /ji4/ ;  (as a verb it read /qi2/)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, it refers to &amp;quot;关羽 (Guan Yu) traveled on 单骑 (a single horse)&amp;quot; or &amp;quot; &amp;quot;关羽 (Guan Yu) traveled as a 单骑 (lone horseman)&amp;quot;.  骑 is a noun in either case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In day to day speech, many people read 骑 as /qi2/ regardless of it is noun or verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千里走单骑 literally means &amp;quot;For a thousand, travel on a single horse&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;还有：‘威风八面 = 威风凛凛’了吗？&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone achieved fearsome feat, it can be described as &amp;quot;威风八面&amp;quot;(shock and awe everyone) ; &amp;quot;威风凛凛&amp;quot; describes &amp;quot;one with fearsome aurora&amp;quot; mostly about appearance and feel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T00:24:07.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29127" CreationDate="2018-03-17T14:59:23.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well this is an tricky question. In most cases, 到 would be the best. But it would be a bit different in your question &quot;Then until you come here I should improve my speaking skills!&quot; The better translation would be 你下次来之前，我应该多学习。 Studying would be a behavior during this period of time. This could be a bit confusing because 之前 might sounds like &quot;before&quot; if you use a dictionary. In Chinese, if we are talking about time, 到 would be a better choice just like 到飞机起飞还有三个小时. But when we are talking about a behavior or experience during a period of time. 之前 would be more appropriate. Just like &quot;我听到那个消息之前还感觉很快乐&quot;I felt very happy until i heard that message. Another example would be 我听到铃声之前在读书 i was reading until i heard the bell. Basically 到 would describe purely time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19290" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T14:59:23.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29127" CreationDate="2018-03-17T20:53:37.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the problem is, you cannot expect to translate Chinese to English (or English to Chinese) literally, word-by-word. The way that a sentence is constructed is way too different in these languages that translate word-by-word would lead to all kinds of awkward situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your first example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is still 3 hours until the departure of the flight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would consider the following expressions in spoken language:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   飞机              还有  3个小时               起飞。&#xA;The flight | (is) | still 3 hours | (from) | departure.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To emphasize 3 hours:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   飞机       还有  3个小时        才         起飞。&#xA;the flight | still 3 hours | only until | take off.&#xA; 还有  3个小时      飞机           才         起飞。&#xA;still 3 hours | the flight | only until | take off.&#xA;==&amp;gt; The plane will only take off until 3 hours later.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &quot;until&quot; is left out or changed by reordering those elements in your original sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if you want &lt;strong&gt;to make it feel like an announcement&lt;/strong&gt; (more formal), change the word to 距离(also means &quot;until&quot; in some situation) will be more suitable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 距离             飞机起飞                  还有         3个小时。&#xA;Until | the departure of the flight | there is still | 3 hours.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the second example, it also requires some reordering and changes to wording:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Then until you come here I should improve my speaking skills!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 那           你下次来之前，        我  应该            多    练习。&#xA;Then | before you come next time | I should | (do) | more practice.&#xA;==&amp;gt; Then I should practice more before you come next time.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it doesn't mean that you have to left out &quot;until&quot; every time. Consider this example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;The company was in chaos until he became the manager.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Including &quot;until&quot; here or not makes the meaning quite different:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;直到他成为经理之前，公司一片混乱。&#xA;　　他成为经理之前，公司一片混乱。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can infer from the first sentence that &lt;em&gt;he&lt;/em&gt; is the key to the change of company. But the latter sentence could simply be a statement of fact, not necessarily credit him for the change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the expression for &quot;until&quot; depends very much on the context IMO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2018-03-17T21:25:11.980" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T21:25:11.980" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29128" CreationDate="2018-03-17T21:08:28.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/tli/guideline/shenyinbiao.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;普通话异读词审音表&lt;/a&gt;》规定，“骑”在现代汉语中“统读”qí。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the 《&lt;a href=&quot;http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/tli/guideline/shenyinbiao.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Authorized Table of Mandarin Words with Variant Pronunciations&lt;/a&gt;》，the word “骑”  is always pronounced with qí in modern Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A famous and popular Chinese professor, 易中天 (Zhongtian Yi), who is famous for his lectures of 三国演义, pronounced &quot;骑&quot; in &quot;千里走单骑&quot; as qí. You may also search &quot;千里走单骑&quot; on youtube, and you may find that in many videos, it is pronounced as qí. For example, 0:38 in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzLT9blEYdc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzLT9blEYdc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19195" LastEditorUserId="19195" LastEditDate="2018-03-18T00:22:13.413" LastActivityDate="2018-03-18T00:22:13.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10837" CreationDate="2018-03-17T22:09:18.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do disagree with &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/8113/ling-min-hao&quot;&gt;Ling Min Hao&lt;/a&gt; in the &quot;correct&quot; way to ask this question. Chinese is very flexible in the way a sentence can be constructed, especially in spoken language. In my humble opinion, all of the following expressions are &quot;correct&quot; and natural in spoken language:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你吃午饭了没有？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你吃了午饭没有？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你午饭吃了没有？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你有没有吃午饭？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你吃午饭了吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你吃了午饭吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你午饭吃了吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what's more, I'd say putting 你 at the end of 4/5/6/7, though maybe grammatically incorrect, is common in spoken language. It causes no ambiguity whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to answer the question, you can only answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃了午饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃午饭了&#xA;==&amp;gt; 我（去）吃午饭了&#xA;==&amp;gt; 我吃午饭（去）了&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because the latter means &lt;em&gt;I'm going to have lunch&lt;/em&gt;, as shown in the 2 alternative sentences. If you have to put 了 at the end, add 过 after 吃:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃过午饭了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/6065/user6065&quot;&gt;user6065&lt;/a&gt; is right in that Chinese does not have tense. But words like 了/过 does give you the sense that the action is completed, in a way similar to the past tense or past perfect tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T10:11:59.370" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T10:11:59.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29127" CreationDate="2018-03-17T22:24:02.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 到 in first simple is appropriate to use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 到 in here has no difference with &quot;arrive&quot; actually, not &quot;places arrive&quot; but &quot;timing arrive&quot;, 距離 is the same. Basically the only difference between 距離 and 到 is that the 到 in here is a verb and 距離 is more like a noun,  when we use 距離 , we already know the time mostly, but 到 we can also using for asking, like 到什麼時候 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;距離 in the first simple is focus on &quot;3 hours&quot; and 到 is focus on &quot;the departure of the flight&quot; , this sentence has all information they need , so it's ok to use both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next question,&#xA;Because &quot;improve my speaking skills&quot; should be done before &quot;you come here&quot;, we need to add 之前 behind 你下次來 not 時 , And because there's no exactly timing in this sentence, we prefer use 到 more than 距離 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19275" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T22:24:02.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29128" CreationDate="2018-03-18T00:12:40.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In modern mandarin, we don't differentiate qi and ji for 骑 and it's pronounced as qi2 most of time. Well, ancient does differentiate the pronunciation for ji4 and qi. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一骑红尘妃子笑，无人知是荔枝来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's pronounced as ji4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess in the areas where traditional characters are still in use, they would pronounce it as ji4. Well, in mainland, we pronounce it as qi2 in practice. Some may argue that the correct pronunciation is ji4, but the language is all about the conventions, so it seems qi2 becomes more common nowadays. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest when you use it in an ancient context, pronounce it as ji4, and qi2 in a casual or colloquial conversation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-03-18T00:29:12.617" LastActivityDate="2018-03-18T00:29:12.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29127" CreationDate="2018-03-18T00:34:40.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When does our plane take off?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们的飞机什么时候飞起？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There are still 3 hours until the departure of the flight, don't worry.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;离飞机起飞还有三个小时，别担心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-03-18T00:34:40.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29138" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29143" CreationDate="2018-03-18T03:23:11.967" Score="1" ViewCount="1360" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doraemon is represented as 哆啦A梦 in Chinese. It includes an alphabet ‘A’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I wonder why it uses the alphabet. Why not simply use a word equivalent for ‘A’, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哆啦欸梦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven’t seen such words, that use an alphabet instead of Chinese characters. Is this an exception or common among foreign loanwords?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And why does 哆啦A梦 use the alphabet to begin with?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T02:20:43.043" Title="Why does 哆啦A梦 use an alphabet instead of an equivalent Chinese character?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29139" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-18T04:32:14.133" Score="1" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best way to render 胸怀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;据说鲁肃这个人胸怀文韬武略，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is/was said, Lu Su this man has/had great knowledge of military matters&lt;br&gt;&#xA;而且老谋深算，孙权特别看重他。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;moreover  is/was very astute, Sun Quan holds/held him in great esteem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have these definitions for 胸怀, but really, I just want to write 'has or had' for 胸怀. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;心中、心里头&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;思想境界，指志趣、气度、抱负等&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;心里怀著&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T01:05:43.320" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T01:05:43.320" Title="What is the best way to render 胸怀 in 据说鲁肃这个人胸怀文韬武略...?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29138" CreationDate="2018-03-18T04:32:18.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the use of Chinese characters and letters mixed in the rare translation of Doraemon? This is a set of katakana and hiragana shuffling from the original text. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, why is the original name of the original text half of the katakana (ドラ) half of the hiragana (えもん)? According to Fang Kuangyang's second book, &quot;Encyclopedic Encyclopedia (Supervisor/ Fujiko Fujio)&quot;, Volume 1, page 107, the names of the original Doraemon were all written in katakana (ドラエモン), but they were finished in the factory. When the robot was registered, Doraemon finished writing the first part of the name and couldn't remember how to write the katakana in the latter part (it really was a bad product (-_-;)) and had to write hiragana. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hey. So Doraemon's name is half a half of a pseudonym and half a pseudonym. The translation of the Chinese version of &quot;Dream A Dream&quot; uses half a half Chinese characters, which actually reflects this setting very faithfully.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19195" LastEditorUserId="19195" LastEditDate="2018-03-18T23:32:39.853" LastActivityDate="2018-03-18T23:32:39.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29139" CreationDate="2018-03-18T05:20:30.923" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;'胸' is metaphor for &amp;quot;one's mind (brain)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[胸怀 (verb) mind contains= &lt;strong&gt;possess&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[文韬武略 (object) theoretical and practical military knowledge]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;据说鲁肃这个人&lt;strong&gt;胸怀&lt;/strong&gt;文韬武略&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was said that this man, Lu Su, &lt;strong&gt;possessed&lt;/strong&gt; great military knowledge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;胸怀 in other context can also mean 'have ~ within one's heart/ mind'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;胸怀&lt;/strong&gt;大志 (&lt;strong&gt;possess&lt;/strong&gt; great ambition/ &lt;strong&gt;have&lt;/strong&gt; great ambition &lt;strong&gt;within&lt;/strong&gt; one's heart/ mind )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-18T05:29:33.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29138" CreationDate="2018-03-18T13:41:52.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why not simply use a word equivalent for ‘A’, such as: 哆啦欸梦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMO that's because 欸 is rarely used in Chinese writings, despite its very common use in spoken language. I've never seen any foreign word with /eɪ/ sound translated into 欸. AIDS(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/AIDS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;/eɪdz/&lt;/a&gt;) is translated to 艾滋 or 爱滋, not 欸滋, even though the latter would be closer to its original pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/ngrams/interactive_chart?content=%E6%AC%B8%2C%E8%AF%B6%2C+%E9%98%BF%2C+A&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2008&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E8%AF%B6%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2C%E9%98%BF%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CA%3B%2Cc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this ngram chart&lt;/a&gt;. 欸 is simply not found in Ngrams, while 诶 is so rarely used compared to 阿(which is used a lot in the translation of foreign words, e.g. 阿拉伯、阿莫西林 etc.) and character A itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this an exception or common among foreign loanwords?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes and nos. There are a lot of words borrowed from foreign language retained a foreign alphabet in their spelling. E.g. X光(X-ray), T恤(T-shirt), B超(B-scan ultrasonography, or B-scan), 三K党(Ku Klux Klan, commonly called the KKK). What is common to them is that the alphabet is left as-is during translation. However, words like 哆啦A梦 or 卡拉OK(karaoke) is much rarer in that, the alphabet is a result of no suitable character to correspond to that sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of 《现代汉语词典》, there is a list of words that are considered Chinese but begin with an alphabet (西文字母开头的词语). Other words with an alphabet in the middle can also be found throughout the dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2018-03-19T02:13:29.697" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T02:13:29.697" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29139" CreationDate="2018-03-18T14:42:06.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;a fancy piece of writing’ just means he “has”, it’s a verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19293" LastActivityDate="2018-03-18T14:42:06.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29145" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29147" CreationDate="2018-03-18T23:51:49.693" Score="5" ViewCount="2106" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the textbook, I saw both &amp;quot;现在几点？&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;现在几点了？&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know they are both correct and &amp;quot;了&amp;quot; often indicates past tense, but what's the difference here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it would be really good if I can look up the usage of &amp;quot;了&amp;quot;. But I didn't find any good online dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T09:19:22.637" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T09:19:22.637" Title="What's the difference between &quot;现在几点&quot; and &quot;现在几点了”" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29145" CreationDate="2018-03-19T01:26:53.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 does not indicate past tense, but perfect tense for action verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar question was asked here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/18075/13501&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/18075/13501&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grammatically, in your case, 了 indicates the change of state (English equivalent: become ...)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, in daily use it only softens the tone of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And an older post here fyi: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/18061/13501&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/18061/13501&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T01:26:53.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29145" CreationDate="2018-03-19T01:28:07.527" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/460/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/460/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] [final particle] indicating change of situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;现在是下午五點&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;It is 5:00 pm now.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;现在是下午五點(了)&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;It is 5:00pm now&amp;quot; (final particle 了 indicates 'the current time has reached 5:00pm'. Situation changed from 'not yet 5:00pm' to 'is 5:00pm' )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;现在几点？&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;What time is it now?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;现在几点了？&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;What time is it now?&amp;quot; (final particle 了 indicates 'what time the current time has reached'. Situation changed from 'not yet the current time' to 'is the current time' )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final particle 了 is mostly used to soften the tone of a sentence to make it less blunt. Also it formally indicates the sentence is 'completed' (that's why it is called 'final particle').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T05:05:03.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29138" CreationDate="2018-03-19T02:20:43.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;哆啦A梦 is a very strange translation, I do not know how it comes. In fact, the earliest translation in mainland China is 机器猫, that means &lt;strong&gt;Robot Cat&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;Android Cat&lt;/strong&gt;, etc. The name was once translated to 哆啦A梦, and there is also a joke name 咸蛋超人 &lt;strong&gt;Salt Egg Superman&lt;/strong&gt;, in Hong Kong &amp;amp; Taiwan. But now, it seems that mainland China also treat 哆啦A梦 as the official translation. I consider that maybe it is a request from the Japanese side, just like that Disney unified its unique Chinese name to 迪士尼. Generally, mainland China officially do not allow such hybrid translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T02:20:43.043" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29149" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29150" CreationDate="2018-03-19T03:26:38.873" Score="2" ViewCount="332" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do &quot;lipstick on a pig&quot; and &quot;画蛇添足&quot; share the same meaning?&#xA;画蛇添足 means &quot;drawing snake with feet&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-19T05:03:43.693" LastActivityDate="2021-04-26T03:32:41.267" Title="Do &quot;lipstick on a pig&quot; and &quot;画蛇添足&quot; share the same meaning?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29149" CreationDate="2018-03-19T04:05:23.507" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;画蛇添足 means 'ruin things by adding unnecessary, inappropriate addition' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding legs on a snake in a painting not only doesn't improve its quality , it actually ruins it by adding unnecessary, inappropriate addition &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Man: &quot;I love you&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Woman: &quot;I love you too&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;So far so good&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Man: &quot;I love you as much as I love my dog&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Now it is too much information, the second sentence from the man is '蛇足'(unnecessary, inappropriate addition)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;lipstick on a pig&quot; means something entirely different. It means &quot; wasted effort&quot;, a pig is a pig, no matter how much make up you put on it, it can never looked like a pretty lady.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T03:10:16.660" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T03:10:16.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29145" CreationDate="2018-03-19T06:18:36.410" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, I really can't tell the difference. You might add &quot;了&quot; to make you sound a little less rude, but I really can't feel any difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19296" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T06:18:36.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29145" CreationDate="2018-03-19T09:06:33.090" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have already said, adding 了 indicates a change of state. Here is an example of when you might want to add 了, and when its not necessary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't have a watch and are wanting to ask a friend what time it is, you can simply ask 现在几点？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now imagine you are waiting for midnight on New Years eve. You ask your friend what time is it? 现在几点？Then 10 seconds later you ask again, but this time you ask 现在几点了? You can add 了 this time, as we know the time has changed but still don't know exactly what time it is. You can imagine it in English, &quot;What time is it?&quot; (10 seconds later) &quot;What time is it now?&quot; or &quot;what about now?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18968" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T09:06:33.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29153" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-19T09:28:26.250" Score="0" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;China is the thing at the moment. Everyone wants to learn Chinese language. Is it hard to be fluent in the Chinese language&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19297" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T15:15:45.633" Title="Learning the Chinese Language" Tags="&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-03-26T10:42:44.750" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29153" CreationDate="2018-03-19T10:39:09.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am afraid there is no universal answer to your question. Generally speaking becoming fluent in Chinese depends on how much time and effort do you plan to put into it. Obviously the more the better. I would say it might be easier if your native tongue is related to Chinese (for example if you know Japanese, you have a smooth start with reading and writing). Personally I spent a huge amount of time on mastering Chinese pronounciation, since mistaking the tones may lead to various misunderstandings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some say it may help if you have ever played an instrument or generally had some musical education background (cause then you had ear training and can at least hear the tones properly). Chinese syntax is believed to be not so hard to master, since it is pretty fixed (comparing to my native language Polish it really does seem fixed). There is no inflection, but you end up with hundreds of characters to memorize instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is it hard? I would say yes. But it's also a lot of fun and satifaction if you manage to learn it well. I hope this answer gives you somewhat of an impression of what it might be like to learn Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15945" LastEditorUserId="15945" LastEditDate="2018-03-19T20:10:21.720" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T20:10:21.720" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29155" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-19T11:38:23.563" Score="2" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to have characters for &quot;dancer&quot; engraved on a present for a female friend of mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be the most appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;舞娘&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;舞蹈家&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;舞者&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19298" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T03:52:05.907" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T08:40:07.190" Title="Proper translation of &quot;dancer&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29155" CreationDate="2018-03-19T12:00:52.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;舞娘：a &lt;strong&gt;female&lt;/strong&gt; dancer who is usually very &lt;strong&gt;beautiful&lt;/strong&gt;. &#xA;舞蹈家： a dancer who is a &lt;strong&gt;master&lt;/strong&gt; or at least a professional dancer with well-known good reputations.&#xA;舞者：a dancer who may be professional or amateur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19299" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T12:00:52.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29155" CreationDate="2018-03-19T12:26:16.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尬舞女 - literally: dance-off girl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional words for dancing and dancer are often associated with prostitution. Think: 歌舞(伎), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舞蹈家 is fine as a profession, but it's a bit dry and boring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尬舞 is very trendy and modern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T12:26:16.220" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29128" CreationDate="2018-03-19T13:01:08.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a pronunciation &lt;code&gt;jì&lt;/code&gt;, means &lt;code&gt;one man with one horse&lt;/code&gt;, I have been taught like this since middle school. Then I (and I have heard &lt;strong&gt;some&lt;/strong&gt; other people) speak &lt;code&gt;jì&lt;/code&gt; when 骑 is used as noun, like 单骑闯关, 一骑红尘妃子笑, 车骑将军, 坐骑...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most people always speak &lt;code&gt;qi&lt;/code&gt;, I understood that they just don't know the right pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But&lt;/strong&gt; I just searched dictionary before post this answer, the results surprises me..., I have to search more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the 《现代汉语词典》, &lt;code&gt;ji&lt;/code&gt; is deprecated by a department officially and mannualy in 1985.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now, I know that according to their direction I should speak &lt;code&gt;qi&lt;/code&gt; always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, I hadn't been born by 1985. And I will continue to speak &lt;code&gt;ji&lt;/code&gt;, otherwise I would be disgusted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T13:01:08.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29159" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-19T13:03:46.210" Score="3" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;When and how do we use the idiom 草船借箭?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know where the story comes from — 《三国演义》— and I know the meaning. But I'm still not really clear in what situation I'd say this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17657" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T07:30:09.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T07:43:02.680" Title="怎么用草船借箭这个成语 how／when to use 草船借箭" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29155" CreationDate="2018-03-19T14:54:06.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are serious, I don't think any word like 舞娘 or 尬舞 is a good choice. (Probably 舞娘 is from the song by Jolin Tsai.) 舞蹈家 is a title for professional and experienced dancers. I don't know if your friend could be called a 舞蹈家, so if yes, just go with 舞蹈家. But 舞者 would always be a good translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2484" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T14:54:06.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29164" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29165" CreationDate="2018-03-19T18:47:13.157" Score="2" ViewCount="1022" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several expressions to ask someone's age. That which I am most familiar with is “他几岁？”. However, I am informed that this can only be used for children (I think the problem is the 几， which implies a small number). How can I ask someone's age if they are an adult?  Or perhaps asking how old someone was when something happened? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How old is he (e.g. your father) now?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How old was she when the accident happened?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How old are you? (say, in the hospital, a nurse might ask a patient)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T07:29:19.413" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T01:25:41.177" Title="Asking someone's age" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29164" CreationDate="2018-03-19T19:49:20.160" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several ways to ask someone's age and they vary from neutral to very polite. &quot;他几岁&quot; implies that the answer is within 1-9 range, since 几 should not be used for numbers greater than 9. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for other ways to ask the age question (all of them apply to adults):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你多大? - neutral&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;您多大年纪? - polite, usually used for eldery people&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;您贵庚？ - very polite and very formal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15945" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T07:28:51.880" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T07:28:51.880" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29159" CreationDate="2018-03-19T20:24:20.860" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;草船借箭 refers to one specific chapter in one specific novel. there's not much chance it comes up in common day to day conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from 汉语熟语小词典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;例 企业经营要善于 草船借箭&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;see comment #4 under the question&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This example sound very odd. It is like saying &amp;quot; A man need to go Die Hard (refers to the movie) to stay alive&amp;quot;. Someone who watched the movies, would understand 'go Die Hard' means 'be resourceful', because it was what the main character did to stay alive. But it is hardly an common idiom because there are many other things associated with the movies, you could say &amp;quot;go Die Hard&amp;quot; means &amp;quot; Do it all by oneself&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;be extremely violent&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the same with 草船借箭. The story can refer to :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;be resourceful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;able to anticipate other's action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;clever use of deception&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;solve problem creatively&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;take from the enemy is twice as good as making it yourself (you gain on enemy's lost)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and some other things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T04:29:22.343" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29167" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29168" CreationDate="2018-03-20T07:26:17.457" Score="2" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;国籍的图片是来自于EmojiOne数据集，&lt;strong&gt;有兴趣的&lt;/strong&gt;可以去看看了解一下。题目有奥运会奖牌，本次用国旗与国家联系起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence seems to use &quot;~的话，...&quot; phrase, but omit the 话. (Let me know if I'm wrong but I proceed with the assumption that it is correct).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, on these types of sentences I'm struggling to decide when to leave it in or out. How can I use them apart correctly? Is there any clue?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above sentence should be fine if I rewrite it as following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;国籍的图片是来自于EmojiOne数据集，&lt;strong&gt;你有兴趣的话就&lt;/strong&gt;可以去看看了解一下。题目有奥运会奖牌，本次用国旗与国家联系起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it OK to &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; use the brief form as far as the meaning is clear enough in the context? I learned here that it is usually considered better to make the sentence simpler in Chinese, as far as it is clear...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;NOTE&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5525/questions-on-%E7%9A%84%E8%AF%9D&quot;&gt;the answer here&lt;/a&gt; writes the following but my question is about 话, not 的话 (I agree without 的话 it sounds an incomplete sentence). Also my question doesn't necessarily indicate 如果 or 要是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Without 的话, it sounds quite abrupt, although it does work if you leave it out, in most cases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T11:14:23.570" Title="At what situations should I leave out 话 in &quot;~的话&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29167" CreationDate="2018-03-20T08:23:55.790" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This sentence seems to use &quot;~的话，...&quot; phrase, but omit the 话. (Let me know if I'm wrong but I proceed with the assumption that it is correct).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it omits 人 here; i.e. 有兴趣的 refers to 有兴趣的人 (people who are interested in). Using 人 makes the sentence more formal and polite, without it makes the sentence simpler and the meaning is still clear enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/xs/7684.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;~的&lt;/a&gt; is a common structure used instead of the referred people or things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;〈代〉 pron. 附着在词或短语之后,构成“的”字结构,代替所指的人或物。如:卖菜的;吃的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T08:32:15.743" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T08:32:15.743" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29167" CreationDate="2018-03-20T11:14:23.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“有兴趣的” 代表 “有兴趣的人”。但是在这段话中，即使说“有兴趣的话”也说得通，但这里并不是这个意思。&#xA;Need to understand “……的话” means if...，比如：如果你能听懂的话，就很好- if this case, then what.. 如果……的话 is the structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19293" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T11:14:23.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29145" CreationDate="2018-03-20T11:18:37.197" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;对于我来说，没有区别，加“了”更适合日常习惯，没有也可以。&#xA;我是一个普通的中国人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19293" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T11:18:37.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29172" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31027" CreationDate="2018-03-20T12:41:03.820" Score="5" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was thinking about how slight changes in pronunciation are reflected in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a case in point, here are two examples of words whose pronunciations are different, but similar, and whose meaning is the same. (Based on a few dictionaries like ABC and 现代汉语规范词典).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;嫉妒 ji2du4 / 忌妒 ji4du5 &#xA;Verb: be jealous of; hate&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a regional variation? Or is it the case that some people will sometimes use one pronunciation, and sometimes the other, depending on the context or on their mood?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;嘟囔 du1nang5 / 嘟哝du1nong5&#xA;Verb: mutter/mumble to oneself&#xA;The entry in现代汉语规范词典 for 嘟哝 says现在一般写作“嘟囔”.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone really make a distinction between du1nang5 and du1nong5? Is there an audible difference? And, if the answer is yes, then how about answers to the questions I asked regarding the &quot;jealous&quot; pair?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phenomenon could be called “synonyms that are nearly, but not quite, homophones”. I would be interested in other examples. Are there any other notable ones? I have a feeling there may well be around a dozen examples commonly used in 普通话. (Still, as an intermediate student I realise I may well be wrong.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A related phenomenon is two different pronunciations of the same character, where each pronunciation has the same or similar meaning. But to limit the scope of this question, I’m leaving out that topic here.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any articles/discussions about this sort of topic? Ideally they would be in English, and not be too scholarly. But maybe that's too much to hope for...!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found a related question: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12846/two-character-homonyms-with-same-meaning&quot;&gt;Two-character homonyms with same meaning&lt;/a&gt; which is about variant spellings (异形词). &#xA;This question is a little bit different I think. I'm interested in when the pair are considered to be two separate words, but whose meaning is the same (or almost the same).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I just came across another pair, 按 and 摁. They're not synonyms, but the meanings are still quite close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit 2 (2018-04-03): This question is about pairs of words/terms (词) where the pronunciation is similar &lt;strong&gt;but different&lt;/strong&gt; and the meaning is the same, or close. An attempt at saying it in Chinese: 同义或近义，音近但是不一样的词. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another  example: 直爽—直率. Also, I found two other candidates but I'm not sure if they qualify, as the difference in meanings may be a bit too much:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;扩大—夸大&#xA;挣钱—赚钱&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit 3 (2018-04-05): Just noticed another example (贫困—贫苦). I think it may be helpful to keep this question up to date with lists of all the examples I'm aware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Synonyms / 同义词：嫉妒—忌妒，嘟囔—嘟哝，贫困—贫苦，堵塞—阻塞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar (but distinct) meanings / 近义词：按—摁，直爽—直率，挣钱—赚钱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-08-23T21:06:37.560" LastActivityDate="2020-08-23T21:06:37.560" Title="Word pairs like 嫉妒/忌妒 with similar pronunciations and meanings - examples and discussion please" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29173" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29368" CreationDate="2018-03-20T12:48:01.927" Score="1" ViewCount="736" Body="&lt;p&gt;My dictionary says that they both mean 'warm'. Is there any difference in their usage? Using Google picture search, the only difference I can muster is that 暖和 is used for cats and jumpers, and 温暖 is for the outdoor temperature. But then, I'm not too sure how the meaning of 暖和 transplants itself onto cats lol&#xA;What be your thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T03:51:16.573" Title="Is there a difference between the use of 暖和 and 温暖？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29173" CreationDate="2018-03-20T13:23:47.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;温暖- warm; warmth; to warm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;暖和- warm; nice and warm; warm and comfortable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Difference between 暖和 and 温暖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;暖和 is strictly an adjective; 温暖 can be a noun, adjective or even verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;室內很暖和; 室內很温暖 (both are adjective 'warm')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;送上一份溫暖 (溫暖 is a noun 'warmth')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用熱水溫暖一下雙手 (溫暖 is a verb 'to warm')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 温暖 and 暖和 can refer to physical warmth; but 温暖 can also be used metaphorically for emotion of &amp;quot;warm feeling&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;we say: &amp;quot;從未嚐過家庭温暖&amp;quot; (have never felt warmth of a family) not &amp;quot;從未嚐過家庭暖和&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;we say:&amp;quot;內心十分温暖&amp;quot; (feel warm inside one's heart)not &amp;quot;內心十分暖和&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;温暖 is more general; 暖和 is more specific, if you say 感到温暖, it can either mean you feel 'physical warmth' or feel 'emotionally touched' , while 感到暖和  can only mean you are actually feeling warmth physically&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T10:22:26.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29175" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-20T13:39:49.533" Score="0" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I try to read Chinese articles, I begin to encounter 距. Some examples are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;该列车用的是世界最先进的100%低地板技术，车辆地板距轨道面仅35cm (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thechairmansbao.com/worlds-first-hydrogen-tram-enters-commercial-operation-in-hebei/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TCB&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飛機於距地面一千米處爆炸 (Pleco).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天津距北京約有一百二十公里 (Pleco)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 距 preferred in written Chinese? Is it preferred for vertical distances?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found an example that might suggest the two are absolutely interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;距市中心不远的地方就是可以独自滑雪或漫步的林地区域。(&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E8%B7%9D/#keyfrom=dict2.index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Youdao&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-23T00:26:50.167" Title="Idiomatic use of 距 and 離" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29153" CreationDate="2018-03-20T15:15:45.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;All it takes is effort. You can start by learning the phrases first without minding the characters that much. There's a video on Youtube explaining how sentence mining works. You can view it &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3I17n4OyNE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. At first I was sceptical about it, but I realized how great this method is after doing some experiments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I did was I downloaded Anki and created my own deck there based on Duolingo inputs. I don't do reviews on Duolingo, I just mine sentences from there and review it on my Anki deck instead as its algorithm is much better. I created fields for Hanzi, Pin yin, English Translation, Audio, and Notes (Discussion taken from Duolingo regarding sentences taken from there)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then I also create reversed version of the cards. I just started doing this a couple of months ago and you won't believe how much progress I made. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17294" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T15:15:45.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29177" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29178" CreationDate="2018-03-20T15:32:07.023" Score="0" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;We just had both these words on the same lesson and they seem very similar to me. Yet, a search about &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.at/search?client=safari&amp;amp;hl=en-gb&amp;amp;ei=GhGxWvPcCIy9gAazlbmACA&amp;amp;q=%E6%8A%BD%E5%92%8C%E6%8B%94%E4%B9%8B%E9%96%93%E7%9A%84%E5%8D%80%E5%88%A5&amp;amp;oq=%E6%8A%BD%E5%92%8C%E6%8B%94%E4%B9%8B%E9%96%93%E7%9A%84%E5%8D%80%E5%88%A5&amp;amp;gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.12...0.0..4942100...0....0.0.............mobile-gws-wiz-serp.5nT7sehXFXM%3D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;抽和拔之間的區別&lt;/a&gt; returns nothing helpful. In our book the respective example sentences were: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;…又從另一個書架抽出來一本看看。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鑰匙忘拔下來了。（title）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two movements seem very similar to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CC in pleco defines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;抽：&#xA;  1 to draw out&#xA;  2 to pull out from in between&#xA;  3 to remove part of the whole&#xA;  4 (of certain plants) to sprout or bud&#xA;  5 to whip or thrash&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拔：&#xA;  1 to pull up&#xA;  2 to pull out&#xA;  3 to draw out by suction&#xA;  4 to select&#xA;  5 to pick&#xA;  6 to stand out (above level)&#xA;  7 to surpass&#xA;  8 to seize&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I further examined the list of words for each character in pleco. I noticed some tendencies, but I may be wrong once again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拔草，拔劍，拔牙&#xA;  seem to imply a pull against resistance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;抽彩，抽空，抽功夫，抽成，抽血&#xA;  seem to imply less resistance/ more abstraction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this observation coincidence? How to best describe the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T16:31:43.010" Title="What is the difference between 抽 and 拔？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29177" CreationDate="2018-03-20T16:31:43.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%8A%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;抽&lt;/a&gt; 從「手」，「由」聲，本義為&lt;strong&gt;引&lt;/strong&gt;、&lt;strong&gt;拉&lt;/strong&gt;。(the basic meaning is 'lead' ; 'pull')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%8B%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;拔&lt;/a&gt; 像用雙手&lt;strong&gt;拔取草木&lt;/strong&gt;之形 (The original character looked like the form of pulling grass with both hand)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic meaning of 抽 is 'pull' (toward a direction)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic meaning of 拔 is to 'pluck' (拔草 pluck grass from the ground or 拔毛 pluck feather from a bird)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the motion of pull and pluck look similar, the two words are often used in similar way. You observation is correct, 拔 usually imply pull against resistance while 抽 doesn't imply anything in term of degree of resistance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see from your research, both character have other meanings that are not overlapped. The 'pull' meaning is overlapped but with subtle difference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T16:31:43.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29179" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-20T17:03:30.310" Score="1" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronoun 他 (ta1) for he/she/it has been used since at least the Ming dynasty and has had a number of variants, such as 牠 for animals and 祂 for deities. In the 20th century the feminine version 她 was introduced to imitate western languages, and is now used to refer to female persons in almost all Chinese publications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 他 was originally gender-neutral and uses the generic &quot;human&quot; radical 人, while 她 is explicitly gendered, this seems somewhat asymmetrical. I'd like to know if there has ever been a character proposed that would represent the pronoun &quot;ta1&quot; &lt;strong&gt;only when talking about male persons&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that the Chinese language has other 3rd person pronouns, some of which are gendered, but I'm interested in ta1 specifically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T18:22:32.267" Title="Is there any specifically masculine character for 他" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;&lt;character-variant&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29180" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-20T19:57:51.547" Score="2" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can one say 打开书100页 or is it necessary to add 第 before 100?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking that it would be the difference between saying &quot;open the book at/to page 100&quot; (with 第) and &quot;open the book 100 pages&quot; (without 第, which sounds wrong to me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T16:36:17.383" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T16:36:17.383" Title="Do I necessarily have to use 第 when talking about a page number?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29180" CreationDate="2018-03-20T21:10:02.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, '书' in '打开书100页'(open book 100 pages) can be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, if you omitted '第' in '打开第100页'(open page 100) and wrote &quot;打开100页&quot;, the sentence could be interpreted as &quot; open one hundred pages&quot;. For this very reason, 第 cannot be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T21:10:02.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5273" CreationDate="2018-03-20T21:35:07.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say “being invalided” invalidation would be a good translation of 委屈.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19313" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T21:35:07.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29183" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29187" CreationDate="2018-03-20T21:53:35.437" Score="3" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen sentences like 我们学校有500人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why doesn't it have a measure word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can 人 appear without a measure word like the words 年 and 天?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-22T06:06:23.330" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T06:06:53.007" Title="Can 人 be used without a measure word?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29184" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-20T22:37:12.880" Score="2" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if the following sentence and translation match up with each other:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;鱼的家是水。&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;The fish's home is the water。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence seems quite crude to me even though the point might get across. Does the sentence sound juvenile or awkward to a Chinese speaker? And is &quot;家“ understood to be home, or can it be mixed up with family? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16242" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T09:58:51.887" Title="How to say &quot;the fish's home is the water&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29175" CreationDate="2018-03-20T23:12:03.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;距、距离、离&lt;/strong&gt;：＂汉英虚词词典＂&lt;strong&gt;距（介词）A表示空间的间隔&lt;/strong&gt;；宾语多是表示处所的词语，也可是一般体词：１。连队在那～山顶不太远的松林里，为医院设一个临时营地。（王愿坚［普通劳动者］）２。献策如今不在开封，倒是～此地只有二百多里。（姚雪垠［李自成］）３。～礼堂还有几十米远，他便听见一个空瓮似的声音。。。（舜吉［脑科学家的麻烦］）４。李自成同将士们在一起，。。。忽德探马禀报，说看见一股骑兵从兴山方面过来，～此不过十里。（姚雪圻［李自成］）５。最后一排～乐池一百九十四英尺。（报）６。听众～演奏者不宜太近。&lt;strong&gt;B用于时间的间隔&lt;/strong&gt;：１。～结婚的时期已近。。。（叶圣陶［倪焕之］）２。在～今五，六万年以前的＂北京人＂的遗物中，有用贝壳缀成的装饰品，用兽牙串成的项练。（报）３。毛主席这一演讲～今已经四十二年了。（报）４。到了韩愈这个时代，上～孔子已经三十八世。。。（郭予衡［杰出的散文学家韩愈］）&lt;strong&gt;C表示抽象意义的差距&lt;/strong&gt;：１。有时真理～我们仿佛只有一纸之隔。（报）２。我们的工作～人民的要求还很远。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;参看＂距离＂＂离＂&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;距离&lt;/strong&gt;（介词） &lt;strong&gt;同＇距＂，较＂距＂口语化&lt;/strong&gt;：&lt;strong&gt;A 同＂距＂A&lt;/strong&gt;：１。官庄～油庄不到两里路。（骆兵基［父女俩］）２。影子～他划的线还有一指多。（王愿坚（普通劳动者］）３。矮个子。。。站在～对方的三步以外。（吴强［红日］）４。这个地方～河槽还有一段地。（刘流［烈火金钢］）５。～高司令近的这伙人是伪省府的高级成员。。。（李英儒［野火春风斗古城］）&lt;strong&gt;B同＂距＂B&lt;/strong&gt;：１。现在～二０００年，还有二十一年的时间。（报）２。太早了，～和小华约定的时间还有八个钟头，这八个钟头怎么过呀？（草明［爱情］）３。我认为全部合作化～今天还很远。（王安友［整社基点村的一天］）&lt;strong&gt;C同＂距＂C&lt;/strong&gt;：１。我们的政权～一个完全的国家形态还很远。。。（毛泽东［中国革命战争的战略问题］）２。假如果真是这么个用意，～＂现在化＂岂止十万八千里？（叶圣陶［大力研究语文教学，尽快改进语文教学］）３。他原来和我志同道合，可是现在他的思想～我越来越远了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;离（介词）同＂距＂&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;但很口语化&lt;/strong&gt;；&lt;strong&gt;A同＂距＂B&lt;/strong&gt;，表示时间的差距：１。现在～开饭的时间还早，你拿点东西给他吃吧。（周而复［上海的早晨］）２。他不过才二十一岁，～他参军的时间不到两年，～他入团的时候不到一年，他怎么有这样伟大的气概，这样叫人感泣的胸怀！（巍巍［这里是今天的东方］）３。可是秋收以后～上冻不到一个月工夫，要是等收完了秋再扩社，扩社完了渠道就不好开了。（赵树理［三里湾］）４。～二十七还有十多天，他完全注意到这一天上去，心里想的，口中念道的，梦中梦见的，全是二十七。（老舍［骆驼祥子］）&lt;strong&gt;B 同＂距＂A&lt;/strong&gt;，表示空间的差距：１。现在～最后大的目的地四阜新只有四站地了。（杨朔［秘密列车］）２。姚池～我们县城九十多里，从县城到柳溪还有三十多里，一共是一百多里。（李心田［闪闪的红星］）３。苹果园～花圣地很近，他有两天没去看了，因此他趁着休息时间跑到苹果树地去查看。（李准［林业委员］）４。二发炮弹，落在～第四十四界程碑五百米处。（报）&lt;strong&gt;C同＂距＂C&lt;/strong&gt;，表示抽象的差距：１。我们在这方面所做的，～爸爸的希望、党和人民的要求还很远。（报）２。与党的好女儿张志新烈士相比，深感自己～一个共产党员的标准还差得很远。（报）３。＂和你说不成！＂宋老大无可奈何地摆着手，说：＂你这思想呀，～社会主义还差十万八千里哩！＂（西戎［宋老大进城］）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T23:12:03.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29175" CreationDate="2018-03-20T23:19:14.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;距, 离 and 距离, these three can be replaced with each other and would Not change the meaning.&#xA;But 距 is slightly more formal, but only slightly. In speaking, 离 and 距离 is used more commonly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, they are used when expressing distances, doesn’t matter whether vertical or horizontal, you can use either of these three words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19293" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T23:19:14.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29183" CreationDate="2018-03-20T23:30:29.313" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, in many cases, the measure word 个 is omitted.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我校有五百人，其中三人是转校生。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这起事故造成两人死亡，四人重伤，七人失踪。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这个活动吸引了近万人参加。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  七十人投了票，二十人弃权。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the omission of 个 usually means formality. That means we omit it when we talk in a formal way, eg. report news. But when we talk casually with friends, we tend to add 个:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们学校有五百个人，三个是转来的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这个车祸，死了两个人，四个人受伤，还有七个人失踪了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  差不多有一万个人参加了这个活动。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  七十个人投票了，还有二十个弃权了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5997" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-22T06:06:53.007" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T06:06:53.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29179" CreationDate="2018-03-20T23:51:55.130" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right that in old times 他 was gender neutral. But when you are reading something written later than 2000 (in this century) and see 他, you can be sure that it is referring to only a male person. However, when you see 他们, you can never tell if any female person is included but you can learn that there are at least one male person in that group. In earlier written Chinese, say, 1950-2000, most 他s are referring to only male persons, but some old people still tended to use 他 as a gender-neutral pronoun in that period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5997" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T23:51:55.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29159" CreationDate="2018-03-21T00:04:57.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a 成语, actually. As a Chinese person who was born and raised in mainland China, I've never ever used it as a 成语, and I've never heard anybody use it as a 成语. When our teacher told the story of 草船借箭 to us in primary school, she didn't say 草船借箭 is a 成语 at all. It's just a famous story. And we rarely talk about this story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5997" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T00:04:57.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29173" CreationDate="2018-03-21T00:26:16.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;暖和 pretty much always ONLY means physical temperature &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;温暖 on top of &quot;physical warmth&quot; can also be use to mean &quot;emotional warmth&quot; or &quot;the warmth with human touch&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example &quot;it warms my heart&quot; means 它让我觉得很温暖, you can't use 暖和 here, it would confuse readers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so 温暖 can be used for both physical and emotional warmth, whereas 暖和 can ONLY be used for physical warmth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6574" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T00:26:16.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29164" CreationDate="2018-03-21T01:25:41.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer up there is good. I just want to add a little bit about how a nurse ask your age. In the hospital or police station or other kinds of bureaux, you are usually asked &quot;您/你的年龄是多少？&quot;or just &quot;多少岁？&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5997" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T01:25:41.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29192" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-21T19:23:22.903" Score="1" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading a certain set of kindergarten/lower primary maths textbooks that is written by North American authors for an Asian company.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever students are asked to identify the number of rectangles in a given picture, the answer booklet gives the number of oblongs instead of the number of rectangles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the topic may be too advanced for kindergarten students, the maths textbooks indeed explicitly say at the bottom of the first page of a textbook at the very first level to tell students that squares are special types of rectangles, where levels 1-4 are for kindergarten students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, the accompany guide for teachers devotes a whole page of discussion as to how to teach that squares are special types of rectangles. There's even a paragraph about teaching to kindergarten students. The authors/some of the co-authors of the teacher guides are also authors/co-authors of the textbooks. They have also said that if students are taught that squares are not rectangles, then they will have misconceptions later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps, the ones who wrote the answer booklets were not fluent in English while the ones who wrote the textbooks were.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[picture with 4 circles, 2 triangles, 3 square rectangles, 2 oblong rectangles for a total of 5 rectangles]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Circle ___&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Triangle ___&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Square ___&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rectangle ___&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer key would give only the numbers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the last line is wrong since it should be 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could this happen in Chinese? Or a Chinese dialect? I mean, is there something specific about the translations of any of the following words 'rectangle, square, oblong, quadrilateral, quadrangle, parallelogram, trapezoid/trapezium, rhombus' that would cause such confusion? I guess the translator/s thought that when English speakers say 'rectangle', it means 'oblong in their language/dialect, but I don't see that as specifically a problem for this particular language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, are squares considered rectangles in China? Apparently, these things can vary by state, curricula, culture, time, etc. Please provide a document from the education department of your government or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://korean.stackexchange.com/questions/3394/in-korea-are-squares-considered-rectangles&quot;&gt;In Korea, are squares considered rectangles?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/13831/&quot;&gt;Are kindergartners supposed to be steered from squares being rectangles?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/13700/in-what-curricula-are-rectangles-defined-so-as-to-exclude-squares&quot;&gt;In what curricula are “rectangles” defined so as to exclude squares?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2249741/why-do-we-have-circles-for-ellipses-squares-for-rectangles-but-nothing-for-tria&quot;&gt;Why do we have circles for ellipses, squares for rectangles but nothing for triangles?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/394471&quot;&gt;What are/should kids (be) taught about the colour of the sun?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16264" LastEditorUserId="16264" LastEditDate="2021-04-10T11:56:36.583" LastActivityDate="2021-04-10T11:56:36.583" Title="Could a translation error lead to squares to not be considered as rectangles? (Mandarin)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;nuance&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29193" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-21T21:39:48.277" Score="3" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a lot of context that I want to use this phrase to describe a certain type of people. I tried to translate it as &quot;Not being ashamed of using evil methods to accomplish goals&quot;. But I think my translation is still a little bit redundant and not formal enough. Can someone help me make it less redundant and more accurate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the context might not be &quot;by immoral means&quot;, it also encapsulated a context of &quot;by unusual means&quot;. For ex, someone has solved an engineering problem by extremely brutal force which violated existing engineering standard and regulations, it works, but it also makes it way harder to integrate his solution into a more comprehensive system. Colleagues might think he's too achievement-oriented that breaks certain rules and conditions that other people have maintained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18019" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-02T07:49:13.240" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T07:49:13.240" Title="How to correctly translate 为达目的不择手段 in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29192" CreationDate="2018-03-21T22:00:33.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess is it depends if rectangle is translated as:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oblong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Oblong&lt;/a&gt;   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrilateral&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Quadrilateral&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could be the case that the teaching is for young children, where the word / concept of rectangle vs Oblong vs Quadrilateral might be difficult to understand, but it is essential for them to differentiate between square and Oblong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others (parallelogram, trapezoid/trapezium, rhombus) does have a specific name and are not confused with rectangle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T22:00:33.533" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29192" CreationDate="2018-03-21T22:49:27.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question does not make it very clear, but since you are posing this question on the Chinese Language site, I am assuming the kindergarten books you are referring to are in Chinese, by American writers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you say &quot;square rectangle&quot;, I assume you are referring to a shape with 4 equal sides and 4 right angles? And &quot;oblong rectangle&quot; is one with 2 pairs of equal sides and 4 right angles? To many people, the first shape is called a &quot;square&quot; and the second a &quot;rectangle&quot;. Note that I am not trying to correct the usage of your English words. I am simply wanting to make sure we are talking about the same things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, a square is 正方形, rectangle is 長方形, and a shape that has four right angles without specifying the lengths of the sides is simply 方形. I am guessing the writers are trying to teach young children basic shapes with 3 angles 三角形 versus 4 angles 方形 versus no angle 圓形. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they are asking for the number of 方形, then 5 is the correct answer, as both squares and rectangles fall under the more general shape 方形.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T22:49:27.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29197" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-22T01:51:32.243" Score="0" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm researching the Chinese language, and I just wanted to know how to say I love you in Chinese. I've got a crush on a guy, and I don't want to say it to where he understands it...it's weird, I know..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19319" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-03-22T03:41:51.873" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T03:41:51.873" Title="How do I say I Love You in Chinese" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-03-22T03:42:30.187" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29197" CreationDate="2018-03-22T01:53:28.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I love you is &quot;我爱你&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19195" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T01:53:28.117" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29192" CreationDate="2018-03-22T04:05:32.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I've found the confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC English to Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;'s definition of &lt;em&gt;oblong&lt;/em&gt; is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;长方形(的)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but then their Chinese to English definition of 长方形 is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Rectangle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to what you said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Whenever students are asked to identify the number of rectangles in a given picture, the answer booklet gives the number of oblongs instead of the number of rectangles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that oblong rectangles and rectangles are not &lt;em&gt;specifically&lt;/em&gt; distinct in many Chinese dictionaries. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T04:05:32.693" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29193" CreationDate="2018-03-22T04:57:56.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;他为达（他的）目的不择手段&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In German it's easy: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Er geht über Leichen um seine Ziele zu erreichen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English: He'll do anything to attain his ends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T04:57:56.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29193" CreationDate="2018-03-22T06:01:37.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, I encourage you to check out the meaning in Chinese when you encounter 成语. It took me a while to finally get to know that it is hard to understand what a given 成语 means in English but is clear enough once I read the explanation in Chinese (this holds true of any words but especially so in the case of 成语, which is closely related to the culture).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the topic, 不择手段 means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;指为达到某种目的，什么样的手段都可以使出来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, the word means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to achieve a goal, a person uses whatever he or she could (including anything considered immoral or dishonest by others).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't try to understand it by an English dictionary as the listed meaning is quite awkward and hard to grasp. For example, in the case of 不择手段:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;unscrupulously&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;by fair means or foul&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These explanations sound &lt;em&gt;less redundant&lt;/em&gt;, but seems to me the loss of original meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T06:01:37.677" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29202" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-22T06:22:45.873" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/20935297/answer/28465543&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the following sentence over 知乎&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从我的观察来看，不同企业对于data scientist这个title的定义其实是有分歧的，&lt;strong&gt;偏向于data reseacher的有&lt;/strong&gt;，多见于大型IT企业，百度大脑的data scientist们多属于这一类型，他们搞的是比较前沿的深度学习，平常会读大量paper可能自己也会发；&lt;strong&gt;偏向于data creative的有&lt;/strong&gt;，各种企业都会储备，会ETL，懂模型、懂行业，会展示沟通，比较能够创造直接的价值。&lt;strong&gt;偏向于data developer的也有&lt;/strong&gt;但是很少，他们不懂模型，只要给他们算法公式，他们就能用编程语言帮你实现，实现算法是重要的技能，但是这种不懂模型不懂行业的，现在大多企业都不太会给这样的人data scientist的title了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammar book does not seem to have this usage of 有.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that the meaning is similar to 关于 or 至于 (at least in this context), so the relevant sentence above can be rewritten as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;关于偏向于data researcher (or suffix &amp;quot;的话&amp;quot; here?)，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;关于data developer，虽然他们比减少，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, grammatically how does 有 work here? I just check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%E6%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Chinese grammar wiki&lt;/a&gt; but didn't find any relevant pages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T12:18:08.200" Title="What usage does 有 have in ~的有 (e.g. 偏向于data reseacher的有)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29192" CreationDate="2018-03-22T06:35:47.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i think the question is not good enough. a principle of multiple choices question is: &lt;strong&gt;the choices are mutually exclusive&lt;/strong&gt;, that they do not overlap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;though the question is asked about the number of each choice, there's strong tendency that answerer would think choices are mutually exclusive in the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that's why they said 3 square &amp;amp; 2 rectangle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a better approach would be asking the number of e.g.: square, circle, triangle and pentagon. in which all are mutually exclusive here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T06:35:47.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29204" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29206" CreationDate="2018-03-22T08:07:00.853" Score="2" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;IME's often use &lt;code&gt;v&lt;/code&gt; in place of &lt;code&gt;ü&lt;/code&gt; for entering pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;nü can be typed as nv to get 女, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;lüe can be typed as lve to get 略, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes in English though you will see &lt;code&gt;v&lt;/code&gt; in place of &lt;code&gt;ü&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance: 吕洞宾 might be rendered as Lv Dongbing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know this is totally wrong and is an unacceptable rendering of 吕, I might be totally wrong though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;v&quot; ever an acceptable English rendering of ü?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T13:42:29.013" Title="Is &quot;v&quot; ever an acceptable English rendering of ü?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29193" CreationDate="2018-03-22T10:34:07.407" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ll do whatever to achieve whatever.&#xA;and how about “by all means”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19293" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T10:34:07.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29204" CreationDate="2018-03-22T13:42:29.013" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;AFAIK (I'm a native English speaker) the letter v is &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; used in English writing to render the sound represented in pinyin by ü.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However in software that uses pinyin it is standard practice to use the letter v as an alias for ü.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_input_method#Treatment_of_extended_Latin_characters_(%C3%BC_and_%C3%AA)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Since the letter &quot;v&quot; is unused in Mandarin pinyin, it is universally used as an alias for ü. For example, typing &quot;nv&quot; into the input method would bring up the candidate list for pinyin: nǚ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are indeed some cases where people mistakenly use v in Pinyin instead of ü. It does seem to be a mistake, probably induced by the IME typing convention.&#xA;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.info/news/2009/v-for-u/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog post&lt;/a&gt; gives an example in a street sign in Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T13:42:29.013" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5273" CreationDate="2018-03-22T13:49:31.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;CC-CEDICT gives this definition for 委屈.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/to feel wronged/to cause sb to feel wronged/grievance/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems fine to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T13:49:31.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29208" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-22T15:24:04.027" Score="3" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the very beginning of the PC history most of these systems used a MDA or CGA graphic card which was able to display 256 characters in text mode. These characters were not programmable. So it was not possible to show any chinese characters in text mode and showing them in graphic mode wouldn't have been easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is, were these kind of computers used or did they have their own line of computers, or just another operating system which displayed everything in a graphical way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for all the answers, but I still don't get how was it possible for a PC clone to show Chinese characters and still be compatible with MS-DOS. In the text-mode of early graphic cards there was no possibility to show more than 256 characters. Using &quot;wide&quot; characters would increase the amount of characters you can theoretically store in memory, but most Chinese characters are not composed of two simple radicals displayed side-by-side so the amount of displayable characters wouldn't be that big. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18724" LastEditorUserId="18724" LastEditDate="2018-04-11T10:52:11.467" LastActivityDate="2018-04-11T10:52:11.467" Title="Has MS DOS ever been used in a Chinese-speaking country?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2018-03-22T15:53:02.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can type Toned-Pinyin at: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.TypingChinese.com/main.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;www.TypingChinese.com/main.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin with tone marks can be type in SHIFT-style in 1-step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I invented/implemented this tone pinyin input method and hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Documentation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.typingchinese.com/TypingTonedPinyin.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.typingchinese.com/TypingTonedPinyin.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19322" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T15:53:02.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29208" CreationDate="2018-03-22T16:01:52.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before Windows 95, we used &quot;倚天中文卡&quot; to input, handle and display traditional Chinese in Dos environment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETen_Chinese_System&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETen_Chinese_System&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a long time ago :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VhjCo.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VhjCo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-03-22T16:02:39.037" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T16:02:39.037" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29202" CreationDate="2018-03-22T20:27:05.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker and consider myself a &quot;data&quot; person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my perspective, he didn't end the sentence properly and his array of sentences could be changed a bit like below so it's easier to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从我的观察来看，不同企业对于data scientist这个title的定义其实是有分歧的。&#xA;      &lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;偏向于data reseacher&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;，多见于大型IT企业。百度大脑的data scientist们多属于这一类型，他们搞的是比较前沿的深度学习，平常会读大量paper可能自己也会发&lt;strong&gt;文章&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purpose of &lt;strong&gt;有...的&lt;/strong&gt; is to illustrate his/her point using example(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T20:27:05.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29175" CreationDate="2018-03-23T00:21:45.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;距 is short form for 距離 (distance from)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;you can replace 距 with 距离 in all the examples you listed. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can also replace 距 with 离 in all the examples above.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;距 is more literary and 离 is more colloquial &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S.Gu wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;However, they are used when expressing distances, doesn’t matter whether vertical or horizontal, you can use either of these three words&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, &lt;strong&gt;距离&lt;/strong&gt; literally means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Away from&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. It can be used to describe '&lt;strong&gt;distance from&lt;/strong&gt;' like all the examples mentioned in the question, and it can also be used to describe '&lt;strong&gt;time till&lt;/strong&gt;' For example: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;距离&lt;/strong&gt;东京奥运尚有854天&quot;  (still 854 days &lt;strong&gt;away from&lt;/strong&gt; Tokyo Olympics = &lt;strong&gt;Time till&lt;/strong&gt; Tokyo Olympics is 854 days)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;离东京奥运尚有854天&quot; is also correct&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;距东京奥运尚有854天&quot; is not incorrect, but sounds too literal and formal&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-03-23T00:26:50.167" LastActivityDate="2018-03-23T00:26:50.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29213" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30931" CreationDate="2018-03-23T01:36:20.103" Score="1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to search it in English.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I have tried google translation which translated it to &quot;As Guided Inverted Sentences&quot;. I think it isn't right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word is &quot;as 引导倒装句&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They go to concerts frequently, as do I. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She’s unusually tall, as are both her parents.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-23T13:03:59.590" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T20:51:57.113" Title="How do I say &quot;as 引导倒装句&quot; in English?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29214" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29220" CreationDate="2018-03-23T08:14:01.923" Score="-2" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading a certain set of kindergarten/lower primary maths textbooks that is written by North American authors for an Asian company.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever students are asked to identify the number of rectangles in a given picture, the answer booklet gives the number of oblongs instead of the number of rectangles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[picture with 4 circles, 2 triangles, 3 square rectangles, 2 oblong rectangles for a total of 5 rectangles]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Circle ___&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Triangle ___&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Square ___&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rectangle ___&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer key would give only the numbers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the last line is wrong since it should be 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could this happen in Cantonese? I mean, is there something specific about the translations of any of the following words 'rectangle, square, oblong, quadrilateral, quadrangle, parallelogram, trapezoid/trapezium, rhombus' that would cause such confusion? I guess the translator/s thought that when English speakers say 'rectangle', it means 'oblong in their language/dialect, but I don't see that as specifically a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, are squares considered rectangles in China, Hong Kong and Macau? Apparently, these things can vary by state, curricula, culture, time, etc. Please provide a document from the education department of your government or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://korean.stackexchange.com/questions/3394/in-korea-are-squares-considered-rectangles&quot;&gt;In Korea, are squares considered rectangles?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/13831/&quot;&gt;Are kindergartners supposed to be steered from squares being rectangles?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/13700/in-what-curricula-are-rectangles-defined-so-as-to-exclude-squares&quot;&gt;In what curricula are “rectangles” defined so as to exclude squares?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2249741/why-do-we-have-circles-for-ellipses-squares-for-rectangles-but-nothing-for-tria&quot;&gt;Why do we have circles for ellipses, squares for rectangles but nothing for triangles?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/394471&quot;&gt;What are/should kids (be) taught about the colour of the sun?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: 1. Is Cantonese the same as Mandarin in this regard? 2. I'm also asking about Hong Kong and Macau in addition to the parts of China outside Hong Kong and Macau&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16264" LastEditorUserId="16264" LastEditDate="2021-04-10T11:56:38.467" LastActivityDate="2021-04-10T11:56:38.467" Title="Could a translation error lead to squares to not be considered as rectangles? (Cantonese)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;nuance&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29215" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29251" CreationDate="2018-03-23T12:36:46.180" Score="0" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m seeing pet shops around hanging up signs with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;恶犬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in many places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not something I’ve noticed on quite a large scale, like this, before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s real world data, so harder to track online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m not really sure how to go about searching something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the word “恶犬” trending?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T21:52:41.430" Title="Is the word “恶犬” trending IRL?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29216" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29217" CreationDate="2018-03-23T12:50:59.683" Score="7" ViewCount="757" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like advice on how to properly say phrases like&#xA;&quot;little kitten&quot;, &quot;small cat&quot;. While I can say &quot;小猫&quot;, as I understand it that either means &quot;kitten&quot;, or is ambiguous. And to me saying &quot;小小猫&quot; seems like it could be a little weird (And it also doesn't solve for &quot;small cat&quot;)? How are such ambiguities resolved?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An answer that is able to cover not only my specific question about how to say both &quot;small kitten&quot;/&quot;small cat&quot;, but also apply to phrases like &quot;big flood&quot; (Because as I understand it &quot;flood&quot; is constructed from &quot;big&quot; + &quot;water&quot;, so it would express the same ambiguity), would be very much preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19178" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T09:03:39.653" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T09:28:16.907" Title="How to say &quot;small cat&quot;, when 小猫 is &quot;kitten&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29216" CreationDate="2018-03-23T12:58:25.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, in chinese, there's a character 崽 (u+5d3d) which means &quot;infant animal&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, &quot;貓崽&quot; is kitten, 狗崽 is puppy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000009503&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000009503&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun, tomorrow is caturday 　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-03-23T12:58:25.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29218" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-23T12:59:22.557" Score="3" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the problems I face these days is that while my reading is getting better, my writing skill is still quite limited. When I draft out a sentence, I could not come up with any word that should fit better in a context, and tend to rely on a simple, common word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天我找到了一家很好的咖啡馆。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could not come up with any word to mean &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; that might fit better in this context. At least in English, it sounds childish to only use a simple word. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to get it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to obtain permission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chinese, I could not come up with a word that might fit better in a given context, and thus end up with using many 很好，有，很多，喜欢，etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another situation is when I don't know if a given word is correct in a given context in the first place. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老婆怎么可能一个人养护孩子们呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, the first word I came up with to express &amp;quot;raise children&amp;quot; is 养护. But looking at several example sentences in Chinese, I started to feel it is not a proper word to &amp;quot;raise children&amp;quot;. Then I changed it to 培育, but still feel it is not a proper word. According to my search on jukuu, the most examples consist of bugs, trees, or abstract things such as 精神 or 关系.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I don't get to know which is the correct word to &amp;quot;raise children&amp;quot;. I rather want such service as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/cultivate?s=t&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Thesaurus&lt;/a&gt;, which gets me a list of synonyms for a given word. But as far as I check it, no such service seems available in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in these cases, how can I know which word is the correct in a given context, or at least get to know a list of similar or related words and check it out one-by-one (which is still daunting but there seems no other way)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T08:38:09.223" Title="How can I know a similar or related word in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29218" CreationDate="2018-03-23T13:59:21.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One answer is use a Chinese dictionary 网易有道词典. Example on 培育 (on iOS app):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/szxel.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/szxel.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it shows &lt;em&gt;幼小生物&lt;/em&gt;, the word seems to be inappropriate in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, sometimes, the entry for a given word lists related words (近反义词). In this specific case it got me to jump over to 养育.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XRjk7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XRjk7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oeIQT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oeIQT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least this seems more reasonable, although this could never ensure the &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; appropriate, and there is possibly a better word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-03-23T13:59:21.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29214" CreationDate="2018-03-23T14:18:30.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there is a real question here, I think it stems from your idiosyncratic usage of the words &quot;square rectangle&quot; and &quot;oblong rectangle&quot;.&#xA;In more common usage, as you would no doubt find in dictionaries and geometry books, your &quot;square rectangle&quot; is a square 正方形, and your &quot;oblong rectangle&quot; is a rectangle 長方形. If you are willing to accept this common usage, there is no error in the books you are referring to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2018-03-23T14:44:08.360" LastActivityDate="2018-03-23T14:44:08.360" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29221" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-23T17:00:15.967" Score="1" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary gives the meaning &quot;you&quot; for the character 妳 (nǐ), and tā (either 他 or 她).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a formal / informal difference? Which should I prefer in general usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19178" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-25T13:29:28.133" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T13:29:28.133" Title="What is the difference between 妳 (nǐ) and 他 (tā)" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29230" CreationDate="2018-03-23T18:41:55.657" Score="1" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote 哇，祝愿碰运气，能碰上这个组啊. By this I meant I wish I can be lucky and end up in that group. I am worried it will be taken as congratulations on you being lucky ending up in that group (which sounds like &quot;I think you are just lucky with no ability&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it sound like I mean the latter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19326" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-03-24T08:16:16.820" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T07:18:14.020" Title="Meaning of 祝愿 as wishing or congratulating" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29221" CreationDate="2018-03-23T19:27:45.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;妳 is in theory a feminine form of 你, but it's rare because not many people care about the supposed masculinity of the 亻element.&#xA;他 and 她 are 'he' and 'she' respectively, as any reasonable dictionary will tell you. There is a formal/informal distinction for 'you', but it's 你(normal) and 您(formal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever your sources are for the reading 'hai' and the meaning 'you' for 他, you should ditch 'em, they're unreliable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18891" LastEditorUserId="18891" LastEditDate="2018-03-23T19:32:46.737" LastActivityDate="2018-03-23T19:32:46.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27720" CreationDate="2018-03-24T11:03:42.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also want to add that written Cantonese is different to spoken Cantonese. Spoken Cantonese (less formal) is often referred to as「白話」。(white language).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19328" LastActivityDate="2018-03-24T11:03:42.430" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29225" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-24T19:49:02.530" Score="0" ViewCount="1041" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have learnt several words that can be used to talk about a person's age, namely 岁数, 年纪 and 年龄.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found phrases and example sentences such as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;随便问别人的年龄是不礼貌的。 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你父亲多大年纪了？ &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;您多大岁数了？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;退休年龄&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上岁 (get on in years)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except for expressions such as 退休年龄 and 上岁, can these three nouns be used interchangeably? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T14:19:45.780" Title="Can 岁数, 年纪 and 年龄 be used interchangeably?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29227" CreationDate="2018-03-24T20:09:56.743" Score="3" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some words that have to do with smelting and metal (銷蝕 , 銷毀 ) it is intuitive we have to use 銷. But in most cases they seem really hard to distinguish.  According to pleco:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;取消: cancel, call off, abolish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;註銷: cancel, write off&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抵消: offset, cancel out, counteract&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;撤銷: cancel, rescind, revoke&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對消: offset, cancel each other out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吊銷: revoke, withdraw, cancel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;消去: cancel, eliminate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;銷帳: cancel (or remove) from an account, write off&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that “cancel out” always goes with 銷 not 消，but other words are really hard to predict. Is this something we just have to memorise, or is there any helpful logic or mnemonic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T01:44:05.293" Title="How to guess when to use 銷 or 消 in compounds?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29226" CreationDate="2018-03-24T22:08:45.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use 銷 when the object has man made physical  form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 消 when the object has no man made physical  form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We 吊銷牌照 and 銷毀武器&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;License and weapons have man made physical form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We 消滅 敵人 and 消除恐懼 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enemy and fear have no  physical form, they are concepts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put, look at the object and you can guess it should be 消 or  銷 in the compound &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-03-25T01:44:05.293" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T01:44:05.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29228" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30994" CreationDate="2018-03-25T05:28:44.050" Score="2" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;There were many topolectical surveys done and data collected in the 70’s and 80’s under the reasoning that a person more familiar with their own dialect would be readily more proficient at Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reasoning is logical: many don’t even know how their &lt;code&gt;mothertongue&lt;/code&gt; works and find it even more difficult to learn MSM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any proof to this claim?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What data is there to back up this thinking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T03:02:55.523" Title="Is there any proof that learning ones own dialect will improve ability in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5273" CreationDate="2018-03-25T06:52:55.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had a conversation with someone of my friends about leaving my job (in China) and they brought up this word 委屈.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They said to me, many times people don't like their jobs, but people should always try to carry their responsibilities well. My friends told me that they think having 委屈 is a positive thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's definitely a culturally loaded word, so translating it is difficult, but at least in the west, we have a similar idea about putting up with our jobs even if we don't like them. (I'm reminded of a scene from the film &lt;em&gt;Office Space&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;委屈 is a noun, but it likely wouldn't translate well into English as a noun. Some relevant phrases come to mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;you have to learn to live and let live&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;forgive and forget&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;turn the other cheek&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's definitely helpful to consider the context the word is used in when trying to come up with a translation. I hope my explanation helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15883" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T06:52:55.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29222" CreationDate="2018-03-25T07:18:14.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who got in the group? You or I??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哇，祝愿碰运气，能碰上这个组啊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*I wish I can be lucky and end up in that group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that I will be lucky and end up in that group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我希望我能有幸加入那个组。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wow! You are lucky to end up in that group!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哇！你运气真好，加入到了那个组！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to indicate the person's ability got him/her in that group:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You deserve to be in that group, you are very talented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你非常有天赋，值得在那个组。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Congratulations! = 恭喜你！ 或者 祝贺您！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T07:18:14.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29035" CreationDate="2018-03-25T07:58:16.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At least in the context of 春夏秋冬 being used to represent the cycle of time, some might call that a &quot;metonym&quot;. From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wordnik.com/words/metonymy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The American Heritage Dictionary&lt;/em&gt; (on Wordnik)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;n.&lt;/em&gt; A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, as in the use of Washington for the United States government or of the sword for military power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Washington&quot; is often used to represent the US government, though it's really only a place. Maybe in the case of Chinese (or Vietnamese), such phrases are so commonly used that they become lexicalized as the standard means of expressing the concept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15883" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T07:58:16.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29225" CreationDate="2018-03-25T08:10:02.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;年龄 is more formal and literary term for 'age'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all written forms, it is always 年龄 on the list,  (never seen 年纪 on any form)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;年龄 is described as 高 or 低. As in 高年龄/高龄; 低年龄/低龄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;年纪 is more colloquial term for 'age'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;年纪 is described as 老, 大, 轻 or 少. As in 年纪老, 年纪大, 年纪轻 and 年纪少&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;岁数 is a more specific term for 'age' (years old)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you ask someone's 岁数, you expect a specific number in the answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;岁数 is described as 高, 低 or  大, 少&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;岁数 is also the more suitable term when describe animal's age&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比赛的马匹是按马的&lt;strong&gt;岁数&lt;/strong&gt;分组的 (&lt;em&gt;use 年龄 or 年纪 humanize the horse too much&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T19:18:12.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29234" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29238" CreationDate="2018-03-25T11:05:20.193" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;1.　明天会下雪，你不知道吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;2.　明天会下雪，你知道吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;3.　明天会下雪，不知道吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;4.　明天会下雪，知道吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the possible pragmatic/semantic differences between these four questions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19336" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T22:15:22.017" Title="The difference between 你不知道吗？/你知道吗？/不知道吗？/知道吗？" Tags="&lt;yes-no-questions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29234" CreationDate="2018-03-25T11:26:37.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They mean similar. It depends how you use them and the tones you use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, 1 &amp;amp; 3 sound like you should know it. Well, 2 &amp;amp; 4 usually are generic questions for checking whether you know it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T11:26:37.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29236" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-25T13:04:24.890" Score="2" ViewCount="480" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard that there is a difference between 不由得 and 不得不, but fail to find a relevant page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least 不由得 and 由不得 are the synonym, and 不禁 is IIRC practically same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is there any difference between 不得不 and 不由得? How can I use it apart?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;EDIT&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is the difference on whether the action is executed unconciously? I feel I understand the difference a bit, but could not explain it verbelly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-03-29T06:10:34.867" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T09:00:53.350" Title="What is the difference between 不由得 and 不得不?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29236" CreationDate="2018-03-25T14:44:02.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;不得不 = no choice but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不由得 = can't help (e.g. myself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不得不&lt;/strong&gt;屈服 &lt;strong&gt;no choice but&lt;/strong&gt; yield&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不由得&lt;/strong&gt;怀疑我的眼睛 &lt;strong&gt;can't help&lt;/strong&gt; doubting my eyes&#xA;(&lt;em&gt;不由得 can be replaced with 不由自主地 in this example&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;At least 不由得 and 由不得 are the synonym&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually they are two different things &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不由得 = can't help (e.g. myself); 由不得 = not up to (e.g. you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不由得&lt;/strong&gt;怀疑 = &lt;strong&gt;can't help&lt;/strong&gt; suspecting (不由得 synonym 不禁)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;由不得&lt;/strong&gt;你作主 = it is &lt;strong&gt;not up to&lt;/strong&gt; you to decide (由不得 synonym 不到)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;由不得&lt;/strong&gt;我选择 = it is &lt;strong&gt;not up to&lt;/strong&gt; me to choose (由不得 synonym 不到)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T14:44:02.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29234" CreationDate="2018-03-25T22:15:22.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1 &amp;amp; 3 are the same with 3 omitting subject. Like in English, negative interrogative sentences are usually used for rhetorical questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Let's play football tomorrow. I just booked the field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: The forecast says it's going to snow. &lt;strong&gt;Haven't you checked?&lt;/strong&gt; (How could you organize a game without knowing the weather?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 &amp;amp; 4 could be either a simple question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Do you feel like going picnic tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: It's going to snow. &lt;strong&gt;Have you heard?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or in certain situation, it can be a challenge about whether the listener truly understand the consequences of snow weather.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Should I water the lawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: It's going to snow tomorrow. &lt;strong&gt;Do you understand what that means?&lt;/strong&gt; (As if A already knew the fact that it's going to snow.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T22:15:22.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29236" CreationDate="2018-03-25T22:25:23.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;below find 2 examples of pairs or triples including 不由得，不得不 that are close in meaning &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;＂实用汉语近义虚词词典＂&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;不由得（副）／忍不住（动）［相同］&lt;/strong&gt; 都表示控制不住。后面的动词是具体行为时，常可互换：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）手被开水烫了一下，我不由得叫了起来。（忍不住 ✓）（２）想起家乡的亲人，妈妈不由得流下了眼泪。（忍不住 ✓）（３）说着说着，老李忍不住叹了一口气。（不由得✓）（４）听着，听着，大家忍不住笑了起来。（不由得✓）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［不同］1.&lt;/strong&gt;＂忍不住＂是因为忍耐不了才控制不住，有一个＂忍＂的过程：＂不由得＂是＂控制不住＂，是对某种情况的自然反应，没有＂忍＂的过程，语义明确时不能互换：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）他们一个劲地吵，我忍了半天，还是忍不住说了他们几句。（不由得✗）（２）这孩子哭个不停，我没办法，才忍不住打了他一下。（不由得✗）（３）一阵狂风迎面吹来，我不由得往后退了几步。（忍不住✗）（４）汽车猛地一停，他差点摔倒，不由得叫了一声。（忍不住✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;２。&lt;/strong&gt;＂忍不住＂的后面只能是＂哭、笑、说＂等具体行为动词；＂不由得＂的后面可以是具体行为动词，还可以是＂着急、难过、高兴＂等表示心情的形容词和＂想、爱、喜欢＂等心理动词：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）看他那个样子，大家忍不住笑了起来。（不由得✓）（２）输了比赛，李玉忍不住流下了眼泪。（不由得✓）（３）今天打了好几次电话都找不到玛丽，我心里不由得着急起来。（忍不住✗）（４）看着童年的相片，我不由得想起了过去的日子。（忍不住✗）（５）在一起时间长了，他不由得爱上了这个能干的姑娘。（忍不住✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;３。&lt;/strong&gt;＂不由得＂可放在后一分句主语前边，表示＂不能不＂的意思；＂忍不住＂没有这种用法：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）怎么找也找不到课本，不由得我不着急。（忍不住✗）（２）等了半天也不见他来，不由得我不担心。（忍不住✗）（３）这个考试非常重要，不由得我们不紧张。（忍不住✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;４。&lt;/strong&gt;＂忍不住＂可以作谓语，不带宾语；＂不由得＂不能：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）我实在忍不住了，跟她大吵了一架。（不由得✗）（２）最后我还是忍不住，大声笑了起来。（不由得✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不得不（动）／不能不（动）／不会不（动）［相同］&lt;/strong&gt; 都是动词性结构，用双重否定来表示肯定，都用在动词性语前作状语。＂不能不＂有时和＂不得不＂换用，有时和＂不会不＂换用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;１。&lt;/strong&gt;＂不能不、不得不＂有时可以互换，但意思有不同：＂不能不＂强调主观上认为不这样不行，一定要这样，相当于＂必须、应该＂；＂不得不＂强调主观上不愿意，但客观情况要求一定要这样，没有别的选择，相当于＂只得、只好＂：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）他叫我去，我不得不去。（不能不 ✓ 不会不✗）（２）在飞机上，不得不关手机。（不能不 ✓ 不会不✗）（３）明天的会议很重要，你不能不参加。（不得不✓不会不✗）（４）他病得很厉害，不能不去医院看病。（不得不✓不会不✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;２。&lt;/strong&gt;＂不能不、不会不＂有时可以呼唤，但意思也有一些不同：＂不会不＂是根据清理做出的估计、猜测：＂不能不＂强调主观上认为不这样不行，一定要这样：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）你是他的哥哥，不能不帮他。（不会不 ✓不得不✗）（２）他们是我的父母，我不能不管他们。（不会不 ✓不得不✗）（３）我请了他几次，他今天不会不来吧？（不能不 ✓不得不✗）（４）我想，她结婚不会不通知我吧？（不能不 ✓不得不✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［不同］１。&lt;/strong&gt;＂不会不＂是根据清理做出的估计、猜测，表示情况应该是、很有可能是这样的；明显表示估计猜测时，用＂不会不＂：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）你能来，他们不会不高兴。（不能不 ✗不得不✗）（２）这件事都登报了，你父母不会不知道。（不能不 ✗不得不✗）（３）他们曾经是邻居，见了面不会不认识。（不能不 ✗不得不✗）（４）我们考得那么好，老师不会不满意。（不能不 ✗不得不✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;２。&lt;/strong&gt;＂不得不＂强调不愿意、无奈，句子明显有＂不愿意、无奈＂的意思时，用＂不得不＂：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）陈明受伤严重，不得放弃了比赛。（不会不✗不能不✗）（２）为了保住林勇的生命，医生不得不截掉了他的右腿。（不会不✗不能不✗）（３）为了给孩子治病，他不得不卖掉了房子。（不会不✗不能不✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;３。&lt;/strong&gt;＂不能不＂后面可以带表示情感状态的动词，表示自然的进入了某种情感状态；＂不得不、不会不＂都没有这个用法：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（１）面对这样的场景，谁也不能不感动。（不得不✗不会不✗）（２）就连他这样铁石心肠的人，也不能不同情这个老人。（不得不✗不会不✗）（３）虽然老周脾气很好，但遇到这种情况，也不能不生气了。（不得不✗不会不✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2018-03-25T23:27:22.977" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T23:27:22.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29236" CreationDate="2018-03-26T03:24:08.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;不由得 vs 不得不: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不由得 implies I have no choice and I have to do it even if I don't really want to do it emotionally. Well, 不得不 is usually just &lt;strong&gt;have to&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grammatically, 不由得 can be followed with a full clause{S+V+Object}, while 不得不 is usually followed by a verb phrase{V+object}. For example, 不由得我不相信他，we don't say 不得不我不相信他, instead we say 不得不相信他. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T03:24:08.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29242" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29243" CreationDate="2018-03-26T05:04:19.013" Score="2" ViewCount="407" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having come across the association of green hats with unfaithful spouses a few times, I tried to learn the original of this practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few sources (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://randomwire.com/green-hat-a-no-no/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;) mention that the origin of this phrase is a pun on the word for &quot;cuckold&quot;, but I don't find any more specific reference. Only 乌龟/头巾 come up in Pleco as an alternate phrase and neither seem like puns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this actually from pun-based origin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9480" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T05:59:15.333" Title="戴绿帽子 as based on a pun?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29242" CreationDate="2018-03-26T05:11:30.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.italki.com/article/92/the-dark-meaning-of-5-chinese-terms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iTalki&lt;/a&gt; has an article that alludes to it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;戴绿帽子（Wearing a green hat)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you are traveling in China, you might notice a curious thing – you will never find a Chinese man wearing a green hat. Let it be a warning to you: no matter how curious you are, you’d better not ask them why they don’t wear a green hat! The reason is, in Chinese culture, wearing green hat has a dark meaning: the one wearing it was cuckolded. And, be sure you don’t wear one yourself, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The source is a story from the Ming Dynasty. Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang enacted a law, which required men who worked in the prostitution trade to wear green hats. Later, it became common to say about man whose wife had an affair, that she made her husband wear a green hat. It’s best to stay away from those green hats!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Liang'an&lt;/strong&gt; (which is a free Pleco add-on) also talks about the origin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;古代制度, 罪人及妓女必裹帶綠巾, 以示屈辱。後用以譏諷妻子有外遇, 不守婦道者, 而謔稱其夫為戴綠帽子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Criminals and prostitutes had to wear green cloth as a type of humiliation in the past. Thus the wearing of a &quot;green hat&quot; came to represent a cheating wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://thenanfang.com/jaywalkers-shenzhen-punished-using-chinese-cultural-taboo/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Nan Fang&lt;/a&gt; also states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Although the origin of the phrase remains unknown, there are a number of possible explanations. One theory suggests that the families of prostitutes were forced to wear green hats during the Yuan Dynasty. Another says that male brothel workers wore green hats during the Tang Dynasty. A third theory suggests that the Chinese word for “cuckold” sounds a lot like “wear a green hat”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like you mention though, I'm not seeing what &lt;em&gt;similar sounding words&lt;/em&gt; there are that match. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would imagine the &lt;strong&gt;Liang'an&lt;/strong&gt; definition is quite authoritative, instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-03-26T05:24:21.400" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T05:24:21.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29236" CreationDate="2018-03-26T05:32:53.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just image that, a beautiful girl is passing by. You would 不由得地 turn around to see. But you are on class now. And your teacher is yelling you. You 不得不 continue focus on the class. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19343" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T05:32:53.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29242" CreationDate="2018-03-26T05:59:15.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, in 說郛　卷一百十下, there was a story 焚椒錄 mentioned &quot;綠巾&quot; (green scarf) in an &quot;affair&quot; between the empress &quot;懿德皇后&quot; and the actor &quot;趙惟一&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;及昏﹒命燭傳命惟一去官服﹒着綠巾﹒金抹額窄袖紫羅衫﹒珠帶烏鞾﹒皇后亦着紫金百鳳衫﹒杏黃金縷裙﹒上戴百寶花髻﹒下穿紅鳳花鞾﹒召惟一更入内帳對彈琵琶﹒命酒對飲﹒或飲或彈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;着綠巾&quot; here means &quot;wear green scarf&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the following text was, well, suitable for 18+ only; i would not quote it here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the internet archive has the pdf file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06069915.cn#page/n108/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/06069915.cn#page/n108/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T05:59:15.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29247" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29250" CreationDate="2018-03-26T18:51:15.220" Score="1" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, both mean 'to finish, complete sth.'. I guess 完毕 is more formal, because the examples given for it include things like court cases, whereas 完成 seems to be things like homework/general tasks.&#xA;Any other differences between the two?!&#xA;Regards,&#xA;A very thankful Hashamyim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T01:29:53.087" Title="What is the difference between 完成 and 完毕?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29247" CreationDate="2018-03-26T19:13:47.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;完毕 does not exactly mean complete. It means the end of a process or a task. &#xA;完成 Means complete&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19351" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T19:13:47.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29247" CreationDate="2018-03-26T20:53:10.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;完毕 - Finish  &#xA;完成 - Complete&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They're slightly different even in English.  See &lt;a href=&quot;https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/54858/what-is-the-difference-between-finished-and-completed&quot;&gt;What is the difference between 'finished' and 'completed'?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T20:53:10.577" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29247" CreationDate="2018-03-26T20:58:09.880" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;完成 mainly mean '&lt;strong&gt;accomplish&lt;/strong&gt;' ('成' in '完成' means successfully or become) ; 完成 is mostly for 'something people do'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完毕 mainly mean '&lt;strong&gt;end&lt;/strong&gt;' ('毕' in '完毕' means 'end'); 完毕 is mostly for 'something that happens'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;完毕 syn 完結 (ended)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完成 (v) to complete; &lt;strong&gt;to accomplish&lt;/strong&gt;; to fulfill; to &lt;strong&gt;finish&lt;/strong&gt;; to succeed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完成 can be used with or without object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 已经完成工作 and 工作已经完成 are both correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完毕 (v) &lt;strong&gt;to end&lt;/strong&gt;; to finish; to complete&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完毕 doesn't take object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 學期完毕; 工作完毕 (you can't say 完毕學期 or 完毕工作) (學期  and  工作 are both subject in the phrase )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you want to say an event is 'ended', you have to use 完毕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you want to say a task is 'accomplished', you have to use 完成&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do not use 完成 for 'an event is ended' (學期完成 is incorrect, )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T21:41:55.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29215" CreationDate="2018-03-26T21:52:41.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to track the trend of a word in real world, especially when this word may not be popular in a large area or on the Internet, you should do it yourself. Ask local residents living around, or these shop keepers who decided to use this word to find out the reason behind. Maybe looking up local newspaper also helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“恶犬” (fierce dog) is not a new word, I think it's mostly used around factories or private properties to warn irrelevant people to keep away. It’s seen in rural areas more often. I hardly saw it used by pet shops (and I think they should use &quot;lovely dog&quot; instead). Interesting if it can be confirmed as a new trend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19353" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T21:52:41.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29247" CreationDate="2018-03-27T00:17:18.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grammatically, 完毕 is often used as a &lt;strong&gt;complement&lt;/strong&gt;. 完成 can be used as &lt;strong&gt;an transitive verb or a noun&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, we say 准备完毕， 准备 is a verb and 完毕 is its result complement. When we say 准备完成, we use 完成as an transitive verb, so we should add an object like 准备完成这项工作. 完成 sometimes can be used as a noun word, like 这项工作的完成. We don't usually say 这项工作的完毕. That is to say, 完毕 is not used as a noun normally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T00:17:18.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29247" CreationDate="2018-03-27T01:29:53.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the other answers are helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually we don’t often use 完毕. You can use 完成 in all situations. XD&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19354" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T01:29:53.087" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29978" CreationDate="2018-03-27T04:37:00.627" Score="2" ViewCount="526" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this seal the name of an artist or poet? How can I find him?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[![enter image description here][1]][1]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this translation okay?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/72EqU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/72EqU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[![enter image description here][3]][3]&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q6IFj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q6IFj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for every answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E23uv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E23uv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yuPkj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yuPkj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tp1hc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tp1hc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bbpi9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bbpi9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NbeiY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NbeiY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m0T23.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m0T23.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all some seal and looks like ,,Shi Qing´´?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19350" LastEditorUserId="19350" LastEditDate="2018-05-27T13:48:56.293" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T02:40:22.603" Title="What does this seal stamp on Chinese painting mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29255" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29265" CreationDate="2018-03-27T05:28:03.587" Score="3" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;I keep seeing &quot;蝈蝈&quot;, &quot;蟋蟀&quot; and &quot;蛐蛐&quot; being used interchangeably in Mandarin for some topolectical words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蝈蝈 seems to refer to a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;katydid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蟋蟀 seems to be a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;cricket&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 蛐蛐 also seems to be a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;cricket&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how can they be used interchangeably? Is it a mistake? Are there some differences? If so, what are they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did find this on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/25425465&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhihu&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蛐蛐和蟋蟀指蟋蟀总科，蝈蝈指螽斯科人们喜欢养的种类&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no difference between 蛐蛐 and 蟋蟀 then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would 蝈蝈 be confused with 蛐蛐 and 蟋蟀 then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Also&lt;/strong&gt;: how does 纺织娘 play in here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-03-27T05:44:09.643" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T20:55:53.000" Title="Difference between &quot;蝈蝈&quot;, &quot;蟋蟀&quot; and &quot;蛐蛐&quot; (Also: 纺织娘)?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28558" CreationDate="2018-03-27T13:30:53.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;们 adds sociality to these people，same for 姐们， blood relationship is not necessary。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈们 would be an interesting word， if someone use this word， I would think he calls many women mom， these women give him money for some unhealthy exchanges， an horrible relation， same for 爸们。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T13:30:53.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29225" CreationDate="2018-03-27T14:19:45.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To  really understand how it works, it's important to understand the difference between 龄/纪/数, as &quot;年&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;岁&quot; means the same in these words, referring to the &quot;age&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;龄: it is written as 齿 and 令, in ancient time, 齿 used to mean &quot;age&quot;, while &quot;令&quot; stands for military service. Hence, in the very beginnng, 龄 meant the age to serve the military service. Later, it was also considered as the &quot;legal age&quot;, or an age that is recognized by the hierarchy or orginisation. That is why there is only &quot;法定年龄&quot;/&quot;(法定)退休年龄&quot;/&quot;(法定)入学年龄&quot;/&quot;党龄&quot;(the age served for the Party)/&quot;工龄&quot;(the age served for the company) etc. Nowadays, the meaning has extended to &quot;age&quot; in general,so it is commenly used in daily conversations when asking about ages of a person; in these circumstances, &quot;年龄&quot; is the same as &quot;岁数&quot;/&quot;年纪&quot;.&#xA;ref: &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%BE%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%BE%84&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;纪: In ancient China, 纪 is a method to count years, and it stands for 12 years. Hence, you can't refer that a children/a baby is &quot;年纪轻轻&quot;, as it doesn't reach a 纪. (Of course, this boundary has been rather obscure these days)&#xA;ref:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/js/7EAA.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/js/7EAA.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;数: This means &quot;the count&quot;. It is rather neutral. Also, it can be used to describe the age of animals or plants or architectures. When it is referring to human ages, in most of the cases, it is used the same way as &quot;年纪&quot;. e.g. &quot;上了岁数&quot; = &quot;上了年纪&quot;. Although we hardly say &quot;岁数轻&quot;, as the &quot;count&quot; can't be &quot;light&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note these words are quite formal. When we talk about ages in casual communication, it is more common to use &quot;岁&quot; directly, such as &quot;几岁了&quot; &quot;多少岁啊&quot; instead of &quot;多大岁数/年纪/年龄&quot;, which sounds like you are referring to someone more senior than you. &#xA;To make it even more casual, we can simply ask &quot;多大了&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17120" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T14:19:45.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29184" CreationDate="2018-03-27T14:29:48.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose you are talking about 如鱼得水 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17120" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T14:29:48.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23681" CreationDate="2018-03-27T14:33:58.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我沒吃飯已經兩天了。- I haven't been eating for 2 days.  &#xA;我已經兩天沒吃飯了。- I for 2 days haven't been eating.  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of grammar they're both &lt;em&gt;not wrong&lt;/em&gt;, but you can already tell it's weird for the second line in English.  Same goes for Chinese for the first line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the origin question -   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我三天沒來上課了 = I didn't come to class for three days.  &#xA;我已經三天沒來上課了 = I haven't come to class for three days.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T14:33:58.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29260" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29261" CreationDate="2018-03-27T14:51:41.300" Score="2" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes when people speak Chinese they pronounce &quot;zh&quot; more like &quot;z&quot;, &quot;ch&quot; like &quot;c&quot;, &quot;sh&quot; more like &quot;s&quot;, etc. In other respects (sentence structure, words), it seems to be proper mandarin. An example from Silicon valley:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v201VzV5GIA&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;amp;t=1m04s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v201VzV5GIA&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;amp;t=1m04s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like the person in a shirt is saying &quot;zeige feicang zongyao&quot; where it should be &quot;zheige feichang zhongyao&quot; (这个非常重要)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it an accent or dialect? What's it called?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15198" LastEditorUserId="15198" LastEditDate="2018-03-28T13:17:54.637" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T13:17:54.637" Title="Mandarin dialect pronouncing sizzling consonants differently" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29260" CreationDate="2018-03-27T15:21:12.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E7%BF%B9%E8%88%8C%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;翹舌音&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;翘舌音[翹舌音]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;qiào​shé​yīn​&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;retroflex sound (e.g. in Mandarin zh, ch, sh, r)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be accent, it could be dialect it could be 大舌头 (a big tongue).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;翘舌音 is almost nonexistent in Taiwan, although it should be, so I'd say that's down to accent.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Many topolects, like Sichuanese, don't carry retroflex sounds, and that's dialectical.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some people do have speech impediments or just a big tongue, as some like to put it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can call it lack of retroflex or 没有翘舌音.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The guy in the scene from Silicon Valley seems to be channeling a Taiwanese accent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-03-27T15:31:13.810" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T15:31:13.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29262" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29263" CreationDate="2018-03-27T16:01:29.573" Score="2" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;My teacher wants me to write about Game of thrones in Chinese. I am facing the problem of accurately translating medieval titles into Chinese. For “squire” I found the translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鄉紳: Country gentleman; squire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since that is a Chinese title, I am unsure, if squire is meant in the sense I intend - that is someone who was a page and is waiting on a Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Analogously, I found&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小廝: young male servant, page&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;書童: page boy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小么兒: page boy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am unsure whether any of these can be applied in the context of knighthood, as opposed to hotels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T11:03:05.067" Title="How to translate squire and page" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29262" CreationDate="2018-03-27T16:24:33.000" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For this kind of thing you can check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.91dict.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;91dict.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subtitle group 人人影视字幕组 have complied a dictionary from their subtitle translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance if you look up &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.91dict.com/words?w=squire&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;squire&lt;/a&gt; under 基本释义 we get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;n. 乡绅；侍从；大地主；地方法官&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vt. 随侍；护卫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;n. (Squire)人名；(英)斯夸尔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and under 场景例句 there are example sentences from Game of Thrones including:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来自《冰与火之歌：权力的游戏 第4季 第3集》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There has never lived a more loyal squire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世上从无你这般忠心的侍从&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was a squire until a few months ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他之前一直是侍从 数月前才受封&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems like they really like &lt;strong&gt;侍从&lt;/strong&gt; for squire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.91dict.com/words?w=page&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;page&lt;/a&gt; they give:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男侍者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T16:24:33.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29262" CreationDate="2018-03-27T16:28:52.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;鄉紳&quot; are gentlemen in village, no military aspect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you want some terms that &quot;squire was typically a teenaged boy, training to become a knight&quot;, i would suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;義勇&quot;, or &quot;鄉勇&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000151550&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000151550&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000109962&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000109962&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T16:28:52.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29255" CreationDate="2018-03-27T20:55:53.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;according to wikipedia(and my understanding as a native speaker):&#xA;蝈蝈,纺织娘 should be two sub species belong to the family: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tettigoniidae&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tettigoniidae&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蛐蛐,蟋蟀 is the same thing: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_(insect)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_(insect)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T20:55:53.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29254" CreationDate="2018-03-28T01:07:11.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;故园春意浓 花开鸟声碎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;故园 means 故乡: native place or hometown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jayxun.com/what/%E6%95%85%E5%9B%AD/spec/7wIm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.jayxun.com/what/%E6%95%85%E5%9B%AD/spec/7wIm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The poem means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hometown in very spring time, &#xA;flower blooming with clear and melodious bird song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;士戎春月 says the poet wrote it in the spring month of some year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The artist is not famous, so I can't find this poet. I can't find him even in Chinese web sites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19286" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-05-27T03:59:28.550" LastActivityDate="2018-05-27T03:59:28.550" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29184" CreationDate="2018-03-28T01:31:53.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes, 鱼的家是水。is juvenile and awkward, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but still need associate specific context，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's ok if in story of children，or just express thought，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in Chinese will say fish live in water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19286" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T01:31:53.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5273" CreationDate="2018-03-28T01:37:28.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;in Chinese 委屈 Meaning：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to feel wronged; to nurse a grievance&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[Polite] to put someone under great inconvenience, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;委屈 wěiqu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wronged&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感到很委屈&#xA;feel very aggrieved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;满腹委屈&#xA;be full of grievances&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;put sb to great inconvenience&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不起，委屈你了。&#xA;Sorry to have put you to such inconvenience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cite sa：&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jayxun.com/what/%E5%A7%94%E5%B1%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.jayxun.com/what/%E5%A7%94%E5%B1%88&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19286" LastEditorUserId="19286" LastEditDate="2018-04-02T03:33:10.993" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T03:33:10.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29269" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29270" CreationDate="2018-03-28T09:03:45.393" Score="3" ViewCount="878" Body="&lt;p&gt;My digital version of《现代汉语规范词典》seems to be using halfwidth ideographic commas, &lt;code&gt;､&lt;/code&gt; (U+FF64).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's their definition for &lt;strong&gt;巾&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;名 用来擦､包或盖东西的小块织物&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like a poor attempt at a fullwidth ideographic comma (顿号) and seems to be missing any sort of space what-so-ever after the punctuation mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there ever usage of the halfwidth ideographic comma in Chinese punctuation? (Add your own spaces?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T14:58:59.300" Title="Is the halfwidth ideographic comma (､) (U+FF64) ever used in Chinese punctuation?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29269" CreationDate="2018-03-28T09:23:12.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mainstream pinyin input methods mainly use full-width '、' character.  And under most formal situations, full-width '、' is required to keep consistency with other full-width punctuation markers (for example: '。', '，', '！').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T09:23:12.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29216" CreationDate="2018-03-28T09:33:02.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just break the word, for example: &quot;瘦小的猫&quot;, &quot;（很）小的猫&quot;, or use the word &quot;体型&quot;: &quot;体型很小/体型偏小的猫&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T09:33:02.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29262" CreationDate="2018-03-28T11:03:05.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Starting from English and trying to take over the sense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;squire 持盾者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;early 13c., &quot;young man who attends a knight,&quot; later &quot;member of the landowning class ranking below a knight&quot; (c. 1300), from Old French esquier &quot;squire,&quot; literally &quot;&lt;strong&gt;shield carrier&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;农 场主&#xA;Meaning &quot;country gentleman, &lt;strong&gt;landed proprietor&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is from 1670s; as a general term of address to a gentleman, it is attested from 1828.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;page 侍从， 侍从官&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;youth, lad, boy of the lower orders,&quot; c. 1300, originally also &quot;youth preparing to be a knight,&quot; from Old French page &quot;a youth, page, &lt;strong&gt;servant&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (13c.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T11:03:05.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29273" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29276" CreationDate="2018-03-28T11:14:20.953" Score="1" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase '雨后送伞' means unnecessary assistance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[释义]    比喻事后献殷勤。也比喻帮助不及时。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there better phrases or idiom to express such a context?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18167" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T21:20:07.910" Title="The synonyms of '雨后送伞'" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29269" CreationDate="2018-03-28T14:58:59.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’d say no. All regular Chinese punctuation marks are full-width. There shouldn't be any spaces before or after punctuation marks when you are typesetting Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people input Chinese, all Chinese characters and punctuation marks are typed under the full-width mode, while numbers, letters, and other symbols should be typed under the half-width mode. “、” (顿号) is no exception.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19353" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T14:58:59.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29273" CreationDate="2018-03-28T21:20:07.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;贼过兴兵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mobilize the troops after the bandits had gone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning: fail to provide assistance timely; present unhelpful, useless, belated action  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T21:20:07.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29277" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29279" CreationDate="2018-03-28T21:23:00.437" Score="6" ViewCount="673" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of 壹 / 一 in Mandarin, when I was in school, is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;yī&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's been a while that it is also pronounced as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;yao (or similar, I'm not very good with pinyin)  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and seems common among native speakers. Is it a slang or official and is there a reason?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T07:15:57.853" Title="Pronunciation of 壹 / 一 in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29277" CreationDate="2018-03-28T22:17:20.653" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a form to distinguish between 一 yi and 七 qi, which are similar and may lead to misunderstanding when talking, specially on the phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T22:17:20.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29277" CreationDate="2018-03-28T22:37:24.447" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;「壹」or「一」is not pronounced &lt;code&gt;yāo&lt;/code&gt;; this is an alternative &lt;strong&gt;word&lt;/strong&gt; for the number &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; in certain circumstances, and is the most common spoken representation of &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; when talking about phone numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character for &lt;code&gt;yāo&lt;/code&gt; is「幺」, which is the top part of the silk「糸」component. It originally represented &lt;em&gt;a small amount of silk thread&lt;/em&gt;, extended to mean &lt;em&gt;a small amount&lt;/em&gt; (cf. &lt;strong&gt;幺麼&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;tiny/minute&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;老幺&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;youngest child of a family&lt;/em&gt;), and further extended to be an alternative representation of the number &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-03-28T23:14:02.003" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T23:14:02.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29184" CreationDate="2018-03-29T03:48:37.200" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just for your reference&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼在水中生活&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼生活在水中&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼的家在水里&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼水情  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6486" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T03:48:37.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29277" CreationDate="2018-03-29T03:59:56.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you are reading a long series of numbers, you can use &quot;yī&quot; and &quot;yāo&quot; interchangeably, especially to distinguish 7(qī) and 1(yī).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Yao” is widely used in movies and other TV programs.  It is somewhat almost &quot;official&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, &quot;一&quot; has 4 pronunciation: yī, yí, yì, yāo.&#xA;&quot;yī&quot;, though the standard pronunciation in the dictionary, is used less often.&#xA;This pronunciation is used mainly in &quot;第一名&quot;, &quot;唯一&quot;, &quot;一&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;yí&quot; and &quot;yì&quot; is used in &quot;一(yì)起&quot;,&quot;一(yì)桶&quot;,“一(yí)个”,“一(yí)亿”.&#xA;But as a native speaker, I cannot tell the rule behind this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T03:59:56.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29283" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29296" CreationDate="2018-03-29T05:54:11.377" Score="2" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;兼 takes two objects that are in the same category. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般来说，在IT行业一个中小企业创始者担任CEO兼CTO是常见的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在我的家庭，妈妈是个厨师兼清洁工。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, can I add one or more, and make it more than two positions, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是个创始者，但是由于我的公司因没钱而不能雇佣，现在我担任CEO兼CTO兼CFO。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it only for two positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T12:58:36.290" Title="Can I use 兼 for more than two positions?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29285" CreationDate="2018-03-29T05:59:21.897" Score="2" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the CUV Chinese translation of the New Testament, at John 1:5 we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;光照在黑暗裡，黑暗卻不接受光。&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;The light shines in the dark, the dark retreats and does not receive the light.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above is my best understanding of what the Chinese says in-and-of itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at parallel passages we see, from the older and more conservative KJV:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and this from the newer NIV:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above CUV excerpt, as I understand it, is a bit different from the KJV &amp;amp; NIV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where have I made my mistake in reading the above passage? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If my understanding of the Chinese is correct and not wrong, then the Chinese is closer to the Greek IMO. I've probably made a mistake, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T06:09:04.937" Title="How is 卻 &amp; 接受 used in John 1:5 CUV?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29284" CreationDate="2018-03-29T06:09:04.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;卻 in this context means 'however' or 'but', serves to connect the two phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;光照在黑暗裡 (The light shines in the dark)，黑暗不接受光 (the dark does not receive the light.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;光照在黑暗裡，黑暗[&lt;strong&gt;卻&lt;/strong&gt;]不接受光 (The light shines in the darkness, [&lt;strong&gt;however&lt;/strong&gt;], the darkness does not receive the light)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T06:09:04.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29286" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29294" CreationDate="2018-03-29T06:39:38.300" Score="1" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;As eveyone knows that 直播 is Live.&#xA;But in this sentence:&#xA;What are you doing tonight?&#xA;看直播.(Watch Live)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's a little strange. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS:I watch online live, such as douyu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T12:35:11.417" Title="How do you say 直播 In English?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29277" CreationDate="2018-03-29T07:01:25.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a non-native speaker who has worked some tech jobs in Beijing, I can explain some intuition behind the usage of &quot;yao.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, &quot;yao&quot; is used in any pronunciation of a string of numbers. The reason for this is related to 一 and 七, undoubtedly, but arguably more important is the challenge of differentiating the number of 1's when you have multiple consecutive 1's in a string. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By way of example, when pronouncing 8211134, the three 1's in the middle, when said quickly with the &quot;yi&quot; pronunciation, sound like one elongated &quot;ee&quot; vowel sound in the first tone. This is not useful. Using &quot;yao&quot; makes differentiating 1s easy to hear and you can instantly tell that there is a string of three 1s next to each other.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the point of view of phonemes, this is necessary because &quot;yi&quot; is the only numerical digit in Chinese that is purely a vowel phoneme. Stringing identical vowel phonemes next to each other makes differentiating between them difficult. All other digits 二三四五六七八九十 either end with some kind of consonant sound differentiable from the initial vowel sound (in the case of 二), or begin with a consonant sound differentiable from the proceeding vowel sound (in the case of the rest). Some repetition of these numbers in strings should help you convince yourself that this is the case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To build on Aria Ax's answer, the reason &quot;yi&quot; changes its tone in these situations has to do with the tone of the following character. You'll notice that in tones, 4 -&gt; 1 (as in 一封信), 4 -&gt; 3 （一桶）, 2 -&gt; 0/5 （一个）, 2 -&gt; 4 (一亿). For those versed in melody in music theory, or anybody who sings in general, smooth vocal lines are easier for vocal cords than jumpy disconnected ones. The pronunciation conventions for 一 are likely to be inspired by this -- you'll notice that the modification of the tone for the initial 一 makes the pronunciation of the following character's tone much smoother and easier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19368" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T07:01:25.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29286" CreationDate="2018-03-29T07:06:05.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most often, we use the term &quot;stream&quot; -- as in &quot;I am going to watch Sccc's stream playing Dota 2 online&quot; -&gt; &quot;我要看Sccc在网上的Dota 2 直播&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Broadcast is a more formal term used when the contents are broadcast onto a television or radio. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19368" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T07:06:05.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29286" CreationDate="2018-03-29T07:06:48.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;直播 is short for 直接轉播 (direct relay / broadcast)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saying '看直播' (&lt;strong&gt;watching live&lt;/strong&gt;) is perfectly fine. '看直接轉播' is actually too wordy and strange sounding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to emphasize the 'live' aspect, you can say '看現場直播' (watching live on the scene) or '看即場直播'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-03-29T07:51:12.040" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T07:51:12.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29277" CreationDate="2018-03-29T07:15:57.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes, it is very common. It is primarily used in speaking context.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had been learning Chinese only on reading and writing, and the first time I heard &lt;code&gt;yāo qī sān&lt;/code&gt;, I didn't get what it means. But it means &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt; in speaking context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, Chinese language is quite different between speaking and writing, and it is common that what you learn on a textbook does not cover the oral context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T07:15:57.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29291" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29293" CreationDate="2018-03-29T10:18:20.087" Score="2" ViewCount="750" Body="&lt;p&gt;大家好,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the expression &quot;好久不见&quot;. In written conversation (chatting to Chinese people I have never met in person but am regularly chatting with), is it possible to use &quot;好久不看&quot; (~&quot;long time no read&quot;)? Or does &quot;好久不见&quot; also work in this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13168" LastEditorUserId="15945" LastEditDate="2018-03-29T11:06:44.903" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T11:06:44.903" Title="Can you say &quot;好久不看“ in written conversation?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29291" CreationDate="2018-03-29T10:40:10.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you want to use &quot;read&quot; because it's written conversation, but you want it to have the meaning of 好久不见, am I right? If it is so, then I think it would be better to say “好久没收到你的消息/来信” (It's been a while since your last message/letter) or “好久没联系你” (It's been a long time since we contacted each other).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“好久不看” is grammatical, but it seems to me that it would not be natural in the situation you described. Some certainly good use of “好久不看” would be (all the examples are courtesy of Google):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好久不看球了 I haven't watched a match for a long time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10几年前一直看动漫，好久不看现在该去哪里？ 10 years ago I used to watch anime all the time, it's been a long time since I watched it, where should I start?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好久不看这样的电影了 I haven't seen a movie like this for a long time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so on, so on. At first glance it seems like “好久不看” is often used as &quot;it's been a long time since I watched/saw&quot; rather than &quot;read&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15945" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T10:40:10.043" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29286" CreationDate="2018-03-29T12:35:11.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe it is also called &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_broadcast&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;live broadcast&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So depending on the context you would translate it to &lt;em&gt;live&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;broadcast&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;live broadcast&lt;/em&gt; if you don't mind a little bit of redundancy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/19368/marko&quot;&gt;Marko&lt;/a&gt; also made a good point about 网络直播, which is often called &lt;em&gt;stream&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_streaming&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;live streaming&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; in English. Douyu or Twitch would belong to this category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T12:35:11.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29068" CreationDate="2018-03-29T12:53:54.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;你是这个意思吗&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不想我结婚，你是这个意思吗？ You mean you don't want me to get married?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T12:53:54.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29283" CreationDate="2018-03-29T12:58:36.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, grammatically speaking, you cannot use any conjunction between more than two elements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CEO兼CTO兼CFO  (✘)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CEO、CTO兼CFO  (✔)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CEO和CTO和CFO  (✘)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CEO、CTO和CFO  (✔)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it's the same in English, instead of saying &lt;em&gt;Alice and Bob and Charlie&lt;/em&gt;, you would say &lt;em&gt;Alice, Bob and Charlie&lt;/em&gt;, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another suggestion: you can use the word 兼任. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是个创始者，但是由于我的公司因没钱而不能雇佣，现在我兼任CEO、CTO和CFO。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T12:58:36.290" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29297" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29299" CreationDate="2018-03-30T05:51:04.813" Score="2" ViewCount="540" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/putonghua&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/putonghua&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;putonghua&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mass noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The standard spoken form of modern Chinese, based on the dialect of Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2021-04-13T16:42:02.180" Title="Since Putonghua is a standard English word, why do people use Mandarin for standard Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29297" CreationDate="2018-03-30T06:30:55.027" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They refer to different things, even they have slight difference linguistically. &lt;em&gt;Mandarin&lt;/em&gt; refers to the standard literary and official form of Chinese with more broad sense, while &lt;em&gt;Putonghua&lt;/em&gt; refers to the standard form of Chinese designated (in 1955) and used by Mainland China; it's worth noting it's still derived from the original Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Is-Putonghua-the-same-as-Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt;'s an excellent explanation about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To be more specific, Mandarin is the official language designated&#xA;  since Qing dynasty. Originally(not 100% sure), Mandarin stands for&#xA;  officials in Qing dynasty. Later they call the language they use as&#xA;  Mandarin too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Putonghua, is newly designated as official language within Mainland&#xA;  China. Though it may or may not has slight difference from Mandarin,&#xA;  they are actually the same. For political issues, Taiwan, Hong Kong,&#xA;  and Singapore do not take the notion of Putonghua, which is solely&#xA;  used by Mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chinese language contains Mandarin(same as Putonghua) + Cantonese + …&#xA;  + tons of dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-03-30T06:41:08.777" LastActivityDate="2018-03-30T06:41:08.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29297" CreationDate="2018-03-30T07:06:06.833" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why should they? People don't rely on dictionaries when they speak. “Putonghua” may be in dictionaries, but it is still not a commonly used word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why “Mandarin” is used and not “Putonghua”, I believe that “Putonghua” was only recently included in English dictionaries. In China, 普通话 only became a commonly used term during the 20th century. (This is confirmed by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese#Putonghua_and_Guoyu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.) So it seems likely that one reason “Putonghua”is not commonly used is that it hasn't had enough time to become adopted in English. I also think that another reason “Putonghua” isn't used much is because of phonetics: it doesn't sound like an English word, so people may find it hard to remember and to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be argued that it is more correct to use “Putonghua” rather than “Mandarin” when referring to standard Chinese. It is conceivable that changes in culture, geopolitics and education may lead to the term “Putonghua” eventually becoming the standard, commonly used term in English for “standard Chinese”. But I don't think it will happen soon. Not before at least a decade I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The majority of English speakers do not have much knowledge about the different Chinese languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some comments on the usage of the terms Mandarin, Chinese and Putonghua.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese: noun in common use in spoken English. It usually means standard Chinese, i.e. Putonghua. (口语)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin: noun also used by the general public, but seems a little more formal. (书面语)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Putonghua: not in common use. In general it is only used by someone with a little specialised knowledge of China and/or Chinese languages. Interestingly, in Wikipedia “Putonghua” is a &amp;quot;redirect&amp;quot; to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese#Putonghua_and_Guoyu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Standard Chinese&amp;quot; entry&lt;/a&gt;. The article is well worth a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2021-04-13T16:42:02.180" LastActivityDate="2021-04-13T16:42:02.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29297" CreationDate="2018-03-30T10:23:33.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Never, ever, heard of 'putonghua' outside of China, I doubt the average English speaker would know what that is, notwithstanding OED. 'putonghua' is most definitely not standard English. Oxford is trying to sell books!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'mandar' is Spanish and Portugues for 命令 and the source of 'mandarin = little boss = 大臣，官员， 大人' ('in' a diminutive suffix) and by association, the standardized language they spoke. Because these guys wore an orange coloured robe, the fruit 橘子 got that name in Europe too! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sent by the emperor to govern somewhere, the educated 'mandarin' spoke a standard language, theoretically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-03-30T10:23:33.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29301" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29302" CreationDate="2018-03-30T12:53:32.763" Score="4" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve always found it difficult to translate &lt;code&gt;小&lt;/code&gt; in people’s nicknames. Sometimes even opting just to drop it entirely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NPR has gone with a straight up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;little&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English it’s almost laughable though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.npr.org/2018/03/29/597999205/chinese-dissident-finds-struggles-independence-in-america-after-immigrating&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;NPR: Chinese Dissident Finds Struggles, Independence In America After Immigrating&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He and his wife, Little Yan, devised a plan to sneak into the country as part of a tour group. Once the tour group got to the U.S., the couple quietly broke away and hopped a flight to New York.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article doesn’t have any Chinese in it but it’s suffice to say that Little Yan’s Chinese name is probably something like: 小燕.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can’t really believe anyone would translate it like this but there it is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a common thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this an appropriate translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-03-30T14:38:51.483" Title="Is “little” an appropriate translation for 小 in peoples ‘nicknames’?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29301" CreationDate="2018-03-30T13:18:36.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. This translation sounds quite strange, in fact - I don't get the impression that 小燕 is something that even Chinese newspapers** would write, and this kind of name is really reserved for acquaintances/friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There very likely isn't an exact English translation; a proper description of 小-- is something like &lt;em&gt;a prefix attached to a surname to indicate affection/endearment for someone younger&lt;/em&gt; (similarly 老 is used for someone older). To show similar affection/endearment in English you would really just use their &lt;em&gt;preferred name&lt;/em&gt; (whether that'd be their nickname, full name or something else), and the closest example to 小-- in the English-speaking world would be something like the nicknames given to people in Aussie English. From Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*Litotes, such as &quot;not bad&quot;, &quot;not much&quot; and &quot;you're not wrong&quot;, are also used, as are diminutives***, which are commonly used and are often used to indicate familiarity. Some common examples are arvo (afternoon), barbie (barbecue), smoko (cigarette break), Aussie (Australian) and pressie (present/gift). &lt;strong&gt;This may also be done with people's names to create nicknames (other English speaking countries create similar diminutives). For example, &quot;Gazza&quot; from Gary, or &quot;Smitty&quot; from John Smith. The use of the suffix -o originates in Irish Gaelic[citation needed] (Irish ó), which is both a postclitic and a suffix with much the same meaning as in Australian English.*&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To mention someone differently based on age is far more neutral and sometimes even a subtle insult in English, implying either the person is immature (younger) or old-fashioned (older). For example in Scots, you may call someone &lt;em&gt;laddie&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;lass&lt;/em&gt;, or elsewhere among older folks you may mention someone in contrast to their father/children like &lt;em&gt;the younger/elder (Mr.) Potter&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would just translate it as &lt;em&gt;Mrs Yan&lt;/em&gt;; or even better, give the first name instead, as English speakers generally are not acquainted with the fact that Chinese women do not take their husbands' last names when they marry, and the difference in last names may be a bit jarring to read. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;**The translation for 小燕 is there because this is a story piece of the struggles of an immigrant couple, and the word choice is important for the reader to emotionally connect to the couple. Using 小燕 makes sense in a Chinese context, but again in English you'd only use the preferred name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;***&lt;strong&gt;Diminutives&lt;/strong&gt; are the key word to search for if you wish to find affection/endearment terms of address in other languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-03-30T14:38:51.483" LastActivityDate="2018-03-30T14:38:51.483" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29297" CreationDate="2018-03-30T19:49:58.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The use of Mandarin to refer to Chinese dates back to the Jesuits. Mandarin means 'court official', so it was a reasonable translation for 官话, and the term has persisted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be interested to hear other people's experiences, but I mainly hear this term used to draw a contrast between 'Mandarin' and 'Cantonese', as in &quot;oh, you're studying Chinese? Are you learning Mandarin or Cantonese?&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So ok, the person asking this question clearly doesn't know China very well, but that's fine, the world is a big place, it's hard to know everything. But this terminology they're using &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) identifies that 'Chinese' is a family of languages/dialects&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) makes a first-pass north-vs-south distinction, although with technically incorrect terms that actually have a more specific meaning than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) identifies the 'northern' version as the 'court official' one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's... well, surprisingly accurate for someone who clearly doesn't know what they're talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18891" LastActivityDate="2018-03-30T19:49:58.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17327" CreationDate="2018-03-31T15:05:59.890" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence is Sony’s fans’s sayings &#xA;索尼 is “Sony”&#xA;大法 feel like “religious magic”&#xA;好 is good&#xA; in fact this sentence have some jokemeaning in Chinese&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4LPXK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4LPXK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;if you are a Google fans you can say&#xA;谷歌大法好&#xA;my English maybe is not very well，if you can not understand please tell me &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19376" LastActivityDate="2018-03-31T15:05:59.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3151" CreationDate="2018-03-31T19:41:11.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/2700/fluffy&quot;&gt;fluffy&lt;/a&gt;'s answer has noted, 小姐 may now cause confusion because of its other meaning - a prostitute. So you may want to avoid that unless used as an honorific e.g. 董小姐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to my knowledge, in the north (of mainland China), they are usually called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%8D%E5%8B%99%E5%93%A1#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;服务员&lt;/a&gt;(server), both male and female. But in the south, they are usually called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B8%A5%E5%93%A5#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;帅哥&lt;/a&gt;(handsome man) for waiter and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%BE%8E%E5%A5%B3#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;美女&lt;/a&gt;(beautiful lady) for waitress, instead of calling them a server. And in Guangdong or Cantonese-dominant region, they are called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%9D%9A%E4%BB%94#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;靚仔&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%9D%9A%E5%A5%B3#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;靚女&lt;/a&gt; respectively, basically the same meaning as 帅哥/美女.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastActivityDate="2018-03-31T19:41:11.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29313" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29315" CreationDate="2018-03-31T21:09:01.293" Score="2" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;主持人 means the host of a show or event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the right word for someone who entertains or hosts guests? 招待人？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, assume this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alice thought Bob was a kind and hospitable host.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How would you say this in Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How would say this in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-04-01T02:33:33.793" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T06:16:55.027" Title="招待人 for &quot;host&quot; of guests or visitors (e.g., our &quot;host&quot; was kind)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29313" CreationDate="2018-03-31T23:42:08.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd just go with 人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alice thought Bob was a kind and hospitable host.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;爱丽丝认为鲍勃是个和蔼好客的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-03-31T23:42:08.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29313" CreationDate="2018-04-01T01:43:50.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;主人&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tuttle&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;N&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 &#xA;  host (antonym 客人 kèren)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;客人都来了, 主人呢? &#xA;  Kèren dōu lái le, zhǔrén ne?&#xA;  The guests have all arrived, but where is the host? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a verb you can try &lt;strong&gt;做东&lt;/strong&gt; aswell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Words.HK&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;動詞&#xA;  作為主人家招待客人&#xA;  to be the host&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你嚟我屋企, 我做東。 &#xA;  nei5 lai4 ngo5 uk1 kei2, ngo5 zou6 dung1.&#xA;  Come to my house, I will be the host. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both work in Mandarin and Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kind and hospitable host I would translate like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做东做得友好又大方&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-04-01T02:44:24.390" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T02:44:24.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29317" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-01T04:33:13.473" Score="1" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;现代汉语词典 seems to be the de facto standard for Chinese dictionaries. Some users here use it as well. But it seems only possible for the paper version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I might miss something. Is it possible to use it outside of its paper version, such as online or app? I searched for it on the App Store, but seems that there are too many results and I don't know which is the correct one (actually all of them don't seem to be official ones...). Also I really hate it if I purchase an app but later found some words are missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it only available on the paper-version?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-09-04T00:00:44.163" Title="Can I use 现代汉语词典 outside of the paper dictionary?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29317" CreationDate="2018-04-01T04:47:33.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/20259584/answer/138804468&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《现代汉语规范词典》和《现代汉语词典》相比各自有何特色？ - Dictionaryphile的回答 - 知乎&lt;/a&gt; under ##电子版本 you can find various licensed online/electronic version. Specifically, this one seems to be&lt;sup&gt;[1]&lt;/sup&gt; from the publisher 商务印书馆: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.icidian.com.cn/cpnet/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.icidian.com.cn/cpnet/&lt;/a&gt; but requires login. And I cannot find anywhere to register/purchase. So I can't tell if it is working/genuine or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1]: The ICP备案号 from the website, 京ICP备 05007371号-13 does not exist in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.miibeian.gov.cn/publish/query/indexFirst.action&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;工业和信息化产业部 ICP/IP/域名信息备案管理系统&lt;/a&gt;. However, 京ICP备 05007371号 does exist and shows multiple sub-records all belonging to 商务印书馆有限公司. WHOIS information from CNNIC also indicates the registrant to be 商务印书馆有限公司.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2018-04-01T05:22:21.637" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T05:22:21.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29317" CreationDate="2018-04-01T05:45:40.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can find the app:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;like:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/99CoP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/99CoP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;1.现代汉语词典 2.百度汉语词典 3.汉语词典2016 4.有道语文达人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or the pleco &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.pleco.com/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;it come from: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/35136488&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/35136488&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the online website:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you can use it &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com&lt;/a&gt; (Is very clear and ample.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15059" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T05:45:40.507" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29313" CreationDate="2018-04-01T06:16:55.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;what is the right word for someone who entertains or hosts guests? 招待人？&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you can call it  “主人”. but it is barely used .you sometimes can see it in paper .In oral spoken,we juet ignore it ,you can call  the name or palace name streatly &lt;br&gt;&#xA;For instance：这家主人正在招待客人=This host is  entertaining guests &lt;br&gt;&#xA;≈这家餐厅正在招待客人，Bob一家正在款待客人 这家人正在招待客人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alice thought Bob was a kind and hospitable host.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Alice认为Bob是一个热情好客的人。&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;主人&quot; was commonly use in servent who begged the master or BDSM(some call the lord)or old ancient servent who faced with the empire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when you use it between country .you can call it  “东道主”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15059" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T06:16:55.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29321" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-01T06:50:18.240" Score="1" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://veganmiam.com/how-to/how-to-prepare-banana-blossom&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Web Page&lt;/a&gt; shows that banana blossoms correspond to what a Chinese friend of mine from Beijing used to call &quot;tall skinny Chinese person&quot; or &quot;long skinny Chinese person&quot;. Upon stumbling upon &lt;a href=&quot;https://vegetarianism.stackexchange.com/questions/1356/vegan-fish-and-quorn-products-for-pets&quot;&gt;this stack exchange article&lt;/a&gt; my curiosity struck and I now want to know how to say/write this ingredient in Chinese as well as how to say these expressions of my friend's in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19391" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-04-01T10:32:22.057" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T14:56:18.000" Title="Word for banana blossoms in Chinese" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29172" CreationDate="2018-04-01T07:25:28.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In our country, what you called is noted as:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;异形词 it include:{&lt;br&gt;同音异体same tone differy body&lt;br&gt; 同义异体 same meaning different body}&#xA;it is edited as an excel &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z1858m3646j18784.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z1858m3646j18784.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  but i don't think you should memorize,what you should do is familar with the “近义词” &#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嫉妒 ji2du4 / 忌妒 ji4du5&lt;br&gt;&#xA;it is quite same，when you use in oral spoken,it is always changeable,we commonly use 忌妒,but when you use in paper or some more strict occasion, it has some different,嫉妒 it target is beyond us 忌妒 it is someone who has something i don't have .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘟囔 du1nang5 / 嘟哝du1nong5 it is different tone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘟囔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyu.baidu.com/zici/s?wd=%E5%98%9F%E5%9B%94&amp;amp;query=%E5%98%9F%E5%9B%94%20%E8%AF%BB%E9%9F%B3&amp;amp;srcid=28236&amp;amp;from=kg0&amp;amp;from=kg0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://hanyu.baidu.com/zici/s?wd=嘟囔&amp;amp;query=嘟囔%20读音&amp;amp;srcid=28236&amp;amp;from=kg0&amp;amp;from=kg0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘟   哝≈弄 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hanyu.baidu.com/zici/s?wd=%E5%98%9F%E5%93%9D&amp;amp;query=%E5%98%9F%E5%93%9D%E8%AF%BB%E9%9F%B3&amp;amp;srcid=28236&amp;amp;from=kg0&amp;amp;from=kg0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://hanyu.baidu.com/zici/s?wd=嘟哝&amp;amp;query=嘟哝读音&amp;amp;srcid=28236&amp;amp;from=kg0&amp;amp;from=kg0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the end you say 按 and 摁 &lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is called 近义词 it is commonly used ，you should practice a lot to know it&#xA;when you want to know  the word same meaning ，you just search &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-8&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;tn=84053098_3_dg&amp;amp;wd=%E5%A5%BD%20%E8%BF%91%E4%B9%89%E8%AF%8D&amp;amp;oq=%25E6%258C%2589%2520%25E8%25BF%2591%25E4%25B9%2589%25E8%25AF%258D&amp;amp;rsv_pq=b0d1a4f200069239&amp;amp;rsv_t=64e2vqe7FBrQwHWV2kg5px9cc%2BNaVqIvpQBEI1fjxViALDBqU1xCYbLrW1x5L7H%2BnhUEHQ&amp;amp;rqlang=cn&amp;amp;rsv_enter=1&amp;amp;inputT=1207&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=64&amp;amp;rsv_sug1=66&amp;amp;rsv_sug7=100&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=1207&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;eg：好 近义词 &#xA;or use &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/search?lm=0&amp;amp;rn=10&amp;amp;pn=0&amp;amp;fr=search&amp;amp;ie=gbk&amp;amp;word=%BA%C3%20%BD%FC%D2%E5%B4%CA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度知道&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15059" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T07:25:28.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29159" CreationDate="2018-04-01T07:43:02.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;use internet to find something this is baidu news search engine&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YkRpE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YkRpE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.baidu.com/ns?cl=2&amp;amp;rn=20&amp;amp;tn=news&amp;amp;word=%E8%8D%89%E8%88%B9%E5%80%9F%E7%AE%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://news.baidu.com/ns?cl=2&amp;amp;rn=20&amp;amp;tn=news&amp;amp;word=草船借箭&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can see it ,is usually quote it,not using it, it is same like “空手套白狼”，it meaning is like this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.techaccent.com/bill-gates-son-in-law-joke/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;joke&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&quot;空手套白狼&quot;means the ancient time, the empire found  white wolf with nothing to loose (white wolf is good blessing in ancient china )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15059" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T07:43:02.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29321" CreationDate="2018-04-01T10:14:20.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There might has been some misconception here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Banana blossoms (香蕉花) is a food ingredient, it has nothing to do with the nickname for the American born Chinese- 'banana'(香蕉) (which is white inside, yellow on the outside. Meaning they might look Chinese, but they think and act like white people )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another nickname for American born Chinese is 'bamboo stick' (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AB%B9%E5%8D%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;竹昇&lt;/a&gt;), (which is empty inside, meaning they don't have any Chinese character inside them)    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;tall skinny Chinese person&quot; or &quot;long skinny Chinese person&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The misconception might have came from your Chinese friend thought 香蕉 = 竹昇, and 竹昇 in other context, can be used metaphorically to describe 'tall skinny person'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'他像竹昇一般又高又廋' (he is tall and thin like a bamboo stick)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'他七呎高卻只得一百二十磅重, 那不就是活脫脫一條竹昇麼？(He is seven feet tall, but only weight 120 pounds, is that not virtually a bamboo stick?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact is, 香蕉 and 竹昇 might mean the same thing, but they obviously are not the same phrase, and the nickname '竹昇' doesn't contain the metaphorical meaning of 'tall and thin person'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-01T14:56:18.000" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T14:56:18.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29325" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29326" CreationDate="2018-04-02T01:39:30.207" Score="1" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;艾文特别老实、害羞，提什么建议，他都说好的好的；有时&lt;strong&gt;开他的玩笑&lt;/strong&gt;，他会脸红得不知所措，只是憨憨地笑。他喜欢骑自行车，我俩就骑着车在南京城里转，在我这个业余导游的指引下，早到哪儿，逛到哪儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it starts with 他 as a subject, I feel that it is &quot;he&quot; that makes fun of something, not that he is being. But since the latter sentence makes an impression that he feels embarrassed, so I also feel that he is actually joked at here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I know which is correct? Usually, the sentence should be 他开玩笑 I think, but I wonder if it is actually &quot;he&quot; that is making fun of, why is it in such a form...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is 开X的玩笑 different word from X开玩笑? If it is the same and the subject is 他, why not simply say 他开玩笑, instead of 开他的玩笑?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-04-02T09:11:47.120" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T09:11:47.120" Title="Does 开他的玩笑 mean &quot;he&quot; plays or is played?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29325" CreationDate="2018-04-02T02:11:00.560" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;'他的' in '开他的玩笑' is not the subject, it is an  'adjectival phrase' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开玩笑 = to joke &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的 = (对)他的 = toward/ about him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'对他的' (toward/ about him) is the adjectival phrase for '玩笑' (joke). It describes what kind of joke it is - 'a joke toward/ about him'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'开玩笑' (to joke) is a single verb treated as one word, but in this structure, 玩笑 (joke) is isolated out and treated like a noun, therefore (对)他的 could be applied to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回家 (go home) is a single verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in '回[溫暖的]家' , '家' is isolated out as a noun and '溫暖的' (warm) is the adjective for '家'(home)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-02T02:19:21.287" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T02:19:21.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29325" CreationDate="2018-04-02T02:49:45.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;他开玩笑 he cracked/played a joke&lt;br&gt;&#xA;某人开他的玩笑 someone played a joke on him&lt;br&gt;&#xA;开我的玩笑 make fun of me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他都说好的好的;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He was always saying ok ok,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有时开他的玩笑，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;sometimes, when someone played a joke on him,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他会脸红得不知所措，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;he would blush and not know what to do,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;只是憨憨地笑。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;except laugh a silly laugh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T02:49:45.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29329" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29331" CreationDate="2018-04-02T17:40:18.810" Score="3" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;The same 神 character is painted over a seal on 2 different artworks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;An early &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BA%94%E4%BB%A3%E5%8D%AB%E8%B4%A4%E9%AB%98%E5%A3%AB%E5%9B%BE/1054619?fromtitle=%E5%8D%AB%E8%B4%A4%E9%AB%98%E5%A3%AB%E5%9B%BE&amp;amp;fromid=10293285&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;landscape painting&lt;/a&gt; (by Wei Xian/卫贤?):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1UAwE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1UAwE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;seal_wei_xian&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;https://theme.npm.edu.tw/selection/Article.aspx?sNo=04001001&amp;amp;lang=2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;calligraphy&lt;/a&gt; by Wang Xizhi: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dDSFY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dDSFY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;seal_wang_xizhi&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Painting over a seal seems rather rare to me. I guess this one is the seal from a collector, but I might be wrong. Do you know a particular reason why it has been painted? And does it have a special meaning (maybe a religious one)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: here's an attempt to make the seal readable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BOU7f.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BOU7f.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11733" LastEditorUserId="11733" LastEditDate="2018-04-02T19:53:44.163" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T21:54:01.607" Title="Shen (神) character painted over a seal" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29330" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-02T20:27:16.563" Score="7" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the use of a conjunction between the second-last and last word in a list a natural Chinese construction?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the construction feels like an Anglicism: I do not hear it in daily speech that often and, I have a feeling, it appears more often in translated texts or in modern texts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often the conjunction is used, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;現在我兼任總經理、技術官和財務官。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, isn't a rephrasing without the conjunction more &quot;natural&quot;?  Something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;現在我身兼數職：總經理、技術官、財務官。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12745" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-09T01:03:55.427" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T01:03:55.427" Title="Is the use of a conjunction between the second-last and last word in a list (A、B和C) a natural Chinese construction?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;word-lists&gt;&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29329" CreationDate="2018-04-02T21:54:01.607" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, the emperor 乾隆 was a collector, he used four characters &quot;神&quot;, &quot;妙&quot;, &quot;能&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;逸&quot; to categorise artworks (calligraphy, or painting).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then, he used his seal to chop on the artwork :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T21:54:01.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29332" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29335" CreationDate="2018-04-03T01:57:56.813" Score="1" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally I see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;应急出口&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;yìngjí chūkǒu&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;indicating an emergency exit on a bus, whereas I see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;安全出口&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;ānquán chūkǒu&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;indicating an emergency exit in a building.  I'm not clear on the difference between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 应急出口 and 安全出口 which both mean &quot;emergency exit&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at dict.cn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%BA%94%E6%80%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;应急&lt;/a&gt; = emergency&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%AE%89%E5%85%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;安全&lt;/a&gt; = safety&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes me suspect that an 应急出口 can only be used in the case of an emergency, whereas an 安全出口 can be used at other times too.  But I may be reading too much into this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T08:54:12.837" Title="What's the difference between 应急出口 (yìngjí chūkǒu) and 安全出口 (ānquán chūkǒu) which both mean &quot;emergency exit&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3032" CreationDate="2018-04-03T06:51:39.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.purpleculture.net/chinese-pinyin-converter/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.purpleculture.net/chinese-pinyin-converter/&lt;/a&gt;, this tool can add tone numbers only&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19404" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T06:51:39.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29332" CreationDate="2018-04-03T08:50:08.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;应急出口 means it’s an escape in case of emergency (literally “emergency exit), while 安全出口 means it’s an safe escape (in case of emergency) (literally “safe exit). &#xA;Both probably indicate an emergency exit, and differences are just in context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19277" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T08:50:08.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29332" CreationDate="2018-04-03T08:54:12.837" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are just two different ways to tell you where you can go safely in emergency case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you said,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;应急 = emergency&#xA;(actually emergency is 紧急; 应急 is &amp;quot;for emergency&amp;quot;, which is short for 因应紧急)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;安全 = safety&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And they really are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;应急出口&#xA;(safety) exit for emergency&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安全出口&#xA;safety exit (for emergency)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T08:54:12.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29337" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29338" CreationDate="2018-04-03T19:33:42.757" Score="3" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was curious about this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;對我來說她的存在是與現實之間的邊界綫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't quite understand the meaning of 與&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary I use gives the following definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;與  yú variant of 歟|欤&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;與  yǔ and; to give; together with&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;與  yù to take part in&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is using the fourth tone, meaning &quot;to take part in&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My interpretation of the sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As for me, her existence 'takes part' between the borderline of&#xA;  reality (and non reality)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately this sounds a bit weird and I'm worrying that it's completely wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone could shed some light on the issue I would be very grateful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19408" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T04:47:52.193" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T04:47:52.193" Title="What does 與 mean in 對我來說她的存在是與現實之間的邊界綫?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29337" CreationDate="2018-04-03T21:29:55.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;對我來說 - to me,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她的存在 - her existence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 - is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;???? (object A - &lt;em&gt;missing&lt;/em&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;與 - and&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;現實 reality (object B)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之間的 - that between&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;邊界綫 - the borderline&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 對我來說] [2. 她的存在] [3. 是] [4. X] [5. 與] [6.現實][7. 之間的] [8. 邊界綫]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. to me] [2. her existence] [3. is] [4. X][5.and] [6. reality][7. between] [8. the borderline] (&lt;em&gt;Chinese grammar&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. to me] [2. her existence] [3. is] [8.the borderline] [7. between] [4. X] [5. and] [6. reality]  (&lt;em&gt;English grammar&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;X could be something opposite of reality , e.g. &amp;quot;dream&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;fantasy&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Her existence is the borderline between dream &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; reality&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X could also be 'I' meaning if she didn't exist, I would have to face reality&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T22:16:16.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29339" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-03T21:55:06.470" Score="1" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他换了1，000美元。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did he use dollars to exchange for another money or did he use another money and got dollars as a result?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;What about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他换了1，000美元的人民币。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2018-04-05T21:29:25.340" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T21:29:25.340" Title="What money is being exchanged here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29339" CreationDate="2018-04-04T02:15:14.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“他换了1，000美元” is not clear; which denomination became what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他用人民币换了1，000美元。（He changed RMB, bought $ 1000)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把1000美元换成了人民币。（He changed $ 1000, bought RMB)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T02:15:14.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29339" CreationDate="2018-04-04T02:36:05.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence is ambiguous the same way the equivalent English sentence &quot;He exchanged 1000 USD&quot; is ambiguous. In real life, the context will make it sufficiently clear, so this sentence is probably heard a lot. But taken out of context, you will need to clarify by saying &quot;把 currency A 換成 currency B&quot; - exchanged currency A INTO currency B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, another shorter way to express this is “他買了 1000 美元” He exchanged his money INTO USD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T02:36:05.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29337" CreationDate="2018-04-04T02:42:18.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;對我來說她的存在是與現實之間的邊界綫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally 之間 translates as 'between'. The logic of 'between' requires 2 objects for a third object to be located 'between' them. The logic of 現實之間 escapes me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對我來說，她的存在是虚拟（虚幻）与（和）現實之間的邊界綫。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As far as I am concerned, her existence is on the borderline between the illusory and reality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are trying to say she's a shady lady??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T02:42:18.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29343" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29345" CreationDate="2018-04-04T02:44:53.690" Score="9" ViewCount="2504" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Mandarin Corner &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTSfPXvrNAw&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube video&lt;/a&gt; describes &quot;3 Things Chinese Like about Foreigners&quot;.  One sentence from this dialogue is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n4YWz.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n4YWz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;首先我觉得外国人有时候太过于开放。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Shǒuxiān wǒ juédé wàiguórén yǒu shíhòu tài guòyú kāifàng.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I translate (directly) to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;First, I feel foreigners are sometimes too excessively open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's confusing me is the use of both:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%A4%AA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;太&lt;/a&gt; (tài) = too, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%BF%87%E4%BA%8E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;过于&lt;/a&gt; (guòyú) = excessively&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like one of these is redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why do both 太 and 过于 occur in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T08:18:13.887" Title="Why do both 太 (too) and 过于 (excessively) occur in 外国人有时候太过于开放 (foreigners are sometimes too excessively open)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29343" CreationDate="2018-04-04T03:48:06.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, the speaker can choose 太过 (overly/ excessively) or 过于(overly/ excessively).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of just pick one adverb, that guy mixed the two together&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;首先我觉外国人&lt;strong&gt;过于&lt;/strong&gt;开放 and 首先我觉外国人&lt;strong&gt;太过&lt;/strong&gt;开放 express the same meaning for the sentence. No need to write &quot;太过于&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T03:48:06.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29343" CreationDate="2018-04-04T04:00:53.293" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to convert my comments into an answer to offer another POV to the already given answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;太过于&lt;/strong&gt; is a set phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cjkware.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;KEY&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; defines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太过于&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;too...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt; French defines it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;trop...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this is similar to English usage of  too + overly. It's a phrase we often use in English too. A quick google search gives me results like: &lt;code&gt;too overly complex&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;too overly dependent&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;too overly ambitious&lt;/code&gt; - seems to be about the same logic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E5%A4%AA%E8%BF%87%E4%BA%8E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ICIBA&lt;/a&gt; also defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;too much&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;giving examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She's too protective towards her children; she should let them be more independent.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她对孩子太过于爱护, 她应当给他们更多的独立性.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cheese, like oil, makes too much of itself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乳酪, 如同石油一样, 太过于引人注目了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't be so quick to judge!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不要太过于武断!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of usage (emphasis is my own):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2018-01-19/doc-ifyqtwzu8402631.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sina: 周航：很多时候的焦虑是太过于关注短期的东西&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在搜狗CEO王小川、顺为资本投资合伙人周航和腾讯前CTO张志东圆桌论坛上，对于“科技发展与服务用户”的话题讨论上，周航认为，我们很多时候的焦虑，是&lt;strong&gt;太过于&lt;/strong&gt;关注短期的东西了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://t.cj.sina.com.cn/articles/view/6424896224/17ef422e00010047ex&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sina: iOS 12加快淘汰速度，iPhone6确实太过于老旧了！！&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而今天，还需要给大家再次强调，如今都已经是3月份了，如果按照苹果的更新速度，很快将会在秋季之前发布最新的iOS 12系统，这无疑会加快淘汰的速度，因为iPhone6&lt;strong&gt;太过于&lt;/strong&gt;老旧了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=esfDCQAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PT201&amp;amp;lpg=PT201&amp;amp;dq=%E2%80%9C%E5%A4%AA%E8%BF%87%E4%BA%8E%E2%80%9D&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=2JVDQUE6TR&amp;amp;sig=9LJ5YLi426VYI6KdqRosmefO7mc&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwi6qcPV25_aAhUMuI8KHYF8DRcQ6AEIbzAJ#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%E2%80%9C%E5%A4%AA%E8%BF%87%E4%BA%8E%E2%80%9D&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Books: 道解《黄帝内经》（上、下）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;味&lt;strong&gt;太过于&lt;/strong&gt;咸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the kicker:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=2VcKDgAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PT291&amp;amp;lpg=PT291&amp;amp;dq=%22%E5%A4%AA%E8%BF%87%E4%BA%8E%22&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=FOcWyb3E6L&amp;amp;sig=K1vnU7jzKBGLZku4nQNEDPNoPNU&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwj7ivGI4J_aAhWDu48KHU2YCAE4ChDoAQhRMAg#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%22%E5%A4%AA%E8%BF%87%E4%BA%8E%22&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Books: 遇见成功的自己&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对有些人来说，改变习惯的确是很难很难的事，因为他们&lt;strong&gt;太过于&lt;/strong&gt;原谅自己，&lt;strong&gt;太过于&lt;/strong&gt;迁就自己，&lt;strong&gt;太过于&lt;/strong&gt;开脱自己，&lt;strong&gt;太过于&lt;/strong&gt;娇纵自己。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T04:13:41.293" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29343" CreationDate="2018-04-04T07:03:45.323" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This usage is conversational, you wouldn't see it in writing. Unless, of course, the writing is trying for a conversational tone. Presumably the speaker started with &quot;太...&quot; but felt that wasn't strong enough and added the 过于.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Grammatically&lt;/em&gt;, there's the difference that 太 is (just) an adverb and 过于 is more like a verb. To represent the sentence in English, you could write something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Foreigners are overdoing (过于) being open (开放) way too much (太)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which isn't exactly correct usage, but does sound like something a young person might say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to note that 过于 can't normally be translated as &quot;overdoing&quot;, it's just the closest verb in English. The reason I say it's verb-like is because 过 is a verb, and the structure works out like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过 (surpass) 于 (compared to)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This structure is inherited from an older stage of Chinese grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T07:03:45.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29343" CreationDate="2018-04-04T07:06:36.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;太过于 vs 过于, the extent is different. 太过于 denotes larger extent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过于: overly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太过于: much overly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T07:06:36.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29343" CreationDate="2018-04-04T08:18:13.887" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;价格太高 may refer to something cost too much or unaffordable, and 价格过高/价格过于昂贵 may refer to something unworthy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太开放 probably means they are too open that you can't take it personally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过于开放 means they are so open that in some aspect, it may be bad for themselves. The people who are supposedly open may or may not care, but it changes many things that breaks the usually logic of the implied aspect, or assumed common sense, that the opinion of the person who say that about what would usually work may fail in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太过于开放 means it could be too bad for themselves, or it is bad for themselves in too many aspects, or something is much more likely to fail or more difficult to fix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 3 terms are more different in the case about prices. One may consider something unaffordable but still want to buy it, where you can't say 过高, and consider something else cheap but still not as useful as how it costs, where it probably invite some discussions if you say 太高. Still, in many cases one can be implied from another, unless the context says otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the cases about something like openness, it's not unusual for someone to mix them up completely. 太过于开放 surely does NOT mean &quot;it might be not that bad, but it is at least not for me&quot;. Actually, &quot;it is too bad&quot;, but without watching the video it's not sure whether &quot;I can't take it, fix it, ignore it or have a workaround&quot; is implied, or whether he even notice this distinction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11444" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T08:18:13.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29339" CreationDate="2018-04-04T08:49:56.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most possible is He used 6700 rmb to get 1000 dollars.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T08:49:56.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23374" CreationDate="2018-04-04T11:10:21.207" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;全 = complete; &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt;; whole&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;部 = parts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;全部&lt;/strong&gt; = (having all parts; everything is complete) = &lt;strong&gt;whole&lt;/strong&gt;; total; &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt;; entire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所 = which&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有 = own&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所有= (everything which subject owns) = &lt;strong&gt;total&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;entire&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 全部 and 所有 are as follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;全部 can be an adjective for noun or adverb for verb and adjective; 所有 is strictly an adjective for noun&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;全部杀死 (kill all)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;全部无用 (all useless)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;全部财富 (entire wealth)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;of all three examples, you can only replace 全部 with 所有 in #3, because 'wealth' is a noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;when describe one entity that contains many parts, you should use 全部&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全部员工 (员工 here is the collective noun for the staff)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全部财富 (财富 here is the collective noun for the wealth)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;when describe parts that made up one entity you should use 所有&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所有员工 (员工 here are all the individual personnel that made up the staff)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所有财富 (财富 here are all the individual items of a wealth, e.g cash, stock, real estate all added together)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整 = whole&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;个 = entity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整个 = the whole&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is used mainly to describe a &lt;strong&gt;single object&lt;/strong&gt; that is completely whole, not lacking of any part&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完 = completely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整 = whole&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完整 = complete&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is used mainly to describe a single object or entity that is completely whole, not lacking of any part&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完整套餐 = complete set meal (套餐 is a noun treated as a single object, which contains different components)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一份完整套餐的所有餐點 = all the dishes in a complete set meal (餐點 in 所有餐點 refers to individual items of a set meal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完整陣容 = full lineup (陣容 here is the collective noun for the lineup)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T11:42:53.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28456" CreationDate="2018-04-04T17:24:03.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your problem in understanding the meaning of &quot;無為&quot; is your misinterpretation of the meaning of &quot;無&quot;. &quot;不” means &quot;no&quot; or &quot;to be not&quot;. &quot;無&quot; means &quot;(there) to be not&quot;. If you have taken French, it is the difference between &quot;Ce n'est pas&quot; and &quot;Il n'y a pas&quot;. You will use &quot;無&quot; in the case of &quot;Il n'y a pas&quot; (There is not/no; There isn't any). Translating &quot;為&quot; as &quot;doing&quot; is fine, because &quot;為&quot; in English would require a noun coming after &quot;無&quot;, and therefore &quot;為&quot; should be translated as &quot;doing&quot; (gerund of &quot;to do&quot;). A transliteration of &quot;無為&quot; should be &quot;(There is) no doing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although to an English speaker the difference between &quot;no/not&quot; might seem almost nonexistent, because in English these are confounded and mixed up in usage, especially in American English. The semantic difference between &quot;There is&quot; and &quot;It is&quot; is material to many agglutinating languages, such as Romance languages, Slavic languages, Korean, Japanese, etc. If you look at these two from an English speaker's perspective, the difference is only between &quot;There&quot; and &quot;It&quot;, while in the other languages mentioned prior, two different verbs are used. In Classical Chinese, this is the difference between “不” and &quot;無&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19421" LastEditorUserId="19421" LastEditDate="2018-04-04T17:31:54.850" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T17:31:54.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22900" CreationDate="2018-04-04T17:52:39.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pronunciation for &quot;二&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin = er,&#xA;Japanese = ni,&#xA;Korean = i,&#xA;Cantonese = ji,&#xA;Hakka = ngi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at other similar characters, &quot;而“， ”耳“.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin = er, er,&#xA;Japanese = ni/ji, ni/ji,&#xA;Korean = i, i,&#xA;Cantonese = ji, ji,&#xA;Hakka = yi, ngi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19421" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T17:52:39.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26796" CreationDate="2018-04-04T23:30:04.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;撤职：to be dismissed of one’s duty or rank due to abuse of power or violations; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;撤职查办：to be dismissed and investigated (for criminal transgressions)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In comparison, 免职 is a relatively neutral term, and one can be 免职 due to or not due to any reasons. And 剥夺 means taking away one’s freedom or right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15452" LastEditorUserId="15452" LastEditDate="2018-04-04T23:37:34.713" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T23:37:34.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29354" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29356" CreationDate="2018-04-05T00:16:36.677" Score="1" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Mandarin Corner &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTSfPXvrNAw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube video&lt;/a&gt; describes &quot;3 Things Chinese Like about Foreigners&quot; (actually it does the opposite).  One snippet from this dialogue is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LOPRj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LOPRj.png&quot; alt=&quot;你就直接勾过来，我觉得欠妥。&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I transcribe the conversation as follows (and I'm asking about the part in bold):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比如说我跟你还不熟，然后你是一个外国小伙子，我是一个中国小女孩，你就直接&lt;strong&gt;勾过来&lt;/strong&gt;，我觉得欠妥。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Bǐrú shuō wǒ gēn nǐ hái bù shú, ránhòu nǐ shì yīgè wàiguó xiǎohuǒzi, wǒ shì yīgè zhōngguó xiǎo nǚhái, nǐ jiù zhíjiē &lt;strong&gt;gōu guòlái&lt;/strong&gt;, wǒ juédé qiàntuǒ.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I think (fairly directly) translates to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example me and you are not familiar, then you are a foreign young lad and I'm a Chinese girl; you just &lt;strong&gt;&quot;hook up&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;; I feel is inappropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm uncertain about &quot;hook up&quot;; my best guess is based on the definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8B%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;勾&lt;/a&gt; (gōu) = hook; and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%BF%87%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;过来&lt;/a&gt; (guòlái) = come over.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However,  it appears the two (hypothetical) people are unfamiliar with one another, so they're wouldn't hook up so easily.  It could mean something else like &quot;come over with the intention of hooking up&quot; or maybe 勾 doesn't have any special meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 勾过来 mean in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T20:54:20.467" Title="What does 勾过来 (gōu guòlái) mean in 你就直接勾过来，我觉得欠妥?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29354" CreationDate="2018-04-05T00:59:16.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;比如说我跟你还不熟，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example, you and I do not know each other,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;然后你是一个外国小伙子，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you are a young non-Chinese guy,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我是一个中国小女孩，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm a young Chinese girl,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你就直接勾过来，（勾搭：（try to) seduce)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you directly come on to me / hit on me / flirt with me&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我觉得欠妥。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I feel that is inappropriate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/e/143/314164.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/e/143/314164.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T00:59:16.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29354" CreationDate="2018-04-05T03:30:30.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;勾过来 is colloquial. It can be considered as the short version of 勾引过来.  勾引 means &lt;em&gt;entice, seduce, or tempt&lt;/em&gt;. 过来 here is a  complement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your interpretation &lt;em&gt;come over with the intention of hooking up&lt;/em&gt; for 勾 is fine too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T03:30:30.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29208" CreationDate="2018-04-05T06:22:20.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was also another Chinese system called 國喬 (KC60), which is similar to the 倚天 system mentioned in another answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not a native system that comes up when you boot up the computer. After you boot up with the English DOS system, you will have to run the command to start the ET3 or KC60 system just like running other applications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you start it, there will be an extra status bar (task bar?) at the bottom of the screen that shows that you are now in the Chinese system You can then change to different Chinese input methods like Changjie （倉頡）, Dayi （大易）etc by pressing Ctrl+Shift and type in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4360" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T06:22:20.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29297" CreationDate="2018-04-05T07:15:38.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are differences between Mandarin and Putonghua, some of them political.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin is originally a Portuguese-based translation of 官话 (&lt;em&gt;guanyu&lt;/em&gt; - &quot;language of the officials&quot;), so it is a much older word than Putonghua. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, Mandarin is used to differentiate between different &quot;Chinese languages&quot;, especially in contrast with Cantonese or Hakka. The implication is that &quot;China&quot; and &quot;Chinese&quot; is an artificial construct, where different languages are actually spoken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Putonghua, on the other hand, is a word that was created in China to imply the opposite. It means &quot;standard Chinese&quot;, as opposed to variants. For instance, in Sichuan you can take &quot;Putonghua&quot; courses to learn the standard pronunciation if you want to speak on TV or radio. The Sichuan dialect would, however, be considered a variant of Mandarin in English.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This concept is similar to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;standard languages&lt;/a&gt; that many languages have. The underlying idea is that there is one language with a number of regional variants and one standard, official version.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the same time, some languages spoken in China are acknowledged as different languages and are used in government of their region, such as Tibetan, Mongolian and Uighur. These languages are very different from any form of Chinese, and have their own writing systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's worth noting that in Taiwan (Republic of China), the standard variety of Chinese neither called &lt;em&gt;guanyu&lt;/em&gt; nor &lt;em&gt;putonghua&lt;/em&gt;, but rather (&lt;em&gt;guoyu&lt;/em&gt; - &quot;national language&quot;) which has different implications again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T07:15:38.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29354" CreationDate="2018-04-05T20:54:20.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 勾 here means &quot;hooking your arm around my shoulders/neck&quot; similar to how it's used in 勾肩搭背 which basically means the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This refers to some people being 自來熟 which means thinking oneself as being very close to someone who they just met.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T20:54:20.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29155" CreationDate="2018-04-06T02:40:49.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;舞娘&lt;/strong&gt; means a girl who dance for a living and kind of professional.like geisha&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;舞蹈家&lt;/strong&gt; a master in some kind of dance.like Isadora Duncan.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;舞者&lt;/strong&gt; A general name of people who like dance.like street dancer.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;in your case&lt;/strong&gt;,i suggest you figure out what kind of dance does your friend master,then intoduce she as:&lt;strong&gt;跳street dance的&lt;/strong&gt;(a &lt;strong&gt;street dance&lt;/strong&gt; people)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19431" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-04-06T02:52:44.027" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T02:52:44.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29363" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29365" CreationDate="2018-04-06T02:49:32.583" Score="1" ViewCount="907" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Mandarin Corner &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXBzyL9dnTo&amp;amp;t=227s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube video&lt;/a&gt; shows a woman haggling over a scarf in Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/loOai.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/loOai.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A snippet from their dialogue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个六十块钱，可以吧？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Zhège liùshí kuài qián, kěyǐ ba?&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;六十块，&lt;strong&gt;要不了&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Liùshí kuài, &lt;strong&gt;yào bùliǎo&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;要不了&lt;/strong&gt;啊？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yào bùliǎo&lt;/strong&gt; a?&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对啊。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Duì a.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我觉得一百五也太贵了！算了，算了。那我们就再看一下吧。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Wǒ juédé yībǎi wǔ yě tài guìle! Suànle, suànle. Nà wǒmen jiù zài kàn yīxià ba.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(She eventually gets the shopkeeper down to 65 yuan!  Impressive.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand what 要不了 (yào bùliǎo) means here.  It turns up in various sentences in &lt;a href=&quot;http://jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%A6%81%E4%B8%8D%E4%BA%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu.com&lt;/a&gt; (e.g. 要不了多久 (yào bùliǎo duōjiǔ) seems to mean &amp;quot;it won't take much time&amp;quot;, and this was raised in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/21891/please-explain-%E8%A6%81%E4%B8%8D%E4%BA%86%E5%A4%9A%E4%B9%85&quot;&gt;another question&lt;/a&gt;) which doesn't seem relevant to the dialogue above.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E8%A6%81%E4%B8%8D%E4%BA%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Youdao&lt;/a&gt; gives &amp;quot;otherwise the&amp;quot;, which doesn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 要不了 in the above dialogue mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T10:17:28.070" Title="Why does the shopkeeper say 要不了 (yào bùliǎo) after the customer proposes a too-low price?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29330" CreationDate="2018-04-06T02:50:13.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;現在我身兼數職 will make people feel &lt;strong&gt;you are so proud&lt;/strong&gt;, so people don't use it a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;現在我兼任..seems like you are  &lt;strong&gt;taking responsibility for&lt;/strong&gt; your stressful work, it's more modest than above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forgive my grammar mistakes, I am a college student of China and learning English now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19431" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2018-06-05T06:25:25.217" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T06:25:25.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29363" CreationDate="2018-04-06T03:22:58.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;不了' in this context simply means &quot;can't &lt;strong&gt;take&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (can't &lt;strong&gt;accept&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, it would be &quot;I can't take $60 HKD (for this merchandise)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shopkeeper refused to take the $60 HKD in exchange of that particular merchandise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;要了&lt;/strong&gt;那六十块就要交出商品了 (if she &lt;strong&gt;took&lt;/strong&gt; that $60 HKD, she would have to hand over the merchandise)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-06T10:17:28.070" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T10:17:28.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29363" CreationDate="2018-04-06T03:23:16.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;要不了&lt;/strong&gt; in the above dialogue means refuse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;in more specific word&lt;/strong&gt;,shopkeeper will say:&lt;strong&gt;六十块我都要不了（到 )货&lt;/strong&gt; （i cant stock this up in such low price,so it's less likely to sell you.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sometime chinese use the wrong word in oral,so you need to catch the main point like &lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;Try to understand them in a simple way because not everyone cant afford the fee of well-education.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19431" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T03:23:16.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29228" CreationDate="2018-04-06T03:40:24.130" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in my opinion,learning ones own dialect &lt;strong&gt;cant&lt;/strong&gt; improve ability in Mandarin.&#xA;My family is Hakka people,so &lt;strong&gt;we speak Hakka dialect&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it turn out that &lt;strong&gt;my mother cant pronunciate&lt;/strong&gt; Mandarin accurately because she &lt;strong&gt;speak Hakka dialect for a long time&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Compared&lt;/strong&gt; with Mandarin,Hakka dialect has a different &lt;strong&gt;grammar structure&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;words&lt;/strong&gt; that never show up in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so,Do not try to learning some dialect to improve your Mandarin,it's only get worst.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19431" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T03:40:24.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29173" CreationDate="2018-04-06T03:51:16.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When it comes to &lt;strong&gt;climate and weather&lt;/strong&gt;, 温暖 and 暖和 mean the &lt;strong&gt;same thing&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to &lt;strong&gt;people or emotions&lt;/strong&gt;,we only use 温暖.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;such as &lt;strong&gt;他是一个温暖的人&lt;/strong&gt;(What he did was so sweet)&#xA;                                                                                  &lt;strong&gt;你温暖了我的心&lt;/strong&gt;（you comforted me &#xA;,i feel much better now）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19431" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T03:51:16.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29363" CreationDate="2018-04-06T04:57:54.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't really like 要不了 in your example, better 卖不了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I ask you to go and buy something for me.You are not sure of the price of the article. You ask me:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个东西六十块钱够吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it won't cost that much, it is less than 60, I say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要不了六十块。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You make an offer of a price to a shopkeeper&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个六十块钱，可以吧？Will you take 60 for this?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;六十块卖不了。I won't sell it for 60.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T04:57:54.907" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29377" CreationDate="2018-04-06T10:56:15.290" Score="0" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am doing martial arts and met some Cantonese people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;Punch me to the body!&quot; what word would I use for body? san1 (身), tai2 (體) or both? I found them all in the dictionary and I'm not sure which to use when. They speak very little English, so I thought I'd ask here. Also it would be nice to know how to say &quot;Punch me to the body&quot; or &quot;punch me to the face&quot; or &quot;punch me here&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19335" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-04-08T10:17:10.353" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T10:18:19.450" Title="san1 vs tai2 vs san1 tai2" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29373" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29374" CreationDate="2018-04-06T13:01:01.147" Score="2" ViewCount="299" Body="&lt;p&gt;I traveled to Hunan province and stumbled across something interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was speaking to a taxi driver and asked him, 'where are you from'? He responded, 'Funan'. I then realized he actually meant 'Hunan' (湖南). I thought, perhaps he had a lisp or accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Upon conversing with a hotel receptionist and a porter, they both referred to Hunan as &lt;strong&gt;F&lt;/strong&gt;unan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's not all, there is a city in Hunan called Huaihua (怀化). They referred to it as &lt;strong&gt;F&lt;/strong&gt;uaihua.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do Hunanese (?) pronounce cities beginning with 'H' with an 'F'?  Why is this? Does this pronunciation rule apply only for cities inside Hunan (including the Hunan province?). Does this only apply to place names?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T10:15:24.153" Title="Why is Húnán pronounced with an F?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29373" CreationDate="2018-04-06T14:06:50.370" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It's topolect&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's page 27 of《长沙方言词典》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eaTAv.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eaTAv.png&quot; alt=&quot;Yup&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see 湖 is consistently pronounced: fu (rising tone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't have anything to do with being a proper noun or anything else, this is the Xiang language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we look at this table, also from《长沙方言词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lF9oj.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lF9oj.png&quot; alt=&quot;table&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can see that Changsha has absolutely zero &lt;code&gt;hu&lt;/code&gt; pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has been commented on before on Chinese SE: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2244/4136&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;h merges with f (conditioned on following vowel):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some Sichuan?, Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T14:19:59.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29375" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-06T14:45:55.280" Score="5" ViewCount="571" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 做/当 in some contexts may mean &quot;to be&quot;, as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他现在&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;老师了。 He &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; a teacher now.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;她愿意&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;我女朋友。 She accepted &lt;strong&gt;to be&lt;/strong&gt; my girlfriend.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我毕业后想&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;经理。 After I graduate I want &lt;strong&gt;to be&lt;/strong&gt; a manager.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a hard time explaining to my students when they have to use 做/当 and can't use 是. Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-04-07T13:33:55.583" LastActivityDate="2018-04-07T13:33:55.583" Title="When do I have to use 做/当 instead of 是?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29372" CreationDate="2018-04-06T17:13:21.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, martial arts and Cantonese, you like Bruce Lee? Anyway, here's what you want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打我心口 - punch (打) my (我) chest (心口)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打我個肚 - punch (打) my (我) abdomen (肚)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打我個頭 -  punch (打) my (我) head (頭)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打我呢度 -  punch (打) my (我) here (呢度) [supposed you pointed to somewhere by your finger, when you say it] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sound files:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打　⋯　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/daa2.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/daa2.Mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我　⋯　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/ngo5.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/ngo5.Mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心口　⋯　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/sam1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/sam1.Mp3&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/hau2.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/hau2.Mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;個肚　⋯　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/go3.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/go3.Mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/tou5.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/tou5.Mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;個頭　⋯　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/go3.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/go3.Mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/tau4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/tau4.Mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呢度　⋯　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/nei1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/nei1.Mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/dou6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/dou6.Mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, 打 (punch) is assumed using fists. If you need other types of attacks (fingers, palm, elbow, or kick), you need to state clearly to you companions :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, just curious, which martial arts are you learning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-04-08T10:18:19.450" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T10:18:19.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29378" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-06T17:53:01.110" Score="2" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;What word can we use to say a movie or scene is perverse? I am thinking of sadistic and violent scenes as this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKa4bq7CRqM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;perverse scene from game of thrones &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found 邪僻, but it seems it may only describe people. I also found 變態, but CC in Pleco says it’s slang in that meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-04-08T10:16:08.360" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T07:38:53.487" Title="&quot;Perverse&quot; for movies and scenes" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29379" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-06T19:52:05.953" Score="2" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;Long time ago I asked to a close friend how to say &quot;love is irreversible&quot; and she taught me it was some like ai shi bu ke ni de.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then by using google translate I got to this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;愛是不可逆轉的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I can recognize the character ai which is love. But the rest well I'm a bit lost. Can someone help me to better understand if what my friend told me was right or what the system google uses is more &quot;accurate&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An answer which would help me the most is one which includes a reason why those characters should appear in that order and what does it mean when used together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19440" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T17:03:10.400" Title="How do I say &quot;Love is irreversible&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29380" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29411" CreationDate="2018-04-06T20:22:59.197" Score="3" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found that most chemical elements (ones I checked) are denoted by single character in Chinese. This is understandable for historical elements, but how it can be for new elements like Uranium and Plutonium? Does this means, that chinese people can invent new characters nowadays?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T15:31:01.173" Title="How can it be single characters for new chemical elements like 鈽 and 鈾?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29379" CreationDate="2018-04-06T22:17:28.423" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always liked that line from a song: 'Love is a danger of a different kind.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about for 'irreversible': 破釜沉舟 'break the cauldrons and sink the boats', no retreat, no way back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爱就是破釜沉舟的道路&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Love is an irreversible path.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T22:17:28.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29382" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29383" CreationDate="2018-04-07T00:34:57.907" Score="3" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there's a dish named luroufan but in another forum (Duolingo) there's mention of &quot;zhuroufan&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So obviously zhurou is pork and fan is rice but can also I suppose just mean &quot;meal&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm not sure about is whether this refers to a specific dish in Chinese as the names of Chinese dishes are very often quite concise or idiomatic anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2020-09-21T08:18:54.650" Title="Is 猪肉饭 the actual name of a specific Chinese dish or is it merely a description of any pork-and-rice meal?" Tags="&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29382" CreationDate="2018-04-07T03:46:36.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no such word, at least few people say it, in Taiwan. However, we might call a bowl of rice and some slices of roasted pork as &quot;燒(roasted)肉飯&quot;、&quot;燒肉丼(a kind of Japanese famous dishes)&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19442" LastActivityDate="2018-04-07T03:46:36.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29384" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-07T05:05:21.113" Score="0" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to write a brief self-introduction to find a well-fitting host family for a trip to China, but my language ability is very limited (I'm in my second year of learning Mandarin). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is a simple way to write &quot;I would like to look around/it would be fun to explore&quot;, &quot;I enjoy people watching and am looking forward to learning more about Chinese culture&quot;, &quot;I'm shy but I enjoy getting to know people/but I want to make friends&quot;, and &quot;I'm half Chinese&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried looking it up first but didn't have much success. It seems like my own (or google translate's) word-for-word English to Chinese translation might be very awkward and there are some words I just haven't learned yet. I would appreciate any other recommendations for writing a self introduction because I know mine is very awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你好！【我姓___，我叫____。】/ 【我姓名_____。】&#xA;我十六岁，和我现在在十年级学生。我的家在美国，我是_____高中的学生。现在我的中文不好，但是我要我的中文在进步中。&#xA;    我是中美混血。我有妈妈，爸爸，一个姐姐，和一个妹妹。我的家人也有一只狗叫&#xA;Sophie。我都非常爱家人。&#xA;    我害羞，但是我乐于与不同的人接触，而且我想要交到更多的朋友。我乐于观察人们做事，并且期待学到更多的中国文化。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的爱好是听音乐，画画，和看书。我很喜欢写故事和诗歌。我成立了我的学校的kpop社团。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19441" LastEditorUserId="19441" LastEditDate="2018-04-07T16:40:52.193" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T04:20:32.787" Title="I'm writing a self-introduction and need help with some translation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29373" CreationDate="2018-04-07T06:07:18.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I know, Hunan folks can't/don't differentiate the pronunciation of F and H, even when they speak mandarin. One of my roommates who was from Fujian can't/don't differentiate R and L. So, it's not unusual to see this kind of things in other regions in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-04-08T10:15:24.153" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T10:15:24.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29375" CreationDate="2018-04-07T06:40:46.233" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 是 expresses a &lt;strong&gt;state&lt;/strong&gt; 一种状态 and it's used to state a &lt;strong&gt;fact&lt;/strong&gt;，while 做/当 denotes an &lt;strong&gt;act&lt;/strong&gt; 一种动作, meaning 充当，担任.  For example, 我是老师 clarified the fact you are a teacher, while 我做/当老师 denotes you want to act as a teacher even if sometimes it's not really your job. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-07T06:40:46.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29387" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29389" CreationDate="2018-04-07T06:49:29.240" Score="1" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from a problem from my Chinese book; I'm practicing the use of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dict.cn/%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;怎么&lt;/a&gt; (zěn me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;美国朋友会做中国菜，你觉得很奇怪，问他：...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Měiguó péngyǒu huì zuò zhōngguó cài, nǐ juédé hěn qíguài, wèn tā: ...&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This translates to &quot;An American friend can cook Chinese food; you feel it's strange.  [You] ask him: ... &quot;  I came up with two answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ozw6A.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ozw6A.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first I think is fine: 你怎么会做中国菜？ (Nǐ zěnme huì zuò zhōngguó cài?) meaning &quot;How can you cook Chinese food?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My second answer I'm uncertain about because of the repeated 怎么, and because it's an almost-direct translation from English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你怎么知道怎么做中国菜？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Nǐ zěnme zhīdào zěnme zuò zhōngguó cài?&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By this I intend to ask him &quot;How do you know how to cook Chinese food?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is 你怎么知道怎么做中国菜? a grammatically correct question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-04-07T11:58:50.033" Title="Is 你怎么知道怎么做中国菜? (How do you know how to cook Chinese food?) a grammatically correct question?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29387" CreationDate="2018-04-07T07:08:57.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你怎么知道如何做中国菜？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or without how&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在哪学会做中国菜？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-07T07:08:57.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29387" CreationDate="2018-04-07T08:43:48.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is grammatically correct, but it looks not nice. Or you can say that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你怎么知道中国菜的做法？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="889" LastActivityDate="2018-04-07T08:43:48.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29387" CreationDate="2018-04-07T09:26:41.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of your sentences are grammatical. The second one is wordy though. If you want to express surprise 奇怪, you can put 你竟然会做中国菜？if you only want to practice 怎么，your first sentence is fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-07T09:26:41.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29391" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29393" CreationDate="2018-04-07T09:52:06.247" Score="1" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;WeChat official account management has this horrible looking guy for &lt;code&gt;置顶&lt;/code&gt; next to the trash can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HbX1k.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HbX1k.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Steam also uses the same character for &lt;code&gt;download now&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lsg4L.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lsg4L.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZOvdp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZOvdp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure it is just this character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;⤒&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(U+2912)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which Unicode calls:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPWARDS ARROW TO BAR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is ⤒ (upwards arrow to bar) not very easily confused with &lt;code&gt;不&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially in the context of WeChat's usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T03:07:35.817" Title="Is &quot;⤒&quot; (UPWARDS ARROW TO BAR) (U+2912) not easily confused with &quot;不&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29384" CreationDate="2018-04-07T10:07:08.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to look around China.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我想到中国四处转转。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be fun to explore China.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;探索中国肯定会很好玩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I enjoy people-watching and am looking forward to learning more about Chinese culture.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我乐于观察人们做事，并且期待学到更多的中国文化。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm shy but I enjoy getting to know people and I want to make friends.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我害羞，但是我乐于与不同的人接触，而且我想要交到更多的朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm half Chinese.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我有一半中国血统。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么你的父母不帮你写？他们当中应该有一个人会讲中文吧！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-07T10:07:08.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29391" CreationDate="2018-04-07T10:32:21.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it will never be confused, bacause 不 is not always used as a sign in public （因为“不”不太会当作一个符号来使用的）.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="889" LastActivityDate="2018-04-07T10:32:21.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29387" CreationDate="2018-04-07T11:58:50.033" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your Chinese is a bit awkward in this case as you suspected.  I would use &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你怎么会做中国菜?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19445" LastActivityDate="2018-04-07T11:58:50.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29395" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29400" CreationDate="2018-04-08T00:27:59.847" Score="2" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read the first two pages of 狐狸的窗户 (Húlí de chuānghù) = &lt;em&gt;The Fox's Window&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://book.douban.com/subject/4049269/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;douban.com&lt;/a&gt;) on my Kindle, and encountered several 4-character phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%82%E5%8F%A3%E5%90%8C%E5%A3%B0/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;异口同声&lt;/a&gt; (yì kǒu tóng shēng) = all with one voice (&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BC%82%E5%8F%A3%E5%90%8C%E5%A3%B0/4445904&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/chengyu/dictionary/detail/28021.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Tools&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%B2%BE%E7%A5%9E%E6%81%8D%E6%83%9A/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;精神恍惚&lt;/a&gt; (jīng shén huǎng hū) = absent-minded (&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%B2%BE%E7%A5%9E%E6%81%8D%E6%83%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/chengyu/dictionary/detail/12653.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Tools&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%83%A1%E6%80%9D%E4%B9%B1%E6%83%B3/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;胡思乱想&lt;/a&gt; (hú sī luàn xiǎng) = go off into wild flights of fancy (&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%83%A1%E6%80%9D%E4%B9%B1%E6%83%B3/84985&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/chengyu/dictionary/detail/9940.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Tools&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BA%AE%E5%BE%97%E5%88%BA%E7%9C%BC/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;亮得刺眼&lt;/a&gt; (liàng dé cìyǎn) = shine glaringly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E4%B8%80%E7%89%87%E4%B8%80%E7%9C%BC/#keyfrom=dict2.index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一片一眼&lt;/a&gt; (yīpiàn yīyǎn) = a glance at&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%9B%E8%80%8C%E7%94%9F%E7%95%8F/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;望而生畏&lt;/a&gt; (wàng ér shēng wèi) = be terrified by the sight of sth. or sb. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%9C%9B%E8%80%8C%E7%94%9F%E7%95%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/chengyu/dictionary/detail/24203.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Tools&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BF%83%E6%97%B7%E7%A5%9E%E6%80%A1/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;心旷神怡&lt;/a&gt; (xīn kuàng shén yí) = relaxed and happy (&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BF%83%E6%97%B7%E7%A5%9E%E6%80%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/chengyu/dictionary/detail/26210.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Tools&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%93%A6%E5%8E%BB%E6%B1%97%E6%B0%B4/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;擦去汗水&lt;/a&gt; (cā qù hànshuǐ) = wipe the sweat&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of these should be considered &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chengyu&lt;/a&gt; (成语, chéngyǔ), but others look like they just happen to have four characters.  I'm wondering if there's a way of deciding which are chengyu and which are not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's distinguishes a chengyu (Chinese idiom) from a 4-character expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's possible this question is related to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/27315/8099&quot;&gt;Are there any chengyu or xiehouyu that only mean their literal meaning?&lt;/a&gt;  Maybe if it has a figurative meaning, then it's a chengyu, and otherwise not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T09:43:15.603" Title="What's distinguishes a chengyu (Chinese idiom) from a 4-character expression?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29391" CreationDate="2018-04-08T03:07:35.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No and here's why:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;characters are seldom used as icons.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a single '不' as an icon doesn't seem to make any sense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the trash icon beside that '⤒' indicates it also being a graphical icon.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;characters (in most fonts) won't be that perfectly symmetrical.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T03:07:35.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29384" CreationDate="2018-04-08T04:04:41.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;你好！【我姓___，我叫____。】/ 【我姓名_____。】 我十六岁，和我现在在十年级学生。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你好！我叫___ 今年十六岁，现在是十年级学生。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English grammar and Chinese grammar might have difference, but basic writing rules still apply to both. For example, &amp;quot;My name is XX, I am 16 years old, I am a grade ten student&amp;quot; may not be grammatically incorrect, but any decent writer would know to avoid repeating the subject too many times within a series of related sentences and write &amp;quot;My name is XX, I am a 16 years old grade ten student&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;和&amp;quot;(and) in &amp;quot;我现在在十年级学生&amp;quot; is not needed, and this sentence has no verb (I now at ten grade student). The correct structure is &amp;quot; I &lt;strong&gt;am&lt;/strong&gt; a ten grade student&amp;quot; (现在&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;十年级学生)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的家在美国，我是_____高中的学生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, you use 我 to start two sentences in a row, but the subject in the first sentence is &amp;quot;我的家&amp;quot; and the subject in the second sentence is &amp;quot;我&amp;quot;, therefore not omitting 我 is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wrote &amp;quot;我住在美国，(我)是_____高中的学生。&amp;quot; then the subject in the first and second sentence would both be &amp;quot;我&amp;quot;. In this case, you should omit the second 我 in the second sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;现在我的中文不好，但是我要我的中文在进步中。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;现在我的中文不好，但我会让我的中文进步的。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要 sounds like a command, better use 我会让 (I would make)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在进步中 (is improving) is incorrect in this context, you cannot &amp;quot;make your Chinese &lt;em&gt;is improving&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; ; you can only make &amp;quot;your Chinese &lt;strong&gt;to improve&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use final particle '的' to indicate the sentence is completed and add tone of 'keenness' in your speech&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我是中美混血。我有妈妈，爸爸，一个姐姐，和一个妹妹。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我是中美混血。我家中有妈妈，爸爸，一个姐姐和一个妹妹。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我有妈妈，爸爸&amp;quot; Everyone have father and mother. Your sentence didn't indicate the fact that you are living with them as one family. What you really wanted to say was :&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;In my family there's&lt;/strong&gt; my father and mother...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我的家人也有一只狗叫 Sophie。我都非常爱家人。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我家中还有一只狗叫 Sophie。我非常爱我的家人。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我的家人也有一只狗&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;having a dog, same as everyone else&amp;quot;; I think you wanted to say &amp;quot;还&amp;quot; (also) meaning &amp;quot;in addition of all the human family member, we also have a pet dog&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我害羞，但是我乐于与不同的人接触，而且我想要交到更多的朋友。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我(有点)害羞，但是我(仍然)乐于与不同的人接触，(也)想要交到更多的朋友。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;add &amp;quot;有点&amp;quot; (a little) before &amp;quot;害羞&amp;quot; So that people wouldn't think you are 'too shy'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;add &amp;quot;仍然&amp;quot; to indicate despite the fact that you are shy, you &lt;strong&gt;still&lt;/strong&gt; are willing to reach out to people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(也)想要交到更多的朋友。&amp;quot; is better than &amp;quot;(而且)我想要交到更多的朋友。&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我(乐于)观察人们做事，并且期待学到更多的中国文化。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我(喜欢)观察人们做事，也很期待学到更多的中国文化。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You already used 乐于 in the previous sentence, use 喜欢 this time so you wouldn't repeat 乐于 too soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beside, '乐于' could  also mean &amp;quot;willing to&amp;quot; ; while &amp;quot;喜欢&amp;quot; can only mean &amp;quot;like to&amp;quot; . I think it is want you wanted to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this casual format, use &amp;quot;也很&amp;quot; is better, because it is more colloquial than 并且,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我的爱好是听音乐，画画，和看书。我很喜欢写故事和诗歌。我成立了我的学校的kpop社团。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我的爱好是听音乐，画画，和看书。(也)很喜欢写故事和诗歌。我(还)(创立)了我的学校的kpop社团。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T04:20:32.787" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29395" CreationDate="2018-04-08T06:18:20.680" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/20887/%e6%88%90%e8%af%ad-versus-%e4%bf%97%e8%af%ad-versus-%e8%b0%9a%e8%af%ad-what-is-the-difference/20891#20891&quot;&gt;成语 versus 俗语 versus 谚语, what is the difference?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;成語 (idiom) include &quot;situation description&quot; , &quot;common sense&quot;, and &quot;words of wisdom&quot;. Mostly came from &lt;strong&gt;known historical references&lt;/strong&gt;, like poems, classical literature or famous quotes by historic figures . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4-character expressions are common phrases from unknown origin, just happen to have four characters, they are &quot;idiomatic expressions&quot; but they are not true idioms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-08T09:43:15.603" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T09:43:15.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29401" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29403" CreationDate="2018-04-08T06:54:25.503" Score="4" ViewCount="367" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are they truly identical? If so, which is more commonly used and/or considered the default/standard/preferred usage (versus an alternate variant)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elsewhere I've found conflicting answers (that they are the same and that they mean slightly different things). The Integrated Chinese Level 2 Part 1, 3rd Edition Lesson 9 uses 人材, which Pleco and Google seem to indicate is the less common variant. That led me to wonder if there was a specific reason they chose it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My goal is to choose the more useful one to learn and memorize, as well as be aware if they are not fully interchangeable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19451" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T23:44:31.783" Title="What is the difference between 人才 and 人材, and which should I use？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29401" CreationDate="2018-04-08T07:17:45.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are identical*.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for which one you &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; use, that is going to be a personal preference. Here's some points which you may take into consideration when deciding (note that, overall, these points won't support one form over another):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The second syllable of 人才 should be viewed as the same as that in 天才 (&lt;em&gt;genius&lt;/em&gt;), which is not written as 天材.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If viewed out of context, 人才 may be a bit ambiguous. 才 is heavily used as a standard phonetic loan of what otherwise may be written as 纔 (e.g. in 剛纔, &lt;em&gt;just now; a moment ago&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;才 is primarily used with the abstract meaning of &lt;em&gt;ability, power&lt;/em&gt; (other than in the phonetic loan above); 材 is primarily used with the meaning &lt;em&gt;material, resource, wealth&lt;/em&gt;, and secondarily used with the abstract meaning &lt;em&gt;ability&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important thing is that you recognise both 人才 and 人材 as being one word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;em&gt;According to the&lt;/em&gt; 漢語大詞典, &lt;em&gt;the most comprehensive dictionary that gives a general survey of how words are used throughout the entire history of Chinese literature:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人才&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人的才能&lt;/strong&gt;。     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;漢 王充 《論衡•累害》： “人才高下， 不能鈞同。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;晉 葛洪 《抱樸子•廣譬》： “人才無定珍， 器用無常道。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;《北史•崔亮傳》： “立中正不考人才行業， 空辨氏姓高下。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;唐 劉知幾 《史通•敘事》： “故知人才有殊， 相去若是， 校其優劣， 詎可同年？” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有才學的人&lt;/strong&gt;。     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;晉 葛洪 《抱樸子•逸民》： “褒賢貴德， 樂育人才。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;宋 王安石 《上仁宗皇帝言事書》： “則天下之人才， 不勝用矣。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;清 惲敬 《兵部侍郎裘公神道碑銘》： “今上加意人才，&#xA;  大臣多以公名舉奏， 升內閣侍讀學士。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;呂澂 《中國佛學源流略講》第二講： “ 支謙 到 江 南以後，&#xA;  北方仍有宣揚佛學的人才。” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人的容貌&lt;/strong&gt;。     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;宋 孫光憲 《北夢瑣言》卷十七： “ 楷 人才寢陋， 兼無德行。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;元 無名氏 《漁樵記》第一摺： “有妻是 劉 家女， 人見他生得有幾分人才， 都喚他做 玉天仙 。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;《三國演義》第六五回： “ 馬超&#xA;  縱騎持槍而出， 獅盔獸帶， 銀甲白袍， 一來結束非凡， 二者人才出眾。” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;指美貌女子&lt;/strong&gt;。     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;茅盾 《子夜》八： “他常到某某屋頂花園巡閱， 也為的是要物色人才。” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人材&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人的才能&lt;/strong&gt;。     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;《淮南子•主術訓》： “智不足以為治， 勇不足以為強， 則人材不足任， 明也。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;宋 葉適 《廬州錢公墓誌銘》： “太子熟看， 人材須用方見。 和親久， 材無所施， 更無事， 當遂委靡。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;清 吳敏樹 《書謝御史》序： “今我等人材既弗如， 而時所重者獨官祿耳。” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有才能的人&lt;/strong&gt;。     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;《詩•小雅•菁菁者莪》序： “君子能長育人材， 則天下喜樂之矣。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;宋 曾鞏 《請令長貳自舉屬官札子》： “承人主之志， 廣引人材， 進諸朝廷者， 此宰相之事也。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;《明史•太祖紀一》： “今有事四方，&#xA;  所需者人材， 所用者粟帛。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;清 龔自珍 《己亥雜詩》之一二五： “我勸天公重抖擻， 不拘一格降人材。” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;姿色；容貌&lt;/strong&gt;。     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;清 李漁 《閑情偶寄•聲容》： “俗云： 三分人材， 七分粧飾。 此為中人以下者言之也。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;《紅樓夢》第二一回： “二年前， 他父親給他娶了個媳婦， 今年才二十歲， 也有幾分人材。”     &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;老舍 《茶館》第三幕： “&#xA;  王掌櫃 ， 看我給你找來的小寶貝怎樣？人材、歲數、打扮、經驗， 樣樣出色。”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-04-08T07:27:35.017" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T07:27:35.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29382" CreationDate="2018-04-08T09:03:57.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, it might by the only chance you can hear this word from cabin group of airplane.&#xA;In some situation, the choose of food is very limited -- like in economy class of airplane, you may only have 2 choices totally. The cabin group member may just ask such a question:&#xA;你想要猪肉饭还是鸡肉饭？你想要猪肉饭还是牛肉面？&#xA;Do you want to have pork with rice or chicken with rice? Do you want to have pork with rice or beef with noodle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They don't need (or want) to specify the way how the pork is cooked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastEditorUserId="3264" LastEditDate="2020-09-21T08:18:54.650" LastActivityDate="2020-09-21T08:18:54.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29378" CreationDate="2018-04-08T09:08:41.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For something that is hard to watch, you could say 不堪。变态 is okay, but I think it's usually used to describe people, not scenes and things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, i think you could say something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Joffrey 拷打妓女的场面很不堪！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what my Chinese friend told me when I asked her, anyway. In casual conversation, 变态、不堪 should both be okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15883" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T09:08:41.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29379" CreationDate="2018-04-08T18:58:34.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am going to base my answer on the grammar book 實用現代漢語語法.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you have here is a &quot;Type 1 是...的 sentence&quot; (”是...的“句（一）). This kind of sentence basically puts emphasis on the things that go between 是 and 的. This means the part 不可逆轉 is emphasised. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可 or 可以 is a modal verb (能願動詞) that in this case, means &quot;can&quot; (it has a few other meanings as well). 不 is used to negate 可.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逆轉 means &quot;to reverse&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's do a sentence analysis!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;愛 is the subject (主語)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;是不可逆轉的 is the predicate (謂語)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;逆轉 is the object (賓語) of 可&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might be wondering why isn't passive voice not shown here, because in English, this translates to &quot;love cannot be reversed&quot;. The fact is, passive voice in Chinese isn't always expressed explicitly. You look at the context and figure out what voice it is. Sure, you could express the passive voice by adding a 被 to form a 被 sentence (”被“字句):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;愛是不可被逆轉的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but that sounds less natural than without 被.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11420" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T18:58:34.480" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29401" CreationDate="2018-04-08T23:44:31.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd suggest 人才，which is the most common word at least within mainland. I personally never see 人材 being used in this sense. 人材 might be used in traditional character system, but in simplified Chinese it should be 人才 in my opinion. Without looking up dictionaries, I even think 人材 is wrong spelling! This is because nowadays 材 is not used for a person but an object/materials, for example 木材，食材，材料. Well, 才 is usually used for a person, 天才， 人才，etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-08T23:44:31.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29408" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29410" CreationDate="2018-04-09T01:59:47.423" Score="2" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;On our campus (Nankai University, Jinnan campus), we have this building:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Riz1g.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;实验动物中心 Experimental animal center[1]&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;实验动物中心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Shíyàn dòngwù zhōngxīn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Experimental animal center&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English is ambiguous, and it could mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;experimenting on animals, such as testing medicines on laboratory mice (although technically this is not what it says); or&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;creating &quot;experimental animals&quot;, such as through genetic engineering, cloning, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps pedantically, in English it could also mean that the &quot;animal center&quot; is experimental.  (If you ignore context, this would be the correct meaning.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation from Chinese to English is direct and literal (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%AE%9E%E9%AA%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;实验&lt;/a&gt; = to experiment; &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8A%A8%E7%89%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;动物&lt;/a&gt; = animals; &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%AD%E5%BF%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中心&lt;/a&gt; = center), which makes me think the same ambiguity could occur in Chinese also.  However, maybe the Chinese grammar excludes one of these possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is 实验动物中心 (experimental animal center) ambiguous in that it could mean either &quot;experimenting on animals&quot; or &quot;experimentally creating animals&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update&lt;/em&gt;: It seems the English name on this building has changed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v6vnY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v6vnY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2018-06-20T02:21:21.793" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T02:21:21.793" Title="Is 实验动物中心 (experimental animal center) ambiguous in that it could mean either &quot;experimenting on animals&quot; or &quot;experimentally creating animals&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29408" CreationDate="2018-04-09T05:39:30.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;实验动物中心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first impression is that it's a center where they do some experiments on animals in order to get some scientific result, such as medicine. This is like your first interpretation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would not be surprised if they create &quot;experimental animals&quot; in this center, like your second definition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The scope should be defined by the founder and we can't figure it all out only by the name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T05:39:30.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29408" CreationDate="2018-04-09T06:39:55.207" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;实验动物中心 sounds more like a place where they raise and offer animals for experiments, the keyword here is 动物.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is where animal experiments take place, then 动物实验中心 would be a better name, I think, because the keyword is 实验.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the meaning &quot;experimentally creating animals&quot; you mentioned, no, I will never think that way, nothing in this name suggests &quot;creating&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T06:39:55.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29380" CreationDate="2018-04-09T07:17:10.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right. We did invent a bunch of characters for chemical elements in 20th century. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We made it just one character by combining different radical(偏旁) together,  but people can associate them with the English words simply by their pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read more about it from this Wiki article: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_elements_in_East_Asian_languages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chemical elements in East Asian languages&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19456" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T07:17:10.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29378" CreationDate="2018-04-09T07:38:53.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We always use the word &quot;少儿不宜&quot; to describe these kind of thing(sex, violent, etc.), it translates to &quot;not suitable for children&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少儿(children)不宜(not suitable)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&#xA;&quot;perverse scene from game of thrones&quot;=&quot;权力的游戏/里/少儿不宜的/场景&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19456" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T07:38:53.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29408" CreationDate="2018-04-09T12:13:38.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading the English, I first thought of horses with 6 legs or cows that lay eggs!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A friend told me what Jason Swift, above, wrote, 动物实验中心 might be better, but it seems the Chinese is totally unambiguous for a Chinese person: &quot;What？ Why is that funny in English?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we take cute little animals and perform cruel and darstardly experiments on them in the name of a pointless pursuit in order to justify a research grant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这里，我们用可爱的小动物作为幌子，以毫无目的的名义，对它们进行残忍和卑鄙的实验，以证明获得研究资助是合理的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T12:13:38.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29416" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-09T14:59:21.700" Score="0" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;The post is the third one from here &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/35679513&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/35679513&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the part I don't quite understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;其实这个故事一点也不美好，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;说白了也是自己一厢情愿的事儿，现在自己走出来了就好一点了吧， 原来挺有耐心的，想坚持一下， 后来学姐跟我说，你不能活在她的阴影里啊，&#xA;  所以我觉得我得走出来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's my attempt at translating it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Actually this isn't a nice story at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Speaking frankly, ...&lt;em&gt;(don't understand)&lt;/em&gt;... Originally I was very patient, and wanted to persevere, but&#xA;  then an elder schoolmate said to me &quot;You can't live in her shadow&quot;, so&#xA;  ...&lt;em&gt;(don't understand)&lt;/em&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part of the problem is obviously that I don't know what 走出来 means. But more fundamentally, I often find that when I'm reading Chinese text I find it very hard to keep track of who the subject is and the time frames of each verb. Frequently I will be able to understand every character and every individual word but still be very confused about what the actual narrative is. Has anyone else got this problem? How do I get past this stage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(for reference, I am somewhere between HSK5-6 level).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-04-10T12:09:12.147" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T22:26:18.030" Title="Help finishing my translation of a (short) Chinese forum post. Also looking for advice about parsing Chinese stories/narratives" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29416" CreationDate="2018-04-09T15:42:45.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一厢情愿 means 'wishful thinking' or 'one sided feeling'  It is a common idiom. Contrary to '两情相悦' (both share the same feeling of love) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is hard to understand what the meaning of 走出来 (walk out) when read it out of context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走出来 in this context means 'get out of (this relationship)', We know that because this guy was asking &quot;&lt;strong&gt;恋爱&lt;/strong&gt;两个月女友连手也不让牵，该不该继续下去?&quot;  (&lt;em&gt;after two months of romantic dating, my girlfriend still doesn't let me hold her hand, should I continue or not?&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was obvious talking about should or shouldn't he stay in this so call romance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I often find that when I'm reading Chinese text I find it very hard to keep track of who the subject is and the time frames of each verb&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese writing often omit subject when who or what is the subject is clearly implied in the context, therefore, you must read enough context to keep track of who the subject is. For example, if you just get one sentence &quot;同不同意?&quot; you will not know who is being asked, but if you know it is from a conversation between two friends, the subject would clearly be the speaker's friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese verbs do not use tenses, therefore you have to have enough context to tell what tense a verb is in. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22011/how-do-you-specify-past-tense-for-%e6%98%af/22016#22016&quot;&gt;How do you specify past tense for 是?&lt;/a&gt; for reference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;美好&lt;/strong&gt;的故事 means &lt;strong&gt;beautiful&lt;/strong&gt; story&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-10T02:55:29.260" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T02:55:29.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29418" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-09T17:26:51.663" Score="3" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stack Exchange!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm currently busy translating an old union pension form for a Retired Taiwanese schoolteacher. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the fillable note sections in the pension lists the number &quot;56&quot; using checking characters (伍拾陆）, followed by the classifier &quot;个基数“ （literally &quot;Cardinal Digit&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next in the note section is this phrase: &quot;领取眷口数一大口。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current interpretation is that &quot;Cardinal 56&quot; is a stipulation in the union pension that allows a retired teacher to receive financial support for their single dependent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this interpretation correct? Furthermore, what do the words &quot;基数“ and &quot;大口&quot; usually refer to in Taiwanese financial language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19459" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T19:09:54.760" Title="Terminology for Teacher Pension Form in Taiwan: &quot;基数“ and ”大口“" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29419" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-09T21:22:55.767" Score="2" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;The offending sentence (haha) is in bold below. Can't for the life of me figure out what is going on with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;许多妹子都觉得刚失恋去找别的男人不太好，其实无所谓啦，&lt;strong&gt;真的发展成男女朋友玩的来聊的开那还是要过个一年半载才能确定的&lt;/strong&gt;，先随便聊聊么，认识认识，没到考试的时候也可以在生活里多个出勤率，哪里跌倒就从哪里爬起来，越是被男人甩了越用自己的趣味和大方去和其他男人聊聊，对自己恢复（男女关系方面的）信心也没啥坏处。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T07:53:45.930" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T07:53:45.930" Title="How do I parse 真的发展成男女朋友玩的来聊的开那还是要过个一年半载才能确定的 into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29419" CreationDate="2018-04-09T22:53:50.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;[真的发展成] [男女朋友][玩的来][聊的开][那还是要过个一年半载][才能确定的]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the correct phrasing should be as follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;真的发展成玩的来、 聊的开的男女朋友, 那还是要过个一年半载才能确定的。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first sentence &quot;真的发展成玩的来、 聊的开的男女朋友&quot; (&lt;em&gt;to really develop into boyfriend-girlfriend relationship that you can play and talk freely with each other&lt;/em&gt;) is the topic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence  &quot;那还是要过个一年半载才能确定的。&quot; (&lt;em&gt;that still need a year or so before you can be sure&lt;/em&gt;) is the comment/opinion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-09T23:03:49.283" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T23:03:49.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29421" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29424" CreationDate="2018-04-10T00:16:55.510" Score="1" ViewCount="368" Body="&lt;p&gt;Our Chinese book contains this problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0osPY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0osPY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in the first example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不认识这个字，我想用你的词典。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ bù rènshì zhège zì, wǒ xiǎng yòng nǐ de cídiǎn.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It translates to &quot;I don't recognize this character.  I want to use your dictionary.&quot;  This is rude to say, so we're mean to use one of the structures above to soften it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the alternatives are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不认识这个字，我想&lt;strong&gt;用用&lt;/strong&gt;你的词典。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我不认识这个字，我想&lt;strong&gt;用一下&lt;/strong&gt;你的词典。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我不认识这个字，我想&lt;strong&gt;用一用&lt;/strong&gt;你的词典。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My experience suggests that 用一下 (yòng yīxià) is preferable to 用一用 (yòng yī yòng) or 用用 (yòng yòng).  Intuitively, 用用 seems very strange to me.  However, the solution given by the teacher was 用用, although the others were considered possible.  So I want to clear this up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is 用一下 preferable to 用用 or 用一用?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2018-04-25T02:50:19.863" LastActivityDate="2018-04-25T02:50:19.863" Title="Is 用一下 preferable to 用用 or 用一用?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29421" CreationDate="2018-04-10T01:55:22.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different people may have different opinions. This is more about personal preference other than generic one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I actually agree with your intuition. I would use 用一下, which sounds more casual to me. This is because 用 sometimes connotes that you use someone as a tool or something, which is not that good, so I'd avoid to use more 用s. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To further soften your tone, you can use the interrogative sentences. Like, 我不认识这个字，我想用一下你的词典, 可以吗？or 我不认识这个字，我能用一下你的词典吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-04-10T02:10:50.183" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T02:10:50.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29419" CreationDate="2018-04-10T03:43:17.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;许多妹子都觉得刚失恋去找别的男人不太好，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Many girls think looking for a new man just after breaking up is not a good idea,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;其实无所谓啦，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;actually, it doesn't matter&lt;br&gt;&#xA;真的发展成男女朋友[玩得来聊得开]那还是要过个一年半载才能确定的，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;to really become girlfriend and boyfriend, [have fun and chat openly], that will take about a year before you have a rapport,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;先随便聊聊么，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;first just chat,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;认识认识，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;get to know each other,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;没到考试的时候也可以在生活里多个出勤率，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;it's not exam time yet, you can also concentrate more on your life,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;哪里跌倒就从哪里爬起来，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;get up from where you have fallen down,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;越是被男人甩了越用自己的趣味和大方去和其他男人聊聊，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the more you are rejected the more you should use your personality and magnanimity to talk with other men&lt;br&gt;&#xA;对自己恢复（男女关系方面的）信心也没啥坏处。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;this will help you recover your confidence (in male female relationships) and won't do you any harm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reader's Digest philosophy??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T03:43:17.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29421" CreationDate="2018-04-10T03:50:59.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of them are suitable for the sentence, the difference is very subtle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“用一下” is kinda formal, you can use this word in almost any occasion, having conversation with your friends, your boss, it's all fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;用用&quot; and “用一用” is a little bit casual than &quot;用一下&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But just like I said, the difference is so subtle that most people won't really care about it, especially if you're a foreigner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19456" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T03:50:59.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29416" CreationDate="2018-04-10T04:51:44.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You've got most of that right, but:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“美好” is not for describing &quot;故事&quot;(the story), instead, it's describing the things happened in &quot;the story&quot;. So &quot;Actually this isn't a BEAUTIFUL story at all.&quot; would be more accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;走出来&quot; means &quot;walk away(from the incident/shadow)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;原来&quot; means &quot;back then&quot; in this sentence.(But &quot;原来&quot; do have the meaning of &quot;originally&quot; btw, just not in this case.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一厢情愿&quot; means wishful thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So everything translate to &quot;Frankly speaking, everything is just all in my mind, I got better now since I walked away from the shadow of it. I was patient back then, tried to hang in there(since she thought things would work out), but an elder schoolmate said to me &quot;You can't live in her shadow&quot;, so I thought I should walk away.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I often find that when I'm reading Chinese text I find it very hard to keep track of who the subject is and the time frames of each verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;As a Chinese, I feel the same way BECAUSE this passage is so casual that normal people won't even speak that way!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zhihu is just not a right place for studying Chinese, people use tons of slang and even dirty words in their made-up stories just to grab attention, or try to make a point. Highly recommend you get back to Zhihu only when you &quot;get past this stage&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19456" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T04:51:44.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29426" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-10T09:50:39.607" Score="2" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across both these words recently and they seem to both translate to &quot;infrastructure&quot;. Are they completely interchangeable or is there a difference in meaning? Or is it a question of regional usage or informal/formal language? Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T14:41:44.247" Title="What's the difference between 基建 and 基础设施? (Chinese words for &quot;infrastructure&quot;)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29426" CreationDate="2018-04-10T18:02:01.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;基建 is the short version or abbreviation of 基础建设。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19195" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T18:02:01.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29416" CreationDate="2018-04-10T22:26:18.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;其实这个故事一点也不美好，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Really, this story is not nice at all,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;说白了也是自己一厢情愿的事儿，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To tell the truth, it is a story about my own wishful thinking&lt;br&gt;&#xA;现在自己走出来了就好一点了吧，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;if I leave her now things may be a bit better,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;原来挺有耐心的，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;in the beginning I was very patient,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;想坚持一下，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I wanted to persevere, keep trying,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;后来学姐跟我说，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(but) later another older female student told me,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你不能活在她的阴影里啊，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;You can't live in her shadow.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;所以我觉得我得走出来。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;so I think I should leave her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'If you leave me now', Chicago &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;If you leave me now, you'll take away the biggest part of me&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Uh uh uh uh no baby please don't go&quot;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T22:26:18.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29408" CreationDate="2018-04-11T08:46:05.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are confused by the word &quot;实验&quot;. You may think it's a verb. Actually it's a noun used as adjective here, although it could be used as a verb.&#xA;To me, it's very clearly expressing the meaning that &quot;this is the place where we raise animals for (medical) experiments&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2018-04-12T09:26:27.220" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T09:26:27.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29431" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-11T10:51:18.020" Score="1" ViewCount="706" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你最近看过电视吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你最近看了电视吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你最近去过杂货店吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你最近去了杂货店吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And similarly, if I want to say &amp;quot;recently I went to my favourite cinema and found it's closed down&amp;quot; would I say 我最近去了我最喜欢的电影院，可是发现了它已经关闭了? Or should the first and second 了s be omitted? I know that this 了 means &amp;quot;action completed&amp;quot; but I've seen many example sentences where actions are completed yet there is no 了, which has left me confused about when I should include it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-11T12:56:27.110" Title="What is the difference between these sentences? (过 vs 了)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-04-12T04:27:45.477" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29431" CreationDate="2018-04-11T12:56:27.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In casual conversation without further context, sentences in the first two groups are almost the same.  If no additional information is available, both expressions are acceptable to a native speaker. But using &quot;过&quot; is still better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;了&quot; vs. &quot;过&quot; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你最近看过电视吗？&quot; means &quot;did you watch TV &lt;strong&gt;at least once&lt;/strong&gt; recently.&quot;  The time, TV program and duration of the action &quot;watching TV&quot; is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; being asked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你最近看了电视吗？&quot; means &quot;have you watched TV recently&quot;.  And &quot;了&quot; here implies that &quot;watching TV&quot; is &lt;strong&gt;finished/done&lt;/strong&gt;.  It is used when talking about the consequence of the action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation of the last sentence in your question (&quot;recently I went to my favorite cinema and found it's closed down&quot;) is acceptable.  But it is better to omit that &quot;了&quot; after &quot;发现&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;发现了&quot; is used when a noun is after &quot;发现了&quot;. Example: &quot;X发现了新大陆&quot;, &quot;X found new continent&quot;.  But when a sentence with &quot;了&quot; is used after &quot;发现了&quot;, then you can omit &quot;了&quot; in &quot;发现了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-04-11T12:56:27.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29408" CreationDate="2018-04-12T05:12:03.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah, it is an ambiguous title, what the heck is 实验动物? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end, it means &lt;code&gt;animals for experimenting&lt;/code&gt;, but why not make it clear by &lt;code&gt;实验用动物中心&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T05:12:03.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29434" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29436" CreationDate="2018-04-12T06:34:56.177" Score="2" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;除了数学方面的书，我也喜欢看历史、文学等方面的书，&lt;strong&gt;时常一待就几个钟头&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence mean something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Except math books, I also like books about history and literature. When I have time, I often keep reading for several hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence likely have the following missing structure, if I understand it correctly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我时常一会儿等待的时候，我几个钟头。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I don't understand how 头 works here. It is clear (for me) that it means &quot;read&quot;, or at least work as a verb, but according to my dictionary 头 does not work as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how does 头 work here? And is my understanding correct here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T12:18:26.417" Title="What does 头 mean in 时常一待就几个钟头?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29434" CreationDate="2018-04-12T08:10:51.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;钟 = clock; 头 = unit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'钟头' is a compound word for 'hour' , if you take the term 钟头 apart, 钟 would simply mean 'clock' and 头 would simply mean 'head'. They have to be joined together to form a single term 'hour'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somewhat related notes: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use 头  as a classifier for decent sized animals. For example: &quot;一头牛&quot; = a head of cow (头 is a unit for counting cow)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, we have a dim sum item called '盅頭飯' (rice in a cup/bowl). '盅頭' in '盅頭飯' is a adjectival phrase for 'comes in cup/bowl or with dish as unit'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly '碟頭' in '碟頭飯' means 'comes in dish or with dish as unit'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T08:10:51.613" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29434" CreationDate="2018-04-12T08:24:32.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the comments have pointed out, 鐘頭 is a colloquial word which means &lt;em&gt;hour&lt;/em&gt;, used in Cantonese, Mandarin, and Wu (e.g. Shanghainese). Other topolects may have their own colloquialisms, the most prominent being 點鐘 (used in Hakka, Min Dong and Min Nan). Mandarin also uses the word 點鐘, but more commonly for the meaning &lt;em&gt;o'clock&lt;/em&gt; rather than &lt;em&gt;hour&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 鐘頭 comes from an old word for &lt;em&gt;hour&lt;/em&gt;, 鐘點 [1], where 點 refers to the hourly divisions in a day. 點 was replaced with 頭, which is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E6%8C%87%E5%B0%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;diminutive suffix&lt;/a&gt;. For reference, similar words which use this suffix:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;木頭&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;老頭&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 鐘頭 was likely popularised by modern Chinese literature, e.g. in the work 《日出》 by 曹禺, which was written in the 1930s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;曹禺　《日出ㆍ第四幕》： “那就看您這幾個&lt;strong&gt;鐘頭&lt;/strong&gt;的本事吧。 我福升實在不能再替你擋這門賬了。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;李六如　《六十年的變遷ㆍ第二卷ㆍ第九章》： “‘錢就少啦。 ’ 方維夏 把中學待遇略微講一點。 ‘也是按&lt;strong&gt;鐘點&lt;/strong&gt;計算。 公立的一塊錢一點鐘， 私立的八角。 ’” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-04-12T08:31:29.667" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T08:31:29.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29437" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29438" CreationDate="2018-04-12T09:42:40.853" Score="2" ViewCount="341" Body="&lt;p&gt;i’m trying to learn chinese again for the first time after a very long time and i’m just looking at meanings of words to see what individual characters of certain words mean (like 饭 is rice and 店 is shop so 饭店 is restaurant). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyway, i looked up 水果 and i saw that 果 means fruit already, so i was just wondering why the 水 is there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(i’m really sorry if this doesn’t make sense or if this has been asked already because english isn’t really my first language so i don’t really know how to explain or search for what i mean exactly). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19472" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T08:59:14.530" Title="why is ‘fruit’ referred to as 水果 if 果 already means fruit?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29437" CreationDate="2018-04-12T10:15:10.220" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;droooze wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;果 does not only mean fruit - it can mean &quot;result, accomplishment, achievement&quot; as well.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a good explanation for why we don't just say 果  when we mean 'fruit'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 腰果, 白果 are nut (果仁). The single character 果 is too general to be used specifically for 'fruit'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there's more:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJWTPdlUJcM&amp;amp;t=2m57s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;生果唔同水果&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Cantonese, 生果 and 水果 are two different things. 生果 is fruit that grown on tree and 水果 is edible plant that grow in water (e.g. 水蓮藕 is a kind of root and 水菱角 is kind of nut). But for Mandarin, 水果 referred to all fruit that grow on tree and the term 生果 is rarely used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-12T10:40:27.350" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T10:40:27.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29434" CreationDate="2018-04-12T12:18:26.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Figuratively, think about the clock (钟) and 头 -&gt; head, 钟头 the head of clock. When the minute hand points to 12 o'clock(the beginning of an hour), the new hour starts. So, that's why we use 钟头 to indicate &lt;em&gt;hour&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 三个钟头 indicates that the minute hand passed the beginning of an hour (that is 12 o'clock) 3 times, which indicates 3 hours has passed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T12:18:26.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29440" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29441" CreationDate="2018-04-12T14:49:24.667" Score="4" ViewCount="3935" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some friends in China and I started to learn Chinese. Nothing serious but a few phrases here and there. Due to the time difference the conversation usually ends in one of us saying good night to the other. Rather than just always saying 晚安 all the time, I started to copy some of the things friends have said to me as a means of saying good night.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I'm thinking there might be some nuance between these phrases that is lost on me. One time I said 安安 to a male friend and he seemed slightly offended and told me don't talk like a girl.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone explain to me if there is a difference between these and if so what the connotation of each one is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17784" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T12:00:05.917" Title="Difference between 晚安， 晚安安，安安, and 晚安啦" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29440" CreationDate="2018-04-12T15:18:26.320" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;晚安 is the standard phrase for &quot;good night&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚安安 is an incorrect usage of reduplication. Please don't use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安安 is also an incorrect usage of reduplication. Not to mention it sounds like a 'baby take' (omitted 晚 and reduplicate 安) Please don't use it to any adult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚安啦 is just 晚安 adding a final particle after it.  Depend on the tone and pitch, it adds casual or affectionate feeling to the phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T15:18:26.320" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29440" CreationDate="2018-04-12T15:21:59.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;晚安 and 晚安啦 are almost the same, and means &quot;Good night&quot;. 晚安啦 may sound more casual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚安安 and 安安 can be considered Internet slang just to make it sound cute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a learner, you can stick to 晚安. I seldom see 晚安安 or 安安 even on the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T15:21:59.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="275" CreationDate="2018-04-12T20:26:02.830" Score="-1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;但是 = but&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可是 = although&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不过 = rather&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19480" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T20:26:02.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29440" CreationDate="2018-04-12T21:00:13.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should know that in oral Chinese, there is no standard grammar. Actually all the above are correctly phrases for &quot;Good night&quot;. We can even just use single character 安 for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, different phrases have different background meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚安 is the standard phase in both oral and written Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other 3 phrases are most likely used within close friends/relatives, boy/girl friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚安啦 is only used in oral Chinese, 啦 is a modal particle which is used when the speaker want announce some thing happens. 晚安啦 therefore more likely meaning the specking is happy to talk with you and want to announce the conversation needs to be stopped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安 is used only with friends/classmates because it is an informal and impolite to speck, especially toward elders. Others might think this phrase is too concise to be respect them. However, it is very nature to use it with your best friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚安安 and 安安 are very informal. It could be only used by girls or young woman. Or wife towards her husband. 安安 is sounding somewhat childish, the specking is playing cute/showing moe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Young Chinese people do not likely the formal way to specking Chinese, they sometimes want to specking short/specking strange just to make fun. Therefore, nowadays people may more likely to use 男票/女票 to replace 男朋友/女朋友, just sounding shorter and more interesting. However, as a foreigner, you'd better take care for these phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19479" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T21:00:13.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3083" CreationDate="2018-04-12T21:19:15.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese history, there live long time two different systems of language. The classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese. Classical Chinese is character-based, but vernacular is not. Therefore, each character in classical Chinese has its own functioning, but in vernacular, two or more characters needs to combine together for a meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason may be too many Chinese characters have same pronunciation. They can be distinguished in written language, but extremely hard in oral language. Therefore, people have to use two or more characters to reduce misunderstanding. So you can not make each character in a combined word to have a specific meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese is based on mainly on vernacular, and was greatly influenced by foreign language, such as Manchu, Mongolian and western languages. Many phrases become a standard form and people forget the original reason for using them in that way, just keep using them. Modern Chinese, actually, is still a young and versatile language&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19479" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T21:19:15.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29447" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29449" CreationDate="2018-04-12T22:09:09.953" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a plaque in the Zhalan Cemetery there seems to be an inconsistency. In the English text the burial date of Matteo Ricci is 1611 while in the Chinese text it appears to be 1610. Does the Chinese text say something else and is the English &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; an exact translation? (E.g. the Chinese speaks of date of death and English speaks of burial date.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JyTf6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JyTf6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19481" LastActivityDate="2018-04-13T00:41:12.817" Title="Chinese-English translation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29437" CreationDate="2018-04-12T23:11:32.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as a possibility for the use of 水 in 水果, I would not know where to verify or refute this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水果 of course refers to 'fresh fruit' and its counterpart is 干果 also 果干 ‘dried fruit' '没含水的果‘, such as 葡萄干 raisins or currants, 苹果干，those dried apple rings you see in the supermarket, 香蕉片 those hard dry banana slices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T23:11:32.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29447" CreationDate="2018-04-13T00:41:12.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese text says &quot;he died in 1610 and was buried here in the next year&quot;, the English text is just an indirect tranlation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2018-04-13T00:41:12.817" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="150" CreationDate="2018-04-13T07:20:59.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just witnessed a scene where the driver used this expression several times with his mistress, although I am a foreigner I thought it was very rude. I would never allow my driver to use the F word with me. They were discussing because the lady wanted him to accompany her to the school door, but he could not because the road is closed at peak  hours. So he was right but very rude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19485" LastActivityDate="2018-04-13T07:20:59.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29451" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29454" CreationDate="2018-04-13T08:53:23.140" Score="4" ViewCount="713" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Silom, Thailand, I was eating in a small restaurant, 5x10 square meters. It is not a quiet place since it is located nearby the road. However, customers in here, for example white people and Thai locals, normally speak very low and leave after they finish. But 10 Chinese tourists came in and started ordering food, talking loud, like shouting. Their loud voices made me very nervous. No idea if they will talk to local people with the same sound level or not since they use hand method to order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Direct translatation from English of &lt;code&gt;Lower your voice please&lt;/code&gt; to Chinese is &lt;code&gt;请降低你的声音&lt;/code&gt;. Is it ok?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19486" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-04-14T03:43:38.227" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T03:43:38.227" Title="How to ask Chinese tourists keep their voice down?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29453" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-13T10:59:59.187" Score="5" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我最近没打过羽毛球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just wondering if the 过 in this sentence can be omitted? Or does the sentence have a slightly different meaning if I remove it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T02:24:10.240" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T02:24:10.240" Title="我最近没打过羽毛球 &quot;I haven't played badminton recently&quot;: is the 过 necessary?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29451" CreationDate="2018-04-13T11:36:10.673" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What is the best sentence to let them know that they are making very loud noise?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before I give out example sentences for asking people to lower their voice, I have to warn you-- Telling strangers that their behavior is unacceptable in public might lead to verbal confrontation or worse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some people might think talking loud is their personal right, telling them otherwise is an intrusion.  No words of yours can change their behavior.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some people might not notice they are being loud. They can be reasoned with, but you have to be extremely polite. You are pointing out something they do wrong after all. No one like to be criticized.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now there are some example sentences you could use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Start with &quot;對不起&quot; /duìbùqǐ/ (excuse me/ sorry).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Then beg them &quot;能請你們&quot; /Néng qǐng nǐmen/(would you please).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tell them what you want, &quot;降低聲量嗎?&quot;/Jiàngdī shēngliàng ma/ (lower your voice?).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(optional) Make them think you are with them &quot;外国人爱挑剔别人大声说话&quot; /Wàiguó rén ài Tiāotì biérén dàshēng shuōhuà/ (Foreigners love to pick on people who use loud voice).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thank them for cooperating &quot;谢谢合作&quot; /Xièxiè hézuò/. After being thanked, most reasonable people would not be able to get too angry with you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-04-14T03:40:41.473" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T03:40:41.473" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29455" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29460" CreationDate="2018-04-13T15:46:52.780" Score="1" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;Difference between 大兄弟 and 小伙子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under which condition should we use one of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18332" LastEditorUserId="18332" LastEditDate="2018-04-13T18:36:04.027" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T03:45:53.007" Title="Difference between 大兄弟 and 小伙子" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29457" CreationDate="2018-04-13T18:10:27.980" Score="2" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;People usually say there are 24 Solar Terms (24节气) in a year, and each lasts 15 days. If so, 24x15 days = 360 days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a year has at least 365 days. Does it mean some 节气 have more than 15 days?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T20:35:11.260" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T20:35:11.260" Title="How many days does a 节气 last for?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;calendar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29456" CreationDate="2018-04-13T19:01:08.657" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;before 清 dynasty (1644-1911), the calendar system in china used 平氣, solar terms lasts 15 days+ (it's roughly 365.25 days / 24).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, the 時憲曆 changed the method to 定氣, that 360° div 24 = 15°, upon people observation, when the sun &quot;walks&quot; 15° on zodiac, solar term changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, your question would be answered, it depends on which dynasty, and / or which seasons. eg, in 2018:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the 夏至 (summer solstice) is on 21st june, the 小暑 (lesser heat) is on 7th july. so, the summer solstice lasts 16 days :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.weather.gov.hk/gts/astron2018/Solar_Term_2018_uc.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.weather.gov.hk/gts/astron2018/Solar_Term_2018_uc.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-04-13T19:01:08.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29458" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-13T21:21:33.010" Score="1" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m making a door sign for a baby’s nursery; should I stack the characters vertically? Should I include the family name? Are there any faux pas’s to be aware of when making a gift like this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T06:50:27.923" Title="What are written name conventions in labels?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;surnames&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29458" CreationDate="2018-04-14T02:49:23.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both horizontal and vertical are fine. Vertical would look fancier.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Definitely include the family name. It’s an integral part of Eastern names.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don’t write the name in red. Seriously, don’t write the name in red lettering. For people who are superstitious enough writing a name is red is tantamount to sending them off to their death.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stylistically I like white lettering on a black background but now I’m promulgating my own fashion-sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T02:49:23.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29455" CreationDate="2018-04-14T03:45:53.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;小伙子 is &lt;em&gt;young guy&lt;/em&gt;. It's a generic term to address a young man. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大兄弟 is used in north, which sounds pretty folksy. It's used to address a man and is said by some older people. Sometimes, we make a joke to address a guy as 大兄弟. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T03:45:53.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29453" CreationDate="2018-04-14T03:47:55.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your 过 is not necessary, but:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我最近没打过羽毛球。and 我最近没打羽毛球。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are equivalent, as far as people I asked are concerned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the question: 'Have you played badminton recently?' people immediately used ‘打过’， but I did not consult all of China!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你最近打过羽毛球吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, ‘打了’ conjures up the idea of hitting someone, so would tend to be avoided in this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never played badminton.&#xA;我从来没打过羽毛球。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to ask 水巷孑蠻先生 (and other experts here), whether this use of 过 is found in Old Chinese and Middle Chinese texts, or whether might be a concession to Western ideas of tense and especially past tense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any situation where a time in the past is mentioned: 'Yesterday .., Last night .., Recently ..' we know for certain the event mentioned is in the past. Past Tense is actually redundant. English sometimes uses what is quaintly called the 'Historical Present': &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Last night, I'm sitting alone, watching TV, when, all of a sudden .....&quot; Nobody will say, 'You used 'I am', therefore this is a Present Tense sentence.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T03:47:55.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29453" CreationDate="2018-04-14T03:58:41.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我最近没打过羽毛球 indicates that you haven't played badminton lately. It emphasizes the result or the fact that you haven't done it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 我最近没打羽毛球 sounds like you regularly play badminton, say once a week, however lately you break that rule(not play it). Basically, 我最近没打羽毛球 means you play badminton regularly or in the past, but for some reason you haven't/didn't play(ed) it recently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-04-14T04:05:05.607" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T04:05:05.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29458" CreationDate="2018-04-14T05:15:01.027" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It would hang on the door to celebrate the name of the new baby. It could also hang on the wall; it's more of a decoration than an indicator&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key word is 'decoration'. You can consider it a hand crafted art. The shape of the sign should be fun and artistic (e.g. you can make it shaped like panda, star, duckling, bunny or anything you consider meaningful ). It can also be colorful. The same goes to the font you use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Horizontal or vertical are both fine, the characters don't even have to be the same size or line up straight, but the label itself should has little thickness to make it feel substantial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use just the baby's first name would make it more casual and relax. Using full name would make it more formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-14T06:36:57.220" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T06:36:57.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29437" CreationDate="2018-04-14T08:59:14.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some differences between 果 and 水果，but mostly when we say 果 we mean 水果, not including 干果. The main reason why we use 水果 instead of 果 is that Chinese tend to use words consisting of two characters. For example，we say 果盘 instead of 水果盘（meaning fruit bowl）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19493" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T08:59:14.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29465" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-14T11:47:49.193" Score="4" ViewCount="516" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;据悉，日本政府此次提出了在东京奥运会召开的2020年，使访日游客增至4000万人次，消费额达到&lt;strong&gt;8万亿&lt;/strong&gt;日元的目标。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, 万亿 is used instead of 兆, to express 10^12 digit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/28569/%E5%85%86-as-part-of-a-number&quot;&gt;now 兆(zhào) might be rarely used to express &quot;trillion&quot; and instead 万亿 is used.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when should I use 万亿 and when 兆 to express such a large number?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also what about the case to express more than 万亿, such as 10^16? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/18293/what-is-the-correct-syntax-for-large-numbers-in-kanji/18296#18296&quot;&gt;Japanese use 万, 亿, 兆, 京...&lt;/a&gt; but how about Chinese? Should I write it as &lt;em&gt;91&lt;strong&gt;万万亿&lt;/strong&gt;2513万亿522亿6915万159&lt;/em&gt; to express &lt;em&gt;912513052269150159&lt;/em&gt;? or &lt;em&gt;91京2513兆522亿6915万159&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2018-04-16T00:20:21.530" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T14:55:52.360" Title="When should I use 兆 instead of 万亿?" Tags="&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29465" CreationDate="2018-04-14T13:34:02.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我想你大概不小心把“兆开”写错了，你应该是想写‘召开’。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如今很少有人用兆来表示百万，我们更习惯直接说百万。兆现在是网络流量或电量的单位。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zdic.net 　3. 数名，等于百万（古代指万亿）：兆周（电磁波频率单位，每秒一百万周的频率为一兆周）。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, I hear not, many people write 兆, except when you want to express an extremely large amount.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T13:34:02.913" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17024" CreationDate="2018-04-14T14:20:54.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I most often hear people say 送你 in Taiwan when they give presents, not sure if mainland would be different though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T14:20:54.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29465" CreationDate="2018-04-14T22:23:29.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese PhD student studying computer science and communication engineering in London. &#xA;I guess I might be the right person to give you the answer.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;兆 is usually used in IT context. If you use 万亿 in the context of IT, that would be weird. Except this, you can use 万亿 all the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19497" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T22:23:29.583" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29440" CreationDate="2018-04-14T22:33:18.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;晚安 has no emotion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚安安 is indeed an incorrect usage of reduplication. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but 安安 is not an incorrect usage of reduplication. A girl can use this when she talks with her boyfriend to show intimacy. Yes, it sounds like a baby but that is how people show intimacy in China (maybe some Chinese, including my ex and ex-ex... girlfriend). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚安啦 indeed adds casual or affectionate feeling to the phrase. It might also has implicit meaning &quot;maybe we can continue our talk tomorrow night&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19497" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T22:33:18.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29472" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-15T02:55:38.577" Score="1" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;After exchanging thank you and your welcome for doing something nice that I did for someone I received this phrase 有你真好。on WeChat. Google translate says “nice to have you” What does this mean? How should I respond? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19498" LastEditorUserId="19498" LastEditDate="2018-04-15T03:08:34.893" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T03:22:05.403" Title="What does this phrase mean? 有你真好。" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29472" CreationDate="2018-04-15T03:22:05.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means things get easier with your help and they appreciate, or it's nice to have you there because you could help.  You don't really have to response to it. I would just response with a smile in this situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T03:22:05.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29474" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-15T05:47:36.643" Score="1" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that 两块 here means two yuan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how should I translate “找你两块”？ Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T02:57:09.977" Title="How should I translate &quot;找你两块“？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29475" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-15T09:08:38.540" Score="1" ViewCount="429" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got quite confused these days with the grammar rule that adds 地 to an adjective to make it work as an adverb. My basic understanding is that you must add 地 to make an adjective work as an adverb, while you do NOT need to add it to an adverb, since adverbs can work without any such suffix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;一个劲儿地&lt;/strong&gt;问，我只好告诉她了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;邻居在装修房子，从早到晚都在&lt;strong&gt;一个劲儿地&lt;/strong&gt;敲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that the word 一个劲儿 is usually used with 地, &lt;strong&gt;even if it is adverb&lt;/strong&gt; (according to Pleco and 现代汉语词典).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, my understanding is that an adverb can be used alone while an adjective must be used with 地, in order to work as an adverb. But the rule is invalidated in the sample above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another sentence I came across:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王羲之从小&lt;strong&gt;刻苦&lt;/strong&gt;学习书法，他的书法艺术吸收前任书法名家的长处，又有自己的发挥和创造，达到了书法艺术的高峰。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Pleco, &lt;strong&gt;刻苦 is adjective&lt;/strong&gt;, not adverb, so you must use 地 in order to use it as an adverb and modify 学习. But this sentence does not use 地.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the rule of 地 on the adjective and adverb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it common to omit 地 with an adjective, even if the adjective works as an adverb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does it depend on each adjective whether it is OK to omit 地? In other words, you can omit 地 on some adjectives but cannot on others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it common to use 地 with adverbs as well? If that is the case, why do adverbs need 地 in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Likewise, does it depend on each adverb if it requires 地?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2020-10-20T00:45:15.960" LastActivityDate="2020-10-20T00:45:15.960" Title="When should I use 地 with an adjective and when should I not use it with an adverb (and why do some adverbs require 地)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29475" CreationDate="2018-04-15T10:09:27.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pleco may oversimplify matters. The word classes used in Western grammar are &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; binding on any word, why should that be the case in Chinese? Is ‘shop’ a verb or a noun or an adjective? Is 'up' a noun or a preposition? (The ups and downs of life) You can only tell from the environment in which you encounter the word. Don't get hung up on which word class your dictionary says a word belongs in！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我钦佩你的刻苦。你的刻苦 刻苦 noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的勤奋让我记住了你。你的勤奋 勤奋 noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她刻苦地学习法语。 她刻苦地学习 刻苦 adverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俭省是致富之本。俭省 noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刻苦学习 in translation may be 'assiduously study' and you can of course write 刻苦地学习&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many times you will find a word used as an adverb but without 地。As far as I know there is no rule which you may apply in all situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T10:09:27.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29477" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-15T11:33:44.127" Score="2" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was listening to the latest Sinica podcast, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://supchina.com/podcast/all-sorts-of-swindles-in-the-late-ming-society-with-christopher-rea-and-bruce-rusk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;All sorts of swindles in the late Ming society, with Christopher Rea and Bruce Rusk&lt;/a&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At about 33:55 Christopher Rea talks about an edition of《杜骗新书》or《江湖奇闻杜骗新书》with 白话 and modern day parallels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found a version on &lt;a href=&quot;http://vdisk.weibo.com/s/ze4hPnxTGC_Hm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;weipan&lt;/a&gt; it seems to contain 白话 translations but I'm not seeing any modern day parallels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any idea which version he's talking about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T10:02:15.463" Title="Which edition of《杜骗新书》contains modern parallels?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29475" CreationDate="2018-04-15T12:28:55.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;一个劲儿地 is not a standard adverb, It is an adverbial phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个劲儿 (constant effort) is a noun. Adding 地 make it an adverbial phrase 一个劲儿地 (with constant effort)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刻苦 is not only an adjective, it can also be an adverb or noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is it common to omit 地 on an adjective, even if the adjective works as an adverb?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;強烈反對 could mean 'strong objection [強烈 (adj) 反對 (n)] or 'strongly object' [強烈 (adv ) 反對 (v)] .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;強烈地反對 could only mean 'strongly object'. Without another context, you cannot omit 地 when you meant to use it as an adverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can only omit 地 when the context clearly indicated 強烈 is an adverb, not an adjective. For example, 他強烈地反對 (he strongly objects) can be reduced to 他強烈反對&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;猛烈攻擊 could mean 'fierce (adj) attack (n)' or 'fiercely (adv) attack (v)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;猛烈地攻擊 could only mean 'fiercely attack'. Without another context, you cannot omit 地 when you meant to use it as an adverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can only omit 地 when the context clearly indicated 猛烈 is an adverb, not an adjective. For example: '對他猛烈地攻擊' (fiercely attack him) can be reduced to '對他猛烈攻擊'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Does it depends on each adjective that it is OK to omit 地? In other words, you can omit 地 on some adjectives but cannot on others?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the examples above. Notice, an adjective that is exclusively for nouns cannot be turned into an adverb by adding 地. For example 強大，細小，好，壞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is it common to use 地 on adverbs as well? If that is the case, why do adverbs need 地 in the first place?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Adverb with 地 emphasizes 'the manner' of the action. For example '&lt;strong&gt;大力地&lt;/strong&gt;打'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Adverb without 地 focus on the verb itself, with the adverb as an equal-weighted complement. For example '大力&lt;strong&gt;打&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Single character adverbs usually don't use 地. For example '痛打'，'狠批' (never '痛地打'，'狠地批')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Likewise does it depend on each adverb if it requires 地?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, usually adverb for verb can be used with or without 地. (see example above).  Adverb for adjective does not need 地, E.g. 局部成功,  絶頂聰明 (never 局部地成功, 絶頂地聰明)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-10-19T17:02:49.270" LastActivityDate="2020-10-19T17:02:49.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29474" CreationDate="2018-04-15T14:51:50.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To take a step back, a more complete exchange between the cashier and the customer could look something like this:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Customer: 這包餅乾多少錢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cashier: 這包餅乾8元。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Customer: 好，這裡10元。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cashier: 謝謝，收你10元，找你2元。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cashier takes $10 and gives back $2 in change.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;找錢 means to give change, specifically, change owed given the difference in amount tendered and amount owing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastEditorUserId="13086" LastEditDate="2018-04-16T02:57:09.977" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T02:57:09.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29480" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29485" CreationDate="2018-04-15T15:30:22.390" Score="1" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't fully understand the grammatical structure of the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我来是要了解这一地区的市场情况。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically I'm confused about the 是 in this sentence. It reminds me of the 是……的 construction, but there's no corresponding 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some kind of pattern in this sentence that I'm missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6277" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T23:34:54.307" Title="是……的 construction without 的?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29480" CreationDate="2018-04-15T15:47:46.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rephrase it a bit and you can get the &lt;code&gt;是……的&lt;/code&gt; construction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我來(&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;要瞭解這一個區的市場情況。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;要瞭解這一個區的市場情況來&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't phrase this sentence using the &lt;code&gt;是……的&lt;/code&gt; construction though, the detail &lt;code&gt;要瞭解這一個區的市場情況&lt;/code&gt; is a bit long, plus it contains another &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; inside the detail, making it more easily misunderstood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T15:47:46.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29475" CreationDate="2018-04-15T16:22:17.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many Chinese grammar books imitate those grammar books on Western languages. That does not fit well in Chinese grammar. The details I am not going to discuss here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Western languages transform a word to change its class to fit a sentence, Chinese languages determine the word class by the position of words in a sentence. There are some basic patterns of sentences. You might find a few example in English language, such as &quot;I cry&quot; and &quot;I heard a cry&quot;, and &quot;I love you&quot; and &quot;It is so much love&quot;, but in Chinese languages it is so pervasive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some might think that &quot;地&quot; is a particle to change an adjective to an adverb like Western languages. The observation might be true but it might not be the way it works. It was an informal oral form in some northern Chinese languages and it probably comes from words like &quot;之&quot; having a concrete meaning but it was degenerated to a syllable filling the gap of words. Eventually people picked the character &quot;地&quot; to represent the syllable. The syllable implicitly means &quot;in such way&quot; or &quot;like that&quot; working like emphasis which many dictionaries never tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Classical Chinese, there is no such use of &quot;地&quot; like Mandarin Chinese and the transformation to an adverb is purely by positioning a word in a proper place in a sentence.  All Chinese languages inherit much of Classical Chinese. So do Mandarin Chinese. You are free to ignore 地 in Mandarin Chinese and its meaning remains the same. It is the rhyme making a bit difference in feeling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could insist to differentiate them. &quot;刻苦&quot; is &quot;hard&quot; and &quot;刻苦地&quot; is implicitly &quot;in such a hard way&quot;. But the difference is so tiny.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For simplicity, &quot;刻苦地學習&quot; is the same as &quot;刻苦學習&quot; and &quot;他一個勁兒地問&quot; is the same as &quot;他一個勁兒問&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T16:22:17.377" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29117" CreationDate="2018-04-15T17:20:39.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We might never know the real reason. All those rime books indicate that 發 (out) and 髮 (hair) are always the same pronunciation, and both are entering tone (入聲). This means there is a terminal -t in pronunciation on 發 and 髮. We know that when -t was lost in Mandarin and the tones became unstable. In Chinese phonology it is named 派入三聲. The entering tone (入聲) was gone and all characters in entering tone go to the rest three tones, namely the flat tone (平聲), the rising tone (上聲) and the leaving tone (去聲). In this way, it is possible that 發 and 髮 develops different tones in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T17:20:39.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29465" CreationDate="2018-04-15T17:59:46.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Number over five digitals, namely beyond 萬, there are several ways of counting. 億兆京 has several interpretations. This causes discrepancy in meaning. In tradition, to avoid ambiguity, 萬萬, 十萬萬, 百萬萬, 千萬萬, 萬萬萬, 十萬萬萬... is used instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are three interpretation of 一兆. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一百萬 = 10⁶. Current it is found in some Chinese prefix of SI Units. 1 MHz = 一兆赫.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一萬萬萬 = 10¹². Big numbers count in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一萬萬萬萬 = 10¹⁶. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T17:59:46.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29480" CreationDate="2018-04-15T23:34:54.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我来是要了解这一地区的市场情况。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the sentence does content the 是...的 structure. However, the 的 has been omitted. The full sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我来是要了解这一地区的市场情况&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 in 这一地区的市场情况 is used as the attributive 助词. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, now the question becomes when 的 should be dropped ? I think people would drop the 的 in the 是...的 structure if there is another 的 that has been used previously. For example, 我来是要检查你们的工作， if I remove 的 in 你们的工作, then you should add 的 back at the end of the sentence. It would become 我来是要检查(你们)工作&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T23:34:54.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29486" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29488" CreationDate="2018-04-16T00:32:24.140" Score="1" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, you often say 轉行 (zyun3 hong4) to say &quot;switch industries&quot;. What's the Mandarin equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="3511" LastEditDate="2018-04-24T03:06:16.727" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T06:28:53.410" Title="Mandarin equivalent of 轉行 (zyun3 hong4), which means to switch industries?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29487" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-16T03:33:56.030" Score="1" ViewCount="414" Body="&lt;p&gt;花市里人山人海，热闹非凡，每个人&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt;带着甜蜜的笑容。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the sentence wrong without the 都？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why the sentence is only correct / better with the 都？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T23:19:33.963" Title="每个人都...... Why the 都 is compulsory in the sentence." Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29486" CreationDate="2018-04-16T03:35:21.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First: &lt;strong&gt;《广州话-普通话》&lt;/strong&gt; indicates that 转行 is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;粤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese. This has probably changed since it was published but they also give the Mandarin equivalents:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;改行；转业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《广州话方言词典》&lt;/strong&gt; also gives the same two Mandarin equivalent words, in opposite order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;转业；改行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;改行&lt;/strong&gt; is probably the most colloquial option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T03:35:21.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29487" CreationDate="2018-04-16T04:20:39.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;都 is an adverb for 'All' ; 'without exception'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;每个人带着甜蜜的笑容。&quot; is not grammatically wrong, However, having the adverb 都 before the verb 带着 (carry), add emphasis to the fact-  'All of them/ without exception' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'人人带着愉快的笑容' = 'everyone carry pleasant smile on their faces'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'人人(&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt;)带着愉快的笑容' = 'everyone, (&lt;strong&gt;without exception&lt;/strong&gt;), carry pleasant smile on their faces'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be easier to see the difference if you replace 每个人(each person) or 人人 (everyone) with a term that hasn't already indicated the meaning of 'all'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'外面的人们带着愉快的笑容' = 'the people outside, carry pleasant smile' (we don't know it is some of them or all of them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'外面的人们&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt;带着愉快的笑容 = the people outside, all carry pleasant smile' (now we know &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; of them are smiling)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;甜蜜的笑容 = 'sweet smile' , more suitable for describing smile of beautiful or cute girl&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-16T04:40:42.360" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T04:40:42.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29465" CreationDate="2018-04-16T05:19:25.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;兆 was used in ancient China to represent &lt;strong&gt;trillion&lt;/strong&gt;, it is no longer used in mainland China, but still used in Taiwan, it uniquely represents the &lt;strong&gt;mega&lt;/strong&gt; prefix in the International System of Units currently. But in Taiwan, 一兆 means &lt;strong&gt;one trillion&lt;/strong&gt;, while 兆赫兹 means &lt;strong&gt;MHz&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;megahertz&lt;/strong&gt;). The largest number that can be expressed in a single Chinese character is 亿 in mainland China, to express larger numbers, use the phrases like 万亿 or 亿亿. Of course, there are also Chinese characters that represent numbers larger than 亿 (&lt;strong&gt;100 million&lt;/strong&gt;), but such a large number is not used generally, and nobody use them, except the ancient literature. You may learn them &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T12:13:35.950" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T12:13:35.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29426" CreationDate="2018-04-16T14:41:44.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;基建 is the short version or abbreviation of Capital Construction ( &lt;strong&gt;基本&lt;/strong&gt;建设), like log cabin construction or construction of sewer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;基础设施建设 means infrastructure, like hotels or transport.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;基础设施建设，还没有简称，英语是Infrastructure 基础结构[设施](尤指社会、国家赖以生存和发展的, 如道路、学校、电厂、交通、通讯系统等),着重强调其“基础”的作用，和基本建设概念不同，是基建的，不一定是基础设施，比如建造俱乐部楼房（我个人理解）就不是一个城市赖以运转的基础设施了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18660" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T14:41:44.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29487" CreationDate="2018-04-16T23:19:33.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with Tang Ho, 都(全部）is used for emphasis, 'all, everybody'. I don't agree that it is an adverb. I would class 都 as a pronoun in this usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都还好吧？&#xA;All good? / Everything OK? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use 'all' in the same way in English and other languages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We want some soup first.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们首先要喝点汤。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We all want some soup first.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们首先都要喝点汤。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you need help?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你们需要帮助吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you all need help?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你们都需要帮助吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They refuse to leave.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他们拒绝离开。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They all refuse to leave.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他们都拒绝离开。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我什么东西都吃。(什么 could indicate a question. ‘我什么东西吃？’都 changes that to 'anything, all')&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I eat anything.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;什么东西我都吃。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I eat anything.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;*我吃什么东西都。（This word order is not used. No idea why.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I eat anything&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T23:19:33.963" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29493" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29494" CreationDate="2018-04-17T04:49:40.733" Score="3" ViewCount="2436" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BA%8C%E7%99%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;二百&lt;/a&gt; (èrbǎi) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%A4%E7%99%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;两百&lt;/a&gt; (liǎng bǎi) mean &quot;two hundred&quot;.  Baidu gives them 55.1 million and 31.5 million hits, respectively, indicating 二百 is somewhat more common.  I'm wondering if there's any difference between the two, or if they're identical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there any distinction between 二百 and 两百?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/64477541.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Zhidao&lt;/a&gt; suggest people in the south of China prefer 两百, but I'm not sure if this is accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question does not apply here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/755/8099&quot;&gt;Number two in chinese: 二 vs 两&lt;/a&gt;. I'm aware both are acceptable for meaning &quot;two hundred&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2021-02-22T12:26:57.137" Title="Is there any distinction between 二百 (èrbǎi) and 两百 (liǎng bǎi) which both mean &quot;two hundred&quot;?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29493" CreationDate="2018-04-17T12:42:03.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is more idiolectal. I personally use more 两百, which are also the preference of the most people I met within so many years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in some context, it should be fixed. For example, we say someone is 二百五 which  means someone is an idiot. In this context, 二百五 sounds idiomatic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-17T12:42:03.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29495" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29503" CreationDate="2018-04-17T15:52:36.677" Score="2" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my on-going quest to understand the difference between initially indentical-looking words, I hereby bring you: 使用 vs. 施用! Both seem to mean 'to apply something' and it appears to be acceptable to both 使用化肥 and 施用化肥. &#xA;Maybe I have hit a genuine synonym this time?! If history is anything to go by, probably not, but it's a fun game, eh? :-)&#xA;Hashamyim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T04:59:31.517" Title="Are 使用 and 施用 interchangable?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29493" CreationDate="2018-04-17T18:42:21.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides the answers about the meanings in number, I want to add a special usage of 二百, which could be an abbr. of 第二百货公司。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19510" LastActivityDate="2018-04-17T18:42:21.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29497" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29498" CreationDate="2018-04-17T23:45:46.050" Score="5" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having difficulty understanding how 的要 is being used in the second sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;頭髮太長囉&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  該剪的要剪一剪了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first sentence makes sense: [Your] hair [is]  too long&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I don't understand at all how 的 and 要 are operating in the second one.  I was not able to find any information on it online (I may have searched for the wrong terms).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19512" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T10:34:17.857" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T10:34:17.857" Title="Usage of 的要 in 頭髮太長囉，該剪的要剪一剪了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29497" CreationDate="2018-04-18T00:31:33.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;的要&quot; is not a term; &quot;的&quot; makes the phrase a noun, so &quot;該(should)剪(cut)的&quot; means &quot;what should be cut&quot;. &quot;要&quot; means should/must/shall/will, so the whole sentence literally means &quot;(you) should cut (the long hair) what should be cut&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-04-18T00:52:49.920" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T00:52:49.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29493" CreationDate="2018-04-18T02:06:29.673" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I specifically remember asking my Mom about this in my childhood years, because it seemed so bizarre. I believe the answer was that 二、貳 are to be used for proper writing. While I would say 一千兩百塊，I would write 一千二百元。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the Internet, I came across similar forum discussions, which I’m sure you’ve seen for yourself. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chiculture.net/0615/html/d12/0615d12.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here’s&lt;/a&gt; a more authoritative one, although what it says about usage for number values isn’t quite what I remember. Then again, language is fluid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T02:06:29.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29504" CreationDate="2018-04-18T02:32:04.827" Score="1" ViewCount="276" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/767/8099&quot;&gt;accepted answer&lt;/a&gt; to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/755/number-two-in-chinese-%E4%BA%8C-vs-%E4%B8%A4&quot;&gt;Number two in chinese: 二 vs 两&lt;/a&gt; writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Numbers that are larger than 100, e.g. 两百, 两千三百六十二. 百, 千, and 万 can be seen as a sort of measure word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;十万&lt;/a&gt; (shí wàn) means &quot;hundred thousand&quot; in Chinese.  So the above sentence implies 两十万 (liǎng shí wàn) is correct and means &quot;two hundred thousand&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Baidu 二十万 gets 19.4 million hits, whereas 两十万 gets 6.2 million, so while it looks like 二十万 is more frequently used, it also indicates that 两十万 is indeed valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm curious about how 两十 is incorrect, yet 两十万 (which contains the incorrect 两十) is okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 两十万 okay when it contains 两十 which is incorrect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess it's because 两十万 means &quot;两 of 十万&quot; rather than the incorrect &quot;两十 of 万&quot;; I don't really see why it's parsed this way though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T10:37:48.027" Title="Why is 两十万 (liǎng shí wàn) okay when it contains 两十 (liǎng shí) which is incorrect?" Tags="&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29500" CreationDate="2018-04-18T03:05:38.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say 兩十萬 is wrong. For what it’s worth, my family is from Taiwan and we’ve been out of Taiwan for a couple of decades, so, southern and not very modern colloquial Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As per &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chiculture.net/0615/html/d12/0615d12.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt; , and what may be missing in the old post you referenced, a minor point that bears revisiting is this: the placement of 二、兩 in a numeric value dictates which is used. In front of 十，it should always be 二, whether you’re saying 二十 or 二十萬. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T03:05:38.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29497" CreationDate="2018-04-18T03:13:44.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like that. Must be at the barber's.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;頭髮太長囉。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your hair is very long.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;該剪的要剪一剪了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Trim the bits that need a trim. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;該剪的 = the bits that need a trim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T03:13:44.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29495" CreationDate="2018-04-18T04:49:19.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;施用 = use; apply; implement (usually to a target)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;使用 = use; operate (with or without target)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When someone &quot;施用武力&quot; or &quot;施用毒氣&quot;，  there are always specific targets the action is applied to &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 對示威者施用武力; 對村民施用毒氣 use force against demonstrators; use gas on the villagers (&lt;em&gt;you can replace 施用 with 使用 in these two examples&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When someone &quot;使用工具&quot; or &quot;使用武器&quot; there may or may not be a specific target the action is apply to.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 祇有小數動物會使用工具/武器 Only a few kinds of animal know how to use tools/weapons ( &lt;em&gt;you cannot replace 使用 with 施用 in this example because there is no specific target the action is apply to&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-18T04:59:31.517" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T04:59:31.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29500" CreationDate="2018-04-18T05:11:22.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Numbers that are larger than 100, e.g. 两百, 两千三百六十二. 百, 千, and 万 can be seen as a sort of measure word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the measure word here is 万 rather than 十万. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二十万 is parsed as &quot;twenty wan&quot; rather than &quot;two shiwan&quot;, and for &quot;twenty&quot;, it's always 二十, not 两十.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两十 is just never correct, no matter what position it is in a numeral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T05:11:22.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29500" CreationDate="2018-04-18T05:30:47.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On Baidu 二十万 gets 19.4 million hits, whereas 两十万 gets 6.2 million&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;judging from hits only is, well, not enough. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;想買一兩十萬左右的車&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it should interpret as 想買 (want to buy) 一兩 (a, 兩 is an identifier) 十萬左右 (about $100,000) 的車 (car).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this error would occur in simplifed chinese only, cause in traditional chinese, we use 輛 (u+8f1b) as identifier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1兩十萬杵油煙墨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one should be 1 (one) 兩 (unit of weight) of 十萬杵 (brand name) 油煙墨 (oil smoke ink?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;these two examples shown that 兩 can be identifier or noun. insisting 兩 as &quot;two&quot; only in &quot;兩十萬&quot; is, wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, one need to know the preceding and following text of &quot;兩十萬&quot;, before making judgement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-04-18T06:33:33.470" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T06:33:33.470" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29500" CreationDate="2018-04-18T09:47:29.977" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;「兩」didn't originally mean &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt;. The character was first used for what is now written「輛」, the unit of measure for vehicles, being differentiated from「丙」and composed of two「丙」side-by-side:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wvMDM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wvMDM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mark「一」was a decorative stroke added on top later to produce「兩」(note, a similar process occurred with the character「雨」).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The etymology of &lt;em&gt;liǎng&lt;/em&gt; is ultimately not known, but very early on,「兩」was used as a phonetic loan for several meanings. The relevant ones to the modern language are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Comparing and contrasting, or describing, two objects/people/situations.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《詩・齊風・還》： “並驅從兩肩兮， 揖我謂我儇兮。” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《莊子・人間世》： “吾未至乎事之情， 而既有陰陽之患矣；事若不成， 必有人道之患。 是兩也， 為人臣者不足以任之， 子其有以語我來。” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unit of measurement of weight or objects.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《詩・齊風・南山》： “葛屨五兩， 冠緌雙止。”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《禮記・雜記下》： “納幣一束， 束五兩， 兩五尋。” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From traditional usage,「兩」(1) first of all refers to &lt;em&gt;one or several units of something&lt;/em&gt;, then by extension (2) refers to a comparison or description of &lt;em&gt;several/some/a small number of&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt; units/things. This is not the same usage as the abstract number「二」, and is why you &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; say abstract numbers with「兩」(e.g. when talking about telephone numbers, decimal numbers, etc.), and &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; use「兩」when counting objects which use「兩」as a measure word (e.g. for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tael&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;taels&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is this differential usage which also precludes「兩十」from being a clear expression; 「十」is homophonous with too many other words, unlike「百」,「千」,「萬」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the question directly,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「兩十」also turns up Baidu hits; it is just as valid or invalid as「兩十萬」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some of the Baidu hits are actually using「兩」as「輛」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The other ones may be regional colloquialisms; from a discussion &lt;a href=&quot;https://bbs.hupu.com/14491669.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們老家還眞有，兩個，一十兩，兩十，兩百零兩，都是50歲以上的人，現在已經不怎麽能聽到這種數字了，方言被普通話漸漸消滅了。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, note that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In formal currency numerals, there is only the alternative character「貳」, and none corresponding for「兩」. This is related to「兩」being invalid for use as a number in traditional currency systems.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is exceedingly rare to use「兩」for the meaning &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt; in the Sinoxenic languages (Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese), indicating that using it this way freely is a rather recent colloquial Chinese invention&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-04-18T10:37:48.027" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T10:37:48.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29507" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29515" CreationDate="2018-04-18T12:41:18.057" Score="1" ViewCount="1145" Body="&lt;p&gt;My company uses a service to observe several rooms in our office, and when I downloaded the program to allow me to observe these videos some of the text functions fine and some of the text appears as gibberish. Any idea why this is? What (if anything) can I do to fix this?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/grWAb.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/grWAb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;EZViz Desktop Client&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I live and work in China for a Chinese company. I speak and read Chinese decently well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I can read and type Chinese on my computer just fine.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I run Windows 10.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16787" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T13:58:22.673" Title="Chinese gibberish in a desktop program" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29507" CreationDate="2018-04-18T12:57:45.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usaully it means that your installation of language support is not thorough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T12:57:45.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29497" CreationDate="2018-04-18T21:05:36.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;hair&quot; is omitted on the second sentence. The complete sentence would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;頭髮太長囉。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  該剪的 (&lt;strong&gt;頭髮&lt;/strong&gt;) 要剪一剪了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;該剪的 （頭髮） means &quot;(the hair) that needs trimming&quot; (here &quot;的&quot; works as &quot;that&quot;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;要剪一剪了 &quot;must trim&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 該剪的 (&lt;strong&gt;頭髮&lt;/strong&gt;) 要剪一剪了。 is &quot;(the hair) that needs trimming must be trimmed&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T21:05:36.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29510" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29511" CreationDate="2018-04-19T07:23:47.977" Score="1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the English translation of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapping_the_Table_in_Amazement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Slapping the Table in Amazement&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; there's an interesting phrase that shows up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Preface [1628 Edition]&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the saying goes, “To one who has seen too little of the world, everything is strange.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=9051&amp;amp;remap=gb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ctext&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E5%88%9D%E5%88%BB%E6%8B%8D%E6%A1%88%E9%A9%9A%E5%A5%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikisource&lt;/a&gt; both only start at &amp;quot;chapter&amp;quot; one. There doesn't seem to be a preface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the original Chinese for: &lt;code&gt;“To one who has seen too little of the world, everything is strange.”&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-20T09:17:19.503" Title="What's the original Chinese to “To one who has seen too little of the world, everything is strange.”?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29510" CreationDate="2018-04-19T07:23:47.977" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zggdwx.com/chuke/0.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中国古典文学&lt;/a&gt; has the preface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the first paragraph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;初刻拍案惊奇&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凌濛初&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;序&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;语有之：“少所见，多所怪。”今之人，但知耳目之外，牛鬼蛇神之为奇，而不知耳目之内，日用起居，其为谲诡幻怪非可以常理测者固多也。昔华人至异域，异域咤以牛粪金；随诘华之异者，则曰：“有虫蠕蠕，而吐为彩缯锦绮，衣被天下。”彼舌挢而不信，乃华人未之或奇也。则所谓必向耳目之外索谲诡幻怪以为奇，赘矣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation of &lt;code&gt;“To one who has seen too little of the world, everything is strange.”&lt;/code&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少所见，多所怪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also an entry for this in &lt;strong&gt;ABC Proverbs&lt;/strong&gt; which says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lit [Things (which are)] seldom seen [are felt to be] strange.&#xA;Note Cf. the preface to Chū Kè Pāi'àn Jīngqì; now more commonly said shǎo jiàn, duō guài; see also the preceding entry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the definition mentions the more, modern, common variant of this phrase is 少见多怪 which &lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt; defines as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The less one has seen, the more one marvels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC Proverbs&lt;/strong&gt; also contains the old phrase with an added sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少所见多见怪，睹橐驼谓马肿背。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lit [One who has] seen little regards many things as strange; [(s)he] sees a camel [and] calls [it a] horse with a hunchback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T07:23:47.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28762" CreationDate="2018-04-19T13:05:40.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is 嘉馬電腦 a normal-sounding brand name to Chinese-speakers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, while I do not know this brand, it sounds like the kind of names a native would have made. You want your computer to run fast, like an auspicious horse, presumably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this a reasonable translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, because it would be difficult to make out what is the original Chinese. For proper nouns, it is probably best to use a romanization (e.g. pinyin) along with original characters in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate it to &quot;Jia Ma Computer (嘉馬電腦)&quot;, or if the meaning is important, &quot;嘉馬電腦 (lit. The Auspicious Horse Computer)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5795" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T13:05:40.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28244" CreationDate="2018-04-19T13:23:10.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there is an accurate, brief characterisation of the language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering it had developed over such a long period of time, it would be a trade-off between these two. The shortest, yet acceptable answer I can give is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Written Chinese characters started with both pictorial and ideographic ones, but has grown more complex over history: Sometimes two characters that had the same sound would get confused and become the same character. Sometimes new characters are made combining the sound from one and meaning of another. Loanwords from sounds also exist throughout history. But the sounds also changed throughout history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5795" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T13:23:10.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29115" CreationDate="2018-04-19T13:41:19.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does it have a derogative connotation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, as a native, I'm pretty sure it is perfectly fine to use such an expression. My best guess as to why you've &quot;earned laughter&quot; is that there is something in the context that we're missing. If it is convenient to share the context, I might be able to help you understand the reason better. &lt;strong&gt;Contexts can make them derogative&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it better to use 女的/男的 or 女生/男生?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They all have their best situations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;女的/男的 are adjectives, and when you're using them to mean &quot;a man/a&#xA;woman&quot; you are abbreviating (&quot;a male person&quot; -&gt; &quot;a male&quot;), hence it&#xA;appears only in casual conversations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;女生/男生 means specifically young ones, since they originally means male and female students.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;男人/女人 refers to grown-ups, and are usable in casual and formal conversations. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there regional differences in the usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absolutely, remember Chinese is a group of languages -- there are &lt;strong&gt;other words&lt;/strong&gt; to express the same meaning as well. However, it is out of my knowledge to give a comprehensive overview on how they are used. Edits are welcome, blink blink.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5795" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T13:41:19.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29507" CreationDate="2018-04-19T13:58:22.673" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Any idea why this is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojibake&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mojibake&lt;/a&gt;, or in Chinese, Luan Ma (乱码). This is most likely due to language code mismatch -- Each character in the computer is represented by a number, and your computer doesn't agree which number represent which Chinese character with the program. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, the Chinese program is probably in GB, while it is being opened as Unicode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What (if anything) can I do to fix this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it is an open question to identify language codes reliably in general, since we know it is GB, there are several options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To do it for all programs, search &quot;region&quot; in control panel. Go to &quot;Administrative - Language for non-Unicode programs&quot; and change it to the Chinese region you're in.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the problem persists (which means Windows failed to detect the program is not in Unicode), or you prefer to set language program-by-program (because this happens to many Japanese programs as well, hence the name Mojibake), you can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://pooi.moe/Locale-Emulator/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Locale Emulator&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5795" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T13:58:22.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29047" CreationDate="2018-04-20T02:03:39.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do not use google translate to translate a single word.  The translation can be adjusted by users of that service (and make some translation wrong intentionally).  And I have seen many examples of wrong (and funny) translation made using Google translate service on Chinese social media.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of bad translation can be &quot;物极必反&quot; to &quot;Extremely polar&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/%E7%89%A9%E6%9E%81%E5%BF%85%E5%8F%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; (link to google translate)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-04-20T02:03:39.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29510" CreationDate="2018-04-20T09:17:19.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you answer your own questions, we have nothing to do! I'll go get in the soup kitchen queue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiexingcun.net/3y2p/04/mydoc001.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.xiexingcun.net/3y2p/04/mydoc001.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;语有之：“少所见，多所怪。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese is definitely more succinct!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-20T09:17:19.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29518" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29544" CreationDate="2018-04-20T15:41:41.423" Score="0" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;Came across this comment on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://movie.douban.com/subject/26640371/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;douban page for &lt;em&gt;Isle of Dogs&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;掉线 看过 2018-04-16&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【B】①日风和韦斯安德森太搭了，方方正正的建筑配上方方正正的镜头，带出强烈的仪式感。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E6%90%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; gives the definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 to put up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 to build (scaffolding)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 to hang (clothes on a pole)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 to connect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 to join&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6 to arrange in pairs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7 to match&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8 to add&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9 to throw in (resources)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10 to take (boat, train)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11 variant of dā [褡]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't, accurately, figure out what 搭 means here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it's dialect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Too fitting? Too suitable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T04:06:57.230" Title="What does 太搭了 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29518" CreationDate="2018-04-20T19:14:09.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;①日风和韦斯安德森太搭了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a name, I do not know whose name but  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;搭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for sure means to match here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19525" LastActivityDate="2018-04-20T19:14:09.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29518" CreationDate="2018-04-20T23:54:07.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's a dialect. It's pretty common actually. For example, 这件衣服和你的裤子很搭. Some would use 配， 这件衣服和你的裤子很配。but if you say 你和她很配，it connotes romantic relationship. If you tend to avoid the romantic, you should say 你和她很搭. 搭 means one thing/person can work well with another. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-20T23:54:07.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29523" CreationDate="2018-04-21T09:26:24.180" Score="0" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Pleco:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;zháo zhòng: emphasize; attach importance (v) / emphasis (n)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;zhuó zhòng: stress; emphasize (v)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both use 着重 as its characters. The first one lists a noun as well as a verb as its usage but the second one only lists a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to 网易有道词典, it only lists the latter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, if the pronunciation is different, the meaning is differen as well. For example, &lt;code&gt;zháo&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;em&gt;touch&lt;/em&gt; while &lt;code&gt;zhe&lt;/code&gt; works as a particle, even though both are written as 着.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in this case the meaning looks the same. So why do two forms exist and which one I should use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-04-21T23:43:01.600" Title="What is the pronunciation of 着重?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29522" CreationDate="2018-04-21T14:24:33.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; I was born in H.K, I would accept the Hong Kong's standard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/zhuó zhòng/ is the standard reading of 着重&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a 著 , 着.discussion on this subject here &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,139780&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,139780&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;著 in 衣&lt;strong&gt;著&lt;/strong&gt; is pronounced /yī &lt;strong&gt;zhuó&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;著 is used in place of 着 in Taiwan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着= /zháo/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着重 = /&lt;strong&gt;zhuó&lt;/strong&gt; zhòng/ (in this compound , 着 is read the same as 著 in 衣著)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;著&lt;/strong&gt;重 = /&lt;strong&gt;zhuó&lt;/strong&gt; zhòng/ (only in Taiwan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The editor at Pleco might had considered 着 and 著 the same character in this compound (accepted both Taiwan and mainland China's standard),  and listed both single character's pinyin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-21T23:43:01.600" LastActivityDate="2018-04-21T23:43:01.600" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29525" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29526" CreationDate="2018-04-21T23:48:32.310" Score="0" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to translate the menu from one of the cafeterias on campus to help international students.  I'm stuck on this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cmt8d.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cmt8d.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;黄金鸡柳咖喱饭&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;黄金鸡柳咖喱饭&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  huángjīn jīliǔ gālí fàn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming I've transcribed it correctly, it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%BB%84%E9%87%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;黄金&lt;/a&gt; (huángjīn) = gold&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%B8%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鸡&lt;/a&gt; (jī) = chicken (used as an abbreviation for the meat 鸡肉)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;柳&lt;/a&gt; (liǔ) = willow (translation at &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E6%9F%B3/#keyfrom=dict2.index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%92%96%E5%96%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;咖喱&lt;/a&gt; (gālí) = curry&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%A5%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;饭&lt;/a&gt; (fàn) = rice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I literally translate it to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;gold chicken willow curry with rice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think this is great.  Two things make no sense to me: (a) &quot;gold&quot; and (b) &quot;willow&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I translate 黄金鸡柳咖喱饭?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit&lt;/em&gt;: I ordered this dish.  Here's a photo of it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BbGpmm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BbGpmm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;黄金鸡柳咖喱饭&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Chinese friend said that the chicken rings in the back are not really 鸡柳.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2018-04-23T07:13:39.437" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T07:13:39.437" Title="How do I translate 黄金鸡柳咖喱饭 (huángjīn jīliǔ gālí fàn), which means something like &quot;gold chicken willow curry with rice&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29525" CreationDate="2018-04-22T00:59:28.947" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;黄金 (huáng jīn) = golden (refers to the color)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鸡柳  (jī liǔ) = chicken fillet (柳 could mean finger size pieces or a steak of chicken, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;牛柳 ='beef fillet'&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咖喱 (gālí) = curry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饭 (fàn) = rice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;黄金 鸡柳 咖喱饭 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;golden chicken fillet on curry rice&quot; (if the golden color refer to the fried or baked chicken) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;golden curry with chicken fillet on rice&quot; (if the golden color refer to the curry)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to see the picture of the dish to decide which it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Since there are  different color of curry , e.g. yellow curry and green curry, 'golden curry' is just another word for &quot;黄咖喱&quot; (yellow curry)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;To make golden brown colored chicken, the chicken has to be fried/ baked with skin on or breaded)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-22T03:40:51.353" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T03:40:51.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29527" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-22T03:31:45.777" Score="1" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;From what I know&lt;/strong&gt; (correction would be appreciated), '又什么...' is often used in rhetorical questions, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;又什么麻烦 : what's troublesome about... (it's not troublesome)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;又什么不满意 : What's there to feel unsatisfied about (there's nothing to feel unsatisfied about)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then what about  '又没什么...'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the '没' word make it have the opposite meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T06:18:52.110" Title="Understanding the structure, '又什么...' and '又没什么...'" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27127" CreationDate="2018-04-22T03:38:11.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;高举 ~ 旗帜&quot; = &quot;raise the flag or banner of ~ high&quot;, And we all can agree on it is a metaphor for ' to display one's stand'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question seems to be about why 旗帜 is translated as banner but not flag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is simple -- '旗帜' is a general term for 'flag and banner'. It is not wrong to translate it as 'flag' or 'banner' as long as it refers to 'a decent sized clothes with a handle for stationary or hand held display '&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar examples I had used many times:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'刀劍' is a general term for 'weapon' (knife and sword are the representatives of all weapon)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'牛羊' is a general term for 'farm cattle' (cow and goat are the representatives of all cattle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'旗' and '帜' in ancient time might had separate distinct definitions, but they preformed similar functions notheless. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term '旗帜' represents all flag and banner that are for display. (&lt;em&gt;different from functional flags like the one judo match judges or airport ground crew would hold&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, 'flag' or 'banner' are both correct translation of '旗帜'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-23T03:08:10.903" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T03:08:10.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29527" CreationDate="2018-04-22T05:35:00.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As it stands, it's most likely a mistype (misconversion by IME) of &quot;有什么麻烦&quot; and &quot;有什么不满意&quot;. When used in proper context and tone, they can be meant to be rhetorical questions, otherwise, they are merely questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you believe this is not a mistype, specifying &lt;strong&gt;which dialect&lt;/strong&gt; (or where in China you seen these being used) we're talking about would be greatly helpful. I am born and raised in Beijing, in case you're wondering whether I'm capable to make such a judgment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5795" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T05:35:00.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29527" CreationDate="2018-04-22T05:39:03.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;又什么麻烦/ is a wrong expression. The correct one is &lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;什么麻烦, which could be either a rhetorical or a generic question. The normal expression is 又有什么... and in some cases  有 can be omitted, but you should be careful. In your example, 又有什么不满意 and 又有什么麻烦， 有 should not be omitted. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, in 又没(有)什么麻烦, 又 is more like the English word &lt;strong&gt;anyway&lt;/strong&gt; in my opinion. So, 又没(有)什么麻烦 could be interpreted as &lt;em&gt;there isn't any trouble, anyways.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare 又没有什么麻烦 and 又有什么麻烦. The latter is a rhetorical device as you said. The former is a normal negative sentence.  Both denote the same underlying meaning, but with a bit different tones, which are the same as the correspondent English sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting phrase I also want to add here is &lt;em&gt;又什么事&lt;/em&gt;，which is short for 又有什么事. In this context, 有 can be omitted. So, I suggest you add 有 all the time unless you know for sure it's right to drop it in your context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-04-22T06:18:52.110" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T06:18:52.110" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29531" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-22T13:35:39.703" Score="1" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dOXRZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dOXRZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;https://www.qiushibaike.com/article/120290221&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above is an exchange taken from qiushibaike.com. As far as I can understand, it goes like this (trying to keep translation literal for example's sake):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Son: Mom, our teacher's a liar!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mom: Why would you say that your teacher's a liar, did he cheat you or what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Son: I asked the teacher a question and he actually said that he doesn't &#xA;  know! How can he know if I do it correctly or not if he doesn't know it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mom: Well, son, when did you ask him that question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Son: ...During the test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the problematic sentence is this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;妈妈： 那儿子你是在什么时候问老师问题的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My gripes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I would have said it: 『那儿子你什么时候问老师问题？』. Would that be correct? (do I need 在 before 什么时候 in there?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The sentence has 是 in it, which normally takes a noun phrase afterwards. Furthermore, to my knowledge, the possessive marker 的 is tacked at the end of a noun phrase. Is there a noun phrase in there, then? Is it 在什么时候问老师问题的？ If so, could you help me break down the sentence to understand its structure?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;If the sentence in (1) is correct, is the 在 in 在什么时候 always optional, or is it necessitated by the structure of the original sentence?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12122" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T03:02:29.990" Title="Curious structure with 的 in conversation" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29532" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29547" CreationDate="2018-04-22T13:48:24.837" Score="1" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;奏月家从爷爷那一辈就开始做豆腐，奏月的父亲不能理解，女儿读完大学，为啥&lt;strong&gt;要回过头来走老一辈的路&lt;/strong&gt;，干这种苦差事呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the sentence would mean something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;奏月's family started the tofu business from grandfather's age. 奏月's father cannot understand why his daughter want to follow what her grandfather did, even if she had a bachelor degree. It's not a good job. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't understand how it works grammatically on the bolded part. Specifically,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;要: auxiliary verb, to mean &quot;will&quot; or &quot;going to&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;回过头来走: should be verb&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;老一辈的路: the path of her grandfather&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, about the verb phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If 回 is a verb and 过 is a past particle, what does 头来走, specifically 头 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If 过 is a part of 过头 (&lt;em&gt;go beyond the limit&lt;/em&gt;), what does 来走 mean here? Is it a particle? So 回 (come) and 过头 (go beyond the limit) and 来走 combined, it is something like the &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; + &lt;em&gt;come&lt;/em&gt; + &lt;em&gt;to go beyond the limit&lt;/em&gt; + &lt;em&gt;to take the path of (来走)&lt;/em&gt;, right? Or does 来 work as &lt;em&gt;to~&lt;/em&gt; (in the form of V + 来 + V), and not a particle?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also, if 过头 is a verb here, what does the sentence mean at all? I feel &lt;em&gt;go beyond the limit&lt;/em&gt; is quite an awkward here...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T08:54:57.287" Title="What is the verb of 要回过头来走老一辈的路?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29532" CreationDate="2018-04-22T14:04:33.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;回过头来走&quot; should be interpreted as 回(过)头 - 来 - 走. Then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;回头 - turn round&#xA;来 - to&#xA;走 - go/follow&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/xs/8FC7.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;过&lt;/a&gt; is used for denoting the completeness status.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用在动词后,表示完毕。如:吃过(吃完);起过(已经起床完毕)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your understanding of the whole sentence is correct; but you lost the meaning of &quot;回过头来&quot; (turn round backward). 奏月's father is confusing; his daughter has graduated from college and could engage in some modern, advanced or easy job definitely. But she still decided to take tofu making as the work, even it's old, and hard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-04-22T14:24:07.433" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T14:24:07.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29537" CreationDate="2018-04-22T16:18:21.457" Score="2" ViewCount="615" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;郭先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guō xiānsheng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mr. Guo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(slang) dildo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is this correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from an &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.almaany.com/en/dict/en-zh/%E9%83%AD%E5%85%88%E7%94%9F/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Almaany&lt;/a&gt; dictionary entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation and Meaning of 郭先生 in Almaany English-Chinese Dictionary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dildo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;郭先生 ( 女子手淫用的人造男性生殖器 ), 振动器 , ( 为性欢愉的 ) 人造阳具&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not really finding any corroborating evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And, if 郭先生 really does mean &lt;code&gt;dildo&lt;/code&gt; how did it get it's name?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T20:50:56.253" Title="Where -and- how does 郭先生 mean dildo?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29535" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-22T17:32:04.197" Score="3" ViewCount="2323" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does &quot;你呢！&quot; mean? Can it be used as &quot;You too&quot;, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Person A: 周末愉快！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Person B: 你呢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate says that &quot;你呢！&quot; means You too, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.pinpinchinese.com/definitions/s/%E4%BD%A0%E5%91%A2-nine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this dictionary&lt;/a&gt; doesn't. My current guess is that it probably is appropriate, but is relatively informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19534" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-07T00:53:25.120" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T00:53:25.120" Title="A: 周末愉快！ B: 你呢！ What does 你呢！mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29534" CreationDate="2018-04-22T18:42:51.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Never heard of 郭先生, But it is obviously a transliteration (more like 'sound-alike') of &quot;Mr. Cock&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Cock'(male chick- 公雞) is a nickname for 'penis' in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Coincidentally, '雞巴' is also a nickname for penis in Chinese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-22T18:50:03.193" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T18:50:03.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29534" CreationDate="2018-04-22T20:43:11.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I could find,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「郭先生」is a Southern Chinese topolect word for「角先生」; I suppose that's believable as「郭」and「角」sound more similar in Southern topolects than northern ones (and they appear to be identically pronounced in Hakka). This makes「郭」a euphemism for「角」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Folk etymology has「角」relating to &lt;em&gt;dildo&lt;/em&gt; due to either&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dildos being originally made of animal horns, hence「角」;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dildos being literally called &lt;em&gt;ramming devices&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;觸器&lt;/strong&gt;), and character explanations for「觸」are something like &lt;strong&gt;从角&lt;/strong&gt;蜀聲.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「郭」sounding like &lt;em&gt;cock&lt;/em&gt; is probably a coincidence. Although the expression「角先生」seems to have arisen (or become more widespread) during the latter half of the Qing dynasty and according to dictionaries English was using &lt;em&gt;cock&lt;/em&gt; as a slang for &lt;em&gt;penis&lt;/em&gt; by that time, dildos existed for centuries before that, and it is unlikely that a word for &lt;em&gt;dildo&lt;/em&gt; would come from British slang but wasn't first introduced by the British.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%A7%92%E5%85%88%E7%94%9F/3038625&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Baidu article; &lt;strong&gt;CAUTION: NSFW, has a picture of a dildo on the top&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (all other sites trying to describe this seem to use the same explanations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-04-22T20:50:56.253" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T20:50:56.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29538" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29541" CreationDate="2018-04-22T20:50:29.093" Score="2" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an exercise, I’m attempting to translate Chinese subtitles to English, but stumped on this dialogue, that’s available online at &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/iwbiyfBXkc0?t=16m16s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/iwbiyfBXkc0?t=16m16s&lt;/a&gt; [my translation in brackets]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Female worker praising the work of a policeman:&#xA;人家可是天天賣命 [They sacrifice themselves everyday]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Male colleague replies:&#xA;照你的意思 [As you wish/According to your meaning/?? ]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Then (Spoken in Taiwanese Hokkien)&#xA;你不就去煞到他的頂八卦 [You’re not attracted to him?]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;She responds with a smack to his head and:&#xA;你胡說什麼少囉嗦 [What nonsense are you talking? Stop going on!]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation for statement 3 resulted from the explanation in the last paragraph of the article at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.xuite.net/rich_mtw/twblog/127173654-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blog.xuite.net/rich_mtw/twblog/127173654-&lt;/a&gt;『煞到頂八卦』&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This explanation seems plausible, given her response. But I cannot translate statement 2 in any way that makes sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Looking for a translation that makes sense in this context, so an answer that explains why a particular translation makes sense in this context would be more helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19535" LastEditorDisplayName="user19535" LastEditDate="2018-04-23T12:07:05.157" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T12:07:05.157" Title="What does 照你的意思 mean in this dialogue?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29532" CreationDate="2018-04-22T22:36:42.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;奏月家从爷爷那一辈就开始做豆腐，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The Zou family have been in the tofu business since their grandfather's time,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;奏月的父亲不能理解，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but Zou Yue's father cannot understand why,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女儿读完大学，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;after his daughter graduated from university,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;为啥要回过头来走老一辈的路，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;she wanted to come back to this old way of life,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;干这种苦差事呢？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;to do this kind of hard work.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为啥要回过头来走老一辈的路&lt;br&gt;&#xA;why want turn back to walk this old way of life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苦 hard&lt;br&gt;&#xA;差事 job&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T22:36:42.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29538" CreationDate="2018-04-22T22:57:27.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;人家可是天天賣命。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You (policemen) make sacrifices every day.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;照你的意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You said it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你不就去煞到他的頂八卦 (Very odd Chinese, are you sure that's what they said?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(Maybe this:) 不要告诉我，你爱上他了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Don't tell me that you are in love with him?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你胡說什麼少囉嗦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What nonsense, shut up!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T22:57:27.613" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29538" CreationDate="2018-04-22T23:17:43.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;意思 could mean: meaning; ; intention; idea; thinking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;照你的意思&quot; in this context means &quot;According to your idea /thinking&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(意思 synonym 想法)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-22T23:23:49.280" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T23:23:49.280" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29538" CreationDate="2018-04-23T02:06:30.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This means &quot;as what you said&quot;, &quot;according to what you said&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11753" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T02:06:30.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29531" CreationDate="2018-04-23T03:02:29.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The link you attached has well explained 是....的 structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, 是......的 structure connotes &lt;em&gt;past tense&lt;/em&gt; when used in the interrogative sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say 你什么时候去？ vs 你是什么时候去的: the former means when will you go? The latter means when did you go? or when have you been (there)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A side note: sometimes 是 can be omitted in colloquial contexts. For example,  你什么时候去的， which is the same as 你是什么时候去的. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could make it more clear to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T03:02:29.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29518" CreationDate="2018-04-23T04:06:57.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;日风和韦斯安德森太&lt;em&gt;搭&lt;/em&gt;了，方方正正的建筑&lt;em&gt;配&lt;/em&gt;上方方正正的镜头，带出强烈的仪式感&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A搭B，A配B，I gonna say, “搭”=&quot;配&quot;，short for “搭配”, means 'match, fitting, suitable'.&#xA;Of course, it is not a dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“太搭了”，means “perfect matching, amazing suitable”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19536" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T04:06:57.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29545" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29548" CreationDate="2018-04-23T04:14:12.003" Score="1" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;A while back, when I first started learning Chinese, I chose my Chinese name to be 谦恭. I chose this because 谦恭 is a loose direct translation of the meaning of my name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, a few years later, I found out that 谦恭 cannot be used as a name as it is improper. I did not worry about it so much then, but now I am going to be studying abroad in China in the Fall. So I would like to know if there are any names in China that start with 谦. I am really attached to 谦恭 because I have had it as my name for so long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My actual legal name has no phonetic similarities with 谦恭 either. Just so you know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16402" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T13:48:42.730" Title="Do any names start with 谦？" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29545" CreationDate="2018-04-23T05:31:12.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;恭&amp;quot; is rarely used in first name for Chinese people because it sounds like 公 which is an honorific&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest &lt;strong&gt;谦遜&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a common sounding first name. If you treat 谦 as a family name, 遜 is also a good matching given name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/3442/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;遜&lt;/a&gt; : modest; unassuming; humble&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/3279/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;谦&lt;/a&gt;: modest; humble; unassuming&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%99%B8%E9%81%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;陸遜&lt;/a&gt; is one of the famous people in Chinese history who named 遜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T05:48:15.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29532" CreationDate="2018-04-23T08:54:57.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;女儿读完大学，为啥要回过头来走老一辈的路，干这种苦差事呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how it breaks down: (added spaces)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为啥 要 回过头来 走老一辈的路&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为啥 means 为什么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要 here means “to want&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回过头来 - here, the verb is 回, the object is 头 and the complement of direction is 过来. When complements of direction are used with objects, the object goes in the middle, so we get 回过头来. Or you could just learn this as a set four character phrase (see here for more examples: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%9B%9E%E8%BF%87%E5%A4%B4%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=回过头来&lt;/a&gt;）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走老一辈的路 is just 走路 with some extra information added about which 路 the subject is 走ing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the overall translation is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Zou Yue's father can't understand why his daughter, having finished&#xA;  university, would want to go back and follow the same path as as the&#xA;  older generation and do this kind of hard and unrewarding work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T08:54:57.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29545" CreationDate="2018-04-23T13:48:42.730" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an alternative point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;谦恭&lt;/strong&gt; is an okay Chinese name, albeit &amp;quot;uncommon.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you check out this article on &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhummzyking.bokee.com/504490757.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhummzyking的博客&lt;/a&gt; it talks about &lt;strong&gt;谦&lt;/strong&gt; as a surname.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under part two origins the article explains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二.姓氏渊源：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第一个渊源：源于礼法，出自春秋时期君子之道，属于以儒家礼法为氏。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谦，是春秋时期儒家学派所提倡的礼法，提倡恭谦退让为尚，有心谦和面谦之分，儒家强调以君子之风，面对同等地位之人，应在内心上恭顺谨慎、文良逊让，以显尊敬，其在史籍《史记·乐书》中就有记载：“君子以谦退为礼。”当然，如若社会地位不对等者，儒家就不讲求什么“谦”了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春秋后期，有一些人以君子自诩，遂改以礼法为姓氏，即称谦氏，后有不少人改回原姓氏，但仍有坚持为谦氏者，世代相传至今，其姓源繁复，不可一论。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then it talks about a fairly well known monk by the name of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谦开善.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The page also mentions a second origin but I won't paste that here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;谦 is not a common surname, but it is &lt;em&gt;indeed&lt;/em&gt; a last name.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about 恭 then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is where the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/cbdb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;China Biographical Database (CBDB)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; comes in handy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://db1.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/cbdbc/cbdbkmeng?@@477955693&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;search for names with 恭&lt;/a&gt; in them provides many names, alternative names and courtesy names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Names like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://db1.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/cbdbc/cbdbkmeng?@205%5E211354709%5E107%5E%5E%5E2%5E1@@1239568090&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;陳彥恭&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://db1.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/cbdbc/cbdbkmeng?@205%5E211354709%5E107%5E%5E%5E3%5E1@@1699058815&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;程嗣恭&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://db1.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/cbdbc/cbdbkmeng?@205%5E211354709%5E107%5E%5E%5E12%5E1@@1788034878&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孫恭&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Multiple people have the posthumous name:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文恭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;including 王珪 and 王綯.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you go through CBDB's name list the number of 恭's is immense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;恭 is a legit name.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might see some complaints about your name, but Chinese names are diverse and varied and after all you have evidence to back you up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T13:48:42.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29549" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29550" CreationDate="2018-04-23T15:36:47.387" Score="1" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;Beginning of an article on qiushibaike.com:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是一件发生在楼主身上的糗事，事情是这样的: ... (the story is explained)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My initial semi-literal translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This embarrassing story happened to the OP (original poster) themselves. It was like this: ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after reading into the first part more, I noticed the 是, which led me to think that it's one long noun phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would break it down like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这。。。是。。。一件发生在楼主身上的。。。糗事。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breaking down the noun modifying phrase further:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一件。。。发生在楼主身上。。。的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And further yet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;发生。。。在楼主身上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where 在楼主身上 is a location complement of 发生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, a second attempt at literal translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is an embarrassing story that happened to the original poster. It was like this: ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the second translation more accurate? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Does 发生 really take location complements?&lt;/strong&gt; I only know of phrases like 发生了事故, where there is no location complement.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the following reasoning correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;在我公司发生了事故 is ambiguous as it can mean either &quot;an accident has happened at my company&quot; or &quot;an accident that has happened at my company&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The ambiguity is there because of a lack of a classifier 一件 or possessive particle 的.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Clarity can be achieved by adding them, like so:&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;在我公司发生了一件事故 - an accident has happened at my company&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;一件在我公司发生了的事故 - an accident that has happened at my company&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;的 in the second sentence is optional.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If (2) is true, can I move 在我公司 after 发生了 in (3) without changing the meaning?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12122" LastEditorUserId="12122" LastEditDate="2018-04-23T15:53:38.963" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T23:23:52.193" Title="Whom did this happen to? 发生 and friends in sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29549" CreationDate="2018-04-23T17:41:28.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is the second translation more accurate?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Does 发生 really take location complements? I only know of phrases like 发生了事故, where there is no location complement.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entire phrase: '发生在...的' is an adjectival phrase for the noun '事故'. '在' is the location complement. '的' is the &lt;strong&gt;adjectival suffix&lt;/strong&gt;. (not possessive particle in this context)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(发生 is a verb, so it does take location complement 在)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is the following reasoning correct?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;在我公司发生了事故 is ambiguous as it can mean either &amp;quot;an accident has happened at my company&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;an accident that has happened at my company&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can only mean &amp;quot;an accident has happened at my company&amp;quot;; to mean &amp;quot;an accident &lt;strong&gt;that has&lt;/strong&gt; happened at my company&amp;quot; you need to write &amp;quot;在我公司发生的事故&amp;quot; (了 is optional)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The ambiguity is there because of a lack of a classifier 一件 or possessive particle 的.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no ambiguity, without adjectival suffix 的, &amp;quot;在我公司发生了事故&amp;quot; can only mean &amp;quot;an accident has happened at my company&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Clarity can be achieved by adding them, like so&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;在我公司发生了一件事故 - an accident has happened at my company&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;一件在我公司发生了的事故 - an accident that has happened at my company&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;的 in the second sentence is optional.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second sentence, '的' cannot be omitted: only '了' is optional&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If (2) is true, can I move 在我公司 after 发生了 in (3) without changing the meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can. The following are both correct as long as the adjectival suffix 的 is present at the end to indicate '[在我公司][发生]'or '[发生][在我公司]' is an adjectival phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一件在我公司发生的事故 = 一件发生在我公司的事故&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T17:41:28.827" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29549" CreationDate="2018-04-23T23:23:52.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know for sure without more context, but I tend to think 楼主 is 'me' and 在楼主身上 is therefore 'to me'. The person is talking about him- or herself in the third person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是一件发生在楼主身上的糗事，事情是这样的:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is a funny story which happened to me, it was like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese says:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一件糗事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一件发生在楼主身上的糗事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a happen to me 的 funny story&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一件发生在楼主身上的糗事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a happen (on my body on) 的  funny story  (on my body on = to me) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese says: this is a '(which) happen to me' 的 funny story &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you consider 'to me' a location, then you could call '在楼主身上' a locative complement. The point is, an event happened, not 'me/I happened'. In Western grammar that is called an indirect object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas in English we build an adjectival phrase as a relative clause and place it after the noun ‘story which happened to me’, Chinese does not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'在我公司发生了事故' is not really ambiguous, just incomplete. What exactly do you want to say?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天在我(的)公司发生了一件事故。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天警察来调查一件在我(的)公司里发生的事故。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T23:23:52.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29552" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-24T02:46:33.420" Score="2" ViewCount="495" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember that my dad used this occasionally when he was arguing with my mom.  Google translate just returns smelly rock, but I know it's gotta be some sort of slang, as whenever my dad said it, my mom would get really upset.  Point of note: my dad's from southern China, and my mom's from Shanghai, so it might be some sort of region specific slang.  I've already tried Wikipedia with Mandarin Profanity and languagerealm.com.  Unfortunately, I can't read Chinese, otherwise I'd look on Baidu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit to clarify my question in response to comments:&#xA;The pinyin is chòu shítou.  臭石头 could be homophomic with another character, though I remember that Mom always would say (in English) that he was calling her a stinky rock; she also said that he would call her things in Chinese that he wouldn't dare say in English, cuz then my brother and I would understand (hence why I think it was some sort of profanity).  He would say something along the lines of &quot;你是一个臭石头&quot;.  Google translate returns smelly rock, and while it's definitely wrong, another thing that's smelly and hard is feces, so he could've been calling her feces/shit, though if that's the case, he could've just stuck with the other profanity he was using (some of which I did find in the Mandarin profanity of Wikipedia).  Of note, I could also be a little biased now cuz I'm a lot more used to profanity than I was as a high schooler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it is possible that it was 臭屎头 (smelly feces head?), but I'm pretty certain that it was 臭石头.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19542" LastEditorUserId="19542" LastEditDate="2018-04-24T08:22:28.283" LastActivityDate="2020-05-21T14:10:17.003" Title="What is the meaning of 臭石头 (slang)?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29486" CreationDate="2018-04-24T06:28:53.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;转行 is also acceptable in Mandarin. Here's a dictionary entry indicating that it's an alternative to 改行:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◎ 转行 zhuǎnháng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[change one’s profession] 改行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/c/18/38682.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/c/c/18/38682.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you search for 转行 you will also find many non-Cantonese-specific results, like this: &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%BD%AC%E8%A1%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%BD%AC%E8%A1%8C&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T06:28:53.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29554" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-24T06:35:13.783" Score="4" ViewCount="424" Body="&lt;p&gt;Originally posted at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?4,130404&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?4,130404&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;由細到大，自己同身邊嘅人都將「劉備」個「備」字讀成與(比)字同音&#xA;  而「曹操」個「操」字就讀成與(粗)字同音&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但最近睇港版，『三國 』(2013)&#xA;  「劉備」個「備」字讀成「預備」個「備」&#xA;  而「曹操」個「操」字就讀成「情操」個「操」即係與(噪)字同音。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;可能【三國演義】讀者群廣大，而農工人仕佔總人口之中嘅大部分，佢地一見個「操」字就唸起「步操」，「操作」等較常見嘅詞句，文縐縐嘅名詞句如「情操」同「操守」就唔會立即聯想到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked this question because 「&lt;strong&gt;操&lt;/strong&gt;」 in 「情&lt;strong&gt;操&lt;/strong&gt;」/ cing4 &lt;strong&gt;cho3&lt;/strong&gt;/ and 「步&lt;strong&gt;操&lt;/strong&gt;」/bou6 &lt;strong&gt;cho1&lt;/strong&gt;/ are pronounced differently in Cantonese. However, when I check 「操」  in Mandarin, there is only one reading /cao1/ for 「操」,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did Mainland Chinese merge the two different readings of 「操」 in Mandarin or the two different readings of 操 were from ancient Chinese and only Cantonese inherited the practice? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2020-07-12T22:51:19.257" Title="Is the pinyin of 「操」in「情操」and「步操」the same in Mandarin？" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29555" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-24T09:45:58.673" Score="3" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Epenthesis&lt;/strong&gt; is a process that inserts a syllabic or non-syllabic segment within an existing string of segments. For example, it is common in casual speech for English speakers to insert a (p) in between [m] and [θ] when pronouncing &quot;warmth&quot; /morm(p)θ/. I am wondering if Mandarin has epenthetic sounds as well, and hopefully someone can give me some examples and reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19336" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T10:58:54.947" Title="Examples of Epenthesis in Chinese" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29556" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29557" CreationDate="2018-04-24T10:15:50.273" Score="3" ViewCount="1537" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning Chinese with the Memrize App and noticed that often, to say something like &quot;You are x&quot;, you will actually say &quot;nǐ hěn x&quot; instead of &quot;nǐ shì x&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example as translated by Google: &quot;Nǐ hěn máng&quot; means &quot;You are busy&quot;. This confuse me because an example from the app would be &quot;Tā juéde tā hěn piàoliang&quot; meaning &quot;He thinks she is very pretty&quot;. Here, &quot;hěn&quot; is obviously used to reinforce &quot;piàoliang&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why isn't &quot;Ni shi...&quot; used to say &quot;You are...&quot;? Or is it used like that but &#xA;I just haven't come across it yet?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;You are very busy&quot;. Do I have to use another reinforcing word such as &quot;tai&quot;(I know that &quot;tai&quot; doesn't quite fit, but I haven't learn too many words yet ^.^)?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19546" LastEditorDisplayName="user19549" LastEditDate="2018-04-27T10:02:12.877" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T17:44:31.297" Title="Confusion about the usage of hěn" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29556" CreationDate="2018-04-24T10:27:17.263" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually a noun will be used after 是 shì.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an adjective, such as 漂亮 piàoliang or 忙 máng follows behind it instead, it would sound strange. 很 hěn can take the place of 是 shì in this case and will make you sound idiomatic... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是美女 (&amp;quot;ni shi mei nv&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can't say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是漂亮 (&amp;quot;ni shi piaoliang&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like your name is Piaoliang.&#xA;Instead, you should say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你很漂亮 (&amp;quot;ni hen piaoliang&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese culture, praising others is a sign of politeness, so it's common to say 很 &amp;quot;hen&amp;quot;. It may sound like overemphasizing, but actually is not.&#xA;It only sounds like that (maybe the interlocutor is just a common level of  beautiful instead of very beautiful). In China, people has grown accustomed to speak this way since ancient times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19547" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-01T08:14:47.767" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T08:14:47.767" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29555" CreationDate="2018-04-24T10:58:54.947" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cannot think of any epenthesis (增音) examples in Mandarin, but it exists in some dialects of Chinese. Here are some examples in Beijing dialect, from this webpage: &lt;a href=&quot;http://yys.moe.edu.cn/81/peixun05_4.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;教育部语言文字应用研究所 - 普通话语音和北京语音的界限&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 增加声母：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这儿 “儿” er-her&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女儿 nǚ'er-nǚher （或变为nǚhuor）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 增加韵尾：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;把水倒净 “把” bǎ-bǎi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  闭上嘴 “闭” bì-bìn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  枳棘 “棘” ji-jin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  八下里（各方面） “下”xià-xiàn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  告诉 “诉” su-song&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) 增加介音：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一般儿大（同样大） “般” bān-biān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  动撼（动） “撼” han-huan（或更变hun）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  凑合 “合” he-huo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the third case is close to what you are looking for (though it's a dialect but not Mandarin), where additional segments are inserted between initials and finals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Relevant experiences&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've met many people who will possibly do a similar thing due to they find it hard to pronounce some particular words in a standard way. However, even they know they are inserting syllables, some of them still think that they are speaking Mandarin rather than a dialect. But who can tell? I have no idea how to clearly draw the line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19353" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T10:58:54.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29559" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29560" CreationDate="2018-04-24T12:47:27.740" Score="2" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't fully parse this sentence from &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.163.com/16/1117/08/C62E4ND5000187V9.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a news article&lt;/a&gt; (warning: article describes violence):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;该&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dict.cn/%E8%A7%86%E9%A2%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;视频&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dict.cn/%E9%9A%8F%E5%8D%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;随即&lt;/a&gt;被&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dict.cn/%E4%B8%8A%E4%BC%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;上传&lt;/a&gt;至&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dict.cn/%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;网络&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dict.cn/%E8%BD%AC%E5%8F%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;转发&lt;/a&gt;量过万。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Gāi shìpín suíjí bèi shàngchuán zhì wǎngluò, zhuǎnfā liàngguò wàn.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This directly translates to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The above-mentioned video immediately [被 bèi (?)] upload to the Internet, and transmit to [more than 10,000 (?)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know why 被 is there; in the sentence it looks like it almost means &quot;was&quot;.  And I'm not clear on what 量过万 means precisely (literally it's something like: &quot;quantity exceed 10,000&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does this sentence translate to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The video was mentioned earlier in the article &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dict.cn/%E5%BD%95%E5%83%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;录像&lt;/a&gt;中&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dict.cn/%E6%98%BE%E7%A4%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;显示&lt;/a&gt;。。。, so I believe that 该 here means &quot;the above-mentioned&quot; (it doesn't make sense to mean &quot;should&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T14:40:01.363" Title="What does the sentence 该视频随即被上传至网络，转发量过万 translate to?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29559" CreationDate="2018-04-24T14:40:01.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Considering the context of the article, I would translate this as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;该....视频.................随即.........被上传....至....网络，......转发量...过万&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  the video (was) immediately uploaded to the internet (and) the number of shares/retweets/reposts (is) over 10k&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;该 indeed means &quot;the above-mentioned&quot; but in most contexts you can just translate is as &quot;the&quot;. In normal spoken conversation we'd say 这个/那个.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;被 is a passive marker, indicating that the subject is the receiver of the verb rather than the do-er, i.e. the video did not &quot;upload&quot;, rather it &quot;was uploaded&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至 just means 到 (to). It's the formal character, common in news etc, but in normal conversation we would say 到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 量 means &quot;quantity&quot; and can be added after a noun. For example &quot;转发&quot; is &quot;forward/share/retweet&quot; and &quot;转发量&quot; is &quot;the number of forwards/shares/retweets&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过万 simply means &quot;over 10000&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T14:40:01.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29562" CreationDate="2018-04-24T19:31:23.877" Score="0" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 泰坦尼克号, why is it a 号 at the end? What does it mean? What does it add to the meaning? I saw it without the 号 also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3608" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T21:02:33.567" Title="In 泰坦尼克号, why is it a 号 at the end?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29561" CreationDate="2018-04-24T21:02:33.567" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/25660/what-does-%e9%9d%92%e5%b9%b4%e6%96%87%e6%98%8e%e5%8f%b7-mean&quot;&gt;What does &amp;quot;青年文明号&amp;quot; mean?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;号 is a common designation word for naming man-made vehicles like ships, planes and trains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ronald Reagan = 罗纳德·里根&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USS Ronald Reagan = 罗纳德·里根号 (super-carrier named after Ronald Reagan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泰坦尼克号 (鐵達尼號 in Cantonese) is so famous, even if you omit '号' at the end, people would still understand you are referring to the ship that sunk in 1912.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are correct, just 泰坦尼克 (鐵達尼) would be enough for a movies title, that's why you saw it without 号.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if a movies is about '里根, the super-carrier', it is better to refer it as 里根号 to avoid confusion. (people would think the story is about 'the person, President Ronald Reagan' without the 号 at the end.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T21:02:33.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29556" CreationDate="2018-04-24T23:10:51.850" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two things that need to be aware of here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese word 是(shi) is NOT equivalent to English &quot;is/am/are&quot;. The Chinese 是(shi) functions as a &quot;=&quot;. So both sides of the equal sign should have the same nature. So &quot;ni shi mang&quot; doesn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese adjective is also a verb! That is, &quot;mang&quot; is already &quot;to be busy&quot;; &quot;pretty&quot; is already &quot;to be pretty&quot;. Literally &quot;you are busy&quot; is &quot;ni mang&quot;. But &quot;hen&quot; should be added to balance the rhythm of the sentence, and it isn't necessary to mean &quot;very&quot;. So, the right sentence is &quot;ni hen mang&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, if you want to emphasize &quot;very busy&quot;, it can be &quot;ni fei chang mang&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T23:10:51.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29564" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-24T23:58:03.887" Score="4" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know why the first sentence is correct but the second is wrong.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;野生大熊猫的数量少是很多原因造成的&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;野生大熊猫的少数量是很多原因造成的&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the dictionary, 少, when it is an adjective, means &quot;small&quot;. So &quot;small amount&quot; should be 少数量, right? Why is the second sentence wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T07:18:30.633" Title="Why is 少数量 wrong?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29564" CreationDate="2018-04-25T00:31:57.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the structure &lt;em&gt;Subject noun + (很)adjective&lt;/em&gt;  forms a clause/sentence.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;野生大熊猫的数量少是很多原因造成的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;野生大熊猫的数量少 is a clause, which is the subject of the whole sentence. So, in this case, we shouldn't use the structure 少的数量 ， 少数量，because 很多原因 cause数量少, not 数量. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-04-25T00:47:53.287" LastActivityDate="2018-04-25T00:47:53.287" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29566" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29567" CreationDate="2018-04-25T03:01:09.053" Score="3" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;After learning about being polite by using 用一下, 用一用, and 用用 (etc.) instead of just 用 (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29421/is-%E7%94%A8%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%8B-preferable-to-%E7%94%A8%E7%94%A8-or-%E7%94%A8%E4%B8%80%E7%94%A8&quot;&gt;my previous question&lt;/a&gt;), I'm a bit more careful when asking for things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other day I was at the cafeteria and I wanted to &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%89%93%E5%8C%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;打包&lt;/a&gt; (dǎbāo) = take away, so I said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想打包&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ xiǎng dǎbāo&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it doesn't following one of the polite forms above, so I'm worried it was a bit blunt.  Nevertheless, 打包一打包 and 打打包包 seem overly long (and I'm not sure they're correct) and 打包一下 seems strange to me since I will be permanently taking away the food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What is a polite way to ask to take away my meal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T12:48:50.653" Title="What is a polite way to ask to 打包 (dǎbāo) &quot;take away&quot; my meal? Is 我想打包 acceptable?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;food&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29566" CreationDate="2018-04-25T03:13:59.787" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, just say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Hello! Waiter! I need (my food to be) taken away, is that ok?&quot;&#xA;你好，服务员，我要打包，可以吗？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Hello! Waiter! Can you help me package (my food)?&quot;&#xA;你好，服务员，能帮我打包吗？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how you talk about this in English-speaking country, but I will use that sentence in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打包一下 is ok. This action only happened once, once it's done, you'll take away your food, the waiter knows about that. This putting your food into a bag action will not last very long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19549" LastEditorDisplayName="user19549" LastEditDate="2018-04-25T03:22:51.540" LastActivityDate="2018-04-25T03:22:51.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29564" CreationDate="2018-04-25T03:45:00.593" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very interesting! I agree with Dan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently 大熊猫的少数量 means 'some of the pandas' which does not fit well with 是很多原因造成的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would interpret 少 and 数量少 in 1. as 'lack, scarcity,' as a noun like 缺乏 （e.g. 基本营养的缺乏.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;野生大熊猫的数量少是很多原因造成的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The scarcity of wild giant pandas is due to many causes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-25T03:45:00.593" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29564" CreationDate="2018-04-25T04:20:41.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;野生大熊猫的少数量是很多原因造成的。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, sentence 2 is arbitrarily correct in terms of grammar, but native Chinese will never say like that due to the following reason:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;数量 is a compound word (from 数, number, and 量, quantity) which is linked by the relationship &quot;and&quot;. Combining these words with another one-word clause to become one word (i.e. without any indication to show that there are 2 words, such as the particle 的) will be unnatural.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Using the character 的 more than once in a clause is unnatural and will be avoided whenever possible. So you can't have 野生大熊猫的少的数量是很多原因造成的.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So sentence 2 is considered wrong and most Chinese will choose sentence 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. Modern Chinese is closely related to classic Chinese. So basically words which were not used in classical Chinese can be treated as the words in point 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correct me if I am wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13501" LastEditorUserId="13501" LastEditDate="2018-04-26T14:22:56.253" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T14:22:56.253" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25794" CreationDate="2018-04-25T04:26:09.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm native speaker of Chinese. If you're well-educated in China primary school and know how to pronounce a character rightly(like dictionary, without any local accent), you'll be able write pinyin of it(of course including the tone part).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, most people in China are not so well-educated and lots of well-educated people forget the explicit knowledge about pinyin 'cause they don't use it too much after primary school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin or any form of transcription is only used for things like teaching kids, looking up words in dictionary, typing in computer etc, not used by natural language. Native speakers of tonal languages can easily tell different tones in  their mother tongue without formal education.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19549" LastActivityDate="2018-04-25T04:26:09.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12127" CreationDate="2018-04-25T09:19:24.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very late answer but might still help - in these contexts you can just say 哦，这样，谢谢. It would translate as something along the lines of &quot;Ah, right, thanks&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-04-25T09:19:24.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28707" CreationDate="2018-04-25T09:25:52.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 不是很多人 and 没有很多人 are perfectly acceptable. However, if you want a more &quot;fluid&quot; version, you can use 没(有)多少人 or 几乎没(有)人. The latter is more like &quot;almost no-one&quot; while the former is &quot;not many&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没有多少人喜欢佩戴绿腰带 / 几乎没人喜欢佩戴绿腰带&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;似乎这里没有多少人会手语 / 似乎这里几乎没人会手语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also rephrase the sentences and use 很少 or 不多 (this one is better) on the end, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;似乎这里会手语的(人)不多 (the 人 is optional)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-04-25T09:25:52.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29573" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-25T22:01:16.830" Score="0" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a couple of Chinese sentences that I have been struggling with. I know basic grammar order: Subject, Time, Place, Verb, Object but I am unsure how to construct sentences of this nature:&#xA;ex. I want to have practice outside&#xA;I want practice to be outside&#xA;I want to practice outside.&#xA;In Chinese, would all of these questions be phrased the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19557" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T04:06:09.383" Title="Location of Certain Location words" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3846" CreationDate="2018-04-26T03:10:20.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;二  is the simple Chinese ,it is the same meaning as 贰 in traditional Chinese,贰 means rebel,so 二 is a bad word in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17075" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T03:10:20.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29573" CreationDate="2018-04-26T03:56:48.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I want to have practice outside -  我想在外面進行練習&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In this sentence, &quot;have&quot; is a verb &quot;practice&quot; is a noun.&#xA;&quot;have practice&quot; means &quot;to engage in practice&quot; which is &quot;進行練習&quot; in Chinese&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I want practice to be outside - 我想練習在外面進行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In this sentence &quot;practice&quot; is a noun object, &quot;to be outside&quot; implies &quot; to be held outside&quot;,  which is &quot;在外面進行&quot; in Chinese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I want to practice outside - 我想在外面練習&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In this sentence &quot;practice&quot; is a verb, and &quot;outside&quot; is a  preposition &amp;amp; adverb, which is &quot;在外面&quot; in Chinese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T03:56:48.230" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29576" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29580" CreationDate="2018-04-26T04:11:25.513" Score="3" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry to bother everyone about this, but I've spent an evening trying to find an answer on the webz to no avail. I've consulted various Chinese sites, tried to study animated Chinese character gifs, and the result...frustration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's about the Chinese character for heart/mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has 4 strokes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stroke 2 is a flat slanted hook = biǎnxiégōu = 扁斜钩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stroke 3 is a dot = diǎn = n点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stroke 4 is a dot = diǎn = n点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm unable to tell what stroke 1 is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a vertical = shù = 竖?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a throwaway = piě = 撇?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance for any help you can offer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19558" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T06:48:31.870" Title="Name of strokes in Chinese character Heart" Tags="&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29577" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29586" CreationDate="2018-04-26T04:38:27.793" Score="0" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ow70O.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ow70O.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我觉得是词典搞错了， 应该是 startle 才有”吃惊“的意思吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T00:16:04.530" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T00:16:04.530" Title="Does this dictionary confuse &quot;start at&quot; with &quot;startled at&quot;?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ClosedDate="2020-03-22T14:02:48.420" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29578" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29581" CreationDate="2018-04-26T04:59:40.730" Score="1" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;类似于OALD等英语学习者词典，我希望这本词典能在含义之外详细说明词的用法，以使得读者看完后能够用所查的词写出正确的古汉语句子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以“语”字为例，我希望这本词典至少能够说明这个字（作“告诉”讲时）如何接续表示“告诉”的对象，如何接续表示“告诉”的内容，并给出相应例句。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;词典本身是用任何语言编纂的都可以。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19559" LastEditorDisplayName="user19559" LastEditDate="2018-04-26T14:29:02.753" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T06:32:53.573" Title="Is there an Old Chinese dictionary which shows clearly the usage of a word?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29578" CreationDate="2018-04-26T06:14:55.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Classical / literary chinese is a fuzzy language, and there are subtle differences amongst dynasties, authors. Using dictionaries to learn how to write, is, well, side way (歧路).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Understanding particles (虛字) and &quot;pausing at the end of a phrase or sentence&quot; (句讀) are crucial. After managing these two skills, one could write naturally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For particles (虛字), the internet archive has these free materials:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/yanwenyiguanxuzi008800&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;言文一貫虛字使用法&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/02076148.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;虛字說&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/search.php?query=%E7%B6%93%E5%82%B3%E9%87%8B%E8%A9%9E&amp;amp;and[]=creator%3A%22%28%E6%B8%85%29%E7%8E%8B%E5%BC%95%E4%B9%8B%E6%92%B0%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;經傳釋詞&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/chinesischegram00gabegoog&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chinesische grammatik&lt;/a&gt;, this one is in german, correlated with 經傳釋詞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/guidetowenlistyl00morg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a guide to wenli styles and chinese ideals&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, the internet archive also has the imperial collection of four (四庫全書), in which all text are not punctuated, good for 句讀.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/search.php?query=%E5%9B%9B%E5%BA%AB%E5%85%A8%E6%9B%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;四庫全書&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, learn to read and write classical / literary Chinese in the traditional script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-04-27T06:32:53.573" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T06:32:53.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29576" CreationDate="2018-04-26T06:37:07.593" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, whether the stroke is a shu is out of the question -- it is not a vertical and long stroke, but typically tilted and short.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the difference between dian and pie, I must call your attention to CJKV strokes: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_(CJKV_character)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_(CJKV_character)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note in stroke &quot;d&quot; (dian) there are two versions, left and right, but both have the &lt;strong&gt;stop(顿) at the bottom end&lt;/strong&gt;. While in stroke &quot;p&quot;(pie) the &lt;strong&gt;stop is at the top&lt;/strong&gt;. One can find fonts that goes either ways: my browser displays it as a pie, e.g..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we can go one step further and ask: &lt;strong&gt;should&lt;/strong&gt; that stroke be written as a dian, or a pie? Since different authorities may make up different standards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the standard for mainland China: (character 0174)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.china-language.gov.cn/doc/zb2009.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.china-language.gov.cn/doc/zb2009.pdf&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;we can see the stop is clearly at the bottom, therefore, this stroke should be written as a &lt;strong&gt;dian&lt;/strong&gt;, in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, there is a different standard, and according to them: (character 101305) &lt;a href=&quot;http://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/MU/mua12.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/MU/mua12.htm&lt;/a&gt; it is also unambiguously a &lt;strong&gt;dian&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Japan, they also have a different standard: (page 84, lower middle) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/sisaku/joho/joho/kijun/naikaku/pdf/joyokanjihyo_20101130.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/sisaku/joho/joho/kijun/naikaku/pdf/joyokanjihyo_20101130.pdf&lt;/a&gt; we can see it is also a &lt;strong&gt;dian&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The authority of classical chinese language, the Kang Xi Dictionary (upper right): &lt;a href=&quot;http://tool.httpcn.com/Html/KangXi/Pic/375.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tool.httpcn.com/Html/KangXi/Pic/375.shtml&lt;/a&gt; also prints the character with a &lt;strong&gt;dian&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I don't know enough korean or vietnamese to look it up (edits welcome), I think we have enough evidence to conclude with great certainty, that the stroke is supposed to be written as a &lt;strong&gt;dian&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But feel free to write a pie instead, I'm certainly not going to judge or be confused which character it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5795" LastEditorUserId="5795" LastEditDate="2018-04-26T06:48:31.870" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T06:48:31.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29578" CreationDate="2018-04-26T12:49:04.530" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;古漢語既常以單字爲詞，容個人推薦 &lt;strong&gt;《王力古漢語字典》&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我也很贊成@水巷孑蠻的建議，應該用繁體讀古文。不但有簡繁轉換一對多的一個問題，古文裏假借與通假字甚多，分析古文的時侯字與詞的聲、調、韻等十分重要。簡體新造字用的聲部多數都不符合古漢語的聲韻。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例：《王力古漢語字典》「語」字詞條：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PUwFj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PUwFj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T12:49:04.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29582" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29583" CreationDate="2018-04-26T14:17:42.097" Score="6" ViewCount="2594" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to find an &quot;official&quot; list of Kangxi radicals that I can rely on and currently, I use two different Chinese apps to look for characters. Today I have realized that the lists for Kangxi radicals are different from each other in these apps, and also they are both different from the list on Wikipedia! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the lists are mostly identical but there are many differences like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-The number of one-stroke characters displayed &#xA;-Whether there are 17-stroke characters or not&#xA;-For example, one of the lists regard &quot;老&quot; as a radical on its own, and another treats it as a combination of two different radicals... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused, is there an official list that everyone has agreed on? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I'm sorry if this question is a bit silly, but does the Kanji in Japanese have anything to do with the Kangxi in Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19561" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T14:57:08.467" Title="Why are the lists of Kangxi radicals different everywhere?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29582" CreationDate="2018-04-26T14:46:59.283" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt; (no exceptions) 214 Kangxi radicals:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pyjD9.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pyjD9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any misunderstanding to the number of these probably comes from a confusion to what &lt;em&gt;radicals&lt;/em&gt; actually are. Remember that radicals are &lt;em&gt;dictionary headers&lt;/em&gt; (部首), used to group characters or words in a dictionary. The &lt;em&gt;Kangxi radicals&lt;/em&gt; are similarly used to group entries in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kangxi dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;not any other dictionary&lt;/strong&gt; (unless the maker of another dictionary consciously chooses to use the exact same radical set as the Kangxi radicals). This means that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a smaller dictionary chooses not to list some of the more obscure characters that are found in larger/more comprehensive dictionaries, then the dictionary may well not have the full set of Kangxi radicals.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Kangxi dictionary is a Traditional Chinese dictionary, and Simplified Chinese dictionaries will not use the same radicals as the Kangxi radicals (although their entries may be based off the Kangxi dictionary).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Radicals (Kangxi or not) are completely arbitrary. For many characters, they have very little to do with the meaning or sound of the character. It is completely valid for a new dictionary publisher to make up their own radical system to group characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your queries directly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Whether there are 17-stroke characters or not &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are incredibly obscure characters which exist in larger dictionaries but are not in common use. Smaller dictionaries for common use may not include these entries - but in any case this has nothing to do with the Kangxi radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;one of the lists regard &quot;老&quot; as a radical on its own, and another treats it as a combination of two different radicals&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two notes here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Each character has only &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; radical, just like each English word has only &lt;strong&gt;one first letter&lt;/strong&gt; for which it is grouped under a dictionary&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If a dictionary lists「老」under another radical other than「老」itself, they are definitely not using the Kangxi radical system. Here's the page from the Kangxi dictionary itself listing「老」:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7OlNz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7OlNz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, I'm sorry if this question is a bit silly, but does the Kanji in Japanese have anything to do with the Kangxi in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it doesn't. Kangxi refers to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_Emperor&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kangxi Emperor&lt;/a&gt;, the one who mandated the compilation of the Kangxi dictionary. In Japanese, Kangxi is called &lt;em&gt;kōseki&lt;/em&gt;, while &lt;em&gt;kanji&lt;/em&gt; is the Japanese name for &lt;em&gt;Hanzi&lt;/em&gt;/Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-04-26T14:57:08.467" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T14:57:08.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29566" CreationDate="2018-04-26T20:42:15.320" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could say any of the following:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;麻煩打包，謝謝。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我要打包，麻煩（你）幫我拿盒子，謝謝。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually I get asked whether I will be packing the leftovers.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Me: (indicate I’m ready for the bill)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Waiter: 好的，要打包嗎？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Me: 要，謝謝。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastEditorUserId="13086" LastEditDate="2018-04-27T12:48:50.653" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T12:48:50.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29585" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29592" CreationDate="2018-04-26T23:41:43.467" Score="0" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've tried to find this character in dictionaries and by looking it up on Google Translate, etc., but I'm unclear- is it two characters or one? What does it mean? Thanks so much&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/idQ41.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;![enter image description here&quot;&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/idQ41.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T01:20:03.327" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T01:20:03.327" Title="What is this character and what does it mean? (Characters identified: 仁爱)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-04-27T01:19:13.800" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29577" CreationDate="2018-04-26T23:42:49.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you seem to be missing is that one of the meanings of the English word &quot;start&quot; is roughly synonymous with &quot;startle&quot; (in both its transitive and intransitive forms). From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Definition of start&#xA;intransitive verb&#xA;1 a : to move suddenly and violently, spring: *started* angrily to his feet&#xA;b : to react with a sudden brief involuntary movement: *started* when a shot rang out&#xA;[...]&#xA;&#xA;transitive verb&#xA;1 : to cause to leave a place of concealment, flush: *start* a rabbit&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Accordingly there does not seem to be any mistake in this dictionary, nor is this really a question about the Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19168" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T23:42:49.453" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29585" CreationDate="2018-04-27T00:15:58.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;仁爱（rén ài），谓宽仁慈爱；爱护、同情的感情。语出《淮南子·修务训》：“ 尧立孝慈仁爱，使民如子弟。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19563" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T00:15:58.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29588" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-27T00:52:44.833" Score="4" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to say that the lake is in the northern part of the city. As 北部 means the northern part, I naturally thought that 湖在城市的北部 would be a correct way of putting it. But some people said that 湖在城市的北边 is the correct answer. As I know that 北边 can also be used to mean the northern part for architectural regions like campus, which also seems to apply to cities, now I am not so sure which one I have to use. Do I have to use 北边 or 北部?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;EDIT&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question was more specific. 湖在城市的北部 would mean like that the lake is actually inside the city, but in the northern part of the city. 北边 means north, so I thought that saying 湖在城市的北边 would mean that the lake is to the north of the city, and outside the city. However, I learned that 北边 can also denote that something is inside a specific region if it is talking about an architectural region, which was why I was confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary, I was asking if I have to use 北部 or 北边 in this sentence to mean that the lake is in the city, but in the northern part of the city.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19564" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T09:06:35.680" Title="湖在城市的北部 or 湖在城市的北边?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29588" CreationDate="2018-04-27T01:11:05.057" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you write a serious article, like city planning, or when you say it in a formal situation, 北部 is more used. Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国的北部有辽阔的土地。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这座城市的北部准备规划一个自然公园。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in our daily life, 北边 is used more often. 北边 is more casual.&#xA;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;学校的北边有家商店。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;快看！北边有架飞机飞过来了！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15800" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T01:11:05.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29588" CreationDate="2018-04-27T01:28:16.823" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are actually correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I wanted to say that the lake is in the northern part of the city. As 北部 means the northern part, I naturally thought that 湖在城市的北部&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;城市的北边 is often considered outside of the city. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;城市的北部 is often considered within the city. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I said &lt;strong&gt;often&lt;/strong&gt;, so it's still possible that someone refers to &lt;em&gt;within the city&lt;/em&gt; when they say 城市的北边 in a colloquial context. Sometimes, you have to check them again by asking &lt;em&gt;do you mean within or outside of the city?&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My two cents. Hope it would help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T01:28:16.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29585" CreationDate="2018-04-27T01:58:26.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 仁爱 (ren2 ai4 in pinyin) and it can mean kind-heartness or compassion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19567" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T01:58:26.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28707" CreationDate="2018-04-27T08:18:04.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One simple way I heard being spoken in Taiwan is 人不多.&#xA;I'm not sure how correct this is, but I've heard phrases like 這裡(的)人不多&#xA;今天學生不多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T08:18:04.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29588" CreationDate="2018-04-27T09:06:35.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;那个湖在这个城市的北部。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们中国人听到‘这个’或者‘那个’有什么区别马？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English has 'this (object close by)' 'that (object further away)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;that: From c. 1200 opposed to this as indicating something farther off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T09:06:35.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29595" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29596" CreationDate="2018-04-28T03:20:09.300" Score="3" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;有时候 and 一会儿 seem to be close in meaning, and in the following example sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老王这个人哪，一会儿明白，一会儿糊涂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚会上，大家一会儿唱歌，一会儿跳舞，玩儿得很开心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他一会儿嫌时间过得慢，一会儿又感到他跑得太快了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王大妈一会儿摇头，一会儿叹气，不知是什么事使得老人如此发怒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all the example sentences above, I feel like 一会儿 can be replaced with 有时候.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is my understanding that 一会儿 can be replaced with 有时候 correct? If not, how should I classify them according to their rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;EDIT&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry if it might lead to confusion, but my question here is the comparison of &lt;code&gt;一会儿～一会儿&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;有时候～有时候&lt;/code&gt;, not including the case they are used alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-29T07:01:53.157" Title="Can 一会儿～一会儿 be replaced with 有时候～有时候?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29595" CreationDate="2018-04-28T03:39:33.287" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, they cannot. &lt;strong&gt;一會兒&lt;/strong&gt; has two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Expressing that an action will be done soon. E.g. &lt;strong&gt;我一會兒去圖書館&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;code&gt;I will go to the library in a short while&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sometimes&lt;/em&gt;, but in the sense of someone being unable to make up their mind about something, or about a lively/chaotic situation which can't be described clearly, as in your examples given in the question.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有時候&lt;/strong&gt; cannot be used in your examples. The meaning &lt;em&gt;sometimes&lt;/em&gt; for &lt;strong&gt;有時候&lt;/strong&gt; is more in the sense of &lt;em&gt;occasionally&lt;/em&gt; rather than your examples. Compare the following two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他有時候打籃球，有時候踢足球&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;code&gt;He plays basketball and soccer&lt;/code&gt;, literally &lt;code&gt;He sometimes plays basketball and sometimes plays soccer&lt;/code&gt;, typical sentence which describes someone's &lt;strong&gt;varied&lt;/strong&gt; weekly activities)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他一會兒打籃球，一會兒踢足球&lt;/strong&gt; (figuratively &lt;code&gt;He plays basketball one week, and goes and plays soccer the next&lt;/code&gt;; but still literally &lt;code&gt;He sometimes plays basketball and sometimes plays soccer&lt;/code&gt;, typical sentence which describes someone (1) being unable to commit to an activity, or (2) being extremely busy and not stopping to take a break)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-04-28T05:14:27.413" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T05:14:27.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29184" CreationDate="2018-04-28T04:47:18.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;from  your  question.  Two  possibles:&#xA;(1)  如鱼得水；&#xA;(2)  鱼水一家人。&#xA;Aforementioned  answer  are  quite  dufferent  in  Chinese  context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)  Means  someone  come  across  the  most advantaged situation  which  is  favorite  for  his  career、 personal  objective or  something  like  that.&#xA;(2) Means  someone  has  very  good  relationship  with  others.  And  their relationship  are  just  like  Chinese  family  member.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The  precise  translation  needs  the  context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19573" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T04:47:18.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29595" CreationDate="2018-04-28T05:08:31.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老王这个人哪，一会儿明白，一会儿糊涂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚会上，大家一会儿唱歌，一会儿跳舞，玩儿得很开心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他一会儿嫌时间过得慢，一会儿又感到他跑得太快了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王大妈一会儿摇头，一会儿叹气，不知是什么事使得老人如此发怒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一会儿 connotes that they switch between two/more things  frequently. Well, 有时候 sounds like you do something for some time, and then you do something else for some time. 一会儿 implies that one can easily distract from one thing to another, while 有时候 doesn't have that implication and it just states the fact that you do something for some time and then do some other things for some time. 一会儿 could be emotional and 有时候 is just being neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you could replace 一会儿 with 有时候 in above sentences, but that will lose some connotation or effectiveness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T05:08:31.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29184" CreationDate="2018-04-28T05:49:35.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are quite a few expressions which can match fairly closely, depending on what you want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;魚之依水 - Fish rely on the water; compare 鳥之依木 (birds rely on trees), 農之依田 (farmers rely on the field &lt;em&gt;[for sustenance]&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;如魚得水 - Like a fish in the water; same meaning as English &lt;em&gt;in [somebody's] element&lt;/em&gt;, implies some kind of advantage (rather than a &lt;em&gt;lifeline&lt;/em&gt; like 1.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;魚以水爲天 - Same as (1)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;魚以水為住處 - Literally, water is the residence of fish&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-04-28T09:58:51.887" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T09:58:51.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29600" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29602" CreationDate="2018-04-28T06:49:19.870" Score="1" ViewCount="321" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, a &lt;em&gt;Chinese book&lt;/em&gt; could mean either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a book for learning Chinese, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a book which is in Chinese,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but (without additional context) we'd ordinarily consider the former interpretation as more likely.  I wonder if it's the same in Chinese.  A Baidu Image search for &lt;a href=&quot;http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&amp;amp;word=%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉语书&lt;/a&gt; (Hànyǔ shū) suggests it only means &quot;a book for learning Chinese&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does 汉语书 only mean &quot;a book for learning Chinese&quot;, or can it also mean &quot;a book in Chinese&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T10:06:19.150" Title="Does 汉语书 (Hànyǔ shū) &quot;Chinese book&quot; only mean &quot;a book for learning Chinese&quot;, or can it also mean &quot;a book in Chinese&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29600" CreationDate="2018-04-28T07:15:37.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;Chinese book&quot; usually means a book written in Chinese, and the appropriate  transliteration would be &quot;中文书籍&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, &quot;汉语书&quot; is mostly interpreted as books for learning Chinese, and &quot;Chinese textbook&quot; may be a better transliteration for that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19195" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T07:15:37.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29600" CreationDate="2018-04-28T10:06:19.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China a _____ is a :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;____ 语文书：Chinese book for Chinese kids to learn Chinese reading and writing&lt;br&gt;&#xA;____ 数学书: maths book&lt;br&gt;&#xA;____ 英语书：book for Chinese kids to learn English  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一本汉语书 = 一本中文书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'汉语书'更多用于学习汉语的书，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'Chinese book' is mainly used to refer to  a book for studying Chinese, (language) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是根据'汉语书'的字面意思，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but the literal meaning of 'Chinese book'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以理解为'汉字书籍'，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;can be understood as 'Chinese character book'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也就是“book written in Chinese”.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;i.e. “book written in Chinese”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文书则更多用于“book written in Chinese”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you so rightly said, the context will reveal all!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T10:06:19.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29604" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29605" CreationDate="2018-04-29T00:44:21.953" Score="0" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a document about &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%BE%B9%E7%BC%98%E6%80%A7%E4%BA%BA%E6%A0%BC%E9%9A%9C%E7%A2%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;边缘性人格障碍&lt;/a&gt; (biānyuán xìng réngé zhàng'ài) = &quot;Borderline Personality Disorder&quot;, we have the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;病征在成年早期即已显露，但随年龄增长趋于缓和或稳定。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Bìngzhēng zài chéngnián zǎoqí jí yǐ xiǎnlù, dàn suí niánlíng zēngzhǎng qū yú huǎnhé huò wěndìng.&lt;/sub&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Symptoms become visible at early adulthood, but with age they have an increasing tendency to alleviate or stabilize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's a reasonably accurate translation.  (&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#zh-CN/en/%E7%97%85%E5%BE%81%E5%9C%A8%E6%88%90%E5%B9%B4%E6%97%A9%E6%9C%9F%E5%8D%B3%E5%B7%B2%E6%98%BE%E9%9C%B2%EF%BC%8C%E4%BD%86%E9%9A%8F%E5%B9%B4%E9%BE%84%E5%A2%9E%E9%95%BF%E8%B6%8B%E4%BA%8E%E7%BC%93%E5%92%8C%E6%88%96%E7%A8%B3%E5%AE%9A%E3%80%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; gives a translation that's much the same: &quot;Symptoms are revealed early in adulthood, but tend to ease or stabilize with age.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm confused about is the use of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8D%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;即&lt;/a&gt; (jí), which means something like &quot;namely&quot; (also mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/25995/what-does-%E5%8D%B3-mean-in-this-sentence&quot;&gt;What does 即 mean in this sentence?&lt;/a&gt;), but I don't think that makes sense here, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B7%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;已&lt;/a&gt; (yǐ), which means something like &quot;already&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither of these makes sense to me in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What do 即 and 已 do in the sentence 病征在成年早期即已显露?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a few examples of 即已 used together on &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E5%8D%B3%E5%B7%B2/#keyfrom=dict2.index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt;, but I don't see how they help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-04-29T11:25:10.103" Title="What do 即 (jí) and 已 (yǐ) do in the sentence 病征在成年早期即已显露 (&quot;symptoms become visible at early adulthood&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29604" CreationDate="2018-04-29T01:08:18.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;即 in this context means 即刻: &quot;immediately; at once; instantly&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已 = already; had&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即已 = had immediately  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即已显露= had immediately shown&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 can also means &quot;immediately&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;黎明[&lt;strong&gt;即&lt;/strong&gt;]起 = Wake up [&lt;strong&gt;as soon as&lt;/strong&gt;] dawn arrives&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;黎明[&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;]起床 = wake up [&lt;strong&gt;as soon as&lt;/strong&gt;] dawn arrives&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-29T04:36:54.110" LastActivityDate="2018-04-29T04:36:54.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29604" CreationDate="2018-04-29T02:26:58.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;病征在成年早期即已显露&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即 here means 就. It means this sense: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UUAP9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UUAP9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 病征在成年早期即已显露 is equal to say 病征在成年早期就已显露. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-04-29T02:26:58.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29608" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-29T04:46:25.623" Score="2" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;I keep hearing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;zuang [tsuaŋ]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;luang [Ĩuaŋ]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for 这么 and 那么, respectively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minjiang_dialect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minjiang dialect&lt;/a&gt; (岷江话, 岷江小片).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've flipped through a couple of books I have but I haven't been able to find anything to corroborate what I'm hearing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is documented evidence for both zang and lang but none for the added [u] sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be interested to find anything that documents z(h)uang and/or luang (maybe even nuang) from any dialect or language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2021-03-15T07:44:52.730" Title="Any evidence for z(h)uang (这么) and luang (那么)?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29611" CreationDate="2018-04-29T07:37:07.513" Score="0" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那些不注意身体的人，到时候，&lt;strong&gt;无法保持健康有活力的生活状态&lt;/strong&gt;，白白留下人生的遗憾，也让爱你的亲友感到痛苦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence above should mean something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Those who don't care about their health cannot keep the healthy life, completely regret their life, and make their friends sad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't understand the grammatical structure of the bold part. Especially because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;保持 is a verb here and its object is 健康.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;But then I don't understand why 有 follows after 健康. 有活力的生活状态 is also a noun, so why is there no conjunction between these two nouns?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is my understanding on the grammatical structure here correct?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it is, then why is the conjunction omitted here? And is it common to omit the conjunction in Chinese and don't even use a comma (逗号)?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-04-29T11:14:36.420" Title="Why is there no conjunction between 健康 and 有活力的生活状态 in 无法保持健康有活力的生活状态?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29609" CreationDate="2018-04-29T08:29:40.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without a conjunction, the sentence should be written as follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;无法保持健康、有活力的生活状态&quot; (combine &quot;健康的&quot; and &quot;有活力的&quot; by omitting the 的 in 健康的) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using a conjunction make the two adjectives more connected&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;无法保持健康(及)有活力的生活状态&quot; (及 = and)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;无法保持健康(而且)有活力的生活状态&quot; (而且 = also)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;无法保持健康(而)有活力的生活状态&quot; (而 = 而且 = also)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;无法保持(既)健康(又)有活力的生活状态&quot; ([既 X 又 Y] = [X and/ also Y])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;无法保持(又)健康(又)有活力的生活状态&quot; ([又 X 又 Y] = [X and/ also Y])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-29T08:36:58.843" LastActivityDate="2018-04-29T08:36:58.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29609" CreationDate="2018-04-29T08:35:29.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your translation has the right idea. It reads something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Those who don't take care of their own physical well-being will be unable to maintain good health and vitality in their later years, leaving themselves with regret and causing pain to their friends and family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bold part can be made clearer, for example like one of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;無法保持健康、有活力的生活狀態&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;無法保持健康而有活力的生活狀態&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why it's not clear is because it is a vernacular/spoken sentence written down literally (which you can tell because the sentence begins with「那些」; formal literature does not do this). It is discouraged to write like this unless someone is being quoted verbatim, because such sentences require more effort to interpret when read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During transcription, the necessary conjunction (or enumeration comma) was simply left out. If you hear the original person saying this, however, they might have inserted a pause, or dipped the tone slightly, between 健康 and 有活力, making interpretation much clearer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-04-29T08:41:13.393" LastActivityDate="2018-04-29T08:41:13.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29609" CreationDate="2018-04-29T11:14:36.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;有活力的生活状态 is not a noun. '生活状态' is 'lifestyle'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could stick a 顿号 in there if you like. (I did)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那些不注意身体的人，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Those people who don't take care of their bodies,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;到最后，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;in the end,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;无法保持健康（的生活状态）、（保持）有活力的生活状态，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;are unable to maintain a healthy and energetic lifestyle,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;白白留下人生的遗憾，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;leave behind a life of useless regrets,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;也让爱你的亲友感到痛苦。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and cause their relatives and friends needless pain and suffering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-29T11:14:36.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29604" CreationDate="2018-04-29T11:25:10.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;即已 = 就已经&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;病征在成年早期即已（就已经）显露，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Symptoms are already apparent in early adulthood&lt;br&gt;&#xA;但随年龄增长趋于缓和或稳定。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but with age tend to moderate or stabilize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-29T11:25:10.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29614" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29615" CreationDate="2018-04-30T01:18:20.490" Score="3" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm newbie in this community. My best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没了冰箱还真不行，每天早上都要去早市买菜，饭也不能多做，&lt;strong&gt;剩一点儿都没地方搁。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bolded sentence means &quot;There is no place for conserving the remained foods.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is the sentence composed of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems &quot;搁&quot; is the adjective of &quot;地方&quot;.( the place for conserving ...)&#xA;But &quot;搁&quot; is a verb in my textbook and electric dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the sentence equal to this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剩(饭)一点儿  and 搁没(在)地方(饭)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I understand this sentence?&#xA;Why is &quot;都没地方&quot;  in front of &quot;搁&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19037" LastActivityDate="2018-04-30T04:30:24.527" Title="剩一点儿都没地方搁　How is the sentence composed of?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29614" CreationDate="2018-04-30T01:41:32.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;搁&amp;quot; is a verb for &amp;quot;to place; to put&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剩一点儿(食物)都没地方搁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剩一点儿 = left a little bit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(吃)剩一点儿(&lt;strong&gt;食物&lt;/strong&gt;)= left a little bit (of food)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(吃)剩一点儿(食物)&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;even&lt;/strong&gt; left a little bit (of food)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(吃)剩一点儿(食物)都&lt;strong&gt;没地方搁&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;Even left a little bit (of food), &lt;strong&gt;there's no place to put it&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;There is no place to put even a little bit of leftover&amp;quot; (&lt;em&gt;rephrase in common English grammar&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The verb &amp;quot;吃&amp;quot; (eat) and the object &amp;quot;饭 or 食物&amp;quot; (food) are omitted because &amp;quot;剩&amp;quot; implied &amp;quot;吃剩&amp;quot;  and the object for &amp;quot;吃剩&amp;quot; (left over) is clearly food&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why is &amp;quot;都没地方&amp;quot; in front of &amp;quot;搁&amp;quot;?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;没地方&amp;quot;(no place to) is the relative/adverbial phrase for  &amp;quot;搁 &amp;quot; (to place). It gives more details on the simple sentence: &amp;quot;搁(食物)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-30T02:29:05.710" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29614" CreationDate="2018-04-30T04:30:24.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;搁 剩饭 store/keep/put leftover/uneaten food&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没了冰箱还真不行，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Not having a fridge is really inconvenient,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每天早上都要去早市买菜，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;every day I have to go to the early market to buy vegetables,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;饭也不能多做，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;also, I can't cook too much (because)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;剩一点儿都没地方搁。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I have no place to put the leftovers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-30T04:30:24.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29617" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-30T06:40:22.390" Score="2" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;只要 means &quot;only if ~&quot; or &quot;as long as ~&quot;, and is usually used with 相呼应, such as 就 or 便 in the main clause. At least it is different from 只有, which is used with 才 or 方. But I don't understand which 相呼应 to use for 只要.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other 相呼应 for 只要 other than 就 and 便?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How should I choose which 相呼应 to use?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T18:01:16.360" Title="Which 相呼应 should I use in 只要?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29618" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29619" CreationDate="2018-04-30T07:21:41.363" Score="3" ViewCount="606" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every single source I come across on google list the IPA of pinyin x as /ɕ/, or the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the sample sound on Wikipedia is quite distinct from it -- to me (born and raised in Beijing), it sounds more like pinyin sh, rather than x.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is, with sources, the correct IPA for pinyin x?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it is the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative, what is, with&#xA;sources, the correct pronunciation of it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I managed to find another website, which would be correct according to me, as the pinyin x's pronunciation:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5795" LastActivityDate="2018-04-30T14:39:42.437" Title="The IPA for pinyin x" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;ipa&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29618" CreationDate="2018-04-30T07:38:31.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Help:IPA/Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; on Wikipedia has x listed like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/no9qs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/no9qs.png&quot; alt=&quot;ipa&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C9%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary:ɕ&lt;/a&gt; has audio you can listen to too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a bit of a random source but here it is anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《哈尔滨方言词典》[ɕi]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/omyyx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/omyyx.png&quot; alt=&quot;yup&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wordyenglish.com/musing/bopomofo_pinyin.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WordyEnglish&lt;/a&gt;'s &lt;em&gt;Pinyin 拼音, Zhuyin 注音, IPA Comparison&lt;/em&gt; also shows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FzDxK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FzDxK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ɕyɛn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%84%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bopomofo letter ㄒ&lt;/a&gt; which represents &amp;quot;x&amp;quot; is also exclusively:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(phoneme) IPA(key): /ɕ/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From《漢語拼音方案》we can see the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IufuR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IufuR.png&quot; alt=&quot;hey&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where x again matches up with zhuyin ㄒ or IPA /ɕ/.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sh on the other hand is listed as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9wDeq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9wDeq.png&quot; alt=&quot;ʂ&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CA%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary:ʂ&lt;/a&gt; also has audio you can listen too here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《哈尔滨方言词典》[ʂɿ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/giR0X.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/giR0X.png&quot; alt=&quot;yes&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see the two are very close in sound, and are often confused as such by learners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably the biggest difference is tongue positions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1aYXw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1aYXw.png&quot; alt=&quot;x&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/miqZ3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/miqZ3.png&quot; alt=&quot;sh&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-04-30T14:39:42.437" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29617" CreationDate="2018-04-30T08:14:52.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question is somewhat unclear. 只要 。。。。就/便 If ..... then (this is a [condition ... result] sentence: If condition = true, then RESULT) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要 你不再调皮，我 就 给你买冰淇淋。&#xA;只要 我考试考满分， 我爸妈便带我去旅游。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我只要吃一个冰淇淋。I just want an ice cream. 只要 ≠ if, only if&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-04-30T08:14:52.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29621" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29626" CreationDate="2018-04-30T14:17:03.040" Score="4" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently come across quite a few instances of polysyllabic adjectives being split up and preceded by 不s, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清楚 -&gt; 不清不楚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高兴 -&gt; 不高不兴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess this is simply a variation of not+adj. but does anyone know what the specific intention behind the construction is?&#xA;Many thanks,&#xA;Hashamyim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2018-05-01T05:52:16.433" Title="Polysyllabic adjectives with double 不" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29621" CreationDate="2018-04-30T14:25:54.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt; gives three usages for this construct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不...不...&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;bù...bù...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;① [used to make an emphatic negative form of two words identical or similar in meaning]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不骄不躁 &#xA;  not conceited or rash, free from arrogance and rashness &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不慌不忙 &#xA;  unhurried, calm, leisurely &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不知不觉 &#xA;  unawares &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;② [used with two words of opposite meanings to indicate an intermediate state]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不大不小 &#xA;  neither too big nor too small, just right &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不冷不热 &#xA;  neither cold nor hot &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不死不活 &#xA;  neither dead nor alive, half-dead &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;③ [the first 不 is the condition of the second 不]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不见不散 &#xA;  We won't leave until we meet &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/chinese-english/%E4%B8%8D-%E4%B8%8D-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Collins&lt;/a&gt; also gives three, pretty identical, definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不 ... 不 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(bù ... bù ... )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 (表示强式否定)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; ⇒ 不知不觉&quot; (bù zhī bù jué) &quot;unwittingly&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; ⇒ 不慌不忙&quot; (bù huāng bù máng) &quot;unhurriedly&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; ⇒ 不折不扣&quot; (bù zhé bù kòu) &quot;one hundred percent&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2(= 既不 ... 也不 ... ) &quot;neither ... nor ... &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; ⇒ 不亏不盈&quot; (bù kuī bù yíng) &quot;neither too little nor too much&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; ⇒ 不大不小&quot; (bù dà bù xiǎo) &quot;just the right size&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; ⇒ 不死不活&quot; (bù sǐ bù huó) &quot;half dead&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3(= 如果不 ... 就不 ... ) &quot;unless ... then not&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; ⇒ 不破不立&quot; (bù pò bù lì) &quot;without destruction there can be no construction&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot; ⇒ 不见不散。&quot; (Bù jiàn bù sàn.) &quot;See you there.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-04-30T14:31:04.200" LastActivityDate="2018-04-30T14:31:04.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29623" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29624" CreationDate="2018-04-30T19:47:16.363" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would the following be the appropriate translation for &quot;Let's test your sense of direction. How do we get to the car from here?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It feels awkward, like English grammar forced into Chinese grammar. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我考妳的方向的。離這裡走我車怎麼樣？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-05-01T00:13:07.123" Title="How to say, &quot;Let's test your sense of direction. How do we get to the car from here?&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29623" CreationDate="2018-04-30T20:30:39.693" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;“&lt;strong&gt;Let's&lt;/strong&gt;(Google: 让我们) = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;让我&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; but you can use &quot;来&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;test&lt;/strong&gt; = 考, but it is better to use reduplication &quot;&lt;strong&gt;考考&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;your&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;妳的&lt;/strong&gt; (it is easy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;sense of direction&lt;/strong&gt;. = &lt;strong&gt;方向感&lt;/strong&gt; (it is a common term )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt; (optional final particle) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[How do we] [get to the car] [from here?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translates &quot;&lt;strong&gt;get to&lt;/strong&gt; the car&quot; as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;到达&lt;/strong&gt;汽车&quot;, but the native way is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;走到&lt;/strong&gt;汽车&lt;strong&gt;那边&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[我们如何] [到达汽车] [&lt;strong&gt;从这里&lt;/strong&gt;？] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English place the location &quot;from &lt;strong&gt;here&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; after the verb clause &quot;get to the car&quot; but Chinese would put the location before it, so the correct order is  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[我们如何] [&lt;strong&gt;从这里&lt;/strong&gt;] [走到汽车那边?] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Let's test your sense of direction. How do we get to the car from here?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translation&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;让我考考妳的方向感吧, 我们如何从这里走到汽车那边?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-04-30T20:38:48.733" LastActivityDate="2018-04-30T20:38:48.733" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29623" CreationDate="2018-05-01T00:13:07.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's test your sense of direction.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我们来测试一下你的方向感。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How do we get to the car from here?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;从这里怎么找到我们停车的地方？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;从这里怎么去我们停车的地方？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们把车停在哪儿？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, it grates on Chinese ears to say 'get to the car,' because 'car' is not a position, 'get to where we parked the car' is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-01T00:13:07.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29621" CreationDate="2018-05-01T05:52:16.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The structure  不...不... is not standard, in my opinion. It doesn't work for all the adjectives. For example, 不高不兴 doesn't sound right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might have to learn those phrases by rote. Otherwise, it's easy to say something wrong. Better you hear it from others(native speakers), then you use it for safe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-01T05:52:16.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29317" CreationDate="2018-05-01T07:11:17.987" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also try Baidu's online dictionary: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.baidu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.baidu.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19593" LastActivityDate="2018-05-01T07:11:17.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29535" CreationDate="2018-05-01T18:06:36.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你呢 translates to &quot;how about you&quot; and is usually followed by question mark not exclamation mark. 呢 is used as a way to express question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate sometimes does funny things. Cross check with other sources before trusting it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone says 周末愉快! to you, reply to them with 周末愉快! is a safe bet. Or you can say Thank You.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Followup:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the example conversation actually happened, it could be that when A says 周末愉快 and B interprets it as a question for how was/will be for your weekends. So B response with a nod and asking A about his/hers. Though even under this circumstance it still seems pretty strange. We don't usually speak in this manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17581" LastActivityDate="2018-05-01T18:06:36.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29629" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29630" CreationDate="2018-05-02T05:07:28.907" Score="2" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this dictionary entry from《广安方言与民俗词典》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;□&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lia3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;①指舔、舐的意思，用舌头接触东西或舔吃东西。②也指巴结，讨好。例：他最喜欢lia3有权有势的。“lia3 lia3糖”，指棒棒糖。例：拿颗lia3 lia3糖去让他含倒，哄倒起莫哭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen lia3 substitued with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While  does share the idea of brown-nosing (巴结，讨好) it's unlikely that it would mean lick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe a mutation of  would make more sense especially with the whole 湖广填川 thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T11:01:40.293" Title="What character might &quot;lia&quot; [Ĩia⁵³] meaning &quot;lick&quot; be?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29629" CreationDate="2018-05-02T06:37:45.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8365/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8365/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;laai2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lick/lap with tongue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This character is used in Cantonese, not Mandarin/Standard written Chinese.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; someone's 鞋 = &amp;quot;to lick someone's boot&amp;quot; = brown-nosing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-02T06:37:45.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29631" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29651" CreationDate="2018-05-02T09:20:56.213" Score="2" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们在聊什么？我想听。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们在聊什么？我想听听。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 听 is stiff, and 听听 is more casual.&#xA;How do I express that diffeneces in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-04T15:08:44.727" Title="What's the difference between 听 and 听听?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29632" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29633" CreationDate="2018-05-02T09:44:24.650" Score="0" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, one can 缓解压力 and one can 缓和紧张局势. Can you 缓和压力 or 缓解紧张局势?&#xA;If not, why not? :-) I guess if you say it enough, it becomes true, right? &#xA;Many thanks,&#xA;Hashamyim (incidentally, not my real name lol)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2018-05-02T12:16:32.577" Title="缓解 vs. 缓和 - are the true synonyms/同义词?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29632" CreationDate="2018-05-02T12:16:32.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Funnily enough《规范》has a note on its entry for 缓解 that says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;注意 跟“缓和”不同。“缓解”侧重指“减轻”或“使减轻”; “缓和”侧重指“平和”或“使平和”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rough translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: it is different from “缓和”. “缓解” emphasizes alleviation or mitigation; “缓和” highlights “calming” or  “mildness.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt; provides some examples that we can compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;缓解食品短缺状况 &#xA;  alleviate the food shortage &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;缓解痛苦 &#xA;  allay a pain &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;缓和紧张局势 &#xA;  relax the tension &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;形势有所缓和。 &#xA;  Things have eased up a bit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-02T12:16:32.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29634" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29635" CreationDate="2018-05-02T13:37:08.563" Score="1" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;We learned &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我對什麼什麼很感興趣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I wrote &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;xx我對明星一點興趣都不感&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was corrected to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我對明星一點興趣都沒有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some other nouns that take a different verb in the negative?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2018-05-03T08:14:21.183" Title="Nouns where the negative demands a different verb" Tags="&lt;negation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29634" CreationDate="2018-05-02T14:13:32.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我對明星一點興趣都不感&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your problem is not that verb itself, but the word order. &#xA;The correct order is: 我對明星一點 都不感興趣. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-02T14:13:32.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29636" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29650" CreationDate="2018-05-02T15:52:33.060" Score="1" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned that the measure word for 猫 is &lt;code&gt;只&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, my friend said 条 is the correct measure word for 猫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The conversation with the friend is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X: 你有养猫吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: 哈哈 这只不是我的，我韩国旅游时的我的房东的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X: 我家有一条&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I: 猫应该是只还是条？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X: 条&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So she said clearly it should be 条, not 只.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my Pleco only shows 只, while 网易有道词典 doesn't mention it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I wonder in what cases 条 should be used instead of 只, and why 只 is not correct here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T04:03:00.553" Title="In what cases should I use 条 for 猫?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29637" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29638" CreationDate="2018-05-02T16:09:03.933" Score="1" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was trying to describe the encounter between 郭靖，黄蓉 and 洪七公 in 射雕英雄傳。 There, Huang Rong proposes a game, which purpose is to guess the names of dishes she has prepared. That always proves impossible due to the way her father named the dishes, making lots of allusions to literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence I wrote was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;遊戲的目的是猜到黄蓉煮的美食的名字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realise this sounds bad due to the double 的。 What I don’t understand is, why the 到 was stricken out!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: 1 perhaps I misunderstood my teacher‘s corrections. I post a picture:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u6EbM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u6EbM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit 2: this is really depressing. Opinions of native speakers on 猜 and 猜到 (on my campus) show no pattern. At least 猜出 seems a clear favourite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-05-05T08:24:37.493" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T08:24:37.493" Title="Why is the result complement wrong?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29637" CreationDate="2018-05-02T17:36:57.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use 到 as the result complement of 猜 is not wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;猜 = to guess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;猜&lt;strong&gt;到&lt;/strong&gt; = to guess &lt;strong&gt;successfully/ correctly&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The goal of the game is to successfully guess the names of the dish. (not just making guesses)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither 的 in &quot;[黄蓉煮的][美食的名字]&quot;  can be omitted &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;黄蓉煮的 is the adjective phrase for 美食&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;黄蓉煮的美食的 is the adjective phrase for 名字&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;[黄蓉煮美食][的名字]&quot; or &quot;[黄蓉煮的美食][名字]&quot; are both incomplete&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After seeing the picture, I think your teacher's correction was very sloppy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you wrote &quot;遊戲的(内容)是猜(到)黄蓉煮的美食的名字&quot;, then 到 would be a mistake, you should write &quot;遊戲的(内容)是(去)猜黄蓉煮的美食的名字 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;目的 (the goal)&quot; is &quot;猜到&quot; (to guess right)&quot; ; &quot;内容/玩法 (the way to play)&quot; is &quot;去猜 (to guess)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'目标' (the goal of winning) would be better than '目的'&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'去猜出' (figure out) would be better than '猜到'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(遊戲的目标是去猜出)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;得 in 闻得出来了 is not wrong. Actually, the final particle 了 should be omitted because the sentence doesn't end there. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also he didn't correct 名子 back to, 名字 or 蓉儿 back to 黄蓉 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;蓉儿 is a nickname only her loved one could use to address her. For us readers, she is always 黄蓉&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-02T22:02:44.343" LastActivityDate="2018-05-02T22:02:44.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29634" CreationDate="2018-05-03T08:14:21.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although you can often split up verbs and nouns, there are some which feel awkward when you do it. 感兴趣 is one of them. Even though 感 is a verb and 兴趣 is a noun, it doesn't feel right to say 一点兴趣都不感. The normal way to say it is 一点都不感兴趣. As for &quot;why?&quot; I've no idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also can't think of any nouns that demand a different verb in the negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-05-03T08:14:21.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10515" CreationDate="2018-05-03T08:23:25.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen this structure translated as &quot;when&quot; before. E.g:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他的右腿伤了，走起路来很疼 He hurt his right leg, and it's sore when he walks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-05-03T08:23:25.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29643" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29644" CreationDate="2018-05-03T11:38:26.697" Score="4" ViewCount="2526" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in Chinese is 肯德基 (Kěndéjī), which seems to be an approximate transliteration of &quot;KFC&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NmNQN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NmNQN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;KFC 肯德基&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It surprises me that they opted for 基 (jī) instead of 鸡 (jī), which is pronounced the same but means &quot;chicken&quot; and is therefore pertinent to what KFC does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked my Chinese friend, and he said 肯德鸡 is not a good choice, saying something like 鸡 is &quot;low&quot; in status.  I'm not quite sure what he meant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 肯德基 not called 肯德鸡?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update&lt;/em&gt;: To my surprise, I actually found a local 肯德鸡 street vendor:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gBc6U.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gBc6U.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;肯德鸡风味炸鸡&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;肯德鸡风味炸鸡&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Kěndéjī fēngwèi zhàjī&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Kendeji special-flavor fried chicken&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2018-05-04T11:47:42.533" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T02:31:34.303" Title="Why is 肯德基 (Kěndéjī) = Kentucky Fried Chicken not called 肯德鸡 (Kěndéjī) when it's pronounced the same and 鸡 means &quot;chicken&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29643" CreationDate="2018-05-03T12:15:48.403" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The full Chinese name of KFC is 肯德基炸鸡, but it was shorten to 肯德基 currently. The word &lt;strong&gt;Kentucky&lt;/strong&gt;, was translated into 肯德基 in Chinese intentionally, in order to distinguish with Kentucky State, while 肯德基 and 肯塔基 are same word in English actually. I think it is because that KFC is a influential foreign brand in early period, Chinese may know what it is now when seeing or hearing about 肯德基, so the word 炸鸡 isn't necessary at all. If it was named 肯德鸡, for most people, it would be considered as a low quality translation, and the brand may be regarded as an imitated brand from China, rather than a foreign brand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2018-07-04T02:06:54.163" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T02:06:54.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="231" CreationDate="2018-05-03T12:41:22.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally you may ask 请问厕所在哪里? or 请问洗手间在哪里? The name of &lt;strong&gt;toilet&lt;/strong&gt; was called 茅房 (&lt;strong&gt;thatch house&lt;/strong&gt;) in ancient times, later it was named 茅厕 and then 厕所 (&lt;strong&gt;side place&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;side room&lt;/strong&gt;) finally, it is already elegant than 茅房. But now, Chinese translate the word &lt;strong&gt;washroom&lt;/strong&gt; to 洗手间 (&lt;strong&gt;washing hands room&lt;/strong&gt;) or 卫生间 (&lt;strong&gt;hygienic room&lt;/strong&gt;) more frequently than using the origin Chinese word &lt;strong&gt;厕所&lt;/strong&gt;, for it is considered as an inelegant word instead in the mind of most people, it is a mistake actually, but it is hard to change back. But, this word is still common in daily life, most people prefer speaking 上厕所 to 上洗手间.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2018-05-07T08:04:23.070" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T08:04:23.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29179" CreationDate="2018-05-03T16:40:43.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest that there is no sense of gender in the Chinese languages since the very beginning; nor even today. We all know that the Chinese languages are very isolated and very analytic. The idea of gender, number, and case, in Romance languages may not be brought to the learning and using of the Chinese languages. Though I'm not perfectly confident, in the context of learning and using the Chinese languages, it might be a good practice to abandon the subconscious paradigm of fusing additional information into a word. If necessary, specify specifically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As another user already mentioned, the invention of &quot;她&quot; was only a very recent activity (around 1900) by intelligentsia from English or Deutsch, and observable objections against it have arose recently (5-10 years) when the proposal of the abolition of gendered pronouns in the anglophone communities became popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19602" LastActivityDate="2018-05-03T16:40:43.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29647" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29679" CreationDate="2018-05-04T00:59:32.737" Score="2" ViewCount="614" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8kGBL.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8kGBL.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked up it was 跖球, But I think it's a medical vocabulary.&#xA;Is there more popular word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Why is it called a ball?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="19295" LastEditDate="2018-05-04T02:11:34.687" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T19:47:13.853" Title="How do you say &quot;ball of foot&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29647" CreationDate="2018-05-04T07:23:00.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Difficult!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about 脚球？（开玩笑）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bones you are talking about are the 跖骨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%B7%96%E9%AA%A8/4055417?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%B7%96%E9%AA%A8/4055417?fr=aladdin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can't really find a word for 'the ball of your foot', seems it is not a Chinese thing. The second joint of your thumb has no real common name in English either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-04T07:23:00.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29636" CreationDate="2018-05-04T08:27:13.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Misusing quantifiers is a practice of rhetorics. Consider the examples of 一滩猫 and 一坨代码. 滩 gives a metaphor noting the liquidity of a cat, and 坨 implies that the code is badly programmed to look like shit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In orthographic usages, 条 cannot quantify 猫. However, if you have a specific rhetorical purpose, you may quantify anything with any quantifier you prefer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this very particular case, when 条 is used to quantify 猫, it would seem that you are giving an explicit implication that the cat is pretty long or very thin; and note that context matters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19602" LastActivityDate="2018-05-04T08:27:13.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29631" CreationDate="2018-05-04T15:08:44.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Double verb will make your speaking sounds more casual, natural, cute, free,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your username reminds me the meme&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y9Quv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y9Quv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-04T15:08:44.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29636" CreationDate="2018-05-05T04:03:00.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a mistake, I have never heard anyone say 一条猫. It does not make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because when people choose a counter, he have 3 options,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1st: a description.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一根鱼竿, 一条鱼, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2nd: a common counter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个铅笔, 一位好人, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3rd: an emotional counter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一条好汉, 一条狗, 一头疯子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一条狗 originally implies a hungry dog that is hollow and skinny, though it becomes a common counter, it still includes the negative meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use 条 with other things, means you treat them as dogs, just like 一条好汉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 一条瘦猫, that is much better, a hateful hungry cat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T04:03:00.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29654" CreationDate="2018-05-05T09:01:30.090" Score="5" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I learned from a Chinese friend (a rather literate fellow) that you can use those words to describe books. Apparently:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仙草 = outstanding book, book as if made for Gods&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毒草 = very poor or even noxious book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;良草 = an okay book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had trouble verifying this info, though, in any external sources. Can I use them and expect the Chinese to understand me? Have I got the meaning correctly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T22:20:24.713" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T22:20:24.713" Title="Are 仙草, 毒草 and 良草 broadly-used idioms?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29653" CreationDate="2018-05-05T09:29:15.967" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;They're not.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only one that might be understood easily is「毒草」, which sometimes pops up figuratively in modern literature, likely to be tied to a nuance of thought control:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;毛澤東 《關於正確處理人民內部矛盾的問題》八： “有錯誤就得批判， 有&lt;strong&gt;毒草&lt;/strong&gt;就得進行鬥爭。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;On the correct manner of dealing with internal strife among the people, Mao Zedong said: &quot;Errors are to be critiqued, and we must enact struggles against&lt;/em&gt;「毒草」&lt;em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;劉心武 《班主任》： “ 張老師 ， 謝惠敏 說我們讀&lt;strong&gt;毒草&lt;/strong&gt;， 這本書能叫&lt;strong&gt;毒草&lt;/strong&gt;嗎？” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Professor Zhang, Xie Huimin told us that we're reading&lt;/em&gt;「毒草」&lt;em&gt;, is this book really a kind of&lt;/em&gt;「毒草」&lt;em&gt;?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「毒草」here means a work of literature (or other kind of art) that is harmful to the people or society. The more common antonym to「毒草」in this sense is「香花」rather than「仙草」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More commonly, however,「仙草」and「毒草」refer to the more obvious sense of mythical/poisonous herbs, respectively.「良草」is not something that pops up as a common phrase at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why they're not common is possibly because they are outdated sayings tied to the Mao Communist era on the Mainland. I suggest not to use these kinds of words too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-05-05T09:34:47.310" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T09:34:47.310" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29653" CreationDate="2018-05-05T12:36:50.337" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can, just like you can use &lt;code&gt;pot&lt;/code&gt; to refer cannabis when you talk to other smokers, you have to make sure the listeners are 网络小说 addict, otherwise they would totally have no idea what you are talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't read 网络小说, but I know some US TV drama fans call drama 草, looks like all addict call their favorite 草. :)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.&#xA;Here is a list translated from tieba&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仙草：epic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;粮草：good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干草：so so, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水草：bad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;带毒干草：even bad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毒草：terrible, unreadable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;穿肠毒草：Call doctor, need 仙草 to save life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-05-05T12:47:11.113" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T12:47:11.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16884" CreationDate="2018-05-05T17:19:56.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;FWIW - when Unihan was first developed and Chinese characters were encoded, it's possible that someone attempted to resolve the components for characters such as &quot;不” and mistakenly tried to decompose 不 into a compound ideograph when perhaps it should have been a single component plus misc strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps creating a CJK character set itself is rife with built-in inconsistencies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, @mikem, you might consider &quot;kwukyel&quot; entries as residual errors that should be corrected in the dictionaries you're using. I believe mdbg has dropped references to kwukyel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm creating my own database of Chinese-only characters and I'm treating kwukyel as simply additonal strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19609" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T17:19:56.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29657" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29660" CreationDate="2018-05-05T19:15:29.677" Score="0" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone please help me? I suck at forming sentences in Chinese. I know if I practice I would get better but I have no one to check if my sentence structure is correct. Hopefully, it is!&#xA;一）我请你和我想一起听音乐。&#xA;二）我和我的好朋友昨天晚上去图书馆看书。&#xA;三）哪里哪里，我写字写得很慢。&#xA;四）我的妈妈常常说别看电影。&#xA;五）白安觉得他来念书念得不错。&#xA;六）他没听录音可是有课文预习。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17799" LastActivityDate="2018-05-06T19:30:02.610" Title="Using those characters only/with out adding, replacing, or removing is my sentence structure and grammar correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29658" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29661" CreationDate="2018-05-05T19:55:55.047" Score="1" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a phrase that my family uses, but I'm not sure how to type it in Mandarin. I don't know if it is purely an exclamation or if it also means something. The closest way I can write it in English is &quot;aye yai ya sin soco lah&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if someone burned food, realized they had forgotten an appointment, or dropped a plate on the floor, they might say &quot;Aye yai ya sin soco lah!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My grandmother uses the phrase most often, and she speaks Shanghainese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this seems a bit silly, but I would appreciate it if someone could tell me exactly what this phrase is and what characters are used to write it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19441" LastEditorUserId="19441" LastEditDate="2018-05-05T23:51:09.047" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T23:56:43.570" Title="What is this exclamation and how is it written?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29658" CreationDate="2018-05-05T21:21:30.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Aye yai ya&lt;/strong&gt; sounds like &quot;哎也也&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,142082,142600&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,142082,142600&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;lah&lt;/strong&gt; at the end, well, a common singlish term: &quot;啦&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, the &quot;sin soco&quot;, no ideas yet, any more hints?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T21:21:30.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29657" CreationDate="2018-05-05T22:19:37.400" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;一）我请你和我想一起听音乐。 incorrect - (&lt;em&gt;it is either 请你和我一起听音乐 or 我想和你一起听音乐,&lt;/em&gt; ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二）我和我的好朋友昨天晚上去图书馆看书。 correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三）哪里哪里，我写字写得很慢。 correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四）我的妈妈常常说别看电影。 correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五）白安觉得他来念书念得不错。 incorrect - (&lt;em&gt;it should be &quot;白安觉得他念书念得不错&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'他&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;'念书' implies a '&lt;strong&gt;suggestion&lt;/strong&gt;' ; '念书念得不错' is a '&lt;strong&gt;statement&lt;/strong&gt;', the two don't mix )&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;六）他没听录音可是有课文预习。incorrect - (&lt;em&gt;it should be 他没听录音可是有预习课文, [没听] is a &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt;, if it is followed by &quot;可是有 &lt;strong&gt;but have&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; then the following must be another &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt; [预习], not a &lt;strong&gt;noun&lt;/strong&gt; [课文预习]&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-06T19:30:02.610" LastActivityDate="2018-05-06T19:30:02.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29658" CreationDate="2018-05-05T22:44:30.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哎也也 /Āi yě yě/ ('Ouch!/ Oh no!' &lt;em&gt;exclamation&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真 /Zhēn/  (&lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;糟糕 /Zāogāo/  (&lt;em&gt;it is bad/ not good&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啦 /la/ (final particle) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哎也也, 真糟糕啦! (Oh no! It is really bad!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-05T23:56:43.570" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T23:56:43.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29657" CreationDate="2018-05-05T23:13:01.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;第一句话）我请你和我想一起听音乐。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    我请你和我一起听音乐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第二句话）我和我的好朋友昨天晚上去图书馆看书。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    我和我的好朋友昨天晚上去图书馆看书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第三句话）哪里哪里，我写字写得很慢。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    哪里哪里，我写字写得很慢。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第四句话）我的妈妈常常说别看电影。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    我的妈妈常常说别看电影。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第五句话）白安觉得他来念书念得不错。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    白安觉得他来念书念得不错。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第六句话）他没听录音可是有课文预习。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    Not sure what you want to say exactly (your class perspective is student or teacher??), maybe: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'I'm not listening to music because I've got an essay to write.'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我没有时间听音乐，因为我有一篇文章要写。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'I'm not listening to music because I've got to learn a text by heart.'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我没有时间听音乐，因为我必须背诵一篇课文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T23:13:01.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29663" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29664" CreationDate="2018-05-07T02:18:56.783" Score="16" ViewCount="3198" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, we tend to avoid saying &amp;quot;next Wednesday&amp;quot;, etc., because it's ambiguous.  It humorously arises in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://seinfeldscripts.com/TheAlternateSide.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Seinfeld&lt;/a&gt; quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sid&lt;/em&gt;: No, next Wednesday, [the] week after this Wednesday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jerry&lt;/em&gt;: But the Wednesday two days from now is the next Wednesday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sid&lt;/em&gt;: If I meant this Wednesday, I would have said this Wednesday. It's the&#xA;week after this Wednesday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is 下个星期三 ambiguous like in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, I wonder if 下个星期三 might be unclear about whether it refers to &amp;quot;the Wednesday two days from now&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;the week after this Wednesday&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, we instead say &amp;quot;Wednesday&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;this Wednesday&amp;quot; which both mean the subsequent Wednesday, or even &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/67957/wednesday-week&quot;&gt;Wednesday week&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; which means the week after this Wednesday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-25T20:32:08.757" LastActivityDate="2021-01-25T06:26:58.983" Title="Is 下个星期三 (xiàge xīngqīsān) = &quot;next Wednesday&quot; ambiguous like in English?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29663" CreationDate="2018-05-07T02:34:12.220" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;下个星期三 would only refer to Wednesday, next week. There is no way you would use 下个星期三 to refer to Wednesday this week, like the one that is coming two days from now, that would just be 星期三.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a question on &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/491265481236324772.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Zhidao&lt;/a&gt; that, kind of(?), asks this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下个星期三要多少天?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with answers like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;七天 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps Larry David would be disappointed though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T02:34:12.220" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29663" CreationDate="2018-05-07T02:54:27.423" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 下个星期三 is parsed as 下个星期·三 rather than 下个·星期三, thus won't cause ambiguity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One proof is that we rarely say 下个周三 even though 周三=星期三, instead we say 下周三, because 下周=下个星期.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T02:54:27.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29663" CreationDate="2018-05-07T05:15:34.010" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ambiguity come from &quot;next&quot; has the meaning of &quot;up coming&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Seinfeld joke applied the &quot;up coming&quot; meaning of &quot;next&quot; to create confusion, but in practice, people always refer &quot;next Wednesday&quot; to &quot;next week's Wednesday&quot;. If you meant to say &quot;the up coming Wednesday&quot; you would just say so -- &quot;the up coming Wednesday&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the same in Chinese, the term &quot;下星期三&quot; always refers to &quot;下周的星期三&quot; ; if you meant to say &quot;the up coming Wednesday&quot;, you have to say &quot;即将到来的星期三&quot;  (refer to the up coming Wednesday, no matter it is in this week or next week) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you meant to say &quot;this Wednesday&quot; (the Wednesday this week, no matter it is yet to come or has passed) you have to say &quot;本星期三&quot; or simply &quot;星期三&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;下一個星期三&quot; or &quot;下個星期三&quot; (the next Wednesday) is considered ambiguous only in theory that '下一個' (the next one) and '即将到来的' (the up coming one) carry similar meaning. But it is never ambiguous in practice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[下 (next) + day of the week] is in relative to [本 (this) + day of the week]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下 = next (week's) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本 = this (week's)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-07T18:34:35.883" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T18:34:35.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29552" CreationDate="2018-05-07T05:42:10.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard way worse when my mum and dad were arguing hahaha. I'm not sure if it is indeed what i think it is, but if it is, it's kinda cute and not that bad. Here is my guess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saying one person is like a rock when arguing is simply comparing that person to a rock, and why a rock you ask? Well, you can't win an argument with a rock, rock don't listen, rock don't change, rock never compromise because &quot;it doesn't move&quot;. It's basically saying, &quot;You are so stubborn!!&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now why the term 臭 infront then? It's because if you just say ”你是一个石头“, it misses some &quot;flavour&quot; (See what i did there haha), your dad is just trying to show your mum who the boss is haha. Here is what I mean by that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你是一个石头(You are a rock!!), flat, no emotions at all.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你是一个臭石头(You are a stinky rock!!), see how it portrays emotions better by simply adding the word &quot;stinky&quot;? It's just the way it sounds sometimes, as Chinese is a tonal language so the same sentence on paper might not mean the same when spoken&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, this is my best guess, it could be a stronger word in different dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T05:42:10.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29663" CreationDate="2018-05-07T06:38:36.750" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;「下个星期三」是「下个星期」的「星期三」，简称「下周三」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果是「这个星期」的「星期三」，不管今天是这个星期的星期几，都会说「这个星期的星期三」，或简称「这周三」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也就是说，先用「星期/周」确定是「哪一个星期」，然后确定是「哪一天」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11046" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T06:38:36.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29564" CreationDate="2018-05-07T07:18:30.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hummm, I just think &quot;That's the way it is&quot;. It's annoying to many that though Chinese has a comparative simple grammar, it's lacking regularity... Or perhaps the grammar imported from the west is not good enough for Chinese...&#xA;Let me now TRY to answer your question:&#xA;野生大熊猫的数量少 is a complete clause （something like subject clause In English）So we can say &quot;(The fact)that blablabla has many causes.&quot; Absolutely correct.&#xA;However,野生大熊猫的少数量...First If we regard it as a clause no verb shows In it. If It's just a noun phrase as the subject, It's incorrect too because 数量 cannot be modified by 少. In fact, i ve never heard such things like 大数量 小数量 多数量 少数量. Oh It's just as you cannot say big price small price In English...数量 is an abstract concept,  so It's no bigger or smaller whether it s one billion or one hundred...&#xA;May it helps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T07:18:30.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29218" CreationDate="2018-05-07T07:49:09.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a very ingenious idea~&#xA;You may download an e-dictionary~ and then make it possible to search for strings through the whole text~&#xA;You may know that a more advanced word is explained using simple vocabulary, hence retrieved as you search for a simple word. by the way, you don't have to worry about expanding your vocabulary. I bet even native Chinese cannot list many words describing good. The mastery of beautiful and literary vocabulary is even more difficult. Because they dwell in the oceans of classical Chinese, which is explored by fewer people nowadays.&#xA;今日我觅得一间极佳的咖啡屋。Maybe In this way i put it a little more advanced.&#xA;老婆怎么可能一个人养育/抚养/拉扯/带/养大/照料孩子 and also  /亭毒/亭育/保艾…… The last few are from very old classicals, so it cannot be used In modern Chinese （it looks discord and awkward). I might put it as: 独贱内何以保艾吾后 something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-05-07T08:38:09.223" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T08:38:09.223" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29671" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-07T09:06:51.380" Score="4" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of them seem to mean &lt;em&gt;a second&lt;/em&gt;, according to both wiktionary and linedict.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%A7%92%E9%92%9F#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/秒钟#Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%A7%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/秒&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/b90b963dcf6f45cead8a742525cd059f&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/b90b963dcf6f45cead8a742525cd059f&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17264" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T23:02:33.510" Title="What's the difference between 秒钟 and 秒?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29671" CreationDate="2018-05-07T09:26:43.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we're only talking about the English word &lt;em&gt;second&lt;/em&gt;, then 秒钟 and 秒 don't really have any difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you could think of 秒 as &lt;code&gt;sec&lt;/code&gt;, as in &lt;code&gt;give me sec&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;I'll be there in a sec&lt;/code&gt; &amp;amp; 秒钟 as &lt;code&gt;second&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E7%A7%92%0D%0A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;'s definition of 秒 we can see that it also includes other things beside a measurement for time, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;arc second (angular measurement unit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(coll.) instantly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise for general purposes: 秒钟 is just the lengthened form of 秒 &amp;amp; 秒 is just the shortened form of 秒钟. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T09:26:43.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29673" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29674" CreationDate="2018-05-07T10:43:41.617" Score="4" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 太太 and 夫人? My book (外国人学汉语) translates it as the same word. “Woman (married)” and it says they can both be a suffix as well as a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there really no difference between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19610" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T22:14:15.367" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T22:14:15.367" Title="What is the difference between 太太 and 夫人?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29673" CreationDate="2018-05-07T11:09:34.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太太 is a common title for &quot;Mrs.&quot; or a noun for &quot;married woman&quot; (in general)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mrs.&lt;/strong&gt; : &lt;em&gt;a title used before a surname or full name to address or refer to a married woman, or a woman who has been married, without a higher or honorific or professional title.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夫人 is a more formal honorific or title for &quot;Madam&quot; or a noun for &quot;married woman&quot; (of high status)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Madam&lt;/strong&gt; :(often initial capital letter) a polite term of address to a woman, originally used only to a woman of rank or authority:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, 太太 is a general title for married women; 夫人 is a more formal/honorable title for married women; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;女仕 is another honorific for women. A formal/ polite term for addressing to adult woman  (single or married)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The difference between 太太 and 夫人 is somewhat similar to San (さん) and Sama (様) in Japanese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-07T20:37:42.110" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T20:37:42.110" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29380" CreationDate="2018-05-07T11:32:17.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, we do invent new characters, but it's more common that the character was invented long ago and dead, and we just resurrect it to be the character of a chemical element.&#xA;In the past, only the emperors had the right to invent characters. In Ming Dynasty, the first emperor made the rules that one of the comprising characters of an imperial kinsman's name must contain one of the  &quot;five elements&quot;（“五行” 金 木 水 火 土）radicals In it. However, there weren't adequate elegant characters meeting the requirements. So they contrived many characters for this only purpose. These characters contribute to naming many chemical elements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-05-07T15:31:01.173" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T15:31:01.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29676" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29677" CreationDate="2018-05-07T12:55:21.767" Score="0" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;The site &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea&lt;/a&gt; likes to give a &lt;em&gt;two-part component&lt;/em&gt; breakdown of every character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of their classifications comes with a &lt;code&gt;(卐)&lt;/code&gt; next to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=6562&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;敢&lt;/a&gt; is split up like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两分字元：耳(卐) 攵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=6BB7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;殷&lt;/a&gt; is split up like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两分字元：厂(卐) 殳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=6A50&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;橐&lt;/a&gt; is split up like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两分字元：十(卐) 木&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entry for the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=5350&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;卐&lt;/a&gt; itself doesn't allude to this usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拼音wan4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古代印度宗教的吉祥标志。显现金光，如来佛胸前有卐字。中国唐代武则天定音为【万】。义为“吉祥万德之所集”。佛经中又写作【卍】。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does &amp;quot;(卐)&amp;quot; as part of 两分字元 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T13:02:41.233" Title="What does &quot;(卐)&quot; as part of 两分字元 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29676" CreationDate="2018-05-07T13:02:41.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zslf.htm#&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zisea.com/zslf.htm#&lt;/a&gt; you can see this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;卐=难拆字元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is just a &quot;symbol&quot; used on the site to represent parts that are hard to identify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not universal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T13:02:41.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29155" CreationDate="2018-05-07T19:01:02.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have many questions about the nature of the gift, style of engraving you're thinking about using, and whether your female friend has a passion for dancing / dances for a living / is taking dance lessons and aspires to be a dancer, etc., and also, why do you want to engrave &quot;dancer&quot; on this gift.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answers would help me to tailor a complete answer to your question. In other words, the answer to your question isn't straightforward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other answers here already gave you many different translations for &quot;dancer&quot;, along with the connotations and usage. As you can see, &quot;dancer&quot; still carries a negative connotation in this day and age.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking to encapsulate a passion for dance, why not simply engrave &quot;舞&quot; ? Dance. Just Dance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T19:01:02.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29647" CreationDate="2018-05-07T19:47:13.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dictionary.com/browse/ball-of-foot&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dictionary.com&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ball of foot n.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The padded portion of the sole of the human foot between the toes and the arch, on which the weight of the body rests when the heel is raised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To find the proper translation of &quot;balls of feet&quot;, I looked for articles discussing this mostly in context of proper running techniques, and jump roping.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sites used: &lt;a href=&quot;https://read01.com/yPPJ7P.html#.WvCdR6QvyUk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(1)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ettoday.net/news/20150527/511375.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(2)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://tw.gigacircle.com/1510682-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(3)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://hk.running.biji.co/index.php?q=news&amp;amp;act=info&amp;amp;id=319&amp;amp;subtitle=%E8%B7%91%E6%AD%A5%E6%99%82%E5%A6%82%E4%BD%95%E8%90%BD%E5%9C%B0%EF%BC%9F%E8%85%B3%E8%B7%9F%E8%88%87%E8%85%B3%E6%8E%8C%E7%9A%84%E8%BF%B7%E6%80%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(4)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://hk.running.biji.co/index.php?q=news&amp;amp;act=info&amp;amp;id=511&amp;amp;subtitle=%E5%A2%9E%E5%8A%A0%E5%8B%95%E8%83%BD%E6%B8%9B%E5%B0%91%E8%B2%A0%E8%8D%B7%20%E5%BE%9E%E5%8A%9B%E5%AD%B8%E7%9C%8B%E5%89%8D%E6%8E%8C%E8%91%97%E5%9C%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(5)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wukong.com/question/6499281101633093901/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(6)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://fitz.hk/sports/running/%E7%A7%91%E5%AD%B8%E7%A0%94%E7%A9%B6-%E8%B7%91%E6%AD%A5%E8%90%BD%E8%85%B3%EF%BC%8C%E8%85%B3%E5%B0%96%E3%80%81%E8%85%B3%E6%8E%8C%E3%80%81%E8%85%B3%E8%B8%AD%E9%82%8A%E5%80%8B%E5%A5%BD/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(7)&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;balls of feet&quot; is typically referred to as 腳尖 and or 前腳掌. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T19:47:13.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29680" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29681" CreationDate="2018-05-08T00:06:16.653" Score="1" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is about 后来才知道 in the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他为了帮我，&lt;strong&gt;把6岁大的儿子一个人锁在家里整整一夜&lt;/strong&gt;，彻底感动了我，交往不到一年，我们结婚了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ... bǎ 6 suì dà de érzi yīgè rén suǒ zài jiālǐ zhěngzhěng yīyè ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guaixun.com/bdnews/content_214083_1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;嫁给离婚带孩子的男人 我的生活只剩下两个字&lt;/a&gt;, guaixun.com&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To help me [为了帮我], he took his 6-year old son [6岁大的儿子] and locked [锁] him in the house [在家里] by himself [一个人] for the whole [整整] night [夜], which thoroughly [彻底] touched [感动] me, and being in contact [交往] for less than a year [不到一年], we married [我们结婚了].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems like a peculiar sentence: it seems the man locked up his 6-year old son at home overnight, and the woman (who wrote this article) thought this behavior was so great that she felt &quot;touched&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm surely misunderstanding it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Did the man lock up his 6-year old son at home overnight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T01:05:17.647" Title="Did the man lock up his 6-year old son at home overnight? (把6岁大的儿子一个人锁在家里整整一夜)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29680" CreationDate="2018-05-08T01:05:17.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding of the sentence is correct. The man in the story did lock his six years old son alone at home for entire night so that he could help a woman. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The writing of that woman illustrated she is a self centered person. And the man was a horrible father.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Around 1997, I watched in the news in Hong Kong that there were two working parents who kept their two preschool age children locked in at home during their working hours, because they couldn't afford daycare. Unfortunately, a fire broke out in that apartment and the two kids couldn't escape  because the door was locked and were killed in the fire. The parents felt so guilty, they hanged themselves within few days.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why I feel so strongly about locking kids at home by themselves-- Nothing worth the risk!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T01:05:17.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29682" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-08T01:07:23.450" Score="0" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading an abridged version of 三国演义。(I don't think I could read the original, too difficult for me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（诸葛亮）故意激怒司马懿，派人送了一套女人的衣服，并辱骂他像女人一样，缩头不战。司马懿心里恼怒，但却穿上衣服，文使者：“诸葛亮忙吗？吃饭睡觉情况怎么样？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did 司马懿 put on women's clothes to meet 诸葛亮's envoy? Or is this just a bad book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T02:13:46.200" Title="Was 司马懿 a crossdresser?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="231" CreationDate="2018-05-08T01:15:53.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the problem is what is the difference between 我想去洗手间 and 我想上厕所 . In chinese daily life，they have same meaining : go to toilets. However 我想去洗手间 is a more polite expression and is used in formal  occasions and eating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, 洗手 is a verb meaning to clean your hands by water if your hands are dirty. It is just  a ordinary word. If you say 洗手 , you are considerd to wash your hands in 厕所 or 洗手间.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19626" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T01:15:53.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29682" CreationDate="2018-05-08T01:31:41.593" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Did 司马懿 put on women's clothes to meet 诸葛亮's envoy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think 司马懿 really put on the clothes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shicimingju.com/book/sanguoyanyi/103.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;original&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(emphasis mine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;且说孔明自引一军屯于五丈原，累令人搦战，魏兵只不出。孔明乃取巾帼并妇人缟素之服，盛于大盒之内，修书一封，遣人送至魏寨。诸将不敢隐蔽，引来使入见司马懿。懿对众启盒视之，内有巾帼妇人之衣，并书一封。懿拆视其书，略曰：“仲达既为大将，统领中原之众，不思披坚执锐，以决雌雄，乃甘窟守土巢，谨避刀箭，与妇人又何异哉！今遣人送巾帼素衣至，如不出战，可再拜而受之。倘耻心未泯，犹有男子胸襟，早与批回，依期赴敌。”司马懿看毕，心中大怒，乃佯笑曰：“孔明视我为妇人耶！”即&lt;strong&gt;受之&lt;/strong&gt;，令重待来使。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受之 only means 司马懿 received / took in / accepted the clothes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://novel.tingroom.com/html/book/show/179/6328.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt;'s an English version:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(emphasis mine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Then he confirmed the order to remain strictly on the defensive till&#xA;  some change of circumstances on the part of the enemy should promise&#xA;  advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After his army had settled into camp on the Wuzhang Hills, Zhuge Liang&#xA;  continued his attempts to provoke a battle. Day after day, parties&#xA;  went to challenge the army of Wei, but they resisted all provocation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One day Zhuge Liang put a dress made of deer hide in a box, which he&#xA;  sent, with a letter, to his rival. The insult could not be concealed,&#xA;  so the generals led the bearer of the box to their chief. Sima Yi&#xA;  opened the box and saw the deer hide dress. Then he opened the letter,&#xA;  which read something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Friend Sima Yi, although you are a Commander-in-Chief and lead the&#xA;  armies of the Middle Land, you seem but little disposed to display the&#xA;  firmness and valor that would render a contest decisive. Instead, you&#xA;  have prepared a comfortable lair where you are safe from the keen edge&#xA;  of the sword. Are you not very like a deer? Wherefore I send the&#xA;  bearer with a suitable gift, and you will humbly accept it and the&#xA;  humiliation, unless, indeed, you finally decide to come out and fight&#xA;  like a warrior. If you are not entirely indifferent to shame, if you&#xA;  retain any of the feelings of a tiger, you will send this back to me&#xA;  and come out and give battle.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sima Yi, although inwardly raging, pretended to take it all as a joke&#xA;  and smiled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;So he regards me as a deer,&quot; said he.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;He accepted the gift&lt;/strong&gt; and treated the messenger well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-05-08T02:13:20.360" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T02:13:20.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29682" CreationDate="2018-05-08T01:48:34.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我理解他穿上那件诸葛亮送的女人衣服，他是想像使者传递一个信息: &quot;我知道你是有意激怒我，从而达到让我出战的目的。 但我不会上你的当，我已经识破了你的计谋。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe, more context would help to understand it more clearly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T01:48:34.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29682" CreationDate="2018-05-08T02:13:46.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most likely not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三国演义 is a novel, therefore the stories in 三国演义 are not nessecarily fact. And as described in @songyuanyao's answer, 三国演义 does not say that 司马懿 put on the cloths.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A relevant Story in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxue.com/shibu/24shi/jinshu/jinshu_001.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;晋书&lt;/a&gt; (History of the Jin Dynasty) reads as following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;亮数挑战，帝不出，因遗帝巾帼妇人之饰。帝怒，表请决战，天子不许，乃遣骨鲠臣卫尉辛毗杖节为军师以制之。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[诸葛亮 challenged 司马懿 to fight for multiple times, but 司马懿 did not respond. Therefore 诸葛亮 send a set of women's clothes to 司马懿 (to irritate him). 司马懿 was angry, and he wrote a letter to the king asking for permission to fight, but the king did not allow. The king appointed 辛毗 as 司马懿's military advisor to control him.] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book you read may not be a bad book, but a little more fictional. Some TV shows also features the similar story where 司马懿 puts on the women's cloth and even shows off in front of 诸葛亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12075" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T02:13:46.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29687" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29689" CreationDate="2018-05-08T09:31:12.957" Score="1" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been doing my research on 者 and in one of the articles I read I came across a sentence from &quot;Analects&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;安见方六七十如五六十而非邦也者。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Glosses for this example are as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;where see size six-or-seventy or five-or-sixty and NEG country COP ZHE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really understand why is 也 glossed as copula, is anyone able to explain why would it be treated as such instead of being a final particle? Is it because 者 is there too, probably also as a sentence final particle？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15945" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-05-08T11:11:12.390" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T18:10:50.983" Title="也 in classical Chinese as copula" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29687" CreationDate="2018-05-08T10:39:27.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker （And I have received adequate education In classical Chinese）, I would parse the sentence as below&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O2kNS.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;For my own convenience I write it down&quot;&gt;&#xA;So you can treat what is bracketed as an independent clause and 安见……者 to make a rhetorical question...&#xA;I hope some true expert will make it clear because the Analects is quite difficult for us, too. XD&#xA;PS. &#xA;We can have a look at the context: 亦各言其志也已矣（Which shows 孔子 is not quite satisfied with their answers.）He points out that 安见方六七十如五六十而非邦也者 which implies that 冉有's answer is basically the same as 子路, except for that he is modest. So the sentence should be explained as &quot;Though 子路 said about 方六七十，如五六十 without mentioning 邦, it's no difference that he also wants to administer a 邦国（“大曰邦，小曰国”《周礼》）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-05-08T11:45:32.657" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T11:45:32.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29687" CreationDate="2018-05-08T10:56:04.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because it &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; a coupla.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Confucius rhetorically asks: &quot;Among territories (方) which are 60 to&#xA;  70, or (如) 50 to 60 &lt;em&gt;li&lt;/em&gt;, where can you see (安見) one (者) that isn't a&#xA;  state (非邦也)?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;方六七十如五六十而非邦也&lt;/strong&gt; specifies a territory (方) which is about 60 to 70, or 50 to 60 &lt;em&gt;li&lt;/em&gt; that hypothetically may not be a state (非邦也; &lt;em&gt;not be&lt;/em&gt; is the function of the coupla). The idea is that such territories do not exist, because you cannot pick out any one (者) among the set of territories of these measurements which isn't a state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-05-08T12:37:03.487" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T12:37:03.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29690" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29701" CreationDate="2018-05-08T13:24:19.847" Score="1" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to say beforehand that my question requires someone who knows Japanese language to answer it, because the sentence that I need an answer to is a Japanese one. &#xA;Let me explain first what I’m asking for. I’m examining a relative clause in Japanese where the writer deletes some element form the sentence, not only the subject but some critical element and expected it to be understood by the reader,  I wonder if Chinese writers will do the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence in Japanese &#xA;頭がよくなる本&#xA;Atama ga yoku naru honn &#xA;The transaltion in English is &#xA;The book (by reading which) (  ) head gets better (i.e become smarter) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only information that provided in the Japanese sentence is “heads gets better” and, “the book”. It does not mention anything related to “reading the book” but this can be understood through connecting the semantic meanings for both become smarter and the book. Do Chinese people do the same? Do they omit elements and let the reader find semantic and pragmatic connections? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This very important question to me, beacuse I’m working in my graduation thesis and I need to confirm if there is connection between Japanese and Chinese, since Japanese influenced by Chinese in many ways.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19639" LastEditorDisplayName="user19549" LastEditDate="2018-05-17T02:24:53.217" LastActivityDate="2018-05-17T02:24:53.217" Title="Does Chinese have any structure similar with this Japanese term?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29643" CreationDate="2018-05-08T14:32:32.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once upon a time, the whole brand name is spelled in lengthy version.  Thus, it is obvious translation for the time to use 肯德基家乡鸡（Kentucky homestead chicken) as a more elegant translation for the brand and for marketing. And this translation continue to be used even the brand change it to KFC.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, public simply use 肯德鸡 regardless of KFC marketing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is similar to Mcdonald franchise, that many simply call it 麦记 than the full marketing name 麦当劳。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-05-08T17:43:24.893" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T17:43:24.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28836" CreationDate="2018-05-08T15:23:37.593" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my own experience as a native speaker, &quot;kitsch&quot; (刻奇) is meaningless word itself as a loanword you mentioned. It does not yet blend into normal daily language use other than academic purpose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the next natural step for me will be &quot;google&quot; it and found out an alternative translation as 媚俗 (媚 to flatter, 俗 common group). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, the connotation of 媚俗 will influence back to 刻奇 for us to think it means something with &quot;group emotional contagion&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13110" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T15:23:37.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14535" CreationDate="2018-05-08T15:45:24.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A collector maie just put me on the trail of your site and on this page.&#xA;It so happens that I too have a similar character bearing this seal in sigillary characters. In my opinion, the character is Lao Tzu or Confucius and he wears on his back a turtle shell with a text (the Yiking probably). A saber divides the book in two, it is fixed in a mat.&#xA;The material may be a carved steatite or a harder stone.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OYs1O.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OYs1O.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Lao-tseu?[![la signature[![Vue de côté[![Yi King ?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DLsXT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Utf2P.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HkIj7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19640" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T15:45:24.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29643" CreationDate="2018-05-08T16:14:33.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason your friend says &quot;鸡&quot; is low in status is probably because of its association with male genitalia (think &quot;cockerel/cock&quot; in English). I'd guess that's probably a compelling reason not to adopt chicken puns in an official name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19642" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T16:14:33.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29155" CreationDate="2018-05-08T17:58:23.040" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestion : Don't, non of those are appropriate to named in a present. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's me put it some way : will any fan kitsch enough to give Sylvie Guillem a gift that with &quot;excellent dancer&quot; engraved ?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please ask around and use proverb or metaphor for a dancer.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T17:58:23.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29687" CreationDate="2018-05-08T18:10:50.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;也者&lt;/strong&gt; should be treated as a compound particle (虛詞), like &amp;quot;而已&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;而已矣&amp;quot;; one interpret them together. chopping it into two single character particle (虛字), is, confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;even in classical chinese texts, there're numerous usages, no-one would chop them into &amp;quot;也&amp;quot; + &amp;quot;者&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孝弟也者﹒其為仁之本與&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孟子曰﹒仁也者﹒人也﹒合而言之﹒道也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;葬也者﹒藏也﹒藏也者﹒欲人之弗得見也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;besides meaningless, indicating the end of verse, or, as modal particle (語氣詞); &amp;quot;也者&amp;quot; could be interpreted as &amp;quot;the mentioned&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;所謂&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;所說的&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安見方六七十如五六十而非邦也者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would interpret it as &amp;quot;安見&amp;quot; + &amp;quot;方六七十&amp;quot; + &amp;quot;如五六十&amp;quot; + &amp;quot;而非&amp;quot; + &amp;quot;邦也者&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that, the assumption is &amp;quot;邦也者﹒方六七十﹒如五六十&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a state (邦), such mentioned (也者) [state] is a region (方) of 60+ (六七十) square miles (里, equal to 360 paces in ancient time), or 50+ (五六十) square miles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, the verse in the question would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how can we find calmly (安見) a region (方) of 60+ sq miles (六七十), or 50+ sq miles (如五六十); and (而) it is not (非) a state (邦), such mentioned [region] (也者)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T18:10:50.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29690" CreationDate="2018-05-08T18:27:43.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;for classical chinese, it's a yes. one must read between the lines (actually, amongst characters), to grasp the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;三&quot;, &quot;五&quot;, &quot;二&quot;, &quot;八&quot; are the chinese the characters of 3, 5, 2, 8; but, putting them together, does not mean &quot;3528&quot;, it depends on the context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三五二八佳年少﹒百萬千金買歌笑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;三五&quot; here means 15 years old (3 x 5) = 15, while &quot;二八&quot; means 16 years old (2 x 8) = 16&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三五二八光如練﹒海上天涯人共見&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;三五&quot; here means full moon, the 15th day of lunar calendar, while &quot;二八&quot; means the moon of the 16th day of lunar calendar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope this answer helps :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T18:27:43.840" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29703" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29708" CreationDate="2018-05-09T00:05:27.727" Score="0" ViewCount="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing an email to a teacher and I'm trying to say &quot;two weeks ago, you substituted for the teacher of my class&quot;. I'm trying to figure out how to say &quot;substituted&quot; and I haven't been able to figure out the right word in the context of a class. I've found 替代，代替，取代, etc., and I can't figure out which one's correct in this context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T03:34:07.353" Title="Translation of &quot;to substitute for&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29703" CreationDate="2018-05-09T00:16:09.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'you substituted for the teacher of my class' = 你给我们班代课&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19646" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T00:16:09.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13031" CreationDate="2018-05-09T01:08:10.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also though there are a couple hundred exceptions you might need where entire arrangements of radicals are changed, for the most part you just need to learn the minority of radicals that change between the two. Most of the characters you will come across are the same - 9; those that aren't, most change a radical in a standard way. I learn the two concurrently, 85 adds much less than learning the characters themselves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19647" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T01:08:10.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29706" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29707" CreationDate="2018-05-09T01:09:42.813" Score="1" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;In class, the teacher asked us to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I go to Guangzhou to see a friend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in Chinese.  I thought we should say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去广州&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%A7%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;见&lt;/a&gt;朋友&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ qù Guǎngzhōu jiàn péngyǒu&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but the (substitute) teacher proposed：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去广州&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9C%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;看&lt;/a&gt;朋友&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ qù Guǎngzhōu kàn péngyǒu&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 见 is more appropriate since it means &quot;to see&quot; in the sense of &quot;to meet&quot;, whereas 看 means &quot;to look at&quot;, e.g., 看花 (kànhuā) = to look at flowers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was corrected on this in the past: I went to an office and said 我想看[她的名字], and I was told that's weird to say, that it sounds like she's a celebrity, and I should say 我想见[她的名字].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in addition to the teacher's sentence, the top answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/8511/8099&quot;&gt;When to use 看 and 见？&lt;/a&gt; says 见 is inappropriate (&lt;em&gt;you probably will not use 见 as a verb&lt;/em&gt;), although it also says it is appropriate (&lt;em&gt;见 can be used as a verb when it means to see/meet someone&lt;/em&gt;), so now I'm totally confused, and unsure which is best for this particular context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is 我去广州见朋友 or 我去广州看朋友 better for saying &quot;I go to Guangzhou to see a friend&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T07:27:07.693" Title="Is 我去广州见朋友 or 我去广州看朋友 better for saying &quot;I go to Guangzhou to see a friend&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29706" CreationDate="2018-05-09T03:05:57.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, I think 我去广州看朋友 is the suitable translation for &quot;I go to Guangzhou to see a friend&quot;? 我去广州看朋友 usually means you want to see your friend there to see how everything is going with him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 我去广州见朋友 sounds that you want to meet a friend in Guangzhou, usually for some purposes(like business, talking about something, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T03:05:57.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29703" CreationDate="2018-05-09T03:34:07.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be“两周前您代我们班老师讲课”&#xA;I've made subtle changes In the translation to make it natural and polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T03:34:07.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29706" CreationDate="2018-05-09T07:15:13.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly, I don't think English speaker will say &quot;I go to some places to see a friend&quot;, even it is grammatically correct. Normally one will use : &quot;I go to Guangzhou to visit/meet a friend&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can learn how Chinese say the same thing interchangeably :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;找朋友, 觅朋友， 觅友&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;探朋友，探望朋友&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;揾朋友， 睇朋友（Cantonese)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;见朋友, 会见朋友， 会见友人， 看朋友&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the later example of &quot;looking/searching for somebody name&quot;, it is not correct to use [看/见] . The correct terms are &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;找名字&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;寻找名字&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;搜索名字&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-05-09T07:27:07.693" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T07:27:07.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29690" CreationDate="2018-05-09T09:30:21.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No idea about Japanese, but it was fun playing with the sentence, maybe this helps somehow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a book, the reading of which makes you smarter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是一本读了能让你变聪明的书。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;读这本书能让你变聪明。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;读这书让你变聪明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T09:30:21.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29714" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29718" CreationDate="2018-05-09T11:27:29.257" Score="3" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCFjOG6a2tY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;张少林个“肯涯正晓出头”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;人穷爱肯涯正晓出头&lt;br&gt;&#xA;平时努力人系饿毋瘦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;完家大细一大楸&lt;br&gt;&#xA;来负担系好愁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早晨由暗做杉几十穷&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯到拨病骨头痛又&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做到瘦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;还惊饿死老婆屋又臭&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做到 汗流&lt;br&gt;&#xA;周时爱当借靠老朋友&lt;br&gt;&#xA;年轻爱食苦 做事莫怕羞&lt;br&gt;&#xA;出头个日子还有&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nyin khiung oi hen ngai tsang hiau chut-theu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Phin-sii nu-lit nyin he ngo m seu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Won ka thai-se yit thai chiu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Loi fu-tam he hau seu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsau-sin yu am tso sam ki sip khiung&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai tau pot-phiang kut-theu thung yiu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tso tau siu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Han kiang ngo-si lau-pho wuk yiu chiu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tso tau hon liu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsiu-sii oi tong cia khau lau phen-yiu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nyien-khiang oi sit-khu tso-sii mok pha siu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Chut-theu ke nyit-tsii han yu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When poverty allows me, I will succeed&lt;br&gt;&#xA;People who work hard in common times are not scarce in hunger&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The whole family, young and old people, are a big tree&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And holding it up is rather sad (?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In the morning from when it's still dark I make clothes in the tens.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If I fall ill and my bones hurt, I still&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Work till I'm thin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I still fear I'll starve to death and my wife abd my house will be poor again&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I work till my sweat flows&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I often have to rely on old friends for borrowing [stuff]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When you're young you must suffer work and not be afraid of disgrace&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There will still be a day of success&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above is my character approximation, transliteration, and translation attempt for a Hakka song by Zhang Shaolin. I am unsure about the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Translating 愁 as sad is the only option given the character, but I would expect something more like &quot;hard, difficult&quot; than &quot;sad&quot;; is that correct, or is there another seu/siu which fits best? Or maybe 楸 is the wrong character?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is my reading of 早晨由暗做杉几十穷 correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That 当借 feels a bit like it should be a single verb, but I can't find it; is my translation fine?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any other inputs are of course welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first line is extremely prone to misinterpretation, because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人穷 is reported by Minhakka… um, seems to be reported by Minhakka as &quot;poverty&quot;, the culprit being «人窮起盗心», translated to «poverty leads to thievery» when a more literal (i.e. structure-reflecting) translation is «if a man is poor he will grow a thief's heart»;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;肯 also means &quot;allow&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The sound &quot;ngai&quot; is, in my mind, automatically matched to the pronoun &quot;ngâi&quot;, meaning &quot;I&quot;; however, it is also the verb 捱, meaning &quot;to endure, to suffer&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So after clearing up point 1, only one option is left:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人穷爱肯捱正晓出头 | If a man is poor, only when he is willing to endure hardships will he succeed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With point 1 not cleared, the obvious interpretation is what I gave at the beginning. If we change the interpretation of 肯捱 without clearing up point 1, we end up with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人穷爱肯捱正晓出头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;interpreted as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Only when (正) [I] will (爱) be willing (肯) to endure (捱) [my] poverty (人穷) can (晓) [I] succeed (出头).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2018-05-09T14:53:57.177" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T06:32:33.577" Title="Help understanding &quot;Hen ngai cang hiau chut-theu&quot; by Zhang Shaolin" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="24" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29715" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-09T11:36:25.010" Score="1" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm struggling to understand this sentence. It's in an answere &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/48971187&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, about halfway down the page. I've copied the context below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一部分是课代表。我是语文课代表 也很喜欢语文老师 他忘了留作业的话 我就在座位用口型告诉他 作业。然后他就&#xA;  噢今天的作业啊，巴拉巴拉。这样可以避免我去办公室问作业 作业总是要有的啊。 一部分单纯热心。&lt;strong&gt;而且想提前写作业 不留到晚自习就写完多好&lt;/strong&gt;。&#xA;  最少的一部分是自己从来不写作业 但不能让别人没有作业。这种可能很小。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone able to help me out with this? I'm HSK5 so I know the general meaning of the characters in the sentence but I can't figure out the overall meaning. Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-08-24T11:01:14.140" Title="Help me understand/translate &quot;不留到晚自习就写完多好&quot; (context supplied)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29716" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29719" CreationDate="2018-05-09T12:30:44.973" Score="0" ViewCount="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence which explains the usage of &lt;code&gt;～长～短&lt;/code&gt; phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中间嵌入两个相同的名词，表示&lt;strong&gt;对某人某事的&lt;/strong&gt;亲近和关心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand what the 的 here means. Does it refer to &quot;of ~&quot; but what should be after 的 is omitted here? So without any omission, it should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表示对某人某事&lt;strong&gt;的东西&lt;/strong&gt;亲近和关心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or does it modify the noun after that (亲近和关心)? In that case, I don't understand then what is the object of 表示, since the whole phrase is now under a preposition (对).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or am I missing something here and possibly neither is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-05-09T13:02:42.503" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T13:59:01.950" Title="What does 的 mean in 表示对某人某事的亲近和关心?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29714" CreationDate="2018-05-09T12:38:28.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;来负担系好&lt;strong&gt;愁&lt;/strong&gt; = to burden oneself is very &lt;strong&gt;worrisome&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Is my reading of 早晨由暗做杉几十穷 correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not Mandarin or Cantonese,  I am not sure if your pinyin is correct or not, but sound like O.K to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;当= 典当 (to pawn); 借= to borrow. The two verbs together means &quot;to pawn and borrow&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[周时][爱][当][借][靠老朋友]= Often pawn, borrow and rely on (support from) old friends &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MickG wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Would I then be right in translating «完家大细一大楸 来负担系好愁» as «All my family, older and younger [people], is a big tree, and burdening myself [with it] is very worrysome»?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完家大细 = the entire family (old and young) ; 一大楸 = a big bundle  来负担系好愁 = it is very worrisome to burden myself (with all of them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;完家大细一大楸 来负担系好愁&quot; means &quot; the entire family old and young, is a big bundle, to burden (myself with it) is very worrisome&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-09T12:57:52.233" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T12:57:52.233" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29716" CreationDate="2018-05-09T13:16:52.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;表示 (v) = to indicate /to show / to express&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;对&lt;/strong&gt;某人某事 = &lt;strong&gt;toward&lt;/strong&gt; some person or something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;对某人某事(的)&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;(of) toward some person or something&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 functions as an adjectival suffix here. The whole phrase &amp;quot;对某人某事的&amp;quot; is now an adjectival phrase for the object &amp;quot;亲近和关心&amp;quot; (fondness and concern)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[表示] [&lt;strong&gt;对某人某事的&lt;/strong&gt;] [亲近和关心。]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[to express ] [the fondness and concern] [&lt;strong&gt;toward some person or something&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T13:59:01.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29720" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29721" CreationDate="2018-05-09T13:28:21.410" Score="0" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned the phrase of &amp;quot;～长～短&amp;quot;, and it means &amp;quot;～怎么样，～怎么样&amp;quot;, though I feel it is difficult to understand it in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the following sentences are examples of using &amp;quot;～长～短&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这两个老太太一见面，就张家长李家短地说起来没完。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;大家对他总是张三长李四短的很有意见。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are what I tried, but feel either too clumsy or too verbose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;These two old ladies, once they meet each other, start to keep talking about how 张 family is going and how 李 family is going, and never stop to talk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Everyone always has his/her opinion on how 张三 is and how 李四 is and speak it to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(By the way is 张三 and 李四 are names of people...?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence is especially too clumsy and makes little sense in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm quite confused now. How can I better understand the &amp;quot;～长～短&amp;quot; phrase and make the translation more natural, less verbose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T21:49:00.657" Title="How should I understand &quot;～长～短&quot; phrase in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29720" CreationDate="2018-05-09T13:45:31.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;长 = good /strengths  ; 短 = bad/ shortcomings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;～长～短&quot; = &quot;～this～that&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张三李四 is similar to &quot;any Tom, Dick or Harry&quot;  in English, refers to any unspecific people's names. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/38376/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/38376/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张三长李四短 = &quot;someone this, someone that&quot; (gossiping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张家长李家短 = &quot;so and so family this, so and so family that&quot; (gossiping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-09T13:53:16.787" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T13:53:16.787" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29715" CreationDate="2018-05-09T13:57:10.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because there is some uncommon term that OP don't understand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;课代表&lt;/code&gt; so call &quot;class/course representative&quot;, is in fact, a helper/assistant roles appointed by the tutor/teacher.  So the author is a &quot;helper&quot; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这样可以避免我去办公室问作业  : So as a helper, he/she may need to go to the teahcer office to ask about home work for the student if the teacher forget about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而且想提前写作业 不留到晚自习就写完多好. What the author mean the he/she are able to do the home work immediately during those spare time between the class, rather than leaving it overnight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T13:57:10.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29723" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-09T14:08:25.783" Score="0" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;Link is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/35518652&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (7th answer from the top), and here's the context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;讲一个我朋友的故事，他10多年前开这个车。(image)&#xA;  没错，松花江小面。&lt;strong&gt;其实也没什么&lt;/strong&gt;，10多年前有个车还算不错了。可这个朋友有个癖好，就是喜欢去五星级酒店或者饭店品茶，吃个早点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone explain the grammar, meaning and usage of this phrase? Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T19:02:07.893" Title="What does 其实也没什么 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29723" CreationDate="2018-05-09T15:26:28.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;其实也没什么 implies 其实也没什么(了不起) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其实(actually) 也没(not quite) 什么 (something) &lt;em&gt;了不起 (amazing)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That was not a great car worth mentioning, but back then, having any car was quite a feat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T15:26:28.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29723" CreationDate="2018-05-09T19:02:07.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;其实也没什么&lt;/strong&gt; literally means &quot;in fact, there is nothing&quot;.&#xA;其实 = in fact&#xA;也没 = not quite&#xA;什么 = something. -&gt;也没什么 = &quot;there's nothing&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why Chinese is hard is because of its high flexibility. As the previous answer indicated, this phrase skipped something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(其实也)没什么&quot; usually connects with &quot;大不了的(a big deal)&quot;, &quot;了不起的(amazing, extraordinary)&quot;, or other phrases/words with feelings (e.g.: &quot;没什么好玩/吃的&quot; = &quot;There's (or that's) nothing fun/delicious at all&quot;). The reason why this should be interpreted as &quot;没什么了不起的/大不了的 (there's nothing extraordinary/big at all)&quot; is because of the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;讲一个我朋友的故事，他10多年前开这个车。没错，松花江小面。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; Translation: &quot;(I'm gonna) tell a story of my friend, he used to drive this car more than ten years ago. That's right, a van made by SongHuaJiang (manufacter).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This van is currently almost obsolete, and this van is very cheap in China, and I would say it is one of the cheapest car in China. However, it is hard to own a car many years ago when people were not that rich, so it was a great honor to have a car at that time, even a car so cheap with a bad quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;10多年前有个车还算不错了。可这个朋友有个癖好，就是喜欢去五星级酒店或者饭店品茶，吃个早点。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; Translation: It is not bad to have a car more than 10 years ago. However, this friend had a fondness - always likes to go to 5-star hotels to have some tea and breakfast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, this is a contrast - although his friend owned a car at that time, which is not easy at that time, this car is not a good car at all and he still go to 5-star hotels and eat breakfast (which indicates that this friend was showing off). Therefore, he would say that &quot;It's not something extraordinary&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19658" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T19:02:07.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28782" CreationDate="2018-05-09T19:17:08.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an example of “分音词”, literally &quot;a word that splitted the pronounciation&quot;. The new words are created using &quot;反切&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;若(ruo4)/如果(ru2 guo3) (if)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孔(kong3)/窟窿(ku1 long0) (hole)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;块(kuai4)/坷垃(ke1 la0)（a solid piece of something, 坷垃 only exists in some dialects）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend these pages on Chinese Wikipedia:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%86%E9%9F%B3%E8%AF%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%86%E9%9F%B3%E8%AF%8D&lt;/a&gt; (分音词)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%8D%E8%BE%85%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%8D%E8%BE%85%E9%9F%B3&lt;/a&gt; (复辅音, the reason why this would happen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19658" LastEditorUserId="19658" LastEditDate="2018-05-09T21:03:49.460" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T21:03:49.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29727" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29728" CreationDate="2018-05-09T20:25:06.890" Score="0" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence is taken from lesson 2 of HSK3 and apparently it means &quot;get an umbrella&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full sentence is &lt;em&gt;我下楼去给你拿把伞&lt;/em&gt; which should mean &quot;I will go downstairs to get you an umbrella&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My IME is always suggesting &lt;em&gt;那把伞&lt;/em&gt;, which obviously means &quot;that umbrella&quot;, which makes me think this construction might not be as common ... ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is if this &quot;拿把伞&quot; really is 拿(verb) 把(measureword) 伞(noun). Because I have never seen a measure word attached to a verb in this way, at least not in Chinese. Can all transitive verbs do this? Are there other verbs that behave in this way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15898" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T22:28:34.273" Title="How does the grammar of 拿把伞 work?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29727" CreationDate="2018-05-09T20:33:08.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;把 (classifier) is not attached to the verb 拿, it is attached to the noun &quot;伞&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿 (verb); 伞 (noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿伞 = take umbrella (can be any number of umbrella)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿 把伞 = take an umbrella (one unspecific umbrella)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿 那把伞 = take that umbrella (one specific umbrella)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃 (verb); 饼 (noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃饼 = eat cake (can be any amount of cake)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃 个饼 = eat a cake (one unspecific cake)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃 这个饼 = eat this cake (one specific cake)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-09T20:38:56.423" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T20:38:56.423" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29720" CreationDate="2018-05-09T21:49:00.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;张家长李家短 = gossip&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这两个老太太一见面，就张家长李家短地说起来没完。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When these two old ladies meet, they gossip endlessly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张三长李四短 = opinions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家对他总是张三长李四短的很有意见。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;People always have strong opinions about him.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;People are always very opinionated about him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T21:49:00.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29727" CreationDate="2018-05-09T22:20:45.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The number one is omitted. The full sentence should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我下楼去给你拿&lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt;把伞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 拿一把伞 and 拿把伞 mean &quot;to take (one) umbrella&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T22:20:45.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29727" CreationDate="2018-05-09T22:23:18.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;帶把槍 bring a gun.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;切條魚 cut a fish.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吃碗麵 eat a bowl of noodles.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;裝盒餅乾 pack a box of cookies.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here measure words (better see them as classifiers) are 把, 條, 碗, 盒 where the number of one is usually omitted. If it's more than one, the number 2, 3, 4... would not be left unsaid or unwritten. (And interestingly 把, 條, 碗 imply singular and 盒 implies a group which might be plural.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your questions in the comment however, when the classifiers are put at the beginning of a sentence, the number is always present even if it's singular. People don't leave classifiers at the start of a sentence without a numeral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一盒餅乾在桌上 a box of cookies is on the table.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;兩碗飯盛好了 two bowls of rice has been filled / prepared.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;三條魚跳出水面 three fishes jumped out of the water.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;四把槍在門口 four guns were at the gate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again even all of the above examples are singular. The number of &quot;one&quot; would always be described because the classifier is at the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19659" LastEditorUserId="19659" LastEditDate="2018-05-09T22:28:34.273" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T22:28:34.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29671" CreationDate="2018-05-09T23:02:33.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is a question common to 134% of Chinese students (yeah, I just made up a nonsense number), and I personally think it's one of the most difficult issues in the Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 50% of the words are elastic in Chinese (check the concept here &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/28769/how-to-deal-with-elasticity-flexibility-in-hsk-vocabulary&quot;&gt;How to deal with elasticity/flexibility in HSK vocabulary?&lt;/a&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put it simple (very very simple), Chinese have words coming in one and two syllables that mean &lt;strong&gt;exactly the same&lt;/strong&gt;. There are many theories trying to explain why that happens, and one of them (which I think is the easiest to understand) is about homophony causing ambiguity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll give an example with the word 分 [fēn]. If someone says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我还有一分。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One wouldn't be able to tell if he/she is saying &quot;I still have one minute&quot; or &quot;I still have one cent&quot;, since 分 can mean both. To solve the ambiguity the words 钟 and 钱 should be added:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我还有一分钟。 I still have one minute. (&quot;one 分 of hour&quot;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我还有一分钱。 I still have one cent. (&quot;one 分 of money&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the difference between 秒 and 秒钟 it's just that 秒钟 is the &lt;strong&gt;complete word&lt;/strong&gt; for &quot;second&quot;. But if you have context, you don't need the whole word. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 多少钱？  How much is it?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: 一分。 One fen. (the context clears up that it's a &quot;fen of money&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T23:02:33.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29690" CreationDate="2018-05-09T23:25:33.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The example given&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;頭がよくなる本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is not missing any more critical information than, say, your average English sentence. To demonstrate, first we can write all word stems with kanji:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;頭が善く爲る本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then we can rearrange it into a Chinese word order, stripping all okurigana, and adding the optional helper word 之:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;爲善頭之本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally translated from Japanese kanji vocabulary, this is &lt;em&gt;a book for improving the head/brain/intelligence/mind&lt;/em&gt;. It is implicit that the book is meant to be read, in any language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-05-10T02:35:28.467" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T02:35:28.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29734" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29736" CreationDate="2018-05-10T00:03:26.213" Score="0" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Edit&lt;/em&gt;: It looks like I originally excluded some important content, so I expanded the snippet below.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is about 后来才知道 in the following sentence, where a woman describes her developing relationship with a man:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　起初我是不同意的，可是他很会表现，不仅对我好，对我父母也极尽照顾，有一次为了帮我送父亲进医院，冒着大雨开车去省城，&lt;strong&gt;后来才知道&lt;/strong&gt;，他为了帮我，把6岁大的儿子一个人锁在家里整整一夜，彻底感动了我，交往不到一年，我们结婚了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guaixun.com/bdnews/content_214083_1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;嫁给离婚带孩子的男人 我的生活只剩下两个字&lt;/a&gt;, guaixun.com&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The second part was part of my earlier question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29680&quot;&gt;Did the man lock up his 6-year old son at home overnight? (把6岁大的儿子一个人锁在家里整整一夜)&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At first, I did not agree, but he performs well [i.e., impressed me], not only did he treat me well, he did his best to look after my parents, one time to help me admit my father to a hospital, he braved the rain and drove to the provincial capital, &lt;strong&gt;afterwards only then I knew&lt;/strong&gt;, to help me, he took his 6-year old son and locked him in the house by himself for the whole night, which thoroughly touched me, and being in contact for less than a year, we married.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this means that is when she knew she was in love with him.  Or maybe it means she only found out the man about helping her father after he was in hospital.  I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does the woman know when she says 后来才知道?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2018-05-10T00:45:34.943" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T14:13:49.417" Title="What does the woman know when she says 后来才知道 (hòulái cái zhīdào)?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29734" CreationDate="2018-05-10T00:36:09.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the description, the woman may know he do his best to look after her parents, and one day he braved the rain and drove her father to the hospital. Maybe the woman did not know who take her father to the hospital at first. But she got the information form other channel later, or somebody told her it was the man took her father to the hospital. &#xA;There maybe other thing the woman know afterwards. But you did not write out the ellipsis of &quot;后来才知道。。。&quot;。 So, maybe it is the ellpsis that the woman know afterwards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19662" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T00:36:09.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29734" CreationDate="2018-05-10T00:51:53.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;what the woman know afterwards is he locked his six-year-old son in the house for a whole night, just for taking her father to the hospital. Beacuase it is dangerous that locked a child in the house about a whole night, so the woman was  thoroughly touched. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19663" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T00:51:53.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29734" CreationDate="2018-05-10T00:57:43.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the woman know when she says 后来才知道?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起初我是不同意的，可是他很会表现，不仅对我好，对我父母也极尽照顾，有一次为了帮我送父亲进医院，冒着大雨开车去省城，后来才知道，&lt;strong&gt;他为了帮我，把6岁大的儿子一个人锁在家里整整一夜&lt;/strong&gt;，彻底感动了我，交往不到一年，我们结婚了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The things she knew afterwards is  他为了帮我，把6岁大的儿子一个人锁在家里整整一夜. I think the punctuation of the paragraph is not that good, all commas out there, which might cause some confusion especially to non-native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T00:57:43.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29738" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29833" CreationDate="2018-05-10T06:39:26.690" Score="1" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just listened to the song &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/U4FpyBBFhlE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;无奈&lt;/a&gt; by Deng Lijun, and there are three points where what I hear doesn't match the lyrics I have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At the end of the sentence at 1:30-1:37, my lyrics have 痴情 | chïqíng, but I hear either qiqi or qiqing;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 仍藏心底 | réng cáng xïn dî at 2:59-3:01 sounds to me like ying can xin di;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 选择 | xuânzé in the sentence at 3:14-3:18 and 3:27-3:31 sounds like suanjia to me, and given that shortly before we have a 选择 which actually sounds like xuanze I am fairly certain it must be another word.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that all just me mishearing or am I on to something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, another video of the song has 00:41-00:47 captioned as 看着你一脸惘然 眼眶是泪滴, my lyrics have 看着你一脸茫然 眼眶是泪滴, and I'm not sure if I hear mangran or mengran. Can you confirm my lyrics have it right? Is 一脸茫然 a chengyu? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T15:20:56.157" Title="Doubts on some words in a Deng Lijun song" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29734" CreationDate="2018-05-10T07:58:20.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A natural translation of this to English would be &quot;I only found out later that...&quot;. It's referring to the following sentence about locking the child in the room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T07:58:20.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29740" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29742" CreationDate="2018-05-10T08:59:00.060" Score="1" ViewCount="401" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Chinese learner and I wanted to test my skills on Chinese. So I tried to translate this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I need some help with my homework.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to translate it and came up with this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我需要一些帮助同我的作业。 (Wǒ xūyào yīxiē bāngzhù tóng wǒ de zuòyè.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to translate my translation to Google Translate and it returned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I need some help with my homework.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I switched languages (English to Chinese), Google Translate returned this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的功课需要一些帮助。(Wǒ de gōngkè xūyào yīxiē bāngzhù.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I switched the languages again (Chinese to English), Google Translate returned this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My homework needs some help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I laughed a bit at this, just sharing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my problem is, which is the correct translation? &lt;strong&gt;我的功课需要一些帮助。&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;我需要一些帮助同我的作业。&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19667" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-23T13:19:45.710" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T13:19:45.710" Title="Correct translation of &quot;I need some help with my homework.&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29740" CreationDate="2018-05-10T09:21:27.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我的功课需要一些帮助&lt;/strong&gt; is better than &lt;strong&gt;我需要一些帮助同我的作业&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ==&gt; 我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;need ==&gt; 需要&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some ==&gt; 一些 or 某人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;help ==&gt; 幫助&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my homework ==&gt; 我的功課&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you can say 「我的功課，需要一些幫助」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19666" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T09:21:27.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="231" CreationDate="2018-05-10T09:51:53.770" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Our Chinese teacher, a native Chinese speaker from Shenyang, said, that instead of saying 我想上厕所 the more polite and preferrable way to excuse for going to the toilet is to say, for example, to the teacher in the class: 我要方便一下.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19669" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T09:51:53.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29740" CreationDate="2018-05-10T10:46:26.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need some help with my homework.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我需要有人帮助我完成家庭作业。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我的家庭作业需要有人帮助。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T10:46:26.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29745" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-10T11:00:16.180" Score="0" ViewCount="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the following sentence &lt;a href=&quot;http://m.people.cn/n4/2018/0421/c1648-10866193.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;over 人民網&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朝鲜最高领导人金正恩在20日举行的劳动党中央委员会第七届第三次全体会议上宣布，朝鲜将从21日开始，不再进行任何核试验和洲际弹道导弹发射，废弃朝鲜北部核试验场。&lt;strong&gt;只要朝鲜不受核威胁挑衅，朝鲜绝对不使用核武器，不泄露核武器和核技术。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you use 只要～, it needs a main clause, which includes either 就 or 便. But this sentence does not carry such words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wonder why it does not have. Is it grammatically correct to omit it, and how can I know what it would mean in the main clause? There would not be any one-fit-for-all clause here, as I came up with multiple main clauses (correct me if something is wrong in the comment). For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国政府就支持朝鲜的恒久发展。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;亚洲和世界全体的和平就实现了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T23:17:08.513" Title="Is it acceptable to omit the main clause in 只要～ phrase?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29734" CreationDate="2018-05-10T11:17:26.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;起初我是不同意的，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;At first I wasn't interested,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;可是他很会表现，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;however, he is really attentive, gallant (献殷勤)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不仅对我好，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(he is) not only good to me&lt;br&gt;&#xA;对我父母也极尽照顾，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but also takes extremely good care of my parents&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有一次为了帮我送父亲进医院，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;one time, in order to help me get my father to hospital,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;冒着大雨开车去省城，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;he braved the heavy rain and drove to the provincial capital.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;后来才知道，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;it was only after that that I found out,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他为了帮我，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;in order to help me,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;把6岁大的儿子一个人锁在家里整整一夜，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;he locked his 6 year old son all alone in his house the whole night,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;彻底感动了我，交往不到一年，我们结婚了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I was very moved, so we got married, although we had only known each other less than a year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Watch out for a guy who locks up his 6 year old son alone all night! Someone like that is capable of anything!) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T11:17:26.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29745" CreationDate="2018-05-10T11:44:32.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ah. I think the tone matters here ( from MY own perspective).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we read 只要……就 sentence, you may perceive that the stress is on 只要…… part. We are emphasizing the condition and 就 part is not as strong as the condition （就 weakened the tone）.&#xA;However, here Kim Jong-un is making a  vow that North Korea will NEVER USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND ......, unless she is threatened by nuclear annihilation (this is more like a supplementary condition). So 就 is supposed to be omitted to enhance the momentum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. You may let a native read the sentences with and without 就 for you and try to feel the subtle difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;试比较：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要你不在此捣乱，我（就）&lt;strong&gt;决不&lt;/strong&gt;撵你出去。( There could be a 就，but I prefer not.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要你&lt;strong&gt;不在此捣乱&lt;/strong&gt;，我就不会撵你出去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T12:03:56.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29740" CreationDate="2018-05-10T13:12:38.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 我写作业需要帮助, or 我需要有人帮我写作业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T13:12:38.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29749" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-10T15:40:25.507" Score="12" ViewCount="670" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been wondering how come the HSK list be so different from the list of the most used Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only list I know about character frequency is &lt;a href=&quot;http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/statistics/char/list.php?Which=MO&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jun Da's list&lt;/a&gt;. On the first 2635 most common characters of the list (I picked 2635, because it's the total number of the HSK characters), there are exactly 305 characters that are not listed on any HSK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the rest of Jun Da's list (a total of 7000 characters) there are another 304 characters that are on the HSK list, but are way way farther than the most used characters (the last two rank at #4527 and #4771).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Questions:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the criteria for the character choice on HSK?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why is the HSK list so different from the most used characters list?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional comments are very welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T13:24:59.473" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T18:08:09.020" Title="Why do HSK lists differ from character frequency lists?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29750" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-10T16:00:39.717" Score="1" ViewCount="1145" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have just posted a question about &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29749/hsk-and-most-used-chinese-characters&quot;&gt;HSK characters list not matching the most common characters list&lt;/a&gt;, but I think this question here is a bit different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also wonder why do HSK tests have so many words on them that do not appear on any of the level lists (like a 呗 that I saw on an HSK 5 and it's not even at the level 6 list) or words that do appear in a given level, but are advanced compared to the level they appear (like a 公共汽车 appearing on level 1 even if it's only a level 2 word).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Questions:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. Why don't the people that prepare the exams follow their own lists?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. How should a student study for HSK with such a chaotic list situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T08:44:25.097" Title="Words and characters that do not appear on HSK lists" Tags="&lt;word-lists&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29715" CreationDate="2018-05-10T19:58:59.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 不留到晚自习 elaborates on the point the speaker made about 想提前写作业. As you can see in the beginning of the passage, the speaker reminds the teacher about the homework (他忘了留作业的话 我就在座位用口型告诉他 作业). They want to complete the homework early (提前写作业) instead of procrastinating it to when they would have to write it all on their own instead of getting help from the teaching assistant or any tutors (留到晚自习). The sentence in question is comparing the two possible situations: completing the homework early with resources to help them if they get stuck, or writing it last minute without any help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19671" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T19:58:59.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29752" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29754" CreationDate="2018-05-10T20:34:39.733" Score="2" ViewCount="804" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I know that 社会 is society, so I'd assume that 社会人 means people that contribute to society&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for some reason for the past few weeks I've actually heard it used a few times in different situations, I'm assuming that it's picking up popularity in slang / meme potential&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first heard it in this phrase,&#xA;小猪佩奇身上纹&#xA;掌声送给社会人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the person who taught me that told me that 社会人 meant common-man, and in this case, it was used facetiously as a sort of insult.  But I was also assured that this wasn't an insult&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Earlier this week, I heard it again, I forgot the full context, but I was assured that it was an insult&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody have some extra light they can shed on the implied meaning behind 社会人？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T21:37:57.123" Title="What is the implied meaning of 社会人" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29752" CreationDate="2018-05-10T20:59:52.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;社会人 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%A4%BE%E4%BC%9A%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%A4%BE%E4%BC%9A%E4%BA%BA&lt;/a&gt; is a Japanese coined Kanji term, meaning &quot;&lt;strong&gt;working adult&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (not children who don't work, not students who work part time, not retired people)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese counterpart of &quot;社会人&quot; is &quot;在職人仕&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any adult who is making a living by working or trading is considered a &quot;在職人仕&quot; or &quot;在職者&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you see Chinese article using the term 社会人, it is most likely reverse imported from Japanese language. Meaning Japanese coined the term with the Kanji they learned from Chinese and now the Chinese is using this term in the Chinese language to describe something similar to &quot;老江湖&quot; (old hand in society) and &quot;老江湖&quot; was originally used to describe &quot;old hand in criminal  circle&quot; so it is not exactly a polite term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice: &lt;em&gt;Chinese consider 社会 is made up by everyone in it, therefore &quot;社会上的人&quot; (people in society) would include students and retired people&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-10T21:33:06.867" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T21:33:06.867" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29752" CreationDate="2018-05-10T21:37:57.123" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe &quot;社会人&quot; means gangsters or scoundrels. We have 黑社会(black society) for crime organizations, so basically 社会人 means someone in such a organization. I think at first it is only in the northeastern China that the phrase 社会人is used. But now everyone seems to know what it means. Yet the meaning of 社会人 has also changed in the sense that it is usually used in an ironic sense. Jobless youngsters who behave like gangsters (though in many cases they are not criminals and they do not belong to any organization) are often described as 社会人 as well. As for the popularity of the word, I guess it is mainly because there is some kind of funny irony in the word. There is something ridiculously fuuny when a jobless young man living in the lower class aspires to be successful not by working hard but by becoming a 社会人. Yet I guess this phrase will soon be forgotten just like any memes on the Internet.(except the +1s one which will never be forgotten as long as the Chinese language is still alive. Long live the Toad!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19672" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T21:37:57.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29745" CreationDate="2018-05-10T23:17:08.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Asking around, the general opinion is, your sentence sounds a bit weird without 就，but not unacceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an 'If ....., then .....' sentence I would not talk of a 'main clause', since both the ‘If [condition]’and 'then [result]' are equally important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case [condition] = false [result] will not happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要朝鲜不受核威胁挑衅，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If N.K. is not threatened or provoked with nuclear weapons&lt;br&gt;&#xA;朝鲜（就）绝对不使用核武器，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;N.K. then absolutely will not use nuclear weapons (no first strike)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不泄露核武器和核技术。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;neither will N.K. spread nuclear weapons or nuclear technology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus he says: “Actually we won’t give up our nuclear option.” Whether the Americans will accept that, I very much doubt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let’s hope, for all our sakes, that 王毅 can broker a deal!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T23:17:08.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29756" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29757" CreationDate="2018-05-11T01:34:48.460" Score="5" ViewCount="869" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question comes from a problem from my Chinese book which asks to choose 次 and 遍 to fill in the blanks (&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1tp4n.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;photo of the original&lt;/a&gt;).  I transcribe it below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用“次”或“遍”填空。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (1) 杰希给马克打了两___电话，马克都没接。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (2) 今天的作业是：读五___课文，写十___生词。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (3) 今天马克一个人打了两___太极拳，下___他打算和阿里一起打。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (4) 我们一个学期考五___试，现在已经考了三___了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (5) 上课的时候马克看了二十___表。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like that most (all?) of them could be either 次 or 遍 without it being a problem.  The only exception is in (3), where I would more naturally say 下次 (but Baidu suggests &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E4%B8%8B%E9%81%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;下遍&lt;/a&gt; is also okay).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From dict.cn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%AC%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;次&lt;/a&gt; (cì) = number (of times), and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%81%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;遍&lt;/a&gt; (biàn) = turn, a time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So they really feel like synonyms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I determine whether to use 次 (cì) or 遍 (biàn) in these sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note that this is not for assessment; I'm not officially enrolled in a Chinese class, but attend class regardless.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2018-05-11T01:53:09.383" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T09:31:52.620" Title="How do I determine whether to use 次 (cì) or 遍 (biàn) in these sentences?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29756" CreationDate="2018-05-11T02:11:02.993" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From 《现代汉语词典》: (I'm omitting other unrelated descriptions of either word)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;次: 用于反复出现或可能反复出现的事情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;遍: 一个动作从开始到结束的整个过程称为一遍&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is saying that 次 is used for things that (may) happen/appear/... repeatedly.&#xA;And 遍 refers to the whole process (from the beginning to the end) of an action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following explaination may be not that accurate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;次 seems to be saying that how many times you started to do something, but not quite care about how it persists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2), the full action is required (from begin to end) so it is 遍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 3), the first blank, if he did twice consecutively, then it is 一次, but 两遍. Each 遍 is the full process from begin to end. If he did it once in the morning, but once in the afternoon, it is 两次. So maybe either is OK. For 下遍, it is not OK for me. But you can say 下一遍.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1), 4), 5) are all describing how many time a thing happened/happens/will happen, so they are all 次. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T02:11:02.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29756" CreationDate="2018-05-11T04:21:47.320" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may help to think of 遍 as &quot;repetition&quot; and 次 as &quot;occurrence&quot;. The reading, writing (Sentence 2) and tai chi (sentence 3) all require repetitions of the same action, whereas the others are simply occurrences, not repetitions of the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T04:21:47.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29740" CreationDate="2018-05-11T04:55:51.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many ways to translate this sentence. The important element of translation is not translating word by word. As long as you can deliver correct message, you should be fine. One example for translating &quot;I need some help with my homework.&quot; is 我需要人帮帮我的作业。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19673" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T04:55:51.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29760" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29793" CreationDate="2018-05-11T07:04:07.037" Score="4" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across a sandhi rule - described &lt;a href=&quot;https://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/tone-change-rules/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (point number 6):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A 2nd tone preceded by a 1st or 2nd tone and followed by another tone becomes a 1st tone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I never heard of this rule before so I was wondering if it is well known.&#xA;I found one other reference for it here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1480/is-there-a-tone-sandhi-for-2nd-tone-2nd-tone-names&quot;&gt;Is there a tone sandhi for 2nd-tone-2nd-tone names?&lt;/a&gt;, where it's described differently:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In a trisyllabic expression, if (a) the first syllable is T1 or T2,&#xA;  (b) the middle syllable is T2, and (c) the final syllable is not weak,&#xA;  then the middle T2 can change to T1 in conversational speed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this rule commonly known? Is it commonly accepted? Are there any other references for it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T14:29:28.973" Title="Status of a sandhi &quot;rule&quot; for 2nd tone" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29761" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-11T08:26:46.503" Score="-1" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fLOGx.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fLOGx.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Cette photo représente peut-être le livre du YiKing . IL est ouvert sur une carapace de tortue, ce qui fait référence aux premières écritures chinoises. La statue montre Lao-Tseu avec cette tortue, un sabre et le texte.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Hi,&#xA;Perhaps it is better I open a special file for my question?&#xA;Lao-Tseu or Confucius holding the sacred YiKing book?&#xA;Material is a kind of hard stone.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3AJkl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3AJkl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;statue Yiking holding by Lao-Tseu&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19640" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T10:58:48.663" Title="Lao-Tseu carved statue signed sigillary caracters" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;transcription&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29756" CreationDate="2018-05-11T08:41:03.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 杰希给马克打了两_次_电话，马克都没接。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 今天的作业是：读五_遍_课文，写十_遍_生词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) 今天马克一个人打了两_次_太极拳，下_次_他打算和阿里一起打。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) 我们一个学期考五_次_试，现在已经考了三_次_了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) 上课的时候马克看了二十_遍_表。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遍 implies the completion of an action from beginning to end, such as reading a book or watching a film from beginning to end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T08:41:03.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29761" CreationDate="2018-05-11T09:58:46.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The carving on the piece is from a poem called &lt;strong&gt;On Reading History&lt;/strong&gt; (《咏史》) by Gao Shi (高适) from the Tang Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The text is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尚有绨袍赠，应怜范叔寒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不知天下士，犹作布衣看。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a simplified version of the traditional characters above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A translation by Xu Yuanchong and Xu Ming renders it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The envoy gave a silken gown&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To one on whom he looked down,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mistaking the prime minister&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a poor plain-clothed commoner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has nothing to do with either Lao-Tseu or Confucius.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T10:11:04.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29764" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-11T12:12:09.590" Score="11" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pleco lists three meanings for the character 李：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;plum tree&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;plum&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a surname &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None seem related to luggage!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T19:14:21.100" Title="Why is there the character 李 in 行李？" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29765" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-11T13:49:20.300" Score="0" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence that explains the usage of 明明:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表示显然&lt;strong&gt;如此&lt;/strong&gt;或确实，下文的意思往往转折。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning would be something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It shows obviousness &lt;strong&gt;or such&lt;/strong&gt;, or certainity. After the word usually comes the turnover's meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't understand why it needs 如此 here, and what it works for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my understanding, 如此 is used to emphasize an adjective or adverb, and put before the adjective or adverb to mean &quot;so&quot; (equal to 很). But in this case it is put after the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it have any difference on the meaning with or without 如此? What nuances does it carry?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T02:21:16.290" Title="What does 如此 mean in 表示显然如此或确实?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29734" CreationDate="2018-05-11T14:13:49.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;后来才知道&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It usually used to indicate that &quot;some extra information&quot; is going to be revealed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It revealed the fact that &quot;他为了帮我，把6岁大的儿子一个人锁在家里整整一夜&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4092" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T14:13:49.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29765" CreationDate="2018-05-11T14:52:48.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally, 如 means &quot;like&quot; and 此 means &quot;this&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如此 as a verb means 是这样, (something) to be the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T14:52:48.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29765" CreationDate="2018-05-11T14:55:17.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, 如此 has to be there and can't be dropped. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表示显然如此 means &lt;strong&gt;denote obviously like that/this&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T14:55:17.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29764" CreationDate="2018-05-11T15:24:21.963" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The comments have the right idea.「行李」originally referred to a kind of messenger sent to run an errand, extended to mean &lt;em&gt;the act of delivering a message/running an errand&lt;/em&gt;, further extended to mean &lt;em&gt;to travel&lt;/em&gt;, and then finally &lt;em&gt;the items taken along a journey; luggage&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「李」was used as a phonetic loan for「理」since the Warring States period, and for whatever reason,「行李」became more popular than「行理」, which is now restricted to meaning &lt;em&gt;messenger&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T15:24:21.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29770" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29773" CreationDate="2018-05-11T18:36:45.013" Score="3" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from a song, I can´t figure out what it means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一等就是一年多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate says: &quot;One year is more than a year&quot;, which I think is wrong. 等 is &quot;wait&quot;, 就是 is &quot;exactly&quot; (I think), but I don't get what it means in it´s entirety, some help would be awesome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3766" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T05:04:16.977" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T08:09:45.007" Title="What does the song lyric 一等就是一年多 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29764" CreationDate="2018-05-11T19:14:21.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;the earliest one i find, &quot;行李&quot; was used in &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/chun-qiu-zuo-zhuan/xiang-gong-ba-nian/zh?searchu=%E8%A1%8C%E6%9D%8E&amp;amp;searchmode=showall#result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋　襄公八年&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;知武子使行人子員對之曰﹒君有楚命﹒亦不使一介行李﹒告于寡君﹒而即安于楚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;李&quot; is borrowed from another character &lt;strong&gt;&quot;吏&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; (lower ranking official)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so &quot;行李&quot; meant &quot;行吏&quot;, roughly &quot;special envoy&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the identifier &quot;一介&quot; is still used nowadays, to describe &quot;一人，一個。有卑微、謙虛之意。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000149395&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000149395&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, in 陶淵明集　卷一　&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06050929.cn#page/n33/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;贈長沙公族祖&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;遙遙三湘﹒滔滔九江﹒山川阻逺﹒行李時通&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;行李&quot; here meant travellers (旅客)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;afterward, in &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06079166.cn#page/n77/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;宋書　卷九十八&lt;/a&gt;, by 沈約:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;道賢至西城為守兵所殺﹒行李蔽擁﹒日月莫照&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in this text, &quot;行李&quot; would be interpreted as (corpses of) soliders, and /or belongings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道賢 (the name of general) was defeated, the corpses of soldiers, and their belongings were in large quantity, that shadowed the shine of sun &amp;amp; moon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, in &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06078994.cn#page/n147/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;周書　卷二十&lt;/a&gt;, by 令狐德棻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;州境南接襄陽﹒西通岷蜀﹒物産所出﹒多諸珍異﹒時既與梁通好﹒行李徃來﹒公私贈遺﹒一無所受&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;行李&quot; in this one should be treated as goods / products, not any humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;quite near to the current meaning as luggage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T19:14:21.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29770" CreationDate="2018-05-11T19:28:58.547" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I googled it and found &lt;a href=&quot;https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5511377135&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a forum on Baidu&lt;/a&gt; about waiting forever for what looks like a video game to be released. The unhappy camper in the forum writes a lyric verse or two to express his frustration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你说过两天来看我&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;一等就是一年多&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  三百六十五个日子不好过&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你心里根本没有我&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  把我的爱情还给我  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation (not accounting for poetic style):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You said you'd come to visit in two days&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  But I've been waiting more than a year&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, it means he's already been waiting for more than a year.&#xA;This also uses a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/yi1-jiu4-as-soon-as/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sentence pattern&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;&lt;code&gt;一（V）就（V）&lt;/code&gt;, which generally describes something which is done right after another thing, e.g. &quot;我一到家就要睡了&quot; (I'm going to bed as soon as I get home).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, he is using that sentence pattern to stress how long he has waited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15883" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T19:28:58.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29770" CreationDate="2018-05-11T21:01:59.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(这)一等 = (this) one wait&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就是 = thereupon became&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年多 = over a year (long )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning 'this wait has turned into an over a year long wait&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(我)一等 = once (I) waited&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就是 = thereupon became&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年多 = over a year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning 'once I wait, it has became more than a year' ('it' refers to the waiting time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same meaning as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(我)一等就等了 = once (I) waited, (I) have waited for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年多 = over a year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T21:12:56.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29774" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29776" CreationDate="2018-05-12T00:14:13.753" Score="2" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the section about the grammar structure &amp;quot;V + ... [时段]&amp;quot;, my Chinese book has these examples (among others):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kCnb2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kCnb2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;我今天休息了一天 and 我今天休息一天了&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 我今天&lt;strong&gt;休息了&lt;/strong&gt;一天。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Wǒ jīntiān xiūxíle yītiān.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 我今天休息&lt;strong&gt;一天了&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Wǒ jīntiān xiūxí yītiānle.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Not relevant to the question, but for completeness: the extra part above is 动作的完成 (dòngzuò de wánchéng) = completed action, and 时段的变化 (shíduàn de biànhuà) = duration change.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I word-for-word translate the above sentences to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I today rest[ed] [for] one day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's puzzling me is that the repetition of 天 sounds weird: both sentences use both 今天 (today) and 一天 (one day).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it weird to say either 我今天休息了一天 or 我今天休息一天了  because of the repetition of 天?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that 我今天休息 or 我今天休息了 would suffice, and there wouldn't arise a context in which either 我今天休息了一天 or 我今天休息一天了 would be needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T13:57:57.013" Title="Is it weird to say either 我今天休息了一天 or 我今天休息一天了 (&quot;today, I rest for one day&quot;) because of the repetition of 天?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29765" CreationDate="2018-05-12T02:21:16.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is just dictionary language, short and direct, not prose. People I asked had no problem with removing 如此, which, as Jason said is quite literally 'like this', 显然如此 = clearly / evidently / obviously so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘明明’表示显然如此或确实，下文的意思往往转折。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;‘明明’表示显然———或确实，下文的意思往往转折。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could expand the dictionary speak to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘明明’表示一件事情、一个情况是显然的或者确实的，在其后的正文通常出现转折。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你明明就知道什么。说话！&#xA;You obviously know something. Tell me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T02:21:16.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29774" CreationDate="2018-05-12T02:29:57.800" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. It is not weird at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天休息 means: I rest/will rest today. It usually is only saying that: I do/will not work today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天休息了 means: I have taken a rest today. It shows no information about how long I rested, and usually not a whole day. Usually, it is used to say that I have already taken a rest during my work/study/exercise/... today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both the given examples are saying that I've rested for a whole day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T02:29:57.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29774" CreationDate="2018-05-12T05:37:11.223" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我今天休息 VS 我今天休息了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite the grammar , 我今天休息 and 我今天休息了 are roughly same in practical.&#xA;They can be used at any time in today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我今天休息了一天 VS 我今天休息了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because 一天 is a duration, you can not declare it before the duration has been completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus 我今天休息了一天 can only be used at night, again 我今天休息了 can be used at any time today to describe you have taken a rest which will for a whole day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我今天休息一天了  VS 我今天休息了一天&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is vary for people, I feel the former more emotional, because there is no extra word to split 休息 and 一天.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my thought, I don't have proof:&#xA;Usually 了 will be added after verb, but in &lt;code&gt;我今天休息一天了&lt;/code&gt;, 了 is added at the end, which makes 一天 sounds more important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you emphasize the duration, you want to explain why. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天休息一天了, 我不想再休息了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天休息一天了, 我很无聊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sounds more emotional than&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天休息了一天, 我不想再休息了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天休息了一天, 我很无聊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-05-12T13:57:57.013" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T13:57:57.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29756" CreationDate="2018-05-12T05:50:29.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it only me to think that, if in real scenario, either is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用“次”或“遍”填空。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 杰希给马克打了两___电话，马克都没接。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;次, but in practical, Chinese will use 遍&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 今天的作业是：读五___课文，写十___生词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遍, I don't why, we just use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) 今天马克一个人打了两___太极拳，下___他打算和阿里一起打。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;次 grammatically, but we use 遍 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) 我们一个学期考五___试，现在已经考了三___了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;次&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) 上课的时候马克看了二十___表。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;次 grammatically, but we use 遍&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not too much grammar cause, just convention and behaviour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-05-12T09:31:52.620" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T09:31:52.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29829" CreationDate="2018-05-12T12:35:11.193" Score="2" ViewCount="1957" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just now, I was talking to someone on WeChat and he mentioned how he got caught out in the rain.  I wanted to say &quot;awww&quot; out of sympathy as we do in English, but I don't know how to.  The closest I know is &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%95%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;啊&lt;/a&gt; (a) = &quot;ah&quot; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%99%A2http://dict.cn/%E5%99%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;噢&lt;/a&gt; (ō) = &quot;oh&quot;, &quot;oops&quot; which don't really suit the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there an equivalent to &quot;awww&quot; in English for expressing sympathy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching for &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/awww&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;awww&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in YouDao suggests 噢, such as 噢谢谢你, but I don't think this is the same as sympathy (although maybe I'm wrong).  Other searches (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/aww&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;aww&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (dict.cn) &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/aww&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;aww&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (YouDao)) don't really help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T03:48:17.763" Title="Is there an equivalent to &quot;awww&quot; in English for expressing sympathy?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29779" CreationDate="2018-05-12T14:03:09.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually 哎, 咳, 唉, those means &quot;sigh&quot;, can not find more appropriate words.&#xA;or 哎呀, but it sounds affected when you read it, more natural in speaking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T14:03:09.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29781" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29830" CreationDate="2018-05-12T16:46:49.577" Score="1" ViewCount="431" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/24740725/answer/36418471&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;following answer over 知乎&lt;/a&gt; to the question &lt;em&gt;在西班牙生活是怎样的体验?&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8-中西文化差别很大，前几天，我废了好多力气去解释什么是mianzi，还有因为文化差距，也很难跟老外走的很近，大部分都是中国人跟中国人，老外跟老外。老外很喜欢夜店，迪厅，什么的，答主还是不喜欢这些。这里karaoke 都是中国人开的，打不过的顾客也是中国人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know 老外 means &lt;em&gt;a foreigner&lt;/em&gt;. But in this case, it is awkward to call someone as &lt;em&gt;a foreigner&lt;/em&gt;, since it is the answerer who is a foreigner (the answerer is Chinese who lives in Spain).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does 老外 mean a foreigner who is from the standpoint of the speaker? So is it OK to call Spainard as 老外 even if the speaker lives in Spain, as long as the speaker is not Spainard?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or does 老外 mean non-Spainard foreigners (American, German, etc...) in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T16:42:42.707" Title="What does 老外 mean if the Chinese speaker is in a foreign country?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28361" CreationDate="2018-05-12T17:57:11.670" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B6%BC%E8%96%AF#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;According to Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ekgon.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ekgon.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;柳州話 (Liuzhou Mandarin)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;萍鄉話 (Pingxiang Gan)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;南寧話 (Nanning Pinghua)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;長沙話 (Changsha Xiang)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;婁底話 (Loudi Xiang)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These topolects correspond to the areas highlighted in the light green circles above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T17:57:11.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29784" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29791" CreationDate="2018-05-13T00:02:16.120" Score="0" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;In class, we learned this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;她睡觉的时候&lt;/strong&gt;，她的朋友正在上网。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tā shuìjiào de shíhòu. Tāde péngyǒu zhèngzài shàngwǎng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is about the following three variants.  For the first, we add in a 在 (zài):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;她在睡觉的时候&lt;/strong&gt;，她的朋友正在上网。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the second we omit the 的 (de):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;她睡觉时候&lt;/strong&gt;，她的朋友正在上网。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for the third we add in a 在 (zài) and omit the 的 (de):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;她在睡觉时候&lt;/strong&gt;，她的朋友正在上网。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Which of these are grammatically correct and do they all have the same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel the first variant is correct, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/%E5%A5%B9%E5%9C%A8%E7%9D%A1%E8%A7%89%E7%9A%84%E6%97%B6%E5%80%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao.com&lt;/a&gt; gives an example &quot;当她在睡觉的时候笑了...&quot; which seems similar (but the 在 might be part of a different grammar construct here: 在[x]笑了).  The latter two examples might be wrong as most examples I've found include the 的, but I'm not sure, as I found &quot;...但在睡觉时候...&quot; on &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/%E5%9C%A8%E7%9D%A1%E8%A7%89%E6%97%B6%E5%80%99/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T08:45:02.147" Title="Which of &quot;她睡觉的时候...&quot;, &quot;她在睡觉的时候...&quot;, &quot;她睡觉时候...&quot;, and &quot;她在睡觉时候...&quot; are grammatically correct and do they all have the same meaning?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29784" CreationDate="2018-05-13T01:46:11.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;她在睡觉的时候，她的朋友正在上网。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;她睡觉时候，她的朋友正在上网。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.她在睡觉时候，她的朋友正在上网。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one is the most natural way to say it, grammatically and formally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second one is ok in colloquial contexts with omitting both 在 and 的. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third one is a bit odd because it adds 在, I may expect the interlocutor to say the full version. Otherwise, I expect they say the shorten version like the second one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, in practice, especially when you speak fast, it really doesn't matter. These sentences are all ok, though the first one is preferable. There are no problems for understanding. They all could sound natural if you have a good command of Chinese speaking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T01:46:11.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29781" CreationDate="2018-05-13T01:51:38.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;打不过 should be 大部分, typo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老外 is a slang, it could means 非华人 in your context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T01:51:38.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29784" CreationDate="2018-05-13T01:58:00.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;她在睡觉的时候 is the most completed one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她睡觉的时候 is OK&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;她睡觉时候&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;她在睡觉时候&lt;/code&gt; are wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But these are also correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;他在睡觉时&lt;/code&gt; &#xA;&lt;code&gt;他睡觉时&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T01:58:00.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29784" CreationDate="2018-05-13T06:33:00.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grammatically different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;...的时候&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...之时&lt;/code&gt;means &lt;strong&gt;the time&lt;/strong&gt; when ..., it's a noun with an attributive clause. This structure is just like &lt;code&gt;喝水的人&lt;/code&gt;(normal tense) &lt;code&gt;正在跳动的球&lt;/code&gt;(present tense) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;在...的时候&lt;/code&gt;or &lt;code&gt;在...之时&lt;/code&gt; means when ..., it's an adverbial clause&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say &lt;code&gt;利用空闲的时候来读书&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;利用在空闲的时候来读书&lt;/code&gt; is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last two examples are completely wrong grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19549" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T06:33:00.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26330" CreationDate="2018-05-13T07:03:12.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK I found out some more about the &quot;online&quot; tests.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First there's a mock test here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://mnks.chinesebridge.com.cn/Mnks/Simulate/DefaultNew.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://mnks.chinesebridge.com.cn/Mnks/Simulate/DefaultNew.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You choose the level and at the login screen just hit the blue &quot;我要考试&quot; button to enter as an anonymous user.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly it seems that there is no standardised input method for entering Hanzi via Pinyin, although some centres have been reported to use Sogou &lt;a href=&quot;https://pinyin.sogou.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pinyin.sogou.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17857" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T07:03:12.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23989" CreationDate="2018-05-13T07:43:49.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules on the admission ticket I received stipulate using a 2B pencil.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17857" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T07:43:49.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29784" CreationDate="2018-05-13T08:45:02.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grammatically correct:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她睡觉的时候，她的朋友正在上网。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她在睡觉的时候，她的朋友正在上网。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, they have basically the same meaning. There are two 在 in the second sentence, and that feels kind of like a redundancy. I more often omit the first 在, especially when speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grammatically wrong:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她睡觉时候，她的朋友正在上网。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她在睡觉时候，她的朋友正在上网。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to use &quot;something ... 时候&quot;, you will use &quot;&lt;strong&gt;something ... 的時候&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. You cannot omit the 的. Or if you really want to omit the 的, you should use &quot;&lt;strong&gt;something ... 时&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, instead of &quot;something ... 时候&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. &quot;她睡觉时，她的朋友正在上网。&quot; and &quot;她在睡觉时，她的朋友正在上网。&quot; are correct. And again, &quot;她睡觉时&quot; sounds more natural to me, but both are grammatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T08:45:02.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29760" CreationDate="2018-05-13T14:20:29.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked the author of the blog eastasiastudent.net about it and he told me it was probably a mistake. Given the comments from @fefe and @JasonSwift, my conclusion is that the author of the first link was trying to describe a real phenomenon in spoken Chinese (i.e. the phenomenon described in the accepted answer of the referenced SE question) but made a few mistakes in the description.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T14:20:29.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29794" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29795" CreationDate="2018-05-13T16:05:27.593" Score="0" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different fonts I see disagree in whether the fifth stroke should pass through the fourth or not.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qN7u0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qN7u0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K6o2w.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K6o2w.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/igodt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/igodt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T16:39:04.447" Title="How is 妻 written according to PRC and Taiwanese standard?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29794" CreationDate="2018-05-13T16:39:04.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're halfway to answering your own question. On the zdic page theres a tab called &lt;strong&gt;字源字形&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/zy/59BB.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;妻 字源字形&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the part you're interested in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yBJMa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yBJMa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stroke you're talking about doesn't poke through in PRC but in Taiwan and HK it does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T16:39:04.447" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29796" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-13T17:57:33.477" Score="1" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can somebody please explain the difference between 都不是， 不都是， 都没有， and 不都有， and if possible give and example of the separate occasions when they should be used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19686" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-21T07:08:01.317" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T09:33:31.860" Title="What is the difference between 都没有 and 不都有?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29796" CreationDate="2018-05-14T00:38:13.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;都不是 this means all of them are not EX:他们都不是中国人 means none of them is Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不都是 this means not all of them are他们不都是中国人 means not all of them are Chinese (some of them maybe Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都没有 All don't have EX:我们都没有钱 means none of us have money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不都有 not all have EX:我们不都有钱 means not all of us have money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们不都有钱 sounds a little strange, it could be 我们不是人人都有钱.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19687" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-05-14T03:43:53.003" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T03:43:53.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29798" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29800" CreationDate="2018-05-14T02:17:23.080" Score="4" ViewCount="552" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes we use &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%84%BF%E5%8C%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;儿化&lt;/a&gt; (érhuà) without it changing the meaning of the word, e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%97%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;门&lt;/a&gt; (mén; door, gate) becomes &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%97%A8%E5%84%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;门儿&lt;/a&gt; (ménr).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, some Chinese words contain 儿化-izable words, such as 门口 (ménkǒu; doorway, gate), and I intuitively feel that it's incorrect to apply 儿化 mid-word, giving 门儿口 in this case.  I want to check if my intuition is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it incorrect to use 儿化 inside a word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%A9%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小孩子&lt;/a&gt; (xiǎoháizi; child) contains &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小孩&lt;/a&gt; (xiǎohái; child), which can be turned into &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%A9%E5%84%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小孩儿&lt;/a&gt; (xiǎoháir; child) without changing the meaning, but it feels incorrect to write 小孩儿子.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%8E%A9%E5%85%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;玩具&lt;/a&gt; (wánjù; toys) contains &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%8E%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;玩&lt;/a&gt; (wán; to play), which can be turned into &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%8E%A9%E5%84%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;玩儿&lt;/a&gt; (wánr) without changing the meaning, but it feels incorrect to write 玩儿具.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T11:06:10.010" Title="Is it incorrect to use 儿化 (érhuà) inside a word, e.g., 门儿口, and 小孩儿子 and 玩儿具?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;erhuayin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29799" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29804" CreationDate="2018-05-14T02:56:22.973" Score="0" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;父亲&lt;/strong&gt;今年65岁了,&lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt;以前是一名律师。&lt;strong&gt;父亲&lt;/strong&gt;的爱好是旅行，经常去旅行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence is strange to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, &lt;strong&gt;父亲&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second,&lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third,&lt;strong&gt;父亲&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often hear that the English speakers avoid the duplications of noun.&#xA;Is it also in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;父亲&lt;/strong&gt;的爱好是旅行 →　&lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt;的爱好是旅行 ( I thought it was right.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I refer to a textbook and this is a solution for the quiz.&#xA;What is the purpose of this expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why  dare the author to use &lt;strong&gt;父亲&lt;/strong&gt; again?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I solved the quiz , often wrote &quot;&lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt;的爱好是旅行&quot; , checked the answer and it was not right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When should I exchange nouns to pronouns?Is there obvious rules in it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19037" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T04:57:09.730" Title="When should I exchange nouns to pronouns?Is there a obvious rule in it?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29798" CreationDate="2018-05-14T03:12:47.010" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;门儿口&quot;, &quot;小孩儿子&quot; and &quot;玩儿具&quot; are all incorrect, we don't say that. In the final analysis this is an idiomatic usage issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example we say 东便门儿, 西便门儿; but we don't say &quot;天安门儿&quot;. (There's a historical reason behind.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particularly, 小孩儿 and 小孩子 have similar meaning and usage, &quot;小孩儿子&quot; sounds repetitive and redundant. 玩儿 is usually used as a verb, you can say 玩儿游戏, 玩儿手机, 玩儿玩具; but not 玩儿具, 古玩儿, 玩儿笑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it incorrect to use 儿化 inside a word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes you can, but only in the specified cases; i.e. in which conforming to the idiomatic usages. e.g. 锅儿挑, 巴儿狗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is known that it's hard to summarize logical rules for 儿化音. This &lt;a href=&quot;http://pan.baidu.com/s/1krbUm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;北京话儿化词典.pdf&lt;/a&gt; might help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-05-14T03:46:31.103" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T03:46:31.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29799" CreationDate="2018-05-14T03:39:01.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no rules, but Chinese is also try to avoid duplication&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;父亲今年65岁了,他以前是一名律师。他的爱好是旅行，所以他经常去旅行. is totally OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can't, then try to avoid &lt;strong&gt;continuous&lt;/strong&gt; duplication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;父亲今年65岁了,他以前是一名律师。父亲的爱好是旅行，所以他经常去旅行.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Author prefer synonym to eliminate duplication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;父亲今年65岁了,他以前是一名律师。&lt;strong&gt;老爷子&lt;/strong&gt;的爱好是旅行，所以&lt;strong&gt;他老人家&lt;/strong&gt;经常去旅行.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T03:39:01.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29805" CreationDate="2018-05-14T04:00:54.163" Score="0" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;用实际行动来（回馈）父母的期待&quot; correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;回馈期待&quot; is unnatural to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is wrong, would &quot;回报&quot; be correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other words can be used here? Thank you! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T14:49:00.443" Title="Is this correct? 用实际行动来（回馈）父母的期待。" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29802" CreationDate="2018-05-14T04:34:15.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用实际行动来（回馈）父母的期待&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回馈 is more accurate than 回报 in this context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回馈 means 回应/回答 feedback or 回应馈赠 feedback with reward. It means &lt;em&gt;feedback&lt;/em&gt; in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回报 means 回应和报答，response and pay back. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T04:34:15.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29799" CreationDate="2018-05-14T04:42:30.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think both English and Chinese are the same from this perspective. There isn't an obvious rule for it. Each author has his own way or style for this. The goal is to make your readers clear. I will write the sentence like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;父亲&lt;/strong&gt;今年65岁了, 以前是一名律师。&lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt;的爱好是旅行... ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;父亲&lt;/strong&gt;今年65岁了, 以前是一名律师, 爱好旅行 ... ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-05-14T04:57:09.730" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T04:57:09.730" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29802" CreationDate="2018-05-14T05:18:20.283" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;馈 means &amp;quot;to gift&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;报 means &amp;quot;to repay&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回馈 means &amp;quot;to give back (to shows your gratitude)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回报 means &amp;quot;to repay&amp;quot; (a grace or debt)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;用实际行动来（回馈）父母的期待&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实际行动 is not a gift&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be correct to write: &amp;quot;用(成果)来（回馈）父母&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;成果 is a gift; object of 回馈 is the parents, not their expectation&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用实际行动来（回报）父母的期待&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;期待 is not a grace or debt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be correct to write: &amp;quot;用实际行动来（回报）父母的(恩情)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;恩情 is a grace; the object of 回报 is 父母的恩情&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回应 means &amp;quot;to respond&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better change &amp;quot;用实际行动来（回馈）父母的期待&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;用实际行动来（&lt;strong&gt;回应&lt;/strong&gt;）父母的期待&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;Use action to respond to his parent's expectation&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回馈社會 (give back to the society) &lt;em&gt;the object of 回馈 is the society, not what the society has done for you&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回报親恩 (repay the parents' grace)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回应訴求 (respond to appeal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T10:14:09.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29798" CreationDate="2018-05-14T06:54:42.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not everybody in China use &quot;儿化&quot;. People in Beijing and other places around it usually use &quot;儿化&quot;. It is like a local habit instead of a common rule of Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So most of time it depends on your feeling, people will say &quot;大门儿&quot; but not &quot;门儿口&quot;, and people will say &quot;玩儿玩具&quot; but not &quot;玩玩儿具&quot; or &quot;玩儿玩儿具&quot;. That because people think it isn't read fluently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19414" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T06:54:42.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29798" CreationDate="2018-05-14T10:37:46.283" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the most common words in Chinese has &lt;em&gt;er-hua&lt;/em&gt; right smack dab in the middle of it: &lt;strong&gt;嗝儿屁&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have much to add that hasn't already been said, but I want to show you a neat little trick using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt;. I'm pretty sure most Chinese learners have a copy of Pleco installed on their smartphones or tablets. Here's something you can do to find &lt;em&gt;er-hua&lt;/em&gt; words. You can search the following in your version of the app:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;@r@&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;?r?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The wonderful thing about pinyin is that 儿 as &lt;em&gt;er-hua&lt;/em&gt; will always be noted as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;r&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in MSM and not &lt;code&gt;er&lt;/code&gt;. Here both @ and ? can work as wildcards, so it will return everything with &lt;em&gt;er-hua&lt;/em&gt; inside of two other characters. Like so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qPEKx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qPEKx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...and the list is long...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;??r?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which will now return words with two wildcard characters at the beginning + &lt;em&gt;erhua&lt;/em&gt; in the middle + something at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eZiO5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eZiO5.png&quot; alt=&quot;yup&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and again: the list is &lt;em&gt;long&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last thing you might want to know is that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also works as a wildcard for zero to three characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you could search:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;*r*&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or even&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;**r**&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for zero to six characters, potentially, surrounding &lt;em&gt;erhua&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-05-14T14:53:36.277" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T14:53:36.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29808" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29813" CreationDate="2018-05-14T13:20:16.610" Score="2" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to translate 立方固奇，而立论甚正.&#xA;It is a metaphor used in a taoist context.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;I think I caught the drift but I am seeking confirmation by a sinologist or a Chinese person.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;In my opinion, a possible translation would be :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Some things look odd, yet they work well&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Translation of  立方固奇，而立论甚正: &quot;Cubes may look odd, yet they are upright.&quot;...)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Thanks in advance for your input !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19189" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T21:27:33.200" Title="Translation of 立方固奇，而立论甚正" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29802" CreationDate="2018-05-14T14:03:57.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;用实际行动来 回馈 父母的期待。（sounds OK according to people I asked.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You should use practical action to fulfill your parents expectations (of you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用实际行动来 实现 父母的期待。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should use practical action to live up to your parents' expectations of you.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你应该用实际的行动来达到你父母的期望。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T14:03:57.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29808" CreationDate="2018-05-14T15:05:48.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a criticism from 金以谋 to 陈士铎, both are doctor of traditional Chinese medicine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;立: propose; present&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方: 药方, remedy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;固: definitely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奇: peculiar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而: but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;论: 理论 theory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甚: indeed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正: reasonable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The remedy he presented are definitely peculiar, yet his theories are reasonable deeply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T15:05:48.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29812" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-14T16:11:58.043" Score="2" ViewCount="1001" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m a learner of Japanese for now some years, and I really like kanji, or chinese characters, and I’ve recently taken some interest in the Chinese language though I don’t intend to learn it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My wonder is about the characters dictionaries (be it for foreigners or native speakers) and the stroke order of characters. While for Japanese most of the characters dictionaries have stroke orders diagrams, I can’t seem to find such feature in chinese characters dictionaries, but I’ve looked only at a few. Of course there are lots of websites that give the stroke order of individual characters, but I wonder if there is some kind of reference book (you can find a lot of 漢和辞典, or reference kanji books for foreigners for Japanese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get the feeling that, Chinese stroke order is based on a set of rules which you apply to every character you want to write, but in Japanese the stroke order seems more regulated on individual characters. That would explains why there is a lot of differences in the way you write a single characters in both langages (like 必 or 凸 or even 田) and why, actually, the Chinese way looks more ... logical to me, kind of. (Look at: 左 and 右: in Japanese, for the first one, you write the horizontal stroke first, but for the second one, it’s the vertical/going left down stroke first! In Chinese, there seems to be no differences: that would be just following a general rule, while in Japanese you differentiate both)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe also, because Japanese actually imported the characters, the way you write individual characters needed to be more regulated? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where I live, in France, in most Japanese universities classes, we have a book for official jōyō kanji and the way you write individual characters. But in Chinese classes, they have a character dictionary, they learn in classes the rules of writing, but there’s just the printed characters in their dictionary (with pinyin and other info) and no 筆順 like you see in a Japanese dictionary. (don’t know the name of the book, and I’m less knowledgable in Chinese, but I think it’s a pretty authoritative reference book) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am so curious about this. Do you get the feeling that stroke order in Japanese is more « fixed », do you know about a character book (for adults) that precises the exact way you write each character under its entry? I feel like in Chinese, people tend to say that stroke order matters as a general rule of writing, not individually. In my Japanese classes, stroke order for each character is very very important and won’t you mistake 右 and 左 in the kanji exam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19690" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-05-15T00:37:21.827" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T00:37:21.827" Title="Is there an official stroke order for each character?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29808" CreationDate="2018-05-14T17:00:33.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the verse is from the preface of the book &quot;石室秘錄&quot;. the chinese text project has a copy of it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&amp;amp;chapter=933206&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&amp;amp;chapter=933206&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this book is about chinese medicine, not related to taoism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;立方固奇﹒而立論甚正&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would interpret it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;resolutely (固), the proposed prescriptions (立方) are unorthodox (奇), but (而) the rationales provided (立論) are very (甚) formal (正)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw: the translation of &quot;cube&quot; is, very inventive :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T17:00:33.573" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29812" CreationDate="2018-05-14T17:12:50.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't an official stroke order for &lt;em&gt;each character&lt;/em&gt;, but only a subset of all characters used, and official stroke order exists solely for the purpose of educating schoolchildren.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese stroke order is actually not as fixed as Chinese, and the only reason it feels that Japanese stroke order is more fixed is because Japanese textbooks or dictionaries include stroke order guidelines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Japan, dictionary making is actually a competitive business and dictionary content is not regulated by the government. The current reality in Japan can be summarised by the following &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Education,_Culture,_Sports,_Science_and_Technology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MEXT&lt;/a&gt; quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漢字の筆順は、原則として一般に通用している常識的なものによっており、行書で筆順が異なる字については、適切な説明を加えていること&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;-- &lt;strong&gt;義務教育諸学校教科用図書検定基準&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, Japan no longer prescribes official stroke orders for &lt;em&gt;kanji&lt;/em&gt;, and lets textbook or dictionary editors decide for themselves, only recommending that they use something that's widely recognised by society. Official stroke order in Japan was actually only in existence from 1958 to 1977 for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%8Diku_kanji&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kyōiku_kanji&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chinese stroke order is less centralised, because there are multiple language standardisation bodies for the Chinese language; the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong independently decide the characters taught to schoolchildren and their corresponding stroke orders. Their official stroke orders don't come packaged with dictionaries given that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Common use characters in Chinese double that in Japan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The purpose of stroke order is &lt;em&gt;only as a guideline to write characters, not a set of rules&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To address your points,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The following are the official stroke order resources for Chinese language education:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/BISHUEN/c8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ROC (Taiwan)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edbchinese.hk/lexlist_ch/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hong Kong&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.moe.gov.cn/s78/A19/yxs_left/moe_810/s230/201001/t20100115_75615.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PRC (Mainland China)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There's something called the &lt;em&gt;traditional stroke order&lt;/em&gt;, for which all Chinese stroke orders and Japanese stroke orders have diverged slightly from. Traditional stroke order was largely decided based on analysis of the pieces of famous calligraphers, noting that Chinese calligraphy is written from top to bottom, right to left. Chinese standards, at the turn of the century, decided to change some of the stroke orders to make horizontal writing with a pen easier. Japan went another route and tried to optimise stroke order for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-cursive_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;semi-cursive script&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;左 and 右 having different stroke orders are based on their differentiation in  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;seal script&lt;/a&gt; and earlier:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MM0tS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MM0tS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They were originally pictures of left and right hands, respectively, and the first stroke draws the span of the hand while the second stroke draws the arm. Writing both with the same stroke order tends to encourage mistakes in character proportions, and I personally wouldn't recommend it even though some Chinese standard prescribes this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JjmLw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JjmLw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Notice that the relative length of the slanting and horizontal strokes are different between 左 and 右, a legacy of each of the strokes representing different parts of the hand in 左 compared to 右; using the same stroke order for both encourages sloppy writing.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P9lis.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P9lis.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In rapid or cursive writing, the only way you can tell which one is 左 or 右 is because of their different stroke orders. You're either going to be limiting your own writing speed, or getting in alot of trouble if you get into the habit of speed-writing them the same way...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, you should remember that stroke order is not an end-goal unto itself, but rather something that makes &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive_script_(East_Asia)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cursive script&lt;/a&gt; more recognisable. If you do not plan on writing &lt;em&gt;kanji&lt;/em&gt; in the way a fluent person writes in cursive, but stick to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;regular script&lt;/a&gt; instead, then stroke order is not as important to get the message across. However, if you wish to achieve writing speed and fluency, there is a narrow range of acceptable stroke orders which should come naturally to you in time, noting that cursive script often takes shortcuts by joining or omitting strokes so that it is very difficult to actually prescribe a solid stroke order for every character (because different people will take different shortcuts).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-05-14T17:45:52.053" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T17:45:52.053" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29816" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29817" CreationDate="2018-05-14T19:05:05.807" Score="2" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;The goal is to translate the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mandarin has sure enough affected my Cantonese. &quot;While speaking&#xA;  Cantontese with my mom, I accidentally said one half of a sentence in&#xA;  Mandarin and the other half in Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This translation feels awkward:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我國語果然有影響我的廣東話。今天我跟我媽媽講廣東話，我無意講的一個句子有一半國語也另外一半有廣東話。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the appropriate grammar for such a complex sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T19:51:11.890" Title="Correct grammar for &quot;While speaking Cantontese with my mom, I accidentally said one half of a sentence in Mandarin and the other half in Cantonese.&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29816" CreationDate="2018-05-14T19:37:50.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin has sure enough affected my Cantonese. &amp;quot;While speaking Cantontese with my mom, I accidentally said one half of a sentence in Mandarin and the other half in Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我國語果然有影響我的廣東話。今天我跟我媽媽講廣東話，我無意講的一個句子有一半國語也另外一半有廣東話。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的国语果然会影响我的广东话。今天我跟我妈妈讲广东话时，我无意讲的一个句子，有一半是国语，另一半是广东话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way to express such a complex sentence is, split the phrases out.  For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I accidentally said one half of a sentence in Mandarin and the other half in Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“I said a sentence.” “The sentence is half Mandarin and half Cantonese.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我说了一个句子，句子里一半是国语另一半是广东话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though yours is good enough to understand, personally I would suggest following translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的粤语（表达）的确被国语所影响。跟我妈说粤语时，我无意间说出了国语粤语参半的一句话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18332" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T19:51:11.890" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29808" CreationDate="2018-05-14T21:21:50.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is from 【石室秘錄】(序) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theqi.com/cmed/oldbook/book67/b67_01.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.theqi.com/cmed/oldbook/book67/b67_01.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;忽有好學深思如遠公陳子者，聞風而慕，誠求而得，取淹沒久遠之遺文，表章而出，更闡揚其所未發，謂非曠代一抒已哉。第指迷自呂祖，啟函自天師，辨難參訂自真人，跡近怪異，或疑其說荒渺為不可據矣。乃吾三複斯篇，&lt;/em&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;立方固奇，而立論甚正&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;em&gt;。聚數賢之心思，變古今之精靈，審疾疚之幾微，定醫治之龜鑒。自來醫書亦滋多一矣&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically it is a hard sale introduction to a medical book that based on supposedly rediscovered ancient text. It has nothing to do with Taoism&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;立方固奇，而立論甚正&quot; (The prescriptions are indeed unorthodox; but the theories are very formal) is just one of the many praises to the book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;方 means 药方 (prescription)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;立方 means &quot;to prescribe prescription&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;固 = certainly&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;奇 = unorthodox; surprising&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;而 = however&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;立論 = establish argument/ theory&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;甚正 = quite formal/ mainstream&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-14T21:27:33.200" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T21:27:33.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29821" CreationDate="2018-05-14T21:32:40.147" Score="3" ViewCount="928" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English you can say &quot;I'm taken&quot; to express that you already have a significant other (girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife/etc.) and are not open to romantic advances from other people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an equivalent expression in Chinese, other than explicitly saying something like 我已经结婚了 or 我已经有女朋友?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9263" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T17:39:32.900" Title="Is there an expression in Chinese for saying &quot;I'm taken&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29820" CreationDate="2018-05-14T21:53:56.097" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/61024/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;名花有主&lt;/a&gt;  to describe a third person 'being taken' in a romantic sense. For example: &amp;quot;他已经是名花有主&amp;quot; (he is already taken)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it sounds arrogant to call oneself  &amp;quot;名花&amp;quot; (quite a catch), &amp;quot;名花有主&amp;quot; is only appropriate when describing a third person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also &amp;quot;名花&amp;quot; is usually a description of a lady. Using it to describe a man is less common, therefore someone would say &amp;quot;名草有主&amp;quot; instead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can use &amp;quot;心有所屬&amp;quot; to declare you are &amp;quot;taken&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我已经心有所屬&amp;quot; = (my heart had already settled on someone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 心有所屬 is quite a literary phrase, rarely used colloquially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我已经有女朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds most natural in native Chinese speech&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T01:24:16.970" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29823" CreationDate="2018-05-15T00:13:08.883" Score="1" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is about 尽 in this snippet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不仅对我好，对我父母也极&lt;strong&gt;尽&lt;/strong&gt;照顾，。。。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Bùjǐn duì wǒ hǎo, duì wǒ fùmǔ yě jí &lt;strong&gt;[jìn/jǐn]&lt;/strong&gt; zhàogù, ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guaixun.com/bdnews/content_214083_1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;嫁给离婚带孩子的男人 我的生活只剩下两个字&lt;/a&gt;, guaixun.com&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Not only did he treat me well, he did his extreme utmost to look after my parents, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 尽 means something like &quot;exhaust&quot; or &quot;utmost&quot;, but there appears to be a different meaning depending on the tone.  The Perapera Chinese Popup Dictionary shows the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NALi6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NALi6.png&quot; alt=&quot;Perapera Chinese Popup Dictionary entry for 尽&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these seem to make sense in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 尽 mean and what tone does it have in 对我父母也极尽照顾?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T04:37:16.010" Title="What does 尽 mean and what tone does it have in 对我父母也极尽照顾?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29822" CreationDate="2018-05-15T00:26:13.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many dictionaries have a single entry for 极尽.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All with the pronunciation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jíjìn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;use to the utmost&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 exhaust (one's ability, etc.), try one's best within the limits of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 perform/fulfil to the utmost (a duty, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 (before an adjective:) extremely, to the utmost&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PLC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;VERB&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;do one's utmost&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;极尽所能&#xA;jíjìn suǒnéng&#xA;do one’s best&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T00:26:13.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29822" CreationDate="2018-05-15T00:29:58.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;照顾 is a verb for &quot;to look after&quot; / &quot;to take care&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;极尽 is an adverb that modify 照顾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;极 = maximally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽 = exhaustively&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;极尽 (adv) = maximally, exhaustively; to the greatest extent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;对我父母也极尽照顾&quot; = &quot;look after my parents to the greatest extent too&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example for 极尽 (adv)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;极尽&lt;/strong&gt;侈华 = &lt;strong&gt;extremely&lt;/strong&gt;(adv) extravagant(adj); extravagant to the greatest extent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-15T00:42:12.633" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T00:42:12.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29825" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-15T00:47:25.350" Score="3" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;哎吆，我担心了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“（孙悟空）掏出金箍棒，把两个勾魂鬼打成了肉酱。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是不是这两个‘勾魂鬼’就是那两位‘黑白无常’？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们成了肉酱的话，谁来捉拿去世人的魂呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There will be an imbalance between heaven and earth. Souls will pile up! Soul pollution!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T13:15:00.747" Title="Are the two 勾魂鬼 actually 黑白无常？" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29825" CreationDate="2018-05-15T02:29:35.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be, but 黑白无常 can not be eliminated obviously, they will reform.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, the two 勾魂鬼 just work for 黑白无常, since many people die at same times, 黑白无常 need employees.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T02:29:35.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29781" CreationDate="2018-05-15T03:07:56.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your first answer - foreigner from the perspective of the speaker. More importantly, because the speaker is speaking to a Chinese audience, where the commonality is that “we” (speaker and audience) are Chinese and the “them” are locals in Spain, hence 老外。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T03:07:56.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29779" CreationDate="2018-05-15T03:12:32.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use emoticons or stickers, when text fails you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, I’d do something like this before I throw out advice relevant to the situation (in this case, warm up with a hot drink): 啊？！還好嗎？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13086" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T03:12:32.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29779" CreationDate="2018-05-15T03:48:17.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least not specifically for expressing sympathy. There are other exclamations that can be used to express sympathy, like 哎呦, 天哪, but none are specific to sympathy, and can be used in other situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This feels like a cop-out but it's true; Chinese doesn't have exact equivalents for all English exclamations, but the converse also applies. To give you two examples, there isn't a Chinese word to express disapproval, like &quot;boo&quot;; you might say something specific like 下台, which means &quot;get off the stage&quot;. There isn't an English equivalent to 加油; instead you might say &quot;go team&quot;, or &quot;USA&quot;, depending on what you're cheering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T03:48:17.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29781" CreationDate="2018-05-15T07:56:48.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does 老外 mean a foreigner who is from the standpoint of the speaker? So is it OK to call Spainard as 老外 even if the speaker lives in Spain, as long as the speaker is not Spainard?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes 老外 is relative to the speaker's nationality or ethnicity, not their geographical location. If the speaker is a Chinese person living in Spain, then 老外 covers all non-Chinese people living anywhere in the world including in Spain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note, technically 老外 means foreigner i.e. people with different nationality, but in real life usage it's most used for 'foreigners with dissimilar appearances from the majority of Chinese people'. For example, it's technically correct, but non-idiomatic to call Japanese 老外, neither does it sound intuitive to call a Chinese-American 老外.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T07:56:48.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29781" CreationDate="2018-05-15T10:42:33.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a long history and cultural related.  The &quot;middle kingdom&quot; cultural are mostly family eccentric. In 伦理 , 伦理 has nothing to do with intellectual, but about &quot;society circle&quot; structure.  For example, &quot;外面的人如何说你”, 外面的人 is mean anyone outside the family, regardless of country of origin.  Something one will come across phrase such as &quot;别见外“ (threat it like your home). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some reason, mainland Chinese use 外国人 as any foreigner. Since it is awkward in speaking, it is shortened to 老外. Which 老 bring out another a loosen relation.  Due to globalisation,  老外can sometime mean stranger. But in the zhihu context you shown, it simply mean Spanish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P/S : globalisation is a recent things to mainland Chinese people. So you must be aware of the rift of communication between different age gap. Many commentary in Zhihu contains a lot of perspective bias and stereotype.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T10:42:33.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29738" CreationDate="2018-05-15T15:20:56.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are my conclusions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 痴情 is supposed to be 戚戚 | qi1qi1, as suggested &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/195615757.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 仍藏心底 is supposed to be 隐藏心底 | yin3cang2 xin1 di3, as suggested &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/195615757.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 选择 at the end is supposed to be 三角 | san1jiao4, as suggested &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/195615757.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 惘然 is supposed to be 茫然; I only draw this conclusion because it seems to me &quot;blank&quot; fits the context better than &quot;suddenly&quot;, since &quot;your face is blank and there is tears in your eyes&quot; is what would result from 茫然, whereas with 猛然 you would have &quot;on the whole face&quot; (一脸) and &quot;the eyes&quot; (眼眶), two contradictory complements of place.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three &quot;here&quot;s above all link to the same link provided in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29738/doubts-on-some-words-in-a-deng-lijun-song#comment42663_29738&quot;&gt;Jason Swift's comment&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T15:20:56.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29781" CreationDate="2018-05-15T16:42:42.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;老外 means anyone who is not a Chinese. It doesn't matter where the speaker is, in China or other countries. Some people may think that the word 老外 is offensive. In fact, it isn't. It's just a simple way to speak. Many Chinese call themselves 老中。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19701" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T16:42:42.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29822" CreationDate="2018-05-15T22:10:28.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well zdic has no word 极尽，but it has, for jin3 :力求达到最大限度 which seems to fit nicely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不仅对我好，对我父母也极尽照顾，。。。&#xA;not only was he good to me, he also strove to look after my parents, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Is this the same guy that locked up his kid?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then again, zdic also has for jin3 尽：极，最&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the senses of jin1 and jin3 overlap, it is hard to tell from reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T22:10:28.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29836" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-16T02:07:23.137" Score="1" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I have tried to become more proficient in writing emails in Chinese. The structure for these are difficult, I have provided an example of a email I recently wrote. Is this correct grammatically and structurally?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To: Zoutang Zhang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3030 A1和A2课程&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张博士晚上好，&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;希望你一切都好。我已经学习七张纸你给我。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;明天我要也提交LTT 1.除了你发送的两封电&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;子邮件之外，还有什么我应该学习的？谢谢你&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;的帮助。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;你的学生、&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;欧阳威利&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Edc9v.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Original image&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19704" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user19549" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T05:12:08.750" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T05:12:08.750" Title="Is this email correct grammatically and structurally? 希望你一切都好。我已经学习七张纸你给我。……" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29836" CreationDate="2018-05-16T02:55:36.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wrong grammar. 我已经学习了你给我的七张纸。明天我也要提交LTT1. That's the right grammar. Besides that, some of the format, punctuation, word usage are wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19549" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T02:55:36.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29836" CreationDate="2018-05-16T03:42:42.207" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我已经学习七张纸你给我  -&gt;  我已经学习了你给我的七张纸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明天我要也提交LTT1  -&gt;  not sure what you mean, if you mean &quot;I will also submit LTT1 tomorrow&quot; then &quot;明天我也会提交LTT1&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, those 顿号(&quot;、&quot;) look weird, I would recommend commas instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T03:42:42.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29836" CreationDate="2018-05-16T04:14:14.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some basic grammatical things you should take note of, along with some stylistic/cultural things you need to keep in mind, considering that you are writing to a teacher, and not a peer. Furthermore, letters are a unique class of literature in most languages, including Chinese. There are specific formats, traditions, and phrases that are unique to letters. In the modern setting, some apply to emails as well, while some are considered a bit archaic. Your command of the balance between modern and traditional will grow as you write and receive more and more letters. I've written some notes sentence by sentence below. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;張博士晚上好 -- This sounds a bit Western to me, which isn't necessarily bad, because many native speakers are also influenced by Western phrases these days. In more traditional spheres, the opening to a letter usually follows the formula: 稱謂＋提稱。稱謂 basically means a name, in this case it's just 張博士。 提稱 literally means &quot;elevating phrase.&quot; There's a whole list of these things--I've attached a helpful guide below in case you're interested. For a teacher, an appropriate 提稱 is 尊鑑 or 台鑒。  They literally translate to something like &quot;Please view, your dignity.&quot; This opening phrase is ALWAYS followed by a :, and nothing else.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;希望你一切都好。 The second line is always on the second line and indented. Also, when referring to someone who is higher than you in social class--in this case, to a teacher-- always use the more polite 您。There's not much else wrong with this sentence, except that if you want to be a bit fancier, you could add a 啟辭, literally &quot;opening phrase.&quot; Some suitable ones include 「謹啟者」。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我已經學習七張紙你給我。Grammar--take note of the modifying clause here, 「你給我」。This is directly modifying the noun clause 「七張紙」。Modifying clauses come before the noun in Chinese, and is linked with the word 「的」。You seem to have gotten it in the next sentence, so I imagine this was more of a careless mistake. Additionally, the word for study guides, which I'm assuming the 紙 are, is 「講義」or 「學習單」。As to the verb--已經 is paired with Verb+了 to denote tense. And finally, use 您。This gives us: 「我已經學習了您給我的七張講義。」&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;明天我也要提交ＬＴＴ1。 I don't really understand the context here, so it's hard to say whether or not this sentence should be changed. One thing to note, though, is saying 「明天我也要」implies a connotation of you either really looking forward to submitting LTT1, or you being forced to do so. Chinese contexts get crazy sometimes and this is a good example. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;除了你發送的兩封電子郵件之外，還有什麼我應該學習的？ This may be just me, but it sounds a just a tiny tiny wee bit demanding. In Chinese, just a bit more polite fanfare is often a good idea. Other than the usual 您 instead of 你，there's something you can make even more polite for the second part. A more polite sentence could be 「不知道還有沒有其他我應該學習的講義/重點/內容？」&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;謝謝你的幫助。 - 您&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.你的學生。 In Chinese letters, we don't use the last sentence to describe ourselves. Usually the last line is used to express some polite sentiments to the receiver, such as gratitude, love, care, etc.. This is highly formulaic and you should always consult a guide before you write this. Some gratitude lines include: 「多勞費心，銘感不已」, which means &quot;I have endless thanks for your worries and inconvenience,&quot; or 「至盼即時示下,無任感禱」, literally &quot;I very much look forward to your guidance, and am very thankful.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.歐陽威利 - Following the letter, it is customary to write the word 「緘」 to mark the ending of the letter. In a letter that doesn't have any strong emotions, just the one word is fine. However, if you wish to express more, such as in a case of respect, you may write 「謹緘」, literally &quot;I close this letter with much care&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some extra info: In Chinese, there's something called 「抬」, which literally means lifting up, or elevation. It is used when you mention a respected person's name within the body (i.e., not the opening or the ending) of the letter. This applies to basically all writings, including novels, official documents, plaques, and of course letters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many kinds of 抬，and there are two that are the most common: 「平抬」and 「挪抬」。平抬 is when you put the respected name in the next line. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;張博士親鑑：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;博士晚上好。學生聽聞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王安娜博士近日發表論文，昨日拜讀，奈學生愚鈍有諸多不解之處，特書此請教&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;張博士高見。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, breaking the line every time this happens can get quite a bit clunky, especially in official emails that involve a lot of people. Thus, people invented a compromise, i.e. 挪抬. This means just adding a full space before the respected name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;張博士親鑑：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;博士晚上好。學生聽聞  王安娜博士近日發表論文，昨日拜讀，奈學生愚鈍有諸多不解之處，特書此請教  張博士高見。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full edited letter would read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;張博士尊鑑：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;謹啟者希望您一切都好。我已經學習了您給我的七張講義，明天也將提交LTT11。&#xA;  除了您發送的兩封電子郵件之外，不知道還有沒有其他我應該學習的講義？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多勞費心&#xA;歐陽威利 謹緘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/824fda7201f69e314332944e.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中文傳統文書格式&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19706" LastEditorUserId="19706" LastEditDate="2018-05-16T04:24:04.230" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T04:24:04.230" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29822" CreationDate="2018-05-16T04:37:16.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The nuance can be found in the traditional characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盡 refers to the full extent, the highest limit to exhaustion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儘, with its 亻 （人）radical, emphasizes the human agency in this limit. I.e., it's the full extent that a person can reach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence,「儘早」, as soon as possible, not 「盡早」。The case of 「極盡照顧」is ambiguous--you're still talking about the person trying their best to take care of their parents. However, the emphasis is not on the person, but rather on the quality of care. Therefore, 極盡照顧 does not refer to “as much care as he is capable of giving&quot;, but rather &quot;as much care as the concept of care itself allows&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19706" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T04:37:16.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22410" CreationDate="2018-05-16T11:00:47.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just means have you already eaten. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But actuallly, it just means: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你吃了吗？&#xA;How are you?&#xA;吃了， 你呢？&#xA;Fine, thank you. and you?&#xA;我也吃过了。 &#xA;I'm fine too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3695" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T11:00:47.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29798" CreationDate="2018-05-16T11:06:10.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;儿&quot; is just used to make it easier to say it. &#xA;It will not change the mean. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3695" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T11:06:10.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29825" CreationDate="2018-05-16T12:16:32.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Correct : 勾魂鬼, 黑白无常, 牛头马脸 can be used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wrong: They are &quot;hell authority civil servant&quot;, so there are a bunch of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-05-16T13:15:00.747" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T13:15:00.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29836" CreationDate="2018-05-16T13:00:54.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the designated person is a professor of a higher education institute, he/she should be called 教授， not 博士。 But you should ask around, since the title is depends on the campus culture. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One can use study 学习  in the class during lecturing, but you will use 复习, 温习, 做笔记 （study the note) afterwards, or even 做完了功课。 我已经复习了您的讲义。  Anyway, there is no need to say you need to submit the homework, unless you are going to postpone the submission.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有什么我应该学习的 is not wrong, but it sound a lot like in cultural revolution society. You can ask : 可否介绍这方面的书本/著作做延展学习。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As this is email, it will be a excessive and nuisance if you use too much &quot;polite verb&quot;.  It is no harm to ask the professor/lecturer about the communication format.  (IMHO, the formality suggested by @user19706 are pretty &quot;entertaining&quot;) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-05-16T13:08:57.857" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T13:08:57.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29820" CreationDate="2018-05-16T15:04:52.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than that there is one more term means &quot;being taken&quot; in a romantic sense which is &quot;死會&quot;. Although it doesn't looks like anything to do with &quot;relationship&quot;, it's means the person has a boyfriend/girlfriend. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &#xA;Using it in first person&#xA;我已經死會了 = I'm taken&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using it in second person&#xA;你/妳經死會了 = You are taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using it in third person&#xA;他/她已經死會了 = He/She is taken&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS:&#xA;I think this term is only commonly used in Taiwan. I never hear my Chinese friends from mainland China say it. I think it is because the term is derived from &quot;Taiwanese&quot;. So think twice before you use it in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19707" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T15:04:52.333" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29820" CreationDate="2018-05-16T17:39:32.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing to note: the passive voice is a rare construction that often carries a negative connotation in traditional Chinese. In general it flows more “Chinese-ly” to use the active voice. Part of the westernization of the language is that the passive voice has become more and more common among the younger generation. Whether or not that’s good or bad is beyond the scope of this forum, but it’s just something to keep in mind as you learn Chinese. It’s important to know that its written form has changed dramatically within the last half a century. Among these changes, I’d even venture to say that simplification of the scripts is the most minor in terms of its impact to literature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so instead of saying the passive “I’m taken”, Chinese prefers saying “I have a partner” or “I am [state of actively dating someone]”. 我有對象了，我有男女朋友了，我已心有所屬 are all examples of the active voice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19706" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T17:39:32.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29847" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29849" CreationDate="2018-05-16T18:41:53.590" Score="4" ViewCount="407" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我一边吃饭，一边做作业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do homework while eating&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我一边在吃饭，一边在做作业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm doing homework while eating&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the second sentence correct? Can I use 在 or does 一边...一边 already imply that the action I'm talking about is happening right now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19709" LastActivityDate="2018-05-19T09:38:24.877" Title="Can I use 在 with 一边... 一边?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29847" CreationDate="2018-05-16T22:41:09.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can think of &quot;一边...一边&quot; as a split screen. To me, it indicates the concurrence of two actions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To your question specifically, it seems the second sentence is verbose and do not follow what colloquial description is from a native speaker point of view. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, You can say something like, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我一边吃着饭，一边做着作业&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to indicate &lt;strong&gt;the current continuous tense&lt;/strong&gt; though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T22:41:09.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29847" CreationDate="2018-05-17T01:33:47.423" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[一边 (verb A) 一边 (verb B)] indicates  (verb A) and (verb B) are carried out  concurrently. Please read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/28575/is-the-%e8%be%b9%ef%bd%9e%e8%be%b9-the-synonym-for-%e4%b8%80%e8%be%b9%ef%bd%9e%e4%b8%80%e8%be%b9&quot;&gt;Is the 边～边 the synonym for 一边～一边?&lt;/a&gt; for reference&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[在 (verb A)] indicates (verb A) is in a progressive tense (&lt;em&gt;in the middle of doing it / in a continuous state of doing it&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Neither structure indicate tense, because Chinese verbs do not inflect between present and past tense. Please read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22011/how-do-you-specify-past-tense-for-%e6%98%af/22016#22016&quot;&gt;How do you specify past tense for 是?&lt;/a&gt; for reference&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我一边在吃饭，一边在做作业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not technically wrong, but the more efficient structure to express the same meaning is &quot;我在边吃饭，边做作业&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[边]&lt;/strong&gt; 吃饭 &lt;strong&gt;[边]&lt;/strong&gt; 做作业 indicates &quot;eat dinner&quot; (verb A) and &quot;do homework&quot; (verb B) are carried out concurrently&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[在]&lt;/strong&gt; [边吃饭，边做作业] indicates both actions are in a progressive tense (&lt;em&gt;in the middle of doing it / in a continuous state of doing it&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-17T04:18:36.083" LastActivityDate="2018-05-17T04:18:36.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29850" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30946" CreationDate="2018-05-17T03:20:09.473" Score="2" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've never come across the notation &amp;quot;(t 某某, s 某某)&amp;quot; to indicate traditional and simplified Chinese characters together, so I was quite confused when I came across this on the Wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuxi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fuxi&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was also known as &lt;strong&gt;Paoxi&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;t&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BA%96%E7%8A%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;庖犧&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;s&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BA%96%E7%89%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;庖牺&lt;/a&gt;), also romanized as &lt;strong&gt;Pao-hsi&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first I wasn't even sure what &lt;code&gt;t&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;s&lt;/code&gt; stood for. Luckily there were links &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;t&lt;/a&gt; linked to Wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;traditional chracters&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;s&lt;/a&gt; linked to the Wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;simplified characters&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this common notation? Is it accepted notation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T13:45:22.107" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T13:45:22.107" Title="Is &quot;(t 某某, s 某某)&quot; accepted notation for showing traditional and simplified characters together?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;notations&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29851" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29854" CreationDate="2018-05-17T05:09:33.593" Score="0" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this video &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/7xtbsifwLqQ?t=4m45s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;方清平《春节记事》单口相声笑侃春节趣闻轶事&lt;/a&gt; there's a short part of a sentence at around ~4:46 where the speaker says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;往地一摔 bia响了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subtitles themselves leave out &lt;code&gt;bia&lt;/code&gt; and just go for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;往地一摔 响了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went through &lt;a href=&quot;http://gongjushu.cnki.net/refbook/R201506105.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;北京话词典&lt;/a&gt; but it just goes from:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://gongjushu.cnki.net/refbook/detail.aspx?db=crfd&amp;amp;RECID=R2015061050000500&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;避屈 bìqū&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://gongjushu.cnki.net/refbook/detail.aspx?db=crfd&amp;amp;RECID=R2015061050000502&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;边边儿沿沿儿 biānbiānryán yánr&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other dialects I've seen &lt;code&gt;bia&lt;/code&gt; written: 扁、瘪 and .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen 嘌 noted as &quot;pia&quot; it might be an option with the confusion of b/p.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-18T06:57:04.560" Title="What is the character `bia` in `bia响`?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29851" CreationDate="2018-05-17T05:35:12.960" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The joke was about throwing firecracker&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term &quot;噼里啪啦&quot; is used to mimic sound of a string of firecrackers explodes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%99%BC%E9%87%8C%E5%95%AA%E5%95%A6/1623777&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%99%BC%E9%87%8C%E5%95%AA%E5%95%A6/1623777&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;例句:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;过年了，外面鞭炮声&lt;strong&gt;噼里啪啦&lt;/strong&gt;响个不停&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might had heard &quot;啪&quot; (Pā) there  (he was making a sound effect of  a single firecracker explodes, Therefore, he didn't say &quot;噼里啪啦&quot; but just &quot;啪&quot;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;往地一摔, '啪' (一声地), 响了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another character 嘭 (Pēng) can also be used for mimicking the sound of firecracker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Or there's no character at all. Anyway, it is just a noise that has no meaning on it's own&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-17T05:45:07.413" LastActivityDate="2018-05-17T05:45:07.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29851" CreationDate="2018-05-17T06:30:35.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 象声词， which sounds funny to the most people from the northeast. Refer to this link for &lt;a href=&quot;https://m.baidu.com/from=1086k/bd_page_type=1/ssid=0/uid=0/pu=usm%401%2Csz%40320_1002%2Cta%40iphone_2_7.0_2_7.3/baiduid=FF22DF561569F3860E45C40E2A747D99/w=0_10_/t=iphone/l=3/tc?ref=www_iphone&amp;amp;lid=9536953789412652404&amp;amp;order=1&amp;amp;fm=alop&amp;amp;tj=www_normal_1_0_10_title&amp;amp;vit=osres&amp;amp;m=8&amp;amp;srd=1&amp;amp;cltj=cloud_title&amp;amp;asres=1&amp;amp;nt=wnor&amp;amp;title=%E5%B0%8F%E6%B2%88%E9%98%B3%E5%8F%A3%E5%A4%B4%E7%A6%85%E6%88%90%E4%BB%8A%E5%B9%B4%E7%AC%AC%E4%B8%80%E7%83%AD%E8%AF%8D%E4%B8%93%E5%AE%B6%E5%8F%8D%E5%AF%B9%E5%86%8D%E9%80%A0%E5%AD%97(%E5%9B%BE)_%E5%A8%B1%E4%B9%90...&amp;amp;dict=32&amp;amp;wd=&amp;amp;eqid=845a10f14941b800100000005afd1f12&amp;amp;w_qd=IlPT2AEptyoA_yk5z35byQi6F6ZUmIYnuVYYcPnTtBu&amp;amp;tcplug=1&amp;amp;sec=29838&amp;amp;di=e91d8fcc32b1e5b8&amp;amp;bdenc=1&amp;amp;tch=124.0.286.193.0.0&amp;amp;nsrc=IlPT2AEptyoA_yixCFOxXnANedT62v3IIxiJ_yVS2zSt95qshbWxBd6eXTv6NWyJZpPPuW3HfsFUbiCu0VByj2YKh4A0sWkf9l0ddenq6RO_CBZbeAFiPgTxGGwryPjzk_&amp;amp;clk_info=%7B%22srcid%22%3A1599%2C%22tplname%22%3A%22www_normal%22%2C%22t%22%3A1526538017957%2C%22xpath%22%3A%22div-a-h3%22%7D&amp;amp;sfOpen=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pia&lt;/a&gt;. Bia is often used to take the same effect I think. Ex. Bia ji, bia ji. == Pia ji pia ji. Those are very interesting 象声词, and never seen them being written out. But gua ji gua ji could be written as 呱唧呱唧 I think, meaning 鼓掌 clapping. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-05-17T06:50:41.373" LastActivityDate="2018-05-17T06:50:41.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29851" CreationDate="2018-05-17T06:38:34.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are two characters that have the pronunciation &lt;code&gt;bia&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://yedict.com/zscontent.asp?uni=28695&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拼音bia4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;㈠邑名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;㈡姓。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://yedict.com/zscontent.asp?uni=20B2A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;㈠bia4,上下相付。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.zdic.net/thread-198531-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt; has a question that reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从小有个朋友问我“bia”拼出来的汉字怎么写，我当时真懵了，不会啊！时间过去20年了，突然回想起这个拼音，有会写的么，请告知，谢谢了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the last comment says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8楼14楼是权威说法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Number eight reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pia、bia、diang，其实就是pa、ba、dang的变读。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方法是在声母与韵母间插入“i ” 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例子太多了，就不列举了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and number fourteen says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多以“吧”字代之。如吧叽，吧嗒。吧读bia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《哈尔滨方言词典》p. 110&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T3aoo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T3aoo.png&quot; alt=&quot;yup&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply lists all &lt;code&gt;bia&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;□&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but the same words from the zdic thread are written as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吧叽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吧嗒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seemingly making &lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt; an acceptable candidate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《北京方言词典》陈刚 商务印书馆 1985 p.17 confirms this assumption:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LVLlW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LVLlW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-18T06:57:04.560" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29855" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29863" CreationDate="2018-05-17T14:17:15.617" Score="4" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;My teacher detracted a few points for using 一把手機。It seems that 一台，一部, 一個 are better choices. However, I find many occurrences of 一把手機&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.at/search?source=hp&amp;amp;ei=K479Wr-bLNGQkwWMvaHwBQ&amp;amp;q=%E4%B8%80%E6%8A%8A%E6%89%8B%E6%A9%9F&amp;amp;oq=&amp;amp;gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-hp.1.0.41l3.0.0..6385...0....0.0.......0...........3.5NYXk8kY9og%3D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google search&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a dialectal phenomenon? Maybe in dialects where 把 and 部 sound similar？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&#xA;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/19904687&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt; claims that 一把手機 occurs in 溫州方言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T22:56:11.987" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T20:17:01.643" Title="Why did my teacher mark down 一把 as a classifier for 手機?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29856" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29872" CreationDate="2018-05-17T14:32:27.023" Score="1" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the beginning of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCA7iaBUD28&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt;, there is an introduction to the story of the singer, Lin Zijun. Here it is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;客家新流行乐创作歌手&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2007［天黑黑］获苗栗客家音乐歌唱比赛 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 第三名&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2006［匍背］获台湾创音乐大赛 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 客语首奖&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2001全国丝竹比赛全国第一名&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为弱视的关系&lt;br&gt;&#xA;小的时候只能听电视&lt;br&gt;&#xA;或听鸟叫蟲鸣的声音&lt;br&gt;&#xA;所以声音对资君来说 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 是全部也是生命&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;而她的音乐曲风轻发自然&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让人忍不住细听着&lt;br&gt;&#xA;她的生活故事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;资君希望自己能够永远站在舞台上&lt;br&gt;&#xA;用歌声抚慰所有的人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;感动自己也感动别人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;直到发禿齿搖的那一天&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New popular Hakka music singer-songwriter&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The 2007 song &quot;Sky's so dark&quot; (天黑黑) won the Miaoli Hakka music singing contest: &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; third place&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The 2006 song &quot;Support&quot; (匍背) won the Taiwan big composition contest &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Hakka-language first prize&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In 2001 she won national first place in the national string-and-woodwind music contest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Because of amblyopia,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When she was young, she could only listen to TV&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Or listen to the sounds of birds and insects&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So sounds for Zijun &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; are everything and are her life&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And the 风轻发自然 (??) in her songs and music&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Make people unable to avoid carefully listening&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To her life story&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Zijun hopes she can forever stand on the stage&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And comfort all people with her singing voice&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Moving herself and moving others&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Till the day her hair is stripped out and her teeth shake&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the phrase &quot;风轻发自然&quot;, which I failed to translate, mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2018-05-18T15:37:14.163" Title="What does 风轻发自然 mean here?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29857" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-17T14:53:46.047" Score="9" ViewCount="1623" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Warning, General Background, Table of Contents&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is going to be a very long post, just like my work on this video was very long. This is why I am breaking it down into sections. It is also going to contain many questions, because I feel they are very closely related and would not benefit from being torn apart by post separation. Also, in a similar occasion, a user commented something along the lines of «Why did you split this?!».&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So almost a year ago I started &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.it/2017/09/blog-index.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;my blog&lt;/a&gt;, and sometime in August I had this crazy idea of &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.com/2017/08/all-chinese-songs-i-have-met.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a post&lt;/a&gt; which, in a long time, would come to contain all the Chinese songs I had ever come across. So I dug into my computer, and, among others, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHLKXejZp_A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt; popped up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The time on my hands dropped down, so the post was left dormant until, after graduating, I had more time, and added a bunch of songs. I had previously made a list of the songs I came across during my second year studying Chinese, and the above video was item 38.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I examined it very closely, trying to figure out how to actually write the Hakka in it, both in terms of hanzi and in terms of Phak-fa-sii (the Romanization I &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.com/2017/08/on-my-spelling-and-transliteration-of.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;kinda use&lt;/a&gt; for Hakka). This took me from last Friday till the day before yesterday (11-15/5/18) - well, I had a few other things to do these days, but still, a lot of time. Many problems emerged, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCA7iaBUD28&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;another video&lt;/a&gt; with higher-quality subtitles also popped up from Youtube search. This also contained an intro to the singer, which I wanted to have as section 1 below here, but the character limit forced me to move &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29856/what-does-%e9%a3%8e%e8%bd%bb%e5%8f%91%e8%87%aa%e7%84%b6-mean-here&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After doing all that was in my power to clear them up, I come here to ask questions. The rest of the post will be divided into the following sections, though sections 2-3 need to be partially moved to a pseudo-answer because of the character limit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First rough transcription of the sounds and character approximation;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Precise transcription of what I hear in the video, including tonal information (in the form of tone contours) for the spoken part;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Transcription with Southern Sixian Hakka contours as given at hakkadict;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A couple tweaks to the spelling based on data emerged from the previous two sections;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Comments on what seem to be Min loans in this dialect;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Comments on the matching of tones to Southern Sixian or Raoping, or neither;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Comments on tone fluctuations and possible explanations in terms of sandhi;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Final spelling and transliteration, with English translation attempt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Questions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all of that stuff, I guess you can better understand why I would want to keep all the questions in one post. So let's get started, shall we? Let's go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;First rough transcription of the sounds and character approximation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I already gave above the link to &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.it/2017/09/blog-index.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the post&lt;/a&gt; where I describe my spelling and romanization conventions for Hakka. I would summarize the differences between Phȧk-fà-sìi and my romanization, but the character limit doesn't allow me. However, I need to point out the peculiar accent of the singer, because it induces quirks in the romanization. The speaker's accent has some of its own peculiarities; if you see a final y, it's because I hear what should be a final -i as more of a /y/ (German ü, French u, Pinyin yu); if you see -eoi or -eot, pretend it's Cantonese Jyutping, 'cause that is what I hear; -eot appears in kyeot only, where it seems the w was first fronted because of the front vowel e, and then the /kɥet/ underwent a rounding metathesis to become /kjøt/; there is also the kyun in her name, which in Hakka should be kiun, but she seems to have an accent influenced by Mandarin there; it is also funny how the initial v- is consistently /v/, except in /woj/ (会 | voi); in fact, /woy/; moreover, what should be vung-tshoi is actually fung-tshoi in her accent; but more sound mismatches will come in later sections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The below is my first attempt at transcribing the video.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;口白：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'佇'去年'的'三月份 | Ti khiu-nyan e sam nyat-fun&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯又梦着涯'的'阿妈 | Ngai yu mung to ngai e a-ma&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;该俆&amp;quot;系涯盖细盖细的时节 | Te hay he ngai koy se koy se e sii-ciet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每日天无光 | Mi nyit thien mo kong&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如跈等阿妈共下出门去卖菜 | Lu then-nun a-ma khiung-ha tshut-mun hi mai tshoy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿妈用担竿&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;等番薯番薯叶 | A-ma yung tang-kon khan-nun fan-su fan-su yap&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;等瓮菜 | Khan-nun fung tshoy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'如按呢'从美浓庄 | Lu-an-ne tshung Mi-nung tsong&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一路行行着中门 | Yit-lu-hang hang to Tsung-mun&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'佇'路行阿妈'伊'会'共'涯讲 | Ti lu hong a-ma i woy ka ai kong&lt;br&gt;&#xA;姿君涯眼珠看着吔 | Tsii-kyun nge ngan-tsu khon to e&lt;br&gt;&#xA;故所以吾希望你可以考上大学 | Ko-so-yi nga hi-mong n kho-yi khau-song thai-hok&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吾难放的落心 | Nga nam-piong e lok-sim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为阿妈哩句话 | Yin-wi a-ma ya ki fa&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯盖搭營 | Ngai koy tap-yang&lt;br&gt;&#xA;来考着中国文化大学 | Leoi khau to Tsung-kyeot wun-fa Thai-hok&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啊毋过着涯毕业典礼&amp;quot;'该彼日'&amp;quot; | A m-ko to ngai pi-nyap tiam-li te pi nyit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吾路寻无着阿妈伊的&amp;quot;匍背&amp;quot; | Nga lu chim mo to a-ma i e pu-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;翕相'的'&amp;quot;该俆&amp;quot; | Hip-siong e te-hai&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吾'嘛'无一种欢喜'的'感受 | Nga ma mo yit tsung fon-hi e kam-su&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为'伊'对吾来讲 | Yin-wi yi tui nga loi kong&lt;br&gt;&#xA;最重要最重要'的'人 | Tsui tsung-yau tsui tsung-yau e nyin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯再无辦法看着 | Ngai tsai mo phan-fap khon to&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'伊''的'&amp;quot;匍背&amp;quot; | I e pu-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有一个暗晡头 | Yu yit ke am-pu-theu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯发梦梦着涯'的'阿妈 | Ngai pot-mung mung to ngai e a-ma&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;该俆&amp;quot;盖久盖久吔以前 | Te-he koi kiu koi kiu e yit-tshien&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯还盖细盖细'的'时节 | Ngai han koi se koi se e sii-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯还盖细盖细'的'时节 | Ngai han koi se koi se e sii-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿妈每日用担竿 | A-ma mi nyit yung tam-kon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;着番薯叶&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;瓮菜 | Khan to fa-su yap kan fung tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;带涯共下去卖菜 | Tai ngai khiung-ha hi mai tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;从美浓行着中门 | Tshung Mi-nung hang to Tsung-mun&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有么人爱买无 | Yiu mak-nyin oi mai mo?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有么人爱买无 | Yiu mak-nyin oi mai mo?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿妈希望涯读大学 | A-ma hi-mong ngai thuk thai-hok&lt;br&gt;&#xA;毋使像伊爱去卖菜 | M-sii tshiong i oi hi mai tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每日天无光？爱行 | Mi nyit thien mo kong lu oi hong&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;菜&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;啊变匍背 | Khan tshoi khan a pien pu-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;菜&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;啊变匍背 | Khan tshoi khan a pien pu-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有一个暗晡头 | Yu yit ke am-pu-theu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯发梦梦着涯‘的’阿妈 | Ngai pot-mung mung to ngai e a-ma&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;该俆&amp;quot;盖久盖久吔以前 | Te-he koi kiu koi kiu e yit-tshien&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯还盖细盖细'的'时节 | Ngai han koi se koi se e sii-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯还盖细盖细'的'时节 | Ngai han koi se koi se e sii-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿妈每日用担竿 | A-ma mi nyit yung tam-kon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;着&amp;quot;瓜仔&amp;quot;&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;吊菜 | Khan to kwap-e khan tiau-tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;带涯共下去卖菜 | Tai ngai khiung-ha hi mai tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;从美浓行着中门 | Tshung Mi-nung hang to Tsung-mun&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有么人爱买无 | Yiu mak-nyin oi mai mo?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有么人爱买无 | Yiu mak-nyin oi mai mo?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一年一年过一年 | Yit nyan yit nyan ko yit nyan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯从大学爱出社会 | Ngai tshung thai-hok oi tshut sa-fi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;毕业典礼&amp;quot;'该彼日'&amp;quot; | Pit-nyiap tiam-li te pi nyit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;寻无阿妈'的'匍背 | Chim mo a-ma e pu-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;看无阿妈'的'匍背 | Khon mo a-ma e pu-poi&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is in '…' is apparently Min words that leaked into this&#xA;subdialect.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Note that 等 is normally pronounced ten AFAIK, but when used as an -ing form particle, this subdialect has nun instead; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%AD%89&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; reports nún as a Sixian Hakka pronunciation of 等, hence the spelling choice;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Note also that 盖 is reported by Wiktionary as Southern Sixian Hakka for &amp;quot;very&amp;quot;, which perfectly fits the context and the Mandarin captions;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is in &amp;quot;…&amp;quot; is a spelling straight out of the captions of the&#xA;song; in particular:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;该俆 is the55-hai53 in the spoken part but te-he in the song; now, 该 is ke55 according to hakakdict, which fits the tone, but not the initial; however, this &amp;quot;the&amp;quot; seems to mean &amp;quot;that&amp;quot;, so the meaning matches; 俆 seems to be a nonsense choice, since it is in neither of my Hakka dictionaries, and Wiktionary says Mandarin has it as xú and Cantonese as ceoi4 or syu1, which is very far from hai/he; a better pronunciation match is 系, which would make the two words combine into &amp;quot;that is&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;that was&amp;quot;, but &amp;quot;that time&amp;quot; seems to actually be the meaning, given &amp;quot;hip-siong e te-hai&amp;quot;; as far as &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.pinpinchinese.com/definitions/t/%E5%BE%90-xu&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; goes, 俆 doesn't match the meaning either; but I still keep it because of the captions;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;㧡 is given as khai (with the appropriate tone) in all dialects on hakkadict, and Wiktionary says even Middle Chinese had the -i final, so how come we have khan?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;匍背 matches the sounds phu-poi, but the meaning should be &amp;quot;support&amp;quot;, which suggests the fist character should mean &amp;quot;support&amp;quot;, instead of being the phonetic phu in Putaoya; indeed, the founder of Hakka Verse (Anton Xie a.k.a. 谢可为 | Chia Khobui, henceforth Khobui sifu) says there exists a word 扶背 in his subdialect, which he rarely used, pronounced fu-poi, with the meaning I expect; given that 扶 has an alternate pronunciation which is phu11 in Southern Sixian Hakka, I guess that is the way to go;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;瓜仔 would be kwa-e, but what is heard is kwabe, which I could analyze as kwap-e or kwa-pe;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The phrase 该彼日 is my spelling guess; I hear &amp;quot;te pi(t) nyit&amp;quot;, it's supposed to mean &amp;quot;that day&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;nyit&amp;quot; must be that character, the rest seem to be &amp;quot;that&amp;quot;; the captions give 个晡日; apart from the problem with te, which should be the same as the-hai IMO, we have that 晡 is pu, not pi(t), unless we assume this is not just a Min-Hakka cross but a cross of two Hakka varieties (southern Sixian being the dominant one, with Dabu for the &amp;quot;pi&amp;quot;) and Min (see loans in '…'), plus some Cantonese influence in her accent (oi comes out like Cantonese eoi and ket sounded like Cantonese gyeot); coming to 个, we've seen that is e in this subdialect, and  I don't think the t could be a -t from a tiam-lit, and besides, 礼 is not lit AFAIK, but li&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also to be noted that tiam-li does not match the first character, which is apparently tien even in southern Sixian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;A couple tweaks to the character spelling&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First of all, Mandarin 去年 matches Hakka 旧年, which solves the mismatch problem of 去 | hi55 to the khiu55 of the video, given 旧 is kiu55;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I originally thought the &amp;quot;nge44&amp;quot; was a ngai (I) where the -ai had monophthongized to /e/, but given it has a high tone whereas ngai has a low tone, and ngi (you) has a high tone, and the captions supporte the ngi, I believe it's either a weird pronunciation in the dialect, or just in her personal idiolect; or perhaps it is a nya where the -ya fused to /e/; either way, the 涯 there becomes a 你; oh BTW, another 你 further below is pronounced ng; I would have expected the different pronunciations of 你 to be from different dialects, not mixed in the same dialect, but what do you know :);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The m in khon m to is hard to hear, but it is definitely there, so that part is 看毋着;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Having heard a -t in the et, I posit it's tet without the initial (cfr. ke -&amp;gt; e and ki -&amp;gt; i), and spell it 得;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &amp;quot;nan&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;Nga nan piong et lok sim&amp;quot; seems to mean &amp;quot;just, only&amp;quot;, like 才; the best thing I could come up with in terms of characters was 另, which can be nang55, matching the tone but not the final; the meaning doesn't match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Also, all those &amp;quot;nga&amp;quot;s are probably &amp;quot;ngai&amp;quot;s with a fleeting -i, given the tone mismatch; so they change from 吾 to 涯;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I used the Mandaring spelling 美浓, but I should have used the Hakka one 弥浓, given that the Mandarin one features a tone mismatch;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I am still unsure whether it is &amp;quot;A55 m53-ko44&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Am53-ko44&amp;quot;; the former, my first choice, was to match the captions' 不过, but the latter convinces me more in terms of sound, though no reference I have mentions such a word meaning 不过; spelt the way I did, it would mean more of &amp;quot;Nights passed [until etc.]&amp;quot; rather than &amp;quot;But [until etc.]&amp;quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Yin-wi yi&amp;quot; is actually &amp;quot;Yin-vi&amp;quot;, so no 伊 there;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As mentioned above, I write phu-poi as 扶背 rather than 匍背;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In view of the &amp;quot;he&amp;quot; in the song, &amp;quot;te-he&amp;quot; is not the the-hai from the spoken part, but just the te (spelt accordingly) plus a 系 | he.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Comments on the apparent Min loans&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two words I deemed Min loans may not be entirely such; one is i11, which is the actual Southern Sixian pronoun, spelt 佢, according to hakkadict; the other one is e55, which seems to resonate with the alternate Hakka pronunciation ê on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;, though with a tone mismatch; so I assume the tone was a loan from the identical-sounding Min 的, a tone taken up with Sandhi included (and misheard too because mainstream Taiwanese AFAIK sandhies ê to /e21/, not /e11/ and much less /e55/; whoops, tone mismatch still; well hello Shao'an &amp;quot;een11 e55&amp;quot; where the 个 should be gai31! OK, question to be asked about this;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We then have that preposition, which I originally heard &amp;quot;ti&amp;quot; and mapped to Min 佇 | tī, which even matched the tone if sandhi is disregarded; however, it turns out it's actually thi11, which has an extra aspiration w.r.t. Min, and a tone mismatch w.r.t. the thî reported as an alternate pronunciation of 在 by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9C%A8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then we have the phrase 如按呢 | lú án-ne, which I assumed to have been come up with in Min, and then loaned as is into this subdialect; the lú was then analyzed as an intensifier, compared to 就, and assimilated to it, or at least that is how I explain the &amp;quot;lu then-nun&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;mi nyit thien mo kong lu oi hong&amp;quot;; if sandhi is accounted for, only the tone of án doesn't match; however, sandhi can be used to justify that: lu55 an55 ne11 means a jump from an55 to ne11, better smooth it out by saying an53 ne22; note that I am sandhi-ing ne as well, from a high tone to a low one;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then we have the preposition 共 | kā, loaned without sandhi, or perhaps it's just 佮 | kak, the Hakka word, with the final -k gone;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, we have the &amp;quot;ma&amp;quot; dubbed 也 in the captions, which I would have assumed to be the second part of &amp;quot;a-ma&amp;quot;, but then came to associate with 嘛 | mā in Min, which unfortunately doesn't match the tone 23 of the video; I ended up assuming the Min loan was reassigned to the tone of the Hakka 也, which happens to be yâ (ya24) in Southern Sixian;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oh and we have a sound-only loan, perhaps, in 故 being read ko instead of ku, but the tone is Southern Sixian.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Comments on tones&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Raoping or Southern Sixian?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many tones I hear in the video match Southern Sixian, as expected; many more do not. Let me say some things about the mismatches and perhaps about a few of the fuzzy matches. I abbreviate Southern Sixian as NSX (N for Nan) and Raoping as RP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三 is sam24 in NSX and sam11 (perfect match) in RP;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;月 has tone contour 5 in both NSX and RP, but I hear it as ngiat2, which would match the Hailu tone;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;阿妈 is a24-ma24 in NSX, but RP a11-ma11 matches better; however, I have reason to believe ma should be a ma55, which matches neither;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每 is mi24 in NSX and mui11 in RP, so it seems we have a tone loan;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;日 is ngit2 in both NSX and RP, but the big jump from mi2 to ngit makes it clear we should have ngit5 instead;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;无 is mo11 in NSX and mo55 in RP, none of which matches the mo53 of the video, which would match Shao'an;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;光 is kong24 in NSX and kong11 in RP, so it seems the tone in the video matches RP;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;出门 is chut2-mun55 in RP, which matches no tone in the video, so it's either NSX or guess;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;担竿 is tam53-kon11 in RP, no match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No tone reported for 㧡 matches the khan44 of the video;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;番薯 is fan11-shu55 in RP, no match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;庄 is tsong11 in RP, match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一 is rhit2 in RP, no match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;到 is to53 in RP, worse match than NSX to55;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中门 is tsung11-mun55 in RP, so no match; but 问 would give mun53, a fuzzy match; I'll leave that doubtful because the name is doubtful;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;项 is hong24 in RP and hong55 in NSX, so RP matches the video's hong34 better;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;会 is voi24 in RP, perfect match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;君 is kiun11 in RP, matching the video's tone;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;眼珠 is ngian41-tsu112 in the video, ngan53-cu11 in RP, ngian33-tsu24 in NSX, so RP matches both syllables better;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A couple of &amp;quot;e&amp;quot;s in this transcription are exclamative particles, which I spell as Khobui sifu suggested, and believe are of low tone, e11; such a tone is indeed found in the ai11 of RP, supposedly spelled 唉, which is e in NSX;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;所以 is so53-yi11 in RP, matching both tones better; I posit the yi had a 11 tone that sandhied with a so53 to create a continuous drop rather than drop gradually from 5 to 3 and then jump to 1; and then the 3 shifted to 4 because whatever :); the kho22-yi21 further down seems to support this claim;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;希望 is hi11-mong24 in RP, a fuzzy match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可以 probably has NSX kho31 combined with RP yi11;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;考上 probably results from a sandhi of the combination of NSX khau31 and song11 from RP;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大学 is thai24-hok5 in RP, a match for syllable 1 and a mismatch for syllable 2; maybe the low tone on hok is a Cantonese influence (daai6-hok6)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得 and 落 both have the wrong tone in RP;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;心 is sim11 in RP, match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;因为 seems to have NSX sounds and RP tone (rhin11) on syllable 1, and NSX vi55 for syllable 2;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这 would be li53 in RP, no match, and sounds don't match either;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;句 and 话 have level tones (22) in the video, but RP has non-level 53s, so no match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As seen above, 中 is cung11 in RP, sound match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;暗 is am53 in RP, matching the video better;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;典礼 is tien53-li11 in RP, fuzzy match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Neither the chim55 of RP nor the tshim11 of NSX match the tshim31 of the video; no sandhi can apply as there is a pause right before it;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hip2-siong55 (NSX) vs. hip2-siong53 (RP): syllable 2 is NSX, syllable 1 matches neither;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;欢喜 is fan11-hi53 in RP, matching the tones of the video better, especially if we posit a sandhi from he53 e55 to hi55 e55, and that the reference level shifted making me take all those 5s for 3s;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;感受 is kam53-shiu24 in RP, matching syllable 2 better but syllable 1 just as bad;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;最重要 matches nothing, except 最 matches RP, or a sandhied NSX;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;phan34-fa32 is now a tone fuzzy match, and as for the missing stop coda, -p is definitely not there because the lips do not close, but a -t may be there, cfr. Shao'an fat24.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Getting creative with sandhi&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some sandhi arguments to explain some tone problems are already in the previous sections. The rest follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I justify khon42 m22 to22 e11 as a sandhi for khon55 m11 to31 e11, the NSX tones;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The negative element mo occurs as mo53, mo22, mo31, mo42; I venture the first is a sandhied form, with thiên pushing up, mo53 starting from just above the end of thiên (i.e. at the peak of the up-and-down), and mo53 and kong21 making a continuous descent to the 1 which they both should be on; the mo31 may be sandhied by being between ma23 and yit2, and the mo42 may be sandhied by being between tsai44 and phan34; therefore, I posit the actual tone is mo22 or mo11, which matches or fuzzy matches the NSX mo11;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I posit the an53 in lu55-an53-ne22 is sandhied to connect the 55 to the 11 (or rather 22), and was originally 55, matching Min with sandhi accounted for;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tap3-yang34 is probably a sandhi of tap3-yang44, fuzzy match to tap3-yang55 which is NSX sounds and RP tones;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;khau33 to332 is probably sandhi for khau31 to32, a fuzzy match to NSX;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The ngai41 is probably sandhied with the preceding to44;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I posit tui55 nga53 loi31 is a big sandhi for tui55 nga(i)11 loi11;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;khon42 m22 to21 e11 is probably a sandhi for khon53 m11 to31 e11, or perhaps even khon55 m11 to31 e11 which matches NSX perfectly (whereas khon53 would be RP tone);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I partially retract my claims about the tones of 欢喜: while the first syllable is indeed in RP tone (fon11), the second one is hi33, which, since followed by a e33, is justified as sandhi from hi31 rather than hi53 (i.e. NSX rather than RP);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Tone fluctuations: what are those tones?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This preposition thi occurs twice, once as thi33 and once as thi11; as such, I argue its tone is thi11, and write it thì accordingly; this matches the Min tone of tī, low level (when out of sandhi);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The particle e occurs sometimes as e33, sometimes as e44, sometimes as e34; I argue that its tone is meant to be level, and the e34 are accidental inflections in the pitch; given the e44, I conclude it's e55, and write it e accordingly; the Min tone would be ê, which is what the Wiktionary reports, but I prefer to derive it from Hakka ke55 by way of cutting off the initial, as happened with ki11, which is reported as i11 in NSX by hakka.dict.edu.tw;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I believe the nun11 reading for 等 is an accident, and the correct tone is nun32, or its fuzzy match nun31, which matches the Wiktionary-reported alternate NSX sound of 等;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In a-ma, the a is consistently a11, but the ma appears as ma33, ma34, ma55, ma24, ma33, ma33; given that I cannot produce any good sandhi arguments for the level forms, the majority wins, so the tone will be 55;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The hong seemed to match RP better, but the preceding syllable is lu34, an accidental inflection, so hong34 is that way too, and the actual tone is hong44 or hong55;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;keoi34 is probably an accidental inflection plus strange accent form of koi33, which fuzzy matches koi55, which is NSX;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why the typical ngai11 changed to ngai31 in the penultimate line, I have no clue; maybe it was just stretched out and an inflection in pitch came natural.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Final transcription and character rendition&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is now time for the final rendition. Here are my diacricits:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No diacritic 55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ˆ 24&lt;br&gt;&#xA;´ 31&lt;br&gt;&#xA;˝ 53&lt;br&gt;&#xA;` 11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Diacritics for checked tones:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;No diacritic 2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;˙ 5&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Superscripts:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;¹ Min tone&lt;br&gt;&#xA;² Raoping tone&lt;br&gt;&#xA;³ Tone base solely on video&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;口白：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'佇'旧年个三月份 | Thì¹ khiu-ngiàn e sàm² ngiat³-fun&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯又梦着涯个阿妈 | Ngài yu mung tó ngài e à²-ma³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;该俆&amp;quot;系涯盖细盖细个时节 | The³ ha̋y³ he ngài koy se koy sei e sìi-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每日天无光 | Mì² ngıt³ thiên mò kòng²&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如跈等阿妈共下出门去卖菜 | Lu¹ thèn-nún à²-ma³ khiung-ha tshu̇t³-mùn hi mai tshoy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿妈用担竿&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;等番薯番薯叶 | À²-ma³ yung tâm³-kón³ khan³-nún fàn³-su³ fân-sú³ yap&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;等瓮菜 | Khan³-nún fung-tshoy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'如按呢'从弥浓庄 | Lu¹-an¹-ne¹ tshùng Mì-nùng tsòng²&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一路行行到中门 | Yıt³-lu-hàng hàng to Tsùng²-műún³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'佇'路项阿妈佢会'共'涯讲 | Thì¹ lu hong à²-ma³ ì wôy² ká¹ ài kóng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;姿君涯眼珠看毋着吔 | Tsîi-kyùn² nge³ ngia̋n²-tsù² khőn² m̀ tó è³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;故所以涯希望你可以考上大学 | Ko-ső²-yì² ngài hì²-mông² ng̀ khó-yì² kháu-sòng² thâi²-hok³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吾另放得落心 | Ngà³ nam piong ėt³ lok³ sìm²&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为阿妈哩句话 | Yìn²-vi à²-ma³ yà³ kì³ fà³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯盖搭營 | Ngài keoi tap-yàng²&lt;br&gt;&#xA;来考着中国文化大学 | Leòi kháu tó Tsùng²-kyeot vùn-fa Thâi²-hok³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;暗过到涯毕业典礼该毕日 | A̋m²-ko to ngài pit-ngiȧp tia̋m²-lì² te pit ngıt³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吾路寻无着阿妈佢个扶背 | Ngà³ lu tshím³ mò tó à²-ma³ ì e phù-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;翕相个&amp;quot;该俆&amp;quot; | Hıp³-siong e te ha̋i³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吾'嘛'无一种欢喜个感受 | Ngà³ mâ³ mò yit tsúng fòn²-hí e kám-sû²&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为对吾来讲 | Yìn²-vi tui ngà³ lòi kóng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;最重要最重要个人 | Tsui tshùng³-yàu³ tsui tshùng³-yàu³ e ngìn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯再无辦法看着 | Ngài tsai mò phân²-fa(t)* khon tó *fà or fat&lt;br&gt;&#xA;佢个扶背 | Ì e phù-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有一个暗晡头 | Yû yit ke am-pû-thèu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯发梦梦着涯个阿妈 | Ngài pot-mung mung tó ngài e à²-ma³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;该&amp;quot;系盖久盖久吔以前 | Te³ he koi kíu koi kíu è³ yit-tshien&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯还盖细盖细个时节 | Ngài hàn koi se koi sei e sìi-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯还盖细盖细个时节 | Ngài hàn koi se koi sei e sìi-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿妈每日用担竿 | À²-ma³ mì² ngıt³ yung tâm³-kón³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;着番薯叶&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;瓮菜 | Khan³ tó fân-sú³ yap khan³ fung tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;带涯共下去卖菜 | Tai ngài khiung-ha hi mai tshoy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;从弥浓行到中门 | Tshùng Mì-nùng hàng to Tsùng²-műún³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有么人爱买无 | Yû mak-ngìn oi mâi mò?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有么人爱买无 | Yû mak-ngìn oi mâi mò?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿妈希望涯读大学 | À²-ma³ hì²-mông² ngài thu̇k thâi²-hok³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;毋使像佢爱去卖菜 | M̀-síi tshiong ì oi hi mai tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每日天无光如爱行 | Mì² ngıt³ thiên mò kòng² lu¹ oi hòng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;菜&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;啊变扶背 | Khan³ tshoi khan³ ah pien pù-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;菜&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;啊变扶背 | Khan³ tshoi khan³ ah pien pù-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有一个暗晡头 | Yû yit ke am-pû-thèu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯发梦梦着涯个阿妈 | Ngài pot-mung mung tó ngài e à²-ma³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;该俆&amp;quot;盖久盖久吔以前 | Te³ he̋³ koi kíu koi kíu è³ yit-tshien&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯还盖细盖细个时节 | Ngài hàn koi se koi sei e sìi-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯还盖细盖细个时节 | Ngài hàn koi se koi sei e sìi-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿妈每日用担竿 | À²-ma³ mì² ngıt³ yung tâm³-kón³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;着瓜仔&amp;quot;㧡&amp;quot;吊菜 | Khan³ tó kwâ[p]-é khan³ tiau-tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;带涯共下去卖菜 | Tai ngài khiung-ha hi mai tshoy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;从弥浓行到中门 | Tshùng Mì-nùng hàng to Tsùng²-műún³&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有么人爱买无 | Yû mak-ngìn oi mâi mò?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有么人爱买无 | Yû mak-ngìn oi mâi mò?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一年一年过一年 | Yıt³ ngiàn yıt³ ngiàn ko yıt³ ngiàn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯从大学爱出社会 | Ngài tshùng thâi²-hok³ oi tshu̇t³ sa-fi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;毕业典礼该晡日 | Pit-ngiȧp tia̋m²-lì² te pit ngit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;寻无阿妈个扶背 | Tshím³ mò à²-ma³ e pù-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;看无阿妈个扶背 | Khőn² mò à²-ma³ e pù-poi&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Questions&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Am I right in breaking that &amp;quot;the-hai&amp;quot; into &amp;quot;the&amp;quot;, some form of &amp;quot;that&amp;quot;, and &amp;quot;hai&amp;quot;, something like &amp;quot;time, moment&amp;quot;? What are the tones, and how should I spell it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is that &amp;quot;khan&amp;quot; actually a variant of 㧡 with the matching tone?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why is 瓜仔 heard as kwap-e / kwa-pe? Is that stray consonant an evolution of a glottal stop to separate the two syllables?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any comments on what I wrote about Min loans, Raoping tonal loans, creative sandhies and tone fluctuations?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That &amp;quot;te pit nyit&amp;quot; part really seems to have a &amp;quot;pit&amp;quot;, so I would write 该毕日, with &amp;quot;te&amp;quot; being that famous &amp;quot;the&amp;quot;; should I really be writing 晡日 when that is usually pu-nyit and the pu part is pu in am-pu-theu in the song? Am I right in seeing the &amp;quot;the&amp;quot; from &amp;quot;the-hai&amp;quot; in this phrase?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Where does that &amp;quot;tiam&amp;quot; come from, when all Chinese dialects I can see, and even Middle Chinese, have -ien?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is that nge44 actually a 你, or maybe a 涯 as I first thought, or something else?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is going on with this loss of initials?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it &amp;quot;a m-ko&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;am-ko&amp;quot;? And does it mean &amp;quot;However&amp;quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Am I right in reading that &amp;quot;nam&amp;quot; as an equivalent of 才? How should I spell it in characters, and what is its tone?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The place name is in the captions as 中壇, which simplifies to 中坛, and should be Tsung-tham in Hakka; the video has Tsung-mun, which would suggest 中门, except 门 doesn't have a matching tone in NSX or in RP, and 问, which has a matching tone in RP, seems inappropriate here; I asked &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Source-video-1-15-captions-%E4%B8%80%E7%9B%B4%E8%B5%B0%E5%88%B0%E4%B8%AD%E5%A3%87-I-hear-yit-lu-hang-hang-to-tsung-mun-what-place-is-this-%E4%B8%AD%E5%A3%87-and-how-should-I-spell-its-Hakka-version-Tsung-mun-in&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;on Quora&lt;/a&gt;, and @justinrleung gave me &lt;a href=&quot;http://crh.khm.gov.tw/khstory/StoryDesc.aspx?id=134&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;, where it seems the place name was once spelled 中坛 and pronounced Tsun'en and later Tsun'un, transliterating the kana, which would seem to be Tsung-ien and Tsung-wun respectively, but old people now have either Tsung-tham or Tsung-iun; so what is going on here? What are the tones of that name? How should I spell it ij characters?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The possessive particle should be ke55 in NSX and kai53 in RP, but I found it as e55 here; Wiktionary has an example giving it as ê, aka e24, spelled 的; what is then the right tone and character for this?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @justinrleung points out in a comment, I misread 係 as 俆 in the captions. This doesn't solve any problem because it's supposed to be he, not hai, and indeed right after the first the-hai we have a he written that way. I will leave things as they are. If the spelling is correct, this could be a loan from another subdialect or even another dialect family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/In-the-source-Hakka-video-the-expression-te55-hai53-appears-twice-0-52-and-1-51-where-its-glossed-as-%E9%82%A3%E6%97%B6-With-that-and-since-te-alone-seems-to-appear-as-a-demonstrative-twice-Id-assume-te-that-and-hai&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;justinrleung answered on Quora&lt;/a&gt;, the answer to question 1 is that the &amp;quot;the-hai&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;te-hai&amp;quot; should be 该下仔 | ke-ha-é, a Southern Sixian form of the 该下 reported on hakkadict, and the initial t- or th- is an accidental aspiration plus an idiolectal shift in the place of articulation that is not documented anywhere and that justinrleung personally has never heard. So this leaves &amp;quot;only&amp;quot; 11 questions here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About question 10, I just thought it could be 另毋 | nang m̀ | otherwise not? Oh my, that tone though… completely mismatched, it should be 55 11 and it's heard as 45…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I isolated spelling questions in the pseudo-answer, and the one about phù-poi was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-line-Khan-tshoi-Khan-a-pien-phu-poi-mean-in-the-source-Hakka-song/answer/Justin-Richard-Leung&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;answered by @justinrleung on Quora&lt;/a&gt;. Turns out it's supposed to be 匍背 | hunchbacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Final UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This Q has become a big mess of a post, with a huge body; a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/29858/6273&quot;&gt;huge pseudoanswer (PA 1)&lt;/a&gt; with the sections 2-3 removed above, some isolated Qs, some of the answers to those; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32440/6273&quot;&gt;another huge pseudoanswer (PA 2)&lt;/a&gt; with tone stuff; numerous offshoots to Quora. Now I clearly cannot possibly include all that info here, but I want to at least sum up what's left to answer. First of all, a few comments on this body's questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All the tone Qs are superseded by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32440/6273&quot;&gt;PA 2&lt;/a&gt;, which I'll extract a revised transliteration from, whether here or in PA 1;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most Qs about Min loans have been answered either in the updates above or in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/29858/6273&quot;&gt;PA 1&lt;/a&gt;; only a couple remained, both included in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32440/6273&quot;&gt;PA 2&lt;/a&gt; and outsourced to Quora; this takes care of Q 4 above;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qs 1 5 7 9 10 and 12 above, along with Qs 1 2 5 6 8 and 11 in PA 1, are answered either in PA 1, in its comments, in an update above, or in comments to the question;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Q 8 here has a simple answer: erosion of common words; ki-&amp;gt;i, ke-&amp;gt;e, cang-&amp;gt;nang, tu-&amp;gt;lu, tshiu-&amp;gt;lu, tet-&amp;gt;et;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For Q 4 (&amp;quot;ma&amp;quot;) and Q 7 (&amp;quot;ka&amp;quot;) in PA 1, see Min loan Qs item above;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For all other Qs, see list at end of PA 1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;29.329 characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-30T22:29:44.707" Title="Questions on a Hakka song and its particular Hakka dialect" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29857" CreationDate="2018-05-17T14:55:22.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the pseudo-answer I promised to include the info that doesn't fit in the question body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Precise transcription of what I hear&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I picked this video, and tore it apart in 0.25 speed to figure out exactly how the tones and sounds went. And this is my transcription.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thi33 khiu55-ngian51 e334 sam11 ngiat2-fun33&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai24 yu55 mung55 to331 ngai11 e33 a11-ma33&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The55 hai51 he33 ngai21 koy33 se334 koy33 sei33 e34 sii21-tsiet2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mi22 ngit51 thien24 mo53 kong21&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lu55 then11-nun11 a11-ma34 khiung44-ha44 tshut4-mun21 hi33 mai33 tshoi334&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A11-ma55 yung55 tam35-kon31 khan44-nun32 fan11-su4 fan24-su31-yap34&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khan44-nun32 fung33-tshoi334&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lu55-an53-ne22 tshung21 Mi11-nung11-tsong11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yit5-lu45 hang21 hang21 to34 Tsung214-mun51&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thi11 lu34 hong34 a11-ma24 i11 woi24 ka31 ai11 kong31&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsii34-kyun11 nge44 ngian41-tsu112 khon42 m22 to22 e11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ko55-so54-yi41 ngai12 hi21-mong35 ng22 kho22-yi21 khau33 song31 thai33-hok3&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nga22 nam45 piong5t et4 lok3 sim11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yin22-vi55 a11-ma33 ya22 ki22 fa223&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai31 keoi34 tap3-yang34&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Loi22 khau33 to332 Tsung22-kyeot3 vun21-fa34 thai34-hok34&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Am53-ko44 to44 ngai41 pit3-ngiap4 tiam43-li11 te33 pit32 ngit3&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nga33 lu55 tshim31 mo22 to221 a22-ma33 i11 e33 phu11-poi334&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hip4-siong55 e55 te44-hai41&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nga11 ma23 mo31 yit2 tsung21 fon21-hi33 e33 kam32-su34&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yin22-vi55 tui55 nga53 loi31 kong21&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsui53 tshung22-yau22 tsui32 tshung22-yau22 e22 ngin21&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai31 tsai44 mo42 phan34-fa32 khon44 to31&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I22 e44 phu21-poi33&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yu yit ke am-pu-theu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai pot-mung mung to ngai e a-ma&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Te-he koi kiu koi kiu e yit-tshien&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai han koi se koi sei e sii-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai han koi se koi sei e sii-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A-ma mi ngit yung tam-kon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khan to fa-su yap kan fung tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tai ngai khiung-ha hi mai tshoy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tshung Mi-nung hang to Tsung-mun&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yiu mak-ngin oi mai mo?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yiu mak-ngin oi mai mo?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A-ma hi-mong ngai thuk thai-hok&lt;br&gt;&#xA;M-sii tshiong i oi hi mai tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mi ngit thien mo kong lu oi hong&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khan tshoi khan a pien pu-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khan tshoi khan a pien pu-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yu yit ke am-phu-theu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai pot-mung mung to ngai e a-ma&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Te-he koi kiu koi kiu e yit-tshien&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai han koi se koi sei e sii-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai han koi se koi sei e sii-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A-ma mi ngit yung tam-kon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khan to kwap-e khan tiau-tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tai ngai khiung-ha hi mai tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tshung Mi-nung hang to Tsung-mun&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yiu mak-ngin oi mai mo?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yiu mak-ngin oi mai mo?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yit ngian yit ngian ko yit ngian&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai tshung thai-hok oi tshut sa-fi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Pit-ngiap tiam-li te pit ngit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tshim mo a-ma e pu-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khon mo a-ma e pu-poi&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Transcription with Southern Sixian Hakka tones as found in hakkadict&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sounds make this seem to be Southern Sixian Hakka, and the mention of Meinong also points in that direction, so I proceeded to give a transcription with the Southern Sixian Hakka tones from hakkadict, leaving those that matched perfectly unmarked, marking those that made fuzzy matches with ', and marking mismatches with &quot;. I also put asterisks where the sounds didn't match perfectly and for other side notes, with explanations at line ends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thi khiu55*-ngian11 (k)e55' sam24'' ngiat5''-fun55' (actually hi55)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai11'' yu55 mung55 to31 ngai11 (k)e55' a24''-ma24''&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The55* hay he55' ngai11 koy55' se55' koy55' sei55' (k)e55' sii11-tsiet2 (actually ke55)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mi24'' ngit2'' thien24 mo11'' kong24''&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lu then11-nun31''* a24''-ma24' khiung55-ha55 tshut2''-mun11' hi55' mai55' tshoy55' (actually nen31)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A24''-ma24'' yung55 tam55''-kon24'' khan24''-nun31* fan24''-su11' fan24-su11'' yap5‘ (actually khai24-ten31)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khan24‘’-nun31* fung55' tshoy55' (actually khai24-ten31)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lu-an-ne tshung11'* Mi11-nung11 tsong24'' (actually tshiung11)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yit2''-lu55'-hang11' hang11' to55'' Tsung24''-mun11''* (问 would give better matches with Raoping tones)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thi lu55‘ hong55'' a24''-ma24 i11 woy55'' ka ai11 kong31&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsii24'-kyun24'' nge11'' ngian33''-tsu24'' khon55'' to31'' e24''* (actually spelled 唉)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ko55*-so31'-yi24'' ngai11' hi24''-mong55'' ng11' kho31''-yi24'' khau31''-song24'' thai55'-hok5'' (actually ku55)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nga24'' nam55'* piong55 (t)et2'' lok5'' sim24'' (actually nang55)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yin24''-vi55 a24''-ma24'' ya31'' ki55'' fa55''&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai11'' keoi55'' tap2'-yang11''&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Leoi11' khau31'' to31' Tsung24''-kyeot2'* vun11'-fa55' Thai55''-hok5'' (actually kwet2)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Am55''-ko55' to55' ngai11'' pit2'-ngiap5' tiam31''-li24'' te55''* pit2' ngit2' (actually ke55) (pit2' from 毕 or pu24'' from 晡)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nga24'' lu55 tshim11'' mo11' to31' a24''-ma24'' i11 (k)e55' phu11-poi55'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hip2''-siong55 (k)e55 te55'* hai (actually ke55)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nga24'' ma mo11'' yit2 tsung31' fon24''-hi31'' (k)e55' kam31'-su55''&#xA;Yin24''-vi55 tui55 nga24'' loi11'' kong31'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsui55'' tshung55''-yau55''* tsui55'' tshung55''-yau55'' (k)e55' ngin11' (actually yeu55)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai11'' tsai55' mo11'' phan55-fa* khon55' to31 (fap2 vs fa43)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I11' (k)e55' phu11'-poi55'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yu24 yit2 ke55 am55-pu24-theu11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai11 pot2-mung55 mung55 to31 ngai11 (k)e55 a24-ma24&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Te-he ko55i kiu31 koi55 kiu31 e yi[t]24-tshien11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai11 han11* koi55 se55 koi55 sei55 (k)e55 sii11-tsiet2 (actually van11)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai11 han11* koi55 se55 koi55 sei55 (k)e55 sii11-tsiet2 (actually van11)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A24-ma24 mi24 ngit2 yung55 tam55-kon24&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khan24 to31 fan24-su11 yap5 khan24 fung55 tshoi55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tai55 ngai11 khiung55-ha55 hi55 mai55 tshoy55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsh(i)ung11 Mi24-nung11 hang11 to55 Tsung24-mun11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yu24 ma[k]31-ngin11 oi55 mai24 mo11?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yu24 ma[k]31-ngin11 oi55 mai24 mo11?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A24-ma24 hi24-mong55 ngai11 thuk5 thai55-hok5&lt;br&gt;&#xA;M11-sii31 tshiong55 i11 oi55 hi55 mai55 tshoi55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mi24 ngit2 thien24 mo53 kong24 lu oi55 hong11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khan24 tshoi55 khan24 a55 pien55 p(h)u11-poi55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khan24 tshoi55 khan24 a55 pien55 p(h)u11-poi55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yu24 yit2 ke55 am55-pu24-theu11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai11 pot2-mung55 mung55 to31 ngai11 (k)e55 a24-ma24&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Te-he ko55i kiu31 koi55 kiu31 e yi[t]24-tshien11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai11 han11* koi55 se55 koi55 sei55 (k)e55 sii11-tsiet2 (actually van11)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai11 han11* koi55 se55 koi55 sei55 (k)e55 sii11-tsiet2 (actually van11)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A24-ma24 mi24 ngit2 yung55 tam55-kon24&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khan24 to31 kwa[p]24-e31 khan24 tiau55-tshoi55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tai55 ngai11 khiung55-ha55 hi55 mai55 tshoy55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tshung11 Mi24-nung11 hang11 to55 Tsung24-mun11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yu24 ma[k]31-ngin11 oi55 mai24 mo24?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yu24 ma[k]31-ngin11 oi55 mai24 mo24?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yit2 ngian11 yit2 ngian11 ko55 yit2 ngian11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai11 tsh(i)ung11 thai55-hok5 oi55 tshut2 sa55-fi55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Pit2-ngiap5 tiam31-li24 te pit ngit (see spoken part about te pit ngit)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tshim11 mo53 a24-ma24 (k)e55 p(h)u11-poi55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khon55 mo53 a24-ma24 (k)e55 p(h)u11-poi55&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Isolating some questions&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reasons I won't go into now, I wish to isolate a few questions from above down here, with the rest of the questions being a bunch of tone and sound mismatches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the first line of the spoken part, I'm pretty sure &quot;thi&quot; is an equivalent of 在, but the Hakka sounds for this character given in the Wiktionary include a &quot;ti&quot; sound, that is unaspirated with high tone, and a &quot;thî&quot;, aspirated with raising tone, and what I hear is a low tone, which would be thì. My original explanation as a Min loan doesn't work, because that one is tī, unaspirated. So am I right about the meaning, and what is up with the tone?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One line of the spoken part features what I hear as either &quot;Am ko to&quot; or &quot;A m ko to&quot;. In the pseudo-answer I went for the former, giving Am53-ko44 to44 | 暗过到, but IIRC the captions suggested the meaning of &quot;But&quot;, which is why I thought of &quot;A m ko&quot;, that is &quot;A&quot;, exclamative, and &quot;M-ko&quot;, but. Which one is the case, and how do I spell and transliterate it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the same line, and in the analogue line of the song, we have 毕业典礼该晡日, or at least that should be it, except a) 典礼 oddly sounds &quot;tiam-li&quot; whereas any source gives me &quot;tien-li&quot;, and b) 晡 sounds &quot;pit&quot; instead of &quot;pu&quot;, whereas in am-pu-theu it is indeed pu. So are those characters correct, and if so what is up with the sounds, and if not how should I spell this?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a line sounding &quot;Nga ma mo yit tsung fon-hi e kam-su&quot;, which should be ？？无一种欢喜个感受, the first two characters being however you prefer to write &quot;nga&quot;, the should-be possessive form of &quot;ngai&quot;, and the second one I don't know. It is odd that nga is used as non-possessive, but that happens elsewhere in the video. The second character should mean something like 也 or 都, but &quot;ma&quot; is not something I know from Hakka in that meaning, I know of a &quot;me&quot; but it's not the one used here, or doesn't seem to. Min has a word 嘛 | má for this, which is why I thought of a Min loan. Is it so, or did Hakka independently develop a &quot;ma&quot; for this meaning? And how should I spell it and transliterate it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In one line, there is something like &quot;Nga nam piong et lok sim&quot;. &quot;nam&quot; seems to have to mean 才. I thought of this recently: maybe it's 另毋 | nang m | otherwise not. Is that so?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There appears to be a word &quot;lu&quot; which is mapped to 就 by the captions. My thought was 如按呢 could be a Min phrase for &quot;just this way&quot; or &quot;just&quot;, loaned as is into Hakka, and then cut down to just &quot;lu&quot; in some cases. Could that be? And in any case, how do I spell the &quot;lu&quot; in &quot;lu then-nun a-ma&quot; and the &quot;Lu-an-ne&quot;, and how do I transliterate them? Note that this question also tangentially touches the &quot;Nga lu tshim mo to&quot;, where the &quot;lu&quot; may be the same problematic lu.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In one line, we have &quot;I woi ka ai kong&quot;. This should mean &quot;She would tell me&quot; (used to tell me). I is usually &quot;ki&quot;, third-person pronoun. woi is 会. kong is 讲. &quot;ai&quot; should be &quot;ngai&quot;, &quot;I&quot;, which somehow lost its ng-. The &quot;ka&quot; sounds like it should be &quot;kak&quot;, which I know can be used this way, but where is that -k? Could that be a Min influence, where we have 共 | kā? And how should I spell and transliterate this preposition?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is one line sounding like &quot;Tsii-kyun, nge ngian-tsu khon m to e&quot;, where &quot;nge&quot; should mean &quot;my&quot;, but that is &quot;ngai&quot; or &quot;nga&quot;, so what is up?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is up with the kwa-e sounding like kwap-e in the song? Is it a glottal stop thing?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the penultimate spoken line, the wannabe 办法 sounds like phan-fa or phan-fat, but it should be phan-fap, is it me mishearing or is something else up? Idiolectal thing, perhaps?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the title 扶背 | phù-poi | support, as I thought, or 匍背 | phû-poi | hunchback, as the captions suggest? If the former, what does the line &quot;㧡&quot;菜&quot;㧡&quot;啊变扶背 mean? And if the latter, what is up with the tone? And in any case, is 匍背 a word for &quot;hunchback&quot; in any Chinese dialects, and if so how is it pronounced in them?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-line-Khan-tshoi-Khan-a-pien-phu-poi-mean-in-the-source-Hakka-song/answer/Justin-Richard-Leung&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;@justinrleung&lt;/a&gt; produced a source for 匍背 | phù-poi | huchbacked on Quora. It is a Southern Sixian Hakka - only word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning question 1, I looked up 在 in &lt;a href=&quot;https://hakka.dict.edu.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hakkadict&lt;/a&gt;, and the closest pronunciation I could find was «di55/di11/coi33/di53/da55/te24» or «du55/di11/to33/du53/da55/te24» (sounds for Sixian/Hailu/Dabu/Raoping/Shaoan/Southern Sixian), both of which are thê in Southern Sixian. The tone is mismatched, and the vowel also, but could this be it? Alternately, in Wiktionary, I found a Meixian synonym 喺, which &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Tea_room#Meixian_Hakka_pronunciation_of_%E5%96%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;oddly and unfortunately has no Hakka sound in the entry&lt;/a&gt;, could that be it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning question 4, I know of a particle &quot;me&quot; meaning more or less 也, though I don't remember the tone. Could this be a variant of that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asekd &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/At-0-45-in-the-source-the-singer-starts-a-sentence-with-a-the-thi-with-a-minimal-pitch-fall-from-3-which-is-audible-only-at-0-25x-speed-It-should-mean-in-at-but-the-best-Hakka-match-I-found-was-the24-Is-that-it-with&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Am-I-right-that-at-1-40-in-the-source-video-whats-being-said-is-%E5%95%8A%E6%AF%8B%E8%BF%87-A55-m11-ko55-with-m11-being-raised-to-m33-to-lessen-the-pitch-jump-from-a55-to-m11-to-ko55-Is-there-any-reason-for-the&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, and @justinrleung answered both:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That is indeed a thî, the aspiration is there, the tone doesn't match, either because the Meinong dialect actually pronounces that tone (which is the Yin Ping tone) as 33 instead of 24, or because of Sandhi, though the 24-&gt;33 sandhi for the Yin Ping tone appears to be a Northern Sixian thing, and this song appears to be Meinong, so I'd favor the Meinong Yin Ping explanation, given that this song explicitly says the singer and her A-ma (grandma) set off from Meinong at dawn and went all the way to &quot;Tsung-mun&quot; (aka Zhongtan, but that pronunciation is a whole 'nother question) to sell the vegetables her A-ma carried with tam-kon (shoulder-poles).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is indeed A-m̀-ko I'm hearing, where the a- is essentially meaningless (this is equivalent to just m̀-ko), and is probably an influence of Hokkien 猶毋過, which among its various pronunciations has á-m̄-kò.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking of tones, Justin provided me with &lt;em&gt;A Comparative Study of the Tones of the Sixian Hakka Accent in the Liudui Region&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hakka.gov.tw/Content/Content?NodeID=627&amp;amp;PageID=37028&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;六堆地區四縣腔客語聲調比較研究&lt;/a&gt;, which I will definitely try reading to see if I can answer some of those half-a-billion sandhi and tone mismatch questions by myself. By the way, I just found out Hakka had Sandhi, after being convinced of the opposite for ages :).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning 6, I just found 恁呢 meaning this in the dialectal synonyms of 这样 on the Wiktionary. The pages for the characters give án and nè/nó/nê. nè matches the video almost perfectly, given it's ne11. án would be an31, not the an53 heard in the video, but the tone 53 isn't distinct AFAIK, and given we're between a 55 and a 11, a Sandhi explanation would be very convincing. Still have to find this at that dictionary Justin suggested, and to see if I can decode the lu... &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/Details?p=72258&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is án-nè/án-nê&lt;/a&gt;... I also found 都 read lû in Southern Sixian on Wiktionary, but that is lu24, here I have lu55... I found 乜 as a dialectal synonym of 都 but no such meaning is given in the entry and no Hakka pronunciation is found for the given meanings... 熟讀唐詩三百首，不會做詩也會吟。 is rendered &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/Details?p=71206&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; with 也 ya55 for Sixian, 乜 me11 for Hailu, and 嘛 ma11 for Shaoan. So I guess I'll use 嘛, though I have ma55 in the video... But wait, I have ma23, followed by 31, so Sandhi again! And 4 is linda answered. I mean, the word is found, but with a Sandhied tone and in the wrong subdialect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 8 and 5, a Hakka native I just met agreed with the translations, so I'll go with my guesses. Also, &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/Details?p=74644&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sixian has 你的 as ng11 ke55&lt;/a&gt;, which isn't too difficult to mistake for nge55, considering Southern Sixian has e55 instead of ke55. Actually, I'll go with ng11 e55 for that, writing 你个.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I have answers for 1 and 2, none for 3, a hint of correctness for my guess at 4, a native agreeing with my translation at 5, the an-ne part of 6 with a partial explanation (requiring a rather creative Sandhi) for the lu part (admitting it always means 都 and the captions got the 就s wrong), nothing for 7, a new idea for 8, nothing for 9 and 10, and the answer for 11.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Final (maybe?) UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the notes at the end of the question, all questions above and in the body are either superseded by the other pseudo-answer, or summed up in the following list, where BQ is a question from the body, and PAQ is a question from this pseudoanswer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[Leftover of BQ1] Why is 该 | ke pronounced te? Idiolectal thing?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[BQ2] Why is 㧡 | khâi pronounced khân? Idiolectal thing?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why is 故 | ku pronounced ko in the word 故所以? Idiolectal thing?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[BQ6 and PAQ3] Why is it tiam-li when 典礼 starts with tien in basically every Chinese dialect I can find documented, Middle Chinese included? Idiolectal thing? Oh well, Wiktionary says 典禮 is tián-lî but 典 alone is tién, WTH?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[BQ11] If it's supposed to be Tsung-yun, why does she say Tsung-mun? Idiolectal thing?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[BQ3 and PAQ9] Why is 瓜仔 | kwa-é kwap-e or kwab-e or actually more like kwa-be? Is it a glottal stop thing? Could it be that it's actually supposed to be kwa-ve, another word, maybe spelt 瓜薈 or 瓜棫?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[PAQ10] Why does 办法 | phan-fap sound more like phan-fa or phan-fat, or more accurately why is it definitely not phan-fap given her lips don't close for the -p?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I hope to add here a revised character+PFS transcription, but the character limit may get in the way… The superscripts indicate what question in pseudoanswer 2 contains the problem with the tone of the marked syllable, and stars mean I followed my intuitions from the pseudoanswer in terms of tone names (and therefore diacritics) though the dictionaries say otherwise. Since I'm gonna read that out loud when I make the video of this song (I have a Sicilian and an English version, and part of a Min version), I'll indicate pauses (whether actual breaths or just slowdowns in the speech) with ^.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;口白：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在旧年个三月份 | Thî khiu-ngiàn&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; e ^ sâm ngiȧt-fun&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯又梦着涯个阿妈 | Ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; yu mung tô*&lt;sup&gt;2C&lt;/sup&gt; ^ ngâi&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; e â-ma*&lt;sup&gt;2B&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;该下仔系涯盖细盖细个时节 | Te-ha-é ^ he ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; koy se ^ koy sei e sìi-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每日天无光 | Mî ngit&lt;sup&gt;4A&lt;/sup&gt; ^ thiên mò&lt;sup&gt;4B&lt;/sup&gt; kông&lt;br&gt;&#xA;就跈等阿妈共下出门去卖菜 | Lu thèn-nún&lt;sup&gt;5A&lt;/sup&gt; ^ â-ma*&lt;sup&gt;2B&lt;/sup&gt; ^ khiung-ha ^ tshut&lt;sup&gt;5B&lt;/sup&gt;-mùn ^ hi mai tshoy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿妈用担竿㧡等番薯番薯叶 | Â-ma*&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; yung tam-kôn ^ khan&lt;sup&gt;6A&lt;/sup&gt;-nún&lt;sup&gt;5A&lt;/sup&gt; ^ fân-su fân-sù yȧp&lt;sup&gt;6B&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;㧡等瓮菜 | Khan&lt;sup&gt;6A&lt;/sup&gt;-nún&lt;sup&gt;5A&lt;/sup&gt; ^ fung-tshoy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;就恁呢从弥浓庄 | Lu án-nê ^ tshùng ^ Mî-nûng*&lt;sup&gt;end of PA&lt;/sup&gt; tsông&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一路行行到中坛 | Yit&lt;sup&gt;9A&lt;/sup&gt;-lu-hàng ^ hàng to Tsûng-mùn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在路项阿妈佢会佮涯讲 | Thî lu hong ^ â-ma*&lt;sup&gt;2B&lt;/sup&gt; ^ î&lt;sup&gt;10A&lt;/sup&gt; woi ka*&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/unanswered/On-one-occasion-at-about-1-20-the-source-Meinong-Hakka-video-exhibits-a-particle-ka31-which-seems-to-mean-to-with-I-only-know-of-a-kak2-in-Hailu-Hakka-with-that-meaning-What-gives&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;10C&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; âi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; kóng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;姿君你个眼珠看毋着吔 | Tsîi-kyûn ^ n̂g*&lt;sup&gt;11&lt;/sup&gt; e ngián-tsû ^ khon m̀ tô*&lt;sup&gt;2C&lt;/sup&gt; ê&lt;br&gt;&#xA;故所以涯希望你可以考上大学 | Ko-só-yî ^ ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; hî-mong&lt;sup&gt;12A&lt;/sup&gt; ^ n̂g*&lt;sup&gt;2C&lt;/sup&gt; khô*&lt;sup&gt;12B&lt;/sup&gt;-yì² kháu&lt;sup&gt;12C&lt;/sup&gt;-sông thai-hȯk&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吾正放得落心 | Ngâ nang ^ piong et&lt;sup&gt;(13)&lt;/sup&gt; lȯk&lt;sup&gt;(13)&lt;/sup&gt; sîm&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为阿妈哩句话 | Yîn-vi ^ â-ma*&lt;sup&gt;2B&lt;/sup&gt; ^ ya*&lt;sup&gt;14&lt;/sup&gt; ki fa&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯盖搭營 | Ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; ^ keoi tap-yàng&lt;sup&gt;15B&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;来考着中国文化大学 | Leòi kháu tô*&lt;sup&gt;2C&lt;/sup&gt; ^ Tsûng-kyeot ^ Vùn-fa Thai-hȯk&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啊毋过到涯毕业典礼该晡日 | A-m̀&lt;sup&gt;17A&lt;/sup&gt;-ko ^ to ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; ^ pit-ngiȧp tián-lî ^ te pîn-ngit&lt;sup&gt;4A&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吾都寻无着阿妈佢个匍背 | Ngâ lu*&lt;sup&gt;18&lt;/sup&gt; ^ tshìm mò&lt;sup&gt;4B&lt;/sup&gt; tô*&lt;sup&gt;2C&lt;/sup&gt; ^ â-ma*&lt;sup&gt;2B&lt;/sup&gt; ^ î*&lt;sup&gt;10A&lt;/sup&gt; e phù-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;翕相个该下仔 | Hip-siong e te ha-é&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吾嘛无一种欢喜个感受 | Ngâ mâ*&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/unanswered/On-one-occasion-around-1-52-the-source-Meinong-Hakka-video-exhibits-a-particle-ma34-which-seems-to-mean-also-but-I-only-find-such-a-particle-documented-for-Hokkien-or-Zhaoan-Hakka-How-come-Loanword-perhaps&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;20A&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; mò&lt;sup&gt;4B&lt;/sup&gt; yit&lt;sup&gt;9A&lt;/sup&gt; tsùng*&lt;sup&gt;20B&lt;/sup&gt; ^ fôn-hí e kám-su&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为对吾来讲 | Yîn-vi ^ tui ngâ lòi kóng&lt;sup&gt;24&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;最重要最重要个人 | Tsui tshung-yau ^ tsui ^ tshung-yau e ngìn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯再无辦法看着 | Ngâi•&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; ^ tsai mò&lt;sup&gt;4B&lt;/sup&gt; phan-fat ^ khon tô*&lt;sup&gt;2C&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;佢个匍背 | Î*&lt;sup&gt;10A&lt;/sup&gt; e ^ phù-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有一个暗晡头 | Yû yit&lt;sup&gt;9A&lt;/sup&gt; ke am-pû-thèu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯发梦梦着涯个阿妈 | Ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; pot-mung mung tô*&lt;sup&gt;2C&lt;/sup&gt; ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; e â-ma*&lt;sup&gt;2B&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;该系盖久盖久吔以前 | Te he koi kíu koi kíu ê yî-tshièn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯还盖细盖细个时节 | Ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; hàn koi se koi sei e sìi-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯还盖细盖细个时节 | Ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; hàn koi se koi sei e sìi-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿妈每日用担竿 | Â-ma*&lt;sup&gt;2B&lt;/sup&gt; mî ngit&lt;sup&gt;4A&lt;/sup&gt; yung tam-kôn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;㧡着番薯叶㧡瓮菜 | Khan&lt;sup&gt;6A&lt;/sup&gt; tô*&lt;sup&gt;2C&lt;/sup&gt; fân-sù yȧp&lt;sup&gt;6B&lt;/sup&gt; khan&lt;sup&gt;6A&lt;/sup&gt; fung-tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;带涯共下去卖菜 | Tai ngài khiung-ha hi mai tshoy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;从弥浓行着中坛 | Tshùng Mî-nùng hàng tô*&lt;sup&gt;2C&lt;/sup&gt; Tsûng-mún&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有么人爱买无 | Yû mak-ngìn oi mâi mò&lt;sup&gt;4B&lt;/sup&gt;?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有么人爱买无 | Yû mak-ngìn oi mâi mò&lt;sup&gt;4B&lt;/sup&gt;?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿妈希望涯读大学 | Â-ma&lt;sup&gt;2B&lt;/sup&gt; hî-mong&lt;sup&gt;12A&lt;/sup&gt; ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; thu̇k thai-hȯk&lt;br&gt;&#xA;毋使像佢爱去卖菜 | M̀-síi tshiong î*&lt;sup&gt;10A&lt;/sup&gt; oi hi mai tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;每日天无光就爱行 | Mî ngit&lt;sup&gt;4A&lt;/sup&gt; thiên mò&lt;sup&gt;4B&lt;/sup&gt; kông lu oi hòng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;㧡菜㧡啊变匍背 | Khan*&lt;sup&gt;6A&lt;/sup&gt; tshoi khan*&lt;sup&gt;6A&lt;/sup&gt; ạ pien phù-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;㧡菜㧡啊变匍背 | Khan*&lt;sup&gt;6A&lt;/sup&gt; tshoi khan*&lt;sup&gt;6A&lt;/sup&gt; ạ pien phù-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有一个暗晡头 | Yû yit&lt;sup&gt;9A&lt;/sup&gt; ke am-pû-thèu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯发梦梦着涯个阿妈 | Ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; pot-mung mung tô*&lt;sup&gt;2C&lt;/sup&gt; ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; e â-ma*&lt;sup&gt;2B&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;该系盖久盖久吔以前 | Te he koi kíu koi kíu ê yî-tshièn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯还盖细盖细个时节 | Ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; hàn koi se koi sei e sìi-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯还盖细盖细个时节 | Ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; hàn koi se koi sei e sìi-tsiet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;阿妈每日用担竿 | Â-ma*&lt;sup&gt;2B&lt;/sup&gt; mî ngit&lt;sup&gt;4A&lt;/sup&gt; yung tam-kôn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;㧡着瓜仔㧡吊菜 | Khan&lt;sup&gt;6A&lt;/sup&gt; tô*&lt;sup&gt;2C&lt;/sup&gt; kwâ[p]-é khan&lt;sup&gt;6A&lt;/sup&gt; tiau-tshoi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;带涯共下去卖菜 | Tai ngài khiung-ha hi mai tshoy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;从弥浓行着中坛 | Tshùng Mî-nùng hàng tô*&lt;sup&gt;2C&lt;/sup&gt; Tsûng-mún&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有么人爱买无 | Yû mak-ngìn oi mâi mò&lt;sup&gt;4B&lt;/sup&gt;?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有么人爱买无 | Yû mak-ngìn oi mâi mò&lt;sup&gt;4B&lt;/sup&gt;?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一年一年过一年 | Yit&lt;sup&gt;20B&lt;/sup&gt; ngiàn&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; yit&lt;sup&gt;20B&lt;/sup&gt; ngiàn&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; ko yit&lt;sup&gt;20B&lt;/sup&gt; ngiàn&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;涯从大学爱出社会 | Ngâi*&lt;sup&gt;2A&lt;/sup&gt; tshùng thai-hȯk oi tshut&lt;sup&gt;5B&lt;/sup&gt; sa-fi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;毕业典礼该晡日 | Pit-ngiȧp tián-lî te pîn-ngit&lt;sup&gt;4A&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;寻无阿妈个扶背 | Tshìm mò&lt;sup&gt;4B&lt;/sup&gt; â-ma*&lt;sup&gt;2B&lt;/sup&gt; e phù-poi&lt;br&gt;&#xA;看无阿妈个扶背 | Khon mò&lt;sup&gt;4B&lt;/sup&gt; â-ma*&lt;sup&gt;2B&lt;/sup&gt; e phù-poi&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing this, I realized several leftover questions are not in the above list. Let me put them here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;瓮菜 is supposed to be vung-tshoi, why does she say fung-tshoi? Idiolectal thing?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;从 is supposed to be tshiùng, why does she say tshùng? Idiolectal thing? Influence from other dialects?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;君 is supposed to be /kjun/, why does she say /kyn/? Idiolectal thing? Influence from e.g. Cantonese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why does she front so many /oj/s to /øj/s?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why does she read /kjøt/ instead of /kwet/ (kwet) for 国?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why does she read every v- as /v/ except the one in 会 | voi which she read woi?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;重要 is supposed to be tshung-yeu (modulo tones) in Southern Sixian, why does she say tshung-yau (modulo tones)? Idiolectal thing? Influence of e.g. Mandarin?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How come 暗晡头 is am-PU-theu while 晡日 is PIN-ngit? Why not am-PIN-theu or PU-ngit?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why do I hear tiam-di instead of tian-li?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have a grand total of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7+9=15 pronunciation questions;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;24 tone questions in the other pseudoanswer;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I guess no more doubts on character spelling? Apart from the unfindable words &quot;ka&quot; and &quot;ma&quot;, of course, which I wrote with the character for the &quot;kak&quot; I know from Hailu Hakka with that meaning, and with the character of the Min mā = also, which this could be a loan of…&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For question 5, given the Kana name &quot;Tsun'un&quot;, I think the name used to be Tsung-wun, and maybe it stayed like that in Meinong while evolving to Tsung-yun in Zhongtan. From Tsung-wun to Tsung-mun the road is small: the rounding of lips of the u starts early, on the end of the -ng, et voilà an m-. From Tsung-yun to Tsung-mun, it seems harder to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE once more :)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Outsourced all these questions (except for 4 6 8 in list 2) to Quora, with list 1 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/unanswered/%E8%AF%A5-Ke-as-Te-%E3%A7%A1-kh%C3%A1i-as-kh%C3%A2n-%E6%95%85-ku-as-ko-%E5%85%B8%E7%A4%BC-ti%C3%A1n-l%C3%AE-as-ti%C3%A1m-d%C3%AE-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9D%9B-Ts%C3%BBng-i%C3%B9n-as-Ts%C3%BBng-m%C3%B9n-or-maybe-Ts%C3%BBng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and the outsourced part of list 2 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/unanswered/%E7%93%AE%E8%8F%9C-vung-tshoi-as-fung-tshoi-%E4%BB%8E-tshi%C3%B9ng-as-tsh%C3%B9ng-%E5%90%9B-kyun-as-k%C3%BCn-kyn-Mandarin-%C3%BC-%E5%9B%BD-kwet-as-ky%C3%B6t-kj%C3%B8t-%C3%B6-Jyutping-eo-%E9%87%8D%E8%A6%81-tshung-yeu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;23.674 characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update again&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest I can get to that ka/kak is &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/Details?p=71192&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;风合水&lt;/a&gt; | fung kak sui, but that's a long way from sourcing the usage of kak that seems to be found here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yet another update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm led to believe she is using 擐 | khan instead of the khâi: both mean &quot;carry&quot; (though khâi is with shoulder-poles and khan is hanging from the hands), and the way she says it matches khan perfectly and only matches khâi inasmuch as it sounds similar to khan. Yes, 擐's root pronunciation is khuan, but hakkadict reports alternate khan. Could she actually have been carrying two shoulder-poles with her two hands, instead of hoisting the pole on her shoulders? Because that would perfectly fit the use of 擐 instead of khâi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 8&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question about the ma23 has been answered &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/On-one-occasion-around-1-52-the-source-Meinong-Hakka-video-exhibits-a-particle-ma34-which-seems-to-mean-also-but-I-only-find-such-a-particle-documented-for-Hokkien-or-Zhaoan-Hakka-How-come-Loanword-perhaps/answer/Justin-Richard-Leung?__filter__=all&amp;amp;__nsrc__=1&amp;amp;__snid3__=3766842537&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;by @justinrleung&lt;/a&gt;. There is a dictionary which reports 嗎 with the desired meaning. The tone doesn't fit -- it's reported as ma (Qu tone) for Northern Sixian and mà Yang Ping) for Southern -- but that may be an influence of the synonym yâ | 也. It is indeed a loan from Min 嘛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 9&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/%E7%93%AE%E8%8F%9C-vung-tshoi-as-fung-tshoi-%E4%BB%8E-tshi%C3%B9ng-as-tsh%C3%B9ng-%E5%90%9B-kyun-as-k%C3%BCn-kyn-Mandarin-%C3%BC-%E5%9B%BD-kwet-as-ky%C3%B6t-kj%C3%B8t-%C3%B6-Jyutping-eo-%E9%87%8D%E8%A6%81-tshung-yeu/answer/Justin-Richard-Leung&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vung-tshoi should be spelled 蕹菜, and there is a dictionary reporting fung-tshoi, besides Wiktionary;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;從 as tshung (whatever the tone) is probably a Mandarin influence, says @justinrleung, as I had suspected;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The final of 君 should be -yun, but it varies between -yun -ün -yün, with -ün being found &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/Details?p=69987&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for Sixian and hakkadict giving (can't verify) kyun for Northern and kün for Southern;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;国 has varying pronunciations in Meinong, the most common being ket; kyöt may be idiolect or even a one-off;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;要 is yau in Meixian, so it may be that Meinong speakers retained that, though hakkadict gives yeu for Sixian, both Northern and Southern; she says something like /jǝw/.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm awaiting a reply on what &quot;different pronunciations&quot; Meinong speakers &quot;seem to have&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I sure hope I didn't break the char limit here :).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 10&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pronunciations for 国: kwet, ket, kyet, kyat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For that weird ngit51, listen to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/:%E7%99%BC%E8%8A%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fat-ngà&lt;/a&gt;: same thing. Northern Sixian, but whatever. Would like to find that huge drop in isolation… &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/:%E6%97%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hm, getting close&lt;/a&gt;, again Northern…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;woi could be due to a w allophone of v, but patterns are elusive and a recording at the Hakka cloud has v. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/:%E6%9C%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;And here comes labiodental approximant&lt;/a&gt;, as if we didn't have enough sounds already :). I mean, fro that to v the path is short (some devoicing and we're there), but why would it velarize to get to /w/?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And with &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/:%E5%90%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; we find kün for Southern and kyun for Northern, so we can conclude this is a variation internal to the dialects. Perhaps even single speakers oscillate, I mean, we have only one instance of this syllable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2019-01-15T22:41:54.750" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T22:41:54.750" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29855" CreationDate="2018-05-17T15:00:18.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%8A%8A#Definitions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;把&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Classifier for objects that can be held using handles or knobs, such as guns, chairs, brooms, umbrellas.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Classifier for handfuls of something, such as grains, soil.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Classifier for bundles or bunches.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Classifier for some abstract ideas, such as force, effort or age.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Classifier for something done with the hand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that「臺」or「部」sounds better (as a matter of perception; both are specifically used for machines/devices), because &lt;strong&gt;手機&lt;/strong&gt; falls most appropriately into the last group, and sounds a bit vulgar (as if you're &lt;em&gt;doing&lt;/em&gt; your cellphone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't agree that「個」is better than「把」, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-05-17T15:00:18.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29860" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36969" CreationDate="2018-05-17T15:12:52.193" Score="0" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/8VSlOsiFIds&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Song video&lt;/a&gt;. Lyrics, romanization (based on what I hear in the video), translation attempt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张少林的“客家乡情”（客家话）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;爱记乡情 齐家都係客人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;最緊有煞拼求進 (AX 建议的写法) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;莫忘乡情 齐家係自家人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;只只回故乡寻根&lt;br&gt;&#xA;叔公叔婆来相认&lt;br&gt;&#xA;亲戚送礼来好热心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;到处都有人亲&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做事耐苦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;人乌白也分明&lt;br&gt;&#xA;好硬頚客家人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;客人最亲&lt;br&gt;&#xA;亲情最真&lt;br&gt;&#xA;世界客人 团结纪念乡情 (on ket nyi hiam hiong chin?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;血脉浓于水承认&lt;br&gt;&#xA;事业有成 客家奋斗精神&lt;br&gt;&#xA;晓出头自有原因&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;* 封做官(fon?)来人尊敬&lt;br&gt;&#xA;救苦救清贫好热心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;莫问自家出身&lt;br&gt;&#xA;见面自家人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;有个三分情&lt;br&gt;&#xA;无忘本客家人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;客家老人尊敬…&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Oi ki hiong-chin  che-ka tu he hak-nyin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Cui-kin yiu sat-piang khiu-cin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mok mong hiong-chin  tshe-ka he chii-ka-nyin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Cak-cak fui ku-hiong chim kin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Suk-kong suk-pho loi siong-nyin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tshin-tsit sung-li loi hau nyet-shim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tau-chu tu yu nyin-tshin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tso sii nai khu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nyin vu-phak ya fun-min&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hau ngang kiang hak-ka nyin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hak nyin tsui tshin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tshin-tshin tsui chim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Shii-kai hak-nyin  on ket nyi hiam hiong chin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Het-mak nung yi sui shing-nyin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Shii-nyap yu shing  hak-ka fun-theu tsin-shin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hiau chut-theu tshii yu nyen-yin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;* Fung tso fon loi nyin tsun-kin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Kiu khu kiu chin phin hau nyet-shim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mok mun chii-ka chut-shim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ken-men chii-ka nyin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yu kai san fun chin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mau mong pun hak-ka-nyin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hak-ka lau nyin cun-kin…&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I must remember [my] homesickness   all [my] family is Hakka&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[And] lately we have struggled for continued success &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do not forget homesickness    all [my] family ar self-made people &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Each of us will go back to our homeland to look for our origins&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[And] get to know great-uncles and great-aunts&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[Our] relatives give us gifts [and] are very warm-hearted &lt;br&gt;&#xA;[We] haverelatives everywhere &lt;br&gt;&#xA;[We] work [and] endure pain &lt;br&gt;&#xA;And understand whether people are black or white (i.e. good or bad) &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hajka people are very hard-necked&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hakka people are the most intimate &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Intimate feelings are the truest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hakka people in the world    are united in remembering homesickness &lt;br&gt;&#xA;血脉浓于水承认 (?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They have careers and success    Hakka struggles are energetic&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They can succeed for they have a reason&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;* The honor of being magistrates is bestowed [on them] and people respect [them] &lt;br&gt;&#xA;They help the poor and help the needing and are very warm-hearted&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Don't ask them about their own family background&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I see the great feelings&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That self-made people have&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[And] don't forget [I'm] originally a Hakka person &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Respect old Hakka people... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Line 2 makes no sense to me unless I accept the spelling proposed by Ånton Xiè (AX), which I gave a translation for; is there a way to make sense of the captions, or do I just accept AX's respelling?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Even AX can't understand the untranslated line: what does it mean? We have &quot;Blood dense in water confess&quot;, does that mean they acknowledge a great impurity of their Hakka blood due to mixing with non-Hakkas?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;团结纪念乡情 should be &quot;thon-ket ki-nyam hiong-chin&quot;, but I hear &quot;on ket nyi hiam&quot; at the start; what's up with that?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At the start of part 2,官should be kwon, but I hear fon; what's up with that? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2018-05-17T15:21:16.307" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T13:47:29.413" Title="Help translating two lines of Zhang Shaolin's &quot;Hakka homesickness&quot; (客家乡情) + some weird pronunciations in that song" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29856" CreationDate="2018-05-17T17:33:22.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it should be 轻快  instead of 轻发&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;轻快自然 (lively and natural) make more sense than 轻发自然 (come out lightly and nature)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beside, '轻发' could mean  '轻举妄动' (act rashly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%85%8E%E9%87%8D%E5%88%99%E5%BF%85%E6%88%90%EF%BC%8C%E8%BD%BB%E5%8F%91%E5%88%99%E5%A4%9A%E8%B4%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;轻发则多败&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;轻发：轻举妄动&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect the author thought '轻发'(lightly come out) and '轻快'(lively) mean the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-17T17:33:22.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29855" CreationDate="2018-05-17T22:07:43.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Put '手机的量词是什么' in 百度, you will get a lot of answers，most of them 部. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My 手机 is so big and thin, I'd like to say '这张手机‘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/19904687/answer/17829157&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“只”体现手机的灵巧，“部”体现物品的所属权性；“个”的量词比较苍白，但也在使用（我不赞同通用这个量词）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-17T22:07:43.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29855" CreationDate="2018-05-17T23:35:03.593" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, 部 is a formal classifier for 手机. 台 is usually used for a bigger machine, like computer &amp;amp; TV 一台电脑 &amp;amp; 一台电视.  一台手机 doesn't sound quite right to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一把手机 is not used in practice for whatever reason. I guess it might be because 我要买一把手机 could mean you want to buy a handful of 手机s, implying several 手机s, not just one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colloquially, sometimes I heard 一个手机 is being used. Like in the sentences: 我要买一个手机; 我想买个手机. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 我要买一部手机 sounds more formal and it's not as casual as 我要买一个手机 or 我想买个手机 in our daily communications. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's my observation from my neck of woods. Others from other regions may take this differently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-05-17T23:48:51.623" LastActivityDate="2018-05-17T23:48:51.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29864" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-18T01:01:00.203" Score="2" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;About the Indo-European family of languages, a common hypothesis is that it originated in central Asia, somewhere north of the Caspian and/or Black Seas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do we have any idea where the Sino-Tibetan family of languages originated, or at least of the Chinese branch of this family?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe most of the oldest Chinese prehistoric remains are scattered along or around the valley of the Yellow River. Is that also where it is hypothesised that the oldest forms of the language originated, and/or the oldest place where its Sino-Tibetan ancestral speakers dwelled?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17317" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T17:40:51.930" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T17:46:08.197" Title="Where was the heartland of the pre-historic Chinese branch of languages (or that of the entire language family)?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;linguistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29865" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-18T02:04:07.193" Score="4" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/opVr3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m looking to find out what this means. Please help was handed down to me from my family &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19716" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-05-19T04:07:37.623" LastActivityDate="2018-05-19T07:13:44.523" Title="Help please me find out what this means" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29865" CreationDate="2018-05-18T10:54:22.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iWniG.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iWniG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's 天宝纹银, not the Tang dynasty 天宝, but 上海裘天宝黄金珠宝有限公司, the former is 天宝银楼(1822~1846年).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-18T10:54:22.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29864" CreationDate="2018-05-18T11:48:45.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This wiki page, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_China&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;History of China&lt;/a&gt;, provides some &amp;quot;basic&amp;quot; knowledge:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;earliest written record of Chinese&amp;quot; (aka oracle script) was found in bones (of ox, cow) and shells (of tortoise) in 安陽. It's about 商 dynasty (1600–1046 b.c.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the preceding one, 夏 dynasty (bc 2070 - 1600), there was one newest discovery, related to the myth &amp;quot;great flood&amp;quot;, and 鯀 &amp;amp; 禹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This megaflood occurred in 1922 ±28 b.c., in the place of 喇家, in today  Qinghai.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A relevant article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36966274&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rocks tell story of China's great flood&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T17:46:08.197" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T17:46:08.197" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29869" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-18T12:47:43.763" Score="5" ViewCount="1034" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only remember seeing 我的名字叫……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would 我的名字&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;…… also be an acceptable choice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-05-19T10:14:13.820" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T10:00:55.330" Title="Is it acceptable to say 我的名字是……?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29869" CreationDate="2018-05-18T15:05:45.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to dan's comment...&#xA;For short phrases like this you can often see if they work by searching with quotes for the full phrase. Searching for &quot;名字是&quot; quickly gets you to a bunch of book and movie titles, so it looks like you're good to go.&#xA;You can also check stuff like this with google ngrams&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E5%90%8D%E5%AD%97%E6%98%AF%2C%E5%90%8D%E5%AD%97%E5%8F%AB&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E5%90%8D%E5%AD%97%20%E6%98%AF%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2C%E5%90%8D%E5%AD%97%20%E5%8F%AB%3B%2Cc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E5%90%8D%E5%AD%97%E6%98%AF%2C%E5%90%8D%E5%AD%97%E5%8F%AB&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2000&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E5%90%8D%E5%AD%97%20%E6%98%AF%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2C%E5%90%8D%E5%AD%97%20%E5%8F%AB%3B%2Cc0&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;That doesn't give you context, so &quot;名字是&quot; is getting a boost from a bunch of contexts you're not interested in like 这个名字是很吉祥的 or something. The ngrams trick doesn't tell you how to use 名字是 or whatever you're looking up correctly, which is a pretty major downside. But, if a combination is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; possible, you'll get a clear unambiguous negative, so it's still useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18891" LastActivityDate="2018-05-18T15:05:45.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29856" CreationDate="2018-05-18T15:37:14.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the video, it reads&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而她的音樂曲風輕鬆自然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而她的音乐曲风轻松自然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems you have mistaken 鬆 for 髮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line would translate to &quot;Her musical style is relaxed and natural&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12619" LastActivityDate="2018-05-18T15:37:14.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29869" CreationDate="2018-05-19T01:36:23.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I don't know your name I may ask: 你的名字是什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So of course you could reply: 我的名字是恩瑞克。 or 我的名字叫恩瑞克。 或者 我叫恩瑞克。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-19T01:36:23.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29865" CreationDate="2018-05-19T02:26:31.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As pointed out, the characters are &lt;strong&gt;天寶紋銀&lt;/strong&gt;, and are engraved in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;small seal&lt;/a&gt; (小篆) style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several character components which don't really resemble their regular script counterparts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;天&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「天」&lt;/strong&gt; is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「一」(&lt;em&gt;what this represents is disputed, but it is not &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; in this context&lt;/em&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「大」(&lt;em&gt;depiction of a person with outstretched arms&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「一」is fairly recognisable. &lt;strong&gt;A seal script version of「大」is&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/afh8Z.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/afh8Z.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;which blows up the proportion of the arms and legs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;寶&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「寶」&lt;/strong&gt; is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「宀」(&lt;em&gt;depiction of a house/building&lt;/em&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「玉」, simplified to the component form「」(&lt;em&gt;depiction of jade pieces&lt;/em&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「缶」(sound component; OC rime: &lt;strong&gt;幽&lt;/strong&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「貝」(&lt;em&gt;depiction of cowrie shells&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「玉」，「缶」，and「貝」are all fairly recognisable in seal script. Since「宀」depicted a full-fledged building, ancient scripts will commonly have the sides stretching down to fully depict a building's walls. &lt;strong&gt;A seal script version is&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HDT9F.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HDT9F.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;紋&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「紋」&lt;/strong&gt; is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「糸」(&lt;em&gt;depiction of silk threads&lt;/em&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「文」(&lt;em&gt;depiction of a person with an emphasised torso containing markings&lt;/em&gt;), doubles as the sound component).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「糸」&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The seal script version of「糸」is derived from the original picture, representing several loops of silk threads ending in some frayed thread ends. An oracle bone version looks like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2RnTM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2RnTM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;turning the above upside down directly &lt;strong&gt;leads to seal script versions which look like&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yl9lX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yl9lX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note, the number of thread loops may be variable, and you will sometimes get variants that have three loops instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「文」&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The seal script version of「文」is simplified from the original picture, representing a standing person's body with markings (like tattoos) on it. An oracle bone version looks like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HO0Dh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HO0Dh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「文」in fact was the original form of「紋」, having「糸」added to it after「文」became exclusively used for the association with the meaning &lt;em&gt;writing&lt;/em&gt;. The shape was simplified by the removal of the markings on the torso, and from the above, the similarity to the shape of「大」is not coincidental; both were derived from the shape of a person, while the middle empty space in「文」is just due to the emphasised torso. &lt;strong&gt;This leads to the seal scripts which look like&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6rpvZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6rpvZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;銀&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「銀」&lt;/strong&gt; is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「金」(&lt;em&gt;depiction of a container for melting metals&lt;/em&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「艮」(sound component).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「金」&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The seal script version of「金」is derived from the original picture, which depicted metal plates「冫」formed from a smelting process, represented by a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucible&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;crucible&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BzmxW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BzmxW.png&quot; alt=&quot;![enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「冫」was later borrowed as a simplified version of「仌」(&lt;em&gt;ice&lt;/em&gt;), but the original meaning can still be seen in「冶」(&lt;em&gt;to smelt&lt;/em&gt;) and「凝」(&lt;em&gt;condensation/solidification&lt;/em&gt;). The markings representing the metal plates were later moved around and more marks got added to or subtracted from these over the course of history, but eventually two marks settled to their current position in「金」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5vRaT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5vRaT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;Samples of&lt;/em&gt;「金」&lt;em&gt;from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bamboo slip writings&lt;/a&gt; from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;State of Chu&lt;/a&gt;. The red box reveals some examples which look like the modern form.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The top of the crucible doubles as a sound component, which is「今」. For reference, bronze script versions of「今」look like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bZwtc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bZwtc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;with a seal script form that looks like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3riCc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3riCc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The above leads to seal script shapes looking like&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fZ5L3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fZ5L3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「艮」&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The seal script version of「艮」is derived from the original compound, which is comprised of「目」(&lt;em&gt;eyes&lt;/em&gt;). The bottom part originally represented a person and looked like「人」or「儿」. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qmb1c.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qmb1c.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For reference, oracle bone versions of「目」and「人」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nsett.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nsett.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This leads on to a seal script shape&lt;/strong&gt; (note: see further below)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eK8Zl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eK8Zl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Variants of「艮」started changing shape during the Warring States period, leading to the modern form corrupting「目」into「日」and the bottom shape into what it is now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IgfYo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IgfYo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note that「艮」originally meant &lt;em&gt;to look backwards&lt;/em&gt;; the highly similar character「見」was originally composed from「卩」, later changing into「止」or「人/儿」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9EY0I.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9EY0I.png&quot; alt=&quot;![enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To avoid confusion,「艮」sometimes used a shape that looked like「匕」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QxmrZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QxmrZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This leads to the different seal script forms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9pcZP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9pcZP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「艮」&lt;em&gt;vs.&lt;/em&gt;「見」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-05-19T07:13:44.523" LastActivityDate="2018-05-19T07:13:44.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29869" CreationDate="2018-05-19T09:02:25.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;that's right.我的名字是 = my name is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19722" LastActivityDate="2018-05-19T09:02:25.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29847" CreationDate="2018-05-19T09:38:24.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我一边在吃饭，一边在做作业。that's wrong, it should be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在边吃饭，边做作业, that's right. 在 = doing something, &lt;strong&gt;stressed doing something (2 things at the same time)&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 我一边吃饭，一边做作业。 that's right. 一边...一边 = &lt;strong&gt;stressed at the same time&lt;/strong&gt;, do 2 things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19722" LastActivityDate="2018-05-19T09:38:24.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29878" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-19T15:07:29.970" Score="2" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since all the info I have about &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37SCGhnBVl4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the song&lt;/a&gt; is in the Hakka Lyrics (facebook group) post I made about it, let me quote it as is, then proceed to ask the questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nyi-teu-sa ti li siu ko kai Hak-boi he mai Hak-boi? [=Do you know what Hakka the Hakka of this song is?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37SCGhnBVl4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37SCGhnBVl4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Adding tone marks that reflect the tones given at hakka.dict.edu.tw for 南四县 Hakka. In particular, ` indicates the contour 31, ˍ the contour 11, ˆ the contour 24, ¯ the contour 55, nothing the contour 2 (checked tone), ˙ the contour 5 (checked tone 2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are a couple cases where the dictionary and what I hear don't quite line up. The most prominent case is 月, which I hear as ngiai and the dictionary gives as ngiȧt. I assume it is a colloquial evolution, so from contour 5 I assume the evolution was to contour 55, hence my ngiāi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have the impression that 結頭 should be 街頭, but I see no reason for that misspelling, since 街頭 exists in Mandarin and 結 and 街 have the same sound in both Mandarin and Hakka and a phonetic loan is hardly justified. EDIT: Scratch that: 街頭 is kiâi-the̱u, whereas &quot;kiat&quot; is clearly heard in the video.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哥系月亮妹系星–客家山歌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;女：两條絲線長又長唉 | Liòng thia̱u sîi-siēn tsho̱ng yīu tsho̱ng ê&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  打個結頭丟過梁唉 | Tà kē kiat the̱u tîu kwō lio̱ng ê&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  千年呀唔見結頭散 | Tshiên nga̱n ya m̱ kiān kiat the̱u sān&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  妹子永久都愛郎 | Mōi-tsìi yòn-kìu tû ōi lo̱ng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  唉呀都愛郎 | Âi-ya tû ōi lo̱ng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  都愛郎 | Tû ōi lo̱ng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：都愛郎 | Tû ōi lo̱ng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：都愛郎 | Tû ōi lo̱ng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：都愛郎 | Tû ōi lo̱ng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  合：唉… | Ê…&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：阿哥結妹永唔丟唉 | Â-kô kiat mōi yùn m̱ tîu ê&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  除非柑樹結石榴唉 | Tshu̱-fî kâm sū kiat sȧg-le̱u ê&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  除非日頭西邊出 | Tshu̱-fî nyit-the̱u sî-piên tshut&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  除非河水向西流 | Tshu̱-fî ho̱-sùi hiōng sî li̱u&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  唉呀向西流 | Âi-ya hiōng sî li̱u&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  向西流 | Hiōng sî li̱u&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：向西流 | Hiōng sî li̱u&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：向西流 | Hiōng sî li̱u&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：向西流 | Hiōng sî li̱u&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  合：唉… | Ê…&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：汝話交情就交情唉 | Nyi̱ vā kâu-tshi̱n tshīu kâu-tshi̱n ê&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  交情愛交一生人唉 | Kâu-tshi̱n ōi kâu yit-sên-nyi̱n ê&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  哥係天上明月樣 | Kô hē thiên sōng bi̱n ngiāi-yōng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  妹係星星伴月明 | Mōi hē sên-sên phān ngiāi bi̱n&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  唉呀伴月明 | Âi-ya phān ngiāi bi̱n&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  伴月明 | Phān ngiāi bi̱n&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：伴月明 | Phān ngiāi bi̱n&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：伴月明 | Phān ngiāi bi̱n&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：伴月明 | Phān ngiāi bi̱n&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  合：唉… | Ê…&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：两人相好心洽心唉 | Liòng nyi̱n siông-hàu sîm kiap sîm ê&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  千年鐵樹萬年青唉 | Tshiên nga̱n thiet sū bān nga̱n tshîn e&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  命有恁久情恁長 | Miāng yîu àn kìu tshi̱n àn tsho̱ng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  交情越久情越深 | Kâu-tshi̱n ngiȧt kìu tshi̱n ngiȧt tshîim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  唉呀情越深 | Âi-ya tshi̱n ngiȧt tshîim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  情越深 | Tshi̱n ngiȧt tshîim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：情越深 | Tshi̱n ngiȧt tshîim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：情越深 | Tshi̱n ngiȧt tshîim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：情越深 | Tshi̱n ngiȧt tshîim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  合：唉… | Ê…&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  合：两人講過千年情[唉] | Liòng nyi̱n kòng-kwō tshiên nga̱n tshi̱n ê&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  两人相好心對心[唉] | Liòng nyi̱n siông-hàu sîm tūi sîm ê&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  牽手河邊照水影 | Khân-sù ho̱ piên tsāu sùi yàng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  魚蝦都笑涯两人 | Ṉg ha̱ tû siāu ngāi liòng nyīn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  唉呀涯俩人 | Âi-ya ngāi liòng nyīn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：涯俩人 | Ngāi liòng nyīn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：涯俩人 | Ngāi liòng nyīn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：涯俩人 | Ngāi liòng nyīn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：涯俩人 | Ngāi liòng nyīn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  合：唉… | Ê…&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Adjustments made to the character spelling [from the captions]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Verse 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;絲綫 -&gt; 絲線&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  哎 -&gt; 唉 (this one in general, not only verse 1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Verse 4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甲 -&gt; 洽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Verse 5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;倆 -&gt; 兩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note that &quot;ia&quot; is always /ia/, never /ie/ as it is sometimes read under HV standard Phinjim styles (or should I say Ånton Xiè Phinjim style), where -ian and -iat (and maybe other such finals) are /ien/ and /iet/. Note also that &quot;tshin | feeling&quot; is sometimes pronounced with a &quot;ch&quot; sound rather than a&quot;tsh&quot; sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Translation attempt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哥系月亮妹系星–客家山歌 | The boy is the moon and the girl is the stars - Hakka folk song&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;女：两條絲線長又長唉 | Two threads grow and grow&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  打個結頭丟過梁唉 | They hit a (結頭 | bond?, or &quot;make a bond&quot;?) and throw away a roof (marriage reference?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  千年呀唔見結頭散 | For 1000 years [they won't see?] the (結頭 | bond?) disperse (i.e. they won't break up?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  妹子永久都愛郎 | The girl will forever love the boy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  唉呀都愛郎 | Ay yeah love the boy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  都愛郎 | Love the boy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：都愛郎 | Love the boy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：都愛郎 | Love the boy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：都愛郎 | Love the boy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  合：唉… | Hey…&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：阿哥結妹永唔丟唉 | When a boy ties with a girl he never throws her away (i.e. breaks up, divorces)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  除非柑樹結石榴唉 | Unless tangerine trees (tie? Does that mean &quot;produce, make, bear&quot;?) pomegranates&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  除非日頭西邊出 | Unless the sun rises from the west&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  除非河水向西流 | Unless the rivers flow westward&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  唉呀向西流 | Ay yeah flow westward&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  向西流 | Flow westward&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：向西流 | Flow westward&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：向西流 | Flow westward&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：向西流 | Flow westward&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  合：唉… | Hey…&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：汝話交情就交情唉 | You say [you]'ll be friends [with me] so be friends [with me]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  交情愛交一生人唉 | We should be friends lifelong&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  哥係天上明月樣 | The boy is the bright moon in the sky&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  妹係星星伴月明 | The girl is the stars shining with the moon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  唉呀伴月明 | Ay yeah shining with the moon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  伴月明 | Shining with the moon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：伴月明 | Shining with the moon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：伴月明 | Shining with the moon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：伴月明 | Shining with the moon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  合：唉… | Hey…&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：两人相好心洽心唉 | The two [of us] will love each other and have joint hearts&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  千年鐵樹萬年青哎 | 1000 years sago-palm Nippon-lily (what is this metaphor?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  命有恁久情恁長 | The life is very long and the feeling will be very long&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  交情越久情越深 | The longer we're friends the deeper the friendship&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  唉呀情越深 | Ay yeah the deeper the friendship&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  情越深 | The deeper the friendship&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：情越深 | The deeper the friendship&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：情越深 | The deeper the friendship&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：情越深 | The deeper the friendship&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  合：唉… | Hey…&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  合：两人講過千年情[唉] | The two [of us] have said (i.e. agreed) to a 1000-year-long friendship (is this a metaphor for everlasting friendship?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  两人相好心對心[唉] | The two [of us] will love each other with hearts confronting each other&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  牽手河邊照水影 | Holding hands by the river (照水影 = ?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  魚蝦都笑涯两人 | All the fish and crabs smile at us two&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  唉呀涯俩人 | Ay yeah at us two&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：涯俩人 | At us two&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：涯俩人 | At us two&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  女：涯俩人 | At us two&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  男：涯俩人 | At us two&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  合：唉… | Hey…&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do I complete this translation? Is it correct for what I managed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;係南四县客家话无？ [=Is this Southern Sixian Hakka?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any inputs on the translation or transliteration or characters are welcome. Here are my questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Am I right in guessing the &quot;ngiai-yong&quot; I hear is a colloquial variant of &quot;ngiat-yong | 月样&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does l. 2 (打個結頭丟過梁唉 | Tà kē kiat the̱u tîu kwō lio̱ng ê) mean? Does &quot;ta kiat-theu&quot; mean &quot;make a bond&quot;, i.e. marry or some analogous bond?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the spelling of &quot;kiat-theu&quot; OK?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Am I right in reading l. 3 (千年呀唔見結頭散 | Tshiên nga̱n ya m̱ kiān kiat the̱u sān) as &quot;They will never break up for 1000 years&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Am I right in reading the &quot;kiat&quot; in the line &quot;除非柑樹結石榴唉 | Tshu̱-fî kâm sū kiat sȧg-le̱u ê&quot; as &quot;bear, produce&quot; (cfr. &quot;bear fruit&quot; for this use of &quot;bear&quot;)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does the line &quot;千年鐵樹萬年青唉 | Tshiên nga̱n thiet sū bān nga̱n tshîn e&quot; mean?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the &quot;thousand years&quot; at the beginning of the last verse a hyperbole for &quot;eternity&quot;, &quot;forever&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does &quot;照水影&quot; mean in the line &quot;牽手河邊照水影 | Khân-sù ho̱ piên tsāu sùi yàng&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it correct to spell that apparent exclamative particle &quot;e&quot; as 唉, or is there a better option? And is that the right tone?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2018-05-19T16:18:24.823" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T09:53:13.163" Title="About a (Southern Sixian?) Hakka folk song found on Youtube" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29879" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29882" CreationDate="2018-05-20T18:04:28.983" Score="2" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在我的心目中，一个好的作家是长生不死的，他的肉体当然也和常人一样，迟早要化为泥土，但他的精神却会因为他的作品的流传而永垂不朽。在今天这种人人都想致富的社会里，说这样的话显然是不合时宜 —————— 因为比读书有趣味的事情实在&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;太多了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the Pleco, I found the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[pronounced with stress, indicating certainty]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this usage of 是 to indicate certainty of the sentence, indicating it is certain that &quot;there are more interesting things than reading&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it another usage of 是, and in that case what the 是 works for in the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T01:41:32.737" Title="What does 是 mean in 因为比读书有趣味的事情实在是太多了?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29879" CreationDate="2018-05-20T20:38:24.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因为比读书有趣味的事情实在是太多了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[因为] [比读书有趣味的事情] [实在] [是] [太多了]。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[because] [things that are more interesting than reading] [really] [is] [too many]。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“Things than are more interesting than reading” is the subject &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“是” (is) is the verb&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot omit  the “is” in the English sentence, But you can omit the”是” in the Chinese one. (It is implied)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-20T20:44:46.997" LastActivityDate="2018-05-20T20:44:46.997" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29879" CreationDate="2018-05-20T23:23:07.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, I think 实在是 hangs together. Your 是 I would interpret as 'those are'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1因为     2比          3读书     4有趣味的事情 5实在 6是          7太多了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1because 2compared to 3read-books 4have-fun-things  5really     6those are  7very many &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could rewrite this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为有很多事情实在是比读书有趣多了。or 因为有很多事情比读书有趣多了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在我的心目中，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To my mind,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一个好的作家是长生不死的，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a good author is immortal,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他的肉体当然也和常人一样，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;his body, of course, is the same as normal people's,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;迟早要化为泥土，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;sooner or later, it will become dust,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;但他的精神却会因为他的作品的流传而永垂不朽。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but his spirit, because his works are circulated, will not be forgotten and will be immortal.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在今天这种人人都想致富的社会里，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In today's world full of people seeking only wealth,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;说这样的话显然是不合时宜&lt;br&gt;&#xA;saying such words is evidently unfashionable,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为比读书有趣味的事情实在是太多了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;because compared to reading books there are many other things which are more fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-20T23:23:07.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29879" CreationDate="2018-05-21T00:35:26.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your analysis is correct. &#xA;The interpretation from Pleco is fit for the context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[pronounced with stress, indicating certainty]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you remove 实在,  that sentence 因为比读书有趣味的事情是太多了doesn't sound natural. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I somehow agree that 实在是 can be used a set for emphasizing the certainty and as a whole, its English equivalent could be &lt;em&gt;indeed, really or truly&lt;/em&gt;. For example, 我实在是累了: I'm truly tired. 我实在是受不了: I indeed can't stand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T00:35:26.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29879" CreationDate="2018-05-21T01:41:32.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let us drop all the extra information, the sentence will be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事情&lt;strong&gt;实在是&lt;/strong&gt;太多了  √&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事情&lt;strong&gt;实在&lt;/strong&gt;太多了   √&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事情&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;太多了    X&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事情太多了      √ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we know 是 cann't be used unless being attached to 实在, I don't know Chinese grammar(though I am a native Chinese speaker), I don't think it is a verb. &lt;strong&gt;What verb can not be used standalone?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, the grammar of the sentence also looks weird, it does not follow SVO or SVP&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it reminds me a Japanese grammar--topic particle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;象の鼻は長い means (speaking of) the elephant, its nose is long, は is a topic particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would apply the same logic to Chinese, 事情 is topic, 太多了 is a description. &#xA;Since Chinese is not a topic-prominent language. We can not use 是 standalone, &#xA;these particles not necessary also. But if I add a modifier(实在), I can add an additional particle which acts like a topic particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not Chinese grammar.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is not Chinese grammar.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is not Chinese grammar.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3 times for important things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T01:41:32.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6911" CreationDate="2018-05-21T08:12:03.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed, the phonetic alphabet is a tool you use for each speaker and speaker, and it is also very important to know that subjective ways of teaching are the rule. Some of my teachers say quinzi, the others qunzi as mandarin standard. The individual or collective differences are not something the speaker is always aware of. The teacher is part of a process of &quot;idealization&quot; of his own language. Sometimes, your ears are right, but your brain does not translate it right. The last drill on the Net &quot;yanni-lionel&quot; is one of those problems, phoneticians have to cope with: the spectrum of sounds delimitation is tricky. Both might be right and the answer is not the one, but both. bun and ban, you can use forvo or university of main databases for these different pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19732" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T08:12:03.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29886" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-21T08:52:47.233" Score="3" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;Between 发财 and 致富, which one is more commonly used? Or is there any difference in emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-05-21T18:32:42.333" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T06:03:52.363" Title="What is the difference between 发财 and 致富?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29887" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29898" CreationDate="2018-05-21T11:58:35.677" Score="0" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;The Dreams That Stuff Is Made Of&quot; is the title of a book written by Stephen Hawking. I can't find any translation of the name of this book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the last page of the introduction of this book. The last paragraph may help you to understand the meaning of the name of this book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FQ0oX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FQ0oX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11222" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T05:16:03.947" Title="How to translate &quot;The Dreams that Stuff is Made of &quot; into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29886" CreationDate="2018-05-21T13:36:01.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;发财 is informal, vulgar sometimes, simply means you get a lot of money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;致富 is formal, largely used by CCP media, no one use it in conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T13:36:01.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29887" CreationDate="2018-05-21T14:24:52.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Google Translates&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dreams that stuff Is made of = 这些东西是由这些梦想组成的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;东西是由这些梦组成的&amp;quot; (literal translation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;物质&lt;/strong&gt;是由这些&lt;strong&gt;幻觉&lt;/strong&gt;组成的&amp;quot; / &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;物質&lt;/strong&gt;是由這些&lt;strong&gt;幻覺&lt;/strong&gt;組成的&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;Matter is composed of these hallucinations&amp;quot; (descriptive translation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T14:37:11.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29890" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-21T16:25:51.827" Score="0" ViewCount="568" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to learn mandarin and I am using the Basic Spoken Chinese Practice Essentials Workbook. Unfortunately there is no answer key to that book. Would be great if someone could check if I translated correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Where is Ke Leien going? &#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kē Léi'ēn dào nǎr qù?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kē Léi'ēn dào nǎr qù a?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm going to the cafeteria. How about you?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wǒ qù shítáng. Nǐ ne?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wǒ dào shítáng qù. Nǐ ne?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wang Jingsheng is going back to the dorm.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wáng Jīngshēng huí sùshè.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ke Leien is going to take care of some things.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kē Léi'ēn qù bàn yìdiǎnr shìr.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You're going to the library; I also am going to the library.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nǐ qù túshūguǎn. Wǒ yě qù.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nǐ dào túshūguǎn qù. Wǒ yě qù. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19733" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T02:34:44.137" Title="Translation Exercise Unit 1 - Part 1 [Basic Spoken Chinese Practice Essentials]" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29886" CreationDate="2018-05-21T17:07:11.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;致富 is a verb that's closest to &quot;wealth creation&quot;, usually in the business or trade context.  So both gambling wins and earning money from professional service (e.g. as a medical doctor) wouldn't be associated with 致富.   致富 implies wisdom, smart or cunning in money matters.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发财 is somehow receiving money or value that's slightly unexpected or associated with luck or if not luck the amount is more than usual.  So picking up $10 on the street maybe &quot;发财了&quot; is fit.  Being a medical doctor or lawyer, if described as &quot;发财&quot; it would imply a hint of jealousy or contempt on the part of the speaker.  &quot;发财&quot; is morally neutral, so both a con job or receiving an inheritance can qualify.  Anyway it is informal speech.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the &quot;Which one is more commonly used?&quot; note that there are many other similar terms which are appropriate for different situations.  赚钱 is most common and neutral, including receiving salary for hard work or smart business. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19734" LastEditorUserId="19734" LastEditDate="2018-05-21T17:22:46.900" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T17:22:46.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29886" CreationDate="2018-05-21T18:31:52.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I happened to learn it a few days ago in my class, and my teacher explained 发财 is more used in oral context while 致富 is used in a written context (书面语). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T18:31:52.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29887" CreationDate="2018-05-21T21:35:58.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Title translation: 源物之梦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explanation: 这些物来源于这些梦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12481" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T21:35:58.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29894" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-22T00:13:41.850" Score="4" ViewCount="3027" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious as to how many Chinese characters correspond to the &lt;em&gt;pinyin&lt;/em&gt; &quot;shi&quot;, such as 是 时 十 事 史 and so on. Is there an exact number of how many words (besides really archaic ones nobody uses) use this pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15160" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T23:26:33.530" Title="How many homophones for &quot;shi&quot; are there in Chinese - with or without considering tones?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29894" CreationDate="2018-05-22T00:24:51.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Search: &amp;quot;shi&amp;quot; in pinyin  (Mandarin) mode&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;61 Results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(shi1) 濕, 師, 失, 屍, 施....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(shi2) 十, 石, 食, 識, 時....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(shi3) 駛, 始, 屎, 使, 史....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(shi4) 市, 式, 是, 事, 勢....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T00:24:51.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29887" CreationDate="2018-05-22T00:42:59.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;‘The Dreams That Stuff is Made of’  is a deliberate misquote of Prospero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prospero:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Our revels now are ended. These our actors,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As I foretold you, were all spirits, and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Are melted into air, into thin air:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And like the baseless fabric of this vision,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The solemn temples, the great globe itself,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As dreams are made on; and our little life&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is rounded with a sleep.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we translate thus:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.We are such stuff  as dreams are made on;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. 由梦想编织成的我们，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.  and our little life is rounded with a sleep.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. 到头来不过以一场觉结束我们短暂的一生。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then we can just take 1. and insert 世界&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Dreams That Stuff is Made of&lt;br&gt;&#xA;由梦想编织成的世界 (for 世界 understand 'space-time continuum, 时空连续统)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T00:42:59.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29894" CreationDate="2018-05-22T02:51:34.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rXn5X.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rXn5X.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IFxvG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IFxvG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please see the pictures，the characters in the red box are common used.&#xA;The link is &lt;a href=&quot;https://zidian.911cha.com/pinyin_shi.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zidian.911cha.com/pinyin_shi.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QDjrk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QDjrk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1DxB0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1DxB0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19663" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T02:51:34.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29887" CreationDate="2018-05-22T05:16:03.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because no one has given an &lt;em&gt;actual&lt;/em&gt; translation yet, I'll have a go at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xue63.com/toutiaojy/20180316G0XS6W00.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;巨星陨落，留芳人间&lt;/a&gt; page gives us:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ua4FX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ua4FX.png&quot; alt=&quot;potatoe&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the original text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《梦想的构成》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Dreams That Stuff Is Made of: The Most Astounding Papers of Quantum Physics and How They Shook the Scientific World (2011)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这本书是现代重要物理学家作品的选本，包括波尔，普朗克，海森堡等的作品。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list of Hawkins' other books on that page are all &lt;strong&gt;official&lt;/strong&gt; Chinese translations of his books, there is no reason to think that this is not either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;tldr;《梦想的构成》&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T05:16:03.947" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29900" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29902" CreationDate="2018-05-22T17:58:58.293" Score="4" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to 现代汉语词典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;答复&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回答问题或要求&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对问题或要求做出的回答&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;回答&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对提出的问题、要求给予解答或表示意见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对提出的问题、要求所作出的答复&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me both seem to be practically the same. One uses the other in its explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least for me, it feels that 回答 is a more general word while 答复 is more formal, and usually used when it involves someone superior. But I'm not sure if this is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wonder if there is any difference between them, on its usage as verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-04T13:47:01.440" Title="What is the difference between 回答 and 答复?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29900" CreationDate="2018-05-22T19:55:23.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two terms are very similar. The difference is how the terms are constructed:  答复 is more like &quot;to reply&quot; (v) or &quot;a reply&quot; (n); while 回答 is more like &quot;to answer&quot; (v) or &quot;an answer&quot; (n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;答(answer/ reply) 复(reply/return)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;答复 = 'answer with a reply' or 'return with an answer'  (to someone's question or request)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or simply &quot;&lt;strong&gt;reply&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; /answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;回(return)答 (answer/ reply)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;回答 = return with an answer/reply (to someone's question or request)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or simply &quot;&lt;strong&gt;answer&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; / &quot;reply&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;回(return) 复 (reply)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;回复 = return with an reply (to someone's question or request)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or simply &quot;&lt;strong&gt;reply&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-22T20:51:50.830" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T20:51:50.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29900" CreationDate="2018-05-22T23:14:03.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;回答: just to answer; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;答复: answer with a reply, usually in the form of writing, like a letter, an email, and etc. It connotes that to answer with some sort of attachment, which suggests the answer is a bit formal in some degree.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-05-22T23:25:59.680" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T23:25:59.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29894" CreationDate="2018-05-22T23:26:33.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often do this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use ibus pinyin input method to write Chinese. I set it to display 10 candidates each time. Just enter shi, then press tab until you run out of choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For shi I count 237 （23 x 10 + 7 in the last box). There are probably more, but these will be the most common ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For someone like me, who has problems with tones, this represents an enormous problem!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;季姬寂，集鸡，鸡即棘鸡。棘鸡饥叽，季姬及箕稷济鸡。鸡既济，跻姬笈，季姬忌，急咭鸡，鸡急，继圾几，季姬急，即籍箕击鸡，箕疾击几 伎，伎即齑，鸡叽集几基，季姬急极屐击鸡，鸡既殛，季姬激，即记《季姬击鸡记》。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T23:26:33.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29904" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29907" CreationDate="2018-05-23T01:12:26.850" Score="1" ViewCount="12068" Body="&lt;p&gt;This cropped up on my Facebook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/coMRtm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/coMRtm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;you vs the guy she tells you not to worry about... 我草 我操&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you vs the guy she tells you not to worry about...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我草 我操&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;wǒ cǎo wǒ cāo&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get the impression that this is rude, but anyway...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is this funny?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at some sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%8D%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;草&lt;/a&gt; (wǒ cǎo) = my grass, but YouDao indicates this might be short for &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E6%88%91%E8%A6%81%E8%8D%89%E4%BD%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;我要草你&lt;/a&gt; (wǒ yào cǎo nǐ) = I want [to grass] you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%93%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;操&lt;/a&gt; (wǒ cāo) = me hold (but &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#zh-CN/en/%E6%88%91%E6%93%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; says this means &quot;I fuck&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess 我草 means &quot;I want you&quot; (in a kind of reassuring way) whereas 我操 means &quot;I fuck&quot; (the guy you're not meant to worry about).  I don't feel too confident with this translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T02:03:21.613" Title="Why is 我草 (wǒ cǎo) vs. 我操 (wǒ cāo) funny?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29904" CreationDate="2018-05-23T01:39:25.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since both 草 and 操 rhyme with cao4 (f..k) and they are easier to be typed out through pinyin input, they are often used as the slang characters in the internet language to replace the original cao4 character. It means the same as f word in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T01:39:25.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29904" CreationDate="2018-05-23T02:06:41.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;操(cào), slang, fuck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Swear character might be replaced by similar character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;操 -&gt; 草;  艹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;傻逼 -&gt; 煞笔; 纱布; 沙比; SB; S13&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牛逼 -&gt; 牛B; NB&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你妈 -&gt; 尼玛;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;操你妈 -&gt; 草泥马; 超耐磨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去你妈了个逼 -&gt; 我去年买了个表, wqnmlgb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去你妈了个大傻逼, 操你妈 -&gt; 我去年买了个登山包, 超耐磨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VfVaQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VfVaQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alpaca is called 草泥马&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T02:06:41.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29904" CreationDate="2018-05-23T03:32:25.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the difference is that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我草 is used to curse, possibly translated like: &lt;em&gt;frick me&lt;/em&gt;; it is more &lt;em&gt;figurative&lt;/em&gt; in usage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; in this scenario is going to be left upset.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我操 means the same thing but &lt;em&gt;literally&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning that the &lt;strong&gt;guy she tells you not to worry about&lt;/strong&gt; is going to get some action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T03:32:25.240" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29908" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29929" CreationDate="2018-05-23T03:36:23.480" Score="4" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose I have a phrase like 说得很好, and I want to know how this phrase is normally used (that is, what usually comes before or after, e.g. maybe it's most commonly used in conjunction with the phrase 说英文).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Books, or even better, TV or movie scripts, would be the best place to search. In English, Google books would be what I would search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anything equivalent to a Google books search in Chinese? Is there any large database of books and TV/movie scripts that I could search?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: while it's true that dictionaries provide this service to some extent, in many cases I find the amount of material too small. Considering this, please limit answers to &lt;em&gt;databases of literature&lt;/em&gt; or ways to search them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15759" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T13:00:14.437" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T13:02:22.333" Title="Chinese literature database 中文文学作品资料库" Tags="&lt;literature&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29908" CreationDate="2018-05-23T04:27:35.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&amp;amp;q=%E8%AF%B4%E5%BE%97%E5%BE%88%E5%A5%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Books&lt;/a&gt; works with Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.91dict.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;91dict&lt;/a&gt; is a dictionary started by YYETS subtitle group. If you search your &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.91dict.com/words?w=%E8%AF%B4%E5%BE%97%E5%BE%88%E5%A5%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;说得很好&lt;/a&gt; and then click the &quot;场景例句&quot; you can see how it is used in sentences. The only snag is that usually the original language was English and these are translated subtitle sentences that you are getting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T04:27:35.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29910" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29912" CreationDate="2018-05-23T05:08:20.287" Score="4" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E7%99%8C%0D%0A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;'s definition of 癌 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;cancer / carcinoma / also pr. [yan2] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E7%99%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MoE&lt;/a&gt; put their main pronunciation of 癌 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;yán&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which might make it look like a TW thing but &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/~%E7%99%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;兩岸&lt;/a&gt;'s entry just reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ái&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When and/or where is 癌 pronounced yán?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T09:57:03.377" Title="When/where is cancer [癌] pronunced yán?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29910" CreationDate="2018-05-23T05:39:43.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My dictionary (《现代汉语词典》) says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;旧读yan2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means it used to be read as yan2 in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how long ago when the &quot;yan2&quot; reading disappeared, but currently the pronunciation is not used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally never heard of the reading of &quot;yan2&quot; in my entire life. Only found it when I checked the dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T05:39:43.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29910" CreationDate="2018-05-23T06:28:01.403" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shen-nong.com/chi/exam/specialties_cancermedicine.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;神農氏&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中國傳統醫學對癌症的描述. 癌，系由古代巖、岩、嵒等字轉化而來。因癌瘤之形如岩石，累累堅硬，高突不平，故取其音義而名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese traditional medicine, cancer is described as like rock (岩), so it is pronounced as [yan2].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%99%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary,&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, this character used to be pronounced identically as 岩 (yán). Its pronunciation was changed to ái in December 1962 to avoid the homophony between 癌 (“cancer”) and 炎 (yán, “inflammation”) (compare 肺炎 (fèiyán, “pneumonia”) and 肺癌 (fèi'ái, “lung cancer”)). The new pronunciation ái stems from dialectal pronunciations of 岩 (“rock; cliff”) /ŋai/, influenced by 崖 (yá, yái, “cliff”).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.macaudata.com/macaubook/book244/html/04201.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;More info in Traditional Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;癌，在不同的地方有不同的讀音。在廣州話地區，它的粵音讀如“岩”，取“喦”之讀音；在內地，它的普通話讀如“皚”(ai)，即“埃”的第二聲；在台灣，它的國語讀音即讀如“岩”(yán)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;為甚麼“癌”字的讀音會有這些差異呢? “癌”字的最早注音，見於《中華大字典》：“癌讀若嵒。”一九一五年版的《辭源》，也注為“讀如喦”。喦，即岩的異體字。粵音據此一直至今都讀如“岩”。國語也曾一度據此讀如“岩”音。一九二一年，由民國政府的“國語統一籌備會”(魯迅也是該會會員)所訂正的《校改國音字典》，依然將“癌”的國音訂為“碞”。“碞”也是“岩”的異體字。直至今日，台灣也是按照這種讀音，沒有改變。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那麼，內地的普通話為甚麼又要把“癌”字改讀為“皚”音呢? 它又是甚麼時候改讀此音的呢? 原來，內地一直到一九六一年，都是把“癌”讀如“岩”的。當年, 新華字典大修，編者考慮到普通話中的“癌症”和“炎症”讀音完全一樣，容易造成混淆，故參考某些方言的“岩”字讀如“崖”音，於是便推薦“癌”讀“皚”音。一九六二年修訂的直排本《新華字典》，便將“癌”的國音注為ái，並用括號說明“舊讀yán”。一九六五年和一九七三年兩次印行的《現代漢語詞典》試用本，也都把“癌”字的注音改成“ái，(舊讀yán)”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當時採用的這種注音方式，有兩個用意：一是表示ái，這個音不是印錯了，而是有意推荐的跟舊讀不同的音；二是表明，如果你不贊同ái的音，也可以讀舊音yán(岩)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;林語堂主編的台灣一九七二年版《當代漢英詞典》，一方面堅持“癌”的舊讀yán，另一方面則注明有人主張讀ái，用來跟“炎症”的“炎”區別。態度十分客觀。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到了一九八五年十二月，國家語言文字工作委員會、國家教育委員會、廣播電視部聯合頒佈了《普通話異讀詞審音表》，進一步取消了“癌”字的舊讀yán，統讀為ái。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至於粵音，由於“癌”與“炎”的讀音不同，不會混淆，所以毋需改讀，仍照舊讀如“岩”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="808" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T09:57:03.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29913" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29915" CreationDate="2018-05-23T06:47:24.920" Score="1" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have installed Chinese character dictionary popup plugin into the browser and it showed for 说 character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;说   說   shuì   to persuade&#xA;说   說   shuō   to speak; to say; to explain; to scold; to tell off; a theory (typically the last character in a compound, as in 日心說|日心说 heliocentric theory)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct? Why does &lt;code&gt;shuì&lt;/code&gt; go first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T07:53:24.167" Title="My dictionary shows 说 is both shuì and shuō" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;transcription&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29913" CreationDate="2018-05-23T07:06:11.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The order means nothing.  Here is a simple guide:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 说 in 说服, 说客, 游说, use shuì.  shuō  for every case else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more simple rule, only use shuì when 游说, 说shuō服, 说shuō客 is acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T07:06:11.930" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29913" CreationDate="2018-05-23T07:28:56.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's correct. &#xA;shui4 说客 说士 lobbyist 说服 persuade 说导 enlighten etc.&#xA;However considering that many people today mix them up In pronunciation, 说 is supposed to be pronouned as shuo1 In both meanings, according to the latest edition of 《现代汉语词典》, with many other pronunciation adjustments as well.&#xA;The whole thing is controversial. Highly educated people refuse to succumb to the mispronunciation, though so prevalent nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-05-23T07:53:24.167" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T07:53:24.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29916" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-23T08:53:36.410" Score="1" ViewCount="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to turn this sentence into chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's been a week since the middle exam is over&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18921" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T09:55:53.350" Title="It's been a week since the middle exam is over" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-05-23T14:09:37.890" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29904" CreationDate="2018-05-23T09:03:07.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, it's always wo3 cao4. There is no wo3 cao1 or wo3 cao3 at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cao4 is in verbal Chinese only. I don't think there is an official character for it. The most likely right spelling for cao4 is 肏. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However this character is extremely uncommon in modern Chinese. Not even most Chinese people know this character, so people just use 草，操，曹 as the character for the word cao4 (only in wo3 cao4). All of these characters, regardless of their original pronunciation, should be pronounced as cao4 in the phrase wo3 cao4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw, I'm native Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19738" LastEditorUserId="17462" LastEditDate="2018-05-30T14:21:39.753" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T14:21:39.753" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29886" CreationDate="2018-05-23T09:17:41.847" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;发财is informal, like &quot;make big money&quot;. Depending on the context, it may sound uneducated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;致富 is formal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19738" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T09:17:41.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29916" CreationDate="2018-05-23T09:55:53.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do you mean by &quot;middle exam&quot;? If you mean the second of three, then I'd say 第二个考试以后已经过了一个星期的时间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T09:55:53.350" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29869" CreationDate="2018-05-23T10:00:55.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;YES, it is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的名字是……    =   My name is ...&#xA;我的名字叫……    =   My name is ...&#xA;我是……         =   I am&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19722" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T10:00:55.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29921" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-23T12:43:13.590" Score="2" ViewCount="714" Body="&lt;p&gt;When pronounced as a 4th tone, this character has the meaning &quot;to think/regard as/replace, suitable/adequate, at or in the very same&quot;. It's the first meaning I'm interested in. My dictionary gives the example sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你当我不知道吗？ Do you think I've no idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is, I can't find any more example sentences or articles or information on how to use this or when it's suitable to use it, because 当 pronounced as a 1st tone is more common and all my search results are for that pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are - can anyone provide me some examples of how to use this character (4th tone)? And can anyone explain when to use it? (what is the difference between 你当我不知道吗 and 你以为我不知道?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T15:46:17.717" Title="How do I use the character 当, pronounced as a 4th tone?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29921" CreationDate="2018-05-23T13:02:32.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to《规范》one of the meanings of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;dàng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以为&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and they give the sample sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我当你不来了呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems the difference between 当 and 以为 is minimal at best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for other example sentences, here's a gloss of the &lt;strong&gt;PLC&lt;/strong&gt; dictionary provided by Pleco:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ADJECTIVE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 proper; right; appropriate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以上意见当否, 请批示。 &#xA;  Yǐshàng yìjian dàng fǒu, qǐng pīshì.&#xA;  We are awaiting your comment on the proposals set forth above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 that very (day, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当李的产量 &#xA;  dàng lǐ de chǎnliàng&#xA;  the output of that season &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 of the same; of one's own&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当村的小伙伴们 &#xA;  dàng cūn de xiǎo huǒbàn men&#xA;  little friends of one's village &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;VERB&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 match; be equal to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他一个人能当两个人用。 &#xA;  Tā yī ge rén néng dàng liǎng ge rén yòng.&#xA;  He can do the work of two persons put together. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 treat as; regard as; take for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不要把支流当主流。 &#xA;  Bùyào bǎ zhīliú dàng zhǔliú.&#xA;  Don’t take minor aspects for major ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 think&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我当你不知道呢。 &#xA;  wǒ dàng nǐ bùzhīdào ne.&#xA;  Well, I thought you didn’t know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4 pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当衣服 &#xA;  Dàng yīfu&#xA;  pawn one’s clothes; put one’s clothes in pawn &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully that gives you a better idea of how it's used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T13:02:32.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29921" CreationDate="2018-05-23T14:08:10.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So my questions are - can anyone provide me some examples of how to use this character (4th tone)? And can anyone explain when to use it? (what is the difference between 你当我不知道吗 and 你以为我不知道?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the difference between 你当我不知道吗 and 你以为我不知道吗: there is no difference in meaning between these two sentences. 你当我不知道吗 is used more in spoken language. Well, 你以为我不知道吗 is used in both spoken and written. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When/how to use 当 dang4: basically 当 is one considers/believes/have an impression in one's mind. For example, 你当我傻呀?！ which connotes that in your mind you consider I am silly. More examples for this: 你当我是什么？我当你不存在。拿我当你啊！我可以当这件事情没有发生过。... ... and lots of more. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, it can be used whenever you want to express that someone would consider something/a person as XXX, like those examples above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help you out! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T14:08:10.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29904" CreationDate="2018-05-24T05:22:24.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're all slangs coming from the Internet, original characters are &quot;我肏&quot;, a swear word that means &quot;I fuck&quot; or &quot;FUCK!&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But typing this 肏 character into a computer is somehow difficult and lots of people don't even know this character(they know how to say it, but not how to write it). So people now tend to use (almost) homophones  like 操 or 草(or even more weirdly simplified 艹 or 艸).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19549" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T05:22:24.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29886" CreationDate="2018-05-24T06:03:52.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;致富 is a process to be rich. 发财 is a result to be rich.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;致富 means you are not a rich man now. If you want to be a rich man, you have to find a way to be a rich man. The process is called 致富。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发财 means you've already got a lot of money. you are wealthy. In Chinese, 你发财了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15740" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T06:03:52.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29921" CreationDate="2018-05-25T15:39:42.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你当4我不知道吗?&lt;/code&gt; is odd for me, sounds like an old Beijing accents, However, 值当4  is a typical Beijing word, though also used all over country. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other example, in traditional folk art, the old Beijing or Tianjin artist say a famous opening poem, one of the line is 养狼当犬看家难, they will say 当4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting part is young artist also say 养狼当4犬看家难, but they won't say 当4作 but 当1作, imply that they only learn the pronunciation from the art teacher, the accents are vanishing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 当 is related to &lt;code&gt;pawn&lt;/code&gt;, it will always 4th tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妥当0 or 4, 稳当0 or 4 ( Both mainly used in north, especially around Beijing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-05-25T15:46:17.717" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T15:46:17.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29908" CreationDate="2018-05-25T16:04:25.673" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://ccl.pku.edu.cn:8080/ccl_corpus/index.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;database of the Center for Chinese Linguistics PKU&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It supports modern and ancient Chinese, context-view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pattern search examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    爱(V,=2)不(V) will get 爱执行不执行, 2 characters following 爱, then 不 and max 10(default) characters.&#xA;    &#xA;    爱(V,2-5)不(V), 2 to 5 characters following 爱,&#xA;    &#xA;    爱(V,&amp;lt;5)不(V)&#xA;    &#xA;    有(V,&amp;lt;8)没(V,&amp;gt;7) wrong, only support 1 condition&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has many other features, described in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://ccl.pku.edu.cn:8080/ccl_corpus/CCLCorpus_Readme.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;documentation&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T13:02:22.333" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T13:02:22.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29930" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-26T00:15:40.903" Score="1" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the German Chinese web page &lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.leo.org/forum/viewWrongentry.php?idThread=1373913&amp;amp;lang=de&amp;amp;lp=chde&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; there is a question about the use of 把&#xA;in 我们把那张画儿挂上去吧。So I thought, just rearrange to 我们挂上去那幅画吧。to try to explain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, my friend, 晓云, immediately said: 笨蛋的老外，这样不行！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked why, she immediately said, &quot;我们把那张画儿挂上去吧。is how we say it.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;But if I don't use 把？&quot; I asked?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She said, &quot; 我们挂上那幅画吧。is OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I would like to know what you think and if possible, why  我们挂上去那幅画吧。with 上去 is not acceptable, but, if I leave out the 去， 我们挂上那幅画吧。is acceptable. How are they different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T05:17:40.937" Title="How are 我们把那张画儿挂上去吧。and 我们挂上去那幅画吧。 different?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29930" CreationDate="2018-05-26T00:57:20.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 我们] [2. 挂] [3. 上去] [4. 那幅画] [5. 吧]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. subject] [2. verb] [3. directional (verb) complement] [4. object] [5. final particle]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem here is, in Chinese grammar, the object should be inserted between the 'verb' and the 'directional complement'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is the correct structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 我们] [2. 挂] [3. 那幅画] [4. 上去] [5. 吧]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. subject] [2. verb] [3. object] [4. directional (verb) complement] [5. final particle]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;why 我们挂上去那幅画吧。with 上去 is not acceptable, but, if I leave out the 去， 我们挂上那幅画吧。is acceptable. How are they different?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why &amp;quot;我们挂上去那幅画吧&amp;quot; is not acceptable has been explained above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;我们挂上那幅画吧&amp;quot; is not technically incorrect, but the meaning is ambitious. Since the indirect object is omitted, it could mean &amp;quot;我们(在身上)挂上那幅画吧&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;我们(在墙上)挂上那幅画吧&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both &amp;quot;我们把那张画儿挂上去吧&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;我们挂那幅画上去吧&amp;quot; are clear and correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我们挂上去那幅画吧 is grammatically incorrect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我们挂上那幅画吧  is too ambitious, it needs an indirect object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我们挂那幅画吧 actually removed the ambiguity, because '挂上' is equally applicable for 'on person' and 'on the wall', while '挂' strongly implied  'to hang (on the wall)'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of [verb]+ [direct object] +[indirect object]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot; I give you a toy&amp;quot;,  'you' is the indirect object, and 'toy' is the direct object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;similarly, in &amp;quot;我们(在墙上)挂上那幅画吧&amp;quot;, '那幅画' is the direct object, '墙'is the indirect object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T01:06:27.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29930" CreationDate="2018-05-26T00:59:17.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don’t know how to explain it .if you don’t use 把 that sounds weird .But it does not affect the meaning of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19747" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T00:59:17.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29930" CreationDate="2018-05-26T04:45:10.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot; 我们挂上那幅画吧&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is verb, not 收起, 扔掉 or anything else but 挂上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们把那张画儿挂上去.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is 那张(not 这张...) or 画(not 照片...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T04:45:10.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29930" CreationDate="2018-05-26T05:17:40.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These sentences are correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们把那张画儿挂上去吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那张画儿挂在墙上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把那张画挂在墙上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the point is the verb 挂. 挂 is usually followed with the location words/phrases, like 在墙上，在xxx, and it's not that natural when it's followed by the direct object, like 画，照片，etc. However, if you want to express you hang something, you might have to use the auxiliary word 把. The structure is 把...挂 (+ location phrases). For example, 把 这张画 挂 在墙上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T05:17:40.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29935" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-26T09:36:42.803" Score="1" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最初的体验便是心跳加速，仿佛有一只小锤不停地捶打你的喉咙。不吃饭时，这种感觉时轻悠悠的，吃了饭，这个小锤便从喉咙升到头顶，产生轻微的震动，震得头有些疼。不知为什么，我觉得这是一种生命的体验。在这样的反应中，生命好像&lt;strong&gt;听得见摸得着了&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the bold part uses a degree particle, and there are two components concatenated without any conjugation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the sentence structure is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(听得见 + 摸得着) 了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I then don't understand what it means. It looks like the sentence means &quot;listening to it feels like seeing it, and... &quot; but then &quot;touching on it feels like touching on it...&quot; which does not make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I don't understand the last 了. Is it for meaning the change of a status, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is my grammatical understanding correct? Then what does the bold part mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;EDIT&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To clarify my point, I understand the verbs here are result complements. I also understand what 听得见 means here (the action 听 results in 见, which is  &quot;listening to it results in seeing&quot;). But 摸得着 then does not make sense, as 摸 and 着 seem to mean the same, and so it sounds like the action of touching results in touching...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least if it is 摸得懂, I understand it. (as the verb before and after the complement means different)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-06-02T08:52:45.057" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T08:52:45.057" Title="What does 听得见摸得着了 mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29935" CreationDate="2018-05-26T10:17:57.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;生命好像听得见摸得着了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence can be paraphrased as 生命好像&lt;strong&gt;可以被&lt;/strong&gt;听得见、摸得着了. It can be translated to &lt;em&gt;it seems that now life might be heard and touched.&lt;/em&gt; The reason why 了 is there is that originally we assume that life is not something that can be heard and touched, but in author's case he feels like he could be able to do so. 了 here denotes now the situation changed(unable -&gt; able).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T10:17:57.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29935" CreationDate="2018-05-26T10:23:14.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;First look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Result complement&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Result complements are a kind of verbal complement that appears very frequently in Chinese. Surprisingly enough, they're used to describe the result of a verb.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;看 - 看见&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;看 alone means 'to look'. 看见 includes the result - 'to see'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;听 - 听到&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;听 alone means 'to listen', but 听到 means 'to hear'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then look at potential particle '得'(can/ able to) and '不'(cannot/ unable to)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;there are only two potential particles&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;看见 = see&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;看得见 = can see; 看不见 = can't see&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;听到 = hear&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;听得到 = can hear; 听不到 = can't hear&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[subject] + [verb] + [potential particle] + [result complement]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我看得见, 听得到&quot;  = &quot;I can see and hear&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[object]+ [verb] + [potential particle] + [result complement]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;(object)是听得到摸得着了&quot; = &quot;(object) is hearable and touchable&quot; = &quot;(object) can be heard and touched&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the final particle '了' indicates change of status, meaning 'object' &lt;strong&gt;has became&lt;/strong&gt; hearable and touchable&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means the object (life) felt &quot;&lt;strong&gt;real&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (has physical form and makes actual sound)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In &quot;生命好像听得见摸得着了&quot;,  '生命' is most likely the object, because 'life' can't hear or touch&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-05-26T21:37:31.307" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T21:37:31.307" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29938" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-26T11:29:46.237" Score="5" ViewCount="375" Body="&lt;p&gt;I stumbled upon these 2 sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;这个城市人口比十年前增加了一倍&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;这个城市人口比十年前增加了两倍&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;The city’s population has doubled from a decade ago&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I though &lt;code&gt;倍&lt;/code&gt; always multiplies the number standing in front of it, it seems like in case of &lt;code&gt;一&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How come? Is there any logical explanation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16881" LastEditorUserId="16881" LastEditDate="2018-05-26T13:52:44.733" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T15:11:26.770" Title="Saying 'doubled' in Chinese 一倍 vs 两倍" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29938" CreationDate="2018-05-26T11:43:09.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both express doubled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s a bit like how:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a 100% increase (一倍)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is the same as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a two-fold increase (两倍)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A phenomenon that is equally confusing in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare: &lt;strong&gt;一倍&lt;/strong&gt; example sentences from &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这座城市将要扩展一倍。 &#xA;  Zhè ⁴zuò chéngshì jiāngyào kuòzhǎn yị̄ ²bèi.&#xA;  This city will double its size. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;学生人数增加了一倍。 &#xA;  Xuésheng rénshù zēngjiāle yị̄ ²bèi.&#xA;  The number of students has doubled. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;strong&gt;两倍&lt;/strong&gt; example sentences from &lt;em&gt;Tuttle&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他的收人是三年前的两倍。 &#xA;  Tā de shōurén shì sān nián qián de liǎng bèi.&#xA;  His income is double what it was three years ago. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他现在挣的钱是先前工作的两倍。 &#xA;  Tā xiànzài zhèng de qián shì xiānqián gōngzuò de liǎng bèi.&#xA;  He's earning twice as much as in his previous job. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-05-26T15:11:26.770" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T15:11:26.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29938" CreationDate="2018-05-26T12:02:45.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically, when you say &quot;增加了n倍&quot;, &quot;n倍&quot; is describing the &lt;em&gt;difference&lt;/em&gt; the two number. So the original &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; becomes &lt;code&gt;x*(n+1)&lt;/code&gt;, while the difference is &lt;code&gt;n*x&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to say that the latter number is just &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; times the former, then it is &quot;增加&lt;strong&gt;到&lt;/strong&gt;了(原来的)n倍&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in casual speech, people may not always respect this rule, which makes it confusing. Sometimes we have to make a confirmation to make sure we get the real number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T12:02:45.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29938" CreationDate="2018-05-26T12:04:17.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Math:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倍 means multiple X * 1,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;增加了一倍 means x + x * 1, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;增加了2 倍 means x + x * 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;某某是它的2倍  means 某某 =  x * 2 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;某某是它的1倍 means 某某 = x * 1, = x.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 我的分数是你的一倍 imply scores are equal technically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right one should be 我的分数比你多一倍.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T12:04:17.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29938" CreationDate="2018-05-26T13:10:35.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;倍 is &lt;em&gt;time&lt;/em&gt; in English. However, there are few expressions/phrases that can make difference when they are used in a sentence. I try to summarize a bit: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;X 比 Y 增加n倍: X = Y*(n+1);&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;X 是 Y 的n倍: X = Y*n;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;X 比 Y 多n倍: X = Y*(n+1);&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those phrases are clear and will not cause any confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, the most confusing phrase is X 比 Y翻n倍. Some take it as X = Y&lt;em&gt;n, some think X = Y&lt;/em&gt;(n+1), and some even think X = Y* 2^n. I indeed don't have any official answer for this so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T13:10:35.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29935" CreationDate="2018-05-26T23:27:19.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;最初的体验便是心跳加速，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;First (I) experience a speeding up of my heartbeat,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;仿佛有一只小锤不停地捶打你的喉咙。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(it) seems there is a little hammer incessantly hammering in my throat.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不吃饭时，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;when I'm not eating,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这种感觉（not this 时)是轻悠悠的，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This kind of feeling is slight,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吃了饭，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;during meals,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这个小锤便从喉咙升到头顶，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;this little hammer moves from my throat to the top of my head，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;产生轻微的震动，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;producing a slight vibration and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;震得头有些疼。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;causing a small headache.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不知为什么，我觉得这是一种生命的体验。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't know why, (but) I feel this is some kind of life experience.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在这样的反应中，生命好像听得见摸得着了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;During these moments,  life (itself) seems audible, palpable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does Chinese use 了？I think it is mainly for emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T23:27:19.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29944" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29945" CreationDate="2018-05-27T02:59:25.257" Score="1" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading a news article (about Trump canceling his meeting with Kim Jong Un, 25 May, 2018) on a flight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NI36zm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NI36zm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Newspaper snippet&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand the use of 在来自中 in the second sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当天早些时候，&lt;strong&gt;在来自中&lt;/strong&gt;、俄、美、英、韩等五国20多名记者的见证下，朝鲜炸毁了丰溪里核试验场的坑道，。。。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;dāngtiān zǎoxiēshíhòu, &lt;strong&gt;zài láizì zhōng&lt;/strong&gt;, é, měi, yīng, hán děng wǔ guó 20 duō míng jìzhě de jiànzhèng xià, cháoxiǎn zhàhuǐle fēngxīlǐ héshìyànchǎng de kēngdào, ...&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the early morning, with [???], Russia, the USA, England, South Korea, and 5 other countries, and 20+ journalists to witness, North Korea blew up Fengxi's nuclear test facility tunnels, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand what &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%9D%A5%E8%87%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;来自&lt;/a&gt; (láizì) = &quot;come from&quot; is doing here, nor what &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中&lt;/a&gt; (zhōng) = &quot;within&quot; is achieving in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 在来自中 mean in 在来自中、俄、美、英、韩等五国, ...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T10:28:46.433" Title="What does 在来自中 (zài láizì zhōng) mean in 在来自中、俄、美、英、韩等五国, ...?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29944" CreationDate="2018-05-27T03:06:13.907" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;中 is the short form of 中国 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中 = China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There’s a 顿号 (、) after 中 so you can tell that it is part of a list, that would aid your deciphering methods letting you know it’s not a phrase with the words in front of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-05-27T03:16:32.967" LastActivityDate="2018-05-27T03:16:32.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29944" CreationDate="2018-05-27T03:59:45.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it more understandable when it's translated into: &lt;em&gt;under the witnessing of 20+ journalists coming from 5 countries including China, Russia,....&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在来自中、俄、美、英、韩等五国20多名记者的见证下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence has a small issue here. 等 should be deleted because 中、俄、美、英、韩 altogether already reached to 5 countries. The correct sentence should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在来自中、俄、美、英、韩五国20多名记者的见证下...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在来自中、俄、美等五国20多名记者的见证下...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As fefe pointed out, the original sentence is also correct 在来自中、俄、美、英、韩等五国20多名记者的见证下. But you can remove 等 as well. It might be about the personal stylish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-05-28T07:45:17.073" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T07:45:17.073" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29947" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-27T05:28:15.973" Score="7" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually X+然 has some kind of meaning related to X, especially archaic usage. However I do not see any relationship between 居 &quot;to reside&quot; and &quot;unexpectedly&quot;. Are there any historical sources that explain where this expression came from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T02:28:20.557" Title="What is the etymology of 居然?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29254" CreationDate="2018-05-27T06:01:14.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The signature is 石青, &#xA;After googled the name, I found at least 3 painters named 石青 on the web, both mainly draw birds and flowers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But compare the calligraphy, it does not look like same person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uf1EV.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uf1EV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the 壬戌 year:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2年、62年、122年、182年、242年、302年、362年、422年、482年、542年、602年、662年、722年、782年、842年、902年、962年, 1022年、1082年、1142年、1202年、1262年、1322年、1382年、1442年、1502年、1562年、1622年、1682年、1742年、1802年、1862年、1922年、1982年。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the style of the calligraphy and the poem, I think it is painted in 1982.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-05-27T06:14:34.127" LastActivityDate="2018-05-27T06:14:34.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29254" CreationDate="2018-05-27T07:40:22.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters to identify are &lt;strong&gt;石青&lt;/strong&gt;.「石」is easy enough to identify in seal script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「青」is written in the variant form「」. Note that neither「青」nor「」resemble the original form at all, being originally comprised of「屮」(&lt;em&gt;sprouting plant&lt;/em&gt;) and「井」(phonetic component) (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/28196/what-s-the-difference-between-%E5%86%86-and-%E6%9C%88-as-character-components/28198#28198&quot;&gt;another answer&lt;/a&gt; I wrote on the glyph origin of「青」). Taking the original form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/S6kI3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/S6kI3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we morph「井」a little bit then add「口」to get&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qkBAo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qkBAo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/STpF9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/STpF9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and finally the monstrosities of variants&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4p2Wi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4p2Wi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are mostly variants from the latter half of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhou Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; (Spring and Autumn, Warring States) that have been made redundant after &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin%27s_wars_of_unification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qin Unification&lt;/a&gt;. This directly leads on to the Seal Script form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k3W0e.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k3W0e.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, the addition of「口」mentioned earlier was a Warring States practice, and was actually pretty standard in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;State of Chu&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TyqxY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TyqxY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while not at all in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;State of Qin&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jQC6O.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jQC6O.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our current way of writing「青」is descended directly from the Qin variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-05-27T12:35:00.353" LastActivityDate="2018-05-27T12:35:00.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29950" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-27T08:29:21.280" Score="4" ViewCount="553" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chinese teacher says she doesn't care. But for future reference, is 个 acceptable as a measure word for all nouns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19754" LastEditorUserId="17462" LastEditDate="2018-05-30T05:34:41.963" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T18:03:08.117" Title="Is 个 acceptable for all nouns?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29950" CreationDate="2018-05-27T08:50:19.487" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, of course. &lt;a href=&quot;http://old.pep.com.cn/xgjy/hyjx/hyxxzy/hyxx/yffd/201009/t20100901_855523.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt;'s a summary about the kinds of cases where 个 is inappropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;sth slender. e.g. 一根绳子, 一条蛇, 一条路; 一线光明, 一绺头发, 一丝细雨.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;sth thin. e.g. 一张纸, 一面红旗, 一幅画.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;sth solid in certain kinds of shapes. e.g. 一块砖, 一团面, 一坨泥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;sth amorphous. e.g. 一杯水, 一壶油, 一斤米, 一碗沙子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;sth forming part of a greater whole. e.g. 一层楼, 一重山, 一级台阶, 一节甘蔗, 一段木头, 一截电线.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;sth where the measure words come from verbs or nouns and can't be replaced by 个 without risk of changing their meaning. e.g. 一捆柴, 一把米, 一撮毛, 一抱草, 一包糖, 一任县长, 一束花,&#xA;一串糖葫芦, 一堵墙, 一服药, 一堆土, 一封信, 一滴水, 一朵花, 一本书, 一篇文章, 一瓣花瓣.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And note that even if 个 could be used instead, the meaning might be different. e.g. 一位老先生 (respectful) vs 一个老先生 (not necessarily rude, but not respectful).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At last, this might be an opinion issue; I agree that they're understandable in daily conversion; the listener will try to supply the appropriate measure word. But IMO the abuse of 个 as measure word is not acceptable for Chinese learner, especially who want to master natural Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T05:07:12.753" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29950" CreationDate="2018-05-27T12:04:42.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reply to @lly&#xA;Your example(three head of cattle) is not appropriate,  because English and Chinese are belong to different language families. For example, if I say tense is useless, since I can say 我昨天回答了. Why do I need to change the form of verbs? Obviously my predicate does not make sense. I should not use a language to judge another language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You given another topic to discuss, what OP asks is Can we use 个 as global classifier, yours is that the classifier is redundant(only for being knowledgable)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Is the classifier redundant?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Linguists have found that a language won't have plural forms and classifiers at the same time. That is a interesting fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English does not have quantitative relation forms for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;syntactic category&lt;/a&gt;, so it does not have classifiers only measures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Classifiers are related to gender of noun, it classify the noun.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Is the 个 acceptable for all nouns?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check below, 个 is common word, but in some special scenario, in my story I don't know the form of the object, 个 does not give me enough information, I don't know how many I need ( I think it is small). It is the least functional classifier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;================= original answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, but somebody does, which makes you confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A true story:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once I went to a drug store for kalium permanganicum(disinfectant), after I said what I need, the saleswomen asked me &quot;你要几个?&quot;, cause I had never bought it before, I didn't know what does it looks like, I replied: 可能需要几个. (Maybe several)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then she found some little box, I said: 一盒就够了... 这论个吗?(one box is enough, is this classified by 个?). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the first moment I realized the purpose of classifier, I still remember the scene even several years passed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-05-30T05:31:27.747" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T05:31:27.747" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29953" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29954" CreationDate="2018-05-27T12:39:24.153" Score="2" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西藏人之所以能适应这样的环境，是因为他们从小父母就要用牛油（据说，这种东西可以&lt;strong&gt;有一千零一种用处&lt;/strong&gt;）给他们擦身，并想方设法让他们接受烈日和狂风的锻炼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb on the sentence should be 有, but I don't understand what it means after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first thought that 零 here has a function of the following (according to Pleco):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[in expressions of time, age, money, weight, etc..., used between two different denomination]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一年零三天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;one year and three days&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it concatenates 一千 and 一, and turn to 1001.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then the meaning would result in something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is said that these things can be used in 1001 different ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is said that you can use these things in 1001 ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I don't understand why it is 1001. It this kind of expressions frequently used in Chinese? Does 1001 have any special meaning in Chinese? Is it used to emphasize the degree of amount is very large?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or does my grammatical understanding of 零 here correct in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T01:47:25.740" Title="What does 有一千零一种用处 mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29953" CreationDate="2018-05-27T12:50:35.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does indeed mean 1001.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key word here is &lt;strong&gt;據說&lt;/strong&gt;, which means &lt;em&gt;according to legends/wisdom/tradition&lt;/em&gt;, and thus 1001 is probably a local expression (whether Tibetan or their local variety of Chinese) for &lt;em&gt;a large amount&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;a wide variety&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-05-27T12:50:35.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29953" CreationDate="2018-05-27T13:16:30.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It just means &quot;many&quot;, obviously it is from One Thousand and One Nights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These numbers can be used as &quot;many&quot; in a literary context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三,  一生二, 二生三 by 老子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;九, biggest single number&lt;/strong&gt;, special in Chinese culture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十八: 2 * 9 = 18, a special number&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三十六: 4 * 9 = 36&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四十九, 7 * 7 = 49, a special number for Taoism&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;七十二: a special number for Taoism&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;八十一, 9 * 9,  a special number for Taoism&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-05-27T13:27:42.960" LastActivityDate="2018-05-27T13:27:42.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29904" CreationDate="2018-05-27T19:18:42.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, I don't think it's common to ban 肏. But saying &quot;肏&quot; is like saying &quot;fuck&quot; and add a note that &quot;fuck&quot; originally means to have sex intercourse with someone, while the person who swears usually isn't thinking about this at all. Basically every non-trival modification to the common usages without an obvious reason implies you are more likely thinking about its original meaning, and is likely more offensive. And 肏 is especially strong as it could be considered closer to the original. 操 is more likely to be banned as it is more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I don't think people don't recognize it. Teenagers could easily discover such characters, and find them funny at first, while someone on the Internet wants everything to be perfect and right and pretend that this don't normally happen. It's really the human instinct to want to know how to write such a common word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, technically, 肏/草/操 all mean the same. And the closest equivalents are all &quot;fuck&quot; instead of something like &quot;f***&quot;. 草 makes me think of some rude gamers who didn't want to talk friendly and just want to be rude, and appears either uneducated or too lazy to choose a character. (That's 10 years ago and I don't know how it is like now. It was common for some small online games to sell virtual goods to broadcast a message to everyone online.) Basically it was the norm of certain groups of especially rude people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without context, I can't know what is supposed to be funny. Occasionally people think it funny to pretend to be rude, whether they are pretending to be in the ruder or more normal group. But others can choose to agree or disagree. And it's almost always more offensive if someone wants to be creative in using swear words. But it's clearly not so creative if someone thinks it is useful to explain the obvious or compare with something. Neither is definite just from the word choice. I think it's possible that the funny part is misattributed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, tried to interpret it in another way, maybe it is about the feeling that is supposedly common for those rude gamers, compared to the feeling that someone got something bad randomly, if it's from a meme image and &quot;you&quot; are supposedly &quot;her&quot; boyfriend or something. (This explains it all. But if it actually is, you really should be careful and say the people involved are not real people when you are asking the next question about swear words.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11444" LastActivityDate="2018-05-27T19:18:42.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29947" CreationDate="2018-05-27T23:21:49.903" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a guess: the character 居 originally is made up &quot;From person squatting 尸 and upside down baby 古. Meaning the place you were born, dwelling.&quot; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseetymology.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chineseetymology.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe, the original meaning of 居然 was 'an unexpected pregnancy or birth'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an old character 毓 yù: give birth to; bring up, educate. In Cantonese this is apparently pronounced juk1. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attached are 2 images, one from zdic.net and one from chineseetymology.org&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One is an old version of 毓, the other is an old version of 居&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jn8up.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jn8up.gif&quot; alt=&quot;chineseetymology.org&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/biknM.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/biknM.gif&quot; alt=&quot;zdic.net&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All supposition of course!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-27T23:21:49.903" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29953" CreationDate="2018-05-28T00:26:14.940" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Jacob mentioned, it means “many”. Also, a thousand means a lot, one thousand and one implies there are even more ways ones may not have yet thought of (there is always another way that someone hasn’t thought of). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4663" LastEditorUserId="4663" LastEditDate="2018-05-28T01:47:25.740" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T01:47:25.740" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2018-05-28T00:26:14.940" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29959" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-28T00:49:46.260" Score="2" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know how to pronounce stuff like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玩儿 : war&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪儿 : nar &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男孩儿: nan har &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I recently came across 小偷儿. How would you pronounce that? Would it just sound like “xiao tour” like the English word “tour”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17614" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-05-28T00:51:43.527" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T04:28:45.430" Title="Understanding how to pronounce the “er” at end of words" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;erhuayin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29959" CreationDate="2018-05-28T01:20:51.343" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not like &lt;em&gt;tour&lt;/em&gt;. Tour is pronounced as &lt;em&gt;u r&lt;/em&gt;, like the sound of &lt;em&gt;sure&lt;/em&gt;. Actually, it's pronounced as the letter &lt;strong&gt;O&lt;/strong&gt; + &lt;em&gt;r&lt;/em&gt; sound with the first tone.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T01:20:51.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29959" CreationDate="2018-05-28T01:34:13.253" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;儿话音(er) is just a lazy pronunciation. try to speak &lt;code&gt;xiao tou er&lt;/code&gt; as fast as you can, you will find that when you speak it very fast, all vowels won't be pronounced fully and completed, that's it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T01:34:13.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29947" CreationDate="2018-05-28T02:44:12.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;out of my expection. I have never thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a famous 对联&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;客上天然居,居然天上客&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are customers visiting the Natural House, Unexpectedly, They come from the Heaven.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="19295" LastEditDate="2018-07-27T02:28:20.557" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T02:28:20.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29959" CreationDate="2018-05-28T04:28:45.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, &lt;a href=&quot;https://forvo.com/word/%E5%B0%8F%E5%81%B7%E5%84%BF/#zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Forvo&lt;/a&gt; actually has a recording of 小偷儿 that you can go and listen to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two kinds of erhua that you'll come across. One I like to call an integrated erhua, in the South this is the only kind of erhua you will find; so taking 偷儿 for instance it would become something like tēr ([t‘ər] or more accurately [t‘ɚ]). In southern areas the erhua always becomes an integrated ɚ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the North, though, you'll often hear what I like to call an affixed erhua. Again, taking 偷儿 for instance MSM pinyin matches it quite well: tou'r ([t‘ou̯˞]). Like a little r plopped on right at the end hanging out in the depths of your throat. You'll hear words like 牛儿、瓶儿、空儿 that sound like the erhua is just trailing there on the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find the southern pronunciations much easier to learn for foreigners but there's something enchanting about that Northern trailing &quot;er&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T04:28:45.430" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29964" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29965" CreationDate="2018-05-28T07:52:56.437" Score="4" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like a translation in putonghua for “tone contour” as in “the tone contour of 普通话 is 314”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found two terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;声调轮廓 from CC-CEDICT &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;音调曲线 from ABC dictionary&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are either (or both?) of these what I'm looking for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T20:12:33.117" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T20:12:33.117" Title="what's the term for “tone contour”?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;linguistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29964" CreationDate="2018-05-28T09:14:57.683" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only the first one is correct (聲調輪廓), as a jargon used in linguistics. The second one is a (bad) word-for-word translation of &lt;em&gt;tone&lt;/em&gt; (音調) + &lt;em&gt;contour&lt;/em&gt; (曲綫).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T09:14:57.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29944" CreationDate="2018-05-28T10:28:46.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe a pair of parentheses can help you understand the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在来自（中、俄、美）等五国。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T10:28:46.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29967" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29979" CreationDate="2018-05-28T15:53:26.230" Score="4" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Disclaimer:&lt;/strong&gt; I am not asking about &lt;strong&gt;reduplication&lt;/strong&gt; nor &lt;strong&gt;separable verbs&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that the Chinese often use the same verb twice as if deconstructing a sentence into smaller clauses. I have also noticed it's often optional. I am talking about such cases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我可以&lt;strong&gt;骑&lt;/strong&gt;自行车每天&lt;strong&gt;骑&lt;/strong&gt;100km。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我已经&lt;strong&gt;写&lt;/strong&gt;博士论文&lt;strong&gt;写了&lt;/strong&gt;一整天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never seen a similar property in any other language I had come in contact with, and would like to learn more about it. How is this thing called?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T18:15:56.390" Title="What is the phenomenon of putting a verb twice in a sentence called?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29968" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-28T17:24:13.067" Score="1" ViewCount="421" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have learned reading only so my reading and listening levels are drastically different. I finally started to learn speaking and listening five weeks ago but I have been quite struggling with distinguishing the different yet similar sounds while hearing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;shen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;xiang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;xian&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sheng&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;shan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;shang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;zhang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;zhen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;zheng&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;zhan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chuang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chuan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cheng&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;shi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;xi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not only these sounds, but Chinese also have 4 different sounds on each syllable, which is practically impossible for me to locate which sound points to which character and word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Honestly, even when I hear them many times all of these sounds sound the same, and it feels practically impossible to differentiate these sounds correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can Chinese people distinguish these sounds correctly? For example if a person says &lt;code&gt;xiàng&lt;/code&gt;, do Chinese correctly locate its word and accent?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do foreigners who are fluent in Chinese understand these sounds correctly? Or do they solely rely on context to differentiate which sounds they are?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Being non-natives, how can I improve myself to differentiate them properly?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T02:28:45.380" Title="How can I distinguish different yet similar sounds when listening?" Tags="&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29968" CreationDate="2018-05-28T19:01:31.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even native Chinese speakers sometimes have trouble distinguish similar sounding short phrases without enough context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 因緣 and 姻緣 are pronounced /Yīnyuán/ in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I only hear 'Yīnyuán' I cannot be sure it is '因緣', as in '因緣祭會'; or '姻緣', as in '姻緣天定'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漁火 /Yúhuǒ/ and 如火 /Rú huǒ/ are pronounced the same in Cantonese as /jyu4 fo2/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I only hear 'jyu4 fo2' I cannot be sure it is '漁火', as in '漁火點點'; or '如火', as in '如火如荼'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key is having enough context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Can Chinese people distinguish these sounds correctly? For example if a person says xiàng, do Chinese correctly locate its word and accent?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Do foreigners who are fluent in Chinese understand these sounds correctly?&lt;/em&gt; Or do they solely rely on context to differentiate which sounds they are?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Native Chinese and foreigners who are fluent in Chinese can distinguish the /ming/ and /Yì/ sound, but they won't be sure it is  明 or 名 ;  異 or 義&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Being non-natives, how can I improve myself to differentiate them properly?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the answer is 'speak more and listen more'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice: &lt;em&gt;common terms like 明白，知道，瞭解 can be distinguished easily because we use them so often, they would be the first things that come up in our mind when we hear the pinyin for them even with slight accent&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T19:58:07.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29968" CreationDate="2018-05-29T01:17:46.007" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very good question, which I also run into while I was learning English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My approach to this is to learn 最小的语言单位 (I defined it as a Minimum Language Unit, MLU). I invented that term here, lol. MLU is a minimum language unit that can express something in practice. For example, the single character 向 xiang 4 doesn't mean anything and it's only valid in the phrase like 方向. Put it in a sentence: 我找不到方向. Here I treat 我, 找不到，方向 as MLUs, because each denotes the minimum meaning of the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you read/listen, try not to focus on each single character, but on MLUs, because a single character might be meaningless for comprehension. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also the way I do for English. For example, &lt;strong&gt;I'll catch you later&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;make sure you won't be ripped off&lt;/strong&gt;, where &lt;em&gt;I'll&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;catch you later&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;make sure&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;you won't be&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;ripped off&lt;/em&gt; are all considered as my MLUs. In this way, my reading level and my listening level are almost the same and they are much better than my writing. When I listen, I try to catch those MLUs instead of word for word. This also helps the speed for comprehension. When you hear something spoken out in your second language, usually you might have to take some time to digest internally. The shorter time you consume, the better listening you will have. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another point, which is also very important, is the &lt;strong&gt;cadence&lt;/strong&gt;. When you hear a native speaker speaks, he/she  always follows some kind of rhythm and along with some tone emphasis(I am not sure how to describe it correctly, but hopefully it'll be clear). You should learn to capture that cadence as well. It would take you some time, but it wouldn't be very hard I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally had been very successful with this approach. My foreign colleagues, who are American native speakers, feel that they are free to communicate with me and easy to get their thoughts come through when we discuss technical issues. They don't have to slow down when they talk to me. I hope this approach could help you as well! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T01:17:46.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29968" CreationDate="2018-05-29T01:32:37.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course, Chinese can distinguish them.  But we highly rely on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you say &lt;code&gt;xiàng&lt;/code&gt; merely, I have no way to figure out it, 像? 向? 象?&#xA;If you have accents, it could be 想, 香, 翔...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you add more words, I will know it, the process is like unconscious pattern matching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Liu xiang xiang xiang hai zi yi yang xiang jia xiang de fang xiang fei xiang.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does not include tone indicator, but almost all Chinese will know it without a problem, believe it or not. In fact, &lt;strong&gt;When Chinese use pinyin in practical, we do not add tones.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is process:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First I read &lt;code&gt;Liu xiang&lt;/code&gt;, modern Chinese tend to use double characters to form word. That's why did not try to read &lt;code&gt;Liu&lt;/code&gt; only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Liu xiang&lt;/code&gt; match 刘翔 first in my mind, so I continue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xiang xiang&lt;/code&gt; would be 想象 immediately, then even if you don't know 刘翔, you still know &lt;code&gt;Liu xiang&lt;/code&gt; is a name, otherwise it doesn't make sense to be followed by 想象.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;hai zi&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; 孩子, &lt;code&gt;yi yang&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; 一样, then I realize &lt;code&gt;xiang xiang&lt;/code&gt; should be 想像. &#xA;the phrase is 想像孩子一样.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xiang jia?&lt;/code&gt; does not make sense , so I continue, &lt;code&gt;xiang jiang xiang&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;? 家乡&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then &lt;code&gt;de&lt;/code&gt; would be simply 的,  &lt;code&gt;fang xiang&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; 方向, until here,  I know the whole phrase should be 向家乡的方向, at last &lt;code&gt;fei xiang&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; 飞翔, no much sense, but this is best I can have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole process will be completed in seconds unconsciously, btw, I read a pinyin word directly, do not need to read as l + iu = liu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T01:32:37.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29972" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29977" CreationDate="2018-05-29T01:51:20.223" Score="5" ViewCount="1168" Body="&lt;p&gt;While talking about probability with mainland Chinese students I asked what they say for heads and tails of a Chinese coin. I was tossing a one Yuan coin, and they decided I could say in English &amp;quot;flower&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;number&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did not want to go on talking about language so I did not ask what they actually say in Chinese. But when I search on line I do not find anything like this. I mostly found 正面 and 反面, which are also what Google Translate offers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if 正面 and 反面 are just the technically correct terms, like &amp;quot;obverse&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;reverse&amp;quot; in English, which most people never say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there more common mainland expressions for the sides of a coin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-30T23:11:15.820" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T23:11:15.820" Title="How to say &quot;head&quot; and &quot;tails&quot; when flipping a coin?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29972" CreationDate="2018-05-29T02:26:56.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;擲毫 擲硬幣 擲銅板 &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%93%B2%E7%A1%AC%E5%B9%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%93%B2%E7%A1%AC%E5%B9%A3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;擲毫或擲硬幣、擲銅板是一種把硬幣彈到空中，透過它落下來後所顯示的結果（落下來後是&lt;strong&gt;正面&lt;/strong&gt;向上還是&lt;strong&gt;反面&lt;/strong&gt;向上），來解決事情的一種方法。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to this Wiki entry, 正面 and 反面 is what Chinese call &amp;quot;head and tails&amp;quot; of a coin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正面 of a coin is the one side with a figure head, and the side without a figure head is 反面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(For old Chinese coin, the 正面 is the one side with engraving, and 反面 had nothing on it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In Cantonese, &amp;quot;Head&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;公&amp;quot; (as in 公仔= figure) and &amp;quot;tails&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;字&amp;quot; (writing).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T02:26:56.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29972" CreationDate="2018-05-29T03:04:12.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;正面 and 反面 is the technical term for it I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colloquially, we use 字(the side with number) and 面(the side with head). In northeast, it's been erhua and it becomes 字儿 and 面儿. The interesting part is 面儿 is pronounced as mer4, but mianr4 is also correct I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T03:04:12.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29968" CreationDate="2018-05-29T03:07:33.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on what region they live in, quite a lot of natives cannot distinguish them very clearly, not only when listening, but also when speaking and typing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And that's why many Chinese input methods have the function 模糊音 like this:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZyJLp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZyJLp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, most time this is not a big deal in practice. There are already so many characters sharing exactly same sound after all, right? As dan said, &lt;strong&gt;focus on words&lt;/strong&gt;. Words and phrases in context are what really matter, not single characters : )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T03:07:33.640" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29967" CreationDate="2018-05-29T03:08:32.060" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this apparent phenomenon is more the result of the Chinese propensity for brevity and omission, omission especially of pronouns. I would not say this is unique to Chinese. Both sentences can be altered so that there is no repetition. If there are two propositions, you need 2 clauses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ride my bike, (I) ride 100 Km every day.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I've been writing my doctoral thesis, (I've been) writing the whole day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P1: I ride my bike every day. 我每天都骑自行车。P2: I ride 100 Km every day. 我每天都骑100公里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我可以骑自行车每天骑100km。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I (can) ride my bike every day and every day I ride 100 Km.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I (can) ride my bike every day. Every day I ride 100 Km.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1a. 我可以每天骑100公里自行车。(Probably not referring to a 100 Km long bike!)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I (can) ride my bike 100 Km every day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我已经写博士论文写了一整天。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2a. 我已经写博士论文一整天了。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T03:08:32.060" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29972" CreationDate="2018-05-29T03:19:12.363" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese use 正反 more than US people use obverse/reverse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other words are  花/字, but the side is controversial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The side of 中华人民共和国 is 正面, but many many people think 1元 is 正面, this would be more confused if you use 字/花. Which side is 字, is it 正面?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wQ6NW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wQ6NW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China bank realized this problem, the new coin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Twhpy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Twhpy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now 中国人民银行and 1 元 are on the same side, that is 正面, in this case 字 is 正面, 花 is 反面.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some dialect, people use 字/背.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T03:19:12.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29254" CreationDate="2018-05-29T06:51:10.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;S = Simplified Chinese version&lt;br&gt;&#xA;T = Traditional Chinese version&lt;br&gt;&#xA;F = The final version in calligraphy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;S: 故园春意浓，花开鸟声碎&lt;br&gt;&#xA;T: 故園春意濃，花開鳥聲碎&lt;br&gt;&#xA;F: 故園春意濃，花開鳥聲碎&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Time: 壬戌春月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Remark&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;開: The character 開 writes to the simplified Chinese character 门, which comes from cursive version of traditional Chinese character 門, and a 开 inside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translation&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The spring of hometown is evident everywhere, the flower opens and the bird chirp liquidly.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The last 壬戌 year is 1982, 春月 (spring-months) may include Jan, Feb and Mar. It should mean the season of spring here, not a certain month.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Time: 庚申冬月&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translation&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;November, 1980.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;S: 梅竹相间寒意去，翠鸟枝头独春鸣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;T: 梅竹相間寒意去，翠鳥枝頭獨春鳴&lt;br&gt;&#xA;F: 梅竹相间寒意去，翠鳥枝头独春鳴&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Time: 戊辰春月&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Author: 石青&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Remark&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;头: The cursive character 头 is very sloppy, writes to two linked dots. It is difficult to determine which character it is, if you are not a calligrapher, or whithout the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translation&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The chill is gone with mume flowers, while the spring bamboo is coming, the kingfisher tweets alone on the tree branch.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The last 戊辰 year is 1988, see above for 春月.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Title: 居庸之春&lt;br&gt;&#xA;S: 游此关，见桃花盛开，又时值九九建国五十年大庆，故写之&lt;br&gt;&#xA;T: 遊此關，見桃花盛開，又時值九九建國五十年大慶，故寫之&lt;br&gt;&#xA;F: 逰此関，见花盛開，又時值九九建国五十年大庆，故写之&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Time: 己戊夏&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Author: 石青&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Remark&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/js/9030.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;逰&lt;/a&gt;: A variant version of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/js/904A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;遊&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;関: The character 関 or 關 like 開 above, the simplified Chinese character 门 with a 关 inside.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/91/kx/2346F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;: The above 木 and bottom 兆, same as 桃.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;開: The same as the above 開.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;九九: It may refer to the ninth day of the ninth month in Chinese lunar calendar here.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;青: The cursive version, the bottom 月 in 青 likes a マ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translation&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Spring of the Juyong Pass&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Touring this Pass, seeing the peach blossoms fully, meantime it is September 9th of the 50th anniversary of the State founding, so write it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There isn't a 己戊 year, it may be 1999, a 己卯 year, according to the context 建国五十年. 夏 means the season of summer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z8170m8067j19742.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天干地支对照表&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagenary_cycle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sexagenary cycle&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juyong_Pass&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Juyong Pass&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2018-06-08T02:40:22.603" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T02:40:22.603" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29967" CreationDate="2018-05-29T09:48:10.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks to @Pedroski's answer, as well as user6065's and @AlexKey's comments I have been able to pinpoint the rule that governs the phenomenon in question. It turns out that certain compelements types require the verb needs to be repeated, for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Complement of state: &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/State_complement#Adjective_as_State_Complements&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/State_complement#Adjective_as_State_Complements&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Complement of degree: &lt;a href=&quot;https://xmmandarinonline.com/chinese-grammar-complement-of-degree/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://xmmandarinonline.com/chinese-grammar-complement-of-degree/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While other responses provide a great deal of information new to me, they did not address the precise question I asked. The name of this phenomenon, in addition to those mentioned in the links, is &lt;strong&gt;动词重复句 – verb repetition&lt;/strong&gt; that is related to certain types of complements (补语), usually describing time, degree, result or stative verbs, at least as far as I could determine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2018-06-09T18:15:56.390" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T18:15:56.390" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29950" CreationDate="2018-05-30T09:14:40.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is one of the things that trouble many people who are learning Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no single rule about the usage of 个. Sometimes, you do need to use it. Sometimes, you are actually forbidden to use it. @songyuanyao already gives you an excellent answer. I am going to give you some examples to illustrate the point &lt;em&gt;abuse of 个 as measure word is not acceptable for Chinese learner, especially who want to master natural Chinese&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The examples are about time units, namely, days, months and years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, you say three days, three months and three years. No need to have measure word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, you say 三天 (three days),  三个月 (three months) and 三年 (three years).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don’t say 三个天,  三月 and 三个年.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, Chinese would think you mean March when you say 三月.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s just the convention. I really don’t know any rules about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="808" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T09:14:40.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29968" CreationDate="2018-05-30T10:26:22.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's be realistic: if you've only spent five weeks learning speaking and listening it is &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; only going to be &lt;em&gt;gobbledygook&lt;/em&gt;. It probably feels pretty frustrating and hopeless at this point. That’s normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would opt to say that the key to your differentiating would be in the finals (韵母) &amp;amp; their combinations with initials (声母).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking your first example as a start:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shen&#xA;xiang&#xA;xian&#xA;sheng&#xA;shan&#xA;shang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have finals like: -en, -eng, -an, -ang which are &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; paired with initial x-. There is no: xen, xeng, xang- these just simply don’t exist. Likewise, -iang and -ian never pair with initial -sh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of time simply focusing on the final will more or less give you the whole picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T10:26:22.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29617" CreationDate="2018-05-30T15:42:18.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;只要 indicates a &lt;strong&gt;sufficient condition&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e. &amp;quot;只要A就B&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;A =&amp;gt; B&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;The fact A guarantees the fact B&amp;quot;. 就 or 便 usually gives a sense that something is simpler than one expects, so such adverbs match with 只要.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要你努力，你就会成功。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will (simply) succeed as long as you work hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有 indicates a &lt;strong&gt;necessary condition&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e. &amp;quot;只有A才B&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;A &amp;lt;= B&amp;quot;,&#xA;&amp;quot;Condition A is mandatory for B to be present&amp;quot;. 方 or 才 usually gives a sense that something is more difficult than expected, or some scenario requires more conditions than expected to achieve, so these adverbs match with 只有.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你只有努力，才会成功。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can only succeed if you work hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other usages of 就 and 才, they play similar roles, i.e. giving optimistic/pessimistic senses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我老公昨天三点就回来了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was only 3 p.m. that my husband came home yesterday. (I didn't expect him to come home so early, but he did).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我老公昨天九点才回来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was not until 9 p.m. that my husband came home yesterday. (I expected him to come home earlier, but he just kept me waiting).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English it doesn't require an adverb to complete a sentence with a conditional clause; but in Chinese, without an appropriate adverb like 才 or 就, the sentence will sound incomplete. Since these words are required to form a sentense, your grammar book may suggest they are &lt;strong&gt;conjunctions/连词&lt;/strong&gt;, but I think in fact they are &lt;strong&gt;adverbs/副词&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among them, 才 and 就 are more common in everyday use, while 便 and 方 may sound too formal. Other possibilities are rare as far as I can think of. I would suggest that you only memorize these two patterns: &amp;quot;只要……就……&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;只有……才……&amp;quot;, for these two appear in our primary school textbooks as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16893" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T18:01:16.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29985" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29988" CreationDate="2018-05-30T19:09:31.523" Score="6" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following example sentence in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose that you buy the product in $10 in the store A. The store A is located in 3 miles away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Now&lt;/strong&gt;, you found out that the store B sells the same item in $8. But it is located in 8 miles away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this usage of &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt;, an adverb to draw attention to a particular statement or point in a narrative, how can I express it in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most basic word to express &amp;quot;now&amp;quot; in 现在, but I feel it is exclusively used in the situation that specifically refers to the time, not in the way that draws attention to a particular statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what word, or phrase is suitable in Chinese in these cases? Or is it commont to use such expression in Chinese as well, or if not, what is the more natural way to draw attention to a particular statement in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T08:12:36.840" Title="How to express &quot;Now, ...&quot; in Chinese (the usage of &quot;now&quot; to draw attention to a particular statement)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29985" CreationDate="2018-05-30T22:09:12.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use any of the following as a proclamation to draw attention to the second statement which is stated &lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt; the first one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在(now), 接下來(and then), 可是(however), 之後(afterward) , 但是 (but)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They all work in your example &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T22:09:12.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29985" CreationDate="2018-05-30T22:24:01.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;但是 and 可是 would work best. Read &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Two_words_for_%22but%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T22:24:01.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29985" CreationDate="2018-05-30T23:36:31.063" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, you found out that the store B sells the same item in $8. But it is located in 8 miles away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not a native English speaker, but I don't quite agree that &lt;strong&gt;now&lt;/strong&gt; here means &lt;em&gt;draw attention to a particular statement or point in a narrative&lt;/em&gt;. In my opinion, it means this sense in this context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ADV You say &amp;quot;Now&amp;quot; to introduce something which contrasts with what you have just said. 然而&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if it was me, I'd want to do more than just change the locks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然而，如果是我，我要做的远不只是换换锁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there should be an implicit &lt;em&gt;but&lt;/em&gt; in your English sentence. So, you could interpret that &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt; as &lt;em&gt;可是现在, 然而现在&lt;/em&gt;，or just simply as 然而，可是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T23:46:50.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30002" CreationDate="2018-05-30T23:40:48.640" Score="6" ViewCount="1178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been searching around for random words. Dragon = long, green = lǜsè, river = he... I can't seem to find any words that start with a vowel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do any Chinese words start with a vowel?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19772" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T15:42:07.307" Title="Can Chinese words start with a vowel?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;&lt;spelling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29985" CreationDate="2018-05-30T23:54:16.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An interesting question! I don't think there is a simple, fits-all-situations answer. This use of now is strange and idiomatic in English. I think that it often will not be translated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular situation I would use ‘但是’。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples of these idiomatic uses of 'now'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, let me think.&#xA;那（么），让我想一想。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now come on, tell me!&#xA;快告诉我吧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don’t forget now!&#xA;不要忘了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that’s what I like, sunshine and blue sky! &#xA;这就是我喜欢的，阳光和蓝天！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now understand, you only get one bite at the cherry!&#xA;你得弄清楚，你只有一次机会!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now hear this， now hear this! (official public / military announcement / warning)&#xA;请注意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first problem is solved, now the next problem is .....&#xA;第一个问题解决了，那么下一个问题就是 ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Come on now, don't be angry.&#xA;别生气了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Run along now. （friendly, not unkind)&#xA;你到旁边去吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if you'll excuse me?&#xA;如果你已经说完的话，我还有别的事要处理。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, where did  I put my glasses&#xA;我又把眼镜放在哪儿？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose that you buy the product for $10 in store A. The store A is located 3 miles away.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;假设你以10美元的价格在A商店买下这款产品。商店A在三英里外的地方。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, you found out that the store B sells the same item for $8, but it is located 8 miles away.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;但是你发现在商店B可以买到同样的物品,价格只是八美元，可是商店B在八英里外的地方。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2018-05-31T00:25:32.310" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T00:25:32.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29989" CreationDate="2018-05-31T00:34:57.570" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some Mandarin Chinese Pinyin sequences which &lt;em&gt;consistently&lt;/em&gt; start with a vowel. As mentioned in the comments, these have a Pinyin representation which starts with &lt;strong&gt;y&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;w&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;義&lt;/strong&gt;, Pinyin &lt;strong&gt;yì&lt;/strong&gt;, IPA &lt;strong&gt;/i⁵¹/&lt;/strong&gt; (starts off with /i/, the close front unrounded vowel)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;完&lt;/strong&gt;, Pinyin &lt;strong&gt;wán&lt;/strong&gt;, IPA &lt;strong&gt;/u̯a̠n³⁵/&lt;/strong&gt; (starts off with a dipthong containing /u/, the close back rounded vowel)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The others which many people &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; start with a vowel but don't really except in certain (albeit extremely common) circumstances start off with a Pinyin letter &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;e&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;o&lt;/strong&gt;. Pronounced in isolation or after the end of a pause, these do not start off with a vowel, but a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;glottal stop&lt;/a&gt;, which is a consonant that requires you to block airflow through the glottis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, consciously take caution of the difference in how you pronounce &lt;strong&gt;餓&lt;/strong&gt; in the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;餓&lt;/strong&gt; (in isolation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;餓&lt;/strong&gt;了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In (1), &lt;strong&gt;餓&lt;/strong&gt; must start with the glottal stop consonant (take notice of what you're doing in your chest area when pronouncing this), while not ordinarily in (2), although you can use a glottal stop there sometimes for emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without this consonant, you cannot pronounce sequences like 諤諤 or 阿娥 properly (although these sequences aren't common at all). An English example would be the word &lt;em&gt;uh-oh!&lt;/em&gt;, which must have the glottal stop at the beginning of the second syllable, else it would sound incomprehensible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T00:34:57.570" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29968" CreationDate="2018-05-31T01:23:55.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have only been learning for 5 weeks, you probably just need to listen and practice more. Maybe you could get a textbook with a CD. Read the pinyin while you listen. You can also use electronic flashcards. Have the pinyin on one side, and the character + sound file on the other. Or you could try to write pinyin for characters that you hear, and use google to check. There are websites where you can do tone practice. Sometimes I listen to Chinese speaking, and don't worry about the meaning, but just listen for different sounds and tones. The more you listen, the better you will get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19457" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T01:23:55.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29993" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30001" CreationDate="2018-05-31T01:52:11.397" Score="6" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reviewing some old Anki cards that I created from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.co.uk/HSK-Standarda-Course-1-Textbook/dp/7561937091/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK Standard Course 1 by Jiang Liping&lt;/a&gt; and I came across this dialogue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: 喂你在做什么呢&#xA;B: 我在看书呢&#xA;A: 大卫也在看书吗&#xA;B: 他没看书。他在学做中国菜呢&#xA;&#xA;A: Hello, what are you doing?&#xA;B: I'm reading&#xA;A: Is David also reading?&#xA;B: He isn't reading. He's learning to cook Chinese food.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am unclear on the use of 没 in the sentence 他没看书.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had previously been taught that when it comes to verbs, 没 only negates 有 and 不 negates all other verbs. See for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/371/13062&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; which makes the same claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being aware that 没 can also be used in other situations I consulted &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22bu%22_and_%22mei%22&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Comparing &quot;bu&quot; and &quot;mei&quot;&lt;/a&gt; on Chinese Grammar Wiki, but could not seem to find a rule there that covers the use of 没 in this scenario in a way that is consistent with the dialogue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I turned to Google Translate and got the following results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.co.uk/#auto/en/%E4%BB%96%E6%B2%A1%E7%9C%8B%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;他没看书&lt;/a&gt; - He did not read books&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.co.uk/#auto/en/%E4%BB%96%E4%B8%8D%E7%9C%8B%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;他不看书&lt;/a&gt; - He does not read books&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would seem to suggest that the book is wrong and that their version indicates past tense, whereas the English translation indicates present continuous (which is consistent with the rest of the dialogue).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is going on? Is the book incorrect, or is there a legitimate reason that 没 is used here instead of 不?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13062" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T01:47:55.860" Title="Why does 他没看书 use 没 and not 不 in this dialogue?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;negation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29968" CreationDate="2018-05-31T02:09:15.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Being non-natives, how can I improve myself to differentiate them properly?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend having a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yoyo Chinese Pinyin Chart&lt;/a&gt;. There are plenty of Pinyin charts out there, but this one has videos covering the sounds which English speakers typically find difficult (look for the video icons next to some of the initials, finals, and syllables). It is very helpful for distinguishing sounds which appear to the unfamiliar ear to be similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have access to ChinesePod (or don't mind paying to get access), their &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesepod.com/library/courses/pinyin-program/35&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pinyin Program&lt;/a&gt; also does a good job of explaining the more difficult to distinguish sounds. This is how I originally overcame my difficulties in this area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These aren't the only Pinyin resources, but I strongly recommend that you find and use at least one that includes &lt;em&gt;explanations&lt;/em&gt; of the sounds, not just samples of the sounds. Once you &lt;em&gt;understand&lt;/em&gt; how a word is pronounced (i.e. how to shape your tongue/mouth while saying it) and have practised it yourself, then you will be able to hear the differences much more easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that, I would say just don't worry about it. Once you have studied enough Mandarin (with your knowledge of Pinyin sound explanations), it will become so second nature that you won't even think about it anymore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do foreigners who are fluent in Chinese understand these sounds correctly? Or do they solely rely on context to differentiate which sounds they are?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am nowhere near fluent. I have just recently completed HSK3 and have commenced HSK4. I reached the point that I had little trouble differentiating any of the Pinyin sounds (at least the carefuly pronounced ones I come across in learning materials) by the time I was done with HSK1. I did however study a wide range of materials rather intensively, including books, audio CDs, ChinesePod, Memrise, Anki, etc. If you focus on absorbing as much material as you can, whilst making an extra effort to get your pronunciation right as you go, then you will eventually reach that point too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can Chinese people distinguish these sounds correctly? For example if a person says xiàng, do Chinese correctly locate its word and accent?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese person listening to someone with decent pronunciation will undoubtedly pick up the &lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt; and the &lt;em&gt;tone&lt;/em&gt; (which I assume is what you mean by &lt;em&gt;accent&lt;/em&gt;). Even to me, something like xiang4 and shang4 sound completely different, as does xiang4 and xiang1. As for locating the &lt;em&gt;word&lt;/em&gt;, if said in isolation and without a context, then no. This is because for any given syllable + tone combination there can be multiple characters. 相 and 向 for example can both be pronounced as xiang4 and you would not be able to tell them apart unless they were said as part of a larger construct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13062" LastEditorUserId="13062" LastEditDate="2018-05-31T02:28:45.380" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T02:28:45.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29993" CreationDate="2018-05-31T02:40:48.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very good question and I upvoted. I might not have a great answer but like to give it a shot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他没看书 == 他没有看书 is used to state a fact he didn't/doesn't read books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不看书, depending on contexts, could mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He doesn't want to read books. Or he is not willing to read books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He won't read books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He is a kind of person who doesn't read books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your context, A was asking if David was reading books. B answered with 他没看书, which told A the fact that David was not reading books. Here B omitted 在. He could have said 他没在看书 or 他没有在看书 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 大卫也在看书吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 他没看书。or 他没在看书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My two cents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T02:48:42.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29997" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30006" CreationDate="2018-05-31T05:25:26.663" Score="3" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please see the green arrow beneath. I can't copy and paste from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E8%A2%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yellowbridge for 袁&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dmDqr.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dmDqr.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastEditorUserId="11787" LastEditDate="2018-06-01T23:30:29.230" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T14:47:11.000" Title="How does 土口 match 'a person wearing a pendant'?" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29993" CreationDate="2018-05-31T06:59:45.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is really a good question. For English, it could use &quot;not&quot; in both two situations.&#xA;In my own opinion, you should get contextual analysis. A is asking David's activity, so the correct answer is 他没（在）看书. If inquire David's interests or habits, then the answer is 他不（喜欢）看书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it is clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19775" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T06:59:45.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29985" CreationDate="2018-05-31T08:12:36.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, 然后 would fit best. But it's not a general translation that answers your main question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T08:12:36.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29997" CreationDate="2018-05-31T08:16:27.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;袁&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说文解字: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;長衣皃。此字之本義。今衹謂爲姓。而本義廢矣..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;皃: 通&quot;貌&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking of long cloths. This is the original meaning. Today only used as surname. The original meaning is deprecated...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No pendant mentioned...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bone script&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I10ky.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I10ky.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T08:16:27.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29993" CreationDate="2018-05-31T09:03:17.277" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opposite of &amp;quot;他没看书&amp;quot; (he did not/has not read books) is &amp;quot;他有看书&amp;quot; (he did/ has read books)- 没(has not) here replaces the adverb 有(has)- to indicate 'absent' of the action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opposite of &amp;quot;他不看书&amp;quot; (he does not read) is &amp;quot;他看书&amp;quot; (he does read)- &lt;em&gt;不 here modifies the &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt; 看书 (read) into its negative form 不看书 (does not read)&lt;/em&gt; - to indicate 'refusal' of the action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A: 喂你在做什么呢&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;B: 我在看书呢&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A: 大卫也在看书吗&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;B: 他没看书。他在学做中国菜呢&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since A asked B &amp;quot;what are you doing&amp;quot; and B replied &amp;quot; I am reading&amp;quot; and then A asked &amp;quot;is David also reading book (implying 'now')?&amp;quot; we can conclude B's answer of what David is doing should be in the same tense as the answer on what B himself is doing, and that was 'present progressive'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct answer should be &amp;quot;他没(在)看书。他在学做中国菜呢&amp;quot;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;他没看书&amp;quot; doesn't indicate specific tense (it can be past or present because 他没看书 only states &lt;em&gt;the absent of the action&lt;/em&gt;), while 他没&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;看书 also only indicates a progressive/ continuous tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I stated many times, Chinese verbs do not have tense, 没看 and 不看 do not indicate any tense, while &lt;strong&gt;没有&lt;/strong&gt;看 indicate 'perfect tense'; &lt;strong&gt;没在&lt;/strong&gt;看 indicates 'progressive tense'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason we know it is in present progressive tense, is we learned it in the context that A is asking B in present tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If B answered &amp;quot;他不看书&amp;quot;(he doesn't read - &lt;em&gt;refusal of the action&lt;/em&gt;) then it would mean David never read book, and the sentence would be in present tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T01:47:55.860" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29989" CreationDate="2018-05-31T14:00:04.010" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only cases I can think about are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;安 an&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;饿 e&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;耳 er&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;啊 a&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;o 哦&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ou 欧&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ai 爱&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ao 奥&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;en 恩&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All examples may have multiple cases under different tones&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T15:42:07.307" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T15:42:07.307" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30004" CreationDate="2018-05-31T14:34:27.573" Score="4" ViewCount="275" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a common curse for the parents of the unborn &amp;amp; their babies saying that they will be born without an anus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;生儿子没屁眼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it comes with variants like 生孩子没屁眼, as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get the purpose of ill-wishers but why something so specific as an child without an anus? Is there something special about the anus that I am missing out on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T18:07:56.593" Title="Why curse the unborn to be without an anus?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30003" CreationDate="2018-05-31T17:56:42.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://evchk.wikia.com/wiki/%E7%94%9F%E4%BB%94%E5%86%87%E5%B1%8E%E5%BF%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;生仔冇屎忽&lt;/a&gt; (Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;粗口之一，用作詛咒一人的後代。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;狹義來說，是詛咒一人的兒子生下來會是怪胎；但現在此字眼通常用作詛咒一人，暗示他的行為會為他本人或家人帶來惡果。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;現實中，生仔無屎忽的事例的確存在，被稱為&lt;strong&gt;閉肛症&lt;/strong&gt;。古時有此病症者，因嬰孩不能排便，必然導致死亡，因此生仔無屎忽為非常惡毒的咀咒。現今來說，雖可施手術令到有此缺陷嬰孩通便，但因該嬰孩沒有可控制排便的肛門，即使成長，也需攜帶便袋，而渾身也會隱隱發出陣陣便臭。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/919805763688069139.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;生儿子没屁眼&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;因为真的发生过。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;大概这是中国人能想到的最恶毒的诅咒之一。在所有的身体缺陷中，可能中国人认为这是最悲惨的一种，想想如果没有肛门，那小孩还能活吗？最后肯定憋死，这句话没法追根溯源，我猜有人开始这样骂别人，被别人听到后感觉这话够劲，就纷纷开始模仿，中国人喜欢跟风你也知道，自古就这样。而且只要骂这个，被骂的人没有不怒的，作为挑衅妥妥的管用。但事实上，&lt;strong&gt;先天性肛门闭锁&lt;/strong&gt;是真的在现实里存在的，可以通过手术治疗，再造一个人造肛门就可以了。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Anus is considered 'dirty' in most cultures,  mentioning '屎忽 / 屁眼' (asshole)  is common in profanity. For example; 入你屎眼, 屎忽鬼, 食屎疴飯 in Cantonese,  屁股精 in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cursing someone's family is considered more hurtful than cursing that person himself or herself. Chinese believe one's evil deed will cause misfortune to his or her descendants, and son represent someone's future lineage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cursing someone's child born without an anus is one of the most vicious curse possible. (not only someone's son will die, he will also suffer horribly before he dies )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;閉肛症 or 先天性肛门闭锁 is a real &lt;strong&gt;birth deformity&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T18:07:56.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30005" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30012" CreationDate="2018-05-31T20:05:32.803" Score="0" ViewCount="693" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is stamped on the bottom of pieces of a tea set (cups, saucers, tea pot,etc) my father bought for his mother during WWII. I believe he purchased it in Shanghai prior to 1945.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please tell me what it says and in what language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/watew.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/watew.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;下角&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19779" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-14T00:06:34.957" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T00:06:34.957" Title="What language is this and what does it say? (Characters identified: 下角)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29997" CreationDate="2018-05-31T20:51:43.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no &lt;em&gt;pendant&lt;/em&gt; in the character. 「袁」 (Mandarin: &lt;strong&gt;yuán&lt;/strong&gt;) originally meant &lt;em&gt;to wear (clothes)&lt;/em&gt;, where&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「土」 is a corruption of 「又」, a &lt;em&gt;picture of a hand&lt;/em&gt;, signifying the action of &lt;em&gt;wearing clothes&lt;/em&gt;, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「口」 is a corruption of 「〇」 (&lt;strong&gt;yuán&lt;/strong&gt;), a phonetic hint.&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「〇」 is the shape of a &lt;em&gt;circle&lt;/em&gt;, and this word is now written as 「圓」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2GfbJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2GfbJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;庫&lt;/a&gt;1022&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=33692&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集33692&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「袁」 was originally 「⿰衣又」, which is an abstract depiction of &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=20&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;a hand&lt;/em&gt; 「又」&lt;/a&gt; putting on &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=448&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;robes&lt;/em&gt; 「衣」&lt;/a&gt;. This word is now written as 「擐」 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_%282014%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*[ɢ]ʷˤren-s/&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「擐」 (&lt;em&gt;to wear, put on&lt;/em&gt;) is made by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Adding on an additional semantic 「扌・手」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Complexifying 「袁」 to a pure phonetic 「瞏」 (something like &lt;strong&gt;/*[ɢ]ʷˁ&amp;lt;r&amp;gt;en/&lt;/strong&gt;) by adding on 「目・罒」 to the top.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「瞏」 is systematically written as 「睘」 today across all characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「⿰衣又」 had a few variants, produced by some small modifications in two main ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, multiple 「又」 were included, and 「又」 at the top was further corrupted into &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=141&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「止」&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K58eJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K58eJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=6&amp;amp;bh=1648&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1648&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;懷特甲骨集&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gGn4E.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gGn4E.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;存&lt;/a&gt;・下506&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=31774&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集31774&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Other times, 「〇」 (&lt;strong&gt;/*ɢʷ&amp;lt;r&amp;gt;en/&lt;/strong&gt;) was added as a phonetic hint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wsWL2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wsWL2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;寧滬&lt;/a&gt;1.501&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=27756&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集27756&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yEQum.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yEQum.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=3&amp;amp;bh=2061&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2061&lt;/a&gt; (⿰彳袁)&lt;br&gt;小屯南甲骨&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「〇」 is the shape of a &lt;em&gt;circle&lt;/em&gt;, and this word is now written as 「圓」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these modifications were eventually incorporated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0Ziuc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0Ziuc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;史墻盤 (遠)&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=10175&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成10175&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「止」 merged with the top part of 「衣」 and was further corrupted into 「土」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「〇」 was systematically corrupted into 「口」 across all Chinese characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/erXsn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/erXsn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;秦律十八87 (遠)&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XenXY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XenXY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirara0048.blogspot.com/2018/01/blog-post_15.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;殷墟甲骨文中の「遠」「（邇）」と関連字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=6&amp;amp;bh=&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;許進雄《懷特氏等收藏甲骨文集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=3&amp;amp;bh=&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《小屯南地甲骨》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢語多功能字庫&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T14:47:11.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30007" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30008" CreationDate="2018-05-31T22:06:24.133" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both meanings are very similar in the dictionary, but 发火 also means to 'get angry' and 'to detonate'. Can they be used interchangeably and what is the difference between the two words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T01:06:18.503" Title="Can 发火 and 着火 be used interchangeably?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30007" CreationDate="2018-06-01T01:06:18.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;发火 is usually used metaphorically for a person, meaning getting angry. For example, you can say to someone 别发火/don't get angry, 他又发火了/he is angry again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着火 is usually used as its literal meaning for a real object. Xxx 着火 means xxx catching fire/be on fire. For example, 房子着火了/ the house caught fire. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, they won't be used interchangeably. We don't say 他又着火了 or 房子发火了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T01:06:18.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30009" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30013" CreationDate="2018-06-01T02:51:33.103" Score="5" ViewCount="482" Body="&lt;p&gt;this new vocab in my textbook says it means: to make something of one's self.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我感觉绝望，我就想成器.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel so hopeless, I just want to make something of my self.&#xA;is this the right interpretation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19781" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T03:35:05.890" Title="What is the meaning of 成器 and how do you use it？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30009" CreationDate="2018-06-01T03:22:29.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/xs/5668.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;器&lt;/a&gt; might mean 人才 [talent] or 才能 [capacity;ability]; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/0/13e/308319.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;成器&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;em&gt;grow up to be a useful person&lt;/em&gt; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[become a useful person]∶比喻成为有用的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here're some other usages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不成器&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [neer-do-well;good-for-nothing] 谓不能成为有用的器物。后用以比喻不成材,没出息&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;玉不琢，不成器&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  玉石不经雕琢，成不了器物。比喻人不受教育、不学习就不能有成就。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;积厚成器&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  指根基深厚，养成才干。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-06-01T04:28:50.640" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T04:28:50.640" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30009" CreationDate="2018-06-01T03:25:41.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;成器 comes from the Chinese idioms 玉不琢不成器. Used to describe people without training can not become a useful person.&#xA;成器 means be a useful person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17846" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T03:25:41.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30005" CreationDate="2018-06-01T03:32:02.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a seal with Chinese characters 下角.&#xA;As Tang Ho said, It could be a brand name/place name of origin/craftsman name etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17846" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T03:32:02.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30009" CreationDate="2018-06-01T04:46:59.380" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a fixed saying, in modern times, it is usually used in &lt;strong&gt;negative&lt;/strong&gt; expressing. i.e. 不成器&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我感觉绝望，我就想成器.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People don't use 器 to refer himself, because the criterion is too low, imply that you are not even an ordinary human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to use it, use it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他不成器.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一个不成器的家伙.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;老话说: 玉不琢不成器, 我要修理修理你.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another famous quote from Confucius: 君子不器 which has a totally different meaning, and the view point is not appropriate in modern times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T04:46:59.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7032" CreationDate="2018-06-01T05:28:18.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My wife - native Chinese speaker - thinks 叫作 is the correct way to write this even though 叫做 translated literally has the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19782" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T05:28:18.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30016" CreationDate="2018-06-01T08:52:28.793" Score="3" ViewCount="596" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my Chinese textbook, for a dialogue, one of the lines says &quot;我下个星期要考中文&quot;. Why is 中文 after 考, shouldn't the sentence be &quot;我下个星期要中文的考&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19785" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-06-02T08:54:25.663" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T08:54:25.663" Title="Why does 考 precede 中文 in 我下个星期要考中文?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30015" CreationDate="2018-06-01T09:27:55.740" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;考 is the verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我 / 下个星期 / 要 / 考 / 中文&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I / next week / will / test / Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it helps, you could regard 考中文 here as a set construction meaning &quot;to have a Chinese test&quot;. Same for 考数学 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T09:27:55.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30009" CreationDate="2018-06-01T10:06:16.777" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;iciba has:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《圣经》里说:‘孩子不打不成器. ’&#xA;Spare the rod and spoil the child, as the Good Book says.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the context of the text where you found this sentence, that indicates to me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我感觉绝望，我就想成器.&#xA;I'm so down, I just want to be a useful person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T10:06:16.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30015" CreationDate="2018-06-01T10:16:10.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to get 考 further back in your sentence, you might write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我下周有汉语考试。Next week I have a Chinese exam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉语 Chinese language&lt;br&gt;&#xA;考试 exam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T10:16:10.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30015" CreationDate="2018-06-01T14:55:30.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我下个星期要考中文&#xA;because in this sentence, 考 is a verb, 中文 is a noun.&#xA;do something after 要 (preposition)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other word, 我下个星期有中文考试&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19790" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T14:55:30.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30021" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30026" CreationDate="2018-06-02T00:52:48.050" Score="13" ViewCount="2259" Body="&lt;p&gt;Near campus, there are construction sites for apartments, and one of them has this writing on it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xHeaj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xHeaj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;打井 with phone numbers&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeatedly written is &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%89%93%E4%BA%95&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;打井&lt;/a&gt; (dǎjǐng) = &quot;to dig a well&quot;, along with a phone number.  It's possible that these are all advertising some kind of well-digging service, but it seems an unexpected place to choose to advertise, especially when there's more than one of them.  It makes me think there's more to this story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why are people writing 打井 (dǎjǐng) = &quot;to dig a well&quot; on this construction site wall?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other words seem to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%99%8D%E6%B0%B4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;降水&lt;/a&gt;井 (jiàngshuǐ jǐng) = precipitation well&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;收&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%BA%9F%E5%93%81&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;废品&lt;/a&gt; (shōu fèipǐn) = waste collection&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T01:16:16.670" Title="Why are people writing 打井 (dǎjǐng) = &quot;to dig a well&quot; on this construction site wall?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30021" CreationDate="2018-06-02T01:15:07.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you just curious about well-digging, this is very common in China, almost all fields in north need irrigation by mechanical well, 机井 runs by water pump.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know the reason behind this, it is not good, mass 机井 will deplete underground water, but it seems people don't have other choice. :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What a strange question, Who the heck knows why they are advertising there, it may be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The construction builder also supply well-digging service.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The builder live near by the construction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They dig a well for a customer near by the construction once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somebody know the digger, he just advertising randomly to act like a middle man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The text has been there along with the metal plank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a strangest advertising, 办证(Fake certificates) , the text is written all over China, they all have same font type like written by same guy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This mysterious has confused Chinese many years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZxhEU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZxhEU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tiYLF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tiYLF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FYTce.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FYTce.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JBBVB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JBBVB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PM3wv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PM3wv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-06-03T01:16:16.670" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T01:16:16.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30021" CreationDate="2018-06-02T01:15:18.207" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those are ads. You can call those numbers for digging a well 打井. And there's a number for waste collection 收废品. I'm not sure why they put that 打井 ad there, but there should be some potential customer needs there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T01:15:18.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30021" CreationDate="2018-06-02T02:17:55.463" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;While 打井 indeed means &quot;digging a well&quot;, it is also used as a euphemism for sex (you can Google something like 打井是什麽意思), so &lt;strong&gt;打井1234567&lt;/strong&gt; can potentially mean to call 1234567 for sex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-02T02:42:58.647" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T02:42:58.647" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30021" CreationDate="2018-06-02T06:32:06.913" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I myself as a Chinese can tell you that they are all advertisements for well digging, as those places are near the countryside where some villagers might need well for water, therefore those people with the equipment seek those opportunities by these advertisements. The number follows are phone numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19795" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T06:32:06.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30027" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-02T08:07:47.967" Score="6" ViewCount="2250" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was learning in a Mandarin class and I was kind of stumped on the use of &amp;quot;本来&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;原来&amp;quot; when filling in the blanks in a sentence. Here's my attempt to these questions (taken from 汉语口语速成: 基础篇 pp. 91-92):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这儿____是个冰场，现在盖起了高楼。(My answer was &amp;quot;原来&amp;quot;, the answer is &lt;strong&gt;can be both&lt;/strong&gt;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;回国的日子____定在下月二十号，可是因为没有买到机票，就改到二十七号了。(My answer was &amp;quot;本来&amp;quot;, the answer is &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;本来&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这盘虾炒得太咸了，虾_____的味道都没有了。(My answer was &amp;quot;本来&amp;quot;, the answer is &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;原来&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我找了你半天，____你在这儿呀。(My answer was &amp;quot;原来&amp;quot;, the answer is &lt;strong&gt;can be both&lt;/strong&gt;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no problem with the sentence #2 and #3. I got it right on the second sentence. I got it wrong on the third sentence, since I just know that &amp;quot;原来&amp;quot; can be used as an adjective, and the speaker already realized that the taste of the food is not good, hence my mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes me confused is the answer of #1 and #4, is it true that either &amp;quot;本来&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;原来&amp;quot; correct in sentence #1 and #4? I thought only one of them can fit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I understand from &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22benlai%22_and_%22yuanlai%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt; and some Chinese movies, my thinking is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm using “本来” when something unexpectedly happened, and the speaker doesn't realize until it happens. But if the speaker accidentally find out or realize the situation has changed, I should use “原来”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my thinking true? If not, then on which case should I use &amp;quot;本来&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;原来&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/strong&gt; Here's another example I got from a movie:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丁鐺：&amp;quot;你們晚上沒演出啊?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;藍雲：&amp;quot;沒有，最近演白天，你一個人來?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丁鐺：&amp;quot;是的，&lt;strong&gt;本來&lt;/strong&gt;我要去百代試音的，但是我弄錯了日期，是明天。&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The speaker use &amp;quot;本来&amp;quot; here, can it be changed to &amp;quot;原来&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T08:43:47.423" Title="What is the difference between 本来 and 原来?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30028" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30031" CreationDate="2018-06-02T08:43:01.827" Score="3" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他说：“人往高处走，水往低处流。我没有满足的时候。没见识过的东西还多着呢。我什么都想试试，&lt;strong&gt;这样才不白来世上一回&lt;/strong&gt;。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the sentence means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He says: &quot;People go higher, water flows into lower. I don't feel satisfied, have not seen everything yet. I want to see everything, ...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't understand the last part. Judged by the context, it might be something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These could be experienced only once in the next life (...?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially I don't understand what 白 means here. It might be &quot;clear&quot; (verb), but then the meaning would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These could not be clear once in the next life (...?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T21:50:43.267" Title="What does 这样才不白来世上一回 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30027" CreationDate="2018-06-02T08:46:42.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 1,2,3 can be both. 4 should be filled with 原来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原来 could be used when you don't know something and then you find it out all of sudden. For example, 原来是你啊！ 原来是你干的啊！&#xA;本来 can't be used for this sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of time they are  interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your update sentence, 本来 is preferable, and 原来 is not that good. But if you put 原来 in the middle (丁鐺：&amp;quot;是的，我原来要去百代試音的，但是我弄錯了日期，是明天,) that will be ok. This might be because if you put 原来 at the beginning of an sentence, that sounds you have found something all of sudden, which you didn't know. But actually you want to convey the sense &lt;strong&gt;originally&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the &lt;strong&gt;key&lt;/strong&gt; might be they are interchangeable within a sentence, but not at the beginning of a sentence!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丁鐺：&amp;quot;是的，本來我要去百代試音的，但是我弄錯了日期，是明天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel this dictionary definition are accurate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;本来&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;原来，原先。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杨朔《京城漫记》：“这地方在北京南城角，本来是京城有名的风景区。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 . 原有的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本来面目。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 .指人本有的心性。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黄人《〈小说林〉发刊词》：“心理之辟，尤在昧厥本来。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 .表示理该如此。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本来就该这么办&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;原来&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 . 当初；未经改变的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周而复《上海的早晨》：“阿英给奶奶提醒，立即退了回来，把脸盆放在床上原来的地方接水。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 . 副词。表示发现从前不知道的情况。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;魏巍《东方》：“郭祥勉强睁开眼睛，原来担架停在一面悬崖下。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this should help you a lot if you can understand those definitions in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T08:43:47.423" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30027" CreationDate="2018-06-02T08:57:41.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'本来' means 'original/ &lt;strong&gt;originally&lt;/strong&gt;/ at first'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;本来&lt;/strong&gt;不想去的&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;originally&lt;/strong&gt;, I didn't want to go )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'原来'(the truth from the origin) means '&lt;strong&gt;actually&lt;/strong&gt;' /&lt;strong&gt;as it turns out&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;原来&lt;/strong&gt;你不想去&quot; (you &lt;strong&gt;actually&lt;/strong&gt;/ don't want to go)/(&lt;strong&gt;as it turns out&lt;/strong&gt;, you don't want to go)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;原来&lt;/strong&gt;你沒錢去&quot; (you &lt;strong&gt;actually&lt;/strong&gt; don't have money to go)/ (&lt;strong&gt;as it turns out&lt;/strong&gt;, you don't have money to go&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'原本' = '本来' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;原本&lt;/strong&gt;不想去的&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;originally&lt;/strong&gt;, I didn't want to go)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这儿(本来/原本)是个冰场，现在盖起了高楼。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回国的日子(本来/原本)定在下月二十号，可是因为没有买到机票，就改到二十七号了。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这盘虾炒得太咸了，虾(&lt;em&gt;本来的/ 原本的&lt;/em&gt;)味道都没有了。(&lt;em&gt;the original taste&lt;/em&gt;)/ 这盘虾炒得太咸了，虾(&lt;em&gt;原来的&lt;/em&gt;)味道都没有了。(the &lt;em&gt;actual&lt;/em&gt; taste)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我找了你半天，(原来)你在这儿呀。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Many people use 原来 instead of 原本 when they meant &quot;originally&quot; because they think 原来 and 原本 are the same&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;原本&quot; = “本來” ; &quot;原來 = 其實&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-03T00:00:52.007" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T00:00:52.007" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30028" CreationDate="2018-06-02T09:01:37.360" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我什么都想试试，&lt;strong&gt;这样才不白来世上一回。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I want to experience/try many things, only then will I feel like my life hasn't been wasted.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the general meaning. As for the bolded part:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這樣才 - &lt;em&gt;only like/by doing this&lt;/em&gt;, referring to 我什麽都想試試&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;白X - &lt;em&gt;a waste of effort to X&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;來世上 - &lt;em&gt;be born into the world&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一回 - &lt;em&gt;one time&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;來世上一回 is a figure of speech culturally referring to the possibility of reincarnation (being born multiple times). The idea is that coming into this world is a journey that takes effort, and while being here this person wants to experience as many things as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-02T09:07:35.673" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T09:07:35.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30032" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-02T10:47:36.643" Score="3" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;Continuing from my previous &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30027/what-is-the-difference-between-%E6%9C%AC%E6%9D%A5-and-%E5%8E%9F%E6%9D%A5&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt;, there's another phrase that also makes me confused, the usage of &quot;绝对&quot; and &quot;肯定&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my textbook, here's the meaning of each word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;绝对 = [Adj./Adv.] Absolute / Absolutely.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;肯定 = [Adj./Adv.] Sure / Surely.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming the level of confidence is different based on the meaning. The degree of &quot;绝对&quot; seems higher than &quot;肯定&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at these sentences (taken from 汉语口语速成: 基础篇 pp. 91-92):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;老王点点头，给了老董一个&lt;strong&gt;肯定&lt;/strong&gt;的回答。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;这个人这么胖，&lt;strong&gt;绝对&lt;/strong&gt;不是张英。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;事情都有好的方面，也有不好的方面，不能想得太&lt;strong&gt;绝对&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;河里的水真清，要是不去游游泳，&lt;strong&gt;肯定&lt;/strong&gt;很舒服。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are the above sentences correct? Can &quot;绝对&quot; and &quot;肯定&quot; be used interchangeably? I feel sentences #1, #2, and #4 can be changed into &quot;绝对&quot;, &quot;肯定&quot;, and &quot;绝对&quot; respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T12:14:09.020" Title="What is the difference between 绝对 and 肯定?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30032" CreationDate="2018-06-02T12:08:25.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dictionary definition may help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;肯定&lt;/strong&gt; / kěn dìng /&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 （承认事物的存在或真实性） affirm; approve; confirm; regard as positive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;affirm the achievements&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肯定成绩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 （正面的） affirmative:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Her answer is in the affirmative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她的回答是肯定的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 （明确的; 确定的） definite; positive; sure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We are not sure yet whether we'll go or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去不去， 我们还不能肯定。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's definite that he'll come.; He is sure to come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他肯定会来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 （一定; 无疑问） certainly; surely; definitely; undoubtedly; as sure as eggs&#xA;is eggs; dead cert:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can certainly have the job finished on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们肯定能按时完成任务&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;绝对&lt;/strong&gt; / jué duì /&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 （没有任何条件; 不受任何限制） absolute:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;absolute predominance; overwhelming superiority; absolute superiority;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;绝对优势&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;oppose absolute equalitarianism;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反对绝对平均主义&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 （完全; 一定） absolutely; perfectly; definitely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;absolutely reliable;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;绝对可靠&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absolute perfection in a dictionary is rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;绝对完美的词典是罕见的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;老王点点头，给了老董一个肯定的回答。// 绝对 can not be used to replace 肯定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这个人这么胖，绝对不是张英。// 绝对 can be used to replace 肯定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;事情都有好的方面，也有不好的方面，不能想得太绝对。//  绝对 can not be used to replace 肯定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;河里的水真清，要是不去游游泳，肯定很舒服。//  肯定 can be used to replace 绝对.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T12:08:25.680" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30032" CreationDate="2018-06-02T12:14:09.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's about the same as the difference between definitely and certainly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your assumption may be delusion. Just because words may have the same meaning sometimes, meaning is a difficult thing to narrow down and the use of said words in Chinese is very tricky. Meaning shifts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老王点点头，给了老董一个肯定的回答。 不是绝对的意思&lt;br&gt;&#xA;肯定 = positive&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这个人这么胖，绝对不是张英。也可以使用 肯定&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 绝对 = definitely&lt;br&gt;&#xA;事情都有好的方面，也有不好的方面，不能想得太绝对。不能换成 肯定&lt;br&gt;&#xA;绝对 = black or white&lt;br&gt;&#xA;河里的水真清，要是不去游游泳，肯定不舒服。也可以使用 绝对&lt;br&gt;&#xA;肯定 = definitely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T12:14:09.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30021" CreationDate="2018-06-02T14:06:28.603" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I searched &quot;打井降水&quot; on a Chinese search engine. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/564291506.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;results&lt;/a&gt; show that it means digging(打) a well(井) and pumping water out, to lower(降) the groundwater(水，地下水) and keep the construction site dry, i.e. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewatering&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dewatering&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Therefore I think they are advertisements targeting the construction site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19800" LastEditorUserId="19800" LastEditDate="2018-06-02T14:53:52.283" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T14:53:52.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30036" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-02T14:29:56.910" Score="4" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a personal project I want to create a (huge) graph that contains some (as many as possible) chinese characters along the paths of their corresponding keyboard input using the 5 stroke classes &lt;strong&gt;horizontal&lt;/strong&gt;(一), &lt;strong&gt;vertical&lt;/strong&gt; (丨), &lt;strong&gt;left falling&lt;/strong&gt; (丿), &lt;strong&gt;right falling/dot&lt;/strong&gt; (丶), and &lt;strong&gt;turning&lt;/strong&gt; (乛/乙). I didn't have a problem to find a database that included a list of some thousand characters transcribed for their use in the Wubihua input method, but in this method only the 4 first strokes plus the last stroke is used, as opposed to a transcript of all the strokes building up that character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, for 毓 you only type 丿一乛乛乛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I am looking for a transcript like this:&#xA;果 = 丨乛一一一丨丿丶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The strokes used can be encoded in whatever way, I just need the full information. For example, I found an open source project for the Wubihua method (= exactly the 4+1 way I am &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; looking for) that encoded them like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;nmmn. 即&#xA;.mmm/ 許&#xA;m/nm/ 區&#xA;m/m., 報&#xA;/nmmm 量&#xA;m//mm 基&#xA;m/mm/ 打&#xA;m//mm 聯&#xA;m/n,n 西&#xA;.mmm/ 該&#xA;m/mmn 指&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with &lt;code&gt;.&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;/&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;,&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;m&lt;/code&gt; representing the 5 stroke classes mentioned above. I've been searching in GitHub repos for hours, but was only able to find the short 4+1 strokes version used in Wubihua.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be very grateful for a hint or link to a free-to-use database containing the necessary information for, say, at least some hundred of the most frequent characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19801" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T13:04:33.460" Title="Where can I find a list of chinese characters and their transcription in the 5 stroke classes used in the 五笔画 (wǔ bǐhuà) and Wubixing input method?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30036" CreationDate="2018-06-02T16:21:11.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The keyword to search for is &lt;strong&gt;筆順編號&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/YQ-YSY/stroke-seq_MB/blob/master/text/%E5%8D%95%E5%AD%97_%E7%AC%94%E9%A1%BA%E7%A0%81_29685%E4%B8%AA.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This github respository&lt;/a&gt; contains stroke order sequences for 29685 characters, coded as numbers 1-5. From the readme:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仅仅以1、2、3、4、5五个数字分别代表“一丨丿丶”五个笔画，按汉字笔顺进行输入。例如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“开”字，按笔顺“一、一、丿、丨”，编码为1132； “我”字为31；“向”字为325；“力”为53；&#xA;注意“万”为153，“方”为4153，“忄”为442。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;其中有些笔画容易被误解： “提”归为“一”：如“氵、扌”中的最后一笔&lt;/strong&gt;；有些电脑字体繁体字的“雨字头”四点显示为四小横，皆按国标笔顺归为四点；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;“亅”一竖往左勾的归为“丨”：如“小”字的第一笔、“扌”提手旁等；“乚”一竖往右勾的归为“”：如“比、民、氏”的左边那一笔；&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;“点、捺”都归为“丶”：如“文、入、表、厶”的最后一笔；“宀”宝盖头和“冖”秃宝盖的左边那一笔也都是“丶”，不是“丨”；&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;各种折笔（乛、フ、乚、、⺄、竖弯钩、竖提等）都归为“”：如“为、孔、民”中的笔画。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bolded parts are easy to misinterpret strokes - but they've grouped it under the same 5 classifications as you've mentioned in the question details, so I guess this wasn't a problem for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T16:21:11.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30021" CreationDate="2018-06-02T18:10:07.807" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This and many things like it are what is considered 非法小广告 or illegal small advertisements. No surface is really safe from these ads. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially it's graffiti used to advertise some business or service. Its legitimacy is questionable and is considered a reckless nuisance to public image by local officials. Efforts have been made is some cities to terminate numbers associated with these ads. Theses ads are refered to some as 乱涂写 or “牛皮癣” (psoriasis) to refer to their unsightliness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is a public notice from the Xiangtan City Administrative Commission of theses types of small ads and the type of services advertised:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RJOV5.png&quot; alt=&quot;非法小广告号码&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say that this is the equivalent of advertising/graffiti you see on bathroom stalls or walls in some  countries. Even if you ask locals about theses ads, they seem too shady for most to inquire about. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="34" LastEditorUserId="34" LastEditDate="2018-06-02T21:13:27.770" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T21:13:27.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30039" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-02T21:22:29.400" Score="5" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve been looking online for the bigger part of a day in search of &lt;strong&gt;roleplaying&lt;/strong&gt; games in Chinese for helping me learn it more efficiently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also asked my girlfriend (Chinese) to help me find a game like that, but the only game we found was only available on iOS on the Chinese App Store.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you guys know of any rpg’s that I can get in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I’m a (total) beginner at Chinese. I also only have apple products and a ps4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19610" LastEditorUserId="19610" LastEditDate="2018-06-26T07:04:16.453" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T13:02:10.633" Title="Games to learn Chinese with?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30028" CreationDate="2018-06-02T21:50:43.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;不白 not in vain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他说：“人往高处走，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He said: &quot;People go upwards,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;水往低处流。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;water flows downwards&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我没有满足的时候。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't have enough time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;没见识过的东西还多着呢。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There are many things I have not experienced.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我什么都想试试，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I want to try everything,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这样才不白来世上一回。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;only that way will this life not have been in vain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T21:50:43.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30041" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-02T22:25:27.343" Score="4" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;猪八戒说，“你这个弼马温!&quot; baidu.com: “弼马温”不过是辟马瘟的谐音而已。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone else told me, 弼马温 might really be 弼马翁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弼马温 was 孙悟空's job in heaven. baidu.com &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/410308058.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; has: &quot;这样能有效的趋避马瘟。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;古人们在马厩中养猴子&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was Sun Wu Kong's job really to agitate the horses to avoid them getting horse fever? Did the ancient Chinese really keep monkeys in their stables?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T19:40:07.980" Title="Does the job title 弼马温 really signify 辟马瘟 'avoid horse fever'" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30042" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30043" CreationDate="2018-06-02T23:03:30.477" Score="5" ViewCount="498" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems 到, 到了, 了 can all be used to indicate completed actions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference in terms of indicating an action has finished?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Tricky_uses_of_%22dao%22&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this grammar page&lt;/a&gt; offers a number of examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你想到了什么好办法 ？&#xA;Nǐ xiǎngdào le shénme hǎo bànfǎ?&#xA;Have you thought of any good methods yet?&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;我们今天学了很多生词 。&#xA;Wǒmen jīntiān xué le hěn duō shēngcí.&#xA;Today we learned many new words.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first example, does the meaning change if you say 想到 instead of 想到了? What if you say 想了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second example, does the meaning change if you say 学到了 instead of 学了? How about 学到?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T15:52:11.683" Title="Difference between 到, 到了, and了 to indicate completed action?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30042" CreationDate="2018-06-02T23:47:28.370" Score="6" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;想 is the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;到 is the result complement in 想到 ('think and successfully recall'/ 'think and successfully come up with')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;想到 does not indicate what tense the action is in. E.g. 將會想到 (future tense); 此时想到(present tense); 曾想到 (past perfect tense)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;了 indicates 'completed' action (but not an indicator of past tense)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想到 indicates a successful action (you think and come up with something)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想了 indicates a completed action (you thought but might not had came up with anything)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想到了 indicates an successful and completed action (you thought and recalled or  came up with something)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T15:52:11.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30044" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30046" CreationDate="2018-06-03T03:46:25.093" Score="7" ViewCount="333" Body="&lt;p&gt;闺蜜 in Chinese means two girls have very good relationship, and much closer than normal good friends but they are not lesbians. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best I can get is the term &lt;em&gt;intimate relationship&lt;/em&gt;, but it could be used to describe lesbians. Any other good suggestions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T09:12:52.350" Title="What's the English equivalent of &quot;闺蜜&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30045" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30054" CreationDate="2018-06-03T04:20:18.483" Score="0" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the mathematics article &lt;a href=&quot;http://xueshu.baidu.com/s?wd=paperuri%3A%282e7daf094bbceef55b93de6d770de971%29&amp;amp;filter=sc_long_sign&amp;amp;sc_ks_para=q%3D%E6%8B%89%E4%B8%81%E9%98%B5%E7%9A%84%E6%9E%9A%E4%B8%BE%E5%92%8C%E8%AE%A1%E6%95%B0%28%E2%85%A1%29%3A%E6%83%85%E5%BD%A2n%3D4%2Ck%E3%80%88%3D4&amp;amp;sc_us=16090247759279202218&amp;amp;tn=SE_baiduxueshu_c1gjeupa&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;拉丁阵的枚举和计数(Ⅱ):情形n=4,k〈=4&lt;/a&gt;, we have the following first paragraph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aJoi2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aJoi2.png&quot; alt=&quot;snippet from the paper&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about what 合痕类的个数 (hé hén lèi de gè shù) means here (it's used twice).  &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#zh-CN/en/%E5%90%88%E7%97%95%E7%B1%BB%E7%9A%84%E4%B8%AA%E6%95%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; says it means &quot;the number of traces&quot;, but I don't feel this is accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 合痕类的个数 (hé hén lèi de gè shù) mean in this mathematics article?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My transcription: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;文献[1]中引人了(n,k)-拉丁阵概念，并对n=2，3的情形给出了(n,k)-拉丁阵和它们的&lt;strong&gt;合痕类的个数&lt;/strong&gt;。本文继续讨论n=4的情形，给出了(4,k,1)-拉丁阵，(4,2),(4,3)-和(4,4)-拉丁阵及它们的&lt;strong&gt;合痕类的个数&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In document [1] is the fascinating&lt;sup&gt;引人 (short for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/compound.php?cp=%E5%BC%95%E4%BA%BA%E5%85%A5%E8%83%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;引人入胜&lt;/a&gt; (?))&lt;/sup&gt; concept&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%A6%82%E5%BF%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;概念&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; of the (n,k)-Latin matrix, and the case&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%83%85%E5%BD%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;情形&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; of n=2,3, gives (n,k)-Latin matrices and their [合痕类的个数 (?)].  In this paper, we continue&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%BB%A7%E7%BB%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;继续&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; the discussion&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%AE%A8%E8%AE%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;讨论&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; to the case&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%83%85%E5%BD%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;情形&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; of n=4, give (4,k,1)-Latin matrices, (4,2), (4,3), and (4,4)-Latin matrices and their [合痕类的个数 (?)].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it helps, here's an example of what one looks like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WEfGK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WEfGK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T22:52:34.390" Title="What does 合痕类的个数 (hé hén lèi de gè shù) mean in this mathematics article?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30044" CreationDate="2018-06-03T04:20:49.013" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Preferred translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bestie&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;New Century English-Chinese Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Defines &lt;strong&gt;Bestie&lt;/strong&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挚友；好哥们儿；闺蜜；死党&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bestie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Urban Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; #1 def:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A person who means the world to you. The person that when you met you just kinda connected. The person that you were always there for. The person that isn't a love partner but they hold a special place in your heart. Someone that when they get hurt it hurts you too. Someone who no matter what happens between you two everything always ends up being alright. A person you can trust with anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Richie is her bestie. She is his bestie. They are forever besties no matter what.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and definition #2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An adoring nickname for one you hold in highest esteem, more commonly known as a best friend. A bestie is the person who you not only go shopping with on a regular basis but also trust implicitly with anything.. besties do not come and go like waves and sandcastles, they are more like permanent marker on American Eagle jeans, they'll stay with you forever. It is much better to have one pure andgood bestie who is true to you then multiple 'besties' (even though if theres more than one t usually will not count as a bestie, technically) who are only like pants that stay with you only until you get too fat for them, or you tear them (like hurting them, and then them being all unforgiving), or just until they fade. A true bestie would stick with you through all of it, walking in when the world walks out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Boyfriend: Hey, wanna go to the movies with me later?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You: Oh my gosh I'm sorry maybe tomorrow I've got plans with my bestie already. I would never blow her off!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bosom_buddy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bosom Buddy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bosom buddy (plural bosom buddies)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very close friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T09:12:52.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30047" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30048" CreationDate="2018-06-03T12:26:05.210" Score="4" ViewCount="276" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the abundance of immigration and emigration in Asia it would be interesting to know where the Chinese languages moved to as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The effect of Chinese characters on Japan and Korea goes without saying, but how about South East Asia?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia's page &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_and_overseas_Chinese_communities&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Language and overseas Chinese communities&lt;/a&gt; mentions the subject a little but mostly in gloss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-06-05T02:12:39.757" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T02:13:42.987" Title="What Chinese languages are spoken in South East Asia?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30047" CreationDate="2018-06-03T12:26:05.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Page 2 of《泰国的西南官话》by 肖自辉 has this little little insert, which is quite nice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4OTcT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4OTcT.png&quot; alt=&quot;yes&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Malaysia speaks: Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese and Hakka.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Singapore speaks: Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese, Teochew and Hainanese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Indonesia speaks: Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese and Teochew.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Brunei speaks: Amoy and Hakka.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Philippines speaks: Hokkien and Cantonese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vietnam speaks: Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, Southwestern Mandarin, Hokkien and Hainanese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Laos speaks: Teochew and Southwestern Mandarin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cambodia speaks: Teochew.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thailand speaks: Teochew, Hakka, Cantonese and Southwestern Mandarin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Myanmar speaks: Southwestern Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese and Hakka.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not that surprising to see Cantonese and Min, along with its other branches, getting big representation. Southwestern Mandarin on the other hand is a bit of a shock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-06-05T02:13:42.987" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T02:13:42.987" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28986" CreationDate="2018-06-03T18:52:28.597" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These characters are engraved in seal script. The first stamp says &lt;strong&gt;知(智)者樂&lt;/strong&gt;, a line from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analects&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Analects&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; meaning &lt;em&gt;those who have wisdom are happy&lt;/em&gt;. The second one has degraded too much to be identified, with character components missing from the bottom character in the stamp, although the top character or character component is &lt;strong&gt;竹&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;bamboo&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;知&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「知」is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「矢」a phonetic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「口」(&lt;em&gt;mouth&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「矢」originally depicted an arrow like that used in archery. The seal script version comes from a transformation of the loop-shape at the fletching into a horizontal line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zk4c4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zk4c4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last sample is directly linked to the seal script form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7vrPn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7vrPn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「口」originally depicted a mouth:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FYDU0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FYDU0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This shape is directly inherited by seal script:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u0iQw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u0iQw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oracle bone, bamboo slip, bronze, and seal script forms of「口」will all look something like the above, with the corners of the mouth clearly drawn. The current form「口」is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;clerical script&lt;/a&gt; innovation, so do not get this confused with other things written like「口」now, but were clearly distinguished in seal script and earlier:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QqvJs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QqvJs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;者&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic shape of「者」in seal script remains the same at the bottom as regular script, with most samples using「曰」. The top is subject to wildly varying shapes, and in this stamp the relation is most easily demonstrated by a Qin script sample:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aEtSb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aEtSb.png&quot; alt=&quot;![enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Top) Stamp image, horizontally flipped to imitate its real appearance on a writing medium; (Bottom) Qin script sample.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;樂&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「樂」depicts a musical instrument made from silk threads and a wooden structure. It is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「幺」(&lt;em&gt;a small amount of silk&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「木」(&lt;em&gt;wood&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「白」a non-obvious phonetic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「木」and「白」in seal script are relatively similar to their appearance in regular script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「幺」is the top of「糸」, which depicts several loops of silk threads ending in some frayed thread ends, and the identification is explained in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29865/help-please-me-find-out-what-this-means/29875#29875&quot;&gt;another SE answer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note that in this stamp,「白」is moved to the top of the character, presumably to fit the character into the thin rectangular frame.&lt;/strong&gt; This is a relatively drastic change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;竹&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「竹」originally depicted branches and leaves off a bamboo plant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kJPhe.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kJPhe.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later on, the branches were separated, leading on to the seal script form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9ztPW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9ztPW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T19:01:34.767" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30042" CreationDate="2018-06-03T20:38:57.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;了does not mean &quot;completed action&quot;, it's a realis aspect marker. Only 到, which is a resultive verb complement, marks the verb as &quot;action reached its goal&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你想到了什么好办法 ？ - Have you come up with any good methods yet?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你想了什么好办法 ？ - Have you given it a thought?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你想什么好办法 ？ - Without 到 complement and withiout 了, the reading should be &quot;habitual&quot; in most cases. That is: &lt;em&gt;You usually think about the good methods?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你想到什么好办法 ？ - Still habitual or irrealis/probabilistic reading without 了. That is, &lt;em&gt;You usually come up with good methods?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T14:53:51.937" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T14:53:51.937" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30052" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30053" CreationDate="2018-06-03T21:48:42.883" Score="10" ViewCount="5077" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is an Internet slang, but found a few times on the web.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自大，在超市贵的东西都是写着纯国产 以前在语言学校的时候写作文 主题都是你认为日本哪里好 为什么喜欢日本 我&lt;strong&gt;tm&lt;/strong&gt;是被逼来的 硬是编出来说日本人很有礼貌 日本的公共设施做得好 日本老师看着还一本满足 那副嘴脸真的很恶心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does “tm” mean? I searched on the web and found it means 他妈妈, but then it means 我他妈妈是 and does not make sense...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2019-07-21T11:26:49.217" Title="What does “tm” mean?" Tags="&lt;slang&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30052" CreationDate="2018-06-03T22:08:42.363" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TM&lt;/strong&gt; (also written &lt;strong&gt;TMD&lt;/strong&gt;) is short for &lt;strong&gt;他/她媽的&lt;/strong&gt;, literally ('his/her mother's'), equivalent to English &lt;strong&gt;motherf*****g&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BB%96%E5%AA%BD%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Wiktionary entry&lt;/a&gt; for more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T00:28:47.787" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T00:28:47.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30045" CreationDate="2018-06-03T22:52:34.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am absolutely not a mathematician, but here is my stab:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;isotropic: &quot;having the same properties in all directions,&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, a regular matrix, your example showing the vertical and horizontal elements to be the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;合痕：isotropy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;合痕类：isotropic&lt;br&gt;&#xA;合痕类的个数： isotropic elements / individual elements&lt;br&gt;&#xA;矩阵: matrix&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本文继续讨论n=4的情形，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This document goes on to discuss n=4 matrices&lt;br&gt;&#xA;给出了(4,k,1)-拉丁阵，(4,2),(4,3)-和&lt;br&gt;&#xA;showing (4,k,1) - Latin matrices, (4,2), (4,3)- and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(4,4)-拉丁阵及它们的合痕类的个数。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4 by 4 Latin matrices and their isotropic elements&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T22:52:34.390" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24298" CreationDate="2018-06-03T23:48:20.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CantoDict&lt;/a&gt; doesn't contain a word like「底」, and given that the character「」is located in the CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B block, it's not a common use character. An appropriate reading and meaning for「」appears in the Kangxi Dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CGCrr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CGCrr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, that definition says「衣短袖」, which is almost the exact opposite to「長袖衫」. If whoever you heard it from is not mistaken, then that will be a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Chinese#Distribution_and_variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantonese dialect&lt;/a&gt; word, and not &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Standard Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest entry in CantoDict which matches the meaning is「底衫」(&lt;em&gt;dai2 saam1&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;undershirt&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;). I'm going to note here that「長袖衫」doesn't actually mean &lt;em&gt;inner shirt&lt;/em&gt;, it means &lt;em&gt;long-sleeved shirt&lt;/em&gt;, and if this tailor that you're seeing designs inner shirts with short sleeves instead then「底」(or maybe「底衫」) sounds entirely appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T23:48:20.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30056" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-04T00:02:55.507" Score="3" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the example sentence (according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Degree_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese grammar wiki&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的菜做得很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的字写得很漂亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的中文说得很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, all use 的 before a noun, once it moves before the verb. The original sentence does not use 的 to modify the noun (e.g. 你做菜做得很好。).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I feel I have also seen such sentences without 的 modification, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你菜做得很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你字写得很漂亮。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你中文说得很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or the sentence that made me determined to open this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凭着他的才能和经验，他在云南&lt;strong&gt;事情&lt;/strong&gt;办得很顺利。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe syllables are also taken in consideration here. 你中文说得很好 sounds more natural than the others, as those nouns are just one character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is it acceptable or not to omit 的 here? Or is it grammatically wrong but used commonly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T06:05:01.170" Title="Is it acceptable to omit 的 before a noun in degree complement, when the verb follows the noun?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30056" CreationDate="2018-06-04T00:42:27.487" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot omit the possessive 的 in 你的菜, 你的字, 你的中文, if your comments are about 'your cooking', 'your writing' or 'your Chinese'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you can remove (not omit) '的' to change the topic from '你的~ (your~)' to '你 (you)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[你的菜 (topic)] [做得很好(comment)] - &quot;your cooking is cooked very well&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[你的字 (topic)] [写得很漂亮 (comment)] &quot; your writing is written very beautifully&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[你的中文 (topic)] [说得很好 (comment)] &quot;Your Chinese is spoken very well&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'你的菜', '你的字' and '你的中文' are the topics&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[你 (topic)] [菜做得很好 (comment)] - &quot;you cook very well&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[你 (topic)] [字写得很漂亮 (comment)] - &quot;you write very beautifully&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[你 (topic)] [中文说得很好 (comment)] - &quot;you speak Chinese very well&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'你' is the topics&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'你做得很好', '你写得很漂亮' and '你说得很好' are basic [subject + verb]  phrases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T06:05:01.170" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T06:05:01.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30056" CreationDate="2018-06-04T01:10:52.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a nuance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你菜做得很好 means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;generally your cooking is good&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 你的菜做得很好,  depending on contexts, could mean either &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;generally your cooking is good&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;the speaker refers to those dishes cooked by you are good&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in practice, there really isn't any difference and you can use them interchangeably. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This reminds me a similar omission in English: &lt;em&gt;I go see your dog&lt;/em&gt; vs &lt;em&gt;I go to see your dog&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T01:24:27.043" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T01:24:27.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30052" CreationDate="2018-06-04T01:45:23.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;TM, TMD: 他妈，他妈的/地. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on contexts, it could be interpreted differently:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Damn it! // (她)妈的&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What the f**k are you doing? // 你TM在干嘛？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Damn hot! // 真TMD热！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What the f**king door is this? // 这是TM什么(破)门？&#xA;... ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T01:45:23.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30060" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30858" CreationDate="2018-06-04T06:02:33.467" Score="6" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like every time I look up a CJK ext. B character it invariably says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;台湾人名用字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example I just looked up the character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=22D53&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea&lt;/a&gt; notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拼音peng2。台湾人名用字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few days ago I was looking up , which &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=20DE8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea&lt;/a&gt; again notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;台湾人名用字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And before that, I was looking up , which again &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=22D5E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zisea&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;台湾人名用字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These just don't seem like characters that people would use for naming names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm just glad the other characters I came across: ,  and  - weren't considered characters for names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do the Taiwanese have such strange characters for names?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T11:35:40.207" Title="Why do the Taiwanese have such strange characters for names?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30042" CreationDate="2018-06-04T11:49:22.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding 学 and 学到:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;学 means to study. 我们学了很多生词 indicates you studied lots of new words.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;学到 means to study + success. It emphasises that something has been learned successfully. 我们学到了很多生词 indicates you LEARNED lots of words&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T11:49:22.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29330" CreationDate="2018-06-05T06:31:52.500" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As also stated in the comment of @user6065, using &quot;和&quot; between the second last and the last in a list is very natural Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the other hand, your second example does not sound very conversational. It may appear in certain types of documents or articles (or speech), but would not often be heard in a conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T06:31:52.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30066" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30068" CreationDate="2018-06-05T17:07:44.237" Score="3" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two words seem to be the same for me. Both mean &quot;resist&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to 百度词典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;抗拒：抵抗并拒绝&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;抵御：抵挡;抗御&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least 抵抗 and 反抗 seems to be different in that it is used to counter &quot;attack&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;抵抗：用力量制止对方的进攻、抗击外来的武装侵略或敌军进攻&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So regarding 抗拒 and 抵御, how can I use them apart?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-06-05T19:19:05.770" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T11:31:05.940" Title="What is the difference between 抗拒 and 抵御?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30066" CreationDate="2018-06-05T21:19:17.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抗 = resist; 拒 = repel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抗拒 is 'actively resist and repel'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抵 = brace ; 禦 = keep out; defend; guard against; take precautions against&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抵禦 is 'actively resist plus passively defend'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have terms like 力抗 (forcefully resist), 力拒 (forcefully repel); but we don't have 力禦 (forcefully prevent/ defend)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;抵禦 something you can actively resist and passively defend against , like 寒冷，疾病 and 外敵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;抗拒 something you can actively resist and repel, coincidentally, 寒冷，疾病 and 外敵 all qualify for that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T21:24:24.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30066" CreationDate="2018-06-05T22:49:06.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抗拒&lt;/strong&gt;：1. 抵抗, resist; 2. 拒绝, refuse;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抵御&lt;/strong&gt;：1. 抵挡, 抵抗, resist; 2. 抵御, 预防, protect from;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, there is an overlap in meaning (sense 1) between these two words. For example, 无法抗拒==无法抵御; 抗拒诱惑==抵御诱惑; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there is a different usage(sense 2) between the two. For example,  抗拒搜查 means you fight against police in order to resist their searching in your home;well,  抵御搜查 would mean that you hide your evidence to &lt;strong&gt;protect&lt;/strong&gt; it to be found out by police; another example is 抵御疾病 means you could wear more to protect you from the disease like a cold; well, there is no direct way that you can fight with diseases, so 抗拒疾病 seems not to make any sense. You can't literally &lt;strong&gt;refuse&lt;/strong&gt; the diseases when they come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-06T11:31:05.940" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T11:31:05.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30070" CreationDate="2018-06-06T03:37:14.903" Score="1" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a &lt;a href=&quot;http://mandarincorner.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MandarinCorner.org&lt;/a&gt; video &lt;em&gt;I Hate Getting My Period&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mandarincorner.org/pdfs-audio/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;audio and transcript link&lt;/a&gt;; video is also searchable on YouTube), we have the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uQkGK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uQkGK.png&quot; alt=&quot;不知道大家觉得做女人最大的悲哀是什么？&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bù zhīdào dàjiā juédé zuò nǚrén zuìdà de bēi'āi shì shénme?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;不知道大家觉得做女人最大的悲哀是什么？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I don't know what you think is the difficult thing about being a woman?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused as to why 做 is in this sentence; it seems to serve some kind of grammatical function I'm not aware of.  It looks like it could be omitted without problem.  I also feel a bit of a mismatch between both 做 and 是 in the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 做 in the sentence 不知道大家觉得做女人最大的悲哀是什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking up 做 using the PeraPera Chinese Popup Dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ExxEa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ExxEa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to do; to make; to produce; to write; to compose; to act as; to engage in; to hold (a party); to be; to become; to function (in some capacity); to serve as; to be used for; to form (a bond or relationship); to pretend; to feign; to act a part; to put on appearance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among many definitions, there's &amp;quot;to be&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;to act as&amp;quot;, and &amp;quot;to produce&amp;quot; on the list, which seem closest in meaning.  The 做 in the given sentence functions something like &amp;quot;is&amp;quot; (approximately &amp;quot;is the greatest annoyance&amp;quot;), which is typically performed by 是 (and this also occurs in the sentence).  However, we obviously can't just interchange 是 and 做 throughout Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm more familiar with using 做 to form a verb (e.g. 做饭 &amp;quot;cook food&amp;quot; and 做工业 &amp;quot;do homework&amp;quot;) rather than in this case 做&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E6%82%B2%E5%93%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;悲哀&lt;/a&gt; which seems along the lines of &amp;quot;give rise to annoyance&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T00:51:02.763" Title="Why is 做 in the sentence 不知道大家觉得做女人最大的悲哀是什么？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30069" CreationDate="2018-06-06T04:24:05.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;做 here is a verb, according to &lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt;, meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5 充当 be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they give three examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;做个好孩子 &#xA;  be a good child &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;做老实人 &#xA;  be an honest person &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;做秘书 &#xA;  be a secretary &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pleco's &lt;em&gt;PLC&lt;/em&gt; dictionary also has this verbal meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4 be; become&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;做演员 &#xA;  zuò yǎnyuán&#xA;  become an actor or actress; go on the stage &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;后来她做保育员了。 &#xA;  Hòulái tā zuò bǎoyùyuán le.&#xA;  Later she became a child-care worker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天开会由你做主席。 &#xA;  Jīntiān kāihuì yóu nǐ zuò zhǔxí.&#xA;  You’ll be the chairman at today’s meeting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做女人 means, as the subtitles correctly translated above, to be a woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T04:24:05.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30071" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30073" CreationDate="2018-06-06T11:05:15.917" Score="3" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小姐见他有点儿犹豫，便有声有色地向他介绍吸粉的妙处。这时，他想起了，“在社会上混，什么都得尝试尝试” 这句常挂在嘴边上&lt;strong&gt;的话&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;便&lt;/strong&gt;点点头答应了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding this usage of 的话, the first I came up with is the use of &lt;em&gt;&quot;If ~, then ...&quot;&lt;/em&gt; structure. But this lacks the two fundamental points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It lacks 如果. But I know it has no problem grammatically, and the omission of 如果 is common.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It lacks 就 in the main clause. If subclause is 如果～的话, then the main clause needs 就, 那, or 那么.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is my understanding that the usage of 的话 here is &quot;If ~&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it is correct, is it acceptable to use &lt;strong&gt;便&lt;/strong&gt; in the main clause instead of 就 or 那?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence also sounds a bit awkward, meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If this sentence always hangs on the mouse, (he) nodded the head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which sounds a bit awkward. &quot;As long/far as&quot; or just use &quot;so&quot; sound more natural for me, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This sentence always hangs on the mouse, so he nodded the head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how does 的话 work here and what is the correct meaning of the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T11:42:51.480" Title="Does 的话 in 这句常挂在嘴边上的话，便点点头答应了 create &quot;If~&quot; subclause?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30071" CreationDate="2018-06-06T11:42:40.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it's not a &lt;em&gt;if...then...&lt;/em&gt; structure here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;话 here is used as its literal meaning， &lt;em&gt;words&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;sentence&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main clause is actually 他想起了话. And the 话 he recalled was “在社会上混，什么都得尝试尝试”, which always hangs  on his mouth(implying he often says that sentence.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他想起了&lt;/strong&gt;，&amp;lt;“在社会上混，什么都得尝试尝试”&gt; {这句常挂在嘴边上的}&lt;strong&gt;话&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when that sentence came into his mind, 便点点头答应了 he nodded and agree to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T11:42:40.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30071" CreationDate="2018-06-06T11:42:51.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your example doesn't suit the question. The break down of this sentence is  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[这句常挂在嘴边上的 (adjectival phrase)]  modifies the noun [话] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这句常挂在嘴边上的[&lt;strong&gt;话&lt;/strong&gt;]&quot; = &quot;[&lt;strong&gt;the words&lt;/strong&gt;] that is spoken often (by people)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the usage of the set phrase [的话], it functions as [if~],  as you described &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If it is correct, is it acceptable to use 便 in the main clause instead of 就 or 那?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, depend on the context, [如果～的话] can be followed by different conjunctions like 便, 就, 那&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A correct example of [～的话]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;不想吃[1. &lt;strong&gt;的话&lt;/strong&gt;][2. &lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;]不要勉強&quot; - &quot;[1. &lt;strong&gt;If&lt;/strong&gt;] you don't want to eat, [2. &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt;] don't force yourself&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'就' here can be replaced by&quot;便&quot; or &quot;那就&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T11:42:51.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30074" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-06T11:53:21.320" Score="1" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;if I have to translate &quot;still alive&quot; can I write it like this 还活着 or are there better ways to say it? I have to use it as  a title of a poem, so it doesn't have a context or a phrase where it should be written in. It's just the simple poetic expression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine wrote it in &quot;cursive&quot; in the image down below, but I don't even know if the first kanji exists. Would you read 还活着? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uy2Ix.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uy2Ix.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19819" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T19:43:14.653" Title="Can I translate &quot;still alive&quot; as 还活着?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30077" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-07T01:02:00.067" Score="1" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;For some reason WPS Office, when I clicked &quot;bullet point&quot;, gave me this character:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UZbF9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UZbF9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know what this character is? When I try handwriting recognition, it can't seem to find it. Same thing when I search by radical. It's like the character doesn't exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: This character appears when I copy &amp;amp; paste a list with bullets in it: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AT7Jv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AT7Jv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT 2&lt;/strong&gt;: I am on Ubuntu Kylin 16.04 if that makes a difference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT 3&lt;/strong&gt;: Apparently there are more... I get these characters when selecting different bullet types: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2F5pX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2F5pX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0u0xo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0u0xo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Trmq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Trmq.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YCgoS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YCgoS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AkQ6B.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AkQ6B.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every other function works perfectly fine. There is no issue other than the fact that I can't use bullet points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16402" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T01:15:51.473" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T01:15:51.473" Title="Interesting &quot;bullet points&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30069" CreationDate="2018-06-07T03:28:56.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;做 is &lt;strong&gt;being&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 is &lt;strong&gt;to be&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做女人 means &lt;strong&gt;being a woman&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是什麼 means &lt;strong&gt;is what (what is)&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't have to look at those 2 things together!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you omit the 做 in the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不知道大家觉得女人最大的悲哀是什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It becomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't know (I wonder) what everybody think the biggest sorrow of a woman is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As opposed to the original meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't know (I wonder) what everybody think the biggest sorrow of &lt;strong&gt;being&lt;/strong&gt; a woman is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you see the subtle difference!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18981" LastEditorUserId="18981" LastEditDate="2018-06-08T00:51:02.763" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T00:51:02.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30079" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-07T07:08:56.377" Score="0" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know an equivalent word for &quot;by far&quot; in Mandarin, when it comes to the superlative degree (最～）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有的人之所以不吃早餐是大概为三种理由而划分了。第一个是来不及，第二个是减肥，而第三个是很麻烦。但是第一个理由是&lt;strong&gt;最多的&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, it just means 最多, while it does not mention the degree of it. It might be 40%, or 25%, or 79%. It is natural to say it is &quot;最多&quot; as it is the first reason here, but it is unclear if it is &quot;by far&quot; or &quot;barely ahead of the second&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when the first choice consists of 79% while the second one is just 9%, I would rather like to use &quot;by far&quot; or its equivalent word to emphasize it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Superlative_%22zui%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Chinese grammar wiki's section on superlative 最&lt;/a&gt; does not mention the emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this kind of word or expression exist in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T14:27:50.727" Title="What is the word to emphasize the 最~ (&quot;by far the best&quot;) in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30077" CreationDate="2018-06-07T07:11:39.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tested in WPS, added several bullets, saved the file in UTF-8 text, then opened the pure text document in Word, and with the &quot;Atl-X&quot; shortcut I found the Unicode code point for these bullets: F0D8, F06E, F075, F06C, etc ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are in the PUA (Private Use Area, E000–F8FF). Characters there are not assigned by Unicode, but deliberately left unassigned. Different companies, organizations can use them in different ways. This then raises a possibility that there can be a conflict with two parties using them in different ways. Here the conflict would probably be your problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As what the characters actually are, I found  (201E4) through &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/84/js/201E4.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt;, as you can easily look it up by radical. And in the Unicode Chart around it, I found another of them, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/84/js/201D5.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(201D5)&lt;/a&gt; (This first pic in your post). There are also similar characters to some others of your pictures. The characters found are in CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On zdic, there is absolutely no explanation of the characters. They are ancient character or character variations that are not used today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: I don't know if you can see the characters in the post. The linked pages in zdic use pictures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T07:11:39.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30079" CreationDate="2018-06-07T08:52:40.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the equivalent of  &lt;strong&gt;by far&lt;/strong&gt; could be 远超 or 遥遥领先. You can put in your context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但是第一个理由&lt;strong&gt;远超&lt;/strong&gt; 其它(两个)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但是第一个理由(所占比例)&lt;strong&gt;遥遥领先&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T08:52:40.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30082" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-07T11:11:18.750" Score="3" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;To start, let's note that the colloquial names of the radicals different from those of the dictionary differ. For example if I asked a native Chinese person what is 彳, they would certainly respond 双人旁, but the dictionary says it's chi4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, let's note that it's possible to have more than one colloquial name. For example, 亻is called 单人旁，and 单立人 even though the former is vastly more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With these considerations in mind, I call upon the readers of this question to collect a list of all the colloquial names for the radical 隹。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15759" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T11:36:40.083" Title="隹 colloquial name" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30082" CreationDate="2018-06-07T11:49:12.143" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There’s a list here you might want to look at: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jiantizi.com/help/bushoumingchen.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.jiantizi.com/help/bushoumingchen.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;形状 名称&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隹  隹字旁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T11:49:12.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30041" CreationDate="2018-06-07T19:40:07.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ancient Chinese did keep monkey in their stables,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But they actually keep female monkeys, as they believe their menstruation can prevent horse fever (馬廄畜母猴辟馬瘟疫,逐月有天癸流草上,馬食之永無疾病矣)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By assigning Sun Wu Kong to a female monkey's title, it is probably a subtle joke from the author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19825" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T19:40:07.980" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30074" CreationDate="2018-06-07T19:43:14.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;還活著&lt;/code&gt; is correct in meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in most cases &lt;code&gt;仍(然)活著&lt;/code&gt; is a better translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19825" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T19:43:14.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29878" CreationDate="2018-06-07T20:06:43.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will answer some Chinese related questions, no knowledge on hakka&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;結頭&lt;/code&gt; stands for knot （繩結頭）, tying two threads together with a knot is a metaphor of love or bond.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Same as above, the knot won't get loose for thousand years. You got it correct in meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;That translates to &lt;code&gt;Unless pomegranates grows out from tangerine trees&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;結&lt;/code&gt; here means &lt;code&gt;bear fruit&lt;/code&gt; （結成果實）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;千年鐵樹&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;萬年青&lt;/code&gt; are two plants that are known for long lives and evergreen. Note that &lt;code&gt;千年&lt;/code&gt; is just an adjective (time) for &lt;code&gt;鐵樹&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;萬年青&lt;/code&gt; is an actual plant name.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yes, 10 thousands（萬年）also has similar meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It kind of literally means &lt;code&gt;Look into the water reflection (like a mirror)&lt;/code&gt;, just a general description used when dating near riverbank or sea.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;哎&lt;/code&gt; (used in the video) or &lt;code&gt;诶&lt;/code&gt; is more neutral and proper, 唉 is more negative, like &lt;code&gt;sigh&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19825" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T20:06:43.347" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30087" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30091" CreationDate="2018-06-08T01:35:46.940" Score="3" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a &lt;a href=&quot;http://mandarincorner.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MandarinCorner.org&lt;/a&gt; video &lt;em&gt;I Hate Getting My Period&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mandarincorner.org/pdfs-audio/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;audio and transcript link&lt;/a&gt;; video is also searchable on YouTube), we have the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ouCw1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ouCw1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nǐ bùnéng chī liáng xìng de shuǐguǒ&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;你不能吃凉性的水果。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;You can't eat cool fruits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused as to why &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%80%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;性&lt;/a&gt; (xìng) is in this sentence.  It means &amp;quot;nature&amp;quot;, so I surmise it goes together with 凉性 (liáng xìng) to give &amp;quot;cool natured&amp;quot; (in the sense &amp;quot;thermally cool&amp;quot;), but I don't see why it's there.  E.g. 你不能吃凉的水果 (without the 性) seems to convey the same meaning, and even sounds less formal to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 性 in the sentence 你不能吃凉性的水果?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T03:06:16.867" Title="Why is 性 in the sentence 你不能吃凉性的水果?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30087" CreationDate="2018-06-08T01:58:38.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;凉的水果 describes the actual temperature of the fruit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凉性的水果 refers to the &quot;nature&quot; of the fruit, whether it is hot or cold when you eat the fruit is irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: &quot;凉性&quot; might have something to with concepts in Traditional Chinese Medicine. I'm familiar with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T01:58:38.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30087" CreationDate="2018-06-08T02:13:49.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;凉的 means low temprature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凉性的 means a kind of property called &quot;liáng&quot; in Chinese culture.&#xA;Both are adjective but with totally different meanings(well, actually related, but you don't need to know the reason).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes native speakers use 凉 but actually means 凉性。You need to see the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19549" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T02:13:49.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30087" CreationDate="2018-06-08T02:15:32.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a reference to 凉性水果 or 寒性水果 from &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%AF%92%E6%80%A7%E6%B0%B4%E6%9E%9C/8856466?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu baike&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;寒性水果是指热量密度低、富含纤维，但脂肪、糖分都很少的水果。通常所见到的水果，如番茄（微寒）、苹果（微寒）、香瓜、奇异果、香蕉、甜瓜、柚子、柿子、椰子、桑椹等都属于寒性水果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, it's a category of fruits, which contain lower calories, sugar and etc. They gave examples, 番茄、苹果，香瓜，奇异果, which fall in this category. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凉的水果 means the fruits are literally cold. You just got them out from a fridge for example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="943" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T03:06:16.867" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T03:06:16.867" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30087" CreationDate="2018-06-08T07:32:29.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;“凉性水果”  doesn't  exist  in  Chinese  context.  “寒性水果”  is  the  right  way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“寒性水果”  doesn't  mean  low  temperature  fruit,  or  low  cotent  of  cal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It  comes  from  Chinese  “中医理论”  and  “阴阳论”。Four  catogries  can  be  summerised  as:  “性寒”、“性平”、“性温”  and  “性燥”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19573" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T07:32:29.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30092" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-08T10:39:59.317" Score="3" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;赔： compensate, pay for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't really get '赔着笑脸' Maybe 'it cost him his smile to leave' i.e. he was sad to leave??? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is there some other meaning in 赔？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;八戒偷眼一看，那三个女儿美如天仙，不由得想入非非，赔着笑脸走了过去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T11:55:47.210" Title="What does 赔着 mean in this sentence?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30092" CreationDate="2018-06-08T11:01:42.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;赔笑: literally, you &quot;pay&quot; your smile to sb. , implying 讨好， curry favor with sb, show your goodness and etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 陪笑 is you just follow someone to smile and it doesn't have the connotation of being a suck-up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T11:01:42.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30092" CreationDate="2018-06-08T11:17:36.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/3325/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;賠&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(1)compensate; indemnify&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(2) apologize&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/%E8%B3%A0%E7%AC%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;賠笑&lt;/a&gt; = smile apologetically&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;赔着&lt;/strong&gt;]笑脸 = [&lt;strong&gt;serve up&lt;/strong&gt;] a smiling face (apologetically)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;八戒 had naughty thoughts about the three girls. His subconscious guilty feeling was showing on his face with an apologetic smile&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T11:55:47.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30079" CreationDate="2018-06-08T14:27:50.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;但絕大多數是第一個理由&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;但主要是第一個理由&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using &quot;絕大多數&quot; or &quot;主要&quot; as an adv with &quot;是&quot; to describe the choice consisting of 80% or so sounds more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19828" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T14:27:50.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29418" CreationDate="2018-06-08T15:16:01.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the pension form, 基數 means the average monthly salary when he/she applied for retirement. So if the salary was 100 and his/her 個基數 is 56, then the total amount of pension would be 100*56=5600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the meaning of 大口, please refer to @thinwa 's interpretation. Just one minor correction, 大口 considers people aged 11 or over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19828" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T15:16:01.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30087" CreationDate="2018-06-08T21:39:40.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In traditional medicine, there is this concept of &lt;strong&gt;四气&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;four properties&lt;/strong&gt;. These properties are: 寒、热、温、凉. These are the same words used to describe temperature in life, but they carry different meanings here. Some people extend the idea to general food. The definition is very vague.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something similar to 四气 is &lt;strong&gt;五味&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;five tastes&lt;/strong&gt;. These are 辛、甘、酸、苦、咸. These are the same words used to describe the tastes of food, but they also carry different meanings when referring to medicine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19829" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T21:39:40.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30098" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-08T23:18:57.517" Score="4" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this instance i'm  trying to communicate &quot;every&quot; or &quot;each&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you usually do on weekends? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你週末通常都做什麼 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你週末都通常做什麼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a &lt;em&gt;meaningful&lt;/em&gt; difference in the position in this sentence? or is it just plain grammatically incorrect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thanks a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19130" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T05:57:10.660" Title="Is the position of 都 in a sentence important？ (example inside)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30098" CreationDate="2018-06-09T00:11:38.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 你週末通常都做什麼 is more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你週末都通常做什麼 sounds ok, but not as natural as the first one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no difference in meaning. I don't think there's a strong reason as to why the first one sounds more natural. It might be all about conventions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that some might take this differently based on their conventions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, 都 here is used to emphasize, not to convey &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;each&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-09T05:57:10.660" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T05:57:10.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30098" CreationDate="2018-06-09T05:29:14.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;People I ask don't like: 你周末都通常干什么？but they can't say why not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you usually do on weekends? &#xA;你周末通常都干什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can leave 都 out:&#xA;你周末通常干什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you usually do each weekend? &#xA;你每个周末通常做什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T05:29:14.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30101" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30171" CreationDate="2018-06-09T09:20:17.393" Score="3" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;A colorful way to mention you’re going back to work, especially after a break is by saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;back to the grindstone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just usually plainly, and rather matter of factly, translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;回去干活&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any phrases more figurative that are similar to “back to the grindstone”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m not looking for any makeshift combination of words but something like 回去推磨 would be pretty fun as it calls 有钱能使鬼推磨 to mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-06-09T09:29:14.713" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T19:22:24.713" Title="Chinese phrases akin to “back to the grindstone”?" Tags="&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30102" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30144" CreationDate="2018-06-09T09:39:31.073" Score="-3" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m always impressed when I see a good combination of pinyin that spells out an English word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’ve see companies with names similar to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;立刻(出行) li + ke = like&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People with names like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;an + na = Anna &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And combinations like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;shi + te&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confusing the unsuspecting Brits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other combinations of pinyin spell out English words or names?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Also saw something like 爬竿 the other day written as: PAGAN, threw me off for a min.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-09-12T08:22:27.740" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T21:51:22.277" Title="What pinyin combinations spell out English words?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30103" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30112" CreationDate="2018-06-09T12:08:55.243" Score="1" ViewCount="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;From pleco I see that both 回收 and 收回  might be appropriate. Using google I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;過期藥品回收站 this seems to be the place to give back expired medicine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上海市食品药品监督管理局收回药品GMP证书公告&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I understand correctly the second one is about recalling the permit for some medications. Should I use the second one, when referring to medicine that doctors are no longer allowed to prescribe?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你知道政府每年收回多少藥品嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T07:58:09.857" Title="Taking medicine off the shelves" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30104" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-09T13:28:02.280" Score="9" ViewCount="1886" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it ok to ask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的电话号码是什么? (What is your telephone number)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or do I have to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的电话号码是多少? which is the translation on Duolingo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, can I just say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你的电话是多少?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because 电话 already means phone number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19833" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-06T23:07:05.883" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T23:07:05.883" Title="Is it okay to ask 你的电话号码是什么?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;sentence&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30104" CreationDate="2018-06-09T15:18:55.467" Score="-2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;是什么 /shi  shenme/ = 'is what'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;是多少 /shi duoshao/ = 'is how many'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A telephone number is not an amount or quantity,  It is a &lt;strong&gt;specific code&lt;/strong&gt; made up of numbers, not unlike an serial number made up of numbers . If you don't say &quot;你手机的 serial number 是多少&quot;, then you shouldn't say &quot;你的电话是多少&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We always ask people &quot; what is your phone number?&quot; instead of &quot;how many is your phone number&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct answer is &quot;你的电话号码是&lt;strong&gt;什么&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; /Nide dianhua haoma shi shenme/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Also, Can I just say, &quot;Nide dianhua shi duoshao?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it means &quot;你的电话是多少&quot; (your telephone is how many), which doesn't make sense;  If you say &quot;你的电话是什么&quot; people would understand you meant &quot;你的电话号码是什么&quot; (omitted 号码). But, grammatically 电话 /dianhua/ only means &quot;telephone&quot; , you need to add 号码 and say &quot;电话号码&quot; if you meant to ask &quot;what is someone's phone number&quot; instead of &quot;what brand someone's telephone is&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-09T23:21:12.947" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T23:21:12.947" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30104" CreationDate="2018-06-09T22:34:32.437" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say all of your sentences are used in practice within the  mainland. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are all correct expressions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你的电话号码是什么？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你的电话号码是多少？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你的电话是多少？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colloquially, we even brief it like 你电话多少？ or 电话多少？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T22:34:32.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30103" CreationDate="2018-06-09T22:52:48.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你知道政府每年收回多少藥品嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is acceptable to use either 收回 or 回收 when you use it as a verb for &quot; recall&quot; like your third example sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you meant to say &quot;revoke&quot; like your second example sentence &lt;em&gt;&quot;上海市食品药品监督管理局收回(revoke) 药品GMP证书公告&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, then you can only use 收回 because 回收 doesn't contain this meaning &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;收回= (v) take back/ recall/ revoke&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回收=  (v) recall/ retrieve ; (adj) recalled&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you wrote &quot;你知道政府每年销毁多少&lt;strong&gt;回收藥品&lt;/strong&gt;嗎？&quot; , &quot;回收&quot; would be an adjective, and it shouldn't be replaced by &quot;收回&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-09T23:03:37.983" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T23:03:37.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30009" CreationDate="2018-06-10T02:03:27.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can just take those explanations from other answers as they're all correct. &#xA; And as far as I am concerned, we use “出息” in our sentence in place of “成器” in our daily lives. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19836" LastEditorUserId="943" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T03:35:05.890" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T03:35:05.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30103" CreationDate="2018-06-10T03:22:57.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe 召回 fits your purpose:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;含有苯丙醇胺成分的药品都被召回了。&#xA;Drugs containing phenylpropanolamine are being recalled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回收 has a meaning 'recycle', which is not what you are doing with the disqualified drugs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T03:22:57.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30103" CreationDate="2018-06-10T07:58:09.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;回收 means recycle, things have nothing wrong, they just become old or outdated so they are recycled (to make new stuffs).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;收回 means take back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;召回 means recall, products shouldn't exist in the market because of flaws, the producer want them back so that no further disasters will happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19549" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T07:58:09.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30104" CreationDate="2018-06-10T08:05:03.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should know although telephone numbers are not quantity, but still made of digits. So people say it in both form. This also applies to street number or zip code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19549" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T08:05:03.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30114" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30116" CreationDate="2018-06-10T10:54:04.787" Score="2" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在帐篷里，周海提议大家一起唱羌族民歌，渐渐地场面也活跃起来。周海还给他们讲羌族的文化和历史。孩子们渐渐&lt;strong&gt;建立起&lt;/strong&gt;对他的信任。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder why it is 起, not 起来 in the sentence above. In my understanding, &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Direction_complement_%22-qilai%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the correct complement (direction complement) is 起来&lt;/a&gt;, but in this sentence it does not have 来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is it correct that this usage of 起 is direction complement as well? In that case, why is it 起, not 起来?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T11:59:37.283" Title="Is it acceptable to omit 来 in 起来 as a direction complement?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;direction-complement&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27825" CreationDate="2018-06-10T11:36:33.247" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the details in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sc-top.org.tw/download/2018TOCFL_guidelines(20180208).pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2018TOCFL_guidelines&lt;/a&gt;, on page 14(or pdf file page 18) is what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19840" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T11:36:33.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30114" CreationDate="2018-06-10T11:59:37.283" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;起&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（用在动词后，表示动词的趋向）:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;hold high the flag; raise the flag;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;举起旗子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;take up arms;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拿起武器&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the verb should be followed by 起 when there is an object at the end, for example 拿起武器. When there's no object, 起来 should be used, e.g. 拿起来. Basically, you can consider 拿起 as a transitive and 拿起来 as an intransitive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use 把. It will be like 把...拿起来. e.g.  把武器拿起来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 孩子们渐渐建立起对他的信任 can be paraphrased as 孩子们渐渐&lt;strong&gt;把&lt;/strong&gt;对他的信任&lt;strong&gt;建立起来&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T11:59:37.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30155" CreationDate="2018-06-10T12:42:57.570" Score="5" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;More often than not, looking up a simple word in a dictionary brings up several translations. It's pretty obvious that a lot of people have problems with this since a lot of questions here are &quot;what is the difference between X and Y&quot;. For example, looking up something like &quot;speak&quot; or &quot;talk&quot; brings up a lot of seemingly equivalent versions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;谈&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;论&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;说&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;讲&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;说话&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;讲话&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;谈论&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;议论&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;谈谈&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;聊聊&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;讲讲&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is obvious from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/17382/25&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; that there are subtle differences. Is there a way to infer these differences from a standard dictionary? Or, are there any additional tools and resources that would help with something like this? I understand that we can &quot;just ask someone&quot;, but it's not always possible or convenient, so what's the best way to make an &quot;educated guess&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T02:16:33.530" Title="How do I resolve dictionary ambiguities when looking up words/phrases?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30117" CreationDate="2018-06-10T13:01:59.397" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fastest way to resolve such ambiguities is to shed thinking in English. Right now, you're looking up an English word and finding a whole bunch of synonyms used in different contexts for it in another language, which is unavoidable for any language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, those listed aren't fully interchangeable. Here's how I would translate those terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;談, &lt;em&gt;chat&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;論, &lt;em&gt;discussion/debate/reason&lt;/em&gt;, more intellectual/academic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;說, originally &lt;em&gt;to explain&lt;/em&gt; (e.g. 說明), extended to mean &lt;em&gt;say/speak&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;講, &lt;em&gt;speak&lt;/em&gt;, colloquially extended to mean &lt;em&gt;explain&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;說話, &lt;em&gt;to say/speak&lt;/em&gt;, almost entirely interchangeable with 講話&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;講話, &lt;em&gt;to say/speak&lt;/em&gt;, almost entirely interchangeable with 說話&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;談論, &lt;em&gt;to have a discussion&lt;/em&gt;, slight emphasis on the act of having discussion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;議論, &lt;em&gt;to have a discussion&lt;/em&gt;, emphasis on intellectual commentary or debate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;談談、聊聊、講講 - verb reduplication, only used in colloquial language. Has an effect of lightening up the mood or bring a feeling of casual-ness to the conversation. Verb reduplication expresses the meaning &quot;a little bit&quot;.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;談談、聊聊 mean practically the same thing (&quot;have a little chat&quot;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;講講 is more one sided, e.g. &lt;strong&gt;你跟我講講&lt;/strong&gt;這是什麽意思？ (&lt;em&gt;could &lt;strong&gt;you tell me&lt;/strong&gt; what this means?&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-10T13:12:23.197" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T13:12:23.197" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30119" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30174" CreationDate="2018-06-10T15:13:25.623" Score="1" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently saw a movie where this appeared and unfortunately, this was the only part that wasn’t translated. Could anyone tell me what it says?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sfKz6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sfKz6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19841" LastEditorUserId="19841" LastEditDate="2019-03-13T22:07:12.110" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T22:07:12.110" Title="untranslated characters and their meaning" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30121" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30156" CreationDate="2018-06-10T21:20:57.830" Score="3" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, people often say 話事 to indicate someone is &quot;the boss&quot; (e.g., 你話事) or can decide some matter (e.g., what to eat, what to watch).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/40399/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; says the Mandarin equivalent is 作主, but 作主 feels a bit formal. Is 作主 really the right equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2018-06-10T23:37:40.277" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T02:31:25.723" Title="Mandarin equivalent to 話事?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30121" CreationDate="2018-06-10T22:31:41.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Haha, in China, at home, the woman is the absolute ruler, so try 老婆!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老板 is very commonly heard for boss. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在我是老板！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be polite, you may address someone as 师傅, which is a kind of boss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every 单位 will have a 领导, leader, boss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'boss people around' 对某人呼来唤去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T22:31:41.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30123" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30124" CreationDate="2018-06-11T01:01:01.193" Score="3" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;这个问题，最好还是问问老师吧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个问题，还是最好问问老师吧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;Sure enough, the best is that we ask teacher about this problem.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is correct? and Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of them go well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19037" LastEditorUserId="19037" LastEditDate="2018-06-11T02:32:35.440" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T08:47:33.270" Title="最好还是问问老师吧？还是最好问问老师吧？ Which is correct? and Why is it?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30123" CreationDate="2018-06-11T01:48:03.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Either &quot;这个问题，最好(it is the best to/ better)问问老师吧&quot; or &quot;这个问题，还是(better off) 问问老师吧&quot; would be more efficient&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;这个问题，&lt;strong&gt;最好还是&lt;/strong&gt;问问老师吧&quot; or &quot;这个问题，&lt;strong&gt;还是最好&lt;/strong&gt;问问老师吧&quot; 最好 or 还是 are redundant if you use 还是 as &quot;better off&quot; in the context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 还是 could also mean &quot;is still&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这个问题(about this question)，最好(the best &lt;em&gt;thing to do&lt;/em&gt; )还是(is still)问问老师吧 (ask the teacher)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这个问题(about this question)，还是(it is still) 最好(best to))问问老师吧 (ask the teacher)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both would make sense, It implies there are other options but asking the teacher is the best one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;#1 is the more native way to say it. #2 would sound redundant because put 还是 before 最好 would make it lose the &quot;is still&quot; meaning and function as &quot;better off&quot; instead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T08:47:33.270" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T08:47:33.270" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30121" CreationDate="2018-06-11T02:11:50.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally, I don't hear 作主 very often and probably only in movies. &#xA;老板 is common and is what the English word &quot;boss&quot; means, so basically it's an employer. &#xA;经理 is a manager.&#xA;To answer your actual question, 作主 does describe somebody who makes decisions, but not really in a business or work setting. An example phrase could be “一切由自己作主” (yi2 qie4 you2 zi4 ji3 zuo4 zhu3). This means to be your own boss, or being independent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19845" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T02:11:50.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30123" CreationDate="2018-06-11T02:36:59.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are few previous posts that addressed the adverb order. You can have a search and take a look. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For natives, we determine the order by intuition, which is formed by using/speaking the language for many years. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your examples. Your first sentence, &lt;em&gt;这个问题，最好还是问问老师吧&lt;/em&gt;, is more natural and idiomatic. The second one, &lt;em&gt;这个问题，还是最好问问老师吧&lt;/em&gt;，is not that natural, but if you put it into practice, especially given that you aren't a native, it's still acceptable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyhow, like other languages, we have more tolerance in colloquial speech than writing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T02:36:59.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30127" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30137" CreationDate="2018-06-11T02:44:01.903" Score="2" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to make sense of the word 妖星 (&quot;demon star&quot;) which I have encountered in a Japanese phrase. This word does not appear in any Japanese or Chinese (English) dictionaries I've run across, but searching for the word on Google turns up a number of hits in Chinese sites (especially &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A6%96%E6%98%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A6%96%E6%98%9F&lt;/a&gt; which appears to be a dictionary definition). However I don't speak/read Chinese, and auto-translations of that page (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&amp;amp;sl=zh-CN&amp;amp;u=https://baike.baidu.com/item/%25E5%25A6%2596%25E6%2598%259F&amp;amp;prev=search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&amp;amp;sl=zh-CN&amp;amp;u=https://baike.baidu.com/item/%25E5%25A6%2596%25E6%2598%259F&amp;amp;prev=search&lt;/a&gt;) are such broken English all I can really tell is that it's an idiom that seems to reference Taoist astrology. What is the meaning of this term (both astrologically and idiomatically) - or at least enough information that I could look up more information on English reference sites (right now I don't even have a good enough English translation of the word to look it up on English sites)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19847" LastActivityDate="2021-04-06T18:24:13.290" Title="What is the meaning of 妖星?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30128" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-11T03:03:26.677" Score="7" ViewCount="2728" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learnt to ask weekday as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Jin tian xing qi ji?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with an optional &quot;shi&quot; after jin tian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know if the shi in &quot;Jin tian shi ji hao?&quot; is also optional. Also, can I say, &quot;Jin tian ji ri?&quot; using ri for date? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19838" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-22T01:34:42.953" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T01:34:42.953" Title="Is the &quot;shi&quot; in &quot;jin tian shi ji hao&quot; optional, and can I ask &quot;jin tian ji ri?&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30128" CreationDate="2018-06-11T03:17:53.980" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are correct expressions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今天是星期几？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今天星期几？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今天是几号？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今天几号？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 is omissible. Interesting enough that we don't usually say 今天几日.  If you say 今天几日，I would probably have to digest it a little bit internally to figure out what you mean. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T03:17:53.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30128" CreationDate="2018-06-11T03:23:58.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jin tian (shi) xing qi ji = 今天(是)星期幾 = Today (is) what day of the week&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shi (是) is not optional, it is the verb in the sentence, the optional part is to omit the verb shi (是)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same thing in &quot;Jin tian (shi) ji hao&quot; which means &quot;今天(是)几号&quot; shi (是) is not optional, but omitting it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't say  &quot;Jin tian ji ri (今天幾日/天)?&quot; when asking what day of the week, we always say 星期幾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-11T03:48:41.203" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T03:48:41.203" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30127" CreationDate="2018-06-11T03:51:57.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;妖星 can be found in, at least, two Chinese to English dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;star of evil omens; comet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;unlucky stars (novae, comets, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and even one Chinese to French dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;GR&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Étoile néfaste; comète.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is the idea, that is popular is some astrological circles, that certain stars can have certain negative effects on people and their behavior. Comets, also, have been seen as bad omens in many cultures throughout history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T03:51:57.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30132" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30138" CreationDate="2018-06-11T03:56:50.663" Score="2" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China nowadays, we mostly pay with things using our phones through 微信 (Wēixìn) = WeChat and 支付宝 (Zhīfùbǎo) = Alipay.  I often go to the shop, and get them to scan my phone for payment, whence I say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请扫我的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  qǐng sǎo wǒ de  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I intend to mean &quot;please scan my [phone]&quot;, leaving off 手机 (shǒujī) = phone for succinctness.  I want to check if this is suitable, and if not, what an appropriate alternative would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is 请扫我的 an appropriate way ask the cashier to scan my phone for payment?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit&lt;/em&gt;: corrected a typo (the original version had 清 instead of 请).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T23:38:03.947" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T11:13:39.913" Title="Is 请扫我的 an appropriate way ask the cashier to scan my phone for payment?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30132" CreationDate="2018-06-11T04:40:35.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清扫我的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  qīng sǎo wǒ de  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has a few issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;please&lt;/em&gt; is 请 qǐng and not 清 qīng&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;的 de is unnecessary here&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请扫我 is okay but you're mostly likely leaving out essential information for the other person involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The person in charge of ringing you up usually wants to know if it is WeChat or Alipay that you are using. I believe they need to key something in on their registers before scanning you, I'm not totally sure but it always looks that way. The better way to aid the interaction would be for you to directly tell them method of payment you will be using. After they tell you the amount owed you can just say something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;好，支付宝哈&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;好，微信哈&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can change 哈 to whatever modal is popular in your vicinity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T04:40:35.687" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30134" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-11T06:01:43.940" Score="5" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Aren't you both also Americans?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nǐmen dōu ye bù shì měi guó rén ma?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it correct? I am comfortable with this word order. Is it acceptable? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19838" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T00:12:55.090" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T00:12:55.090" Title="&quot;Aren't you both also Americans&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30134" CreationDate="2018-06-11T06:17:45.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们（都）也不是美国人吗？你们也（都）不是美国人吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nǐmén (dōu) yě búshì měiguórén ma? Nǐmén yě (dōu) búshì měiguórén ma?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are (both/all of) you also not Americans?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, you're inquiring your targets whether they are also not Americans, just like you or some other people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们不也（都）是美国人吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nǐmén bu/bú/bù yě (dōu) shì měiguórén ma?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Aren't you (both/all) also Americans?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a rhetorical question to make a point that &lt;strong&gt;you're under the impression that both/all your targets are also Americans&lt;/strong&gt;, like you or some other people.  There are three possible ways to pronounce the 不 with bu being the most casual tone and bù being the most serious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gist: 也 is &quot;also&quot;, 都 is &quot;both/all&quot;.  不也都 signals that the question is rhetorical.  Depending on the exact sentence you wish to construct, you should omit 也 (&quot;also&quot;) or 都 (&quot;both/all&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As per the comments by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/6065/user6065&quot;&gt;user6065&lt;/a&gt;, it's also correct to use the following rhetorical questions if you're addressing exactly two people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你俩不也都是美国人吗？&#xA;    Nǐliǎ ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们俩不也都是美国人吗？&#xA;    Nǐménliǎ ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们两个不也都是美国人吗？&#xA;    Nǐmén liǎng'ge ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们两人不也都是美国人吗？&#xA;    Nǐmén liǎngrén ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你们两个人不也都是美国人吗？&#xA;    Nǐmén liǎng'gè rén ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These five rhetorical questions all share the meaning of &quot;Aren't you two also both Americans?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="943" LastEditorUserId="943" LastEditDate="2018-06-11T07:14:10.683" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T07:14:10.683" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30134" CreationDate="2018-06-11T06:23:38.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nǐmen dōu ye bù shì měi guó rén ma? (你们都也不是美国人吗？)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct order is 你们(两个)不也(都)是美国人吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们不也是美国人吗？or 你们两个不也是美国人吗？， without 都， sounds more natural &lt;strong&gt;to me&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-11T06:43:40.180" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T06:43:40.180" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30127" CreationDate="2018-06-11T06:23:46.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, &quot;妖星&quot; is a category name of observable astronomical / meteorological  phenomenons, those are assigned as &quot;bad omen&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the book &quot;靈臺秘苑&quot; by 庾季才, in volume 15, it was defined as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06065990.cn#page/n195/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;靈臺秘苑　卷十三⋯卷十五　page 195&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;妖星者﹒五行五星之變﹒天地惡氣之所生也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly, means &quot;evil star (妖星), the so called (者), [is] the rebels of (之變) five elements (五行), [and / or] five planets (五星), produced (生) by (所) the bad force (惡氣) from the sky and earth (天地)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/96CWR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/96CWR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;afterward, the author listed 40+ entries in this category &quot;妖星&quot;, an interesting point is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;彗星&quot;, &quot;孛星&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;長星&quot;, comets;  &amp;amp; &quot;客星&quot;, nova; are also listed as &quot;妖星&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would suggest you find someone who can read literary chinese, and understand astrology / astronomy to help you. the google translate cannot handle literary chinese, the link provided is, . . . :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, the english book &quot;stars of jade&quot; by julius d w staal, would give you some basic ideas about &quot;chinese astronomy&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T06:23:46.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30132" CreationDate="2018-06-11T07:32:36.350" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically, the whole sentence is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请扫我的二维码。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please scan my two-dimensional code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your shorter version is correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请扫我的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please scan mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence, however, can be used to hint that the cashier should scan your code as opposed to someone elses' (due to the presence of &quot;mine&quot;).  The other version is very casual but often used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请扫我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please scan me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which needs to be interpreted by a chain of context: to scan not you, but your something&amp;mdash;which is your two-dimensional code, which is often your QR code.  Of course, it's often used because this context interpretation isn't hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="943" LastEditorUserId="943" LastEditDate="2018-06-11T07:49:25.210" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T07:49:25.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3137" CreationDate="2018-06-11T09:29:36.813" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am surprised nobody has brought up the use of 麻烦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term 麻烦 could be loosely translated to &quot;could I perhaps trouble you to...&quot; (in the context of politeness of course). It is used to politely request things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;麻烦您下班之前把那些代码发给我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&quot;Could I trouble you to send me the code before we get off work?&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19368" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T09:29:36.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30128" CreationDate="2018-06-11T09:34:47.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;em&gt;shi&lt;/em&gt; is optional in short informal oral question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When &lt;em&gt;ri&lt;/em&gt; is for date, it‘s usually used in ancient Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4536" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T09:34:47.367" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29878" CreationDate="2018-06-11T09:43:39.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My reply might be a little late but it sounds like Meixian dialect to me. My family came from a village that speaks a slightly different variant of Hakka but I can somewhat tell the differences. &#xA;One big difference is the pronunciation of 向. In the Siyen/Siyan/Sixian dialect, they pronounce it as &quot;Hiong&quot; but it's pronounced as &quot;Xiong&quot; in the Meixian dialect (similar to the English Sh- sound in 'Sheep') like in the video. &#xA;Also, I believe 好 is usually pronounced &quot;ho&quot; in Sixian, but &quot;hao&quot; like in the video.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I hear 月 as Ngiat, not Ngiai, which i've never heard in my life...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19851" LastEditorUserId="19851" LastEditDate="2018-06-11T09:53:13.163" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T09:53:13.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30102" CreationDate="2018-06-11T10:20:06.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the character 娥 (u+5a25) is a common name in canton, so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;change --&gt; chang + e 嫦娥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;june --&gt; jun + e 俊娥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;die --&gt; di + e 娣娥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T10:20:06.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30121" CreationDate="2018-06-11T11:11:11.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hear 作主 enough to not think of it as particularly formal, no more than 老板; BUT it definitely isn't the most colloquial form. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[他]说的算话 is one option you could consider, and close in form to the Cantonese 話事.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T11:11:11.763" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30146" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30147" CreationDate="2018-06-11T14:15:01.713" Score="7" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to pleco 杆 in the third tone means shaft or arm, while in the first tone it means pole or staff. 扶杆 is in one of our exercises. It is not contained in any of the pleco  dictionaries I own (PLC, CC, TL, UNI) and seems to mean armrest. I guess it is the third tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CiqlB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CiqlB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The transcript of the relevant snippet reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;坐地铁对我来说也有问题，地铁的扶杆太低，⋯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T13:09:26.633" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T13:09:26.633" Title="What tone is 杆 in 扶杆？" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30146" CreationDate="2018-06-11T14:53:34.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's talk in terms of Traditional Chinese here, which I feel is going to be much clearer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「杆」is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; pronounced &lt;strong&gt;gǎn&lt;/strong&gt;. The valid pronunciations listed in dictionaries are &lt;strong&gt;gàn&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;gān&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「杆」pronounced &lt;strong&gt;gān&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;em&gt;pole&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;rod&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「桿」is only pronounced &lt;strong&gt;gǎn&lt;/strong&gt;, and is a synonym of「杆」when it is pronounced &lt;strong&gt;gān&lt;/strong&gt;, in the sense that「桿」can mean &lt;em&gt;pole&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;rod&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「桿」(&lt;strong&gt;gǎn&lt;/strong&gt;) also means &lt;em&gt;lever&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;handle&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not hard to remember if you consider that「干」is never pronounced in the third tone, and the other common character which uses「旱」as a phonetic component,「趕」(&lt;strong&gt;gǎn&lt;/strong&gt;), is also pronounced in the third tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese merged「杆」and「桿」into one character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d3IEN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d3IEN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The「杆」mentioned in the text is the horizontal bar referenced in the image above (&lt;strong&gt;扶手橫桿&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;扶手横杆&lt;/strong&gt;), which should be pronounced &lt;strong&gt;gǎn&lt;/strong&gt;. From &lt;a href=&quot;https://panlex.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Panlex&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Searching &lt;strong&gt;héng gǎn&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;hénggǎn&lt;/strong&gt;  results in 横杆 with definitions &lt;em&gt;cross-bar, rail, overarm&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Searching  &lt;strong&gt;héng gān&lt;/strong&gt; turns up no results&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Searching  &lt;strong&gt;hénggān&lt;/strong&gt; results in 横竿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(You can check Panlex's dictionary sources &lt;a href=&quot;https://panlex.org/source-list/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; by filtering with the key 'cmn'.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-11T19:26:48.160" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T19:26:48.160" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30158" CreationDate="2018-06-11T23:52:08.313" Score="1" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4056/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CantoDict&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?word=%E6%93%81%E6%8A%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;yellowbridge&lt;/a&gt; say the pronunciation for 擁抱 is yong1 bao4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Google Translate and other pages say it's yong3 bao4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the right pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="943" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T07:23:19.793" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T07:23:19.793" Title="Pronunciation/tones for hug (擁抱): yong1 bao4 or yong3 bao4?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30149" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30150" CreationDate="2018-06-11T23:56:14.157" Score="2" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone said the following in Mandarin to express &lt;code&gt;not taking good care of you&lt;/code&gt;: 沒有把你照顧好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, it seems more natural to drop 把 and say something like 沒有好好照顧你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's the correct grammar?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are Cantonese and Mandarin grammar different for this phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T20:27:21.337" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T03:00:31.493" Title="Correct grammar: 沒有把你照顧好 vs 沒有好好照顧你?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30149" CreationDate="2018-06-12T00:42:02.703" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are correct and natural in Mandarin, but have slightly different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒有把你照顾好 is equivalent to 没有照顾好你, which means &quot;the result is not good&quot;, while 没有好好照顾你 means &quot;the effort is not enough&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T00:42:02.703" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30148" CreationDate="2018-06-12T00:47:29.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking up the 1992 version of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinhua_Zidian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新华字典&lt;/a&gt; published by the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Press&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商务印书馆&lt;/a&gt;, on page 560 we find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;拥&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sub&gt;（擁）&lt;/sub&gt; yōng ㄩㄥ ❶抱（(连)—抱）。 [...the rest abbreviated]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Along with no other pronunciation available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This, however, doesn't really explain why Google translate writes the pronunciation as yong3 bao4.  If you click on the &quot;read&quot; icon, Google still pronounces it as yong1 bao4. Probably a mistake on Google's part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="943" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T00:47:29.257" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30146" CreationDate="2018-06-12T01:09:29.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the definition of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/js/6746.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic dictionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;杆&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;gān 　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　◎ 较长的棍：～子（ａ．长棍；ｂ．方言，指揭竿而起的人；ｃ．指结伙抢劫的土匪）。旗～。桅～。电线～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;gǎn 　&#xA;  　1. &lt;strong&gt;器物上&lt;/strong&gt; 像棍子的细长部分：～秤（区别于台秤等）。笔～儿。～菌。&#xA;  　2. 量词，用于有杆的器物：一～笔。一～步枪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As we can see, when 杆（gǎn ） means a rod, it should be part of something, like 笔杆，枪杆， etc. Well, 杆（gān ）itself means a long rod. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I think both &lt;strong&gt;hénggǎn&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;hénggān&lt;/strong&gt; are possible pronunciations for 横杆, depending on contexts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular context quoted by OP, I tend to believe that 杆 in 扶杆 should be pronounced as &lt;strong&gt;gān&lt;/strong&gt; because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it's very long bar that is used within the Metro train.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;people tend to make a reference to the word: 栏杆 lan2gan1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;after checking around, all of my friends(including myself), so far, think it's gān.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, here is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iqiyi.com/v_19rrmn1sks.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;news broadcast&lt;/a&gt;. The anchor did pronounce it as &lt;strong&gt;gān&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, I'm not 100% sure whether it's gǎn or gān, because no dictionary official put the definition of 扶杆. But in practice, &lt;strong&gt;gān&lt;/strong&gt; indeed is the common sense for 地铁扶杆 within the mainland at least. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T01:18:28.637" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T01:18:28.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30146" CreationDate="2018-06-12T01:23:07.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some words, such as 一 and 不 change their tone, depending on what tone follows, although when I look in the dictionary, I see only one tone. Maybe this also works in reverse, the word following may 'change its spots' according to the preceding tone. It is strange that the pronunciation is not certain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the bus they repeat endlessly: 站稳扶好 to do that we need the 扶杆。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My quick survey of 3 people: all say 扶杆fú gān 扶手横杆fúshǒuhénggān&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu has a lot of pretty pictures of 扶杆 &lt;a href=&quot;https://image.baidu.com/search/detail?ct=503316480&amp;amp;z=0&amp;amp;ipn=d&amp;amp;word=%E6%89%B6%E6%9D%86&amp;amp;hs=2&amp;amp;pn=0&amp;amp;spn=0&amp;amp;di=188606481690&amp;amp;pi=0&amp;amp;rn=1&amp;amp;tn=baiduimagedetail&amp;amp;is=0%2C0&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;oe=utf-8&amp;amp;cl=2&amp;amp;lm=-1&amp;amp;cs=4076551249%2C371297472&amp;amp;os=3263773997%2C3029711756&amp;amp;simid=3431419140%2C196220748&amp;amp;adpicid=0&amp;amp;lpn=0&amp;amp;ln=30&amp;amp;fr=ala&amp;amp;fm=&amp;amp;sme=&amp;amp;cg=&amp;amp;bdtype=0&amp;amp;oriquery=%E6%89%B6%E6%9D%86&amp;amp;objurl=http%3A%2F%2Fs11.sinaimg.cn%2Forignal%2F5d2eff78g71b1d7c2b21a%26690&amp;amp;fromurl=ippr_z2C%24qAzdH3FAzdH3Fks52_z%26e3Bftgw_z%26e3Bv54_z%26e3BvgAzdH3FfAzdH3Fks52_c1djuu0ba8aaj5uw_z%26e3Bip4s%3Ff71w6ju%3Dooo_z%26e3Bkwt17_z%26e3Bv54&amp;amp;gsm=0&amp;amp;islist=&amp;amp;querylist=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; so Baidu certainly knows 扶杆 as a word or phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(hand) rail, railing, : a (generally） horizontal or slanting pole&lt;br&gt;&#xA;post: vertical pole&lt;br&gt;&#xA;bar: either horizontal or vertical pole&lt;br&gt;&#xA;banister: 楼梯的扶手，栏杆(lángān) 的支柱  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zdic:&#xA;杆gān：较长的棍&lt;br&gt;&#xA;杆gǎn：器物上像棍子的细长部分  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很幸运，苗条如杆，也从不饥饿。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wǒ hěn xìngyùn, miáotiao rú &lt;strong&gt;gǎn&lt;/strong&gt;, yě cóngbù jī'è.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I was lucky, thin as a rail and never hungry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T01:23:07.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30134" CreationDate="2018-06-12T01:32:14.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Aren't you both also Americans.&quot; is ambiguous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.（I know you both have Chinese passports,） aren't you both also Americans?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(我知道你们都有中国的护照，)你们两个难道不也还是美国人吗？（除了中国护照你们还有美国护照吗？）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.（I'm American,） aren't you two both also Americans?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;（我是美国人，）你们俩也是，难道不是吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T01:32:14.667" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30117" CreationDate="2018-06-12T01:38:29.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way I use to &quot;resolve&quot; those ambiguities in a pinch is by using two dictionaries - one English to Chinese and another Chinese to English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, when looking for a Chinese word corresponding to an idea you want to express, look it up in E-Ch dictionary first, then take all the results that you think you could use, and look them up again in the Chinese to English dictionary. Usually the subtle (or not so subtle) differences in meaning become evident in Ch-E translations. This works even better if you use dictionaries that have example sentences, ideally in both languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 2-dictionary trick works for any pair of languages, best if one of them is your native or near native, so try to find dictionaries in your native one. Obviously it works the better the closer the two languages are, but Chinese is quite far, linguistically, from anything spoken outside Asia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to spend more time on this little research - look the Chinese word up in various online or offline corpora of sentences. Look up or Google the combination of this word and the one you're sure about - subject/predicate, &quot;adjective&quot;/noun and so on and see how many results you get - the more the # the more likely you got it right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, &quot;usage&quot; is all about context. These methods are quick (compared to asking on forums or reading a few books in Chinese ;) ) and dirty ones for establishing what word fits the context you want to use it in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastEditorUserId="3613" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T02:16:33.530" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T02:16:33.530" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30121" CreationDate="2018-06-12T02:31:25.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently simply 他说的算 or nevertheless 他作主呗。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/97813888.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/97813888.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1887136042799627988.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1887136042799627988.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T02:31:25.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30087" CreationDate="2018-06-12T02:56:21.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most answers here focus on the technical term 寒性.  I'd like to address your observation that 性 seems to mean &quot;nature&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 1992 version of the the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinhua_Zidian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新华字典&lt;/a&gt; published by the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Press&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商务印书馆&lt;/a&gt;, on page 518 we find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;性&lt;/strong&gt; xìng ㄒ丨ㄥˋ ❶性质，人或事物的本身所具有的能力、作用等：咸~. 弹（tán）~. 向日~. 药~. 斗争~. [...the rest abbreviated]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that what what ever comes after 性 carries the inherent ability or action that comes before 性.  In terms of 凉/寒性水果, it means a fruit that is inherently 凉/寒, where 凉 is probably a wrongful use of 寒 and 寒 has to be understood by context&amp;mdash;in this case, a term from TCM (traditional Chinese medicine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="943" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T02:56:21.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30148" CreationDate="2018-06-12T03:22:24.773" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/~%E6%93%81%E6%8A%B1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Liang'an (兩岸)&lt;/a&gt; gives the Taiwanese Mandarin (國語) pronunciation as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;yǒngbào&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;yong3 bao4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while noting the mainland Mandarin (普通话) pronunciation as being:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;yōngbào&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;yong1 bao4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless you're planning on speaking Taiwanese Mandarin, I'd stick with &lt;code&gt;yōng&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;yong1&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T03:22:24.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30149" CreationDate="2018-06-12T04:06:39.347" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @JasonSwift said, both are valid in Mandarin. The difference is between 照顾好 and 好(好)照顾. The first 好 is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complement#Negating_result_complements&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;result complement&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, the second two - simply an adjective. With 没有 it's more of &quot;the caring taken didn't have a good result&quot; vs. &quot;the caring taken itself was not good&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastEditorUserId="3613" LastEditDate="2018-06-13T03:00:31.493" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T03:00:31.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30160" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-12T04:32:24.803" Score="1" ViewCount="2354" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;biu&lt;/code&gt; is a fun onomatopoeia for the sounds guns and other shooting devices make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This image is all over the net as the supposed character for &lt;code&gt;biu&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZEEbQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZEEbQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find much info on a ⿰口⿱比由 character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T08:30:46.457" Title="Is there a character for `biu`?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30146" CreationDate="2018-06-12T06:02:40.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;扶杆 is in three Pleco offered dictionaries. One Chinese to English: KEY. Two Chinese to French: KEY French and Grand Ricci. They all note the same pronunciation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;fú gān&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;handrail&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Grand Ricci&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Poignée&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;em&gt;KEY French&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;rampe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T06:02:40.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30082" CreationDate="2018-06-12T10:29:34.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Short answer&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隹字边、隹字旁、隹部 and possibly many more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Long answer&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The (false) pretense behind this question seems to be: because some radicals do not just have a name but they themselves are already a valid hanzi, we should list all names for this radical.  This question is complicated, so I'll respond it from two perspectives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.moe.gov.cn/ewebeditor/uploadfile/2015/01/13/20150113090318445.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GF&amp;nbsp;0014&amp;mdash;2009&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, there is nothing inherently wrong with gathering a list of names for the radicals.  In fact, this question is so intriguing that it drew full attention from both the Ministry of Education of the P.R.C. and the State Language Commission, who jointly published the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.moe.gov.cn/ewebeditor/uploadfile/2015/01/13/20150113090318445.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GF&amp;nbsp;0014&amp;mdash;2009&lt;/a&gt; standard, titled &quot;Specification of Common Modern Chinese Character Components and Component Names&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We'll take a sneak peak of this standard.  In subsection 6.3.2 on page 4 we find&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.3.2　&lt;strong&gt;有多种俗称的&lt;/strong&gt;非成字部件，采用&lt;strong&gt;一个&lt;/strong&gt;含义明确、比较通行的俗称命名。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　　　例如：“纟”俗称有“绞丝旁”“绞丝”“孪绞丝”“乱绞丝”等，选用“绞丝旁”；&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　　　　　　“彳”俗称有“双立人”“双人旁”等，选用“双立人”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emphasis mine.  Literal translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.3.2&amp;emsp;For a component of dependent character formation &lt;strong&gt;with multiple common terms&lt;/strong&gt;, adopt and name it after &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; clearly defined and generally used common term.  For example: Common terms of &quot;纟&quot; include &quot;绞丝旁&quot;, &quot;绞丝&quot;, &quot;孪绞丝&quot;, &quot;乱绞丝&quot;, etc.  Select and use &quot;绞丝旁&quot;;  common terms of &quot;彳&quot; include &quot;双立人&quot;, &quot;双人旁&quot;, etc.  Select and use &quot;双立人&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The gems here is not only the definition, but also these concrete examples of names people have given to these components.  There are more such examples but the standard is unable to exhaust all of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another sneak peek: From page 7 to page 29, the standard lists common components as well as their terms.  On page 14 we see that 人 and 亻 are listed next to each other.  The common term for 人 is simply 人 while 亻 is listed as 单立人.  There are other such examples and I encourage you to skim the standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The radicals as hanzi&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The beloved and often amusing character &lt;a href=&quot;https://hanyu.baidu.com/shici/detail?pid=2a4cd57097a58b2235231791be0ceb5d&amp;amp;from=kg0&amp;amp;highlight=%E5%83%8F%E6%88%91%E4%B8%80%E6%A0%B7%E5%9C%B0%20%E9%BB%98%E9%BB%98%E5%BD%B3%E4%BA%8D%E7%9D%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;彳&lt;/a&gt; is a valid hanzi that had found its way into Chinese literature, some of which are taught in highschool, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;撑着油纸伞&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  像我一样&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  像我一样地&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  默默彳亍着&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  冷漠、&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  凄清，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  又惆怅  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;——节选自&lt;a href=&quot;https://hanyu.baidu.com/shici/detail?pid=2a4cd57097a58b2235231791be0ceb5d&amp;amp;from=kg0&amp;amp;highlight=%E5%83%8F%E6%88%91%E4%B8%80%E6%A0%B7%E5%9C%B0%20%E9%BB%98%E9%BB%98%E5%BD%B3%E4%BA%8D%E7%9D%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戴望舒《雨巷》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes&amp;mdash;that is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; “默默&lt;strong&gt;行&lt;/strong&gt;着” you see there.  You can refer to 彳 as 双立人 or 双人旁, or simply as 彳部.  They're all acceptable per the standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to why they're given these common terms, note that it can be due to many reasons.  To me, 亻 is the variant of 人 which looks like a person with a leg up (hence the name 单立人), while in 彳 one 亻 is standing behind the other 亻 in the front, which makes it look like two people are standing (hence the name 双立人).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tautologically speaking, names other than the standard &lt;strong&gt;are&lt;/strong&gt; not standard, so they're often less used and lesser known, but it doesn't stop the general mass from using them.  In that regard, radicals such as 隹 (隹字边) possibly has lesser-known terms, and it is not practical to compile such lists unless we acquire more assistance, which the SE model is totally fit for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.moe.gov.cn/ewebeditor/uploadfile/2015/01/13/20150113090318445.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;现代常用字部件及部件名称规范 GF&amp;nbsp;0014&amp;mdash;2009&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="943" LastEditorUserId="943" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T11:36:40.083" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T11:36:40.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30164" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30178" CreationDate="2018-06-12T11:35:48.717" Score="3" ViewCount="1030" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was going around as a real proverb, any reality to it?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;’Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19184" LastEditorUserId="19184" LastEditDate="2018-06-13T05:49:44.650" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T05:49:44.650" Title="Is this [Ivanka Trump] Chinese proverb real? —“Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it”" Tags="&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30165" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30169" CreationDate="2018-06-12T20:26:57.430" Score="0" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;可毒瘾一发作，他就不停地流眼泪，流口水，哈欠连天就，接着便浑身冒冷汗，颤抖，肌肉疼，骨头疼，心呀、肝呀、肺呀什么的，全都&lt;strong&gt;翻了个儿&lt;/strong&gt;，真是求生不得，求死无门。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, what does 全都翻了个儿 mean? The words before that all mean the bad deseaces caused by drugs, so 全都 mean all of these symptons. But then what does 翻了个儿 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my understanding, 翻 here means &quot;turn over&quot; something like that, not &quot;translate&quot; or &quot;double&quot; I think. But then what does the 个儿 mean? 了 is the completion partice, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T00:19:43.110" Title="What does 翻了个儿 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30166" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-12T20:49:13.827" Score="3" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, when offered a choice, I might want to say &quot;do I have to choose among these, or can I choose any others?&quot; How do I express this? I thought of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;非得选这些里面的一个吗？还是能选别的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I want to confirm if it's ok or if there is a better way of asking this. Would it be more natural to rephrase as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;只有这些吗，没有别的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related sentence I'd appreciate you guys helping me translate would be &quot;one of them is lying, I just don't know which one&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T09:54:02.953" Title="How do I say &quot;choose one of these&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30166" CreationDate="2018-06-12T21:12:06.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translation is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个肯定在说谎，但我就不知道是哪个。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19845" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T21:12:06.930" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30165" CreationDate="2018-06-12T21:44:59.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;翻个儿：(动)翻过来，overturn 颠倒过来 invert&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烙馅儿饼要勤翻个儿 baking xianbing, you need to turn them constantly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可毒瘾一发作，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When his drug addiction flares up,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他就不停地流眼泪，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;he can't stop crying,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;流口水，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;drooling,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;哈欠连天就，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;yawning,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;接着便浑身冒冷汗，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;followed then by a cold sweat all over his body,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;颤抖，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;shudders,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;肌肉疼，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;muscle ache,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;骨头疼，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;joint pains&lt;br&gt;&#xA;心呀、肝呀、肺呀什么的，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;heart, liver, lungs whatever,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;全都翻了个儿，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;everything is churning,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;真是求生不得，求死无门。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;really， (he) doesn't want to live, doesn't know how to die.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T21:44:59.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30165" CreationDate="2018-06-12T23:26:02.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可毒瘾一发作，他就不停地流眼泪，流口水，哈欠连天就，接着便浑身冒冷汗，颤抖，肌肉疼，骨头疼，{&lt;strong&gt;心呀、肝呀、肺呀什么的，全都翻了个儿&lt;/strong&gt;}，真是求生不得，求死无门。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;全都 refers to 心呀、肝呀、肺呀什么的, &lt;strong&gt;not all the symptoms&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wapbaike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BF%BB%E4%B8%AA/4381316?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;翻个&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;turn over&lt;/em&gt;, defined in baidu baike:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翻个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fān gè&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翻过来；颠倒过来：场上晒的麦子该～了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了, in 翻了个儿, denotes a completion, as you know. 儿 is erhua.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T00:19:43.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30177" CreationDate="2018-06-13T02:03:38.127" Score="3" ViewCount="589" Body="&lt;p&gt;不料，一天早晨，我骑自行车，被一个人撞倒，&lt;strong&gt;人摔了出去&lt;/strong&gt;，左手骨折。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Unexpectedly, One day in the morning, when I rode my bicycle,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran into a person and &lt;strong&gt;(I or my body) was thrown out of&lt;/strong&gt;, my left hand was broken.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人 is used instead of &quot;身体&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is  this expression used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, is &quot;人&quot;  often used for the meaning of &quot;my body&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my feeling, &quot;人&quot; is used for the meaning of &quot;human or person&quot; , academically, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;philosophically, historically, literally, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not for the meaning of the particular someone or the particular body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not concrete but abstractive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I think &quot;人摔了出去&quot; should be changed to &quot;我摔了出去&quot; or &quot;身体摔了出去&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;人&quot; is commonly used for the meaning of &quot;my body&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no confidence if I can distinguish this meaning when I listen to &quot;ren&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this site,  &quot;人&quot; is very questioned but the meaning is &quot;human or person&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19037" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T07:12:26.167" Title="人摔了出去　人 is my body. Is it common?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30101" CreationDate="2018-06-13T02:14:59.610" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One analog I can think of is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;回去搬砖了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a funny way of describing your job as less paid while you still have to work very hard on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-06-13T19:22:24.713" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T19:22:24.713" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30170" CreationDate="2018-06-13T02:30:27.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to dictionaries, &lt;strong&gt;人&lt;/strong&gt; here means this sense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;（人的身体或意识） state of &#xA;  one's health; how one feels&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When the patient was taken to hospital, he had already lost&#xA;  consciousness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;送到医院，(他)人已经昏迷过去了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I haven't been feeling well for several days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这几天我人不大舒服。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your context, it means the sense of &lt;strong&gt;one's body&lt;/strong&gt;. It could be also referring to one's feelings/consciousness(see the above example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a pretty common usage of 人. Let's say when I say 我人不太舒服, I might mean 我身体不太舒服, feeling vomiting, headache and etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-13T02:37:15.987" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T02:37:15.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29890" CreationDate="2018-06-13T02:34:44.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your translations are basically correct, the only improvement I can talk about is to show the present continuous tense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where is Ke Leien going?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be translated to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kē Léi'ēn &lt;strong&gt;yao&lt;/strong&gt; qu na?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the second one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm going to the cafeteria. How about you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be translated to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wǒ &lt;strong&gt;yao&lt;/strong&gt; qù shítáng. Nǐ ne?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the third one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wang Jingsheng is going back to the dorm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be translated to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wáng Jīngshēng &lt;strong&gt;yao&lt;/strong&gt; huí sùshè.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the fourth one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ke Leien is going to take care of some things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be translated to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kē Léi'ēn &lt;strong&gt;yao&lt;/strong&gt; qù bàn yìdiǎnr shìr.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You're going to the library, I also am going to the library.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can be translated to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nǐ &lt;strong&gt;yao&lt;/strong&gt; qù túshūguǎn. Wǒ yě &lt;strong&gt;yao&lt;/strong&gt; qù.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, how did you type pinyin with tune on it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T02:34:44.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30119" CreationDate="2018-06-13T02:44:46.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though I am not quite familiar with the Holy Bible, as far as I can tell, it says it is quoted from Luke 1:26, while the text actually says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is actually Hebrews 1:14, which disagrees with what is referenced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to @user3528438, whose comment helped me find the actual quotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-06-13T19:26:53.617" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T19:26:53.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30164" CreationDate="2018-06-13T02:51:39.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No but Americans seem to think it is, since at least 1977.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/01/26/doing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/01/26/doing/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;In 1977 “The Marietta Daily Journal” of Marietta, Georgia labeled the remark an “old Chinese proverb”:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T02:51:39.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30170" CreationDate="2018-06-13T02:57:57.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right, &quot;ren&quot; does mean &quot;body&quot; here. I can not really say if it is commonly used, but I can give you a few examples on &quot;ren&quot; used as &quot;body&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别把人累坏了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here &quot;ren&quot; means &quot;body&quot; and the phrase means &quot;do not make yourself too tired&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人在心不在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase means &quot;(the person) is physically present while his or her mind is absent&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T02:57:57.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30170" CreationDate="2018-06-13T03:01:34.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is very common to use 人 to emphasize 'one's body' or 'the person (one's personality)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example sentence, 人 refers to 'one's body' as Dan's answer stated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我(&lt;strong&gt;人&lt;/strong&gt;)被摔了出去 = my (&lt;strong&gt;body&lt;/strong&gt;) was thrown out&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人 could also refer to 'the person' or 'one's personality'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 他(&lt;strong&gt;人&lt;/strong&gt;)不太友善 = He, (&lt;strong&gt;the person&lt;/strong&gt;) is not very friendly = his &lt;strong&gt;personality&lt;/strong&gt; is not too friendly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can remove 人 and write: &amp;quot;我被摔了出去 (I was thrown out)&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;他不太友善 (he isn't very friendly)&amp;quot; without emphasize 'body' or 'personality'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In 他人不太友善 ( He, the person is not very friendly), 人 is short for '這個人'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In 他人不太友善 (his personality is not too friendly), 人 is short for '為人(性格)'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If the sentence was &amp;quot;他人很聰明 (he, the person is very clever)&amp;quot;,  人 has to be short for 這個人 since clever is not a personality or emotion&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T07:12:26.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30164" CreationDate="2018-06-13T05:22:44.237" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.npr.org/2018/06/12/619140377/after-ivanka-trump-quotes-chinese-proverb-a-hunt-for-the-proverbial-author&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;NPR&lt;/a&gt; did a pretty good article covering this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;After Ivanka Trump Quotes 'Chinese Proverb,' A Hunt For The Proverbial Author : NPR&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xhtns.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xhtns.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;sup&gt;Ivanka Trump's quote of a Chinese proverb — &quot;Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it.&quot; — prompted a search for the original source. Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On the eve of her father's meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Ivanka Trump seemed to be calling on her inner Yoda as she tweeted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;     -Chinese Proverb    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Neat quote. But it was the first daughter's attribution to &quot;Chinese Proverb&quot; that sent social media sites into overdrive in China, where people scrambled to find who, among their ancestors, actually said this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AhB5s.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AhB5s.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;sup&gt;After presidential adviser Ivanka Trump tweeted what she called a &quot;Chinese Proverb,&quot; many in China (and beyond) tried in vain to track down the quote's author. Twitter/Screenshot by NPR&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After a thorough search of the Analects of Confucius, Taoist texts and everything in between, nothing definitive has come up. But that hasn't stopped millions of Chinese social media users from making wild guesses like these, straight from Weibo, one of China's most popular social media sites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;临渊羡鱼不如退而结网 — It's better to knit a fishnet instead of standing by the river and hoping for fish. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;观棋不语真君子 — Don't give advice while watching others playing a chess game. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;勿以善小而不为 — Don't ignore small acts of kindness simply because they seem trivial. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;己所不欲，勿施於人 — Don't force others to do things you don't want to do yourself. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;吃不到葡萄说葡萄酸 — If you haven't tasted the grapes, don't say they're sour. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A lack of a clear source for Trump's tweet has some people speculating the first daughter either made it up or, a more likely explanation, cut and pasted the saying from an unreliable website. In the meantime, the search for this &quot;proverb&quot; through ancient Chinese texts has become something of a viral Quixotic quest in China, filled with many a sarcastic comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;Did you get that from a fortune cookie?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;估计是 fortune cookie 上学来的...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;Don't mistake something as a Chinese proverb simply because it's written in Chinese characters.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;不能因为某句话上面配了个鬼画符的&quot;中国字&quot;，就觉得那是句中国谚语。——鲁迅&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;Many foreigners make up Chinese proverbs much like we make up English ones.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;都想多了。其实，很多欧美人说的中国谚语，都是他们自己编的，如同我们也编了他们的不少谚语。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;I think Jack Ma said that.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;我想是马云说的。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;A Chinese proverb from Ivanka has killed the brain cells of Chinese netizens.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&quot;伊万卡一句中国谚语，累死了全中国网友脑细胞啊。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And finally, a &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/bokane/status/1006169043257028609&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tweet&lt;/a&gt; from an actual Chinese literature scholar, Brendan O'Kane:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;You can call any old [s***] a Chinese proverb on the internet.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    — Confucius   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Who knows? Maybe someday one of these might become a Chinese proverb, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-06-13T05:30:01.670" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T05:30:01.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16590" CreationDate="2018-06-13T05:43:48.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Change overcomes impasse and leads to solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T05:43:48.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30180" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30182" CreationDate="2018-06-13T09:46:18.137" Score="3" ViewCount="1173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the phrase &quot;that guy so inch&quot; in &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/1002890390977073152&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Twitter thread&lt;/a&gt;, which starts with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... slang based on literal translations of words (&quot;that guy so inch&quot;) or phrases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't get how &quot;that guy so inch&quot; could be related to Putonghua. Is it something to do with 村/英村?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T10:12:20.500" Title="Is the phrase &quot;that guy so inch&quot; related to Putonghua?" Tags="&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30181" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-13T09:52:34.600" Score="1" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;See title. What's the difference between these terms? Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T11:24:34.180" Title="What is the difference between 种类，类型 and 品种?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30180" CreationDate="2018-06-13T09:59:18.887" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1310/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;串&lt;/a&gt; /cyun3 /&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[7] [粵] [adj] arrogant; cocky | [Var] 寸&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;that guy so inch&amp;quot; is literal translations of &amp;quot;嗰條友咁寸(串)&amp;quot; in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'arrogant; cocky' definition of 串 is not used in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;嗰條友咁串&amp;quot; in Mandarin would be &amp;quot;那傢伙太囂張了&amp;quot; meaning &amp;quot;that guy is so arrogant&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yueyv.cn/dacidian/view/index131003.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;咁串&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;太嚣张了。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T10:12:20.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30183" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-13T10:26:29.687" Score="4" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;In researching a Tang inscription (661 CE) I came across this in a journal article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此外，玄导时代刻经有年号、施主、住僧可考的，有唐显庆六年（661）涿城府左果毅都尉杨社生及其一家施刻的“心经”[附注11]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　(11)显庆六年“心经”题记:“雍州栎阳县游骑将军守左卫涿城府左果毅都尉杨社生、母段、妻扈、息怀庆、玄嗣、玄黎、玄……眷属、缘此功德、齐成正觉。显庆六年二月八日造。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I mostly understand what it says, but I'd like to get a second opinion. The first passage is modern Chinese, the inscription is from 661 CE.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very roughly... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, from the era of Xuándǎo (玄导) there is an inscription dated to the 6th year of Tang Dynasty, Xiǎnqìng era [a reign name of 唐高宗 Táng Gāozōng] (661). The donor, one 杨社生 Yáng Shèshēng (涿城府左果毅都尉 city guard, commander of the left) had “心经” the Heart Sutra 其一家施刻的 engraved for the benefit of his family. (See note 11)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note 11) The Xiǎnqìng era 6 &quot;Heart Sutra&quot; inscription: 雍州 Yōng Province, 櫟陽縣 Yueyang county [50 km NE of Chang'an], 游騎將軍守 mobile cavalry/chariot unit, 衛涿城府 city and government defense force, 左果毅都尉 courageous commander of the left, [named] 杨社生 Yáng Shèshēng, [To] 母段 Mother Duan, 妻扈 Wife Hu, 息仗炭, 玄嗣, 玄黎, 玄... [and individuals named] Xī Zhàngtàn, Xuánsì, Xuánlí, and Xuán[zhēn]... [and to] 眷属 family dependents 缘此功德 go the merits 齐成正觉 to make them equal to the awakening of the Buddha [正觉 = Sanskrit &lt;em&gt;abhisambodhi&lt;/em&gt;]. Made in 顯慶 Xiǎnqìng era, 六年 6th Year, 二月 2nd month, 六日 6th day (13 March 661). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The elided text, between 玄... 眷属 (reading directly from a blurry photo of the inscription) appears to be: &quot;貞女天娘○○○利○山家&quot;, where ○ = a character I cannot read. The whole colophon is in three lines like this (with the extra part in square brackets): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雍州爍陽縣游騎將軍守左衛涿城府左果毅都尉楊社生&lt;br&gt;&#xA;母段 妻屆息仗炭玄嗣玄黎玄[貞女天娘○○○利○山&lt;br&gt;&#xA;家]眷屁線此功德齊成正覓○○顯慶六年二月六日造&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not clear on the exact meaning on the phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;玄导时  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;住僧可考的  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;衛涿城府&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;齐成正觉&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;母段, 妻扈&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume that 息怀庆 is also a name, and that 玄嗣, 玄黎, and 玄貞 are the names of Buddhist monks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've included an image of the source text for reference. The colophon is the last three columns on the left. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mPM4M.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mPM4M.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Fangshan Stone Heart Sutra&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19863" LastEditorUserId="19863" LastEditDate="2018-06-15T06:03:33.433" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T06:03:33.433" Title="Tang Dynasty Inscription" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30181" CreationDate="2018-06-13T10:57:32.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They can all be translated into English as &lt;em&gt;variety&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;type&lt;/em&gt;. Their differences are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;種類&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Has a slight emphasis on the &lt;em&gt;differences&lt;/em&gt; between compared things, and it is slightly more often used to construct categories to sort different objects into.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Also occasionally used as a synonym for &lt;strong&gt;種族&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;race&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;ethnicity&lt;/em&gt;) in older texts (pre-Qing).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Example from Pleco: 不同&lt;strong&gt;種類&lt;/strong&gt;的刀具 (&lt;em&gt;different kinds of knives&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;類型&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Has a slight emphasis on the &lt;em&gt;similarities&lt;/em&gt; between compared things, and it is slightly more often used to group things which share similar properties into the same category.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sometimes used as a word to categorise &lt;em&gt;tropes&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;imagery&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;genres&lt;/em&gt; in the field of literature.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is a term imported from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasei-kango&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wasei-kango&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Example sentence: 魯迅 《偽自由書ㆍ前記》： “然而我的壞處， 是在論時事不留面子， 砭錮弊常取&lt;strong&gt;類型&lt;/strong&gt;， 而後者尤與時宜不合。” (&lt;em&gt;Lu Xun: &quot;My problem is that I don't spare any sensibilities when discussing current affairs, and often use &lt;strong&gt;literary tropes&lt;/strong&gt; when criticising harmful traditions; the latter may be extremely inappropriate in contemporary society.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;品種&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Very often used in the field of biology for the meaning &lt;em&gt;animal &lt;strong&gt;breed&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;species&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;bacterial &lt;strong&gt;strain&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Otherwise used to describe the assortment variety of products e.g. in a shop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-13T11:24:34.180" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T11:24:34.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30185" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30189" CreationDate="2018-06-13T14:32:42.257" Score="1" ViewCount="39" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个型体脚板是射出不喷漆的，脚板模具就是砂面的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My doubt here are two phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The temples of this model &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;do not reflect the spray paint&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;, the molds of the temples &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;have the sand surface&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would be grateful if you could correct me whether I am right or wrong here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12344" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T22:02:36.920" Title="这个型体脚板是射出不喷漆的，脚板模具就是砂面的 Help with Translation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30132" CreationDate="2018-06-13T16:36:57.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Correct. But Sounds too foreign .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the conversation situation you described, I will ask which method for payment is acceptable, and if scanning the QR on my cellphone is OK, I will then show that QR to cashier quietly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really need to say that , I will suggest &quot;你扫我的吧&quot;. Adding 请 in daily conversation is one point making you sounds foreign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19549" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T16:36:57.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30183" CreationDate="2018-06-13T17:58:26.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;interesting question :) i answered the easier parts first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;玄导时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the modern text should be interpreted as &quot;玄導時代&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the era (時代) of &quot;玄導&quot; (a monk's dharma name 法號)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;母段, 妻扈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the surname of the mother of &quot;楊社生&quot; is 段. then a space, the surname of mrs &quot;楊&quot; is &quot;扈&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;住僧可考的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this modern text would be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[the era name (年号), donors (施主),] monk-in-charge (住僧) which can be (可) researchable, provable (考 --&gt; 考據, 考證)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;齐成正觉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;齊成正覺&quot;, though i can't recognise this verse from the picture, it's quite likely correct. it means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all together (齊) achieve (成 --&gt; 成就) enlightenment (abhisaṃbudhya　正覺 is a specialised buddhism term) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ok, my recognition &amp;amp; best guess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;３２１　&#xA;家母雍ａ&#xA;眷段州ｂ&#xA;屬　櫟ｃ&#xA;緣妻陽ｄ&#xA;此扈縣ｅ&#xA;功息游ｆ&#xA;德懷騎ｇ&#xA;齊慶將ｈ&#xA;成玄軍ｉ&#xA;正嗣守ｊ&#xA;覺玄左ｋ&#xA;　黎衛ｌ&#xA;　玄涿ｍ&#xA;顯貞城ｎ&#xA;慶女府ｏ&#xA;六大左ｐ&#xA;年娘果ｑ&#xA;二二毅ｒ&#xA;月娘都ｓ&#xA;八隸尉ｔ&#xA;日利楊ｕ&#xA;造庄社ｖ&#xA;　山生ｗ&#xA;　　　ｘ&#xA;　．．ｙ&#xA;　．．ｚ&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;judging from the heart sutra on the right, the inscription on the left had three column, each had 26 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;雍州櫟陽縣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 661, 雍州 was the prefecture where the capital (aka 長安) located, 櫟陽縣 is a county in the prefecture 雍州&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited. well, in the past, it's common to declare one's ancestral home (籍貫), in front of their name. e.g. &quot;通州雷學淇&quot;, &quot;武昌劉禺生&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;游騎將軍守左衛涿城府左果毅都尉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;游騎將軍&quot; is a rank name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;守 --&gt; 駐守 ~ to station, guard / defend  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;左衛ｘｘ府&quot; or &quot;右衛ｘｘ府&quot; indicated the place stationed, ｘｘ is the name of prefecture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;涿城府 is a prefecture name. now, it's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/maps/@39.4788929,115.7158379,9z&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;涿州市&lt;/a&gt;, located southwest of peking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;左果毅都尉&quot; is a post name, another post is, &quot;右果毅都尉&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;楊社生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;donor, with surname &quot;楊&quot;, name &quot;社生&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all together, 雍州櫟陽縣游騎將軍守左衛涿城府左果毅都尉楊社生 means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雍州櫟陽縣 --&gt; mr 楊's ancestral home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;游騎將軍 --&gt; his current rank&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;守左衛涿城府  --&gt; stationed 守 in (left guard, 左衛?) of prefecture 涿城府&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;左果毅都尉 --&gt; his current post&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;楊社生 --&gt; his surname &amp;amp; most likely, his courtesy name (字)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;guess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１ｘ:  deliberate space&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１ｙ: 父 (father)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;１ｚ: ? (character of his father's name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;end of guess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;母段　妻扈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;explained, just to remind &quot;段&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;扈&quot; are surname&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;息懷慶玄嗣玄黎玄貞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;息 is 子息 --&gt; son&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, mr &quot;楊&quot; had four sons, named &quot;懷慶&quot;, &quot;玄嗣&quot;, &quot;玄黎&quot;, and, &quot;玄貞&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;女大娘二娘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;daughter (女), named &quot;大娘&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;二娘&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;guess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;隸利庄山&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;assistant [in the office] (隸), with surname &quot;利&quot;, and name &quot;庄山&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;２ｘ: deliberate space&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;２ｙ: 及&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;２ｚ: 其&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;end of guess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;家眷屬緣此功德齊成正覺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if one added &quot;及其&quot; in front of this verse, it would become &quot;及其家眷屬緣此功德齊成正覺&quot;, which would be interpreted as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[the above named persons] and (及) their '其&quot; family (家) members (眷屬), caused by (緣) this (此) merit (功德) [of donating to the buddhism texts inscription project], all together (齊) achieve (成 --&gt; 成就) enlightenment (abhisaṃbudhya　正覺)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;guess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;３ｌ &amp;amp; ３ｍ : deliberate space&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;end of guess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;顯慶六年二月八日造&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ok, i recommend this site to exchange lunisolar &amp;amp; gregorian calendar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sinocal.sinica.edu.tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;兩千年中西曆轉換&lt;/a&gt;, by academia sinica, taiwan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, 顯慶六年二月八日 was 13th march 661 ad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;造&quot; means &quot;made&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-06-14T17:30:53.687" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T17:30:53.687" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30185" CreationDate="2018-06-13T22:02:36.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;More context would clarify this, but they are probably talking about about die casting, 压铸，模铸  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个型体脚板是射出不喷漆的，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This type of foot plate is not spray painted,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;脚板模具就是砂面的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(because) the base (of the) mold is a sand surface. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T22:02:36.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30190" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-14T02:49:30.600" Score="3" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;一屁股坐下来 seems a bit of a strange thing to say. Does it just mean 'sit down'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I say to you '一屁股坐下来' to you to invite you to sit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, as a command, I might say 'sit your arse down!' (stay there, don't move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T11:11:14.273" Title="Does 一屁股坐下来 just mean 'sit down' or is there some other meaning in there?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30190" CreationDate="2018-06-14T04:02:01.327" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The literal meaning of 一屁股坐下来 is &quot;sit down with one move of one's butt&quot;. It is a description of a manner which implies &quot;abruptly with no hesitation&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are similar adverbial phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一手 (with one move of one's hand)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一手搶過我手中的香煙 (with one move of his hand, he grabs the cigarette off my hand = he takes the cigarette off my hand with one move of his hand)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一腳 (with one move of one's foot)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一腳把球射入龍門 (with one strike of his foot, he kicked the ball into the goal = he kicks the ball into the goal with a single strike)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;一屁股坐下来&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; would mean &quot;he sits down with one move of his butt &quot;, therefore it can be described simply as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;sit down abruptly&lt;/strong&gt; (with no hesitation)&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;One move&quot; implies &quot;one(quick/sudden)move&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T04:02:01.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22611" CreationDate="2018-06-14T04:28:37.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The notation system works like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;year/issue/page&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Making: 1945/7/18, issue number seven from 1945 page 18.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are three parts in the one magazine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part one can be found on page 8:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0jnLL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0jnLL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part two is on page 18:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GEpqc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GEpqc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part three is on page 35:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/amluQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/amluQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T04:28:37.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30190" CreationDate="2018-06-14T04:37:37.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt; '一屁股坐下来' isn't used as a command. It's not the same as the sentence you quoted &quot;take your arse down&quot;. Take your arse down would be like saying &quot;给我坐下！&quot; or &quot;你给我她妈坐下！&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'一屁股坐下来', however, is used to describe someone is impolite or rude. They just sit directly without being invited by the host. For example, 你这个人真没有礼貌，到别人家里不管不顾，一屁股就坐下来了！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also be used to describe someone sits abruptly without paying attention to something on the chair, which could be crushed by his sitting. For example, 你这一屁股坐下来，把我的手机都坐坏了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, it's used to describe one's sitting in a way of either being rude or careless. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-14T04:57:41.777" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T04:57:41.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30183" CreationDate="2018-06-14T05:24:59.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am not clear on the exact meaning on the phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;玄导时 住僧可考的 衛涿城府 齐成正觉 母段, 妻扈 I assume that 息怀庆 is also a name, and that&#xA;  玄嗣, 玄黎, and 玄貞 are the names of Buddhist monks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've included an image of the source text for reference. The colophon&#xA;  is the last three columns on the left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玄导 i found maybe he is a monk. there is some information&#xA;     &lt;a href=&quot;https://m.ftsx.net/390197.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://m.ftsx.net/390197.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;衛涿城府 look like a goverment palace.&#xA;齐成正觉 Means Became enlightment together&#xA;母段 母 means mother， 段 is the first name of his mother.&#xA;妻扈 妻 means wife， 扈 is the first name of his wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T05:24:59.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30195" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30196" CreationDate="2018-06-14T06:49:23.177" Score="1" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence over &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/28201101/answer/40711457&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;知乎&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最后，特别特别重要的提示！！！出门的时候记得带上护照，遇到警察，在他没有发现你之前躲开他！俄罗斯的警察待遇非常低，所以几乎90%的警察都会勒索外国人，尤其是中国人（&lt;strong&gt;拜&lt;/strong&gt;在俄做生意的中国有钱人所赐，他们的入境手续都不合法，所以一查就给钱，一查就给钱，一来二去警察都知道中国人好给钱了），当然如果你懂语言且签证合法的话，也可以和他们沟通，一般遇到这样的，警察也不敢太过分，但总而言之还是躲着他们好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Pleco, I found out that 拜 can work as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;POLITE [used before a verb to show respect]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That might make sense in this context. But I have never seen that kind of usage of 拜 and I'm not sure if it is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or does 拜 here mean anything others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T09:57:00.957" Title="What does 拜 mean in 拜在俄做生意的中国有钱人所赐，他们的入境手续都不合法?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30195" CreationDate="2018-06-14T07:07:08.310" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;拜X所賜, Y&lt;/code&gt; is a standard expression which means &lt;em&gt;Y happens, thanks to X&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;if it weren't for X, Y wouldn't have happened&lt;/em&gt;. It may also carry all the sarcasm or irony contained in the English version. If you want to decompose the structure, it literally means &lt;code&gt;acknowledging the bestowed/conferred upon X, this causes Y&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拜在俄做生意的中國有錢人所賜，他們的入境手續都不合法，所以一查就給錢，一查就給錢，一來二去警察都知道中國人好給錢了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to the wealthy Chinese people doing business in Russia, who enter the country without following proper procedures and underhandedly pay the inspection/police officers every time they get checked, all the police officers [&lt;em&gt;who are inside this shady bribery business&lt;/em&gt;] now know [or more logically, &lt;em&gt;are now under the impression&lt;/em&gt;] that Chinese people love giving bribes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T07:12:23.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30195" CreationDate="2018-06-14T07:13:02.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;拜&amp;quot;  means &amp;quot;thanks to/ all because of&amp;quot; in this context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[拜] [~~~~~] [所赐] = [thanks to][~~~~~](that made it so)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[拜][在俄做生意的中国有钱人][所赐]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[拜] [~~~~~] [所赐] could be a genuine expression of thankfulness: &amp;quot;thanks to ~~~~~~ that made it so&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or a sarcastic remark &amp;quot;all because of ~~~~~ (which caused it so)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;To [拜]  a god is to thanks him for his blessing or granted wish&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T07:13:02.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30183" CreationDate="2018-06-14T09:53:09.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This morning I received another, slightly different transcription of the inscription if anyone is still interested. This one reads&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雍州櫟阳縣游騎将軍守左衛淥城(府)左果毅都尉杨社生&lt;br&gt;&#xA;母段  妻扈息懷慶玄嗣玄器玄貞女大良二娘秣利巫山&lt;br&gt;&#xA;家眷屬缘此功德齊成正覺   顯慶六年二月八日造[經]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;淥城府 for 涿城府 (another possibility is 泳城府). Still don't know where this is.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;玄器 for玄嗣   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大良 for大娘   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;秣利巫山 for隸利庄山 (秣 must be a mistake I think)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19863" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T09:53:09.557" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30195" CreationDate="2018-06-14T09:57:00.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely a sarcastic 拜 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拜在俄做生意的中國有錢人所賜，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A salute to the wealthy Chinese who do business in Russia,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他們的入境手續都不合法，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;whose frontier crossings are all illegal,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;所以一查就給錢，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and therefore, if investigated, pay,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一查就給錢，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;pay each time,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一來二去警察都知道中國人好給錢了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;gradually the (Russian) police learn, the Chinese can be milked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T09:57:00.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30104" CreationDate="2018-06-14T14:58:11.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on how you look at the &quot;numbers&quot;. Someone think they are words, especially when there are &quot;-&quot; sign or space between the numbers, so they ask &quot;what&quot;. On the other hand, someone think they are pure numbers, so they ask &quot;how many / much&quot;. &#xA;But both of them are understandable for native speakers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastEditorUserId="11936" LastEditDate="2018-07-17T08:00:09.223" LastActivityDate="2018-07-17T08:00:09.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30201" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30202" CreationDate="2018-06-14T16:14:28.080" Score="5" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen 人 used as a character in multiple names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李劼人 is an example of a fairly well known person with the character 人 in his name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems slightly jarring that &lt;code&gt;人 - person&lt;/code&gt; would be a feature of a name, I'm guessing there is more to it - but I've not been able to find a convincing answer online yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T11:39:33.610" Title="Why would 人 be used for names?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30201" CreationDate="2018-06-14T17:40:38.577" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having 人 in the name is not uncommon, especially the first character of the first name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;人 (X) &quot; = 人中之(X) &quot;  = (X) among man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苗人鳳 - phoenix among man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狄人傑 - elite among man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;張人龍 - dragon among man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蒒人貴 - noble among man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聶人王 - king among man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is less common to have 人 in the second character of a first name,  because 人 is pronounced the same as '仁', which is a far more popular second character in first name &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people might not want their child to have to correct people all the time by telling them it is '人' not '仁' in his name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is not unreasonable to use 人 as the second character of a first name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(X)人 = (X)之人 = 'a man who (X)' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;張學人 - a man who learns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陳正人 - a man who is just&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陸敬人 - a man who is respectful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Of course, 張學人, 陳正人 and 陸敬人 might have to tell people all the time that their names are not 張學仁, 陳正仁 and 陸敬仁 (all legitimate names)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-14T22:38:47.453" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T22:38:47.453" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30203" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-14T19:04:34.587" Score="5" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;In reference to the thread &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30164/is-this-ivanka-trump-chinese-proverb-real-those-who-say-it-can-not-be-done&quot;&gt;Is this [Ivanka Trump] Chinese proverb real? —“Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it”&lt;/a&gt; and related news, I've created this question, and provided an simple answer; feel free to add to it, and comment :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the question: are there any free bilingual sources of chinese proverbs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="3613" LastEditDate="2018-06-16T05:38:26.467" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T05:38:26.467" Title="are there any free bilingual sources of chinese proverb?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30203" CreationDate="2018-06-14T19:18:05.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;the internet archive is your friend. unfortunately, it's blocked in &quot;that area&quot; :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the first one: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archive.org/details/handbookofchines00summiala&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a handbook of the chinese language&lt;/a&gt;, by james summers, printed in 1863&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in page 95 &amp;amp; page 97, there're several proverbs translated in english:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/handbookofchines00summiala#page/95/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/handbookofchines00summiala#page/95/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/handbookofchines00summiala#page/97/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/handbookofchines00summiala#page/97/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on page 393, the original text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/handbookofchines00summiala#page/n392/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/handbookofchines00summiala#page/n392/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sample: &lt;strong&gt;恭敬不如從命　⋯　&quot;to feel reverence is not as good as to give obedience&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the next one: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archive.org/details/essaysonchinesel00wattrich&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;essays on the chinese language&lt;/a&gt;, by thomas watters, printed in 1889&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;page 493 - 496, there're chinese proverbs of Buddhist origin &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/essaysonchinesel00wattrich#page/492/mode/2up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/essaysonchinesel00wattrich#page/492/mode/2up&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/essaysonchinesel00wattrich#page/494/mode/2up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/essaysonchinesel00wattrich#page/494/mode/2up&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/essaysonchinesel00wattrich#page/496/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/essaysonchinesel00wattrich#page/496/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sample: &lt;strong&gt;與人方便與己方便　⋯　&quot;do good to others and you do good to yourself&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last one is: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archive.org/details/chinesedienglish00lobsrich&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an english and chinese dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, a &quot;revised version&quot; of william lobscheid's dictionary, printed in 1883, in tokio.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the appendix is the gem, from page 1227-1373. which has bilingual texts ranged from trimetrical classic (三字經), wisdom verses, merits, &lt;strong&gt;thousands&lt;/strong&gt; of famous phrases and proverbs; and miscellaneous &quot;common knowledges&quot; of the days of yore. all in literary chinese and english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B25Tq.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B25Tq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;samples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有利必興．有害必除　⋯　&quot;what is profitable must be put into action, what is injurious must be removed&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有緣千里能相會．無緣對面不相逢　⋯　&quot;no distance can separate what heaven unites, or unite what heaven separates&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;月明月明不可獨行．寔要獨行手提紅燈　⋯　&quot;bright moon, bright moon, but don't walk alone; if you must walk alone, take a red lantern in your hand&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyone who want a genuine &quot;chinese proverb&quot;, have a read of these books, particularly the last one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, anyone who want to &quot;fake&quot; one, study these thoroughly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;do it better, please　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="3613" LastEditDate="2018-06-16T05:37:44.590" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T05:37:44.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30205" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-15T00:42:29.277" Score="3" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently learned how to use interrogative pronouns in chinese, such as 什么 (what), 谁 (who) ,etc. But in English we also use these words as what I think are called 'Reflexive Pronouns' or something like that. It is the what in &quot;Do you know WHAT that chair is for&quot; or 'Integrity is WHAT he needs. The who in &quot;I know a few people WHO drive blue cars.&quot; How does chinese use those words? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19881" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T00:53:30.170" Title="How to use what, that, who, where, etc. in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30206" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-15T02:12:02.690" Score="1" ViewCount="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many sources I have come across the explanation that 一 is pronounced &lt;code&gt;yao1&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;yi1&lt;/code&gt; when used in things like telephone numbers. For example, my HSK textbooks use 一 (&lt;code&gt;yao1&lt;/code&gt;), and I have seen it on ChinesePod. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/626-is-%E4%B8%80-pronounced-as-yi-or-yao/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is an example this usage being described. I have seen and heard this consistently over the course of the last couple of years of learning Mandarin and assumed it to be correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was quite surprised then when during the course of breaking down a character into its constituent components for learning purposes, I came across &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanzicraft.com/character/%E5%B9%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;幺 on HanziCraft&lt;/a&gt;. According to HanziCraft, &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; character is in fact the number 1 pronounced &lt;code&gt;yao1&lt;/code&gt; in telephone numbers. Further Googling revealed &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.pinpinchinese.com/definitions/s/%E5%B9%BA-yao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B9%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;other&lt;/a&gt; resources also using this character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is the correct character to represent the number 1 pronounced &lt;code&gt;yao1&lt;/code&gt;; 一 or 幺?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13062" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T02:12:02.690" Title="Which is correct: 一 (yao1) or 幺 (yao1)?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-06-15T02:33:22.657" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30205" CreationDate="2018-06-15T02:31:54.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;That chair is for...&amp;quot; (那椅子是用來...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;[&lt;strong&gt;What&lt;/strong&gt;] that chair is for &amp;quot; (那椅子是用來做[&lt;strong&gt;什麼旳&lt;/strong&gt;])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;That chair is for...&amp;quot; (那椅子是留給...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;[&lt;strong&gt;Whom&lt;/strong&gt;] that chair is for &amp;quot; (那椅子是留給[&lt;strong&gt;誰旳&lt;/strong&gt;])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'He needs integrity' (他需要诚信)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Integrity is [&lt;strong&gt;what&lt;/strong&gt;] he needs.&amp;quot; (诚信是他[&lt;strong&gt;所&lt;/strong&gt;]需要[&lt;strong&gt;旳&lt;/strong&gt;])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I came from Hong Kong&amp;quot; (我来自香港)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Hong Kong is [&lt;strong&gt;where&lt;/strong&gt;] I came from&amp;quot; (香港是我[&lt;strong&gt;所&lt;/strong&gt;]来自[&lt;strong&gt;旳地方&lt;/strong&gt;])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A few people drive blue cars&amp;quot; (幾個人駕駛藍色汽車)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A few people [&lt;strong&gt;who&lt;/strong&gt;] drive blue cars&amp;quot; (幾個駕駛藍色汽車[&lt;strong&gt;的人&lt;/strong&gt;])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T02:47:14.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30209" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-15T03:27:46.780" Score="2" ViewCount="398" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw sentence &lt;code&gt;xiànzài wǒ zhèngzài xué hànyǔ&lt;/code&gt;. And I can understand it as &quot;I'm learning Chinese now&quot;. What bothers me is would it be any different meaning if I just say &lt;code&gt;xiànzài wǒ xué hànyǔ&lt;/code&gt;? Or even &lt;code&gt;wǒ zhèngzài xué hànyǔ&lt;/code&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I'm also assuming that &lt;code&gt;zhèngzài&lt;/code&gt; can be replaced with &lt;code&gt;zài&lt;/code&gt; without changing in meaning, am I right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19883" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T08:01:55.227" Title="Using xiànzài and zhèngzài in a single sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30210" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30219" CreationDate="2018-06-15T04:12:54.690" Score="1" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would be the most natural way to say, &quot;Everything worth doing requires self-discipline and effort?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每個值得的事情都需要磨練和努力 feels like English crammed into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would 每件值得的事都需要磨練和努力 be better？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) What's the most natural Mandarin translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) What's the most natural Cantonese translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2018-06-15T07:21:25.733" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T11:26:47.897" Title="Natural translation for &quot;Everything worth doing requires self-discipline and effort&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30210" CreationDate="2018-06-15T04:36:35.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may lookup an idiom (成語) from the dictionary that matches what you want to say. It would sound more natural.&#xA;For example, 全力以赴, 孜孜不倦, 自強不息, (should not) 守株待兔, (should not) 半途而廢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese idioms are understood by both Cantonese and Mandarin speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2718" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T04:36:35.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30210" CreationDate="2018-06-15T06:00:14.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;每個值得的事情都需要磨練和努力 is more accurate than 每件重要的事都需要磨練和努力。&#xA;Because of worth meaning(值得), not important（重要）   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19886" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T06:00:14.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30213" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30214" CreationDate="2018-06-15T06:19:19.837" Score="0" ViewCount="820" Body="&lt;p&gt;To express a person that has a narrow view, there are two 成语. According to 百度词典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;坐井观天&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;坐在井底看天。比喻&lt;strong&gt;眼界小，见识少&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;井底之蛙&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;井底的蛙只能看到井口那么大的一块天。&lt;strong&gt;比喻见识狭窄的人&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both words include derogatory sense (含贬义). But for me both seem to be the same otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried searching in Baidu, but could not find any trustful answers (example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://tieba.baidu.com/p/2112486580?red_tag=0654648996&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://tieba.baidu.com/p/2112486580?red_tag=0654648996&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, etc...). Also I can't know which answer is correct or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is there any difference between these two Chengyu? For example is there any situation that using one word is OK but not for the other? The actual example is very appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T07:30:32.107" Title="What is the difference between 井底之蛙 and 坐井观天?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30213" CreationDate="2018-06-15T07:10:19.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you got from Baidu is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;井底之蛙: the key word is &lt;strong&gt;蛙&lt;/strong&gt;. Metaphorically, you can reference a &lt;strong&gt;person&lt;/strong&gt; to a &lt;strong&gt;frog&lt;/strong&gt;, being in the bottom of a well. For example, you can say to someone: 你就是井底之蛙！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐井观天 describes one's &lt;strong&gt;behavior/vision&lt;/strong&gt;. You can say 不要坐井观天 to exhort someone not to be narrow for his thoughts or vision. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T07:10:19.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30213" CreationDate="2018-06-15T07:24:10.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two idioms are related&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;井底之蛙 literally means &quot;a frog in the bottom of a well&quot; It is a metaphor for describing  &lt;strong&gt;an ignorant person&lt;/strong&gt; who look at the world with an extremely narrow view. Doesn't know anything outside of his own small circle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坐井观天 is an extension of 井底之蛙; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A frog sit in the bottom of a well looking up to the sky can only see the area as big as the well's opening. And 坐井观天 literally means &quot;sitting in the bottom of a well looking up to the sky&quot;. It is what a 井底之蛙 does, 坐井观天 is a metaphor for describing &lt;strong&gt;having a narrow vision&lt;/strong&gt; (that makes one becomes ignorant like a frog in the bottom of a well)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-15T07:30:32.107" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T07:30:32.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30216" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30217" CreationDate="2018-06-15T08:18:45.190" Score="1" ViewCount="357" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working on the translation of a Chinese text and I'm stuck with this expression: &quot;辨人禽界，立天地心&quot;. I think it means something like &quot;recognize the human (bird?) world, and establishing/building heaven and earth&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often see 为天地立心，为生民立命， 为往圣继绝学，为万世开太平 as well. Thanks for telling me what this may mean too. I heard it was used by 张载 and wish to grasp its true meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone has an idea of its precise meaning, please let me know. I wish I could make sure of it for me to deeply understand what this article is about and make the whole translation accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19189" LastEditorUserId="19189" LastEditDate="2018-06-15T08:39:03.887" LastActivityDate="2018-09-14T07:24:47.963" Title="Translation of &quot;辨人禽界，立天地心&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30216" CreationDate="2018-06-15T08:36:55.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I originally had this as a comment but it seems like it has become an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confucianism likes to talk about the separation of man (人) and beast (禽), so that would be the crux of the first sentence, i.e.: separating the human and animal worlds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;立天地心 should be talking about setting a standard or a principle for heaven and earth, there are many translations that put similar ideas as: ordaining a conscience for Heaven and Earth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In relation to your edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a couple of well-known translations for 为天地立心，为生民立命， 为往圣继绝学，为万世开太平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To ordain conscience for Heaven and Earth&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    To secure life and fortune for the people&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    To continue lost teachings for past sages&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    To establish peace for all future generations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To ordain conscience for Heaven and Earth&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    To secure life and fortune for the populace&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    To carry on lost teachings of ancient sages&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    To build peace for posterity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-06-15T08:43:06.473" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T08:43:06.473" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30216" CreationDate="2018-06-15T09:45:13.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;辨人禽界，立天地心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simple translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天地 = natural world, people and society = 天下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辨人禽界，= 辨别人和禽兽的界限，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;distinguish the boundaries between people and animals&lt;br&gt;&#xA;立天地心 = become a good person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/584654466517858445.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;其实，“为天地立心”是指为社会建立一套以“仁”、“孝”等道德伦理为核心的精神价值系统。 “立心”也就是“立天理”之心，因为天理“能使天下悦且通”，从而使“天下”（社会）必然会普遍接受仁孝之理等道德价值。“为天地立心”的涵义其重点不在认识论，而在价值论。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T09:45:13.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30210" CreationDate="2018-06-15T12:49:11.170" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is the phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;好事多磨&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC Proverbs&lt;/em&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lit&lt;/strong&gt; [Accomplishing] great things [has] many hardships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fig&lt;/strong&gt; In accomplishing anything worthwhile, one is bound to encounter setbacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;: originally hǎoshì referred to a successful marriage or engagement, so “it takes many twists and turns to accomplish a good marriage” is sometimes equated with “The course of true love never did run smooth.” Cf. JW, chap. 28; DRC, chap. 1; Èr Kè Pāi'àn Jīngqí, chap. 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was a headline from an hour ago on 速途网 that reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EOS主网的艰难启动是好事多磨，还是持币者的投机心理大于信仰?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T13:00:36.907" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30220" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-15T15:17:38.917" Score="2" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;“出去了几个人。”这句话是从汉语规范词典：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;出去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;chūqù&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;动 从里面到外面, 离开说话人所在的位置&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;出去买菜 | 他出去了 | &lt;strong&gt;出去了几个人。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;注意 “去”口语中有时读轻声。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是对我来说不太清楚。“出去了几个人。”跟“几个人出去了。”，意思一样吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think “几个人出去了。” could be translated by “a few people [left]/[went outside]”. But I'm not at all sure about the meaning of “出去了几个人。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's just some basic vocabulary, but I feel like maybe I'm missing something important here... Help! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2018-06-17T07:16:48.643" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T07:16:48.643" Title="Word order in “出去了几个人。”" Tags="&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1612" CreationDate="2018-06-15T19:31:44.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The top part of「姜」is「羊」, serving as a phonetic component, and the bottom part is「女」, serving as a semantic component. It was originally used as a proper noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is where the clarity ends if you rely on things like popular etymology or non-up to date resources to check up similar-looking characters, which will frequently provide conflicting or obscure explanations for glyph origins (although most resources will decompose「姜」correctly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, Chinese character components have changed heavily over the years, with different components sometimes merging into one form. Most references that you'll see will not give you a clear breakdown of individual characters, and the times they get an individual component「X」right do not explain other components which have merged into the same shape as「X」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others have correctly stated, 「⺷」is how we write「羊」at the top in the modern form. There is one more (actually two, but they're very similar graphical variations of each other) shape morph of「羊」to be aware of, and that is how it's written at the top-&lt;strong&gt;left&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「⺶」(PRC usually uses this form)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「⿱⿰丿X」, where X is a placeholder (Other places usually use this form)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I won't talk about characters which contain the full form of「羊」here, like「咩」or「羶」, because they're fairly obvious. Characters which &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; contain the graphical variants of「羊」described above can be split into the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Characters which had a hint of the meaning &lt;em&gt;sheep&lt;/em&gt;. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「羔」, a lamb&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「義」, morality&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「善」, a meal (now written「膳」)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「犧」, to sacrifice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「羞」, (original meaning) an offering&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Characters which had a hint of the sound ancestral to &lt;strong&gt;yáng&lt;/strong&gt;. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「姜」, &lt;strong&gt;jiāng&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「羕」, &lt;strong&gt;yàng&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「恙」, &lt;strong&gt;yàng&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Characters which uses「羊」for both sound and meaning. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「羌」, &lt;strong&gt;qiāng&lt;/strong&gt;, the historical &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiang_(historical_people)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qiang&lt;/a&gt; tribes which were constantly at war with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shang dynasty&lt;/a&gt;. These people were perceived by the Shang to wear ram horns as a sort of decorative or ritualistic headwear.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「養」, &lt;strong&gt;yǎng&lt;/strong&gt;, (original meaning) to herd sheep&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many other characters which &lt;em&gt;don't really&lt;/em&gt; contain「羊」, but was something else that eventually morphed into「」, 「⺶」, or「⿱⿰丿X」. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「着」, large graphical corruptions of what was originally「箸」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「美」, top was originally a headdress&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「差」, top was originally「木」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「盖」, top was originally「去」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《古文字詁林》, 1999&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》, 2014&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-15T19:49:12.450" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T19:49:12.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30223" CreationDate="2018-06-15T20:19:57.940" Score="2" ViewCount="277" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I came across this chengyu and my understanding is that it means something like &quot;to take a cursory look at something&quot; or, to quote my dictionary, &quot;粗略地观察事物&quot;. Now, I understand this and I see where it's coming from, but the book I found it in is about Tiziano Terzani, an Italian journalist/writer who lived in China for a long time and uses it to refer to himself and his travel experience. I have read a lot of his work and he's anything but superficial. So I was wondering if the chengyu has another meaning/can be interpreted in a different way? A little research on the internet got me nowhere. &#xA;Many thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17853" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T21:07:42.977" Title="Meaning of 走马看花" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30222" CreationDate="2018-06-15T20:51:21.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning you've provided may also be written as &lt;strong&gt;走馬觀花&lt;/strong&gt;, and looks like a recent meaning of the phrase, popularised in the late Qing dynasty. The earlier meaning of &lt;strong&gt;走馬看花&lt;/strong&gt; meant &lt;em&gt;to be in a very satisfied and pleasant/enjoyable mood&lt;/em&gt;, and is derived from a poem by the Tang Dynasty &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meng_Jiao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Meng Jiao&lt;/a&gt;. Quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《登科後》&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昔日齷齪不足夸，今朝放蕩思無涯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;春風得意&lt;strong&gt;馬蹄疾&lt;/strong&gt;，一日&lt;strong&gt;看&lt;/strong&gt;盡長安&lt;strong&gt;花&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Bolded parts where the 成語 comes from: &lt;strong&gt;swift galloping of hooves&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;see&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;flower&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The poet talks about not wanting to bring up his past impoverished circumstances, referencing his failure to pass the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Imperial Examinations&lt;/a&gt; twice. Finally, on his third attempt he succeeded, was overjoyed, and rode a horse which swiftly galloped to the Tang Capital &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27an&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chang'an&lt;/a&gt;, where the poet wanted to see all of Chang'an's flowers in a single day. Later literature which uses &lt;strong&gt;走馬看花&lt;/strong&gt; in this sense as an expression include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;宋 楊萬里 《葉叔羽集同年九人於櫻桃園》詩： “&lt;strong&gt;走馬看花&lt;/strong&gt;才幾日， 曉星殘月半無人。”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;明 于謙 《喜雨行》： “但願風調雨順民安業， 我亦&lt;strong&gt;走馬看花&lt;/strong&gt;歸帝京。”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-15T21:07:42.977" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T21:07:42.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30205" CreationDate="2018-06-16T00:42:30.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you are talking about are called relative pronouns. Chinese, you may have noticed, does not play by English rules. Chinese does things differently, and to my mind often more elegantly. One way is this use of 是 ...... 的 or some other 动词 .... 的 combination. Relative clauses are just bigger adjectives really, and that is often exactly how Chinese uses the information content of the relative clause, as part of a big adjectival phrase, in front of a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[relative clause]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(information content of relative clause)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;{noun + relative pronoun, or just relative pronoun}  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;That is {the dog [that} （bit me）]!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这是那只(咬我)的狗。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is that chair /used/ for? (For what purpose is that chair used?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那把椅子是干什么用的吗？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2a. Do you know {WHAT} that chair is /used/ for?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2b. Do you know {the thing [that} that chair is (used) for]?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你知道那把椅子是干什么用的吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 所 you get close to an English style relative pronoun，but here it is still wrapped inside a 是 ... 的 clause. In my head, I always think 'thatwhich' for 所。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Integrity is {WHAT} he needs.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3a. Integrity is {the thing [which} he needs]. (In Chinese I think they will say 'the thing which he lacks)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;正直是他[所(缺少)]的。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I know {a few people [WHO} （drive blue cars）].&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4a. I know {a few people, [those people} drive blue cars].&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我认识几个(开蓝色汽车)的人。  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't like writing in the comments box.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simple answer is: No. It depends on what you want to say and how you want to say it. 回家的人 is not a relative clause, just adjective + noun. There is a thing called a Zero Relative Clause. Basically, the Relative Pronoun is omitted, but could be inserted. &quot;This is the man (who) I met yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那时正是冬天, 黑漆漆的街上, 满满都是回家的人。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It was winter then, the dark streets (were) full of people (who were)  headed home. (The words in brackets make the sentence too wordy.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我到家的时候, 我们一起去超市吧。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;¨WHEN I get home, we will go to the store¨. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are various ways to express 'when'. An easy way is 的时候， 的时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese can put the information content of an English relative clause in front of the noun. That means, it is not a relative clause but an adjective. We can't write 'The headed home man' in English, but in Chinese it's easy. I believe this originates in the Germanic penchant for 'Verb second'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T00:53:30.170" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T00:53:30.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30205" CreationDate="2018-06-16T05:37:37.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're mixing up question words and relative pronouns. Your Chinese examples are for question words: &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Placement_of_question_words&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Placement_of_question_words&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your English sentences use &quot;what&quot; for linking relative clauses. Chinese uses different constructions than English does:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause#Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9128/are-there-relative-pronouns-in-chinese&quot;&gt;Are there relative pronouns in Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, if you want to avoid basic confusions like this in the future, I recommend having a read through something like &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0934034397&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Students-Chinese-Learning/dp/0934034397&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T05:37:37.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30229" CreationDate="2018-06-16T07:24:13.170" Score="1" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are few common ways to describe moody teenagers, albeit not overly precise:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(很)叛逆(期)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;青春(期)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there is anything more colorful to describe these cranky kids?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T09:56:51.757" Title="Descriptors for moody teenagers?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30227" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30228" CreationDate="2018-06-16T09:05:58.780" Score="2" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;Page 178 of《成都话方言词典》has the following entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fkOPa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fkOPa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;丘八儿 qiū bér&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [tɕ‘iəu⁵⁵ pər²¹] 丘八, 旧时称军人。因“丘”加“八”为“兵”而得名(含贬义)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丘八 is a deconstruction of the character 兵.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What words exist that come from deconstructed characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T14:37:16.773" Title="What words exist that come from deconstructed characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30227" CreationDate="2018-06-16T09:39:57.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;look for &quot;拆字&quot; (roughly destruct character), particularly fortune telling story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水巷 --&gt; 港&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卯金刀 --&gt; 劉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;several verses from a famous oracle poem in hong kong, 1933:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;人我太陽爭北土&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人我&lt;/strong&gt;　--&gt; &lt;strong&gt;俄&lt;/strong&gt;羅斯 (russia)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;十四一心人發奮．水去西方啟戰爭&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;十四一心人&lt;/strong&gt; --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;德&lt;/strong&gt;國 (third reich, at that era)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;水去&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;晉有出頭寧坐視．中央生草不堪耘&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;晉有出頭&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;中央生草&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;guess these five characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another word to look for is &quot;離合&quot;, there're many examples in literary of yore. e.g. the wiki had &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%8F%A4%E4%BB%8A%E8%AD%9A%E6%A7%A9/29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;古今譚槩, in volume 29, &quot;談資部&quot;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「取上一字，下拆兩字，字義相協。」倡云：「山上有明光，不知是日光、月光。」文云：「堂上掛珠簾，不知是王家的、朱家的。」陳云：「有客到舘驛，不知是舍人、官人。」王云：「半夜生孩兒，不知是子時、亥時。」各賞大觥。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which the condition is choose one character (取上一字), break it into two (下拆兩字), and then the character, its meaning is in accord (字義相協).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;four persons done it :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;山上有明光，不知是日光、月光 (&lt;strong&gt;明 --&gt; 日, 月&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;堂上掛珠簾，不知是王家的、朱家的 (&lt;strong&gt;珠 --&gt; 王, 朱&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有客到舘驛，不知是舍人、官人 (&lt;strong&gt;舘 --&gt; 舍, 官&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;半夜生孩兒，不知是子時、亥時 (&lt;strong&gt;孩 --&gt; 子, 亥&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it might be too difficult for elementary learners, or simplified chinese users. but, it's the funny, witty aspect of the traditional culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-06-16T14:37:16.773" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T14:37:16.773" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30226" CreationDate="2018-06-16T09:50:22.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多愁善感 is a common phrase for describing moody&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moody teenagers would be 多愁善感的少年 or simply 多愁少年 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;林黛玉 in 紅樓夢 is a classic example of 多愁善感的少女 (多愁少女)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;憤青 short for 憤怒青年 (angry teenager)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抑鬱少年 (depress teenager)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情緒化 means 'emotional' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情緒化的少年 means 'emotional teenager'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-16T09:56:51.757" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T09:56:51.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30230" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-16T10:27:58.800" Score="3" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that in everyday life I should use 我。But I was under the impression that, when I am writing an impersonal text with some distance from the reader it was okay to use 本人。Below I wrote a text on why the 29th of May is considered unlucky in Greek superstition. I guess this kind of seriously unlucky, ominous day does not fit the definition of 倒霉。 But I don’t understand why my teacher marked 本人, 吾國 and (on other pages) 該日 as wrong. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5DKr9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5DKr9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: if my language capacity was high enough, would the topic be appropriate for expressions like 本人，該日，吾國？ The topic is the sack of the city of Constantinople , as well as the behaviour of some good and bad rulers of the Ottoman Empire toward the Greek people. This is a very sensitive topic and in my native languages I would use most formal language, so as to keep myself to some objectivity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-06-17T10:03:19.090" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T10:03:19.090" Title="Why is 本人 inappropriate in an objective text?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30230" CreationDate="2018-06-16T11:22:13.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 本人 stresses that it is you but not others.  &quot;本人&quot; is acceptable to native speakers in this sentence, but it is mostly used in certain formal situations (for example, a plea of guilty).  And it can indicate that you slightly look down on your readers when used in normal situations.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In general, 我 is the best choice for the general reference to oneself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吾國 is understandable but it is not used since 我 is the preferred word to indicate oneself in Mandarin nowadays (but you can find the presence of 吾 in some dialects).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 该日 would lead to serious problem.  日 can be used as the f-word (therefore a verb) and 该 would be interpreted as &quot;should&quot; under this circumstance.  Therefore please always use 这一天/这天 or other common expressions for &lt;strong&gt;this day&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it seems that you like to use classical Chinese words （乃、吾） in your writings.  It is better not to use then alongside modern expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T11:22:13.933" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30210" CreationDate="2018-06-16T11:26:47.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 凡事都需要自律和努力.&#xA;&quot;Self-discipline&quot; is not reflected in the original translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T11:26:47.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10709" CreationDate="2018-06-16T11:33:03.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Python package &quot;jieba&quot; (结巴) should be a good alternative if you want to process a lot of text.&#xA;This package can split sentences into words and then what you need to do is only counting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T11:33:03.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30201" CreationDate="2018-06-16T11:39:33.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not that strange since English names also contain jobs (Smith) that are not used in names of Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A name is only a tag to mark a specific person.  As long as the community accept it, it can use any possible combinations.  For example, my parents gave me the name of a Chinese emperor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T11:39:33.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30235" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-16T13:17:08.567" Score="3" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;Again, referring to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30227/what-words-exist-that-come-from-deconstructed-characters&quot;&gt;another thread&lt;/a&gt;, I made this question, and provided info as an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun destruct character (拆字), or extrasensory perception (觸機)　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a version of the oracle poem in wiki:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E8%AB%B8%E8%91%9B%E6%AD%A6%E4%BE%AF%E4%B9%A9%E6%96%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/諸葛武侯乩文&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how to interpret it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T06:08:42.537" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T06:08:42.537" Title="How to interpret the oracle poem (諸葛武侯乩文)?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30235" CreationDate="2018-06-16T13:31:29.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;in the year 1933, a taoist style planchette writing (扶乩) was done at 蓬瀛仙館, in hong kong; for the purpose of asking divine revelation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the poem contained two parts, part i:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天數茫茫不可知．鸞台暫說各生知&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世界干戈終爆發．鼠尾牛頭發現時&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此次戰禍非小可．鳶飛魚躍也愁眉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天下生靈西復東．可憐遍地是哀鴻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刀填溝壑無人拾．血染山川滿地紅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天下重武不重文．那怪環球亂紛紛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人我太陽爭北土．美人東渡海波生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十四一心人發奮．水去西方啟戰爭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晉有出頭寧坐視．中央生草不堪耘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;切齒仇讎今始復．堅固金城一旦傾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;除非攜手馬先生．馬騰四海似蘇秦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遊說辯才世罕有．掉他三寸舌風生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得與聯軍說事因．東人首肯易調停&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青天白日由西落．五色旗幟向東生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二蔣雙爭一蔣傷．兩陳相遇一陳亡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東土不知西土樂．五羊風雨見悲傷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水巷仍須是樂邦．諸生不用走忙忙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;錢財散去猶小事．性命安全謝上蒼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今宵略說言和語．留與明宵說短長&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it was published on the newspaper: &lt;a href=&quot;https://mmis.hkpl.gov.hk/coverpage/-/coverpage/view?_coverpage_WAR_mmisportalportlet_hsf=%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E5%B7%A5%E5%95%86%E6%97%A5%E5%A0%B1&amp;amp;_coverpage_WAR_mmisportalportlet_actual_q=%28%20all_dc.title%3A%28%22%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E5%B7%A5%E5%95%86%E6%97%A5%E5%A0%B1%22%29%29%20AND+%28%20verbatim_dc.collection%3A%28%22Old%5C%20HK%5C%20Newspapers%22%29%29&amp;amp;_coverpage_WAR_mmisportalportlet_sort_field=dc.publicationdate_bsort&amp;amp;p_r_p_-1078056564_c=QF757YsWv5%2BwYVV8BOODtYtZNUXlAsGW&amp;amp;_coverpage_WAR_mmisportalportlet_o=16&amp;amp;_coverpage_WAR_mmisportalportlet_sort_order=desc&amp;amp;_coverpage_WAR_mmisportalportlet_filter=dc.publicationdate_dt%3A%5B1930-01-01T00%3A00%3A00Z+TO+1939-12-31T15%3A59%3A59Z%5D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;香港工商日報, 15th december 1939&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jSQbx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jSQbx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's part ii:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;紅日落完白日落．五星燦爛文明國&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中山傾頹草木殃．豺狼虎豹同一鑊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兩重火土甚光明．士農工商皆有作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;木子楊花真武興．小小天罡何足論&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;強反弱兮弱反強．王氣金陵黯然盡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;故都陜地聚英華．文物衣冠頭尚白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;氣運南方出豪傑．克定中原謀統一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佳人絕色自西來．弄權竊國氣驕逸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狐兔成群功狗烹．倒亂君臣誰與匹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太陽沉去霧雲收．萬國低頭拜彌勒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;治亂循環有定時．根樹生枝惟四七&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老人星出現南方．紀念化為公正堂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西南獨立曇花現．飛虎潛龍勢莫當&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聯軍東指成一氣．劍仙俠士有奇秘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水能剋火火無功．炮火飛機何處避&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此是陰陽造化機．土意發明成絕技&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;稱雄東土日己終．物歸原主非奇事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此時國恥一齊消．四海昇平多吉兆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;異術殺人不用刀．偃武修文日月高&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三教聖人同住世．群魔妖怪豈能逃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可嘆草頭燒不盡．野外春風吹又生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宮門拔劍除奸佞．白頭變作赤頭人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;田間再出華盛頓．造福人群是真命&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此人原是紫微星．定國安民功德盛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;執中守一正乾坤．巍巍蕩蕩希堯舜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;百年世事不勝悲．誠恐諸君不及見&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好脩功果待來生．將相公侯前世善&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或是星辰下界來．或是神仙搖一變&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或是前生因果大．當然轉世功名顯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;山人復對諸生談．續上前文同一線&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千年萬載事悠悠．縱使神仙難預算&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;略將一二說君知．酬答諸生還了願&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;山人告別返西川．來年再會諸生面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;諸君各自顧前程．好向靈山勤修煉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;indeed, there're files of this oracle poem on the internet, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MpioG.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MpioG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OXI8V.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OXI8V.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you compare part i, you can find that some characters are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my opinion: verses are in sequence in part i, predicting events of 1930s - 1940s &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, verses are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; in sequence in part ii, at least the first half. predicting events from 1949 to 2033?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, just my ideas, have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T13:31:29.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30230" CreationDate="2018-06-16T23:48:24.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;本人 means &lt;strong&gt;我, I&lt;/strong&gt; in the formal circumstances, which is used to make a serious statement/declaration, such as in an allegation. For example, 本人郑重声明: 此事与本人没有任何关系！If you use this sense of 本人 in non formal settings, that would sound either pretentious or a bit joking. For example, 本人今天要去买东西 sounds pretentiously funny because 买东西 is really a very casual thing and people don't expect you to mess it up with such a formal word 本人, which add some taste of funny.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In casual speech, 本人 means &lt;strong&gt;in person, oneself&lt;/strong&gt;. See these examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这照片是你本人吗？// are you the very person who is in the picture? Or is the person in the picture yourself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是Ludi本人吗？// are you Ludi himself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你本人能(亲自)来吗？// could you come in person?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吾國 and 該日 are old fashioned and we don't usually use these words in modern Chinese, especially within the mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T00:21:45.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30220" CreationDate="2018-06-17T01:15:39.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;出去了几个人 is just a bit ambiguous. Are you making a statement or asking a question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;出去了几个人?  How many people went out?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;出去了几个人 .  A few people left.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他们几个人出去了。 They went out together.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他们出去了几个人？How many of them went out?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T01:15:39.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30239" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-17T01:18:33.850" Score="1" ViewCount="592" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many Mandarin pronunciation guides suggest pronouncing the ü vowel with a tense tongue in mid-mouth as when pronouncing the &quot;yi&quot; sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for words starting with q, j, x, many sites suggest placing the tongue so it grazes the back of your bottom teeth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For ü words that start with q, j, and x, how do you reconcile these tips?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should the tongue graze the back of your bottom teeth, or should the tongue hold the position of the &quot;yi&quot; sound?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T03:09:17.737" Title="Mandarin: tongue placement when pronouncing ü words like 學 and 去 that begin with q, x, j?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30239" CreationDate="2018-06-17T01:49:20.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, for words starting with q, j, x, many sites suggest placing the tongue so it grazes the back of your bottom teeth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this statement is wrong. When I pronounced j and q, the position of my tongue just slightly grazed the palate, the top part of the mouth. X seems not to make my tongue moving, almost in its relaxing position. Basically, j is pronounced as the character 鸡，q -&gt; 七，x -&gt; 西. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you pronounce 去， you just need to conflate the pronunciations of the character 七 and 玉. 玉 is the same as ü with the forth tone applied. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T01:49:20.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30239" CreationDate="2018-06-17T03:03:40.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/pronunciation/The_%22j%22_%22q%22_and_%22x%22_sounds&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this guidance&lt;/a&gt;, it is entirely correct. This guy (John Pasden) has been the resident &quot;foreign learner&quot; on ChinesePod podcasts nearly from the beginning, for many years, before opening his own company.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or on his other site, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sinosplice.com/learn-chinese/pronunciation-of-mandarin-chinese/5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;even with tongue placement pictures&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastEditorUserId="3613" LastEditDate="2018-06-17T03:09:17.737" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T03:09:17.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30242" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30243" CreationDate="2018-06-17T05:15:16.310" Score="2" ViewCount="333" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is about writing the hanzi &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;少&lt;/a&gt;; it's written as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ALWQfm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ALWQfm.png&quot; alt=&quot;少 stroke order; sourced from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E5%B0%91-bw.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes when I write this hanzi by hand, I write the first three strokes to look like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小&lt;/a&gt;, which looks different because it has a hooked first stroke:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SiBr0m.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SiBr0m.png&quot; alt=&quot;小 stroke order; sourced from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E5%B0%8F-bw.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if it's incorrect, or merely a matter of style (or font).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it incorrect to write 少 with a hooked first stroke, like 小?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T05:21:15.677" Title="Is it incorrect to write 少 with a hooked first stroke, like 小?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30242" CreationDate="2018-06-17T05:21:15.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0q60W.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0q60W.png&quot; alt=&quot;![enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Incorrect&lt;/em&gt; is a relative term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the whole, I'm going to say &lt;em&gt;no, it's not incorrect&lt;/em&gt;, and it's easier to learn the character if you write it with a hook, because the glyph origin of「少」was「小」compounded with「丿」, and「小」is never written without the hook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T05:21:15.677" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30244" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-17T06:24:06.547" Score="3" ViewCount="873" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;Ni jin tian zao shang zen me yang?（你今天早上怎麼樣？）&quot; ok? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can we also say, &quot;Ni zhe ge zao shang zen me yang? （你這個早上怎麼樣？）&quot; because we do say, &quot;Ni zhe ge xing qi zen me yang? （你這個星期怎麼樣？）&quot; for how are you this week..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19838" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-25T13:07:26.980" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T13:10:56.100" Title="Is 你今天早上怎麼樣? or 你這個早上怎麼樣? okay for asking &quot;How are you this morning?&quot; and" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30245" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30251" CreationDate="2018-06-17T09:07:14.873" Score="2" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I heard 好 precedes an adjective which includes negative connotation (e.g. 无聊, 累).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好无聊啊！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好累了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, do speakers have good or bad intentions? Specificall:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does it have worse intention than just these adjectives? IOW do 好 reinforce the negative connotation of the adjective?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does it have better intention than when these adjectives are used alone, since 好 inself has good connotation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or to make it easier to understand, where does 好 + adjective with negative connotation fall in the following diagram?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[A] &amp;lt; 无聊 &amp;lt; [B] &amp;lt; 很无聊 &amp;lt; [C]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T05:17:58.443" Title="Does 好 + adjective with negative connotation reinforce the negative connotation or mitigate it?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30246" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-17T10:54:49.817" Score="1" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;My &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/30230/11365&quot;&gt;previous question&lt;/a&gt; revealed that the context for 本人 should be much more formal than I thought. Below is an example from last year’s 閱讀課：&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/31A6E.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/31A6E.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Is this guy trying to impress his potential landlord with his mastery of formal language and ongoing PhD? In my native languages, informal language would be OK! I asked my teacher the same question last year and her opinion was, you didn’t need a formal context, as long as it was written. I suppose some deep mystery is hiding here, not easy to grasp for 老外. Perhaps I need to understand what “formal” means to Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, an example from the Internet, taken from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/27804963/answer/179226168&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and a google plus profile:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z9n3x.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z9n3x.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AO9Ag.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AO9Ag.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this due to regional differences? Can Taiwanese natives please comment on whether this is natural to them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A further example from the internet, found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/50249495&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, seems to start somewhat formally and then finish totally colloquially with 求計算機大神導致：&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/obZqh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/obZqh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps 本人是⋯ is a special case? Because this platform seems full of it:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JyPOO.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JyPOO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-06-17T11:35:01.867" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T12:03:02.827" Title="Why is the use of 本人 appropriate in the contexts below" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30246" CreationDate="2018-06-17T12:03:02.827" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In all your cases, the writers are deliberately trying to sound formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first piece of article, the writer is asking to rent a house. It is quite common in China for this kind of article to use &quot;formal&quot; language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And using formal languages can make people sound &quot;serious&quot;. On &quot;知乎&quot;, people use this kind of language to show that they are seriously seeking for an answer to their questions, but not just randomly poking around. For the colloquial &quot;求計算機大神導致&quot;, &quot;知乎&quot; is an internet Q/A service, so it is quite common for this kind colloquial phrases to appear. (It might be kind of scary for an article made up of purely formal language to appear here.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;本人&quot; does not usually appear in (one-on-one) conversations. So it may be also rare in (one-on-one) text chat. But if one is sending a message to many people, he usually changes into a somewhat &quot;formal&quot; language, if he is indeed serious about the message.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all the quotes in your question, there would not be any problem replacing &quot;本人&quot; with &quot;我&quot;. The seriousness of the text is not carried by &quot;本人&quot; only, so there would not be too much difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T12:03:02.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30244" CreationDate="2018-06-17T12:42:23.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;ni jin tian zao shang zen me yang&quot; is ok, but not authentic. You can remove the subject, and try to say &quot;zao shang hao ma&quot;, which is more casual for everyday conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19891" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T12:42:23.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30250" CreationDate="2018-06-17T13:37:32.707" Score="0" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found these stamps in an old book, what are they I can hardly make them out? And what do they mean. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YGmfO.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YGmfO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SZT5n.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SZT5n.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19184" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T21:04:49.240" Title="What are these Chinese character stamps?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30249" CreationDate="2018-06-17T14:20:53.133" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The stamp in the first picture says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;郭顯德&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a person's name, and if you prefer simplified Chinese, it would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;郭显德&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stamp in the second picture says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;烟台 · 長老傳道會&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first two characters is the name of a city in Shandong province, while the rest is the name of a club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-06-17T16:40:44.677" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T16:40:44.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30245" CreationDate="2018-06-17T14:46:59.383" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For your question, 好无聊 is almost the same intention as 很无聊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, they are sightly different in expressing emotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好无聊 is a slight complaint with a potential effort of trying to make the situation less boring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很无聊 is just a plain statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-06-18T02:33:18.263" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T02:33:18.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30249" CreationDate="2018-06-17T21:04:49.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;烟台 · 長老傳道會 (second image) is the Presbyterian Church of Yantai, Shandong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T21:04:49.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30253" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-17T21:10:27.040" Score="1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;I visited an auntie in hospital, I want to text her to say she looked well today, how do I write this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19893" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T14:42:49.993" Title="How do I write in Chinese, you look well today, as in good colour in face?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30245" CreationDate="2018-06-17T23:09:10.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree, 好 in this usage is just 'very', and 'very' intensifies the degree of the property expressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look for example in Baidu 好麻烦：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;身为是女人我也觉得女人很麻烦。有时候也不知道为了什麼而生气。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女生大概是这个世界上最难懂的生物了，是的，我是个女的都觉得女生有时候真的好麻烦完全搞不懂在想什么，太复杂了，还是自己一个人最省心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女人哦！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T23:09:10.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30253" CreationDate="2018-06-18T00:22:10.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;你今天气色很好！&#xA;(Nǐ jīntiān qìsè hěn hǎo!)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You looked well today.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加油，早日康复！ &#xA;(Jiāyóu, zǎorì kāngfù!)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Keep it up, get well soon!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T14:42:49.993" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T14:42:49.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30245" CreationDate="2018-06-18T05:17:58.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer you answer, yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好, means &quot;very&quot;, &quot;extremely&quot; in this case. This is usually accompanied by strong emotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also change it into &quot;太&quot;, &quot;很&quot; or &quot;真是&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19891" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T05:17:58.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30257" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30258" CreationDate="2018-06-18T06:38:19.157" Score="1" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm watching the movie &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A6%96%E7%8C%AB%E4%BC%A0/19364652&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;妖猫传&lt;/a&gt; (yāomāo zhuàn) = Legend of the Demon Cat.  About 10 minutes into the movie, a man secretly enters a room named 御宬 (yùchéng) = &quot;imperial storage&quot; (I think) and searches for a hidden box.  He reaches for the box:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9IVqD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9IVqD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this says something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鳳栖樓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning &quot;pheonix perch building&quot; (using a mix of traditional and simplified characters).  He opens the box, and takes out a special key:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K5wXcm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K5wXcm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like it says something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%A7%81%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;私人&lt;/a&gt; = private&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%BF%85%E6%AD%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;必死&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;die the death&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what this means.  When he uses the key, he's almost killed by a trap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to check I've correctly transcribed these two items, and ask what they mean.  The first simply seems to be simply a fancy name of the room where the key is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does this box say 鳳栖樓 on its lid and 私人必死 inside, and what do they mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T06:47:02.670" Title="Does this box in the movie 妖猫传 (Legend of the Demon Cat) say 鳳栖樓 on its lid and 私人必死 inside, and what do they mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30257" CreationDate="2018-06-18T06:47:02.670" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Never saw the movie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鳳栖樓 should be the name of the building. You are mentioning there is a key in the box, so it is probably the building where the key is for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the note inside the box, you got one character wrong. It is &quot;私入必死&quot;, where 入(ru4) means &quot;enter&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 私 means &quot;without permission&quot;. So the whole phrase is saying the &quot;(you) will definitely die if enter without permission&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;入 and 人 look alike, but are two totally different characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T06:47:02.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30244" CreationDate="2018-06-18T08:03:40.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;没有这个问法，一般工作环境会问“早上好”，不会问“你早上怎么样？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese people do not say it like this; they always say 早上好 (zǎoshang hǎo) = &quot;morning&quot; or 你早上怎么样？(Nǐ zǎoshang zěnme yàng?) = &quot;good morning&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19895" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-25T13:10:56.100" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T13:10:56.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30190" CreationDate="2018-06-18T08:08:47.297" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;哈哈，作为中国人，我给你解答一下，“一屁股坐下来”就是“坐下来的速度很快（原因：受到惊吓，或者震惊产生的反应）” someone sits down faster cause he is scary or shocked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19895" LastEditorUserId="19895" LastEditDate="2018-06-20T11:11:14.273" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T11:11:14.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30261" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-18T16:46:36.380" Score="5" ViewCount="1072" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found that many (most?) Chinese characters look like they're composed of more primitive ones, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做　＝　亻十口夂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你　＝　亻尔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃　＝　卩乙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I this a real phenomenon or just my European imagination?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is not real then why? If it is real, then what is the name of this phenomenon? I know there are &amp;quot;radicals&amp;quot;, but I'm not sure all components I see belong to the set of radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastEditorUserId="24946" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T15:41:09.680" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T15:41:09.680" Title="Chinese character decomposition" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30262" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-18T16:51:52.923" Score="1" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found some characters, that look extremely similar to each other, like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;div class=&quot;s-table-container&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;table class=&quot;s-table&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;thead&gt;&#xA;&lt;tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;th&gt;Character&lt;/th&gt;&#xA;&lt;th&gt;Pronunciation&lt;/th&gt;&#xA;&lt;th&gt;Meaning&lt;/th&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;/thead&gt;&#xA;&lt;tbody&gt;&#xA;&lt;tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;士&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;shi4&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;scholar/warrior/knight&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;土&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;tu3&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;earth/dust&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tbody&gt;&#xA;&lt;/table&gt;&#xA;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;s-table-container&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;table class=&quot;s-table&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;thead&gt;&#xA;&lt;tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;th&gt;Character&lt;/th&gt;&#xA;&lt;th&gt;Pronunciation&lt;/th&gt;&#xA;&lt;th&gt;Meaning&lt;/th&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;/thead&gt;&#xA;&lt;tbody&gt;&#xA;&lt;tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;于&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;yu2&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;(surname), in/at/to/from/by/than/out of&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;千&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;qian1&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;thousand, a swing&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;干&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;gan1/gan4&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;td&gt;dry/to concern/shield, to work/to do/to manage, manage/stem&lt;/td&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tr&gt;&#xA;&lt;/tbody&gt;&#xA;&lt;/table&gt;&#xA;&lt;/div&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a real language phenomenon? What is the name of it? Can I get a list of such &amp;quot;homonim sets&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastEditorUserId="24946" LastEditDate="2021-04-20T20:27:41.763" LastActivityDate="2021-04-21T03:43:43.497" Title="Ambiguous characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30262" CreationDate="2018-06-18T17:25:41.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of those examples, like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“日”和“曰”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They look exactly the same, aren't they? The latter one is just a little bit wider than the previous. The narrow one, “日”，means &quot;the sun&quot;, while the other one means &quot;say&quot; in a formal way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/45631430/answer/364205745&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;list&lt;/a&gt; of some of thoes characters if you are interested. Do not worry on how to distinguishing them, at least one of the characters in all these pairs is by no means commonly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T17:25:41.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30261" CreationDate="2018-06-18T17:29:54.560" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;recent studies called them components (部件). there're 1300+ basic component:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/system_intro.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/system_intro.jsp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T17:29:54.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30261" CreationDate="2018-06-18T17:36:01.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is true, here is an example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;泪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This character is composed of 氵 and 目，which represent water and eye respectively, and the character means tear!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In more traditional writings, this would become more obvious. In fact, if you look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ancient writings&lt;/a&gt;, you will find out that Chinese origins from actual drawing of stuff around us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T17:36:01.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30261" CreationDate="2018-06-18T17:45:56.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Naïve visual decomposition does not work for a lot of the time, so I’ll just demonstrate some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, your own:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;做 is comprised of 作 and 攵. 乍 was graphically corrupted into 古, but that’s not it’s original form. 作 is in turn decomposable into 亻 and 乍.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 is decomposable into 亻and 尔.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吃 is decomposable into 口 and 乞. 乞 is not decomposable; the way you did it is equivalent to “decomposing” the Roman letter “d” into “c” and “l”.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, some non-decomposable characters that look like they’re decomposable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;龍, an entire picture of a dragon&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;能, an entire picture of a bear&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;魚, an entire picture of a fish&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;它, an entire picture of a snake&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;气, a picture of streaks of clouds in the sky&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, some decomposable characters which look like they’re non-decomposable, or have unexpected decompositions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;之, decomposable into 止 and 一&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;戍, decomposable into 人 and 戈&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;喪, decomposable into 桑, 2x口, and 亾&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-18T18:05:17.270" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T18:05:17.270" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30267" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-18T18:03:59.483" Score="0" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example here are a couple of topic titles from 知乎:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如何看待道德&lt;strong&gt;绑架&lt;/strong&gt;行为？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我不想让我的女儿继续经历现在的「审美&lt;strong&gt;绑架&lt;/strong&gt;」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a comment I found on a youtube video:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在的共产党使用的统治方式和封建时代的中国没什么两样，就是用国家主义&lt;strong&gt;绑架&lt;/strong&gt;中国老百姓。按理说，其他的民族也没那么容易被统治者&lt;strong&gt;绑架&lt;/strong&gt;，但中国老百姓偏偏容易被&lt;strong&gt;绑架&lt;/strong&gt;，因为从一开始就被&lt;strong&gt;绑架&lt;/strong&gt;了，一直没有明白过来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously in these sentences it does not mean &quot;kidnap&quot;. So what does it mean? How can I translate it, and how do I use it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T23:20:02.670" Title="What does the word 绑架 mean in these contexts? (not &quot;kidnap&quot;)" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30268" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30271" CreationDate="2018-06-18T18:13:34.400" Score="2" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been learning with a course, and one of the lessons said: &lt;strong&gt;这个男人在游泳&lt;/strong&gt;, but the same sentence with a dog was: &lt;strong&gt;这只狗在游水&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I presume that both were doing the same thing: swimming. So, can I use &lt;strong&gt;游泳&lt;/strong&gt; with animals and &lt;strong&gt;游水&lt;/strong&gt; with persons? What is the difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11943" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T05:34:54.147" Title="Difference between &quot;游泳&quot; and &quot;游水&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30267" CreationDate="2018-06-18T18:15:47.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means, demanding others with an unrealistic requirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your reference, you can look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%81%93%E5%BE%B7%E7%BB%91%E6%9E%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T18:15:47.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30267" CreationDate="2018-06-18T18:16:00.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here 绑架 means &quot;force sb. into doing sth.&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;道德绑架&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;force (your) moral beliefs on others&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;审美绑架&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;force (your) aesthetic beliefs on others&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;被绑架&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;being forced to others' belief.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18332" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T18:16:00.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30268" CreationDate="2018-06-18T18:21:56.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are the same, you can also say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这只狗在游泳 or 这个男人在游水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference is, 游水 is not commonly used anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T18:21:56.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30244" CreationDate="2018-06-18T18:31:54.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你会问“早上好吗”。 just say what’s under quotes as it’s more normal to see. Your translation is ok, just you wouldn’t hear a person say that normally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19897" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T18:31:54.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30268" CreationDate="2018-06-18T19:45:47.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;游水 is mainly a colloquial Cantonese term  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1332/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1332/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;游水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/jau4 seoi2 /  (jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;swim, swimming. Mand.: 游泳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the entry of 游水 doesn't even include a Mandarin pinyin for it&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also logically, you can swim (游泳) in any liquid ; while 游水 specifically means swim in water, but even Cantonese ignore it, since it is very rare that someone swim in a liquid other than water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T19:45:47.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30267" CreationDate="2018-06-18T20:01:21.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In  the context of '审美绑架', '绑架' implies '劫持' (hijack) more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://dictionary.cambridge.org/zht/%E8%A9%9E%E5%85%B8/%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E/hijack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hijack&lt;/a&gt; 劫持&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;to take control of or use something that does not belong to you for your own advantage:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;审美绑架 implies &amp;quot;aesthetic hijack&amp;quot; (hijack someone's aesthetic view to push one's agenda)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T20:11:36.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30275" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-18T22:45:32.913" Score="5" ViewCount="2026" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to describe people wearing clothing as totally indecent and obscene, for instance because the clothing doesn’t remotely cover the buttocks. I am not talking about ordinary mini skirts or hot pants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I definitely want to sound judging and don’t care to be nice to the person in question, but I don’t want the word in itself to be vulgar / unsuitable for use in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked dictionaries for 'obscene' and found 下流. My Chinese friend says 下流 is very, very bad and out of proportion and recommended 輕佻, but dictionaries say this means 'skittish, flippant, giddy, frivolous'. These words seem much too cute to me, almost like I am not scolding the person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to grasp the difference between the two words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T23:31:59.760" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T23:31:59.760" Title="How to say &quot;obscene&quot;: translate 下流 or 輕佻?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30275" CreationDate="2018-06-18T23:05:23.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;maybe &quot;情趣用品 (sex toys) 耶?&quot; with &quot;asking attitude&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, a &quot;real&quot; miniskirt would be described as 輕佻, at least, it could be wear in public.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the link you provided, it could only be wear before. . . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;describe people wearing clothing as totally indecent and obscene&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another word would be &quot;變態㗎&quot; (~abnormal), with disapproval attitude :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T23:05:23.833" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30267" CreationDate="2018-06-18T23:20:02.670" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;如何看待道德绑架行为？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How should we regard the hijacking of ethics? (Maybe: ‘using religion for political ends’)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过度追求网红脸？你的审美是否被绑架？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Too much desire to be an Internet celebrity? Has your sense of esthetics been hijacked?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不想让我的女儿继续经历现在的「审美绑架」&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't want to let my daughter continue to experience the current hijacking of esthetics. (Maybe: he  doesn't want his daughter to have anorexic super-models as role models.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the text below, 绑架 refers to the hijacking of people's opinions through the medium of strong nationalism. (Personally, I think the 共产党 is doing a good job of ruling China. Is your country's  government perfect?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anti communist rant （not from me):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在的共产党使用的统治方式和封建时代的中国没什么两样，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The Communist Party's current method of ruling China is no different to rulers in feudal times,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;就是用国家主义绑架中国老百姓。  (真的吗？中国梦不好，美国梦好？？）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;that is, use nationalism to hijack ordinary people's opinions.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;按理说，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is reasonable to say that&lt;br&gt;&#xA;其他的民族也没那么容易被统治者绑架，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;other nationalities would not be so easily mislead,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;但中国老百姓偏偏容易被绑架，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but the Chinese man in the street is, unfortunately, easy to delude,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为从一开始就被绑架了，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;because his opinions have been hijacked from the beginning,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一直没有明白过来。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;he just doesn't know it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I suppose the American man in the street is all so clued up. As long as he can keep his rifle to shoot school kids and Afro-Americans, he doesn't even register that he has a government.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T23:20:02.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30278" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30279" CreationDate="2018-06-19T01:31:24.440" Score="3" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across these two sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是在说.... (You're trying say ....)&#xA;我不是很懂你的意思。 (I don't really get what you mean.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yet, I am trying to wrap my head around why 是 is there in the first place. Shouldn't they be 你在说 and 我不懂你的意思 considering that they are describing verbs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T02:20:05.540" Title="How is 是 in these two sentences?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30278" CreationDate="2018-06-19T01:45:55.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;See the definition 7 from &lt;a href=&quot;http://wap.zdic.net/z/?u=662F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this dictionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;加重语气，有“的确”、“实在”的意思：天气～冷。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天气冷 vs 天气是冷, the latter means that the truth is that the weather is cold, 天气确实/的确冷. The former just means the weather is cold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, 天气是冷 is used to confirm/justify what the other person have said. 天气是冷 stands alone (without previous contexts) doesn't make much sense. Refer to this exchange:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 今天天气很冷！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 恩，今天天气是冷！ // implying B agrees what A have just said by repeating it with 是 for emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your examples, 你是在说 means what you are  &lt;strong&gt;actually&lt;/strong&gt; saying is...., while 你在说 is what you are saying is.... 我不是很懂你的意思: I don't &lt;strong&gt;really&lt;/strong&gt; quite get what you meant.  我不懂你的意思: I don't get what you meant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T02:20:05.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30275" CreationDate="2018-06-19T01:52:15.037" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Obscene' is not 下流(no class/ bad taste) or 輕佻 (frivolous)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One definition of obscene is 不堪入目 , it is used to describe perverted, immoral act or behavior &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: Taking a child from his mother and claim it is all for enforcing the law (which is not true) is an obscene (不堪入耳- too perverted and immoral to the ears) argument&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another definition of obscene is 淫褻 or 不雅 (also means 'unsightly'), it is used to describe extreme sexually suggestive content or display &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would describe the skirt 不雅, 不堪入目 or 淫褻 if I was judgmental, but I rather call it 大膽 (bold) or 開放 (open)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;暴露 (revealing) is also a fitting description of that skirt&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; from all the answers: &quot;下流, 輕佻, 不堪入目, 大膽, 開放, 淫褻, 變態, 不三不四, 有伤风化&quot; are all 'subjective opinions' (you can't say any of them is wrong, but you can disagree with all of them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only 暴露 is  an 'objective description' (it is a correct statement based on fact. You can't argue with fact, that skirt does expose a lot of skin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-28T15:54:00.667" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T15:54:00.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30281" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30292" CreationDate="2018-06-19T04:40:50.380" Score="2" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from our Chinese book (entitled 会通汉语 读写1, and available from &lt;a href=&quot;https://item.jd.com/28670045123.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;京东&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5xDum.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5xDum.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;莉莉：这是我在北京拍的照片。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;何大华：你是第一次去北京吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lìlì: zhè shì wǒ zài Běijīng pāi de zhàopiàn.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Hé Dàhuá: nǐ shì dìyīcì qù Běijīng ma?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(As I understand, Lili (莉莉) says these are the photos she took in Beijing, and He Dahua (何大华) asks if this was her first time in Beijing.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about He Dahua's grammar: he seems to be using a 你是[something]的 construction, but in this case the 的 is omitted.  It reads like &lt;em&gt;Are you &amp;quot;the first time going to Beijing&amp;quot;?&lt;/em&gt; which doesn't make sense to me (she's a human, not a trip to Beijing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel 你是第一次去北京的吗？ is better, but maybe I'm wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is there no 的 in the question 你是第一次去北京吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/9208/8099&quot;&gt;What&amp;#39;s the grammatical structure of 这是你第一次来中国吗？&lt;/a&gt; is similar, and asks about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这&lt;strong&gt;是你第一次&lt;/strong&gt;来中国吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is slightly (but importantly) different since the order in the linked question is 是你第一次..., while in this question the order is 你是第一次...:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你是第一次&lt;/strong&gt;去北京吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't be confused if the question instead were 是你第一次去北京吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T12:59:07.497" Title="Why is there no 的 in the question 你是第一次去北京吗 (is this your first time going to Beijing)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30281" CreationDate="2018-06-19T05:18:07.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The structures are different&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 你] [2. 是第一次去北京] [3. 吗]?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. you (subject)] [2. are going to Beijing for the first time (verb clause)] [3. final particle indicates question form]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb clause &amp;quot;是第一次去北京&amp;quot; describes what you 'do'- you go to Beijing for the first time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1.你] [2. 是第一次去北京的] [3.吗]?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1.You (subject)] [2. 是第一次去北京的 (adjectival clause)] [3. final particle indicates question form]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The adjectival clause '是第一次去北京的' describes what 'you' are - 'you are the person who goes to Beijing for the first time'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不会屈服 I will not yield (describe what I do)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是不会屈服的 I am a person who will not yield (describe who I am)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T05:28:32.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30283" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-19T06:01:58.450" Score="2" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese it will be &quot;Tamen zai ying guo ma?&quot; But I studied that we use shi to connect nouns, so can we also say: Tamen &quot;shi&quot; zai ying guo ma? Is it also grammatically correct? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's just easier for me to understand and remember... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19838" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-26T11:31:04.610" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T11:31:04.610" Title="Is 'Tamen &quot;shi&quot; zai ying guo ma?' a grammatically correct way to express &quot;Are they in Britain?&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30283" CreationDate="2018-06-19T06:47:53.273" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, unlike the English language which needs &quot;to be&quot; to express this, you don't need the copula shi 是 to describe the location of someone or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just use zai 在 (or, for example, 位于) to express this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saying 他们是在英国吗 is possible, but the shi in that sentence has a different function: it adds emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T06:47:53.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30275" CreationDate="2018-06-19T06:57:01.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your case I think &quot;猥琐&quot; is nice to use, and it's frequently used in oral Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;轻佻&quot; occurs more in classical or written Chinese, normally we would not speak it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;下流&quot; is more about immoral behavior, less about clothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1145" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T06:57:01.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30286" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30287" CreationDate="2018-06-19T07:27:09.167" Score="1" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried to find the characters in this sign in order to translate them but with no luck for the 2nd character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QYrhH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QYrhH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This restaurant's French name is &quot;Le bonheur&quot; which in English is roughly &quot;Happiness&quot;. I'm just curious if the Chinese characters translate to &quot;happiness&quot; and if so, is there any nuance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can anyone find the Chinese characters (specifically the second)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can anyone translate?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a robust general way for&#xA;searching for characters? (I've tried some OCR, stroke matching and&#xA;searching by radical, but I have not found the second character).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19900" LastEditorUserId="19900" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T07:55:34.740" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T16:29:15.797" Title="Translate the characters in this sign" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30286" CreationDate="2018-06-19T07:29:31.083" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character is&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9B%8D#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「囍」&lt;/a&gt;, which means &lt;em&gt;double happiness&lt;/em&gt; (2×「喜」). The script is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive_script_(East_Asia)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cursive&lt;/a&gt;, so it may be a bit hard to recognise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NSOTA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NSOTA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can either read it as &lt;strong&gt;xǐ&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;shuāngxǐ&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%9B%99%E5%96%9C#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;雙喜&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, Pleco's handwriting recognition tool turns it up as the first result, even with messy handwriting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BC3DX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BC3DX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T07:39:31.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T07:39:31.587" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30288" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-19T07:41:36.133" Score="0" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese will we say, &quot;Beijing zai nār/nali?&quot;. Because I just learned to say, &quot;Lundun zai Ying Guo.&quot; Plus, &quot;Where is your home?&quot; is, &quot;Nide jia zai nar?&quot; So using these rules, is it acceptable? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about, &quot;Beijing shi nar/nali?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And can we also say &quot;Beijing zai na guo?&quot; (Which country is Beijing in?&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these sentences grammatically correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19838" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-21T07:07:16.910" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T07:07:16.910" Title="How do you say &quot;Where is Beijing?&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30281" CreationDate="2018-06-19T09:22:44.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure about the grammar.&#xA;Just for your reference, I find &quot;你是第一次去北京吗？&quot; perfectly grammatical,&#xA;whereas &quot;你是第一次去北京的吗？&quot; sounds very bad to me. &#xA;However, &quot;你是去北京的吗？&quot; sounds good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19901" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T09:22:44.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30275" CreationDate="2018-06-19T11:20:56.563" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;下流 describes indecent action or person, sexually harass is the typical 下流的行为, a voyeur is a 下流的人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;輕佻(轻佻) is slightly literary, only used for woman, it describes her characteristic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word is not very popular in modern times due to the opening up of society.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the picture in you question, I would say it is a: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有伤风化的衣服&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People could imagine it immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T11:20:56.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30275" CreationDate="2018-06-19T11:46:09.280" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Chinese friend says 下流 is very, very bad and out of proportion and recommended 輕佻, but dictionaries say this means 'skittish, flippant, giddy, frivolous'. These words seem much too cute to me, almost like I am not scolding the person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How [does one] grasp the difference between the two words&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Sexism&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're not misunderstanding your vocabulary; you're misunderstanding the &lt;em&gt;beliefs&lt;/em&gt; of the Chinese. Having talked this over with my Chinese friends, their understanding is that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8B%E6%B5%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;下流&lt;/a&gt;／&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%AE%8A%E6%85%8B#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;變態&lt;/a&gt;的人&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Xiàliú&lt;/em&gt; ('indecent, base') or &lt;em&gt;biàntài&lt;/em&gt; ('deviant, perverted') &lt;em&gt;de rén&lt;/em&gt; are objectionable &lt;strong&gt;men&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%BC%95%E4%BD%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;輕佻&lt;/a&gt;的人&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Qīngtiāo&lt;/em&gt; ('flirty') &lt;em&gt;de rén&lt;/em&gt; are &lt;strong&gt;women&lt;/strong&gt; who take their social responsibilities lightly. Your photo can't be too objectionable &lt;em&gt;because&lt;/em&gt; the woman is &lt;em&gt;attractive&lt;/em&gt;; she's displaying herself openly and not being careful with her virtue, but she's nonetheless a &lt;em&gt;prima facie&lt;/em&gt; object of beauty and grace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exact. same. outfit. worn by an overweight, aged, or otherwise unattractive woman would not be understood as &lt;em&gt;xiàliú&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;biàntài&lt;/em&gt; and doesn't get the benefit of being considered &lt;em&gt;qīngtiāo&lt;/em&gt;. They're just &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%99%81%E5%BF%83#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;噁心&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;em&gt;ěxin&lt;/em&gt;): 'nauseating, revolting, disgusting'. &lt;strong&gt;This&lt;/strong&gt; is where &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/30280/17462&quot;&gt;Tang Ho's&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8D%E5%A0%AA%E5%85%A5%E7%9B%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不堪入目&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;em&gt;bùkānrùmù&lt;/em&gt;) comes in, which is why your teacher and friend didn't think of it. Your ultraminiskirt model is objectively &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; 'unsightly' nor 'hard to look at'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8D%E4%B8%89%E4%B8%8D%E5%9B%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不三不四&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;''Bùsānbùsì'' (lit. 'neither three nor four' meaning 'neither one thing nor the other, shady') is the closest you can get to being judgmental towards attractive women (also men!) without slipping into full-on animalistic slurs and swears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;太&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%9C%B2%E9%AA%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;露骨&lt;/a&gt;的&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dress itself is &lt;em&gt;tài lùgǔ de&lt;/em&gt; ('too open; blunt; lewd'). &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/30276/17462&quot;&gt;SXZM's&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%83%85%E8%B6%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;情趣&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%94%A8%E5%93%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;用品&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;em&gt;qíngqù yòngpǐn&lt;/em&gt;)—lit. 'funtime product(s)'—is the Chinese for anything you'd find in a sex shop, incl. those cheap overly skimpy costumes. There's no strong tradition of strippers in China so, to describe the women who wear &lt;em&gt;qíngqù yòngpǐn&lt;/em&gt;, you have to just say 'she looks like a whore' or—what they &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; have a tradition of—'she's &lt;em&gt;xǐtóufáng de&lt;/em&gt;' (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B4%97%E9%A0%AD#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;洗頭&lt;/a&gt;房的). She looks like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLRZ0dIvwHY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;she works at a 'shampoo place'&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17462" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T16:43:25.700" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30281" CreationDate="2018-06-19T12:02:47.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that we have lots of questions about 是 lately. Lol&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the definition 6 from &lt;a href=&quot;http://wap.zdic.net/z/?u=662F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this dictionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;用于问句：他～走了吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This usage of 是 is usually followed with one's action to interrogate or confirm whether they would go for that action. Besides the example above there are more:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是去上学吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是去买东西吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是去运动吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take this  pair as an example, 你是去上学吗？vs 你去上学吗？These two sentences are used in different scenarios.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say you run into one of your students on the road, you might figure he/she is more likely to be on his/her way to the school, but that's just your speculation. In order to make sure your suspect is correct, you might use 你是去上学吗？to verify if it's true. You are expecting he/she come back with a &lt;em&gt;yes&lt;/em&gt;  or &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt;. He might say : 是， 我是去上学 or 不是，我去xxxx.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你去上学吗？ , however, is usually used when you are not sure what he/she is going to do (no clue or previous context) and then you ask if he will go to school at the time. Let's say you and your student are in the doom,  and later you find it's about time to go to school, then you might say 你去上学吗？to check whether he will go to school now. The reason why we don't use 你&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;去上学吗？in this context is that there is no previous context or any sign that he would go to school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that you've seen the difference,  another variation for 你是去上学吗？ is 你&lt;strong&gt;这是&lt;/strong&gt;去上学吗？， which denotes the same meaning and is applied in the same scenarios, but with a bit more emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是第一次去北京吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, there is a previous context saying 这是我在北京拍的照片。. From there,  you can figure she has been to Beijing, and probably first time. So, 你是第一次去北京吗？should be used to check/verify your speculations. However, 你第一次去北京吗？ still can be used in this particular context, because 第一次 here implies that you already got some speculation, which is she has gone to Beijing already, but unsure if it's  her first time. But without 第一次, 你是去北京吗？vs 你去北京吗？，they should be used in different scenarios, which has been addressed above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 是...的 structure, it denotes different meanings and used in different scenarios. For example,  when there are bunch of people, some go to Beijing, some to Shanghai and some to Guangzhou, you can use  你是去北京的吗？to check if that person belongs to the group going to Beijing. Basically, 是...的 structure can denote an attributive group like in 你是去北京的吗, the way of doing something like in 你是走路去北京的吗 and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T12:59:07.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30288" CreationDate="2018-06-19T13:13:32.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The examples you gave are all grammatically correct, but they are slightly different in meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Beijing zai nār/nali?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence is asking where is Beijing, the person who will be answering the question will tell you the location of Beijing. If I were to answer the question, I will tell you Beijing is physically in Hebei province, in the east part of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Beijing zai na guo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is asking which country is Beijing in, and will be answered by justing telling you Beijing is in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Beijing shi nar/nali?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a little different with the previous two, it is not only, or, exactly asking the physical location of Beijing, it is asking about Beijing itself. I will answer as the following, Beijing is the captical city of China, its population is 13 millon and it is in the east part of China and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T13:13:32.750" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30294" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-19T14:39:39.337" Score="1" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know how to ask affirmative-negative questions in Chinese and how to ask questions with 吗。These encompass many questions with English equivalents like &quot;Do you live in China&quot;. But I don't know the Chinese equivalent to questions with CAN, like &quot;Can you pour me some water&quot;, or &quot;Can you go running tomorrow with me&quot;. How do you ask questions like this in Chinese? Is it with 马, affirmative-negative, or a different pattern altogether?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19881" LastEditorUserId="19881" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T16:33:03.233" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T16:33:03.233" Title="How to ask questions using CAN?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2202" CreationDate="2018-06-19T14:42:27.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What's the difference between those sentences? Both seems to mean &quot;I'm tired&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They do both mean 'I'm more tired than 我累了' but not necessarily as strong as English's &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我很累。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm [&lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt;] tired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A0%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蠻&lt;/a&gt;, it originally referred to extreme or inhuman behavior but muted itself down into an intensifier. Cf. 'damned tired', (&lt;em&gt;NE US&lt;/em&gt;) 'wicked tired', or (&lt;em&gt;UK&lt;/em&gt;) 'bloody tired', 'sodding tired'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我好累。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm [&lt;strong&gt;well&lt;/strong&gt;] tired.&lt;br&gt;I'm [&lt;strong&gt;good and&lt;/strong&gt;] tired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like in English, this is not necessarily (but usually somewhat) stronger than 'very'; it's more informal; and it's somewhat dialectical, in China's case being associated with the southeast and Taiwan and the kids who follow their trends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我太累了。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm &lt;strong&gt;too&lt;/strong&gt; tired.&lt;br&gt;I'm &lt;strong&gt;extremely&lt;/strong&gt; tired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike English, these senses can't really be separated and just have to be worked out from context. In any case, it's stronger than either 'very' or 'good and ~'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我累死了。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm &lt;strong&gt;utterly exhausted&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;I'm &lt;strong&gt;knackered&lt;/strong&gt;. (&lt;em&gt;UK&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;br&gt;I'm &lt;strong&gt;so&lt;/strong&gt; tired &lt;strong&gt;that I'm about to die&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like it says on the box: the only way it gets worse than this involves losing your ability to whinge at the rest of us altogether.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17462" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T14:42:27.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30296" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-19T14:46:15.503" Score="1" ViewCount="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;拥有豪华的住宅和一批在菲律宾。 开放的外国护照持有人。 拥有您梦寐以求的房子在该国的，而不仅仅是一座公寓式的！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ENGLISH&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Own luxurious house and lot in the Philippines. Open for Foreign passport holders. Own you dream house in the country and not just  a condominium(apartment)! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any discrepancy with my mandarin translation? If so please help in correct my errors. 谢谢!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19903" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T16:01:38.183" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T19:33:11.450" Title="How can I improve my translation?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30296" CreationDate="2018-06-19T14:58:49.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Original translation is very unclear.  The original Enligsh style should not be directly translated into Chinese.&#xA;&quot;Own&quot; might be translated to 购入/购置.  And &quot;a lot&quot; should be translated to 其他豪华物资/资产 I guess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess this is an advertisement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be (sentences reordered and more advertisement-like) &quot;住惯了公寓，想拥有属于自己的梦幻别墅？只需要您拥有护照，即可在菲律宾购入豪华别墅以及更多菲律宾资产&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T14:58:49.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30275" CreationDate="2018-06-19T15:55:57.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;轻佻 describes flippant/brazen behaviors, e.g. 他的行为举止很轻佻, or a person in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下流 can be more widely applied and is also more usual in modern Chinese. A behavior can be 下流, so can a book, a word, a gesture, a video etc. Also it is almost strictly constrained to sex-related connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither of the words sounds really appropriate in this context of describing clothing though, especially if you don't know the person well. You may say the clothing looks too 开放，暴露，有伤风化 etc., which are somewhat more neutral in their connotations. It's not really a problem of being &quot;nice&quot; or not as you described in your question; you'd sound outright unnatural if you used either of those two words in this scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4241" LastEditorUserId="4241" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T16:10:23.927" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T16:10:23.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30294" CreationDate="2018-06-19T16:02:15.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost any yes-no question can be formed simply by placing 吗 after a statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;statement:&lt;/strong&gt; You can pour me some water. (你可以给我倒些水。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;question:&lt;/strong&gt; Can you pour me some water? (你可以给我倒些水吗？)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;statement:&lt;/strong&gt; You can go running tomorrow with me. (明天你可以和我去跑步。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;question:&lt;/strong&gt; Can you go running tomorrow with me? (明天你可以和我去跑步吗？)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, when asking someone to do something, you can use the pattern &amp;quot;Do something 好吗？&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给我倒些水好吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明天和我去跑步好吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 好吗 can also be 行吗/可以吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T16:02:15.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="609" CreationDate="2018-06-19T16:26:28.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你叫我马丁好了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what's the role of 好了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand this sentence as &amp;quot;You can call me Martin&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Ma Ding&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; just be a &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/146441/what-is-the-english-word-to-describe-the-habit-of-unthinkingly-using-many-meanin&quot;&gt;verbal tic&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formulaic_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;embolalia&lt;/a&gt;) like '&lt;strong&gt;right?&lt;/strong&gt;' or '&lt;strong&gt;y'know?&lt;/strong&gt;' in a situation where the speaker believes the listener already knows what he's saying. It's basically the same thing as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; call me Martin, &lt;strong&gt;y'know?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;when the question is rhetorical&lt;/em&gt; and the speaker thinks the listener is going to agree. (In places where agreement is uncertain or not expected, you'd use 好吧—OK? alright?—instead.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Technically&lt;/strong&gt;, it's saying that the preceding statement is 'good' or 'fine'. We'd usually express it in a different order in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It's fine if&lt;/strong&gt; you call me Martin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It's OK for&lt;/strong&gt; you &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; call me Martin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17462" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T16:26:28.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30296" CreationDate="2018-06-19T19:27:02.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Own luxurious house and lot in the Philippines.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;拥有豪华的住宅和一批在菲律宾。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;lot&amp;quot; here means &amp;quot;地段&amp;quot; (a piece of land). Think 'parking lot'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In English, the location is usually placed after the verb, as in this sentence, but in Chinese, location is usually placed before the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first sentence should be translated as follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;在菲律宾拥有豪华的住宅和地段&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;在菲律宾拥有豪宅和地段&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (shorten 豪华的住宅 to 豪宅 which is a common term)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Open for Foreign passport holders.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;开放的外国护照持有人。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Open for&amp;quot; here means &amp;quot;开放给&amp;quot; in Chinese, but the sentence didn't state open for foreign passport holders to do what, and from the context, we can presume it is 认购' (to acquire)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the more appropriate term than &amp;quot;Open for&amp;quot; is 'welcome' (欢迎 )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence should be translated as follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;欢迎外国护照持有人认购。&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Own you dream house in the country and not just a condominium(apartment)!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;拥有您梦寐以求的房子在该国的，而不仅仅是一座公寓式的！&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;dream house&amp;quot; 理想的房子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It should be &amp;quot;own your dream house&amp;quot;, not &amp;quot;own you dream house&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;condominium&amp;quot; is a noun for &amp;quot;公寓&amp;quot; , not &amp;quot;condominium style&amp;quot; (公寓式的)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third sentence should be translated as follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;在该国拥有一座您理想的房子，而不仅仅是一座公寓&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (again, location before verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is obviously an advertisement. The whole thing should be written as a paragraph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(如果你想)在菲律宾拥有豪宅和地段,&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;(if you want to) own luxurious house and lot in the Philippines,&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(我们这里)欢迎外国护照持有人认购。 - &amp;quot;we welcome foreign passport holders to acquire them here.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(您可以)在该国拥有一座您理想的房子，而不仅仅是一座公寓! - &amp;quot;(you can) own your dream house in the country and not just a condominium (apartment)!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or written as a bulletin list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;在菲律宾拥有豪宅和地段 -  own luxurious house and lot in the Philippines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;欢迎外国护照持有人认购 - &amp;quot;welcome foreign passport holders to acquire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;在该国拥有一座您理想的房子，而不仅仅是一座公寓 - own your dream house in the country and not just a condominium (apartment)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T19:33:11.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30302" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30303" CreationDate="2018-06-20T05:02:31.377" Score="0" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be many combinations for how to say e.g. 1.59 in Chinese currency:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一块五毛九分 (yīkuài wǔmáo jiǔfēn)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一块五毛九 (yīkuài wǔmáo jiǔ)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一块五角九分 (yīkuài wǔjiǎo jiǔfēn)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一块五角九 (yīkuài wǔjiǎo jiǔ)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一块五十九分 (yīkuài wǔshíjiǔfēn)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一块五十九 (yīkuài wǔshíjiǔ)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一元五毛九分 (yīyuán wǔmáo jiǔfēn)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一元五毛九 (yīyuán wǔmáo jiǔ)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一元五角九分 (yīyuán wǔjiǎo jiǔfēn)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一元五角九 (yīyuán wǔjiǎo jiǔ)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一元五十九分 (yīyuán wǔshíjiǔfēn)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一元五十九 (yīyuán wǔshíjiǔ)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if some of these are incorrect, e.g., I recall seeing 快/毛 or 元/角 used together, but not 快/角 nor 元/毛.  This might just be inexperience, or there might be a reason for it.  In any case, I think 一元五角九 seems weird, but I'm not sure why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I put each of them into Baidu, and for 一块五毛九, someone had written 六块五毛九, so it seems fine, but I didn't find much beyond that.  Personally, I'd probably say 一块五十九.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are all these ways of saying 1.59 correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T05:45:07.607" Title="Are all these ways of saying 1.59 in Chinese currency correct?" Tags="&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30302" CreationDate="2018-06-20T05:45:07.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;元、角 are formal and 块、毛 are their colloquial counterparts respectively. Mix and match is much less common but not unheard of. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Omitting the last unit word is also an informal usage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一块五十九分 is extremely uncommon if not wrong at all, but understandable. 一块五十九 is not understandable to Chinese ears without clarification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Formal:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一元五角九分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Colloquial:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一块五毛九分&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一块五毛九&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Colloquial mixed with formal fragments, less common:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一元五角九&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一块五角九分&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一块五角九&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一元五毛九分&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一元五毛九&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Unnatural but can be understood:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一块五十九分&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一元五十九分&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ungrammatical and cannot be understood without clarification:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一块五十九&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;  一元五十九&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T05:45:07.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30283" CreationDate="2018-06-20T07:11:02.013" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;在 is not a direct equivalent of English &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; but also includes a verbal meaning &lt;em&gt;to be in&lt;/em&gt; in addition to the &quot;prepositional&quot;. Thus, in normal narrative sentences do not use 是 to state &quot;to be in&quot;. Saying 我是在XXX would mean something like &quot;but I &lt;em&gt;AM&lt;/em&gt; in [XXX]!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T07:11:02.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30305" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-20T07:53:41.297" Score="1" ViewCount="4304" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where are you? What are you doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translated this to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ni zai nar? Ni zuo shenme?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I found&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ni zai zuo shenme?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;online.  How is it zai zuo (in + to do)? Is it correct if I just say zuo (to do)?? Does it express the right meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19838" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-23T12:04:59.317" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T13:23:04.687" Title="Does &quot;Ni zai nar? Ni zuo shenme?&quot; correctly express &quot;Where are you? What are you doing?&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="609" CreationDate="2018-06-20T13:08:54.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 at the end of the sentence marks it as a factual situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;好马? - &quot;Alright?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;好了。- &quot;Alright now!&quot; or &quot;Alright, from now on&quot;. or &quot;Alright already!&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;好。 - &quot;Alright.&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the difference between 2 and 3? Why did someone thought that he must put additional stress (in the form of 了) to the sentence 3? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly the speaker tries to convey some additional meaning to the sentence 3. I think he wanted to stress that It is not just OK, but &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;it should be OK from now on&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;He is just tired that before the speach it was not OK&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T13:08:54.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30307" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30308" CreationDate="2018-06-20T13:54:55.823" Score="5" ViewCount="511" Body="&lt;p&gt;Underdog has a lot of mediocre translations &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC English-Chinese&lt;/em&gt; gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;处于劣势的一方&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt; has:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;弱者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is &lt;em&gt;okay&lt;/em&gt; and:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;失败者&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  失败的一方&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which don't really match the meaning of underdog to begin with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;New Century English&lt;/em&gt; gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;居于下风者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except for &lt;em&gt;弱者&lt;/em&gt;, the rest are quite wordy. While &lt;em&gt;弱者&lt;/em&gt; itself is alright it's a bit ambiguous without the proper context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there no better colloquial translations of &lt;em&gt;underdog&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T10:09:30.597" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T10:09:30.597" Title="Better translation for &quot;underdog&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30307" CreationDate="2018-06-20T14:07:52.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mined from an opinion post (&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-39731-510338.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-39731-510338.html&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;劣勢者&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;弱勢者&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;新[入/行/進]者&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;後來者&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally prefer the first one as the best translation; 弱勢 is a bit broader in meaning as it can mean &lt;em&gt;weak&lt;/em&gt; in general rather than in comparison to something. The other ones just mean &lt;em&gt;newcomer&lt;/em&gt;, so the disadvantage of being an underdog is only implied rather than explicitly stated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also want to check out &lt;strong&gt;弱旅&lt;/strong&gt; (opposite: 勁旅).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-20T14:17:20.027" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T14:17:20.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30307" CreationDate="2018-06-20T15:18:55.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;underdog, i would consider &quot;下駟&quot;, thought dog is not horse (馬)　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000105734&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000105734&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no-one remembers 田忌's strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T15:18:55.483" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30307" CreationDate="2018-06-20T21:50:56.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another term, colloquially, in some specific areas like games, is 菜鸟. For example, 他就是一个菜鸟 means he is an underdog. You can also say 这只球队 太菜了/是菜鸟，meaning that team sucks. A fascinating term is 虐菜， like 我最喜欢虐菜了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-20T22:31:22.840" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T22:31:22.840" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30305" CreationDate="2018-06-20T23:09:08.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is more than one way to skin a cat and more than one way to express oneself. Here a couple of suggestions which may fit in certain circumstances. You can listen and read the words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Listen &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.xiami.com/play?ids=/song/playlist/id/70728/object_name/default/object_id/0#loaded&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;(张国荣)&#xA;Where are you?&#xA;你在何地&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Listen &lt;a href=&quot;http://bd.kuwo.cn/yinyue/891952?from=baidu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Where are you all now?&#xA;你们如今在何方&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are you doing?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在干什么？&#xA;What are you doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What the hell are you doing? （a little angry)&#xA;你到底在干吗？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T23:09:08.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30312" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-20T23:34:19.960" Score="5" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这就是中国书法千百年来之所以&lt;strong&gt;能得以&lt;/strong&gt;传承的缘由。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;能 means &quot;can&quot;, &quot;be able to ~&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;得以 also means &quot;can&quot;, &quot;be able to ~&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this is in conflict with each other. For me it seems that one word is enough in this context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pleco does not have the entry for 能得以, so I think it is not an idiom here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are two words that seemingly mean the same thing used together in this context? What makes it different from just using a single word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T19:57:39.707" Title="What does 能得以 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30312" CreationDate="2018-06-21T00:19:39.070" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;(能)(得以) = (can) (be allowed to/ get to be)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;能得以晉級&amp;quot; = 能(can) 得以晉級(be allowed to advance )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;未能得以脫罪&amp;quot; = 未能 (cannot) 得以脫罪(get to be acquitted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;这就是中国书法千百年来之所以能得以传承的缘由。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &amp;quot;这就是 ~~~~ 的缘由&amp;quot; (this is the reason of ~~~ ) in the sentence, &amp;quot;之所以&amp;quot; (the reason why) is redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of using 能得以, you can make it more simple by just using 能 (can) or 得以(be allowed to/ get to be)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得以 (more literary)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;能 (more colloquial)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following sentences are more grammatically fluent than the one in question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;这就是 [千百年来, 中国书法&lt;strong&gt;得以&lt;/strong&gt;传承] 的缘由&amp;quot; &lt;em&gt;emphasize the 'long time'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;这就是 [中国书法(&lt;strong&gt;能&lt;/strong&gt;)传承千百年] 的缘由&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;这就是 [中国书法(&lt;strong&gt;得以&lt;/strong&gt;)传承千百年] 的缘由&amp;quot; &lt;em&gt;emphasize the subject itself&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you must use &amp;quot;之所以&amp;quot;, you should write the sentence like the following:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;中国书法 [之所以] 能传承千百年, 是因为 (insert reasons)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T11:21:22.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30312" CreationDate="2018-06-21T01:14:34.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;能得以 can be comprehended as 能够得到.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a nuance between 能得以传承 and 能传承. 能得以传承 implies that it can be inherited &lt;strong&gt;by people&lt;/strong&gt;, and people would inherit because of that. It's kinda a proactive inheriting. 能传承 means something being able to pass through the generations, but not addressing people would be willing to inherit it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this clear to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T01:14:34.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30307" CreationDate="2018-06-21T03:23:05.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia lists a bunch of terms under its &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%AD%9A%E8%85%A9%E9%83%A8%E9%9A%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鱼腩部队&lt;/a&gt; entry which links to and from the English page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underdog&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;underdog&lt;/a&gt;. Here's the explanation of &lt;em&gt;鱼腩部队&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鱼腩部队（简称鱼腩），亦称送分童子，通常指竞赛中，一些成绩十分差、输多赢少、实力明显比其他对手弱很多的参赛队伍。此语汇常见于体育竞赛的评述中，同时也是赌桌上的术语，指赌博中常输的一方。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鱼腩原指食用鱼的鱼腹部位。鱼腹的特点是肉较厚，且鱼骨较少，容易食用，所以引申形容竞赛中一些实力明显较弱，每战多败的参赛队伍，对手要战胜这些队伍如同食用鱼腩一样没有难度，故形容这些参赛队伍为鱼腩部队。2007–08赛季英格兰超级联赛的打比郡足球队就是最好的例子，当届打比郡全季38场联赛只取得1场胜仗，却输掉29场，得11分打破英超一季得分最低纪录。&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%AD%9A%E8%85%A9%E9%83%A8%E9%9A%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这用语本是民间的俚俗说法，最初源自广东话，后来广泛应用于香港的体育竞赛评述中，近年中国大陆媒体也常常在体育资讯中使用上。台湾则通常会以“陪榜”、“弱队”甚至“鸟队”来指称类似的观念。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Terms used in the excerpt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鱼腩部队&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鱼腩&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;送分童子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;陪榜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;弱队&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鸟队&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T03:23:05.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30316" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30317" CreationDate="2018-06-21T07:25:47.773" Score="2" ViewCount="37" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want (object) to (verb/be) that...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For examples :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I want you to know that you are not alone anymore&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I want her to be my wife&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I want my brother to help me with my homework&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I want you to be mine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-06-21T07:45:40.783" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T07:45:40.783" Title="How do form this sentence &quot;I want (object) to (verb/be) that...&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30316" CreationDate="2018-06-21T07:31:27.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我想要(object)(verb/be)……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想要你知道你不再孤独&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想要她成为我的妻子&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想要我哥哥帮我做作业&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想要你成为我的&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T07:31:27.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30318" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30342" CreationDate="2018-06-21T07:53:47.343" Score="3" ViewCount="853" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far, question words in Chinese have always appeared at the end.  But with &amp;quot;shei&amp;quot; I saw sentences like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shei shi nide baba?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So can it be used at the start or end of a sentence? Can we say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nide baba shi shei?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as well? And also &amp;quot;Shei shi nage ren?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Nage ren shi shei?&amp;quot; (Who is that person?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this restricted to shei or can it be extended to other question words like shenme, zenme, duoshao and nali/nar though  words like ma and ne I know are always placed at the end?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit&lt;/em&gt;: I'm confused by this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate this sentence&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;谁是你的爸爸&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;[your] [Wang] [individuals] [how] [mornings] [is] [dad] [Who]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X7PjG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;screenshot&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate this sentence&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Who is this person?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;谁是这个人？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Oops!  That's not correct.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;这个人是谁？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aieE0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;screenshot&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19838" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-02-27T00:30:02.420" Title="Question words at the end or beginning? (e.g. &quot;Nide baba shi shei?&quot;)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30319" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30458" CreationDate="2018-06-21T07:57:10.117" Score="-1" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to understand an embedded system tutorial in Chinese  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can use Google for the text part but have problems with comments in Chinese on a figure  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please help me understand the meaning of the phrases in this block diagram  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RKARj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RKARj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3450" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T18:23:18.797" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T18:23:18.797" Title="translating a few words on this microprocessor block diagram" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2020-07-28T01:41:43.517" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30312" CreationDate="2018-06-21T08:02:50.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is definitely a rambling expression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the problem is not 能得以, but 之所以 and 能得以.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这就是中国书法千百年来能得以传承的缘由.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这就是中国书法千百年来之所以能传承的缘由&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得以 means 'via that' or 'by that', old time 虚词 is not necessary, the sentence could rewrite to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这就是中国书法千百年来能被传承的缘由.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 以 can also used for 被,so sometimes we may write 能得以 or 之所以, but use both is really redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T08:02:50.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30321" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-21T08:53:16.030" Score="2" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the World Cup on, this is a common phrase I want to be able to ask. Is it simply 你看足球了吗？Or 足球比赛？And do I need the 了 in this sentence? Including the 了 makes it feel like I'm asking them &quot;do you watch football these days, as opposed to before when you didn't?&quot; Or should I put the 了 after the 看 instead of at the end of the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-06-22T16:22:24.413" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T00:03:42.183" Title="How do I say &quot;did you watch the football?&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30321" CreationDate="2018-06-21T09:07:52.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你看足球比赛吗？&quot; = &quot;do you watch football match?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你看了足球比赛吗？&quot; = &quot;have you watched the football match? &lt;em&gt;&quot; (看 is the verb, 了 is the verb particle indicates 'completion of an action-- 足球比赛 is the object that was being watched)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你看足球比赛了吗？&quot; put the object '足球比赛' between '看' and its verb particle '了'. that make '看足球比赛' a verb phrase&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to ask if someone watched the football match, #2 and #3 are both acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T09:07:52.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30307" CreationDate="2018-06-21T09:42:57.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why aren't you happy with what you find?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;underdog is a word attested since 1887 from dog fights for entertainment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;the beaten dog in a fight,&quot; 1887, from under + dog (n.). Compare top dog &quot;dominant person in a situation or hierarchy&quot; (see top (adj.)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As such, ‘underdog’ refers to the dog which lost, or, because weak, is less likely to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Used metaphorically, it refers to the weaker party, who may, however, win unexpectedly. Very topical at this time of the World Cup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think '劣势群体 = inferior group' translates underdog nicely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T09:42:57.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30318" CreationDate="2018-06-21T10:22:27.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Compare 你爸爸是谁 and 谁是你爸爸. They could have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你爸爸是谁: who is your father? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谁是你爸爸 could be like a rhetorical question, implying I am not really your father and you might have recognized a wrong person as your father. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-27T00:26:31.267" LastActivityDate="2020-02-27T00:26:31.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30312" CreationDate="2018-06-21T13:02:15.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of answering what &lt;strong&gt;能得以&lt;/strong&gt; means, let's break this down into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;這就是「Ｘ」之所以能得「Ｙ」的緣由。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The reason we are able to get/obtain「Y」is because of「X」.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate「X」and「Y」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「X」- &lt;strong&gt;中國書法千百年來&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Millenia of Chinese Calligraphic traditions&lt;/em&gt; (paraphrased)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「Y」- &lt;strong&gt;以傳承&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Something that can be inherited; inheritable&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;這就是中國書法千百年來之所以能得以傳承的緣由。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The reason we are able to obtain something inheritable is because of the millenia of Chinese calligraphic traditions&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a truly terrible sentence to behold, as you can see from the amount of redundancies. What the author of this sentence is really trying to say is that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chinese calligraphy is a tradition that is valuable, beautiful and worthy of continuation/inheritance&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The tradition has developed over a period of thousands of years&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to give a translation which captured something like this idea, I would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We are the proud inheritors of the millenia-old tradition of Chinese calligraphy.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-21T13:17:33.277" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T13:17:33.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30327" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-21T19:21:37.887" Score="1" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example if I'm going to a wedding in a few weeks, I might ask my friends &quot;I need some wedding clothing advice&quot; or &quot;I need some advice about what to wear&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that I can directly ask 参加婚礼穿什么好？or something along those lines, but is there an indirect way to introduce the question? Like the English sentences I wrote above. How could they be naturally translated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-06-22T16:23:04.103" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T23:55:12.007" Title="How do I say &quot;I need some advice about X&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30327" CreationDate="2018-06-21T19:59:51.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, what we would naturally say is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你知道参加婚礼应该穿什么好吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or even more indirectly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你觉得参加婚礼应该穿什么好？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-06-22T23:55:12.007" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T23:55:12.007" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30327" CreationDate="2018-06-21T20:02:55.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In [I need] [some] [advice] [about X], &quot;&lt;strong&gt;about X&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is an adjectival phrase for the object &quot;&lt;strong&gt;advice&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;As you can see, the adjectival phrase is placed after the object.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is a word for word transfer of English grammar into Chinese sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[我需要] [一些] [建議], [&lt;strong&gt;關於 X (的)&lt;/strong&gt;] - &lt;em&gt;you need to add adjectival marker '的' to make '關於 X' into an adjectival phrase&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in native Chinese grammar, the adjectival phrase &quot;關於 X (的)&quot; should be placed before the object &quot;建議&quot; as below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[我需要] [一些] [&lt;strong&gt;關於 X (的)&lt;/strong&gt;] [建議] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我需要一些建議, 關於 X 的.&quot; (English grammar)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我需要一些關於 X 的建議.&quot; (Chinese grammar)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-21T20:14:42.830" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T20:14:42.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30330" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30331" CreationDate="2018-06-22T03:05:56.767" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Chinese translation of Qur'an 1:5 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://koran.link/zh/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;) says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们只崇拜你，只求你&lt;strong&gt;右助&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒmen zhǐ chóngbài nǐ, zhǐ qiú nǐ yòu zhù,&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unclear about &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E5%8F%B3%E5%8A%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;右助&lt;/a&gt; which YouDao translates to &quot;the right to help&quot;.  The sentence mostly makes sense directly, approximately translating to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We [我们] only [只] worship [崇拜] you [你]; only [只] beg [求] you [你] the right to help [右助].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the last bit doesn't quite make sense (I would expect it to say &quot;only beg you for help&quot;).  It's also a bit odd that &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;右&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;right&quot;) here means &quot;right&quot; in the sense of &quot;I have rights&quot;, instead of &quot;right hand&quot;; I haven't encountered that before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 右助 in this Chinese translation of Qur'an 1:5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Arabic and one English translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ   (&lt;a href=&quot;https://quran.com/1/5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qur'an 1:5&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  It is You we worship and You we ask for help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's similar in Qur'an 1:7: 你所&lt;strong&gt;右助&lt;/strong&gt;者的路 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T04:16:39.637" Title="Why is 右助 (yòu zhù) in this Chinese translation of Qur'an 1:5: 我们只崇拜你，只求你右助?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30330" CreationDate="2018-06-22T04:16:39.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to dictionaries like &lt;a href=&quot;http://wap.zdic.net/z/?u=53F3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt; (definition 7), in ancient Chinese, 右 and 佑 in this usage are interchangeable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;古同“佑”，帮助，偏袒。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern simplified Chinese system, we use 佑 for this usage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But not sure if this is the case in other regions where traditional characters are still in use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T04:16:39.637" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30332" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-22T06:06:34.147" Score="2" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to ask &quot;Can I take a picture of the menu?&quot; at a small Chinese restaurant. Normally,　I've seen &quot;take picture of X&quot; translated as 给X拍照, but I'm reluctant to use this translation in this context because I almost always see 给 used with animate objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any issues with expressions like 给公司打电话 or 给菜单拍照？ If so, what's the preferred expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15063" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T06:48:04.107" Title="给 with inanimate objects" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30332" CreationDate="2018-06-22T06:40:19.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;给 has a few meanings &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic meaning of 给 is &quot;to give&quot; e.g. &quot;(给)我錢&quot; = &quot;(give) me money&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also mean &quot;for&quot; e.g. &quot;(给)我把風&quot; = &quot;look out (for) me&quot; which can be replaced with &quot;替&quot; as in &quot;(替)我把風&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给 can also function as an 'target object marker' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &quot;给X拍照&quot; , 'X' is the targeted object of the verb 拍照(take photo) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &quot;给公司打电话&quot;. '公司' is the targeted object of the verb 打电话 (make phone call to)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;给菜单拍照&quot; is acceptable -- '给' marks '菜单' as the targeted object of the verb '拍照'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 菜单 is an inanimate object, '给' in &quot;给菜单拍照&quot; cannot mean &quot;take photo for the menu&quot; (menu can't want you to take photo in its stead)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 拍照 is a verb, therefore '给' in&quot;给菜单拍照&quot; can't mean 'give' neither (first, menu can't accept anything; second, 拍照 is a verb, not an object to give)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-22T06:48:04.107" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T06:48:04.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30334" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30348" CreationDate="2018-06-22T07:52:54.200" Score="1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;学习汉语的人一般都会认为汉字“难认”和“难学”，其实，这主要是在开始学习的时候。随着学习&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;深入，难度会降低，“难学”甚至会转化为“易学”，这是因为汉字在音、形、义三个要素之间有着不少内在的联系。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;深入 is a verb, and 学习 is also a verb or noun. So it is awkward 学习 modifies a verb here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possibility is that 的 is misspelled with 得 here and 深入 is used an an adjective (meaning &quot;thorough&quot; or &quot;deepgoing&quot;), but this text is formal and not something you see on the web (it is a textbook for Chinese learners).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why is 的 used in such a way? What does it mean here, and is it grammatically correct? Or is it simply a typo with 得 (which sometimes happen among native Chinese speakers, though as I said, it is a textbook for language learners and should be checked before pubilshed)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T15:05:08.847" Title="What does 的 mean in 随着学习的深入 (a verb modifies a verb via 的)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30335" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-22T08:15:35.290" Score="4" ViewCount="455" Body="&lt;p&gt;They seem to be Internet slangs but I can't figure out what the meaning is. For example &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/8sfbzc/weibo_chinese_netizens_bashing_a_chinese_girl_who/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;让我以后不要找中国男人接盘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-06-22T16:21:46.337" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T05:52:00.243" Title="what do 接盘 and 接盘侠 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30336" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-22T08:18:26.780" Score="1" ViewCount="1480" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are pronounced similarly and are both translated into &quot;because&quot;. What is the difference in their meaning? When should I use one over the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19913" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T04:02:59.410" Title="What is the difference between 因为 and 应为?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30336" CreationDate="2018-06-22T08:27:05.910" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;应为&quot; does not mean &quot;because&quot;. If it is used as because, then it is an error, maybe a typo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;应为&quot; used together, it is usually two separate words, and can mean &quot;should(应) be(为)&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T08:27:05.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30336" CreationDate="2018-06-22T10:03:25.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can break down the expression into individual characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「因」means &lt;em&gt;reason&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「爲」(为), in this context, means &lt;em&gt;to be&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, 「應」(应) means &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「因爲」is &lt;em&gt;reason + be&lt;/em&gt; = &lt;em&gt;because&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「應爲」can be seen as a shortening of &lt;strong&gt;應該爲&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; + &lt;em&gt;be&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, note that「因」is pronounced &lt;strong&gt;yīn&lt;/strong&gt;, while「應」is pronounced &lt;strong&gt;yīng&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T10:03:25.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30327" CreationDate="2018-06-22T10:06:37.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Totally agree with Tang Ho&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need some advice about XXX.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我需要一些关于XXX的建议。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need some advice about what to wear at a friend’s wedding.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我需要关于参加朋友婚礼穿什么的建议。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need some wedding clothing advice.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我需要一些关于婚礼礼服的建议。(sounds a bit weird I’m told, not very colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I dunno what I should wear to a wedding.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我不知道参加婚礼应该穿什么。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you tell me what’s best to wear to a friend’s wedding?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你可以告诉我去参加朋友婚礼穿什么好吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T10:06:37.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30335" CreationDate="2018-06-22T10:23:30.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;接盘 and 接盘侠; I think those terms come from Stock Market. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, 接盘 means you buy the shares/stocks from others. Metaphorically, it could mean you get something from others. 接盘侠 is kind of person who seems to always get the higher price of stocks from others. Let's say when the stock goes very high, but there are still someone who believes it could go higher and then they buy it. And finally, the stock plummets. Those, who operate like that, are called 接盘侠. 接盘侠 can refer to those who are fooled/tricked to get something (usually not good or higher price than it deserves) from others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your context, &quot;让我以后不要找中国男人接盘&quot; means she is suggested that she should not find other Chinese men for dating, so as not to propagate those bad stuff (low IQ, dirty and etc as mentioned in the context) from his previous black boyfriend. And things could be worse if she gets pregnant and then find another Chinese guy to 接盘.  It's really insulting. Those bad languages are used to humiliate her. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-22T11:02:34.257" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T11:02:34.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30335" CreationDate="2018-06-22T10:40:20.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The person who buys the company shares you are selling is the 接盘 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Metaphorically, 接盘侠 is a man, 侠, who 接盘s &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A is a loose woman, B and others are her lovers, maybe she gets pregnant, B does not want her, so she looks for C or D or E, seems to love him, asks if he wants to marry her, has sex with him then says, &quot;OMG, I'm pregnant!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;接盘侠 is 喜当爹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜当爹：a man who is not so interesting, likes a woman, the woman is aloof, but eventually comes back to him, because she is pregnant. She marries him because her socially and otherwise more attractive boyfriend doesn't want her, or can't, for family reasons, have her. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T10:40:20.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30318" CreationDate="2018-06-22T10:52:56.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is one of the group languages in which question words remain exactly in place of the &quot;questioned&quot; word they replace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;那个人是谁 - 那个人是我妈妈&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English and some other European languages question words always move to the head of the utterance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Who is this person? This person is my mother.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I highly suspect your examples from Memrise (or whatever that app is) are simply a result of an English speaker (not very fluent in Chinese) translating them to Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One other explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;谁是你爸爸 ~ “which one is your dad&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你爸爸是谁 ~ “and who [exactly] is your dad?&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, at the beginner level, stick to placing question words in the same position the answer would occupy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T10:52:56.177" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30343" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30346" CreationDate="2018-06-22T11:35:18.147" Score="2" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was scrolling down on YouTube comments until someone wrote 老师好。新年快乐。给尿尿了。A person answered 新年快乐，不说给尿尿，哈哈.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I look it up but it said that 尿尿 means piss. Is that true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EOKHu.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EOKHu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17799" LastEditorUserId="17799" LastEditDate="2018-06-24T00:57:08.973" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T00:57:08.973" Title="What does 尿尿 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30334" CreationDate="2018-06-22T12:38:19.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Now in Chinese standard, 的地得 are merged into 的. In this case, using 得 is better (clearly and grammar right). But using 的 is correct also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3264" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T12:38:19.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30307" CreationDate="2018-06-22T13:09:07.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, my choice is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黑馬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underdog&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Underdog&lt;/a&gt; Wiki page&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An underdog is a person or group in a competition, usually in sports and creative works, who is popularly expected to lose …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/53146021.html?qbl=relate_question_0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黑马 dark horse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷门 an unexpected winner; dark horse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="808" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T13:09:07.233" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30343" CreationDate="2018-06-22T13:37:43.207" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's true. But I think that comment is actually pretty strange. haha&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user12627" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T13:37:43.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30334" CreationDate="2018-06-22T13:38:56.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is correct here and not an instance of native-speaker-sloppiness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's probably easiest to say 深入 and 学习 are both acting as nouns, 'depth' and 'study', and the depth 'belongs to' the study as in the most common canonical use of 的. The English gloss of 'depth' loses the change-of-state meaning conveyed by 入, so I guess it should be 'the increase in depth' which is pretty horrible as a translation, but does convey its noun-ish behavior here. &quot;Following deeper study, the difficulty will decrease...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 随着科学的发展 or 随着清朝的衰落 look natural to you, that's the same basic pattern, noun-noun linked with 的 and referring to a change of state. It's pretty common!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18891" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T13:38:56.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30334" CreationDate="2018-06-22T13:56:13.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;songyuanyao wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;深入 is considered as a noun here&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;songyuanyao is right, 深入(advance) is a noun here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;随着(following) 学习的 (of study) 深入 (advance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice 随着 (following) is the verb, advance is the object, and 学习的 is the adjectival phrase that describe 'advance'-- (advance of what? Advance of the study of course.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'的' at the end of '学习的' turns the noun '学习' (study) into an adjectival phrase (of study)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me give another example of [noun + 的] = [of noun]:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;战斗 : to battle (v); battle (n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;战斗的 = of battle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加劇: to intensify(v); intensification (n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;战斗的加劇&quot; = &quot;intensification of battle&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 战斗 and 加劇 are noun here and 的 turns 战斗 to an adjectival phrase for 'intensification' (intensification of the battle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In '战斗加劇', '战斗'(battle) is the object noun ; and 加劇 (intensify) is a verb &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In '学习得深入', '学习' is a verb and  '得' is a 'degree adverbial particle' that turns the verb '深入' into an adverbial phrase for it (describe the degree of the verb 学习)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In '深入地学习', '地' turn the verb 深入 into an adverbial phrase for the verb 学习 (describe the manner of the verb 学习)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-22T15:05:08.847" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T15:05:08.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30350" CreationDate="2018-06-23T00:01:58.583" Score="0" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've encountered two different stroke orders for writing 里:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BmO6Bm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BmO6Bm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Two stroke orders for 里&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They disagree at the fifth stroke.  The first one is on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%87%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://visualmandarin.com/tools/chinese-stroke-order/73607&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Visual Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;, while the second I encountered on TOFU Learn (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tofulearn.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link to website&lt;/a&gt;) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archchinese.com/chinese_english_dictionary.html?find=%E9%87%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arch Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (and on &lt;a href=&quot;http://kanjijp.quus.net/kakijyun/2037.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a Japanese site&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly for 再：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RfxbMm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RfxbMm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Two stroke orders for 再&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They disagree at the fourth stroke.  The first one is on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.visualmandarin.com/tools/chinese-stroke-order/8297&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Visual Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesehideout.com/tools/strokeorder.php?c=%E5%86%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Hideout&lt;/a&gt;, while the second one is on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%86%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are both these stroke orders for 里 and 再 correct in mainland China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in mainland China in particular, since that's where I'm located (Tianjin, specifically).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T01:35:55.757" Title="Are both these stroke orders for 里 and 再 correct in mainland China?" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30349" CreationDate="2018-06-23T01:13:26.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually look up &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/26/js/91CC.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this dictionary&lt;/a&gt; for stroke orders. There could be some other useful sites like &lt;a href=&quot;http://bishun.strokeorder.info/mandarin.php?q=%E5%86%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally apply the second order for 再 and 里 as you quoted. In practice, the stroke order doesn't really matter and you can develop your own stylish based on the standard one. For native speakers, we would only be taught and tested the standard orders in primary school. It becomes meaningless when we grow up. We almost forget the standard orders for certain characters. When we teach our kids, sometimes we have to look up those authoritative resources online. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the reason why we still need to learn the stroke order is that we need understand the conventions on how to write a Chinese character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T01:13:26.620" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30321" CreationDate="2018-06-23T02:50:03.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;People recently are just referring to world cup matches as 球赛 which in English we might just call &lt;em&gt;the game&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You already have the sentence structure down pretty well, so colloquially you could just say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(你)看了球赛吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;球赛，(你)看了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In day to day speaking the orders can be swapped for emphasis or clarity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 here isn't changing the state to the level that you feel like it is, because you're referring to a specific one ore two matches that have already happened - it's basically phrasing it into the past tenths. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you remove the 了:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看球赛吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like an offer to watch a game together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T02:50:03.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30336" CreationDate="2018-06-23T04:02:59.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;应为 for &quot;because&quot; is a typo. It's not in 汉语大词典，for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T04:02:59.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30353" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-23T05:46:33.767" Score="2" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I spent 100.50, would I have to say, &quot;一百块零五毛&quot; if yes, why do I have to put the &quot;ling&quot; after the &quot;kuai&quot; since &quot;yibaikuai&quot; already establishes the number 100?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19916" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T07:39:45.247" Title="Question about the use of &quot;零&quot; in money" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30353" CreationDate="2018-06-23T06:22:09.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We say &quot;one hundred dollars and fifty cents&quot; in English. 零 functions the same as 'and' , of course you can say &quot;one hundred dollars fifty cents&quot; or &quot;一百块五毛&quot; but that would make it sound like the phrase is broken into two parts –&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is &quot;一百五十五块五毛&quot;  ($155.50) , we don't put  零 between &quot;块&quot; and &quot;毛&quot;  ; we only add 零 when the previous digit is zero&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一百五十块零五毛&quot; ($150.50)- &lt;em&gt;last digit of 'dollar' is zero, therefore 零 is added before '五毛'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一百五十五块五毛&quot; ($155.50)- &lt;em&gt;last digit of 'dollar' is not zero, therefore 零 is not added before '五毛'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一百万零五千元&quot; (One million and five thousand dollars) - &lt;em&gt;need 零 between 一百万 and 五千元 because the last digit of million is a zero&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一百二十五万四千三百二十一元 ($1,254,321)- &lt;em&gt;no 零 needed&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Five hundred and five dollars&quot; ($505)  = 五百零五元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Five hundred fifty five dollars&quot; ($555) =五百五十五元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-23T07:39:45.247" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T07:39:45.247" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30356" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30360" CreationDate="2018-06-23T13:23:02.877" Score="5" ViewCount="338" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a &lt;a href=&quot;https://postcrossing.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;postcrosser&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deltiology&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;deltiologist&lt;/a&gt;. A few days ago, I received a postcard from China. There was some Chinese text along with the artwork on the front side of the card:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EGnwx.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EGnwx.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;front view of postcard&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried the Google Instant Translate and this was the result I received:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zz6d4.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zz6d4.png&quot; alt=&quot;result of google translate&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I asked the sender, whether he could translate it for me. And he told me that he is able to read it but don't know the meaning since it is written in &lt;strong&gt;Classical Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Could someone tell me the meaning of what's written there?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19918" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T12:15:56.323" Title="Need help with Classical Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30356" CreationDate="2018-06-23T14:46:29.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This paint is called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/16/0127/10/15883912_530857109.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乔柯急涧&lt;/a&gt;, it's supposed to be made in 1675. Its author is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yun_Shouping&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;恽寿平&lt;/a&gt;, who lived from 1633 to 1690, late Ming and early Qing dynasties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2nd part is the explanation about the paint, written by the author 恽寿平.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喬柯急澗唐解元有此景因傲其意京口山樓待風圈六如卷筆墨靈逸李唐刻晝之迹滿之一變洗其勾欣煥若神明當使南宋諸公皆拜床下憚壽平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's explaining that the paint is pastiche from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_Yin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;唐寅&lt;/a&gt; (唐解元), the artist of the Ming dynasty. From it we can get that 恽寿平 praised highly about the painting style of 唐寅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 1st part is the poem written by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Emperor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乾隆&lt;/a&gt;, the emperor of the Qing dynasty. The paint was collected by him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喬柯嶰壑臨急澗澗水籦籠潄趾哀設使不經裁作笛即今誰識馬融才&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-06-23T15:27:01.093" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T15:27:01.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30358" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-23T15:23:30.743" Score="1" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does the word '悲亡' mean? I found it in a verse by 北岛 : 大海为生者悲亡，the ocean suffers for the living beings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16781" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-06-23T15:29:11.873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T11:04:51.517" Title="the meaning and translation of 悲亡 in a poem by Bei Dao" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30359" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-23T16:46:10.837" Score="0" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that Chinese language uses very little punctuation, especially missing out spaces between words. Because of this feature, is it possible to build sentences where if you skip one (or more) characters from the beginning, you get entirely different meaning? Are there any popular examples?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I keep getting answers which are not what I mean. I expected to find out whether there are sentences that start with a multi-character word that after removing the first character, make a new multi-character word, shifting the meaning completely. So, for example, with spaces added, AB CD EF would become BC DE F.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19231" LastEditorUserId="19231" LastEditDate="2018-06-24T20:19:13.303" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T01:24:17.560" Title="Are there any sentences where if you skip one (or more) characters from the beginning, it's correct but has entirely different meaning?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30356" CreationDate="2018-06-23T18:23:02.143" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;the post card is a replication of a painting, which is in the palace museum (故宫博物院). imo, the quality is, unacceptable. here's a better image of the painting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0ejPM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0ejPM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the text, traditionally, one read from top to bottom, right to left. so, the rightest text are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;南刻京喬&#xA;宋畫口柯&#xA;諸之山急&#xA;公跡樓澗&#xA;皆為待唐&#xA;拜之風解&#xA;牀一觀元&#xA;下變六有&#xA;　洗如此&#xA;惲其卷景&#xA;壽勾筆因&#xA;平砍墨倣&#xA;　煥靈其&#xA;　然逸意&#xA;　神李　&#xA;　明唐　&#xA;　當　　&#xA;　使　　&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it was written by the painter &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yun_Shouping&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;惲壽平&lt;/a&gt;, as a &quot;preface&quot;. the meaning of it, roughly is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喬柯急澗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tall and bent (喬) branch [of tree] (柯), torrential (急) stream (澗)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;used as the subject of the painting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;唐解元有此景因倣其意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;解元&quot;, &quot;六如居士&quot; were referred to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_Yin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;唐寅&lt;/a&gt;, a painter of ming dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mr 唐 (唐解元) had (有) this (此) scene (景, --&gt; similar painting of 喬柯急澗), therefore (因) [ i ] simulate (倣) his (其) ideas (意)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;京口山樓待風．觀六如卷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 京口 (a place name), on a tower / building (樓) in the hills (山); waiting for (待) wind (風) [--&gt; to cool off], read (觀) mr 唐's (六如) scroll (卷)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;筆墨靈逸．李唐刻畫之跡．為之一變．洗其勾砍．煥然神明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the strokes (筆墨) were deft (靈), with leisure (逸). the trace (跡) of (之) stubborn (刻畫) of mr 李 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%8E%E5%94%90_(%E5%AE%8B%E6%9C%9D)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;李唐&lt;/a&gt;, a painter of 宋 dynasty), changed significantly (為之一變). removed (洗) his (其) &quot;strike out&quot; (勾) [and] chop (砍); changed to (煥然) outstanding  &amp;amp; bright (神明)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;當使南宋諸公皆拜牀下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[which] should (當) make (使) painters (諸公) of the southern song dynasty (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;南宋&lt;/a&gt;), all (皆)  bow (拜) under (下) [his] stand (牀, a variant of 床, which should be interpret as 安放器物的架子, not bed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;惲壽平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the painter's full name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, the text on the left, was a poem written by the emperor &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Emperor&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;乾隆&lt;/a&gt; :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it was recorded in 御製詩三集　卷九十四, page 82:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06078952.cn#page/n81/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/06078952.cn#page/n81/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;即設澗喬&#xA;今使水柯&#xA;誰不籦嶰&#xA;識經籠壑&#xA;馬裁潄臨&#xA;融作趾急&#xA;才笛哀澗&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, poem should be interpret by oneself :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyone want to decipher the seals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T18:23:02.143" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30358" CreationDate="2018-06-23T20:13:02.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be (靠)[大海][为生者][悲亡] He who depend on the ocean to live dies a sorrow death&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or more likely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;大海 (the ocean) 为生者(for the livings) 悲(feel sorrow for) 亡(their death)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The ocean feels sorrow for the livings' death&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The ocean lives for eons, the livings' lives are so fleeting compare to it&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T20:13:02.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30359" CreationDate="2018-06-23T21:01:47.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are tons of them. If you skip a crucial character, of course it's going to change the meaning entirely. It has nothing to do with punctuation, but everything to do with the semantics of the character(s) you're leaving out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you leave out the negative marker &quot;不&quot;, the sentence will mean the opposite of what you intend to say. For examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不是中國人 becomes 我是中國人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我沒有錢 becomes 我有錢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also happens in English. If you skip the negative marker &quot;not&quot; or &quot;no&quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I am not Chinese&quot; becomes &quot;I am Chinese&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I have no money&quot; becomes &quot;I have money&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can actually ask your question in any language, and the answer is going to be yes. So I am not entirely sure what exactly you meant to ask, but I am just taking your question at face value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T21:01:47.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30359" CreationDate="2018-06-23T21:21:59.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Absolutely, here is a perfect example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今日杨叔叔来我家玩妈妈，说我做完作业后，可以吃点心。然后，杨叔叔夸我作业做的好，于是抱起了我妈，妈叫叔叔小心一点，之后叔叔又亲了我妈妈，也亲了我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... with the correct punctuations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天杨叔叔来我家玩，妈妈说我做完作业后可以吃点心。然后，杨叔叔夸我作业做得好，于是抱起了我，妈妈叫叔叔小心点，之后叔叔又亲了我，妈妈也亲了我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11542" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T21:21:59.477" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30262" CreationDate="2018-06-23T23:37:18.913" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some examples like that, but it's actually not that common, considering there are thousands of commonly used characters, and there's no name for this too (won't call it a phenomenon either).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;熱 &amp;amp; 熟: I remember these words from my childhood. I thought they look so similar at that time. Notice I was a native speaker and already speaking Chinese fluently. This is just a part every Chinese learner must learn, and you will certainly get better at recognizing the differences as time goes on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those differences may be in a certain stroke (e.g. one character has an extra stroke 大 &amp;amp; 太, or a difference in length 士 &amp;amp; 土, or a difference in angle/order of strokes 千 干), or there are parts of those characters that are different (e.g. 熱 &amp;amp; 熟).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might help to learn the basic strokes: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_(CJKV_character)?oldformat=true#Basic_strokes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_(CJKV_character)?oldformat=true#Basic_strokes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stroke orders matter too. Notice the first strokes of 千 and 干.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check stroke order here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineseconverter.com/en/convert/chinese-stroke-order-tool&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chineseconverter.com/en/convert/chinese-stroke-order-tool&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a list of similar characters if you're interested: &lt;a href=&quot;http://carlgene.com/blog/2016/06/top-258-most-commonly-confused-chinese-characters/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://carlgene.com/blog/2016/06/top-258-most-commonly-confused-chinese-characters/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T23:37:18.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14884" CreationDate="2018-06-23T23:51:39.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's zhuyin (注音) , or bopomofo in English. Just as hanyupinyin/pinyin (漢語拼音/拼音) is the phonetic 'spelling' system in Mainland China, it's zhuyin in Taiwan. Zhuyin is taught in kindergartens and elementary schools, and people use it for typing and looking up in dictionaries (not the only way for typing and dictionary lookup though).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it's the same language with the same pronunciation system, there are conversion tables between them. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FN47j.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FN47j.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;zhuyin-pinyin conversion table&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T23:51:39.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30366" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30370" CreationDate="2018-06-24T00:01:22.557" Score="2" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Tianjin, sometimes we see 朝鲜冷面 (Cháoxiǎn lěngmiàn) for sale:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4NyfXm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4NyfXm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Chinese LED sign saying 朝鲜冷面&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breaking this down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E6%9C%9D%E9%B2%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;朝鲜&lt;/a&gt; (Cháoxiǎn) = Korea or North Korea, depending on context&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%86%B7%E9%9D%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;冷面&lt;/a&gt; (lěng miàn) = cold noodles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;YouDao says &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E6%9C%9D%E9%B2%9C%E5%86%B7%E9%9D%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;朝鲜冷面&lt;/a&gt; translates to &quot;Korean cold noodles&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are 朝鲜冷面 from Korea (North and South) or only North Korea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T10:34:35.437" Title="Are 朝鲜冷面 (Cháoxiǎn lěngmiàn) from Korea (North and South) or only North Korea?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30321" CreationDate="2018-06-24T00:03:42.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you watch the football?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你有看足球吗？ (Might also mean: Do you watch football? Depends on context.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你有看足球比赛吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you watched the game? (about a specific game)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你有看那场比赛吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你看了那场比赛了吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's more common to ask: 你有看世界杯吗？ Do/Did you watch the World Cup?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T00:03:42.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30359" CreationDate="2018-06-24T00:05:57.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(美國人)對大麻合化意見不一&quot; -- &quot;(Americans) have different opinions on the legalization of marijuana&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(國人)對大麻合化意見不 一&quot; -- &quot;(Citizens of this country) have different opinions on the legalization of marijuana&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(德意志)崩潰&quot; -- &quot;(German) collapse&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(意志)崩潰&quot; -- &quot;(will/ spirit) collapse&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(從)[馬上]下來&quot; -- &quot;come down (from) [the horse back]&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;[馬上] 下來&quot; -- &quot;come down [immediately]&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(從來就)有免費飯&quot; -- &quot;There's (always been) free meal&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(來)[就]有免費飯&quot; -- &quot;There's free meal [whenever] you (come)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-24T00:37:57.233" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T00:37:57.233" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30359" CreationDate="2018-06-24T00:08:04.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know why you ask for this. But the one I can think of is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;音乐对人生的意义 vs 乐对人生的意义&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Music to life vs laugh to life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T00:08:04.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30366" CreationDate="2018-06-24T00:15:09.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;朝鮮冷麪&lt;/strong&gt; is just &lt;em&gt;Korean cold noodles&lt;/em&gt;, not specifically from North or South Korea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The confusion arises because &lt;strong&gt;朝鮮&lt;/strong&gt; may be either translated as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Korea&lt;/em&gt;, as it is the traditional name for Korea which matches the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Joseon Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; (大&lt;strong&gt;朝鮮&lt;/strong&gt;國 or &lt;strong&gt;朝鮮&lt;/strong&gt;王朝);&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;North Korea&lt;/em&gt;, because this is what &lt;strong&gt;朝鮮&lt;/strong&gt; refers to after the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_Korea&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Division of Korea&lt;/a&gt;; the official name of the country is &lt;strong&gt;朝鮮&lt;/strong&gt;民主主義人民共和國 (&lt;em&gt;Democratic People's Republic of Korea&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For anything to do with traditional culture/art/food etc., it is improbable that &lt;strong&gt;朝鮮&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;em&gt;North Korea&lt;/em&gt;, although only context can make you certain of what it really refers to. Since &lt;em&gt;cold noodles&lt;/em&gt; is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naengmyeon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;traditional food&lt;/a&gt; eaten throughout the whole of the Korean peninsula, &lt;strong&gt;朝鮮冷麪&lt;/strong&gt; should be taken as &lt;em&gt;(traditional) Korean cold noodles&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For disambiguation purposes, one may call &lt;em&gt;North Korea&lt;/em&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;北朝鮮&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;北韓&lt;/strong&gt; instead. Compare &lt;em&gt;South Korea&lt;/em&gt;, which may be unambiguously called either &lt;strong&gt;南韓&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;韓國&lt;/strong&gt;; note that it is exceedingly rare to refer to South Korea with the name &lt;strong&gt;朝鮮&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one wants to unambiguously refer to Traditional Korea, one may use the archaic word &lt;strong&gt;高麗&lt;/strong&gt; instead, which is where the English name &lt;em&gt;Korea&lt;/em&gt; comes from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-24T00:28:02.260" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T00:28:02.260" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30283" CreationDate="2018-06-24T00:28:22.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;他们在英国吗？ (他们现在在英国吗？ is also common.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they in Britain? (a general question, has no presumption)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们是在英国吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They're in Britain, aren't they? (you kind of know they might be in Britain, and you are making sure by asking)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T00:28:22.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30366" CreationDate="2018-06-24T00:32:29.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to get the origin of 朝鲜冷面. &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%9C%9D%E9%B2%9C%E5%86%B7%E9%9D%A2/3291663?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is the reference from Baidu. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For most of natives from mainland, it's just the way/recipe (how 冷面 is cooked) that is developed by 朝鲜族 inside or outside(North/South Korea) of Mainland China. It's very popular in northeast China, since most of 朝鲜族 are located there and plus it's close to North Korea.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, when we say 朝鲜 or 北朝鲜 within mainland， it refers to North Korea. South Korea is 韩国 or 南朝鲜. If we take it as a whole, we will say 整个朝鲜（半岛） the whole Korean Peninsula. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-24T00:38:30.370" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T00:38:30.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30358" CreationDate="2018-06-24T01:12:29.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;北岛 （中国当代诗人、香港中文大学教授）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He's relaxing, forgetting life's worries for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过冬&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Pass the winter  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;醒来：北方的松林——&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I'm) Awake: (to this) Northern Pine Forest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;大地紧迫的鼓声&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I hear) Earth's urgent drumbeat,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;树干中阳光的烈酒&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tree trunks in the sunshine intoxicate (me),&lt;br&gt;&#xA;激荡黑暗之冰&lt;br&gt;&#xA;surging dark and cold&lt;br&gt;&#xA;而心与狼群对喊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and (my) heart howls back to the wolves  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;风偷走的是风  (not too sure about this)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(what) the wind steals is (just) wind&lt;br&gt;&#xA;冬天因大雪的债务&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the lack of winter snow&lt;br&gt;&#xA;大于它的隐喻&lt;br&gt;&#xA;is like a metaphor for&lt;br&gt;&#xA;乡愁如亡国之君&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a homesick forgotten country's ruler&lt;br&gt;&#xA;寻找的是永远的迷失&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the sought after is eternally lost  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大海为生者悲亡&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(the tide of) the ocean of life's sadness is away&lt;br&gt;&#xA;星星轮流照亮爱情——&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the stars take turn to light up love&lt;br&gt;&#xA;谁是全景证人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;who bears witness to the scene&lt;br&gt;&#xA;引领号角的河流&lt;br&gt;&#xA;lead the way loud river&lt;br&gt;&#xA;果园的暴动&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(to the) orchard of rebellion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听见了吗？我的爱人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;can you hear? My lover&lt;br&gt;&#xA;让我们手挽手老去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;let us hand in hand forever go&lt;br&gt;&#xA;和词语一起冬眠&lt;br&gt;&#xA;with words together hibernate&lt;br&gt;&#xA;重织的时光留下死结&lt;br&gt;&#xA;reweave time, leave behind problems&lt;br&gt;&#xA;或未完成的诗&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or unfinished verse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T01:12:29.110" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30307" CreationDate="2018-06-24T01:24:31.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no single word to translate underdog. This is the beauty of languages. Often you can't simply translate a single word. You have to consider the whole sentence and rephrase it in ways more commonly expressed in the target language. As a result, when asking for translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;处于劣势的一方 and 居于下风者 are the better translation if picking among those.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弱者 means someone who's weak or inferior. 失敗者, 失敗的一方 means loser or someone who's defeated. These are wrong translations with different meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The underdog team scored two surprise goals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;處於劣勢的一隊出人意料地進兩球。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is from a dictionary. But &lt;strong&gt;it's more common to say [Name of the team]隊出人意料地進了兩球。 Because 'underdog' is sort of implied in '出人意料地'。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for what @scaaahu suggested, 黑馬 could be used as the translation, BUT only if the team has won. And it'll only be used in sentences like: 他/某某隊是這次比賽的黑馬。 黑馬 is of the contest or competition. The underdog team cannot be translated to 黑馬隊, which sounds weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 黑馬 means the same as dark horse in English. From oxford dictionary, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;dark horse: a candidate or competitor about whom little is known but who&#xA;  unexpectedly wins or succeeds&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and from 教育部國語辭典,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;黑馬：比喻競賽中出乎眾人意料之外的獲勝者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice dark horse and 黑馬 don't have the meaning about the little chance of winning that underdog conveys. 黑馬 may implied it, but not necessarily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;菜鳥 means exactly newbie. But when using just 菜 as an adjective, it can mean bad at something and/or describing a newbie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I've never heard of 魚腩部隊, and I'd say it's not just me. Don't use that. People probably won't understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T01:24:31.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30349" CreationDate="2018-06-24T01:35:55.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wow, I didn't know stroke orders differ between mainland China and Taiwan too. I'm from Taiwan and @dan is from China I assume. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was taught using the first order both for 里 and 再. So apparently the first is Taiwanese version, and the second is Chinese version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T01:35:55.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30312" CreationDate="2018-06-24T02:10:00.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where did you see the sentence? It's terribly written. Lots of redundancy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这就是中国书法千百年来之所以能传承的缘由。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这就是中国书法千百年来得以传承的缘由。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pick one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMO the second sentence is shorter and denser in meaning, so it's slightly better in compositions, but you don't have to bother if you're learning Chinese as a second language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T02:10:00.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30377" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-24T04:01:30.323" Score="4" ViewCount="357" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to learn a new method for learning and understanding chinese characters. So, I decided to start with memorizing every chinese radical. I'm use two different source but both wrote two different pinyin. Which one is right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6TKfd.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6TKfd.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/piz3i.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/piz3i.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17799" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T12:03:29.310" Title="What is the true pinyin pronunciation for this radical?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30377" CreationDate="2018-06-24T05:38:32.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The glyph「丨」is called &lt;strong&gt;gǔn&lt;/strong&gt; as a dictionary radical, and appears in most dictionaries including the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_Dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Kangxi Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinhua_Zidian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Xinhua Zidian&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiandai_Hanyu_Cidian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Xiandai Hanyu Cidian&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. It is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homograph&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;homograph&lt;/a&gt; of the character stroke &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_(CJKV_character)#Basic_strokes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;shù&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which just means &lt;em&gt;vertical (line)&lt;/em&gt;, but this name is not the proper one used when referring to the radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation of「丨」can be verified in e.g. the Kangxi Dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ocsKm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ocsKm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「丨」, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiyun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jiyun&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fanqie&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; initial &lt;strong&gt;gǔ&lt;/strong&gt; and rime &lt;strong&gt;běn&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters which are grouped under「丨」commonly are done so because they couldn't be easily grouped under something else. The vast majority of these characters have a vertical stroke as a prominent feature in the character, and this is about all that they share.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following are the only commonly used characters which are grouped under「丨」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;个, 丫, 中, 丰, 串, 临&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @dan mentioned, many people wouldn't understand what exactly this radical is (myself included, before I looked this up), because in general, radicals are not an intrinsic feature of Chinese characters. The most meaningful radicals also happen to be useful phonetic or semantic indicators, but not all radicals are, and there are a few &quot;leftover&quot; radicals that were created for the sake of grouping characters which can't be grouped under other radicals, such as「丨」,「丶」(&lt;strong&gt;zhǔ&lt;/strong&gt;) and「丿」(&lt;strong&gt;piě&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To reiterate, these radicals are just shapes, and don't really mean or sound like anything to do with the characters that are grouped under them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-24T05:45:32.280" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T05:45:32.280" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30377" CreationDate="2018-06-24T11:23:02.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國語辭典&lt;/a&gt; in Taiwan,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【丨】　部首：丨　部首外筆畫數：0　總筆畫數：1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漢語拼音 gǔn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二一四部首之一。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is one of the 214 radicals. One stroke. Pinyin is &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;gǔn&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="808" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T12:03:29.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30381" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30399" CreationDate="2018-06-24T12:09:04.680" Score="1" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;Over the past few days I've gotten used to the Shuangpin layout. 自然码 to be specific, and I found it to be pretty good. But now I've come across a situation, where I don't know how to type it. And after taking a look at all the different Shuangpin layouts, it seems to me, they all share this property:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They don't have a key for the &quot;zero initial&quot;! So how do you type words like 昂 (ang), or 恩 (en)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm specifically looking for the Ziranma layout, but I'd be interested in a general answer as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13394" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-06-25T18:21:38.413" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T18:21:38.413" Title="How to type zero initial in the common Shuangpin Pinyin keyboard layouts?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30356" CreationDate="2018-06-24T12:15:56.323" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, let me try to explain the poem in Chinese and hope someone translate it into English :)&#xA;There's no modern Chinese translation available on the internet because Emperor Qianlong wrote so many poems during his lifetime and most of the poems are mediocre from an aesthetic perspective and this is one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喬柯嶰壑臨急澗澗水籦籠潄趾哀設使不經裁作笛即今誰識馬融才&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;釋義如下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喬柯嶰壑 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地名罷了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;臨急澗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;依傍湍急的山澗（兩崖夾水而為澗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;籦籠 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一種古書所載的竹子 可為笛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;潄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也即 漱 此作 沖刷解&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;趾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;足 此可能指 根基&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;傷感 悲哀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;澗水籦籠潄趾哀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;私以為作 澗水潄趾籦籠哀 為音韻之利易之 也即 水流沖刷著籦籠的根基令其哀傷&#xA;該句既為描景 亦是擬人籦籠 以引發頸尾兩聯抒懷之語&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;設使不經裁作笛 即今誰識馬融才&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這兩句沒有疑難字 可以直截翻譯 假使沒有（為人）裁制為笛子 縱有馬融之才方今又有誰能識得呢？&#xA;馬融為東漢人 才高八斗 聞名當世 此句用典 為竹自比馬融之才 而嗟嘆於埋沒山嶺 無以為器 故天下不知&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乾隆雖為皇帝 卻是以士子之心為詩 大略如此&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T12:15:56.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30383" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30390" CreationDate="2018-06-24T18:08:41.740" Score="1" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;众所周知，简体字源于历史上人们自行简化的手书体，它是以繁体字为基础的，不能&lt;strong&gt;打着&lt;/strong&gt;传统文化的旗号去否认简体字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打着 means &quot;hit the mark&quot;, according to Pleco. 百度词典 does not have the entry for the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I struggle to understand the meaning of 打着 in this context, which likely is either one of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unless you &quot;hit&quot; the flag of the traditional culture, you cannot veto the Simplified Chinese. (i.e. if you &quot;hit&quot; the flag, you could veto it; this is from 不能 and 否认, two negation words)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You cannot &quot;hit&quot; the flag of the traditional culture to veto the Simplified Chinese. (i.e. you cannot veto the Simplified Chinese by &quot;hitting&quot; the flag)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe another meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if 打 or 打着 (is 打着 a word here or 打 + particle?) has the positive or negative connotation in this context to begin with... It is likely 比喻 in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T08:31:22.083" Title="What does 打着 mean in 不能打着传统文化的旗号去否认简体字?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30383" CreationDate="2018-06-24T18:36:29.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;'打' in '打着旗号' means 'to display/ to hold up'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打着 means 'displaying/ holding up'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;旗号 (flag/ banner) is a metaphor for 'claim; declaration'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(打着)少林正宗的招牌 = (displaying/ holding up) signboard of authentic Shaolin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(打着)燈籠 = displaying/ holding up lantern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(打着)雨傘 = holding up umbrella&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(打)手勢 = (display) gesture = to gesture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'm not sure if 打 or 打着 (is 打着 a word here or 打 + particle?) has the positive or negative connotation in this context to begin with... It is likely 比喻 in this context.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打 is the verb, 着 is a particle that indicates 'on going' status of the verb. There's no positive or negative connotation on the verb 打 (displaying/ holding up) itself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打燈籠 and 打傘 are common terms that use '打' as 'to display/ to hold up'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;不能打着传统文化的旗号去否认简体字&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Should not holding up the banner of 'Traditional Culture' to dismiss simplified characters&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;和尚打傘: 無法無天&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;Monk holding up umbrella: no law (hair) no rule (sky)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T03:07:38.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30312" CreationDate="2018-06-24T19:57:39.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is because of the semantic value of the word 以 。  能得  is the ability of achieving 以 through 能.  I suggest looking at  compound words involving both characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T19:57:39.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30383" CreationDate="2018-06-24T22:14:55.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;打着。。。去 discard, ignore, disregard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;众所周知，&#xA;As everyone knows&lt;br&gt;&#xA;简体字源于历史上人们自行简化的手书体，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;simplified (Chinese) writing, historically, had its origins in people voluntarily simplifying their writing style,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;它是以繁体字为基础的，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;they used traditional characters as their basis,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不能打着传统文化的旗号去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;we can't ignore the traditional component (of simplified writing)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;否认简体字。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;deny (it is a part of) simplified (characters)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T22:14:55.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30383" CreationDate="2018-06-24T22:17:09.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No-one's actually said it so I'll point it out so it's clear - 打着 here is 打 plus a particle 着 (zhe)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T22:17:09.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30359" CreationDate="2018-06-25T01:24:17.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most &quot;multi character words&quot;, particularly two-character combos, become single character &quot;words&quot; when characters are cut off. They might often sound a bit weird in context (because of a style mixup - &quot;single character words&quot; are a feature of 文言文 rather than 白话).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given Chinese does not have very rigid grammar like, say, English, the resulting sentences will often/usually make sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. Note I use quotes, because I currently do not believe the notion of &quot;words&quot; from Indo-European linguistics applies much to Chinese. Chinese has 字, some of them are more often used together than others. But this is a personal opinion and I'm not a linguist. Ask 趙元任.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T01:24:17.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30389" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30391" CreationDate="2018-06-25T04:54:22.093" Score="0" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;还是付了吧，要不忘了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence probably means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's exactly I'll pay for it , not to forget to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know　了 has many aspects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's difference between &quot;first 了&quot; and &quot;second 了&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;first 了&quot; is to draw a conclusion, and &quot;second 了&quot;　expresses just the time of forgetting to pay for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it not right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19037" LastEditorUserId="19037" LastEditDate="2018-06-25T05:02:07.570" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T09:52:25.007" Title="还是付了吧，要不忘了。了 is ...?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30383" CreationDate="2018-06-25T05:02:45.170" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look up the entries for &lt;strong&gt;旗号&lt;/strong&gt; you might get a better idea of what's going on here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;DEROG.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;banner, flag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打着…的旗号&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;dǎzhe ... de qíhào&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;flaunt the banner of ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PLC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOUN&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;USUALLY PEJORATIVE&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;banner; flag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打着……的旗号&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;dǎ zhe … de qíhào&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;flaunt the banner of...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we've now learned a set pattern or phrasal structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;打着……的旗号&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the definition &lt;code&gt;flaunt the banner of...&lt;/code&gt; doesn't do much for us, so what does it actually mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt; gives us an example sentence in its entry for &lt;em&gt;旗号&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;FIGURATIVE&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;pretext&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打着人权的旗号干涉别国内政&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;interfere in the internal affairs of other countries under the pretext of human rights&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and there is our lovely succinct phrase: &lt;code&gt;under the pretext of&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不能打着传统文化的旗号去否认简体字 = simplified characters cannot be nullified under the pretext of traditional Chinese culture.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打着 itself is not a word but just a combination of &lt;code&gt;hold + ing&lt;/code&gt; basically.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;this whole phrasal structure is derogatory by nature, but 打着 itself is fairly neutral.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打着……的幌子 is another common phrase also meaning &lt;code&gt;under the pretense of&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打着……的招牌 is another common phrase also meaning &lt;code&gt;under the guise of&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T05:21:36.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30389" CreationDate="2018-06-25T05:35:46.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think both denote the completion as defined in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4E86.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this dictionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;放在动词或形容词后，表示动作或变化已经完成：写完～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;付了: get it paid; 忘了: forgotten it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还是付了吧，要不忘了: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Better get it paid (now), or you/I would/might have forgotten (to pay it).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Better get it paid (now), in case you/I would/might have forgotten (to pay it).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-25T05:48:20.627" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T05:48:20.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30389" CreationDate="2018-06-25T05:36:14.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;还是(better off)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;付了吧，(pay it off)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要不(or else)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忘了 (forgotten)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;还是付了吧，要不忘了&quot; means &quot;better off pay it off (now), or else (I might) forget&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'了' in '付了' is a particle that indicate completion of the verb&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'了' in '忘了'  is a particle that indicate completion of the verb&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;付= to pay; 付了= to pay (and finish paying it up)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忘= to forget;  忘了= to forget (and actually/successfully forgotten)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T05:36:14.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30381" CreationDate="2018-06-25T07:26:27.067" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Googling for &quot;shuangpin 昂&quot; etc produces lots of result. For example &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/51271188&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/51271188&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://flypy.com/pin.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://flypy.com/pin.html&lt;/a&gt; (not sure they are about your specific layout, I don't use 双拼).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like you simply type the &quot;initial&quot; vowel separately. &quot;a ang&quot; ah for 昂 ang. Possibly slightly different for two and three-letter pinyin 汉子 (see the second link), but that could be layout specific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastEditorUserId="3613" LastEditDate="2018-06-25T07:33:31.287" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T07:33:31.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30381" CreationDate="2018-06-25T07:46:02.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese Wikipedia page &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%8C%E6%8B%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%8C%E6%8B%BC&lt;/a&gt; list three different strategies for handling zero initials in 双拼:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;零声母方案：指全拼中无声母的音节在双拼中的处理方案，即全拼中有几个音节没有声母，双拼中需要把这个零声母实质化，于是就有了零声母方案。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;固定一个字母做零声母 + 韵母所在键，如微软双拼、智能ABC、紫光双拼&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;以韵母首字母为零声母 + 韵母所在键，如拼音加加(注：拼音加加实际上兼容两种零声母方案。)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;单韵母、三韵母为韵母首字母 + 韵母所在键，双韵母为韵母首字母 + 韵母末字母，如自然码、小鹤双拼&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use a fixed letter + final (Microsoft, 智能 ABC, 紫光)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the first letter of the final + final (拼音加加)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the original form of two-letter finals. For others, use the first letter of the final + final. (自然码, 小鹤双拼)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 'ang', 1. would be some fixed letter + the letter for 'ang'. 2) would be 'a' + the letter for 'ang' 3) would be 'a' + the letter for 'ang'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 and 3 differ when the final contains two letters. For example, 'an' would be 'a' + 'n' in 3, but 'a' + (the letter for 'an') in 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T07:46:02.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30383" CreationDate="2018-06-25T08:31:22.083" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 20 meaning associated with  &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/6253.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;打&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must read the full context to derive the exact meaning, i.e. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打着旗号  : carrying the flag.    打 here mean carrying， announce,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following show examples of other context that change the meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打着鱼丸 ：Making fish ball (a delicacy)   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打着球 ： playing ball&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打着字 ： typing using keyboard/typewritter&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T08:31:22.083" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30160" CreationDate="2018-06-25T09:29:00.487" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no biu in Chinese characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19924" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T09:29:00.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30039" CreationDate="2018-06-25T09:45:55.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can search for &quot;御龙在天&quot; in the major Android application market, such as Huawei application market, Xiaomi application market, 360 mobile assistant, tappap, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19924" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T09:45:55.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30389" CreationDate="2018-06-25T09:52:25.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A natural translation would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还是付了吧，要不忘了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  we'd better pay, otherwise we'll forget&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although of course there is no 我们 in the sentence, so we don't know if the speaker means &quot;we&quot; or &quot;I&quot; or &quot;you&quot;. The context would make that clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first 了 is a modal particle. It is NOT an aspect particle and it does NOT indicate completion of the verb. It indicates a change of state. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second 了 is part of the word 忘了. You're better off just learning this as a compound word meaning &quot;to forget&quot;, rather than worrying about the grammar of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T09:52:25.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30381" CreationDate="2018-06-25T15:32:11.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For 安,  and other characters without initial consonant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;strong&gt;oj&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;;(semicolon)j&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;'(quote)j&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it still does not work, try &lt;strong&gt;jj&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The problem is input-method program may not follow the spec.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shuangpin has 3 way to handle zero initial:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 Use a fixed key (one of the a, e, i, o, u, and v) to denote the initial.  e.g. Microsoft shuangpin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 Use the initial of vowels as zero-initial, e.g. 拼音加加&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 This type is a little complicated, it is identical with type 2, except that for character has 2-pinyin character, it will down to 全拼. The famous 小鹤双拼 is this type.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T15:32:11.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30400" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30401" CreationDate="2018-06-25T17:39:48.573" Score="1" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他正往楼上走，徐廖正碰见那位女大夫。女大夫很快&lt;strong&gt;认出他来&lt;/strong&gt;。就这样，他被扭送到派出所。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder why 他 is put after 出. 认 is a verb consisted of the single word, not 离散动词. (If it is 离散动词, 他 should be put between them, right?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the sentence I have seen puts 他 before 出, IIRC. So the sentence is 大夫很快认他出来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why is 他 put after 出, not before it, and it is grammartically correct? Or is 认他出来 grammartically NOT correct? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If there is a difference between the two pattern, what is the difference? Or are they just synonysm?  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T01:20:59.760" Title="Why is 他 put after 出 in 认出他来 in 女大夫很快认出他来?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30400" CreationDate="2018-06-25T21:29:27.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;认 (recognize/identify) is the verb and  出 is its &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;result complement&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认 = to recognize&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认出 = to recognize (and success)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We cannot insert the object between a verb and its result complement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We cannot insert the object between '看见' and say '看(他)见' , we can only say '看见(他)'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;we cannot insert the object between '听到' and say '听(声音)到' , we can only say '听到(声音)'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;we cannot insert the object between '认出' and say '认(他)出' , we can only say '认出(他)'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the confusion come from the presence of '来' at the end &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was just '女大夫很快(认出他)', we can clearly see '女大夫很快(认他出)' is grammatically incorrect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in '女大夫很快(认出他来)' '认' would be a single character verb and 出来(out) would be a preposition (away from inside)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[认][他][出来] = [verb] + [object] +[preposition (out)] which would be grammatically correct -- &lt;em&gt;That's why you think '他' should be placed before '出', but the fact is, 他 could only be placed before '出来' , not '出' (see example #3 above)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[认出他][来] = [verb + result complement+ object] + [final particle 来 (indicates an outcome)] which would also be grammatically correct - &lt;em&gt;It is what we see in the sentence in question&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples of  出来 as a preposition (out):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;推(出来) = push (out)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拉(出来) = pull (out)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the above two examples, you have to insert the object between the verb and 出来, as in &quot;推(他)出来&quot; = &quot;push (him) out&quot; ; &quot;拉(他)出来&quot; = &quot;push (him) out&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-25T22:08:29.313" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T22:08:29.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30402" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-25T22:52:25.020" Score="1" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;红孩儿 thinks 唐僧 tastes nice. He wants to eat him, but 孙悟空 is onto him. Leaving aside the important question of how he knows 唐僧的味道好, what does this 硬 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看来，硬捉是不行的，不如换个方法！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to translate: 硬捉 directly grab him, just grab him，but I don't find these meanings for 硬。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;硬：hard, strong, tough, firm, obstinate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there another Chinese word which could replace 硬 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T09:13:19.993" Title="What exactly does 硬 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30402" CreationDate="2018-06-25T23:40:58.050" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;硬 here connotes &lt;em&gt;forcefully, without any tactics and etc.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;硬捉 means &lt;em&gt;to capture/seize/catch merely by force, without any tactics.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看来，硬捉是不行的，不如换个方法！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Looks like, the way of capturing forcefully (without any tactics) wouldn't work, so we might as well change/turn to another way.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The synonym of 硬 in this context can be 强. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-26T00:47:07.017" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T00:47:07.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30358" CreationDate="2018-06-26T00:19:47.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I put an answer here to spell it out for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. &lt;strong&gt;大海为生者悲亡 (the tide of) the ocean of life's sadness is away&lt;/strong&gt; is a wrong interpretation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's break down 大海为生者悲亡.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大海为生: live upon the ocean, used as an attributive to modify 者; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;者: someone, a person, the subject for this sentence; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;悲亡: a tragic death, which is used as a verb here as a predicate for the whole sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, {大海为生}者(subject) 悲亡(verb). I interpreted it as the comment I put above:&#xA;&lt;em&gt;The person who lives upon the sea suffered a tragic death&lt;/em&gt;. But you can develop your own sentence based upon that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T00:19:47.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30400" CreationDate="2018-06-26T01:12:45.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should take 认出 as a set word, meaning &lt;em&gt;to recognize or identify&lt;/em&gt;. And 来 as its result complement. This way, you would get out of your confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认他出来 is not natural. Instead, you can say 把他认出来. This is because 认他 means &lt;em&gt;accept/adopt him as&lt;/em&gt;. For example, 认他作父：accept/adopt him as father. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 认他(accept/adopt him as) and 认出他(to recognize or identify) can denote different meanings. That's why we don't say 认他出 or 认他出来 (to avoid the ambiguity), instead we say 认他作xxx.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-26T01:20:59.760" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T01:20:59.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24163" CreationDate="2018-06-26T02:45:51.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 8 different ways to say “Excuse Me” in Mandarin Chinese when you are in different situation. I hope it can help you. &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/4XzmI9R5fO8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/4XzmI9R5fO8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17622" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T02:45:51.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30408" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-26T04:27:36.107" Score="1" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to express the idea that the members of a group perform a multi-party action, e.g., conversing, amongst themselves.　E.g., &quot;My co-workers use English when they talk amongst themselves&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best I can do right now is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我同事互相交谈用英文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I imagine there's a lot of work to be done here, both in expressing the notion of &quot;amongst themselves&quot; and translating the &quot;when X, Y&quot; subordinate structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15063" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T00:00:47.553" Title="Express&quot;with each other&quot; or &quot;amongst themselve&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30402" CreationDate="2018-06-26T04:27:54.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, 软 mean &lt;strong&gt;soft&lt;/strong&gt; and 硬 means &lt;strong&gt;hard&lt;/strong&gt;, also there are other extended meanings, like the idiom, 吃软不吃硬 literally meaning: prefer eating soft (tender method/attitude) rather than hard (tough method/attitude), meaning: (one could only) succumb to tender attitude but not tough attitude. 硬捉是不行的: It is infeasible to catch him toughly, or, It is infeasible to catch him directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T04:27:54.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30408" CreationDate="2018-06-26T04:52:28.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are more than one way to express this sentence in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;My co-workers talk among themselves&quot; = &quot;我的同事們私下交談&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;My co-workers  (use English) (when) they talk among themselves&quot; = &quot;我的同事們私下交談(時)(使用英語)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;我的同事們私下交談時(都是)使用英語&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;  - &lt;em&gt;Add 都是 (always) to make it more clear&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;My co-workers talk among themselves&quot; = &quot;我的同事們私下交談&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;(when) my co-workers talk among themselves, (they use English)  &quot; = &quot;(當)我的同事們私下交談(時), (他們使用英語)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;(當)我的同事們私下交談(時), (他們都是使用英語)&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; - &lt;em&gt;Add 都是 (always) to make it more clear&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dan wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;私下交談 denotes those informal circumstances, which doesn't well address the sense of talk among themselves.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I replied:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'私下交談' means 'talk privately' implying 'without including people outside of their circle. May be I can change '我的同事們私下交談' to '我的同事們在他們之間交談' to make the translation more direct, but that would be quite wordy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I decided to use the more direct translation, the sentences would become:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;我的同事們(在他們之間交談時)都是使用英語&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;(當)我的同事們(在他們之間交談時), 他們都是使用英語&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it can be rephrased to make less wordy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;我的同事們之間的交談都是用英語&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (the conversations between my co-workers are all in English)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-26T06:49:54.327" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T06:49:54.327" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30408" CreationDate="2018-06-26T05:28:31.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;My co-workers use English when they talk amongst themselves&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will interpret it as: 我们同事之间交谈使用英文. Or 同事之间交谈我们使用英文. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among themselves(coworkers): 同事之间; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when they talk amongst themselves: 我们同事之间交谈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My co-workers use English:  (我的同事们)使用英文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can add 相互，but the meaning stays unchanged. 我们同事之间相互交谈使用英文 is fine too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-26T05:33:44.397" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T05:33:44.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30418" CreationDate="2018-06-26T10:00:09.230" Score="1" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was under the impression that you cannot say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*我把他的名字想不起來。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because our book says you cannot apply 把 to 可能補語。&#xA;But now my fellow students pointed out that 想不起來 is no 可能補語, but rather 趨向補語的引申用法。&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RGsJx.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RGsJx.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Does the same rule apply, or is the sentence correct? My grammar book says that 趨向補語 frequently acts as 可能補語 (for example: 自行車壞了，我騎不回去了！). It seems only natural, that the same restrictions should apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I have 想不起來 on its own without 把，can I even unambiguously say, whether it is the negative of 可能補語 or 趨向補語？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-06-26T16:11:28.517" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T16:29:13.343" Title="Extended use of the Complement of direction and 把。" Tags="&lt;direction-complement&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30358" CreationDate="2018-06-26T10:34:24.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;「亡」does not mean &lt;em&gt;death&lt;/em&gt; in this poem (and doesn't even mean primarily mean &lt;em&gt;death&lt;/em&gt;; the base meaning is &lt;em&gt;to lose something&lt;/em&gt;, and is cognate to「忘」, which means &lt;em&gt;to lose one's memory; forget&lt;/em&gt;). With that out of the way, such phrases should be interpreted in the context of the whole poem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first three verses of &lt;strong&gt;過冬&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Passing Winter&lt;/em&gt;) are (paraphrased with my own translation):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;醒來：北方的松林——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Forests of the North have awoken;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大地緊迫的鼓聲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the land trembles under thunderous drumbeats.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;樹幹中陽光的烈酒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The piercing rays of the sun washes over the trees,&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;激盪黑暗之冰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;and floods the snow under the dark shadows.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而心與狼群對喊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My heart responds to the howling of wolves.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;風偷走的是風&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Wind is powerless against the cold; for&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冬天因大雪的債務&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Winter is far mightier&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大于它的隱喩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;than the snow that caused it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鄉愁如亡國之君&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Its yearning is like that of an Exiled King,&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尋找的是永遠的迷失&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;searching for that which is forever lost.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;大海爲生者悲亡&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Vast Oceans are the Sorrows of a Wanderer,&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;星星輪流照亮愛情——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;yet the Twinkling Stars can guide those who are lost.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;誰是全景證人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Whence do we find someone with the strength and wisdom&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;引領號角的河流&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;to lead the Rebellion against Winter, Calling for the rivers to flow&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;果園的暴動&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;and the orchards to bloom again?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of &lt;strong&gt;大海爲生者悲亡&lt;/strong&gt; should be interpreted as &lt;strong&gt;大海爲生者之悲「與」亡&lt;/strong&gt;. For a person trying to get through Winter (&lt;em&gt;coldness; exile; melancholy&lt;/em&gt;), we can compare such a person to a person lost at sea (&lt;em&gt;great oceans are the cause of such a person's sorrow&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;生者之悲&lt;/strong&gt;, and the &lt;em&gt;cause of their loss/wandering/melancholy&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;生者之亡&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T11:04:51.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30244" CreationDate="2018-06-26T10:42:42.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @李继鹏 pointed out, if you want to fit in Chinese culture, you'd say good morning rather than asking how are you. Chinese people never say how are you (in Chinese). It's just a culture thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed you are learning Traditional Chinese. If you want to say good morning, 早上好 works in mainland China, in Taiwan we say 早安, or simply 早. Of course we understand 早上好, but 早安 is much more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to say those sentences, all of your translation is fine. People normally won't ask that. Asking 你今天（這個）早上怎麼樣？ feels like that you have a special event this morning, e.g. an exam, and you're asking about his/her performance, or that he/she was sick yesterday and you're asking if he/she feels better this morning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T10:42:42.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30415" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-26T10:43:46.340" Score="1" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of phone apps, is there a difference between these words? How about in other contexts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T07:12:09.620" Title="What is the difference between 费电 and 耗电?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30060" CreationDate="2018-06-26T10:53:02.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never seen those characters and never in names either. My computer can't even show those characters properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OcLTC.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OcLTC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;screenshot&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T10:53:02.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30415" CreationDate="2018-06-26T15:46:19.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply, 费电 means waste the electricity, 耗电 means consume the electricity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T15:46:19.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30412" CreationDate="2018-06-26T16:29:13.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot apply 把 to a verb phrase with potential particle because 把 is a dispositive marker. A dispositive marker marks an object to be disposited of by a verb. For example: in (把)他趕走. the object(他) is being disposited of by the verb 趕走 (chase away). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a potential particles (得 or 不) is inserted between a verb and its resultive/ directional particle, that verb becomes a potential verb. For example:  趕走= chase away;  趕得走 = able to chase away.  It can no longer be applied to [dispositive marker + object] structure which requires an active verb at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: in 我(趕走)他 , (趕走) is an action verb; in 我(趕得走)他, (趕得走)is a potential verb- &lt;em&gt;You can, but you are not actively preforming the verb&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the same reason, 我把他的名字(想起來- &lt;em&gt;active verb&lt;/em&gt;) is correct, but  我把他的名字(想不/得起來- &lt;em&gt;potential verb&lt;/em&gt;) is incorrect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make '我把他的名字想起來' negative , you have to modify 把 with a negative marker like 沒 or 未 , for example: &quot;我(沒)把他的名字想起來&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When I have 想不起來 on its own without 把，can I even unambiguously say, whether it is the negative of 可能補語 or 趨向補語？&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without 把, there's no object to be disposited of,  '想起來' (active verb) or '想不起來/'想得起來 (potential verb) can be applied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence can be &quot;我(想起)他的名字來&quot; or, &quot;我(想得起)他的名字來,  &quot;我(想不起)他的名字來&quot;- (&lt;em&gt;you are not actively preforming the verb&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T16:29:13.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30419" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30421" CreationDate="2018-06-26T19:32:31.310" Score="1" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;In our book under 改錯句 there is the following exercise:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xOv0X.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xOv0X.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外邊很冷，快把大衣穿穿！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume they consider it wrong because the object is not definite. Is that so, or is there any other reason?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the context makes it clear that we are talking about a specific 大衣，would the sentence be ok, or do I absolutely need to grammatically express the definite nature by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那件大衣/你的大衣/爸爸送給你的大衣⋯?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;according to our book, reduplication of the verb makes the predicate complex, fulfilling the requirement for 把字句。 The example given is: 把桌子擦擦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-06-26T19:43:35.090" LastActivityDate="2018-10-22T12:38:21.467" Title="快把大衣穿穿！When is it wrong?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30420" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30422" CreationDate="2018-06-26T20:05:29.810" Score="4" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the word 变形金刚 in a short children's story that I read and Pleco dictionary states that it refers to either shape-shifting warriors protecting the Buddha, or Transformers (which Google displays almost exclusively if you search the term).  Obviously the connection between the 2 meanings is clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm unsure what is the meaning of 刚 in this phrase.  I asked my wife but she even believed the character is 钢 so didn't have a suitable answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a historic meaning of 刚, or a historical transformation (!) from another character to this current one, which would enlighten me as to why this character is used in this phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9814" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-06-29T05:18:40.940" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T05:18:40.940" Title="What is the meaning of 刚 in 变形金刚?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30419" CreationDate="2018-06-26T20:24:17.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ludi wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;according to our book, reduplication of the verb makes the predicate complex, fulfilling the requirement for (&lt;strong&gt;把&lt;/strong&gt;)字句&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reduplication of verb imply the verb is in 'a slight degree', 'a casual manner' or 'tentative manner'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃 = eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃吃 =  (slightly/ casually) eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;试 = try&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;试试 = (slightly/ tentatively) try&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first part of the sentence '外邊很冷' is a reason; the second part of the sentence '快把大衣穿穿 is a request/ command, you can switch the positions of the 'request/ command' and the 'reason' and the meaning would be the same. '快把大衣穿穿, (because) 外邊很冷'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since this sentence request/ command  the object to do something definite, it shouldn't be in reduplication form that implies it is in 'slight', 'casual' or 'tentatively' manner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;user3a is correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外邊很冷，快把大衣「穿上」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;把 is not an important factor in choosing reduplicate the verb or not.&#xA;You shouldn't  reduplicate 穿 in &quot;外邊很冷，快穿上大衣&quot; neither.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-21T17:39:25.663" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T17:39:25.663" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30420" CreationDate="2018-06-26T20:30:10.780" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;「剛」originally meant &lt;em&gt;unyielding/stubborn/strong&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;金剛&lt;/strong&gt; is a traditional phrase which is also used to translate a Buddhist word from Sanskrit (&lt;strong&gt;वज्र&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;vajra&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Vajra&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (PIE root: &lt;em&gt;*weǵ-&lt;/em&gt;, English descendants: &lt;em&gt;watch, wake, &lt;strong&gt;vigor&lt;/strong&gt;, vigil&lt;/em&gt;) is seen by Buddhists as variously a &lt;em&gt;thunderbolt&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;diamond&lt;/em&gt;, symbolising &lt;em&gt;extreme hardness/power/indestructibility&lt;/em&gt;, and by semantic extension a kind of symbol or weapon, and further extension a guardian (spirit) which holds this weapon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you’ve already seen, 變形金剛 is a reference to Buddhist temple guardian statues (see 四大金剛) which each hold a kind of &lt;em&gt;vajra&lt;/em&gt; (the weapon).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-06-28T10:57:38.960" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T10:57:38.960" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30408" CreationDate="2018-06-26T23:19:09.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;My co-workers use English when they talk amongst themselves&quot;.&#xA;我的同事们之间用英语聊天儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T23:19:09.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30420" CreationDate="2018-06-27T02:43:46.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://wapbaike.baidu.com/item/%E9%87%91%E5%88%9A%E4%B8%8D%E5%9D%8F%E4%B9%8B%E8%BA%AB/20397859&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;baidu baike&lt;/a&gt;, 金刚 refers to 金刚石 diamond, which is very hard/firm/tough to break. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, figuratively, 金刚 can refer to someone whose body is as hard/strong/firm as 金刚石, implying he is very strong and powerful. For example, 四大金刚，金刚不坏之身， etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;变形金刚 is '金刚' whose body can shift and form different objects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-27T02:52:45.837" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T02:52:45.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30415" CreationDate="2018-06-27T04:58:48.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;费 in 费电 means &quot;spend/ cost&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;耗 in 耗电 means &quot;consume/ use up&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;cost&lt;/strong&gt; $24 worth of electricity a year = 每年花(&lt;strong&gt;費&lt;/strong&gt;)24美元的電力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;consume&lt;/strong&gt; 5000kw of electricity a year = 每年消(&lt;strong&gt;耗&lt;/strong&gt;)5000千瓦的電力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'费电' doesn't mean 'waste electricity';  '浪費電力' does&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;费 = spend&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;浪費 = wastefully spend = waste&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-06-27T05:05:27.377" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T05:05:27.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27772" CreationDate="2018-06-27T07:41:38.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a complex feeling about Chinese &lt;em&gt;trashy-novel&lt;/em&gt; &quot;fever&quot; in the West...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;OK, time for the answer.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Translating literature is far beyond correctness. I'm not an expert, so I'd just bring you some suggestions.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;For the title:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Thousand Miles To Become A God&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Although a thousand is ten hundreds, the meaning of this title is not away from the original one.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;For name of the book:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't know if the book appears more than once in this novel, but if it doesn't, it will still be fine even if we just name it by our instinct. By my observation, most authors of this kind of novels don't really care about proper names.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;On Heavenly Principles&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;宪 has the meaning of &quot;principle&quot; as in 宪法 (constitution). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T07:41:38.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30415" CreationDate="2018-06-27T08:13:12.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the context you're using these words. If you say something is &quot;费电&quot;, take it as adj., then it mainly means the device consumed a lot of electricity. Sometimes, if you take it as a verb, then it means the device is consuming (usually, a lot of) electricity. So from these, you may see &quot;费电&quot; is commonly derogatory. While &quot;耗电&quot; is just a neutral word, which is used to describe the power consumption. For example, this device &quot;耗电&quot; 1kw. This is a just neutral description. However, if you use an adjective word, like &quot;很(pretty much)&quot;, before &quot;耗电&quot;, then it also become a derogatory word which means it consumes a lot of power. So if you're try to pick a word in phone app, in most of case, I suggest &quot;耗电&quot;. For example, tap the button of &quot;耗电排行(Power Ranking)&quot;, to show a list of apps with their power consumption statistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T08:13:12.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30428" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30431" CreationDate="2018-06-27T08:16:29.180" Score="0" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was some HK movie that translated (read: transliterated) &lt;code&gt;gigolo&lt;/code&gt; as something like &lt;code&gt;基哥儿龙&lt;/code&gt;（音）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot find anything online with different combinations of characters for &lt;code&gt;ji-ger-long&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas what the phrase was?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T13:08:37.470" Title="Gigolo translated as 基哥儿龙（音）?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30420" CreationDate="2018-06-27T08:29:08.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nothing to do with &quot;钢&quot;. Agree with @droooze, just one comment that @droooze is using traditional Chinese. 變形金剛 is just 变形金刚 in simplified Chinese. BTW, there is another translation of 金刚, in English -- King Kong. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T08:29:08.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30402" CreationDate="2018-06-27T09:13:19.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;硬 in here means hard way , so 硬捉 means hard way to catch &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19342" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T09:13:19.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30428" CreationDate="2018-06-27T13:08:37.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it is a Hong Kong movie, it is likely in Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/941/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;基&lt;/a&gt; is transliteration of 'gay'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/gei1/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[5] (Cantonese slang only) phonetic translation of &quot;gay&quot; i.e. male homosexual e.g. 搞基,&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/626/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;哥&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/go1/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is common to address a man with a  suffix  &quot;哥&quot;, e.g. 晶哥 [zing1 go1*4], 叻哥 [lek1 go1*4].*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;remember &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%A8%8B%E5%9B%BD%E8%8D%A3/9510680?fromtitle=%E7%8A%80%E5%88%A9%E5%93%A5&amp;amp;fromid=34025&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;犀利哥&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/50340/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;牛郎&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/ngau4 long4 /&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a gigolo, a male sex worker&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牛郎 is a male sex worker (serving older female mostly) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;基哥牛郎 most likely refers to 'male sex worker (specialized in serving male clients)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T13:08:37.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30432" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30433" CreationDate="2018-06-27T13:22:11.240" Score="4" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;The terms &lt;em&gt;jianli&lt;/em&gt; 简历 and &lt;em&gt;lülibiao&lt;/em&gt; 履历表 are both translated as CV (curriculum vitae) or résumé in English, but what’s the difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question has previously been &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/10365087.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;asked on Baidu Zhidao&lt;/a&gt;, but the answer wasn’t very clear:&#xA;it basically said a &lt;em&gt;jianli&lt;/em&gt; is what you hand in to your potential employer when you apply for a job, and that it should be designed to get you into the next phase of the application, namely an interview, whereas a &lt;em&gt;lülibiao&lt;/em&gt; should contain your qualifications and previous job stations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what the Hanyu da cidian and the Longman Advanced Chinese Dictionary say about the two terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;汉语大词典&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  履历表：记载个人社会经历的表格&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  简历：个人简要的履历&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Longman Advanced Chinese Dictionary&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  履歷表：記載姓名、年籍、通訊、學歷、經歷等資料的表件。多作爲求職之用。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  簡歷：簡要的履歷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These definitions look very similar, if not the same.&#xA;So, what’s the difference between the two terms? Is it just regional?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastEditorUserId="11341" LastEditDate="2018-06-28T09:33:46.407" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T10:32:36.343" Title="What’s the difference between a jianli 简历 and a lülibiao 履历表?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30432" CreationDate="2018-06-27T13:27:34.920" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;履历表 is more commonly simplified as: &lt;strong&gt;履历&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;简历 is defined by &lt;em&gt;Guifan&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;名 简要的履历&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 简历 is a simple 履历表.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This idea is also shown in &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; where &lt;strong&gt;履历表&lt;/strong&gt; is defined as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;biographical sketch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;strong&gt;简历&lt;/strong&gt; is defined as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;biographical notes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a lot of confusion in English as well about the differences between biosketches, resumes and CVs - I'm sure it doesn't get much simpler in other languages either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-06-27T13:32:41.703" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T13:32:41.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30432" CreationDate="2018-06-27T13:32:42.310" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the dictionary said, 简历 is perceived as 简要的(brief) 履历.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on this difference, 简历 is used more in the context of resume used for job search; it's used to impress the interviewer within a short time, so it's usually terse, brief, summary, with key point emphasized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;履历 is used more generally. Comparing with 简历 it usually contains more details, and is complete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-06-27T15:46:42.280" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T15:46:42.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30435" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30443" CreationDate="2018-06-27T17:33:24.833" Score="9" ViewCount="2309" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9414/does-%E5%A4%9A-always-come-after-the-measure-word&quot;&gt;similar question&lt;/a&gt; has already been answered but I still have a lot of doubts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my understanding if a number is ≤9, you need to put &quot;多&quot; after the measure word (or after the name if it doesn't require a measure word), for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;两年多, 两个多小时, 两公斤多苹果, 四公里多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and if the number is &gt;9, you need to put &quot;多&quot; before the measure word, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;二十多年, 二十多个小时, 二十多公斤苹果, 四十多公里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I told my friend &quot;十一多年&quot; he corrected me with &quot;十一年多&quot; saying that if the number ends with a number which is not 0 (like 1 or 2), you have to put &quot;多&quot; after the measure word, but if the number ends with a 0, you have to put &quot;多&quot; before the measure word (二十多年), except for 10, which requires &quot;多&quot; after the measure word (十年多).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I then asked for another example, this time with 天 instead of 年. In this case he said that both &quot;十多天&quot; and &quot;十天多&quot; are acceptable. The first one with the meaning of &quot;from 10 to 20 days&quot; and the second one with the meaning of &quot;from 10 to 10.1/10.2/10.3/... days&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought of an example that was written in that other question I linked at the beginning. If you add &quot;多&quot; at the end it refers to a number with decimals:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;$50.5&quot;(五十元多) or &quot;$55&quot;(五十多元)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact apparently this is also the case of &quot;小时&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;十个小时多=from 10 to 11 (10.3 / 10.8...) or 十个多小时=from 10 to 20 hours&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I understood correctly this would add to the rules I wrote above a third one: if the &quot;多&quot; is at the end of a sentence the number will gain the meaning of a number with decimals. But why this is not the case of 年? Also, because of that I guess it's not correct to say, for example, &quot;两多张床&quot;, because you can't really count bed with a number with a decimal. How do I say &quot;more than two beds&quot; then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there specific rules depending on the measure word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19709" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T18:32:34.387" Title="How to correctly use &quot;多&quot; to say &quot;more than&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30436" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-27T19:42:30.010" Score="1" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;While trying to understand the complete meaning 体会, the examples I found online had many different uses when translated into English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;体会&#xA;to know from experience; to learn through experience; to realize; understanding; experience&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请你谈一点个人体会好吗? &#xA;Will you please say a few words about your personal understanding [experience]?&#xA;有时候我们也需要生病一下来体会到健康的好处。 &#xA;Sometimes we need to be sick to appreciate the blessing of being healthy.&#xA;他们体会不到生活的快乐和鼓舞。 &#xA;They cannot experience the joy and inspiration of life.&#xA;我也是一位母亲，有三个漂亮的女儿，我能体会她的苦楚。 &#xA;And, as a mother of three beautiful daughters, I could feel her pain.&#xA;我能体会到你的感受。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here it seems as though the most common use is to understand in relationship to what someone else is going through, having been through that ourselves. Is that correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19781" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T16:23:17.863" Title="What are the different uses of 体会?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30436" CreationDate="2018-06-27T20:25:20.900" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of them are correct.  But for the first one:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;请你谈一点(您的)个人体会好吗 - Will you please say a few words about your personal understanding [experience]?  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends if 'experience' is a verb or a noun here.  In case of a noun, '经历' might be a better fit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T20:25:20.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30438" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30442" CreationDate="2018-06-27T20:40:13.853" Score="0" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I search both online I get the same definition of &#xA;to struggle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the different use of them then if the meaning is the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19781" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-06-29T05:18:17.613" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T07:14:47.473" Title="What is the difference between 挣扎 and 奋斗?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30420" CreationDate="2018-06-27T20:59:06.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The name 变形金刚 is created / translated when the origin transformer cartoon series (トランスフォーマー) was bought from Japan.  As with other answers, 金刚 is a common references from the four protector deities - 四大金剛 - that guards the gate of heaven (China) or Buddhist temple (India).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to your question, 剛 have a implication of indestructible / unyielding. 金, as a commonly known hardest metal at the time being, is added to the phase to enhance its meaning.  Thus it is widely used such as:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金剛狼 - wolverine&lt;br&gt;&#xA;金剛戰士 - Power Rangers  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2018-06-27T21:37:12.583" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T21:37:12.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30438" CreationDate="2018-06-27T21:07:57.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;奋斗：to make a great effort to achieve something, usually striving to be successful. It's a positive word, because you have a target to achieve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挣扎：try to struggle (to get free), usually we say someone is trapped by something bad, and try to struggle from it. It's much more passive feeling, because you have to struggle in order to escape from something bad to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See these expressions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们要迎难而上，努力&lt;strong&gt;奋斗&lt;/strong&gt;，争取获得技术突破。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们已经被包围了，赶快投降，不要做无谓的&lt;strong&gt;挣扎&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-06-28T14:10:35.363" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T14:10:35.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30435" CreationDate="2018-06-27T22:30:22.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I never think about these rules you concluded because I'm a native speaker... When I look into your rules, I find this interesting.&#xA;But let's see this, I changed a little bit from your cases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;十个小时多=from 10 to 11 (10.3 / 10.8...) or 十个多小时=from 10 to 11 (10.3 / 10.8...) &#xA;十小时多=from 10 to 11 (10.3 / 10.8...) or 十多小时/十多个小时/十几小时/十几个小时=from 10 to 20 hours &#xA;十一个小时多=from 11 to 12 (11.3 / 11.8...) or 十一个多小时=from 11 to 12 (11.3 / 11.8...)&#xA;十一小时多=from 11 to 12 (11.3 / 11.8...) or 十一多小时（no such expression）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, 十多个小时 is the same as 十几个小时 =from 10 to 20 hours. In my opinion, 十个多小时 is still =from 10 to 11. And if you have already mentioned 十一, then it should not be 十一多小时， the same, we don't say 十一多年.&#xA;I know this may make you more confused. But be careful, you're using two measure/unit words when you describe hours：个(measure word) and 小时(measure word or unit word)。If you remove the measure word 个， it is the same rule you describe 小时 and 年, because here, the 小时 and 年 are both measure words and unit words。 When you add measure word 个， then the 小时 becomes only unit word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all your cases, 小时 is very special because you can add measure word -- 个 among the number and unit word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find a section to give you more info:&#xA;在常见的外语中，一般来说可数名词没有量词，直接把数词后面跟随可数名词，例如：three dogs。外国人学习汉语时，常常对可数名词使用量词感到别扭，记忆量词与可数名词的固定搭配用法就更困难了。全世界各种语言中，不可数名词都要与作为度量单位的量词搭配使用，这是普遍的必然规律，例如：一张纸 a piece of paper; 三克糖 three grams of sugar; 两杯水 two cups of water. 所以语言学家研究的焦点是可数名词的量词这一汉语特有的语法现象。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK. Let's see the next topic, if you want to say more than two beds, you may just say 几张床 or 多张床，though 几张床/多张床= more than 1 beds. Or you can just say 两张床以上， or you can say approximate numbers, such as 三四张床/七八张床... There is a special fixed usage: 三五张床/三五个人/三五只猫, it may because there is an idiom in Chinese, called 三五成群. You cannot use other expressions like 四六张床 or 六八张床.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope you're still having a clear mind now. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-06-28T18:32:34.387" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T18:32:34.387" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30438" CreationDate="2018-06-27T22:51:19.577" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奋(to erect) 斗 (to fight)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奋斗 (summon up all of one's will and strength and fight) = &lt;strong&gt;to strive&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;to struggle&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;metaphorically&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挣 is a pulling motion, 扎 is a thrusting motion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挣扎 (pull and thrust) = &lt;strong&gt;to struggle&lt;/strong&gt; (graphic description of a physical struggle or metaphorical expression of desperately trying to break free from a situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奋斗 and 挣扎 are both intransitive verb. 奋斗 has the meanings of 'fight hard/ work hard' and 'struggle'(&lt;em&gt;metaphorically&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挣扎 also means 'struggle'(&lt;em&gt;metaphorically or physically&lt;/em&gt;) , but it express a stronger sense of 'desperation'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We can describe an animal get trapped in a net, struggles to break free as 挣扎, but we cannot use 奋斗 to describe this physical struggle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We can describe a person’s struggles to advance in the society with either 挣扎 or 奋斗, (挣扎 expresses a more desperate manner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這局棋已經無望了，但他仍在苦苦&lt;strong&gt;挣扎&lt;/strong&gt; - This game is already hopeless, but he is still desperately &lt;strong&gt;struggling&lt;/strong&gt; (to escape defeat)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雖然十年未奪得頭銜，但他仍在努力&lt;strong&gt;奋斗&lt;/strong&gt; - Although he hasn't won any title for ten years, he is still working hard and &lt;strong&gt;striving&lt;/strong&gt; (to win one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T07:14:47.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30435" CreationDate="2018-06-27T23:50:10.030" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, all the measure words, including 年，小时，and etc, work the same way. Let's take 年 for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;多年&lt;/strong&gt; should be used &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; after numbers x10, like 10, 20, 30, .... For&#xA;example, 十多年：teens; 20多年：twenties; 30多年：thirties; ... ...&#xA;90多年：nineties(90-99); Thus, you can't say 9多年，11多年，...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;年多&lt;/strong&gt; can be used after any positive integer numbers like,&#xA;1,2,3,...,100,...; 年多 connotes &lt;strong&gt;a bit more than&lt;/strong&gt;, usually less than&#xA;1 year. For example, 4年 &gt; &lt;strong&gt;3年多&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; 3年.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same thing for other measure words. Both 五十元多 and 五十多元 are correct, but mean differently. &quot;&lt;em&gt;十个小时多=from 10 to 11 (10.3 / 10.8...) or 十多个小时=from 10 to 20 hours&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is correct too. But expressions like 55多小时 and 55多元 are incorrect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the specific question &quot;&lt;em&gt;How do I say &quot;more than two beds&quot; then?&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, you can use 多于, 不止 or 比...多. &lt;em&gt;More&lt;/em&gt;: 多; &lt;em&gt;than&lt;/em&gt;: 比 or 于, so &lt;em&gt;more than&lt;/em&gt;: 比...多, or 多于; For example, there are more than two beds in my home: 我家的床多于两张; 我家的床比两张多; 我家的床不止两张;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-28T13:01:36.500" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T13:01:36.500" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30436" CreationDate="2018-06-28T00:24:40.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;体会 connotes that how you feel, what you learn from your experience. In Chinese, 体会有体验和领会的意思. It can be interpreted differently based on the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take one of your sentences as an example.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请你谈一点个人体会好吗; Can you talk a bit about your takeaways (from there)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T00:24:40.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30415" CreationDate="2018-06-28T07:12:09.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of phone apps, 这个app很费电 vs 这个app很耗电: there is a subtle difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个app很费电 sounds that the App consumes more power than you think it's necessary. It can be a way of complaining. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个app很耗电 is  neutral. It sounds that the App consume lots of power, which is necessary by its nature. For example, a camera App is generally considered as more power-consuming App. You will accept its consumption because it's the common sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, people might not really care about the nuance and sometimes they use them interchangeably.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that nuance applies to other contexts as well. For example, we say: 空调很耗电的, it's the common sense that AC consumes more power than other household appliances, so you wouldn't complain about it. On the other hand, 这空调很费电的 sounds like this AC consumes more power than any other ACs(consume more than it's necessary). The latter sentence can be a complaining.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this would help you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T07:12:09.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30446" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-28T09:27:10.890" Score="10" ViewCount="2734" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pleco has the example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;碗掉地下就碎了。&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BGOAf.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BGOAf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not 地上？ I have been corrected many times for similar sentences, with the explanation that 地下 means „subterranean“?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T15:02:29.027" Title="碗掉地下，Why not 地上？" Tags="&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="13" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-28T09:45:20.700" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look for »地下« in the PLC dictionary (where you found your example), you’ll find that it can also mean »on the ground«: »从地下捡起« – »pick up from the ground«.&#xA;ABC also says 地下 means »(on) the ground«, Guifan says it means »地面上«. And so forth…&#xA;Nine of the dictionaries I have installed in Plecodict offer this meaning.&#xA;Two of these nine dictionaries add a &lt;em&gt;dialect&lt;/em&gt; tag and two refer to its alternative 地上:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;PLC: &lt;em&gt;dialect&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  KEY: »regional, e.g. Beijing«&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Guifan: »也叫地上(dìshang)«&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  LMA: 另見地下  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this is about the pronunciation &lt;em&gt;dìxia&lt;/em&gt; (轻声) of 地下.&#xA;If you look for the pronunciation &lt;em&gt;dìxià&lt;/em&gt; (四声) of the same characters, you’ll find &lt;em&gt;underground&lt;/em&gt; etc. as its translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastEditorUserId="11341" LastEditDate="2018-06-28T10:04:26.620" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T10:04:26.620" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-28T09:46:58.107" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The referring prospective is different between 地上 and 地下.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;地上&lt;/strong&gt; is referring from the prospective of &lt;strong&gt;the ground&lt;/strong&gt; or t&lt;strong&gt;he current position of the object&lt;/strong&gt;. The object is above the ground (without describing the direction). E.g. 碗在地上/ 地上有個碗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;地下&lt;/strong&gt; is referring from the prospective of &lt;strong&gt;the original position of the object along with it's direction/movement&lt;/strong&gt;. &#xA;The direction of &quot;碗掉地下&quot; is towards to the ground and the ground is below the referring object (碗). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 碗(bowl)&#xA;  |&#xA;  |&#xA; 掉(drops on)&#xA;  |&#xA;  |&#xA;  V&#xA;地下(the ground)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;地下&quot; applies to the situation that you drop something on the ground. E.g. 碗掉地下/往地下掉了個碗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19342" LastEditorUserId="19342" LastEditDate="2018-06-29T09:56:50.207" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T09:56:50.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30432" CreationDate="2018-06-28T10:32:36.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays in China, 简历 is broadly used everywhere. It is almost always equivalent to C.V. or resume in English.&#xA;However, 履历 is more formal, mostly appears in written, and often used by people of older generation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19939" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T10:32:36.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30450" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30452" CreationDate="2018-06-28T11:33:46.907" Score="2" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;电影展示在盲人面前&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;不只是一时的多彩，电影改变着每一个听电影的盲人的人生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It uses 的 after 面前, and the sentence would mean something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The theater shows not only the splendid view temporarily in front of the blind person, but also changes the life of each blind person who is listening to the movie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what does 的 mean in this sentence? I understand that sometimes things after 的 is omitted if it refers to people and is obvious, but in this case it seems to be not people and not obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why is 的 used here and what does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T23:32:31.423" Title="What does 的 mean in 电影展示在盲人面前的不只是一时的多彩" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-28T11:47:06.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;both are profectly fine, as a native Chinese speaker, I frequenty use both words up and down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15702" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T11:47:06.420" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30450" CreationDate="2018-06-28T12:01:43.900" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;「的」in that context means &lt;em&gt;that which is...&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;電影展示在盲人面前「的」不衹是一時的多彩，電影改變着每一個聽電影的盲人的人生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;That which movies exhibit to visually-impaired people are not just fleeting displays of magnificence; for those people that listen, movies change their whole life.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;紅車 (&lt;em&gt;Red car&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;紅「的」是車 (&lt;em&gt;That which is red is the car&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grammatically, what's being cut out here is something like 東西 or 事情. The full expression of the above example might be something like 紅的&lt;strong&gt;東西&lt;/strong&gt;是車 (&lt;em&gt;The red thing is the car&lt;/em&gt; &amp;gt; &lt;em&gt;That which is red is the car&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T12:09:45.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30435" CreationDate="2018-06-28T12:56:12.233" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’d like to cite Liu Yuehua 刘月华.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Liu’s Chinese grammar (实用现代汉语语法), the part on numbers and measure words, the section about words that are added after numbers to express approximation, states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;数词后加上表示概数的词语。主要有“来”、“多”、。。。。。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [多]　“多”表示比前面的数词所表示的数目略多。如“二十多个（人）”，“五百多斤（米）”。“多”的位置以及用法与“来”一样：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A 数词（以０结尾）＋多＋量词（各种量词）（＋名词）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B 数词（以１。。。９结尾及１０）＋量词（表示连续量）＋“多”＋名词&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if the number ends in 0, the 多 follows directly, followed by any measure and, in the end, an optional noun.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If the number ends in 1 to 9 or in 10, it is followed by a measure (describing continuity?), then the 多, and finally a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn’t read through the longer description of “来“, so I cannot say if there are any exceptions that would also apply to “多” (since Liu says 多 is used similarly to 来).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T12:56:12.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30450" CreationDate="2018-06-28T13:06:52.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My expert says this number 1 的 is ‘what’. The other 3 are not what (explain that)!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电影展示在盲人面前的, 不只是一时的多彩，&#xA;(What a) film gives blind people , is not only a time of flamboyant (albeit imagined) colour, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电影改变着每一个听电影的盲人的人生。&#xA;films change the life of each blind person who listens to films.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T13:06:52.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-28T13:12:45.393" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I live in Hong Kong, and '地下' for us means ground. In buildings, the ground floor is called '地下'. I almost never use the term '地上', however, both sentences are actually fine to use.       &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;碗子掉在地下 means the bowl fell on the floor, whereas 碗子掉在地上 means it's on top or on the floor. I interpret 掉在地下 as something fell &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; the ground, while I interpret 在地上 when the thing is already on the ground.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19940" LastEditorUserId="18421" LastEditDate="2018-06-29T07:23:28.363" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T07:23:28.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-28T13:23:09.020" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the reference is different when we say 地上 or 地下. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference to a person, you can say 地下有什么东西 because the ground is always under you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference to the ground, you can say 地上有什么东西 because things are always above/on the ground. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why we say 地面上有什么==地上有什么. But 地面下有什么 means what's under the ground. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地面上/下 is clear about the reference(ground), while the reference for 地上/下 is vague. So, 地上/下 can be valid to mean the same simultaneously, while 地面上 and 地面下 mean differently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this explains a bit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-28T13:37:10.087" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T13:37:10.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30438" CreationDate="2018-06-28T13:39:19.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I often hear 努力奋斗 in speeches by 习近平 and other 党员们&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他指出：“新时代青年要乘新时代春风，在祖国的万里长空放飞青春梦想，以社会主义建设者和接班人的使命担当，为全面建成小康社会、全面建设社会主义现代化强国而&lt;strong&gt;努力奋斗&lt;/strong&gt;，让中华民族伟大复兴在我们的奋斗中梦想成真！”请随“学习中国”小编一起学习。　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“青年人的梦想有多雄奇，青年人的&lt;strong&gt;奋斗有多努力&lt;/strong&gt;，中国就有多美丽。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't hear 努力挣扎 so much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人民不是抽象的符号，而是一个一个具体的人，有血有肉，有情感，有爱恨，有梦想，也有内心的冲突和&lt;strong&gt;挣扎&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think they are not the same. When you strive, 奋斗, you want to be better, improve something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you feel threatened, you may struggle: 不要挣扎了。&#xA;Don't fight it. (you won't achieve anything)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T13:39:19.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30319" CreationDate="2018-06-28T13:44:51.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Initialisation and tools for Sink&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CSR8670 application&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;application context&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;data storage area&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;initialize configuration&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;event configuration&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;key press configuration&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;LED configuration&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ringtone configuration&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;notification alert/sound configuration&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;other configurations &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Connection&lt;br&gt;&#xA;lib initialization&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;HFP, A2DP, AVRCP initialisation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15702" LastEditorUserId="943" LastEditDate="2018-06-30T09:51:20.390" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T09:51:20.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30459" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-28T14:12:40.250" Score="0" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;When researching online, finding an exact definition was hard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean to make oneself hard? Or like to harden yourself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you give me a few examples?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19781" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-06-29T05:17:53.823" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T05:17:53.823" Title="What is the meaning of 磨练?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30459" CreationDate="2018-06-28T14:30:05.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;磨练 / mó liàn /&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;put oneself through the mill; temper oneself; steel oneself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;go through trails and tribulations;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经受艰难困苦的磨练&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cultivate talents;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨练人才&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A side note: You should have a Chinese dictionary handy. I've seen some folks in this site use Pleco.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T14:30:05.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30459" CreationDate="2018-06-28T15:24:45.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;磨练： temper oneself hard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在身为罗马奴隶的艰苦磨练中，宾汉变得更强壮、更有耐力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ben-Hur's years of enduring hardship as a Roman slave strengthened him and increased his endurance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唯有艰苦磨练才能强化心灵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, you might see 磨炼(smelt) instead of 磨练(exercise/training). There are some disputation on which one is correct. But main idea is that 磨炼 is sort of wrong words, but you may understand it as a synonym.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T15:24:45.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30459" CreationDate="2018-06-28T15:47:32.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;磨練&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to hone&lt;/strong&gt; / to temper/ to steel (one's skill set, temperament or condition.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨練球技 - to hone one's football skill&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨練刀法 - to hone one's knife skill&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨練身心 - to temper/ steel one's body and mind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;endurance (n) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一個磨練 - an endurance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一個艱苦的磨練 - a tough endurance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鍛練(to forge) is a term similar to 磨練(to hone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鍛練身體 (to temper/forge one's body) ; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鍛練技巧 (to temper/forge one's skill set)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨練技巧 (to hone one's skill)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一個鍛練 - a workout&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;磨練&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/%E7%A3%A8%E7%B7%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google&lt;/a&gt;: hone &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/23314/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CantoDict&lt;/a&gt;: grin and bear it; practice hard; self-discipline&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.linguee.com/chinese-english/translation/%E7%A3%A8%E7%B7%B4.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Linguee&lt;/a&gt;: hone ; temper oneself / endurance (n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T15:47:32.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30436" CreationDate="2018-06-28T16:23:17.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically correct, I think. When you use the word 体会, you may experience it by your self or you may just try to understand just like you have experienced it. So if you say 我能体会你的感受，mostly you cannot experience instead of me, but you can understand it or feel it, you may learn it and have the same feelings as mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T16:23:17.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-28T16:50:02.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;地下 = underground&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地上 = on the floor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the most natural way to express this could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;碗掉到地上就碎了。&#xA;I'd think 地下 in this context sounds awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a native writer of Traditional Chinese, and I often find the way Simplified Chinese writers write awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T16:50:02.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-28T17:08:03.793" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you being corrected by Cantonese-speaking people?&#xA;In Mandarin, I would say 碗掉地上. I rarely hear people say 碗掉地下, although it's correct. The difference between 地上 and 地下 is prospective, like the other answer has mentioned.&#xA;In Cantonese, people usually say 碗掉地下 or 碗跌落地下 in speaking, 地上 sounds formal.&#xA;In conclusion, I'd suggest sticking with 掉地上(writing and speaking) because nowadays 掉地上 is used way more often than 掉地下, unless you are speaking Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19945" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T17:08:03.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-28T18:49:00.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Never mind.  We can say and understand both. People from different regions may have certain habit/custom to use one of them, but not a big problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think sometimes it also depends on our point of view. If we're staying high or standing on the ground, we might say 地下. Because we think the ground is far from us and we don't care about the real status of the things on the ground, but just follow our language habit/custom. If we squat on the ground, and try to do some research about something on the ground, we mostly say the things 在地上 because now we pay more attention on the real status about it. It is not under ground, so we must use 地上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T18:49:00.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-28T19:24:59.133" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always say 地上, no matter what kind of situation. I don't think 碗掉地下 make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19949" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T19:24:59.133" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30459" CreationDate="2018-06-28T21:50:13.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Difficult word to pin down, depends on what you wish to express.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;艰苦可磨练个性。&#xA;Hard work builds character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨练: build&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生活的磨练早已使他愤世嫉俗.&#xA;Experience had embittered his heart against the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生活的磨练: experience&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以预料, 那将是非常艰苦的磨练.&#xA;I expect it to be quite an ordeal.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;艰苦的磨练：quite an ordeal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T21:50:13.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30450" CreationDate="2018-06-28T23:32:31.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is quite simple if you change a little bit on your mind that there is something omitted after the first 的, we usually call it 东西. So you can read this:电影展示在盲人面前的（东西）不只是一时的多彩，电影改变着每一个听电影的盲人的人生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;东西：thing, stuff, substance, something that with entity or just abstract&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T23:32:31.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29062" CreationDate="2018-06-28T23:54:46.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here’s its website for your reference &#xA;Materials: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sc-top.org.tw/english/materials.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.sc-top.org.tw/english/materials.php&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Also click “Mock Test” you will get online exercise and free pdf download. It’ll be interesting to learn traditional script. Once you reach a higher level, you will also start to understand simpfiled one without extra effort. Keep learning &amp;amp; Good luck &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19953" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T23:54:46.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30209" CreationDate="2018-06-29T01:02:23.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;现在&quot;, &quot;正在&quot;, &quot;在&quot; all have the meaning of &quot;now&quot;, but have slightly differences. &quot;现在&quot; is more like &quot;nowadays&quot;, &quot;正在&quot; and &quot;在&quot; are equivalent to me, they are all like &quot;-ing&quot; in English. &quot;现在我正在学汉语&quot; sounds like &quot;Nowadays I'm learning Chinese&quot;.  &quot;我正在学汉语&quot; means &quot;I'm learning Chinese&quot;. &quot;现在我学汉语&quot; is weird, it's like &quot;Nowadays I learn Chinese&quot;.  And you are right, as a Chinese, &quot;正在&quot; and &quot;在&quot; are equal to me if you want to use them to express &quot;-ing&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19954" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T01:02:23.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-29T01:03:25.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me a Chinese native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They both make sense for me with the same meaning, and I use them equally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference is the way they express in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;掉地下 emphasizes that the blow was dropped DOWN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19956" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T01:03:25.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-29T01:20:23.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, to be a native speaker I think both of the two expressions right. But I personally prefer to use &quot;地上&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19958" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T01:20:23.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-29T06:17:10.083" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't have to struggle with it and please forget the &quot;地下&quot; if you want to present &quot;drop on the floor&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;地下&quot; is kind of geographical dialect expression and it's pronunciation is different from Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19961" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T06:17:10.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30476" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-29T06:28:09.357" Score="4" ViewCount="1555" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across an old teapot with inscriptions, but since I don’t speak Chinese, I have no means to know what is written on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two columns of five characters (four columns with twenty characters in total) on each side of the pot, and there is a seal on the bottom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please help me translate the inscriptions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GXyAh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o2Lqq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HqdnY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19963" LastEditorUserId="11341" LastEditDate="2018-06-29T07:24:02.270" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T15:45:57.297" Title="Meaning of seal and engraved characters on teapot" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30476" CreationDate="2018-06-29T06:34:39.097" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No idea on the first picture as it seems to be ancient writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for the 2nd and 3rd picture, it is a famous poem from this guy - &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Night Thoughts (靜夜思)&#xA;&#xA;床前明月光，   Bright shines the Moon before my bed;&#xA;疑是地上霜，   Methinks ’tis frost upon the earth.&#xA;舉頭望明月，   I watch the Moon, then bend my head&#xA;低頭思故鄉。   And miss the hamlet of my birth.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12517" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T06:34:39.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30478" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30510" CreationDate="2018-06-29T06:40:02.173" Score="4" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve seen that some users like to refer to a dictionary called &lt;strong&gt;bkrs&lt;/strong&gt; (or: 大 БКРС) in their comments.&#xA;I’ve been on the website (&lt;a href=&quot;https://bkrs.info&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://bkrs.info&lt;/a&gt;), but since I don’t know Russian, I don’t understand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary is very user-friendly: when the page is loaded, the cursor is placed in the search field automatically, and when a Chinese term is entered, you get definitions in Russian and Chinese as well as a plethora of example sentences (with Russian translations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what is the source for all this information?&#xA;Is it reliable?&#xA;Is it worth the navigational effort for people who don’t read or speak Russian?&#xA;Is there a print edition and who is the publisher / maintainer / editor?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, could someone who is familiar with bkrs and knows Russian add the dictionary to »&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese&quot;&gt;Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese&lt;/a&gt;«?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T08:06:04.117" Title="bkrs Chinese dictionary?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30480" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30486" CreationDate="2018-06-29T06:46:17.143" Score="1" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们每个人都是世界公民，千万不应该有低碳生活与己无关的想法，即别人都过“低碳生活”，我自己过“高碳生活”也&lt;strong&gt;无妨&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;无妨&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;might as well&quot;, &quot;there is no harm&quot;, or &quot;no matter&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it then makes no sense, since the meaning would become something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Every person is the world citizen, so should never have the idea that low-carbon life is irrelevant with yourself. That is, others make a low-carbon life while I make a high-carbon life is also no harm (无妨).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This does not make sense, as 无妨 seems to be positive connotation for the sentence 我自己过“高碳生活”, which is incompatible with the author's point of view, which proposes the low-carbon life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the meaning of 无妨 here? Is my understanding here correct in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-06-29T09:21:05.990" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T22:09:12.727" Title="What does 无妨 mean in 即别人都过“低碳生活”，我自己过“高碳生活”也无妨?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30480" CreationDate="2018-06-29T06:55:57.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们每个人都是世界公民，千万不应该有低碳生活与己无关的想法，既别人都过“低碳生活”，我自己过“高碳生活”也无妨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We are all living on this planet, and we definitely shouldn’t think that a low-carbon lifestyle doesn’t have anything to do with us personally.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;And neither should we think that, since there are so many other people already following this low-carbon lifestyle, it wouldn’t matter if we personally had a very high carbon footprint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of this is that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A low-carbon lifestyle is important for the world, and we should know this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Many have realized this and follow a low-carbon lifestyle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But the fact that many people are producing very little carbon is not a reason for you personally to think that there &lt;strong&gt;is no harm&lt;/strong&gt; if you produce more than others. (Because if everybody thinks that way, then everybody will be living a high-carbon lifestyle again.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T07:09:47.957" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30476" CreationDate="2018-06-29T08:23:20.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The seal is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;汪寅仙製&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means &lt;em&gt;made by 汪寅仙&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-06-29T08:54:31.613" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T08:54:31.613" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30480" CreationDate="2018-06-29T08:25:13.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bet you will have no issue understanding this if I rearrange it a little:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们每个人都是世界公民，千万不应该有 &lt;strong&gt;“低碳生活与己无关，既别人都过“低碳生活”，我自己过“高碳生活”也无妨”&lt;/strong&gt; 的想法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original sentence has a slightly odd structure in my opinion. The way I have arranged it here is better and is how you should write yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T08:25:13.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30480" CreationDate="2018-06-29T08:55:29.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not a direct answer but a proposal of corrections that more or less preserve the core meaning of the given sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我们每个人都是世界公民，千万不应该有低碳生活与己无关的想法——既然别人都过“低碳生活”，我自己过“高碳生活”也无妨。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我们每个人都是世界公民，千万不应该有“低碳生活与己无关”的想法，即“别人都过‘低碳生活’，我自己过‘高碳生活’也无妨”的想法。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="943" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T08:55:29.997" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2018-06-29T08:55:29.997" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30166" CreationDate="2018-06-29T09:54:02.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your first question about  &quot;do I have to choose among these, or can I choose any others?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following sentence is perfectly fine: 非得选这些里面的一个吗？还是能选别的？&#xA;It means must i choose among these? Or can i choose others? Which fits what you asked in english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有这些吗，没有别的？Using this is fine, but might come out a bit rude because it makes the listener think your expecting more and can come out offensive to some. What you had originally is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your 2nd question about lying:&#xA;其中一个在说谎，但我不清楚是哪一个&#xA;Which translates to: One of them is lying, but I am not sure which one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19969" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T09:54:02.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30480" CreationDate="2018-06-29T10:17:51.323" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you post under Philipp's answer is correct, which I have upvoted it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即 here indeed means '&lt;strong&gt;that is&lt;/strong&gt;'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 低碳生活与己无关的 &lt;strong&gt;想法&lt;/strong&gt;:  &lt;strong&gt;the notion&lt;/strong&gt; of excluding ourselves from the concept &quot;low-carbon life&quot;; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即： that is (&lt;strong&gt;the notion[想法]&lt;/strong&gt; is);   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别人都过“低碳生活”，我自己过“高碳生活”也无妨。: Since other people live a low-carbon life (already), it's ok/not a big deal for me to live a high-carbon life. (apparently this is a selfish notion, which the author is trying to persuade people not to have.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无妨 means &lt;em&gt;there is no harm&lt;/em&gt;. I interpret 无妨 here as &lt;strong&gt;ok/not a big deal&lt;/strong&gt; according to the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-29T10:24:41.967" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T10:24:41.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30476" CreationDate="2018-06-29T10:38:31.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The inscriptions are actually a poem written by Li Bai (李白). It was originally written in the Tang Dynasty (唐朝). The poem is called 靜夜思.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The poem goes as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Night Thoughts  (Thoughts in the Still of the Night)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Moon shines brightly before my bed;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It looks like there is a layer of frost on the ground.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I look up to the sky and see the bright moon,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Then look back, thinking of my home village.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese version (original version) goes as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;靜夜思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;床前明月光，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;疑是地上霜，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;擧頭望明月，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;低頭思故鄉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The poem is in an AABA rhyme style, which means the last character of the first, second, and fourth line rhyme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19940" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T10:38:31.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30476" CreationDate="2018-06-29T13:36:38.430" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the seal identification portion, as mentioned elsewhere, the characters are &lt;strong&gt;汪寅仙製&lt;/strong&gt; (meaning &lt;strong&gt;made by 汪寅仙&lt;/strong&gt;, a very famous Chinese ceramics artist who passed away earlier this year; whether it's really made by 汪寅仙 is another story, as many of these pieces are actually fakes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「寅」is fairly recognisable in this carving, so I'll provide a breakdown of the other three characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This carved seal is slightly more difficult to read than normal, because of the characters being squashed into a circular shape, causing some components to be slightly distorted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;汪&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「汪」is a description of a body of water meaning &lt;em&gt;vast and deep&lt;/em&gt;, and is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「氵/水」, a semantic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「㞷」simplified to「王」, a phonetic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「水」originally depicted flowing water:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UrWiE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UrWiE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This directly leads to the seal script form&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pfpKz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pfpKz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note that the modern component form「氵」is a drastically simplified version, and ancient scripts did not write this component in this manner for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「㞷」was the original character for「往」, and was a compound of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「之」(&lt;em&gt;to go&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component, itself a compound of&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「止」(&lt;em&gt;a depiction of a foot&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「一」(&lt;em&gt;an abstraction of the ground&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「土」(&lt;em&gt;a depiction of a lump of earth on the ground, meaning soil&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The total form emphasises the meaning &lt;em&gt;to go&lt;/em&gt; (by travelling on foot covering ground distance).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「之」originally looked like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tnbVe.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tnbVe.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;and an ancestral variant of「之」looked like「㞢」; the following is a few samples of the shape to provide an idea of the relation between the shapes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wglr4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wglr4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「土」originally looked like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O6iaZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O6iaZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;but it was subject to some shape changes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QYRh6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QYRh6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A similar change actually happened to「十」, which morphed almost exactly like the top part of「土」. Note that these are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; strictly how the character evolved, so don't over-interpret these sequences.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The original forms lead to the combination&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d8oRW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d8oRW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;and the shape of「㞷」should be seen as coming directly from「㞢」and「土」. &lt;strong&gt;This directly leads on to the seal script shape&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2wrrz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2wrrz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note that the top-right part of this component in the original image is cut off to fit inside the circle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;仙&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「仙」is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「亻/人」, a semantic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「山」, a phonetic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「人」is a side view of a standing person:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H4U3g.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H4U3g.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This directly leads on to the seal script shape&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T8AH6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T8AH6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note that the left side of this component is distorted to fit inside the circle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「山」was originally a depiction of mountain peaks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KVEID.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KVEID.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The side peaks eventually simplified into vertical lines, leaving the middle peak in &lt;strong&gt;seal script&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9cQdh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9cQdh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;製&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「製」is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「制」(originally &lt;em&gt;to chop wood&lt;/em&gt;), both a semantic and phonetic component, itself comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「未」(&lt;em&gt;the fragrant smell of a blooming tree&lt;/em&gt; (now written「味」)), a semantic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「刂/刀」(a blade, indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;to cut&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「衣」(&lt;em&gt;clothes&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「未」originally depicted a tree「木」with extra branches, representing &lt;em&gt;blooming&lt;/em&gt;, and by extension &lt;em&gt;the fragrance of blooming trees&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pZKNN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pZKNN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For stylistic reasons, the bottom of「未」(and similarly 木, 本, ...) morphed into something resembling「巾」, &lt;strong&gt;leading to the seal script form&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lDJdg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lDJdg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Extras:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;In modern regular script, the bottom of 木 and 本 didn't retain「巾」, while「制」did retain this shape.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;In「制」,「未」is just used for its shape as a tree, not its meaning of「味」(&lt;em&gt;fragrance&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「刀」was originally a picture of a knife or blade:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DvqrZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DvqrZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This directly leads on to the seal script form&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sYkWS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sYkWS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「衣」was originally a picture of clothing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8kZrk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8kZrk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This directly leads on to the seal script form&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hosd1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hosd1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To summarise:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5xOdG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5xOdG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-07-01T15:45:57.297" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T15:45:57.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28911" CreationDate="2018-06-29T14:00:05.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Relatively fast if you are a native speaker, if you use Han Yu Pin Yin （汉语拼音）it could be quite fast. That said, based on my personal experience typing in english seems faster because you do not always get the right words out on the keyboard. There is also auto correct in English that can help you finish or fix  words that you typed wrongly in English, not so sure about that in Chinese...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Speed on communications really depends on your proficiency in both languages, whichever language you are more proficient in, you should be able to communicate better with it. That said, English might have a wider range of vocabulary that you can more accurate express yourself, thus increasing speed of communication. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All are based off my personal opinion, and if I side English more it's because it is used more often here, but I am both a native English &amp;amp; Chinese speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19969" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T14:00:05.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30446" CreationDate="2018-06-29T15:02:29.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;地下 has 2 meanings, the difference of which can be told from how the word is pronounced. When there is a stress on 下, it means underground. When the stress is only on 地, it can also mean ground, similar to 地上 (the stress is also on 地)。The second situation is common in oral language. Some people prefer to use 地下, but some uses 地上, depending on their habit and where they are from. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19972" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T15:02:29.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30480" CreationDate="2018-06-29T22:09:12.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们每个人都是世界公民，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We are all citizens of this (one) world,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;千万不应该有低碳生活与己无关的想法，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;we absolutely should not think, &quot;low carbon lifestyle has nothing to do with me,&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;即别人都过“低碳生活”，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;namely, (we should not think) &quot;if other people live 'low carbon lives,'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我自己过“高碳生活”也无妨。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(then) there is no harm in my living a 'high carbon life.' &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T22:09:12.727" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30493" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-30T00:45:05.143" Score="3" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translation nightmare!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this an acceptable translation of the sentence &quot;I never said she stole my money.&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is acceptable, is there any, even slight, trace of ambiguity in the Chinese sentence “我从来没说过她把我的钱偷走了。”? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She stole your money?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;她偷了你的钱？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I never said she stole my money.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我从来没说过她把我的钱偷走了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: English is a stress-timed language, unlike Chinese. This 7 word sentence has 7 different meanings, depending on which word is stressed. That's why I want to know if the Chinese has more than 1 meaning!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2018-06-30T02:21:52.117" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T05:56:08.010" Title="The translation of &quot;I never said she stole my money.&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28911" CreationDate="2018-06-30T04:33:27.537" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: This answer is largely based on personal experience and anecdotes and written from the perspective of a Simplified Chinese user.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For English: wpm/cpm, including punctuation.  Conversion: 1 wpm = 5 cpm.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;For Chinese: cpm, including punctuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all depends on the text you're typing, the device you're using and the particular method of input you're using.  To understand typing speeds on mobile, you first have to understand...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Casual/Professional typing with physical US keyboard&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;English&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from the amount of training, the speed difference among various English typists come from the keyboard layout.  There's no &amp;quot;IME&amp;quot; so to speak, because whatever character you type will end up on your text-based editor.  Two common layouts are QWERTY and Dvorak simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Chinese&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually with QWERTY keyboard but with specialized input methods (IME), including but not limited to 拼音、双拼、郑码、二笔、五笔 that turn a sequence of keyboard inputs into one or more Chinese characters or symbols.  To make typing faster, modern IME often have native, on-the-fly or &amp;quot;cloud&amp;quot; dictionaries where common phrases are given an input sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I'm only familiar with 拼音 and 五笔, I'll use them in the following comparisons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For text that are archaic or severely lacking in multiple-character phrases, 拼音 usually is the slowest due to the sheer amount of characters you have to choose for each pinyin—a phenomenon called 重码.  When using 五笔 to input characters one by one, the frequency of 重码, a.k.a. 重码率 is fairly low.  The effort to learn 拼音 without memorizing the selection in 重码 is way lower than learning 五笔 without memorizing the selection in 重码, but 拼音 users typically max out at 60 cpm, while 五笔 users average at 60 cpm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For text that are rich in words and phrases, modern IME can make 拼音 users type at least faster than inputting single characters.  On the other hand, 五笔 users relying only on non-updating built-in dictionaries also get a speed boost. Both types of users can reach 120 cpm&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Casual typing with touch-screen keyboard&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This section could partly explain mobile phones with a physical keyboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is where the world slows down.  To fully utilize the screen, one would think about using the 26-key layout on smart phones, but because the smart phones are small and one is only tempted to use a maximum of 2 fingers (as opposed to a large keyboard and a maximum of 10 fingers in use) mis-clicks occur more frequently.  To cope with this, layouts that lump multiple characters into one key are designed.  As long as you know one of the keyboard IMEs, one would type faster than writing using character recognition IME.  Modern mobile IME use dictionary and prediction technology as well, but well-trained physical keyboard users who haven't trained in touch-screen keyboards will experience a significant speed drop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Professional typing with specialized keyboard&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A.k.a. steno-typing&lt;/em&gt;.  These are not used in everyday scenarios so I'll make it short.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;English&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;World record for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Steno keyboard&lt;/a&gt; stands at 375 wpm.  Steno-typing typically works by parsing a sequence of simultaneous multi-key inputs into one or more words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Chinese&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, stenotyping systems such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E4%BA%9A%E4%BC%9F%E9%80%9F%E5%BD%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;亚伟速录&lt;/a&gt; exists, and a user using its specialized keyboard maxes out at 500 cpm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; Anecdotally, I know a 五笔 user who averages at 180 cpm on text that contain 1/6 archaic Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="943" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T04:40:19.320" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30493" CreationDate="2018-06-30T04:43:21.580" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You want 7 stresses? Well, one could (though one doesn't really need to) insert a few words into your sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I never said (that it's) she (who) stole my money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 从没 说过 是她 偷了 我 的钱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Viola!  Seven parts to stress.  See them in action:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;从没说过是她偷了我的钱。那是我朋友宣称的！&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;I&lt;/strong&gt; never said she stole my money. My friend alleged that!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;从没&lt;/strong&gt;说过是她偷了我的钱。我发誓！&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; said she stole my money. I swear!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我从没&lt;strong&gt;说过&lt;/strong&gt;是她偷了我的钱。我仅仅暗示了而已！&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I never &lt;strong&gt;said&lt;/strong&gt; she stole my money. I only hinted!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我从没说过&lt;strong&gt;是她&lt;/strong&gt;偷了我的钱。是她们，不是她一个人！&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I never said &lt;strong&gt;she&lt;/strong&gt; stole my money. They stole it, not just by her!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我从没说过是她&lt;strong&gt;偷了&lt;/strong&gt;我的钱。她骗了我的钱！&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I never said she &lt;strong&gt;stole&lt;/strong&gt; my money. She swindled my money!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我从没说过是她偷了&lt;strong&gt;我的&lt;/strong&gt;钱。她偷了我的朋友的钱！&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I never said she stole &lt;strong&gt;my&lt;/strong&gt; money. She stole my friend's money!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我从没说过是她偷了我的&lt;strong&gt;钱&lt;/strong&gt;。她偷了我的电影票，而不是我的钱！&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I never said she stole my &lt;strong&gt;money&lt;/strong&gt;. She stole my movie ticket instead of my money!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In essence, your translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我/从来没/说过/她把/我的/钱/偷走了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is correct, contains seven parts to stress and they would give the same meaning when stressed as the example above, though you slightly changed the word order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We return to the original dialog:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: She stole your money?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: I never said she stole my money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positive responses to A's question are more or less like &amp;quot;Yes, she stole my money.&amp;quot;  Negative responses are like &amp;quot;No, she didn't.&amp;quot;  Vague answers could be like &amp;quot;Maybe.&amp;quot;  However, with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I never said she stole my money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B only stated that they never said it, but this is not an answer at all because B did not answer the question positively, negatively or even vaguely.  Different stresses each carry their vague additional meaning, which can only be supplanted from context, but they don't invalidate B's statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, note that the analysis above is independent of your language choice! Aren't languages wonderful?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="943" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T05:56:08.010" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-30T06:18:28.810" Score="1" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it more about obedience as in 'obediently looked down and listen to someone's teaching'; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it more about pretending to be oblivious/invisible? For example two of your bosses are fighting each other, you as their subordinate can only stand and '眼观鼻鼻观心'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, do people really use its literal translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="17496" LastEditDate="2018-06-30T06:27:24.303" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T07:29:41.800" Title="What does '眼观鼻鼻观心' represent? Obedience or an attempt to be invisible?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30497" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-30T06:19:19.960" Score="3" ViewCount="411" Body="&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/159240720X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;What Language Is&lt;/em&gt; (2011)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=xFQbHnvLonkC&amp;amp;pg=PA10&amp;amp;lpg=PA10&amp;amp;dq=%22one+of+the+most+easily+perceived+ways%22&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=o62JtiXepz&amp;amp;sig=SA8_sTOJFQnmwpBklHTFFysF440&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjx6MLk1_rbAhVss1kKHSDkAd4Q6AEIKTAA#v=snippet&amp;amp;q=thai%20cooking&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;p. 127 Bottom&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the Chinese characters for the four bolded particles beneath? &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8C&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't transcribe the quote, as StackExchange's formatting can't let me replicate the spacing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jA9Yy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jA9Yy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T06:01:15.163" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T06:07:00.560" Title="What are the Chinese characters for Cantonese 'tìm ge la wo'?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30497" CreationDate="2018-06-30T07:01:46.417" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;keuih: 佢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lo-jo: 攞咗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;daih: 第&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yat: 一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mihng: 名&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tim: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B7%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;添 (u+6dfb)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ge: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E3%97%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;㗎 (u+67b6)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;la: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%95%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;啦 (u+5566)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wo: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%96%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;喎 (u+558e)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, I disagree with the author that these four particles would be used together, in colloquial speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most likely, a Cantonese speaker would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢攞咗第一名添&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢攞咗第一名架&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢攞咗第一名架啦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢攞咗第一名架啦喎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢攞咗第一名啦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢攞咗第一名喎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just not all four together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T06:03:19.867" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T06:03:19.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30496" CreationDate="2018-06-30T07:04:44.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://wapbaike.baidu.com/item/%E7%9C%BC%E8%A7%82%E9%BC%BB%EF%BC%8C%E9%BC%BB%E8%A7%82%E5%BF%83/7796951?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;baidu baike&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;眼观鼻，鼻观心,【拼 音】yǎn guān bí ，bí guān xīn.【解 释】1、因害羞﹑惭愧等而低头的样子。2、谓精神集中，心不旁骛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, the first meaning of this phrase seems not to be used anymore, and the second 2 (谓精神集中，心不旁骛) is still used, usually when you practice meditation, 气功， and etc. Basically, it helps you to concentrate your mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The scene you described(two boss fighting), is not the setting the phrase usually is used. On the other hand, its literal meaning is more common because it helps to concentrate by doing so(as explained above).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-06-30T07:09:56.720" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T07:09:56.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30496" CreationDate="2018-06-30T07:29:41.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;眼观鼻 (eyes looking at the nose) = 'look down'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鼻观心  (nose pointing at the chest) = 'lower one's head'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眼观鼻鼻观心 = 'look down and lower head'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a graphic description of a posture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This posture can be used to express many things, like humbleness, submissiveness, relaxation and concentration&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two most common activities that require someone to 眼观鼻鼻观心 are &lt;strong&gt;praying&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;meditation&lt;/strong&gt; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'眼观鼻鼻观心地冥想' = 'look down, lower one's head and meditate' (require relaxation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'眼观鼻鼻观心地祈福' = 'look down, lower one's head and pray for blessing' (require humbleness and concentration)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T07:29:41.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30501" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-30T10:04:03.843" Score="2" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a homework to describe my apartment. How do you call a children's room in Chinese? Is it common to have a room for kids in China? Looking through possible combinations of 孩子，房间，and 间 in the dictionary I couldn't come up with something decent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6842" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T22:05:43.783" Title="Children's room in Chinese" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30502" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-30T13:41:34.873" Score="3" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ahl8t.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ahl8t.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4DIj6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4DIj6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Could anyone please help me, I got a painting as a gift, and I tried to find the meaning of the poem and seals on my painting but it didn’t succeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JArRf.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JArRf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19980" LastEditorUserId="19980" LastEditDate="2018-07-01T15:54:31.863" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T05:22:21.347" Title="Chinese painting poem and seal meaning" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30502" CreationDate="2018-06-30T14:45:43.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's not a poem. just a record of who send a gift to who.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;read from top to bottom, right to left,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;武夷雪花泉　：　a spring named snow flake (雪花泉) in mountain 武夷, in hokkien province &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;建樹先生惠存　：　建樹 is the name of recipient, 先生 is used as a respectful term. 惠存, roughly a courteous term for &quot;receive &amp;amp; keep&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;薛靈敬贈　：　the sender's surname (薛) &amp;amp; name (靈), sending (贈) with respect (敬) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲子年冬日　：　甲子 is the first entry of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagenary_cycle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sexagenary cycle&lt;/a&gt;, for indicating year, it's 1984, 1924, or any sixty years earlier. in context, it's 1984, cause the painter born in 1911, died in 1992, it's very unlikely the painter did it in 1924 (he's just 14 years old).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冬日 means in winter (winter 冬, day 日)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陳挺作　：　陳挺 (1910-1992) the name of the painter, 作 means fabricate (paint, in this context)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the seal, the first one is provided by drooze :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's some afterthought about how:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1　must, and only use traditional chinese to decipher&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2　determine how many characters the seal has&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one is simple, only two characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3　determine which &quot;ideographic description sequences&quot; a character has&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the unicode defined some structures, that how a traditional chinese character is written (u+2ff0 - u+2ffb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg, the left character of the first seal is ⿳, above, middle and below&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the above is 艸 (u+8278), the below is 口 (u+53e3), the middle might be hard to recognise, never mind, one could guess it by listing possible choices, cause this character would be in the radical 艸 (140th).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, only 苔, 苕, 若, 苦, 苫, 茖, 茗, 茩, 荅, 莒, 莕, 莙 has the below 口&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/radical.php?rad=140&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/radical.php?rad=140&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, checking the seal script of these 12 characters would show that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;若 (u+82e5) matched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%8B%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=若&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, the right character of the first seal is ⿰, left &amp;amp; right; with the right part is ⿵ surround from above (or ⿱, top &amp;amp; bottom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the left component is 人 (u+4eba), the right bottom is 口 (u+53e3); so, the choices are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;估, 佁, 佑, 佔, 佫, 佮, 佶, 佸, 侶, 俉, 俗, 信, 倍, 倜, 偌, 傛&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/radical.php?rad=9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/radical.php?rad=9&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, 倜 (u+501c) matched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%80%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=倜&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when a character can't be recognised by first sight, the above method might help :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the third seal has four characters, the first three are &quot;有所不&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;top right: 有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=有&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bottom right: 所&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%89%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=所&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;top left: 不&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%B8%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=不&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bottom left character is not recognised at first glance :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wait :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, the last one is 及 (u+53ca)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%8F%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=及&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this one is in early spring and autumn style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;together, the seal &quot;有所不及&quot; was also used by the painter 陳挺.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-07-01T16:36:27.647" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T16:36:27.647" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30497" CreationDate="2018-06-30T17:22:19.133" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't agree with those explanations in the picture, I'll try to explain the particles in more details:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tim (添): tim makes the statement sound unexpected. In the &quot;she got first place&quot; example, adding tim means that it is somewhat unexpected that she got first place.  If used in first person sentence, for example: 我放咗糖添(I have added sugar &quot;tim&quot;) it means I added sugar by accident, or I forgot(or didn't know) that I shouldn't add sugar.  I don't see how tim &quot;conveys evaluation, ranking&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gah (㗎): gah gives a note of assertion, usually the purpose of this assertion is to support an argument.  For example, someone says &quot;she's not very good at running&quot; and you disagree and say &quot;She's good, she got first place gah&quot;. In this case, &quot;she got first place&quot; is to support your opinion that &quot;she's good&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;la (啦): la can have different meanings depending on the tone of la. In our example, it could mean &quot;Has she got first place?&quot; or &quot;She has got first place&quot;(two tones give this meaning). I don't know how to describe the tones. You can also add la to an imperative sentence to make it more &quot;pushy&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wo (喔 or 喎): wo is usually used to bring up a fact or your understanding to express the confusion you may have or why you don't understand something given this fact or understanding that you are bringing up.  For example, people say &quot;She's bad at running&quot;, you are confused because you know she got first place, so you say &quot;but she got first place wo&quot; implying(or followed with) the question &quot;why do you say she's bad?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, as you may know, 佢 can also mean he.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19945" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T06:07:00.560" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T06:07:00.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30505" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30508" CreationDate="2018-06-30T18:48:49.207" Score="5" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference among the following two sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 去 吃飯&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 要 吃飯 了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to my current knowledge, both translate to &lt;em&gt;''I am going to eat''&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19979" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-28T04:53:32.473" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T04:53:32.473" Title="What's the difference between 我去吃飯 (去 + Action) and 我要吃飯了 (要+Action+了)?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30505" CreationDate="2018-06-30T21:42:58.697" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;我 去 吃飯 sounds that you will go somewhere(eg. A restaurant) to have an eat. The sentence is used in response to  你干什么去？，干嘛去？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 要 吃飯 了 sounds like, you have your meal handy/ready and you are just about to eat it. Or it's time for me to eat. Or just simply I am going to eat. Basically, the sentence is used when you want to tell somebody you are going to have a meal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-01T07:28:35.797" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T07:28:35.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30501" CreationDate="2018-06-30T22:05:43.783" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A children's room would be called 儿童房(er2 tong2 fang2), and if you happen to want to say nursery, if the word nursery happens to fit the use of the room, it would be 保育室 (bao3 yu4 shi4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19845" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T22:05:43.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30505" CreationDate="2018-06-30T22:23:36.803" Score="8" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我吃飯 =  I eat dinner (meal)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(去)吃飯 = I (go) eat dinner&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(要)吃飯 = I (have to/ want to) eat dinner&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(要)(去)吃飯  = I (have to/ want to) (go) eat dinner&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can add final particle '了' (indicate change of situation) to all the above examples :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我吃飯了 =  I eat dinner (meal) now- &lt;em&gt;了 indicates situation change from not eating to eating&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(去)吃飯了 = I (go) eat dinner now- &lt;em&gt;了 indicates situation change from not going to going&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(要)吃飯了 = I (have to/ want to) eat dinner now - &lt;em&gt;了 indicates situation change from not have eat to have to eat&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(要)(去)吃飯了  = I (have to/ want to)(go) eat my dinner now - &lt;em&gt;了 indicates situation change from not have to go to have to go&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;去 + Action vs 要+Action+了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我看電影 = I watch movies&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(要)看電影 = I (have to/ want to) watch movies&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(去)看電影 = I (go) watch movies&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(要)(去)看電影了 = I (have to/ want to) (go) watch movies now- 了 indicates situation change from not going to going&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-08-19T04:49:06.727" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T04:49:06.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30505" CreationDate="2018-07-01T02:03:23.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我 去 吃飯 I'm going to get something to eat.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我 要 吃飯 了 I wanna get my teeth into something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 去食堂 吃飯 I'm going to the canteen to get something to eat.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我要吃午饭。I want some lunch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T02:03:23.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30478" CreationDate="2018-07-01T05:39:26.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That dictionary is entirely a community effort - Wikipedia model. Anyone can add and edit any definition, but there are many moderators and reviewers. A community is at least in thousands, as this is the main source any Russian speaker learning Chinese goes for definitions to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, BKRS is entirely as reliable a source of information as Wikipedia is, nor more nor less. Obviously there is no print edition for the same reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastEditorUserId="3613" LastEditDate="2018-07-02T08:06:04.117" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T08:06:04.117" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30366" CreationDate="2018-07-01T10:34:35.437" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Korea Peninsula used to be called 高丽. The name of 朝鲜 is granted by 朱元璋, the first emperor of the 明 dynasty. However, in the name of the ethno-lingual group residing on The Peninsula, the 韩 people, the character was rather like randomly selected to represent the pronunciation in their native language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the period of Japanese colonization and after, especially after Japan’s surrender in 1945 and the Korean civil war which involved People’s Voluntary Army (of China) and American troops (under the flag of UN), the rise of Korean nationalism in the south sought to lessen the influences from both Japan and China, and chose 大韩民国 (Republic of Korea) as the name of their state, whereas the Labor Party in the north sought to inherit the old Korea Empire and to stay close with “communist” comrades, namely PRC and USSR, selected 朝鲜民主主义人民共和国 (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) instead. Note that the English word “Korea” comes from “高丽”, so actually DPRK should be DPRC (Democratic People’s Republic of Chosen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably due to the Cold War, PRC used the name “朝鲜族” to refer to the Korean immigrants who came from The Peninsula during the Japanese colonization in The Peninsula and Manchuria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bearing these in mind, you should understand that “朝鲜” doesn’t refer to DPRK only; it is the name of the country of The Peninsula for centuries; the division has been there for decades but unity shall be restored and independence shall be earned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19602" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T10:34:35.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30335" CreationDate="2018-07-01T10:48:52.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Etymologically, “大盘” started to be used in the context of stock exchange. Literally “big plate”, it means the collective whole of the stocks. As stock prices are always believed to be manipulated, prices experience unreasoned risings and fallings along the history. For those who bought stocks when the prices were very high but then fell terribly and could hardly reach that high again, their buy-in activity and the prices going low, jointly, is called 接盘 — to take over something not as good as perceived which costs much more than its real value/quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somehow kind of materialization, when a man finds that his wife was not virgin when they married, or, when a man finds that his son was conceived by another man’s sperm, he can be called a 接盘侠.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19602" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T10:48:52.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30132" CreationDate="2018-07-01T11:13:39.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In real life this phrase should occur only when you have to inform the cashier that it will be you (instead of your companions) to pay. Otherwise, let’s see different scenarios.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Convenience shop &amp;amp; supermarket: The cashier will be telling you the total amount when he finishes scanning the barcodes of the items. If the merchants expects the customers to pay by scanning, a QR code should be displayed on a hanger or sticker around the cashier’s desk. If so, you may scan it and input the total amount; if not, you can simply show your QR code to the cashier, just in silence as native Chinese people do.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Restaurant with a central cashier desk (which is usually located near the door): These restaurants expect the customers to walk to the cashier desk to finish a payment. You might need to tell the cashier your table number. The cashier will the give you a list indicating the items and their prices with a total sum. You may figure out which side should be scanning the other’s QR code in the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fragmentation is caused by the flexibility of QR code payments: Verified merchants can scan to receive, while any user can scan to pay/transfer (and surely can show to receive). The receiving QR code doesn’t have to change over time, but PBOC did issue regulatory requirements to limit the daily total quota to 500 CNY of static QR code receiving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19602" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T11:13:39.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30514" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30515" CreationDate="2018-07-01T14:23:16.730" Score="3" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dictionary entry of 打電話 that is given &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%89%93%E9%9B%BB%E8%A9%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Verb&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;to make a telephone call&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I would expect to be able to use it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    我 晚上 要 打電話 媽媽&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I found the following example &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22be_going_to%22_with_%22yao%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    我 晚上 要 給 媽媽 打電話&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q:&lt;/strong&gt; are both versions valid? are they both the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should 打電話 be read as a single unit or broken down into 打 電話 ? Is this a relevant issue?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary entry of 打 that is given &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%89%93#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; lists:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to send or call&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;打電報 / 打电报  ―  &lt;strong&gt;dǎ&lt;/strong&gt; diànbào  ―  to &lt;strong&gt;send&lt;/strong&gt; a telegraph&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;打電話 / 打电话  ―  &lt;strong&gt;dǎ&lt;/strong&gt; diànhuà  ―  to &lt;strong&gt;call&lt;/strong&gt; on the telephone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;打手機 / 打手机  ―  &lt;strong&gt;dǎ&lt;/strong&gt; shǒujī  ―  to &lt;strong&gt;call&lt;/strong&gt; on the cellphone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19979" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T00:46:54.497" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T00:46:54.497" Title="&quot;Subj + 打電話 + Obj&quot; vs &quot;Subj + 給 + Obj + 打電話&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30514" CreationDate="2018-07-01T14:31:03.647" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;我 晚上 要 打电话 媽媽 : This is &lt;em&gt;invalid&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the phrase &quot;打电话&quot;, &quot;打&quot; is the verb and &quot;电话&quot; is the object. And the &quot;打&quot; here is not a verb that can take two objects. So you must use: 我 晚上 要 &lt;strong&gt;給 媽媽&lt;/strong&gt; 打電話&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T14:31:03.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30502" CreationDate="2018-07-01T15:12:40.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The seal characters in the picture are of two styles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1OczM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1OczM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the characters are &lt;strong&gt;倜若&lt;/strong&gt;, written in the standard &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qin-Han Seal script&lt;/a&gt; onwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kPNfv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kPNfv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the characters are &lt;strong&gt;陳挺&lt;/strong&gt; written in a style found in the Late &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Western Zhou&lt;/a&gt;-&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Spring and Autumn&lt;/a&gt;-&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Warring States&lt;/a&gt; Period. Note that this stamp is a bit worn out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倜若 is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_name&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;courtesy name&lt;/a&gt; of 陳挺, who is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fjwsg.com/mechanism/biography/successive/350.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arts Professor at the Fujian Research Institute of History&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Thanks @水巷孑蠻 for pointing some of these things out)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;倜&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「倜」is constructed from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「亻/人」, a semantic component (seal form explanation given in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30476/meaning-of-seal-and-engraved-characters-on-teapot/30488#30488&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「周」, a phonetic component (Compare Old Chinese「倜」&lt;strong&gt;/*tʰɯːwɢ/&lt;/strong&gt; and「周」&lt;strong&gt;/*tjɯw/&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「周」was originally a picture of fields, like「田」, but with dots:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P24YZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P24YZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The meaning is preserved in terms to do with &lt;em&gt;perimeter&lt;/em&gt;, referring to the arrangement of the fields.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Eventually,「口」was added to the bottom of the shape (seal form explanation given in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/28986/what-are-these-characters-on-old-brass-stamps/30050#30050&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1lOaV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1lOaV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This was done in several characters to mark the name of a State (here, this refers to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhou Dynasty&lt;/a&gt;; other examples are「商」for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shang Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; and「曹」for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;State of Cao&lt;/a&gt;, where「口」later morphed into「曰」). At one stage, 「周」was written with the same shape as「用」, which was originally a depiction of a bucket (now written「桶」). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MI9dR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MI9dR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Left)&lt;/em&gt;「用」&lt;em&gt;; (Right)&lt;/em&gt;「周」&lt;em&gt;. Note that ancient scripts commonly did not distinguish between mirror images of characters, so these two should be considered as the same shape.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This shape, along with the addition of「口」, &lt;strong&gt;directly leads on to the seal script form&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TTqsx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TTqsx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;若&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「若」originally meant &lt;em&gt;to submit&lt;/em&gt;, and was a depiction of a person with messy hair and hands up in the air in a submissive position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M0d3D.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M0d3D.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The seal script form is constructed from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「艸」, where the messy hair was interpreted as the same shape as「屮」(picture of a &lt;em&gt;sprouting plant&lt;/em&gt;) then reduplicated into「艸」(picture of &lt;em&gt;plants&lt;/em&gt;), &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「右」, itself constructed from&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「」, either &lt;em&gt;morphed from the body of the person into&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;completely replaced by&lt;/em&gt; a &lt;em&gt;picture of a right hand&lt;/em&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「口」, an added mark.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「屮」originally depicted a sprouting plant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QmEsf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QmEsf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This directly leads on to the seal script form&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xyRCH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xyRCH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;and two of these become&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iSaNp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iSaNp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In「右」,「」was originally a depiction of a right hand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZU79A.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZU79A.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「口」was later added to distinguish「」from「右」, which was used to represent a word meaning &lt;em&gt;assist&lt;/em&gt; (now written「佑」). &lt;strong&gt;This directly leads to the seal script form&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v8Uoe.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v8Uoe.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;陳&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「陳」is constructed from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「阝/阜」, a semantic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「東」; the purpose of this component is unclear.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The character in the image provided was first seen as a creation by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Li_of_Chen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Duke Li of Chen&lt;/a&gt; from the Warring States period to use as a surname, which has an extra「土」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lv5bQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lv5bQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the seal in the original image,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「土」would have been recognisable if not for the seal being slightly worn out;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The component「東」was possibly corrupted, as there as an extra line on the top. A similarly corrupted form is found below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ugTpQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ugTpQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「阜」may have originally depicted one of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Rows of hills;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;A ladder;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Foot grips from climbing access to mountainous residences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zDlMi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zDlMi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In any case, the original form that matches the seal most closely is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wZqGb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wZqGb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This directly leads on to bronze inscriptions around the Spring and Autumn period looking like&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D0b9O.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D0b9O.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「東」was originally a depiction of a bag, tied at the ends:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KzeXh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KzeXh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This directly leads on to bronze inscriptions around the Spring and Autumn Period looking like&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eDoCT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eDoCT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For reference, the seal script form looks like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9sznq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9sznq.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;挺&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「挺」is constructed from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「手」, a semantic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「廷」, a phonetic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「手」was first found in bronze inscriptions, and is a depiction of a hand from the fingers to the wrist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8KWog.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8KWog.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This is the form found in the image&lt;/strong&gt;. For reference, a seal script form looks like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CmERQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CmERQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「廷」was the original character for「庭」(&lt;em&gt;front courtyard&lt;/em&gt;), and originally depicted a person「人」standing a distance away from a building, where the front part of the building is the「」shape and the distance is represented by「土」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QKWf2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QKWf2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This is the form found in the image&lt;/strong&gt;. A bronze inscription explanation of the shape of「土」is given &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30476/meaning-of-seal-and-engraved-characters-on-teapot/30488#30488&quot;&gt;in this answer&lt;/a&gt;. For reference, a seal script form of「廷」looks like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gd1Xs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gd1Xs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Here,「人」was changed into「」(&lt;strong&gt;tǐng&lt;/strong&gt;) to give a sound hint (in modern Mandarin, compare「廷」&lt;strong&gt;tíng&lt;/strong&gt; and「挺」also &lt;strong&gt;tǐng&lt;/strong&gt;).「」was corrupted to「廴」, which happened in other characters like「建」as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To summarise:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jmDlB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jmDlB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-01-06T05:22:21.347" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T05:22:21.347" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30517" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-02T00:56:24.597" Score="4" ViewCount="1240" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe this is a religious technical question and therefore a bit tricky. In English, soul and spirit are used more or less interchangeably, although their origins are dissimilar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;spirit: mid-13c., &quot;animating or vital principle in man and animals,&quot; from Anglo-French spirit, Old French espirit &quot;spirit, soul&quot; (12c., Modern French esprit) and directly from Latin spiritus &quot;a breathing (respiration, and of the wind), breath; breath of a god,&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;soul:&quot;A substantial entity believed to be that in each person which lives, feels, thinks and wills&quot; [Century Dictionary], Old English sawol &quot;spiritual and emotional part of a person, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, is there a difference between 魂 and 魄？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;魂: soul, spirit (We have 3)&#xA; 魄: soul, spirit (we have 7)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道家谓人有三魂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三魂：1.道家谓人有三魂：一曰胎光，二曰爽灵，三曰幽精，见《云笈七签》卷五十四。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道家谓人有七魄：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;七魄：1.道家谓人有七魄，各有名目。第一魄名尸狗，第二魄名伏矢，第三魄名雀阴，第四魄名吞贼，第五魄名非毒，第六魄名除秽，第七魄名臭肺，见《云笈七签》卷五四。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just got this phrase from reading 西游记：道士吓得三魂丢了七魄 which I would simply translate as 'very frightened, scared witless, frightened out of his mind'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T11:05:46.947" Title="What is the difference between 魂 and 魄?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30518" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30520" CreationDate="2018-07-02T02:23:24.290" Score="0" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;于是，每天晚上，秀春都拉着丈夫坐在灯下，指着识字课本的&lt;strong&gt;一幅幅图画&lt;/strong&gt;问丈夫。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Therefore, on every night Xiuchun lets her husband sit under the light, points to the literacy book's 一幅幅图画 to ask him what they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 一 is an amount and 幅 is a 量词. But I don't understand why it is 一幅幅, not 一幅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what makes them different? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T20:55:30.213" Title="Why does 一幅幅图画, not 一幅图画?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-07-02T04:05:47.963" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30518" CreationDate="2018-07-02T02:37:01.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;一幅幅图画 pictures (one by one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一幅图画  a picture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19549" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T02:37:01.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30518" CreationDate="2018-07-02T02:56:55.540" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From  a previously asked question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/25785/what-does-the-second-%e5%b9%85-mean-in-the-following-sentence/25787#25787&quot;&gt;What does the second &amp;quot;幅” mean in the following sentence?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一幅幅 is short for 一幅又一幅 or 一幅接一幅 (one after another)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;一幅幅美丽的山水画&quot; means &quot;one beautiful landscape painting after another' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'One after another' can describe 'a group of things or people at one time' or 'one individual after another individual across time or distance'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;指着识字课本的(&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;一幅&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;)(图画)问丈夫&quot; =  &quot;points at (&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;) (picture) in the literacy book and asks her husband.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;指着识字课本的(&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;一幅幅&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 图画)问丈夫&quot; =  &quot;points at (&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; picture &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;after another&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;) in the literacy book, and asks her husband.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are additional rules about reduplicated classifiers I want to make clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一幅幅图画 does mean 'one picture after another' but that's when the object is not confined by boundaries; When the object is confined by boundaries, the reduplicated classifiers indicates 'each and everyone'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'一位位英雄' = 'one hero after another'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'在这个大厅里的一位位英雄' = 'each and every hero in this hall' (the objects are confined by boundaries within this hall'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'一滴滴雨点' = 'one raindrop after another'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'在那片叶子上的一滴滴雨点' = 'each and every raindrop on that leaf' (the objects are confined by boundaries within that leaf'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In '指着识字课本的一幅幅图画' , '课本的一幅幅图画' should indicate 'each and every picture', but the verb '指着' (pointing at) indicates an action that can only be done one at a time, therefore, it is clear that the sentence means pointing at one picture after another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the same reason, '指着大厅里的一位位英雄' would mean 'pointing at one hero after another in the hall'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;i&lt;/em&gt;s this rule applicable to all 量词?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is no. We use classifiers because most of them roughly describe the shape, size and form of the object. 一片雲, 一團雲 give us the idea of what form of cloud we are talking about; 一個橙, 一籃橙 give us the idea of what form of orange we are talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, some classifiers do not describe the shape, size and form of the object. One good example is '名' . We do not say '一名名好漢' because 一名(a name of) doesn't describe the shape, size and form of a human, it is too abstract to be associated with a vivid image of a man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-07-06T20:55:30.213" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T20:55:30.213" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30517" CreationDate="2018-07-02T03:48:16.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking up the 1992 version of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinhua_Zidian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新华字典&lt;/a&gt; published by the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Press&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商务印书馆&lt;/a&gt;, on page 195 and page 367 we find respectively:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;魂 hún ㄏㄨㄣˊ 旧日迷信的说法，指能离开肉体而存在的精神（(连) ~魄）：~不附体. 灵魂1.人的精神、思想方面活动的总称.2.事物的最精粹最主要的部分。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;魄 (一) pò ㄆㄛˋ ❶ 迷信指依附形体而存在的精神（(连) 魂~）：丢魂落~. [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, 魂 refers to the 精神 that can exist without a living body, while 魄 refers to the 精神 whose existence depends on a living body.  Because they are two different kinds of 精神, they are sometimes used together, as in 魂魄 to mean all sorts of 精神.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="943" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T03:48:16.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30517" CreationDate="2018-07-02T03:49:15.887" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is more advanced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;魂 is more related to the 陽 Yang side (the male, the bright, the sun side) of the spirit or soul.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;魄 is more related to the 陰 Yin side (the female, the dark, the moon side) of the spirit or soul.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may find the following texts valuable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/23474694&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;道教原始的生命观认为，魂和魄一个属阴，一个属阳，一个主静，一个主动。阳魂就是思想，主动，是注意力，是对身体接触到外世界之后的第一反映，阴魄就是不变化的本源，主静，是对思想的承载，是一切万有的实质和内含。宇宙天地万物的总依赖。所以魂和魄之中，阴魄是体，阳魂为用。-- from www.zhihu.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AD%82%E9%AD%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;在中國哲學之中，魂魄陰陽對反，魂為陽性精氣，魄為陰性精氣&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) &quot;Within this ancient soul dualism tradition, every living human has both a hun spiritual, ethereal, yang soul which leaves the body after death, and also a po corporeal, substantive, yin soul which remains with the corpse of the deceased. Some controversy exists over the number of souls in a person; for instance, one of the traditions within &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hun_and_po&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Daoism proposes a soul structure of sanhunqipo 三魂七魄; that is, &quot;three hun and seven po&quot;. The historian Yü Ying-shih describes hun and po as &quot;two pivotal concepts that have been, and remain today, the key to understanding Chinese views of the human soul and the afterlife.&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) If you know the &lt;a href=&quot;http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Narutopedia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Naruto story&lt;/a&gt;, the author also used the similar idea of 陰 Yin side and 陽 Yang side of souls as the two dual souls of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Kurama&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nine Tail beast&lt;/a&gt;. See also the &lt;a href=&quot;http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Yin%E2%80%93Yang_Release&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yin-Yang release&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Nine-Tails_Chakra_Mode&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;more&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2KlGy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2KlGy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4335" LastEditorUserId="4335" LastEditDate="2018-07-02T23:40:43.013" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T23:40:43.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30523" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30526" CreationDate="2018-07-02T05:38:33.290" Score="2" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a commercial that plays on TV everyday now where in the lyrics 就要 is sung as &lt;code&gt;juo&lt;/code&gt;. 就要就要 is sung as &lt;code&gt;juo juo&lt;/code&gt;. There's nothing in my dictionaries alluding to a 就要 contraction and I've not been able to find anything online talking about it. My hunch is that it is just a rhyming technique to make the lyrics sound better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The video can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iqiyi.com/w_19rtxh9rel.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.iqiyi.com/w_19rtxh9rel.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;code&gt;就要就要&lt;/code&gt; starts at about ~0:19.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this an actual thing anywhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorDisplayName="user11201" LastEditDate="2019-01-26T23:56:13.920" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T23:56:13.920" Title="就要 contraction juo?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30505" CreationDate="2018-07-02T08:03:00.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct, both can be translated as 'I am going to eat'. Yet &quot;going&quot; has completely different meanings in the two sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one is &quot;actually going / moving yourself to a place where you have food&quot; and the second is &quot;planning to, intending to have food&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is about ambiguity of English, not Chinese ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS A better translation of the first phrase using &quot;going&quot; would be &quot;I am going to have food / to a restaurant etc&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T08:03:00.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30523" CreationDate="2018-07-02T14:07:07.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We don't have such contraction normally. I think this is just for rhyme since most of the lyrics contain word 拼多多(pinduoduo) which ends with &quot;uo&quot;. If the singer sings 就要(jiuyao) as &quot;juo&quot;, it will also end with &quot;uo&quot;. And this make the singing sounds quite cute, at least in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-02T14:33:36.190" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T14:33:36.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30527" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-02T17:24:31.940" Score="10" ViewCount="983" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am still a beginner, but after 1 year I'm still not sure about the difference. I've been talking with some citizens from China mainland on the Internet, when I mentioned that I'm learning 國語, I seemed to offend people, and it sparked some rows in comment sections before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have lots of confusion. Now I know 國語 means &quot;the national language&quot;, and 普通话 is &quot;the common language&quot;, and is a standard. I'm learning based on Taiwanese materials, and they refer to 國語 as the language there, which is for all intents and purposes the same as 普通話. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unsure why it causes so much fuss. Is 國語 an unpopular term outside of Taiwan? If so it makes sense where confusion comes from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teachers and materials seem to make no real distinction, and both terms are even interchangeable from how I've been taught. I would love to have this cleared up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19130" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-07-03T05:11:16.050" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T14:47:42.737" Title="What is the difference between 國語 and 普通話?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30527" CreationDate="2018-07-02T18:24:27.327" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;「國語」is not an unpopular term outside of Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It literally means &lt;em&gt;national speech&lt;/em&gt;, and is used in places where「普通話」may make less sense. Since「普通話」literally means &lt;em&gt;common speech&lt;/em&gt;, regions with populations which prominently speak other languages may avoid the term「普通話」to various degrees, because in those regions the common speech is not necessarily Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may hear「國語」in Hong Kong, Macau, and Xinjiang to refer to Mandarin, interchangeably with「普通話」. Although「普通話」is overwhelmingly more common in the Mainland,「國語」shouldn't incite a reaction there; if it does this could be due to various reasons, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some people may take it to be a form of Han/Northerner/Mandarin Chauvinism, aggressively discriminating against other topolects or languages as not being part of the nation;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some people may have political interpretations of the term, and identify「國語」inappropriately with anti-CCP leanings (note that CCP decreed that Mandarin was to be called「普通話」some time in the 1950s, officially making the word「國語」obsolete in Mainland China).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You're on the internet, so be prepared to attract angry comments about everything and anything.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another word for Mandarin is「華語」, which is used by Malaysian Chinese. This is appropriate in their situation because Mandarin is neither the national language nor the common language of Malaysia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For something that shouldn't incite inappropriate reactions, consider using「漢語」or「中文」instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-07-02T19:09:51.973" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T19:09:51.973" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30529" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-03T00:17:46.207" Score="-2" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've ordered a product from a chinese manufacturer and it has some specifications and I cannot understand some of it. I would apperciate if some of you guys here could help me out in translating it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2wfW7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2wfW7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19991" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-07-03T02:00:32.743" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T23:07:25.213" Title="What does this say? I need help" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-07-03T09:25:29.540" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30527" CreationDate="2018-07-03T00:32:24.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key character is 国 -- it could allude to independent countries to some ears--, which could evoke some political arguments. Some with a strong political mindset would probably care about it.  Talking about politics here is improper. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文 is a neutral term you can use to steer away of it. In my opinion, majority of people wouldn't care that much, but some still would.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T00:32:24.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9146" CreationDate="2018-07-03T01:12:00.513" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The neckline is so deep that almost the chest is exposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19992" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T01:12:00.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30527" CreationDate="2018-07-03T04:01:25.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;国语 is &quot;Standard Chinese&quot; as standardised and used in Taiwan. 普通话 is the same in PRC. Two &quot;independent countries&quot; must have different standards if they speak essentially the same language, right? The difference is predominantly political these days, with somewhat cultural roots in pre-revolution China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua&#xA;  in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan. Aside from a number of&#xA;  differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written&#xA;  using simplified Chinese characters (plus Hanyu Pinyin romanization&#xA;  for teaching), while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese&#xA;  characters (plus Zhuyin for teaching). There are many characters that&#xA;  are identical between the two systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese#Putonghua_and_Guoyu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese#Putonghua_and_Guoyu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are minor vocabulary differences like 网络 / 网路 and the Taiwanese version has slightly more purely foreign loanwords than the mainland's. Again, political reasons - America's influence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T04:01:25.853" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30335" CreationDate="2018-07-03T10:19:18.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 接 means &lt;strong&gt;receive&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;accept&lt;/strong&gt;. The original meaning of 盘 here likes that in 大盘 or 大盘股, means &lt;strong&gt;large stocks&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;large share&lt;/strong&gt; in stock market. The character 侠 means &lt;strong&gt;heroic/valiant hero who have sense of justice&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese knight errant novel, and also used as a suffix for person's title currently. 接盘 means 高价买进股票 &lt;strong&gt;buy stocks at a high prices&lt;/strong&gt;, so 接盘侠 means &lt;strong&gt;people who buy stocks at a high prices&lt;/strong&gt;, or literally means &lt;strong&gt;the large stocks accepter&lt;/strong&gt;. It later also represent &lt;strong&gt;the man who takes over a promiscuous girlfriend, even she once aborted baby, or married a pregnant girlfriend and accept and raise her baby&lt;/strong&gt;. 接盘侠 represents &lt;strong&gt;the person who takes over some awful / horrible mess or some troublesome things unwittingly for being cheated&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2018-07-03T11:44:50.283" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T11:44:50.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30534" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-03T10:56:58.217" Score="0" ViewCount="473" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for Chinese quotes or phrases about love, yuanfen, destiny or something along those terms for a tattoo. It’s really hard to find sayings that are really used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19997" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-07-30T07:34:34.273" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T07:34:34.273" Title="Chinese quotes for tattoo" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30527" CreationDate="2018-07-03T14:47:42.737" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;historically, the national language (國語) of china changed, according to dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 清 dynasty (1644-1911), the national language (國語) is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchu_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;manchu language&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;; some regional dialect / accent were mentioned as &quot;北音&quot; (mandarin?), &quot;中州韻&quot;, &quot;吳韻&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XQlR0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XQlR0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 1911, the chinese empire was succeeded by the republic of china. afterward, the kuomintang &quot;assigned&quot; the mandarin language as the national language (國語). then, in 1949, they went to taiwan, together with 國語.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, in 1955, the communist called the mandarin language as 普通話.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nowadays, i would say that, there're subtle differences between 國語 &amp;amp; 普通話. mainly the words used, and attitudes, manners of speakers, (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/26999/how-bad-is-a-taiwanese-accent-on-the-mainland/27012#27012&quot;&gt;see this closed thread&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's understandable why you'd trigger negative feelings in &quot;that area&quot;, when you mentioned that you're learning 國語. if you need further clear up, it'll be a politic question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i'd say: &quot;you have good karma, to learn mandarin in taiwan&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;accept it, c'est la vie :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, want to guess what was the national language (國語) in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;元朝 (1271 - 1368)&lt;/a&gt;; when mongolian ruled most of the asia &amp;amp; europe?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T14:47:42.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30534" CreationDate="2018-07-03T18:46:53.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;生死有命，富贵由天。 &#xA;Beckham has a same tattoo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19999" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T18:46:53.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30537" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30540" CreationDate="2018-07-03T22:48:16.937" Score="0" ViewCount="300" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I express that someone &quot;screwed [something] up?&quot;  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;They really screwed up the code with the last changes they made&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I gave him one little task and he still managed to screw it up&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I can't believe I screwed that up.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like it to not be vulgar, and as in the English, it is a casual/informal expression that might be used between colleagues or friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T08:08:26.810" Title="How to say: &quot;screwed it up&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30537" CreationDate="2018-07-03T23:59:04.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;screw up: 使成螺旋状；挤成一团弄糟，搞乱，弄乱，弄糟：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to screw up something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把某事搞得一团糟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionary definition above can help you. Basically, screw up: 把...搞砸了; 把...搞糟;etc; For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't believe I screwed that up: 很难想象我(竟然)把那件事情搞砸了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T08:08:26.810" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29643" CreationDate="2018-07-04T02:31:34.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's such a funny problem, I can't help posting something! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, You should know &quot;鸡&quot; can be used as slang for prostitude. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think your friend's true meaning is &quot;鸡&quot; is kind of free translation, compared to literal translation, it doesn't sound exotic as &quot;肯德基&quot;, while people really like exotic things. I mean, when translating things, you're gonna tell me &quot;it's chicken!&quot; directly to my face? No, every local restaurant use &quot;鸡&quot; for their names, KFC, as a foreign brand, that's so LOOOOOW! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &quot;基&quot; is a common used character when you do literal translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19549" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T02:31:34.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30537" CreationDate="2018-07-04T04:46:58.047" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Screw up&amp;quot; is a slang for &amp;quot;to blunder&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wordreference.com/zhen/%E6%90%9E%E7%A0%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;搞砸&lt;/a&gt; /gǎo zá/ : blunder&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wordreference.com/zhen/%E5%BC%84%E7%B3%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;弄糟&lt;/a&gt; /nòng zāo/ : blunder ; mess up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;How can I express that someone &amp;quot;screwed [something] up?&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把事情搞砸了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把事情弄糟了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2701/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;砸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;: break; smash; shatter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;: [slang] fail; fall through; flop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T04:53:45.740" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30541" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30542" CreationDate="2018-07-04T06:23:54.833" Score="1" ViewCount="588" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assume Bob is sitting on the couch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, how would Alice politely ask Bob to move over and make room for her?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this different for Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T03:29:16.587" Title="How to say, &quot;Could you please move over?&quot; (Cantonese and Mandarin)" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30541" CreationDate="2018-07-04T07:15:03.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of ways to ask people to move aside to give room&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能請你坐開些嗎? (would you please sit aside a little?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能請你騰一騰空位嗎? (would you please make some room for me?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唔該坐過啲 (please site aside a bit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唔該坐開小小 (please sit aside a little)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In Cantonese, to ask people to move aside, we say 唔該借一借, or 唔該借歪, you can use these phrase in your example too&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-07-05T03:29:16.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T03:29:16.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30541" CreationDate="2018-07-04T07:17:15.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请你让一让可以吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;麻烦你给我腾位置可以吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;唔该借个位？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The statements are similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18332" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T07:17:15.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30544" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30548" CreationDate="2018-07-04T08:00:44.240" Score="12" ViewCount="5705" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I went to an ice-cream shop with my Chinese friend, and we wrote notes to stick on the wall.  My friend wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mvl6n.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mvl6n.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%BC%80%E5%BF%83&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;开心&lt;/a&gt;、&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%81%A5%E5%BA%B7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;健康&lt;/a&gt;、&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B9%B3%E5%AE%89&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;平安&lt;/a&gt;、发发发&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;kāixīn, jiànkāng, píng'ān, fā fā fā&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first three items are ordinary well wishes, but I have no idea why she would write 发发发.  I asked her about it, but she couldn't explain it to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why did my friend write 发发发 on her note?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searing for 发发发 at &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E5%8F%91%E5%8F%91%E5%8F%91&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt; gives inappropriate suggestions, and it's not listed at &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%8F%91%E5%8F%91%E5%8F%91&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dict.cn&lt;/a&gt;, nor &lt;a href=&quot;http://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/example?query=%E5%8F%91%E5%8F%91%E5%8F%91&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Line Dict&lt;/a&gt;, nor &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/compound.php?cp=%E5%8F%91%E5%8F%91%E5%8F%91&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;小马词典&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T01:50:37.197" Title="Why did my friend write 发发发 on her note?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30544" CreationDate="2018-07-04T08:19:39.887" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;发发发;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发 is short for 发财（get rich, make a fortune）. There is a catch saying: 重要的事情说三遍(important things should be reiterated three times). This is kind of emphasis for its importance. That's why people usually put three 发s: 发发发. They wish you make a great deal of money!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-05T01:50:37.197" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T01:50:37.197" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30546" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30550" CreationDate="2018-07-04T11:40:19.403" Score="3" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;秀春决定自己教他。丈夫好像明白了秀春的意思，跟着她“鸡”，“猫”，“狗”&lt;strong&gt;地&lt;/strong&gt;念起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that in this sentence, the meaning is something like the following, and it uses 地 coupled with animal nouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Xiuchen decided to teach him by herself. Her husbund looks like understanding her intention, reading aloud &quot;chicken&quot;, &quot;cat&quot;, &quot;dog&quot; with her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that 地 modifies nouns here. Is this usage of 地 common in Chinese?  At what situation is it used as such? And should you always need &lt;code&gt;&quot;&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;&quot;&lt;/code&gt; to modify nouns in these cases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T01:47:25.863" Title="The use of 地 after multiple, related nouns (e.g. “鸡”，“猫”，“狗”地)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30546" CreationDate="2018-07-04T12:09:56.513" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;跟着她“鸡”，“猫”，“狗”地念起来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“鸡”，“猫”，“狗”地 here works as an adverbial phrase modifying the verb 念. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“鸡”，“猫”，“狗” are basic noun words learnt by a beginner. Imagine the scene her 丈夫 following her reading these basic childish words, and you would get the idea of “鸡”，“猫”，“狗”地. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another point is that they don't put 鸡，猫，狗地， but “鸡”，“猫”，“狗”地, because the quotation marks indicate those words are said by someone. For example, 他说： “我今天会来。” The quotation mark is used to quote what one has said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-05T01:47:25.863" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T01:47:25.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30544" CreationDate="2018-07-04T13:49:42.940" Score="14" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;发：Short for 发财，make a fortune，become rich。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese people like to use reiterative locution to emphasize the strong meaning or wish. Other cases like: 好好好、 旺旺旺、棒棒棒、赞赞赞。&#xA;Sometimes you will also see 888 instead of 发发发，because 888(bababa) has similar pronunciation with 发发发(fafafa) and much easier to write/type.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T13:49:42.940" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30546" CreationDate="2018-07-04T14:36:47.133" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you see the quotation marks outside characters &quot;鸡&quot;，“猫”，“狗”. These refer to the pronunciations of these words. So these nouns become adv. in order to give you the image of how 秀春 read 鸡,猫,狗 with these pronunciations. This writing technique makes the scene more vivid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T14:36:47.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30546" CreationDate="2018-07-04T20:57:21.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It seems that 地 modifies nouns here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not accurate. 地 modifies adverbial usage. The particle of speech of the word does not matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this usage of 地 common in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage of 地 after adverbial is very common and standard. Use of imitative nouns as adverbial is also common, e.g. 咯咯地笑，嘤嘤地哭，叽里咕噜地说。You can think them as &quot;xxx-soundingly&quot; in English, e.g. &quot;he laughed 'gege'-soundingly&quot; = &quot;he laughed with 'gege' sound&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At what situation is it used as such?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's common to use imitative nouns as adverbial to describe a person or an animal making sound or movements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And should you always need &quot;, &quot; to modify nouns in these cases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Idiomatic wise, comma is the only way to connect multiple imitative words here. Conjunctives like 和 or 或 would break the 'flow'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of in English, if an alien only makes three sounds, 'wug', 'tor' and 'kee', when you put them into an adjective or adverbial phrase, you don't want to connect them with 'and' or 'or'. You'll say &quot;that 'wug, tor, kee' alien&quot; instead of &quot;that 'wug-or-tor-or-kee' alien&quot;. This is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T20:57:21.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30546" CreationDate="2018-07-04T21:29:17.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three nouns in the “鸡”，“猫”，“狗” 地念 is considered sound expressions (what kind of character doesn’t matter) and  地 indicates adverbial use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“XX 地 verb” =  '&lt;strong&gt;verb with the sound of XX&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;㕵㕵地叫 = barking in the sound of 'guó, guó'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;叮叮地響 = making noise of the sound of 'ding, ding'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“鸡”，“猫”，“狗” 地念 = reading with the pronunciations of  'Jī, māo, gǒu'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-07-04T22:21:17.350" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T22:21:17.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30552" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30556" CreationDate="2018-07-04T21:34:15.723" Score="0" ViewCount="632" Body="&lt;p&gt;When writing to a female, is it appropriate to use 妳 for “you”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could it be misunderstood as a reference to breasts or milk?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我见过你面带笑容，我见过你面带愁容。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T03:37:02.840" Title="你 vs. 妳 for second person" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30552" CreationDate="2018-07-04T22:42:18.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;妳 is supposed to be the female second-person pronoun, but I don't find it being used as often as the more generic 你 anymore, however。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And no. There is no connotation re: breasts of milk with the use of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure why some posters have the assumption that 你 is only used for both male and female in Simplified Chinese. Is it how it is used in Taiwan? As someone who can only write in Traditional Chinese, it seems that 你 is used interchangeably for the most part (even among my friends from Taiwan on social media, and books from Taiwan, etc.). Some people do use 妳 for female, but it seems rather uncommon nowadays. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastEditorUserId="19947" LastEditDate="2018-07-05T17:11:01.033" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T17:11:01.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30554" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30555" CreationDate="2018-07-05T02:16:13.867" Score="5" ViewCount="770" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the movie 捉妖记 (zhuōyāojì), called Monster Hunt in English (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Hunt&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6170484/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;IMDB&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%8D%89%E5%A6%96%E8%AE%B0/14077516&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iqiyi.com/v_19rrnr18nc.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;iQIYI&lt;/a&gt;), the movie's character 霍小岚 (Huòxiǎolán) attaches the Chinese hanzi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;定&lt;/a&gt; (dìng)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to the head of monsters, and this largely disables their movement.  It's used humorously in various scenes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NPC0E.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NPC0E.png&quot; alt=&quot;Monster with 定 stuck on his forehead&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering what is significant about the character 定 in particular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why does 定 disable the monsters' movement in Monster Hunt?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among the definitions at dict.cn for &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;定&lt;/a&gt;, we have &quot;to set&quot; and &quot;to fix&quot;.  It's possible it's used as short for &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%9B%BA%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;固定&lt;/a&gt;, which has &quot;immobilization&quot; among its definitions.  Although, I'm just guessing here, and I feel like there is more to it, possibly even something historical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T02:27:38.530" Title="Why does 定 (dìng) disable the monsters' movement in the movie 捉妖记 (Monster Hunt)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30554" CreationDate="2018-07-05T02:47:53.673" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the magic &quot;定身法&quot;(the body-immobilization magic) from the very famous TV show 《西游记》, in which the protagonist &quot;孙悟空&quot; uses it to immobilize monsters. The magic spell he uses is a single character &quot;&lt;strong&gt;定&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. It went viral since then. Kids would joke around about it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, almost every native speaker knows this magic, given that 《西游记》 is such a popular TV show as well as its book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T02:47:53.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30552" CreationDate="2018-07-05T03:29:51.853" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason for using this word instead of 你 is because the radical of the word (The left part of 妳 in this case) is 女 (Girl, Female).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's just a nicer way to refer to a girl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like in English we got He and She, the Chinese have 他 and 她 (Even though pronounced the same!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like in English, the girls will trip out (at least got her eyes wide open) if you referred to her &quot;He&quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same goes Chinese, although the case and degree of tripping out will be fewer and lesser because regardless of the word, they are ALL pronounced the same! And 你、他 is more like &quot;neutral&quot; state of &quot;You&quot; and &quot;It(!?!?!?)&quot;. So girls wouldn't think too much about it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18981" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T03:29:51.853" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26795" CreationDate="2018-07-05T06:15:38.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'狗血' is usually used by '剧情狗血',&#xA;It's means The story is bad and cheesy，easy to be guessed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20007" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T06:15:38.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30554" CreationDate="2018-07-05T07:34:11.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern oral Mandarin still use 定 as &quot;prevent something to move&quot;. You can use 固定 instead, they're interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19549" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T07:34:11.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30552" CreationDate="2018-07-05T08:12:12.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both means &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; in English. The character 你 is used for male while 妳 for female in Traditional Chinese, also there are other personal pronouns, like 祢 used for divinities, such as god, nymph, deva, Jesus, etc. But they are all unified to one gender neutral character 你 in simplified Chinese in order to stay in step with English. Also, there are 他 for &lt;strong&gt;he&lt;/strong&gt;, 她 for &lt;strong&gt;she&lt;/strong&gt; and 祂 for divinities in traditional Chinese, the character 祂 is abolished, but 他, 她 are remained in simplified Chinese. There are also 它 for &lt;strong&gt;it&lt;/strong&gt; (for lifeless like stone) and 牠 for &lt;strong&gt;it&lt;/strong&gt; (for living things like animals) in traditional Chinese, the character 牠 is abolished, 它 is remained for &lt;strong&gt;it&lt;/strong&gt; uniquely in simplified Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2020-04-22T03:37:02.840" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T03:37:02.840" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30160" CreationDate="2018-07-05T08:30:46.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simple answer: No.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I know that such onomatopoeia is quite funny and useful, unfortunately they are quite recent that Chinese is too slow to generate a proper character for it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The picture you showed is just a fake character that doesn't even exist.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So how do we express it?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Simple: Pinyin.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Another example: Duang. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T08:30:46.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29750" CreationDate="2018-07-05T08:44:25.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well...firstly thank you for loving (or pretending to love) Chinese language.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I know quite a lot of examples that the students passed HSK Level 6 but still have a terrible level of conversation. Yes. As a commentator said, HSK doesn't include oral test. Further more, its scope doesn't necessarily match the scope of the most commonly used Chinese vocabulary. Therefore, a word list for a particular test is restricted to this test only.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also, it's a bad idea to look for a frequency table in order to figure out what should you learn. Think about how you learn your mother tongue. Is the most frequent word learned first? Come on, ignore that frequency list.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Finally, If passing HSK is your top priority, use HSK's vocabulary. It limits the scope of words and expressions you need to pass it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;One last comment: Don't forget to talk and learn more from the Chinese people themselves. They are the real ones that master the language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T08:44:25.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29715" CreationDate="2018-07-05T08:57:41.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translation below:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;...&#xA;Part (of them) are assistants of the course. I'm the assistant for Chinese, and I like the Chinese teacher. If he forgets about leaving homework, I will say with mouth at my seat but without voice: &quot;Homework, Homework...&quot;Then, he'll say: &quot;Oh, today's homework is blablabla...&quot; This can save my time going to his office and ask for homework. After all, homework is necessary.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Part (of them) are simply enthusiastic. They even want to do homework in advance. It's better not to leave it until the evening self-learning time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The least part (of them) never do their own homework, but also never let others be without homework. This is quite rare.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's good to...=...(该)多好. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T08:57:41.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29317" CreationDate="2018-07-05T09:06:14.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;WARNING: Do not believe the App Store.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I looked up 现代汉语词典 in the Commercial Press's homepage, and only found it available in hard copy. The Commercial Press also publishes apps, but as you can see, it doesn't develop one for 现代汉语词典.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cp.com.cn/digital/app.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cp.com.cn/digital/app.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T09:06:14.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30554" CreationDate="2018-07-05T09:25:34.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;定 simply means to set or fix (in place). Essentially a &quot;STOP&quot; sign. No wonder the monsters stop! Plus there's probably a connotation with the TV show.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%AE%9A&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T09:25:34.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30565" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30566" CreationDate="2018-07-05T10:04:41.370" Score="1" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a Baidu page about &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%8B%89%E4%B8%81%E7%9F%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;拉丁矩&lt;/a&gt; (Latin rectangles, a topic in combinatorial mathematics, and one of my research topics), we have the following sentence (listed as 定义1; I trim back some of the mathematics notation):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;设A是&lt;/strong&gt;一个m×s矩阵，&lt;strong&gt;若A的&lt;/strong&gt;任一行是集{1,...,n}的一个s-排列，任一列是集{1,...,n}的一个m-排列，&lt;strong&gt;则称A是&lt;/strong&gt;一个m×s拉丁矩。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If A is an m×s matrix, such that every row is an s-permutation of {1,...,n} and every column is an m-permutation of {1,...,n}, then A is a Latin rectangle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about the grammar here, and in particular, the use of (what seems to be) the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;设A是[a mathematical object], 若A的[conditions], 则称A是[a special type of that mathematical object].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm seeking a better overall idea of how this structure works, e.g., how frequently this is used, other examples, and what &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%AE%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;设&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%8B%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;若&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%8B%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;则&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%A7%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;称&lt;/a&gt; are doing in the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How does 设A是..., 若A的..., 则称A是... work for mathematical definitions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2018-07-05T10:53:48.003" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T11:12:38.033" Title="How does 设A是..., 若A的..., 则称A是... work for mathematical definitions?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30565" CreationDate="2018-07-05T11:12:38.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「設」is short for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%81%87%E8%A8%AD#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;假設&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;Suppose that...&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「若」means &lt;strong&gt;if&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「則稱」, literally &lt;strong&gt;then (it is) called&lt;/strong&gt;, should just be taken as &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;設A是一個m×s矩陣，若A的任一行是集{1,...,n}的一個s-排列，任一列是集{1,...,n}的一個m-排列，則稱A是一個m×s拉丁矩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「Suppose that」&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; is an &lt;em&gt;m&lt;/em&gt; by &lt;em&gt;s&lt;/em&gt; matrix.「If」every row of &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; is an &lt;em&gt;s&lt;/em&gt;-permutation of {1, ..., &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;} and every column is an &lt;em&gt;m&lt;/em&gt;-permutation of {1, ..., &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;},「then」&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; is an &lt;em&gt;m&lt;/em&gt; by &lt;em&gt;s&lt;/em&gt; Latin rectangle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T11:12:38.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30567" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30569" CreationDate="2018-07-05T15:27:09.810" Score="2" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;从来 is usually translated to &quot;always, at all times, all along, from the past till the present&quot;. But it's usually used in the negative sense, which makes it more like &quot;never&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been searching for affirmative 从来 examples (which are very hard to find) and I came across this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5334/does-%E4%BB%8E%E6%9D%A5-translate-to-always&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt; and it made me wonder if &quot;since always&quot; would be a better translation than &quot;always&quot;, since 从来 has the sense &quot;from the past till the present&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the forementioned post's example, &quot;I always buy oranges&quot; is somewhat different from &quot;I buy oranges since forever&quot;. &quot;I always buy oranges&quot; can be something that's going on just recently, while &quot;I buy oranges since forever&quot; is definetely something going on from a long time ago till now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my question is what do you think about the the following translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I always buy oranges. 我总是买橙子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I buy oranges since forever. 我从来都买橙子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I always bought oranges (now I don't buy anymore). 我以前总是买橙子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T00:38:09.577" Title="Can 从来 mean since forever?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27396" CreationDate="2018-07-05T17:21:59.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase is ambiguous as it could mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A boyfriend who won't take pictures. (as you have assumed)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A boyfriend who doesn't know how to take pictures.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T17:21:59.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30567" CreationDate="2018-07-05T17:33:34.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;从来 is usually translated to &quot;always, at all times, all along, from the past till the present&quot;. But it's usually used in the negative sense, which makes it more like &quot;never&quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it is '从不' or '从来不' that means 'never'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;it made me wonder if &quot;since always&quot; would be a better translation than &quot;always&quot;, since 从来 has the sense &quot;from the past till the present&quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'since always/ from the beginning' and 'always' basically express the same meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;from the beginning&lt;/strong&gt;' is the literal translation of '从来' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;since always/ forever&lt;/strong&gt;' is the practical translation of '&lt;strong&gt;向来/一向&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt;' is the practical translation of '&lt;strong&gt;总是&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;So, my question is what do you think about the the following translations:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I always buy oranges. 我总是买橙子。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I buy oranges since forever. 我从来都买橙子。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I always bought oranges (now I don't buy anymore). 我以前总是买橙子。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(总是)买橙子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(向来/一向) 都买橙子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我以前总是买橙子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I have been searching for affirmative 从来 examples (which are very hard to find)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some affirmative 从来 examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(从来)只有我欺負人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(从来)太陽就由東方升起 = 太陽(向来)就由東方升起&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;採訪部和編輯部(从来)都是各自獨立 (从来 can replace 向来/一向, but using 向来/一向 is more common in this context)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What would be the translation for 我从来都买橙子 then? How is it different from 我总是买橙子?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我(从来)都买橙子&quot; = &quot; (from the beginning), I have been buying oranges&quot;  meaning you have been buying oranges for a long long time, but again, &quot;向来&quot; or &quot;一向&quot; are better word choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我(总是)买橙子&quot; = &quot;I (always) buy orange&quot; (not apple, not pear, just orange) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-07-05T18:10:05.657" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T18:10:05.657" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30570" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30571" CreationDate="2018-07-05T18:04:19.347" Score="8" ViewCount="1013" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see Cristiano Ronaldo is often referred as C罗 in Chinese. I find it curious because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is not a nickname pattern followed in any other player name, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;罗 isn't even part of the full name transliteration 基斯坦奴·朗拿度, which would have led to a shorter name.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did C罗 originated or why it is called like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1130" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-07-10T06:26:01.817" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T06:26:01.817" Title="Why is Cristiano Ronaldo known as “C罗” in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;&lt;surnames&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30570" CreationDate="2018-07-05T18:08:21.473" Score="10" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;C for Cristiano&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;罗 for 罗纳尔多 (Ronaldo)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently before him:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ronaldo (罗纳尔多) (Luís Nazário de Lima) was known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E5%A4%A7%E7%BD%97&amp;amp;tn=SE_PcZhidaonwhc_ngpagmjz&amp;amp;rsv_dl=gh_pc_zhidao&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;大罗&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ronaldinho (罗纳尔迪尼奥) was called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E5%B0%8F%E7%BD%97&amp;amp;tn=SE_PcZhidaonwhc_ngpagmjz&amp;amp;rsv_dl=gh_pc_zhidao&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;小罗&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, with big (大) and little (小) already taken, the first letter of his first name was given to him instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 朗 vs. 罗:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that 朗 is Cantonese (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E5%9F%BA%E6%96%AF%E5%9D%A6%E5%A5%B4%C2%B7%E6%9C%97%E6%8B%BF%E5%BA%A6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hong Kong&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-mo/%E5%9F%BA%E6%96%AF%E5%9D%A6%E5%A5%B4%C2%B7%E6%9C%97%E6%8B%BF%E5%BA%A6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Macao&lt;/a&gt;) while 罗 is Mandarin (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%9F%BA%E6%96%AF%E5%9D%A6%E5%A5%B4%C2%B7%E6%9C%97%E6%8B%BF%E5%BA%A6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mainland&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-sg/%E5%9F%BA%E6%96%AF%E5%9D%A6%E5%A5%B4%C2%B7%E6%9C%97%E6%8B%BF%E5%BA%A6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Singapore&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%9F%BA%E6%96%AF%E5%9D%A6%E5%A5%B4%C2%B7%E6%9C%97%E6%8B%BF%E5%BA%A6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taiwan&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-07-07T02:57:20.353" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T02:57:20.353" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30567" CreationDate="2018-07-05T18:25:15.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从来: adv. always; at all times; all along, from the past till the present. (Commonly used in negative sense.) It's more or less the same as 向来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《现代汉语词典》(第五版)对“从来”的解释是:副词,从过去到现在(多用于否定式)。对“向来”的解释是:副词,从来；一向。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This section is just my personal intuition for your reference:&#xA;I think because 从来 has a very strong meaning of &amp;quot;at all times&amp;quot;, we always use it with negative sense to express the &amp;quot;absolutely not&amp;quot; meaning.  So if you want to use it in affirmative sense, it will always be a very strong expression as an objective fact. Just like the example @TangHo gave: (从来)太阳就由东方升起。 You can say like this because it is a truth for most people on the earth except for the Poles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's see your words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always buy oranges. 我总是买橙子。[Good]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I buy oranges since forever. 我从来都买橙子。&#xA;[It's OK. But we normally don't say like this because there must be sometimes you may buy other fruits, right? Are you sure this is the fact? You can use 一直，总是，常常，经常 instead]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always bought oranges (now I don't buy anymore). 我以前总是买橙子。[Good, or 从前]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a much more professional paper of comparison between 从来 and 向来. &lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/d3dbe9cd02d276a201292e31.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/d3dbe9cd02d276a201292e31.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T18:25:15.627" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29317" CreationDate="2018-07-05T22:16:48.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can buy it as an in-app purchase in the Pleco app. It costs 19.99 USD at the moment. For Android devices and also for iPhone /iPad. Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pleco.com/products/pleco-for-iphone-ipad/pricing-bundles/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.pleco.com/products/pleco-for-iphone-ipad/pricing-bundles/&lt;/a&gt; in the section &quot;Individual Add-ons /dictionaries &quot;. If you install Pleco for free with just the 现代汉语词典 as an extra it should just cost 19.99 USD. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T22:16:48.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30529" CreationDate="2018-07-05T23:07:25.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;the literal translation is ten thousand times swing test&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20012" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T23:07:25.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30567" CreationDate="2018-07-06T00:29:44.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the synonym of 从来 is 一直以来，which denotes the same meaning &lt;em&gt;since forever&lt;/em&gt;. 一直以来 can be used in both negative and positive sentences, while 从来 is typically used in a negative sentence(there are possible exceptions like examples given in other answers). 从来(&lt;em&gt;+ 不&lt;/em&gt;) is pretty much a device to say &lt;strong&gt;Never&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, 从来我就没输过: I've never lost!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I buy oranges since forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我从来都买橙子 is a bit stilted to my ear, but it's acceptable. 我从来都不买橙子 sounds better, however. I will translate it to 一直以来我买的都是橙子 or 我一直以来买的都是橙子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your interpretations for the other two sentences are fine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always buy oranges. 我总是买橙子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always bought oranges (now I don't buy anymore). 我以前总是买橙子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T00:38:09.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30554" CreationDate="2018-07-06T02:27:38.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;定=to fix. 定-something, means fix something, make something still. it comes from the old tale. there is also an idiom that is called &quot;葵花点穴手&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20013" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T02:27:38.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29330" CreationDate="2018-07-06T04:38:14.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;現在我兼任總經理、技術官和財務官。&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is influenced by English, not only the x, y and z form, but also start with '现在我'. Chinese does not start with '现在’ much， and if this sentence is in a paragraph， 我 is usually omitted。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For lists， Chinese use xyz directly(no conjunction) more， or 'x and yz', 'x, y （以）及z'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以新颖独特的视角和浪漫的格调来诠释战争&lt;strong&gt;和&lt;/strong&gt;人、自然&lt;strong&gt;和&lt;/strong&gt;人、人&lt;strong&gt;和&lt;/strong&gt;人、心灵&lt;strong&gt;和&lt;/strong&gt;人。在这里，&lt;strong&gt;残酷、悲壮、惨烈&lt;/strong&gt;成了一种载体。 (1996年人民日报11月份)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阿卡多正是用自己的&lt;strong&gt;心和人、和琴、和过去、现在及未来&lt;/strong&gt;去交谈的。(1998年人民日报)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read 现代汉语欧化语法现象研究 for more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T04:38:14.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30579" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-06T22:56:35.683" Score="-1" ViewCount="1853" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jikE9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;My friend got this tattoo like 6 years ago and he can't remember exactly what it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20020" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T06:36:03.933" Title="Can someone tell me what this says?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29715" CreationDate="2018-07-06T23:15:13.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translation to the &lt;strong&gt;bold&lt;/strong&gt; part would probably be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is also because I wanted to start working on my homework earlier;&#xA;  wouldn't it be nice if I could finish it early so that I don't have to stay late to work on it by myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T23:15:13.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30579" CreationDate="2018-07-07T02:46:50.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;天上:the heaven,天下:all over the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20021" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T02:46:50.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25785" CreationDate="2018-07-07T02:52:38.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一幅幅 is to make a general reference,you will not ask what picture or which one,they are just some kind pictures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20021" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T02:52:38.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30579" CreationDate="2018-07-07T06:32:55.117" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;天上天下 (above and below the Heaven) is a Japanese phrase, The whole phrase is &amp;quot;天上天下唯我独尊&amp;quot; (I am the only master above and below the Heaven)-- &lt;em&gt;Quite a statement for a tattoo&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%94%AF%E6%88%91%E7%8B%AC%E5%B0%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天上天下唯我独尊&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;元来、「天上天下唯我独尊」は、釈迦が言ったのではない&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;originally, &amp;quot;I am the only master above and below the heaven&amp;quot; is not what Buddha said&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was also used as a title of a famous Japanese manga by Oh Great&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire1/82811426d55fb8703b79014c6431381c1450389681_full.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire1/82811426d55fb8703b79014c6431381c1450389681_full.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar Chinese phrases include 天下, 天上地下 and 上天下地&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T06:40:53.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30505" CreationDate="2018-07-07T06:52:33.027" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我去吃饭 literally means &quot;I go to have my meal&quot; because 去 can be    translated as &quot;go&quot; in Chinese.  我要吃饭了 literally means &quot;I am going to&#xA;have my meal&quot;. And in some context, it can also mean &quot;I must have my&#xA;meal&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The first one sounds more like you have already known or      planned&#xA;what you are going to eat and now all you have to do is to   eat it&#xA;directly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Q：You seem to be in a hurry. (你似乎急急忙忙的) What are you    going to do?&#xA;(你要去做什么？) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A：I go to have my dinner. (我去吃晚饭) I'm gonna be    late.    (我要迟到了)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The second one is more frequently used in the context that it's time to have a meal and you decide to eat it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;E.g. Sorry to interrupt you. But I have to take a leave. I'm going to have a meal.&#xA;(抱歉打断你了，但是我得离开一会。我要吃饭了。)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20025" LastEditorUserId="20025" LastEditDate="2018-07-07T07:07:22.687" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T07:07:22.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30585" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-07T06:57:15.520" Score="4" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7qJdq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;宋高宗seal&quot;&gt; It is a bookmark sold by the Palace Museum in Taipei, from a seal on a piece titled 宋高宗書七言律詩.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12088" LastActivityDate="2018-08-05T06:42:59.647" Title="What does this seal of 宋高宗 say?" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30585" CreationDate="2018-07-07T07:30:07.187" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's 御書之寶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;read from top right:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;御 (u+5fa1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%BE%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=御&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bottom right:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;書 (u+66f8)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%9B%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=書&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there's very slight chance that, this one might be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;畫 (u+756b)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%95%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=畫&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;top left:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 (u+4e4b)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%B9%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=之&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bottom left:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寶 (u+5bf6)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%AF%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=寶&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;together it means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the treasure (寶) of (之) his majestic (御) writing (書)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i found this one in internet, the original seal of 御書之寶:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jrNFY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jrNFY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, the webpage of this &quot;inspired&quot; souvenir:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.npmshops.com/main/modules/MySpace/PrdInfo.php?sn=npmshops&amp;amp;pc=1510000119274&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.npmshops.com/main/modules/MySpace/PrdInfo.php?sn=npmshops&amp;amp;pc=1510000119274&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this version has rounded 90° corner, strictly horizontal &amp;amp; vertical lines; and simplified ornament. well, i prefer the ancient copper one :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-07-07T11:17:11.990" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T11:17:11.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30587" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-07T11:32:13.353" Score="3" ViewCount="326" Body="&lt;p&gt;See title. Both of these translate as &quot;principle&quot; and I'm struggling to see how they are different. Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T15:25:43.913" Title="What is the difference between 原则 and 原理？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30587" CreationDate="2018-07-07T12:10:52.537" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;原则 is principle of personal conduct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做人要有(原则) = A man has to have (principle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;工作至上是我的(原则) = My (principle) is works always come first&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;原理 is principle of physics &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;利用槓桿(原理) = Using the (principle) of leverage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;利用虹吸(原理) = Using the (principle) of siphon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I know the 原理 of something&quot; means I know the reason why something works&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I know someone's 原则&quot; means I know what someone would or would not do base on his principle (personal believe and conviction)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 原则 (principle) of insurance companies is &quot;to try their hardest to avoid paying their customers&quot; (that's what they do as an unwritten rule) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-07-07T12:32:32.563" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T12:32:32.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30589" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31005" CreationDate="2018-07-07T12:31:50.407" Score="4" ViewCount="492" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes when working with Chinese names it is not evidently clear whether the person in question is male or female.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides using pure, fallible, intuition - what other methods are there to tell if a name is feminine or a masculine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-06-30T23:17:50.717" Title="How to determine if a personal name is feminine or masculine?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30590" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30598" CreationDate="2018-07-07T14:14:59.383" Score="1" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask but I don't know where else to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm having some trouble with finding out how to achieve this consistently with Chinese characters. I'm guessing it's some sort of font or variation of the characters but I am unsure how to recreate it with myself with different characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;找⃣不⃣到⃣源⃣儿⃣滴⃣了⃣，将⃣就⃣一⃣下⃣吧⃣，四⃣周⃣年⃣快⃣乐⃣么⃣么⃣哒⃣，安⃣全⃣抵⃣达⃣厦⃣门⃣咯⃣同⃣学⃣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen it achieved consistently on Chinese websites and I want to use the same effect on an iOS app (I know it's supported as I've seen it used before) and I am wondering if anyone has any experience with getting this same effect themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone could tell me how this is done or provide me with some sort of resource with all the characters in this form, I'd be very grateful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;( &quot;威&quot; &quot;凱&quot; &quot;篠&quot; are the characters I want to put in this form if anyone knows just how to do it, but not actually explain how to!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20026" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T04:28:42.787" Title="How is this effect achieved for Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30587" CreationDate="2018-07-07T18:11:11.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;原理: 理 is for the physical principles of things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原则: 则 is for the rules of the society/human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T18:11:11.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30587" CreationDate="2018-07-08T02:36:10.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought that could be a simple distinction.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;原理&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;theory&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;principles/fundamentals in science&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a cardinal principle: 根本的原理;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;原则&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;principle&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;rules&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;agree in principle: 原则上同意&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The key is that in English the word principle can be used to denote both scientific theories and rules to regulate ourselves. Well, in Chinese, we separate it into two words: 原理 and 原则.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T02:36:10.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30593" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30600" CreationDate="2018-07-08T02:59:13.017" Score="0" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm aiming to give a mathematics presentation at a conference next month (第八届全国组合数学与图论大会; &lt;a href=&quot;http://ahuweb.ahu.cn/math/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;URL&lt;/a&gt;).  Assuming everything goes to plan, this will be my first conference talk in Chinese (a 15-minute contributed talk), and my first conference presentation in Chinese.  It may be a total disaster, but I feel I should try (and learn from my mistakes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At conferences, before the speaker talks, the session chair introduces them and their talk.  Usually it takes the format:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'd like to welcome [speaker's name] from [speaker's university] who will be talking on [talk title].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this style differs within China (at non-international Chinese-speaking conferences), and what they would ordinarily say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How is a speaker introduced at a Chinese mathematics conference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm seeking an example of an ordinary introduction at a Chinese mathematics conference to familiarize myself with what to expect.  It might be similar to above, e.g., perhaps I can expect something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;欢迎来自南开大学的Rebecca Stones（中文叫李蓓），她将谈论＂枚举偏拉丁矩的四种方法＂．&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm not sure if the format is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At international conferences, sometimes a foreign speaker will repeat what the session chair has already said, e.g. beginning &quot;My name is [speaker's name] and I'm from [speaker's university] and I will be talking on [talk title].&quot;  It's a blooper, and I would like to avoid it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit&lt;/em&gt;: To make sure this is clear: this question is about how the &lt;em&gt;session chair&lt;/em&gt; would ordinarily introduce the speaker.  &lt;strong&gt;The session chair is not the speaker; the session chair introduces the speaker.&lt;/strong&gt;  The question is not about how the speaker would introduce themself.  (My motivation is to react appropriately to how the session chair introduces me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2018-07-08T04:20:30.173" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T04:48:14.877" Title="How is a speaker introduced at a Chinese mathematics conference?" Tags="&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30594" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30597" CreationDate="2018-07-08T03:26:34.407" Score="-1" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Guy in my brawl stars clan said 狗男巫 is a delusional name.&#xA;Is there a cultural string plucked with having witches/wizards, another guy said it also wasn't a good name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just how bad are is that, and if there is something with wizards, then are there any history that I can read on to understand the culture more?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19897" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T04:08:39.573" Title="Are witches/wizards the equivalent of a devil in China or which cultural thing am I not getting here" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30587" CreationDate="2018-07-08T04:02:24.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very few words translate one-to-one between languages, and they are usually very basic like you/me/water or simply loanwords. European language speakers often get confused on this topic after learning some other European language (which essentially shares a huge set of the same semantic fields with minuscule variations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is bundled together as &quot;principle&quot; in English (or rather, all IE languages sharing this post-Latin loanword) is not a single idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原则 is &quot;principle&quot; as in &quot;man has his principles&quot; - basic rules of behaviour&quot;. By choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原理 is &quot;principle&quot; in the sense &quot;doctrine, theoretic base etc&quot;. By nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T04:02:24.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30594" CreationDate="2018-07-08T04:06:41.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Joking or not, there might be a tone mixup in this name - 狗 is often negative, and 男巫 probably positive. Ask him/the other guy if 犬男巫 is batter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-07-08T04:08:39.573" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T04:08:39.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30590" CreationDate="2018-07-08T04:28:42.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has nothing to do with Chinese and can be done with any characters. This is simply a Unicode &quot;effect&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a⃣b⃣c⃣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply add Unicode character U+20E3 after the one you want to be enclosed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/20e3/browsertest.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/20e3/browsertest.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T04:28:42.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30589" CreationDate="2018-07-08T04:30:45.857" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google those names and see if the text says 他 or 她.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T04:30:45.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30593" CreationDate="2018-07-08T04:36:24.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;欢迎来自南开大学的Rebecca Stones（中文叫李蓓），她将谈论＂枚举偏拉丁矩的四种方法＂．&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be the same as other conference, I guess. Normally, the words 欢迎 somebody will be put at the last sentence. Or the session host will say &quot;让我们欢迎&quot; somebody, or &quot;下面有请&quot; somebody &quot;上台&quot;. And if the speaker is someone that important but not all the audience know, the host will also introduce the speaker's title and achievement a little bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to predict other people's words, but let's try a simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下面一位演讲者是来自南开大学的Rebecca Stones， 她的中文名是李蓓。她目前任教于南开大学计算机与控制工程学院，主要研究方向是xxx。曾经在xxx期刊发表过xxx论文。今天她将给大家介绍“枚举偏拉丁矩的四种方法”，让我们欢迎李蓓（有请李蓓/有请李蓓上台）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-08T04:48:14.877" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T04:48:14.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30602" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30611" CreationDate="2018-07-08T14:21:40.953" Score="1" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an exercise in the book 标准教程HSK4上 about using &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B8%8D%E4%BB%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不仅&lt;/a&gt; (bùjǐn; &amp;quot;not only&amp;quot;) together with &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%B9%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;也&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%BF%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;还&lt;/a&gt;, or &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%80%8C%E4%B8%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;而且&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WAH5o.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WAH5o.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Exercise in 标准教程HSK4上&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I transcribe it below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;练一练 Practice&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;完成句子 Complete the sentences.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(1) 李老师不仅喜欢看电影，＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿．（也）&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(2) 他＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿，还喜欢游泳．（不仅）&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(3) 不仅我会做中国菜，＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿．（而且）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came out with these answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李老师不仅喜欢看电影，&lt;strong&gt;他也喜欢看电视&lt;/strong&gt;．&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Teacher Li not only likes to watch movies, he also likes to watch TV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;不仅会走路&lt;/strong&gt;，还喜欢游泳．&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;He not only can walk, he likes to swim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不仅我会做中国菜，&lt;strong&gt;而且我也会吃中国菜&lt;/strong&gt;．&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Not only can I cook Chinese food, I can also &lt;em&gt;eat&lt;/em&gt; Chinese food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not certain these are even suitable answers, and they don't seem particularly elaborate or interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are my answers to this question about 不仅 appropriate, and how can I make them more elaborate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My reflections on my answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is unexciting; it seems 李老师 is the most boring person in the world.  Possibly ...他也以前是电影中的表演 is more interesting (...he used to act in movies), but it's a bit out-of-character for 李老师, and it seems strange to begin the sentence pointing out how he likes to watch movies if we're subsequently going to say he acts in them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the second, I'm envisaging a toddler who is just starting to walk, and their (proud) parent talking about their child's abilities.  I'm unsure about this, but couldn't come up with a satisfying answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third is meant to be a joke; the grammar indicates the sentence would continue with something more exciting, but instead it's unexpectedly mundane.  I was also thinking of something along the lines of ...而且我也会做西餐, but there seems to be a mismatch between 中国菜 and 西餐 (and I'm not sure if &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E8%A5%BF%E8%8F%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西菜&lt;/a&gt; is actually a thing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T05:29:12.120" Title="Are my answers to this question about 不仅 appropriate, and how can I make them more elaborate?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30603" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30604" CreationDate="2018-07-08T14:48:04.263" Score="2" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi I own a printing company and a client submitted the following documents so that I recreate for him following stamps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/a/VnMvuX6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://imgur.com/a/VnMvuX6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/a/i2HakSJ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://imgur.com/a/i2HakSJ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no idea what these stamps are and what is written there, my questions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Is it legally ok for the stamps to be recreated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If yes, could someone be so nice and type for me the letters which are within the red circles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20032" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T06:21:01.200" Title="Help with chinese letters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30603" CreationDate="2018-07-08T15:11:32.387" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's stamps of p.r.c. governmental office.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;don't do it&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;counterfeiting government stamp is an serious offence; in most of places in this world, it's criminal activities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, &lt;strong&gt;don't do it&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@john frazer, CL is not an &quot;underground / dark&quot; site. imo, your comments are inappropriate. encouraging others to &quot;recreate a stamp&quot;, may i ask, what's the moral?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about &quot;what law in what jurisdiction prohibits that&quot;, here're:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;provided by @frenzy li. in mainland china, the 中華人民共和國刑法　第二百八十條&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;偽造&lt;/strong&gt;、變造、買賣或者盜竊、搶奪、毀滅&lt;strong&gt;國家機關的&lt;/strong&gt;公文、證件、&lt;strong&gt;印章&lt;/strong&gt;的，處三年以下有期徒刑、拘役、管制或者剝奪政治權利，並處罰金；情節嚴重的，處三年以上十年以下有期徒刑，並處罰金。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%9B%BD%E5%88%91%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/中华人民共和国刑法&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in colonial era, there's a &quot;forgery ordinance&quot; in hong kong, which mentioned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;forge or counterfeit the stamp or impression of ariy of the seals&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://oelawhk.lib.hku.hk/items/show/206&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://oelawhk.lib.hku.hk/items/show/206&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i hope that, this should provide enough info for you, to stop the thinking of &quot;make a stamp that looks like an official stamp&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, such act is an offence, &lt;strong&gt;don't do it&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-07-10T06:21:01.200" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T06:21:01.200" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30602" CreationDate="2018-07-08T20:41:46.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;李老师不仅喜欢看电影，&lt;strong&gt;他也喜欢看话剧。/ 他也喜欢演电影。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  It's OK. 李老师 could be an acting teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;不仅喜欢滑雪&lt;/strong&gt;，还喜欢游泳。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The two sports are at the same level would be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不仅我会做中国菜，&lt;strong&gt;而且我朋友也会。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Here, if 我 is after 不仅，then we can chose another subject as counterpart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-08T20:55:21.083" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T20:55:21.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30587" CreationDate="2018-07-08T23:20:18.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Previous answers are quite complete. I want to provide some additional information on &amp;quot;原则&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原则 also has a meaning close to &amp;quot;generally&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;usually&amp;quot;. Means that a rule applies to most of the cases, but, importantly, it can have some exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例句：原则上，我们不接受一年级学生的转专业申请。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: Generally, we don't approve applications for change of major for first-year students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence means that &amp;quot;there can be some exceptions for first-year students&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20033" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T23:20:18.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30607" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30624" CreationDate="2018-07-09T00:39:27.013" Score="3" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I'm not actually certain my request fits here, as I'm looking for specific advice rather than answers to an abstract question. I'm sorry if it doesn't.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm going to study in China for two years. In the next weeks, I'll have to fill out the university documents with my Chinese name – already the definitive one, that will also eventually figure in the diploma. Because of that, I'm attaching great importance to finding the right name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've already settled on a 姓氏: 孙. Choosing the right 名字, however, has proven to be too challenging for my unseasoned Chinese skills. As a guiding principle, I’m trying to find Chinese names that bear some phonetic resemblance to my name – Paulo – without resorting to transliterations such as 保罗. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below I've listed some options I've gathered in a book on 'auspicious and elegant Chinese names', along with the reasons why I like them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that I really don't have a clue as to which of these names sound good or just plain odd to the native (and the non-native expert) ear. Do any of the names strike you as particularly beautiful or prohibitively strange? Please tell me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;宝禄: Phonetically as close as it can get. I’m afraid, however, that its meaning may come across as too “shallow” or “materialistic”.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;百禄: A variation on 宝禄.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;宝林: I gravitate towards names with characters that signify, and especially depict, nature. It also sounds like the affectionate name my family calls me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;葩武: Fragility and might - seems beautiful to me. Combined with the family name 孙, however, I think it doesn’t sound so well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;布令: I like this very much, but I’m not sure if its meaning is transparent. It comes from a sentence of the 礼记 that reads as follows: “布得和令，行庆惠施“. In the translation I’ve seen: “Spread the policy of benevolence, holding ceremony, sharing generosity”. I’m also not sure in which tone 令 should be read here.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;博良: Or maybe some variation such as 博禄, 博伦 or even–who knows–博柳﻿?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;柏﻿伦: I think this may be too offbeat, but, as I said, I’m drawn to nature-related characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;若水: This one is the exception, as it doesn’t sound at all like my original name. I’ve included it among the contenders because I just like it very much. If I come to abandon the principle of phonetic similarity, I guess that would be my choice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you all for the invaluable and very timely help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20034" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T12:47:11.303" Title="Help choosing a Chinese name among a few shortlisted ones" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30607" CreationDate="2018-07-09T01:46:24.670" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any answer would be very subjective &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 孙博良 is the best choice. Not only it sounds similar to  Paulo, the characters also are common in native Chinese names and with positive meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「博」 as in 「知識淵博」(widely knowledgeable), 「博學多才」 (knowledgeable and talented)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「良」 as in 「善良」(kind-hearted), 「良好」 (good; fine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people ask you how your name is written, you can quote: 「博學的博, 善良的良」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most importantly, this name has 書生氣 (sounds like a scholar's name) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T01:59:56.780" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T01:59:56.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30610" CreationDate="2018-07-09T03:00:44.917" Score="6" ViewCount="1657" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E6%88%91%E5%8E%BB%E6%B4%97%E6%8A%8A%E8%84%B8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt; has an example of 我去洗把脸:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;知道了，妈。我去洗把脸，让自己清醒一些。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Zhīdàole, mā. Wǒ qù xǐ bǎ liǎn, ràng zìjǐ qīngxǐng yīxiē.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I see, Mummy. I'm going to wash my face and wake myself up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I just encountered it in the Chinese TV series 如果蜗牛有爱情, with the English title &lt;em&gt;When a Snail Falls in Love&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_a_Snail_Falls_in_Love&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;), in &lt;a href=&quot;https://v.qq.com/x/cover/avuik2dix9zqv8p/l002228mydt.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the first episode&lt;/a&gt; on QQ about 15 minutes, 49 seconds in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZcCrh.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZcCrh.png&quot; alt=&quot;我去洗把脸 in subtitles&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's similar examples at YouDao for &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B4%97%E6%8A%8A%E8%84%B8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;洗把脸&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems weird to me to put 把 in 洗把脸.  I would expect 我去洗脸 or 我洗脸去.  YouDao indicates &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/%E6%88%91%E8%A6%81%E5%8E%BB%E6%B4%97%E8%84%B8%E4%BA%86&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;我要去洗脸了&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/%E6%8A%8A%E8%84%B8%E6%B4%97&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;把脸洗&lt;/a&gt; are good choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 把 in 我去洗把脸?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see no real reason for 把 to be in there.  My guess is that it's a variation on 把脸洗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T03:30:31.883" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T02:04:00.973" Title="Why is 把 in 我去洗把脸 (wǒ qù xǐ bǎ liǎn) = I'm going to wash my face?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30609" CreationDate="2018-07-09T03:17:01.583" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thn21.com/base/yu/9290.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;把&lt;/a&gt; is used as 量词 (measure word) here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三、“把”还可以表示动作的次数和量。大部分用于手的动作，如：拉、帮、推、拽、搭、抓等，后面都可以用“把”，用法跟“次”“下”“回”相近。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可是，在现代汉语中，表示动作的量的意义有所扩展，这些动作与手关系不大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如：表现一把、玩一把、练一把等，时下最流行的一个词就是“过把瘾”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's usually used in spoken language, has similar meaning with 次/下. So 洗把脸 is similar to 洗一次脸/洗一下脸, but sounds more vivid and direct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T03:30:36.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30602" CreationDate="2018-07-09T05:29:12.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should pay attention to the word &lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt; 不仅, 还, and etc. Typically, the things after those words are the emphasis point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The first one 李老师不仅 &lt;strong&gt;喜欢&lt;/strong&gt; 看电影, 也&lt;strong&gt;喜欢&lt;/strong&gt; xxx. xxx could be something&#xA;he likes, such as 玩游戏，看电视，踢足球, ... E.g. 李老师不仅喜欢看电影, 也喜欢踢足球. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The second one 还 &lt;strong&gt;喜欢&lt;/strong&gt; 游泳 indicates that 他不仅&lt;strong&gt;喜欢&lt;/strong&gt; xxx has been&#xA;said. And again xxx could be something he likes, such as 玩游戏，看电视，踢足球,&#xA;... E.g. 他不仅喜欢玩游戏, 还喜欢游泳&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The third one 不仅 &lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt; 会做中国菜 suggests that the later part should be&#xA;而且xxx也会（做中国菜）. xxx can be any person. E.g. 不仅我会做中国菜, 而且他们也会（做中国菜）.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this can help you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T05:29:12.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30607" CreationDate="2018-07-09T06:29:25.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Few points to take note :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most of the names you provided are rarely used in modern days.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some of the character have a lot of strokes, making it difficult to write.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some of the character are not widely used, so be prepare to write your name repeatedly just to explain your name.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is no specific rules demand that your prefer name must be same as your name&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first glance, i'll pick 博良. Reason as stated. But after looking at other option, why not just go for your desired ones : 若水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;博 has many strokes, even thou is a common name but if you aren't familiar with the word it might take some time for you to master it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, i decide by instinct, so i'll just follow my heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or perhaps you can go for Fortune Teller to have they provide few option, just for fun. You might even get a name you really like with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17661" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T06:29:25.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30613" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30899" CreationDate="2018-07-09T06:35:50.583" Score="1" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What might explain this phonetic change, in Cantonese and Mandarin? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Please educate me if there's a more fitting term than 'phonetic etymon'.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9C%94#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; avouches the same etymology as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E8%A4%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yellowbridge&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lvOtP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lvOtP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T20:54:07.853" Title="Why doesn't 褱 sound like its phonetic etymon 眔?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30613" CreationDate="2018-07-09T07:17:21.077" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The more common term would be &lt;em&gt;phonetic component&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;sound component&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, if Zhengzhang Old Chinese constructions are reliable,「眔」being the phonetic component of「褱」can possibly be seen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「褱」, /*ɡ&lt;strong&gt;ruː&lt;/strong&gt;l/ &gt; /ɦˠuɛi/ &gt; huái (&lt;em&gt;Pinyin&lt;/em&gt;), waai4 (&lt;em&gt;Jyutping&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「眔」, /&lt;strong&gt;*l'uː&lt;/strong&gt;b/ &gt; /dʌp̚/ &gt; dà (&lt;em&gt;Pinyin&lt;/em&gt;), daap6 (&lt;em&gt;Jyutping&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bolded parts are my own suggestion of the phonetic correspondence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note,「眔」is very commonly interpreted by scholars as a picture of tears「氺」(&lt;em&gt;water&lt;/em&gt;) flowing down an eye「目」.「褱」, by most standard dictionaries, is thought to be the original character of「懷」, with the following meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;懷藏/包圍/懷孕 (&lt;em&gt;to wrap/conceal/be pregnant&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;思念；關心 (&lt;em&gt;to miss/care about somebody&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Supposedly, there is a semantic connection between「眔」and「褱」in the second definition.「眔」is also thought to be the original representation of the word now written as「涕」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%A4%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%A4%B1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T07:39:14.443" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T07:39:14.443" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30615" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-09T08:28:55.290" Score="1" ViewCount="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;See title. I'm looking for how this would be expressed in everyday speech, not in news reports (I know 由此可见 but that's too formal). More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way he walks shows that he is self-confident / From the way he walks, I can tell he is self-confident.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The first time I tried skiing I broke my leg. This shows I'm just not well suited to it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your dark tan tells me you like spending time outdoors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the answer involve the word 表示? Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T10:21:32.687" Title="How do I say &quot;from this&quot;/&quot;this shows&quot;? Like, &quot;this shows you are lazy&quot; or &quot;from this I can tell you are lazy&quot;" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29155" CreationDate="2018-07-09T08:40:07.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;舞者 I believe is a better translation. It is not gender specific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20037" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T08:40:07.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30534" CreationDate="2018-07-09T08:55:40.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;情不知所起，一往而深 can be translated to :1.Love once begun, will never end.2. Love, a spark from nowhere to eternity.3. We have no idea where our love come from, but we will be devoted to a lifelong love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's from a famous Chinese Opera：Peony Pavilion。&#xA;created&#xA;作者：奥修特白&#xA;链接：&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/53022004/answer/133091432&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/53022004/answer/133091432&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;来源：知乎&#xA;著作权归作者所有。商业转载请联系作者获得授权，非商业转载请注明出处。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20037" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T08:55:40.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30618" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-09T09:02:24.983" Score="0" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my talk's slides, I have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ClvMf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ClvMf.png&quot; alt=&quot;image of my talk slides, transcribed below&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;先结论...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;对于给定m（即为确定的元素数量），m! #PLR(r,s,n;m)是个&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  - 三元多项式，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  - 对称多项式(即#PLR(r,s,n;m)=#PLR(s,r,n;m)等)，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  - 整数系数的，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  - 3m次多项式。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I have some students here helping me debug this, but it's mostly my writing.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm happy with the content, but I'm not comfortable with the grammar.  I'm concerned about two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A mismatch between 是个... and the third item 整数系数的 (&quot;has integer coefficients&quot;), but maybe this is okay.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The lack of an &quot;and&quot; here (we would normally include it in English).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: In my bullet list, is ...是个... [something]的 problematic, and do I need an &quot;and&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-07-10T05:44:48.317" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T05:44:48.317" Title="In my bullet list, is ...是个... [something]的 problematic, and do I need an &quot;and&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;punctuation&gt;&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30615" CreationDate="2018-07-09T10:08:49.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Words I can get are 看出(来)，说明，表明， 表示.  表明 and 表示 can be used in formal circumstances.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;this shows you are lazy&lt;/em&gt;: 这说明/表明你很懒. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;from this I can tell you are lazy&lt;/em&gt;: 从这可以看出你(很)懒.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The way he walks shows that he is self-confident&lt;/em&gt;: 他走路的样子说明他很自信.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Your dark tan tells me you like spending time outdoors&lt;/em&gt;: 你黝黑的肤色说明/表明你喜欢经常做户外活动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T10:21:32.687" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T10:21:32.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30620" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-09T10:51:03.777" Score="0" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning Chinese on a book and it shows the words sometimes in Latin alphabet such as &lt;em&gt;Ni-hao&lt;/em&gt;, but it doesn't show how to spell the word with the right pronunciation. Can someone help how I can learn the pronunciation and accent with the aid of the books I have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20041" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-06T01:47:15.043" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T01:47:15.043" Title="How to learn pronunciation effectively with help of books?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-07-14T05:21:07.677" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30618" CreationDate="2018-07-09T12:13:06.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;先结论&quot; is too much colloquial.And even in a colloquial situation,this expression is kind of confusing and impolite from my perspective though we will use it sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“是整系数多项式” or “是个整系数的多项式” 。&#xA;There is no such a structure as “是个……的” in the 普通话's grammer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;and&quot; is not necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20042" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T12:13:06.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30620" CreationDate="2018-07-09T12:19:28.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would consider it practically impossible to learn how to pronounce words correctly in Chinese without audio.  There's many obstacles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The initial x of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%9C%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;需&lt;/a&gt; (xū) doesn't seem to have an equivalent sound in English.  (Have you heard news reporters try to pronounce &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;习近平&lt;/a&gt; (Xí Jìnpíng)?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The final u in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%87%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;出&lt;/a&gt; (chū) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8E%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;去&lt;/a&gt; (qù) are pronounced differently (compare their bopomofo), despite being represented by the same letter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The difference between e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;上&lt;/a&gt; (shàng) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%90%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;向&lt;/a&gt; (xiàng) is very subtle, likewise for nasal vs. non-nasal finals, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BA%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;京&lt;/a&gt; (jīng) vs. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B4%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;津&lt;/a&gt; (jīn).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There's also &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tone sandhi&lt;/a&gt;, where the tone changes in words，e.g. your example &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E4%BD%A0%E5%A5%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;你好&lt;/a&gt; may be written as two third tones (nǐ hǎo) but this changes to one second tone and one third tone (ní hǎo) when its pronounced.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may be possible to benefit from knowledge of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bopomofo&lt;/a&gt;.  However, it's like trying to fight with one arm tied behind your back.  It's vastly easier to simply listen to the sound on some video (or the book's accompanying CD); there's zillions of them available free online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T12:19:28.800" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30623" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30628" CreationDate="2018-07-09T12:24:39.590" Score="3" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from my talk slides (which I'm revising):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pLSzA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pLSzA.png&quot; alt=&quot;image of my talk slides, transcribed below&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每一个PLR(r,s,n;m)是具有m个顶点&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;n着色&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;K&lt;sub&gt;r&lt;/sub&gt;□K&lt;sub&gt;s&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;诱导子图，例如：...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I have some students here helping me debug this.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm concerned about the three 的s being excessive here.  They all seem required, so I don't know if this is actually a problem (and maybe it should just be left alone); perhaps it's a matter of inelegance.  But maybe there's a grammatical way of reducing the 的s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are too many 的s for multiple adjectives a problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in the answer in general (as this comes up a lot), as well as for my specific sentence above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a related question here &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/9190/8099&quot;&gt;What are the rules in Chinese for adjective order when multiple adjectives describe a noun&lt;/a&gt;, but it doesn't address the &amp;quot;large number of 的s&amp;quot; problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T12:09:51.240" Title="Are too many 的s for multiple adjectives a problem?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30607" CreationDate="2018-07-09T12:47:11.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;first, my opinion about your list of names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in general, your choices are very good, better than most modern chinese name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;寶祿 百祿 寶林 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b-, reflecting laymen's desire for wealth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;博良 博祿 博倫 博柳 柏倫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b, average&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;葩武&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c, feel &quot;odd&quot; to hear a name like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;布令&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c-, very aggressive, sound like &quot;to issue (頒布) orders (命令)&quot;, give a &quot;i'm in-charge&quot; feel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;若水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a, as a taoist art name (道號), if you're active taoism practitioner, it's an excellent one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c, if you've no, or little knowledge about taoism, it's a bad choice. cause, most people would talk about taoism, when they hear your name; if you cannot give appropriate response, one would immediately have an impression of dishonest, cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;think thoroughly before choosing this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next, based on your preferences, below are my suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;traditionally, a family with a literary reputation (書香門第) would pick character from verses, from classic books (四書, 五經, then others literatures of yore). here's how:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;博敦&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%8D%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;博 (u+535a)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%95%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;　敦 (u+6566)&lt;/a&gt;, origin from 禮記　曲禮上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;博&lt;/strong&gt;聞強識而讓．&lt;strong&gt;敦&lt;/strong&gt;善行而不怠&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the only caveat of this one, and your &quot;博良 博祿 博倫 博柳&quot; is, the academic title of doctor in chinese is &quot;博士&quot;. so, if you're, or will be, a doctor; you'd be addressed as &quot;孫博敦博士&quot; in chinese. i would like to avoid this situation. next, when you tell other which character used, it's common to say &quot;博士個博&quot;. repeatedly mentioning doctor (博士) in academic field, well, is not understatement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you've a higher title, e.g., &quot;sir&quot;, &quot;duke&quot;, . . .you may ignore this caveat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;溥淵&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%BA%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;溥 (u+6ea5)&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B7%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;淵 (u+6df5)&lt;/a&gt;, origin from 中庸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;溥&lt;/strong&gt;博如天．&lt;strong&gt;淵&lt;/strong&gt;泉如淵．見而民莫不敬．言而民莫不信．行而民莫不說&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;樸之&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%A8%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;樸 (u+6a38)&lt;/a&gt;　之 (u+4e4b), origin from 詩經　大雅　文王之什&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;芃芃棫&lt;strong&gt;樸&lt;/strong&gt;．薪之槱&lt;strong&gt;之&lt;/strong&gt;．濟濟辟王．左右趣之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, the only &quot;disadvantage&quot; of these three names is, they're extremely elegance and intellectual, in nowadays. you'd have a better name than most, if not all chinese, in that &quot;area&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at the same time, these names connected with days of yore, are as good as any scholar officials (士大夫) in ancient times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T12:47:11.303" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30618" CreationDate="2018-07-09T13:34:12.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read the comments and reply, then I would like to give a demo in my way. We can discuss it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;首先给出结论 （This indicate that we will prove it in later slides...）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;对于给定的m（即为确定的元素数量）&lt;/strong&gt;，多项式m! #PLR(r,s,n;m)具有以下特点：  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;是三元多项式，&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;是对称多项式(即#PLR(r,s,n;m)=#PLR(s,r,n;m)&lt;strong&gt;等&lt;/strong&gt;)， （I'm just curious, what do you mean by 等 here? Does it mean #PLR(r,s,n;m)=#PLR(r,n,s;m) and so on?）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;是整数系数多项式，&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;是3m次多项式。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T13:34:12.483" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30623" CreationDate="2018-07-09T13:53:28.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes we can omit most of 的s if it makes the sentence too long and incoherent. It depends on which adjective you would like to emphasize most, 的 can follow it. If you put all three 的， then you mean to emphasize every adjectives. And in this case, you may put comma(，) or enumeration comma（、） after 的, except for the last one。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每一个PLR(r,s,n;m)是具有&lt;strong&gt;m个顶点的&lt;/strong&gt;n着色Kr□Ks诱导子图，例如：... （emphasize m个顶点）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每一个PLR(r,s,n;m)是具有m个顶点&lt;strong&gt;n着色的&lt;/strong&gt;Kr□Ks诱导子图，例如：... （emphasize n着色 or emphasize m个顶点n着色）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每一个PLR(r,s,n;m)是&lt;strong&gt;具有m个顶点n着色Kr□Ks的&lt;/strong&gt;诱导子图，例如：...  (emphasize all the adjectives together with one 的)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每一个PLR(r,s,n;m)是&lt;strong&gt;具有m个顶点的&lt;/strong&gt;， &lt;strong&gt;n着色的&lt;/strong&gt;， &lt;strong&gt;Kr□Ks的&lt;/strong&gt;诱导子图，例如：... (especially emphasize all)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T14:04:36.753" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T14:04:36.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30623" CreationDate="2018-07-09T16:32:27.270" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Considering its mathematical context, I recommend this one: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个PLR(r,s,n;m)是一个具有m个顶点，n着色的Kr□Ks的诱导子图，例如：...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the first remaining 的 cannot be omitted because 具有m个顶点，n着色 modifies the properties of Kr□Ks and the second 的 constructs 是……的诱导子图.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, our teacher may put it as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;记PLR(r,s,n;m)为一m顶点，n着色Kr□Ks的诱导子图，如：...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The briefer the better for mathematicians lol)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry I made unforgivable mistakes.&#xA;So, there's ambiguity, which is which concept m顶点，n着色 modifies.&#xA;However, it is not really ambiguous because Kr□Ks is a graph of r×s nodes and we usually don't care its chromatic number so we can infer that It's the induced subgraph that has m nodes and is n-colorable, but still we should try to put it in a clear way.&#xA;Now it should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;记PLR(r,s,n;m)为Kr□Ks的一m顶点，n着色的诱导子图，如：...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But still &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个PLR(r,s,n;m)是一个具有m个顶点，n着色的Kr□Ks的诱导子图，例如：...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is okay but ambiguous grammarly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-07-10T00:09:43.473" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T00:09:43.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30618" CreationDate="2018-07-10T00:59:28.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ve made great adjustments&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先给结论:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对于元素数量m给定的情况，m!#PLR(r,s,n;m)具有如下性质:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;为r,s,n三元多项式，&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;为关于r,s,n的对称多项式(即给r,s,n的任意排列依次替换原变量，多项式不变)，&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;为整系数多项式，&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;为3m次多项式。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These changes are made according to my received tradition in math class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T00:59:28.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30609" CreationDate="2018-07-10T02:04:00.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a quantifier, used to count or to express times and frequency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一洗把脸 means wash my face once. Here the 把 is not a verb but a quantifier. You can view it as an idiom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, you can use 把 to express how many times you play(usually video or PC games), such as: I am gonna play a round of PUBG ~ 来一把&quot;吃鸡&quot;（PUBG has a Chinese name called 吃鸡, originated from Winner winner, chicken dinner, so we call it 吃鸡，literally eat chicken (dinner)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you ask why do we use 把 to express quantities in this situation, I don't even know, that's why it is idiom, so try play with it, maybe you'll make mistakes, but it's fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20046" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T02:04:00.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30633" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30634" CreationDate="2018-07-10T02:59:43.087" Score="0" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;When giving some kind of saying or folklore knowledge, in English we often say e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You know what they say?  Two heads are better than one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to say something similar in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You know what they say?  天不怕地不怕，就怕老外说中国话！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find this an amusing rhyme, and it usually gets a laugh.  However, I'm not sure what to preface it with.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/example/blng/eng/you_know_what_they_say&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt; uses semi-literal translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你知道他们说...&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Nǐ zhīdào tāmen shuō...&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你知道他们怎么说...&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Nǐ zhīdào tāmen zěnme shuō...&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't know if this is actually used by Chinese speakers (outside of translations from English).  Perhaps it's Engnese (reverse Chinglish) to say this, and there's a more appropriate phrase in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How to phrase &amp;quot;You know what they say? [quote]&amp;quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T11:56:36.937" Title="How to phrase &quot;You know what they say? [quote]&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30633" CreationDate="2018-07-10T03:14:24.480" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;你知道他们说的什么吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你知道他们怎么说吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are common phrases， but not for this context。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depends on the type of the quote， you can use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俗话说/老话说/有句话叫：folk saying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古语有云 （classical saying）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X曰 （quote from ancient scholar）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;XX说 （common phrase）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 俗话说： 三个臭皮匠， 顶一个诸葛亮（Two heads are better than one）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B：有句话叫： 人多手乱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A：古人云：多多益善。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B：子曰：你说得不对。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 高尔基说： 子没说过。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-07-12T01:51:52.947" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T01:51:52.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30633" CreationDate="2018-07-10T03:14:49.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah, there's an equivalent expression:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-俗话说得好[quote]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T03:14:49.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30633" CreationDate="2018-07-10T03:43:23.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;常言道&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chángyándào&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;F.E.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;as the saying goes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常言道, 熟能生巧。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Chángyándào, shúnéngshēngqiǎo.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;As the saying goes, practice makes perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which could just as easily be translated as: You know what they say, practice makes perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T03:50:12.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30579" CreationDate="2018-07-10T06:36:03.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;天上&quot; means above the sky(or heaven). &quot;天下&quot; means below the sky(or heaven).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original phrase may be &quot;天上天下，为我独尊。&quot;, or it may also be &quot;天上天下靡有逾我者&quot; from @user6065's comment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Tang Ho already pointed out that &quot;天上天下，为我独尊。&quot; means &quot;I am the only master above and below the heaven&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;天上天下靡有逾我者&quot; has very similar meaning. &quot;靡(mǐ)有&quot; means &quot;没有(no, there is not). &quot;逾(yú)&quot; means &quot;超过(to exceed)&quot;. So this entire phrase means &quot;There is no one(者) exceeds me(我) above and below the sky(or heaven)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;天上天下，为我独尊。&quot; is from the book &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8A%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8B%EF%BC%8C%E6%83%9F%E6%88%91%E7%8B%AC%E5%B0%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《大唐西域记》&lt;/a&gt;. Most people think it is originally from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gautama Buddha&lt;/a&gt;. The book of @user6065's link is also about Buddhism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is no evidence to prove Gautama Buddha was the original person who said this phrase. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/55625682&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;芒果侠's answer&lt;/a&gt; pointed out that Gautama Buddha did not say this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since books of Buddhism are mostly written in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sanskrit&lt;/a&gt; and there could be thousands of different versions of translations in Chinese language. There is no clear clue of who said this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19840" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T06:36:03.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30640" CreationDate="2018-07-10T08:42:01.303" Score="1" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there such case in which 把 must be used or otherwise a sentence is incorrect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not interested in when it can be used because that's an issue that is rather widely covered. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我感谢你们的帮助。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-07-11T18:03:00.110" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T12:01:48.327" Title="把 grammar and when it MUST be used, not when it CAN be used" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30638" CreationDate="2018-07-10T10:23:46.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is not so specific. Maybe you can give some example cases as the beginning of your question.&#xA;It takes me several minutes to think about &quot;把字句&quot; (the sentences using 把). 把 is not necessary in most of the cases, because it can be change to another formation we called &quot;被字句&quot; (the sentences using 被, passive voice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;把&lt;/strong&gt;你的问题回答了 = 你的问题&lt;strong&gt;被&lt;/strong&gt;我回答了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please read this for more info: &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%8A%8A%E5%AD%97%E5%8F%A5/9464755&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%8A%8A%E5%AD%97%E5%8F%A5/9464755&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, even if you use it as a measure word, 把 can be substituted by other measure word. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一把稻草 = 一束稻草&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一把枪 = 一支枪 = 一杆枪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if the measurement is just small around the size of your hand. It is mostly not a fixed phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一把沙土 = 一握沙土&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一把手枪 = 一支手枪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the only thing I know is &quot;一把手&quot;, here the specific verbal word means the top power person of an organization, especially the government department.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-10T11:07:31.777" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T11:07:31.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30638" CreationDate="2018-07-10T10:32:16.980" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is that the &amp;quot;ba&amp;quot; construction is required when a direct object representing a &lt;em&gt;human&lt;/em&gt; or an &lt;em&gt;animate&lt;/em&gt; item or a &lt;em&gt;non-specific indefinite inanimate item&lt;/em&gt; is moved before the verb. Moving such an object before the verb is done for the purposes of topicalisation or adding focus to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He hit &lt;em&gt;the ball&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他球打了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把球打了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above 把 is optional, although having it makes it clearer. The optional nature of the 把 comes from 球; it is inanimate, so does not require 把.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He hit &lt;em&gt;me&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;strike&gt;他我打了&lt;/strike&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把我打了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 把 is obligatory when 我 is put before the verb for emphasis. Why? Because it is animate (and because it is a pronoun).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why you would &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; to put an object in front? It depends on the verb, and specifically: when certain verbs can take two objects or &amp;quot;arguments&amp;quot;, only the indirect /positional one fits after the verb, and so the direct object &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; go before the verb in Mandarin. The most well-known one is 放, but others like 送 / 丢&#xA;/ 仍 also exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He puts the cake on the plate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;strike&gt;他放蛋糕在盘子上&lt;/strike&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把蛋糕放在盘子上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notably however, this restriction is relaxed in dialectal Mandarin and in other Chinese topolects like Cantonese: it is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; obligatory to use 将 (the Cantonese equivalent of 把) for verbs like 放:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He puts the cake on the plate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Cantonese only&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢&lt;strong&gt;將&lt;/strong&gt;蛋糕&lt;strong&gt;放&lt;/strong&gt;喺碟上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢&lt;strong&gt;放&lt;/strong&gt;蛋糕喺碟上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T10:32:16.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30623" CreationDate="2018-07-10T12:09:51.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically(pun intended) it is not a problem, it sounds redundant, if it is a literary book, author would try to avoid that, but for technical writing, clear is the most important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T12:09:51.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30534" CreationDate="2018-07-10T12:36:08.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;人生若只如初见 （If Life Was Still as When We First Met）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平生不会相思，才会相思，便害相思。（One don't know love， would love， then love）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陌上花开 可缓缓归矣 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不思量，自难忘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此情可待成追忆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T12:36:08.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30643" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-10T15:02:20.417" Score="4" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there is more than one part to a time phrase (e.g. both 今天 and 八点) can I place one of them before the subject and one after? Is there any situation in which this would be okay?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他今天八点要去看电影 (not split)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天他八点要去看电影 (split)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a similar note, if there is both a time expression and another adverb, can I split those up?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电影六点就开始了 (not split)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;六点电影就开始了 (split)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20050" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T05:51:39.467" Title="Can I split up time phrases and adverbs?" Tags="&lt;adverbs&gt;&lt;time&gt;&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30644" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30650" CreationDate="2018-07-11T01:14:44.727" Score="0" ViewCount="615" Body="&lt;p&gt;This dialogue is from the book Standard Course 标准教程 HSK4 上, page 8 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://item.jd.com/11558167.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;JD.com&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2HBMD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2HBMD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;image from book containing snippet below&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in this part:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... 年轻人说：浪漫是她想要月亮时，你不会给她星星 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I (literally) translate this to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Young people [年轻人] say [说]: romance [浪漫] is [是] when [...时] she [她] wants [想要] the moon [月亮], you [你] cannot [不会] give [给] her [她] a star [星星].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My feeling is that this sentence implies that young romance is about selfish women: she's unwilling to accept a star (in place of the moon), and may even get angry should her partner give her something other than the moon (despite it being as amazing as a star).  Her partner must strive to follow her wishes, even if they are unreasonable.  Thus, my impression is that this sentence is belittling of young love, and particularly of young women.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically my question is: is this the intended interpretation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is the non-literal interpretation of this sentence that young romance is selfish, particularly of women?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T19:01:40.797" Title="Is the non-literal interpretation of 浪漫是她想要月亮时，你不会给她星星 that young romance is selfish, particularly of women?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30644" CreationDate="2018-07-11T02:03:43.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, we would not know the 年轻人 is male or female, as it will totally affect the outcome of the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if it came from a male, it might just means that the perfect definition of romance is if the woman requires something(moon), you won't give her compatible item(star).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same goes to if is came from a female, the definition is same, but it does not interpret that young woman will only receive moon as present and not willing to receive others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps for the young woman star is good enough, and moon might be a luxury item for her. Everyone do hopes to strive for perfect(moon) or high expectation but it does not state that they would not willing to accept low expectation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in TLDR; It does not, it just merely state the perfect condition of romance is to get what the woman wants, but it did not imply that the young woman would not accept other option/present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: im quite curious about how 中年人 and 老年人 define romance, as it tend to be either 文绉绉（poetic) or 白话文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17661" LastActivityDate="2018-07-11T02:03:43.617" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30644" CreationDate="2018-07-11T02:14:50.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not exactly, 不会 is interpreted as 'won't', this paragraph is about man,not woman, what he want to say is, when a woman want a moon, you(the man) won't give her other things but the moon exactly, young man think that know couple's need is romance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-07-11T02:14:50.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30643" CreationDate="2018-07-11T02:18:38.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you can, when you split it like that, you emphasize the time, when your friend run out of the time, you can use it to push them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-07-11T02:18:38.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30648" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-11T05:25:02.543" Score="8" ViewCount="2888" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have 9 TrueType fonts that include seal script hanzi, but do not include them entirely. Could someone show me a decent font, or send me via email the shuowen jiezi font?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20053" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-07-26T06:49:37.940" LastActivityDate="2021-02-25T04:46:22.237" Title="Where can I find a decent Seal Script font?" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30648" CreationDate="2018-07-11T06:59:53.427" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.hku.hk/~jwilam/chinese/font.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://web.hku.hk/~jwilam/chinese/font.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bnucdp.ttf&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ebas927.ttf (link broken; try &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/fonts/truetype/cns11643/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.moedict.tw/fonts/truetype/cns11643/&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 說文 records many variants, so the default one that appears when you type Chinese may not be the &quot;orthodox variant&quot; that you're looking for (I know from experience because I've used these fonts before). If you're good at reading seal script, you should open the font with a character map to get the unicode directly to type the variant you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, many characters that we use today may not have existed as a seal script character. They may have used another character for the same word, or the word just didn't exist back then. You can't do anything in this case except construct your own seal script character for those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These problems I've mentioned might be the same problem you're having with your existing set of 9 fonts, and you may have these two fonts already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-07-11T07:49:59.233" LastActivityDate="2018-07-11T07:49:59.233" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30644" CreationDate="2018-07-11T12:51:48.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the original section:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很多女孩子羡慕浪漫的爱情。那什么是浪漫呢？&lt;strong&gt;年轻人说&lt;/strong&gt;：浪漫是她想要月亮时，你不会给她星星；&lt;strong&gt;中年人说&lt;/strong&gt;：浪漫是即使晚上加班到零点，到家时，自己家里也还亮着灯；&lt;strong&gt;老年人说&lt;/strong&gt;：浪漫其实就像歌中唱的那样，“我能想到最浪漫的事，就是和你一起慢慢变老。”其实，让我们感动的，就是生活中简单的爱情。有时候，简单就是最大的幸福。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We may find the author's main idea from context. After reading the whole paragraph, I think the author just want to show the different definitions from people with different life experience. We may learn that the definition of romance is becoming simpler and more realized when people get more experiences. The things 年轻人 believed is just with higher demands which may be idealized and irreplaceable. But their ideas may change when they become 中年人 and 老年人。 So, nothing to do with men or women here. The author is not complaining anyone but just let you know the definition of romance and love may change to simpler one. The last sentence actually makes the conclusion that &quot;Simplicity is the best happiness.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another skill to judge the author's idea is to feel his mood and emotion in the context. There are full of pauses and commas in this paragraph, which make it peaceful and soothing without any blame and implication. But this is technically. After all, there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-11T14:24:37.927" LastActivityDate="2018-07-11T14:24:37.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30651" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30652" CreationDate="2018-07-11T15:10:06.293" Score="-1" ViewCount="1884" Body="&lt;p&gt;my wife is Chinese and we had an argument yesterday and she wrote this for herself (see pictures). Unfortunately her handwriting is too hard for me to read and look up (I first tried to look in a kanji dictionary counting the lines etc), can someone help?&#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ldtpv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ldtpv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Th4nD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Th4nD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20055" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T15:47:02.463" Title="What did my wife write?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30651" CreationDate="2018-07-11T16:20:01.360" Score="11" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No Value&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personal Time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Improve work skills&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Spend time on photobooks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Know more friends&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Spend less time on meaningless housework (literally, maybe means home affairs?)&#xA;《Invest myself》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-11T16:20:01.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30656" CreationDate="2018-07-11T17:12:52.643" Score="3" ViewCount="696" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm in China and many staffs at cafes or bars call me &quot;朋友&quot; to get my attention, for example to bring the food to my table or ask me to hand in my AliPay screen. But on the other hand, it seems always &quot;服务员&quot; if a customer calls a staff, not &quot;朋友&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I often hear customers call waiters &quot;朋友&quot; to get their attention, but in my experience this is true only when the customers are foreigners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wonder if it is considered acceptable, or even if it is, still sounds awkward or unnatural, to call waiters &quot;朋友&quot; as a custermer. Also, do local Chinese call them &quot;朋友&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-07-12T05:26:11.630" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T16:55:38.900" Title="Is it common to call a waiter &quot;朋友&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30653" CreationDate="2018-07-11T17:19:52.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, it is like you call someone in English as &quot;bro&quot; even though he is not your actually brother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Me personally call the waiters as &quot;服务员&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2018-07-11T17:19:52.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30653" CreationDate="2018-07-11T18:06:56.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not usual to hear 朋友 for waiters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes it is acceptable to call waiters 服务员, though is slightly awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, most local Chinese people call waiters 服务员.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, to show my respect, I would call waiters as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Male: 小哥、小哥哥、帅哥、靓仔 (Cantonese)、伙计、哥们、兄弟 (in northern China).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Female: 小妹、小姐姐、美女、靓女（Cantonese).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18332" LastActivityDate="2018-07-11T18:06:56.453" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30653" CreationDate="2018-07-11T19:47:15.570" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 服务员 is just a little bit old, formal and sometimes serious way of calling waiters/waitresses from some people's prospective nowadays. But I don't think it is offensive if you use it, especially if you're a foreigner. I also use it several years ago and even now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternative way maybe 服务生(mostly for male). I guess it's the way from Hong Kong or Taiwan but accepted in mainland. This sounds more modern in some cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朋友 is not widely used by local in such cases. Maybe because you're a foreigner, they would like to show more friendly. I think they can call you 先生（Mister）/女士（Mrs.）/小姐（Miss）. However, if this is the cafe/bar's feature or tradition or something like industry rule (though I don't know such rule), then it's OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, you can just call waiters (even not only waiters, but any other male you don't know)  as 帅哥、小哥、小哥哥（if he is young）； 兄弟、哥们；叔叔、伯伯、大叔(if he is elder)；大爷（very old）...&#xA;The same, call any female you don't know as 美女、小姐姐、小姑娘（if young）;姐姐、姐们儿；大姐、大嫂、阿姨（if elder）; 大妈（very old）...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小哥哥、小姐姐 are just the popular saying recently, we don't even use them maybe 2 years ago. Things are always changing, you know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, it's simple and proper to say 你好 in order to get the waiter's attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-13T16:55:38.900" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T16:55:38.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30653" CreationDate="2018-07-12T01:58:59.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Locals do not use 朋友， but if you use it, waiters will happy,  before you use it, consider your friends feeling, they may give you an odd face. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use 服务员，or  just say 你好， and avoid to call a title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T01:58:59.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30653" CreationDate="2018-07-12T02:18:47.197" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nationwide, 服务员 is the common term for waiters(in English). Some may think to address someone as 服务员 is a bit &quot;look-down&quot;, but wouldn't it be the case for the English word &lt;em&gt;waiters&lt;/em&gt;? I did hear &quot;waiter&quot; was used to humiliate someone. Overall, there is no issue that you use 服务员 in those public service establishments including restaurants, malls, supermarkets and etc., in which you don't intend to offend.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the case you encountered in those bars and cafes where they address customers as 朋友, I think the main purpose is that they want to pull the relationship closer to their customers (as if they are friends). Some would take it a bit odd at the first time of hearing it, and they may get used to it after they go there many times because they know it's just their style. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't suggest you call them back with 朋友 unless you are trying to make a little joke on their style (calling their customers 朋友). Think about the case where you say &quot;朋友，买单&quot; and the waiter might be confused whether you are asking him for bill or your friend sitting next to you to pay the bill. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-07-12T05:28:16.190" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T05:28:16.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30653" CreationDate="2018-07-12T11:53:14.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We say 小二 in a traditional Chinese restaurant. 侍應 in a western restaurant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use 朋友 If u know the name of the waiter(s) . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18747" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T11:53:14.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30633" CreationDate="2018-07-12T11:56:36.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;W can split this into several scenario. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If u want to say or quote Something: 俗話說、俗話話、古語有云。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It u want to say question your audience to understand what the third party say: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你明佢地講乜，你明白其他人說什麼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18747" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T11:56:36.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30638" CreationDate="2018-07-12T12:01:48.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever you emphasize the object associated with your action, then use 把. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:  I put a cake on a chair &#xA;我放下蛋糕予椅子上&#xA;我放低蛋糕落張凳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把蛋糕放在椅子上&#xA;我將舊蛋糕放低落個凳度&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18747" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T12:01:48.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30663" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-12T12:14:02.733" Score="1" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone please help me figure out what characters are and how to translate the top four and the seal characters in the attached pic?&#xA;If you could please answer in a clear way to identify which is the top four characters and which are in the seal square&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UBg7L.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qq1LV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13502" LastEditorUserId="13502" LastEditDate="2018-07-13T21:31:08.637" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T21:31:08.637" Title="Character translation chinese or japanese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30663" CreationDate="2018-07-12T13:01:38.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;my guess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the top one is 呈 (u+5448)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%91%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=呈&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the second one is 瑞 (u+745e)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%91%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=瑞&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;others, it takes time to recognise :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T13:01:38.717" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30653" CreationDate="2018-07-12T13:17:47.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My gut feeling is that ,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Foreigners call Chinese waiters 朋友：natural and will make me feel that this foreigner is a smart and considerate person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese waiters call foreiners 朋友：how does he know this  foreigner can understand Chinese?But if he does,it's a good option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese locals call Chinese unfamiliar waiters 朋友：inappropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese waiters call Chinese locals 朋友：very inappropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20042" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T13:17:47.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30643" CreationDate="2018-07-12T14:17:24.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My gut feeling is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“今天他八点” emphasizes the condition of &quot;今天&quot;.&#xA;“六点电影就开始了” emphasizes “六点”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my second thought is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even when i want to emphasize “今天” or &quot;六点&quot;，i may still use “他今天八点” and &quot;电影六点就&quot; sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20042" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-14T01:28:51.070" LastActivityDate="2019-07-14T01:28:51.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30667" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-12T20:44:32.223" Score="3" ViewCount="590" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 战略 and 策略？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word I am looking to translate from English is &quot;strategy.&quot; I vaguely remember a Chinese teacher once explaining 战略 as more of high level strategy and 策略 as department-based tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found an article on the Chinese MBAlib explaining &quot;pricing strategy&quot; as 价格策略.   &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E5%AE%9A%E4%BB%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MBAlib Link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20059" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T17:00:46.393" Title="What's the difference between 战略 and 策略？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30667" CreationDate="2018-07-12T21:46:16.870" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel 策略 is more strategy and 战略 seems a bit more tactical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T21:46:16.870" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30669" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30671" CreationDate="2018-07-12T23:10:17.943" Score="0" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning Chinese and I would like to buy a book in simplified chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to look for &quot;简体中文&quot; but could not find it. Could you tell me if this is simplified?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.huawenbookshop.com/1201443864.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.huawenbookshop.com/1201443864.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20060" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T01:39:45.377" Title="Is this book simplified or traditional?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-07-13T10:33:28.633" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30670" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-12T23:13:31.373" Score="3" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 部件, 零件, and 配件？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to translate the English sentence &lt;em&gt;&quot;Manage parts &amp;amp; accessories retail operations&quot;&lt;/em&gt; and am having difficulty finding the right words for &lt;em&gt;&quot;parts&quot;&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;&quot;accessories&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, not sure if I should throw in 辅助品 for &lt;em&gt;&quot;accessories&quot;&lt;/em&gt; rather than one of the above options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI, this translation is for a vehicle manufacturer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20059" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-07-13T00:35:37.750" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T00:44:08.723" Title="What's the difference between 部件, 零件, and 配件？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30669" CreationDate="2018-07-13T00:06:43.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is Simplified Chinese, as inferred by the text used on the cover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T00:06:43.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30653" CreationDate="2018-07-13T00:12:27.927" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you call your waiters or waitresses 服务员, 小二 , 小哥、小哥哥、帅哥、靓仔, 小妹、小姐姐、美女、靓女 as above in Hong Kong, you could seriously offend them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially 靓仔 靓女. I will strongly recommend against it; it will be considered creepy and borderline sexual harassment. (Would like to comment, but I don't have enough reputation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, a simple request starting with 你好 (hi) + 唔該 (please) would normally suffice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastEditorUserId="19947" LastEditDate="2018-07-13T05:38:27.017" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T05:38:27.017" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30670" CreationDate="2018-07-13T00:31:02.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;零件 (parts) and 配件 (accessory) would suffice, in Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T00:31:02.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30670" CreationDate="2018-07-13T00:44:08.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;零件: parts;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;配件: accessories; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;部件: assembly unit;  部件 is composed of parts 零件;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;parts &amp;amp; accessories&lt;/em&gt; can be 零配件.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &quot;&lt;em&gt;Manage parts &amp;amp; accessories retail operations&lt;/em&gt;&quot; can be interpreted as 管理 零配件 零售运营. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T00:44:08.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30669" CreationDate="2018-07-13T01:39:45.377" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is chinese. But I think this book may be a bit hard to understand because there are so many words that only appear in chinese mythology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17848" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T01:39:45.377" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30676" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30677" CreationDate="2018-07-13T03:23:19.607" Score="3" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;欢迎乘坐我们的出租车！is an idiomatic Chinese sentence. When a passenger enters a taxi, the driver can use it as a greeting. By word-for-word translation,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欢迎: welcome (to)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乘坐: take&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们的: our&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出租车: taxi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make it a sentence: &lt;em&gt;Welcome to take our taxi!&lt;/em&gt;. But from the English perspective, &lt;em&gt;Welcome to take our taxi!&lt;/em&gt; is a wrong sentence. So, I have some difficulty to turn that Chinese sentence into English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, some cabs in Shanghai have a machine installed. When a customer enters the car, it will play the utterance: &lt;em&gt;Welcome to take our taxi!&lt;/em&gt;. It just sounds ugly to an English native's ear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T20:31:58.487" Title="How to translate 欢迎乘坐我们的出租车！" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30676" CreationDate="2018-07-13T10:17:32.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;maybe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;nice to meet you, welcome aboard&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if, said by machine, try&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;welcome aboard of this XXX (company name) taxi&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T10:17:32.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30678" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30681" CreationDate="2018-07-13T14:18:51.263" Score="2" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the following example on this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.duolingo.com/skill/zs/Greeting-2/tips-and-notes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;webpage&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你 高兴，我 也 高兴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nǐ gāoxìng, wǒ yě gāoxìng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you are happy then I am happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somehow, the translation sounds weird to me, as I would rather translate it more literally with &lt;em&gt;&quot;You are happy, (and) I am also happy&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q.&lt;/strong&gt; Is this a common way to construct &lt;em&gt;&quot;if ... then ...&quot;&lt;/em&gt;-kind of  sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I searched about this topic online, I was only able to find the following approaches and not the one I have doubts about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22if%E2%80%A6,_then%E2%80%A6%22_with_%22ruguo%E2%80%A6,_jiu%E2%80%A6%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;如果 ⋯⋯ ，就 ⋯⋯&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22if%E2%80%A6_then%E2%80%A6%22_with_%22jiaru%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;假如 + Statement + 就 + Result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22if%E2%80%A6_then%E2%80%A6%22_with_%22jiashi%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;假使 + Statement + 就 + Result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19979" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T15:02:17.800" Title="if ... then ... in Chinese without any special words" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30679" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-13T14:22:26.790" Score="0" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;My grandpa’s death anniversary is August 4, 2016 and I looked it up to be the 7th month, 2nd day of year 4714  in the lunar calendar. Can someone translate this to the correct way of writing it in Chinese? I want to get it tattooed on but I want to make sure it is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20064" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-07-14T21:42:59.780" LastActivityDate="2018-07-14T21:42:59.780" Title="How to write 7th month, 2nd day of year 4714 in lunar calendar?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30667" CreationDate="2018-07-13T14:35:00.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your teacher has the point. There are no corresponding English word for 战略 or 策略, so you can not simply put 战略==strategy and 策略==tactic.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like your teacher said: 战略 is a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;high-level&lt;/strong&gt; strategy&lt;/em&gt;. For example, 公司未来三年的发展战略; 国家经济发展的战略； Well, 策略 is a &lt;em&gt;normal or low-level&lt;/em&gt; strategy, such as &lt;em&gt;a marketing strategy&lt;/em&gt;（市场营销策略）. 策略 can also be a &lt;em&gt;tactic&lt;/em&gt;, by which you can achieve a &lt;em&gt;specific&lt;/em&gt; goal. For example, 这场比赛我的策略是...(our tactic for this game is...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T14:35:00.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30678" CreationDate="2018-07-13T14:50:16.780" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你 高兴，我 也 高兴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I interpret it as &quot;&lt;em&gt;You are happy, and I am happy too&lt;/em&gt;.&quot; It means your happiness may not be necessarily relevant to mine, but they just happen simultaneously for some or no reason. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think about this similar sentence: 你有苹果，我也有苹果. It means you have an apple and I have one too. It doesn't mean if you have an apple then I have an apple too. There isn't any correlation here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;If you are happy then I am happy.&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is more like (如果)你高兴，我就高兴. 如果 in this case can be dropped. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you say 如果你有苹果，我就有苹果， it clearly address the conditional relationship. It means both of us share the same prerequisite for getting an apple. So, if you can get one, then no doubt I can get one too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-13T15:02:17.800" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T15:02:17.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30679" CreationDate="2018-07-13T15:31:01.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wannianli.net/2016/2016-8-4.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wannianli.net&lt;/a&gt; gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;二0一六年七月初二日&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(and also: 丙申年乙未月戊午日)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which marks it as 2016 and not 4714, if you really want to write 4714 then you could do something like：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;四七一四年七月初二日&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-07-13T15:44:53.790" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T15:44:53.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30679" CreationDate="2018-07-13T15:36:27.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;think carefully before you &quot;tattoo&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4th august 2016 in lunar calendar is: 丙申歲七月初二&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the 4714 is based on &quot;黃帝紀元&quot;, a &lt;strong&gt;dubious&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;calendar system&quot;; which used 2698 bc as the starting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as i remembered, i never read any info about it in literatures of yore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;according to the wiki, it was created in 1903. how authentic, and acceptable is in doubt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E9%BB%84%E5%B8%9D%E7%BA%AA%E5%85%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/黄帝纪元&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you insist, the above mentioned date in this style is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黃帝紀元四千七百一十四年七月初二&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T15:36:27.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30667" CreationDate="2018-07-13T18:21:59.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;战略&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;1.指导战争全局的计划和策略。对战术而言。&lt;/strong&gt; （战术: tactic）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  洪深《戏剧导演的初步知识》：“兵书上说得好：战略与战术乃二个全异之行动。战术是关于战斗诸种行动之指导法，战略乃连系配合各种战斗之谓。战略为作战之根源，即创意定计；战术乃实行战略所要求之手段。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;2.有关战争全局的。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  由战略防御转入战略进攻。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;3.比喻在一定历史时期指导全局的方略。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  邓小平《高级干部要带头发扬党的优良传统》：“我们一定要认识到，认真选好接班人，这是一个战略问题。”  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;战略，是一种从&lt;strong&gt;全局&lt;/strong&gt;考虑谋划实现全局目标的规划，战术只为实现战略的手段之一。实现战略胜利，往往有时候要牺牲部分利益，去获得战略胜利。战略是一种&lt;strong&gt;长远&lt;/strong&gt;的规划，是远大的目标，往往规划战略、制定战略、用于实现战略的目标的时间是比较长的。&#xA;  争一时之长短，用战术就可以达到！如果是“争一世之雌雄”，就需要从全局出发去规划，这就是战略！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;战略 and 策略 may not be directly mapping to English as strategy and tactic. But for sure, 战略 is something that think bigger, long term, comprehensive and high level one. From Chinese to English, the mapping English word for 战略 is strategy. But from English to Chinese, the word for strategy can be 战略 or 策略. It depends.&#xA;Why is 策略 here for Pricing Strategy? I think this is because 战略 is more comprehensive, globally, something bigger than only pricing. It may consider all the aspects the corporation should care about. Sometimes, 战略 could be more abstract than 策略. Pricing is just one aspect, specific and detail topic here. If you &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E7%BB%8F%E8%90%A5%E7%AD%96%E7%95%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;search 经营策略 in that site&lt;/a&gt;, you will find many words about 经营战略. Because 企业经营（running business） is more strategy and bigger topic than pricing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And another thing is that 战略 is now widely used in many competitive context, not only about military and war.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-13T18:33:01.870" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T18:33:01.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30685" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30687" CreationDate="2018-07-13T20:54:17.117" Score="1" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;Particularly, I was wondering how to say &quot;She threw cards at us&quot; (as in playing cards). Is “她掷卡片对我们“ correct？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19524" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T21:19:46.790" Title="How to say &quot;Throw something at someone&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30686" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-13T21:12:00.587" Score="3" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看见 - 看&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;离开 - 离&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;开&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜欢 - &lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;喜欢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知道 - &lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;知道&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this done and how do I know if I should or shouldn't do it when negating? Couldn't find anything on the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15915" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-14T06:03:43.373" Title="Why is 不 sometimes put between the syllables of a 2-syllable word?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30685" CreationDate="2018-07-13T21:19:46.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Throw something at somebody:把(东西)扔向（某人）。&#xA;She threw cards at us:&#xA;她把卡片扔向我们/她把卡片扔给我们/她朝我们扔卡片/她向我们扔来卡片&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, If playing cards, We don't say it like above. I think we just say &quot;她向我们打出xx牌&quot;.&#xA;Playing cards: 打牌/打扑克Playing poker&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T21:19:46.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30686" CreationDate="2018-07-13T22:11:24.170" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are only two potential particles, and they are 得 and 不&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a potential particle is inserted between a verb and its result complement, it turn that verb from an active verb into a potential verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看見 = See&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看得見 = can see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看不見 = can’t see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聽到 = hear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聽得到 = can hear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聽不到 = can‘t hear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When an adverb 不 or 沒 is placed before a verb, it funcutions as  ‘not’ and ‘have not’ respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看 = to see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不看 = not to see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有看 = have seen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒看 = have not seen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T22:11:24.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30689" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-14T02:15:51.273" Score="2" ViewCount="1730" Body="&lt;p&gt;This would be useful to know if learners encounter a word they're unaware of (such as a slang/jargon word) that an outsider wouldn't know possibly off the bat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19897" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2020-10-22T13:46:18.663" LastActivityDate="2020-10-22T13:46:18.663" Title="How would I say &quot;What does X mean?&quot; in mandarin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30689" CreationDate="2018-07-14T02:16:06.560" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;you say should say this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“X 是什么意思？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19897" LastActivityDate="2018-07-14T02:16:06.560" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30689" CreationDate="2018-07-14T03:44:06.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another way to say this is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;什么叫做X？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to hear this from curious little kids all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-07-14T03:44:06.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30694" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30695" CreationDate="2018-07-15T02:44:26.053" Score="0" ViewCount="47" Body="&lt;p&gt;大家好！ 在hsk我遇到这个句子，终于没看懂。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;句子是 ：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而时间是有限的， 所以不但要会读书，而且还要会选择其中的好书阅读。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am confused upon seeing 要 and 会 together and the overall sentence meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Help is appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastEditorUserId="19898" LastEditDate="2018-07-15T03:37:54.520" LastActivityDate="2018-07-15T04:02:48.080" Title="Need help in understanding this question from sample hsk question" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30694" CreationDate="2018-07-15T04:02:48.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而时间是有限的， 所以不但要会读书，而且还要会选择其中的好书阅读。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要: need; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会: know how (to); &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rough translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Well, time is limited, so we need not only know how to read books but also know how to pick good ones among (all kinds of) books to read.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-15T04:02:48.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30696" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30702" CreationDate="2018-07-15T04:42:38.947" Score="1" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been looking at this sentence 公共职员在超市进行了调查 and wondering if it could be reordered and still be grammatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came up with 在超市公共职员进行调查了 but my grammar textbook answer only shows 公共职员在超市进行了调查. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please help.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastActivityDate="2018-07-15T09:59:50.563" Title="公共职员在超市进行了调查 sentence order" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30697" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30698" CreationDate="2018-07-15T05:04:43.087" Score="0" ViewCount="516" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/21360241/answer/26685442&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;following answer over 知乎&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在美国，异国恋，一直在坚持，克服孤独的最好办法只能是享受孤独吧。这可能是略有&lt;strong&gt;B格&lt;/strong&gt;的一句话，可当我真正到了国外学习，发现没有太好的办法来克服孤独，是我境界不高，还是我乐趣恶俗，的确始终找不到好的办法。大家都很忙，就算有朋友也很难照顾彼此，百分之九十五的时候是一个人去完成一项事情，不准剽窃，不准作弊，严格的制度和偏执的诚信，都让人喘不过气。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does &lt;em&gt;B格&lt;/em&gt; mean? I'm sure it is an Internet slang, but not sure what it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/B%E6%A0%BC/15633485?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度百科&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“B格”，网络熟词，亦写作“逼格”“13格”等，为网络语言“装13的格调”的简称。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then what does it mean...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T15:06:41.707" Title="What does B格 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;slang&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30697" CreationDate="2018-07-15T05:53:46.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a net language. It's like &lt;em&gt;poser&lt;/em&gt; noun and &lt;em&gt;pretentious&lt;/em&gt; adjective in English. It reminds me a similar word: zhuang-bility(装逼)， which denotes the same meaning. B格 is just the extent of zhuang-bility(装逼). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 略有B格的一句话 means &lt;em&gt;the sentence with a tone of being slightly pretentious&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-15T11:32:09.043" LastActivityDate="2018-07-15T11:32:09.043" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30699" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30701" CreationDate="2018-07-15T06:47:12.997" Score="1" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;就要 normally &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_&amp;quot;about_to&amp;quot;_with_&amp;quot;jiuyao&amp;quot;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;means &quot;about to&quot;&lt;/a&gt; but in this sentence the negated form makes the sentence hard to translate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20073" LastEditorUserId="20073" LastEditDate="2018-07-16T07:08:51.177" LastActivityDate="2018-07-16T08:45:41.580" Title="What's the function/meaning of 就不要 in 过去的事情就不要说了?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30699" CreationDate="2018-07-15T06:57:28.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;就要 doesn't always mean &quot;about to&quot;, it can mean &quot;have to&quot;. Here's an example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你要成績好就要努力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where 就要 means &quot;have to&quot;. (The whole sentence is &quot;If you want good grades you have to work hard)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your sentence, 就要 is negated from &quot;have to&quot; as &quot;don't have to&quot;. The whole sentence translated would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You &lt;strong&gt;don't have to&lt;/strong&gt; talk of the past things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16335" LastActivityDate="2018-07-15T06:57:28.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30699" CreationDate="2018-07-15T08:15:32.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;过去的事情就不要说了 means it's not necessary to mention those things in the past. Or it's not deserve to mention the things in the past. It implies that &lt;em&gt;just let it go&lt;/em&gt; because it is just meaningless/helpless to the current situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 here is kinda like the word &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt;. So, 就不要 here is kinda like &lt;em&gt;just don't&lt;/em&gt; because there is no use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should comprehend 就不要 as 就 and 不要 in this case. 不要 is like &quot;don't&quot; in an imperative sentence. For example, 不要说话: don't speak! 就不要说话了 is kind of suggestion, meaning &lt;em&gt;just don't say anything.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another point is 过去的事情就不要说了 can be paraphrased as 就不要说过去的事情了. By pulling 过去的事情 ahead, it's like saying: &lt;em&gt;things passed, so just don't mention it&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-15T11:04:37.813" LastActivityDate="2018-07-15T11:04:37.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30696" CreationDate="2018-07-15T09:59:50.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your sentence &lt;em&gt;在超市公共职员进行调查了&lt;/em&gt; is ok. It's better you put a comma: 在超市，公共职员进行调查了. But logically, 公共职员在超市进行了调查 sounds better. You can split it like: 公共职员在超市/进行了/调查. The first part 公共职员在超市 talks about: 公共职员 is in supermarket; The second part talks about the action 进行了; The third part talks about the target of the verb: 调查; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 进行了调查 vs 进行调查了, 进行调查了 takes 进行调查 together as a verbal phrase while 进行了调查 separates it into two words 进行 and 调查. 进行了调查 put an emphasis on the word 调查, which is what 公共职员 have done in the supermarket. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-15T09:59:50.563" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30705" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-16T08:05:05.647" Score="0" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to make a label for my workbook but I'm not very sure how to write this phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;If you can dream it you can do it!.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using google translate (traditional chinese) renders me this result:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;如果你能做到夢想就可以做到！&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other phrase I want to translate is: (Again accompanied by google translate results)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Best of luck in Mathematics and Science!&#xA;&#xA;祝你好運數學和科學！&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: The meaning of this second sentence is referring to those different courses or subjects. Hence assistance is needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;You're the number one student!&#xA;&#xA;你是頭號學生&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if these results are gramatically correct or if they do really mean what it was intended to say in english. Can somebody help me with a proper check and review of these?. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to get some help with translating the second sentence as it was left unattended by one of the answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19440" LastEditorUserId="19440" LastEditDate="2018-07-16T09:28:45.473" LastActivityDate="2018-07-16T09:28:45.473" Title="How to translate these inspirational phrases correctly?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30705" CreationDate="2018-07-16T08:34:48.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you can dream it you can do it!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  梦得到的都做得到！ (what can be dreamed of can be done!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梦得到的 that which can be dreamed (the 的 changes 梦得到 &quot;can be dreamed&quot; to &quot;that which can be dreamed&quot;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;都 all (adverb)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;做得到 can be done&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;verb得到 means &quot;able to successfully verb&quot;. The opposite is verb不到. This is called the &quot;potential complement&quot; and is a common grammar pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You're the number one student!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你是最佳学生！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;是 are&lt;br&gt;&#xA;最佳学生 best student (最佳X is a commmon pattern meaning best X, often used for best player in a football team etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Best of luck in Mathematics and Science!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one's a bit trickier. Do you mean &quot;best of luck in the Mathematics and Science exam&quot;? (or are they two different courses?). Or do you mean good luck with the course in general, not specifically the exam?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastEditorUserId="18761" LastEditDate="2018-07-16T08:50:17.303" LastActivityDate="2018-07-16T08:50:17.303" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30699" CreationDate="2018-07-16T08:45:41.580" Score="-1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过去的事情就不要说了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不要说了 means &quot;don't talk about&quot;. 过去的事情 means &quot;past stuff&quot; or more idiomatically &quot;the past&quot;. So 过去的事情不要说了 means &quot;don't talk about the past/past events&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 就 is a grammatical particle that doesn't really change the meaning of this sentence significantly. The translation of the 过去的事情就不要说了 (including the 就) would be the same as what I wrote above for the same sentence without the 就. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn more about the uses of 就, there are many good articles and blog posts you can find on google.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-07-16T08:45:41.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30708" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30874" CreationDate="2018-07-16T12:37:51.303" Score="1" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;Listening to Kylian Mbappé’s Chinese surname:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;姆巴佩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Always makes me wonder why 姆 is even part of his name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English (read: French) pronunciation seems a lot closer to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呣 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A single consonant (辅音) pronounced in different tones of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;m&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it ever be acceptable to put a single consonant into a transliteration?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’ve never come across such a case, so I wouldn’t imagine that it is okay. But how come?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T07:50:11.153" Title="Can a single consonant (辅音) ever be used in transliteration?" Tags="&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30708" CreationDate="2018-07-16T13:16:40.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;em&gt;normal&lt;/em&gt; syllable always has a vowel inside. The syllables like 'n', 'ng', 'm' are very special and have very limited use. They would not appear in transliteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-07-16T13:16:40.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23273" CreationDate="2018-07-17T15:00:05.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is also sometimes because the Chinese government is known for internet censorship. Hence the creative 錯別字 in 草泥馬 河蟹 etc.  It is almost a subculture. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it is not uncommon in other countries as well to deliberately misspell words for effects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Japanese, xxxちゃん (little John, little Mary, etc. ) is sometimes written as xxxたん to sound like a toddler etc (as many toddlers have trouble pronouncing ちゃん) etc. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Taiwanese sometimes uses 醬 on social platforms etc. in place of 這樣 etc. Some dirty words such as G8 is used. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong, there is a “dialect” called 火星文 which consists heavily of misspelled words, Chinglish, and ASCII symbols. Examples: 禾 for 我 , 梨 for 你, 月巴 for 肥 etc. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastEditorUserId="19947" LastEditDate="2018-07-17T15:30:18.693" LastActivityDate="2018-07-17T15:30:18.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30716" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-17T16:32:02.520" Score="1" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm specifically asking about the situation below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bob: we need more milk, I'll go to get some this evening&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Blob: oh, I just went to the shops, but I forgot about milk &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would tentatively translate Blob's reply as &quot;啊，我刚刚去了一趟，忘了买牛奶&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions is firstly: is the above translation good? And secondly, would it be possible or preferable to use 过 in this sentence? I know that when you're talking about a routine daily action you can say 过了, for example 我吃过了, so it occurred to me maybe I should say 啊，我刚去过商店了, but I'm not sure. I'm not clear how 过了 interacts with 刚 and I'm also not sure if &quot;going to the shops&quot; counts as a routine daily action? Or is there a less ambiguous guide I can follow for when to use 过了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks in advance, 提前谢谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T06:47:54.413" Title="How do I say &quot;I just went to the shops&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30717" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30732" CreationDate="2018-07-17T18:31:55.213" Score="1" ViewCount="294" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I started learning the Chinese language. So far I've been focusing on the spoken Mandarin, so there are many words for which I know pinyin but not the character. To build the associations I got a graded book that had both. However, to see the characters I needed to flip a page. It'd be more helpful for someone who already knows most of the characters, but when learning them from scratch, paging several times every line is too much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a book that has pinyin and characters on the same page or adjacent pages? Interspersed lines would be ideal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20083" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T06:19:45.877" Title="Where can I find a graded reader with pinyin alongside the simplified characters?" Tags="&lt;reading&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30718" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-18T02:01:11.730" Score="5" ViewCount="2354" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a mid-level Chinese student.  I have two younger brothers, who are twins.  One brother is married to a Chinese woman, and they have a young son.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The son calls me 姑姑 and my husband 姑丈.  My sister-in-law's younger brother, his maternal uncle, is 舅舅.  So far, so good!  My question is, what should he call my other brother, his paternal uncle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The trick is that we don't know which twin is older.  Our parents refused to tell us growing up to avoid fostering (more) power plays, and now claim to have forgotten.  We can't be the first family in history to have siblings that aren't fully ordered, but we can't figure out if there's an accepted word for a twin uncle in this scenario, or we should just pick whichever of 伯伯 or 叔叔 we like better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20086" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T03:11:20.790" Title="What do you call your father's twin brother?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30718" CreationDate="2018-07-18T02:37:07.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;叔父 if he is younger than one’s father &#xA;伯父 if he is older than one’s father &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastEditorUserId="19947" LastEditDate="2018-07-18T02:54:39.873" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T02:54:39.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30717" CreationDate="2018-07-18T04:03:45.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't mind, you might want Mandarin textbooks for lower grade elementary school used in China. &#xA;And some storybooks also have Pinyin on every character.&#xA;You might search jd.com or taobao.com to find some examples using keywords like &quot;识字 拼音&quot;, &quot;小学 课本&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want get pinyin when reading on screen, you might try Lingoes Translator (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lingoes.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;offical website&lt;/a&gt;) with Chinese Dictionary installed.  This software can pick up the character under your cursor and perform a query automatically (and you get pinyin)(this may require an option to be enabled).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T04:03:45.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30718" CreationDate="2018-07-18T04:58:35.517" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about 伯叔? That is an actual thing when you don't want to specify the age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E4%BC%AF%E5%8F%94&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.moedict.tw/%E4%BC%AF%E5%8F%94&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18991" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T04:58:35.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30716" CreationDate="2018-07-18T06:47:54.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;刚=刚刚=刚才=just=just now&lt;br&gt;&#xA;去=go&lt;br&gt;&#xA;去过……了=went  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊，我刚才去过商店了，但是忘了买牛奶&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啊，我刚刚去过商店，但是忘记买牛奶了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T06:47:54.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30718" CreationDate="2018-07-18T07:00:13.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different locations may have different customs. My local custom is:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My father's brothers: 叔叔(younger than my father);小伯(older than my father, youger big bro),大伯、大伯伯(older than my father, elder big bro). To be simpler, just call 叔叔/伯伯。 If you don't know who is older, I think you can just call 叔伯 or 伯伯. Because if you take him as higher 辈分, that won't make too much awkwardness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My mother's brothers: 小舅、小舅舅(younger)，大舅、大舅舅(older). Simpler: 舅舅.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-18T18:16:26.823" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T18:16:26.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30718" CreationDate="2018-07-18T09:07:42.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to call father's younger or elder brother differs from place to place. Where I was born, somewhere is Hebei and to the south of Beijing, father's younger is called &quot;叔叔&quot;, and father's elder brother is called &quot;大爷&quot;. You can see different variations in other answers. You should keep to the version that your sister-in-law uses, but not the ones given in the answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, who is older is important in calling the relatives. There is no word to use if the order is not known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in your situation, you can decide by yourselves who should be older (maybe with a coin toss), and then keep with it. There would be no problem as long as everybody agrees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are situations in China when the age order cannot be determined, though usually not between close relatives. E.g., when two people are born on the same day. Then they just make an order &quot;randomly&quot;. When the two of them agree, the order would then be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T09:07:42.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30725" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-18T10:26:24.087" Score="26" ViewCount="6446" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know about &quot;Chinese Typewriters&quot;, the question here is how Chinese was represented in earlier information systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, Japanese Telegrams were always written in Katakana and many early video games, up to the early 1990s, almost completely relied on Kana for technical reasons.  It follows that early Chinese systems may also have relied on Pinyin or Bopomofo (in Taiwan).  Can sb. confirm this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The following is not part of the question, but facts I discovered and want to share here although they don't amount to answers themselves.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what it's worth, this page &lt;a href=&quot;https://classictech.wordpress.com/computer-companies/acer-groupmultitech-electronics-inc-sunnyvale-calif/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://classictech.wordpress.com/computer-companies/acer-groupmultitech-electronics-inc-sunnyvale-calif/&lt;/a&gt; claims that the MPF-II-C from 1982 was the first microcomputer to be capable of handling Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A commenter linked to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.njstar.com/cms/chinese-commercial-telegraph-code-lookup&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.njstar.com/cms/chinese-commercial-telegraph-code-lookup&lt;/a&gt;, it contains the following valuable information regarding the CCC:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are total of 9297 Chinese Commercial Codes defined, of which 2593 codes represent different Chinese characters in Mainland and in Taiwan/Hong Kong. Codes below 7902 are caused by the fact of Mainland Chinese character simplification. Such as ccc:0948 --&gt; 国 U+56FD (CN) / 國 U+570B (TW/HK). Due to un-coordinated extension of original codes, codes above 7902 can respresent totally different characters in Mainland and in Taiwan/Hong Kong. Such as ccc:9154 --&gt; 舺 U+823A (CN) / 螵 U+87B5 (TW/HK) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20084" LastEditorUserId="20084" LastEditDate="2018-07-19T08:37:15.703" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T09:46:53.690" Title="Historical: How was Chinese written in telegrams and early computers?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30725" CreationDate="2018-07-18T10:42:47.260" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. We use characters directly. At least in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, characters are not mapped int morse code directly. Each character is first mapped into a four-digit decimal number. The numbers are then sent through telegram using morse code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People have to look up a table (a book, actually) to map the characters into the numbers. Some experienced workers can even recite the whole book, which contains thousands of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In early computers, that is a little different. The first Chinese encoding I remember is GB2312, what is standardized in 1980. It maps a Chinese character into a two-byte sequence. English letters use one byte and have the same value as in ASCII. The current standardized encoding GB18030 is compatible with GB2312, with a much larger character set, and some rare characters may use more than two bytes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The encoding used in the computer is different from the code used in the telegram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To input a character into a computer, pinyin was used, from the early days, until now. There are also some other character-shape based input methods, like Wubi(五笔), which was very popular in the early days, as pinyin has a lot of duplicates (a lot of different characters share the same pinyin). Nowadays, as we input with pinyin in words, phrases, even sentences, the duplicates is not a very big problem as the characters can be determined by its context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other Chinese speaking regions, things may be different. I do not know what it is like in other Chinese speaking regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2018-07-18T11:08:22.237" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T11:08:22.237" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30725" CreationDate="2018-07-18T13:08:38.723" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;For telegrams, the Chinese Commercial Code (中文電碼) was used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_telegraph_code&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_telegraph_code&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roughly, to send a telegram, someone needed to go to the post office, write down the text message, info of sender &amp;amp; receiver - by hand, on a form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, the worker would &quot;translate&quot; each Chinese character into 4 digits, according to the Chinese Commercial Code book, something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7LCDY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7LCDY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Three Way CCC book&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, the message was sent by morse code to the nearest post office to the receiver. The morse code was &quot;translated&quot; back to 4 digits, and looked up again in the Chinese Commercial Code book. Afterwards, the message was sent by a post office worker to the receiver by hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The CCC is still used today in Hong Kong: the residents' identity card shows their name in Chinese, English &amp;amp; CCC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qrs9d.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qrs9d.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Page from the CCC&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another service, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telex&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;telex&lt;/a&gt;, which was widely used in the past, cannot handle Chinese characters. As I remember, we only sent Latin characters (A-Z) &amp;amp; numbers (0-9).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was in the pre-1980 timeframe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first computer (OK, personal computer) that could handle Chinese was the ETen Chinese system (倚天中文系統); it dates from about mid-1980.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETen_Chinese_System&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETen_Chinese_System&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those were the days... :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="19418" LastEditDate="2018-07-19T11:31:42.657" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T11:31:42.657" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30718" CreationDate="2018-07-18T14:58:36.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unordered siblings is very unlikely to happen in China, where the order matters so much. Brothers never address each other by name, always 哥哥/弟弟.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, probably take what @curiosity said. Another way is to address his own father &quot;爸爸&quot; and his father's brother &quot;X爸爸&quot; where you replace X with one character in dad's brother's name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T14:58:36.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30718" CreationDate="2018-07-19T00:52:12.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your unique case, where the twins have no known birth order and most people involved aren't native Chinese speakers, why not follow your instinct and &quot;just pick whichever of 伯伯 or 叔叔 (you) like better&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, whether 伯伯 or 叔叔, it's the acknowledgement that this person belongs to an older generation (and hence be given due respect) that matters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T00:52:12.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30718" CreationDate="2018-07-19T03:05:48.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a similar discuss on a Chinese forum, their final conclusion is to use 'uncle' while not ordering twins. I agree with them, this is the only workaround.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because 'order' is very important in Chinese culture, almost all Chinese twins' parents order their children just for avoiding troubles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the titles 伯叔 and 叔伯, You should know that they are not a callable title, they are used as 你的叔伯兄弟,所有的叔伯们. So calling someone 叔伯 will sound odd to native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-07-19T03:11:20.790" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T03:11:20.790" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30731" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30735" CreationDate="2018-07-19T06:04:57.717" Score="5" ViewCount="957" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following picture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5BPGP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5BPGP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the meaning of 傻逼 but what is the &quot;j8&quot; before it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T21:49:15.643" Title="What does j8傻逼 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;slang&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30717" CreationDate="2018-07-19T06:19:45.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All, even higher &quot;levels&quot; of Graded Chinese Reader books come with pinyin. With a nice grid you can put over the page to cover pinyin (or characters) if you feel like it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.purpleculture.net/graded-chinese-reader-bs-660/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.purpleculture.net/graded-chinese-reader-bs-660/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T06:19:45.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30725" CreationDate="2018-07-19T07:07:10.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Historically, 4 digit numeric code is used for telegram transmission for country that not using latin character, one just need the translation &quot;dictionary&quot; to find the meaning of the code. Error can be prevented by adding pad number to separate the code. This happen since the era of telegram . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following is a telegram code &quot;dictionary&quot; used by Japan military that already decoded the Chiang Kai-shek KMT army telegram code during World war 2.  Even USA military know about such &quot;open code&quot;, but USA never notify Chiang Kai-shek about the issue of leaking military secret,  because USA itself want to know KMT army movement.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NdvmW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NdvmW.png&quot; alt=&quot;historical&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar mapping concept is used by the first computer that display Chinese Character. The early version is mapping multiple computing bytes to form a character. In fact, the modern day Unicode mapping for international character is pretty similar. Even mapping is still used by various version of Unicode to ensure different unicode version(UTF8, UTF16, UTF32, etc) conversion accuracy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theoretically, unicode will solved the multilingual conversion and mapping issue. Current unicode working space is around 1.1 million character that suppose to cover all the language in the world.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-07-19T09:05:36.733" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T09:05:36.733" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30731" CreationDate="2018-07-19T07:39:38.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That means &quot;dick asshole&quot;. The domestic people are very disgusted with the policy of preferential treatment for international students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18746" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-08-14T21:49:15.643" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T21:49:15.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30731" CreationDate="2018-07-19T07:45:10.083" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinasmack.com/glossary#J8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chinaSMACK&lt;/a&gt;, j8 is equivalent to 'penis' or any of its vulgar forms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;(rude language hidden behind spoiler, hover over or click to show)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 鸡巴&lt;br&gt;&#xA; jībā&lt;br&gt;&#xA; &lt;em&gt;noun/adjective&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&#xA; Penis, dick, cock. When used as an adjective, it may mean “cocky”, “arrogant”, or a more generalized “fuck” or “damn”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15684" LastEditorUserId="943" LastEditDate="2018-07-19T12:30:29.657" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T12:30:29.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30731" CreationDate="2018-07-19T08:21:30.003" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;J8 == ji 8 == ji ba == 鸡巴(penis). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, the usage of j 8 is like 他妈，but the severity of the rudeness/vulgarity has been largely enhanced. 跟他妈傻逼一样 denotes the same meaning, but less vulgar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, never ever say it. It's really bad. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-19T08:56:53.110" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T08:56:53.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30697" CreationDate="2018-07-19T15:06:41.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A close reading the text convinced me &quot;B格&quot; stands for &quot;蔽隔“--isolation. One meaning of 蔽 (bì) is &quot;hidden&quot;, and &quot;隔 (gé) means &quot;cut off&quot;. The writer of that passage is talking about how he/she deals with the sense of isolation (and maybe alienation) living in a foreign country where everyone (including friends) is busy, so he/she is left to his/her own devices to deal with the sense of isolation. In the quoted text, the writer approaches the topic as an intellectual subject matter, pondering whether it's his/her own lack of high-minded areas of interest that exacerbated his/her loneliness (&quot;是我境界不高，还是我乐趣恶俗&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T15:06:41.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30587" CreationDate="2018-07-19T15:25:43.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to what others have pointed out (that 原则 &amp;amp; 原理 both could refer to &quot;principle&quot; or &quot;rule&quot;), 原则 usually refers to concrete principles and guidelines, whereas 原理 refers to the more abstract, theoretical, and/or foundational principles. Newton's book, &lt;em&gt;Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica&lt;/em&gt;, for example, is &quot;自然哲学的数学原理&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T15:25:43.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30739" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30740" CreationDate="2018-07-20T01:52:46.250" Score="2" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC Cantonese&lt;/strong&gt; defines 係噉㗎嘞 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;FIXED EXPRESSION&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  accept philosophically the way things are in life; that's life, c'est la vie&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And gives the example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;幸運兒永遠係少數，呢個世界係噉㗎嘞。&#xA;  hang6 wan6 ji4 wing5 jyun5 hai6 siu2 sou3, ni1 go3 sai3 gaai3 hai6 gam2 gaa3 lak3&#xA;  The lucky people are always few, that's the way the world is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With some footnotes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;See also 噉 gam2 係 hai6 係噉 hai6 gam2 嘞 lak3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There doesn’t seem to be a Mandarin translation though and definitions for 係噉 range from:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不停&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果是这样&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-07-21T03:15:50.697" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T09:51:47.057" Title="Mandarin equivalent of hai 係噉㗎嘞?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30739" CreationDate="2018-07-20T03:31:01.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;係=就是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;噉=這樣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;㗎嘞=的啦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it is more appropriate to translate as 就是這樣的啦 in the phrase you mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19342" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T03:31:01.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30741" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30744" CreationDate="2018-07-20T04:31:58.390" Score="1" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;中国的发展速度比美国的快得多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not quite sure if this is grammatical or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used 快得多 to describe speed of development is faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastEditorUserId="19898" LastEditDate="2018-07-20T05:14:49.153" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T07:41:05.757" Title="Used degree complement I am not sure of" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30742" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-20T04:32:11.283" Score="2" ViewCount="540" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you only use 又 with adjectives, or can you also use it with verbs, verb phrases, and nouns？ I want to say, &quot;Summer this year is rainy and cloudy.&quot;, so I wrote, “今年夏天是又雨天又云天。”  Is this correct, or should it be something else, such as “今年夏天又是雨天又是云天。”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20107" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T08:02:04.617" Title="Under what circumstances can you use 又...又...?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30742" CreationDate="2018-07-20T04:49:10.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Replace the 又是 to 有 will do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今年夏天，有雨天，有云天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or you can phrase as such : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今年的夏天，既有雨天，也有云天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17661" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T04:49:10.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30741" CreationDate="2018-07-20T04:51:07.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are already correct! Some alternatives, you can also use &lt;code&gt;Adj.+多了&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Adj.+很多&lt;/code&gt; to express the degree is high. So, all of these sentences have the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;中国的发展速度比美国的&lt;strong&gt;快得多&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;中国的发展速度比美国的&lt;strong&gt;快多了&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;中国的发展速度比美国的&lt;strong&gt;快很多&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T04:51:07.843" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30742" CreationDate="2018-07-20T04:51:56.130" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This webpage provides good reference&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.echineselanguagelearning.com/classroom/chinese-grammar-classroom/chinese-grammar-two-yo.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;又……又 usage&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is inappropriate to use 又……又 here. Because 又……又 indicates simultaneousness but I think the weather cannot be both cloudy and rainy. You may want to express that it's always rainy or cloudy this summer, then I recommend “今年夏天多是阴天和雨天” or more literary “今夏云多雨绵”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T04:51:56.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30742" CreationDate="2018-07-20T06:00:21.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Summer this year is rainy and cloudy.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your English sentence denotes that &quot;rainy and cloudy&quot; are the attributes in this summer, implying the weather in a given day of this summer could either be &lt;em&gt;rainy&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;cloudy&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if that's what you want to express, then you can use 要么...要么.... 要么...要么... expresses a logic &lt;strong&gt;OR&lt;/strong&gt;, while 又...又... expresses an logic &lt;strong&gt;AND&lt;/strong&gt;. You can put:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今年(这个)夏天，要么下雨，要么（就）阴天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also interpret &quot;rainy and cloudy&quot; (as a whole) to 阴雨天. &lt;em&gt;Rainy&lt;/em&gt; is 雨天 and &lt;em&gt;cloudy&lt;/em&gt; is 阴天. Combine together: 阴雨天. 阴雨天 means that the day is cloudy and it can possibly rain at anytime. If you say this summer is all 阴雨天, it can mean that cloudy or rainy had gone throughout this whole summer. If this is what you meant, you can put:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今年夏天都是阴雨天 &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; 今年夏天尽是阴雨天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your Chinese sentence &quot;今年夏天又是雨天又是云天。&quot; is grammatically correct, but it's logically incorrect. If you said it in practice, I would have asked 那今年夏天到底是阴天还是雨天呢？ （whether this summer are rainy or cloudy）. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this can help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-20T06:21:53.083" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T06:21:53.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30742" CreationDate="2018-07-20T07:34:03.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Summer this year is rainy and cloudy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又 is an adverb and means repeating or continuing, so your sentence in Chinese should be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“今年夏天多雨又多云” 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20108" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T07:34:03.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30741" CreationDate="2018-07-20T07:41:05.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you are right,but still we could say in other ways, see the change in degree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.中国的发展速度比美国的快一点/快一些/快点/快些----a little&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.中国的发展速度比美国的快得很/快很多/快多了/快太多----&gt;=faster&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20108" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T07:41:05.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30749" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30752" CreationDate="2018-07-20T14:04:24.047" Score="1" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;In European languages the literal meaning of the verb that is used to describe earning money varies from language to language.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Some examples:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;British:    earn money (money is something you harvest)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;American:   make money (money is something you create)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;German:     Geld verdienen (literal: deserve money)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(money is something you are entitled to have because of your work)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spanish:    ganar dinero (literal: win money)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(money comes with luck)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;French:     gagner de l'argent (literal: win money)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(money comes with luck)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the most appropriate literal translation of 赚钱 to English in that sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20110" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T11:53:41.103" Title="What is the most appropriate literal translation of 赚钱" Tags="&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30758" CreationDate="2018-07-20T14:36:30.240" Score="2" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came up with this sentence below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她哭得那么多了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to put 那么 after 得? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多谢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T22:26:39.900" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T22:26:39.900" Title="Degree complement and using 那么" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;complement&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30749" CreationDate="2018-07-20T14:43:32.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;赚钱 has multiple context in mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;工作赚钱 ； &lt;strong&gt;work&lt;/strong&gt; for living&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做生意赚钱 ： &lt;strong&gt;making/earning a living&lt;/strong&gt; from the trade&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这生意很赚钱 ： the business is &lt;strong&gt;profitable&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;买一送二， 这次赚了 ： buy 1 free 2, what a &lt;strong&gt;gain&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So which context you are referring to ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are few more meaning as describe by zdnet on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/25/xs/8D5A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;赚&lt;/a&gt;, which carry specially meaning in various literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-07-20T14:53:52.500" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T14:53:52.500" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30749" CreationDate="2018-07-20T15:05:15.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two ways of answering this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look at early meanings of 賺 as the individual character&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look at early meanings of 賺錢 as the whole phrase&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 賺 (Middle Chinese: /ɖˠɛmH/ , Old Chinese: /*r'eːms/) may have originally represented a word which eventually diverged into several other characters (詀, 譧), all with the related meaning &lt;em&gt;crooked/improper/dishonest words&lt;/em&gt;. In this sense, 賺 may have been originally extended from a meaning &lt;em&gt;to gain a profit by swindling somebody else&lt;/em&gt;. We can see the original meaning resurfacing somewhat in several quotes in classical texts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宋　徐鉉《稽神錄拾遺・教坊樂人子》：“訝，賺矣！此辟穀藥也。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;元　宋遠《意難忘》詞：“元經摧意氣，丹鼎賺英雄。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 賺 means to &lt;em&gt;mislead&lt;/em&gt; or more generally &lt;em&gt;have a negative impact on&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other common earlier meaning of 賺 was &lt;em&gt;to gain/acquire/win&lt;/em&gt; (a profit, resources, etc). This is the most direct meaning to 賺錢, which was originally a vernacular word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the above, you can either take&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;賺 on etymology, in which case you can interpret it to mean &lt;em&gt;to gain a profit off of someone else by cheating them&lt;/em&gt;. However, I think this interpretation is inappropriate, because by the time 賺錢 appears as a complete, set phrase,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;賺 just overwhelmingly meant &lt;em&gt;to gain/acquire/win&lt;/em&gt;, so the literal meaning of 賺錢 should really be taken as &lt;em&gt;to gain/acquire/win money/wealth&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T15:05:15.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30753" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-07-20T15:12:30.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The definition of the word &amp;quot;terminology&amp;quot; is: &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;the body of terms used with a particular technical application in a subject of study, profession, etc.&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This tag covers questions about specialized vocabulary of any field. Some fields of particular interest, or fields with a high number of questions, may have their own tag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's always appropriate to tag your question with &amp;quot;terminology&amp;quot;, but if a narrower tag exists, please use it. You can use &amp;quot;terminology&amp;quot; and the narrower tag together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A curated list of specialized and technical dictionaries can be found at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/40423&quot;&gt;Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese, Dictionaries (Technical Terms) section&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12003" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-31T05:54:14.167" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T05:54:14.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30754" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-07-20T15:12:30.563" Score="0" Body="For questions about technical or specialized words in fields like IT, politics, sports, etc." OwnerUserId="15684" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T20:48:53.100" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T20:48:53.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30755" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30756" CreationDate="2018-07-20T16:00:22.767" Score="0" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to find out the publication details of a Chinese book. I've taken an image of what I believe is the info box that gives them. Could any kind person please tell me what this says? I'd really like to know the book's title, publisher and publication date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Cyxw8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Cyxw8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20111" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T17:00:52.940" Title="What does this say?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30755" CreationDate="2018-07-20T16:21:21.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an old book... I translate some basic info for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Title:&lt;/strong&gt; ILLUSTRATION OF GREAT ART TRADITION&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Publisher:&lt;/strong&gt; Shanghai Publishing Co., Ltd (This company should not exist, but I haven't found the successor so far. The former location is at Room 701, Number 346 Middle Sichuan Road, Shanghai) Refer to this building -- 嘉陵大楼（Jialing Building ）&lt;a href=&quot;http://j.map.baidu.com/bP3hZ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://j.map.baidu.com/bP3hZ&lt;/a&gt;  and  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sohu.com/a/162636510_391475&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.sohu.com/a/162636510_391475&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Publication date:&lt;/strong&gt; Aug, 1951 - Aug, 1952 The First Edition, The First Print.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;                  Aug, 1954 The First Edition, The Fourth Print.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Other reference:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.potomackcompany.com/asp/fullCatalogue.asp?salelot=45+++++++630+&amp;amp;refno=+++32833&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.potomackcompany.com/asp/fullCatalogue.asp?salelot=45+++++++630+&amp;amp;refno=+++32833&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.douban.com/note/499800911/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.douban.com/note/499800911/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, the publisher was 上海出版股份有限公司(Shanghai Publishing Co., Ltd) and was merged into 新文艺出版社 in 1956. And now it is merged into 上海世纪出版集团(Shanghai Century Publishing(Group) Co., Ltd ) according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7%E4%B8%96%E7%BA%AA%E5%87%BA%E7%89%88%E9%9B%86%E5%9B%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-20T17:00:52.940" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T17:00:52.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30749" CreationDate="2018-07-20T17:13:26.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;赚[zhuàn]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;verb.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  1.&#xA;  （获得利润） make a profit; gain; profit:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  a profitable business; a paying proposition [concern]; 赚钱生意&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  He gained 500 dollars by this deal. 靠这笔交易他赚了5百美元。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2.&#xA;  （挣钱） earn:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  earn a lot of money; 赚不少钱&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  money earned by hard work; 辛勤工作赚来的钱  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;noun.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  （利润） profit  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;赚[zuàn]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;verb.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  （骗人） deceive; hoax; fool; hoodwink; kid&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  以上来源于《新汉英大辞典》  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T17:13:26.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30750" CreationDate="2018-07-21T02:08:45.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她哭得那么多了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have misused the complement. We say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她哭得那么伤心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她哭得很厉害。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to express &lt;em&gt;she has cried many times&lt;/em&gt;, then you should say 她哭过很多次了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, your issue is 多了 isn't a correct complement for 哭. When you say 那么多了, you don't need 得. For example, we say 说(了)那么多了，we don't say 说得那么多了. 得 is just redundant here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T02:18:49.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30759" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30768" CreationDate="2018-07-21T02:11:15.430" Score="4" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;Came across this etching in a ABAC pattern as the A:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o2Uru.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o2Uru.png&quot; alt=&quot;yeah&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more complicated ones were easier to identify, but this one is kind of tricky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One guess was that it was the character for 今, but that doesn't check out because it would probably look more like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lZqA4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lZqA4.png&quot; alt=&quot;po&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas what this is? How to go about identifying it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T19:06:27.570" Title="What is this character? How to identify it?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30760" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30761" CreationDate="2018-07-21T04:07:03.590" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the third sentence in the book 活着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢喝农民那种带有苦味的茶水&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Wǒ xǐhuān hē nóngmín nàzhǒng dàiyǒu kǔwèi de cháshuǐ&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This translates to something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I [我] like [喜欢] to drink [喝] the farmers' [民那] bitter-tasting [苦味] tea [茶水].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand what 那种带有 is doing in this sentence.  Breaking it up: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E9%82%A3%E7%A7%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;那种&lt;/a&gt; (nàzhǒng) = &quot;the sort of&quot; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B8%A6%E6%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;带有&lt;/a&gt; (dàiyǒu) = &quot;involve&quot; (and &quot;accompany&quot;).  So maybe it means something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I like to drink the kind of bitter-tasting tea associated with farmers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I'm not sure.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%82%A3%E7%A7%8D%E5%B8%A6%E6%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt; has other examples of 那种带有 being used, and the first of which suggests it means something like &quot;... the kind typical of [something]&quot; but it's not exactly what it translates to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What is 那种带有 doing in 我喜欢喝农民那种带有苦味的茶水?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T03:08:50.377" Title="What is 那种带有 doing in 我喜欢喝农民那种带有苦味的茶水?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30760" CreationDate="2018-07-21T04:40:35.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我喜欢喝茶水 = I like to drink tea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢喝 [农民那种]茶水 = I like to drink [the farmers type] tea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;农民那种&amp;quot; is a relative phrase of &amp;quot;茶水&amp;quot; that provide information about the tea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What type of tea is it? It is the famers type&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢喝 [农民那种] [带有苦味的] 茶水 = I like to drink [the farmers type], [which is bitter tasting] tea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;带有苦味的&amp;quot; is the relative phrase of &amp;quot;农民那种&amp;quot; that provide explanation on the famer's type&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What is famers type? It is the type that with bitter taste&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you add a comma between relative phrases, the sentence would be easier to comprehend -- &amp;quot;我喜欢喝农民那种, 带有苦味的茶水&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you remove &amp;quot;农民那种&amp;quot; and write &amp;quot;我喜欢喝带有苦味的茶水&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;带有苦味的&amp;quot; would become relative/adjective phrase of 茶水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can even add relative phrases for 带有苦味 and write &amp;quot;我喜欢喝农民那种, 带有苦味, 但尚未到藥味程度 的茶水&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;How bitter is it? Not to the point of medicine like&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;带有&amp;quot; (with/ contains) literally means &amp;quot;carry with&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T12:32:38.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30760" CreationDate="2018-07-21T05:02:57.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;带有 can be interpreted differently.  The common word to interpret 带有 is &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那种带有苦味的茶水: &lt;em&gt;the kind of tea with bitter taste&lt;/em&gt;. Your interpretation &lt;em&gt;the kind of bitter-taste tea&lt;/em&gt; is fine too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the whole translation of 我喜欢喝农民那种带有苦味的茶 can be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I like to drink/have the tea of the farmers' kind -- the one with bitter taste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-21T05:18:06.013" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T05:18:06.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30725" CreationDate="2018-07-21T09:46:53.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following link is a very interesting and informative article （in Chinese） written by 马伯庸 （a well-known contemporary writer）on the history and features of Chinese telegram coding and sending. &lt;a href=&quot;https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/W5BfrWj9kGvCKnVqyUHtkg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;惜墨如金 中文电报的奥秘&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T09:46:53.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30760" CreationDate="2018-07-21T13:17:38.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate this sentence into:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I like to drink &lt;strong&gt;the kind of（那种）&lt;/strong&gt; tea &lt;strong&gt;with bitter taste（带有苦味的）&lt;/strong&gt; that &lt;strong&gt;farmers are used to drink（农民那种）&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T13:17:38.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30765" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30766" CreationDate="2018-07-21T14:00:04.767" Score="4" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the male version when describing gender of an animal or pet is 公，but I have no clue with the female version. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19897" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-07-23T19:17:55.067" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T19:17:55.067" Title="What are the prefixes for animal genders?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30765" CreationDate="2018-07-21T14:05:39.240" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be simple, male/female: 公/母、雄/雌  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;公鸡、母鸡；公狗、母狗; 公牛、母牛。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  雄鱼、雌鱼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T14:05:39.240" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18095" CreationDate="2018-07-21T16:53:20.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;actually there ARE similarities (im thai-chinese and i speak both mandarin &amp;amp; thai + i do understand a bit cantonese too) &#xA;While chinese is a sino-tibetan language and thai isnt theres still many words who are very similar to eachother , thai (in case of pronouncing is the most similar to chinese and besides that some words are also similar to hindi and a lot also to vietnamese , whenever i hear vietnamese i feel like im hearing a different type of thai) &#xA;also both thai &amp;amp; chinese are tonal languages such as lao and viet. &#xA;the comment with a past king was right (several thailand kings were actually chinese) &#xA;+ Thai people MIGRATED from SOUTH China 4000 years ago ,&#xA;so theres still a language in southern china thats very similar &#xA;to the modern thai language. Thais originated from there and it stuck &#xA;with them even though there were some changes since they moved south to the&#xA;now land that first was called SIAM and now thailand. &#xA;u can get the info about the thai volks origins in some HISTORY books&#xA;about thailands people and where they actually came from. &#xA;It was also mentioned in at least SOME documentations (history docu.)&#xA;that thais originally came from south china (btw a lot of the south chinese&#xA;ppl still look similar to thais) &#xA;thats why some of the thai language has some similarities with chinese, even though cantonese is more similar to it instead of mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20112" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T16:53:20.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30759" CreationDate="2018-07-21T19:06:27.570" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character is the Shuowen seal form of「克」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「克」was originally a compound of「由」(&lt;em&gt;a helmet&lt;/em&gt;, top part of「冑」) and a reduced form of「皮」(&lt;em&gt;an animal being skinned for its hide&lt;/em&gt;, with the action being represented by the hand「又」;「又」is not present in the original forms of「克」):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3XfVf.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3XfVf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Illustrative purposes only; this may not be strictly how the character changed over the years.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Xc1T.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Xc1T.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T19:06:27.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30760" CreationDate="2018-07-22T03:08:50.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it can be translated as “something with the similarity feelings ”&#xA; For example:我喜欢那种带有妈妈味道的饭菜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T03:08:50.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30765" CreationDate="2018-07-22T05:46:09.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese 公/母 is the commonest way to describe animal gender. 雄/雌 is typically used in written language. 牡/牝 is more literary. 豭/豝（boar/sow）牯/牸（ox/cow）and many other pairs originally meant the animals of either gender and extended to refer to either gender of animals. However, note that they are never used in modern Chinese now, so if you use them in talking or writing, you will have to explain it with 公/母 or something, and give others an impression of pretension.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T05:46:09.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30773" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30774" CreationDate="2018-07-22T09:01:41.707" Score="8" ViewCount="1340" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E8%AF%BE&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉语课&lt;/a&gt; (along with &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E8%AF%BE&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;中文课&lt;/a&gt;) means only &quot;Chinese class&quot; = &quot;a class for learning Chinese&quot; (and it may be in English, Chinese, or any other language).  I'm wondering how to succinctly say &quot;a class in Chinese&quot;, where the class is not about the Chinese language, it's e.g. about computer science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking 汉语说的课, but this sounds like the class (not the teacher) speaks Chinese, which is nonsense.  Another possibility is 用汉语的课, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#zh-CN/en/%E7%94%A8%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E7%9A%84%E8%AF%BE&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; seems to like this, but putting it into &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E7%94%A8%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E7%9A%84%E8%AF%BE&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt; gives far too few hits for it to be widely used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It came up in a WeChat discussion, and I eventually wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新学生需要参加ＨＳＫ４考试，因为老师用汉语教他们的课&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with the intention of meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;New students need to sit the HSK4 exam, because the teachers use Chinese to teach their classes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it seems too wordy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How can I say &quot;a class in Chinese&quot; (and not &quot;a Chinese class&quot;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is related to my previous &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29600/does-%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E4%B9%A6-h%C3%A0ny%C7%94-sh%C5%AB-chinese-book-only-mean-a-book-for-learning-chinese-or&quot;&gt;question about 汉语书&lt;/a&gt;, but the answers there don't resolve this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T10:09:16.790" Title="How can I say &quot;a class in Chinese&quot; (and not &quot;a Chinese class&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30773" CreationDate="2018-07-22T09:37:18.690" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The succinct way to express this can be: 中文授课. Put it into a sentence: 本课程用中文授课。This curriculum was taught in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is a class in Chinese&lt;/em&gt; can be: 这门课用中文讲述 or 这门课用中文授课.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;New students need to sit the HSK4 exam, because the teachers use Chinese to teach their classes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be translated to 新学生需要参加ＨＳＫ４考试，因为老师(们)用汉语授课。&lt;strong&gt;their&lt;/strong&gt; can be implied in this case because every body would know it's &lt;strong&gt;their classes&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colloquially, you can replace 授课 with 教课 or 上课. So, 汉语教课 and 汉语上课 are also fit and succinct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-22T10:09:16.790" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T10:09:16.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30739" CreationDate="2018-07-22T09:41:23.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;係噉&amp;quot; is simple, it just means &amp;quot;是這樣&amp;quot; (it is like this/ just like that) in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final particle &amp;quot;㗎嘞&amp;quot; is the tricky part.  Cantonese use final particle much more extensively than Mandarin, many of them have no Mandarin equivalence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final particle &amp;quot;㗎嘞&amp;quot; carry the following expressions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;authoritative&lt;/strong&gt; (the statement &amp;quot;係噉&amp;quot; is made with authority, don't argue about it)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: [係噉㗎嘞], 老闆鐘意炒你就炒你 = [just like that], the boss would fire you if he felt like it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;routine&lt;/strong&gt; (the statement &amp;quot;係噉&amp;quot; is true as always)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: 佢個個禮拜日都要去打高爾夫, [係噉㗎嘞] = He have to go play  golf every Sunday, [it is just like that]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;finality&lt;/strong&gt; (the statement &amp;quot;係噉&amp;quot; is final, nothing you can do about it)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: 今日午餐毎人一隻煎荷包蛋，半條臘腸, [係噉㗎嘞] = Everyone get a pan fired egg and half a sausage for today's lunch, [that's all/ it is just like that]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you must translate &amp;quot;係噉㗎嘞&amp;quot; into  Mandarin, I would suggest &amp;quot;就是这样的啦&amp;quot;, but in reality, &amp;quot;就是这样的啦&amp;quot; cannot fully express all the meanings in &amp;quot;係噉㗎嘞&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take example one &amp;quot;係噉㗎嘞, 老闆鐘意炒你就炒你&amp;quot; for example, instead of &amp;quot;&amp;quot;老闆愛解雇你就解雇你, 就是这样的啦&amp;quot;, an interpretation of &amp;quot;老闆愛解雇你就解雇你, 你又能怎樣?/ 就是這簡單&amp;quot; would be closer to the original Cantonese sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My conclusion is, the closest Mandarin equivalent of &amp;quot;係噉㗎嘞&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;就是这样的啦/了&amp;quot; but it is not 100% the same, because using final particle &amp;quot;㗎嘞&amp;quot; to express subtle messages I mentioned doesn't exist in Mandarin grammar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T09:51:47.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30776" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30777" CreationDate="2018-07-22T11:02:52.487" Score="1" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the book 活着 (on my Kindle):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UiFBmm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UiFBmm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UiFBm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;large image&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Transcribing this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我最喜欢的是傍晚来到时，坐在农民的屋前，看着他们将提上的井水泼在地上，压住蒸腾的尘土，夕阳的光芒在树梢上照射下来，拿一把他们递过来的扇子，&lt;strong&gt;尝尝他们的盐一样咸的咸菜&lt;/strong&gt;，看看几个年轻女人，和男人们说着话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in the part in bold, which I translate to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... try [尝尝] their [他们的] salt [盐] type of [一样] salty [咸的] salted vegetables [咸菜] ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%9B%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;盐&lt;/a&gt; in there makes no sense to me; it seems redundant and even ungrammatical (but presumably I'm incorrect).  Moreover, writing &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%92%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;咸&lt;/a&gt;的&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%92%B8%E8%8F%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;咸菜&lt;/a&gt; seems tautological.  It seems to me that 尝尝他们的咸菜 would convey the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is both 盐 (salt) and 咸 (salty) in 尝尝他们的盐一样咸的咸菜?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T15:09:07.657" Title="Why is both 盐 (salt) and 咸 (salty) in 尝尝他们的盐一样咸的咸菜?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30776" CreationDate="2018-07-22T11:30:33.590" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The part is actually fine. This is a parsing problem; the whole meaning is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;trying their &lt;strong&gt;pickled vegetables&lt;/strong&gt; which taste as salty as (pure) salt&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「鹹菜」does not just mean &lt;em&gt;salty vegetables&lt;/em&gt;, it's the name of a specific dish known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_pickles&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese pickles&lt;/a&gt; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「鹽」is used as a measure of saltiness (in taste) between Chinese pickles and pure salt.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &lt;em&gt;salty&lt;/em&gt; is actually a measure of the richness of flavour of 鹹菜, so while translating the above into English (&lt;em&gt;as salty as salt&lt;/em&gt;) sounds a bit unpleasant, it's meant to be a praise of the tastiness of the villagers' dishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-07-22T11:44:37.173" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T11:44:37.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30776" CreationDate="2018-07-22T13:23:16.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;尝尝[&lt;em&gt;try/have some&lt;/em&gt;]他们的[&lt;em&gt;their&lt;/em&gt;]盐一样咸的[&lt;em&gt;taste-like-salt/as-salty-as-salt&lt;/em&gt;]咸菜[&lt;em&gt;pickles&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence is understandable, but doesn't sound very natural. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, it's unnatural to use two attributive-的 phrases to modify the same noun. In this case, 他们的 and 盐一样咸的 are the attributive 的 phrases, which modify the noun 咸菜. It's natural to say: 尝尝他们的咸菜 or 尝尝盐一样咸的咸菜, but simply combining the two phrases together(尝尝他们的盐一样咸的咸菜) looks clumsy(I am not sure if I should say it wrong, but at least it appears to be the bad writing.). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example: 展示我的衣服 and 展示美丽的衣服 are natural, but 展示我的美丽的衣服 doesn't sound quite natural.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the question becomes how we can resolve this when we have to use two attributive-的 phrases to modify the same noun? We can engage 指示代词 （demonstrative pronoun）&lt;strong&gt;那&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;那个&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;那种&lt;/strong&gt;，... and etc. Your original sentence can be paraphrased as: 尝尝他们&lt;strong&gt;那种像&lt;/strong&gt;盐一样咸的咸菜. It's a common sense that 盐 is the most salty substance, so 咸 here can be implied： 尝尝他们那种像盐一样的咸菜. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 展示我的美丽的衣服 can be paraphrased as 展示我&lt;strong&gt;那件&lt;/strong&gt;美丽的衣服. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, 那种 and 那件 can be omitted, so 尝尝他们盐一样的咸菜 and 展示我美丽的衣服 are acceptable. I suggest you stay with the full version when you are unsure if it's droppable from your sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-22T23:04:44.510" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T23:04:44.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30781" CreationDate="2018-07-22T22:47:10.373" Score="3" ViewCount="1003" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that I'm asking about an expression which doesn't have to follow the normal rules of grammar.  But if it makes sense to ask, I'd like to understand if that sentence is literally structured as &quot;happily meeting you&quot; or if it's &quot;(I) am happy meeting you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or to put it another way, am &lt;em&gt;I&lt;/em&gt; good or is the &lt;em&gt;meeting&lt;/em&gt; good?  Is it &quot;我很好了，认识你&quot; or &quot;(我)(很高兴认识)你&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T02:49:33.517" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T02:49:33.517" Title="In 很高兴认识你 is there an implied 我 at the front or is 很高兴 modifying 认识 as in &quot;happily meet&quot;?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30779" CreationDate="2018-07-23T00:08:51.893" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;很高兴认识你 is a general greeting, which is used when you meet a person for the first time. The literal translation is &quot;&lt;em&gt;Very glad to know you!&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. In practice, It's like saying &quot;&lt;em&gt;Nice to meet you!&lt;/em&gt;&quot; in English. &lt;em&gt;Nice to meet you!&lt;/em&gt; is shorthand for &lt;em&gt;It's nice to meet you!&lt;/em&gt; in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很高兴认识你 can be paraphrased as: 我很高兴认识你 (I'm happy to meet you.)or 认识你是(一件很让人）高兴的事情 (it's a very nice thing that I can meet you). Pulling 很高兴 ahead has some effect of emphasis. You can also say 认识你很高兴. With 我 implied, it sounds more like a generic formal greeting, rather than a personal one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say 认识你&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;很高兴， that doesn't sound like a generic business meet, but rather personal(may have some romantic implication sometimes). It implies that you are  impressed by the person you meet, you are kind of person I want to meet, and those kind of ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-23T00:47:53.260" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T00:47:53.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30779" CreationDate="2018-07-23T01:11:43.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is quite simple, it is a common practice in Chinese (and any other language) that when the identity of the subject (or object) is clear, it is routinely omitted.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subject in &quot;很高兴认识你&quot; is clearly &quot;我&quot; because &quot;很高兴认识你&quot; is a sentence spoken from the speaker to a second person. It didn't indicate the subject was anyone else beside the speaker. Unless it clearly stated &quot;我的父亲很高兴认识你&quot; in which &quot;我的父亲&quot; would be the subject. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise, if &quot;很高兴认识你&quot; is a written sentence, the omitted subject would clearly be the writer unless stated otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="20129" LastEditDate="2018-07-24T12:40:13.533" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T12:40:13.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30782" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-07-23T04:42:00.293" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-07-23T04:42:00.293" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T04:42:00.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30783" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-07-23T04:42:00.293" Score="0" Body="Questions about phonetic, semantic, or other components of characters." OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-07-23T05:07:58.603" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T05:07:58.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30784" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-23T05:05:51.890" Score="2" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I volunteer at a seniors' home in Canada, and am helping one (childfree, single) senior to buy a laptop. She speaks Cantonese and Mandarin, but no English. She needs a Chinese version of Windows, but doesn't know Pinyin or any Chinese keyboard input method. What will be easiest? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Writing characters with a stylus on an &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B01BA6XQI0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;USB drawing pad&lt;/a&gt; plugged into the laptop?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or  learning some input method, and typing Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or some other solution? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-07-23T19:10:47.747" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T19:10:47.747" Title="What input method is easier to learn for a someone who can speak Chinese?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30784" CreationDate="2018-07-23T05:11:06.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Writing with a stylus would certainly be far easier than learning any input methods, especially for the aged, barring, of course, that they can’t already write. It is the same with smartphones and tablets at the moment. Many people in and above their fifties would rather write out the characters than type pinyin because of the unfamiliarity with Roman characters and pinyin in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-07-23T07:23:34.633" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T07:23:34.633" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30784" CreationDate="2018-07-23T07:50:02.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's better to use handwriting tablet (not drawing pad), which is specialized on Chinese writing recognition.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19342" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T07:50:02.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30784" CreationDate="2018-07-23T10:11:55.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hand writing with an electric pen/stylus would be easier to accepted by elders. Alternative way is finger writing on a touch screen or touch pad. However, you may also suggest another method -- voice input. Many Chinese IMEs (input methods) now support voice input, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://pinyin.sogou.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sougou Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://qq.pinyin.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;QQ Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;. Just click the microphone icon on the IME's bar, you will see the voice input interface. It's easy to record your voice and interpret it into text. Here is a step by step tutorial: &lt;a href=&quot;https://jingyan.baidu.com/article/4ae03de31b67883efe9e6b43.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://jingyan.baidu.com/article/4ae03de31b67883efe9e6b43.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some prerequisites of using voice input:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. Your verbal Mandarin should be good without too much accent.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. Internet connection may be needed.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. Your Windows/Mac device has a pretty good microphone.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These IMEs also support for writing Chinese characters by mouse device if you don't have a touch screen or pad. This is inefficient, but an alternative choice in some cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-23T10:28:44.413" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T10:28:44.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30788" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30789" CreationDate="2018-07-23T16:40:53.970" Score="3" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am confused about the usage of character 并 with 没有来, as in this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他并没有来北京&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She never (and will not) come to Beijing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She hasn't come to Beijing, yet. (but she will come soon)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15622" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-30T23:05:23.113" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T23:06:32.307" Title="What does 并没有 mean?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30788" CreationDate="2018-07-23T17:55:21.233" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/844/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;並 / 并&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] [adv] (used before a negative for emphasis) &lt;strong&gt;actually&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;definitely&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;really&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只此一家, 無分店. - Only one store location, no branch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只此一家, [&lt;strong&gt;並&lt;/strong&gt;]無分店. - Only one store location, [&lt;strong&gt;definitely&lt;/strong&gt;] no branch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人們誠心向佛, 但彿祖未能救他們於水火 - People sincerely believed in Buddha, but the Buddha couldn't save them from suffering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人們誠心向佛, 但彿祖[&lt;strong&gt;並&lt;/strong&gt;]未能救他們於水火 - People sincerely believed in Buddha, but the Buddha [&lt;strong&gt;really&lt;/strong&gt;] couldn't  save them from suffering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美軍的強大，不是加軍能比疑的 - The strength of the US military, is not the one Canadian military can compare&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美軍的強大，[&lt;strong&gt;並&lt;/strong&gt;]不是加軍能比疑的 - The strength of the US military, is [&lt;strong&gt;definitely&lt;/strong&gt;] not the one Canadian military can compare&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他没有来北京 - He did not come to Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他[&lt;strong&gt;并&lt;/strong&gt;]没有来北京 - He [&lt;strong&gt;actually&lt;/strong&gt;] did not come to Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;并 is used before a negative for &lt;strong&gt;emphasis&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anna Zhou suggested:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;and it is implied that people thought/estimated he would come to Beijing.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could also mean 'he didn't make it after all' or 'he changed his mind'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is, '并' emphasizes the negative aspect in the sentence regardless of reason&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-30T23:06:32.307" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T23:06:32.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30790" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30835" CreationDate="2018-07-23T19:32:14.853" Score="5" ViewCount="1450" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is supposed to be (Subject-Verb-Object) SVO right? (as I learnt, of course) then why in this sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我可以跟她约会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;does 约会 mean &quot;to date&quot;?  It's a verb I presume, why is it (Subject-Object-Verb) SOV here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a hunch though that it's not even a verb, if so, It would be mean &quot;I can go with her on a date?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, shouldn't there be a classifier? “一个约会”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20127" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T00:43:46.120" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T03:52:30.877" Title="Why is it SOV (and not SVO) in 我可以跟她约会?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30791" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30796" CreationDate="2018-07-23T20:02:20.247" Score="0" ViewCount="1140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to translate this address&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1 Gustave L. Levy Pl, New York, NY 10029&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;into Chinese. Not only I have trouble with &quot;pl&quot;, but also the former part of the address. I am wondering if there are some certain rules in China when translating addresses in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11311" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-20T02:09:34.690" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T05:49:09.823" Title="How do you translate &quot;place&quot; in an address into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30792" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30798" CreationDate="2018-07-23T21:09:15.397" Score="1" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was recommended &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cjkvi/cjkvi-ids&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;character decomposition database&quot;&lt;/a&gt; on this site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have started to explore it and found, that some decompositions I don't understand, like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;U+4E0D  不   ⿱一③&#xA;U+4E0E  与   ⿹②一[GTKV]   ⿻②一[J]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;visual representation on my machine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U6248.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U6248.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do these circled numbers mean? Or they are just incorrectly displayed on my machine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T00:56:05.717" Title="How to understand &quot;ideographic&quot; decomposition of characters like 不 and 与" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30799" CreationDate="2018-07-23T22:16:48.130" Score="1" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase I'm trying to understand is in fact '&lt;strong&gt;没那根筋&lt;/strong&gt;', but I can't find the description for '&lt;strong&gt;根筋&lt;/strong&gt;' in any dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The search result only came up with '&lt;strong&gt;一根筋&lt;/strong&gt;' and '&lt;strong&gt;少根筋&lt;/strong&gt;'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If '&lt;strong&gt;一根筋&lt;/strong&gt;' means one-track mind and '&lt;strong&gt;少根筋&lt;/strong&gt;' means stupid (or perhaps lack of common sense), does '&lt;strong&gt;根筋&lt;/strong&gt;' roughly mean idea/thought?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T08:15:34.067" Title="What does '根筋' in '一根筋' and '少根筋' mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30793" CreationDate="2018-07-23T22:33:39.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First things first, 根 is quantifier for 筋。Therefore you are actually asking what does 筋 mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your question, you are basically right, 筋 in oral Chinese, could mean mindset.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T22:33:39.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30793" CreationDate="2018-07-23T23:32:54.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;筋 means muscle or tendon. The 筋 in these phrases is short for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/1/8d/156073.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;脑筋&lt;/a&gt;, which literally means &quot;brain tendon&quot;, but is used to mean &quot;(line of) thought&quot; or &quot;idea&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see examples of this word, in phrases like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;动脑筋: literally: &quot;to move one's brain tendons&quot;, means: &quot;to think hard&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;伤脑筋: literally: &quot;to hurt one's brain tendons&quot;, means: &quot;a headache&quot; (in the sense of difficult to think about)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T23:32:54.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30791" CreationDate="2018-07-24T00:09:33.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, as we all know, there are many ways of saying a &quot;way&quot;, like road, avenue, street, boulevard and place of course. They all have different and specific meanings. However, in Chinese, we do not use that many different words. Therefore, what you would basically do is to just translate &quot;place&quot; into &quot;街&quot; or &quot;路&quot; and that is it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, as the rule says, in Chinese, address is written from biggest to smallest, thus as for yours, it would be translated to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;美国，纽约市，古斯塔夫·L·利维街一号，邮编：10029&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though the name of the street can be translated into Chinese by its pronunciation, it is suggested to include the English name of the street in order for people to locate the address easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your curiosity, please refer to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/trans/2014-12/11/content_19065980.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; for Chinese correspondence of many types of &quot;way&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-07-24T02:04:36.673" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T02:04:36.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30792" CreationDate="2018-07-24T00:53:40.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The numbers are the strokes remaining. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hFIOs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hFIOs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It takes 3 strokes to write&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OMACz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OMACz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OH7PH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OH7PH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It takes 7 strokes to write&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/44JL4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/44JL4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These numbers are placeholders for things that aren't encoded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That 与 example has two decompositions because the one on the right (⿻②一[&lt;strong&gt;J&lt;/strong&gt;]) is &lt;strong&gt;J&lt;/strong&gt;apanese, which writes that character differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/j1vun.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/j1vun.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T00:53:40.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30792" CreationDate="2018-07-24T00:56:05.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;my best guess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;U+4E0D    不   ⿱一③&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 is a top-bottom structure ⿱, with top component &quot;一&quot;, ③ means components with three strokes, not yet defined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you may look at these two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;U+4E1A    业   ⿱④一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;业 is a top-bottom structure, with the top component with 4 strokes, then the bottom component &quot;一&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;U+4E1D    丝   ⿱⿰②②一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丝 is a top-bottom, and further, the top component could be divided into left-right component. so, ②② means two components, each with two strokes, left-right relationship, on top, then bottom component is &quot;一&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T00:56:05.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30793" CreationDate="2018-07-24T01:53:28.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a figurative speech. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally, 筋 is &lt;strong&gt;tendon&lt;/strong&gt;, through which our brain controls our body parts, arms, fingers, legs, feet and etc. 根 is the measure word, like 一根，两根，...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage of 筋 can be extended. Imagine that there are thousands of &quot;&lt;em&gt;tendons&lt;/em&gt;&quot; in our head that control every aspect of functionalities of our brain with regards to thinking and feelings. When we lost/missed one of them (少根筋 or 没那根筋), we would lose one of functionalities of our brain, which will cause that we behave differently from a normal person. So, 少根筋 or 没那根筋, depending on context, can mean someone &lt;strong&gt;either&lt;/strong&gt; can not do something well, not have a knack for doing something &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; behaves odd, being insane. There is a slight difference between 少根筋 and 没那根筋. 少根筋 doesn't specify the aspect, which is why it's often been interpreted as &lt;strong&gt;odd or insane&lt;/strong&gt;. Well, 没&lt;strong&gt;那&lt;/strong&gt;根筋 has specified the particular aspect of &lt;em&gt;tendon&lt;/em&gt;(our mindset) and it's often been interpreted as not having a knack for doing something. Usually, 没那根筋 is used when the context is clear about what aspect it refers to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他脑袋少根筋 // he behaves odd, silly and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我学不好数学, 我脑袋里面没有那根筋 // I can not do math well, because I don't have  a knack for it(I don't have that tendon in my head for math). (the aspect[数学] is clear in this context.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一根筋 means one only have one way to do something, do something in a clumsy way. Imagine one has only one &quot;tendon&quot;(mindset) in his brain to control everything. But it can have a positive meaning, because it can denote one's persistence and perseverance. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他做事情就一根筋 // he only stick to one approach/principle to do something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-24T08:15:34.067" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T08:15:34.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30800" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30801" CreationDate="2018-07-24T05:11:51.607" Score="0" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;:  What should 爪 in 天津市平均每周都有１名学生因&lt;strong&gt;爪&lt;/strong&gt;安全性行为感染艾滋病 actually be?  And why is 经 in 预防艾滋病&lt;strong&gt;经&lt;/strong&gt;性传播?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why I ask: this poster has appeared in some campus bathrooms (in the women's ones, at least):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ah5Vsm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ah5Vsm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;message and anthropomorphic condom&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ah5Vs.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;large image&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zooming in, the first part is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MCfNz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MCfNz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;zoomed in Chinese text&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I transcribe and translate this to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天津市每发现１０例ＨＩＶ感染者&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;其中就有７例是通过男男同性性行为传播&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;天津市平均每周都有１名学生因&lt;strong&gt;爪&lt;/strong&gt;安全性行为感染艾滋病&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Tianjin, in every 10 cases of discovered HIV infection&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;among these are 7 cases spread through male-male same-sex sexual activity&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The Tianjin average, every week has 1 student, because of [爪 (?)] unsafe sex, is infected with aids&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%88%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;爪&lt;/a&gt; (=claw) is correct, but I couldn't find the correct character.  (My phone suggests , but it doesn't appear in dictionaries.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I transcribe and translate what the condom says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QdjK0m.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QdjK0m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;预防艾滋病&lt;strong&gt;经&lt;/strong&gt;性传播&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;从坚持正确使用安全套开始&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To prevent aids [经 (?)] and sexually transmitted diseases&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;start with insisting on proper use of condoms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what 经 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BB%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%BB%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dict.cn&lt;/a&gt;) is doing here.  I don't see a relevant definition.  Is it yet another word for &amp;quot;and&amp;quot;?  Or maybe it means &amp;quot;and other&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;along with&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T05:28:25.247" Title="Condom poster: What should 爪 in ...因爪安全性行为感染艾滋病 actually be? And why is 经 in 预防艾滋病经性传播?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;transcription&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30800" CreationDate="2018-07-24T05:19:12.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;安全性行为 (unsafe sex) , not 爪安全性行为&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经 means 'through'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;性 means 'sex'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;预防艾滋病(经)性传播 = prevent aids spread (through) sex&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more clear phrasing might help new learners understand better - 预防艾滋病经(由)性(愛/交)传播&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经由 = 'through'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;性愛 = 'love making'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;性交 = 'sexual intercourse'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-07-24T05:28:25.247" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T05:28:25.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30804" CreationDate="2018-07-24T07:58:34.097" Score="5" ViewCount="1149" Body="&lt;p&gt;A photo from the campus shop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FLosYm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FLosYm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Bottles of yogurt and a sign with writing 纯享促销　７元/并&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FLosY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;large image&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I transcribe and translate this to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;纯享促销　７元/并&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Purejoy promotion: 7 yuan/bottle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Here, Purejoy (&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BA%AF%E4%BA%AB&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;纯享&lt;/a&gt; chúnxiǎng) is a brand of yogurt.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about ７元/并, and in particular why &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%B9%B6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;并&lt;/a&gt; (bìng) = &quot;and&quot; is written and not &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%93%B6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;瓶&lt;/a&gt; (píng) = &quot;bottle&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is ７元/并 written instead of ７元/瓶?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possible explanations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;并 is an abbreviation for 瓶 (which I think is the most likely case).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's just incorrect.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A unit of this product is called a &quot;并&quot;, which I haven't heard of before.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T06:52:15.463" Title="Why is ７元/并 written instead of ７元/瓶?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30802" CreationDate="2018-07-24T09:42:56.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This could perhaps be a &lt;strong&gt;doctors handwriting&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The paper &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.doc88.com/p-9092090870971.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;某中心医院四个月不合理处方分析&lt;/a&gt;, under the heading &lt;em&gt;2.1 处方书写不规范&lt;/em&gt;, notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FOYxT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FOYxT.png&quot; alt=&quot;Yeah&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Transcription:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.1.1 有错别字夥书写不规范    医生忙于接待病人，忽略了处方书写的质量，造成书写不规范、缺项、书写错误等。如有的医生为省事随意简化汉字，把“瓶”写成“并”，把“胶囊”写成“胶束”等。处方管理规定中要求一律书写通用名，但有些医生依然书写商品名，如将“琥乙红霉素片”写成“利君沙”。书写不规范，容易使药师在调剂时发生差错，也容易使患者错误用药。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如有的医生为省事随意简化汉字，把“瓶”写成“并”，把“胶囊”写成“胶束”等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article also mentions the &quot;non-standard handwriting&quot; of doctors which calls to mind &lt;em&gt;doctors handwriting&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-07-25T09:11:41.680" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T09:11:41.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30802" CreationDate="2018-07-24T09:45:53.050" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say both you 1 and 2 apply here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is is an &quot;abbreviation&quot;. A lot of characters can take a more simple form in handwriting, to make writing easier. It is not a correct form. It is not standardized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the character forms come from an abandoned simplification scheme in China: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_round_of_simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_round_of_simplified_Chinese_characters&lt;/a&gt;, some of them are just made up in daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say I would treat this as incorrect. I do not have much difficulty recognizing the label, with the very specific context where it is used. But without the context, I'm not sure if I can recognize it as a simplification of &quot;瓶&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T09:45:53.050" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30749" CreationDate="2018-07-24T11:41:54.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What is the most appropriate literal translation of 赚钱 to English in that sense?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb 賺 + the object 錢 = 賺錢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;賺&lt;/strong&gt;錢 means '&lt;strong&gt;earn&lt;/strong&gt; money' (by working or trading)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It requires effort and with legitimate means to qualified the money you get as 'earned'(賺得/ 賺到), which mean winning money in gambling is not 賺錢 but 贏錢; Money you gain by begging, stealing or picking up on the ground is not 'earned'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;賺錢&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;賺錢的&lt;/strong&gt; can also be an adjective '&lt;strong&gt;profitable&lt;/strong&gt;' for business as in 賺錢(的)生意 (profitable business);賺錢(的)买卖 (profitable trade)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;American: make money (money is something you create)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can 'make money' (賺錢) by running a convenience store; but you can also 'make money' (生財) on a gambling table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-07-24T11:53:41.103" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T11:53:41.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30802" CreationDate="2018-07-24T11:55:23.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's abbreviation,  just like &quot;早餐&quot; =&gt; &quot;早歺&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17405" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T11:55:23.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30802" CreationDate="2018-07-24T12:03:30.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can see that 并 is the left half of the character 瓶. And my guess is it would be quite crowded and messy to write the more complicated standard version with &lt;strong&gt;a marker pen&lt;/strong&gt; on this label, or the shop assistant is simply being lazy. However based on my personal experience this substitution is quite rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20129" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T12:03:30.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30802" CreationDate="2018-07-24T13:02:04.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;they're just lazy, and you can easily find the true meaning of 元/并, if you familiar to Chinese.&#xA;in English, &lt;code&gt;are you OK?&lt;/code&gt;  sometimes simplify to &lt;code&gt;r u ok&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T13:02:04.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30802" CreationDate="2018-07-24T14:30:54.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It's incorrect&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese abbreviation won't squeeze character form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there was a thing called 二简字, which is an abbreviation for 二次简化字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We all know Chinese is simplified in main land, it was simplified twice, the second simplification only live for a short time due to the criticism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though 二简字 is not allowed to use, we can still see the 二简字 on signs, 禁止停车 -&gt; 禁止仃车, 快餐 -&gt; 快歺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't like 二简字, it looks like very ugly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T14:30:54.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30790" CreationDate="2018-07-24T14:44:06.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;约会 can be a verb in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;我 / 可以 / 跟她 / 约会&#xA;I / can / with her / date&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S / prep O / V is a common usage like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;我可以跟她吃晚餐　(I can with her eat dinner)&#xA;我可以跟她结婚 (I can with her marry)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20062" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T14:44:06.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30779" CreationDate="2018-07-24T14:52:11.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, 很高兴认识你 is a more native Chinese style. We know Chinese is also SVO mainly, but Chinese do not often use 我 at the beginning, yes, Chinese sometimes omit the subject 我.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you read some writings that full of sentences lead by 我, the writer's Chinese could be influenced by English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T14:52:11.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30305" CreationDate="2018-07-24T15:02:16.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We usually don't say &quot;你做什么(ni zuo shen me)&quot;. We only say it when we are shocked, like when you just meet a man trying to robber you, you'll say that to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're asking someone what are you doing, you should use &quot;你在做什么(ni zai zuo shen me)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20062" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T15:02:16.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30262" CreationDate="2018-07-24T15:02:44.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, nothing special.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a tip for Chinese kids to memorize 已己巳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已半, 巳满, 不出己&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;已半 means there is a half stem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巳满 means there is a full stem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不出己 means the stem is not appear on 己.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T15:02:44.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30814" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30816" CreationDate="2018-07-24T17:32:14.660" Score="2" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two audio recordings that I am listening to both have different pronunciations of the pinyin “kun”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/pronunciation/Kun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;And another is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a pinyin audio chart&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which pronunciation should I be following or which is more standard for stuff like HSK?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17614" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-06-09T20:17:55.057" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T20:17:55.057" Title="Which pronunciation of “kun” is correct or what’s the difference?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30802" CreationDate="2018-07-24T18:03:12.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because the person wrote it wrong. This is just like poor selling in English. In this case, the wrong Chinese character was used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20131" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T18:03:12.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30814" CreationDate="2018-07-24T18:34:13.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the Chinese pinyin &quot;kun&quot; sounds like &quot;kwen&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like to take a further look at the the pronunciation, you can see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhuyin(Bopomofo)&lt;/a&gt;, which we often use it in Taiwan: ㄎㄨㄣ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ㄎ / ㄨ / ㄣ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;k / wu / en&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, I think those two audio sounds familiar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20062" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T18:34:13.843" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30817" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-24T18:37:52.547" Score="3" ViewCount="537" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often you see Arabic numbers among Chinese texts for example: 我想要321餃子&#xA;would that be read as &quot;three hundred&quot; or as &quot;三百二十一&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may seem obvious but thought I'd seek clarification.  Learning the numbers has been a challenge, due to the different decimal places, so for large numbers in particular I was wondering how it works when written like e.g. 1,542,800.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19130" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T00:41:08.740" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T08:24:33.327" Title="When Chinese speakers read Arabic numbers, do they still read them in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30817" CreationDate="2018-07-24T18:41:26.497" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker. I'll read &quot;我(wo) 想(xiang) 要(yao) 三(san) 百(bai) 二(er) 十(shi) 一(yi) 個(ge) 餃(jiao) 子(zi)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW &quot;321餃子&quot; doesn't make sense. &quot;321個餃子&quot; would be correct because you need the unit &quot;個&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20062" LastEditorUserId="20062" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T08:24:33.327" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T08:24:33.327" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30817" CreationDate="2018-07-24T19:09:34.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When reading the number '1,542,811' the first thing I do is count the number of digits from the smallest to the largest. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, I would first count: &quot;個、十、百、千、萬、十萬、百萬&quot; to confirm it is a seven digits number (million).  Then I would read it out in reverse order, from highest to lowest &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First read how many '萬' (10000) ; and there are '154 萬' (&lt;strong&gt;一百伍十四萬&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then read how many '千' (1000) after that; and there are '2 千' (&lt;strong&gt;二千&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then read how many '百' (100)after that; and there are '8 百' (&lt;strong&gt;八百&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then read how many '十' (10) after that; and there is '1 十' (&lt;strong&gt;一十&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally read the last single digit, and it is '1' (&lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[一百伍十四萬][二千][八百][一十][一] would be the correct reading of '1,542,811'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is not an amount but a serial of number (like phone number or document reference number), we can just read each number as it is, so '1542811' would be read as '&lt;strong&gt;一五四二八一一&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-07-24T19:55:00.807" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T19:55:00.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30802" CreationDate="2018-07-24T19:16:47.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The very possible reason is:The writer was a poor-educated person (may just finished Grade 2 and never got chance to lean the word “瓶”)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20132" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T19:16:47.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30817" CreationDate="2018-07-24T21:59:20.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arabic numerals are more like symbols than actual words, and people tend to read them in their native language. So, yes, when Chinese speakers read Arabic numbers, they read in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning the numbers is hard, no matter what language you are dealing with. Chinese actually has a rather straightforward system, without numbers changing forms when they get to the &quot;tens&quot;, or having two different forms for each number, etc. The challenge with large numbers you are encountering is very normal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English single digits 1-9 translate to &quot;一 。。。 九&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;tens is “十， 二十...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hundreds &quot;百”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thousands “千”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ten thousand “萬”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can easily see that the challenge stems from the fact that Chinese has one more unit than English - “萬” which is 10,000. In English, you express the number as 10*1,000 (ten thousand). 100,000 is 100*1000 (a hundred thousand) in English, but in Chinese, it is 10* 萬. When I teach Chinese I often encourage my students to shift the comma to the left, so 100,000 (one hundred thousand) becomes 10,0000 (十萬) and so on. Use the comma as a visual cue. When you get better at this, you can just shift the comma mentally. Keep practising and you'll get better and better. Happy learning!    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T21:59:20.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30828" CreationDate="2018-07-25T00:11:45.063" Score="1" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;很难抽时间和您见面了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am guessing this would mean something like 'Arrange the rare time to meet you' but the grammar is confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, I would expect a degree complement, but how does the above sentence work with 很?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T04:24:37.750" Title="很难抽时间和您见面了 grammar" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30823" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30826" CreationDate="2018-07-25T00:22:39.967" Score="0" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any official naming of complex (not the basic ones) Chinese Characters in Mandarin Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I know that the character 博 is pronounce in Pinyin as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8D%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bó&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But If I were to, address (the name of) this particular character, and not intending to address its pronunciation, what name should I use? (example:the letter W is pronounce as &quot;w&quot; as in &quot;ˈwɔːtə(r)&quot; for the word water in the IPA of BrE but the letter itself is named (referred to as) &quot;double u&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Please add the resources link for this. I'm at a level of a beginner so please add some pinyin in your answer so that I can read it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regards&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20135" LastEditorUserId="20135" LastEditDate="2018-07-25T00:42:07.110" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T01:59:23.000" Title="Official Naming of the Characters (Hanzi) in Mandarin Chinese" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30823" CreationDate="2018-07-25T01:17:48.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, there is no name for a single character in Chinese. Or you can say the name is the character itself, but then there are too many duplicates when you only have the reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To address a single character, there are often two ways, one is to describe how it is written, one is to put it into a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take &quot;博&quot; as an example. You can say that it is the &quot;bo2&quot; with a &quot;十&quot; on the left, which is describing how the character is written. Or you can say it is the &quot;bo2&quot; in &quot;博士&quot;(&quot;博士的博&quot;), which is putting it into a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some characters, there are generally accepted ways to describe them. For example, &quot;李&quot; is often referred to as &quot;木子李&quot;, and &quot;张&quot; is often referred to as &quot;弓长张&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T01:17:48.797" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30825" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-25T01:52:29.627" Score="2" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of any Chinese service that sends or publishes a regular A Word A Day for native Chinese speakers to expand their own vocabulary? I'm having trouble finding one, even though these are really easy to find for English (e.g. Merriam-Webster, Oxford English Dictionary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20136" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T22:53:19.363" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T22:53:19.363" Title="A Word A Day for Chinese" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30823" CreationDate="2018-07-25T01:59:23.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no official naming for Chinese characters. But there's several ways we use to tell from characters sharing the same pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Examples&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use that character with an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: My name is &quot;jia&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: Which &quot;jia&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: The jia in &quot;jia ting&quot;(家庭).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Separating&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there's no good example, or sometimes two examples share the same pronunciation, we seperate the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: My last name is &quot;li(李)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: Which &quot;li&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Mu(木) Zi(子) Li(李).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Radical&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We'll also use &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_(Chinese_characters)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;radicals&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: My last name is &quot;shi&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: Which &quot;shi&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: The &quot;shi(施)&quot; with &quot;fang(方)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20062" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T01:59:23.000" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30822" CreationDate="2018-07-25T04:24:37.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, there is &lt;strong&gt;a result complement&lt;/strong&gt; implied here. The sentence can be paraphrased as: 很难抽&lt;strong&gt;出&lt;/strong&gt;时间和您见面了 or 很难抽&lt;strong&gt;到&lt;/strong&gt;时间和您见面了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很难抽时间和您见面了 is used to refuse to meet someone politely. It implies that I try very hard to find (out) any timeslot to meet you, but I might not be able to get it. It doesn't slam the door totally, so there is still a very small chance that I can get some time to meet you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you say 没时间和你见面, it means I don't have time to meet you. It's a blunt refusal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T04:24:37.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30825" CreationDate="2018-07-25T04:45:14.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;you may try the international encoded han chinese and variants database (國際電腦漢字及異體字知識庫)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;actually, it's &quot;one han chinese character a day&quot; service, in traditional srcipt; they even have an android app :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T04:45:14.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30817" CreationDate="2018-07-25T04:52:43.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;based on my experience only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chinese text mixed with arabic digits, i read them in cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;english text mixed with arabic digits, i read them in english. depends on the context, i would decipher the meanings, either digit by digit, in time / date format, or quantity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, arabic digits amongst le texte français, i read it, en français; my slowest reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-07-25T07:18:54.000" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T07:18:54.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13783" CreationDate="2018-07-25T06:11:17.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The real answer is, the pronunciations were always distinct. In OC, the root written as 樂 simultaneously represented a number of different inflected forms, among which are: [ŋrawk], [ŋrawk-s], [g-rawk] (Baxter), each with a different grammatical function. Due to a process that included many complex steps, some subsequent compounds ended up with the [ŋawk] ... [yào] form while others ended up with the [rawk] ... [lè] form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, many meanings are not always distinguishable and sometimes conflated, but as others have pointed out, in the literary readings of old texts where archaic readings are maintained (they are not arbitrary!), three distinct meanings can be identified:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The noun form that is part of today's compound 音[&lt;strong&gt;樂&lt;/strong&gt;] (music), with the meaning of &quot;concordance.&quot; Music is literally &quot;sonic concordance.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The archaic, transitive verb form as in 獨[&lt;strong&gt;樂&lt;/strong&gt;]樂，與人[&lt;strong&gt;樂&lt;/strong&gt;]樂, with the meaning of &quot;to concord with&quot; or &quot;to accord to.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The passive verb form that grammaticalized into today's verb &quot;to be joyful&quot; and its related substantive, with the original meaning of &quot;to be in concord.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20138" LastEditorUserId="20138" LastEditDate="2018-07-25T06:21:09.317" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T06:21:09.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7149" CreationDate="2018-07-25T08:14:28.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to take some of the old non-scientific etymology sources (like Shuowen) with a grain of salt sometimes, and certainly of forum sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not credible to me, for example, that the 可 in 奇 could have been simplified from 馬. This is simply &lt;em&gt;not possible&lt;/em&gt;. It's also not credible to me that 奇 derived its pronunciation from 可. So what is plausible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XP9Dg.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XP9Dg.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absent an Oracle Bone character that matches 奇, we don't really have direct evidence for the origins of the Small Seal 奇. Everything is going to be a guess. However, the Oracle Bone character you provide here (if it indeed existed &lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;): 大 (man figure) + 丁 (some bar), but no 口 (mouth), &lt;em&gt;would&lt;/em&gt; come close to being a plausible precursor. It turns out, a well placed 口 at this stage of character development was almost always a phonetic loan marker. So the Small Seal character 奇 is possibly a re-analysis of an (unattested) Oracle Bone character 奇 = (大 + 丁) + 口 that is a phonetic loan of whatever the Oracle Bone character 大 + 丁 is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether the meaning of 奇 is etymologically related at all to the true meaning of 大 + 丁 is unclear. I'm leaning towards no, simply because the first character creator of 奇, by finding it necessary to use 口, didn't consider such a relationship discernible. But various un-etymological meanings could still have been back-endowed onto the pictorial atom 大 + 丁, variously:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大 + 丁: stand on one leg, unstable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大 + 丁: stride across&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the time it becomes 奇, with readings we can reconstruct, the following meanings were also evidently acquired:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;奇 [krjaj]: not paired, as in odd number&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;奇 [grjaj]: unusual, rare&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The references do tell us with some certainty that 奇 was the original character for &quot;mount a horse,&quot; so that gives further:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;奇 [grjaj]: mount a horse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some say this comes from the &quot;surprising&quot; appearance of mounted cavalry, given that horses were a late import, but more likely it's just a homophone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were evidently many other such suggestive loans, created at various times, and 奇 definitely acquired more and more meanings. The rest of the story seems clearer: Radicals were added to distinguish between the various homophones like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;骑 [grjaj]: mount a horse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;倚 [ʔrjajʔ]: lean upon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;琦 [grjaj]: fine jade&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;畸 [krjaj]: misshapen field&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;崎 [grjaj]: jagged mountain&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;觭 [khrjaj]: tilted horns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc. That the abstract meanings of &quot;odd&quot; (both &quot;not paired&quot; and &quot;unusual&quot;) retained the non-radicalized 奇 is also consistent with common practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; As another answer points out, this is a &quot;fake&quot; in that it did not come from a serious academic source. A source says it is found unattributed in the book 《汉字密码》 (&quot;The secret code of Chinese characters&quot;) by the &quot;alternative theory&quot; author 唐汉. It's not clear if the entire character is made up, or it is simply given a made up semantic explanation. The answer assumes the character itself (or one substantially like it) is found somewhere in the Oracle Bone corpus, and proceeds from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20138" LastEditorUserId="20138" LastEditDate="2018-07-25T09:43:29.737" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T09:43:29.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30833" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30834" CreationDate="2018-07-25T08:37:42.337" Score="3" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;懵逼 is easily construed as dirty with it's 逼 suffix. I cannot, for certain, tell if 逼 is a substitute for 屄 or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%87%B5%E9%80%BC/19673061?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt; gives no indication that it's a curse word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E6%87%B5X&amp;amp;rsv_spt=1&amp;amp;rsv_iqid=0x9960830800023d36&amp;amp;issp=1&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=0&amp;amp;rsv_idx=2&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;tn=baiduhome_pg&amp;amp;rsv_enter=1&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=1&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;inputT=187&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=188&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;懵X&lt;/a&gt; brings up almost four million results on Baidu &amp;amp; 懵屄 has it's own fair-share of results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could it just be a happy coincidence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-07-25T08:43:40.303" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T14:31:12.920" Title="Is the word 懵逼 dirty?" Tags="&lt;swearing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30833" CreationDate="2018-07-25T08:45:58.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not polite or appropriate, but has been used so much by teenagers on the internet that it has become quite acceptable on social media. Middle-aged people will consider it a very bad word to say. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more appropriate substitution for it could be &quot;懵圈&quot;. However, both words should never be used in an official context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, 逼 is a substitute for 屄 and is more commonly used.(Both characters I've rarely used before answering the question...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20129" LastEditorUserId="20129" LastEditDate="2018-07-25T09:03:45.517" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T09:03:45.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30790" CreationDate="2018-07-25T09:19:30.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is supposed to be SVO&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correct. More specifically, Chinese can be SVO or SV, plus additional components. Sometimes we omit the &lt;strong&gt;subject&lt;/strong&gt; if it's obvious what the subject refers to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;约会&amp;quot; means to date, so It's a verb I presume&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;约会&amp;quot; can be a verb (go on a date/hang out) or a noun (a date). When using it as a noun, we need to use a classifier before it. &amp;quot;我/有/一个/约会&amp;quot;=&amp;quot;I / have / a / date&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When using as a verb, the simplest way is &amp;quot;我/约会&amp;quot; SV, but it doesn't make sense at all because you can't go on a date alone. So the common usage is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我/和/她/约会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I / hang out / with / her&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference with the english version is Chinese tend to put 和她 (&lt;strong&gt;adverbial modifier&lt;/strong&gt;, which only gives more details and is omittable in a sentence) before the verb. So it's still an SV structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20129" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T09:19:30.933" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29715" CreationDate="2018-07-25T09:57:47.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, it took me 3-5 seconds to understand this sentence, given that I'm quite familiar with this context about being a student. Perhaps the answerer wrote quickly on social media and didn't read the sentence again. I think it can be better reworded as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不留到晚自习,在晚自习之前就写完(作业)多好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will be good if I can finish the homework before the evening class. I don't have to leave it until the evening class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see there are some duplication here and the order is different from that in English, but it's quite common in Chinese to emphasize or provide more context so it's more fluent to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20129" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T10:48:11.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30817" CreationDate="2018-07-25T12:55:04.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning counting is hard in every language. And the rules can be hard for native speakers to write down as well. It appears we just happen to know what's the right thing to say, and will be able to tell that something wrong simply &amp;quot;sounds wired&amp;quot;. Below is an attempt to summarize the rules but definitely requires improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1-1000&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Smaller, common numbers are best summarised in a table. Hard to learn but will be used a lot. I only used combinations of 0,1,2,8 and I hope the pattern is shown clearly. It's ordered in the hope that expression of the same format are grouped together. There're probably some mistakes and forgotten exceptions in the following list. And many special cases and alternative expressions are ignored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1 一&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;8 八&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10 十&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;11 十一&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;12 十二&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;18 十八&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;20 二十&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;80 八十&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;21 二十一&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;22 二十二&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;28 二十八&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;81 八十一&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;100 一百&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;200 二百&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;800 八百&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;101 一百零一&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;102 一百零二&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;108 一百零八&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;110 一百(一)十&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;111 一百(一)十一&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;112 一百(一)十二&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;118 一百(一)十八&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;120 一百二(十)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;180 一百八(十)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;280 二百八&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;128 一百二十八&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;821 八百二十一&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1000 一千&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1000-9999&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still quite commonly used in everyday life and relatively straight-forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First divide it into &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;xxx&lt;/strong&gt;, and say it like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; 千+ add 零 in the middle if &lt;strong&gt;xxx&lt;/strong&gt; is smaller than 100 + how you would say &lt;strong&gt;xxx&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For exmaple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2001 = 二千 / 零 / 一    (xxx=001&amp;lt;100)&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Only 1 零 is necessary, never use several consecutive 零s unless you are saying it as a year)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2020  二千 / 零 /二十  (xxx=020&amp;lt;100)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2021  二千 / 零 /二十一(xxx=021&amp;lt;100)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2100  二千 / / 一百         (xxx=100)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2821  二千 / / 八百二十一    (xxx=821&amp;gt;100)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And lastly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10000 一万&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;80000 八万&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;20000 二万 (tricky, but this expression works)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;10000 onwards if you are really interested&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Break numbers into groups of 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;872,&lt;strong&gt;0321&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;strong&gt;0021&lt;/strong&gt;,8010&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, say each group as you would according to previous sections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Insert something in between:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兆 10^12 亿 10^8 万10^4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(872)兆(0321)亿(0021)万(8010)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the following group is smaller than 1000 (bold), add a 零 (one and only one) before it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;NB&lt;/strong&gt; Very unsure about this tricky bit, I think some 零 can be omitted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(872)兆零(321)亿零(21)万(8010)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;872,0000,0000,8010?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Omit unnecessary part and follow the principle of no consecutive 零s&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(872)兆零(8010)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for 872,&lt;strong&gt;0321&lt;/strong&gt;,5421,0000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(872)兆零(321)亿(5421)万&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full stop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Notes and Thoughts&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I belive that's way more than enough. I wrote the answer based on a computer programme I've written for this conversion, but we are humans. No idea why I went into such depths.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In daily life, we just pronounce each digit in order when we are lazy, forget about all the grammars. Or write it down in groups of four, or press it on a calculator, because there's no meaning in saying a large number aloud.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In written language, these official expressions are necessary for legal files or bank cheques for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what exactly is going on in my mind when I read 321,0021,8010. I won't try to convert it at all. It'll remain as a number instead of a word in my mind. The only thought is &amp;quot;Woo, that's a large number&amp;quot;. I won't think of English expression at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20129" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T12:55:04.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30817" CreationDate="2018-07-25T13:48:50.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practical and clarity is the key, it is similar to many language way of handling plural. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;321只餃子 only one way to say it : 三百二十一只餃子 , otherwise the listener will confuse whether you want 3 or 2 or 1 餃子&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Phone number , e.g. 712-333-859  you are free to speak out individual number, or mix it. For example, when 333 is to the audience whether it is two 3 or three 3 , you should say, 三百三十三，or 三个三 。 三三三 is not recommended as the audience will definitely want to confirm with 三个三?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Number 1,542,800 . You may say 一百五十四万二千八百, or individual number : 一五四二八零零; 一五四二八百&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Number 542,800.  This is more interesting. 五十四万二千八百, or use the English convention 五百四十二千八百, or speak out individual number.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;anything more than millions is getting more confusing. 10 millions is always 千万。 100 millions will be 一万万，or 一亿。 But you don't need to touch those number unless you start get use to Chinese numbering convention.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-07-25T14:03:55.980" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T14:03:55.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30833" CreationDate="2018-07-25T14:31:12.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's dirty, no doubt, the original one is 懵, just 懵, adding 逼 suffix is like 'confussied', no matter how popular it is on internet, it is still a dirty word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T14:31:12.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30790" CreationDate="2018-07-25T16:24:51.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Old Chinese was SOV, but we're talking about Modern Chinese, which is SVO. Here 约会 means &quot;to go on a date,&quot; and the whole sentence is &quot;I can with her go on a date.&quot; The main verb is actually &quot;can,&quot; and &quot;with her go on a date&quot; is the noun phrase acting as the object. &quot;With her&quot; is a prepositional phrase and in Chinese it precedes a verb phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20138" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T16:24:51.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30842" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30845" CreationDate="2018-07-26T01:16:56.723" Score="1" ViewCount="249" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to say a sentence such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They discount so much I can't help but buy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went as far as 这家商店打折那么多， but need help with finding a Chinese expression that has the same impression as &amp;quot;can't help but...&amp;quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, how do you say unlike in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike the Chinese, the British add sugar to their tea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不像中国人， 英国人把糖放进茶里 （or 英国人在茶里加糖）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came up with the above sentence and added some variety for the sake of it. Would also like some help on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T15:22:12.213" Title="How do I say &quot;they discount so much I can't help but buy&quot; using 打折? Also how do you say &quot;unlike&quot; in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30842" CreationDate="2018-07-26T01:29:22.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;They discount so much I can't help but buy!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Direct translation : “他们打了那么多折，我不买不行呀！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for the part &quot;I can't help but buy!&quot; can translate into many option, i just pick out one that i think is the suitable ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;small info : the discount compare to china is a different phrase. If is 25% discount in mandarin we would say 七五折, which is 75% of the original price.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Unlike, 不像 i think is acceptable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17661" LastEditorUserId="17661" LastEditDate="2018-07-26T01:37:18.323" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T01:37:18.323" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12228" CreationDate="2018-07-26T02:04:08.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;None of these explanations are legitimate. 或 [gwək] the character represents &quot;defended territory,&quot; i.e. a walled city, or something slightly larger. Both 國 [kʷək] (state) and 域 [gwrjək] (domain) are later cognates. This much is undisputed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或 [gwək] was &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; borrowed for its phonetic value only to write the distributive pronoun &quot;some,&quot; which is thought to be a derivative of 有 [gwjəʔ] (exist) via -k affixation. This use of 或 is where you see things like &quot;或人&quot; (someone), &quot;或时&quot; (sometime) in Classical Chinese. It is from this that the modern particles for &quot;or,&quot; &quot;maybe,&quot; etc. arise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;或许... = some allows that ... =&gt; grammaticalized to &quot;maybe...&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;或(者)..., 或(者)... = some ..., some ... =&gt; grammaticalized to &quot;either..., or...&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically the usage of the &quot;some&quot; 或 came to represent choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20138" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T02:04:08.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30842" CreationDate="2018-07-26T02:04:33.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;can't help but&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is normally interpreted as： 禁不住就，忍不住就；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;They discount so much I can't help but buy!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A direct translation is: 他们打了好多折扣，我忍不住就买了/我没忍住就买了. More Chinese way: 他们的折扣力度太大了， 我没忍住就买了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Unlike&lt;/strong&gt;: 不像； 和... 不一样；和... 不同;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Unlike the Chinese, the British add sugar to their tea.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possible translation is: 和中国人不同, 英国人往茶里放糖. More Chinese way can be: 英国人和中国人不一样， 他们（习惯于）往茶里面放糖.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T02:04:33.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21401" CreationDate="2018-07-26T02:39:51.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pinyin would be easier to learn considering you (or so I'm guessing) are a native English speaker. I speak Mandarin and Cantonese so I can't tell you how much of my advice relates to learning Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Cantonese and Mandarin are both Chinese dialects, they are very different in terms of tones and sentence structure. The same character 你 reads as ni in Mandarin and nhei in Cantonese, for instance. Generally speaking, a lot of Mainland Chinese people have difficulty communicating with those from Guangdong / HK. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best advice would be to get your conversational skills down first. Writing/typing will get easier as you build your foundation. Translating your thoughts (from English) into Chinese words and sentences will take some practice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish you luck. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20143" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T02:39:51.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30847" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30854" CreationDate="2018-07-26T03:42:46.283" Score="2" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always just assumed mulberry was 桑葚. I was going through some materials though and came across many variants:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;桑椹&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;桑甚&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;桑黮&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not as if they are even traditional or simplified variants. What's up with all these different suffixes (葚, 椹, 甚, 黮) for mulberry? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T09:38:49.830" Title="Why does mulberry have so many different endings? (桑葚、桑椹、桑甚、桑黮)？" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30849" CreationDate="2018-07-26T04:18:14.627" Score="1" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, we often use the word since in the context such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Since it's hot outside, we should stay inside' and introduce a cause and effect. I know there's the phrase 因为。。所以 and I could also say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外面太热， 我们应该不出门。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I want to know if there's a word that gives something like 'since' in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T10:41:04.793" Title="Mandarin equivalent of the English opening word 'since'?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30848" CreationDate="2018-07-26T04:33:50.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you would like to know the word &lt;strong&gt;既然&lt;/strong&gt; for since.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC English&lt;/em&gt;'s entry for since says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 因为 yīnwèi; 既然 jìrán&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you're so smart, you do it.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;既然你这么聪明,你来做吧。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Jìrán nǐ zhème cōngming, nǐ lái zuò ba.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, I think you've already grasped something more fundamentally important from the example sentence you wrote: you don't translate since into colloquial Chinese. You can just as simply put two sentences together and the context will be clear, while words like 既然 are seldom heard in spoken Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T04:33:50.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30850" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30851" CreationDate="2018-07-26T05:03:56.707" Score="2" ViewCount="3220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to ask her if she misses China and her friends in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I asked,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不想中国和在中国里的朋友吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't you miss China and your friends in China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But instead, she understood it as 'I don't miss China and friends inside China'. Where have I gone wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastActivityDate="2021-02-01T16:26:20.610" Title="I asked my Chinese friend a question in Chinese, but she doesn't understand" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30850" CreationDate="2018-07-26T05:47:56.940" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just sounds odd to natives, 你不想念中国和在中国的朋友吗 is the common expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Add 念 to distinguish it from 想(think) and 想(miss).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't need 里 after a place name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is still not normally said by the Chinese. The typical question is 你不想念你的家乡/祖国吗? 家乡/祖国 includes friends and other things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="23922" LastEditDate="2021-02-01T16:26:20.610" LastActivityDate="2021-02-01T16:26:20.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30850" CreationDate="2018-07-26T07:42:30.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;中文一个字有很多意思。你这里的“想”，要表达miss的意思。在这种情况下，“想家”这个词频比较高，“想中国”用得就比较少了。所以，你可以先问想家，这样你的朋友就知道你是在问“想念”的事：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你不想家，不想你在中国的朋友吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或者正如Jacob所说，直接用“想念”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你不想念中国和在中国的朋友吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T07:42:30.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30842" CreationDate="2018-07-26T07:53:11.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这家店&lt;strong&gt;打折&lt;/strong&gt;这么多，我忍不住就要买买买。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  This shop &lt;strong&gt;discounts&lt;/strong&gt; so much, I cannot help [but to] go buy buy buy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can't help 在词典里的翻译通常是“情不自禁”，不过这里如果用“情不自禁”显得有点书面语。通常聊天，直接用“忍不住”就行。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[For] &lt;em&gt;can't help&lt;/em&gt; in the dictionary, the translation is normally &lt;a href=&quot;https://youdao.com/w/%E6%83%85%E4%B8%8D%E8%87%AA%E7%A6%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;情不自禁&lt;/a&gt;, but here if [we] use 情不自禁 it seems a bit [like] written language.  [For] normal discussions, directly using &lt;a href=&quot;https://youdao.com/w/%E5%BF%8D%E4%B8%8D%E4%BD%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;忍不住&lt;/a&gt; is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;与&lt;/strong&gt;中国人&lt;strong&gt;不同&lt;/strong&gt;，英国人往茶里加糖。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Unlike&lt;/strong&gt; Chinese people, English people add sugar to their tea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T08:26:27.490" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T08:26:27.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30847" CreationDate="2018-07-26T08:42:16.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;桑&lt;strong&gt;葚&lt;/strong&gt;（sāng shèn），又作桑&lt;strong&gt;椹&lt;/strong&gt;，桑树的成熟果实，为桑科植物桑树的果穗。又名桑椹子、桑蔗、桑枣、桑果、桑泡儿，乌椹等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;黮&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;dàn&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;云黑色：“当时黮闇犹承误，末俗纷纭更乱真。”&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;shèn&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;古通“葚”，桑果：“食我桑黮。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems that 桑椹 and 桑葚 are the same. And 黮 is the interchangeability character of 葚 in ancient time. While 甚 should be a wrong word since I didn't find any explanation related to 桑甚.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T09:38:49.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29947" CreationDate="2018-07-26T08:49:27.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find some early attestations of 居然 here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;char=%E5%B1%85%E7%84%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;char=%E5%B1%85%E7%84%B6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;居 means squat/occupy/dwell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Classical Chinese, 然 is a contraction of 如是 = &quot;as such,&quot; which subsequently became productive as an adjective and adverb generator. You can mostly figure out the result by accounting for the grammatical context of the main verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some not super obvious ones, including 居然:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;突然 = jump out as such = jumpy, jumpily = suddenly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;当然 = fit/match as such = fittingly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;依然 = lean on as such = dependable, dependably = still&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;固然 = firm as such = certainly, undoubtedly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;自然 = originate as such = originally, naturally &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;竟然 = culminate as such = finally, really, actually&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;居然 = keep low as such = quietly, unexpectedly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20138" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T08:49:27.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30848" CreationDate="2018-07-26T10:33:29.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding of &quot;since&quot; and &quot;because&quot; is that &quot;since&quot; suggests a much weaker logical relationships. So in Chinese, the conjunction is often omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One characteristic of Chinese is that we use a lot of short sentence connected by commas as apposed to many individual sentence ended with a period. So somehow the comma acts as a logical connection between the two shorter sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外面太热，我们不应该出门。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;suggests a much stronger logical relationship than&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外面太热。我们不应该出门。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want one word this kind of relationship, you can use 那么 as &quot;thus&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外面太热，&lt;strong&gt;那&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;那么&lt;/strong&gt;我们不应该出门。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20129" LastEditorUserId="20129" LastEditDate="2018-07-26T10:41:04.793" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T10:41:04.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30850" CreationDate="2018-07-26T10:54:55.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;So your problem is that your friend mistake your question as a negative sentence, is that right? Otherwise I don't see where she misunderstood it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to English, we distinguish questions from statements with phonetics. You should use an obvious rising tone to suggest you are asking a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or begin your sentence with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;问你个问题, Let me ask you a question,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might also be the rhyme you used to say this long sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20129" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T10:54:55.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30060" CreationDate="2018-07-26T11:35:40.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Because some &quot;fortune tellers&quot; would suggest these characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lots of parents go ask fortune tellers for names before giving birth to their children.  Now young people in these generation seldom do that, but some of their parents(the children's parents) still ask them to do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And sometimes, for example, fortune tellers would suggest that there should be some &quot;火(fire)&quot; in the baby's name because that child will be too tender. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not every Taiwanese believes in this, but some really do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20062" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T11:35:40.207" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30859" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30860" CreationDate="2018-07-26T12:59:18.577" Score="2" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;喜欢她就主动一点儿， 机会是不回自己跑到你面前的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran into such sentence and had trouble understanding 喜欢她就主动一点儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean, I would prefer she acts more proactively?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T13:07:53.047" Title="Subtle definition of 喜欢" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30859" CreationDate="2018-07-26T13:07:53.047" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One correction from the original sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喜欢她就主动一点儿， 机会是不 &lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt; 自己跑到你面前的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means: &lt;em&gt;if you like her, you should be proactive / take initiatives, since chances wouldn't run for you automatically(implying she wouldn't call you first).&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence can be paraphrased as: 如果你喜欢她，你就主动一点儿， 机会是不会自己跑到你面前的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T13:07:53.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30861" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30863" CreationDate="2018-07-26T13:44:27.947" Score="0" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;我本来只是抱着试一试的想法去参加比赛的， 没想到居然获得了冠军。 这不但让朋友感到吃惊而且让父母很高兴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this sentence difficult to understand mostly because of 我本来只是抱着试一试的想法去参加比赛的 and don't know how to break it down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我本来 I originally&#xA;只是 only?&#xA;抱着试一试的想法 hug and try at the same time? thoughts?&#xA;参加比赛的 attend the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, I am in a mess and need some clearing up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T14:03:52.627" Title="Help with sentence construction" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30861" CreationDate="2018-07-26T13:51:36.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From your comments the only thing you're missing is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;抱着....的想法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To hold a [certain] idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T13:51:36.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30861" CreationDate="2018-07-26T13:54:04.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The interpretation of 我本來 and 衹是 are fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;抱着 (literally &lt;em&gt;to hug&lt;/em&gt;, but should be interpreted as &lt;em&gt;to grasp onto&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;試一試的想法 (a thought of just trying)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;參加比賽的 (to participate in a competition)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我本來衹是抱着試一試的想法去參加比賽的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I originally participated in the competition holding on to the thought of just giving it a go&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-07-26T14:03:52.627" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T14:03:52.627" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30864" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-26T16:38:11.307" Score="2" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;if there's an object belonging to an object belonging to an object, do you let go of most 的?&#xA;For example: &quot;Our teacher's name?&quot; You basically say &quot;The name of the teacher of ours&quot; like: 他们的老师的名字. Or do you let go of one of 的? Because whenever I try to google translate anything similar, it lets go of all the 的 except for the last one.&#xA;Thank you in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20149" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T20:10:27.477" Title="Do you let go of some 的 when there are multiple?" Tags="&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30864" CreationDate="2018-07-26T20:00:31.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's more native to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们老师的名字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爸爸的手表&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, when the expression is &lt;strong&gt;his/her/my/... + people's + a thing&lt;/strong&gt;, we tend to only use the last 的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I think this usage is more often determined &amp;quot;case by case&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20129" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T20:00:31.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30864" CreationDate="2018-07-26T20:10:27.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually, we do not use so many &quot;的&quot; in a single sentence, we will just break it apart. There are always many ways of saying one thing, using many &quot;的&quot; in a single sentence is not a habit in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your example, we could let go of the first &quot;的&quot; or not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们（的）老师的名字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you let go of the last &quot;的&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们的老师（的）家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more &quot;的&quot;, if it is not confusing, you could say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们吃的饭里的调料的原产地是东北的一个村庄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chinese, what we would usually say is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们现在吃的饭，它里面的调料产自东北的一个村庄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T20:10:27.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28782" CreationDate="2018-07-26T21:30:51.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not likely that 若 is a contraction of 如果, because 若 came first by a thousand years or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nor is it likely that 如果 is a splitting of 若, because 果 is real. Long before 如果 there was already 若果, and before 若果, 果 was already grammaticalized to mean &quot;ultimately&quot; (&quot;bear fruit&quot; -&gt; &quot;ultimately&quot;, see 果然, 果真).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 若果 was a legitimate, intensified version of 若. As for how 若果 became 如果, we can speculate that it was an easy phonetic and etymological transition: 如果 [nja kojʔ] and 若果 [njak kojʔ] would have sounded almost identical even before the loss of stop finals post-MC, and 如 (&quot;follow&quot; -&gt; &quot;compares with/likens to&quot;) and 若 (&quot;obey&quot; -&gt; &quot;as if/if&quot;) are grammaticalized in similar, if subtly different ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20138" LastEditorUserId="20138" LastEditDate="2018-07-26T21:36:01.330" LastActivityDate="2018-07-26T21:36:01.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19419" CreationDate="2018-07-27T01:05:38.750" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You ask: &quot;Why the hell 'tall building + very' became 'to become a subject'?! &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, 尤 did not mean &quot;very,&quot; it meant &quot;stand out.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 the character is a pictorial rebus of a tall building that stands out, a great edifice, if you will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《说文解字注》 writes: &quot;廣韵曰。就、成也。迎也。卽也。&quot; 成 means &quot;accomplish/achieve,&quot; you can still see it in 成就. 迎 means &quot;face toward&quot; and 即 means &quot;get next to.&quot; Of these meanings, the last two can easily transit to &quot;be subject to,&quot; but the first one doesn't fit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For that, 成:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;成,就也。——《说文》: 成 is 就, okay, circular, but consistent.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;成德之终也。——《国语·周语》: 成 is the end result of virtue.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;成者功就不可易也。——《太元元错》: That which is 成'd, its construction and 就 cannot be changed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But If we look at the below example, all meanings are actually possible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就有道而正焉: achieve/face toward/get next to the existing Way and set upright by it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what does that mean? I think it means 就 started out as a construction term, meaning to finish the construction. It then came to mean to &quot;reach for&quot; or &quot;reach&quot; any objective, and it is in this sense that you are subject to it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就學 = reach for the endeavor of studying&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就餐 = reach for the endeavor of eating&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就位 = reach for a spot&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就你 = reach for you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就着菜吃飯 = consume rice with entrees reached&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就事论事 = reaching for the subject and discuss it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃完了午飯就走 = after lunch it reaches the point of leaving&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就他一个人知道这事 = it reaches the fact that he solely knows this&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;繁纓七就 = seven &quot;reaches&quot; of equestrian bands and tassels (similar usage to 箫韶九成 = nine &quot;completions&quot; of sacred flute music)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and some others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;成就 = complete and reach&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;功成名就 = the endeavor is completed and the fame is reached&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this gives a more general explanation than &quot;be subject to,&quot; even though that is where most modern uses have gravitated toward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20138" LastEditorUserId="20138" LastEditDate="2018-07-27T01:32:31.583" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T01:32:31.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30869" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30871" CreationDate="2018-07-27T01:33:22.297" Score="1" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you append degree complement to a 离合词 such as 提高？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I naively came up with 他提高得很快, but then I remembered for 离合词 words such as 打折， I had to construct somewhat differently such as 他们打了很多折，我忍不住就买。 (credits to Dan who made this clear for me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am guessing the same would apply for 提高？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastEditorUserId="19898" LastEditDate="2018-07-27T01:39:54.780" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T03:12:20.507" Title="提高 and degree complement" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30869" CreationDate="2018-07-27T02:06:08.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For your question, I would say, 提高 is not a 离合词，you would not usually say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;提了很高&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-07-27T02:17:52.507" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T02:17:52.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30869" CreationDate="2018-07-27T02:39:00.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;提高 literally means &quot;&lt;em&gt;lift/raise sth. up&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. Its extended meaning is &lt;em&gt;improve or make a progress&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他提高得很快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, you have used the &lt;strong&gt;extended meaning&lt;/strong&gt;(improve) of 提高. The whole sentence can be translated to: &lt;em&gt;He improved rapidly/very fast&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, if you use its extended meaning, then it's not a 离合词 because you can't separate it. Well, it can be considered as a 离合词 when it denotes its literal meaning(lift up), because it is separable . For example, you can say 提得高.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. As the comment pointed out, 提得很高 is more common than 提得高 in practice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-27T03:12:20.507" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T03:12:20.507" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30872" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-27T04:26:24.963" Score="0" ViewCount="814" Body="&lt;p&gt;Common vegetables list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kale&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Water cress&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Collards/collard greens&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Brussels sprouts&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Leeks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Artichokes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other vegetables are, of course, welcomed. The more the merrier.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATED:&#xA;Yes, i am aware that all these can be found via online translation or some other sources. But the point is to treat this post as some kind of master list or quick list, in which we have all the names in one place. That way, i will be easier for other people who are looking for the same information, since, you know, they are now collected under one post. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19039" LastEditorUserId="19039" LastEditDate="2018-07-27T23:22:03.490" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T16:25:39.340" Title="The list of official Chinese names for common vegetables" Tags="&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30872" CreationDate="2018-07-27T05:28:26.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kale - 羽衣甘蓝&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Water cress - 水田芥；豆瓣菜（别名为西洋菜）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Collards/collard greens - 宽叶羽衣甘蓝&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Brussels sprouts - 球芽甘蓝&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Leeks - 韭葱&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Artichokes - 洋蓟&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T05:28:26.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30708" CreationDate="2018-07-27T07:50:11.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per my experience, for human names, it is usually recommended to trace the etymology of the name and see how apparently are the consonants isolated in pronunciation. So it is not exactly a transliteration from the current language, but a transliteration of the names with shared etymology; this especially applies to the names appeared in Abraham mythologies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, Schrödinger is 薛定谔 but Klein is 克莱因. “R” is almost adhered to “Sch” but “K” and “L” are clearly isolated to each other. I’m not quite familiar with phonology and I wish someone may make a formal explanation regarding why and how cases differ in consonants’ isolation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may not cover pseudo-Chinese transliterations introduced in around 1840-1940.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19602" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T07:50:11.153" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9501" CreationDate="2018-07-27T13:29:14.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;--I'm told radicals combine with each other and other characters to make words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, radicals are one component of Chinese characters. They do not combine with each other to make words. They do not combine with other characters to make words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all components of characters are radicals. What you wrote is correct: &quot;it just helps you find the stroke category in a dictionary&quot;. If you are looking up the character 枫 (maple), for instance, the radical is 木 (wood, tree). The other part, 风, is not a radical, at least not in this word. 木, the radical, helps you look up 枫 in the dictionary. 风 indicates the pronunciation (roughly) but is not a radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--some radicals denote sound for pronunciation of the word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These aren't very common. Probably the majority of radicals indicate the semantic category of a word, like 木 (wood, tree) in 枫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a fundamental confusion in your question between characters and words. Characters are written forms. Except for very simple characters, they are made up of various written components or elements, some giving a hint of meaning, some indicating pronunciation, and some representing garbled (and misleading) versions of their ancient form. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters in Chinese mostly equate to morphemes in linguistics. Words are created by combining morphemes together. For instance, 枫 'maple' and 梨 'pear' are two morphemes (each written with one character) that can combine to form the word 枫梨, meaning 'pineapple'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words are NOT created by combining radicals. The word 枫梨 is made up of 枫 and 梨. It was not created by mixing and matching radicals like 木 and 风 and 木 and 利. These four forms all occur in 枫梨, but only as constituent parts of 枫 and 梨, not as constituent parts of the word 枫梨. Radicals, as mentioned above, are components of characters and, as also mentioned above, are just used for indexing characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="285" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T13:29:14.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30667" CreationDate="2018-07-27T16:26:26.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple difference is that &lt;code&gt;戰略&lt;/code&gt; has the word &lt;code&gt;戰&lt;/code&gt;(war) in it, in fact the literal meaning of &lt;code&gt;戰略&lt;/code&gt; is the &lt;code&gt;策略&lt;/code&gt; used in &lt;code&gt;戰爭&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in a broader sense, they both carry similar meaning, but &lt;code&gt;戰略&lt;/code&gt; is used in a more aggressive, complex or serious context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19825" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T16:26:26.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30877" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30885" CreationDate="2018-07-28T00:34:11.240" Score="1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the form is the same with '份' in '看在A的份上, B...' &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14864/what-is-the-meaning-of-%E7%9C%8B%E5%9C%A8-and-%E5%88%86%E4%B8%8A&quot;&gt;which had been asked before&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm not sure 'for one's sake', which is the preferable answer for '份', is the appropriate word to describe '面'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: '看在你妈妈的面上，我就不为难你'. In this case, I assumed the speaker has a kind of grateful feeling towards the mother and thus wouldn't make things difficult for the child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any english word to describe it more precisely than 'for one's sake'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T04:18:47.420" Title="What is the most appropriate English word to describe '面' in phrase like '看在A的面上, B...'" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30878" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30880" CreationDate="2018-07-28T01:10:22.133" Score="2" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;code&gt;ne&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;nè&lt;/code&gt; are words.  But there are no  &lt;code&gt;nē&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;né&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;ně&lt;/code&gt;. I tried to Google this but I don't find any references to it.  It's obviously not by final, because &lt;code&gt;kē&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;ké&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;kě&lt;/code&gt; all exist.  Is there a rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T01:31:18.250" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T01:31:18.250" Title="Do all syllables occur in all tones?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30877" CreationDate="2018-07-28T01:12:56.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;面&lt;/strong&gt; is still just &lt;em&gt;sake&lt;/em&gt; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s Pleco’s &lt;em&gt;PLC&lt;/em&gt;’s entry for 面:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8 face; feelings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看在我的面上, 饶了他这一回吧。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kàn zài wǒ de miàn shàng, ráo le tā zhè yī huí ba.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Please let him off this time for my sake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the stenece you give: 看在你妈妈的面上，我就不为难你 would just be something like: for your mother’s sake, I’ll let you off the hook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T01:12:56.360" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30878" CreationDate="2018-07-28T01:20:15.260" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There’s no rule as to what tones can be used with which pronunciations but there is a finite list of words &amp;amp; pronunciations in MSM (Modern Standard Mandarin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you start getting into Chinese dialects and topolects any pronunciation is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as a side note né can be found in 哪吒 (Nézhā) the name of a deity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="20164" LastEditDate="2018-07-30T14:33:02.973" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T14:33:02.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30790" CreationDate="2018-07-28T01:37:15.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Welcome to the confusion one always encounters when trying to apply Indo-European linguistic categories to a non-IE languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say that 可（以）is a &quot;verb&quot; (the description an action) here and 跟她约会 is an &quot;object&quot; (what is acted upon).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you insist on assigning fixed &quot;verb&quot;/&quot;object&quot; etc labels (in IE sense) to Chinese &quot;words&quot; (character combos, really) and using these &quot;words&quot; only in those artificially fixed syntactic positions, you will encounter similar strangeness all the time. At least beyond the beginner level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese &quot;words&quot; are fluid with syntactic positions they can be used in, as verbs, objects and what not. In modern Chinese (白话）these &quot;parts of speech&quot; have become more rigid than in 文言文，but still far away from the rigidity on IE languages where they are fixed by morphology (as they are even in English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or perhaps your confusion is caused by misunderstanding of the whole SVO / typology thing. It is about overall sentence structure, not about phrase (shorter part) structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, 我 / 可以 / 跟她约会 &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; S / V / O, hopefully it is for everyone else too. Going into details, though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Tagging&#xA;我/PN 可以/VV 跟/P 她/PN 约会/VV&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Parse&#xA;(ROOT&#xA;  (IP&#xA;    (NP (PN 我))&#xA;    (VP (VV 可以)&#xA;      (VP&#xA;        (PP (P 跟)&#xA;          (NP (PN 她)))&#xA;        (VP (VV 约会))))))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以跟他约会 is a completely regular verb phrase, and &quot;verb phrases&quot; are VO in Chinese. Yet 跟他约会 is another smaller &quot;verb phrase&quot; according to this parser (&lt;a href=&quot;https://nlp.stanford.edu/software/lex-parser.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://nlp.stanford.edu/software/lex-parser.shtml&lt;/a&gt;). Its rules fail here for all the reasons described in other responses - it's rather a &quot;noun&quot; phrase here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, for a bit of giggles on Chinese &quot;words&quot; and syntactic parsing, check this wonderful list. I lifted it from some book long ago, forgot which. I asked a few natives and they said only 3-4 sentences in this list read a bit stiff, but all are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oBM1J.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oBM1J.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;6 Chinese characters reshuffled to make 17 different sentences&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastEditorUserId="3613" LastEditDate="2018-07-28T01:46:50.940" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T01:46:50.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30877" CreationDate="2018-07-28T01:39:23.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'看在A的面上, B...' is better be translated as &quot; Out of respect to A, B...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;看在&lt;/strong&gt;你妈妈&lt;strong&gt;的面上&lt;/strong&gt;，我就不为难你&quot; - &quot; &lt;strong&gt;Out of respect to&lt;/strong&gt; your mother, I'll let you off the hook'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As for '看在A的份上, B...', I would translate it as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;For A's sake, B...&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;With consideration for A, B...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;看在你妈妈的份上，我就不为难你&quot; - &quot;For your mother's sake, I'll let you off the hook&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;看在你妈妈的份上，我就不为难你&quot; - &quot;With consideration for your mother, I'll let you off the hook&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-07-28T01:48:37.063" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T01:48:37.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30872" CreationDate="2018-07-28T02:09:08.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple way of finding &quot;official&quot; translations for the words like the ones in your list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;go to Wikipedia - &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kale&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kale&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;look at &quot;Languages&quot; section bottom left of the page.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Locate 中文 - &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%BE%BD%E8%A1%A3%E7%94%98%E8%97%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%BE%BD%E8%A1%A3%E7%94%98%E8%97%8D&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Here you go, 羽衣甘藍&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Granted, this will quite often give you names used in Taiwan, in traditional characters. Wikipedia is rather dominated by Taiwanese users.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, search Baidu eg &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.au/search?q=kale+baidu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com.au/search?q=kale+baidu&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/Kale&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/Kale&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;英文：kale，中文意思：羽衣甘蓝&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu is 100% mainland 普通话！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T02:09:08.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30877" CreationDate="2018-07-28T03:04:50.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;面 is 面子, a concept doesn't exits in English, so the best way is to translate it case by case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看在你妈妈的面上，我就不为难你 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sounds like 'To show respect to your mother's feeling, I wouldn't go hard with you'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T03:04:50.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30877" CreationDate="2018-07-28T03:44:30.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are multiple ways to translate 看在xxx的面子. As a rule of thumb, in order to make a appropriate translation, you should understand the underlying reason why they would &quot;make way&quot; with due regard to somebody else.  It can be because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the person has certain &lt;strong&gt;credits&lt;/strong&gt;, which were accumulated by all the good things he had done previously.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the person is &lt;strong&gt;respected/esteemed&lt;/strong&gt; because of his position, fame, age, seniority and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;they don't want the person &lt;strong&gt;loses face&lt;/strong&gt; or they try to &lt;strong&gt;save face&lt;/strong&gt; for the person, because they have built a very good relationship, such as friendship, relatives and etc.. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence '看在你妈妈的面上，我就不为难你(了)', without additional context, can be interpreted as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Considering/Given the credit of your mother/what those good things your mother have done, I will let you go (this time). // Your mother has credits.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Out of respect for your mother, I will let you go (this time). // I respect your mother because of her age, position, fame, and etc. （most likely the reason without more context）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In order to retain your mother's dignity, I will let you go (this time）. // I try to save face for your mother or retain her dignity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, the interpretation could be various according to the underlying reason given by certain context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this can help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-28T04:18:47.420" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T04:18:47.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30886" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30887" CreationDate="2018-07-28T06:32:36.537" Score="2" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just happened to randomly come across this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 你能看完这本书吗？and 你看得完这本书吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, they all mean can you finish reading the book, but the former uses result complement and the latter uses potential complement. I am not trying to completely revoke the idea of using potential complement, but still in some cases it just seems replaceable to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do Chinese people distinguish when to use either of the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T15:15:28.783" Title="Difference between 你能看完这本书吗？ vs 你看得完这本书吗？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30886" CreationDate="2018-07-28T08:19:35.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think basically what you wrote in your question is right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 你能看完这本书吗？and 你看得完这本书吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's remove 这本书. 你能看完吗？vs 你看得完吗?, I can't seize any difference in meaning between them. It's just different syntax being used to express the same semantics. In practice, you can probably replace one with the other without any problems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T08:19:35.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30888" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30889" CreationDate="2018-07-28T09:33:48.167" Score="0" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am really confused in regards to how 是 is used in 好像／像 sentences and sometimes not used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I can come up with something like 那朵云好像是一朵棉花。 (that cloud looks like cotton.) Can I omit 是 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In another case, I can compose a sentence such as 我想像 David Beckham 踢得太好 &#xA; (I want to play soccer as well as David Beckham) and 是 is not used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can somebody help me understand usages of 好像／像 and how 是 is used and sometimes not used in those sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T16:21:46.480" Title="是 in using 好像／像" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30888" CreationDate="2018-07-28T12:00:01.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那朵云好像是一朵棉花。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;好像&lt;/strong&gt; adv. seem; as if; as though&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt; verb. is  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那朵云好像一朵棉花。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;好像&lt;/strong&gt; verb. seems to be... ; looks like...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  It is actually the combination of 好(quite; pretty much) and 像(seems to be).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 here is a verb in your sentence, but we can omit 是 because 好像 can also be a verb. And the meaning is almost the same no matter whether there is 是.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想像 David Beckham 踢得太好。(Actually, we don't say like this.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;想&lt;/strong&gt; verb. want to; intend to; would like to; hope to.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;像&lt;/strong&gt; preposition. resemble; such as  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this sentence has some problem when you want to express &quot;I want to play soccer as well as David Beckham.&quot; 太好 here would give a negative meaning like &quot;play too good to ... (avoid some training wound/be out of spare time/take care of family...)&quot;. The situation you can use 太好 is in exclamatory sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他踢球踢得太好了！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I suggest to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想像大卫•贝克汉姆踢得那么好。  play ... so good as ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我想踢得像大卫•贝克汉姆一样好。  play ... as good as ...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-28T16:21:46.480" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T16:21:46.480" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30886" CreationDate="2018-07-28T14:47:21.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have roughly the same meaning. The former one is a simple question, while the latter emphasizes the question of whether you can complete reading of the book, implying the fact that you're reading the book, but you may not have enough time (or capability) to complete it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20155" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T14:47:21.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30886" CreationDate="2018-07-28T15:15:28.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are same as to the meaning, but different in grammar and style, more specifically, &quot;你能看完这本书吗？&quot; is usually used in speech &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T15:15:28.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30872" CreationDate="2018-07-28T15:19:12.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;apple banana 苹果蕉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;apple mango 苹果芒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;apple pear 苹果梨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;apple 苹果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;apricot 杏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;avacado 酪梨，牛油果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;banana 香蕉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;black plum 黑布霖，黑布冧，黑布林（李子）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;blackberry黑莓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;blueberry 蓝莓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;carambola，starfruit 杨桃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cherry 樱桃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese Date大枣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chufa 荸荠&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;citrus柑橘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;coconut 椰子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cooking banana 大蕉 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dateplum persimmon 黑枣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;durian 榴梿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;egg-fruit，canistel 鸡蛋果，蛋黄果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fig 无花果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;grape 葡萄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;grapefruit葡萄柚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;guava 番石榴，芭乐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hami cantaloupe，honey-dew melon 哈密瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;India jujube 印度枣，蜜枣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jackfruit木菠萝，菠萝蜜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;juice peach 水蜜桃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lemon，lime，柠檬，莱姆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lichee，litchi 荔枝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;longan 龙眼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;loquat 枇杷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lycium chinense 枸杞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mandarin orange 橘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mango 芒果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mangosteen 山竹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;megranate 石榴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mel，japanese aprocot 梅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mulberry桑椹，桑果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;muskmelon，melon 香瓜，甜瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mysterious fruit，miracle fruit 神祕果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;olive 橄榄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;orange 橙子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;papaya，pawpaw 木瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;passion fruit，colombia fruit 西番莲果，百香果，黄仙果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;peach 桃子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pear 梨子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;persimmon 柿子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pineapple 凤梨、菠萝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pitaya，dragon fruit，pitahaya，night-blooming cereus，strawberry pear 火龙果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;plum 李子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ponkan 碰柑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rambutan 红毛丹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;red date 红枣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sapodilla 人心果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shaddock 柚子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;solamwn muicatnm 人参果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;strawberry 草莓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sugar-cane 甘蔗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sweetsop，sugar apple 番荔枝，释迦（像释迦摩尼），梨仔，佛头果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tomato 西红柿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;watermelon 西瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;waxapple，java apple，java rose，rose apple，samarang rose apple，water apple，wax jambu，bell fruit，malay apple， moutain apple，jambu  莲雾（台湾），又名辈雾、琏雾、爪哇蒲桃、洋蒲桃（大陆），水蓊（新加坡和马来西亚）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;waxberry 杨梅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wild jujube 酸枣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yellow fruit黄果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干果 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;almond 杏仁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;beechnut 山毛榉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;betelnut 槟榔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cashew腰果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chestnut栗子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese Chestnut 板栗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gingko白果，银杏果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ginseng 人参&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;peanut花生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pine nut 松籽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pistacia vera，pistachio nut开心果，阿月浑子果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pumpkin seeds 南瓜籽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;semen nelumbinis 莲米&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sesame 芝麻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sunflower seeds 葵花籽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;walnut seeds 核桃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;water caltrops，water chestnut 菱角&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;watermelon seeds西瓜籽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蔬菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a kind of algae which is dark green发菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a seedling of leguminous plants 豆苗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;an annual grass with creeping or upright stems, yellow or gray flowers, hairless pods 赤小豆，红小豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;an edible fungus 木耳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;artichoke 洋蓟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;asparagus 芦笋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;aubergine，eggplant 茄子，茄瓜，矮瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;baby corn 玉米尖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bamboo  竹笋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bean sprout  豆芽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bean 菜豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;beansprots 绿豆芽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;beet，beetroot 甜菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bitter cucumber苦瓜，凉瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;broad (英) {或} fava (美) bean 蚕豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;broad bean 蚕豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;broccoli，brocoli 硬花甘蓝（绿色花菜）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;broccoliflorets，broccoli 绿花菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;brussels sprouts 芽甘蓝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cabbage 圆白菜，卷心菜，包心菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;caper 刺山柑，老鼠瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cardoon 刺菜蓟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;carrot 红萝卜，胡萝卜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cauliflower 菜花，花椰菜，白花菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;celery 芹菜，旱芹，唐芹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chayote squash 合掌瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chayote 佛手瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chervil 雪维菜，细叶芹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chick-pea 鹰嘴豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chicory 苣荬菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cilantro香菜 （芫荽的嫩叶）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chillies 辣椒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese cabbage大白菜，绍菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese chive（Allium tuberosum），garlic chives，Chinese leek韭菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese leaves 生菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese watermelon 冬瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chive（美国）细香葱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;coriander 香菜（干芫荽嫩叶或者芫荽籽实，用作香料）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;corn 玉米粒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cos lettuce 莴苣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;courgettes 绿皮南瓜（形状似小黄瓜，但不可生食）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cress 水田芥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cucumber 黄瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cumin，cummin 孜然芹，枯茗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dandelion 蒲公英&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dill 莳萝，俗称小茴香&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dioscorea hemsleyi 山药&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dwarf bean 四季豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eddoes 小芋头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;enokitake，enoki mushroom，golden needle mushroom，flammulina 金针菇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;flat beans 长形平豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;french bean 法国菜豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;garlic 大蒜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gherkin 嫩黄瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;giantarum 蒟蒻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ginger 姜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;green bean 绿豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;green bean 青豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;green pepper 青椒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;heart (of a cabbage) 菜心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;horseradish 辣根&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hot pepper，chilli 辣椒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;iceberg 透明包心菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jerusalem artichoke 洋姜，鬼子姜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kale 无头甘蓝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kohlrabi 甘蓝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;laurel 月桂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lentil 兵豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;loofah 丝瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lotus root 莲藕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lupin 羽扇豆（美作：lupine）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marrow 嫩葫芦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mushroom 蘑菇，洋菇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mustard  芥菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mustard &amp;amp; cress 芥菜苗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;okra 秋葵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;onion 洋葱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;oyster mushroom平菇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pakchoi，a variety of Chinese cabbage 小白菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;parsley 欧芹，西芹，荷兰芹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;parsnip 欧防风&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pea 豌豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pepper 胡椒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pickled cabbage 雪菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;potato 马铃薯，土豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;purple laver 紫菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;red cabbage 紫色包心菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;red pepper 红椒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;salsify 婆罗门参&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;scallion 葱，青葱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shiitake mushroom，xianggu，lentinus edodes香菇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;soya bean，soybean，soy，soya 黄豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;spinach 菠菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;spring onions 葱，小洋葱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sprot 高丽小菜心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;straw mushroom 草菇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;swede or turnip 芜菁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sweet corn 玉米&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sweet pepper，bell pepper，pimiento，capsicum 甜椒, 柿子椒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sweet potato 蕃薯，地瓜（红薯）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;taro 芋头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tarragon 狭叶青蒿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thyme 百里香&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tomato 番茄，西红柿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tremella 银耳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;truffle 块菌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;turnip 芜菁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;watercress 西洋菜，豆瓣菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;white cabbage 包心菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wild celery 野芹菜 （水芹菜，water celery） （非中药“独活”）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yellow pepper 黄椒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;young (or fresh) soya bean 毛豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;部分北美蔬菜英语单词的更新&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kelp大型褐藻（多用于宠物食品）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;seaweed海带&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;purple laver 紫菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;radish小水萝卜，小红（皮）萝卜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;white radish白萝卜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mooli 西洋白萝卜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;daikon日本萝卜（日语：大根だいこん）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;squash南瓜（做菜吃的）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pumpkin南瓜（制糖的或是万圣节玩的）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;courgette西葫芦（一说绿皮南瓜）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zucchini西葫芦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vegetable marrow西葫芦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;megranate 石榴（果实）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pomegranate石榴（树，或花）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese leaves 生菜叶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;romaine lettuce（美国）生菜（叶）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;iceberg lettuce卷心莴苣（美国生菜）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cos lettuce 莴苣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dwarf bean 矮生菜豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;green bean四季豆，青豆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;coriander 香菜、芫荽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cilantro香菜叶、芫荽叶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fennel（中国）茴香&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;baby dill / dill（西亚）茴香&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;green onion（亚洲）细葱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chive （北美）细香葱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;scallion青葱，大葱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;leek （中东）大葱，韭葱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese chive韭菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;garlic chives韭菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese leek韭菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;broccoliflorets，broccoli 绿花菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cauliflower 菜花，花椰菜，白花菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese broccoli 芥兰菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sorrel 掌叶大黄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rhubarb大黄（叶柄）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hongkong names, almost same with main land&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 紹菜、津菜 Tientsin Pakchoi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 娃娃菜 Mini Tientsin Pakchoi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 白菜仔 Small Pakchoi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 小棠菜 Shanghai Pakchoi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 油麥菜 Indian Lettuce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6 茼蒿  Garland chrysanthemum&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7 皇帝菜 Emperor Vegetable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8 唐生菜 Chinese lettuce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9 西生菜 European lettuce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10  意大利生菜 Italian lettuce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11  牛油生菜  Butter Lettuce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12  羅馬生菜  Romina Lettuce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13  沙律生菜  Salad Lettuce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14  芥菜  Leaf mustard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;15  芥蘭  Chinese kale&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;16  菜心  Flowering Chinese cabbage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;17  椰菜  Cabbage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;18  紅椰菜 Red cabbage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;19  西蘭花 Broccoli&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;20  椰菜花 Cauliflower&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;21  菠菜  Spinach&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;22  莧菜  Chinese spinach&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;23  通菜  Water spinach&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;24  唐芹  Chinese celery&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;25  西芹  Celery&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;26  西洋菜 Watercress&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;27  豆苗  Pea shoot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;28  青毛豆 Green soybean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;29  荷蘭豆 Snow pea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;30  青豆角 Green string bean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;31  蜜糖豆/甜豆  Sugar snap pea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;32  四季豆 Kidney bean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;33  矮瓜  Eggplant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;34  白蘿蔔 Radish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;35  青蘿蔔 Green radish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;36  甘荀  Carrot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;37  珍珠荀 Baby corn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;38  粟米鬚 Corn silk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;39  沙葛  Yam bean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;40  蕃薯  Sweet potato&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;41  薯仔  Potato&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;42  芋頭  Taro&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;43  紅菜頭 Beetroot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;44  乾蔥  Dried shallot bulb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;45  蒜頭  Garlic bulb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;46  薑 Ginger&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;47  冬瓜  Wax gourd&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;48  南瓜  Pumpkin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;49  西瓜  Water melon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;50  佛手瓜 Chayote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;51  青瓜  Cucumber&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;52  絲瓜  Sponge gourd&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;53  苦瓜  Bitter cucumber&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;54  節瓜  Hairy gourd&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;55  葫蘆瓜 Bottle gourd&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;56  翠玉瓜 Zucchini&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;57  韮菜花 Bud chives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;58  韮菜  Chinese chives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;59  枸杞  Chinese wolfberry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;60  蔥 Spring onion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;61  指天椒 Chili pepper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;62  紅尖椒 Red hot pepper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;63  青尖椒 Green hot pepper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;64  燈籠椒 Sweet pepper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;65  番茄  Tomato&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;66  芫荽  Chinese parsley&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;67  竹蔗  Sugar cane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;68  蘆薈  Aloe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;69  香茅  Lemon grass&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;70  臭草/ 芸香  Common rue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;71  木瓜  Papaya&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;72  洋蔥  Onion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;73  薄荷  Mint&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;74  胡椒薄荷  Pepper Mint&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;75  檸檬薄荷  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;76  迷迭香 Rosemary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;77  百里香 Thyme&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;78  芸香（臭草）  Rue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;79  芥蘭頭 Kohl Rabi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T15:19:12.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30878" CreationDate="2018-07-28T15:20:30.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No,There are some rules in the relation between tones ans syllables which put restriction on which syllable may occur in which tone, for instance, you can not find &quot;man&quot; with the tone &quot;55&quot; or the first tone, but they are developed from ancient Chinese and complex, almost no one  is interested in those rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T15:20:30.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30888" CreationDate="2018-07-28T15:37:30.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When 是 is used in 好像／像, meaning look like, similar to or as, you can omit 是, when  好像／像 means likely, seemingly, probably, you can not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T15:37:30.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30898" CreationDate="2018-07-28T16:46:09.683" Score="1" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this: 请问关于解释《里》和《内》的区别.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have googled and &quot;请问关于解释&quot; happens on the Internet. However, according to what I have read &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%E5%85%B3%E4%BA%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, it's always placed after the verb. Is 解释 not a verb here? Why such a bizarre word order?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-03T13:13:22.330" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T13:13:22.330" Title="Why such a bizarre placement of 关于 in 请问关于解释《里》和《内》的区别?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30897" CreationDate="2018-07-28T17:53:37.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请问解释关于《里》和《内》的区别 (would you please tell/answer me about explaining the difference between《里》and《内》)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence is awkward because 请问 (would you please tell me) is a set phrase that should followed by a question instead of a demand/ request &quot;解释关于&quot; (explain about). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The better phrasing would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;请解释&lt;/strong&gt;关于 &lt;strong&gt;《里》和《内》的区别&lt;/strong&gt; (Please explain about the difference between 《里》and《内》) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;关于(about) can be omitted&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;请问《里》和《内》有什麼区别?&lt;/strong&gt; (would you please tell/ answer me what is the difference between 《里》and《内》?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请问关于解释《里》和《内》的区别 (would you please tell/ answer me about explaining the difference between《里》and《内》)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even worse! Not only 请问 is followed by a demand/ request '解释' instead of a question, the order of 关于 and 解释 is also wrong. It is not &quot;关于解释&quot; (about explain) but  &quot;解释关于&quot; (explain about)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;请问关于解释《里》和《内》的区别&quot; is just a badly constructed sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-07-28T18:08:05.333" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T18:08:05.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30613" CreationDate="2018-07-28T20:54:07.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, there is another character 褢 [same reading as 褱], with 鬼 inside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few parts where &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%A4%B1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Humanum&lt;/a&gt; mentions the relationship between 褱/褢/鬼 and even 歸:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;又表示給予，史牆盤：「受(授)牆爾福，褱(懷)祓彔(祿)」，兩句句意相同，意謂授給牆多福。《詩．檜風．匪風》：「懷之好音」，毛亨傳：「懷，歸也。」「歸」有饋贈之義。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there is a usage of 褱 that means 歸 [kjuj] &quot;give&quot; and related to 饋 [grjujs] &quot;make offering to.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;又通假為「鬼」，伯[冬戈]簋：「隹(唯)用妥(綏)神褱(鬼)，唬(效)前文人」，意謂以安寧神鬼，效法前世有文德的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's evidence that 褱 [gruj] and 鬼 [kjujʔ] were homophones. Actually, 歸 and 鬼 might be cognates (人所歸爲鬼), but I digress. The point is, [kjuj] is the much more likely target reading to hit for 褱, not the [k-l- | -p] initial/final pattern of 眔.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「褱」與從「鬼」聲的「褢」字有異文關係，《漢書．外戚傳》：「褢誠秉忠」，顏師古注：「褢，古懷字。」玄應《一切經音義》十八「懷孕」作「褢孕」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;褢 was used in the Han-Tang era to mean &quot;hold in,&quot; without the emotional semantics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;又表示安撫、招來，毛公鼎：「率褱(懷)不廷方」，意謂安撫不來朝覲的方國。陸賈《新語．道基》：「附遠寧近，懷來萬邦。」&#xA;  ...&#xA;  又借「鬼」為「懷」，表示安撫，《睡虎地秦簡．為吏之道》簡46-47貳：「君鬼(懷)臣忠，父茲(慈)子孝，政之本殹(也)。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the same as the &quot;give&quot; meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We learn several things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鬼/褢/歸/褱/懷 were near homophones and were interchanged in writing at various times.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a &quot;hold in&quot; meaning of 褱 that seems cognate with the &quot;hide tears/miss&quot; meaning for which the character was apparently constructed, possibly a direct extension, but more likely to be the actual root -- there is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://stedt.berkeley.edu/~stedt-cgi/rootcanal.pl/etymon/2369&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Proto-Tibeto-Burman etymon&lt;/a&gt; [*kway] that means conceal/hide.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a (fairly archaic) &quot;give&quot; meaning of 褱 that is related to some of the meanings of 歸 (namely its use as 饋), and seems like a phonetic loan and unrelated to the first meaning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The reading of 褱 [gruj] is fairly secure given the readings of the other characters, in particular, the [g/k-r/j-uj] pattern. It is most likely not related to the reading of any crying related etymon, for which there is a fairly established &lt;a href=&quot;https://stedt.berkeley.edu/~stedt-cgi/rootcanal.pl/etymon/1103&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Proto-Sino-Tibetan reconstruction&lt;/a&gt; [*krap], nor to the 泣 [khrjəp] that is posited to be 眔, nor to the 徒合切 [dup] spelling given by Shuowen for 眔, nor to 涙 [c-rjuts], 隶 [c-rəts], or 逮 [ləts] that have been written with 眔 in Oracle Bone for its meaning and/or sound.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;See also my comment to droooze's answer on why I believe 褱 is a rebus.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to answer the question: &quot;Why doesn't 褱 sound like its phonetic etymon 眔?&quot; It's because it has no sound component, and 眔 is not its phonetic part. On the other hand, the later character 褢 would be good candidate if you're looking for a legitimate phonetic part for a cognate of 褱.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20138" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T20:54:07.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30900" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30901" CreationDate="2018-07-28T22:18:48.523" Score="2" ViewCount="359" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was chatting with a Taiwanese student the other day and asked him what language they speak there. He just answered &quot;Chinese&quot; and didn't know about a dialect or variant of Mandarin. Even the words Mandarin or Cantonese didn't ring a bell. The answer I got was &quot;Chinese, the same as in Beijing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm curious to know if that's a widespread conception of the language in Taiwan or just him who skipped that part of the lesson at grade school :) If not from lack of knowledge, are there other cultural or political reasons why making the distinction is not encouraged there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20159" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T15:03:06.187" Title="Do many Taiwanese self identify as Mandarin speakers and if not, why?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30900" CreationDate="2018-07-29T03:23:16.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Mandarin native speaker born and living in China, I hadn't even heard of the term 'Mandarin Chinese' when I was in school quite a amount of years ago. We mainland Chinese usually call the oral language that you're learning 'pu tong hua', likewise, Taiwanese call it 'guo yu' (literally, country language). I think, the term Mandarin Chinese becomes popular in recent years because of the dramatically increasing number of foreigner learning Chinese, and we don't want them to be confused when they hear other Chinese dialects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20155" LastActivityDate="2018-07-29T03:23:16.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30902" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30907" CreationDate="2018-07-29T04:10:41.947" Score="1" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was given the following scroll&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qbnNN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qbnNN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Scroll&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and would like a translation before I keep it up on my wall. I believe it says “䤛膳琴心” but I’m not sure. Moreover, I’m not familiar with this idiom and don’t know what it means (assuming those are the characters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18999" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T14:01:10.200" Title="Does this scroll say 䤛食琴心?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30900" CreationDate="2018-07-29T05:55:10.447" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin originally refers to the official language of Qing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the end of the last dynasty in 19th century, the government KMT released some standard of 国语(national language), which is based on the 官话(mandarin) of the Qing dynasty. &#xA;When KMT went to Taiwan, they took the standard there. On the other side, PRC made the standard 普通话(common language), which is based on the KMT's 国语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you talk about the mandarin of Taiwan, it is 国语, in mainland, it is 普通话, however, 国语 and 普通话 are almost same, they are both based on mandarin of Qing and the dialect around Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before I visited the English sites, I don't know mandarin too, I remember when I got the explaining from dictionaries, I was like wtf, 清朝官话? So what we speak is called the official language of Qing, fk me.  I don't like the word, it always reminds me of the Manchu barbarians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some rumors say mandarin is from 满大人(man da ren), some other proofs show that it is used before the Qing dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is written by Matteo Ricci in the Ming dynasty in Latin, which means high-ranking official used by Portuguese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ddfX4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ddfX4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2020-02-12T15:03:06.187" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T15:03:06.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30904" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-29T09:50:39.793" Score="4" ViewCount="367" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the current theory and has there been a reliable answer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most celebrated theory that it derives from 秦 (Qin, as in the first dynasty, or the preceding state) I find a bit suspect. In contemporaneous times, it was pronounced something like [dzjin]. Are there examples of foreign transliterations that retained the voiced initial? Moreover, 汉 (Han) [xans] was certainly the more enduring dynasty of note from that period, and 楚 (Chu) [tshrjaʔ] the state before that. It is odd that the lineage would trace to 秦 and not to 汉 or 楚.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this isn't unprecedented. The Russosphere still knows China by the Khitans, whose state isn't even in the orthodox dynastic historiography &lt;sup&gt;†&lt;/sup&gt;, but that is one data point in favor of a northwestern state being in good position to transmit its name to Eurasia. Still, what is the evidence that we can trace back China to 秦?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_China&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is generally thought that Chīna, Sīna and Thīna are variants that ultimately derived from Qin, which was the westernmost state in China that eventually formed the Qin Dynasty.[46] There are however other opinions on its etymology (See section on China above). Henry Yule thought that this term may have come to Europe through the Arabs, who made the China of the farther east into Sin, and perhaps sometimes into Thin.[59] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is Latin &lt;strong&gt;Sina&lt;/strong&gt; and Ancient Greek &lt;strong&gt;Thina&lt;/strong&gt; [t&lt;sup&gt;h&lt;/sup&gt;-], but it's not clear what these refer to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The existence of the word Cīna in ancient Hindu texts was noted by the Sanskrit scholar Hermann Jacobi who pointed out its use in the Book 2 of Arthashastra with reference to silk and woven cloth produced by the country of Cīna.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is Sanskrit &lt;strong&gt;Cīna&lt;/strong&gt; (how is this pronounced?), which the continuation says may refer to some other geographic area like Tibet or Burma, from India's vantage point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The English name for &quot;China&quot; itself is derived from Middle Persian (Chīnī چین). This modern word &quot;China&quot; was first used by Europeans starting with Portuguese explorers of the 16th century – it was first recorded in 1516 in the journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa.[47][48] The journal was translated and published in England in 1555.[49]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is Middle Persian &lt;strong&gt;Chīnī&lt;/strong&gt;. While it would make sense for Persian speakers to transmit the name of a western-most state, since they were the ones in direct contact, it is odd that Middle Persian has palatalized the initial and aspirated it. Does this correspond to something closer in Old Persian to which 秦 the state was contemporaneous?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any other thoughts welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;†&lt;/sup&gt; This is badly worded, see comments for clarification. The main point is to highlight the peripheral nature of the Khitan 辽 (Liao) state in analogy to the 秦 state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20138" LastEditorUserId="20138" LastEditDate="2018-07-29T19:14:24.643" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T04:04:01.653" Title="What is the real etymology of &quot;China&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30905" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-29T11:02:12.173" Score="2" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Can I borrow your novel? (我可以借你的小说吗？)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;B: Sorry, I have already lent it to C.  (对不起，我已经借给了C。)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;B (option a): You can borrow the book once it's returned;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;B (option b): You can borrow the book once C returns it to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you please help me translate point a) and b)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, which structure is used more frequently in China? The active (option a) or passive (option b)? If both aren't used frequently, please tell me how Chinese people usually say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T05:28:34.190" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T12:37:49.973" Title="How do form &quot;You can borrow the book once [it's returned / C returns it]&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30905" CreationDate="2018-07-29T11:53:33.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a) 你可以在它被归还的时候借。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  b) 当C把书还给我时，你就可以借了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't normally use passive in such case, if there is only one choice between a) and b), I would choose b). But I think you should actively lend it to B once the book is returned since B may not know when it will be returned to you. So I would say:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我可以在C把书还我之后就借给你。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I can lend the book to you once it returned by C.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-07-29T11:53:33.540" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30902" CreationDate="2018-07-29T12:58:50.477" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;剑膽琴心（膽:Traditional Chinese,=胆）          德峰书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;剑胆琴心/劍膽琴心：courage of a warrior and the soul of a musician; the gall-bladder of a sword and the heart of a lute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of work is used to describe and praise the people (especially the original owner or the author himself) who has both brave and lofty temperament/taste. It's something like 文武双全/文武雙全.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-29T13:21:20.297" LastActivityDate="2018-07-29T13:21:20.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30908" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-29T14:18:01.417" Score="1" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between :&#xA;提交给 and 提交?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 给 indicate when it follows words like 提交, 借, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And should I use 把 whenever I use words like &quot;return&quot;, &quot;submit&quot;, &quot;hand over&quot;, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastActivityDate="2018-07-29T19:23:29.613" Title="提交给 vs 提交 difference" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30908" CreationDate="2018-07-29T14:36:49.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;提交 is merely an action. 提交给 requires a word to refer to the person who review/read the thing you submitted.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;给 means &quot;to&quot; in English. When it appears right after 提交, 借 etc., it needs you to provide a word right after 给 to refer to the person that you &lt;strong&gt;submit [sth.] to&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;lend [sth.] to&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;把 is used in some expression like &quot;send the book to you&quot; which could be translated to &quot;把 书交给你&quot;. Usually the word “把” does not have an explicit correspondence in English. For those words you've give, you could use “把” when you mean &quot;return/submit something to someone&quot;. In other words, if you want to state the receiver, then you should use 给. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastEditorUserId="18711" LastEditDate="2018-07-29T14:44:10.760" LastActivityDate="2018-07-29T14:44:10.760" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30908" CreationDate="2018-07-29T19:23:29.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I don't have sufficient reputation points to comment so I am answering your question here). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;RE: By the way, I want to ask, do I still need to add 给 when I use this word : 还?&#xA;Yes, you can add 给, but it's not 100% necessary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I return the book to you:&#xA;below are all valid translations&#xA;我把书还给你&#xA;我把书还你&#xA;我还你书&#xA;我还给你书&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but these are incorrect ones: &#xA;我还你把书&#xA;我还给你把书&#xA;。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20155" LastActivityDate="2018-07-29T19:23:29.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30897" CreationDate="2018-07-29T23:10:56.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;请问关于解释《里》和《内》的区别&quot; is invalid sentence, we may say&quot;请问《里》和《内》的区别&quot;,this is what the invalid sentence intends to express.&#xA;Also,&quot;请问关于《里》和《内》的区别&quot; is not good, or I may say it is an invalid sentence. 关于/《里》和《内》的//区别, or 关于//《里》和《内》的/区别 are all invalid.So 请解释关于 《里》和《内》的区别 is not proper sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2018-07-29T23:10:56.560" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30912" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30913" CreationDate="2018-07-30T03:51:49.187" Score="2" ViewCount="511" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;接受函数为参数，返回值为函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can vaguely translate this as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Gets function as parameter, return value is function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but that's only due to my domain knowledge. I am confused by the use of 为 here. The only 为 I know is when I want to say for someone or something such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;汉语水平考试是一个考试为了外国人。(HSK is a test for foreigners) - I am not quite sure if it's grammatically correct to append 为 at the very end as such. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-07-30T09:17:11.560" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T12:54:20.493" Title="Encountered usage of 为" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30912" CreationDate="2018-07-30T04:09:42.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;接受函数为参数，返回值为函数&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your translation is quite right. The sentence seems to be a description of a function; which takes a function as the parameter, and its return value is a function too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be more precise, the first &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youdao.com/w/eng/%E4%B8%BA/#keyfrom=dict2.index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;为&lt;/a&gt; means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（充当） serve as; act as; play the part of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;call a stag a horse;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;指鹿为马&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;This will serve as a proof.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;以此为凭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2nd 为 means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（是） be; mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One kilometre is equivalent to two li.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;1公里为2华里。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;One hundred centimetres make one metre.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;100厘米为一米。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为 in 汉语水平考试是一个考试为了外国人 (especially used as 为了) is used for describing the purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;介词&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;（表示目的）:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;work hard for realizing the four modernizations;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;为实现四个现代化而努力工作&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;write for a living&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;为生活而写作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: The correct syntax should be 汉语水平考试是一个为了外国人的考试; because 为了外国人 is the modifier of 考试 so it should be put before of 考试 (i.e. the object). More naturally you can say 汉语水平考试是一个面向外国人的考试. Because 为了外国人 is broad and then might be confusing, the specific purpose is hard to get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T07:47:58.940" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30912" CreationDate="2018-07-30T05:21:22.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To Augment the other answer: 为 is a verb when it's pronounced as &lt;strong&gt;wéi&lt;/strong&gt;, and a prep as &lt;strong&gt;wèi&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You interpreted 为 as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in this context is fine. However, your translation does have some issues: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;接受函数为参数，返回值为函数: &lt;em&gt;Gets function as parameter, return value is function&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, 接受函数 as a noun phrase should be translated as &lt;strong&gt;acceptance function&lt;/strong&gt; unless you meant &quot;&lt;strong&gt;gets&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in &quot;&lt;strong&gt;gets function&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is a nominal usage(but I figure you meant it's a verb &quot;&lt;strong&gt;get&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.). Second, you need some articles &lt;strong&gt;a or the&lt;/strong&gt; in your English sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the whole translation can be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The acceptance function is the parameter, and the return value is a function.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-30T05:27:48.903" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T05:27:48.903" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30534" CreationDate="2018-07-30T05:40:59.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;千里姻缘一线牵&#xA;It means no matter how far away two people live, they will meet and love each other because of the fate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T05:40:59.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30916" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30927" CreationDate="2018-07-30T06:31:12.423" Score="1" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English a phrase such as “Call me when you get home” can be reversed into “When you get home, call me.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this also possible in Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to answer the question myself, but I could only think of myself using the dependent clause first and never using it second in Chinese class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, all the examples on &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22when%22_with_%22de_shihou%22#Examples&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;AllSet Learning&lt;/a&gt; have the dependent clause in the beginning, but the site doesn’t specifically condemn the reverse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it grammatically acceptable in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20167" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T01:38:03.900" Title="Are independent and dependent clauses reversible?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30917" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30920" CreationDate="2018-07-30T08:34:33.923" Score="6" ViewCount="596" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the book 活着 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lrts.me/book/33459&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;audio book&lt;/a&gt;, around 6 minutes 55 seconds into 第01集), we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我只是感到和她在一起身心愉快，也不&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;考虑以后会是怎样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#zh-CN/en/%E6%88%91%E5%8F%AA%E6%98%AF%E6%84%9F%E5%88%B0%E5%92%8C%E5%A5%B9%E5%9C%A8%E4%B8%80%E8%B5%B7%E8%BA%AB%E5%BF%83%E6%84%89%E5%BF%AB%EF%BC%8C%E4%B9%9F%E4%B8%8D%E5%8E%BB%E8%80%83%E8%99%91%E4%BB%A5%E5%90%8E%E6%98%AF%E6%80%8E%E6%A0%B7%E3%80%82&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I [我] just [只是] feel [感到] happy [身心愉快] with her [和她在一起], and [也] I don't [不] think about [考虑] what it will be [会是怎样] in the future [以后].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It mostly makes sense, but I don't understand why there's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8E%BB&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;去&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;to go&quot;) in there.  Maybe it combines as &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%8D%E5%8E%BB&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;不去&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;to not go&quot;), but it still doesn't make much sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 去 (&quot;to go&quot;) in 也不去考虑以后会是怎样 (&quot;...and don't think about how it will be in the future&quot;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T04:28:33.023" Title="Why is 去 (&quot;to go&quot;) in 也不去考虑以后会是怎样 (&quot;...and don't think about how it will be in the future&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30917" CreationDate="2018-07-30T08:54:27.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To determined the role of '去' in &quot;也不[去]考虑&quot;, let's remove it and see what the sentence say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;也不考虑&quot; = &quot;not even consider&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;也不(去)考虑&quot; = &quot;not even (process to) consider&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see 去 indicates 'process to' for a non-action verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;我要去打仗&quot;,  '去'(go) is the auxiliary verb and '打仗'(fight a war) is the main verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;去考虑未来&quot;,  '去'(process to) is the auxiliary verb and '考虑' (consider) is the main verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;without the auxiliary verb '去', you'll get &quot;我要打仗&quot; and &quot;考虑未来&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more example of '去' change the meaning of a sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用水灭火 = 'use water to extinct fire' but it is ambiguous enough to be twisted as 'use water, extinct fire' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用水(去)灭火 = use water to (process to) extinct the fire (No ambiguity. We now know it clearly that you are using water to extinct fire, not use water in one hand, extinct the fire on the other hand by kicking dirt over it)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-07-30T09:34:36.600" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T09:34:36.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30917" CreationDate="2018-07-30T09:51:15.747" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an interesting question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's worth to know that &quot;&lt;em&gt;(不)去 + verb&lt;/em&gt;&quot; can be considered as a fixed expression in Chinese. For example, （不）去做，（不）去想， （不）去听， （不）去玩， （不）去说，... ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal meaning of （不）去 is &quot;&lt;em&gt;（not） to go&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. Let's say 我去看你， meaning &lt;em&gt;I go see you&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its literal meaning can be extended when the following verb doesn't require you &lt;strong&gt;to go literally&lt;/strong&gt;, such as the verb 想, 听，说 and etc. It implies that you would &lt;strong&gt;get another place or take another time to do something&lt;/strong&gt;. I found this dictionary definition can help: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;用在另一个动词前， 表示要做某事&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你去问一问：please go and ask. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们自己去想办法： We'll find a way out ourselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more detailed explanation, 我去考虑一下 vs 我考虑一下, 我去考虑一下 means &lt;strong&gt;I will go offline to think about it&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;I will take another time to think about it&lt;/strong&gt;. Well, 我考虑一下 doesn't specify when I will think about it and it could mean &lt;strong&gt;to think about it right now&lt;/strong&gt; or I &lt;strong&gt;will think about later on(offline)&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this can help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-07-31T04:28:33.023" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T04:28:33.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30921" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30932" CreationDate="2018-07-30T10:44:05.087" Score="0" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the book 活着 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lrts.me/book/33459&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;audio book&lt;/a&gt;, about 7 minutes 40 seconds into 第01集):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;几个包着头巾的女人正将棉秆拔出来，她们不时抖动着屁股摔去根须上的泥巴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Several [几个] women [女人] wearing [包着] headscarves [头巾] are [正将] pulling out [拔出来] cotton stalks [棉秆]; they [她们] frequently [不时] shake [抖动着] their bottoms [屁股] so the root's [根须上的] mud [泥巴] falls off [摔去].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B1%81%E8%82%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;屁股&lt;/a&gt; (pìgu) = &quot;bottom&quot;.  I've only ever seen it used to mean &quot;bottom&quot; (of an animal) in the sense of &quot;arse&quot; (and not &quot;bottom&quot; as in &quot;lower part&quot; as it also means in English).  So I feel it's odd to think about the &quot;bottoms&quot; of the cotton stalks in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in this sentence, if it means the women are shaking their respective bottoms, I don't understand how that causes the mud to fall off the cotton stalks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does 屁股 refer to the womens' bottoms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T01:33:51.473" Title="Does 屁股 refer to the womens' bottoms in 几个包着头巾的女人正将棉秆拔出来，她们不时抖动着屁股摔去根须上的泥巴?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30921" CreationDate="2018-07-30T11:12:25.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;摔去根须上的泥巴 means to swing cotton stalks 棉秆 and hit ground heavily in order to remove the mud attached on the root. In order to make sure the root can hit the ground, they have to squat or bend their knees. By repeating the motion several times, the mud can be removed thoroughly. So, looking behind, their butts shake up and down.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T11:12:25.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30900" CreationDate="2018-07-30T12:37:31.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;During the rule of ROC (Republic of China) government, scholars standardized Chinese dialects and called it 国语GuoYu. It is based on Northern dialects but also absorbed certain southern elements. This is the common root of Chinese at both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then after 1949, ROC government moved to Taiwan. 国语 is naturally the official language there since then (and even before, since the Chinese taking it back from Japanese rule).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile in mainland, PRC (People's Republic of China) government made some modifications to it and called it 普通话 PuTongHua. The difference is really minor, mostly about choosing a standard among allophones like being 鹏 Peng or Pong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After years of developing, except for certain (or let's say many) conventions of word-usage, nothing much has diverged. It's like the difference between underground and subway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared to any other dialects of Chinese (Shanghainese, Cantonese, etc), 普通话PuTongHua and 国语GuoYu are the most close. Even 普通话 spoken in Southern  Provinces is not as close and comprehensible as 国语GuoYu to me, a Northern Chinese with Fujian origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well in fact, I cannot think of anything other than political reasons why making the distinction is encouraged there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T12:37:31.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29749" CreationDate="2018-07-30T14:25:53.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your second question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a mathematical perspective, it will depend on the texts that are sampled to compile any list and the variances associated with those samples. Languages evolve and there is no true character frequency, only an approximation. Spoken Chinese will have a different character frequency to written Chinese because the spoken language has a high entropy. It is likely that the HSK test had a panel of experts select characters based on what they deemed to be suitable, whereas the list you referenced was mass sampled by some kind of web crawler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is inconceivable that every single electronic Chinese character on the internet has been sampled, and if it was that would be very biased as that would ignore all of the written works not uploaded to the internet. Depending on the format of the inputs there will be a huge difference, if lots of text was taken from 微薄, then the character 哈 might rank as common, purely from comments that are like &quot;hahahaha&quot; for example. If classical Chinese was sampled heavily then characters like 曰 might feature much more frequently than 说.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the HSK 5 and 6 words are very political and business oriented, but there are not many scientific words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16143" LastEditorUserId="16143" LastEditDate="2018-07-30T14:32:01.597" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T14:32:01.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30917" CreationDate="2018-07-30T14:54:16.897" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it can be translated as &quot;not going to&quot; instead of &quot;to go&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20172" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T14:54:16.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30926" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30934" CreationDate="2018-07-30T15:51:13.910" Score="0" ViewCount="480" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a total noob when it comes to Chinese, so sorry if this is a dumb question. Recently I started using an Anki deck called SpoonFedChinese to study Chinese. Today I came across the following sentence (the translation is the one given in the deck):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有什么事是我该做的吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anything I should do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I know 有什么事 means &amp;quot;is there anything&amp;quot;, 我该做 means &amp;quot;I should do&amp;quot;, and 吗 is the question marker, but I'm still not sure what purpose 是...的 serves in this sentence. Could you have the sentence without this structure? If yes, then how does it change the meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20173" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T09:37:42.397" Title="The meaning of 是...的 in 有什么事是我该做的吗" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30916" CreationDate="2018-07-30T16:15:39.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not accepted in writing Chinese, however, you can say that in oral Chinese, like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;给我打电话吧，等你回家之后&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second part of the sentence is served as a complementary clarification and even though, it is not commonly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you write it that way, it is not grammatically acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-07-31T14:20:14.247" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T14:20:14.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30926" CreationDate="2018-07-30T16:16:13.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think to translate the sentence literally, the English version would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there anything &lt;strong&gt;that is&lt;/strong&gt; I should do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is redundant in English(I don't know whether it's wrong in grammar). So the English version seems missing the &quot;是&quot; character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11936" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T16:16:13.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30921" CreationDate="2018-07-30T16:47:35.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks quite ambiguous to me (native speaker) as well. According to the context, it means 棉秆的屁股 rather than women's :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20155" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T16:47:35.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30926" CreationDate="2018-07-30T16:59:00.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 is used there as you're describing a noun. for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我该做的事  the thing that I should do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你吃的早饭  the breakfast that you eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她听的课    the course that she takes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20155" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T16:59:00.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29213" CreationDate="2018-07-30T20:51:57.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Inverted sentence beginning with &quot;As&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20129" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T20:51:57.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30921" CreationDate="2018-07-31T01:33:51.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;几个包着头巾的女人正将棉秆拔出来，她们不时抖动着屁股摔去根须上的泥巴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I listened to the audio, there is a big pause after 屁股, so you may add a comma there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;几个包着头巾的女人正将棉秆拔出来，她们不时抖动着屁股，摔去根须上的泥巴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And my explanation would be: when you move one body part with great force, like to shake off the mud off the root, you cannot hold your other body parts still. They all &quot;shake&quot;. So it is not that they shake their bottoms to shake off the mud, but when they shake off the mud, their bottoms shakes. There is no direct indication of which caused which in the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T01:33:51.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30552" CreationDate="2018-07-31T05:37:56.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually it won’t be misunderstood the meaning of 妳 to a reference to beasts or milk, even though it has the meaning.&#xA;There some words with different pronunciation in Chinese, which called 多音字(duo yin zi).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And we can figure out which one we should use in different context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T05:37:56.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30926" CreationDate="2018-07-31T09:37:42.397" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's simply a weird sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact your simplified sentence 有什么事我该做吗 （是and的 removed) is much more concise and fits better the desired way of speaking Chinese. The only problem is that conventionally attributive clause should precede the noun in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 有什么我该做的事吗 is more native (的here is just a connection word between clause and noun). Furthermore 事 (thing) doesn't mean any meaningful thing here, you can essentially just omit it and say 有什么我该做的吗？.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you have seen, the complication of 是 and 的 arises because you want to keep the same word order as in English (attributive clause after the noun).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, an even more native way is to try to never use clause in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我该做些什么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it looks similar to &quot;What should I do?&quot; but adding 些 implies &quot;something&quot; and makes it mean the exact same thing as &quot;is there anything I should do?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T09:37:42.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30935" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30939" CreationDate="2018-07-31T18:26:27.937" Score="3" ViewCount="324" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am seeing some characters rendered strangely and would like to know what I can do to fix it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Google search bar, rendered strangely.  Inside translate box, rendered as desired:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OHc0y.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OHc0y.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Google Docs, Firefox or Chrome:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k92zW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k92zW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my terminal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fFz66.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fFz66.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it perhaps trying to render in a Japanese font automatically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;OS: Ubuntu 16.04&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Browsers: Firefox &amp;amp; Chrome (seems to be browser independent)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tested in incognito mode&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20133" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T22:39:35.137" Title="Chinese Font - Some Characters Rendered Strangely (外，将）" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30936" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-31T18:46:05.893" Score="0" ViewCount="999" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MI8QJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MI8QJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friend gave me this shirt, I've been trying to figure out what it means. Can anyone translate it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20178" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-23T00:14:07.503" LastActivityDate="2020-08-23T00:14:07.503" Title="What does the lettering on my shirt mean? (Characters identified: 花樣年華)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30936" CreationDate="2018-07-31T19:14:25.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like your friend is telling you to get out there and enjoy the prime of your life! Or they had a T-shirt with some weird symbols that they wanted to get rid of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters are: 花样年华 / 花樣年華&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is &lt;strong&gt;The prime of one's life&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this phrase, I would take &lt;strong&gt;花样&lt;/strong&gt; to mean happy and prosperous, and &lt;strong&gt;年华&lt;/strong&gt; to mean time or a time period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is the Pleco entry for this phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pYHuF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pYHuF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20133" LastEditorUserId="20133" LastEditDate="2018-07-31T19:22:05.050" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T19:22:05.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30935" CreationDate="2018-07-31T20:40:13.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. It looks like the Japanese font. Font series called Kozuka/小塚 or Mincho/明朝 will rending it as Google Docs, Firefox or Chrome your saw. Because the characters for both Japanese and Chinese have the same Unicode U+5916 for 外 and U+5C06 for 将. Try to switch to a Chinese font instead you will see the correct rending for Chinese Simplified look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-07-31T21:12:35.973" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T21:12:35.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30935" CreationDate="2018-07-31T22:39:35.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fixed in both my terminal and browser:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/57whD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/57whD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I noticed this problem across all browsers and in my terminal, I figured the proper way to adress it would be at the system level.  I found a fix &lt;a href=&quot;https://gangmax.me/blog/2017/01/10/change-ubuntu-16-dot-04-default-chinese-font/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and have outlined the steps below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Navigate to &lt;code&gt;/etc/fonts/conf.d/&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Edit &lt;code&gt;64-language-selector-prefer.conf&lt;/code&gt;, moving the &lt;strong&gt;SC&lt;/strong&gt; suffixed fonts to the top of each preference list:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM &quot;fonts.dtd&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;fontconfig&amp;gt;&#xA;    &amp;lt;alias&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;family&amp;gt;sans-serif&amp;lt;/family&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;prefer&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;family&amp;gt;Noto Sans CJK SC&amp;lt;/family&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;family&amp;gt;Noto Sans CJK JP&amp;lt;/family&amp;gt; # Original top choice&#xA;            &amp;lt;family&amp;gt;Noto Sans CJK TC&amp;lt;/family&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;/prefer&amp;gt;&#xA;    &amp;lt;/alias&amp;gt;&#xA;    &amp;lt;alias&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;family&amp;gt;monospace&amp;lt;/family&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;prefer&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;family&amp;gt;Noto Sans Mono CJK SC&amp;lt;/family&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;family&amp;gt;Noto Sans Mono CJK JP&amp;lt;/family&amp;gt; # Original top choice&#xA;            &amp;lt;family&amp;gt;Noto Sans Mono CJK TC&amp;lt;/family&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;/prefer&amp;gt;&#xA;    &amp;lt;/alias&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;/fontconfig&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Edit &lt;code&gt;69-language-selector-zh-cn.conf&lt;/code&gt;, adding &lt;code&gt;WenQuanYi Micro Hei&lt;/code&gt; font to the top of each family (serif, sans-serif, monospace):&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM &quot;fonts.dtd&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;fontconfig&amp;gt;&#xA;&#xA;    &amp;lt;match target=&quot;pattern&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;test name=&quot;lang&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;zh-cn&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;/test&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;test qual=&quot;any&quot; name=&quot;family&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;serif&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;/test&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;edit name=&quot;family&quot; mode=&quot;prepend&quot; binding=&quot;strong&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;WenQuanYi Micro Hei&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt; # Added by me&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;HYSong&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL UMing CN&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL UMing HK&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL New Sung&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;WenQuanYi Bitmap Song&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL UKai CN&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL ZenKai Uni&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;/edit&amp;gt;&#xA;    &amp;lt;/match&amp;gt; &#xA;    &amp;lt;match target=&quot;pattern&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;test qual=&quot;any&quot; name=&quot;family&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;sans-serif&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;/test&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;test name=&quot;lang&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;zh-cn&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;/test&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;edit name=&quot;family&quot; mode=&quot;prepend&quot; binding=&quot;strong&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;WenQuanYi Micro Hei&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt; # Added by me&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;Noto Sans CJK SC&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;WenQuanYi Zen Hei&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;HYSong&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL UMing CN&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL UMing HK&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL New Sung&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL UKai CN&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL ZenKai Uni&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;/edit&amp;gt;&#xA;    &amp;lt;/match&amp;gt; &#xA;    &amp;lt;match target=&quot;pattern&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;test qual=&quot;any&quot; name=&quot;family&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;monospace&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;/test&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;test name=&quot;lang&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;zh-cn&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;/test&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;edit name=&quot;family&quot; mode=&quot;prepend&quot; binding=&quot;strong&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;WenQuanYi Micro Hei Mono&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt; # Added by me&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;DejaVu Sans Mono&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;Noto Sans Mono CJK SC&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;WenQuanYi Zen Hei Mono&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;HYSong&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL UMing CN&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL UMing HK&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL New Sung&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL UKai CN&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;            &amp;lt;string&amp;gt;AR PL ZenKai Uni&amp;lt;/string&amp;gt;&#xA;        &amp;lt;/edit&amp;gt;&#xA;    &amp;lt;/match&amp;gt; &#xA;&#xA;&amp;lt;/fontconfig&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saving the changes and opening a new terminal, the characters are now rendered as desired:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5dr5s.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5dr5s.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After restarting the computer, one also sees the characters properly rendered in the browser:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6JK3k.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6JK3k.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20133" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T22:39:35.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30936" CreationDate="2018-07-31T23:48:35.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That shirt might be the souvenir for the movie &quot;花样年华&quot;.  Its English name is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;In the Mood for Love&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%8A%B1%E6%A0%B7%E5%B9%B4%E5%8D%8E/35761?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T23:48:35.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30936" CreationDate="2018-08-01T01:19:06.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am chinese, i think it means that the best wish your friend giving you.  He thinks you are in the best of your time like beautiful flower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20179" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T01:19:06.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30916" CreationDate="2018-08-01T01:38:03.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, relative (your &quot;dependent&quot;) clauses always precede the noun they modify (and there are no really &quot;relative pronouns&quot; in Info-European sense).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic word order is subject–verb–object (SVO). Otherwise, Chinese is chiefly a &lt;em&gt;head-last language&lt;/em&gt;, meaning that &lt;em&gt;modifiers precede the words they modify – in a noun phrase, for example, the head noun comes last, and all modifiers, including relative clauses, come in front of it&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_grammar#Relative_clauses&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_grammar#Relative_clauses&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause#Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T01:38:03.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30904" CreationDate="2018-08-01T02:40:45.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Update, I think I misunderstood, the question is about the word &quot;China&quot; in English while I was talking about the word &quot;China&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a question which has no exact answer to. The most popular answer is, it comes from the pronunciation of &quot;秦&quot; in English, which is &quot;chin&quot;. Other answers think it may come from how Indians call Chinese, which is &quot;chini&quot;. There are many other answers and each has its own explanation. It you are interested, please check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/China/165190&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度百科&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will answer this question to the best of my knowledge, in Chinese, 抛砖引玉，如有不到的地方，还请见谅。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since this is a complicated subject and it would be hard to give explanation of 中华 in English, this answer will be in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;题注所言“秦”或“汉”皆是封地之名，如“汉”，就是由水流之声而得名的。而“中华”，则与前两者不同，“中”的意思是中央，也即中央之地，而“华”的意思是美好。是汉初河南因文化美好、社会昌平而得名的，后来成为整个中华王朝的名称。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而“汉”，则成为了中华民族的名称，“唐”，另一个繁盛的中华王朝，则成为了海外华人称呼自身聚居地的名词，即唐人街。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国历史上，不少统一王朝的名称都来源于之前藩王的封地名称，如“汉”来自于刘邦的封地，“唐”来源于李渊的封地等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国历史上还有一些类似的王朝名称后来被引作它用的例子，如，相传，农历是夏朝时发明的，所以，农历曾经也叫夏历，还有，商朝人善做生意，所以做生意的人叫做商人等等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-08-01T03:16:07.920" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T03:16:07.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30905" CreationDate="2018-08-01T07:53:07.667" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, Chinese language don't use passive voice as explicitly as in English. Translating passive sentences to native Chinese has always been challenging.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;One solution is to restore the omitted object, which means:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can lend the book to you once it is returned &lt;em&gt;by C&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  只要C把书还给我，我就能借给你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if the subject cannot be deduced from the context (like, if B doesn't know who borrowed his book), some techniques should be used to make a &quot;passive-less&quot; clause: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(lit.) Once the book is returned, I can lend to you.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  只要书还回来，我就能借你。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such passive-less sentences are difficult to compare with English, but they are common in Chinese language:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;砍了这棵树，路就能修成了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (lit.) Cut down the tree, and the road can complete.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The road can be completed once the tree is cut down.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &quot;passive-less&quot; means sentences without a passive &quot;mark&quot;. In Modern Chinese, the passive mark is &quot;被&quot;(bei4). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.S.&lt;/strong&gt; I have found an article explaining the common form of translation from English to Chinese regarding passive sentences. Here are the synopsis:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Passive sentences in English have been widely used, far more than in Chinese. Therefore, their translations should vary depending on meanings:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Translate into &quot;judgement&quot; sentences using &quot;是&quot;:  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;手语是聋哑人使用的语言。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Sign languages are (the languages that are) used by the deaf and dumb people.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Translate with active voice instead of passive voice. If subject is unable to identify, you may need to add some &quot;logical&quot; subjects like &quot;有人&quot;(lit. there are somebody) or &quot;别人&quot;(lit. others):  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;要站着，等有人请你坐下才能坐下。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (lit.)Need to stand, wait until someone invites you to sit can you sit down.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Stand until you're invited to sit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Translate into subject-less sentences, which are forbidden in English with a few exceptions, but quite common in Chinese:  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;发现了错误就一定要改正。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (lit.)(If)Discover errors, must correct (them).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Errors must be corrected once discovered.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Translate into passive sentences, as what you're familiar with.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T07:53:07.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30262" CreationDate="2018-08-01T08:07:31.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well...this phenomenon is NOT Chinese-specific.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I did remember that in Mkhedruli, there are &lt;strong&gt;three&lt;/strong&gt; letters (out of less than 40) looking so similar, and all of them look like number &quot;3&quot;, but they are pronounced as V, P, K, respectively! &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_scripts#Mkhedruli&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;See here in Wikipedia. &lt;/a&gt; You can also meet &lt;strong&gt;four&lt;/strong&gt; letters looking like mirrored Gamma in Asomtavruli.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore, it is not strange to encounter a few groups of similar characters in thousands of Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T08:07:31.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29850" CreationDate="2018-08-01T08:11:26.443" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Never.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although you may think such notation is convenient, Chinese people really dislike using Latin notations in Chinese books, especially for linguistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;动&amp;quot; instead of &amp;quot;v.&amp;quot; for verbs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;名&amp;quot; instead of &amp;quot;n.&amp;quot; for nouns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;繁&amp;quot; instead of your &amp;quot;t&amp;quot; for Traditional Chinese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T13:43:51.823" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T13:43:51.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29554" CreationDate="2018-08-01T08:29:48.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern Mandarin Chinese has been very different from Medieval Chinese, while Cantonese has preserved much legacy from the latter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I don't speak Cantonese, I think it's plausible that 操 in Medieval Chinese and in Cantonese has more than one pronunciation.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;However, even in Modern Chinese, pronunciations do change over time, especially when a commonly-used word sounds like... &lt;code&gt;fuck&lt;/code&gt;. (You can also see many people online using 操 instead of the original &lt;code&gt;fuck&lt;/code&gt; character to express that meaning, but they do this just because they don't know which is the original character, or they need to avoid censorship...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK. Time for a sip of knowledge. I said pronunciations change over time in Modern Chinese. It happens mostly in characters that are commonly used, but have different pronunciations only when used as a surname:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盖(formerly ge3 like 舸, now mostly gai4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;纪(formerly ji3 like 己, now commonly ji4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this doesn't happen to all such characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;解(always xie4 like 谢 if used as surname, rather than jie3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仇(always qiu2 like 球 if used as surname, rather than chou2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, the only character other than surnames that has a changed pronunciation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帧(&amp;quot;frame&amp;quot;, formerly zheng4 like 正, now zhen1 like 真)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-12T22:51:19.257" LastActivityDate="2020-07-12T22:51:19.257" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29477" CreationDate="2018-08-01T08:43:31.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;《江湖奇闻杜骗新书》(lit. &lt;em&gt;Weird Things in the World: New Collection of Frauds&lt;/em&gt;) is written in a mixture of Classical and Vulgar Chinese. The Vulgar Chinese lately evolved into Modern Chinese in early 1920s (as the Government of ROC abolished all Classical Chinese textbooks in schools in 1922). Therefore, for a Chinese speaker above high school level, it is not a challenge reading this book. I guess that you can't find a Modern Chinese version because the book is written in a language that most Chinese people can loosely understand, if not completely, thus translation into Modern Chinese is not needed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T08:43:31.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30949" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30951" CreationDate="2018-08-01T16:58:27.197" Score="2" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PSOiO.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PSOiO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&amp;quot;Game of Hunting&amp;quot; screenshot showing four individuals in Chinese-style handcuffs, who are wearing identical blue-and-red (or blue-and-orange) clothing.  Three of those characters have 北看 marked on their clothes in white.  Three police officers are visible, standing behind them.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two characters written on the orange jackets (?) they are wearing. It seems like it says &quot;北看&quot; but I can't seem to find anything related to that meaning. If it's not &quot;看&quot;, I hope someone can tell me what it is, and why is it even there on the jacket.  They are in court, by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20127" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T10:31:29.073" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T10:31:29.073" Title="In a scene from &quot;Game of Hunting&quot;, people in handcuffs in a courtroom are wearing clothes marked &quot;北看&quot;: is this correct and what does it mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30791" CreationDate="2018-08-01T18:30:35.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that, since the receiver is American, the address should be in English anyway, or the postal services won't even be able to read it. So it should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 Gustave L. Levy Pl, New York, NY 10029, 美国&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's how I buy and receive stuff from China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T18:30:35.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30949" CreationDate="2018-08-01T20:40:23.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is short for &quot;北x市xx看守所&quot;. The TV play is based on the city of Beihai(北海市) which belongs to Guangxi province(广西省), so 北 means 北海, 看 means 看守所. The typical name should be 北海市看守所. Actually, 北海 has at least two 看守所s. One is 北海第一看守所, the other is 北海第二看守所. If 北看 means 北海市第一看守所, then the other one should be short as 北二看.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T20:40:23.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30952" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30955" CreationDate="2018-08-01T22:09:59.590" Score="3" ViewCount="413" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I have come across people giving birthday wishes to others using the word 生辰 instead of 生日.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked up some online dictionary/translation tools and it turns out 生辰 also means birthday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what are the differences between 生辰，生日. By the way, do people also 生天 to mean birthday in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20184" LastEditorUserId="20184" LastEditDate="2018-08-02T00:56:32.653" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T01:36:53.823" Title="The differences between 生日 and 生辰" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30952" CreationDate="2018-08-01T23:15:20.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;辰primarily means time of the day. Also could refer to the specific combination of star, moon and sun, i.e. a specific date and time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生辰 would then first mean the date and time of birth. Usually only used for calculating your fortune, and it's in conjunction with 生辰八字.  Nowadays nobody use it for &quot;Birthday&quot;. I personally only know one case of &quot;Birthday&quot; from an ancient novel 水浒传.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, no one would ever say 生天.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T23:15:20.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30952" CreationDate="2018-08-01T23:37:42.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;生日是出生的日子，生辰是出生的时辰。中国人迷信出生的时辰决定了人一生的命运。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20185" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T23:37:42.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30952" CreationDate="2018-08-02T00:23:57.870" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;生辰 can mean either &quot;birthday&quot;(the day one's birth) or 生日+时辰 (birthday + birth time) as in the phrase 生辰八字. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, 生辰 just means &lt;strong&gt;birthday&lt;/strong&gt;, but it's more &lt;strong&gt;literary&lt;/strong&gt;. You can probably only see it's used in a book. For example, 而这一日子恰逢其80岁生辰. Normally, people just use 生日 in spoken, but you can say 生辰 when you try to be more literary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生天 isn't a correct word for birthday. 生天 in old Chinese is the same as 升天, which means &lt;strong&gt;go to heaven&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-08-02T01:36:53.823" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T01:36:53.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30956" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30957" CreationDate="2018-08-02T05:09:17.727" Score="0" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a translation of the second Harry Potter book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;All Harry's spellbooks, wand, cauldron and top-of-the-range Nimbus 2000 broomstick had been locked in a cupboard under the stairs by Uncle Vernon the instant Harry had come home.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哈利刚一到家，弗农姨父就把他的咒语书、魔杖、长袍、坩埚和最高级的光轮2000锁进了楼梯下那又小又暗 的柜子里 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like this translation is well accepted: &lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/%E5%85%89%E8%BD%AE2000?variant=zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zh.harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/%E5%85%89%E8%BD%AE2000?variant=zh&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate's answer of 'light wheel' is unhelpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;光轮&quot; just a transliteration or does it have extra meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20188" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T05:47:55.813" Title="Is &quot;光轮&quot; for &quot;Nimbus&quot; as in &quot;Nimbus 2000 broomstick&quot; just a transliteration?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30956" CreationDate="2018-08-02T05:47:55.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;光轮 is not a transliteration, it is a translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(religious_iconography)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Halo (religious iconography)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A halo (from Greek ἅλως, halōs;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(religious_iconography)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; also known as a &lt;strong&gt;nimbus&lt;/strong&gt;, aureole&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The round thing behind Buddha's head on that page is a 光轮 or 光环&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T05:47:55.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30958" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30960" CreationDate="2018-08-02T09:16:50.757" Score="2" ViewCount="2964" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently learning Chinese but I've been struggling with perhaps a very easy sound to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I pronounce Xué (学)? I know that with &quot;x&quot;, it's &quot;sh&quot; with the tip of your tongue on your front bottom teeth. However, managing the tones and the ué seems to be very hard.  Is it just shoo-e or shoo-ee?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I am not practicing with a native speaker, it's with Siri and voice recognition software. That's one thing I must definitely admit. Is that good practice to use Siri for pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps I could 学 how to say it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20190" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T10:21:19.523" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T18:33:46.060" Title="How do I pronounce Xué (学)?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30958" CreationDate="2018-08-02T11:13:25.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a chart for pinyin pronunciation, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php&lt;/a&gt;, I use that when I am puzzled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20127" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T11:13:25.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30958" CreationDate="2018-08-02T11:38:16.110" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Xue can be broken down into three components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;X, ipa: ɕ, similar to the English ‘sh’ in sheep but with the tongue placed closer to the teeth.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;u, ipa: y, not to be confused with ipa letter: u, similar to German: ü; or the u in French: tu&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;e, ipa: e, similar to the “e” in English: yes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tone: second tone in Mandarin, which 学 is, is a 35 on the tonal scale - meaning you need to start kind of high-pitched to begin with and then rise it even higher. It’s often compared to the English intonation of asking a question, with a rise at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest pitfalls for foreigners: most westerns end up pronouncing 学 more like 水 - I’m not totally sure why because the initials and finals are completely different. Try finding audio to imitate and only treat pinyin as a guide because it won’t match up with English in the way you might imagine it should.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T11:38:16.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30912" CreationDate="2018-08-02T12:54:20.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;接受函数为参数,means the accepted/gotten function is parametar, and the returned value is function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T12:54:20.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30962" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30972" CreationDate="2018-08-02T14:10:01.423" Score="1" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is Siri really that good for Chinese pronunciation? I mean, there will be nothing like a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when I say &quot;Ní haô&quot; or &quot;Wò qù&quot;, it still says the expected characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Siri is not that good, is there something better perhaps?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20190" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-08-04T05:49:49.887" LastActivityDate="2018-08-04T05:49:49.887" Title="Is Siri good for practicing Chinese pronunciation?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-07-27T00:06:35.893" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30262" CreationDate="2018-08-02T14:47:04.967" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is indeed a topic you need to be aware of when learning written Chinese. There are quite a few common characters that look very similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did a web search with this term &quot;similar characters 末 未 士 土&quot; and recommend the following which were among the first 10 answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinese-tools.com/characters/similar.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chinese-tools.com/characters/similar.html&lt;/a&gt; This is the&#xA;simplest, and I recommend it for beginners.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.tutorming.com/mandarin-chinese-learning-tips/chinese-characters-that-look-alike&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blog.tutorming.com/mandarin-chinese-learning-tips/chinese-characters-that-look-alike&lt;/a&gt; ... but maybe this one is more useful as it has sample sentences&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next two are at a higher level; for intermediate/advanced students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://carlgene.com/blog/2016/06/top-258-most-commonly-confused-chinese-characters/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://carlgene.com/blog/2016/06/top-258-most-commonly-confused-chinese-characters/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Easily_confused_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Easily_confused_Chinese_characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T14:47:04.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30962" CreationDate="2018-08-02T14:59:34.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Update, I might misunderstand you question, sorry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Siri's pronunciation of Chinese is a little awkward. It sounds very machine like and not natural at all. Also, some expressions it is using is very uncommon or very literal, which would make you feel strange when listening to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are right, it is not quite good a pronunciation in Chinese, there is no official Chinese name of it, however, some people have come up with ideas like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;思蕊 or 思睿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-08-03T03:41:52.097" LastActivityDate="2018-08-03T03:41:52.097" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30791" CreationDate="2018-08-02T18:04:35.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No set conventions for everything as far as I know, but how about --&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Road 路&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avenue 街&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Street 街道&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Way 道&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Boulevard 大道&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Drive 径&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lane 巷&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alley 弄&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Place 处&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Circle 湾&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Square 口&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Point 头&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20138" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T18:04:35.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30966" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-02T22:32:54.017" Score="2" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, if I turn a street corner and find there is some kind of situation, for example a crashed car or whatever, and I want to ask someone nearby if they saw what happened, what should I say?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it 你看到发生了什么事吗？or are there any better ways to express this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-08-03T14:09:23.970" Title="How do I say &quot;did you see what happened?'" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30966" CreationDate="2018-08-03T00:41:26.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;刚才你看到了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or similarly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你刚才看到了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-08-03T00:41:26.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30966" CreationDate="2018-08-03T00:58:45.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你看到发生了什么事吗 is correct without doubt. But I myself prefer to say 刚这里怎么了？ or 你刚看到这里怎么了没？ These two expressions are very colloquial but more natural to me. I think 发生了什么 is more used when we are typing or writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-08-03T00:58:45.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30966" CreationDate="2018-08-03T03:21:58.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your sentence along with others in answers are all correct. &#xA;The closest idiomatic one I can think of is 你刚才看到这里出什么事了(did you see what happen here just now). In practice, it can be shortened as: 这里出什么事了? or 出什么事了?. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-08-03T03:21:58.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30966" CreationDate="2018-08-03T04:37:15.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate it into “你看到刚刚这里发生了什么事吗？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“刚刚” refer to something happened just a few minutes before, it a past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2018-08-03T04:37:15.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30966" CreationDate="2018-08-03T04:40:52.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 你有看到刚刚发生什么事吗？.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did you see what (just) happened?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20062" LastActivityDate="2018-08-03T04:40:52.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30962" CreationDate="2018-08-03T04:44:19.847" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The bast way to practice Chinese is talking to native Chinese speaker, but if you don’t have the opportunity, you can try to watch Chinese TV shows.&#xA;And Siri is not a good choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15502" LastActivityDate="2018-08-03T04:44:19.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30966" CreationDate="2018-08-03T14:09:23.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most answers above are right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But let me tell you an extremely native expression, esp. in northeast China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咋的了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning &quot;what happened?&quot;/&quot;What's wrong?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can specify the location to eliminate ambiguities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这(儿)咋的了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;What happened here?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zhe (er) Za de Le?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 stressed syllables only, simple and easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2018-08-03T14:09:23.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30262" CreationDate="2018-08-03T14:27:47.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;lnformation are coded badIy in the form of naturaI Ianguage. But we have our top-down perception to heIp resoIve the ambiguity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, I and l are similar, too. I reversed all of them in the above sentences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In real life, your acuity for certain visual feature is trained through large exposure to these texts. I think for me identifying them is almost no slower than different-looking characters. Similarly I couldn't read Gothic font, but the experts can read it like they wrote it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For practical reason, people also tend to signify the difference between these similar characters when ambiguity cannot be resolved by the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2018-08-03T14:27:47.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30976" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30977" CreationDate="2018-08-04T00:35:54.090" Score="3" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;When will I be able to go to China?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After trying to figure out and failed, I tried to translate the sentence from Korean to Chinese and came up with this :&#xA;&quot;什么时候能去中国?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is that correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why is there no question marker (such as 吗) in the translation? I wonder when I should use 吗...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When are we allowed to omit question marks?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And why is it using 能? Shouldn't it be using 会? Since 会 is more related to future possibility.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-08-04T05:47:36.443" LastActivityDate="2018-08-04T05:47:36.443" Title="When will one be able to" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30976" CreationDate="2018-08-04T00:53:58.580" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, it is correct, yet not precise, it is supposed to be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我什么时候能去中国？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second and third, there is no question marker because &quot;什么&quot; already implied that this is a question, you would use &quot;吗&quot; when it is not obvious if the sentence is a question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我能去中国吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last, &quot;能&quot; corresponds to &quot;able&quot; in original expression. You use &quot;会&quot; for possibility, like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他什么时候会去中国？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means &quot;when will he go to China?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-08-04T00:53:58.580" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30978" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30979" CreationDate="2018-08-04T04:47:03.543" Score="2" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working through &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap0w3PgSK7g&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt; and am having trouble understanding the sentence the speaker says at 9:31: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人生要就不忍，不然就請你一忍到底。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess is this means &quot;in life you don't want to have to restrain yourself, but if you have to you should do it to the very end.&quot; The second half of the sentence (不然就請你一忍到底) is fairly clear, but the phrase 要就不忍 doesn't make sense to me, in particular the use of 就 in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context is that he is talking about the story of Zhang Liang meeting Huang Shigong, who asks him to retrieve his fallen shoes and then help him put them on. The speaker says that Huang Shigong does this to teach him a moral lesson, namely the above sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next sentence or two are also difficult for me to follow. The speaker goes on to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非凡之人做事要就不做，&#xA;要做就必要做到乾淨漂亮。&#xA;忍耐就不要忍個半吊子，&#xA;既然已經幫人撿了鞋子，&#xA;也決定幫人穿上，&#xA;何不索興長跪履之？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last three clauses of this make sense: &quot;since you've already helped him retrieve his shoes and have decided to help put them on, then why not do it with a long kneel?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the first phares of it (非凡之人做事要就不做) is confusing to me, perhaps because of the reappearance of the phrase &quot;要就不&quot;. Any help would appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20198" LastActivityDate="2018-08-04T05:44:36.843" Title="Need help understanding: &quot;人生要就不忍，不然就請你一忍到底。&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30978" CreationDate="2018-08-04T05:18:27.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;要就(X )不然就(Y)&amp;quot;  means &amp;quot;either (X) otherwise/ or (Y)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(X) and (Y) are the two options for you to choose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;要就(X = 不忍)，不然就(Y = 請你一忍到底)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;you either not restrain yourself (option X), otherwise please restrain to the very end (option Y).&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非凡之人做事(要就)不做, (&lt;em&gt;一但&lt;/em&gt;) (要做) 就必要做到乾淨漂亮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exceptional person (either) not act, (&lt;em&gt;once&lt;/em&gt;)(decided to act) then  he must do it cleanly and beautifully&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;一但(once) is omitted&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;一但要做&amp;quot; (once decided to act) presents a different option than the first one, therefore the meaning of &amp;quot;otherwise&amp;quot; is implied. The sentence could then be interpreted as &amp;quot;exceptional person &lt;strong&gt;either&lt;/strong&gt; not act, &lt;strong&gt;otherwise&lt;/strong&gt;, he must do it cleanly and beautifully&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two options are &amp;quot;不做&amp;quot; (not do it) and &amp;quot;做到乾淨漂亮&amp;quot; (do it cleanly and beautifully)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-04T05:44:36.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30978" CreationDate="2018-08-04T05:22:06.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人生要就不忍，不然就請你一忍到底&lt;/strong&gt; is tied heavily to the next quote, &lt;strong&gt;非凡之人做事要就不做，要做就必要做到乾淨漂亮&lt;/strong&gt;, which basically means &lt;em&gt;don't commit to half-assed attempts at doing anything&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人生要就不忍，不然就請你一忍到底。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In life, you either don't endure, or you endure till the very end.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「就」is not translated to English here, but the structure &lt;strong&gt;要不就X...要不就Y&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;em&gt;either (commit to)/(do) X or Y&lt;/em&gt;, and the quote can be rewritten as the following to make this structure clearer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人生要不就不忍，要不就請你一忍到底 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-08-04T05:22:06.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30981" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30986" CreationDate="2018-08-04T11:04:23.590" Score="3" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 汉语口语速成: 基础篇 pp. 147, there's a sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爱珍： 你学习汉语是为了工作?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;左拉： 可以说是吧，不过，现在我失业了，来中国之前&lt;strong&gt;辞的职&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that &amp;quot;辞职&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;to resign&amp;quot;, but I don't understand why &amp;quot;的&amp;quot; is inserted between them. What's the use of &amp;quot;的&amp;quot; here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that &amp;quot;辞职&amp;quot; is a separable verb. According to Wiktionary, &amp;quot;辞&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;to dismiss&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;职&amp;quot; could be from the word &amp;quot;职业&amp;quot;, meaning &amp;quot;profession&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is, then could &amp;quot;辞的职&amp;quot; here mean &amp;quot;辞我的职业&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-07T01:13:12.020" Title="What is the use of &quot;的&quot; in &quot;辞的职&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30982" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30983" CreationDate="2018-08-04T11:23:31.500" Score="4" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any reduplicate tongue-twister like these?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;校長說：「衣服上除了校徽別別別的。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The principal said, &amp;quot;Don't(別) pin(別) other(別的) badge except the school badge.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨天騎腳踏車，車輪打滑，還好我反應快，一把把把手穩住了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's rainy. My bike's wheel were slipping. Fortunately I stablized(把...穩住) the handler(把手) one moment in the time(一把).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有床不睡睡睡袋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why you don't sleep(不睡 on your bed), but sleep(睡) in your sleep bag(睡袋)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衣服嘛，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冬天的時候，能穿多少穿多少&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夏天的時候，能穿多少穿多少&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clothes. Put on the more the better in winter, and put on the less the better in summer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original post on Facebook: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/BookListen2017/posts/517919745305055&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.facebook.com/BookListen2017/posts/517919745305055&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20062" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T13:42:49.057" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T13:42:49.057" Title="Interesting tongue-twisters like these?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;puzzle&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30982" CreationDate="2018-08-04T13:21:16.240" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The second one you have, could even be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨天骑自行车，车轮打滑，还好我反应快，一把把把把住了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have to be the champion to be honored this prize.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个奖品，想获得得得到第一名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;According to Carbon Carbon bond energy, could we negate theorem one or theorem two?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;根据碳碳键键能能否否定定理一或定理二？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I almost missed the shuttle to Shanghai if I were walking too slowly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多亏跑了两步，差点没上上上上海的车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you poison a venomous snake with poison, would it be poisoned to death?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用毒毒毒蛇毒蛇会不会被毒毒死？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got this one even better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ming Ming does know Bai Bai is &lt;strong&gt;wasting time&lt;/strong&gt; having a crush on him, but he would not say.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明明明明明白白白白白喜欢他，但他就是不说。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A granny from Netherlands drinks six bottle of durian milk in Rio de Janeiro.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;里约热内卢的荷兰老奶奶喝了六个榴莲牛奶。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could find more from this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/277549710&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, now get ready for this one, you have to be good in ancient Chinese to read the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮。施氏时时适市视狮。十时，适十狮适市。是时，适施氏适市。氏视是十狮，恃矢势，使十狮逝世。氏拾是十狮尸，适石室。石室湿，氏使侍拭石室。石室拭，氏始实食是十狮。食时，始识是十狮，实十石狮尸。试释是事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more of these &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/39600493/answer/82162330&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2020-07-16T18:07:53.613" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T18:07:53.613" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30984" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30985" CreationDate="2018-08-04T15:50:49.680" Score="0" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;你好！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 学 (xue2), 校 (xiao4) and 学校 (xue2 xiao4)? I know the definitions but the thing with context is quite hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The first one&lt;/strong&gt; simply means 'to study' or 'academic'. However, it seems to be used as 'school' apparently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The second one&lt;/strong&gt; claims to be &quot;school&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The third one&lt;/strong&gt; claims to be used in Wo3 qu4 xue2 xiao4 (&quot;我去学校&quot;), which means &quot;I go to school&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it to do with context? For example, is the first used to represent a school and the third as its building (the building itself)? Why represent this as a few characters meaning almost the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what is the difference? Please help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Steve Woods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20190" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-08-04T17:12:55.180" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T20:26:21.550" Title="Difference between 学, 校 and 学校" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30984" CreationDate="2018-08-04T17:37:29.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;学校&quot; is a compound word means &quot;school&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character &quot;学&quot; is also in other compound words like 小学 (primary school), 中学 (middle school), and 大学 (university)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character &quot;校&quot; is also in other specific terms like 軍校 (military school), 警校 (police academy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;軍校 is short for 軍事学校&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;警校 is short for 警察学校&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;校 is just a short form of 学校 in these terms&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like in English, the term &quot;学校&quot; (school) refers to the institution itself, it can be a whole building or buildings; a single room where a piano teacher teaches a few students can also be called a school (piano school)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-08-04T17:43:21.543" LastActivityDate="2018-08-04T17:43:21.543" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30981" CreationDate="2018-08-05T01:40:58.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;辞职: resign; quit the job;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辞： quit; take leave; resign; dismiss;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;职（in 辞职）is short for &lt;strong&gt;职位&lt;/strong&gt;(not 职业)： position；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 辞职 can be interpreted as: &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;quit your position&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; or just &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;resign&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辞职 is a 离合词，so it's separable. Phrases like 辞的职, 吃的饭, 说的话, and etc denote &lt;strong&gt;that you have done something at sometime or at some place&lt;/strong&gt; and usually they are followed or preceded by a prepositional phrase describing time or position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example,  来中国之前(before coming to China) is the time and 辞的职 is what you have done(quit your job). So, 来中国之前辞的职 is &lt;strong&gt;quit my job before coming to China&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在家里吃的饭 // I ate my meal at home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是我昨天在会议上讲的话 // This is what I said at the meeting yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-05T01:40:58.830" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30981" CreationDate="2018-08-05T04:57:11.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think '的' here is used to emphasis that something has already been done. So, '辞的职' means 'have already resigned'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20203" LastActivityDate="2018-08-05T04:57:11.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30585" CreationDate="2018-08-05T06:42:59.647" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0zCVd.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0zCVd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters are 御書㞢(之)寶, which means &lt;em&gt;seal of imperial writing/literature&lt;/em&gt;. The characters are heavily stylised in a blockish/squarish aesthetic (&lt;strong&gt;方篆&lt;/strong&gt;) seen on many imperial seals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The explanation of the shape of「㞢」(之) is given &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30476/meaning-of-seal-and-engraved-characters-on-teapot/30488#30488&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「寶」is easy enough to recognise for those familiar with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;regular script&lt;/a&gt;. The shape of the component「宀」is explained &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29865/help-please-me-find-out-what-this-means/29875#29875&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;御&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「御」was originally written as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qszCM.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qszCM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;depicting a kneeling person「卩」using a pestle「午」, indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;to use/operate &gt; to govern &gt; imperial&lt;/em&gt;. Later,「彳」was added to the left and「止」was added to the bottom of「午」, leading on to the modern form「御」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tkCA5.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tkCA5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These motion-related additions may have been semantically influenced by two other words also written as「御」at one stage but now written as「迓」(&lt;strong&gt;yà&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to welcome&lt;/em&gt;; semantic「辶」which is a stylised combination of「彳」and「止」) and 「馭」(also &lt;strong&gt;yù&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to drive a carriage&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the sample,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「」has been modified into the shape of「走」&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「彳」has also been heavily modified from a style that looked like the left component of&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RTI3S.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RTI3S.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「御」is thus composed from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「午」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「卩」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「彳」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「止」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;午&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「午」originally depicted a pestle:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LR5tH.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LR5tH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The word representing this meaning is now written as「杵」. The top later became「入」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z5Mqm.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z5Mqm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This leads on to the seal form&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zvmr3.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zvmr3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note the similarity of the top part to「土」. Straightening the stroke out, as required with the 方篆 style, leads onto the form seen in the sample.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;卩&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「卩」originally depicted a kneeling person, &lt;strong&gt;which directly leads on to the form seen in the sample:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2gQJl.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2gQJl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;彳&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「彳」is reduced from「行」, which is a picture of an intersection:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PEQ6I.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PEQ6I.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「彳」is subject to wild stylising, and the form in the sample is no different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Al1pT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Al1pT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;止&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「止」was originally a simplified depiction of a foot:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xuzgy.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xuzgy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The word representing this meaning is now written「趾」. &lt;strong&gt;The change to seal script looks like&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kpKXO.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kpKXO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;書&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「書」is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「聿」, a semantic component;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「者」, a phonetic component. In the modern form, this has been reduced to「曰」, but seal scripts and earlier still retain「者」, as with the sample posted in the question. The appearance of「者」in seals is briefly alluded to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/28986/what-are-these-characters-on-old-brass-stamps/30050#30050&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note that the character is not「畫」.「畫」(originally &lt;em&gt;to draw boundaries between fields &gt; draw&lt;/em&gt;) definitely needs to contain「田」(&lt;em&gt;fields&lt;/em&gt;) as a component, unless the character sample egregiously demonstrates corruption.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「聿」originally depicted a hand「⺕」(variant of「又」) holding a brush:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1t2oT.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1t2oT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Merging the two together leads on to seal forms which look like&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/scGhA.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/scGhA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-08-05T06:42:59.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12995" CreationDate="2018-08-05T06:58:41.567" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;「御」 originally meant &lt;em&gt;to operate&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;manage/control&lt;/em&gt;, then extended to mean the adjective &lt;em&gt;imperial&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The meaning &lt;em&gt;to drive a carriage&lt;/em&gt; is specifically held by the character 「馭」; when 「御」 is used for this meaning, it is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus#Rebus_principle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rebus&lt;/a&gt; of 「馭」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9KQ31.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9KQ31.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;菁&lt;/a&gt;1.1&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=6057&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集6057&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E9%9A%B6%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸定&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M6COU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M6COU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「御」 (&lt;em&gt;to operate/manage&lt;/em&gt;) originally depicted a &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=21830&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;kneeling person&lt;/em&gt; 「卩」&lt;/a&gt; using (&lt;em&gt;operating&lt;/em&gt;) a &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=103&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;pestle&lt;/em&gt; 「午」&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pestle&lt;/em&gt; is now written as the derivative character 「杵」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later on, two verb-like markers were added:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「彳」 (half of the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=447&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「行」, &lt;em&gt;picture of a road intersection&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;roads, travelling&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NRvoY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NRvoY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;前&lt;/a&gt;2.18.6&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=8189&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集8189&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;隸定&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/raxoi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/raxoi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=141&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「止」 (&lt;em&gt;picture of a foot&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;walking&lt;/em&gt;). This leads on to the modern form 「御」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hhp7p.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hhp7p.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;頌鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2829&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2829&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xDUL4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xDUL4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;115&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ap8uz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ap8uz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-29T09:03:30.653" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T09:03:30.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30982" CreationDate="2018-08-05T08:42:03.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;出租车上。电台里歌手范玮琪在介绍她的新歌，“大家好，我是范范范玮琪……” 这时候，司机师傅说了一句：“这社会呀，连结巴都能当歌星了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20042" LastActivityDate="2018-08-05T08:42:03.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30992" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-06T00:28:47.157" Score="5" ViewCount="319" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 黄毛小儿 a sort of idiomatic phrase? Literally it would mean a &quot;yellow haired child.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw it on a TV drama, but from the child in question was definitely not yellow haired. Since the speaker  was speaking rudely, I'm assuming 黄毛小儿 is supposed to have a derogatory meaning and probably means something like a naive or foolish child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20207" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-30T23:02:17.043" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T23:02:17.043" Title="Meaning of the expression 黄毛小儿" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30992" CreationDate="2018-08-06T00:36:56.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;naive or foolish child&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is right (except maybe &lt;em&gt;foolish&lt;/em&gt; is a bit harsh). 黃毛 literally refers to foetal hair (alternatively 胎毛), the hairs on a newborn that will fall off later. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanugo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hair is unpigmented&lt;/a&gt; which contributes to its name (in contrast to the black colour found in most East Asians). The metaphor here is &lt;em&gt;young/immature/inexperienced/silly&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar phrases include 黃毛丫頭 (specifically for girls, as 丫頭 refers to the hairstyle of girl servants in the olden times).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-08-06T02:38:41.253" LastActivityDate="2018-08-06T02:38:41.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29228" CreationDate="2018-08-06T02:25:55.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even the statement that learning ones own dialect improves ability in Mandarin may be true, it doesn't necessarily apply to those who study Chinese as a second language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for ways to make learning Mandarin easier, my personal opinion is: don't torture yourself. I speak Shanghainese (a kind of Wu dialect) as my native dialect. While I am talking (in this dialect), my work mate who comes from Northern China doesn't understand what I am talking about at all. You can see the huge distinction between Chinese dialects!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20155" LastEditorUserId="20155" LastEditDate="2018-08-06T02:31:56.487" LastActivityDate="2018-08-06T02:31:56.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30995" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30996" CreationDate="2018-08-06T02:49:35.940" Score="5" ViewCount="4416" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried to type 什么, but I got 什麽! It was working just a minute ago.  What happened?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T01:01:06.913" Title="Why is my Microsoft Pinyin IME suddenly making traditional characters instead of simplified?" Tags="&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30995" CreationDate="2018-08-06T02:49:35.940" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Simplified Chinese Microsoft Pinyin IME is capable of both simplified and traditional characters. When you install it, it will be set for simplified characters. It is set up to toggle between simplified and traditional with the keybinding &lt;kbd&gt;ctrl&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;shift&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;F&lt;/kbd&gt;. It is easy to do this accidentally if the IME is active and you do a &quot;Find All&quot; in Visual Studio or a similar program with the same keybinding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can toggle back by activating the IME (if necessary, using &lt;kbd&gt;Win&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;Space&lt;/kbd&gt;) and then toggling back with &lt;kbd&gt;ctrl&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;shift&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;F&lt;/kbd&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can disable this key or change it to another letter (note, &lt;kbd&gt;ctrl&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;shift&lt;/kbd&gt; is not optional!) by navigating to the keyboard options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Press &lt;kbd&gt;Win&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;S&lt;/kbd&gt; and start typing &quot;language&quot; and select:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HKckG.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HKckG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click on the language and it will expand and offer an &quot;options&quot; button:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B2S5g.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B2S5g.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now find the keyboards, click on the &quot;Microsoft Pinyin&quot; keyboard (probably the only one):&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tyM6r.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tyM6r.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;From there you can toggle back to simplified under &quot;General&quot; and modify the toggle binding at the bottom of &quot;Keys&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2018-08-06T02:49:35.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30992" CreationDate="2018-08-06T03:01:39.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;黄毛小儿 is typically focusing on &lt;strong&gt;one's immaturity, ignorant&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;inexperience&lt;/strong&gt;, instead of foolishness. Its connotation can be various based upon how you use it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 你就是一个&lt;em&gt;黄毛小子/黄毛小儿&lt;/em&gt; draws an &lt;strong&gt;analogy&lt;/strong&gt; between 你 and 黄毛小儿. It means you are a kid still with foetal hair, implying that you are still young and you are unable to understand or deal with sophisticated things, or you are ignorant about something. It can be &lt;strong&gt;an insult or derogatory&lt;/strong&gt; when you refer to a young inexperienced guy as 黄毛小儿. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you say: &quot;你这个黄毛小子!&quot;, it means that you are &lt;em&gt;naughty, making troubles, and etc. just like a young kid normally does&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-08-07T02:21:03.807" LastActivityDate="2018-08-07T02:21:03.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30998" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31300" CreationDate="2018-08-06T08:12:42.430" Score="0" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to make a word to word correspondence of the following sentence from chinese to english:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;博格瑞牌法兰希小金文奶酪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Borgri Franchi Small Cheese [Google Translate]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation from google translate didn't made much sense. What is &quot;borgri&quot; and &quot;Franchi&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to do a word by word translation but I'm having difficulty of separating the chinese characters into &quot;words&quot; that make up that chinese sentence so that I later could match it with the corresponding translated word in the english translation. But I'm having difficulty finding the boundary of each word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In google translate, I tried to separate a word by adding the next character and seeing how it would translate into english, but this proves difficult because each time I add or reduce the next character the meaning differs from the previous one and thus becomes inconsistent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence was an example of what I'm trying to translate. It's written in a cheese product with the brand Bongra*n Gerard (replace * with i) (often abbreviated as B.G. It's a brand from France).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20135" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T14:39:16.350" Title="How to separate the words in the phrase 博格瑞牌法兰希小金文奶酪 &amp; match it to the word translation in english" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30998" CreationDate="2018-08-06T08:39:48.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;博格瑞 the name of the product brand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牌 means brand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;法兰希 French, but it should be 法兰西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小 small&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金文奶酪 camembert, also 卡门贝尔奶酪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can not translate it word by word, you have to re-order them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Borgri Small French Camembert??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-08-06T08:39:48.490" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22558" CreationDate="2018-08-06T09:12:53.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost all IME support symbol insert&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Test Which method your IME support&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Switch to Chinese IME, type 'v', if you see some special candidate words, then your IME support that, just follow the instructions. On my IME, it is English Mode, not very useful.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Type 'i', as before, just follow the instructions. On my IME, it is the number mode. ①,二, ⅲ, ⑷, ➎, 陆, ㈦&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AJUtu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AJUtu.png&quot; alt=&quot;i4&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Type 'u', on my ime, it is command mode.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HHq9q.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HHq9q.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Open settings of your IME, click '短语设置' or '快捷短语 or similar names, it may be in 高级设置 or 自定义设置 page.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will see a long list (it you can't see it, click 查看 or 编辑...),&#xA;Every line in the list is formed by a code and a word, you can use that code to input the matched word quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can type &lt;strong&gt;py_a&lt;/strong&gt; to insert a with tone &lt;strong&gt;ǎ&lt;/strong&gt; , you can customize your 短语.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tt09O.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tt09O.png&quot; alt=&quot;py_u&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-08-06T09:24:24.793" LastActivityDate="2018-08-06T09:24:24.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30981" CreationDate="2018-08-07T01:13:12.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“来中国之前辞的职” means it is before I came to China when I had quited my position. &quot;的&quot;means the action already have happened or begin, and stress some part of sentence,like time, place,object,subject,etc. Especially, the speaker presupposes that the listener has already known the event has happened. and it is usually attached to the verb. This &quot;的&quot; isdifferent from other like&quot;我的&quot;，“这是我讲的话”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2018-08-07T01:13:12.020" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31009" CreationDate="2018-08-07T12:14:45.367" Score="1" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any meaning of the character 冲 that allows to translate it as Vessel (or empty vessel)? The section four of 道德经 states: &quot;道沖而用之或不盈&quot; - 冲 is usually translated here as an empty vessel or emptiness of a vessel - but I am not sure what is the basis for such translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17138" LastActivityDate="2018-08-08T03:12:25.453" Title="How to translate 冲 in a phrase 道冲。" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31003" CreationDate="2018-08-07T14:24:46.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;道(&lt;strong&gt;沖&lt;/strong&gt;)而用之，或不盈&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.xuite.net/chun.hung693/twblog/155961257-%E8%80%81%E5%AD%90%E9%81%93%E5%BE%B7%E7%B6%93%E7%99%BD%E8%A9%B1%E8%A7%A3+%28%E7%AC%AC%E5%9B%9B%E7%AB%A0+%E9%81%93%E6%B2%96%E8%80%8C%E7%94%A8%E4%B9%8B%E6%88%96%E4%B8%8D%E7%9B%88%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《白話解》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果說萬物像是茶葉，那麼道就像是(&lt;strong&gt;沖泡&lt;/strong&gt;)茶水的茶壺；把萬物放入常道中作用，卻怎麼放也不會盈滿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dao is like a teapot that would never be filled, even if you pour everything in the universe into it. (that's how deep Dao is, it can contains everything in the universe and not be filled up)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I would say” If you pour water into a teapot, the teapot will eventually be filled; but we can never fill Dao up, even if we pour everything in the universe into it”&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;沖&amp;quot; here means &amp;quot;pour into&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;道沖&amp;quot; here means &amp;quot;pour (everything in the universe) into Dao&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'道' is metaphorized as limitless vessel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-07T14:46:21.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30589" CreationDate="2018-08-07T14:48:19.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no general rules. Here are some rough guidelines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some characters are used almost exclusively for one gender. For example, almost any character containing 女 will generally only be found in women's names. &#xA;This is particularly true for names like 娟娟, where the 女 radical is part of the meaning. Common characters like 安 or 好 can appear in male names just as easily, despite the fact that they have the 女 radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Names that reference flowers, precious stones or beauty, as well as &quot;cute&quot; names are more likely to be women's names. Names that sound grandiose or political are more likely to be men's names. Some characters that strongly point towards a feminine name are 玲 (líng, a word relating to jewelry), 瑩 (yíng, a precious stone), 蓉 (róng, hibiscus flower), as well as 彤 (tóng, red), 美, 麗, 佳, and 艷, all of which mean &quot;beautiful&quot;. Conversely, some male-specific characters are 宇 (yú, space), 勇 (brave), 昊 (hào, vast) as well as 囯, 大, 東 and 平. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you get used to hearing Chinese men's and women's names, you will become better at guessing which is which. Some sounds and combinations of sounds are more common in one than the other, although that would be too complex to list here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in Chinese there are no formal rules about names, and any family can name their child whatever they like, even if the name does not match the child's gender. So there is no definitive way to identify a person's gender from their name -- not even for Chinese people themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastEditorUserId="12420" LastEditDate="2018-08-07T16:51:24.240" LastActivityDate="2018-08-07T16:51:24.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31006" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31017" CreationDate="2018-08-07T16:57:17.493" Score="1" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Looking for a Chinese expression that means something like &quot;go out early and return early&quot; or &quot;the sooner you leave, the sooner you can come back&quot;. It expresses a wish for a person who is leaving the house (e.g. for work) to return in a timely manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought it was 早去早回來, but I can't find a reference for this. The only similar phrase I could find was 早出晚歸, which has a very different meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T11:48:24.710" Title="Chinese expression for &quot;go out early and return early&quot;" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31007" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-08T00:51:25.203" Score="0" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese variant of the expression &quot;and the list goes on and on&quot; or something simillar to it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18260" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T13:47:04.127" Title="Is there a Chinese variant of the expression &quot;and the list goes on and on“" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31007" CreationDate="2018-08-08T02:20:10.010" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a 成语 expressing this meaning：不胜枚举&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20155" LastActivityDate="2018-08-08T02:20:10.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31003" CreationDate="2018-08-08T03:12:25.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no original meaning of 沖 that means &quot;vessel&quot; or &quot;pour into&quot;. &quot;Pour against&quot; as a later extension, maybe...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说文 is pretty clear that 沖 means to &quot;surge up and shake extensively&quot;, i.e. to &quot;gush&quot; (of water).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also this phrase in pre-Han text: &quot;盈而不沖&quot;. &quot;Fill up but not gush&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Supposedly, there are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chineseclassic.com/content/1617&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;two original versions&lt;/a&gt; of the passage in question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帛書甲本：□□□□□□□盈也，潚呵始萬物之宗。銼其解其紛，和其□，同□□□□□或存，吾不知□子也，象帝之先。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帛書乙本：道沖而用之有弗盈也，潚呵似萬物之宗。銼其兌，解其芬，和其光，同其塵，湛呵似或存。吾不知其誰之子也，象帝之先。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your quote is already a slightly edited paraphrase. If we are to stay faithful to what is literally written, we may translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道沖而用之有弗盈也，潚呵似萬物之宗 ... 湛呵似或存 = The Law gushes and administers whatever is not filled up, a deep reservoir as if the source of all things ... a flood as if something is alive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20138" LastActivityDate="2018-08-08T03:12:25.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31006" CreationDate="2018-08-08T03:38:03.753" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;早死早超生&lt;/code&gt;负面情绪多一点，&lt;code&gt;早死早投胎&lt;/code&gt;更多正能量的表达。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17075" LastActivityDate="2018-08-08T03:38:03.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31011" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-08T05:09:14.127" Score="5" ViewCount="1929" Body="&lt;p&gt;(rèn shí ) both characters means ( to know)and when combined it still have the same meaning. &#xA;So why can't I use only one of them ?&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oqF1U.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20219" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T15:41:38.440" Title="Why use combined characters that have the same meaning?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31011" CreationDate="2018-08-08T06:03:58.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please read this post: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22253/%e8%ae%a4%e8%af%86-vs-%e7%9f%a5%e9%81%93-based-on-glyph-origins&quot;&gt;认识 vs 知道 based on glyph origins&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 认 and 识 has other meanings beside &quot;recognize&quot;, just using 认 or just using 识 might mean something other than &quot;&lt;strong&gt;recognize&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put them together to form a specific term can remove ambiguity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for coining compound words is to turn general characters into specific words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-08-08T06:03:58.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31011" CreationDate="2018-08-08T06:30:41.260" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes they are used by themselves (it depends on the word), e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你能&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B8%AE%E5%8A%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;帮助&lt;/a&gt;我吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你能&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B8%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;帮&lt;/a&gt;我吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Can you help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They're often used in single-character forms in Chinese idioms, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/chengyu/dictionary/detail/14855.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;六亲不认&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/chengyu/dictionary/detail/2006.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不识时务&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my (only a learner) experience, the main reason seems to be that &lt;strong&gt;it's hard to understand sentences with single-character words&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;认 and 任 are pronounced the same, and 识 is pronounced the same as 时, 实, and 十, so it's harder to deduce which character is being spoken.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;认 and 识 also combine with other Chinese characters, e.g. 认为 and 知识, so it's harder to distinguish where word boundaries occur.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But on top of this, the usage of the double-character word may be different.  An example of this is &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B8%AE%E5%BF%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;帮忙&lt;/a&gt; which is a noun for &quot;help&quot;, whereas &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B8%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;帮&lt;/a&gt; is a verb for &quot;help&quot;.  Another example is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%88%9A%E6%89%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;刚才&lt;/a&gt;吃饭。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%88%9A/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;刚&lt;/a&gt;吃饭。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%88%9A%E6%89%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;刚才&lt;/a&gt;我吃饭。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Just now, I ate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 刚我吃饭 is not correct (because &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%88%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;刚&lt;/a&gt; is an adverb).  So if we arbitrarily interchange 刚 and 刚才, we will break the grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the English is only an approximate translation, and in Chinese these words that translate to the same thing are slightly different.  They're the closest we have to the underlying meanings of 认识, 认, and 识.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-08-08T06:30:41.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31015" CreationDate="2018-08-08T06:51:05.260" Score="0" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the HSK4上 Standard Course workbook, the first practice exam has this problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UioCz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UioCz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;49. An image of a bridge and groom and the word 幸福, 50. An image of a man and a woman smiling towards each other while shopping.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a 用词造句 (&quot;use the word to make a sentence&quot;) problem.  I came up with these sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我妹妹十一月会结婚，太&lt;strong&gt;幸福&lt;/strong&gt;了！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  My younger sister will get married in November, too happy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们&lt;strong&gt;俩&lt;/strong&gt;今天在商店一起买新衣服了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Those two bought new clothes at the shop today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just made this up off the top of my head when sitting the practice exam, and I'm not sure what to think about my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping for a critique of the sentences, and possibly some comments as to if this is the kind of thing the examiners are looking for along with some techniques for these types of questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How are my sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T08:52:48.937" Title="How are my 用词造句 (&quot;use the word to make a sentence&quot;) sentences using 幸福 and 俩?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31014" CreationDate="2018-08-08T10:04:29.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我妹妹十一月会结婚，太&#xA;  幸福了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们俩今天在商店一起买新衣服了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, both of your sentences are ok grammatically. The first one can be improved if you replace 会 with 要. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我妹妹十一月&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;结婚，太幸福了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要 sounds more emotional than 会 in this context. 会 is a bit &quot;&lt;strong&gt;objective&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, less &lt;strong&gt;sentimental&lt;/strong&gt;.  In this sentence, you want to express the &lt;strong&gt;excitement&lt;/strong&gt;(indicated by 太幸福了！), so 要 is fit better. It's like saying, 我妹妹要结婚了！ 太幸福了！！！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-08-08T10:13:29.613" LastActivityDate="2018-08-08T10:13:29.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31016" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-08T11:05:26.537" Score="1" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, for one glyth (ex.: 御) there many variant forms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some sources list 䘖䘘禦 as variants, &lt;a href=&quot;http://glyphwiki.org/wiki/u5fa1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;others&lt;/a&gt; say that all of the glyths in string 御䘖䘘䢩禦衘馭 are variants of 御. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a reliable source where I can find all (or most of) the variants for a given glyth. I need only CHARS, that is those you can type with in modern PC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2018-08-08T12:15:20.043" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T08:45:48.463" Title="Where to find all/most variants of a glyth?" Tags="&lt;character-variant&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31006" CreationDate="2018-08-08T12:15:11.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;早去早回 means exactly what you want as &quot;go out early and return early&quot; or &quot;the sooner you leave, the sooner you can come back&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早出晚归 means &quot;go out early and return late&quot; which is always used to describe a person work hard and busy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-08-08T12:26:27.280" LastActivityDate="2018-08-08T12:26:27.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31016" CreationDate="2018-08-08T12:17:36.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;i would use 教育部異體字字典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/home.do&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/home.do&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's authoritative, and most comprehensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg 御 (u+5fa1), it listed 37 variants :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QTAxMjk1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QTAxMjk1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-08-08T12:17:36.483" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31007" CreationDate="2018-08-08T12:24:35.623" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There might be many expressions in different cases. The most common one should be:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;等 or 等等： etc.; and so on&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那里有很多气球，红色、橙色、绿色、蓝色、白色等等，各种颜色。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-08-08T12:24:35.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31020" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31021" CreationDate="2018-08-08T17:32:47.727" Score="0" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm attempting to create a small, multi-lingual multiplayer game that uses a single-character alphanumerical ordering system. For example, the player's rank would start at their language's first numeric character (0), continue from the last numeric character (9) to the first alphabetical character (A), and finally to the last alphabetical character (Z).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This works for Russian (0-9,А-Ш), Arabic (ض-أ,٠-٩), and even Japanese (〇-九,あ-は). However, now the time has come to include Mandarin, and although 0-9 is easy enough to translate (〇-九, same as Japanese), it is complicated by the language not having an alphabet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the sources I was looking at simply used Mandarin characters to &quot;build&quot; the alphabet (诶,比,西,迪...), but this uses multiple characters (L built as 艾勒, W built as 豆贝尔维). A few other sources suggested using strokes and pinyin(s?) for ordering, but all cited a Wikipedia article about Chinese Indexing (which, of course, had no citations or examples), and had no actual chart or anything that showed the progression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how does one create such an &quot;alphabetical&quot; system in Mandarin, and have it understood by both fluent and new speakers that it has a definite order (eg. each character is &quot;lower&quot; value than the character before it)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20222" LastActivityDate="2018-08-08T21:45:24.157" Title="Mandarin Chinese Alphanumerical Ordering" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31020" CreationDate="2018-08-08T21:45:24.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd use the 10 heavenly stems (天干):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 - A - 甲&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2 - B - 乙&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3 - C - 丙&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4 - D - 丁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5 - E - 戊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;6 - F - 己&lt;br&gt;&#xA;7 - G - 庚&lt;br&gt;&#xA;8 - H - 辛&lt;br&gt;&#xA;9 - I - 壬&lt;br&gt;&#xA;10 - J - 癸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-08-08T21:45:24.157" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31022" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31025" CreationDate="2018-08-09T03:19:19.620" Score="0" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from the children's book 七色花:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tusXEm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tusXEm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她一面走着，一面向旁边张望着，念着招牌上的字，...&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;As she walked, she looked sideways and read the words on the signboard ... [&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#zh-CN/en/%E5%A5%B9%E4%B8%80%E9%9D%A2%E8%B5%B0%E7%9D%80%EF%BC%8C%E4%B8%80%E9%9D%A2%E5%90%91%E6%97%81%E8%BE%B9%E5%BC%A0%E6%9C%9B%E7%9D%80%EF%BC%8C%E5%BF%B5%E7%9D%80%E6%8B%9B%E7%89%8C%E4%B8%8A%E7%9A%84%E5%AD%97%EF%BC%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering how 一面向 breaks down.  I'm confused because there's multiple possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E4%B8%80%E9%9D%A2/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一面&lt;/a&gt; (yī miàn) = &amp;quot;one side&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%9D%A2%E5%90%91/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;面向&lt;/a&gt; (miàn xiàng) = &amp;quot;face&amp;quot; (in the sense of facing a certain direction)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%90%91%E6%97%81%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;向旁边&lt;/a&gt; (xiàng pángbiān) = &amp;quot;sideways&amp;quot;, or perhaps &amp;quot;to the side&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There also seems to be a grammar structure in play here: 一面[something],一面[something else].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How does 一面向 break down in this snippet?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T04:35:38.687" Title="How does 一面向 break down in 她一面走着，一面向旁边张望着?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31011" CreationDate="2018-08-09T03:56:28.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the same reason you say &quot;come back&quot; instead of just &quot;back&quot; - it's just how the language is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, even more comically, you wouldn't say &quot;pro&quot; instead of &quot;protrude&quot; in English, why require such brevity from modern Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese likes bi-syllabic &quot;words&quot;, if you want each character to be used for one separate &quot;word&quot;, look into 文言文.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T03:56:28.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31022" CreationDate="2018-08-09T04:28:05.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.cn/dp/B001198GSW&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;现代汉语八百词&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;code&gt;一面……一面……&lt;/code&gt; is used to indicate two or more actions are performed simultaneously. They are used before a verb. The first &lt;code&gt;一面&lt;/code&gt; can sometimes be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breaking it down from your sentence, you'll get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;她一面[Adv.] 走着[V]，一面[Adv.] 向旁边[Adv.] 张望着[V]&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means &quot;As she walked, she looked sideways&quot; (the same as you translated). Other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他们&lt;strong&gt;一面&lt;/strong&gt;走，&lt;strong&gt;一面&lt;/strong&gt;挥舞花环，&lt;strong&gt;一面&lt;/strong&gt;欢呼。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;他（&lt;strong&gt;一面&lt;/strong&gt;）用心地听着，&lt;strong&gt;一面&lt;/strong&gt;记着笔记。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a side note, though. &lt;code&gt;一面……一面……&lt;/code&gt; could also mean &lt;code&gt;一方面……一方面……&lt;/code&gt;, which means &quot;on one side ..., on the other side ...&quot;. Usually &lt;code&gt;另&lt;/code&gt; is added on the second &lt;code&gt;一面&lt;/code&gt; on this construction, e.g:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;说明书土&lt;strong&gt;一面&lt;/strong&gt;印的是中文，&lt;strong&gt;另一面&lt;/strong&gt;印的是英文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T04:28:05.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31022" CreationDate="2018-08-09T04:35:38.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, as you suspected, the structure “一面....一面...” is in play, and the snippet should be understood as “她 一面 走着，&lt;strong&gt;一面 向&lt;/strong&gt;旁边 张望着。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure “一面...一面...” is used to associate two verbs when the subject performs them at the same time, in this sense it is the same as the structure “一边...一边...”：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她&lt;strong&gt;一面&lt;/strong&gt;走着，&lt;strong&gt;一面&lt;/strong&gt;向旁边张望着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她&lt;strong&gt;一边&lt;/strong&gt;走着，&lt;strong&gt;一边&lt;/strong&gt;向旁边张望着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two sentences both express:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She looks around &lt;strong&gt;while&lt;/strong&gt; walking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T04:35:38.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31011" CreationDate="2018-08-09T05:36:54.613" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sources back to ancient times in China when spoken and written languages are in different forms (after Qin). Back then, only a small portion of Chinese people know how to write, while most Chinese people can only speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the development of the Chinese language, written language became closer and closer to spoken language, transforming from WenYan（文言文） to BaiHua （白话）. In spoken language, people like to use bi-syllable words because it is easier to understand since there're many homophones. So written language inherit this pattern during its development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese, people are used to this kind of expression, so it seems outdated or 'show off your WenYan skills' when you only use one character to express its meaning. Also, there're fixed rules that you must follow because of habits. However, you can still found some traces of ancient Chinese usage in Cantonese. I can't give an example here because I'm not an expert of Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The evolution of BaiHua can be found on this Wikipedia page: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20224" LastEditorUserId="20224" LastEditDate="2018-08-09T05:47:39.460" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T05:47:39.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29172" CreationDate="2018-08-09T06:17:31.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, as a native speaker I can tell you, the usage of these 异形词 is not dependent on regions or moods(at least to my observation), instead it is purely semantic or conventional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, it is very unfortunate that, although some of the pairs are totally interchangeable, like the “嘟囔-嘟哝” pair you mentioned, but some are NOT. Some pairs of 异形词 DO have similar but different meanings, these differences usually lie in &lt;strong&gt;emotional tendencies&lt;/strong&gt;, and some are used to &lt;strong&gt;describe different things&lt;/strong&gt;, and in some pairs one word &lt;strong&gt;suggests different information&lt;/strong&gt; than the other one does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, Chinese high school test paper makers like to use such pairs to baffle students, here’s a classic one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;煊赫(xuān hè) 烜赫(xuan3 hè) 显赫(xian3 hè)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They all say one is very famous, or one’s social status is very distinguished, the difference is the former two are somewhat disapproval, and the last one is neutral and most widely used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You mentioned &lt;code&gt;直爽-直率&lt;/code&gt;,  they do have a similar meaning but they are used to describe different things. “直爽” is used to describe a kind of personality, “直率” is used to describe a style of speech (that is direct and frank). So you can say a “直率” way of speech is included in a “直爽的” personality. But yeah they can interchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in some pairs, words carry different information. For example: &lt;code&gt;贫困-贫苦&lt;/code&gt;have a similar meaning, but the former one means only “poor”, the latter not only “poor” but also “live a bitter life”. &lt;code&gt;挣钱-赚钱&lt;/code&gt; both mean “to earn money”, but the former one emphasizes “to earn money with labor, work and struggle”, the latter one means merely “to get money”. To this end, we say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;投资股票非常&lt;strong&gt;赚钱&lt;/strong&gt;。Investing in stocks is very profitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要努力&lt;strong&gt;挣钱&lt;/strong&gt;。I must struggle to earn money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this kind of situation usually it’s OK to interchange but the result might look weird to a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some pairs mean very differently. In &lt;code&gt;不负(fù)众望-不孚(fú)众望&lt;/code&gt;, the former means “one did not fail people’s expectations”, but the latter means exactly the opposite: “one failed people’s expectations”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, there isn’t a set of rules to which one can decide whether a pair is interchangeable or not, but luckily in most cases people can understand you, and if you expose yourself enough to these ambiguities, slowly you can tell the differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T06:17:31.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30984" CreationDate="2018-08-09T06:30:50.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that 校 is a short form of 学校. While 学 has a longer history of representing the meaning of 'school'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Han Dynasty, the highest educational institution is called 太学, which is in Changan, the capital. In provinces and counties, there're 郡学，州学，府学，县学, which are regional educational institutions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The modern word 大学(university) is from early 20th century when universities were named 大学堂 or 大学校. So I believe 学 in 大学 is just a short form. Similarly, there're 中学 and 小学, which use a similar structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20224" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T06:30:50.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30802" CreationDate="2018-08-09T06:52:15.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the top characters, I think the person is educated and know how to write 瓶. My guess is that there's simply not enough room, or whoever writes this is lazy. This is not one of the second round of simplified characters. Option 2 is the answer, it is incorrect, and the writer expects ppl to understand it within the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20224" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T06:52:15.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30776" CreationDate="2018-08-09T07:15:49.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you need to parse the sentence like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;尝尝\他们的\盐一样咸的\咸菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there's a missing pronoun in the third part. The author omits the pronoun to emphasize the first character 盐. The complete expression should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(和/与/跟)盐一样咸的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the meaning of the above slice of the sentence is clear. 跟+noun.+一样+adj means &quot;the same + adj. + as + noun.&quot;. The last 的 means this short phrase is the attribute of 咸菜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @dan has said, people generally don't use two attributes consecutively. However, when they use, they have a purpose. From the paragraph, I can understand the author is trying to describe the daily life of some countryside people. Here the author uses two attributes for &lt;strong&gt;emphasis&lt;/strong&gt;. This pickle must've left a great impression on the author. In addition, though pickle as salty as salt should taste bad, but the author still enjoys this, which means countryside life is hard, but the author treasures it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20224" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T07:15:49.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30776" CreationDate="2018-08-09T15:09:07.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;【盐一样咸】is a literature analogy that using some sort of local dialect composition, as you already catch its meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is grammatically correct, though it is not to the liking of some &quot;grammar teacher&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike Latin, Mandarin is a living language. The language is evolve and also absorbing various regional language diverse habitual usage, after all, the landscape(9.6 million sq km) is as big as the whole Europe continent (10.18 mllions sq km). Such &quot;awkward&quot; composition is quite normal in mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though English speaker are not familiar with such analogy,  &quot;salt salty pickles&quot; is pretty close. I am not surprise if some other language use similar analogy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T15:09:07.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31032" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31034" CreationDate="2018-08-09T22:24:07.550" Score="4" ViewCount="393" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 网上 and 在线 mean &quot;online&quot;.&#xA;What is the difference between 网上 and 在线?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20229" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T14:31:08.283" Title="What is the difference between 网上 and 在线?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31011" CreationDate="2018-08-09T22:33:52.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;See Sections 5-6 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lingref.com/cpp/decemb/5/paper1617.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this paper&lt;/a&gt; for theories of how compounding and disyllabicization occurred together in Chinese. There is a long history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20138" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T22:33:52.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31032" CreationDate="2018-08-09T23:30:43.750" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Specifically, although “网上” and “在线” can be both translated as &quot;oline&quot;, “网上” actually means &quot;on the internet&quot;, “在线” means &quot;online&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在网上找到了这篇文章。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means, I found this article &lt;strong&gt;online&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的 QQ 是在线的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means, the status of my QQ is &lt;strong&gt;online&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although they were both translated to &quot;online&quot;, I bet you can see the difference there with actual examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-08-10T14:31:08.283" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T14:31:08.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31035" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31036" CreationDate="2018-08-10T02:31:43.320" Score="1" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vDeYo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vDeYo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was written by a relative of mine, Ahn Jung-Geun &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20230" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T11:44:02.003" Title="Can someone translate this Chinese calligraphy into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31035" CreationDate="2018-08-10T02:55:14.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Main text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一日不讀書口中生荊棘&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Thorns will grow in your mouth if you go one day without reading/studying.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(하루라도 책을 읽지 않으면 입속에 가시가 돋는다)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;庚戌三月 扵旅順獄中 大韓國人 安重根 書&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Third month of &lt;strong&gt;庚戌&lt;/strong&gt; (1910), Imprisoned at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCshunkou_District&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Port Arthur&lt;/a&gt;, (written by) Ahn Jung-Geun, Citizen of the Korean Empire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-08-10T04:26:17.260" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T04:26:17.260" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31032" CreationDate="2018-08-10T03:07:09.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;在线 is more for instant messenger like facebook/whatsapp status that you are online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;网上 is for website elements, for example, an online forum, online application.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19342" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T03:07:09.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31016" CreationDate="2018-08-10T08:45:48.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've found even more unicode variants for 御&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圄敔禦衘䘘䢩馭御䘖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, that sucks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;source:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tls.uni-hd.de/main/basic_ch_char.lasso&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tls.uni-hd.de/main/basic_ch_char.lasso&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;That's a pretty thorough DataBase, I must admit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T08:45:48.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31040" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-10T12:25:54.410" Score="2" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, you can use 博士的博 to indicate the character 博 instead of other bó. Like a for apple or b for baby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about for the character 格, what do most Chinese people commonly use in practice to indicate / address the character 格 instead of other characters that represents the same sound gé?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note I'm asking in the context of when someone is trying to spell a word to another person that is writing what he listening to. And that word coincidentally contains the character 博. Using what word would you address it since the characater 博 doesn't have an official name of its own in chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regards,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20135" LastEditorUserId="20135" LastEditDate="2018-08-10T12:50:17.470" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T20:08:53.440" Title="What to use when referring to the character 格" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31040" CreationDate="2018-08-10T12:36:18.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Search 格 by Chinese word. You will find many compound words with 格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following are the most common ones&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;風格, 品格, 人格, 嚴格, 資格, 價格, 規格, 體格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 風格的格, 品格的格 ... and so on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use terms like 格局, 格鬥, 格調, 格式. To clarify which character you meant to say, the examples you used just need to contain 格, it doesn't matter where it is in a compound word  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make it extra clear, you can even use four characters idioms like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'格' as in &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/48648/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;格格不入&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'格' as in &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/48648/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;別具一格&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-08-10T20:08:53.440" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T20:08:53.440" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13243" CreationDate="2018-08-10T14:15:14.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about some emoji?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哈哈 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呵呵 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘻嘻 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘿嘿 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20062" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T14:15:14.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31044" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-10T18:22:08.887" Score="1" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;麼 Occurs repeatedly in later Tang and early Song Dynasty Buddhist texts. Does anyone know of its Buddhist meaning, most translators disregard it. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20235" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T16:03:10.623" Title="Help with Buddhist meaning of 麼" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31045" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-10T21:18:29.333" Score="-4" ViewCount="453" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to use Chinese writing of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.erobee.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Erobee&lt;/a&gt; in my logo. Does someone tell me please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20236" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T17:41:01.290" Title="How do i write Erobee in Chinesse?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-07-03T09:10:24.823" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31045" CreationDate="2018-08-11T04:45:39.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Ero&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ero&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A derivation of &amp;quot;erotic&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bee = 蜜蜂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Erobee obviously means &amp;quot;erotic bee&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 春 in Chinese is often associated with 'erotic'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春畫/春宮畫 = erotic painting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春藥 = aphrodisiac&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春霄 = night of passionate, tender love&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;春蜂&lt;/strong&gt;'would be a good translation for the 'Erobee' brand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another Character associate with 'erotic' is '艷'(beautiful) as in '冶艷' (sexy) or '妖艷'(&lt;strong&gt;flirtatious&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'艷蜂' would be a better name  for a commercial product&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T17:41:01.290" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31014" CreationDate="2018-08-11T08:52:48.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mix it up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝愿照片里的夫妻俩永远幸福！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他俩正在幸福地逛着商场。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T08:52:48.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31048" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-11T09:15:17.010" Score="2" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was casually browsing Chinese artist blog, and the artist states that he/she uses 圆珠笔 签名笔 and 水笔 as medium for art.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know what a ballpoint pen is. However, I am not sure what kind of pen is 签名笔. Is it a fountain ink pen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, I am very confuse about the term 水笔, since I thought it refers to watercolor. However, when I search pictures on internet, only pen pictures appear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15622" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-30T22:59:41.673" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T22:59:41.673" Title="What kind of pen/brush do 水笔 and 签名笔 refer to?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31048" CreationDate="2018-08-11T09:47:30.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know what is 签名笔, i only know about 签字笔, which could be a general term to refer those kind of pen being used to sign, but native speakers may use this word to refer &lt;em&gt;gel ink pen&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水笔 could be used to refer to paintbrushes, but in some dialect it also a name for &lt;em&gt;pen&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T09:47:30.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31050" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-11T10:41:22.733" Score="3" ViewCount="498" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 收了 and 收到了?&#xA;1. We say 我收了他的錢&#xA;2. But we don't say 我收了他的信, We say我收到他的信了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When do we use 收了 and 收到了? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20241" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T04:36:22.857" Title="What is the difference between 收了 and 收到了?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31050" CreationDate="2018-08-11T11:13:00.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我收到了他的信。/ 我收到他的信了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I have received his letter.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 收到了 usually indicates that something I received that was sent by other people actively. I just get it passively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我收了他的钱。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I took his money. /  I accepted his money.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 收了 just means I get his money. But you cannot tell whether the money is given by him actively or the money is given by my demand/request.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="19936" LastEditDate="2018-08-12T04:36:22.857" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T04:36:22.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31035" CreationDate="2018-08-11T11:44:02.003" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;这句话想表达的意思是：不读书就不会说话或说不出精彩的话。&#xA;类似于宋朝的名言“三日不读书，面目可憎” 。几天不读书，就感觉自己很很粗鄙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20242" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T11:44:02.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31006" CreationDate="2018-08-11T11:48:24.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;有一句成语非常适合这种场景“归心似箭”。它的意思是，想要回家的愿望如同射出的箭一样强烈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20242" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T11:48:24.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31050" CreationDate="2018-08-11T12:19:00.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, the word 到 indicates some form of completion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我找到了我的鞋子&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I found my shoes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我收到了他的信&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I received his letter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases, some action began (searching and sending, respectively) which then came to a completion (finding and receiving, respectively).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the statement 我收了他的钱 implies that you received money, but not through an active, time-consuming process. You just took the money. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18999" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T12:19:00.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31055" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-11T20:22:15.617" Score="1" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you please correct my text ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然我会说一口流利的法语，但是我想说一口流利的汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的职业 是律师。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;律师 的责任很大，因为他必须解决严重得实情。然后压力大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可是在巴黎 律师逐渐增加。 因此招聘越来越少。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20244" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-24T14:30:43.387" LastActivityDate="2020-07-24T14:30:43.387" Title="Could you please correct my sentences?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31055" CreationDate="2018-08-12T03:35:18.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The a versions are acceptable I'm told. 2 needed no changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;虽然我会说一口流利的法语，但是我想说一口流利的汉语。(illogical 虽然。。。但是。。。)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1a. 我已经会说一口流利的法语，我希望我的汉语能像我的法语一样流利。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我的职业是律师。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;律师的责任很大，因为他必须解决严重得实情。然后压力大。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3a. 作为律师，我的压力很大，责任很重，因为律师总得解决严重的事情。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可是在巴黎 律师逐渐增加。 因此招聘越来越少。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4a. 在巴黎律师的数量越来越多，因此工作机会越来越少。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T03:35:18.967" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31057" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31065" CreationDate="2018-08-12T05:54:05.000" Score="0" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 着 indicate in this sentence : &quot;只要看着你&quot; (I just want to look at you) indicate/mean? (This sentence is from a song called &quot;Baby&quot;, sung by EXO-M. Since it comes from a song, the sentence might be shortened and could possibly lose some parts like subject, etc. Idk tho).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, aside of that sentence, is there any other usage of 着?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-08-12T06:24:43.207" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T06:04:46.537" Title="着 meaning in 只要看着你" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31058" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31060" CreationDate="2018-08-12T09:25:17.527" Score="0" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the children's book 七色花, the girl 珍妮 (Jenny) instructs the magic flower as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吩咐吧，叫我马上到北极！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Fēnfù ba, jiào wǒ mǎshàng dào běijí!&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Command it, call me to the North Pole right away! [&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#zh-CN/en/%E5%90%A9%E5%92%90%E5%90%A7%EF%BC%8C%E5%8F%AB%E6%88%91%E9%A9%AC%E4%B8%8A%E5%88%B0%E5%8C%97%E6%9E%81%EF%BC%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(See &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.douban.com/note/87180864/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;DouBan&lt;/a&gt; for text.)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From context, the girl is asking the magic flower to teleport her to the North Pole.  However, I'm perplexed as to why &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8F%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;叫&lt;/a&gt; (jiào; &quot;call&quot;, &quot;cry&quot;) is used here.  Google Translate also seems perplexed.  I have never seen it used in this way before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 叫 (&quot;call&quot;) in 叫我马上到北极?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching for &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/example/blng/eng/%E5%8F%AB_%E5%88%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;叫 到&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; at YouDao gives sentences like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你最好&lt;strong&gt;叫&lt;/strong&gt;他们&lt;strong&gt;到&lt;/strong&gt;这儿来 (&quot;you'd better ask them round here&quot;), and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他把我&lt;strong&gt;叫到&lt;/strong&gt;他的办公室 (&quot;he called me into his room&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so it looks like 叫 has a meaning I'm not aware of, something between &quot;instruct&quot; and &quot;invite&quot;, comparable to &quot;called for dinner&quot;.  But it seems strange for the girl to &quot;call&quot; herself to the North Pole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T23:47:35.427" Title="Why is 叫 (&quot;call&quot;) in 叫我马上到北极?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31007" CreationDate="2018-08-12T13:47:04.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Outside of the common 等等, it seems like 诸如此类 and 诸如...之类 match your request. Native speakers, please correct me if I'm wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11896" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T13:47:04.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31058" CreationDate="2018-08-12T15:26:25.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;叫 (call/ tell) also contains the meanings of &amp;quot;order/ command/ make&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;吩咐吧，叫我马上到北极！&amp;quot; can be translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Give the &lt;strong&gt;order&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;command&lt;/strong&gt; me to go to the North Pole immediately!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Give the &lt;strong&gt;orde&lt;/strong&gt;r, &lt;strong&gt;make&lt;/strong&gt; me go to the North Pole immediately!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T15:26:25.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31058" CreationDate="2018-08-12T15:28:29.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many common characters can have a lot different meannings, for “叫”, according to 现代汉语规范词典，it could mean the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;v. shout&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like 叫喊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;v. sound made by animal or device&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like 鸡不停地叫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;v. call&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like 把下一个人叫进来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;v. call people to deliver&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like 我们再叫几个菜吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;v. command or order&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like 我妈叫我少吃点肉 or &lt;strong&gt;叫我马上到北极&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;v. allow or let&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like 我不叫你走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;prep. by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like 别叫人笑话你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;v. known as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like 这东西叫做什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;adj. oral. male livestock (whose sound could be big)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like 叫驴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T15:28:29.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31063" CreationDate="2018-08-12T17:52:57.867" Score="4" ViewCount="718" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the characters on this seal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eg1wW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eg1wW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Flipped image for easier reading:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g9hqx.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g9hqx.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13362" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T13:55:26.507" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T13:55:26.507" Title="What are the characters on this seal? (Characters identified: 李濟懋印)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31062" CreationDate="2018-08-12T19:08:30.843" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to venture a guess. I think these characters (&lt;em&gt;mirror them&lt;/em&gt; before you read of course) should read 李濟懋印, meaning this seal was a private one that belonged to the person known as 李濟懋 (or 李济懋 in simplified Chinese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several points we can take note of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What script are these characters in:  imo most likely they are in an early form of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;seal script&lt;/a&gt;, maybe the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bronze inscription&lt;/a&gt;, or somewhere between. However their curvature isn't sufficiently smooth, hence distinguishing them from the standardised seal script later established in the 秦(Qin) dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which order to read in: it is well known that traditional Chinese characters read from right to left and top to bottom. But in Chinese seals, it's also quite typical to read the characters counter-clockwise starting from the top right character. In this image such a counter-clockwise order is confirmed by the placement of the two characters 李(top right) and 印(bottom right), because 李 as a surname must be the start and 印 meaning &quot;seal&quot; must be the end. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8190" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T19:08:30.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31058" CreationDate="2018-08-12T23:47:35.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;叫&lt;/strong&gt;我马上到北极!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 叫 in this context means &lt;strong&gt;ask&lt;/strong&gt;. So, &lt;em&gt;ask me to go to the North Pole right away!&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a colloquial usage. The formal word is 让.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他叫我去找他 // he asked me to go find him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T23:47:35.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31057" CreationDate="2018-08-13T06:04:46.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trashy lyrics.  Take out the 着 changes the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只要看著你 Once I see you / Whenever I see you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;只要看你 I just want to see you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no sense of continuous action, rather, repetitive occurrence, he is saying, 'Any (and every) time I see you, I remember the time we met.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;LuHan:停不住 我鼓足勇气去爱 can't stop I('ve got to) keep up the courage to love&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lay:只要看著你 just need to look at you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lay:画面 倒回被命运击中的一刻 (and I) picture the moment destiny brought us together &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我听见一个梦从银河降落 I heard a dream descend from the milky way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 is used a lot in Chinese, but I find it mostly does not correspond to what is called 'the continuous aspect' in Western grammar, although it may in certain situations. So you should not just think, 'Aha, 着 = -ing.' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Cf: 小王的眼睛闭着，Xiao Wang’s eyes were closed, (not 'closing') If 'closed' is 'continuous aspect' what is Past Tense?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence talks about a big old bird, which 'lived', not 'is living', a long time ago. In English, the so-called Present Tense mostly fulfills the task of indicating continuous action: I live in South America.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在6500万年前至250万年前的南美洲大陆生活着一种身体高达3米、 体重500公斤、不能飞翔的鸟类。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T06:04:46.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31066" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-13T13:12:14.503" Score="3" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I'm not a native chinese, I need to confirm this with one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the character 瑞 would it be awkward if I refer to / address it when spelling a word to another person using 瑞士的瑞 ---&gt; &quot;Switzerland's Ruì&quot; ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瑞士 has the highest rank of frequent word that has the character 瑞 in it..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please CMIIW&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20135" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T18:29:40.863" Title="Using 瑞士的瑞 to address the character 瑞" Tags="&lt;spelling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31066" CreationDate="2018-08-13T13:33:56.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not awkward at all. It is in fact a common way to refer to 瑞. Another option is using 瑞雪兆丰年的瑞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-08-13T18:29:40.863" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T18:29:40.863" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31066" CreationDate="2018-08-13T16:02:04.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;瑞 is a character mainly used in names.  And this is a common way to refer to 瑞 using names &quot;瑞士&quot;(Swiss), &quot;瑞典&quot;(Sweden).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In some province of China, you might be able to use the names of some important towns in the province. For example, 瑞丽)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T16:02:04.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31081" CreationDate="2018-08-13T17:05:00.180" Score="1" ViewCount="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;“我们一起去海滩吧！” or “让我们一起去海滩”???&#xA;*** I asked a native speaker about this the other day and he told me that using &quot;让&quot; sounds &quot;too serious&quot;. But then today when I asked another native speaker about this, he told me that it'd be just natural and fine to use &quot;让&quot; to express &quot;Let's...&quot;. Could someone please explain to me about the usage of 让? Is it really natural to use 让 to invite/persuade other to do something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T11:28:11.173" Title="Which one out of these two sentences is the most natural?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31069" CreationDate="2018-08-13T17:27:32.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;让我们... means let us... So, yes, it is a way to give suggestion. Of course you can use it but we do not use it as frequently as 我们一起去海滩吧！normally in verbal. Though they are both verbal ways, I will choose the first sentence. You can just think it omit 让.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T17:27:32.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31071" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31072" CreationDate="2018-08-13T17:30:00.997" Score="1" ViewCount="51" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chinese History: A New Manual, Fifth Edition&lt;/em&gt; by Endymion Wilkinson has a little note that says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For a longer joke about a junior official with poor &lt;em&gt;guanhua&lt;/em&gt; skills, see &lt;em&gt;Xitan xulu&lt;/em&gt; 嘻談續錄 (Ticklish tales, continued). &lt;em&gt;Xiaoshi daoren&lt;/em&gt; 小石道人, comp. eighteenth century; Columbia anthology (§30.7) 667.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;§30.7 is a section entitled &lt;strong&gt;Guides &amp;amp; Research Tools&lt;/strong&gt;, where the only thing that seems to match the title is this entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;8&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Mair, Victor H. ed. 1994. The Columbia anthology of traditional Chinese literature. ColUP. Four hundred translations by many hands. Canonical works of literature are well represented, but what makes this an unusually rich feast for browsing is that almost anything written in Chinese during the last 3,200 years is also sampled from divination records to philosophical texts to anonymous folk ballads and the marginal doodles of a copyist. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which seems to be this book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-columbia-anthology-of-traditional-chinese-literature/9780231074292&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature Edited by Victor H. Mair &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Books doesn't seem to have a scanned version and I can't find any other digital version online at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seems to be a chapter of Jokes that being on page 658 and run to page 670.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know the joke that is listed on page 667 of the book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-08-13T17:54:34.333" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T18:44:04.940" Title="What's the joke about Guanhua in Ticklish Tales Contiuned by Xiaoshi Daoren?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31071" CreationDate="2018-08-13T18:02:14.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that the &lt;a href=&quot;https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-shorter-columbia-anthology-of-traditional-chinese-literature/9780231505628&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Shorter Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature&lt;/a&gt; Edited by Victor H. Mair also contains the same joke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It begins on Page 437:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6v5u9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6v5u9.png&quot; alt=&quot;yes&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and continue on page 438&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wWIQT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wWIQT.png&quot; alt=&quot;no&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original Chinese would need to be dug up to make any sense of this translation though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversation Between a Senior Official and His Subordinate&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;from Sequel to Ticklish Tales&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Man of the Way from Smallstone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A District duty officer who had obtained his position through purchase did not understand Mandarin.&lt;sup&gt;10&lt;/sup&gt; After he took office, he paid a courtesy call upon a regional official who asked him, &amp;quot;What are the &lt;strong&gt;customs&lt;/strong&gt; like in your honorable district?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;People don't &lt;strong&gt;cuss&lt;/strong&gt; much there are there aren't many &lt;strong&gt;toms&lt;/strong&gt; either.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;How are the &lt;strong&gt;fingerlings&lt;/strong&gt; this year?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;Finger rings cost two hundred and eighty cash.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;Are there many contributions of &lt;strong&gt;gentry grain&lt;/strong&gt;?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;Your servants teeth &lt;strong&gt;gently gleam&lt;/strong&gt;.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;How are the &lt;strong&gt;commoners&lt;/strong&gt; getting on&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;We only have a couple of &lt;strong&gt;cum&lt;/strong&gt;min bushes, but there are lots of cinna&lt;strong&gt;mon&lt;/strong&gt; trees.&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;I was asking about the populace.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;We've got lots of &lt;strong&gt;poplars&lt;/strong&gt;, but they don't produce much timber.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&amp;quot;I wasn't asking you about threes and such. What I am trying to find out about is the condition of the &lt;strong&gt;citizens&lt;/strong&gt;.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Standing up hurriedly, the duty officer replied, &amp;quot;I regret to inform you, sir, that I have a face full of &lt;strong&gt;zits&lt;/strong&gt; and an arse full of &lt;strong&gt;wens&lt;/strong&gt;.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;10. Mandarin (&amp;lt; Sanskrit mantrin [“counselor”]) quite literally means “language of the officials.” The Mandarin equivalent of this word is kuan-hua (official speech). Mandarin was the vernacular language employed by members of the Chinese bureaucracy who hailed from different parts of the country and, as such, spoke a variety of more or less mutually unintelligible native languages and topolects. Mandarin was based upon—but not entirely equivalent to—the language of the capital, being a somewhat refined version of the latter. This joke, which is challenging to render in English, reveals the difficulties inherent in forging a national bureaucracy from a multilingual constituency.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently the original story in《嘻談續錄》is called《堂屬問答》and goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一捐班不懂官話，到任後，謁見各憲上司，問曰：「貴治風土何如？」答曰：「並無大風，更少塵土。」又問：「春花何如？」答曰：「今春棉花每斤二百八。」又問：「紳糧何如？」答曰：「卑職身量，足穿三尺六。」又問：「百姓何如？」答曰：「白杏只有兩棵，紅杏不少。」上憲曰：「我問的是黎庶。」答曰：「梨樹甚多，結果子甚小。」上憲曰：「我不是問什麼梨杏，我是問你的小民。」官忙站起來答曰：「卑職小名狗兒。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T18:44:04.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31073" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31075" CreationDate="2018-08-13T18:29:46.497" Score="2" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;How bad does it sound if I use &lt;code&gt;個&lt;/code&gt; for everything if most measure words are just still unknown to me, or I don't want to end up using a wrong one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3766" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T01:35:15.317" Title="Use 個 if the correct measure word is unknown" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31073" CreationDate="2018-08-14T01:33:32.757" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You &lt;strong&gt;should&lt;/strong&gt; learn those measure word one by one because most of native speakers don't use &quot;個&quot; for every nouns. But sometimes if you forget or don't know the word you should use, most people still know what you're referring to with the word &quot;個&quot; in most case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why I said in most case? Here's an example: (Actually, it's a joke.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The foreigners usually have a big trouble if they should use &quot;個&quot; and &quot;子&quot;. &quot;個&quot; is a measure word(量詞) when you have no idea which word you should use while &quot;子&quot; is something we add after a thing for better reading, like &quot;桌子&quot;, &quot;椅子&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, one day. Tom walked into a watch store and ask for a new watch: &quot;老闆，我想要買一個錶子。&quot;(Lao ban, wo xiang yao mai yi ge biao zi).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20062" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T01:33:32.757" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31076" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31077" CreationDate="2018-08-14T04:25:42.333" Score="2" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他找白如玉跟他在師大附近走走, 試試地圖好用不好用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My book translates this as:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He went to see Bai Ruyu and asked her to accompany him on a walk around NTNU to try out the map functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how my English brain is breaking the sentence down&#xA;[他找白如玉 - he looks for Bai Ruyu] (跟他 - with him) (在師大附近走走 - near shida walks)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confused how &quot;asked her&quot; is included in the Chinese? Also confused how the three above parts link together logically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20257" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T09:23:00.060" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T09:23:00.060" Title="Role/Grammar of 找 and 跟 in &quot;他找白如玉跟他在師大附近走走&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31076" CreationDate="2018-08-14T07:34:39.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他找白如玉跟他在師大附近走走, 試試地圖好用不好用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让她(ask her) is implied in this sentence. So, it can be reworded: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他找白如玉&lt;strong&gt;让她&lt;/strong&gt;跟他在師大附近走走, 試試地圖好用不好用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他找白如玉: he looks for 白如玉; 跟他: with him; 在師大附近: near/around shida; 走走: have a walk; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put all pieces together: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;he looks for 白如玉 to/and ask her to have a walk with him around Shida. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should be aware that sentence order between English and Chinese is quite different sometimes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help you out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T07:34:39.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31078" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31080" CreationDate="2018-08-14T09:37:15.617" Score="5" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;二 (èr) and 两 (liăng)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/755/number-two-in-chinese-%E4%BA%8C-vs-%E4%B8%A4&quot;&gt;I understand when to use which&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm curious to know why, and correct me if I'm wrong, this is the &lt;strong&gt;only number&lt;/strong&gt; that has 2 forms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20258" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T13:48:04.250" Title="Why number 2 has two forms?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31078" CreationDate="2018-08-14T11:02:36.147" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A counterexample: in the Min Dong topolects, there is a similar distribution for the numeral &quot;one&quot;, viz 一 and 蜀 (in Fuzhou, pronounced &lt;em&gt;ék&lt;/em&gt; /ɛiʔ²⁴/ and &lt;em&gt;siŏh&lt;/em&gt; /suoʔ⁵/ respectively). This is actually replicated across the other Min topolects (Min Nan has &lt;em&gt;it&lt;/em&gt; vs &lt;em&gt;chi̍t&lt;/em&gt;), although they are usually written with the same 一, especially in the Taiwan Ministry of Education standard for Taiwanese Hokkien. This comes from a well-known split between colloquial and literary pronunciations. For numbers above 10 however (11, 12, 21...) the literary pronunciations are generally used, even in counting before measure words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concentrating on the 二 vs 两 distinction: this seems to have emerged from Classical Chinese of the late Zhou, where it already had the meanings of &quot;both/pair&quot; (see the Analects), as well as starting to be a measure word for a chariot (see Mencius and the 詩經 Classic of Poetry). This is before most measure words have come into existence. Its use as a &quot;tael&quot; (measure of weight) is also ancient, but probably from a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/16379/484&quot;&gt;different derivation of the word&lt;/a&gt; (Min topolects have a separate pronunciation for this word).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So where did these two very different &quot;twos&quot; come from? &quot;Pair&quot; as a separate word to &quot;two&quot; is well-attested in many languages. But language change can bring such words together and cause them to change role. Here, it was likely the &lt;a href=&quot;https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1487856076411916&amp;amp;disposition=inline&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;development of the measure word system&lt;/a&gt; through the Qin &amp;amp; Han dynasties to the Song dynasty, where numerical 二 came into a system (associated with nouns) that 两 (as pair) was already associating with. Hence in this case, 两 was already in the role and won out, whereas other numerals (including 12, 22 etc. with 二) took on the &quot;measure word&quot; role for the first time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2018-08-14T13:48:04.250" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T13:48:04.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31069" CreationDate="2018-08-14T11:19:53.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“让我们一起去海滩” sounds more &lt;em&gt;formal&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;literary&lt;/em&gt; to my ear. I would expect to hear it from a formal speech. It sounds like you suggest that we have something meaningful to deal with in the beach. It's like, 让我们一起去海滩来见证这一历史性的时刻(let's move to the beach to witness this historic moment!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我们一起去海滩吧！” is a day-to-day phrasing and more conversational. So, use it in a casual speech. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, 让我们 is considered to be a &lt;em&gt;literary&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;formal&lt;/em&gt; device, and 让 is casually and habitually left out in colloquial contexts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-08-14T11:28:11.173" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T11:28:11.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9934" CreationDate="2018-08-14T11:20:57.073" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Speculations as to why &lt;em&gt;pigs&lt;/em&gt; rather than &lt;em&gt;cows&lt;/em&gt; form part of the character meaning &lt;em&gt;home&lt;/em&gt; comes from some misunderstandings about the characters. Specifically,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「家」 contains 「豕」 as a corrupted phonetic component rather than a semantic component;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「牢」 did not originally contain 「宀」, which is a corruption of a drawing of an &lt;em&gt;animal pen&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shuōwén&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;'s explanation of 「家」 is very close, and it traced the source of the phonetic hint of the character correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qn3q0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qn3q0.png&quot; alt=&quot;⿵宀&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;207&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=20268&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集20268&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「家」 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese?wprov=srpw1_0#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_%282014%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*kˤra/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;home/dwelling&lt;/em&gt;) was originally comprised of semantic &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=27023&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「宀」&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;em&gt;building&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic 「」 (also &lt;strong&gt;/*kˤra/&lt;/strong&gt;). In the character 「家」, 「」 was very early on corrupted into 「豕」, leading on to the modern form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zfytk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zfytk.png&quot; alt=&quot;家&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乙&lt;/a&gt;1047&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=13584&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集13584&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hJNzN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hJNzN.png&quot; alt=&quot;家&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Gong_ding&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;毛公鼎&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2841&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2841&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hi1U4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hi1U4.png&quot; alt=&quot;家&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;法&lt;/a&gt;106&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qmdQo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qmdQo.png&quot; alt=&quot;家&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「」 (&lt;em&gt;male pig&lt;/em&gt;) was originally a picture of a &lt;em&gt;pig&lt;/em&gt; 「豕」 with an emphasised reproductive organ, and this word is now written as 「豭」. The glyph evolution compared with 「豕」 is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c6NkK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c6NkK.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;京津&lt;/a&gt;1048&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=15346&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集15346&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CWLW2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CWLW2.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;頌鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2829&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2829&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NfI78.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NfI78.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77391&amp;amp;page=61&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;彑部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E9%9A%B6%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸定&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T6BBn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T6BBn.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EvGvh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EvGvh.png&quot; alt=&quot;豕&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;佚&lt;/a&gt;43&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=20723&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集20723&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sfvyN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sfvyN.png&quot; alt=&quot;豕&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;圅皇父簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4141&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4141&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kWhjZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kWhjZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;豕&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77391&amp;amp;page=59&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;豕部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x4wIA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x4wIA.png&quot; alt=&quot;豕&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;Yes, &lt;em&gt;Shuōwén&lt;/em&gt; is a source of some egregious graphical corruptions, and it simultaneously remains as one of the most important sources of modern character standardisation. It is a good starting point for character analysis that shouldn't at all be relied on.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shuōwén&lt;/em&gt;'s explanation,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“家，居也。从宀，豭省聲。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「家」 means &lt;em&gt;dwelling&lt;/em&gt;, and is comprised from semantic 「宀」 and abbreviated phonetic 「豭」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;correctly determined the vocabulary source of the phonetic hint, but did not correctly determine the actual character representing the vocabulary source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other explanations which interpret 「豕」 as a semantic hint are (in my opinion) rather far-fetched, although these explanations will pop up everywhere in more conservative accounts of the character. At the very least, the non-association of characters for non-pig animals with the character for the meaning &lt;em&gt;home/dwelling&lt;/em&gt; strongly suggests the importance of the phonetic role of 「」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, 「牢」 did not originally contain 「宀」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rSlgB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rSlgB.png&quot; alt=&quot;*Animal pen* inscription, original form of 牢&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;摭續&lt;/a&gt;90&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=33631&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集33631&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original character was a picture of an &lt;em&gt;animal pen&lt;/em&gt;, and sometimes, &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=424&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「羊」 (&lt;em&gt;sheep&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=1955&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「馬」 (&lt;em&gt;horse&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt;, or &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=154&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「牛」 (&lt;em&gt;cow&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/a&gt; was added to the character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EXyGS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EXyGS.png&quot; alt=&quot;*Animal pen* with 羊&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乙&lt;/a&gt;1983&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=903&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集903&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IRNsu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IRNsu.png&quot; alt=&quot;*Animal pen* with 馬&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;1.522&lt;br&gt;寧滬新獲甲&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Af0TZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Af0TZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;*Animal pen* with 牛&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;392&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=33314&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集33314&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The form with &lt;em&gt;cow&lt;/em&gt; is the shape which has survived ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zWPRz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zWPRz.png&quot; alt=&quot;*Animal pen* with 牛&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;貉子卣&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=5409&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成5409&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... and the &lt;em&gt;animal pen&lt;/em&gt; component was later corrupted into 「宀」 (&lt;em&gt;building&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tle2D.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tle2D.png&quot; alt=&quot;牢&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;2.77&lt;br&gt;包山楚簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xsGnL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xsGnL.png&quot; alt=&quot;牢&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日甲&lt;/a&gt;65背&lt;br&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eoYTC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eoYTC.png&quot; alt=&quot;牢&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國哲學書電子化計劃&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=77351&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;宋・徐鉉等奉敕校定　漢・許慎《說文解字》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:29:28.133" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:29:28.133" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31076" CreationDate="2018-08-14T17:11:46.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your book is very wordy (to see, to accompany, to try out), or Chinese is quite condensed. I can't see the word 'functions' in there anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他找白如玉跟他在師大附近走走,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He took Beyonce (freely transliterated!) with him around the neighbourhood of the NTNU,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;試試地圖好用不好用。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;to check out if the map was any good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T17:11:46.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31073" CreationDate="2018-08-14T18:21:22.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I kind of understand why the negative votes on zyy's deleted post, because no native Chinese speaker will tell you it's correct to use &quot;個&quot; as a &quot;cure-all&quot; silver bullet if you don't know what the measure word is. It is not CORRECT, but is it definitely not OK all of the time? I have a slightly different take on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe language learning is a process, a very long process for that matter. Making mistakes, and the willingness to take risks is part of that process. As a language teacher, I will NEVER tell a student using &quot;個&quot; for everything is correct, but neither will I discourage him/her from taking risks. If you are in a situation where you either use a word you're uncertain of, or keep silent, then I'd say assess the situation and make your choice. If this is a very formal discussion, and making a grammatical mistake will make you very uncomfortable, perhaps say nothing until you find out the correct way to say it. But if you take this as an everyday learning experience, and you're among friends, why not take the risk and learn something? Again, it's your willingness to take risks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As said above, using &quot;個&quot; for everything is grammatically wrong, but most of the time, you can be understood, eventually. It's even a little better than skipping the measure word all together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A comparable question that comes to mind would be: if you're learning English and don't know the past tense form of a verb, can you just tag &quot;-ed&quot; onto the present form and get away with it? Again, maybe, but whether you want to do that depends on your willingness to risk making a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, measure words are not all that difficult because there are some semantic clues that can help you make an intelligent guess as to which measure word to use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Happy learning!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastEditorUserId="6351" LastEditDate="2018-08-15T03:46:05.203" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T03:46:05.203" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31085" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31086" CreationDate="2018-08-14T18:53:04.470" Score="1" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;How is the word &amp;quot;note:&amp;quot; translated into Chinese within the following example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summary of Findings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finding 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finding 2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finding 3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; these findings were based on a first draft and may be updated later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20059" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-30T22:57:27.247" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T22:57:27.247" Title="How to translate &quot;note:&quot; into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31085" CreationDate="2018-08-14T19:07:49.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, 'note' means &amp;quot;註&amp;quot;. More precisely, it is a &amp;quot;附註&amp;quot; in the example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/56428/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;附註&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;appended note; annotation&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[synonym] 註解 (comment)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Note: these findings were based on a first draft and may be updated later.&#xA;&#xA;註: 这些调查结果基于初稿，可能会在以后更新&#xA;&#xA;附註: 这些调查结果基于初稿，可能会在以后更新&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T19:27:04.550" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31087" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-14T20:47:38.517" Score="0" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I use the conjunction &quot;considering [that]&quot; in Chinese? See example below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The companies process is sub-optimal, &lt;strong&gt;considering&lt;/strong&gt; the complexity of their business model.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20059" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T04:06:15.727" Title="How to use &quot;considering [that]&quot; as a conjunction?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31088" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-14T21:47:59.507" Score="2" ViewCount="380" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China (at least in mainland), it is common that people say 帅哥/美女 to someone to get his/her attention. Example cases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a person wants to use an iPhone charger but someone blocks the outlet and needs attention&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a person asks a location to a stranger&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a waiter at cafes wants to get attention from a customer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases it is common to use 帅哥/美女, but I wonder if it is common even if the target is clearly not handsome or beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that there is little or no connotation of &quot;handsome&quot; or &quot;beautiful&quot; when it comes to using these words as such, but in these cases is it common to use these words even to ugly people? Or is it simply that Chinese definiton of &quot;handsome&quot; or &quot;beautiful&quot; is extremely low? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T00:34:35.020" Title="帅哥/美女 to get attention of someone who isn't handsome/beautiful" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31088" CreationDate="2018-08-14T22:13:27.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is just flattering talk. Most people like being flattered. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I think this kind of talk only suitable for actual handsome people or people with ordinary faces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a person is truly ugly, calling him &quot;handsome&quot; might sound like you are mocking him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar example :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can call anyone &quot;kind Sir&quot; either he is really kind or just a regular folk who doesn't break the law. However, if you call an amoral person who rips babies away from their mother  &quot;kind Sir&quot; , you are clearly mocking him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-08-15T00:11:50.487" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T00:11:50.487" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31090" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-14T22:38:06.407" Score="2" ViewCount="743" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chinese mandarin, why does Chinese language has multiple characters for the same sound? What is the reason?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20135" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T10:00:02.233" Title="Multiple characters for the same sound in Chinese" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31090" CreationDate="2018-08-14T23:58:04.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One reason is, ancient Chinese spoken language is quite different from now. During the evolution of language many sounds disappeared due to different reasons: foreign language invasion, conflicts of dialects, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason is, Chinese characters and their sounds are not tightly linked. In ancient Chinese language (文言), people use single written characters to express their meanings. So they will more or less face the problem of homophones. Now Chinese language use words (mostly combinations of two characters, also 1,3,4 or more) to express their meanings. So the numbers of homophones is not that much, I'd say at the same level of English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20224" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T23:58:04.243" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31088" CreationDate="2018-08-15T00:34:35.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's all about what kind of idiolect you want to develop based on your personality and characteristics. One's language is an indicator of his personality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a kind of person who is strict,  rigorous and etc, you might speak based on the fact. If you are outgoing, less-pedantic, and etc who often applies 'flattering', praising,  or positive words, you might say it for all the people who don't look like the aged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T00:34:35.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31087" CreationDate="2018-08-15T04:22:50.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;The companies process is sub-optimal, considering the complexity of their business model.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure exactly what a 'companies process' is. Maybe you meant 'the company's processing method'? If you mean various companies, I don't think they would have 1 process and 1 business model.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the complexity of its business model，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;考虑到其业务模式的复杂性，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the company's processing method is sub-optimal.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;该公司的处理方法不合适。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T04:22:50.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31073" CreationDate="2018-08-15T06:36:15.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using 个 for everything is not right. But how bad does it sound? I would say in colloquial setting, and when the fact is clear that the speaker is a language learner, it doesn't sound too bad, or not bad at all. Thanks @monalisa for the wonderful analogy, it's a lot like using &quot;-ed&quot; on every verb. If I say &quot;teached&quot; instead of &quot;taught&quot; as the only ungrammatical part in a long sentence, I can probably get away with it more often than not (i.e. it wouldn't bother the listener as much as I need to interrupt the speech and make up for it). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why this analogy works so well is probably because like &quot;-ed&quot; is called the &lt;strong&gt;regular&lt;/strong&gt; form, 个 is the &quot;regular&quot; measure word. It's the most widely used one, and the default one when a new noun emerges. Not all the wrong usages sound equally bad; 一只人 sounds much more awkward than 一个鸟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another angle to consider is, just like irregular forms in English is gradually going away [1], no one says brethren or holp anymore, 个 is gaining popularity over the less common measure words especially in spoken language. It's actually very common to hear 一个电影, 一个啤酒, 一个飞机, etc. Those must be wrong to start with, but are they still wrong when they become the idioms that everyone is (mis)using? Or is that just how languages evolve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2009/09/29/the-evolution-of-the-past-tense-how-verbs-change-over-time/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2009/09/29/the-evolution-of-the-past-tense-how-verbs-change-over-time/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T06:36:15.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13243" CreationDate="2018-08-15T09:45:31.980" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;哈哈，is used when we are very happy.呵呵，is used when we feel embarrassed or don't want to talk anymore. 嘻嘻，when you&#xA;smile archly. 嘿嘿， when you feel shy. 哇哈哈哈，when you feel very happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20080" LastEditorUserId="20080" LastEditDate="2018-08-22T02:50:59.253" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T02:50:59.253" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29950" CreationDate="2018-08-15T18:03:08.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;近代汉语的量词确实有习惯搭配。而且在表示“数”+“量”的概念下，量词几乎是不可省略的。如果要类比，语言中的量词我以为有些接近物理中的单位。不同的单位表示不同基础的个体，而有时不同的单位也代指不同的类别。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;譬如以每一个整体作为单元，“个”确实是很常用的量词。但更多的情况下，量词决定了描述者的认识意向，也影响了接受者的感觉。以水为例。用容器作为量词描述的很多见，一口水（a mouthful of water），一碗水，一杯水，一瓶水，一罐水，一桶水，一车水（水车承载）等等；也有直接使用物理单位来描述的，一升水，一吨水，一公斤水；抑或以形态或其他形式描述的具体的水，比如一滴水。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;诚然有些描述会出现自造或混用，但清晰表达作为首要目标，才是选择和使用合适的量词的标准。特别地，习惯搭配的使用，从细节上可以表现出语言使用者是否熟悉固定的用法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15576" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T18:03:08.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31098" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31102" CreationDate="2018-08-15T23:30:40.887" Score="3" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was attempting to translate this passage from the &lt;em&gt;Records of the Three Kingdoms&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比到當陽，衆十餘萬，&lt;strong&gt;輜重數千兩&lt;/strong&gt;，日行十餘里，別遣關羽乘船數百艘，使會江陵。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The background of this is: Cao Cao had invaded Jingzhou, Liu Bei was fleeing towards Jiangling with 100,000 civilians and supplies, and Guan Yu travelled by river with hundreds of ships. Later, Cao Cao caught up with Liu Bei with 5,000 elite cavalry, captured the civilians and supplies, forcing Liu Bei to flee with very few followers. From here we get the classic episodes like &lt;em&gt;Zhao Yun rescues Adou&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Zhang Fei at Changban Bridge&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is: &lt;strong&gt;how many supplies was Liu Bei travelling with?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See, the original text reads &quot;輜重數千兩&quot; - supplies of several thousand &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tael&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;liang/taels&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. But during the Han dynasty, one Chinese tael was approximately 13.8 grams. If you do the math that's like 30-40 kilograms - one person can carry it! This makes no sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 兩 in this sentence mean? Could it be an ancient variant of 辆 (measure word for vehicles)? That would make more sense - thousands of carts of supplies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="2583" LastEditDate="2018-08-16T01:39:52.680" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T09:54:33.040" Title="How many supplies did Liu Bei have at Dangyang?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31099" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-16T00:30:32.780" Score="1" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to find information on this modern? Chinese purple clay tea pot.  Can anyone translate this for me?  Thank you&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dSEIs.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dSEIs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20266" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-14T00:04:44.330" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T23:16:30.853" Title="What are the markings found on a purple clay teapot?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31073" CreationDate="2018-08-16T01:35:15.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you use 个 instead of a correct 量词 too often, you sound like a child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T01:35:15.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31087" CreationDate="2018-08-16T01:41:29.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;考虑到，as has been pointed in another answer. If you want to sound a bit more bookish, perhaps 鉴于，eg.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鉴于他已改正错误, 你就原谅他吧。  Considering he has already corrected his mistake,&#xA;  you really should forgive him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T01:41:29.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31098" CreationDate="2018-08-16T01:44:26.553" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 兩 used to have many more meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/4E24.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;details section of zdic&lt;/a&gt;, there's the following additional meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) 匹(长四丈)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;归夫人鱼轩,重锦三十两。——《左传·闵公二年》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) &lt;strong&gt;通“辆”。车一乘&lt;/strong&gt; [used for buses,carts,etc.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;武王戎车三百两。——《书·牧誓·序》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之子于归,百两御之。——《诗·召南·鹊巢》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definition 4 shows that it's also a measure word for silk fabric, but in this context definition 5 would be more appropriate - it is indeed the same as the modern 辆. So &amp;quot;輜重數千兩&amp;quot; should mean &amp;quot;supplies of thousands of &lt;strong&gt;carts&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T01:44:26.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31103" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-16T04:00:48.997" Score="0" ViewCount="722" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've tried listening to &lt;a href=&quot;https://forvo.com/word/%E6%97%A5/#ja&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;forvo&lt;/a&gt; and the first doesn't sound like any distinct sound. The others sound like the letter j with the rest of a word cut off and &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/%E6%97%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;google&lt;/a&gt; sounds like the pinyin spelling &quot;ree&quot;. Phonetically could someone spell out what sound is made in mainland china? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日 or Pinyin=rì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20271" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T06:55:07.503" Title="How to pronounce 日?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31098" CreationDate="2018-08-16T04:38:33.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比到當陽．衆十餘萬．輜重數千兩．日行十餘里．別遣關羽乘船數百艘．使會江陵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i think this text is quoted from the 三國志　蜀志　卷二&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06081982.cn#page/n37/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/06081982.cn#page/n37/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's an &quot;official&quot; history, don't mix up with the novel 三國演義 :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one of the tricky aspect of reading literary chinese text is, one must guess the meaning of particular character, according to the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兩 (u+5169) should be treated as a borrowed character (假借) of 輛 (u+8f1b); that 輛 means cart, or classifier of vehicle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, i would interpret &quot;輜重&quot; as belongings, not military supplies. cause in &quot;衆十餘萬&quot;; &quot;衆&quot; was civilians / refugees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the scenario would be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at 當陽, there'er more than a lakh of refugees, with several thousands of carts of belongings, they followed 劉備, moving 10+ &quot;miles&quot; daily. a very slow pace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NlCTT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NlCTT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, in 孟子　盡心下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;武王之伐殷也．革車三百兩．虎賁三千人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the &quot;兩&quot; is also used as &quot;classifier of vehicle&quot;. nowadays, we would use &quot;輛&quot; for this purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, to interpret the meaning of &quot;兩&quot; in this context, or the original one; i would say that &quot;兩&quot; is borrowed from &quot;輛&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyway, it's my suggestion :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, the earliest appearance of 輛 i found, is in 十六國春秋　卷六&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06080911.cn#page/n17/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/06080911.cn#page/n17/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十六國春秋　卷二十四&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/06080914.cn#page/n95/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/06080914.cn#page/n95/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to be fair, these were recorded in the imperial collection of four (四庫全書); so, the character might be changed, not the original one :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-08-16T09:54:33.040" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T09:54:33.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31103" CreationDate="2018-08-16T05:13:52.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pronounce &quot;round&quot;. To pronounce 日, hold the &quot;r&quot; sound, i.e. hold the position of your tongue when you pronounce the &quot;r&quot; in &quot;round&quot;. Additionally add the intonation of 去声. To get a clear sound, you could let your mouth open a little bit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Pinyin like zi/zhi, ci/chi, si/shi ri, we use &quot;i&quot; to stand for continuation of the consonant in the front [although in mainland China we do not actually use words vowels and consonants when teaching pronunciation to kids]. So likely, for &quot;zi, ci, si&quot;, try to hold the position of /dz/, /ts/, /s/, and vibrate your voice box while you are sending air out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastEditorUserId="18711" LastEditDate="2018-08-16T05:20:27.480" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T05:20:27.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31103" CreationDate="2018-08-16T06:55:07.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;rì is correct,not like the letter j,they're different pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20272" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T06:55:07.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31107" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31108" CreationDate="2018-08-16T08:10:37.487" Score="0" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand the sounds of &lt;a href=&quot;https://forvo.com/search/%E5%86%8C/zh/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;册&lt;/a&gt;. Phonetically I think I'm hearing &quot;twuh&quot;, which is nothing like the pinyin cè. What phonetic sounds are being made? Feel free to add another pronunciation at forvo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20271" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-08-21T08:44:47.640" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T09:43:22.347" Title="Pronunciation of 册" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31107" CreationDate="2018-08-16T08:16:51.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pinyin cì is not right, cè is the correct one. Hope that would be helpful for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20272" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-08-21T08:45:07.013" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T08:45:07.013" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31109" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31112" CreationDate="2018-08-16T08:38:06.823" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm practicing my upcoming talk in Chinese, and I like to start talks with a light joke to appear friendly.  So I came up with this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我第一次在南开学校作演讲，我用汉语讲第一句话，听众大声鼓掌以示回应。然后我说英语，但是听众听不懂，所以我讲完了时候，鼓掌比较小声。只是第一句话他们能听懂。希望我现在说的比较清楚。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first time I gave a talk on the Nankai campus, I used Chinese for the first sentence, and the audience applauded loudly. Afterwards, I spoke English, but the audience didn't understand, so when I finished my talk, the applause was comparatively quiet.  They only understood the first sentence.  I hope my speaking now is clearer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this, I plan to go into the content of the talk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is my joke about my first talk at Nankai correct, understandable, and funny?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, I'm after some constructive criticism on this.  I'm not hugely fussed about it being the most optimal way to say this, but as long as it's not a semantic nor grammar disaster.  (There'll surely be plenty of other grammar mishaps when I get off-script.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I'm concerned about is if it's clear that the audience applauded directly after the first sentence (which I said in Chinese) before the remainder of the talk, which is an essential part of the joke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm also not sure about 鼓掌比较小声 vs. 鼓掌声比较小.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T10:49:59.243" Title="Is my joke about my first talk at Nankai correct, understandable, and funny?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31109" CreationDate="2018-08-16T08:59:43.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before reading your explanation I was bewildered about your intention and I cannot say it's funny to me. Sorry about that, but I think your audience would probably feel the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want the audience to applaud right after the first sentence you need to give some hint of your intention and pause before the second sentence to allow them to react to your joke. I would say &quot;虽然我是一名外国人，但我第一次在南开演讲的时候，是用中文开的头，所以观众那时用了热烈的掌声来鼓励我（，希望这一次也能受到鼓励！）&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the rest of the words given, I don't think they can serve your intention. : )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;Then perhaps no joke is needed. You just need to get it across.&#xA;第一次在南开演讲的时候，我用中文开了头，观众掌声很热烈。但那时我中文还不太行，所以只能全程用英语报告，台下许多人没能跟得上，最后只收获了零星的鼓掌。这次我认真准备了中文发言，就是为了我的研究成果能够传达给大家，这样我的努力便没有白费。希望我今天的发言能够达意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-08-16T10:19:16.267" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T10:19:16.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31109" CreationDate="2018-08-16T09:06:31.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what your joke is. And to be honest, I would become hostile when you joked that the audience could not understand English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grammar-wise, I think it's ok. Maybe change 南开学校 --&gt; 南开, and 只是第一句话 --&gt; 只有第一句话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;re Becky's comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get that. But people may interpret it as &quot;since 8 years ago the audience didn't understand English, I'm going to talk completely in Chinese now.&quot; which feels quite patronising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way might be to start your first sentence in English. Try to get an applause with that sentence. Then switch to Chinese and tell them the joke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastEditorUserId="9732" LastEditDate="2018-08-16T10:02:56.430" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T10:02:56.430" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31109" CreationDate="2018-08-16T10:42:08.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can see what you are trying to joke about. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我第一次在南开学校作演讲 is a bit ambiguous. Some might take this is your first time to deliver a speech. So, out of that confusion, you can say ahead like: 这是我第二次在南开大学做演讲。 记得我第一次在这里演讲时，... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, here is a version I make for your reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是我第二次在南开大学做演讲。记得我第一次在这里演讲时，我用汉语讲第一句话来和大家打招呼，大家热烈鼓掌以示回应。接下来的演讲我一直用的是英语。可能是大家没怎么听懂，所以我讲完后，大家都没反应，似乎好像都不知道我已经讲完了！所以， 这一次我准备全程用中文来讲。 希望大家都可以听得明白。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-08-16T10:49:59.243" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T10:49:59.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31113" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-16T14:59:27.833" Score="1" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Equivalent question: What Chinese letters won't equal 1? (If I need to specify, then I guess I'll pick Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From: &lt;a href=&quot;https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/843966/&quot;&gt;the homophonic group: a mathematical diversion&#xA;&lt;/a&gt; --&gt; This is an exercise from Michael Artin's Algebra on, well, abstract algebra. In this exercise for the English language, words are equal if they are homophones, kind of like a formalisation of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidtheshittymath/comments/7z5e61/sinxn6/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;joke that sin(x)/n=6&lt;/a&gt;. So in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bee=be --&gt; This implies e=1 by cancellation of b and e.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;buy=by --&gt; This implies u=1 by cancellation of b and y.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rase=raze --&gt; This implies s=z by cancellation of r and e.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;canvass = canvas --&gt; This implies s=1 by cancellation of c,a,n,v,a and s. By canvass=canvas and rase=raze, we have s=z=1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, all 26 English letters will equal 1. Apparently, this was done for &lt;a href=&quot;https://projecteuclid.org/download/pdf_1/euclid.em/1062620828&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;French&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www1.osu.cz/~zusmanovich/topics.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Czech&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16264" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T16:20:17.613" Title="What is the Chinese Homophonic Group?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31114" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31115" CreationDate="2018-08-17T06:18:12.660" Score="3" ViewCount="622" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I visited a garden of one of my friends and there were several screen walls with a character on each one. (The owner was absent and neither could his housekeeper read these characters.) &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jRPh6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jRPh6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cR0Y8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cR0Y8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QQZYd.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QQZYd.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oruUZ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oruUZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;These walls shield the cloister.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9yDhe.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9yDhe.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;The last wall shields the gate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But still I could guess out most of them (as a native speaker). The first four are 天 地 同 和 (point out if I am wrong). By no means can I identify the last one. Hope someone can help X:D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I recognize 酋 and 廾 up to down in the last character, but they don't look like any character I know.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-08-17T06:40:55.447" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T15:08:43.413" Title="Could someone help me to identify these characters on the screen walls" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31114" CreationDate="2018-08-17T07:02:31.570" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character is 「尊」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TzH2n.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TzH2n.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;前&lt;/a&gt;5.4.7&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=6903&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集6903&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E9%9A%B6%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸定&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RVxH5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RVxH5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「尊」 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_%282014%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*[ts]ˤu[n]/&lt;/strong&gt;) was originally a combination of a &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=718&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;wine vessel&lt;/em&gt; 「酉」&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=60&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;two hands&lt;/em&gt; 「廾」&lt;/a&gt;, indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;(to conduct) a wine ceremony&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;ceremonial wine vessel&lt;/em&gt;. From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiquette_and_Ceremonial&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Etiquette and Ceremonial&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《儀禮ㆍ士冠禮》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;......側&lt;strong&gt;尊&lt;/strong&gt;一甒醴在服北......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Etiquette and Ceremonial:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;Coming of age capping rites&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;...A jar of &lt;strong&gt;ceremonial wine&lt;/strong&gt; proper at the Northern gown arrangement...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「酉」 was later replaced with the derivative 「酋」 (also &lt;em&gt;wine vessel&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jtNLN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jtNLN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;三年壺&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=9727&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成9727&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;隸定&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w7F1B.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w7F1B.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, 「廾」 was replaced with &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=48&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「寸」&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;/*[tsʰ]ˤu[n]-s/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;picture of hand pulse location&lt;/em&gt; &amp;gt; &lt;em&gt;hand actions&lt;/em&gt;), gaining a sound hint in addition to its semantic function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OAATZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OAATZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日甲&lt;/a&gt;67背&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XitL7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XitL7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case the other characters are hard to recognise, 「地」 and 「和」 are written with variants「坨」and「龢」, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T15:08:43.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31116" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31140" CreationDate="2018-08-17T07:49:59.137" Score="2" ViewCount="1088" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 聊，聊天，聊聊，聊聊天，聊一聊，闲聊？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-21T07:12:46.117" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T07:12:46.117" Title="Difference?? : 聊，聊天，聊聊，聊聊天，聊一聊，闲聊" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31113" CreationDate="2018-08-17T08:07:01.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are few technical questions you need to deal with before you try to map it mathematically.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chinese glyphs itself is an abstract symbol, it doesn't tie with the speaking language.  For example, the glyph 永，can be pronounced in many different dialects with, i.e. jun3 jun1 yun1 yung1  jun3 jun3 run3 jun3  wing5 iong2 uêng2&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Strokes of the Chinese glyph. There are 8 basic strokes, 28 sub-strokes. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Due to no.1, many glyphs shared the same pronunciation. Even if you choose Pinyin alone, it just doesn't work. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chinese society pronounces each glyph individually.  Mixing with fact no.3, you will notice it take a huge effort to change the habits. This required a totally new form of language structure.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One main ambition of the China communist party promote the use of Pinyin, is to Romanise Han-speaking. It stopped at the Romanize pinyin standard and go no further. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to the big difference in language structure, I doubt you can use the homophonic grouping.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(update)&#xA;Perhaps the best analogy for the Chinese glyph speech and writing separation is the mathematic symbol.  For example, the delta δ, it as nothing to do with the language spoken, it is a kind of abstraction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-08-17T10:06:54.413" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T10:06:54.413" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31118" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31121" CreationDate="2018-08-17T08:35:13.367" Score="0" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to chat my friend with &quot;Let's chat together when (after) you are home!&quot;.&#xA;First, I wrote this sentence :&#xA;&quot;你回家后咱们一起聊聊吧～&quot;&#xA;//&#xA;But then when I tried to check my sentence with translation tools (Google Translate and Naver), they added &quot;再&quot; after &quot;后&quot; and thus changing my sentence into this :&#xA;&quot;你回家后(再)咱们一起聊聊吧～&quot;&#xA;//&#xA;Okay, I don't know whether my own sentence is correct or not but... Is what the translation tools said is correct? Should I add 再? And if I should, what does 再 indicate here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-21T07:12:37.927" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T07:12:37.927" Title="What does 再 mean if it's added after 后?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31118" CreationDate="2018-08-17T08:58:21.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;回家后咱们再一起聊聊吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, there are 2 meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 1. After you go to home, we continue this conversation.&#xA; 2. After you go to home, we do more conversation.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T08:58:21.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31120" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-17T09:41:40.223" Score="1" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, we can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I sneezed a big sneeze.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;She sleeps a long sleep.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;Waiting for a king to apologize, one can wait rather a long wait.&quot; (from the film The Kings Speech)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and many more such examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just one chapter of  西游记 has these five reduplications with  了 between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you think the word after 了 is a noun or a verb? What is the purpose of the reduplication?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;猪八戒抬手指了指天，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;孙悟空看了看猪八戒的大肚子，无奈地笑了笑说，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;拿着金箍棒晃了晃，对准马屁股作势要打。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;，强盗头目眼珠子转了转，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一边说还一边向着猪八戒挥了挥手里的金箍棒。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For comparison， 了 followed by a noun:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要真的抢了我的东西，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;，如果这辈子做了坏事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;强盗头目得到了满意的答案，  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-09-19T18:15:48.163" Title="What is the purpose of verb reduplication?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31118" CreationDate="2018-08-17T10:46:03.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;再&lt;/strong&gt; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;again&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;continue to&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. 回家后咱们&lt;strong&gt;再&lt;/strong&gt;一起聊聊吧 means &quot;&lt;em&gt;Let's chat again when you are home&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. You two may continue what you have discussed or talk about other topics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence &quot;你回家后咱们一起聊聊吧&quot; denotes the same meaning as your English sentence &quot;&lt;em&gt;Let's chat together when (after) you are home!&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-08-20T03:25:12.217" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T03:25:12.217" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31120" CreationDate="2018-08-17T11:37:53.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The examples you gave are not verb reduplication&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;phrases like 笑笑，看看，走走 or 吃吃 are verb reduplication, it serves to indicate the verb is in a slight degree or a casual manner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I sneezed a big sneeze&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;She sleeps a long sleep&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are just a same word as verb, and then as noun (object) in a same sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the first sneeze is a verb; the second sneeze is a noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the first sleep is a verb; the second sleep is a noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 is not a verb, it is a 'verb particle' that indicate 'completion of the action' or 'change of situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your 西游记 examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;指 = point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;指了= pointed (the pointing action is completed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;笑了笑 - the first 笑 is a verb; the second 笑 is a 'verb classifier' for counting how many times the subject smiled (since there is only one smile, the action is in a slight degree or casual manner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;晃了晃 - the first 晃 is a verb; the second 晃 is a 'verb classifier' for counting how many times 金箍棒 was swung (since there is only one swing, the action is in a slight degree or casual manner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;转了转 - the first 转 is a verb; the second 转 is a 'verb classifier' for counting how many times 眼珠子 was turned (since there is only one turn, the action is in a slight degree or casual manner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Since the second 笑, 晃 and 转 are verb classifiers, they work with counting words: 笑了(一)笑, 晃了(三)晃, 转了(八)转&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抢了我的东西 (seized my stuffs) - '抢了' is a completed action; 我的东西 is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抢我的东西 - (seize my stuffs) - '抢' is a verb; 我的东西 is the object (no indication of either the action is completed or not)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'做了坏事' (have done bad thing) - '做了' is a completed action; '坏事' is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'做坏事' (do bad thing) - '做' is a verb ; '坏事' is the object (no indication of either the action is completed or not)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'得到了满意的答案' (have got a satisfied answer) - 得到了 is a completed action; 满意的答案 is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'得到满意的答案' (get a satisfied answer) - 得到 is verb; 满意的答案 is the object (no indication of either the action is completed or not)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T18:29:56.210" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25859" CreationDate="2018-08-17T13:39:44.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking up the words in MDBG Chinese Dictionary,you  would see that the compound word 螃蟹 means crab, and so does each of 螃 and 蟹, when written individually. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oRgcW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oRgcW.png&quot; alt=&quot;From MDBG.net Chinese Dictionary &quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In written language, the character 蟹 can be used alone, since to look at it, it obviously means crab. But in spoken language, the simple word crab is always 螃蟹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it this way? Well, if you look at, say &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla Pinyin Chart&lt;/a&gt;, which shows ALL of the syllable sounds Chinese has, you will see there is NOT MANY. Apparently only &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/How-many-possible-syllables-are-there-in-Chinese-Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;416 of them&lt;/a&gt;. Multiplied by 5 tones, and you still have only 2080 total sounds in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On top of that, some syllables are much more common than others. So if someone just says xiè, then it could be &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=xie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;any number of words&lt;/a&gt;. The example shows just some of the words with that pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in spoken language, especially if the concept is not clear, using a single character word means people are not likely to understand you, ESPECIALLY if you have some sort of non-standard regional accent, which is probably still the norm rather than the exception in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why most Chinese words in spoken vocabulary have two characters, usually which each have a similar or same meaning, combined to make a clear, specific word, which can be readily distinguished. Look up Pangxie in the same dictionary, and you will see that regardless of tones, that is a unique sound combination, that gives only the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqtm=1&amp;amp;wdqcham=1&amp;amp;wdqt=pangxie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;single result&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that in most compound words with two characters, only one of the two characters is commonly used alone. For example for crab it's usually pang, and rarely if ever xie. And that same character will usually be used in combination with other characters to form related words. Not always, but mostly. For example if we look up 蟹 we see this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Oxgip.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Oxgip.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if we look up 螃，we see less examples. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eYShg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eYShg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20277" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T13:39:44.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="385" CreationDate="2018-08-17T13:49:56.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your picture, the one in blue is more traditional than the one in black (if that makes sense). As people will understand both forms of the character, it doesn’t really matter how you write it, as long as you are consistent with the way you do (not some simplified and some traditional). Most fonts should be the same (as the picture shows in Huang’s answer), but I suggest that you write your characters “computer-style” because pen and paper are soon to be extinct :( There are some big differences between similar characters in simplified and traditional Chinese, but you shouldn’t copy the traditional form if you are to write in simplified Chinese. Hope this answer helps you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20278" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T13:49:56.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31113" CreationDate="2018-08-17T15:27:12.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;interesting question, here's a cantonese-driven approach:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in recent decades, there's a trend to de-compose chinese character (漢字) into components (部件). the 中央研究院文獻處理實驗室 suggested there're 1316 basic components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/system_intro.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/system_intro.jsp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next, the cantonese pronunciation &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/pho-rel.php?initial=z&amp;amp;final=yut&amp;amp;tone=3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;juet3&lt;/a&gt; has these characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;剟叕咄啜嘬嚽惙拙掇揝攥敪柮梲棳橇欼歠毲毳泏準琡畷窋絀絕綴罬腏茁蕝蕞蝃蠿裰貀輟醊錣餟鵽黜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;剟 = 啜&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this implied 刂 (u+5202) = 口 (u+53e3), by cancellation of 叕 (u+53d5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;綴 = 輟&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this implied 糸 (u+7cf8) = 車 (u+8eca), by cancellation of 叕 (u+53d5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then, what can i conclude here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sorry for the termination here, cause my mathematic is not good enough :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T15:27:12.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31113" CreationDate="2018-08-17T16:11:44.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question talks about &quot;Chinese letters&quot;. You need to clarify what you mean by &quot;Chinese letters&quot;. The Chinese writing system is not phonetically based and has no alphabet as such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, by &quot;Chinese letters&quot;, you are referring to the letters used in Pinyin (or any  Romanization system for a Chinese dialect), then all homophones are spelled the same, and your method of cancelling out identical letters in homophones will not work, since all letters will be cancelled and there will be nothing left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Languages with a phonetically based writing system have evolved over time, with certain elements more resistant to change. As a result, there are cases of multiple spellings for the same sound, and multiple sounds for the same spelling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin is different. It is designed to help speakers to sound out the written characters, which is not phonetically based. With such a purpose, if the pronunciation of a written character should change, the spelling will also change to reflect that. All homophones are necessarily spelled identically, without exception.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not believe your homophonic group exercise will work on a non-phonetic writing system. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T16:11:44.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31113" CreationDate="2018-08-17T16:12:24.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese writing works differently, of course, to alphabetical writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you define the basic unit of written Chinese as the character, then no Chinese character will equal 1, because there's no such thing as a silent Chinese character.*&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you define the basic unit of written Chinese as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_(CJKV_character)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stroke&lt;/a&gt;, then the homophonic group is trivial and is just the group comprising all strokes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you define the basic unit of written Chinese as all &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideographic_Description_Characters_(Unicode_block)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;unicode-encoded decompositions&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;em&gt;this is not a natural way of decomposing the written language&lt;/em&gt;), then non-1-value characters can be found by searching through a database for characters which aren't part of any other character. Examples can be found by Googling search terms like &quot;CJKV Characters with the most strokes&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*I suppose if you wish to reduce expressions like &quot;Aaaaah! (啊啊啊啊!)&quot; then you could plausibly say that 啊 = 1...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-08-17T16:20:17.613" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T16:20:17.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27638" CreationDate="2018-08-17T16:26:49.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the examples given, the more frequent character has positive connotations, and the less frequent character, negative connotations. This is true of 高 (tall, 134), vs. 矮 (short,2027), 新 (new, 161), and 旧 (old, 915). Even  大 (big,17) and 小 (small,83).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One exception is 老 which means old in the sense of &quot;aged&quot; (179). That is considered a &quot;good&quot; quality in traditional Chinese society. Also, 近 (near) and 远 (far) (374 and 386 respectively) are both &quot;neutral,&quot; with one no worse than the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T16:26:49.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31131" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31132" CreationDate="2018-08-17T22:14:47.413" Score="1" ViewCount="321" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Google search of both exact phrases turns up both:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在桌子上面&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在桌子&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;上面&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are about 10x more &lt;strong&gt;without&lt;/strong&gt; the &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they mean the same thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2018-08-18T00:11:45.067" Title="Is it 在桌子上面 or 在桌子的上面?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31131" CreationDate="2018-08-17T22:57:34.373" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;的&amp;quot; is a possessive marker like ('s) in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;桌子的&amp;quot; = (table's) e.g &amp;quot;桌子的顏色&amp;quot; (the color of the table), in which, the noun &amp;quot;桌子&amp;quot; possess the noun &amp;quot;顏色&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;在 ~ 上面&amp;quot; (&lt;strong&gt;on&lt;/strong&gt;/ on top of/ above) is a preposition. The phrase &amp;quot;在(桌子)上面&amp;quot; (noun + preposition), doesn't require the possessive marker &amp;quot;的&amp;quot; because there is no noun to be possessed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;在桌子的上面&amp;quot; (on the surface of the table) [preposition + noun + possessive marker + noun] &lt;em&gt;上面 here is a noun that means  'surface/ top'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;在桌子上面&amp;quot; (on the table) [noun + preposition] &lt;em&gt;上面 here is a preposition means 'above'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;在桌子上&amp;quot; (on the table) [ noun + preposition]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;在桌上&amp;quot; (on the table) [ noun + preposition]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of difference between with or without 的:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;書(&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;)桌子(&lt;strong&gt;上面&lt;/strong&gt;) = the book is (&lt;strong&gt;on&lt;/strong&gt;) the table&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;書在桌子(的)&lt;em&gt;上面&lt;/em&gt; = the book is on the table('s) &lt;em&gt;surface/top (noun)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In the first sentence, &amp;quot;在 ~ 上面&amp;quot;(on top of) is the preposition; in the second sentence, &amp;quot;在&amp;quot; (on/ at) is the only preposition, while &amp;quot;上面&amp;quot; is a noun that the noun &amp;quot;桌子&amp;quot; possessed&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage of 的 as an 'adjective marker'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;桌子上的書&amp;quot; (the book on the table)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;桌子上&amp;quot;(on the table) is a noun + preposition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;的 here functions as an 'adjective marker' that turns &amp;quot;桌子上&amp;quot; into an 'adjectival phrase': &amp;quot;桌子上的&amp;quot; which describes the noun &amp;quot;書&amp;quot; (the book &lt;em&gt;that's on the table&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T23:25:40.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31131" CreationDate="2018-08-18T00:11:45.067" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 在桌子的上面 and 在桌子上面 denote the same meaning. The difference between them is the former is verbose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese writing and speaking, in order to be succinct, we try to avoid to use more 的s, especially in a long sentence. So, people tend to drop it whenever they feel it's not necessary. That's why you have seen 在桌子上面 is much more than 在桌子的上面. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-08-18T00:11:45.067" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31134" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-18T13:47:04.390" Score="3" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;My grandfather received a painting when he was invited to China as part of a group of representatives of Sweden. I've always wondered what the symbols meant and since he has passed away and Google translate won't return any results on my images I'm hoping there are some kind people out there willing to help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the images below:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xMZFR.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xMZFR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HKyy7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HKyy7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K2hDx.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K2hDx.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The painting depicts two birds (cranes), some water, grass, etc. and a red sun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20282" LastEditorUserId="20282" LastEditDate="2018-08-18T14:20:08.747" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T11:54:46.447" Title="Translation for these symbols (Google turned back nothing!)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31139" CreationDate="2018-08-18T16:16:19.657" Score="1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chairman’s Bao has an article containing this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在上海淮海路K11购物艺术中心 ， 一家名为 RATIO 比率的店面备受关注 。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t understand the presence of &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%AF%94%E7%8E%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;比率&lt;/a&gt; here. I know it can mean &lt;em&gt;rate&lt;/em&gt; and I am fairly certain the meaning of the sentence is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the business area/premises of a company named xyz have attracted attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is 比率 part of the company name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T03:59:22.993" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T03:59:22.993" Title="Why is 比率 in 一家名为 RATIO 比率的店面备受关注?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27638" CreationDate="2018-08-18T16:28:52.093" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually in the case of 高, it means high (high up), tall, and high level, while 矮 is just used to refer to short objects or people, the other opposite being 低. So 高 would refer to a tall person, a tall mountain, being high up, something being high level, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally 高 is used in more compound words, such as 高興, place names (高雄, 高山[literally and as a place name]) and 高 is also a family name, while 矮 isn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新 is similarly used in many place names (新加坡 - Singapore; also 新竹, 新北, etc.,) and it is in many compound words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, both of those words being positive, they are frequently used in company names, brands, product names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老, also being positive, is used in many business names as well as many compound words, very common are 老師, 老公, 老婆, 老闆, 老外, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18991" LastActivityDate="2018-08-18T16:28:52.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31137" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-19T02:06:01.503" Score="1" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kE8aV.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kE8aV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really Hoping someone can Translate this Old Chinese Painting Poem and Seal into English for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, picture added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WOXEf.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WOXEf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20286" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-08-22T01:52:52.283" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T01:52:52.283" Title="Chinese Poem And Seal Translation Needed" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31137" CreationDate="2018-08-19T03:19:18.153" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;the text, with my best guess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水殿亭¹亭荷 飛鳧浴³晚波 香&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凮²吹不斷 時送采蓮歌　為&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兆南五兄大人雅正之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丁酉冬月石泉何濂畫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹the actual character is a variant (u+20158), i guess most os, app can't display it correctly. have a look of this page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/char/28048&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/char/28048&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;²凮 (u+51ee) is a variant of 風 (u+98a8)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;³浴 is my guess only, might be wrong :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, here's an variant adjusted, character &quot;浴&quot; assumed, interpretation of the poem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水殿亭亭荷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[near] a building at the shore (水殿), [growing] nobly and honestly (亭亭) [are] lotus flowers (荷)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;飛鳧浴晚波&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wild ducks (飛鳧) are bathing (浴) in the evening (晚) ripple (波)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;香風吹不斷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[lotus] scented (香) breeze (風) is blowing (吹) non stop ((不斷)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;時送采蓮歌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;occasionally (時), [the breeze] is carrying (送) [the sound of] the song of harvesting lotus root (采蓮歌)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[pending] for (為) fifth brother (五兄) who named &quot;兆南&quot;'s comment / criticism (雅正)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;大人&quot; is a courteous title added to &quot;兄&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;雅正&quot; is a courteous term for &quot;begging for other's comment&quot; (懇求他人指正)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000152166&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000152166&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;之&quot; referred back to the painting and poem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;丁酉&quot; is one of the sexagenary cycle, for indicating year, it would be 2017-60i (i is any integer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2017 - 0%, 1957, or earlier, are more likely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;冬月&quot; means eleventh month of lunar calendar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000048678&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000048678&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now, the trickier part: 石泉何濂畫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;石泉&quot; i would interpret as &quot;石泉縣&quot;, a small county in 陝西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E7%9F%B3%E6%B3%89%E5%8E%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/石泉县&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cause, in the past, it's common to declare one's ancestral home (籍貫) before one's name. and, it's very unlikely that one would write his given name / courtesy name before his surname.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;何濂&quot; is the author of the painting and poem, with &quot;何&quot; as surname, &quot;濂&quot; as given / courtesy name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;畫 means &quot;draw / paint&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the seal is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;石何&#xA;泉印&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;石 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=石&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泉 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B3%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=泉&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%BD%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=何&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;印 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%8D%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=印&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-08-21T13:06:04.627" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T13:06:04.627" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31135" CreationDate="2018-08-19T04:44:18.080" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, 比率 is just a translation of &quot;RATIO&quot; written immediately after the name. It does not contribute any other meaning to the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T03:58:57.193" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T03:58:57.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31116" CreationDate="2018-08-19T06:29:23.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of the words you have chosed have similar meaning to each other and in most cases can be used interchangeably. But I guess you knew that, because that's why you're asking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of the differences are very subtle, and the most notable ones are the differences in formality. There are also slight differences in the linguistics of usage, but I'm not familiar with much of that. Also, note that on the face of it, 聊 itself and its extensions are generally more informal compared to words like 谈 or 讨论. Its direct English translation is &quot;to chat&quot;, and I think that that definition carries the notion of informality over quite nicely. Below, I'll discuss formality in levels, from 1 (most formal) to 3 (least formal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Formality Level 1:&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聊 is the most general form; when you wish to chat with someone on no particular topic (or one you don't wish to disclose) you can say something like &quot;我现在跟你去聊。&quot; Compared to the other versions and extensions, this is generally more terse and laconic than the others, and thus more formal. It shares the same formality as 闲聊, although this one is used more when one wants to emphasize that it's a friendly and informal discussion with the addition of the 闲 in the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Formality Level 2:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聊天 takes the spot for an intermediate formality. It is slightly more informal than 聊 or 闲聊, but also more formal that the remaining few. This phrase, like 闲聊, emphasizes the &quot;chatting&quot; quality of your discussion. With its addition of 天, it references the weather, and links it to the fact that most people talk about the weather in a situation where you want to &quot;catch-up&quot; with someone. However, you don't have to talk of the weather when you use this phrase. Most of the time, both 聊 and 闲聊 can be interchangeable with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Formality Level 3&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The remaining 聊聊, 聊聊天, and 聊一聊 are the least formal, and are common colloquialisms. We see it a lot in the Chinese language, but typically when one repeats a single-character verb like 聊 to 聊聊 or 说 to 说说 it shows informality, almost like talking to children (one very good example of this can be seen in the names of Chinese children; a lot of the time, children have nicknames that repeat a single-character, such as 茜茜, which is associated with a juvenile tone). 聊一聊 is also regarded in the same manner, used in sentences such as &quot;我现在跟你去聊一聊！&quot;. However, out of all of the words, 聊聊天 is probably used the least, because the same informal effect can be accomplished with 聊聊 or 聊一聊, and there is already a 聊天 that is already popular in the mainstream.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that these are very subtle differences. My knowledge on this topic is merely from my own experience speaking Chinese in mainland China and Taiwan. If you are interested in even more linguistic subtleties or social conventions, consider talking to a Chinese language expert at your local university, or even looking into it yourself. That stuff is out of my scope.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20287" LastEditorUserId="20287" LastEditDate="2018-09-10T02:24:12.657" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T02:24:12.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31142" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31153" CreationDate="2018-08-19T13:23:40.150" Score="1" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;What good digital references exist for Tibetan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a list here on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lexilogos.com/english/tibetan_dictionary.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lexilogos&lt;/a&gt;, but some of the links are dead and the rest are archive.org pages with pdfs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have this proverb in《中国谚语集成 四川卷》on p. 88:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ocb4j.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ocb4j.png&quot; alt=&quot;aba&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;公鸡不叫天也明，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  依查拉不叫天也黑｡&lt;sup&gt;②&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where the footnote says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3TO8G.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3TO8G.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;②依查拉：藏语，猫头鹰。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thlib.org/reference/dictionaries/tibetan-dictionary/translate.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tibetan &amp;amp; Himalayan Library&lt;/a&gt; doesn't support Chinese and doesn't return anything for an English word search for &lt;code&gt;owl&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(འུག་པ། doesn't seem to fit either).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What choices do I have to look up: 依查拉, owl, 猫头鹰?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2019-02-24T15:34:56.377" LastActivityDate="2019-02-24T15:34:56.377" Title="References for Tibetan?" Tags="&lt;tibetan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31144" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31156" CreationDate="2018-08-19T17:10:38.927" Score="3" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why in Chinese some people pronounce the vocal &quot;i&quot; in 士 in the word 博士 (bó shì) as the IPA  /i/ in the English &quot;she&quot;, but sometimes they pronounce it as the IPA &#xA;/ə/ in the English &quot;her&quot;. Which one is more correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Links I found of both pronunciation &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.learnmandarinchinese.com/words/bo2shi4/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;/i/&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtR_OGpXuxg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;/ə/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is more correct to standard Mandarin Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also, which one is actually more practiced in real life ? If the /ə/ is more used than /i/ in 博士 in Chinese Speaking , why is it like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20135" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T11:18:31.193" Title="博士 Pronunciation /ʃə/ or /ʃi/" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31144" CreationDate="2018-08-19T18:58:10.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both link you had for /i/ and /ə/ are the same, they are /i/ and is the correct pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Honestly, I have never heard anyone pronounce 博士 as bó shə, in fact, /ə/ is not a standard pronunciation in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The case where you heard &lt;strong&gt;bó shə&lt;/strong&gt; might be the phenomenon called 儿化，and even though, 博士 is not commonly where you use 儿化。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T18:58:10.743" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31146" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-19T19:49:58.250" Score="4" ViewCount="525" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen 品格，品质，人品，人格，素质 all defined as moral quality or character, though I'm guessing there's more nuance in the way they are used. Are these words interchangeable or do they describe different things? What is the connotation of each? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20291" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T09:57:17.673" Title="Difference between 品格 / 品质 / 人品 / 人格 / 素质?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31149" CreationDate="2018-08-19T19:53:00.087" Score="7" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently noticed that the word 挺 (which I know mainly as an intensifier) also is the measure word for 機槍, machine guns. Now machine guns are a fairly recent invention, so I am wondering: Is it known who chose this measure word for them and why? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20215" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T00:52:24.067" Title="Why is 挺 used as measure word for machine guns?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31146" CreationDate="2018-08-19T20:09:01.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would try to explain the difference in English on my best and I will include the common meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;品格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means generally the way a person deals or reacts with the outside world, it could also refer to the quality and character of a literature work. It could also mean the quality of a product, but people often use the word 品质 for this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;品质&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It refers the quality of a product or the quality of a person's morality, IQ, EQ, health and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means personality, however, more on the degree of a person's morality in the society. Although, recently, people has been using 人品 as &lt;em&gt;luck&lt;/em&gt;, this is not yet officially accepted as a meaning for this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means personality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;素质&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It refers to the quality of a person's behavior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T20:09:01.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31147" CreationDate="2018-08-19T20:18:00.050" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;挺，表数量，用于条状物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a measure word, 挺 refers to something that is long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In《太平御览》卷八三五，it says 壶中大钱一千，以通九泉之路，&lt;strong&gt;蜡烛一挺&lt;/strong&gt;，以照七尺之尸。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese, 一挺蜡烛 is no longer commonly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-08-20T00:52:24.067" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T00:52:24.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31151" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31155" CreationDate="2018-08-20T01:22:49.973" Score="4" ViewCount="612" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which would be the more authentic Mandarin translation for &quot;mutual acquaintance&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 共同朋友&#xA;2) 相識朋友?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it the same for Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2018-08-20T06:31:19.273" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T08:12:43.550" Title="Would &quot;mutual acquaintance&quot; in Mandarin be 共同朋友 or 相識朋友?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31151" CreationDate="2018-08-20T01:31:33.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to how &lt;em&gt;mutual acquaintance&lt;/em&gt; is often &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/146957/how-do-you-express-having-a-mutual-acquaintance-when-you-introduce-yourself&quot;&gt;used&lt;/a&gt;, it should mean 共同的相识。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Acquaintance is not yet a friend, a friend is 朋友，an acquaintance is 相识的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure how you speak in Cantonese, but they write the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T01:31:33.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31142" CreationDate="2018-08-20T01:48:35.467" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use PanLex (translate.panlex.org) for languages with little to no resources otherwise widely available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The standard Tibetan word for &lt;em&gt;owl&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;འུག་པ&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;'ug pa&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we try translating from &quot;鷹&quot;, we get closer matches like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ཁྲ་གླག (&lt;em&gt;khra glag&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;གླག (&lt;em&gt;glag&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about eagle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;བྱ་གླག (&lt;em&gt;bya glag&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;em&gt;khra glag&lt;/em&gt; might be a close match for 查拉, but I don't know anything about Tibetan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PanLex works through association though, so if a lexical collection doesn't contain a direct translation it will try to match from different languages with a translation available. You will very likely end up getting incorrect translations if the number of node points in series is too high (parallel node points in contrast increase the confidence in a given translation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-08-20T01:57:00.603" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T01:57:00.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31151" CreationDate="2018-08-20T02:09:01.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese don't usually use the term &quot;mutual acquaintance&quot; (共同的相识)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more common way to describe a mutual acquaintance would be like the example below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tony is a [&lt;strong&gt;mutual acquaintance&lt;/strong&gt;] of you and I&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;托尼是你跟我[&lt;strong&gt;都認識的熟人&lt;/strong&gt;] (Mandarin) &lt;em&gt;Tony is an acquaintance of both you and I&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;東尼係你同我[&lt;strong&gt;都識得嘅熟人&lt;/strong&gt;] (Cantonese) &lt;em&gt;Tony is an acquaintance of both you and I&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T02:09:01.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31151" CreationDate="2018-08-20T05:43:26.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese denotes the concept(&quot;&lt;strong&gt;mutual acquaintance&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;) differently. These are the idiomatic sentences in mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们两个都认识他 // both of us have an acquaintance with him. Or he is a mutual acquaintance of ours. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;张三和李四都和我相识 // both 张三 and 李四 have an acquaintance with me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;张三和李四都认识王五 // both 张三 and 李四 have an acquaintance with 王五.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when it comes to the term &quot;&lt;strong&gt;mutual friend&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, you can put 共同的朋友. For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;张三是我们共同的朋友 // 张三 is a mutual friend of ours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-08-20T08:12:43.550" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T08:12:43.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31144" CreationDate="2018-08-20T07:19:25.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually neither of them is correct [technically speaking]. Also in the link you provided, that does sound like /i:/ as in &quot;see&quot;, but that is not the sound actually made. Maybe the one provided such pronunciation might put her tongue a bit close to the teeth and create a bit confusion, or the recording is not authentic enough.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Acceptable way: let the position of your tongue ready for pronouncing /r/ in English. Then to pronounce &quot;sh&quot;, just keep this position and let the air out of the mouth. When you do that, the air should pass through the small gap above your tongue.  Now for the full &quot;shì&quot;, do the same thing and let your voice box vibrate at the same time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Standard Mandarin or &quot;Putonghua&quot; [普通话], &quot;i&quot; after &quot;s/sh, z/zh, c/ch, r&quot; are never pronounced like &quot;/i/&quot; as in &quot;bit&quot; or &quot;/i:/&quot; as in &quot;see&quot;. In these cases, you could think of them as an extension of the sound in the front of &quot;i&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone pronounces &quot;shì&quot; as &quot;shè&quot;, then maybe s/he is used to pronounce &quot;shì&quot; for a short time then immediately s/he let his/her mouth open and relax before completing the pronunciation. Technically speaking, they actually pronounced &quot;shì e&quot;, but not as much explicit, thus many native speakers would accept such a sound as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phenomenon &quot;儿化&quot; truly exists, but not all words end by sound &quot;i&quot; are acceptable to  be &quot;儿化&quot; i.e. add a little /ər/ [IPA] at the end. The word 博士 should not be &quot;儿化&quot; in general [although some people may make this mistake because of the influence of their dialect]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. &quot;sh&quot; in mandarin is not the same as /ʃ/ in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.P.S. when referring to IPA symbols, I had used / / to wrap, while to Chinese Pinyin, I had used quotes &quot;&quot; instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For safety, I am here to paste useful explanations I made in comments.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When I said that &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you could think of the &quot;i&quot; as an extension of the &quot;s/sh, z/zh, c/ch r&quot; sound &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;in the front of &quot;i&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I meant that, e.g. when you pronounce &quot;shi&quot;, you just need to hold the position of your tongue that produces &quot;sh&quot; and let your air out for a bit of longer time. Equivalently the &quot;shi&quot; sound would sound like prolonging the shhhh sound as @TomSofty33 understood. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When I said &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;they are actually pronounced &quot;shì e&quot;, but not as much explicit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;not as much explicit&quot; here is referring to the /i/ sound being not to explicitly pronounced as @TomSofty33 understood. &#xA;And the &quot;e&quot; in &quot;shì e&quot; does sound a bit like /ə/ in english IPA as in the word &quot;her&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation in the 1st link provided in the OP does not soun awkward to me as a native Chinese speaker, but might not be clear in the records. Personally I do not recommend. Some people might pronounce 博士 like that in the link. But technically speaking that is not the correct or standard one, however acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am a native chinese speaker with satisfying TOEFL grade. So when I write the description starting with an English sound /r/, you could totally do as I explained, you do not need to worry about something like I may pronounce the English words in a wrong way, which would lead you to mistake if you do take what I have written in my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastEditorUserId="18711" LastEditDate="2018-08-20T11:18:31.193" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T11:18:31.193" CommentCount="27" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31157" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31162" CreationDate="2018-08-20T08:58:20.423" Score="0" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it ok to answer only the day of the month to the question &quot;今天几号?&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First dialog:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- 今天几号?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- 今天是八月二十号. (it is OK, common phrase)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second dialog:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- 今天几号?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- 今天是二十号. &lt;strong&gt;(is it Ok? Why not?)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the second dialog is not grammaticaly correct, how can I ask for a day of the month?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is ok to use month when asking 你的生日是几月几号? But the date (month + day) is asked without month (from book 汉语会话301句) just 今天几号?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2018-08-20T10:27:13.410" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T12:17:25.347" Title="Is it ok to answer only the day of the month to the question &quot;今天几号?&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31157" CreationDate="2018-08-20T09:11:05.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it totally makes sense to answer only the day since the question is asking for the day only instead of month and day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one is asking for month it would be something like: 今天是几月几号？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20181" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T09:11:05.137" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31159" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31163" CreationDate="2018-08-20T09:21:40.930" Score="0" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it ok to omit &quot;也&quot; in responce 我也很好?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dialog (3rd line):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- 你好吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- [ &lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt; ] 很好! 你好吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- 我 [ &lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt; ] 很好!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if it is ok to omit 也 in third line, is it ok to add 我 in the second line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T15:34:45.180" Title="Is it ok to omit &quot;也&quot; in responce 我也很好?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31157" CreationDate="2018-08-20T09:24:33.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Responding only the day is based on you both are very clear about the current month. Even in English we can here something like:&#xA;&quot;How is Danny?&quot;&#xA;&quot;Fine.&quot;&#xA;Based on we all know who we are talking about.&#xA;But if you drive a time machine to a new world and has no idea what the month is, you can then ask&#xA;&quot;Sorry, what month are we talking?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20297" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T09:24:33.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31159" CreationDate="2018-08-20T09:37:42.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 也 can be direct translated into English word &quot;too&quot;, the way of using it in the sentence is basically the same as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having 也 in your sentence basically just add in a &quot;too&quot;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我很好    &amp;lt;---&gt; I'm fine&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我也很好  &amp;lt;---&gt; I'm fine too&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20181" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T09:37:42.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31157" CreationDate="2018-08-20T12:17:25.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I was asked 今天几号? , most likely I will just answer 20号 or 今天20号. I would assume someone is expecting a brief answer since he'd asked briefly. You can also answer 今天是八月二十号, just like your first dialogue.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they are also unsure about the month, they might come back with something like, 这是几月了？ or 这个月是几月？. I might just answer: 8月 or 这个月是8月.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they want to ask the exact month and date of today, they might put &quot;今天是几月几号？&quot;. The answer would be &quot;今天是8月20号？&quot; or just &quot;8月20号？&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T12:17:25.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31159" CreationDate="2018-08-20T14:40:07.517" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seriously I think people only say 我也很好 when the situation is a bit awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like adding to the meaninglessness of your answer by stressing the similarity to another one's meaningless answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;actually when you ask 你好吗 in Chinese it already starts to get awkward. At least you can ask more specifically e.g. 最近怎么样？ (how're u doing lately?) than asking a question which neither contains any information nor fits language convention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T14:40:07.517" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31159" CreationDate="2018-08-20T15:34:45.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you omit 也, the result is like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How are you?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fine! And you?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fine!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but if you use 也, the dialog is like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How are you?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fine! And you?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm fine too!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are grammatically correct, but I don't know what is more &lt;em&gt;appropriate&lt;/em&gt; in chinese, although in my lessons and in my mother language (italian) we usually talk like the second example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15248" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T15:34:45.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31146" CreationDate="2018-08-20T21:29:11.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;@zyy's answer is in general very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just to add to some minor points. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人格 in non-academic texts is also used interchangeably with the former 3, e.g. 人格高尚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;素质 can mean both how well your certain skill/ability is or how much you are civilized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T21:29:11.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31166" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31168" CreationDate="2018-08-20T23:02:24.323" Score="2" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QyvoP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QyvoP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the characters on this seal? The middle two seem to be 皇帝, but I can't make out the other four.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13362" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-05-04T15:49:50.613" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T15:49:50.613" Title="What are the six characters on this seal? (Characters identified: 漢高皇帝後裔)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31167" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31169" CreationDate="2018-08-21T01:41:46.293" Score="-1" ViewCount="550" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thank you for cheering me up (yesterday/the other day).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谢谢你那天我加油?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T14:38:20.690" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T14:38:20.690" Title="How do I say &quot;thank you for cheering me up (yesterday/the other day)&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31166" CreationDate="2018-08-21T02:43:01.050" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;edited, according to info provided by droooze.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the recognised character in sequence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;５３１&#xA;６４２&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;character ５：後 (u+5f8c)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%BE%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=後&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;character ６：裔 (u+88d4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%A3%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%A3%94&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;character ３：皇 (u+7687)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%9A%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=皇&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;character ４：帝 (u+5e1d)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%B8%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=帝&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;character １, the left component is 水 (u+6c34), the left one, wait :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited. with help from droooze, this one should be 漢 (u+6f22)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%BC%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;character ２, this one would be 亙 (u+4e99)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%BA%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=亙&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, it would be read as &quot;漢亙皇帝後裔&quot;, roughly &quot;the descendent of emperor '漢亙帝'&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-08-21T11:15:28.540" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T11:15:28.540" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31167" CreationDate="2018-08-21T03:01:18.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;to cheer someone up&quot; is different from &quot;to cheer someone on&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'to cheer someone up' = '鼓舞 someone'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'to cheer someone on' = '替 someone 打气' or '替 someone 加油'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Thank you for &lt;strong&gt;cheering&lt;/strong&gt; me &lt;strong&gt;up&lt;/strong&gt; yesterday&quot; means 多谢你昨天鼓舞我&quot; (or 鼓励我)&lt;em&gt;-  you say or do something to make someone feel better&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Thank you for &lt;strong&gt;cheering&lt;/strong&gt; me &lt;strong&gt;on&lt;/strong&gt; yesterday&quot; means &quot;多谢你昨天替我打气 (or 加油)-  &lt;em&gt;When you cheer someone on, you shout loudly in order to encourage them&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-08-21T03:07:57.533" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T03:07:57.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31167" CreationDate="2018-08-21T03:39:55.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need insert 给 or 替 to your Chinese sentence to denote the sense '&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谢谢你那天 给/替 我加油?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, I probably add a 来 or 能来 as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谢谢你那天来给我加油? or 谢谢你那天能来给我加油?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note. I'm not discerning about the difference between &lt;strong&gt;cheer up&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;cheer on&lt;/strong&gt; in English. So, I just blindly assume you meant 加油 in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-08-21T03:45:47.047" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T03:45:47.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31172" CreationDate="2018-08-21T07:02:24.873" Score="2" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;“为什么我((会))觉得历史课很无聊？”. The translation of the sentence is &quot;Why do I think history lessons are boring?&quot;. I don't get why 会 is used since 会 means &quot;to be able to&quot; or is used to indicate future tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T12:44:30.370" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T13:36:31.193" Title="What does 会 mean in 为什么我会觉得历史课很无聊？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31171" CreationDate="2018-08-21T08:22:49.470" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;会 has many meanings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in this context, &amp;quot;会&amp;quot; functions as  &amp;quot;would&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/would&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Would&lt;/a&gt;: modal verb (INTENTION/ POSSIBILITY)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;为什么我(会)觉得历史课很无聊?&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;why (would) I think history class is boring?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If there's no explanation following the question,  it is a rhetorical question&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 'would' as a modal verb :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;If it doesn't rain, I would go&amp;quot;  (INTENTION)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;One of them would die if they fight each other&amp;quot; (POSSIBILITY)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T08:31:54.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31107" CreationDate="2018-08-21T09:43:22.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A8%81%E5%A6%A5%E7%91%AA%E6%8B%BC%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/威妥瑪拼音&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/ce/ in IPA is [tsʰɯʌ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's natural if you perceive /e/ as &quot;wuh&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;furthermore, at least it sounds to me that when native English speakers pronounce the letter &quot;t&quot;, their tongues are more retracted, i.e. the middle area of the tongue touches palate, which creates some friction and thus makes it sound like &quot;ts&quot; to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;following this logic backwards, it also makes sense that you mistake /c/ in Chinese for &quot;t&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T09:43:22.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31146" CreationDate="2018-08-21T09:57:17.673" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are both to describe a person, it seems similar at first glance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;品质&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say someone's 品质 is bad, means he likes to do bad things, like steal, &#xA;betrayal. Or, a honest one is a 品质很好的人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also describe a product.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;品格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a higher standard than 品质. You can say that a man is 品质好的人 if he never did anything bad, but if he did some good things on his own initiative, he would be a 品格高尚的人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人品&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is almost same with 品质, except used for human only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is roughly same with 品格. But can be used in science, a man with multiple personality disorder is describe as 多重人格, not 多重品格. If we say someone 人格缺陷, that means he has a illness in medical science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;素质&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is related to manner and education. Talking loudly and spit is 没有素质.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T09:57:17.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31175" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31176" CreationDate="2018-08-21T10:15:22.780" Score="1" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, when to, and when not to, repeat the possessive &quot;的“ after a comparative '和/跟' or '比' . Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20304" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T04:52:00.717" Title="Is there a difference between &quot;这里 的 天气跟 我 老家 一样&quot;, and &quot;这里 的 天气跟 我 老家 的 一样&quot;" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31175" CreationDate="2018-08-21T10:47:34.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are big difference between “这里 的 天气跟 我 老家 一样” and “这里 的 天气跟 我 老家 的 一样”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“这里 的 天气 跟 我 老家 一样” = The weather here is like my hometown&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“这里 的 天气 跟 我 老家的 一样” = The weather here is like my hometown's (weather)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In example #1, it compare 'this place's weather' to 'my home town', meaning the (&lt;em&gt;weather&lt;/em&gt;) here is the same as my (&lt;em&gt;home town&lt;/em&gt;), which is nonsensical&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In example #2, it compare 'this place's weather' to 'my home town's weather' with 'weather' omitted (It is like in English, we could say &quot;let's go to Howard's&quot; instead of &quot;let's go to Howard's home&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the sentence was 这里 跟 我 老家 一样 (this place is like my hometown) you are comparing 这里(this place) with 我老家(my hometown), that make complete sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, the possessive &quot;的“ after a comparative '和/跟' or '比' cannot be omitted. But you can omit the second noun if it is the same as the first one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我的房子比你的房子大&quot; (my house is bigger than your house) can be reduced to &quot;我的房子比你的大&quot; (&lt;em&gt;omit the repeated noun 房子&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the second noun is different from the first one, then it can't be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的手臂比你的大腿粗 (My arm is thicker than your thigh)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The second noun is different from the first noun, therefore, it can't be omitted&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two kinds of possessive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;true possessive like &quot;my car&quot; (you own the car)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;relative possessive like &quot;my mother&quot;, &quot;my country&quot;  (you don't own your mother or your country)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is relative possessive, you can omit it altogether&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这里(的)天气 和 我(的)老家(的)天气一样&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(的)媽媽 跟 你(的)媽媽 一般大年紀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-08-21T11:09:01.023" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T11:09:01.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31177" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-21T13:28:00.740" Score="2" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm developing a set of tools meant to aid in learning Chinese characters and I realized that I don't know a good dataset containing character decomposition. Ideally it should be comprehensive (or have as good coverage as possible), machine-readable and available for free (creative commons?). So far I know about &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/skishore/makemeahanzi/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Make Me a Hanzi&lt;/a&gt;. What are the other ones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19231" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T06:18:11.080" Title="What resources can I use for learning character decomposition?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31177" CreationDate="2018-08-21T13:32:55.730" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;CHISE (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/projects/chise/ids/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/projects/chise/ids/index.html&lt;/a&gt;) is one of the most comprehensive ones available, containing decompositons for almost all characters in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJK_Unified_Ideographs_(Unicode_block)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK unicode block&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-08-21T13:42:58.483" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T13:42:58.483" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31177" CreationDate="2018-08-21T13:44:33.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;you may try the 拆字字典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kaifangcidian.com/han/chaizi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.kaifangcidian.com/han/chaizi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&#xA;【彎】 wan1    〖絲 言 弓 彎〗〖糹 言 糹 弓 彎〗&#xA;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kaifangcidian.com/han/chaizi/%E5%BD%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.kaifangcidian.com/han/chaizi/彎&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T13:44:33.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31180" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31995" CreationDate="2018-08-21T14:25:00.473" Score="2" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you please tell me the difference and how each word is used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-21T07:12:02.670" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T07:12:02.670" Title="Difference between 讨厌, 恨, 怨恨, 忌恨, 恶, and 恼恨?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31181" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-21T20:34:56.750" Score="5" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading an excerpt from a story, and I'm having a discussion with my friend over the correct way to parse this line said by a certain character, let's call him 1, about character 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是个很普通就打赢了的对手哦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 overhears this and reacts angrily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difficulty stems from the target of 打赢了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the line would translate to something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was very common to win against this opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friend tells me it's more like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very common for this opponent to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if character 2 reacts angrily, isn't that a provocation? Which would mean mine makes sense in the context.&#xA;Any help with understanding the correct parsing will be awesome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20307" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T23:21:57.937" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T23:22:53.297" Title="The correct way to parse &quot;就打赢了&quot; in 是个很普通就打赢了的对手哦?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31182" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31188" CreationDate="2018-08-21T20:50:42.890" Score="0" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to practice HSK based on tests from previous years, but have trouble finding them. Is there a place where those were collected for the general public?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19231" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T06:21:37.590" Title="Where can I find old HSK tests?" Tags="&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31181" CreationDate="2018-08-21T21:01:49.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;是个很普通就打赢了的&amp;quot; is an adjectival phrase for &amp;quot;对手&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 - is (verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;个 - a (classifier for the noun 对手)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很普通&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; easily) 打赢了(defeated)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 (adjectival phrase marker)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对手- opponent [noun]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 here means &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;打赢了的对手&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;defeated opponent&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;是个很普通(就)打赢了的对手&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;is (just) an easily defeated opponent&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'普通就' is short for '普通地打&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;' (&lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; fight normally)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other example of '就' functions as 'just':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一美元(就)卖了 = sold (just) for one dollar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T21:23:59.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31182" CreationDate="2018-08-21T23:07:31.603" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Buy them on &lt;a href=&quot;https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.13.1ec211cdp90a90&amp;amp;id=530416898726&amp;amp;ns=1&amp;amp;abbucket=11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;taobao&lt;/a&gt;, or jd.com, about 60 Kuai a book, usually 8 exams I believe, with a CD for the listening part.&#xA;Just enter HSK and the number of the level you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T23:07:31.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31181" CreationDate="2018-08-22T01:05:34.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是个很普通就打赢了的对手哦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tang Ho's analysis is correct. Semantically, the sentence is saying &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;One is such an opponent or contestant that can be defeated by normal playing (versus playing hard)&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;. Put it another way: &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;I don't have to play hard to defeat him.&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is indeed a provocation if you say that in front of your contestants or their supporters. So, your analysis is more correct than your friend's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T23:22:53.297" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T23:22:53.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31177" CreationDate="2018-08-22T06:18:11.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/amake/cjk-decomp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/amake/cjk-decomp&lt;/a&gt; or&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cjkvi/cjkvi-ids&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/cjkvi/cjkvi-ids&lt;/a&gt; is what you're looking for. Licenses are included in the repos. The IDS decomposition is newer but licensing seems a bit unclear. Then again, Chinese characters haven't changed since the first repo, cjk-decomp, was created, use that perhaps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T06:18:11.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31182" CreationDate="2018-08-22T06:21:37.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Internet is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.au/search?q=hsk+past+papers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;full of them&lt;/a&gt;, starting from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.confuciusinstitute.manchester.ac.uk/study/testing/hsk/hsk-learning-resources/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.confuciusinstitute.manchester.ac.uk/study/testing/hsk/hsk-learning-resources/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T06:21:37.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31189" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-22T08:49:14.420" Score="1" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to un-puzzle the computerized knitting machine instruction in Chinese for my mom, and I've been doing fine until these two appeared:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;花板&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;起始针&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can't make head or tails of them in this particular sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当起始针+花版最大幅宽大于针床设定总针数时，系统将弹出报警提示.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the English equivalents of these two? Especially, 花板?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20309" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T10:23:41.207" Title="Looking for help with knitting machine terms" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13243" CreationDate="2018-08-22T11:38:41.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;all of those are onomatopoeias&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;actually the meanings vary a lot if you speak a different dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example 嘻嘻 is /xixi/ in mandarin, /hihi/ in Minnan, /heihei/ in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you are used to 嘻嘻 in mandarin and you read a comic book from hongkong, you'll wonder why those handsome masculine protagonists /xixi/ like a girl who falls in love the first time while actually the author means a cheeky /heihei/.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is only one example, but if you look at the news papers or daily languages in regions of different dialects, the way they use onomatopoeias are fundamentally different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T11:38:41.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31191" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31192" CreationDate="2018-08-22T12:16:40.283" Score="4" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend who's a native Chinese speaker told me this &quot;今晚又要加班&quot;. I wonder why he used 又 instead of 再 since (as far as I know) 又 indicates a repetition of an action in the past, while in this case, I don't think he refers to the past because he is just about to work overtime again tonight (cmiiw). Could someone please explain to me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-22T01:38:07.113" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T04:07:53.890" Title="Why 又 is used in 今晚又要加班?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31191" CreationDate="2018-08-22T13:03:01.697" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although he is not referring to a past action, it is a recurrent past action that is going to happen again. The idea of a pattern firmly established in the past, plus the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22zai%22_and_%22you%22#.E5.8F.88_adds_emotional_coloring_to_events_recurring_in_the_future&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;emotional colouring&lt;/a&gt;, means that 又 is more appropriate than 再 here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's some contention about &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FfIABAAAQBAJ&amp;amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;amp;pg=242#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;whether 了 is required after 又&lt;/a&gt;. I think with 要, as it's not as much an action verb (in this context) as some other verbs, 了 is not as required as in other contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T13:03:01.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31191" CreationDate="2018-08-22T14:06:58.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Michaelyus already gave a good answer. Here is my way to interpret it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, we say 又, meaning something happened or will happen one more time(repetition). For example, 你又来了 implies that you have come here before and this is not your first time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So， &quot;今晚又要加班&quot; implies that you have worked overtime before and tonight you will work overtime again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T14:06:58.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31062" CreationDate="2018-08-22T19:44:37.660" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the other answer stated, the characters are &lt;strong&gt;李濟懋印&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W5yB5.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W5yB5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Approximate idea of character development - this may not be strictly how the characters evolved over the years.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;李&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「李」(originally &lt;em&gt;a kind of fruit&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;plum&lt;/em&gt;, Baxter-Sagart OC: /*C.rəʔ/) is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「木」, a semantic component, reinterpreted from「來」(Baxter-Sagart OC: /*mə.rˤək/, /*mə.rˤək/), a phonetic component;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「子」, a semantic component.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「木」is relatively similar in appearance to its &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;regular script&lt;/a&gt; counterpart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「子」originally depicted a &lt;em&gt;baby&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;child&lt;/em&gt;, which is its original meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g4GIp.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g4GIp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;2262&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=22484&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集22484&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This form directly leads on to its seal script shape.&lt;/strong&gt; Compared with an adult human「大」, the child's head is emphasised and legs are de-emphasised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OOuya.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OOuya.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;387&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=22421&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集22421&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;濟&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「濟」(originally &lt;em&gt;to cross a river&lt;/em&gt;) is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「氵/水」, a semantic component, explanation given &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30476/meaning-of-seal-and-engraved-characters-on-teapot/30488#30488&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「齊」, a phonetic component.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What「齊」exactly depicted is not universally agreed upon. However, most sources agree that it was originally comprised of three of some kind of plant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QviEn.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QviEn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;前&lt;/a&gt;2.15.3&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=36493&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集36493&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The primary attested meanings are &lt;em&gt;even, alike, level&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Later on, decorative marks in the shape of「＝」were added on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I1WJo.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I1WJo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;陳侯因⿱次月敦&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4649&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4649&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The bottom two plants then had their stalks extended, &lt;strong&gt;leading on to the seal script shape&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A8aQf.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A8aQf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;咸陽瓦&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;懋&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「懋」(&lt;em&gt;diligent&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;hard-working&lt;/em&gt;; used as a name) is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「楙」, a phonetic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「心」, a semantic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「楙」(&lt;em&gt;quince&lt;/em&gt;; sometimes interchanged with「茂」&lt;em&gt;flourishing&lt;/em&gt;) is comprised of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「林」, a semantic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「矛」, a phonetic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An ancient variant of「懋」did not include「林」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0StiU.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0StiU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;京都&lt;/a&gt;2062&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=29004&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集29004&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;隷定&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X8BgI.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X8BgI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The top component is often seen as the oldest form of「矛」. Later individual appearances of「矛」clearly depicts a long spear or pike with a curved handle:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iOuJz.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iOuJz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;⿹戈冬簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4322&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4322&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The head of the weapon and the handle was subject to shape corruption, e.g. into three「刀」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z6ZZk.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z6ZZk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦家嘴&lt;/a&gt;1.5&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Further stylising from similar shapes leads to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Se77Y.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Se77Y.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;ㆍ&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;法&lt;/a&gt;85&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wytZ2.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wytZ2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;latter of which is the seal script form found in the photo&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「心」depicts a heart:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H1lfh.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H1lfh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;3510&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=6&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Later on, the chambers of the heart were exaggerated, and the shape became more stylised:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qHnlc.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qHnlc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;史墻盤&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=10175&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成10175&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;楚&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nFbEM.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nFbEM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;包2&lt;/a&gt;.218&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vk9d3.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vk9d3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the shape for「心」in the photo is exceedingly uncommon and difficult to recognise. All common forms of「心」have curves which open at the top, not closed like in the photo. This situation happens very frequently in deciphering characters in seals and calligraphy pieces, and at this point other methods will have to be used to determine the entire character. Two possible methods are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use a handwriting recognition tool to write the known components (well) and an approximation of the unknown component, e.g. in Pleco:&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KxhpI.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KxhpI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideographic_Description_Characters_(Unicode_block)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ideographic Description Characters&lt;/a&gt; or similar decomposition methods in a search engine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LBfpI.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LBfpI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The most viable candidates are「壄」(variant of「野」) and「懋」. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=%E6%9D%8E%E6%BF%9F%E6%87%8B&amp;amp;oq=%E6%9D%8E%E6%BF%9F%E6%87%8B&amp;amp;aqs=chrome..69i57&amp;amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google search&lt;/a&gt; also reveals that &quot;李濟懋&quot; is an actual name, unlike &quot;李濟壄&quot;, which should increase confidence that the character is「懋」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the above process is not satisfactory, we can go further and look for variants of similar shapes in a comprehensive site like &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/home.do&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;教育部異體字字典&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;印&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「印」depicts a hand「」pressing down on a kneeling person「卩」, which is also its composition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OHA9K.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OHA9K.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;乙&lt;/a&gt;112&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=22148&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集22148&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The relative proportions and positions of the hand and person have changed throughout history. &lt;strong&gt;A bronze script form which looks similar to the photo is&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UcEK4.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UcEK4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;毛公鼎&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2842&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2841&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T19:44:37.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31189" CreationDate="2018-08-22T22:07:54.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my understanding of the terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起始针 - starting stitches (the first row)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;花样 - pattern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;花板 - most likely pattern template&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;花版最大幅 - the largest (widest) part of the pattern template&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;设定总针数 - pre-set total number of stitches&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence you quote sounds like an awkward translation of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the number of stitches at starting + stitches at largest part of the pattern exceeds the total number pre-set by the knitting bed, a warning signal will pop up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I have to admit I've never used a knitting machine before, but I have been knitting since I was nine years old, so I feel I can probably shed some light on this. It makes sense that a machine will need to have a limit on how big a garment and how complicated a pattern it can produce. If my understanding is correct, you probably don't need to worry about this part, unless you're trying to knit something really, really enormous or have an extraordinarily complex pattern. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T22:07:54.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31196" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-23T03:32:12.020" Score="5" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;跟進&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/31166/what-are-the-six-characters-on-this-seal&quot;&gt;此問題&lt;/a&gt;，題中之印&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QyvoP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QyvoP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;共收六字，其中五字無疑，作爲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;後皇漢&lt;br&gt;裔帝Ｘ&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ｘ是何字，解之有難。僅看字形，個人釋之爲「亘」，而@水巷孑蠻釋之爲「亙」，因漢朝既無「亘帝」也無「亙帝」，二解都有問題。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先說說「亘」與「亙」二字的字源。二者在秦漢之後已經就被混淆了，甚至到今世多釋之爲繁簡或異體關係，非也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「亘」字本義是環繞、迴旋，很可能跟「還」、「漩」等類似的詞有同源關係，但初期竝無「亘」字而以「回」字當之，然後世「亘」字从「回」字分化。「回」是象形字，像迴旋流水，本義今作「洄」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MZoph.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MZoph.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;903&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=34165&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集34165&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;楚&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E7%AE%80%E7%89%8D&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HyQHC.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HyQHC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;新&lt;/a&gt;3.294&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TR6Ez.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TR6Ez.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%9D%A1%E8%99%8E%E5%9C%B0%E7%A7%A6%E7%AE%80&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;ㆍ&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;148&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/63VWY.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/63VWY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在「回」字上或重複「回」字、或加幾筆橫畫，迺成「亘」。例：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rw1Vp.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rw1Vp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;史墻盤「」&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=10175&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成10175&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/22jg5.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/22jg5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;虢季子白盤「」&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=10173&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成10173&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今「亘」字是傳承以「回」字上加兩筆橫畫竝無重複的結構，其中「回」部件後來變成了「日」形：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1ZPjd.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1ZPjd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xleC7.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xleC7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「亙」字來源完全不同。「亙」迺「恆」，「㮓」二者的初文，二者是以「亙」上加義符而分化出來的字。「亙」也是象形字，像半月在天地之間。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/S1eIx.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/S1eIx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;鐵&lt;/a&gt;199.3&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=14764&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集14764&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iydza.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iydza.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;亙鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2380&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2380&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wBvNP.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wBvNP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在今世收集的通用字沒有从「亘」作爲義符的字，而有以「亘」（須緣切）當聲符的字，例如「桓」、「宣」等（「恆」類似以胡登切「亙」部件作爲聲符的字，不以俗體「恒」等當之，免得迷惑）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漢代無「亘帝」、「亙帝」，但確有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;漢文帝　劉&lt;strong&gt;恆&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;漢&lt;strong&gt;宣&lt;/strong&gt;帝　劉病已&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;漢&lt;strong&gt;桓&lt;/strong&gt;帝　劉志&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;印璽如果不是完全瞎製的一個玩具，我認爲Ｘ是上面粗體三者其中的一位假借字。查了劉煇《古文字通假字典》（&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/kangxi/pic.php?f=tjzzd&amp;amp;p=722&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;722頁&lt;/a&gt;）之後，個人還是覺得Ｘ是「亘」字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;亘&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4885（元心 xuan）讀為桓（元匣 huan），叠韻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;岣嶁碑：＂唯王二年六月丁酉，承嗣越臣憲亘朱句。＂曹錦炎《岣嶁碑研究》云＂憲亘＂即＂憲桓＂，乃＂朱句＂自諡之詞。又馬王堆帛書《春秋事話ㆍ齊桓公與蔡夫人乘舟章》：＂齊亘公與蔡夫人乘周（舟），夫人湯（蕩）周，禁之，不可，怒而歸之......亘公帀（師）以侵蔡，蔡人遂潰。＂＂亘公＂即＂桓公＂，《左傳ㆍ僖公三年》曾記此事，＂齊亘公＂作＂齊侯＂，魯僖公三年即齊桓公二十九年。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是，我竝沒搜到有＂漢Ｘ帝＂而以Ｘ作爲通假字的記錄；證據不夠堅强，不可判斷在此印中Ｘ到底是甚麽字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讀者如何？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-08-23T03:38:31.727" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T03:06:17.897" Title="What is the missing character on the seal?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31196" CreationDate="2018-08-23T04:56:47.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could simply be 室 as in 漢室 (Han dynasty)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zidian.wenku1.com/%E5%AE%A4/qiyuan.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「室」字的起源《说文解字》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;漢室皇帝後裔&quot; (Han Dynasty emperor descendant) make a lot of sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gei30.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gei30.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-08-27T03:06:17.897" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T03:06:17.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31198" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-23T14:17:55.433" Score="5" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently, when I pronounce the tones wrong on 莎士比亚 I've said something that my teacher refuses to explain to me. It should be Shāshìbǐyǎ. What am I doing wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20311" LastActivityDate="2018-08-24T08:35:02.123" Title="&quot;Shakespere&quot; Pronounced wrong upsets my teacher" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31198" CreationDate="2018-08-23T14:40:10.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't want to explain it to you either, it'd lower the tone of this very serious Q&amp;amp;A site, but if you read as far as the second last paragraph of this &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=15171&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=15171&lt;/a&gt; you'll get a very strong hint. The only thing I'd add to that is that 傻 is a very natural prefix, probably the single most common one, and 呀 is a natural suffix to almost everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enjoy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18891" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T14:40:10.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31200" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31202" CreationDate="2018-08-23T20:33:46.013" Score="3" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since 已经 is an adverb I thought I'd always have to put it before the verb like in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) 这对老人已经相爱三十多年了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) 他已经睡四个小时了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I found a sentence on my book that say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们恋爱已经一年多了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should translate to &quot;They have been in love for more than 1 year already&quot;, right? Then why 已经 is placed after and not before the verb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19709" LastActivityDate="2018-08-24T20:44:25.747" Title="The position of 已经 in &quot;have been doing something for some times already&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31198" CreationDate="2018-08-23T21:00:26.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to pinpoint &lt;em&gt;for sure&lt;/em&gt; what you're saying and what your teacher is hearing, but we can make an educated guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;莎士 is very easily confused with 吓死 for non-native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;比 can easily become 屄, especially without proper tone mastery.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;亚 could, like @steveLangsford pointed out, change to 呀 without much effort.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now we've got something like the neologism 吓死宝宝了 (scared little baby me to death) but which you've said as 吓死屄呀 (scared (little) cunt me to death). This would explain your teachers discountenance and subsequent refusal of explanation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-08-23T21:12:52.280" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T21:12:52.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31200" CreationDate="2018-08-23T22:50:40.540" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;已经 (already) can be placed before or after the verb in both Chinese and English if it is followed by a time period&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这对老人(已经相爱)三十多年了 = this old couple &lt;strong&gt;have already been&lt;/strong&gt; in love for more than 30 years &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这对老人相爱(已经三十多年了) = this old couple &lt;strong&gt;have been&lt;/strong&gt; in love for more than 30 years &lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他(已经睡了)四个小时了 = he &lt;strong&gt;has already been&lt;/strong&gt; sleeping for four hours&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他睡了(已经四个小时了) = he &lt;strong&gt;has been&lt;/strong&gt; sleeping for four hours &lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们(已经恋爱)一年多了 = they &lt;strong&gt;have already been&lt;/strong&gt; in love for over a year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们恋爱(已经一年多了) = they &lt;strong&gt;have been&lt;/strong&gt; in love for over a year &lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is not followed by a time period then 已经 (already) must be placed before the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(已经问)了他' (had already asked him)  cannot be changed to '问了他已经'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(已经问了)他一年' (have already asked him for a year) can be changed to 问了他(已经一年)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In short, when there's no time period at the end, the adverb '已经' must be placed before the verb; if there is a time period at the end , then 已经 is functioning as the adverb for the omitted verb '经过' or '有' in 已经(经过/有)一年&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;They are in fact two different types of Chinese grammar structures&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;已经问了他&quot; is a [verb + object] structure with '问了' as the verb and '他' as the object&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;问了他已经一年&quot; is a [topic + comment] structure, in which, '问了他' is the topic and '已经一年' is the comment&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-08-24T20:44:25.747" LastActivityDate="2018-08-24T20:44:25.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31196" CreationDate="2018-08-24T02:41:00.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;跟進此問題，題中之印&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圖略&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ｘ是何字，解之有難。僅看字形，個人釋之爲「亘」，而@水巷孑蠻釋之爲「亙」，因漢朝既無「亘帝」也無「亙帝」，二解都有問題。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nice try, just some corners of vernacular chinese. practise more, you can master the writing of literary chinese :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;may i suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;緣前題雖解．而一疑尚存．固起此問求真&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;斯印存六字．其五已釋．惟漢後皇前之刻．亘乎．亙乎．眾說紛紜．未審孰是孰非．再者．漢世無亘．亙之諡．益添困惑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;back to basic, a seal is for &lt;strong&gt;authentication&lt;/strong&gt;, to make a stamping that other can recognised the stamped document as authentic, from a individual, or an entity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the seal in question just declare &quot;descendent of a particular emperor of 漢 dynasty&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;any mr 劉 can make such claim, so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next, the text &quot;漢ｘ皇帝後裔&quot; is redundant &amp;amp; ugly. &quot;漢室宗親&quot;; 4 characters are enough for this purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, 亙 (u+4e99) is suggested, well, because the 漢語多功能字庫 do not has 亘 (u+4e98)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%BA%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=亘&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and, the 國語辭典 claimed 亘 (u+4e98) as variant of 亙 (u+4e99)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000070331&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000070331&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i need to read more, before making any sound judgement :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, relax, treat it as a &quot;hello kitty stamp&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what i want to say is, hello kitty is based on a cat, it does not have a line to represent a mouth, and, it's &quot;tail&quot; is a circle only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-08-24T02:41:00.353" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31204" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-24T07:40:50.557" Score="1" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where can one find other mnemonics similar to &#xA;横戌点戍空心戊 and 已半, 巳满, 不出己 ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what in your opinion are the most common, useful or interesting such mnemonics? What is the term for such mnemonics in 普通话?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also related, riddles ( 猜字谜) like 一口咬掉牛尾巴 （打一字）. Which are your favourite such riddles? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit (2018-08-31) I would be particularly interested in mnemonics used in Chinese schools. Are these called 口诀 or 字诀? Here's another one I just remembered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;j, q, x&#xA;小淘气&#xA;遇到ü&#xA;把点去&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2018-08-31T09:24:16.780" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T09:24:16.780" Title="Mnemonics for 汉字: examples and resources" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31205" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-24T07:57:41.637" Score="1" ViewCount="1311" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi is there any website where we can input a chinese character and watch how it is written (the process) in 行書 semi-cursive form, and not how it is written in the normal &quot;formal&quot; stroke. In order to know exactly how it is handwritten in semi-cursive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regards,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20135" LastEditorUserId="20135" LastEditDate="2018-08-24T09:14:09.113" LastActivityDate="2020-04-17T12:02:30.240" Title="Handwriting 行書 semi-cursive online" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2020-07-27T00:04:43.860" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31198" CreationDate="2018-08-24T08:35:02.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think if you mispronounced 莎士比亚 (Shā shì bǐ yǎ) with a lighter tone, it could become something like 啥是逼呀 (Shà shì bī ya), where 逼 carries a meaning of female's genital which is quite rude. The whole sentence might turn out to be misheard as “啥是逼呀？” which means &quot;What is a pxsxy(逼)?&quot;. Then it makes sense for your teacher not explaining that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20181" LastActivityDate="2018-08-24T08:35:02.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31208" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31213" CreationDate="2018-08-24T13:15:38.883" Score="0" ViewCount="333" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought 亲你一口 means “kiss you” but usually, I think verbs take 一下 to add the meaning of “a bit”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why is it 亲你一口, not 亲你一下, and what does it differ from just say 亲你? Or is the relationship between 亲你 and 亲你一口 the same as between 看你 and 看你一下?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-08-24T16:44:01.660" LastActivityDate="2018-08-25T00:55:36.830" Title="What does 亲你一口 mean?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31208" CreationDate="2018-08-25T00:55:36.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;亲你一口 and 亲你一下 mean the same, &lt;em&gt;kiss one time&lt;/em&gt;. 口 and 下 are both valid measure words for 亲. So, 亲一口 == 亲一下. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should note that 一下 doesn't &lt;strong&gt;ALWAYS&lt;/strong&gt; mean '&lt;em&gt;a bit&lt;/em&gt;'. It can mean '&lt;em&gt;one time&lt;/em&gt;'. For example, 打三下（hit three times）， 亲两下(kiss two times).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-08-25T00:55:36.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31204" CreationDate="2018-08-25T10:16:49.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only remember other things about the structure of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone get name of others, if the surname is Zhang, he may ask 弓长张 or 立早章?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the most confusing riddle, I think, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个不出头，两个不出头，三个不出头，不是不出头，就是不出头. (打一字)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I first know the riddle, I was like, wtf, it doesn't even make sense, what does 不出头 mean? And the most confusing part 不是不出头, 就是不出头.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And when I had got the answer, it became my favorite 汉字 riddle instantly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-08-25T10:28:02.343" LastActivityDate="2018-08-25T10:28:02.343" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31215" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31216" CreationDate="2018-08-25T13:38:04.533" Score="2" ViewCount="842" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the message I just sent out to my friend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;酒吧的哥哥也期待你再来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I referred to the bartender as 哥哥, but the bartender saw my WeChat, and said the following (the exact sentence might not be same):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;哥哥不行！我比你小呀！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is a bit younger than I (he is around 20 I think). And since I'm older than he, he said it is not correct to say 哥哥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I asked then if it is OK to say 弟弟, but he said it is not OK in China to imply another person younger (which is insulting I think). So I asked again then what I should call you in the conversation with my friend, and he said he also seemed not to know the correct word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He eventually said 朋友, though I asked again, the what I should if the bar is what I go to for the first time. He yet again seemed to struggle to answer my question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, I asked if then it is OK to refer to him as 小哥哥, and then he said &quot;随便你&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is, in such situations where I must refer to someone who I know that is younger, how should I refer to him in the conversation with another person? Is 小哥哥 the correct word or is there possibly better word? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T11:49:09.467" Title="How to refer to someone if he is younger than I (but not knowing his name)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31215" CreationDate="2018-08-25T13:44:41.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 兄弟 instead, no matter he is elder or younger. 兄弟 is like the word &quot;&lt;em&gt;buddy&lt;/em&gt;&quot; in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小哥哥 isn't suitable, and it sounds childish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-08-25T13:44:41.567" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31215" CreationDate="2018-08-25T17:19:39.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bartender is basically a stranger, calling him 兄弟 is a bit too close&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;小哥&lt;/strong&gt;' would be more suitable (not 小哥哥, that's for kids), you are not saying he is your older brother, you are saying he is a big brother of someone.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'姐姐' mean older sister, but you still call woman who is younger than you &#xA;'小姐' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calling a kid 小哥哥 (litter big brother) or 小姐姐  (little big sister) is also acceptable, you are not saying he or she is your big brother or big sister, you are stating they are someone's big brother or big sister. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, we can also call people much younger than you '姐姐仔' or '哥哥仔',  (a way people from older generation show affection to people from younger generation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a ten years old boy takes his four years old sister to a candy store, it is perfectly fine for the store owner calling the boy 哥哥仔(小哥哥)    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-08-25T17:32:42.317" LastActivityDate="2018-08-25T17:32:42.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31215" CreationDate="2018-08-25T20:47:38.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;帅哥/美女 is now generally accepted to refer to people from around 16 to say 40. I'm about to refer you to this question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/31088/9732&quot;&gt;帅哥/美女 to get attention of someone who isn&amp;#39;t handsome/beautiful&lt;/a&gt; but realised it's also your own question anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2018-08-25T20:47:38.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31219" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31221" CreationDate="2018-08-25T21:17:25.763" Score="0" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alice takes Bob to a new steak restaurant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alice: Do you think the steak here is good?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bob: It depends on your definition of &quot;good.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) What is the natural translation for Bob's statement? 要看妳的好吃的定義 and 就看妳的看法是什麼 feel like English grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Is the translation different for Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2018-08-25T22:02:28.100" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T09:45:32.847" Title="Mandarin/Cantonese translation of &quot;it depends on your definition of 'good'&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31219" CreationDate="2018-08-26T00:37:59.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“it depends on your definition of 'good'”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The followings could work:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這要看妳對 '好(吃)' 所下的定義是什麼 (M)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;噉要睇妳對 '好(食)' 所落嘅定義係乜 (C)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這要看妳心目中 '好(吃)' 的定義是什麼 (M)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;噉要睇妳心目中 '好(食)' 嘅定義係乜 (C)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T00:37:59.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31226" CreationDate="2018-08-26T02:39:07.600" Score="0" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;In common mandarin chinese, How i wanted to know how many &quot;known&quot; 行书 semi-cursive handwriting variants are they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also wanted to ask two questions (the answer could be different although these two questions &quot;seems&quot; to appear the same) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Which of those &quot;known&quot; 行书 semi-cursive handwriting variants are most popular in use nowadays by common Chinese people?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Which of those &quot;known&quot; 行书 semi-cursive handwriting variants has the most comprehensive &amp;amp; complete guide (in terms of number of characters which they construct on how to write the charaters in that variant) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regards&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20135" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T08:13:24.463" Title="How many 行书 semi-cursive handwriting variants" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31215" CreationDate="2018-08-26T03:45:36.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For convenience, I collect my comments here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word &quot;小哥哥&quot; now kind of have some flirting meaning… unless you are a girl [or may be a guy] and try to be cute in front of someone, this word is definitely not recommended as daily references.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However you might be able to call him 酒吧小哥 instead, although he may not accept this as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a girl, then 兄弟 may not be the most appropriate one, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also personally speaking, if you are not that familiar with the bartender, then 兄弟 might also sound not that right. In some region 哥们 would be an equivalence to &quot;buddy&quot; in English. However I myself would never use these casual expressions if the one I am or about to talking to is not an acquaintance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T03:45:36.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31219" CreationDate="2018-08-26T07:40:00.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most succinct colloquial way to express this is probably:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看你怎么看&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It literally means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看 = it depends&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你 = you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;怎么看 = how [you] see [it]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which gives us something like: that depends on how &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; look at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-08-26T09:45:32.847" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T09:45:32.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31205" CreationDate="2018-08-26T07:44:39.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is called 行书字典, here is &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tool.wikichina.com/shufa/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tool.wikichina.com/shufa/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;书法字典 always show brush writings, but it works for pen writing too, the character forms are not change too much except the simplification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I searched 书法, this is the part of the results. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xpQt2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xpQt2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, most people write 书 as similar to the first one(wrote by 颜真卿).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would write like this on paper. So the dictionary works for pen writings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pncPT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pncPT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T07:44:39.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31222" CreationDate="2018-08-26T08:13:24.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn 行书 for practical, I can post some styles for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;荆霄鹏&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/61uNi.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/61uNi.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;====&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;田英章&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BzO99.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BzO99.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;========&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;顾仲安&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ei2Gj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ei2Gj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;======&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;卢中南&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LgzDc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LgzDc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;========&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;任平&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/14sob.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/14sob.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are the most famous calligraphers modern times, the most populars are 顾仲安 and 田英章, my favourite is 顾仲安.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is more from 顾仲安.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;楷书&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bk2XM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bk2XM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行书&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Zvq6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Zvq6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;顾仲安 publish many 字帖, and there are video tutorials, groups on line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T08:13:24.463" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31227" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31230" CreationDate="2018-08-26T21:12:29.990" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;This grammar page lists the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;生活 中 不是 缺少 美 ，而是 缺少 发现 美 的 眼睛 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Shēnghuó zhōng bù shì quēshǎo měi, ér shì quēshǎo fāxiàn měi de&#xA;  yǎnjing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be correct grammar to omit the 美 and 眼睛? In other words, would the grammar be correct, and the meaning preserved, with this statement:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;生活 中 不是 缺少 美 ，而是 缺少 发现的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T23:47:50.980" Title="Proper grammar: 生活 中 不是 缺少 美 ，而是 缺少 发现的?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31228" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-26T22:25:57.997" Score="3" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would 追番&quot; translate to? It was displayed next to a heart icon on bilibili. From consulting a dictionary I believe hui in this context is pursue and fan is a measure word? I assume it means something like follow/subscribe but I would appreciate an explanation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20324" LastEditorUserId="20324" LastEditDate="2018-08-26T22:32:12.933" LastActivityDate="2018-09-08T07:31:28.310" Title="Translation of 追番" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31228" CreationDate="2018-08-26T23:04:45.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%95%AA%E5%89%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;番剧&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“番剧”是一个外来语词汇，意思为日本连载动画电视剧，属于二次元用户常用语。通常日本每年有四季动画剧，集中在1月、4月、7月、10月的某一个月份播出。因而类似美剧，番剧也是以季为单位，通常每周播出一集，一季12～13集居多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文名: 番剧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外文名: アニメ番組&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;番剧 refers to TV shows that come in multiple episodes and sometimes  multiple seasons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;追番  obviously means &amp;quot;follow series&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;番剧- originally an anime fandom term:  アニメ番組 (anime series)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T23:04:45.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31227" CreationDate="2018-08-26T23:47:50.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, you can't omit 美 and 眼睛, because they are the essential parts for understanding. Without them, the sentence becomes ungrammatical and incomprehensible. Original sentence is saying: &lt;em&gt;we are not short of things with beauty, but the eye that can discover them.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T23:47:50.980" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31175" CreationDate="2018-08-27T04:52:00.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well actually not so big difference as we could use either of them in daily conversation. Maybe in your writing it would be better to use the latter but we usually save characters in chat as long as it's understandable by others.&#xA;Ps: You can even omit the first &quot;的&quot; to make the sentence shorter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20326" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T04:52:00.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31215" CreationDate="2018-08-27T11:49:09.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are sure he is younger than you, then using 弟弟 might be alright if you just want to be casual and don't care about being super polite. If you really want to be polite you can perhaps use 先生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then as others have said, 兄弟 or 帥哥 is cool for a happy medium.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18991" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T11:49:09.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31234" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31245" CreationDate="2018-08-27T13:37:49.840" Score="1" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone translate the Chinese text on the picture attached?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9nooM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9nooM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20329" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-28T23:44:01.097" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T23:44:01.097" Title="Can anyone translate the Chinese text on the picture attached?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-02-29T01:11:27.277" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31235" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-27T14:25:03.243" Score="0" ViewCount="708" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need help in writing a closing paragraph to my letter. What I need to write in cantonese is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Please, don't forget to reply back my postcard and letter&#xA;I'm looking forward to get soon news from you.&#xA;Best regards, wish you good luck.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I tried to do is to translate this using google but it rendered this result:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;請不要忘記回复我的明信片和信件&#xA;我期待很快收到你的消息。&#xA;最好的問候，祝你好運。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Needless to say that I am uncertain if it is right grammatically speaking. To add some insight the recipient of this message is a male. Not sure if it will affect the translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing a quick research I've found this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Why-is-there-no-Cantonese-in-Google-Translate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; which explains that written cantonese lacks of support in google and that is not very used even in Hong Kong (the place to which this letter is intended to be sent). Can somebody help me with this matter?. I really need to do this thing right so that my message can be understood clearly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If possible an answer which can be accompanied by a formal version of my message and an informal version would help me the most, of course written in traditional chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19440" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T01:29:47.767" Title="How to ask for response and closing statement in a letter in cantonese and in traditional chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31235" CreationDate="2018-08-27T15:10:19.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;an informal one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please, don't forget to reply back my postcard and letter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拜託．唔好唔記得回信&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm looking forward to get soon news from you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想早啲收到你嘅消息&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Best regards, wish you good luck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝安康&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about a formal version, well, it's tricky. because, there're &quot;canned&quot; terms for correspondences in chinese, and these terms are in literary chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you google &quot;尺牘用語&quot;, there're numerous pages. briefly, you must know who has superiority, you, or the receiver; then choose the appropriate opening &amp;amp;  ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即覆為盼 - hope for your immediate reply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敬請臺安 - for equal status, roughly &quot;wish you calm&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;personally, i &quot;write&quot; colloquial cantonese, mixed with english words in email with my friends. these literary chinese terms are simply, &quot;overkill&quot; in context of cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited, if the receiver is more important, only use the two below, previous suggestions are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祈請示覆 ~ pray for your reply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/kei4.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;祈 kei4&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/cing2.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;請 ching2&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/si6.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;示 si6&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/fuk1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;覆 fuk1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敬請鈞安 ~ wish you calm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/ging3.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;敬 ging3&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/cing2.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;請 ching2&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/gwan1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鈞 gwan1&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/on1.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;安 on1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you may click the word to play the sound file :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the dilemma is, these terms are not colloquial cantonese. i doubt that people would understand, and guess the correct characters when they hear your saying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c'est la vie, the written chinese is different from the spoken chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyway, don't misuse &quot;canned&quot; terms for equal, or lower status; it's extremely rude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, you may use the 漢語多功能字庫 for learning cantonese pronunciation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, if you're using mac os x, the text to speech function is quite good, have a try :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-08-28T00:29:07.087" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T00:29:07.087" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31237" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-27T17:07:23.477" Score="3" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before I ask I'd like to say how much I admire Chinese culture and art. Hence I always dig in antique shops for something from China. A few years ago I bought these beautiful twin paintings (not prints) and they look at least 100 years old, signed by the same artist. Sadly I cannot connect these painting with an artist and I've done some research. My last bit of hope lies in you, would you be able to help me to translate signature and seal. I will be very very grateful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YoyDw.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YoyDw.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20330" LastEditorUserId="734" LastEditDate="2018-08-31T07:01:31.253" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T07:01:31.253" Title="Antique Chinese painting" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31235" CreationDate="2018-08-27T18:54:29.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cantonese speak in colloquial Cantonese and write in SWC (standard written Chinese) which is similar to Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please, don't forget to reply back my postcard and letter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking forward to get soon news from you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards, wish you good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SWC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請不要忘了回我的明信片和信 / 請勿忘記回覆 (more literary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;cing2 bat1 jiu3 mong4 liu5 wui4 ngo5 dik1 ming4 seon3 pin2 wo4 seon3 / cing2 mat6 mong4 gei1 wui4 fuk1&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望能早點收到你的消息&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;hei1 mong6 nang4 zou2 dim2 sau1 dou3 nei5 dik1 siu1 sik1&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝你好運&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;zuk1 nei5 hou2 wan6&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Best regards already mean wish you good luck, it is redundant&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colloquial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請唔好唔記得回我嘅明信片同信/ 請勿忘記回覆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;cing2 ng4 hou2 ng4 gei3 dak1 wui4 ngo5 ge3 ming4 seon3 pin2 tung4   seon3 / cing2 mat6 mong4 gei1 wui4 fuk1&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望能早啲收到你嘅消息&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;hei1 mong6 nang4 zou2 dim2 sau1 dou3 nei5 ge3 siu1 sik1&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝你好運&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;zuk1 nei5 hou2 wan6&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is unusual to write in Colloquial form. We only do it in casual setting, like gossip column or online short messages&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;SWC is a writing system. It can be read as Mandarin with Mandarin pinyin or read as Cantonese with Cantonese jyutping (or pinyin for any other dialect )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝你好運&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/zhu4 ni3 hao3 yun4/ (Mandarin pinyin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/zuk1 nei5 hou2 wan6/ (Cantonese jyutping)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T01:29:47.767" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31239" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-27T19:53:31.013" Score="1" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am very grateful for helping me with signature on lovely Chinese painting, I have one more in my collection, judging by the back of it it has at least 100 years. It is painted with ink and gold, the signature is next to it but again, I would be very grateful if you could help me with the translation of signature.&#xA;Once again thank you!!!!&#xA;pictures below&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2iJ8y.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2iJ8y.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20330" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T06:37:15.107" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T06:37:15.107" Title="Translation of a painting's signature, ink + gold (Characters identified: 日本製略曆)" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-12-21T11:12:45.540" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31239" CreationDate="2018-08-27T21:49:35.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;日本製 (Japan made) 略(brief/ rough) 曆 (Calendar)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not quite sure what '略曆' (brief Calendar) means. I have never heard of this term. My guess is, it is an old term (may be Japanese only) for '月曆' (monthly calendar) which is brief in details, unlike '日曆' (daily calendar) which list much more detailed information about each day on the Calendar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This painting might be the original art work for reproduction on a calendar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T21:49:35.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31241" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31242" CreationDate="2018-08-27T22:36:30.227" Score="4" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;毕业之后最开始在一家房地产公司做销售员，底薪一千八。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translator apparently translated &quot;最开始&quot; as went to work.  Here is the translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;after I graduated I first went to work as sales staff at a real estate agency with a salary of 1,800&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does 最开始 translate to &quot;went to work&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am confused because I can't find any thing that relates 最开始 with finding a job.  I think &quot;最开始&quot; means initially or at first. But then, where is the character for &quot;to work&quot; in 在一家房地产公司做销售员?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20127" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-28T23:41:45.747" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T23:41:45.747" Title="In 毕业之后最开始在一家房地产公司做销售员，底薪一千八, why does 最开始 translate to &quot;went to work&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31241" CreationDate="2018-08-27T23:29:36.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毕业之后&lt;strong&gt;最开始&lt;/strong&gt;在一家房地产公司做销售员,底薪一千八&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;after I graduated I &lt;strong&gt;first&lt;/strong&gt; went to work as sales staff at a real estate agency with a salary of 1,800&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[在一家房地产公司] {做销售员} -&amp;gt; (went to) {work as sales staff} [at a real estate agency].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T23:29:36.347" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31241" CreationDate="2018-08-28T00:02:41.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;[毕业之后] = After graduated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;最开始&lt;/strong&gt;] = &lt;strong&gt;at the very beginning&lt;/strong&gt; /&lt;strong&gt;in the initial stages&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;of my career&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[在一家房地产公司做销售员] = I worked as a sales staff in a real estate agency &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[底薪一千八] = with base salary of 1,800  (&lt;em&gt;I am sure his main income was commissions&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;毕业之后在一家房地产公司做销售员&quot; is already a complete sentence. &quot;最开始&quot; is a relative phrase that give us additional information, pinpointing the exact time - 'at the very beginning'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;做 here means &quot;being/ assume the role of/ act as&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-08-28T00:22:39.327" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T00:22:39.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31237" CreationDate="2018-08-28T01:01:26.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;well the signature is (read top to bottom):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李 (u+674e)：&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%9D%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=李&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徯 (u+5faf)：&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%BE%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=徯&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, the seal is the same (read right to left)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you goggle, there's a 日本篆刻家協会会報, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;www.n-tenkoku.jp/download/vol9.pdf&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in page 10, there's the same seal, with info:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李徯　河井荃廬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B2%B3%E4%BA%95%E3%81%9B%E3%82%93%E5%BB%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/河井せん廬&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;he's a japanese seal craving artist (篆刻家); so, i guess that this seal &quot;李徯&quot; was made by him. further, it's reasonable guess that the painting is &quot;made-by-japanese&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you need further info, i would suggest you post the pictures in japanese language stack exchange :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com&quot;&gt;https://japanese.stackexchange.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jOLiD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jOLiD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T01:01:26.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31234" CreationDate="2018-08-28T03:26:32.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;第一，我们可以看到买家已经安装了产品，我们在发货已经明确告知买家收到包裹后，不要马上安装，一定要先测试再安装，并全程用视频记录，这么做就是为了防止因为买家自己安装错误导致的问题把责任推到我们身上，我们本来就不能控制买家怎么安装！！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第二，从专业的角度分析出现买家视频中的问题有以下因素：１。买家在安装过程中，灰尘进入了排线，而要用牙刷和酒精刷一下排线；２。买家没有扣好排线；３买家在安装过程不小心扯断了排线。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请Aliexpress小组明察，谢谢！！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, we can see that the buyer had already installed the product, we had notified the buyer upon delivery, not to install it immediately, the buyer should test it before installing, with the whole process being video recorded, this is to prevent buyer from installing it incorrectly and blaming us for responsibility, we can't control how the buyer is going to install it!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, by analyzing buyer's video with problem from professional perspective, the problem occurs with the following reasons: 1. Dust has got into cable during installation, the cable would need to be brushed with toothbrush and alcohol; 2, Buyer does not buckle or connect the line/cable properly; 3. Buyer accidentally broke the cable during installation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We hope/request that Aliexpress Team will investigate the details clearly to prevent reputation damaging to us. Thank you.*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*The last sentence is a bit long compare to the original sentence as I couldn't come out with a proper word to translate 明察, so I tried to make it understandable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20181" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T03:26:32.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31254" CreationDate="2018-08-28T05:48:01.097" Score="1" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上个星期天，我跟好朋友一起去林学院的农场玩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder why the writer doesn't add 了 after the verb to indicate that this action took place in the past.&#xA;Also, what's the use of 玩 in that sentence? And why is it placed in the end of that sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T00:19:36.720" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T00:19:36.720" Title="Why 了 is not used, and what is the meaning of 玩 in 上个星期天，我跟好朋友一起去林学院的农场玩?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31246" CreationDate="2018-08-28T06:03:23.050" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 bears the meaning of what already in done in the past, but it is not a must to add in 了 in every sentence that is in past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this case, either adding 了 or not, both sentences will still have the same meaning, 了 becomes optional especially the front part of the sentence (上个星期天) already mentioned the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玩 has the meaning of play which doesn't make sense if translated to English. However the 玩 in this case means something like &quot;Have fun&quot; or &quot;Enjoy&quot; where the meaning is closed to &quot;Play&quot;. So the meaning can be &quot;My friend and I go and have fun in 林学院的农场.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20181" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T06:03:23.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31248" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-28T06:19:35.423" Score="4" ViewCount="546" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;缘 = potential relationships, connection&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;路人 = average Joe, random person, total stranger&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;观众 = audience, viewer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;路人缘 （路人緣）and 观众缘 (觀眾緣) pretty much means the same thing.&#xA;They are used to describe if an actor/character has a feel which naturally appeal the first time viewer/stranger (similar to Love at first sight). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are like an attribute. So good “观众缘” means this person is popular/in favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I crossed out TV friendly from the list, because it means something else.&#xA;I thought about congenial feel, affinity for audience, feel which naturally appeal audience..........but nothing sound right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20337" LastEditorUserId="20337" LastEditDate="2018-08-28T07:25:11.447" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T13:11:47.390" Title="How to translate “路人缘” or “观众缘” in English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31248" CreationDate="2018-08-28T07:10:22.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;缘&lt;/strong&gt; here means &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;an ability or qualification to build up a good relationship&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;观众缘&lt;/strong&gt; can be &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;an ability or qualification to build up a good relationship with the audience&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if you can find a fixed English equivalent for them. So, the interpretation could be various according to the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她很有观众缘 // she is a very attractive woman to the audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他有路人缘 // he is attractive to strangers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他观众缘很差 // he has no luck to gain the favor of his audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T09:45:48.423" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31248" CreationDate="2018-08-28T07:13:54.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After reading my take on the comments, I have convinced myself that 观众缘 means &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/audience-appeal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;audience appeal&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人缘(n) = popularity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;路人缘 = &lt;strong&gt;general appeal&lt;/strong&gt; /popularity among common folks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;观众缘 = &lt;strong&gt;audience appeal&lt;/strong&gt; / popularity among viewers/ audience&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有人缘 = popular&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有观众缘 = popular among viewers/ audience&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since there's a lively discussion in the comments section arguing about the definition of 人缘, 观众缘, I would give my two cents here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;缘 is something like a 'fated connection',  The chance of any two people in different parts of the world would meet is extremely tiny, but somehow people from different part of the world do meet. We called this connection between them  有缘.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when we say someone 有人缘, we are saying this person seemingly fated to connect with many many people, in other words, he is popular among people. People seemingly draw to him by fate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有观众缘 just replace 人缘 with 观众缘, meaning audience seemingly draw to that person with no apparent reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We would not say a super star 有观众缘, because he is so good that people love him for his talent, but we often say a new artist or second string performer 有观众缘-- the audience just like him, as if fate decided so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;May be the reason for some audience to like a performer is actually his looks, personality or demeanor. It all seems mysterious to the other audience who can't see anything attractive about the same performer&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-08-30T13:11:47.390" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T13:11:47.390" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31246" CreationDate="2018-08-28T07:28:24.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 doesn't denote 'past', it indicates 'completion of the verb'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 明天&lt;strong&gt;完成了&lt;/strong&gt;工作後来见我 (come see me after you &lt;strong&gt;finished&lt;/strong&gt; work tomorrow)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you add '了' after the verb '去' and wrote &amp;quot;上个星期天，我跟好朋友一起去(了)林学院的农场玩&amp;quot; that would mean you did go there, and the action of '去' (go) was from start to end, completed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at the following example and you can see without adding '了' after the verb, you can express action that's not completed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;上个星期天，我跟好朋友一起去林学院的农场玩, 但半路遇上交通意外, 沒去得成&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Last Sunday, I went to the farm of Lin College with my good friends, but we encountered a traffic accident halfway and the trip was ruined&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In  this context, you cannot use 了 after 去, because the verb is not completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The original sentence didn't use 了 after 去 doesn't mean the verb is not completed. It could be either, just not stated clearly. Since the sentence end there, we can presume the verb is completed and they did went to the trip&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'玩' here means 'to play' or ' to tour'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T10:03:36.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31246" CreationDate="2018-08-28T07:58:09.187" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I try my best to expalain it with my fair English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, here we have two verbs “去”and “玩”. And there can be following cases for your sentense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;.....去.....玩。&#xA;In this case, both verbs are emphasized. That means, information described about these verbs are all important. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;.....去了..... 玩。&#xA;In this case, with 了 after 去, the tone has slightly more emphasis on the verb related to 去.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;.....去......玩了。&#xA;In this case, with 了 after 玩, the tone has slightly more emphasis on the verb related to 玩. (But this case is a bit not that natural in this sentense. Not that “fluent”.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, here 了 means &lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20338" LastEditorUserId="20338" LastEditDate="2018-08-28T09:51:05.373" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T09:51:05.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31090" CreationDate="2018-08-28T09:45:57.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, you need to know that the phonetic system of Ancient Chinese is far more complicated than today. Generally, the number of syllables in Chinese decrease over the time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Zhengzhang_(1981%E2%80%931995)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, Ancient Chinese have about 70 initials (including consonants and clustered consonants) and dozens of rhymes (including vowels and vowel combinations), which could resemble thousands (or tens of thousands of) syllables.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In Middle Chinese, clustered consonants disappeared, and some similar finals were merged. This could reduce about a half of the total syllables. There were 36 initials and about 40 finals.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In early 14th Century, there were only 25 initials and 19 finals (excluding mediums), much less than about 800 years ago.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The last big merge happened in the early 20th Century, called &quot;Jian-tuan Merge&quot;, or loosely &quot;Alveolar-Palatal Merge&quot;. Jianyin (&quot;sharp sounds&quot;, like [ts], [s]) merged with Tuanyin (&quot;round sounds&quot;, like [tɕ], [ɕ]). For example,  姓(sìng, &quot;surname&quot;) merged with 幸(xìng, &quot;luck/happiness&quot;). (Example: 你幸福吗？(Are you happy?) /我姓“曾”。(My surname is Zeng. ) )&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore, modern Chinese only have about 400 syllables (according to Kahlgren, see &lt;em&gt;Clock&lt;/em&gt; by Liang Shiqiu. In this article, Liang criticised superstitions related to characters with the same sound). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Someone talked about the quantity and frequency of Chinese characters. I'd like to add a point. In Modern Chinese, words with two or more characters are used instead of one character. However, in ancient times, a character usually IS a word. For example, &quot;驹&quot; means &quot;young horse&quot;, while in Modern Chinese, &quot;小马&quot;(&quot;small horse&quot;) is used more often. To express increasing things and concepts in the world, the Ancient Chinese people just invent more characters to express them. Take horse as an example, each of the following character indicate one specific kind of horse:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;驽 (bad horse)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;骁 (strong horse, now rarely used directly)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;骄 (horse that's about six feet tall, now this character means &quot;proud&quot;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;骐 (horse with black patterns, usually good at racing)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;骢 (horse with green and white skin)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;骃 (horse with dark grey skin and white patch)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, in Modern Chinese, when indicating horses, we just add adjectives before &quot;马&quot;(horse), like 白马 (white horse), 好马 (good horse, or horse good at racing). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="11744" LastEditDate="2018-08-28T10:00:02.233" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T10:00:02.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31246" CreationDate="2018-08-28T10:36:58.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another way to see it is that 去玩 is 离合词（Separable Word). You can insert some words in between. 去玩 -&gt; 去农场玩 -&gt; 去林学院的农场玩. &#xA;去林学院的农场玩了 is also correct in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去林学院的农场玩 VS 去林学院的农场玩了, the former doesn't indicate the tense and the latter indicates it happened in the past. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your sentence, 上个星期天 already denotes when it happens, so there seems to be unnecessary to add 了 in 我跟好朋友一起去林学院的农场玩. But I can see a nuance between with and without 了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上个星期天，我跟好朋友一起去林学院的农场玩了 sounds like the thing that the speaker is trying to tell is that he had gone to 林学院的农场 to play/have fun with my friends. Well, 上个星期天，我跟好朋友一起去林学院的农场玩 sounds like an incomplete narration, like in English: Last Sunday, while I was going to 林学院的农场 to play with my friend, ... ... Basically, I would expect to hear more context. But with 我跟好朋友一起去林学院的农场玩了, I wouldn't expect more to come (though the speaker might have more). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去了林学院的农场玩 is not correct or natural, because 去了林学院的农场 is a complete phrase. So, it's correct to say 上个星期天，我跟好朋友一起去了林学院的农场. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-08-30T02:22:54.507" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T02:22:54.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31246" CreationDate="2018-08-29T02:26:21.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 is more like &lt;code&gt;Had + Past Participle&lt;/code&gt; in English grammar. Which indicate the action is done for and over with!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's not really necessary in Chinese grammar, because you already specify that the action took place in 上個星期天 (Last Sunday).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference between 了 and simple &lt;code&gt;Had +pp.&lt;/code&gt; is that, in some cases, 了 contains some kind of &lt;code&gt;emphasize&lt;/code&gt; feeling. Whether the feeling is good or bad, the usage of the word make the listener think that you're profound of the experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you put 了 after 去, it means that you had been to that place &lt;code&gt;and came back&lt;/code&gt;!&#xA;And somehow also put a emphasize on the place you go. It's very similar to the English &lt;code&gt;just went&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's more common to use in the situation when you go somewhere very far!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我昨天去了火星！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A: I just went to Mars yesterday!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 什麼！？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(B: WHAT!?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why 玩 is placed at the very end of the sentence. That's because to some degree, Chinese grammar is more similar to German grammar. Which also place their verbs at the very end of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you have a little understanding of German, it will probably be easier for you to understand Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18981" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T02:46:31.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31257" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31263" CreationDate="2018-08-29T06:39:03.640" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence in question is &quot;我觉得留学是一种很好锻炼&quot; Can I use “锻炼” in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18260" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T10:36:24.823" Title="Is it fine to use “锻炼” as in &quot;good practice&quot; or not?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31257" CreationDate="2018-08-29T06:57:23.077" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Absolutely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check out &lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;'s definition of 锻炼：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 磨砺 toughen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;锻炼意志&#xA;temper one's will power&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在战争的熔炉中锻炼过。&#xA;He had been steeled in the furnace of war.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T06:57:23.077" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31257" CreationDate="2018-08-29T07:00:32.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;锻炼 probably means something different than &quot;good practice&quot; in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its meaning is closer to &quot;tempering one's willpower&quot; or &quot;psychological training&quot;, as well as &quot;improve one's abilities in various subjects&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMO, &quot;good practice&quot; means &quot;a good way to do something&quot; or &quot;something good to do&quot;, both of which are different from &quot;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T07:00:32.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31257" CreationDate="2018-08-29T10:30:35.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to express: &lt;em&gt;I think studying aboard is a good practice&lt;/em&gt;, then your Chinese sentence &quot;我觉得留学是一种很好锻炼&quot; doesn't connote the same meaning in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我觉得留学是一种很好锻炼&quot; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;I think studying aboard is a good way to train ourselves&lt;/strong&gt;.&quot; The sentence doesn't specify the areas(willpower, ability to live alone and etc.) on which we can get trained. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, &quot;&lt;em&gt;studying aboard is a good practice&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is like saying 出国留学是一种很好的实践 in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt; that you should add a 的 in your sentence to make it more natural: 我觉得留学是一种很好&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;锻炼.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-08-29T10:36:19.477" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T10:36:19.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31265" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31266" CreationDate="2018-08-29T12:28:51.817" Score="0" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've never seen in Chinese study materials that time could be said/written in 24 hour format. It is always in 12 hour format with addition of description like 早上, 下午... E.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;早上八点半&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;晚上九点四十五分&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And never like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;二十一点四十五分&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it ok to say/write time in 24 hour format?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T13:11:12.200" Title="Say time in 24 hour format" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31265" CreationDate="2018-08-29T13:11:12.200" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's no problem to use either in practice, though people used 12 hour format more (because 6 is easier to say than 18 ). When being asked: 现在几点, I might answer either 6点半 or 18点30. 18点30 sounds a little bit formal or &quot;verbose&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T13:11:12.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31267" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31272" CreationDate="2018-08-29T17:10:52.940" Score="2" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am try to identify the artist or school of art for a silk tapestry by their seal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VWaDw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VWaDw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9509" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T15:41:10.597" Title="Identify artist of tapestry" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31268" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31270" CreationDate="2018-08-29T23:36:48.947" Score="3" ViewCount="868" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning Chinese, and trying to use it more in my daily life, e.g. by making to-do lists in Chinese.&#xA;What's the Chinese term for a to-do list, and what are words you might use if you finish something on your list? In English, I would say 'tick', but might also say 'finished' or 'done'. Would you say 做了 or 办了 or maybe something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20347" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T07:32:49.383" Title="To-do list words" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31268" CreationDate="2018-08-30T00:16:45.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can refer To-Do List as &quot;未完成&quot;(To be completed) Or “未完成列表”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the word that can be used when finishing something, I would use “完成” which means &quot;Completed&quot; to indicates that a task is done. Of course, using a tick √ has no problem as well as it is easier and more convenient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20181" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T00:16:45.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31268" CreationDate="2018-08-30T00:26:10.270" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no exact word-to-word translate in Chinese. Generally we refer things like to-do list as 待办事项 (tasks to be finished) or 任务清单(list of tasks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as @Khahoe Tan said, I recommend using 完成 or 已完成 to mark as &lt;code&gt;completed&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20224" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T00:26:10.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31268" CreationDate="2018-08-30T00:33:47.757" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is called 事項表 (items list).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the 'to do things' on a 'to- do- list' are items (事項)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事項= matters/ items&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事項表 = a list of matters/items (that have to be dealt with)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-09-03T05:30:37.603" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T05:30:37.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31267" CreationDate="2018-08-30T15:41:10.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;title: 松龄鹤寿, pine's age and crane's life. seal: 长寿, long life。There is not any artist information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T15:41:10.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1925" CreationDate="2018-08-31T12:15:41.647" Score="7" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Short Answer&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shapes「夂」and「夊」are writing variants. As a component of a character, the majority of the time it is just a「止」(picture of a foot) pointing in the opposite direction to「止」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary definitions are tangential to the component meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「夊」is defined as &lt;em&gt;walking slowly&lt;/em&gt;, an extended meaning from「止」, which represents &lt;em&gt;motion&lt;/em&gt; in general.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「夂」is defined as &lt;em&gt;arriving from behind&lt;/em&gt;, but this was probably made up. Apart from the single &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; definition, which all other dictionary definitions seem to stem from, there are no recorded words/expressions/phrases which contain「夂」meaning &lt;em&gt;arriving from behind&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Long Answer&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there a difference between 夂 and 夊?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is complicated through differing ways of writing these components throughout history, to this very day, often due to confusion as to what「夂」and「夊」actually &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt;. In any given character, different fonts or language standards may use one or the other, or even use the unrelated「攵」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「攵」is completely unrelated to「夂」and「夊」. For reference,「攵」originally depicted a hand「又」holding a beating implement (stick, whip, staff).「攵」, or its variant「攴」, is heavily used as a semantic component to do with &lt;em&gt;disciplining&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;attacking&lt;/em&gt;, or more generally &lt;em&gt;motion&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z9Mzu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z9Mzu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=13&amp;amp;bh=2426.31&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;上博2426&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;合集27742&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LBPIe.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LBPIe.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;燕侯載器&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=10583&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成10583&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rO7GH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rO7GH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/reference/chuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;包2&lt;/a&gt;.99&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wgTjL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wgTjL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;「教」&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shape evolution of the&lt;/em&gt;「攵」&lt;em&gt;component, as shown in later forms in the character&lt;/em&gt;「教」&lt;em&gt;. The character&lt;/em&gt;「教」&lt;em&gt;depicts a child&lt;/em&gt;「子」&lt;em&gt;learning arithmetic (represented by two&lt;/em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%90%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「㐅」&lt;/a&gt;&lt;em&gt;, original character of&lt;/em&gt;「五」&lt;em&gt;) under threat of being beaten by&lt;/em&gt;「攵」&lt;em&gt;. The two&lt;/em&gt;「㐅」&lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt;「子」&lt;em&gt;later fused into&lt;/em&gt;「孝」&lt;em&gt;; the original meaning is better preserved in the Kangxi variant&lt;/em&gt;「敎」&lt;em&gt;. The second form above shows the shape similarity to&lt;/em&gt;「攴」&lt;em&gt;; here, the beating implement changed slightly to the shape of&lt;/em&gt;「卜」&lt;em&gt;(Zhengzhang OC: /*poːɡ/) to provide a phonetic hint for&lt;/em&gt;「攵」&lt;em&gt;(Zhengzhang OC: /*pʰoːɡ/, /*pʰroːɡ/).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Other examples of the use of「攵」include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「牧」, which depicts a cow「牛」being herded by a hand with a whip「攵」;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「變」(&lt;em&gt;change&lt;/em&gt;, Zhengzhang OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*prons/&lt;/strong&gt;), phonetic component「䜌」(Zhengzhang OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*b·roːn/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;/*b·ron/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;/*b·rons/&lt;/strong&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「做」(&lt;em&gt;to make&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt;), both semantic and phonetic component「作」corrupted into「估」;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「改」(&lt;em&gt;change&lt;/em&gt;, Zhengzhang OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*klɯːʔ/&lt;/strong&gt;), phonetic component「己」(Zhengzhang OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*kɯʔ/&lt;/strong&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「攻」(&lt;em&gt;attack&lt;/em&gt;), phonetic component「工」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「夊」was originally「止」(&lt;em&gt;a foot&lt;/em&gt;), but pointing in the other direction:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TwpjZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TwpjZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;前&lt;/a&gt;8.4.2&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=21837&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集21837&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oXn7p.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oXn7p.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x883H.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x883H.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare「止」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jl9RC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jl9RC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;1532&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=27434&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集27434&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's where things get tricky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「夊」did not originally represent a word; it was not an individual character (being found exclusively as part of other characters), nor appear to have any pronunciation, until the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qin&lt;/a&gt;-&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Han&lt;/a&gt; era. The pronunciation recorded in dictionaries, &lt;strong&gt;楚危切&lt;/strong&gt; (Mandarin &lt;strong&gt;suī&lt;/strong&gt;), was a word meaning something like &lt;em&gt;slow strides&lt;/em&gt;, variously represented as「綏」or「奞」. For all intents and purposes, as part of other characters, it is just a variant form of「止」.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;shape of&lt;/em&gt; (not the &lt;em&gt;word represented by&lt;/em&gt;)「夂」is just a variant way of writing「夊」. Note that the stroke「㇏」is just for drawing the big toe and the outline of one side of the foot without the other toes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gxCWm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gxCWm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference in the shapes is trivially just whether the stroke「㇏」protrudes or not, and both shapes are seen, for example in「各」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0xsqZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0xsqZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;前&lt;/a&gt;5.24.4&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=22001&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集22001&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Up1j3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Up1j3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;2589&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=27625&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集27625&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This indicates that「夂」and「夊」are just variant ways of writing &lt;em&gt;upside-down&lt;/em&gt;「止」. There was no such rule saying that the stroke must protrude when the component is on the bottom of the character and must not protrude when it's on the top; this is a convention made up later, possibly out of confusion about what「夂」and「夊」actually are, or possibly for aesthetics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rmswb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rmswb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;作冊夨令簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4300&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4300&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Despite their modern appearances, characters which contain&lt;/em&gt;「夊」&lt;em&gt;on the bottom, such as&lt;/em&gt;「後」&lt;em&gt;, have no requirement that the stroke must protrude.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; confusingly lists a separate character with an identical shape to「夂」, and gave it a definition 从後至也 (&lt;em&gt;approaching from behind&lt;/em&gt;) and pronunciation &lt;strong&gt;陟侈切&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;zhǐ&lt;/strong&gt;). This definition was probably made-up, and is suggested to be a Simplified form of「致」(from where its definition and pronunciation was derived). For reference,「致」was originally comprised of「至」(both a semantic and phonetic component) and「人」(a semantic component); later on,「夊」was added and「人」was removed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qEDDW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qEDDW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;曶鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2838&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2838&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lelcS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lelcS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;ㆍ&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;雜&lt;/a&gt;35&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FaRrz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FaRrz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VX3WL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VX3WL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is surmised that scholars didn't know what「夂/夊」was doing in this character, having not known that「人」was omitted previously, so forced a &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; definition into existence in an attempt to explain its presence in「致」.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; also mentions「夂」in its entry for「冬」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;四時盡也。从仌从夂。&lt;strong&gt;夂，古文終字。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This corresponds to some dictionaries listing the pronunciation &lt;strong&gt;zhōng&lt;/strong&gt;. This component has an entirely different history, originally depicting objects hanging off the end of a connector, indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;end&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3wMeA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3wMeA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;存&lt;/a&gt;1183&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=11656&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集11656&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A line was later drawn across the character, bridging the two branches. To emphasise the meaning &lt;em&gt;winter&lt;/em&gt;, sometimes「日」was added to emphasise &lt;em&gt;time&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;seasons&lt;/em&gt;, and other times「仌/冫」was added to emphasise &lt;em&gt;cold&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;ice&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;戰國&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yTmJz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yTmJz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;陳璋方壺&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=9703&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成9703&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1GGh8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1GGh8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the crossing line made the shape prone to corruption into「夂/夊」, which leads on to the modern form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b1NfY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b1NfY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡ㆍ秦&lt;/a&gt;94&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pV3n3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pV3n3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;References:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-08-07T20:55:38.563" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T20:55:38.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19229" CreationDate="2018-08-31T12:59:21.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has nothing to do with simplification.「辵」(&lt;strong&gt;chuò&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;em&gt;to alternate between walking and stopping&lt;/em&gt;) is the full character form of「辶」, and represents an entirely different word to「走」(&lt;strong&gt;zǒu&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also,「走」originally meant &lt;em&gt;to run&lt;/em&gt;, depicting a running person「夭」with a foot「止」added later to emphasise this meaning. The meaning &lt;em&gt;walk&lt;/em&gt; is Mandarin-specific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wRnRq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wRnRq.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;後&lt;/a&gt;2.4.13&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=17993&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集17993&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z4NSG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z4NSG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;大盂鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2837&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2837&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aVtNV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aVtNV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pcKA4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pcKA4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-08-31T16:46:08.767" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T16:46:08.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31275" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31276" CreationDate="2018-08-31T13:22:04.557" Score="3" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if there is a chinese translation for “as it is” used in the following context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are paying for an item in the supermarket and the staff offers you a shopping bag, but you decline the bag and want the item “as it is”. How would you say it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The japanese have a phrase for it: そのままで、 which translates to “as it is”. Would you have a chinese translatiom for this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T22:55:46.157" Title="Translation for “as it is”" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31275" CreationDate="2018-08-31T13:48:56.710" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese does not have a exact translation of そのままで (其の儘で) which is as flexible as the situation that you've described. The literal translations are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;照原樣&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;依舊&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which both mean something like &lt;em&gt;in accord with its original nature/form&lt;/em&gt;, but we would not use those terms to decline a shopping bag. Instead, you may say something similar to the following in casual vernacular:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不用了 (&lt;em&gt;No need&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這樣就行了 (&lt;em&gt;It'll be fine like this&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) matches そのままで fairly well in meaning in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T13:48:56.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="747" CreationDate="2018-08-31T15:56:12.127" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Simplified Chinese&quot; is not the clearest name, because it refers to the entire standard character set of the PRC. Although the majority of characters different in the PRC compared with other regions are indeed &quot;Simpler&quot; (by measure of stroke counts), this is not true of all characters. Some examples where the PRC standard have more strokes, whilst still being called &quot;Simplified Chinese&quot;, are「强」and「榨」(other regions tend to use「強」and「搾」, which both have one less stroke).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formally, a &quot;Simplification&quot; process is an active attempt to cut strokes off characters, by removal, abbreviation, or replacement of components. This is not the only way that characters change, and in fact the vast majority of characters did not change in the direction of &quot;Simplification&quot;; many did not change at all, and among those that did change, the majority became more diversified over the years, with components added to create new characters to express new words or extended meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Choosing variants which just happen to have less strokes, as is done in「滾」vs「滚」, is not &quot;Simplification&quot; -「滚」was merely a variant chosen as part of a standardisation process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The component「袞/衮」(&lt;em&gt;Emperor's ceremonial robes&lt;/em&gt;) is comprised of semantic「衣」and phonetic「公」. However, this does not mean that in「袞」,「厶」was changed to「口」. On the contrary,「公」originally looked like「㕣」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「公」originally depicted a pottery jar, and this word is now written with variants「瓮」and「甕」.「八」depicted the handles of the jar, and「口」depicted the jar's opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hysey.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hysey.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;2546&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=30961&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集30961&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LlfQD.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LlfQD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;毛公鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2841&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2841&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Squares and circles were not the only representation of this opening, and later on,「口」was subject to shape variations, with some becoming triangles or stylised into「厶」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oczTL.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oczTL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;ㆍ&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;語&lt;/a&gt;9&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2yolW.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2yolW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FOEZQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FOEZQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-08-31T16:12:56.400" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T16:12:56.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31278" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31282" CreationDate="2018-08-31T18:12:55.610" Score="4" ViewCount="751" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard that there are roughly 400 sounds in Mandarin plus four tones. Are all combinations of those used in Chinese vocabulary, making it 1600 possibilities per single-sound word? If not, how many such combinations are actually used in any piece of a word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19231" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T17:24:34.953" Title="Where can I find a full list of combinations of sounds and tones used in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31275" CreationDate="2018-08-31T22:55:46.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To decline offer of bag, I would probably say:  我不需要袋子，谢谢！; 不用袋子， 谢谢！;  不用装袋子，我用手拿着就好了。; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T22:55:46.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31278" CreationDate="2018-09-01T23:52:12.730" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use this one. But it show all combinations, including ones that aren't words.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ETA: It has tones, if you want to hear how they sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20347" LastEditorUserId="20347" LastEditDate="2018-09-03T08:12:27.567" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T08:12:27.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31281" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-02T00:37:00.963" Score="2" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;你好,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 1970's, I believe, Assimil, the famous publisher in France which creates autodidactic methods, hired Phillip Kantor to write the two part textbook &quot;Chinese With Ease,&quot; which is fairly well-known and still sold, as it is the only English version of this Chinese book. They recently created a new method as well very recently, though I'm unsure of the year. Having read &quot;French with Ease,&quot; the second volume &quot;Using French&quot; and &quot;le latin sans peine,&quot; I was wondering about the quality of Chinese with Ease, the differences between editions, and whether it was worth the buy, as I began studying Chinese about a month ago at school, and I've been using Teach Yourself: Chinese for a bit of addition to what I learn in school.  谢谢 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20361" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T09:59:57.467" Title="Assimil Chinese Old &amp; New Editions" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-06-21T14:13:19.370" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31278" CreationDate="2018-09-02T04:52:41.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote a program to search through an &lt;em&gt;unofficial&lt;/em&gt; online version of 现代汉语词典. The results show 1345 possible combinations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://drive.google.com/open?id=1UrwkxWZMISUDy493deipSxzJsqDCtiik&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a list of the 1345 sounds, each with one example Chinese character (not most representative or most frequently used).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I also included the neutral tone (for example ba0:吧) and a few strange ones (e.g. hm:噷, hng:哼, m1:姆, m2:呣).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the above list, you can easily find some &quot;missing&quot; combinations, e.g. an2, ang3, ban2, bang2, bei2, ben2, bian2, biao2, bin2, bin3, bing2, ca2, ca4, cang3, cang4, ce1, ce2, ce3, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12075" LastEditorUserId="12075" LastEditDate="2018-09-03T04:54:51.147" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T04:54:51.147" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31283" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-02T07:43:57.593" Score="1" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;I keep coming across words like 睡觉 which both mean to sleep and together mean to sleep. Are the dictionaries that I'm using adding the definition of the combined words to the single words possibly or is there another reason? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20271" LastActivityDate="2018-09-02T07:43:57.593" Title="Why does Chinese combine words with the same meaning to produce again the same meaning like 睡觉?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-09-03T02:04:53.883" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31285" CreationDate="2018-09-02T16:49:24.317" Score="8" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is one more common (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A6%81#Definitions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;要&lt;/a&gt; vs &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%83%B3#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;想&lt;/a&gt;)? Are there different situations to use each?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20271" LastActivityDate="2018-09-02T17:17:29.023" Title="What's the difference between 要 and 想 for &quot;to want&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31284" CreationDate="2018-09-02T17:17:29.023" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where I'm from, people usually say &lt;code&gt;想要&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;想&lt;/code&gt; is more for &quot;to think&quot;, and &lt;code&gt;要&lt;/code&gt; has a flavor of &quot;to need/require&quot;, though it really all depends on the context. &lt;code&gt;想要&lt;/code&gt; mixes the two meanings, kind of like &quot;to want&quot; has both &quot;desire&quot; and &quot;necessity&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我渴了，我想要喝水。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I am thirsty. I want/need to drink water.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我要上這門課才能畢業。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I need to take this course to graduate.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這道菜看起來好好吃，我想點這道菜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This dish looks delicious. I want to order this dish.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你想不想一起去北京？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Do you want to go to Beijing?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11211" LastActivityDate="2018-09-02T17:17:29.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31246" CreationDate="2018-09-02T17:45:58.210" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You use 了 to indicate that a situation is real. That is took place in this world or will take it in this world. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible that the context of the sentence: &#xA;&quot;上个星期天，我跟好朋友一起去林学院的农场玩&quot;&#xA;has something to do with describing a dream or a desire (something not real)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2018-09-02T17:45:58.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31268" CreationDate="2018-09-03T07:32:49.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is also called &lt;code&gt;事务&lt;/code&gt; that means you have not finished it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17511" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T07:32:49.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31011" CreationDate="2018-09-03T11:10:35.777" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin has a lot of two-character words, where both of the characters mean almost the same thing. This seems surprising, but makes sense when you see how the language developed over time. Old Chinese (spoken over two thousand years ago) had a lot more sounds than Modern Mandarin, and over time, many sounds were lost. This isn't obvious from Chinese characters (which don't record individual sounds), but this fact has been established based on ancient Chinese dictionaries (often called &quot;rime books&quot;), as well as modern linguistic research. However, after the sounds were lost, many syllables which used to sound different ended up sounding the same. To avoid confusion, people starting combining two syllables, to make themselves clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, rènshi (simplified: 认识, traditional: 認識) is composed of two syllables, both of which come from Old Chinese. They were pronounced something like &quot;nəns&quot; and &quot;ək&quot; (where &quot;ə&quot; is like the &quot;a&quot; in &quot;comma&quot;). We can compare this with other characters that are pronounced the same in Modern Mandarin. For example, 任 is also pronounced &quot;rèn&quot;, but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced &quot;nəms&quot;, not &quot;nəns&quot;. Meanwhile, 十 is also pronounced &quot;shí&quot;, but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced &quot;gip&quot;, not &quot;ək&quot;. By combining the two syllables, rènshi is easier to understand, because it can't be confused with other words. These two-character words have now been used for centuries, and in some cases, the individual characters would not be used on their own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a second example (from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/31283/15320&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;), we can look at shuìjiào (simplified: 睡觉, traditional: 睡覺). Both characters come from Old Chinese, and were pronounced &quot;doih&quot; and &quot;krûks&quot;. In contrast, 税/稅 is also pronounced &quot;shuì&quot;, but in Old Chinese, it was &quot;lhots&quot;, not &quot;doih&quot;. Similarly, 较/較 is also pronounced &quot;jiào&quot;, but in Old Chinese, it was &quot;krâuk&quot;, not &quot;krûks&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have taken these pronunciations from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://edoc.uchicago.edu/edoc2013/digitaledoc_linearformat.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt;. If you want to search for other words, click &quot;All&quot; underneath &quot;ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese&quot;, type your words in the box at the top (in traditional characters), and then click the &quot;Display Phonetics&quot; button on the left. If a character didn't exist in Old Chinese, it won't come up! For example, 苹果/蘋果 comes from Sanskrit, and came into Chinese around the same time as Buddhism came into China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you would like to read more about how Chinese has developed two-syllable words, you can have a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lingref.com/cpp/decemb/5/paper1617.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this academic paper&lt;/a&gt;, which was linked in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/31033/15320&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15320" LastEditorUserId="15320" LastEditDate="2018-09-03T15:41:38.440" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T15:41:38.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31289" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-04T15:54:24.697" Score="1" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a line in a Chinese poem that reads like this: 我要高飞。 To be translated literally it means &quot;I want to high fly&quot; but carries the meaning &quot;I want to fly high.&quot; I was wondering if it is usual to put the adjective (高) before the verb (飞), or if it is just this way for the sakes of the poem, and if so, in normal speak, does the adjective come after or as a complement, etc? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19881" LastActivityDate="2018-11-05T02:00:31.450" Title="Placement of adjectives with verbs?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31289" CreationDate="2018-09-04T16:37:49.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'高飞' means 'flying high', it is a common set phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the idiom '遠走高飛' , '遠'(far) and '高' (high) are adverbs; while '走' (run) and '飛' (fly) are verbs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'高'(high/highly) in &quot;我要高飞&quot; is functioning as an adverb for the verb '飞' (fly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other examples of 高 as an adverb in common phrases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;步步(高陞)  - continuously (raising high)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;價格(高企) - price (standing high)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-09-04T16:51:01.137" LastActivityDate="2018-09-04T16:51:01.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31291" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31297" CreationDate="2018-09-05T04:08:27.117" Score="3" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going through some Chinese language materials and finding some interesting discoveries across multiple dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese 锑[銻] is Antimony (Sb) &amp;amp; 铝(鋁) is Aluminum (Al).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese there are words like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;銻煲 which is literally Antimony + pot, but it is defined as an aluminum cooking pot.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;銻盆 is also literally Antimony + basin but it is also defined as an aluminum tub.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;銻罉 Antimony + pan, but is actually an aluminum pan. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ABC Canto&lt;/strong&gt; even goes as far as defining 锑 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;aluminum &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sichuanese also has the same thing going on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;锑锅 - again is literally Antimony + pot, but is also defined as aluminum pot. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would Antimony (Sb) and Aluminum (Al) be confused like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://tieba.baidu.com/p/2513613191?red_tag=2559517903&amp;amp;traceid=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;贴吧&lt;/a&gt; suggests:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;锑、锡、铝长得太像，早期没分清楚，乱来，然后沿用下来了。比如锡矿山，其实不产锡，而是锑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I believe is quite plausible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-09-05T05:04:37.487" LastActivityDate="2018-09-06T08:58:09.057" Title="Why would Antimony (Sb) and Aluminum (Al) be confused?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31292" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31293" CreationDate="2018-09-05T05:46:45.427" Score="-4" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) To accidentally hurt yourself with something sharp like needle. For example : I accidentally pricked my finger with a needle (&lt;em&gt;please help me translate this&lt;/em&gt; ㅠㅠ)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) What are the correct translation for these levels of crying in Chinese? : whimpering, silent tears (or crying silently), sniveling, weeping, sobbing, blubbering &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) What's the term to say &quot;to hold pee&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Also the translation of : &quot;someone hacks your account&quot; and &quot;your photos/data are leaked&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) And what how do you say it in Chinese? : no matter..., for example to express something like this : no matter how busy I am, I don't think I'll be as busy as you are (I hope you can get the nuance since I can't think of any equal translation from my language to English)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Does Chinese differentiate between &quot;to wish&quot; and &quot;to hope&quot;? In English, &quot;to wish&quot; sounds more hypothetical. Is it the same in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7) Last, how do you express &quot;(Something) drives me crazy&quot; and &quot;I think I'll go crazy/I'm going to be crazy&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Thank you so much for anyone who helps me with this!!! Forgive me if this question is too long and if most of them are trivial/stupid questions &gt;_&amp;lt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-21T07:11:06.117" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T07:11:06.117" Title="How to say this in Chinese? (This contains 7 questions)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-09-06T00:32:13.813" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31292" CreationDate="2018-09-05T06:22:44.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) To accidentally hurt yourself with something sharp like needle. For example : I accidentally pricked my finger with a needle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不小心 (accidentally) 扎傷了 (punctured and injured)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不小心被針扎傷了 (I accidentally pricked my finger with a needle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) What are the correct translation for these levels of crying in Chinese? : whimpering, silent tears (or crying silently), sniveling, weeping, sobbing, blubbering &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;whimpering = 嗚咽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;silent tears = 潛然淚下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sniveling = 哭哭啼啼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;weeping = 飲泣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sobbing = 抽泣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;blubbering = 哭哭啼啼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) What's the term to say &quot;to hold pee&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忍尿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4) Also the translation of : &quot;someone hacks your account&quot; and &quot;your photos/data are leaked&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;有人侵入你的帳戶&quot; &quot;你的照片/數據被洩露了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5) And what how do you say it in Chinese? : no matter..., for example to express something like this : no matter how busy I am, I don't think I'll be as busy as you are (I hope you can get the nuance since I can't think of any equal translation from my language to English)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter = 不管/ 無論&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6) Does Chinese differentiate between &quot;to wish&quot; and &quot;to hope&quot;? In English, &quot;to wish&quot; sounds more hypothetical. Is it the same in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wish = 願 (wish for something you desired )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope = 望 (hope for something to happen the way you wanted) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7) Last, how do you express &quot;(Something) drives me crazy&quot; and &quot;I think I'll go crazy/I'm going to be crazy&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Something) drives me crazy = (Something) 讓我發狂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm going to be crazy =  我快要發狂了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-09-05T08:23:14.740" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T08:23:14.740" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31294" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31299" CreationDate="2018-09-05T08:46:41.947" Score="2" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would 怎麼知道 or 怎麼知 be the right Mandarin equivalent to the Cantonese phrase 點知?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, what would be the right equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T14:21:55.620" Title="Would 怎麼知道 or 怎麼知 be the right Mandarin equivalent to the Cantonese phrase 點知?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31295" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31296" CreationDate="2018-09-05T08:49:00.567" Score="3" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cantonese people often use 補鑊 to mean fence-mending or damage control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do Mandarin people use this phrase as well? If not, what phrase would be the Mandarin equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T09:31:59.130" Title="Do Mandarin people use 補鑊 as slang to represent fence-mending or damage control?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31295" CreationDate="2018-09-05T09:17:47.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/38233/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;補鑊&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;fence-mending; damage control; get a problem fixed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This term is used in Cantonese, not Mandarin/Standard written Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4250/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;補救&lt;/a&gt; (remedy) can be used in both Mandarin and Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事發後才去&lt;strong&gt;補救&lt;/strong&gt;已經太遅了 (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事發後先至去&lt;strong&gt;補救&lt;/strong&gt;已經太遅啦 (Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事發後先至去&lt;strong&gt;補鑊&lt;/strong&gt;已經太遅啦 (Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;現在&lt;strong&gt;補救&lt;/strong&gt;還來得及 (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而家&lt;strong&gt;補救&lt;/strong&gt;仲趕得切 (Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而家&lt;strong&gt;補鑊&lt;/strong&gt;仲趕得切 (Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;補鑊 and 補救 are mostly interchangeable in Cantonese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T09:31:59.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31291" CreationDate="2018-09-05T09:26:23.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, they are chemically fairly similar in their natural state, as well as tin; all very light coloured metals, less dense than iron. China is still (as of 2017) the world's largest producer of antimony, accounting for over 75% of global annual production. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another dimension to this, which is that antimony has been known since antiquity, way before aluminium, in the West and in the East. However, in ancient China it was generally considered to be the same as tin. One of the largest antimony mines is Xikuangshan (錫礦山, lit. &lt;em&gt;Tin Mine Mountain&lt;/em&gt;), in Lengshuijiang (冷水江), central Hunan, and was thought to have been discovered in 1521. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Antimony was given its modern Chinese name &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iupac.org/publications/ci/2004/2601/3_hao.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;in the 1870s&lt;/a&gt;. Straying into speculation, I think that it would have been enough time for 銻 to have diffused into common use (and move away from 錫) in the southern topolects, maybe under the influence of this mine in Hunan. So I'd expect 銻 or something like it to be common words in Xiang, Sichuanese, Gan, maybe Hakka and Cantonese. Again, just a guess, but something to check! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be very difficult to trace the production and nomenclature of aluminium goods in the post-war of modern Chinese history, but not impossible if you were in the local community. You would have to ask the 单位 which was responsible for either manufacture or transport of such goods, or some HK vendors from that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2018-09-06T08:58:09.057" LastActivityDate="2018-09-06T08:58:09.057" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31294" CreationDate="2018-09-05T09:30:04.433" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;點 in Cantonese can mean 'how'. It is equivalent to 怎 / 怎麼 /如何 in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(點)辦 = (怎)辦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;噉(點)得 = 這(怎麼)行 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(點)算好 = (如何)是好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(點)知 = (怎)知&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-09-05T09:52:48.357" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T09:52:48.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31294" CreationDate="2018-09-05T14:21:55.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;怎麼知道 would be correct in colloquial Mandarin; 怎知 is relatively literary-sounding in Mandarin and &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%20%E7%9F%A5%E9%81%93%2C%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%20%E7%9F%A5&amp;amp;year_start=1800&amp;amp;year_end=2008&amp;amp;corpus=23&amp;amp;smoothing=3&amp;amp;share=&amp;amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%20%E7%9F%A5%E9%81%93%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2C%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%20%E7%9F%A5%3B%2Cc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;nowhere near as common&lt;/a&gt; 怎麼知道 is in Mandarin, nor as common as 點知 is in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the record, in the early vernacular Mandarin Chinese of the 西遊記 &lt;em&gt;Journey to the West&lt;/em&gt; (Ming dynasty), &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/xiyouji/ens?searchu=%E6%80%8E%E9%BA%BC%E7%9F%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;both&lt;/a&gt; 知道 and 知得 are used, but the latter has fallen out of currency. 知 was still attested in certain contexts though: &quot;你知那三個？&quot;, which in modern Mandarin would be &quot;你知道(是)哪三個(呢)？/ 你知不知道哪三個？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T14:21:55.620" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30998" CreationDate="2018-09-05T14:39:16.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difficulty here is not just word parsing, but the localisation that the manufacturer has imposed. It's their product, so it's their rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;博格瑞牌法兰希小金文奶酪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's parse this by highlighting the main content words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;博格瑞&lt;strong&gt;牌&lt;/strong&gt;法兰希小金文&lt;strong&gt;奶酪&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone with some knowledge of cheese will recognise 金文奶酪 = Camembert (cheese). Some may even know that it can come in several sizes. That leaves the brand name and the product name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;博格瑞&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;牌&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;法兰希&lt;/em&gt; 小金文&lt;strong&gt;奶酪&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those familiar with French geography &lt;em&gt;in Chinese&lt;/em&gt; will see the art of translation in the product name: the Île-de-France in Chinese is called 法兰西岛 (although actually most local Chinese call it 巴黎大区 or 大巴黎区, which is not the official French definition of &lt;em&gt;le Grand Paris&lt;/em&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A slight change of 西 to 希 for euphonic reasons, and you have the makings of a highly exportable product name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The brand name has been shortened from its &lt;a href=&quot;https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a21wu.10013406.0.0.20222d26CpNE9g&amp;amp;id=561418126036&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;assigned&quot; Chinese version&lt;/a&gt; to something with three characters or less. This means that with 牌 it forms four characters, again producing that euphonic effect, so desired in marketing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T14:39:16.350" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31301" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31305" CreationDate="2018-09-05T15:44:24.283" Score="2" ViewCount="1397" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the tabletop game &lt;em&gt;Dungeons &amp;amp; Dragons&lt;/em&gt;, one of the monsters is a snake/man hybrid named &quot;yuan-ti.&quot; The earliest appearance of this name is in &lt;em&gt;Dwellers of the Forbidden City&lt;/em&gt; (1981), in which the name supposedly translates to &quot;demon men.&quot; The name is gibberish that sounds vaguely of Chinese origin (and the monsters are sometimes depicted in clothing/arms/architecture with a Chinese-influenced aesthetic), perhaps a combination of the syllables &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yuan#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;yuan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;you&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/an#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; plus &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ti#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ti&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/di#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;di&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there any possible way that a Chinese phrase approximating that could translate into an appropriate name for said monster?&lt;/strong&gt; I know virtually nothing about Chinese besides what little I read online.  I looked through Chinese dictionaries and the best I could come up with was 妖蜿者 &lt;em&gt;yāo wān zhě&lt;/em&gt;, which is not a real phrase but approximates the apparent pronunciation and meaning of the monster's name... if filtered through game of telephone, I guess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20373" LastEditorUserId="20373" LastEditDate="2018-09-05T18:09:14.607" LastActivityDate="2021-05-24T03:53:39.843" Title="How to translate the fictional name &quot;yuan-ti&quot; into meaningful Chinese words?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31301" CreationDate="2018-09-05T16:24:10.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although &lt;strong&gt;yuan-ti&lt;/strong&gt; does indeed sound Chinese, I don't believe that it corresponds to actual Chinese words which mean &lt;em&gt;demon men&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;snake men&lt;/em&gt;. Chinese versions of DnD (not really official) just translates &lt;strong&gt;yuan-ti&lt;/strong&gt; to &lt;strong&gt;蛇人&lt;/strong&gt; (shé rén), which literally means &lt;em&gt;snake people&lt;/em&gt; and sounds nothing like &lt;strong&gt;yuan-ti&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_621fc6790100elz9.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Sina blog&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/60610922&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This Zhihu question&lt;/a&gt; asks &quot;Why is 蛇人 called yuan-ti in English?&quot; for which the most popular answer says that &quot;it's not a Chinese-made game&quot;, implying that it's non-Chinese gibberish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-09-05T16:55:32.367" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T16:55:32.367" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31303" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31307" CreationDate="2018-09-05T19:25:07.647" Score="5" ViewCount="654" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning Sino-Korean vocabulary at the moment and have noticed that many words seem to end in a '子' that doesn't seem to add much semantically to the other character in the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should I take '子' to signify in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archchinese.com/chinese_english_dictionary.html?find=%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.archchinese.com/chinese_english_dictionary.html?find=子&lt;/a&gt; suggests that it can mean 'small thing', but a  獅子 is not a very small thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16529" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-09-05T21:48:00.583" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T06:51:00.107" Title="What is the meaning of 子 in words like 菓子(과자), 帽子(모자), or 獅子(사자)?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31303" CreationDate="2018-09-05T20:01:27.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/91/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;子&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[國] zi5 - Mandarin only&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;noun suffix&lt;/strong&gt; added to certain nouns and measure words, e.g. 桌子, 胖子, 亂子, 一下子, etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子 is a suffix that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;emphasize a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;add one more syllable to a single syllable word to make it more easy to hear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The actual meaning of 子 itself doesn't matter in this role&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Similarly, 了 itself means 'finished/ end/ complete', but as a [final particle]( that indicating change of situation) those definitions do not matter&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T20:01:27.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31301" CreationDate="2018-09-05T20:16:43.930" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;imo, &quot;yuan-ti&quot; is a transliteration of chinese, using older scheme of romanisation. the characters represented are &quot;軟體&quot; (a pliable body), quite a good description of &quot;snake-related-monster&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the &quot;華英萬字典&quot;, printed in 1907, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/32GeP.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/32GeP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;had the entry of &quot;軟&quot; (juan3, jwan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/chineseenglishdi00pole#page/339/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/chineseenglishdi00pole#page/339/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and, 體 (ti3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/chineseenglishdi00pole#page/386/mode/1up&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/stream/chineseenglishdi00pole#page/386/mode/1up&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's not far away from &quot;juan&quot; to &quot;yuan&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T20:16:43.930" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31289" CreationDate="2018-09-06T01:15:17.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Adjective&quot; as a grammar category, in case of Chinese, is rather a syntactical (positional) idea. Many words jump around those &quot;parts of speech&quot; a lot in Chinese. When an &quot;adjective&quot; comes after the verb, it's usually predicate. Have a look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_adjectives&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; and don't pay too much attention to Indo-European grammatical categories when studying a Sinitic language. It helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-09-06T01:34:42.317" LastActivityDate="2018-09-06T01:34:42.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31303" CreationDate="2018-09-06T02:43:28.447" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;「子」originally meant &lt;em&gt;child&lt;/em&gt;. By extension, through the following sequence, it was further used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To emphasise the smallness of an object.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;diminutive suffix&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, conveying a sense of intimacy/endearment.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a nominal suffix, doubling as a way of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3820/reasons-for-chinese-changing-from-monosyllabic-to-disyllabic&quot;&gt;transforming a monosyllabic noun to disyllabic&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the diminutive aspect (Chinese: 指小詞, Korean: 指小辭・지소사), its function is very similar to the examples in the answer given by the question posted &lt;a href=&quot;https://korean.stackexchange.com/questions/1907/are-there-any-ways-to-make-diminutive-forms-of-nouns-in-korean&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 菓子 and 帽子,「子」may play any one or a combination of the three uses above; the answer is not entirely clear, as the uses are related to one-another. In 獅子,  which is obviously not small,「子」is used in sense 3 above and should be seen as the same as —이 in Korean &lt;strong&gt;虎狼이&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, non-Mandarin Chinese languages also use diminutives; Cantonese「仔」is cognate to Mandarin「子」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-28T05:29:03.413" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T05:29:03.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31308" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31331" CreationDate="2018-09-06T07:58:03.830" Score="5" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it an aspect marker? Is it a specific grammatical construction with 就 or 要是? Is it there just for emphasis? I can't work it out...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20304" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T08:20:18.407" Title="What's the role of 了 in this sentence: 你要是喜欢我就给你买了" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31308" CreationDate="2018-09-06T09:19:55.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's there for emphasis purpose, the sentence will have the same meaning even without 了. If translated to English, it would be something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要是喜欢我就给你买了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you like it, I'll &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; buy it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要是喜欢我就给你买&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you like it, I'll buy it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20181" LastActivityDate="2018-09-06T09:19:55.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31308" CreationDate="2018-09-06T09:27:44.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 is used to indicate &lt;em&gt;completed&lt;/em&gt; status, contrast with the current situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你要是喜欢我就给你买&#xA;If you like it, I would buy it for you.&#xA;(If you don't like it, I wouldn't buy it.)&#xA;&#xA;你要是喜欢我就给你买了&#xA;If you like it, I would have bought it for you.&#xA;(You don't like it so I didn't buy it.)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-09-06T09:38:01.360" LastActivityDate="2018-09-06T09:38:01.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31311" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31312" CreationDate="2018-09-06T12:38:59.057" Score="2" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about 到 which means to arrive, or up until. How does it fit into the sentence &quot;He was(is) caught in the act of stealing. &quot; Also, how is past tense indicated here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20271" LastActivityDate="2018-09-06T23:35:41.183" Title="What is the purpose of &quot;到&quot; in 他在行窃时被当场抓到" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31311" CreationDate="2018-09-06T12:55:15.400" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your two questions answer each other! When 到 follows a verb, it indicates that the action has successfully completed. In linguistic terminology, it's sometimes referred to as indicating &quot;completive aspect&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when you ask &quot;how is past tense indicated here?&quot;, you should be aware that Mandarin doesn't always indicate past tense.  There are a number of aspect markers (including 了、到、过), but none of these directly correspond to English past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15320" LastEditorUserId="15320" LastEditDate="2018-09-06T13:00:19.697" LastActivityDate="2018-09-06T13:00:19.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31308" CreationDate="2018-09-06T23:17:00.493" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the key is the usage of 了. In my opinion, 了 here works like a &lt;strong&gt;result complement&lt;/strong&gt;,  which indicates &lt;strong&gt;the status changed&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Semantically, they(with or without 了) denote the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买 vs 我买了: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买 is like saying &quot;&lt;em&gt;I will buy&lt;/em&gt;&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了 is like &quot;&lt;em&gt;I will have/get it bought&lt;/em&gt;. The status changed from &lt;em&gt;not bought&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;em&gt;bought&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is 我走 vs 我走了. 我走 is &lt;em&gt;I am going.&lt;/em&gt; 我走了 is &lt;em&gt;I will be gone.&lt;/em&gt; The status changed from &lt;em&gt;staying here&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;em&gt;be gone&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help you out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-09-06T23:39:22.417" LastActivityDate="2018-09-06T23:39:22.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31311" CreationDate="2018-09-06T23:35:41.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How does it fit into the sentence &quot;He was(is) caught in the act of stealing. &quot; Also, how is past tense indicated here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;到 here is a &lt;strong&gt;result complement&lt;/strong&gt;. 抓到 can be interpreted as &lt;em&gt;get caught&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;be caught&lt;/em&gt;. In this case, it's omissible. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The past tense is indicated by &lt;strong&gt;semantics and logics&lt;/strong&gt;. Think about: how does the speaker know and tell it if this &lt;strong&gt;hasn't even happened&lt;/strong&gt; yet? The speaker is standing here and telling it is a concrete proof that it has happened, which is an indicator of the past tense. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-09-06T23:35:41.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31308" CreationDate="2018-09-07T10:22:22.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;了【le】&#xA; (aux.v)  used after the verb or adj. to indicate completion&#xA; (int)  1.To strong affirmation&#xA;        2.To promote or discourage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20380" LastActivityDate="2018-09-07T10:22:22.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31316" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31317" CreationDate="2018-09-07T16:35:45.180" Score="3" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;我今天已经把猫食放了 wǒ &lt;em&gt;jīntiān&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;yǐjīng&lt;/strong&gt; bǎ māoshí fàng le&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我已经今天把猫食放了 wǒ &lt;strong&gt;yǐjīng&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;jīntiān&lt;/em&gt; bǎ māoshí fàng le&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(if it matters, the context is that every day the cat should be fed once, and the husband is informing his wife that the cat has already gotten their food for today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've checked my standard resources like &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22already%22_with_%22yijing%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChineseGrammarWiki&lt;/a&gt;, but they don't address this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll accept answers to the main question above, but as a subsidiary question: if this were in speech, would it it fine to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天已经把猫食&lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt;放了 ／ 我已经今天把猫食&lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt;放了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(i.e. adding 给 gěi for emphasis)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19168" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T15:13:56.533" Title="which sounds more natural? 我今天已经把猫食放了 or 我已经今天把猫食放了" Tags="&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31316" CreationDate="2018-09-07T17:29:18.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first one is definitely natural, and moreover, the second is not only unnatural, it is not grammatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would put 已经 in front of a time period when an action is happening, for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我已经三年没回家了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in your sentence, 今天 is the time point when you did something, therefore you would like to put 已经 after it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your subsidiary question, it is still the first one that is correct, which is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我今天已经把猫食给放了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-09-07T17:41:05.847" LastActivityDate="2018-09-07T17:41:05.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31318" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31360" CreationDate="2018-09-08T04:16:44.243" Score="4" ViewCount="698" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure why, but whenever I read something in Chinese...I don't know how to say this, it just doesn't click, Every word I read is instantly translated to English, If I try to force my self to not do so, I tend to get confused. I am not too sure if some one who faced a similar problem could tell me if I am maybe learning the wrong way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I overcome my inability to think in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20127" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T02:31:58.827" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T02:56:35.400" Title="How do I overcome my inability to think in Chinese? I instead translate what I read into English" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31318" CreationDate="2018-09-08T07:22:05.257" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, character instead of word is more basic. In fact, if you grip a &quot;feel&quot; to every character, it's natural to understand how and why a word is formed so that you can think better in a &quot;Chinese&quot; way. You may try an interesting method to develop your feel to a character:) You can coin a word with two characters (after you have a basic idea of their meanings) and try to guess  its meaning and then then look it up in an online dictionary  to check whether it is valid and if it is, compare its true meaning with your guess... Chinese  is actually a very free language~ Basically everyone can understand my self-made words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-09-08T07:22:05.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31228" CreationDate="2018-09-08T07:31:28.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;追 means &quot;track (an TV show)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新番 is originally from Japanese word 新番組. (Japanese word 番組 originally means &quot;programs&quot;.) 新番 first be used as its original meaning, new programs. But it later been misused as the short of アニメ新番組, new TV anime (or even new anime).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you saw this word on any ACG related website. It should probably means that &quot;track this TV anime for next episodes&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9800" LastActivityDate="2018-09-08T07:31:28.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31318" CreationDate="2018-09-08T10:23:20.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everyone learn differently, everyone progress in different speed.&#xA;I would say this question will not has a definite answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, it is not a bad thing that you automatically translate foreign language into your native language in your mind at the beginning of your study. Eventually, you will get familiar with that second language enough and able to think in that second language. It will take years and you need to listen, speak and write that second language day in and day out to get better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learned English by watching a lot of T.V, read news paper everyday and talk to a lot of people.  Nowadays I often encounter some English words that I understand their meanings but can't translate it into Chinese. At this point, I think my English is quite o.k.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-09-08T10:23:20.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31322" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-08T19:02:54.567" Score="0" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of &quot;classifier for long thing objects&quot; how do &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%A2%9D#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;條&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8C%B9#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;匹&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;differ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20271" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T16:03:49.887" Title="what is the difference between 條 and 匹?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31322" CreationDate="2018-09-09T00:33:19.503" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When used as measure word, 匹 always has very specific and narrow matches with it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一匹马、一匹骡子、一匹狼、一匹布、一匹绸子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above is pretty much all you would see with 匹 as a measure word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 条，except for dog, it always refer to animals that are long, thin and with no legs, like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一条蛇、一条鱼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it refers to general long objects like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一条绳子、一条河、一条腿、一条烟（lots of boxes of ciggrets purchased together）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, 条 could refer to human body related concepts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们几个是一条心、一条人命&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-09-10T16:03:49.887" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T16:03:49.887" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12888" CreationDate="2018-09-09T08:52:42.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, the video on the question has since been blocked. For this answer, I will refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3p167DKkNw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;, which is hopefully the same lyrics. I think timestamps will change though. While drafting the blog post for the English version of the song, I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%80%E5%A4%A9%E5%88%B0%E6%99%9A%E6%B8%B8%E6%B3%B3%E7%9A%84%E9%B1%BC/10708145&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt; which, together with the lyrics, has also the lines I asked about in this question. Here are the lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4:53-4:56: 沧海乐悠悠; pretty convincing match for the audio;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4:57-5:00: 从不觉不自由; pretty convincing match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5:08-5:12: 你看那沧海多辽阔; this line definitely has 多么 instead of just 多, you can both hear the me and see the lips closing to say it; otherwise, pretty convincing match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5:13-5:16: 再也不能回首; absolutely right, this line is clear in the audio;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5:24-5:27: 进退不由我; 不由我 is almost certainly right, 进退 doesn't seem to be; @John Siu found &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/408707120.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a baidu link&lt;/a&gt; which gives the line as 情海多辽阔; the first part sounds like qinghang or qingkang, or maybe jinghang or jingkang, so I thought of 情况, but I'll assume the -ng I'm hearing is actually a -i, so we get 情海;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5:28-5:31: 追求没有尽头; 没有尽头 is clear, 追求 convinces me because I hear zheiqiu or zheijiu, though maybe it's 这就 with 这 read zhei?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5:40-5:42: 不问天长地久; absolutely;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5:43-5:47: 从来不想回头; absolutely.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bonus&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the final text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情愿困在你怀中&lt;br&gt;&#xA;困在你温柔&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不想一个人寂寞&lt;br&gt;&#xA;无边漂泊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;就象鱼儿水里游&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的心河流向我&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不眠不休的追求&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;＊一天到晚游泳的鱼啊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼不停游&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一天到晚想你的人啊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;爱不停休&lt;br&gt;&#xA;从来不想回头&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不问天长地久＊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为我的爱&lt;br&gt;&#xA;覆水难收&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;多少喜乐在心中&lt;br&gt;&#xA;慢慢游&lt;br&gt;&#xA;多少忧愁不肯走&lt;br&gt;&#xA;流向心头&lt;br&gt;&#xA;就像鱼儿水里游&lt;br&gt;&#xA;永远不会问结果&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他们知道爱情&lt;br&gt;&#xA;没尽头&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;＃一天到晚游泳的鱼啊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼不停游&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一天到晚想你的人啊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;爱不停休&lt;br&gt;&#xA;沧海多么辽阔&lt;br&gt;&#xA;再也不能回首&lt;br&gt;&#xA;只要你心里&lt;br&gt;&#xA;永远留我&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女伴：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼儿鱼儿鱼儿水中游，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;游啊游啊游，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啊游到乐悠悠，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼儿鱼儿鱼儿慢慢游，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;游啊游啊游，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啊游到乐悠悠&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;＃&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;＊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;（跟女伴：）因为我的爱&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为我的爱&lt;br&gt;&#xA;（一个人：）覆水难收&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女伴：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼儿鱼儿鱼儿水中游，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;游啊游啊游，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;啊游到乐悠悠，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼儿鱼儿鱼儿慢慢游&lt;br&gt;&#xA;游啊游啊游，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;雨声：沧海乐悠悠&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女伴：啊游到乐悠悠。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;雨声：从不觉不自由&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女伴：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼儿鱼儿鱼儿水中游&lt;br&gt;&#xA;游啊游啊游，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;雨声：你看那沧海多么辽阔&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女伴：啊游到乐悠悠&lt;br&gt;&#xA;雨声：再也不能回首&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女伴：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼儿鱼儿鱼儿慢慢游&lt;br&gt;&#xA;游啊游啊游，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;雨声：情海不由我&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女伴：啊游到乐悠悠。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;雨声：追求没有尽头&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女伴：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼儿鱼儿鱼儿水中游&lt;br&gt;&#xA;呣呣呣呣呣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;雨声：不问天长地久&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女伴：呣呣呣呣呣呣&lt;br&gt;&#xA;雨声：从来不想回头&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;女伴：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鱼儿鱼儿鱼儿慢慢游……&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here is my English rendition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd rather be trapped in your hugs&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And your tenderness&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Don't want to wander endlessly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;All on my own&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Like the fish in water swim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your heart's feelings flow to me:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A never-ending pursuit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;* Fish that swim all day till the evening&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They never stop&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I think of you all day till the evening&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My love never rests&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Never wanted to turn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Did not ask for eternity *&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Damage's already done:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm in love with you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How much joy inside my heart&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Slowly roams&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How much pain doesn't wish to leave&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And flows to my heart&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fishes that in water swim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Never ask for a result&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'Cause they know that love&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Will never end&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;＃ Fish that swim all day till the evening&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They never stop&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I think of you all day till the evening&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My love never rests&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Oh the ocean's so vast&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I can never come back&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Just want to always stay inside your heart&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Backup girls:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fishes fishes fishes in the sea&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Swim, oh, swim, oh, swim,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They swim so joyfully.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fishes fishes fishes so slowly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Swim, oh, swim, oh, swim,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They swim so joyfully.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(with backup girls:) Damage's already done,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Damage's already done:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(Alone:) I'm in love with you!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Backup girls:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fishes fishes fishes in the sea&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Swim, oh, swim, oh, swim,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They swim so joyfully.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fishes fishes fishes so slowly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Swim, oh, swim, oh, swim,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yusheng: Happy in the sea,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Backup girls: They swim so joyfully.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yusheng: Ne'er do they not feel free.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Backup girls:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fishes fishes fishes in the sea&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Swim, oh, swim, oh, swim,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yusheng: Look at how vast the ocean is&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Backup girls: They swim so joyfully.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yusheng: You can never turn back.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Backup girls:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fishes fishes fishes so slowly&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Swim, oh, swim, oh, swim,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yusheng: I can't help but keep&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Backup girls: They swim so joyfully.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yusheng: Pursuing with no end.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Backup girls:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fishes fishes fishes in the sea&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mm mm mm mm mm&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yusheng: Di'n't ask for eternity&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Backup girls: Mm mm mm mm mm mm&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yusheng: Never wanted to turn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Backup girls:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fishes fishes fishes so slowly…&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2018-09-09T08:52:42.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19607" CreationDate="2018-09-09T12:57:41.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, they shouldn't; this is a misunderstanding of what the components in those characters came from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「尸」does not mean &lt;em&gt;corpse&lt;/em&gt;; it is a picture of a squatting person, and is used as a component representing a person's physical body in other characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SQ3hA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SQ3hA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鐵&lt;/a&gt;35.2&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=20643&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集20643&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qCae5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qCae5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日甲&lt;/a&gt;112&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6x61s.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6x61s.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「尿」was originally a picture of someone urinating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m3kfn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m3kfn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;菁&lt;/a&gt;5.1&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=137&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集137&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「尾」was originally a picture of a person and the shape of a tail at the backside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CghuJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CghuJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乙&lt;/a&gt;4293&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=136&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集136&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「屎」was originally a picture of someone defecating in a field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5GJpO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5GJpO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;後&lt;/a&gt;2.35.7&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=9574&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集9574&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「屁」contains phonetic「比」.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「居」(&lt;em&gt;residence/dwelling&lt;/em&gt;, Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*k(r)a/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;/*ka/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;/*k(r)a-s/&lt;/strong&gt;) contains&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;semantic「尸」(&lt;em&gt;body&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;phonetic「古」(Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*kˤaʔ/&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「屋」(&lt;em&gt;building&lt;/em&gt;/&lt;em&gt;room&lt;/em&gt;/&lt;em&gt;house&lt;/em&gt;) did not contain「尸」!「屋」was a picture of a tent, and this word is now written as「幄」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hrBcT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hrBcT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文古文&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In「屋」,「至」was missing in earlier forms and later added on; it is an abbreviation of「室」(also &lt;em&gt;room&lt;/em&gt;/&lt;em&gt;house&lt;/em&gt;) functioning as a semantic component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tent shape was later subject to gradual corruption into「尸」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xy8Qy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xy8Qy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;訓匜「」&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=10285&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成10285&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UbCfT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UbCfT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shizhoupian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;籀文&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2xEkk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2xEkk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T04:30:32.377" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T04:30:32.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31326" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31327" CreationDate="2018-09-09T22:51:17.117" Score="2" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this grammar page, it appears like 之後 can always replace 以後, whereas 以後 cannot always replace 之後. However, these grammar pages are not always reliable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) For simplicity, is it safe to always use 之後 instead of 以後?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Is the same true of 之前 and 以前?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22yihou%22_and_%22zhihou%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22yihou%22_and_%22zhihou%22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T05:10:46.677" Title="Safe to always use 之後 instead of 以後, and 之前 instead of 以前?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31326" CreationDate="2018-09-10T00:55:45.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the three example sentences of 以后 in your link, 以后 cannot be replaced by 之后.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;(1)以后 再 也 不 来 这里 吃饭 了 ， 又 贵 又 难吃 。&#xA;(2)以后 我 可能 会 去 国外 上 大学 。&#xA;(3)以后 的 事情 以后 再 说 吧 。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Actually you can use 之后 in (2), but need a context before that. E.g. 我打算高中毕业之后去北京工作两年;之后我可能会去国外上大学。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly 之前 and 以前 cannot always replace each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12075" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T00:55:45.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31326" CreationDate="2018-09-10T05:10:46.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“之前”：It is a concept with a timeliness or a concept of ordering according to a rule.&#xA;1.时间性意义下的“之前”表示在某个时刻的前面。&#xA;2.某规则排列次序性意义下的“之前”是指按照该排列规则确定的在某事物的前面。&#xA;“以前”：It refers to a period earlier than at present or at a certain time.&#xA;“之后”：At the end of a time or place. General multi fingered time。&#xA;“以后”：Refers to a time that is later than it is now or some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20380" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T05:10:46.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31322" CreationDate="2018-09-10T05:17:41.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“条”：A general term used to describe an object that is generally long。&#xA;“匹”：&#xA;1.A full roll of silk or cloth&#xA;2.Take horses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20380" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T05:17:41.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31316" CreationDate="2018-09-10T05:21:02.967" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“已经”：Adverbs.It means that something has been done or time has passed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20380" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T05:21:02.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31308" CreationDate="2018-09-10T08:09:18.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 - is not a verb complement. It's a realis maker, that is, by adding 了 at the end of the verb you render it to reality and not to a probabilistic-theoretical suggestion. So, in OP case, 了 renders possible situation to absolute truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要是喜欢我就给你买&#xA;&lt;em&gt;If you like it, I would buy it for you.&lt;/em&gt; (talking about possible situation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要是喜欢我就给你买了&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Your liking is enough for me to buy it.&lt;/em&gt; &#xA;or&#xA;&lt;em&gt;If you like it, consider the buyng as done (that is, real).&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;(buying for sure, no way back!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2018-09-10T08:20:18.407" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T08:20:18.407" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31332" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-10T13:59:20.907" Score="4" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the following sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的表有一点儿快。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand this sentence to have the meaning in English of &quot;Your watch is a little bit fast.&quot; But if I were put this sentence into Chinese, I would say &quot;你的表很快&quot;， or &quot;你的表一点儿快&quot;. Why is there 有 the first sentence, and what is its meaning/grammatical purpose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19881" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-28T23:45:19.810" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T23:45:19.810" Title="Why is 有 used in 你的表有一点儿快?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31332" CreationDate="2018-09-10T14:06:25.530" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;你的表 (your watch) is the topic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有一点儿快 ( is a little bit fast) is the comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in '有一点儿快',  '有' (having) indicates 'possession' of a condiction or ability, which is 'being faster than normal'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, the literal translation of the sentence would be 'your watch is having a problem of being a little bit faster than normal'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[(topic) + (comment)] sentence structure is different from typical S+V+O structure like &quot;你的表(subject) 行(verb) 快了 (adverb)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 你的表有一点儿快 is a [(topic) + (comment)] structure, '一点儿快' describes something the watch possesses, therefore you need '有' to indicate this possession&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-09-10T14:40:57.703" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T14:40:57.703" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31334" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31336" CreationDate="2018-09-10T19:17:17.013" Score="0" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;駁嘴 in Cantonese means to &quot;answer back&quot; or &quot;argue&quot; often in a disrespectful way. URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/16019/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/16019/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would 反駁 be the Mandarin equivalent to 駁嘴?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T18:38:29.280" Title="Would 反駁 be the Mandarin equivalent to 駁嘴?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31334" CreationDate="2018-09-10T19:31:24.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;駁嘴 means &quot;argue&quot; and &quot;quarrel&quot;, while 反驳 means &quot;raise points to debate&quot; and is emotionally neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you may want is 拌嘴，which means &quot;quarrel&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T19:31:24.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31334" CreationDate="2018-09-10T20:01:59.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;駁嘴 means '&lt;strong&gt;to talk back&lt;/strong&gt;' (reply defiantly or insolently),  usually against someone has authority over you (like parent, teacher, boss)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 駁嘴:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Father: &amp;quot;Son, you must have a good education to get a good job&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Son: &amp;quot;Oh, yeah? How about Bill Gates? He didn't finish college&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反驳 means  '&lt;strong&gt;to rebut&lt;/strong&gt;' or '&lt;strong&gt;to refute&lt;/strong&gt;' . You are trying to prove that someone's statement is wrong or to expose the falsity stated by someone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 反驳:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A: &amp;quot;Give the corporations a huge tax cut will create a lot of jobs&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;B: &amp;quot; No, it will not! The corporations will just buy back their stock to make more money for themselves. You can check the history, it happened many times&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A: &amp;quot; To stop bad guys with guns you have to have good guys with guns&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;B: &amp;quot; No, having more guns in people's hands doesn't solve the gun violence problem. Almost no Japanese have guns and gun related death in Japan last year was three&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*駁嘴 in Cantonese is same as 顶嘴 in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T18:38:29.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31332" CreationDate="2018-09-11T01:36:55.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can consider 有一点儿 and 一点儿 as different phrases, because their usage are different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有一点儿, meaning '&lt;strong&gt;a bit&lt;/strong&gt;', is put &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; the word that it modifies. As in your example: 你的表有一点儿快. Another example is: 这问题有一点儿难（this question is a bit hard）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一点儿 is put &lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt; the word as a complement, denoting &lt;strong&gt;'extent' or 'degree' enhanced a bit&lt;/strong&gt;. For example: 把题目出得难一点儿. (Make the questions a bit harder). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare 有一点儿难 and 难一点儿: 有一点儿难 describe that '&lt;strong&gt;something is being a bit hard to deal with&lt;/strong&gt;'; 难一点儿 is used to describe '&lt;strong&gt;to increase the degree of difficulty a bit&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence 你的表有一点儿快 means &lt;em&gt;the time indicated by your watch is a bit ahead to the actual time&lt;/em&gt;. Say your watch shows it's 6:15, but the actual time is 6:00.  If you want to use 一点儿, you might have to put it after 快: 快一点儿. 一点儿快 doesn't make sense in any case I can think of. Well, 快一点儿 means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;go faster a bit&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or just &quot;&lt;strong&gt;go faster&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, which is quite different from 有一点儿快. So, 快一点儿 doesn't fit for your sentence, because it means differently.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: there is another uasage of 一点儿. It can be used to &lt;strong&gt;emphasize the negative&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, 你说的一点都没错！meaning you are absolutely right(without even a subtle mistake). This usage is different from what you are asking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help you out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-09-11T04:09:21.907" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T04:09:21.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16776" CreationDate="2018-09-11T02:26:21.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in S.E. Asia, we only use 顾客 for clients and customers or any person or group involved or taking part in buying our products n services in our daily business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whilst 客户, funnily I only find it in newspapers. So I guess it's only for written Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20393" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T02:26:21.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31339" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31340" CreationDate="2018-09-11T09:02:03.120" Score="0" ViewCount="407" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_ability_or_possibility_with_%22neng%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt;, both 能 and 可以 can be used to politely ask for permission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Which is considered more polite?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Which is more formal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Is it the same for Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T09:46:56.773" Title="Which is the more polite way to ask for permission: 能 or 可以?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31339" CreationDate="2018-09-11T09:38:11.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the 'asking for permission' function, 能 is similar to 'can' and  可以/可否 is similar to 'may' in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking, 'may' is the proper word to use and is considered more polite and formal, for example &quot;May I ask you a question&quot; but in casual day to day speech, more and more people think replacing 'may' with 'can' and say &quot;can I ask you a question?&quot; is acceptable. I would still suggest you use 'may' (可以/可否) instead of 'can' (能) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese do not use 能 or 能够 when ask for permission. We say &quot;可以&quot; as in &quot;我可以問你一個問題嗎？&quot; which is a polite way to ask. To be more polite, we would say &quot;我可唔可以問你一個問題？&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, &quot;我可不可以問你一個問題?&quot; (more colloquial)  or &quot;我可否問你一個問題?&quot; (more literary) are the more polite form compare to &quot;我能問你一個問題嗎？&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-09-11T09:46:56.773" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T09:46:56.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31341" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31343" CreationDate="2018-09-11T11:40:06.067" Score="1" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;I am currently trying to learn Chinese. However, pronunciation isn't as straightforward as I thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;Is Pinyin actually recommended and taught by Mandarin Chinese teachers? I've seen it in videos of pre-schoolers being used for tones and sounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any answers to my question will be appreciated.&#xA;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20190" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2018-09-12T00:40:19.377" LastActivityDate="2018-09-12T00:40:19.377" Title="Is Pinyin recommended for Mandarin Chinese?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31341" CreationDate="2018-09-11T12:24:15.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pinyin is used and taught in PRC (mainland China) while a similar but different system (Bopomofo) is used in ROC.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For beginners, Pinyin is a good start for learning Simplified Chinese, while Bopomofo is widely used for learning Traditional Chinese. (And you can use both of them to input Chinese characters on a computer with a proper IME installed, for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://rime.im/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;RIME&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(edited according to droooze's advice)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastEditorUserId="16354" LastEditDate="2018-09-11T12:37:42.350" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T12:37:42.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31341" CreationDate="2018-09-11T14:52:12.597" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanyu pinyin (or pinyin)&lt;/a&gt; is the de facto standard for transliteration of Standard Chinese, especially for materials using simplified Chinese characters. In the last ten years, I have used or browsed textbooks, dictionaries and other learning materials; some of them were entirely in Chinese, others were for native speakers of English, German, French or Dutch. All of them used pinyin as their transliteration system. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have also met learners who found pinyin non-intuitive, especially for the sounds represented by &lt;code&gt;q&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;j&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;. I have known people who devised their own transliteration system but abandoned it some time later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't want to use pinyin, you will have a hard time finding learning materials for simplified Chinese characters that use a different system; these materials are available but are typically at least thirty years old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T14:52:12.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31344" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-11T18:40:26.430" Score="1" ViewCount="619" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are the simplified rules about never using &quot;shi&quot; to link an adjective with a noun. However, I believe this is not true for facts or perceived facts, such as colors, then I should use &quot;shi&quot; to mean simply &quot;is&quot;:&#xA;When I say: The dog is black: 狗是黑色的. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And cannot say: 狗很黑色&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think when using 很, the meaning changes, it does not mean &quot;IS&quot; anymore. And that is the thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that correct? I read it in an article but on the other hand, many other articles just mention the simple rule I mentioned above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15781" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T01:31:47.713" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T01:31:47.713" Title="Shi / Hen for adjective + noun when discussing facts or perceived facts" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31345" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-11T19:22:23.663" Score="1" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any good logical theories on the subject? What twisted life must have 将 took to merge such functions into one glyph? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For my background &lt;strong&gt;将 as 把&lt;/strong&gt;(to take) and &lt;strong&gt;将 as 且&lt;/strong&gt;(further) are queit different in their meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All linguistic articles on the subject are quite hard for me to read (all of them in chinese, of course). And usual books just give you rules but not how those rule originated in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Please don't tell me anything about 把, 且 or any other modern 将 equivalent. I'm interested in the evolution, the etymology of the functions of 将 and how they come to be so &quot;perpendicular&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that 将 is like 把, it's almost similar, it's used in books more not in everyday talk and so on... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I care only about evolution, etymology. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2018-09-11T20:30:52.720" LastActivityDate="2018-09-12T19:12:43.517" Title="How come 将 is a &quot;future marker&quot; and a &quot;passive marker&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31344" CreationDate="2018-09-11T19:29:23.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;是 (is) a verb &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;黑色的 (black) is an adjective phrase&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;狗 (dog) is a noun&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, '是' (is) certainly can be used with '黑色的狗 ' (black dog) and form the phrase: &quot;是黑色的狗&quot; (is a black dog)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'很'(very) is an adverb&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, it can be used with adjective '黑' (black)&#xA;and form the phrase: &quot;是很黑的狗&quot; (is a very black dog)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'是很黑色的狗' doesn't work because unlike '黑' which can has different degree&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'黑色的' is a general description that doesn't has different levels. Any level of black is '黑色的'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-09-11T19:33:07.247" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T19:33:07.247" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31345" CreationDate="2018-09-11T20:30:27.653" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将 before a verb is functioning as a [modal verb]: 'will / will soon'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(将)回家 = (will) go home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(将)死 = (will) die/ will die (soon)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将/把 before a noun is functioning as a [depositive marker] that marks the noun to be deposited by the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打死他 (beat him to death)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将他打死 (take him, and beat to death) - 将 marks 他 as the object that's being deposited by the verb 打死&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%87&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phono-semantic compound (形聲, OC *ʔsaŋ, *ʔsaŋs): phonetic 爿 (OC *braːn, *zaŋ, “bed; small table”) + semantic ⺼ (“meat”) + semantic 寸 (“hand”) – &amp;gt;to offer meat as tribute by putting it on the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;to offer meat&amp;quot; is to &amp;quot;deposit the meat' that's how 将 acquired the function of [depositive marker] that marks object to be deposited of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just read the article at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WiKi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stumpy Joe Pete wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how did the &amp;quot;to want, to wish, to approach&amp;quot; meaning come to be attached to that character? Did it come about later, or have both meanings been attached to the same character/pronunciation as far back as we can go?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from Sino-Tibetan root:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;⺼ (“meat”) +  寸 (“hand”) is the semantic component of 將 . It describes the action of handling a piece of meat; 爿 (table) is a semantic + phonetic component of 將.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meaning of the character 將 meant &amp;quot;to offer meat as a tribute to gods by putting it on the table&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The action of 將 described (put meat on the table) acquired the function of [depositive marker] later&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Austroasiatic root:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Khmer ចង់ &amp;quot;  (to want, to wish, to approach) was imported to Chinese language in ancient time, and the existing character 將 was loaned to express this word for phonetic  reason. Since  &amp;quot;to want, to wish&amp;quot; is related to future event. meaning of the modal verb &amp;quot;will&amp;quot; was added to 將 later&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-12T19:12:43.517" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31341" CreationDate="2018-09-11T21:49:27.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As it was already answered, pinyin is de facto standard romanisation of chinese language. Not the best though. &#xA;I personally prefer to use the system called &quot;bopomofo&quot; that is being used in Taiwan. &quot;Bopomofo&quot; is not a romanisation, and therefore it requires a few hours to learn it. I see two major advantages of using &quot;bopomofo&quot; system in comparison to pinyin. First, it is not a romanisation. How it is an advantage? Well, when you attempt to read chinese text supported by pinyin transcript your brain automatically forces your eyes to look at pinyin and only at pinyin transcript. You simply ignore chinese characters. Second advantage is, in my opinion, that &quot;bopomofo&quot; characters better reflect sounds/articulation than pinyin.&#xA;The one (big) disadvantage of &quot;bopomofo&quot; is that this system is used only in Taiwan, so you find it only in textbooks issued by Taiwanese publishers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20399" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T21:49:27.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31349" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-11T23:03:32.213" Score="8" ViewCount="757" Body="&lt;p&gt;On &lt;em&gt;New Practical Chinese Reader 4&lt;/em&gt;, workbook, page 7, there's a story about Scott and a Chinese person discussing about manners. The Chinese person says 客气 and 礼貌 are different, and that he/she feels weird when Scott says 谢谢, 对不起 and such all the time, since they're close friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know Chinese don't &quot;thank&quot; and &quot;please&quot; relatives as often as Westerners, but I never could tell that 客气 and 礼貌 had any difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 客气 and 礼貌?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;After some thinking and analysis I think that 礼貌 is politeness related to one's personality, while 客气 is politeness related to the ways one shows it. Any thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2018-10-31T16:46:31.900" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T16:46:31.900" Title="Difference between 客气 and 礼貌" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31349" CreationDate="2018-09-12T01:37:17.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;客气 is used to &lt;strong&gt;describe when someone offers you something or say something good for you as a way of showing his kindness, welcoming or politeness&lt;/strong&gt;. Let's say when you go to your friend's home and your friend offers you a cup of coffee, and you could say: &quot;你太客气了！&quot;， meaning you are so kind to provide that offer. The interpretation can be various based on the context. For example, A: 谢谢你！ // Thank you!, B: 不客气！ // You are welcome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;礼貌 is generally just &lt;strong&gt;manners&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;courtesy&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;polite(ness)&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, 他不礼貌: he is not polite. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, they seem close in meaning, but in fact they denote different aspects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-09-12T01:37:17.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31349" CreationDate="2018-09-12T03:02:30.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;客气 is a verb phrase for &amp;quot; be modest' or 'be formal'(as a guest would);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这笔钱是你应得的, 不要&lt;strong&gt;客气&lt;/strong&gt; - This money is rightfully yours, don't &lt;strong&gt;be modest&lt;/strong&gt; (like a guest)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们就像家人一样, 不要&lt;strong&gt;客气&lt;/strong&gt; - We are like family, don't &lt;strong&gt;be formal&lt;/strong&gt; ( like a guest)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;客气 can also be an adjective for 'courteous' or 'polite'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 那个人很&lt;strong&gt;客气&lt;/strong&gt; - that person is very &lt;strong&gt;courteous&lt;/strong&gt; / &lt;strong&gt;polite&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;礼貌 is simply a noun for 'politeness'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;strong&gt;礼貌&lt;/strong&gt;非常重要 - &lt;strong&gt;politeness&lt;/strong&gt; is very important&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有礼貌/ 有礼貌的 is adjective phrase for &amp;quot;polite&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;courteous&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那个人很&lt;strong&gt;有礼貌&lt;/strong&gt; - that person is  very &lt;strong&gt;polite&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有礼貌的&lt;/strong&gt;人 - a &lt;strong&gt;polite&lt;/strong&gt; man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T04:41:10.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31055" CreationDate="2018-09-12T05:22:11.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;虽然我会说一口流利的法语，但是我想说一口流利的汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的职业是律师。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;律师的责任很大，因为他必须解决严重&lt;strong&gt;得实情&lt;/strong&gt;。然后压力大。                                 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;律师的责任很大，因为他必须&lt;strong&gt;处理&lt;/strong&gt;严重&lt;strong&gt;的案件&lt;/strong&gt;。然后压力&lt;strong&gt;很&lt;/strong&gt;(1)大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可是在巴黎，律师逐渐增加。因此&lt;strong&gt;招聘&lt;/strong&gt;越来越少。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可是在巴黎，律师逐渐增加。因此&lt;strong&gt;工作机会&lt;/strong&gt;越来越少。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%E5%BE%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;很 - Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18221" LastActivityDate="2018-09-12T05:22:11.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30102" CreationDate="2018-09-12T11:12:01.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;what about this one,an simple chinese female first name 诗婷 shi ting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2018-09-12T11:12:01.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31354" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-12T11:23:34.723" Score="1" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ｉ read that you should not use a 把 construction with 过 as an aspect particle for the verb. But I came across this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把手机摔坏过两三次&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20304" LastActivityDate="2018-09-12T14:24:16.007" Title="Is this use of 把 and 过 correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31354" CreationDate="2018-09-12T14:24:16.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他把手机摔坏过两三次&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's correct. 过 here denotes &lt;strong&gt;the action has happened&lt;/strong&gt;. The action is 摔坏. The sentence can be parsed as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[他] [把(手机)摔坏过] [两三次]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English: &lt;em&gt;he has dropped and crashed his phone a couple of times&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-09-12T14:24:16.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31356" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-12T23:18:50.910" Score="3" ViewCount="331" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was in a Chinese forum for manga fans and I saw a user who introduced himself saying this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个普通的《X》厨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going by the context, I understand 厨 here means something like &amp;quot;fan of X&amp;quot;,  but I would like further information about the way Chinese people use this word and what it means to them. The dictionary only has &amp;quot;kitchen&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;cupboard&amp;quot; as meanings in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20404" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-21T21:34:02.100" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T15:48:57.393" Title="What's the meaning of 厨 in internet slang?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31356" CreationDate="2018-09-13T01:07:51.507" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8E%A8%E4%BA%8C%E7%97%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;厨二病&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etymology&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Derived by replacing the 中 (chū, “middle [school]”) with 厨 (chū, “freak; nerd”).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厨二病 (hiragana ちゅうにびょう, rōmaji chūnibyō)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternative spelling of 中二病&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This usage of &lt;strong&gt;厨&lt;/strong&gt; here came from Japanese 'ちゅう' (kanji: 厨 ). Which means &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;freak&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;nerd&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;XX 厨&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;XX nerd&amp;quot;  or &amp;quot;XX freak&amp;quot;. Anime and manga fans would be familiar with this term&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Other Japanese terms imported to Chinese via manga (mostly circulated among manga readers in written form)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;醬(ちゃん).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;XX 醬&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;XX 小妹妹&amp;quot; (Dear little XX)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;宅(taku)  came from Otaku (a young person who is obsessed with computers or particular aspects of popular culture to the detriment of their social skills..)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;XX 宅&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;XX obsessed&amp;quot; e.g. &amp;quot;軍事宅&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;a person obsessed with military&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T01:29:35.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31356" CreationDate="2018-09-13T01:34:20.457" Score="-2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个普通的《X》厨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I might be wrong. My first impression is that it can be analogous to 她还是个&quot;厨&quot;, meaning she is still virgin. So, I might think 一个普通的《X》厨 means he/she doesn't have much experience or knowledge about 《X》( not as much knowledge/experience as a normal fun has). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T01:34:20.457" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31349" CreationDate="2018-09-13T01:57:48.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;客气 means being unfamiliar, not close, in those cases, you will act formally and politely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;客气话(equal to 客套话) a bunch of nonsense phrases for social protocol. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People say 不要客气, means they want you relax, treat them as close friends, &lt;strong&gt;but&lt;/strong&gt; this phrase is a 客气话 itself. So don't take it seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T01:57:48.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31318" CreationDate="2018-09-13T02:25:17.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From repeating personal experience - you will stop translating when you get to post-intermediate stages in your learning and start using the language often, for communication or anything else. Learning languages is akin to acquiring new habits, not to researching a new science. Listen a lot, talk a lot, even read a lot, if you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is purely a question of time and the amount of practice, nothing special about Chinese here. Perhaps the massive trouble with finding interesting reading materials at your level is the only difficulty of Chinese (because characters) and, say, Japanese as compared to alphabetical languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And by the way, the first sign of getting to actually know the language is having dreams in it, even short episodes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastEditorUserId="3613" LastEditDate="2018-09-14T02:03:40.427" LastActivityDate="2018-09-14T02:03:40.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1647" CreationDate="2018-09-13T02:36:15.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMHO if you use fonts at the same size people use them in China, you'll strain your eyes a lot (urban legend has it that the tiny characters are the main reason so many studious Chinese and Japanese sport glasses, but IMMV).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've checked my browser settings - 16pt. When I want to learn a character/word, e.g. in Anki etc - it's 24pt++&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your question is purely about Chinese versions of Word - it's 12pt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T02:36:15.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31356" CreationDate="2018-09-13T04:47:48.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Japanese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;厨 (chu)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sounds the same as the first character of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中毒 (chudoku)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;中毒&lt;/code&gt; means sickly loves sb/sth. So &quot;XX厨&quot; basically means 'someone who sickly loves XX'. E.g. I'm a Gakki厨. I would do anything for her, including suicide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20224" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T04:47:48.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31349" CreationDate="2018-09-13T04:52:54.997" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a complement to other answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;客气 means 'being polite unnecessarily'. It's often used between close friends, family members, who generally don't have to be that polite to each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;礼貌 as an adjective simply means '(being) polite'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20224" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T04:52:54.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31349" CreationDate="2018-09-13T10:24:31.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“客气” is the simplest language exchange between people. When he says &quot;thank you&quot;, you will say &quot;you're welcome&quot;. The purpose of this is to give each other a sense of psychological balance, so that each other will have a certain impression.&#xA;“礼貌” is the minimum moral code that human beings need to observe in order to maintain the normal life of society. It is the gradual formation of people in long-term co-living and mutual communication, and is fixed by customs, habits and traditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20380" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T10:24:31.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31365" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31366" CreationDate="2018-09-13T11:56:32.547" Score="3" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am preparing &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.com/2017/07/chinese-poetic-sappho.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an edition of Sappho in Chinese&lt;/a&gt;, and need to mention the various meters she used, because it is according to meter that the fragments are arranged. Do ancient forms of poetry like &quot;Sapphic stanzas&quot;, &quot;Alcaic stanzas&quot;, &quot;Glyconians&quot;, &quot;Asclepiads&quot; and such have established Chinese names?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T16:46:03.333" Title="Names for forms of ancient poetry" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31365" CreationDate="2018-09-13T14:11:11.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sources: this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spph.com.cn/books/bkview.aspx?bkid=233753&amp;amp;cid=705351&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;short article&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5ee0fbb701019woa.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;another blog post&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ichacha.net/glyconic.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iChaCha&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sapphic stanza = 萨福诗律 or 莎孚诗选&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alcaic = 阿尔凯 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;glyconic = 格莱坎诗体&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;asclepiad = 阿斯克莱皮亚底斯(诗体) [in most online dictionaries it simply gets described] or 阿斯克里皮亚底斯(诗体) [according to Wikipedia's article on the eponymous originator]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Roman and Greek classics are of course very rarely studied in the Sinosphere (Japan's (Western) Classics probably being the most advanced). But there &lt;a href=&quot;https://classicalstudies.org/blogs/classics-china&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;are some initiatives&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T14:11:11.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31344" CreationDate="2018-09-14T10:29:31.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;FWIW, Google translate has:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;her story is &lt;strong&gt;true&lt;/strong&gt; - 她的故事是&lt;strong&gt;真&lt;/strong&gt;的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the cup is &lt;strong&gt;empty&lt;/strong&gt; - 杯子是&lt;strong&gt;空&lt;/strong&gt;的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the wall is &lt;strong&gt;perpendicular&lt;/strong&gt; - 墙是&lt;strong&gt;垂直&lt;/strong&gt;的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是。。。的 turns up in many different contexts, and can be used with any adjective, and with things other than adjectives as well. It is often used for emphasis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That article (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.digmandarin.com/using-hen-with-adjectives.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.digmandarin.com/using-hen-with-adjectives.html&lt;/a&gt;) is saying that 是。。。的 is the unmarked (default) translation for colours, but there are still circumstances were you could use 很。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In response to your comment: Yes, just use 是。。。的。狗 是 黑色 的。You can use 很 if you want to emphasise the 'very'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sky is blue - 天是蓝色的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sky is very blue today - 今天天很蓝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20347" LastEditorUserId="20347" LastEditDate="2018-09-15T02:00:38.720" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T02:00:38.720" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29110" CreationDate="2018-09-14T10:39:37.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“于” It is combined with nouns, pronouns, or nominal phrases to form a referential structure, serving as an adverbial or complement in a sentence.&#xA;1.The introduction of premises relating to the act.&#xA;（1）Indicates where action occurs, occurs, or occurs.&#xA;（2）The place or source of the introduction of an action.The object structure of “于” is used as a complement after a verb or predicate.It can be translated as &quot;从（cong）&quot;, &quot;自（zi）&quot; to &quot;由（you）&quot; and so on.&#xA;（3）The place where action is introduced.The object structure of “于” is used as a complement after a verb or predicate.It can be translated as &quot;至（zhi）&quot;, &quot;到（dao）&quot; and so on.&#xA;2.Introduce time associated with action.&#xA;（1）Indicates when an action occurs or occurs.&quot;于&quot; can be used as an adverbial before the verb, or as a complement after the verb.Can be translated as in.Indicates when an action occurs or occurs.&quot;于&quot; can be used as an adverbial before the verb, or as a complement after the verb.Can be translated into “在”.&#xA;（2）Indicates when an action has been extended or terminated.The object structure of “于” is often used as a complement after the verb predicate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20380" LastActivityDate="2018-09-14T10:39:37.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31344" CreationDate="2018-09-14T12:28:37.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;@user970696 emmm i ve checked all your comments and i guess you are somehow mislead by some strict rules. You may have perceived that 很 more or less conveys comparison. 石炭纪的蕨类植物很大(The Carboniferous ferns are huge in size)(They are considerably huge compared with plants today)   这部电话很白 you more or less emphasize its white color. Why do you say that? The reason may come from the feature of generalized kind. (There are few phones that are so white)or from context (-我这电话买了十年了-那这电话很白啊)(-I bought the phone ten years ago-Oh, it's still that white!(It should looks old after using for so long)) So 我家猫很黑 is not simply &quot;my cat is black&quot;. Try to learn different implication of 很:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我养的柴犬很黑(Because Shiba Inu is usually ginger)(So the comparison is between my dog and common Shiba Inu)&#xA;我的猫很黑，但毛却发亮(My cat is black, but he has shiny fur)(the comparison is between my cat and common black but dull cat)&#xA;蚂蚁很小(Ants are small compared with many animals we often see)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you just say ...很... without explicit or inexplict comparison, it's correct but just strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-09-14T12:48:26.490" LastActivityDate="2018-09-14T12:48:26.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31349" CreationDate="2018-09-14T14:12:17.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;客气 = dont be shy (when they want you to get things)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;礼貌 = manners, when you took something without asking (and someone don't like that)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19943" LastActivityDate="2018-09-14T14:12:17.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31373" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31374" CreationDate="2018-09-14T22:38:36.733" Score="0" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sample sentence:&#xA;&#xA;在这个项目的研究上&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the words that could be ambiguous are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;项目: the project&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目的: the goal, purpose, aim, intent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how can this be resolved?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20410" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T03:21:52.113" Title="is there a way to know which words are grouped?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31373" CreationDate="2018-09-14T23:41:45.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在这个项目的研究上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you treat 目的 as a noun, then 项 has to be a classifier. But there's already a classifier 个 before it, (项 is not the right classifier for 目的 anyway), therefore, we can eliminate the possibility of &quot;目的&quot; in this sentence being a noun. Which mean 项 is not a classifier but a part of the compound word 项目 (item)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It  all make sense, because we know &quot;个&quot; is a classifier for &quot;项目&quot; (item)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;项&quot; itself is a classifier, but it doesn't work with &quot;目的&quot;(goal) (the classifier of 目的 is 个)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在这个项目(的)研究上 = about the study on this item&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 is an adjective marker that turn 这个项目 into an adjective phrase &quot;这个项目的&quot; for the noun 研究 (study) - &lt;em&gt;what study? this item's study&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lenny wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;is there a more ambiguous kind of sentence? surely there must be, that's more of what I'm trying to get at&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, for example, the following sentence can be interpreted differently depend on where you slight pause between words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;是個 人用的 工具&quot; = &quot;是個 (is a)  人用的 (for human use) 工具 (tool)&quot; = &quot;is a tool for human use&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;是 個人用的 工具&quot; = &quot;是&quot; (is) 個人用的 (for personal use) 工具 (tool)&quot; = &quot;is a personal used tool&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both examples are grammatically correct,  you have to listen to how it is read to determine it is &quot;是個 . 人用的&quot; or &quot;是 . 個人用的&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can look for hints in the context to determine the correct interpretation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;One fun one, but it has to do with punctuation marks:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;下雨天留客天留人不留&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1. 下雨天留客, 天留人不留 (It is raining as if the heaven wanted to keep the guest here, but the host doesn't keep the guest even the heaven does)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2. 下雨天, 留客天, 留人不? 留! (&quot;It is a rainy day, it is a day to keep the guest, do you keep the guest?&quot; &quot;Yes I do!&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-09-15T02:20:59.907" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T02:20:59.907" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31373" CreationDate="2018-09-15T03:21:52.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no ambiguity of your sentence. All least in 简体中文 for Mandarin, one character will never be used by two words (It might happen as rare case in spoken language, but is often considered as mistakes(lazyness?) and definitely wrong in the writing system ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to this rule, does 这个|项|目的|研究上 make any sense to you? As a native speaker, I don't think it make any sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the rule of word group, if it makes sense, then it works. For ANY human language. And yes, ambiguity can happen (in ANY human language) as you can see in other answers, but not like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20411" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T03:21:52.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31376" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31378" CreationDate="2018-09-15T05:53:43.310" Score="0" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are supposedly 4 &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Noun#Subcategories&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;categories&lt;/a&gt; of nouns in Chinese, according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Proper_nouns_and_common_nouns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Proper nouns and common nouns&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Position_nouns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Position nouns&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Location_nouns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Location nouns&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Time_noun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Time nouns&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The links to Position and Location nouns from the website are empty, and the titles say Location noun and Location Nouns respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they the same thing? Perhaps this is just a mistake. I wasn't able to find a definition of position/location nouns on the site or a similar concept on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun#Classification_of_nouns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's Nouns page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's quite hard to find anything on &lt;strong&gt;position&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;place&lt;/strong&gt; nouns perhaps because search engines assume I am trying to figure out the correct position in a sentence to place a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what are either of the definitions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would any of the following in Chinese be &lt;strong&gt;position&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;place&lt;/strong&gt; nouns and if so which ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;here&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;up&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;down&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;nearby&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;home&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;hospital&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;work&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;right&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;left&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;north&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;south&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18208" LastActivityDate="2018-10-15T10:00:13.047" Title="Difference between location nouns and place/position nouns, 方位词 vs 处所词" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31377" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31382" CreationDate="2018-09-15T08:46:48.060" Score="3" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;In informal English, you can ask a question like, &quot;Tea?&quot; as a shorthand for &quot;Would you like some (more) tea?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if the same can be achieved in (informal) Chinese? Something along the lines of 《茶吗？》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20413" LastActivityDate="2018-09-16T16:35:12.077" Title="Is it possible to ask a question with just a single noun?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;yes-no-questions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31376" CreationDate="2018-09-15T09:43:34.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;方位次&lt;/strong&gt; are directions and positions with respect to something and include&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;relative directions&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;up/down - 上/下&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;left/right - 左/右&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;front/back - 前/后&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in/out - 里/外&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cardinal directions&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;north/south - 北/南&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;east/west - 东/西&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which can prefix words like face, side, and corner to produce further position nouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;处所词&lt;/strong&gt; are both places and proper nouns such as 上海.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They can be placed into 到。。。去 with nothing else and be grammatically correct such as 到上海去 and 到美国去, whereas general nouns, like 桌子, are not 处所词 as the sentence 到桌子去 is grammatically incorrect, although if 桌子那儿 is used instead of 桌子, this can be used as a place noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least that is my general understanding of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/6065/user6065&quot;&gt;user6065&lt;/a&gt;'s comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;实用汉语语法＂４。３。２ 处所词 lg. place word。处所词的语法特点是：能做＂在＂＂到＂的宾语，能放在＂到。。。去＂的格式中。例如：在上海，到上海去。一般名词不能放在＂到。。。去＂的格式中。不能说＂到桌子去＂，＂到老张去＂，除非加上＂那儿＂使之成为处所短语，如＂到桌子那儿去＂，到老张那儿去＂。 所有的地名都是处所词，如：美国、亚洲、北京、天安门、颐和园，等等。＂邮局、宿舍、图书馆＂等既是名词，又是处所词。 ４。３。４ 方位词 noun of locality。方位词的语法特点基本上跟处所词相同。汉语共有１４个单音方位词：上、下、前、后、里、外、内、中、左、右、东、西、南、北。单音方位词加上＂边、面、头＂组成合成方位词。如：上边、后头、外边、左面、东头。所谓方位，既指空间，又指时间。＂屋前＂、＂屋后＂的＂前＂、＂后＂指处所，＂饭前＂、＂饭后＂的＂前＂、＂后＂指时间。名词加单方位词可以构成处所短语或时间短语。方位词不受数量短语的修饰，但是并不绝对排斥副词的修饰。例如：＂太前＂、＂太后＂；＂最前＂、＂最后＂。这中特点接近于形容词。单音方位词是一种黏着词，单用的能力很差；合成方位词比单音方位词要自由得多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/6065/user6065&quot;&gt;user6065&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but my Chinese isn't good enough to be sure that I understood the comment correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18208" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T09:43:34.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31379" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-15T11:11:42.150" Score="-1" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could not use Google translate because its an image. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your help will be appreciated.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UxNIQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20414" LastActivityDate="2018-09-19T01:35:09.940" Title="Please some Help me translate this" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-09-21T16:51:48.390" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31380" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-15T11:54:25.107" Score="4" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's used to describe an expression so I guess it's close to being shocked or frightened from the context it's used in but I don't really understand why it means that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a detailed explanation will be much appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19725" LastActivityDate="2018-09-16T03:17:11.813" Title="What does &quot;三魂去了两魂半&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31380" CreationDate="2018-09-15T13:15:44.857" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The expression is somewhat similar to English &lt;em&gt;scare the living daylights out of &lt;code&gt;somebody&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, with many variations. A quick Google search shows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三魂[少/去/嚇飛]了二魂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三魂剩下半魂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三魂去二&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and other similar constructions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三魂 refers to the three &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hun_and_po&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;hun&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese philosophy/folk religion or Daoist belief. The three &lt;em&gt;hun&lt;/em&gt; make up a person's &quot;essence&quot; (soul, spirit) when they're alive, and go their separate paths after a person passes away:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One &lt;em&gt;hun&lt;/em&gt; returns to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuji_(philosophy)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;primordial universe&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; from whence it came;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One &lt;em&gt;hun&lt;/em&gt; faces judgement for the person's good and bad wordly deeds in hell;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One &lt;em&gt;hun&lt;/em&gt; resides at a person's burial place or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_tablet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ancestral tablet&lt;/a&gt;, and is the &lt;em&gt;hun&lt;/em&gt; that is passed on to a person's descendants.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the three &lt;em&gt;hun&lt;/em&gt; are somehow absent from the body when the body is still alive, then the body becomes a walking corpse (&lt;strong&gt;行尸走肉&lt;/strong&gt;), so the expression &lt;strong&gt;三魂去了兩魂半&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;em&gt;almost frightened to death&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-09-15T23:58:59.037" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T23:58:59.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31377" CreationDate="2018-09-15T14:45:50.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure it is, in oral Chinese, you can question someone if they care for tea like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;茶？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not need 吗 as the question marker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you use this expression, please make sure, first, both you and the person you are asking are in the same and easily understandable context, like, you holding a teapot and an empty cup in front of that person; second, the person you are asking had better be in a relatively equal standing with you, this is a very casual way of asking!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-09-16T16:35:12.077" LastActivityDate="2018-09-16T16:35:12.077" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31379" CreationDate="2018-09-15T22:21:01.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;无出生证明原件，声明书上姓氏有误，须更换新声明 - 张&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No original birth certification document, surname in the clarification does not match, please submit a new clarification document - Zhang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T22:21:01.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31385" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31388" CreationDate="2018-09-15T22:58:40.087" Score="0" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say my current job requires me to contact a certain hardware manufacturer in China and request technical documentation. But they don't speak English and I don't speak Chinese. Hiring a commercial translator would be impractical due to the number of reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which of the ways of dealing with the situation would be more (culturally) appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Asking one of my known business contacts to do this for me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, what should I offer in return - a similar favor or a small amount of $?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using machine translation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which could lead to prolonged and tediously unproductive conversation, wasting the manufacturer's time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Making acquaintance with someone speaking both English and Chinese remotely (like in a chat or language exchange group) and asking them for a favor on the same terms as in pt. 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is fine in my country, but I'm not sure if it wouldn't look weird or insulting elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20416" LastActivityDate="2018-09-16T14:21:51.420" Title="Asking for a small business favor (whom and how)" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31380" CreationDate="2018-09-15T23:31:57.933" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to understand it, you need to know these two phrases: 三魂七魄 and 吓得没了魂儿. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Baidu, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/12738457.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;三魂七魄&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人的精神分而可以称之为魂魄，其魂有三，一为天魂，二为地魂，三为命魂。其魄有七，一魄天冲，二魄灵慧，三魄为气，四魄为力，五魄中枢，六魄为精，七魄为英。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 三魂 and 七魄 are necessary for a live person. If you lose all 三魂, then you would die. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吓得没了魂儿 means one is &lt;strong&gt;so frightened that he lost his 魂儿(soul) and die&lt;/strong&gt;. It's actually a figurative speech. They will not literally lose them and die. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三魂去了两魂半 is a similar phrase to 吓得没了魂儿. You can imagine that “三魂去了两魂半” is about &lt;strong&gt;one loses two and a half of 魂 given he only has three&lt;/strong&gt;. Figuratively, it implies that &lt;strong&gt;one almost dies of something frightening or scary&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 吓得没了魂儿 == 吓死了； 三魂去了两魂半 == 吓得半死 or 吓得要死. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-09-16T03:17:11.813" LastActivityDate="2018-09-16T03:17:11.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31377" CreationDate="2018-09-15T23:47:58.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, I probably brief it as: 要茶吗？; 喝茶吗？; 来点茶？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These phrase are more clear in the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T23:47:58.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31385" CreationDate="2018-09-16T14:21:51.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think something is left out of the question and I have problem understanding why there is a problem in the first place. If you need/want to contact someone with whom you don't share a common language, the obvious solution is to hire a translator. What exactly are the reasons that make hiring a translator impractical? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether you want to pay fair compensation to hire a qualified person to represent your business, or you'd rather ask someone to do it for free (or for a small gift), or use machine, or simply grab some stranger in an internet chat group, is entirely up to you. It depends on how you wish to present your company to your contact and how much control you wish to have over the situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also said that getting someone over the net to do it for you is fine in your country. I don't think there is anything cultural about that. If that's who you'd rather have to represent your company, it's absolutely your choice. I am simply curious what country you are from.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2018-09-16T14:21:51.420" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31390" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-16T17:02:25.377" Score="0" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;The attached image is of a painting of the genre known as Chinese Farmers' / Chinese Peasants'/ or Chinese 'naive&quot; paintings. But I cannot de-code the signature and seal, so would be most grateful if anyone can&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/80L7M.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;![enter image description here&quot;&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/80L7M.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20421" LastActivityDate="2018-09-17T01:24:57.367" Title="I would be grateful if anyone can translate/identify the artist of this Chinese &quot;Farmers' Art&quot; painting" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31390" CreationDate="2018-09-16T17:27:52.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Title 户县张青义作 盼春 Seal 青义画印&#xA;Here is the Baidu baike link to &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%88%B7%E5%8E%BF%E5%86%9C%E6%B0%91%E7%94%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;户县农民画&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-09-16T17:27:52.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31390" CreationDate="2018-09-17T01:18:39.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's break it down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盼春：Looking forward to Spring&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;户县：Hu County&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张青义：Qingyi Zhang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作: Painted By&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Title of the painting is:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盼春：Looking forward to Spring&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Full translation is:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;户县张青义作：Painting by Qingyi Zhang from Hu County&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Seal:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right side translate to 青义，which is the painter's Firstname, not sure about the left side. The previous answer says it's 画印, which translate to Seal, so the Seal translate to: Qingyi Seal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Found something about the painter, and one of the painting has the title 盼春 as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/18/0507/17/412944_751919621.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;张青义户县农民作品画欣赏&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2018-09-17T01:24:57.367" LastActivityDate="2018-09-17T01:24:57.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31393" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31396" CreationDate="2018-09-17T09:50:02.620" Score="0" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I know words describing time are placed before and after Subject, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;昨天晚上八点&lt;/strong&gt;我去超市了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;昨天晚上八点&lt;/strong&gt;去超市了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I expected the same to be in questions, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;昨天晚上几点&lt;/strong&gt;你去超市了？ OR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;昨天晚上几点&lt;/strong&gt;去超市了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I saw something like breaking time before &amp;amp; after Subject:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;昨天晚上&lt;/strong&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;几点&lt;/strong&gt;去超市了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it grammaticaly correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastActivityDate="2018-09-17T10:10:34.907" Title="几点 position in sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31395" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31397" CreationDate="2018-09-17T09:51:43.267" Score="2" ViewCount="567" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning how to translate &quot;What's your last/first name?&quot; with Duolingo and Google Translate. Both apps indicate that the correct translations are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你的姓是什么?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你叫什么名字&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many differences here. The first one has a 的 (de) and a 是 (shì), which the latter does not have. The second one has a 叫 (jiào), and 什么 comes before 名字 and not at the end of the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is there such a difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20422" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T08:21:14.540" Title="Why is there such a difference between &quot;first name&quot; and &quot;last name&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31393" CreationDate="2018-09-17T10:10:34.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is grammatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it is very natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breaking it apart (somehow) gives the &quot;eight o'clock&quot; part an emphasis. You can also say 昨天晚上我八点去超市了, if you want to emphasize on &quot;八点&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question words are sometimes automatically emphasized (as it is what the speaker cares about), so it is very natural to say: 昨天晚上你几点去超市了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-09-17T10:10:34.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31395" CreationDate="2018-09-17T12:28:35.757" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;你的姓是什么? is not a common way to ask someone's last name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more common way is : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Title +贵姓?&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你姓什么?&quot; (the noun '姓' here is acting like a verb (is family-named)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the past, most people in high society would have a 姓(family name), a 名 (given name) and a 字 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_name&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Courtesy name&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;曹操 Cao Cao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;姓:曹 (is last-named: Cao)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;名:操 (is first-named:Cao)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;字:孟德 (is courtesy-named: Meng Deo)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can call Cao Cao's 姓名, which is 曹操 (Cao Cao) and it is a formal address&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can call Cao Cao's 姓 and 字, which is 曹孟德 (Cao Meng Deo) if you were close to him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern time, 名 and 字 are consolidated into 名字 for the meaning of 'name' . Few people, if any are using 字 nowadays&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We only use 名字 as a noun, therefore we need a verb '是'(is) or '叫'(called) when asking what is someone's name. e.g. &quot;你的名字是什么&quot; or &quot;你的名字叫什么&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually,  姓名 is almost interchangeable with 名字 in modern time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone ask &quot;你的名字是什么?&quot; It is more common to state your full name (全名) than just your given name &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If Cao Cao was here , and someone asked him : &quot;你叫什么名字?&quot;(what is your name called), the following answers would all be correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我名叫曹操&quot; ( he is stating his 姓名, which is the most common way to answer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我名叫曹孟德&quot; (he wants you to address him by his courtesy name) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;名 can be omitted in the two answers above&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我姓曹, 名操, 字孟德&quot; (classical speech -- in this case, 姓, 名 and 字 all act like verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-09-17T23:55:02.263" LastActivityDate="2018-09-17T23:55:02.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31398" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31399" CreationDate="2018-09-17T13:11:40.043" Score="2" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;p&gt;While doing exercises on my book I found some sentences with a use of 要 which I've never seen before and I can't figure out the meaning. The sentences are the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很忙，但是他应该&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;来参加我的生日晚会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;实现梦想不是一件容易的事 and &lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;把汉语学好不是一件容易的事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19709" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-17T23:46:01.080" Title="What is the meaning of 要 in these sentences?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31398" CreationDate="2018-09-17T13:34:02.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;All three examples can be interpreted as a &lt;em&gt;future auxiliary&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他很忙，但是他「應該&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;」來參加我的生日晚會&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He is very busy, but he「should &lt;strong&gt;be&lt;/strong&gt;」coming to my evening birthday party.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This「要」is used in the sense of &lt;em&gt;will, going to&lt;/em&gt;, like &lt;strong&gt;我明天要上學&lt;/strong&gt; (I will be going to school tomorrow). Similarly,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;實現夢想不是一件容易的事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To&lt;/strong&gt; realise (one's) dreams is not an easy matter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;把漢語學好不是一件容易的事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To&lt;/strong&gt; learn Chinese well is not an easy matter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-09-17T13:34:02.230" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31402" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31404" CreationDate="2018-09-17T20:35:38.023" Score="4" ViewCount="601" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since Chinese is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_(linguistics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tonal language&lt;/a&gt;, I'm wondering how this affects Chinese singing. Specifically wondering about the modern Chinese version of modern American pop music, which has relatively simple structure and chords. But if Chinese lyrics require tone changes, it seems that somehow this must be incorporated into the music and yet distinguished from simple tonal changes in the music itself. So wondering how this is handled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if the music tones go up, but the word is going up too, not sure what happens. That sort of stuff. Maybe it is easy to tell from the context, I am not sure which is the reason for the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T21:08:16.773" Title="How modern Chinese singing works if Chinese has tones" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31403" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-17T22:16:59.863" Score="0" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JMBZR.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JMBZR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;This pair of cufflinks belonged to my uncle who worked in California. I recently was given the cufflinks and to date have not been able to figure out what they represent. I have included a picture, but I'm not sure if it is upside down or not. Any help would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20427" LastEditorUserId="20427" LastEditDate="2018-09-18T16:12:15.937" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T01:50:44.020" Title="Is this a Chinese symbol? Cufflinks that belonged to my uncle" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31402" CreationDate="2018-09-17T22:56:17.430" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: Simply speaking, remove all the original tones of each character and follow the tune of the music. Yes it is hard to recognize if you never read the lyrics before, even for native speakers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2018-09-17T22:56:17.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31398" CreationDate="2018-09-17T23:34:54.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他很忙，但是他应该&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;来参加我的生日晚会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage of 要 denotes the &lt;strong&gt;future tense&lt;/strong&gt; in this sentence. But I'd rather use 会 instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他很忙，但是他应该&lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt;来参加我的生日晚会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, &lt;strong&gt;应该会&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;一定要&lt;/strong&gt; are normal collocations. So, it's also correct to say 他很忙，但是他&lt;strong&gt;一定要&lt;/strong&gt;来参加我的生日晚会， but the tone is stronger than &lt;strong&gt;应该会&lt;/strong&gt;. 一定要 denotes a sense of &quot;&lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt;&quot; and 应该会 is &quot;&lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;em&gt;would&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;实现梦想不是一件容易的事 and &lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;把汉语学好不是一件容易的事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要, in these two sentences, is different from the first one. It's short for &lt;strong&gt;想要&lt;/strong&gt;， meaning '&lt;strong&gt;want&lt;/strong&gt;', '&lt;strong&gt;wish&lt;/strong&gt;', '&lt;strong&gt;intend&lt;/strong&gt;', and etc. These two sentences can be paraphrased as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;想要&lt;/strong&gt;实现梦想不是一件容易的事 and &lt;strong&gt;想要&lt;/strong&gt;把汉语学好不是一件容易的事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;想&lt;/strong&gt;实现梦想不是一件容易的事 and &lt;strong&gt;想&lt;/strong&gt;把汉语学好不是一件容易的事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;The literal translation into English might be stilted&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. That might be because the convention between English and Chinese is different . It could be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you want to achieve your dream, that would not be an easy thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you want to learn Chinese language well, that would not be an easy thing to do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More idiomatic sentences to interpret them in English could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It would not be an easy thing for one to achieve his dream. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It would not be an easy thing for one to learn Chinese language well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-09-17T23:46:01.080" LastActivityDate="2018-09-17T23:46:01.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31379" CreationDate="2018-09-18T00:22:20.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence is as follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无出生证原件，声明书上&lt;del&gt;名&lt;/del&gt;(Crossed Out)姓氏有误，需更换新声明。 张&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which translated to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There is no original copy of birth certificate, wrong &lt;del&gt;first name&lt;/del&gt; last name on the declaration statement, change of new statement is needed.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 张 at the bottom right corner can be refer to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the common Chinese last name - 张 - Zhāng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Measure word which translated to &lt;strong&gt;Piece&lt;/strong&gt; (eg. Piece of paper)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20181" LastEditorUserId="20181" LastEditDate="2018-09-19T01:35:09.940" LastActivityDate="2018-09-19T01:35:09.940" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31379" CreationDate="2018-09-18T03:06:27.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No original birth certificate. The last name on the declaration is incorrect. New declaration is required&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20380" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T03:06:27.337" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31408" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31466" CreationDate="2018-09-18T03:35:38.433" Score="0" ViewCount="413" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://read.qidian.com/chapter/jVvQ3swicPFxo3Pbs2jtrw2/14mBiRAuBJrgn4SMoDUcDQ2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;原作 《我被系统托管了》&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.webnovel.com/book/9795095706003005/26751469923386963/Seized-by-the-System/I%27ve-Been-Seized-by-the-System-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;译作 &lt;em&gt;Seized by the System&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“各位&lt;strong&gt;道友&lt;/strong&gt;请了，本座刚刚渡劫失败，先来地球歇歇脚。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Greetings, &lt;strong&gt;fellow cultivators&lt;/strong&gt;, I, the master, am just dropping by the&#xA;Earth to rest after I failed some of God’s tests.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looked up cultivator, I just found this &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K0J1p.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K0J1p.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I think it should be &amp;quot;fellow Taoism participators&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-09T09:59:48.550" Title="为什么“道友”被译作“fellow cultivators”？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31408" CreationDate="2018-09-18T04:02:23.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A cultivator can also mean a person or thing that cultivates(prepare the land) something, in this case, Taoism. So &lt;strong&gt;fellow cultivator&lt;/strong&gt; is the suitable phrase here since everyone is a Taoism participator in the context of the book so don't need to mention that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2018-09-24T00:16:53.830" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T00:16:53.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31402" CreationDate="2018-09-18T04:18:05.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pitch in the melody will simply over-write all the tones and length of syllables. Notice that this is not the same as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intonation_(linguistics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Intonation&lt;/a&gt;, which occurs in any languages and added up onto tones in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20411" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T04:18:05.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31411" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31413" CreationDate="2018-09-18T05:20:53.080" Score="1" ViewCount="294" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the first part of &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2%E5%87%BA%E7%89%88%E7%A4%BE/899950&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;语文四年级上册&lt;/a&gt; (a grade-4 Chinese textbook), and the transcript is here &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%A7%82%E6%BD%AE/17574145&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;观潮&lt;/a&gt; (guāncháo = tide watching).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;钱塘江大潮，自古以来被称为天下奇观。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  　　农历八月十八是一年一度的观潮日。这一天早上，我们来到了海宁市的盐官镇，据说这里是观潮最好的地方。我们随着观潮的人群，登上了海塘大堤。宽阔的钱塘江横卧在眼前。江面很平静，越往东越宽，在雨后的阳光下，笼罩着一层蒙蒙的薄雾。镇海古塔、中山亭和观潮台屹立在江边。远处，几座小山在云雾中若隐若现。江潮还没有来，海塘大堤上早已人山人海。大家昂首东望，等着，盼着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Qiantang River's big lake, since ancient times has been known as Earthly wonder.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The lunar calendar's 8-th month 18-th day is the annual tide-watching.  This day in the morning, we come to Haining city's Yanguan district; reportedly, here is tide-watching's best place.  We, along with a tide-watching group, climb over the large seawall [海塘大堤].  Wide Qiantang River reclines [横卧] in front of our eyes. The surface of the river is tranquil, incrementally moving east and wider [越往东越宽]; in the after-rain sunshine, there is an enveloping layer of drizzly mist. In Zhenhai distict and Guta district, Zhongshan pavilion and tide-watching terraces tower on the river bank.  In the distance, a few small mountains in the mist are faintly discernible.  The river's tide has not yet come, and on the large seawall for a long time there's been a vast crowd.  Everyone [昂首东望 (?)], waiting, anticipating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I encounter a few issues here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm not sure how to interpret 海塘大堤 (hǎitáng dàdī): we have both &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B5%B7%E5%A1%98/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;海塘&lt;/a&gt; (seawall) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A4%A7%E5%A0%A4/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大堤&lt;/a&gt; (levee) which seem redundant.  Could 海塘 be the name of the 大堤?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%A8%AA%E5%8D%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;横卧&lt;/a&gt; (héngwò) translates to &quot;to recline&quot;, but it seems strange that a river &quot;reclines&quot;.  This doesn't make sense to me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm not sure if I'm interpreting 越往东越宽 correctly.  I think it means the river (or lake) is incrementally moving eastwards and getting wider. &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#zh-CN/en/%E8%B6%8A%E5%BE%80%E4%B8%9C%E8%B6%8A%E5%AE%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; gives &quot;the more eastward the wider&quot;, which is not so clear to me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I unclear about 昂首东望 (ángshǒu dōng wàng): &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%98%82%E9%A6%96/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;昂首&lt;/a&gt; means to raise one's head, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;东&lt;/a&gt; means &quot;East&quot; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;望&lt;/a&gt; means &quot;to hope&quot;.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#zh-CN/en/%E6%98%82%E9%A6%96%E4%B8%9C%E6%9C%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; gives &quot;looking east&quot;, which is probably accurate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I resolve issues with my translation of a 观潮?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T06:14:06.330" Title="How do I resolve issues with my translation of a snippet about 观潮 (guāncháo = tide watching) from a 4-th grade Chinese book?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31411" CreationDate="2018-09-18T05:56:40.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;海塘大堤 is the full name of that type of levee (sea wall levee)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;横卧 is a verb means 'lay across'; &amp;quot;钱塘江 横卧 在眼前&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;Qiantang River lays across in front of my eyes (or lays across my view)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 横卧在床上 = &amp;quot;lay across the bed&amp;quot; (not in the proper direction when you go to sleep)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[(越 )+ (X) + (越) + (Y)] is a common structure means &amp;quot; the more it  (X) the more it becomes (Y)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;越往东越宽 means &amp;quot;(越 the more ) it (往东 heading East) (越 the more)  (宽 wide) it becomes&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;beside &amp;quot;hope&amp;quot; , 望 is also a verb for &amp;quot;to look&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东望 means &amp;quot;look Eastward&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昂首东望 means &amp;quot;raise one's head and look Eastward&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;天下奇观 should be translated as &amp;quot;a wonder of the world&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T06:07:09.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31411" CreationDate="2018-09-18T06:00:21.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;海塘大堤 is a particular type of levee. Not all levees are seawalls. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%B5%B7%E5%A1%98%E5%A4%A7%E5%A0%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B5%B7%E5%A1%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;横卧：It as a figurative use. The river is there like a person lying there. Something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;越往东越宽: There is no verb here. So no &quot;moving&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;往 is not a verb here. &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22toward%22_with_%22wang%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;It is a preposition that means &quot;towards&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This just describes the rive, which is wider in the eastward. &quot;The more eastward the wider&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昂首东望: 望 is not &quot;hope&quot; here. It means &quot;look&quot;. The phrase means: raising one's head and looking east.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T06:00:21.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31411" CreationDate="2018-09-18T06:14:06.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;海塘 and 大堤 are the synonyms. So, you can just take either &lt;em&gt;seawall&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;levee&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;横卧 can just be interpreted as &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;lie or lying&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;越往东越宽 means &lt;em&gt;the further east the river goes, the wider it becomes&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;昂首东望 (ángshǒu dōng wàng): 昂首 means to &lt;em&gt;raise one's head&lt;/em&gt;, as you say. 东 is &lt;em&gt;east&lt;/em&gt;. 望 means 看. 东望 means 东看 or 向东看，&lt;em&gt;looking (towards) east&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T06:14:06.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31395" CreationDate="2018-09-18T08:21:14.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, you are asking the differences between two sentencies rather than two phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translations of &quot;first name&quot; and &quot;last name&quot; should be just:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;姓 =&amp;gt; last name&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;名 =&amp;gt; first name&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And your app translations are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你的姓是什么? =&amp;gt; What is your last name?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你的名是什么? =&amp;gt; What is your first name?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你叫什么名字? =&amp;gt; What's your name?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T08:21:14.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31180" CreationDate="2018-09-18T10:39:27.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;討厭: To dislike&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恨: To hate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怨恨: To hate with discontent/grief, usually only to another person(s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忌恨: To hate with envy, usually only to another person(s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惡(wu): To dislike/loathe, usage is archaic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惱恨: To hate with anger (sometime to one's own regret/failure)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20296" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T10:39:27.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31424" CreationDate="2018-09-18T20:56:32.630" Score="4" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was trying to make this sentence : &quot;It seems like I can't get good score even though I study hard/我虽然努力学习，但是我好像还不能得到好成绩 (I don't know if my sentence is correct tho)&quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this word 得不到 (Idk whether it's a verb/idiom/something). If 得不到 can be used as a verb, can I change my sentence into : &quot;...但是我好像还得不到好成绩&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I wonder why it is 得不到, not 不得到... Could you please help explain it to me? Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-21T07:10:58.970" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T07:10:58.970" Title="不能得到 vs 得不到 difference" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31403" CreationDate="2018-09-19T00:59:27.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nope, it's just five squares, which there's no character for in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19845" LastActivityDate="2018-09-19T00:59:27.567" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31419" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31420" CreationDate="2018-09-19T08:13:45.397" Score="8" ViewCount="3164" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a gender neutral term for people who are first born in a family? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if a mother, father, and older sibling are all the first born to their parents, is there a term that describes all of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick check translating &quot;first born&quot; to traditional Chinese using google shows 長女 and 長男, as well as 初生的 which I'm not clear about, but if I wanted to say that &quot;other family members are all X's&quot; and use the correct Chinese word for clarity and to avoid any ambiguity, is there a word or simple expression for this category of people within a family? Or even without being within one family?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this should be asked separately or not, but if there happens to be a word or phrase for &lt;em&gt;the only person in a family who is not first born&lt;/em&gt;, that would also be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18487" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T09:41:16.200" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T09:41:16.200" Title="Gender neutral term for family members who are all first born?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;kinship&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31419" CreationDate="2018-09-19T08:37:16.617" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Speaking from personal experience (as a 長孫 on my paternal side):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老大 would be the most common gender-neutral term used &lt;em&gt;within the family&lt;/em&gt;. Very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;長子 can refer to the one oldest child of brothers and sisters, but there is quite a lot of variation in use between families, and can refer to the &quot;eldest son&quot; or the &quot;eldest child&quot;. To be clear, I'd often go with &quot;長子長女&quot; as a phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more neutral circumlocution would be 最大的 which is spans formal and informal, in-family and out-of-family use. It defaults to referring to age (not height / width!), but if you want to be specific, you can use 年紀最大的 with &quot;age&quot; included.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There isn't any two-syllable word for the &lt;em&gt;youngest&lt;/em&gt; that my family uses, although 老小 and 老幺 I have now seen on searching the Internet. 最小的 is the usual gender-neutral way of expressing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2018-09-19T08:37:16.617" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31419" CreationDate="2018-09-19T08:39:32.737" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;there're terms for the &quot;first-born-son&quot; only. traditionally, females are not treated equally in a family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, the answer below is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; gender neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;嫡長子&quot;, &quot;嫡子&quot; or &quot;宗子&quot; - &quot;first-born-son&quot; of wife (the official one, not concubines)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000044984&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000044984&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000044987&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000044987&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000140215&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000140215&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, you might invent the term &quot;嫡長女&quot; as &quot;first-born-daughter&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other male siblings in the family, including younger one of the same mother, or any male siblings of concubines, are called &quot;庶子&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000133626&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000133626&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-09-19T08:39:32.737" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31422" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-19T15:47:54.497" Score="2" ViewCount="392" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to let learn about Chinese and I want to watch some short video to begin with. Is there any website like Youtube in China and can be access from USA?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20436" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T10:39:22.613" Title="Does China have any website like Youtube?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31120" CreationDate="2018-09-19T18:15:48.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my understanding (I'm not a native Chinese) it's just a regular verb duplication. But, when it's duplicated in the past, the 了 particle is put in between the verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我看看 = 我看一看 = 我看一下 = I'll take a look.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我看了看 = 我看了一看 = 我看了一下 = I took a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-09-19T18:15:48.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31417" CreationDate="2018-09-20T00:06:53.167" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to distinguish verbs of more than one character in two categories:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;可分離&lt;/strong&gt; (You can separate the two parts and put a character in the middle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不可分離&lt;/strong&gt; (Strictly forbidden to separate the two. They need to be together)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 可分離 category you will find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;動賓&lt;/strong&gt; (Verb + Object)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;動詞 + 結果補語&lt;/strong&gt; (Verb + Result complement)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得到 is a &lt;strong&gt;verb with a 結果補語 (result complement).&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;For this kind of verb, the first character carry the main verb part. The second character is the result.&#xA;You can negate the result if the result is not achieved by adding 不. Or you can emphasize the success of the action or ask a question about whether it succeeded or not by adding 得.&#xA;Remember that this kind of verbs is special because you can always separate the two parts adding either &quot;不&quot; or &quot;得&quot; in the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;說出來 -&amp;gt; 說不出來， 說得出來&#xA;吃下 -&amp;gt; 吃不下，吃得下&#xA;撇清 -&amp;gt; 撇得清，撇不清&#xA;聽懂 -&amp;gt; 聽得懂，聽不懂&#xA;離開 -&amp;gt; 離得開，離不開&#xA;記住 -&amp;gt; 記得住，記不住&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see that 到，出來，下，清，懂，開，住 are all results here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得到 seems a bit special, because the verbal part is already &quot;得&quot;. You can say 得不到，but 得得到 is strange!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我雖然努力學習，但好像還是得不到好成績&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;動賓 (Verb Object)&lt;/strong&gt; is also interesting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;見面 -&amp;gt; 見個面&#xA;吃飯 -&amp;gt; 吃個飯&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This time, you can separate them to add a measure word. And when you think about it, it makes sense: you can count the object part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;動賓 are special because the &quot;object slot&quot; after the verb is already busy. It means it's forbidden to add a second object immediately after.&#xA;「我想見面王先生」 is wrong.「面」already occupies the &quot;object slot&quot;. So you can't add「王先生」since it's a second object.&#xA;Instead, you need to use another construction which separates the two objects:「 我想跟王先生見面」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想吃飯麵糰 is also wrong for the same reason. Here, so as to make the &quot;object slot&quot; free for what you want, you can actually remove the「飯」part.&#xA;我想吃麵糰&#xA;This technique can also be used with 見面. You can make the &quot;object slot&quot; free by removing「面」. This will allow you to put your own object right after the verb.&#xA;我想見王先生&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of the objects in the Verb Object category (面，飯) as a &lt;strong&gt;default object if you don't want to specify one&lt;/strong&gt;. This allows the verb to still be a bigram so that it becomes a bit longer and easier to pronounce and to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That explains why when we say 我想吃飯, it doesn't necessarily mean that we are going to eat rice. Rice was just the default object as we didn't specified our own. It only means &quot;I want to eat.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「不是不是！我真的想要吃飯啊」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it could also be that the object we want to select happens to be the default one! Then the sentence above could also mean &quot;I want to eat rice&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不可分離&lt;/strong&gt; category&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;留學&#xA;參考&#xA;害怕&#xA;活該&#xA;住院&#xA;處理&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll see that no matter what, the two characters need to be together for the verb to be complete. They can't be separated, because they are both part of the verb meaning. You can not put any 個，得 or 不 in the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5863" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T00:06:53.167" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31419" CreationDate="2018-09-20T00:41:47.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could just put: 最大的孩子 or just 大的（孩子）. IE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们家有三个孩子， 大的都有16岁了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们家最大的孩子已经16岁了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们家最大的已经16岁了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们家大的已经有16岁了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们家大的孩子都有16岁了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T00:41:47.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31422" CreationDate="2018-09-20T01:13:50.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bilibili.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bilibili&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.acfun.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;acfun&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20424" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2018-09-20T01:44:07.667" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T01:44:07.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31417" CreationDate="2018-09-20T01:19:49.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my point of view &#xA;不能得到 = not able to get&#xA;得不到 = cannot get&#xA;They are basically the same actually... I've never thought about this if I hadn't seen your question....&#xA;But by the way,we don't usually say &quot;得到好成绩&quot;，We use “取得” instead , “取得好成绩”，get good grades.&#xA;“得到” is grammatically correct But doesn't sound idiomatic Lol .&#xA;Hopefully what i said will be helpful ! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20424" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T01:19:49.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31428" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31431" CreationDate="2018-09-20T04:08:19.613" Score="4" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I a new to the Chinese language and something that really confused me is that in some circumstances 呢 and 吗 could be used interchangeably, but in others they cannot.  For example you cannot say 你吗？ but you could say 你呢？  You can say 你是同学吗？ and 你是同学呢?. Why are the two character interchangeable in one scenario but not the other? An explanation would be great, thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(please tell me if I using the question feature wrong for the site and I will improve my question)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20441" LastEditorUserId="20441" LastEditDate="2018-09-20T04:51:07.863" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T10:33:35.070" Title="In what circumstances can 呢 be interchangeable with 吗？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31422" CreationDate="2018-09-20T04:39:02.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is baidu or sougou in China but I didn't surf the internet that much while I was in China so I wouldn't know which site is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20441" LastEditorUserId="20441" LastEditDate="2018-09-20T04:48:03.063" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T04:48:03.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31428" CreationDate="2018-09-20T06:15:50.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;吗 and 呢 are not interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是同学 means: &amp;quot;you are a classmate&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是同学吗？ means: &amp;quot;are you a classmate? &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你同学 means: &amp;quot;your classmate&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你同学吗？ means: &amp;quot;is (he/she) your classmate?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the final particle 吗 here denote 'interrogative' or 'inquisitive'. It short, it always turns a sentence into question form&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你同学(&lt;strong&gt;呢&lt;/strong&gt;)? depend on context, it can mean: 1. &amp;quot;(&lt;strong&gt;where&lt;/strong&gt;) is your classmate?&amp;quot; or 2. &amp;quot;(&lt;strong&gt;how about&lt;/strong&gt;) your classmate?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the final particle 呢 here denote &amp;quot;alternative questions, affirmative negative questions (as stated in  user60651's comment).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是同学呢! is a different thing. The final particle 呢 in this sentence serve no interrogative function. Which mean it doesn't turn  &amp;quot;你是同学&amp;quot; into a question. It serves to emphasize the sentence itself and/or the speaker's emotion (e.g. annoyed, determine) with the tone itself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T06:27:35.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31428" CreationDate="2018-09-20T07:08:01.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usages of 吗 and 呢 are quite distinctive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你吗？ VS 你呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你吗？ means &quot;is that you?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你呢？ means &quot;how about you?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 你是同学吗？ and 你是同学呢? are not quite natural. They could be: 你是我的同学吗？（are you my classmate?） and 你的同学呢？(how about your classmate?). If there isn't any context, 你的同学呢？ can mean 你的同学在哪？（where is your classmate?）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically, the particle 吗 just forms a yes-or-no question, while 呢 requires you to reply with the actual content that has been inquired. See below examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 你去上学吗？(are you going to school?) B: 是的（yes）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 你干什么呢？(what are you doing?) B: 我玩游戏呢（I'm playing a game.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T07:08:01.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31428" CreationDate="2018-09-20T10:33:35.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When using the pause in a sentence, point out the topic.So &quot;呢&quot; and &quot;吗&quot;can be used interchangeably。&#xA;For example:“如今吗，可比往年强多了。”or“如今呢，可比往年强多了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20380" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T10:33:35.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31422" CreationDate="2018-09-20T10:39:22.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was able to access &lt;a href=&quot;http://youku.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;youku&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://tudou.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tudou&lt;/a&gt; from Germany a few years ago, so you might want to try those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a slightly different note, what sort of content are you looking for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2883" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T10:39:22.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31434" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-20T13:16:22.193" Score="3" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.my285.com/wgwx/cxs/btl/my/002.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bentley Little, The Summoning&lt;/a&gt; has 会计 for original's &quot;cash register&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;苏·温不声不响地站在餐馆会计的后面，越过会计的头顶，她看了看餐馆里仅有的两位客人，他又从会计的头顶上方斜了他们一眼，苏从会计那儿绕出来，走到他们的桌子前，回到会计那里后，苏又继续折叠那些菜单&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand 会计 is universally translated as &quot;accountant&quot; see e.g. Baidu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-09-20T17:40:22.553" LastActivityDate="2018-09-21T02:38:48.210" Title="会计 instead of &lt;美&gt;收银机，现金出纳机, cash register?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31435" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-20T13:48:43.717" Score="3" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading the story &amp;quot;Little Horse Crosses the River&amp;quot; and encountered the following phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天你把这袋粮食送到河对岸的村子里去吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand this to mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, take the bag of grain to the village on the opposite river bank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am confused as to what 送到 exactly means and why 去 is at the end of the sentence. I know 送 means to take, but I also know 到 and 去 mean to go and it seems repetitive to use them both to say &amp;quot;Go and take this....&amp;quot; Why are both used and why are they placed where they are?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19881" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T01:33:17.173" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T18:05:03.393" Title="Understanding 到 and 去 in the sentence: 今天你把这袋粮食送到河对岸的村子里去吧" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31435" CreationDate="2018-09-20T15:14:46.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;送到 is a single word here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KEY defines 送到 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;deliver to  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(successfully) deliver&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have this little thing going on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把...送到....去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I'm sure you understand as you already translated it as &quot;go and take this.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T15:14:46.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31437" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31439" CreationDate="2018-09-20T18:30:52.410" Score="1" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the significance of the 这一天 in the longer version?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每到教师节，...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每到教师节这一天，...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T08:52:18.193" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T08:52:18.193" Title="On the day: Difference between 每到教师节 and 每到教师节这一天" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31437" CreationDate="2018-09-20T20:29:01.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no difference in meaning. Think of it as the difference between&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Every Christmas,&lt;/em&gt; ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Every Christmas day,&lt;/em&gt; ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Admittedly, this isn’t the best analogy, as Christmas can refer to the period of festivities leading up to Christmas Day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;這一天&lt;/strong&gt; is the kind of addition you may find in spoken language, as &lt;strong&gt;每到敎師節&lt;/strong&gt; is the kind of phrase that has a chance to be misinterpreted due to homophones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T20:29:01.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31437" CreationDate="2018-09-20T20:32:45.283" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;每到教师节这一天，...&quot; refer to the actual day, and the actual day alone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;每到教师节，...&quot; can refer to the actual day or the time period around that day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you said: &quot;Every Christmas, all the family members would come home from different parts of the country.&quot;  It gives room to the possibility of the family members arrive in different days. (may be a day early or a day late)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you said: &quot; Every Christmas day, all the family members would come home from different parts of the country.&quot; then it must mean all of them arrive on Christmas day. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每到教师节, 心意咭的销售量都会比平时大几倍 (&lt;em&gt;the increase of greeting card sale wouldn't occur just on the actual day, it would happen days before.&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, &quot;每到教师节这一天&quot; refers to one specific day only; &quot;每到教师节&quot; can be used as a shortened form of &quot;每到教师节(期间)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-09-20T20:58:40.987" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T20:58:40.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31440" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31450" CreationDate="2018-09-20T22:27:03.857" Score="1" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed perhaps that in English we could say a sentence like ‘you think I sleep?’ And it could be referring to (in a comical way of course) that fact of me not sleeping in general or at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to make a primitive translation, I’d probably say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你覺得我睡覺（嗎）［哈哈哈］&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience, I tend to think this is incorrect, and does not convey the same meaning given above. Certainly, I could add words like ‘in general’ or ‘even’ to clarify, but What is the proper way to express these types of verbs? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19184" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T20:31:12.210" Title="Using a verb as a habitual thing vs Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31434" CreationDate="2018-09-20T23:11:38.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context, 会计 refers to the person who is doing the accounting job, that is, &lt;strong&gt;accountant&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of time, 会计 just refers to &lt;strong&gt;accountant&lt;/strong&gt;, as in: 她是个会计. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会计 can also refer to the job for &lt;strong&gt;accounting&lt;/strong&gt;, as in 会计学，会计师，会计协会，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T23:11:38.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31435" CreationDate="2018-09-20T23:11:59.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你把这袋粮食送到河对岸的村子里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference of it with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你把这袋粮食送到河对岸的村子里去吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is, with a &quot;去&quot;, it emphasizes more on the completion of delivery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你把这袋粮食送到河对岸的村子里 is more of an emphasis on the action itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-09-23T21:58:05.573" LastActivityDate="2018-09-23T21:58:05.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31444" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31446" CreationDate="2018-09-20T23:20:47.820" Score="-1" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/31422/19184&quot;&gt;Inspired&lt;/a&gt;) I want to let learn about Chinese and I want to watch some short video to begin with. Is there any website like Youtube in Taiwan and can be access from USA?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19184" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T20:29:04.753" Title="Does Taiwan have any website like YouTube?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31435" CreationDate="2018-09-20T23:28:15.943" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &quot;今天你把这袋粮食送到河对岸的村子里去吧.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;送 is the main verb and 到 is a &lt;strong&gt;result complement&lt;/strong&gt; in this case. 到 might be understood as &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; in English. I.e. 送到家里: take it to home(inside).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去 here is an indicator of the &lt;strong&gt;direction&lt;/strong&gt; of moving/going, as in 上去，下去，到外面去，里面去， etc. So, 村子里去 denotes &lt;strong&gt;going the direction of inside of village&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T23:28:15.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31444" CreationDate="2018-09-20T23:40:20.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am Taiwanese and think there isn't. You can try the different keywords in YouTube like:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=taiwan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=taiwan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20447" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T23:40:20.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31440" CreationDate="2018-09-20T23:46:27.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你覺得我睡覺（嗎）［哈哈哈］&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think your sentence is fine to express what you intended to mean, but you should be ready for further clarification because normally people do sleep regularly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clearer, you can add 平时. I.e. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你以为我平时睡觉吗？哈哈哈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T23:46:27.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31434" CreationDate="2018-09-21T02:38:48.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not have the English text. From the Chinese context, &quot;会计&quot; here refers to the cashier (the person), not the cash register (the machine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, the first word came to my head for the cashier is &quot;收银员&quot;. &quot;会计&quot; is not used for this job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't think everyone knows the difference. The vague idea for &quot;会计&quot; for many people might be &quot;the person dealing with money in an organization/company/...&quot;. A cashier deals with money, so he is a &quot;会计&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For cash register, try &quot;收银机&quot;. But this word is not often here. We often use &quot;收款台&quot; to refer to where you pay, which means cash counter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-09-21T02:38:48.210" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31402" CreationDate="2018-09-21T07:57:41.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You just sing as if there's no such thing as tones. This leads to ambiguous lyrics often. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, a good composer such as 李宗盛(Jonathan Lee) can combine the melody and tones of lyrics so well that singing and speaking are bound tightly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20224" LastActivityDate="2018-09-21T07:57:41.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31440" CreationDate="2018-09-21T08:36:21.400" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;you think I sleep?&quot; in Chinese should be &quot;你以為我睡觉吗?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;以為 imply 'mistakenly presume&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other answers and comments already pointed out the fact that everyone sleep. the sentence &quot;you think I sleep?&quot; need a lot of clarification-- (&lt;em&gt;Why you don't need to sleep? How can you do it?&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's use more logical examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;you think I care?&quot; =  &quot;你以為我在乎吗?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;you think I lie?&quot; = &quot;你以为我撒谎吗？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;you think I forgot?&quot; = “你以为我忘了吗？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;if you don't like 以為 (thought/ mistakenly presume), you can use 覺得 (think/ feel) or 认为 (consider/ think). But 以為 is the best choice here because this type of short retort imply whatever idea the other person has is wrong.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;吗 can be omitted&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-09-21T08:36:21.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31403" CreationDate="2018-09-22T01:50:44.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no character that I know of in Chinese but there is a similar character pin(3) 品 which means product or commodity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20441" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T01:50:44.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31452" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31453" CreationDate="2018-09-22T11:48:05.053" Score="0" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know much Chinese but am looking up some basic words to see how it works. For example, the word 天地 translates in English to &quot;world&quot;. However, the individual characters translate to this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Day&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;地: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9C%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ground&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Google Translate also translates 天下 as &quot;the world&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天: Day&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;下: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Under&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of 2 becoming 1 concept is 种子, &quot;seed&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;种: Species&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;子: Child&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That makes sense to translate it into one concept &quot;seed&quot; (unlike the &quot;world&quot; example). But I still don't see how you know when to group characters together into single concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, as one of my first sentences, I am looking at this: 第二道河名叫X, which Google Translate makes into &quot;The second river is called X.&quot; The individual components are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;第: First.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;二: Two.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;道: Road.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;河: River.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;名: name.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;叫: Call.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;X: X.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;First two road river name call x&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That doesn't make too much sense in direct translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pinyin equivalent divided the Chinese characters into these chunks: 第二, 道, 河, 名叫, X, so those 2-character chunks translate to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;第二: Second&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;名叫: Name&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Second road river Name X&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That makes a bit more sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I would like to better understand is how you learn to group the characters into more complex concepts, and separate them from other concepts (as in 天地 world vs. 天 day and 地 ground). Since Chinese doesn't have spaces, it seems there must be some technique, or perhaps you have to learn the individual pairings/combinations of characters as single &quot;words&quot; or concepts in school at some point, provided with definitions like a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T20:58:05.230" Title="How you know multiple characters are one concept" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31452" CreationDate="2018-09-22T15:19:52.387" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese prefer &lt;em&gt;words&lt;/em&gt; rather than &lt;em&gt;characters&lt;/em&gt;. The former way you translate a Chinese sentence is probably more suitable for ancient Chinese (known as 文言文).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not a big problem for a native Chinese speaker to naturally &lt;em&gt;divide&lt;/em&gt; those characters into words, however for beginners, it can be hard. But guess what, dividing Chinese characters into chunks is a well-known research direction remaining unsolved in natural language processing and machine translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the answer to your question is: The more combinations you know, the more accurately you can divide. You can hover your cursor on the words in Google Translate, and Google will tell you its (guessed) division scheme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20452" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T15:19:52.387" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31454" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31463" CreationDate="2018-09-22T19:00:46.610" Score="0" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what it &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/13785/pinyin-to-chinese-characters&quot;&gt;sounds like&lt;/a&gt; (also &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-online-tool-or-website-for-translating-pinyin-without-tone-marks-to-Chinese-characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chinese characters cannot be faithfully constructed backwards from a tone+syllable combination -- the mapping only goes one way (and even then, sometimes characters have multiple pronunciations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is no way to automatically convert pinyin into Chinese characters, especially if you don't have the tones. You can look them up individually on nciku, but you'll have no way of knowing which of the dozens of characters with the same pronunciation are the right ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there is any way to write Chinese characters using the Latin alphabet (a-zA-Z) with/without accents of any sort, and then convert it into Chinese characters. Even if it is considered a bad idea for a new learner, I would still like to know if it is possible in any way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If find it interesting when they say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As you amass a vocabulary, you will start to notice patterns that will give you an intuition for which character is meant by the English pinyin, with or without tone markings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And even:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In fact, even words like 终止 and 中止 sound identical with tones, so you only distinguish them in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in &lt;em&gt;speech&lt;/em&gt;, you don't have access to writing, so this either means you need to learn how to &lt;em&gt;read&lt;/em&gt; Chinese in order to understand these words in speech, or you can understand them in speech &lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; learning to read Chinese, because of context of some sort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If humans are able to tell how the sound of words translates into meaning, then I would wonder how we do that, because that would also answer the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastEditorUserId="20335" LastEditDate="2018-09-22T19:20:09.543" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T00:19:55.457" Title="If Pinyin (or Other Romanization) can be Translated Back into Chinese Characters" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31402" CreationDate="2018-09-22T21:08:16.773" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;簡單來講中文與及英文都是一樣的&#xA;調音部分一樣會影響唱歌的時候的大小聲音以及&#xA;唱歌的時候的美感與及聲帶的發音位置也會影響&#xA;所以調音是一樣的哦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20454" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T21:08:16.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31462" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31464" CreationDate="2018-09-22T21:57:17.370" Score="1" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wondering if there is such thing as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_(linguistics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stress&lt;/a&gt; on a consonant, e.g. &lt;code&gt;t́&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;ĺ&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;ḿ&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;ś&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;ʃ́&lt;/code&gt;... If so, what the example language would be. I haven't seen any on Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same thing for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_(linguistics)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tone&lt;/a&gt;, I haven't seen any tones specified for consonants, only vowels. So using pinyin, maybe like &lt;code&gt;ť&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;š&lt;/code&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2018-09-23T00:30:53.833" Title="Example of stress or tone on a consonant" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;orthography&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31454" CreationDate="2018-09-22T22:59:06.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there is any way to write Chinese characters using the Latin alphabet (a-zA-Z) with/without accents of any sort, and then convert it into Chinese characters. Even if it is considered a bad idea for a new learner, I would still like to know if it is possible in any way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every Chinese character is associated with &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.key-shortcut.com/en/writing-systems/%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97-chinese-cjk/cjk-characters-1/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Unicode identification numbers.&lt;/a&gt; Not sure if this is what you are looking for. Nothing phonetic is available of this sort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But in speech, you don't have access to writing, so this either means you need to learn how to read Chinese in order to understand these words in speech, or you can understand them in speech without learning to read Chinese, because of context of some sort. If humans are able to tell how the sound of words translates into meaning, then I would wonder how we do that, because that would also answer the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These sorts of words are distinguished in the same way that we do in English for two/too/to. A kindergartner can use these three words just fine and distinguish them all without knowing they have different spellings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20451" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T22:59:06.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31462" CreationDate="2018-09-23T00:22:33.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taking the character 呣 for instance, we can have things like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;m̄&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;叹词, 表示疑问。如：呣, 你说什么？(汉语大词典)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ḿ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;歎詞﹐用法同嗯﹐表示疑問﹑不以為然或出乎意外：呣﹐他去幹甚麼？(Longman’s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;m̀&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;歎詞﹐用法同嗯﹐表示答應﹑應諾：呣﹐我這就去。(Longman’s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also record of a &lt;em&gt;neutral&lt;/em&gt; toned 呣:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;m&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;叹词, 表示应诺。如：呣, 我知道了。(汉语大词典)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嗯 similarly can give us things like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;ń&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;ň&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;ǹ&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-09-23T00:30:53.833" LastActivityDate="2018-09-23T00:30:53.833" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31454" CreationDate="2018-09-24T00:19:55.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest thing to what you are describing is found in predictive input pinyin keyboards.  Sometimes if I hear something I'm unfamiliar with I'll try typing it into my computer or phone keyboard to see what the predictive text suggests.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no perfect mechanical way, though.  There are multiple levels of problems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Word boundaries in Chinese sentences are ambiguous.  Separating Chinese sentences into words correctly is the subject of research and contests (!).  And the existing work is starting from characters, not phonetics.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not only are there multiple characters for every sound, there are multiple words with the same sequence of sounds, or multiple &lt;em&gt;sequences of words&lt;/em&gt; for a given sequence of sounds.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your final assumption (that humans can always tell which words were intended) is not even true.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm assuming you aren't interested in things like typing in the unicode codepoints, or using a system like Cangjie where the person typing knows the character already and inputs a sequence of letters to specify the stroke components)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T00:19:55.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31408" CreationDate="2018-09-24T04:30:11.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;「道友」該釋爲「養道之友」，英語＂cultivate＂可翻譯成中文「養育」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「道友」= &quot;Fellows (友) who cultivate the way (養道)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂Cultivator＂也可翻譯成「耕田機」，因爲「耕田」在英文也可以叫＂cultivate＂，圖像由此意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-09-24T04:38:43.883" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T04:38:43.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3827" CreationDate="2018-09-24T05:55:29.743" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original character for the meaning &lt;em&gt;gas, atmosphere&lt;/em&gt; is 「气」, while using 「氣」 for this meaning is strictly a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Rebus_(phonetic_loan)_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;phonetic loan&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「氣」 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_(2014)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*qʰ(r)ə[t]-s/&lt;/strong&gt;) originally meant &lt;em&gt;gifting food to someone&lt;/em&gt;, comprised from semantic&#xA;「米」 (&lt;em&gt;rice&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic 「气」 (&lt;strong&gt;/*C.qʰəp-s/&lt;/strong&gt;). This word is now written as 「餼」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「气」 was originally a picture of thin clouds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m9RRd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m9RRd.png&quot; alt=&quot;气&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;前&lt;/a&gt;7.36.2&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=12532&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集12532&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stylisation that occurred to form the modern shape of 「气」 was firstly to differentiate the character from the similar-looking 「三」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CTsAf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CTsAf.png&quot; alt=&quot;气&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;洹子孟姜壺&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=9730&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成9730&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JyxaT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JyxaT.png&quot; alt=&quot;气&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77389&amp;amp;page=27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;气部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vADsu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vADsu.png&quot; alt=&quot;气&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;法&lt;/a&gt;115&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later on, the character became used as a phonetic loan for a word &lt;strong&gt;/*C.qʰət/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to beg&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;request&lt;/em&gt;, and thus the meaning &lt;em&gt;gas, atmosphere&lt;/em&gt; 「气」 started to be written differently from the meaning &lt;em&gt;beg, request&lt;/em&gt; 「乞」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「气」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty#Eastern_Han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PlF34.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PlF34.png&quot; alt=&quot;气&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;魯峻碑&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/osoFm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/osoFm.png&quot; alt=&quot;气&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「乞」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;東漢&lt;br&gt;隸&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0UTpA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0UTpA.png&quot; alt=&quot;乞&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;武梁祠畫象&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VshV3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VshV3.png&quot; alt=&quot;乞&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「氣」 was first created to represent the unrelated word now written as 「餼」. Probably, due to the potential confusion caused by 「气」 and 「乞」 being the same character,「氣」 became used as a phonetic loan for the word meaning &lt;em&gt;gas, atmosphere&lt;/em&gt;, and eventually became the overwhelmingly preferred way of writing this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To write the word originally written as 「氣」, semantic 「食」 (&lt;em&gt;food&lt;/em&gt;) was later added to form 「餼」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國哲學書電子化計劃&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=77351&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;宋・徐鉉等奉敕校定　漢・許慎《說文解字》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-09-26T09:31:31.740" LastActivityDate="2020-09-26T09:31:31.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31468" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31477" CreationDate="2018-09-24T07:48:20.913" Score="3" ViewCount="376" Body="&lt;p&gt;So it seems that there is no way to map the Pinyin version of the pronunciation of Chinese words into Chinese characters directly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/31454/if-pinyin-or-other-romanization-can-be-translated-back-into-chinese-characters&quot;&gt;If Pinyin (or Other Romanization) can be Translated Back into Chinese Characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What must be done is, in addition to spelling out the sound of the word in Pinyin, you must select the appropriate character out of a list of characters that match that sound/spelling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm wondering is, the max number of items that would appear in that list (roughly). For example, say that there are 10 words/characters that are all called &lt;code&gt;yī&lt;/code&gt;. Then there are just 10 characters in the list you'd have to select from when typing that in. Maybe there is only 1 matching character, I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wondering what the rough estimate or scale is of how many character sets map to a single pronunciation. If it's like 5 or 10 max, or 100  or 1000 in some cases. That would be interesting to know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T09:10:36.817" Title="The max number of characters that map to a single pronunciation" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31468" CreationDate="2018-09-24T08:26:44.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no set limit. Some pinyin can be used for dozens of character; some only map to a few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/yu4/ map to the following characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨, 育, 玉, 譽, 遇, 羽, 預, 寓, 熨, 獄, 鬱, 諭, 與, 裕, 喻, 域, 愈, 慾, 欲, 浴, 澳. 禦, 籲, 芋, 蔚, 豫, 郁, 鬻, 御, 喐, 峪, 鈺, 逳, 癒, 聿, 鷸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while  /ben3 / only map to : 本, 苯 and 捹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T08:26:44.810" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21759" CreationDate="2018-09-24T08:51:30.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The component is Vietnam-specific. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://hc.jsecs.org/irg/ws2017/app/index.php?id=00202&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hc.jsecs.org/irg/ws2017/app/index.php?id=00202&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Af68z.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Af68z.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tự Điển Chữ Nôm Dẫn Giải, &lt;em&gt;Nguyễn Quang Hồng&lt;/em&gt; / 阮光宏《字典字喃引解》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-09-24T09:08:59.153" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T09:08:59.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30039" CreationDate="2018-09-24T12:16:57.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not try WeGame (PC platform) or Steam?&#xA;Some games are built by native Chinese developers while some other games received decent translation (which is more helpful), for example, Pillars of Eternity II and many games from Ubisoft. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Wegame platform, it is almost guaranteed a well-made Chinese translation but English text might be absent.  But you might have trouble with payment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, I suggest you search Steam to find games with good Chinese translation (please enable Chinese reviews to see if it is well translated).  (if you are not sure, 3A game are a better choice since their publisher/developer have a better ability for localization)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in traditional Chinese culture as well, you can search games with “武侠”, “仙侠” elements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16354" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T12:16:57.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31474" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31476" CreationDate="2018-09-25T11:08:48.263" Score="3" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that 乎 usually expresses doubt and is sometimes translated using rhetorical questions. But is it always true? I am wondering how should it be translated in such a case: &quot;而有以通乎性命之全&quot;. The full sentence is:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惟人也，得其形氣之正，是以其心最靈，而有以通乎性命之全&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the sake of clarity - the sentence is preceded with another one that contains the following statement: &quot;然体有偏正之殊&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17138" LastActivityDate="2018-09-25T12:56:05.210" Title="How to translate 乎 in classical Chinese texts?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31474" CreationDate="2018-09-25T12:04:59.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;乎者，非唯语气助词之用也，亦作介词，同“于”之义。&#xA;试看：&#xA;风乎舞雩[在]&#xA;叫嚣乎东西，隳突乎南北[从]&#xA;吾尝疑乎是[对]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-09-25T12:04:59.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31474" CreationDate="2018-09-25T12:56:05.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;is it always true&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no. only when 乎 is at the end of a verse, then it might be interpreted as doubt, rhetorical question, or guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=hj97ow&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec=sec1&amp;amp;op=v&amp;amp;view=0-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=hj97ow&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec=sec1&amp;amp;op=v&amp;amp;view=0-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the verse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而有以通乎性命之全&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;乎&quot; means 於, a preposition (at, in, from, . . . etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;惟人也．得其形氣之正．是以其心最靈．而有以通乎性命之全&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would suggest to interpret the verse as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;only the homo sapiens (惟人也),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;get (得) the upright (正) body (形) &amp;amp; vital energy (氣),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore (是以), its (其) mind (心) is the most (最) divine; (靈)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and (而) depends on [such upright body and vital energy] (有以), [homo sapiens ] succeed (通) in (乎) the complete (全) life (性命)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WFPID.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WFPID.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-09-25T12:56:05.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31468" CreationDate="2018-09-26T05:38:51.723" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Phonology of Standard Chinese&lt;/em&gt; by San Duanmu (端木三) has a list of the 15 most common syllables, followed by the number of different characters pronounced that way, not including tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yi (106)，ji (93), yu (90),&#xA;fu (73),&#xA;zhi (72),&#xA;li (71),&#xA;qi (66),&#xA;yuan (64),&#xA;xi (64),&#xA;jian (61),&#xA;shi (58),&#xA;wu (55),&#xA;wei (53),&#xA;ju (51), pi (51）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;Tones distribution should be roughly even for the most part &lt;/s&gt; although the book does say that yi4 represents 63 different words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20347" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T09:10:36.817" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16041" CreationDate="2018-09-26T07:35:41.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;想，觉得：一般比较随意，是日常交流的 (maybe colloquial; I'm not sure)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认为：通常比较正式，像正式的建议或者报告，表述自己的想法.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS： 我是中国的. (I am Chinese.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English translation of the above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想，觉得: they're ordinarily based on one's wishes, as in everyday communication (maybe colloquial; I'm not sure).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;认为: usually more official, like a formal proposal or report, precisely explains one's thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20463" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T00:20:52.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31479" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31480" CreationDate="2018-09-26T08:07:01.980" Score="5" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;靜 means &quot;quiet&quot; and &quot;雞&quot; means &quot;chicken&quot;. Put together as 靜雞雞 or 靜靜雞 the meaning is &quot;quietly&quot; or &quot;steathily&quot;. What is the etymology of 靜雞雞 and 靜靜雞?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard both 靜雞雞 and 靜靜雞. Are both correct? Is there any difference in meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16351" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T10:55:01.193" Title="Etymology of phrases 靜雞雞 and 靜靜雞. Are both correct, and is there any difference in meaning?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31479" CreationDate="2018-09-26T09:01:26.263" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 靜雞雞 and 靜靜雞 means 'quietly' and/or 'stealthily'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The minor difference are on the emphasis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;靜雞雞 emphasize on the 'stealthily' part&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;靜雞雞喺外面收埋個二奶 = &amp;quot;quietly and stealthily hiding a mistress outside&amp;quot; (&lt;em&gt;Since the main point is the secrecy, the 'stealthily' aspect is more prominent than the 'quietly' aspect&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;靜靜雞 emphasize on the 'quietly' part&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 靜靜雞企埋一邊 = &amp;quot;quietly and stealthily step aside&amp;quot; (&lt;em&gt;Since everyone can see you step aside, it is not very stealthily, therefore, the 'quietly' aspect is more prominent than the 'stealthily' aspect&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;靜靜雞喺外面收埋個二奶 would emphasize on the 'keep quite' aspect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;靜雞雞企埋一邊 would emphasize on the 'inconspicuous manner' aspect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/27010/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;靜雞雞&lt;/a&gt; is listed in the Cantonese dictionary CantoDict&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;靜靜雞 is not listed. It seems to be a variant of 靜雞雞 by popularity (&lt;em&gt;enough people say 靜靜雞  instead of 靜雞雞 made it a legit phrase&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Base on some Cantonese coined unique reduplicated adjective, I think 靜雞雞 is the standard one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;儍更更 (adj)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烏啄啄 (adj)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;懵盛盛 (adj)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黑麻麻 (adj)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白雪雪 (adj)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The common form of reduplication that both Cantonese and Mandarin use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;靜 (adj) --&amp;gt; 靜靜 (adj); 靜靜噉/ 靜靜地 (adv)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好 (adj) --&amp;gt; 好好 (adj); 好好噉/ 好好地 (adv)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe 靜靜雞 came from mixing of 靜靜噉 and 靜雞雞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T10:55:01.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31481" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-26T11:24:47.680" Score="3" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does this phrase mean? 我在包里。 In English this is slang for being drunk, but I wonder what it means in Chinese. I was told this last night, by my girlfriend last night and I am wondering if it carries the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20465" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-18T23:39:20.153" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T23:39:20.153" Title="What does 我在包里 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31481" CreationDate="2018-09-26T17:56:45.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it means &quot;being drunk&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then I think it is just a mimicking of drunken talk or child words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在 /zài/ is sound-alike of 醉 /zuì/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;包 /bāo/ is sound-alike of 饱 /bǎo/ or 爆/bào/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;里 /lǐ/ is sound-alike of 呢 /ne/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在包里 is a drunken talk of 醉饱呢 or 醉爆呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜歡 /Xǐhuān/ --&gt; 稀飯 /Xīfàn/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什麼 /Shénme/ --&gt; 神馬 /Shénmǎ/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-09-26T18:12:25.490" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T18:12:25.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31483" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31484" CreationDate="2018-09-27T17:09:35.577" Score="2" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was looking for a word in my dictionary, I found this sentence: 会开完了, which (in the dictionary) is translated as &quot;the meeting is over&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder what 开 means here... because when the sentence is translated word per word, 开 doesn't seem to have anything to do with the whole sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 开 serve as something else (like grammatical expression or particle) here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will it be alright if I say: 会完了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T06:09:46.563" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T06:09:46.563" Title="What does 开 mean in 会开完了 (&quot;the meeting is over&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31483" CreationDate="2018-09-27T17:36:09.133" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a good example of a V.O. (verb + object) word and it’s flexibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we take a look at &lt;strong&gt;Tuttle Learners Dictionary&lt;/strong&gt;’s entry for 开会, we have;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[v+obj: 开 open up + 会 meeting]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;VERB&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;attend a meeting, hold a meeting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and example sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们最好开个会, 讨论一下这个问题。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Wǒmen zuìhǎo kāi ge huì, tǎolùn yíxià zhège wèntí.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;We'd best have a meeting to discuss this issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王老师在开会。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Wáng lǎoshī zài kāihuì.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Teacher Wang is at a meeting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The order of V.O. words can be switched around. In your example for instance it starts with the object and then uses the verb later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might see similar expressions like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;话说完了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;饭吃完了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;字写完了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-27T17:36:09.133" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31486" CreationDate="2018-09-27T18:52:34.663" Score="4" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the app for 百度网盘 I am prompted to 立即更新 or 下次再说. Clearly &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%AA%AA#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;说&lt;/a&gt; means update, but I don't see any definition that allows that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20271" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T18:27:32.130" Title="Why/how does 说 mean update in 下次再说?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31485" CreationDate="2018-09-27T18:55:27.347" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;说 does not mean update, it just means talk or discuss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下次再说 can be directly translated to &lt;strong&gt;let us talk about that later&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-09-28T18:27:32.130" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T18:27:32.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31487" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31490" CreationDate="2018-09-27T22:15:08.940" Score="3" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot for your help,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simon&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CfWHk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CfWHk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20472" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T13:19:26.767" Title="What does this seal stamps on chinese painting mean?" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31485" CreationDate="2018-09-27T22:19:21.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;再说 literal translation is &lt;strong&gt;talk about it again&lt;/strong&gt;. For the extention, it means &lt;strong&gt;put off something and decide it later&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 下次再说 means &lt;strong&gt;decide it next time&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-09-27T22:19:21.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31491" CreationDate="2018-09-28T04:07:43.150" Score="2" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stumped on this intertitle for a silent movie. When a woman faints, two men come to her aid. The first one says to the second:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“帶看病做工!她的一家人還是餓看！“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't parse the parts into a coherent whole:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;帶看病: &quot;Bring see doctor&quot; - is that a request for a doctor, or an explanation that she was on her way to see the doctor?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做工: &quot;do work&quot; - who works, doctor or woman? Or is she working to earn money to see doctor?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她的一家人: &quot;Her entire family&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;還是餓看: Don't get this at all, particularly 餓看. &quot;prefer to go hungry than see a doctor&quot;, maybe? Or &quot;still are hungry&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19535" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T01:25:04.633" Title="Meaning of “帶看病做工!她的一家人還是餓看！“?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31487" CreationDate="2018-09-28T04:10:27.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;the reading sequence should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;miea&#xA;njfb&#xA;okgc&#xA;plhd&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i recognised these characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a: 芳 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%8A%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%8A%B3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b: 艸 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%89%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%89%B8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c: 有 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%9C%89&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d: 情 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%83%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%83%85&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i: 雁 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%9B%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%9B%81&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;k: 南 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%8D%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%8D%97&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;l: 浦 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B5%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B5%A6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;m: 人 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%BA%BA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;n: 倚 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%80%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%80%9A&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;o: 西 &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%A5%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%A5%BF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, i guess the seal is something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;芳草有情．夕陽無語．雁橫南浦．人倚西樓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, i wish the op would provide a higher resolution, and brighter photos of this seal; have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i agreed with @vuluvsa, that character k is 飛 (u+98db); and, @droooze, that character p is 廔 (u+5ed4):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%BB%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=廔&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, i have difficulty, &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; to think that it's used incorrectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;西廔&quot; cannot be treated as the same as &quot;西樓&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, imo, it's a serious mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-09-28T13:19:26.767" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T13:19:26.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31489" CreationDate="2018-09-28T04:49:18.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;看&quot; in “帶看病做工!她的一家人還是餓看！“ is obviously a typo of &quot;着&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“帶着病做工, 她的一家人還是餓着“ would make all the sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;帶着病&lt;/strong&gt;做工 = working &lt;strong&gt;with illness&lt;/strong&gt; (working while she is sick)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;還是&lt;strong&gt;餓着&lt;/strong&gt; = is still &lt;strong&gt;in hunger&lt;/strong&gt; (餓= hungry; 餓着 = in a continuous state of hungry)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-03T01:25:04.633" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T01:25:04.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31487" CreationDate="2018-09-28T05:05:01.823" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;芳草有情，夕陽無語，雁橫南浦，人倚西樓。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence is a part of 宋詞 (a form of classical Chinese poetry&#xA;)《風流子·木葉亭皋下》 written by 張耒.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;張耒（1054年－1114年），字文潛，號柯山，生於楚州淮陰（今江蘇淮安市），祖籍亳州譙縣（今安徽亳縣）。北宋詩人。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole article is shown below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;木葉亭皋下，重陽近，又是搗衣秋。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  奈 愁入庾腸，老侵潘鬢，謾簪黃菊，花也應羞。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  楚天晚，白蘋煙盡處，紅蓼水邊頭。&lt;strong&gt;* 芳草有情，夕陽無語，雁橫南浦，人倚西樓。*&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;玉容知安否？香箋共錦字，兩處悠悠。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  空恨碧雲離合，青鳥沉浮。向風前懊惱，芳心一點，寸眉兩葉，禁甚閑愁？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  情到不堪言處，分付東流。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This poem describes the feeling of yearning for his wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the maker of the seal has changed one word, i.e., 橫 to 飛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雁橫南浦 --&gt; 雁飛南浦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T05:05:01.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31493" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-28T20:00:33.227" Score="0" ViewCount="2077" Body="&lt;p&gt;It occurs to me that this would be an useful phrase to politely decline someone who is trying to pry.  I'm l a beginner, so it's hard for me know how to translate this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20281" LastActivityDate="2018-09-30T02:23:13.680" Title="How would I go about saying: &quot;I am not at liberty to say&quot; or &quot;I am not at liberty to discuss&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31493" CreationDate="2018-09-28T20:15:13.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“I am not at liberty to say” or “I am not at liberty to discuss”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(這個/ 這件事) 我不方便說 = (This/ on this topic,) I am not at liberty to talk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(這個/ 這件事) 我不方便討論 = (This/ on this topic,) I am not at liberty to discuss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'不方便' literally means 'not convenient'  (as an adverb, it means ‘cannot conveniently) - it implies 'cannot freely'. It is a polite way to refuse to make any comment &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-09-28T21:15:05.630" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T21:15:05.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28299" CreationDate="2018-09-29T02:20:34.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's perhaps &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghainese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shanghainese&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;. This song tries to create an old atmosphere from the early 20th century in Shanghai. Onra probably intentionally make it very blurred and unclear. But back then, people who do not live in Beijing their Mandarin accent is not accurately. They would mix their hometown local accent with the standard Mandarin accent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After listening this song couple times. As a Shanghainese, it sounds like &quot;我...在怀念你&quot; (I'm missing you) to me.Some comments under &lt;a href=&quot;https://music.163.com/#/song?id=477839399&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;网易云&lt;/a&gt; also mentioned this. In the song, &quot;我&quot; sounds like &quot;吾&quot;, which is close to its Shanghainese pronunciation; and &quot;怀念&quot; also sounds close to Shanghainese. So it's a Shanghainese lady speaking Mandarin. However, I cannot give you a 100% sure answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19840" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T02:20:34.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-29T02:44:26.347" Score="3" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a decent dictionary that includes word collocations (词语搭配), or words that the searched word cannot be used with?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use Pleco, but one of my largest complaints with it is that there's really no baseline for how the words are used, other than the few example sentences that are provided. With Pleco, there is no good way to determine when to use 维持、维护、保持、持续、etc, or any of the subtle differences between 实习、实践、进行、实行, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20476" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T09:52:25.420" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T13:54:26.553" Title="Is there a dictionary that includes word collocations (词语搭配)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31493" CreationDate="2018-09-29T04:54:04.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here’s an alternative option, albeit a bit cheeky:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;天机不可泄露&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E5%A4%A9%E6%9C%BA%E4%B8%8D%E5%8F%AF%E6%B3%84%E9%9C%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; does, actually, define it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am not at liberty to inform you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;无可奉告&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E6%97%A0%E5%8F%AF%E5%A5%89%E5%91%8A*&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; defines as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(idiom) &quot;no comment&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-09-30T02:23:13.680" LastActivityDate="2018-09-30T02:23:13.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31498" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31500" CreationDate="2018-09-29T12:12:57.487" Score="1" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bought a new Chinese GPS tracker for my dog online on eBay&#xA;I have some problem to configure it because I can't track it, I followed all the instruction in English but I can't figure out what &#xA;is wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I press on the only button it has and it speaks Chinese so I recorded it and want your help to translate it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two videos with different sentences:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/xxJvdyaGVfA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/xxJvdyaGVfA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/9hmWyLZU-0o&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/9hmWyLZU-0o&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the product link on ebay:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pet-Dogs-Cats-Sheep-Finder-Realtime-GPS-GSM-Tracker-Waterproof-For-Android-iOS/392097084010?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&amp;amp;var=661043181839&amp;amp;_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pet-Dogs-Cats-Sheep-Finder-Realtime-GPS-GSM-Tracker-Waterproof-For-Android-iOS/392097084010?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&amp;amp;var=661043181839&amp;amp;_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you,&#xA;Or Hirshfeld&#xA;Israel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20478" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T13:39:42.327" Title="Chinese Speaking Gps Tracker For My Dog, please help to translate" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31499" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="39551" CreationDate="2018-09-29T13:02:16.193" Score="4" ViewCount="699" Body="&lt;p&gt;My parents have bought some type of ceramic vessel (plate, pot, something like that), which has the following stamp on the bottom:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JdYLy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JdYLy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Shelob and her identical twin sells an area?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Armed with &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/22795/3038&quot;&gt;米好 '-'’s answer on how to decipher seal script&lt;/a&gt;, I’ve done my best to identify these four characters (well, three, with one repetition), but I haven’t got very far. Sadly, my copy of Wenlin is version 3.4, which doesn’t have seal script support, so the Wenlin-based methods don’t work and I’m forced to work with my 简本 paper copy of 说文解字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;top right character&lt;/strong&gt; obviously looks like 區, but the lack of a bottom stroke seems suspicious to me. I can’t find any characters consisting of just 厂 or 广 and 品, though, so for now I’m inclined to believe it’s just an odd variant on 區.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;bottom right character&lt;/strong&gt; has what looks like a turned-eye or net radical (罒), but with &lt;strong&gt;four&lt;/strong&gt; ‘chambers’ instead of three. The lower part of the character looks a bit like a warped 貝, but with a weird extra pair of legs and a vertical line going through the main part; or like the top of 周 (in the modern form) with  two 人 stacked on top of each other instead of 口. But neither of those options seem to be anything that exists, as far as I can tell. It reminds me of 買 or 賈, but there’s too much going on for that to fit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;top/bottom left character&lt;/strong&gt; mostly just looks like a five-year-old tried to draw &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelob&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shelob&lt;/a&gt; (so a bit like 禺, I guess?), or perhaps more relevantly a bit like a disfigured 番 or 商; but it’s clearly none of those. I’m struggling to figure out what the radical is supposed to be, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help me get further with this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edited to add:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I just spoke to my dad who guesses that the pot is probably from between 1900 and 1920 – though, if the characters end up being very corrupted (as the comments would indicate that they might be), it’s possible that it’s simply a fake made by someone with very limited understanding of Chinese characters and seal script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3038" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-06-13T12:52:51.783" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T14:11:16.187" Title="What does this seal stamp say? (Characters identified: 石黑香香)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="19" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31498" CreationDate="2018-09-29T13:39:42.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first video is quite clear: she says,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3874成功&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3874 succeeded&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second video is harder to decipher. It’s not Chinese; after listening a few times, I believe she says,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Number not set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure if that tells you very much, but that appears to be the extent of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3038" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T13:39:42.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22623" CreationDate="2018-09-30T03:50:43.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a freely available method, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/xz/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Guoxuedashi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; offers an interface to look up seal script characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Prerequisites:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Internet Explorer (seal script links do not dislpay properly on other browsers, although they still work)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/xz/swxz.ttf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文小篆字體&lt;/a&gt; (this is a .ttf download link)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following the example to look up「巖」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CBZsi.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CBZsi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Find &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zm7yS.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zm7yS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; on the list on the right hand side of the page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FycD1.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FycD1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Click the seal characters. They should appear automatically in the box labelled &lt;strong&gt;輸入部件&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2U8yY.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2U8yY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Click &lt;strong&gt;查找&lt;/strong&gt;. A list of the seal characters with these components should appear below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PNTLV.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PNTLV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Click the link for the corresponding page in regular script, with a wealth of information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ny4e.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ny4e.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-09-30T03:59:09.223" LastActivityDate="2018-09-30T03:59:09.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17817" CreationDate="2018-09-30T06:19:26.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;「一」and「勿」do not compound to &lt;em&gt;sundial&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「昜」was originally a compound of「日」and「丂」.「丂」originally depicted a handle of an axe, now written as「柯」. The compound is supposed to depict &lt;em&gt;the rising of the sun&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H48cV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H48cV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;456&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=3393&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集3393&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the handle was changed into the shape of「丂」, decorative marks were also added, leading on to the current shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nRVau.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nRVau.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;⿸㫃壺叔樊鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2679&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2679&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dno77.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dno77.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CC2N6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CC2N6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast,「勿」comes from「刀」, with surrounding marks depicting drops of blood, and was the original character of「刎」(&lt;em&gt;to cut someone's throat&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MWJwn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MWJwn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;640&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=28591&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集28591&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EnhXv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EnhXv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;大盂鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2837&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2837&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KmoS8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KmoS8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭・老甲&lt;/a&gt;・12&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0a00l.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0a00l.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/shiDy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/shiDy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;References:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢語多功能字庫&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-09-30T06:19:26.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31503" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-30T09:10:17.383" Score="0" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;In northern China, we can say &quot;喝茶了吗？&quot; to ask someone if they have already eaten.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are also 3 means of &quot;喝茶&quot;:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 1. drink hot water&lt;br&gt;&#xA; &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 2. drink hot water with tea&lt;br&gt;&#xA; &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 3. arrest the offender&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17807" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-10-03T09:46:16.890" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T09:46:16.890" Title="How to understand &quot;喝茶&quot;？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31505" CreationDate="2018-09-30T13:07:51.050" Score="18" ViewCount="3464" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested if the phonetic similarity between the English &quot;baby&quot; and the Chinese &quot;宝贝&quot; (baobei) is purely coincidental.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4215" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T17:43:25.103" Title="&quot;Baby&quot; vs &quot;宝贝&quot; - coincidence?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31504" CreationDate="2018-09-30T13:17:11.807" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting, but this is a coincidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Baby&lt;/em&gt; comes from a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduplication&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;reduplicated&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Germanic_language&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Proto-Germanic&lt;/a&gt; root &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/b%C5%8D-&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;*bō-&lt;/a&gt;, which is cognate to English &lt;em&gt;boy&lt;/em&gt;, appended with a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;diminutive&lt;/a&gt; suffix &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-y#English&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;-y&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;寶貝&lt;/strong&gt; comes from the meaning &lt;em&gt;rare/precious seashells&lt;/em&gt;; this usage is attested at least since the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Han dynasty&lt;/a&gt;. As a term of endearment, this started appearing as early as in the novel &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_of_the_Red_Chamber&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dream of the Red Chamber&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, written in the 18th century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-09-30T13:17:11.807" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3889" CreationDate="2018-09-30T14:00:08.800" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The component is 「冄」, which is now written as 「冉」.&lt;/strong&gt; The relevant Unicode codepoints are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「冄」, reconstructed full character, U+5184&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「冉」, modern character, U+5189&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「  」, left hand component of「那」, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.glyphwiki.org/wiki/u2d0c2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;U+2D0C2&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJK_Unified_Ideographs_Extension_F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK Unified Ideographs Extension F&lt;/a&gt;; unlikely to be displayed on most computers). &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_description_language#Ideographic_Description_Sequences&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ideographic description sequences&lt;/a&gt; record this component as「⿻二刀」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「那」 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_(2014)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*nˤar/&lt;/strong&gt;), originally referring to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na_(Chinese_state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;State of Na&lt;/a&gt;, is comprised of phonetic 「冄」 (&lt;strong&gt;/*nam/&lt;/strong&gt;) and semantic 「邑・阝」 (&lt;em&gt;town&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;city&lt;/em&gt;). The meaning &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; is a late derivative of 「若」 (as according to Schuessler; Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*nak/&lt;/strong&gt;), and uses 「那」 as a phonetic loan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For reference, the shapes of「那」are recorded as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T0m4Y.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T0m4Y.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77390&amp;amp;page=89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;邑部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4xP8n.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4xP8n.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「冄」 depicts &lt;em&gt;loose-hanging, soft feathers&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kzDHZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kzDHZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;師㝨簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4313&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4313&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X8r4Q.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X8r4Q.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77391&amp;amp;page=59&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;冄部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E9%9A%B6%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸定&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aV3UC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aV3UC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clerical script styles later added a vertical stroke, leading on to the modern shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b8g4X.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b8g4X.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;鄭固碑&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BGJ7l.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BGJ7l.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meaning of the character is now written as 「髯」 (&lt;em&gt;beard&lt;/em&gt;/&lt;em&gt;moustache&lt;/em&gt;). The word &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%86%89%E5%86%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「冉冉」&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;em&gt;slowly&lt;/em&gt;/&lt;em&gt;loose hanging&lt;/em&gt;) is an extension of the original meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;References:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;李學勤《字源》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/search_source.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中華語文知識庫・漢字源流&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-03-25T00:02:12.307" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T00:02:12.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31507" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31508" CreationDate="2018-09-30T15:58:06.847" Score="2" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;So there are 3 main translations for 秀气:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Delicate   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elegant   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Graceful&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which makes it seem like it could be used to describe really anything--&#xA;However I have a friend who is saying that it is normally used only to describe people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it not an adjective I could use to describe non-people-- like an elegant wristwatch?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2018-09-30T19:40:09.220" Title="Can &quot;秀气&quot; be used to describe objects that aren't people?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31507" CreationDate="2018-09-30T19:24:54.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%A7%80%E6%B0%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秀气&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;基本解释:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;样子清秀 (elegant appearance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;言谈文雅,举止优美 (elegant demeanor)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(器物）小巧灵便 (elegant, exquisite object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;灵秀之气 (elegant feel)；秀美(elegant)。小巧而清秀 (delicate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) and (2) definition are mostly used to describe people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) definition said it can be used to describe 器物 (object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;秀气的刺繡  (delicate embroidery)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;秀气的雕塑  (delicate sculpture)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) definition said it describes something that emit delicate, elegant or graceful feel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;秀氣的山水 = 山明水秀 (exquisite landscape)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;秀气的文章 (elegantly written article)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;寫得一手秀氣的字 (able to write elegant hand written words)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-30T19:40:09.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31507" CreationDate="2018-09-30T19:29:00.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also heard that it is usually used to describe people; however, it does seem possible to describe inanimate objects - such as wristwatches - using 秀气（according to Pleco, at least):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5u5rI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5u5rI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;pleco definition for 秀气&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18308" LastActivityDate="2018-09-30T19:29:00.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31504" CreationDate="2018-10-01T05:14:17.713" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are not etymologically related as other posters have noted, but it might not be a pure coincidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people have noted that words like &quot;mama&quot; and &quot;papa&quot; are similar across language families and suggested this is because they imitate the types of babbling sounds infants make.  See: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems plausible that &quot;baby&quot; could also fall within this category (i.e., repeated simple syllables.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20487" LastActivityDate="2018-10-01T05:14:17.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31512" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31513" CreationDate="2018-10-01T05:40:21.020" Score="1" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you request something to be done for myself in cantonese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: can you ask him (to get playing cards) for me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastActivityDate="2018-10-01T22:16:57.303" Title="Requesting something to be done for me in cantonese" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31512" CreationDate="2018-10-01T06:10:14.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First you say &quot;would you please&quot;, which is &quot;唔該&quot;(please/ excuse me- &lt;em&gt;more colloquial&lt;/em&gt;) or &quot;請你&quot; (would you please- &lt;em&gt;more literary&lt;/em&gt;); you can even say &quot;唔該&quot; and &quot;請你&quot; together and say &quot;唔該請你&quot; (excuse me, would you please)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;then you say &quot;help me/ for me&quot;, which is &quot;幫我&quot; or &quot;同我&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;then you state your request. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &quot;打開度門&quot; (open the door)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence would be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;唔該幫我打開度門&quot; or  &quot;請你同我打開度門&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can substitute &quot;打開度門&quot; with any request&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;To be extra polite you can replace &quot;請你&quot; with &quot;麻煩你/ 勞煩你&quot; (trouble yourself)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If it was a command, you can just state your request directly. e,g. &quot;打開度門!&quot; or simply &quot;開門!&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese use final particle much more often than Mandarin. The most native way to say it, is &quot;唔該幫我打開度門吖&quot; -- using final particle '吖' to soften the tone and make it sound less demanding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-01T22:16:57.303" LastActivityDate="2018-10-01T22:16:57.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29554" CreationDate="2018-10-01T07:04:46.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tone are the same. &#xA;Cantonese : cho1&#xA;Mandarin : cao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning is different&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In medieval Chinese , &#xA;「操」in「情操」 : virtue&#xA;「操」in「步操」 : march &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18747" LastActivityDate="2018-10-01T07:04:46.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31496" CreationDate="2018-10-01T18:26:33.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/&lt;/a&gt; provides the possibility to search for a single character and then getting the most common words with it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20493" LastActivityDate="2018-10-01T18:26:33.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31048" CreationDate="2018-10-01T18:40:35.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;圆珠笔 simply refers to ball pens. No questions there regardless of the dialect or personal usage preference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;签名笔 could be referring to gel ink pen in common sense. But for artists I highly doubt that. A good possibility is technical pens. I am an architect myself and this is essential for anyone who wants a clean drawing. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_pen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_pen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水笔 is definitely not water color. It's a formal term for pen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20493" LastActivityDate="2018-10-01T18:40:35.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31408" CreationDate="2018-10-01T22:18:10.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a side note, in Hong Kong, 道友 typically means &quot;drug addicts&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastActivityDate="2018-10-01T22:18:10.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31481" CreationDate="2018-10-02T06:19:53.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在包里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is a literal translation of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm in the bag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means &quot;I'm drunk&quot; in English. While the Chinese sentence does not have any relationship with 'drunk' at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some phrases that mean I'm drunk in chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喝醉了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喝多了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我断片了 (I'm so drunk that lost my memory)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20224" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T06:19:53.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31521" CreationDate="2018-10-02T09:51:32.337" Score="2" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 到 mean in this sentence :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪里可以买到正版的这本书？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 买到 here serve as a verb-object word? I doubt it though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T06:11:09.123" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T06:11:09.123" Title="What does 到 mean in 哪里可以买到正版的这本书? Does 买到 here serve as a verb-object word?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31520" CreationDate="2018-10-02T10:01:32.360" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;「到」(literally &lt;em&gt;to arrive&lt;/em&gt;) is a verb complement to show whether an action has or can be completed (“arrived at the finished state”).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since「到」is not actually necessary in this sentence to express the same meaning, it is easier to demonstrate the meaning of「到」with a complementary sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那裏&lt;strong&gt;買不到&lt;/strong&gt;正版的這本書&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The proper version of this book &lt;strong&gt;can’t be bought&lt;/strong&gt; there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X「到」means the action X can be completed, X「不到」means it cannot be completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T10:01:32.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31520" CreationDate="2018-10-02T10:02:40.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;到 is a result complement. 买到 is the shorthand of 买得到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sematically, 买到这本书 means you buy and get the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T10:02:40.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31523" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-02T12:12:04.233" Score="6" ViewCount="1154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, I saw &lt;a href=&quot;https://hinative.com/en-US/questions/3594528&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;explanation&lt;/a&gt; that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我去了商店。（means: I have gone to the shop already）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我去商店了。（means: I am going to the shop now）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I expected to meet 了 for the past tense only right after the verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天我去了商店。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But actually I saw that this is also possible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天我去商店了。/ 昨天我们去长城了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is it correct for the past tense to separate 了 with the verb? Is there any difference in meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2018-10-02T12:37:59.637" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T12:38:28.240" Title="Place of 了 particle for the past tense?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31523" CreationDate="2018-10-02T12:38:28.240" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are correct for past tense. They have the same meaning, with subtle difference on the point of emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我去了商店&quot; lays emphasis on the action &quot;went to the shop&quot;, while &quot;我去商店了&quot; lays emphasis on the destination of the action, i.e. &quot;the shop&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it'll be more natural to use &quot;我去了商店&quot; as the answer to the question asking &quot;what did you do&quot; (你做什么去了), and use &quot;我去商店了&quot; as the answer to the question asking &quot;where did you go&quot; (你去哪儿了). (Note that they are just more targeted and straightforward to the answer, using another one as the answer is fine too.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T12:38:28.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31525" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-02T20:16:07.283" Score="2" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cR2sv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cR2sv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;The first stamp could mean Jing Zhao, no?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for the last one, I can´t have a better picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20472" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T02:00:24.730" Title="What do these stamps mean?" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31525" CreationDate="2018-10-03T02:00:24.730" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;my guess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the first seal is &quot;臣景昭&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the second one is &quot;x畫&quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the last one, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;ｅｃａ&#xA;ｆｄｂ&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the picture shown top 3 (ｅ, ｃ, ａ) &amp;amp; half the lower 3 characters (ｆ, ｄ, ｂ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ｅ: the left component is 人 (radical 9)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ａ: the left component is 止 (radical 77)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyway, here's the enhanced picture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RsPUF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RsPUF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T02:00:24.730" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31503" CreationDate="2018-10-03T04:58:16.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I start with 2. It's the literal meaning of 喝茶. 喝 = drink, 茶 = tea, so &quot;have some tea&quot; is a perfect translation of 喝茶.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To explain 1, you should think it as an interpersonal communication. In some cases, 喝茶 means &quot;sit down and have some drink&quot;, usually after a guest visit. In this case, 茶 does not necessarily be 茶 and may be any drink. It's usually when people have something to talk or discuss that the host serves some drink first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 3rd one as recognized by 神秘德里克, is an internet slang. When one talks about something politically-sensitive (like the Tiananmen Square Massacre) in mainland China, local police would ask them to “来警察局&lt;strong&gt;喝点茶&lt;/strong&gt;” (come to the police office and talk seriously), which then boils down to the above paragraph (serve drink before discussion).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T04:58:16.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31529" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31530" CreationDate="2018-10-03T06:33:08.640" Score="0" ViewCount="9371" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1947747309194272508.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; explains that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;520 = 我愛你&#xA;521 = 我願意&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many such abbreviations are somewhat intuitive from the mandarin pronunciation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5918 = wu3jiu4yao1ba1 ~ 吾就要發&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can see no connection between 2 and 願 or 2 and 愛 or 0 and 你！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-10-03T06:57:46.297" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T07:31:43.527" Title="How did the abbreviations 520 and 521 arise?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31529" CreationDate="2018-10-03T07:15:17.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The article explains that 520 means '20th, May' which is the day of a year designated as '网络情人节'(Online Valentine Day) since 2010&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to the song 《数字恋爱》by 范晓萱, which used the term '520' to represent 'I love you' , people started to use this term the same way too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also stated in the next answer that '20-May' (520) is  designated as the day for men to confess their love; '21-May' (521) is  designated as the day for women to confess their love&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(men say) &amp;quot;520&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;我爱你&amp;quot; (I love you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(women say) &amp;quot;521&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;我愿意&amp;quot; (I am willing to accept your love)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;both are texting/ messaging lingo&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T07:28:20.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31529" CreationDate="2018-10-03T07:31:43.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah, I'm with you on this one, the connection is very hard to hear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ninchanese.com/blog/2016/05/20/520-chinese-love-word-number/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ninchanese&lt;/a&gt; wrote a blog post about it that mentions [emphasis my own]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;How did 5.20 come to equal a Chinese love word that says I love you?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Talking about this special event, you may wonder why it occurs on this day and not another one in Chinese. The answer is quite simple. It’s all about the sounds. When you write May 20th in numbers, it’s written 5.20. When you pronounce the numbers 5. 2. 0 in Chinese, 五二零 wǔ èr líng, they sound very close to the words 我爱你 wǒ ài nǐ. See? &lt;strong&gt;They don’t sound exactly the same, but they sound quite similar, and that’s enough!&lt;/strong&gt; The Chinese love plays on homophonic words and numbers with hidden meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;520 originally started as a slang word used by the Chinese online as a shortcut to say I love you in Chinese, like ILY in English. It then came to be associated with the date May 20th (5.20), which therefore became a very romantic day!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They even admit that it doesn't sound totally the same. It, seems, to makes more sense that 20 sounds like 爱你, rather than 2 = 爱 and 0 = 你 - a lot of things said together quickly are easily confused with other things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T07:31:43.527" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31532" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-03T10:25:27.503" Score="2" ViewCount="1463" Body="&lt;p&gt;I inherited these pictures from my grandmother who bought them in China in 1980-81. I have had a difficult time trying to translate the red artist signature seals. I have tried image translator app, I looked on several different Asian artists signature websites and poured through pictures to try and find something similar. Pleco wasn't as helpful as I had hoped. I also tried ibiblio.org, which alerted me to the fact that the red deal was in fact a signature. I would also love to know the translation of the rest of the characters that are written on each one. I really want to have a clear understanding of what I've got and after 3 hours of searching I am no closer.  I am just starting to learn about this so for now, the simpler the explanation the better. Please help!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese Etching&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/atebR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/atebR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese Silk Embroidery Panel&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wyRwz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wyRwz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese Silk embroidery Panel&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DQGaE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DQGaE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20506" LastEditorUserId="20506" LastEditDate="2018-10-03T10:54:38.847" LastActivityDate="2021-03-12T06:54:49.247" Title="Help me translate the red signature seal on this picture?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31532" CreationDate="2018-10-03T13:08:51.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i agreed with @droooze that, the 2nd &amp;amp; 3rd seal is &quot;湘綉&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B9%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=湘&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;綉 (u+7d89) is a variant of 繡 (u+7d61), which means embroider&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%B9%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=繡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, the 1st seal, i recognised it as &quot;石氏&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=石&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%B0%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=氏&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which &quot;石&quot; is the surname, matched the &quot;writer&quot;'s name &quot;石鍾璵&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the text of the 2nd picture is &quot;活潑玲瓏&quot;, roughly vivacious &amp;amp; exquisite&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the text of the 3rd picture is &quot;活潑天真&quot;, roughly lively &amp;amp; artless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;need to explain text of the first one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T13:08:51.927" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31535" CreationDate="2018-10-03T14:59:29.483" Score="10" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why does &lt;a href=&quot;https://dictionary.writtenchinese.com/worddetail/deng/1153/1/2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; list the radicals for 等 as 竹, &lt;strong&gt;士&lt;/strong&gt;, and 寸 when the word appears to use &lt;strong&gt;土&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20510" LastEditorUserId="20510" LastEditDate="2018-10-03T16:37:33.260" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T16:37:33.260" Title="Radicals in 等 - Why 士 instead of 土?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31534" CreationDate="2018-10-03T15:43:30.050" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Things that contain「寺」may be written with「士」in the Taiwanese standard, while other regions (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan) use「土」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WikqK.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WikqK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The decomposition listed on that page is based on the Taiwanese standard, but the handwriting animation is based on the Mainland Chinese standard. If you're not learning Chinese from specifically Taiwan, write it with「土」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can't locate the exact source, but the general idea was that Taiwan changed it to「士」(&lt;strong&gt;shì&lt;/strong&gt;) to give a phonetic hint to「寺」(&lt;strong&gt;sì&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For reference, the original structure of「寺」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhengzhang_Shangfang&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Zhengzhang&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt; reconstruction: &lt;strong&gt;/*ljɯs/&lt;/strong&gt;) was from semantic「又」(&lt;em&gt;hand&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic「之/㞢/」(&lt;strong&gt;/*tjɯ/&lt;/strong&gt;). The word represented by this character is now written as「持」(&lt;em&gt;to support&lt;/em&gt;, emphasised through the addition of another hand「扌」).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_inscription&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ncvWF.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ncvWF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;伯寺簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4007&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4007&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4UEdx.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4UEdx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xyPRa.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xyPRa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Free web resources may generally not be consistent between standards when listing this sort of information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-10-03T16:20:50.787" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T16:20:50.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31536" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-03T18:20:41.610" Score="-2" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need the stranslation of this text in the image. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LrehU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LrehU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;screenshot&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20513" LastEditorUserId="20513" LastEditDate="2018-10-03T19:36:20.030" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T08:19:57.833" Title="Help me translate the Chinese in the login" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-10-11T05:16:12.600" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31537" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-03T18:39:05.583" Score="4" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3UWrgSoIxQ&amp;amp;list=PLA5UIoabheFNk9apd1AsoYxK0K4oEQ3h8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;watching this great video&lt;/a&gt; interviewing people on the street in Taiwan. The interviewer asks the question “你今天來這裡做什麼？” to many people. When introducing the question to &quot;us&quot;, the interviewer uses the &quot;full&quot; pronunciation, but when interviewing, the interviewer and interviewees pronounce the word EVERY TIME as one syllable and sounds more like /jian1/ to me (see 0:057 for example). According to the subtitles they are saying 今天 but the actual pronunciation is not that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is is this a different word, or some aural contracted form of 今天? Is this common in both Taiwan and China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed something very similar with 這裡 【这里】where the sound comes out as one syllable where the /l/ of 理 seems completely gone. Is this normal/expected?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this specific to the interviewer, to Taiwan/Taipei? Or more systematic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T12:02:40.457" Title="Contracted pronunciations of 今天 and 这里【這裡】(Taiwan)?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31537" CreationDate="2018-10-03T22:15:15.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am from Taipei Taiwan and sometimes when we speak 今天 really fast, it would sound like 尖 (jian) instead of jintian. However, as for 這裡, no matter how fast we speak, it should still sound like zheli. FYI. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20515" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T22:15:15.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31537" CreationDate="2018-10-03T22:33:32.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;今天 in that video, to me, just sounds like a typical Taiwan accent. It's a non-standard way to pronounce 今天. It's still understandable within the contexts.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally will pronounce 天, but probably weaker than 今 if I go fast. In any case, I will certainly pronounce 天. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm from Mainland China by the way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T22:33:32.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31536" CreationDate="2018-10-04T00:21:17.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the first textbox, it requires your phone number, the second one would be a code given in a short message after you click the button beside the second textbox. The third and the forth textbox requires you to set your password( one to set , another to confirm). After that you can click the “下一步” button and enjoy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20517" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T00:21:17.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31537" CreationDate="2018-10-04T06:56:44.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;今兒&quot; (today) and &quot;這兒&quot;(here) are the ones that got contracted &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今/jīn/ 兒/er/ --&gt; 今兒 jin'er&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這/zhè/ 兒/er/ --&gt; 這兒 zhè'er&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T06:56:44.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31537" CreationDate="2018-10-04T08:08:16.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just because of the speed of them speaking. They speak it fast so it ends up sounds like two words are sticking together. When speaking fast, some word like the mentioned 今天（&lt;strong&gt;Jī&lt;/strong&gt;n Ti&lt;strong&gt;ān&lt;/strong&gt;）may stick together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the words that may sound contracted but actually they're not. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知道(&lt;strong&gt;Z&lt;/strong&gt;hī D&lt;strong&gt;ào&lt;/strong&gt;) &amp;lt;--&gt; Zào (造)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不要(&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;ù &lt;strong&gt;Yào&lt;/strong&gt;) &amp;lt;--&gt; Biào (嫑)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They will only appear in verbal communication since it is understandable but it is not a formal Mandarin, nobody will write mandarin in this way in formal document.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's only certain special word that are considered as contracted such as (儿).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Example: 我在&lt;strong&gt;这儿&lt;/strong&gt; is acceptable in an essay but 你&lt;strong&gt;造&lt;/strong&gt;吗？ is no way close to formal writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20181" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T08:08:16.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31536" CreationDate="2018-10-04T08:19:57.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's something like this after translation. Hope this helped&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PDzOV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PDzOV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20181" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T08:19:57.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31537" CreationDate="2018-10-04T12:02:40.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't quite have enough personal experience of enough parts of Mainland China to be able to judge how prevalent it is. I will say however that it is far more prevalent in urban Taiwan (particularly Taipei) than rural Taiwan, and more prevalent across Taiwan than in its closest linguistic areas on the mainland, i.e. Fujian, Zhejiang, Guangdong. I do find more northern Chinese prone to &quot;slurring the sounds&quot;, most characteristic of the Beijing dialect of course, but also fairly common in fast speech across the parts of the north that I've been to, from Shandong to the northeastern area. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 连音 / contraction so common on Taiwan is what you're picking up, enough to be a &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/24928653&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;defining characteristic&lt;/a&gt; of &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinesehacks.com/vocabulary/syllable-contractions/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;casual Taiwan Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;, and easily perceived by a Mainland Chinese ear. The &quot;extreme reductions&quot; have been studied by linguistics researchers, and according to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.638.3599&amp;amp;rep=rep1&amp;amp;type=pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2009 paper from researchers at University College London&lt;/a&gt;, it is actually an ongoing productive process. Vowel + vowel interfaces are most likely to be contracted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The outcomes of a lot of these contractions are starting to be fossilised, and are changing the phonotactics of colloquial Taiwan Mandarin slightly. Some of these are documented in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.airitilibrary.com/Publication/alDetailedMesh?docid=10216006-200601-32-1-69-88-a&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2006 paper from NTU&lt;/a&gt;. Certain initials are more resistant to change than others; the labials b-, p-, f-, m- are mentioned as consistently so, with the one exception being 根本 &lt;em&gt;gēnběn&lt;/em&gt; which becomes &lt;em&gt;&quot;gèmm&quot;&lt;/em&gt; with an elongated m, phonetically [kəmː˥˩]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, removing contrasts do create conflict and confusion. &lt;a href=&quot;https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt6kj264nh/qt6kj264nh.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This 2010 paper from UCLA&lt;/a&gt; shows that perceptual cues nonetheless remain. Length seems to be increasingly contrastive in this role, as are the exact scale of the tones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T12:02:40.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31547" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31559" CreationDate="2018-10-04T16:43:31.330" Score="3" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried to translate these characters but I´m not sure. Am I right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have more difficulties for the last 3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勁直凌霄节傾斜帶兩枝 戊子初春 X子X&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be something like that, no?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ziZof.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ziZof.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Straight slanting section with two branches&#xA;Spring of the Wuzhi year (Which one?)&#xA;XXX?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you help me? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be indulgent. I´m a beginner ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20472" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T13:00:37.710" Title="What do these characters painting mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31549" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31551" CreationDate="2018-10-04T17:59:04.900" Score="2" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 都挺 in this sentence mean/indicate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一直都挺想学滑板的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence is translated as : &quot;I've always wanted to learn skateboard(ing)&quot;. I then opened my online dictionary and tried to look for the meaning of each word, especially 都挺. However, it turned out that 都挺 isn't one whole word because each character of 都挺 appeared as independent character. Unlike 一直, 都 and 挺 aren't tied together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I tried to translate 都挺 in Google Translate and the word &quot;quite&quot; appeared as a result. But the thing is, doesn't 挺 already mean &quot;quite&quot;? Then what does 都 here mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, why is &quot;一直&quot; which has the meaning of &quot;always&quot;, used together with &quot;都挺&quot; which means &quot;quite&quot; here? I find it strange because I had never seen both words used together in a sentence before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-21T07:10:17.077" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T00:26:00.957" Title="What does 都挺 indicate here?l" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31550" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-04T18:48:51.847" Score="3" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a 20-year-old guy studying Chinese Translation at college here in Turkey. Currently I am taking preparatory Chinese classes to pass to actual ones (just started).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been studying Chinese for quite some time, and I loved traditional characters so chose to start with the traditional set. I learned a lot of traditional characters, and now all my professors are from PRC and no matter what they don't accept traditional characters (I must write by hand). She told me with a kinda angry voice 寫現在的字. Others say they won't accept it either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously this will affect my grades etc. and I don't want to change it. What should I do ? I thought of learning both together, writing simplified to materials they use and writing traditional to my own individual studying materials. This preparatory classes will take 1 year, 3 exams, some little tests. If I can't pass the barage they set I must get HSK 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We will be learning 1500-1600 words. Here they see China as only PRC, meaning my university only has connections with mainland universities so I will be going there early on until I can finish it or do something else. What should I do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20523" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T10:40:26.617" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T10:40:26.617" Title="I have been learning traditional characters but my professors don't accept it. What do I do?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31549" CreationDate="2018-10-04T19:38:05.400" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In reading Chinese, we are always faced with the difficulty of correctly grouping characters. Here the correct pairing is not 都挺。 Rather, you should view 一直都 as one group, meaning &lt;em&gt;all along&lt;/em&gt; and 挺 as a modification to 想。The meaning of 挺 comes very close to 很.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;一直&lt;/strong&gt;在等你/I’ve been waiting for you &lt;strong&gt;all along&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天&lt;strong&gt;挺&lt;/strong&gt;冷。/It’s &lt;strong&gt;pretty&lt;/strong&gt; cold today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say there is virtually no difference between 一直 and 一直都. The choice is guided by rhythm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T19:55:14.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31552" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31554" CreationDate="2018-10-04T20:23:26.673" Score="3" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;The video game, Shenzhen IO seems to have different spellings of the fictitious company's name in Chineese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game's store page uses 深圳龙腾科技有限公司, while the game's manual uses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Alhh7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Alhh7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first character looks a bit different. Is this just a different font, or is it a different character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case your stack exchange font is different to mine, the game web page looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GmxZW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GmxZW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20524" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T01:38:02.180" Title="Shenzhen IO character differences" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31549" CreationDate="2018-10-04T23:20:28.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;挺 is an adv in this context and means &lt;em&gt;very; quite; pretty; rather&lt;/em&gt;. In this context, 挺 modifies the verb 想学. 挺想学 means &lt;strong&gt;quite want to learn&lt;/strong&gt;. Another example, 我挺喜欢她的: &lt;em&gt;I quite like her&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都 here is used for &lt;strong&gt;emphasis&lt;/strong&gt;. You can probably use &lt;strong&gt;always, all along, etc.&lt;/strong&gt; to interpret. Compare 我一直在想你(I have been thinking of you) to 我一直都在想你(I have always been thinking of you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-10-04T23:25:39.530" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T23:25:39.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31552" CreationDate="2018-10-05T00:53:44.420" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The first character looks a bit different. Is this just a different font, or is it a different character?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unicode treats them with the same codepoint (U+6DF1), so it's the same character according to digital standards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference in appearance is usually due to fonts, which adhere to different standards across the regions which use Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3QZEe.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3QZEe.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mainland Chinese standards use a「八」shape, while other regions usually use a「儿」shape. If you're seeing「儿」then your fonts are not designed according to the Mainland Chinese standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We now have super-families of fonts like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noto_fonts#CJK&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Noto CJK&lt;/a&gt; which accommodate for both differences in orthography (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Chinese_character&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;character variations&lt;/a&gt;) and (minor) differences in regional shapes, so you can get (for example) a text which has Simplified Chinese but with the non-Simplified characters as Korean shapes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The exact font you're using to display those characters is Noto Sans CJK JP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LiPSS.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LiPSS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Minor differences exist in all standards; your browser thinks the text language is Japanese, or defaults it to Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're learning Chinese characters not specifically from Mainland China, write it with「儿」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For reference, that component was originally「穴」, which depicts a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaodong&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;cave dwelling&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;窯洞&lt;/strong&gt;). The two strokes under「宀」was an abstract depiction of ventilation passages or air currents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9TGOj.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9TGOj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;新甲&lt;/a&gt;3.83&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The structure of「深」has changed like the following over the years:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_inscription&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E9%9A%B6%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸定&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6nWwl.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6nWwl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uWCZP.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uWCZP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;乖伯歸夆簋「罙」&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4331&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4331&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;楚&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P8Pb3.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P8Pb3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;上(1)・孔&lt;/a&gt;・2&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I3Okt.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I3Okt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;雜&lt;/a&gt;15&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t7tfw.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t7tfw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As can be seen,「八」or「儿」is just an approximation of a shape, and neither character actually features as a component in「深」. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;'s&lt;/a&gt; description&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;「穴」，土室也。从「宀」，「八」聲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;「穴」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_(2014)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*[ɢ]ʷˤi[t]/&lt;/strong&gt;), earthen dwelling; from semantic「宀」(&lt;em&gt;building&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic「八」(&lt;strong&gt;/*pˤret/&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;is very likely to be incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;References:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;李學勤《字源》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-10-05T01:38:02.180" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T01:38:02.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31547" CreationDate="2018-10-05T01:31:17.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The last 3 characters are 柳子谷, an artist's name and the ninth character is 雨. But I am not quite confident about the meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ah I see: 凌霄 is 凌霄花, 凌霄带雨 is a metaphor for adamancy and bravery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT 2: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the comments below (*°∀°)=3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-10-05T02:05:19.323" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T02:05:19.323" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31550" CreationDate="2018-10-05T02:27:36.480" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Young man drop everything to follow his heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others drop his personal to do his responsibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Few do both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T02:27:36.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31557" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31561" CreationDate="2018-10-05T03:44:57.300" Score="1" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;五里不同天&lt;/strong&gt; is defined in《广安方言与民俗词典》as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比喻地区不同，事物就有差异。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember long ago hearing that in 福建 they say that the culture changes every nine &lt;em&gt;li&lt;/em&gt;, but I never learned the actual phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What similar phrases exist? I'm afraid that 广安方言 might not be all that universal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-10-05T05:22:34.507" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T15:26:15.097" Title="What variant phrases of 五里不同天 exist?" Tags="&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31557" CreationDate="2018-10-05T04:26:52.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Cantonese, and I've never heard of &quot;五里不同天&quot;. However, I do know a similar phrase &quot;各處鄉村各處例&quot; (each village has its own custom/rule), also means &lt;em&gt;地区不同，事物就有差异&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also heard the phrase '一方水土養一方人' (different area raise different people) on some Chinese documentary shows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-05T12:23:34.270" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T12:23:34.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31547" CreationDate="2018-10-05T13:00:37.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the text is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勁直凌霄節．傾斜帶雨枝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;戊子初春　柳子谷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i've impression that it's an inscription of a painting. the painter asked mr 柳子谷 to write it. the time is 戊子年, 2008-60i (2008, 1948, . . .), 初春 is the first month of spring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the painting would be about bamboo (竹).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;節 means  bamboo joint (竹節). the metaphor is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bamboo --&amp;gt; nobleman (君子)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勁直 ~ strong and upright, straightly without branch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凌霄 ~ a bamboo grow upwards, towards the sky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at the same time, bamboo is also flexible, that in adverse situation, like downpour, cats and dogs (--&amp;gt; 帶雨), it can be bent (--&amp;gt; 傾斜), [枝] without breaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, bamboo grow skywards straightly, with flexibility to bent in adverse situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&amp;gt; nobleman (君子) always strive for good moral and behaviour, would make compromise, in case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T13:00:37.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31550" CreationDate="2018-10-05T13:29:00.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;．traditionally, against one's mentor / tutor, is severe wrongdoing in chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;．when you enrol in the course, there must be some documentations, read the fine print, what's the language requirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if it's written in black &amp;amp; white, that traditional chinese should be used / accepted; then ask your university,why they hire &lt;strong&gt;&quot;unqualified&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; tutor for the course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you can't find anything mentioning &quot;traditional chinese&quot;, change yourself :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She told me with à kinda angry voice 寫現在的字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i doubt that your tutor understand traditional chinese. frankly, if you need to read books printed before 1949, traditional chinese is a must. otherwise, simplified chinese is widely used in &quot;that area&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;her angry attitude would be interpreted as &quot;you're smarted than her, cause you can read literature of yores directly&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;without knowledge of traditional chinese, how can one inherit the traditional culture, history? all of these are recorded in traditional chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, an chinese verse for encouragement:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不經一番寒澈骨．焉得梅花撲鼻香&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly &quot;without the continuous bone-chilling cold, there can be no fragrant plum blossom&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;behave carefully :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T13:29:00.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31557" CreationDate="2018-10-05T15:26:15.097" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;十里不同音，百里不同俗&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Means different dialect every ten &lt;em&gt;li&lt;/em&gt; / culture every hundred &lt;em&gt;li&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically the same methodology to describe how things are varies in such small geologic differences.  Also I believe &quot;天&quot; in &quot;五里不同天&quot; refers to the weather / climate (weather and climate are 2 different thing but I can't tell which one fits better here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T15:26:15.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31549" CreationDate="2018-10-05T22:33:59.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;都 means entirely here. So 一直都 is the same meaning of 一直 in this sentence but the demand is much stronger.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;挺　means very, quite. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can actually eliminate 都,挺,的 in this sentence, 我一直想學滑板 and people can still understand what you are saying.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps a bit. 　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20515" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T22:33:59.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31563" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-06T03:44:30.870" Score="2" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;《现代汉语方言音库 • 成都话音档》has two listings for 虾 one that says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;xa⁵⁵ 又ɕia⁵⁵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xa⁵⁵&lt;/code&gt; can pretty much be pinyinized as &lt;code&gt;ha1&lt;/code&gt; - for simplification here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there is of course a second entry that says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ɕia⁵⁵ 又xa⁵⁵&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now of course it looks like I've answered my own question - seeing as the name of the book is &lt;strong&gt;成都话&lt;/strong&gt;音档. But, &lt;code&gt;ha1&lt;/code&gt; is not a pronunciation I've heard before for 虾 in Sichuanese and most people don't believe that it even exists. I'm curious as to where this pronunciation is still maintained in Sichuan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's certainly part of the vestiges of 湖广填川.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T08:53:23.740" Title="Where in Sichuan is 虾 pronunced ha1 (xa⁵⁵)?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31564" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-06T04:53:04.713" Score="4" ViewCount="720" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw a video where people referred to to Chinatown in Singapore as 牛车水. What does this literally mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastEditorUserId="16191" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T13:25:15.633" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T13:25:15.633" Title="Why does 牛车水 mean Chinatown?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31564" CreationDate="2018-10-06T05:03:17.083" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lotour.com/zhengwen/2/lg-jc-26214.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;牛车水&lt;/a&gt; literally means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;牛车 - oxcart&#xA;水   - water&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. 牛车（运）水, oxcart (carrying) water. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;牛车水（Chinatown）是新加坡的唐人街，名字的由来也反映了当年华人的一段历史。当时来南洋生活在这里的华人没有自来水用，于是用牛车运水，每天这里都是一辆辆的运水牛车，也算得上是车水马龙的壮观景象了。久而久之人们就称这里为牛车水了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no tap water in the past, it was general to transport water by oxcart in chinatown, as time passes chinatown began to be called as 牛车水.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2018-10-06T05:03:17.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31566" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31567" CreationDate="2018-10-06T12:41:58.473" Score="3" ViewCount="665" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could anyone please tell me how these characters mean &quot;Of course!&quot;/&quot;That goes without saying!&quot; when placed together?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because when it's translated one by one, the characters don't seem to correlate to one another at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;那 : that&#xA;还 : still&#xA;用 : use&#xA;说 : speak&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm just curious though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-21T07:09:59.803" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T07:09:59.803" Title="How is 那还用说！translated as &quot;Of course!&quot; or &quot;That goes without saying!&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31566" CreationDate="2018-10-06T12:52:00.193" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point is &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/%E7%94%A8/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;用&lt;/a&gt; doesn't mean &quot;use&quot;, but &quot;need&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（多用于否定: 需要） need:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;There's no need to turn on the light.&#xA;不用开灯。&#xA;&#xA;I don't think you need to worry in the least.&#xA;我看你一点也不用着急。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/eng/%E8%BF%98/#keyfrom=dict2.index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;还&lt;/a&gt; is used for emphasis,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（用以加强语气）:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;That goes without saying.&#xA;那还用说!&#xA;&#xA;This is the limit!; This is simply atrocious!&#xA;这还了得!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那还用说 is a rhetorical question (echo question), it literally means ”need to say that?!&quot;, i.e. &quot;no need to say&quot;, then &quot;of course&quot; or &quot;that goes without saying&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-10-07T00:45:23.460" LastActivityDate="2018-10-07T00:45:23.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31566" CreationDate="2018-10-06T13:00:41.743" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;那还用说！ means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;not even deserves to mention it&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, implying &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;something is very obvious and no need to address it or put it on the table&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stretch a bit: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;那&lt;/strong&gt;：that thing &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;还用&lt;/strong&gt;（equal to 不用）：not necessary to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;说&lt;/strong&gt;：speak, mention &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-06T13:00:41.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31569" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31570" CreationDate="2018-10-06T13:38:05.880" Score="2" ViewCount="2020" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have looked for some references regarding how to say &quot;where else&quot;, &quot;who else&quot;, and &quot;what else&quot; but I still can't find one that's dependable enough. Furthermore, it seems like there are quite a lot of ways to express &quot;where else&quot;, &quot;who else&quot;, &quot;what else&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some example sentences I found on the internet which contain &quot;where else&quot;, &quot;who else&quot;, and &quot;what else&quot; when translated. I'm sorry that instead of coming with statements, I come with examples. It's because I couldn't find a source that states how to form &quot;where/who/what else. Idk if these sentences are correct though :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 还有哪里？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 还有什么地方？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) 我们还能在哪里聊天？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) 你还会在哪里度假？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) 别的什么地方我能找到这本书呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) 她还去了别的什么地方？还见了谁？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7) 你还想买些什么，史密斯小姐？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8) 女士，还有其他什么事吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9) 你还要点什么菜吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10) 聚会上还有谁？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, from the sentences above, it seems like when you place 还/别的/其他 or any other words that mean &quot;else&quot; and any question words like 什么，谁，and 哪里 together, you can already form &quot;question word (like where/who/what) + else&quot;. I don't know if my assumption is correct though. Please kindly tell me if my assumption is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If forming &quot;question word + else&quot; really goes the way I assume it, why is there double else &quot;还&amp;amp;其他&quot; in the 8th sentence? Is it okay to place two &quot;else&quot;s here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, why do some of them contain &quot;有&quot; or &quot;在&quot; and some others not? Is it necessary to add &quot;有/在&quot; when one wants to express &quot;(where/who/what else)? If yes, what do both characters mean/indicate here? And will there be any difference if you choose one over the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-21T07:08:25.647" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T07:08:25.647" Title="How to say &quot;where else&quot;, &quot;who else&quot;, or &quot;what else&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31569" CreationDate="2018-10-06T15:44:30.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Next, from the sentences above, it seems like when you place 还/别的/其他 or any other words that mean &quot;else&quot; and any question words like 什么，谁，and 哪里 together, you can already form &quot;question word (like where/who/what) + else&quot;. I don't know if my assumption is correct though. Please kindly tell me if my assumption is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, a 'question phrase' can be formed by the way you have discussed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;还&lt;/strong&gt;要买&lt;strong&gt;什么&lt;/strong&gt;？ - What else do you want?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;还&lt;/strong&gt;要去&lt;strong&gt;哪里&lt;/strong&gt;？ - Where else do you want to go?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还有&lt;strong&gt;谁&lt;/strong&gt;要&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;？ - Who else still wants to come?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谁还 - Who still (want to come)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪里还 - Where still (want to go)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么还 - What still (want to buy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 8th sentence, '女士，还有其他什么事吗?', it is actually okay to remove the '其他' as it is unnecessary as you said. (double else)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This forms: 女士，还有什么事吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;有&quot; literally means &quot;have&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在&quot; literally means &quot;there&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not much meaning and explanation to why these two characters are sometimes used and sometimes not. I don't feel like I can fully explain to why this is so as if I did I have a possibility to give wrong advice. If you give me some comparison examples I would be happy to help you explain the differences to why one uses these characters and why one don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20531" LastActivityDate="2018-10-06T15:44:30.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31572" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-06T20:33:16.157" Score="2" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is 在 usually placed before the verb but in other cases can come at the end of the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, what is the difference between:&#xA;(1) 她在北京出生。&#xA;(2) 他出生在北京。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20535" LastActivityDate="2018-10-10T02:07:03.187" Title="Placement of 在 in the sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31573" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31574" CreationDate="2018-10-06T21:04:26.783" Score="1" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a mystery character that I cannot seem to find the usual way: OCR, radical search, stroke search, nor drawing in any IME pad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appears to have 18 strokes in total and composed of &lt;strong&gt;禾日日皿&lt;/strong&gt;. The middle two components can be tricky, as they may be &lt;strong&gt;曰&lt;/strong&gt; also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character in question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rLsys.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rLsys.png&quot; alt=&quot;mystery character&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character in question came from this particular page: &lt;a href=&quot;http://wu-chinese.com/minidict/search.php?searchkey=%E9%A6%9A&amp;amp;searchlang=zaonhe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wu-chinese.com/minidict/search.php?searchkey=馚&amp;amp;searchlang=zaonhe&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4403" LastActivityDate="2018-10-06T21:23:39.113" Title="Mystery Character (Components: 禾日日皿)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31573" CreationDate="2018-10-06T21:23:39.113" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;馧（yun1）means aroma.&#xA;馚馧(fen1 yun1) has the similar meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20537" LastActivityDate="2018-10-06T21:23:39.113" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31572" CreationDate="2018-10-06T21:41:00.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe it is because 出生 is very short, so both of the sentences can be right. If the verb is very long, e.g. I had a good time in Beijing, you cannot say 我度过了美好时光在北京。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, some people may think you are emphasizing the different part of speech. &#xA;(1) 她在北京出生。She was born in Beijing (but not in Shanghai). &#xA;(2) 他出生在北京。He was born in Beijing (maybe he went to Shanghai to spend his childhood).&#xA;But I cannot tell the difference between the two sentences because of the lack of context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20537" LastActivityDate="2018-10-06T21:41:00.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2018-10-07T00:16:25.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That decomposition is incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「条」is shorthand for「條」(Pinyin: &lt;strong&gt;tiáo&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_(2014)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*[l]ˤiw/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;/*lˤiw/&lt;/strong&gt;), which is composed of phonetic「攸」(Pinyin: &lt;strong&gt;yōu&lt;/strong&gt;, Baxter-Sagart Old Chinese: &lt;strong&gt;/*liw/&lt;/strong&gt;) and semantic「木」(&lt;em&gt;wood&lt;/em&gt;).「木」sometimes looks like「ホ」when written on the bottom of characters; exact shapes vary between the standards of different regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The appearance of「夂」is a writing convention;「夂」doesn't contribute any semantic or phonetic function in「条」. At most, it can be seen as an abbreviation of「攸」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-10-07T00:55:18.087" LastActivityDate="2018-10-07T00:55:18.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31577" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-07T04:42:06.530" Score="0" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3UWrgSoIxQ&amp;amp;list=PLA5UIoabheFNk9apd1AsoYxK0K4oEQ3h8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt; at time stamp 0:07 the Taiwanese speaker (according to the subtitles) says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們&lt;strong&gt;現在&lt;/strong&gt;是在臺北。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the what she actually says for 現在 is one syllable that sounds like /xia1/ to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What am I hearing? Is this a complete other word, or is it a common contraction of 現在?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T10:01:50.300" Title="Is this a spoken contracted form of 現在【现在】？" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31577" CreationDate="2018-10-07T04:58:03.997" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;haha,  yes, you are  right,  it's a  voice, you don't care it. there are many voice,  my mean is accent,,,   hope you  can understand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20539" LastActivityDate="2018-10-07T04:58:03.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31580" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-07T15:09:34.567" Score="8" ViewCount="669" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm searching for a common way to say &quot;I wouldn't go so far as to say that&quot; in Mandarin. The only translation of this expression, that I found in a dictionary, is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;It's good, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's great.&#xA;挺好的，但是我不會極端到說棒極了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, since I have not found any other translation of &quot;極端到&quot; that expresses the idea of &quot;go so far as to&quot;, I wonder if is this is a common way to say it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20544" LastEditorUserId="16191" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T14:50:33.140" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T13:26:41.643" Title="How to say &quot;I wouldn't go so far as to say...&quot; in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31580" CreationDate="2018-10-07T15:26:37.533" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;至于 can be used to interpret it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It's good, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's great. 挺好的，但(我)还不至于说它非常好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-07T15:26:37.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31580" CreationDate="2018-10-07T15:27:37.017" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is more natural to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还没有……到……地步&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 挺好的，但还没有&lt;strong&gt;好&lt;/strong&gt;到&lt;strong&gt;那个&lt;/strong&gt;地步。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it tastes fine, but I would not go so far as to say that it is delicious&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;味道还行，但还没有好吃到十分美味的地步&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, if you were in a more oral conversation, you would normally say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但也没有很/特别……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但也不是很/特别……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went to the national park, which was a good trip, but I would not go so far as to say that it is wonderful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;could be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去了国家公园，感觉还行，但也不是特别好玩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-10T21:23:54.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31580" CreationDate="2018-10-07T15:28:54.943" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's good, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence should be translated to &#xA;挺不錯的，但還不到非常好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I never heard 極端到說棒極了, It's very odd, and no one would say that way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20545" LastActivityDate="2018-10-07T15:28:54.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31572" CreationDate="2018-10-09T01:38:00.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Normally  the 'relative phrase that indicates location (在+ location)' is always placed before the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在北京旅遊 cannot be changed to 他旅遊在北京&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在北京探親 cannot be changed to 他探親在北京&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在北京被捕 cannot be changed to 他被捕在北京&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why is 他出生在北京 and 他在北京出生 both correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can treat the sentence as [topic + comment] structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;['他出生' (his birth)]  is the topic ['在北京' (was in Beijing)] is the comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, &quot;他出生在北京&quot; is short form of &quot;他的出生 是在北京&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or you can treat it as simple [S+V+O] structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;['他' is the subject] ['在北京' is the relative phrase] ['出生' is the verb] (no object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-10T02:07:03.187" LastActivityDate="2018-10-10T02:07:03.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31048" CreationDate="2018-10-09T04:53:55.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;油性笔 pen with oil-based ink = 圆珠笔 ballpoint pen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中性笔 gel pen = 签字笔, 啫喱笔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水性笔 pen with water-based ink = rollerball pen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自来水笔（钢笔） fountain pen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——————&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中性 (medium-based) means the ink between oil-based ink and water-based ink, i.e. gelled ink.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2018-10-09T04:59:17.870" LastActivityDate="2018-10-09T04:59:17.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31577" CreationDate="2018-10-09T09:21:44.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This happens frequently in oral expressions. Yes, this is a &quot;contraction&quot; as you stated. The context is specific to everybody, so the speaker can shorten some words to express more information. Here the full word /xiànzài/ is shortened as something like /xià(n)ài/, where the sound /z/ and the nasal sound are in fact pronounced but in a very short period, and the recording seems like that the one just omitted /z/, /n/. You could try yourself by reading the word &quot;现在&quot; as quick as possible without altering the leading consonants [or, to be more exact, 声母] the tone and the vowels [韵母], and you might get the same result. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2018-10-09T09:21:44.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31580" CreationDate="2018-10-09T09:31:38.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in oral expressions i might say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还好吧，但是也没&lt;strong&gt;那么&lt;/strong&gt;好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where I would put stress on the bold part. This might not be the exact translation of the sentence you want to say [maybe we could translate it back to &quot;It is good, but not that good&quot;, although this sentence might be seldomly used by natives], but it is a commonly used informal expression to say something like that in your sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2018-10-09T09:31:38.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31408" CreationDate="2018-10-09T09:59:48.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;用中文說中文&#xA;droooze說的不錯!這說法讓不才耳目一新!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;道友:養道之友&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道友:&#xA;同路人(志同道合者)&#xA;同志向者&#xA;有同一個夢想的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道:道路&#xA;友:朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看到:&quot;渡劫失败&quot; 這關鍵字&#xA;聯想到玄幻小說&#xA;通常表示&#xA;有群人想追求長生,或跳脫輪迴,或者修仙!&#xA;基本上只要你會點法術或著有修行,甚至只要有修仙的心即可!&#xA;他們都會彼此稱呼為&quot;道友&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13352" LastActivityDate="2018-10-09T09:59:48.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31496" CreationDate="2018-10-10T04:02:58.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;zhTenTen: Corpus of the Chinese Web &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sketchengine.eu/zhtenten-chinese-corpus/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.sketchengine.eu/zhtenten-chinese-corpus/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文詞彙特性速描系統（Chinese Word Sketch）&lt;a href=&quot;http://wordsketch.ling.sinica.edu.tw/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wordsketch.ling.sinica.edu.tw/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中文搭配助手（Online Chinese Collocation Assistant）&lt;a href=&quot;http://cca.xingtanlu.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://cca.xingtanlu.cn/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;语料库在线（Corpus Online）&lt;a href=&quot;http://corpus.zhonghuayuwen.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://corpus.zhonghuayuwen.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18221" LastEditorUserId="18221" LastEditDate="2018-10-10T04:09:27.987" LastActivityDate="2018-10-10T04:09:27.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31590" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-10T13:32:23.967" Score="1" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this pinyin alphabet used to spell in Chinese Sign Language? Otherwise, which one is used in Mainland China?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cXluv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cXluv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastActivityDate="2018-10-11T16:35:16.773" Title="Is this pinyin alphabet used to spell in Chinese Sign Language? Otherwise, which one is used in Mainland China?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31591" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31593" CreationDate="2018-10-10T13:44:06.850" Score="4" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before jumping into my question, please forgive me if this question has ever been asked by someone else (I didn't find one though),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but could someone please explain to me the rules (or the way) of when we should use &amp;quot;verb only&amp;quot; words and &amp;quot;verb-object&amp;quot; words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still find this part confusing. Like, when should we use 睡 instead of 睡觉? Also the others like :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃 and 吃饭,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学 and 学习,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说 and 说话,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨 and 下雨，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T21:55:17.350" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T21:55:17.350" Title="Are there common rules about the usage of verb-object compounds?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;separable-verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31591" CreationDate="2018-10-10T18:14:35.233" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A single character verb like 吃, 学 and 说 are typically more general, which mean they generally contain more than one meaning and can create ambiguity if there's not enough context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two characters verb like 吃饭, 学习, and 说话 are compound words. Compare to single character words, compound words express more specific meanings, which mean you can avoid confusion due to multiple meanings contained in most single character (they can even be interpreted as different word types like noun or adjective).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use either single character verb or compound words verb in a sentence as long as there's no ambiguity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More often than not, a single character verb cannot replace a compound words verb because it lack specificity. For example, 我要吃饭 (I have to/want to eat a meal- &lt;em&gt;dinner or lunch&lt;/em&gt;) cannot be replaced with 我要吃 (I have to/ want to eat-- &lt;em&gt;eat what?&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, using compound word verb when a single character verb is sufficient is considered wordy or redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;殺這頭豬 (kill/ /murder / &lt;strong&gt;slaughter&lt;/strong&gt; this pig) and 屠宰這頭豬 (&lt;strong&gt;slaughter&lt;/strong&gt; this pig) basically mean the same thing. No one would think you meant 'murder this pig' when you say 殺這頭豬, therefore, there is no need to use the more specific term  屠宰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-11T05:13:02.910" LastActivityDate="2018-10-11T05:13:02.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31594" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-11T14:10:56.743" Score="1" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;In which sequence should I learn Chinese. What are simplified characters and important traditional characters which should I learn first and why those are necessary to learn first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20562" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-10-11T14:51:49.923" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T14:41:17.603" Title="What are simplified characters and traditional characters? Which should I learn first?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10607" CreationDate="2018-10-11T14:48:25.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned elsewhere,「台」and「臺」are different characters; the former is not a simplified derivative of the latter. In proper nouns such as「臺灣」, the first character is just a phonetic transcription character, and doesn't contribute to the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In orthodox Mandarin usage,「台」as a phonetic character is pronounced &lt;strong&gt;tāi&lt;/strong&gt;, not &lt;strong&gt;tái&lt;/strong&gt;, which is why &lt;em&gt;Taiwan&lt;/em&gt; is &quot;correctly&quot; written as「臺灣」. Using「台」as a substitute for「臺」is a later vulgar innovation; they were pronounced differently. Names such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;三台 (&lt;em&gt;six of the stars in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Major&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ursa Major&lt;/a&gt; constellation&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taizhou,_Zhejiang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;台州&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiantai_Mountain&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天台山&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are all pronounced &quot;correctly&quot; with &lt;strong&gt;tāi&lt;/strong&gt; and written correctly with「台」, not「臺」, although nowadays you may see references to 三台 &quot;incorrectly&quot; pronounced as &lt;strong&gt;tái&lt;/strong&gt; and using「臺」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;PRC totally merged「台」and「臺」with「台」, so there is no further discussion to be made for Simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「台」and「臺」had different origins.「台」originally represented a word now written as「以」; note that the top of「台」is the same component as the left of「以」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「以」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhengzhang_Shangfang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhengzhang&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*lɯʔ/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/jɨ&lt;sup&gt;X&lt;/sup&gt;/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fanqie&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;羊己切&lt;/strong&gt;) originally depicted a person「人」holding an object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oZntz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oZntz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;粹&lt;/a&gt;221&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Much of the time,「人」was actually omitted. This version is now written as「㠯」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IWXx1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IWXx1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;393&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=26900&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集26900&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8SdOF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8SdOF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;靜簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4273&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4273&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lVyWC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lVyWC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6NhrI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6NhrI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Towards the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;latter half of the Zhou Dynasty&lt;/a&gt;, a distinguishing mark「口」was added to「㠯」to create a synonym「台」, which is a representation of「以」widely seen before &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin%27s_wars_of_unification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Unification by Qin&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/75YcV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/75YcV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;王孫遺者鐘&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=261&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成261&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vmP0K.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vmP0K.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5UA3s.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5UA3s.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日甲&lt;/a&gt;112&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cPBFm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cPBFm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Qin Dynasty forms added「人」back, but in a way disconnected from the object「㠯」. Our current shape of「以」is inherited from this form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QaD40.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QaD40.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡・日甲&lt;/a&gt;2&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FR9i5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FR9i5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「台」lost the function of「以」and became used for other purposes. Orthodox definitions (inherited from later sources such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shuowen Jiezi&lt;/a&gt;) records two main uses, both phonetic borrowings sounding similar but unrelated in meaning to「以」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*lɯ/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; MC: &lt;strong&gt;/jɨ/&lt;/strong&gt;, Fanqie: &lt;strong&gt;與之切&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; Pinyin: &lt;strong&gt;yí&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Original form of「怡」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I/me&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;what&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*l̥ʰɯː/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; MC: &lt;strong&gt;/tʰʌi/&lt;/strong&gt;, Fanqie: &lt;strong&gt;土來切&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; Pinyin: &lt;strong&gt;tāi&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The second pronunciation led on to its vulgar usage for &lt;strong&gt;tái&lt;/strong&gt;, now unofficial in Taiwan and official in PRC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「臺」originally represented a word that meant &lt;em&gt;look-out tower/platform/terrace&lt;/em&gt;, and still retains this meaning today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「臺」(OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*dɯː/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; MC: &lt;strong&gt;/dʌi/&lt;/strong&gt;, Fanqie: &lt;strong&gt;徒哀切&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; Pinyin: &lt;strong&gt;tái&lt;/strong&gt;) was originally comprised of semantic「宀」(&lt;em&gt;building&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic「之」(OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*tjɯ/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; MC: &lt;strong&gt;/t͡ɕɨ/&lt;/strong&gt;, Fanqie: &lt;strong&gt;止而切&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; Pinyin: &lt;strong&gt;zhī&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NdQqO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NdQqO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;花502&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The semantic component「宀」was later transformed into a combination of「高」and「室」, leading on to the modern form「臺」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;春秋・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_(Chinese_state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;晉&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_brush&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;筆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ftqJV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ftqJV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E4%BE%AF%E9%A6%AC%E7%9B%9F%E6%9B%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;侯馬盟書&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YcVg4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YcVg4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rBznu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rBznu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following the Zhengzhang reconstructions, what is now Pinyin &lt;strong&gt;[y]&lt;/strong&gt; (OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*l/&lt;/strong&gt;) of「台」was connected to &lt;strong&gt;[t]&lt;/strong&gt; (OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*d/&lt;/strong&gt;) of「臺」through an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirated_consonant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;aspirated&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental,_alveolar_and_postalveolar_lateral_approximants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;voiceless alveolar lateral approximant&lt;/a&gt; &lt;strong&gt;/*l̥ʰ/&lt;/strong&gt;; without tracing their evolution, Pinyin &lt;strong&gt;[yi]&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;[tai]&lt;/strong&gt; do not really resemble each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;何琳儀《戰國古文字典》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;姚萱《花園莊東地甲骨卜辭的初步研究》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-10-12T13:34:21.553" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T13:34:21.553" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31590" CreationDate="2018-10-11T16:35:16.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This matches some intro materials I was shown in Changchun. I think it's the mainland standard. It's also repeated in a few places around the net if you baidu it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to say though, the standardization of Chinese sign language is a work in progress, the signers I met in Changchun were an extremely heterogeneous bunch language-wise, it was amazing the sheer diversity of signs they would accept for common phrases. And pinyin was not exactly their favorite toolkit, it's much harder to remember if you're deaf. So your mileage on the ground may vary, good luck with this project, whatever it is!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18891" LastActivityDate="2018-10-11T16:35:16.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31597" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31599" CreationDate="2018-10-11T17:35:30.637" Score="0" ViewCount="343" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, it's common to hear someone say 令 when referring to making something happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 妳咁做令我開心 (You make me happy when you do this.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some friends claimed Mandarin doesn't use 令 this way and uses 讓 instead， making the equivalent sentence 妳這樣做讓我開心。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Pleco lists 令人難忘 as &quot;creating an unforgettable impression.&quot; This suggests 令 can be used like this in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Is the use of 令 different in Canto vs Mandarin? Is 妳這樣做令我開心 not proper Mandarin grammar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If there is a difference, when do you use 令 and when do you use 讓?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-10-11T22:10:52.687" Title="Mandarin vs. Cantonese: 令 vs 讓 for making something happen" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31597" CreationDate="2018-10-11T21:32:53.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Is the use of 令 different in Canto vs Mandarin? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Firstly the word 令 has multiple meanings.  I believe the usage are same for Canto vs Mandarin as long as you're referring to the same meaning of the word.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 妳這樣做令我開心 not proper Mandarin grammar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Instead of improper grammar, it's more of unpopular usage, like usually 讓 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If there is a difference, when do you use 令 and when do you use 讓?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For Canto it's pretty much the same,  讓 is usually used for formal written (novel / books) while 令 for oral / casual writing.  Again it does not apply to 令's other meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Worth to mention that for idiom, the words are not interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2018-10-11T21:32:53.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31597" CreationDate="2018-10-11T21:46:44.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For the meaning of 'to make/ to cause',  the usage of 令 in colloquial Cantonese  cover the usage of 令(force/make), 使(cause/make) and 讓(allow/make) in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;令人唔開心 (Cantonese) = 令人不高興/ 使人不高興/ 讓人不高興 (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The difference between 令 使 and 讓 is in 'degree of emphasis'; colloquial Cantonese typically use final particles for emphasis&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In literal Cantonese (SWC- Standard written Chinese) It is the same as Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;令人不高興/ 使人不高興/ 讓人不高興 (Mandarin) = 令人不高興/ 使人不高興/ 讓人不高興 (SWC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cantonese do not use 讓 (make/ cause) colloquially at all. However, there's a word we use in colloquial Cantonese for 'make/ cause'  that is not used by Mandarin. This word is '等', but it has to be used with a 'cause'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(等)佢熟透&quot; = &quot;(wait) for it to be cooked completely&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;加猛火(等)佢快啲熟透&quot; = &quot;use high heat (to make) it cooked completely faster&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, it would be &quot;加猛火(讓)它快點熟透&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;One more note: Cantonese do use the compound words 使到 and 令到 colloquially. The same as Mandarin&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-11T22:10:52.687" LastActivityDate="2018-10-11T22:10:52.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31600" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-12T00:45:23.433" Score="0" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a general idea of the meaning of the song. And would love to read the translation.  Here is the lyric for 不枉.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;===========&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不枉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水滔滔 天蒼蒼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一借東風頃到燒光&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;樹靜雲淡也是虛罔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;撓起弓箭為著射穿怯慌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對酒當歌醉飲星光&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相看一刻哪需多講&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讓情義竭盡釋放&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在那盡頭地方&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;活著是 生不辜負厚望&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又或是 死得轟烈跌盪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用沉著對付兇悍&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用血肉成就絕地的曙光&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;患難是 一起經歷碰撞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在烽火中受仰望&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;淚流 被遍地花葬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;身再傷不枉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20563" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T02:01:30.320" Title="Can someone help translate 不枉 lyrics to English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31600" CreationDate="2018-10-12T01:41:14.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;不枉 Not wasted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水滔滔 天蒼蒼 vast water endless sky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一借東風頃刻燒光 everything burn in an instance once the East wind arrives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;樹靜雲淡也是虛罔 trees still (no wind), clouds thin (no storm), is all an illusion (of peace)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挽起弓箭為著射穿怯慌 raise bow and arrow to shot through (break) my fear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對酒當歌醉飲星光 in front of wine and songs, drunk under the starry night&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相看一刻哪需多講 No need for words, just a moment of eye contact said it all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讓情義竭盡釋放 Let our friendship and affection be boldly and completely  shown&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在那盡頭地方 Even at the time and place we end &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;活著是 生不辜負厚望 'living' is to not disappoint great hope that's intrusted upon yourself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又或是 死得轟烈跌盪 or die heroically and honorably&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用沉著對付兇悍 use calmness to deal with fierce (attack)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用血肉成就絕地的曙光 use our bodies to bring first light of dawn (hope)fore in deadly ground (hopeless situation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;患難是 一起經歷碰撞 'brotherhood (in arms)' is to endure fight and conflict together &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在烽火中受仰望 be looked upon in battle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;淚流 被遍地花葬 dropped tears buried by fallen flower (depict an open sky battle field in the wild)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;身再傷不枉 Not matter how hurt my body becomes, it is not wasted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-12T01:53:40.647" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T01:53:40.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31504" CreationDate="2018-10-12T06:10:10.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;宝贝 means &quot;treasure&quot; in Chinese. When use 宝贝 for babies it means babies are the treasure of families.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20565" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T06:10:10.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31603" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-12T08:11:45.963" Score="2" ViewCount="720" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to talk about a spreadsheet remotely with a colleague of mine. In order to do that I need some good terms for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;column &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;row&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;row is henghang I believe (not sure about the characters though but I can't really find something convincing for 'column'. It must also be some sort of 'hang' as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17485" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T10:16:44.813" Title="Chinese for 'row' &amp; 'column' in spreadsheets/tables" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31604" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31609" CreationDate="2018-10-12T08:55:05.960" Score="1" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to these dictionary links, both 學識 and 知識 mean &lt;strong&gt;knowledge&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/search/?searchtype=1&amp;amp;text=%E5%AD%B8%E8%AD%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;學識 - CantoDict&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/6078/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;知識 (zi1 sik1 | zhi1 shi5) : knowledge; learning - CantoDict&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 學識 and 知識?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which one would be used to translate this sentence: &amp;quot;He is a very knowledgeable person.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-12-26T18:46:05.170" LastActivityDate="2020-12-26T18:46:05.170" Title="Difference between 學識 and 知識？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31605" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31608" CreationDate="2018-10-12T09:00:22.657" Score="1" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;A movie used the phrase 看怎麼理解 to mean, &quot;it depends.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context was character A asking character B if something is good or bad. Character B responded with 看怎麼理解.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Is 看怎麼理解 a generalized phrase for &quot;it depends?&quot; For instance, can you say 看怎麼理解 if someone asks if a restaurant is good, and you want to say, &quot;it depends?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If not, when can you use 看怎麼理解, and what's a generalized phrase for &quot;it depends?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Is it different for Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is similar to another one, but not the same. This one is more to understand how 看怎麼理解 varies from other ways to say &quot;it depends&quot; and when 看怎麼理解 is applicable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2018-10-12T09:30:36.937" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T10:56:39.243" Title="Is 看怎麼理解? a generalized expression for &quot;it depends&quot; in Mandarin? How about for Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31604" CreationDate="2018-10-12T09:01:04.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;知识&lt;/strong&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;knowledge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;学识&lt;/strong&gt; is more like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;scholarly/academic knowledge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see how the emphasis is on 学, perhaps you could think of it like &lt;em&gt;book smarts&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To translate your sentence, on the other hand, I’d opt for something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;见多识广&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is to say that someone has seen a lot of stuff and knows lots of things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“He is a knowledgeable person” could just simply be written: &lt;code&gt;他见多识广。&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T09:01:04.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31603" CreationDate="2018-10-12T09:06:31.117" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;row: 行(hang2)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;column: 列(lie4)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what is henghang(横行?) . Chinese don't use this word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20567" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T09:06:31.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31605" CreationDate="2018-10-12T09:07:53.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;看怎么理解 is okay, but it wouldn’t be appropriate in all cases because 理解 is, in of itself, quite specific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more general phrase for 看怎么理解 would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看你怎么看&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(P.S.: adding a 你 in between sounds a lot more natural)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T09:07:53.573" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31604" CreationDate="2018-10-12T09:49:21.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my answer to this question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22253/%e8%ae%a4%e8%af%86-vs-%e7%9f%a5%e9%81%93-based-on-glyph-origins/22264#22264&quot;&gt;认识 vs 知道 based on glyph origins&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;見識: experience(v) = (see + know) *'to see to know'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;見識: experience(n)= (see + knowledge) knowledge from what you had seen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;學識: knowledge; acquirements (n) = (learn/study + know) knowledge from what you had studied&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常識: common sense; general knowledge(n) = (common + knowledge) knowledge that is common&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;知&lt;/strong&gt;识 = &lt;strong&gt;knowledge&lt;/strong&gt; that you &lt;strong&gt;know&lt;/strong&gt;. (regardless of the source, you can gain it by study or experience ) in other words 学识 and 見识 are both 知识&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;学识 = &lt;strong&gt;knowledge&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;acquirements&lt;/strong&gt; from what you had studied (as stated in my answer to the linked post)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is a very knowledgeable person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是一个知识渊博的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是一个很有知识的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meanwhile, 他是一个很有学识的人 would mean &amp;quot;He is a very academically knowledgeable person&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T10:07:48.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31605" CreationDate="2018-10-12T10:56:39.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;generally, &lt;strong&gt;it depends&lt;/strong&gt; is interpreted as: 那得看情况 or 那得看看. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(那得)看怎麼理解 is: &lt;em&gt;it depends on how you understand it&lt;/em&gt;, which seemingly has been briefed as &quot;&lt;em&gt;it depends&lt;/em&gt;&quot; in your specific context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T10:56:39.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10607" CreationDate="2018-10-12T13:21:20.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;三台&quot; should be translated as &quot;three groups of stars in ursa major&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there're totally &lt;strong&gt;six&lt;/strong&gt; stars, in three pairs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 靈臺秘苑　卷一, a picture showing 太微垣 contained &quot;三台&quot; (上台　中台　下台):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h2P0a.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h2P0a.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the corresponding text is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;北門西外接三台．與垣相對無兵灾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, in 開元占經　卷一百七&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三台古今同．六星兩兩而居．起文昌．列抵太微&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%94%90%E9%96%8B%E5%85%83%E5%8D%A0%E7%B6%93_(%E5%9B%9B%E5%BA%AB%E5%85%A8%E6%9B%B8%E6%9C%AC)/%E5%8D%B7107&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/唐開元占經_(四庫全書本)/卷107&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T13:21:20.320" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31594" CreationDate="2018-10-12T13:45:25.110" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;only if&lt;/strong&gt;, you're interested in history, culture; or, you need to read materials dated before 1949; learn traditional chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;otherwise, learn simplified chinese first. particularly for anyone who learn &quot;chinese&quot; for bread-and-butter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's &quot;easier&quot; to read &amp;amp; write; for foreigners; compare to traditional chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to be fair, well, there's a chinese proverb &quot;物以罕為貴&quot;; it's roughly &quot;when a thing is scarce, it is precious&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T13:45:25.110" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31594" CreationDate="2018-10-12T14:41:17.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I must say, the attitude towards learning Chinese is correct when you asked&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Which should I learn first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because you need to know both to be fully literate in Chinese. I'm also going to disagree with the other answer which suggests Traditional Chinese has a niche application and that Simplified Chinese is easier to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;The most important factor is your environment!&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you're going to be moving to a Chinese-speaking area:&lt;/strong&gt; Simplified Chinese has minimal usage in environments like Hong Kong and Macau and is practically not used at all in Taiwan and most established overseas Chinese communities. The areas that it is concentrated in are (1) Mainland China and (2) certain cities in Malaysia. Maybe you can add Singapore to that list, but their Chinese ability is mediocre at best, so English remains the most useful there.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you're just studying as a foreign learner in your current location:&lt;/strong&gt; Consider picking up the version which you would get most help from. If your friends or teachers surrounding you are mostly accustomed to Traditional Chinese, then you should go for Traditional Chinese. Ditto for Simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you're immersing yourself in Simplified Chinese materials, then pick Simplified Chinese.&lt;/strong&gt; Ditto for Traditional Chinese, but the former is more likely - especially if you're planning to study in Mainland China or work as a translator.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;It takes minimal effort to switch.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are fluent in one script, it takes very little time to switch to the other. Prioritise being fluent in one, rather than worrying about what you should choose first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;If somehow all other factors are equal, pick Traditional Chinese.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simplified Chinese is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; easier to learn than Traditional Chinese.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=ch&amp;amp;v=39&amp;amp;c=mc&amp;amp;c=tw&amp;amp;c=hk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;See stats by IndexMundi*&lt;/a&gt;. Mainland China, the only fully Chinese region using Simplified Chinese, forms the lower bound of the literacy rate trends of the Chinese-using regions, indicating that script reform had minimal impact and economic development was the deciding factor by far.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simplified Chinese instils a relatively poorer understanding of how the writing system and character components work.&lt;/strong&gt; This is due to its overuse of writing abbreviations in its goal of cutting down strokes, meaning you'll be learning many components &lt;em&gt;twice&lt;/em&gt; (an abbreviated version and a non-abbreviated version). Prepare for much more rote memorisation instead of exploiting reusable concepts if you choose Simplified Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In the wider cultural region of East Asia, Traditional Chinese is more useful.&lt;/strong&gt; Historical China has influenced many countries in East Asia, including their vocabulary and writing systems. These influences were in the form of the Traditional Script, meaning you're killing multiple birds with one stone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;em&gt;Ultimately sourced from the CIA world factbook.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T14:41:17.603" CommentCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31614" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-12T20:18:09.880" Score="1" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was taught to write in school (USA) by rotating the page about 15-30 degrees to get a more natural stroke. I actually find it difficult to write with the page completely square to my body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been practicing Chinese characters off and on for years, and just today realized that I've been keep thing page square to myself, and that it's always felt a bit awkward, especially horizontal strokes. Today for the first time I decided to rotate the page slightly and it immediately felt more natural and efficient. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if rotating the page is something that Chinese people do or are taught to do, or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I probably kept the page square because it helps me see the characters better. It was initially disorienting to rotate the page, but I'm going to experiment for a while to see if this can increase my comfort, and efficiency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T04:38:38.900" Title="When writing, do chinese people rotate the page to write more easily?" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31614" CreationDate="2018-10-12T22:38:19.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wasn't taught this in schools in China! I think in elementary school, the suggested practice is to keep everything square and sit with straight back for the sake of good eyesight and posture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Turning paper is more of a personal habit I reckon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just out of curiousity do you turn your head a bit when you write on turned paper as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20129" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T22:38:19.493" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31616" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31642" CreationDate="2018-10-13T00:37:09.503" Score="5" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are other posts that mention the relationship between classical Chinese vis-a-vis Mandarin (e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12591/what-is-the-relationship-between-vernacular-and-literary-chinese&quot; title=&quot;this&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; one and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/27755/what-is-the-difference-between-colloquial-and-literary-readings-of-characters&quot; title=&quot;this&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; one), but what defines the use of &quot;literary&quot; and &quot;vernacular&quot; readings in other dialects? Are all &quot;literary&quot; Chinese readings all derived from the same sources (i.e. classical Chinese), and their use and resultant &quot;speech register&quot; derived the same way? Or is the choice in other dialects based on other principles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the word &lt;code&gt;新加坡&lt;/code&gt; consists of the characters &lt;code&gt;新&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;加&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;坡&lt;/code&gt;, two of which have separate &quot;literary&quot; and &quot;vernacular&quot; pronunciations in Teochew. Would saying &quot;Sing-gia-bo&quot; (maximizing the use of &lt;code&gt;文&lt;/code&gt; pronunciations) be considered more like saying &quot;Republic of Singapore&quot; while saying &quot;Sim-gê-bo&quot; (maximizing the use of &lt;code&gt;白&lt;/code&gt; pronunciations) be considered more like saying &quot;Singers, lah&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I am aware that &quot;Republic of Singapore&quot; would be &lt;code&gt;新加坡共和国&lt;/code&gt;, though it too has other characters that have divergent &quot;literary&quot; and &quot;vernacular&quot; pronunciations; would there be a difference in the way &quot;Sing-gia-bo Gang-hua-gog&quot; and &quot;Sim-gê-bo Giong-huê-gog&quot; would be understood when spoken or read out loud?). (Or would such a case be a fixed phrase anyways, and the distinction not be applicable?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16284" LastActivityDate="2018-10-19T09:19:48.207" Title="How are &quot;vernacular&quot; and &quot;literary&quot; readings of characters chosen and used outside of Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31614" CreationDate="2018-10-13T05:41:52.837" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We were not taught that, but we write the individual character with an angle naturally. It is hard to write a line parallel to the paper and the table if the paper is also parallel to the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people move papers as  they write， some rotate papers， some rotate their bodies...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is very personal。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-10-13T05:41:52.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31614" CreationDate="2018-10-13T09:19:09.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't rotate! Because if you rotate the paper, you may feel uncomfortable to read so you naturally 'rotate' your sitting position, which may hurt your health.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20575" LastActivityDate="2018-10-13T09:19:09.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31619" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31622" CreationDate="2018-10-13T20:38:46.297" Score="3" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;The page I followed on Instagram uploaded a picture complete with its caption that says :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很多小朋友以为长大了以后才能自由自在。他们不知道，他们才是最自由自在的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also provide this translation :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Many children think they can 自由自在 after they grow up. They don't know that actually, they are the one who is the most 自由自在.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I want to ask is, why do they use 才能 instead of 能? Isn't 才能 a noun? (Cmiiw).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, why do they put 才 between 他们 and 是? What does 才 mean here? Does it refer to the word &quot;actually&quot; in the translation? But doesn't 才mean &quot;ability/talent&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T10:36:25.570" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T10:36:25.570" Title="Why are the two 才s used in 很多小朋友以为长大了以后才能自由自在。他们不知道，他们才是最自由自在的?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31620" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31621" CreationDate="2018-10-13T21:29:50.697" Score="0" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 儘量 and 盡量 seem to mean, &quot;try your best,&quot; according to these dictionary entries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?word=%E7%9B%A1%E9%87%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?word=%E7%9B%A1%E9%87%8F&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?word=%E5%84%98%E9%87%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?word=%E5%84%98%E9%87%8F&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) In Mandarin and Cantonese, is there a difference for when you use 儘量 vs 盡量? Or are they interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T03:28:20.360" Title="Difference between 儘量 and 盡量?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31620" CreationDate="2018-10-13T23:23:46.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'儘' in '儘量' has the 亻 Radical, denote 'human effort'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/6963/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;儘量&lt;/a&gt; :'to the best of one's ability' ; 'as far as possible' (in term of human effort)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Do not confuse with 盡量 which is different in form, reading, and meaning.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4410/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;盡量&lt;/a&gt; : reach the limit (drink or eat); to the full&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Do not confuse with 儘量 which is different in form, reading, and meaning.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you say '我會儘量給他貸款' , you mean: 'I (personally) will do my best to give him a loan' (to the best of you ability to secure a loan for him)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you say '我會盡量給他貸款', you mean: &quot; I will give him the maximum amount in loan'. (if the bank only authorizes you to lent out loans no bigger than $5000, then $5000 loan is the limit) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;儘量投放物資 - do one's best to deliver supplies&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;盡量投放物資 - deliver maximum amount of supplies until it is exhausted&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;尽 is the simplified form for both 盡 and 儘.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which mean in Mainland China, 儘量 and 盡量 are both written as 尽量, but their pinyin are different depend on which meaning you are using.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-14T03:28:20.360" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T03:28:20.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31619" CreationDate="2018-10-14T00:09:30.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In neither situation does「才」mean &lt;em&gt;talent&lt;/em&gt; - it is quite easy to make a parsing mistake, especially in the first question referring to「才能」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「才」is widely used as a phonetic loan (that is, not related to the meaning &lt;em&gt;talent&lt;/em&gt;) in Modern Chinese meaning &lt;em&gt;only; only then&lt;/em&gt;. This is why you may see alternative representations in some other texts, such as「纔」, which I'll use here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很多小朋友以爲長大了以後「纔」能自由自在。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Many children think that, &lt;strong&gt;only after&lt;/strong&gt; they grow up, they have the freedom to do as they wish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is not comparable with「纔」omitted. In this situation, if「纔」is omitted native speakers will treat it as if「就」is omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很多小朋友以爲長大了以後「就」能自由自在。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Many children think that they can have the freedom to do as they wish &lt;strong&gt;as soon as&lt;/strong&gt; they grow up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second question,「纔」similarly means &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt;, and is used for emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他們不知道，他們「纔」是最自由自在的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Little do they know, &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; they are the ones with the freedom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The emphasis is on &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; the children having the freedom, and not anyone else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since「才」(&lt;em&gt;talent&lt;/em&gt;) is a noun, to avoid parsing「才」incorrectly, recognise that &lt;em&gt;talent/talented&lt;/em&gt; is something that people &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他「有」才能 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他「是」天才&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without「有」or「是」occurring before「才」, you're most likely looking at a meaning not related to &lt;em&gt;talent&lt;/em&gt;. Of course,「剛才/剛纔」(&lt;em&gt;just a moment ago&lt;/em&gt;) has nothing to do with &lt;em&gt;talent&lt;/em&gt; either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-10-14T00:21:10.967" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T00:21:10.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6233" CreationDate="2018-10-14T00:45:35.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original restaurant named for &quot;Mother and Child Reunion&quot; is really  &quot;Chicken Egg Foo Yung&quot;. Chicken Egg Foo Yung is a Chinese Indonesian omelet cooked with mixed vegetables such as bean sprouts, shiitake mushrooms, onions or scallions or other vegetables. The omelet or pancakes as it's also referred, are then served topped brown gravy and a Sprinkle of chopped or minced scallions. It originates from the Canton side of mainland China. It’s a popular dish in Chinese American cuisine that can be found on most menus across United States.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20580" LastEditorUserId="20580" LastEditDate="2018-10-14T00:51:04.733" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T00:51:04.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31619" CreationDate="2018-10-14T00:49:27.927" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;才 is &lt;em&gt;ability, talent&lt;/em&gt; when used as a &lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your examples, however, it's used as &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;adverb&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. The first 才 in 很多小朋友以为长大了以后才能自由自在 is used as the sense 1 below and the second 才 in 他们不知道，他们才是最自由自在的 is the sense 2 below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;表示只有在某种条件下，或由于某种原因、目的，然后怎么样。&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;由于抢救及时，这批图书才保存了下来&lt;/em&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;强调确定的语气。多与语助词“呢”连用。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T00:49:27.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31625" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-14T01:00:25.727" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;A chinese visitor left this note on my door.&#xA;If it was typed, i'd easily find the meaning. But it is handwritten!&#xA;Would you guys help me to understand it, please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UmFZM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UmFZM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Note&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20581" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T23:36:30.323" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T23:36:30.323" Title="Handwritten note in chinese (Characters identified: 阳台还有衣服)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13747" CreationDate="2018-10-14T03:53:02.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a little tidbit here. Spanish has no more of a future tense than English. The conjugated &quot;modal&quot; auxiliary &quot;haber&quot; is simply tagged onto the end of the infinitive to form the future. Historically, &quot;hé de hablar&quot; became &quot;hablar hé&quot; became &quot;hablaré&quot;. In fact, in modern Portuguese, a close cousin to Spanish, a pronoun can be inserted between the infinitive and the future marker &quot;falá-lo-ei&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20583" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T03:53:02.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31625" CreationDate="2018-10-14T04:15:38.440" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;阳台还有衣服&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Yángtái háiyǒu yīfu&lt;/sub&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This directly translates to &quot;balcony still has clothes&quot;.  More specifically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E9%98%B3%E5%8F%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;阳台&lt;/a&gt; (yángtái) = balcony (or something similar, like a veranda)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%BF%98%E6%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;还有&lt;/a&gt; (háiyǒu) = still has (in this context)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%A1%A3%E6%9C%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;衣服&lt;/a&gt; (yīfú) = clothes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T04:15:38.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31614" CreationDate="2018-10-14T04:38:38.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not aware of anyone rotating the paper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But consider that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the standard &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;kaiti&lt;/a&gt;, horizontal lines are slightly higher on the right. They are exactly horizontal in modern printing fonts (songti or heiti), but most practices kaiti for handwriting.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I've heard that most English writers writes with a small angle between the pen and the paper, while most Chinese, including me, writes with the pen almost vertical (say 70 degrees).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm also told to not practice writing using a ball-point pen. Better use a fountain pen or a pencil, and some consider a gel-ink pen acceptable, but specifically not a ball point (the original oil-based with the thinnest refill).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These factors may or may not have contributed to the different ways of writing. I could only guess. If rotating the paper actually makes you feel better, you may try to figure out if the actual problem lies in these factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11444" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T04:38:38.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31629" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31630" CreationDate="2018-10-14T07:28:31.267" Score="4" ViewCount="622" Body="&lt;p&gt;HSK 5 translates 果实 as 'fruit'. I always refer to fruit as 水果 and so would like to know the difference between 果实 and 水果. My teacher has told me that 水果 is a 果实 but not all 果实 are 水果. Fruits that consist of water should be referred to as 水果 or either 果实, but fruits that do not consist of water should be only referred to as 果实. However, all fruits consist water right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Main question: what is the difference between 果实 and 水果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20584" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T15:38:34.013" Title="Difference between 水果 and 果实" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31629" CreationDate="2018-10-14T08:06:16.833" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;「果實」matches the &lt;strong&gt;botanical&lt;/strong&gt; definition of &lt;em&gt;fruit&lt;/em&gt;, and「水果」refers to the &lt;strong&gt;colloquial&lt;/strong&gt; usage. The Wikipedia article sums it up nicely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In common language usage (&lt;strong&gt;水果&lt;/strong&gt;), &quot;fruit&quot; normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of a plant that are sweet or sour, and edible in the raw state, such as apples, bananas, grapes, lemons, oranges, and strawberries. On the other hand, in botanical usage (&lt;strong&gt;果實&lt;/strong&gt;), &quot;fruit&quot; includes many structures that are not commonly called &quot;fruits&quot;, such as bean pods, corn kernels, tomatoes, and wheat grains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T08:06:16.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31629" CreationDate="2018-10-14T09:03:43.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my answer to a similar question&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29437/why-is-fruit-referred-to-as-%e6%b0%b4%e6%9e%9c-if-%e6%9e%9c-already-means-fruit&quot;&gt;why is ‘fruit’ referred to as 水果 if 果 already means fruit?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Also, 腰果, 白果 are nut (果仁). The single character 果 is too general to be used specifically for 'fruit'.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nut (果仁) is also a 果实, same as fruit (水果). In other words, '果实' refer to the 'seed dispersing package part' of a plant, including nut and fruit, while '水果' refer to 'fruit' only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also from my other answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJWTPdlUJcM&amp;amp;t=2m57s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;生果唔同水果&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For Cantonese, 生果 and 水果 are two different things. 生果 is fruit that grown on tree and 水果 is edible plant that grow in water (e.g. 水蓮藕 is a kind of root and 水菱角 is kind of nut). But for Mandarin, 水果 referred to all fruit that grow on tree and the term 生果 is rarely used.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T09:03:43.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31603" CreationDate="2018-10-14T10:16:44.813" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mainland China,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;row = 行, &#xA;column = 列.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行（hang2）meaning 橫（heng2）or horizontal; 列（lie4）meaning 竖（shu4）or vertical&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While in Taiwan, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;row = 列, &#xA;column = 行.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is really confusing! Though I'm from Taiwan, I actually prefer the mainland way, because it &quot;sounds&quot; the same as its meaning. The same tone gives a feeling of the same meaning. People just always mix up 行 and 列 in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T10:16:44.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21196" CreationDate="2018-10-14T14:44:42.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned elsewhere, the bottom right of 「旅」 and 「派」 are unrelated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The left and top right of 「旅」 was indeed a single component 「㫃」, and the rest of the character was「从」. &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=35898&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「㫃」 is a picture of a &lt;em&gt;flagpole&lt;/em&gt; with a fluttering flag&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hg2hD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hg2hD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;粹&lt;/a&gt;282&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=27352&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集27352&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「旅」adds multiple people to the picture who are carrying the flag. The banner was later separated from the pole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YaZoH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YaZoH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鐵&lt;/a&gt;90.1&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=5823&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集5823&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ebPvs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ebPvs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;法&lt;/a&gt;200&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty#Eastern_Han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E9m80.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E9m80.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%AD%A6%E8%8D%A3%E7%A2%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;武榮碑&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bceZf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bceZf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「旅」usually represented a travelling military group, so sometimes a war chariot 「車」 was added to the picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bRFcn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bRFcn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;縈伯簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=3481&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成3481&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This shape is no longer found in the modern script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「派」 was originally 「」, where 「氵」 was added later. 「」 and 「永」 were originally the same character, compounding semantic 「彳」 or 「亍」 (depicting &lt;em&gt;half a crossroads intersection&lt;/em&gt;, an indicator of &lt;em&gt;motion&lt;/em&gt;) and the shape of「卜」(literally &lt;em&gt;branching cracks during oracle bone divination&lt;/em&gt;, here an abstract representation of a &lt;em&gt;river network&lt;/em&gt;). The entire character depicts a &lt;em&gt;long, flowing river network&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IKw5u.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IKw5u.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;3333&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=390&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集390&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qIZMH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qIZMH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;史宜父鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2515&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2515&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before standardisation, Chinese characters did not have strict rules; mirror-imaged characters were generally not treated as different, with exception to cases like「左」vs.「右」out of necessity. Later standardisation led to「永」being clearly written one way and「」being its mirror image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0XEhB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0XEhB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77391&amp;amp;page=126&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;永部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;東漢&lt;br&gt;隸&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rx6fl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rx6fl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%AD%94%E5%BD%AA%E7%A2%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孔彪碑&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uk15J.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uk15J.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BzrE2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BzrE2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77391&amp;amp;page=127&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;東漢&lt;br&gt;隸&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h8Gc1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h8Gc1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%9C%9D%E4%BE%AF%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%90%E6%AE%8B%E7%A2%91/5851507&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;朝侯小子&lt;/a&gt;「脈」&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ioJJO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ioJJO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The character meanings are developed through the original meaning of &lt;em&gt;long, branching river network&lt;/em&gt;:&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「永」, &lt;em&gt;long &gt; long time/forever&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「、派」, &lt;em&gt;branching (philosophical) schools of thought &gt; political parties, styles&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;This should illustrate why 「脈」 and「脉」are variants of each other.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T12:59:07.983" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T12:59:07.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31634" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31636" CreationDate="2018-10-14T17:41:36.140" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;This dictionary entry says the Mandarin equivalent of Cantonese's 睇唔起 is 瞧不起.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/15825/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/15825/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some Mandarin speakers seem to use 看不起.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 看不起 a valid way of expressing 睇唔起, or are those Mandarin speakers using the wrong term?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T19:03:37.733" Title="Could 看不起 work as the Mandarin equivalent of 睇唔起?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31635" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31637" CreationDate="2018-10-14T18:21:25.463" Score="7" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_completion_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This grammar page&lt;/a&gt; tries to explain when to use 了 after a verb and when to use 了 after an object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It claims when the time is specified, it's acceptable to use 了 after a verb and before the object as in 她上个月去了北京.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it provides another example where the time is specified yet 了 comes after the object (上个月我去台湾了).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When the time is specified, where does 了 go? After the verb or after the object?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How does the different 了 placement change the meaning/correctness of these two examples: (a) 上个月我去台湾了 and (b) 她上个月去了北京.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T23:34:14.190" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T23:34:14.190" Title="Understanding 了: difference between 她上个月去了北京 and 上个月我去台湾了?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31634" CreationDate="2018-10-14T19:03:37.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is 看不起 a valid way of expressing 睇唔起&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a direct translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瞧不起/ 看不起 in Mandarin = 睇唔起 in Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瞧得起/ 看得起 in Mandarin = 睇得起 in Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瞧不起 is more colloquial; 看不起 is more literary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T19:03:37.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31635" CreationDate="2018-10-14T19:51:34.420" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 indicates 'completion of an action'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;上个月我去了台湾&quot; the action of &quot;去&quot; is completed, meaning you had gone there but it doesn't say you are still there or have already came back &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;上个月我去台湾了&quot;,  '了' is a final particle for the emphasis (stress in tone) of the whole sentence &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see the different by compare the two structure with other context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;下个月我去了台湾&quot; is nonsensical, you can't already gone there when you say 'next month'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'了' in &quot;下个月我去台湾了&quot;  is a final particle for emphasis, and this sentence does make sense&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T19:51:34.420" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31643" CreationDate="2018-10-15T05:16:12.133" Score="1" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;我没知道存有椰子火锅到他吃为止。&#xA;他吃椰子时(到)我没知道此存有为止。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to formalize my grammar.&#xA;Are either sentences acceptable.&#xA;Would someone know what I am saying?&#xA;I am not sure if I have to include the Time Phrase first or if I can leave the subject as 我 and then the independent clause would be 我没知道存有椰子火锅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May someone please tell me if these sentences make sense and how I would appropriately say this sentence?  Maybe give a few examples if there are certain variations one may use in this structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to say &quot;I didn't know there existed a coconut hot pot until he ate it/was eating it.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation is I didn't know this existed and then I saw that one Instagram video with that caption about YE ZI .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone help correct my sentences and perhaps give me a new way of explaining this using WEI ZHI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-12-13T01:16:00.183" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T01:16:00.183" Title="Using the word 为止 (with a time phrase)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31635" CreationDate="2018-10-15T05:55:08.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some linguist argue that 了 DO NOT indicates 'completion of an action'.&#xA;Instead RVC (&quot;Resultive verb complements&quot;) indicate 'completion of an action', but we are talking about 了...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 renders either part or whole situation factual, that is real. Please, notice that factual situation does correlate (most of the time) with being in the past, but it could very well be in present or in future (see conditional factuality in ex.1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you do X, then It's all done.&lt;/em&gt; &#xA;Part (If you do X) of the situation is real but the whole situation is &quot;fake&quot;, that is it's a conditional statment. &lt;strong&gt;If condition X is factual, then Y will be done, but Y is not done yet (not factual yet).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;I doing this thing now.&lt;/em&gt; Whole situation is factual. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not much difference in your example though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(a) 上个月我去台湾了.  Last month I have already gone to Taiwan. So my visiting Taiwan is a fact. Without (上个月) this sentence won't be translated with the past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(b) 她上个月去了北京. Last month she had gone to Beijing, .... (looks like sentence hangs in the air, it's not complete, because you had said that A became fact before B, but you didn't provide B)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="16117" LastEditDate="2018-11-24T01:44:28.053" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T01:44:28.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31638" CreationDate="2018-10-15T10:13:55.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;@xbh has provided the sentences that native speakers would put in this context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, the common way to use 为止 is to put it into the structure 到...为止. Eg. 到目前为止; 到今天为止; 到这里为止;etc. In English, we can use &lt;strong&gt;till&lt;/strong&gt; to interpret it. Eg. &lt;em&gt;Till now/today/this point&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this can help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-15T10:13:55.947" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31616" CreationDate="2018-10-15T11:18:16.307" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, let us clarify one distinction: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;literary Chinese&quot; (文言文), a &lt;em&gt;register&lt;/em&gt; of the written language in common use across the East Asian Sinosphere before the early 20th century. Its opposite is &quot;vernacular Chinese&quot; (白話文)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;literary readings of Chinese characters&quot; (文讀), a &lt;em&gt;set of readings&lt;/em&gt; mapping Chinese characters from written form to spoken form. Its opposite is &quot;colloquial reading&quot; (白讀).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literary readings are derived from the correspondences to higher prestige variants, usually a form of Mandarin, from the historical capital at that time. They generally diffused into the local speech through education, and it is perhaps due to the meritocratic nature of the 科舉 (imperial examination) that this influence was exerted on &quot;rural speech&quot; at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colloquial readings on the other hand arise from &quot;native&quot; sound changes, and are generally closer to Middle Chinese phonology (or even Old Chinese phonology in the case of the Min group) than the literary readings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exact nature of the literary / colloquial split varies across the varieties of Chinese, but it must be emphasised that each reading is generally fixed, and despite the &quot;literary/colloquial&quot; moniker does not correspond directly to linguistic register. Instead, the situation is much more similar to that of Japanese 音読み (&lt;em&gt;on'yomi&lt;/em&gt;) vs 訓読み (&lt;em&gt;kun'yomi&lt;/em&gt;), where on'yomi was borrowed from a form of Chinese, whilst kun'yomi was &quot;native&quot;. However, there is little if any choice to use one or the other; the expression itself dictates which is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These factors include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Names: for Min, given names are in literary, surnames are in colloquial. Country names are overwhelmingly in literary, especially if they are transliterated from other non-Chinese languages. Other geographical names are interesting, as there is a distinction (at least in Min Dong) between locations which are colloquial (nearer to the speech community geographically, hence in-group) and those which are literary (further). In Fuzhou Min Dong, &lt;code&gt;江&lt;/code&gt; is colloquial &lt;code&gt;gĕ̤ng&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;閩江 Mìng-gĕ̤ng&lt;/code&gt;, the Min River, which flows through the city of Fuzhou; whereas it is literary &lt;code&gt;gŏng&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;江蘇 Gŏng-sŭ&lt;/code&gt;, referring to Jiangsu. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Neologisms: anything perceived in the language environment as &quot;modern&quot; and therefore a loan from the prevailing standard speech will be in literary.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bound vs free morphemes: most free morphemes are in colloquial, whereas bound morphemes in compound words have a higher probability of being in literary (although not always).  Occasionally, the same character's literary and colloquial readings will have spawned two lexemes with different meanings, e.g. Cantonese &lt;code&gt;驚&lt;/code&gt; has the colloquial reading &lt;code&gt;geng1&lt;/code&gt; meaning &quot;to be afraid, to fear&quot;, contrasted with literary &lt;code&gt;ging1&lt;/code&gt; &quot;to frighten&quot;. But ging1 is found primarily in compounds whereas geng1 can be used independently.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Idioms: chengyu (成語) are in literary, but suyu (俗語) are generally in colloquial.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would expect &lt;code&gt;新加坡&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;新加坡共和国&lt;/code&gt; to have only a literary pronunciation in Teochew (as well as all other Chinese topolects), and for that to be the only pronunciation used, both in formal and in informal settings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I have seen the following claim (&lt;em&gt;Rethinking East Asian Languages, Vernaculars, and Literacies, 1000–1919&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1Q6JBAAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA279&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;p.279&lt;/a&gt;) - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;in other [regional languages and dialects], speakers may shift between the two, though not always consciously; the choice is dictated by habit, local convention, and circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though there is no &lt;em&gt;a priori&lt;/em&gt; problem with the claim, the data used was a particular stylistic form of storytelling from Yangzhou, rather than general speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2018-10-19T09:19:48.207" LastActivityDate="2018-10-19T09:19:48.207" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31638" CreationDate="2018-10-15T12:11:28.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我沒知道存有椰子火鍋到他吃爲止。他吃椰子時(到)我沒知道此存有爲止。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a couple of things that needs to be addressed about the sentence - unfortunately, in its current state, it is not legible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chinese doesn't use the equivalent of English &lt;em&gt;I never knew&lt;/em&gt; (我「沒」知道) - we usually say &lt;em&gt;I didn't know&lt;/em&gt; (我「不」知道) or &lt;em&gt;I've never heard of&lt;/em&gt; (我沒聽說過).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「存有」is an exceedingly specialised philosophical term; to literally say &lt;em&gt;exists&lt;/em&gt; in everyday language, the term is「存在」. An example sentence might be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ｘ（這種東西）不存在。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;There's no such thing as X&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The use of「爲止」here is problematic, and others have addressed how to use this term correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using something natural like @xbh's example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在他吃之前我都不知道還有椰子火鍋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Before he ate coconut hot pot, I never knew it existed.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is recommended, but as an exercise in using「爲止」, you can construct a grammatically correct statement like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我朋友剛剛吃了椰子火鍋。「到目前爲止」，我還不知道有這種東西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My friend just ate coconut hot pot. &lt;strong&gt;Up until now&lt;/strong&gt;, I didn't know there was such a thing.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-10-15T12:19:32.673" LastActivityDate="2018-10-15T12:19:32.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31644" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-15T13:34:27.507" Score="2" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6FYE5.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6FYE5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what the script says and also what the seals denote. The seals are red on the painting but I have changed the colour to make them easier to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20589" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T23:31:52.510" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T23:31:52.510" Title="Can any one tell me about the script or the seals please? (Characters identified: 藍鳥深竹 癸亥年 二月 興利)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31644" CreationDate="2018-10-15T14:12:20.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;as @droooze pointed out, the text is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;藍鳥深竹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;癸亥年　二月　興利&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the first seal is &amp;quot;陳奇傑印&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the second one is &amp;quot;陳興利畫&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;藍鳥深竹&amp;quot; is the painting's title, roughly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;blue (藍) bird (鳥) [in] bamboo forest (深竹)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;癸亥年&amp;quot; is 1983 - 60i (i is integer), eg 1983, 1923, . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;二月&amp;quot; is february&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;together, the painting is drawn in the february of 1983 (or 1923, . . .)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;陳奇傑印&amp;quot; means the seal (印) of mr 陳 (surname) 奇傑 (name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;陳興利畫&amp;quot; means drawn (畫) by mr 陳 (surname) 興利 (name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;most likely, mr 陳 used 2 names here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-15T14:12:20.600" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31646" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31648" CreationDate="2018-10-16T02:16:41.190" Score="2" ViewCount="13114" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading the comments to the news article &lt;a href=&quot;http://sports.sina.com.cn/others/volleyball/2018-09-28/doc-ihkmwytp6392402.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;巴西女排变性球星将竞选国会议员 已瞄准东京奥运&lt;/a&gt; about a Brazilian volleyballer who is transgender and wants to play in the Olympics, we have two comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lu0qi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lu0qi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both use this term &amp;quot;JJ&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男队员割了JJ就可以参加女队的比赛？真是天下大乱了！&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Can a male player cut a JJ to participate in a women's team? It’s really a mess! (&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#zh-CN/en/%E7%94%B7%E9%98%9F%E5%91%98%E5%89%B2%E4%BA%86JJ%E5%B0%B1%E5%8F%AF%E4%BB%A5%E5%8F%82%E5%8A%A0%E5%A5%B3%E9%98%9F%E7%9A%84%E6%AF%94%E8%B5%9B%EF%BC%9F%E7%9C%9F%E6%98%AF%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8B%E5%A4%A7%E4%B9%B1%E4%BA%86%EF%BC%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隔了jj就可以参加女性的比赛，这对女性体育运动公平吗？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;You can participate in women's competitions after jj. Is this fair for women's sports? (&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#zh-CN/en/%E9%9A%94%E4%BA%86jj%E5%B0%B1%E5%8F%AF%E4%BB%A5%E5%8F%82%E5%8A%A0%E5%A5%B3%E6%80%A7%E7%9A%84%E6%AF%94%E8%B5%9B%EF%BC%8C%E8%BF%99%E5%AF%B9%E5%A5%B3%E6%80%A7%E4%BD%93%E8%82%B2%E8%BF%90%E5%8A%A8%E5%85%AC%E5%B9%B3%E5%90%97%EF%BC%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we have &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%9A%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;割&lt;/a&gt;了JJ&amp;quot; (gēle JJ; &amp;quot;cut JJ&amp;quot;) and &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%9A%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隔&lt;/a&gt;了jj&amp;quot; (géle JJ; &amp;quot;separate JJ&amp;quot;), which suggests it's most likely that JJ refers to &amp;quot;penis&amp;quot;, but I'm not sure, so...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is &amp;quot;JJ&amp;quot; slang for &amp;quot;penis&amp;quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2021-04-10T00:03:14.427" Title="Is &quot;JJ&quot; slang for &quot;penis&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;slang&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31647" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31650" CreationDate="2018-10-16T02:31:56.527" Score="3" ViewCount="501" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve always wonder what is the difference between the word 可能 and 能. I know it both means can, possible but is there any difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-10-16T04:38:25.430" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T04:44:47.207" Title="Difference between 可能 and 能" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31646" CreationDate="2018-10-16T02:58:40.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin 雞巴/Jībā/ is slang for 'penis', And it is often further nicknamed 雞雞/jī jī/ or 小雞雞/Xiǎo Jī Jī/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;JJ is a shorthand for 雞雞/Jī Jī/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A possibility for Cantonese to also use jj for penis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In Cantonese, we call children's (or small) penis 賓周&#xA;Since 周 sounded like 啫, we also call it 啫啫 or 啫啫仔&#xA;JJ sounded like 啫啫, therefore is used instead in some casual Cantonese publication, mostly entertainment news or gossip column.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;As for adult (or big) penis, there are several different names for it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-16T03:13:29.780" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T03:13:29.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31647" CreationDate="2018-10-16T04:43:25.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;So you're right about 能. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E8%83%BD%0D%0A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;can / to be able to / might possibly / ability / (physics) energy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, 可能 on the other hand has a different set of meanings: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E5%8F%AF%E8%83%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;might (happen) / possible / probable / possibility / probability / maybe / perhaps / CL: 個｜个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;能 = able&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可能 = maybe&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's two examples using 去 (go):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你明天能去吗？&#xA;Are you able to go tomorrow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他可能去也可能不去。&#xA;He might go and then again he might not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T04:43:25.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31647" CreationDate="2018-10-16T04:44:47.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%83%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;能&lt;/a&gt; (néng) talks about &lt;em&gt;capability&lt;/em&gt;, whereas &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8F%AF%E8%83%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;可能&lt;/a&gt; (kěnéng) talks about &lt;em&gt;possibility&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often 能 is used where &quot;capability&quot; takes on a practical sense (not necessarily about being physically able to do something).  Typically, 可能 is used when deciding if something is a suitable thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We do the same thing in English: &lt;em&gt;I can swim&lt;/em&gt; (capability) vs. &lt;em&gt;I can swim in Summer&lt;/em&gt; (possibility).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;能 and 不能&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我能&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B8%B8%E6%B3%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;游泳&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Wǒ néng yóuyǒng.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I am capable of swimming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This literally implies I am physically capable of swimming.  It doesn't express whether or not I want to go swimming, if I'm allowed to go swimming, and if swimming is a suitable activity (although some of this will be clear from context).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A example where 能 describes a literal capability is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;罗根不是他的真名,并且还&lt;strong&gt;不能游泳&lt;/strong&gt;。  (&lt;a href=&quot;https://wx.abbao.cn/a/8631-8ab0919f6f78440e.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Luōgēn bùshì tā de zhēnmíng, bìngqiě hái bùnéng yóuyǒng.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Logan is not his real name, and he cannot swim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example where 能 describes a practical capability is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;戴隐形眼镜&lt;strong&gt;能游泳&lt;/strong&gt;吗？  (&lt;a href=&quot;https://jingyan.baidu.com/article/ce09321b375e402bff858f29.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Dài yǐnxíng yǎnjìng néng yóuyǒng ma?&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [If someone] wears contact lenses, can they go swimming?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, wearing contact lenses has no effect on one's ability to swim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;可能 and 不可能&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你可能游泳。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Nǐ kěnéng yóuyǒng.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You could possibly go swimming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This indicates the possibility of going swimming; the person we're saying this to may or may not be able to swim.  An actual example is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;可能游泳&lt;/strong&gt;或者骑自行车 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_6455b6f30100ihnj.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Nǐ kěnéng yóuyǒng huòzhě qí zìxíngchē&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You could go swimming or ride a bike&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;春节期间的水温比较低，我觉得&lt;strong&gt;不可能游泳&lt;/strong&gt;。 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mafengwo.cn/wenda/detail-1980603.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Chūnjié qíjiān de shuǐwēn bǐjiào dī, wǒ juédé bù kěnéng yóuyǒng&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  During Spring Festival, the water temperature is comparatively low, I feel it is not possible to go swimming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, we could change 不可能游泳 to 不能游泳 to talk about a practical impossibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note&lt;/em&gt;: I'm a Chinese learner too.  I tried to ensure this is correct, but please let me know if I've made a mistake I'm unaware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T04:44:47.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31652" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31653" CreationDate="2018-10-16T10:40:09.720" Score="0" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;In HSK 5, lesson 1, the word '轮' is part of the word list, with the translation: 'v. to take turns'. In lesson 3, the word '轮流' is part of the word list, again with the translation: 'v. to take turns'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher has told me that there are three differences between these two words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;轮 is informal (口语) and 轮流 is formal (书面语)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can't say 轮流到你了, but you can say 轮到你了（it's your turn)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can't say 轮去做.., but you can say 轮流去做.. and 轮着去做.. (taking turns doing something)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This still doesn't really explain why you can't say such a thing and what the difference actually is, is there somebody who knows? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20584" LastEditorUserId="16191" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T14:50:47.687" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T14:50:47.687" Title="Difference between the verbs 轮 and 轮流 (meaning to take turns)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31652" CreationDate="2018-10-16T11:38:12.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When 轮(rotate/ to take turn) is acting as a verb, most of the time it would include the result complement 到 - e.g &quot;轮到你了&quot; [it rotates to you (it is your turn)] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or followed by a word particle 着 (indicate continuous state)  as in 轮着做 (taking turns to work)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or incorporated into a compound words along with a noun, like 轮米(getting in line for or queuing for rice handouts), 轮班 (in rotation; in shift) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;轮 is also a noun for 'wheel' and 'turn'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;轮流 (to take turns/ to alternate/to rotate) is also a verb, but it is only use as an auxiliary verb. For example, &quot;轮流拜访他&quot; - (take turns visiting him); 轮流看火 (take turns watching the fire). In other words, whenever you see 轮流, another verb must follow it directly. Meaning it can never be placed directly before the object &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-16T11:44:24.937" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T11:44:24.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31652" CreationDate="2018-10-16T12:45:11.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To distinct simply, you can take 轮(&lt;em&gt;turn&lt;/em&gt;) as a &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt; and 轮流(&lt;em&gt;in turn&lt;/em&gt;) as an &lt;strong&gt;adverb&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;adjunct&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;轮流去做 or 轮着去做: do it &lt;strong&gt;in turn&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;轮到你了: &lt;em&gt;turn to you&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;it's your turn to do something&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T12:45:11.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31655" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-16T13:40:09.480" Score="5" ViewCount="529" Body="&lt;p&gt;诚实 (HSK 4) has the meaning 'honest', just like 老实 (HSK 5), which also carries the meaning of 'honest'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what the difference between these two words is when they mean 'honest'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found this online: 个人觉得，“诚实”形容人的品质，“老实”形容人的性格, which loosely translates to '诚实' describes a person's quality/characteristic, while '老实' describes a person's personality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't really understand the difference; a quality you possess would indirectly be a feature of your personality right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also found that '老实' carries the meaning of 'well-behaved', as well as 'naïve' (not featured in the HSK curriculum).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, I would also like to know the difference between 老实 and 天真 (HSK 5) when they mean &quot;naïve&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20584" LastEditorUserId="16191" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T10:46:41.330" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T14:31:52.913" Title="Difference between 诚实 and 老实 (and possibly 天真)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31655" CreationDate="2018-10-16T14:15:30.117" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;诚实 is honest with no further implication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老实 is honest and possibly easy to trick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天真 is more like innocent or even naive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T18:51:18.960" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T18:51:18.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31657" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-16T15:25:33.147" Score="0" ViewCount="342" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a list of Chinese words. Is there a tool that will allow me to sort them in order of frequency or by hsk level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2287" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T22:24:41.637" Title="How can I sort a list of words by frequency or by hsk level?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31629" CreationDate="2018-10-16T15:38:34.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;果实, which is a concrete noun, means fruitage originally (also means &lt;strong&gt;result&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;outcome&lt;/strong&gt; now), the collective name of the yield of fruit trees. 水果, which is an abstract nount, means fruits, the collective name of fruits. You may speak 苹果是一种水果 (apple is a kind of fruit) but not 苹果是一种果实, or 吃点水果 but not 吃点果实 (take some fruits). You may speak 苹果树长出了果实 (the apple tree has born fruits) but not 苹果树长出了水果.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T15:38:34.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31657" CreationDate="2018-10-16T15:41:33.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a tool here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://hskhsk.pythonanywhere.com/hanzi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hskhsk.pythonanywhere.com/hanzi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sample input:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4FeB6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4FeB6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sample output:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8TsxL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8TsxL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2287" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T15:41:33.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31655" CreationDate="2018-10-16T16:14:26.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;诚实 describe a person, who is always truthful because he chooses to, for moral reason. Calling someone 诚实 imply he is a moral man (&lt;em&gt;we can trust him because he is a trust worthy man&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老实 describe a person, who is always truthful because he can't help but telling the truth all the time. Calling someone 老实 imply he is a relatively simple man, not the cunning type at all (&lt;em&gt;we can trust him because he is too simple to make thing up&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老 mean old ; '老实' implies a person is 'honest as always'. People expecting a 老实 person to tell the truth because it is his 'compliant nature'. And people who is always 'compliant' is being looked at as 'simple' = 'not smart' ; on the other hand, being 诚实 is considered a virtue.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老实 also carries the meaning of 'obedient' or 'compliant' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;給我老实点別再搞事&quot; = &quot;be compliant (don't be smart), and don't cause anymore trouble.&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calling an adult 天真 imply he is naive ; Calling a child 天真 is just stating the fact that he is innocent / naive like all other children&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T10:01:35.783" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T10:01:35.783" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31662" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-17T00:54:27.993" Score="3" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read in many grammars and have seen in many places that, when we have a verb-了, its object has to be a complex one (taking a number, an attribute, etc.), for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃了一个苹果。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我吃了那个红苹果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These grammars also state that when the object is a simple one, the only possible and correct 了 would be a sentence 了 or a double 了, as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃苹果了。 (ambiguous)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我吃了苹果了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I have heard and seen in many places people saying (and accepting) sencences like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃了苹果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once, a native Chinese friend of mine said that when he heard these two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我吃了苹果。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我吃苹果了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He felt that in the former he &lt;strong&gt;knew&lt;/strong&gt; what apple was being talked about. After that I started to wonder if it would be possible to accept sentences with a simple object and if the verb-了 in those cases would define the object in the same sense as the 把 structure does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any comment would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-16T05:37:07.047" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T03:30:36.640" Title="Past 了 used with a simple object" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31662" CreationDate="2018-10-17T03:04:42.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃了苹果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃苹果了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, both sentences are applicable depending on the context. See these examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你吃了什么东西？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 我吃了苹果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你吃什么了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 我吃苹果了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T03:04:42.023" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31664" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-17T07:15:29.100" Score="0" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5bDBhKASRo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;studying this video&lt;/a&gt;, and the speaker starting around 0:38 uses 我都 a number of times (我都覺得，我都說。。。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really understand this use of 都. Can someone clarify what is going on here and what this means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastEditorUserId="16191" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T14:50:42.627" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T14:50:42.627" Title="Can someone explain the meaning of 都 in 我都說?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31664" CreationDate="2018-10-17T09:22:39.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in 0:39s  &quot;&lt;code&gt;難怪我都覺得說，人家看我怪怪的&lt;/code&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence &quot;都&quot;, means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;总是，总会(always)&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The time from birth to now, (2018,2017,2016,2015....) in those time, I always feel....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20600" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T09:22:39.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31664" CreationDate="2018-10-17T09:35:22.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The speaker you're referring to has these subtitles following his speech: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;所以说真的, 我们每次学的时候, 难怪我都觉得说, 人家看我怪怪的。 我都说(something in Japanese),&#xA;  可是那个(something in Japanese)是女生的, 对不对？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm actually hearing (I've double checked with speed 0.25) is this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;所以说真的, 我每次学的时候, 难怪我都觉得人家看我的时候怪怪。 我都说(something in Japanese),&#xA;  可是那个(something in Japanese)是女生的, 对不对？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He speaks at a fast pace, which results in being not completely 标准 (standard), similar to English natives saying 'wanna' instead of want to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I hear might also be different from what he actually says, please &lt;strong&gt;correct&lt;/strong&gt; me if I'm wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Answer to your question:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 都 in '我都说' (which is your question), means 'always'. The speaker doesn't say 每次, but that is exactly what he means. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22every_time%22_with_%22mei%22_and_%22dou%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for expressing 'always' with 每次...都.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to this, I would like to add to the answer of &lt;strong&gt;songyuanyao&lt;/strong&gt; (I don't have enough reputation to comment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都 means already, &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; in the structure: 都...了. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22already%22_with_%22dou%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for further explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20584" LastEditorUserId="20584" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T10:50:03.080" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T10:50:03.080" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31664" CreationDate="2018-10-17T11:48:36.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't try to translate all of the「都」exactly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;難怪「我都覺得說」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人家看我「都」怪怪的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「我都說」わたしわ (&lt;em&gt;sic&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This talk show is in the format of an extremely fast, colloquial dialogue, and makes heavy use of filler words/syllables which you wouldn't find in clearly enunciated speech. I don't believe that the first「都」has an exact translation; my attempt would be something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;No wonder &lt;strong&gt;I'm like,&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;they're &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; giving me weird looks&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;whenever I say&lt;/strong&gt; わたしは&lt;/em&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first line especially has unnecessary syllables. All that's need to be said is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;難怪「我覺得」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;No wonder &lt;strong&gt;I feel like&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under ordinary circumstances,「都」can be translated in the clearly enunciated structures&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我「都」說過。。。。。。(&lt;em&gt;I've &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; said that...&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我每次「都」說。。。。。。(&lt;em&gt;I've &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; said, every time, that...&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but this is not the case at the timestamp given in this talk show.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T12:01:51.760" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31669" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31670" CreationDate="2018-10-17T16:10:14.597" Score="2" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I know that 来 is used for actions that is moving towards the speaker and 去 is away from the speaker but I don’t know if I am moving towards a place I would use 来 or 去&#xA;For example: I go to Paris will be “我去巴黎” or ”我来巴黎”？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T02:26:23.850" Title="来 vs 去 usage for the speakers movement towards a place" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31669" CreationDate="2018-10-17T18:28:46.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends where you are now. If you're not in Paris now, you'd have to 去 to get there, but if you are in Paris now, you can talk about when you 来'd or how often you 来. A lot like 'go' and 'come'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18891" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T18:28:46.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31671" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-17T21:27:01.143" Score="1" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;A while ago, I recall coming across some Chinese loanwords that not only sounded like their foreign language (usually English) counterparts, but whose characters also carried roughly that same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I can't remember the examples now, but I'm wondering if anyone knows if there is a term for this type of word?  Also, I would like to know what such examples of this phenomenon other people have encountered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20133" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T04:57:01.643" Title="Chinese loanwords whose characters also carry the corresponding meaning" Tags="&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31671" CreationDate="2018-10-18T00:09:28.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples of those&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;基因 - gene&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嬉皮士 - hippies&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;脱口秀 - talk show&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;霸凌 - bully&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;流明 - lumen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黑客 - hacker&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;对偶 - dual&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蕾丝 - lace&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;费 - fee&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And some others&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;席梦思 - Simmons&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;可口可乐 - Coca Cola&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;必应 - Bing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;翡冷翠 - Firenze (Italy)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;氕 - protium&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;氘 - deuterium&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;氚 - tritium&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T00:09:28.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31669" CreationDate="2018-10-18T02:26:23.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question reminds me of this catch phrase: 点头yes, 摇头no; '&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt;' 是 '&lt;strong&gt;come&lt;/strong&gt;'， '&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;' 是 '&lt;strong&gt;go&lt;/strong&gt;'; ... ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I '&lt;strong&gt;go&lt;/strong&gt;' to Paris will be “我'&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;'巴黎”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T02:26:23.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31671" CreationDate="2018-10-18T04:57:01.643" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term for this kind of words is &lt;strong&gt;外来词&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;外来语&lt;/strong&gt;.  E.g. 酷: cool; 巧克力: chocolate; etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can have a search for 外来词 or 外来语 to get more. This is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://m.baidu.com/from=1000953c/s?word=%E5%A4%96%E6%9D%A5%E8%AF%8D&amp;amp;sa=tb&amp;amp;ts=8567534&amp;amp;t_kt=0&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;rsv_t=1395FgZFvXQl0R2PbkOIK9d3nvcLm2sWxgGKobZndA%252F8w3gaW2C2RP9yIdh%252F2pY&amp;amp;rsv_pq=9020641192815823030&amp;amp;ss=&amp;amp;tj=1&amp;amp;rqlang=zh&amp;amp;oq=%E5%A4%96%E6%9D%A5%E8%AF%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T04:57:01.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31675" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-18T07:39:48.143" Score="0" ViewCount="52" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I am not wrong then both of them means read. So what are the difference between them? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T08:33:15.510" Title="Differences between 读 and 阅读?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-10-18T08:54:06.433" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31676" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31679" CreationDate="2018-10-18T07:46:34.973" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was getting along with a teammate, and then a third guy (who was speaking english before) says this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德莱厄斯两兄弟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate just says &quot;Two Brothers&quot;,&#xA;and I can't figure a different definition by looking at each character individually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this an actual phrase?  Or perhaps an English speaker plugging something into google translate and getting random gibberish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T10:05:28.770" Title="Playing a game, a Chinese player says this: &quot;德莱厄斯两兄弟&quot; What does it mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31676" CreationDate="2018-10-18T07:49:32.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;德莱厄斯两兄弟 is &lt;em&gt;two brothers of 德莱厄斯&lt;/em&gt;, that is, &lt;em&gt;you two share the same surname 德莱厄斯 and you two are bros&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, this type of addressing implies that these two persons are prominent in the certain area. E.g. in tennis, we address &lt;em&gt;Venus Williams&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Serena Williams&lt;/em&gt; as 威廉姆斯姐妹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-18T08:22:28.660" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T08:22:28.660" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31675" CreationDate="2018-10-18T08:33:15.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;读 = &lt;strong&gt;read&lt;/strong&gt; ; &lt;strong&gt;read out&lt;/strong&gt;. (it can read refer to reading a whole book, or just a single word)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阅读 = &lt;strong&gt;read&lt;/strong&gt; (refer to reading of a book, a publication, or even a single sheet flyer-- something that contains meaningful context)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T08:33:15.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31676" CreationDate="2018-10-18T09:22:58.647" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess you are playing LOL, and then 德莱厄斯 is Darius ( the Hand of Noxus). So, “德莱厄斯两兄弟” means “Darius and his brother (Draven (the Glorious Executioner))”. So maybe your team or the other team summoned both Darius and Draven, and that bro commented on this. Have fun~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-10-18T10:05:28.770" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T10:05:28.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31680" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31681" CreationDate="2018-10-18T10:14:00.800" Score="3" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I’ve read that 部 is used for machines, films and literature. So does that mean I can use 部 for words like 书，词典, etc even though they usually go with 本？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T12:27:59.187" Title="The use of 部 as a classifier in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31680" CreationDate="2018-10-18T10:37:33.153" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is &lt;strong&gt;sometimes&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reference to literature does not refer to physical books, but to &lt;em&gt;works&lt;/em&gt; of literature. E.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;BBC评选21世纪最伟大的&lt;strong&gt;12部小说&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(The) twelve greatest 21st century &lt;strong&gt;novels&lt;/strong&gt; chosen by the BBC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The case with 字典 and 詞典 is different, as it can refer to the &quot;work&quot; or to the &quot;book&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国第一部&lt;strong&gt;字典&lt;/strong&gt;—说文解字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The first &lt;strong&gt;(character) dictionary&lt;/strong&gt; in China, the Shuowen Jiezi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that poetry collection 詩集 can also be used in this way, although individual poems not so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;書 wouldn't go with 部 - it doesn't refer to a &lt;em&gt;work&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T10:37:33.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31682" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31687" CreationDate="2018-10-18T11:01:40.747" Score="3" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase in question is a title of an article on news.qq.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 大凉山失依孤儿 and 大凉山失孤儿 translate to &quot;Daliangshan's lost orphans&quot; in Google Translator. Using dictionary was no use as well, since I'm not sure how translation &quot;to depend&quot; fits into this title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the significance of 依 in this sentence and how is 大凉山失依孤儿 different from 大凉山失孤儿?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20609" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T13:26:56.087" Title="Meaning of 依 in 大凉山失依孤儿" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31680" CreationDate="2018-10-18T12:27:59.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;besides the distinction between the physical book and the work, 部 also implies the massive body of content and the grandeur theme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T12:27:59.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5722" CreationDate="2018-10-18T12:31:13.993" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are already several good answers and one has been accepted, but last week in the October 4, 2018 New York Times' &amp;quot;Taiwan Dispatch&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/world/asia/taiwan-food-q-texture.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In Italy, ‘Al Dente’ Is Prized. In Taiwan, It’s All About Food That’s ‘Q.’&lt;/a&gt; there is more about &amp;quot;Q&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slippery? Chewy? Globby? Not exactly the most flattering adjectives in the culinary world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Luckily, the Taiwanese have a word for this texture. Well, actually, it’s not a word, it’s a letter — one that even non-Chinese speakers can pronounce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s “Q.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“It’s difficult to explain what Q means exactly,” said Liu Yen-ling, a manager at Chun Shui Tang, a popular teahouse chain that claims to have invented tapioca milk tea in Taiwan. “Basically it means springy, soft, elastic.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q texture is to Taiwanese what umami is to Japanese and al dente is to Italians — that is, cherished and essential. Around Taiwan, the letter Q can often be glimpsed amid a jumble of Chinese characters on shop signs and food packages and in convenience stores and advertisements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However it also links to a 2010 University of Pensilvania Language Log post &lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2252&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Is Q a Chinese Character?&lt;/a&gt;. This is also a lengthy post, but the section discussing this particular use of &amp;quot;Q&amp;quot; includes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The title is from the subject line of a message sent to me a few days ago by Anne [...].  Anne was puzzled by the expression ruǎn Q (軟Q) that occurs on a package of &amp;quot;Japanese style&amp;quot; cakes (mochi) made in Taiwan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g6GpH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g6GpH.png&quot; alt=&quot;Is Q a Chinese Character?&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a close-up of the relevant text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qq6kS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qq6kS.png&quot; alt=&quot;Is Q a Chinese Character?&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I told Anne that ruǎn Q means &amp;quot;soft and chewy,&amp;quot; where the Q (pronounced kiu) is a common Taiwanese morpheme that no one seems to know how to write in Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another challenge posed by the package is that the characters used to write the Taiwanese equivalent of mochi, 米+麻 and 糬, are both exceedingly rare, neither of them appearing in Hanyu da zidian (Unabridged Dictionary of Chinese Characters; it has 54,678 entries) or other large dictionaries of Chinese characters.  In fact, the first character is so infrequent that I have had to write it in the ad hoc fashion 米+麻.  This extremely rare character is not even in Unicode (unless it has been added very recently), though it is probably a variant of mí or méi 糜[U+7CDC], with the &amp;quot;rice&amp;quot; radical at the bottom instead of on the side, while the second character is shǔ 糬[U+7CEC], which might be cognate with shǔ 薯 (&amp;quot;sweet potato&amp;quot;).  Neither 米+麻 nor 糜, however, can compete in frequency with má 麻 (&amp;quot;hemp&amp;quot;) for writing the first syllable of the Taiwanese rendition of mochi, since Googling yields 35 matches for &amp;quot;糜糬&amp;quot; versus over seven million for &amp;quot;麻糬.&amp;quot;  This is clearly one of the countless cases where the sound of a character trumps its meaning.  In Japanese mochi would be written with the 餅 kanji, but in Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM) that would be pronounced bǐng and would mean &amp;quot;round flatcake.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then discussing some dried instant noodles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] This Taiwanese &amp;quot;Q&amp;quot; meaning &amp;quot;chewy&amp;quot; can be intensified by doubling, hence &amp;quot;QQ糖&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;chewy-chewy candy&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;really chewy candy&amp;quot;), nougats that are also styled &amp;quot;mini-Q.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus Q is clearly well established in Taiwanese as meaning &amp;quot;chewy,&amp;quot; and it has been picked up on the Mainland with the same meaning (especially in advertisements).  Since I've never been able to determine a cognate for this &amp;quot;Q&amp;quot; in other Sinitic languages than Taiwanese and no one has ever been able to tell me how to write this Q morpheme with a Chinese character, I have sometimes wondered whether it might not have come from English &amp;quot;chewy&amp;quot; itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, these Ah Q noodles have nothing to do with the celebrated anti-hero, also called Ah Q, of Lu Xun's famous novella, &amp;quot;The True Story of Ah Q&amp;quot; 阿Q正傳 (&amp;quot;Ā Q Zhèngzhuàn&amp;quot;), first published serially between December 4, 1921 and February 12, 1922.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18487" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T12:55:26.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31682" CreationDate="2018-10-18T13:04:25.283" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;失依 is actually 失去依靠, in english this means &quot;lost dependence&quot;, or specifically those orphan who cannot find anyone to help them get on with their lives, probably because the basic welfare and rescuing  system is broken there. If there is only one character 失, then the title does not make sense semantically indeed [or one might understand it as &quot;Daliangshan lost orphans&quot;, but this is weird]. Google translator might simply ignore the character 依 and just translate 失 into &quot;lost&quot;. Better translations could be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The orphans who have no one to depend in Daliangshan Mountain &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here the name of the place would be incorrect, but this seems not influence the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastEditorUserId="18711" LastEditDate="2018-10-18T13:23:56.973" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T13:23:56.973" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31682" CreationDate="2018-10-18T13:14:44.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;失依 here short for 失去依靠 (lost dependence) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;失依孤儿 means 'orphans who lost dependence' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;依靠 (dependence) here refer to 'anyone or anything to depend upon'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more common term is '無依' which is short for the idiom 無依無靠 (Helpless)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if the title was '大凉山無依孤儿' it would be translated to  'Daliangshan's helpless orphans'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大凉山失孤儿 would mean 'someone lost the orphans in Daliangshan' and it make little sense because no one own orphans&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T13:14:44.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31682" CreationDate="2018-10-18T13:26:56.087" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;失依儿童&lt;/strong&gt;, is, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Education, a phrase in of itself. The MoE dictionary (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E5%A4%B1%E4%BE%9D%E5%85%92%E7%AB%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.moedict.tw/失依兒童&lt;/a&gt;) defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;失去父母照顧的兒童。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which roughly reads something like: children who have lost the care of their parents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictionary can be found at the link above or downloaded as Pleco add-on for free - which can also work with Pleco’s reader functions, if you’re looking for options on how to access this dictionary for your personal use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T13:26:56.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31688" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31692" CreationDate="2018-10-18T23:59:40.147" Score="9" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;How did the two-part compound 打坐 come to mean &amp;quot;seated meditation&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the function of the character 打 in that compound?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16909" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-29T23:42:41.183" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T23:43:40.377" Title="What is the meaning of the character 打 in 打坐?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31688" CreationDate="2018-10-19T00:33:38.190" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of sense of 打 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;与某些动词结合为复词，表示进行之意。E.g. 打扫；打扮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It denotes the &lt;strong&gt;continuity&lt;/strong&gt; of an action. So, 打坐 means &lt;strong&gt;sit and continue it on and on&lt;/strong&gt;, that is, &lt;strong&gt;meditation&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-19T00:33:38.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31690" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31691" CreationDate="2018-10-19T08:28:05.913" Score="0" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is this ad, that looks a little something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uEq4O.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uEq4O.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full text says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;致忙碌的你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  在工作中总是对客户和声细雨&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  却忘记了对父母说声&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  谢 / 谢 / 你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和声细雨 seems totally wrong to me &amp;amp; I'm guessing it should probably be 和声细语. 和声细语 can be found in《现代汉语规范词典》&amp;amp;《多功能成语词典》- while 和声细雨 is not listed anywhere I know. It seems like quite a rookie mistake, though, for an advertisement agency to make. Is &quot;和声细雨&quot; ever an acceptable variant of &quot;和声细语&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-10-22T02:57:42.780" Title="Is &quot;和声细雨&quot; ever an acceptable variant of &quot;和声细语&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31690" CreationDate="2018-10-19T08:48:25.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The copy writer using &quot;和声细雨&quot; instead of  &quot;和声细语&quot; is an unforgivable mistake &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct idiom with 细雨 at the end is  微風細雨 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct idiom with 和風 at the beginning is '和風麗日' ( variant of  '風和日麗')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many common idioms can be rephrase for artistic reason, but the characters in them cannot be changed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard: 風和日麗 (wind is gentle, sunshine is pleasant)-- variant: 和風麗日 (gentle wind, pleasant sunshine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard: 窮山惡水 (hostile mountains, vicious water -- variant: 山窮水惡 (mountains is hostile; waters is vicious)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard: 鴻圖大志 (grand ambition, high goal)-- variant: 志大圖鴻 (goal is high, ambition is grand)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-19T08:54:51.650" LastActivityDate="2018-10-19T08:54:51.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31688" CreationDate="2018-10-19T11:35:16.513" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the 《佛光大辭典》,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://buddhaspace.org/dict/fk/data/%25E6%2589%2593%25E5%259D%2590.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;打坐&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;指跏趺而坐 (to sit cross-legged)，使心入定 (to settle the mind)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即指坐禪 (za-zen, to meditate)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「打」，動作行為之意 (means to do or to act)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the 《汉语大词典》,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/hydcd/186286i.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;打 (36)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谓从事某种工作 (to do some kind of work) 或做出某种行为 (to make some kind of behavior)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the 打 in 打坐 means &amp;quot;to do&amp;quot;, and 打坐 is &amp;quot;to do the 靜坐&amp;quot; (to sit still with a peaceful mind).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the purpose of 打坐 is to settle the mind, it refers to meditation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(dan chose 打(38) in the 《汉语大词典》.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-29T23:43:40.377" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T23:43:40.377" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31693" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31696" CreationDate="2018-10-20T07:55:01.943" Score="6" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often want to make my sentences short in order to pass our classroom exercise of writing a 簡體 abstract from memory in under 5 minutes. The biggest problem seems to be that I use 與，及其，與其，in inadmissible places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The info we were given says, 與 can be used to connect nominal, adjectival and verbal phrases, with the first ones being the norm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;“与”较多连接名词性词语，也可连接动词性、&#xA; 形容词性词语，多用于书面语，书名、标题中常见。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people accepted &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;從該日起在此居住與唸書。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;others wanted to replace 與 with 並。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following was rejected explicitly on the grounds of the terms of 美國 and 美國的政治方法 being 不同類。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2a.該研究美國與其政治方法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be better to use this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2b. 該研究美國及其政治方法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On youdao there are sentences such as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2c. 我们很乐意为这所房子及其庭院拍照。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I would assume to be exactly the type of 2b, particularly regarding similarity of terms (which I perhaps misunderstand). What about this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3a. 辜鴻銘不認可胡適這位新文化的帶頭人與其課程。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about replacing 與其 with 及其?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3b. 辜鴻銘不認可胡適這位新文化的帶頭人及其課程。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-11-27T22:21:43.523" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T19:35:22.460" Title="How similar do terms have to be to connect them with 與, 與其，及其？" Tags="&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31693" CreationDate="2018-10-20T08:44:04.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;與： &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;和，and&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;與其： &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;和他的， and one's&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;及其： &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;还有他的，and also one's&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;從該日起在此居住與唸書。// &lt;strong&gt;fine&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2a.該研究美國與其政治方法。// &lt;strong&gt;wrong&lt;/strong&gt; as the reason you said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2b. 該研究美國及其政治方法。// &lt;strong&gt;fine&lt;/strong&gt;, [research on America and its methodology of politics].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2c. 我们很乐意为这所房子及其庭院拍照。 // &lt;strong&gt;fine&lt;/strong&gt;, [take pictures for this house and also its courtyard.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3a. 辜鴻銘不認可胡適這位新文化的帶頭人與其課程。// &lt;strong&gt;wrong&lt;/strong&gt;, the same reason as 2a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3b. 辜鴻銘不認可胡適這位新文化的帶頭人及其課程。// &lt;strong&gt;fine&lt;/strong&gt;, [disagree/disapprove the leader of ... and also his courses.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-20T08:44:04.743" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31688" CreationDate="2018-10-20T12:28:09.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;打坐 is a whole word meaning meditation.   If you separate the character, it doesn't mean anything related to meditation.   打 as a verb means hit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20618" LastActivityDate="2018-10-20T12:28:09.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31693" CreationDate="2018-10-20T13:16:14.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;與其&quot; ought to be translated as &quot;rather than&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this term was used since classical chinese times, together with &quot;不如&quot;, &quot;不若&quot;, &quot;寧&quot; or &quot;寧可&quot;. it's usage in modern vernacular Chinese should be similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i don't think that &quot;與其&quot; means &quot;and it's / one's&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000163825&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000163825&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about some of your sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;從該日起在此居住與唸書&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自該日起在此留學&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;留學&quot; - 居留 &amp;amp; 學習&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;該研究美國及其政治方法&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;政治方法&quot;, imo, is odd, i would prefer &quot;政制&quot; or &quot;政治制度&quot; (political system)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, &quot;該研究&quot; is also odd, does it mean &quot;such research&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;辜鴻銘不認可胡適這位新文化的帶頭人及其課程&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辜鴻銘不認可胡適這位新文化魁首及其課程&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=RvYdcM&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec=sec1&amp;amp;op=v&amp;amp;view=1-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=RvYdcM&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec=sec1&amp;amp;op=v&amp;amp;view=1-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i hate &quot;的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-10-20T13:16:14.640" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31697" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31698" CreationDate="2018-10-20T19:01:09.997" Score="2" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 心兴 in the picture below (towards bottom left in image)? I am guessing it means &lt;em&gt;to think&lt;/em&gt;, but doesn't 想 mean &lt;em&gt;to think&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oO9fc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oO9fc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20619" LastActivityDate="2018-10-20T19:28:18.573" Title="What is the meaning of 心兴?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31697" CreationDate="2018-10-20T19:16:32.957" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;That character is not「兴」(&lt;em&gt;to rise&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;excited, happy&lt;/em&gt;), it is「头」(&lt;em&gt;head&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「心头」(literally &lt;em&gt;heart + head&lt;/em&gt;) means &lt;em&gt;mind&lt;/em&gt; - the picture is saying that you use your &lt;em&gt;mind&lt;/em&gt; to think/reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-10-20T19:28:18.573" LastActivityDate="2018-10-20T19:28:18.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31700" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31702" CreationDate="2018-10-21T01:45:00.810" Score="1" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Light reflects off mirror.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;镜子反射光 or 光反射镜子, which is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;镜子反射光 is supporsed to be right. But it sounds strangely for me. How do you think about it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastEditorUserId="20623" LastEditDate="2018-10-21T01:57:59.590" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T04:16:56.983" Title="&quot;Light reflects off mirror&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31700" CreationDate="2018-10-21T03:08:14.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Light (is) reflected off mirror = 光线被镜子反射&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mirror reflects light = 镜子反射光线&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Definitions of reflect&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(of a surface or body) throw back (heat, light, or sound) without absorbing it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mirror is the subject, light is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T03:08:14.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31700" CreationDate="2018-10-21T03:41:49.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;light, heat, or other rays reflect off a surface&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; or when a&#xA;  surface reflects them, they are sent back &lt;strong&gt;FROM&lt;/strong&gt; the surface and do not&#xA;  pass through it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“&lt;em&gt;Light reflects off mirror&lt;/em&gt;.” means &lt;strong&gt;光线从镜子反射出来/过来/回来/开来&lt;/strong&gt;. &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Off&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; denotes the sense of '&lt;strong&gt;from&lt;/strong&gt;' in this case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared to this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The sun reflected off the snow-covered mountains. // 阳光从被雪覆盖的山峦反射回来。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a sidenote, from English perspective, maybe it's better to put: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Light reflects off mirrors. Or, Light reflects off the/that mirror.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am not a native English speaker. It's all opinion-based. Hope some English native speakers can correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-10-21T04:16:56.983" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T04:16:56.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31703" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31704" CreationDate="2018-10-21T04:41:16.030" Score="1" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S V O， 还/也 V O&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When should I use 还 and when should I use 也?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese friend told me that 还 often sounds better than 也 in sentences where the two verbs are different, such as 我吃了炒饭，还喝了啤酒, and the reverse is true when the verbs are the same, such as in 我喜欢唱歌，也喜欢跳舞. He also said that 还 has a stronger emphatic sense of &quot;not only, but also&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these assertions accurate in general? Are there any other key distinctions between 还 and 也 in this sentence structure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18007" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T06:00:25.873" Title="还 vs 也 for expressing multiple actions" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31703" CreationDate="2018-10-21T06:00:25.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think what your Chinese friend said is pretty much right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 还 denotes the sense of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;further more&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;to a larger extension&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. Well, 也 connects the two things with the same level of &lt;strong&gt;importance, severity, priority&lt;/strong&gt; and etc.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 我喜欢唱歌，也喜欢跳舞. can be simply paraphrased as 我喜欢唱歌和跳舞. 我喜欢唱歌，还喜欢跳舞. sounds like &lt;em&gt;I like singing and moreover/furthermore I like dancing as well&lt;/em&gt;. Or &lt;em&gt;Not only do I like singing, but also I like dancing.&lt;/em&gt; as your friend suggested. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T06:00:25.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31705" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31706" CreationDate="2018-10-21T14:52:55.830" Score="0" ViewCount="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English individual seconds can be counted by &lt;code&gt;n + one-thousand&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;one one-thousand&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  two one-thousand&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  three one-thousand [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These terms are not easily found in any dictionaries though, any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How are individual seconds counted in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T15:02:55.603" Title="How are individual seconds counted in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31705" CreationDate="2018-10-21T14:52:55.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-english-154748-1.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This Tianya forum post&lt;/a&gt; reckons that the same formula can be used in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一千零一，一千零二，一千零三&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the medical field another approach is common:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;001 (零零幺)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  002 (零零二)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  003 (零零三)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If double o seven was translated back into English he might be called seven one-thousand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T14:52:55.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31708" CreationDate="2018-10-21T16:13:32.127" Score="0" ViewCount="47" Body="&lt;p&gt;So in Mandarin there are verbs like 数 means count and 试 means try but I usually them being doubled when use in a sentence (I.e: 请数数 = Please count). Can somebody explains for me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T17:37:22.780" Title="Single-worded verbs being repeated when use in a sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31707" CreationDate="2018-10-21T17:29:35.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is called verb reduplication and it is not the first time I explain it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my answer to another question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/31120/what-is-the-purpose-of-verb-reduplication&quot;&gt;What is the purpose of verb reduplication?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phrases like 笑笑，看看，走走 or 吃吃 are verb reduplication, it serves to indicate the verb is in a slight degree or a casual manner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my answer to yet another question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30419/%e5%bf%ab%e6%8a%8a%e5%a4%a7%e8%a1%a3%e7%a9%bf%e7%a9%bf-when-is-it-wrong&quot;&gt;快把大衣穿穿！When is it wrong?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reduplication of verb imply the verb is in 'a slight degree', 'a casual manner' or 'tentative manner'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃 = eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃吃 = (slightly/ casually) eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;试 = try&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;试试 = (slightly/ tentatively) try&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 请数 and 请数数 is 请数 sounds like a blunt demand; 请数数 sounds less demanding (reduplicate the verb 数 hinting you make the statement in a tentative manner. Not that you are not sure the other person should count, just you are not forcefully telling him to do so)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T17:37:22.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31710" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31712" CreationDate="2018-10-21T19:39:10.830" Score="2" ViewCount="401" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, in &lt;a href=&quot;https://ceritabahasa.co/2015/01/07/tabel-radikal-bushou-hanzi/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ceritabahasa.co/2015/01/07/tabel-radikal-bushou-hanzi/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;character 犬 quǎn means dog seems to contain character  大 which means big.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that quan is just da with extra apostrophe or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What am I missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Radical for two and three also obviously contains radical for one. It's just radical one done three times, for example, for three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="481" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-04-26T00:39:26.113" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T02:58:15.243" Title="Can one radical contain another radical?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31711" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31713" CreationDate="2018-10-21T20:28:59.110" Score="1" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;During my last visit in Shanghai I bought this old pice of metal, it might be silver. What are the characters on it? I am having trouble reading them. Also, what do they mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jFzkt.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jFzkt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20626" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-10-22T04:38:04.840" LastActivityDate="2018-10-22T04:38:04.840" Title="Translation of characters on antique metal" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31710" CreationDate="2018-10-21T20:51:28.857" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right and not missing anything, 犬 quan 'dog' is written as 大 da 'big' plus 丶 zhu/dian 'dot'. There are more examples like that, for example, 金 jin 'gold' contains 人 ren 'person' and 王 wang 'king', and 食 shi 'food' also has 人 ren 'person' in it. However, no published dictionary that I know of will list 犬 under 大, or 金 under 人 or 王; in that sense, 犬 does not 'have 大 as its radical'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that radicals are a fairly modern and post-hoc invention; learners frequently believe that 'X has radical Y' has some kind of deep meaning. In fact, that only means that 'in this dictionary, X is listed in the group labeled Y', and the same character may be listed under another radical in the next dictionary. This is also borne out by the Chinese word for 'radical', which is 部首 bushou, literally, 'chapter heading' or 'section leader'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also learners tend to believe that all Chinese characters are completely decomposable into the 214 radicals as listed in the famous Kangxi dictionary. This is not true; many characters have parts that are not on that list. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt; This discussion has some pretty good insights and points to keep in mind when learning about radicals: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3500/how-to-differentiate-radical-plus-0-strokes-characters?rq=1&quot;&gt;How to differentiate &amp;quot;radical plus 0 strokes&amp;quot; characters?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16530" LastEditorUserId="16530" LastEditDate="2018-10-21T20:58:06.927" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T20:58:06.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31711" CreationDate="2018-10-21T23:38:34.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks identical to this (you are looking at it up side down).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://goods.ruten.com.tw/item/show?21737114069034&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://goods.ruten.com.tw/item/show?21737114069034&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says 大明宣德年裸銀寶至上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how exactly to translate this (someone can help me out here), but if I have to...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大明 refers to the Ming dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宣德年 means the era of Xuande, about AD 1425 - 1435.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;裸銀寶 means raw silver sycee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至上 PERHAPS means your highness (this is probably a wild guess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20586" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T23:38:34.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31690" CreationDate="2018-10-22T02:57:42.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;But if this shows up in a school text written by some famous poet / writer / litterateur in history, my teacher would have told me this is &quot;Tongjia&quot; (通假, interchangeable) and is not only correct but also clever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20586" LastActivityDate="2018-10-22T02:57:42.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31710" CreationDate="2018-10-22T04:18:29.750" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;To ask an analogous question about the shapes of the letters in the Latin alphabet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Does the letter &quot;E&quot; contain the the letter &quot;F&quot;?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It seems that &quot;E&quot; is just &quot;F&quot; with an extra horizontal line on the bottom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of shapes in the modern script, it is trivially obvious that &quot;E&quot; contains the strokes of &quot;F&quot;. What &quot;E&quot; does not contain is any functionality of &quot;F&quot;; the sound of &quot;F&quot; does not contribute anything to the sound of &quot;E&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;E&quot; containing the strokes of &quot;F&quot; does not explain any functional relation between &quot;E&quot; and &quot;F&quot;, if there is any at all. Similarly,「犬」containing the strokes of「大」provides no explanation of the functional relationship between those two, and this is what you're missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For reference, &quot;E&quot; and &quot;F&quot; are unrelated. From Wikipedia:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V3h72.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V3h72.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Latin letter 'E' differs little from its source, the Greek letter epsilon, 'Ε'. This in turn comes from the Semitic letter hê, which has been suggested to have started as a praying or calling human figure (hillul 'jubilation'), and was probably based on a similar Egyptian hieroglyph that indicated a different pronunciation. In Semitic, the letter represented /h/(and /e/ in foreign words); in Greek, hê became the letter epsilon, used to represent /e/. The various forms of the Old Italic script and the Latin alphabet followed this usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vetPn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vetPn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The origin of 'F' is the Semitic letter vâv (or waw) that represented a sound like /v/ or /w/. Graphically it originally probably depicted either a hook or a club. It may have been based on a comparable Egyptian hieroglyph such as that which represented the word mace (transliterated as ḥ(dj)):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KRuIT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KRuIT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Phoenician form of the letter was adopted into Greek as a vowel, upsilon (which resembled its descendant 'Y' but was also the ancestor of the Roman letters 'U', 'V', and 'W'); and, with another form, as a consonant, digamma, which indicated the pronunciation /w/, as in Phoenician. Latin 'F,' despite being pronounced differently, is ultimately descended from digamma and closely resembles it in form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「犬」and「大」are similarly unrelated, but you wouldn't be able to immediately know this without exploring a bit of history. Their shapes converged because of the way writing was stylised and streamlined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「犬」was originally a picture of a &lt;em&gt;dog&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pphER.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pphER.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乙&lt;/a&gt;3853&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=3521&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集3521&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wuz6f.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wuz6f.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;員方鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2695&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2695&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SXlx2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SXlx2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;包2&lt;/a&gt;・6&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sxnOY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sxnOY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bixuo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bixuo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「大」was originally a frontal view of an adult person, indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;adult&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;big, large&lt;/em&gt;. Choosing samples from roughly the same location and period in time, the comparable development looks like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bGFZk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bGFZk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;387&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=22421&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集22421&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1nQGp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1nQGp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;大保方鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2158&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2158&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;楚&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ljmhw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ljmhw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;包2&lt;/a&gt;・2&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/phamt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/phamt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qmbxh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qmbxh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there are modern shapes containing the strokes of「大」which really did contain「大」historically, such as「因」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wc3FZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wc3FZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;餘15.3&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=5651&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集5651&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fX1i6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fX1i6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;蟎鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2765&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2765&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_(Chinese_state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;晉&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ygVmj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ygVmj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;陳侯因敦&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4649&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4649&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4bfO0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4bfO0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tL0X6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tL0X6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also things that originally contained「大」, but which is not recognisable in the modern script anymore, such as「達」, where「大」is squashed into a shape identical to「土」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qj6Nc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qj6Nc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;存&lt;/a&gt;2011&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=27745&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集27745&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TCRMv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TCRMv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WGqgS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WGqgS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「大」would have otherwise been more obvious using the oracle bone form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BnwWm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BnwWm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文或體&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6bves.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6bves.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-04-26T02:58:15.243" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T02:58:15.243" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31716" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31717" CreationDate="2018-10-22T05:09:33.910" Score="1" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; dictionary 耦 means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a couple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as a noun and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to couple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of words like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;去耦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;meaning &lt;em&gt;decouple&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, 配偶 can also be written: 配耦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the history and usage of 耦 vs. 偶?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T11:27:04.033" Title="History/usage: 耦 vs. 偶?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31716" CreationDate="2018-10-22T05:35:43.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In terms of historical usage, the word meaning &lt;em&gt;likeness, couple&lt;/em&gt; (Zhengzhang: /*ŋoːʔ/) was first written as「禺」as a phonetic loan, then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Had「亻」added to it to differentiate this meaning from the other meanings written「禺」;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Had「耒」added to it to specifically indicate the meaning &lt;em&gt;two people plowing fields&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My speculations: Since the word represented by「耦」is related to「偶」(in fact, &lt;em&gt;identical&lt;/em&gt;, just written with a different glyph for a specialised circumstance), they became interchangeable to a very large degree.「耦」was even used for the word &lt;em&gt;idol&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;木耦&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;土耦&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;耦人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The current spelling would then be just dictated by educational committees, as historically they were the same word written with two different glyphs and frequently mixed up in usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-10-22T05:35:43.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30419" CreationDate="2018-10-22T12:38:21.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is totally acceptable to say that to a toddler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20586" LastActivityDate="2018-10-22T12:38:21.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31719" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31729" CreationDate="2018-10-23T04:14:58.450" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to Chinese and am wondering how it works to read texts. I read somewhere something like that Chinese characters can be pronounced multiple ways, or one pronunciation leads to multiple different characters (so when typing Chinese on a Latin keyboard, you have to select from a dropdown the character out of a list). Something like that...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes me wonder the following. If you have a Chinese text, i.e. just the characters and no Pinyin or anything, I'm wondering if it's possible to figure out the meaning of the text. This might be obvious but I'm a bit confused. I know you can't figure out the pronunciation from the characters alone, but maybe if you have a dictionary, you could look up the symbols to figure out their pronunciations. Wondering if that is possible, or if you instead need to have memorized the characters before trying to read a document.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically wondering if it's possible to reconstruct the Pinyin for the Chinese characters, just given the Chinese characters and a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T13:22:47.660" Title="If it is possible to figure out pronunciation of Chinese text" Tags="&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31720" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31722" CreationDate="2018-10-23T07:02:26.927" Score="0" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trying to translate &lt;code&gt;This is the first time at the coffee shop since the last time we went&lt;/code&gt; produced these two sentences, which feel incorrect for Chinese grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;從上次我們去那個咖啡店這次是第一次去了&#xA;&#xA;從上次我們去那個咖啡店，我從來沒去過。這次是第一次去le。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) In Mandarin, what would be the right translation for &lt;code&gt;This is the first time at the coffee shop since the last time we went&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) What would the Cantonese translation be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T23:30:51.377" Title="從上次我們去那個咖啡店這次是第一次去了: This is the first time at the coffee shop since the last time we went?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31720" CreationDate="2018-10-23T07:29:30.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's something wrong with the sentence, it sound very redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you had visited there before, any time you visit again would be the first time since the last time. The second part of the sentence doesn't add any useful information to the first part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me change the sentence so it sound more natural&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;This is the first time we go to that coffee shop since 2003&amp;quot; (now we know it was a long time ago)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;這是我們自2003年以來第一次去那家咖啡店&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;這是(this is) 我們 (we) 自2003年以來 (since 2003) 第一次 (the first time) 去(go to) 那家咖啡店 (that coffee shop)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;notice we put 'since 2003 (自2003年以來)' before 'the first time (第一次)', which is reversed in English as: 'the first time since 2003&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;自&lt;/strong&gt; (XX)&lt;strong&gt;以來&lt;/strong&gt;] = [&lt;strong&gt;Since&lt;/strong&gt; (XX)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;自&lt;/strong&gt; (上次我們去那間咖啡店) &lt;strong&gt;以來&lt;/strong&gt;] = [&lt;strong&gt;Since&lt;/strong&gt; (last time we went to that coffee shop)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;could you kindly explain why you use 自 instead of 自從 or 從？i thought 從 was the abbreviation for 自從, not 自&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 自 and 從 can be used as abbreviation for 自從&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;自 = since/ from/ &lt;strong&gt;begin at&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;從 = since/ from/ &lt;strong&gt;following&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;自從 (begin at and following) = &lt;strong&gt;since&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you want to use 自 or 從 to express the meaning of &amp;quot;since&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you have to add 以來, 至 or 到 like below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[自~ 以來]  e.g. 自古以來 (since ancient time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[自~ 到]  e.g. 自古到今 (since/from ancient time to today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[自~ 至] e.g. 自古至今 (since/from ancient time to today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[從~ 以來] e.g. 從古以來 (since ancient time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[從~ 到] e.g. 從古到今 (since/from ancient time to today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[從~ 至] e.g. 從古至今 (since/from ancient time to today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All are correct, (自 ~ 至) is more literary, (從 ~ 到) is more colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;also would it be equally correct to say 以後 or 之後 instead of 以來&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;自2003年以來&amp;quot; emphasize the date we start counting (from 2003 to today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;自2003年以後&amp;quot; emphasize 'what following that date' (after 2003)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use either&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T23:30:51.377" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31720" CreationDate="2018-10-23T07:44:43.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is the first time at the coffee shop since the last time we went&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, I will put : 自从上次去过这家咖啡店后，我这还是头一次来. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-10-23T09:44:56.637" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T09:44:56.637" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31719" CreationDate="2018-10-23T07:45:17.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number of characters that have multiple pronunciations are much less than those do not. In context, e.g. when you have a sentence or word instead of single character, the pronunciation of polyphony character would be fixed, and that pronunciation can be determined with a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese people would have already remembered the pronunciation of more than 99% percent of characters they might meet every day. So they would not need dictionary to help them most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you meet a character you do not already know, and you do not have a dictionary, then it would be nearly impossible to know how to read it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some exceptions, for example, when you meet a polyphony character in a person's given name. Then without asking the person, it might be hard to know the proper reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T07:45:17.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26082" CreationDate="2018-10-23T07:58:35.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The comment by @dan is correct -「安」depicts a kneeling girl/woman in a building, indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;sitting peacefully&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;peace, quiet&lt;/em&gt;. It does not mean &lt;em&gt;bride in new house.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please don't use Vividict as a resource. It contains decidedly non-mainstream interpretations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「安」was originally composed of「宀」(&lt;em&gt;building&lt;/em&gt;),「女」(picture of a kneeling &lt;em&gt;girl/woman&lt;/em&gt;), and &lt;strong&gt;an extra mark located around the area between the woman's heels and buttocks&lt;/strong&gt;, emphasising that the woman is in a kneeling/sitting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7r64J.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7r64J.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鄴&lt;/a&gt;3下・44.8&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=29378&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集29378&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iIntD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iIntD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;公貿鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2719&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2719&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kfV8e.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kfV8e.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;法&lt;/a&gt;168&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty#Western_Han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jPua5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jPua5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;長安鋗&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty#Eastern_Han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mfnac.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mfnac.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E5%AD%94%E5%AE%99%E7%A2%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孔宙碑&lt;/a&gt;陰&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VPjCY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VPjCY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Red line in the first form points to the small mark, which later became exaggerated.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mark started being omitted in the Warring States period and completely disappeared after the Western Han.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Shapes that look like「安」before the Warring States without the mark may be considered to be a variant of「賓」instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;References:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小學堂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;國學大師&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T07:58:35.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31725" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-23T09:26:32.527" Score="4" ViewCount="881" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English this is very easy to express, but I'm struggling to express it in Chinese. I've asked multiple natives and they are all struggling with this (much to everyone's surprise).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, you have the following situation: a story with a narrator explaining some events in the past. The events are happening during some time during the narrators high school years. The narrator at one point wants to explain the equivalent of: &quot;Two years before I had gotten a bad sickness, which is why I drank so much water.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have all sort of thought up the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;在那之前的两年……&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but the problem with this is that in Chinese if you use this it's unclear whether the event was 2 years before, or sometime during those 2 years. It's a duration, not a specific time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any way to express &quot;2 points before some ambiguous time&quot;? I don't want to have to resort to absolute times for everything. Thank you for your help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17022" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2018-10-23T14:16:37.980" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T14:53:01.637" Title="How to express: a narrator is narrating an event in the past, and wants to describe an event 2 years before that" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31725" CreationDate="2018-10-23T09:55:03.803" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;在［那事］之前的兩年……&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;在［那事］的前兩年……&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both mean &lt;strong&gt;during the two years before［那事］&lt;/strong&gt;. Compare&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;在［那事］之後的兩年……&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;在［那事］的後兩年……&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;During the two years (immediately) after&lt;/em&gt;［那事］&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在［發生Ｘ］的兩年前， 。。。。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Two years before X happened, ...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another technique, which is perhaps not strictly the answer you're looking for, is to make the context very clear in a printed book. Specifically, an occasional first-person narrative should be actually using a &lt;strong&gt;different font&lt;/strong&gt;, akin to English novels sometimes using &lt;em&gt;italics&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ArDou.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ArDou.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Excerpt from a digital edition of 紅樓夢 from 國立臺灣大學中文系 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://club.ntu.edu.tw/~davidhsu/The%20Story%20of%20the%20Stone/001-Stone1/120.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;). The main body of the text is in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_(typefaces)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Song/Ming Typeface&lt;/a&gt;, while direct quotes are given in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;regular script typeface&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this is why it is difficult for native speakers to answer your query. Printed books may employ the following font styles for different parts of the text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Song/Ming typeface for the main body;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Regular script typeface for quotes, or a short segment indicating first-person narratives;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imitation_Song&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Imitation Song typeface&lt;/a&gt; for annotations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, all that's needed for clarification is to print the narration in regular script, and simply write “兩年之前，。。。。。。”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-10-23T10:07:25.740" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T10:07:25.740" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31725" CreationDate="2018-10-23T11:16:44.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;a &quot;traditional&quot; approach, using the sexagenary cycle (干支); in which 干支 was used to indicating year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the events are happening during some time during the narrators high school years&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;supposed it's 2010-2016, which would be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2010 - &quot;庚寅年&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2011 - &quot;辛卯年&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2012 - &quot;壬辰年&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2013 - &quot;癸巳年&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2014 - &quot;甲午年&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2015 - &quot;乙未年&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2016 - &quot;丙申年&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;used this sexagenary cycle to mark your events,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;two years before I had gotten a bad sickness, which is why I drank so much water&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;two year before your high school years, it would be 2008 (戊子年)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, write somethings like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;戊子歲．予罹重病．癒以飲水之方．至今遵之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which 戊子 is two &quot;entries&quot; before &quot;庚寅&quot;, so, reader should understand that you inserted an event two years prior to your high school years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T11:16:44.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31725" CreationDate="2018-10-23T12:52:25.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll put as below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Two years before I had gotten a bad sickness -- 我患重病前的两年之前 // 2 years before&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我患重病前的前两年 // &lt;em&gt;within those 2 years&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;sometime during those 2 years&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T12:52:25.563" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31719" CreationDate="2018-10-23T13:22:47.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;&quot;If you have a Chinese text, i.e. just the characters and no Pinyin or anything, I'm wondering if it's possible to figure out the meaning of the text.&quot;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would have some problem in there, because the translation of the characters alone aren't exactly the same as those when they appear together. A simple example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他姐妹是中国人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you just pick each character from a dictionary, you would get a translation like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He [elder sister] [younger sister] be middle country person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What meaning could you extract from that? I don't think nothing much close from the original one, which should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;His sister is Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Chinese has no blank space in between words, it's hard to know when you are a beginer where the words start and finish. To start trying to understand the sentence above, you should first know that the words are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[他][姐妹][是][中国][人]。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another problem is that many characters have more than one meaning. Taking my first example, if you didn't know that 中国 was a word itself and tried to find 中 alone, you could find 中 with the meanings &quot;middle, to hit, China, etc.&quot;, making it more difficult to choose the correct one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the answer to your question is: yes, it is possible, but you will have a hard time with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T13:22:47.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31725" CreationDate="2018-10-23T14:53:01.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As drooze mentioned 在那之前的两年 would probably be interpreted as &lt;strong&gt;during&lt;/strong&gt; the two years before/&lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; the two years before. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the best way to resolve the ambiguity would be to say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那件事发生之前,大概两年前，。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T14:53:01.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31732" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-23T17:40:34.527" Score="1" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;Came across characters which appear to be written on parchment. Any idea why it’d be framed or the meaning of it? All I can tell is that it seems to be a [poetic] story. (The characters in red are a signature and appear on other paintings as well.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6nAds.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6nAds.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;frame&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I realize the image is horizontal, but if I were have rotate it some of the characters get cut off.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19481" LastEditorUserId="19481" LastEditDate="2018-10-23T19:07:39.050" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T19:07:39.050" Title="Artistic characters?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31732" CreationDate="2018-10-23T18:22:09.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;the main text is 洛神賦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E6%B4%9B%E7%A5%9E%E8%B3%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/洛神賦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the inscription is the last line (above the seal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;同治戊辰閏夏臨于何氏之還讀我書齋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同治戊辰閏夏 is 22nd may - 19th june, in the year of 1868&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m6ICT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m6ICT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;臨于何氏之還讀我書齋 means copied (臨摹) at mr. ho (何氏) 's (之) premise that named &quot;還讀我書齋&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, the seal is unrecognised in this resolution. do you have a higher quality one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T18:22:09.247" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31734" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-23T18:46:00.413" Score="5" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm familiar with duplication of nouns to mean &quot;all&quot; or &quot;every&quot;, such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;打扫卫生人人有责。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Everyone is responsible for cleaning up.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好好学习天天向上。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  If you study well you will improve every day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can the same structure be used for any noun?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;狗狗有尾。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  All dogs have tails (?)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;腿腿疼手手冷。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Both of my legs hurt and both of my hands are cold (?)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;熊猫熊猫很可爱。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  All pandas are cute (?)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these acceptable sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9263" LastActivityDate="2018-10-25T12:12:16.610" Title="Can any noun be duplicated like 人人 and 天天?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31735" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31736" CreationDate="2018-10-23T19:21:32.780" Score="1" ViewCount="1024" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wish to make a &lt;strong&gt;short&lt;/strong&gt; video wishing my girlfriends parents a happy 30th wedding anniversary. The originally come from Hong Kong and speak Cantonese. I haven't met them yet, and my girlfriend told me I would probably call them &quot;uncle&quot; and &quot;aunt&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I want to say is something along the lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Dear uncle and aunt, congratulations on your wedding anniversary&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I have so far is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Dear uncle and aunt,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;结婚纪念日快乐&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not Asian myself, so I would appreciate if you could help me make a sentence. I'm in doubt about the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can I improve the sentence/is it respectful?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the best way to find out how it's pronounced in Cantonese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; Here's some context: They know my name and I have sent them two postcards before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18848" LastEditorDisplayName="user18848" LastEditDate="2018-10-23T22:33:45.920" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T22:33:45.920" Title="Wishing a happy 30th wedding anniversary" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;congratulations&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31735" CreationDate="2018-10-23T20:21:05.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;uncle and aunt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, address them as &quot;uncle, &lt;strong&gt;auntie&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, if they understand english (ask your gf)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in cantonese, address them as 世伯．伯有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世伯 - gf's father&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伯有 - gf's mother, originally, it should be 伯母. well, cantonese speaking people have many taboos, &quot;伯母&quot; sounds similar to &quot;百無&quot; (hundred + nothing / lack --&gt; lack everything). so, it's common to say 伯有 (有 means have --&gt; have everything)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the pronunciation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/sai3.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;世&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/baak3.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;伯&lt;/a&gt;　&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/baak3.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;伯&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/jau5.Mp3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;有&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, your approach is too &quot;direct&quot;. maybe, try to introduce yourself, then mentioned you &quot;heard&quot; from your girlfriend that, it's their wedding anniversary. so, you make this short video for congratulation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would suggest something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世伯　伯友 (or uncle, auntie)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你哋好 (~ how do you do)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我係阿 Sam (supposed &quot;sam&quot; is your name, ~ i'm sam)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聽 mary 講 (supposed &quot;mary&quot; is your gf's name, ~ i heard from mary that)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聽日係你地結婚30周年嘅紀念日 (~ tomorrow is your 30th wedding anniversaries)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喺呢度 (~ here, in the video)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝你地結婚紀念日快樂 (~ wish you a happy wedding anniversary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bye :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;check the above text with your girlfriend, get her approval :)&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you may use the multi-function chinese character database to find out the cantonese pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you're using mac os x, copy the text to textedit.app, the text-to-speech is quite good, you may learn from it. i guess that windows has similar function, which i don't have experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun, good luck la :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T20:21:05.360" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31734" CreationDate="2018-10-23T20:38:20.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do 狗狗, 腿腿 or 手手. But this usage doesn't show plural. Usually girls use these kinds of words to act cute. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;熊猫 already contains two characters so we don't say 熊猫熊猫. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-10-24T10:40:56.440" LastActivityDate="2018-10-24T10:40:56.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31738" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31741" CreationDate="2018-10-23T20:50:35.560" Score="3" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is related to the position of 给.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do I say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;学校被卖给那个公司了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;学校给那个公司被卖了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2018-10-24T17:47:42.540" LastActivityDate="2018-10-24T17:47:42.540" Title="How do I say &quot;the school was sold to that big company&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31739" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31740" CreationDate="2018-10-23T21:34:34.187" Score="2" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;偏見，偏私，and 偏心 all seem to mean &lt;code&gt;biased&lt;/code&gt; in some form or another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference among the three, or are they interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T13:10:45.883" Title="Difference between 偏見，偏私，and 偏心？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31739" CreationDate="2018-10-23T21:58:09.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;偏见 is &lt;em&gt;bias of opinion or concept on different groups&lt;/em&gt;, like race groups or religion groups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偏心 is &lt;em&gt;bias of love on different persons&lt;/em&gt;, like children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偏私 is more used in ancient Chinese and it means &lt;em&gt;bias on people or group to which the subject belongs&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-10-24T02:28:52.477" LastActivityDate="2018-10-24T02:28:52.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31738" CreationDate="2018-10-23T21:59:34.843" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position of 给 in the first sentence you have is correct, you would just add 了 to indicate the completion of the act to make it flow better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那所学校被卖给那个大公司了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T21:59:34.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31738" CreationDate="2018-10-23T23:21:21.073" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some alternatives :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;学校被卖给了那个公司。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;学校被那个公司收购了/买走了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;学校被那个公司给收购了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T23:21:21.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31743" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31745" CreationDate="2018-10-24T02:34:06.893" Score="1" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to Chinese but have seen documents where the layout of the characters seems to fit certain patterns, and I'm wondering if it is significant in some way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, one is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;是以成神,名曰石拆神,&#xA;次又生神,根拆神,&#xA;併有石筒之男神生.自此凡著劍鋒灑淨岩所成神者,有三柱坐矣.&#xA;而著刀身之血亦濺,灑落淨石群中,&#xA;所成神名,甕速日神,&#xA;其次,樋速日神,&#xA;又生,建御雷之男神,此神亦名建布都神,豐布都神.凡劍身著血灑落石群所生神者,并三柱.&#xA;而著劍柄之血,自伊邪那岐命之指縫漏出.&#xA;所成之神,名闇淤加美神,&#xA;其次亦生,闇御津羽神.&#xA;顧石拆神以下,闇御津羽神以前并八柱神等,皆御刀所生之神也.&#xA;而遭殺迦具土神之顱,所生神名,正鹿山津見神,&#xA;其胸部所生神名,淤滕山津見神,&#xA;其腹所生神謂,奧山津見神,&#xA;又陰部所生神喚,闇山津見神,&#xA;其左手所生之神,志藝山津見神,&#xA;其右手所生之神,羽山津見神,&#xA;次,左足生神,原山津見神,&#xA;而戶山津見神自其右足生,自正鹿山津見神,迄戶山津見神并八神.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case it is sort of like an English peom where you have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;This is a line&#xA;And this is another line,&#xA;etc.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another example where it looks like broken into &quot;lines&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;生子、淡道之穗之狹別嶋【訓別、云和氣。下效此。】&#xA;次生、伊豫之二名嶋。&#xA;此嶋者、身一而有面四、毎面有名。故、伊豫國謂『愛(上)比賣』【此二字以音下效此】&#xA;讚岐國謂『飯依比古』。&#xA;粟國謂『大宜都比賣』【此四字以音】&#xA;土左國謂『建依別』。&#xA;次生、隱伎之三子嶋。亦名『天之忍許呂別』【許呂二字以音】&#xA;次生、筑紫嶋。此嶋亦身一而有面四、毎面有名、&#xA;故、筑紫國謂『白日別』。&#xA;豐國謂『豐日別』。&#xA;肥國謂『建日向日豐久士比泥別』【自久至泥以音】&#xA;熊曾國謂『建日別』【曾字以音】&#xA;次生、伊岐嶋。亦名謂『天比登都柱』【自比至都以音。訓天如天。】&#xA;次生、津嶋。亦名謂『天之狹手依比賣』。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you also find what looks like paragraph structures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　　於是、天神諸命以、詔伊邪那岐命、伊邪那美命、二柱神、修理固成是多陀用幣流之國、賜天沼矛而、言依賜也。故、二柱神立【訓立云、多多志】天浮橋而、指下其沼矛以畫者、鹽許袁呂許袁呂邇【此七字以音】畫鳴【訓鳴云、那志】而、引上時、自其矛末垂落之鹽之累積、成嶋。是淤能碁呂嶋。【自淤以下四字以音。】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;　　　於其嶋天降坐而、見立天之御柱、見立八尋殿。於是問其妹伊邪那美命曰、「汝身者如何成。」答曰「吾身者、成成不成合處一處在。」爾伊邪那岐命詔、「我身者、成成而成餘處一處在。故、以此吾身成餘處、刺塞汝身不成合處而、爲生成國土、奈何。」【訓生云、宇牟。下效此。】伊邪那美命答曰「然善。」爾伊邪那岐命、詔「然者、吾與汝行迴逢是天之御柱而、爲美斗能麻具波比。」【此七字以音。】如此云期、乃詔「汝者自右迴逢、我者自左迴逢。」約竟以迴時、伊邪那美命、先言「阿那邇夜志愛(上)袁登古袁。」【此十字以音。下效此。】後、伊邪那岐命言「阿那邇夜志愛(上)袁登賣袁。」各言竟之後、告其妹曰、「女人先言不良。雖然久美度邇【此四字以音】興而、&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I have seen stuff such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/zen/fm/fm.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; where it seems to be laid out in a square:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  言但若極無十要非一契兩泯一眼夢迷法六不任執大一境無二二前歸多一止莫圓違毫至　三&#xA;&#xA;  語能不大在方急思切心既其如若幻生無塵好性之道空由咎由見空根言種動逐同順釐道　祖&#xA;&#xA;  道如如同不智相量不平不所體不虚寂異不勞合失體同能無一不轉得多不歸有太相有無　僧&#xA;&#xA;  斷是此小在者應處留等成以玄睡華亂法惡神道度寛兩境法有住變旨慮通止縁虚爭差難　璨&#xA;&#xA;  非何必不十皆唯識無所一不兀諸何悟妄還何逍必無齊能不一慎皆隨轉兩止勿無是天唯　大&#xA;&#xA;  去慮不見方入言情可作何可爾夢勞無自同用遙入易含由生亦莫由照不處更住欠爲地嫌　師&#xA;&#xA;  來不須邊目此不難記倶有方忘自把好愛正疏絶邪無萬境不莫追妄失相失彌空無心懸揀　信&#xA;&#xA;  今畢守表前宗二測憶息爾比縁除捉惡著覺親惱路難象能心守尋見宗應功動忍餘病隔擇　心&#xA;&#xA;  　信一有極宗不眞虚狐究止萬心得一將智欲繫放小不欲能一纔不須絶遣唯一良不欲但　銘&#xA;&#xA;  　心即即小非二如明疑竟動法若失切心者取念之見見知隨心有用臾言有滯種由識得莫&#xA;&#xA;  　不一是同促皆法自盡窮無齊不是二用無一乖自狐精兩境不是求返絶沒兩平取玄現憎&#xA;&#xA;  　二切無大延同界照淨極動觀異非邊心爲乘眞然疑麤段滅生非眞照慮有邊懷捨旨前愛&#xA;&#xA;  　不一無忘一無無不正不動歸萬一良豈愚勿昏體轉寧元境萬紛唯勝無從寧泯所徒莫洞&#xA;&#xA;  　二切即絶念不他勞信存止復法時由非人惡沉無急有是逐法然須卻處空知然以勞存然&#xA;&#xA;  　信即是境萬包無心調軌無自一放斟大自六不去轉偏一能無失息前不背一自不念順明&#xA;&#xA;  　心一有界年容自力直則止然如卻酌錯縛塵好住遲黨空沉咎心見空通空種盡如靜逆白&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or without the spaces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  言但若極無十要非一契兩泯一眼夢迷法六不任執大一境無二二前歸多一止莫圓違毫至　三&#xA;  語能不大在方急思切心既其如若幻生無塵好性之道空由咎由見空根言種動逐同順釐道　祖&#xA;  道如如同不智相量不平不所體不虚寂異不勞合失體同能無一不轉得多不歸有太相有無　僧&#xA;  斷是此小在者應處留等成以玄睡華亂法惡神道度寛兩境法有住變旨慮通止縁虚爭差難　璨&#xA;  非何必不十皆唯識無所一不兀諸何悟妄還何逍必無齊能不一慎皆隨轉兩止勿無是天唯　大&#xA;  去慮不見方入言情可作何可爾夢勞無自同用遙入易含由生亦莫由照不處更住欠爲地嫌　師&#xA;  來不須邊目此不難記倶有方忘自把好愛正疏絶邪無萬境不莫追妄失相失彌空無心懸揀　信&#xA;  今畢守表前宗二測憶息爾比縁除捉惡著覺親惱路難象能心守尋見宗應功動忍餘病隔擇　心&#xA;  　信一有極宗不眞虚狐究止萬心得一將智欲繫放小不欲能一纔不須絶遣唯一良不欲但　銘&#xA;  　心即即小非二如明疑竟動法若失切心者取念之見見知隨心有用臾言有滯種由識得莫&#xA;  　不一是同促皆法自盡窮無齊不是二用無一乖自狐精兩境不是求返絶沒兩平取玄現憎&#xA;  　二切無大延同界照淨極動觀異非邊心爲乘眞然疑麤段滅生非眞照慮有邊懷捨旨前愛&#xA;  　不一無忘一無無不正不動歸萬一良豈愚勿昏體轉寧元境萬紛唯勝無從寧泯所徒莫洞&#xA;  　二切即絶念不他勞信存止復法時由非人惡沉無急有是逐法然須卻處空知然以勞存然&#xA;  　信即是境萬包無心調軌無自一放斟大自六不去轉偏一能無失息前不背一自不念順明&#xA;  　心一有界年容自力直則止然如卻酌錯縛塵好住遲黨空沉咎心見空通空種盡如靜逆白&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering what the purpose is of these layouts. If it conveys any extra meaning, or if it is purely for stylistic purposes, etc. Given that Chinese doesn't have spaces between words, (and I can't read Chinese yet), I'm not sure if it would be okay to just ignore these &quot;layouts&quot; and instead rewrite them all in the same format. So for example the last one, instead of being a square, could just be a standard left-to-right flow of text like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;言但若極無十要非一契兩泯一眼夢迷法六不任執大一境無二二前歸多一止莫圓違毫至三語能不大在方急思切心既其如若幻生無塵好性之道空由咎由見空根言種動逐同順釐道祖道如如同不智相量不平不所體不虚寂異不勞合失體同能無一不轉得多不歸有太相有無僧斷是此小在者應處留等成以玄睡華亂法惡神道度寛兩境法有住變旨慮通止縁虚爭差難璨非何必不十皆唯識無所一不兀諸何悟妄還何逍必無齊能不一慎皆隨轉兩止勿無是天唯大去慮不見方入言情可作何可爾夢勞無自同用遙入易含由生亦莫由照不處更住欠爲地嫌師來不須邊目此不難記倶有方忘自把好愛正疏絶邪無萬境不莫追妄失相失彌空無心懸揀信今畢守表前宗二測憶息爾比縁除捉惡著覺親惱路難象能心守尋見宗應功動忍餘病隔擇心信一有極宗不眞虚狐究止萬心得一將智欲繫放小不欲能一纔不須絶遣唯一良不欲但銘心即即小非二如明疑竟動法若失切心者取念之見見知隨心有用臾言有滯種由識得莫不一是同促皆法自盡窮無齊不是二用無一乖自狐精兩境不是求返絶沒兩平取玄現憎二切無大延同界照淨極動觀異非邊心爲乘眞然疑麤段滅生非眞照慮有邊懷捨旨前愛不一無忘一無無不正不動歸萬一良豈愚勿昏體轉寧元境萬紛唯勝無從寧泯所徒莫洞二切即絶念不他勞信存止復法時由非人惡沉無急有是逐法然須卻處空知然以勞存然信即是境萬包無心調軌無自一放斟大自六不去轉偏一能無失息前不背一自不念順明心一有界年容自力直則止然如卻酌錯縛塵好住遲黨空沉咎心見空通空種盡如靜逆白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's not okay to remove/replace the layout with something else, I'm wondering why not / what kind of information I am losing if doing that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2018-10-27T07:38:35.173" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T07:38:35.173" Title="Is the layout of the Chinese characters relevant to the meaning?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31743" CreationDate="2018-10-24T05:27:00.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;if the layout of the chinese characters is relevant to the meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's a no. the meaning of chinese text does not change, in relation to the style of &quot;character flow&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in text samples provided, the fifth one is the traditional style, used for several thousands of years. it should be read from top to bottom, from right to left. without punctuations, readers need certain level of skill to chop it into verses, then, grasp the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly after may fourth movement in 1919; people adopted western writing styles, that texts are written from left to right, from top to bottom; with punctuations, line breaks and paragraphs. sample 1-3 are in this style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mainly, texts in such writing style are easier to comprehend, and less fuzzy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for beginner, one ought to learn this modern style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;may i say that, the old, traditional style is, too adventurous for you at this moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-10-24T05:27:00.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31746" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31747" CreationDate="2018-10-24T08:04:34.697" Score="1" ViewCount="5641" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given that Chinese characters don't need to have any spacing between them (from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/31743/if-the-layout-of-the-chinese-characters-is-relevant-to-the-meaning&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;), in that they don't need whitespace between words, or even between paragraphs or chapters, then you could just have basically a grid of Chinese characters extending hundreds of pages without any spacing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only issue with this is it makes it a bit more difficult to read the writing; you have to do some of the context analysis mentally in your head to basically tease apart the words and paragraphs. So these spacing structures like word spacing and paragraphs help with mentally understanding the logical flow and meaning of the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not knowing much about Chinese writing, I'm wondering what best practices are currently for writing in Chinese, and if anyone uses whitespace between words in Chinese, or uses paragraphs, sections, chapters, etc.. Basically all of the things you'd find in a wiki.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Briefly looking for a Chinese News website, I find &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xinhuanet.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, which has these characters in this format:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IK3Zr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IK3Zr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't know what it says, but I'm just looking at the syntax. That looks like a list of articles perhaps. So then clicking on one, it looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FuZu7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FuZu7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looks like there are paragraphs, and spaces after punctuation (comma, period, question mark), but not spaces between words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wondering if anyone these days also writes with spaces between words (maybe there are examples of blogs that do this). Also wondering what is considered &quot;best practice&quot; for readability, related to the spacing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, I would like to know if I were to write Chinese writing with spaces between words, how it would be perceived. Maybe it is only done in children's books, type of thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastEditorUserId="20335" LastEditDate="2018-10-24T08:12:17.670" LastActivityDate="2018-10-24T09:04:09.857" Title="Spacing Guidelines for Modern Chinese Writing" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31746" CreationDate="2018-10-24T08:21:38.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No space is needed between characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A paragraph would start on a new line, usually with an indentation of two characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Space after punctuation is not required. The space you see is because the font tries to make punctuation to have the same width as a Chinese character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your first picture, the texts are article titles. There, to separate two phrases without using a punctuation, space is used. This usage usually do not appear in main article content.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-10-24T08:21:38.643" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31746" CreationDate="2018-10-24T09:04:09.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Spacing is usually put between words (or a similar semantic grouping of syllables) when Chinese is written in a Roman script. In general, phonetic scripts are inherently unclear and insufficient to represent Chinese, so other cues for clarity are used as much as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pinyin (Mandarin): &lt;strong&gt;huánjìng bǎohù guīhuà&lt;/strong&gt; (環境保護規劃), &lt;em&gt;environmental protection planning&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pe̍h-ōe-jī (Minnan): &lt;strong&gt;Thài-khong pêng-iú, lín hó! Lí chia̍h-pá--bē?&lt;/strong&gt; (太空朋友，你好！你食飽未？), &lt;em&gt;Friends from Space, how are you? Have you eaten yet?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Gwoyeu Romatzyh (Mandarin): &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Hannshyue&quot; .de mingcheng duey Jonggwo yeou idean butzuenjinq .de yihwey.&lt;/strong&gt; (漢學的名稱對中國有一點不尊敬的意味。), &lt;em&gt;The term &quot;Sinology&quot; carries a slight overtone of disrespect towards China.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yale Romanisation (Cantonese): &lt;strong&gt;Hó-m̀h-hó'yi je go dihnwáh yuhng a?&lt;/strong&gt; (可唔可以借個電話用呀？), &lt;em&gt;Can I use your phone?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-10-24T09:04:09.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31734" CreationDate="2018-10-24T10:10:46.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;很遗憾，并不是所有名词都可以重复，这类重复的词称为叠词。&#xA;人人 AA type&#xA;金灿灿 ABB type&#xA;急急忙忙 AABB type&#xA;以上只是很少的几个例子，还有很多种结构&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20639" LastActivityDate="2018-10-24T10:10:46.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31751" CreationDate="2018-10-24T12:13:08.230" Score="2" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;So 用 means use and 不用 means don’t need to. So what phrase do you use to express don’t use&#xA;For example: I don’t use mobile phone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2018-10-24T13:16:43.063" Title="What phrase do you use to express “don’t use sth”" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31750" CreationDate="2018-10-24T13:16:43.063" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, 用 can mean both &quot;don’t need to&quot; and &quot;don't use&quot; depending on context. E.g. 我不用 can mean 我不需要, I don't need it；我不用手机 can mean I don't use mobile phone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-24T13:16:43.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31752" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31753" CreationDate="2018-10-24T21:37:26.063" Score="1" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why cangjie code of 誤 is YRRVK in the dictionary instead of YRRMK? Although both worked on my ime. Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20643" LastActivityDate="2018-10-24T23:04:06.557" Title="Why cangjie code of 誤 is YRRVK?" Tags="&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31752" CreationDate="2018-10-24T23:04:06.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;because in Traditional Chinese (the basis for cangjie) the 天 part is actually written like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|______&#xA;   |  /&#xA;___|___&#xA;  / \&#xA; /   \&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where the&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|______&#xA;      /&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;parts give it the V (女) code&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastActivityDate="2018-10-24T23:04:06.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31754" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-25T06:08:25.167" Score="0" ViewCount="35" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am implementing multilingual glossary where we have alphabets and glossary content having title and description. Currently it is in english and I want to add support for Chinese. &#xA;In English I have alphabets like A, B, C, D, etc. On click of any of the alphabets the corresponding title gets displayed.&#xA;How do we implement the same for Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20645" LastActivityDate="2018-10-25T07:19:51.067" Title="Glossary Implementation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31754" CreationDate="2018-10-25T07:07:59.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese can be sorted by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;. This is also what is done in the dictionary. Basically, each character has a prononciation, and that prononciation can be latinized into Pinyin. You can look up Pinyin on Wiktionary. The first letter of Pinyin can be used to group the phrases in your glossary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, word &quot;苹果&quot; has Pinyin &quot;píng guǒ&quot; according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%98%8B%E6%9E%9C#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. You can sort the word on Pinyin just like English words, with an additional rule of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Tones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tone&lt;/a&gt;. If a letter in Pinyin has a tone, sort tone in the order of &quot;ā, á, ǎ, à&quot;. And toned vowels come prior to the untoned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that, one Chinese character may have multiple prononciations, so you should search for the entire phase to determine the Pinyin for the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other sort schemes also exist, such as the radical order, or total strokes. But these are now less commonly used than Pinyin. Also keep in mind that, Chinese has a lot of accents, so Pinyin sorting may not be ideal if your audience is old  Cantonese who does not speak Mandarin, for example. In that case, total strokes might be a better solution. Another side note, Taiwan is also using Pinyin as their official Latinization system. So Pinyin can be generally used for both Mainland and Taiwan audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastEditorUserId="17065" LastEditDate="2018-10-25T07:19:51.067" LastActivityDate="2018-10-25T07:19:51.067" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31734" CreationDate="2018-10-25T12:12:16.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may found that duplicating an &lt;strong&gt;object&lt;/strong&gt; to means &lt;em&gt;every &lt;strong&gt;object&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, the rule only apply to some date &amp;amp; time words or measure words. There are no general rules, just idiomatic expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;年年 = 每年 every year&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;岁岁 = 每年 every year&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;月月 = 每月 every month&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;日日 = 每日 every day&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;天天 = 每天 every day&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;人人 = 每人 every body&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;个个 = 每个 every &lt;strong&gt;something&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;次次 = 每次 every time&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;分分秒秒 = every moment&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;时时刻刻 = every time&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;点点滴滴 = bits and pieces of life&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;年年岁岁 = every year&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2018-10-25T12:12:16.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31716" CreationDate="2018-10-25T12:31:35.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is how Chinese characters come from. A Chinese character may have only one meaning at the beginning, later it may have some new more meanings, the different meanings are divided into seperated characters, and then the number of Chinese characters are increasing more and more. In the process of creating new characters, the characters  that mean the same thing may be written in different ways, called variants, and these variants versions may exist for a long times, and some of them may be discarded or rarely used in history. In today's simplified Chinese, there are characters that have the same meaning but are written differently that may be used in different scenarios, like 耦 is used in electromagnetism only, and some that are common to each other, like 唯一 equals to 惟一.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2018-11-20T11:27:04.033" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T11:27:04.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31759" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-25T14:45:50.073" Score="2" ViewCount="506" Body="&lt;p&gt;So the word 学姐 is gender specific to woman so what about 学长? Is it only use for male? And if so is 学兄 for all gender?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T22:58:45.733" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T22:58:45.733" Title="Is 学长/学兄 gender specific？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31759" CreationDate="2018-10-25T14:54:45.210" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience, 学兄, for male only, is understandable, but is rarely used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学姐 is used more than 学兄. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学长 is common and gender neutral, although it's more common among men than women. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also heard of 学弟，学妹. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-10-26T01:57:02.057" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T01:57:02.057" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31759" CreationDate="2018-10-25T15:02:14.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 学长 and 学兄 are gender specific and refer to male.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is however, not common to say 学兄，you would say 师兄。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a female, you would say 学姐 or 师姐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-10-25T15:02:14.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31762" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-25T17:47:46.267" Score="0" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me with what this says?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QS6mZ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QS6mZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;signature&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(see also: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A5xII.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;full picture&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried Google image search, and even looking for different signatures, but no luck so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20650" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T02:41:19.627" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T02:41:19.627" Title="Need help translating this title and signature? (Characters identified: 古堂)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31762" CreationDate="2018-10-25T23:00:59.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually this is the name/signature of the author. Note that usually it's not the original family name, because traditional Chinese people styled themselves some particular names or titles apart from the given name from the family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case it looks like &quot;古堂&quot; and it's not a famous name to me at least...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=== Update ===&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the signature, 堂 usually means &quot;hall&quot; or a large room used for specific purpose. I'm not 100% sure the first character is &quot;古&quot;, which means ancient/old. Although some people did use the title of his unique place to present himself, yet &quot;ancient hall&quot; here as a place is kind of neutral to me to be used by a famous people...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The seals (which is very blurry in your photo) in Chinese painting or artworks do not have to be the name/title of the author. In some cases it can also be the name/title of a place, short phrases, etc. as long as it's identical to the author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17063" LastEditorUserId="17063" LastEditDate="2018-10-29T00:14:47.463" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T00:14:47.463" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9506" CreationDate="2018-10-26T01:12:27.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question was asked some time ago, and the answer still seems tricky to find.&#xA;In Windows 8 this can be achieved without installing anything extra by going to the settings for the &quot;Microsoft Bopomofo&quot; input method and adding a &quot;Toneless key&quot; which acts as a tone wildcard, that is to say you press the key if you don't know which tone to enter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i27GV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i27GV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Microsoft Bopomofo Settings dialogue window&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't quite as convenient as the iPhone keyboard which allows you to skip tones altogether (or, even, to just type initial sounds) but it can get you by as a learner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17874" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T01:12:27.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31766" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31767" CreationDate="2018-10-26T03:27:06.933" Score="1" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A和B很像。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds natural.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But if we delete 很 in the sentence, it looks like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A和B像。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which sounds very unnatural.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So what role does 很 play in the original sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20655" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T06:21:59.550" Title="What role does 很 play in A和B很像?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31766" CreationDate="2018-10-26T05:59:17.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A和B很像 and A跟B很像 mean the same thing, where you make a comparison between A and B. You can also say A像B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A和B像 is like a incomplete phrase, where you put A and B together as one unit, but not to compare with each other. In order to make it complete, you might have to engage a third party to compare with A and B, like: A和B像C. A和B像C means both A and B are similar to C.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, A和B像 can be natural in some context. E.g&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tom: A和B一点都不像！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jim: 不！A和B像！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, when we say A和B很像, our tone is natrually put a bit emphasis on 很. So, we are clear what the speaker is trying to convey. Without it, it could be interpreted as both. As you can see from above example, even A和B像 could be natural if you put more emphasis on the word 像. But with 很, you make it a lot easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T06:21:59.550" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31768" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31771" CreationDate="2018-10-26T08:08:52.140" Score="0" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 书呆子 and 迂夫子 mean a pedant, and at least I know 书呆子 is usually used in derogatory tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never seen the word 迂夫子 until just now, and it seems to mean the same thing as 书呆子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wonder if there is any difference. Is it also a derogatory word, or anything others that differ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T00:33:41.697" Title="What is the difference between 书呆子 and 迂夫子?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31743" CreationDate="2018-10-26T08:17:03.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the number is syllables is quite important even in everyday speech; speakers tend to produce sentences with even numbers of syllables. As a result, I've often see them shorten two syllable words into one just to fit into that pattern, or skip some grammatical particles to conform to that format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's not always observed, or even possible, but the tendency is definitely there.&#xA;Since Chinese is a tonal language (you have 5 ways each syllable can be &quot;sung&quot;) and Eastern Asians—this is well documented especially for the Japanese—process languages mostly in one hemisphere—the very same one we all use for processing of music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the Hanzi writing system is based on rhymes—compound characters are made of smaller elements called &lt;em&gt;radicals&lt;/em&gt; which either give you a clue about meaning of the character or it's pronunciation. For instance, the word 氧 yǎng 'oxygen' is made of the character 样 &lt;em&gt;yáng&lt;/em&gt; 'ocean' and 气 qì 'sky, air'—here it's basically the same syllable save for tone difference. However, sometimes the hint requires a bit more effort: 包 bāo 'package, wrap' can be found in 跑 pǎo 'to run'. You can find more about that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanzicraft.com/lists/phonetic-sets&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It leads me to believe that in Chinese you can play with rhythm much more, even in writing, which some poems can make a great use of. In this case, however, it seems to be a logical distinction. Paragraphs, verses and lines in many Asian languages have been adopted from European languages and their use hasn't stabilized completely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, I am not advanced enough in that language to make a definitive claims about linguistic aesthetics in Mandarin just yet, so take it with a grain of salt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2018-10-26T12:33:57.503" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T12:33:57.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31768" CreationDate="2018-10-26T08:23:28.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;书呆子&lt;/strong&gt; in modern language is more akin to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;nerd&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;迂夫子&lt;/strong&gt; is a good fit for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;pedant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries do seem to give &lt;em&gt;pedant&lt;/em&gt; as the definition for both. You can check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.91dub.com/search/%E4%B9%A6%E5%91%86%E5%AD%90?type=search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;91dub.com&lt;/a&gt; to see some alternative definitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T08:23:28.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31768" CreationDate="2018-10-26T10:23:46.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;书呆子 is most accurately translated as IYI (Intellectual yet idiot), a phrase coined by &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/09/16/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-by-nassim-nicholas-taleb/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nassim Taleb&lt;/a&gt;. While &quot;nerd&quot; in modern English often refers to someone who is rusty in social skills. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;迂夫子 is seldom used in modern Chinese. On those occasions they are used, it often refers to someone who adheres to strict moral code, sometimes in a way that embarrasses others. It is not a derogatory word, but sometimes used in a humorous tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="20657" LastEditDate="2018-10-26T13:53:54.817" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T13:53:54.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22871" CreationDate="2018-10-26T12:25:14.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;怎么 = how.&#xA;example: 怎么解决这个问题？ how should this problem be solved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么样 = &#xA;1, how are (you) doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example: 你最近怎么样 how are you doing lately?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2, how about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example: 你的新工作怎么样？ how about your new job?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3, so what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example: 是，我撒谎了，哪又怎么样？yes, I lied, so what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T12:25:14.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3626" CreationDate="2018-10-26T12:38:31.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;看不起 = look down upon, think negatively of, disapprove of, despise (someone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看不上 = think (something or someone) is under one's moral standards, social status, or aesthetic standards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is evil and I despise him. 他是坏人，我&lt;strong&gt;看不起&lt;/strong&gt;他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She is out of my league, I don't think she will ever like me. 我配不上她，我想她&lt;strong&gt;看不上&lt;/strong&gt;我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-10-26T13:58:52.983" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T13:58:52.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23686" CreationDate="2018-10-26T12:47:51.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;好自为之 =&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Look out for yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Behave yourself (but more politely in tone), often used in reprimand. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T12:47:51.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9249" CreationDate="2018-10-26T12:58:56.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an exact word in Chinese for this, that is &quot;淡忘&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T12:58:56.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31739" CreationDate="2018-10-26T13:10:45.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;偏见 bias, prejudice &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偏私 not impartial (especially when someone is supposed to be impartial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偏心 (often referring to parents) love one of their children more than others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T13:10:45.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31655" CreationDate="2018-10-26T13:19:29.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;诚实：honest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老实：submissive &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天真：naive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老实 means submissive, it has nothing inherently to do with kindness, for example, &quot;这个囚犯不老实&quot;, meaning the prisoner might be up to something, or he tends not to obey orders&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;obedience to authority is the main characteristic of the word &quot;老实&quot;， like students to teachers, children to their parents, employees to employers, citizens to governmental officials, prisoners to prison guards。Of course, it implies that the former doesn't lie to the latter, but it is not out of a sense of honor or integrity, rather than fear of punishment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take another example, the Chinese communism party accuses some of its party members &quot;对党不老师&quot;， that literally translates to &quot;not submissive to party leaders.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="20657" LastEditDate="2018-10-26T14:31:52.913" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T14:31:52.913" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9384" CreationDate="2018-10-26T13:20:51.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The confusion arises due to at least two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「冫」 did not originally mean &lt;em&gt;ice&lt;/em&gt;. 「冫」 originally represented the word 「鉼」 (Mandarin: &lt;strong&gt;bǐng&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;metal disks&lt;/em&gt;); later, it was used for the meaning &lt;em&gt;ice&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;bīng&lt;/strong&gt;) as a phonetic loan (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus#Rebus_principle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;rebus&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pleco lists 「冫」 as a component of 「水」 and 「永」. In terms of analysing the function of character components and character history, this is not a correct decomposition: &lt;strong&gt;「水」 and 「永」 do not contain 「冫」&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TufWF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TufWF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;⿱一丞卣&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=5318&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成5318&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DcdHO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DcdHO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;日乙227 冬&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tByCw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tByCw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「冫」 was originally a shape variant of &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=510&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「呂」 (&lt;em&gt;picture of forged copper plates&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, later written 「鋁」), representing a similar word meaning &lt;em&gt;forged metal plates&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Forged metal plates&lt;/em&gt; is now written as 「鉼」 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Zhengzhang_(1981%E2%80%931995)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhengzhang OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*peŋʔ/&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「鋁」 is now repurposed to mean &lt;em&gt;aluminium&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「冫」 was originally used as a semantic component to do with &lt;em&gt;metalworking&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;metal objects&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「冶」 - &lt;em&gt;to smelt metal&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「匀」 - &lt;em&gt;ancient weight measurement&lt;/em&gt;, now written as 「鈞」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「金」 - &lt;strong&gt;/*krɯm/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;metal&lt;/em&gt;, compound of 「冫」 (&lt;em&gt;metal plates&lt;/em&gt;), semantic 「王」 (&lt;em&gt;metal battle weapon&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;power/authority&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;king&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「今」&lt;/a&gt; (also &lt;strong&gt;/*krɯm/&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x4NBA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/x4NBA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;過伯簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=3907&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成3907&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/knLiN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/knLiN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;師㝨簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4313&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4313&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9WY6B.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9WY6B.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日甲&lt;/a&gt;90背&lt;br&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6RUNY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6RUNY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning &lt;em&gt;ice&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;/*pŋrɯŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;) is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus#Rebus_principle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;phonetic loan&lt;/a&gt;, and later on 「冫」 gained the meaning of &lt;em&gt;ice&lt;/em&gt;. Hence,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「冰」 (&lt;em&gt;ice&lt;/em&gt;) is made from the phonetically loaned word (&lt;strong&gt;/*pŋrɯŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;) and semantic 「水」 (&lt;em&gt;water&lt;/em&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「冷」 (&lt;em&gt;cold&lt;/em&gt;) is made from 「冫」 after it gained the meaning of &lt;em&gt;ice&lt;/em&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「冬」 (&lt;em&gt;end&lt;/em&gt;, now written 「終」) contained 「冫」 after it gained the meaning of &lt;em&gt;ice&lt;/em&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;'s &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;small seal&lt;/a&gt; form 「仌」 is likely a deliberate change from 「冫」 to exclusively indicate the word &lt;strong&gt;/*pŋrɯŋ/&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;ice&lt;/em&gt;) rather than the original word &lt;strong&gt;/*peŋʔ/&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;metal plates&lt;/em&gt;). Unfortunately, 「仌」 does not survive as a handwritten word or character component today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dictionary radicals&lt;/em&gt; are not really functional parts of characters, and the rest of the characters mentioned in the question do not contain 「冫」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=114&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「冭」 is a variant of 「太」, where the bottom two dots are distinguishing marks&lt;/a&gt; added to differentiate the word from 「大」;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=255&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「永」 depicts a &lt;em&gt;long river network&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, extended to mean &lt;em&gt;long (time)&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;forever&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=401&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「次」 (&lt;em&gt;next, secondary, inferior&lt;/em&gt;) is composed of semantic 「二」 (&lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt;) and semantic 「欠」 (&lt;em&gt;picture of a person sighing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;insufficient&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=147&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「水」 is a picture of &lt;em&gt;flowing water&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-29T04:47:04.533" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T04:47:04.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31604" CreationDate="2018-10-26T13:22:48.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;知识 = knowledge&#xA;学识 = scholarly knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T13:22:48.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31580" CreationDate="2018-10-26T13:26:41.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;过誉&quot; is what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's good, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's great.&#xA;它还不错，但我不会&lt;strong&gt;过誉&lt;/strong&gt;其为伟大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T13:26:41.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31349" CreationDate="2018-10-26T13:47:08.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;礼貌 = manners (as a noun), polite (as adj.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;客气 =&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1，distant and aloof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2, you are welcome, my pleasure. (Example: ——thank you (谢谢))， ——(您)客气.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3, hesitate to do something out of fearing others might get annoyed. (often used in negative sentences.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example: If you want to borrow some money from, please don't hesitate to ask.&#xA;(如果你想向我借钱，请无须客气。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T13:47:08.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31768" CreationDate="2018-10-26T14:08:12.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;书呆子 is more close to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;bookish&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. 书呆子 sometimes can be used as a neutral term, not necessary to be derogatory all the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;迂夫子 is more &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;padantic, stereotypical, and perhaps stubborn&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. 迂夫子 is obsolete already. It can never be positive or neutral in my opinion. I personally never heard of it in our daily communications. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-10-27T00:33:41.697" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T00:33:41.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26673" CreationDate="2018-10-27T05:29:02.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;制作 often applies to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1, hand-made items. example: 如何制作蛋糕 how to make a cake?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;craftsmanship. example: 精心制作的旅游纪念品 carefully crafted tourist souvenirs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;制造  mass-produce using machines in a factory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T05:29:02.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30268" CreationDate="2018-10-27T05:34:54.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;游泳 can be both formal and informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;游水 is informal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example, a sign reads &quot;NO SWIMMING&quot; can only be translated as &quot;禁止游泳&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T05:34:54.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1031" CreationDate="2018-10-27T05:50:38.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;常常 means doing something frequently and &lt;strong&gt;habitually&lt;/strong&gt;. It somehow conveys the meaning of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;used to&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通常 can be translated as &quot;in most cases&quot;, &quot;often&quot;, or &quot;usually&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经常 means &quot;have (hand) happened for many times&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T05:50:38.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6517" CreationDate="2018-10-27T06:02:13.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;举办 applies to carnivals, Olympics, super bowl, exhibitions, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;举行 applies to company meetings, wedding ceremonies, funerals, group discussions, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T06:02:13.973" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2520" CreationDate="2018-10-27T06:08:54.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;生前 means a time span between birth and death. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;死前 means a specific time point at which someone is about to die.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T06:08:54.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31789" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31790" CreationDate="2018-10-27T10:13:39.493" Score="3" ViewCount="329" Body="&lt;p&gt;The measure word of 饭 is 顿 and 碗. But what is the difference between the two and how should I classify them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first I thought 一碗饭 means a plate of food, for example if you have rice and chicken, they are considered 两碗饭, while 一顿饭 is the entire meal, so no matter how many plates are on the table, it is considered 一顿饭.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is my intuition correct or otherwise how can I differentiate them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T13:08:09.457" Title="Difference between 一顿饭 and 一碗饭" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31789" CreationDate="2018-10-27T10:17:47.660" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your intuition is correct.「頓」and also「餐」are measure word for &lt;em&gt;meals&lt;/em&gt;, while「碗」is a measure word for &lt;em&gt;bowls&lt;/em&gt; (of rice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since「飯」refers to both &lt;em&gt;meal&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;cooked rice&lt;/em&gt;, the statement of how much you ate is inferred from the measure word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To add: I would suggest that「碗」does not really refer to &lt;em&gt;plate of food&lt;/em&gt;, as Chinese does not present meals that way. The western notion of plates of food should be measured by「份」(&lt;em&gt;a share; portion&lt;/em&gt;) or「盤」(&lt;em&gt;tray; plate; dish&lt;/em&gt;). These two are also used to count Chinese dishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-10-27T10:28:41.280" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T10:28:41.280" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31791" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-27T12:10:20.987" Score="2" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we are to translate &quot;contributed to&quot; in &quot;someone's arrogance and impulsion contributed to his failure,&quot; should I use 导致 or 促使?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;张三的自负和冲动&lt;strong&gt;导致/促使&lt;/strong&gt;了他的失败。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20663" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-02T01:08:58.300" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T01:10:03.750" Title="Is 导致 or 促使 better in 自负和冲动 [导致 / 促使] 了他的失败 (&quot;arrogance and impulsion contributed to his failure&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31792" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31795" CreationDate="2018-10-27T12:30:36.857" Score="0" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a sample sentence for 八九不离十, from 现代汉语规范词典：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不猜便罢, 若猜便猜它个八九不离十。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It uses an interesting idiom 八九不离十 which I just learnt thanks to duchinese.net.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.duchinese.net/lessons/E269-eight-and-nine-are-close-to-ten&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.duchinese.net/lessons/E269-eight-and-nine-are-close-to-ten&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这句话里面的便是不是相当于就？但是意思还不清楚，请解释。&#xA;I think 便 functions like 就 here. But I'm not clear about the meaning. Could it be this, in English? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't guess then you stop; if you do guess then get it right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2018-10-30T15:22:17.313" Title="What is the function of 便 here? And what does the sentence mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31791" CreationDate="2018-10-27T12:50:40.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;导 (lead) ; 致 (reach)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;导致 = (lead to) &lt;strong&gt;cause&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;促 (induce); 使 (make)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;促使 = (induce and make) &lt;strong&gt;to push&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;someone's arrogance and impulsion &lt;strong&gt;contributed&lt;/strong&gt; to his failure&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'contributed' means 'helped' -- '导致 (lead to)' and &quot;促使 (push)&quot; are two different form of 'helping' something to happen, therefore, 导致 or 促使 are both acceptable in &quot;张三的自负和冲动导致/促使了他的失败。&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a strict word to word translation, you can use '作出贡献', but '贡献' in Chinese only denote contribution to 'positive result' For example: &quot;对社会作出贡献&quot; (contribute to society); but you cannot say &quot;对失败作出贡献&quot; (contribute to failure) unless this negative result is a good thing, for example: &quot;對纳粹滅亡作出贡献&quot; (contributed to the destruction of the Nazis)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;导致 and 促使 doesn't have this problem, they can be used to describe contribution to 'positive or negative result'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T12:50:40.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31789" CreationDate="2018-10-27T13:08:09.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At first I thought 一碗饭 means a plate of food, for example if you have rice and chicken, they are considered 两碗饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are not quite right. 一碗饭 or 一碗米饭 just means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;a bowl of rice&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. 两碗饭 means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;two bowls of rice&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, not &lt;em&gt;one rice and one chicken&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一顿饭 is just &lt;strong&gt;one  meal&lt;/strong&gt; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T13:08:09.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31792" CreationDate="2018-10-27T13:28:39.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不猜便罢, 若猜便猜它个八九不离十&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, 便 here means 就. The whole sentence means 要么就不猜，要是猜的话就会猜个八九不离十. In English, it could be like: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Either they don't guess it, or they do - and they'll probably get it right&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2018-10-30T15:22:17.313" LastActivityDate="2018-10-30T15:22:17.313" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31791" CreationDate="2018-10-27T13:51:26.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, &lt;strong&gt;助力&lt;/strong&gt; is better to interpret &quot;&lt;em&gt;contribute to&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. 导致 and 促使 imply that arrogance and impulsion are the sufficient condition to lead to his failure. Well, &quot;contribute to&quot; doesn't imply a sufficient condition. In other words, his arrogance and impulsion are not the only reason to lead to his failure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;someone's arrogance and impulsion contributed to his failure,&quot; // 张三的自负和冲动助力了他的失败。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T13:51:26.300" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31044" CreationDate="2018-10-27T14:06:19.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That character doesn't have a specific meaning, because it almost always used in a sequence of characters which represents the sound (not the meaning) of the original texts, that is usually in Sanskrit language.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is like you call Jack by &quot;杰克&quot;. The two characters mimic the pronunciation of the name Jack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="20657" LastEditDate="2018-10-27T14:17:43.460" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T14:17:43.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31800" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31810" CreationDate="2018-10-27T22:38:08.510" Score="0" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;This dictionary page lists many options for &lt;code&gt;appearance&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;現象, 跡象, and 表面 all seem like good candidates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Which one is the most common one to use when translating &lt;code&gt;appearance&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Which one is the best for Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Which one is the best for &lt;code&gt;Don't judge things by their appearance&lt;/code&gt;? 看事情不要看現象? This one seems common, but doesn't 現象 translate more into &lt;code&gt;phenomenon&lt;/code&gt;? Wouldn't 看事情不要看表面 be better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T22:05:16.203" Title="Appearance should be 現象, 跡象, or 表面？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31801" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34851" CreationDate="2018-10-27T22:48:51.923" Score="3" ViewCount="506" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two dictionaries seem to offer translations for &lt;code&gt;insecurity&lt;/code&gt; that capture the physical sort, not the psychological sort (i.e., insecurity about your looks, weight, smarts, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence: What you react to, and what you're sensitive to, often reveal your insecurities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) In Mandarin, what's the best translation for psychological &lt;code&gt;insecurity&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) What's the best translation for Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T07:01:28.713" Title="How to express psychological insecurity (not physical insecurity)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31801" CreationDate="2018-10-27T23:52:36.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Security (think: Otis Redding) is &lt;strong&gt;安全感&lt;/strong&gt;, a very popular and common concept in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt; gives the example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有安全感&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  have a sense of security&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Insecure is &lt;strong&gt;没有安全感&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt; has the example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她没有安全感。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  She feels insecure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Cantonese would opt for 缺乏 over 没有 giving you something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;缺乏安全感&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T23:52:36.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31800" CreationDate="2018-10-28T00:03:55.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There’s a common idiom that expresses not judging people by their appearances:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人不可貌相&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt; defines this as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;don't judge by appearances&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and gives the full phrase as its example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人不可貌相, 海水不可斗量。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  As the sea cannot be measured with a bushel, so people cannot be judged by their appearances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence you gave: 看事情不要看表面 is a good sentence and it concisely expresses what you want to say. 现象 can also mean appearance, for example &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; gives the sample sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;光凭现象做判断&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  guāng píng xiànxiàng zuò pànduàn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  judge according to appearance only&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but phenomenon is still the most common usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another word you might want to know is: &lt;strong&gt;长相&lt;/strong&gt;, which explicitly refers to one’s physical appearance, looks and features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-10-28T00:57:44.617" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T00:57:44.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31800" CreationDate="2018-10-28T02:10:03.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;appearance&lt;/strong&gt; can be translated differently according to the context. In general, I will interpret it as 表象 or 表面现象. 表象 can be construed as 表面现象. E.g. &lt;em&gt;Behind the appearance, what do you see?&lt;/em&gt; // 在这样的表象背后，你有看到了什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your example can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Don't judge things by their appearance. // 看事情不要看表象。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-10-28T02:18:48.447" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T02:18:48.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31791" CreationDate="2018-10-28T07:58:22.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;导致 implies “direct” cause. 促使 is more like “contributed to” in English. For this particular example, it’s better to use 促使&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20670" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-02T01:10:03.750" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T01:10:03.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31806" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-28T08:18:42.137" Score="5" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English you sometimes pronounce words in very different pitches/tones to express your emotions. &#xA;For example when you're offended, surprised or when being sarcastic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the situation you may for instance answer a question with a sort of falling tone &quot;No.&quot;. If the question offends you may answer &quot;No.&quot; with a sort of falling-rising tone, almost as if it's a question.&#xA;Or if you are uncertain if the anwser should be yes or no, you may answer &quot;No.&quot; with a kind of rising tone as if you're asking a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I wonder how this is done in Mandarin because if you just change the tones of the words, you might actually change the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20658" LastActivityDate="2018-11-04T14:35:57.057" Title="Do you change your voice when you're surprised, unsure etc. in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6517" CreationDate="2018-10-28T09:14:55.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would supplement the two other answers (although I think John Z. Li’s answer switched the examples) by stating that it seems that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;举办 describes single events, defined by one point in time (like an hour-long meeting, a single football match).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;举行 describes long-lasting events, defined by multilple points in time (like a series of seminars, or weekly exhibition).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T09:14:55.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31792" CreationDate="2018-10-28T10:52:57.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I think 便 functions like 就 here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But I'm not clear about the meaning. Could it be this, in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Na. Not &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt;. I like to think of 便 (and 就) as &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;便罢&lt;/strong&gt; can be treated as a single word meaning roughly the equivalent of 就算了 or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[then] &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; forget it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the excerpt 若猜便猜 we can treat it similarly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you’re going to guess then &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; guess something....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 and &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; also sound similar so it might be a good mnemonic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T10:52:57.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31806" CreationDate="2018-10-28T10:57:12.130" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, I think we pronounce words in different pitches and voice volume to express different emotions with tones staying unchanged. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to put an emphasis on certain words, you can speak them louder,  with a higher pitch, or both. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you change the tone, it will change the meaning in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T10:57:12.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31800" CreationDate="2018-10-28T10:59:55.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) &lt;em&gt;Which one is the most common one to use when translating appearance in Mandarin?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) &lt;em&gt;Which one is the best for Cantonese?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外= exterior ; 表 = surface&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外表(surface) is the most common one when you meant &lt;strong&gt;appearance&lt;/strong&gt; of someone or something. It is the same in Mandarin and Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;外貌(outer look), 外觀(outer view), 表面 (surface) can also translated to 'appearance' . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'貌' means 'face' -- '外貌' is more suitable for describing the 'look' of someone or something possess.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'觀' means 'view' --  '外觀' is more suitable for describing the 'view' that someone or something provided to the viewers&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;both '表' and '面' means surface -- '表面' is a compound word for 'surface', , therefore it can also mean 'appearance' by extension&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) &lt;em&gt;Which one is the best for Don't judge things by their appearance?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'表面' and '外表' are both perfect  in this context &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;看事情不要只看&lt;strong&gt;表面&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;看事情不要只看&lt;strong&gt;外表&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;現象 mostly means 'phenomenon' and 跡象 mostly mean 'sign'. neither is good fit in this context&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-28T22:05:16.203" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T22:05:16.203" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31811" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31813" CreationDate="2018-10-28T11:34:04.503" Score="5" ViewCount="1689" Body="&lt;p&gt;All these words are used to describe beauty but which one is used for human, and which is used for things?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-10-28T14:04:01.720" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T14:04:01.720" Title="Difference between 好看、美丽 and 漂亮" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31811" CreationDate="2018-10-28T11:57:38.743" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The differences between 好看, 美丽 and 漂亮 just like that differences between &lt;strong&gt;good-looking&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;beautiful&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;pretty&lt;/strong&gt;, it's so hard to distinguish... well, just a joke. The three words can be used for a good-looking person. 好看 may be used for not only a person, but also a book: 书很好看, a movie: 电影很好看, or other artistic works. If it's used for praising someone's looking, the degree is lower than 美丽 and 漂亮. Both 美丽 and 漂亮 are synonymical in almost all cases: 美丽的新娘 and 漂亮的新娘 are almost the same. 美丽 can also be used for landscape: 美丽的风景, some place: 美丽的上海, 美丽的家乡, etc. 漂亮 is generally used for persons only, also used as an adverb rarely, for example: &lt;strong&gt;well done&lt;/strong&gt; means 干得好, you may say 干得漂亮 as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T11:57:38.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5896" CreationDate="2018-10-28T12:52:07.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think of a polyhedron, where faces being 面，edges being 边. You will get the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T12:52:07.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23" CreationDate="2018-10-28T13:05:41.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you are asked &quot;你好吗？&quot;， that is &quot;how are you?&quot; or &quot;how are you doing&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you reply with &quot;我很好&quot;， that is directly translated to &quot;I am very fine&quot;. though &quot;I am dong great&quot; is a better translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to reply with something that is equivalent with &quot;I am fine&quot; in Chinese, you can simply say a single word &quot;好&quot; （fine）  or &quot;还好&quot; （not bad), here “我” is omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T13:05:41.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12281" CreationDate="2018-10-28T13:29:51.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;华裔 means someone is ethnically Chinese (in a biological sense), but &lt;strong&gt;may or may not&lt;/strong&gt; be a Chinese citizen in terms of nationality. So your understanding that the word means &quot;overseas Chinese&quot; in incorrect. A Uyghur is thus not a 华裔 no matter where he/she lives. Admittedly, the term is little confusing for English speaking people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T13:29:51.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31820" CreationDate="2018-10-28T18:02:03.877" Score="4" ViewCount="275" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to a dictionary, &lt;em&gt;tend to ~&lt;/em&gt; is translated into the following words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;倾向&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;易於&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走向&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有～的倾向&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think all of them are not used as often while reading, and thus is very awkward if I use them in writing. So there should be other expressions that mean &lt;em&gt;tend to ~&lt;/em&gt; in Chinese, for example in the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The developed countries tend to have less children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Women tend to take jobs related to education, childcare, and health.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in these cases, I think the words above are a bit awkward; I have never seen 易於 or 走向 are used while reading. So what words or expressions should I use to express &lt;em&gt;tend to ~&lt;/em&gt; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T16:12:30.507" Title="How to express &quot;tend to ~&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31817" CreationDate="2018-10-28T18:24:16.927" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We actually often use 倾向于 but not 易于 or 走向.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20675" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-10-29T16:12:30.507" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T16:12:30.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31817" CreationDate="2018-10-28T21:37:41.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 倾向于 and 偏向于 can be used for 'tend to'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;倾向于 (lend toward/ tend to) - &lt;em&gt;consciously/ &lt;strong&gt;subconsciously&lt;/strong&gt; choose to&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;偏向于 (bias toward/ tend to) - &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;consciously&lt;/strong&gt; / subconsciously choose to&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 倾向 and 偏向 can be noun (tendency) or verb (lend toward/ bias toward)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;易於 = easily&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;有～的倾向 = have the tendency of ~&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T21:37:41.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31817" CreationDate="2018-10-29T03:31:13.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For &lt;em&gt;tend to&lt;/em&gt; in normal everyday colloquial conversation just use: &lt;strong&gt;一般&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your two given sentences &lt;strong&gt;一般&lt;/strong&gt; would be a perfectly good fit for &lt;em&gt;tend to&lt;/em&gt;. You'll find that English has a lot of different nuanced words that often just translated into the one same Chinese word. This is especially true in normal, everyday, conversation devoid of literary language (书面语).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倾向于, is, as others have already mentioned, okay. 倾向于 is probably best translated as &lt;code&gt;having a tendency to [...do something...]&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T03:31:13.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31823" CreationDate="2018-10-29T03:52:49.137" Score="-1" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone sent me this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;所有这些塑料袋都来自于周边非洲国家，因为他们经常应用这种黑色袋子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And when I translated it sounded offensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17799" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-10-29T12:07:19.340" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T12:07:19.340" Title="Can someone translate this message?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31822" CreationDate="2018-10-29T05:03:22.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#zh-CN/en/%E6%89%80%E6%9C%89%E8%BF%99%E4%BA%9B%E5%A1%91%E6%96%99%E8%A2%8B%E9%83%BD%E6%9D%A5%E8%87%AA%E4%BA%8E%E5%91%A8%E8%BE%B9%E9%9D%9E%E6%B4%B2%E5%9B%BD%E5%AE%B6%EF%BC%8C%E5%9B%A0%E4%B8%BA%E4%BB%96%E4%BB%AC%E7%BB%8F%E5%B8%B8%E5%BA%94%20%E7%94%A8%E8%BF%99%E7%A7%8D%E9%BB%91%E8%89%B2%E8%A2%8B%E5%AD%90%E3%80%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translation&lt;/a&gt; of this sentence is direct and quite accurate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;所有这些塑料袋都来自于周边非洲国家，因为他们经常应用这种黑色袋子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  All of these plastic bags come from neighboring African countries because they often use this black bag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It breaks down as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;All &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E6%89%80%E6%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;所有&lt;/a&gt; of these &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E8%BF%99%E4%BA%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;这些&lt;/a&gt; plastic bags &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A1%91%E6%96%99%E8%A2%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;塑料袋&lt;/a&gt; come from &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9D%A5%E8%87%AA%E4%BA%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;来自于&lt;/a&gt; neighboring &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%91%A8%E8%BE%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;周边&lt;/a&gt; African &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%9D%9E%E6%B4%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;非洲&lt;/a&gt; countries &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9B%BD%E5%AE%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;国家&lt;/a&gt; because &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9B%A0%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;因为&lt;/a&gt; they &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BB%96%E4%BB%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;他们&lt;/a&gt; often &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BB%8F%E5%B8%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;经常&lt;/a&gt; use &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BA%94%E7%94%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;应用&lt;/a&gt; this [kind of] &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%BF%99%E7%A7%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;这种&lt;/a&gt; black &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%BB%91%E8%89%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;黑色&lt;/a&gt; bag &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%A2%8B%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;袋子&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell (bearing in mind that I'm just a learner), it's not directly rude.  The &quot;black&quot; only refers to color of the plastic bags, and I don't see any connection with race.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess it implies African people in the nearby country (or countries) tend to be litterbugs, and they allow their rubbish to blow into neighboring countries, which might be a bit insulting.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T05:03:22.790" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31817" CreationDate="2018-10-29T11:59:47.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The developed countries tend to have less children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谷歌翻译：发达国家的子女往往较少。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这句话用 “往往” 比 “倾向” 要好，“倾向” 有点拗口。&#xA;“倾向”给我的感觉更多的是表达心理活动。“走向” 可以表示股票、经济的走势。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我觉得字典解释了“tend to”在汉语中的意思，翻译的时候并不一定要用那些词。&#xA;就像刚才那个例子，用“往往”比那些词要好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12026" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T11:59:47.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31825" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31827" CreationDate="2018-10-29T12:41:05.727" Score="0" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want translate &quot;一语道破&quot; or &quot;一语道破天机&quot; to a phase with an etymology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tell the truth, blurts out the whole truth, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;seem not very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18167" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T15:54:38.960" Title="How could I translate &quot;一语道破&quot;, &quot;一语道破天机&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31825" CreationDate="2018-10-29T13:17:00.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;i would suggest &quot;freudian slip&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if it's fate, destiny related, maybe &quot;oracle slip&quot;, or &quot;divine slip&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which slip referred to the &quot;一語&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T13:17:00.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31825" CreationDate="2018-10-29T15:29:54.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;一语 = in one sentence or one word (&lt;em&gt;imply: 'directly and swiftly'&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道破 = pointing out/ expose (&lt;em&gt;speak out and expose something that's hidden&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一语道破 can be described as &quot;directly (and swiftly) pointing out&quot; in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;道破他的詭計 =  speak out and expose his trickery&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;道破他的用心 =  pointing out his intention&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一语道破他的詭計 = directly (and swiftly) pointing out his trickery&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一语道破他的用心 = directly (and swiftly) pointing out his intention&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“一语道破天机” is not a proper sentence, because '天机' (heaven's secret/ plan) is not something you can easily find out.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-29T15:54:38.960" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T15:54:38.960" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31828" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31829" CreationDate="2018-10-29T15:36:26.593" Score="7" ViewCount="655" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of this form? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;因为商纣王已失尽人心，军队也多不愿为他送命，于是逃的逃、降的降，起义的起义，朝歌很快就被攻克。纣王自杀，商朝就此灭亡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found many articles about simple reduplication of verbs in Chinese, like verb + verb or verb + 一 + verb (看看，看一看） but this one looks different (the way it's used).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20679" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-10-29T16:12:01.417" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T19:28:10.763" Title="Grammar: verb + 的 + verb" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31828" CreationDate="2018-10-29T16:20:29.060" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In [verb + 的 + verb] structure, 的 is functioning as a pronoun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逃(&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;)逃 = (&lt;strong&gt;The ones who&lt;/strong&gt;) run, run&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;降(&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;)降 =  (&lt;strong&gt;The ones who&lt;/strong&gt;) surrender, surrender&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we don't know who are running, we use a pronoun to refer them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'逃的' (the one who run) is a 'noun phrase' (subject) ; the second '逃' is the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can also use 有些(some) as the pronoun to refer them. For example: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;有些&lt;/strong&gt;逃跑, &lt;strong&gt;有些&lt;/strong&gt;投降&amp;quot; (&lt;strong&gt;some&lt;/strong&gt; run, &lt;strong&gt;some&lt;/strong&gt; surrender)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T16:41:54.263" CommentCount="17" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31830" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-29T19:54:21.277" Score="4" ViewCount="422" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently got my hands into this coin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u8RGh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;coin with characters in it&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No idea how it got here, nor where it came from, I've tried to identify the text with some chinese speaking friends but we are unable to fully comprehend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far we guess that top left character is likely 畢&#xA;And bottom right character is likely 余&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other side of the coin:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8jY1N.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;coin with an image likely to be a student&quot; /&gt;&#xA;As you can see there's definitely no &amp;quot;value&amp;quot; on the coin which we guess together with the fact that doesn't look like a chinese old coin, it's more like a memorial coin for some kind of finished study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks everyone!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Seeing as after over two years we still havent figured out much and this question still drives some attention I've decided to take a high resolution scan of the coin. I'm not fully satisfied with the quality so I'll leave the old images aswell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ifJG2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ifJG2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;High resolution coin with characters in it&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oCiGi.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oCiGi.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;High resolution coin with an image likely to be a student&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20680" LastEditorUserId="20680" LastEditDate="2021-01-30T17:02:16.857" LastActivityDate="2021-01-30T17:02:16.857" Title="Help identifying characters on a memorial coin" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31831" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-29T19:59:12.120" Score="1" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there names in Chinese for craters and other features on the Moon? Or are English/International names used instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20681" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T23:01:25.167" Title="Chinese names for Lunar Features?" Tags="&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31831" CreationDate="2018-10-29T20:16:57.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are talking about the name of the craters on the moon, I would say international names are used, just like the naming of the stars.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, some craters are named after Chinese people, like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wan-Hoo_(crater)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;万户撞击坑&lt;/a&gt; and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are talking about the features in general, we do have names for them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陨石坑 - crater&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;月海 - lunar mare&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%88%E7%9B%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;月相&lt;/a&gt; - lunar phase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T20:16:57.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31833" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-30T02:59:15.467" Score="-1" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;美国和中国的大学入˛取最重要地部分之一是标准化考试。尽管标准化考试在美国非常重要，但在中国更多。美国有两个标准化的测试选项。你可以选择采取任何你喜欢的考试。这两个考试遵循不同的规则，并基于不同的主题。对于那些喜欢英语和阅读的人来说，S.A.T.更好。对于那些喜欢数学和科学的人，他们会更喜欢A.C.T.。一些大学是可选的测试，所以学生甚至可能不需要参加考试。这个测试的学习时间平均为一年。我的一个朋友在参加实际考试之前只参加了一次实践考试。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在中国，情况并非如此。中国有一个标准化考试，高考。 它塑造了学生的生计，并对学生的期望提出了非常高的标准。中国的学生已经准备为她的入学考试基本上她的整个生活。她相信提供的信息，通过教师在正常上课时间是不够充分，并说，如果家庭有财政手段，他们支付他们的学生的课程以外的学校。在中国，接受着名大学的学生是百分之一学生的一半。 被接受的顶级学校意味着他们将有地位和权力。在中国，接受着名大学的学生是百分之一学生的一半。 被接受的顶级学校意味着他们将有地位和权力。 做得不好的学生必须要么重复一学年，要么接受他们的低等地位的未来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;区别源于他们接受学生时的看法。在美国，当他们选择学生时，他们看成绩，考试成绩，散文，课外活动，志愿者工作和建议。大学招生想知道你是和会什么样的人。由于申请顶级学校的学生是最聪明的学生，他们希望看到学生是否适合社区。有时，久负盛名的大学将接受一个学生，可能没有很好的测试，但有其他人才或能力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这两个国家，财富在大学录取过程中发挥了作用。如果一个学生更富有，他们可以聘请私人导师。因此，他们在高考上得分更高。学生谁负担不起私人教师,或不住在城市,通常比分更糟高考。这两个大学的过程都是不公平的。在美国，如果学生真的很特别，那么标准化考试就无关紧要了。在中国，如果你对高考做得不好，没有其他办法。 那些无法支付的人不会做得好，因此不会得到一份好工作。在美国，许多人说，由于大学的关系，青少年和年轻人的压力太大。中国的大学数量比美国少。因此，高校更具竞争力。美国有更多的学院和多功能性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当学生上大学时，他们正在寻找他们是谁。然而，在中国，你必须作出更早的决定；这是非常可怕的。而，中国学生做出的决定更为长久。与今天的美国学生不同的是，中国学生不以未定的专业开始上大学。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些都是一些在中国和美国大学录取的大差异，他们告诉了很多关于每个国家的文化。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20683" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-10-30T07:59:57.203" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T16:01:25.263" Title="can someone help me edit this essay about u.s. vs. china: college admissions" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31828" CreationDate="2018-10-30T13:58:12.297" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think  the structure {verb + 的 + verb} connotes that people &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;do things without any constrains or scruple&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. It describes &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;a disordered situation.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老师不在的时候，同学们玩的玩，闹的闹。// completely disordered there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玩的玩 implied that &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;if one wants to play, they just play&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (without any constrains or scruple).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your sentence, 因为商纣王已失尽人心, therefore people just did whatever they thought right to them,  逃的逃、降的降，起义的起义(fled if one felt like flee, surrender if one felt like surrender, ...) The army was disordered or uncontrolled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stretch a bit: 逃的逃 -&gt; 想逃的人逃了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. the structure {verb + 的 + verb} is usually used to express a feeling and the feeling can be negative ones such as annoyed, sad, angry, etc or positive ones such as happy, joy, exciting, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those examples above are negative. Here is a positive one: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;操场上，同学们跳绳的跳绳，做操的做操，踢毽子的踢毽子，好开心啊！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, the structure {verb + 的 + verb} is used to describe a situation and how you feel that situation. If you want to express a generic situation, you can just use other structure like 有的...有的, 有些...有些, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-11-01T23:27:53.473" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T23:27:53.473" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31835" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-30T17:54:36.367" Score="4" ViewCount="451" Body="&lt;p&gt;These days it seems popular that Chinese netizens call Japanese 太君. According to some posts on 百度知道, like &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1702336746225899980.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/584649492.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1769145282457139060.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, although they explain the etymology and the meaning of the word, there is no mention regarding whether the word is derogatory or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the word originally seems to have been used during the war, I want to ask its current usage, especially online (as it seems way more common to be used online as such).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, does the word have a derogatory sense like 小日本 or 日本鬼子, or is the meaning itself neutral but simply often used in pejorative tone? Or something others? And is it also used in positive tone, like 霓虹人?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2018-10-30T21:25:41.157" Title="Is 太君 a derogatory word?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31835" CreationDate="2018-10-30T21:25:41.157" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was a good word. For example, in 红楼梦 sometimes they call 贾母 as 史老太君. It was used to refer some senior with respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But during the war, those traitors started to use this word to the Japanese to show their respect to the Japanese and nowadays Chinese people don't like it anymore. The netizens use this world in a self-sarcasm fashion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is like the Swastika, which was used a lot in Buhddalism and can be seen a lot in ancient Buhdda sculpture. It was a good sign and then the Nazis started to use it and now most people will only associate it with the Nazi and don't like it anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2018-10-30T21:25:41.157" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31837" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31839" CreationDate="2018-10-31T11:09:34.650" Score="0" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently, the argument to 对 may be a verb, which I found surprising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;a) 对听音乐感兴趣&#xA;b) 对音乐感兴趣&#xA;c) 对听感兴趣&#xA;&#xA;d) 对游泳感兴趣&#xA;e) 对泳感兴趣&#xA;f) 对游感兴趣&#xA;&#xA;g) 对学汉语感兴趣&#xA;h) 对汉语感兴趣&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I can tell, &lt;code&gt;d)&lt;/code&gt; is grammatically better than &lt;code&gt;e)&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f)&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;b)&lt;/code&gt; is grammatically better than &lt;code&gt;a)&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;g)&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h)&lt;/code&gt; are both okay. Is that right? If so, why? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15898" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T13:33:21.743" Title="Verbal or transitive arguments to 对" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31837" CreationDate="2018-10-31T11:30:45.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;对 (toward) is a preposition here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;对(preposition) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;游泳(n) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;感兴趣(v) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;对&lt;/strong&gt;] [游泳] [感兴趣] = [interested (v)] [&lt;strong&gt;toward&lt;/strong&gt;(preposition)] [swimming (n)] = &quot;interested toward (in) swimming&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[对] [汉语] [感兴趣]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[toward] [Chinese] [interested] = &quot;interested toward (in) Chinese&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;interested&quot; is the verb; &quot;Chinese&quot; is the object noun&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[对] [学汉语] [感兴趣]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[toward] [learning Chinese] [interested] = &quot;interested toward (in) Chinese&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;interested&quot; is the verb; &quot;learning Chinese&quot; is the object phrase&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can skip the preposition if you put the verb before and auxiliary verb before the noun &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有兴趣(main verb) 游泳(auxiliary verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有兴趣(main verb) 学(auxiliary verb) 汉语 (noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;对 游泳(n) 感兴趣&quot; and &quot;对 汉语 (n) 感兴趣&quot; have the noun before the verb. It serves to emphasize the object itself&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e) &lt;em&gt;对泳感兴趣&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;f) &lt;em&gt;对游感兴趣&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are nonsensical, we do not break up the noun 游泳 into 游 or 泳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;对听感兴趣&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It lack an object --&gt; &quot;interested in listen to&quot; (listen to what?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-10-31T13:33:21.743" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T13:33:21.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31837" CreationDate="2018-10-31T12:38:59.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;b)&lt;/strong&gt; is not necessarily better than &lt;strong&gt;a)&lt;/strong&gt;. They represent different things.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;a)&lt;/strong&gt;, 對聼音樂感興趣, means that you have an interest in &lt;strong&gt;listening to music.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;b)&lt;/strong&gt;, 對音樂感興趣, means that you have an interest in &lt;strong&gt;music generally&lt;/strong&gt;. It could be composing music, playing a musical instrument, or singing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, it depends on what you are trying to say. If you like listening to music, &lt;strong&gt;a)&lt;/strong&gt; is correct. If you like music generally, &lt;strong&gt;b)&lt;/strong&gt; is correct. None of them is grammatically better than the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Again, &lt;strong&gt;g)&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;h)&lt;/strong&gt; are both correct, depending on what you say.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;g)&lt;/strong&gt;, 對學漢語感興趣, means that you have an interest in &lt;strong&gt;learning Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;h)&lt;/strong&gt;, 對漢語感興趣, just means that you have an interest in &lt;strong&gt;Chinese generally&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There's a totally different case for your last example involving answers &lt;strong&gt;d)&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;e)&lt;/strong&gt;, and &lt;strong&gt;f)&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;d)&lt;/strong&gt;, 對游泳感興趣, is correct. You have an interest in swimming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;e)&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;f)&lt;/strong&gt;, 對游/泳感興趣, do not make sense at all. 游 and 泳 must be used together to form a term. If you use only one word (in this case), it wouldn't make sense. If you were saying &quot;I threw a snowball&quot;, you wouldn't say &quot;I threw a snow&quot; or &quot;I threw a ball&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19940" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T12:38:59.223" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31840" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-31T16:29:20.917" Score="-1" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard that these 2 word have special meanings since the were made up of smaller words with meanings of itself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T22:46:14.607" Title="Can someone analyse the word 路 and 㦱？" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31840" CreationDate="2018-10-31T22:34:44.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;路 (lu4) means &quot;road&quot;, and 㦱 means &quot;me/I&quot;, which is the variant form of &quot;我&quot; (they both pronounce wo3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess most Chinese people never seen 㦱 in their entire life, including me until a moment ago...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They may present extended meanings when combined with other characters, however when used alone both character are quite common and I can hardly think of any special meanings regarding the structure or component. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17063" LastEditorUserId="17063" LastEditDate="2018-10-31T22:46:14.607" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T22:46:14.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31844" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31845" CreationDate="2018-11-01T14:29:29.493" Score="3" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read from Baidu that '&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%83%8A%E9%B8%BF/44746&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;惊鸿&lt;/a&gt;' has three meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I still don't understand what it means in this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;惊鸿剑方向一变，竟然不理会儒袍修士，化为一道&lt;strong&gt;惊鸿&lt;/strong&gt;，只是一闪就出现在白颖脚下，同时剑身一个狂涨，化为数丈大小。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;惊鸿&quot; word in 化为一道&lt;strong&gt;惊鸿&lt;/strong&gt; is confusing for me. I think the most probable answer is 'flying swan', but if it does mean swan, why is &quot;道&quot; used as the measure word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T00:13:08.363" Title="What does 惊鸿 mean in this context?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31844" CreationDate="2018-11-01T15:04:38.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;显然这出自一篇网文（玄幻或武侠之类）。惊鸿即为受惊而翀的鸿雁，“翩若惊鸿”就是盛赞洛神之体态轻盈。言归正传，这里就是一类仙侠玄幻小说常用设定罢了——此剑既唤作 惊鸿剑，就真的能够化为惊鸿了。或是极言其变换移形之迅捷，好突出它的厉害。事实上，随便用其他的意象也无妨。换成“化为一闪电光”之类的也可以。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“道”自然是量词，但是属于“创意性的用法”。“一道”什么，首先令人想到的就是闪电，这样更加表现了剑之莅飒。在文学中，量词的运用可以带来感官的变化。比如在我所给的句子中“一闪电光”同样用了一个不寻常的字眼来作量词，是一个道理。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This quote looks like it comes from a type of web novel (&lt;em&gt;specifically fantasy stories of martial arts, righteous warriors, and immortal sages&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「惊鸿」refers to a swan goose「鸿」which flies straight upwards (like a missile/jet) whenever it gets startled「惊」, and harks back to the idiom「翩若惊鸿」, which is an old &lt;em&gt;chengyu&lt;/em&gt; describing the graceful body figure and mannerisms of immortal beauties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, the novel has set the usage of the word「惊鸿」. Either this sword being called「惊鸿剑」can really transform into a「惊鸿」, or「惊鸿」is a metaphor for its powers, or「惊鸿」is just one of its powers. Describing the sword as being able to transform into a lightning bolt gives much the same imagery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「道」is a measure word, but its use here is innovative.「一道X」gives an impression of a flash of lightning, highlighting the swiftness and nimbleness of a sword's motion. In literature, a measure word (that may be different from expected) may be used to bring out some special features of the object measured for the audience. For example, I could use the word「闪」to measure occurrences of lightning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-01T15:47:04.723" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T15:47:04.723" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31844" CreationDate="2018-11-01T15:25:43.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;鸿 可以看作是一种鸟。&#xA;鸿鹄之志 形容志向高大。都是比较突出的鸟类。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惊 做动词解释是惊吓，可以做形容。&#xA;鸟类受惊起飞的景象。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20697" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T15:25:43.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31844" CreationDate="2018-11-02T00:13:08.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鸿，即鸿雁，也叫大雁。&#xA;  曹植《洛神赋》用“翩若惊鸿，婉若游龙”来描绘洛神美态。后来人们就用“惊鸿”形容女性轻盈如雁之身姿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;也有人用“惊鸿”描绘剑客的身姿：“剑客的身姿随着剑在空气中的游走而起舞，翩若惊鸿，宛若游龙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;化为&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;turn into&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一道&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;a streak of; streak&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;惊鸿&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;a flying goose swan&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 化为一道惊鸿 can be &quot;&lt;strong&gt;turned into something like a flying goose swan streaking across/down/away/ ...&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T00:13:08.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31850" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-02T01:10:23.277" Score="-1" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could anyone spare a minute or two to help me out with this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm here in Taiwan for a few days. Long story short I need to wash my cloths but don't know how to operate this machine. Nobody here speaks a word of English. Could someone please explain to me the general operating instructions? Thanks a bunch! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rf71D.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rf71D.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OX6wc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OX6wc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20701" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T11:07:11.663" Title="Need help with translating operating instructions" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31852" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-02T08:54:31.403" Score="2" ViewCount="696" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a particular sentence that has raised some questions among my private tutors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不管你是快乐还是难过，生活总要___下去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;You're asked to determine whether 持续 or 继续 is correct, or that both are correct.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct answer according to the answer model is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Both&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of my private tutors believe it should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;继续&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They argue that the first clause indicates that your life stops at the moment you're happy or sad, for instance, when you've lost your wife, you will feel terrible, not go to work and only lie in bed. At that time, your friends can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不管你是快乐还是难过，生活总要继续下去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that the main difference between 持续 and 继续 is that 持续 indicates that the action doesn't stop from beginning to end (continuously), while 继续 indicates that there is be a stop during the action (to continue).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: What should be the correct answer, backed by reasoning and preferably sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20584" LastActivityDate="2018-11-04T13:37:07.247" Title="Difference between 持续 and 继续" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31853" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31857" CreationDate="2018-11-02T09:37:19.650" Score="1" ViewCount="497" Body="&lt;p&gt;When we use 狗屎 (dog's excrement) to describe a thing, it is definitely negative. Sometimes it can also appear as a bad word.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also, 踩到狗屎 is obviously a bad thing.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But, 狗屎运 (good fortune) is used positively.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What causes this difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20655" LastActivityDate="2021-03-24T03:52:09.623" Title="Why is 狗屎运 a commendatory term?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31852" CreationDate="2018-11-02T10:17:33.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;继 (follow up/followed by); 续(continue)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;继续 = (follow up/followed by and) &lt;strong&gt;continue&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 他父親死後, 他仍继续經營他們的家庭餐館 (After his father died, he &lt;strong&gt;continued&lt;/strong&gt; to run their family restaurant.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;持 (maintain/ stay); 续(continue)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;持续 = (maintain/stay and) &lt;strong&gt;continue&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 人民币对美元兌換价持续上升 (The exchange rate of RMB against the US dollar &lt;strong&gt;continues&lt;/strong&gt; to rise)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It suggests the situation has been staying the same for a while and is continuing now&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your question's example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不管你是快乐还是难过，生活总要(继续)下去。(Whether you are happy or sad, life always has to &lt;strong&gt;continue&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不管你是快乐还是难过，生活总要(持续)下去。(Since there's no mention of what situation this life is in, 持续 is not a proper term to use.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you stated what situation this life is in, then you could use either 持续 or 继续&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不管你願不願意,(刻苦的)生活仍要(继续)下去 = Whether you want it or not, (hard) life still has to (continue) - &lt;em&gt;(continue from this point on)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不管你願不願意,(刻苦的)生活仍要(持续)下去 = Whether you want it or not, (hard) life still has to (continue) - &lt;em&gt;(stay the same as you have been for a while)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;不管打風下雨，工作仍要(持续)下去&amp;quot;  is awkward. The sentence doesn't state what kind of work has been performed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;不管打風下雨，(巡邏的)工作仍要(持续)下去&amp;quot; is proper. Now we know the 'patrol' work has been performed for a while and is continuing now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using either 持续 or 继续 in the same sentence change the meaning slightly, but they would both be correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人民币对美元兌換价持续上升 (&lt;em&gt;it has been raising and is continuing now&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人民币对美元兌換价继续上升 (&lt;em&gt;it is still raising followed by previous report&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Finally&lt;/strong&gt;, just remember 持续 can be translated as &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;maintain&lt;/strong&gt;/keep on/continue&amp;quot; . If you can replace 'continue' with 'maintain' in a sentence, then you can use 持续 instead of 继续&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T10:53:41.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31850" CreationDate="2018-11-02T11:07:11.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I translated a usage step, you can try it out.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y9tkB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y9tkB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5eE06.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5eE06.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20394" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T11:07:11.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31852" CreationDate="2018-11-02T11:17:30.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer to use 继续 in the context. Here is why : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;持续 can be construed as 保持 + 继续. E.g. 会议持续招开了两个小时 means the meeting is in the 召开 state and keep(continue with) that state for two hours. However, 生活 in this context is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;a generic concept&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and it doesn't specify what kind of life you want to persist. In other words, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;it doesn't specify in what way 生活 would be continuing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;持续 would be more accurate if the sentence is put as: 不管你是快乐还是难过，&quot;&lt;strong&gt;这样的生活&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;总是要持续下去。 It's because with 这样的生活, we clearly know how 生活 will be continuing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 不管你是快乐还是难过，生活总要继续下去 is more accurate. It means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;generally 生活 will 继续/continue no matter the way it is, and no matter how you feel -- happy or sad&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T11:17:30.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31853" CreationDate="2018-11-02T11:38:04.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;狗屎运 is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;an accidental luck&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and some good things you don't expect suddenly come to you. It's fine to use it in informal situations, but it's still a vulgar term.  Sometimes, it can be taken in a funny way, but you should be cautious when you use it in a formal situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T11:38:04.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31858" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31862" CreationDate="2018-11-02T15:55:29.870" Score="3" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because of the word &quot;于&quot; here, I have a hard time understanding this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这是天地不容于此的缘故.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my attempt to understand it, I've searched for a few similar sentences to be compared. Unfortunately, the word &quot;于&quot; seems to have different meanings in each sentence (I might be wrong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;专业出版许多移民因感到不容于社会而苦恼&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;曲高和寡不容于世&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume in these it means 'by'. (1. Professionals state that immigrants are vexed because they felt they're not accepted &lt;strong&gt;by&lt;/strong&gt; the society? 2. Geniuses/highbrows aren't tolerated &lt;strong&gt;by&lt;/strong&gt; the world?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;白鸟哀婉，不容于天之澄碧，亦不容于海之幽蓝.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel the  &quot;于&quot; in this sentence is the most similar with the one in my original sentence, so I'm not sure about its meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What does the &quot;于&quot; in my original sentence mean?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;于&quot; necessary when I used &quot;不容&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does the usage of &quot;于&quot; always turn the sentence into passive voices (the translations) as it does in example 1 and 2?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2018-11-03T08:51:06.560" Title="What does the word &quot;于&quot; mean when it's used along with &quot;不容'?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21073" CreationDate="2018-11-02T16:29:05.993" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea behind Simplification was not really to write faster - it was one of several other movements to abandon the administrations and culture of Imperial China, and modernise into the Republican Era. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Fourth_Movement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;One of the other movements to do with language&lt;/a&gt; completely succeeded, which is why the common Chinese language is now based on a vernacular standard rather than literary Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The premise that the script was preventing China from modernising is an unfounded one, of course, which is why all Simplification movements have actually failed. Mainland China's script reform is permanently stuck in limbo, and Japan's script reform is currently in reverse trend. As late as 1980, the Republic of China (Taiwan) government tried to introduce 行書 as the official script with the publication of 《標準行書範本》, and it also failed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplification, at least in its original inception, has little to do with &lt;em&gt;writing faster&lt;/em&gt;. It was one of the many ideas from revolutionary intellectuals at the end of the Qing dynasty wanting to get rid of the shackles of Imperial China and thrust the country into a modern, Republican form of governance. Drawing direct inspiration from &quot;advanced&quot; 1900s European powers, characters were blamed as a blockade to literacy/education. To quote a few typical opinions at that time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Xun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;魯迅&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;漢字不滅，中國必亡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(If) Chinese characters are not abolished, China will surely perish.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_Ssu-nien&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;傅斯年&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中國文字的起源是極野蠻的，其形狀是極奇異，認識是極不便，應用是極不經濟，真是又笨，有粗，牛鬼蛇神的文字，是天下第一不方便的器具。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chinese characters are of an extremely uncivilised origin; their shapes are extremely unnatural, learning them is extremely inconvenient, and using them is extremely inefficient. They are truly cumbersome and crude, are the symbols of snake-gods and ox-demons, and are the world's most inconvenient tools.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Key members of both Nationalist and Communist China, including Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, were extremely zealous of these ideas right up till their death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9szKV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9szKV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Blockquote&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;-- &lt;strong&gt;人民日報 1977年12月20日&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;僅在59年（1970年）12月16日上午，約請了15位學者，舉行了1次3小時的座談會，便匆匆對本案作成否定的結論。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;-- &lt;strong&gt;中華民國陸軍一級上將　何應欽《整理簡筆字提案的回顧與前瞻・引言》&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their attempts at implementing Simplification were met with either apathy or resistance at every step of the way. The illiterate masses couldn't have cared less, and were more concerned about putting food on the table for the next day, while contemporary evidence that script had nothing to do with the country's development could easily be found if one looked east towards Japan, which rapidly modernised whilst keeping Traditional Characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Simplification movements were an intermediate step towards the goal of a full conversion to an alphabet script, but Simplification was quickly abandoned after widespread education and promotion of literacy among the general population:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Republic of China's Simplification attempts were dealt a fatal blow by 1936;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;People's Republic of China's Simplification attempts waned after its first implementation, and completely died after 1978 (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_round_of_simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Second round of simplified Chinese characters&lt;/a&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Japan's Simplification attempts have been steadily &lt;em&gt;reversing&lt;/em&gt;. The number of permitted official characters is constantly increasing, and Simplified component shapes are no longer applied to re-incorporated characters.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1946: 1,850 characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1981: 1,945 characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2010: 2,136 characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I assume that all these native Chinese people in favour of simplification were infinitely better educated than I am.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a very good assumption - your average native speaker doesn't qualify for anything apart from letting you know what sounds correct in contemporary Chinese. &lt;em&gt;Any opinion about the Chinese script that's not from professionally trained linguists and/or paleographers should be taken with a grain of salt&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give an example, there's a widespread but frankly ridiculous idea among native Chinese speakers that &quot;characters have naturally Simplified over time&quot;, usually used in defence of the Mainland Government's implementation of Round 1 Simplified Chinese. Apart from most of them cringing at the idea of changing the script to Round 2, the idea completely fails both in theory and practice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hypothesis: characters naturally simplified over time.&lt;/strong&gt; By extrapolation, this means that Chinese ancestors must have written a script that's unfathomably complex. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/PhBBoiL.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/PhBBoiL.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sorry, I don't see it. It looks like characters increased in complexity until the Warring States to Qin period (images 3-4), and stopped changing in complexity after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hypothesis: the common folk created vulgar variants (俗字) by cutting strokes off characters, because the official characters were too difficult to write.&lt;/strong&gt; By extrapolation, the vast majority of variant, non-official characters should have less strokes than the official characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lcNaK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lcNaK.png&quot; alt=&quot;Please visit a&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I seriously suggest having a browse through a proper collation of vulgar and variant characters. Here's「雨」and the number of vulgar &quot;simplifications&quot; that people invented over the years for it because &quot;it was too difficult to write&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(from &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/query_by_standard_tiles.rbt?command=clear&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中華民國教育部異體字字典&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The people did not simplify characters!&lt;/strong&gt; They changed characters to suit their needs to clarify or enhance their utility in expressing their language, both by simplifying and adding strokes. &lt;em&gt;Pure Simplification is an artificial policy pursued by the Republican governments.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-02T19:17:37.020" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T19:17:37.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31858" CreationDate="2018-11-02T16:41:56.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;于 in your first sentence means 在。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, 不容于此 means &lt;em&gt;would not be contained here&lt;/em&gt;, although this sentence seems weird without context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于 is not necessary for 不容，for example, you could say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这样的行为绝对不容姑息&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it means &lt;em&gt;actions like this will never be allowed in any sense&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于 is neutral, you would also see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我生于 1997 年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It simply means &lt;em&gt;I was born in 1997&lt;/em&gt; and has not emotional implication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T16:41:56.837" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11018" CreationDate="2018-11-03T01:39:24.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;「着」、「著 」are two distinctly different words. 「着 」means wear or clothing as a noun. As a verb, it means wearing 「穿着」or can be used to describe an action being done 「點着、看着」. 著 means authored 「著作」。In the 70s the Taiwanese government amalgamated the two words into one. In Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland China, Japan and Korea, the distinction between these unrealated words remained, and the two characters are not considered interchangeable, as it has been traditionally for thousands of years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20708" LastActivityDate="2018-11-03T01:39:24.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31858" CreationDate="2018-11-03T08:51:06.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;于 here means 对于 or 针对于. In English, it can be &lt;strong&gt;to, towards, with regard to, upon, etc.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是天地不容于此的缘故 can be paraphrased as 这就是为什么天地&lt;strong&gt;对于&lt;/strong&gt;这样的事情不宽容的原因.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-11-03T08:51:06.560" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31863" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31864" CreationDate="2018-11-03T20:38:53.887" Score="10" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A year has twelve months&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一年有十二個月&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;yī nián yǒu shí’èr gè yuè&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A year has three hundred and sixty-five days&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;一年有三百六十五天&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;yī nián yǒu sānbǎi liùshíwǔ tiān&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the measureword 個 left out in the second sentence? What is the general grammar rule for cases like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20712" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T00:06:28.417" Title="Why is a measure word not required in 一年有三百六十五天?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31863" CreationDate="2018-11-03T21:19:06.173" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some nouns need a classifier, some don't; 月(month) needs one but 天(day) doesn't. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年有十二個月 - 月(month) needs a classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年有十二個月份 - 月份(month) needs a classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年有五十二週 - 週(week) doesn't need a classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年有五十二個星期 - 星期(week) needs a classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年有三百六十五天 - 天(day) doesn't need a classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年有四季 - 季(season) doesn't need a classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年有四個季節 - 季節 (season) needs a classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一小時有六十分鐘 - 分鐘(minute) doesn't need a classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一分鐘有六十秒 - 秒(second) doesn't need a classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, if a noun can be a classifier itself, it usually doesn't need a classifier. 週, 天, 季,  分鐘 and 秒 can all be classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 三週工資, 兩天比賽, 一季收成, 幾分鐘路程, 幾秒時間&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-08T00:06:28.417" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T00:06:28.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31865" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31868" CreationDate="2018-11-04T09:08:07.763" Score="0" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the dictionary entry below lists, 同 in Cantonese means &lt;code&gt;for, on behalf of&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/215/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/215/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, you might say something like this (slightly aggressive tone): 你同我企喺到! (&quot;You stand right there!&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Would 和, 跟, or 给 be the right Mandarin substitute in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) What's the right substitute for 你同我畀錢! (&quot;You pay for me!&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2018-11-04T20:15:30.547" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T08:20:47.917" Title="Mandarin equivalent of 同 when the meaning is &quot;for, on behalf of&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31867" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31869" CreationDate="2018-11-04T09:30:39.517" Score="0" ViewCount="193" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m asking this question because, I’m really interested to know what does it mean that name in Chinese and how it is written in Chinese English, such as Cheng. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mandarintools.com/chinesename.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; site, I thought it is what I’m looking for, but it is not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alexander means protector of men.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Esam means the one who guard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Abood means unity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alexander is taken from Alexander the Great and the last 2 names are taken from Arabic language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the calligraphy for Alexander Abood in Chinese and what does it mean Alexander Esam Abood in Chinese language? Because, in here I found that it means this, this and this, and I was thinking that in other languages it has different meanings to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’ve tried also to find in Google about what’s the calligraphy for this full name and what does t mean in Chinese language, but the search has failed. I do not know where to look for the answer I’m looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20716" LastEditorUserId="20716" LastEditDate="2018-11-04T10:01:58.257" LastActivityDate="2018-11-04T14:06:19.073" Title="What it mean the name Alexander Esam Abood in Chinese and what it is it’s calligraphy?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31865" CreationDate="2018-11-04T10:23:55.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1) Would 和, 跟, or 给 be the right Mandarin substitute in this case?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;给 in Mandarin can replace 同 in Cantonese when 同 (&lt;em&gt;for me&lt;/em&gt;) denotes it is an order or demand&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你(同)我企喺度!&quot;  = &quot;你(給)我站著！&quot; = &quot;stand there (&lt;em&gt;for me&lt;/em&gt;)!&quot; (an order)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;你(同)我企喺度&quot; = &quot;你(和)我站著&quot; means &quot;you (and) I stand there&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;你(同)我企喺度&quot;= &quot;你(跟)我站著&quot; means &quot;you (with) I stand there&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'跟/ 替' in Mandarin can replace '同' in Cantonese when '同'  means 'to, for or on behalf of'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin: &quot;你&lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt;我解釋一下&quot; = &quot;explain it &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; me!&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin: &quot;你&lt;strong&gt;替&lt;/strong&gt;我解釋一下&quot; = &quot;explain it &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; me!&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese: &quot;你&lt;strong&gt;同&lt;/strong&gt;我解釋一下&quot; = &quot;explain it &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; me!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2) What's the right substitute for 你同我畀錢! (&quot;You pay for me!&quot;)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See examples above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;同&lt;/strong&gt;我畀錢 (&quot;you pay &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; me&quot;) = &quot;你&lt;strong&gt;替&lt;/strong&gt;我付錢&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you meant &quot;you pay!&quot;(an order)  then you should use '給' and wrote  &quot;你&lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt;我付錢!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-14T08:20:47.917" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T08:20:47.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31867" CreationDate="2018-11-04T11:13:10.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese do not usually translate foreign names by their meanings, we transliterate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, we do not translate the name 'Armstrong' as '手臂(arms)强壮(strong)' ; we transliterate it as '阿姆斯特朗 (Āmǔsītèlǎng) in Mandarin and '岩士唐'(ngaam4 si6  tong4 )  in Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Alexander Esam Abood' could be transliterated as 亚历山大 伊泌 亞甫戶 and the meanings of individual characters in this transliteration are irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alexander means protector of men.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Esam means the one who guard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Abood means unity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know the origin meaning of the English name, you can just translate the origin meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Alexander Esam Abood&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;the one who &lt;strong&gt;guards&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;protects&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;unifies men&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;亚历山大 伊泌 亞甫戶&amp;quot; 的意思是 &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;守护&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;保护&lt;/strong&gt;和&lt;strong&gt;达成统一&lt;/strong&gt;的人&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-04T14:06:19.073" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31852" CreationDate="2018-11-04T12:12:26.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Compare these 2 sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;坚强一点, 战争不会一直&lt;strong&gt;持续&lt;/strong&gt;下去的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不管你是快乐还是难过，生活总要&lt;strong&gt;继续&lt;/strong&gt;下去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The differences are between 持 and 继, and not about stop, but what is you want to stress on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to emphasize current status, use 持. So in the 1st sentence, current is bad, but it won't last forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to emphasize the future, use 继. In the 2nd sentence, we want to put our eye on future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first sentence:  战争不会一直&lt;strong&gt;继&lt;/strong&gt;续下去的. is also very common. There is not much difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if we say 生活总要持续下去 would be sound odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, it is hard to explain, just behaviour and convention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-11-04T12:12:26.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31852" CreationDate="2018-11-04T13:37:07.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;持续 represents a trend, where as 继续 is an action. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 持续：lasting；继续：continue to。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13939" LastActivityDate="2018-11-04T13:37:07.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31806" CreationDate="2018-11-04T14:35:57.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well in China,we use the same way to pronounce words in sentences.We may speak louder with angry tone when we are angry or quarrlling with someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For if changing tone may at the same time change the meaning,I want to say that it doesn't matter when you try to understand the meaning of the whole sentence.If you pick the emphasized word out of the sentence,it may sound very strange or just mean another meaning.Well in most cases,it's also recognizable because there are only four tones in chinese and the possible combination is limited,and to express common meaning,the quantity is even decreased to an easily counted number.So most time,we can get what the speaker said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well there is another question,that is the accent!It's not in the range of mandarin while I still want to say some.In China there are a large number of different areas.So sometimes even the pronunciation may be changed totally.It's common in China that people in one area can't understand what people in another area radically for historic and territorial reasons.Very interesting for the fact but bothered for communication,isn't it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20717" LastActivityDate="2018-11-04T14:35:57.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31833" CreationDate="2018-11-04T15:16:52.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well there are many small mistakes in the essay.You need to improve your grammar mainly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美国和中国的大学录取学生最重要的部分就是标准化考试。尽管标准化考试在美国非常重要，但在中国甚至占据着更重要的地位。美国有两个标准化的测试选项。你可以选择采取任何你喜欢的考试。这两个考试遵循不同的规则，并基于不同的主题。对于那些喜欢英语和阅读的人来说，S.A.T.更好。但对于那些喜欢数学和科学的人，他们可能会更喜欢A.C.T.。还有一些大学是可选的测试，所以学生可能甚至不需要参加考试。这个测试的平均学习时间为一年。我的一个朋友在参加实际考试之前只参加了一次实践考试。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在中国，情况并非如此。中国有一个标准化考试————高考。 它决定了学生的生计，并对学生提出了非常高的标准。中国的学生已经准备为他的入学考试付出几乎整个生活。她相信提供的信息，通过教师在正常上课时间是不够充分的，而且，如果家庭有财政手段，他们会支付他们的学校课程以外的课外班费用。在中国，接受名牌大学教育的学生是及其少的。 被名牌大学录取意味着他们将有更好的机会和未来的工资。做的不好的学生要么再回到高三重修一年，我们称之为复读，或者，他们只能接受前景不好的未来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两国的区别源于他们录取学生时的看法。在美国，当他们选择学生时，他们看考试成绩，散文，课外活动，志愿者工作和他人建议。大学招生想知道你现在是和会成为什么样的人。由于申请顶级学校的学生是最聪明的学生，他们希望看到学生是否适合社区。有时，久负盛名的大学接受的一个学生，可能没有很好的测试成绩，但有其他才能或能力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这两个国家，财富在大学录取过程中发挥了较大作用。如果一个学生更富有，他们可以聘请好滴私人导师。因此，他们在高考上将会得分更高。如果学生负担不起私人教师的费用,或不住在城市,那么通常情况下他的高考成绩就不如城市的学生。这两个考取大学的过程都是不公平的。在美国，如果学生真的很特别，那么标准化考试就无关紧要了。在中国，如果你高考成绩不好，那便没有其他办法。 那些无法支付课外培训费用的人不会考得好，因此将来将得不到一份好工作。在美国，许多人说，由于考大学的关系，青少年和年轻人的压力太大。然而中国的大学数量比美国少，故高校更具竞争力。由于美国有更多学院和大学。所以上大学时，他们更多的是在寻找他们自己本身是谁。然而，在中国，你必须更早作出决定，这是非常可怕的。中国学生做出的决定将指向更长久的未来。与今天的美国学生不同的是，中国学生都要选择一个具体的专业来开始大学课程。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些都是中国和美国大学录取的差异，他们彰显了这两个国家不同的文化。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其实我觉得你的中文在以下几个方面还需提高：&#xA;1.不能用英文的语序来直译成中文（当然这也是很多中国学生学习英文时会犯的错误，担任需高度注意）&#xA;2.一个词的用法一定要注意，其在什么时候能用，能用做哪些意思。毕竟，就像英文里的phrase，一个词的用法可能会有很多。常用的词一定要掌握全部用法，这样才能在写作中灵活运用。&#xA;3.中文中如果要连用形容词或副词，必须要注意他们的顺序。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还有最重要的一点，在修改你的文章的时候，我并没有针对你的观点进行修改。我最大程度上保留了你的观点。但我作为一名中国大学生，我想说，你对于中国高考和中国大学的现状还不够了解，不过这无可厚非，毕竟国家之间的文化差异和地理上的距离差异本身就具有延迟性。你了解到的中国可能是十年前的中国。但对于高考，很多农村出身的孩子确实也能考的非常棒，因为这是他们唯一的出路。你所提及的财政原因决定高考成绩的问题，大多数是出现在像北京这样的城市。请容许我再提最后一点，关于你所说的公平问题，当今的中国大学生，大多都认为对于中国教育现状，高考是最公平的办法，并且，每年教育部也都在改革，不断努力地让新高考适应新时代的新环境，新学生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果我的回答能够给你带来一些帮助，感激不尽。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20717" LastActivityDate="2018-11-04T15:16:52.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31875" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31878" CreationDate="2018-11-04T23:58:50.143" Score="1" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;This page lists multiple entries for &lt;code&gt;surprise&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) What's the difference among 驚奇, 吃驚, and 驚喜?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Are the meaning and uses the same for Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-11-10T04:40:32.230" Title="Differences in &quot;surprise&quot; translations: 驚奇, 吃驚, 驚喜" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31876" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31877" CreationDate="2018-11-05T01:08:20.497" Score="1" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;This page lists multiple entries for &lt;code&gt;confused&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the best translation for &lt;code&gt;confused&lt;/code&gt; in these contexts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) English: &quot;What you just said confused me.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) English: &quot;I was confused by what she did.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Are there general differences among  迷惑，困惑，弄混，搞亂，搞混 (e.g., some are more formal, some are for specific contexts)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) For the preceding answers, are there any differences between Mandarin and Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-11-05T09:55:35.797" Title="Best translation for “confused”: 迷惑，困惑，弄混，搞亂，搞混？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31876" CreationDate="2018-11-05T04:18:55.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;迷惑 and 困惑 can both be verb or adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;迷 (deceive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惑 (confuse)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;迷惑 = to confuse (deceive someone and make him confused)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;困 (trap)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惑(confuse)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;困惑 = to confuse (trap someone in a confusion)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use 迷惑 for &amp;quot;to confuse&amp;quot; to emphasize the deception part&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 用妖言&lt;strong&gt;迷惑&lt;/strong&gt;群眾 (妖言&lt;strong&gt;惑&lt;/strong&gt;眾) - use lies and rumors &lt;strong&gt;to deceive&lt;/strong&gt; and confuse the public&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use 困惑 for &amp;quot;to confuse&amp;quot;  to emphasize the trapping part&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 各人不同的口供&lt;strong&gt;困惑&lt;/strong&gt;了調查人員 - Everyone’s different stories &lt;strong&gt;confused&lt;/strong&gt; investigators (trapped them into a confusion with different stories- but there may or may not be deceptions)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弄混，搞亂，搞混 are just different versions of shortened form of &amp;quot;弄/搞 (make-v) 混亂  (confusing-adj)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 搞亂局面 = 使局面混亂 (make situation confusing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1) English: &amp;quot;What you just said confused me.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她剛才說的話(&lt;strong&gt;搞得&lt;/strong&gt;)我(&lt;strong&gt;混亂了&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2) English: &amp;quot;I was confused by what she did.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我被她剛才說的話(&lt;strong&gt;搞得混亂了&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;4) For the preceding answers, are there any differences between Mandarin and Cantonese?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammar are the same, the terms may be different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你剛才說的話搞得我混亂了&amp;quot; (M)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你頭先講嘅嘢搞到我好混亂&amp;quot; (C)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我被你剛才說的話搞得混亂了&amp;quot; (M)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我被你頭先講嘅嘢搞到好混亂&amp;quot; (C)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-05T09:55:35.797" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31875" CreationDate="2018-11-05T05:29:41.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;驚奇 (v) - be amazed; be surprised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 對此事&lt;strong&gt;驚奇&lt;/strong&gt;不已 (extremely &lt;strong&gt;amazed&lt;/strong&gt; by this event)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;驚奇 (adj) - amazing; surprising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:有&lt;strong&gt;驚奇&lt;/strong&gt;效果 (having &lt;strong&gt;amazing&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;surprising&lt;/strong&gt; effect)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃驚 (v) - frighteningly surprised; frightened; suffer/get a scare&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 一吃驚, 拔腿就跑 (once frightened, it ran)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;驚喜 (n) - pleasant surprise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 一個驚喜 (a pleasant surprise)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These terms are used in both Mandarin and Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;to surprise (v)&amp;quot; in Chinese is &amp;quot; 讓/使/令(某人)驚訝&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-10T04:40:32.230" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31880" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-05T17:05:24.750" Score="0" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help me identify these characters, I'm having a difficult time even finding the radicals due to the photo quality. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EEkQa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EEkQa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20724" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T14:12:07.220" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T14:12:07.220" Title="Can anyone identify these characters? (Characters identified: 照菜科)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31880" CreationDate="2018-11-05T17:11:51.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters look like 照菜科. I’m unable to make sense of that without more context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-11-05T17:11:51.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31883" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-05T23:48:11.820" Score="0" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NEl5m.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NEl5m.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need help to determine this brand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How old is the brand?&#xA;Is it a stamp or a tax stamp?&#xA;Does it have something to do with the silk tax?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20726" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-06T12:53:46.980" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T19:04:36.127" Title="very old chinese language" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31884" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31885" CreationDate="2018-11-06T05:04:56.957" Score="2" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the difference between 时间 and 时候. They both means time as far as I know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what are the difference between 点 and 小时 which both means hour&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And can you give some examples?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-07T23:54:04.397" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T23:54:04.397" Title="Differences between words that tell time: 时间 vs. 时候, and 点 vs. 小时" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31884" CreationDate="2018-11-06T07:48:41.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;时间 and 时候 are both related to time, but their usage is a bit different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时间 means the &quot;physical time&quot;. For example 你在什么时间睡觉？ What time do you sleep?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时候 means &quot;when&quot;. For example: 你什么时候睡觉？ When do you sleep?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;点 and 小时 are used differently. &#xA;小时 is used when you actually calculate the time taken in terms of hour. For example, 我睡了一个小时。I slept for 1 hour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;点 is used to ask the precise time at the moment. For example, 现在几点了？ What time is it now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, you don't ask &quot;What hour is now&quot;, instead, you ask &quot;What time is now&quot;. In mandarin, it's also the same. You don't ask &quot;现在几小时了&quot;, instead you ask &quot;现在几点了&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this help :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20728" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T07:48:41.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31884" CreationDate="2018-11-06T11:53:19.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;時間 and 时候 are not interchangeable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;現在時間是下午五時三十分&quot; (the current time is 5:30 PM)&quot; &lt;em&gt;You can't replace 時間 with 时候 and say &quot;現在時候是下午五時三十分&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when referring a &lt;strong&gt;specific moment&lt;/strong&gt;, you need to use '時間', not '時候'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;看到楓葉變黃的时候你就知秋天已到&quot; (When you see the maple leaves turn yellow,&#xA;   you know autumn has arrived). &lt;em&gt;You can't replace 时候 with 時間 and say &quot;看到楓葉變䔈的时間你就知秋天已到&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when referring '&lt;strong&gt;a non-specific moment&lt;/strong&gt;' (we don't know when the maple leaves turn yellow) ,you need to use '時候', not '時間'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;楓葉由黃變紅所需的時間大約是一兩天 (The time it takes for the maple leaf to turn from yellow to red is about one or two days.) &lt;em&gt;You can't replace 時間 with 时候 and say &quot;楓葉由黃變紅所需的时候大約是一兩天&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when referring '&lt;strong&gt;a time span&lt;/strong&gt;' (the actual time it needs for the maple leaf to turn from yellow to red)   you need to use '時間', not '時候'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Also, what are the difference between 点 and 小时 which both means hour&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;点/时 = 'O'clock' e.g. '下午五点' = '下午五时' = 'five O'clock afternoon'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小时 = 'hour' e.g. '五小时' = 'five hours'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notice:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有時間 = have time ('時間' here is a general term for 'time' itself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有時候 = sometimes ('時候' here is a general term for 'moment in time')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-06T22:51:13.143" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T22:51:13.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31883" CreationDate="2018-11-06T16:28:12.553" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is NOT an ancient stamp，but a marketing gimmick to make it looks like &quot;old stuff&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The correct way of reading this&quot;蠶改之, 種濟章&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蠶改之 mean silkworm farm that using improving converting farming mechanism, ask the local for the story.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;濟章 is area in China, it mean 临济、章丘.  Mostly a tea leaf distribution center, not much of tea plant there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are an on-going tea leaf speculation going around in China.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, you should not bother about the &quot;brand&quot;. It is not recommended to join in the speculative frenzy, unless you are one of those who want to take advantage of others gullible people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-11-06T17:14:49.190" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T17:14:49.190" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31883" CreationDate="2018-11-06T19:04:36.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;imo, the other answer is significantly &quot;inventive&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;, as @tang ho indicated, the correct reading should be &quot;蠶種改濟之章&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and, these're kanji, japanese related (it's 繭印紙 蚕種印紙)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's relevant pic &amp;amp; link:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uyCrc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uyCrc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/j511816810?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/j511816810?lang=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would suggest the op ask again in japanese stack exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com&quot;&gt;https://japanese.stackexchange.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T19:04:36.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29418" CreationDate="2018-11-06T19:09:54.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;基数 usually means “basis number”, not &quot;cardinal number&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, 基数 is hardly ever used to mean &quot;cardinal number&quot;, unless it is used as a jargon in English grammar lessons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T19:09:54.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31828" CreationDate="2018-11-06T19:28:10.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;逃的逃，降的降，起义的起义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is actually an elliptical sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The complete sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;逃跑的人逃跑，投降的人投降，起义的人起义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, it can be literally translated to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Escapers escape, surrenderers surrender, and revolters revolt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or more grammatically in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;People who escape escape, people who surrender surrender, and people who revolt revolt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It implies that many people escape, surrender, and revolt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T19:28:10.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12281" CreationDate="2018-11-06T19:34:25.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Overseas Chinese is called 华侨, not 华裔.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华裔 means the &lt;strong&gt;descendant&lt;/strong&gt; of overseas Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;裔 means descendant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese person living in America is 华侨, not 华裔. American born Chinese are 华裔.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T19:34:25.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31884" CreationDate="2018-11-06T20:13:46.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Putting it simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时候: moment&lt;br&gt;&#xA;时间: time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T20:13:46.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31894" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31896" CreationDate="2018-11-06T23:09:53.880" Score="2" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;The full sentence is: 「肩吾问於连叔曰：“吾闻言於接舆，大而无当，往而不返，吾惊怖其言，犹河汉而无极也！大有迳庭，不近人情焉。”」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;焉 means &quot;where&quot; or &quot;at&quot; (correct me if I'm wrong), so what does 焉 serve here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20732" LastActivityDate="2018-11-07T00:26:26.790" Title="What is the purpose of 焉 in 「不近人情焉」?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31894" CreationDate="2018-11-06T23:24:12.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;焉&quot; is a particle (語氣詞) in the sample sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;indicating 肯定, 疑問 or 感嘆:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000010967&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000010967&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T23:24:12.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31894" CreationDate="2018-11-06T23:50:19.400" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several Classical Chinese particles are of onomatopoetic origin, and have neither a fixed translation nor a fixed character representation.「焉」&lt;strong&gt;sometimes&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;em&gt;where&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;at&lt;/em&gt;, but you'll have to rely on context to figure when this meaning applies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those meanings do not apply here.「焉」, in this context, is an end-of-phrase &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_particle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;modal particle&lt;/a&gt; (句末語气詞).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吾聞言於&lt;strong&gt;接輿&lt;/strong&gt;，大而無當，往而不反。吾驚怖其言，猶河漢而無極也，大有逕庭，不近人情「焉」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I heard words from&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;接輿&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;which were extravagant but hollow, and irretrievable once uttered. His words frightened me;&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;(1)&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;they were vast and boundless like the galaxy, polar opposite to reality, and worlds apart from the experiences of man &lt;strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;(2)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two options for translating「焉」in this passage. Place one of these in their respective numbered positions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;surely,&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For reference, a passage where &lt;em&gt;where&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;at&lt;/em&gt; applies as a translation to「焉」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;《左傳・隱公元年》：＂&lt;strong&gt;制&lt;/strong&gt;，巖邑也，虢叔死「焉」。＂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuo_zhuan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Commentary of Zuo&lt;/a&gt;, first ruling year of &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%B2%81%E9%9A%90%E5%85%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Duke Yin of Lu&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;制&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;, (name of a) strategically important city.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E8%99%A2%E5%8F%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;虢叔&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;passed away&lt;/em&gt;「&lt;em&gt;here&lt;/em&gt;」&lt;em&gt;.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reference:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《王力古漢語字典》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-07T00:26:26.790" LastActivityDate="2018-11-07T00:26:26.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31898" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31899" CreationDate="2018-11-07T03:38:13.170" Score="7" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I've known from watching Chinese dramas, siblings or fellow disciples may refer to each other as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;big brother/sister&amp;quot; (oldest/first)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;2nd/3rd brother/sister&amp;quot; (in-between)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;little brother/sister&amp;quot; (youngest/last)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I came across a translation of &lt;em&gt;Hometown&lt;/em&gt; (故鄉) by Lu Xun, in which there's a lady known only as 杨二嫂 (I Googled this Chinese form). I guess this means &amp;quot;wife of a guy who is the second sibling&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone here who's read this one tell me what it really means? If that woman is called &amp;quot;Second Older Aunt-in-Law Yang&amp;quot;, would it make her husband &amp;quot;Second Older Uncle Yang&amp;quot;? (by the way, is &amp;quot;Yang&amp;quot; her name or her husband's name?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this work the same way for women and their husbands? And does it work the same way with &amp;quot;younger uncles/aunts&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11377" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T09:45:20.003" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T09:49:10.187" Title="How do expressions like &quot;二嫂&quot; work in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;terms-of-address&gt;&lt;kinship&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31898" CreationDate="2018-11-07T04:01:20.723" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;嫂 means &amp;quot;sister-in-law&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杨二嫂  means &amp;quot;wife of the second son of the Yang family&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't matter if you are the elder son or third son in the Yang family, she is still 二嫂 (second sister-in-law) to you. The character 二 here doesn't indicate older or younger, it indicates the second born.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Outsiders would call her 杨二嫂 to indicate they are addressing the &amp;quot;Yang's second daughter-in-law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;second aunt-in-law Yang&amp;quot; is 杨二嬸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;second uncle-in-law Yang&amp;quot; is 杨二叔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T09:49:10.187" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T09:49:10.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16" CreationDate="2018-11-07T07:29:27.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.echineselearning.com/blog/usages-of-commonly-used-chinese-particle?ecl=ptEEEEEE&amp;amp;pla=StackExchange20181107usele&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Hack: The Many Uses And Rules of 了 (le)&lt;/a&gt; in eChineseLearning blogpage, and it introduced 3 main uses of “了 (le)”:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The completion of an event&#xA;A basic meaning of “了 (le)” is to indicate the completion of the event. It is not quite the same as the English past tense. In the English past tense, whether it is representative of modality or event, the past tense should be used as long as the event is in the past. However, the Chinese character “了 (le)” is used in past events instead of past modalities.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā yǐqián hěn tǎoyàn tā. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他以前很讨厌她。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He hated her in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;VS.&#xA;Tā chī wán le fàn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他吃完了饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He had a meal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As we can see in the first sentence, “hated her” shows a state, not the completion of a specific activity. Therefore, we don’t use “了 (le)” after the verb, or at all in this first example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the second example, we learn of an activity that has been done, so we use “了 (le).”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To describe a sequence of events&#xA;Secondly, “了 (le)” shows the sequence in which two actions occur.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ xǐ le zǎo jiù shàngchuáng shuìjiào le.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我洗了澡就上床睡觉了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After taking a shower, I went to bed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thirdly, as a sign of major events&#xA;Often, a sentence contains more than one event. We can divide these events into main events and secondary events, so we only need to use “了 (le)” in the main event instead of using it again in the secondary event.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā rèxīn de bāng wǒ sǎo le dì.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她热心地帮我扫了地.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She helped me eagerly to sweep the floor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tā cānjiā le zhècì huódòng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他参加了这次活动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He took part in this activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it may help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20693" LastEditorUserId="20693" LastEditDate="2018-11-16T01:13:55.907" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T01:13:55.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16" CreationDate="2018-11-07T08:55:08.043" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think, after a long while I finally managed to figure out how to both wrap my head around this and how to actually explain how it works, as well - after 2 years (60 Ms) and two more courses of Chinese Mandarin later from my original post on the topic here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22398/how-exactly-do-time-and-tense-work-in-mandarin-really&quot;&gt;How exactly do time and &amp;quot;tense&amp;quot; work in Mandarin REALLY?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here goes with what I've gathered, and feel free to challenge anything or even everything said here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;NOT&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; a tense marker. Period. That said, there are situations where it certainly &lt;em&gt;seems&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;em&gt;look like one&lt;/em&gt;, and that's where I think the confusion comes from. From multiple sources - including instructors and textbooks - if you have something like &quot;I read a book&quot; in English, meant as an answer to a question of the form &quot;What did you do last night?&quot; (Chinese: 你昨天晚上做什么？）, the answer is indeed given as you'd expect using &quot;了&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Person A: 你昨天晚上做什么？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Person B: 我看&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;一本书。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And indeed if we did not include it and just said 我看一本书, it would sound as strange as if I were to say in English, &quot;I read (pronounced &lt;em&gt;reed&lt;/em&gt;) a book&quot; as a response to the given question. And it is also true that in this context it &lt;em&gt;effectively&lt;/em&gt; serves the same function of harmonizing with the past nature of the action in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key point though in understanding it is that the &lt;em&gt;logic&lt;/em&gt; of 了 in how it does this is different from that of how the &quot;-ed&quot; ending (here heard in pronunciation but masked by the irregularities and vagaries of English orthography) in English does it. &quot;-ed&quot; &lt;em&gt;directly&lt;/em&gt; marks past time. However 了 can be interpreted in at least two ways, depending on what model of grammar you want to use as in any analysis of human language there may be and are often different conceptual or theoretical models of how a language functions that can explain the phenomena within it and many arguments are waged in linguistic studies as to which are the &quot;best&quot; models in question: keep in mind that &quot;grammar&quot;, as we call it, is not so much a rule book that was written up by the language's &quot;inventors&quot;, i.e. its users, but rather that grammars, like dictionaries, are attempts by language &lt;em&gt;scholars&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;em&gt;describe&lt;/em&gt; how language operates in detail, and thus it can vary from scholar to scholar how it may be understood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that out of the way, we will proceed. The first model is perhaps the one most commonly cited, and that is that &quot;了&quot; is an &lt;em&gt;aspect marker&lt;/em&gt; that marks the &lt;em&gt;perfective aspect&lt;/em&gt;, that is, the fact of something having been completed, finalized, or brought to its end. In this case, what the sentence then says is to assert as a fact that the reading of the book is completed. This, without further indicators, &lt;em&gt;implies&lt;/em&gt; that it must have been in the past, because of how that causality works in the physical universe: the bringing-to-completion of something is caused by things-that-bring-it-to-completion, and causes always precede their effects, thus the &quot;reading process&quot; - the stuff that was needed to bring about that culmination - &lt;em&gt;must have&lt;/em&gt;, by &lt;em&gt;inference&lt;/em&gt;, occurred in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second model (see here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/22407/16171&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/22407/16171&lt;/a&gt;) is a bit different in how it conceptualizes 了 but it follows a similar logic. In this interpretation 了 is a marker for the &lt;em&gt;realis mood&lt;/em&gt;, meaning that the reading of the book is something that is an actual state of affairs in the world, not, say, a hypothetical. With regard to an action taken, like &quot;reading a book&quot;, the only way this can be actual is if the reading is either being done right now, or it was done in the past, because (at least cognitively, not wanting to drag in deep philosophical and even physics-related arguments about the ontological status of the future) only the past and present are real, the future is hypothetical or unreal (the mood that expresses this is called &quot;irrealis&quot; in linguistic terminology). By elimination of the possibility of the reading happening in the present (since you see I am not engaged in it), then it follows (this form of a logical argument is called a &lt;em&gt;disjunctive syllogism&lt;/em&gt; - which goes: &lt;em&gt;P or Q. Not P. Therefore, Q.&lt;/em&gt;) that it occurred in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever the model we choose to use to understand this bit of language, we arrive at the conclusion the action was in the past, and that the past-ness of the action is indeed communicated by 了. However, it &lt;em&gt;gets there by a different route&lt;/em&gt; than English does, and understanding both that route &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; how it gets to this outcome &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; moreover acknowledging that it &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; still lead to the same outcome, are all important to properly understanding the usage of this important basic word. Because if we interpret it as having &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; relevance to time, we will be plagued with suspicion about the fact that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我看了一本书&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is a valid way to answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你昨天晚上做什么？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;AND&lt;/em&gt; if we interpret it as being a tense marker like in English, we will not be able to understand how a construction like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我明天看了一本书&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;could make any sense, as if it is tense, that sentence is literally a logical contradiction saying something is simultaneously in both the future (tomorrow) and the past (misunderstood 了).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aspect theory seems to be the more commonly used one, but what's often missing it seems is an explication of the logic of how this &lt;em&gt;does relate&lt;/em&gt; to time even though and while importantly pointing out that the &lt;em&gt;direct referent&lt;/em&gt; is not time, and I think that makes it hard for English speakers to make the transition because they will be naturally inclined (as indeed one of the papers referenced in the second link talks about) to be &lt;em&gt;focused on&lt;/em&gt; the &lt;em&gt;time&lt;/em&gt; aspect and will rightly pick it out, but the &lt;em&gt;base concept&lt;/em&gt; is not time, and the proper explanation must be able to accommodate both instead of just saying it's not a tense marker and then leaving it at that and leaving the individual in question hanging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16171" LastActivityDate="2018-11-07T08:55:08.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31904" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-07T18:20:55.337" Score="0" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm creating a website in Chinese and realize I dont have translations for small UI terms, such as:&#xA;- About&#xA;- Latest recipe &#xA;- Read More &#xA;- Share (In the context of Social Media) &#xA;- Nutritional value&#xA;- Search &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel as though these terms would require another level of understanding of their context, and cant be simply translated word for word. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20740" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T11:03:10.697" Title="How do you translate &quot;share&quot; in the context of social media" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31905" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-07T19:49:15.323" Score="0" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to improve my listening skills.  One way I would like to do that is to find a large number of shortish audio clips (5 to 10 minutes?) of Taiwanese people reading mandarin.  What they are reading matters less.  It could be novels, news clippings, horoscopes, whatever.  I am looking for Taiwanese speakers of Mandarin because I am going to Taiwan and trying to learn Mandarin Chinese.  I plan to import the audio files into iTunes and make a playlist I can shuffle thru in my car.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas where I can get the audio files I am looking for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15218" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T19:50:12.317" Title="Taiwanese People Reading Mandarin Audio Files" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31906" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31908" CreationDate="2018-11-07T22:51:12.863" Score="7" ViewCount="1826" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, sometimes we'll refer to a person whose name is unknown or undisclosed as &quot;Person A&quot; particularly in hypothetical scenarios. Does a similar thing exist in Chinese that doesn't make use of English letters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20732" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T16:31:54.207" Title="Does Chinese have an equivalent to “Person A”?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31906" CreationDate="2018-11-07T23:09:11.477" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To refer to someone non-specific, you can say「某某/某人/某某人」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我廠「某人」偷了東西，我不點他的名字，他應坦白交代。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Someone&lt;/strong&gt; in my factory was stealing things. I won't mention him by name, but he should come forth honestly and explain himself.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To refer to &lt;em&gt;Person A&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Party A&lt;/em&gt;, for example in an agreement or contract, you can say 「甲方」(as opposed to &lt;em&gt;Person/Party B&lt;/em&gt;「乙方」or &lt;em&gt;both parties&lt;/em&gt;「雙方」).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-11-07T23:09:11.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31906" CreationDate="2018-11-07T23:32:21.323" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甲、乙、丙、丁……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which come from &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9%E5%B9%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天干&lt;/a&gt;, you could also say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;路人甲、路人乙、路人丙……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know the person's surname, you could also say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;李某、王某……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case if you want the specify that person's occupation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;某市民、某员工、某政府工作人员……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2019-03-14T23:52:01.093" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T23:52:01.093" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31906" CreationDate="2018-11-08T02:51:00.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;有个人。 means someone/somebody whom you don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20564" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T02:51:00.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31906" CreationDate="2018-11-08T06:56:38.413" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to those involving 某, as explained in other answers, there are some general names used quite often (e.g. in story-telling) like 张三 and 李四.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The complete list goes as: 刘一、陈二、张三、李四、王五、赵六、孙七、周八、吴九、郑十&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/63926768&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/63926768&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12687" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T06:56:38.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31905" CreationDate="2018-11-08T07:25:43.083" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Go to twitch.tv and find Chinese stream.&#xA;Almost all streamers on twitch that speak Chinese are from Taiwan. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Go to youtube, change your location to Taiwan and you will get a lot of Taiwan videos.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20497" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T07:25:43.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31905" CreationDate="2018-11-08T07:42:31.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am looking for Taiwanese speakers of Mandarin because I am going to Taiwan and trying to learn Mandarin Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn to speak Mandarin properly, this is not a great idea. Taiwanese people, in general, have many speech patterns that don't conform to proper standards of Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the biggest problems is the use of &lt;strong&gt;retroflex consonants&lt;/strong&gt; (zh、ch、sh、r). Words that start with zh, ch or sh are more likely to be read as z, c and s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taiwanese Mandarin also has a lot of different pronunciations for words like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;液 (yi4)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;期 (qi2)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;崖 (ai2)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;括 (kua4)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of which sound really weird outside of Taiwanese circles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another issue would be in the form of accent. The Taiwanese accent is usually considered quite effeminate and &quot;airy,&quot; especially in comparison to other versions of Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to find top-quality Mandarin spoken in a good way to emulate, your best bet is to find some TVB TV shows dubbed in Mandarin. For instance you can search TVB 国语 on youtube and find something to listen to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T07:42:31.663" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31914" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-08T09:35:21.950" Score="0" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you translate me this phrase or sentence please. No translating app is helping me and I have no one who knows Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uLrPo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uLrPo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20747" LastEditorUserId="20747" LastEditDate="2018-11-08T09:45:32.563" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T12:02:20.667" Title="Trinket translation problem" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31914" CreationDate="2018-11-08T10:31:20.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;Certificate of Handsome Guy&quot; or &quot;Handsome Guy Certificate&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20728" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T10:31:20.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31904" CreationDate="2018-11-08T10:36:01.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;About - 關於&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Latest recipe - 最新食譜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read More - 更多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Share (In the context of Social Media) - 分享&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nutritional value - 營養價值&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Search - 搜索&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20728" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T10:36:01.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31917" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31919" CreationDate="2018-11-08T12:15:55.283" Score="3" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a beginner in Chinese and I'd like to ask you something about these sentences below :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然有些人吃素是因为宗教的关系，但小林不一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...小林不太喜欢吃肉食，是因为有些肉食有很多骨头，让他麻烦死了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 是 in those sentences mean/indicate? I've tried to look for the explanation of why 是 is placed before 因为 but I couldn't find anything except this structure : &quot;之所以...是因为&quot;. But still, I don't think that the &quot;之所以...是因为&quot; structure is the one being used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The others are :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有些肉食是没有骨头的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在印尼，很多种菜是要直接用他自己的手指吃的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this one, I'm quite sure 是…的 here is that one 是…的 structure which is used to emphasize (like time, place, or manner). But the thing is, I don't know whether or not the 是…的 structure can be used to emphasize something like 没有 or 要.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please explain to me? Thank you in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-07T23:43:16.983" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T23:45:41.620" Title="What does 是 mean/indicate in sentences such as 虽然有些人吃素是因为宗教的关系，但小林不一样?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16" CreationDate="2018-11-08T13:33:16.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To make some corrections to The_Sympathizer answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the only way this can be actual is if the reading is either being done right now, or it was done in the past, only the past and present&#xA;  are real, the future is hypothetical or unreal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mostly true, BUT...  there are actually 2 realis markers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Verbal了 which is &lt;strong&gt;relative&lt;/strong&gt; realis marker&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sentencial 了 which is &lt;strong&gt;absolute&lt;/strong&gt; realis marker.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can and must use verbal 了 in future context to mark that &quot;X will be done only after Y becomes factual (real)&quot;.&#xA;For example:&#xA;If or when Y is true, X will follow. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吃完了午飯就走&#xA;  that is Y = &quot;吃完午飯&quot; and X = &quot;走&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this expample can be translated as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;When(了) eating(吃午飯) is finished(完), I will(就) leave(走).&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I put 了 next to &quot;WHEN&quot; to indicate that 了 marks relative realis condition and WHEN is the best way to translay 了 here. So another translation could be : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;When in real life eating is over, I will leave.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentencial 了 marks absolute factuality and can't be used in Future contexta.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T13:33:16.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31917" CreationDate="2018-11-08T15:47:25.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;「是」因爲 translates to 「&lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;」&lt;em&gt;because of&lt;/em&gt; or 「&lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;」&lt;em&gt;due to&lt;/em&gt;. There's an implicit phrase that's omitted in these sentences, which is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;(the reason behind)&lt;/strong&gt;...&lt;/em&gt;「&lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;」&lt;em&gt;due to...&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;雖然有些人吃素「是」因爲宗教的關係，但小林不一樣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Even though &lt;strong&gt;(the reasons behind)&lt;/strong&gt; some people eating vegetarian&lt;/em&gt;「&lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;」&lt;em&gt;due to religious considerations,&lt;/em&gt; 小林 &lt;em&gt;is different.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小林不太喜歡吃肉食，「是」因爲有些肉食有很多骨頭，讓他麻煩死了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;(The reason for)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 小林 &lt;em&gt;disliking meat&lt;/em&gt;「&lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;」&lt;em&gt;because some meaty foods contain a lot of bones which greatly inconveniences him.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the English equivalent of these sentences, the phrase &lt;em&gt;the reason behind&lt;/em&gt; is omitted. The English equivalent, however, will also omit「&lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;」for grammatical reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Even though some people eat vegetarian due to religious considerations,&lt;/em&gt; 小林 &lt;em&gt;is different.&lt;/em&gt; 小林 &lt;em&gt;dislikes meat because some meaty foods contain a lot of bones which greatly inconveniences him.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that in Chinese, the omission of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;the reason behind&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is necessary in this case; we don't say ...&lt;strong&gt;的原因&lt;/strong&gt;是因爲..., especially in written materials, as this is highly redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-08T15:56:40.450" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T15:56:40.450" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31920" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31930" CreationDate="2018-11-09T01:15:37.743" Score="3" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question relates to the following snippet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不约而同是一个成语，读音&lt;strong&gt;是是&lt;/strong&gt;bù yuē ér tóng，意思是指事先没有约定而相互一致。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Baidu Baike，&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8D%E7%BA%A6%E8%80%8C%E5%90%8C/1638708&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不约而同&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It introduces the chengyu (idiom) 不约而同, which means something like &quot;doing something consistently, but without prior arrangement&quot;.  I'm just wondering why 是是 is used here---I haven't seen this before, so maybe it just means 是? Or maybe it's a typo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 是是 mean beyond 是?  Is it just a typo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Putting &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%98%AF%E6%98%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;是是&lt;/a&gt; into YouDao gives this example: 你认为将会是是错误的决策.  Maybe it's more tentative than plain 是, like 看看 perhaps.  I'm not clear on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-11-10T02:25:21.217" Title="What does 是是 mean beyond 是? Is it just a typo?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31921" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-09T07:08:14.803" Score="5" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quick question: I will be going to a local supermarket here in Taipei. How do I ask for &quot;free-range chicken eggs&quot;? According to google translate its &quot;自由放养的鸡蛋.&quot; Is this correct? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20752" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-11-09T08:28:16.257" LastActivityDate="2020-02-13T00:59:58.563" Title="How to ask for &quot;free-range eggs&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31921" CreationDate="2018-11-09T07:26:34.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'自由放养的鸡蛋' is almost there (what? the eggs run free?), but '自由放养鸡隻的鸡蛋'(free-range chicken's egg) would be more accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is too wordy for a commercial product's name, I think '放养鸡蛋' is a more suitable translation in marketing sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, most people refer '自由放养的鸡' as '放养鸡' because the full description is really a mouthful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T07:26:34.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31921" CreationDate="2018-11-09T08:22:11.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Colloquially it is known as &lt;strong&gt;土鸡蛋&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Pleco&lt;/em&gt; Dictionary by Pleco defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;eggs laid by home-kept chicken; free-range eggs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Luckily for you &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/~%E5%9C%9F%E9%9B%9E%E8%9B%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Liang'an&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; (a Taiwanese based dictionary) also mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;指農家放養在山坡的雞所下的蛋。蛋殼較厚、蛋清較稠，營養價值較高。陸 也作「笨雞蛋」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which also supports the idea of the eggs being &quot;free-range,&quot; it also mentions that Mainland also sometimes refers to them as &lt;strong&gt;笨鸡蛋&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T08:22:11.857" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31920" CreationDate="2018-11-09T08:45:13.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a typo here, but in some dialects 是是 means 是不是, which is another story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T08:45:13.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31921" CreationDate="2018-11-09T09:06:18.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is literally correct, but no one would use it, except Mr. Shakespeare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;土鸡蛋 or 笨鸡蛋 is the one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the universal is 家养的, e.g. 家养的鸡蛋, 家养的鸭子, 家养的鹅...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my hometown, people also say 溜达鸡, 溜达 means stroll. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2020-02-12T15:22:53.660" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T15:22:53.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31898" CreationDate="2018-11-09T09:29:23.820" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read Hometown decade ago, 杨二嫂 is more like her name in this book. But usually, 嫂 means someone's 'sister-in-law' in Mandarin, and means she married someone's 2nd elder brother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20753" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-07T23:52:21.473" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T23:52:21.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31921" CreationDate="2018-11-09T11:27:32.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term could be regional. I will suggest 散养鸡的鸡蛋 or散养鸡的蛋. Maybe 散养的鸡蛋 or  散养鸡蛋 can also work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T11:27:32.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31928" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-09T13:58:47.080" Score="0" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for age or value of this bowl found while cleaning family home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LBat1.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LBat1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the inside of the bowl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[![enter image description here][2]][2]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AZZvq.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AZZvq.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OXr8C.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20755" LastEditorUserId="20755" LastEditDate="2018-11-11T15:47:54.533" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T15:47:54.533" Title="What do these Chinese symbols mean?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31928" CreationDate="2018-11-09T14:31:01.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the characters are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;碧 - &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%A2%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=碧&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王 - &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%8E%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=王&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玲 - &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%8E%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=玲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玩 - &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%8E%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=玩&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;very likely, it's an antique. try to contact sotheby, or christie :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T14:31:01.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31920" CreationDate="2018-11-10T02:25:21.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the comment and the other answer said it's definitely a typo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in &lt;em&gt;highly informal&lt;/em&gt; daily conversations, a sequence of &quot;是&quot; or &quot;好&quot; can express impatience,  or can indicate dismissal of other person's opinion (with an arrogant/inpatient/derogatory tone) despite repeatedly answering &quot;yes&quot;. I'm not sure if such a pattern is also present in English though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 你是不是脑子有问题啊? (Are you a idiot?)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: &lt;strong&gt;是是是是&lt;/strong&gt;，你觉得是，那就是，不狡辩。(meaning: I don't give a ** about what you think.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8190" LastActivityDate="2018-11-10T02:25:21.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13989" CreationDate="2018-11-10T03:57:01.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Haha, you know what? You call her 大姐，just like, I call you Fat Guy. Nowadays, a woman doesn't want to be called 大姐，even she is old. Let me give you some examples.&#xA;Given, you are 24. And someday you meet a lady who may be at your age. You can call her 妹妹。Even she is older than you about one or two years old, it doesn't matter. Maybe she will say, I think I am older than you. Then you can reply that Oh, really you look so young. 你看起来真年轻，就是妹妹嘛。I am sure she will be super happy.&#xA;Again, suppose you are 24, and you meet a lady at the age of 30-40. This time, you can call her 姐姐，not 大姐。The one you should call her大姐，maybe she is at the age of 60+, like grandma. Another secret is if you don't know 妹妹 姐姐 大姐，which is right. You can say 美女，especially in the southern part of China. However, there are two notices. You can't call a lady 美女， who is super young 18- and super old 60+, it is unpolite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20756" LastActivityDate="2018-11-10T03:57:01.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31928" CreationDate="2018-11-10T05:46:18.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your photo is not clear enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there is an 珑 (not 玩）, 玲珑 is a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;珑 is simplified Chinese. So this is made after 1950s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20757" LastActivityDate="2018-11-10T05:46:18.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31928" CreationDate="2018-11-10T08:43:23.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After more observation,  it looks more like 碧王珍玩 (碧玉珍玩) to me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%8F%8D%E7%8E%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;珍玩&lt;/a&gt; (珍贵的供玩赏的东西 - precious things to enjoy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;碧玉珍玩 (jasper like treasure)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it is 碧王珍玩 , then 碧王 (king of blue green) is likely a brand name&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It make more sense to replace 王 with 玉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole thing would be 碧玉玲珑 (exquisite as jasper)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/2/110/297414.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;玲瓏&lt;/a&gt; : &lt;em&gt;exquisite (精巧细微)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/7/97/170267.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;碧玉&lt;/a&gt; : &lt;em&gt;jasper; (一种不透明隐晶质石英)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two terms can be found in idioms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/21509/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;八面玲瓏&lt;/a&gt; (be smooth and slick (in establishing social relations), &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%8F%E5%AE%B6%E7%A2%A7%E7%8E%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小家碧玉&lt;/a&gt; (in old times, refers to a beautiful young woman in a modestly wealthy family)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the paint might had been scraped off. (the tiny dot in 玉 and the up-angled stoke in 珑)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Bob Johnson stated, it is a modern era product, (post 1950)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-10T11:09:19.217" LastActivityDate="2018-11-10T11:09:19.217" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31928" CreationDate="2018-11-10T09:41:22.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 碧玉玲珑(碧玉玲瓏). Then I guess it was made around 1980, because these overly simplified characters look like 二简字. In that period of time, 二简字(The second set of simplified characters) was promoted over the country. Not long after it was abandoned.&#xA;I must point out that, several decades ago, China was a low-literacy country, and characters were chosen or written in such a casual way by common people. They used 繁体、一简、二简 randomly, and often simplified characters in their own ways.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kut9j.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kut9j.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;So maybe this is the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-11-10T10:13:08.933" LastActivityDate="2018-11-10T10:13:08.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31936" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31941" CreationDate="2018-11-10T15:34:23.920" Score="2" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every dictionary like wiktionary has about 20 different definitions for each pictograph and about ten different meanings(combining reworded synonyms). Are they all recognizably used when or just a few?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20271" LastEditorUserId="20271" LastEditDate="2018-11-10T21:02:11.700" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T04:01:40.630" Title="How many of the definitions in dictionaries generally are really used?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31917" CreationDate="2018-11-10T21:35:55.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;是 is used for &quot;emphasis; stress; emphasize&quot; (my English is poor; I don't know which one is correct).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然有些人吃素因为宗教的关系&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but in this sentence if you add 是, then you can hear more emphasis (强调), and it sounds more natural (自然), and sounds better (好听).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Weird?  Because 好听?  Yes, why we use those special word 是因为好听? 100%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20759" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-07T23:45:41.620" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T23:45:41.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31939" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31940" CreationDate="2018-11-11T00:14:31.047" Score="0" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;This message was not understood by a friend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;看來妳忘了發一個訊息。還是妳有用一些避忌的說話所以中國政府阻擋的。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The goal was to say this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;It looks like you forgot to send a message. Or else you used some taboo words blocked by the Chinese government.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Where is the Mandarin grammar wrong for this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Is the Cantonese version different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T00:58:22.983" Title="Grammar for 看來妳忘了發一個訊息。還是妳有用一些避忌的說話所以中國政府阻擋的" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31939" CreationDate="2018-11-11T00:58:22.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It looks like you forgot to send a message. Or else you used some taboo words blocked by the Chinese government.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;看來妳忘了發一個訊息。還是妳有用一些避忌的說話所以中國政府阻擋的。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are too many different ways to phrase this text, the following is just one of them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin: 看來妳忘了發一個訊息。或者妳用了一些避忌的字句，所以被中國政府封殺了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese: 睇來妳唔記得發一個訊息。 或者妳用咗一啲避忌嘅字句，所以被中國政府刪咗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, the only serious grammar mistake is using '的' instead of '了' for final particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'了' indicates 'complete action' , '阻擋了' (blocked) indicates the action of 'blocking' is completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'了' indicates 'change of situation' '阻擋了' (blocked) indicates your message's status changed from 'being allowed' to 'being blocked'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'的' as a final particle add affirmative tone at the end, Since you started the sentence with &amp;quot;Or else&amp;quot;,  '中國政府阻擋的' is out of place here because  &amp;quot;Or else&amp;quot; implies it is just your guess. If the sentence was &amp;quot;用了避忌的說話, 中國政府(是會)阻擋(的)&amp;quot; then it would have no problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other mistakes are mostly poor choice of word. For example, 避忌的(字句) is much better than 避忌的(說話) when it comes to 'texting'. But it doesn't mean using 避忌的(說話) is grammatically incorrect .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T00:58:22.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31936" CreationDate="2018-11-11T04:01:40.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary seems pretty good about marking their definitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take the character &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A3%AB#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;士&lt;/a&gt; for example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Entries 1-4 are marked with the footnote:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Obsolete sense in Modern Standard Chinese - may be preserved in fossilised compounds and expressions or other varieties of Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Entry 5-7 are marked:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(historical)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Entry 8 has no markings.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Entry 9 is marked both with an:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(honorific) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tag, and the same footnote from entries 1-4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Entry 10 is marked: &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Chinese chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Entry 11 also shares the footnote from the first four.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Entry 12 is mark-free.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That basically only leaves entries 8 and 12, as possible meanings in Modern Standard Mandarin. While, entry 12 is, itself, a surname - just leaving entry number eight as the only meaning you need to really remember. Other compounds and expressions with the character can just be treated as single entities without needing to worry about a specific characters meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T04:01:40.630" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="792" CreationDate="2018-11-11T04:30:00.697" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer the queries directly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are all of these different styles of the same characters used in China&#xA;  as well, or are they specific to Japan? Is it important for me to&#xA;  learn about them (i.e. learn both shapes of 令 or 直)? Note that&#xA;  Traditional Chinese fonts (like MingLiu) will often have different&#xA;  versions from Simplified Chinese ones for the same Unicode code point&#xA;  (though not as extremely different as the Japanese one).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between the shapes is due to a mixture between three main sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Variant Chinese characters;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Different handwriting habits between the different regions;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Different choices and considerations when standardising the print shapes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pending on the specific character that looks different, it could be due to one region not using the character at all, one region having different print vs. handwriting shapes, or one region totally merging the print and handwriting shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What other common characters are there which may look significantly&#xA;  different in different-language fonts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many, and the shape differences are of varying severity. Two very common character components that trips people up is (1)「⺼・肉」which sometimes looks identical to「月」, and (2)「辶・⻍・⻌・辵」which is a complete mess in the Japanese standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should I just think of these differences as similar to the common&#xA;  stylistic differences in the small Roman letter 'a' and 'g', like in&#xA;  the image below?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes and no. Some of the shape differences are indeed stylistic differences, such as「令」. Indeed, the left hand &quot;g&quot; and the right hand &quot;g&quot; are exactly analogous to the Chinese vs. Japanese printed form of「令」. The &quot;g&quot; on the left hand side is the shape always seen in handwriting, similar to the Chinese shape of「令」always seen in the handwritten form in both China and Japan. The Japanese printed form of「令」is &lt;em&gt;traditionally&lt;/em&gt; the shape always seen in print form, in both China and Japan. China decided to change the print form to the handwritten form later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, not all the shape differences are stylistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shape discrepancies are a bit different from the Western typographic tradition. In particular, there is nothing similar in scale as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_unification&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Han unification&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; effect in western typography, which is already mentioned as the overall effect on the glyph shape when choosing fonts from a different region.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make matters worse, there is no clear line drawn between (1) and (2). Indeed, (2) often leads on to (1) when divergence in character shapes is left unchecked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the problems to do with shapes come from the two Chinas, Hong Kong and Japan, as they have ended up with different results when attempting to do (3). Korea didn't change much from the old character shapes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From early &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qing-dynasty&lt;/a&gt; onward, before modern Chinese character standardisation efforts in the two Chinas, Japan, and Korea, there was &lt;strong&gt;only one&lt;/strong&gt; reference print standard for the shapes. &lt;strong&gt;All printed&lt;/strong&gt; Chinese characters, regardless of region, were based on shapes similar to those found in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_Dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kangxi dictionary&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OO1Ha.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OO1Ha.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ButTaiwan/genryu-font/blob/master/TW/GenRyuMinTW-Regular.ttf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;源流明體&lt;/a&gt; - a cleaned-up, &quot;modern&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_(typefaces)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Song/Ming&lt;/a&gt; font based on old print forms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese calligraphy was &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; different from the old print forms, sometimes dramatically as seen in「令」- this had nothing to do with &lt;em&gt;variant characters&lt;/em&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AUEI0.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AUEI0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;日新出號楷體 - &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;regular script&lt;/a&gt; font based on the penmanship of a master calligraphist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In making a set of reference character shapes for public use and educational purposes, Mainland China and Japan did more than just &lt;em&gt;simplify&lt;/em&gt; - indeed, &lt;em&gt;all regions&lt;/em&gt; diverged from the old character forms for different purposes, but a major purpose shared across all regions was to bring the print shape closer to the handwriting shape. Unfortunately, the set of handwriting features they decided to import into the print shape was different across the different regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the five characters &lt;strong&gt;累令直漢刃&lt;/strong&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/get/noto/help/cjk/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Noto Serif CJK&lt;/a&gt; fonts for comparison:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ndVr4.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ndVr4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Both Chinas decided to import handwritten「糸」into the printed form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Japan kept the old print form of「糸」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Jigs.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Jigs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「令」is made up of two components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「亼」, an upside-down「口」(&lt;em&gt;mouth&lt;/em&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「卩」, a kneeling person. The component form on the bottom looks like「ㄗ」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tMFtE.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tMFtE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;597&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=32870&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集32870&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rQZde.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rQZde.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;秦公鐘&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=262&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成262&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gguo9.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gguo9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;32&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;PRC replaced the old print form with the handwritten shape.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;ROC kept the old print form of「亼」while introducing the handwritten shape「龴」into the print form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Japan kept the old print form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XPczr.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XPczr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「直」was originally made up of an eye「目」and a straight vertical line「丨」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NIeGJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NIeGJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;乙&lt;/a&gt;4678&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=22050&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集22050&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Later on,「丨」changed into「十」, and「」was added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WmYBp.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WmYBp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;恒簋蓋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4199&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4199&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k7aI4.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k7aI4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡・法&lt;/a&gt;9&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The modern Chinese (PRC + ROC) handwritten form comes from a variant shape which omits the leftmost vertical stroke and merged「目」into the bottom horizontal line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PLcnw.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PLcnw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The modern Chinese handwritten and print forms adopted this variant shape.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The Japanese print form remained the same as the old print form and roughly the same as the traditional handwritten form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GkTrL.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GkTrL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;PRC and Japanese &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABjitai&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Kyūjitai&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; forms are identical to the old print form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;ROC print form adopted the bottom right hand stroke「丶」from the handwritten form, which detaches from the main body.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Japanese &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjitai&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shinjitai&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; form is based on a Japan-specific handwritten variation which reduced the top right hand「廿」shape into「艹」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GPLl0.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GPLl0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「刃」is a shape where the Kangxi form diverges from most traditional print forms. Most traditional print forms are identical to the handwritten form. The Kangxi form inherits a shape from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;small seal script&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VzM6Q.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VzM6Q.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;清&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_(typefaces)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;宋明&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GoPFW.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GoPFW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_Dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;康熙字典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;PRC kept the old print/handwritten form form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;ROC adopted the Kangxi form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Japan adopted a variant shape.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-11T04:55:40.903" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T04:55:40.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31943" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-11T06:10:14.890" Score="6" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this &lt;a href=&quot;https://developer.mozilla.org/zh-CN/docs/learn/JavaScript/Building_blocks/Looping_code&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;page&lt;/a&gt; for learning loops in JavaScript by Mozilla Developer Network the title &quot;Looping code&quot; is translated as 循环吧代码. What is the meaning/function of 吧 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20761" LastEditorUserId="20761" LastEditDate="2018-11-13T02:01:13.897" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T13:34:39.617" Title="Function of 吧 in 循环吧代码" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31944" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31945" CreationDate="2018-11-11T07:32:46.427" Score="3" ViewCount="891" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, people in Hong Kong speak Cantonese but use Mandarin when writing official documents or homework using Mandarin. 粤语白话字 is not allowed in such cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does this work? Does this imply that to write language down in such cases need some knowledge of Mandarin(like grammar and character's semantics but not native pronunciation), like ancient Japanese people do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20411" LastEditorUserId="20411" LastEditDate="2018-11-11T10:40:19.780" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T10:40:19.780" Title="How do non-Mandarin speakers type Standard Chinese Writing System?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31944" CreationDate="2018-11-11T08:58:23.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, Hong Kong Chinese-literate people write and have knowledge of Standard Chinese (&quot;Mandarin&quot;) when writing documents and homework, in Traditional Chinese (as the standard characters) of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No, ancient Japanese didn't work this way. Japanese people used Classical Chinese as the official writing standard, and either spoke some dialect of Middle Chinese when reciting it or (more commonly) translated it into Japanese before recitation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Only Japanese Buddhist monks had a tradition of reciting Chinese &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutra&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sutras&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;經&lt;/strong&gt;) in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#On&amp;#39;yomi_(Sino-Japanese_reading)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;On'yomi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; - the result is generally incomprehensible to both Chinese and Japanese people, as can be heard &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybBfNAweX1Y&amp;amp;t=1m11s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The written language shared across all Chinese-using regions is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E7%8F%BE%E4%BB%A3%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E6%BC%A2%E8%AA%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;現代標準漢語&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Modern Standard Chinese&lt;/a&gt;; MSC). In its written form, the grammar and vocabulary is heavily based on a refined topolect originating in the area around the Beijing Imperial Court, commonly known as &quot;Mandarin&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MSC is different from and doesn't use colloquialisms from spoken Northern Speech (北方話), which, like all other Chinese topolects, has its own quirks. If slang-heavy colloquial 北方話 is written, other regions wouldn't be able to understand it! The refined, standardised nature of written MSC means that the vocabulary and grammar are very accessible to Chinese-literate people, regardless of mother tongue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MSC replaced &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Classical Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (文言) since the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Fourth_Movement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;May Fourth Movement&lt;/a&gt;. Whereas before, 文言 was pronounced in the mother tongue of the person reciting it, now MSC is pronounced in the mother tongue. In practice, only Hong Kong and Macao recite MSC passages using non-Mandarin in a school setting, as they are the only regions where non-Mandarin (Cantonese) is the &lt;em&gt;de-facto&lt;/em&gt; vernacular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The May Fourth Movement affected &lt;strong&gt;the whole of China&lt;/strong&gt;; even though Hong Kong was a British Colony, the Mainland was the official source of Chinese-language education. Educational materials were free-flowing into Hong Kong until 1949 when the Communists kicked the Nationalists out and the British subsequently restricted movement into Hong Kong. Thus, educational written Chinese in Hong Kong schools was based on MSC written materials from Mainland China until 1949, after which Hong Kong had to come up with its own educational materials - which were and are still based on MSC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please see &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/54414116?fbclid=IwAR3FJp_Ous1wfy0nU8izHLRtV3gEvbRu4hwTd5tsC79-1-jKJRQmuuIkdcQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;香港百姓是從什麼時候開始習得官話白話文的書面表達能力的呢？ - 知乎&lt;/a&gt; for a bit more history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-11T09:27:04.917" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T09:27:04.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31944" CreationDate="2018-11-11T09:05:51.880" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong people speak &lt;strong&gt;colloquial Cantonese&lt;/strong&gt;, and write  &lt;strong&gt;Standard written Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;  (SWC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like Cantonese, Mandarin is a dialect. Both terms refer to spoken words only. The different between &lt;strong&gt;colloquial Mandarin&lt;/strong&gt; and SWC is very small&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me give you some examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First the one with more commonality between all form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Mandarin): 我是中國人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(SWC): 我是中國人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Cantonese): 我係中國人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the more localized phrases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Mandarin): 光說不練&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(SWC): 祇說不做&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(colloquial and written Cantonese): 淨係講唔去做/ 得把口&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use written Cantonese like &amp;quot;得把口&amp;quot; only in casual content like comic, gossip column or web chat. For official documents and formal text like news report or homework, we all use SWC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All Cantonese speakers acquired the ability to translate colloquial Cantonese to SWC in real time since childhood, and it had became a second nature to us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wrote '我是中國人' on paper, I can choose to read it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;as SWC, and &lt;strong&gt;read&lt;/strong&gt; '我是中國人'(ngo5 si6 zung1 gwok3 jan4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;as colloquial Cantonese and &lt;strong&gt;say&lt;/strong&gt; '我係中國人'(ngo5 hai6 zung1 gwok3 jan4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;as colloquial Mandarin and &lt;strong&gt;say&lt;/strong&gt; '我是中國人' (wo3 shi4  zhong1 guo2 ren2 ) &lt;em&gt;if I know Mandarin and choose to read it as Mandarin&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact is, Cantonese speech is the mix of colloquial Cantonese, classical written phrase (including frequent use of idioms) and Standard written Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你噉做仲唔係借題發揮?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你噉做仲唔係 (colloquial Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;借題發揮 (idiom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate it to SWC or Mandarin would be &amp;quot;你這樣做還不是借題發揮?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese using Chinese characters (kanji) do have knowledge of the meaning of those character, but they don't need to know the original Chinese pinyin. They use their Japanese pronunciations to read those kanji instead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T09:05:51.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31947" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-11T09:22:21.767" Score="0" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think both &lt;strong&gt;我住在&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;還活著&lt;/strong&gt; have quite the same meaning (&lt;em&gt;I'm alive&lt;/em&gt;), can I use evenly one of them as I like or are there some rules that force me to distinguish their use according to different contexts? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20763" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:45:39.053" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:45:39.053" Title="What's the difference between 我住在 and 還活著?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31947" CreationDate="2018-11-11T09:34:58.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are two different things;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我住在 = &quot;I live in/ at&quot; - e.g.  我住在香港 (I live in Hong Kong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;還活著 = &quot;still alive&quot; - e.g. 我還活著 (I am still alive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T09:34:58.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31949" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-11T15:11:22.727" Score="2" ViewCount="455" Body="&lt;p&gt;So what does the word 啊 actually use for? I have seen it being use for some sentence but don’t really know when to use it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also my teacher said to me that depending on the word 啊 goes with it will have different pronunciation. For example if it goes with 来 or 走 she told me 啊 kinda read out like “yà” while with看 or 想 the 啊 like become part of the pronunciation so ”看啊” is spoken like “kàn’à”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T20:58:24.963" Title="Pronunciation and the usage of 啊" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31950" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-11T17:21:37.227" Score="5" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;In college, I had just started a physics class in relativity and I was so excited that I began explaining everything I had learned to my Taiwanese roommate.  Perhaps my tone was a bit too arrogant or lecturing, because he became irritated and said, &quot;Okay, okay!  I get it!  In Chinese, we have an expression, 'Selling it as soon as you've bought it...'.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, you have just learned about this, and now you are explaining it all to me as if you are the master of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not been able to find this expression anywhere since then.  Perhaps it has been distorted by memory.  What is the original Chinese expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20765" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T19:22:46.113" Title="Selling it as soon as you've bought it — Chinese expression" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31952" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31957" CreationDate="2018-11-11T18:15:26.287" Score="1" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a 1933 silent movie, a guy is rejected by a girl who instead marries a rich guy. His friends tell him the marriage won't last long because rich guys have &quot;easy come, easy go&quot; lifestyles. Months later, when they learn that the marriage indeed broke up, they simply declare &quot;如何.&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 如何 in this context, and how does it relate to the dictionary definitions of 如何 as &quot;how&quot;, &quot;what&quot;, &quot;why&quot;, &quot;怎樣&quot;, &quot;怎麼辦&quot;? Is this an outdated usage, or still in use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for any help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDITS: &#xA;1. The original post stated: 'they simply declare &quot;如何&quot;'. The post was edited by zyy to 'they simply declare &quot;如何?&quot;' (appended question mark). It's not clear to me why this was changed to a question, given that the post's title states &quot;a single-word declarative sentence&quot;. I just checked the video again and the actual intertitle is &quot;如何.&quot;. (with period at end). See it at the 78:39 mark of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bilibili.com/video/av30814356/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.bilibili.com/video/av30814356/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Added clarification: this is a silent movie, so the &quot;如何.&quot; is written, not spoken.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19535" LastEditorDisplayName="user19535" LastEditDate="2018-11-13T14:55:02.753" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T14:55:02.753" Title="Meaning of 如何 as a single-word declarative sentence?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31950" CreationDate="2018-11-11T20:48:11.930" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common way you would say is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现学现卖 or 现炒现卖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the actual and original expression is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;旋炒旋卖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you read ancient Chinese novels. The character 旋 means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;right after&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. This expression is more correct, I would say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you would just say 现学现卖 or 现炒现卖 nowadays, if you were to use the original expression, most likely people would not understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-11-13T19:22:46.113" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T19:22:46.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31949" CreationDate="2018-11-11T21:04:54.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure about your teacher's opinion, it seems like she would want to use 呀 for the desired pronunciation &lt;em&gt;yà&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though, 啊 does have many tones, it can express feeling of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;surprise&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; in first and third tone, it can express the meaning of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;asking&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; in second tone, it can express meaning of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;adorable&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;getting it&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;surprise&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; in fourth tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also mean a lot in its light tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would be able to find all those in a dictionary, but keep in mind, it is not that strict, so use your intuition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-11-12T20:58:24.963" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T20:58:24.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31952" CreationDate="2018-11-12T01:58:09.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You haven't provided much context for it. I'm guessing 如何 probably is used to mean &quot;How was it&quot;. Usually, in this scenario, we say 你看怎么样，我说的对吧， and etc indicating that one should have taken their advice for doing something, given the negative consequence shown up.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T01:58:09.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31952" CreationDate="2018-11-12T02:15:59.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think the word 如何 is suitable in the movie scene. The word 怎樣 is much more suitable in the situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20728" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T02:15:59.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31952" CreationDate="2018-11-12T02:35:47.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would interpret &quot;&lt;strong&gt;如何&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; here as short hand for &quot;現在你想法&lt;strong&gt;如何&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;How&lt;/strong&gt; do you think now?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using a single phrase to express a mutually understood idea between two persons is a effective way to emphasize the like-mindedness of two characters (something similar to inside joke that only a close circle of friends would get). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They both knew the back story, and this one phrase '如何' basically sum up the situation here. There's no need to say: &quot;Are you going to get the woman back? are you going to comfort her  or laugh at her?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A man wanted to see the Yellow River. He spent all his saving, travel for two months . He finally saw the Yellow River, and immediately turned back home because there's really nothing for him to do afterward. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A friend who knew what he was doing, greeted him when he got back with a simple phrase: &quot;心死沒?&quot;(happy now?) - both of them knew he was referring to the phrase: &quot;不到黄河心不死&quot;, there's no need to say the entire phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-12T19:08:41.577" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T19:08:41.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2807" CreationDate="2018-11-12T12:38:00.733" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pranakan meaning &quot;the ones who speaks the foregin tongue &quot; - பிறநாக்கான் ( பிற + நாக்கான் )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20768" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T12:38:00.733" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31959" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31962" CreationDate="2018-11-13T05:06:13.123" Score="-1" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is that chinese language is easily learn from watching chinese dramas and is that language easy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20562" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T07:59:36.870" Title="Is that chinese language is easily learn from watching chinese dramas?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30318" CreationDate="2018-11-13T05:24:04.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese and I would say both&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个人是谁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Zhège rén shì shéi&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谁是这个人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Shéi shì zhège rén&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are commonly used and mean the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is a language that does not pay too much attention on the order of Subject, Verb and Object. For example, 吃饭了吗？（Eat the meal yet?); 饭吃了吗？（meal eaten yet?); 吃了饭吗？（ ate meal?) They all mean the same thing that people trying to ask if you have eaten or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20773" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-27T00:30:02.420" LastActivityDate="2020-02-27T00:30:02.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1055" CreationDate="2018-11-13T07:21:16.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;ok I'm a chinese let me give you the real answer &#xA;they first of one 东西mean east and west it's right,but why this word have mean “something”？&#xA;cause its according old chinese languag &#xA;and have two origins&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In WuXing, west means glod, east means wood, north means water, south means fire, where only gold and wood are solid stuff that can be taken away, so buy east and west mean buy something&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In ancient chinese have shopping mall at east and west (I'm just kidding, but it's real), so chinese people use “I'll go buy west and east” to express they want buy something&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;buy the way 东西 have two mean of something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;is just something &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;is something bad&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like 你真不是个东西（you are real a bad guy）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end I have to tell you guys 东西 have so many origins, usually Chinese don't know where they from, we just use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for watch my answer my English is not good but I'm still leaning, I'll appreciate it if you can some suggestions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20774" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-11-13T14:45:19.467" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T14:45:19.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31959" CreationDate="2018-11-13T07:59:36.870" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern drama is more easy to learn Chinese. But the true meanings of it need one's social experiences and also historical knowledge. I recommend the chinese sci-fi, also great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T07:59:36.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26844" CreationDate="2018-11-13T08:44:26.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm sure someone has it up on youtube or youku. I just cant type or&#xA;  read chinese to find them.  – Patoshi パトシ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keywords:  &lt;code&gt;卡拉ok&lt;/code&gt; for karaoke and &lt;code&gt;粵語&lt;/code&gt; for Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Search for &lt;code&gt;卡拉ok&lt;/code&gt; on Youtube will get results mainly in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. I believe this answer should be in the comment section, but my reputation(31) is too low to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20497" LastEditorUserId="20497" LastEditDate="2018-11-15T06:40:28.907" LastActivityDate="2018-11-15T06:40:28.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31964" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31967" CreationDate="2018-11-13T14:08:40.287" Score="4" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading a conversation and came to these sentences :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爸爸 ：双十一是什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈 ：就是11月11号的网上购物节，在网上买东西很便宜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering why it's 号 instead of 日. I then checked it on the dictionary and found out that 号 can mean &amp;quot;the day of the month&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have looked for an answer but not sure whether or not what I found is correct. It's said that 日 is more formal than 号 and that 号 is used when you speak casually.&#xA;Is that true? And is there any more difference between both words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2021-02-17T05:44:00.633" Title="The difference between : 日 vs 号" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31965" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31966" CreationDate="2018-11-13T14:15:51.480" Score="4" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was reading a text, I encountered this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天的考试要用到词典，请大家把词典也放在桌子上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know what the whole sentence means but what's the function of 到 in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T00:43:55.740" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T00:46:22.277" Title="What's the function of 到 in 今天的考试要用到词典?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31965" CreationDate="2018-11-13T14:25:51.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;到 is used as this sense defined in dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;用在动词后，表示动作结果。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Used after a verb, [it] expresses the result of an action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It functions a &lt;em&gt;resultative complement&lt;/em&gt; in your sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T00:46:22.277" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T00:46:22.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31964" CreationDate="2018-11-13T14:39:49.967" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct, 日 is more formal than 号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When chatting with someone, you would normally use 号 instead of 日，in this case, saying 日 feels a little bit weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when you are writing a document, you would want to use 日 unless you are writing a transcript of people chatting with each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2021-02-17T05:44:00.633" LastActivityDate="2021-02-17T05:44:00.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31947" CreationDate="2018-11-13T16:08:04.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably you are confusing with the phrase xx还在 to mean xx is still alive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爷爷还在 my grandpa is still alive / 我爷爷不在了 my grandpa is dead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase is more formal than 还活着/死了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T16:08:04.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31971" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31972" CreationDate="2018-11-14T14:00:05.843" Score="0" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to ask close friends (both in Cantonese and Mandarin) what they'd like for souvenirs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“What/do you like anything from (Japan)?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I say this in both languages? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-14T14:05:35.380" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T18:34:26.470" Title="Asking close friends what they like as souvenirs/gifts" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31971" CreationDate="2018-11-14T14:22:36.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;user3306356 wrote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure 手信 doesn't work globally in Mandarin.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are correct, 手信 is a Cantonese term, Don't think all Mandarin speakers know this term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 2:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;紀念品&lt;/strong&gt; (Souvenirs) or &lt;strong&gt;土特產&lt;/strong&gt; (native products) from other place that you give to your friends as gift is known as  &quot;手信&quot; in Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since there's no equivalent in Mandarin, we can only use either &lt;strong&gt;紀念品&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;土特產&lt;/strong&gt; in Mandarin sentences&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 3&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chouhy suggested '伴手禮' is the equivalent of '手信', although 手信 must came from far away place, and '伴手禮' can be locally bought, I do agree &quot;美國帶回來的手信&quot; in Cantonese could be translated as &quot;美國帶回來的伴手禮&quot; in Mandarin, because the sentence indicated the gift is from 美國, not from a local store .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What/do you like anything from (Japan)?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;想要什麼&lt;strong&gt;紀念品&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;土特產&lt;/strong&gt;?&quot; - &quot;what &lt;em&gt;souvenirs/ native products&lt;/em&gt; gift you want?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;想要一些(日本的)&lt;strong&gt;紀念品&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;土特產&lt;/strong&gt;嗎?&quot; - &quot;Do you want some &lt;em&gt;souvenirs/ native products&lt;/em&gt; gift (from Japan)?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;想要乜嘢&lt;strong&gt;手信&lt;/strong&gt;?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;想唔想要啲(日本嘅)&lt;strong&gt;手信&lt;/strong&gt;?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beside &quot;紀念品&quot; (souvenirs) 手信 are mostly &quot;土特產&quot; (native products/ local  products)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you visit Toronto, the 手信 (gift) you take home for friends would be either a Maple Lefts Hockey team T-shirt (souvenirs); or a bottle of maple syrup (native products)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;手信 can also be souvenirs/ native products from your home town. For example, if you are from Toronto and you are visiting Hong Kong, the gifts you give to your Hong Kong friends would also be (多倫多的)手信 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-17T18:34:26.470" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T18:34:26.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="755" CreationDate="2018-11-16T01:25:32.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.echineselearning.com/blog/beyond-counting-the-curious-number-2-elementary?ecl=ptEEEEEE&amp;amp;pla=StackExchange20181116ErAndLiang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The difference between the two words&lt;/a&gt; lies in the following set of magical rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Use 二 (èr) when reading numbers and numbers in sequence, but 两 (liǎng) in front of 千 (qiān, thousand), 万 (wàn, ten thousand) and 亿 (yì, a hundred million).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Wǒ  yǒu èrshí gè píngguǒ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我   有   二十 个    苹果。&#xA;I have twenty apples.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Wǒ de chēpái hàomǎ shì líng èr wǔ qī.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我   的   车牌    号码    是   零  二 五 七。&#xA;&#xA;My license plate number is 0257.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Wǒ yǒu liǎngqiān kuài qián.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我   有     两千      块    钱。&#xA;&#xA;I have two thousand Yuan.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Use 两 (liǎng) before classifiers such as 两年 (liǎngnián, two years), 两岁 (liǎngsuì, two years old), and 两本  (liǎng běn).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ yǒu liǎng běn shū.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我    有    两    本   书。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Put 二 (èr) directly before nouns to express “second.” For example, 二楼 (èr lóu) means the second floor.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ zhù zài èrlóu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我   住   在  二楼。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I live on the second floor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Use 二 (èr) to refer to something second-hand or not brand new such as 二手房 (èrshǒu fáng, second-hand house), 二手车 (èrshǒu chē, second-hand car).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ mǎi le yíliàng èrshǒu chē.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我    买  了 一辆     二手    车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bought a second-hand car.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20693" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T01:25:32.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31975" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-16T09:12:20.390" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the case of one-character verb, I know that you just duplicate the verb, once for the object and once for the complement: 吃饭吃得很快。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the case of a two-character verb do I do the same thing? For example, if I wanted to say: I guarded those secrets carefully.&#xA;Would I say: 我保守那些机密保守得很警惕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20796" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T15:22:50.257" Title="How to modify a two-character verb that has an object using 得?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31975" CreationDate="2018-11-16T09:37:56.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;English is not my native language; please excuse typing errors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'I guarded those secrets carefully' usually be translated into '我小心地保守这些秘密'.&#xA;These words have different meanings and need to be translated according to different scenes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20753" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T09:37:56.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31971" CreationDate="2018-11-16T09:44:27.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tang Ho wrote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Since there's no equivalent in Mandarin, we can only use&#xA;  either 紀念品 or 土特產 in Mandarin sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is not correct, there is another equivalent in Mandarin. &#xA;&lt;code&gt;伴手禮&lt;/code&gt;, I believe is a better word to use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20497" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T09:44:27.437" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31975" CreationDate="2018-11-16T09:48:11.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't work quite well for two-character verbs, because that looks verbose or clumsy.&#xA;For two-character verbs, we just use &quot;adv + verb&quot;, which is pretty close to the way in English. E.g. 我们漂亮地赢得了比赛。 We don't say 我们赢得比赛赢得漂亮. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T09:48:11.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31975" CreationDate="2018-11-16T10:29:35.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'吃饭'， (eat rice= having meal) is a compound word verb, and it is also an intransitive verb (verb that doesn't take object). To illustrate the difference between [single character verb + noun] and [two characters verb + noun], I would change the example to '吃水饺' (吃 + 水饺)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[(吃水饺)- (吃得)- 很快]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[(保守机密) -(保守得)- 很嚴]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, you can modify '保守' with '得' the same way as '吃'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although  &amp;quot;保守机密保守得很嚴&amp;quot; is technically correct in grammar, it is too wordy. Native speakers would do the following instead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Shorten a compound word verb to a single character&lt;/strong&gt;, in the case of '保守', the shortened form is '守'. Your sentence would become &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;守&lt;/strong&gt;机密&lt;strong&gt;守&lt;/strong&gt;得很嚴&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In many cases, the object noun can also be shortened --&amp;gt;&amp;quot;守密守得很嚴&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Only repeat the first character of the compound word verb&lt;/strong&gt;. For example: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;攻击&lt;/strong&gt;敵方陣地&lt;strong&gt;攻击&lt;/strong&gt;很如火如荼&amp;quot; --&amp;gt; &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;攻击&lt;/strong&gt;敵方陣地&lt;strong&gt;攻&lt;/strong&gt;很如火如荼&amp;quot; (&lt;em&gt;omit 击&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The best way is to use a simpler structure [(adv) + (verb) + (noun)] --&amp;gt; [(如火如荼地)(攻击)(敵方陣地)]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For Intransitive Verbs (verb that cannot take noun), &lt;strong&gt;don't repeat the verb after 得 and directly go to the adverb&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 战斗 (to battle) is an '&lt;strong&gt;intransitive verb&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply write &amp;quot;战斗得很激烈&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;战斗战斗&lt;/strong&gt;得很激烈&amp;quot; . &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;战斗战&lt;/strong&gt;得很激烈&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;战斗斗&lt;/strong&gt;得很激烈&amp;quot; are all wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example: '伤风' (get a cold) is an '&lt;strong&gt;intransitive verb&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply write &amp;quot;伤风得很严重&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;伤风伤风伤得很严重&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;伤风伤得很严重&amp;quot; is wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T15:22:50.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31980" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31981" CreationDate="2018-11-16T17:17:33.923" Score="3" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have hard time making clear distinction between 覺得 and 想.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the dictionary:.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- 想：to think / to believe / to suppose / to wish / to want / to miss (feel wistful about the absence of sb or sth).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- 覺得：to think / to feel.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What confuses me is the meaning of &quot;to think&quot;.  It is often overused to express many things: personal opinion, judgement, feelings...   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I understand  the use of 想 to express missing something or someone, ex: 我很想媽媽。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6398" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T13:37:53.167" Title="What is the difference between 覺得 and 想？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31980" CreationDate="2018-11-16T17:38:59.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you learned from dictionaries, 想 and 覺得 have meanings that are not overlapped. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to the overlapped meaning 'think', the different between 想 and 覺得 are as below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我[想]机会不是很大&quot; - &quot;I [think] the chance is not great&quot; (thinking mainly base on imagination/ &lt;strong&gt;judgment&lt;/strong&gt;; mostly a prediction) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我[覺得]机会不是很大&quot; - &quot;I [think] the chance is not great&quot; (thinking mainly base on &lt;strong&gt;feeling&lt;/strong&gt;; mostly a hint/ feeling)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both '想' and  '覺得' describe 'expressing opinion' , but with different base. If you what  to emphasize the opinion is base on judgment after some consideration, you should use '想'; If you what  to emphasize the opinion is base on a hint or some feeling, you should use '覺得'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(想)德國隊會赢 - in your judgment, team Germany will win (&lt;em&gt;base on the past record and the skill level gap between the two teams&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(覺得)德國隊會赢 - you personally feel Germany will win (&lt;em&gt;just a hint, because they seem like a winner&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-16T19:33:12.137" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T19:33:12.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31982" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31983" CreationDate="2018-11-16T20:22:49.387" Score="1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitions 2 through 11 for pronunciation &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%88%87#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;qiè&lt;/a&gt; are missing in the 11 dicitionaries I compare from qtranslate. Would they be recognizable in mainland chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;to be close to&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;to bite tightly;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to clench&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to correspond to; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to match&#xA;(traditional Chinese medicine) to feel the pulse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;eager; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ardent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;urgent; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pressing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;all; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;entire&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;must; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;by all means&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;main point&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(phonetics) Short for 反切 (fǎnqiè, “fanqie”).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(chiefly women's speech, colloquial) An interjection conveying a slight sense of disdain or dissatisfaction.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20271" LastEditorUserId="20271" LastEditDate="2018-11-17T13:24:57.267" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T12:01:10.017" Title="Are the wiktionary definitions for 切 qiè correct?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31982" CreationDate="2018-11-16T23:48:37.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From CantoDict Dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/793/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/793/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(jyutping) cit3, (pinyin) qie1 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] cut; slice; chop; mince; carve&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] (indicates that the previous two characters are 反切 notation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] [math] tangent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(jyutping) cit3, (pinyin) qie4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] correspond to; conform to; accord with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] close to; near to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[3] eager; anxious; keen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[4] be sure to; must&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(jyutping) cai3, (pinyin) qie4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1a ]all; whole&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to be close to&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Match pinyin /qie4/ [2]) close to&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to bite tightly&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;only work in idiom 咬牙切齒, which literally means 'bite and cut with teeth, therefore, 切 itself doesn't contain the meaning of 'bite'  only contains the meaning of 'cut' here&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to clench&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;切 doesn't have the meaning of to 'clench' . The editor might have confused  by the expression '切齒',  which literally means 'cut with teeth'  and this action results in you shut your jaws tight, thus extend to the meaning of 'clenching jaws'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to correspond to&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Match pinyin /qie4/ [1] correspond to)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to match (traditional Chinese medicine) to feel the pulse&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;to feel the pulse is 搭脈; 切脈 means 'hack the blood vein' which is a martial art term, the editor made a mistake again&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;eager&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Match pinyin /qie4/ [3] eager)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ardent&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Match pinyin /qie4/ [3] keen)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;urgent&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;only work in compound word '急切' which means ' urgently close'. '切' in '急切' doesn't mean urgent, it means 'close' or 'near'; only '急' in '急切' means urgent&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;pressing&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;only work in compound word '逼切' which means 'pressingly close'. '切' in '逼切' doesn't mean 'pressing', it means 'close' or 'near'; only '逼' in '逼切' means 'pressing'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Match pinyin /qie4/ [1a])but it only work in compound word '一切', '切' itself doesn't mean 'all' - Even the CantoDict dictionary made the same mistake&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;entire&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Match pinyin /qie4/ [1a])- 'all' extended to mean 'entire'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Match pinyin /qie4/ [4] must)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;by all means&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the editor was confused by the expression '不顧一切' which literally means '不顧'(not care), 一切 (all); Only the idiom '不顧一切' means 'by all means', '切' doesn't&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;main point&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'main point' in Chinese is '要點', the editor might have confused by a common phrase '切中要點' which literally means '切中'(cut correctly into) 要點(the main point).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(phonetics) Short for 反切 (fǎnqiè, “fanqie”).&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Match (pinyin) qie1 [2])&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(chiefly women's speech, colloquial) An interjection conveying a slight sense of disdain or dissatisfaction.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;啐&lt;/strong&gt;' sounded like '切'. It is a phonetic loan word for an exclamation that express disdain or dissatisfaction&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-18T12:01:10.017" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T12:01:10.017" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31984" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-17T00:26:52.463" Score="1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v2htY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v2htY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;tattoo photo&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its upside down I think in the pic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20804" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-14T00:57:13.527" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T00:57:13.527" Title="What does this tattoo mean in English? (Character identified: 真)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-05-14T06:13:39.760" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31984" CreationDate="2018-11-17T00:30:23.450" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an adjective, it means something that is true, real, very.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真好!： Really good!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真的吗？ ：Is that true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真理： The truth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真舒服： Very comfortable!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真实情况： The actual situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some helpful link:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.trainchinese.com/v2/wordDetails.php?rAp=0&amp;amp;wordId=3619&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.trainchinese.com/v2/wordDetails.php?rAp=0&amp;amp;wordId=3619&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%9C%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%9C%9F&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.pinpinchinese.com/definitions/s/%E7%9C%9F-zhen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dictionary.pinpinchinese.com/definitions/s/真-zhen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastEditorUserId="20803" LastEditDate="2018-11-17T00:45:24.063" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T00:45:24.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31986" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31992" CreationDate="2018-11-17T10:50:45.297" Score="-1" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;Especially at the beginning stage, how can one teach Chinese culture and&#xA;integrate cultural elements into the language class, in order to promote a&#xA;long-term learning process?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20805" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T23:05:23.000" Title="Especially at the beginning stage, how can one teach Chinese culture and integrate cultural elements into the language class?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-11-18T03:40:11.013" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31990" CreationDate="2018-11-17T20:08:12.917" Score="4" ViewCount="475" Body="&lt;p&gt;From this Mandarin Corner video:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/2JttZXFJrNg?t=28&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/2JttZXFJrNg?t=28&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Transcript provided on their website:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;00:00:24,000 –&gt; 00:00:28,000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Dàjiē shàng hěnduō shù bèi guā dǎo le,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大街上很多树被刮倒了，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;00:00:28,000 –&gt; 00:00:31,700&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wàimian de lajī yě bèi chuī de &lt;strong&gt;dàochù dōu shì&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外面的垃圾也被吹得&lt;strong&gt;到处都是&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;00:00:31,700 –&gt; 00:00:34,166&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;gēnběn méi bànfǎ chūmén,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;根本没办法出门，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand why &quot;everywhere&quot; can't be expressed as just 到处 there.  If I Google examples it looks like 到处都是 is an entire fixed phrase that means &quot;everywhere&quot;, but if I look up 到处, 到处都, and 到处都是 they are defined as &quot;everywhere&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T11:41:35.807" Title="&quot;Everywhere&quot; as 到处都 or 到处都是" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31989" CreationDate="2018-11-17T21:15:44.113" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;到处是 can be used interchangeably as 到处都是 and they means something exist everywere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 菜园里到处都是蘑菇 means mushrooms are everywhere in the garden.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, 都 gives significance to the sentence, it emphasis that this specific place is unique as it has a specific object everywhere. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 海里到处是水! means Ocean has water(which is a fact about ocean)&#xA;whereas if you say: 家里到处都是水 meaning there is water everywhere at home. You see that it is uncommon. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是means to be. So if you wish to use another verb with everywhere, you should remove 是 and replace it with a verb that you want to use。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 到处跳舞： Dance Everywhere.&#xA;到处逛： Wandering Everywhere。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope That help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastEditorUserId="20803" LastEditDate="2018-11-18T11:41:35.807" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T11:41:35.807" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31991" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31993" CreationDate="2018-11-17T21:47:56.000" Score="3" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.rthk.hk/rthk/ch/component/k2/1428856-20181118.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This news article&lt;/a&gt; contains the following title: 美國國務院稱華府仍未就卡舒吉案下定論&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Why is the 就 needed? If it's needed, shouldn't it precede 仍未?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Is 仍 the literary version of 還？ In other words, if you were to speak this instead of write this, you would say, &quot;美國國務院稱華府還未就卡舒吉案下定論&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T08:19:26.943" Title="Why is 就 needed in 美國國務院稱華府仍未就卡舒吉案下定論? If it's needed, shouldn't it precede 仍未?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31986" CreationDate="2018-11-17T23:05:23.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe talk about how Chinese characters evolves from pictograph which is very intriguing and interesting:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinasage.info/langchars.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chinasage.info/langchars.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also how Chinese influenced English:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Chinese_origin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Chinese_origin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evolution of Chinese characters:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.brown.edu/about/administration/international-affairs/year-of-china/language-and-cultural-resources/introduction-chinese-characters/introduction-chinese-characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.brown.edu/about/administration/international-affairs/year-of-china/language-and-cultural-resources/introduction-chinese-characters/introduction-chinese-characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T23:05:23.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31991" CreationDate="2018-11-18T02:18:26.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;h2&gt;For question 1&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word 就 actually bears a lot of meaning, you can check it out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/xs/5C31.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Commonly, we use 就 as &lt;strong&gt;would&lt;/strong&gt;, for example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 你   再    吵  ,  你  就    死     定    了.   &#xA;You again noisy, you would die for sure.    (Literal translation)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, in formal literature (such as news), 就 is normally treated as a preposition as &lt;strong&gt;with regard to&lt;/strong&gt;. To be simple, you can think of 就 as 對 in such situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;For question 2&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese, adverb comes before preposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;adverb -&amp;gt; preposition&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since, 就 is a preposition in such situation, and 仍未 is an adverb. It is normal that 仍未 should come before 就. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P/S: You won't want to use 就 as &lt;strong&gt;with regard to&lt;/strong&gt; when speaking, people won't understand it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20808" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T02:18:26.160" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31991" CreationDate="2018-11-18T08:19:26.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;仍未=仍+未, 仍=still, 未=not. Altogether, 仍未 = not yet. This is a compound word which is not usually collected in dictionaries. Yes, 就 means &quot;with regard to&quot; here, and you could use the single character 对 as an alternative.  Using this alternative, put 对 in front 仍未 seems a bit awkward here. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes, you could use 还 instead of 仍. But this is a written material, and the author try to make it formal, so 仍 would be better. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For further questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下结论 = make conclusions, 下定论 = make definitive conclusions. Here 下 acts like the word &quot;make&quot;. It is necessary, otherwise no verbs exist in the sentence.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T08:19:26.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31180" CreationDate="2018-11-18T13:28:57.003" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;讨厌：不喜欢，eg, 我讨厌夏天。我讨厌老鼠。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恨：范围太大了，有人多原因会产生恨，一种很激烈的对某人的负面情绪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怨恨：重点是怨，因为怨气，一种强烈的多负面情绪，而恨某人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忌恨：重点是忌，因为嫉妒而心生恨意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恶：两种读音，è, 表示不好的，反义词是善。wù, 如厌恶，因为某种原因而讨厌某个人或物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恼恨：重点在恼，因为恼怒而怨恨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not good at English，so I answer in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20813" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-11-18T15:23:54.017" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T15:23:54.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31943" CreationDate="2018-11-19T05:46:45.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an exclamatory sentence. (It lakes exclamation mark 循环吧！代码 )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means &quot;代码，循环吧！&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%BB%9A%E8%9B%8B%E5%90%A7%EF%BC%81%E8%82%BF%E7%98%A4%E5%90%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;滚蛋吧！肿瘤君&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%BF%BB%E6%BB%BE%E5%90%A7%EF%BC%81%E9%98%BF%E4%BF%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;翻滚吧！阿信&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20816" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T05:46:45.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="993" CreationDate="2018-11-19T08:57:38.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There do exist &quot;o&quot; in the vowel &quot;&lt;em&gt;iu&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, which is originally &quot;&lt;em&gt;iou&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for the convenience of daily using, they omitted the &quot;&lt;em&gt;o&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&#xA;(also, &lt;em&gt;uei --&gt; ui&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pinyin: &lt;em&gt;-iou --&gt; -iu&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;zhuyin(注音): 一(&lt;em&gt;i&lt;/em&gt;)ㄡ(&lt;em&gt;ou&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ㄌ(&lt;em&gt;l&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;strong&gt;ㄧㄡ(&lt;em&gt;iou&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;em&gt;l+iou=l&lt;strong&gt;iu&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: 溜流柳六&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ㄐ(&lt;em&gt;j&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;strong&gt;ㄧㄡ(&lt;em&gt;iou&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;em&gt;j+iou=j&lt;strong&gt;iu&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: 糾(no second tone)久就&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ㄋ(&lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;strong&gt;ㄧㄡ(&lt;em&gt;iou&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;em&gt;n+iou=n&lt;strong&gt;iu&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: 妞牛紐拗&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for the case the vowel &quot;&lt;em&gt;iou&lt;/em&gt;&quot; appears alone, they replace &quot;&lt;em&gt;i&lt;/em&gt;&quot; with &quot;&lt;em&gt;y&lt;/em&gt;&quot; (insisting every sound should be &lt;em&gt;a consonant&lt;/em&gt; + &lt;em&gt;a vowel&lt;/em&gt;), which is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一ㄡ(&lt;em&gt;iou&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;em&gt;y+iou=&lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: 悠由友又&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a good tutorial on pinyin (by Chicago North Chinese School):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.svcs-us.org/docs/academics/2012-2013/HanYuPinYin.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.svcs-us.org/docs/academics/2012-2013/HanYuPinYin.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It explains almost every detail (but made a few mistakes).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw, zhuyin is written in the upside-down form.&#xA;Except for that, both systems are merely the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20817" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T08:57:38.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31943" CreationDate="2018-11-19T09:35:14.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a little bit more like &lt;strong&gt;Imperative Mood (祈qi2使shi3句ju4)&lt;/strong&gt; for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*sorry I don't know how to type the tone mark&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;來&lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt;！我準備好了！&#xA;(Come on! I'm ready!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上&lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt;！皮卡丘！&#xA;(Go fight! Pikachu!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;奔跑&lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt;！男孩！(Run! boys!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;好好享受&lt;strong&gt;吧&lt;/strong&gt;！(Enjoy yourself!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20817" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T09:35:14.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32000" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32001" CreationDate="2018-11-19T11:31:59.090" Score="3" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a proponent of 了 as 'factuality marker' (that is it has nothing to do with 'perfectivity or completness of action'. See post: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22398/how-exactly-do-time-and-tense-work-in-mandarin-really/22407#22407&quot;&gt;How exactly do time and &amp;quot;tense&amp;quot; work in Mandarin REALLY?&lt;/a&gt; for details about this theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, being what I'm, I've noticed second 'factuality marker' which acts almost exactly as 了. That marker is 是 in the 是...的 structure. There are couple of moments I would like to stress before the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Contrary to implicit 了, 是 &lt;em&gt;explicitly (by nature of literal translation)&lt;/em&gt; states it's nature as &quot;factuality marker&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As with 了, sentences with 是...的 tend to be translated in past tense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question: If 是...的 and 了 both render situation to facts, which in turn has correlation with being &quot;in the past&quot;, what is the difference between them? Why have 2 'factualiy markers' (past tense markers by correlation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at two senteces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们是今天早上打网球的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们今天早上打网球了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between them? Is there semantic difference? Can you give exaple when 是...的 can be used, but 了 can't?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T03:54:42.620" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T03:54:42.620" Title="了 vs 是...的 as &quot;factuality markers&quot;" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;particles&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32000" CreationDate="2018-11-19T12:03:42.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(今天早上) (打网球)[了]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;打网球&amp;quot; is the fact; &amp;quot;今天早上&amp;quot; is the relative phrase that indicate what time it happened. Remove the relative phrase &amp;quot;今天早上&amp;quot; and write &amp;quot;我们打网球了&amp;quot;, the sentence is still a complete sentence. (we still know you've played tennis, just don't know when)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;] ([今天早上打网球) [&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the entire phrase &amp;quot;今天早上打网球&amp;quot; is the fact&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you remove the relative phrase &amp;quot;今天早上&amp;quot; and write &amp;quot;我们是打网球的&amp;quot;, the meaning would change completely. &amp;quot;我们是打网球的&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;we are people who play tennis&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'verb phrase' in  [是]+ (verb phrase )+[的] structure is a single item that cannot be broke apart&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The (verb phrase)+ [了] structure can be in any tense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[是]+ (verb phrase )+[的] structure can only be in past tense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他(明天)要去美國(了)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;去美國&amp;quot; is the fact; 明天 is the relative phrase that indicate what time it will happen. Remove the relative phrase &amp;quot;明天&amp;quot; and write &amp;quot;他要去美國了&amp;quot;, the sentence is still a complete sentence.  (we still know you will go to American, just don't know when)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他(是)明天要去美國(的)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is grammatically incorrect, because 要去美國 is not a face yet, not until tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他(原定)(是) 明天要去美國(的)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is grammatically correct, because 原定(originally planed) is a fact, and it happened in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T12:41:42.120" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31980" CreationDate="2018-11-19T13:37:53.167" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;just  remember &quot;觉得&quot; means  &quot;to feel&quot; , not &quot;to think&quot; in the dictionary you use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20818" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T13:37:53.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12046" CreationDate="2018-11-19T13:40:02.257" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the 2nd one is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when they(&quot;省&quot;and &quot;省份&quot;) mean &quot;province&quot;, you can  think they are  the same, otherwise not.For example, there can  be &quot;省略&quot;  but no  &quot;省份略&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20818" LastEditorUserId="20818" LastEditDate="2018-11-21T13:14:39.697" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T13:14:39.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10353" CreationDate="2018-11-19T13:47:23.033" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;both  are  correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;simply put,you can think   &quot;他太太&quot;  and &quot;他的太太&quot;  mean  the  same :&quot;his wife&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20818" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T13:47:23.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32000" CreationDate="2018-11-19T13:51:42.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say the two constructions are used in different contexts. See below example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 你们什么时候打网球的？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 我们是今天早上打网球的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 你们今天早上做什么了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 我们今天早上打网球了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not quite behind the idea that 了 is 'factuality marker', while 是…的 is. 了 is an indicator of completion.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-11-19T14:46:23.330" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T14:46:23.330" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14542" CreationDate="2018-11-19T13:54:42.417" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;他们正在演奏传统的音乐。&#xA;这是一个传统玩具。&#xA;you can think above is  the same as your example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because &quot;的&quot; can be omitted.&#xA;just remember this reason  and use it  as if idiomatically&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20818" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T13:54:42.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32000" CreationDate="2018-11-19T16:29:13.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel that 是……的 is not an independent structure. I prefer to parse it as 是 （……的）. 的 is actually a marker of the descriptive chunk before it, transforming it to （I am not sure of that jargon, but something adding 的 to form a noun phrase or else thing is very common）. 是 express quality, feature, etc of the subject in a general sense. When I say general sense, I mean any description of the subject can be pushed after 是, and ……的 is not essential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大妈：隔壁老王他孩子做什么的呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大婶：他可能了！是坐办公室的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;邻居：你家窗玻璃给谁弄坏了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我：嗨！还不就是早上外面打球的！&#xA;（弄坏玻璃的人是早上外面打球的）（Answer only the questioned part）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;张老头是昨天早上去世的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些都是你臆想的！我可从没说过这种话。（Notice that here 是……的 is far from &quot;factuality marker&quot;. 臆想 is my subjective judge.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is clear that 是……的 is made of “判断动词” 是 and “名词化结构”……的, and it  has nothing to do with &quot;factuality marker &quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. As to 了, things are quite complicated. 了 is neither &quot;completion marker&quot; nor &quot;factuality marker&quot;. I ve read a quite informative article and I totally agree with the author's view.&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cssn.cn/yyx/yyx_xdhy/201504/t20150424_1601019.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;现代汉语“了”的语法意义的认知类型学解释&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-11-19T16:46:19.090" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T16:46:19.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32008" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32009" CreationDate="2018-11-19T16:29:53.973" Score="0" ViewCount="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am doing some DIY and stumbled upon blog that should aid me in figuring out details of some obscure electronic PCB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate was useful for most of the text but I am not able to translate image part with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be grateful for any help in translating text on this image (esp. parts 1 and 2):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A4Riv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A4Riv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.cirias.li/trackpoint-pinout/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog post itself&lt;/a&gt; (for context).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20819" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T17:56:19.540" Title="Translation help needed" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32008" CreationDate="2018-11-19T17:56:19.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;2) One of the two must be &quot;Filter capacitor&quot;(滤波电容), Look which one has a side that connects to &quot;GND&quot; well, the other side of it must be &quot;VCC&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &quot;crystal oscillator&quot;(晶震) , in the middle of it is &quot;GND&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Because it is &quot;Analog output device&quot;(模拟输出设备), it is very likely that the 4 corners are &quot;VCC&quot;,&quot;GND&quot;,&quot;X&quot;,&quot;Y&quot;, Based on this, check with above to make sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T17:56:19.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32010" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32014" CreationDate="2018-11-19T19:37:08.863" Score="1" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese uses reduplication of verbs and adjectives all the time, but I can't find any explanation of reduplication of nouns to explain &lt;strong&gt;小时小时&lt;/strong&gt; in this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(from a Mandarin Companion reader, 地心游记, chapter 5. Our heroes are out of water...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不管怎么样，我到水就好。我们一起跟着老许去找水，&lt;strong&gt;走了半个多小时小时&lt;/strong&gt;，我们听到了地下河水的声音。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I interpret 半个多小时 as &quot;more than half an hour&quot; (but less than an hour).  What does the repetition of 小时 mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-26T04:14:44.943" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T04:14:44.943" Title="Reduplication of the noun 小时 in 走了半个多小时小时" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32011" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32012" CreationDate="2018-11-20T02:57:41.190" Score="4" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;During one class we talk about how Chinese families give name to their children, however the conclusion is a little bit confusing for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Context: they give to a child the following name -&gt; 冯一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h4PLK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h4PLK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;conclusion&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain it to me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13154" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:44:20.803" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:44:20.803" Title="Meaning of 道生一,一生二,二生三,三生万物" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32011" CreationDate="2018-11-20T04:41:11.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning I would present is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With the principles of nature, the fundamentals were produced. Everything else are then produced from the fundamentals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The explanation of the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;principle&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;fundamentals&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; differs from people to people, it depends on your belief, the major you study and other backgrounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I, as a physics student, would regard the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;principle&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; as the physics rules and the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;fundamentals&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; as particles that make up the universe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-11-20T13:43:02.677" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T13:43:02.677" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32013" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32016" CreationDate="2018-11-20T04:50:59.810" Score="2" ViewCount="358" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22yihou%22_and_%22zhihou%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This grammar article&lt;/a&gt; says 以後 must modify some time, action, or event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, one of the examples is: &lt;code&gt;以后再也不来这里吃饭了，又贵又难吃&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) In the above example, &lt;code&gt;以後&lt;/code&gt; starts the sentence and modifies nothing. Why is it okay for the first example but not this one: &lt;code&gt;我六点下班，以后，我去跟朋友吃饭&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Would removing the commas for the second example make it grammatically correct since &lt;code&gt;以后&lt;/code&gt; would be then modifying &lt;code&gt;我六点下班&lt;/code&gt;? In other words, would this sentence -- without commas -- be correct: &lt;code&gt;我六点下班以后我去跟朋友吃饭&lt;/code&gt;. Would removing the comma here also make 以后 correct: &lt;code&gt;我们先复习一下，以后上新课&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2018-11-20T05:16:35.370" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T21:22:57.823" Title="Understanding how to use 以後" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32010" CreationDate="2018-11-20T05:17:06.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a typo. We never use reduplication of noun 小时.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another typo in this sentence. 我到水就好 should be 找到水就好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17887" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T05:17:06.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32013" CreationDate="2018-11-20T06:08:32.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以后再也不来这里吃饭了，又贵又难吃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以后 in this context means &lt;strong&gt;from now on&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我六点下班以后，我去跟朋友吃饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in this context, it means &lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt;. basically, ....以后 means &lt;strong&gt;after....&lt;/strong&gt;. E.g. 十年以后: &lt;em&gt;after ten years or ten years later.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T06:08:32.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32013" CreationDate="2018-11-20T06:28:18.980" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;以后再也不来这里吃饭了，又贵又难吃&amp;quot; is grammatically correct because it does modify an event, and the event is '&lt;strong&gt;from now on&lt;/strong&gt; not come here for dinner'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence implies &amp;quot;從今(from now on)以后再也不来这里吃饭了，又贵又难吃&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'從今'(from now on) is omitted because we know '以后'(hereafter) is referring to 'from now, hereafter'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like if you wrote &amp;quot;(昨天在这里吃了一餐)以后，再也不會来这里吃饭了，又贵又难吃&amp;quot; 以后 modifies the event &amp;quot;昨天在这里吃了一餐&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2) Would removing the commas for the second example make it grammatically correct&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我六点下班以后，我去跟朋友吃饭 is technically correct, but it should be a single sentence: &amp;quot;我六点下班(之后)去跟朋友吃饭&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 之后 instead of 以后 because 以后 is usually followed by a unique event&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example to illustrate my point:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清朝灭亡(以后), 中国再没有皇帝了 (correct)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清朝灭亡(之后), 中国再没有皇帝了 (correct)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'The demise of the Qing Dynasty; no more emperor' is a unique event, you cannot have this event again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨停(以后)才能出外 (incorrect)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨停(之后)才能出外 (correct)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'after the rain stop; going out' is not a unique event, it will happen again and again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best way is to simply write: &amp;quot;我六点下班(后)去跟朋友吃饭&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T21:22:57.823" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32017" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-20T09:08:11.700" Score="0" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not to say my Classical Chinese has progressed anywhere near a level such that I could converse. But I have found such fora amazingly useful in Ancient Greek. You start wondering how to express the common things, instead of sticking to a few topics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="11365" LastEditDate="2018-11-20T09:13:25.420" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T15:11:35.703" Title="Are there any fora for conversing in Classical Chinese?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32017" CreationDate="2018-11-20T09:59:40.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newwenyan.com/forum.php?mobile=yes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新文言&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zgfxw.net.cn/forum.php?forumlist=1&amp;amp;mobile=2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;辞赋论坛&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Hummm, I cannot find a forum where people converse In 文言文, but the two fora above are mainly for writing In 文言文.&#xA;I must say, 文言文 doesn't quite fit into modern environment. The main reason is words for modern things and ideas&#xA;are formed in such a different way from the morphology of 文言文 that it looks awkward for a pure 文言文 to contain modern words like 電話/牙刷/激光照排打印機.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas it is possible to elaborate your speech or writing with 文言文, including using 文言句式/文言詞彙/典故/文風 and In many cases it reads really like so called 文言文 （of course it isn't）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——————EDIT——————&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the essence of good writing and speech is concision and accuracy. The more words at your command, the nearer you are from that goal. In daily life and on the Internet, people are inclined to use basic and simple words. If you are not a beginner, you will feel this a hindrance to your improvement. It is, even for native speakers. It might be the reason why you are looking for fora discussing Classical Chinese. But it is not necessaryԅ(¯ㅂ¯ԅ). My advice is simple but proved by many: read books writing in formal and literary language and （my personal practice） buy a hefty dictionary, often leaf through it, take down notes of good words you meet.&#xA;|･ω･｀)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-11-20T11:36:57.220" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T11:36:57.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10353" CreationDate="2018-11-20T10:56:14.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Except for the ambiguous cases others have described that only one is correct, the main reason for including or not including 的 is &lt;strong&gt;rhythm&lt;/strong&gt;. This is quite a subtle thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very loose explanation as I'm not a linguist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As all Chinese characters are single syllable, they all take one unit to pronounce. So people will add/remove words (most likely 的) to keep the rhythm. Eg&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厉害了/我的国 (3/3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In almost all other cases, people use 我国. Here 的 is added only to keep the 3/3 rhythm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also similarly I would prefer 现在他想/他的太太 (4/4). Unless there is another preceding sentence, 刚才他想他女儿，现在他想他太太 (7/7)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once again, there is nothing wrong either way. You can only pick it up subconsciously by talking a lot to natives and gradually mimicking their way to speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T10:56:14.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32017" CreationDate="2018-11-20T11:44:00.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i think it's a no, to your question. well, maybe you could try here; i guess people can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my barbarian's offer up: expose to the sun (野人獻曝)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to master the writing skill of classical chinese, pay attentions to 虛字 (particles), and 句讀 (~chop &quot;characters stream&quot; into verse)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;interested to try?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what's about this pic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MnrZ5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MnrZ5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-11-20T15:11:35.703" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T15:11:35.703" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32021" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-20T14:15:55.113" Score="3" ViewCount="3476" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I visited a house that had Chinese New Year banners all over. On the stairs, one banner reads 「恭禧發財」, and above a door, another banner reads 「恭喜發財」. Both of these are pronounced exactly the same in Cantonese and Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What are their differences in terms of meaning? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which is 'correct'? (i.e. Which is the canonical or most popular version?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When people say 「gung1 hei2 faat3 coi4」 / 「gōng xǐ fā cái」 during Chinese New Year, do they mean 「恭喜發財」or do they mean 「恭禧發財」?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastEditorUserId="20826" LastEditDate="2019-03-30T10:53:51.997" LastActivityDate="2019-03-30T10:53:51.997" Title="What's the difference between 恭喜發財 and 恭禧發財?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32021" CreationDate="2018-11-20T23:32:46.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct way to write the phrase is「恭喜發財」. This phrase is made up of two words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「恭喜」, meaning &lt;em&gt;congratulations&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「發財」, meaning &lt;em&gt;to make a fortune&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast,「恭禧」is not actually a word. At most,「恭禧發財」can be viewed as a pun which emphasises the &lt;em&gt;fortune&lt;/em&gt; aspect of the phrase, as「禧」(&lt;em&gt;good fortune&lt;/em&gt;) is a homophone with「喜」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T23:32:46.293" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17240" CreationDate="2018-11-21T00:46:52.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @Jacob mentioned, the last character is「居」, and is quite tricky to identify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「居」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_(2014)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*k(r)a/, /*k(r)a-s/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to dwell/reside&lt;/em&gt;) is composed of semantic「尸」(&lt;em&gt;squatting person&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;body&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic「古」(Baxter-Sagart: &lt;strong&gt;/*kˤaʔ/&lt;/strong&gt;). In turn,「古」was originally composed of semantic「盾」(&lt;em&gt;shield&lt;/em&gt;) and a distinguishing mark「口」. The word originally represented by「古」is now written as「固」(&lt;em&gt;solid, sturdy&lt;/em&gt;). For reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Glyph evolution of「古」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bD5Bu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bD5Bu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;475&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=21242&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集21242&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pJbvL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pJbvL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;大盂鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2837&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2837&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;Kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1zr2x.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1zr2x.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Glyph evolution of「盾」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D1jaF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D1jaF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;林&lt;/a&gt;2.24.6&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=16347&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集16347&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/83xQ0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/83xQ0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;小臣宅簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4201&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4201&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3j61Y.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3j61Y.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;五年師⿸㫃史&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4216&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4216&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sS52L.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sS52L.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the third form, the shield is reduced to a side view, and「目」(&lt;em&gt;eye&lt;/em&gt;) was added, representing a person peeking out from under the full-body cover of a shield.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the question photo, the「古」in「居」takes the form where the distinguishing mark「口」has not been added and the full frontal form of the shield has not yet been reduced to a shape like「十」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T00:46:52.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32026" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32028" CreationDate="2018-11-21T05:33:27.660" Score="2" ViewCount="379" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was writing a simple paragraph about 自我介绍, I wanted to say that &quot;I was born in XXX.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wasn't sure about how to say it and then looked for some examples of how to say it in Chinese and came across two characters :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在&quot; and &quot;于&quot;&#xA;(I just knew about 于, I had never paid attention to this character before).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both can mean &quot;in, on, at&quot; and can be used as a preposition to indicate a location as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, what's the difference between two characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will there be any difference if I say :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我出生在XXX。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我出生于XXX。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-21T07:02:42.810" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T09:47:48.567" Title="What's the difference between 在 and 于 as a preposition?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32026" CreationDate="2018-11-21T06:28:25.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 我出生在XXX。and 我出生于XXX。are right. They have the same meaning.&#xA;In my experience with the two words '在' and '于' as a Chinese speaker, they all adpositions which have similar use. Both of them can be used to indicate time and location.&#xA;The only different I think between them is '在' is often used in spoken language but '于' is often used in formal occasions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20832" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-11-21T08:19:00.060" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T08:19:00.060" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32026" CreationDate="2018-11-21T09:35:10.727" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;王得屹's answer is basically correct, &lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt; is used in &lt;strong&gt;colloquial&lt;/strong&gt; sentences more and &lt;strong&gt;于&lt;/strong&gt; is used in &lt;strong&gt;literary&lt;/strong&gt; sentences more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would provide examples to illustrate the point more clearly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;生(于)中国&quot; = &quot;出生(在)中国&quot; (&lt;em&gt;we don't say 生在中国 because 生 is more literary, 在 is more colloquial, mixing the two make it sound unnatural&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;逝(于)日本&quot; = &quot;(在)日本逝世&quot; (&lt;em&gt;we don't say 逝在日本 because 逝 is more literary, 在 is more colloquial, mixing the two make it sound unnatural; meanwhile, 死 and 在 in 死在日本 are both colloquial terms&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;生于中国&quot; and &quot;逝于日本&quot; are more literary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;出生在中国&quot; and &quot;在日本逝世&quot; / 死在日本 are more colloquial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;unlike 逝, 逝世 is more suitable for colloquial sentences&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-21T09:47:48.567" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T09:47:48.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32029" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32030" CreationDate="2018-11-21T09:49:25.470" Score="4" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can omit the 的 from possessives. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我的太太 → 我太太&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他的名字 → 他名字&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can not:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我口 to mean &quot;my mouth&quot; is wrong apparently&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;马克自行车 to mean &quot;Mark's bicycle&quot; is wrong apparently&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There also are cases I'm unsure about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中国（的）女孩&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我儿子（的）巧克力&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when can we omit it and when can we not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15898" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T20:47:32.567" Title="To 的 or not to 的" Tags="&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32029" CreationDate="2018-11-21T10:53:19.473" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my answer to this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22204/why-no-%e7%9a%84-in-this-sentence&quot;&gt;Why no 的 in this sentence?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The possessive '的' after a subject is usually kept, if it is a 'true possessive'(something you actually own)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For example:&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The possessive 的 in 我的車 cannot be omitted and make it &quot;我車&quot;&#xA;On the other hand, if the '的' is a 'relative possessive'(something you don't actually own) can be omitted. For example: you can omit the '的' in '我的母亲' and write 我母亲.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;More example:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The possessive 的 in 这是我的太太; 他是我的女儿; 你的国家; 你的公司 can be omitted. You can write 这是我太太; 他是我女儿; 你国家; 你公司 (if you actually own the country or the company, then the possessive 的 should be kept)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我口 to mean &quot;my mouth&quot; is wrong apparently&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because you own your mouth, therefore 的 is a true possessive and cannot be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国（的）女孩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;中国的女孩&quot; means 'China's girls' (the girls belong to China, therefore, 的 here is a true possessive and has to be kept)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;中国女孩&quot; means 'Chinese girl' (中国 here is an adjective 'Chinese')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you omit '的' in &quot;中国的女孩&quot;,  the meaning would change &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我儿子（的）巧克力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我儿子 owns the 巧克力, therefore, you cannot omit  的  and write 我儿子巧克力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More Examples from my answer to the linked post:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我(的)妈妈的房子很高。 can be reduced to: 我妈妈的房子很高。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You don't own your mother, but your mother own the house&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我(的)牛(的)角很长。 cannot be reduced to: 我牛的角很长。 or 我的牛角很长&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you own the cow and the cow own the horns&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-24T20:47:32.567" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T20:47:32.567" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32031" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32033" CreationDate="2018-11-22T03:46:24.863" Score="0" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 受得了 the Mandarin equivalent of 頂得住 (cannot stand this) in Cantonese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, what is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:43:49.797" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:43:49.797" Title="Is 受得了 the Mandarin equivalent of 頂得住 in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32031" CreationDate="2018-11-22T04:23:01.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are similar in meaning of withstanding the suffering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is, 受得了 can be referring more to long term withstanding of suffering, while 顶得住 is more referring to short term, very high intense withstanding of suffering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 受得了 is more passive while 顶得住 is more initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T04:23:01.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32031" CreationDate="2018-11-22T04:47:12.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;受得了 means '&lt;strong&gt;able to endure&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;頂得住 contains the meaning of '&lt;strong&gt;able to endure&lt;/strong&gt;' too, but it could also mean '&lt;strong&gt;able to withstand&lt;/strong&gt;' or '&lt;strong&gt;can be equal to&lt;/strong&gt;' that 受得了 couldn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example for 'able to endure':&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這種非人生㓉誰(&lt;strong&gt;受得了&lt;/strong&gt;) ?/ 呢種非人生㓉邊個(&lt;strong&gt;頂得住&lt;/strong&gt;)?/ who can (&lt;strong&gt;endure&lt;/strong&gt;) this kind of hellish life?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The equivalent of '頂得住' in Mandarin is '受得了' in this sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example for 'able to withstand'&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呢幢大廈(頂得住)七級地震 (Cantonese)/ this building can withstand 7.0 earthquake &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, 'to withstand' is not '受得了'. It is '承受得了'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The equivalent of '頂得住' in Mandarin is '能承受/ 承受得了' in this sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這幢大廈(能承受)七級地震 (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example for 'can be equal to'&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一個大師傅&lt;strong&gt;頂得住&lt;/strong&gt;十個學徒 (Cantonese)/ One great master &lt;strong&gt;can be equal to&lt;/strong&gt; ten apprentices&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin 'can be equal to' is not '受得了'. It is '抵得上'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The equivalent of '頂得住' in Mandarin is '抵得上' in this sense &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一個大師傅&lt;strong&gt;抵得上&lt;/strong&gt;十個學徒 (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The actual equivalent of 受得了 (able to endure) in Cantonese is 受得住&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Side note&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In Cantonese, there's a more common phrase: '頂得順'/頂唔順.  It is similar to '頂得住'/ 頂唔住' but is doesn't contain the meaning of 'can be equal to' and it is more colloquial&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-22T10:01:55.017" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T10:01:55.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32034" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32035" CreationDate="2018-11-22T06:04:47.793" Score="2" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the west there are a lot of different groups in school. For instance this list of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=High%20school%20stereotypes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;High school stereotypes&lt;/a&gt; mentions preps, jocks, geeks, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, even translating these groups directly wouldn't mean much to the average Chinese person who has little to zero knowledge of western school life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Chinese school groups, I don't know much other than 学霸 and 学渣. Maybe, it is just that limited? I would assume 00后 vocab would be more plentiful though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T04:01:24.870" Title="Chinese school group stereotypes?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32034" CreationDate="2018-11-22T13:37:59.723" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Haha, that is an interesting question, I am going to try to list all the stereotypes I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First I will list some common ones regarding academic performance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学霸，very good student with hard working&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学神，excellent student with little effort put in, also doing very well in nearly all other aspects you can think of, like sport clubs, video games and so on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学痞，academically excellent, little effort put in, difference with 学神 is, 学神 is more “仙” while 学痞 is more of an ordinary guy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学渣，not doing academically well because of no hard working&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学酥，looking good when no exam is going on, will be found out to be 学渣 once exam comes, that is why they are called 酥，once being touched, they become “渣”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学屌，talented but not hard working students, performance varies with the effort they put in, but they do not care&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学婊，always pretend to fail the tests but always end up with better grades than most of others, not a welcomed type&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then some regarding appearance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高富帅 or 高帅富，as the name suggests, tall, rich and handsome guy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白富美，again, as the name suggests, girl who is rich, beautiful and with fair skin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（男）屌丝，it is not a good word and is ONLY used for self reference, it means someone who is poor and ugly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女屌（丝），the female version of （男）屌丝，the rule is the same, ONLY self reference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And some others&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宅男，guys who love comics and or video games, seldom appear publicly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宅女，female version of 宅男&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逗逼/逗比，a funny guy, but use with care as it might sometimes be derogatory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will keep this answer updated if I could think of any others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T04:01:24.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32036" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-22T15:35:11.880" Score="1" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm having trouble formulating &quot;That's so like you!&quot; or &quot;That's typical of you&quot; in Chinese. I'm trying to write a dialogue where a friend responds to someone who lost their phone, by replying &quot;That's typical of you!&quot;... But is there an appropriate way to say this in Chinese? Would appreciate some help :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20840" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-22T15:45:48.027" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T03:42:02.927" Title="&quot;That's so like you!&quot; or &quot;That's typical of you&quot; in chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32036" CreationDate="2018-11-22T16:20:48.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;That's so like you!&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;That's typical of you&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literal translation: &amp;quot;這還真像是你&amp;quot; , &amp;quot;真是典型的你&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To translate English expressions word by word might not sound natural in native Chinese's ears, because Chinese don't phrase words the same as English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The typical Chinese phrase in this context would be more detailed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;這還真像是你(會做的事)&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;this is so like something you would do&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;真是典型的你(會做的事)&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;It is something the typical you would do&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or you can use interpretation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;還真是老樣子的你&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;it is the same old (typical) you&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T16:33:30.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32038" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-22T16:59:15.243" Score="4" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;On an antique shotgun I was told had Korean origin I found the following (what I presume are Hanja?) characters&lt;sup&gt;†&lt;/sup&gt;. Four out of five I believe I have correctly identified. One character I could not find in the dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side A:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[UNKNOWN CHARACTER] 特 製&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side B:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;絞 筒&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The unknown character is three stacked components in this basic form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;-------&#xA;   人  &#xA;-------&#xA;     &#xA;-------&#xA;   巾  &#xA;-------&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though, the bottom component might well be &lt;code&gt;中&lt;/code&gt;; there is quite a bit of tarnish obscuring it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Side A, the two characters that follow the unknown one seem to indicate &quot;special manufacture&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One Side B, I get the translation &quot;hang&quot; or &quot;twist&quot; for character one, and &quot;tube&quot; for character two. To me, this might indicate the process of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifling&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rifling&lt;/a&gt;, but I could not find any use of these characters on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%86%9B%E7%B7%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese character entry for rifling&lt;/a&gt;, and the barrel is old and I couldn't tell conclusively if it'd ever undergone that process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Can someone help me translate these characters?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;† I Originally I &lt;a href=&quot;https://korean.stackexchange.com/questions/4907/what-do-the-characters-ive-found-on-this-old-gun-mean&quot;&gt;posted this on the Korean stack&lt;/a&gt; because I thought they may use Chinese characters in some idiomatic way that might make it a more suitable place, but now I am thinking that probably doesn't make much difference, and also I am not confident about the gun's Korean origins so am posting here. Thanks.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Edit&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was able to take some acceptable close up imagery:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/URpmY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/URpmY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Side A&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mq0WE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mq0WE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Side B&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15907" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-23T01:36:14.293" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T02:59:22.547" Title="What do the characters I've found on this old gun mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32039" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-22T17:55:33.653" Score="1" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can somebody tell me what is written in this painting?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qX5Kc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qX5Kc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sino.ro/5976-thickbox_default/pictura-chinezeasca-simbolul-liniste-cod-b68-6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://sino.ro/5976-thickbox_default/pictura-chinezeasca-simbolul-liniste-cod-b68-6.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese people selling this painting told me it's related to inner peace, tranquility, being a kind o &quot;mantra&quot; they couldn't translate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20841" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T23:33:17.430" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T23:33:17.430" Title="What is written in this Chinese painting? (Characters identified: 寧靜致遠)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32040" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32068" CreationDate="2018-11-22T18:22:22.500" Score="0" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember when I was studying in China a teacher of mine said you could omit a word under the same word using the character/symbol &lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Coincidentally I bumped into it yesterday and remembered that. But I'm not sure if this is correct and if it's really &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; character. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国 很 大。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   ..&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;..  很 漂亮。  (omitting 中国)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   ..&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;..  在 亚洲。  (omitting 中国)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Questions:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1 - Does  really have this function?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2 - Does  have a name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T03:59:44.937" Title="Omitting repeated text with " Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32041" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-22T18:42:46.087" Score="6" ViewCount="784" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 着 has many readings, but I'm interested on 2 of them that have grammar usage: zhe and zháo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As zhe, 着 is used to express a continuous state, as in 门开&lt;strong&gt;着&lt;/strong&gt; (the door &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; open&lt;strong&gt;ed&lt;/strong&gt;) and 他跑&lt;strong&gt;着&lt;/strong&gt;步听音乐 (he listens to music while runn&lt;strong&gt;ing&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As zháo, 着 is used as a resultative complement that indicated the success of an action (similar to that expressed by 到).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here comes my &lt;strong&gt;first question&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1 - Does 着 have exactly the same meaning as 到 as a result complement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;找到/找着 - 买到/买着 - 看到/看着 - 想到/想着 - 睡到/睡着 are all the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, here comes the &lt;strong&gt;second question&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2 - How would I be completely sure if 着 would be read zhe or zháo? For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她会想&lt;strong&gt;着&lt;/strong&gt;妈妈。Ta hui xiang &lt;strong&gt;zhe/zhao&lt;/strong&gt; mama (She will be thinking/come to think about her mother.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2020-01-28T21:47:34.897" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T21:47:34.897" Title="Differentiating 着 (zhe/zháo) and 着/到" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32041" CreationDate="2018-11-22T20:34:01.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1 - Does 着 have exactly the same meaning as 到 as a result complement?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到 as a result complement indicates the verb is accomplished &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 as a result complement also indicates the verb is accomplished &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 找到 and 找着 means 'seek' (and found)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 as a verb particle is  mostly used to indicate 'the continuation of an action or a state'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 看到 = 'look '(and saw) ; 看着 = 'looking'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 here is a verb particle that indicates 'continuous state,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly: 想到 = 'think' (and remember or realize); '想着' = 'thinking'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 as a verb particle can also means 'result in' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 买到 = 'buy' (and bought) ; 买着 = 'buy'(and end up with)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 here is a verb particle that indicates 'result in/ end up with'. As in '买着次貨' (buy and result in buying inferior goods) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2 - How would I be completely sure if 着 would be read zhe or zháo?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着 read as /zhe5/ only when it is functioning as a verb particle that indicating the continuation of an action or a state&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1132/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1132/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T20:34:01.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32043" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-22T23:22:35.470" Score="4" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, there are covered sidewalks called “qilou”. What are the characters for that, and is there a translation in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15218" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-11-23T00:59:45.133" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T01:11:12.610" Title="What is the characters for qilou, the sidewalks in Taiwan?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32044" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-23T00:36:42.997" Score="0" ViewCount="632" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am supposed to write a formal letter in Chinese addressing a president concerning  the rise of hunger in the country. I am not sure how to address someone in the said position but I have knowledge on other positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20842" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T11:19:36.577" Title="Proper Way to Address a President in a Formal Letter" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32044" CreationDate="2018-11-23T01:07:59.537" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;President of a country (e.g. The United States) is called 总统 in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A President or Chairman of a political party (e.g. Communist Party of China ) is called 主席 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To formally address The President of a country in writing, you should use an honorific like 阁下 or 先生 or even 大人 and call him 总统阁下; 总统先生 or even 总统大人 (&lt;em&gt;kind of too old fashion and too humble if you ask me&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奥巴马(name) 总统(title) 阁下 (honorific)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;习近平(name) 总书记(title) 阁下 (honorific)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes people would call 習近平&lt;strong&gt;主席&lt;/strong&gt;/总书记 as '&lt;strong&gt;President&lt;/strong&gt; Xi' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even Wikipedia refers 習近平 as 'President' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;President of the People's Republic of China&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-23T20:28:13.320" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T20:28:13.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32043" CreationDate="2018-11-23T01:11:12.610" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;wouldn't it be &quot;騎樓&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there's wiki page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tong_lau&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tong_lau&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T01:11:12.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32038" CreationDate="2018-11-23T01:31:11.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;these're kanji, japanese related :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyway, a shotgun (散弾銃) has barrel (筒); such barrel has two types, &quot;平筒&quot;, or &quot;絞筒&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here're several related web pages in japanese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gunshop-urawa.co.jp/shooting/skeet/02.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.gunshop-urawa.co.jp/shooting/skeet/02.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ssl.yjl.co.jp/yjl/clay/rule-sg-cyoke.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ssl.yjl.co.jp/yjl/clay/rule-sg-cyoke.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would suggest op try to ask in japanese stack exchange :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T01:31:11.350" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32038" CreationDate="2018-11-23T02:59:22.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a Japanese character. By using Sogou Typewritting (Chinese) you can use this method to see any character that you can't pronounce:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example, you wanna look at “特”&#xA;==type &quot;u&quot; + &quot;niu&quot;（→牛） + &quot;si&quot;（→寺）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——this would give you “特”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so I tried to type &quot;u人布” or &quot;u入布&quot; and could not find this character.&#xA;So this might be a japanese character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20843" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T02:59:22.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32036" CreationDate="2018-11-23T05:22:10.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;tang ho's answer is correct but formal.&#xA;if you are looking for translation in slang you can say '你就这样！', '你就是这样的人！'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9297" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T05:22:10.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32039" CreationDate="2018-11-23T08:53:32.147" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Approximately, if you are calm and rational you'll get farther, or if you don't act rashly and blindly you'll be successful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20774" LastEditorUserId="16117" LastEditDate="2018-11-28T07:14:59.470" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T07:14:59.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32044" CreationDate="2018-11-23T17:13:12.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Addressing leader of the country is not simple. There are head of state, leader of the ruling party, head of government, command-in-chief of the military, and many more. Some countries have these roles split but some countries have one person holding multiple roles. In the latter case, one person can be president, chairman, and general. But there is only one preferred (correct) way to address this person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For China, Xi is head of state (as president), but also chairman of the ruling party. So although in English, he is &quot;president Xi&quot;. He's never 习总统 in mainland China，always 习主席. Head of government for China is 李克强总理 Premier Li Keqiang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kim Jun Un is &quot;the supreme leader&quot;. And you still remember Colonel Gaddafi?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for your case, you need to find out what country it is and address correctly. If it's just a hypothetical country, then using 总统 is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastEditorUserId="9732" LastEditDate="2018-11-23T17:21:56.547" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T17:21:56.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32055" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32058" CreationDate="2018-11-23T22:21:14.477" Score="7" ViewCount="595" Body="&lt;p&gt;For instance, in the phrase 「我善养吾浩然之气」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I notice both 我 and 吾 are used. Is there a reason for this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20732" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:46:48.293" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:46:48.293" Title="What is the difference between 吾 and 我 in 文言文？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32056" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32060" CreationDate="2018-11-24T02:40:56.880" Score="6" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hear some people say 因为 as “yinwei”, but also some say it sound like “yinvei”. I’m not sure why there is a difference in pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20844" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T02:48:15.420" LastActivityDate="2020-10-30T09:03:42.730" Title="Yinwei or Yinvei? 因为" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32055" CreationDate="2018-11-24T02:48:14.797" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;for classical chinese, most &quot;吾&quot; means &quot;i&quot;, occasionally, it means &quot;my&quot;, or &quot;mine&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我&quot; means &quot;i&quot;, &quot;me&quot; or &quot;my&quot;; depends on the verse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here're some usages from analects (論語):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;吾&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;論語　學而&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;曾子曰．吾日三省吾身&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the first 吾 means &quot;i&quot;, the second 吾 means &quot;my&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;daily (日), i (吾) reflect upon (省) my (吾)-self (身) three times (三)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;論語　述而&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;冉有曰．夫子為衛君乎．子貢曰．諾．吾將問之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this 吾 means &quot;i&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ok (諾), i (吾) will (將) ask (問) about it (之)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;論語　先進&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;季氏富於周公．而求也為之聚斂而附益之．子曰．非吾徒也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吾 means &quot;my&quot;, or &quot;mine&quot;, depends on the english style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the Master (子) said (曰): &quot;[he's] not (非) my (吾) disciple (徒)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the Master (子) said (曰): &quot;[he's] not (非) [a] disciple (徒) of mine (吾)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;我&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;論語　述而&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;子曰．我非生而知之者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我&quot; means &quot;i&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the Master (子) said (曰), &quot;i (我) [am] not (非) one (者) who was born (生) in the possession of knowledge (而知之)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;論語　先進   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;子曰．從我於陳．蔡者．皆不及門也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我&quot; means &quot;me&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the Master (子) said (曰): &quot;Of those (者) who were with (從) me (我) in (於) Chen (陳) and Cai (蔡)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;論語　述而   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;子曰．三人行．必有我師焉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我&quot; means &quot;my&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the Master (子) said (曰): &quot;When I walk along with two others (三人行), they may serve me as my (我) teachers (師)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, back to your question &quot;what is the difference between 吾 and 我 in 文言文？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would say, they're interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about &quot;我善養吾浩然之氣&quot;; well, no idea about using both &quot;我&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;吾&quot; in the same verse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T02:48:14.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32055" CreationDate="2018-11-24T03:08:24.257" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first thing to point out is that「吾」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_(2014)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*ŋˤa/&lt;/strong&gt;) and「我」(Baxter-Sagart: &lt;strong&gt;/*ŋˤajʔ/&lt;/strong&gt;) are cognate. They mean exactly the same thing, and were interchangeable to a very large degree; as the comment pointed out, the use of one over the other is due to either personal preference, emulation of ancient texts, or to avoid repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically in the pre-&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qin&lt;/a&gt; era, there was some difference in their usage that eventually disappeared by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt;.「吾」could not be used in the pre-Qin era as an object after a verb. Quote from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_(book)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Zhuangzi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《莊子・齊物論》子綦曰：「偃，不亦善乎而問之也！&lt;strong&gt;今者吾喪我&lt;/strong&gt;，汝知之乎？」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;子綦 said: &quot;偃, it is very good that you asked this question! &lt;strong&gt;I had just lost myself now&lt;/strong&gt;, but how should you know the answer?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「吾喪我」could not be written as「我喪吾」in this era.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-24T22:41:35.697" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T22:41:35.697" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32056" CreationDate="2018-11-24T04:08:48.270" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;因为 is always pronounced as /Yīn wèi/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/yin vei/ sounds like a foreigner's mispronunciation of the words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there is no /vei/ sound in Mandarin pinyin (I searched all 4 tones)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T04:08:48.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32056" CreationDate="2018-11-24T04:39:38.547" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;/v/ is not an initial found in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;MSM&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The initial /v/, though, is often found in Northern Mandarin and its branches. In fact, it can still be found, even, in distant branches like Sichuanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you ever saw the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq-pQpIwqIo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;马蜂窝&lt;/a&gt; commercial that aired, ever single night, during the World Cup, you'd certainly notice that 唐僧's &amp;quot;为&amp;quot; is very /v/'d.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also refer to the paper &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zndxsk.com.cn/upfile/soft/200861/200861183256465.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The geographic distribution rules and reasons of zero initial “w” pronounced as “v” in Mandarin &lt;/a&gt; by Wang Fan. The abstract for the paper goes into some detail in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Abstract&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It  is  universal  to  pronounce  zero  initial  “w”  as  “v”  in Mandarin. Researches  show  that  38%  of  the  people with northern dialect do so with 10% in other dialect districts. When analyzing its features and reasons, we find that the dental fricative sound “v” is indeed a variant of the semi-vowel “w”. Its coming into being is affected by the variation of the  mouth  in  different  phonemes.  It  is  also  related  to  individual  pronunciation  habits  and  the  instability  of  the  pronunciation.  The  universal  “v”  pronunciation  in  northern  dialect  district  is  caused  by  the  stronger  movement  of  the mouth and the face in pronouncing than that in other dialect districts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 为 in 因为 should be pronounced &lt;code&gt;wei&lt;/code&gt; if you're going for &amp;quot;standard&amp;quot; Mandarin. But, if you want to make yourself sound more Northernized you can also opt for the v.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T02:54:39.550" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32036" CreationDate="2018-11-24T13:35:52.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;More Chinese way in spoken can be: 你总这样！or 你竟干这种事！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T13:35:52.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32036" CreationDate="2018-11-24T15:40:54.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这是你的特点。 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这是你的作为。 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这是你的人格。 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这是你的象征。 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这是你的为人。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-11-25T03:42:02.927" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T03:42:02.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32063" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32064" CreationDate="2018-11-24T19:03:30.520" Score="3" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to say &amp;quot;I'm going to take a nap for a while&amp;quot; and looked for the phrase &amp;quot;(for) a while&amp;quot; in Chinese and came across these 5 :&#xA;一会，一下，一时，一时半会，片刻。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please tell me the difference between those five?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will there be any difference if I say :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要去小睡一会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要去小睡一下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要去小睡一时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要去小睡一时半会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要去小睡片刻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And last, does adding &amp;quot;儿&amp;quot; to 一会/一下 change the meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Ps : I'm a beginner in Chinese. I'm sorry if my question sounds silly or something. Also, it'd be very helpful if you could provide some examples while explaining things so I can understand better).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:42:33.307" Title="一会 vs 一下 vs 一时 vs 一时半会 vs 片刻" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32063" CreationDate="2018-11-24T19:17:40.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要去小睡片刻 or 我要去小睡一会儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other expressions you have are not normally used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要稍微睡一会儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the phrases you have can refer to a short interval of time in certain context, but they can have different meanings, 一下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一下，a short interval of time, for example, 灯一下又亮了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一下，once, for example, 你过去打他一下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一下，sudden, for example, 天一下就黑了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一时 has the following meanings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一时，a short interval of time, for example, 你别一时想不开&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一时，a period of time, for example, 此一时彼一时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一时，at the same time, for example, 一时间，箭、弩都发射出去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the others&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一会，a short interval of time, for example, 我要出去一会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一时半会（儿），a short interval of time, for example, 他们一时半会儿还回不来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;片刻，a short interval of time, for example, 请稍等片刻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am only listing the common meanings and although they could have same meaning, the way you use them could be different and that is why I included the examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding 儿 after 一会 would not change its meaning, it just sounds more natural and is highly recommended. However, there is no such use of adding 儿 after 一下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T19:33:35.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32063" CreationDate="2018-11-24T20:01:06.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No difference, It is about what sayings are more popular than the others. it could depend on where you came from(different education level and/or region).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T20:01:06.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2" CreationDate="2018-11-25T02:28:39.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translation of the text &amp;lt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z9007m3693j18792.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/page/z9007m3693j18792.html&lt;/a&gt;&gt; (above): (translator's notes in &lt;code&gt;(())&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&amp;lt;作&gt; and &amp;lt;做&gt; 可以 interchangeably use.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) &quot;用做&quot;之义, &quot;作&quot; and &quot;做&quot; are generally interchangeable. 《Modern Chinese Dictionary》 (Year 2005; 6th print) lets &quot;做&quot;-word meaning-⑥ be solved ((explain)) as &quot;当做&quot;, 并 gives-example: &quot;treeskin ((bark)) 可以～((做)) paper-making 的 material|this 篇 essay 可以～((做)) teaching-resource。&quot; uses-that-which-is &quot;做&quot;. 而《Term Ocean》&quot;满江红&quot;词条: &quot;plants 名……全草可作 fishes and domestic-animals 的  feed-material……&quot; uses-that-which-is &quot;作&quot;. 做抵押、做纪念等，also 可 use &quot;作&quot;. But those of &quot;副词((adverb))作状语((作 adverb clause))&quot;, by convention, use &quot;作&quot; and not &quot;做&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternative translation: (translator's notes in &lt;code&gt;(())&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&amp;lt;作&gt; and &amp;lt;做&gt; can be used interchangeably.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) &quot;用做&quot; ((&quot;use as&quot;)) and &quot;用作&quot; ((&quot;use as&quot;)) are generally interchangeable. Xiandai Hanyu Cidian (2005; 6th edition):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;做&gt; (6th meaning) = &amp;lt;当做&gt; ((&quot;treated as&quot;))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;illustrating it with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&amp;bull; &amp;lt;Bark can be 做 ((treated)) as paper-making material.&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&amp;bull; &amp;lt;This essay can be 做 ((treated)) as teaching resource.&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cihai (under entry &amp;lt;满江红&gt;) ((?)):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;Plants can be 作 ((use/treated)) as feed for fishes/livestock&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;做纪念&gt; ((do-commemorate)) ((commemorating)) can also be written with &amp;lt;作&gt;. But in &amp;lt;adverb can be 作 as adverbial clause&gt; etc, by convention &amp;lt;作&gt; is used, not &amp;lt;做&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll translate some of the rest of the article with every 10 votes !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2533" LastEditorUserId="2533" LastEditDate="2018-11-25T03:22:13.113" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T03:22:13.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32040" CreationDate="2018-11-25T03:59:44.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) yes, it represent what is from the above!&#xA;But in formal writing, Like journals or school articles or official documents from the lawyers. we are not allow this kind of writing. But in private conversations, email or when professor write on the black board. People understand that this is used to denote the words in the sentence above it.&#xA;2) no&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T03:59:44.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32070" CreationDate="2018-11-25T04:25:57.413" Score="1" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that both of these follow the verb, but which order do they go in?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you say 你看过完那部小说没有 or 你看完过那部小说没有？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20347" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T19:48:03.003" Title="Result complement plus 过" Tags="&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32069" CreationDate="2018-11-25T05:15:33.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first sentence is grammatically incorrect(not idiomatic). It sounds like no-Chinese speaker trying to speak Chinese. 你看完过 means you finished reading the novel before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T05:15:33.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32069" CreationDate="2018-11-25T05:16:18.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaim: the following are totally my personal idea. Maybe I am incorrect, but I think these are valid. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither of them is right to my ear. I would say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你（以前）看过那部小说没有？//// Have you read that novel?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你看完那部小说没有？////&#xA;  Have you finished that novel?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过 just mean you did something, while 完 indicates that you finished that thing. Fortunately your 2nd choice could be understood by natives, which is equivalent to my 2nd sentence, i.e. the 过 is automatically omitted when people listen to you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T05:16:18.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32069" CreationDate="2018-11-25T05:40:20.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally, it is either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你[看过]那部小说没有? = [Had] you [read] that novel?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你[看完]那部小说没有? = [Have] you [finished] reading that novel?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;看(verb) + 过(verb particle) &lt;em&gt;marking 'experiential' aspect&lt;/em&gt; = &quot;had read&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;看(verb) + 完(result complement) &lt;em&gt;marking 'complete or finish' aspect&lt;/em&gt; = &quot;finish reading&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;in &quot;你看过完那部小说没有?&quot; (had you read finish that novel?), '看过'(had read) already indicated you finished reading the book in the past, '完' is redundant here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;in &quot;你看完过那部小说没有？&quot; (had you ever finish reading the novel?) '看完'(finish reading) already indicated you had finish reading it,  '过' is also redundant &#xA;  here. This implies  'you had tried to read that novel before, but had never been successful in finish it.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question only make sense if someone pick up a novel and only read half of it, then few weeks later pick it up again, read it from the start and stop at the middle again. Kind of weird, right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more sensible examples of [V] +[result complement]+ [过 (verb particle)]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看见过 (had seen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;看(verb- &lt;strong&gt;to see&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;见 (result complement- &lt;strong&gt;and successfully seen&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;过 (verb particle) - &lt;em&gt;marking 'experiential' aspect- &lt;strong&gt;had experienced&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;conclusion:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Verb + 过] cannot be followed by '完'(redundant)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Verb + 完 + 过] indicate &quot;had finished (verb) before&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-06T19:48:03.003" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T19:48:03.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32074" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32079" CreationDate="2018-11-25T12:19:09.153" Score="5" ViewCount="1101" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Korean word 순진하다 - to be naive, innocent, or pure - relates to the characters 純眞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get an understanding of how a word is used, sometimes I do an image search. In this case, searching for 純眞 yielded what (I think?) is pictures of Japanese whetstones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HbM3S.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HbM3S.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps these whetstones are very pure, hence the link to 純眞. But is '純眞' really rarely used apart from when describing the purity of whetstones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16529" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T14:05:43.307" Title="Why does a search for the Hanja in the Korean word 순진(純眞)하다 yield pictures of Japanese Whetstones?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32075" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-25T12:35:53.667" Score="5" ViewCount="427" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I first learned 不，the accompanying pinyin was given as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;bù (falling tone). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I've also been doing Pimsleur Chinese lessons and there is the example &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wo bú hùi shuo ying wen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and here 不 is pronounced with a rising tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a rule to when it is bù and when bú? Or does it depend on the speaker's dialect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20857" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-12-04T20:05:15.627" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T20:05:15.627" Title="Can bù (不) change its pronunciation to bú?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32076" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32082" CreationDate="2018-11-25T12:37:33.003" Score="2" ViewCount="469" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed there is a large number of words that translate as “player” and “team”. I've been trying to decipher those and so far it seems that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;玩家 wánjiā, 玩者 wánzhě  – those two mean a player of a game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;竞赛者 jìngsài zhě – this one would be a contestant in a game such as&#xA;  race?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;游戏者 yóuxì zhě – a video game player or gamer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;球员 qiúyuán – player of a game involving a ball, such as football,&#xA;  basketball (golf?) etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there there are the teams:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;班 bān – team?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;团队 tuándu – team?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;组别 zǔbié – team?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;球队 qiúduì – sports team involving a ball&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my thinking correct? What is the difference between those terms? Are there other terms I am missing here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T23:31:26.140" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T00:10:28.053" Title="How do I translate the words “player” and “team” into Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32075" CreationDate="2018-11-25T12:50:27.447" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/b6e4b418b42acfc789eb172ded630b1c59ee9b6a.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rule about sandhi of 不&lt;/a&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's pronounced in the original tone (the 4th tone) when being used alone or at the end.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规律一:单念或末尾时念本调。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不、就不、毫不、决不、都不、无不、何不、我偏不 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's pronounced in the 2nd tone when being used before a 4th tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规律二：去声前念阳平。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不对、不算、不便、不怕、不必、不屑  不怕、不当、不定、不动、不利、不顺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's pronounced in the 4th tone when being used before a tone other than the 4th tone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规律三：非去声前念去声。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不听、不悲、不分、不蒙、不穿、不飞 不同、不曾、不行、 不纯、不回、不白  不美、不想、不好、不许、不准、不满&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's pronounced in the neutral tone when being used in the middle of words.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规律四：夹在词语中间变轻声。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想不开、起不来、行不行、大不了、对不起、大不大、谈不谈、拿不动、好不好、打不开&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T03:10:16.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32074" CreationDate="2018-11-25T12:54:00.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;droooze wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;韓文習慣用「眞」字，日語和中文用「真」字，「純眞」在中文或者日文必須寫成「純真」。如果寫成「眞」就只出現于日本專用名詞了。&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Input 純眞 only yield Japanese results because only Japanese still use  眞 in written (name only Kanji). All the pictures in the results are having the brand name &quot;純眞正山本&quot; in  either it's file name or description tag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As droooze stated, to search 'naive, innocent' in Chinese term, you have to input  '純真' instead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;純 ='pure'; 眞= ' real' . You got those results because those products have these two characters in the file name or description tag. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;純 and 眞 are originated from Chinese character, Both Japanese and Korea imported these characters (either Japanese got it first or Korea got it first) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B4%94%E7%9C%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B4%94%E7%9C%9F&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;純真&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;日本語 (じゅんしん)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B4%94%E7%9C%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B4%94%E7%9C%9E&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;純眞（순진）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-25T14:05:43.307" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T14:05:43.307" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32074" CreationDate="2018-11-25T12:54:21.863" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a couple of things going on here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「眞」is not used as a character representing common vocabulary in Chinese and Japanese anymore, being totally &lt;a href=&quot;https://ko.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B4%94%E7%9C%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;replaced in those two languages with the 略字 (약자, &lt;em&gt;abbreviated character&lt;/em&gt;) 「真」&lt;/a&gt;. In Japanese,「眞」retains some usage for proper nouns, while in Chinese「眞」is not used at all, unless quoting ancient texts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Korean mixed Hanja-Hangul script is not really used anymore, so Google's search function will prioritise Chinese and Japanese search results when Chinese characters are used as a search term.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Based on (1) and (2),「純眞」will highly prioritise a Japanese proper noun, if it exists as a result. In this case,「純眞」happens to be part of the name of a product.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Based on (1), if you want to search for images relating to the meaning「純眞」, you need to use「真」if you're using a non-Korean search engine.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/65unx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/65unx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-11-25T13:49:10.620" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T13:49:10.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32075" CreationDate="2018-11-25T12:59:42.313" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;bù&lt;/code&gt; becomes &lt;code&gt;bú&lt;/code&gt; when it precedes a falling tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know -&gt; wǒ bù zhī dǎo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't do -&gt; wǒ bú zuò&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20858" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T12:59:42.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32076" CreationDate="2018-11-25T13:58:30.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your thinking is correct!&#xA;班 is always 班级 (bānjí) — usually it means &quot;class&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;团队 (tuánduì) — you might consider the word as &quot;group&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;组别 (zǔbié) — also means &quot;group&quot;, but it doesn't always have many people in the group&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;球队 (qiúduì) — sports team involving a ball, it's only used in ball games, like 足球队 (football team), 篮球队 (basketball team)…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20859" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-11-26T13:09:49.250" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T13:09:49.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32076" CreationDate="2018-11-25T14:58:33.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depend on context “player”  have to be translated differently according to the adjectival description &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;team athlete: '运动员/ 员'- e.g. 篮球运动员/ 篮球员 (basketball player); 足球运动员/ 足球员 (football player)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;individual athlete: '手' - e.g. 网球手 (tennis player); 羽毛球手 (badminton player)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;musical instruments player : '演奏者' -  e.g. 钢琴演奏者 (Piano player); 吉他演奏者 (guitar player)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;game player : '玩者/ 玩家' e.g. 游戏玩者/ 游戏玩家 (game player); &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;钢琴家 = (professional, master) pianist&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;吉他手 = (professional, master) guitarist&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;sport team is called 队 as in 上海足球队, 上海篮球队 (both can be called 上海队); 球队 just means team(s) of a sport involving a ball, as in '上海的球队' (Shanghai's teams)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For pro soccer organization, we usually call it 足球俱乐部 or 足球球會/ 球會 (soccer club) , the 足球队 (soccer team) belong to the 球會 (club) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-25T15:05:06.770" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T15:05:06.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32083" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32085" CreationDate="2018-11-25T15:26:26.420" Score="2" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's this line in the story I read :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“如果你能帮我们一个忙，试用我们的产品，并且，&lt;strong&gt;在这份评估单上打分&lt;/strong&gt;，我们会再送你一瓶，以示感谢。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在 + 这 + 份 + 评估 + 单 + 上 + 打分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated as : &quot;fill the test report&quot; / &quot;rate this evaluation form&quot; ???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which part of the sentence shows &quot;test report/evaluation form&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, I know that 评估 means &quot;to assess&quot; (I mean, it has something to do with evaluating), but that's a verb not a noun ㅠㅠ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, what are the functions of 份, 单, and 上 in the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read in the dictionary that if 份 comes after 这 or 那, it refers to &quot;nonphysical things&quot; but I just have no idea what this &quot;nonphysical things&quot; mean... could you please explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T09:48:23.183" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T09:48:23.183" Title="What grammar structure does ...在这份评估单上打分... use?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32083" CreationDate="2018-11-25T15:36:06.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;「單(子)」doubles as a word for a &lt;em&gt;bill, list,&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;document/form&lt;/em&gt; that you fill out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「份」is commonly used as a measure word for &lt;em&gt;documents/reports/newspapers&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在這份評估單上打分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;give a rating (for the product) on this evaluation form&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The measure word is not translated, as English doesn’t use a measure word for documents/reports/newspapers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T15:36:06.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32083" CreationDate="2018-11-25T16:32:48.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How is  在 + 这 + 份 + 评估 + 单 + 上 + 打分 translated as : &quot;fill the test report&quot; / &quot;rate this evaluation form&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在 ~ 上&quot;  is  a &lt;strong&gt;preposition&lt;/strong&gt;: (on top/ on above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt; (object) &lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;] = [&lt;strong&gt;on top of&lt;/strong&gt; (object)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The object here is &quot;这(this) 份(classifier) 评估(adjectival phrase) 单(noun)&quot; = &quot;This assessment form&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Now we know the 'object' in [在 (object) 上] is 'This assessment form', we get: [在 (这份评估单) 上]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since we have the object, now we need a verb to make it a complete sentence. And &quot;打分&quot; (give marks) is the verb in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;[在 (这份评估单) 上] [打分]&quot; = &quot;[preposition] + (object) + [verb]&quot; = &quot; on this assessment form give mark&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can place the verb before the noun and the sentence still make sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;[打分] [在 (这份评估单) 上]&quot; = &quot;[verb]+[preposition]+ (object)&quot; = &quot;give marks on this assessment form&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &quot;在这份评估单上打分&quot;(object before verb) emphasize the object, therefore it is preferred over &quot;打分在这份评估单上&quot; (verb before object), which emphasize the verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, the writer wants to emphasize the &lt;strong&gt;object&lt;/strong&gt; because it is more important that you know &lt;strong&gt;where&lt;/strong&gt; to apply your action (evaluation) than &lt;strong&gt;what&lt;/strong&gt; to do with the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;份 as a classifier means &quot;a portion of'; 'a set of';  which can apply to 评估单, as in &quot;一份评估单&quot; ---&gt; &quot;a (set of) assessment form&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We don't actually need a classifier for &quot;form&quot; if we are not counting or indicating the number of it. You can omit the classifier and write &quot;在这评估单上打分&quot; or even &quot;在评估单上打分&quot; here&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-26T10:39:10.930" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T10:39:10.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32086" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-25T20:43:31.247" Score="1" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;I took the computer-based HSK 6 Test today. For the writing part, I was typing the entire time and did not notice there was a &quot;save&quot; button on top of the typing field until time was up. I never clicked on that button. I am wondering if it will automatically save and submit everything I typed. I am actually extremely worried right now... I don't want it to submit an empty text field... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20862" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T02:30:32.737" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T02:30:32.737" Title="HSK 6 Writing: automatically saved?" Tags="&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32087" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-26T02:13:00.457" Score="2" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the different official (government sponsored) Chinese Language proficiency tests available? I want to know about PRC as well as Taiwan tests. All Chinese language tests are for Mandarin only or is it available for Hokkien etc.? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20865" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T11:01:10.220" Title="Chinese Proficiency tests available" Tags="&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1594" CreationDate="2018-11-26T06:23:59.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead can also be used in the &quot;rather than&quot; situation &#xA;Like, rather than A, why don't we do B&#xA;與其做A, 我們不如做B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20868" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T06:23:59.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32089" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32090" CreationDate="2018-11-26T16:32:55.153" Score="3" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m reading a text in which 的 and 之 are sometimes used in the same sentence, in seemingly equivalent or exchangeable function and position.&#xA;But I’m sure the author had good reasons to choose the respective characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Text is by 黃冠閔 Huang Kuan-min, the quotes within the text are by 牟宗三 Mou Zongsan.&#xA;This is an example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在春光中的混沌情感,是「傷春」的來源(但非「悲秋」),牟宗三在自述中回顧地指出「對於混沌而迷離&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;昏沉&lt;strong&gt;之&lt;/strong&gt;感&lt;strong&gt;之&lt;/strong&gt;事後&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;說明」,他分析傷春的情感如何對應於混沌的生命狀態:「滿盈無著是春情,虛無怖慄是『覺情』(覺悟向道之情)」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking, this sentence contains text from two different authors, but I’m specifically curious about the part in quotes, where I emphasized all occurrences of 的 and 之.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this particular sequence (的…之…之…的) chosen?&#xA;Could the order be turned around (之…的…的…之) or randomised (之…之…之…之 / 的…的…之…的 etc.)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T12:13:13.870" Title="Meaning of 的 and 之 when both are used in the same sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32089" CreationDate="2018-11-26T17:58:40.010" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;之 is the classical Chinese counterpart of 的 in modern Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classical Chinese, writers rarely use compound words if single character words with the same meaning is available. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的(昏沉)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;之(感)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;之(事)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的(說明)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice 的 apply to two characters compound words and 之 apply to single character words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you switch  the single character words 感 and 事 into compound words 感覺 and 事情, you should also change the classical 之 to the contemporary 的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的(感覺)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的(事情)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 之 with compound words like &quot;之感覺&quot; or &quot;之事情&quot; is not considered grammatically wrong, just sound awkward. It is all about style&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Changing '之事' to '的事' is fine, because '事' can replace '事情' in modern Chinese. e.g. &quot;今天的(事情)&quot; can be reduced to &quot;今天的(事)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, changing '之感' to '的感' is considered a grammar mistake because we don't use '感' to replace '感覺' in modern Chinese. e.g. &quot;痛苦的(感覺)&quot; cannot be changed to &quot;痛苦的(感)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「對於混沌而迷離(1. 的昏沉)(2. 之感)(3. 之事)後(4. 的說明)」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;#1 and 4 are common modern Chinese; #2 and 3 are classical style Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, we do routinely mix classical style into modern Chinese in our writing and daily conversation. It is all about style, four 的 in a row &quot;...的昏沉的感覺的事情後的說明&quot; make the sentence sounds confusing  -  a bad run on sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;...的昏沉之感之事後的說明&quot;  is also a run on sentence&#xA;, but at least it is not that bad with different styles mixing in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Even &quot;...的昏沉之感覺之事情後的說明&quot; is better than &quot;...的昏沉的感覺的事情後的說明&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-27T12:13:13.870" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T12:13:13.870" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32091" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-26T18:56:45.747" Score="2" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like some clarification on translating 'and' into Chinese. I know 和 and 跟 can be used as 'and' with nouns, 也 can be used with verbs, and often 'and' isn't translated but a comma is used. But recently I encountered 与 as 'and' where I thought 和 would be used. My question is, are there other words that are  typically translated as 'and' in Chinese, and in what situations do you use these characters as 'and' (I still don't have a great understanding of 也 or 跟 as 'and'), and when do you not need to translate 'and' at all. In other words, I am looking for a summary of 'and' in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19881" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T20:10:15.097" Title="How to translate &quot;and&quot; to Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32091" CreationDate="2018-11-26T19:48:21.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My summary of 'and' in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;財富 (和) 聲望&quot; = &quot;wealth (and) prestige&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'和' denotes 'wealth' and 'prestige' are at the same level in term of emphasis (implies they come in together as a unit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;財富 (與) 聲望&quot; = &quot;wealth (and) prestige&quot; / &quot;wealth (and also) prestige&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'與' emphasize the first item 'wealth' slightly more than the second item 'prestige' (imply prestige comes after wealth)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;財富 (及) 聲望&quot; = &quot;wealth (and) prestige&quot;/ &quot;wealth (and) prestige (in addition)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'及' emphasizes the first item 'wealth' more heavily over the second item 'prestige' (implies prestige is an addition to 'wealth'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Notice the compound word '與及' (also/ in addition of)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;你 (和) 我&quot; = &quot;you (and) I&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'和' indicates 'you' and 'I' are at the same level of emphasis &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;你 (與) 我&quot; = &quot;you (and) I&quot; / you (and) me (also)&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'與' emphasizes the first item 'you' slightly more than the second item 'I' (implies thing effect you slight more than me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;你 (跟) 我&quot; = &quot;you (and) I&quot; / &quot;you (with) I &quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'跟'  emphasizes the second item 'I' more than the first item 'you' (implies 'you' following 'I'. e.g. &quot;你跟我一起工作&quot; = &quot;you work with me together&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can omit '和' just like you can omit 'and' in English sometimes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;財富聲望&quot; = 'wealth, prestige' (&lt;em&gt;as a single unit&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你我&quot; = &quot;you and I&quot; = &quot;we&quot; (&lt;em&gt;it is a classical style of speech&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;也 means 'also' or 'too', as in &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;是中國人&quot; (I am Chinese &lt;strong&gt;too&lt;/strong&gt;/ I am &lt;strong&gt;also&lt;/strong&gt; Chinese),  &quot;我也去 (I would &lt;strong&gt;also&lt;/strong&gt; go/ I would go &lt;strong&gt;too&lt;/strong&gt; )&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In Cantonese '同' is equal to '和'&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-26T20:10:15.097" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T20:10:15.097" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32093" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32094" CreationDate="2018-11-27T03:16:18.350" Score="3" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this situation, B gave A (B's leader) some bonus money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A：“你这是什么意思？” 　　'what do you mean?' &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B：“没什么意思，意思意思。”'nothing. just .?.' 　　&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A：“你这人真有意思。” 　　  ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B：“其实也没有别的意思。” 　?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A：“那我就不好意思了。” 　　?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B：“是我不好意思。”        ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20869" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T17:14:42.197" Title="What 意思 means in below?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32093" CreationDate="2018-11-27T03:26:36.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: What do you mean? &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; What do you intend to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: Nothing, just a little bit of thank you gift.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: You are bit of an interesting guy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: Do not take it seriously, I have no favour to ask for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Alright, I might better keep this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: It is my pleasure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, those words could actually mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲：你这（给我钱）是什么意思？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乙：没什么意思，就是表示一下（感谢）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲：你这人还挺懂事的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乙：我真的没别的意思，还望您笑纳。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲：那我就腆着脸收下了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乙：嗨，这是我应该的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T17:14:42.197" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32095" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32096" CreationDate="2018-11-27T04:19:34.080" Score="2" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a line like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;高个儿拍了拍脑袋，“你的意思是说，别人用&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;我们的赠品，觉得&lt;strong&gt;好&lt;/strong&gt;，就自然会找我们买？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is there 了 in the 别人用了我们的赠品?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this sentence indicate something about completion of an action or something in the past?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think so though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then, what does 好 behind 觉得 indicate? Does the whole phrase mean &quot;think well&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-25T04:43:24.783" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T04:43:24.783" Title="What do 了 and 好 indicate in ...别人用了我们的赠品，觉得好...?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32095" CreationDate="2018-11-27T05:19:11.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does this sentence indicate something about completion of an action or something in the past?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'verb + 了' indicate the verb is completed, but it doesn't indicate any tense, It can be in the past or in the future. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天我(吃了)就睡 - I slept after I ate yesterday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;現在我(吃了)又要去睡 - now I've eaten, I have to sleep again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明天我(吃了)還是要去睡 - I will still sleep after I've eaten tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all three sentences, 了 only indicate the action 吃 is completed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别人用了我们的赠品，觉得好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'If' is implied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果(if) 别人(people) 用了 (used) 我们的赠品 (our gifts)，觉得好 (consider it is good) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别人(people) 用了 (used) 我们的赠品 (our gifts)，如果(if they) 觉得好 (consider it is good) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T05:19:11.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32093" CreationDate="2018-11-27T10:39:39.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;意 = intention&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;思 = thought&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意思: thought; meaning; intention&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A：“你这是什么(意思)？” --  &quot;What is the (meaning/ intention) of this?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B：“没什么(意思)，[意思意思]。”  --  &quot;No (meaning) whatsoever,  just my [little expression] 　　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;意思意思&lt;/strong&gt; literally means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;thought, thought&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. The full meaning of this phrase is &quot;just a small token that &lt;strong&gt;express&lt;/strong&gt; my &lt;strong&gt;thought and feeling&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A：“你这人真&lt;strong&gt;有意思&lt;/strong&gt;。” 　--  &quot;You are really &lt;strong&gt;interesting&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;有意思&lt;/strong&gt; literally means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;have meaning&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; . Logically, people only interesting in something meaningful, therefore, 有意思  (have meaning) also means &quot;interesting/ meaningful&quot; in Chinese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B：“其实也没有别的(意思)。” 　really  have no other (meaning/ intention)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A：“那我就(不好意思)了。” 　Then I would go ahead and (feel embarrassed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Meaning: Then I would go ahead and make myself feel embarrassed for taking the money&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B：“是我(不好意思)。” --  &quot;It is I who should (feel embarrassed)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Meaning: I am the one who should feel embarrassed for offering so little, not you who rightfully taking the money&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;不好意思&lt;/strong&gt; literally means: 不好 (&lt;strong&gt;not easy to&lt;/strong&gt;) 意思 (&lt;strong&gt;thought&lt;/strong&gt;) . The full meaning of &quot;不好意思&quot; is  &quot;not easy to express this thought&quot; -- Having embarrassing thought is difficult to express,&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*In short, &quot;不好意思&quot; means &quot;feel embarrassed&quot; or &quot;sorry&quot; * ; &quot;好意思&quot; means &quot;not feel embarrassed&quot; or &quot;not sorry&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example:&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;你還(&lt;strong&gt;好意思&lt;/strong&gt;)説 = Yet, you (&lt;strong&gt;don't feel embarrassed&lt;/strong&gt;) to say&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我(&lt;strong&gt;不好意思&lt;/strong&gt;)説 = I (&lt;strong&gt;feel embarrassed&lt;/strong&gt;) to say&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意思: thought; meaning; intention&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有意思: meaningful; interesting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意思意思: just a little expression (of thought/ feeling)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不好意思: feel embarrassed/ sorry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好意思: not feel embarrassed/ not sorry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Side note:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;意思意思 in Cantonese is 小小心意 (literally means &quot;little thought&quot;)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-28T00:37:16.260" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T00:37:16.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32098" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-28T00:52:22.473" Score="6" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2166061&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This study&lt;/a&gt; found that Chinese native speakers read aloud at an average rate of 255 characters per minute (CPM) with a standard deviation of 29 CPM. Presumably this rate is significantly slower than if the test participants read silently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any studies that had test participants read a text silently, and then tested their comprehension of that text to make sure they weren't just blindly skimming? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19388079909558298&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This study&lt;/a&gt; initially seemed promising, but they don't present enough data (specifically, the length of the texts used in characters) to calculate a reading rate in CPM. I have contacted the authors of this study, and will report back here if they reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13279" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T00:04:30.353" Title="At what rate can native speakers of Mandarin Chinese read?" Tags="&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-07-25T22:54:59.513" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32099" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-28T05:18:30.483" Score="3" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both words kinda mean &lt;em&gt;“must, necessarily, certainly”&lt;/em&gt;. Can someone explain the differences between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-12-19T04:39:41.117" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T04:39:41.117" Title="Difference between 必 and 一定" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32099" CreationDate="2018-11-28T06:05:37.867" Score="-1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我必须去 I must go there (because of some reasons).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我一定去 I must go there (really want to, no matter what) .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They all mean you must go there sometime in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 一定 is subjectively, 必 is objectively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20869" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T06:05:37.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32099" CreationDate="2018-11-28T10:04:57.997" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you are not asking what is the difference between '必定' and '一定' or the difference between '必' and '定', I would just go ahead and state the  difference between '必'  and '一定'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my answer to this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/32089/meaning-of-%e7%9a%84-and-%e4%b9%8b-when-both-are-used-in-the-same-sentence&quot;&gt;Meaning of 的 and 之 when both are used in the same sentence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;之 is the classical Chinese counterpart of 的 in modern Chinese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必 is the classical Chinese counterpart of 一定/必定 in modern Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classical Chinese style: &amp;quot;兵家(&lt;strong&gt;必&lt;/strong&gt;)爭之地&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese: &amp;quot;軍事決策者(&lt;strong&gt;一定&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;必定&lt;/strong&gt;)會去爭奪的地點&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classical Chinese style: &amp;quot;中此毒者(&lt;strong&gt;必&lt;/strong&gt;)死&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese: &amp;quot;中了這個毒的人(&lt;strong&gt;一定&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;必定&lt;/strong&gt;)會死亡&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classical Chinese style: &amp;quot;日軍稱三月內(&lt;strong&gt;必&lt;/strong&gt;)亡中國&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese: &amp;quot;日本軍方宣稱三個月內(&lt;strong&gt;一定&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;必定&lt;/strong&gt;)能覆亡中國&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'必' on its own has other meaning and usage, but the question only asked for the comparison between '必' and '一定'. The most obvious difference between the two is as this answer stated.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notice:&lt;/strong&gt; Actually, I should say '必' is more &lt;strong&gt;literary&lt;/strong&gt; and '一定' is more &lt;strong&gt;colloquial&lt;/strong&gt; because classical style wording appear mostly in writing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T10:04:48.257" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32099" CreationDate="2018-11-28T16:59:25.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is the same, you can interchange the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T16:59:25.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32095" CreationDate="2018-11-28T21:18:23.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;高个儿拍了拍脑袋，“你的意思是说，别人用了我们的赠品，觉得好，就自然会找我们买？”&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is there 了 in the 别人用了我们的赠品?”&#xA;“了”just means the verb action is completed before the action of the next verb or sentence, It is not referenced to the time when the speaker speaks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T21:18:23.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32056" CreationDate="2018-11-28T21:24:35.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Mandarin, &lt;em&gt;yinwei&lt;/em&gt;, but you may pronounce as &lt;em&gt;yinvei&lt;/em&gt;, it is just another variant of pronunciation of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-10-29T15:56:34.667" LastActivityDate="2020-10-29T15:56:34.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="110" CreationDate="2018-11-28T21:41:55.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;了means completion, like have verbed or have been verbing，过 mean completion before the time the speaker speaks, like verbed in english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3057" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T21:41:55.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32108" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-29T00:31:18.407" Score="3" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Example sentence, from 青少年科学百科全书 （第一章：声音）&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;各种各样的声音能够使我们了解来自内部身体和外部世界发生的一切信息。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've translated this as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Various sounds can enable our understanding of events in the human body and the outside world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I think I may have abandoned some meaning.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Questions&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;what is the purpose of &lt;strong&gt;一切信息&lt;/strong&gt;?  I translate this literally as &quot;all information&quot; or &quot;all data&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;does &lt;strong&gt;发生&lt;/strong&gt; apply to both 世界 and 身体, or only 世界?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;i.e. 世界发生 world happenings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and 身体发生 bodily happenings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;a different literal translation attempt:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Af2r.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Af2r.png&quot; alt=&quot;chunked literal translation attempt&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20877" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:41:30.860" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:41:30.860" Title="What is the purpose of 一切信息 in this sentence?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32109" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-29T00:51:43.137" Score="4" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play in chess tournaments in China, and in the past, I've been unable to ask my opponent for a draw because I didn't know how to say it in Chinese off the top of my head (and we can't use electronic devices during play, so I can't whip out Pleco).  It's important that I ask for a draw accurately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems the correct word is: &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B9%B3%E5%B1%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;平局&lt;/a&gt; (píngjú) = draw, tie.  However, I'm wondering how to accurately phrase the question.  I would guess 你想平局吗？ but it's not quite right: it's not clear that I'm making a draw offer.  Maybe I could say 我提供平局, but I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What is the best way to ask for a draw in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T08:19:06.183" Title="What is the best way to ask for a draw in chess?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32108" CreationDate="2018-11-29T00:54:48.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right, it is not written carefully, 信息 can NOT 发生，the sentese would read better if written as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;各种各样的声音能够使我们了解来自身体内部和外部世界发生的一切 &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;各种各样的声音能够使我们了解来自身体内部和外部世界发生的一切事情 &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;各种各样的声音能够使我们了解来自身体内部和外部世界发生的一切事情的相关信息&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T00:54:48.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32108" CreationDate="2018-11-29T00:57:56.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一切信息 carries the meaning of all the information, in this sentence, which means all the events happening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发生 in this sentence applied to both 身体 and 外部世界，can be translated to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Happening to both inside and outside of our bodies&quot; where the 外部世界 meaning the world outside our bodies, you can take it as outside our bodies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20181" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T00:57:56.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32109" CreationDate="2018-11-29T01:15:07.423" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Orally, depending on the situation, you could use the following phrases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咱们要不和了吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不想下了，就算平局吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和 means 讲和，which just implies 平局。The second expression would be more casual and is suggested to be used with close friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above is how you would ask for a draw if the situation is really tied and both of you are tired, if you are feeling that you are losing, of course you would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咱不下了，我认输了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T01:15:07.423" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32109" CreationDate="2018-11-29T08:19:06.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I typed in the comment, I would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我提议和棋，你同意吗？////&#xA;  I offer a draw, would you like it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid confusion, 和棋 might be the professional terminology for &quot;draw&quot; in chess [as I self-studied]. 提议 means &quot;suggest&quot;, or in your case, &quot;offer&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T08:19:06.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32114" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-29T08:35:03.300" Score="0" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ROfo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ROfo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this tattoo mean? what language is this guys? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20880" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T04:06:25.320" Title="What language is this tattoo? what does it mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32115" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32116" CreationDate="2018-11-29T08:48:34.820" Score="4" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's this sentence in &lt;em&gt;The Dark Forest&lt;/em&gt; by Liu Cixin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“你看看，刚才你主动提这事儿，现在又说自己可能杀她，咱就是随便聊聊，你急着抖落这些干吗？一看就是个嫩主。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Joel Martinsen translated the sentence like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“Look at you, bringing up the issue on your own. Saying you may have killed her, even. We’re just having a casual chat. What’s your hurry? You’re new at this, that much is clear.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That gives the impression that 嫩主 means something like: greenhorn/novice/newbie/rookie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the results online for &quot;个嫩主&quot; only bring up the same quote from &lt;em&gt;The Dark Forest&lt;/em&gt;, but there are a few others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;新来的主儿太嫩，总要TMD给这些个嫩主儿找点个杈儿。 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一看212楼就是个嫩主，你还生活在鼓里，别看一下CCAV就乱下评论，&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;也不能说他那天都是装的，只是聊着聊着他就发现Helen绝不是个嫩主儿，表现的不卑不亢&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't seem that greenhorn/novice/newbie/rookie can necessarily be directly substituted for 嫩主 here, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T22:21:04.417" Title="What does 嫩主 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32115" CreationDate="2018-11-29T14:11:26.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your impression is correct, it can also be expressed as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生瓜蛋子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will keep adding when I recall more of those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T22:21:04.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32127" CreationDate="2018-11-29T21:32:42.113" Score="5" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;下载 means &quot;to download&quot;.&#xA;But there's this line in a story that I read :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;啊，是不是因为我在下电影？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, it just used &quot;下&quot; and &quot;载&quot; seems to be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Are 下 and 载 separable? I mean, are they kind of &quot;verb+object&quot; word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Can we omit &quot;载&quot; if the thing we download is clear enough to the listener?&#xA;For example, can I simply say : 下照片/下视频?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) If no. 2 isn't the case, then is there any specific rules/conditions of when we are allowed to omit &quot;载&quot; and when we are not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you ^_^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T13:45:07.577" Title="Are we allowed to omit 载 when it's clear what we download?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32118" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32122" CreationDate="2018-11-29T21:43:46.093" Score="4" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on an online dictionary :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在…里，在…内 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Inside or not further than an area or period of time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here are some examples (provided by the dictionary) of how 在…里 or 在…内 is used :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Two thirds of Californians live within 15 miles of the coast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三分之二的加利福尼亚人居住在离海岸15英里以内的地区。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 1992 cross-border controls within the EU were dismantled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1992年，欧盟内部取消了边境通行管制。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For orders within the UK, please enclose £2.50 for post and packing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;英国国内的订货，请附上2.5英镑的邮资及包装费用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We recommend that this wine should be consumed within six months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们建议该酒在6个月内饮用完毕。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Within hours of the tragedy happening, an emergency rescue team had been assembled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;悲剧发生后几小时之内，就集结起来一支紧急救援队伍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From those examples, we can see that &quot;在&quot; is being omitted in some sentences. Now, what I want to ask is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are we allowed to omit 在 anytime we want to or is there any specific rules/conditions of when we are allowed to omit 在?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18792" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T04:27:14.690" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T04:27:14.690" Title="Are we allowed to omit 在 in 在…里，在…内 structure?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32117" CreationDate="2018-11-29T22:32:29.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For your first question, 下载 is not the kind of &lt;em&gt;verb plus object&lt;/em&gt; word, 下 is &lt;em&gt;状语&lt;/em&gt; while 载 is the &lt;em&gt;动词&lt;/em&gt;，the noun following it is the oject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your second question, you can almost omit 载 in 下载 everywhere, except a few cases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我找不到下载的网址&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你有下载工具吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is hard to collect all possible situations where you use 下载，but you can indeed omit 载 almost everywhere as long as you are talking, not writing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T01:54:41.057" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32121" CreationDate="2018-11-30T00:19:11.823" Score="0" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;After learning how to write chinese by directly copying characters from my phone or my computer (digital ones), I noticed that I still can’t decipher the character chinese people are writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the font is different and I know that practice make it perfect but how would you start to learn how to write ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any recommendations, models, etc...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ps : here is the difference between my writing and a chinese person for  character 晚 (bottom circled one is mine, the other is from a chinese)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Cs4oP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Cs4oP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;difference in writing &quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13154" LastEditorUserId="13154" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T03:31:41.497" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T02:03:09.110" Title="How to write Chinese fluently?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32120" CreationDate="2018-11-30T02:25:13.213" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Haha, it is difficult even for a native to decipher very cursive or bad handwriting. Basically, when we read, we are only certain about some of the characters and then deduce other characters based on rough shape, context, or other clues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for writing, elementary students in low grades are assigned to repeat writing one character for ten or more times in a row. Chinese students are required to write instead of type for most of their tasks, so, after years of writing, people find their accustomed ways to make shortcut. However, most spontaneous writing styles are far from beautiful or even decipherable. In high school, teachers usually make practising handwriting compulsory. The copybook is the most convenient tool for practice. You write on semi transparent paper and emulate standard calligraphy. It's feasible actually. Many students improve quite a lot after several months of practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though my handwriting is not that good, but I believe it is something average in the sense of immaculateness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JkryB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JkryB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My primary school composition. Posted here as a reference of typical style of newbies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ERGDH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ERGDH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T03:44:54.873" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T03:44:54.873" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32118" CreationDate="2018-11-30T04:02:52.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience(correct me if there's any exception), the structure '在...里'(as well as '在...前', '在...后', '在...上', '在...下' etc), when followed by '的' and then a noun, serving as an adj, is allowed to omit 在.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: 房子里的人，公园里的树，信里的字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And when it's after a verb as an adv, you can't omit 在.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: 站在房子里，种在公园里，写在信里.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, I don't think the first sentence is correctly parsed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two thirds of Californians live within 15 miles of the coast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三分之二的加利福尼亚人居住在离海岸15英里以内的地区。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;15英里以内 -&amp;gt; no more than 15 miles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;离海岸15英里以内 -&amp;gt; no more than 15 miles from the coast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;离海岸15英里以内的地区 -&amp;gt; areas that are no more than 15 miles from the coast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;居住在离海岸15英里以内的地区 -&amp;gt; live in areas that are no more than 15 miles from the coast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there's no '在...内' structure in this sentence at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T04:02:52.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32114" CreationDate="2018-11-30T04:06:25.320" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;安琪儿 which doesn't mean anything except being a name. You can treat it as &quot;Angel&quot; since the pronunciation of 安琪儿 (ān qí ér / ān qí r) is similar to the English word &quot;Angel&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20181" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T04:06:25.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32118" CreationDate="2018-11-30T04:21:45.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel that your question is hard to answer. The element of Chinese is the character, that's to say, 内 has its intrinsic meaning of in, inside, let in, within, etc, and can be used with other characters. So the examples you list are basically different cases. Example 1 is about 以内; 2 is about 内部; 3 is about 国内; 4 is 在……内, indeed; 5 is 之内. They are not simply 在……内 with 在 omitted. Maybe your translations into English share the word within, but they are phrased differently in the original texts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, we want 在……内 to be the equivalence of with in every example you gave, they will be（though may not be natural）:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三分之二的 加利福尼亚人 居住在 离海岸线十五英里范围 内。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1992年，在 欧盟 内的边境通行管制取消了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在 英国 内的订货，请附上2.5英镑的邮资及包装费用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在 悲剧发生后几小时 内，就集结起来一支紧急救援队伍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See?在……内works for every case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T04:21:45.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32125" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32128" CreationDate="2018-11-30T06:11:25.457" Score="3" ViewCount="395" Body="&lt;p&gt;When discussing the differences between 的·地·得 usage I've only know the following pronunciation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的、地、得&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  die、di、de&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find a lot to back this up. But, I did find one &lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-free-1127560-1.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tianya&lt;/a&gt; forum thread that that mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我周围的老一辈人，只要有小学文化，这几个字都不会弄错。因为用家乡话（吴语区）说，这三个字读法完全不一样，“的、地、得”分别念“DIE、DI、DE”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found this comment on a thread on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.19lou.com/forum-15-thread-10144489-2-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;19lou&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们小时候不说普通话，这三个字发音分别是：的（die）、得（de）、地（di）,从来不会搞错。一定是一些北方人，在和当时的少数民族交融的时候，搞不清楚，给混为同一个发音了，给现今的孩子们带来这么多麻烦，唉。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is the same, but the order is different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的·地·得&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  die·di·de&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the correct pronunciation when talking about Mandarin? If not, how is the 的·得·地 phenomenon vocalized in Modern Standard Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T06:17:10.133" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T01:06:28.427" Title="How is【的、得、地】pronunced when talking about the difference in usages of 的·地·得?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32117" CreationDate="2018-11-30T10:59:24.273" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) &lt;em&gt;Are 下 and 载 separable? I mean, are they kind of &quot;verb+object&quot; word?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, '下载' is a compound word verb, you need both characters for the specific meaning of 'to download'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(向)下 = downward &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;载 = to load onto&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;下载&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;to download&lt;/strong&gt; (from upstream server to local storage device )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(向)上 = upward&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;上载&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;to upload&lt;/strong&gt; (from local storage device to upstream server)- It is also a compound word verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2) Can we omit &quot;载&quot;  if the thing we download is clear enough to the listener? For example, can I simply say : 下照片/下视频?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, just like you can omit 'drink' in 'drink down' and write 'down a bottle of wine', presume the listener could reliably guess what the omitted word is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We don't &quot;吃下&quot; (eat down) a bottle of wine, only &quot;喝下&quot; (drink down) a bottle of wine&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you should always use the whole word 下载 or 上载 to avoid confusion. Because without other context, 下照片 could be interpreted as '把照片下架' (take down the photo) and 上视频 could be interpreted as '把视频上架' (post the video)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;3) If no. 2 isn't the case, then is there any specific rules/conditions of when we are allowed to omit &quot;载&quot; and when we are not?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can omit &quot;载&quot; or any character in a compound word if you think the listener could reliably guess what the omitted word is; You cannot omit it if you think the listener could not reliably guess what the omitted word is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;omit 下 and write 载照片 or 载视频 only create more confusion. ('载 upward' or '载 downward' ?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T12:07:49.863" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T12:07:49.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32125" CreationDate="2018-11-30T18:14:54.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I misunderstood what the original poster meant, here is an update.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In distinguishing 的地得 in Mandarin, you would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;dē dì dé&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, in practice, they all have the same pronunciation &lt;em&gt;de&lt;/em&gt; in first tone. They are used differently though, 地 is used after &lt;em&gt;状语&lt;/em&gt; and before &lt;em&gt;动词&lt;/em&gt;，like 高兴地说，得 is used after &lt;em&gt;动词&lt;/em&gt;，like 跳得高，and 的 is used for other cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, it is nice to distinguish those in order not to cause ambiguity. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;看得出来，你家的地得好好地打扫了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a good article in &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/36886956&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhihu&lt;/a&gt; which people could look at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one more point I would like to make, in some of the articles you referred to, it is claimed that people should stick to their dialects instead of trying to learn the obscure Mandarin. I disagree with this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I come from Shaanxi province and we do have out dialect, but I grew up speaking Mandarin with my parents and classmates, because the people in our area come from different parts of China and speak different dialects. What dialects do you require people to learn? I assume not a single dialect could persuade everyone to study it. In this case, we of could Mandarin!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people were saying, I do not want to learn to speak another language! I would like to stick to my own language! Well, first, dialects are called dialects because they are not language, they are dialects! Second, you have the right to stick to your own dialect, but it would eventually prevent you from communicating with people from other parts of China who speak Mandarin in order to communicate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, please learn Mandarin first and then, if you have the kind of interest and time, learn other dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Language is first a tool for communication, then a culture, so are dialects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-12-01T14:58:47.300" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T14:58:47.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32129" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-01T01:23:39.567" Score="1" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;Poetry is never easy to understand. 奴 is used twice in this poem. I think this 奴 means I or me, in a sense of 'me, this poor slave'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怪&lt;strong&gt;奴&lt;/strong&gt;底事倍伤神？半为怜春半恼春。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;怜春忽至恼忽去，至又无言去不闻。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨宵庭外悲歌发，知是花魂与鸟魂。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;花魂鸟魂总难留，鸟自无言花自羞。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;愿&lt;strong&gt;奴&lt;/strong&gt;胁下生双翼，随花飞落天尽头。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;天尽头，何处有香丘？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T15:01:39.940" Title="What is the meaning of 奴 this poem from 红楼梦？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32129" CreationDate="2018-12-01T02:16:08.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is kind of 谦称 of a woman in ancient China, there are others of course&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妾 &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; 妾身 &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; 奴婢 &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; you being the wife&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;奴 &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; 奴家 &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; you being the wife &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; general cases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小女子 &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; general cases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老身 &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; older ladies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for men of course, their 谦称 could be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小人 &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; you being the servant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鄙人 &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; general but unofficial use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在下 &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; you being in a relatively lower social hierarchy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚生 if you are younger to your friend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不才 &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; proposing suggestions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不肖 &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; referring yourself with respect to your older relatives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;愚弟 &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; 愚兄 &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; closer relationship&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T15:01:39.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32131" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32133" CreationDate="2018-12-01T06:58:02.283" Score="5" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to be able to identify punctuation marks in older literature (to be aware of where sentences end basically), such as this exerpt from Chuanshan yishu quanji:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;易之言曰敬以直內義以方外誥之言曰以義制事以禮制心故曰先聖後聖其揆&#xA;一也今夫事興人之相接也不接於吾之耳目口體者不可謂事也何也不接 &#xA;於吾之耳目口體天下非無事也而非吾之所得制非吾之所得制則大台內外&#xA;固有不論不諉者矣則固非吾事矣不發而之於視聽言動者不可謂必也何也&#xA;不發而之於視聽言動吾亦非無必也而無所施其制無所制則人生以上固有&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This transcribed version probably isn't very accurate, however thanks in advance for your efforts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20893" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-12-01T15:28:20.240" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T15:28:20.240" Title="What are the characters for punctuation in older literature?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32131" CreationDate="2018-12-01T07:23:11.817" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;there're no punctuations in classical chinese. one must learn to chop the verse since childhood, before about 1911. such ability is called 句讀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000096985&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000096985&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;briefly, people used pattern, particles and pronunciation to help to chop the verse, the provided text would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;易之言曰．敬以直內．義以方外&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;誥之言曰．以義制事．以禮制心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;故曰先聖後聖．其揆一也．今夫事興．人之相接也．不接於吾之耳目口體者．不可謂事也．何也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不接於吾之耳目口體．天下非無事也．而非吾之所得制．非吾之所得制．則大台內外．固有不論不諉者矣．則固非吾事矣．不發而之於視聽言動者．不可謂必也．何也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不發而之於視聽言動．吾亦非無必也．而無所施其制．無所制．則人生以上固有 . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T07:23:11.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32131" CreationDate="2018-12-01T07:57:44.873" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right. This version isn't accurate. It doesn't make much sense somewhere. For example 則大台內外&#xA;固有不論不諉者矣, I did simple search to find it should be 則六合內外固有不論不議者矣. I was just curious about why you are asking. If you are familiar with 文言文, then it shouldn't be a question, but if not, it seems too hurried to read &quot;unpunctuated&quot; text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter. I could share some experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, you should recognize what 句式 is of a verse, different 句式 has different marks （or without marks to help you pause, but naturally you will be able to punctuate it）. Here are very simple rules （They doesn't always work!）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pause after 語氣詞. E.G. 矣/哉/歟/乎/焉/耳/……&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pause after 判斷. 者……也/非……也/Or 也 omitted A+B 劉備天下梟雄 and various &quot;say&quot; 曰/言/白/呼/……&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pause before 發語詞. 然則/蓋/若夫/夫/維/……&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pause before 邏輯連詞. 則/而/使/雖/固/……&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Notice 駢散. The numbers of characters of two consecutive sentence s are often the same.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;易之言曰/敬以直內/義以方外/誥之言曰/以義制事/以禮制心/故曰/先聖後聖其揆一也/今夫事興人之相接也/不接於吾之耳目口體者/不可謂事也/何也/不接於吾之耳目口體/天下非無事也/而非吾之所得制/非吾之所得制/則大台內外固有不論不諉者矣/則固非吾事矣/不發而之於視聽言動者/不可謂必也/何也/不發而之於視聽言動/吾亦非無必也/而無所施其制/&quot;無所制則人生以上固有&quot;（cannot make pauses here）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T07:57:44.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32134" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32135" CreationDate="2018-12-01T12:13:32.510" Score="5" ViewCount="840" Body="&lt;p&gt;So is there any differences between 忘 and 忘记？They both mean to forget but do they have any other differences in terms of usage, location within a sentence, etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T20:22:45.807" Title="Difference between 忘 and 忘记" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32134" CreationDate="2018-12-01T13:42:22.447" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please read &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complement&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Result complement&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/460/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;了&lt;/a&gt; :  &lt;em&gt;'aspect marker' indicating completed action&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'忘' (forget) as a verb cannot be used without a result complement or aspect marker &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'忘掉' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;掉 is the result complement of 忘. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It describes the result of forget is the object is 'forgot away' (from one's mind)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You cannot remove the result complement '掉' from '(忘掉)自己的手電號碼' and write '(忘)自己的手電號碼'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'忘了' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了 is a aspect marker that indicates 'completion of an action'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You cannot remove the aspect marker '了' from '(忘了)自己的手電號碼' and write '(忘)自己的手電號碼'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~~~~~~~~~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'忘' = 'forget'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'记' = 'remember/ recollect'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;忘记&lt;/strong&gt;' (forget to remember) = '&lt;strong&gt;to forget&lt;/strong&gt;' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'忘记' is a compound word verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be used with or without a result complement or aspect marker&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忘记自己的手電號碼 = forget one's own cell-phone number&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忘记(掉)自己的手電號碼 = forget one's own cell-phone number (away)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(忘记了)自己的手電號碼 = (forgotten) one's own cell-phone number &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Terms like '忘本'，'忘情' that directly apply the verb 忘 before a noun, are in effect, compound words  as in &quot;做人&lt;strong&gt;忘本&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (being &lt;strong&gt;ungrateful&lt;/strong&gt;), &lt;strong&gt;忘情&lt;/strong&gt;演出 (&lt;strong&gt;passionately&lt;/strong&gt; perform).&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The other cases of 忘 directly apply before a noun are 1. 'in idiomatic form',  like &quot;見利忘義&quot; 2. 'with an adverb',  like 難忘, 不忘, 未忘, and they are all literary terms&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-01T20:22:45.807" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T20:22:45.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32134" CreationDate="2018-12-01T17:17:10.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;see dictionaries (esp. examples): 忘记    forget disremember 忘记;忽略 lose sight of &#xA;忘:忘却。忘怀。忘我。忘情。忘乎所以, showing &lt;strong&gt;忘&lt;/strong&gt; only occurs in a limited number of fixed (time-honored) expressions, including 成语。&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;忘记 explained&lt;/strong&gt;: 合成词  of type B&#xA;（see e.g. 实用汉语语法，词的构成，３。２。合成词的构造方式 ３。２。１。&lt;strong&gt;联合式&lt;/strong&gt;合成词。。。B：两个语素的原义发生了变化：有的产生了新义，有的只保留部分原义。如＂东西、开关、矛盾、买卖、&lt;strong&gt;忘记&lt;/strong&gt;＂。Also see baike.baidu,&lt;strong&gt;联合型（并列型）&lt;/strong&gt;：举例：3.&#xA;两词根意结合后，只有一个词根的意项在起主要作用。&#xA;例如：国家 人物 &lt;strong&gt;忘记&lt;/strong&gt; 没有 质量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T17:17:10.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32137" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32139" CreationDate="2018-12-01T21:12:08.997" Score="2" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do 逼, 迫, and 逼迫 all carry the same connotation of &amp;quot;to force&amp;quot;? Is there a difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If there's a difference, when should you use each one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which is the most common to use in speaking and writing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference between Cantonese and Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-29T23:39:57.510" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T00:51:58.317" Title="What's the difference between 逼, 迫, and 逼迫?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32125" CreationDate="2018-12-01T21:30:26.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are different pronunciations of the characters 的, 得 and 地, but of course you know that and you can look them up in the dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if there is a special way of pronouncing these characters when talking about their grammar, and I don't know if there's a standard way of saying them together, like &lt;em&gt;die, di, de&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I talked about the grammar of the different »de«, I usually just say »地理的地«, »你的的的« and »得到的得« or something similar.&#xA;I'm sure are better or more standardized examples, but this is only to show you what I mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T21:30:26.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32137" CreationDate="2018-12-01T22:30:10.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/4820.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/4820.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;逼,近也。——《说文新附》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;逼, means 'to approach and get close to'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/4732.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/4732.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;迫: 用强力压制 (use force to press)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xh.5156edu.com/html5/z32m80j144802.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://xh.5156edu.com/html5/z32m80j144802.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;逼迫: to force;to compel;to press&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;逼迫&lt;/strong&gt;(approach and forcefully press) = '&lt;strong&gt;to force/ to compel/ to press&lt;/strong&gt;' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a compound word &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逼 and 迫 are very similar, but there are subtle difference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;逼: by approach extremely close, you are in effect &lt;strong&gt;pressing&lt;/strong&gt; the object&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;迫: by forcefully pressing, you are extremely &lt;strong&gt;close to&lt;/strong&gt; the object&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience, many people use 逼 and 迫 interchangeably&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no problem with people using 逼 or 迫 for 'press' as in '逼切/'迫切 (pressingly close = urgent) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I object using 迫 instead of 逼 for 'approach' as in '颱風逼近' (typhoon approaching) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do they all carry the same connotation of “to force?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;迫 and 逼迫 mean 'to force' directly&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;逼 means 'to force' by extended meaning  (approaching --&gt; pressing --&gt; forcing)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Cantonese only use 迫 or 逼 for 'to force'. &#xA;We do not use the term 逼迫&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-01T23:14:06.360" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T23:14:06.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32141" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32142" CreationDate="2018-12-02T01:48:36.500" Score="3" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;This method is often used to clarify which exact character of a certain pronunciation is meant, for example when saying one's name:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我叫王立：不是力量的力，是成立的立。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is used so frequently that I assume there is a word for it (like a historical method to describe a character's pronunciation was called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;fanqie&lt;/em&gt; 反切&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is this method called?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T10:08:51.103" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T10:15:20.660" Title="理由的理: specify a character by context" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32141" CreationDate="2018-12-02T02:13:20.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would call it &lt;strong&gt;釐清&lt;/strong&gt; (to clarify)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;釐清 這個 'li' 是 理由的理, 不是 里程的里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to clarify this 'li'  is 理 for 理由, not 里 for 里程&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;闡明&lt;/strong&gt; (to clarify )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闡明 這個 'li' 是理由的理, 不是 里程的里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to clarify this 'li' is 理 for 理由, not 里 for 里程&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;神秘德里克 wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;提问人问专门的词，这两个词也不是说专门表示这件事情。应该是没有什么专门的词专门表达这件事情。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree there is no specific term for 'specify a character by context' .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'specify a character by context' is an act of '釐清' or '闡明' a character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你叫 Huáng Yuán? 請問是那一個 Yuán?&amp;quot; (Your name is Huáng Yuán? May I ask which yuán is that?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;To clarify (釐清/闡明) which 'Yuán' is in his name, 黃源 said: 'it is the 源 in 水源&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T10:15:20.660" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T10:15:20.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32143" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-02T03:07:40.950" Score="1" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;“宝钗生得肌肤丰泽，宝玉看着她雪白的胳膊，不觉动了羡慕之心。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'丰泽的肌肤' looks like what?? Maybe just like her 雪白的胳膊??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Edit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    Thanks for the answers. So if we slip into a Yorkshire brogue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宝钗生得肌肤丰泽， Bao Chai 'ad become a buxom lass wi' a radiant complexion,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2018-12-02T23:07:21.480" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T07:18:45.267" Title="What kind of appearance does 丰泽的肌肤 have？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32143" CreationDate="2018-12-02T03:29:58.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;丰: 充满&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泽: 润泽，湿润，光泽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丰泽 can mean 湿润充满光泽 in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T03:29:58.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32143" CreationDate="2018-12-02T03:37:47.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;'丰' in '丰泽' means '丰滿' (plump/ full) or '丰富'(rich)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'泽' in '丰泽' means '润泽 (moist) or 光泽' (Shiny)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say '肌肤丰泽' means '肌肤丰滿而有光泽' (full body with shiny skin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宝钗 is a healthy looking lady with shiny skin, while 林黛玉 is a thin and pale girl&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'full' here doesn't mean 'fat', it means ' plump and bouncy' (丰满而有弹性)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-02T03:44:59.727" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T03:44:59.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32117" CreationDate="2018-12-02T15:31:17.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) Are 下 and 载 separable? I mean, are they kind of &quot;verb+object&quot; word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No: a test for if it is so is try to separate it: &lt;code&gt;跳舞&lt;/code&gt; becomes &lt;code&gt;跳了舞&lt;/code&gt;, etc. But &lt;code&gt;*下了载&lt;/code&gt; is wrong and sounds to me like a Southerner trying to say &lt;code&gt;下了崽儿&lt;/code&gt;. Likewise none of &lt;code&gt;*下着载&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;*下过载&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;*下一个载&lt;/code&gt;, etc. is acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) Can we omit &quot;载&quot; if the thing we download is clear enough to the listener? For example, can I simply say : 下照片/下视频?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, for the verb. Though note this doesn't work the same with its counterpart &lt;code&gt;上传&lt;/code&gt; &quot;to upload&quot;. For some reason we say &lt;code&gt;传&lt;/code&gt;, maybe because this component is the clearer one of the two. &lt;code&gt;上&lt;/code&gt; works so far as meaning &quot;to put up&quot;, which works in certain circumstances (e.g. to put up a Youtube video) but not most of them (e.g. to upload travel photos to an album).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's noun, you need to heed things like style or syllabic meter. Just like you can say &lt;code&gt;买法&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;购买方式&lt;/code&gt; but not &lt;code&gt;*买方式&lt;/code&gt; which has to be &lt;code&gt;买的方式&lt;/code&gt;, you can say &lt;code&gt;下载工具&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;下法&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;下载方法&lt;/code&gt; but not &lt;code&gt;*下工具&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;*下方法&lt;/code&gt;, for which you have to say &lt;code&gt;下的工具&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;下的方法&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;! Note: mainland Mandarin prefers &lt;code&gt;下载&lt;/code&gt; for &quot;download&quot; and &lt;code&gt;上传&lt;/code&gt; for &quot;upload&quot;. &lt;code&gt;下传&lt;/code&gt; only means &quot;to transmit down&quot;, for example from the space station. &lt;code&gt;上载&lt;/code&gt; is rare in daily settings, and uncommon at best in technical settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastEditorUserId="16058" LastEditDate="2019-01-16T13:45:07.577" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T13:45:07.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32148" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-02T15:35:06.450" Score="3" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I am having a bit of a confusion with the use of 了. So the teacher gave me a sentence which is this: &#xA;我买了两个苹果。&#xA;She said that V+了+object requires the object to have specified quantity. After that she gave this sentence:&#xA;我买了苹果了&#xA;She said that if the object have no specified quantity or information there need to be a 了 after it. I ask her if “我买苹果了” is correct or not and she said it is true colloquially which really baffled me.&#xA;Can someone tell me where to put 了 in a sentence that have objects but have unspecified quantity (like the one above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T02:06:21.400" Title="Help with the confusions around 了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32148" CreationDate="2018-12-02T18:01:33.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks to me that it is 我买了苹果了 which is colloquial. The meanings of the examples you give are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了两个苹果：I have bought two apples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了苹果了：I have already bought apple(s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;买&lt;/strong&gt;苹果了：I have already bought apple(s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The boldface indicates stress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T18:01:33.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32148" CreationDate="2018-12-02T23:41:45.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我买了苹果了 doesn't sound natural to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer 我买苹果了 in response to the question 你买什么了?, and 我买了苹果 to 你买了什么?.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the question asks numbers 你买了几个苹果，then 我买了两个苹果 is appropriate. 我买两个苹果了 doesn't sound natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T23:41:45.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32125" CreationDate="2018-12-03T01:06:28.427" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Base on your question and your clarification by your comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two ways that I often use (or hear people use) when talked about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way is to pronounce them differently. The pronunciation would be &quot;de1 di4 de2&quot; for &quot;的地得&quot;. There is often used when all of they appear together, like in a phrase &quot;“的地得”的用法&quot;. You may treat it as it is the reading of the &quot;word/phrase&quot; &quot;的地得&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other way is use a &quot;descriptive way&quot; to call the characters: &quot;白勺的&quot; (bai2 shao2 de1) for 的， &quot;土也地&quot; (tu2 ye3 de1) for 地, and &quot;双人得&quot; (shuang1 ren2 de1) for 得. This is often used when they do not appear together and need to be distinguished. Like: 这里应该用&quot;白勺的&quot;，不是&quot;土也地&quot;。（In written form, the sentence usually looks like: 这里应该用“的”，不是“地”）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T01:06:28.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32148" CreationDate="2018-12-03T01:59:24.783" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;V+了+object requires the object to have specified quantity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it is wrong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following sentences are all legitimate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了苹果 = I bought apple (not mentioning how many)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了两个苹果 = I bought two apples (stating the quantity)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了酒 = I bought alcoholic drink (not mentioning how much, not even what kind) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了三瓶白酒 = (I bought three bottles of white wine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/460/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/460/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1] [aspect marker] indicating completed action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[2] [final particle] indicating change of situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In all the examples above, 了 is a aspect marker that indicates the action (verb) is completed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了苹果了 = I bought apple &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了两个苹果了 = I bought two apples &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了酒了 = I bought alcoholic drink (not mentioning how much, not even what kind) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买了三瓶白酒了 = I bought three bottles of white wine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In all four examples above, the second 了 at the end is a final particle. It serves to emphasize the fact and stress an affirmative tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Your teacher said it is colloquial because we do use final particles mainly in speech, but it doesn't mean we don't use it in writing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去买苹果(了) = I go to buy apple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去买酒(了)  = I go to buy wine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*You can add final particle 了 to the two examples above (了 stress an affirmative tone - &lt;em&gt;seriously, I am going to buy apple/ wine&lt;/em&gt;)*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买两个苹果 = I buy two apples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我买三瓶白酒 = I buy three bottles of wine &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You shouldn't add final particle 了 to the two examples above because they are plain factual statements&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-03T02:06:21.400" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T02:06:21.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32158" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32163" CreationDate="2018-12-03T08:07:59.417" Score="8" ViewCount="1025" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ran across 不知不觉 the other day.  If I use MDBG to look up &lt;code&gt;c:不*不*&lt;/code&gt; I see there are many idioms with that format.  Can I use it with any verbs (?) or is it only part of fixed expressions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2020-07-21T02:04:50.620" Title="Is 不 A 不 B a grammatical structure like 又 A 又 B?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32158" CreationDate="2018-12-03T08:24:05.563" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;why not? see bkrs: II cons.&#xA;1) 不 A 不 B (where A B are paired synonyms): not A B&#xA;不慌不忙 unhurried&#xA;2) 不 A 不 B (where A B are antonymous stative verbs): neither A nor B&#xA;不大不小 neither (too) big nor (too) small&#xA;3) 不 A 不 B (where A B are antonymous verbs): no B without A&#xA;不破不立 no constructing without destroying&#xA;cf. restrictions for  又 。。。又, see e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22both_A_and_B%22_with_%22you%22&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22both_A_and_B%22_with_%22you%22&lt;/a&gt; bkrs:又.... 又…  linking antonyms, often translated as neither... nor, 又不好, 又不坏 , 又不哭, 又不笑,&#xA;[又]不是牛又不是马  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2018-12-03T09:37:11.560" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T09:37:11.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32158" CreationDate="2018-12-03T08:43:39.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No,  not with &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt; verb, although you would see lots of  idioms follow that pattern. You need to learn them separately. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T08:43:39.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32161" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-03T09:40:08.780" Score="1" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few fixed expressions to differentiate between and describe characters, as mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32151/11341&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;, and these are also used as names for the characters when talking about them: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;白勺的 for 的&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;土也地 for 地&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;双人得 for 得&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more of these, but the number is fairly small as only some of the more common characters have such a name (or description). There probably aren't more than a few handful (but correct me if I'm wrong): the ABC dictionary actually only lists the ones already mentioned above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm asking for a comprehensive list of these character descriptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that StackExchange is not a good place for list questions, as argued &lt;a href=&quot;https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/98366/307646&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. However, if the list is not open-ended, but has a limited number of entries, then it should be a good fit to the site. This has also &lt;a href=&quot;https://german.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1424/16560&quot;&gt;been suggested&lt;/a&gt; for the German language Stack (in German).&#xA;The list could be a community wiki answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastEditorUserId="11341" LastEditDate="2018-12-03T09:46:56.460" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T04:28:15.560" Title="List of fixed character descriptions (eg. 白勺的)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-lists&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32087" CreationDate="2018-12-03T10:37:24.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The one for the PRC (mainland China, HK, Macao) is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetest.cn/index.do&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉语水平考试&lt;/a&gt;, abbreviated to HSK, directed at non-native speakers (including overseas Chinese heritage learners as well as foreign students and workers). The test is administered by Hanban, part of the Minstry of Education of the PRC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The equivalent for the ROC (Taiwan and its territories) is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sc-top.org.tw/english/eng_index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;華語文能力測驗&lt;/a&gt;, abbreviated to TOCFL. It is also used as a qualifying credential for the Taiwan scholarship, applying for universities and job specifications. It is administered by the SP-TOP, under the direction of the Ministry of Education of the ROC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhc.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;职业汉语能力测试&lt;/a&gt; (ZHC) for native speakers in mainland China, which is under the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, and reserved for those PRC citizens who want to go into certain fields e.g. journalism, judiciary, translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The proficiency test for PRC citizens hoping to work in broadcasting, education or the government is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%99%AE%E9%80%9A%E8%AF%9D%E6%B0%B4%E5%B9%B3%E6%B5%8B%E8%AF%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;普通话水平测试&lt;/a&gt;, with its very clear emphasis on Standard Mandarin as strictly defined by the latest standard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a HK-specific English and Mandarin proficiency test for teachers there: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.edb.gov.hk/tc/teacher/qualification-training-development/qualification/language-proficiency-requirement/lpat.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;教師語文能力評核&lt;/a&gt; (LPAT).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are all Mandarin tests under their respective standard of Mandarin; I have not heard of such a government (as opposed to a university or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ihcr.cuhk.edu.hk/events/pdf/CBSPT_order_form_eng.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;medical&lt;/a&gt;) test for Hokkien, Hakka, or even Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2018-12-03T10:48:42.037" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T10:48:42.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32158" CreationDate="2018-12-03T12:32:20.943" Score="15" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 不 A 不 B a grammatical structure like 又 A 又 B?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are different. Most [不 A 不 B] terms are either idiom or four characters idiomatic phrase that you have to memorize individually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The A and B in [又 A 又 B] can be a single character word, a compound word or even an entire phrase. e.g. 又高又瘦，又高又瘦削，又想高大又想瘦削&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below are the common [不 A 不 B] terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[A complement B ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不慌不忙: (not panic, not hurry) &lt;strong&gt;stay calm&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不聞不問: (not listening, not inquire) &lt;strong&gt;ignore&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不知不覺: (not know, not feel) &lt;strong&gt;not notice&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不經不覺: (not experience, not feel) &lt;strong&gt;not notice&lt;/strong&gt; (of time passing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不瞅不睬: (not looking, not pay attention) &lt;strong&gt;ignore&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不明不白: (not understandable, not clear) &lt;strong&gt;unclear&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不倫不類: (not any type or kind) &lt;strong&gt;ridiculous&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不慍不火: (not angry, not enrage) &lt;strong&gt;calm; mild&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不痛不癢: (not hurt, not itchy) &lt;strong&gt;insignificant attack/ lost&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不飲不食: (not eat, not drink) &lt;strong&gt;not eat nor drink&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不眠不休: (not sleep, not rest) &lt;strong&gt;tirelessly;  relentlessly, persistently&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不忠不孝: &lt;strong&gt;disloyal&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;not filial&lt;/strong&gt; (no virtue)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不仁不義: &lt;strong&gt;unkind, unjust&lt;/strong&gt; (no honor)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不過不失: (not considered a wrong doing, not considered a mistake) &lt;strong&gt;average/ mediocre&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不折不扣: (no discount, no rebate) &lt;strong&gt;truly&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;definitely&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不離不棄: (not leaving, not abandon) &lt;strong&gt;never abandon&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不盡不實: (not detailed, not true) &lt;strong&gt;not telling the truth&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不驕不躁: (not prideful, not irritated) &lt;strong&gt;stay calm and focused&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不屈不撓: (not bending, not yielding) &lt;strong&gt;Never give up&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不三不四: (not this, not that) &lt;strong&gt;dubious&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不依不饒: (not agree with, not forgive) &lt;strong&gt;pestering/ not let things go&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不聲不響: (Silent, not make a sound) &lt;strong&gt;silently/ be silent&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[A contradict B ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不卑不亢: (not too humble, not too excited) &lt;strong&gt;proper demeanor&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不偏不倚: (not lend away , not lean onto) &lt;strong&gt;right on&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;Objective&lt;/strong&gt; (opinion)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不緩不迭: (not slow, not swift) &lt;strong&gt;steady normal pace&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不男不女: (not a man, nor a woman) &lt;strong&gt;sex unknown&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不上不下: (not up, not down) &lt;strong&gt;struct in the middle&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不大不小: (not big, not small) &lt;strong&gt;the right size&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不冷不熱: (not hot not cold) &lt;strong&gt;mild reception&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;right temperature&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不高不低; (not high, not low) &lt;strong&gt;middle position&lt;/strong&gt; (of rank or level)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不胖不瘦: (not fat, not thin) &lt;strong&gt;average body type&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不咸不淡: (not salty not bland) &lt;strong&gt;unremarkable taste/ mediocre&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[B until/ unless A]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不死不休: &lt;strong&gt;not stopping until one is dead&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不吐不快: &lt;strong&gt;not happy until saying (something)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不時不食: &lt;strong&gt;do not eat unless it is in-season&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不見不散: &lt;strong&gt;not leaving until we meet&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I would update this list when I think up more.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-07-21T02:04:50.620" LastActivityDate="2020-07-21T02:04:50.620" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32164" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32168" CreationDate="2018-12-03T22:45:16.877" Score="2" ViewCount="1108" Body="&lt;p&gt;After seeing in class these words (规定，规律，规范，规矩，规章）, I’m in trouble to recognize the difference between them. I’m aware that some are used for country law, some for rules in society etc but I need a clarification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me to deconstruct the word and explain why a certain word is used for this certain purpose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13154" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T13:40:55.120" Title="The difference between 规范，规则，规章，规矩，规定，规律" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32165" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-04T03:48:51.657" Score="3" ViewCount="579" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hVAHM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hVAHM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Seal script inscription on an ancestral shrine&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hi, this four character inscription is on an ancestral altar which contains two spirit tablets. I am unsure of the more modern equivalents of these characters and would be grateful for any assistance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20908" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T14:09:16.600" Title="What are the characters in this seal script inscription on an ancestral altar? (Characters identified: 孝思維則)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32165" CreationDate="2018-12-04T05:00:45.960" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;as @drooze revealed, it's &amp;quot;孝思維則&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reading from right to left:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孝: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%AD%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=孝&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;思: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%80%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=思&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;維: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%B6%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=維&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;則: &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%89%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=則&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the verse is original from 詩經　大雅　文王之什　下武:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成王之孚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下土之式&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;永言孝思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孝思維則&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the ctext.org has a translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He secured the confidence due to a king,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And became a pattern of all below him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ever thinking how to be filial,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His filial mind was the model [which he supplied].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/book-of-poetry/xia-wu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ctext.org/book-of-poetry/xia-wu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T05:00:45.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32164" CreationDate="2018-12-04T05:24:26.510" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;规矩、规定，规则&lt;/strong&gt; are relatively close,cf.&quot;汉语同义词词典＂&lt;strong&gt;［同］&lt;/strong&gt; 名词。指共同遵守的行为规范和准则。可与＂有、是、遵守、违反、合乎＂等动词搭配。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［异］&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;［规矩&lt;/strong&gt; 着重指某种行为标准或习惯。多是人们约定俗称或长期沿袭下来的，不成文的，还常与＂立、定、兴、懂、守＂等动词搭配。可构成＂循规蹈矩＂。多用于口语。&lt;strong&gt;例&lt;/strong&gt;：（１）房东老太太的规矩是每到夜里十点半就关院门，一根大铁栓外加一把大铁锁，关得，牢牢实实。（陈玙＜夜幕下的哈尔滨＞）（２）我不坐。我们庄稼人有个规矩，不坐重载车。（李准＜黄河东流去＞）（３）人乡随俗。到哪儿听哪儿的，入了医院，就守医院的规矩。（谌容＜人到中年＞）（４）我家另一条规矩：无论大人孩子都得参加劳动（梁斌＜童年＞）（５）那时候，人们，尤其是青年，就都循规蹈矩，既不嚣张，也不浮动，一心向着＇正路＇前进了。（鲁迅＜一点比喻＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［规定］&lt;/strong&gt; 着重指所制定的关于事物的数量、质量标准，或处理事物的方式方法，可以成文的，也可以口头宣布的。使用范围比＂规矩＂宽。还常与＂实行、执行、符合＂等动词搭配。通用于口语和书面语。&lt;strong&gt;例&lt;/strong&gt;（１）领事裁判和片面最惠国待遇的规定，破坏了中国的司法权，扩大了资本主义国家的侵略权益。（初级中学课本＜中国历史＞）（２）上级有过明确的规定，在新区不能随便吸收战士，防止敌人派遣的奸细混到队伍里来。（吴强＜李小虎投军＞）（３）可某些单位为了给某些人以方便，连职干部从师里便可直接调往外军区。这当然是违反规定的（李存葆＜高山下的花环＞）（４）乘交通车进城。每人收费一元二角，这是最近开始实行的新规定。。。（黄裳＜东单日记＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［规则］&lt;/strong&gt; 着重指制定出来的供大家共同遵守的制度、章程。一般是成文的，如＂比赛～、交通～、考试～、借书～、管理～＂等。还常与＂制定、执行＂等动词搭配。通用于口语和书面语。&lt;strong&gt;例&lt;/strong&gt;（１）旧体诗、戏曲、大鼓书等都有规则，这些规则都与平仄有关。（老舍＜本固枝荣＞）（２）这时我才恍然大悟，回想起来，我们确实冒失，直接去找吴晗同志要书是违反秘密工作的规则的。（戴兔＜难忘的会见＞）（３）按比赛规则，在跳台上停留的时间过长，是要扣分的，所以他绝不允许队员养成这种不良习惯。（李铃修＜厄运＞）（４）汉字不是拼音，不是教会二三十个字母和一套拼写规则就能了事的。（吕叔湘＜关于语文教学的两点基本认识＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［附］&lt;/strong&gt;＂规矩＂兼属形容词。形容人行为端正老实，或事物合乎标准或常理，如＂这个人老老实实，很规矩＂，＂说话很规矩＂。＂规定＂兼属动词。表示制定出关于事物的数量、质量标准，或处理事物的方式方法。（见［规定／限定］）＂规则＂兼属形容词。形容在形状、结构或分布上合乎一定的方式，整齐，如＂断壁上密布着一个个不规则的石孔＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;规律&lt;/strong&gt; compared to 法则：&lt;strong&gt;［同］&lt;/strong&gt; 名词。指事物之间内在的必然联系。这种联系不断重复出现，在一定条件下经常起作用，并且决定着事物必然向着某种趋向发展。&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;［异］&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;［法则]&lt;/strong&gt; 多用于哲学和社会科学著述，如＂自然～、经济～、价值～＂等。用于书面语。科学语体，&lt;strong&gt;例&lt;/strong&gt;：（１）想起来，这倒很合乎辩证法的由量变到质变的法则。（刘白羽＜灯火＞）（２）当然，没有人横加干涉或强迫命令，而自然规律和法则也没有人能够违抗或背道而驰。（吴晓铃＜漫话方言＞）（３）集中兵力的法则，正是战胜堡垒主义的工具。（毛泽东＜中国革命战争的战略问题＞）（４）但是，在作人上，我有一定的宗旨与基本的法则，什么事都可将就，而不能超过自己划好的界限。（老舍＜我的母亲＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［规律］&lt;/strong&gt; 使用频率比＂法则＂高，使用范围比＂法则＂宽，可用于学术性著述，也可用于一般事理的表达，如＂历史～、社会～、经济～、客观～、特殊～、发展～、必然～、普遍～、发现～、掌握～、符合～、违反～＂等。通用于口语和书面语，可构成＂规律性＂。&lt;strong&gt;例&lt;/strong&gt;：（１）（李四光）从变形泥巴中找寻着构造形式的规律。（徐迟＜地质之光＞）（２）科学的任务是一方面发现事实，一方面在事实里边寻找秩序，发现规律。（吕叔湘＜语言和语言学＞）（３）普通话只有２１个声母，３８个韵母，４个声调，依声配合规律拼成４００多个音节，配以４声总共不超过１３００个音节。（申小龙＜中国文化语言学＞）（４）我国的江河，大小千百条，却有一个规律，都往东流，最终流入大海去___这叫做＂万河朝宗＂。（杨朔＜海市＞）（５）人的认识，主要地依赖于物质的生产活动，逐渐地了解自然的现象，自然的性质，自然的规律性、人和自然的关系；。。。（毛泽东＜实践论＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;much more at &lt;strong&gt;bkrs&lt;/strong&gt; (numbers are frequency numbers)：as nouns: &lt;strong&gt;规定&lt;/strong&gt; II&#xA;[stipulation; prescription; formulation]∶预先制定的规则&#xA;关于奖金如何发放, 上级最近有新的规定 #423&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;规律&lt;/strong&gt;:law; regular pattern:&#xA;客观规律 objective law&#xA;供求规律 the law of supply and demand&#xA;历史发展的规律 law of the development of history&#xA;自然规律 law of nature #2022&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;规范&lt;/strong&gt;（约定俗成或明文规定的标准） standard; norm; specification; specs; canon; canonical; performance specification （设备的）#1647&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;规矩&lt;/strong&gt; [rule; established practice] 规则与礼法1) rule; custom&#xA;2) social etiquette; manners&#xA;这孩子真没规矩。 This child has no manners.#3739&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;规章&lt;/strong&gt; rules; regulations:&#xA;改革不合理的规章制度 reform irrational rules and regulations#8458&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2018-12-04T13:40:55.120" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T13:40:55.120" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32164" CreationDate="2018-12-04T05:28:56.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;规 = rule/ regulate; 范 = model/ limit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规范 (n):  specification &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 做事要有规范 have to have specification when we do things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规 = rule/ regulate; 则 = standard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规则(n): rules &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 游戏规则 rules of the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规 = rule/ regulate; 章 = regulation &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规章(n):rules and regulations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:  法律上的规章 rules and regulations of law&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规 = rule/ regulate; 矩 = guild&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规矩(n): rule  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 公司的规矩 company's rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规 = rule/ regulate; 定 = set&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规定(n): standard/ rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 门的尺寸有规定 there's standard on the dimension of door; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规定(v) set rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 规定不准空运锂电池 set rule to forbid transport lithium battery by air&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规 = rule/ regulate; 律= control&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;规律(n): orderly pattern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 有规律地進行 execute in orderly pattern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13154" LastEditDate="2018-12-04T05:35:52.433" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T05:35:52.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32165" CreationDate="2018-12-04T07:58:52.020" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters are &lt;strong&gt;孝思維則&lt;/strong&gt;, which comes from a line in a poem called 《下武》 in the anthology &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Poetry&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Classic of Poetry&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;em&gt;Major Court Hymns&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《詩經・大雅・下武》：「永言孝思，&lt;strong&gt;孝思維則&lt;/strong&gt;」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As an idiomatic expression removed from the context of the poem, this translates to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[Man] must forever abide by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_piety&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;filial piety&lt;/a&gt;, for &lt;strong&gt;filial piety is the moral code [of Man]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n59jw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n59jw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「孝」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_(2014)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*qʰˤuʔ-s/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/hˠau&lt;sup&gt;H&lt;/sup&gt;/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fanqie&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;呼敎切&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;filial piety&lt;/em&gt;) is composed of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「老」(Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*C.rˤuʔ/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; MC: &lt;strong&gt;/lɑu&lt;sup&gt;X&lt;/sup&gt;/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Fanqie&lt;/em&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;盧晧切&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;old&lt;/em&gt;), both a semantic and a phonetic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「子」(&lt;em&gt;child&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「老」was later abbreviated to「耂」, as seen in the transition between forms A1 and A2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;A1&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qUNuK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qUNuK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;曶鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2838&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2838&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;A2&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tTPGd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tTPGd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭・語3&lt;/a&gt;・61&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;A3&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/odkxQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/odkxQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;A4&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mA9jc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mA9jc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;法&lt;/a&gt;102&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;A5&lt;br&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VFhFn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VFhFn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;老&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「老」was originally a depiction of an old, hunched person with unkempt hair grasping a walking cane. The cane later detached from the character (transitioning from B1-B2) and changed to the shape of「匕」(form B2 onwards).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;B1&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AxtSs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AxtSs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乙&lt;/a&gt;8896&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=22246&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集22246&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;B2&lt;br&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ybfZv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ybfZv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;前&lt;/a&gt;2.2.6&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=36416&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集36416&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;B3&lt;br&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sUUyX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sUUyX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;殳季良父壺&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=9713&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成9713&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;B4&lt;br&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OX6Yl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OX6Yl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡・雜&lt;/a&gt;32&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;B5&lt;br&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sukd2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sukd2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;子&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「子」depicts a young child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;C1&lt;br&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jYgUX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jYgUX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;2903&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=20576&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集20576&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;C2&lt;br&gt;楚&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UPwDh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UPwDh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;包2&lt;/a&gt;・66&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;C3&lt;br&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yJ3QA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yJ3QA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡・秦&lt;/a&gt;62&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;C4&lt;br&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qs4J1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qs4J1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YiZ18.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YiZ18.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「思」(Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*[s]ə/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; MC: &lt;strong&gt;/sɨ/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Fanqie&lt;/em&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;息兹切&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to think about / to miss&lt;/em&gt;) is composed of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「囟」(Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*[s]ə[r]-s/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; MC: &lt;strong&gt;/siɪn&lt;sup&gt;H&lt;/sup&gt;/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Fanqie&lt;/em&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;息晉切&lt;/strong&gt;), a phonetic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「心」(&lt;em&gt;heart/mind&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The original form of the character is「恖」; in this character,「囟」was later merged into the shape of「田」, which is easily identifiable in the image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;D1&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9PGSH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9PGSH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;五年龏令思&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=11348&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成11348&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;D2&lt;br&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/390Ow.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/390Ow.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡・為&lt;/a&gt;49&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;D3&lt;br&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WoePB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WoePB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;心&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「心」depicted a heart. The heart chambers later became exaggerated (E1-E2), then heavily abbreviated (E5 onwards).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;E1&lt;br&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H1lfh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H1lfh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;3510&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=6&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;E2&lt;br&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qHnlc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qHnlc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;史墻盤&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=10175&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成10175&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;E3&lt;br&gt;楚&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nFbEM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nFbEM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;包2&lt;/a&gt;・218&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;E4&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vk9d3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vk9d3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;E5&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_Wei&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;魏&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XBNkI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XBNkI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;上尊號奏&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;E6&lt;br&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1hYCB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1hYCB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FrFJo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FrFJo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「維」(Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*ɢʷij/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; MC: &lt;strong&gt;/jiuɪ/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Fanqie&lt;/em&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;以追切&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to bind/tie &gt; to maintain/preserve&lt;/em&gt;) is composed of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「糸」(&lt;em&gt;fine silk&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「隹」(Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*ɢʷij/&lt;/strong&gt;), a phonetic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;/*ɢʷij/&lt;/strong&gt; for「隹」is a lost phonetic line; the current pronunciation derives from &lt;strong&gt;/*tur/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; &lt;strong&gt;/t͡ɕiuɪ/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;職追切&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;F1&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JUXQg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JUXQg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;蔡侯墓殘鐘&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=224&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成224&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;F2&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TetDr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TetDr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;F3&lt;br&gt;楚&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YA9FR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YA9FR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;曾&lt;/a&gt;123&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;F4&lt;br&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZjMDJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZjMDJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;糸&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「糸」depicts fine silk threads.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;G1&lt;br&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lZZlT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lZZlT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;京津&lt;/a&gt;4487&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=28401&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集28401&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;G2&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dCyka.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dCyka.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;G3&lt;br&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lWJhL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lWJhL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;隹&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「隹」depicts a bird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;H1&lt;br&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7sCUs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7sCUs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乙&lt;/a&gt;660&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=2317&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集2317&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;H2&lt;br&gt;戰國&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZFO6E.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZFO6E.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;陳侯午敦&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4647&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4647&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;G3&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u0QvB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u0QvB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;G4&lt;br&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZnslW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZnslW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X2eN4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X2eN4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「則」(&lt;em&gt;patterns&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;norms/rules&lt;/em&gt;) is composed of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「鼎」(&lt;em&gt;cauldron&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「刀・刂」(&lt;em&gt;knife&lt;/em&gt;), a semantic component.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The structure「則」originally described the carving of patterns onto bronzeware. Later on,「鼎」was abbreviated into「貝」, which is easily identifiable in the image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;J1&lt;br&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w1CGx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w1CGx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;曶鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2838&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2838&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;J2&lt;br&gt;春秋&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BZmbN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BZmbN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;曾子簠&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4528&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4528&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;J3&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QC20r.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QC20r.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;J4&lt;br&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dyAkl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dyAkl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡・日甲&lt;/a&gt;39&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;J5&lt;br&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8yDZg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8yDZg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;刀&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「刀・刂」depicts a knife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;K1&lt;br&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rm5Of.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rm5Of.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;3092&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=20349&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集20349&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;K2&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ezBXM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ezBXM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;K3&lt;br&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/symrc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/symrc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡・日甲&lt;/a&gt;26&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;K4&lt;br&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WbRmc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WbRmc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-12-04T08:59:09.233" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T08:59:09.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32171" CreationDate="2018-12-04T11:45:47.380" Score="9" ViewCount="1027" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, you say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;What are you laughing at?&#xA;I'm laughing at this situation.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the preposition &quot;at&quot; refers to &quot;this situation&quot; and &quot;what&quot;, respectively. In German it's more clear, since the preposition &quot;über&quot; is always before its target:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Über was lachst du?&#xA;Ich lache über die Situation.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same in French:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;De quoi ris-tu?&#xA;Je ris de la situation.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the same question would be (according to Duolingo and Google Translate):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你在笑什么？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, this sounds like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;You about laugh what?&#xA;Du über lachst was?&#xA;Tu de ris quoi?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;instead of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;You laugh about what?&#xA;Du lachst über was?&#xA;Tu ris de quoi?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the 在 before the 笑, instead of before the 什么? Is that just &quot;because it is&quot;, or am I missing an important point here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20422" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T10:40:01.017" Title="Why 你在笑什么？, why not 你笑在什么？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32170" CreationDate="2018-12-04T12:00:19.630" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;「在」in「你在笑什麽」is not equivalent to English &lt;em&gt;at&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;em&gt;what are you laughing at?&lt;/em&gt;. To demonstrate by analogy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你在吃什麽 - &lt;em&gt;what are you eating?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你在做什麽 - &lt;em&gt;what are you doing?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「在」is actually equivalent to the suffix &lt;em&gt;-ing&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;em&gt;laughing&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;eating&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;doing&lt;/em&gt;. It is English which grammatically requires something as a target for the verb &lt;em&gt;laughing&lt;/em&gt;; this requirement is redundant in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你在笑什麽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Literally: You (你) [action in progress / -ing] (在) laugh (笑) what (什麽)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it is easier to see what's being &lt;strong&gt;omitted&lt;/strong&gt; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你在笑什麽 - &lt;em&gt;about/at what are you laughing?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你在吃什麽 - &lt;em&gt;what [food] are you eating?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你在做什麽 - &lt;em&gt;what [action] are you doing?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T12:00:19.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32173" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-04T22:57:20.893" Score="1" ViewCount="387" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just wanted to confirm, is there an alphabetic system in the Chinese language? Like in the Korean language, the Hangul is in alphabetic system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also does the official Chinese Language adopts word spacing? Or is it more like, certain countries that has Chinese as an official Language does adopt word spacing and others don't?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20135" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T02:29:37.893" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T02:29:37.893" Title="Is there an alphabetic system in the Chinese language?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32173" CreationDate="2018-12-04T23:33:17.227" Score="12" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The official way to write Chinese uses Chinese characters, which is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; an alphabetical system.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There have been various phonetic systems developed to either write or transcribe Chinese. Some of these systems are alphabets. To emphasise, these phonetic systems are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; official ways of writing Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The official way of writing, using characters, does &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; use word spacing. When using a phonetic script, word spacing is commonly adopted; see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/31746/spacing-guidelines-for-modern-chinese-writing/&quot;&gt;Spacing Guidelines for Modern Chinese Writing&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Example phonetic systems:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Writing Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pe%CC%8Dh-%C5%8De-j%C4%AB&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pe̍h-ōe-jī&lt;/a&gt;, a Roman alphabet for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Min&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minnan&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dungan &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cyrillic&lt;/a&gt;, a Cyrillic alphabet for a the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungan_language&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dungan language&lt;/a&gt;, a dialect of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Plains_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Central Plains Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiao%27erjing#Modern_usage&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Xiao'erjing&lt;/a&gt;, a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_alphabet&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Perso-Arabic&lt;/a&gt;-based &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abugida&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;abugida&lt;/a&gt; for Mandarin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Transcribing Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hanyu Pinyin, a Roman alphabet for Mandarin;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_romanization_of_Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yale Romanisation&lt;/a&gt; for Cantonese;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bopomofo&lt;/a&gt;, a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-syllabary&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;semi-syllabary&lt;/a&gt; for Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T23:33:17.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32161" CreationDate="2018-12-05T04:28:15.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters with same or similar pronunciation are usually distinguished by making a word from them, like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我叫柳星雨，雨是下雨的雨，不是宇宙的宇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only common one I recall is the following where sometimes people are trying to distinguish between two surnames both pronounced as &lt;em&gt;zhang&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;弓长张 &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; 立早章&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T04:28:15.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32176" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-05T06:29:06.927" Score="3" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is 不要在厨房里留下任何废物 the correct way of saying &quot;do not leave any waste in the kitchen&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background:&lt;/strong&gt; I'm living in an apartment building in Taipei and there is a common kitchen on the first floor that I often use. Unfortunately, the other folks from the building who use the kitchen sometimes leave the trash in the kitchen after they're done instead of taking it out. I am thinking of sticking a small note on the refrigerator just to let them know not to leave waste in the kitchen. So my question is: Is 不要在厨房里留下任何废物 the correct way of saying &quot;do not leave any waste in the kitchen&quot;? Because that's what I got from google translate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20922" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T21:16:12.637" Title="Is 不要在厨房里留下任何废物 the correct way of saying &quot;do not leave any waste in the kitchen&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32143" CreationDate="2018-12-05T07:18:45.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“丰泽的皮肤” in English might be &quot;resilient and glossy skin&quot;, usually describe female.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20924" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T07:18:45.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21336" CreationDate="2018-12-05T07:30:07.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;中国有句古话，叫闷声大发财，什么都不说就是坠吼的，懂了没啊!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20925" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T07:30:07.550" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32176" CreationDate="2018-12-05T09:10:14.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不要在廚房裡留下任何廢物&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an acceptable translation of &quot;do not leave any waste in the kitchen&quot;, you can use it just fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to be a little more formal, you can write &quot;please don't leave garbage in the kitchen&quot; (請勿在厨房留下垃圾)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you don't need '裡' in '在廚房裡' ;  '在' alone in '在厨房' already covered the meaning of 'in' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can remove '任何' in '任何垃圾' ;  just like 'dog' in 'no dog allowed' already meant 'all / any dog'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shorter note get the point across better. Just like '&lt;strong&gt;不准泊車&lt;/strong&gt;' is better than '各位先生女士，在任何時間內都千萬不要在這個地點停泊任何車輛，包括摩托車及電動輪椅' (you can google translate this sentence) -- No one would read it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-05T11:04:28.467" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T11:04:28.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32180" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32182" CreationDate="2018-12-05T17:51:52.847" Score="3" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am giving a presentation about topics in philosophy for my Chinese class, and unlike many of the students there, I have no formal education in the topic I am presenting. I feel it would be appropriate to humbly qualify my presentation with a statement expressing that I am not an expert on this area, and that many in the audience have studied it to a much greater extent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am tempted to use the expression “班门弄斧”， but it does not seem all that correct, as no one in the audience is truly a master of the topic, but rather just better than me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an expression that I could use which would be appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5792" LastActivityDate="2018-12-08T15:15:21.987" Title="成语 or expression that one is speaking about a topic he knows nothing about" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32180" CreationDate="2018-12-05T21:04:04.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could try this: &quot;此乃一家之见， 望可以抛砖引玉。&quot; Which means :&quot;This is my own view, I wish this can inspire discussions and get deeper educated answers&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastEditorUserId="20803" LastEditDate="2018-12-07T16:42:50.610" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T16:42:50.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32180" CreationDate="2018-12-05T22:08:39.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being modest is a good thing, but when you give a presentation, you should assure your audience that the content of your speech might not be ground-breaking, but is at least well thought out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my suggestion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家好 - Hello everyone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以下是我努力硏修後得出來的成果 -  The following are the results of my hard work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;stating you have done your best and it is a well thought out speech&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you are not going to take any question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如有不足之處，請各位&lt;strong&gt;多多包函&lt;/strong&gt; - If there are any deficiencies, please bear with me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you are going to take questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如有錯漏之處，請各位&lt;strong&gt;多多指教&lt;/strong&gt; - If there are any mistakes or omissions, please freely give me your advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T13:38:18.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32180" CreationDate="2018-12-06T04:03:05.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;將自己貶到土裏也不合宜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我推薦說：“鄙人初涉哲學，雖潛心鑽研，難免闕漏，望在座不吝賜教，多多斧正”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T04:03:05.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32180" CreationDate="2018-12-06T08:21:12.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【浅见薄识】：qiǎn jiàn bó shí，浅见：肤浅的见解；薄识：见识很少。形容见闻不广，所知不多。作谓语、宾语、定语；用于自谦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【词目】&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%B5%85%E8%A7%81%E8%96%84%E8%AF%86/2408899?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;浅见薄识&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;【示例】明·冯梦龙《喻世明言》卷三十一：“人每不能测天，致汝纷纭议论，皆由浅见薄识之故也。”&#xA;【同义词】见识短浅，浅见寡识，浅见寡闻 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T08:21:12.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32185" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32186" CreationDate="2018-12-06T09:06:34.110" Score="8" ViewCount="1957" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently this character has been dubbed the character of the year (2018):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UdRDE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UdRDE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's pronunciation is said to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;qiou&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but a lot of people claim it should just be pronounced the same as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find this character in the dictionary. What is it? Where did it come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:34:05.517" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:34:05.517" Title="What is &quot;qiou&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32185" CreationDate="2018-12-06T09:25:47.077" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character is made up for a dialectical word &lt;strong&gt;qiǔ&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Constructed as「⿱穷土」, the definition is &lt;em&gt;dirt-poor&lt;/em&gt; (「穷」到吃「土」), and the prescribed reading &lt;strong&gt;qiou&lt;/strong&gt; is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fanqie&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;-like combination of 「穷」(&lt;strong&gt;qi&lt;/strong&gt;ong, &lt;em&gt;poor&lt;/em&gt;) and「丑」(ch&lt;strong&gt;ou&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;awkward, messed-up, ugly&lt;/em&gt;), because the bottom of the character resembles「丑」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reading「我」(&lt;em&gt;I, me&lt;/em&gt;) is a further joke:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「我」就是「穷到吃土」or「我」就是「又穷又丑」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Self-deprecatingly&lt;/em&gt;) What is &lt;em&gt;dirt poor&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;both poor and ugly&lt;/em&gt;? ME!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &lt;strong&gt;qiǔ&lt;/strong&gt; may be written using a real character「糗」(&lt;em&gt;congealed&lt;/em&gt;, used to describe cooked grain food like rice porridge or wheat noodles that's been left out for too long). It is said that the modern uses of &lt;strong&gt;qiǔ&lt;/strong&gt; is derived from the original meaning via semantic extension:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「糗」(&lt;em&gt;rice or noodles that's been left out too long&lt;/em&gt;) &gt; 「呆」(&lt;em&gt;idle&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;dazed&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「糗」(&lt;em&gt;congealed food that's no longer suitable to eat&lt;/em&gt;) &gt; 「醜」(&lt;em&gt;ugly, unpleasant&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%B3%97%E5%A4%A7%E4%BA%86&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;baidu&lt;/a&gt; reference. However, this may be folk etymology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-12-07T05:13:26.073" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T05:13:26.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32185" CreationDate="2018-12-06T09:40:06.723" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/qiou-new-chinese-character-means-dirt-poor-and-ugly-and-people-are-relating-hard-1958619&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/qiou-new-chinese-character-means-dirt-poor-and-ugly-and-people-are-relating-hard-1958619&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A new Chinese character, invented by netizens, has become massively popular on social media this week - especially among self-mocking millennials. According to Shanghaiist, the character 'qiou' is a combination of three characters - 'qiong', meaning poor, 'chou', meaning ugly, and 'tu', meaning earth. Taken together, the character essentially means &quot;poor as dirt and ugly.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see this so call character as '穷' overlap 土 (imply 'dirt poor' ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The lower part of '穷' is '力' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'力' overlap 土 is 丑, therefore the whole thing not only imply 'dirt poor', it also imply 'dirt poor and ugly'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reading is the mix of 穷  and  丑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;穷 /&lt;strong&gt;qi&lt;/strong&gt;ong2/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;丑 /ch&lt;strong&gt;ou&lt;/strong&gt;3/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reading of 我 is a joke: 写作'穷丑' 读作 '我' (written as '穷丑' read as '我') = &quot;I am the definition of poor and ugly&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 穷 is a simplified character, the origin of this made-up character should be Mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't find it in dictionary because it is not a real character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-06T19:25:03.690" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T19:25:03.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32170" CreationDate="2018-12-06T10:40:01.017" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;他 &lt;strong&gt;在笑&lt;/strong&gt;: He &lt;strong&gt;is laughing&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br/&gt;他 &lt;strong&gt;在笑&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;你&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: He &lt;strong&gt;is laughing&lt;/strong&gt; at &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br/&gt;你 &lt;strong&gt;在笑&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;谁&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: You &lt;strong&gt;are laughing&lt;/strong&gt; at &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;who&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;? (Who are you laughing at?)&lt;br/&gt;你 &lt;strong&gt;在笑&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;什么&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: You &lt;strong&gt;are laughing&lt;/strong&gt; at &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;? (What are you laughing at?)&lt;br/&gt;The word &lt;strong&gt;at&lt;/strong&gt; is needed in English but not in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T10:40:01.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21233" CreationDate="2018-12-06T11:11:48.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the process of simplifying Chinese characters, there are rare words that simplified wholely, so each character cannot be considered as the simplified version of the corresponding origin character in this case. For example, the word 衚衕 is simplified to 胡同, 鞦韆 is simplified to 秋千, that means in this case, the characters 胡 is not the simplified characters of 衚, the characters 同 is not the simplified characters of 衕, the characters 鞦 is not the simplified characters of 秋, and the characters 韆 is not the simplified characters of 千. 千秋 may mean &lt;strong&gt;thousand autumns&lt;/strong&gt; literally, it is always the same form from ancient times to now. But if the word 千秋 is another name of a &lt;strong&gt;swing&lt;/strong&gt; (秋千/鞦韆) in some dialect, it should written as 韆鞦 in traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T11:11:48.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9838" CreationDate="2018-12-06T11:31:59.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hokkien is spoken by around 50 million people.  About half are in Fujian province (i.e. &quot;Hokkien&quot; province), mainly around the cities of Zhangzhou (Chiang-chiu), Amoy (Ē͘-mûi/Ē-mn̂g), and Quanzhou (Choâⁿ-chiu) -- not all of Fujian province.  The other half are spread across South-East Asia, descending from settlers who left Fujian in the 17th and 18th centuries.  This includes most of Taiwan, as well as communities in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Outside of these areas, it can be difficult to find somewhere to learn Hokkien.  The most well-supported variety of Hokkien is probably Taiwanese Hokkien (often simply called &quot;Taiwanese&quot;).  For example, there is a textbook called &quot;Southern Hokkien: An Introduction&quot;, by Bernhard Fuehrer and Yang Hsiu-fang, which focuses on Taiwanese Hokkien.  This is used by a course taught at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) in London.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://eng.press.ntu.edu.tw/?act=book&amp;amp;refer=ntup_book00760&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://eng.press.ntu.edu.tw/?act=book&amp;amp;refer=ntup_book00760&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15320" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T11:31:59.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="118" CreationDate="2018-12-06T11:40:53.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a more recent textbook (published after the other answers were written!), called &quot;Southern Hokkien: An Introduction&quot;, by Bernhard Fuehrer and Yang Hsiu-fang.  It focuses on Taiwanese Hokkien.  It's in English, makes many comparisons with Mandarin, and is well written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://eng.press.ntu.edu.tw/?act=book&amp;amp;refer=ntup_book00760&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://eng.press.ntu.edu.tw/?act=book&amp;amp;refer=ntup_book00760&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15320" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T11:40:53.860" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2018-12-06T11:40:53.860" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10489" CreationDate="2018-12-06T15:34:21.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be 凡事发生皆有其原因 for everything happens for a reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sorry, info came 4 years late...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事出必有因 is referring to 因果，you did something in the beginning (action) that lead to the end results of this action (beginning).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20933" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-12-06T18:55:24.260" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T18:55:24.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32193" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32195" CreationDate="2018-12-06T22:28:44.737" Score="2" ViewCount="800" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was online recently and saw an image saying &quot;肚纸饿“ (although I cannot presently locate it). I know &quot;肚子饿” means &quot;I'm hungry&quot;, but the character 纸 used in the image means paper. Was it used instead of the normal 子 because it sounds similar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＊对不起，我的中文真不好；这是我自己的翻译，我知道不是很简单看懂！＊&#xA;我上网的时候看了一个照片说“肚纸好饿”。（不好意思，现在不会找到它。）我知道“肚&lt;strong&gt;子&lt;/strong&gt;饿的意思“，可是没听过了”肚&lt;strong&gt;纸&lt;/strong&gt;“。是一样的吗？为什么有剪纸的纸跟肚子？就是应为听的是很像的吗？谢谢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T10:32:06.453" Title="Why is &quot;纸“ used in &quot;肚纸饿”? 为什么说肚纸饿，不肚子饿?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32193" CreationDate="2018-12-06T23:12:33.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is of course not the right way to write it if it meant to say &quot;肚子饿&quot;. It could be a fashion trend to use &quot;肚纸饿&quot; to replace &quot;肚子饿&quot; because they sound similar. It is like when English people use french and made it official later on. For example, french people use soudier to mean mercenary and English people used it to create the word soldier. I don't know the fashion trend but that could be a reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T23:12:33.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32193" CreationDate="2018-12-07T02:32:19.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese netizens use words sounding similar to their authentic ones to express many feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肚纸 (zhi) is easier to pronounce thus childish (think of a child not able to say difficult syllable) than 肚子 (zi). We call this 卖萌/装嫩. Often you ll have emoticons and modal particles together serving that aim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.G. 咕，我肚纸饿了啦(／≧ω＼)，快点去吃饭吧( •̥́ ˍ •̀ू )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise, there are 孩纸（孩子）/傻敷敷（傻乎乎）/靴靴（谢谢）/敲（超）……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you might see various &quot;substitute&quot; of original phrases. Here list some of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Transliteration&quot; of English (not official or formal, but the character combination is fun) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;碧池(bitch)/狗带(go die)/爱豆(idol)/……&#xA;and their further extension “我看你有如一池春水（sounds beautiful, hah）”, But  actually 一池春水&gt;春天绿色的池塘&gt;碧池&gt;bitch&gt;he/she is cursing you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Substitute by more &quot;cute&quot; homophonic characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蟹蟹（谢谢）/甜（填）/卸腰（谢邀）/娇妻（脚气&gt;手气）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other innuendo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;滋磁（支持）/蛤蛤（哈哈）/一颗赛艇（exciting）/强人锁男（强人所难）/满头大汉（满头大汗）……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;acronym&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xswl（吓/笑死我了）/zqsg（真情实感）/wqnjysx（我劝你谨言慎行）/ssfd（瑟瑟发抖）/271（爱奇艺）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-12-07T02:45:04.483" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T02:45:04.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32193" CreationDate="2018-12-07T02:34:13.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;子and纸，&#xA; Thier pronunciation is similar&#xA;Just like &quot;Girl&quot; in Chinese is&#xA;“女孩子”also can say“女孩纸”&#xA;“纸”A little cuter in expression than&quot;子&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20935" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T02:34:13.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23273" CreationDate="2018-12-07T04:24:47.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the main reason is Chinese input method which is not mentioned by others in this post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the Chinese in Mainland and TW input Chinese character by PinYin 拼音. When they want to type in 我, (meaning I), they type in wo6, (the pronunciation of 「我」）. Just like when you want to type in &quot;paragraph&quot;, you will type in the phonetic symbol of paragraph which is [ˈpærəgrɑːf] instead of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some characters may have same pronunciation and they are lazy to select, so they just use the first one having the same pronunciation but different meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the other reasons are 1) avoiding be filtered, mainly in Mainland, 2)making something difference, just like &quot;Oh my Gosh&quot; instead of &quot;oh my God&quot;...etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20936" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T04:24:47.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32193" CreationDate="2018-12-07T04:36:44.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just abuse of words. With similar pronunciation but incorrect character. Maybe like &quot;CU&quot; for &quot;see you&quot;. You may know what does that mean in daily life, but not in rigorous writing. However, some online novels, IM texts or other similar circumstances this does happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15576" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T04:36:44.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32180" CreationDate="2018-12-07T05:13:01.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct. You got the meaning of 班門弄斧.&#xA;May I just explain a little bit on 班門弄斧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;班 is short name of 鲁班 who was great master of carpenter. Even now,&#xA;  some workers are still memorising him .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;門 means front door of the master 鲁班.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;弄斧 means playing axe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the whole meaning is showing off the skill in front of who is true master in the area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in Chines culture, it is still fine saying in this way, because in this way, you can humbly show the difference between you and the others while not lowering yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I confess there is a difference between you and me. But it is not&#xA;  because I am noob but you are just really good. I am still good.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you may say &quot;賣弄學識&quot;, which means showing some trick in front of something. It is ridiculing yourself actually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another choice is &quot;愚見&quot; which means my stupid idea. But when you say in this way, the actual meaning may be opposite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;So here is my stupid idea, 愚見,...blab blab....&quot; hidden meaning may be&#xA;  &quot;my idea is stupid. But yours are even worse than mine, you are a fool&#xA;  actually.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, take special care when you are trying to laugh at yourself to be humble. The consequence may be totally different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20937" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T05:13:01.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32193" CreationDate="2018-12-07T05:21:47.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK,I am Chinese.&#xA;&quot;肚纸(zhi)&quot; is a kind of imitate pronunciation of &quot;肚子(zi)&quot;.&#xA;People use this imitation for making them cute, or funny.&#xA;In this case, 纸 may be replaced with any other characters which have the same or even the similar pronunciation. They are actually the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20939" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T05:21:47.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32201" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32203" CreationDate="2018-12-07T07:01:01.800" Score="3" ViewCount="215" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure to get the difference. If the two following sentences are correct, when should I use one over the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;相比:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;和打羽毛球相比我更喜欢打网球。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;比:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我羽毛球比网球更喜欢打。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17370" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T11:52:47.997" Title="When to use 相比 and 比?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32193" CreationDate="2018-12-07T08:10:47.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Their pronunciations sound quite same in Chinese.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However , &quot;子&quot; is quite more formal than &quot;纸&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can usually see some news titles like &quot;台湾一年轻女子当街炫富(A young lady show off her prosperity in the street in Taiwan)&quot;, where you can not use &quot;年轻女纸&quot; in this news title, it's too casual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in daily speaking or chatting on the Internet, you can use &quot;纸&quot; instead of &quot;子&quot; .It sounds cute in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20940" LastEditorUserId="20940" LastEditDate="2018-12-07T09:27:02.047" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T09:27:02.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32201" CreationDate="2018-12-07T08:32:55.360" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's quite easy to distinguish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First is the conclusion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;相比&quot; in Chinese equals to &quot;compare with&quot; in English.It's usually a common verb.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;比&quot; in Chinese equals to &quot;more than&quot; or &quot;xxxer than&quot; in English.It's usually a comparative form.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their usages are quite different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you can use &quot;比&quot; like &quot;我比你高。(I'm taller than you.)&quot; and &quot;相比&quot; like&#xA;  &quot;农村的文化生活无法与大城市相比。(The cultural life in the country cannot compare with&#xA;  that of a large city.)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope my answer helps you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20940" LastEditorUserId="20940" LastEditDate="2018-12-07T11:52:47.997" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T11:52:47.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32204" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-07T08:33:25.693" Score="2" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an Anki deck I downloaded, the Chinese translation of &quot;Her treatment of the guests is very friendly.&quot; is given as &quot;她对待客人很友好。&quot; Shouldn't it be &quot;她对待客人&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;很友好。&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18392" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T10:46:30.257" Title="Correct grammar? 她对待客人很友好。" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32204" CreationDate="2018-12-07T08:53:23.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first sentence is correct. You don't need a &quot;得&quot; in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I want to show you a way to maintain your express correct and beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The key point you can check your gramma in an easy way is detecting the main branch of a sentence and then do some extensions.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The main branch of &quot;Her treatment of the guests is very&#xA;  friendly.&quot; is &quot;Her treatment is friendly.(她的招待是友好的。)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;After clarify the main branch of a sentence, you can now add the details into your sentence, it's always a best way.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence now looks like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Her treatment &lt;em&gt;of the guests&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;  friendly.(她&lt;em&gt;对客人的&lt;/em&gt; 招待是 &lt;em&gt;很&lt;/em&gt; 友好的)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;At last, change and delete some words, which makes your expression more fluent and direct.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;她&lt;em&gt;对客人的&lt;/em&gt; 招待是 &lt;em&gt;很&lt;/em&gt; 友好的&quot; -&gt; &quot;她招待客人很友好&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step by step, a correct and beautiful Chinese sentence is created by yourself.Is it interesting?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope my answer helps you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20940" LastEditorUserId="20940" LastEditDate="2018-12-07T09:28:20.790" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T09:28:20.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32180" CreationDate="2018-12-07T09:18:19.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The key point to be a skillful user of this area is trying to clarify whether the meaning of a &quot;成语&quot; is in a positive way or not.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, the degree of a &quot;成语&quot; can usually be classified in three different levels: Positive, Normal and Negative. Even they have the same meaning, the feelings which bring to you are quite different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;After understanding the degree of &quot;成语&quot;, you can now insure the usages of them is  correct.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, you'd better use a word with Normal degree to describe yourself.It sounds more modest than using a Positive word when you introduce yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you talk to others, using positive word or &quot;成语&quot; to describe them is always a right way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;E.g. &quot;班门弄斧&quot; is a negative word, so never use it to describe yourself&#xA;  and people whom you admire.Use &quot;才疏学浅&quot;(a Normal degree word) instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope my answer helps you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20940" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T09:18:19.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1939" CreationDate="2018-12-07T09:34:02.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;母牛流产了&quot; is equals to &quot;The mother cow abortion&quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which you will probably never use this sentence in daily life, except you are working in a farm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20940" LastEditorUserId="20940" LastEditDate="2018-12-07T11:56:47.633" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T11:56:47.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32193" CreationDate="2018-12-07T10:32:06.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;因为说肚纸比说肚子可爱呀，在中文里经常用谐音代替原本的词语，比如：想你，老戴(脑袋)里都是你！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20946" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T10:32:06.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32204" CreationDate="2018-12-07T10:39:47.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;她对待客人很友好。&amp;quot; Shouldn't it be &amp;quot;她对待客人得很友好。&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;她 (she) = subject&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;对待 (treats) = verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;客人 (guests) = object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;很友好 (very friendly) = adverbial phrase for the verb 对待 (treats)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;她对待客人很友好&amp;quot; (she treats guests very friendly) is a simple SVO sentence. I presume you can tell it is a proper sentence if you read it carefully.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am more concern about the fact that you don't know how to use '得'  as a verb particle that indicate the result or degree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;她对待客人得很友好。&amp;quot; is incorrect use of the verb particle '得' to indicate the degree of the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct form is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. verb] + [2. 得] + [3. adverbial phrase that indicates degree] = [1. 对待] +[2. 得] +[3. 很友好]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;it describes the degree of the verb: 'To what degree she treats guests?'-- 'To the degree of very friendly'&lt;/em&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;她对待客人对待得很友好&amp;quot;: [她对待客人] is the topic; [对待(&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;)很友好] is the comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'how does she treat guests?' 'she treats guests (&lt;strong&gt;to the degree of&lt;/strong&gt;) very friendly'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SVO sentence: &amp;quot;他(S) 吃飯(V) 很快 (adv)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Topic + comment sentence: &amp;quot;他吃飯 (topic) + 吃得很快 (comment)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;break down of '吃得很快':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃(v): eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt; (verb particle: &lt;strong&gt;to the degree of&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很快(adv): very fast (adverbial phrase that describes the degree of the verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T10:46:30.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1939" CreationDate="2018-12-07T14:53:53.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess this is a constructed case to test if you can differentiate the consonants m,n,l. It's not used in everyday life unless you work on a farm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T14:53:53.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32211" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-07T19:36:50.963" Score="2" ViewCount="623" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yW0mn.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yW0mn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry if my question is inappropriate, but I really need to know what this tattoo means. Thanks in advance! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-05T04:50:45.700" LastActivityDate="2020-05-05T04:50:45.700" Title="What does my tattoo mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32176" CreationDate="2018-12-07T21:16:12.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 垃圾 instead of 废物。 废物 sounds like &quot;loser&quot; sometimes....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20916" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T21:16:12.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32211" CreationDate="2018-12-08T01:15:29.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;乔基, I'm 95% sure it's transliteration for the name George. Also it looks a little bit odd to me since usually the transliteration would written as 乔治, at least in Mainland China. And that's a boy's name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20411" LastActivityDate="2018-12-08T01:15:29.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32180" CreationDate="2018-12-08T15:15:21.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditional way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在下平生喜好哲学, 尝独自钻研, 近日偶有所得, 不敢独享, 愿与诸君共同切磋.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humor way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上台来, 我先拜一拜这场里场外一站一立前排后排的各位朋友，不知道您哪位在南山打过猛虎，在北海踢过狡龙，您过去打过一拳，踢过一腿，您就是我的老师，今天学生我要在这里讲讲哲学.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-12-08T15:15:21.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32217" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-08T15:50:21.653" Score="3" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which of the following sentences is correct, or are both correct? Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;虽然学校采取了一些措施，但是没有什么效果.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;虽然学校采取了一些措施，但是没有什么效应.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8126" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-29T23:36:34.647" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T10:50:34.477" Title="What are the differences between 效果 and 效应?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32217" CreationDate="2018-12-08T16:22:06.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The biggest difference is in the fact that &lt;strong&gt;效应&lt;/strong&gt; is, usually, effect, as in: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the butterfly effect&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Matthew effect,&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambi_effect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Bambi effect&lt;/a&gt; or as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_effects&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiki&lt;/a&gt; explains it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;observable phenomena&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-12-08T16:22:06.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32217" CreationDate="2018-12-08T16:27:30.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;效果: result; effect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;效应: effect &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.虽然学校采取了一些措施，但是没有什么效果. 2.虽然学校采取了一些措施，但是没有什么效应.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 没有效果 and 没有效应 are correct if you want to say &quot;no effect&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you want to say &quot;result&quot; then you must say &quot;效果&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;US tax reform has not &lt;strong&gt;achieved&lt;/strong&gt; the expected &lt;strong&gt;results&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; = &quot;美国税改并未&lt;strong&gt;达到&lt;/strong&gt;预期的&lt;strong&gt;效果&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;US tax reform has not &lt;strong&gt;created&lt;/strong&gt; the expected &lt;strong&gt;effect&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; = &quot;美国税改并未&lt;strong&gt;产生&lt;/strong&gt;预期的&lt;strong&gt;效应&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 效果 has meaning other than 'effect' We usually translate 'effect' as 效应&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As user 3306356's answer stated:   'the butterfly effect' is translated as 蝴蝶效应 (the butterfly effect) instead of 蝴蝶效果(the butterfly effect/result)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-08T16:51:00.630" LastActivityDate="2018-12-08T16:51:00.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32220" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32221" CreationDate="2018-12-08T16:32:24.957" Score="3" ViewCount="1064" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see they have the same pronunciation but does they bear any differences. It seems like 利害 can be pronounced lìhài or lìhai while 厉害 can only be pronounced lìhai.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:38:43.843" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:38:43.843" Title="Difference between 厉害 and 利害" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32220" CreationDate="2018-12-08T16:38:54.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Longman Advanced Learner's&lt;/em&gt; has a good footnote about this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【厲害•利害】&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  lì hai / lì hai (hài)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  都是形容詞﹐都有猛烈的意思﹐可以換用﹐現在多用「厲害」。區別在：①「利害」還有利益和害處的意思﹐如「不知利害」；「厲害」沒有這一意思。②「厲害」不能作名詞；「利害」指利益和害處時是名詞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-12-08T16:38:54.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32222" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-08T20:30:03.400" Score="4" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dr. Michael Pillsbury, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Chinese Strategy, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/111417_Pillsbury_Testimony.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;testified before the US Senate&lt;/a&gt; (p. 9) on Nixon's visit to China:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there were glimpses even then that the Chinese saw the United States not as an ally but as an obstacle. Referring to the United States, Zhou offered a hint of how the Chinese really felt about their new prospective friend. “America is the ba,” Zhou told Kissinger’s interpreter, Ambassador Ji Zhaozhu of China’s Foreign Ministry, repeating a term that would be frequently used by Chairman Mao and his successor, Deng Xiaoping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] Kissinger’s translator told Kissinger that Zhou’s statement meant, “America is the leader.” This seemed to be an innocuous remark, and when taken in the context of the Cold War even a compliment. But that is not what the word ba means in Mandarin — at least that is not its full context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would that statement have been constructed in Chinese, and to which &amp;quot;ba&amp;quot; was being referred to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20951" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T13:21:17.217" Title="What is the &quot;ba&quot; that 周恩来 used when speaking to Kissinger?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32222" CreationDate="2018-12-08T20:57:54.010" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess it was &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/3604/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;霸&lt;/a&gt; /ba4/ : tyrant; bully; overlord  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Short for '霸主' (dominant leader among rulers)  or '霸權' (dominant power)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was not a friendly word toward America, because it implied America was a bully, (try to dominate other countries of the world with it's strength)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient time, the difference between 霸主 (leader among rulers) and 天下共主 (common leader of the lords) is a 霸主 didn't have the loyalty of the other rulers. They submitted to him out of fear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Zhou said &quot;America is &lt;strong&gt;the&lt;/strong&gt; ba&quot; I presume he meant &quot;美國是全世界的霸主&quot; (America is the world's most dominant power)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美國是全世界的霸主&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Zhou said &quot;America is &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; ba&quot;, then would mean &quot;美國是一個霸權&quot; (America is a hegemony)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%A5%E7%A7%8B%E4%BA%94%E9%9C%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋五霸&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Hegemons&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Five Hegemons&lt;/a&gt;) were five rulers who earned the title of 霸主 during the Spring and Autumn Period.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-09T13:21:17.217" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T13:21:17.217" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32222" CreationDate="2018-12-09T02:02:17.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;as @tang ho revealed, the corresponding character is &quot;霸&quot; (u+9738). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in confucianism, it's a &lt;strong&gt;negative&lt;/strong&gt; term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孟子　公孫丑上:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;孟子曰．以力假仁者霸．霸必有大國．以德行仁者王．王不待大&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孟子　告子下:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;孟子曰．五霸者．三王之罪人也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, such usage is very precise, and concise :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iraq war&lt;/a&gt;, there's &quot;myth&quot; that mr deng commented it as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;大霸打小霸&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which &quot;大霸&quot; means us, &quot;小霸&quot; means iraq.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2018-12-09T03:20:49.813" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T03:20:49.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32225" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32227" CreationDate="2018-12-09T06:56:47.263" Score="2" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my textbook there's an exercise where you're supposed to fill in the gaps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天的菜____________________到明天就没有人买了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a bit confused with it. What is meant here by &quot;到明天就没有人买了&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. The task is to fill in the gaps with 非......不可 construction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20955" LastEditorUserId="20955" LastEditDate="2018-12-09T07:28:23.683" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T16:19:14.973" Title="Could somebody explain the meaning of the sentence to me?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32225" CreationDate="2018-12-09T08:08:07.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are meant to fill something like this：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天的菜非卖掉不可， （否则）到明天就没有人买了。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到明天就没有人买了 here implies that the vegetables might go stale and no body wouldn't buy it. That's why you have to make sure you sell them all out today -- 今天的菜非卖掉不可. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T08:08:07.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32225" CreationDate="2018-12-09T08:32:37.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今天的菜 = Today's vegetable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;到明天 (reach tomorrow) = when tomorrow come&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;就没有人(&lt;em&gt;会&lt;/em&gt;)买了 = then no one (&lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt;) buy it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;今天的菜到明天就没有人买了&amp;quot; is a [(topic) + (comment)] sentence. It is already a complete sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天的菜 (非......不可), 到明天就没有人买了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The blank space can be filled in with another comment. Logically thinking, what would be the solution to the problem that 'no one will buy the vegetable tomorrow? The answer is &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;sell them all today&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, the missing part of '非(......)不可' is '(&lt;strong&gt;在今天內賣掉&lt;/strong&gt;)'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[非(......)不可] = [must (......)]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Topic: 今天的菜 (today's vegetable)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;comment 1: &lt;strong&gt;非&lt;/strong&gt;在今天內賣掉&lt;strong&gt;不可&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; be sold within today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;comment 2: 到明天就没有人买了。 (No one will buy it tomorrow)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Complete sentence: &amp;quot;今天的菜非在今天內賣掉不可, 到明天就没有人买了&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;both comment 1 and comment 2 are descriptions about the topic&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you are constructing the sentence on your own, you can refine the sentence more by joining the two comments into one with a conjunction 否則&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;今天的菜非在今天內(全部)賣掉不可, (否則)(等)到明天就没有人买了&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T16:19:14.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32220" CreationDate="2018-12-09T18:54:58.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;一个词在不同的语境下会有不同的意思，我用厉害造句，每个句子里厉害的意思都不一样，你感受一下:&#xA;1.美国篮球明星迈克尔乔丹是一个很厉害的人&#xA;   乔丹打篮球很厉害&#xA;     awesome,awesome,excellent,Illustrious&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 数学老师是一个很厉害的人，我们都怕他&#xA;   fierce&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;利害:&#xA;利，有利的:advantageous,beneficial,profitable&#xA;害，有害的:detrimental,&#xA;所以利害这一个词包含了两种相反的方面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是一个很喜欢帮助别人的人，从来不计较利害得失&#xA;得:得到&#xA;失:失去&#xA;跟利害相似，得失同样是一个词包含了两种相反的方面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20958" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T18:54:58.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32231" CreationDate="2018-12-09T19:51:10.963" Score="4" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any ideas on the origin of the 绍 character? Studying for finals and I need a coherent way to associate the silk, knife, and mouth radicals. In the phrase 介绍. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20961" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T01:26:02.837" Title="Any ideas on the origin of the 绍 character?" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31496" CreationDate="2018-12-09T21:08:56.297" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pleco gives better results for this if you look up the English word you want.  For example, in your case you already know 练习 and 实习 so you are looking those up and trying to figure out which one to use.  But if you look up &quot;practice&quot; in Pleco and look under the DICT or WORDS tabs it's much easier to see the differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T21:08:56.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32229" CreationDate="2018-12-09T22:37:40.183" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The real way to describe characters should only utilise a &lt;strong&gt;surface level&lt;/strong&gt;, not &lt;strong&gt;recursive&lt;/strong&gt;, decomposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「紹」originally meant &lt;em&gt;to continue&lt;/em&gt;. The meaning &lt;em&gt;introduce&lt;/em&gt; is a semantic extension from &lt;em&gt;to continue &gt; to bring two things together &gt; to introduce&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「紹」is made from semantic「糸」(&lt;em&gt;silk threads&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic「召」(&lt;strong&gt;zhào&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;shào&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「糸」as a semantic component, sometimes in an abbreviated form「幺」, appears in many characters to do with &lt;em&gt;linking, continuation&lt;/em&gt;, such as「繼」(&lt;em&gt;to continue&lt;/em&gt;),「續」(&lt;em&gt;to join together&lt;/em&gt;),「系」(&lt;em&gt;to tie, link &gt; system, series&lt;/em&gt;), 「斷」(&lt;em&gt;to break&lt;/em&gt;),「胤」(&lt;em&gt;offspring&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「召」is comprised of phonetic「刀」(&lt;strong&gt;dāo&lt;/strong&gt;) and semantic「口」(&lt;em&gt;mouth&lt;/em&gt;), and originally meant &lt;em&gt;to beckon, call, summon&lt;/em&gt;. There was originally no meaning connection between「召」and「紹」; any connection between &lt;em&gt;to call&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;to introduce&lt;/em&gt; is coincidental, but you can utilise this connection as a mnemonic.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Other characters using「召」as a phonetic component include 招昭炤沼詔邵韶.「召」, like many other components used as a phonetic, may not contribute any semantic value to the whole character.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-12-10T01:26:02.837" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T01:26:02.837" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32232" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-10T06:45:40.017" Score="0" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;A says: 他自从遇到车祸以后就不开车了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B says: &lt;strong&gt;还真是&lt;/strong&gt;，我以为他不喜欢开车呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20964" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T08:13:08.047" Title="What is the colloquial Cantonese translation for &quot;还真是&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32232" CreationDate="2018-12-10T07:38:27.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;maybe &quot;真係吖&quot;, very roughly means &quot;really?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%9C%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=真&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%BF%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=係&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T07:38:27.420" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32232" CreationDate="2018-12-10T08:39:38.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;'还真是' here is similar to  &amp;quot;It is actually true&amp;quot; in English (agree/affirm to A's statement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, we would say &amp;quot;噉又係喎&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;噉(this) | 又(also) | 係(true) | 喎(final particle: indicate 'agree/affirm')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 他自从遇到车祸以后就不开车了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 还真是，我以为他不喜欢开车呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 佢自从遇到车祸之后就冇再楂車嘞。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 噉又係喎，我仲以为佢唔鐘意楂車㖭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T09:04:11.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32211" CreationDate="2018-12-10T15:35:29.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a transliteration of your name, and 乔生 is my Chinese (first) name. Although I am a guy, so this may go to 神秘德里克's point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20961" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T15:35:29.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32232" CreationDate="2018-12-10T17:22:37.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We say this when we don't think about something true in our daily life and suddenly, somebody around us mentioned it and we are like:&quot; yeah! it is actually true! I never thought about it before!&quot;&#xA;Literally means: &quot;It is actually true&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T17:22:37.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32237" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-10T17:32:19.203" Score="1" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anyone can tell me the difference between 和谐，和睦 and 融洽？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20966" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2018-12-11T00:40:42.620" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T02:33:04.880" Title="The difference between 和谐，和睦 and 融洽？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32237" CreationDate="2018-12-10T18:23:45.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;融洽 means action or felling or thought are synchronized. Like when two people are in sync, and one know what the other think by simply observing his movement and will act accordingly. Or something like that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和睦 means harmonious relationships with other people like husband \wife. Example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;③唐 陈子昂《座右铭》：“兄弟敦和睦，朋友笃信诚。” means harmonious brotherhood and faithful friendships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和谐 as a verb could be used to mean because of broken of a rule, being dealt with. for example, &quot;你今天在论坛上发言被和谐了吧&quot; meaning you said something not appropriate and hence being dealt with by the authorities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it also mean reconcile like when a king send his daughter to a political marriage to ease the tension between kingdoms. I hope this is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T18:23:45.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32237" CreationDate="2018-12-10T18:50:18.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;和谐&lt;/strong&gt;(adj): harmonious; balanced (&lt;strong&gt;between elements&lt;/strong&gt;) | &lt;em&gt;e.g. 氣氛和谐 (harmonious atmosphere); 和谐景象 (harmonious scene)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和谐(n): harmony | &lt;em&gt;e.g. 達致和谐 (achieve harmony)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和谐(adv): harmoniously/ in harmony | &lt;em&gt;e.g. 和谐共處 (harmoniously stay/live together; harmoniously co-exist)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;和睦&lt;/strong&gt;(adj): friendly; harmonious (&lt;strong&gt;between people&lt;/strong&gt;) | &lt;em&gt;e.g. 關係和睦 (friendly relationship)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和睦(adv): harmoniously | &lt;em&gt;e.g. 和睦共處 (harmoniously stay/live together); 待人和睦 (treat people with friendliness)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;融洽&lt;/strong&gt; (adj) harmonious (&lt;strong&gt;between people or element&lt;/strong&gt;)| &lt;em&gt;e.g. 關係融洽 (friendly relationship); 氣氛融洽 (harmonious atmosphere)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;融洽 (adv): on friendly terms; on good relationship with | &lt;em&gt;e.g. 相處融洽 (harmoniously interact/ live together)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Main difference is when they are in adjective role, 和谐 apply to elements, 和睦 apply to people and 融洽 apply to either people or elements&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 和睦 and 融洽 is in the construction of the term. [和(peaceful/ in harmony) + 睦(befriend) = 和睦 (friendly/ harmonious) ]; [融(melt) + 洽 (arrange) = 融洽 (harmonious)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T13:49:17.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32240" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32241" CreationDate="2018-12-10T21:37:28.920" Score="2" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was trying to read the original 木兰辞 poem. But I found two versions of it on the internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One line reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;愿借明驼千里足&lt;/strong&gt;，送儿还故乡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the other version it's:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;愿驰千里足&lt;/strong&gt;，送儿还故乡。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is the original one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T16:51:36.930" Title="木兰辞 original poem" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32240" CreationDate="2018-12-10T22:09:37.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are correct, you might have noticed in many ancient poems, some characters or even an entire sentence could have different versions, which are both or all correct. Some readers may favour one version while other may favour another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many reasons for this to happen. First, in ancient times, there is no easy way of copying and pasting, reproduction is thus relayed on people if you do not happen to have the original printing template, which could introduce flaws. Moreover, the author could have made adjustment to his or her work many times, therefore different versions could be in circulating contemporarily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There could be many other reasons, please see this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/286776114&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, in case if you are curious, please refer to this &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%98%8E%E9%A9%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;webpage&lt;/a&gt; for the meaning of 明驼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-12-11T16:51:36.930" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T16:51:36.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32237" CreationDate="2018-12-10T22:41:20.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;how did this question arise? It would seem any differences are fully explained in online dictionaries, esp. bkrs, iciba, etc., specialized dictionaries on synonyms like ＂汉语同义词词典＂do not list any two of them together,＂汉语同义词词典＂ only has 和谐／调谐 (bkrs：frequency ranks: #4381,#33928) &lt;strong&gt;［同］&lt;/strong&gt; 形容词。形容配合得适当。用于书面语。&lt;strong&gt;［异］&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;［和谐］&lt;/strong&gt; 着重于不矛盾，彼此融合。可用于音调、颜色、线条、建筑物或摆设的布局以及人的生活、行为举止等。常形容＂旋律、声音、节奏、情调、色调、关系、气氛＂等。 &lt;strong&gt;例&lt;/strong&gt;：（１）塘中的月色并不均匀但光与影有着和谐的旋律，如梵婀玲（[英violin]西洋乐器。小提琴）上奏着的名曲。（朱自清＜荷塘月色＞）（２）已经近午了，村鸡在啼，狗睡在麦田里，野外的羊群，时常发出羊的和谐叫声，（周立波＜娘子关前＞）（３）因为我们过着一种和谐的生活。（何其芳＜树阴下的默想＞）（４）那一年酷热的夏天，园子里渐渐失去了和谐宁静。（何为＜园林城中一个小庭园＞）&lt;strong&gt;［调谐］&lt;/strong&gt; 着重于配合得恰到好处。对象多是音调、色彩、建筑物或摆设的布局等，不能用于人的生活、行为举止。使用频率比＂和谐＂低。文学语体。&lt;strong&gt;例&lt;/strong&gt;（１）而音波的调谐振荡却仍然留在这个苦病迷茫的童子的枕边，仍然沉坠于他的小心。（王统照＜＜小天分人＞的生与死＞）（２）再没有比这一群建筑更调谐更匀称的了！（叙志摩＜我所知道的康桥＞）&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;［附］&lt;/strong&gt;＂调谐＂兼属名词。指调节可变电容器（variable condenser）或线图使收音机与无线电波达到谐振（resonance)，如＂扩音机的面板上有许多旋钮，其顺序（从左到右）是：话管音量(pitch)、拾音音量(pickup)、高低音控制、收音音量、调谐、波段选择、高压开关和低压开关＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T22:41:20.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32240" CreationDate="2018-12-11T00:08:16.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.skhcfcn.edu.hk/subject/chn/%E5%8F%A4%E6%96%87/%E5%8F%A4%E6%96%87/%E5%8F%A4%E6%96%87100/11%E6%9C%A8%E8%98%AD%E8%BE%AD.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;木蘭詩&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歸來見天子，天子坐明堂。策勳十二轉，賞賜百千強。可汗問所欲，木蘭不用尚書郎。願(借)明駝千里足，送兒還故鄉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mulan returned to see the emperor. The Emperor asked what she wanted for reward. Mulan told the Emperor she didn't want anything, just wish to &lt;strong&gt;borrow&lt;/strong&gt; a fast horse (we can presume the Royal court had the best horses) so that she could ride it and get home faster to see her family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mulan was pretending to be a man, by refusing the reward from the emperor, she put herself in a better position in case she was discovered and need to beg for forgiveness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To not appear rejecting the emperor's good will, she asked for a simple item with virtuous reason- She was a good 'son' trying to serve 'his' elderly father again as soon as possible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say &amp;quot;愿(驰)千里足&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;wish to (ride) a fast horse that can run thousand miles&amp;quot; Then you have to presume she had such a horse or a way to get such horse elsewhere. It didn't answer to the Emperor's question of &amp;quot;what you want for reward&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;願(借)明駝千里足&amp;quot; is more logical, therefore, I support it as the original version. Even if it was not the original, I still support it as the 'standard' version today&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T00:46:37.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32244" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32245" CreationDate="2018-12-11T00:27:08.903" Score="4" ViewCount="705" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个 星期五 晚上 我们 要 去 酒吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Zhège Xīngqīwǔ wǎnshang wǒmen yào qù jiǔbā&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We're going to a bar this Friday night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes this future tense vs the verb want? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20271" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T07:24:06.630" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T07:24:06.630" Title="Why does 要 mean &quot;will&quot; and not &quot;want&quot; in 这个星期五晚上我们要去酒吧?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32244" CreationDate="2018-12-11T00:51:27.200" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What makes this future tense vs the verb want? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it happened in the past,  the sentence would be &quot;这个 星期五 晚上 我们 去了 酒吧&quot; - &lt;em&gt;了 indicates the action is completed&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这个 星期五&quot; (this Friday) apparently refers to the up coming Friday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们 要 去 酒吧 could mean &quot;we need to go to a bar&quot; or  &quot;we want to go a bar&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We cannot be sure without more context, but with the information of '这个星期五'&lt;/em&gt; we can translate 'need to' or 'want to' as 'will'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-11T02:49:04.640" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T02:49:04.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32244" CreationDate="2018-12-11T01:58:35.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;grammar topic &lt;strong&gt;能愿动词&lt;/strong&gt; :  ,see e.g. ＂图解基础汉语语法＂42 能愿动词 （一）想、要、得 １。＂想＂和＂要＂都可以表示愿望和打算。格式 想／要＋做什么 她想／要继续学习，她想／要当博士，现在不想工作。A：下课后你去哪儿？B：我要去银行。你去吗？A：我不想去，我要去图书馆。 &lt;strong&gt;注意&lt;/strong&gt;／Attention：&lt;strong&gt;表示将来真要发生的事情，多用＂要＂。&lt;/strong&gt; ２。＂得＂和＂要＂（１）＂得＂有应该、需要的意思，也可以换作＂要＂。格式 得／要＋怎么样（做）你是学生，你得／要努力学习。（应该）从北京到上海得／要飞两个小时。（需要）&#xA;bkrs：要：V (3) 想要, 希望 [wish to; want to] (7) &lt;strong&gt;即将来临&lt;/strong&gt; [be going to]。 如: 要下雨了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T01:58:35.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32232" CreationDate="2018-12-11T08:10:08.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;还真是 = 原來係噉&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原來 &gt;&gt;&gt; the unexpected original/real (reason)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;係噉 &gt;&gt;&gt; is this (reason told by A)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;A: 佢自從遇到車禍之後就唔再揸車。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: 原來係噉，我以為佢唔鐘意揸車。&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20964" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T08:10:08.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32232" CreationDate="2018-12-11T08:13:08.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;还真是 = 噉至真&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;噉 &gt;&gt;&gt; this (reason told by A)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;至真 &gt;&gt;&gt; is the unexpected real (reason)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;A: 佢自從遇到車禍之後就唔再揸車。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: 噉至真，我以為佢唔鐘意揸車。&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20964" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T08:13:08.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32220" CreationDate="2018-12-11T08:45:40.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;厉害(lìhài)is used to describe the person who has a special and extraordinary skill, or is able to do things that others can't do, is also a widely used mantra praise in people's real life society.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jAVEW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jAVEW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;利害(lìhài) means the gains and losses.&#xA;These two words have the same pronunciation, but different meaning. So they are used in different situations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&#xA;Wǒ de mā ya! Nǐ zhōngwén shuō de zhème hǎo, tài lìhai le!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的妈呀！你中文说得这么好，太厉害了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh, my god! You speak Chinese so well! Amazing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&#xA;Léi fēng tóngzhì  cóng bù jìjiào gèrén de lì hài déshī.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雷锋同志从不计较个人的利害得失。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lei Feng never cares about personal gains and losses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20693" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T08:45:40.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32244" CreationDate="2018-12-11T09:48:27.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no future tense in Chinese grammar. Plans and expectations for the future are therefore expressed with words like 要.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think about it, saying &quot;we will go to the bar&quot; only means that you now plan or want to go to the bar. You can't know if you actually go until it's done. The English word &quot;will&quot; originally also meant &quot;want&quot;, after all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T09:48:27.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32253" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32258" CreationDate="2018-12-11T15:31:55.647" Score="1" ViewCount="877" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;患难见真情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A google search from sites shows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;A friend in need is a friend indeed&quot; (is &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; here meaning &lt;em&gt;during&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;requiring&lt;/em&gt;?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A literal translation reveals &quot;adversity&quot; while another shows &quot;adversity truth.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these the correct translations?  I understand a connection between &quot;adversity truth&quot; and &quot;a friend during need is a friend indeed&quot; in that &quot;adversity shows truth&quot;, but I don't see how &quot;adversity&quot; can mean &quot;a friend during need is a friend indeed.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20123" LastActivityDate="2021-05-11T14:32:28.633" Title="How To Interpret 患难见真情" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32261" CreationDate="2018-12-11T15:53:30.587" Score="7" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Li Zhi's 焚书 there is a following sentence: &quot;既目前无佛，他日又安得有佛也？若他日作佛时，佛方真有，则今日不作佛时，佛又何处去也？或有或无，自是识心分别，妄为有无，非汝佛有有有无也明矣&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am confused aboout this triple 有 with 无 at the end. Should it be read like 有有，有无 (&quot;there is what is and what is not&quot;) or something like that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17138" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-12-12T01:37:09.793" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T15:49:25.690" Title="what does triple 有 mean (非汝佛有有有无也明矣)" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32253" CreationDate="2018-12-11T16:30:35.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It originate from &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《醉醒石》（明，东鲁古狂生）第十回：“浦肫夫患难之交，今日年兄为我们看他，异日我们也代年兄看他&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this translate to : &quot;浦肫夫 is a friend that went through hardships with us, brother is willing to see him(or take care of him) today for us, so we'll go see him(take care of him) for our brother another day.&quot;?  患难之交 means friend whom we went through hardships together. 年兄 could be a person whom we went to take exam with to become government official, or could be brother by sworn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The expression means only after being through hardships together that one can see friend that knows you or &quot;real friend&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See this link: &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%82%A3%E9%9A%BE%E8%A7%81%E7%9C%9F%E6%83%85/33587&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%82%A3%E9%9A%BE%E8%A7%81%E7%9C%9F%E6%83%85/33587&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;It has English translation, but I think it is not very accurate. I hope this is mostly correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastEditorUserId="20803" LastEditDate="2018-12-11T17:17:51.667" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T17:17:51.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32254" CreationDate="2018-12-11T16:40:13.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not because your heart has(first有)  buddha,  there is(second 有) being and no being of buddha(有无)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T16:40:13.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32254" CreationDate="2018-12-11T17:56:34.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically you are right ☆&#xA;My interpretation:&#xA;有时候称有有时候称无，自然是本意去分开说，妄称有无，而不是那佛有有时有无时（一会儿存在一会儿又不存）的道理便很明显了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first and third 有 means &quot;have the quality of&quot;, the second 有 is opposite to 无, and they mean &quot;existent&quot; and &quot;nonexistent&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我方才看了整篇文章《焚书•答周西严》，这里做一些改正：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是一篇驳论文。第一节立靶子，第二节道理论证，第三节类比论证。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;驳论点为物物生而有佛性，区别在于自不自知，按今天的话讲，叫开窍不开窍。不开窍的，除了那些个土木瓦石无知觉，贤智愚不肖又太“专情俗世”，都是可以让他开窍的，按原文叫“以佛乘”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天下無一人不生知，無一物不生知，亦無一刻不生知者，但自不知耳，然又未嘗不可使之知也。惟是土木瓦石不可使知者，以其無情，難告語也；賢智愚不肖不可使知者，以其有情，難告語也。除是二種，則雖牛馬驢駝等，當其深愁痛苦之時，無不可告以生知，語以佛乘也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作者说了，这不对啊！那人的观点，和自知的就是佛，不自知的就不是佛有什么区别呢？我不晓得那人啊，他前半生干的事情，是出于哪个的主张（意思应该是，所谓佛性是什么东西他知道么），那不就是天天在用而不知道吗？不知道就算了吧，还说目前不敢莽撞地修佛。那么他目前不是佛，来日就能是佛了？来日修佛的时候，要是发现是佛，今日他不修佛他的佛又去哪里了？有的是佛有的不是佛，自然是他存心去区别，随便称有称无，而不是你那佛有的人有有的人没有的道理便很明显了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;據渠見處，恰似有人生知，又有人不生知。生知者便是佛，非生知者未便是佛。我不識渠半生以前所作所為，皆是誰主張乎？不幾於日用而不知乎？不知尚可，更自謂目前不敢冒認作佛。既目前無佛，他日又安得有佛也？若他日作佛時，佛方真有，則今日不作佛時，佛又何處去也？或有或無，自是識心分別，妄為有無，非汝佛有有有無也明矣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他说自己恐怕还成不了佛，他有胆说自己这辈子成不了人么？我不知道……（一顿推论）……既然能成人，怎么就不能成佛了，还要等哪一天来！天下难道有不是人的佛，不是佛的人么？假如一定要为官成家之后才能去成佛，那就是说成佛要等闲着的时候才可以，那就是说成佛有碍于事业咯。既然这样那你们这些人要去成个什么佛？既然这些个事都能阻碍成佛，那看来，这佛也没什么用处，那不是更加笑死人了？我才稍稍一议，你们就万劫不复了，啧啧啧！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;且既自謂不能成佛矣，亦可自謂此生不能成人乎？吾不知何以自立於天地之間也。既無以自立，則無以自安。無以自安，則在家無以安家，在鄉無以安鄉，在朝廷無以安朝廷。吾又不知何以度日，何以面於人也。吾恐縱謙讓，決不肯自謂我不成人也審矣。既成人矣，又何佛不成，而更等待他日乎？天下寧有人外之佛，佛外之人乎？若必待仕宦婚嫁事畢然後學佛，則是成佛必待無事，是事有礙於佛也。有事未得作佛，是佛無益於事也。佛無益於事，成佛何為乎？事有礙於佛，佛亦不中用矣，豈不深可笑哉？才等待，便千萬億劫，可畏也夫！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-12-13T15:49:25.690" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T15:49:25.690" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32253" CreationDate="2018-12-11T18:11:13.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would interpret &quot;患难见真情&quot; as: &quot; true heart (friendship) shows itself in difficult time&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When life is good, everything is fine, you may have a lot of fair weather friends; only in difficult time, you can see whose friendship with you are real.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家贫出孝子, 国难见忠臣 (when family is poor, you can see who is a good son; when country is in peril, you can see who are loyal subjects)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;路遥知马力, 日久见人心 (long road test the true strength of a horse; long time test the true heart of a person)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-12T01:21:51.583" LastActivityDate="2018-12-12T01:21:51.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32254" CreationDate="2018-12-12T16:48:29.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way of interpretations is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;非汝佛有                       （而佛）                有有无也&#xA;Not your buddha's existence    (That make buddha)    Have existence or non-existence.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if we briefly translate it to understandable English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;your observation of existences doesn't make buddha have (definition of)existence or non-existence.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if we put this back into the context of the whole sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;既目前无佛，&#xA;If there's no buddha right now,&#xA;&#xA;他日又安得有佛也？&#xA;then how could buddha exist in another day?&#xA;&#xA;若他日作佛时，佛方真有，&#xA;If buddha only exist when (you) practiced it another day,&#xA;&#xA;则今日不作佛时，佛又何处去也？&#xA;then where is buddha today when (you) don't practice?&#xA;&#xA;或有或无， &#xA;Exist or non-exist,&#xA;&#xA;自是识心分别，  &#xA;that's only your own observation in heart,&#xA;&#xA;妄为有无，   &#xA;that falsely declaring existence and non-existence (of buddha)&#xA;&#xA;非汝佛有有有无也明矣   &#xA;it's clear that your observation of existences doesn't make buddha have (definition of) existence or non-existence.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20982" LastEditorUserId="20982" LastEditDate="2018-12-13T14:43:29.387" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T14:43:29.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32262" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32272" CreationDate="2018-12-12T17:10:35.933" Score="3" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一些队员一样太好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this above sentence correct? My question is related to the existence of 太, which seems odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's wrong, how would I say &amp;quot;Some players are equally very good&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-24T23:59:38.490" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T00:00:52.150" Title="Is &quot;一些队员一样太好&quot; correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32262" CreationDate="2018-12-12T17:53:16.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is ”一些队员一样太好“ correct?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'队员' implies the players are 'team members'. If you meant players of a team sport involving a ball, you should use '球员' ; If you meant players of an individual sport involving a ball, you should use '球手'. If a sport doesn't involve a ball, then the people who participate in that sport are not called 'player' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'一样' could mean 'also'; '同样' is a better translation for 'equally' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;太 doesn't mean 'very'. It means 'too ~' or 'overly'.   &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'very' in Chinese is: '非常', '很' or '十分'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;to describe a player as 'good', using '好' is too general (it could mean he is a good person). You should use a more specific term like '优秀/卓越 (brilliant)'  or '有才华'(talented)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;some players are equally brilliant/ talented&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;一些球员同样非常优秀&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;一些 (some) | players (球员) | 同样 (are equally) | 非常 (very) | 优秀 (brilliant)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;一些球员同样非常有才华&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;一些 (some) | players (球员) | 同样 (are equally) | 非常 (very) | 有才华 (talented)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other choices&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一些球员同样(十分)优秀&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一些球员同样(很)优秀&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一些球员同样(十分)有才华&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一些球员同样(很)有才华&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-12T20:52:33.393" LastActivityDate="2018-12-12T20:52:33.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32264" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32270" CreationDate="2018-12-12T19:16:25.163" Score="6" ViewCount="1310" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Chinese classic 红楼梦 (&quot;Dream of Red Mansions&quot;), there is a famous couplet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;假作真时真亦假，无为有处有还无。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;jiǎ zuò zhēn shí zhēn yì jiǎ, wú wéi yǒu chù yǒu huán wú.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has been translated into English as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true;&#xA;Real becomes not-real where the unreal's real.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another common translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;When false is taken for true, true becomes false;&#xA;If non-being turns into being, being becomes non-being.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find these translations at best stilted, and at worst nonsensical, and feel they lack the impact of the original. I'd like to propose an alternative translation, but as a non-native speaker I'm not sure how much of the original meaning I've lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;When pretense receives credence, even honesty is faked;&#xA;Where vanity is given significance, significance becomes meaningless.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a fair translation? Is there some shade of meaning in the original that this fails to convey which either of the two previous translations are able to capture? I would especially love to hear an answer from someone who considers themselves an expert on the novel (红学家).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; I tweaked my translation of the first half and changed my translation of the last half:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;When pretense receives credence, even honesty is mistrusted;&#xA;Where we pretend to have, what we have is lost.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure if it's any better though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4500" LastEditorUserId="4500" LastEditDate="2018-12-13T01:25:02.210" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T01:33:44.457" Title="A better translation of 假作真时真亦假，无为有处有还无。" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32264" CreationDate="2018-12-12T21:26:11.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is the translation I think is most accurate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;假作真时 - when falsehood is treated as fact&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;真(亦)假 - fact would (also) be treated as falsehood&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;无为有处 - where thing doesn't exist is treated as it does  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有(还)无 - thing that does exist would (also) be treated as it doesn't&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When pretense receives credence, even honesty is faked&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Where vanity is given significance, significance becomes meaningless.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this a fair translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;When pretense receives credence, even honesty (would be mistook as lie)&quot; would be better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Where vanity is given significance, significance becomes meaningless.&quot; is a bit off the mark &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Where we pretend to have, what we have is lost.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are talking about 'pretend you own something'  vs. 'lose something you own'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not the same as 'pretend something exists' vs. 'something that exists is denied'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-13T01:45:10.670" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T01:45:10.670" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32266" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-13T04:19:17.770" Score="6" ViewCount="335" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently encountered 打不死 as the title of a column in a US Chinese language newspaper. Asking my Chinese language teacher, she gave the literal translation of &quot;beaten but not dead&quot;, meaning something like immortal or resilient. She wasn't clear about this being a common phrase (she's from Shanghai if it's relevant) so I would like to know about that and in what context it may be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20985" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T15:07:18.060" Title="Using phrase 打不死" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32266" CreationDate="2018-12-13T04:32:28.523" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;打不死 is of a fine, common idiomatic structure Ｘ不Ｙ, where Ｘ is some verb that cannot be completed, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃不完 (implying that there is too much food to be finished)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;做不動 (implying that you are unable to finish doing a difficult task)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;找不到 (implying that some object is too hard to find)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Immortal&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;resilient&lt;/em&gt; are the correct implied meanings of 打不死, but &lt;em&gt;beaten but not dead&lt;/em&gt; is problematic, as the word &lt;em&gt;beaten&lt;/em&gt; carries two slightly different nuances:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Struck&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;been hit&lt;/em&gt;, which is the literal translation of「打」;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Been defeated&lt;/em&gt; (e.g. &quot;I've beaten you at this game&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I hear the phrase &lt;em&gt;beaten but not dead&lt;/em&gt;, it sounds like someone's been in a fight and was defeated in the fight, but managed to escape with their life. 打不死 does not carry any notion that one side was defeated in a fight - rather, it carries the notion that one side is extremely resilient to being attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-12-13T12:39:58.697" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T12:39:58.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32266" CreationDate="2018-12-13T04:34:42.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;打不死 literally means &quot;can't be beaten to death&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simple translation would be  &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dictionary.com/browse/invulnerable?s=t&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;invulnerable&lt;/a&gt;&quot; ( &lt;em&gt;incapable of being wounded, hurt, or damaged&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'打不死' mainly describe a tough, resilience and often combative character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;James bond in 007 movies and John McClane in Die Hard are typical '打不死' hero characters &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike 不败 or 無敵 (invincible), a 打不死 doesn't necessary to be an overpowering character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-13T05:46:34.043" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T05:46:34.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32262" CreationDate="2018-12-13T06:14:46.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;一些队员一样太好 doesn't sound right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Some players are equally very good&quot; could be: 有些队员也非常不错 or 有些队员也非常棒.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T06:14:46.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32264" CreationDate="2018-12-13T07:37:27.493" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the quotes you give is from David Hawkes, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B002RI9D1K&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;published&lt;/a&gt;, translation. It goes as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Real becomes not-real where the unreal’s real.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also consider H. Bencraft Joly's, older, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tuttlepublishing.com/books-by-country/the-dream-of-the-red-chamber&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;published&lt;/a&gt;, translation of the sentence looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When falsehood stands for truth, truth likewise becomes false,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Where naught be made to aught, aught changes into naught.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gladys Yang and Yang Xianyi's translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When false is taken for true, true becomes false;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  If non-being turn into being, being becomes non-being.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-19T09:06:57.970" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T09:06:57.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32266" CreationDate="2018-12-13T09:35:38.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's often used as an adjectival phrase (打不死的xxx) as in 打不死的小强, meaning &lt;em&gt;someone who can not be defeated or killed&lt;/em&gt;. 小强 roughly means &lt;em&gt;newbie&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it's used as a verbal phrase, it means: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;one can not be killed by means of beating&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, 你打不死他: &lt;em&gt;you can not beat and kill him&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T09:35:38.303" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32262" CreationDate="2018-12-13T11:42:13.473" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一些队员同样很好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some players are equally very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to use  一样, then 一些队员也是一样很好的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太 can not be used in comparing context, it is like the superlative, no others are good like them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can say 一些队员太好了,  without a comparing adverb, like 一样, 同样, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T11:42:13.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32273" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32278" CreationDate="2018-12-13T14:21:33.853" Score="4" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%89%E7%99%BD%E7%8E%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉白玉&lt;/a&gt; is translated to English as &quot;White Marble&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that translation correct? Is it a form of &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E7%90%86%E7%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大理石&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if it is a form of marble then is it a valuable, expensive form or a cheap form?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And is there an English translation of this form of white marble (just as there is Himalayan Marble and Carrara Marble and Calcutta Marble and etc.)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20988" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:36:44.517" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:36:44.517" Title="What is 汉白玉 and is it 大理石?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32262" CreationDate="2018-12-13T14:41:44.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一些队员一样太好...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's sounds odd; we don't say that.  You can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一些队员同样特别好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wherein&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一样 = 同样&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;太 = 特别&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20859" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-06-25T00:00:52.150" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T00:00:52.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32275" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-13T14:49:55.900" Score="2" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I just say 常常/经常....吧? Or should I use 多？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;常常回来吧 / 经常回来吧 / 多回来宝贝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is there a better way of phrasing this? I tried searching the internet but couldn't find anything that resolves my query. Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2018-12-14T01:11:49.087" Title="How to say &quot;often&quot; in an imperative sentence? (eg. &quot;come back often baby&quot;)" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32264" CreationDate="2018-12-13T15:02:10.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My English skill is such a hindrance to my expressing my ideas ಥ_ಥ, so I put my answer in Chinese (I think OP can read it since he s able to read 红楼梦ԅ(¯ㅂ¯ԅ)) &#xA;确实是开放的问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甄士隐梦游至太虚幻境，见此楹联左右悬于门闾，固为所居神祗以自谓而醒人也。幻境于俗人为虚幻，乃不知其所实之人世于神仙亦为虚幻；举世无觅之处既在眼前，则此处亦无本有之人世。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是我理解的第一层意思。其次才是道德上的劝诫也好，隐喻也罢，甚至是小说内容的暗示。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这样看来就有很多可能的意义了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;首先可以肯定的是，这两句话包含一种观念上的对立关系：在相互矛盾的二元观念分类下，必然，事物在人的心目中非此即彼。然而，明显地，两句话从表述方式来看，对真和有具确凿的倾向，即认为真和有不是人人自有的应然而是客观存在的实然；而太多人先以为的真和有事实上是假和无，由于此对立关系，确实的真和有便排除在他们意识之外了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其次进一步认为，真与有的实然当视为一，其本质是人所实而逐之物的应然。说人话，就是“人应该将什么看作是好的追求什么”。曹公身出世宦，逮其世亲历破败倾颓，人生幻灭如梦之感，字字落实到了书中。我倒认为他的观念就是结果否定过程：具体说来，凭恃外物所获，终有为外物所夺之虞，所以这是他眼中假而无的东西，自然，真和有就是自发而自得的东西，便永无失去之患。从这点来看，就另隐了一层“将假的当作真的去追求，这真的最后也会转为虚假；将无的看成有的去占据，最后也会化作虚无”之意，就是说，追求上述假而无之物，最后要么失去追求的意义，要么得而复失。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外有人也指出，出现两次的此联在更广阔意义上与书的人物、情节的对立与矛盾相关，这就是另一个话题了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最后提一下，在今天人们用这句话的时候，他眼中的真与有，常常与前及而异；将什么当真与有，其对面就是假和无了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T15:02:10.583" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32275" CreationDate="2018-12-13T15:11:03.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's right,but we often say&quot;常常回来哦/经常回来哦/多回来哦宝贝&quot;in oral Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20859" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T15:11:03.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32273" CreationDate="2018-12-13T22:05:31.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the links on your post:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但制作雕像的&lt;strong&gt;白色大理岩&lt;/strong&gt;也称为&lt;strong&gt;大理岩&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(But the &lt;strong&gt;white marble&lt;/strong&gt; that's for making statue is also called &lt;strong&gt;marble&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'white marble' is one kind of 'marble'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'汉白玉'就是&lt;strong&gt;纯白色的大理石&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Han white jade' is &lt;strong&gt;pure white marble&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉白玉 is not actual jade, but a marble that is pure white&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is that translation correct? Is it a form of 大理石?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;is there an English translation of this form of white marble?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Search 'white marble' image and you can find many pictures that we would call 白色的大理石, but most of them are not pure white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉白玉 should be translated as '&lt;strong&gt;pure white marble&lt;/strong&gt;' and it is still a kind of 大理石 (marble)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;There is one &lt;a href=&quot;https://ariastonegallery.com/inspiration/hanoi-pure-white-bathroom/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pure white marble&lt;/a&gt; image I found online. It came from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanoi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanoi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Hanoi is in North Vietnam, neighboring China&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BA%91%E7%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;云石&lt;/a&gt;(cloud stone = marble) is another name for 大理石&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T22:23:15.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32275" CreationDate="2018-12-14T01:11:49.087" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Come back often baby!&quot; Depends I suppose on how familiar you are with 'baby,' but if you need to tell her this, probably not sooo familiar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I prefer: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Come back any time you like babe/sweetheart/darlin'!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你想什么时候再过来都可以，宝贝/甜心/亲爱的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A salesperson, a prostitute, a waiter in a restaurant might say to a customer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以后常来哦！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-12-14T01:11:49.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32280" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-14T01:50:53.263" Score="3" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking at negation in Chinese. I know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不：我不去。I don't want to go.  不多：他话不多。He doesn't talk much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没：他没去美国。He didn't go to America.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未：未必：not necessarily&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;否：不管我们喜欢与否，Whether we like it or not, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无：无处不有 everywhere&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非：非常 unusual 非法 illegal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other ways of negating in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-12-14T03:30:06.843" Title="Ways of negating statements in Chinese" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32280" CreationDate="2018-12-14T02:51:23.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few more I can think of: 勿（勿忘我），莫（爱莫能助），毋（毋庸置疑），别 （别烦我）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-12-14T02:51:23.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32280" CreationDate="2018-12-14T03:14:30.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far we have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 (no), 不是(isn't)，不能 (unable)，不可(can't)，不得 (can't/not allow)，不許 (not allow)，不行 (can't)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;否 (negative)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没 (didn't; had not)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未 (have not)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无 (without)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非 (is not)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勿, 莫, 毋, 别 (don't)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can think of one more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;休(give up/ &lt;strong&gt;don't&lt;/strong&gt;): 休要 (don't); 休想 (don't hope to/ don't think about);休得無禮 (don't be rude)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;難 (difficult): as an adverb virtually means 'can't'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;e.g. 難敵 (can't win against); 難忘 (can't forget)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-14T03:30:06.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32283" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32284" CreationDate="2018-12-14T16:30:00.023" Score="-1" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone please translate this paragraph from &lt;a href=&quot;https://life.mingpao.com/chi/article?issue=20150925&amp;amp;nodeid=1508563418627&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this essay&lt;/a&gt; by 余光中.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(第27段) 對着珠江口這一盤盤的青山，一灣灣的碧海，對着這一片南天的福地，我當風默許：無論我曾在何處，會在何處，這片心永遠縈迴在此地，在此刻踏着的這塊土上，愛新覺羅不要了，伊麗莎白保不了的這塊土上，正如它永遠向東，縈迴着一座島嶼，向北，縈迴着一片無窮的大地。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this OK?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Paragraph 27) Against the Pearl River Estuary, the Qingshan Mountain, the blue sea of ​​Yiwan Bay, facing this piece of Nantian's blessed land, I am acquiesced: no matter where I used to be, my heart will forever return to this place, at this moment on the soil, Ai Xinjue Luo does not want to, &lt;strong&gt;the soil that Elizabeth can't keep&lt;/strong&gt;, just as it always goes east, and returns to an island, heading north, and returning to an endless land.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20988" LastEditorUserId="20988" LastEditDate="2018-12-15T02:47:21.603" LastActivityDate="2018-12-15T02:47:21.603" Title="飛鵝山 final paragraph translation to English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32283" CreationDate="2018-12-14T18:27:39.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;珠江口盆地 Pearl River mouth basin&#xA;愛新覺羅 Aisin Gioro literally perhaps:&#xA;（section 27) Facing Pearl River mouth basin, these discs of green hills, these bays of green waters, facing this strip of southern fertile land, braving the wind I silently agree, no matter where I have been, where I will be, my thoughts will always hover at this place, the stretch of ground I am treading on at this instant, Aisin Gioro (the Qing dynasty) may be no more, (Queen) Elizabeth (II) may not be able to hold on to this piece of land, just as toward East they  always hover on some isle, toward North on some boundless land.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2018-12-14T18:27:39.177" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32285" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-14T22:52:06.493" Score="0" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/di5Pw.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hello! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering whether this symbol meant anything? I tried to search on Google and even used the image search on Google translate but nothing came back. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20991" LastActivityDate="2018-12-16T13:19:49.330" Title="Please may someone tell me what this symbol means?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32286" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-15T02:16:31.400" Score="4" ViewCount="1817" Body="&lt;p&gt;My English name does not transliterate well to Mandarin, so I'm choosing a Chinese name. I want it to evoke wisdom, inner strength, peace, beautiful and serene elements of nature, and poetry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm new to Chinese. I'm positive my clumsy attempts at a name will reflect that. After some research, I've put together this list that I think sound beautiful and have fascinating meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you tell me if these words are recognizable as Chinese names? Would they sound overly unusual for a female? Are any incorrect or have confusing alternate meanings? What would be a native speaker's perception of these names?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surname is 谷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;送慧 Songhui - &quot;bearing wisdom.&quot; I hope this doesn't sound pretentious, but I like names that honor wisdom, and I think it sounds lovely.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;秋月Qiuyue - autumn moon. I was born at night in the autumn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;和凤 Fènghé - gentle Phoenix. The Chinese Phoenix is majestic and generally a symbol of female ideals / yin / the empress. The double meaning lies in the fact that the Phoenix is sometimes used for my zodiac, the rooster.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;智慧 Zhìhuì - resourcefulness, wisdom, cleverness. I LOVE the series 天盛长歌 (Rise of Phoenixes on Netflix) where the main character is named 凤知微 (Feng Zhiwei). This name echoes that character I admire and contains the admirable qualities I aspire to have.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;美惠 Meihui -  beautiful wisdom. Is this a common name?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;凤智 Fèngzhì -  wise Phoenix. I'm concerned of being conceited here too, but the symbolism is beautiful. This name also reminds me of Feng Zhiwei, at least phonetically.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Zhìfèng 智凤 wise Phoenix. Reverse of above.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I being clumsy with the language? Are any of these names acceptable and beautiful to a native speaker?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20990" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T08:43:43.800" Title="Help me choose a Chinese name from a list of ideas" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32286" CreationDate="2018-12-15T02:44:18.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personal opinion: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A bit of pretentious, as you said. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Great one. This is also very easy for people to infer that you are female. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Great. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We generally do not use a 2 character word as names. Usually people choose 2 characters to indicate 2 meaning. However this is just convention. Choose whatever you like :)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My first impression is that this is a translation from a Japanese name. Maybe someone else have adopted this name. You could try it. This is also a typical female name. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;amp; 7. Pretty great. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, #3, #6 and #7 are gender generic. Although 凤 is the male, as in 凤求凰 [凰 is wooed by 凤]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2018-12-15T02:44:18.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32286" CreationDate="2018-12-15T04:06:45.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from the meanings, pronunciation is equally important to be considered(/ω＼). Roughly speaking, the first and second tone are 平声, and the third and fourth tone are 仄声. For a three-character name, it is not recommended to consist of three 仄声 characters, since it sounds a bit aggressive and monotonous. Thus I exclude 1,4,6,7 (5 is special, for 谷 will be pronounced as gu2 before another third tone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer 谷秋月. However, 秋月 is a common metaphor in Chinese poetry. There are more than half a thousand poems mentioning 秋月, so 秋月 gives people impression far more than mere &quot;autumn moon&quot;. If you have a special favor for 月, you might replace 秋. I come up with 谷怀月(醉倚梅花满怀月)，谷归月(戴月荷锄归)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, 谷知慧/谷慧知/谷美知(replace fourth tone 智/慧 with a first  tone synonym) is good as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I like 归月 most.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-12-15T04:32:32.110" LastActivityDate="2018-12-15T04:32:32.110" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32286" CreationDate="2018-12-15T04:15:42.427" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谷送慧 - &amp;quot;bearing wisdom.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'送' means 'send'. as a verb, it doesn't go well with a noun 慧 (wisdom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谷秋月 - autumn moon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although '秋' and '月' are commonly used in female names, the name '秋月' itself is quite unisex. I meant '秋月' as a man's name is totally acceptable. (remind me of 張淡月 in 鹿鼎記) It is a good choice nonetheless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谷和凤 - gentle Phoenix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和 could mean 'and' ; 谷和凤 doesn't sound like a name but a phrase 'valley and Phoenix'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谷智慧 - resourcefulness, wisdom, cleverness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;智慧 is a common compound word noun. It is quite unusual to be used as a name. Generally, people tend to avoid common nouns like 努力，勇敢 or 正義 when picking a name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谷美惠  - beautiful wisdom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds Japanese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谷凤智 - wise Phoenix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谷智凤 wise Phoenix. Reverse of above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both sound  masculine, and reminds people of &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BA%9E%E7%BB%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;庞统&lt;/a&gt;, whose nickname was 凤雏.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I want it to evoke wisdom, inner strength, peace, beautiful and serene elements of nature&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest 谷秋月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'月'(moon) associates with 'peace, beautiful and serene elements of nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-15T04:38:42.147" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32286" CreationDate="2018-12-15T05:42:20.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your candidates are all typical female name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;送慧 Songhui&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting name, 慧 is a very old-school character for name, but 送 is very rare in people names, the combination makes it unique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;秋月Qiuyue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very common name, One of my middle school classmate name, who is the dream lover of all the boys in my school. LMAO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;和凤 Fènghé -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very old-school name, tbh, 和 is in my father's name, and 凤 is in my mother's name. Believe it or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;智慧 Zhìhuì -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, I just describe the fact, but I strongly suggest you do not pick this one, because it is a word itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;美惠 Meihui -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sound like traditional Japanese name to Chinese. But absolutely OK. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;凤智 Fèngzhì -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It reminds me some Beijing Opera stage names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Many Chinese use poetry searcher to build name, here is what I got:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谷宜秋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is from a poetry by 李白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;&amp;lt;寻高凤石门山中元丹丘&gt;&gt;&#xA;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高松来好月，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空&lt;strong&gt;谷宜&lt;/strong&gt;清&lt;strong&gt;秋&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;溪深古雪在，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;石断寒泉流。&#xA;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can try it yourself&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shicimingju.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.shicimingju.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-12-15T05:42:20.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32291" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32292" CreationDate="2018-12-15T08:20:06.597" Score="7" ViewCount="1512" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“当…时”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“…的时候”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“当…的时候”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when referring to &amp;quot;when&amp;quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried to look for an answer but I couldn't find a clear one. When should you use each option?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2021-02-21T22:04:05.633" LastActivityDate="2021-02-21T22:04:05.633" Title="Difference between “当…时”, “…的时候”, and “当…的时候”?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32291" CreationDate="2018-12-15T10:19:12.753" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;当(~~~)时” is the shortened form of  “当(~~~)的时候&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;(~~~)时” is the shortened form of  “(~~~)的时候&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“当(~~~)时” = “当(~~~)的时候” = &quot;At the time when (~~~)&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;当 = at/ during&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;的时候 = the time when/ of&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;当(没有其他选择)时&quot; = &quot;当(没有其他选择)的时候&quot; = &quot;At the time when (there's no other choice)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can replace '当' with '在' and write &quot;在(没有其他选择)时&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;(~~~)时” = &quot;(~~~)的时候” = &quot;when(~~~)&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(没有其他选择)时&quot; = &quot;(没有其他选择)的时候&quot; = &quot;when (there is no other choice)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-15T11:01:57.733" LastActivityDate="2018-12-15T11:01:57.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32285" CreationDate="2018-12-16T02:23:03.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a character “立”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic meaning of &quot;立&quot; is &quot;standing straight&quot;. However, since the picture you put is a tattoo, it usually has a deeper meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;立&quot; in a tattoo can be understood as &quot;顶天立地&quot; which means when a person stands, his head reaches the sky and his feet step on the ground. With a deeper meaning, a person can withstand all kinds of difficulties and disasters and do their best to solve them, and the people around him are therefore safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20363" LastEditorUserId="20363" LastEditDate="2018-12-16T02:33:57.083" LastActivityDate="2018-12-16T02:33:57.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32294" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32295" CreationDate="2018-12-16T03:02:16.653" Score="4" ViewCount="638" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at this sentence 我把雪糖放在这杯咖啡里 and was wondering if it would be grammatically sound to say 我放在这杯咖啡雪糖 to mean the same thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19898" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-12-19T04:41:26.287" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T04:41:26.287" Title="The use of 放在 in a sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32294" CreationDate="2018-12-16T03:29:05.470" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first sentence &amp;quot;我把雪糖放在这杯咖啡里&amp;quot; is grammatically correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[我 - subject (I)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[把 - disposal marker that dispose the following object ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[砂糖 - object (sugar)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[放 - verb (put)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[在( ~ )里 - preposition (into)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[在(这杯咖啡)里 - relative phrase indicates location (into this cup of coffee)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence &amp;quot;我放在这杯咖啡(砂糖)&amp;quot; is grammatically incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be: [我放 + (object)+  在这杯咖啡里] = &amp;quot;我放(砂糖)在这杯咖啡里&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'砂糖'(object) is wrongly placed after the (relative phrase that indicate location) '这杯咖啡里'. That created a '[这杯咖啡 (n)]+[砂糖 (n)] situation'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it also missed the '里' in the preposition '在 ~ 里'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to put the object '砂糖' after  '这杯咖啡' , you cannot use the disposal  marker '把'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct form is &amp;quot;我在这杯咖啡里放入砂糖&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我(subject)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在( ~ )里(preposition)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在(这杯咖啡)里 (relative phrase- indicate location)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;放入 (verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;砂糖 (object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T12:09:33.020" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32294" CreationDate="2018-12-16T05:17:48.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;fronting object (雪?)糖 (食糖）is possible: 我食糖放在这杯咖啡里, grammar topic: prepositions（介词）, 在，e.g. ＂图解基础汉语语法＂介词（１）：&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;、到、给（一）在＂在＂主要引出时间和地点１。在动词前 格式 在＋时间＋做什么 在＋哪儿＋做什么 Attention ＂在＋时间＋做什么＂格式中＂在＂常省略 玛丽是在到了北京以后才开始学汉语的。 玛丽在图书馆看书。&lt;strong&gt;２。在动词后&lt;/strong&gt; 格式 动词＋在＋时间 动词＋在＋地方 玛丽出生在冬天 杯子放在桌子上Attention 只有部分动词可以用在＂动词＋在＋时间＂格式中，双音节动词主要有＂出生、发生、出现＂等，单音节动词主要有＂定、改、排、放＂等。&lt;strong&gt;More examples for  在动词后&lt;/strong&gt; ＂现代汉语虚词词典＂（w/o 把）大衣搭在臂上，手里提着书包，孩子留在［了］姥姥家了，钉在墙上，挂在树上、两手按在桌子上，永远的惭愧和感谢留在我心里（朱自清），有些爱花的人，大都只是将花栽在盆里，一盆盆搁在架上；架子横放在院子里（朱自清）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2018-12-16T05:37:53.600" LastActivityDate="2018-12-16T05:37:53.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23858" CreationDate="2018-12-16T05:44:18.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is another translator Yang Xianyi's text. Yang's family was a literati and a bureaucrat for several generations. Lin Yutang also was a famous Chinese writer, but Yang Xianyi was famous for translation and had already read many Chinese poets and Chinese legend stories even when he was young. Lin Yutang was born in China but got into American culture too early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also find the autobiography of Yang Xianyi. There was a research article on the difference between Lin's and Yang's translation. Based on it, I recommend this translation. Here are some Links below,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.worldcat.org/title/courtesans-jewel-box-chinese-stories-of-the-xth-xviith-centuries/oclc/1160311&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.worldcat.org/title/courtesans-jewel-box-chinese-stories-of-the-xth-xviith-centuries/oclc/1160311&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/962996046X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/White-Tiger-Autobiography-Yang-Xianyi/dp/962996046X&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2018-12-16T05:44:18.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31662" CreationDate="2018-12-16T06:19:31.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is almost same in daily usage, depends on what you want to emphasize, there are some differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我头痛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 去医院吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &lt;strong&gt;我吃药了&lt;/strong&gt;, 暂时不去.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context: 吃药 is a complete concept, most people won't add 了 between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 我好饿, 你呢?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 我刚才&lt;strong&gt;吃了苹果&lt;/strong&gt;, 还好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, either the action 吃 or the thing 苹果 is what you emphasize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-12-16T06:19:31.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32300" CreationDate="2018-12-16T12:29:20.497" Score="5" ViewCount="504" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, they both have the same meaning: have no time, i.e.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;对不起，今天我没空帮你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;对不起，今天我没（有）时间帮你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the first one looks like a quasi-idiomatic expression (have no air?); is there a difference in register, perhaps?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing that bugs me: 没 is mostly used for past negation, with the notable exception of 没有. Can I use both of those expressions when referring to the future?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:35:22.707" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:35:22.707" Title="What is the difference of use between 没空 and 没(有)时间?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32299" CreationDate="2018-12-16T12:57:07.277" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;「時間」means &lt;em&gt;time&lt;/em&gt;, but「空」means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;free/leisure/spare&lt;/strong&gt; time&lt;/em&gt;. Correspondingly,「沒（有）時間」means &lt;em&gt;don't have time&lt;/em&gt;, but「沒空」means &lt;em&gt;don't have &lt;strong&gt;free/leisure/spare&lt;/strong&gt; time&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While「時間」works in all situations,「空」does not; there are situations where using「空」gives a strange impression or makes little sense, such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我沒空打工賺錢 - &lt;em&gt;I don't have the free time to go to work to earn money&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;我的孩子沒空上學 - &lt;em&gt;My children don't have the free time to go to school&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above, by using「空」, there's a feeling that the task described is trivial or unimportant, which comes across as abnormal if the people around you would consider otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「沒空」is otherwise more colloquial than「沒時間」, which means that you should use the latter when presenting written work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「空」here means &lt;em&gt;spare&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;vacant&lt;/em&gt;, and by extension &lt;em&gt;spare time&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;pronounced in the fourth tone.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;Air&lt;/em&gt; is not the correct interpretation (and is &lt;strong&gt;pronounced in the first tone&lt;/strong&gt;), although it would be related to &lt;em&gt;vacant&lt;/em&gt; in meaning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For「沒」vs.「沒有」, see  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22524/what-is-the-difference-between-%E6%B2%A1%E6%9C%89v-and-%E6%B2%A1v&quot;&gt;What is the difference between 没有+V. and 没+V.?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-12-16T13:09:44.010" LastActivityDate="2018-12-16T13:09:44.010" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31662" CreationDate="2018-12-17T03:30:36.640" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese does not differentiate between singular and plural nouns as English does. Unless specified, a noun does not imply singular nor plural by default. Thus,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我吃了苹果 （我吃苹果了）&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can mean &quot;I ate an apple&quot; or &quot;I ate two apples&quot; or even &quot;I ate half an apple&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The grammar you mentioned is unknown to Chinese native speakers.  &quot;了&quot; when coming after a verb implies past tense, nothing less, nothing more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T03:30:36.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28244" CreationDate="2018-12-17T03:54:04.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some Chinese characters that are called &quot;象形字&quot;， meaning that each of them representing a vivid picture, like &quot;月（moon）&quot;， “日（sun）”，“龟（tortoise )”, &quot;马（horse）&quot;， “鸟（bird）。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some Chinese characters that are called “指事字” and &quot;会意字&quot;. They are somehow like what you had in mind by &quot;each character represents an idea&quot;. Examples of &quot;指事字&quot;  are &quot;一（one）&quot;， “二（two）”， “三（three）” “上（up）”， “下（down）”. An examples of &quot;会意字&quot; is “采（pick）”  that is a claw over a tree (木).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the above mentioned characters only constitutes a small portion of Chinese character set.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="20657" LastEditDate="2018-12-17T04:10:20.973" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T04:10:20.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32286" CreationDate="2018-12-17T04:03:21.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;凤&quot; in Chinese means &quot;male phoenix&quot; while &quot;凰&quot; means &quot;female phoenix&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to avoid &quot;凤&quot; if you are looking for a lady's name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T04:03:21.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32253" CreationDate="2018-12-17T04:19:35.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;患难见真情&quot; true love prevails hardships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;患难&quot; means hardships&#xA;&quot;真情&quot; means true love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T04:19:35.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32237" CreationDate="2018-12-17T04:24:19.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;和谐，harmony in general, especially in the sense of aesthetic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和睦 harmony among family members.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;融洽 harmony in terms of interpersonal relationship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T04:24:19.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32299" CreationDate="2018-12-17T04:40:27.373" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;对不起，今天我没空帮你 can be considered as the shorthand of 对不起，今天我没（有）【&lt;strong&gt;空闲时间&lt;/strong&gt;】帮你, meaning &lt;em&gt;I can't find any (free) timeslot to help you today&lt;/em&gt;. It's a casual talk, whereas its full version is a formal one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空闲: free time; spare time; vacancy; etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T04:40:27.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32237" CreationDate="2018-12-18T02:33:04.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;和谐，比较general，有很多意思。比如阴阳达到平衡。社会不发生冲突。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和睦，一般来说用于邻里间或国与国之间（Live in harmony with your neighbours），尤其指长期以来的关系。加拿大与美国关系历来很和睦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;融洽，一般用来形容人与人之间的关系，尤其可能预期相处会不好，但结果很好。小明转学后和同学相处得很融洽。朝韩两国代表会议气氛很融洽。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T02:33:04.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28244" CreationDate="2018-12-18T05:36:59.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this article: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/19929343&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/19929343&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese writing should be categorized as &lt;strong&gt;&quot;morphosyllabic&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&quot;logosyllabic&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;,「语素音节文字」或意译作「意音文字」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;文字类型（Types of Writing Systems）&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;非文字（non-writing&lt;/strong&gt;）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;表意图（ideogram）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;象形图（pictogram）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;文字（writing system）&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;表音文字（phonogram）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;音节文字（syllabary）/ 音拍文字（moraic writing）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;音位文字（phonemic writing）[1]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;辅音文字（abjad）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;元音附标文字（abugida）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;全音位文字（alphabet）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;语素文字（morphogram）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;语素音节文字（morphosyllabary）/ 语素音拍文字（morphomoraic writing）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2018-12-18T05:42:29.193" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T05:42:29.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32310" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32311" CreationDate="2018-12-18T15:34:49.167" Score="2" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started playing a game and joined a Chinese guild (luckily there is a rough built in translator for chat).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below pictured is my guild name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FtPF3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FtPF3.png&quot; alt=&quot;Guild Name&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I attempted to get the correct characters which I think are 有妖气客栈.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was told by, who I believe is an English/Chinese speaker in the guild that this translates to &quot;Tavern of Hex&quot;. If this is true, does anyone know what this is or its reference? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the characters that I have (有妖气客栈), I placed these in google translate and it gave me &quot;Have a demon hotel&quot;.  Again, strange for only English speaker, but contradicts what I was told.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the correct translation and meaning of my guild’s name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21008" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-12-19T00:16:27.183" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T00:24:40.663" Title="What is the translation of my guild’s name?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32310" CreationDate="2018-12-18T23:54:51.927" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;有妖气 is a reference to the comic 十万个冷笑话(100 thousand bad jokes), where 有妖气 is a running gag, literally translates to &quot;there is evil spirit&quot; or like Toosky said, &quot;there is an aura of demons&quot;, 客栈 is &quot;Tavern&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The name of the Tavern is called &quot;有妖气&quot;, so the best translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;There is evil spirit&quot; Tavern&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Correction: Based on the comment, &quot;There is demon aura&quot; is the more appropriate translation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastEditorUserId="9645" LastEditDate="2018-12-19T03:34:00.713" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T03:34:00.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32310" CreationDate="2018-12-19T01:40:37.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Correct me if I'm wrong. Will &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Tavern hovering with daemon aura&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;The Daemon-Aura-Hovered Tavern&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; make sense in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-23T00:24:40.663" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T00:24:40.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32313" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32314" CreationDate="2018-12-19T06:23:06.587" Score="3" ViewCount="1681" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;路漫漫其修远兮，吾将上下而求索&quot; is a verse in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qu_Yuan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qu Yuan&lt;/a&gt;'s classic &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Sao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Li Sao&lt;/a&gt;. My translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My journey is so hard and nearly endless, I will keep going forward until I get to the end in someday. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21011" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T13:55:22.510" Title="How to translate the famous saying &quot;路漫漫其修远兮，吾将上下而求索&quot; in Li Sao?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32313" CreationDate="2018-12-19T08:38:21.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Wiki link you provided had the following reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Stephen Owen (1996). An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (New York: W.W. Norton): 162–75.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Page 169 of the book contains the following section:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YzxGv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YzxGv.png&quot; alt=&quot;picture&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I bade sun-driver Xi-he, to pause in her pace,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  to stand off from Yan-zi and not to draw night.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  On and on stretched my road, long it was and far,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I would go high and go low in this search that I made&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 路曼曼其修远兮，吾将上下而求索 matches up with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On and on stretched my road, long it was and far,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I would go high and go low in this search that I made&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That at least makes one published translation, that you can use. According to the &lt;em&gt;Translations into Western languages&lt;/em&gt; on the Wikipedia page, this is, also, the most recent translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bs.dayabook.com/poetry/chu-ci-songs-of-the-south/encountering-sorrow&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Other translations include&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;James Legge's:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The way was long, and distant far was my goal; I would ascend and descend, pursuing my search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;David Hawkes': &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Long, long had been my road and far, far was the journey; I would go up and down to seek my heart's desire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yang Hsien-yi's:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The way was long, and wrapped in gloom did seem, As I urged on to seek my vanished dream.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Monica Eileen Mclellan Zikpi's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The road long, long, such vast distance —— I will go above and below in pursuit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;David Hawkes' translation is also cited in Pleco's PLC dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;路漫漫其修远兮, 吾将上下而求索。(屈原《离骚》)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  lù mànmàn qí xiū yuǎn xī, wú jiāng shàng-xià ér qiú suǒ.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Long, long had been my road and far, far was the journey; | I would go up and down to seek my heart’s desire. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-19T08:50:43.997" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T08:50:43.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32286" CreationDate="2018-12-19T08:43:43.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;About &quot;智慧&quot;, I suggest other options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;千惠&quot;, or &quot;千慧&quot;&#xA;Those names are used for female often. They all means &lt;code&gt;wise&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13824" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T08:43:43.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32316" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32317" CreationDate="2018-12-19T13:34:05.373" Score="4" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anyone know the difference between these two verbs? Both seem to mean 'to care for'. Google image search seems to show more Mother/children/illness care for 照顾, but 安慰 also seems to be largely person based (as opposed to caring for a sofa by not leaving dirty plates on it!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2018-12-20T00:47:36.600" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T17:32:20.400" Title="照顾 vs 安慰 zhaogu vs anwei" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2018-12-19T13:43:29.843" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;安慰 (anwei) is used for mental care, similar in meaning to &quot;comfort/consolation&quot;. &#xA;照顾 (zhaogu) is used for daily care, like that of parents towards kids, nanny towards a baby, nurse towards patients, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typical use:&#xA;他生气了，我安慰他。(He's upset, so I comfort him.)&#xA;他生病了，我照顾他。(He's sick, so I took care of him.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21012" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-23T00:52:22.437" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T00:52:22.437" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2018-12-19T14:06:28.310" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;• 安慰 = comfort&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• 照顾 = to look after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;’s definition and sample sentence for 安慰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;comfort; console&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;安慰她几句。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ānwèi ²tā jǐ jù.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Say a few words to comfort her.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;’s definition of 照顾:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 look after; care for; attend to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 consider; take into account&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;特殊情况可以照顾。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tèshū qíngkuàng kẹ̌yǐ zhàogu.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  We'll give consideration to special cases.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 TRAD.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  patronize (as a customer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-19T15:17:44.707" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T15:17:44.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32319" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-19T22:35:25.297" Score="5" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depression is a word used to describe a 人 who feels a sadness that is buried deeply in heart and mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What word is used to refer to this kind of depression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can think of any idioms or sayings that relates to the word 'depression' in Chinese, I would appreciate your sharing of it in the comments too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21015" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T13:48:57.817" Title="How to refer to 'depression' in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32319" CreationDate="2018-12-19T22:49:41.677" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The common term would be 抑郁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a type of mental disorder in that name, called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;major depressive disorder&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you are not referring to the disease, you would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我觉得有些沮丧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我觉得有点压抑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T22:49:41.677" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32321" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32322" CreationDate="2018-12-20T01:55:29.933" Score="6" ViewCount="1162" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this expression the other day :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我简直不敢相信！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I failed to get what it means and looked for its meaning on the Google translate and it told me that the meaning of this sentence is : &quot;I can't believe it&quot;. I didn't feel sure thus trying other translation machines but the result is the same, they all told me that &quot;我简直不敢相信！&quot; means &quot;I can't believe it&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is... I don't get it how that sentence means &quot;I can't believe it&quot;. Especially the &quot;(不)敢&quot; part. What does it have anything to do with &quot;I can't believe it&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, why is it not written as &quot;我不能相信它/这个&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T07:42:32.160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T07:42:32.160" Title="How is 我简直不敢相信！ translated as &quot;I can't believe it!&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32321" CreationDate="2018-12-20T02:06:11.403" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;我簡直不敢相信 translates literally to &lt;em&gt;I simply don’t dare to believe [it]&lt;/em&gt;. You can translate this to English using &lt;em&gt;I can’t believe it!&lt;/em&gt;, with an exclamation mark at the end to capture the mood. You say this when something outrageous or ridiculous has happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不能相信 sounds like &lt;em&gt;I’m unable to believe [it]&lt;/em&gt;, and doesn’t really capture the same mood. You may say this if you’re refusing to believe something, maybe because of lack of evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-12-20T02:06:11.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32321" CreationDate="2018-12-20T08:08:31.110" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;简直不敢相信 in Chinese sounds like &lt;em&gt;something is hard to believe&lt;/em&gt;. The synonym could be: 难以置信. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another similar phrase 你敢信吗？，meaning &lt;em&gt;Do you truly believe it?&lt;/em&gt; implying something is so incredible it's hard to believe it's true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-12-20T08:30:17.577" LastActivityDate="2018-12-20T08:30:17.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32324" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32335" CreationDate="2018-12-20T10:23:37.950" Score="3" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching &lt;a href=&quot;https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTMwMzI3MjI0.html?spm=a2h0k.11417342.soresults.dselectbutton&amp;amp;s=e74195de5e6311e0a046&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;episode 2 of 戳锅漏&lt;/a&gt; when I came across this sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sp9rw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sp9rw.png&quot; alt=&quot;image&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;兔子的爹跑得还快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/587298614.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This question&lt;/a&gt; on Baidu Zhidao also talks about something similar, asking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的团长我的团中 有一句话叫 王连胜 你就是兔子他爹 是什麽意思啊[？]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One answer says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;骂人说：“你比兔子的爹还跑的快。“&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  该明白了吧？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variant 兔子它爹 also seems somewhat common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book《&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=EOy1CgAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PT78&amp;amp;lpg=PT78&amp;amp;dq=%22%E5%85%94%E5%AD%90%E5%AE%83%E7%88%B9%E2%80%9C&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=BkqPiddlF9&amp;amp;sig=f6OIC0aUAdovi4R3Z77fErKyZWY&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwiGuqeXk67fAhUewcQHHVnPCQIQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%22%E5%85%94%E5%AD%90%E5%AE%83%E7%88%B9%E2%80%9C&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;转世英豪&lt;/a&gt;》has the line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他在心裏慶倖自己比兔子它爹還跑的快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the book《&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=jSADBAAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PT89&amp;amp;lpg=PT89&amp;amp;dq=%22%E5%85%94%E5%AD%90%E5%AE%83%E7%88%B9%E2%80%9C&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=Vrw8RsUBzO&amp;amp;sig=pam5k__pegWM8wG_64c3vMXiagQ&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwiGuqeXk67fAhUewcQHHVnPCQIQ6AEwAXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%22%E5%85%94%E5%AD%90%E5%AE%83%E7%88%B9%E2%80%9C&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;符剑录&lt;/a&gt;》has the line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;妈的!那臭小子跑哪儿去了,比兔子它爹跑的还快。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also this entry on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jianshu.com/p/3946bec9d39b&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jianshu&lt;/a&gt; which has a comment at the bottom that reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们刚上四楼走廊，后来不知道怎么了，那两个女生突然跑得比兔子它爹还快！一边跑还一边叫，我正纳闷呢，然后我一回头——我们后面跟着一个黑...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The TV show is in Sichuanese, but the phrase itself seems &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; Northeastern, yet I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that people claim that you can use this to 骂人 is also somewhat confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What connotations does 兔子它爹/兔子的爹 have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-20T10:29:16.547" LastActivityDate="2018-12-22T09:07:41.887" Title="Connotations of 兔子它爹/兔子的爹?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32324" CreationDate="2018-12-20T12:24:40.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a little interesting convention in Chinese language. First, the screenshot you have, should actually be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表哥，你比兔子的爹跑得还快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To see what it means, let us go step by step. First&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表哥，你比兔子得还快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is straightforward and it means you run faster than rabbits, which run very fast, as we all know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then by using it from time to time, you are not feeling satisfied as before, you say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表哥，你比兔子的爹跑得还快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This time, you run even faster than rabbit's father! We know if for an adult rabbit, its father may become old and does not run faster. But, notice, the father here is not referring to a specific rabbit's father, it is referring to this creature's &quot;father&quot;! And it simply means whatever creature that runs faster than rabbits!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for regions using this expression, I am not quite sure. Personally, I am from Shaanxi and I do not hear people using this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2018-12-20T12:24:40.343" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32326" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32819" CreationDate="2018-12-20T18:29:36.893" Score="5" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the best translation to 「要看两千年的中国，去西安；要看一千年的中国，去北京；要看一百年的中国，去上海；要看十年的中国，去深圳」？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My version is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To find two thousand years of China, go to Xi'an; To find one thousand years of China, go to Beijing; To find one hundred year of China, go to Shanghai; To find ten years of China, go to Shenzhen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My second version is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To have a taste of two thousand years of China, visit Xi'an; One thousand years of China, Beijing; One hundred years of China, Shanghai; And ten years of China, Shenzhen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone make a better translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21020" LastEditorUserId="21020" LastEditDate="2018-12-29T03:15:42.223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T18:01:31.237" Title="What's the best translation to 「要看两千年的中国，去西安；要看一千年的中国，去北京；要看一百年的中国，去上海；要看十年的中国，去深圳」？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32291" CreationDate="2018-12-20T23:58:00.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;your  understanding  is  okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Abovementioned  example  is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“没有什么选择时，……”  is  the  common  sense  in  Chinese。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19573" LastActivityDate="2018-12-20T23:58:00.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2757" CreationDate="2018-12-21T02:48:40.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient Chinese, 太 means 'big', 'oldest/most senior', 'extreme'... The second meaning have largely fallen out of use today, but still survives in words such as 太郎 (the oldest son, mainly used in japanese),太子(the crown prince, usually the oldest son of the king),...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 太狼 is an intentional pun of 太郎, making the name 灰太狼 sound like a Japanese name 'grey taro'. Actually almost all characters' names in that show are word plays like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21022" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2018-12-21T04:06:36.353" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T04:06:36.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32326" CreationDate="2018-12-21T08:22:23.923" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;要看两千年的中国，去西安；&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wanna taste the flavour of China 2000 years ago? Go to Xi An!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;要看一千年的中国，去北京；&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wanna taste the flavour of China 1000 years ago? Go to Beijing!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;要看一百年的中国，去上海；&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wanna taste the flavour of China 100 years ago? Go to Shanghai!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;要看十年的中国，去深圳&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wanna taste the flavour of China 10 years ago? Go to Shen Zhen!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese is not native, I would say. Is it a back translation from some English language tourist stuff?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shanghai is rockin' and rollin', has not stopped at 100 years ago!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="23334" LastEditDate="2020-01-29T18:01:31.237" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T18:01:31.237" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32330" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32331" CreationDate="2018-12-21T16:36:11.657" Score="0" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone please translate this for me? I’ve had a piece of metal with this written on it for years but have no idea what it says!&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jlM8q.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21030" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T17:21:04.637" Title="Can someone please translate this for me? I’ve had a piece of metal with this written on it for years but have no idea what it says!" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32330" CreationDate="2018-12-21T17:21:04.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The text that you’ve copied off the metal is「信義」, which means &lt;em&gt;(good) faith&lt;/em&gt;, as in the phrase &lt;em&gt;acting in good faith&lt;/em&gt;. Translating the characters individually, it is「信」&lt;em&gt;(belief)&lt;/em&gt; and「義」&lt;em&gt;(morality, principles)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T17:21:04.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32332" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-21T17:56:04.040" Score="3" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where do I need to fix grammar? I know for a fact something must be wrong...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于一文:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你好!&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;祝你生日快乐!!! 对不起, 让你久等了。祝你年年有今日，岁岁有今朝。祝万事如意。谢谢你的万事。有机会的话，大家见个面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不但是我的老师还是我的哥哥。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我爱你♡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21031" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T02:46:24.607" Title="Please help me fix the grammar in a birthday letter 祝你生日快乐!!! 对不起, 让你久等了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32332" CreationDate="2018-12-21T19:40:11.367" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;于一文: 你好!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 于一文 is your friend, you should just use the first name 一文, and write: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;一文, 你好&lt;/strong&gt;!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like to keep English favor in your letter, you can add 'dear' like in English letter and write: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;亲爱的一文, 你好&lt;/strong&gt;!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;祝你生日快乐!!! 对不起, 让你久等了。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need to apologize for lateness, better put it in first, and write  &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;对不起, 让你久等了, 祝你生日快乐!!!&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;祝你年年有今日，岁岁有今朝。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase is kind of dated, and only suitable for blessing a person in advanced age or at least in late middle age. If you must use it, put it in a separate paragraph to emphasize your blessing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;祝万事如意。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No problem with this phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢你的万事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an attempt to translate &amp;quot;thanks for everything&amp;quot; but we don't use 万事 this way (the correct usage is another topic). The literal translation is &amp;quot;一切都多得你&amp;quot; ; However, &amp;quot;thanks for everything&amp;quot; imply &amp;quot;thanks for everything you have done for me&amp;quot; which shouldn't be omitted in Chinese, so the correct translation is &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;谢谢你为我所做的一切&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;有机会的话，&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you and this person rarely have chance to meet. If it is not the case, you should add &amp;quot;next time&amp;quot; and write: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;下次有机会的话&lt;/strong&gt;，&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;大家见个面。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds too blunt, I suggest &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;(希望)大家(能再)见面。&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;他不但是我的老师还是我的哥哥。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you mean: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;你不但是我的老师, 也是我的哥哥。&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爱你♡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese don't use to say &amp;quot;I love you&amp;quot; but you are not Chinese, so it is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my edition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;亲爱的一文, 你好!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不起, 让你久等了, 祝你生日快乐, 万事如意!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢你为我所做的一切! 下次有机会的话， 希望大家能再见面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不但是我的老师, 也是我的哥哥。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爱你♡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we only use 万事 at the beginning of a phrase. It acts like an exclamation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;万事有我&amp;quot; (I would deal with everything!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;万事都有例外&amp;quot; (There's exception in everything!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;见个面 (meet once) --&amp;gt; 能再见面 (can see each other again)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zyy wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I would say 兄长 is better than 哥哥。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider replacing '哥哥' with '兄长' and write: &amp;quot;你不但是我的老师, 也是我的兄长&amp;quot; if you want to be more formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, using '哥哥' is also acceptable, and it shows more passion-- consider the next phrase is &amp;quot;我爱你&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T20:04:30.717" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32334" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32338" CreationDate="2018-12-22T07:13:18.003" Score="1" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking for the equal word of &quot;to give someone space&quot; in Chinese and found this :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;给我一点&lt;strong&gt;空间&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if 空间 is the correct word though. 空间 means &quot;space&quot; but I think it refers to a visible one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the &quot;space&quot; that I mean here is like giving someone some me-time, giving them time to be just alone, or letting them do whatever they like without us being too clingy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, can I still use 空间 to refer to that kind of space?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T22:34:01.137" Title="&quot;To give someone space&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32324" CreationDate="2018-12-22T09:07:41.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你比兔子跑得还快 is a common expression, since we all know 兔子 are fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他爹 is acting like a 'damn' without cursing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You run even faster than a damn rabbit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rabbit are fast, the father of rabbit would be treated as faster, this similar expression are very common in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare 你比老母猪还能吃. to 你比猪还能吃.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pig mom sounds like 更能吃.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2018-12-22T09:07:41.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2018-12-22T16:16:26.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;安慰 &quot;make somebody 'not sad'&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;照顾 &quot;take care of somebody&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is quite literal in a sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm Chinese, but not a grammar expert...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21036" LastActivityDate="2018-12-22T16:16:26.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32334" CreationDate="2018-12-23T02:50:29.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure, the expression you had is correct and indeed used in daily life. There are however, some alternatives which you could use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请给我一点自由空间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请给他一些自由&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;给我一些自己的时间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T02:50:29.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32339" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-23T08:58:23.567" Score="3" ViewCount="748" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, both means “very”. I would like to know if there are any further differences that exist between them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2018-12-24T07:31:40.083" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T07:31:40.083" Title="Difference between 很 and 挺" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32339" CreationDate="2018-12-23T09:26:05.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, both of them are referring to &quot;very&quot;. But when you use them, remember there is usually an extra &quot;的&quot; after the &quot;挺&quot; + adjective pair. &#xA;eg: &quot;挺好的&quot; and &quot;很好&quot; both mean &quot;pretty good, pretty fair&quot;;&#xA;&quot;他挺好的&quot; and &quot;他很好&quot; are both correct.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also it seems to me that &quot;很&quot; is stronger than &quot;挺&quot;. So &quot;很好&quot; is even better than &quot;挺好的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21040" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T09:26:05.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32339" CreationDate="2018-12-23T11:02:27.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;＂实用汉语近义虚词 &lt;strong&gt;＂很（副）／颇（副）／挺（副）&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;［相同］&lt;/strong&gt; 都是副词，表示程度比较高，修饰形容词或动词短语。＂很＂口语和书面语都用，＂颇＂用于书面语，＂挺＂多用于口语。句末无语气词＂的＂时，＂很、颇、挺＂有时可以互换：（１）他的话很有道理。（颇✓挺✓）（２）没想到，他对我的这篇论文很感兴趣。（颇✓挺✓）（３）小区离生态公园挺近，交通也很方便。（很✓颇✓）（４）他一个人带着孩子，挺不容易。（很✓颇✓）（５）大家对这件事意见颇多。（很✓挺✓）（６）读了这本书，我颇受启发。（很✓挺✓）&lt;strong&gt;［不同］&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;１。&lt;/strong&gt;＂挺＂修饰的词语后面可以有＂的＂，＂很、颇＂修饰的词语后面不能有＂的＂：（１）这本书写得挺有意思的，你有空看看吧。（很✗颇✗）（２）瞧这姐妹俩，挺亲热的。（很✗颇✗）（３）老是麻烦你们，挺不好意思的。（很✗颇✗）（４）你这只小手挺脏的，快去洗洗。（很✗颇✗）（５）儿子懂事了，妈妈挺高兴的。（很✗颇✗）（６）马云飞挺重感情，你应该相信他。（很✗颇✗）&lt;strong&gt;２。&lt;/strong&gt;＂很、颇＂可以跟＂有点、有些＂连用，＂挺＂不能：（１）事情闹成这样，张明很有点后悔。（颇✓挺✗）（２）没打好比赛，她心里很有些难过。（颇✓挺✗）                                        &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T11:02:27.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32339" CreationDate="2018-12-23T11:51:07.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, 很 is more like 'quite', 挺 like 'fairly'. E.g. 很好： quite good; 挺好： fairly good;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'very' would be '非常'. E.g. 非常好： very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare these three pairs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你人挺好 -- you are fairly nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你人很好 -- you are quite nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你人非常好 -- you are very nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No doubt I would like to hear most: 你人非常好 -- you are very nice. Compare the first two, I definitely prefer to hear: 你人很好 -- you are quite nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T01:55:39.627" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32339" CreationDate="2018-12-23T13:52:23.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;挺 is most used in casual conversations while 很 is used mostly in formal writings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21042" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T13:52:23.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32326" CreationDate="2018-12-23T14:09:30.737" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To see how China looks like two thousand years ago, you'd visit Xi'an. To see the look of China one thousand years ago, you'd visit Beijing. To see the look of China one hundred years ago, visit Shanghai. To see the look of China 10 years ago, Visit Shenzhen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21042" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T14:09:30.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32313" CreationDate="2018-12-23T14:14:58.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;路漫漫其修远兮，吾将上下而求索 -- The path is narrow and too long to see the end. But I will seek for it in backs and forths. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21042" LastEditorUserId="21042" LastEditDate="2018-12-23T14:21:09.643" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T14:21:09.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32346" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-23T16:16:24.230" Score="2" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the dictionaries, the character 绍 means &quot;to carry on, to continue&quot;. Looking at its etymology, I found nowhere saying nothing else from it being composed of silk (纟) and the sound 召 [zhao]. Even back in the days it had the meaning &quot;to inherit, to carry on a tradition&quot; and I can't see where the silk comes in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from that, where does the meaning &quot;to carry on, to continue&quot; relates to the word 介绍? It seems today 绍 is mostly used in the word 介绍 and in city names, like in 绍兴.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Questions:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1 - Why does 绍 have a silk in it?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2 - What's the meaning of 绍 in 介绍?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T23:22:02.413" Title="Etymology/meaning of character 绍 and its relation to 介绍" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-12-24T01:43:39.183" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32339" CreationDate="2018-12-23T19:09:03.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;極 = &lt;strong&gt;extremely&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很 = &lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt; /quite&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;挻 = &lt;strong&gt;quite&lt;/strong&gt;/ very (colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甚 = &lt;strong&gt;quite&lt;/strong&gt;/ very&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;頗 = quite/ considerably &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;挻 is mostly a colloquial term&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We can place all these adverb directly before an adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;極強 (extremely strong); 很強 (very strong) ; 挻強 (quite strong); 甚強 (quite strong) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;we need to add the adjective marker '的' to all these [adverb + adjective] structures before a noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;極強的對手 (extremely strong opponent); 很強的對手 (very strong opponent) ; 挻強的對手 (very strong opponent); 甚強的對手 (very strong opponent)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the noun is placed before these [adverb + adjective] structures, we don't need the adjective marker '的' (&lt;em&gt;except for 挻&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對手極強 (opponent is extremely strong ); 對手很強 (opponent is very strong ) ; 對手甚強 (opponent is quite strong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Even the noun is placed before 挻強, we still need to use the adjective marker '的' after it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 對手挻強的 (opponent is quite strong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We don't usually say 對手挻強&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;compound words: 極為; 很是; 甚為; 頗為, (挻 doesn't have one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-23T22:59:57.797" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T22:59:57.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32348" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32349" CreationDate="2018-12-23T21:38:35.157" Score="8" ViewCount="594" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just learnt a few verbs which use 乘 and 承 and was thinking that, not only do they look and sound mighty similar, but their ultimate meanings are both related to 'transfering' something. 乘 with vehicles from one place to another and 承 with transferring responsibility (承担) or transferring guilt (承认). &#xA;Anyone know if they stem from the same root? If so, how did they come to be different?&#xA;Hashamyim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2018-12-23T23:09:34.440" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T13:41:28.633" Title="乘 vs 承 - are they related?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32348" CreationDate="2018-12-23T23:03:12.267" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;「乘」and「承」do indeed sound similar, but an etymological relation (if any) would be &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; the time of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Old Chinese&lt;/a&gt;. They are unrelated, as far as usage or glyph origins is concerned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;乘&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「乘」was originally a picture of a person「大」climbing on top of a tree「木」; &lt;em&gt;feet&lt;/em&gt;「舛」were added on to the person later (Shape #2 onwards).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DcVNf.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DcVNf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;粹&lt;/a&gt;1109&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=6491&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集6491&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k3nj0.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k3nj0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;公臣簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4186&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4186&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EXcAE.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EXcAE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uBjUr.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uBjUr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meanings were &lt;em&gt;to ascend, to ride an object&lt;/em&gt;, extended to mean &lt;em&gt;to take advantage of [a situation]&lt;/em&gt;. It does not mean &lt;em&gt;to transfer&lt;/em&gt;, which is a coincidence due to its meaning of &lt;em&gt;ride&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;承&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「承」was originally a picture of two hands「」and「又」holding up a kneeling person「卩」. The kneeling person's legs were straightened (Shape #2), then replaced with another hand「手」to emphasise the meaning of &lt;em&gt;holding up&lt;/em&gt;, leaving behind a small shape representing the rest of the person (Shape #3 onwards).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/19Bgg.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/19Bgg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;後&lt;/a&gt;2.30.12&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=9175&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集9175&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HKe3S.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HKe3S.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;令狐君嗣子&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=9719&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成9719&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/izupY.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/izupY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;現代&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/InJ98.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/InJ98.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meaning was &lt;em&gt;to hold up&lt;/em&gt;, extended to mean &lt;em&gt;to carry responsibility &amp;gt; to inherit, carry on, continue&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;em&gt;To transfer&lt;/em&gt; may give a wrong impression if used incorrectly; it is only related in the sense of &lt;em&gt;to inherit, carry on, continue&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;References:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T04:53:13.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32346" CreationDate="2018-12-23T23:22:02.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just my opinion after a quick look!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 - Why does 绍 have a silk in it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/xs/7ECD.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/21/xs/7ECD.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;绍: (1) (形声。从糸( mì),召声。本义:继承;紧密连续)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say, 糸( mì) is not really silk, just a figurative thread, band or bond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doesn't a thread, for example, in chinese.stackexchange.com, carry on? The idea is not new.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;形声: 召声 is the sound of 绍.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 - What's the meaning of 绍 in 介绍?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4ECB.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4ECB.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;介：在两者中间: 介于两者之间。between both sides (friendship)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;绍: 连续 go on without stopping&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;introduce: the etymology is not clear, but may be:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;intro- means in (between)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ducere: lead (the one to the other perhaps)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall: 介绍： between (2 or more people) tie a bond which (hopefully) lasts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T23:22:02.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32351" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32352" CreationDate="2018-12-23T23:43:18.633" Score="3" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;For some reason, I imagine the difference is quite significant, but in which two directions do these verbs (辩论 and 吵架) go? How do they differ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-29T23:35:00.067" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T23:35:00.067" Title="Do 辩论 and 吵架 both mean &quot;to argue&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32351" CreationDate="2018-12-24T00:09:13.457" Score="6" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;辯論 means &lt;em&gt;to debate&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吵架 means &lt;em&gt;to quarrel&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They both mean &lt;em&gt;to argue&lt;/em&gt;, but 辯論 is more about presenting logical arguments in a cool, calm and collected manner in an attempt to derive a conclusion from an intellectual problem, while 吵架 is a chaotic and emotional argument with people getting upset.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T00:09:13.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32353" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32354" CreationDate="2018-12-24T07:51:09.163" Score="2" ViewCount="3715" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the most natural way to congratulate someone for having a baby. I know that 恭喜 means congratulations, but I think also 祝贺 means congratulations. Which one is better suited, or is there a better word I didn't mention?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="124" LastActivityDate="2020-10-04T14:10:32.327" Title="Congratulate someone for having a baby" Tags="&lt;congratulations&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32353" CreationDate="2018-12-24T09:50:29.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;恭喜 is more colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;祝贺 is more literary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both can be used as a verb for &amp;quot;congratulate&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;大家都去[恭喜]李先生家中添了個男丁&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;大家都去[祝贺]李先生家中添了個男丁&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Everyone goes [congratulating] Mr. Li who has added a son to his home.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 恭喜 is more colloquial, it is the one we use as an exclamation in speech:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;恭喜恭喜! 恭喜你們家中添了個小男孩&amp;quot;(Congratulations!! Congratulations on adding a son to your home)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;恭喜恭喜! 恭喜你們家中添了個千金&amp;quot; (Congratulations!! Congratulations on adding a daughter to your family)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;恭喜恭喜! is the exclamation (optional, but very common)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;恭喜你們家中添了個小男孩 (or 千金) is the detailed congratulations. This phrase can be used in speech or in writing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should only use the literary 祝贺 in writing. And you don't need to add an exclamation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝贺你們府上添了個小孩 (Congratulations on adding a child to your home)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Related term: 恭祝 (wish/ bless)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T10:01:50.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32334" CreationDate="2018-12-24T13:45:45.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chinese, 空间 also have the meaning of freedom, or letting someone do whatever they like. It does not only mean the visible space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21053" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T13:45:45.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2018-12-24T13:53:17.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We usually use chatting to 安慰，such as some fell sad and we should speak something to him to make him happy, this action like 安慰。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21053" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T13:53:17.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32362" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-25T00:29:05.463" Score="0" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I say “I looked for it until I found it“ or “I looked for (something) until I found it” what is the word that i use for “until”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21058" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-14T06:24:53.700" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T07:02:10.270" Title="I looked for it “until” I found it" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32363" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-25T00:57:06.940" Score="3" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently saw these phrases (from the song 我要你的爱):&#xA;你为什么不走过来 (I think it basically means: Why won't you come here)&#xA;你为什么不说出来 (I think it basically means: Why won't you say it)&#xA;为什么不肯说 (I think it basically means: Why don't you feel like saying it)&#xA;I concluded their meanings from context but am still confused as to what the meaning of their predicate is: What exactly does 走过来, or 说出来, or 肯说 mean? How would they be translated? Are they colloquial expressions? &#xA;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19881" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T02:59:33.000" Title="How do I translate these verbs?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32363" CreationDate="2018-12-25T01:14:45.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你为什么不走过来?&quot; --&gt; 你(you) 为什么(why) 不走过来(don't come over) --&gt; &quot;Why you don't come over?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你为什么不说出来&quot; --&gt; 你(you) 为什么(why) 不说出来 (not speak out) --&gt; &quot;Why you don't say it?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;为什么不肯说&quot; --&gt; 为什么(why) 不肯说 (unwilling to say) --&gt; Why do you  unwilling to say?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What exactly does 走过来, or 说出来, or 肯说 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;走过来&lt;/strong&gt;'  means '&lt;strong&gt;come over&lt;/strong&gt; (by foot)'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;说出来&lt;/strong&gt;' means 'speak (it) out' = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;say it&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;肯&lt;/strong&gt;说' means '&lt;strong&gt;willing&lt;/strong&gt; to speak/ say'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Depend on context 肯 could mean 'willing to' or 'agree to'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In English, you must put the question form before the subject. For example, you can't say &quot;you why don't come over?&quot; instead of  &quot; why you don't come over?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;However, in Chinese, question form and the subject can switch place.  e.g. &quot;(你)为什么不走过来?&quot; = &quot;为什么(你)不走过来?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-25T01:28:18.243" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T01:28:18.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32365" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-25T01:59:59.967" Score="2" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to find an excellent book on how to write mandarin well, something analogous to (in the English-speaking world) &lt;em&gt;The Elements of Style&lt;/em&gt; by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, or &lt;em&gt;On Writing Well&lt;/em&gt; by William Zinnser. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please understand that what I'm asking is not the same as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/549/are-there-any-style-guides-for-chinese&quot;&gt;the question asked in this post&lt;/a&gt;, which is seeking mandarin equivalents to style guides such as &lt;em&gt;The Chicago Manual of Style&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;MLA Style Manual&lt;/em&gt;. These two books are reference books that provide very specific rules for writing in one particular style. &lt;em&gt;The Elements of Style&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;On Writing Well&lt;/em&gt;, in contrast, are about the craft of writing more generally, providing a deeper kind of insight and instruction that helps you discover and develop a personal writing style. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also posted this question on Quora but haven't received many responses. Perhaps such a book simply doesn't exist for Chinese writing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21059" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T05:03:47.753" Title="Does anyone know of a good prescriptive mandarin writing style guide" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32366" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32368" CreationDate="2018-12-25T04:19:06.373" Score="4" ViewCount="821" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked my proficient friend if this sentence was 病句 or not:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我尊重中国的工程公司。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He replied：&#xA;Someone like a President could say this, and it would be OK.  Were a normal person (仆人？） to say this, it'd be considered 不礼貌.  Why is this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked him (we were speaking in Chinese) but I think I missed his point, so I'm asking the kind community here on StackOverflow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/example/blng/eng/%E5%B0%8A%E9%87%8D/#keyfrom=dict.main.moreblng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;usage examples on Youdao&lt;/a&gt; have what seem to be similar sentences.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在我们国家中工会受到人们的尊重。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Labour unions are respectified in our country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the difference the inclusion of 我？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T10:58:44.723" Title="Why is 尊重 considered 不礼貌 in this context?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32365" CreationDate="2018-12-25T04:47:58.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;About the usage of punctuations, choice of words, basic principles of writing, my best recommendation is 语文/国文 serial textbooks for primary and middle school students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On developing an elegant style of writing, there is no simple rules such as &quot;use advanced words&quot;, &quot;construct concise sentences&quot;, etc. A very important criteria is “文气通达”, which is, roughly speaking, sticking to invariant impact of your writing on the reader, instead of vacillating among styles thus making your writing inconsistent. There is a book I konw, however, discussing the craft of writing, in a more precise way, enriching the knowlege of Chinese language and literature. The title is 《文心》. written by famous educationist 夏丏尊 and 叶圣陶, the book targets on middle school students and teachers, so, it consists of lively stories about two middle schoolboys learning literature, devoid of boredom of listing rules. And the passages the mentions are worth reading as well.(/ω＼)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2018-12-25T05:03:47.753" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T05:03:47.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32366" CreationDate="2018-12-25T05:05:26.393" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;First you have to know the difference between 尊敬 (respect) and 尊重(respect)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尊敬 is respect with admiration. For example, &amp;quot;I respect my teacher&amp;quot;; &amp;quot;I respect scientists&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尊重 is respect with acceptance or tolerance, mostly treat as equal. For example, &amp;quot;the court respect the defendant's right to remain silent&amp;quot; ; I respect your opinion (although I think it is stupid); I respect women's right (although I think men are superior)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not go as far as saying it is impolite to use 尊重 when you should use 尊敬; it is just not respectful enough&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beside 尊重 is not 尊敬, the problem with the sentence &amp;quot;我尊重中国的工程公司&amp;quot; is that we don't know in what aspect you respect Chinese engineering companies. Is it their reputation? If it is their reputation, then what kind of reputation you are referring to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The topic: 'Chinese engineering companies' is just too general to pinpoint what is the respectable element, we need something specific, for example, &amp;quot;I respect Chinese engineering companies' innovative thinking&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;在我们国家中工会受到人们的尊重&amp;quot; implies people respect the union; not unlike the way you respect your neighbors&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;在我们国家中工会受到人们的尊敬&amp;quot; implies people respect and admire the union. We all know the union's reputation is protecting labor's right against big companies' unfair treatment of their workers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尊敬/ 敬佩 = respect and admire; 敬重= respect and value; 佩服 = admire; 尊重 = respect (as equal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T12:26:31.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32369" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32405" CreationDate="2018-12-25T08:19:15.170" Score="2" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;孬 is an interesting character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E5%AD%AC%0D%0A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; mentions that 孬 is a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(contraction of 不 and 好)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From it's structure it is also quite clear that 孬 is a combination of 不 and 好. From an phonetic angle though nāo, doesn't make a lot of sense, especially in relation to Modern Standard Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other dialects I've seen 包 work as a contraction of 不 and 好, which makes more sense phonetically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did 孬 become pronounced &quot;nāo&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T13:23:48.357" Title="How did 孬 become pronounced &quot;nāo&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32366" CreationDate="2018-12-25T11:13:01.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我尊重中国的工程公司 sounds fine to me. But I would expect, most likely, it's been said by foreigners,  because it naturally puts an emphasis on 中国的. The sentence conveys the idea that the speaker is impressed by 中国的工程公司. It might be because those 中国的工程公司 he dealt with provided good services, quality and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put it into a bit context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我尊重中国的工程公司, 因为他们有一流的建造工艺和良好的信誉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I don't see it being impolite(不礼貌) in any sense here and  a normal person is 普通人 or 正常人, not 仆人.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-12-25T13:13:05.007" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T13:13:05.007" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32366" CreationDate="2018-12-25T14:27:48.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am almost certain given your explanation that the reason why your friend said 不礼貌 has nothing to do with the original difference between 尊重/尊敬. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But yes, the meaning of 尊重 is a bit alienated in today's political environment, likely due to the abused translation from Respect to 尊重. Just as Tangho points out &quot;respect with acceptance or tolerance, mostly treat as equal.&quot;, this aspect of respect is 尊重, too in the reports nowadays. Daily usage of 尊重 is quite the same with 尊敬. But the word sounds a bit harsh, especially from a foreigner addressing something like a Chinese company, conjuring people of repugnant vocabulary of the politicians from the western world such as &quot;We hope Chinese government give due respect to...&quot; or &quot;We respect the diversity of ...&quot; etc. but truely conveying the intention of interference or exact the opposite of respect. Since in these cases respect are often simply translated as 尊重, inevitably 尊重 is alienated and should be used with discretion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And that means he/she thinks since as an individual, you are not on parity with a corporation, adding the marred meaning of 尊重, you somehow do not have the qualification to make such a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is similar to this meme：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LtK4m.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LtK4m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;A panda meme&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anything but 尊重 will do, sinse they don't imply ill things and arouse uncomfortable feelings. Or you may specify the reason why you respect it to substantiate your good will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T14:27:48.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2018-12-25T17:32:20.400" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;He's upset, so I comfort him.) 他生病了，我照顾他。(He's sick, so I took care of him.)[![&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&gt;&#xA; [&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kwl9n.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kwl9n.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kwl9n.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kwl9n.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kwl9n.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21022" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T17:32:20.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32373" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32374" CreationDate="2018-12-25T19:23:31.700" Score="3" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, the difference between these two. Am I right in believing that 催 is to encourage/urge a third party to do something &lt;em&gt;quicker/with more haste&lt;/em&gt;, whereas 促使 is to encourage/urge someone to do something &lt;em&gt;at all&lt;/em&gt;?&#xA;圣诞快乐!&#xA;Hashamyim / 罗云&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T05:51:30.267" Title="催 vs 促使 - cui vs cushi" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32373" CreationDate="2018-12-25T21:51:55.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;催: to urge; to harry (&lt;em&gt;someone to do something&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;促使: to motivate; to cause; to prompt (&lt;em&gt;someone to do something or something to happen&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;'催' has to be with intention&lt;/strong&gt;. e.g.  in &amp;quot;我催他快點出門&amp;quot; ( I urge/ hurry him to go out sooner). 'I' have the intention of 'urging him to go out sooner'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;'促使' has to be with a cause&lt;/strong&gt;. e.g. in &amp;quot;前蘇聯的威脅促使北約成立&amp;quot; (The threat of the former Soviet Union prompted the establishment of NATO) '前蘇聯的威脅' is the cause of 'the establishment of NATO'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note 1: '我' is the subject that applies the verb 'to hurry', it is not the cause of '他快點出門'. &lt;em&gt;the subject must have an intention to apply the verb 催&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note 2: there is no intention in '前蘇聯的威脅' to cause NATO to form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T22:14:02.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32375" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32376" CreationDate="2018-12-26T01:02:29.410" Score="2" ViewCount="2466" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a popular word in China. I know &lt;code&gt;舔&lt;/code&gt; means lick, &lt;code&gt;狗&lt;/code&gt; means dog. But it seems that the meaning of &lt;code&gt;舔狗&lt;/code&gt; is not to do with &lt;code&gt;lick&lt;/code&gt;, there is a sentence says &lt;code&gt;舔狗不得好死&lt;/code&gt;, so I think it's a noun. And according another sentence &lt;code&gt;舔狗舔到最后一无所有&lt;/code&gt;, I think it can not be translated as licking dog. So how to translate it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21011" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T01:42:14.747" Title="How to translate &quot;舔狗&quot; to English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32375" CreationDate="2018-12-26T03:06:39.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%88%94%E7%8B%97/22893799?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt; defines 舔狗 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“舔狗”，作为网络语的该词，其含义是指代那些无脑去奉承他人的人。通常有两种用法，一种是形容在感情生活中明知道对方不喜欢自己，还一再无底线的讨好对方。另外一种是形容毫无原则去阿谀奉承的人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for a translation words like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;kiss-ass&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;brown-noser&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;should work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T03:06:39.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32377" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-26T04:37:56.557" Score="3" ViewCount="482" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference between &amp;quot;忍受不住&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;忍受不了&amp;quot; in terms of their meanings?&#xA;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忍受不了噪音&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忍受不住噪音&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我再也忍受不了隔壁的噪音了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我再也忍受不住隔壁的噪音了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21066" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T04:32:20.190" Title="The difference between &quot;忍受不住&quot; and &quot;忍受不了&quot;" Tags="&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32377" CreationDate="2018-12-26T05:34:30.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;忍受不住: &lt;em&gt;you can't hold it up&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忍受不了:  &lt;em&gt;you can't stand it&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;I've had had it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忍受不住 takes the abstract things(such as feelings) as its object. E.g. 忍受不住诱惑; 忍受不住疼痛. For the normal object like 噪音, you should use 忍受不了 instead. E.g. 我受不了你了！; 我受不了这噪音了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the correct sentences from your examples should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;忍受不了噪音 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我再也忍受不了隔壁的噪音了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T05:34:30.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32373" CreationDate="2018-12-26T05:51:30.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;促使: &lt;em&gt;make something happen&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;催（促）: &lt;em&gt;To urge sb.&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The normal collocations would be &lt;em&gt;促使 + &lt;strong&gt;something&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;催(促) + &lt;strong&gt;somebody(+something) or bare&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. Eg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别催我，好吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别催了，行吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他天天催我给他买飞机票。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;深厚的友谊促使大家携手前进。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T05:51:30.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32377" CreationDate="2018-12-26T05:57:55.450" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;忍受 = to endure/ to stand (put up with)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question is about the difference between two particles '住' and '了'; It also involve the usage of a potential particles '得'  (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/21360/how-to-determine-the-part-of-speech-tags-of-words-succeeding-%e4%b8%8d-like-these/21363#21363&quot;&gt;How to determine the part of speech tags of words succeeding 不 like these?&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;住 as a particles denotes a verb is in a continuous state: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;忍受住 = to endure (continuously)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;忍受得住 = able to endure (continuously)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;忍受不住 = unable to endure (continuously)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了 as a particles denotes a verb is completed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;忍受了 = have endured&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;忍受得了 = able to endure (successfully)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;忍受不了 = unable to endure (successfully)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-26T06:03:41.640" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T06:03:41.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32377" CreationDate="2018-12-26T05:59:49.930" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;bkrs：&lt;strong&gt;不住&lt;/strong&gt; 1) unable to v. (also repeatedly&#xA;continuously&#xA;constantly)，unable to (resist, conceal etc)&#xA;疼极了！我忍不住了！ It's awfully painful! I can't stand it anymore 忍不住&#xA;special cases having their own dictionary entries &lt;strong&gt;禁不住&lt;/strong&gt;（承受不住） be unable to bear or endure:&#xA;这种植物禁不住冻。 This plant can't stand frost.&#xA;你怎么这样禁不住批评? How is it that you can't stand a little bit of criticism?&#xA;薄冰禁不住卡车重量。 The thin ice cannot bear truckloads.&#xA;（抑制不住; 不由得） can't help (doing sth.); can't refrain from:&#xA;禁不住笑了起来 can't help laughing; burst out laughing&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;按捺不住&lt;/strong&gt;to be unable to hold back&#xA;àn nà bú zhù&#xA;beside oneself (with excitement (anger; joy)); cannot control (contain) oneself; unable to contain any longer; cannot contain (control) one's excited feelings; cannot hold back; unable to hold oneself in check:&#xA;按捺不住激动的心情 be unable to hold back one's excitement&#xA;她此时按捺不住自己，料想一定是凶多吉少。 She could now no longer contain herself， and was convinced that some disaster was impending.&#xA;听到那个好消息时，他按捺不住高兴的心情。 When he learned of the good news, he was beside himself with joy. &lt;strong&gt;经不住&lt;/strong&gt; see 禁不住 similarly users may want to look up the following special compounds&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;靠不住 对不住 保不住 架不住 闲不住 挂不住 招架不住 吃不住 备不住 搁不住 打不住&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不了&lt;/strong&gt; unable to&#xA;（also without end)  find many more special cases of verb + 不了 at bkrs, however users note that &lt;strong&gt;忍不住&lt;/strong&gt; has an entry in bkrs (as one word) with frequency rank  &lt;strong&gt;#2326 !&lt;/strong&gt; whereas 忍不了 does not have indicating that the former must be more common,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;regarding &lt;strong&gt;忍受不了 忍受不住&lt;/strong&gt;，bkrs &lt;strong&gt;忍受不住&lt;/strong&gt; be unable to stand (sth.) apparently still more frequent than 忍受不了 which does not have an entry as a single word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2018-12-26T06:34:38.333" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T06:34:38.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32377" CreationDate="2018-12-26T07:41:39.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, both have the very similar meaning. If there were any difference, it would be too trivial. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21042" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T07:41:39.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32383" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-26T13:08:09.423" Score="3" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Literature Stack Exchange, someone recently asked a &lt;a href=&quot;https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/8889/2191&quot;&gt;question about the quote 大道無門&lt;/a&gt;, which was identified as coming from the collection of Zen koans known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateless_Barrier&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Gateless Barrier&lt;/a&gt; (early thirteenth century).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the answer given there,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“大道無門” contains a pun: the author’s name Wúmén is written with the same characters (無門) as “no gate” so the line can be understood as “Wúmén’s Great Way” as well as “the great way has no gate”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, 大道無門 literally means &quot;great way no gate&quot; or &quot;great way 'not have' gate&quot; (I wrote 'not have' because Chinese doesn't have verb conjugations). However, for a genitive construction (&quot;Wúmén’s Great Way&quot;), one would nowadays need to write &quot;無門的大道&quot;, inverting the order of &quot;大道&quot; and &quot;無門&quot;. Was this different in Classical Chinese, so that it was possible to interpret &quot;大道無門&quot; as the modern &quot;無門的大道&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2018-12-26T13:43:01.200" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T12:31:45.853" Title="Grammar of 大道無門" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32383" CreationDate="2018-12-26T14:46:26.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「大道無門，千差有路；透得此關，乾坤獨步。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that you only question about grammar, let's just talk about grammar. I found a well written elucidation, though, and paste the link here for reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ddc.shengyen.org/mobile/text/04-12/221.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;釋義&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.無 serves as a verb here, meaning &quot;there is not&quot;., as a pair to 有 in &quot;千差有路&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.大道無門 cannot be reversed and interpreted as 無門的大道. In Classical Chinese the so called genitive construction is typically ... 之 ... , I ve never met a case where a reversal indicates possession relationship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T14:46:26.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32385" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32426" CreationDate="2018-12-26T17:34:42.710" Score="1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some years ago in Manchester I was attending a English class for foreigners. While waiting for the teacher a Korean or Chinese girl was jotting down some symbols on her notebook. I asked what was she drawing. She answered me that she was just writing the numbers one to nine. She added that it was a popular and informal way for writing numbers in Asia.It was something similar to the west way: I II III but in asian style. The first number was just a stroke, and any new number was formed adding a new stroke. Anybody can show me this informal system? I looked for in the net without any success. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21068" LastEditorUserId="21068" LastEditDate="2018-12-26T17:49:22.970" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T18:26:37.503" Title="Informal asian signs for numbers" Tags="&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32386" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32387" CreationDate="2018-12-26T19:25:48.837" Score="6" ViewCount="1070" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry guys, but here is another instance to two very similar verbs, both meaning 'to wait for sth'.&#xA;等待: you can 等待 for 比赛结果/六年/这个天/孩子的降生&#xA;等候: you can 等候 for 出租车/飞机的旅客/两个小时/客人/上级的命令&#xA;There doesn't seem to be an obvious difference...&#xA;Anyone got any insights here? Thanks in advance,&#xA;Hashamyim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T02:20:52.210" Title="等待 vs 等候 - dengdai vs denghou" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32386" CreationDate="2018-12-26T20:25:26.290" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simple answer is : they are interchangeable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 等待 and 等候 are compound word verb with the same meaning, just coined differently&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等 = wait; 待 = stay&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等待 = stay (passively) and wait (for thing to happen or people to come) = 'to wait'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等 = wait; 候 = wait/ expect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等候 = wait and expect (thing to happen or people to come)= 'to wait'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of the minor difference in usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the component 候 has the meaning of (expect), whatever you 等候(wait for) is very likely to happen. e.g. 等候春天到来 (waiting for the arrival of spring)- Spring will certainly come&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While things you 等待 (wait for) may or may not happen,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等待春天到来 (waiting for the arrival of spring) - Spring will certainly come&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等待耶稣再臨 (waiting for Jesus to come again) - Jesus  may or may not come again, so just wait and see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say 等候耶稣再臨, then you are kind of expecting he will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T20:25:26.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32388" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32389" CreationDate="2018-12-26T21:08:04.470" Score="2" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just read about all the three &quot;de&quot; in Chinese (的，得，地) here in this website :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Structural_particle_%22de%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Structural_particle_%22de%22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 地's section, it's said that if you use a &quot;straight-up&quot; adverb, you don't need to use 地 at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet there's this one example sentence which left me confused :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;慢慢地走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Means : slowly walk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the question is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If my memory serves me right, isn't 慢慢 already an adverb that means &quot;slowly&quot;? If that's so, then why in that sentence, 地 is still used after 慢慢?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Plus, if this 慢慢 word turns out to be an exception (like, even though 慢慢 itself is already an adverb, I still need to use 地), is there any other exceptions beside 慢慢?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T02:43:58.120" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T02:43:58.120" Title="Why is 地 in 慢慢地走?" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32388" CreationDate="2018-12-26T22:11:35.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some adverbs require the adverb marker '地' and some don't. As you stated, '慢慢' can be applied directly before a verb without adding '地'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at the following two forms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;慢慢&lt;/strong&gt;走&amp;quot; (walk &lt;strong&gt;slowly&lt;/strong&gt;) simply describe the action, the focus in on the verb &amp;quot;走&amp;quot; (walk), &amp;quot;慢慢&amp;quot; is the additional information that describe how the verb is carried out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;慢慢地&lt;/strong&gt;走&amp;quot; (walk &lt;strong&gt;in a slow manner&lt;/strong&gt;) emphasize the adverb, the focus is on the manner/degree of the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It applies to other adverbs that do not need the adverb marker '地' too&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;急急逃走 - run away hurriedly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;急急地逃走 - run away in a hurried manner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用力打 - hit forcefully&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用力地打 - hit with a forceful degree&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;輕輕撫摸 - gently stroke&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;輕輕地撫摸 - stroke in a gentle manner/ stroke in a light degree&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T22:11:35.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32386" CreationDate="2018-12-26T23:37:03.433" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;＂汉语动词３８０例＂&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;等待／等候／期待&lt;/strong&gt; 例 释 &lt;strong&gt;一、等待&lt;/strong&gt;１。他们正在等待朋友。动词＂等待＂的意思是盼着所期望的人、事物或情况出现。又例如：a。请你耐心等待下去。b。我们等待着春天的到来。&lt;strong&gt;二、等候&lt;/strong&gt; １。我们在机场等候了一个小时。动词＂等候＂的意思是盼着所期望的人、事物或情况出现。又例如：a。他在候车室等候火车。b。等候看病的人渐渐少了。＂等候＂和＂等待＂的意思相同，主要区别是：＂等候＂多用于具体的对象：＂等待＂既可用于具体的对象，也可用于抽象的对象。&lt;strong&gt;三、期待&lt;/strong&gt;１。他期待着朋友的帮助。动词＂期待＂的意思是对事物和人的未来的前途有所希望和等待。又例如：a。我们期待着那件事情尽快解决。b。大家期待着他的手术能成功。＂期待＂着意于对未来前途的希望和等待。＂等待、等候＂着意在等着人、事物或情况出现。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;＂对外汉语常用词语对比例释＂&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;等 等待 等候&lt;/strong&gt; ＜动词＞表示不采取行动，直到所期望的人、事物或情况出现。&lt;strong&gt;（一）&lt;/strong&gt; 色彩不同。＂等＂口语色彩较重，多用于口语，使用频率较高。＂等待、等候＂含有不同程度的书面语色彩和庄重色彩，使用上受到一定限制。有时音节数量也有一定影响。只有一个音节的宾语，常用＂等＂；两个或两个以上音节的宾语可以酌情选择。例如：等车 等人 等米下锅  ＊他正在等待／等候车。＊我站在门前等待／等候人。他正在等待／等候汽车。我站在门前等待／等候客人。&lt;strong&gt;（二）&lt;/strong&gt;＂等＂可以重叠使用；＂等待＂很少用重叠形式，＂等候＂一般不能重叠使用。例如：我们等等他们，他们一会儿就来。＊我们等待／等候他们，他们一会儿就来。&lt;strong&gt;（三）&lt;/strong&gt;＂等＂在时间上没有长短的问题；＂等候＂在时间上相对长些。所以＂等＂可以用重叠式表示短时，也可以接表示短时或长时的补语；而＂等候＂后边一般只接表示长时的补语。例如：等一下，马上就好 稍微等一会儿 等你好长时间了 等了半天 等了好几年 ＊等候一下，马上就好 ＊稍微等候一会儿 等候你好长时间了 等候了半天 等候了好几年 &lt;strong&gt;（四）&lt;/strong&gt;＂等＂后边可以接结果、情况、可能等补语；＂等待＂、＂等候＂后边一般不能接这几种补语。例如：我终于等着他了。小李都等急了，你快点儿吧！这班车还等得上吗？快点儿！司机都等得不耐烦了！＊我终于等待／等候着他了。小李都等待／等候急了，你快点儿吧！这班车还等待／等候得上吗？快点儿！司机都等待／等候得不耐烦了！&lt;strong&gt;（五）&lt;/strong&gt;＂等待＂除用于具体、确定的人、事物外，还常用于抽象的、不确定的人与事物。＂等候＂则多用于具体、确定的人与事物。例如：她在等待中度过了艰难的四个月。他们正在等待胜利的最后时刻。他犯了错误，正在等待处分。＊他们正在等候胜利的最后时刻。她站在门口等候客人的到来。大家排好了队，等候出发的命令。我一直在电话机旁等候你的电话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also see online &lt;strong&gt;dictionaries&lt;/strong&gt;: frequency ranks: &lt;strong&gt;等待 #2429 等候 #6402&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T23:37:03.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32386" CreationDate="2018-12-27T02:13:21.197" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree to the answer of @user6065's. Tangho's answer is somehow off (&quot;&lt;em&gt;等候 imply you have high expectation for it to happen&lt;/em&gt;&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, on the contrary to Tangho's point, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;等待 implies your expectations or desires&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; because 等待 can be construed as 等候（wait） + 期待(expect). For example, 请你耐心等待下去!, 请你耐心等候下去 sounds slightly off. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example can be 我在等待她回心转意的那一天. 我在等候她回心转意的那一天 is a bit off because it doesn't have the connotation of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;being expecting&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, you might see it's roughly interchangeable in some contexts, but if you want to use them more accurately then you shouldn't overlook the nuance. For example, 等候火车 vs 等待火车, When you are at the train station, you would always hear 请到第xxx站台等候火车 and I bet you could hardly hear 请到第1站台等待火车 in this context. 等候 can be briefed as a single word 候， 请到第1站台候车 and you would never hear 请到第1站台&lt;strong&gt;待&lt;/strong&gt;车.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2018-12-27T02:20:52.210" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T02:20:52.210" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32363" CreationDate="2018-12-27T02:59:33.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are very common expressions, not dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你为什么不走过来&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Why don't you come on over?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你为什么不说出来&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Why don't you say anything / what you feel / what's on your mind?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;为什么不肯说&lt;br&gt;&#xA;why don't you want to say anything?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are easier to put into German, English has lost these kind of verb forms:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;走过来&lt;br&gt;&#xA;herlaufen (walk over from)  (her (spoken like 'hair': indicates from somewhere towards the speaker)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;说出来&lt;br&gt;&#xA;aussprechen (speak out = speak, say something) (aus (spoken like 'ouse' from 'mouse': out)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肯：agree, willing, consent, 不肯：unwilling, disagree&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不肯说&#xA;unwilling (to) speak&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T02:59:33.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32393" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32394" CreationDate="2018-12-27T06:38:14.763" Score="4" ViewCount="652" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a learner, when I see 再见 I see the literal &quot;see you again&quot; in the meaning of the characters.  French has a similar expression for goodbye, &quot;au revior&quot;, which also literally means &quot;until (I) see you again&quot;.  French also has &quot;adieu&quot; (lit: &quot;to God&quot;) which is more of a final goodbye.  Does 再见 imply you will meet again, as the literal meaning suggests?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Context that inspired the question: In a reader telling the story of 荆轲, it says ...荆轲正在和朋友们说再见。“风很大啊水很冷，勇敢的人去了，永不再回！” Which literally says, &quot;He was saying &quot;see you again&quot;.  He said, &quot;...[I'm] never coming back again!&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2019-01-01T21:53:52.870" Title="Does 再见 work for &quot;goodbye forever&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32393" CreationDate="2018-12-27T09:00:45.377" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does 再见 imply you will meet again, as the literal meaning suggests?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes 再 = again; 见= see; 再见 = (see again) goodbye&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;荆轲正在和朋友们说再见。“风很大啊水很冷，勇敢的人去了，永不再回！” Which literally says, &quot;He was saying &quot;see you again&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this third person narrative, the narrator translated the classical term '告别'(announce departure = say goodbye) to a modern term '说再见' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not too big a problem, because even 荆轲 really said 再见了 instead of 别了, that just meant he didn't want to state the obvious and pretended it was a normal goodbye&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;永不(never) + 再回 (return again) = 永不再回 (never return again)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does 再见 work for “goodbye forever”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, if you say 再见 to someone, it means you are expecting to see that person again. Although you can always pretend it is not a final goodbye and say 再见 like it is a normal goodbye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To say 'goodbye forever' you have to state it clearly, like: &quot;我们永远不会再见了&quot; (we will never meet again)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can also use '永别了' (apart forever = goodbye forever)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'永别' means '永远分别' (forever apart)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-01T21:53:52.870" LastActivityDate="2019-01-01T21:53:52.870" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32385" CreationDate="2018-12-27T11:45:01.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;i suspected it's &quot;花碼&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E7%A2%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/花碼&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jxwmz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jxwmz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the unicode has these :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 - 〡 (u+3021)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 - 〢 (u+3022)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 - 〣 (u+3023)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 - 〤 (u+3024)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 - 〥 (u+3025)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6 - 〦 (u+3026)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7 - 〧 (u+3027)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8 - 〨 (u+3028)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9 - 〩 (u+3029)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for zero ( 0 ), just write anything like an &quot;0&quot; (u+0030) or &quot;O&quot; (u+004f), or &quot;o&quot; (u+006f) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;these type of &quot;number&quot; is actively used in hong kong till recent decades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some pages talked about it's usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-cn.facebook.com/tcsince1915/photos/a.1657230367749275/2146011468871160/?type=3&amp;amp;eid=ARB5I3SCgyyKt9eNdUmCHpbrVbKlbG6wAjwaAYlK3tJF3VbjrZteYQhdBIEjQc79qIQcHQOQMrx-G0z0&amp;amp;__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARDOTg8CJGB0m-KfLsD4V4t0tU_Dkm-CRGdo7aIL3c9ujZ0Z7PMaCQveHHDUD0OfIC2RRXCia1w39TXjMsJOSRaz8ArswIHmfgIzkFVB81LH52iYD_fk_evIxWof-Ao6HKvC-jd1BFRdudkl0q8oTVBtC41Aw47wngbfZXHLEEY9gqP3mtCdlE_G_c9Ivq33JCJ_IVNsSIEtvH73Kq4hUfQqPHgXVIXljzXeUX6YhHfsRFt9XzExpKjBjnkH0PCB2qu7gEIffNcNwqRPQdWD4JAfeiZzTbQSeGhscdj1Pmhl8_FiKF90c7QfPG-4YumkLbaBtj0wcSqO1Wudu0D2B8Rfrjnx&amp;amp;__tn__=EHH-R&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh-cn.facebook.com/tcsince1915/photos/a.1657230367749275/2146011468871160/?type=3&amp;amp;eid=ARB5I3SCgyyKt9eNdUmCHpbrVbKlbG6wAjwaAYlK3tJF3VbjrZteYQhdBIEjQc79qIQcHQOQMrx-G0z0&amp;amp;__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARDOTg8CJGB0m-KfLsD4V4t0tU_Dkm-CRGdo7aIL3c9ujZ0Z7PMaCQveHHDUD0OfIC2RRXCia1w39TXjMsJOSRaz8ArswIHmfgIzkFVB81LH52iYD_fk_evIxWof-Ao6HKvC-jd1BFRdudkl0q8oTVBtC41Aw47wngbfZXHLEEY9gqP3mtCdlE_G_c9Ivq33JCJ_IVNsSIEtvH73Kq4hUfQqPHgXVIXljzXeUX6YhHfsRFt9XzExpKjBjnkH0PCB2qu7gEIffNcNwqRPQdWD4JAfeiZzTbQSeGhscdj1Pmhl8_FiKF90c7QfPG-4YumkLbaBtj0wcSqO1Wudu0D2B8Rfrjnx&amp;amp;__tn__=EHH-R&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hk01.com/%E7%86%B1%E7%88%86%E8%A9%B1%E9%A1%8C/52311/%E7%B4%85van%E9%9B%86%E9%AB%94%E5%9B%9E%E6%86%B6-%E3%80%A4%E3%80%A5-%E8%8A%B1%E7%A2%BC%E5%83%B9%E9%8C%A2%E7%89%8C-%E4%BD%A0%E7%9F%A5%E8%90%BD%E8%BB%8A%E4%BF%BE%E5%B9%BE%E9%8C%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.hk01.com/熱爆話題/52311/紅van集體回憶-〤〥-花碼價錢牌-你知落車俾幾錢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lihkg.com/thread/328698/page/1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lihkg.com/thread/328698/page/1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;when i was young, studying in primary school, i needed to learn 0-9 in english, roman numerals, chinese numerals (大寫),   and 花碼,  at the same time :(&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T11:45:01.443" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32383" CreationDate="2018-12-27T12:31:45.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;the following answer is based on my experience &amp;amp; knowledge only, other's mileage may vary. i would interpret &quot;大道無門&quot; as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the great (大) enlightenment (道) [is] without (無) gate (門)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in chinese, &quot;attaining the enlightenment&quot; is &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000041982&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;得道&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, or &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000124201&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;成道&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;therefore, &quot;大&quot; is an adjective. &quot;道&quot; means enlightenment, it does not mean way, or path.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the gate (門), is a metaphor of &quot;barrier&quot; which distinguishes external and internal&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for other sect of chinese buddhism; to attain enlightenment, one need to read sutra, speak mantra, beg for blessing from buddha / bodhisattva. all these activities are external, hence, on the other side of a gate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;according to zen buddhism, one would attain the status of buddha, with the correct mindsets. these involved one's mental / spiritual activities. such interpretation would be in line with zen's story, dialogue (公案).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, without a gate (無門), there's no external --&gt; internal rules :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;together, &quot;大道無門&quot; reminded people that to attain enlightenment, put efforts in one's mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;無門的大道 &quot;wúmén’s great way&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;such comprehension is, well, incompatible with my knowledge of classical chinese, if not incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, i think &quot;大道無門&quot; is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a pun. imo, it's a significant trap that preventing one to misunderstand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T12:31:45.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32397" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-27T13:25:29.977" Score="1" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;The words 灵魂 translates to 'soul' or 'spirit'. In English, the word 'spirit' can refer to the undefinable spiritual entity associated with the divine. I think that in Chinese, 灵魂 can refer to a person's innermost being and can be used in situations in situations of 'true love' referring to loving each other's 灵魂. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can 灵魂 be used in sentences/sayings that distinguishes itself from the western understanding or meaning of 'spirit'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21015" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T01:09:43.730" Title="How to understand 灵魂 sense of spirit?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32266" CreationDate="2018-12-27T14:51:37.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a real-life context, to quote a line from the lyric of Hong Kong rock band Beyond's 不再犹豫 (Hesitate No More):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自信打不死的心态活到老&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which roughly translates to &lt;em&gt;I believe I will live all my life in the spirit of 打不死&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21074" LastEditorUserId="21074" LastEditDate="2018-12-27T15:07:18.060" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T15:07:18.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32397" CreationDate="2018-12-28T00:48:58.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How can 灵魂 be used in sentences/sayings that distinguishes itself from&#xA;  the western understanding or meaning of 'spirit'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We might also ask how you distinguish soul and spirit in English. If you are clear about that (a big if), you could find an answer to your question easily!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-soul-and-spirit/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a cheap and nasty explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30517/what-is-the-difference-between-%E9%AD%82-and-%E9%AD%84/30521#30521&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;and can be used in situations in situations of 'true love' referring to loving each other's 灵魂.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the word you are looking for is soulmates? In the following sentences the bold text can be translated as soulmates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我也不相信&lt;strong&gt;灵魂伴侣&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;前卫网站《&lt;strong&gt;灵魂伴侣&lt;/strong&gt;科学》报道称灵魂伴侣确实真实存在，而且可以被科学所证明。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;昨日的挚友，今日的恋人，永远的&lt;strong&gt;知己&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;而且我希望全部你淑女也找你得不见&lt;strong&gt;知音&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这个时候我真想找个&lt;strong&gt;贴心人&lt;/strong&gt;说说心里话呀！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T00:48:58.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32397" CreationDate="2018-12-28T01:09:43.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;灵魂 could has multiple meanings depending on the context.&#xA;Have you watched bleach? yeah those hollows are the 灵魂 of a person after they died and Shinigami were suppose to help bring 灵魂 to the soul society. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, By order in which it is used most frequently, it means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Something that is not a matter that inhabit the body of a person where if gone the person would die. 人死灵魂飞天(One's soul will enter heaven when dead).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)life : 这弱小的灵魂猫很快就会死去 (This fragile cat will die soon).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) personality: 他有一个美丽的灵魂(He has a beautiful soul).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) conscience : 只是一个出卖灵魂的方法(This is a way to sell one's conscience).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) key, crucial things for deciding or leading： 施瓦辛格是健身的灵魂（Schwarzenegger is what made bodybuilding a popular sport).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T01:09:43.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32039" CreationDate="2018-12-28T09:04:43.847" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The calligraphy writing 寧靜致遠 is a quote origin from an ancient scroll call 淮南子, under the page 主术训. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the whole phrase : &#xA;是故非澹漠无以明志，非宁静无以致远。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole phrase is a philosophy, which will take pages to explain. I will try to summarize them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;是故非澹漠无以明志 one must be put aside your own crave and obsession to know your goals clearly. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;非宁静无以致远 :  Without calmness,  one cannot achieve their long term goals&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2018-12-28T09:33:37.477" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T09:33:37.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32369" CreationDate="2018-12-28T11:32:57.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese Glyph is NEVER related directly to the speaking rules. The modern 普通话 is simply an modernised Peking Hans speaking language as part of nationalisation policy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is so called &quot;dialect&quot; from various region to speak  孬&#xA;* various hakka and sub region： wai1  ， (wai1 wai6) , nau3 , (fai3 lau1), vai5 , fai6 , (wai1 wai5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;cantonese ：(bou2 naau1 ) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Teochew：(mo2 nau2 uai3) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see above, every region speak differently, some even break the single glyph pronunciation rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reference : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/yy/5B6C.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孬 in zdnet&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T11:32:57.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32369" CreationDate="2018-12-28T13:23:48.357" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly: 孬 is a &lt;em&gt;fairly&lt;/em&gt; old character, attested in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kangxizidian.com/kangxi/0280.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kangxi dictionary&lt;/a&gt;. However, the pronunciation there is given as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呼怪切，歪去聲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...which implies modern Pinyin: huài (Zhuyin: ㄏㄨㄞˋ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even back then it was known as a dialectal character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, the character is pronounced as a straightforward liaison, with initial of the first and the final (including the tone) of the last:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不 &lt;strong&gt;b&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;at1&lt;/em&gt; + 好 &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ou2&lt;/strong&gt; = 孬 &lt;strong&gt;bou2&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that can't account for the n- initial; rather the pronounciation &lt;code&gt;naau1&lt;/code&gt; was borrowed back from Standard Mandarin, and only in pronouncing phrases from the standard language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we have to look to another form of Chinese, possibly one of the Mandarin dialects. But we get inconsistent answers from the Internet commnuity: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1771472173018245180.html?qbl=relate_question_0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;河南方言&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://wangci.net/word/xxxzhong.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;东北方言&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/280341179.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;possibly others&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also attested in &lt;a href=&quot;http://158.132.160.122/bitstream/10397/6972/1/JIANG_Lexical_Conditional_Connectives.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shanghainese&lt;/a&gt;, and I personally think this is the most likely place that the expression originated; on the interface of Jianghuai Mandarin and Northern Wu, possibly where the local cognate of the tag question 好不好 has nasalised. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just goes to show, contracted expressions are sometimes lost in the mists of time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T13:23:48.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32393" CreationDate="2018-12-29T02:15:02.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me, 再见 translates as &quot;See you&quot;  with an implied &quot;again&quot; or &quot;au revoir&quot; where 'again' is expresssed in the syllable 're'. 再见 is not goodbye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;goodbye: (&quot;a contraction of God be with ye (late 14c.)&quot;) is quite literally 'God be with you', maybe with an implied 'until we meet again'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;God be with ye (goodbye)&#xA;上帝与你同在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;永不再回&#xA;never to return&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From an old song &quot;I was born under a wanderin' star&quot;, in the film Paint your wagon, growled by Lee Marvin) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Heaven is goodbye forever, it's time for me to go.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;对我而言，最美好的事就是“永不相见，我该走了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So no, 再见 couldn't mean goodbye forever, though I am sure it is used to mean 'f*** off' sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T02:15:02.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28744" CreationDate="2018-12-29T02:30:54.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not an linguist so here's only my personal opinion.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;According to a modern classification described in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Part_of_speech&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, words for a short answer should belong to &lt;strong&gt;interjections&lt;/strong&gt; in English. Note that interjections in English are further divided into primary and secondary interjections, with the former serve only as interjections (e.g. &quot;Yes&quot;, &quot;Hoorah!&quot;), and the latter may be consist of &lt;strong&gt;one or more&lt;/strong&gt; words that serve as another part of speech in other contexts (e.g. &quot;No&quot;, &quot;Bloody hell!&quot;). The same criteria is also valid for Chinese (&quot;哎呀!&quot;&quot;呜呜呜……&quot;vs. &quot;我的天!&quot;&quot;不!&quot;).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The definition of interjection in Chinese is: &quot;Interjections are words that express various emotions. They have no grammatical connections to the context. &quot; Therefore, all the words or phrases you listed as 应答用语 are undoubtedly &lt;strong&gt;interjections&lt;/strong&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T02:30:54.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32408" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-29T22:09:15.283" Score="2" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese-to-English dictionaries seem to translate '到现在' as 'up to now' or 'until now'. In English this often implies a recent change in conditions rather than a continuation of conditions; however, in Chinese I don't seem to see this same implication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct, that does '到现在' not imply a recent change? can it ever imply this by itself? If not, how would I convey the English logic (implied recent change) in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We haven't heard from him until now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Up to now, we hadn't heard from him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both imply we just heard from him today or very recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="153" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-01T09:10:27.723" Title="Does '到现在' imply a recent change?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32408" CreationDate="2018-12-29T22:50:21.147" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it does not imply a recent change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「到現在」does literally translate to &lt;em&gt;until now&lt;/em&gt;, but their usage is different, as you've already noted (a continuation of conditions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In English, &lt;em&gt;until now&lt;/em&gt; means practically the same thing as &lt;em&gt;until recently&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Chinese,「到現在」means something like &lt;em&gt;up to this very day&lt;/em&gt; in English.「到現在我還在...」means &lt;em&gt;up to this very day, I'm still...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To say the equivalent of English &lt;em&gt;until now&lt;/em&gt; (that is, implying a change in condition), you should say something similar to「到&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9B%AE%E5%89%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;目前&lt;/a&gt;爲止...」.「爲止」is an explicit statement that stops the otherwise implied continuation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T22:50:21.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32410" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32411" CreationDate="2018-12-30T00:26:32.190" Score="1" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;我读圣经的时候看了这个：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不要害怕，因为我与你同在；不要惊惶，因为我是你的神。我必坚固你，我必帮助你，我必用我公义的右手扶持你。（以赛亚书 41:10）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我看懂它的意思，可是我不看懂 “必”。我知道它想说“我&lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt;坚固你，我会，等等“，可是它为什么用“必”？我查资料了它和知道“必”的意思是“需要”或者“会”。”会“是比较简单的吗？还是是一样的？对不起我的中文不好！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was reading the Bible and saw this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不要害怕，因为我与你同在；不要惊惶，因为我是你的神。我必坚固你，我必帮助你，我必用我公义的右手扶持你。（以赛亚书 41:10）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fear not, for I am with you, be not afraid, for I am your God, I will (必）strengthen you， I will (必） help you, I will （必） uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the meaning, but I don't understand why 必 was used. I know the meaning is &amp;quot;I will strengthen you, I will, etc.&amp;quot;, but I don't understand why 必 was used instead of 会. After looking it up, I understand 必 can mean &amp;quot;must&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;will&amp;quot;, but is 会 less formal? Or are they the same and it's simply a matter of word choice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T18:07:47.910" Title="必／会， 这个句子为什么用”必“？必 vs 会？ Why does this sentence use &quot;必“？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32410" CreationDate="2018-12-30T01:39:56.290" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;必 emphasises and reinforces much more the idea of definitive, firmness.&#xA;我会帮助你 means I will help you&#xA;我必会帮助你 means I will definitely help you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would say 我必会帮助你 when you are 100% sure you will commit to help the person. &#xA;You feel much more secure about the other person's commitment if the person tell you 我必会帮助你. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必 also emphasises on the idea of success as in when you say 我必会帮助你, you are also quite sure that you can help the person successfully.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could say 我一定会帮你 to mean I will definitely help you. But you feel less secure about if the person can actually help successfully. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;God is all-powerful, hence he can use 必. You feel secure and confident in his presence and in this question, you feel secure and confident from his words when he tells you that he will help you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastEditorUserId="20803" LastEditDate="2019-01-05T18:07:47.910" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T18:07:47.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32410" CreationDate="2018-12-30T04:09:55.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is more related to &lt;strong&gt;the Bible&lt;/strong&gt; than to grammar itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;会：will；必：must, surely will&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I believe (and just checked) the text you just cited is from the predominant Chinese Union Version（和合本）published in 1919. Like any other language, Chinese language has changed a lot in a century.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even considering the text back in a context one century ago, the translation of Bible is very different from other writings, because the translators, with all their piety, delibrately made the text formal and special.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In daily conversation/writing, the translation of &lt;em&gt;I will help you&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;almost always&lt;/strong&gt; 我会帮（助）你。If you want to stress the definiteness like &lt;em&gt;I will definitely help you&lt;/em&gt;, you may say 我一定会帮（助）你。If you say to a Chinese friend 我必帮你，he may get lost.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21074" LastEditorUserId="21074" LastEditDate="2018-12-30T04:15:33.803" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T04:15:33.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32408" CreationDate="2018-12-30T09:55:20.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Better you have your examples and explain how English works. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, '到现在' can implies &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;either&lt;/strong&gt; a recent change &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; a continuation of a condition&lt;/em&gt; depending on how you use it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你怎么到现在才来 // a recent change - &lt;em&gt;he showed up now&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你怎么到现在还不承认 // a continuation of a condition (不承认)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T09:55:20.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32414" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32421" CreationDate="2018-12-30T15:03:57.117" Score="0" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both mean &quot;organize&quot; but is there any different between these two words? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21080" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T05:27:35.673" Title="What is the difference between 安排 and 布置" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32414" CreationDate="2018-12-30T17:03:46.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;安排is more often used with people to assign them to a position or prepare them for something.&#xA;布置is more often used on things like concrete items like a room. May be used on events such as create a scene in a movie set. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That doesn't mean we can't interchange them in sentences to get the same meanings， yeah, you could almost say they are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are examples where 布置 and 安排 are different：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;布置一个房间（Furnishing a room) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安排一个房间(Assign a room( to someone))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;布置餐桌 (Arrange a dinning table)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安排餐桌(Assign a dinning table(To someone))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天子离乡， 布置坐御床(Prince is leaving, so decorate the bed while he is gone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天子离乡， 安排坐御床(Prince is leaving, so prepare the bed to carry him)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are examples where they could be interchange to create the same sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;教授给我们布置啦一周的作业（The professor assigned a week of homeworks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;教授给我们安排啦一周的作业（Same as before）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;布置这陷阱的人实在做的天衣无缝（Whoever set this trap did it flawlessly)&#xA;安排这陷阱的人实在做的天衣无缝（same， although we could replace set with initiate）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you see, 安排 could mean something that hasn't happen yet(AS it sometimes mean prepare) whereas 布置 most often mean something that has been done already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T17:03:46.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32416" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32418" CreationDate="2018-12-30T20:10:44.697" Score="2" ViewCount="528" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;搂抱 (I guess this one refers to hugging/cuddling in general)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喂抱 (I tried to look for this word and a lot of pictures of mother hugging their babies appeared as a result. So I'm guessing this one is used mostly for parents hugging/cuddling with her kids)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拥抱 (I also tried to look for this one and it's said that it's hugging/cuddling because of love and friendship)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抱抱 (I guess this one has the feeling that the action of hugging happens momentarily)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one between 搂抱 and 拥抱 is more commonly used to refer to hugging/cuddling between lovers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one can be used to refer to hugging/cuddling with your pets?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know and I'm not sure if my guesses are correct though. Really looking forward to your explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T02:30:48.130" Title="Difference between 搂抱, 喂抱, 拥抱, 抱抱?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32419" CreationDate="2018-12-30T20:47:43.217" Score="2" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this example sentence on YellowBridge :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那对恋人在沙发上又是接吻又是搂抱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the 又…又 structure used with verbs (both kissed and cuddled) here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, that structure is usually used to connect adjectives instead of verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then why in that sentence, 又…又 is used to connect verbs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T14:45:24.647" Title="Why is 又…又 structure used to connect verbs here?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32416" CreationDate="2018-12-31T00:49:03.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;搂抱 is more sexually oriented&#xA;拥抱  is more emotionally oriented.&#xA;Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他搂抱着美女又是摸又是吻。（He's grabbing the beauty in his arm to touch and kiss.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不敢相信女神搂抱着我热情的吻我（Can't believe the Goddess is hugging me and kissing me passionately.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他拥抱着突然出现在他面前多年不见的妻子哭了起来。(He grabbed his wife who he hasn't seen in year and cried.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;母亲看到拿到冠军的孩子激动的拥抱着他哭了。(The mother who just witnessed his child becoming the champion hugged him in tears.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本以为被抛弃的我看到女神的归来感动的拥抱着她说道：“我错了,我永远不要和你分开啦”。 (Me, who though being abandoned, saw the arrival of the Goddess, is deeply moved and hold her and say :&quot;I'm sorry， I'll never leave you again.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastEditorUserId="19680" LastEditDate="2019-01-02T15:04:28.107" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T15:04:28.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32417" CreationDate="2018-12-31T01:33:05.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;又…又 can connect adjectives， verbs or nouns!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那小伙又脏又臭， 可傻笑时却露出暴雪一般的牙齿。（He is dirty and stinks, but his laugh gave us a glimpse of his snow-white teeth.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那小伙又小又廋， 还以为是个姑娘。(He is small and skinny, we thought he is a girl.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;着几个月又是台风又是海啸， 像是世界末日。(These few month is full of hurricane and tsunami, as if it were the end of the world.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他那又是核武器又是生化武器， 却说是为了杀蚂蚁。(He's got nuclear weapons and bio weapon at home and claims it is for killing ants.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可怜的女神又施法术又耐心等待可是他终究执迷不悟直到她终于觉得他无可救药了。(Poor Goddess used her divine power and patiently waited to make him walk the righteous paths unsuccessfully, long has passed until she thinks that he can no longer be saved)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;难过的他又打又叫直到筋疲力尽啦。(the sad young man cursed and fight until he is exhausted.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, my translations might not be accurate, but we got examples of 又…又 used with verbs, nouns and adjectives. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastEditorUserId="20803" LastEditDate="2018-12-31T14:45:24.647" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T14:45:24.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32417" CreationDate="2018-12-31T01:40:54.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As far as I know, that structure is usually used to connect adjectives&#xA;  instead of verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 points I would mention:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Who told you that? You will find many examples of 又verb又verb&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you very clearly distinguish verb from adjective?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我又惊又喜。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I was surprised and pleased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A surprised look, a pleased look&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reminds me of a joke: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked&#xA;  surprised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 又是 ... 又是 in your sentence indicates passion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那对恋人在沙发上又是接吻又是搂抱。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The lovers kissed and embraced passsionately on the couch.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;那对恋人在沙发上接吻搂抱。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The lovers embraced and kissed on the sofa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can ask why Chinese uses 在 ... 上 for on, but that's another question! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Happy New Year 2019! 万事如意！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T01:40:54.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32414" CreationDate="2018-12-31T02:53:36.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安 = to install; 排 = to arrange&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安排 = to arrange; to set up (arrange/ set up objects in order and or in different placement base on a detailed plan) ; to plan for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佈 = to distribute; 置 = to place&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佈置 = to arrange; to set up (arrange/ set up objects in place)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When detailed planing is involved, you have to use 安排. The key word is 排 (to arrange)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;安排&lt;/strong&gt;他的孩子去美国读书 (&lt;strong&gt;arrange&lt;/strong&gt; his children to go to US to study)- &lt;em&gt;it involve a plan&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把殺手&lt;strong&gt;佈置&lt;/strong&gt;在會埸中 (&lt;strong&gt;place&lt;/strong&gt; assassins in the meeting place)- &lt;em&gt;it only describe the act of placing assassins&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use 佈置 when you are just placing objects into position. &lt;em&gt;The key word is 置 (to place)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佈置路障 = set up (to place) roadblocks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佈置內應 = set up (to place) inside men&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佈置陷阱 = set up trap (to place trap(s) in one or more locations)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Planning or order doesn't matter&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安排路障 = arrange roadblocks (according to a plan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安排內應 = arrange inside men  (according to a plan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安排陷阱 = arrange trap (according to a plan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;planning or order matters&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佈置 and 安排 can be used as a noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一個佈置 = a set up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一個安排 = an arrangement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T05:27:35.673" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32417" CreationDate="2018-12-31T03:30:27.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[又~又~] can connect adjectives or verbs.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adjectives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又高又瘦 (tall and skinny)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又便宜又好吃 (cheap and delicious)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又快又凖 (fast and accurate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;verbs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又打又踢 (punching and kicking)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又升又降 (rising and falling)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又哭又笑 (crying and laughing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We can even use [又~又~] for noun, but there are always omitted verb or adjective in these phrases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又煙又酒 (cigarette and wine) = 又吸煙又飲酒 (smoke and drink)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這餐廳的菜又美國又日本 (the food of this restaurant is America and Japan) = 這餐廳的菜又是美國式又是日本式 (the food of this restaurant is American and Japanese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2018-12-31T07:15:44.243" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T07:15:44.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32423" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32424" CreationDate="2018-12-31T08:24:00.840" Score="2" ViewCount="492" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is going to get closed because it's more philosophical in nature but it's something that's brought up (subtle Asian traits, if curious)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the word &lt;strong&gt;proud&lt;/strong&gt; is rarely used in Chinese culture and so does such a word truly exist in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骄傲: proud&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;自豪: proud&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;而荣  (?) (why does this mean proud? dictionary entries don't mention this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentences for &amp;quot;I'm proud of you:&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我以你为荣&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我为你感到骄傲&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我为你而荣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20410" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T04:57:05.003" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T04:57:05.003" Title="Does the usage of the word &quot;proud&quot; (骄傲, 自豪, or 而荣) in Chinese differ from that in English?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32423" CreationDate="2018-12-31T08:53:19.917" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not really.  If you check the meaning of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/50B2.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;傲&lt;/a&gt; and all the associate proverb, it is not rare. Indeed, the more normal translation of &quot;proud of someone&quot; is &lt;code&gt;引以为傲&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;以某某为敖&lt;/code&gt;。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And many other associated word for proud you will rarely encounter in daily life usage , e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;傲骨 ， 傲气&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some is neutral&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;傲岸 haughty &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;傲视 despise&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;傲 also used negatively in following case &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;傲慢 arrogant &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T08:53:19.917" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28719" CreationDate="2018-12-31T16:42:22.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I struggled for many months to work out how produce Pinyin with the tone marks.  Eventually I managed it by installing the Ubuntu ibus (Intelligent Input Bus - core) currently using version 1.5.11.  I also have ibus-pinyin installed but to get the Latin alphabet with the tone marks including ǖ ǘ ǚ ǜ as well as the normal ū ú ǔ ù and of course all the other vowels just by typing the tone number you also need to install ibus-m17n .  This has the input method Chinese Hanyu Pinyin(m17n) as just described and also tonepy(m17n) which gives you a nice trimmed down list of the simplified Chinese characters filtered by the tone number you type when you want to type the characters instead of the Pinyin.  Probably too late for the original questioner but this information is so difficult to find on-line I thought it was worth adding for future reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21100" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T16:42:22.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32385" CreationDate="2018-12-31T18:26:37.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese people often use the character 正 as tally marks (set of 5). See: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_marks&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_marks&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21101" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T18:26:37.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32429" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32431" CreationDate="2019-01-01T10:55:32.070" Score="8" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a dictionary entry reading…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;saggy&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;adj.&lt;/em&gt;【方】下垂的；垂曲的；中陷的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;…, what does the notation &lt;code&gt;【方】&lt;/code&gt; mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Other examples of this notation that I understand include “【美俗】” (American slang), “【解剖】” (anatomy), and “【數學】” (mathematics).)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’d prefer source material in an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16406" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-04T12:22:11.567" LastActivityDate="2020-09-04T12:22:11.567" Title="What does the notation 【方】 mean in a Chinese dictionary?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;notations&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32429" CreationDate="2019-01-01T14:54:44.167" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;【方】&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is short for 方言.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方言 is defined by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;mdbg&lt;/a&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;topolect / dialect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why &lt;em&gt;saggy&lt;/em&gt; is considered topolectical or dialectical, though, is beyond me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-01T14:54:44.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30872" CreationDate="2019-01-01T23:45:47.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the nay-sayers who gave the equivalent of &quot;just Google it&quot; - it's actually incredibly helpful to have a comparative list. As an ABC, I speak fluent Chinese but I definitely can't recognize all the veggies and fruits by their Chinese name or vice versa. In fact, I came here looking for all the possible different types of 瓜 while contemplating watermelon since it is &quot;West melon&quot; and was curious if other directional types. I count at least 8 melons that I know the Chinese name of, but searching manually would take a long time and yield sub-par results. Consider yams - you would never consider English to Chinese lookup since they're...tubers and not melons. And this problem is only for the very narrow consideration of &quot;瓜&quot;.  The broader category of veggies is even more confusing. And don't get me started on restaurant names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;瓜&quot; off the top of my head and their Pinyin are: watermelon (xigua, 西瓜), cantaloupe (hamigua, 哈密瓜), honeydew (tiangua, 甜瓜), yams (digua, 地瓜), wintermelon (donggua, 冬瓜), bittermelon (kugua, 苦瓜), pumpkin (nangua, 南瓜), papaya (mugua, 木瓜)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21111" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2019-01-03T16:25:39.340" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T16:25:39.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32429" CreationDate="2019-01-02T04:13:34.677" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This notation “方” is not short for “方言”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“方” in “方言、前方” means region. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's “方正(方方正正)”, which means honesty or integrity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21112" LastEditorUserId="21112" LastEditDate="2019-01-02T05:52:03.457" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T05:52:03.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32434" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32436" CreationDate="2019-01-02T04:36:54.790" Score="1" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translator gives the translation is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't like traveling very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it sounds like I hate traveling. But I'm just not a traveling enthusiast. If my family need a traveling, I can go with them. I don't initiatively plan to travel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T08:26:15.247" Title="How do I say &quot;我不是太喜欢旅游.&quot; in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32434" CreationDate="2019-01-02T04:53:53.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我不是太喜欢旅游&quot; does mean you dislike travel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't want to use 'dislike' to describe your feeling on traveling, you can say: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;I am not too keen on traveling&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (我不太热衷于旅行)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T04:53:53.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32434" CreationDate="2019-01-02T05:21:59.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try a slightly different expression:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't like travelling &lt;strong&gt;that&lt;/strong&gt; much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T05:21:59.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30335" CreationDate="2019-01-02T05:52:00.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;接盘侠 = Scraps Picking &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Hero&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if said face to face = You originally are incompetent!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21113" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T05:52:00.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32434" CreationDate="2019-01-02T08:26:15.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We should not always translate too directly! Leave that to 谷歌！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不是太喜欢旅游。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm a chary cruiser.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm not an eager excursionist.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm a grudging globe-trotter.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm a hesitant hiker.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm a reluctant rambler.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm a vacillating voyager.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm a wavering wanderer.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T08:26:15.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32362" CreationDate="2019-01-02T14:18:11.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should use &amp;quot;直到 [...為止]&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一直找，直到找到它為止。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's still correct if you omit 為止, but in this case keeping it sounds more natural to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;直到&amp;quot; has two meanings, one of which is slightly different from &amp;quot;until&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. something is true before the time point, but false after it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Until&amp;quot; is this meaning. For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not available until tomorrow. 直到明天才有/能提供&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn’t know this matter until now. 直到現在我才知道這件事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's implied that it will be available tomorrow or after tomorrow and I know this matter now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. something is true before the time point, and could be also true after it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the second meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Up to now I still remember this matter. 直到現在我仍然記得這件事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T14:18:11.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29857" CreationDate="2019-01-02T14:25:12.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an attempt to figure out the tones using the description in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hakka.gov.tw/Content/Content?NodeID=627&amp;amp;PageID=37028&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this study&lt;/a&gt; pointed to by @justinrleung. I should add it to the question, but of course it doesn't fit, so here I am. I don't know how much this will solve, but let's see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, the description. From the introduction, which I translated entirely, I get the following contour table, where YP=Yin Ping, Y'P=Yang Ping, Q=Qu, S=Shang, YR=Yin Ru, and Y'R=Yang Ru:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Tone    Contour&#xA;  YP       322&#xA; Y'P       31&#xA;  S        42&#xA;  Q        55&#xA; YR        43&#xA; Y'R       55&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the contours found on both &lt;a href=&quot;https://hakka.dict.edu.tw/hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hakkadict&lt;/a&gt; and the Wiktionary are somewhat different. There is a 55 which develops from historical Qu tones at least in one case, so that will be the Qu tone. The study mentions a mis-analysis of YP as 324, which matches the contour 24, so that will be our YP on the dictionaries. There is a 31 which develops from Shang tones in at least one cases, so that will be S. A checked tone 5 exists, and that will be our Yang Ru. The other checked tone, 2, will have to be the Yin Ru, and the remaining contour 11 will have to be Y'P. So I will assume the following matches, the diacritics coming from matching Wiktionary contours to Wiktionary diacritics on PFS:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Tone    Contour    Dict contour    Diacritic    Hakka Romanization System Diacritic&#xA;  YP       322          24         circumflex                   acute&#xA; Y'P       31           11           grave                   circumflex&#xA;  S        42           31           acute                      grave&#xA;  Q        55           55            none                      none&#xA; YR        43           2             none                      grave&#xA; Y'R       55           5        vertical line                  none&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The study also mentions the following Sandhi rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;YP+Y'P=324+Y'P;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;YP+{YP/Q/Y'R}: YP=322;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;YP+{S/YR}: YP=322;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;X+YP=X+322;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Y'P+YP=YP+YP;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Y'P+{S/YR}: Y'P=32;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Y'P+{Q/Y'R}: Y'P=3-&gt;1.5;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The paragraph below&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above all come from the intro, except for 8, which refers to the following two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;（3）由上聲和陰入組合的二字詞，前字起始音會高於後字&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  諸如「上聲+上聲」（廠長），「上聲+陰入」（粉筆），「陰入+陰入」（竹節），「陰入+上聲」（屋頂）四種組合時，會産生前字起始音高於後字，後字音程變小，音量也變輕的現象，調型則維持不變。&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;（4）陰平，陽平分別後接上聲或陰人時，上聲或陰入調值會產生差異&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  差異的原因乃是因爲陰平，陽平與上聲或陰入分別有著同樣音程的相對語感;陰，陽平結束音高112（調值）的差異即成爲後接上聲或陰入音高（调值）差異了，例：「豬骨」與「牛骨」，因前字r豬」，r牛」結束音高相差半度左右，在「豬骨」與「牛骨」有著相同的相對語感之情況下，兩詞的後字雖同爲「骨」但前者音者會高於後者半度左右。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I can understand of this, it seems both (3) and (4) imply one tone slightly raises and the other one slightly compresses, so fuzzy matches should see through these rules. Therefore, I will ignore them for the sake of this attempt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this in mind, I proceed to infer tone names from contours found on hakkadict (see other answer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thi|YP khiu|Q-ngian|Y'P e|Q sam|YP ngiat|Y'R-fun|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai|Y'P yu|Q mung|Q to|S ngai|Y'P e|Q a|YP-ma|YP&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Te|Q-ha|Q-e|S he|Q ngai|Y'P koy|Q se|Q koy|Q se|Q e|Q sii|Y'P-tsiet|YR&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mi|YP ngit|YR thien|YP mo|Y'P kong|YP&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lu|Q then|Y'P-nun|S a|YP-ma|YP khiung|Q-ha|Q tshut|YR-mun|Y'P hi|Q mai|Q tshoy|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A|YP-ma|YP yung|Q tam|Q-kon|YP khai|YP-nun|S fan|YP-su|Y'P fan|YP-su|Y'P yap|Y'R&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Khai|YP-nun|S fung|Q tshoy|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lu|Q an|S-ne|Y'P tshung*|Y'P Mi|Y'P-nung|Y'P tsong|YP (actually tshiung|Y'P)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yit|YR-lu|Q-hang|Y'P hang|Y'P to|Q Tsung|YP-mun|Y'P&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thi|YP lu|Q hong|Q a|YP-ma|YP i|~Y'P woy|Q ka ai|Y'P kong|S&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsii|YP-kyun|YP ng|Y'P e|Q ngian|S-tsu|YP khon|Q m|Y'P to|S e*|YP (actually spelled 唉)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ko*|Q-so|S-yi|YP ngai|Y'P hi|YP-mong|Q ng|Y'P kho|S-yi|YP khau|S-song|YP thai|Q-hok|Y'R (actually ku55)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nga|YP nang|Q piong|Q (t)et|YR lok|Y'R sim|YP&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yin|YP-vi|Q a|YP-ma|YP ya|S ki|Q fa|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai|Y'P keoi|Q tap|YR-yang|Y'P&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Leoi|Y'P khau|S to|S Tsung|YP-kyeot*|YR vun|Y'P-fa|Q Thai|Q-hok|Y'R (actually kwet2)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A|YP-m|Y'P-ko|Q to|Q ngai|Y'P pit|YR-ngiap|Y'R tiam|S-li|YP te|Q pin|YP-ngit|YR&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nga|YP lu|YP tshim|Y'P mo|Y'P to|S a|YP-ma|YP i|Y'P e|Q phu|Y'P-poi|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hip|YR-siong|Q e|Q te|Q-ha|Q-e|S&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nga|YP ma mo|Y'P yit|YR tsung|S fon|YP-hi|S e|Q kam|S-su|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yin|YP-vi|Q tui|Q nga|YP loi|Y'P kong|S&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tsui|Q tshung|Q-yau*|Q tsui|Q tshung|Q-yau*|Q e|Q ngin|Y'P (actually yeu|Q)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ngai|Y'P tsai|Q mo|Y'P phan|Q-fa|YR khon|Q to|S&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I|Y'P e|Q phu|Y'P-poi|Q&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not that I incorporated some of the new info I got since the other pseudo-answer into the above, so the match isn't perfect. Now I give you the famous precise transcription with both the contours resulting from the video and those resulting from the above tone names plus the study's contours and sandhi. I give it line by line, commenting on the problems of each line separately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thi33|322' khiu55|55-ngian51|3:1.5'' e334|55'* sam11|322'&#xA;ngiat2|55''-fun33|55'': The last two are probably just a problem of defining the 5 levels, maybe if I relisten I can justify reanalyzing as 44 and 55, giving fuzzy match and match; the only big problem is ngian51 in the video vs. ngian3:1.5 or ngian31 in the study's terms, but maybe  it's just starting from 55 and jumping to 3 is discontinuous? UPDATE: I relistened, and can reanalyze as ngiat33-fun22, still both mismatches, but if I decide the 5 has been lowered to the former 3 then it becomes ngiat55-fun44, fuzzy matches, so I'll go with that, leaving only the wannabe sandhi rule that Q+S makes the S a 51 to avoid the jump from the Q's 5 to the S's 3; UPDATE 2: If ngai is Y'P, the proposed rule is negated by the ngai in l. 3, but the suspicion I have is that it's actually YP, which would leave the rule standing; but of course l. 3 has e|Q sii|Y'P-tsiet|?R whose sii21 has no such rule applied, so the rule wouldn't apply there;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ngai24|3:1.5'' yu55|55 mung55|55 to331|42' ngai11|3:1.5'' e33|55'' a11|322'-ma33|322': I guess the e33 vs. e55 is just a problem of tone level definition; I'm highly suspicious of ngai being Y'P, considering making it YP would solve one of the problems, but still, the first ngai24 is not justified; UPDATE: Maybe when ngai meets a y- the boundary between the two gets confused and the ngai can seem to rise up if the y- is in e.g. Qu tone like here? That would produce a justification for ngai24 if ngai were YP; a-ma seems fine here, but the change in pitch suggests the tones should be different…&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Te55|55-ha55|55-e11|42'' he33|55' ngai21|3:1.5' koy33|55'' se334|55'' koy33|55'' sei33|55'' e34|55'' sii21|32'-tsiet2|43'': a shifting reference frame for the levels accounts for all the 33|55, the e11 is guessed and could in fact be e51 (I had hay51 originally, so either ha51-e11 or ha55-e51 or ha53-e31), which makes it a sandhi fuzzy match, and that leaves us with the 2|43 of the Yin Ru; UPDATE: Note that -e is Shang tone, so 42, meaning we have 42|51 or maybe 52, decidedly a fuzzy match; the final word is more like sii21-tsiet21, which if we assume the reference for the tone levels has lowered could be sii32-tsiet32, giving us a fuzzy match; so the line would be OK, even with a Y'P on ngai;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mi22|322' ngit51|43'' thien24|324' mo53|322'' kong21|322': Pretty sure the ngit51 is BS, such a fall on a Ru? Maybe 53 or 54, fuzzy match; as for mo53|322, let me relisten… Nope, I agree with myself on both counts, the fall is huge in the ngit51 and the mo starts higher than the thien ends, so we have two problems;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lu55|55 then11|32''-nun11|42'' a11|322''-ma34|322'' khiung44|55'-ha44|55' tshut4|43'-mun21|31' hi33|55'' mai33|55'' tshoi334|55'': Let me change the tone levels at some points: Lu55|55 then22|32'-nun22|42'' a22|322'-ma34|322'' khiung55|55-ha55|55 tshut4|43'-mun21|31' hi55|55 mai55|55 tshoi556|55: that's much better; the elephants in the room are the nun22|42 and the ma34|322; the latter suggests maybe YP+Q makes a 324, but that would screw up the very beginning, so I guess not; as for the nun, it looks like the tone should actually be a YP, so we'd get a fuzzy match; Wiktionary does indeed report a ten24 for Meinong, which would be Yin Ping, so maybe that is the solution? UPDATE: I think a-ma is a|?P-ma|Q, and that would produce matches or fuzzy matches to all the a-ma's down to this line; the tshut of tshut-mun, however, has no level difference from the ha of the khiung-ha before it, which is a 55, and this would make it a Y'R, but it's supposed to be a YR… it's too short to hear a fall in pitch, so I can't do much;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A11|322''-ma55|322'' yung55|55 tam35|55''-kon31|322' khan44|322''-nun32|31' fan11|324''-su4|31'' fan24|324'-su31|31-yap34|55'': Every time we see a-ma, the ma has the wrong tone: maybe it should be a Qu tone? Why is tam a 35 when it's supposed to be a Qu aka 55? The first fan-su she gets the tones wrong and then corrects herself, and those match alright; yap sounds like it should be a Yin Ru, but maybe it's just a shifting reference for the tone levels? UPDATE: tam-kon is more like tam45-kon21 or tam45-kon32, so the kon is a fuzzy YP, and the tam could be a Q which fluctuates a little to put some motion into a sequence of 55s; I see now that khan (or rather khai) is given as /khai&lt;sup&gt;44&lt;/sup&gt;/ for Meixian on Wiktionary, which matches the video; but Meixian is in Mainland China while Meinong is in Taiwan… could Meixian have influenced Meinong or just the singer?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Khan44|322''-nun32|42' fung33|55''-tshoi334|55'': our friend khan is back with the same problem as before; nun surprisingly fuzzy matches, but really it fuzzy matched in the previous line too, so maybe l. 5 where the mismatch was had a problem of tone levels and a small pitch fall I didn't hear? Fung-tshoi mismatches, but again, a shifting reference for the tone levels does away with that. It's anyway higher than the nun, so it couldn't be a level-1, and the only level tone (in fact, the only one altogether, not just the only level one higher than 1) is 55;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lu55|55-an53|42'-ne22|31'' tshung21|31' Mi11|31''-nung11|322'-tsong11|322': we have a few rogue Yang Pings who decided to sandhi despite being in fromt of Yang Pings and not Yin Pings, apparently; maybe a rule should be added that Y'P+Y'P=322+Y'P? For the moment, nothing contradicts it;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yit5|43''-lu45|55' hang21|31' hang21|3:1.5' to34|55'' Tsung214|324'-mun51|31'': the mun starts lower than the to ends, so at most a 3, so that's great; but the Tsung ends lower than the mun starts, making it 212… ah no, maybe 21:2.5 or even 213, so 324 is still a fuzzy match with a reference level problem; if we assume the to is another rogue Yang Ping, we can write it as 著/着 and solve all problems here (except that yit…), because the description of hakkadict, «嚎啕大哭[]附在動詞後面，表示動作已達結果的語氣，今國語習慣用「到」或「著」字。例：寒著、冷著。», sounds like it could fit here; the yit has no pitch fall, but then again it's very short, so I can't really distinguish; maybe I can assume it is 54~43?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thi11|322' lu34|55'' hong34|55'' a11|322'-ma24|324' i11|31'' woi24|55'' ka31|?? ai11|31'' kong31|42': Lift the reference for the first few tones, and they become fuzzy matches; curiously, a-ma is fuzzy on both tones this time; but wait: there is a break there, so no sandhi can apply, so it's actually ma24|322'', and the mismatch is still there; gotta say, reading that as Qu tone requires a rather big upward drift for it, but the jump from a to ma is there and prevents taking it as the same tone; honestly, there is a small pitch change in the i, so it could indeed be a i31, though i32 seems like a better match; Yang Ping? The woi is more of a one-degree change, maybe woi23, or woi45, so Qu seems like a good guess; ka and ai are almost fused, like kaai31, so it's hard to tell where to split them; if we think of woi as woi34, then it's kaai42, maybe a Qu plus Yin Ping, maybe kaai52 = ka54 + ai42, or in fact ka43 + ai32, and then the kong sounds like a 41 ~ 42;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tsii34|322''-kyun11|322' nge44~ng11|3:1.5''e55|55 ngian41|42'-tsu112|322' khon42|55'' m22|32' to22|42'' e11|322': Tsii is probably just a fluctuation, I mean, YP is basically level, so from 3 to 4 instead of to 2 can happen, and maybe it was actually a 2:2.5~22; the ng bothers me, it sounds like it should be a YP, not a Y'P; khon and m were originally not distinguished, and the m does seem to have a pitch drop, while khon seems not to, so it's more like khon44 m42, a fuzzy match; we have already discussed the to above, and the Yang Ping would sandhi to 322, thus giving a fuzzy match; except the alternate spelling gives me a Shang, not a Yang Ping, and a Shang is definitely out of the question;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ko55|55-so54|42''-yi41|324'' ngai12|322'' hi21|322'-mong35|55'' ng22|32' kho22|42''-yi21|322' khau33|42'' song31|322' thai33|55''-hok3|55'': so-yi is more of so53-yi31, fuzzy match + we undo the sandhi to get another fuzzy match; why sandhi would not apply there without an evident pause is not evident; or else we posit that this is in fact a Yang Ping; I can't say the syllable was short and chopped the raise off; if yi is yi322, then ngai is ngai23, which modulo a little fluctuation would match a Yin Ping; and if ngai is indeed a Yin Ping, we have one further reason for the yi322, given that the sandhi problem is removed from the root; the mong raises a bit too much to blame it on fluctuations, so I cannot explain it; kho really seems to be a Yin Ping but it should be a Shang, Idk; khau song is really more like khau33 song11, maybe khau55 song322, but khau should be 42 as a Shang, which is another mismatch; if song is song22, thai-hok is thai44-hok4, which fuzzy matches the thai55-hok55 we'd have from the study;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nga22|31'' nam45|55' piong5|55 et4|43' lok3|55'' sim11|322': Again, ngai seems to be a Yin Ping ngai322; the (t)et is higher than the lok, yet the reverse should happen; positing a reference frame shift seems weird, but given that (t)et has a pitch fall and lok doesn't, it seems like that is the case; how confusing…&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yin22|322'-vi55|55 a11|322'-ma33|322' ya22|42'' ki22|55'' fa223|55'': despite the fuzzy matches, the difference in pitch between a and ma in a-ma makes the tone difference undeniable, and suggests, once again, a|YP-ma|Q; in that case, it would be a11-ma55 ya44 ki44 fa445, which makes three mismatches into a fuzzy match: a very compelling argument for that Qu;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ngai31|3:1.5' keoi34|55'' tap3|43'-yang34|31'': this is the first time ngai behaves decidedly like a Yang Ping, given the IMO too big pitch drop for a 322; keoi may in fact be 45, a fuzzy match; the tap seems to raise a little, in opposition to the Yin Ru contour, but it is lower than keoi, which supports a low checked tone, aka Yin Ru, so a little fluctuation may have played a role here; yang seems to almost dip, like 323 or something, maybe even 324, and the next syllable just so happens to be a Yang Ping, which suggests a remote sandhi to a Yin Ping, but this is supposed to be a Yang Ping…&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Loi22|32' khau33|42'' to332|42' Tsung22|322'-kyeot3|43' vun21|3:1.5'-fa34|55' thai34|55''-hok34|55'': before I forget, kyeot actually sounds like it's falling slightly, which matches even better; khau is back just like before; definitely not khau55 this time, or else loi is 44 and a mismatch; to is a fuzzy match this time: surprise! 322 would still be better though; I'm not sure if thai starts at the 3 or the 4 of fa, so maybe it's thai45-hok45, which would make it a fuzzy match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A55|324''-m533:1.5''-ko445|55' to44|55' ngai41|32'' pit3|43'-ngiap4|55' tiam43|42'-li11|322' te33|55'' pit32|324'' ngit3|43': to is more like 45, still fuzzy match, ngai is a definite  mismatch whether YP or Y'P, tiam is more like a 21 or 32, still fuzzy match, though a Ping would match better, the end is solved by a shifting reference for the tone levels and noticing ngit has a very small pitch drop;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nga33|322' lu55|322'' tshim31|31 mo22|31'' to221|42'' a22|322'-ma33|322' i11|3:1.5'' e33|55'' phu11|3:1.5''-poi334|55'': so nga is YP and ngai is Y'P? Maybe they're being tonally confused then! And the two lu's may also have merged, let me see before… yep, this is the only dōu and it sounds identical to the other two jiùs; the to starts a little highet than the mo ends, so maybe a 2.5:1, Y'P? again, a-ma has two different level tones, so â-ma or à-ma seem opportune; i and phu seem to have a slight drop in pitch, so maybe fuzzy matches, though the slight drop matches 322 better than 31; poi might be 445, fuzzy match, and e might be hovering around 4, again a fuzzy match; tshim ends as low as mo starts, and to starts a little highwer, so maybe tshim32|31' mo22|31'' to21|42'', to seems to be a Ping tone, and mo a YP, maybe Y'P+YP or YP+YP; wait though, to is actually 31, so let me raise the reference: tshim43 mo33 to42, that screws up tshim, and the to has always been a S disguised as a YP, so let's not raise the reference :);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hip4|55'-siong55|55 e55|55 te44|55'-hai44|55'-e41|42': when will I have another problem-free line like this :)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nga11|322' ma23|? mo31|31 yit2|43'' tsung21|42'' fon21|322'-hi33|55'' e33|55'' kam21|42''-su23|55'': I'd guess ma is a YP, so it would have to be 324, fuzzy match; actually, it's perhaps a bigger rise in pitch than just 24, so yep, YP; mo is more of a mo41 or mo42 then, closer to a Shang… low checked tone can only be a YR, despite the pitch not dropping, though that can be explained away with the shortness of the syllable; tsung is really more of a Y'P, which would have no sandhi given the pause after it; unfortunately, documented options are Shang and Qu, both mismatches; for the end, let's raise the reference: fon32|322'-hi44|55' e44|55' kam32|42*-su34|55', where kam is a fuzzy match to both a Y'P and a Shang;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yin22|322'-vi55|55 tui55|55 nga53|324'' loi31|31 kong21|42'': kong is more of a 221, even less matching for a Shang, sounds more like a Yin Ping;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tsui53|55'' tshung22|55''-yau22|55'' tsui32|55'' tshung22|55''-yau22|55'' e22|55'' ngin21|31': more like tsui54 tshung32-yau22 tsui31 tshung22-yau22 e22 nyin20, still quite a disaster; tsui seems like it should be a Shang or Yang Ping, given the big drop in pitch the second time; ho-ho, hakkadict reports an alternate Nan Sixian tsui31, which would be a Shang! So that is basically solved; for the end, I'll assume the reference was dropped after the second tsui, to have tshung55-yau55 e55 nyin54, or maybe a little less, so I have nyin43|42'… wait, it has to be a Yang Ping… the other tshung-yau is again a lower reference: the tsui is emphasised, the tshung-yau can have a lower reference, then maybe ngin gets emphasised again?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ngai31|3:1.5' tsai44|55' mo42|31'' phan34|55''-fa32|43' khon44|55' to31|42'': ngai is for once perf… wait, sandhi with Qu tone, almost perfect :); mo is problematic as always, matching Shang perfectly and Yang Ping only fuzzily; for the rest, we raise the reference, and the matches are all perfect except for phan45, fuzzy match;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I22|3:1.5'' e44|55' phu21|3:1.5'-poi33|55'': raise the reference&#xA; for everything, and phu-poi has two fuzzy matches, and i33 is a&#xA; mismatch, more of a Yin Ping.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally got through this. Time to isolate the problems and formulate questions. I'll literally copypaste everything and work my way through it, leaving a part of it untouched after the &quot;I must get back to maths&quot; warning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The ngian51|3:1.5 suggests a sandhi rule that Q+S makes the S a 51 to avoid the jump from the Q's 5 to the S's 3; if ngai is Y'P, that rule is negated by the ngai in l. 3, but I suspect (see next item) it's a YP, which would leave the rule standing; but of course l. 3 has e|Q sii|Y'P-tsiet|?R whose sii21 has no such rule applied, so the rule wouldn't apply there; what is up with this rule then?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: Ngai is almost always a problem, behaving like a Yin Ping instead of the Yang Ping it should be; in this line, ngai24 is a 322 which gets confused with the y- of the yu55 after it, and the other ngai fits a 322; in the next line it fuzzy matches both; in lines 10 and 13 it's a fine YP; in l. 12 it's a YP with some upward fluctuation; in l. 15 it's basically a Y'P, in l. 17 it's almost a Shang; in l. 23 it's basically a Y'P; could it be on its way to merging with nga, which is indeed a YP (except when it tries to play Shang in l. 21 :)?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: a-ma seems fine here, but YP+YP should be 322+322, not 11+33, so raising a little we may think of this as a33-ma55, matching â-ma (YP+Q); and such is the situation in almost all other instances of the word in this video; the only instance where a YP would fit better is in l. 10, where it appears to sandhi with the Y'P of i, but that tone is also doubtful to me, and the same situation presents itself in l. 18, with no sandhi, so maybe l. 10 is an accidental upward drift and the tone is indeed a Qu?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;C: I made a bit of confusion about the to; first of all, it can be 到 or 着, which are respectively to|Q and to|S; in the video, we find 331 in this line, to34 in l. 9, to22 in l. 11, to332 in l. 16, to44 in l. 17, to221 in l. 18, to31 in l. 23; apart from to44, which is probably 到, the rest seem to be near-level low tones, so YP, except the to31 which would be a perfect Yang Ping; so could this actually be a Yin Ping rather than a Shang?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;L. 3 presents no further problems: yay!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: ngit here has a very high pitch, definitely not a 4, and even in the entries &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; it seems to oscillate between high and low tone, so what's going on here?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: mo, looking &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/Details?p=71184&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and on other entries, seems to have a sandhi with a preceding raising tone, as if YP+Y'P in at least the case of mo as the Y'P gives 24 53, raising the Y'P and making the YP raise; we find Y'P+mo22+S in l. 18, ?+mo31+YR in l. 20, and Q+mo42+Q in l. 23; the ? seems to be a sandhied YP, being ma23; so it would seem this word's tone just adapts to its surroundings; is there a better explanation (like a sandhi rule I'm missing) or is that the best bet?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: nun looks like the tone should actually be a YP, so we'd get a fuzzy match; Wiktionary does indeed report a ten24 for Meinong, which would be Yin Ping, so maybe that is the solution? In the following two lines we find nun32, which would fuzzy match both; so either we posit a different tone than reported, or we assume I didn't hear a pitch drop in this one nun but it was there, or maybe there is another explanation?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: The tshut of tshut-mun has no level difference from the ha of the khiung-ha before it, which is a 55, and this would make it a Y'R, but it's supposed to be a YR… it's too short to hear a fall in pitch, so I can't do much; how can I explain this?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: khan is consistenly a fuzzy Qu when it should be a YP; I see now that khan (or rather khai) is given as /khai&lt;sup&gt;44&lt;/sup&gt;/ for Meixian on Wiktionary, which matches the video; but Meixian is in Mainland China while Meinong is in Taiwan… could Meixian have influenced Meinong or just the singer?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: yap sounds like it should be a Yin Ru, but maybe it's just a shifting reference for the tone levels?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No further problems here, yay!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;an53|42'-ne22|31'' and Mi11|31''-nung322'-tsong11|322': we have a few rogue Yang Pings who decided to sandhi despite being in fromt of Yang Pings and not Yin Pings, apparently; maybe a rule should be added that Y'P+Y'P=322+Y'P? For the moment, nothing contradicts it; it is true that an-ne is reported &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/Details?p=72258&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; as either án-nè or án-nê, so that wouldn't be a problem; and the Wiktionary solves the problem by reporting Mî-nùng as well as Mì-nùng, so yay!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: Yit seems to have an oscillating tone, since this line features it as yit5, and l. 20 features it as yit2; here it is as high as the following Qu-tone lu, but maybe a reference shift can place it at 4, and we can assume a chopped-off 43 is what we have before our eyes, but the yit2 is in a stranger position where raising the reference is problematic, so what is going on here?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: Tsung21:2.5-mun31 is finally tonally OK, though the mun is still funky business since it's supposed to be a yun… anyways, no further problems here as far as this post is concerned, the sounds are for another place;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: i should be a Yang Ping, but it's i11, more like the Yin Ping i22; a Qu is supposed to follow, so no sandhi would happen, though woi is also weird tonally; elsewhere, it is consistently level, whether i11 as in &quot;a-ma i e phu-poi&quot;, or i22 as in the last line; could it be a Yin Ping? I mean, &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/Details?p=74665&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; the example sounds like i22 mo21, so a level tone and a falling tone, and if mo is Yang Ping (and thus reported &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/Details?p=69972&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;), then how could i22 be Y'P if mo21 is? Though I wrote it could be i32… yeah well, i322 fuzzy matches that too;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: From what I wrote, it sounds like the woi2 could be explained away as a drifting of a Qu tone;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;C: ka31: ka and ai are almost fused, like kaai31, so it's hard to tell where to split them; if we think of woi as woi34, then it's kaai42, maybe a Qu plus Yin Ping, maybe kaai52 = ka54 + ai42, or in fact ka43 + ai32, and then the kong sounds like a 41 ~ 42; I &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/unanswered/On-one-occasion-at-about-1-20-the-source-Meinong-Hakka-video-exhibits-a-particle-ka31-which-seems-to-mean-to-with-I-only-know-of-a-kak2-in-Hailu-Hakka-with-that-meaning-What-gives&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;outsourced&lt;/a&gt; the matter of this ka to Quora anyway;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ng11: supposed to be Yang, level like a Yin, and the ng22 of next line is an even better match for a Yin Ping, so is this actually a Yin Ping?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: hi21|322'-mong35|55'': the mong raises a bit too much to blame it on fluctuations, so what is up?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: kho22|42''-yi21|322': kho really seems to be a Yin Ping but it should be a Shang, what gives?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;C: khau44|42'' song322|322': khau should be Shang, but seems to be Qu, what's up? And three lines below, khau33, maybe a fuzzy Qu or a fuzzy Yin Ping… actually definitely a Yin Ping or we screw up another tone which we cannot justify being raised above normal levels;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;piong5|55 et4|43' lok3|55'': the (t)et is higher than the lok, yet the reverse should happen; positing a reference frame shift seems weird, but given that (t)et has a pitch fall and lok doesn't, it seems like that is the case; how confusing… but I guess we consider this solved, so no further problems here, yay!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ya22|42'' ki22|55'' fa223|55'': the mismatches are solved by assuming a-ma ends in a Qu with a reference shift, since ma55 there makes these 44 44 445, fuzzy matches; so if â-ma, then no problems, otherwise why are these so low in tone?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: keoi34|55'' is probably a reference shift;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: tap3|43'-yang34|31'': the tap seems to raise a little, in opposition to the Yin Ru contour, but it is lower than keoi, which supports a low checked tone, aka Yin Ru, so a little fluctuation may have played a role here; yang seems to almost dip, like 323 or something, maybe even 324, and the next syllable just so happens to be a Yang Ping, which suggests a remote sandhi to a Yin Ping, but this is supposed to be a Yang Ping… what is going on?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No further problems here, yay!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: A55|324''-m533:1.5''-ko445|55': the tone of A is due to a Min loan, so it matches that one, and we will make it a Qu tone (because of contours) and spell it 啊, as opposed to 阿 which gave the mismatching YP; as for m, maybe the Yang Ping has a raised brother when after Qus?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: te33|55'' pit32|324'' ngit3|43': the end is solved by a shifting reference for the tone levels and noticing ngit has a very small pitch drop; so no more problems, yay!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lu55|322'': the two lu's may have merged, given the tones are so similar; or maybe it's just emphasis?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No more problems here, yay!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A: ma23|?: I'd guess ma is a YP, so it would have to be 324, fuzzy match; actually, it's perhaps a bigger rise in pitch than just 24, so yep, YP; this is anyway &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/unanswered/On-one-occasion-around-1-52-the-source-Meinong-Hakka-video-exhibits-a-particle-ma34-which-seems-to-mean-also-but-I-only-find-such-a-particle-documented-for-Hokkien-or-Zhaoan-Hakka-How-come-Loanword-perhaps&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;outsourced to Quora&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: tsung21|42'': such a low tone seems to be a Yang Ping, how is that a Shang or a Qu?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;kong21|42'': kong is more of a 221, even less matching for a Shang, sounds more like a Yin Ping; in l. 10, however, a reference raised, encouraged by a 11 posited Yin Ping, brought it to a Shang; what is up with this word?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tsui54 tshung32-yau22 tsui31 tshung22-yau22 e22 nyin20: tsui is Shang with much emphasis; with some funky reference shiftings, everything is fine, except that nyin, supposed to have a Yang Ping, which seems to have a Shang… would it make sense that the tsui's AND the nyin are emphasised, but NOT the tsung-yau?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No further problems here, yay!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I33|3:1.5'' e55|55 phu31|3:1.5'-poi44|55', and i is already tackled above, so no further problems.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who would have thought I would have made it to the end? Welp, now we have… let me count… 1 2A 2B 2C 4A 4B 5A 5B 6 9A 10A 10C 11 12A 12B 12C 14 15B 17A 18 20A 20B 21 22… 24 precise tone questions for Justin :) or whomever else decides to answer any of these. That is a lot of questions! And then there are some weird pronunciations still left to clear up, and possibly some spelling and meaning problems… this video is a never-ending question mine :)!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;29.249 characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positing a mó would explain 3/4 lines where mo is found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mî-nùng doesn't really work because it would give a 324, which isn't there. But Mì-nùng tsòng doesn't work either, because they'd be all 31s and we have 11s. So that is still a problem: it looks like these should really be Mî-nûng tsông. OK tsông is actually that way, but Mi-nung should be Mî-nûng, which contradicts etymology and dictionary info.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2019-01-12T16:29:00.817" LastActivityDate="2019-01-12T16:29:00.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20831" CreationDate="2019-01-02T14:25:24.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use 女朋友 will be fine if they are dating. But that indeed raise some attention. The person you're meeting might have thoughts in mind like &quot;are your dad divorced&quot; and they may or may not ask. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on who you're meeting, if you don't like him/her to know about the divorce you can just say she's a friend of your dad's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T14:25:24.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32416" CreationDate="2019-01-02T14:54:16.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think 喂抱 is a word. Let me tell you a hack I found out myself. Whenever you have questions about the difference of words, you can do google image search and the result will tell you the slight difference among them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;摟抱 is more about the intimacy of man and woman, and it's more common in the form of 摟摟抱抱.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see here, the results are mostly a man and a woman.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EyHZR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EyHZR.png&quot; alt=&quot;loubao&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;擁抱 is more about friends or family, but can also be used for couples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see here, the results can be between same-sex, friends, people with large age difference or couples.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pTtae.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pTtae.png&quot; alt=&quot;yongbao&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;抱抱 is informal, colloquial. More commonly used among couples to 撒嬌 (this word is hard to translate, basically IMO it means showing affection for someone and wants the other to do the same), but can also be used with anyone as a form of reduplication of 抱, e.g. 我抱抱他，安慰他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see here, it's mostly used by couples. And often you see 給我抱抱 (exact example of 撒嬌)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oJC1D.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oJC1D.png&quot; alt=&quot;baobao&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;抱 is the most general. This can be used for anyone. It just means hug.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T14:59:22.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32443" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-02T17:35:24.573" Score="0" ViewCount="301" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, these two both mean 'to participate in' and there doesn't seem to be any difference in the types of things one might participate in.&#xA;Are they therefore interchangeable?&#xA;Thanks!&#xA;Hashamyim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. I am categorising my 'what are the difference' questions under 'vocabulary'. As they are all HSK 5 verbs, should I open a new HSK5 tag? What do you reckon?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T07:09:55.533" Title="参加 vs 参与 - cānjiā vs cānyu" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-01-03T06:09:41.867" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20831" CreationDate="2019-01-02T19:37:00.860" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that you can use “女朋友/女友” if your father is dating her exclusively now :)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say “这是我爸现在的另一半(the other half)/伴侣 (companion)”. People may still guess their legal relationship （married/ not married）if you say this but if the people really care about it you can further explain it: “只是女朋友而已/还没结婚”。 (Also, if they are married you will probably introduce her as your “后妈”. So by saying “另一半/伴侣” instead of “后妈” people will probably know that they have not married)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21118" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T19:37:00.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32443" CreationDate="2019-01-02T19:37:55.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;additional information：＂汉语动词３８０例＂参加／参与 例 释 &lt;strong&gt;一、&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;参加&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;１.&lt;/strong&gt; 这词运动会他参加了五个项目的比赛。动词＂参加＂的意思是加入某种组织或某种活动又例如：a。他要去参加下个星期在上海举行的学术会议。b。他参加了中国教育代表团，下个月去欧洲访问。c。关于这个城市的建设计划他参加过讨论。&lt;strong&gt;２。&lt;/strong&gt; 是否组织旅行？你能参加点儿意见吗？＂参加＂在这儿的意思是对某事或某一问题提出意见。又例如：a。这个问题还得请大家多参加参加意见。b。我参加不了多少意见，还是听听大家的。＂参加＂表示这种意思的时候，可以重叠使用，但它通常不单独做谓语。&lt;strong&gt;二、参与１。&lt;/strong&gt; 他曾参与过这个计划的讨论。动词＂参与＂的意思是进入到某事物的计划、讨论、处理等活动中去。又例如：a。跟你无关的事你别参与进去。b。我从没参与过他们的活动。＂参与＂跟＂参加＂在这儿意思是相同，可以相互替换，但＂参加＂的意思更广泛，＂参与＂不含加入某种组织的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;＂汉语同义词词典＂&lt;/strong&gt; 加入／参与／参加［同］动词。表示投身于其中。［异］&lt;strong&gt;［加入］&lt;/strong&gt; 着重于投身于某种组织，成为其中的成员。通用于口语和书面语。例：（１）当我发现了中国革命的正确道路时，我便加入了中国共产党。（朱德＜母亲的回忆＞）（２）我不久就加入了学生军。预备北伐！（田汉＜创作经验谈＞）（３）在县城里出售了茧后，他找着了他的战友，竟加入到战友的包工队里，一住就是两个月没有回来。（贸平凹＜鸡窝洼的人家＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［参与］&lt;/strong&gt; 又作＂&lt;strong&gt;参预&lt;/strong&gt;＂。着重于投身于某种活动。用于书面语。文言语体。例：（１）在画栋雕梁的怀仁堂里，我参与一次代大会。（柯灵＜历史老人摊了牌＞）（２）左翼作家参预或亲历实际革命斗争，使创作面貌继续有所变化；。。。（严家谈＜＜中国现代各流派小说选＞前言）（３）家里人都看我不起，因为我是女的，又穷又小，大小事都不让我参预。（丁玲＜我怎样跟文学结下了＂缘分＂＞）（４）伯韩就这样在风雨中喘息，在喘息中写作。同时，所有的一切政治活动，他都参与其事。（张毕来＜悼念曹伯韩同志＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［参加］&lt;/strong&gt; 着重于投身于某种组织或某种活动。使用范围比＂加入＂、＂参与＂宽。通用于口语和书面语。例：（１）一九四四年，闻一多参加了中国民主同盟，担任了＜民主周刊＞的编委。（赵遐秋＜闻一多和他的＜最后一次的讲演＞）（２）我脱离了地方，带了一批同志，参加了大部队。（谌容＜永远是春天＞）（３）＂你到上海去找觉慧也好，横竖我们可以联络，你也可以问参加我们的工作，＂张惠如说。（巴金＜秋＞）（４）果然，回回两口参加了禾禾的婚礼，在鸡窝洼里落了个好名声。（贾平凹＜鸡窝洼的人家＞）（５）从这以后，赵满囤就参加了田间劳动。（马烽＜三年早知道＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［附］&lt;/strong&gt; ＂&lt;strong&gt;加入&lt;/strong&gt;＂还表示加上；搀进去，如＂菜里边要加入少许糖＂。＂&lt;strong&gt;参加&lt;/strong&gt;＂还表示提出，如＂请参加意见＂＞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-01-03T07:09:55.533" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T07:09:55.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32443" CreationDate="2019-01-03T01:15:16.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer:&#xA;If something will make a result, &#xA;then &quot;参与&quot; means you have rights to make the decision.&#xA;and &quot;参加&quot; only means you just sit in the corner and listen to others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21114" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T01:15:16.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32211" CreationDate="2019-01-03T01:26:17.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the old Chinese meaning, this meaning &quot;I am a high-level man&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21114" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T01:26:17.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32448" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32449" CreationDate="2019-01-03T08:29:35.963" Score="2" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both mean &quot;clear&quot;, but in what way these two words are different? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21080" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T03:29:48.533" Title="What is the difference between 明确 and 清楚?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32448" CreationDate="2019-01-03T09:34:57.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明 = bright = clear (you see thing clearly in bright light)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;确 = definite; unambiguous = clear (when there is no ambiguity, it is clear)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;明确&lt;/strong&gt; = clear (&lt;strong&gt;clear and definite/ unambiguous&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清 = clear (when water is clear,  you can see things in it clearly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;楚 = neat = detailed; comprehensive (when things are neatly displayed, you can see the details)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;清楚&lt;/strong&gt; = clear (&lt;strong&gt;clear and detailed/ comprehensive&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明确指引 - clear (and unambiguous) guidelines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清楚指引 - clear (and detailed) guidelines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目標明确 -  the goal is clear (and unambiguous)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目標清楚 - the goal is clear (and comprehensive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More detailed example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清楚說説每一個細節 - Clearly explain every detail (&lt;em&gt;everything you can think of and everything you can't think of is explained&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明确指出今次行動的目標 - Clearly point out the target of this mission (&lt;em&gt;pointing out and confirm that guy is our target&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put, just remember  &amp;quot;明确&amp;quot; as unambiguously clear;  &amp;quot;清楚&amp;quot; as comprehensively clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the English word 'clear' implies both 'unambiguous' (e.g. &lt;em&gt;it is clearly him&lt;/em&gt;) and 'comprehensive' (&lt;em&gt;e.g. everything clear?&lt;/em&gt;). That's why both  &amp;quot;明确&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;清楚&amp;quot; can be translated as &amp;quot;clear&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T09:58:22.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20831" CreationDate="2019-01-03T11:18:02.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most young people in the cities you'll meet will understand the word &quot;partner&quot;. &quot;这是我爸爸现在的partner&quot;, sounds the most accurate introduction to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 女朋友 is also fine, but it leaves a slightest doubt that this is an extramarital relationship, and you might need to explain more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T11:18:02.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32448" CreationDate="2019-01-04T01:53:51.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might say, if you were looking at an object: 我看得清楚。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but not: 我看得明确。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T01:53:51.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32452" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-04T02:07:55.350" Score="2" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, we use &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; to indicate something close to us, or the first one and &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; to indicate something further off, or the next one. Apparently, early English did not have this distinction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This quote is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.etymonline.com/word/that#etymonline_v_10712&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;that: From c. 1200 opposed to this as indicating something farther&#xA;  off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has 这， 那 which seem to correspond with this, that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has Chinese always made a distinction between this and that? In old Chinese was this distinction present?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T03:25:26.210" Title="Chinese this and that" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32452" CreationDate="2019-01-04T02:31:08.903" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The distinction was present early on. In Classical Chinese, &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; is「此」, still used in Modern Chinese, while &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; is「彼」, which is not really used anymore except fossilised in some words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Poetry&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;詩&lt;/a&gt;・唐風・綢繆》：「今夕何夕，見&lt;strong&gt;此&lt;/strong&gt;良人！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;易&lt;/a&gt;・小過》：「公弋取&lt;strong&gt;彼&lt;/strong&gt;在穴。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T02:31:08.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32452" CreationDate="2019-01-04T03:25:26.210" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;这&quot; also can indicate something has just mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21114" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T03:25:26.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32448" CreationDate="2019-01-04T03:29:48.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will give you a short answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清楚: Your eyes or ears feel clear;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明确: Your mind feels clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21114" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T03:29:48.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32423" CreationDate="2019-01-05T00:35:14.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;驕傲 actually is translated into arrogant (adj.) or arrogance (n.) with the same negative connotation in English.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19947" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T00:35:14.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32457" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32459" CreationDate="2019-01-05T15:19:39.540" Score="0" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a foreigner with a difficult name. Could I use 滿喜由 as a full male name in Mainland China without causing too much hassle in communication?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does 滿喜由 sound to native chinese speakers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21130" LastEditorUserId="21130" LastEditDate="2019-01-05T17:44:21.800" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T19:23:48.160" Title="Using 滿喜由 as a male name in Mainland China" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32457" CreationDate="2019-01-05T19:05:43.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess &lt;strong&gt;喜由&lt;/strong&gt; is some kind of transcription of &lt;em&gt;Dio&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;em&gt;Dionisio&lt;/em&gt;. As pointed out by @TangHo, this transcription very unfortunately sounds like a sex drug.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The standard transcription of Greek (and derived Latin) &lt;em&gt;Dio-&lt;/em&gt; is「狄奧」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dio_of_Alexandria&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dio&lt;/strong&gt; of Alexandria&lt;/a&gt;: 亞歷山卓的&lt;strong&gt;狄奧&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassius_Dio&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cassius &lt;strong&gt;Dio&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;: 卡西烏斯・&lt;strong&gt;狄奧&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dio&lt;/strong&gt;nysus&lt;/em&gt; has the alternative &lt;strong&gt;狄俄&lt;/strong&gt;倪索斯.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This transcription matches the Greek, Latin, and Spanish ways of pronouncing &lt;em&gt;Dio-&lt;/em&gt;. The (alternative) English way of pronouncing &lt;em&gt;Dio-&lt;/em&gt; sounds something like &lt;em&gt;Dye-oh&lt;/em&gt;, which should be rendered as &lt;strong&gt;戴歐&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_into_Chinese_characters#Transcription_table&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;modern transcription practice&lt;/a&gt;,「狄」tends to be avoided in favour of「迪」, because「狄」is more commonly associated with barbarians occupying the northern borders in Ancient China. I would render your name as &lt;strong&gt;迪奧&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;迪歐&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T19:05:43.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32457" CreationDate="2019-01-05T19:18:45.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;How does 滿喜由 sound to native Chinese speakers?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;滿喜由 sounds like 滿喜油. It would be a good name for 春藥 (aphrodisiac)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;樂, 悅, 慶, 歡 can also mean 'joyful' . How about '滿慶歡' / '满庆欢' (full of joy and happiness). It incorporates the surname '滿'(full) with the first name 慶歡(joy and happiness) into a meaningful full name. And it sounds common enough to be a native Chinese name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-05T19:23:48.160" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T19:23:48.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32460" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32461" CreationDate="2019-01-05T21:52:18.473" Score="4" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;The algebra analogy &amp;quot;it's a function of X&amp;quot; seems commonly used in daily conversations in English but it's rare to say &amp;quot;X是Y的函数&amp;quot; in non-mathematics context in Chinese. What would be an idiomatic translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, how would you translate this sentence said by the former Bulls coach Phil Jackson, in respond to the question what made him more nervous, as a coach or as a player:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Definitely as a coach. ... your energy is a function of what you are doing. As a coach, you are just participating through your mind.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of X是Y的函数/X是Y1,Y2,Y3的函数, would it be a good option to say Y决定了X/Y1,Y2,Y3共同决定了X?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Full context:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jackson was asked what made him more nervous, his first Finals as a player or as a coach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Definitely as a coach,” he said. “I was much more nervous as a coach. When you play, your body is involved. You’re running. You’re energized. You’re playing the game. You may lose focus or track on the floor, but your energy is a function of what you are doing. As a coach, you are just participating through your mind.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T11:44:55.307" Title="How to say &quot;it's a function of ...&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32460" CreationDate="2019-01-05T23:33:38.723" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In daily conversations, we do not use &quot;甲是乙的函数&quot;, instead, we do use &quot;甲取決於乙&quot; for something that we think is crucial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在日常口語中，的確不常使用&quot;甲是乙的函数&quot;這種用法，可以考慮使用&quot;甲取決於乙&quot;這種翻法來表達某個關鍵因素。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation of the sentence said by the former Bulls coach Phil Jackson:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;肯定是教練... 你的精力取決於你做什麼。當教練時，你是透過腦力參與比賽。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21098" LastEditorUserId="21098" LastEditDate="2019-01-06T01:09:20.280" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T01:09:20.280" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32462" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-06T09:42:32.053" Score="0" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese business persons often have a different given name in English than in Chinese. For example, Tencent founder &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Huateng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ma Huateng&lt;/a&gt; is internationally known as Pony Ma while his co-founder &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Zhang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhang Zhidong&lt;/a&gt; is known as Tony Zhang. I have seen the same phenomenon in actors from Hong Kong (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Chan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jackie Chan&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a system to (some of) these &quot;translations&quot;? Does a specific Chinese given name have a specific English corresponding given name? Or are they completely made up, and by whom?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user21134" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T10:12:05.500" Title="Different given names in Chinese and English" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32462" CreationDate="2019-01-06T10:12:05.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no system; English names can be chosen essentially randomly, and the reasoning (if any) behind the choice may not be obvious unless the person explicitly tells the backstory behind the name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ma Huateng's (馬化騰) name &lt;em&gt;Pony&lt;/em&gt; comes from the Chinese practice of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%8F#Definitions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;adding the prefix 小 in front of the family name to indicate informality or affection for young people as the addressee&lt;/a&gt;, which becomes 小馬 (&lt;strong&gt;Xiǎo Mǎ&lt;/strong&gt;), as 馬 (&lt;strong&gt;Mǎ&lt;/strong&gt;) is his last name. 小馬, as a Chinese word, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%8F%E9%A6%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;literally means &lt;em&gt;Pony&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Zhang Zhidong's (張志東) name &lt;em&gt;Tony&lt;/em&gt; doesn't seem to be explicitly explained, although one can infer that it might have been chosen for one or more of the following reasons:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tony&lt;/em&gt; sounds similar to 東 (&lt;strong&gt;Dōng&lt;/strong&gt;), the last character of his first name;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tony&lt;/em&gt; was chosen to rhyme with &lt;em&gt;Pony&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Jackie Chan's name came about because he worked under a construction worker named &lt;em&gt;Jack&lt;/em&gt;; he was known as &lt;em&gt;Little Jack&lt;/em&gt; due to his apprentice role, which later changed to &lt;em&gt;Jackie&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T10:12:05.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32464" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32465" CreationDate="2019-01-06T11:04:44.500" Score="1" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am aware of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5525/questions-on-%E7%9A%84%E8%AF%9D&quot;&gt;this thread&lt;/a&gt;. However, I was wondering if you can play with the components the same way with every of the IF-words I know (ordered from most to least formal):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;假使……（的话），（就）……&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;假如……（的话），（就）……&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;如果……（的话），（就）……&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;要是……（的话），（就）……&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22if%22_with_%22ruguo..._dehua%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this lesson&lt;/a&gt;, it seems to be possible to generate all of those sentences with 如果:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;如果&lt;/strong&gt;有空&lt;strong&gt;的话&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;来我家玩。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;如果&lt;/strong&gt;有空&lt;strong&gt;的话&lt;/strong&gt;，来我家玩。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;如果&lt;/strong&gt;有空，&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;来我家玩。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有空&lt;strong&gt;的话&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;来我家玩。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有空&lt;strong&gt;的话&lt;/strong&gt;，来我家玩。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有空，&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;来我家玩。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有空，来我家玩。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The combinatorial aspect of Chinese is amazing. Can I do the same with the other three IF-words? Would that interfere with the level of their formality? Can 有空的话，就来我家玩 mean that 假使 or 要是 have been dropped, not just 如果?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2019-01-06T16:13:02.410" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T16:13:02.410" Title="Optional components in conditional statements" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32464" CreationDate="2019-01-06T11:37:28.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;作為「假使」(if)的句子，如果全部省略&lt;strong&gt;假使/假如/如果/要是&lt;/strong&gt;和&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;，有的時候會不太容易瞭解，例如下面這個句子就不清楚：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a IF sentence, if we omit not only 假使/假如/如果/要是 but also 就, sometimes it can become hard to be understood. For example (bad one):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;明天下雨，不去了。(If it rains tomorrow, we will not take the road.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是如果加上&lt;strong&gt;假使/假如/如果/要是&lt;/strong&gt;或是&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;，意思就很明白。也就是說，句型1～6會比較好，而這四個都可以如此構句。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if we add 假使/假如/如果/要是 or 就, it would sound perfectly clear. In other words, construction 1~6 would be better, and all these four IF-words can be used this way.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;這四個假如沒有絕對哪個比較正式，省略的話，也跟正式與否無關。（如果硬要區分，&lt;strong&gt;要是&lt;/strong&gt;比較口語一些）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these four IF-words are actually not different in terms of formality. And if we omit them, it does not concern the formality, neither. (If we really want to distinguish between them, 要是 is more oral. )&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21098" LastEditorUserId="21098" LastEditDate="2019-01-06T13:20:28.763" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T13:20:28.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32460" CreationDate="2019-01-06T11:44:55.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: don't say 'is a function of' in Chinese. 'depends on' springs immediately to mind, 'is related to', 'comes from'. All that adrenaline coursing through your arteries!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jackson was asked what made him more nervous, his first Finals as a player or as a coach?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;杰克逊被问道，在第一次总决赛中，是作为球员让他更紧张，还是作为教练更让他紧张。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definitely as a coach,” he said. &#xA;绝对是作为教练的时候，他答道&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“I was much more nervous as a coach. &#xA;我当教练的时候紧张得不行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you play, your body is involved. &#xA;当你打比赛的时候，你全身心地投入。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You’re running. &#xA;你得跑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You’re energized. &#xA;你充满能量。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You’re playing the game. &#xA;你在打比赛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may lose focus or track on the floor, but your energy is a function of what you are doing.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你可能会有片刻的失神，但是你正在做的事情让你充满活力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a coach, you are just participating through your mind.”&#xA;但是作为教练，你只是在你的脑海中演示比赛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T11:44:55.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32467" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-06T12:16:22.733" Score="3" ViewCount="472" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know if there are any differences between 一般 and 一样 in expressing “same”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T05:52:40.640" Title="Difference between 一般 and 一样 meaning “same”" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32468" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32472" CreationDate="2019-01-06T14:57:03.290" Score="3" ViewCount="516" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a word for 学霸 in English?&#xA;霸 comes from 霸王， which is an attribute people gave to a super warlord in ancient China who is invincible even when he was just fighting along against an entire army. And they would use this term for people who are academically dominant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T04:57:48.057" Title="How do you say 学霸 in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32467" CreationDate="2019-01-06T15:02:47.910" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;One difference is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般  could mean usual, average. As an adjective, you give a description of how something is comparing with the majority i.e, &quot;same as average&quot; or &quot;not average&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &#xA;学霸就是学霸， 他的成绩可真不一般。 (The reputation of being the best at school, His grades are no ordinary.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般人的跑步速度是每小时25公里左右。(People's running speed is about 15 miles per hour)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;牛顿的物理公式可以准确的描述我们一般的生活当中里的物理现象， 可是到了量子力学中， 就不行了。 (Newton's laws can accurately describe our day to day phenomena, But it would fail in quantum realm.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一样 as an adjective is usually a description of states when comparing between two things. It is weird to use it to compare state of something with the state of the average.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一样 can sometimes mean exactly the same where as you cannot use 一般 to mean two things are exactly the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastEditorUserId="20803" LastEditDate="2019-01-06T15:23:33.890" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T15:23:33.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32467" CreationDate="2019-01-06T18:03:28.397" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I want to know if there are any differences between 一般 and 一样 in expressing “same”?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一般 is &lt;strong&gt;virtually the same&lt;/strong&gt;;  一样 is &lt;strong&gt;exactly the same&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notice:&lt;/strong&gt; we say &quot;几乎一样&quot; (almost the same) but we don't say &quot;几乎一般&quot; because &quot;一般&quot; already contains the meaning of 'almost' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一般: similar to/ comparable to/ like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;斬瓜切菜&lt;strong&gt;一般&lt;/strong&gt;容易 (easy &lt;strong&gt;like&lt;/strong&gt; cutting vegetable)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狗的智力如兩歲小孩&lt;strong&gt;一般&lt;/strong&gt; (intelligence of dogs is &lt;strong&gt;similar to&lt;/strong&gt; a two-year-old child)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天使&lt;strong&gt;一般的&lt;/strong&gt;面孔 (A face &lt;strong&gt;comparable to&lt;/strong&gt; an angel's)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you say: 斬瓜切菜一样容易; 智力如兩歲小孩一样; 天使一样的面孔, You are using '&lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt; like' metaphorically, because they are not 'exactly the same ' in reality&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;一般 can be reduced to 般 in these context: 斬瓜切菜般容易; 兩歲小孩般的智力; 天使般的面孔&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一样: same as; the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兩者價錢&lt;strong&gt;一樣&lt;/strong&gt; (The price of both is &lt;strong&gt;the same&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雙生兄弟長著&lt;strong&gt;一樣的&lt;/strong&gt;面孔 (Twin brothers have &lt;strong&gt;the same&lt;/strong&gt; face)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you say 兩者一般價錢,  it implies the price is either exactly or virtually the same (e.g. $10/mo vs. $119/yr)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-07T05:52:40.640" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T05:52:40.640" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32467" CreationDate="2019-01-06T18:05:27.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;suggestion: see dictionaries, grammars and/or search this site, e.g. bkrs: 一般 &quot;same&quot; （一样） same as; just like:&#xA;他们俩一般高。 The two of them are the same height.&#xA;两个问题一般重要。 These two problems are of the same importance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;＂现代汉语虚词词典＂&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;一般（般 一样）&lt;/strong&gt; 助词 结构助词。跟＂似的＂类似。表示比似，多用于书面。＂X 一般＂作定语必须加＂的＂。&lt;strong&gt;１。&lt;/strong&gt; 名词／短语＋一般。不单用。火～｜波浪～｜诗～｜箭～｜花儿～｜打累～｜潮涌～｜翻江倒海～ &lt;strong&gt;２。&lt;/strong&gt;＂X一般＂作各种成分：火～的心｜波浪～的麦田｜诗～的语言｜花儿～的脸｜潮涌～的人群｜打累～的呼噜｜生活是铁～的事实，有它自来残忍（曹禺）｜［韩玉梅］好像搂着一个婴儿～的声音说（张贤亮）［作定语］｜他的心火～热｜他的话语，诗～有味｜远远地见司令来了，他老鼠见了猫～地躲开了｜那乌鸦也在笔直的树枝间，缩着头，铁铸～站着（鲁迅）｜突然［＂黑豹＂］它箭～向团部奔走（梁晓声）｜那三三两两的人，也忽然合作一堆，潮～向前赶（鲁迅）｜［作状语］&lt;strong&gt;３。&lt;/strong&gt; 跟＂像、如＂等连用：［梅雨潭］滑滑的明亮着，像涂了＂明油＂～，有鸡蛋清那样软，那样嫩，令人想着所曾触过的最嫩的皮肤（朱自清）｜＂九龙松＂老干槎桠，如张牙舞爪～（朱自清）｜天空亮得恰如洗过～，又高又远｜他好像失音了～，好像麻木了～｜＂当时确吃了一惊，仿佛梦醒～（朱自清）下列例中是形容词：两人一般高｜我不跟你一般见识｜这种产品很一般｜他这个人可不一般｜他跟你不一般｜［玩具］拐子会飞得和南来的大雁～高（张贤亮） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for 一样 see grammars e.g.＂图解基础汉语语法＂１９ 比较句（１）：A 跟 B 一样 ＂A 跟 B 一样／不一样＂表示 A 和 B 在某方面具有相同点或不同点。常用格式 肯定形式：A ＋ 跟 ＋ B  ＋ 一样 （＋形容词／动词短语） 否定形式：A ＋ 跟 ＋ B ＋ 不一样 （＋形容词／动词短语）疑问形式：A ＋ 跟 ＋ B ＋ 一样 （＋形容词／动词短语）＋ 吗 A：这本书跟那本（书）一样吗？B 这本书跟那本（书）一样。这本书跟那本（书）不一样。A:尼克跟大卫一样高吗？B：尼克跟大卫一样高。尼克跟大卫不一样高。玛丽跟安妮一样喜欢买东西。其他格式 格式［１］跟。。。一样（＋形容词／动词短语）的＋名词［２］动词＋得＋跟。。。一样（＋形容词／动词短语）［１］安妮有一顶跟玛丽一样（漂亮）的帽子。［２］儿子长得跟他父亲一样（胖）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note different patterns for 一般 compared to  一样, （incidentally 一样 is grammar topic, 一般 usually only is vocabulary item), due to difference in patterns 一般 and 一样 usually not liable to be confused with one another, thus e.g. ＂汉语同义词词典＂ has pairs 普通／一般 and 一样／一致 but not 一般／一样&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-01-07T02:28:56.053" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T02:28:56.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32468" CreationDate="2019-01-07T04:57:48.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;學霸 describes an extremely academically proficient student. The best translation is probably &lt;em&gt;straight-A&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;top student&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Brainiac&lt;/em&gt; is very similar, but more generically implies a &lt;em&gt;very academically clever person&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other words suggesting similar ideas, but some of them overlaps in meaning with 書呆子 (e.g. &lt;em&gt;studyholic&lt;/em&gt;) and others describe a kind of 霸 that is not necessarily to do with 學習 (e.g. &lt;em&gt;high/overachiever&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T04:57:48.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32474" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-07T13:07:18.593" Score="3" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read a couple of times the word being attributed to Hokkien. This wiktionary &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/buwisit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;entry&lt;/a&gt; claims the same. I'm not convinced though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21145" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T17:38:28.477" Title="Is the Filipino word &quot;buwisit&quot; really from Hokkien?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32474" CreationDate="2019-01-07T16:50:53.670" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;《闽南方言大词典》has the following entry on page 127:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3boKx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3boKx.png&quot; alt=&quot;hai&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[无围翼] &amp;lt;漳&gt; bo2-6 ui2-6 sit8 倒霉：盖～，佫拄着停电(真倒霉，又碰上停电) | ～甲伊做翁仔姐仔(跟他做夫妻很倒霉)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, this is attributed as 漳泉話 -or- Quanzhang Minnan, which is Hokkien - &lt;em&gt;bo ui sit&lt;/em&gt; does sound quite similar to &lt;em&gt;buwisit&lt;/em&gt; and the meaning (倒霉) does fit as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;無衣食 does seem to be the more appropriate spelling of &lt;em&gt;bo ui sit&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/72bWn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/72bWn.png&quot; alt=&quot;test&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衣食 means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;好運天賜食穿無缺。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-01-07T17:38:28.477" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T17:38:28.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32476" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-07T17:56:55.797" Score="4" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the translation for a computer bug that is being commonly used in the programming environment? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21146" LastActivityDate="2019-01-08T03:43:58.447" Title="What is the common word used among programmers for a bug?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32476" CreationDate="2019-01-07T18:24:07.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%A8%8B%E5%BA%8F%E9%94%99%E8%AF%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;程序错误&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;程序错误（英语：Bug），是程序设计中的术语，是指在软件运行中因为程序本身有错误而造成的功能不正常、死机、数据丢失、非正常中断等现象。有些程序错误会造成计算机安全隐患，此时叫做漏洞。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T18:24:07.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32476" CreationDate="2019-01-08T00:02:22.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among Chinese users, especially programmers, it's common to informally use the English word &quot;Bug&quot;. Often capitalised as &quot;BUG&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See for example this blog post: &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.jobbole.com/97/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;软件 Bug 引发的十次严重后果&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also: &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/bug/32708&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/bug/32708&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2019-01-08T00:02:22.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32476" CreationDate="2019-01-08T03:43:58.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;问题, 故障，毛病 can also be used for this. E.g. 这程序有很多问题。软件出了故障。 这程序写得有毛病。我们无法确定是软件问题还是硬件问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;软件有bug&quot; is &quot;软件有问题&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-01-08T03:43:58.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32480" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-08T04:26:07.517" Score="0" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that my reading and listening skills far exceed that of my writing capabilities. What is the most practical method to learn to write characters quickly, but also be able to use them in a sentence properly? Currently I just rote memorise, and this is what I assumed most people do, but find that it does not help me actually use it in a piece of writing. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21148" LastEditorUserId="21088" LastEditDate="2019-01-08T15:55:44.357" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T12:27:21.060" Title="What is the most efficient method in memorising written characters so as to expand written vocabulary?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32480" CreationDate="2019-01-08T11:14:09.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only thing I found valuable when I was studying Japanese 30 years ago was write small sentences until I was able to memorize them. I'm trying that with Chinese now and that's also very efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21150" LastActivityDate="2019-01-08T11:14:09.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32480" CreationDate="2019-01-08T15:06:16.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Characters consist of chars and each char has some meaning.　Try to divide character to chars and create some logic meaning from their connection. For instance: character 好　means &quot;good&quot; and consists of chars 女 (&quot;woman&quot;) and 子(&quot;child&quot;). So if a man has a wife 女 and a child 子 - everything is good i.e. 好. It's easier to memorize some logic connection and easier to recall from your memory the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21088" LastActivityDate="2019-01-08T15:06:16.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32484" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32485" CreationDate="2019-01-08T16:12:01.420" Score="4" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought magic cards would be a fun source of study material for me, but I've hit a bit that confuses me. (From &lt;a href=&quot;http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&amp;amp;multiverseid=455273&amp;amp;part=Niv-Mizzet,%20Parun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this card&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每当任一牌手施放瞬间或法术咒语时，你抓一张牌。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I already know from the English translation that it's trying to say &amp;quot;Whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery spell, you draw a card.&amp;quot;&#xA;Most of it I can breakdown with the use of a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每当...时 -&amp;gt; Whenever ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;手施放 -&amp;gt; I think this is &amp;quot;casts&amp;quot; since it is literally &amp;quot;hand discharges&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;瞬间或法术咒语 -&amp;gt; &amp;quot;instant or sorcery&amp;quot; (two card types in Magic)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你抓一张牌 -&amp;gt; You draw a card. Pretty straightforward.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not quite get 任一牌. From what I know needs to be said to match the English rules this part presumably means &amp;quot;any player&amp;quot; or more likely &amp;quot;any card&amp;quot;. I'm pretty sure 牌 is card, but if this means &amp;quot;any one card&amp;quot; why doesn't it use the measure word 张 as it does when saying &amp;quot;draw a card&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm also surprised I don't see any mention to &amp;quot;a player&amp;quot; to avoid any weird rules lawyering, but maybe it's not actually important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16905" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-09T16:39:53.783" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T16:39:53.783" Title="What does 任一牌 mean in Chinese &quot;Magic: The Gathering&quot; cards?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32484" CreationDate="2019-01-08T18:31:50.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The confusion you had is on &lt;em&gt;任一牌&lt;/em&gt;，however, is is actually &lt;em&gt;任一牌手&lt;/em&gt;，where &lt;em&gt;手&lt;/em&gt; means the person that is doing something with &lt;em&gt;牌&lt;/em&gt;。This is a common use in Chinese and specifically for your case, &lt;em&gt;牌手&lt;/em&gt; means &lt;em&gt;player&lt;/em&gt;, namely the person who is playing the cards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore the verb following it would be &lt;em&gt;施放&lt;/em&gt; instead of &lt;em&gt;手施放&lt;/em&gt;，which would eventually mean &lt;em&gt;discharge&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other examples like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水手 means sailor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刽子手 means executioner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;围棋圣手 means the person who is really good at GO&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;赛车手 means racer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骑手 means bike rider&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-08T18:31:50.807" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32486" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-09T00:47:46.420" Score="4" ViewCount="1179" Body="&lt;p&gt;宝钗说：“这么说，我也是和你一样的。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;林黛玉 did not agree. Part of what she said is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是一无所有，吃穿用度，一草一木，都和他们家的姑娘一样，那些小人岂有不多嫌的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does she mean with “一草一木”？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T03:06:41.117" Title="What is the meaning of 一草一木 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32486" CreationDate="2019-01-09T02:13:47.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; defines &lt;strong&gt;一草一木&lt;/strong&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;every blade of grass and every tree/bush; every little thing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt; also writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;every blade of grass and every tree&quot;—every bit of property&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, every little thing + every bit of property would fit your above sentence okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T02:13:47.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32486" CreationDate="2019-01-09T02:15:48.580" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;She means that every small thing she is provided with, including food and daily necessities, are essentially the same with girls of this family.&#xA;“一草一木”  here means &quot;every small thing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21156" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T02:15:48.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32486" CreationDate="2019-01-09T03:06:41.117" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;一草一木 is an idiom, originating from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Later_Han&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Book of the later Han&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《後漢書・應劭傳》：「春&lt;strong&gt;一草&lt;/strong&gt;枯則為災，秋&lt;strong&gt;一木&lt;/strong&gt;華亦為異。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In spring, a single blade of grass that withers heralds disaster; in autumn, a single tree that flourishes is unnatural.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, every small detail or single thing out of place suggests unnatural occurrences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was later shortened to 一草一木, meaning &lt;em&gt;every small/single thing&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是一無所有，吃穿用度，一草一木，皆是和他們家的姑娘一樣...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I have nothing at all; everything I use - what I'm eating or wearing, every single thing - are the same as the girls of that family...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T03:06:41.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32490" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-09T06:13:13.507" Score="3" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;逢着天门 Does anyone know the meaning of this saying or idiom? It is part of the commentary to a Shenshu verse, which doesn't really make sense to me, but it seems this expression more or less explains the verse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21162" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T06:24:56.317" Title="Meaning of the saying 逢着天门" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32490" CreationDate="2019-01-09T07:37:42.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;web search：&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.cn/dpool/blog/s/blog_5607e12b0100ar1k.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blog.sina.cn/dpool/blog/s/blog_5607e12b0100ar1k.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;esp. 光有地理位置还不够，还必须掌握时间，才能组成一个有效的时空坐标（space-time coordinates），逢着天门，就是指时间而言，让我们看奇门遁甲，上怎么说。&#xA;奇门遁甲 bkrs：the art of becoming invisible -- Daoist magic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T07:37:42.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32493" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32495" CreationDate="2019-01-09T08:01:25.177" Score="2" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_48ac9b5a0100cgbj.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;There's this joke&lt;/a&gt; that talks about a womanizer who wants to hog a woman known as: &lt;code&gt;白二寡妇&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;第四位是二流子，他说：“你们也品味台低啦。。。要是我做了皇帝，哼！我就派锦衣卫把白二寡妇家团团围住，只准我一个人进去！谁敢跟我争，就下大狱！！！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found another article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jianshu.com/p/874e1f33e0e2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jianshu&lt;/a&gt; that is entitled:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喂不饱的二寡妇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which talks about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;后来听去广东打工的人回来说，二寡妇跟大春分手后，被一个香港老板包了，再后来听说二寡妇不知怎么的跑去做了“鸡”，没脸回村见父母、儿女了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二寡妇 going into prostitution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;二寡妇&quot; somehow synonymous with prostitution?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-09T09:03:32.360" LastActivityDate="2019-01-10T11:15:49.507" Title="Is the title &quot;二寡妇&quot; synonymous with prostitution?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32493" CreationDate="2019-01-09T08:54:38.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;白二寡妇 in the first joke is referring to the widow of the second son in the 白 family. (we can presume 白二寡妇 was a beautiful woman. Being a widow, the loafer presumed she would be in need of some male attention... )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二寡妇 in '喂不饱的二寡妇' also referring to the widow of a second son (二哥)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二寡妇 went into prostitution doesn't mean prostitution = 二寡妇; same as Mr.A is a thief doesn't mean thief = Mr.A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T08:54:38.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32493" CreationDate="2019-01-09T09:32:03.610" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer : No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Longer answer : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese  traditional culture, one follows a hierarchy called relatives circle &lt;code&gt;伦理&lt;/code&gt;. Relatives never call each other name name directly among themselves, instead, Chinese use ordinal and the person hierarchy and relatedness according &#xA;base on one to another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you have two elder uncle call Tom (1st) and Jerry (2nd), your father is the 3rd, two younger uncle call John (4th) , Nathan (5th). This is how you call them &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tom 大伯 （Eldest uncle ,伯 indicate he is elder than your father)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Jerry  二伯 （2nd uncle)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;John 四叔 (4th uncle)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nathan 五叔  （5th uncle, 叔 younger uncle than your father)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The society usually don't know each of your uncle name but they know each family  relatives circle hierarchy.  I.e. Say your family clan name is 白, this is how the society call your uncle (ordinal and clan name) and their wife&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tom 白大  , wife 白大嫂  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Jerry  白二 , wife 白二嫂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;John 白四 , wife 白四嫂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nathan 白五 , wife 白五嫂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Jerry pass away, his wife can maintain the relatives title(嫂) or called as widow(寡妇), then 白二嫂 can be also be identify as 白二寡妇 by the society. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2019-01-10T11:15:49.507" LastActivityDate="2019-01-10T11:15:49.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-09T20:03:06.650" Score="-1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ciRBo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ciRBo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anybody knows what this means? tatto from my brother&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21165" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T23:30:10.213" Title="anybody knows what this means? tatto from my brother" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-01-10T00:53:03.440" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32496" CreationDate="2019-01-09T23:20:12.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This character is 塗, pronounced tú.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionary definition is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[v] paint; spread on. Ex: 塗抹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[v] scribble. Ex: 塗鴉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[v] erase. Ex: 塗改&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[n] mud. Ex: 塗炭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[a] muddled, silly. Ex: 糊塗  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a old saying in Chinese &quot;難得糊塗&quot; (literally: it's hard to be muddled), which is said by one famous scholar. It means that do not be too clever when dealing with stuff in the world. (Where ignorance is bliss, it's folly to be wise)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21098" LastEditorUserId="21098" LastEditDate="2019-01-09T23:30:10.213" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T23:30:10.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1346" CreationDate="2019-01-10T04:57:38.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually， “整块时间” is the right word in Chinese. But it's usually used on &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;comparing with the &quot;零散时间&quot; (fragmented time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“整块时间” is like ... during this time (maybe 2or 3 hours) continually doing one &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thing without interruption.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21169" LastActivityDate="2019-01-10T04:57:38.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31134" CreationDate="2019-01-10T05:09:33.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is Chinese calligraphy. As Toosky's answered, you have known the meaning of these pictures. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like, in the first picture is &quot;time&quot; (when painted this painting) -- &quot;Author&quot; (who painted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you search about &quot;Chinese calligraphy&quot;, you may know more about the forms of calligraphy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21169" LastActivityDate="2019-01-10T05:09:33.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31134" CreationDate="2019-01-10T09:41:15.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The hard-to-identify characters are in the first and third image. I'll skip the second image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BcELD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BcELD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e5o5Q.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e5o5Q.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-01-16T11:54:46.447" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T11:54:46.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32501" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32818" CreationDate="2019-01-10T14:26:36.617" Score="1" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was practising cháng when I looked up the strike order and got confused by the first and second stroke:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://dict.leo.org/media/strokes/K1OfiuoocXt.png&quot; alt=&quot;series of four images showing the stroke order of 长: a left sweep, a rightward stroke, a downward stroke and a right sweep&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because I learned the stroke order differently like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesetop.blogspot.com/2016/08/chang-long.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chinesetop.blogspot.com/2016/08/chang-long.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anybody explain the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: sorry that was the wrong video.  I meant as the second part off this Zhang character:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FcLOc.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FcLOc.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://content.visualmandarin.com/resources/images/large_2325096282.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;visualmandarin.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17580" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-12-20T15:11:38.323" LastActivityDate="2020-12-20T15:11:38.323" Title="Stroke order for 长" Tags="&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32501" CreationDate="2019-01-10T16:06:00.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just wanna say, it is not very important, as long as you keep the general rule: left to right, top to down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is OK however you write it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastActivityDate="2019-01-10T16:06:00.050" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32503" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-10T16:47:29.597" Score="3" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am preparing for HSK 6, and its Reading Part 1, which asks you to identify a 语病 in a sentence, is notoriously hard. Here is one of the sentences from HSK 6 Reading Part 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周围的人都很羡慕她，说他的妻子很实惠，又能干又体贴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My HSK 6 testbook, which comes without an explanation for each question, says that there is a 语病 in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am guessing that “他的妻子很实惠，又能干又体贴” should be edited to &quot;他的妻子很实惠，能干，体贴.&quot; Am I wrong in this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21177" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T01:18:22.383" Title="How to list adjectives in Chinese" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32503" CreationDate="2019-01-10T17:43:44.687" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recognize at two 语病 in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, it should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;周围的人都很羡慕他&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People envy him, not her, his wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, one should not describe a person with 实惠，实惠 describes a product, which means the product is worth the price. To describe a person, one use 贤惠，and it is usually for a woman, which generally refers to a woman who is diligent, good tempered and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2019-01-10T17:43:44.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32505" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-10T18:34:47.133" Score="4" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I encountered the following sentence recently:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个重大责任， 就是对民族的责任。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I loosely translated it to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This important responsibility is the nation's responsibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But grammatically, I was confused by the use of 就是 and 对. I would have written it without those words. What grammatical function do 就是 and 对 play in the sentence?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19881" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T13:45:41.387" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T15:00:55.720" Title="What is the function 就是 and 对 in 这个重大责任， 就是对民族的责任?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32505" CreationDate="2019-01-10T19:36:24.660" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这个重大责任， [&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;]民族的责任。&quot; - &quot;This major responsibility, [&lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt;] the people's responsibility &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这个重大责任， [&lt;strong&gt;就是&lt;/strong&gt;]民族的责任。&quot; - &quot;This major responsibility, [&lt;strong&gt;exactly is&lt;/strong&gt;]&#xA;the people's responsibility &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这个重大责任， [&lt;strong&gt;就是&lt;/strong&gt;][&lt;strong&gt;对&lt;/strong&gt;] 民族的责任。&quot; - &quot;This major responsibility, [&lt;strong&gt;exactly is&lt;/strong&gt;] the responsibility [&lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt;] the people&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all cases, '&lt;strong&gt;这个重大责任&lt;/strong&gt;' is the &lt;strong&gt;topic&lt;/strong&gt; of a [topic + comment/opinion] sentence &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The comment/ opinion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;1b. '是民族的责任'&quot; (is people's responsibility) is the comment on the &lt;strong&gt;topic&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;2b. '是' = 'is' ; '就是' = 'exactly is' ; '就' has many meanings. However, in this sentence, it means 'exactly', which emphasize the verb '是', not only &quot;it is&quot;, it  &quot;exactly is&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;3b. '对'(toward) = 'to' ; it is a preposition that indicates which object this responsibility is for&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;民族的责任 = the people's responsibility &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;对&lt;/strong&gt;]民族[&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;]责任 = responsibility [&lt;strong&gt;toward&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt;] the people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Rephrase in English grammar: &quot;This major responsibility, is the responsibility to the people&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T15:00:55.720" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T15:00:55.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32503" CreationDate="2019-01-11T01:18:22.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The quote can be fixed as (see zzy's answer): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;周围的人都很羡慕他，说他的妻子很贤惠，又能干又体贴。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, about the fix you proposed. In this sentence, 贤惠、能干、体贴 are not just a list of adjective. 能干 and 体贴 is here to explain (some of) the reasons why his wife can be described as &quot;贤惠&quot;. There is no problem in the sentence structure here, and your proposed fix is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T01:18:22.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32508" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32509" CreationDate="2019-01-11T02:35:23.083" Score="2" ViewCount="1393" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a graphic design for a client I want to render the words &lt;strong&gt;&quot;There is no God but the God&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; into Chinese &lt;em&gt;in as few characters as possible.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is of course a translation of the Islamic &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B8%85%E7%9C%9F%E8%A8%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;La Ilaha Illallah&quot; (&quot;There is no God but the God&quot;)&lt;/a&gt; . And whereas Muslims say &quot;万物非主，唯有真主&quot;, that's 8 characters long and a huge statement and &lt;em&gt;not easy to fit in my clients design&lt;/em&gt;, so I came up with this instead:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;無神除神&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notes:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I chose &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shen_(Chinese_religion)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;神&lt;/a&gt; for &quot;God&quot; despite &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_names_for_the_God_of_Abrahamic_religions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;other names&lt;/a&gt; being more commonly used in Abrahamic Religions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Arabic word &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%A5%D9%84%D9%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ilah&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;(root of Ilaha and Illallah in the phrase &quot;La Ilaha Illallah&quot;)&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;a generic word for God&lt;/strong&gt; in Arabic, hence my choice of 神 over other words like 主 or 帝 which are more specific and would be better translations of the Arabic word &quot;Rabb&quot; (&quot;Lord&quot;) I'm my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/27820/what-is-god-in-chinese&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; that 神 is also (if not commonly) used for the Abrahamic God. To quote the answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Christian prayers (esp the older translations) refer to god as 主 or 神 （I've seen hand-copied Christian prayers that use both）；but 神 also means &quot;spirit&quot; (if you think of &quot;the holy spirit&quot;, it makes sense that 神 is used to refer to god). However, unlike 上帝, the character 神 alone doesn't unambiguously mean &quot;god&quot;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 神 &quot;&lt;em&gt;doesn't unambiguously mean &quot;god&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&quot; I think, in the context of the phrase &quot;無神除神&quot; it is clear enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My reason for choosing 神 came from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_gods_and_immortals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; site, where it is said (under &lt;em&gt;Terminology&lt;/em&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In Chinese language there is a terminological distinction between 神 shén, 帝 dì and 仙 xiān. Although the usage of the former two is sometimes blurred, it corresponds to the distinction in Western cultures between &quot;god&quot; and &quot;deity&quot;, Latin genius (meaning a generative principle, &quot;spirit&quot;) and deus or divus; dì, sometimes translated as &quot;thearch&quot;, implies a manifested or incarnate &quot;godly&quot; power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is 無神除神 grammatical correct &lt;em&gt;and good as a translation&lt;/em&gt; of the Arabic &quot;La Ilaha Illallah&quot; (&quot;There is no God but the God&quot;) for the purpose of my small graphic design?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20988" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-01-11T07:33:08.687" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T08:23:00.530" Title="無神除神, There is no God but The God" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32508" CreationDate="2019-01-11T03:39:53.913" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So is 無神除神 grammatical correct and good as a translation of the Arabic &quot;La Ilaha Illallah&quot; (&quot;There is no God but the God&quot;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No to both &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;There is no God but the God&quot; should be &quot;There is no god but &lt;strong&gt;God&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shortened form of &quot;除了(真)神之外沒有神&quot; should be  &quot;除神沒神&quot;. But 除 also mean remove, so &quot;除神沒神&quot; could mean &quot;remove God and there will be no God&quot;, Therefore, it is not a clear translation for &quot;There is no god but God&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;神外無神&quot; (Beside God, there's no god) is a better translation &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;神外無神&quot;  Short for &quot;真&lt;strong&gt;神&lt;/strong&gt;之&lt;strong&gt;外&lt;/strong&gt;別&lt;strong&gt;無&lt;/strong&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;神&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (Beside the one true God, there's no other gods)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems like there is an existent translation '認主獨一' for  &quot;La Ilaha Illallah&quot; in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it is for an original design, using an existent official translation actually remove the most important creative element -- the 'creative phrasing' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;As a graphic designer myself, I would have two choices-- one is follow the existent translation, make it a simple 'font' creating project; another is treat it as an original design and 'create' a new phrase. I would choose option 2&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-11T08:22:57.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T08:22:57.587" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32508" CreationDate="2019-01-11T04:04:00.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This looks really weird, I can't even guess what 無神除神 means before reading your explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the main problem is that, 除, when used alone, usually means &lt;em&gt;get rid of&lt;/em&gt; rather than &lt;em&gt;except&lt;/em&gt;. So the whole phrase become 'no god and get rid of god'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, there's already a 4-character phrase with similar meaning 認主獨一. I'm not sure if that fits your need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T04:04:00.647" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32508" CreationDate="2019-01-11T07:29:42.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;萬物非主，唯有真主 is eight characters long (not including the comma) and it's too long.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You're looking for a four character replacement.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not just go with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;唯有真主&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has a nice feature where &lt;strong&gt;elliptical phrases&lt;/strong&gt; are many and frequently used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take the phrase 泥菩萨过江——自身难保 for instance, where 自身难保 is often dropped - because the intended meaning is known to most. See these excerpts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;但如今的委內瑞拉也是「泥菩薩過江」&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;泡沫黨員便秉持著泥菩薩過江的心態&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他們已經泥菩薩過江了&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;唯有真主&lt;/strong&gt; can also be used in a similar manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even without the beginning of the phrase (萬物非主), the meaning and connotations are still held intact with the ending 唯有真主, even by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T07:29:42.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32513" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32515" CreationDate="2019-01-11T07:46:57.770" Score="3" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;大家好，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想学四川话。我已经会普通话但是我迫不及待学四川话。&#xA;除了要得意外，我不太熟悉其他词汇儿。在哪里可以找到四川话的词汇？&#xA;你们四川人一般还有什么很有用的？&#xA;请原谅我的中文，我尽力写得很好。 ：）&#xA;I also wanna mention that I already know how to pronounce the Ch-&gt;c, Sh-&gt;s ...etc Just looking for great expressions or vocabulary&#xA;Any help is greatly appreciated.&#xA;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19189" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T13:59:28.533" Title="Sichuanese : any tips to learn some vocabulary?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32508" CreationDate="2019-01-11T07:54:48.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;天外無天&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;唯一真神&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can replace 天 with 神, 真神 with 真主.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21180" LastEditorUserId="21180" LastEditDate="2019-01-11T08:23:00.530" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T08:23:00.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32513" CreationDate="2019-01-11T08:55:57.890" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can start by watching some TV shows, for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://so.youku.com/search_video/q_%E4%B8%8B%E8%AF%BE%E4%BA%86%EF%BC%8C%E8%A6%81%E9%9B%84%E8%B5%B7?spm=a2ha1.12325017.#qheader_search~10&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;下课了，要雄起&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://so.youku.com/search_video/q_%E6%88%B3%E9%94%85%E6%BC%8F?spm=a2ha1.12325017.#qheader_search~10&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;戳锅漏&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://so.youku.com/search_video/q_%E5%93%88%E5%84%BF%E5%8F%B8%E4%BB%A4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;傻儿司令&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bilibili.com/video/av6586728/index_3.html#page=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;耙耳朵的幸福生活&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of them are subtitled but more dialectical words will be translated into Mandarin in the subtitles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also many books&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.cn/dp/B07JYVMZZV/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1547193530&amp;amp;sr=8-10&amp;amp;keywords=%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;四川方言日历(2019)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.cn/dp/B012CL5UU4/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1547193530&amp;amp;sr=8-17&amp;amp;keywords=%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;漫画四川方言&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.cn/dp/B01M8QXN77/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1547193609&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;keywords=%E6%88%90%E9%83%BD%E8%AF%9D&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;老成都漫画系列:成都话&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/chineselessonsfo00kilbuoft&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Lessons For First Year Students in West China by Kilborn, Omar L. (Omar Leslie), 1867-1920&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/westernmandarino00graiuoft&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Western Mandarin or, The Spoken Language of Western China; with Syllabic and English Indexes by Grainger, Adam&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.cn/dp/B00J7EC1DY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1547193530&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;keywords=%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;四川方言词典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.cn/dp/B00MDC00EE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1547193530&amp;amp;sr=8-2&amp;amp;keywords=%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;四川方言词源&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.cn/dp/B0011CPLA0/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1547193530&amp;amp;sr=8-6&amp;amp;keywords=%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;成都方言词汇&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.cn/dp/B00YBYXV7U/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1547193530&amp;amp;sr=8-8&amp;amp;keywords=%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;成都方言&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nothing, though, beats spending time with actual native speakers and interacting with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the most common words include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;巴适 = 很棒&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;安逸 = 舒服&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;牙尖 = 八卦&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雄起 = 加油&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;洋盘 = 洋气&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;子 = 干嘛&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;将就 = 凑合&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;摆龙门阵 = 聊天儿&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;宝器 = 傻瓜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;耳朵 = 妻管严&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many lists online too like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/13/1008/11/872290_319791006.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;标准四川话300句&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://app.myzaker.com/news/article.php?&amp;amp;pk=54e53be31bc8e08257000000&amp;amp;app_id=400000&amp;amp;sharechannel=wx&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;四川话怎么说，经典四川话，常用四川话大全&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-01-11T13:59:28.533" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T13:59:28.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32505" CreationDate="2019-01-11T09:26:03.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;就是 is more like &quot;&lt;em&gt;that is&lt;/em&gt;&quot; in English. It's an emphasis on the explanation of the afforementioned &quot;责任&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T09:26:03.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32505" CreationDate="2019-01-11T13:04:44.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;对...的责任 means &quot;responsibility to ...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就是 translates as &quot;is&quot; here. The character 就 may be what is confusing you, it's a very common character that is hard to explain but you will get a feel for it as you learn more Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个重大责任， 就是对民族的责任。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  This great responsibility is a responsibility to the nation (where nation implies &quot;people&quot; rather than &quot;country“)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Duty&quot; would also be a valid choice rather than &quot;responsibility&quot;, depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T13:04:44.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32518" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-11T13:15:51.360" Score="5" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-take-to-design-a-Chinese-typeface&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; post goes into some hypotheticals on how long it might take to design a Chinese font compared to a Latin font.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d6a247d91204ccfca9027e7a0b1ddf9f.webp&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f2WmG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It shows an image of potentially some &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_(Chinese_characters)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;radicals&lt;/a&gt;&quot; which could be used as the base components to construct more complicated characters. But from looking at radicals compared to complex Chinese characters, there are many many subtle variations in the complicated characters that aren't directly mappable to these basic Chinese radicals. So I'm wondering if and how you could actually build up a sort of component library to design a Chinese font without having to built every character from scratch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, if there is a (ideally known) finite number of components/radicals/etc. in Chinese that could be used to streamline the development of a Chinese font.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21182" LastActivityDate="2021-02-20T01:03:15.370" Title="The number of &quot;components&quot; (potentially) to define a Chinese character typeface" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32519" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-11T20:30:09.967" Score="1" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend gave an English translation of this Chinese poem to me long time ago. It was a long poem and it was about two men, talking by the river and enjoying the moon. It contained a phrase, &quot;Have you seen the moon and the water?&quot; They talk about some things always changing and yet always there, like the moon and the river. I don't remember who wrote it, but I just remember it was beautiful. Does anybody know what this poem is??&#xA;Thanks in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21185" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T02:57:08.900" Title="Does anyone know this Chinese poem?" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32519" CreationDate="2019-01-11T21:09:18.023" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The poem you are quoting is 前赤壁赋 by 苏轼，and indeed, it is one of the best 赋 in Chinese history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part you have in the post is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;客亦知夫水与月乎&lt;/strong&gt;？逝者如斯，而未尝往也，盈虚者如彼，而卒莫消长也。&lt;strong&gt;盖将自其变者而观之，则天地曾不能以一瞬，自其不变者而观之，则物与我皆无尽也&lt;/strong&gt;，而又何羡乎？且夫天地之间，物各有主，苟非吾之所有，虽一毫而莫取。惟江上之清风，与山间之明月，耳得之而为声，目遇之而成色，取之无禁，用之不竭，是造物者无尽臧也，而吾与子之所共适。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2019-01-14T02:57:08.900" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T02:57:08.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32521" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32522" CreationDate="2019-01-12T05:31:25.717" Score="0" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_description_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; has a pretty small font size for Chinese characters like 書. I would prefer if it were a little larger. Wondering if there is a sort of reference or ideal size for Chinese characters, similar to how a good estimate/range for Latin-based fonts is around 14-16px.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2019-01-12T07:06:38.397" Title="A good web font size for Chinese characters" Tags="&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32521" CreationDate="2019-01-12T06:49:45.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among others, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E9%A6%96%E9%A1%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; has a font of 15px, &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.news.yahoo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yahoo News&lt;/a&gt; has a font of 18 px, and the font of &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.sina.com.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sina News&lt;/a&gt; is also 18 px.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21098" LastEditorUserId="21098" LastEditDate="2019-01-12T07:06:38.397" LastActivityDate="2019-01-12T07:06:38.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32523" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-12T08:55:52.973" Score="0" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering how much freedom a designer has of a Chinese character, if they must make every stroke exactly in the correct position and thickness and direction and shape and everything, or if they can have some freedom in where it's placed, its orientation, emphasis/focusability in the context of the whole character, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know how much creative freedom you have in designing a custom look and feel for a Chinese character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking at for example the variation in styles &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.freechinesefont.com/category/modern/page/3/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, but other than thickness of the character strokes they all look pretty similar. You don't see highly custom designs like you do with the Latin alphabet, which is the reason for the question. Even &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.monotype.com/resources/font-stories/a-digital-ready-chinese-sans-serif-is-born/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this modern sans-serif font looks similar to the others&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hackingchinese.com/handwriting-chinese-characters-the-minimum-requirements/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; was helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21182" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T06:30:51.847" Title="The amount you can adjust a Chinese characters look without it changing meaning" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32525" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32526" CreationDate="2019-01-12T22:51:04.653" Score="0" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the sentence &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我出发了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with the translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I'm leaving.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was given to me in a list of examples demonstrating the putting 了 after a verb expresses a completed action (perfect aspect, I guess). But in this particular example the action isn't completed. &lt;strong&gt;So then why does 了 belong here? How would the meaning change without it?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21188" LastEditorUserId="21188" LastEditDate="2019-01-12T23:11:48.040" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T07:34:00.553" Title="What is 了 doing in the sentence 我出发了?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32525" CreationDate="2019-01-12T23:36:28.077" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'm leaving&lt;/em&gt; is rather ambiguous; going from English to Chinese, it is either&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'm getting ready to leave&lt;/em&gt; (我在準備出發)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'm going to leave&lt;/em&gt; (我出發了)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'm in the process of leaving&lt;/em&gt; (我正在出發, e.g. if you're waiting on a plane ready to take off)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我出發了 is also ambiguous; going from Chinese to English, it is either&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'm going to leave [now]&lt;/em&gt; (我［現在］出發了)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;I've already left&lt;/em&gt; (我已經出發了)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Context is essential; if 我出發了 is translated to &lt;em&gt;I'm going to leave&lt;/em&gt;, then「了」is used as a function where it is &lt;strong&gt;put at the end of a sentence to declare (to a listener) the beginning of an action&lt;/strong&gt;. In this sense, we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我走了 (declaration: &lt;em&gt;I'm leaving/going [to go somewhere]&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我（去）吃飯了 (declaration: &lt;em&gt;I'm going to have food&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我（去）讀書了 (declaration: &lt;em&gt;I'm going to study&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is mandatory to drop「去」in verbs which involve going/leaving anyway, such as「走」and「出發」. In other verbs, including「去」is optional, but it reveals the sentence structure better. You can see that in the written language, without explicitly writing「去」, it is hard to see that 我吃飯了 is a declaration of &lt;em&gt;I'm &lt;strong&gt;going&lt;/strong&gt; to have food&lt;/em&gt;, but in spoken language the context should be clearer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How would the meaning change without「了」?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is ungrammatical to say just 我出發, like it is ungrammatical to only say in English &lt;em&gt;I leave&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-01-13T00:02:14.583" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T00:02:14.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32525" CreationDate="2019-01-13T00:13:05.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我出发了 can be taken as the shorthand of 我要出发了. The literal translation can be: &lt;em&gt;I'd be leaving&lt;/em&gt;. 了 denotes &lt;strong&gt;a completion state you would enter in the very near future&lt;/strong&gt;. E.g. 我走了， I'd be in the 'gone' state in a second(or just right now), that is, &lt;strong&gt;I'm going&lt;/strong&gt;. By the same token, we can translate 我出发了 as &lt;em&gt;I'm leaving.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, people say 我走了， often accompanying with their actions: &lt;em&gt;stand up and walk away&lt;/em&gt;. It means &lt;strong&gt;I've decided to go and I'm doing it(going)&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-01-13T00:25:26.860" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T00:25:26.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32523" CreationDate="2019-01-13T06:30:51.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually there is a lot of styles when it comes to handwriting.  You can check out this page &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E4%B9%A6%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E4%B9%A6%E6%B3%95&lt;/a&gt;. It can be quite hard to understand sometimes. like this one &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8D%89%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8D%89%E4%B9%A6&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21191" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T06:30:51.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32529" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32530" CreationDate="2019-01-13T06:33:44.900" Score="0" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Latin scripts we have the letter &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; but also it &quot;annotated&quot; with an accent in this case: &lt;code&gt;á&lt;/code&gt;. These accents/annotations/diacritics can be above or below the current Latin character. Other languages like Hindi/Devanagari have similar features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering if Chinese has any of this sort of thing. I don't remember where I saw it but I remember some Japanese text had a small either Chinese or Japanese character next to (or I think it was above, in smaller font like a superscript, but directly centered above) the given character, which I think told a deeper meaning about the main character. I'm not sure exactly what it was but it was some sort of &quot;annotation&quot; that went above the main character in text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm wondering if for some Chinese character, there is some piece of information which could be attached to it either above or below, or some enhancing artifact like an accent or a tone or any particular thing. I know tones are marked with ^ and the like in Pinyin, but that's Latin script. I'm wondering specifically for Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T14:33:55.693" Title="If there are ever &quot;annotations&quot; above or below Chinese characters" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32529" CreationDate="2019-01-13T06:56:04.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, the Chinese character itself doesn't have such annotation.&#xA;For Japanese, that happens on hiragana/katakana, like 'た' vs 'だ', but not in 'kanji'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If two Chinese character happens to appear as if annotation applied, it's likely they are 2 different characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21192" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T06:56:04.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32531" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32561" CreationDate="2019-01-13T07:51:15.820" Score="0" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wondering if there is a set of Chinese characters, some arbitrary set, that demonstrates every possible way a stroke can be used (or just &lt;em&gt;is currently&lt;/em&gt; used) in any Chinese character. To put it in a simpler way, say you have these &quot;characters&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;               |               |&#xA;     _____     |               |&#xA;    |     |    |    |  |  |    |      &#xA;    |     |    |    |     |    |     / \&#xA;    |_____|    |    |     |    |        &#xA;               |               |&#xA;               |               |&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then they get would cover characters such as this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;               |               |&#xA;     _____     |     _____     |&#xA;    |     |    |    |  |  |    |       |  &#xA;    | / \ |    |    | / \ |    |    | / \ |&#xA;    |_____|    |    |_____|    |       _  &#xA;               |               |&#xA;               |               |&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...and lots of others, but it wouldn't represent this one, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     _____     &#xA;    | / \ |    &#xA;    | \ / |    &#xA;    |__|__|    &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because that pattern isn't in the original top 3 characters combined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure if any list of suitable characters that aggregates all the strokes used in Chinese typography exists but it seems like one might. If not I feel like if you are a native speaker or have a lot of experience this might be straightforward to find at least a small group of characters that covers the vast majority of cases. But ideally I would like something that covers all the edge cases as well. But if I knew that there were thousands of edge cases, meaning that there were actually thousands of characters which are the only instance of a specifically angled and positioned stroke, then phew, that means there's not really a system and that would be good to know instead too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T06:37:55.997" Title="The minimal set of characters containing any stroke a Chinese character might have" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32532" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-13T11:31:56.743" Score="0" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I do not have anyone to practice speaking with, will reading Mandarin help me speak Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T01:50:28.513" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T01:51:20.597" Title="Does reading Chinese sentences improve my speaking?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32533" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-13T13:05:04.970" Score="-2" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;the titles say's it, i have some old porcelain form china at home, and i would really like to know the meaning of the symbols in the photo attached. thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gKTaE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gKTaE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21198" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-02-15T07:34:01.313" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T07:34:01.313" Title="Hello, i have a porcelain with these symbols on it. can someone help me decifer them ? Huge thanks" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23552" CreationDate="2019-01-13T13:48:57.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2YWXN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2YWXN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shang Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;oracle bone script&lt;/a&gt; shapes. The right hand character looks like either「冬」or「終」, and the left hand side character is either「月」or「夕」. Note that there was no difference between「冬・終」and「月・夕」in oracle bone script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FZIEM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FZIEM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is「圃」, also in a Shang Dynasty shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T13:48:57.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32533" CreationDate="2019-01-13T13:54:53.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;日: (Sun， Pinyin:rì)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本: (Origin， Pinyin：běn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大: (Big， Pinyin : dà)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三: (Three, pinyin :sān)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日本 ：(Japan, Pinyin : rì běn）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastEditorUserId="20803" LastEditDate="2019-01-13T14:20:15.820" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T14:20:15.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32525" CreationDate="2019-01-13T14:28:01.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are with me. You want to go. You say: 我走了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You and I have an appointment in a restaurant. You are late. I call you. You say: 我已经出发了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我走了。 I'm leaving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我出发了。I already left. (I'm on my way to the restaurant)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is, whether or not you are talking to a person face to face, 我走了，or you are on the phone, 我（已经）出发了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出发：leaving with a specific destination in mind&#xA;走了：leaving&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们出发了。：Let's go.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们走吧。：Let's go, let's leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem arises with English. English and its predecessors maintain there is a thing called Tense. Thus, English speakers look at Chinese and want to find Tense. Language is more complicated than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice: do not even try to match Chinese to Western Grammar concepts.&#xA;Tha past was never perfect, forget it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T14:28:01.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32529" CreationDate="2019-01-13T14:33:55.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Latin letters are used like that to represent new phonemes. Chinese characters are never used like that. What you see might be 返り点 or (半)濁点. If you're sure that's Japanese text, then it's definitely Dakuten. Kaeriten is only used for ancient Chinese text as annotation for Japanese readers. Notice the fact you as a westerner may not be able to tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese since they are not necessarily written in the most common writing system, especially in case of ancient text or text for primary school students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20411" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T14:33:55.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32532" CreationDate="2019-01-13T14:40:18.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m Chinese and currently studying English.  If you're just reading, your progress is probably very slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that the best way to improve your skill is to have conversation with people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你好，朋友，我是中国人，我正在学习英文。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如果你只是阅读，可能你的进展很慢。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我觉得提升你能力的最好办法是跟别人交流。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21199" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T01:51:20.597" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T01:51:20.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32539" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32540" CreationDate="2019-01-13T18:11:15.637" Score="5" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that this sentence is correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北京奥运会是2008年举办的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But can you omit the “的” that is after the verb “举办”？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北京奥运会是2008年举办[ ]。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think, I have read some sentences that has omitted the “的” after a verb in the end of a sentence, but I'm not quite sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can, please provide me some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21200" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-14T00:00:57.177" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T00:00:57.177" Title="Can you omit the 的 after 举办 in 北京奥运会是2008年举办的？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32539" CreationDate="2019-01-13T19:10:38.600" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北京奥运会是2008年举办的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;北京奥运会是2008年举办的&amp;quot; is a [topic + comment/opinion] sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Topic: 北京奥运会 (Beijing Olympics)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Comment: 是 2008年 举办的 (is hosted by 2008)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(It is obviously wrong, it makes 2008年 the subject. I will state the correct sentence later in this post)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The '的' here is a [possessive marker]. It marks the omitted object to be possessed by [2008年]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2008年 举办的(项目)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2008年 is the &lt;strong&gt;subject&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;em&gt;项目 (or other noun refers to 北京奥运会) is the omitted object&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct sentence should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;北京奥运会是&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt; 2008年 举办的&amp;quot; (Beijing Olympics is hosted &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; 2008)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the subject '北京' is omitted, &amp;quot;北京奥运会是(北京)在 2008年 举办的&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence,  '的' is an [adjective marker]. It turns &amp;quot;在 2008年举办&amp;quot; into an adjective phrase &amp;quot;在 2008年 举办的&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This adjective phrase describes 北京奥运会 (Beijing Olympics &lt;em&gt;that is hosted in 2008&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;'的' cannot be omitted in this sentence.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid using 的, you can change this [topic + comment/opinion] sentence into a [SVO] sentence and write &amp;quot;(北京)在 2008年 举办北京奥运会&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;(Beijing) held the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since we do not omit the subject '北京' here, we can omit the '北京' in '北京奥运会' instead -- &amp;quot;北京在 2008年 举办(北京)奥运会&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T19:58:23.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32542" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32544" CreationDate="2019-01-13T21:05:24.900" Score="0" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/50607/what-language-is-this-in-my-sword-and-what-does-it-say&quot;&gt;I was asked if the letters of the image are Japanese or not.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I answered they must be Chinese since Japanese does not have the first letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would the first 4 letters stand for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your help in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IjwZp.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IjwZp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21203" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T23:38:04.080" Title="What do the first 4 letter stand for? Are they company name that made the tool or something else? ( From history )" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32543" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32545" CreationDate="2019-01-13T21:48:30.653" Score="2" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you use 在 when a time phrase appears in the usual place in front of a verb?  If so, how does it change the meaning?  When would I choose to use it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他去年去了中国度假。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;去年去了中国度假。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or is 在 only used with specific verbs that take time expressions after the verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他的中国度假发生在去年。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T18:20:13.260" Title="When is it appropriate to use 在 with a time phrase?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32542" CreationDate="2019-01-13T23:19:31.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a clearer image (taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://iantiqueonline.ning.com/group/whadjafind/forum/topics/japanese-kanji-katana-samurai-sword-i-d-help&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://iantiqueonline.ning.com/group/whadjafind/forum/topics/japanese-kanji-katana-samurai-sword-i-d-help&lt;/a&gt;?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/34pUa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/34pUa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The text is verbatim:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ImDyA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ImDyA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;張武傑&lt;/strong&gt; (seal of a person called 張武傑). Maybe this is supposed to suggest that 張武傑 was involved in the manufacturing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;联合刀具&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The name of a company called &lt;strong&gt;联合 cutting tools&lt;/strong&gt;. 联合 should not be translated into &lt;em&gt;union&lt;/em&gt; here, but treated as a proper noun. It might be in imitation of an American company originally called &lt;em&gt;Union Cutlery Co.&lt;/em&gt;, now called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka-Bar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Ka-Bar Knives., Inc&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;; this company's Chinese name is frequently rendered as 联合刀具.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;特殊鋼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Special steel&lt;/strong&gt;. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%89%B9%E6%AE%8A%E9%92%A2/949706&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;baidu&lt;/a&gt;, this is a non-standardised grade of steel, so it doesn't really mean anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of orthography,「联」is normally &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; used in Mainland China, while「鋼」is normally &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; used in Mainland China. The structure of「联」, simplified from「聯」, is exactly analogous to the simplification of「關」to「関」.「関」is now normally only used in Japan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-01-13T23:38:04.080" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T23:38:04.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32543" CreationDate="2019-01-14T00:13:39.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他去年去了中国度假。= He went to China for a holiday last year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;去年去了中国度假。= He went to China for a holiday &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; last year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first sentence stated a fact '他去了中国度假', and '去年' is the time expression that add additional information on what time it took place&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence '在' emphasize the time period '去年'; &amp;quot;去了中国度假&amp;quot; took place &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;in last year&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; along with other things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The follow example may illustrate this emphasis better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;他去年死了&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;He died last year&amp;quot; ('he died' is the fact; 'last year' is a relative phrase that add additional information to it, &amp;quot;when did he die? Last year&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;他&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;去年死了&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;He died &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; last year&amp;quot; ('in last year' is an important fact, not two year ago, not three years ago)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T00:13:39.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32543" CreationDate="2019-01-14T01:49:58.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;see dictionary examples, e.g. at bkrs, also cf.＂现代汉语虚词词典＂在：介词 一、表示行为动作发生的时间。&lt;strong&gt;１。介词短语作状语。&lt;/strong&gt;｛在＋时点词语｝＋动词／动词短语。介词短语可以修饰主谓短语。前无副词，＂在＂可省：飞机～当天下午起飞｜该书连续～１９９４，１９９５年获得全国图书征订大会销量冠军｜你一定～六点叫醒我｜就～昨天上午，我还见到过他｜～妈妈生日那天，来了许多她的学生｜这一看法早～六十年代初就有人指出过了｜～六千五百万年前的白垩纪（geol. Cretaceous period），恐龙突然灭绝｜这家公司是～去年五月一日开张的｜猫头鹰喜欢～晚上出来活动｜远～宋朝，就有了踢球这个运动，当时叫蹴踘｜～她接到录取通知书的第二天，就来看我｜［王一亭］约～１９１９年参加同盟会（近）｜共产党还～一九三六年八月就提出了＂民主共和国＂这个问题（毛泽东）｜～十九世纪中叶，。。。马克思兴奋地写过文章，预言过亚洲的革命风暴（秦牧）（(1919-1992), educator and prolific writer）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂在＋。。。的时候／时／之前／之后＂，介绍事情发生的特定时间：～讨论的时候，他不大爱说话｜你不能～这重要时刻一走了之（yīzǒu liǎozhī）｜还～四月延安党的活动分子会议时，又～五月党的全国代表会议时，特别是～八月中央政治局会议时，我们就提出了这样的问题（毛泽东）｜～芦沟桥事变以后，党内的主要危险倾向，已经不是＂左＂倾关门主义，而转变到右倾机会主义（毛泽东）｜［王韬］～太平天国和第二次鸦片战争发生后，屡向清政府献＂御戎＂、＂平贼＂等策（近）｜这就是说，～没有取得穿皮鞋［指升了干部］的自由之前，＂个人问题＂只能是明智地放到一边去（徐怀中）｜［插入体词、谓词或其他短语］&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂在＋。。。同时＂表示事情跟另一事同时进行或发生：～加强麦收管理的同时，要做好大型农机的检修工作｜～为广大农民演出的同时，还要学习他们的思想感情｜～人们享用这些现代文明的同时，也受到种种危害（刊）［＂在。。。的同时＂中间插入动词短语或主谓短语］&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂在＋。。。里／中／内／上／期间＂，表示在某段时间发生什么事情：～一个漆黑的夜里，他悄悄回到家中｜～几分钟里要背这么多，真不容易｜～一年的时间内要学习五门课程｜～五个月中不曾下床一步｜～那些艰难的日子里，中共的日子不好过，农工民主党同样是步骤艰难（康凯）｜～十岁上，跟他爸爸去了国外｜早～他中学其间，就听邻里们对母亲玩笑说：。。。（程乃珊）｜如能～半年到一年内建立二十五万到三十万具有新的政治精神的军队，则抗日战场上能开始看到转机（毛泽东）［＂在。。。里＂中间插入表示时段的词语或数量词］&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;２。介词短语作补语。&lt;/strong&gt; 动词＋｛在＋时点词语｝：碰头时间约～第二天上午｜把这个会搁～下周吧｜你知道会议定～哪一天｜你的节目插～八点半到九点之间｜她要把这个人物摆～关键时刻出场｜文章写～１９８０年，自然不可能预料到以后的事｜招待会订～７号晚６点｜他生～一个雷雨之夜｜你的节目排～小王之后［以上为单音节动词］｜｜北京猴人大约生活～五十万年以前｜我看你的消费观念还停留～五十年代｜文章发表～五四前夜，产生了大影响、学会建立～１９６０年｜心血管病多发生～冬天｜学位论文答辩安排～六月中旬｜第三届年会确定～１９８８年夏天举行［以上为双音节动词］｜｜我们生活～一个开辟人类新历史的光辉时代（秦牧）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-01-14T07:42:27.703" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T07:42:27.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32547" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-14T03:36:06.693" Score="2" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi I'm new to Chinese language and i'm getting hard to kept Chinese character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every time i learn new character I forgot the previous one. One of my friend advice me to learn the origine of every character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please can someone share a method that helped to do so. Maybe good books or videos.&#xA;thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21204" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T12:19:17.490" Title="How to kept Chinese character in mind?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32548" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32551" CreationDate="2019-01-14T07:45:54.653" Score="4" ViewCount="813" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can the word 抓 and 捉 be used interchangeably? The English translations seems similar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T06:53:22.563" Title="What is the difference between 抓 and 捉?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32548" CreationDate="2019-01-14T08:26:35.900" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;see dictionaries, e.g. bkrs: &lt;strong&gt;抓&lt;/strong&gt; scratch; clutch, seize, grab 1) 动 搔。&#xA;如：「抓痒」、「抓头」。&#xA;2) 动 用手或爪取物。&#xA;如：「抓一把花生米。」&#xA;文选．枚乘．上书谏吴王：「十围之木，始生而櫱，足可搔而绝，手可擢而抓。」&#xA;3) 动 捕捉、捉拿。&#xA;如：「抓贼」、「抓小偷」。&#xA;4) 动 把握、掌握。&#xA;如：「抓住机会」、「抓住要点」 &lt;strong&gt;syn. 相关: 办案, 围捕, 拘, 拘捕, 捉, 捉住, 捉拿, 捕, 搜捕, 缉, 缉拿, 缉捕, 追捕, 通缉, 逮, 逮捕&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;捉&lt;/strong&gt; grasp, clutch; catch, seize 1) 动 握住、拿。&#xA;如：「捉襟见肘」。&#xA;南朝宋．刘义庆．世说新语．容止：「自以形陋不足雄远国，使崔季珪代，帝自捉刀立床头。」&#xA;2) 动 逮捕、抓住。&#xA;如：「捕捉」、「活捉」、「捉贼」、「捕风捉影」、「猫捉老鼠」。&#xA;3) 动 戏弄。&#xA;如：「捉弄」。&lt;strong&gt;syn. 同义: 秉, 拿, 持, 执 相关: 俘, 俘获, 俘虏, 执, 抓, 捕, 擒, 活捉, 生俘, 生擒, 获, 虏, 逮&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T08:26:35.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32550" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-14T08:28:06.520" Score="3" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference between the words 思想，心思 and 思维? If possible, pls provide some examples on the usage and situation to use it. Thank you! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T18:44:26.997" Title="Difference between 思想，心思 and 思维" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32548" CreationDate="2019-01-14T08:43:48.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抓 and 捉 can be used interchangeably when it means 'catch; capture; arrest'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抓&lt;/strong&gt;老鼠 = &lt;strong&gt;捉&lt;/strong&gt;老鼠 = &lt;strong&gt;catch&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;capture&lt;/strong&gt; mice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;警察來&lt;strong&gt;抓&lt;/strong&gt;人 = 警察來&lt;strong&gt;捉&lt;/strong&gt;人 police come to &lt;strong&gt;arrest&lt;/strong&gt; someone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In the context of 'catch; capture; arrest' , 抓 is more colloquial, 捉 is more literary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抓 contains the meanings of 'get hold of/grab; seize'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which it doesn't share with 捉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抓&lt;/strong&gt;緊這個機會 (&lt;strong&gt;get hold of&lt;/strong&gt; this opportunity) cannot be written as 捉緊這個機會 because  'get hold of' is different from 'capture/catch'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抓&lt;/strong&gt;起武器 (&lt;strong&gt;grab&lt;/strong&gt; weapon) cannot be written as 捉起武器 because 'grab' here refers to 'get hold of', not 'capture/catch'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;抓&lt;/strong&gt;權 (&lt;strong&gt;seize&lt;/strong&gt; power) cannot be written as 捉權 because 'seize' here refers to ''get hold of', not 'capture/catch'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抓 also contains the meanings of 'to scratch'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which it doesn't share with 捉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抓癢 (scratch an itch)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抓眼珠 (scratch eyeball)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Also: 抓狅 (catch a madness = become crazy) cannot be written as 捉狅  because '抓狅' is a set phrase; 捉姦 (catch an affair in action) cannot be written as 抓姦 because '捉姦' is a set phrase&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T10:06:29.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32552" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32553" CreationDate="2019-01-14T11:11:13.107" Score="3" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw the following characters represent the 12 creatures in the zodiac (in order). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子，丑，寅，卯，辰，巳，午，未，申，酉，戍，亥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was at a Buddhist temple. Obviously it’s not the standard ones a below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鼠，牛，虎，兔，龙，蛇，马，羊，猴，鸡，狗，猪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: which series came first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2: is there any mapping to show howboth sets of characters are related to each other? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3: are the second string of characters based on Classical Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T11:47:00.573" Title="How do these characters represent the animals in the Chinese Zodiac?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32552" CreationDate="2019-01-14T11:47:00.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do these characters represent the animals in the Chinese Zodiac?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking,「子丑寅卯辰巳午未申酉戌亥」do not represent the Chinese zodiac, but the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthly_Branches&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Earthly Branches&lt;/a&gt;. However, there is a one-to-one mapping between the zodiac and the branches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Which series came first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definitely the earthly branches, which was recorded on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shang Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;oracle bones&lt;/a&gt; - see, for example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=37986&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《甲骨文合集》37986&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no confirmation on how the twelve animals originated, but according to different opinions their first reference is either the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Han Dynasty &lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Records_of_the_Grand_Historian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Records of the Grand Historian&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; or a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tang Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; Buddhist manuscript &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B3%95%E8%8B%91%E7%8F%A0%E6%9E%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《法苑珠林》&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any mapping to show how both sets of characters are related to each other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The order which you've listed in the question is, in fact, their correspondence. To state explicitly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子鼠&#xA;丑牛&#xA;寅虎&#xA;卯兔&#xA;辰龍&#xA;巳蛇&#xA;午馬&#xA;未羊&#xA;申猴&#xA;酉鷄&#xA;戌狗&#xA;亥豬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are the second string of characters based on Classical Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. There are no confirmed origins of the 12 animals, but &lt;em&gt;popular explanations&lt;/em&gt; say that they either come from old Chinese folk tales or Buddhist mythical animals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T11:47:00.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32550" CreationDate="2019-01-14T15:40:31.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;translations with many examples can be found in online dictionaries, note frequency ranks: &lt;strong&gt;思想 269,思维 2330,心思 3682&lt;/strong&gt; ,＂汉语同义词词典＂of these 3 only has &lt;strong&gt;心思&lt;/strong&gt; which is compared to &lt;strong&gt;心情&lt;/strong&gt; (frequency rank 1363) &lt;strong&gt;心情／心思&lt;/strong&gt; ［同］名词。指人的内心感情状态。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;［异］&lt;strong&gt;［心情]&lt;/strong&gt; 着重指处于喜、乐、哀、努、愁等的内心感情状态。常与＂喜悦、欢乐、安逸、平静、舒畅、悲痛、愤怒、惆怅、苦恼、沉重、愁闷、紧张、激动、失望、复杂、崇敬、好、坏＂等词搭配。例（１）胡香仍然坐在自己那个不被人注意的角落里，像坐在针毡上一样，不断地挪动着身体，变换着姿势，心情极为混乱不安。［欧阳山＜圣地＞］（２）一觉过后，疲劳恢复了，心情平静啦。（知侠＜铺草＞）（３）我万分崇敬的心情，瞻仰了这座巍峨、雄伟、庄严的纪念碑。（周定舫＜人民英雄垂不朽＞）（４）我以无限恋念的心情，想起延安的歌声来了。（吴伯箫＜歌声＞）（５）全家人怀着怅惘、抱怨、不安的心情离开了客厅。（小学语文课本＜看球记＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［心思]&lt;/strong&gt; 着重指对某事有兴趣，想去做的内心感情状态。常与＂有、没有＂等词语搭配。使用范围比＂心情＂窄。例：（１）他连中学生都不肯当，就是对鸭子有心思。（阵残云＜鸭寮记事＞）（２）我很忙，没有心思管你这些，你认为怎么做好就怎么好啦。（廖清秀，金钱的故事＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［附］&lt;/strong&gt;＂心思＂还指念头或脑筋，如＂两边的老人看透了闺女儿子的心思，就愿意把喜事办了＂、＂几个人挖空心思想办法解决这个难题＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T15:40:31.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12129" CreationDate="2019-01-14T15:52:40.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For anyone interested, since asking this question, I actually returned to to China and lived there for a couple years. During that time, I met the person who named me, found out the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Chinese name is 盛华东. (Apparently I remembered incorrectly and it was actually hua dong and not dong hua). This name was chosen because I was born in the east (东) of China (华), specifically in Shandong province (山东). Also I was born in the winter, and 冬 (winter) sounds the same as 东 (east).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盛 is just a phonetic approximation of the last syllable of my surname Olson.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9263" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T15:52:40.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32548" CreationDate="2019-01-14T16:06:22.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the part talking about seizing the chance both character can be used but 抓 is more for written Chinese and speaking mandarin while 捉 is for speaking (I speak Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21209" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T16:06:22.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32550" CreationDate="2019-01-14T18:44:26.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As user6065 mentioned there are many examples can be found.  I'll try to give them a simple explanation:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;思维 - The generalization and indirect reaction process of the human brain by various means to objective things, or, your way of 'learning' or 'reacting' to things.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;example: Perceptual figurative thinking, logical thinking, Rational thinking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;思想 - The action or process of thinking, or, your thoughts / mindset / organization of ideas.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;example: open-minded, great thinker&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心思 - The 'application' or 'capability' of your thinking.  It could include your thoughts, your emotions / mood etc.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;example: attentiveness, being considerate, carelessness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T18:44:26.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32531" CreationDate="2019-01-14T20:37:06.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost 90% of Chinese characters are Semantic-phonetic compounds. These characters are composed of two parts: one of a limited set of characters (the semantic indicator, often graphically simplified) which suggests the general meaning of the compound character, and another character (the phonetic indicator) whose pronunciation suggests the pronunciation of the compound character. In most cases the semantic indicator is also the radical under which the character is listed in dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples are 河 hé &quot;river&quot;, 湖 hú &quot;lake&quot;, 流 liú &quot;stream&quot;, 沖 chōng &quot;surge&quot;, 滑 huá &quot;slippery&quot;. All these characters have on the left a radical of three short strokes (氵), which is a reduced form of the character 水 shuǐ meaning &quot;water&quot;, indicating that the character has a semantic connection with water. The right-hand side in each case is a phonetic indicator. For example, in the case of 沖 chōng &quot;surge&quot;, the phonetic indicator is 中 zhōng, which by itself means &quot;middle&quot;. In this case it can be seen that the pronunciation of the character is slightly different from that of its phonetic indicator; the effect of historical sound change means that the composition of such characters can sometimes seem arbitrary today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure of these compounds can be categorised into these groups, and you can easily look them up in a Chinese Character Dictionary, the concept of these radicals is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_(Chinese_characters)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;偏旁部首&lt;/a&gt;。&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q8NTT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q8NTT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;refers to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16699" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T20:37:06.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32547" CreationDate="2019-01-15T06:07:23.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although this question is marked as off-topic, it still can be friendly if we offer a few answers for novice, even they're opinion-based.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The hardest point for foreigners (except Japanese, Koreans and overseas Chinese) to learn Chinese, is the Chinese script. They are far more complex than any alphabetic and syllabic scripts, and the pronunciation of characters cannot be deduced using a simple rule (different from any language other than Japanese, but Japanese do use kanas).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't know if there should be a separate method for you all, but I can still recall the time we Chinese learn our own language at the age of seven to eight. We learned Pinyin at first, and at that time even texts in textbooks were written purely in Pinyin. As we could master all pronunciations, we would start learning characters, from numerals like 一, 二, 三 to more complex ones. Note that even mastering our own language could take years to decades.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It changes now: primary school students will try to learn some simple characters first to get a feeling about mother tongue, then move to Pinyin about a year later. In my opinion, this is not as efficient as the previous way for foreigners, since they will be easily lost in the forest of logographies. I personally recommend our traditional way of learning: learn to speak first, then write them down. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T06:07:23.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32531" CreationDate="2019-01-15T06:37:55.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your answer should be looked up in calligraphic books.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If I'm right, you're looking for a set of Chinese characters or radicals with all kinds of basic strokes. You may know that basic categories of characters are heng (horizontal), shu (vertical), pie (left-slant), na (right-slant), zhe (curve or turn), dian (point, which may be a subcategory of na). Although there is one character that may cover all these categories (永&quot;eternity&quot;, which called &quot;永字八法&quot; or &quot;eight fundamentals in Yong&quot; in calligraphy), it cannot cover all strokes if we divide the categories in detail.  I'll try to construct a set here to satisfy your need.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start by list one character per stroke:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;0. basic -- 永&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. heng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;simple horizontal -- 四&lt;br&gt;&#xA;horizontal with slant -- 习 (as in President Xi Jinping)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;horizontal with final hook -- 辽&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. shu&lt;br&gt;&#xA;simple vertical -- 四 (included above)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;vertical with final curve -- 四 (included above)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. dian -- 永 (included above)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4. pie&lt;br&gt;&#xA;simple left-slant -- 队&lt;br&gt;&#xA;left-slant with initial horizontal -- 永 (included above)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5. na&lt;br&gt;&#xA;simple right-slant -- 永 (included above)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;6. zhe&lt;br&gt;&#xA;vertical with final left hook -- 永 (included above)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;curved vertical with final hook -- 辽 (included above)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;horizontal-vertical turn with hook -- 习 (included above)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;vertical with final right hook -- 民&lt;br&gt;&#xA;curved stroke with final hook -- 民 (included above)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;L-shaped stroke with final hook -- 匕&lt;br&gt;&#xA;horizontal-curved turn with final hook -- 飞&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3-shaped stroke -- 辽 (included above)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3-shaped stroke with final hook -- 队 (included above)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;left-slant-horizontal turn -- 去  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Within seven characters, you get all strokes of Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T06:37:55.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32562" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32573" CreationDate="2019-01-15T07:27:37.827" Score="3" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;Relating to &lt;a href=&quot;https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/50295/where-is-an-image-of-the-oracle-bone-that-describes-the-nova&quot;&gt;my Oracle Bone Question on the History Stack&lt;/a&gt;, and using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=11503&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link droooze provided&lt;/a&gt;, can someone please translate these for me (keeping the brackets and the &amp;quot;...&amp;quot;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11503.正&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;癸 囗 [ 卜 囗 貞 ] 。。。丙 。 。 。  。 。 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;癸 丑 卜 爭 [ 貞 ] 。 。 。 [ 嬄 ] 。 。 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11503.反&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;。 。 。 七 日 己 巳 夕  。 。 。 㞢 新 大 晶 竝 火 。 。 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;。 。 。 [ 㞢 ] 求 其 㞢 來 嬄 。 。 。 不 吉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Am I correct in thinking 正 means the top of the bone and 反 means the underside?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can it be speculated what the missing characters that would fill the &amp;quot;...&amp;quot; should be &lt;strong&gt;or could be&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Images added for those who - like me - cannot see all the  characters on their phone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tbkcv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tbkcv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ckPPN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ckPPN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinasage.info/oraclebones.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This website&lt;/a&gt; writes: &amp;quot;The inscriptions include the oldest observation of a nova (1300BCE) ‘A great new star appeared in company with 心宿二 xīn xiù èr (Antares, in Scorpio)’ is recorded on the bones.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Also, out of interest, does anyone know&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;which&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;bone it is from the Ox's skeleton? Sacrum? Scapula?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20988" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T00:48:08.137" Title="Translation of oracle bone《甲骨文合集》11503" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32563" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32600" CreationDate="2019-01-15T08:01:20.100" Score="1" ViewCount="602" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I encountered the phrase &quot;尝一尝&quot; in a sentence. I need some advice on the way to use it and when to use it. And is 尝一尝 similar to 试一试? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T07:42:41.620" Title="How to use the phrase &quot;尝一尝&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32564" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-15T08:08:13.757" Score="0" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;What social networks exist on the Chinese internet, that allow people to meet and discuss things on any topic, or ask questions, like on Quora. I am learning Chinese and would like to practice. Any useful resources pointed out besides this question and answer site and dating sites would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19391" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T01:48:30.150" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T01:48:30.150" Title="Most popular question and answer and forum sites in Chinese" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-03-02T20:08:57.397" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32563" CreationDate="2019-01-15T08:12:32.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;尝&lt;/strong&gt; basically means to taste something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;尝一尝 = to have a taste of something&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually it is used quite literally, i.e.: to do with flavors and tastes of edibles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example sentence from &lt;em&gt;New Century E-C&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很多人出于习惯往食物里加盐, 都不先尝一尝。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Many people add salt to their food out of habit, without even tasting it first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find a bunch of examples from TV show subtitles &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.91dub.com/search/%E5%B0%9D%E4%B8%80%E5%B0%9D?type=search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yeah? Take a taste.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  尝一尝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you can taste it&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你可以尝一尝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;试 on the other hand means try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;试一试 = to have a try at something&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example sentence from &lt;em&gt;New Century E-C&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这有点儿不靠谱, 但我想我会试一试。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  It's a bit far-fetched but I thought I would give it a shot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-01-15T08:22:11.640" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T08:22:11.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32563" CreationDate="2019-01-15T09:17:22.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;尝一尝 literally means 'take a taste'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;user3306356 already stated the difference between '尝一尝'(take a taste) and  '试一试' (take a try) in his answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However '尝一尝/ 一尝'(taste once = have a taste )  can also be used metaphorically for &amp;quot;to experience once/ to have an experience of&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尝一尝铁窗生涯 = have a taste of prison life / have an experience of prison life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尝一尝清闲之乐 = have a taste of leisure life / have an experience of leisure life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 尝一尝 is used metaphorically for &amp;quot;to have an experience of&amp;quot;, it is more common to omit the first 尝 and use '一尝' instead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一尝铁窗生涯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一尝清闲之乐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'尝' (taste) itself is often used metaphorically for 'to experience'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 尝尽人间辛酸 - '&lt;strong&gt;taste&lt;/strong&gt; the bitterness and sourness of life' = '&lt;strong&gt;experience&lt;/strong&gt; the heartache of life'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T09:31:34.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32564" CreationDate="2019-01-15T10:12:33.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out 知乎 - just type that into google along with any random Chinese word of your choice, to find a load of threads containing that word - it's a great way to practice reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T10:12:33.567" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32564" CreationDate="2019-01-15T11:59:52.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;百度知道 is also a Q&amp;amp;A website. You can find all sorts of information on there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3108" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T11:59:52.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32569" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-15T13:03:02.713" Score="3" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to dictionaries, the correct pronunciation of &amp;quot;馄饨&amp;quot; is hún tún, but I have never heard any native speakers pronounce the word this way; instead, almost all native speakers say hún dùn. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T18:56:56.697" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:50:57.003" Title="Why do so many people pronounce &quot;馄饨&quot; as hún dùn?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;mistakes&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32562" CreationDate="2019-01-15T13:24:36.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;i disagreed with the idea of nova / supernova.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;first, there's &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; star (星) in 11503 反:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%98%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;星 &lt;/a&gt;&#xA;in oracle script is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w1smx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w1smx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bUEzy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bUEzy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the key character in 11503 反 should be &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%99%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; 晶 &lt;/a&gt;or &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%93%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;品&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X4Qv5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X4Qv5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BamYP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BamYP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;secondly, chinese are read from top to bottom, right to left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, the text on 11503 反 should be read as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不吉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;求其㞢來㛸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;㞢新大晶竝火&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;七日己巳夕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D2X5t.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D2X5t.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;how to interpret it, i'm not sure at this moment :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;actually, the text on this particular is controversial, here's a page of another explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W6Gqo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W6Gqo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2019-01-15T14:03:16.563" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T14:03:16.563" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32569" CreationDate="2019-01-15T14:01:26.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;馄 (hún) in '馄饨'(hún tún) is pronounced correctly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 饨 (tún) looked like 沌 (dùn), people may have just confused the two characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese write 餛飩 as 雲吞 with the same pronunciation &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雲吞 /wan4 tan1/ (Cantonese) / hun2 tun1/ (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;餛飩 /wan4 tan1/ (Cantonese)  / hun2 tun1/ (Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/385/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/385/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-15T14:14:41.957" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T14:14:41.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32562" CreationDate="2019-01-15T15:37:37.553" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I won't claim expertise, but the following is my interpretation. Corrections welcome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Format:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Transcription given in 《甲骨文合集》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How it should be read using more modern characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;English translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《合集》11503 正&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;ＡＢ〔卜〕&lt;sup&gt;(1)&lt;/sup&gt;Ｃ貞〔旬亡〕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ＡＢ卜Ｃ貞旬無禍&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Divination&lt;/strong&gt; (卜) &lt;strong&gt;on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_Stems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;heavenly stem&lt;/a&gt; A&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(2)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;strong&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthly_Branches&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;earthly branch&lt;/a&gt; B&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(3)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;strong&gt;: C&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(4)&lt;/sup&gt; &lt;strong&gt;asks&lt;/strong&gt; (貞)&lt;strong&gt;: [Will we have] ten days&lt;/strong&gt; (旬) &lt;strong&gt;without&lt;/strong&gt; (亡&lt;sup&gt;(5)&lt;/sup&gt;) &lt;strong&gt;calamity&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;sup&gt;(6)&lt;/sup&gt;)&lt;strong&gt;?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;癸Ｂ〔卜〕Ｃ〔貞〕……丙……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(same)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Divination on heavenly stem 癸, earthly branch B: C asks: ……&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(7)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;strong&gt;丙&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(8)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;strong&gt;……&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(9)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;癸丑卜爭〔貞〕……〔㛸〕……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;癸丑卜爭貞……艱……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Divination on heavenly stem 癸, earthly branch 丑: 爭&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(10)&lt;/sup&gt; &lt;strong&gt;asks: ……difficulty/danger/hardship&lt;/strong&gt; (㛸&lt;sup&gt;(11)&lt;/sup&gt;)&lt;strong&gt;……&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《合集》11503 反&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;……七日己巳夕……㞢新大晶竝火……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;……七日己巳夕Ｄ&lt;sup&gt;(12)&lt;/sup&gt;……有新大星竝火……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;……Day&lt;/strong&gt; (日) &lt;strong&gt;seven&lt;/strong&gt; (七)&lt;strong&gt;, the evening&lt;/strong&gt; (夕) &lt;strong&gt;of the day of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagenary_cycle#Sexagenary_days&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;己巳&lt;/a&gt;……appeared&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(13)&lt;/sup&gt; (㞢&lt;sup&gt;(14)&lt;/sup&gt;) &lt;strong&gt;[a] new&lt;/strong&gt; (新) &lt;strong&gt;great&lt;/strong&gt; (大) &lt;strong&gt;star&lt;/strong&gt; (晶&lt;sup&gt;(15)&lt;/sup&gt;) &lt;strong&gt;next to&lt;/strong&gt; (竝) &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antares&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Antares&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(16)&lt;/sup&gt; (火&lt;sup&gt;(17)&lt;/sup&gt;)……&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;……〔㞢〕求其㞢來嬄……不吉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;……有咎其有來艱……不吉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;……&lt;strong&gt;has calamity&lt;/strong&gt; (求&lt;sup&gt;(18)&lt;/sup&gt;)&lt;strong&gt;, also&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(19)&lt;/sup&gt; (其) &lt;strong&gt;there comes&lt;/strong&gt; (來) &lt;strong&gt;difficulty/danger/hardship……ominous&lt;/strong&gt; (不吉)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I think parentheses〔〕indicate a filled-in character that may not be immediately obvious on the bone fragment.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「Ａ」is a placeholder for a hypothesised/unknown heavenly stem.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「Ｂ」is a placeholder for a hypothesised/unknown earthly branch.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「Ｃ」is a placeholder for a hypothesised/unknown name of the oracle doing the divination.&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;AB refers to the timekeeping system called the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagenary_cycle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sexagenary cycle&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The structure AB卜C貞… means &lt;em&gt;Divination on heavenly stem A, earthly branch B, oracle C asks…&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「亡」is used to mean &lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; in oracle bone inscriptions, written as「無」now.「亡」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Tibetan_languages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Proto-Sino-Tibetan&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*maŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;, comprised of &lt;strong&gt;/*ma/&lt;/strong&gt; + termative suffix &lt;strong&gt;/ŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;) is cognate to「無」(&lt;strong&gt;/*ma/&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「」has several interpretations, among them「憂」,「咎」, and「禍」; I don't know which one is correct, but I think「憂」means &lt;em&gt;worry&lt;/em&gt;, and both「咎」and「禍」mean &lt;em&gt;disaster/calamity&lt;/em&gt;, so the interpretation shouldn't vary too greatly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Unknown inscriptions, if any. Might be faded out from the bone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I don't know how to interpret this without more context.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「」is the name of a hostile tribe neighbouring the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shang Dynasty&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「爭」, in this context, is the name of an oracle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「㛸」is commonly interpreted in oracle bone scripts as「艱」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「」here has far too many conflicting interpretations. I'm not even sure of the correctness of this transcription, so I used the placeholder「Ｄ」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「有」literally means &lt;em&gt;there exists&lt;/em&gt;, so depending on the context it can be seen as &lt;em&gt;there appeared&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;has&lt;/em&gt;, or just &lt;em&gt;there&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;「㞢」is an oracle bone variant of「有」or「又」. Do not interpret this as「之」, which much later also became the shape of「㞢」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「晶」originally meant &lt;em&gt;star&lt;/em&gt;, now written as「星」. The current meaning of「晶」is &lt;em&gt;sparkling/crystal/radiant&lt;/em&gt;, which is a semantic extension of the original meaning. For reference, the glyph evolution of「星」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/exdMY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/exdMY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;後&lt;/a&gt;2.9.1&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=11503&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集11503&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LnuXl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LnuXl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;前&lt;/a&gt;7.26.3&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=11501&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集11501&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ItbCD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ItbCD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;麓伯星父簋&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gn40j.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gn40j.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日乙&lt;/a&gt;41&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MmoKo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MmoKo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The second form above changes the number of stars「日」and adds phonetic「生」. The third form shifts all the stars to the top. The fourth form simplifies all the stars down to one star, and forms the basis of the modern shape「星」.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;nova&lt;/em&gt; interpretation hinges on「火」being interpreted as &lt;em&gt;Antares&lt;/em&gt; or its other astronomical meaning &lt;em&gt;Mars&lt;/em&gt;, rather than its basic meaning &lt;em&gt;fire&lt;/em&gt;.  There is no explicit inscription of「心宿二」, which is the full name of &lt;em&gt;Antares&lt;/em&gt;. The good news is that &lt;em&gt;there appeared a new great star next to the fire&lt;/em&gt; doesn't really make sense, but we're lacking the rest of the text (if any) to confirm anything.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「火」(&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/jiaguwen?kaiOrder=148&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;oracle bone sample view&lt;/a&gt;) is frequently confused with「山」(&lt;em&gt;mountain&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/jiaguwen?kaiOrder=52&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;oracle bone sample view&lt;/a&gt;) in oracle bone texts. YMMV on this interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「求」is used as a phonetic loan for「咎」in oracle bone script. It is a picture of a multi-legged insect, and was the original character for「蛷」.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Many possible interpretations for「其」.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-01-15T16:15:09.150" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T16:15:09.150" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32569" CreationDate="2019-01-15T15:39:57.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's check comprehensive source like zdic.net for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/4/156/342810.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;馄饨&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will notice hún dun ㄏㄨㄣˊ ˙ㄉㄨㄣ come with 国语辞典 tag. This mean the pronunciation is generally used in Taiwan.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While hún tún is used by mandarin speaker in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, you can call this &quot;mandarin dialect&quot;, though some Taiwanese are not happy with it if you say so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T15:39:57.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32575" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-15T15:44:24.260" Score="4" ViewCount="444" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vGK8b.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vGK8b.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 1 RMB notes has the Chinese word &quot;壹圆&quot;. In spoken Chinese, I hear many native speakers say &quot;一块钱&quot; instead of &quot;壹圆钱&quot;。In written Chinese, I have seen &quot;一元钱&quot; more than &quot;壹圆钱&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In spoken Chinese, is it correct to say &quot;壹圆钱&quot; instead of &quot;一块钱&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In formal writings in Chinese, should we write &quot;壹圆钱&quot; (or &quot;一圆钱&quot;) instead of &quot;一元钱&quot; (or &quot;一块钱&quot;)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What on earth is the difference among &quot;壹圆钱&quot;, &quot;一元钱&quot;, &quot;一圆钱&quot; and &quot;一块钱&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T11:45:23.670" Title="Why native speakers always say &quot;一块钱&quot; and write &quot;一元钱 &quot;instead of &quot;壹圆钱&quot;？" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32575" CreationDate="2019-01-15T16:35:49.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1 、“一块钱 = 一元钱=壹圆钱 ”  They have no difference in meaning and grammar。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2、“一块钱 and 一元钱”  ，They're simplified characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壹圆钱 ，It's a traditional character.    It is used to write the amount of a cheque, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21214" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T16:35:49.340" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32569" CreationDate="2019-01-15T16:44:22.170" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a matter of habit. Many Chinese pronounce it wrong，But people are used to it and don't affect communication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21214" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T16:44:22.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32563" CreationDate="2019-01-15T16:59:34.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1、to have a taste of something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example&#xA;①这个沙拉我能 尝一尝 吗？&#xA;②我做了烤牛排，你们来 尝一尝 味道怎么样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2、exceptional case &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让他尝一尝我拳头的厉害   =  打他，教训他&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21214" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T16:59:34.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32351" CreationDate="2019-01-15T17:13:53.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;辩论=debate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a formal discussion of an issue at a public meetingor in a parliament. In a debate two or more&#xA;speakers express opposing views and then there isoften a vote on the issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吵架=quarrel&#xA;(with sb/betwecn A and B) (aboul/ oversth) an angry argument or disagreement betweenpeople, often about a personal matter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21214" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T17:13:53.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32086" CreationDate="2019-01-15T17:20:58.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not pressing the &quot;save&quot; button &lt;strong&gt;has nothing to do&lt;/strong&gt; with your test results, because everything you wrote is auto-saved the moment you finish the test. I actually passed the same test without pressing that with a score of 196... so feel comfortable!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21215" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T17:20:58.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32547" CreationDate="2019-01-15T17:30:04.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can actually divide a single chinese character into several parts, and one of them is the &quot;radical&quot; , it is usually on the left side of the character, like the left three lines of 浓 which is the water radical, or the two lines of 位 which is the man radical and both of them are related to the actual definition of the character. &#xA; The second method, is to think of the character as a picture. 高 means high, and it actually might look like a tall structure. But be careful, because this will only work for simple ones.&#xA; Hope these methods could help you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21215" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T17:30:04.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32575" CreationDate="2019-01-15T17:36:48.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In spoken Chinese, you would not hear the difference. So basically the same thing. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For daily communications, we use &quot;一元钱&quot;. The &quot;壹圆&quot; would be used in formal documents, which is usually referred as &quot;大写金额&quot;. Such complicated characters could somehow prevent the unauthorized changes. E.g. say you borrowed 1 RMB from someone, and you guys &lt;strong&gt;wrote&lt;/strong&gt; down the IOU in Chinese. If you used the regular characters &quot;一元&quot;, then it is easy to manipulate by adding one stroke to altered the number to &quot;十元&quot;. Instead the &quot;大写金额&quot; [&quot;capitalized amount&quot;] would be hard to obliterate, say, 壹 to 拾 [1 to 10]. This is useful  few decades ago. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Basically 壹圆 = 一元, while 一圆 and 壹元 are generally not adopted in formal circumstances. 一块 is usually used in oral Chinese instead of 一元. One similar thing: American would say &quot;300 bucks&quot; informally instead of &quot;300 dollars&quot;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T17:36:48.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32575" CreationDate="2019-01-15T17:37:09.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;definition of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/5757.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;块&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;量词，用于银币或纸币，等于“圆”：一～钱。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is all about history.  Chinese culture normally call the coin 钱币.  银圆 (silver coin) only appear during &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qing dynasty&lt;/a&gt;. During the late Qing dynasty era, China goods export cause it to absorb most of the world silver production to make silver coins.  Since the coins weight around 26 grams, people start using synonym it with silver nugget 银块  (check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty_coinage&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qing dynasty coinage&lt;/a&gt;), and people start calling the heavier round silver coin as 洋钿. Later, during transition to republic, silver coins is still made, so people continue to say  一块大洋, 两块大洋。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently, 一块钱 is commonly used in both speaking and writing. Sometime Chinese will omit the noun 钱. Thus, it is fine to say 一块两块;  一元两元。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it is grammatically correct to say 一元钱, but most people simply omit the noun 钱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T17:37:09.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32575" CreationDate="2019-01-15T17:39:21.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An example would make it easier to understand.&#xA;一块钱 is similar to &quot;buck&quot; when we mean &quot;dollar&quot;.&#xA;一元钱 is for &quot;dollar&quot;.&#xA;壹圆钱 is because they don't want to use simplified characters on an official type of money, and is similar to when we say &quot;United States Dollar&quot; or &quot;American Dollar&quot;. It is the official name of it, but people don't say it often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21215" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T17:39:21.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32585" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-15T17:56:59.770" Score="6" ViewCount="546" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am aware of a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/17749/how-to-pronounce-%E5%BB%BF%E5%8D%85%E5%8D%8C-in-chinese&quot;&gt;related question&lt;/a&gt; and I know that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;廿&quot; means 20.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;卅&quot; means 30.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;卌&quot; means 40.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am wondering how to use them correctly. When and how do we use &quot;廿&quot;, &quot;卅&quot; and &quot;卌&quot;? For example, are the following sentences gramatically correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这里距离机场有卌八千米。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我今年卅岁。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;今天是四月廿七日。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T14:14:48.110" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T10:04:15.657" Title="When do we use &quot;廿&quot;, &quot;卅&quot; and &quot;卌&quot;?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32585" CreationDate="2019-01-15T19:28:46.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;bkrs:  廿 twenty (20), in a limited number of set expressions,e.g. 廿世纪 20th century,&#xA;also written using banker’s character 念&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卅 30, thirtieth, used in telegrams&lt;br&gt;&#xA;五卅惨案   May 30, 1925  LINE dictionary: 马来西亚吉籣丹卅皇御前表演。我们会在十一月卅日前完成您的订单需求。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卌 outdated, suggested examples all seem uncommon, esp. 1,3, (not used for compound numbers)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T19:28:46.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32587" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-15T19:54:55.357" Score="1" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are words that many natives Chinese speakers mispronounce. In speaking, if one always pronounces every word correctly (and I believe he/she should), does it make him/her less like a native speaker? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她做完针灸(jiǔ)，又扎(zā)辫搽(chá)粉完后，因为担忧起自己酸痛的脖颈(gěng)，伛偻(yǔ lǚ)的身材和龟(jūn)裂的皮肤带来的创(chuāng)伤而缄(jiān)默。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure how many native speakers can pronounce the above paragraph completely correctly without referring to the pinyin. But if one Chinese learner does pronounce every character correctly, ironically does it make him/her less like a native speaker?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T16:42:10.713" Title="Does pronouncing every word accurately make you sound less like a native speaker?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32585" CreationDate="2019-01-16T01:11:14.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are seldom used in modern Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you can see &quot;廿&quot; used on calendars for lunar dates, and &quot;卅&quot; used in some proper nouns (e.g. 五卅惨案).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T01:11:14.427" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32587" CreationDate="2019-01-16T01:24:27.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sigh...we do have many words that even we native Chinese can't pronounce correctly...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, in most cases, as a foreigner, these words are just trivial matters. Chinese people don't care about what the &quot;standard pronunciation&quot; of the words you referred to is, but rather care about your pronunciation of the remaining words.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Besides, your example is an extreme case:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;脖颈 -- too colloquial, thus have a separate pronunciation. Use 脖子 or 颈部 instead.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;伛偻 -- people are likely to pronounce it right, but it's a formal word and rarely used in daily life.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;龟裂 -- an alternative with less confusion (皲裂) exists.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;创伤 -- people may divide on its pronunciation, but the distinction between the correct one and the common incorrect one is small.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;缄默 -- Any person with high school or higher education should pronounce it right.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T01:24:27.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32590" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-16T01:36:03.707" Score="2" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;In mordern Chinese, why is the number 250(二百五) a rude word? Why do people use this number for stupid person?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T02:04:23.197" Title="Why 250 is a rude word in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-01-16T08:28:15.723" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32575" CreationDate="2019-01-16T01:36:09.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;一块钱 -- colloquial, similar to &quot;a buck&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一元钱 -- somewhat formal, but also used in daily life, similar to &quot;a dollar&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;壹圆 -- most formal, only used in bank systems, similar to &quot;one dollar&quot;. Note that bank systems always use &quot;capitalised&quot; numbers (壹贰叁 instead of 一二三) to avoid confusion and potential unauthorised modification.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For your questions:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. No. Although their pronunciations are the same, we don't &lt;strong&gt;mean to use&lt;/strong&gt; capitalised numbers, even for making subtitles for videos.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. Depends on situation. As I said before, 壹圆 is only used in bank systems, and other uses may consider inappropriate.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. We never use &quot;一圆钱&quot;. For the other three, I have explained before. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T01:36:09.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32585" CreationDate="2019-01-16T01:44:03.137" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, in Mainland China:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;廿 is only used in written lunar calendar. It is very rarely used in spoken Chinese. However, it may be used in some dialects such as Cantonese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;卅 is not used in spoken Chinese, except for representing the 30th day of a month in naming a few historical events and telegraph (popular in early 1900s but rarely used today).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;卌 is nearly extinct and should be considered obsolete.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion: 二十 (&amp;quot;two tens&amp;quot;), 三十 (&amp;quot;three tens&amp;quot;) and 四十 (&amp;quot;four tens&amp;quot;) are enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T14:15:34.843" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T14:15:34.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32590" CreationDate="2019-01-16T02:04:23.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since it's purely colloquial, there are several possible origins exist.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;One source claims that it comes from Paijiu (a gambling game). there are 二板 (four) and 幺五 (six, one plus five). They're the weakest combination in this game. Therefore, 二板五 was invented to call people who accomplish nothing. 二百五 (250) pronounces similarly to 二板五.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Another source says 二百五 comes from literatures in early 20th Century. In &lt;em&gt;Bizarre Happenings Eyewitnessed over Two Decades&lt;/em&gt; by Wu Jianren, there is: &quot;...(He) bought a tongzhi(official) with 250 (silver liang), and wanders everyday in the world. &quot; In 1913, a short film (《二百五白相城隍庙》, &lt;em&gt;Fools in Shanghai&lt;/em&gt;) depicted a peasant who was in his first visit to Shanghai. He didn't know the etiquettes in cities and made many troubles. Since he was called 二百五, it soon became a popular word indicating stupid people.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T02:04:23.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32594" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-16T04:11:09.857" Score="2" ViewCount="444" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggested naming a Chinese baby girl 桂英 after her grandmother but my suggestion was rejected as the name was considered outdated. I know there is a legendary heroine named 穆桂英 and the name 桂英 is commmonly used by many Chinese ladies. The name itself sounds beautiful and bears nice meanings. Is it considered as outdated? If so, why did it lose its popularity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, if there is any statistics, I would love to know the rank of the name 桂英 by popularity among 2018 born baby girls. May I know how to find it out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="21202" LastEditDate="2019-01-16T05:24:34.330" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T08:46:22.753" Title="Is the female name 桂英 outdated? Why?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32587" CreationDate="2019-01-16T04:52:39.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aurus Huang has explained the words very nicely, I would like here, to supplement on this phenomenon generally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like this character 呆，it is pronounced &lt;strong&gt;dāi&lt;/strong&gt; if you look it up in dictionary. However, its correct pronunciation was once &lt;strong&gt;ái&lt;/strong&gt;. A disease named 呆小症 was supposed to be pronounced as áixiǎozhèng. But for whatever reason, people did not like the way ái is sounded and persisted pronouncing 呆 as dāi. The dictionary finally surrender and denote 呆 as dāi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is, though not common, but rather normal in a language, not only in Chinese. When a majority of people is pronouncing some word or character in a way that is different from the literature, this &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot; pronunciation may eventually become &amp;quot;correct&amp;quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other examples in Chinese like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;确凿，quèzuò to quèzáo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唯唯诺诺，wěiwinuònuò to wéiwéinuònuò&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more examples &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/17/0819/21/16156855_680471744.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such changes can happen in English as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering why &amp;quot;k&amp;quot; does not pronounce in words like &lt;em&gt;knee&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;knock&lt;/em&gt;. But in fact, in ancient English, they do hold a position in these words' pronunciation! However, English spelling is fixed way before its pronunciation did. Letter &amp;quot;k&amp;quot; ceased to pronounce soon after the spelling was fixed but those words are still written in its original form. Not to mention, pronunciation is still changing nowadays!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many other words have changed their pronunciation along the way and it is quite an interesting story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the word coyote is having so many different pronunciations that it is making people so confused and asking questions like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/7tckmm/in_your_area_how_do_you_pronounce_coyote/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, when speaking, just pronounce the way you feel natural and comfortable with, but in case of an exam, go with the textbook!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Language is always first a communication tool and then a cultural symbol, so it should fit people who have been using it rather the other way around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T16:42:10.713" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32594" CreationDate="2019-01-16T05:10:38.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is indeed outdated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, you may not want to name your child after a super famous character when that person's name is not quite common, for example （武）则天、（毛）泽东、（周）恩来、（朱）元璋 and so on. Especially when you two share the same surname!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, some more common names, especially one-character names, though may have been used by famous people, could still be used after, for example, （杨）勇、（李）密、（刘）秀、（王）勃 and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it is not a common practice to have children and their elder relatives using same characters in first names. We do not memorize our loved ones that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the popularity of a certain name, you may not be able to easily access that data as it not the kind of information that a government would like people to get their hands on to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is a way to roughly determine whether a name is popular or not. That is, once a &quot;type&quot; of name is used by more and more people, it gets unpopularized! Because people want their names to stand out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, around 1950s or 1960s, people tended to name their children as 解放、卫星（when the first satellite was launched by China）and then 永强、永平 in the following years. In recent years, life is becoming peace and nice, people started to name their children as 紫萱、梓萱、子轩、梓轩 and so on. But they are soon considered outdated as well! Curious on what people would come up with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2019-01-16T16:29:44.777" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T16:29:44.777" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32587" CreationDate="2019-01-16T07:03:11.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a college student, I can easily pronounce every of them correctly. But as others point out, correctness on pronunciation doesn't mean nativeness, which represents itself more by word choice, tone, accent, fluency, etc. Another reason is, some of these &quot;often misread&quot; words are actually dialects prevailing in part of the land, but because of the standardization they are promoted to be the &quot;correct&quot; one, while people in other areas rarely use or refuse to use it. e.g.脖颈、掉色&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T07:03:11.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32525" CreationDate="2019-01-16T07:34:00.553" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 means something you already done&#xA;I'm leaving is wrong&#xA;我出发了 means I (already) left&#xA;我吃了 means I (already) ate&#xA;他已经去过美国了 means he has (already) been to US&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21220" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T07:34:00.553" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32594" CreationDate="2019-01-16T07:37:52.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;桂英 sounds like people living in 1k years ago…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21220" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T07:37:52.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32563" CreationDate="2019-01-16T07:42:41.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;At some time and some environment, 尝一尝 is similar to 试一试. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, when you want someone to try the taste of some food or experience with taste. They are the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes when you want to try a car. You cannot say taste the car. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21219" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T07:42:41.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32532" CreationDate="2019-01-16T13:33:00.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should help! Reading generally helps to improve your grasp of grammar and vocabulary. If the sentences are from real life speaking situations, then that also will help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reading can be one of a number of complementary ways of studying the language. The website &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hackingchinese.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hacking Chinese&lt;/a&gt; has lots of useful resources on optimising your study techniques. Here's a link to a group of resources related to reading: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hackingchinese.com/archive-2/reading/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;; and here's the link for the resources on speaking: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hackingchinese.com/archive-2/speaking/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T13:33:00.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32569" CreationDate="2019-01-16T13:55:52.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because native speakers don't actually know the tone without being taught it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Northern Mandarin pronounces it as &lt;code&gt;húntun&lt;/code&gt; ~ &lt;code&gt;húndun&lt;/code&gt;, with the second syllable having the light tone (轻声). The morpheme 饨 is not used anywhere else, so it only appears in native speech without a tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not rare for native speakers to reinterpret this syllable as &quot;originally having the 4th tone&quot; because of the acoustic similarity when pronouncing it with the light tone (there's a slight phonetic fall particularly as it follows a 2nd tone syllable). So when they try to shake off the light tone accent which is associated with being regional vernacular, they arrive at &lt;code&gt;húndùn&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Pronouncing &lt;code&gt;t&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; is unusual. It may be a sporadic change. The only other word I can think of, where the initial (声母) may be lenited in a light tone, is 糊涂 &lt;code&gt;hútu&lt;/code&gt; ~ &lt;code&gt;húdu&lt;/code&gt;. Many people do &quot;correct&quot; the pronunciation incorrectly to &lt;code&gt;húdù&lt;/code&gt;, but this problem here is less severe because, unlike 饨, 涂 is widely used elsewhere with the known pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;tú&lt;/code&gt;. Hence when speakers (especially literate ones) try to enunciate it, they arrive at &lt;code&gt;hútú&lt;/code&gt; correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastEditorUserId="16058" LastEditDate="2019-01-16T14:09:18.583" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T14:09:18.583" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32604" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32605" CreationDate="2019-01-16T15:48:26.103" Score="5" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard that in Xiangqi (Chinese chess or 中国象棋), 相 is translated as &quot;Elephant&quot;. Is it a correct translation? Should &quot;bishop&quot; or &quot;minister&quot; be better translations for 相 here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other circumstances that 相 is translated as elephant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T15:57:40.050" Title="Can “相” ever be translated as “elephant”?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32604" CreationDate="2019-01-16T15:51:54.120" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia about &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi#Elephant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Xiangqi&lt;/a&gt; has a part about these pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Elephant&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SPJF7.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SPJF7.png&quot; alt=&quot;elephant&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elephants (or bishops) are labeled 象 xiàng (&amp;quot;elephant&amp;quot;) for Black and 相 xiàng (&amp;quot;minister&amp;quot;) for Red. They are located next to the advisors. These pieces move and capture exactly two points diagonally and may not jump over intervening pieces; the move is described as being like the character 田 Tián (&amp;quot;field&amp;quot;). If an elephant cannot move due to a diagonally adjacent piece, it is known as &amp;quot;blocking the elephant's eye&amp;quot; (塞象眼).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elephants may not cross the river, and serve as defensive pieces. Because an elephant's movement is restricted to just seven board positions, it can be easily trapped or threatened. The two elephants are often used to defend each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese characters for &amp;quot;minister&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;elephant&amp;quot; are homophones in Mandarin and both have alternative meanings as &amp;quot;appearance&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;image&amp;quot;. However, in English, both are referred to as elephants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, while 相 is &amp;quot;minister,&amp;quot; it is often referred to as an &amp;quot;elephant&amp;quot; along with 象. 相 is never translated as &amp;quot;elephant&amp;quot; outside of &lt;em&gt;xiangqi&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T15:57:40.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32606" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-16T15:56:47.247" Score="2" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard a song named &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsfUfn5bTak&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;因为爱所以爱&lt;/a&gt;&quot;， literally it means &quot;love because of love&quot;. Though logically true, is it not a tautology here? Do we really say phrases like the following ones in everyday Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;因为工作所以工作&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;因为驾车所以驾车&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;因为下雨所以下雨&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;因为革命所以革命&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;因为正确所以正确&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T06:25:03.363" Title="Is the phrase &quot;因为爱所以爱&quot; a tautology?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32606" CreationDate="2019-01-16T16:55:29.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could interpret the title as &quot;(we) love because (we wanted) love&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a kind of tautology to a lesser degree, as it is less redundant as oppose to phase like &quot;I already say that again&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also song title are often conceptual, where songs are usually for expressing intangibles afterall.  Hence the examples you provided are not some phase you'll hear daily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T16:55:29.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32606" CreationDate="2019-01-16T17:20:07.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tautology&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the saying of the same thing twice in different words, generally considered to be a fault of style (e.g., they arrived one after the other in succession )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'one after the other' and 'in succession' are the same thing in different words , so one of them is redundant.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;因为爱所以爱” or 为爱而爱 (to love because of love) follows a common phrase structure [因为 X 所以 Y] or simply [为 X 而 Y]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;X is the reason; Y is the resulted action&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;因为貪心所以殺人&amp;quot; (Killing because of greed), 貪心 is the reason; 殺人 is the resulted action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;因为恐惧所以屈服&amp;quot; (Yield because of fear), 恐惧 is the reason; 屈服 is the resulted action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;因为爱所以爱” (Love because of love), 爱 is the reason; 爱 is the resulted action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice, when the reason is the same as the resulted action, it means you do something because you wanted to do something &lt;strong&gt;with no other reason&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Killing for Killing's sake (为殺人而殺人)= You kill because you &lt;strong&gt;wanted to&lt;/strong&gt; kill (因为&lt;strong&gt;想&lt;/strong&gt;殺人而殺人)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Love for love's sake (为爱而爱)= You love because you &lt;strong&gt;wanted to&lt;/strong&gt; love (因为&lt;strong&gt;想&lt;/strong&gt;爱而爱)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make &amp;quot;因为爱所以爱” sound more nature, you can either not omit '想' and write &amp;quot;因为想爱所以爱” (I love because I wanted to love) or replace '因为' with '為了' and write &amp;quot;為了爱而爱&amp;quot; or simply &amp;quot;為爱而爱&amp;quot; (love for love's sake)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main point of the title &amp;quot;因为爱所以爱” is  &amp;quot;it doesn't need a reason to love&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since neither 爱 is redundant in this sentence, it is not tautology, just a flawed sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T20:04:49.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32609" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-16T20:07:12.887" Score="1" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally translating, can one who opposes a revolutionary be called a &quot;反革命&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mainland China, &quot;反革命&quot; used be a serious crime which may be lead to death penalty. So people are not allowed to oppose any revolutionary; that is, everyone is supposed to support any revolutionary, whether this revolutionary is against his/her will or not (??). The logic seems to be confusing here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="21202" LastEditDate="2019-01-16T20:13:35.197" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T22:18:52.850" Title="What word should be used to describe anyone who is counter-revolutionary, that is, one who opposes a revolution?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32609" CreationDate="2019-01-16T21:49:55.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose to understand the meaning of   “反革命” ,you have to know how’s this word came out .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After OCT 1st 1949,the People Republic of China was founded,leading by Communist Party of China(CPC),and base on the situation,the civil war between CPC and Kuomintang (a major political party in the Republic of China on Taiwan) isn’t ended ,that means China still needs  revolution to unify the whole country and  CPC as legal party,anyone against CPC or revolution must be illegal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反革命 isn’t only mean to oppose revolutionary,this , but more like describe the people who betrayed the CPC and distub the way of unity China ,which means illegal at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21221" LastEditorUserId="21221" LastEditDate="2019-01-16T22:10:02.560" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T22:10:02.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32609" CreationDate="2019-01-16T21:50:15.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, you can use 者 for 'the person who' to describe what a person is,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反革命 Counter-revolution --&amp;gt; 反革命者 counter-revolutionary (the one who act against the revolution)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Chinese used to call them. &amp;quot;反革命分子&amp;quot; (Counter-revolutionary/  Counterrevolution elements)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calling a group of people in the population as &amp;quot;elements&amp;quot; imply 'it is only a small minority of people within the population&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反革命分子 = Counterrevolution elements (Counter-revolutionary/ people who act against revolution)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犯罪分子 =  criminal elements (people who commit crime)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反革命分子 is also called &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%8D%E5%8A%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;反动&lt;/a&gt;分子 (the people who act against the revolution movement) or 反动派 (the group that act against the revolution movement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;动 is short for 运动&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back then if you opposed the revolution (voiced different opinions), the CPC government would treat you as 反革命思想者 (the one who have counter-revolutionary mind) and they could up the charge to 反革命分子 -- That was a serious crime in Mainland China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%8D%E5%8A%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;反动罪&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;现行的《中华人民共和国刑法》中無「反动罪」此罪名，但以前的刑法中存在過反革命的定义，以及因其所产生的反革命罪。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;There is no &amp;quot;Counter-revolutionary crimes&amp;quot; in the current &amp;quot;Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China&amp;quot;, but there had been counter-revolutionary definitions and the related counter-revolutionary crimes in the previous criminal law&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T22:18:52.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32612" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32615" CreationDate="2019-01-16T22:48:22.267" Score="3" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;红烧肉、回锅肉、芹菜炒肉，肉夹馍……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the name of a different animal mentioned before 肉 (such as 孜然羊肉), does the word 肉 always mean &quot;pork&quot; without any exception?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found the following counterexample:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See L21 below; 肉丝 could be beef or pork.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/50uBU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/50uBU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="21202" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T21:51:21.073" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T15:49:29.837" Title="Does the word 肉 always mean pork (unless preceded by another word which means a different animal) in Chinese menus?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;food&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32613" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32622" CreationDate="2019-01-16T22:55:11.913" Score="0" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/50uBU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/50uBU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the attached Chinese menu. Why L4 is called 青椒牛 instead of 青椒牛肉? I think 牛 means the animal cow (or ox?) and 牛肉 means beef.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, why 芥蓝鸡 instead of 芥蓝鸡肉？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T06:04:28.113" Title="Why 青椒牛 instead of 青椒牛肉 in this Chinese menu?" Tags="&lt;food&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32612" CreationDate="2019-01-16T23:06:09.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 99% of time it is true.  However, it is always better to verify with the waitress if you're not certain.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;肉捲 - meat roll  &#xA;碎肉 - mince meat&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While mostly are pork and does not have a different animal mentioned, it could be other meat such as beef / chicken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T23:06:09.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32612" CreationDate="2019-01-16T23:09:12.243" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I worked in restaurants for many years. As I understand it, '肉' in Chinese menus only refers to pork unless it is specifically stated what kind of meat it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;時菜炒（豬）肉片 = in-season vegetable stir-fry pork slice&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;時菜炒牛肉 = in-season vegetable stir-fry beef&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;（豬）肉絲湯麵 = shredded pork noodle soup&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;雞絲湯麵 = shredded chicken meat noodle soup&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(豬) is omitted most of the time because when no specific is given, it is the default meat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are always exceptions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since the most common meat you see in 夹馍 are 羊肉 (mutton) or 牛肉 (beef), even when people reduce 羊肉夹馍 or 牛肉夹馍 to '肉夹馍', '肉' still refers to mutton or beef&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it is 清真食物 (Halal food) menus, you can be sure 肉 on the menus are not pork but mutton or beef instead&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Outside of menus, 肉 can refer to any kind of meat, for example: 肉 in &quot;大魚大肉&quot; or &quot;有酒有肉&quot; does not refer to a specific meat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="21244" LastEditDate="2019-01-20T15:24:53.987" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T15:24:53.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32613" CreationDate="2019-01-17T00:41:07.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose this menu from America-Chinese restaurant,cause it's just like translate by google,I traveled a few major cities in China,none of restaurant menu like this one,considering a few restaurant owner don't know english very well,maybe they just chose the easy way to print it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21221" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T00:41:07.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32585" CreationDate="2019-01-17T00:51:33.397" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;廿, 卅, 卌 are &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; used in Modern Standard Mandarin Chinese except some idiomatic expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They might be used in Old Chinese and Middle Chinese, but never in Modern Standard Mandarin Chinese, except some idiomatic expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;五卅惨案 May 30th Massacre&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the only term that I can think of using 卅 in Modern Standard Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can see 廿一, 廿二, 廿三, ... 廿九 in Chinese calendar, but many people may pronounce them as 二十一, 二十二, 二十三, ...  二十九, because many native Chinese speakers do not even know the Mandarin pronunciation of 廿.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;20 to 29 are 二十 to 二十九&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;30 to 39 are 三十 to 三十九&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;40 to 49 are 四十 to 四十九&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are how we use in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, they are pretty common in some non-Mandarin Chinese, such as Cantonese and Hokkien. For example, Hokkien uses 廿一 for 21 and 卌一 for 41.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T04:49:07.920" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T04:49:07.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32612" CreationDate="2019-01-17T01:08:21.750" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Standard Chinese, 肉 means any kinds of meat, while 猪肉 means pork. This is technically correct in the standard expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in colloquial Chinese, unprefixed 肉 usually means pork, except in the “halal menu”. It is true in 99.9% of the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are writing legal documents or contracts, use 猪肉 to refer to pork. Otherwise, just use unprefixed 肉 for pork.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T17:00:14.103" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T17:00:14.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32620" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-17T02:17:35.520" Score="1" ViewCount="343" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm just wondering how to say 'what's the difference between X and X?' in Cantonese &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help (Jyutping or characters!) would be really appreciated!&#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21224" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T05:03:55.643" Title="How to say 'what's the difference between' in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32620" CreationDate="2019-01-17T02:45:27.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what's the difference between X and Y&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(X) 同 (Y) 有乜嘢唔同&amp;quot; [&lt;em&gt;(X) tung4 (Y) jau5 me1 je5 m4 tung4&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(X) 同 (Y) 有乜嘢分別&amp;quot; [&lt;em&gt;(X) tung4 (Y) jau5 me1 je5 fan1 bit6&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(X) 跟 (Y) 有甚麼不同&amp;quot; [&lt;em&gt;(X) gen1 (Y) you3 shen2 me5 bu4 tong2&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(X) 跟 (Y) 有甚麼分別&amp;quot; [&lt;em&gt;(X) gen1 (Y) you3 shen2 me5 fen1 bie2&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T05:03:55.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32613" CreationDate="2019-01-17T06:04:28.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure how it sounds to Cantonese ears or Chinese-speaking population outside China, but in Mandarin spoken in mainland China, 青椒牛 is absolutely weird, and sounds like the cow is cooked in whole (uncut). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However this usage is extremely common in Chinese restaurants in the US. I heard it's similar in other English speaking countries. No idea why it evolved like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from the improper omission of the meat form (肉/丝/片/etc.), the lack of cooking method (炒/烧/烩/etc.) also sounds off. In mainland China even in very casual spoken language, those words are included out of habit. It will actually take effort to omit them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T06:04:28.113" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32606" CreationDate="2019-01-17T06:25:03.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;因为X所以X is like &quot;just because&quot; in English, it means &quot;for no (external) reason&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is different from the logic term tautology, which means the statement is always true by definition. E.g. &quot;an integer is either even or odd&quot; is tautology. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T06:25:03.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32625" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32626" CreationDate="2019-01-17T10:02:37.673" Score="5" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 死锤 mean? I get that it's probably some type of weaponry, but I want a clearer translation. Below is the whole sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个时候就是众人与其死锤的时候了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21212" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T20:02:29.183" Title="What does 死锤 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32625" CreationDate="2019-01-17T12:43:28.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you say &quot;我要跟你死锤了&quot;, it means you will fight with someone untill either you or the other die, that's where the 死 comes from, and 锤 means a solid battle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a spoken word, usually you will meet the literary equivalent one 决一死战.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T12:43:28.567" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32627" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-17T13:28:44.973" Score="3" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to google translate and other dictionaries, &quot;republic&quot; means &quot;共和國&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T17:27:57.993" Title="Why 中華民國 = Republic of China?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32627" CreationDate="2019-01-17T14:21:05.760" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer: because Sun Yat-sen proclaimed it so. In a &lt;a href=&quot;http://sunology.culture.tw/cgi-bin/gs32/s1gsweb.cgi?o=dcorpus&amp;amp;s=id=%22SP0000000706%22.&amp;amp;searchmode=basic&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1916 speech&lt;/a&gt; given in Shanghai, he asks the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;何以不曰「中華共和國」，而必曰「中華民國」？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why instead of 中華共和國, must one say 中華民國?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reasons he gives boil down to drawing a distinction centred on the 民: saying that this is the fundamental difference between Qing dynasty feudalism and the Ancient Greek republic (and by extension, modern China). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although 共和 carries the idea of the &lt;em&gt;res publica&lt;/em&gt; of Latin, he acknowledges this, and proceeds to give 民 greater importance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of early 2019, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/%E6%B0%91%E5%9B%BD-%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%9B%BD.2017769/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;only states&lt;/a&gt; to officially use 民國 are the Republic of China and the Republic of Korea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T14:21:05.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32629" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-17T14:45:39.463" Score="4" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, Chinese Taipei can be translated either as 中国台北 or 中华台北。Are 中国 and 中华 synonyms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is any differnce between 中国 and 中华，how to reflect the difference in English translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T16:53:35.407" Title="Are 中国 and 中华 synonyms?" Tags="&lt;synonyms&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32627" CreationDate="2019-01-17T16:44:33.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;民国 and 共和国 mean exactly the same. However, nowadays we prefer 共和国 to 民国 as the translation of “republic”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Etymologies (word origins)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The native Chinese term 民国 is actually a mimicked term from 王国 and 帝国.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;王国 “king’s state”, i.e. kingdom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;帝国 “emperor’s state”, i.e. empire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;民国 “people’s state”, i.e. republic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Japano-Chinese term 共和国 is a Chinese term borrowed from the Japanese term 共和国 (きょうわこく), which means “gonghe state”. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonghe_Regency&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gonghe Regency&lt;/a&gt; (西周共和时期) was an interregnum period in Chinese history from 841 BC to 828 BC, and China had some similarities to a republican state during that period. As a result, “gonghe state” is modernly used to refer to a republican state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum up, 民国 and 共和国 mean exactly the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T17:27:57.993" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T17:27:57.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32631" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32645" CreationDate="2019-01-17T16:52:38.120" Score="2" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase 东北人  has been widely used by native speakers but 西南人 is not as common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it not equally correct to say 西南人?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T02:31:58.343" Title="Is it grammatically correct to say 西南人?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32629" CreationDate="2019-01-17T16:53:35.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Modern Chinese, 国 means a sovereign state, e.g. 中国, 英国, 美国, 德国, etc. In ancient times, 国 could also mean a non-sovereign state, e.g. 楚国, 齐国, 赵国, etc. Anyway, 国 emphasizes the government's control of a specific land.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, 中国 can only refer to the sovereign state that is named China, while 中华 is more likely to refer to the ethnicity or nation that is named China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T16:53:35.407" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32625" CreationDate="2019-01-17T17:06:11.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose 死锤 evolved from 实锤，which to describe someone or something got a evidence to proof truth or false.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So , 死锤 isn’t meaning death hammer,but just like struggle to argue or fight for the results .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21221" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T17:06:11.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32631" CreationDate="2019-01-17T17:15:28.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a 西南人, I have to say that it is rare to hear. 南方人 (Southerner) is okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone is from the south side of the Huanghe River, they would let you know which province they are literally from, like Sichuan, Yunnan or Guizhou.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose the reason is dialect, which so different in southern China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 西北人 (Northwestern) is commonly heard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21221" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T03:06:07.080" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T03:06:07.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32575" CreationDate="2019-01-17T17:22:38.383" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To begin with, there is one thing called 大写 (&lt;em&gt;daxie&lt;/em&gt;, “upper case”), in contrast to 小写 (&lt;em&gt;xiaoxie&lt;/em&gt;, “lower case”).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小写：一二三四五六七八九十百千  -  元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大写：壹贰叁肆伍陆柒捌玖拾佰仟  -  圆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Daxie&lt;/em&gt; numbers are only used in finance in order to protect against falsification, because they contain too many strokes to modify. For example, 一 can be easily modified to 二 or 十, but 壹 cannot be modified. Therefore, &lt;em&gt;daxie&lt;/em&gt; numbers are usually seen on invoices, receipts, cheques, promissory notes, etc, in order to protect against falsification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HP3cD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HP3cD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Invoices with money written in *daxie*&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tamper-proof technique &lt;em&gt;daxie&lt;/em&gt; has been used for over a thousand years since the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tang dynasty&lt;/a&gt;, invented by the empress regnant &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Zetian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wu Zetian&lt;/a&gt; (武则天), and enforced by the emperor &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongwu_Emperor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhu Yuanzhang&lt;/a&gt; (朱元璋). It has been tested for so long time as the best practice of tamper resistance. Therefore, &lt;em&gt;daxie&lt;/em&gt; numbers finally became the tradition of finance, and are now printed on cash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when we write it down, we still use &lt;em&gt;xiaoxie&lt;/em&gt;, like 一元钱, unless we are really writing financial documents, such as receipts and cheques. &lt;em&gt;Daxie&lt;/em&gt; numbers are regarded as the specific jargons that should be strictly limited in financial area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一块钱 is the colloquial term of 一元钱, because in the past the money was only made of metal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Colloquial:   块      毛      分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Formal:        元       角      分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壹圆 is only used on invoices and receipts, and printed on cash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-01-21T11:45:23.670" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T11:45:23.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32636" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-17T17:49:33.533" Score="3" ViewCount="299" Body="&lt;p&gt;Peole use both 蓝天 and 青天 and I am wondering if there is any difference. While 蓝 means blue, 青 means cyan, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do people say 蓝天白云 often but seldom 青天白云 (though 青天白日 is sometimes used)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T02:15:38.363" Title="If 蓝天 means &quot;blue sky&quot;, does 青天 mean &quot;cyan sky&quot;?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;colors&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32636" CreationDate="2019-01-17T18:02:54.810" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;蓝天白云 and 青天白日 are &lt;strong&gt;idioms&lt;/strong&gt;, so they cannot be changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蓝色 means blue, but 青色 is arguable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the colour printing technology, the &lt;strong&gt;jargon&lt;/strong&gt; term 青色 is defined to be cyan. However, if you are not talking about the colour printing technology, 青色 can mean blue, cyan, green, or even black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;青天白日 blue sky and white sun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;绿水青山 green water and green mountains&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;山青水秀 the mountain is in green, and the water is beautiful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;青，取之于蓝，而青于蓝。&#xA;  Cyan, is made from blue, but cyaner than blue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;雪青色 violet colour (lit. bluish snow colour)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;青草 green grass&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;青衣 black clothes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;青布 black cloth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When does 青 mean blue? When does 青 mean green? When does 青 mean black? There are no rules and no logic for it, just idiomatic. For example, many people use 青草 for “green grass” and therefore 青草 becomes the idiom of “green grass”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T18:15:35.963" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T18:15:35.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32639" CreationDate="2019-01-17T18:07:20.407" Score="1" ViewCount="389" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should the number 118 be read as 一百一十八 or 一百十八?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related question: How to read 2018年?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;两千零一十八年?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;二千零一十八年?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;二零一八年?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;两千零十八年?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;二千零十八年?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T14:07:23.277" Title="Should 118 be read as 一百一十八 or 一百十八?" Tags="&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32638" CreationDate="2019-01-17T18:27:19.513" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The year number is &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; read digit by digit, so 2018年 is read as 二〇一八年.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;118 should be read as 一百一十八 in Standard Mandarin Chinese according to the mathematics textbooks in primary school, but the non-standard 一百十八 is also common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, the number 2018 (without 年) should be read as 二千零一十八 in Standard Mandarin Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iLkin.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iLkin.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;mathematics textbook in primary school&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bZTvT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bZTvT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;mathematics textbook in primary school&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T18:36:33.667" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T18:36:33.667" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32625" CreationDate="2019-01-17T20:02:29.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;死 + fight action = fight until one of the party dies (metaphorically or literally).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the context, it could be implying &quot;no retreat&quot; or &quot;no mercy&quot; or both, but in most cases it's focusing on the determination i.e. &quot;no retreat&quot; aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;死战 (as in 决一死战): fight until death; fight without retreat.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;死磕 (common word Northern/Beijing dialect): bug/harass/fight someone until the request is answered.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;死锤 (network language): &quot;hammer&quot; (harshly argue, criticize, condemn) someone until they surrender/confess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T20:02:29.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="512" CreationDate="2019-01-17T22:48:54.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My list of similar characters.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://kmccready.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/my-list-of-similar-chinese-characters/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://kmccready.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/my-list-of-similar-chinese-characters/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21229" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T22:48:54.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32642" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32644" CreationDate="2019-01-18T01:31:41.117" Score="2" ViewCount="4309" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the meaning of &lt;code&gt;氪&lt;/code&gt; is krypton. But I find there are many people say: &lt;code&gt;这个游戏真好玩，我要氪金&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Now they have got the game and played it, so they needn't buy the game now, even sometime they say so when play a free game. So how to understand the meaning of it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21011" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T08:34:38.690" Title="What's the meaning of &quot;氪金&quot;? How to translate it?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32642" CreationDate="2019-01-18T01:50:41.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it might originate in Japanese, where it is written as 課金, meaning that you pay real money to the game, to get some advantages (such as better equipment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the word come to Chinese, 課 (simplified: 课) has the same reading as 氪. So on the internet, it is sometimes written as 氪金. You might also see other forms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T01:50:41.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32642" CreationDate="2019-01-18T01:50:56.187" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%B0%AA%E9%87%91/3616368?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;氪金&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;em&gt;pay&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;charge&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;氪金，原为“课金”，指支付费用，特指在网络游戏中的充值行为。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even the players are playing a free game, they still could pay money for items in games (to become more powerful, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fanjian.net/jbk/kejin.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T01:50:56.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32631" CreationDate="2019-01-18T03:19:21.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;西南人 is a rare expression. Few people say like that, so it sounds weird. Grammatically speaking, it is definitely correct, and it refers to people from Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, there was a famous university in Yunnan Province, named 国立西南联合大学 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Southwestern_Associated_University&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;National Southwestern Associated University&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The local dialects in Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan, are linguistically classified as 西南官话 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Southwestern Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T02:31:58.343" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T02:31:58.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32646" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-18T03:40:52.993" Score="2" ViewCount="40" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there are 3 phrases used to describe exhibition/fair, namely &quot;博览会&quot;, &quot;交易会&quot; and &quot;展销会&quot;. Can those phrases be used interchangeably or is there any difference for each specific phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21231" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T02:27:42.633" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T02:27:42.633" Title="What is the difference between &quot;博览会&quot;, &quot;交易会&quot; and &quot;展销会&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32646" CreationDate="2019-01-18T04:15:32.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;博览会, 交易会 and 展销会 can be used interchangeablely. All of them mean &quot;exhibition&quot;. They are synonyms, different only in literal meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal meanings are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;博览会 broad viewing party&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;交易会 trade party&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;展销会 display and sales party&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T04:28:32.960" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T04:28:32.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32642" CreationDate="2019-01-18T04:21:27.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see the question has already been answered, but I want to add a method of finding the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word is in CC-CEDICT. You can search it on: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.mdbg.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;氪金&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;kèjīn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to make an in-app purchase in a game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T08:00:53.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32649" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32651" CreationDate="2019-01-18T05:05:17.350" Score="2" ViewCount="468" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that people speaking Cantonese use the term「唐人」. I am unsure about the definition of「唐人」in Cantonese. Does「唐人」in Cantonese mean exactly the same thing as「漢人」, or are there subtle differences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my knowledge,「漢人」refers to people of the Han ethnic group. Do Cantonese people use this term too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T05:17:47.973" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T06:13:36.143" Title="What is the difference between「唐人」and「漢人」in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32649" CreationDate="2019-01-18T05:21:06.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC Cantonese&lt;/em&gt; has the following information in their entry for 唐人:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;NOUN&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Chinese man, Chinese person; Chinese people, especially those living in overseas Chinese communities in Europe, North America, and Australia, also known as 華僑 waa4 kiu4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Notes&lt;/strong&gt;: 唐 tong4 refers to Tang dynasty (618 - 907 Common Era) which has been traditionally regarded by Cantonese speakers as the apex and hence a supreme symbol of Chinese civilization; colloquial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes, in a &lt;strong&gt;broad sense&lt;/strong&gt; 唐人 can be used in a similar manner as 漢人, but you should pay attention to the context for subtleties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T05:34:44.083" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T05:34:44.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32649" CreationDate="2019-01-18T05:58:46.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;漢人 only refers to people of the Han ethnic group&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is correct、漢民族 is the major ethnic group in China, but 漢人 do not equal 中國人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唐 and  漢 are both great dynasty in Chinese history&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese speakers prefer 唐 over 漢 as the representative word for &quot;Chinese&quot; . We have terms like 唐人，唐餐，唐裝，唐話，唐字 in Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin speakers prefer 漢 over 唐 as the representative word for &quot;Chinese&quot; . We have terms like 漢文，漢字，漢語，漢化 in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Does「唐人」in Cantonese mean exactly the same thing as「漢人」&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, 「唐人」in Cantonese mean exactly 「華人」 or 「中國人」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both Cantonese and Mandarin speakers use「華人」 or 「中國人」for &quot;Chinese people&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is believed that &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%8E%E5%A4%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;華夏&lt;/a&gt; period culture was the beginning of Chinese culture&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;華夏最初是指史前黃河流域中下游一带分佈的若干部落或政治共同體，这些部落被后世视为漢文化及中华文明的起源之一&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;《左傳》“裔不謀夏，夷不亂華”一語，華、夏同義反復，&lt;strong&gt;華即是夏&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;夏即是華&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T06:12:45.003" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T06:12:45.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32594" CreationDate="2019-01-18T06:11:43.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Don't do that. This definitely sounds ancient. Modern Chinese people rarely use any of these two characters, 桂 and 英, unless they can come up with a fancier character combination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the character 桂, I know a lot of 50-year-old Chinese women are named after 桂芳. For the 英, I think nowadays people perfer to use 瑛 more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fortunately, Chinese has numerous homophones. If you really like these two characters, maybe you can try homophones like 樱 instead, which has the same pronounciation as 英. People tend to use more poetic and aesthetic characters for names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17266" LastEditorUserId="17266" LastEditDate="2019-06-24T08:46:22.753" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T08:46:22.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32543" CreationDate="2019-01-18T06:27:09.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I Chinese, I would tell you I only use 在 when I am doing something. I am not saying other expressions are wrong. They just don't sound as comfortable as other proper expressions or 在 can be omitted. So&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他去年去了中国度假。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;definitely sounds better to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI, another popular usage of 在 is 在吗, which is used in the cases when someone wants to start an online chat with another one, meaning that &quot;Are you online?&quot;. But this usage has been considered somewhat outdated in terms of chatting and is more often used when one wants to seek help from another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not gonna tell you what “在吗，kkp” means...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17266" LastEditorUserId="17266" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T18:20:13.260" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T18:20:13.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32539" CreationDate="2019-01-18T06:38:22.507" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say this in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Olmpics was held in 2008.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The held can be either considered passive voice or as a adjective. Your sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;北京奥运会是2008年举办。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;matches neither. 举办 is a verb. But with 的, it becomes a valid adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using passive voice is not encouraged here, which would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;北京奥运会在2008年被举办了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless you really want to say this in a very objective manner, it is very uncommon to say it this way, especially without any adjectives or adverbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17266" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T06:38:22.507" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32548" CreationDate="2019-01-18T06:53:22.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The accepted answer is very good. I just wanna add something that might help explain when these two both mean catch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me as a Chinese speaker, 抓 seems to catch larger things than 捉. The things to 捉 seems to be more agile like a mouse. When you use 抓, it seems you can just use brutal force to catch it, like a criminal. So a common Chinese phrase 老鹰捉/抓小鸡 makes sense in both cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17266" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T06:53:22.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32366" CreationDate="2019-01-18T07:07:27.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我尊重&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in an English way sometimes sounds more like &quot;I do respect you but...&quot;. If you really want to say &quot;I respect you&quot;, it is more preferrable to say &quot;I respect you very much&quot;, which would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我非常尊重/尊敬你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;very much&quot; here serves to emphasize the respect, otherwise people may think you have some potential meaning. Of course, it is valid to merely say things like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我尊重你的选择。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means I repect your choice. But using adverbs like extremely makes it more heartfelt. People all like heartfelt complimentary things. That's the reason why 舔狗 is so popular. As a result, to be more hearfelt, it is important to explain it why you respect it if you don't say those adverbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the problem might be this word in your sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国的公司&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This raises the problem to a country level, describing things with a broader context. Anything that you said about a country, in a serious manner of speaking, no matter in what language, is concluding the attributes of all the people there. If you say anything bad about a country, people there will feel offended and dishonored. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I don't think this is the problem of Chinese. Your sentence sounds very ok and normal to me as a native Chinese speaker. Just be careful, don't draw conclusions on people's country easily, or more generally, any group of people who share the same attributes, especially right in front of them. They are very sensitive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17266" LastEditorUserId="17266" LastEditDate="2020-03-28T07:20:31.707" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T07:20:31.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32657" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-18T08:03:17.370" Score="0" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to use the expression &quot;detangling knot&quot; (knot that unties). It's for a poem and I should write it with two kanji and no more... is it possible or is it better for me to use something like this &lt;em&gt;開結&lt;/em&gt; (should be &quot;untied/open knot&quot;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21234" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T08:19:56.927" Title="How to translate &quot;detangling knot&quot; or &quot;knot that unties&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32657" CreationDate="2019-01-18T08:06:50.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;活结&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pleco Basic Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;knot that can be undone by a pull; slipknot (opp. 死结)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;系了个活结&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;xì le ge huójié&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;make a slipknot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;活扣&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;slipknot; knot that can be easily untied&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T08:06:50.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32661" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32723" CreationDate="2019-01-18T13:23:31.543" Score="0" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rare name 澹台灭明 is used by two people:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%BE%B9%E5%8F%B0%E7%81%AD%E6%98%8E/14241&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A disciple of Confucious&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%BE%B9%E5%8F%B0%E7%81%AD%E6%98%8E/9824637#viewPageContent&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A character is one of Liang Yusheng's novels.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand, the surname 澹台 and the given name 灭明 are both extremely rare in China. I am shocked to see this ever rarer combination 澹台灭明 being used twice by complete two different people. Any explanation? Can 灭明 be a decent (though rare but perhaps poetic?) given name today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="21202" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T15:51:10.213" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T20:52:17.067" Title="An extremely rare same name used by two people" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;surnames&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32638" CreationDate="2019-01-18T14:07:23.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;118 is read as: 一百一十八. Sometimes it could be: 一 一 八 as when we say telephone numbers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2018 is 二零一八(年). We don't usually say 两千零一十八年， but we do say 两千零八年(2008). I don't have a good reason why though. Of course, 二零零八年 is also correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T14:07:23.277" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32661" CreationDate="2019-01-18T15:54:45.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Be careful, there is a group called 天地会, their slogan is 反清复明, just imagine you meet one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You: 你好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Member: 地镇高岗，一派溪山千古秀.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You: What?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Member: 这么说你不是我们的人了. 敢问高姓大名?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You: 复姓澹台, 灭明是也, 失敬失敬.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Member: 灭明? 看招.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You: ... (You died and you don't why...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, the relations of 天地会 is still alive, e.g. 致公党 in main land, 洪门 in Taiwan, 三合会 in Hongkong, and many others in the Chinese community, of course they don't 反清复明 anymore, but I don't think they will like the name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are just kidding, no offense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seriously, that's not a good name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T15:56:31.713" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T15:56:31.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="721" CreationDate="2019-01-18T16:44:41.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no standard Chinese pronunciation for Latin alphabet. Chinese people just try their best to pronounce them exactly the same as what the British or the Americans pronounce, so CD is just pronounced as &lt;code&gt;see dee&lt;/code&gt; in China, and DVD is just pronounced as &lt;code&gt;dee vee dee&lt;/code&gt; in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, there exist Chinese accents, so there can be some fixed tones or some other consonants for certain letters &lt;strong&gt;unconsciously&lt;/strong&gt;, which is known as Chinglish. As for the non-standard Chinglish pronunciation, CD is likely to be pronounced as &lt;code&gt;xī dì&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;xī dī&lt;/code&gt; or even &lt;code&gt;sēi dī&lt;/code&gt;, and DVD is likely to be pronounced as &lt;code&gt;dī wēi dì&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;dī wēi dī&lt;/code&gt;. These kinds of Chinglish pronunciations do exist, but they are usually regarded as a symbol of low-educated people, so you do not really need to care too much about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T16:52:28.470" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T16:52:28.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2724" CreationDate="2019-01-18T17:07:35.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese people pronounce Latin alphabet the same as how the British and the Americans pronounce them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to know the non-standard &lt;strong&gt;Chinglish&lt;/strong&gt; pronunciation, then there is a story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;O   →  圈 (quān, circle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;X   →  叉 (chā, cross)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;N   →  恩 (ēn), mispronunciation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese pronunciation of “N” is actually a common &lt;strong&gt;mispronuncication&lt;/strong&gt;. Many Chinese people pronounce N as &lt;code&gt;/ən/&lt;/code&gt; rather than &lt;code&gt;/en/&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In card games, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A  →  尖 (jiān, acute)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;J  →  钩 (gōu, hook)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Q →  皮蛋 (pí dàn, century egg)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T17:16:26.207" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T17:16:26.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18095" CreationDate="2019-01-19T00:39:06.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found Thai tones and the sounds of Thai words are very close Cantonese, perhaps they both spoke Tai before the Qin Dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18097" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T00:39:06.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32569" CreationDate="2019-01-19T13:40:47.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just stick to what you have observed,  this is a long story, many pronunctions in the dictionary have this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can observe these characters in your life:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;血&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;荨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;累&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;载&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;颈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;伯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T13:40:47.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32668" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-19T13:42:48.280" Score="0" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_people_of_the_Three_Kingdoms#Chapter_87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金環三結,董荼那,阿會喃,忙牙長&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are their surnames and given names. For example, is 董 the surname of 董荼那?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T19:03:57.400" Title="What are the surnames and given names of these fictional people of the Three Kingdoms?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;surnames&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32668" CreationDate="2019-01-19T14:02:03.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 《三國演義》 孟獲 (Meng Huo) was  described as 蠻王 (king of the Barbarian). The fictional characters in his army were supposed to be barbarians. Their names were supposed to be transliteration from barbarian's language. There's no point of trying to find out their surnames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The funny thing about transliterated name is --  the meaning of the Chinese characters in it are irrelevant. For example, the name '約翰遜' (Johnson) has nothing to do with  約 (approximately) 翰 (writing brush) or 遜 (inferior). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;約翰遜's last name is certainly not 約; 約翰遜 is a last name&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-19T19:03:57.400" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T19:03:57.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32670" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-19T14:32:12.210" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;In our family a set of four Chinese paintings were called something that sounds like «daitse» or «die-tse» but we cannot find out the actual word and its meaning. Can anyone help? The theme of the set is four seasons and four classes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21238" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-19T19:16:44.073" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T11:45:00.170" Title="Chinese paintings" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32670" CreationDate="2019-01-19T15:05:03.560" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i guess it's &quot;代謝&quot;, when the theme is four seasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000042337&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000042337&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly means evolvement, replacement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T15:05:03.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32672" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-19T19:22:33.017" Score="10" ViewCount="670" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know in Chinese sentences we should use adverb after subject and before the verb. For example: 我在上网聊天儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So can I say 我(S)在北京(adverb)住(verb)？ Why do we say 我住在北京？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21240" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T12:04:53.007" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T12:04:53.007" Title="Can I say 在..住? Why do we say 我住在..？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32672" CreationDate="2019-01-19T20:27:23.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我(I) 住(live) 在 (at/in)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;住(live) is a verb; 在(at/in) is a preposition for the noun (some place) to follow. Their order cannot be switched &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't say &quot;I at live (somewhere)&quot; or &quot;I in live (some place)&quot; in English. For the same reason, we only say &quot;我住在某處(some place)&quot; but not &quot;我在住某處(some place)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;我在北京住&quot;, &quot;我住&quot; is the subject and verb, &quot;在北京&quot; is the adverbial phrase for the verb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'在' in '在北京' is the preposition for the noun '北京', not for the verb '住'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot remove '北京' in &quot;我在北京住&quot; and write &quot;我在住&quot; because the preposition '在' has to be followed by a noun, e.g. &quot;在某處 (in some place)&quot; ; &quot;在北京 (in Beijing)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-19T20:47:57.503" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T20:47:57.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32674" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32682" CreationDate="2019-01-19T21:09:24.440" Score="1" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine mentioned the Chinese saying that says that &quot;the leaf always falls down on its root&quot;. I would like to know whether this refers to the text that in old age several people return to their country of origin, and would also like to know how to write this in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19391" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T04:38:02.580" Title="the leaf always falls down on its root" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;saying&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32672" CreationDate="2019-01-19T22:25:51.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;submitting 在北京住 to online dictionaries, e.g. iciba shows it to be correct：我们曾在北京住过一段时间,他在北京住了很多年了，我已经在北京住了七年了，just as 住在北京 is correct,  when before verb 在{某处所,e.g.｝北京， functions as adverbial (状语），when following verb it functions as complement (补语)，similarly as for 在［某时间］&#xA;（see many examples for both placements with 在［某时间］ at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/32543/when-is-it-appropriate-to-use-%e5%9c%a8-with-a-time-phrase&quot;&gt;When is it appropriate to use 在 with a time phrase?&lt;/a&gt; （3rd/longest answer) (examples may suggest that 住在北京 is more common than 在北京住, if 住 is not followed by aspect particles like 了，着，过 （and time complements),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-01-19T23:05:43.887" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T23:05:43.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32676" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-19T22:33:22.423" Score="-4" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain the symbol at the end... the symbol that looks like breasts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t3GNO.png&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21241" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-19T07:53:20.000" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T07:53:20.000" Title="Please translate the image (Characters identified: 虾炒饭（大）)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-01-24T05:31:36.297" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32672" CreationDate="2019-01-19T22:43:50.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Excerpted from section 9.3.8 of &lt;em&gt;A Chinese Grammar for English Speakers&lt;/em&gt; (汉语语法指南, 英文版):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, 在 takes a post-verb position when occurring with certain verbs, and we may roughly divide these verbs into three groups...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;...&lt;em&gt;appearance&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;disappearance&lt;/em&gt;... (出生， 出现， 发生， ...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;...&lt;em&gt;arrangement, placement,&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;displacement&lt;/em&gt;... (安排， 藏， 掉, ...)  &lt;strong&gt;This case covers 住, although the book does not include it in the examples.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;...&lt;em&gt;body position&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;posture&lt;/em&gt;... (睡， 站, ...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book has multiple full sentence examples, covers other uses of 在, and also compares it with 于.  I highly recommend it as a reference for these sorts of questions.  The only obstacle for beginners is that 汉字 in the running text do not include pinyin.  That is only provided for full sentence examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T22:43:50.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32676" CreationDate="2019-01-19T23:33:50.577" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is 虾炒飯（大）. The one stoke in the middle  had faded out, the ink just fell off&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Appearnently it is  “Shrimp fried rice (large)” on a menu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T23:33:50.577" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32679" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32680" CreationDate="2019-01-20T02:53:53.300" Score="2" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a sign outside a breakfast eatery in Taoyuan, Taiwan I saw a character I didn't know, that Google Translate with the phone camera didn't translate, and that I couldn't find in Pleco.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uXX9f.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uXX9f.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;mystery character&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like 溏 but without the &quot;mouth&quot; component in the lower right. It looks like it has a &quot;person&quot; component there instead, but maybe that is part of the strokes above it, I'm pretty rusty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a common variant of 溏? Semantically I thought it more likely to be a variant of &quot;sugar&quot; 糖, but that has more differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2019-01-22T04:15:48.733" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T04:15:48.733" Title="Is there a variant of 溏 without the 口 component that's used in Taiwan?" Tags="&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;character-variant&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32679" CreationDate="2019-01-20T03:12:33.867" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;焿 is a character on its own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ZDic：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1d/js/713F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1d/js/713F.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;gēng&#xA;  〔～子寮湾〕地名。在中国台湾省东北海岸。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wiktionary.org/zh-hans/%E7%84%BF&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wiktionary.org/zh-hans/%E7%84%BF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“焿”是“羹”的异体字，为台湾本地自创的形声俗字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;羹 means '(thick) soup, broth'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T03:12:33.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32679" CreationDate="2019-01-20T04:20:58.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The left hand side of that character is「火」, not「氵」(unlike in「溏」)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「庚」is not a variant component of「唐」.「唐」(&lt;em&gt;boastful, exaggerative&lt;/em&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_(2014)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*[N-]rˁaŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;) is constructed from semantic「口」(&lt;em&gt;mouth&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic「庚」(&lt;strong&gt;/*kˤraŋ/&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「焿」(&lt;em&gt;thick broth, soup&lt;/em&gt;; Pinyin: &lt;strong&gt;gēng&lt;/strong&gt;) is constructed from semantic「火」(&lt;em&gt;fire&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic「庚」(&lt;strong&gt;gēng&lt;/strong&gt;), and as mentioned elsewhere, is a variant of「羹」. The whole sign says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;早餐 (&lt;em&gt;BREAKFAST&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;飯 (&lt;em&gt;Rice dishes&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;麵 (&lt;em&gt;Noodle dishes&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;焿 (&lt;em&gt;Soup dishes&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-01-20T04:40:21.797" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T04:40:21.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32674" CreationDate="2019-01-20T04:38:02.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;the leaf always falls down on its root&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落(fallen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;葉(leaves)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歸 (go back to)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;根 (the root)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落葉歸根 means &quot;fallen leaves always go back to the root&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a metaphor for &quot;a person come back to his birth place to settle&quot;. It is considered a fulfilling event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thinking is a traditional one. Nowadays, the tie between a person and his birth place is nowhere as strong as in olden time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong is my birth place, but I am happy to settle in Toronto until the day I die.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T04:38:02.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32679" CreationDate="2019-01-20T07:24:04.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I couldn't find [it] in Pleco.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a simple way to find it in &lt;a href=&quot;https://store.pleco.com/products.php?ios=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt;. You need to have the:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Fullscreen Handwriting Recognizer ($9.99)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;add-on activated in Pleco.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then all you have to do is &lt;em&gt;write&lt;/em&gt; the character out to the best of your ability:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EtFbI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EtFbI.png&quot; alt=&quot;yoyoyo&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Bob's your uncle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-01-20T07:38:53.347" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T07:38:53.347" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32684" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32685" CreationDate="2019-01-20T09:44:20.870" Score="3" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand it by finding the meaning behind each word but failed miserably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I got from MDBG:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;投 (tóu): to cast / to send / to throw oneself (into the river etc) / to seek refuge / to place oneself into the hands of&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;个 (gè): individual / this / that / size / classifier for people or objects in general&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;好 (hǎo): good / well / proper / good to / easy to / very / so / (suffix indicating completion or readiness) / (of two people) close / on intimate terms / (after a personal pronoun) hello/ to be fond of / to have a tendency to / to be prone to&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;胎 (tāi): fetus / litter / tire / abbr. of 輪胎｜轮胎&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Casting/investing/putting in a good baby or perhaps tire&quot; just doesn't make any sense...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 好胎 here perhaps mean good karma?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T10:14:56.013" Title="Is &quot;投个好胎&quot; a proper set phrase/idiom? What does it mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32684" CreationDate="2019-01-20T10:14:56.013" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;投 (v); plunge into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;胎 (n); pregnancy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;投胎&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (plunge into pregnancy) is a compound word. It means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;to reincarnate&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Olden time Chinese believed after people died and became ghosts, some of them were allowed to reincarnate and reborn into the living world&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;投个胎&quot; break up the compound word &quot;投胎&quot; and treating 投 as a verb; 胎 as a noun. When 胎 is a noun, we can add classifier '个' (a)  before it to indicate indefinite &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar phrase: 投幾次胎 (to reincarnate a few times)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;different from &quot;投个胎&quot; (to randomly reborn), we can have “投个好胎&quot;, which mean &quot;to reborn into a good family&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T10:14:56.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32686" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32687" CreationDate="2019-01-20T10:15:36.463" Score="4" ViewCount="710" Body="&lt;p&gt;So 着呢, from the book I am currently studying (汉语教程) says it uses it at the end of a sentence to express “very”. However, my teacher said this is incorrect and said 着呢 is used to express something is happening. So which one is right in this situation with 着呢 (because I heard the 着 is a verb complement, indicating the current state of action).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/smn5k.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/smn5k.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Here is the description from the book. Please don’t mind the Vietnamese used in it.&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-12T00:11:54.420" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T00:11:54.420" Title="How do I use 着呢 correctly?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32686" CreationDate="2019-01-20T10:28:39.737" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book is correct and your teacher is correct with their other suggested meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KEY&lt;/strong&gt; defines &lt;em&gt;着呢&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 {colloquial} quite (intensifying particle following an adjective, e.g., yuǎnzhene 遠著呢/远着呢)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 (following an action verb, stresses the action is ongoing [and unfinished]) ‖ (pronounced &amp;quot;zhine&amp;quot; in Beijing colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you see 着呢 after an adjective it probably means “very,” or “quite.” But, if you see it after a verb it’s most likely telling you that something is still ongoing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T10:34:24.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32688" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-20T12:39:35.643" Score="-1" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qGAs2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qGAs2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please i want to know the translation of the words written on this bracelet &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21245" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-01-23T10:34:00.680" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T10:34:00.680" Title="Can anyone tell me the translation of these words?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-01-24T05:31:46.670" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32688" CreationDate="2019-01-20T13:02:20.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;平安 means &quot;safe&quot;, and 平安符 can be translated as &quot;lucky charm&quot; in English, which is something that can bring you luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21246" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T13:02:20.487" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32672" CreationDate="2019-01-20T18:11:08.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我在北京住&#xA;I'm living in Beijing&#xA;我住在北京&#xA;I live in Beijing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AS you can see It's the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21220" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T18:11:08.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32672" CreationDate="2019-01-21T06:06:41.567" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, the two structures&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在ＬＶ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我Ｖ在Ｌ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where「Ｌ」is a &lt;em&gt;location&lt;/em&gt; and「Ｖ」is a &lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt; done at「Ｌ」are used for different purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我Ｖ在Ｌ is normally used for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stative_verb&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;stative verbs&lt;/a&gt;, that is, verbs which describe a &lt;em&gt;state of being&lt;/em&gt; rather than an action. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我藏在冰箱裏 (&lt;em&gt;I'm hiding in the fridge&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我站在椅子上 (&lt;em&gt;I'm standing on the chair&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我坐在沙發上 (&lt;em&gt;I'm sitting on the couch&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我躺在牀上 (&lt;em&gt;I'm lying in bed&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我活在世界上 (&lt;em&gt;I'm living in this world&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在ＬＶ can be used for other kinds of verbs, &lt;strong&gt;including&lt;/strong&gt; stative verbs, so 我住在北京 and 我在北京住 are both acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_verb&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dynamic verbs&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; are not normally of the structure 我Ｖ在Ｌ, so e.g. expressing &lt;em&gt;I'm eating at home&lt;/em&gt; as 我吃飯在家裏 is non-standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T06:06:41.567" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32692" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32694" CreationDate="2019-01-21T09:13:03.763" Score="7" ViewCount="541" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought that the proper way to use the basic color names is generally with 色, i.e.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这件衣服是蓝色的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But recently I have come across such a sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不喜欢黄的，我喜欢白的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the 色 optional, or is the difference in use making 色 disappear in the second example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-12T00:03:14.043" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T00:03:14.043" Title="What is the use of 色 in color names?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;colors&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32672" CreationDate="2019-01-21T09:40:29.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我住在北京&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;在北京&quot; is a something called a &quot;location complement&quot;. You can read more about them &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Location_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you just want an easy way to remember how to correctly form sentences with 住, follow this rule: If you just want to say where you live/lived, use the structure 我住在. If you want to say how long you lived there, or communicate that you have had the experience of living there (using 过) then use the structure 我在...住. The same rule of thumb applies to similar verbs like 躺，坐，站 etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T09:40:29.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32692" CreationDate="2019-01-21T12:40:25.290" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you learn the context, you will notice it is more complicated than the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/10466/using-%E8%89%B2-with-colors&quot;&gt;probable duplicate answer links&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Context 1 : 我不喜欢黄（色）的，我喜欢白（色）的。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This shows a preference for particular stuff with attributes other than the color, color is used to highlight the choice, and that is why &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;is used. E.g. there are white and yellow candies in different flavors. Instead of specifying the flavor, one may use their color to indicate the choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Context 2 : 我不喜欢黄色，我喜欢白色。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This shows explicit preference in color. E.g. there are two pairs of pants that look exactly the same, and the person likes the white color. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though in daily life, both can be used interchangeably in an ambiguous way. However, for a writer, this will give explicit characteristic to the character in their writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2019-01-26T03:56:52.550" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T03:56:52.550" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32688" CreationDate="2019-01-21T15:14:48.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Left side : a usual creative magic charm drawing. (Any creative people can make one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right side : 平安符  it means Safety(平安) charm (符).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As usual, any magical charm will make people sick if it contains unsafe material or not cleaned constantly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T15:14:48.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32612" CreationDate="2019-01-21T15:49:29.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For Hans culture(in fact, there is no such things as Hans ethnics) ,  肉 usually means pork. If you look at the glphy 家 （family), the script below is a PIG 豕, origin from the oracle glyph.  Because all food waste can be used to feed pigs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically,  cow is important to agriculture, there are era that forbids people from eating cow and death penalty is imposed (to prevent people stealing cow and slaughtering cow with various excuses) .  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Herding tribe in the Northen China don't rear pig, they either eat goats/sheeps, cows or horses. When adapting the Hans culture glyph, those culture will explicit specify the type of meat they are eating in mandarin language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, depends on popularity of particular food, when time pass, people simply omitted the type of meat name.  e.g. 兰州拉面 original called 兰州牛肉拉面. Because it is a well know beef noodles dishes, everybody knows you will not find pork inside 兰州拉面. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T15:49:29.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32686" CreationDate="2019-01-22T03:57:36.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Study Chinese (or any language) , best is to learn through examples, not remember grammar rules which are man-made after analyzing the language patterns from local people's spoken colloquial habbit (约定俗成，习惯语气). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例子1：等着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男孩在校门口等着妈妈来带他回家，等了好久，还没见她的人影。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例子2：等着呢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老师问男孩，＂妈妈到了吗？＂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男孩焦急地回答：＂我还在等着呢！＂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18123" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T03:57:36.833" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2019-01-22T03:57:36.833" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32699" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-22T06:43:01.367" Score="2" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;香菱要学作诗，拜黛玉为师。然后和宝玉、探春、黛玉一起，探春说：“难道我们是认真作诗吗？我们的诗出了这原子，还不把人的牙笑掉！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, if something was very funny, you might say: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I nearly laughed my head off.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that exactly equivalent to: 把人的牙笑掉?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T03:43:34.467" Title="Is the meaning of 把人的牙笑掉 exactly the same as 'laugh your head off'?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32699" CreationDate="2019-01-22T07:36:31.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Never heard of this before, native speaker. I think a better idiom would just be &lt;code&gt;笑死了&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you just can't translate phrases between languages without changing it slightly, this is one such case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18955" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T07:36:31.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32699" CreationDate="2019-01-22T08:56:14.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;把人的牙笑掉&quot; (take people and laugh their teeth off) is kind of strange way to say &quot;讓人笑掉牙&quot; (make people laugh their teeth off) in modern Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It said &quot;teeth off&quot; but it is more like 'jaw off'. Teeth are fixed on the jaws&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;把人&quot; usually follow  by a transitive verb (verb that need to apply to an object), for example: 把人痛打一頓 (take a person and beat him up) means you are doing the beating, and the object is that person; But 笑 is an intransitive verb, you can '讓人笑死'(make people die of laughing too hard) , but not '把人笑死' (laugh at someone and kill him)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;讓人笑掉牙&quot; is more grammatical than &quot;把人的牙笑掉&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for English, the equivalent is &quot; make someone &lt;a href=&quot;http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/laugh-(one%27s)-ass-off&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;laughs his ass off&lt;/a&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-22T09:06:14.623" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T09:06:14.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32699" CreationDate="2019-01-22T09:05:12.563" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;laughing one's head off&quot; the exact equivalent of 把人的牙笑掉? Of course not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original line from《&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/hongloumeng/ch48/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;紅樓夢&lt;/a&gt;》goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;探春黛玉都笑道：「誰不是玩？難道我們是認真做詩呢？要說我們真成了詩，出了這園子，把人的牙還笑掉了呢！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;David Hawkes, published, translation in &lt;em&gt;The Story of The Stone Vol. II&lt;/em&gt; reads like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘Good heavens! we only write for the fun of it ourselves,’ said Tan-chun. ‘You surely don’t imagine that what we write is good poetry? If we set ourselves up to be real poets, people outside this Garden who got to hear of it would laugh so loud that their teeth would drop out!’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;H. Bencraft Joly's, published, translation in &lt;em&gt;The Dream of the Red Chamber&lt;/em&gt; reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tanchun and Daiyu both smiled. “Who doesn’t go in for these things for fun?” they asked. “Is it likely that we improvise verses in real earnest? Why, if anyone treated our verses as genuine verses, and took them outside this garden, people would have such a hearty laugh at our expense that their very teeth would drop.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both of these, published, translations opt for &quot;teeth dropping out&quot; from laughter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yang Hsien-Yi and Gladys Yang's, published, translation in &lt;em&gt;A Dream of Red Mansions&lt;/em&gt; writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“Who's not doing it for fun?” countered Tan-chun and Tai-yu. “We don't write seriously either. If we really set up as poets, people outside the Garden would split their sides laughing.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Here it is translated “split their sides laughing.” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some other sample translations from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.91dub.com/search/%E7%AC%91%E6%8E%89?type=search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;91dub&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;布兰丁斯城堡 第一季&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  people will laugh.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  人们准会笑掉大牙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;天堂真的存在&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  will get me laughed out of this town.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  只会让人们笑掉大牙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;摩登家庭 第七季&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  sitting at their lawn chairs, laughing their asses off&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  坐在躺椅上笑掉大牙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;绝望主妇 第八季&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Besides trying not to laugh my ass off?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  除了忍住不让自己笑掉大牙外吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;暂告安全&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;  When we heard what Docheski did to you,I mean,I had to laugh.&#xA;  听说多切斯基干的事 我都要笑掉牙了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems it can also be interchanged with &lt;em&gt;下巴&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;达·芬奇的恶魔 第一季&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  He'll laugh his arse off with the rest of them.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  他会跟其他人一样笑掉下巴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Laugh your head off&quot; is, though, a great translation, but it could be interpreted in a number of ways. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-01-23T03:43:34.467" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T03:43:34.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32699" CreationDate="2019-01-22T10:05:11.177" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just a metaphor or an expression. There are a few English phrases that can express the same underlying meaning including the one you got. So, &quot;I laughed my head off&quot; can be a good interpretation for 把人的牙笑掉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T10:05:11.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32704" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-22T10:57:48.263" Score="4" ViewCount="390" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently 到处 and 处处 means everywhere in English. May I know if both words can be used interchangeably or there are some differences in usage? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T23:57:33.513" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T23:57:33.513" Title="Difference between 到处 and 处处" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32705" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-22T11:09:07.167" Score="4" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to work out how to form an equivalent of the English present perfect with a stative verb.&#xA;I'd like to say something along the lines of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have known her since we were both 2 years old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far, I've cobbled together this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自从我们都二岁我认识她。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could be way off! I'm only at elementary level and this grammar point hasn't occurred in any of my books yet so maybe it's much more complex than this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21254" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T23:54:47.100" LastActivityDate="2020-12-09T00:01:10.530" Title="How do you say: &quot;I have known her since we were both 2 years old&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32707" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-22T13:15:15.457" Score="0" ViewCount="517" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's really impressive how 子 [zi] is super productive as a noun suffix. But I can't see any relation of how the idea of &quot;child&quot; could turn into a suffix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T06:14:25.367" Title="How did 子, meaning &quot;child&quot;, become a noun suffix?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32707" CreationDate="2019-01-22T16:03:48.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 子 has multiple meanings and usages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) One of them is the noun &quot;child&quot; such as 父与子(the father and the child). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) You can also say 孔子 which means Confucius. Here 子 is used as a suffix to some great ancient scholars. The usage here is similar as we put &quot;Dr.&quot; before the person who has a Ph.D. degree. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) The case you mentioned which the 子 is used as the noun suffix is another usage, such as 桌子，椅子，瓶子，镜子(table, chair, bottle, mirror). It doesn't really have a relationship with the meaning &quot;child&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21256" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T16:03:48.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32704" CreationDate="2019-01-22T17:26:22.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;2 more answers: &lt;strong&gt;＂汉语同义词词典＂&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;处处／到处［同］&lt;/strong&gt; 副词。表示说话人所指的动作或状态涉及的全部范围。在就场所而言，表示每个地方时可通用。例（１）船上却处处是公共的地方，船面栏边，人人可以来到。（冰心＜寄小读者＞）（２）楼台处处飞春雨，十里人家尽种花。（刘白羽＜春到零丁洋＞）（３）城里到处火光烛天，枪炮齐响。（老舍＜小小的花朵＞）（４）那时，地上地下，到处万马奔腾。（丁宁＜心中的画＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［异］&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;［处处］&lt;/strong&gt; 还表示＂各个方面＂。可以与＂时时＂并用。例：（１）他在我们面前，时时谈到他的老师，并处处以老师为榜样：＂我的老师就是这样。。。＂（丁宁＜心中的画＞）（２）他的病历记录着他一年的忧患劳累，使她三分之一世纪以来处处＂甘拜下风＂，事事都顺着他，护着他，讨好他。（孟紫＜寿礼＞）（３）他时时处处以共产党员标准来要求自己。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［到处］&lt;/strong&gt; 还表示各个地方。例：（１）我以为要认真的生活。而不是瞪着眼睛，拿着笔记本到处寻摸你的小说。（肖复兴＜生活的感受力＞）（２）他对生命还是充满信心，手术后不久，就下地到处走，。。。（丁宁＜心中的画＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;＂对外汉语常用词语对比例释＂&lt;/strong&gt;＜副词＞都可以指出全部范围。&lt;strong&gt;（一）意义上&lt;/strong&gt; ＂处处＂、＂到处＂都可以表示各个地方。＂处处＂更加强调所有的地方无一例外；＂到处＂表示所有的地方都包括在内，所以多与表示范围的＂都＂配合使用。例如：这里处处是春天。祖国处处有亲人。草原上，牛群、羊群、马群处处可见。车站内外到处都是人。春天，公园里到处飘着花香。浑身上下到处都是土。&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;（二）用法上&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;１。&lt;/strong&gt;＂处处＂、＂到处＂在句中主要做状语，不能作宾语、定于。例如：植物园里，处处是鲜花，美丽极了！参与竞选活动的人处处可见。现在人的确太多了，到街上一看，到处都是人。今天是＂六一＂儿童节，公园里到处是孩子们兴致勃勃的笑脸。＊这里很美，我要去处处／到处看看。＊在法国时，他游遍了法国的处处／到处。＊今天不知怎么了，处处／到处的商店都不开门。&lt;strong&gt;２。&lt;/strong&gt;＂处处＂还可以表示各个方面的意思，在句中作状语。＂到处＂没有这一意义和用法。例如：队长时时处处严格要求自己。他处处为别人着想。他总是处处走在前面。＊：队长时时到处严格要求自己。＊他到处为别人着想。＊他总是到处走在前面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-01-23T03:25:09.357" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T03:25:09.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32705" CreationDate="2019-01-22T17:42:31.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese language doesn't have tense. So you need to use connectors sparingly to make the translation fluent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I（我)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;have known ， 已经/经已 认识&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;her 他&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;since we were 自我们&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;both 俩&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 years old  两岁大&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot construct the sentence directly, because it lack the fluency. Here are some suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们两岁大的时候，我就认识他了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我从小就认识他了，那是我们两岁大的时候。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我认识他的时候，我们都只两岁大。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我俩认识的时候，大家才（只）两岁(大)。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the closes version but too awkward for today usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吾识彼于微时岁皆两。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2020-12-08T10:15:34.887" LastActivityDate="2020-12-08T10:15:34.887" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32704" CreationDate="2019-01-23T04:52:14.760" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;everywhere&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(adverb): in or to all places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;e.g. &amp;quot;I've looked everywhere&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(noun): all places or directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;e.g. &amp;quot;everywhere was in darkness&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 到处 and 处处 are used as a &lt;strong&gt;noun&lt;/strong&gt;, they are interchangeable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到处都有特价 = 处处都有特价 = everywhere has discount&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到处都有人 = 处处都有人 = everywhere has people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到处都有老鼠 = 处处都有老鼠 = everywhere has mice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'到处' and '处处' here are &lt;strong&gt;nouns&lt;/strong&gt; with the same meaning&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it is used as an &lt;strong&gt;adverb&lt;/strong&gt;, 到處 and 處處 have different meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;到处 = everywhere; in all place (adv)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;处处 = in all aspect; in all directions; in all angles (adv)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到处查询 (ask everywhere) &lt;em&gt;You go place to place and ask people there&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;处处查询 (ask in all aspects) &lt;em&gt;You inquire all aspect of the object, e.g. Where you live? Where you work? What school you went to?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到处受阻挠 (be obstructed everywhere) &lt;em&gt;e.g. Everywhere you go, you are obstructed&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;处处受阻挠 (be obstructed in all aspects) &lt;em&gt;e.g. You want to see the boss and they say no. You try to check the bill and they refuse. You apply to transfer and it is denied&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到处挑剔别人 (pick on people everywhere) &lt;em&gt;e.g. you go place to place to pick on people&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;处处挑剔别人 (pick on people in all aspects) &lt;em&gt;e.g. you complain about the coffee shop staffs work too slow. You point out someone has bad teeth. You told someone the reason of he being poor is because of his laziness&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'到处' and '处处' here are &lt;strong&gt;adverbs&lt;/strong&gt; with different meanings&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T07:23:43.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32714" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32715" CreationDate="2019-01-23T05:09:25.803" Score="2" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a little trip, I picked up these phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 重庆：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lan gou: seems to be 怎么&lt;br&gt;&#xA;lei si: seems to be 这是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 怀化 (aka Feifa): me xiaodei seems to be 我晓得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did I hear correctly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T15:13:53.007" Title="Dialect in Chongqing and Huaihua" Tags="&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32714" CreationDate="2019-01-23T05:31:57.460" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;lan gou&lt;/code&gt; in Chongqingese should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;啷个&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  lang3 go4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [Ĩaŋ⁴¹ ko²¹³]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (代) 怎么  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or with er-hua:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;啷个儿&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  lang3 ger4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [Ĩaŋ⁴¹ kər²¹³]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (代) 怎么  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the second one &lt;code&gt;lei si&lt;/code&gt; should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;勒是&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  le2 si4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [Ĩe²¹ sɿ²¹³]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (代) 这是。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's Bridge saying 勒是雾都, Chongqingese for 这是重庆:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DG2r8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DG2r8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Sichuanese and Chongqingese &lt;code&gt;me&lt;/code&gt; is more likely to be 没 or 莫, but Hunan might be a whole other tiger all together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-5244-46-1.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;最土、最闷骚的方言：怀化话&lt;/a&gt; does say this though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;毛晓得------------------- 不知道&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-01-23T15:13:53.007" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T15:13:53.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32716" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32717" CreationDate="2019-01-23T08:29:16.897" Score="6" ViewCount="1393" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this example sentence translation in Pleco:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝贺你喜得贵子&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Congratulations on your newborn baby!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 喜（得） may be a typo for the following reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the English translation specifies that the baby is newborn.  喜 does not convey this information, but 新 does.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;新的 could very easily be mistyped as 喜得&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the sentence should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祝贺你新的贵子！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this seem correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20877" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T05:13:21.657" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T05:13:21.657" Title="In 祝贺你喜得贵子, is 喜得 a typo?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32716" CreationDate="2019-01-23T08:36:58.967" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it isn't a typo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜得 roughly means &lt;em&gt;obtained by good fortune&lt;/em&gt;, so 祝賀你喜得貴子 is a congratulatory message meaning something like &lt;em&gt;congratulations on being blessed with a son&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6MbLp.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6MbLp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T08:36:58.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32716" CreationDate="2019-01-23T09:37:22.960" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, &lt;code&gt;喜得貴子&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;新得贵子&lt;/code&gt; is a third party description. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/c/72/114270.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;喜得&lt;/a&gt; actually means coincidentally.  In some verbs, &lt;code&gt;喜&lt;/code&gt; has nothing to do with the happiness, but coincident luck, i.e. &lt;code&gt;幸喜&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;Thus in a novel/essay, before &lt;code&gt;喜得貴子&lt;/code&gt; context, it always meant the family has difficulty in getting children, i.e. &lt;code&gt;人丁单薄&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;膝下犹虚&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, over time, poorly literate media editors and movie script writers simply confused the meaning with happiness. That caused many people to start to misuse it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since traditional Chinese new born congratulations are gender discriminate, today, simply saying congratulations &lt;code&gt;恭喜&lt;/code&gt; will do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2019-01-23T15:28:50.310" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T15:28:50.310" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32705" CreationDate="2019-01-23T09:47:20.780" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I have known her since we were both 2 years old.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate this as simply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们两岁就认识的  &quot;We were just 2 when we got to know each other&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the tricky part of translation is that different languages communicate the same information using different structures, or a structure that is natural in one language is very weird in the other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;since&quot; can only be translated as 自从 in certain contexts. In sentences like this, it is more natural to switch around the word order and use 就. Here's another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've been here since 3 o'clock! Where are you?!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我三点就到这里了！你在哪里啊？！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T09:47:20.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32721" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-23T15:13:31.527" Score="2" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;少 can either be pronounced as shào or shǎo. But when used in names, is it always pronounced as shào?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T08:55:10.543" Title="When 少 is used in someone's name, is it always pronounced shào？" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32721" CreationDate="2019-01-23T15:41:17.520" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because shào and shǎo has different meaning. shǎo means few/little, and shào means young. When used in names, it is usually intended to address a young person respectfully. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a given name or as a part of given name, shǎo is very uncommon, yet shào is not. 少 as surname is also uncommon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18688" LastEditorUserId="18688" LastEditDate="2019-01-24T08:55:10.543" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T08:55:10.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32661" CreationDate="2019-01-23T17:32:17.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned, the second occurrence of this name is from a novel, for instance the novelist Liange Yusheng 梁羽生 (1924－2009) was born in a traditional scholar family, thus gained very solid traditional Chinese education background. So I don't believe it is a coincident that the name of one of the 72 students of Confucious 孔子 is being used in his fictions. It is not rare in Chinese that novelist uses some names in history as their fiction character name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now let's look at the somehow &quot;strange&quot; or even &quot;bad&quot; name 澹台灭明. Again for instance the person 澹台灭明 in history was born around 500 B.C during the the &quot;Chunqiu&quot; 春秋 (770 B.C - 403 B.C) era, which can help us a lot understanding the name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First the surname 澹台, it is actually a surname came from location, to be more precise the mountain 澹台山 (Mount Tan Tai). It is unclear whether he inherited the surname from his father or he might be the very origin of this surname because he lived in 澹台山 for a significant part of his life. But either way, name under location name (especially if person isn't from one of the few royal families) is quite a common practice during that era.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now is the given name 灭明. First of all you probably won't see anyone name their children with this nowadays, or even in the past 1000 years in China. The most direct meaning of these two words can be &quot;eliminate lights&quot;, thus it's very much like a curse. In fact the word 灭 (eliminate) itself is rarely used in names (fictions aside). Also notable that there's a dynasty in Chinese history 明 Ming (1368 A.D - 1644 A.D), and 灭明 basically can be meaning &quot;eliminate the Ming dynasty&quot;. I am pretty sure you will get serious trouble if you named like that during the Ming's ruling era.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, that's exactly what happened to the fiction character 澹台灭明 in Liang Yusheng's novels, who spent basically all his life trying to revenge the Ming dynasty. Reason Liang Yusheng pick this name is probably simple and straight forward, it is quite a badass name (i.e Thanos in avenger is translated to 灭霸 a.k.a lord of elimination) and pretty matching to the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's get back to the 澹台灭明 in history. First of all unless there's some time traveling device that we don't know of, there's no way anyone in Chunqiu era would know there's a dynasty called 明 2000 years later. And I don't believe 澹台灭明's parents will give him this name just to curse their child to be blind or something. So what's the reason? Note that time when 澹台灭明 is born, it was still centuries before the 秦 Qin dynasty (221 B.C -207 B.C). Before 秦 Qin dynasty, the ancient China region has been split into handful small countries for centuries, and even though they are nominal vassal of the 周 Zhou dynasty, they are in fact independent, and have very different culture, using different currency, and have very different way of literate or speech. It was only after 秦 Qin brought down the 周 Zhou dynasty and re-unified the whole region, that currency and common writing letters became unified as one for Chinese. Also worth noting that even with unified letter, way of speaking those letter are still significantly different (and that's still happening even nowadays!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the historical reason mentioned above, combining with the relatively low literate rate during that era, a significant number of names during the the &quot;Chunqiu&quot; 春秋 era are in after-translate version in unified Chinese words/letter by pronunciation, which may mean very different things than it's origin. I believe 澹台灭明 is one of these cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20982" LastEditorUserId="20982" LastEditDate="2019-01-23T20:52:17.067" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T20:52:17.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32721" CreationDate="2019-01-23T20:58:32.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;少 /shǎo/ : few; little (in number or amount)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少 /shào/ : young; junior &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小 /Xiǎo/: small; little (in size)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少/shǎo/(few) is indeed uncommon in given name but 少/shào/(young) and 小/Xiǎo/(small) are very common. All three are unheard of as surname &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are confused between 少 and 小, just remember a verse from a poem  &quot;少小離家老大回&quot; /shào xiǎo lí jiā lǎo dà huí/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少(young) vs. 老(old) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小(small) vs. 大(big)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is more confusing in Cantonese because 少(few) and 小(small) are pronounced the same /siu2/ ; while 少(young) is pronounced /siu3/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-23T21:12:12.323" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T21:12:12.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32725" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-23T23:57:20.237" Score="3" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, calendar can refer to several things. I would like the Chinese word that would mean calender in the sense of a planner, like how a teacher might calender her future lesson plans or you might calendar your meetings tomorrow. 谢谢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19881" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T13:14:00.030" Title="How to say &quot;calendar&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32725" CreationDate="2019-01-24T00:18:47.813" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mainland China: 日程表 (literally &lt;em&gt;day schedule table&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ROC (Taiwan): 行事曆 (literally &lt;em&gt;matter attendance calendar&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are both nouns, of course. It is impossible to use these as verbs like the examples specified in the question. In Chinese, you would properly say the equivalent of &lt;em&gt;recording (some event X) in the calendar&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;把Ｘ［記錄・加入・添］在［日程表・行事曆］中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-01-24T03:35:46.363" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T03:35:46.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32725" CreationDate="2019-01-24T03:36:54.840" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;calendar&quot; can be 把...排进日程表. &quot;calendar your meetings&quot; could be 把会议排进日程表. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T03:36:54.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32704" CreationDate="2019-01-24T08:19:57.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;到处 used in most informal occasion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;处处 is in opposite，in most formal occasion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21273" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T08:19:57.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32725" CreationDate="2019-01-24T13:14:00.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is more appropriate you call them schedule. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;School schedule : 课程表&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Touring plan : 行程表&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bus schedule : 巴士行程表&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cleaning delegation schedule : 清扫值勤表&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T13:14:00.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29860" CreationDate="2019-01-24T19:33:15.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hakka speaker from mainland China here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;there is karaoke lyrics on the video, L2 is 追根由石壁求证 which is correct. Not exactly sure how to translate 求证 here. Maybe: ancestry seeking is proven by the stone walls.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your own translation is good. &quot;Hakka people in the world are united in remembering homesickness / [And] acknowledging [their] blood is thicker than water.&quot; &lt;strong&gt;The uncommon order of words is intended for a better rhyme in the song.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;团结纪念乡情 (thon ket nyi hiam hiong chin) I hear that's exactly what the singer is pronouncing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;官 is indeed kwon, but still I don't have any problem with the singer's pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18688" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T19:33:15.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32734" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-24T20:06:06.947" Score="5" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently said to a native Chinese speaker: &quot;你跑步跑得很快“ ,and then asked him if that sentence was grammatically correct. He said he understood what I was saying, but that he would have said: ”你跑步很快“. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought you had to use a complement in such a situation. Which is correct, and why? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19881" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T23:06:23.517" Title="When to use a complement?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32735" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-24T20:25:35.217" Score="0" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am translating a paragraph from English into Chinese, going by a recording a native speaker made. I am trying to use the same characters that they are using in their spoken translation, but am having difficulty with one passage. The passage's English source material is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;A major goal of language learning is to acquire the ability to communicate in that language.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've attached a link to the speaker's recording. The passage above begins at about 54 seconds in, with the passage I'm having trouble with beginning at about 57 seconds (at &quot;就是...&quot;) and ends at about 1:05 (at &quot;为了...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://vocaroo.com/i/s1egf4TlxINm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://vocaroo.com/i/s1egf4TlxINm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't seem to find the exact characters the speaker uses. &#xA;Any help is greatly appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21277" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2019-01-25T01:18:28.923" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T03:26:04.287" Title="Can a Good Listener Help Me Translate?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32734" CreationDate="2019-01-24T20:31:39.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;你跑得很快！&quot; would be suffice.  It is a complement and grammatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21278" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T20:31:39.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32737" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-24T23:00:57.557" Score="3" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, when telling time, a verb is used: &quot;Now it &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; 9 o'clock.&quot; Additionally, when telling at what time, a preposition is used: &quot;I will meet with the principal &lt;strong&gt;at&lt;/strong&gt; 4 o'clock.&quot; In Chinese is a verb used when telling time (i.e.: 现在是九点 vs 现在几点), and is a preposition used when telling at what time in a sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19881" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T01:18:22.187" Title="Use of Preposition or Verb with telling time" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32737" CreationDate="2019-01-24T23:10:30.060" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use the verb &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; to tell 'what time it &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 现在&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;九点 (it &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; nine O'clock)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use the preposition &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; to tell '&lt;strong&gt;at&lt;/strong&gt; what time'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;九点鐘 (&lt;strong&gt;at&lt;/strong&gt; nine O'clock)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'at' in &amp;quot;I will meet with the principal at 4 o'clock.&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;在&amp;quot; in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我會(I will) &lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;at&lt;/strong&gt;) 四點鐘(four o'clock) 會見 (meet) 校長 (the principal)”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;preposition [at] + [time] = [在] + [時間]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At four o'clock = 在四點鐘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Sunday = 在星期天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the first of July  = 在七月一號&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2020 = 在二零二零年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can use 於 (more literary) instead of 在 (more colloquial)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T01:18:22.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32735" CreationDate="2019-01-25T01:18:03.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;就是掌握用那种语言去交流的能力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The speaker's pronunciation is not perfect. The pronunciation of &quot;那&quot; (the intended pronunciation should be nei4 here) is not good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那 is often pronounced as nei4 in speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T01:18:03.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32735" CreationDate="2019-01-25T03:26:04.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(0:54)   语言学习的一个主要目的&lt;/strong&gt; - One of the primary goal of language leaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(0:57)   就是掌握用另一种语言去交流的能力&lt;/strong&gt; - is to obtain the ability to communicate with another language&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(1:04)   为了这个目的&lt;/strong&gt; - To that end&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(1:07)   你已经学会了如何对一些基本的社交场合作出反应&lt;/strong&gt; - You’ve already learnt how to react to some basic social occasions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Due to the accent and inexperience of the speaker, on 0:57, she read the &quot;另一种&quot; part way too fast. It's normal for native speaker to speak that way, but will definitely cause misunderstandings for foreigners.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19456" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T03:26:04.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32743" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32746" CreationDate="2019-01-25T15:31:32.253" Score="4" ViewCount="605" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;打开盒子&lt;strong&gt;一看&lt;/strong&gt;，里面是一只小猫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it the same as 看看 or 看一看？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19709" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T01:04:41.190" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T01:04:41.190" Title="What is the meaning of 一看 in 打开盒子一看，里面是一只小猫?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32743" CreationDate="2019-01-25T15:59:31.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;一看 simply means 看了一下，so it could also be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打开盒子看了一下，里面是一只小猫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other similar uses like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我给他一说，他就同意了 / 我给他说了说，他就同意了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他一来，事情就解决了 / 他来了一下，事情就解决了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T15:59:31.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32743" CreationDate="2019-01-25T17:43:19.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一看 here means &quot;looked at it&quot; in a generally cursory manner such that whatever was being observed was obvious and did not require some deep searching. The use of &quot;一&quot; (one) here is meant to suggest that you only had to &quot;look at it &lt;em&gt;once&lt;/em&gt;&quot; to figure something out. As zyy points out, there are other places where this &quot;一&quot; appears and they all serve the same purpose - that something could be done in one go (without too much additional effort).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&#xA;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我一看就看出来你是足球运动员。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With one glance, I could tell you are a soccer player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他看我看了好久才发现我箭头发了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He had to look at me for a while before he discovered I had cut my hair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21267" LastEditorUserId="21267" LastEditDate="2019-01-25T19:02:43.390" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T19:02:43.390" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32743" CreationDate="2019-01-25T20:34:08.043" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;打开盒子&lt;strong&gt;看&lt;/strong&gt;，里面是一只小猫 (open the box and &lt;strong&gt;look&lt;/strong&gt;, it is a kitten inside)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;看 here is a simple verb 'to see'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;打开盒子&lt;strong&gt;看看&lt;/strong&gt;，里面是一只小猫 (open the box and &lt;strong&gt;briefly (or casually) look&lt;/strong&gt;, it is a kitten inside)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;看看 here is a reduplication of verb ; reduplication verb imply the verb is occurring in a brief time period, in a slight degree or in a casual manner.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;打开盒子&lt;strong&gt;看一看&lt;/strong&gt;，里面是一只小猫 (open the box and &lt;strong&gt;looked once&lt;/strong&gt;, it is a kitten inside)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;看一看&lt;/strong&gt; (look one look = look one time = looked once) is  [verb + counting word + verb classifier]; the same structure can be applied to other verbs, e.g. 打一打 (hit one hit = hit one time = hit once); you can replace '一' with different counting words like '看幾看' (look few looks = look few times&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;打开盒子&lt;strong&gt;一看&lt;/strong&gt;，里面是一只小猫 (open the box and &lt;strong&gt;quickly look&lt;/strong&gt;, it is a kitten inside)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;一看&lt;/strong&gt; here is [adverb (一) + verb (看)] ; '一' as an adverb means 'once, abruptly, quickly or briefly'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of '一' as an adverb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他心中一怒 (not 他心中怒一怒) means &quot;he abruptly get angry inside&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曹操一听大怒 (not 曹操听一听大怒) means &quot;once Cao Cao heard it, he got very angry&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一想不錯 (not 我想一想不錯) means &quot;once I think about it, I know it is correct&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他终于能一展抱负 (not 他终于能展一展抱负) means &quot;he finally can extend his ambition for once&quot; or &quot;he finally can extend his ambition abruptly&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他一改风格 (not 他改一改风格) means 'He abruptly changes style' or 'He changes style for once') &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-26T21:03:50.010" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T21:03:50.010" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32670" CreationDate="2019-01-26T11:45:00.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Social classes, from left to right:&#xA;Winter, a man writing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spring, a  man sitting on an ox&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summer, a couple making bundles of twigs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Autumn, a man fishing, a woman holding a basket&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21287" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T11:45:00.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32743" CreationDate="2019-01-26T13:09:49.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 一看 denotes this sense: （用在动词或动量词前面， 表示先做某个动作， 下文说明动作结果）.  For example, 一看就明白了， meaning &lt;em&gt;you see it first and then you understand it&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;you understand it right after/(the minute) you see it.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打开盒子一看，里面是一只小猫 means &lt;em&gt;you open the box and have a look, and then spot a kitty within.&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;You spot a kitty right after(/when) you open the box.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看一看 doesn't have that connotation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T13:09:49.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32750" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-26T13:43:58.133" Score="0" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qWGmq.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qWGmq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;What is the meaning?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of these letters, and is it somehow connected to eachother?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21288" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T22:16:46.217" Title="I have a tattoo, i wish to find the meaning" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32751" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-26T15:44:41.057" Score="2" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, interrogatives are occasionally used as not as interrogatives but as adverbs and relative pronouns. For example: I don't know &lt;strong&gt;why&lt;/strong&gt; we moved; I don't know &lt;strong&gt;how&lt;/strong&gt; that machine works; I know &lt;strong&gt;where&lt;/strong&gt; she lives; I don't know &lt;strong&gt;what&lt;/strong&gt; she does for a living； I don't know &lt;strong&gt;whom&lt;/strong&gt; she married. Could you use 为什么，怎么，哪里，什么，谁 here, and if not, how would you structure these and similar sentences? 谢谢! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19881" LastActivityDate="2019-01-28T09:49:05.203" Title="Uses of interrogatives as pronouns" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32692" CreationDate="2019-01-26T16:20:53.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another way that might work to explain this is that the basic concept at work here is that the colors ending in -色 &lt;em&gt;are the names of the colors as things of interest in themselves&lt;/em&gt;, whereas when we omit 色, we do so when we are using colors &lt;em&gt;as attributes of another object of interest&lt;/em&gt;. We might call the latter adjectival, but also includes attributives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if someone asks, &quot;What is your favorite color?&quot; and I were to respond with &quot;Red&quot;, but we're using Mandarin and not English as medium of communication, I would use &quot;红色&quot; as the response, not just &quot;红&quot;. In this context, the object of interest is the color red itself. On the other hand, if I want to talk of &quot;red apples&quot;, then I would say &quot;红苹果&quot; - here now red is serving to describe a quality of the objects of interest, which are apples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also explains @mootmoot's post, where the example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不喜欢黄的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means &quot;I like the yellow ones&quot; (those things to which can be attributed [的] the quality or characteristic of yellowness [黄]). The objects of interest are some unspecified-in-this-example-but-obvious-in-real-usage things for which color is an incidental or peripheral property. This is different from saying &quot;I like yellow&quot;, where the focus is on &lt;em&gt;the color yellow itself&lt;/em&gt;. This phrase would be, thus, said as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢黄色。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我喜欢黄。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16171" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T16:20:53.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32750" CreationDate="2019-01-26T20:20:03.840" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;武安 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu%27an&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wu'an&lt;/a&gt; is a city &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A6%E5%AE%89%E5%90%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;武安君&lt;/a&gt; was a title of a noble in Tang Dynasty -  &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BC%A0%E5%AE%88%E8%8A%82_(%E5%94%90%E6%9C%9D)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;張守節&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;em&gt;舊注史記三大家之一 (one of the three great historians of old Chinese history&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;武安 means 以武安邦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以- with; use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;武 - military; force&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安 - maintain peace; keep safe; steady&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;邦 - nation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(steady the nation with military might or keep the nation safe with military power) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-26T20:31:53.943" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T20:31:53.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32734" CreationDate="2019-01-27T02:05:04.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你跑步很快 is a [SVO] sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 (you) 跑步(run) 很快 (very fast)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很快 (very fast) is an adverb describing the verb 跑步 (to run)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你跑步跑得很快 is a [topic + comment/opinion] sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Topic: 你跑步(you run)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comment/ Opinion: 跑&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;很快 (run to the degree of very fast)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Within the comment sentence: '跑'(run) is a verb; &lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt; (to the point of) is a degree complement; 很快 (very fast) is the adverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other example of how 'degree complement' works&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你說話說得很過分&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Topic: 你說話 (you talk)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comment/Opinion: 說&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;很過分 (talk &lt;strong&gt;to the degree&lt;/strong&gt; of excessively)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: the comments: 跑&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;很快 and 說&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;很過分 are SOV sentences with the degree complement 得 before the adverb to indicate this adverb describes the &lt;strong&gt;degree&lt;/strong&gt; of the verb.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;你跑步很快 (SVO) and 你跑步跑得很快 (topic + comment) means the same thing, -- &amp;quot;you run very fast&amp;quot; ; &amp;quot;you run to the degree of very fast&amp;quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The [SVO] sentence put emphasis on the verb '跑步'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The [topic + comment] sentence put emphasis on the topic, '你跑步'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-27T02:31:35.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10522" CreationDate="2019-01-27T05:00:10.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;So sorry for bringing up such an old thread, but I want to put something here that might be useful for anyone searching this thread later on. I used Google Translate and with my limited knowledge of Chinese writing character radicals and strokes I tried to write the characters I see with the handwriting feature. The thing is that the software does a good job guessing what characters you write even if it looks pretty much illegible. It shows a range of possible characters on the keyboard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was able to guess this text : &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/cTS1pvK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;the calligraphy&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just a bit of scribbling and I got 上海博物馆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that this is largely about guessing and you kind of have to match the characters based on the context as well. But hey, it worked for me so it is maybe worth trying~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21291" LastEditorUserId="21291" LastEditDate="2019-01-27T05:05:21.853" LastActivityDate="2019-01-27T05:05:21.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32751" CreationDate="2019-01-27T08:29:09.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You'll never be able to map one to one English to Chinese, but some things are expressed in a very similar manner in both languages, simply because that is convenient and efficient, I believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Relative clauses in Chinese don't follow the English pattern though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the dog [that bit me].&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这是那条[咬我的]狗。(Just stick the relative clause content in front of the noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know why we moved.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我不晓得我们为什么搬家。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't know how that machine works.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我不知道那台机器怎么运作。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I know where she lives.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我不知道她住在哪里。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't know what she does for a living.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我不知道她靠什么生活。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't know who she married.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我不知道她和谁结的婚。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-01-27T08:29:09.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32751" CreationDate="2019-01-27T15:57:14.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some non standard such use in speakings, for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不知道&lt;strong&gt;为什么&lt;/strong&gt;他就不理我了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想问问她&lt;strong&gt;哪&lt;/strong&gt;能买到这么好吃的包子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你能解释一下&lt;strong&gt;谁&lt;/strong&gt;吃了我的盒饭吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may not want to write those in a formal text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-27T15:57:14.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32760" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-28T01:42:35.347" Score="2" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;其他所有 or 所有其他，which word order is more natural and ”合乎中文的习惯” ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, as in 其他所有内容 or 所有其他内容， 其他所有人 or 所有其他人， etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13362" LastActivityDate="2019-01-28T05:32:11.997" Title="Which is better, 其他所有 or 所有其他？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32760" CreationDate="2019-01-28T02:19:18.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both will be fine. They have a different emphasis and usage for the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you say 其他所有, you are emphasizing &quot;others&quot; and 所有 isn't got special attention. The felling will be similar to &quot;The guests today include faculty members from the math department, physics department, and all other departments from south campus&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you say 所有其他, you have a special emphasizing of &quot;all&quot;. It's like &quot;Every person leave, please. EVERY one.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21256" LastEditorUserId="21256" LastEditDate="2019-01-28T05:32:11.997" LastActivityDate="2019-01-28T05:32:11.997" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32751" CreationDate="2019-01-28T05:52:51.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;interrogative pronouns used for other than questions, cf。＂汉语语法基础＂吕冀平 著 商务印书馆 疑问代词有时候并不真正表示疑问，而是通过它表示反诘或者强调。如：（２９）关汉卿：老王，人家真心实意找你帮忙，别开玩笑！王和卿：谁跟你开玩笑！这事让朱四姐出面，你就免开尊口！（田汉，关汉卿）（３０）小孩子家知道什么！（３１）哪里会有这种事情！这种句子句末常常不用问号而用感叹号。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有时侯，疑问代词只指不确定的人、事物等等，这样用的时候也不表示疑问。如：（３２）您写得太晚了，又冷又饿，家里可又没什么吃的。（田汉，关汉卿）（３３）这么冷的天，也不知道谁还把窗子打开了。这样的句子句末不能用问号。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;疑问代词还能够表示概括，这样用的时候也不表示疑问。如：（３４）你什么都知道，我真佩服！（３５）一定不会！谁也不会说你们。（３６）是啊，真是叫人高兴，以前我算白活了好些年，哪儿也没有去瞧过。（田汉，关汉卿）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-01-28T09:49:05.203" LastActivityDate="2019-01-28T09:49:05.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35126" CreationDate="2019-01-28T08:14:39.050" Score="5" ViewCount="590" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are 2 English sentences, both have the word 'Nothing' in it in the noun form. I am wondering if it can be translated into Chinese while preserving as much of its original meaning as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以下有两个英文句子，都用名词版的 无。我想知道是否可以尽量但保持原意思的把他翻译成中文:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What do rich people want, poor people have, and is greater than god?&#xA;Answer: Nothing (as a noun). In Chinese, the question would be &quot;什么东西有钱人想要，穷人有，还比上帝伟大？&quot; I guess one could say &quot;没有这个东西&quot; &quot;没有任何东西&quot;, which is really a phrase and would barely make sense in the answer:富人想要没有任何东西，穷人有没有任何东西，没有任何东西比上帝还伟大. Changing it to 富人不想要/需要任何东西，穷人没有任何东西，没有任何东西比上帝还伟大 makes it slightly less cleverly worded, and the first 2 parts turn from a positive statement (the rich 'want' and the poor 'have') into a negative statement ('do not want' vs 'do not have') respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is an American comedy TV series called I Dream of Jeannie. For those who don't know, it is about a 2000 year old genie from ancient Baghdad called Jeannie. She means well but always causes trouble for her master, Tony, with her enthusiasm and mischievous attitude and sometimes purposely go out of her way to annoy him/do things her way. Tony wants to keep her and her magic a secret because he cannot explain it to people in modern day America.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in one episode, there is a nosy kid in the neighbourhood, and he keeps climbing trees and peak inside Tony's windows and is on the verge of finding out their secret. Jeannie and Tony are annoyed so Jeannie says &quot;I will turn him into a frog!&quot;. Tony is horrified and says &quot;You will turn him into nothing!&quot; He really meant that he forbids Jeannie to turn him into anything, in Chinese, &quot;你不可以把他变成任何东西!. But Jeannie took this sentence to be a command that means 你要you will 把他变成 turn him into [Nothing] ie, make him disappear. So Jeannie then says &quot;That is an excellent idea!&quot; and proceeds to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The double meaning of the sentence/word is what makes her reaction funny. I am wondering if it can be translated to Chinese and still be funny. If not, what happens when translators really can't translate something? Do they replace it with something else or just let it gets lost in translation and ignore it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21301" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T10:08:00.233" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T10:08:00.233" Title="如何把名词形式的 'Nothing' 翻译成中文 How to translate the English noun form of Nothing into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32763" CreationDate="2019-01-28T09:55:04.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&amp;quot;What do rich people want, poor people have, and is greater than god? &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Answer: Nothing &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;有什麼是富人想要的，窮人擁有的，同時比神更偉大的東西?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;答案是: &lt;strong&gt;沒有任何東西是&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;沒有任何東西&lt;/strong&gt;是富人想要的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;沒有任何東西&lt;/strong&gt;是窮人擁有的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;沒有任何東西&lt;/strong&gt;是比神更偉大的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;You will turn him into nothing!&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two possible meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(a.) there's &lt;strong&gt;nothing&lt;/strong&gt; you will turn him into = &lt;strong&gt;沒有東西是&lt;/strong&gt;你會把他變成的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The more native way to say it is: &amp;quot;你不會把他變成任何東西&amp;quot; (you will not turn him into anything)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(b.) you will turn him into &lt;strong&gt;not existing&lt;/strong&gt;  = 你會把他變得 '&lt;strong&gt;不存在&lt;/strong&gt;'  (which is not what Tony mean)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To have the double meaning like in English, you can read 沒有東西是你會把他變成的&amp;quot; as &amp;quot;沒有東西 -- 是你會把他變成的&amp;quot; but it would apply English grammar into a Chinese sentence, which is not always possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is like trying to translate a double meaning Chinese phrase into English, you will have to explain why it is funny in details to the English speakers. When you have to explain a joke, that joke is not funny anymore&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can only get the ambiguous meaning, which make the sentence funny, from the original English sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-28T12:09:56.383" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32765" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-28T13:29:43.037" Score="1" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why are there some adjectives after nouns, but when translated to english the adjective appears before the noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21304" LastActivityDate="2019-02-01T07:44:07.863" Title="Why is 快樂 after 新年" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32766" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32771" CreationDate="2019-01-28T17:48:00.567" Score="0" ViewCount="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried to translate these sentences from a convo and got a weird translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;淺藍不戰爭會被瓜分的.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Light blue will not be divided by war.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;綠國刮分結束.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The green country scrapes the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;再來是淺藍.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, light blue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone tell me if the translation is correct and what does it mean? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21305" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T02:41:09.787" Title="What does it mean to be scratched or scraped?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32767" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-28T20:03:33.713" Score="4" ViewCount="587" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to study the song &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrqKvu-rqIc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;差不多先生&lt;/a&gt; and am having difficulty  understanding all of the uses of 差不多. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also if anyone is feeling super inspired, I'd love to have a full translation of the song. A good place to put it would be on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lyricstranslate.com/en/cha-bu-duo-xian-sheng-cha-bu-duo-xian-sheng.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lyrics Translate&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2019-01-30T19:03:30.127" Title="What exactly does 差不多先生 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32767" CreationDate="2019-01-28T23:26:16.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;差 = difference ; lacking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不多 = not much; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多 (not much difference; not lacking too much)  = 'almost' , 'similar' or 'not too bad/ fair'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can mean anything depend on the context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Q: &quot;How is the food tasted?&quot; A: &quot;差不多 (almost) = almost there&quot; (fair/ not too bad)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Q: &quot;How is my food and his food tasted?&quot; A: &quot;差不多 (almost) = almost the same&quot; (similar taste or at comparable level)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Read the lyric and you will know what the person nicknamed 差不多先生 (Mr. Doesn't matter/Not too bad/ Almost there/ Not quite there) is like- &lt;em&gt;A mediocre man living a mediocre life and modestly bemoans about it&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;差不多先生 Mr. Chàbùduō&lt;/strong&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我抽着差不多的烟　I am smoking the not too bad cigarette   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又过了差不多的一天 lived a not too bad day again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时间差不多的闲　the time I have is spent in near idleness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我花着差不多的钱 spending fair amount of money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;口味要差不多的咸　my taste require (the food to be) similar in saltiness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做人要差不多的贱 live a life need to be at fair level of lowliness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;活在差不多的边缘　live on an edge that's not too far&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又是差不多的一年 it is another year that's not too bad &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个差不多的台北市　a not too bad Taipei City&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有差不多的马子 has prostitutes that are not too bad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多又干了几次　modestly did it a few times again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用着差不多的姿势 using the similar position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看着差不多的电视　watching T.V. programs that are not too bad (or watching T.V. programs that are similar in quality)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃着差不多的狗屎 eating the similar dog shit  (meaning watching the similar garbage) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;写着差不多的字　writing some decent words (either writing in good quality of penmanship or writing words that have similar meaning)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又发着差不多的誓 swear a similar (or decent) oath again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的夜生活　similar (or decent) night live&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又喝着差不多的酒 drinking some decent wine (or wine that is of similar quality)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;听着差不多的音乐　listening to some decent music (or music that sounds almost the same)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喝醉差不多的糗 got drunk and be modestly embarrassed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有着差不多的绝望　having a modest hopelessness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做着差不多的梦 having a not too bad dream (or having a similar dream)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;穿着差不多的衣服　wearing some decent clothes (or wearing similar clothes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脑袋差不多的空 my brain is almost empty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的挂　similar failure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说着差不多抱怨的话 saying similar complaining words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时间也差不多了　It is almost time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;该回我那差不多的家 should go back to my not too bad home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的瞎　modestly blind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;指鹿为马　都差不多嘛 point a deer and say it is a horse, they are almost the same, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;继续吧　继续瞎子摸象吧　有差吗 continue, continue act like 'blind men touching an elephant' , is there any difference? (or is it too bad?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(each blind man will describe an elephant differently, it is an idiom for each person can only get part of the whole picture), &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是差不多先生 I am Mr. Chàbùduō 　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的差不多是天生 my mediocrity is inborn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;代表我很天真　it means I am very naive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也代表我是个贱人 also means I am a lowly person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这差不多的人生　this not too bad (or mediocre ) life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个问题艰深  this question is hard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多先生　 Mr. Chàbùduō  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的差不多是天生 my mediocrity is inborn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;代表我很天真　it means I am very naive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也代表我是个贱人 also means I am a lowly person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这差不多的人生　 in this not too bad life &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总在见缝插针 always seeking opportunities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的反覆　I would sometimes modestly eat my own words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总是差不多又义无反顾 but always modestly keep my promise for principle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的感触　modestly feeling touched&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总是差不多又愁云惨雾 but always about to feel sad again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的孤　similarly solitary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的独  similarly alone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一条差不多的路　a similar road&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃着差不多的苦 I enduring similar pains&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我嗑着差不多的药　I am doing decently strong drug (or doing similar drug)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又睡了一场差不多的觉 having a fairly good sleep again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的烦恼　almost the same worry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多要把我逼疯掉 almost push me to insanity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的　糟　modestly terrible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的　妙 modestly wonderful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的　孬　modestly bad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又差不多的　屌 and modestly awesome&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的中国风　decent degree of Chinese style (or Chinese style that is not too bad)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多要把耳朵蒙 almost have to cover my ears&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歹戏拖棚　bad movies keep stalling &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多要帮你送个终 it is almost time to see you die &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的歌手摆着差不多的乌龙 decent singers making similar mistakes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的麦克风唱差不多的呼咙　都在哭穷 with decent microphone, sing similar snore, all cry poor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多都像个猪头　almost like a pig head&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偏偏我和他们差不多是猪朋狗友 still, they and I are almost pig friends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;撒　差不多的谎　唬烂差不多的强 damn! almost the same lie (or a decent lie), scare the fairly strong people to death&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骂人差不多的呛　verbally assault people fairly viciously&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不然你要怎么样 or else what do you want me to do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是差不多先生　我的差不多是天生 I am Mr. Chàbùduō ,  my mediocrity is inborn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;代表我很天真　it means I am very naive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也代表我是个贱人 also means I am a lowly person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这差不多的人生　this not too bad (or mediocre ) life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个问题艰深  this question is hard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多先生　 Mr. Chàbùduō  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的差不多是天生 my mediocrity is inborn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;代表我很天真　it means I am very naive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也代表我是个贱人 also means I am a lowly person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的你　差不多的我　差不多的他 the not too bad you, the not too bad me, the not too bad him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的他妈　the decently number of damned people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都差不多想发达  all modestly wanted to get rich&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多打着哈哈　他骂着XX　modestly put up an out loud laugh, he is cursing XX&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘎嘎乌拉拉　都差不多的咖  ga ga ur la la (noise) all similar characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多先生　他像个笑话 Mr. Chàbùduō , he is like a joke&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有人又在叫骂　 someone shouting insults again &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多要跳不起来　almost can't jump&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还是要跳跃吧 still, let's jump up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多像乌龟　almost like a turtle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但乌龟乌龟翘吧  but turtle, turtle please die!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这差不多的人生　它妙吗 this not too bad life, is it wonderful?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多要力争上游　it is about time to work hard and advance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想游到上流 want to swim to the top&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多在心里默念阿门还有佛陀　modestly thanks God and Buddha in my heart &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不能放牛 can't be lax&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的生活很街头　mediocre life is quite like life in the street&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再差一点你就变成街友 a little bit more you would become a homeless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我唱了八十八个差不多　I have sung 88 Chàbùduō  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都差不多 they are all similar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多先生不会在乎这么多 Mr.Chàbùduō  would not care that much &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日子应该怎么过　how to spend my days&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多的2008怎么霍 how to spend the mediocre 2008 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是差不多先生　热狗 I am Mr. Chàbùduō, hotdog!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是差不多先生　我是差不多先生 I am Mr. Chàbùduō, I am Mr. Chàbùduō&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是差不多先生　我的差不多是天生 I am Mr. Chàbùduō, my mediocrity is inborn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;代表我很天真　it means I am very naive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也代表我是个贱人 also means I am a lowly person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这差不多的人生　this not too bad (or mediocre ) life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个问题艰深  this question is hard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多先生　我的差不多是天生 Mr. Chàbùduō, my mediocrity is inborn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;代表我很天真　it means I am very naive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也代表我是个贱人 also means I am a lowly person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这差不多的人生　总在见缝插针 this Mr. Chàbùduō always seeking opportunities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是差不多先生 I am Mr. Chàbùduō&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-30T19:03:30.127" LastActivityDate="2019-01-30T19:03:30.127" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32767" CreationDate="2019-01-29T00:49:36.350" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;差不多 literally means &lt;em&gt;nearly, just about, or almost&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多先生 means the person pertains to the phrase 差不多 a lot, indicating his life style, &lt;em&gt;loose, careless, etc.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T00:49:36.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32765" CreationDate="2019-01-29T02:28:16.247" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Noun is placed after adjective in both English and Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Fast &lt;strong&gt;car&lt;/strong&gt;' = '速度快的&lt;strong&gt;汽車&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'good &lt;strong&gt;person&lt;/strong&gt;' = '好&lt;strong&gt;人&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'lazy &lt;strong&gt;cat&lt;/strong&gt;' = '懶&lt;strong&gt;貓&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'happy &lt;strong&gt;new year&lt;/strong&gt;' is no exception, it means 快樂的&lt;strong&gt;新年&lt;/strong&gt;. But it only apply when 'new year' is treated as the client noun for the adjetive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we say &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;happy new year&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; as a blessing or greeting to someone, we actually meant &amp;quot;(wish you) to be happy in the new year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(一個) 快樂新年&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;(a) happy new year&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;新年 is the client noun of the adjective 快樂&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(祝你)新年快樂&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;(wish you) being happy in the new year&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the omitted noun 'you' is the client noun of the adjective '快樂'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not the new year that is happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is you who are happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Noun + verb 'is'] is  placed before the adjective in both English and Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;car&lt;/strong&gt; is fast = 這&lt;strong&gt;車&lt;/strong&gt;很快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;person&lt;/strong&gt; is good = 這&lt;strong&gt;人&lt;/strong&gt;很好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;cat&lt;/strong&gt; is lazy = 這&lt;strong&gt;貓&lt;/strong&gt;很懶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;new year&lt;/strong&gt; is happy = &lt;strong&gt;新的一年&lt;/strong&gt;很開心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wish &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; are happy  = 祝&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;快樂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wish &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; are happy (in new year) = 祝&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;(在新年)快樂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as a greeting, &amp;quot;新年快樂&amp;quot; means (祝你在)新年快樂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T06:31:34.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32766" CreationDate="2019-01-29T02:41:09.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;淺藍(light blue)不(don't)戰爭(war)會(will)被瓜分(be divided)的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated it means: &lt;strong&gt;Light blue will be divided if it does not &quot;war&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 戰爭 means war, whereas 戰鬥 is the word to fight. Based on the context it would seem like a typo here. So the corrected sentence would be 淺藍不&lt;strong&gt;戰鬥&lt;/strong&gt;會被瓜分的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;綠(green)國(country)刮分(divide)結束(finish/end)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated it means: &lt;strong&gt;Green is now divided.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think theres this word 刮分. It's likely another typo since they both have the same pinyin &lt;code&gt;guā&lt;/code&gt;. It should be the one above, 瓜分(divide).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;再(again)來(come)是(is)淺藍(light blue)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated it means: &lt;strong&gt;Next would be light blue.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;再來是(literally, coming again is)&lt;/strong&gt; when used together means &quot;next up is&quot;. You can think if it as you are playing a series of chess games, the game master would say &lt;strong&gt;&quot;再來是[Insert name here]&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; to announce that the person is coming up next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再來是(next up is) is implying that something is happening and something else is next. Based on the context of the conversation, you can imply that what they are saying as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Green is now divided, light blue is next.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21260" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T02:41:09.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32765" CreationDate="2019-01-29T08:31:04.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with Tang Ho, but I'd like to also add my way of explaining, so that more than one way of explaining might make it easier to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, there are attributive and predicative adjectives. Attributive adjectives modify a following noun, it is the noun's &lt;em&gt;attributes&lt;/em&gt;. For example, &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;fast car&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. Predicative adjectives appear after the noun, but needs a verb before it, for example,&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the car IS fast&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the same in Chinese. When we say in Chinese, 早上/下午/晚上好 (good morning/ afternoon/evening), the 'good' comes after the time of day because what you are really saying is &amp;quot;The (time of day) [is] good&amp;quot; (you would not add the term for 'is', 是, here). So when you say &amp;quot;新年快乐&amp;quot;, you are really saying &amp;quot;the new year is/will be happy&amp;quot;, ie, may you be happy in the new year. Note, when Tang Ho said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not the new year that is happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is you who are happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is true. But I can also say that the new year is happy, but not in the way you think. I said that when you say &amp;quot;新年快乐&amp;quot;, you are really saying &amp;quot;the new year &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; happy&amp;quot;. What I mean is, 'happy' is an adjective that describes it, not an emotion the new year feels, ie the new year is not alive and does not have feelings. Like, 'the atmosphere was happy' = a happy cheerful atmosphere, not 'the atmosphere was alive and felt very happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also say &amp;quot;祝你一个&lt;strong&gt;快乐&lt;/strong&gt;的&lt;strong&gt;新年&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; which literally means &amp;quot;Wish you a happy new year&amp;quot;. Here you are bestowing another person a thing (a new year) and also specifying what kind of 'thing' it is (a happy one), and is an attributive adjective. You can also use this for good morning etc, &amp;quot;祝你一个&lt;strong&gt;好&lt;/strong&gt;的&lt;strong&gt;早上&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;. The key is to add the possessive article 的，to show that something possesses the adjective/attribute or direct object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21301" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T08:31:04.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32773" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-29T08:54:44.590" Score="2" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 真确 and 真实 used in different situations? Do provide some examples on their usage if possible. Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T11:04:16.133" Title="What is the difference between 真确 and 真实?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32773" CreationDate="2019-01-29T09:09:51.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;真确&quot; is usually &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; used in Mandarin now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native, I only confirmed that it is in fact a word through a search on the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T09:09:51.410" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32773" CreationDate="2019-01-29T10:49:44.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker, fefe has never heard of this term may prove it is rarely used in Mandarin. However, as a Cantonese speaker,  真确 is a very common term to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真实 (adj): true&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真确 (adv): truly and accurately ; in truthful and certain manner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example for 真确 (adv):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看得真确 = truly and accurately see it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;說得真确 = sounds truthful and certain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example for 真实 (adj):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真实内容 = the true content&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真实想法 = the true thinking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T11:04:16.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29857" CreationDate="2019-01-29T14:25:58.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the saying goes, &lt;em&gt;non c'è 2 senza 3&lt;/em&gt; (there's no 2 without a 3), so here is pseudo-answer 3 :). Here is the content of the spoiler that will be in the blog post about this song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;First of all, this song is probably in Meinong Hakka. That it is Hakka is clear. That it is Meinong I infer from when she says she and granny set off from Meinong to sell groceries. After &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/29857/6273&quot;&gt;lots&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/29858/6273&quot;&gt;lots&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32440/6273&quot;&gt;lots&lt;/a&gt; of work at SE, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/At-one-point-in-the-source-video-the-captions-read-%E8%B5%84%E5%90%9B%E4%BD%A0%E7%9A%84%E7%9C%BC%E7%9D%9B%E7%9C%8B%E4%B8%8D%E5%88%B0%E4%BA%86-What-is-%E5%A7%BF%E5%90%9B-Is-it-a-single-word&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Source-video-1-15-captions-%E4%B8%80%E7%9B%B4%E8%B5%B0%E5%88%B0%E4%B8%AD%E5%A3%87-I-hear-yit-lu-hang-hang-to-tsung-mun-what-place-is-this-%E4%B8%AD%E5%A3%87-and-how-should-I-spell-its-Hakka-version-Tsung-mun-in&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/In-the-source-Hakka-video-the-expression-te55-hai53-appears-twice-0-52-and-1-51-where-its-glossed-as-%E9%82%A3%E6%97%B6-With-that-and-since-te-alone-seems-to-appear-as-a-demonstrative-twice-Id-assume-te-that-and-hai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-line-Khan-tshoi-Khan-a-pien-phu-poi-mean-in-the-source-Hakka-song&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/At-0-45-in-the-source-the-singer-starts-a-sentence-with-a-the-thi-with-a-minimal-pitch-fall-from-3-which-is-audible-only-at-0-25x-speed-It-should-mean-in-at-but-the-best-Hakka-match-I-found-was-the24-Is-that-it-with&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;5&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Am-I-right-that-at-1-40-in-the-source-video-whats-being-said-is-%E5%95%8A%E6%AF%8B%E8%BF%87-A55-m11-ko55-with-m11-being-raised-to-m33-to-lessen-the-pitch-jump-from-a55-to-m11-to-ko55-Is-there-any-reason-for-the&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;6&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Source-video-1-29-1-31-sounds-like-Nga-nam-piong-et-Lok-sim-Is-it-correct-to-spell-it-%E5%90%BE%E5%8F%A6%E6%AF%8B%E6%94%BE%E5%BE%97%E8%90%BD%E5%BF%83-%E5%90%BE-I-%E5%8F%A6-otherwise-%E6%AF%8B-not&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;7&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/At-1-20-1-24-in-the-source-Hakka-video-we-hear-Tsii-kyun-nge-ngian-tsu-khon-m-to-eh-Is-nge-a-contraction-for-ngi-e-or-ng-e-your-where-the-tone-is-dictated-by-the-e55&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;8&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/0-59-1-02-1-10-1-15-1-45-1-50-in-the-source-Hakka-video-all-have-this-word-lu55-translated-as-%E5%B0%B1-in-the-first-two-and-%E9%83%BD-in-the-third-What-word-is-it-Does-it-have-both-meanings-or-is-it-actually-just&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;9&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/On-one-occasion-around-1-52-the-source-Meinong-Hakka-video-exhibits-a-particle-ma34-which-seems-to-mean-also-but-I-only-find-such-a-particle-documented-for-Hokkien-or-Zhaoan-Hakka-How-come-Loanword-perhaps&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;10&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/unanswered/On-one-occasion-at-about-1-20-the-source-Meinong-Hakka-video-exhibits-a-particle-ka31-which-seems-to-mean-to-with-I-only-know-of-a-kak2-in-Hailu-Hakka-with-that-meaning-What-gives&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;11&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/%E8%AF%A5-Ke-as-Te-%E3%A7%A1-kh%C3%A2i-as-khan-%E6%95%85-ku-as-ko-%E5%85%B8%E7%A4%BC-ti%C3%A1n-l%C3%AE-as-ti%C3%A1m-d%C3%AE-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9D%9B-Ts%C3%BBng-i%C3%B9n-as-Ts%C3%BBng-m%C3%B9n-or-maybe-Ts%C3%BBng-w%C3%B9n&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;12&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/%E7%93%AE%E8%8F%9C-vung-tshoi-as-fung-tshoi-%E4%BB%8E-tshi%C3%B9ng-as-tsh%C3%B9ng-%E5%90%9B-kyun-as-k%C3%BCn-kyn-Mandarin-%C3%BC-%E5%9B%BD-kwet-as-ky%C3%B6t-kj%C3%B8t-%C3%B6-Jyutping-eo-%E9%87%8D%E8%A6%81-tshung-yeu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;13&lt;/a&gt; Quora questions (wow!), here is the current state of the art. First of all, the transliteration obeys the conventions of &lt;a href=&quot;http://michelegorini.blogspot.it/2017/08/on-my-spelling-and-transliteration-of.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; - except I found out Minhakka is a bastard who upturned the tone diacritics, and I've always used Minhakka's wrong version of the marks, whereas here I use the correct one. To discuss this, let me first mention &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hakka.gov.tw/Content/Content?NodeID=627&amp;amp;PageID=37028&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this study&lt;/a&gt;, which is where I get the tone contours. Here is a table of what I got:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9tSJf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9tSJf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Before we tackle sandhi rule and all the tone problems I have with this video, there are a few quirks in the singer's pronunciation, and a few new words in her dialect, that need to be addressed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;在 is not the usual tshoi (or rather tshôi), it is pronounced thî; this is documented on the Wiktionary for Southern Sixian Hakka, so no problem there;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;个 is not kài or kè (or rather kai or ke), but e; this is documented in the Wiktionary, and possibly as an alternate pronunciation in hakkadict, which won't load now; this is not the only example of common words being eroded in her dialect:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;就 and 都 are both pronounced lu; the latter is documented at &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/Details?p=72889&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Hakka cloud&lt;/a&gt; in the example, and the former I can't find documented anymore; that Hakka cloud is highly search unfriendly;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;佢 is pronounced ì (well, the tone is to be treated carefully, see below) instead of kì;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;正 is pronounced nang instead of cang; this is documented at hakkadict as an alternate Southern Sixian pronunciation;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;得 is pronounced et instead of tet; this is undocumented, but with all this erosion business it's easy to accept;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;会 is pronounced woi, whereas all other v- initials are pronounced as vs, except the vun in vun-fa which sounds like /vwun/; my guess here is that, before rounded vowels, the v labialized to vw (hence vwun and *vwoi), and then erosion set in and simplified *vwoi&gt;woi;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;该 | ke is consistently pronounced te; at the moment, it is unsure whether this is idiolectal or more widespread;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;㧡 | khâi seems to be consistently pronounced khan, as though it were 擐; I don't know if the two words are merging, if she's misusing the second one, or if granny actually lifted the poles with her hands instead of carrying them on her shoulders (or any other situation took place that would warrant the use of khan instead of khâi);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The particle 等 (-ing in English) is nún (tone problem!) instead of the tén I'm used to; this is documented in the Wiktionary;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;She says fan-su twice because she gets the tones wrong on the first one; the tones on the first instance are adapted from the video according to the study's tonal description;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Instead of the familiar 恁样 | an-nyong (don't remember the tones right now), we find 恁呢 | án-nê, documented as such on I think the Wiktionary;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The place name 中坛, which should be Tsung-tham or Tsung-iun according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://crh.khm.gov.tw/khstory/StoryDesc.aspx?id=134&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, is heard as Tsung-mun; given that source tells us Kana spellings of the old name were Tsun'en and Tsun'un, which seem to match Tsung-ien and Tsung-wun, I guess the name could be Tsung-vun, with vun being rid of the v- and pronounced wun, and the nazality of -ng carrying over to make the w- into a m-;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;There is one instance of a word &quot;ka&quot;, which seems to be equivalent to the 佮 we have oftimes seen in Hakka songs, but I can't document it, and the known word is kak;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;君 is read kün instead of kiun; this, despite being undocumented in writing, is documented via recordings of the character's pronunciation at the Hakka cloud and at hakkadict, which show variation between kün and kiun;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;A variant of 毋过, 啊毋过, is found; I cannot document it, but it seems Justin Richard Leung (@justinrleung on Stack Exchange) can; he said the a- is probably borrowed from Min 猶毋過, one of whose alternate pronunciations is á-m̄-kò;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;典礼 is documented as tián-lî, but heard as tián-dî in the sung part; my take is that the -m is an artefact of singing, while the -di could be an alternate pronunciation *tián-dî, or another artefact of singing;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;晡日 is pîn-ngit instead of pû-ngit, but this is (indirectly) documented at Wiktionary and the Hakka cloud as an alternate pronunciation; in 暗晡头, however, it's pû we hear;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Phù-poi is not, as I thought, a pronunciation of 扶背 | support, but the (apparently Southern Sixian only) word 匍背 | hunchback / hunched back, documented at the Hakka cloud;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;There is one instance of a word mâ, seemingly meaning &quot;also, even&quot;; this appears to be a conflation of a Min loan 嗎 (mà) and the synonym yâ which gave the tone;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Nga and ngài seem to get confused, and in fact it seems ngài is taking the tone of nga, except for the single nga; but more on the tone below;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;办法 | phan-fap sounds like phan-fat, and the -p is not there because the lips don't close; no idea whether this can be sourced or not;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;瓜仔 | kwâ-é sounds like kwâ-bé, no idea why; I am, in fact, entertaining the idea that another word was meant, perhaps 瓜薈 | kwâ-ve, or 瓜棫 | kwâ-vet, though the e is held long so the latter seems unlikely;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;If you see -oy, -ay, -eoi, or -eot, it's because in many -oi she rounds (or seems to round) the -i to a -ü, in many other -oi she seems to front the o and round the i, resulting in an equivalent to Cantonese Jyutping -eoi final, and in Tsung-kwet, she reads kwet as kyeot would be in Cantonese; while the -oy are probably just the rounding lasting too long (a &quot;trailing roundedness&quot; if you will), the -eoi are unexplained because one of them is after k-, where fronting is not warranted by minimization of movement, and kyeot is even more pozzling because it seems the character is usually ket in Meinong, so one could at most guess *kwet&gt;*küet&gt;kyeot or *kwet&gt;*kɰøt&gt;kyeot; actually, -ay and -oy may just be her ending the diphthongs with /ɪ/ as in English instead of /i/ as in Italian;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Remember the 恁 | àn (or rather an) from other songs? Well, as documented on the Wiktionary, Southern Sixian has 盖 | koi instead;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I mentioned ngai and ki, what about nyi? Well, it's ǹg here, which I spell 你, choosing to reserve the spelling 汝 for the nyî (or rather nyì) I'm used to;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The word 蕹菜 is pronounced fung-tshoi, which is reported as an alternate pronunciation in an old dictionary I have no access to; this pronunciation warrants dropping the spelling of the captions, since 瓮菜 would only lead to vung-tshoi;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I choose to use the original Hakka spelling of Meinong, 弥浓, instead of the borrowed Japanese respelling 美浓, but use the latter in Min because the original spelling is a Hakka thing;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;故所以 is heard as ko-só-yî instead of ku-só-yî, for no known reason;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;从 is heard as tshùng instead of the tshùng it's recorded as in dictionaries; this is perhaps a new-style pronunciation influenced by Mandarin's cóng;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;重要 is reported as tshung-yeu for Southern Sixian, but is heard as ending in something of a /jǝw/; Justin would expect a -yau, since Southern Sixian should be closer to Meixian than to Northern Sixian; if the should-be is -yeu, maybe it was retracted to /jɵw/ for smoothness of motion, and if the original was -yau, maybe the a was raised to reduce the movement of the tongue; in any case, we don't know if it's idiolectal or more widespread.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Now that those are tackled (and I hope I didn't forget anything), it's time to tackle the biggest problem: tones. Apart from the mismatches between the study and hakkadict, which is illustrated in the above table, neither match what I hear perfectly. But now, let's discuss the sandhi rules mentioned by the study:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Yin Ping+Yang Ping=324+Yang Ping; this is the reason I matched the contour 24 to this tone; the Yin Ping never sandhies otherwise;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Yang Ping+Yin Ping=Yin Ping+Yin Ping, that is 322+322;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Yang Ping+{Shang/Yin Ru}: Yang Ping=32, that is, the Yang Ping is shortened a little before Shang and Yang Ru, making it harder to tell apart from a Yin Ping;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Yang Ping+{Qu/Yang Ru}: Yang Ping=3-&gt;1.5, that is, instead of going all the way down to level 1, it stops half a level higher;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;由上聲和陰入組合的二字詞，前字起始音會高於後字&lt;/b&gt;: 諸如「上聲+上聲」（廠長），「上聲+陰入」（粉筆），「陰入+陰入」（竹節），「陰入+上聲」（屋頂）四種組合時，會産生前字起始音高於後字，後字音程變小，音量也變輕的現象，調型則維持不變; basically, when a word is made of Shang+Shang, Shang+Yin Ru, Yin Ru+Yin Ru, or Yin Ru+Shang, the first syllable is slightly higher than the second one, and the second one is shorter and lower in volume than usual;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;陰平，陽平分別後接上聲或陰人時，上聲或陰入調值會產生差異&lt;/b&gt;: 差異的原因乃是因爲陰平，陽平與上聲或陰入分別有著同樣音程的相對語感;陰，陽平結束音高112（調值）的差異即成爲後接上聲或陰入音高（调值）差異了，例：「豬骨」與「牛骨」，因前字「豬」，「牛」結束音高相差半度左右，在「豬骨」與「牛骨」有著相同的相對語感之情況下，兩詞的後字雖同爲「骨」但前者音者會高於後者半度左右; essentially, to distinguish Yin and Yang Ping before Shang or Yin Ru, the second tone is raised half a degree (but the table later in the study gives a full degree, 53 for Shang and 54 for Yin Ru) after a Yin Ping and left intact after a Yin Ping; in numbers, as per said table, Yin Ping + Shang = 322-53, Yang Ping + Shang = 31-42, Yin Ping + Yin Ru = 322-54, Yang Ping + Yin Ru = 31-43.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The last two sound like they should be easily ignorable if we allow &quot;fuzzy matches&quot; to be enough for us. So I set out to get the tone name of each syllable, and this is what I got:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Thi|YP khiu|Q-ngian|Y'P e|Q sam|YP ngiat|Y'R-fun|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ngai|Y'P yu|Q mung|Q to|S ngai|Y'P e|Q a|YP-ma|YP&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Te|Q-ha|Q-e|S he|Q ngai|Y'P koy|Q se|Q koy|Q se|Q e|Q sii|Y'P-tsiet|YR&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Mi|YP ngit|YR thien|YP mo|Y'P kong|YP&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Lu|Q then|Y'P-nun|S a|YP-ma|YP khiung|Q-ha|Q tshut|YR-mun|Y'P hi|Q mai|Q tshoy|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A|YP-ma|YP yung|Q tam|Q-kon|YP khai|YP-nun|S fan|YP-su|Y'P fan|YP-su|Y'P yap|Y'R&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Khai|YP-nun|S fung|Q tshoy|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Lu|Q an|S-ne|Y'P tshung|Y'P Mi|Y'P-nung|Y'P tsong|YP&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yit|YR-lu|Q-hang|Y'P hang|Y'P to|Q Tsung|YP-mun|Y'P&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Thi|YP lu|Q hong|Q a|YP-ma|YP i|~Y'P woy|Q ka ai|Y'P kong|S&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tsii|YP-kyun|YP ng|Y'P e|Q ngian|S-tsu|YP khon|Q m|Y'P to|S e*|YP (actually spelled 唉)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ko|Q-so|S-yi|YP ngai|Y'P hi|YP-mong|Q ng|Y'P kho|S-yi|YP khau|S-song|YP thai|Q-hok|Y'R&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nga|YP nang|Q piong|Q et|YR lok|Y'R sim|YP&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yin|YP-vi|Q a|YP-ma|YP ya|S ki|Q fa|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ngai|Y'P keoi|Q tap|YR-yang|Y'P&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Leoi|Y'P khau|S to|S Tsung|YP-kyeot|YR vun|Y'P-fa|Q Thai|Q-hok|Y'R&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A|YP-m|Y'P-ko|Q to|Q ngai|Y'P pit|YR-ngiap|Y'R tiam|S-li|YP te|Q pin|YP-ngit|YR&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nga|YP lu|YP tshim|Y'P mo|Y'P to|S a|YP-ma|YP i|Y'P e|Q phu|Y'P-poi|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Hip|YR-siong|Q e|Q te|Q-ha|Q-e|S&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nga|YP ma mo|Y'P yit|YR tsung|S fon|YP-hi|S e|Q kam|S-su|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yin|YP-vi|Q tui|Q nga|YP loi|Y'P kong|S&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tsui|Q tshung|Q-yau|Q tsui|Q tshung|Q-yau|Q e|Q ngin|Y'P&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ngai|Y'P tsai|Q mo|Y'P phan|Q-fa|YR khon|Q to|S&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I|Y'P e|Q phu|Y'P-poi|Q&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Of course, the ma and ka, which are doubtful, do not have a tone from hakkadict. Again of course, this only deals with the spoken part, since tones are neglected in singing. I ignored the pronunciation problems mentioned above for this transcription. The below two-column section shows the resulting tone contours according to the study last, and the contours I hear first.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Thi33 khiu55-ngian51 e334 sam11* ngiat33*-fun22*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ngai24 yu55 mung55 to442 ngai11 e33* a11-ma33&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Te55 ha55-e52 he33* ngai21* koy33* se334* koy33* sei33* e34* sii21*-tsiet2*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Mi22 ngit51 thien24 mo53 kong21&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Lu55 then11*-nun11 a11*-ma34 khiung44*-ha44* tshut4-mun21 hi33* mai33* tshoi334*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A11-ma55 yung55 tam45-kon32 khan44*-nun32 fan11-su4 fan24-su31-yap34&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Khan44*-nun32* fung33*-tshoi334*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Lu55-an53-ne22 tshung21 Mi11-nung11-tsong11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yit5-lu45 hang21 hang21 to34* Tsung213*-mun21&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Thi11* lu34* hong34* a11-ma24 i21* woi34* ka43 ai32 kong41&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tsii2:2.5-kün11 ng11 e55 ngian41-tsu112 khon44 m43 to32 e21&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ko55-so53-yi31 ngai23 hi21-mong35 ng22 kho22-yi21 khau33 song11* thai33*-hok3*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nga22 nam45 piong5t et43 lok3* sim11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yin22-vi55 a11-ma34* ya42 ki22* fa223*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ngai31 keoi45* tap324-yang324&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Loi22 khau33 to332 Tsung22-kyeot32 vun21-fa34* thai34*-hok4*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A55-m53-ko44* to34* ngai41 pit3*-ngiap4* tian32*-li11* te33* pin32 ngit32*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nga33 lu55 tshim31 mo22 to2.5:1 a22-ma33 i21 e33 phu21-poi334&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Hip4-siong55 e55 te44-ha44-e41&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nga11 ma23 mo42 yit2* tsung21* fon21*-hi33* e33* kam32*-su34*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yin22-vi55 tui55 nga53 loi31 kong442&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tsui54 tshung33*-yau33* tsui32* tshung22*-yau22* e22* ngin21*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ngai31 tsai44* mo42 phan34*-fa32* khon44* to31*&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I33 e55 phu32-poi44&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Thi|322 khiu|55-ngian|3:1.5 e|55 sam|322 ngiat|55-fun|55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ngai|3:1.5 yu|55 mung|55 to|42 ngai|3:1.5 e|55 a|322-ma|322&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Te|55-ha|55-e|42 he|55 ngai|3:1.5 koy|55 se|55 koy|55 se|55 e|55 sii|32-tsiet|43&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Mi|322 ngit|43 thien|324 mo|322 kong|322&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Lu|55 then|32-nun|42 a|322-ma|322 khiung|55-ha|55 tshut|43-mun|3:1.5 hi|55 mai|55 tshoy|55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A|322-ma|322 yung|55 tam|55-kon|322 khai|322-nun|42 fan|324-su|31 fan|324-su|3:1.5 yap|55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Khai|322-nun|42 fung|55 tshoy|55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Lu|55 an|42-ne|31 tshung|31 Mi|31-nung|322 tsong|322&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yit|43-lu|55-hang|31 hang|3:1.5 to|55 Tsung|324-mun|31&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Thi|322 lu|55 hong|55 a|322-ma|324 i|3:1.5 woy|55 ka|? ai|32 kong|42&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tsii|322-kyun|324 ng|3:1.5 e|55 ngian|42-tsu|322 khon|55 m|32 to|42 e*|322 (actually spelled 唉)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ko|55-so|42-yi|324 ngai|322 hi|322-mong|55 ng|32 kho|42-yi|322 khau|42-song|322 thai|55-hok|55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nga|322 nang|55 piong|55 et|43 lok|55 sim|322&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yin|322-vi|55 a|322-ma|322 ya|42 ki|55 fa|55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ngai|3:1.5 keoi|55 tap|43-yang|31&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Leoi|32 khau|42 to|42 Tsung|322-kyeot|43 vun|3:1.5-fa|55 Thai|55-hok|55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A|324-m|3:1.5-ko|55 to|55 ngai|32 pit|43-ngiap|55 tian|42-li|322 te|55 pin|322-ngit|43&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nga|322 lu|324 tshim|31 mo|32 to|42 a|322-ma|324 i|3:1.5 e|55 phu|3:1.5-poi|55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Hip|43-siong|55 e|55 te|55-ha|55-e|42&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Nga|322 ma|? mo|32 yit|43 tsung|42 fon|322-hi|42 e|55 kam|42-su|55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yin|322-vi|55 tui|55 nga|324 loi|32 kong|42&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tsui|55 tshung|55-yau|55 tsui|55 tshung|55-yau|55 e|55 ngin|31&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ngai|3:1.5 tsai|55 mo|3:1.5 phan|55-fa(t)|43 khon|55 to|42&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I|3:1.5 e|55 phu|3:1.5-poi|55&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Asterisks denote where a shift of the frame of reference for the tone levels would improve the match between heard contours and expected contours. The below tackles whatever I don't think I can explain away as fuzzy matches or tone fluctuations.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The first problem is obviously the ngian, which starts way too high; I think at least some of the recordings for 舊年 at the Hakka cloud do have a ngian51 (or ngien51), but I can't slow them down, so I can't be sure; talking speed probably cuts the jump short;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Then we see the ngai24; now, I think the -i and the following y- merge, and continuously grow from 2 to 5, so I think I can reread the ngai as a 23 or 22 or 33, which still don't match a Yang Ping, but do match a Yin Ping, and many other ngais later on strongly suggest it's ngâi, not ngài: the next one is 11, then we have 21, then there is that ai32, then ngai23, which is more of an accidental fluctuation from an intended ngai22 or ngai33, and these are more Yin Pings than Yang Pings, then there is a ngai31 which would be a Yang Ping, then ngai41 which is just weird but more of a Yang Ping, then ngai53 which is literally no tone, and finally a ngai31; OK, looking at this list, and at the speed of the speech in each instance, it seems that the Yin Ping appears when ngai is spoken fast, and Yang Ping stays when it's spoken slower (with some funky 41 and 53 businesses); I think we can explain this as a combination of speed cutting the drop short, and conflation with nga, which is indeed ngâ, and is probably merging with ngài; in fact, the ngai53 I reported was a nga53, meaning the two are being tonally and semantically conflated (with funky business, again); so I guess  I'll keep the &quot;root tones&quot; ngài and ngâ, with this caveat, and then the nga53 is just weird;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The next problem is obviously a-ma; this should be â-mâ, but almost every time it appears as two level tones of different heights; in only one instance does it behave like two Yin Pings: in front of ì woi kạ ài kóng, where the sandhi rule applies and mâ is ma24~ma324; however, the sandhi should not occur, because there is a pause after â-mâ; also, in another instance where it's followed by ì, it doesn't sandhi; so we either assume it's actually â-ma, and explain that weird sandhi as an even weirder huge upward drift in pitch, or we stick to â-mâ, and have way more problems; I go for â-ma; what do you think @justinrleung?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;To saves itself by a hair thanks to raising the reference :);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What is going on with that ngit51 which is supposed to be ngit43?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Mo is weird; it seems its tone is adaptive: it's supposed to be mo31 + sandhi, but mo53 is not explained by that, nor is mo22 or mo33, so I guess we can only say its tone is rendered unimportant by how common it is, and what contexts it appears in: in all three instances of the word, it is clear that it must be a negative element, so even if the tone adapts, the message is clear, and adapting the tone allows the pitch to vary continuously instead of being &quot;jumpy&quot;; in view of that, we just leave the etymological tone: mò;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The particle nún appears three times; in two of those instances, it is apparently lower than a Yin Ping, and in the other one it is just as low; however, the first two instances are preceded by another doubly problematic word; see below for that, but my conclusion is that that word is a Qu tone (khan), which makes raising the reference a trick to get a nun43~nun42, so nún confirmed; what about the other instance? Well, it seems to be nun21 or nun31, which sounds Yang Ping, but the preceding Yin Ping would have to sandhi, which it doesn't, so it must be nún; I guess it's just de-emphasised so the reference lowers;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;A mention must be made of how the first fan-su has wrong tones that she corrects afterwards; essentially, the wrongness is fân-su instead of fân-sù, with the different sandhi that follows from this; hence my transcription;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I naturally have to re-mention the khâi/khan thing at this point; it is evident that she is saying khan: high level tone, nún starting below it; so that is how I will transcribe it; I will wait for a comment by @justinrleung on whether the captions have the wrong word and it should be the actual khan that is used here;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The yap is a raising checked tone, which shouldn't exist, and it's like a reversed Yin Ru; raising the reference risks screwing up the preceding Yang Ping, making it a 42 Shang; but maybe it's just de-emphasised as it ends a three-syllable word, something like the neutral tone in Mandarin;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;an-ne is reported as án-nè or án-nê, and the level tone of the ne makes it clear we have the latter; as for an53, well, remember Shang+Yin Ping=53-322? Well, that's another reason for positing á-nê :);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Mi11-nung11 could only be explained as Mî-nûng, but that is not reported anywhere that I know of; so I either have to posit this Mî-nûng sound, or take Mì-nùng and assume the mì got cut short by speech speed; Mî-nùng definitely doesn't fit, because the Yin Ping would sandhi to 324 and that doesn't happen; @justinrleung what do you think?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I should be ì, but it is always level; or rather, it seems like it drops like half a degree; that would suggest a Yin Ping î; of course, there is that questionable sandhi that happens once out of two instances of the same word combination, which would make it a Yang Ping; @justinrleung, what say you?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Tsii-kün seems to have a double problem; the kün shouldn't actually sandhi to 324, because between Tsii-kün and ǹg there is a pause; still, we should have the same tone, which we don't; besides positing a tsii-kü̂n, so assuming tsii is a Qu tone, the only explanation I have is that a sequence of level tones takes a decreasing pitch curve; I would do that in Mandarin with Zījūn, probably; @justinrleung what do you think?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The m43 supposed to be m32 is probably another blatant negative whose tone adapts to its surroundings because it's not essential to comprehension;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;If we raise the reference and read khon55 m54 to43 e32, it's all fuzzy matches, except m disucssed above, so e is also OK;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The so in ko-so-yi sounds like it's being sandhied as if in front of a Yin Ping, except the following is a clear Yang Ping; WTF?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The mong has a strange big pitch raise which I'm reluctant to explain away as a drift; @justinrleung?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The ng does seem to have a slight drop in pitch, and given it's very short, it could be ǹg; the other ng in the line before, however, definitely sounds like a Yin Ping n̂g; @justinrleung?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;kho in kho-yi is a level tone and should be a Shang; seems to be a Yin Ping; @justinrleung?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;khau has the same problem; again, a Yin Ping would fit, in both instances of the word; @justinrleung?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The reference raise for the lok could be justified by end-of-phrase tone drop, something like a neutral tone; @justinrleung what do you think?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Then we have ya, which should be yá but sounds like yâ; now, &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/Details?p=72886&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the recording here&lt;/a&gt; clearly has ya22 ha44 for yá-ha, in both versions, which would sound like yâ-ha, not yá-ha, so it seems the tone varies; maybe this is another form of erosion (speaking of which, the second recording for Sixian has khon-e-to for khon tet tó, pretty extreme erosion); &lt;a href=&quot;http://cloud.hakka.gov.tw/Details?p=72081&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; it's even weirder: ya53 ha33; moedict doesn't play audios, and hakkadict doesn't even display play buttons, so I can't hear those recordings; oh wait, relistening that is not ya22, but ya42 as expected, and the following Qu tones are 22, perhaps because they end the sentence;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;In tap324-yang324, tap32 is a fuzzy Yin Ru, and the 4 is a drift, perhaps 323 actually; as for yang324, there is an ending drift, but the rest is more of a yâng than a yàng, it's a level tone; @justinrleung how come?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Â is definitely not what is here, but then again 啊 allows essentially any tone, and this comes from á-m̀-kò in Min where the first tone is level by sandhi, so I'll go for a-m̀-ko;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The ngai shouldn't actually sandhi because it's followed by a pause, so it should be a 31, add in some speech speed that cuts the jump from to34 down to the 3 of ngai31 short, and ngài is saved;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Not raising the reference on pin and raising it on the whole rest is probably justified by the exact tone being unimportant given the collocation right before ngit which means &quot;day&quot; in and of itself;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I posit lû (once tû) and lu (once tshiu) are merging to a single lu, and that is what we find here; the sandhi shouldn't apply because there is a break after it, so it should be lu322, still not lu55;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;As mentioned above, what was once ma (min loan) is probably getting conflated with the synonym yâ, and becoming mâ, which fits the ma23 here thanks to sandhi;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;We raise the reference from yit on because yit tsung ends the first part of the sentence, and the rest keeps the lowered reference;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;That nga53 is unsandhied and too high, perhaps because of how common it is, so another &quot;tonal erosion&quot; to achieve continuous pitch; @justinrleung what do you think?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;ngin needing less reference raising than the rest is probably because the tsui tshung-yau before it is a repetition, and the e is a common word; @justinrleung?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Finally, the hi in fon-hi sounds like a Qu or Yin Ping, but should be a Shang; @justinrleung?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastEditorUserId="6273" LastEditDate="2019-01-30T22:29:44.707" LastActivityDate="2019-01-30T22:29:44.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32777" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-29T16:26:07.630" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.&lt;/strong&gt; If I want to say &amp;quot;more than a hundred years&amp;quot;, which one is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. 百余年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. 一百多年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the example in ichacha &amp;quot;五十余年: fifty odd years&amp;quot; makes me wonder why 余 is used instead of 多. So, when should we use 余 and 多?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2.&lt;/strong&gt; In almost every online dictionary I've checked, aside from being classifier for age ('years old'), 岁 can also mean 'year'. Is there any example of it being used to say 'year' but not age?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T19:02:11.183" Title="Difference between 余 and 多; the use of 岁 and 年" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32777" CreationDate="2019-01-29T19:02:11.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are fine but there is a subtle difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;百余年 is rather formal and literary, and sounds like something from transcript of a documentary / speech / piece of writing. You would rarely say 百余年 in daily conversations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一百多年 can also be used in writing but people also use it in colloquial situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T19:02:11.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32779" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-29T20:38:36.617" Score="3" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y0kA7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y0kA7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f3Q3T.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f3Q3T.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the point of &quot;learning from the Grand Han Dynasty and Establishing the Nation by Military&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-30T20:15:43.033" Title="&quot;学大汉，武立国&quot;? Is it not &quot;国立武汉大学&quot;？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mistakes&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32779" CreationDate="2019-01-29T20:57:07.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, you are absolutely right, it is 国立武汉大学，people sometimes say 学大汉，武立国 for the following reasons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;学大汉，武立国 happens to make a reasonable sentence &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;writing from right to left is an old tradition and nowadays when people see it, they tend to read from left to right naturally and may have to think for a moment with the context&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;people would always love to make jokes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the last point, you can check out some funny ones at &lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.wenxuecity.com/memory/232885.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wenxuecity&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/50880813/answer/143990410&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhihu&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2019-01-29T21:07:16.603" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T21:07:16.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32779" CreationDate="2019-01-29T21:32:14.690" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is some kind of wordplay, using '回文句' and '拆句'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回文句 is a text you can read from both ends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;拆句 is changing the word groupings in a sentence and read it in different way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4b8db2710102wvw6.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4b8db2710102wvw6.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sample of 回文诗 (reversible poem):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading from one end:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;园林杏叶落初秋，眨眼星悬半月勾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the garden, apricot leaves fall in early autumn, in the blink of eyes, stars are hanging in the sky and the moon is half hooked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading from the other end:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勾月半悬星眼眨，秋初落叶杏林园&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hooked moon hanging in the middle of the sky and the stars are blinking, in early autumn, there are falling leaves in the apricot garden.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sample of 拆句 (words breaking):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下雨天留客，天留人不留。 (It rains because the heaven wants to keep the guest from leaving; However, the host doesn't want to keep the guest even the heaven does)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下雨天，留客天，留人不? 留! (Rainy day, a day to keep the guest from leaving, do you keep the guest here? Yes I do!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;国立 武汉大学&amp;quot; (Wuhan University) read backward is &amp;quot;学大汉武立国&amp;quot; which doesn't make much sense if you read it as &amp;quot;学大 汉武立国&amp;quot; , but it make sense if you break it up the right way as &amp;quot;学大汉, 武立国&amp;quot; (Learning from the Great Han Dynasty and establish the nation with military might)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put, you can read &amp;quot;国立武汉大学&amp;quot; backward and rearrange the characters grouping to make it mean something else -- for fun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chinese poets are so clever with wordplay&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-30T20:15:43.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32782" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-30T05:45:18.627" Score="4" ViewCount="1741" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TMhPO.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TMhPO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The Seals&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is anyone able to give the modern character equivalents for these seals? I'm completely stumped on the top one, but got as far as &quot;X 廾 東 X&quot; on the bottom one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also a 詩塘 at the top, and I don't even know what script it's in. I initially assumed it would be seal script, but then the version of &quot;山&quot; in it (below the 三) wasn't correct for seal script, so I thought it might be something else. I've attached the photo in case anyone knows what it is (or might even be able to translate it). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5eMPU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5eMPU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The 詩塘&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&#xA;TK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21310" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-01-30T06:55:38.807" LastActivityDate="2019-01-30T11:06:38.770" Title="Can anyone read Seal Script? I'm completely stuck" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32782" CreationDate="2019-01-30T06:03:09.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The characters in the following transcriptions are given at their original positions in the images. Please be aware of the directionality when reading these characters, which is generally from &lt;strong&gt;top to bottom, right to left&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xmbGl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xmbGl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;庭植&lt;/strong&gt;, artist's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_name&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;self-styled pseudonym&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XxQAm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XxQAm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Artist's real name. Three characters only:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Right hand character is &lt;strong&gt;「呉」&lt;/strong&gt; re-interpreted into a (non-standard?) seal script shape.「呉」is a variant of「吳」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Top left is &lt;strong&gt;「東」&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bottom left is too hard to see, although the two seals are probably identical to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GrR3e.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GrR3e.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;in which case the character is &lt;strong&gt;「槐」&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Thanks to&lt;/em&gt; @水巷孑蠻 &lt;em&gt;who found these seals &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cang.com/trade/show-14968316-2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, which record the name of a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qing Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; artist&lt;/em&gt; 吳東槐.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0QFKW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0QFKW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;水青三冠徑&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;中山成㬜&lt;/strong&gt;（＝天，㬜＝晉）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;分外半古代&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;白二落丠衣&lt;/strong&gt;（丠＝丘）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note that I would consider this a non-standard way of writing&lt;/em&gt;「白」&lt;em&gt;(bottom left-hand corner). This is equivalent to writing&lt;/em&gt;「自」&lt;em&gt;and omitting one of the horizontal lines, but&lt;/em&gt;「白」&lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt;「自」&lt;em&gt;are from completely different glyph origins.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Calligrapher:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;伊&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;索&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;涭&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(uncertain; corrections welcome)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is part of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tang Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; poem by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Li Bai&lt;/a&gt;, given below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;&lt;strong&gt;唐・李白《登金陵鳳凰臺》&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鳳凰臺上鳳凰遊，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鳳去臺空江自流。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吳宮花草埋幽&lt;strong&gt;徑，&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;晉代衣冠成古丘。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;三山半落青天外，&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;二水中分白&lt;/strong&gt;鷺洲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;總爲浮雲能蔽日，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;長安不見使人愁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-01-30T11:06:38.770" LastActivityDate="2019-01-30T11:06:38.770" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32784" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-30T21:52:19.070" Score="-2" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me identify this tea? I received it as a gift and would love to know what I am drinking. It looks rather refined. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZZQui.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZZQui.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21314" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T21:58:08.230" Title="Identifying Chinese tea" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-02-06T11:45:06.627" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32784" CreationDate="2019-01-30T22:17:38.557" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is called '浮翠硒茶' (翠眉)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'浮翠' came from idiom '&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%B5%AE%E7%BF%A0%E6%B5%81%E4%B8%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;浮翠流丹&lt;/a&gt;' which is used to describe bright colors&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'硒茶' means 'selenium tea' (tea that contains selenium)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this web page &lt;a href=&quot;https://chagardens.com/pages/benefit-of-teas-with-selenium&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chagardens.com/pages/benefit-of-teas-with-selenium&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Selenium Benefits&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Selenium was discovered in 1817 but at that time was considered to be a hazardous element. In 1973, after decades of tests and studies, the World Health Organization declared selenium not only to be non hazardous, but a trace element, essential to the human body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today selenium is known as a cancer slayer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(翠眉) means 'green tea leaf in shape and size like an eyebrow' ,  basically means 'loose green tea leaf'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'浮翠硒茶' (翠眉) = 'Green selenium tea ' (loose green tea leaves)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the upper right corner it said: '无公害农产品' (Pollution-free agricultural products)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the upper left corner states the brand name '茅山长寿' (Maoshan  Long Life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;江苏名商標 means 'Jiangsu's famous trademark'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;句容市浮山果园出品 (Produced by Jurong City Fushan Orchard)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;So, this tea is supposedly good for fighting cancer (?)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T21:58:08.230" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32786" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32787" CreationDate="2019-01-31T01:17:04.773" Score="6" ViewCount="1336" Body="&lt;p&gt;And how do you translate &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他管我借钱，但我没借给他&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T16:05:58.337" Title="What does 管 mean as in &quot;他管我借钱.&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32786" CreationDate="2019-01-31T02:06:40.350" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;他(問/求/向)我借钱，但我没借给他&quot; would make more sense, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'管' has many meanings and it is a shorthand for many terms including  管理(to manage) ,  监管 (to supervise),  管制 (to restrict),  掌管 (to control) and 包管(guarantee) etc..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In '他管我借钱，但我没借给他' the most logical meaning for '管' is 'to manage' which implies 'to count on' or 'to rely on' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;管 = to manage --&gt; put responsibility on --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;counting on&lt;/strong&gt; --&gt; depend/ rely on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the translation of '他管我借钱，但我没借给他' should be &quot;He was &lt;strong&gt;counting on&lt;/strong&gt; me to lend him money, but I didn't lend him any&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other example of 管 as different shorthand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在這處住我管你一日三餐 = 在這處住我(包)管你一日三餐 (you live here and I'll &lt;strong&gt;guarantee&lt;/strong&gt; you three meals a day)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;香煙的銷售管得很嚴 = 香煙的銷售(监)管得很嚴 (The sales of cigarettes is &lt;strong&gt;supervised&lt;/strong&gt; very strictly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我管你去死 = 我(哪)管(得)你去死 (I &lt;strong&gt;don't care&lt;/strong&gt; if you die)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-31T04:23:27.123" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T04:23:27.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32786" CreationDate="2019-01-31T02:14:01.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This can be viewed as a series of semantic extensions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the sense of &lt;em&gt;control&lt;/em&gt;,「管」was extended to mean &lt;em&gt;to have jurisdiction over&lt;/em&gt;, then further extended to mean &lt;em&gt;to be concerned about, to bother about&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他管我借錢，但我沒借給他&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;He bothered me about borrowing some money, but I didn't lend the money to him.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar examples of「管」used in this sense (taken from Pleco):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你管得着嗎？(&lt;em&gt;What business of this is yours?&lt;/em&gt; i.e. &lt;em&gt;This is none of your concern.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;去不去隨你，我不管 (&lt;em&gt;Whether you go or not is up to you; it doesn't bother me.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T04:04:48.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32786" CreationDate="2019-01-31T03:06:50.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;他管我借钱，但我没借给他: &lt;em&gt;He attempted to borrow some money from me, but I didn't lend him any.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;管 just means 向 in this context. 他管我借钱 implies a 想要 or 尝试， 他尝试(/想要)管我借钱.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T03:06:50.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32790" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32802" CreationDate="2019-01-31T05:44:42.240" Score="2" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kepu.net.cn/gb/hlg100/page_1028.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;, the phrase “有理数贯逼近实数” is used (see the second last paragraph). How to understand this phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T04:52:16.297" Title="How to understand “有理数贯逼近实数”？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32790" CreationDate="2019-01-31T06:01:04.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be understood in this way: 例如/在讲到/用&quot;有理数贯&quot;/逼近&quot;实数&quot;时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where 有理数贯 and 实数 are independent terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T06:01:04.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32790" CreationDate="2019-01-31T06:01:35.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a math guy, but this is what I found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有理数 = rational number&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;贯 = sequence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;逼近 = approximation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;实数 = real number&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rational number sequence approximation of a real number&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-or- perhaps more colloquially:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the approximation of real numbers by rational number sequences&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-01-31T12:14:37.223" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T12:14:37.223" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32790" CreationDate="2019-01-31T06:12:22.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%89%E7%90%86%E6%95%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;有理数&lt;/a&gt;&quot;: &lt;em&gt;可以表达为两个整数比的数 被定义为有理数 (A number that can be expressed as two integer ratios is defined as a &lt;strong&gt;rational number&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;数贯 = suite; sequence (math)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;有理数贯 = 有理数数贯 (rational number suite/ sequence)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;As I see it, 数贯 is another name for 数学公式 (Mathematical formula)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;逼近 = approach/ close to&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;实数 = real number&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“有理数贯逼近实数” means &quot;rational number suite close to a real number&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I think a Mathematician can answer this better. I have no idea what is the difference between rational number and real number and what it meant when he said one is getting close to the other.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-01-31T06:18:25.910" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T06:18:25.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32786" CreationDate="2019-01-31T06:44:17.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many sayings from different dialects with the same meaning in Chinese, we rarely use this form usually. Generally you may speak 他问我借钱, 他从我这借钱, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T06:44:17.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32786" CreationDate="2019-01-31T07:11:13.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 管 in this sentence means 'find sb. for ....'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21315" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T07:11:13.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32786" CreationDate="2019-01-31T09:31:10.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have a look &lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%E7%AE%A1&amp;amp;device=pc&amp;amp;from=home&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13.作用跟“向”相近：～他借钱。～我要东西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他管我借钱，但我没借给他。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He from me (want) borrow money, but I not give him&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He wanted to hit me for a loan, but I wasn't having any of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T09:31:10.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32786" CreationDate="2019-01-31T09:44:49.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;管 here doesn't mean &quot;to be concern about&quot; or &quot;to bother that&quot;. 管 is obviously a preposition here because it represents no action. The action is 借. 管 here is a typical Northern dialectal expression. It means 向/从/把, i.e., to/from/as...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他管我借钱 He asks to borrow money &lt;strong&gt;from&lt;/strong&gt; me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他管她叫奶奶 He addresses her &lt;strong&gt;as&lt;/strong&gt; grandma&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他管人家一顿打 He hit somebody hard (no English prep here).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When using 管 in this meaning, it is more oral Chinese than written Chinese. But you can still use it in writing to make your description vivid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21317" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T09:44:49.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32786" CreationDate="2019-01-31T16:05:58.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;他管我借钱，但我没借给他&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 管 here means from. He borrowed money from me, but I did not lend him any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21320" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T16:05:58.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32800" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-31T16:20:29.127" Score="5" ViewCount="774" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have seen this word in video comments and cannot find a reference for it anywhere??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some details:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Always rendered in zhuyin (ㄎㄧㄤ) even in otherwise ideographic text&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Doesn't appear to be a native Mandarin syllable (Taiwanese loanword?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Appears to be gamer slang (frequently appears on game screencasts)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can seemingly be randomly inserted into otherwise valid sentences with no apparent change in meaning?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21322" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2019-02-01T12:34:31.003" LastActivityDate="2019-02-01T12:34:31.003" Title="Identify Mandarin word - &quot;kiāng&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;slang&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32800" CreationDate="2019-01-31T17:05:43.467" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As can be gleaned from the fact that it is usually represented in Zhuyin, ㄎㄧㄤ is a bit of slang used primarily in Taiwan, especially among young people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ㄎ with ㄧ (or k + i in Pinyin) is not a legitimate combination of sounds for modern Mandarin, so it's not likely to have originated there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its primary meaning is hard to pin down, but &quot;goofy&quot; (see for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/taiwan/comments/3tj236/my_taiwanesemandarin_slang_is_from_the_90s_what/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Reddit thread&lt;/a&gt; but also its use in &lt;a href=&quot;http://kiangrenriji.blogspot.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this blog name&lt;/a&gt;), &quot;tipsy&quot;, &quot;dazed&quot;, &quot;in awe&quot; are all possible interpretations. The images on this &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.appledaily.com/new/realtime/20150908/686711/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;AppleDaily post&lt;/a&gt; might be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/taiwan/comments/3tj236/my_taiwanesemandarin_slang_is_from_the_90s_what/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reddit&lt;/a&gt; thread suggests that it is not a feature of older Taiwanese people, and probably does not come from the Taiwanese varieties of Minnan (i.e. Hokkien). However, this sound (in a high level tone) does exist in Taiwanese, meaning &quot;to steal or snatch&quot;. Dictionaries generally &lt;a href=&quot;https://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/result_detail.jsp?n_no=5808&amp;amp;curpage=1&amp;amp;sample=khiang&amp;amp;radiobutton=1&amp;amp;querytarget=1&amp;amp;limit=20&amp;amp;pagenum=1&amp;amp;rowcount=3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;write it as 勍&lt;/a&gt;; it is also written as 鏘 by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nownews.com/news/20160530/2116744/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some sources&lt;/a&gt;. Whether this could have conceivably been extended to the meanings of this slang term - that is something less well defined. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-01-31T17:05:43.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32790" CreationDate="2019-01-31T22:13:43.323" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;有理数&quot; = rational numbers&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;数贯&quot; = (numerical) sequence (obsolete, the more conventional term nowadays is &quot;数列&quot;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;逼近&quot; = literally, &quot;to approach&quot;, &quot;to get close to&quot;； mathematically, &quot;to approximate&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;实数&quot; = real numbers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, &quot;有理数贯逼近实数&quot; means &quot;using a sequence of rationals to approximate (a) real&quot;, so this sounds like something similar to a Cauchy sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In context of this article, it is probably that Hua Loo-Keng was giving a lecture on the construction of real numbers using Cauchy sequences (likely in a real analysis course), and he introduced continued fractions (连分数) in the context of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Disclaimer&lt;/strong&gt;: I am a native Chinese (Mandarin) speaker with a reasonable amount of knowledge of mathematics (but I am not a professional mathematician).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastEditorUserId="16186" LastEditDate="2019-02-02T04:52:16.297" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T04:52:16.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32765" CreationDate="2019-02-01T07:44:07.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, “新年快乐”是一个“名词+状语”的结构，其重点是后面的“快乐”，其表达的意思是祝福 （新年）快乐。&#xA;如果你说成“快乐新年”，那么，这是一个adj+noun的结构，是想说明这是 （一个）快乐的新年。&#xA;well, &quot;新年快乐&quot;is a &quot;noun +adj&quot;structure, the key point is &quot;快乐&quot;, it express the bless of you would have a new year happily.&#xA;if you say&quot;快乐新年&quot;， then, it is a structure of &quot;ajd+noun&quot;, it would express &quot;a happy year&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps，看到你们问的这些问题，感觉你们对中国的语法真的很讲究，就如我在学习英语一样。但是对于以中文为母语的人，好像都没有去思考过这些问题，自然而言就这么说了。&#xA;ps, when I saw the questions you asked, I feel that you are seriously in Chinese grammar, just like I study English. While as native speaker in China, we have little time to think of it, though we we were young, we took sometimes to study grammar, but few of us really take grammar seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17404" LastActivityDate="2019-02-01T07:44:07.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26330" CreationDate="2019-02-01T13:37:41.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I took the online exam mock test, but for me is really different. Because my method is to read the options before audio start, on that way I can pay attention on the key Words . But when I started online it is not the same, is as following: first question, first audio and then I have to wait too long, the second auido start but I can see the sentence to read and mark if is correct or not. Last year I passed HSK3 but it was on paper based. This mock exam HSK4 level I didn't passed, although if I practice as paper exam my score is enough to pass. In conclusion I don't like computer based exam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21326" LastActivityDate="2019-02-01T13:37:41.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32806" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-01T16:35:19.957" Score="3" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was going to the convenience store and asked my local friend how to ask in Chinese &quot;Do you want anything?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Her answer was: 你有想要买什么吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wasn't sure what to make of the 有 before the verb 想要 meaning &quot;to want&quot; and as a native speaker she could not explain it though she did understand my questions about its grammatical function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a kind of auxiliary verb in this sentence? Or is it a case of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Taiwanese_%22you%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;special Taiwanese 有&lt;/a&gt; that can be used for some references to the past but which also has other uses? Or is it something entirely different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T02:26:21.000" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T10:05:43.803" Title="Is the 有 in 你有想要买什么吗 some kind of auxiliary verb?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32806" CreationDate="2019-02-01T16:58:16.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you sure she didn't say &amp;quot;你有什么想要买吗?&amp;quot;  which would be a correct way to say &amp;quot;do you want to buy anything?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你有什么想要买吗?&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;Is there anything you want to buy&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你(you) 有什么(is there something) 想要(want to) 买(buy) 吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你有想要买什么吗?&amp;quot; means &amp;quot; Have you intended to buy something?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你(you) 有想要 (have intended to) 买(buy) 什么(something) 吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[有+verb] indicate [perfect tense ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想 = intend to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有想 = have intended to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有想過 = had intended to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去 = go&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有去 = have gone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有去過 = had gone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看 = see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有看 = have seen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有看過 = had seen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-01T17:19:12.973" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32806" CreationDate="2019-02-01T22:41:33.847" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;你有想要买什么吗. It sounds more like Taiwanese usage of 有 to my ear. I found they often put 有 between &lt;em&gt;subject&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;verb&lt;/em&gt;. E.g. 我有去过；我有看过；where I often just say 我去过；我看过. In this case, I'll probably say  你想要买什么? or 你想要买什么(东西)吗?.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-02-01T22:41:33.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32692" CreationDate="2019-02-02T02:29:53.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我不喜欢黄（色）的，我喜欢白（色）的。&lt;br /&gt;I like the white one(s), rather than the yellow one(s).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The name of thing itself (or things themselves) they are talking about is omitted in this context.&lt;br /&gt;The character 色 here may be omitted, for that the real meanings in this context are:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;我不喜欢黄（色）的手机，我喜欢白（色）的。&lt;br /&gt;I like the white cellphone, rather than the yellow one.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;我不喜欢黄（色）的鞋子，我喜欢白（色）的。&lt;br /&gt;I like the white shoes, rather than the yellow ones.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我不喜欢黄&lt;strong&gt;色&lt;/strong&gt;，我喜欢白&lt;strong&gt;色&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br /&gt;I like the white &lt;strong&gt;color&lt;/strong&gt; rather than the yellow &lt;strong&gt;color&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;I like white rather than yellow.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There isn't anything they are talking about in this context, just the favorite color.&lt;br /&gt;The character 色 here should not be omitted commonly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-02-02T02:35:17.213" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T02:35:17.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12474" CreationDate="2019-02-02T04:51:14.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A note of context: 恭喜發財 (gung1 hei2 faat3 coi4) actually means &quot;congratulations on making money&quot;. This probably has connections to Guangdong's commercial past, where many people work in trade and business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would be generally fine, but could be slightly awkward if the other party is e.g. a governmental official (this might be taken as mildly suggestive of corruption), so people (esp. in Hong Kong, where people generally take corruption rather seriously) sometimes consciously avoid 恭喜發財 when the other party is in a position like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新年快樂 (san1 nin4 faai3 lok6) has no such connotation is always fine, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16186" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T04:51:14.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32806" CreationDate="2019-02-02T06:38:59.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese is often best understood by what it leaves out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你（有没）有想要买什么？= 你有没有什么想要买的东西？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T06:38:59.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32822" CreationDate="2019-02-02T15:40:27.897" Score="3" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a recent trip to Taiwan, I noticed that the MRT platforms there are labelled 月台 (yuetai / yuètái). Asking a professional tour guide (Taiwanese local, native Chinese speaker) only revealed that he'd never been asked that question, but he didn't have an answer for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Googling around, I found the following synonym: zhàntái ( 站台 ) &lt;a href=&quot;https://dictionary.hantrainerpro.com/chinese-english/translation-yuetai_platform.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;- Han trainer dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, which sounds more understandable (platform for standing). However, I don't see any connection between MRT platforms and months or moons. There doesn't seem to even be a link to shape, as the platforms are straight. (The 'queue-up' lines drawn on the ground are often L-shaped - that's closer to a moon shape.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some links to photos containing the phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Taipei_MRT_rolling_stock_at_Platform_2,_Ximen_Station_20080317.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taipei MRT rolling stock at Platform 2, Ximen Station 20080317.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MRT_Taipei_Main_Station_Platform_1_20070503.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MRT Taipei Main Station Platform 1 20070503.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taipei_Taiwan_MRT-Station-Ximen-01.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taipei Taiwan MRT-Station-Ximen-01.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question: What does 月 refer to in the Taiwanese phrase for &lt;em&gt;MRT platform&lt;/em&gt;, 月台?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21331" LastEditorUserId="21331" LastEditDate="2019-02-02T15:47:52.890" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T21:32:14.257" Title="What does the 月 (moon/month) in the Taiwanese MRT platform's 月台 refer to?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32501" CreationDate="2019-02-02T17:43:08.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct answer came from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/6065/user6065&quot;&gt;user6065&lt;/a&gt; in a comment above. I wanted to make it clear to others as well, it is discussed in detail &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29812/&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters  女、火、长 ，丑 have a historical stroke order that differs from the current recommended order and are simply learnt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17580" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T17:43:08.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32326" CreationDate="2019-02-02T18:32:03.860" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answering my own question, with the best version among all submissions, &quot;To have a taste of two thousand years of China, visit Xi'an; One thousand years of China, Beijing; One hundred years of China, Shanghai; And ten years of China, Shenzhen.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21020" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T18:32:03.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32821" CreationDate="2019-02-02T18:46:45.543" Score="5" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently learning about Resultative Complement in Chinese. Today, I tried to do some exercises provided by a website and bumped into this question :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Direction: Translate this question into Chinese!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put your ticket away properly and don't lose it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I then translated the sentence into:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的票请你拿住,... (I don't know if this one is grammatically correct though)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I initially wanted to use the resultative word &amp;quot;好&amp;quot; because it says &amp;quot;properly&amp;quot; but I became skeptical because in the explanation that I read, 住 is the one that's used to indicate &amp;quot;to make sure sth stays securely&amp;quot;, which I think, is more suitable for the condition above (you are told keep your ticket properly and not to lose it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I checked the answer, it says :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你把票放好,...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder why it uses 好 whereas 住 seems to be more suitable (in my opinion)? Could you please explain more about 住?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T22:06:16.790" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T22:06:16.790" Title="In 你把票放好, why is the complement 好 instead of 住?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;result-complement&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32820" CreationDate="2019-02-02T21:16:43.493" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding about 住 is correct. It means 'stay securely; seize; hold on to', while 好 means 'properly; nicely; adequately...' in a more general sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on those meanings, plus your verb choice 拿, when comparing the two, 拿住 is more specific and 放好 is more general. So when you say 拿住, the literal meaning is 'seize the ticket with your hand, don't let go'. It could imply 'don't lose it' but it could also imply 'keep it handy (as if you will be asked to display it at any time)'. Meanwhile when you say 放好, it only means 'secure it', maybe with a slight hint 'put it in a secure container', but overall it is less specific on how and more focused on the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the translate question, your answer with 拿住 is absolutely correct. It is grammatical and sounds natural, and some native speakers may come with the same answer. However, I believe in real life, 放好/收好 is more commonly used for the subtle semantic reason above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An analogy in English is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;拿住 = hold on tightly &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;放好 = keep properly/securely&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are correct and you may actually use either one, but the second would be more common for the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T21:16:43.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32817" CreationDate="2019-02-02T21:32:14.257" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;None of the references is very authoritative, but all of the search results agree with each other, that 月台 for 'railway platform' is an extended meaning from its original meaning 'moon-watching balcony' which refers to a platform that protrudes from a building.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;月台 （建筑样式） 编辑 讨论&#xA;在古时建筑上，正房、正殿突出连着前阶的平台叫“月台”，月台是该建筑物的基础，也是它的组成部分。由于此类平台宽敞而通透，一般前无遮拦，故是看月亮的好地方，也就成了赏月之台。而现代的月台通常指进入火车站后方便旅客上火车的一段与火车车门踏步平行的平台。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%9C%88%E5%8F%B0/871716&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%9C%88%E5%8F%B0/871716&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.guokr.com/question/543681/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.guokr.com/question/543681/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.rrb.gov.tw/07211.aspx?id=652&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.rrb.gov.tw/07211.aspx?id=652&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/29310884&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/29310884&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T21:32:14.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32820" CreationDate="2019-02-03T02:56:48.263" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Put your ticket away properly and don't lose it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to interpret it properly, we should understand the English phrase &quot;&lt;em&gt;put away&lt;/em&gt;&quot; correctly. I think this dictionary definition explains the sense of &quot;put away&quot; applied in this context well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you put something away, you put it into the place where it is normally kept when it is not being used, for example, in a drawer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your context, &quot;Put your ticket away properly&quot; suggests that you should put your ticket in the place where you feel safe and comfortable to keep it. So, 放好 here makes more sense because it's indicating &lt;em&gt;keep it properly&lt;/em&gt;. 拿住, however, denotes the sense &lt;em&gt;holding it tightly preventing from dropping&lt;/em&gt;, which is a bit off from the context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. 住 in 抓住 denotes the sense of &lt;em&gt;sustainability&lt;/em&gt;. 抓住 and 抓紧 are often interchangeable in most of contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-02-03T06:48:59.653" LastActivityDate="2019-02-03T06:48:59.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32820" CreationDate="2019-02-03T04:29:48.137" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both NS.X and Dan pointed out '好' is the correct resultative complement in this context, but they both mistaken '住' as 'tightly'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'住' doesn't indicate 'tightly', it indicates '&lt;strong&gt;continuously&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the resultative complement that indicates 'tightly' is  '緊'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me give some examples to illustrate the difference between '好', '住' and '緊'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿好 = hold (properly/ finish)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿住 = hold (continuously; stay holding)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿緊 = hold (tightly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿好武器 = hold the weapon (properly) or (finish) taking up the weapon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿住武器 = hold the weapon (continuously; stay holding)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拿緊武器 = hold the weapon (tightly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鎖好門窗 = lock the doors and windows (properly) or (finish) locking the doors and windows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鎖住門窗 = lock the doors and windows (in a continuous state; keep them locked)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鎖緊門窗 = lock the doors and windows (tightly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We can say 緊緊拿住武器, but not 緊緊拿緊武器 because 住 doesn't mean tightly, therefore we can apply the adverb 緊緊 to it. Meanwhile, 拿緊 already mean 'hold tightly' so the adverb 緊緊 would be redundant&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Put&lt;/strong&gt; your ticket &lt;strong&gt;away properly&lt;/strong&gt; and don't lose it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;收好&lt;/strong&gt;你的車票，不要弄丟了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'To put away' means 'to remove from the current location and put it where it belong' therefore, the correct term is '收'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 收住(hide continuously and stay hiding) or 收緊 (pull tightly) are not correct in this context, only 收好 (put away properly) does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The properly way to put away your ticket is put it in a zipped up pocket in your person or in your carrying bag. holding it in your hand all time increase the chance of losing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Could you please explain more about 住&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, 'verb+住' indicates the verb is 'on going' or 'in a continuous state'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舉火把 = raise a torch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舉起火把 = raise a torch up (起 is the directional complement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舉著火把 = 1. 'in the process of raising a torch' or 2. 'raise a torch continuously'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舉住火把 = 'raise a torch continuously' (著 and 住 are interchangeable in this usage) but 舉住火把 doesn't have the meaning of 'in the process of raising a torch'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-03T06:26:07.143" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32820" CreationDate="2019-02-03T05:43:09.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;住 functioning as complement as dictionary items, see e.g. 小马词典 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiaoma.info/compound.php?uni=%E4%BD%8F&amp;amp;fhz=%E4%BD%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.xiaoma.info/compound.php?uni=%E4%BD%8F&amp;amp;fhz=%E4%BD%8F&lt;/a&gt;：记住、站住、握住、拦住、顶住、堵住、握住、遮住、捉住、盯住、保住、借住、停住、刹住、包住、卡住、吸住、呆住、吸住、咽住、噎住、围住、守住、扎住、扣住、扯住、抓住、抵住、拖住、栓住、挺住、揪住、捂住、搂住、挡住、煞住、留住、绊住、绑住、迷住、钳住、钩住、黏住 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;additionally （see grammars）捆住、接住、扶住，for &lt;strong&gt;好&lt;/strong&gt; see grammar e.g. 图解基础汉语语法：写、翻译、酸、做、&lt;strong&gt;放&lt;/strong&gt;、&lt;strong&gt;拿&lt;/strong&gt;、坐、准备、收、安排&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-02-03T06:21:13.323" LastActivityDate="2019-02-03T06:21:13.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32827" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-03T10:17:12.927" Score="2" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like people are more sensitive to tones instead of phonemes. People may not notice some vowels/consonants are wrong but will immediately find that  tones are weird. Does this apply for all tonal languages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20411" LastActivityDate="2019-02-03T15:41:40.543" Title="Are Chinese native speakers more sensitive to tones or phonemes?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32827" CreationDate="2019-02-03T15:41:40.543" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. It is not unusual for native Chinese to have difficulties distinguishing between nasal vs non-nasal or alveolars vs retroflexed, but I have never met someone who has difficulties distinguishing between the 4 tones in Mandarin. Though I am learning Cantonese right now and for me, a native Mandarin-speaking Chinese the 6 tones of Cantonese is a little bit tricky. I can't answer if this is true with regards to all tone languages, just my observation. Hope it helps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9386" LastActivityDate="2019-02-03T15:41:40.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32829" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32830" CreationDate="2019-02-03T23:13:52.830" Score="1" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, its natural to say the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'I will revise for my exam.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above case, it could be argued that the word 'for' is being used as an idiom since you are revising for your own benefit and not the exam's benefit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, I have heard the following phrase spoken:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我要替考试复习.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sounds partly unnatural; I can't put my finger on it - maybe I'm wrong. My question is, is there a succinct  or better way to express doing X for Y as in the above case, maybe comparable to English? Is the use of &lt;code&gt;替&lt;/code&gt; here wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose it wouldn't be so unnatural to say something like &lt;code&gt;我要复习因为我有考试&lt;/code&gt; however, this is rather long winded. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18955" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T20:54:18.640" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T20:54:18.640" Title="'To revise for an exam' idiom" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32829" CreationDate="2019-02-04T01:26:26.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can  say 我(正在)为考试而复习. Colloquially, we usually separate it into two pieces: 快考试了，我得复习了。；我得复习了，要考试了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some other alternatives like 我要备考了，我正在备考，etc. , which means &lt;em&gt;I'm preparing for my exam.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T01:26:26.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32831" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32949" CreationDate="2019-02-04T05:33:22.630" Score="8" ViewCount="1162" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36/how-many-characters-do-i-need-to-learn&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; post gives some great statistics on Chinese character frequency, but I'm curious about the total number of distinct characters that appear in a &quot;typical&quot; book. By &quot;typical&quot; I mean something like a popular modern novel: say, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Three-Body Problem&lt;/a&gt;,&quot; or the translation of the first Harry Potter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing the number will be disturbingly high, much greater than 3000, which I think I've heard quoted as a good benchmark for reading fluently. If, as suggested in the first link, the top 3000 characters cover at most 99.4% of characters that appear in random text, that's depressingly low. It means if you know 3000 characters, then on every page (I just counted around 1000 characters/page in Harry Potter) there's a rough average of six characters you need to either look up or accept not knowing how to pronounce! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21333" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T20:53:45.287" LastActivityDate="2020-02-13T06:31:46.890" Title="How many distinct characters are there in a typical Chinese book?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="15" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32829" CreationDate="2019-02-04T08:09:39.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like Dan's 快考试了，我得复习了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;long-winded: 我需要为了我的考试而复习。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;猪事顺利！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T08:09:39.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32834" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32835" CreationDate="2019-02-04T11:47:27.100" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.duolingo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Duolingo&lt;/a&gt; translates&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你跟家人一般见面？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;When do you normally see your family?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't see why it is a question at all. I would translate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你跟家人一般见面&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;You normally see your family.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can also make a question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你跟家人一般见面吗？&#xA;Do you normally see your family?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你跟家人什么时候一般见面？&#xA;When do you normally see your family?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is the translation &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.duolingo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Duolingo&lt;/a&gt; offers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who is right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20422" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T20:53:32.120" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T20:53:32.120" Title="Is 你跟家人一般见面？ a yes-no question?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32834" CreationDate="2019-02-04T13:15:16.083" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;你跟家人一般见面？ is not a correct sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be 你跟家人一般什么时候见面？(When do you normally see your family?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T13:15:16.083" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32836" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-04T13:38:20.693" Score="7" ViewCount="545" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a East Asian preparing to celebrate the Lunar New Year and have been given these pictures of lacquered boards from my father.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gtaPv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gtaPv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The first picture&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t0YGI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t0YGI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The second picture&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nTrDs.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nTrDs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The third picture&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first picture I suspect contains stylized &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Seal scripts&lt;/a&gt;. I cannot identify any of those 4. The second picture contains typical (semi) &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive_script_(East_Asia)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cursive scripts&lt;/a&gt;, but I still don't have enough knowledge to identify those 2. The third picture is a weird one, I suspect it contains deformed Seal scripts, which makes it even harder. However, I would say that there are 4 characters in the third picture, the last one is impercept-ible, and the second one may be derived from 耑. To sum up, the only thing I'm sure about all of those 10 characters is that they're all Traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm here to seek help. What are those characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, Happy Lunar New Year guys!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9417" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T02:03:05.337" Title="Unknown Traditional Chinese characters on lacquered boards" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32834" CreationDate="2019-02-05T06:56:13.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When do you normally see your family?&#xA;你通常什么时候见到你的家人？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-02-05T06:56:13.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32840" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32841" CreationDate="2019-02-05T10:47:44.153" Score="2" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may not be on-topic for the next 4383 days, but hopefully today someone will help me out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last year was the year of the dog, and a common way to write (in English) the Chinese version of what dogs say is &lt;em&gt;wang! wang!&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today is the first day of the year of the pig. How would I write in English and say  what pigs say in Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for something that could be polite and humorous in a family situation and generally recognized in Mandarin, if such a thing exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18487" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T20:52:30.880" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T20:52:30.880" Title="How to say &quot;oink!&quot; in Mandarin in a family situation?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32840" CreationDate="2019-02-07T03:10:05.183" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, the porcine vocabulary comprises at least &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/153109418.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3 sounds&lt;/a&gt;. How one may represent them is a matter of choice. To date, no exhaustive linguistic studies, to my knowledge, exist.&#xA;'oink' is phonetically interesting, because the sound is produced by inhaling. To mimic the 嗷嗷 grunt adequately, one should also inhale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;grunt: 嗷嗷，呼噜噜&lt;br&gt;&#xA;squeal: 吱儿吱儿&lt;br&gt;&#xA;oink(somewhere between grunt and squeal): 哼哼, 耶耶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当然，不同地方的猪叫声是不一样的， 因为各个地方的方言不一样。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;东北的猪叫声听起来和广东的不一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T03:10:05.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32840" CreationDate="2019-02-07T03:38:18.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sound produced by pigs breathing can be represented by the character「豷」. This is, however, a very uncommon character, and unlikely to be understood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《說文》：「豷」，豕息也。从豕壹聲。《春秋傳》曰：“生敖及豷。”（許利切）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T03:38:18.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32843" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32846" CreationDate="2019-02-07T10:49:08.013" Score="3" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martlet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;martlet&lt;/a&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... a heraldic charge depicting a stylized bird similar to a swift or&#xA;  a house martin, with stylized feet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Martlet&quot; is not present in my Chinese dictionary, and Google Translate does not produce any results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how can I write &quot;martlet&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Context: I am describing the appearance of a martlet in the coat of arms of a particular university.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T21:55:14.977" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T21:55:14.977" Title="How to say &quot;martlet&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32843" CreationDate="2019-02-07T11:26:40.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%A0%E8%B6%B3%E9%B8%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;无足鸟&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;无足鸟，又称圣马丁鸟，学名岩燕，居住在山岩峭壁之上。 因此人们看不到它们休息，只见到圣马丁鸟无休无止的在空中飞翔，一生艰辛，因此有了无足鸟的美丽传说。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T11:26:40.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32843" CreationDate="2019-02-07T11:30:06.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;martlet /märtlət/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there's no official translation, you can always use transliteration.  For example 瑪勒鳥 (Mǎ Lēi bird)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can call it '無足燕' , based on the description &quot;swallow without feet&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;seems like user3306356 had found the official translation of martlet-- '无足鸟'(no feet bird) ; But I wonder, if it is a kind of swallow, why not call it '無足燕'(no feet swallow)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;学名岩燕 (scientific name:rock swallow), may be '岩燕' is a better choice?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T11:35:58.253" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T11:35:58.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32843" CreationDate="2019-02-07T11:31:23.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This looks like an extremely specialised field; I have no better suggestions than to describe it literally:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;無足鳥像的寓意物&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A charge depicting a martlet.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OUS9H.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OUS9H.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T11:31:23.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32831" CreationDate="2019-02-07T12:37:33.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, a direct answer should be obvious: It depends!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我觉得嘛，与其思考一本书里会有多少互不相同的汉字，不如关注一些更实际的事情。根据&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;维基百科&lt;/a&gt; (English)：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Studies in China have shown that functional literacy in written Chinese requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也就是说，如果你想要无障碍进行中文读写，需要认识 3 千到 4 千汉字。取决于你打算阅读的内容及来源&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;，你可能需要认识更多字。例如，一些古典名著（如《西游记》）会出现更多的现在已经不常用的字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另一方面，常见的内容通常不会包含太多生僻字，所以据我自己估计，根据内容不同，一本书通常会包含 2 千到 5 千不同的字。一本《读者》杂志，每期64页，包含 1.5k 到 2k 不同汉字；而一本长篇小说（如《活着》，余华），则有 4 千以上。（Trivia: 小学一年级的语文书甚至都有 1 千以上的不同汉字）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你需要进行统计研究，我建议你获取电子版文档然后自己处理；如果你只是为了估计流畅阅读需要认识的字数，那么我觉得没必要在乎，遇到不认识的字查字典就行了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;近几十年来中国大陆、Malaysia 和 Singapore 的出版物以简体中文为主，各自有一点用词等方面的偏好；而港澳台 (Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) 的出版物以繁体中文为主。如果你希望同时读懂这两种文字，你还需要认识更多字。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16738" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T12:37:33.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32849" CreationDate="2019-02-07T18:34:55.727" Score="-1" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to write a cute card for my Chinese girlfriend. But I speak no Chinese. Can you read what I wrote below? Is my handwriting OK?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aH4kn.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aH4kn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21354" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T20:51:54.333" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T18:39:27.477" Title="Are my chinese characters readable?" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32848" CreationDate="2019-02-07T19:12:51.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your characters are very readable, but I think you wrote the wrong first character. Looks like you meant to write 新 but you only wrote 亲 (the left side of 新). 亲 is like &quot;beloved&quot; or &quot;dear&quot;, but 新 is &quot;new&quot; (as in &quot;New year&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even still, it's quite obvious what you meant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I had originally made the comment that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;You also forgot 2 strokes on 愛 if you were meaning to write the traditional form or you have a 2 extra strokes if you were meaning the simplified form (爱).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, droooze pointed out in the comments that the &quot;extra strokes&quot; are just the left and right pieces of 冖. The fact that they are quite disconnected from the 一 is what had me confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20749" LastEditorUserId="20749" LastEditDate="2019-02-10T22:07:33.027" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T22:07:33.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32850" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32880" CreationDate="2019-02-08T05:07:40.263" Score="1" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;The drink's inventor was Hainanese, though accounts of the drink's history and contents vary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reference to it in any form of Chinese that I was able to find was apparently written in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zaobao.com.sg/zlifestyle/trending/story20170823-784231&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;, where it's called &lt;code&gt;新加坡司令&lt;/code&gt; which clearly is a Mandarin transcription (&lt;code&gt;sīlìng&lt;/code&gt;) and clearly not a calque of any concept of &quot;sling&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't help but wonder if the name &lt;code&gt;新加坡司令&lt;/code&gt; is a recent invention from China; Mandarin was not a major dialect in Singapore's early history, and a &lt;code&gt;新加坡司令&lt;/code&gt; sounds more like a Singaporean citizen's commanding officer during national military service than anything to do with a drink made in Singapore. Attempts to compare the name to other related names don't seem to be of much help; Singapore's ASEAN professional basketball team, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.singaporeslingers.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Singapore Slingers&lt;/a&gt;, are known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0%E5%8A%A0%E5%9D%A1%E9%A8%B0%E9%A3%9B%E4%B9%8B%E7%8D%85%E7%B1%83%E7%90%83%E9%9A%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新加坡騰飛之獅籃球隊&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese, and &lt;code&gt;騰飛之獅&lt;/code&gt; also has nothing to do with any concept of &quot;sling&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do Chinese-Singaporeans call it in their local dialects?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16284" LastEditorUserId="16284" LastEditDate="2019-02-10T00:38:30.230" LastActivityDate="2019-02-12T12:18:15.407" Title="What is a Singapore Sling drink known as in the Chinese dialects of Singapore?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32851" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-08T06:07:54.513" Score="3" ViewCount="439" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have learnt location words such as 上/下/前/后etc. and understand they can modify a noun such as -桌子上，宿舍前 . I also know the suffix 边 or 面 can be added (doesn't really change the meaning). When do i &lt;strong&gt;need&lt;/strong&gt; to use the suffix? &#xA;When do i use 上 and when do i use 上边/上面? In the next sentences, I just wrote the mono-syllabic location word, but the answers say the suffix is needed, then others I didn't need to put the suffix. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中文楼右就是图书馆  (should be 右边/右面)          &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人文楼在行政楼后吗？ (should be 后边/后面) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我办公室就在新阅览室下 (should be 下边/下面) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21358" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-02-08T07:31:14.940" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T19:17:14.667" Title="when is the suffix 边/面 required?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32851" CreationDate="2019-02-08T09:28:26.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;see grammar, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/31376/difference-between-location-nouns-and-place-position-nouns-%e6%96%b9%e4%bd%8d%e8%af%8d-vs-%e5%a4%84%e6%89%80%e8%af%8d/31378#31378&quot;&gt;Difference between location nouns and place/position nouns, 方位词 vs 处所词&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;additionally 汉语语法基础，第一章 词法 第一节 名词 ２。４附：方位词 方位词是具有助词性质的名词。从意义方面说，它具有一定的意义-----表示方位；但从语法方面说，它的用途又和一般的名词不同。方位词一般不单独用，有的甚至根本不能自由运用，总是附在名词后边，或者同别的方位词结合成一个表示时间或处所的名词。鉴于这种情况，把方位词列入名词，但是又不等同看待算作名词的附类。&#xA;常用的方位词有以下这些：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东 西 南 北 上 下 左 右 里 前 后 边 面 头 外 中 间 内&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些单纯的方位词还可以同＂以＂或者＂之＂构成合成的方位词。如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以上 以下 以东 以西 以外 以内 之中 之间 之内 之上 之下 之外&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方位词的用途主要有两个：１。同别的成分结合在一起，构成表示时间或处所的名词。如：东边 南面 域北 京西 床边 门外  内里 午后 外头 左右 上下 中间 &#xA;这里要注意方位词在由它构成的名词里边所处的位置。比较：外国---国外  北城---城北 ＂外国＂指我们国家以外的＂国家＂，是一般的明词；＂国外＂指我们国家以外的空间，是表示处所的明词。两者是不同的。&#xA;２。附在别的词或者词组后边，构成表示时间或者处所的方位结构。如：&#xA;教室之外 长江以南 五个月之中 八个人以上&#xA;由方位词构成的名词或者方位结构既然是表示处所或者时间的，它们的用途也就同表示处所或者时间的名词一样，不需要再加以说明了。这里要补充说明的是，所有的名词和方位结构都不能直接作补语，必须先同介词组成介词结构，然后再由介词结构充当补语。如：酒杯要摆&lt;em&gt;在桌子上&lt;/em&gt;，但算盘却要收&lt;em&gt;在抽屉里&lt;/em&gt;，或者最好是在肚子里。（鲁迅，病后杂谈）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there happen to be certain differences between usages of different nouns of locality which simply have to be learned, e.g. NP +上、下、前、后、里、内、外、中、间 exist，while 东、西、南、北、左、右 cannot be used the same way, also depending on whether referring to space or time or sequence order  前、后 are used differently, similarly instead of 下, 底下 can be used more generally in the sense of &quot;under&quot;, e.g. 棹子底下,新阅览室底下, also note compounds with 以,之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-02-08T13:13:51.393" LastActivityDate="2019-02-08T13:13:51.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32547" CreationDate="2019-02-08T10:45:55.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Start with basic characters. Complex characters are consisting of the basic ones.&#xA;I found it it very helpful to learn the Japanese kanji kentei level 10 characters first (without reading/pronunciation of course)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Repeat drawing them and stick to the stroke order. 90% of the success is practise. I do not mean one time 2hr practise , but consistent practise over months and years. Every week two or three times is much more efficient, after all you are learning in the long term.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make up your own mnemonics (using the basic characters)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I like to draw the characters in a rather high quality notebook instead of using scrape paper because I can see the progress and how the book becomes full, fills me with pride. A good occasion imo is while watching a movie.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21360" LastActivityDate="2019-02-08T10:45:55.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32855" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32858" CreationDate="2019-02-08T12:25:39.657" Score="3" ViewCount="512" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think most people know the basic rules of character writing, like from top to bottom, left to right, etc., but it seems that the rules don't work at all when it comes to cursive writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt; Does cursive have any order logic, even if its own? What are they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T15:23:47.027" Title="Does cursive script have any order logic?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32856" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-08T23:46:58.560" Score="-1" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;祭祖的时候，贾敬是主祭，贾赦是陪祭，贾珍献爵，贾琏贾琮献帛，宝玉捧香。青衣奏乐，献爵三次，焚帛奠酒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, 贾敬、贾赦、贾珍、贾琏、贾琮、宝玉都是男人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青衣，I'm not sure if this is a woman or a man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没有什么贾氏的女人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Were women not allowed to make offerings to their ancestors?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-02-09T00:48:47.180" Title="Were women not allowed to honour their ancestors?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32856" CreationDate="2019-02-09T00:37:56.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/185599929.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;女人在古代能不能进祠堂？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Base on this post, women were not even normally allowed to enter the 宗祠 (ancestors' hall). let alone hosting a rite there in olden time China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it only happened in 父系社會 (Patriarchal society). We all know before the patriarchal society time, China was a 母系社會 (Matriarchal society). I am sure the jobs of 祭司 (priest) would be held by women back then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://kknews.cc/culture/28llalz.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://kknews.cc/culture/28llalz.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;在封建社會裡，大戶人家在每年的&amp;quot;祭宗祠″和死了人出殯時，都要請這些走出門戶便叫作&amp;quot;青衣″的人來演奏一番&amp;quot;祭祀″的音樂。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;青衣 seems to referring to 'musician'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-09T00:48:47.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32855" CreationDate="2019-02-09T03:02:50.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're not too concerned about aesthetics, and more about functional cursive balancing your own writing speed and other people's reading comprehension, just build upon &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;regular script&lt;/a&gt; stroke orders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8jfgq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8jfgq.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「鬱」, written in 7 strokes;「飛」, written in 3 strokes;「龜」, written in 2 strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to re-order some regular script stroke orders, focusing on the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Abbreviate dense part of characters with a generic scribble which can capture the outline. The detail and exact shape of highly dense portions of characters does not impede reading comprehension.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Think carefully about where the next part of the character starts, and try to reorder the strokes to minimise pen movement.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest using a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-cursive_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;semi-cursive&lt;/a&gt; to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive_script_(East_Asia)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cursive&lt;/a&gt; style rather than a fully cursive style, like the example of「龜」above. If other people and standard handwriting recognition programs can read your writing, then you're doing something right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YHAZT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YHAZT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Semi-cursive works okay for Pleco handwriting (「鬱」and「飛」). Full cursive does not (「龜」), but Apple's handwriting recognition does a fairly good job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-09T03:02:50.087" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32859" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-09T10:03:05.903" Score="1" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently built the following app that lets you listen to a Chinese word and asks tests your tone hearing ability:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tones.strokes.ovh/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tones.strokes.ovh/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to extend it, but in order to get there I need a collection of Chinese sound samples, annotated with pinyin and tones - and ideally, also Chinese characters related to the sample.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where could I find such a collection?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19231" LastEditorUserId="19231" LastEditDate="2019-02-09T10:21:29.787" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T20:01:55.380" Title="Where can I find a collection of samples of Mandarin spoken words, annotated with pinyin and tones?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;listening&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32859" CreationDate="2019-02-09T19:02:20.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some websites or apps you may need:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/89Py6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/89Py6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineasy.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chineasy.com/&lt;/a&gt; All you need. Looks like the best one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KHkaE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KHkaE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinesecharacterart.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chinesecharacterart.com/&lt;/a&gt; No audio is a shortcoming&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SQ3s4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SQ3s4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hanzi-oracle/id736544977?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hanzi-oracle/id736544977?mt=8&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;IOS app, not test.&#xA;Hope it's helpful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21364" LastEditorUserId="21364" LastEditDate="2019-02-10T19:14:05.697" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T19:14:05.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32861" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-09T21:51:27.217" Score="2" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could I say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当我回家的时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for &quot;when I was coming home&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21365" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-02-10T00:06:23.770" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T02:40:29.013" Title="Not sure what I should use for &quot;when&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32861" CreationDate="2019-02-10T01:04:40.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you use the adjectival '的', then it has to be '当我回家的时候' (at the time I come home) - &lt;em&gt;时候(time/ moment) is a noun&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't use the adjectival '的' then you can write '当我回家时' (when I come home) - &lt;em&gt;时 (when) is an adverb&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当我回家的时候 = at the time I come home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当我回家时 = when I come home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当我正在回家的时候 = during the time I was coming home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当我正在回家时 = when I was coming home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T01:04:40.720" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32864" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32866" CreationDate="2019-02-10T05:34:25.650" Score="2" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 上不上下不下 mean as an idiom? (Not the riddle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the sentence where the phrase came from.&#xA;可惜，她越是这样，楚野就越是觉得被一根刺卡在喉咙处，上不上下不下，非常的不爽。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21212" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T18:57:19.853" Title="Meaning of 上不上下不下" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32864" CreationDate="2019-02-10T05:51:35.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;上不上, 下不下 is something between a detailed sentence and an idiomatic phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can't go up, can't go down (struck in the middle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要上不能上, 要下不能下 --&amp;gt; &lt;em&gt;上不上, 下不下&lt;/em&gt; --&amp;gt; &lt;strong&gt;不上不下&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, we would reduce 要上不能上, 要下不能下 directly to an idiomatic phrase &amp;quot;不上不下&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of similarly structured phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;説咸不咸，説淡不淡 --&amp;gt; 咸不咸, 淡不淡 --&amp;gt; &lt;strong&gt;不咸不淡&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T05:56:42.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32864" CreationDate="2019-02-10T05:55:51.327" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;「上不上下不下」has three meanings; the first one listed applies to your example sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Describing someone's mood, frame of mind, or temper as being &lt;em&gt;uneasy&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;anxious&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;volatile&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Just right; perfect&lt;/em&gt; (not too high and not too low).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Stuck between a rock and a hard place&lt;/em&gt; (can't move up or down without running into disaster).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可惜，她越是這樣，楚野就越是覺得被一根刺卡在喉嚨處，上不上下不下，非常的不爽。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Alas, the more she&lt;/em&gt; (她) &lt;em&gt;acts this way, the more upset&lt;/em&gt; 楚野 &lt;em&gt;feels, as if there is a thorn stuck in her&lt;/em&gt; (楚野's) &lt;em&gt;throat,&lt;/em&gt; 「上不上下不下」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two options for translating「上不上下不下」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Referring to the thorn stuck in the throat: &lt;em&gt;unable to be spat out or swallowed&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As an emphasis of the feeling of being upset (「非常的不爽」): &lt;em&gt;making her&lt;/em&gt; (楚野) &lt;em&gt;extremely uneasy&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither translation alters the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T06:14:48.707" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32864" CreationDate="2019-02-10T06:18:59.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上不上下不下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a figure of speech here. It denotes the sense of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;uncertain or undecided&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Usually, what make people uneasiest/most uncomfortable is that something important/you care  most is undecided or uncertain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;可惜，她越是这样，楚野就越是觉得被一根刺卡在喉咙处，上不上下不下，非常的不爽。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, what she had done put 楚野 into a situation where he felt most uncomfortable and didn't know what to do, just like a thorn stuck in his throat which could neither came out of his mouth nor be swallowed into his stomach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. 上不上下不下 literally can be taken as 说上不上, 说下不下: &lt;em&gt;If you say it's 'up', it's not really 'up'. If you say it's 'down', it's not really 'down'. (And it's right there)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-02-10T06:46:58.563" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T06:46:58.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32868" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32869" CreationDate="2019-02-10T11:23:41.590" Score="4" ViewCount="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please forgive my lack of knowledge of Chinese. I'm doing book research and am looking for the most appropriate word for 'proxy' in the sense of a &lt;em&gt;substitute&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;surrogate&lt;/em&gt;. For the sake of clarity, let's say you wanted to kill someone, but wanted someone else to do it for you. (I'm not looking for the word for hitman or assassin; it needs the above connotations.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;替代 seems to be the closest I've found, but I want to avoid any confusion or the meaning being misconstrued!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21369" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-02-10T13:35:37.097" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T13:35:37.097" Title="Most appropriate word for proxy/substitute/surrogate" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32868" CreationDate="2019-02-10T12:27:50.453" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;proxy&lt;/strong&gt;: 'the authority to represent someone else, especially in voting' is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;代理&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;代理人&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;surrogate&lt;/strong&gt;: 'a substitute, especially a person deputizing for another in a specific role or office' is also &quot;&lt;strong&gt;代理&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;代理人&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The baseball term &quot;&lt;strong&gt;代打&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (substitute batter) also obtained the meaning of '&lt;strong&gt;substitute&lt;/strong&gt;' (for any role)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For the sake of clarity, let's say you wanted to kill someone, but wanted someone else to do it for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;借刀殺人 is a common idiom for &quot;arrange someone to kill for you&quot;. It literally means &quot;borrow knife to kill&quot; and the &quot;borrowed knife&quot; is someone other than yourself. He can be your willing agent, or an unwitting pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;假手於人 is a common idiom for &quot;make someone else to do your job&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T12:27:50.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32870" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-11T00:02:44.327" Score="1" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this is considered an appropriate conversation or question but I've had conversations with Cantonese speakers before who've mentioned that it's so easy to swear in Cantonese, but there aren't a lot of ways to do that in Mandarin. I was wondering if anyone knew of any resources I could use on different ways of swearing in Mandarin? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21370" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T15:54:35.070" Title="Curious about different ways of swearing in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;swearing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32861" CreationDate="2019-02-11T02:40:29.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;当我回家的时候 is OK&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also do this without an explicit 'when'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw a fox when I was coming home.&#xA;我看到一条狐狸，在我回家的路上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was coming home, I saw a fox.&#xA;我在回家的路上看到一条狐狸。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find it is not so easy to move things around in Chinese sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T02:40:29.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29179" CreationDate="2019-02-11T11:53:01.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are occasional suggestions for a male tā character (for example, ⿰男也, in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/33257620&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this online discussion&lt;/a&gt;), but none have caught on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, the desire for an unambiguously gender-neutral character for tā has led some people to write &quot;TA&quot;, even when the rest of the text is written in characters.  This has been discussed by the linguist Victor Mair on the Language Log:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8937&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The degendering of the third person pronoun in Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=27280&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Roman-letter Mandarin pronoun of indeterminate gender&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15320" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T11:53:01.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32870" CreationDate="2019-02-11T15:54:35.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;but there aren't a lot of ways to do that in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is simply not true. I bet one can write a novel barely with swearing words in Chinese mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese_profanity&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese_profanity&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please don't use those words，very disgusting. but if you meet those words， you may want to know it， so it is not bad to check it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are in different levels, some of them are common words that could be used without any negative meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T15:54:35.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32874" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32875" CreationDate="2019-02-11T17:52:43.300" Score="2" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;I faced sentence with word order that is different from expected &quot;我们两个是好朋友&quot; instead of &quot;我们是两个好朋友&quot;. Does it have some different meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19883" LastActivityDate="2019-02-12T02:16:01.207" Title="Words order: 我们两个是好朋友" Tags="&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32874" CreationDate="2019-02-11T18:14:08.727" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not much of a different depends on the question asked if this is an answer:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我们两个是好朋友 - Us two are good friends  &#xA;&#xA;我们是两个好朋友 - We are two good friends  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T18:14:08.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32874" CreationDate="2019-02-12T02:16:01.207" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Ben Yang pointed out, 我们是两个好朋友 is not quite idiomatic. It's because 两个好朋友 (two good friends) is not a &lt;strong&gt;unity&lt;/strong&gt;. You can say 我们是一对好姐妹；我们是一对夫妻，where 一对好姐妹 or 一对夫妻 is a unity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们两个是好朋友 is idiomatic, meaning &lt;em&gt;we two are good friends&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-02-12T02:16:01.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32877" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32878" CreationDate="2019-02-12T07:52:00.903" Score="3" ViewCount="736" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to be able to input tone alongside the pronunciation in order to input Chinese characters on Linux (e.g. ta1 = 他, ta2 = 蹹, ta3 = 塔, ta4 = 踏).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most modern IMEs do not allow this input method, in order to type any of these characters you would simply type &quot;ta&quot;, and then choose the desired character from a list. However, when learning Chinese, it is useful to be able to input the tone, so that when you are typing Chinese, you have some degree of confirmation that you are getting the tones right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I solved this with my own research, but I wanted to share my solution with other people who might have the same problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that there are many questions on here about outputting pinyin with toned input (e.g. ta1 = tā) on Linux, and some about outputting Chinese characters with toned input on other operating systems, but I don't think there are any about outputting Chinese characters with toned input on Linux (though I may be wrong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21372" LastActivityDate="2019-02-12T08:36:30.850" Title="On Linux, how do I output Chinese Characters (not pinyin) using tones in the input" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;input-methods&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32877" CreationDate="2019-02-12T08:24:29.823" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try using Terra-Pinyin (地球拼音) which runs on rime (中州韻) which runs on either ibus or fcitx. It allows you to input using &quot;-&quot; to represent 1st tone, &quot;/&quot; to represent 2nd tone, &quot;&gt;&quot; to represent 3rd tone, &quot;\&quot; to represent 4th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I honestly don't remember the entire install process, but I give an outline as best as I can remember (but I may be wrong in some places). I use Ubuntu 18, so it may be different for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open Language Support, click Install/Remove Languages, add Chinese (Simplified) and/or Chinese (Traditional).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open Input Method, press OK, Yes, choose ibus (if it isn't already selected), press OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open the terminal, run &lt;code&gt;sudo apt-get install ibus-rime&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open settings, go to Language and Region, under Input Sources click the plus sign, click Chinese (China), click Chinese (Rime), then click add.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Restart your computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After restarting and logging in, in the top right, there should be a button that lets you swap between English and Chinese (Rime) input. If you switch to Chinese (Rime), you should be able to type in Chinese, using Luna-Pinyin (朙月拼音) however you will not yet be able to use tones in your input.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may or may not need to run &lt;code&gt;sudo apt-get install librime-data-terra-pinyin&lt;/code&gt; (I'm not sure if it comes preinstalled)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, follow the instructions here to add terra-pinyin to Rime: &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Rime&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Rime&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize those instructions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go to home. Press ctrl-H to show hidden files. go into .config, then into ibus, then into rime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Create the file &lt;code&gt;default.custom.yaml&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Inside it, write&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;patch:&#xA;  schema_list:&#xA;    - schema: terra_pinyin&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(including the indentation), then save the file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the rime menu in the top right, switch to Chinese (Rime), then 3 options should appear. Press the second option (this will put your changes into effect).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, you should have Terra-Pinyin (地球拼音) running.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typing &quot;ta-&quot; will give you a bunch of first tone choices, typing &quot;ta/&quot; will give you a bunch of second tone choices, typing ta&amp;lt; will give you a bunch of third tone choices and typing &quot;ta\&quot; will give you a bunch of fourth tone choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21372" LastEditorUserId="21372" LastEditDate="2019-02-12T08:36:30.850" LastActivityDate="2019-02-12T08:36:30.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32855" CreationDate="2019-02-12T10:55:59.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt there will be a universal rule, but the top-to-bottom, left-to-right rule remains usually the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Purists might object, but I suggest you use some database and compare the 楷書 and 行書, to get some ideas how they are simplified, like: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ziti88.com/xs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;行书字体转换器&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very interesting violation of the left-to-right rule is 犬:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/22440444/answer/86137644&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「類」简化后为什么要把形旁「犬」的一点去掉--趙瑾昀答&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2019-02-12T10:55:59.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32850" CreationDate="2019-02-12T12:18:15.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like many words characteristic of Singapore, it is most likely to be said in English/Singlish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Local Singaporean Chinese, whether Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, Hainanese, Hakka, Fuzhounese or Fuqingnese, does have a very large range of loan words related to the circumstances of British rule on the Malayan Peninsula. One of the most salient examples when in Singapore is the use of the &lt;em&gt;English&lt;/em&gt; form of address &lt;code&gt;uncle&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;auntie&lt;/code&gt;, which is cross-topolectal and trans-lingual, and by extension, racially neutral. A common example from Malay is &lt;code&gt;mata&lt;/code&gt; for the police, which is strongly preferred over most loans/calques of 警察 by Singaporeans of the pioneer generation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;code&gt;sling&lt;/code&gt; is even &lt;em&gt;more&lt;/em&gt; likely to be an English loanword, as it was originally a &quot;gin sling&quot;, a form of specifically Western alcohol served primarily to Western patrons in the colonial era. One reference from 1903 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/1847039/who-invented-singapore-sling-raffles-barman-surely&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;reported in the SCMP&lt;/a&gt; makes a comment about &quot;pink slings for pale people&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though Boon was (likely) a native Hainanese speaker, his position as bartender at the Raffles would have meant he was in an Anglophone environment for work. The &lt;code&gt;sling&lt;/code&gt; was already  an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.worldfoodist.com/2012/09/15/who-invented-the-singapore-sling/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;established drink in the 1910s&lt;/a&gt; in Singapore. Hence it was likely referred to and discussed in English, even in predominantly Chinese topolect conversations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-02-12T12:18:15.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32881" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-12T12:56:07.457" Score="2" ViewCount="2200" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an easy way in Word or Text or other software to type Chinese vertically from the right to the left, such as the following?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0R8Q0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0R8Q0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-13T18:18:39.757" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T01:27:54.340" Title="How to type Chinese vertically from the right to the left?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2020-08-20T23:43:06.420" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32881" CreationDate="2019-02-12T13:41:26.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In MS Word select &lt;strong&gt;Text Direction&lt;/strong&gt; and change it to &lt;em&gt;vertical&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/L0A3K.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/L0A3K.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Word needs to have East Asian language features enabled to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Word for Mac looks slightly different:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vLLo4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vLLo4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="21415" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T01:27:54.340" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T01:27:54.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32883" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-13T05:31:58.010" Score="2" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;看起来&quot; an adverb or a verb? I've been searching all over the internet and I can't find the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21378" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T01:47:17.313" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T01:47:17.313" Title="Which part of speech is 看起来: an adverb or a verb?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32883" CreationDate="2019-02-13T05:54:15.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;看起来&lt;/strong&gt;' means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;seem&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (look like) and it is a verb, same meaning as '&lt;strong&gt;似乎&lt;/strong&gt;' (seem)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/seem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/seem&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;seem&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;intransitive verb&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 : to appear to the observation or understanding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 : to give the impression of being&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He &lt;strong&gt;seems&lt;/strong&gt; very weak = 他&lt;strong&gt;看起来&lt;/strong&gt;很虚弱/ 他&lt;strong&gt;似乎&lt;/strong&gt;很虚弱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;he &lt;strong&gt;seems&lt;/strong&gt; quite angry = 他&lt;strong&gt;看起来&lt;/strong&gt;很生气/ 他&lt;strong&gt;似乎&lt;/strong&gt;很生气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;看起来 is usually reduced to 看来 in everyday speech&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-13T06:26:20.443" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T06:26:20.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="117" CreationDate="2019-02-13T06:30:23.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you search for ”填空“ (fill in the blank) in either the android play store or iOS app store, you can find a number of such results.  I think they're geared towards native speakers rather than language learners, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21379" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T06:30:23.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32886" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32887" CreationDate="2019-02-13T06:34:45.453" Score="1" ViewCount="603" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have to write a grant application in Chinese. I intend to write it in English first, and then get a friend to translate it for me. I am supposed to give an overview of my research project with a word count of 4000-8000 Chinese characters. What word count should I be aiming for when I write the English version?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The text is about mathematics, but since it is an overview intended for a general scientific audience it will not be overly technical. In particular, it will contain some  mathematics terminology, but almost no mathematical equations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21380" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T18:01:24.027" Title="How many English words does 4000-8000 Chinese characters correspond to?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32886" CreationDate="2019-02-13T06:40:29.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you plug the text you just wrote into Google Translate, then paste the output of that into wordcounter.net, you get 151 characters from your above 96 words.  That approximately matches my experience.  Plan for about 1.5 characters per English word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21379" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T06:40:29.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="117" CreationDate="2019-02-13T10:14:02.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even though word games are not very popular as before， but you still can find many of them：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成语接龙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;填字游戏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;灯谜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a hard one， 飞花令.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飞花 is a quote from 春城无处不飞花， 令 means 酒令， you have to drink when you fail in the original rule。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules are simple， given a character， everyone say a sentence of a poem than include the character at a position。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the character is 月。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1st player： &lt;strong&gt;月&lt;/strong&gt;出惊山鸟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2nd： 明&lt;strong&gt;月&lt;/strong&gt;几时有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3rd： 今夜&lt;strong&gt;月&lt;/strong&gt;明人尽望&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4th： 峨眉山&lt;strong&gt;月&lt;/strong&gt;半轮秋&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5th： 小时不识&lt;strong&gt;月&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is really hard, I can't play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Luckily， there are apps that reduce the difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;飞花令 ↓&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/utYy3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/utYy3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;填字 ↓&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YflUP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YflUP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;猜成语 ↓&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ptT6M.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ptT6M.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find these games in Apple app store or Google play, others may in the TapTap. If you dig in more, there are more games, like 猜歌词， 猜电影， 你画我猜...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those games need you familiar with Chinese pop culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I like is 你画我猜 ↓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wXHV2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wXHV2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T10:21:39.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32886" CreationDate="2019-02-13T18:01:24.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For maths it could be more than 1.5 times more. Every Chinese character is counted as a word. For example, a math terminology in Chinese only  has 2 to 4 characters, but it is counted as 2 to 4 words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19241" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T18:01:24.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29179" CreationDate="2019-02-13T18:22:32.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese don’t know 他includes 她. The new generation use “TA” to show non gender bias, so if you use 他, people might think you mean him/he. “TA” is wildly widely used online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19241" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T18:22:32.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32848" CreationDate="2019-02-13T18:31:02.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Absolutely readable! Why did you ask? You did a good job. First character is wrong though. It should be 新 (xin) not 亲 (qin). 新means “new”， 亲means “my dear” or “Love” “babe” or .... many many other meanings but “new”. People will understand it, just a bit fanny.  Your handwriting is absolutely readable.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19241" LastEditorUserId="19241" LastEditDate="2019-02-13T18:39:27.477" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T18:39:27.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32864" CreationDate="2019-02-13T18:48:21.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;上不上下不下 is not a standard idiom。 It derives from 不上不下. The new form (上不上下不下）is easier for modern people to understand.&#xA;People often misunderstood the meaning of 不上不下， so the writer made it easier for people to understand. &#xA;The same thing is happening to English. Uneducated people like saying “anyways “, but it should be “anyway”. There is no “s”. Now , more and more people say “anyways “, so some writers start to use “anyways”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19241" LastEditorUserId="19241" LastEditDate="2019-02-13T18:57:19.853" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T18:57:19.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32851" CreationDate="2019-02-13T19:04:13.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Standard: 前面，后面，上面，下面， 左边，右边， 里面，外面。&#xA;southerners: 前面，后面，前边，后边，上面，下面，上边, 下边，左边，右边， 里面，外面，里边，外边。&#xA;Remember: 左面means on the surface of the left side of something(the wall).  右面means on the surface of right side of something.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1   中文楼右边就是图书馆 (should be 右边)&#xA;2   人文楼在行政楼后面吗？ (should be 后边/后面)&#xA;3   我办公室就在新阅览室下面 (should be 下边/下面)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19241" LastEditorUserId="19241" LastEditDate="2019-02-13T19:17:14.667" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T19:17:14.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5575" CreationDate="2019-02-13T19:27:21.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我爱吃辣。&#xA;我喜欢辣。&#xA;我喜欢吃辣。&#xA;我吃辣。&#xA;我喜欢辣椒。&#xA;我喜欢辣的。&#xA;我喜欢吃辣的。&#xA;我爱吃辣的。&#xA;我想吃辣的。&#xA;我要辣的。&#xA;Are all correct!&#xA;People normally don’t say 我爱辣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19241" LastEditorUserId="19241" LastEditDate="2019-02-13T19:33:20.950" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T19:33:20.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32903" CreationDate="2019-02-14T00:21:35.247" Score="2" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_honorifics#Honorific_Verbs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Honorific Verbs&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like nouns and proper nouns, some Chinese verbs can also be complemented with an honorific modifier. For example, the verbs 告gào (&amp;quot;to tell&amp;quot;), 还huán (&amp;quot;to return&amp;quot;)，陪péi (&amp;quot;to accompany&amp;quot;), 劝quàn (&amp;quot;to urge&amp;quot;)，送sòng (&amp;quot;to gift&amp;quot;) can be complemented by the honorific prefix 奉fèng~ (Lit. to offer respectfully) to form the more polite versions 奉告 (I respectfully tell you), 奉还 (I respectfully return to you), 奉陪 (I respectfully accompany you), 奉劝 (I respectfully urge you), and 奉送 (I respectfully gift you). Another example is the honorific prefix 恭gōng~ (Lit. &amp;quot;look forward to respectfully&amp;quot;), e.g., 恭贺 (I respectfully congratulate you), 恭候 (I respectfully await you), 恭请 (I respectfully invite you)，恭迎 (I respectfully welcome you). The addition of the honorific prefix turns these verbs into a politer version. Unlike adverbs, the prefixes are often verbs themselves, and the compounded honorific verb functions as a single language unit (i.e., a single verb). Other common prefixes for verbs and verb examples are summarized in the verb complements section below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to say &amp;quot;I respectfully thank you&amp;quot;? I've always feared that 谢谢你 was too casual for elders. And 我感谢你 too awkward to say to elders that are &amp;quot;basically family&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21387" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-02T07:52:00.860" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T07:52:00.860" Title="Is there a way to say &quot;I respectfully thank you&quot; to familiar elders?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32897" CreationDate="2019-02-14T01:56:46.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could say 谢谢您 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you really want to be super respectful, especially to some respected person who you are not quite familar with, you could go with the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;承蒙关照，不胜感激。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厚情盛意，应接不遑，切谢切谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感荷高情，非言语所能鸣谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many more &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ziyexing.com/article/article-wz-14.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; which you can check out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T01:56:46.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32362" CreationDate="2019-02-14T03:29:15.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, I believe these are the colloquial expressions that you are looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我找了一找才找到。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我找了半天才找到。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我找了好久才找到。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key word is 才, which is the closest to the English words &quot;until&quot; / &quot;till&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. 1 is perhaps the best match. &quot;找了一找&quot; simply means &quot;looked for&quot; or &quot;searched&quot;, without any indication of time frame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18531" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T03:29:15.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32900" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-14T04:28:47.403" Score="2" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking up 醒酒石. I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;醒酒石：所谓醒酒石，即喝醉酒后，衔在嘴里可以醒酒解渴的石头。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look up 衔  I &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/23/js/8854.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;find&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;用嘴含，用嘴叼：衔枚。燕子衔泥。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 衔 means 'hold in the mouth', why bother adding '在嘴里'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Also, I'd be interested to know, geologically, what kind of stone is 醒酒石. Could be very useful some mornings!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-14T12:28:02.730" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T13:13:02.900" Title="If 衔 means 'hold in the mouth', why bother adding '在嘴里'?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32900" CreationDate="2019-02-14T04:38:01.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is in the examples-- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;用嘴含(hold in mouth) ; 用嘴叼 (carry with mouth)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衔在嘴里 = hold inside the mouth (like sucking on a hard candy inside your mouth)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衔/叼在嘴边 = hold with the mouth (like cat carry kitten)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T04:38:01.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32883" CreationDate="2019-02-14T04:43:57.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whereas in English 'look' can be used in a passive sense, very similar to 'seem', I don't believe Chinese 看 is used in that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He looks sad.  = He seems sad. (How he 'seems' is my impression, not his active intent, unless of course, he is an actor.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'look' in an active sense is used, for example, with 'at':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at this mess! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 看 shows a hand 手 shielding the eyes 目. You might do this on a bright day when you look at something in the distance. Chinese 看 is active:  看起来 = 看上去 = look at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese 似乎(as if, look like, seem) = 好像(looks like)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use Tang Ho's example: 他看起来很虚弱。We could also write 看起来他很虚弱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would interpret 看起来 in 他看起来很虚弱。 as an imperative: 他看起来 = (if you) look at him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is easy to see how, in translation, the confusion between passive 'look' and active 'look' could result in 'He seems frail.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will often find 看起来似乎 together: 他看起来似乎很虚弱。which you can also translate as 'If you look at him he looks like he is very frail. ('He seems seems very frail' probably would not win any translation awards!!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T04:43:57.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32897" CreationDate="2019-02-14T05:03:06.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谢谢 is formal enough, the casual thing in the phrase &quot;谢谢你&quot; is '你'. To show respect, you can replace '你' with formal/polite pronoun like 閣下.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To show respect when you thanks someone, simply address that person by his or her title instead of the pronoun '你' (you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢岳父 (Thank you, father-in-law)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢老師 (Thank you, teacher)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢总理 (Thank you, Prime Minister)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢夫人 (Thank you, Madam)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can add honorific like '大人' after the title if the person is an authority figure or with high social status&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢总理大人 (Thank you, great Prime Minister)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢总理閣下 (Thank you, Prime Minister, the respected one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;閣下 is a polite /formal form of pronoun 你; it is also an honorific itself. Only use it with people you are not very close to.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢岳父大人 (Thank you great father-in-law)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To show your humbleness you can also use praise words after the thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢你的大恩大德 (thank you, for your great grace)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢你的再造之恩 (thank you, for your life saving grace)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢你的海量汪涵 (thank you, for your great forgiveness)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-14T22:08:06.513" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T22:08:06.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32904" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-14T07:29:13.313" Score="2" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usage of 多 is a little bit confusing. As I understand it's an adjective in the following example 两百多个学生, but in the below-mentioned examples is “多” an adjective or an adverb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1）你多吃点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2）多给他点时间吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21378" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-08T22:45:58.593" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T22:45:58.593" Title="In 你多吃点 and 多给他点时间吧, is 多 an adjective or an adverb?" Tags="&lt;adverbs&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32904" CreationDate="2019-02-14T08:28:14.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;多 can be explained as &quot;more&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你多吃点 -&gt; 你吃多点 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;多给他点时间吧 -&gt; 给他多点时间吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That might be easier to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T08:28:14.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32900" CreationDate="2019-02-14T12:56:52.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is being held? Majority of Chinese VP especially less common ones are disyllabic or as in the present case monosyllabic verb combined with adverbial preposition phrase (介词短语),if object makes clear that mouth is involved there is no need to mention it, e.g. (bkrs examples) 燕子衔泥│他衔着一个大烟斗,衔环相报(wounded bird holds ring),   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-02-14T13:13:02.900" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T13:13:02.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32564" CreationDate="2019-02-14T14:16:49.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quora -&gt; 知乎 （share your stories that you just make up）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;facebook -&gt; 人人（almost died）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;twitter -&gt; 微博 （to be a VIP follower）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reddit -&gt; 贴吧（not allow overseas）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;youtube -&gt; 优酷（You can even watch videos between ADs)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T14:16:49.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32904" CreationDate="2019-02-14T20:49:32.213" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;多&quot; here functions just like &quot;more&quot; in English. It can be an adjective or adverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In &quot;多吃点&quot;,  '多' (more) is an adverb for the verb '吃'(verb). In English, &quot;多吃点水果&quot;  means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;eat&lt;/strong&gt; fruit &lt;strong&gt;more&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In &quot;吃多点&quot; , '多点' is an adjective for an omitted object. In English, &quot;吃多点水果&quot; means &quot;eat &lt;strong&gt;more fruit&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In &quot;多给他点时间吧&quot;, '多' (more) is an adverb for the verb '给' (give). In English, &quot;多给他点时间吧&quot; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;give&lt;/strong&gt; him time &lt;strong&gt;more&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In &quot;给他多点时间吧&quot;, '多点' (more) is an adjective for the noun '时间' (time). In English, &quot;给他多点时间吧&quot; means &quot;give him &lt;strong&gt;more time&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多; 很多/ 多点; 多些 preceding a noun is an adjective. e.g. 多糖 (a lot of sugar), 很多糖 (a lot of sugar), 多点糖 (more sugar), 多些糖 (more sugar)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;多 preceding a verb is an adverb. e.g. 多加糖 (add sugar more)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[verb + 多了] = [verb + often enough/ too much] ; '多了' is an adverb for the verb.  e.g. &quot;看&lt;strong&gt;多了&lt;/strong&gt;書&quot; (read books &lt;strong&gt;often enough&lt;/strong&gt;) ; &quot;加&lt;strong&gt;多了&lt;/strong&gt;糖&quot; (added &lt;strong&gt;too much&lt;/strong&gt; sugar)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;how about 少，for example in “少吃点” is 少 an adverb here? My dictionary says 少 is only a verb and an adjective.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少吃 = [少(adv) + 吃(v)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少点吃 / 少吃点 = [少点(adv) + 吃 (v)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Actually people say 多点吃 and 少点吃 more often than 多吃点 and 少吃点&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;少&lt;/strong&gt;吃水果 = &lt;strong&gt;not often&lt;/strong&gt; eat fruit (&lt;em&gt;少 is adverb for 吃&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少点吃水果 = &lt;strong&gt;eat&lt;/strong&gt; fruit &lt;strong&gt;less&lt;/strong&gt;; 少吃点水果 = &lt;strong&gt;eat&lt;/strong&gt; fruit &lt;strong&gt;less&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;少点 is adverb for 吃&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃&lt;strong&gt;少点&lt;/strong&gt;水果 = eat &lt;strong&gt;less&lt;/strong&gt; fruit (&lt;em&gt;少点 is adjective for 水果&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-15T13:42:18.540" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T13:42:18.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32912" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-14T22:11:52.403" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many people say 卧槽 when something unpleasant happens surprisingly. However, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23273/why-chinese-use-too-many-%E9%94%99%E5%88%AB%E5%AD%97&quot;&gt;this word is considered as vulgar&lt;/a&gt;. So how to express such feelings decently without using offensive words? Is 苦也 a good choice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;……只觉重门叠户之内，如处隐伏甲兵。李思永叫声&lt;strong&gt;卧槽&lt;/strong&gt;，流星锤舞得呼呼风响，把一扇门板打碎，……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;……只觉重门叠户之内，如处隐伏甲兵。李思永叫声&lt;strong&gt;苦也&lt;/strong&gt;，流星锤舞得呼呼风响，把一扇门板打碎，……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they basically mean the same thing? The second one seems more polite to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-15T12:55:21.790" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T19:09:51.610" Title="To express surprise with disappointment, if 卧槽 is vulgar, is 苦也 considered a decent alternative?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32912" CreationDate="2019-02-14T22:44:39.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;卧槽 (我操) is mostly used as an exclamation, It can be any phrase as long as it expresses the emotion the speaker intended to express. Like 'rage, surprise, displease' and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可惡 (rage/ anger/ displease)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可怒也 (rage/ anger/ displease)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;糟糕 (surprise, worry, fear)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不好; 不妙(surprise, worry)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;管他 (dismissive/ self-abandon )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;豈有此理 (anger, displease)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弊了 (surprise, worry, fear)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, either 可怒也 or 可惡 would be a good choice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;……只觉重门叠户之内，如处隐伏甲兵。李思永叫声&lt;strong&gt;可惡&lt;/strong&gt;，流星锤舞得呼呼风响，把一扇门板打碎，…… (&lt;em&gt;he was angry about being ambushed&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But other exclamations can be chosen too, depend on what emotion the author wanted the character to express&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;苦也 express 'despair' or 'disparate', it does fit in the example too, but the emotion would be different from other exclamations I listed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-14T23:20:08.153" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T23:20:08.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32912" CreationDate="2019-02-14T23:19:03.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;卧槽 is a milder version of 我操，which is rather vulgar like F word in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are ways to express this neutrally or decently. The simple one I would suggest is 哎呀！or just 呀！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苦也 is not quite the same, however, and it means &lt;strong&gt;suffering&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;bitter&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-02-14T23:40:35.390" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T23:40:35.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2616" CreationDate="2019-02-15T05:22:15.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tomriddle_1234 provided a great detailed translation. In the future, if u have an iPhone or iPad, you can add a couple Chinese character keyboards to input the words by writing (but brush strokes have a very specific order to input- left to right then top to bottom) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21395" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T05:22:15.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32533" CreationDate="2019-02-15T06:19:08.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your porcelain is from Japan as it says Great Japan (大日本) .... This mark was intended to be read from the right then up to the top &amp;amp; left. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[item/photo#]: “1090. Mark: &quot;Dai Nichi Hon&quot; (Great Japan) over a sign meaning &quot;roof/house&quot; and the number &quot;three&quot;, early 20th century. It is generally accepted that marks that includes &quot;Dai Nippon&quot; in Japanese characters on the whole date to the Meiji (1868-1912) period, reflecting the greatly increased nationalism of that period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found that pottery info at the webpage below &amp;amp; you can send a photo that pottery expert for more info.... &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gotheborg.com/marks/20thcenturyjapan.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.gotheborg.com/marks/20thcenturyjapan.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21395" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T06:19:08.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32912" CreationDate="2019-02-15T14:42:27.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes，but 苦也 and other verb + 也 is so literary，and not frequently used in novels. It seems that 评书 loves to use this word, if I am not wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of words can be used here, according to how far it relate to oral and modern： 不妙 -&gt;  不好 -&gt; 糟了 -&gt; 糟糕 -&gt; 完了 -&gt; 完蛋了 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2019-02-15T14:53:28.080" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T14:53:28.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32855" CreationDate="2019-02-15T15:14:56.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the overall rules are same, top-bottom, left-right...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for some specific characters, the orders are different from the regular one to archive its form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Cfe8C.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Cfe8C.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no simple rule list, Chinese learn cursive writing character by character from calligraphy guide. They will teach you most common characters' orders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For fully cursive 草书, that is totally different from regular and semi-regular, but it still has orders. It is like another system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2019-02-15T15:23:47.027" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T15:23:47.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32919" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32925" CreationDate="2019-02-15T16:24:57.983" Score="0" ViewCount="40" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Mandarin-Chinese-Grammar-Grammars/dp/0415827140/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1550247641&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;keywords=modern%20mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese textbook&lt;/a&gt; that gives two examples of a sentence, saying that the order of the noun modifiers can be changed for emphasis, but it doesn't explain which sentence emphasises what.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two examples are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;【那个】【戴眼镜的】【很高的】人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;【很高的】【戴眼镜的】【那个】人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming that one of these is meant to emphasis the person's height more than the other, but I don't know which one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20413" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T22:39:20.620" Title="How does the order of noun modifiers affect emphasis" Tags="&lt;adjectives&gt;&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32920" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32923" CreationDate="2019-02-15T19:03:39.053" Score="0" ViewCount="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do the characters in angle brackets signify?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bdVLS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bdVLS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/4E48.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/4E48.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&quot;〈后缀〉&quot;   &quot;〈助〉&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/xs/54C1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/16/xs/54C1.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&quot;〈形〉&quot;   &quot;〈名〉&quot;   &quot;〈动〉&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21396" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T22:29:37.007" Title="Chinese Dictionary Question" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32912" CreationDate="2019-02-15T19:09:51.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the context, in 早期白话文，you could use 苦也，but it would sound weird if you are talking with someone, in modern world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could use some less offensive ones like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我擦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我擦咧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They almost have no offensive meaning and are good to use among friends, but if would like to express such feelings to your teacher or parents, you might just say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊？！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T19:09:51.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32920" CreationDate="2019-02-15T20:51:10.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every good dictionary has the definitions of the words and its classes. The class of the word comes before the definition of thereof. That way you might know what is its definition as used in a specific class before you even read its definition. By classes I mean: nouns, verbs, pronouns, suffixs, etc. For exemple, the word 么 as a suffix has a different meaning when compared when used as a &quot;auxiliary&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16987" LastEditorUserId="16987" LastEditDate="2019-02-15T22:29:37.007" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T22:29:37.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32920" CreationDate="2019-02-15T21:05:53.520" Score="-1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;后缀 = suffix &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;助动词 = auxiliary verb&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;形容词 = adjective&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;名词 = noun&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;动词 = verb&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21399" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T21:05:53.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32924" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32928" CreationDate="2019-02-15T21:20:44.920" Score="2" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really like this music&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2311FZWoFQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2311FZWoFQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And not long before the beginning it says &#xA;&quot;每个人都想当鬼&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subtitle says it means &quot;Everyone wants to give orders.&quot; But I don't think &quot;当鬼&quot; means &quot;to give orders.&quot; Can anyone help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16987" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T05:30:03.873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T05:30:03.873" Title="Meaning of &quot;当鬼&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32919" CreationDate="2019-02-15T22:39:20.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't see any particular emphasis from the different syntax. I prefer 1. , it seems somehow 'correcter'. The typical spoken answer in English would only be a sentence fragment, according to grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Royal Order of Adjectives does not pertain in Chinese, I fear. In Chinese we can write 'the wear/wearing glasses person = 那个戴眼镜的人', which is not an option in English. (不好：the very tall wearing glasses one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谁是你的爸？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Who is your Dad?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1.【那个】【戴眼镜的】【很高的】人。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1E. (My Dad is) the one wearing glasses, very tall.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1.1E (My Dad is) the very tall one, wearing glasses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谁是你的爸？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Who is your Dad?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.【很高的】【戴眼镜的】【那个】人。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2E. Very tall, wearing glasses, that one (is my Dad).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T22:39:20.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32926" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-16T02:36:03.697" Score="0" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does the Chinese text on the card say?(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9sc92.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9sc92.jpg&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21401" LastActivityDate="2019-02-16T10:13:27.170" Title="What does the Chinese text on this card say?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-02-24T06:11:24.710" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32926" CreationDate="2019-02-16T03:31:47.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;观音坐莲 (Goddess sitting on lotus leaves)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;观音&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Guanyin&lt;/a&gt;) &lt;em&gt;is the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5rlov.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5rlov.png&quot; alt=&quot;觀音坐蓮&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老汉推车 (old man pushing cart)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hjK7N.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hjK7N.png&quot; alt=&quot;老漢推車&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just search Google image and you can find out what kind of sex positions 观音坐莲 and 老汉推车 are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-16T10:13:27.170" LastActivityDate="2019-02-16T10:13:27.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32924" CreationDate="2019-02-16T05:23:49.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are probably referring to this video: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqmpIQ9l-uA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqmpIQ9l-uA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Chinese version of hide-and-seek, the person that looks for other players is called a 鬼 (literally &quot;ghost&quot;), and 当鬼 means &quot;to become this player (that catches others)&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the lyrics, it's probably a metaphoric expression that refers to a powerful position, thus &quot;giving orders&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some example sentences (当鬼 is usually used exclusively in the hide-and-seek game context, unless used metaphorically):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下回你当鬼 (you be the catcher next round)&#xA;我喜欢当鬼，因为当鬼好玩 (I like being the catcher because being the catcher is fun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2019-02-16T05:23:49.533" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32924" CreationDate="2019-02-16T06:17:46.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;at 1:27, they are making ghost money in a kitchen,  鬼 is also joker in cards, the biggest card.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The song is laughing at our society, everybody want to be number one, want to use products to attract spotlight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find these images: chess, office workers in suites, crying to get toys obviously satires giant baby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-02-16T06:17:46.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32933" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-17T01:07:45.773" Score="1" ViewCount="1116" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 可是, 但是, 但, 而, 不过, and 然而?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these mean &quot;but&quot; and I can't find any information in my dictionary on what differentiates them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21329" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T05:29:24.447" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T05:29:24.447" Title="What is the difference between 可是, 但是, 但, 而, 不过, and 然而?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32933" CreationDate="2019-02-17T01:48:17.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;可是, 但是 and  但 (&lt;em&gt;但 is the shortened form of 但是&lt;/em&gt;) can all be translated as 'but'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &quot;You can drink, but you can't smoke&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;喝酒可以，可是不能抽煙&quot; (可是 is more literary)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;喝酒可以，但是不能抽煙&quot; / &quot;喝酒可以，但不能抽煙&quot;  (但是 and 但 are more colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不过, and 然而 can both be translated as 'however' or 'but'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &quot;You can drink, however, you can't smoke&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;喝酒可以，不过不能抽煙&quot; (不过 is more colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;喝酒可以，然而不能抽煙&quot; (然而 is more literary)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When '而' is acting as a short form  of '而且', it means 'and also'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;快而凖 = 快速而且準確 (fast and (also) accurate)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;簡而清 = 簡潔而且清楚 (brief and (also) clear)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而 functions as &quot;but&quot; or 'however' when it is in the following structures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[能(A) 而 不能(B)] = [can (A) but can't (B)]  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[可(A) 而 不可(B)] = [allowed to (A) but not allowed to (B)] &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[能喝酒 而 不能抽煙]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[可喝酒 而 不可抽煙]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而 also functions as &quot;but&quot; or 'however' when it is in the following structure [(verb) (A) 而 (不 verb) (B)] = [(verb) (A) but (not verb) (B)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[擅攻 而 不擅守] (good at attack but not good at defend)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[愛酒 而 不愛煙] (like wine but not like cigarette)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-17T02:01:20.873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T02:01:20.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17951" CreationDate="2019-02-17T05:46:26.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;other meanings of 没睡着 is to imply the present and future state of not falling asleep. 如果1小时后我还没睡着，for example, &quot;if I'm still not falling asleep 1 hour later...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21410" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T05:46:26.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32547" CreationDate="2019-02-17T12:19:17.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i am actually working on a game which will help learners to keep in mind Chinese characters, as they are used for playing :-)  You can get a few photos there : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://fr.ulule.com/youdao-dayou/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://fr.ulule.com/youdao-dayou/&lt;/a&gt; In that game, Character cards describe the composition with components and radicals as it is judiciously mentioned in the first answer :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry that explanations are using French language :-(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T12:19:17.490" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32480" CreationDate="2019-02-17T12:27:21.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;)  i am actually working on a game which will help learners to keep in mind Chinese characters, as they are used for playing :-)  You can get a few photos there : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://fr.ulule.com/youdao-dayou/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://fr.ulule.com/youdao-dayou/&lt;/a&gt; In that game, Character cards describe the composition with components and radicals as it is judiciously mentioned in the first answer :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry that explanations are using French language :-(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T12:27:21.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32938" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32940" CreationDate="2019-02-17T16:39:00.617" Score="2" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B7%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiki refer of this character&lt;/a&gt;(here it's Chinese character)(you must see it in Chinese language)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiki refer of chinese_characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are Yijing Hexagram Symbols(4DC0— 4DFF).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In what degree can them be considered as Chinese characters? Or it's absolutely not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;䷀&#xA;䷁&#xA;䷂&#xA;䷃&#xA;䷄&#xA;䷅&#xA;䷆&#xA;䷇&#xA;䷈&#xA;䷉&#xA;䷊&#xA;䷋&#xA;䷌&#xA;䷍&#xA;䷎&#xA;䷏&#xA;䷐&#xA;䷑&#xA;䷒&#xA;䷓&#xA;䷔&#xA;䷕&#xA;䷖&#xA;䷗&#xA;䷘&#xA;䷙&#xA;䷚&#xA;䷛&#xA;䷜&#xA;䷝&#xA;䷞&#xA;䷟&#xA;䷠&#xA;䷡&#xA;䷢&#xA;䷣&#xA;䷤&#xA;䷥&#xA;䷦&#xA;䷧&#xA;䷨&#xA;䷩&#xA;䷪&#xA;䷫&#xA;䷬&#xA;䷭&#xA;䷮&#xA;䷯&#xA;䷰&#xA;䷱&#xA;䷲&#xA;䷳&#xA;䷴&#xA;䷵&#xA;䷶&#xA;䷷&#xA;䷸&#xA;䷹&#xA;䷺&#xA;䷻&#xA;䷼&#xA;䷽&#xA;䷾&#xA;䷿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20986" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T05:29:01.330" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T05:29:01.330" Title="Is ䷊ a chinese character?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;character-variant&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32939" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-17T16:57:03.780" Score="2" ViewCount="621" Body="&lt;p&gt;My &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.co.uk/HSK-Standard-Course-2-Textbook/dp/7561937261&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HSK 2 textbook&lt;/a&gt; contains the following dialogue and translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他多高&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  How tall is he?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一米八几&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  He is more than 180 centimeters tall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence is not explained in the book and I am struggling to understand it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the purpose of 几 in this sentence?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google Translate tells me it means &quot;One meter eight&quot; and a reverse translate gives me 一米八. Why is the book saying 1m 80cm instead of 1m 8cm?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why does the book's translation include the word &quot;more than&quot;? Which character is providing the meaning of &quot;more than&quot; in this sentence? &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanzicraft.com/character/%E5%87%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HanziCraft&lt;/a&gt; does not list this as one of the meanings of 几, for example.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13062" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T05:28:06.487" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T02:21:40.057" Title="In this dialogue, why does 一米八几 mean &quot;more than 180cm tall&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32938" CreationDate="2019-02-17T17:32:42.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those are &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E5%8D%81%E5%9B%9B%E5%8D%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;六十四卦&lt;/a&gt; symbols, which is extension of &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AB%E5%8D%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;八卦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are not characters but symbols.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each symbol has a corresponding Chinese character and representative meaning as the figures indicated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example, the symbol of the first 卦 is three solid lines. It is read as '乾' /quān/ and it represents '天'(heaven)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;八卦&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q1HRy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q1HRy.png&quot; alt=&quot;八卦&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;六十四卦&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kp6oU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kp6oU.png&quot; alt=&quot;六十四卦&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-17T17:51:38.410" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T17:51:38.410" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32939" CreationDate="2019-02-17T17:34:45.967" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;一米八几 means 1.8 &lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt; meters, where &lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt; is usually between 1 and 9. So the person's height is between 1.81 meters and 1.89 meters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore for your first question, 几 stands for some number that the speaker can not provide an exact value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your second question, the translation by google is not quite correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for your last question, the meaning &lt;em&gt;a few&lt;/em&gt; is what is being used in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T17:34:45.967" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32939" CreationDate="2019-02-17T18:33:17.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'几' means 'a few'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一米八 = 1.8M = 180cm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一米八(几) = 1.8 M (and a few cm)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无三不成几, '几' has to be at least 3. So '一米八几' is between 1.83M and 1.89M&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if the number is close to the next decimal, like 1.87 - 1.89, we usually say '差不多一米九' (almost 1.9M) instead of '一米八几' (1.8 and some cm).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, in practice, &lt;strong&gt;'一米八几'&lt;/strong&gt; is referring to height between &lt;strong&gt;1.83M and 1.86M&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'多' means more than. If it was '一米八多' then it means 'more than 1.8 but not yet 1.9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一米八多&lt;/strong&gt; would be between &lt;strong&gt;1.81M and 1.86M&lt;/strong&gt; in practice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;180cm is about  5'11&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T19:21:25.570" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32943" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32948" CreationDate="2019-02-17T18:43:30.507" Score="3" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I was was reading something and they provided me a translation. Here's the first one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不想要你因为我变得消极&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I won't want you to become pessimistic because of me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why didn't it translate to &quot;I don't want you because I'll become pessimistic&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the second one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从早安后的早餐,到晚餐后的晚安&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  From the Breakfast after good morning till after the dinner's good night&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why didn't it translate to &quot;From morning after breakfast, till dinner after good night&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17799" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T05:27:32.007" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T05:27:32.007" Title="Why is my translation different from theirs?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32943" CreationDate="2019-02-17T19:08:35.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不想要 (I don't want)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你因为我变得消极 (you to become pessimistic because of me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem here is you read '我不想要-- 你因为我变得消极' as '我不想要你, 因为我变得消极'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我不想你因为我变得消极&amp;quot; would be a more clear sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从早安后的早餐,到晚餐后的晚安&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read it as &amp;quot;从 '(說了) 早安' 后的早餐, 到晚餐后的 '(說)晚安'&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the breakfast after (saying) good morning till after the dinner's (saying) good night&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The time is between &lt;strong&gt;breakfast&lt;/strong&gt; (which was after saying good morning) and &lt;strong&gt;saying good night&lt;/strong&gt; (which was after the dinner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;說了 and 說 are omitted&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T19:08:35.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32945" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-17T19:28:15.617" Score="-1" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.collectionreperes.com/catalogue/index-La_soci__t___chinoise_depuis_1949-9782348040849.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;La société chinoise depuis 1949&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by Tania Angeloff (2018; in French) is a book about Chinese society since 1949. The author sometimes uses pinyin without tones to give the Chinese counterparts of some of the terms used in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, on page 87 she uses the term &lt;em&gt;xuetou&lt;/em&gt; (French: &quot;patrons de sang&quot;), i.e. people who collected blood from impoverished farmers (taking advantage of farmers who tried to make a bit of money through this type of scheme in the late 1980s; the xuetou didn't do any blood tests, which led to the spread of diseases through blood transfusion). However, the Hanzi for this term are not shown in the text. I assume &quot;xue&quot; is actually 血 (xuè), but I'm not entirely sure about &quot;tou&quot;. Does this correspond to 头?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=xuetou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;xuetou in MDBG&lt;/a&gt; I'm not really sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T05:26:16.733" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T20:12:56.433" Title="Hanzi for xuetou" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32945" CreationDate="2019-02-17T21:28:23.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first, as a native speaker, I have never seen that before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As soon as I saw it in &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%A1%80%E5%A4%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here:血头&lt;/a&gt;, I will know it immediately, the structure of this word more like &quot;捕头&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of &quot;头&quot;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/17/js/5934.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;head&lt;/a&gt;) is easy to understand just like the meaning in english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the perspective of &quot;组词&quot;(combine words), I think it's rather a quick and short denote for &quot;组织他人卖血者&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example &quot;公号&quot;, short for &quot;公众号&quot;, can be used to save one char compare to &quot;公众号&quot;, it's not a native word, but still in use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20986" LastEditorUserId="20986" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T20:12:56.433" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T20:12:56.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32947" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32950" CreationDate="2019-02-18T00:21:44.730" Score="1" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eZDO8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eZDO8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hi there! Could anybody translate what is written on the bottom of this bowl? It is at the request of an elderly relative who is computer illiterate! Many thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21417" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T07:13:51.283" Title="Help translating writing on a bowl" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-02-23T05:51:18.063" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32943" CreationDate="2019-02-18T01:04:46.787" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我不想要你因为我变得消极。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't want you to become demoralized because of me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want the meaning 'because you make me depressed' try 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我不想要你因为你让我变得消极 。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't want you because you demoralize me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 3. I think you are just trying to apply the type of syntax you know to Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;从早安后的早餐,到晚餐后的晚安。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;From breakfast after Good Morning till Good Night after dinner.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you take out the adjectives from 3., you have:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4. 从早餐到晚安&lt;br&gt;&#xA;from breakfast till Good Evening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;从早安后的早餐,到晚餐后的晚安。  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why didn't it translate to: From morning after breakfast, till dinner&#xA;  after Good Night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;after breakfast is : 早餐后 but you have 'after Good Morning' = 早安后&lt;br&gt;&#xA;after dinner is 晚餐后，after Good Evening is 晚安后&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T01:04:46.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32831" CreationDate="2019-02-18T01:36:24.767" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Counting distinct characters/words in chinese books is really easy, but what exactly does &quot;typical&quot; means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can solve it by python. &#xA;Then every time you meet a &quot;typical&quot; book(txt,mobi,azw format etc), you can count it by yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;input&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The txt file of The Three-Body Problem I:Remembrance of Earth's Past&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The txt file of The Three-Body Problem II:The Dark Forest&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The txt file of The Three-Body Problem III:Death's End&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;program&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import sys&#xA;import string&#xA;from collections import defaultdict&#xA;file_loc=&quot;tb3.txt&quot;&#xA;try:&#xA;    f = open(file_loc,&quot;r&quot;,encoding='gbk')&#xA;    allstr=f.read()&#xA;except UnicodeDecodeError:&#xA;    f = open(file_loc,&quot;r&quot;,encoding='utf-8')&#xA;    allstr=f.read()&#xA;&#xA;#dict to count chars, default to zero&#xA;d=defaultdict(int) &#xA;for i in allstr:&#xA;    d[i]+=1&#xA;&#xA;#count how many dinstinct words&#xA;#import jieba&#xA;#for i in jieba.cut(allstr):&#xA;#    d[i]+=1&#xA;&#xA;# one pass filter, you can just use this filter&#xA;for c in string.printable:&#xA;    d.pop(c,0)&#xA;&#xA;# select chinese characters directly&#xA;unicode_ranges = [0x3007,0x3007],[0x3400,0x4DBF],[0x4E00,0x9FEF],[0x20000,0x2EBFF]&#xA;for i,key in list(enumerate(d)):&#xA;    if not any(map(lambda x:x[0]&amp;lt;=ord(key)&amp;lt;=x[1],unicode_ranges)):&#xA;        del d[key]&#xA;print(len(d))&#xA;&#xA;# map word_count to list of chars&#xA;d2=defaultdict(list)&#xA;for key,val in d.items():&#xA;    d2[val].append(key)&#xA;&#xA;#sort by val&#xA;for key,val in sorted(d2.items(),key=lambda x:x[0],reverse=True): &#xA;    print(key,val)&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/a/54739064/7721525&quot;&gt;chinese character reference&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;conclusion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;three body problem 1: 2854&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;three body problem 2: 2986&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;three body problem 3: 3034&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(welcome to add your count results of other books here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3000 characters cover 100%!,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;code&gt;sum(d.values())&lt;/code&gt; to count the total #chinese-characters&#xA;in three body problem 1, you will find 2109 characters covers 99.393256% &#xA;2370 chars(delete char that occurs only once) covers 99.7%,&#xA;In addition, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;there's a rough average of six characters you need to either look up or accept not knowing how to pronounce!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's false in the 99.4% version, you can learn a meaning of character in this way. You are likely to meet the same char again in this book if you only know 2109 characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are insterested in details, see all the results&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/Haozun/Road/blob/master/small_projects/chinese-book_word-count/res_of_three-body1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20986" LastEditorUserId="20986" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T19:57:18.097" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T19:57:18.097" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32947" CreationDate="2019-02-18T07:13:51.283" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“大明年造”&#xA;“Made in the Ming Dynasty”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21388" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T07:13:51.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32939" CreationDate="2019-02-18T11:43:49.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;zyy's answer is correct. I'd like to add that 一米八几 is usually used in an interrogative sentence. E.g. 他一米八几了？ The sentence is applied when the speaker has forgotten the last digit of the exact number and he asks for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T11:43:49.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32952" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32953" CreationDate="2019-02-18T16:04:53.023" Score="1" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to display the two parts of the 右 character in a document. The first part, 口, is easy. The problem lies in the second part, which some sources call &quot;left hand&quot; radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ0ZhZDCRWk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This video&lt;/a&gt; calls it a character derived from the 十 (ten) radical. However, the drawing in the video is different from the one found in &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux.cgi?=%A5k&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zhongwen.com&lt;/a&gt;, which is more similar to the original drawing (but at zhongwen.com it's an image, and I want an Unicode character).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually I've (probably) found the character I want (?) from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hanzicraft.com/character/%E5%B7%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. But, even after I installed some 10 different Chinese fonts in my Debian system, it still displays as a square with numbers on it, and sometimes as a large blank space. I've updated the font cache, and still nothing. So, do I need some very specific font or what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T06:00:12.710" Title="How to display the &quot;left hand&quot; radical as Unicode text?" Tags="&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32952" CreationDate="2019-02-18T16:34:21.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cjkvi/cjkvi-ids&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK IDS&lt;/a&gt; has this entry for 右:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;U+53F3   右   ⿸口&#xA;U+20087     &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which seems to match what you found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do need a font that includes CJK Extension B for 20087. No problem on my Mac, it seems to have lots of them with this character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastEditorUserId="3472" LastEditDate="2019-02-19T06:17:54.867" LastActivityDate="2019-02-19T06:17:54.867" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32955" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-18T18:14:58.017" Score="2" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.collectionreperes.com/catalogue/index-La_soci__t___chinoise_depuis_1949-9782348040849.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;La société chinoise depuis 1949&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by Tania Angeloff (2018; in French) is a book about Chinese society since 1949. The author sometimes uses pinyin without tones to give the Chinese counterparts of some of the terms used in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On page 73 she uses the term &lt;em&gt;daigang&lt;/em&gt;, which she paraphrases in French as &quot;[personnels] en attente de poste&quot;. The French phrase roughly means &quot;waiting for a job or post&quot;. Unfortunately, the tones or the Hanzi are not mentioned, and looking up &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=daigang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;daigang in MDBG&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl?word=daigang&amp;amp;searchtype=pinyin&amp;amp;where=whole&amp;amp;audio=on&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MandarinTools.com&lt;/a&gt; did not help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody know the Hanzi for this phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12854" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-20T08:07:08.900" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T08:07:18.890" Title="Hanzi for &quot;daigang&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32955" CreationDate="2019-02-18T18:27:00.410" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is 待岗, where 待 means wait and 岗 means job opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-20T08:07:18.890" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T08:07:18.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32955" CreationDate="2019-02-18T18:35:19.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'待岗' /dài gǎng/ is short for '等待岗位' (waiting for post/ job)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等待: /děng &lt;strong&gt;dài&lt;/strong&gt;/ to wait&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;岗位: /&lt;strong&gt;gǎng&lt;/strong&gt; wèi/ post; job&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T18:35:19.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32958" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32960" CreationDate="2019-02-18T21:50:30.797" Score="3" ViewCount="563" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to say &quot;catcall&quot; or &quot;catcalling&quot; in Chinese (as in, for example, a woman walking in a city street, a man yells something at her, typically degrading and commenting on her looks, etc), but all dictionaries I've found use &quot;catcall&quot; as meaning to hiss or yell, which isn't quite the meaning I'm going for here. The translations I've found include: 不满之声,嘘声,口哨聲, and some others, but none of those really seem right from translating them into English. How would I translate that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-20T08:06:45.973" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T08:06:45.973" Title="How to say catcall in Chinese? “Catcall” 怎么翻译？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32958" CreationDate="2019-02-18T22:15:45.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw &lt;em&gt;catcall&lt;/em&gt; has two basic meanings, one of them is complaint on shows, that could be translated as 喝倒彩。There are certain ways you could do that in a theater, you can make sounds like &lt;strong&gt;tòng&lt;/strong&gt; three times in a row, or you can also pronounce 噫 with a long fading tail. But notice, in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangsheng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;相声&lt;/a&gt; show, such catcalls could be praise because it is a much casual place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is obvious, however, that you are asking for the translation of its other meaning. Unfortunately, it is hard to find such short correspondence in Chinese. What you could do is describing catcall like the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当街耍流氓，（言语）调戏妇女&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T22:15:45.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32958" CreationDate="2019-02-18T23:00:45.037" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's going to be some form of &lt;strong&gt;挑逗&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/wolf-whistling&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wolf-whistle&lt;/a&gt;, which is one of the most common forms of catcalling that I can think of, is rendered as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(挑逗地)吹口哨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朝…吹口哨挑逗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hk01.com/%E7%9F%A5%E6%80%A7%E5%A5%B3%E7%94%9F/144329/%E8%B6%85%E6%A8%A1%E4%B8%AD%E6%A7%8D-catcall%E6%98%AF%E6%80%A7%E9%A8%B7%E6%93%BE-%E5%8F%97%E5%AE%B3%E8%80%85-%E5%83%8F%E8%83%8C%E5%BE%8C%E8%A7%A3%E9%96%8B%E6%AF%94%E5%A0%85%E5%B0%BC%E8%88%AC%E7%BE%9E%E8%BE%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;【超模中槍】Catcall是性騷擾？受害者：像背後解開比堅尼般羞辱&lt;/a&gt; defines catcalling as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「Catcalling」街頭挑逗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;although it does also mention&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「Catcalling」，要是翻譯為「街頭挑逗」，其實也不夠傳神。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://share.america.gov/zh-hans/hollaback-against-street-harassment/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;勇于向街头骚扰说“不”&lt;/a&gt; writes it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;布鲁克林（Brooklyn）的一个禁止“挑逗搭讪”（catcalling）的标牌。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T23:10:29.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32831" CreationDate="2019-02-19T16:11:30.013" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, here is my test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total: 238,872 (only Chinese is counted),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;individual: 2,882&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never read this book, 2,882 is a friend number. There isn't a lot of 'magic' words in a fantasy novel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sherlock·Holmes: A Study in Scarlet&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Total:72,217&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Individual_sum: 2,546&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;聊斋志异&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total:389,165,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;individual:4,935&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classical is 2 times complicate than modern novels. (wrong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;射雕英雄传&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total:781,529,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;individual:4,088&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A wuxia novel that is full of traditional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;三国志&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total:443,202&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;individual:4,433&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A classical history book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Shawshank Redemption&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total:69,530&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;individual: 2,439&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big four.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;红楼梦&lt;/strong&gt; total:730,537, individual:4,251&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;水浒传&lt;/strong&gt; total&amp;quot;:705,811, individual: 4,074&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;西游记&lt;/strong&gt; total&amp;quot;:604,456, individual: 4,574&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;三国演义&lt;/strong&gt; total:486,106, individual:4,025&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, an Internet novel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;东北往事:黑道风云二十年(一)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;total:679,231, individual:3,625,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T15:11:02.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32831" CreationDate="2019-02-19T21:05:15.513" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, I think a more interesting question is how many distinct characters there are in a book that aren't considered &quot;common&quot;. To that effect, I used the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/Haozun/Road/blob/master/small_projects/chinese-book_word-count/res_of_three-body1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2854 results from rambler's answer for the three body problem 1&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E9%80%9A%E7%94%A8%E8%A7%84%E8%8C%83%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%A8#%E4%B8%80%E7%BA%A7%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;list of the 3500 commonly used characters&lt;/a&gt; (一级字/常用字)  as presented in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_General_Standard_Chinese_Characters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;通用规范汉字表, which was published in 2013 by the government of China&lt;/a&gt;. Then I ran the following python script (I had to remove the data values because of space limitations here)--you can see it in action &lt;a href=&quot;https://repl.it/repls/TightFrankDeskscan&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-&#xA;unicode_ranges = [0x3007,0x3007],[0x3400,0x4DBF],[0x4E00,0x9FEF],[0x20000,0x2EBFF]&#xA;&#xA;most_common = list(&quot;&quot;) #insert stuff here!&#xA;&#xA;most_common = [hanzi for hanzi in most_common if any(map(lambda x:x[0]&amp;lt;=ord(hanzi)&amp;lt;=x[1],unicode_ranges))]&#xA;&#xA;print(len(most_common))&#xA;&#xA;threebody1result =  list(&quot;&quot;) #insert stuff here!&#xA;&#xA;threebody1result = [hanzi for hanzi in threebody1result if any(map(lambda x:x[0]&amp;lt;=ord(hanzi)&amp;lt;=x[1],unicode_ranges))]&#xA;print(len(threebody1result))&#xA;&#xA;not_common_words = [hanzi for hanzi in threebody1result if not hanzi in most_common]&#xA;print(not_common_words)&#xA;print(len(not_common_words))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found 191 characters in the book that weren't in the list of characters considered &quot;most common&quot;. A number of these are just onomatopoeia and characters that appear to be used primarily for names. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;['淼', '霖', '纣', '陛', '伽', '阮', '穹', '曦', '朕', '雯', '楠', '眸', '篝', '眩',&#xA;  '兮', '炽', '粼', '阈', '忏', '咔', '嚓', '嘟', '姬', '嗯', '噼', '羲', '沌', '袅',&#xA;  '烬', '咯', '摞', '咚', '瞥', '踹', '曳', '噬', '嗤', '礴', '骸', '哒', '皙', '呗',&#xA;  '瘠', '阱', '惚', '舷', '瘙', '呓', '萦', '湍', '漉', '柯', '瑶', '咝', '觑', '炯',&#xA;  '诣', '锢', '褶', '涟', '漪', '瓮', '骷', '髅', '冕', '悻', '铠', '啷', '呸', '汐',&#xA;  '婷', '氦', '狙', '睑', '霏', '垩', '睽', '栩', '啾', '晗', '恫', '韦', '坍', '蜿',&#xA;  '癫', '柞', '栎', '瞟', '擀', '瘴', '狍', '潦', '渥', '囔', '盥', '咣', '攥', '壕',&#xA;  '侃', '遛', '裔', '撂', '涸', '诧', '霆', '涓', '晷', '幺', '揶', '晖', '髂', '戾',&#xA;  '溏', '噢', '杳', '惺', '忪', '霓', '靓', '颚', '寐', '诏', '纂', '羟', '黝', '鬈',&#xA;  '臆', '锵', '遁', '诠', '攘', '虔', '吋', '啐', '茨', '戟', '嬴', '楔', '俑', '鞘',&#xA;  '亘', '咦', '迸', '邃', '慑', '犄', '蹒', '跚', '昕', '鄢', '搐', '瞌', '剐', '嗔',&#xA;  '恻', '皲', '碴', '炙', '橇', '阂', '飒', '仟', '锨', '黏', '蚜', '咫', '谙', '燎',&#xA;  '悸', '袒', '皈', '湮', '啬', '铰', '梵', '斓', '煦', '阙', '邸', '甄', '狩', '坞',&#xA;  '镊', '磐', '潞', '怫', '汲', '熵', '霾', '湛', '眺']&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastEditorUserId="10950" LastEditDate="2019-02-19T22:48:04.803" LastActivityDate="2019-02-19T22:48:04.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32963" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32964" CreationDate="2019-02-19T23:59:58.187" Score="0" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a writer. I am trying to get &quot;Forces of Evil, Come and Obey&quot; or something with the same general meaning translated to phonetic Cantonese so I can have a character use it like a chant in a story intended for an English speaking audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like 'Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao' is able to be chanted and understood by an American audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21435" LastEditorUserId="21435" LastEditDate="2019-02-20T00:40:31.527" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T05:50:40.617" Title="Translation from english into a phonetic Cantonese &quot;Forces of Evil, Come and Obey.&quot;" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32963" CreationDate="2019-02-20T03:19:44.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese slogans typically come in  idiomatic (four characters) phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;Forces of Evil, Come and Obey&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;we are the forces of Evil, come and obey us&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; then  I suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;道消魔長，順我者昌&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(the power of) good has declined and (the power of) evil has grown; those who submit to us flourish&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jyutping: /dou2 siu1 mo1 coeng2 seon6 ngo5 ze2 coeng1/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;phonetic: &amp;quot;doe siu mor zhung, Shun wu jer chun&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;And it rhymes&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;Forces of Evil, Come and Obey&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;you, the forces of evil, come and obey me&lt;/strong&gt;' then I suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;道長魔消，逆我者亡&amp;quot; (the power of) evil has declined and (the power of) good has grown; those who resist us perish&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jyutping: /dou2 coeng2 mo1 siu1/, /jik6  ngo5 ze2 mong4/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;phonetic: &amp;quot;doe zhung mor siu, yiey wu jer mong&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T05:50:40.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32952" CreationDate="2019-02-20T05:54:11.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just FYI, the top left part of「右」and the top left part of「左」have different origins. Also, neither of them have anything to do with「十」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The top left part of「右」as a stand-alone character is now written as「又」. It was originally a picture of a &lt;em&gt;right hand&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P61nK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P61nK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;後&lt;/a&gt;2.5.15&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=24506&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集24506&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n4oFf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n4oFf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日甲&lt;/a&gt;36&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xLtDA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xLtDA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The「口」in「右」was added later to distinguish between the meaning &lt;em&gt;right hand (anatomy)&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;right side&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TpXtU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TpXtU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;夨令方彝&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=9901&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成9901&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9sZN4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9sZN4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡・封&lt;/a&gt;21&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IZJEy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IZJEy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The top left part of「左」, unsurprisingly, was originally a picture of a &lt;em&gt;left hand&lt;/em&gt;. As a stand-alone character, it is now written as「」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2RjU0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2RjU0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;粹&lt;/a&gt;950&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=28882&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集28882&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bs41K.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bs41K.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;三年師兌簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4318&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4318&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uklZ9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uklZ9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The「工」(&lt;em&gt;picture of a tool&lt;/em&gt;) in「左」was added later to bring out the meaning of &lt;em&gt;assistance, help&lt;/em&gt;, now written as「佐」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EWBPi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EWBPi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;虢季子白盤&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=10173&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成10173&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RDPKW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RDPKW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pTL2R.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pTL2R.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The top left component of「右」and「左」look very similar in the modern script, but the original components meant different things and had different pronunciations. For example,「又」, being the top left component of「右」, is also found at the top left part of both of the following characters, where it contributes both meaning and sound:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「有」(&lt;strong&gt;yǒu&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;em&gt;picture of a hand&lt;/em&gt;「又」&lt;strong&gt;yòu&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;holding a piece of meat&lt;/em&gt;「⺼・肉」&lt;em&gt;&gt; to have [something]&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「友」(&lt;strong&gt;yǒu&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;em&gt;picture of two right hands&lt;/em&gt;「又」&lt;strong&gt;yòu&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;&gt; friend&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-02-20T06:00:12.710" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T06:00:12.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32966" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-20T08:44:01.640" Score="0" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dictionary defines both 图画 and 绘画 as drawing &amp;amp; painting. Can both words be used interchangeably? Is there any difference in the words in terms of usage? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T12:00:50.527" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T12:00:50.527" Title="Difference between 图画 and 绘画" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32966" CreationDate="2019-02-20T09:02:15.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/8964/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;图画&lt;/a&gt;: /tu2 hua4/ is a noun for 'picture',  'drawing' or 'illustration'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/14648/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;绘画&lt;/a&gt;: /hui4 hua4/  is a verb for 'to draw', 'to paint' or 'to illustrate'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;图画&quot; = [图 (picture) + 画 (drawing)]. It is a compound word &lt;strong&gt;noun&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;绘画&quot; = [绘 (to draw) + 画 (drawing)]. It is a compound word &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T09:02:15.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32969" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32980" CreationDate="2019-02-20T12:31:19.123" Score="1" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though “费奥伦庭那” is sometimes used, it is not nearly as common as &amp;quot;佛罗伦萨&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the name of a place is translated into Chinese, why do people not use the most close pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is 亚特兰大, as a translation of Atlanta, is not as accurate as 阿塔兰塔 prononciation-wise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-08-09T19:48:55.973" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T19:48:55.973" Title="Why Fiorentina is commonly translated as &quot;佛罗伦萨&quot; instead of &quot;费奥伦庭那&quot;？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32970" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32971" CreationDate="2019-02-20T13:47:56.223" Score="4" ViewCount="2540" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been revising HSK 3 grammar, and came across these two alternatives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我妈妈一起床，就做早饭 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我妈妈起了床，就做早饭&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the basis that my book says that they both mean 'My mum makes breakfast as soon as she wakes up', is there any inherent difference between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-20T14:00:31.443" LastActivityDate="2019-03-01T07:50:39.150" Title="一...就... vs. 了...就" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32970" CreationDate="2019-02-20T14:31:56.613" Score="4" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一A就B&#xA;once A done, B right away&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has the meaning of doing B 'as soon as' A done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A了就B&#xA;after A done, then B&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It emphasizes more on &quot;doing B, but not C or D&quot; after A done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21192" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T14:31:56.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32972" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32973" CreationDate="2019-02-20T18:23:45.570" Score="2" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to write a piece about sexism, that specifically discusses the gender wage gap and how it's affected by race. The sentence I'm trying to say is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Latina women have to work until Nov. 20 in order to earn what a white man would have earned in the year before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if it makes sense though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拉丁裔的女人需要工作一年到十月的二十号为了赚百男人赚的钱在前的一年。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this sound natural? I've tried putting pieces of it into various translation devices, and it gets the right translation each time, so I'm pretty sure it means what I want it to, if a little clunky, but I don't know how to check it otherwise. Does it work well or sound weird? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T02:55:22.197" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T04:57:25.080" Title="Does 拉丁裔的女人需要工作一年到十月的二十号为了赚百男人赚的钱在前的一年 make sense?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32972" CreationDate="2019-02-20T22:20:10.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Latina women have to work until Nov. 20 in order to earn what a white man would have earned in the year before&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence itself is kind of hard to follow. The biggest problem is it doesn't state &quot;&lt;em&gt;from what time&lt;/em&gt;&quot; they have to work until Nov. 20. Therefore, the concept of &quot;Latina women's 23 months income  = white men's 12 months income&quot; isn't expressed very clear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following sentence would state things more clearly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Latina women have to work until next year's Nov. 20,  to earn as much as a white male earned in this year&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google Translate result: “拉丁女性必須工作到明年11月20日，才能獲得與(今年)白人男性相同的收入”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;grammatically refined:  “拉丁女性必須工作到明年11月20日，才能獲得與白人男性相同的(今年)收入”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When Google Translate gives you a comprehensible translation, you know the original sentence is also comprehensible in general&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-20T22:35:12.063" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T22:35:12.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32974" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32975" CreationDate="2019-02-21T00:43:16.627" Score="2" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;The TV movies 流星花園 made in 2001 and 2008 have characters named 道明寺,  花澤類, and  藤堂靜, who are usually called 寺, 類, and 靜.  I think those are just the second syllables of the two-syllable given names.  Am I wrong about that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe I know what is happening.  These are families that continue using part of names. So 道明寺 has an older sister 道明莊 and mother 道明楓.  So I guess people call 道明寺 just 寺 because that is the unique part of his name in the family.  But, is that right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess it is sort of like generation names (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_name&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_name&lt;/a&gt;).  But in these families the names are not just for one generation, and girls and boys both get them.  Am I wrong?  Or is that what they are doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T10:56:48.953" Title="What is the usage with these names?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32974" CreationDate="2019-02-21T02:21:37.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;道明寺, 花澤類, and 藤堂靜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All Japanese names:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道明 (Michiaki) is family name, 寺(ji/ Tera) is first name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;花澤 (Hanazawa) is family name, 類(Rui) is first name &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;類 sound strange in Chinese name, but it might have been Japanese 平假名 &quot;るい&quot; translated to 漢字. When a Japanese name contains 平假名 instead of Kanji, The Chinese translator would choose a Kanji with that pronunciation, and they usually have more than one choice. &#xA;Take るい (Rui) for example, it can be one of the following Kanji: 塁 涙 累 類 泪 壘 羸 縲 瘰 誄&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;累 and 泪 are female names; 壘 and 類 can be male names&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;藤堂(Todo) is family name, 靜 (Shizuka) is first name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I think those are just the second syllables of the two-syllable given names.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a Chinese name is made up of a one character last name and a two characters first name, you can use the entire first name or just the last character to address that person. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can address &quot;劉志雄&quot; as &quot;志雄&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not wrong to address &quot;劉志雄&quot; as &quot;雄&quot;, but it is very informal. (use only to people who are very close to you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, when addressing someone with his first name , we would add name prefix 阿，(as in 阿雄)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-21T04:45:42.223" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T04:45:42.223" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32970" CreationDate="2019-02-21T02:55:02.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answer is correct. I'd like to add that 我妈妈一起床，就做早饭 states the &lt;strong&gt;routine work&lt;/strong&gt;, meaning &lt;em&gt;my mum makes breakfast as soon as she wakes up&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我妈妈起了床，就做早饭 is more like a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;conditional sentence&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, meaning &lt;em&gt;If my mum gets up, then the first thing she would do is make breakfast.&lt;/em&gt; In practice, you would hear 我妈妈起了床，(第一件事情)就(是)做早饭. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T02:55:02.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32939" CreationDate="2019-02-21T03:41:10.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;一米八几=It could go from one meter and 81 centimeters to one meter and 89 centimeters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一米=1 meter&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;八=in this case, it means 80 centimeters or 0.8 meters. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;几=in this case, it is like a range from 1 to 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21443" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T03:41:10.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32978" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-21T05:58:07.740" Score="2" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;轰 can be found in some dialects, often with a 个 found on the end, to mean &lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is most definitely a contraction. (Similar dialects also feature a contraction of 哪 and 样 as 孃 niang, also meaning &lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What could 轰 be a contraction of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess at the moment is that it is a contraction of something like 何 + 用, but that's a stab in the dark at best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer @dan's questions in the comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What dialects use it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it is, perhaps too specifically, part of 仁富小片.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do you have a specific example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scnews.newssc.org/system/20140317/000178520.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;newssc [dot] org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“我跟你们说嘛，轰个叫做乡愁……”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="20986" LastEditDate="2019-02-22T09:13:39.920" LastActivityDate="2020-05-15T03:02:30.613" Title="What could 轰 be a contraction of to mean &quot;what&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32972" CreationDate="2019-02-21T06:57:30.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Forget machine translations, get a Chinese boy/girlfriend!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Latina women have to work until Nov. 20 in order to earn what a white man would have earned in the year before.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put it into clear English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Women have to work 11 months longer in order to earn what a white man earns in 12 months.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女性需要比白人男性多做11个月，才能挣到白人男性12个月所挣到的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If want to put 拉蒂纳 in front, that's fine!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T06:57:30.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32969" CreationDate="2019-02-21T09:51:51.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Chinese 佛罗伦萨 fololunsa&#xA;Italian Firenze  [ˈfire̞nt̪s̠e̞]&#xA;English Florence /ˈflɒrəns/ &#xA;Latin flōrentīna /fjo.renˈti.na/ etymology from flōrēns (“flowering”).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As above, 佛罗伦萨 is translate from English pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Why not from Italian (翡冷翠,still in use today for some literary effect) or from Latin(费奥伦庭那 as you typed)?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中国人谙英文者多,而习小语种者少,欧美许多非英语国家地名往往从英语转译,不是直接从该国语言译&gt;来,例如&lt;code&gt;慕尼黑&lt;/code&gt;由英文的转写(transliteration)&lt;code&gt;munich&lt;/code&gt;而来,而非来自原名&lt;code&gt;München&lt;/code&gt;&lt;sup&gt;[1]&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;详情请看&lt;a href=&quot;http://liao-kang.hxwk.org/2004/08/27/%E7%BF%A1%E5%86%B7%E7%BF%A0-vs-%E4%BD%9B%E7%BD%97%E4%BC%A6%E8%90%A8%EF%BC%9A%E8%AF%91%E9%9F%B3%E5%8F%8A%E5%85%B6%E5%8E%9F%E5%88%99/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;翡冷翠 vs. 佛罗伦萨：译音及其原则&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, It's very long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Why 亚特兰大 not 阿塔兰塔 ?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, I think &lt;code&gt;鱫ai脦te兰lān踏tà&lt;/code&gt; is most close to English pronounciation. Completely transliterating results some weird words like &lt;code&gt;鱫脦兰踏&lt;/code&gt;. And for the perspective of specification, something like 英汉译音表 is a good choice.&lt;sup&gt;[2]&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PHazo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PHazo.png&quot; alt=&quot;英汉译音表&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; . And the previous link is also helps a lot in this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Reference&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-YWJZ201002040.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-YWJZ201002040.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;(sorry you probably cannot download it)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cnki55.sris.com.tw/refbook/ShowDetail.aspx?Table=CRFDOTHERINFO&amp;amp;ShowField=Content&amp;amp;TitleField=Title-ShowTitle&amp;amp;Field=OTHERID&amp;amp;Value=R20080710300A000002&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;picture comes from 世界人名翻译大辞典&gt;附录二:译音表&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;notice, I am not professional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20986" LastEditorUserId="20986" LastEditDate="2019-02-22T23:40:02.267" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T23:40:02.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32981" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32982" CreationDate="2019-02-21T10:46:32.793" Score="4" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;I worked with dialogue of two persons:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 外边下雨. 挺有意思.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: &lt;strong&gt;我可不觉得&lt;/strong&gt;. 上个星期我穿了新衣服出门, 忽然倾盆大雨. 我的衣服报废了.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可不 - vocabulary translation gives &quot;1) that's just the way it is. 2) exactly&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But here Person B is complaining about the rain and spoiled clothes. So does Person B agree with A?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Or may be &quot;可不觉得&quot; here is a short form of &quot;可是 不觉得&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21088" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T17:54:12.867" Title="我可不觉得 - agree or disagree?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32981" CreationDate="2019-02-21T11:09:42.227" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The same as &quot;I don't think so&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我 **可**(means emphasize) 不觉得&#xA;我不觉得&#xA;不觉得&#xA;不&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it's a single word &quot;可不&quot;, as you post, it is an interjection often used when spoken; it means &quot;exactly&quot; or &quot;you're right&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你真帅&#xA;那可不&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there won't be any usage of this meaning in the form of &lt;code&gt;&quot;我&quot; + &quot;可不&quot;&lt;/code&gt;,  especially when they are two characters behind &quot;可不&quot;. &#xA;Just remember the usage scenarios of oral language like this (a sentence only has 3 characters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And why can this negative word be used to represent approval?&#xA;This is called 反诘 (&quot;rhetorical question&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20986" LastEditorUserId="20986" LastEditDate="2019-02-21T17:54:12.867" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T17:54:12.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32983" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-21T11:12:15.837" Score="0" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;When do I use 经常 and 时常? Can they be used interchangeably? If there is difference between the two words, what situation do I use each of them? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-22T05:43:11.090" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T05:43:11.090" Title="Difference between 经常 and 时常?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32983" CreationDate="2019-02-21T11:49:09.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;both 经常 and 时常 means 'often'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经 = regularly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;常 = frequently&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经常 = often (if you do something regularly and frequently, you do it often)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时= time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时常 = often (in time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You can use them interchangeably&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经常遲到 = often late (emphasize the &lt;strong&gt;regularity&lt;/strong&gt; of being late; being late is a regular behaviour for the subject)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时常遲到 = often late (emphasize the &lt;strong&gt;frequency&lt;/strong&gt; of being late; the subject has been late many times)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经常不遵守规则 = often disobey the rule (disobey the rule is a regular behaviour for the subject)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;时常不遵守规则 = often disobey the rule (the subject has disobeyed rule many times)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Another term for 'often' is '常常' (reduplication of the adjective 常). It also emphasize the frequency&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T12:07:47.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32981" CreationDate="2019-02-21T13:19:05.820" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 我可不觉得, you should not take 可不 as a word and instead you should separate it.  The sentence is actually read as 我/可/不觉得. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可 engages the contrast to what A have said. B is trying to convey that he bears the reverse opinion to A about 外面下雨挺有意思, that is, 外面下雨 没有意思. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我可不觉得 can be translated as &lt;em&gt;I &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; don't feel that way.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; adds an emphasis like 可 does. 我不觉得 can be &lt;em&gt;I don't feel that way&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T13:19:05.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32983" CreationDate="2019-02-21T13:30:09.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No. They are not interchangeable at all.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经常 bears more frequency than 时常. E.g. 我经常去看你 Vs. 我时常去看你. 我经常去看你 indicates I go see you more often than 我时常去看你. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say 我经常去打球，I'd think your frequency of playing ballgames is &lt;strong&gt;high&lt;/strong&gt;. If you say 我时常去打球, I'd take that your frequency is normal/moderate (or probably a bit above normal), neither very high nor low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-02-21T13:41:55.710" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T13:41:55.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32987" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-21T13:34:02.963" Score="2" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;The full sentence is 唇上  唇下  留着  不长不短   但  总之   很   惹人嫌   的   髭须。 Which I've translated as 'His facial hair was not short or long, but overall the beard was suspicious. Is 'suspicious' a good translation of 惹人嫌 in this context? I've seen online dictionaries translate it as 'snot' which I just don't understand. Thanks for the help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21446" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T22:48:47.520" Title="Meaning of 惹人嫌?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32987" CreationDate="2019-02-21T14:04:31.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the translation is not good.&#xA;In this sentence, it described that one has long beards, so maybe it very messes in some others' view. So the meaning of 惹人嫌 should be &quot;making other people dislike this person&quot; in which the 嫌 has the same meaning in 嫌弃, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certainly, the meaning is not &quot;suspicious&quot; (怀疑).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21447" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T14:04:31.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32987" CreationDate="2019-02-21T14:44:04.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;惹: makes something happen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人: other people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嫌: 嫌弃 dislike, antipathy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惹人嫌的髭须 means creepy beard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惹人 = 令人 = making other people ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惹人爱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惹人怜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惹人疼 (not pain, 疼爱)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2019-02-21T14:49:35.450" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T14:49:35.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32983" CreationDate="2019-02-21T14:46:49.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;＂汉语同义词词典＂经常／时常［同］表示动作行为屡次发生。作状语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;［异］［经常］形容词。形容动作行为屡次发生。常作状语，可修饰用＂不＂否定的动词；也作谓语、定语。否定形式为＂不经常＂。可构成＂经常化＂、＂经常性＂。例：（１）我和新以经常同他开玩笑，他从不发脾气。（巴金＜一颗红心＞）（２）那时我们的宿营经常不在一起，我们几乎每天有演出任务。（丁玲＜她更是一个文学家＞）（３）那时刻印传单比较经常（吴伯萧＜无花果＞）（４）他们经常的下处，是木匠黎老东家。（孙犁＜铁木前传＞）（５）架上的书都摆得整整齐齐，看样子是不经常触动的。（陈玙＜夜幕下的哈尔滨＞）（６）为了使抗日宣传经常化，我们学校成立了＂中公剧社＂。（杜宣＜革命、戏剧，五十年生活片断＞）（７）广州三元里的农民队伍便是从临时自发的组织发展成为联系各村各乡的经常性组织的。（翦伯赞主编＜中国史纲要＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;［时常］副词。表示动作行为屡次发生，不强调其一贯性。只作状语。常用其肯定形式，一般不修饰用＂不＂否定的动词。例（１）离开了北京，我是时常想念北京的。（徐迟＜山峡记＞）（２）故母时常闹脾气。她单在鸡蛋里找骨头（老舍＜我的母亲＞）（３）我时常想，小川是有作为的，有能力的。（孙犁＜伙伴的回忆＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;［附］＂经常＇还表示平常的、日常的，如＂读抱是咱们生活里的经常事儿＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T14:46:49.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32969" CreationDate="2019-02-21T20:02:39.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a more general answer to the question &quot;Why is this transliterated as X (which doesn't sound as close) instead of as Y (which sounds closer)?&quot;, I would just point out that many words were first transliterated into or from Cantonese (and thus uses the Cantonese pronunciation for comparing sound similarity).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take words like 吉他 (guitar), 的士 (taxi), and 巴士 (bus) which sound much closer to English when pronounced with Cantonese pronunciation, even though these are still legitimate words in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20749" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T20:02:39.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32992" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33038" CreationDate="2019-02-22T05:27:18.947" Score="4" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English it's much more common to say &quot;squared&quot; than &quot;to the second power&quot;, but the reverse seems to be true in Chinese.  For example, m/s^2 is more commonly 米每二次方秒 (according to Google searches) than 米每秒的平方.  Does this match sound right to 中国数学家?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T01:20:00.923" Title="More common way to say &quot;squared&quot;, 二次方X or X的平方？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32993" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-22T07:42:23.737" Score="1" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the famous poem &quot;清明&quot; by the Tang dynasty poet 杜牧 (Du Mu), rain 雨 is &quot;纷纷&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As reported by dictionaries, like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php&lt;/a&gt; , 纷 (fēn) means &quot;numerous; confused; disorderly&quot;, then 纷纷 (fēnfēn) is one after another; in succession; one by one; continuously; diverse; in profusion; numerous and confused; pell-mell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Referred to rain, 纷纷 means that rain is &quot;continuous and long-protracting, with not much water falling all at once, maybe not very windy, somehow boring and sad&quot; (this would be my interpretation, according to the poem) or &quot;copious, with lot of water and wind, stormy, somehow violent&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;雨纷纷&quot; an expression that could be used in everyday life, or only an aulic expression?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T10:11:35.257" Title="Meaning of 纷纷 (fēnfēn) referred to 雨 (yǔ)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32993" CreationDate="2019-02-22T08:11:53.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Baidu Baike's page on &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%B8%85%E6%98%8E/8645623&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;清明&lt;/a&gt; has a vernacular translation of the line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;清明时节雨纷纷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;江南清明时节细雨纷纷飘洒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 雨纷纷 has been rendered as 细雨纷纷.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;细雨纷纷&lt;/strong&gt; is defined in &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a steady fall of drizzling rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while &lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;steady drizzle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨纷纷 itself is &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; poetic, but it is well known enough that most people would be aware of its existence and usage. The entire first line of the poem, in fact, shares the same status. Sometimes you will see or hear it quoted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless the situation calls for it, there is no real reason you would want to go around sounding like a bard and it would be quite off putting to most people listening to you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For normal everyday conversations, 细雨纷纷 would do just fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T08:11:53.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32993" CreationDate="2019-02-22T08:22:39.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;雨纷纷 imply &quot;細雨&lt;strong&gt;纷纷&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;constant&lt;/strong&gt; light rain )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if it is heavy rain, we would describe it as &quot;大雨&lt;strong&gt;滂沱&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;pouring&lt;/strong&gt; heavy rain )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清明時節雨纷纷 is a 寫景句 (scene description). It describes a scene of 'there is constant light rain during the Qing ming time'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;大雨滂沱 and 細雨纷纷 are more literary and classical&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;滂沱大雨 and 纷纷細雨 are more colloquial and contemporary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-22T08:30:41.783" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T08:30:41.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32996" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-22T09:31:25.853" Score="1" ViewCount="879" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 马上、立刻 and 直接? How do I use each word and in what situation is each word used? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-23T01:32:55.377" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T01:32:55.377" Title="Difference between 马上，立刻，直接" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32993" CreationDate="2019-02-22T10:11:35.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be used in everyday life, only with some modern adaption.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小雨纷纷, 下个不停. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雪花纷纷扬扬.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨纷纷.   Odd, the problem is not from 纷纷, but from modern expression behavior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T10:11:35.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32996" CreationDate="2019-02-22T10:52:33.570" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, we would use 马上 to imply that I’m on my way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use 立刻，to imply “immediately”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;直接 means directly or straightforward. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when I was a high school student, I was naughty and always made teachers mad at me, so they would ask me “go to the office after class immediately!” (That’s: 立刻来我办公室！in Chinese.)&#xA; And I would reply 马上来，which means I’m on my way. So when I describe this story to my friends, I could say, 下课之后我直接去了办公室（I went to the office directly after class.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21453" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T10:52:33.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32992" CreationDate="2019-02-22T13:55:29.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;二次方X&lt;/code&gt; is not used commonly, though people may still understand what you are indicating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For numbers:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say &lt;code&gt;X(的)二次方&lt;/code&gt; (not common)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;code&gt;X(的)平方&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;code&gt;X(的)立方&lt;/code&gt; (3rd power)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;code&gt;X的n次方&lt;/code&gt; (nth power, n &gt; 3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where &lt;code&gt;(的)&lt;/code&gt; can be skipped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For units:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say &lt;code&gt;平方X&lt;/code&gt; (2nd power)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;code&gt;立方X&lt;/code&gt; (3rd power)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;code&gt;n次方X&lt;/code&gt; (nth power, n&gt;3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so for your example: m/s^2, most common way to say is &lt;code&gt;米每平方秒&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20982" LastEditorUserId="20982" LastEditDate="2019-02-22T18:08:47.197" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T18:08:47.197" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32996" CreationDate="2019-02-22T15:07:34.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;see dictionaries，search web (using e.g. ....有什么不同／区别)，consult specialized dictionaries （see below) available at public or university libraries) &quot;实用汉语近义虚词词典＂立刻（副）／马上（副）&lt;strong&gt;［相同］&lt;/strong&gt; 都是副词，作状语，表示情况或动作行为发生很快。经常可以互换：１。都可以用于已经发生情况或行为：（１）最后的结果一宣布，小马立刻激动得哭了。（马上✓）（２）客人们一走，房间里立刻安静下来了。（马上✓）（３）演出一结束，礼堂里立刻向起了热烈的掌声。（马上✓）（４）老师刚宣布完这个好消息，同学们马上欢呼起来。（立刻✓）（５）下课了，教室的走廊上马上热闹起来了。（立刻✓）（６）又刮风又下雨，天空马上黑了下来。（立刻✓）&#xA;２。都可以用于将要发生的情况或行为：（１）刘老师让你马上去办公室。（立刻✓）（２）师张命令我们马上出发。（立刻✓）（３）张经理叫你马上到会议室开会。（立刻✓）（４）请大家立刻离开这个地方。（马上✓）（５）立刻出发！（马上✓）（６）立刻关闭手机。（马上✓）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［不同］１。&lt;/strong&gt; 用于将要发生的情况时，＂马上＂修饰的行为可以是很短时间内发生的，也可以是较长时间内发生的，如几天、几周、几个月；＂立刻＂修饰的行为是在很短时间发生的，一般是几秒钟、几分钟、几个小时之内：（１）下个月马上就要高考了，学生现在学习非常紧张。（较长时间，立刻✗）（２）听说新校长下个星期马上就到，是真的吗？（较长时间，立刻✗）（３）今天是１２月２０号，马上就到圣诞节了。（较长时间，立刻✗）（４）老张马上就６０岁了，还能和年轻人一起打篮球。（较长时间，立刻✗）（５）你马上就要当爸爸了，怎么还这么马虎？（较长时间，立刻✗）（６）火车马上就要开了，可小明还没赶到。（短时间，立刻✓）（７）飞机马上就要起飞了，请大家系好安全带。（短时间，立刻✓）&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;２。&lt;/strong&gt; ＂马上＂可以放在主语后，也可以放在主语前；＂立刻＂只能放在主语后：（１）马上电影就要开始了,可玛丽还没来。（立刻✗）（２）电影立刻就要开始，了可玛丽还没来。（马上✓）（３）老板一走进会议室，马上大家都不说话了。（立刻✗）（４）老板一走进会议室，大家立刻都不说话了。（马上✓）（５）走进房间，马上一股冷气扑面而来。（立刻✗）（６）走进房间，一股冷气立刻扑面而来。（马上✓）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 直接 see dictionaries, can hardly be confused with 立刻 or 马上，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T15:07:34.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32969" CreationDate="2019-02-22T15:20:43.347" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;China famous modern translator &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9A%B4%E5%BE%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yan Fu 严复 &lt;/a&gt;(1854-1-8－1921-10-27) define a widely acceptable translation methodologies when translate foreign literacy to mandarin, it is summaries as &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BF%A1%E8%BE%BE%E9%9B%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;信达雅&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated outcome must be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;信 accurate and with integrity &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;达 conduct the message fluently  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雅 Elegant&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To fulfill above all three requirements, the translator must also mastered their own mother tongue language. Variables such as origin literacy language and the translator use of dialect are not defined. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a Southerner Chinese translate Florence to 佛罗伦萨 , it fulfill the above requirements.   Since there are many dialect in China, the later translator will use the most common version of translated naming to avoid confusion.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, those rules are not always follow by &quot;late comer&quot; or due to different ideology.  I.e. many translator in mainland China doesn't follow the common terms used by Taiwan, Hong Kong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, something like 阿塔兰塔 is considered very bad translation.  Because 塔 means pagoda. Since Altlanta is a city, it is rather confus to name it such. On the other hand 亚特兰大 is much fluent and elegant, anyone look at the name will think about something &quot;big&quot; (亚特兰[大]), i.e. a city. 亚 is preferable compare to 阿/雅/涯 due to fluency , elegant and literacy habits reason. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2019-02-25T08:18:25.347" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T08:18:25.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33005" CreationDate="2019-02-22T16:20:18.347" Score="2" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course, it should not even be mapped to their original Unicode positions, they could be sent to Private Use Area planes, but is there any way to typeset the extra-simplified characters as delineated, say, in &lt;a href=&quot;http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n3695.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n3695.pdf&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20076" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-23T00:55:36.547" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T00:55:36.547" Title="Is there any font encoding the second stage of simplification?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33004" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33008" CreationDate="2019-02-22T17:42:21.300" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that even CEDICT is full of the common English usage mistake confusing the adjective &quot;everyday&quot; with the adverbial phrase &quot;every day&quot;. This means many dictionary sites and apps such as Pleco are also infested with this error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary, on the other hand, is still missing Chinese translations for many of the synonyms of &quot;everyday&quot;. I don't have access right now to a quality bilingual dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So, which Chinese terms are the best for the correct sense of English &quot;everyday&quot;, which means &quot;commonplace, mundane, ordinary, quotidian, unremarkable, etc&quot;?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel it might be 日常 but there's so much poor literacy in the public-edited dictionaries that I can't trust them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2019-02-23T03:58:41.657" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T05:24:26.517" Title="What are the best Chinese terms for the correct sense of the English adjective &quot;everyday&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33003" CreationDate="2019-02-22T20:23:07.870" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand from the author of that proposal that these characters will be in Unicode when CJK Extension G is adopted sometime next year.  In the meantime, they are available in his font &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Babelstone Han PUA&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21415" LastEditorUserId="21415" LastEditDate="2019-02-22T22:18:57.757" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T22:18:57.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32992" CreationDate="2019-02-22T22:30:04.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you don't bother to find what's correct, both 米每二次方秒 and 米每平方秒 are understandable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, &lt;strong&gt;there are some statute describe the general rule for unit pronounciation&lt;/strong&gt; . But I can't find the data source, so I don't post the rule here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My rule is, just like in english, read all &lt;code&gt;x³&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;立方x&lt;/code&gt;, all &lt;code&gt;xᒾ&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;平方x&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;expect &lt;code&gt;/sᒾ&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example read &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;kg/m³&#xA;kg        /     m³&#xA;千克      每    立方米&#xA;kilograms per cubic-meter &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases $ x \in {m,cm,mm,s}$, if oneday I have to read the gravitational constant G(6.67E-11 N*mᒾ/kgᒾ), I most probably read 每平方千克.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Below&lt;/strong&gt; are reasons why &quot;米每二次方秒&quot; more common than &quot;米每平方秒&quot;(from the perspective of Bayesian inference.) I think it's just a convention. It's a huge project to find exactly why.&#xA;For the pronunciations of other common units, you can also find them in my links.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Statute law&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It shows there are only one correct pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中华人民共和国国务院公报 page 572 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/shuju/1981/gwyb198118.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中华人民共和国计量单位名称与符号方案&lt;/a&gt;  from 中国政府&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://fgcx.bjcourt.gov.cn:4601/law?fn=chl005s160.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中华人民共和国计量单位名称与符号方案（试行）&lt;/a&gt; from 北京法院法规检索&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《中华人民共和国法定计量单位使用方法》 , it is hosted on serveral unofficial web, I cannot find an official site.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Publication&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This solved your question of &quot;中国数学家&quot; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=ze8LkTwSczcC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大学物理(高等院校物理系列教材)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://222.197.182.67:1168/fl/fl.cbs?viewvalue=%B3%A3%D3%C3%B7%C7%B7%A8%B6%A8%BC%C6%C1%BF%B5%A5%CE%BB%D3%EB%B7%A8%B6%A8%BC%C6%C1%BF%B5%A5%CE%BB%B5%C4%B6%D4%D5%D5%BC%B0%BB%BB%CB%E3%B1%ED&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;常用非法定计量单位与法定计量单位的对照及换算表&lt;/a&gt; from 中国大百科全书数据库&#xA;&amp;amp; &lt;a href=&quot;http://scholar.jxlib.gov.cn/refbook/ShowDetail.aspx?Table=CRFDOTHERINFO&amp;amp;ShowField=Content&amp;amp;TitleField=Title-ShowTitle&amp;amp;Field=OTHERID&amp;amp;Value=R20110930400A000005&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;附录二 非法定计量单位与法定计量单位换算表&lt;/a&gt; from CNKI jiangxi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Web data&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This solve &quot;the most common&quot; problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use double quotation marks and search by yourself to see what use them!&#xA;One publication only has one form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;google books ( 194 compared to 9 )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;google scholar ( 14 compared to 2 )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;google result (15700 compared to 4960)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't use baidu, the result include &quot;米每二次方秒&quot; and &quot;米每平方秒&quot; even if you use double quotation marks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Argument against&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;baike&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%B1%B3%E6%AF%8F%E5%B9%B3%E6%96%B9%E7%A7%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;米每平方秒&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8A%A0%E9%80%9F%E5%BA%A6/3764#viewPageContent&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;加速度(米每二次方秒)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;see the link above, it's self-contradictory. &#xA;Due to web incompatibility, I can't amend it. &#xA;Also, the *former* baike article don't have source material.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;google translate&lt;/s&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;`Metre per second squared` -&amp;gt; `米每秒平方`&#xA;`米每二次方秒`-&amp;gt;`Meter every second second`&#xA;`米每平方秒`-&amp;gt;`Meter per square second`&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;Baidu translate &lt;/s&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;`Metre per second squared`-&amp;gt;`米/秒平方`&#xA;`米每二次方秒` -&amp;gt; `Metre every second square second`&#xA;`米每平方秒` -&amp;gt; `Metres per square second`&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Others&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FWIW, believe &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B1%B3%E6%AF%8F%E4%BA%8C%E6%AC%A1%E6%96%B9%E7%A7%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, when can't find in Wiki then use baike.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20986" LastEditorUserId="20986" LastEditDate="2019-03-12T15:46:13.543" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T15:46:13.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32987" CreationDate="2019-02-22T22:48:47.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;唇上唇下留着不长不短但总之很惹人嫌的髭须。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above his lips was a moustache and below was a beard, both neither long nor short, but both very ugly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Why is 'in a word' never 1 word? It's a mystery!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T22:48:47.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33004" CreationDate="2019-02-23T05:24:26.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“日常” is the closest in most contexts. It conveys the sense of &quot;commonplace, mundane&quot; very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some example phrases:&#xA;everyday life - 日常生活&#xA;everyday conversation - 日常对话/日常会话&#xA;everyday clothes - 日常服装&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also be used as a noun: 我厌倦了重复的日常 (I grew tired of my repetitive everyday life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T05:24:26.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33009" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33010" CreationDate="2019-02-23T13:03:28.783" Score="2" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;To improve my Chinese listening, I decided to watch 天下一碗 (Tian Xia Yi Wan), as actors tend to speak with very precise and clear tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/m3_X8fhHoos?t=876&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;, Liu laoye says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;如果是一时意气用事的话, 岂不是耽误了子女的前程了吗&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not know why 程 is pronounced &quot;du&quot; here? is it a typo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(But 前度 does not make sense to me either).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21284" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-24T01:46:52.913" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T02:31:04.653" Title="Why did the actor pronounce 程, &quot;du&quot; instead of &quot;cheng&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33009" CreationDate="2019-02-23T16:50:51.673" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 前途 (qian tu) which has pretty much the same meaning as 前程. Probably a typo in the subtitle or the actor said it differently from the script, the director thought it was fine, but the subtitle comes from the script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T16:50:51.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33011" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33012" CreationDate="2019-02-24T09:36:50.157" Score="1" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;During the 20th century, two Chinese simplifications succeeded: the one in China, and the one in Japanese. There were also many abandoned attempts to simplify Chinese , including:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First Batch Simplified Characters (教育部公布 第一批简体字表), &lt;strong&gt;not to be confused with the standard simplified Chinese currently used in China&lt;/strong&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Singapore Simplified Characters (新加坡简体字); and&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second Stage Simplified Characters (第二次汉字简化方案).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explain their backgrounds and provide a reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This will be self-answered)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21468" LastActivityDate="2019-02-24T09:36:50.157" Title="What are some backgrounds and references to obsolete simplified Chinese characters?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;reference-materials&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33011" CreationDate="2019-02-24T09:36:50.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;h3&gt;(Warning: long answer)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/WG2/docs/n3695.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Proposal to Encode Obsolete Simplified Chinese Characters&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is an excellent reference to the different obsolete Chinese simplification standards, although the encoding is yet to be seen :) This answer is a synopsis of the backgrounds provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;First Batch Simplified Characters (1935) (教育部公布 第一批简体字表)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(From Page 3 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/WG2/docs/n3695.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Proposal&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In January 1934 at the 29th meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Unification of the National Language (Guóyǔ Tǒngyī Chóubèi Wěiyuánhuì 國語統一籌備委員會) of the Ministry of Education, Qián Xuántóng 錢玄同 (1887–1939) submitted a draft table of simplified characters (Sōucǎi gùyǒu ér jiào shìyòng de jiǎntǐzì àn 搜採固有而較適用的簡體字 案). These were approved by the committee, and Qián Xuántóng was delegated to edit a table of simplified characters for publication. In August 1935 the Ministry of Eductaion published a first batch of 324 simplified characters (see Appendices A and F), with the intention of publishing a series of further batches of simplified characters. However, in February 1936 the Ministry of Education issued a directive halting the simplification program, and no further batches of simplified characters were issued. Although this first batch of simplified characters was not widely used, it was historically very important as it represented the first centralized attempt to promote the use of simplified characters in China, and was a precursor to the simplification movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the People’s Republic of China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplifications in this table were based on commonly used vulgar form characters (e.g. 宝 for 寶), ancient forms of characters (e.g. 无 for 無) and cursive form characters (e.g. 为 for 為). Most of the 324 first batch simplifications are identical to modern standard simplified characters or Japanese simplified characters, but some are different to a greater or lesser extent; and those characters that are not currently encoded need to be encoded in order for scholars to discuss this pioneering episode in the history of Chinese character simplification. Moreover, some of the currently unencoded “first batch” characters are commonly found in early printed texts (see Fig. 1), so it would also be useful to encode these characters for scholars of such texts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iwz4j.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iwz4j.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Singapore Simplified Characters (1969) (新加坡简体字)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(From Page 17 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/WG2/docs/n3695.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Proposal&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1969 the Ministry of Education of Singapore issued a table of 502 simplified Chinese characters* for use in Singapore. Most of these characters were identical to the standard simplified characters used at that time in the People’s Republic of China, but 77 simplifications were different. Many of the different simplifications are the same as the earlier “first batch” simplified characters, and a few are the same as simplifications given in the later “second stage” simplification tables, but 23 simplifications are unique and unencoded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1974 an expanded list of 2,248 simplified characters was issued, of which only 10 characters still differed from PRC simplified characters. Finally, in May 1976 a revised list of simplified characters was issued that omitted the 10 Singapore-only simplifications, and was now identical to the list of simplified characters used in the PRC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;* This is why this one is also referred to as 《502》.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Second Stage Simplified Characters (1977) (第二次汉字简化方案)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(From Page 21 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/WG2/docs/n3695.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Proposal&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following on from the formal introduction of simplified Chinese characters in the 1950s and 1960s, an attempt to promote a second stage of further simplifications was made in the late 1970s. In May 1975 the Chinese Writing Reform Committee (Zhōngguó Wénzì Gǎigé Wěiyuánhuì 中国文字改革委员会) produced a first draft of Second Stage simplified characters for review by the State Council, and eventually on 20th December 1977 the final draft (entitled Dì'èrcì Hànzì Jiǎnhuà Fāng'àn (cǎo'àn) 《第二次汉字简化方案（草案）》) was published in the People's Daily (Rénmín Rìbào 人民日报), the Guangming Daily (Guāngmíng Rìbào 光明日报) and other newspapers (see Figs. 2-3 and Appendix C).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VCMRg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VCMRg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The draft comprised two tables, Table 1 with 172 individual simplifications and 21 generic simplifications, for immediate use; and Table 2 with a much larger number of simplifications for future use if the Table 1 simplifications proved successful. Table 1 only was added as an appendix to a new edition of the General Table of Simplified Characters (Jiǎnhuàzì Zǒngbiǎo 简化字总表) that was published in December 1977 (see Appendix B).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On 21st December 1977, the day after the draft was published, the People's Daily started to use the simplified characters listed in Table 1 only, and continued to do so until July 1978 (see Figs. 4-5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xR6Rf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xR6Rf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Postage stamps issued between June and November 1978 also made use of the new simplified characters from Table 1 (see Figs. 6-10).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MC499.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MC499.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During 1978 the new simplified characters from Table 1 were widely used in newspapers, books, and publications of all kinds, but the experiment was judged to have been a failure, and in July 1978 a directive to stop using the new simplified characters was issued. Although the new simplifications were not used in official publications after the end of 1978, they were not officially withdrawn until 24th June 1986 (see Appendix H). Nevertheless, the new simplifications did not entirely die out, and were occasionally used in printed contexts during the 1980s. Even today simplified characters from Table 1 are frequently met with in informal contexts such as shop signage and personal correspondence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/skBop.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/skBop.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a pressing need to encode the Table 1 simplifications, both in order to discuss the history of Chinese character simplification, and also in order to accurately represent those texts that are written using second stage simplifications. As an example, a web site about Chinese post cards (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.postcardxp.com/list.asp?unid=2144&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.postcardxp.com/list.asp?unid=2144&lt;/a&gt;) has the following entry about a set of post cards published in 1986 that includes the second stage simplification for 罐 guàn “pot” in the titles of several of the post cards. The author of the web site is unable to represent this character, and is forced to describe it using its component parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GVgOo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GVgOo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike the simplifications listed in Table 1 of the Second Stage Simplification Tables, which were widely used and are still widely recognized, the simplifications listed in Table 2 were not used in official publications such as the People's Daily (or in any printed books that I have been able to find) and most Chinese people are not familiar with them. However, there is still a need to encode these characters in order for historians of Chinese character simplification to represent the draft simplification tables in electronic format, and to discuss these abortive simplifications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A number of the simplifications in Table 2 are based on cursive or vulgar character forms that are commonly found in printed and manuscript texts dating back to at least the Tang dynasty, such as Yuánkān Zájù Sānshízhòng 元刊雜劇三十種 and dūnhuáng biànwén jí 敦煌 變文集 (see Figs.12-15), and so encoding the Table 2 characters would also be of benefit to&#xA;Page 24 of 112JTC1/SC2/WG2 N3695 scholars working with old Chinese texts. Other vulgar simplifications found in texts such as these will be the subject of a future proposal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YiJpi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YiJpi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters are listed in &lt;a href=&quot;https://glyphwiki.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;glyphwiki&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://glyphwiki.org/wiki/Group:%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%8C%E6%AC%A1%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%97%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E6%96%B9%E6%A1%88%E3%83%BB%E4%BF%AE%E8%AE%A2%E8%8D%89%E6%A1%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;第二次汉字简化方案・修订草案&lt;/a&gt; (draft)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://glyphwiki.org/wiki/Group:%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%8C%E6%AC%A1%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%97%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E6%96%B9%E6%A1%88%E3%83%BB%E7%AC%AC%E4%B8%80%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;第二次汉字简化方案・第一表&lt;/a&gt; (Table 1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://glyphwiki.org/wiki/Group:%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%8C%E6%AC%A1%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%97%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E6%96%B9%E6%A1%88%E3%83%BB%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%8C%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;第二次汉字简化方案・第二表&lt;/a&gt; (Table 2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which comes in handy when you want to include some of them in a paper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21468" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-24T09:36:50.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33013" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33014" CreationDate="2019-02-24T13:14:14.687" Score="3" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;A restaurant just up the road from my hostel here in Taichung, Taiwan has some dishes including the characters  臉盆. When I looked them up I could only find the meaning &quot;washbasin&quot;. Even hunting the internet afterwards I couldn't find any other meaning or useful reference to food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rowl4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rowl4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;臉盆 section of the menu&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What could 臉盆 mean in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-21T22:45:13.623" LastActivityDate="2020-07-21T22:45:13.623" Title="What does 臉盆 &quot;washbasin&quot; mean when it's part of the names of dishes in Taiwan?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;food&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33013" CreationDate="2019-02-24T13:55:33.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZxVVK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZxVVK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;臉盆 still means &lt;em&gt;washbasin&lt;/em&gt; here, it's just that &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; washbasin is a very large bowl used for food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A tonne more noodles and a lot more soup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-02-24T13:55:33.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33015" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-02-24T15:37:29.507" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-02-24T15:37:29.507" LastActivityDate="2019-02-24T15:37:29.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33016" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-02-24T15:37:29.507" Score="0" Body="For questions about the language spoken in Tibet, which is not Chinese but linguistically closely related." OwnerUserId="15684" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2019-02-25T00:36:26.917" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T00:36:26.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33017" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-24T19:14:39.460" Score="4" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正义&lt;strong&gt;感&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;使命&lt;strong&gt;感&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厚重&lt;strong&gt;感&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But some sound weird to me, as &lt;a href=&quot;http://archive.is/eFtrM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;意义感&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13836" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T09:39:26.307" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T21:45:21.267" Title="What kind of words can be followed by the character 感？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33018" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-24T20:33:32.553" Score="0" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pen writing and brush writing is also welcome.&#xA;If possible, I hope you can give your evaluate for these resourses.&#xA;I have heard 灵飞经 is a good copybook. Are there something close to that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21471" LastActivityDate="2020-12-28T23:18:55.673" Title="What are good resources for Chinese calligraphy?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2019-02-26T03:10:59.243" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33019" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33032" CreationDate="2019-02-24T20:41:18.223" Score="1" ViewCount="454" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I use xiuxian? &#xA;It means taking pills of immortality and cultivate oneself to become an immortal, short for cultivate immortality, can you understand the latter easily if it suddenly appears in English article?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21471" LastEditorUserId="21471" LastEditDate="2019-02-26T01:26:03.373" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T15:36:22.850" Title="What's the most accessible translation for 修仙 or 修真?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33020" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-24T20:53:17.547" Score="4" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does &quot;我给他打败了&quot; mean &quot;I defeated him&quot; or &quot;I was defeated by him&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that “我给他骗了” means &quot;I was cheated by him&quot;, but &quot;我给他送走了&quot; means &quot;I send him away&quot;. In general, if we say &quot;我给他……（动词）了&quot;, how to determine which one is the objective, &quot;我&quot; or &quot;他&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; Several people say we do not usually see &quot;我给他送走了&quot;. How about this example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我给他让座了 means “I gave my seat to him” and &quot;I&quot; is the subjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="21202" LastEditDate="2019-02-25T04:42:31.833" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T15:15:51.717" Title="In “我给他打败了”, who defeated whom?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33021" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33029" CreationDate="2019-02-24T22:06:49.117" Score="4" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, 偏導數 means partial derivative. But my intuition on this character is inclined and remote. How can I derive this meaning from the regular meaning of 偏?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 説文解字 I got this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lGnLa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lGnLa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;   (偏) 頗也。頗、頭偏也。引伸爲凡偏之偁。故以頗釋偏。二字雙聲。尙書。無偏無頗。絫言之也。周易翩翩。古文作偏偏。从人。扁聲。芳連切。十二部。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21471" LastEditorUserId="20986" LastEditDate="2019-02-25T05:40:05.563" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T05:48:45.807" Title="Why 偏 has a meaning of partial?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33023" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-24T22:20:08.353" Score="1" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading a web novel called &quot;凤凰仙尊，刁妻萌娃好难训.&quot; There's a sentence which confused me, so I hope someone could tell me if my interpretation's already correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;凡物只所持，不外乎三种，神念、灵气、元血。只是，一旦错了。就不知会如何了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assumed the meaning is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are only three kinds of things to be controlled: divine comprehension, spiritual aura, and primordial blood. But (we) don't know what'd happen if a mistake occurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-04T02:39:10.533" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T23:23:03.700" Title="Am I interpreting this correctly? 凡物只所持，不外乎三种，神念、灵气、元血。只是，一旦错了。就不知会如何了。" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33021" CreationDate="2019-02-24T23:56:13.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not too sure what the question is exactly. &quot;How can I derive this meaning for [sic] (from??) the regular meaning of 偏?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't derive the meaning, look it up!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find the regular meanings of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/504F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;偏 here：&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不全面，不正确：偏爱。偏见。偏激。偏狭。偏执。偏废。偏颇。偏听。偏信。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'partial' originally meant 'one-sided, biased （偏颇）‘ then 'not whole, incomplete' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to get the meaning from the character alone, I think that won't work for a great many Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偏：人 + 扁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;扁：户 + 冊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some characters you can pretty much get the meaning from the picture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;集：隹 + 木 = gather (like birds in a tree at dusk)&#xA;娶：取 + 女 = marry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-02-24T23:56:13.970" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33020" CreationDate="2019-02-25T00:06:56.207" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;我给他打败了 usually means 我被他打败了， namely I was defeated by him. And 我给他骗了 follows the same pattern. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我给他送走了 doesn't sound quite right in my opinion. It should be 我把他送走了, meaning I sent him away. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T00:06:56.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17538" CreationDate="2019-02-25T00:29:35.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's what I can gather from looking at example sentences from Pleco and Ichacha. I'll only be considering the use of these words as verbs, not as nouns. See the headings for a tl;dr.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;表达: to convey&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;表达&lt;/strong&gt;: to convey or voice (a feeling or one's thoughts), such as wishes, aspirations, or excitement. This is generally followed by an object, not a clause. Compared to 表示, there's more of a focus of getting your message across.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;表示: to show a &amp;quot;social&amp;quot; feeling, to indicate&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;表示&lt;/strong&gt;: to show (a feeling), such as friendliness, affection, concern, remorse,  or agreement. The emphasis here seems to be more on the outward expression, and seems to be more about feelings that are just socially expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can also mean &amp;quot;to indicate&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发烧&lt;strong&gt;表示&lt;/strong&gt;有病。A high fever indicates sickness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also mean showing non-feelings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;图中&lt;strong&gt;表示&lt;/strong&gt;出顶部的斜度。The slopes of the roofs are shown in the figure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike 表达 and 表现, which apparently can only be followed by an object, 表示 can be followed by a clause:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她未&lt;strong&gt;表示&lt;/strong&gt;打算做何回应。She has not indicated how she proposes to react.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;表现: to demonstrate a quality, to present oneself&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;表现(出)&lt;/strong&gt;: to demonstrate or display (a quality), such as interest, a sensible attitude, the enthusiasm of youth, or a mistaken belief. 表现 can mean &amp;quot;to present oneself + adv.&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;to perform + adv.&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;to behave oneself (well/poorly)&amp;quot;, and so it's often followed with a 得. Some example sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在公司里&lt;strong&gt;表现&lt;/strong&gt;得卑鄙专横。 At the office he was mean and overbearing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;难度&lt;strong&gt;表现&lt;/strong&gt;在许多方面。 Difficulties arise in a number of ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她想&lt;strong&gt;表现&lt;/strong&gt;人生的“亲切感”。 She hoped to convey the &amp;quot;immediacy&amp;quot; of existence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;显示: to demonstrate a quality, to display&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;显示(出)&lt;/strong&gt;: to demonstrate or display (a quality), such as strength, intelligence, beauty, a finite lifespan, many bacteria, or one's heritage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also mean displaying something more literal, such as a speedometer showing 95 mph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;速度计显示95英里每小时。The speedometer showed a speed of 95 mph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 显示 can be followed by a clause:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他脸上&lt;strong&gt;显示&lt;/strong&gt;出他对演讲感到满意。His face told that he was satisfied with the speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;调查&lt;strong&gt;显示&lt;/strong&gt;75%的人赞成新法规。Surveys show that 75% of people approve of the new law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T19:11:37.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33020" CreationDate="2019-02-25T02:09:20.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a dialect more or less, you won't meet this kind of usage in formal texts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把他打败了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我被他打败了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2020-02-25T15:15:51.717" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T15:15:51.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33009" CreationDate="2019-02-25T02:25:43.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is almost impossible in an official film and television program usually, except that the subtitles are mistyped, or that the foul words are not shown or replaced with the homophones intentionally. But, occasionally I also discover the cases like you said in TV drama subtitles, such as typos, mistyped synonyms. However, subtitles do not match the subtitle is common in some unofficial subtitles, especially for non-Mandarin movies, like English or Cantonese movie, for there may be multiple versions from different netizen translation group. Even, there are more than one official translation sometime, for example, I bought a Chinese version DVD of the movie &lt;strong&gt;Inception&lt;/strong&gt; before, I also watched the Blu-ray version later, the translations are different from each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-02-25T02:31:04.653" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T02:31:04.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33021" CreationDate="2019-02-25T04:46:45.273" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;偏's core meaning is 'lean to the side' as in 偏右(lean right) or  偏左 (lean left)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That meaning extended to represent 'away from center' as in 偏僻 (remote/ isolated) and 偏遠 (remote / far away) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice: '偏遠地區' (remote area) is referring 'an area that is far away from the center of a country'. Even it is remote, that area is still '&lt;strong&gt;a part of&lt;/strong&gt; the &lt;strong&gt;whole&lt;/strong&gt; country. Therefore, 偏 also obtained the meaning of 'a part of' (partial) by the virtue of opposing 全(whole)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idiom &quot;以偏概全&quot; - &quot;generalize the whole by examine only part of it&quot; illustrated 偏 (partial/ incomplete) is the opposite of 全 (whole/complete)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;away from center&quot; meaning of 偏 further extended to mean &quot;away from the main stream&quot; , therefore  偏 also contains the meaning of 'non-standard' as in 偏方 (deviant prescription)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-25T05:48:45.807" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T05:48:45.807" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33030" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-25T04:57:10.687" Score="1" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is known that the first character in a two-&quot;三声&quot;-character word is prounounced as &quot;二声&quot;。For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勇敢 （ㄩㄥ&lt;strong&gt;ˇ&lt;/strong&gt;　ㄍㄢˇ）is usually pronounced as &quot;（ㄩㄥ&lt;strong&gt;ˊ&lt;/strong&gt;　ㄍㄢˇ）&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about when in a sentence there are some consecutative &quot;三声&quot; characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请你给李雪主讲讲勇敢的打死老虎者。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to pronounce the tones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T05:23:48.677" Title="How to pronounce several consecutive '“三声” characters?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-02-28T05:36:12.510" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33030" CreationDate="2019-02-25T05:23:48.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought about such questions before as well, it turns out in this case, you would just pronounce the way it flows better for you, for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;qíng nǐ géi lǐ xué zhǔ jiáng jiǎng yóng gǎn dē dá sǐ láo hú zhě&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;qǐng ní gěi (pause) lǐ xué zhǔ jiáng jiǎng yóng gǎn dē dá sǐ láo hú zhě&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can imagine you are trying to speak out a number whose value is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.55555555555555555555555...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would naturally alternate second and third tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T05:23:48.677" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33019" CreationDate="2019-02-25T05:26:18.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;修仙 = cultivate oneself to become an immortal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;after become 神仙 or 仙 , one can live outside of the mundane world &lt;em&gt;吸風飲露，不食五穀 (able to exist and function by using the energy from nature, no need to eat)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;修真 = cultivate oneself to achieve spiritual enlightenment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;修真者，借假修真也。道教中，学道修行，求得真我，&lt;strong&gt;去伪存真&lt;/strong&gt; (remove the fault and keep the truth) 为“修真”。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scripps wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is there any noun to represent that?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;修仙 short for 修練成仙之法 (study and train oneself to become an immortal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;修真 short for 修硏尋得真我之法 (Study and learn to find one's truth self)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you must use simple terms to describe them, you can call '修仙' as '&lt;strong&gt;immortality seeking&lt;/strong&gt;' and '修真' as '&lt;strong&gt;truth seeking&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T14:11:36.783" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32992" CreationDate="2019-02-25T11:33:54.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;二次方 or 平方 is the only way. Maybe scientists would change the expression to be more easy to speak in his language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;m/s^2 -&gt;  n/s (n = √m)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if they will do that, I have never seen something like x/y^2, maybe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T11:33:54.790" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33034" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36798" CreationDate="2019-02-25T17:59:41.113" Score="2" ViewCount="518" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say &quot;Cookies&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean website cookies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often see &quot;cookies&quot; or 曲奇 but I would like to know which terms is mostly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19189" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-07T04:14:18.017" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T04:47:08.053" Title="How do you say &quot;cookies&quot;, in the sense of website cookies?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33036" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-26T03:36:39.043" Score="3" ViewCount="435" Body="&lt;p&gt;My late grandfather left Macau, China to the Philippine to find work around the year 1918-1920.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my dad's baptismal certificate, my grandfather carries the name &lt;strong&gt;Leo Suening&lt;/strong&gt;. It's also common in the Philippines to conjoin their Chinese names into one (Suen + Ing) but we are not certain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that he came from Cantonese a speaking region, Candidates for possible origins are 孙/孫 (transliterations from Sun) and 吳/吴 for Ng (Ing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21480" LastEditorUserId="21480" LastEditDate="2019-02-26T07:26:42.610" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T02:59:07.500" Title="What are the original Chinese characters for the Chinese family name Suening in the Philippines?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;surnames&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33036" CreationDate="2019-02-26T04:09:18.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese in Macau are mostly Cantonese speakers. It is not uncommon for people to write last name before the first name in Chinese speaking regions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your grandfather case &quot;Leo&quot; would actually be the last name. According to British Romanization of Chinese characters &quot;Leo&quot; is most likely &quot;廖&quot; /liu6/ or 柳 /lau5/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suening was most likely two characters written as one English word, that provided further evidence for 'Leo' (廖/柳) being the family name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suening as  Sue-Ning make more sense than Suen-Ing because 'Ning'(寧) is a very common first name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese characters for 'Leo Sue Ning' could be &#xA;廖信寧, 柳信寧, 廖迅寧, 柳迅寧, 廖迅齡 or 柳信齡 in Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;廖/柳信寧 seems to be most probable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suening wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Hi, I got my Gedmatch (DNA) results and distant relative has 梁 from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liang_(surname) is it totally different from the given above?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梁 in Hong Kong is written as 'Leung'.  &quot;Leo&quot; might be a pronunciation from a Cantonese sub-dialect for 梁. And it is a common surname.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, 'Leo Sue Ning' could be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;梁信寧&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;梁迅寧&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;梁信齡&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 2:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This turned a bit complicated as I leaned towards the 'Leong', more and more users were added with the names of 'Liu' (劉) - list; Liu Gui Hua, XiaoxueLiu, Liu Jin Lian, Liu Li Qun, Chang Liu, John Liu, Xiaoou Liu, Liu Shun Ying, Haoshu Liu, Ismayil Liu, Liu, Liu Su Hua, Liu Gui Hua, XiaoxueLiu, Liu Jin Lian&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it could be &lt;strong&gt;劉信寧&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;劉迅寧&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;劉信齡&lt;/strong&gt; then. Both 劉 and 梁 are very common Chinese surnames. It doesn't change the fact that 'Suening' was most likely  a two characters given name 'Sue Ning' mistakenly turned into a Surname in  the Philippine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-29T05:27:03.030" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T05:27:03.030" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32992" CreationDate="2019-02-26T05:07:49.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When using in maths, we say:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 的平方 (or, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 的二次方, alternatively): The square of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 的立方 (or, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 的三次方, alternatively): The cube of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 的 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 次方: The &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;-th power of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 的平方根 (or, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 的二次方根, alternatively): The square root of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 的立方根 (or, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 的三次方根, alternatively): The cube root of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 的 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 次方根: The &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;-th root of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When using in units in daily life, we say:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;using 平方米 (or 平米) frequently rather than 二次方米 for &lt;strong&gt;square meters&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;using 二次方秒 frequently rather than 平方秒 for &lt;strong&gt;square seconds&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thinks it is because of that 平 means &lt;strong&gt;flat&lt;/strong&gt; literally in Chinese, 平方 means &lt;strong&gt;flat square&lt;/strong&gt; literally, maybe the word 平方 was created to describe the area size at first (actually it is the same like that the word &lt;strong&gt;square&lt;/strong&gt; in English). When referring to the square of time units, people prefer 二次方 instead of 平方.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T05:07:49.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33017" CreationDate="2019-02-26T10:58:47.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;感我的理解是一种感觉，感受形容什么感主题应该是人。所以意义感不对。&#xA;I think the word 感 means feeling about sb，so when you use the word 感 ,it should describ sb’s feeling ,not something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21481" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T10:58:47.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33019" CreationDate="2019-02-26T15:24:27.800" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;if it suddenly appears in English article&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What make you think such story are any different than English fantasies, which the protagonist and antagonist keep getting new abilities along the way? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even many card game show similar traits, i.e. obtained/advanced a &quot;new level&quot; or &quot;gaining new abilities&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastEditorUserId="15121" LastEditDate="2019-02-26T15:36:22.850" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T15:36:22.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32734" CreationDate="2019-02-26T15:52:56.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你跑步跑得很快, grammarly correct and common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你跑步很快 common but odd a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你跑得很快 grammarly correct and most common saying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T15:52:56.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33042" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33043" CreationDate="2019-02-26T16:46:58.250" Score="3" ViewCount="1134" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is probably quite likely that someone has asked this question before, however the search function doesn't throw anything up and it is actually quite difficult to search for!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put, I have noticed the sentence structures 在...中 / 在...下 / 在...上 and am not entirely sure what they mean， though I can limit their possible meanings from context. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;中国和印度两个大国的努力&lt;strong&gt;下&lt;/strong&gt; must mean something like &quot;due to&quot; or &quot;as a result of&quot; or &quot;in the process of&quot; or &quot;thanks to&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't know what it is precisely enough to do use it confidently myself. The same goes for 在...中 and 在...上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone fancies giving a bit of an insight, it'd be much appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hashamyim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T00:21:45.387" Title="在。。。中 / 在。。。下 / 在。。。上" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33042" CreationDate="2019-02-26T18:00:37.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand them, they are used very similar to how you use them in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在．．．中 is like &quot;during&quot;, &quot;in the middle of&quot;, or just &quot;in&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在．．．下 is like &quot;under&quot; (&quot;Under the rule of...&quot;, &quot;Under the stress of...&quot;, &quot;Under the efforts of China and India...&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在．．．上 is like &quot;on the...&quot; (&quot;On the merits of...&quot;, &quot;On the basis of...&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20749" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T18:00:37.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33044" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33048" CreationDate="2019-02-26T21:08:44.897" Score="1" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am watching 天下一碗 , in this &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/e-5zMV8AsH8?t=1954&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;, ChengXi says that his friend HuaQiang 革去功名&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean that he got famous in a revolution or reformist group? as he got involved in a political movement? and that he will always be in trouble?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or does it mean he lost his honor and name? and became considered a traitor?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched but did not find any explanation online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21284" LastEditorUserId="21284" LastEditDate="2019-02-26T21:14:26.400" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T21:54:51.660" Title="what does 革去功名 mean?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33044" CreationDate="2019-02-26T21:18:02.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means something akin to &quot;remove his rank/honor&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21486" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T21:18:02.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9914" CreationDate="2019-02-26T21:20:05.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not really &quot;self-control&quot;; it's more like &quot;control, grasp, seize&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21486" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T21:20:05.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33042" CreationDate="2019-02-26T21:31:02.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;＂对外汉语常用词语对比例释＂在。。。上  在。。。中  在。。。下 （介词词组）（一）介词＂在＂与＂。。。上＂、＂，，，中＂、＂。。。下＂等方位词组构成介词词组，表示某空间、范围、方面、条件等，但是由于后面的方位词不同，所以意义和用法也不相同。１。＂在。。。上＂：主要表示方面、空间方位、条件等。例如：他在搜集邮票上，下了不少工夫。科学技术是一种在历史上起推动作用的革命力量。在大量实验的基础上，他又作了理论上的总结。&#xA;２。＂在。。。中＂：主要表示环境里、范围里等。例如：青年人要在艰苦中奋斗、在奋斗中创业，在创业中成长。他在研究生物工程工作中取得了可喜的成绩。&#xA;３。在。。。下＂：主要表示前提条件。在大家的帮助下，他很快就适应了这里的生活。这些作品是在老作家的指导下创作出来的。&#xA;４。要注意的是：＂在。。。上＂，＂在。。。下＂都可以表示＂条件＂，但是它们使用的环境不同。＂在。。。上＂所表示的条件不是前提条件，它有一定的工作基础，然后进一步向高发展。例如：我们要在发展生产的基础上，不断改善人民的生活水平。（前-低；后-高）＊我们要在发展生产的基础下，不断改善人民的生活水平。&#xA;５。＂在。。。下＂所表示的条件是前提条件，无论肯定的或否定的，都是一种条件。在表示肯定意义的条件中，由于有了这一条件才会出现某种情况，所以形成这一条件的因素通常是高的。例如：在李老师的启发下，大家终于弄明白了这道难题。（前-高；后-低）在社会主义制度下，实行的是按劳分配的分配原则。（前-高；后-低）。＊在李老师的启发上，大家终于弄明白了这道难题。&#xA;（二）由＂在＂构成介词词组表示某空间、范围、方面、条件等时，后面一定要有＂上＂、＂中＂、＂下＂等响应的方位词配合，没有是错的。例如：这件事一定在思想上引起注意。在众多的朋友中，我们俩最要好。他在没有任何先进设备的条件下，自己克服困难取得实验的成功。＊这件事一定在思想引起注意。＊在众多的朋友，我们俩最要好。＊他在没有任何先进设备的条件，自己克服困难取得实验的成功。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more examples users suggest submitting ＂在。。。中、在。。。上、在。。。下＂ to iciba，or also google same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-02-27T00:21:45.387" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T00:21:45.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33044" CreationDate="2019-02-26T21:54:51.660" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1072/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1072/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;革: [3] [v] get rid of; dismiss; abolish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;革 = remove (verb) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去 = away (result complement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/57657/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;功名&lt;/a&gt; = scholarly honour plus official position (noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;革去功名 means &quot;strip away all titles and government positions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T21:54:51.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8875" CreationDate="2019-02-27T00:32:05.887" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i sneeze and no one really says anything in china. i dont think any1 say's bao y&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21487" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T00:32:05.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33050" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-27T01:08:15.137" Score="2" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries define 肉麻 as &lt;em&gt;nauseating; sickening; disgusting&lt;/em&gt;. But I don't think those are accurate because those words are showing disproval while 肉麻 could show approval depending on how you use it. The word is being used when somebody says something overly sweet. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 我太喜欢你了！ 我愿意天天和你在一起！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B: 好肉麻啊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might be a question for the ELL site. But I don't know how to describe the word precisely in English, so I might just ask here. Any suggestions? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T12:58:47.300" Title="How to interpret 肉麻" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33050" CreationDate="2019-02-27T08:15:36.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider: &lt;strong&gt;gushy&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;gushy&#xA;  /ˈɡʌʃi/&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  adjective&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  excessively effusive.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and gives the example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;her gushy manner&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.91dub.com/search/Especially%20when%20they%20started%20being%20all%20gushy.?type=search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;91dub&lt;/a&gt; also has the show《牛仔裤的夏天》subtitled with the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Especially when they started being all gushy.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  尤其是在很肉麻的时候.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T08:15:36.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33050" CreationDate="2019-02-27T09:20:03.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the given context, I'd plump for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: Errrh! Gross!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but this will never &quot;show approval.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe, if no disapproval is intended, which I assumed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: You're making me blush!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2019-03-02T01:17:43.263" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T01:17:43.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33058" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33059" CreationDate="2019-02-27T11:46:32.573" Score="4" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 3 words all have a meaning of fall but what are the differences between the 3 of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T15:36:09.140" Title="Differences between 摔，落 and 掉" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33058" CreationDate="2019-02-27T15:36:09.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;摔: stress on the power, usually for human and animal stumbled, or things thrown by people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落: a process, usually slow &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;掉: lost control, stress on the difference from the original position and new position,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a plane landing successfully could be 落下 from sky, if the plane get some troubles and fall down, that could be 掉下 from sky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A famous quote 天上掉下个林妹妹 from 红楼梦, 林妹妹 is a girl in case you don't know 红楼梦, she was a immortal live in heaven.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if 天上&lt;strong&gt;落&lt;/strong&gt;下个林妹妹, then 林妹妹 might use some magic to land on the earth. That is a common scene in a fantasy novel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if 天上&lt;strong&gt;摔&lt;/strong&gt;下个林妹妹, a funny scene, imagine she walks on the heaven, then stumbled then hit the ground by head...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 天上掉下个林妹妹, weird and unbelievable things happened, a beautiful girl fall from heaven and stand just in front of you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T15:36:09.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33060" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33068" CreationDate="2019-02-28T05:33:01.500" Score="1" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Original title: &amp;quot;Translate “当然” with a truning meaning&amp;quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;通常“当然”翻译作 &lt;code&gt;of course&lt;/code&gt;。考虑下面一种情况&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在和人争吵，我说：“我不同意你的观点！”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;接下来，为了缓和气氛，我用一句转折， “&lt;strong&gt;当然&lt;/strong&gt;，你说的部分也有道理。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这里的“当然”可以译作“of course”吗？我感觉不能，这里需要一个表示转折意义的“当然”，而“of course”通常是强调的意思。可否译作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;though&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T04:04:51.873" Title="In 当然，你说的部分也有道理, can we translate 当然 to &quot;of course&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33061" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33062" CreationDate="2019-02-28T06:08:47.193" Score="0" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that it means &quot;What are you listening to?&quot; but I'm curious as to what the 呢 is supposed to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20231" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T08:33:47.873" Title="What does the 呢 in &quot;你听什么呢？&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33061" CreationDate="2019-02-28T06:23:21.320" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;呢 is a final particle. It denotes interrogative form in your example sentence. (it has other usages in other context)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can just use a question mark e.g. &quot;你在听什么？&quot; (what are you listening ) to mark the sentence as a question &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;呢&quot; in &quot;你在听&lt;strong&gt;什么呢&lt;/strong&gt;？” asks the question of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;what&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; are you listening to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;嗎&quot; in &quot;你在&lt;strong&gt;听&lt;/strong&gt;什么&lt;strong&gt;嗎&lt;/strong&gt;？” asks the question of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;are&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; you &lt;strong&gt;listening&lt;/strong&gt; to something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T06:23:21.320" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33060" CreationDate="2019-02-28T06:44:00.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;当然 can mean : of course; certainly; surely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is nothing wrong with translating “当然，你说的部分也有道理。” as &quot;of course, the part you said is also valid&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当然 (of course; certainly; surely) here validate part of the speech, but it doesn't validate the entire speech. It is like &quot;你当然可以走, 但必需在完成工作後&quot; validate your right to leave, but it doesn't validate your right to leave before finish the job&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;当然，你说的部分也有道理&quot; only affirm &quot;你说的部分也有道理&quot; but there's a 'but' coming. e.g. &quot;当然，你说的部分也有道理，但他說的更合邏輯&quot; (of course, the part you said is also valid, but what he said is more logical)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'though' means 須然, it implies 'despite of' (yes, you make sense, but...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-28T06:53:30.677" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T06:53:30.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33061" CreationDate="2019-02-28T07:35:20.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use of 呢 due to presence of interrogative pronoun 什么（similar to 吗 for yes-no questions) quoting e.g. 图解基础汉语语法：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;＂呢＂可以用在有&lt;strong&gt;疑问代词&lt;/strong&gt;＂谁＂、＂怎么＂、＂什么＂、＂哪＂等的疑问句中，＂呢＂出现不出现都不影响疑问的表达，＂呢＂有缓和语气的作用。格式：含疑问代词的句子＋（呢）？A：妈妈，你买了点什么（呢）？B：很多东西，你猜猜。A：这么晚才回来，你到哪儿去了（呢）？B：我去参加同学的生日晚会了。Attention:如果句中有疑问代词：＂吗＂不能出现在句末，只能用＂呢＂。E.g.✓他是谁呢？✗他是谁吗？✓妈妈，你买了点什么呢？✗妈妈，你买了点什么吗？✓这么晚才回来，你到哪儿去了呢？✗这么晚才回来，你到哪儿去了吗？✓你怎么不去呢？✗你怎么不去吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-02-28T08:33:47.873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T08:33:47.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33060" CreationDate="2019-02-28T10:03:13.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems &quot;truning&quot; is supposed to mean &quot;turning&quot;, &lt;strong&gt;转折&lt;/strong&gt;, turning point, transition, turnaround.  Chinese grammar on the topic of 复句（complex sentences) mentions 偏正复句 (subordinate and main) with 转折关系 as subtopic, (A, 但是 B)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有些句子，前一个分句往往能引起人们的一种预期，比如说＂他不很喜欢运动＂，这句话往往引起人们的预期-----＂所以身体不能健康＂。如果后一个分句同引起的预期相符合，那么两个分句的意思就是一致的。如果后一个分句同所引起的预期不符合，于是中间就转了一个弯儿，变成＂但是身体很健康＂。这样，两个分句的意思相背，前后不一致，中间有了转折，所以叫做转折关系。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;汉语语法基础&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possible conjunctions: 但是、可是、然而、不过、但、可、却、倒. Complex sentences need not have conjunctions, cf. 紧缩复句 (contracted complex sentence). It would seem translating 当然 as &quot;of course&quot; may not contradict the fact that in some sense there may be a turning point  转折。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-07T04:01:03.287" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T04:01:03.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33066" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-28T11:28:10.930" Score="0" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the meaning of 好 in the following sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;今天天气不好，咱们好留在家&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你要支持治病，好早一点恢复健康 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it &quot;it's better to&quot; or &quot;in order to&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21378" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T01:42:19.243" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T01:42:19.243" Title="Does 好 mean &quot;it's better to&quot; or &quot;in order to&quot; in complex sentences? E.g. 今天天气不好，咱们好留在家" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33066" CreationDate="2019-02-28T12:45:09.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The proper term is &amp;quot;最好&amp;quot; in the first sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天天气不好，咱们(&lt;strong&gt;最好&lt;/strong&gt;)留在家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today's weather is bad, we (&lt;strong&gt;better&lt;/strong&gt;) stay home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The proper term is &amp;quot;好讓&amp;quot; in the second sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要持續治療，(&lt;strong&gt;好讓&lt;/strong&gt;)健康早一点恢复&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to continue the treatment (&lt;strong&gt;in order to let&lt;/strong&gt;) your health recover faster&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar term: 好教 (in order to make)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你要努力工作，(&lt;strong&gt;好讓&lt;/strong&gt;)父母安心&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;You have to work hard (&lt;strong&gt;in order to let&lt;/strong&gt;) your parents have peace of mind.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你要努力工作，(&lt;strong&gt;好教&lt;/strong&gt;)父母安心&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;You have to work hard (&lt;strong&gt;in order to make&lt;/strong&gt;) your parents have peace of mind.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T12:52:15.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33060" CreationDate="2019-02-28T12:48:09.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the word '&lt;strong&gt;well&lt;/strong&gt;' in English can express a slight 'but'. So, in your context, you may interpret it as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Well, sure&lt;/strong&gt;, what you said could also make sense....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T12:48:09.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33071" CreationDate="2019-02-28T13:44:11.807" Score="1" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my explorations of my area of Taichung today I noticed this sign with Zhuyin Fuhao and took a photo to look it up when I got home:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2yYjj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2yYjj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;ㄙㄨㄚˋ 嘴&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it seems that ㄙㄨㄚˋ (sua4) is not even an existing syllable in Mandarin, let alone a pronunciation of 嘴, which is pronounced &quot;zui3&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes a Taiwanese (Hokkien, Minnan) pronunciation is used in some contexts here instead of the Mandarin one, but in this case it doesn't match the Taiwanese or even the Hakka or any other Chinese variety I can find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody have a theory where this sound might originate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps a Taiwanese word that people don't know the character for, and they just used it with this other character for some reason?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T19:25:30.460" Title="Is ㄙㄨㄚˋ (sua4) for the character 嘴 from another Chinese dialect or language?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;zhuyin-fuhao&gt;&lt;taiwanese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33069" CreationDate="2019-02-28T15:46:46.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A similar question was also posted on &lt;a href=&quot;https://tw.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070511000016KK04256&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yahoo Answers&lt;/a&gt;. One of the answers read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;台語裡的~~~~&amp;quot;ㄙㄨㄚˋ嘴&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正確的寫法是~~~~~&amp;quot;續ㄙㄨㄚˋ嘴ㄘVˇ&amp;quot;~~為求音準;借用英文字母裡的 &amp;quot; V &amp;quot;字的&amp;quot;音&amp;quot;參予拼音!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[續ㄙㄨㄚˋ嘴ㄘVˇ]的語意:就是吃了很合口味;意猶未盡;有欲罷不能的心情!也可以說成~~~~~&amp;quot;吃了還想再吃&amp;quot;!&#xA;台語裡的[續ㄙㄨㄚˋ攤ㄊㄨㄚ]的語意是:和好友&amp;quot;宴席&amp;quot;吃完;尚覺得意猶未盡;再換個場所繼續盡興!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T15:46:46.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33069" CreationDate="2019-02-28T19:25:30.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;紲喙 (suà-tshuì)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;合口味。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Palatable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;形容東西合胃口、好吃，一口接一口，愈吃愈想吃。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The term describes that the food is so delicious that you want to eat more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tKkX6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tKkX6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;紲 is a substitute character (替代字) and means &quot;continue&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/arx2U.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/arx2U.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/default.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T19:25:30.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33072" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33075" CreationDate="2019-02-28T22:26:37.770" Score="1" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen somewhere that it was two hands together greeting someone. It makes some sense since the left part does look like 手, but the right part doesn't, and I don't remember any other characters that have it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the real story about the character 拜?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-03-11T10:17:04.140" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T10:17:04.140" Title="Glyph origins of the character 拜" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33072" CreationDate="2019-02-28T23:46:49.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/xs/62DC.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/xs/62DC.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) (会意。从两手,从下。《说文》古文上象两手,丅为“下”的古体。《说文》引 扬雄说:“拜从两手下。”表示双手作揖,或下拜。隶书将“丅”(下)并入右边的“手”之下而成为“拜”,一直沿用至今。本义:古代表示敬意的一种礼节。两手合于胸前,头低到手)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;丅为“下”的古体 (丅 was 下 (down)'s ancient form)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(下)并入右边的“手”之下而成为“拜” (下/丅 was merged into the right side 手) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, The character '拜' depicts [two hands + move down] = [to worship --&gt; to show respect] and it extended to more different meanings over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-02-28T23:54:13.720" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T23:54:13.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32970" CreationDate="2019-03-01T07:50:39.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;就 must be treated as &quot;AND&quot; with connotation of &quot;already&quot;. Mind you, there are many kind of &quot;and&quot;s in chinese, and 就 is one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一A就B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;must be trasnalted as &quot;Once[一] &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; and[就] (there already be) &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, 了 is a factuality marker (realis mode marker), that is &quot;A了&quot; means A was/is/will be reality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A了就B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;must be trasnalted as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; was/is/willbe true and[就] (there already be) &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2019-03-01T07:50:39.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33072" CreationDate="2019-03-01T09:00:24.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;「拜」was originally「」, comprised of「手・扌」and「」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「」(please read this in both meaning and sound as「禱」) depicts &lt;em&gt;flowery adornments&lt;/em&gt; used in dances and religious prayer/rituals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2V80i.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2V80i.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;佚&lt;/a&gt;32&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=1439&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集1439&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K56kr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K56kr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;番生簋蓋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4326&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4326&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sfHmU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sfHmU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日甲&lt;/a&gt;61背&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i18ML.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i18ML.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V75u5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V75u5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The combination of「手」(&lt;em&gt;hand&lt;/em&gt;) and「」(&lt;em&gt;flowery adornments used in dances and religious prayer/rituals&lt;/em&gt;) indicated the meaning &lt;em&gt;to conduct obeisance&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z82zn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z82zn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;沈子它簋蓋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4330&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4330&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uzT3P.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uzT3P.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;153&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the character「」, the bottom part of「」was sometimes corrupted into something that looked like「手」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K7d4D.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K7d4D.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日甲&lt;/a&gt;166&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, the top part of「」, which is「卉」, was sometimes removed. This leads on to the modern form of「拜」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty#Eastern_Han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ocn8t.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ocn8t.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;鄭固碑&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8WKZ3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8WKZ3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-03-01T09:08:50.527" LastActivityDate="2019-03-01T09:08:50.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33076" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-01T09:56:40.203" Score="0" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I ask for more of an ingredient in a dish? like add extra cheese, extra meat, etc. Not that it matters but I specifically want to know this for 手抓餅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21500" LastEditorUserId="21500" LastEditDate="2019-03-01T10:09:41.873" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T23:05:41.413" Title="How can I ask for extra ingredients in a dish?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33076" CreationDate="2019-03-01T10:28:43.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the ingredient you asking for more is free, like condiments (salt, sugar, oil) or side greens (onion, pickle) you can say &quot;多 ~ &quot;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;多盐，多糖，多油, 多洋葱，多泡菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the ingredient you asking for more will be charged money, like main topping (meat, seafood) or staple food (noodle, rice)  Then you can say &quot;加 ~&quot; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Some western restaurant offer free bread&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;加鱼肉， 加牛肉， 加猪肉， 加面条， 加饭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some restaurant have set price for extra ingredient and some don't, so you should ask how much it costs to have extra something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get a larger size dish, you can say 加大码, again, Some restaurant have set price for extra large size dishes and some don't, you have to ask for the the price.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I  often order 例半 (one and a half order) if there are a lot of people in the party. Since 例半 is one and a half order, I would expect it would be one and a half price.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples of how you order extra&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;牛肉炒麵，多洋蔥 (beef stir fry boodle, more onion)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;牛肉炒麵，加牛肉 (beef stir fry boodle, extra beef) - &lt;em&gt;ask the price or state how much more money you want to pay for it e.g. &quot;加十元牛肉&quot; (add ten dollar beef)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;牛肉炒麵，加大码 (beef stir fry boodle, large size) &lt;em&gt;ask the price&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;牛肉炒麵，例半 (beef stir fry boodle, one and a half order) pay 50% more &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;馄饨面，加底 (wonton noodle soup, extra noodle) - &lt;em&gt;加底 means add only extra staple food when the dish is made up of main toppings on stable food base, For example 馄饨面 (wonton noodle soup)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-02T23:05:41.413" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T23:05:41.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33078" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-01T13:26:12.033" Score="0" ViewCount="39" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm with two friends. Alice is a bad driver. Bob is not. Bob says to me, &quot;why don't you give Alice the keys and let's go home&quot;. I say to Bob, &quot;why don't I just give them to &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, emphasis is, not the other person, but you (the one I'm speaking to).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought of 要不我给你自己 and 要不我给你本身.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an abstraction of something that really happened to me. I realize that using 直接给你 is probably the best way to emphasize in this case. But is there any other way to do it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15759" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-01T17:52:38.310" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T01:48:10.203" Title="Adding emphasis to &quot;you&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33076" CreationDate="2019-03-02T01:41:00.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For 手抓餅, I would say: 老板，来一个手抓饼。加鸡蛋，加培根，加蔬菜. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The common verbs here are &lt;strong&gt;加(add)&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;放(put)&lt;/strong&gt;. E.g. 不要放培根；加火腿肠; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T01:41:00.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33078" CreationDate="2019-03-02T01:48:10.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your context, I'd probably say: 我把钥匙给你不更好吗？ or 我觉得给你更合适.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T01:48:10.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33066" CreationDate="2019-03-02T01:55:36.527" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some errors about your sentences: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)今天天气不好，咱们好留在家 could be: 今天天气不好，咱们&lt;strong&gt;最好&lt;/strong&gt;留在家. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)你要支持治病，好早一点恢复健康 could be: 你要&lt;strong&gt;配合治疗&lt;/strong&gt;，好早一点恢复健康。 支持治病 sounds odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T01:55:36.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33084" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33085" CreationDate="2019-03-02T04:24:32.263" Score="0" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, especially in the software/programming world, you use letters as numbers a lot such as with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hex encoding&lt;/a&gt;, using the alphabet &lt;code&gt;0123456789abcdef&lt;/code&gt; for 16 numbers, so you might write a number as &lt;code&gt;af&lt;/code&gt;. Other times we might do a bulleted list and go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;a) something...&#xA;b) another thing...&#xA;c) ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there is anything like that in Chinese, for example, like a list like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;顧) ...&#xA;書) ...&#xA;媽) ...&#xA;找) ...&#xA;...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or a hexidecimal-like system, numbering &lt;code&gt;123...顧書..&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, wondering what are some examples of it so I can see what it looks like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T07:11:54.010" Title="If Chinese characters are ever used like numbers like in English" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33084" CreationDate="2019-03-02T04:40:23.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some common choices&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Use Arabic numerals&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the most common way nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1) 第一点&#xA;2) 第二点&#xA;3) ……&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Use numbers in Chinese&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's OK but why not use Arabic numerals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一）第一点&#xA;二）第二点&#xA;三）……&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And their 大写数字 form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;壹）第一点&#xA;贰）第二点&#xA;叁）……&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Use 天干 and 地支&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are quite rarely used today. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天干：甲(jiǎ)、乙(yǐ)、丙(bǐng)、丁(dīng)、戊(wù)、己(jǐ)、庚(gēng)、辛(xīn)、壬(rén)、癸(guǐ)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;地支：子(zǐ)、丑(chǒu)、寅(yín)、卯(mǎo)、辰(chén)、巳(sì)、午(wǔ)、未(wèi)、申(shēn)、酉(yǒu)、戌(xū)、亥(hài)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use them like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;甲）第一点&#xA;乙）第二点&#xA;丙）……&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;子）第一点&#xA;丑）第二点&#xA;寅）第三点&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Use Latin Letters&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use a ~ z would be acceptable some how. I would say they would appear more common than 天干/地支 system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When try to write hex numbers, you should use 0-9A-F as they are in English. At least I don't know any other way to write it in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9800" LastEditorUserId="9800" LastEditDate="2019-03-02T07:11:54.010" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T07:11:54.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33086" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33088" CreationDate="2019-03-02T07:38:15.670" Score="5" ViewCount="452" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.archchinese.com/chinese_english_dictionary.html?find=%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arch Chinese&lt;/a&gt; lists the meanings of 子 as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;son, seed, egg, child, small thing, noun suffix(zi5), midnight, Kangxi radical number 39, 1st terrestrial branch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meanings of child, egg, diminutive noun suffix etc. are clearly related, but I find it hard to remember that this also means midnight (in particular in the Korean 자정/子正). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does 子 come to mean 'midnight'? Is it related to the fact that it also stands for '1st terrestrial branch'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16529" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T10:25:05.493" Title="How does 子 come to mean 'midnight'?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33087" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-02T08:05:37.663" Score="2" ViewCount="483" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there is any free online tool that offers the ability to type in a sentence and have it provide a literal &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;interlinear gloss&lt;/a&gt;&quot; of the original English text in the translated Chinese. So for example you would &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?searchMode=E&amp;amp;word=last+night&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;type in&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It wasn't very hot last night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And instead of just getting &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?searchMode=E&amp;amp;word=last+night&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨晚不是很热。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...which is nice, but it's not enough. It would be nice if it divided it into individual words and put there literal meaning next to it, sort of like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[昨]   [晚]   [不]       [是]   [很热]&#xA;last   night  not       very   hot&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if that is correct, but something like that. That would make it easier to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T02:27:40.077" Title="Place to convert English sentence to interlinear gloss with Chinese sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33086" CreationDate="2019-03-02T09:49:58.100" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is indeed related to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthly_Branches&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;terrestrial (earthly) branches&lt;/a&gt;, and in a 24-hour day,「子時」represents the time of day between 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM.「子正」, as noted in the question, specifically represents &lt;em&gt;midnight&lt;/em&gt; (12:00 AM).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, there is no convenient mnemonic or etymology that you can use to make a connection between「子」and &lt;em&gt;midnight&lt;/em&gt;, but I doubt that &lt;em&gt;midnight&lt;/em&gt; shows up very often anyway as a meaning (unless you're into traditional Korean timekeeping?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-03-02T09:55:28.763" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T09:55:28.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33089" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-02T09:57:34.933" Score="2" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the dictionary, it seems that both 演唱会 &amp;amp; 音乐会 means concert. I did further research and read somewhere that 演唱会 = concert (outdoor &amp;amp; indoor) with many ppl and lots of shouting and cheering while 音乐会 = choir or those indoor concerts where there are fewer ppl and just clap but no loud cheering. Is this true? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T06:45:38.610" Title="演唱会 vs 音乐会 difference" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33086" CreationDate="2019-03-02T10:25:05.493" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you should find some comparative charts of Chinese Zodiac/Earthly Branches to help you to remember them: &#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2hqM8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21502" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T10:25:05.493" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32707" CreationDate="2019-03-02T10:36:45.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's called a diminutive suffix, about which you can read these entries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diminutives_by_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diminutives_by_language&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21502" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-03T06:14:25.367" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T06:14:25.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33089" CreationDate="2019-03-02T10:37:09.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;演(perform)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唱 (singing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会 (gathering)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;演唱会  = (singing) concert&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key word is '唱'. No matter it is a solo or a group concert, the performer(s) will sing songs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sometimes instrumental music might be inserted in the program, but the majority of the show is about singing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;演奏 (perform musical instrument)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;演奏会 = (instrumental) concert&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key word is '奏'. In a instrumental music concert, the performer(s) will perform instrumental music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Some singing performance might be added as bonus, but the main draw is the instrumental music&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;音乐 (music)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;音乐会 (music) concert&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A music concert can be a mix of singing and instrumental music.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;演唱会 and 演奏会 mostly refer to concerts performed by professional singers or musicians and you have to buy ticket to attend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, free events with amateur performers can still call themselves 演唱会 or 演奏会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Commercial 音乐会 (music concert) are relatively rare compare to commercial 演唱会 (singing concert) and commercial 演奏会 (instrumental concert)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T11:08:50.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32974" CreationDate="2019-03-02T10:56:48.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sure that 道明寺 (Doumyouji) is a common Japanese family name, because in the original manga, he's name was 道明寺司 (Doumyouji Tsukasa), but I don't know why they contracted it to 道明, maybe to make it looked more &quot;sinicized&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21502" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T10:56:48.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33094" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-02T14:20:24.770" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese writing, a proper name mark (專名號) is an underline used to mark proper names, such as the names of people, places, dynasties, organisations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fWXvm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fWXvm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we write/type Chinese, is it acceptable to keep using proper name marks? I do not see it widely used nowadays. Also, how to type proper name marks here (at chineses.stackexchange.com) and in a Word document?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T06:30:23.947" Title="When should we use proper name mark and how to type it?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33095" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-02T14:51:56.853" Score="0" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;See the picture. &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7MlVV.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7MlVV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an obvious mistake: the third character is written as &quot;曰&quot; (yue) instead of &quot;日&quot; (ri). Why it is not written correctly as &quot;日&quot; such as the following?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hF8xT.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hF8xT.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="21202" LastEditDate="2019-03-02T15:41:58.017" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T06:27:03.560" Title="Why this header of &quot;世界日报&quot; is written as &quot;世界曰报&quot;？" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33096" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-02T16:57:29.177" Score="1" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an item with Chinese writing on it.  Can anyone help me identify it / how old it is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;any help would be greatly appreciated...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jonah&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1gyjC.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1gyjC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21504" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T15:24:27.440" Title="Help in identifying an object" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33096" CreationDate="2019-03-02T21:33:28.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9C%AD%E6%89%80-124946&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;札所&lt;/a&gt; is a Japanese term&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;札所: 仏教の霊場の称。巡礼者が参詣のしるしとして札を受けたりおさめたりするところ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The name of a Buddhist sanctuary. Where pilgrims accept &lt;strong&gt;tags&lt;/strong&gt; as signs of pilgrimage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和州, 芝村  is a place's name, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%92%8C%E5%B7%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;和州&lt;/a&gt; in Google search doesn't seem to  exist in today's China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The names at the bottom are all Japanese names&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should post this question at the Japanese StackExchange section&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T15:24:27.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33095" CreationDate="2019-03-02T23:28:13.183" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's correctly written, but in a different font called 隶书 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Clerical script&lt;/a&gt;. It's one of the archaic style of writing. In general Chinese characters in 隶书 look wider, which makes 日 looks like 曰 in regular fonts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4328" LastEditorUserId="4328" LastEditDate="2019-03-03T06:27:03.560" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T06:27:03.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33094" CreationDate="2019-03-02T23:42:52.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, proper name marks is a part of archaic Chinese. It's no longer used in modern Chinese. In modern Chinese, only book name, music name, movie names, and etc. will be marked with special punctuation, such as 《新约全书》. You can type it by switch to most Chinese input method and use '&amp;lt;' and '&gt;' key on the keyboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for using proper name marks, usually you can just use an underline or a double underline. Doing it in Word is pretty straight forward. In StackExchange could be complicated, you have to use HTML code, such as &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;u&amp;gt;测试&amp;lt;\u&amp;gt;&lt;/code&gt;. For double underline, it's even more complicated, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15643614/double-underline-tag&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4328" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T23:42:52.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33095" CreationDate="2019-03-03T01:22:16.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It's not&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/zy/65E5.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt; puts this under the 楷体 font.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HS6bJ.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HS6bJ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can compare this with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1b/zy/66F0.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt; rendition of 曰 using 楷体.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W3ZZV.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W3ZZV.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also context is key, many fonts look different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-03T06:13:38.537" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T06:13:38.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33094" CreationDate="2019-03-03T06:30:23.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, they are not popular in simplified Chinese nowadays, but you definitely can use it whenever you want. Just like the pilcrow ¶ in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sad fact is no way to input these symbols, :(, you can only add them in a text processing softwares as bottom borders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T06:30:23.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33096" CreationDate="2019-03-03T06:38:25.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8A%9D%E6%9D%91%E8%97%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;芝村&lt;/a&gt; (Shibamura) is an Edo-era Japanese feudal domain, which is located in 大和国 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_Province&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yamato Province&lt;/a&gt;), which also known as 和州 (Washū).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21502" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T06:38:25.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33089" CreationDate="2019-03-03T06:45:38.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you say you run a 演唱会 recently, I would imagine you were on a big stage that is far and high. Fans were screaming and robbing your gloves. You will sing many songs without a break until you passed out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say you performed in a 音乐会, I would thought you play kazoo for 3 seconds in your school for celebrate the new year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just kidding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T06:45:38.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33106" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-03T09:12:18.143" Score="1" ViewCount="470" Body="&lt;p&gt;I checked the meaning for all 3 words and it appears that:&#xA;也许 = maybe, perhaps, probably /&#xA;或许 = maybe, perhaps, probably&quot;/&#xA;可能 = possibly, possible, maybe, perhaps. &#xA;It seems to me that 也许 and 或许 have exactly the same meaning while 可能 looks a little different. I'm not sure if each of them are supposed to have a certain situation to be used. What situation do I use each word? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-12-25T06:34:38.983" LastActivityDate="2020-12-25T06:34:38.983" Title="也许 vs 或许 vs 可能 usage" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33106" CreationDate="2019-03-03T11:23:02.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;see e.g.bkrs: &lt;strong&gt;可能&lt;/strong&gt; might (happen)&#xA;possible&#xA;probable&#xA;possibility&#xA;probability&#xA;maybe&#xA;perhaps #170&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;也许&lt;/strong&gt; perhaps; probably; maybe #676 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;或许&lt;/strong&gt; perhaps&#xA;maybe #2652&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;coclusion: 可能 unlike other 2 can be noun and includes ＂possible, possibility&quot; (&quot;literal&quot; translation of 可能), can be used as adjective (see sample phrases with 可能的) 可能,也许 include &quot;probably&quot;,或许 does not (lower degree of likelihood), also note frequency ranks with 可能 most frequent, much more at bkrs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-03-03T12:24:50.910" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T12:24:50.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33108" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-03T14:00:07.540" Score="1" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;I met someone who told me a proverb which in English read as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wake up late and you lose the morning. Wake up early and you lose the&#xA;  whole day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She repeated it in Mandarin very quickly before I left, but if it helps the last word was 天.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know this proverb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21510" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T19:41:38.947" Title="What is this proverb?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33108" CreationDate="2019-03-03T19:41:38.947" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(熬夜)晚起毀上午，早起(學習)傻一天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;熬夜晚起毀上午&lt;br&gt;&#xA;晚起毀上午&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Getting up too late will lose a morning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早起學習傻一天&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早起傻一天&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Getting up too early will have no spirit all day long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T19:41:38.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33110" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33111" CreationDate="2019-03-03T21:45:42.990" Score="1" ViewCount="499" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently there are quite a lot of characters that are pronounced as &quot;sheng&quot;. (According to Pleco: 生、声、省、升、胜、圣、剩，盛、牲、绳、笙、甥、嵊、眚、乘、昇、晟、渑、㗂，呏，曻、泩、陞、鼪)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which of these could plausibly be used as a (single character) male given name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21512" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-03T22:19:58.477" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T11:22:28.897" Title="&quot;Sheng&quot; as a male given name" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33110" CreationDate="2019-03-03T22:10:47.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;生、声、[&lt;strong&gt;省&lt;/strong&gt;]、升、[&lt;strong&gt;胜&lt;/strong&gt;]、圣、剩，[&lt;strong&gt;盛&lt;/strong&gt;]、牲、绳、笙、甥、嵊、眚、乘、[&lt;strong&gt;昇&lt;/strong&gt;]、晟、渑、㗂，呏，曻、泩、陞、鼪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;省&lt;/strong&gt;] as in 自省 (introspection) &lt;em&gt;it is very meaningful as a name, but 省 can also mean province, may cause confusion&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following are very common single character names:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;盛&lt;/strong&gt;] as in 強盛 (powerful and prosperous)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;胜&lt;/strong&gt;] as in 胜利 (victory)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;昇&lt;/strong&gt;] as in 高昇 (rise high)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;升 and 陞 also mean rise, but as a name, 昇 is the most standard one&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following are questionable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;牲 as in 牲口 (livestock) - &lt;em&gt;very bad as a name&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;剩 as in 剩余 (left-over; surplus; remaining) - &lt;em&gt;not suitable as a name&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;生 as in 生存(alive) 生命(life) - &lt;em&gt;rare used in name because 生 is also a verb for give birth&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;声 as in 声音(sound) - &lt;em&gt;not very meaningful as a name&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;圣 as in 神圣(holy) - &lt;em&gt;too arrogant as a name&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甥 (nephew) - &lt;em&gt;not suitable as a name&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;乘 (ride)- &lt;em&gt;not very meaningful as a name&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;绳 (rope) - &lt;em&gt;not common as a name&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following are obscure Chinese characters, not suitable as common names:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;嵊、晟、渑、㗂，呏，曻、泩、鼪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-04T03:21:56.493" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T03:21:56.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33112" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-04T03:55:40.830" Score="1" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a proverb for 破釜沉舟 in English? How do you describe it using two words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T10:35:39.467" Title="How to say 破釜沉舟 in english?" Tags="&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33112" CreationDate="2019-03-04T04:04:08.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Rubicon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Crossing the Rubicon&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Julius Caesar's crossing the Rubicon river was an event in 49 BC that precipitated the Roman Civil War, which ultimately led to Caesar becoming dictator for life and the rise of the imperial era of Rome. Caesar had been appointed to a governorship over a region that ranged from southern Gaul to Illyricum (but not Italy). As his term of governorship ended, the Roman Senate ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome. He was explicitly ordered not to bring his army across the Rubicon river, which was at that time a northern boundary of Italy. In January of 49 BC, Caesar brought the 13th legion across the river, which the Roman government considered insurrection, treason, and a declaration of war on the Roman Senate. According to some authors, he is said to have uttered the phrase &quot;alea iacta est&quot;—the die is cast—as his army marched through the shallow river.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Today, the phrase &quot;crossing the Rubicon&quot; is an idiom that means to pass a point of no return.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Alea iacta est&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The die is cast&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Point of no return&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Burn one's bridges/boats&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fait accompli&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Line in the sand&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T04:04:08.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33112" CreationDate="2019-03-04T07:18:51.040" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;破釜沉舟 describe an action of &amp;quot;destroy one's own mean to retreat/escape&amp;quot; ; the underline reasons are 1. &amp;quot;to show determination&amp;quot; 2. &amp;quot;force oneself to continue&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can consider&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;burn one's bridges/boats&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;hell-bent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;crossing the Rubicon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The action of &amp;quot;burn one's bridges/boats&amp;quot; match 破釜沉舟 almost word for word, but its main usage is to describe &amp;quot;doing something that can't be easily undone in the future; destroy relationships or chance of reconciliation with others.&amp;quot; the underline reason is not relevant. This phrase might describe an action similar to 破釜沉舟; Both actions cut off one's retreat route, but the reason behind &amp;quot;burn one's bridges/boats&amp;quot; doesn't include &amp;quot;to show determination&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another English expression &amp;quot;hell-bent&amp;quot; describes the first underline reason &amp;quot;to show determination&amp;quot; much better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hell-bent&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hell-bent&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;stubbornly and often recklessly determined or intent&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;crossing the Rubicon&amp;quot; implies &amp;quot;to past the point of no return&amp;quot; although the action doesn't match 破釜沉舟 well like &amp;quot;burn one's bridges/boats&amp;quot; but it implies the underline reasons &amp;quot;to show determination&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;force oneself to continue&amp;quot; better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My conclusion is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;burn one's bridges/boats matches 破釜沉舟 in literal meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;crossing the Rubicon&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; matches 破釜沉舟 in its figurative meanings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to say 破釜沉舟 in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們要&lt;strong&gt;破釜沉舟&lt;/strong&gt; = we must &lt;strong&gt;cross the Rubicon&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我們要有&lt;strong&gt;破釜沉舟的&lt;/strong&gt;決心 = We must have the determination &lt;strong&gt;of crossing the Rubicon&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T10:35:39.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33116" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-04T10:34:25.587" Score="0" ViewCount="345" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YMUGb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YMUGb.png&quot; alt=&quot;What does this character mean?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw it in PUBG game. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21514" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-01T01:44:47.887" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T02:44:25.127" Title="What does this character from PUBG mean in Chinese? (Character identified: 魂)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-12-02T05:43:48.697" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33118" CreationDate="2019-03-04T10:51:45.450" Score="1" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several times I've told people that I'm Taiwan for the third time and everybody understood me just fine, but I'm not sure I'm saying it right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這個是我的三次在臺灣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know 次 is the word for &quot;time&quot; in this sense, and I know it's also a counter word for times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is my choice correct for &quot;this&quot;? I said 這個 with the generic counter word, but should I really say 這次 since I'm discussing times, or is just plain 這 best?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or should I really express it in an entirely different way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T19:12:56.657" Title="How to say &quot;this&quot; in &quot;This is my third time in Taiwan&quot;?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33117" CreationDate="2019-03-04T10:55:35.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這是我第三次到臺灣來&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is my third time coming to Taiwan&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not say「這個」, because the measure word (in this situation) for travelling/trips is「次」(which you've already said) and not「個」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T10:55:35.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33050" CreationDate="2019-03-04T12:58:47.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cheesy,前几天在一个英文广播上听到的。广播里的外国主播对于cheesy使用场景的描述是:we often use it to talk about overly sentimental songs,movies or people who sing those songs or acting those movies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21515" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T12:58:47.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33121" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33123" CreationDate="2019-03-04T13:17:09.907" Score="1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a Chinese teaching site &lt;a href=&quot;https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/28315194&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;they are translating 丢 as &quot;throw away&quot;&lt;/a&gt; but Pleco, English Wiktionary, and Google Translate do not include &quot;throw away&quot; as a translation of 丢 or include 丢 as a translation for &quot;throw away&quot; or &quot;discard&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these resources missing this common sense of 丢? Or Has the common non-native English confusion of &quot;throw&quot; and &quot;throw away&quot; influenced the site?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2019-03-04T14:58:59.997" LastActivityDate="2019-03-06T12:24:49.477" Title="Does 丢 mean &quot;discard&quot; as well as &quot;throw&quot; and &quot;lose&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33121" CreationDate="2019-03-04T14:50:35.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;丟主要有兩個意思：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)扔、拋棄(throw)。如：「丟球」、「丟垃圾」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)遺失、失去(lose)。如：「丟臉」、「丟飯碗」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21517" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T14:50:35.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33131" CreationDate="2019-03-04T21:05:38.747" Score="1" ViewCount="664" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English you have words like &quot;badge&quot; which are typically a noun, but they can also be verbs, &quot;They need to badge in&quot; to use their keycard to get in. Shortly, &quot;Badge in please&quot;. You can have other ones that are verbs but also nouns, like &quot;lock&quot;. &quot;Here is the lock&quot; as a noun, and &quot;Please lock the car door&quot; is a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate says 锁 is &quot;lock, n.&quot;, and 锁 as &quot;lock, v.&quot;, so the same word/character for both like in English, 锁. It says 徽 is &quot;badge, n.&quot;, but doesn't provide a verb for badge. Another word with different noun/verb forms is &quot;mark&quot;, as in 痕 for &quot;mark, n.&quot;, and 标 for &quot;mark, v.&quot;, so 痕 vs. 标.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering from a programming perspective how variable names can be written down. If I create a &quot;badge&quot; object in programming, then I would call it 徽. But if I have a function &quot;badge&quot; that does the badging in, I would think I could also call it 徽. Or if not, my question is how you would do this. I don't speak Chinese yet fyi, so be gentle. &lt;strong&gt;If it is okay to use nouns as verbs&lt;/strong&gt;, especially if there is no verb form for a noun (or vice versa, if there is no noun form for a verb).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise, if I have an object called &quot;mark&quot;, I could also have a function called &quot;mark&quot; that creates a marking. In Chinese I am wondering if I could use just one form of the concept, such as the noun form, for both, or the verb form for both. So &quot;mark object&quot; would be 痕, while &quot;do mark&quot; would also be 痕. Or perhaps the other way around, &quot;mark object&quot; would be 标, while &quot;do mark&quot; would also be 标. The question here is if this would make sense. &lt;strong&gt;If you can use a verb as a noun or a noun as a verb in Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; essentially. If it would make sense. Or no, I must do &quot;mark object&quot; as 痕, while &quot;do mark&quot; is 标.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can, well great, the question then is if I must use the noun form for both, or the verb form for both, or if it doesn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you &lt;em&gt;can't&lt;/em&gt;, then I'm wondering why not. Wondering perhaps how it comes across. If it comes across as &quot;weird&quot; or &quot;jarring&quot;, or does it still come across as understandable/interpretable, or if it is really confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T10:18:37.263" Title="If you can use Chinese nouns as verbs, or vice versa" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33124" CreationDate="2019-03-04T22:28:40.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Longwinded question! Simple answer: of course, all the time, just as in English!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;，一定也有许多的&lt;strong&gt;失去&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;因为网球收获最多的，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;下列对于北师大的&lt;strong&gt;描述&lt;/strong&gt;哪一项是正确的？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do people use Chinese characters for the names of variables or functions? I suppose it's legit when using UTF-8, bit hard in ascii. I suspect Chinese characters are not used much in computer programs. Look at the source code of a Chinese webpage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T22:28:40.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33121" CreationDate="2019-03-04T23:14:47.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, the original meaning of「丟」was &lt;em&gt;to throw away&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;元・康進之《李逵負荆》：＂把煩惱都也波丟，都丟在腦背後。＂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Throw away [your] worries/troubles; throw them all to the back of [your] mind&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「丟」is comprised of semantic「一」(representing &lt;em&gt;something [to be thrown away]&lt;/em&gt;) and semantic「去」(&lt;em&gt;to leave, go &amp;gt; abandon&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《揚子・方言》：＂丟，一去不還也。＂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「丟」, &lt;em&gt;to abandon&lt;/em&gt; (去) &lt;em&gt;something&lt;/em&gt; (一) &lt;em&gt;[such that it does] not&lt;/em&gt; (不) &lt;em&gt;return&lt;/em&gt; (還).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned elsewhere, &lt;em&gt;to throw away&lt;/em&gt; is now replaced by「扔」, unless you're speaking in a regional colloquialism or to elderly people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T23:34:36.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33127" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33129" CreationDate="2019-03-05T01:32:37.760" Score="6" ViewCount="610" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of these words in the dictionary have themselves defined as “snack” but what are the differences between these 2 words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T02:30:56.507" Title="Difference between 小吃 and 零食" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33127" CreationDate="2019-03-05T02:01:23.867" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小吃 is more like some freshly cooked food, usually served hot or warm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;零食 are things like chips, candys and will not be served hot in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to my understanding of English, snack is more like 零食。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T02:01:23.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33127" CreationDate="2019-03-05T02:30:56.507" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;小吃: &lt;strong&gt;snack&lt;/strong&gt;. Examples: steam bun, hot dog, baked sweet potato (most street food stall's cooked food are considered 小吃.) There are also cold served 小吃 like cold cut meat or cheese on cracker (mostly served in parties)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;零食: &lt;strong&gt;snack&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;junk food&lt;/strong&gt;. Examples: chips, candies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most noticeable difference: We call 零食 junk food but not 小吃 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T02:30:56.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33130" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33132" CreationDate="2019-03-05T05:38:44.380" Score="1" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;They both connotate a way of thinking. It is my understanding at 思想 os a more broadly encompassing term, like &quot;mentality&quot;, or an overarching mindset, whereas &quot;想法&quot; is an individual idea. But what if you want to express something in between, like &quot;We have lots of similar ideas&quot;? This is a bit different than saying, &quot;we have a similar mindset&quot;, but it also seems using the work &quot;想法&quot; would be a bit too limited in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6738" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T07:45:11.953" Title="What's an effective way of explaining the difference between 思想 and 想法?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33124" CreationDate="2019-03-05T05:47:55.707" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you can use Chinese nouns as verbs, or vice versa&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many Chinese nouns can also be verbs; and many Chinese verbs can also be nouns-- but not all of them, just like in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Please go into more detail how you can use nouns as verbs, what the rules are generally&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically, a word was either coined for a noun or verb first, and then its meaning extended to other word type for convenience's sake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, It is possible that when people invented drill, they called it '鑽' (n); later when they needed a word to describe the action of 'to drill' , it is very convenience to add the meaning to the existing noun and make '鑽' both noun and verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or it is the other way around, people called the action of 'to burrow' as '鑽'(v); when 'drill' was invented, they just use the verb '鑽' to name it, because a drill 'burrow' into things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when a noun is closely associated with an unique action (verb), it would be used as a verb eventually; similarly when a verb is closely associated with an object (noun), it would be used as a noun eventually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The nouns that cannot be use as a verbs are mostly something that do not associate with a specific action, for example:  劍(sword). We cannot use 'sword someone' to describe 'to stab someone' because there are too many other objects you can use to stab someone&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The verbs that cannot be use as a nouns are mostly intransitive, or something that do not associate with any particular object. For example 插(stab),  You can stab with too many objects to make 插(v) a noun for any of them&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is always &quot;插(stab)你一劍(sword)&quot; , never  &quot;劍(stab?)你一插(sword?)&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to make sure you can or cannot use a Chinese noun as a verb or vice versa is to check a dictionary-- Just like in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-05T10:18:37.263" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T10:18:37.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33130" CreationDate="2019-03-05T07:45:11.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to express &quot;We share quite a few ways of thinking&quot;, you can say &quot;We have lots of similar 观念&quot;, which is short for &quot;思想观念&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &quot;观点&quot; / &quot;看法&quot;, point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;想法&quot; is usually used in a sentence like &quot;I have an idea to do something&quot;,&#xA;likely to combine with verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;思想&quot; is a general term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21520" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T07:45:11.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33133" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33208" CreationDate="2019-03-05T09:26:34.363" Score="2" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been looking for documentation showing 不+&quot;x&quot; contractions resulting in &quot;r&quot; sounding initial consonants, but to no avail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting phenomenon and I'm sure the regular person would say: &quot;&lt;em&gt;it's just people talking fast, don't over think it,&lt;/em&gt;&quot; but in technical terms these would be some form of contractions. Think:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不 + 知道 = bu rao&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不 + 是 = bu ri&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested to know what kind of research has been done on these contractions, if any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T02:35:15.163" Title="Documentation of 不+&quot;x&quot; contractions resulting in &quot;r&quot; sounding initial consonant?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31189" CreationDate="2019-03-05T10:23:41.207" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;花板 = Flower board  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means pattern area, draw the pattern here or draw the pattern in this area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起始针 = Starting needle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first needle that knits for this pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当起始针+花版最大幅宽大于针床设定总针数时，系统将弹出报警提示. = When the starting needle+flower version of the most large width than the needle bed set the total number of stitches, the system will pop up alarm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the widest part of the pattern plus the position of the first needle exceeds the number of needles in the needle bed, the pattern is too wide to knit warning is triggered. Move the starting needle to the left or make the pattern narrower to fit the available needles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21523" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T10:23:41.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33135" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-05T10:49:05.260" Score="1" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am struggling with auto translators that do not know that &lt;em&gt;knitting&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;weaving&lt;/em&gt; are not interchangeable terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that changing the position of the words in the English sentence can cause this confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it gets worse when &lt;em&gt;weave&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;knit&lt;/em&gt; are used in the same sentence. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当编织和针织在同一句子中使用时，它变得更糟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When knitting and knitting are used in the same sentence, it gets worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas on how to untangle this would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks and best regards, Alex&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21523" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T18:29:09.997" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T18:29:09.997" Title="How to translate &quot;knitting&quot; and &quot;weaving&quot; into Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33117" CreationDate="2019-03-05T19:12:56.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;這（次）是我第三次來台灣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;次 is often omitted. You need 第  as it’s the &lt;strong&gt;third&lt;/strong&gt; time not &lt;strong&gt;three&lt;/strong&gt; times. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19680" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T19:12:56.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33137" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-05T20:16:45.923" Score="0" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to apologise beforehand in case I'm breaking any rules since I'm extremely new to forums but my curiosity is killing me!! I've had this sword for years and forgot its existence until a few weeks ago. I've been told by students who study Japanese that it's traditional Chinese and I've been told by students who study Chinese that it's Japanese, so I'm also kind of at a loss as to which language this is to begin with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s8sEc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s8sEc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21525" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-03-06T00:25:17.923" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T05:34:54.733" Title="Any chance someone could tell me what these characters mean?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33137" CreationDate="2019-03-06T04:48:05.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was an attempt to write &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B2%B3%E5%85%A7%E5%9C%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;河內國&lt;/a&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日语：河内国〔河內國〕／かわちのくに〔かはちのくに〕 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/detail/detailArchivesEn/0303000000_5/0000000288/00&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kawachi No Kuni&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;河內 - inside the river&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;國 - country&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-06T05:10:48.727" LastActivityDate="2019-03-06T05:10:48.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33121" CreationDate="2019-03-06T05:15:03.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though it is acceptable (maybe it is correct in some dialects) to use 丢 as the meaning of &lt;strong&gt;throw&lt;/strong&gt;, I suggest that using 扔 (or other words) instead. Since idiomatically we say 把球传过来 or 把球抛过来 even 把球扔过来 rather than 把球丟过来, and 扔垃圾 rather than 丟垃圾. The geneal meaning of 丢 is &lt;strong&gt;lose&lt;/strong&gt;, 丢弃 or 抛弃 means &lt;strong&gt;discard&lt;/strong&gt;, but single character 丢 does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-03-06T12:24:49.477" LastActivityDate="2019-03-06T12:24:49.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10399" CreationDate="2019-03-06T05:31:03.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 注销 is not a suitable translation, it is well-known only because it was firstly introduced in Microsoft Windows Operation System. The two phrases, &lt;strong&gt;to &lt;em&gt;log in&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;to &lt;em&gt;log out&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, was translated to 登入 and 登出 in Traditional Chinese version of Windows, but 登录 and 注销 in Simplified Chinese version of Windows. The meaning of the Chinese word 注销 means &lt;strong&gt;to &lt;em&gt;cancel&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;close&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (an account, for example) actually. Nowadays many websites are no longer using the word 注销, they use 退出 (means &lt;strong&gt;to &lt;em&gt;exit&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;quit&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;) or 登出 instead, but unfortunately it is still the same in Windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2019-03-06T05:31:03.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33141" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-06T09:08:19.753" Score="1" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 日没 and 日落 express sunset but which one is often more widely used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T00:56:53.063" Title="Which is used more often, 日没 and 日落" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33141" CreationDate="2019-03-06T09:22:31.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look at Google hits, you can see a clear distinction:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&amp;amp;ei=ipB_XP3bAtCFr7wPgY-soAQ&amp;amp;q=%22%E6%97%A5%E8%90%BD%22&amp;amp;btnK=Google%20Search&amp;amp;oq=%22%E6%97%A5%E8%90%BD%22&amp;amp;gs_l=psy-ab.3..0j0i7i30l2j0j0i7i30l3j0j0i7i30j0.686.1600..2082...0.0..0.483.1550.0j1j4-3......0....1j2..gws-wiz.....0..35i39.4NdZ2zSrzwE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日落&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;About 42,700,000 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?ei=jJB_XMr5MYeTr7wPvviSyAg&amp;amp;q=%22%E6%97%A5%E6%B2%A1%22&amp;amp;oq=%22%E6%97%A5%E6%B2%A1%22&amp;amp;gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i7i4i30l10.2842.6368..6448...3.0..0.579.1564.2-4j5-1......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71j0j0i7i4i10i30.Y6Yq10g7bj8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日没&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;About 13,500,000 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never heard 日没 in real life, you might hear it more in Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-03-06T09:22:31.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33141" CreationDate="2019-03-06T09:24:33.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E6%B2%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日没&lt;/a&gt; is more literary. You are more likely to find it in novel. But not in day to day speech&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日落 is more colloquial and common in text&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Japanese also use '日没'  (にちぼつ) for 'sunset'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-03-06T09:24:33.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33087" CreationDate="2019-03-06T12:45:45.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if there is a tool, but this can be done with some tools combined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, use any translation services to get the Chinese text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then use a 分词 library to split words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there are many ways to add pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will write a script, if I can't found one later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-03-06T12:45:45.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33146" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33156" CreationDate="2019-03-06T13:26:26.210" Score="0" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, I do know this isn't about Chinese language as such, but I'm not sure where else to ask - and I hope people will find it a little bit amusing and forgive my transgression. So, this is my question - can anybody guess why Google Translate always seems to tranlate &quot;仔仔&quot; as &quot;Aberdeen&quot;? It's my grandson's name, and we laugh about it, but I'm curious as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19889" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T14:21:43.590" Title="A question about Google Translate" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33148" CreationDate="2019-03-06T15:28:24.613" Score="6" ViewCount="370" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 主菜 and 主食 in terms of food items?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21530" LastEditorUserId="6228" LastEditDate="2019-03-06T21:21:38.970" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T16:18:53.907" Title="What is the difference between 主菜 and 主食?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33147" CreationDate="2019-03-06T16:29:03.420" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;主菜 is typically the best dish in a banquet, in biological terms, the proteins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;主食 is referring to carbohydrates, namely noodles or rice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In China, we usually eat 主食 with some dishes, and the dishes are called 菜。The dishes could be meat, vegetables, seafood and so on, but not carbohydrates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2019-03-07T16:18:53.907" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T16:18:53.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33147" CreationDate="2019-03-06T20:18:27.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a newby answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;find a reliable dictionary.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Compare all the different answers because some are context sensitive.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rule out the answers that relate to specific topics or subjects you are not dealing with and you are very close to the correct answer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am currently trying &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php&lt;/a&gt; Their answer to your question is:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;主菜 =    zhǔcài  main course and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;主食 = zhǔshí main food; staple (rice and noodles).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is slightly different to zyy's answer in that there is no mention of a banquet. I suspect the choice between 主菜 and 主食 is not dependant on the number of people attending the gathering to share a meal or dinner, but maybe the importance of the meal or dinner? Such as the annual gathering of life-long friends to share a favorite delicacy compared to a simple family meal with one main dish at the end of a long hard days work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21523" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2019-03-07T01:27:57.677" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T01:27:57.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33146" CreationDate="2019-03-06T20:41:55.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Newby answer: Yellow Bridge gave me &quot;young of domestic animals&quot;. Yandex gave me &quot;Boy!&quot;.It would appear to me that your boy may be very well behaved or domesticated? And it seems Aberdeen is used as a girls name in some countries (google search). You could try asking Google Translate and see what it comes up with. My attempt failed to produce any useful answers, you may need to play around with the question a few times to find the key words that dig up the answer you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21523" LastActivityDate="2019-03-06T20:41:55.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33141" CreationDate="2019-03-07T00:56:53.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In practice, if you say &quot;ri4 mo4&quot;, I would think you mean 日末(&quot;&lt;em&gt;the end of the day&lt;/em&gt;&quot;), instead of 日没. 日落 is the common word for sunset. Never seen 日没 before. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T00:56:53.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33152" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33154" CreationDate="2019-03-07T06:42:31.633" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've got this horrible scan from《旅行雜志》1945年第7期，第8頁 and I'm trying to make out the characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9pElc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9pElc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I've got so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幼儿为「么？」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any idea what the missing character is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A logical answer would be: 兒, but it doesn't really look like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-03-08T08:07:37.553" Title="What's the missing character: 幼儿为「么？」?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33152" CreationDate="2019-03-07T11:45:44.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a list of 四川話 (Sichuan dialect) terms, I suppose it showed other provinces' visitors some basic terms in Sichuan  dialect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It includes : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夫妻為 「兩口子」(husband and wife is &quot;兩口子&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最小兒女為「么兒」(smallest child is &quot;么兒&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小妹妺為「么妺」; 「么姑娘」(youngest sister is &quot;么妺&quot; ; &quot;么姑娘&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小弟弟為「么兄弟」(youngest brother is &quot;么兄弟&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one sentence you are asking is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;幼叔為「么叔」(youngest uncle is &quot;么叔&quot; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The  Chinese 「  mark below 为  bent left instead of bent right, because the text was written in vertical right to left Chinese style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bet Sichuan dialect speakers can guess the missing characters better than Mandarin speakers. I couldn't figure out 「屋里」 in 男人稱妻人為「屋里」(men call their wives as &quot;屋里&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-08T08:07:37.553" LastActivityDate="2019-03-08T08:07:37.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33135" CreationDate="2019-03-07T14:00:42.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the ABC Chinese-English Dictionary, the Chinese word 编织 can mean &quot;weave; knit; plait; braid&quot;.  ABC is saying it's a general word that can mean all of these things.  If you want to distinguish between these things then you might need a different word instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look up &quot;weaving&quot; on Wikipedia and press Languages / Chinese, it takes you to a Chinese article called 梭织.  (&quot;Knitting&quot; takes you to 编织.)  Although in general it is wise to be a bit careful when using Wikipedia (check the sources etc), I would be very surprised if an &lt;strong&gt;article title&lt;/strong&gt; (especially for a long-established article like &quot;weaving&quot;) would not have been corrected if it were wrong.  梭织 is not in the ABC but 梭=shuttle in textiles (compare 梭子) and 织 can mean to weave or to knit (compare 组织=organize) so it looks very plausible that 梭织 specifically means weaving with a shuttle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ABC also says the word 针织 (from the question) means to knit but not to weave; the first character 针 means needle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So simply put 针织 for knit, 梭织 for weave, and 编织 as a catch-all term that could mean either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17164" LastEditorUserId="17164" LastEditDate="2019-03-07T14:06:49.793" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T14:06:49.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33146" CreationDate="2019-03-07T14:14:26.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is Google makes mistake all the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/14964/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;香港仔&lt;/a&gt; = Aberdeen, Hong Kong (a place's name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/15553/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;仔仔&lt;/a&gt;  /zai2*4 zai2*1/ is a colloquial Cantonese term for &quot;boy&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mistaken '仔仔' as '香港仔', because both are Cantonese term that has the character '仔' in it, is quite a big flaw&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-07T14:21:43.590" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T14:21:43.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33116" CreationDate="2019-03-07T16:37:56.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is &quot;魂&quot;, and there are several meanings of it.&#xA;Probably the most common one is soul, but usually the meaning is some kind of phantom things related with one's soul or one's characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21536" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T16:37:56.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33158" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33159" CreationDate="2019-03-08T00:01:30.610" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once played an online multiplayer game called Boom Beach, which involved some team play. I was in a multinational group, and we did have two mainland Chinese folks in the group. One was reasonably good in English and the other was pretty fluent, and because the group was multinational, we defaulted to English in chat anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, it was my preference to exhort my teammates before they went on their missions, in their native language if possible. My catchphrase was, &quot;die gloriously!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some additional context: Each player got one attack per mission. Usually, you lost all your troops in each attack, but you then go and re-train your troops for the next day's mission. Basically, you died repeatedly in this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure that I just Google translated my catchphrase at the time. The current translation is &quot;光荣地死!&quot; (guang1 rong2 de si3). This didn't sound quite right to me, so I would say &quot;死地光荣!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a better translation? Are there any appropriate colloquialisms that I don't know?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I grew up in Singapore to an English-speaking family; I can pronounce and write Chinese, and I could probably order something at a restaurant, but my Chinese is pretty bad. My Chinese teammates never suggested any alternatives at the time, but I thought I'd check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21529" LastEditorUserId="21529" LastEditDate="2019-03-08T00:33:17.433" LastActivityDate="2019-03-08T04:06:47.313" Title="In online gaming, how would you exhort a Chinese teammate to die gloriously?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33158" CreationDate="2019-03-08T00:53:44.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese have many phrases for &quot;good death&quot; like 犧牲, 捐軀, 就義, 成仁, 捨身, 捨生...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;去壯烈犧牲吧!&quot; (Go, go heroically sacrifice yourself!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;去英勇捐軀吧!&quot; (Go, go bravely give up your life!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;去光榮戰死吧!&quot; (Go, go gloriously die in battle!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;去慷慨就義吧!&quot; (Go, go gracefully meet your doom for your allegiance!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;去捨身報國吧!&quot; (Go, go give up your life for your country!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;去殺身成仁吧!&quot; (Go, go give up your life for honor!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My choice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;去捨生一戰吧!&quot; (Go, disregard your life; forget about death and fight this one battle!) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;捨生忘死 disregard life; forget death&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-08T04:06:47.313" LastActivityDate="2019-03-08T04:06:47.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33161" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-08T05:29:21.257" Score="2" ViewCount="287" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am quite confused with the usage of both words as the some of the meaning is overlapping based in English translations. The dictionary shows that 停止 = stop, cease, halt while for 停住 = stop, halt. So what situation do you guys use 停止 and 停住? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-12T08:46:16.223" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T08:46:16.223" Title="停止 vs. 停住 usage/difference?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33161" CreationDate="2019-03-08T05:56:41.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;停住 is often used as a command in language similar to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;stop!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;halt!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like you might hear from a policeman or a person of authority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Advanced_result_complements#.E4.BD.8F_as_Result_Complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;住&lt;/a&gt; as a grammar point has two functions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;住 can be used after a verb to express a &quot;coming to a halt.&quot; These verbs are limited. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;抓住那个小偷！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Catch that thief!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;住 can also be used to express &quot;undertaking an action firmly&quot; or &quot;tightly.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你必须抓住机会。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You must seize the opportunity tightly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the emphasis of 住 in 停住 is again: halt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;停止 is used as a verb more akin to: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to stop &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to cease &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.91dub.com/search/%E5%81%9C%E6%AD%A2?type=search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;91dub&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The murders stopped. The disappearances stopped.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  杀人事件停止了 失踪事件也停止了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-08T06:03:01.167" LastActivityDate="2019-03-08T06:03:01.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33161" CreationDate="2019-03-08T06:22:12.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 停 and 止 contains the meaning of 'to stop'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;停止&quot; is a compound word verb for 'to stop' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;停住&quot; = &quot;to stop (successfully/ and keep it this way). It is made up of the verb '停' and it's &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;result complement&lt;/a&gt; '住' (住 as a result complement denotes: 1. successfully; 2. in a continuous state)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;停止 is usually used as an intransitive verb or auxiliary verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(intransitive verb): 操作停止 (operation stops); 任务停止 (mission stops)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(auxiliary verb): 停止攻擊 (stop attacking); 停止操作 (stop operating)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;停住&quot; can be use transitive or intransitive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(transitive verb): 他停住車子 (he stops the car)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(intransitive verb) 車子停住了 (the car stops)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-03-08T06:22:12.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33164" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33168" CreationDate="2019-03-08T07:30:31.583" Score="2" ViewCount="329" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm trying to learn Taiwanese Mandarin, and apparently they don't really use the neutral tone, but if that's the case how do you say things like 子,了, and 的?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20308" LastEditorUserId="20826" LastEditDate="2019-06-17T11:12:01.273" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T11:12:01.273" Title="Does Taiwanese Mandarin have the neutral tone?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33161" CreationDate="2019-03-08T08:35:58.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;停住 is often used for &lt;strong&gt;tangible objects&lt;/strong&gt;, 停止 for &lt;strong&gt;intangible ones&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, 停止进攻（进攻 is intangible）， 把车停住（车 is tangible）; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There could be some exceptions, but that rule could work most of time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-03-08T08:35:58.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33164" CreationDate="2019-03-08T08:41:19.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there must be some confusion here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neutral tones definitely exist in Taiwanese Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's even a paper &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/graduate/Dissertations/KarenHuangFinal.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; called &lt;em&gt;A Study of Neutral-Tone Syllables in Taiwan Mandarin&lt;/em&gt; in which the contours of the neutral &lt;em&gt;-le&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;-de&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;-zi&lt;/em&gt; are discussed in depth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-03-08T08:41:19.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33167" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-08T10:29:18.483" Score="-2" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is a very quick question as I do not know any chinese at all, but what does this character mean? I've tried websites that recognize according to handwriting, but it just won't. I tried many times, but I think it may be the font or just my bad handwriting. It just has this one character and that's it, thank you so much!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qUBqI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qUBqI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21542" LastEditorUserId="21542" LastEditDate="2019-03-08T10:43:47.977" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T05:58:44.220" Title="What does this character mean? (Screenshot)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33164" CreationDate="2019-03-08T12:15:32.750" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess you are talking about 輕聲.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;臺灣注音符號的聲調除了一聲、二聲、三聲、四聲以外，還有個「輕聲」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to the first, second, third, and fourth tones, there is a 輕聲 (light tone) in Taiwan.&#xA;It is also known as the fifth tone or the neutral tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;符號是一個小圓點；直寫時，標在上方；橫寫時，標在左側。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mark is a small dot.&#xA;When the text is written vertically, it is marked at the top.&#xA;In a horizontal print, it is marked on the left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YPsVw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YPsVw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can search 注音符號發音教學 on the YouTube site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16013" LastActivityDate="2019-03-08T12:15:32.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33170" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-08T18:35:19.253" Score="3" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read that 者 can be used as &quot;... one who ...&quot;, for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I met a X, one who is a Y.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that right? If yes, what would be the translation of &quot;I met a X, one who is a Y&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20422" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T13:37:29.560" Title="How to use 者 as &quot;... one who is ...&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33170" CreationDate="2019-03-08T23:43:51.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;char=%E8%80%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;者&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;英文翻譯: that which; he who; those who&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《禮記·檀弓上》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  遂命子貢為之主，曰：「為爾哭也來者，拜之。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Accordingly he ordered Zi-gong to act as presiding mourner on the occasion, saying to him, 'Bow to &lt;strong&gt;those who&lt;/strong&gt; come because you have a wailing in your house.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 in 拜之 is a pronoun which represents 來者.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is usually used in the classical Chinese (文言文).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2019-03-08T23:43:51.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33172" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-08T23:52:26.333" Score="1" ViewCount="1466" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google Translate can be a useful tool for converting Simplified Chinese hanzi into Traditional Chinese — but I'm looking for a tool that will enable me to paste in a set of Simplified characters, and generate a calligraphic equivalent in semi-cursive script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a web service that does this, or would it be better to download a xíngshū font?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21546" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-03-09T02:05:12.617" LastActivityDate="2019-08-06T04:05:55.707" Title="Is there a website for generating xíngshū (semi-cursive script) from jiǎnhuàzì (simplified characters)?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33172" CreationDate="2019-03-09T00:05:15.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.diyiziti.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;第一字体网&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Choose any 行书 fonts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can download the font too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/umOSU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/umOSU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T00:05:15.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33167" CreationDate="2019-03-09T00:20:57.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The strokes in the upper half of the character looks more like Japanese to me. I think it is 空 (sora), which means sky in Japanese. The meaning of this character is basically the same in Chinese and in Japanese though. So it can also mean nothingness or empty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T00:20:57.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33170" CreationDate="2019-03-09T00:48:07.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/591/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;者&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the person/people who; he who; those who; that which&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;者 is the literary counterpart of the colloquial &amp;quot;的人&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;的&amp;quot; (pronoun)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage of &amp;quot;者&amp;quot; compare to English &amp;quot;he who&amp;quot; , &amp;quot;those who&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;English: [&lt;strong&gt;pronoun&lt;/strong&gt;] + [&lt;strong&gt;who&lt;/strong&gt; (used to introduce a clause giving further information about a person or people previously mentioned.)] + [&lt;em&gt;descriptive clause&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chinese: [&lt;em&gt;descriptive clause&lt;/em&gt;] + [&lt;strong&gt;者&lt;/strong&gt; pronoun] (used to indicate the clause before it is a description of the pronoun '者')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;English: [&lt;strong&gt;those&lt;/strong&gt;] + [&lt;strong&gt;who&lt;/strong&gt;] + [borrowed money from Mr.K (&lt;em&gt;descriptive clause)&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Literary Chinese: [向 Mr.K借钱 (&lt;em&gt;descriptive clause&lt;/em&gt;)] + [&lt;strong&gt;者&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Colloquial Chinese: [向 Mr.K借钱 (&lt;em&gt;descriptive clause&lt;/em&gt;)] + [&lt;strong&gt;的人&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;者 is also a common component that turn nouns or verbs into compound word nouns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作 = create; 作者 = author&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;記 = to record; 記者 = reporter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;死 = dead; 死者 = the deceased&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;學 = to learn; 學者 = scholar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弱 = weak; 弱者 = weakling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;侍 = to serve; 侍者 = waiter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讀 = read; 讀者 = reader&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T00:48:07.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33167" CreationDate="2019-03-09T05:58:44.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it’s just another way of writing 空 as in 空气 or 空天 or 你有没有空时间呢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21547" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T05:58:44.220" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33170" CreationDate="2019-03-09T13:20:10.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is classical Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;师者, 传道授业解惑也---韩愈&lt;/strong&gt;. &#xA;This is a famous quote, frequently used when people talk about teachers and students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A teacher, [is a person] who passes down the&#xA;Dao, imparts professional knowledge and resolves doubt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found that translation in this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.academia.edu/35903850/A_Translation_of_the_Shi_Shuo_Discourse_on_Teacher_by_Hanyu_%E9%9F%A9%E6%84%88_%E5%B8%88%E8%AF%B4_%E4%B9%8B%E8%8B%B1%E8%AF%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;doc&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar usage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;窃谓夫为将&lt;strong&gt;者&lt;/strong&gt;：能去能就，能柔能刚；能进能退，能弱能强。 -- 诸葛亮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为将&lt;strong&gt;者&lt;/strong&gt;不通天文、不懂地理、不晓阴阳、不知奇门遁甲及阵图兵势，乃庸才也 -- 诸葛亮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凡为将&lt;strong&gt;者&lt;/strong&gt;，知过于人，则能制人。--锺繇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes people want to use it intentionally to make the sentence sounds special. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;楼主者, 发贴首也.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OP is the person who post the first message in a threads.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为球员者, 当以团队第一.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one who as football player should treat the team first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastEditorUserId="13440" LastEditDate="2019-03-09T13:37:29.560" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T13:37:29.560" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33178" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33180" CreationDate="2019-03-09T16:08:37.870" Score="1" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;你有没有空时间呢&quot;?&#xA;In my intuition, 空时间 is most likely a physics terminology (though it isn't).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20986" LastEditorUserId="20986" LastEditDate="2019-03-10T14:08:31.840" LastActivityDate="2019-03-10T14:08:31.840" Title="Is &quot;空时间&quot; a valid phrase in chinese? If not, why not?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33178" CreationDate="2019-03-09T16:17:15.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Best Chinese dictionary ever. I’ve been using it since 2010 and it just rocks. And that’s besides general experience over a decade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SqZni.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SqZni.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;screenshot&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as you can see. It is not limited to discussions of physics. Thanks for the upvotes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21547" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T16:17:15.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33178" CreationDate="2019-03-10T00:16:51.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;你有没有空时间呢 doesn't sound right. Try these variants:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你有没有空?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你有没有时间?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你有没有空闲的时间？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你有没有空闲的时候?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-10T00:16:51.100" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33181" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33182" CreationDate="2019-03-10T17:54:40.470" Score="1" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started learning Chinese about three months ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are ordering from a menu, you just say &lt;code&gt;wo de (food items)&lt;/code&gt;. If I am introducing entree options, how would I say that &lt;code&gt;we serve 北京烤鸭, 点心, and 四川火锅&lt;/code&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21530" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-12T06:15:08.950" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T06:15:08.950" Title="If you are introducing a menu as a waiter at a Chinese restaurant, how would you say for 主菜, we serve 北京烤鸭, 点心, and 四川火锅?" Tags="&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33181" CreationDate="2019-03-10T18:07:03.007" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I'm understanding the question correctly, you are asking from a waiter's perspective how would you say we serve 北京烤鸭, 点心, and 四川火锅? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many ways to say this. The easiest is probably &quot;我们有北京烤鸭、点心和四川火锅&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 点心 sounds a little weird in this context since it's usually perceived as dessert, not an entree item. So I would say &quot;我们有北京烤鸭、四川火锅和餐后点心&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You mentioned saying &quot;wo de (food items)&quot; to order, but this is not a correct sentence to me. You might want to say &quot;我想要...&quot; &quot;我要...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, as an unrelated note, it's very rare that a restaurant would serve both hot pot and peking duck, since hot pot restaurants usually have tables specifically designed for their hot pots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2019-03-10T18:07:03.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33183" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-11T03:58:41.010" Score="1" ViewCount="6981" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to get a tattoo of the phrase “love yourself” in Chinese but I don’t want to just google and translate since it gets words and phrases wrong all the time. I want to know from someone who actually knows, because well, it’s a tattoo on my body and I don’t want it to be wrong. Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I actually did google and translate and it came out with ài zìjǐ. In Chinese letters it was 爱自己. Is that correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21555" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-12T06:23:32.007" LastActivityDate="2019-04-15T14:30:25.473" Title="How do you say or write love yourself in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33184" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33191" CreationDate="2019-03-11T06:09:38.773" Score="2" ViewCount="421" Body="&lt;p&gt;On my last trip to Mainland China I saw a lady in a corner &quot;mini shop&quot; mending clothes with a sewing machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She mended my jeans for about $5. I don't think she had any kind of sign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This trip I'm in Taiwan and again would like to get my jeans mended. But I'm not sure what to Google or ask for at the hostel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in English I'm not sure what words I'd use. &quot;Tailor&quot; and &quot;seamstress&quot; both seem a bit wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What Chinese words are used for a shop, stall, service, or person who does sewing, patching, darning, mending, etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T10:04:15.790" Title="What words are used in Taiwan for a place or person that mends clothing?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33185" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33187" CreationDate="2019-03-11T06:39:35.503" Score="1" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm taking an intermediate Chinese course and ran across a character whose usage I can't quite wrap my head around: 就.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the meaning of the character itself are &quot;then, right away, etc.&quot; However, I'm finding it difficult to really understand the usage from just the definition itself. Here is an example from the textbook I'm using:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;等你来天津， 我就给你当导游。 (When you come to Tianjin, I'll give you a tour.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;等你来天津， 我给你当导游。(When you come to Tianjin, I'll be your guide.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I interpret 就 in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20231" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T11:28:27.933" Title="Usage of 就 in these two examples" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33184" CreationDate="2019-03-11T06:43:11.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;裁缝 is the official /formal job title for a person who makes, alter and mends clothes. If you need to repair your clothes, you can just ask people where can you find a &quot;裁缝&quot; (tailor) or &quot;裁缝店&quot; (tailor shop)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since mending clothes (缝補衣服) is traditionally a woman's job in society, and the basic tools they use are 針 and 線 (needle and thread), some Cantonese just nickname a professional seamstress 針線婆. We have one in our workplace, anyone's uniform needed to be repair can ask her to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seamstress is translated as 女裁缝 in Google, so I think it is ok. to just call her 裁缝 also. Or you can call her '針線工'(needle and thread worker) or '做缝衣的'/ '補衣服的' (one who mends clothes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;針線婆  may be too informal, sexist and disrespectful in Mandarin&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-11T06:56:55.397" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T06:56:55.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33185" CreationDate="2019-03-11T07:18:01.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[等 (X) 就 (Y)] = [wait till (X) then (Y)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;等&lt;/strong&gt;(你来天津)， 我&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;(给你当导游。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;wait till&lt;/strong&gt; (you come to Tianjin,) I'll &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; (be your tour guide.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other combinations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[一 (X) 就 (Y)]  = [once/as soon as (X) then (Y)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt;(来天津)， 我&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;(给你当导游)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Once&lt;/strong&gt; (you come to Tianjin,) I'll &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; (be your tour guide.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[如果(X) 就 (Y)] = [if (X) then (Y)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果(你来天津) 我&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;(给你当导游)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If&lt;/strong&gt; (you come to Tianjin,) I'll &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; (be your tour guide.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T07:18:01.020" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33183" CreationDate="2019-03-11T07:39:31.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can just use the common phrase '自爱' (love oneself) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;做人要自爱&quot; means &quot;be a person, you have to love yourself&quot; (imply cherish, respect and not dishonor yourself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T07:39:31.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33189" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-11T09:01:30.493" Score="5" ViewCount="918" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning and function of &quot;幸&quot; in the following sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吾翁即若翁。必欲烹而翁，则&lt;strong&gt;幸&lt;/strong&gt;分我一杯羹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20663" LastEditorUserId="20663" LastEditDate="2019-03-15T02:01:45.693" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T02:01:45.693" Title="What is the meaning and function of 幸 in &quot;则幸分我一杯羹&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33189" CreationDate="2019-03-11T09:16:24.087" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;幸 in this context means &lt;em&gt;to hope for&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吾翁即若翁。必欲烹爾翁，則幸分我一杯羹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My old man is your old man. If you want to boil your old man alive, then I hope that you’ll share a portion of the soup with me.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can find, the original text says 必欲烹「而」翁 rather than 必欲烹「爾」翁, but the interpretation is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-03-11T11:01:51.980" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T11:01:51.980" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33184" CreationDate="2019-03-11T10:04:15.790" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;We don't use 補 or 縫補 in Taiwan. We use 修改衣服 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you like to get the clothes mended, you should find the 修改衣服/換拉鏈 (Modify clothes/Change zippers) signs as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KbjVK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KbjVK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2lPLB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2lPLB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We still call the person who does these works 老闆.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T10:04:15.790" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33189" CreationDate="2019-03-11T10:50:24.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;幸 literally means 'feel lucky for' or 'happy for'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吾翁即若翁。必欲烹爾翁，則幸分我一杯羹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My old man is your old man. If you want to boil your old man alive, then I would be happy to share a portion of the soup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'hope for' is extended meaning of 'happy for' -- When you are happy for something to happen, you are hoping for it to happen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In  the idiom: &amp;quot;幸災樂禍&amp;quot;  (happy to see other people suffer) both 幸 and 樂 mean 'happy for'; 災禍 means disaster&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T11:10:06.510" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33189" CreationDate="2019-03-11T11:09:27.407" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;幸 is hope that. The excerpt is from 《史记》 项羽 threatened 刘邦 that he would boil 刘邦's father alive. But 刘邦 was not afraid of him and said: &quot;吾(my)翁(father)即(is)若(your)翁。(if you)必(must)欲(will,want)烹(boil alive)爾(your)翁,則(conjunction)(I)幸(hope)分(share)我(me)一杯(a bowl of)羹(soup)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: 刘邦 and 项羽 once 拜为兄弟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T11:09:27.407" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33185" CreationDate="2019-03-11T12:42:21.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unlike English, 等你来天津 here is actually &lt;strong&gt;a conditional clause&lt;/strong&gt;. It means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;if it comes to the time when you come to Tianjian&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. The OP's sentence can be interpreted by &lt;strong&gt;if... then ...&lt;/strong&gt; structure in English. So, 就 does mean &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; in that sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T12:42:21.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33195" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33205" CreationDate="2019-03-11T14:15:50.490" Score="1" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;strong&gt;many&lt;/strong&gt; example sentences (763,000). Such as &lt;code&gt;你这么成熟懂事,想必一定没人疼你&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intuitively I think it's fluent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But think carefully, 想必 means &quot;presumably, most probably,&quot; is this wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20986" LastEditorUserId="19680" LastEditDate="2019-03-16T01:36:03.500" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T02:54:22.200" Title="Is 想必一定 a wrong usage?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33195" CreationDate="2019-03-11T15:00:42.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;想必&quot;  short for &quot;想来必定&quot; (think it must be) ; &quot;一定&quot;(certainly) seems redundant to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;必一定&quot; is like saying  &quot;certainly&quot; twice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either &quot;你这么成熟懂事, 想必没人疼你&quot; or &quot;你这么成熟懂事, 我想一定没人疼你&quot; sounds more nature than &quot;你这么成熟懂事, 想必一定没人疼你&quot; (think it must be, certainly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes,  &quot;想必&quot; (think it must be) does mean &quot;presume&quot;; so does &quot;我想一定&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is, if you already said &quot;presumably&quot; then follow it with &quot;certainly&quot; is a logical contradiction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-11T15:08:43.957" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T15:08:43.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3636" CreationDate="2019-03-11T15:40:23.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The accepted answer &quot;寧縱勿枉&quot; is the correct interpretation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to add one point.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a legal term “&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/benefit-of-the-doubt-must-go-to-accused-supreme-court/article25776010.ece&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Benefit of the doubt must go to accused&lt;/a&gt;&quot; --  ”&lt;a href=&quot;https://hk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080207000051KK00063&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「疑點利益歸於被告」&lt;/a&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;疑點利益歸於被告」其實基於香港行的法制: 「寧縱勿枉」; 大陸行的法制則是「寧枉勿縱」(枉係冤枉; 縱係縱容) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore , we can translate &quot;Benefit of the doubt&quot; as &quot;疑點利益&quot; in Chinese . And &quot;giving someone the benefit of the doubt”  Can be translated as &quot;把疑點利益歸予某人&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在沒有證據的情況下，我們衹能把&lt;strong&gt;疑點利益都歸予他&lt;/strong&gt; (In the absence of evidence, we can only &lt;strong&gt;give him the benefit of the doubt&lt;/strong&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在沒有證據的情況下，我們衹能&lt;strong&gt;寧縱勿枉&lt;/strong&gt; (In the absence of evidence, we must &lt;strong&gt;rather wrongly acquit than wrongly convict&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-11T20:42:12.337" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T20:42:12.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33195" CreationDate="2019-03-11T17:02:36.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning can be understood without either 想必 or 一定. But I think using 想必一定 conveys a slightly different nuance from that of either 想必 or 一定.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一定没人疼你: very certain presumption&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想必没人疼你: still pretty certain but less so than 一定, and also implies that the speaker has evidence to back his/her view. (since 想必 is usually used with (因为)...想必...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想必一定没人疼你: conveys both of the connotation above. Very certain and implies that the speaker has evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I don't think this is a wrong usage. Consider another case of using two presumption words: 大约的确是死了 (from 《孔乙己》). Neither 大约是死了 nor 的确是死了 can convey the subtle connotation of 大约的确是死了, although 大约 and 的确 seems to be contradicting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastEditorUserId="19680" LastEditDate="2019-03-16T01:37:40.047" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T01:37:40.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33202" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33203" CreationDate="2019-03-12T04:29:58.733" Score="1" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning and function of 以 in the following?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子路，人告之&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;有过，则喜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to an online dictionary, 以 as a preposition has the following senses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[介]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 因為、由於。《論語．衛靈公》：「君子不以言舉人，不以人廢言。」《韓非子．喻老》：「千丈之隄，以蟻螻之穴潰。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 按、依。《孟子．梁惠王上》：「斧斤以時入山林，材木不可勝用也。」《商君書．更法》：「禮法以時而定，制令各順其宜。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 在、於。《左傳．桓公二年》：「其弟以千畝之戰生，命之曰成師。」唐．柳宗元〈斷刑論〉：「賞以春夏而刑以秋冬。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 加在前、後、左、右、上、下、往、來、東、西、南、北等字之前，表時空和方位的界限。如：「自古以來」、「長安東路以西」、「價格在一千元以上」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 連及。《易經．小畜．九五》：「有孚攣如，富以其鄰。」《論語．堯曰》：「朕躬有罪，無以萬方。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None seems relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20663" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T06:17:43.967" Title="Meaning and function of &quot;以&quot; in &quot;子路，人告之以有过，则喜&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33202" CreationDate="2019-03-12T04:47:43.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以 functions as 'with' here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子路 (a student of Confucius)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人告之 - people inform him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以 - with (the information of) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有过 - (he had) made mistake，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;则喜 - be happy (when they do) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people pointed out 子路's mistakes, he would feel happy (we can presume he was happy to hear about his mistake so that he can make amends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;闻过则喜&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (happy when hear one's own mistake) is a sign of a wise and moral man&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In real life, most people would 闻过则怒 (get angry when he was told he made mistake)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-12T05:05:10.867" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T05:05:10.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32763" CreationDate="2019-03-12T09:57:48.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a real problem in Chinese translation, because there is &lt;strong&gt;no such word&lt;/strong&gt; as “nothing” in Chinese. If you want to translate “nothing” into Chinese, you will have to &lt;strong&gt;paraphrase&lt;/strong&gt; it into something else, such as “not anything”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have &lt;strong&gt;nothing&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;→ I do &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; have &lt;strong&gt;anything&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;→ 我&lt;strong&gt;没&lt;/strong&gt;有&lt;strong&gt;任何东西&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;→ 我什么也没有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here comes the problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want to translate the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You will turn him into nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can only paraphrase it into:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You will not turn him into anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你不会把他变成任何东西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You will turn him into &lt;strong&gt;nonexistence&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你将把他变成&lt;strong&gt;不存在&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want to translate the pun? I don't think it is possible to make such a pun in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-03-12T10:29:19.800" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T10:29:19.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33195" CreationDate="2019-03-12T11:33:26.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你这么成熟懂事,想必一定没人疼你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想必 draws an inference. 你这么成熟懂事 provides the reasoning. 一定没人疼你 is the  inference. 想必 can be '&lt;strong&gt;presumbly&lt;/strong&gt;' in English. You should take 想必 and 一定 separately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-03-12T11:43:48.083" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T11:43:48.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32992" CreationDate="2019-03-12T13:54:26.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for mathematical formula &lt;code&gt;x²&lt;/code&gt;, it can be pronounced as either&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;X的二次方 (x to the power of two)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;X的平方 (x squared)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for mathematical formula &lt;code&gt;x³&lt;/code&gt;, it can be pronounced as either&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;X的三次方 (x to the power of three)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;X的立方 (x cubed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for mathematical formula &lt;code&gt;x⁴&lt;/code&gt;, it can only be pronounced as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;X的四次方 (x to the power of four)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the unit of area “square metre” (&lt;code&gt;m²&lt;/code&gt;), it is often pronounced as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;平方米&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as for the unit of acceleration “metre per second squared” (&lt;code&gt;m/s²&lt;/code&gt;), it is usually pronounced as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;米每二次方秒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is mainly because 平方秒 (square second, &lt;code&gt;s²&lt;/code&gt;) &lt;em&gt;per se&lt;/em&gt; does not make much sense. Nothing is measured in square seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, as for the unit of the current density “ampere per square metre” (&lt;code&gt;A/m²&lt;/code&gt;), it is usually pronounced as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;安培每平方米&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because 平方米 (square metre, &lt;code&gt;m²&lt;/code&gt;) &lt;em&gt;per se&lt;/em&gt; makes sense. Area can be measured in square metres.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-03-13T01:20:00.923" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T01:20:00.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33183" CreationDate="2019-03-12T14:05:56.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;爱自己 sounds a little bit like narcissism. As for “love yourself”, you should use 爱你自己 instead. You can also use the literary expression 自爱.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T14:05:56.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33133" CreationDate="2019-03-12T14:49:23.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This phenomenon is a non-standard regional accent, known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%92%E5%8C%96%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;儿化音&lt;/a&gt;. It is a phenomenon in some part of North China, especially in Beijing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不知道 (bù zhī dào) → 不&lt;sub&gt;儿&lt;/sub&gt;道 (bùr rào)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不是 (bù shì) → bú shì → 不&lt;sub&gt;儿&lt;/sub&gt; (búr)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;告诉你 (gào sù nǐ) → 告&lt;sub&gt;儿&lt;/sub&gt;你 (gàor nǐ)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-03-13T02:35:15.163" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T02:35:15.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32939" CreationDate="2019-03-12T15:05:00.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google Translate is wrong here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一米八 refers to 1.8 metres, so the English translation should be one metre eighty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can regard 一米八 as 一米八&lt;strong&gt;分米&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e. one metre and eight &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimetre&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;decimetres&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, so it is one metre and eighty centimetres.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一米八&lt;strong&gt;几&lt;/strong&gt; refers to 1.8&lt;strong&gt;x&lt;/strong&gt; metres, so the English translation should be one metre eighty-&lt;strong&gt;something&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to express one metre eight, i.e. 1.08 metres, it is 一米&lt;strong&gt;零&lt;/strong&gt;八 in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, 一块三 means ￥1.3, so it is one &lt;em&gt;yuan&lt;/em&gt; thirty &lt;em&gt;fen&lt;/em&gt;; 一镑六 means £1.6, so it is one pound sixty pence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Always keep in mind that when people say “x units y”, it always means “x units y &lt;strong&gt;deci&lt;/strong&gt;units” in Chinese, although it usually means “x units y &lt;strong&gt;centi&lt;/strong&gt;units” in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-03-13T02:21:40.057" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T02:21:40.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33210" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-12T16:22:42.050" Score="1" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning and function of 使 in the following?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大决所犯，伤人必多，吾不克救也；不如小决&lt;strong&gt;使&lt;/strong&gt;道，不如吾闻而药之也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道 means 導, meaning &quot;to lead&quot; or &quot;to guide,&quot; but how does it combine with 使, meaning &quot;to cause&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20663" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T18:43:07.267" Title="meaning and function of 使 as in &quot;不如小决使道，不如吾闻而药之也&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33210" CreationDate="2019-03-12T18:43:07.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the origin is &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;id=19838&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;左傳　襄公三十一年&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鄭人游于鄉校，以論執政，然明謂子產曰，毀鄉校何如，子產曰，何為，夫人朝夕退而游焉，以議執政之善否，其所善者，吾則行之，其所惡者，吾則改之，是吾師也，若之何毀之，我聞忠善以損怨，不聞作威以防怨，豈不遽止，然猶防川，大決所犯，傷人必多，吾不克救也，不如小決，使道不如，吾聞而藥之也，然明曰，蔑也今而後知吾子之信可事也，小人實不才，若果行此，其鄭國實賴之，豈唯二三臣，仲尼聞是語也，曰，以是觀之，人謂子產不仁，吾不信也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the punctuation of the above text is, imo, doubtful :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyway, the metaphor is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;people's animosity (民怨) is like water flow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a ruler can built a dam to store water, and stop the flow. &lt;strong&gt;but&lt;/strong&gt;, over times, water would overflow, destroy the dam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, 子產's method to handle people's animosity is: don't stop it, let small amount of water flow daily; in which no water would collected large enough to destroy the dam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大決所犯．傷人必多．吾不克救也．不如小決使道．不如吾聞而藥之也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dam burst (大決) . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it would be better to (不如) [let] small amount of (小) [water] flow (決) [pass the dam], as (使) dredge (道 --&gt; 疏導).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it would be better to (不如) [let] me (吾) hear (聞) [people's critic (以論執政) at the school (于鄉校)], and (而) [using such critics] as medicine (藥) to cure the governing (之).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;depends on the style of writing, one might interpret &quot;使&quot; differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T18:43:07.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33212" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33216" CreationDate="2019-03-12T18:44:51.573" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know they all mean to Destroy to some extent, but was told 烧毁 is specifically to use fire. What are the different contexts or situations you would use them in?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19781" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T07:05:49.727" Title="Whats the difference between 毁灭，销毁，和烧毁？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33212" CreationDate="2019-03-12T18:53:22.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;毁灭 is used for abstract description, you can say 毁灭一座城市、毁灭一个民族 and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;销毁 means &lt;em&gt;destroy so that no trace is remaining&lt;/em&gt;, for example, 销毁文件。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烧毁 means &lt;em&gt;destroy with fire&lt;/em&gt;, therefore you can say 一场大火烧毁了这间屋子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T18:53:22.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33214" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33215" CreationDate="2019-03-12T21:31:10.830" Score="3" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;There appear to be multiple ways to say &lt;strong&gt;touch&lt;/strong&gt; according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YellowBridge&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Is there a difference between 碰，碰觸，觸碰, and 觸, or are they interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) In Cantonese, 點 seems to be the right way to say touch. Are there differences between 點 and these others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-13T23:36:57.743" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T23:36:57.743" Title="Touch: difference between 碰，碰觸，觸碰, and 觸" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33214" CreationDate="2019-03-12T23:18:38.660" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;see dictionaries  e.g. bkrs (supplied excerpts restricted to physical touching) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;碰&lt;/strong&gt; collide, bump into (4)(of 7) 用手、 脚或器械触及 [bump; touch]。 如: 碰手(方言。 触手、 触疼手); 碰触(接触); 蛇你如果碰它, 它就要咬你 1) touch; knock against&#xA;别碰我肩。 Don't touch my shoulder.#2741&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;碰触&lt;/strong&gt; 接触、碰撞。&#xA;如：「小心，不要碰触电源。」to touch&#xA;接触；碰撞。&#xA;用指尖轻轻地触碰   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;触碰&lt;/strong&gt;:我们不能触碰法律的底线 触碰一下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;触&lt;/strong&gt;  touch ① 接触；碰；撞：抵触 | 触电 | 一触即发。(6)(of11) 接触 [touch; contact]。 如: 触物(接触景物、 事物); 触桶(便桶); 触冒(接触, 冒着)&#xA;to make contact with sth 接触） &#xA;游客请勿触摸陈列品。 Visitors are requested not to touch the exhibits&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;relevant examples from iciba:碰 他绕桌子走了一圈， 和所有的外宾都&lt;em&gt;碰&lt;/em&gt;了杯。碰触 你会颤抖吗 , 如果我&lt;em&gt;碰触&lt;/em&gt;你的唇.她伸出手，想去&lt;em&gt;触碰&lt;/em&gt;母亲的胳膊。触他第一次&lt;em&gt;触&lt;/em&gt;球就得分了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;touch&quot; more commonly(w/o collision) 触摸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;interchangeability seems to be a matter of degree, as users can tell in the sense of touching supplied verbs have a high degree of interchangeability, b/c of their other meanings, composition (in case of compounds) they&#xA;may convey different flavours&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it is also a matter of collocation (搭配)，e.g. for &quot;getting an electric shock &quot; see 触电 above &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-03-12T23:50:26.917" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T23:50:26.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33212" CreationDate="2019-03-13T00:12:24.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;毁灭 is the general term for 'to destroy' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;销毁 also means destroy, but it is more specific. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To 销毁 something, you have to have possession of it. If you delete the data in your computer, you can claim it is 销毁数据 (or 毁灭数据), but if you hack in someone else's computer and delete data there, you can only say you are 毁灭数据.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To 销毁 something, you have to have legitimate right to do it. Destroying the opium in China's standpoint was a legal act of 销毁違法商品 (destroy illegal goods); but in the British's eyes. it was an act of 非法毁灭私有財物 (illegal destruction of private property)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To 销毁 something, that something must have physical form. You cannot 销毁 a dream, an ideal or a reputation. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;销毁 has to be a human's act. We can say a natural fire  &lt;strong&gt;毁灭了&lt;/strong&gt;一万棵树 (destroyed ten thousand trees) , but not &lt;strong&gt;销毁了&lt;/strong&gt;一万棵树&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can 毁灭 something that you do not have possession of. The object doesn't need to have physical form, for example: ideal, dream or enemy, and the act need not to be legal; Of course you can also legal or legally destroy (毁灭) physical things like city or building&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烧毁 is the verb 烧(to burn) plus its &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;result complement&lt;/a&gt; 毁 (destroy), it means &quot;burn and destroy&quot; or &quot;destroy with fire&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-13T00:33:16.730" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T00:33:16.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="993" CreationDate="2019-03-13T01:40:33.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because liu is actually pronounced that way in the first tone and second tone. This applies to -ui and -un.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the third tone you have a longer syllable where a schwa is inserted so it sounds like -iou, -uei, -uen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually the fourth tone is the shortest, but it goes the other way. 对 dui4 actually sounds like due, the diphthong doesn't finish since it's the shortest tone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spelling them all differently based on tone doesn't make sense. The shorter spelling is more economical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21577" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T01:40:33.563" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33218" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33219" CreationDate="2019-03-13T03:17:42.033" Score="7" ViewCount="627" Body="&lt;p&gt;完蛋了 means: Done for; ruined; finished; goose is cooked. It is the Mandarin counterpart of a Cantonese term &quot;玩完&quot; (game over)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am curious about what 蛋 is referring to. Without any reference, I can only speculate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;蛋 is a nickname for 'testicle'; 完蛋 simply means &quot;f~king finished&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When a chicken stop laying egg, it is doomed and will be slaughtered soon&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When an egg (蛋) is finished (完),  meaning an egg is broken, it is ruined beyond repair&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is the correct answer? If none of the above is correct, what is the correct explanation of 蛋 in 完蛋了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think #3 makes more sense (finish like an egg is broken)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-13T04:49:40.643" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T08:29:08.400" Title="What 蛋 is referring to in &quot;完蛋了&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33218" CreationDate="2019-03-13T03:40:01.873" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following text was copied from 重編國語辭典修訂本 website (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000002040&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000002040&lt;/a&gt;), licensed under &lt;a href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/tw/deed.en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Taiwan&lt;/a&gt;, with the attribution to the Ministry of Education, R.O.C.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;蛋&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[名]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[noun]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 鳥類和爬蟲類所生帶有硬殼的卵，受精之後可孵出小動物。如：「雞蛋」、「蛇蛋」、「下蛋」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hard-shell oval from birds or reptiles, which can produce small animals after fertilization. e.g. 雞蛋 (chicken egg), 蛇蛋 (snake egg), 下蛋 (to lay eggs).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 形狀像蛋的東西。如：「臉蛋兒」、「山藥蛋」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An egg-shaped thing. e.g. 臉蛋兒 (face), 山藥蛋 (potato).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 斥責或罵人的話。用以比喻人或動作。如：「渾蛋」、「笨蛋」、「壞蛋」、「滾蛋」、「完蛋」、「糊塗蛋」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A word to insult people, used as a metaphor for the action of humans. e.g. 渾蛋 (fucking asshole), 笨蛋 (stupid asshole), 壞蛋 (scoundrel asshole), 滾蛋 (&lt;em&gt;Go fucking away!&lt;/em&gt;), 完蛋 (to be fucking finished), 糊塗蛋 (confused asshole).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4 中國南方沿海少數民族之一。同「蜑」。如：「胡夷蛋蠻」。《宋史．卷三一．高宗本紀八》：「閏月丙午，罷廉州貢珠，縱蛋丁自便。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A minor ethnicity in coastal South China, also written as 蜑. e.g. 胡夷蛋蠻.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蛋 in 完蛋 is definitely the third meaning: a word to insult people, used as a metaphor for the action of humans. This meaning is similar to ‘&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/balls_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;balls&lt;/a&gt;’ in English, the slang term of ‘testicles’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-03-13T08:29:08.400" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T08:29:08.400" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33137" CreationDate="2019-03-13T05:34:54.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's carved by who didn't have a good carving skill. Can't recognize a character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1st one looks a little like 河&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2nd one can be 内,丙,雨?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3rd one is a little like 国,团&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have totally no idea what it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20757" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T05:34:54.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32649" CreationDate="2019-03-13T06:13:36.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cantonese and Mandarin people have same idea about these words and characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From my knowledge,「漢人」refers to people of the Han ethnic group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唐人 means Chinese people, including ethnic folks other than Han. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually 唐人 is those Chinese people who live in western country. In China people won't use the word 唐人 to describe them self.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20757" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T06:13:36.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33224" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33225" CreationDate="2019-03-13T06:37:35.873" Score="3" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/PtEMCgVp-nQ?t=164&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In this video&lt;/a&gt; the speaker mentions a rice-planting song that goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;花花铺盖几朵云哦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  刚刚盖到两个人咯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But he mentions that there's another sentence on the end that he won't mention because he's on TV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.szhaiyun.com/biyoujingdian/d3820244.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt; also basically sites the video exactly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不只是当年陕北人民才爱这个调调。你看四川评书人李伯清爷爷说的：“花花铺盖几朵云，刚刚盖到两个人……”民歌经常是火辣直接的，天南地北都有这样的东西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But again the last sentence is left off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T07:44:59.423" Title="What's the missing sentence to this rice-planting song：&quot;花花铺盖几朵云，刚刚盖到两个人，[.......]&quot;?" Tags="&lt;songs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33224" CreationDate="2019-03-13T06:41:05.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One reason the first one is hard to find is because 朵 is also written 朶.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tang Huaxian's (唐华先) book《寒冬》Chapter 8《&lt;a href=&quot;http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uvbnJUghwBgJ:www.cangqiongkanshu.com/home-project-chap-id-175-book_id-53.html%20&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;ct=clnk&amp;amp;gl=tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汤龙轩作伥抓壮丁 地下党哄营解危难&lt;/a&gt;》mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这日夜雨初歇，清早起来，天气微凉，东边的山顶燃起桔红色的彩霞，正是挎田栽秧的天时，也是炎热似火的日子。趁着早晨凉快，钟嘴埫一湾一湾的水田里，刚刚开亮口就敲响了栽秧锣鼓。两名歌师，一个打鼓，一个敲锣，站在田埂上一人一段地唱： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;花花铺盖几朶云哟，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  刚刚盖到两个人呀。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  大汗淋淋的老公一脚蹬床下噻，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  光屁股婆娘心痛一槽捡不赢哪。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一阵叮叮噹噹的过门锣鼓之后，另一位歌师接唱： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;二十岁的姑娘娶进门哟，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  十二岁的小老公还未长成人呀。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  半夜找婆娘要水喝噻，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  天亮起来铺盖尿得水淋淋哪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://dq.tieba.com/p/2126302344&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This forum&lt;/a&gt; also mentions a rendition on this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一床铺盖四朵云&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  刚刚盖到两个人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  今年两口子&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  明年三个人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know which one 李伯清 was talking of, but there you go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-13T07:44:59.423" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T07:44:59.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33212" CreationDate="2019-03-13T06:59:41.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;毁灭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to destroy, usually via natural power&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;销毁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;销 (destruct) + 毁灭 (destroy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to destroy something by means of destruction, via human power or authorities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烧毁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;烧 (burn) + 毁灭 (destroy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to destroy something on fire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-03-13T07:05:49.727" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T07:05:49.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33228" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33237" CreationDate="2019-03-13T08:47:36.577" Score="3" ViewCount="521" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know they all mean to give up, or abandon but what would be the different meanings and context these words are used in?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19781" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-13T23:33:52.987" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T23:33:52.987" Title="Whats the difference between 抛弃，放弃，舍弃, 丢弃？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23669" CreationDate="2019-03-13T09:01:42.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cantonese also eat Fujianese. Although it's a Chinese joke. But any creature should be scare when it's arrive Guangdong. Yes, they eat almost everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21580" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T09:01:42.970" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33228" CreationDate="2019-03-13T09:20:37.360" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 抛弃 and 丢弃 sometimes can substitute each other, and they are used for something that you dont want anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抛弃 might have the sense that you abandon something but you might not be supposed to do so.&#xA;For example, a husband 抛弃 his wife because his wife has some diseases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 舍弃, it is used for something that you don't want to abandon but you have to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when you pack up your stuff to move to a new place, but your luggage is too heavy. So in order to lighten the burden, you may have to 舍弃 something that is not so important to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 放弃, I think it is more used for giving up an abstract concept, such as your dream, your plan, your goal, etc, but not a physical object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21579" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T09:20:37.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23669" CreationDate="2019-03-13T14:54:18.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The origin of the statement is unknown, which I think is probably a mix of popular culture self-mocking and westerner discrimination. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although Chinese does has many bizarre food and quite liberal on food (unlike protestant) , some simply think they can are open to all sort of food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO, I don't think Cantonese are brave enough to consume Iceland &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hákarl&lt;/a&gt;. On the other hand, Iceland people will look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;century egg&lt;/a&gt; in horror. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15121" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T14:54:18.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33228" CreationDate="2019-03-13T15:47:29.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;＂汉语同义词词典＂has entries for pairs 抛弃／扬弃,&#xA;抛弃／遗弃,&lt;strong&gt;抛弃／扬弃&lt;/strong&gt;[同］动词。表示丢弃不要。［异］［&lt;strong&gt;抛弃&lt;/strong&gt;］看重于因厌恶或感到无用而丢弃不要。对象可以是人和具体事物，也可以是＂理论、观点、思想、经验、方法＂等抽象事物。例：（１）我们每个人都要自觉维护环境卫生，不要随便&lt;strong&gt;抛弃&lt;/strong&gt;垃圾。（２）有人第一次见到椰子的时候，完全不知道那东西究竟是什么一个吃法，闹了半天，那椰壳上凿一个洞，将将就就喝了椰子就算，却把椰肉连同椰壳都&lt;strong&gt;抛弃&lt;/strong&gt;了（秦牧＜闹市观花记＞）（３）他&lt;strong&gt;抛弃&lt;/strong&gt;了以前的个人主义，站稳了人民的立场。（臧克家(1905-2004)（闻一多先生传略＞）（４）他还谈到苹果园，谈到用昂贵的学费换来的经验一旦&lt;strong&gt;抛弃&lt;/strong&gt;，多么令人心疼。（谌容＜白雪＞）&#xA;［&lt;strong&gt;扬弃&lt;/strong&gt;］着重于为了发扬好的，有用的东西而丢弃不好的或感到无用的东西。对象多为旧文化、旧思想方面的抽象事物。不能用于人和具体事物。例：（１）＂五四＇以来的散文创作&lt;strong&gt;扬弃&lt;/strong&gt;了宋代周敦颐＂文以载道＂的僵死形式，继续了先秦以来散文学的优良传统，开拓了白话散文创作的新局面。（丁尔纲＜茅盾散文欣赏＞）（２）。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抛弃／遗弃 ［同］表示舍弃，扔掉不要［异］［&lt;strong&gt;抛弃&lt;/strong&gt;］看重于主观上舍弃，可用于人或事物，用于人时有嫌弃使离开的感情色彩，多含贬义；用于事物时对象可以是具体的物，也可以是抽象的事物，可以是消极的、不好的，也可以不是。例：（１）他们的身价高了，就&lt;strong&gt;抛弃&lt;/strong&gt;省港罢工工人，解散革命的工会和农会，屠杀共产党和所有革命的人。（欧阳山（＜三家巷＞）（２）她给婚后不久就被丈夫&lt;strong&gt;抛弃&lt;/strong&gt;了，从此她就过着以泪洗面的生活＞（肖复兴＜两个失恋人的一个夜晚＞）（３）新升号的其它炸毁的船只还&lt;strong&gt;抛弃&lt;/strong&gt;在沿岸，我们都可以看见。（郭沫若＜洪波曲＞）（４）无数革命先烈为了人民的利益牺牲了他们的生命，使我们每一个活着的人想起他们就心里难过，难道我们还有什么个人利益不能牺牲，还有什么错误不能&lt;strong&gt;抛弃&lt;/strong&gt;吗？（毛泽东＜论联合政府＞）（５）你应该从政治上看眼，立即&lt;strong&gt;抛弃&lt;/strong&gt;旧读书人的浩癖，决不能因小失大。（曹靖华＜往事漫议＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;放弃&lt;/strong&gt; greatest usage frequency by far #1724 give up; abandon; renounce; back-out; forsake; resign; surrender; abstain from;放弃个人意见 withdraw&#xA;放弃休息时间 give up  放弃表决权 abstain from voting 放弃财产 relinquish 放弃原则 forsake 放弃职守 desert  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;舍弃&lt;/strong&gt; bkrs:丢开；抛弃；放弃：不舍弃顾。give up; abandon:&#xA;那个狠心的男人舍弃了妻小。truncate 抛弃；割舍。抛掉。#16567&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;丢弃&lt;/strong&gt; bkrs:扔掉；抛弃：虽是旧衣服，他也舍不得丢弃。(1) [abandon]∶放弃实施、 实行或运用&#xA;他们丢弃了本国语言而采用了法语&#xA;(2) [discard]∶由于失去用处、 价值或兴趣而扔掉&#xA;把厚大衣丢弃了&#xA;(3) [give up]∶交给他人&#xA;几年后他妻子的去世使他丢弃了他的家 丢掉、拋弃。&#xA;如：「在公共埸所不可随意丢弃纸屑。」#18404&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;besides above already mentioned also note (with similar meanings) 摒弃（屏弃）、废弃、嫌弃、唾弃、背弃、摈弃、厌弃、毁弃、扔弃、离弃、捐弃、割弃,  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-03-14T15:27:48.067" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T15:27:48.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23669" CreationDate="2019-03-13T16:00:54.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is also the following aphorism:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;北京人什么都敢说，广东人什么都敢吃，上海人什么都敢穿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Běijīng rén shénme dōu gǎn shuō, Guǎngdōng rén shénme dōu gǎn chī, Shànghǎi rén shénme dōu gǎn chuān.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Beijing people dare to say anything, Guangdong people dare to eat anything, Shanghai people dare to wear anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found a reference to it on a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.8341.cn/bbs/simple/?t31667.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;BBS Forum post from 2007&lt;/a&gt;, but I'm pretty sure it can be dated to way before that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are further additions to the pattern, and the order is often transposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T16:00:54.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33234" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33939" CreationDate="2019-03-14T05:31:36.377" Score="2" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/01/chris-grayling-nigel-farage-march-leave&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; article in The Guardian recently when I came across this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;By the time I have finished typing, Chris could have lost a battle of wits with the A358, or de-invented trains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering how &lt;code&gt;de-invented trains&lt;/code&gt; would be translated into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;21st Century English-Chinese Dictionary&lt;/em&gt; gives the following for &lt;em&gt;-de&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“非…”,“反…”：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;decreation&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  非创造 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;denormalization&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  非标准化；非正常化  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really don't think any speaker of Chinese is going to understand &lt;em&gt;非创造&lt;/em&gt;, in general, let alone as &lt;em&gt;decreation&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非发明 -or- 反发明 is certainly not going to be a good translation of &lt;em&gt;de-invent(ed)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm not sure how it would be expressed at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T02:56:29.293" Title="How to translate &quot;de-&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33234" CreationDate="2019-03-14T06:30:21.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a tricky one &quot;de-invented trains&quot; here literally means &quot;erased the invention of trains&quot; and figuratively means &quot;reverse the progression of science and technology&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate  &quot;de-invented trains.&quot; figuratively as &quot;逆轉科技的進步&quot; (reverse the progression of technology) or closer to the original quote: &quot;把科技逆轉到火車發明前的水平&quot; (reverse technology back to the level of before trains was invented)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal translation would be &quot;抹去/删除了火车的发明&quot; (erased the invention of trains)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-14T06:43:46.950" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T06:43:46.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33236" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33239" CreationDate="2019-03-14T06:57:08.630" Score="0" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm particularly interested in how you translate &quot;with&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember someone using it in a conversation yesterday, but didn't get the chance to have them repeat it. I tried searching MDBG and Chinese Grammar Wiki but found nothing useful. I also searched Chinese StackExchange, but &quot;with&quot; is such a common word that I couldn't find anything useful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18392" LastEditorUserId="18392" LastEditDate="2019-03-16T04:08:53.207" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T12:19:26.947" Title="How do you translate &quot;I always drink coffee with cream&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33228" CreationDate="2019-03-14T07:49:50.503" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me give you some examples of mixed English and Chinese sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1, Lisa's boyfriend Tom married someone else. Lisa cried and said that Tom had &lt;strong&gt;abandoned&lt;/strong&gt;(抛弃) her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2, The task is too difficult for me to accomplish. So I &lt;strong&gt;gave up&lt;/strong&gt;(放弃) the task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3, I can't accomplish so many things in limited time, so I have to &lt;strong&gt;give up&lt;/strong&gt;(舍弃) some things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4, The bag was full, so I had to &lt;strong&gt;discard&lt;/strong&gt;(丢弃) the fruit I had just picked.(probably I will throw the fruit in the trash can)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These four words can be nouns or verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It is difficult to distinguish between &amp;quot;舍弃&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;放弃&amp;quot;:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 放弃 is &amp;quot;abandonment(or abandon)&amp;quot;, 舍弃 is &amp;quot;selective abandonment(or selectively abandon)&amp;quot;. And sometimes 抛弃 can be replaced with 舍弃, but this usage is unusual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21586" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T08:05:31.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33236" CreationDate="2019-03-14T15:01:55.733" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;with&amp;quot; here means &amp;quot;contains&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;have&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;with cream&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;coffee with cream&amp;quot; is an adjectival phrase that describe the noun coffee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I drink coffee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what coffee?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the coffee that's with cream&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always drink coffee  = 我总是喝咖啡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always drink coffee (&lt;strong&gt;with cream&lt;/strong&gt;) = 我一向喝(&lt;strong&gt;加了奶油的&lt;/strong&gt;)咖啡 or 我一向喝(&lt;strong&gt;有奶油的&lt;/strong&gt;)咖啡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you are having a cup of black coffee and a cup of cream at the same time, then 'with' would mean &amp;quot;together&amp;quot; and coffee and cream would be of equal weight. That is not what the sentence in your question meant. in &amp;quot;I always drink coffee with cream&amp;quot;,  coffee is the main object, cream is an addition&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;More example of &amp;quot;with&amp;quot; meaning &amp;quot;contains&amp;quot;  or &amp;quot;have&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;book with pictures&amp;quot; (book that contains pictures)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;people with money&amp;quot; ( people who have money)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T15:22:38.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33240" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-14T15:19:53.703" Score="4" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading New Practical Chinese Reader Chpater 27 and stumbled upon the following sentence: 我把你们带到茶馆来。  While the meaning of the sentence is pretty clear, I have trouble understanding its underlying structure and hope someone can help me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus far I figured out: You use 把 together with 带到 that something has been moved from one to place to another. In this case: The place of 你们 to 茶馆。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what is the idea behind 来 ？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate provides the following translation for the two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把你们带到茶馆来。I will bring you to the tea house.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把你们带到茶馆。I will take you to the tea house.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the context of these sentences however: The action all took place in the past. That's why I am a bit wary about Google Translate suggestion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain what the underlying structure of the sentence is - what can be deduced / what cannot be deduced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9323" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-03-14T18:02:06.773" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T13:05:35.190" Title="What is the grammatical structure of: 我把你们带到茶馆来。" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33240" CreationDate="2019-03-14T15:46:52.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;bkrs: (Ru) after VP 4) -lai, lái indicates completion (result) of action by main verb &#xA;信笔写来,一觉醒来,这人看来年纪不小, 你且听我道来,  屈指算来, 已经十五年了,说来话长 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂现代汉语词典＂（１９８３年 北京）来（２）用在动词后，表示动作的结果：examples 1-3 as above|看来今年超产没有问题｜想来你是早有准备的  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-03-14T17:07:56.990" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T17:07:56.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33240" CreationDate="2019-03-14T17:46:13.120" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;汉语博大精深。&quot;来&quot;表示意愿和热情。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21590" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T17:46:13.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33240" CreationDate="2019-03-15T01:44:27.770" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here unfortunately, 来 doesn't indicate completion. Instead, it indicates direction of an action.&#xA;我把你们带到茶馆来=我把你们带来茶馆（indicating that the speaker's location is (or was, depending on context) 茶馆）&#xA;Comparison:&#xA;我把你们带到茶馆去=我把你们带去茶馆（indicating that the speaker is not at 茶馆）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T01:44:27.770" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33034" CreationDate="2019-03-15T02:52:49.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We also say &quot;Cookie(s)&quot; actually, because in Chinese &quot;Cookies&quot; is &quot;存储在用户本地终端上的数据&quot; which is an explanation rather than a word, and it's too long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21586" LastEditorUserId="21586" LastEditDate="2019-03-15T02:59:21.677" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T02:59:21.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33236" CreationDate="2019-03-15T06:01:58.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我总是喝带奶油的咖啡。&#xA;with means 带。&#xA;In Chinese, with could be translated to 用，带有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19223" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T06:01:58.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33247" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-15T09:17:47.100" Score="5" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of these two words 条 and 根 in the dictionary are said to be measure words for long and thin objects. What are the differences between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T16:13:40.227" Title="Differences between 条 and 根" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33247" CreationDate="2019-03-15T10:25:29.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Starting from the essential meanings of these two measure words, 条 is the small branch of tree, and 根 is the root of tree. In daily conversation, 条 is used for things that may be long and &lt;strong&gt;wiggly&lt;/strong&gt;, such as 一条河(river), while 根 is for long, &lt;strong&gt;straight&lt;/strong&gt; objects, such as 一根香菸(cigarette).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, 条 and 根 are interchangeable, we can say 一条 or 一根 香蕉(banana), or 香腸(sausage).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21098" LastEditorUserId="21098" LastEditDate="2019-03-15T10:34:14.127" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T10:34:14.127" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33247" CreationDate="2019-03-15T10:42:57.077" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;條&lt;/strong&gt; can be a measure word for &lt;strong&gt;huge things&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, 一条河, 一条烟囱, 一条船(all long and thin but huge) - &lt;em&gt;you can't use 根 for huge things&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;条&lt;/strong&gt; can be a measure word for &lt;strong&gt;living things&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, 一条蚯蚓, 一条蛇, 一条狗 (all long and thin and alive) - &lt;em&gt;Don't use 根 for living things&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;条&lt;/strong&gt; can be a measure word for thin and long  &lt;strong&gt;things with flat surface&lt;/strong&gt;, For example, 一条手帕. 一条毛巾 (both long and thin and have a flat surface) - &lt;em&gt;You can't use 根 for things that have a flat surface&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;条&lt;/strong&gt; can be a measure word for &lt;strong&gt;abstract concepts&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, 一条规矩, 一条题目&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;根&lt;/strong&gt; is more common when used as a measure word for &lt;strong&gt;tiny things&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, 一根绣花针, 一根火柴, 一根松针, 一根头发, 一根汗毛, (all long, thin and tiny)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;条&lt;/strong&gt; can also replace 根 when used as a measure word for tiny things especially objects from living things. For example, 一根头发,  一根汗毛; 一条头发,  一条汗毛&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For things that are not huge, tiny, alive or have a flat surface 條 and 根 are often interchangeable. For example, 一条长棍, 一根长棍, 一条短棒, 一根短棒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-16T16:13:40.227" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T16:13:40.227" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33240" CreationDate="2019-03-15T13:05:35.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are following NPCR, I suggest you take a look at lesson 16 on book 2. You should first understand 我把照片带来了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;带 (carry) + 来 (&quot;here&quot;) = 带来 (bring)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把照片带来了。I brought the photo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把照片带去了。I took the photo there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;带 (carry) + 去 (&quot;there&quot;) = 带去 (take &quot;there&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translations &quot;take/bring&quot; to the word 带 don't quite express its real meaning. It doesn't show if you are taking something &quot;here&quot; or &quot;there&quot;. These meanings are showed by the directional complements 来 and 去. Take a look at lesson 16's grammar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same thing is happening on 我把你们带到茶馆来, that is &quot;carry here&quot; (brought) to the tea house. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T13:05:35.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33247" CreationDate="2019-03-15T14:37:06.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My experince is that 根 is used for &lt;strong&gt;small and hard&lt;/strong&gt; objects such as 铅笔，香蕉，香烟， etc. Well, 条 is usually for &lt;strong&gt;big and soft&lt;/strong&gt; ones like 蛇，河，船， 围巾，etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T14:37:06.027" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33256" CreationDate="2019-03-15T19:38:16.137" Score="1" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;As asked, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the traditional form of 复 always used in “翻天復地&quot; and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume it’s because the simplified form is one of those odd ones that isn’t a one to one mapping, so the traditional form is used for clarity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, is there a rule about when the traditional character is preferred?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21595" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T00:12:13.010" Title="Is the traditional form of 复 always used in “翻天復地&quot; and why?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33254" CreationDate="2019-03-16T00:54:34.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;@johan is correct.  翻 and 覆 are the same in traditional and simplified.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I was seeing is 飜, which is a variant that looks more complicated, so I assumed it was the traditional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And  I was also looking at the wrong entry for 覆,   &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=1&amp;amp;wdqb=%E8%A6%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, which shows that 覆 is only used as a variant of 复 or 復 when it means  “to reply to a letter” and not as used in the idiom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just a noob making noob mistakes, which I apologize for.  Thanks for taking the time to answer my question :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21595" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T00:54:34.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33257" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-16T02:10:58.430" Score="2" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Looking back at my two weeks at NYMA, I've learned many valuable lessons, but the most important lesson I will remember is that people from different background all over the world, can create unforgettable experiences together when they march wearing one uniform: leadership.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上面这个句子的最后一部分该怎么翻译呢？直翻感觉很別扭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11311" LastEditorUserId="11311" LastEditDate="2019-03-17T01:41:29.593" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T01:41:29.593" Title="How to translate &quot;march wearing in one uniform: leadership&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33258" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-16T03:54:31.153" Score="2" ViewCount="807" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%9C%A0%EC%B0%BD%ED%98%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;유창혁&lt;/a&gt; (Yoo Changhyuk) is translated as &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%98%E6%98%8C%E8%B5%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;刘昌赫&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese. Is there any reason that 유 is translated as 刘 instead of 余 or 于?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T16:16:30.123" Title="Why the surname 유 (Yoo) is translated as 刘 instead of 余 or 于？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;surnames&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33258" CreationDate="2019-03-16T04:08:12.593" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it is &lt;em&gt;translated&lt;/em&gt; as much as it is that every Korean family actually has their own &lt;em&gt;Hanja&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_Korean_surnames_by_prevalence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;List of South Korean surnames by prevalence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;유&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be one of four Chinese characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;柳, 劉, 兪, 庾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most Koreans have Hanja names &amp;amp; they would certainly know which their surname is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you check out Wikipedia's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Korean_surnames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Appendix:Korean surnames&lt;/a&gt; you can see that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;여&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is the Southern Korean equivalent of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;余&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;우&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;equates to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;于, 禹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-16T05:38:16.040" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T05:38:16.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33257" CreationDate="2019-03-16T04:58:54.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I may have understood the text wrong, but here is my trial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;回顾我在 NYMA 训练的两周时，我感觉自学到了许多宝贵的知识。这其中最重要的，就是当这世界上来自不同文化、不同背景的人们都为了一个目标训练（行军）时，能创造出这么多令人难忘的回忆瞬间。而这个目标，就是领导能力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T04:58:54.733" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33261" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33263" CreationDate="2019-03-16T05:08:36.550" Score="0" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are tones of heteronyms in Chinese and when a heteronym is a given name, or a part of a given name, is asking the person (or his friends, relatives, etc.) the only way to find the pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, do we know for sure if 劉禪 should be pronunciated as ㄕㄢˋor ㄔㄢˊ unless we ask 劉禪 himself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T14:19:23.473" Title="Is the pronunciation of a heteronym in a given name indeterminable unless we ask the person personally?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33257" CreationDate="2019-03-16T11:52:12.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;回顾我在NYMA的两周，我收获了许多宝贵经验，其中至为重要一条，就是来自世界各地背景殊异的人们，也能在拼搏于统一领导之下时，共同创造难忘经历。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we must emphasize leadership, it is unnatural if we put it straight forward because it is awkward to put when clause at the end of the sentence. So my best try: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回顾我在NYMA的两周，我收获了许多宝贵经验，其中至为重要一条，就是来自世界各地背景殊异的人们，也有共同创造难忘经历的可能，即当他们拼搏于统一领导之下时得以实现。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More information needed to interpret the figurative expression: march wearing in one uniform: leadership.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T11:52:12.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33261" CreationDate="2019-03-16T14:19:23.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We don't actually know how to pronounce it. &#xA;Usually based on the meaning of the word on the bright side. But, in this case, both the meanings of  ㄕㄢˋand ㄔㄢˊare very good. So, how to pronounce it is up to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21517" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T14:19:23.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33264" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33266" CreationDate="2019-03-16T14:54:56.627" Score="2" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that different online dictionaries gave me different answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q2p2L.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q2p2L.png&quot; alt=&quot;Here it reads&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y3fgL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y3fgL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 企 a heteronym?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T15:12:38.870" Title="Should 企 be pronunciated as ㄑㄧˋ or ㄑㄧˇ?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33265" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-16T15:04:26.953" Score="2" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Kangxi Zidian, &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/kangxi-zidian/38/5#n322751&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;妳&quot;&lt;/a&gt; is listed as an alternate form of &quot;嬭&quot;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/kangxi-zidian/38/14#n323306&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;嬭&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, on the other hand, has three meanings: breasts/milk, mother, and feminine given name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Zdic.net, there is no classical reference to &quot;妳&quot;'s usage as a personal pronoun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that the third person feminine singular pronoun &quot;她&quot; is a modern invention by Liu Bannong in 1930s, it is plausible that &quot;妳&quot; only became a pronoun in relatively recent times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, when did &quot;妳&quot; become the second person singular feminine pronoun?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3196" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T11:17:51.097" Title="When did &quot;妳&quot; become the second person singular feminine pronoun?" Tags="&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33264" CreationDate="2019-03-16T15:12:38.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes and no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/~%E4%BC%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Liang'an&lt;/a&gt; you'll see it mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;qì&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[陸] qǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically what that tells us is: Mainland (i.e.: PRC) is qǐ, while Taiwan is qì.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a regional -or- topolectical thing, rather than a character with different pronunciations at different times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T15:12:38.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33267" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-16T20:42:04.857" Score="0" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;我经验过 还是 我经验了?&#xA;since guo also means experience I am wondering if one of these is the right way, actually i can't remember exactly how to use guo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is it redundant to use guo when already using jing yan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17427" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T00:46:42.273" Title="Proper participle" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33267" CreationDate="2019-03-16T21:17:14.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;both possible，see below, 经验 is mostly used as noun, although as pointed out by OP it can function as verb, &quot;to experience&quot; most often is 经历, e.g. 亲身经历过,  bkrs: most examples for use as noun, only one for verb among 7 pages of examples: &lt;strong&gt;我经验了那个&lt;/strong&gt;,现代汉语词典 does have 经验 as verb:经验(2)经历（１）：这样的事，&lt;strong&gt;我从来没经验过&lt;/strong&gt;，iciba in fact only translates 经验 as noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T21:17:14.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33267" CreationDate="2019-03-17T00:35:52.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;经验 is mostly used as a noun, the common words for the verb &quot;to experience&quot; is  &quot;经历&quot; or &quot;体验&quot; in Chinese &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb particle &lt;strong&gt;过&lt;/strong&gt; denotes the &quot;&lt;strong&gt;experience&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; aspect of the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb particle &lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt; denotes the &quot;&lt;strong&gt;completion&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; aspect of the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;经历風浪 = [going through crisis] (no indication of tense, actually Chinese words don't have tense)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;经历&lt;strong&gt;过&lt;/strong&gt;風浪 means [&lt;strong&gt;had experienced&lt;/strong&gt; going through crisis]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;经历&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;風浪 indicates [the verb experience in &quot;experience crisis&quot; &lt;strong&gt;is completed&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 去经历風浪 (go experience crisis), neither 'go' nor 'experience' is completed &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 去&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;经历風浪, the verb 'go' is completed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 去经历風浪&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;, the verb phrase 'go experience crisis' is completed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-17T00:46:42.273" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T00:46:42.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33270" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-17T04:40:15.547" Score="1" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at 诗经，第一首诗：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;求之不得，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;寤寐思服。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;悠哉悠哉，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;辗转反侧。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 现代的普通话 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;追求的姑娘却总得不到，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;日日夜夜心里想着她。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;时常思念情意切，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;翻来覆去难入眠。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 3rd line, what does 切 mean? true? ? sure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T09:55:25.420" Title="What does this 切 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33270" CreationDate="2019-03-17T04:48:49.120" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/5207.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;切&lt;/a&gt; means 深(deep) here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;深;深切 [deep]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;切,深也。——《汉书·霍光传》注&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;又如:切恐(深怕);切爱(深深的爱);痛切(悲痛而深切);切究(深究);切怛(深切悲伤);切谢(深切感谢)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-03-17T09:55:25.420" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T09:55:25.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33270" CreationDate="2019-03-17T06:21:08.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;意切 can often be found paired together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 切 is equal to &lt;strong&gt;殷切&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;恳切&lt;/strong&gt; which basically equate to &lt;em&gt;earnest&lt;/em&gt; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take 情真意切 for example in《多功能成语词典》it mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;切：殷切。感情真挚，心意殷切。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T06:21:08.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33273" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-17T06:22:59.043" Score="2" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;Particularly, in the context of morality and citizenship. I am working on a project on China's proposed social credit system, and the term &quot;sincerity&quot; comes up frequently as a desired social good.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;One example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Strengthen &lt;strong&gt;sincerity&lt;/strong&gt; management and education among civil servants. Establish civil servant &lt;strong&gt;sincerity&lt;/strong&gt; dossiers, enter civil servants’ personal credit information concerning reports on events, records of &lt;strong&gt;sincerity&lt;/strong&gt; and cleanliness in government aairs, the results of annual evaluations, acts violating laws, disciplines and contract into their les, and make civil servants’ &lt;strong&gt;sincerity&lt;/strong&gt; records into an important basis for assessment, employment and rewards. Deeply launch education concerning &lt;strong&gt;sincerity&lt;/strong&gt;, abiding by the law and morality among civil servants, strengthen study of legal knowledge and credit knowledge, compile civil servants’ &lt;strong&gt;sincerity&lt;/strong&gt; manuals, strengthen the legal and &lt;strong&gt;sincerity&lt;/strong&gt; consciousness of civil servants, establish a line of civil servant teams that abide by the law and by &lt;strong&gt;sincerity&lt;/strong&gt;, are highly efficient and clean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21604" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T07:54:45.570" Title="What is the meaning of the Chinese word translated to English as &quot;sincerity&quot;" Tags="&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33273" CreationDate="2019-03-17T06:37:40.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original word for the English translation sincerity is: &lt;strong&gt;诚信&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this is the exact original text from the English you quoted above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;加强公务员诚信管理和教育。建立公务员诚信档案，依法依规将公务员个人有关事项报告、廉政记录、年度考核结果、相关违法违纪违约行为等信用信息纳入档案，将公务员诚信记录作为干部考核、任用和奖惩的重要依据。深入开展公务员诚信、守法和道德教育，加强法律知识和信用知识学习，编制公务员诚信手册，增强公务员法律和诚信意识，建立一支守法守信、高效廉洁的公务员队伍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sincerity records are known as: &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%AF%9A%E4%BF%A1%E6%A1%A3%E6%A1%88/7194893&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;诚信档案&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E8%AF%9A%E4%BF%A1%0D%0A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; defines this as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;genuine / honest / in good faith / honesty / integrity &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-17T07:54:45.570" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T07:54:45.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33275" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-17T10:34:21.293" Score="2" ViewCount="793" Body="&lt;p&gt;When saying something in the past tense, in what cases must I use le 了 and in what cases not? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm studying this right now in my Chinese class and it is a complete mindfuck. I don't know in what cases its use is compulsory, in what cases you must not use it (despite talking about past actions) and use instead some time adverbs or some other structure or just not using anything, and in what cases it is optional. It is very confusing when in every single sentence, according to a thousand factors, have to (or have not to) use le 了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would really appreciate if someone could list me detailed, foolproof rules of the use of le 了. I see it as something really ambiguous and diffuse and my teacher says each Chinese person uses it as they please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you so much in advance for your help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21605" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T03:52:06.143" Title="In what cases must I use 了 and in what cases not?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-03-18T08:24:52.427" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33275" CreationDate="2019-03-17T10:48:42.410" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I am a native speaker of Chinese, I find it almost impossible to provide the list of rules you want. That's not the way we speak. What your teacher says sounds reasonable. My suggestion is getting over it and moving on with your learning process. In my opinion, it's meaningless to struggle with details like that. You know the basic rules. That's enough. Keep learning and one day you will accumulate enough experience to use it properly and automatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21606" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T10:48:42.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33275" CreationDate="2019-03-17T11:30:49.203" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In what cases must I use 了 and in what cases not?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You use 了 when you must indicate the verb is 'completed'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;you don't need 了 when you don't need to indicate the verb is completed&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my answer to another &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/33267/proper-participle&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The verb particle 了 denotes the &quot;completion&quot; aspect of the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;经历風浪 = [going through crisis] (In this sentence, the verb 经历 (to experience) may or may not had been completed&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;经历 (了) 風浪 indicates [the verb 经历 in &quot;experience crisis&quot; is completed]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃水餃 = eat dumplings (we don't know you are going to eat dumplings, in the process of eating dumplings or done eating dumplings )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The proof is 吃水餃 can be the answer for any of the following questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q1: &quot;你現在要幹什麼?&quot; (What are you going to do now?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A1: &quot;吃水餃&quot; (or 我現在要吃水餃)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q2: &quot;你在幹什麼?&quot; (what are you doing?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A2: &quot;吃水餃&quot; (or 我在吃水餃)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q3: &quot;你幹了什麼?&quot; (What have you done?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A3: &quot;吃水餃&quot; (or 我吃了水餃)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;吃了水餃 = has eaten dumplings (we know the verb 吃 is completed, you have done eating)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can only be an answer to Q3, but not Q1 or Q2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even more example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you only say &quot;做菜請客&quot;, it doesn't matter if you are in the middle of cooking or the cooking is done, the sentence would be correct; If you say &quot;做了菜請客&quot;, it can only mean the cooking is done and the dishes are ready&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This answer focus on the relationship between verb and the verb particle了.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;了 as a final particle has other functions. It denotes a sentence has ended; indicating change of situation,  ; serve to soften the tone of a sentence; express different emotions in speech depend on pitch and tone&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-19T03:52:06.143" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T03:52:06.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33236" CreationDate="2019-03-17T12:19:26.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;all attributes are added before nonus in Chinese. or you must start a new sentence to describe it. so you may not find a word that correspond one to one with &quot;with&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21607" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T12:19:26.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33279" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33311" CreationDate="2019-03-17T12:59:49.627" Score="2" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can find 支气管炎 for &quot;bronchitis&quot; but I wonder if that's a bit too technical or medical or whether it's common in day-to-day conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English &quot;bronchitis&quot; is a bit technical so more often people would say &quot;chest cold&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case it's not clear, this is the kind of cold/flu where you cough up phlegm but don't necessarily have a runny or blocked nose, which are the symptoms of a &quot;head cold&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can also find the term 胸闷, but I'm guessing that might be used for much more serious chest pains?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T09:02:31.567" Title="What's the common Chinese term for a chest cold?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33281" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-17T17:45:54.543" Score="0" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sign was in season 1 episode 2 of White Dragon which takes place in Hong Kong. I was hoping someone here might be able to shed some light on what it says. Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qXmYE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qXmYE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21609" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T18:33:33.663" Title="Translation of this sign" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-03-18T08:26:56.330" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33281" CreationDate="2019-03-17T18:27:52.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is '春夏秋冬行好运' written in traditional Chinese ('春夏秋冬行好運'). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, '春夏秋冬' means spring, summer, autumn and winter by order, '行好運' means 'good luck'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put them all together, it says 'good luck for whole year'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just in case you're interested, this is a couplet, it usually comes in pairs. The second line is ‘东南西北遇贵人’, which means wherever you go, you'll always meet nice people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21610" LastEditorUserId="21610" LastEditDate="2019-03-17T18:33:33.663" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T18:33:33.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33283" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33284" CreationDate="2019-03-17T20:20:40.820" Score="6" ViewCount="474" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你找到你爸爸了没&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the 没 make it a question? And if so, how is it different from “你找不找到你爸爸了”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16080" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T23:03:23.147" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T23:03:23.147" Title="What does it mean to end a sentence in 没?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;negation&gt;&lt;yes-no-questions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33283" CreationDate="2019-03-17T23:14:23.067" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, adding the 没 at the end makes it a question. In this case, it is equivalent to &quot;你找到你爸爸了吗？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the 没, it would be &quot;You found your dad&quot;. With the 没 makes it &quot;Have you found your dad?&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's kind of a shortened version of something like &quot;Have you or haven't you found your dad?&quot; (你有没有找到你爸爸？）(This is where the 没 comes from)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你找不找到你爸爸了 doesn't really mean what you would think it would (&quot;Have you found your dad?&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, this pattern (Verb + 不 + verb ... ) would be something like &quot;你找不找得到你爸爸？”. This would mean &quot;&lt;em&gt;Are you able&lt;/em&gt; to find your dad?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can however say &quot;你找没找到你爸爸？&quot; if you want to use this form. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20749" LastEditorUserId="20749" LastEditDate="2019-03-18T00:10:06.197" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T00:10:06.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33285" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-17T23:49:47.770" Score="2" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;关关雎鸠，在河之洲。is a very well known line. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look up 雎鸠 in Baidu, I see pictures of ospreys, cormorants，herons, seagulls and other species.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it known to which bird species 雎鸠 refers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hbw.com/ibc/species/osprey-pandion-haliaetus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt;, Pandion haliaetus is not found in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm still wondering what 雎鸠 might be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2019-03-19T22:19:37.603" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T13:22:24.217" Title="Is it known to which bird species 雎鸠 refers?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33285" CreationDate="2019-03-18T01:10:00.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雎鸠 &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%9B%8E%E9%B8%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%9B%8E%E9%B8%A0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今江东呼之为&lt;strong&gt;鹗&lt;/strong&gt; (is called 鹗 in Jiangdong today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好在江渚山边食鱼。(like to hunt fish in river and mountainside)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《毛诗·传》日：鸟鹫而有别 (similar to eagle but different, and we know hawk and osprey look similar but smaller than eagle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Google Translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鹗: osprey&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;osprey: 鱼鹰; 鹗; 雎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the search results, 雎鸠 or 雎 is &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;osprey&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;fish hawk&amp;quot; seems like it's nickname) . Since zoology is a recent thing, what the author described, might be some kind of small sized raptor bird that hunted nearby river, very likely been osprey or fish hawk (if they are not the same thing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T01:22:43.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33283" CreationDate="2019-03-18T02:35:16.813" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;你找到你爸爸了没&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's short for &quot;你找到你爸爸了没有?&quot; or &quot;你找到你爸爸了还是没有找到?&quot;. The complete sentence should be &quot;do you find your father, or not?&quot;. &quot;没&quot; here is similar as &quot;or not&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW. The &quot;你&quot; before &quot;爸爸&quot; is redundant in Chinese. &quot;你找到爸爸了没&quot; is correct. It is impacted by translation from western language. Even many Chinese make this kind of mistake too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2428" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T02:35:16.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33195" CreationDate="2019-03-18T02:54:22.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Defination of &quot;想必&quot; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[presumably; most probably] 表示比较肯定的判断、猜测&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you are right. &quot;想必一定&quot; is not an accurate use. &quot;想必&quot; is still guessing, while &quot;一定&quot; is making assertion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either &quot;你这么成熟懂事,想必没人疼你&quot; or &quot;你这么成熟懂事,一定没人疼你&quot; is more correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2428" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T02:54:22.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31906" CreationDate="2019-03-18T05:07:56.563" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it does. The most famous unknown person A is &quot;张三&quot; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2428" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T05:07:56.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33290" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33291" CreationDate="2019-03-18T08:02:27.360" Score="1" ViewCount="940" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Singaporean friend of mine calls his Chinese: 华文. I didn't realise that this also meant Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 华文 and 汉语?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21614" LastEditorUserId="21614" LastEditDate="2019-03-18T08:15:35.247" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T11:32:29.103" Title="Difference between 汉语 and 华文" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33290" CreationDate="2019-03-18T08:52:02.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be 华语. May be it is a Singapore thing to use the term 华文. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;华 or 华夏 is the origin of Chinese culture. While 汉 is one of the greatest and longest ruling dynasty in Chinese history. The words 华 and 汉 along with 唐 (another great dynasty) are commonly used as representative of &quot;Chinese&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;华语, 汉语 and 唐話 (Cantonese) all mean &quot;Chinese spoken language&quot; (中国语)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both 汉文/ 汉字 and 唐字 (Cantonese) mean &quot;Chinese written language&quot; (中文/中国字)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both 华人 and 唐人(Cantonese) mean &quot;Chinese people&quot; (中国人)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-18T09:16:07.617" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T09:16:07.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33283" CreationDate="2019-03-18T10:33:06.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's actually &lt;strong&gt;了没&lt;/strong&gt; that works together, instead of the single character 没. 了没 can be interpreted as &lt;strong&gt;Have ... yet?&lt;/strong&gt;. It works in the structure &lt;em&gt;&quot;verb + 了没&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. For example, 你吃了没(Have you eat yet?)，你去了没(Have you gone there yet) ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, we can omit 了. E.g. 看没？= 看了没？， 说没？= 说了没？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's pretty common. It can probably work for any verbs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T10:33:06.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33293" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-18T10:52:20.553" Score="6" ViewCount="350" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the part of speech of 微 in the following? A dictionary says it's a verb while others say it's an adverb. Do these claims hold water?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;微&lt;/strong&gt;管仲，吾其被髮左衽矣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20663" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T14:57:46.563" Title="part of speech - &quot;微&quot; 管仲，吾其被髮左衽矣。" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33293" CreationDate="2019-03-18T11:13:36.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/xs/5FAE.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;微&lt;/a&gt; should be an adverb here. The sentence means &quot;如果没有管仲的话, ...&quot; (&lt;em&gt;if there was no 管仲, then ...&lt;/em&gt;), and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/19/xs/5FAE.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;微&lt;/a&gt; is not an action here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;微 wēi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;〈副&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;要没有,要不是 [but for;if it were not for]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;微斯人,吾谁与归。——宋· 范仲淹《岳阳楼记》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-03-18T11:46:15.407" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T11:46:15.407" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33295" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-18T12:17:09.803" Score="0" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;A US forum on home construction has recently been receiving spam such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;精仿1：1制作原版内布拉斯加大学办理林肯分校UNL毕业证文凭微|Q603012914代办美国成绩单|学位证|伪造假毕业证假学历丨留信网认证+大使馆认证、教育部认证University of Nebraska Lincoln&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone tell me what is being said?  (I apologize if this is not Chinese.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21615" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-18T13:51:28.323" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T17:03:17.707" Title="Can I get a clue as to the meaning of this spam?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-03-19T00:27:46.193" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33293" CreationDate="2019-03-18T12:21:24.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;微&quot; means &quot;no&quot;, or &quot;without&quot; (無, 沒), as indicated in 國語辭典:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000011415&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000011415&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;微管仲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if it's not / without (微) mr 管 (管仲), . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 論語注疏　卷十四 by 何晏 (魏)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it was marked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;注馬曰．微．無也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8goPT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8goPT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T12:21:24.010" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33293" CreationDate="2019-03-18T13:58:55.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;微 is here analogous to 無 or 沒, and thus can be considered a verb. Using 没有A，就B to mean &quot;if we did not have A, then B would happen&quot; is still a common phrase in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;微 can also be an adverb, but it has a different meaning (&quot;a little&quot; rather than &quot;not&quot;, as in 微笑).The sentence structure in your question also appears with other verbs, so it does not depend on 微's function as an adverb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;說&lt;/strong&gt;曹操，曹操就到 (if you speak of Cao Cao, he will appear)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason the sentence in your question is translated differently from other examples is because there is no good way to translate 無 or 微 into English as a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T13:58:55.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33295" CreationDate="2019-03-18T14:03:24.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;high-quality forgeries 1 : 1 (meaning 100% scale; exact copy) production of original University of Nebraska,(issued at) Lincoln branch campus,UNL certificate and diploma|Q603012914 representing US (academic) transcripts|degree diplomas|graduation diplomas, counterfeit record of education |message network authentication + embassy authentication, education department authentication University of Nebraska Lincoln&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-03-18T17:03:17.707" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T17:03:17.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33342" CreationDate="2019-03-19T01:55:45.700" Score="2" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going over this sentence here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;剃头匠不愿招惹麻烦，只得赔偿三百文钱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm curious to know how much 三百文钱 would be worth today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉语大辞典 has an entry for 文钱 but all it says is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;钱。因钱有文字，故称。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How much was 300 wen worth during the Ming Dynasty?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T19:31:36.410" Title="How much is 三百文钱 today?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33300" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33301" CreationDate="2019-03-19T04:30:52.890" Score="4" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the accurate word for Beneficiary (Eg. A beneficiary of a bank account) in Mandarin Chinese ? What is the difference in usage of 受益者 and 获得者 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21616" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-20T06:28:29.950" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T06:28:29.950" Title="Benefeciary ： 受益者 vs 获得者" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33300" CreationDate="2019-03-19T05:09:32.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Beneficiary is translated as 受益人 and 获益者 in Google Translate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In life insurance lingo, '&lt;strong&gt;受益人&lt;/strong&gt;' is the standard legal term for '&lt;strong&gt;the beneficiary&lt;/strong&gt;'. When the 受保人 (the insured) dies, the 保險賠償 (insurance claim) goes to the  受益人 (beneficiary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受益者, 获益者, 获利者  all mean &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;people who are benefited&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; in general sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: '美國今次減稅的受益者衹有大企業及億萬富豪' (the only beneficiaries to the US tax cuts this time are the big companies and billionaires)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you can replace 受益者 with 获益者 or 获利者 in this sentence&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;获得者 literally means &amp;quot;the one who obtain or receive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:'奖金获得者' 或 '奖牌获得者' 都可以简称为 '获奖者' ('people who received a cash prize' or 'people who received a medal' can both be simply called 'winner' )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T05:26:51.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33302" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33313" CreationDate="2019-03-19T05:36:20.950" Score="2" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my understanding, &lt;em&gt;“update”&lt;/em&gt; is translated to “更新” . But this seems to be in the context of Software。 Eg. Software &lt;em&gt;update&lt;/em&gt;, OS &lt;em&gt;update&lt;/em&gt; ,etc.&#xA;But how would you convey update in the following scenario : There is a customer who wants to do online trading.&#xA;He has submitted some documents which need to be checked,translated and verified before he starts trading. The whole process may take up to 4 days.&#xA;The customer needs to be told that if there's an &lt;em&gt;update&lt;/em&gt; , he will be informed by mail. Also, if he wants an &lt;em&gt;update&lt;/em&gt; as to where the process has reached, &#xA;he can send a text or a mail. In this scenario, how do we accurately convey the message with or without using the translation for &quot;&lt;em&gt;Update&lt;/em&gt;&quot; ? &#xA;&lt;Br/&gt;&#xA;One way I thought could be using 流程有事的话我会通知您。您有问题的话也您通过微信或邮件跟我联系. Any suggestions or alternatives ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21616" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T17:49:06.793" Title="How to say &quot;If you would like to know any updates , you can always call or message me&quot;" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33303" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-19T07:35:34.817" Score="3" ViewCount="989" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase often appears in english-chinese translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you want to become a better photographer, the only way is through repetition. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如果您想成为一名较好的摄影师，惟一的方法是通过反复练习。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The third way is through free and conscious decision&#xA;  &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  第三种方法就是通过自由、有意识的决定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The english version is correct, but I think the Chinese version is wrong grammatically. Because 通过xxx is a 介宾结构, 介宾结构 can't be used as 主语. I also don't think it can be used as 宾语.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, the tranlate version is acceptable, but I am not sure if it's correct. Still, I don't know how to search it quickly online, when I search it, I always find English grammar. Plz show me authoritative books or other resourses or common grammar rules not a simple yes or no. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, If the answer is not, how to translate that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20986" LastEditorUserId="20986" LastEditDate="2019-03-19T11:54:23.440" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T13:20:43.687" Title="Is `方法是通过xxx` a correct sentence? i.e. 中文中,介宾结构能作为名词(宾语)使用吗" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33299" CreationDate="2019-03-19T08:40:15.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have no calculator on me, so just give you a method to compute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were many monetary units in ancient China, but only three basic units are discussed here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一文钱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一两白银&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一两黄金&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&amp;quot;一两&amp;quot; is about 40 grams, &amp;quot;白银&amp;quot; is silver, &amp;quot;黄金&amp;quot; is gold)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, &amp;quot;一两白银&amp;quot; is about &amp;quot;1000文钱&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;一两黄金&amp;quot; is about &amp;quot;10两白银&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can compute how much &amp;quot;300文钱&amp;quot; is. Converting it into equivalent amount of gold as mentioned above, and use today's price of gold to compute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21586" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T08:45:18.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33303" CreationDate="2019-03-19T10:52:03.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'through' implies 'going through' and  通过 is the correct translation for it. There's nothing wrong with the first sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you 'going through' something to get somewhere, that something must have a length for you to go through (you have to spend a period of time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;通过反复练习  (through repetition) sounds right because 'repetition' requests a considerable length of time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;通过自由、有意识的决定 (through free and conscious decision) doesn't sound right because 决定 (decision) happens in an instant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more reasonable sentence would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third way is &lt;strong&gt;through&lt;/strong&gt; free and conscious &lt;strong&gt;consideration&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第三种方法就是&lt;strong&gt;通过&lt;/strong&gt;自由、有意识的&lt;strong&gt;考虑&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;通过考虑 (through consideration)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third way is &lt;strong&gt;to trust&lt;/strong&gt; free and conscious &lt;strong&gt;decisions&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第三种方法就是&lt;strong&gt;信赖&lt;/strong&gt;自由、有意识的&lt;strong&gt;决定&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;信赖一个决定 (trust a decision)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T10:52:03.920" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33303" CreationDate="2019-03-19T13:20:43.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;就是 can be followed by any single word,noun,verb,adjective,adverb,etc. or a phrase,NP,VP,PP (preposition phrase) etc. in the present case 通过自由、有意识的决定 may be considered a PP, see examples for 就是 in online dictionaries, e.g. bkrs 就是(emphasizes that sth is precisely or exactly as stated)，examples for 就是  with typical preposition 在。。。：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E5%B0%B1%E6%98%AF%E5%9C%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/%E5%B0%B1%E6%98%AF%E5%9C%A8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;re 通过&#xA;bkrs has 通过 II cov.&#xA;by (means/way of); through, &quot;cov.&quot; google: A coverb is a word or prefix that resembles a verb or co-operates with a verb. In languages that have the serial verb construction, coverbs are a type of word that shares features of verbs and prepositions, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;examples for 就是通过 &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E5%B0%B1%E6%98%AF%E9%80%9A%E8%BF%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/%E5%B0%B1%E6%98%AF%E9%80%9A%E8%BF%87&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;就是在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T13:20:43.687" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33293" CreationDate="2019-03-19T14:57:46.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an important characteristic in Chinese language: &lt;strong&gt;it often omits grammatical functors and particles&lt;/strong&gt;. This phenomenon is extremely frequently seen in Classical Chinese, and still sometimes seen in Modern Vernacular Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples in Modern Vernacular Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Examples 1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没笔就没法写字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果没有笔，那么就没法写字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有火就有烟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果有火，那么就有烟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, now let me answer the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;微&lt;/strong&gt;管仲，吾其被髮左衽矣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Vernacular Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没有&lt;/strong&gt;管仲，我披髮左衽了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果&lt;strong&gt;没有&lt;/strong&gt;管仲，那麼我就披髮左衽了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If there were &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; Guanzhong, I would dishevel the hair and wear the clothes to the left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consequently, 微 is the adverb “not”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T14:57:46.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33290" CreationDate="2019-03-19T15:32:07.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of the following names mean the Chinese languages (including variants and dialects):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;汉语 (漢語)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;华语 (華語)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;华文 (華文)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these four names mean the same, except 语 (語) is more likely to refer to spoken languages, while 文 is more likely to refer to written languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The terms 汉语 and 中文 are more likely to be used in China, while the terms 华语 and 华文 are more likely to be used in South East Asia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of 中华 (中華), 华夏 (華夏), 华 (華), 汉 (漢) are similar, so they are often used interchangeablely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T15:32:07.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33258" CreationDate="2019-03-19T15:45:28.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5g9vj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5g9vj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Korean newspaper, 1920&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know what it is? It is a Korean newspaper printed in 1920. It is printed in Korean language, not Chinese. The Chinese characters in that newspaper are actually “Korean Chinese characters”, known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanja&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hanja&lt;/a&gt; in English. Hanja is still the official script of Korean language, alongside Hangul.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hanja has &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; been abolished in South Korea, but few Korean people use it today. Most of Korean people only write Hangul today, &lt;strong&gt;except their names&lt;/strong&gt;. Korean names are still in Hanja.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Have a look at South Korean identity cards. Korean names are still printed in Hanja.&lt;/strong&gt; As a result, we never translate Korean names into Chinese. We only copy the Chinese characters into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the real question should be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the Chinese character 刘 (劉) pronounced 유 (yoo) in Korean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-03-19T16:16:30.123" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T16:16:30.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31906" CreationDate="2019-03-19T16:31:54.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me introduce two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天干 (Celestial Stems):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甲 乙 丙 丁 戊 己 庚 辛 壬 癸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;地支 (Terrestrial Branches):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;子 丑 寅 卯 辰 巳 午 未 申 酉 戌 亥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two things are often used for these purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;某甲 person A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;某乙 person B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甲型肝炎 (甲肝) hepatitis A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;乙型肝炎 (乙肝) hepatitis B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;丙型肝炎 hepatitis C&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;丁型肝炎 hepatitis D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甲型超声波 ultrasound A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;乙型超声波 (B超)  ultrasound B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;甲烷 methane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;乙烷 ethane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;丙烷 propane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;丁烷 butane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;戊烷 pentane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;己烷 hexane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;庚烷 heptane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;辛烷 octane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;壬烷 nonane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;癸烷 decane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T16:31:54.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33279" CreationDate="2019-03-19T16:40:55.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;气管炎 (tracheitis) and 支气管炎 (bronchitis) are all common words in Chinese. These words are so often used in everyday jokes that they even sounds like everyday slangs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;气管炎 (tracheitis) is pronounced like 妻管严 (the wife controls strictly) in Chinese, so it is often used in everyday jokes for a man who has a bossy wife.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-03-19T16:51:49.437" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T16:51:49.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33283" CreationDate="2019-03-19T16:59:45.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is typical Southern Chinese. 没 means 没有, and at the end of a sentence, short for 还是没有.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你找到你爸爸了&lt;strong&gt;没&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;= 你找到了你爸爸&lt;strong&gt;还是没有&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;= Have you found your dad, &lt;strong&gt;or not&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Northern Chinese, it should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你找到你爸爸了&lt;strong&gt;吗&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;= Have you found your dad?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T16:59:45.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33302" CreationDate="2019-03-19T17:49:06.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;如果您想要了解后续进展的话，可以随时电话或邮件联系我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Toosky Hierot's comment ”欲获知后续进展如何“ sounds a bit too literary to me. I think &quot;如果您想要了解后续进展的话&quot; is a more common way to say it, though I agree 进展 or 后续进展 is the right word choice here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T17:49:06.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33314" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33712" CreationDate="2019-03-20T03:14:26.533" Score="3" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this passage from the Water Margin which is quoted in the Treasury of Laughs &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;话说鲁智深剃度五台山，一日回到丛林选佛场中禅床上，扑倒头便睡。上下肩两个禅和子推他起来，说道：“使不得。既要出家，如何不学坐禅？”智深道：“洒家自睡，干你甚事？”禅和子道：“善哉！”智深裸袖道：“团鱼洒家也吃，甚么‘鳝哉’？”禅和子道：“却是苦也！”智深便道：“团鱼大腹，又肥甜了，好吃，哪得‘苦也’。”上下肩禅和子都不睬他，由他自睡了。（第四回）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've already found two published translated versions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the translation done by J.H. Jackson:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lu Da went to the monks’ dormitory, and lay down to sleep. On either side of him was a monk, and they both pushed him; saying, “Get up! This won’t do! As you have left home, why do you not sleep in a sitting position?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“I am going to sleep, and what is that to do with you?” answered Lu Da. A monk exclaimed, “What a calamity!”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lu Da shouted, “Even a tortoise I shall eat; what calamity will there be?”&#xA;  The monk replied, “Of course there will be a calamity.” Lu Da said, “A tortoise has a big belly, but the fat is sweet and nice to eat, so why should there be a calamity.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The monks took no more notice of him and let him sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is Sidney Shapiro's version:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When Lu got back to the meditation room, he threw himself down on his bed and went to sleep. The monks meditating on either side shook him into wakefulness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“You can't do that,” they said. “Now that you're a monk, you're supposed to learn how to sit and meditate.” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“If I want to sleep, what's it to you?” Lu demanded.  “Evil!” exclaimed the monks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt; “What's this talk about eels? It's turtles I like to eat.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“Oh, bitter!”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“There's nothing bitter about them Turtle belly is fat and sweet. They make very good eating.” The monks gave up. They let him sleep. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently there is a newer translation titled &lt;em&gt;The Marshes Of Mount Liang&lt;/em&gt;, by Alex and John Dent-Young, that I cannot seem to find. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have their translation of this passage? I believe it would be in the book entitled &lt;em&gt;The Broken Seals: Part One of The Marshes of Mount Liang&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T07:43:44.750" Title="What is Alex and John Dent-Young's translation of this passage of the Water Margin?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33290" CreationDate="2019-03-20T05:12:33.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 夏 (Xia), which means &lt;strong&gt;summer&lt;/strong&gt; in modern Chinese, is a dynasty name in early peroid of China's history, and the character 華/华 means &lt;strong&gt;splendid&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;grandeur&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;luxury&lt;/strong&gt;, etc, in ancient China, so the Xia dynasty claimed to be 华夏/華夏 (Hua Xia), which means &lt;strong&gt;Splendid/Grandeur Xia&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also two far-reaching dynasties in Chinese history, 漢/汉 (Han) dynasty and 唐 (Tang) dynasty, the Han people is the largest ethnic group in China now. 漢語/汉语 became the official name of Chinese language, and 唐人 is also an alias of Chinese people since Tang dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many variant names for Chinese language and Chinese people nowadays, for example 中華/中华, and 華夏/华夏 also are used for &lt;strong&gt;China&lt;/strong&gt; sometimes, 漢語/汉语 and 華語/华语 are used for &lt;strong&gt;Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; (language) sometimes, and 唐人 and 華人/华人 are used for &lt;strong&gt;Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; (people) sometimes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These names are from different dynasties and are still in use today in different occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;漢語/汉语: Official name for &lt;strong&gt;Chinese language&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;國語/国语: Mandarin, official spoken Chinese standard. The name is still used in Taiwan &amp;amp; HK.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;普通話/普通话: Mandarin, the name was introduced in mainland China, called 国语 formerly.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;中文: A modern word, seems to replace 漢語/汉语.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;唐人: Used outside of the Greater China area, especially Europe and America.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;華人/华人: Used outside of the Greater China area, especially certain parts of southeast Asia.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;華文/华文: Used outside of the Greater China area, especially certain parts of southeast Asia.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="2508" LastEditDate="2019-03-20T11:32:29.103" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T11:32:29.103" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3248" CreationDate="2019-03-20T11:02:19.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You will find the most reliable and the least biased answers by searching the characters from a dictionary by yourself. It may require some effort but even without knowing any Chinese it is possible when beginning with the claimed English interpretations. Below is pasted one example of the process to explain what I mean in practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%88%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;boat/vessel/ship&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%85%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;eight&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%8F%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mouth/person&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%88%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;boat&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the best in searching for the truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21628" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T11:02:19.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23526" CreationDate="2019-03-20T12:34:21.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are the memorization techniques that I use to remember Chinese characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I try to come up with an image that I can think of when I look at the&#xA;character. For example, the word 火  I think of a man waving his hands&#xA;frantically.    &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I learn the radicals that make up the character. For example, 天(sky)&#xA;= 一(one) + 大(big)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try to make up an English sentence using English words that I assign&#xA;to each component of the character. For example, on a clear Sky day,&#xA;I saw One Big bear.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may want to read about Imaginative memory from this book (&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0824833236&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1&lt;/a&gt;) (by James Heisig &amp;amp; Timothy Richardson)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest, when I learn Chinese at home, if I follow through all these types of techniques, it will take lots of time &amp;amp; effort. So I come up with an idea of creating a tool that does all those jobs for me. I know that sounds lazy. If you have the same needs as me, I'd very much appreciate your input to help me make it work.  I created a &lt;a href=&quot;https://ejo.bz/ejoy-chinese-en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt; to showcase what it may look. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21599" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T12:34:21.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33285" CreationDate="2019-03-20T13:22:24.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you encounter such problems, as determining obscure words in the pre-Qin source with uncertain meaning, it is best, I think, to try to search in 中國哲學電子書 and Wikisource.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%AF%9B%E8%A9%A9%E6%AD%A3%E7%BE%A9/%E5%8D%B7%E4%B8%80#%E3%80%8A%E9%97%9C%E9%9B%8E%E3%80%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;毛詩正義&lt;/a&gt;：雎鳩，王雎也，鳥摯而有別。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E7%88%BE%E9%9B%85#%E9%87%8B%E9%B3%A5_%E7%AC%AC%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;爾雅，釋鳥第十七&lt;/a&gt;: 鴡鳩，王鴡。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you may Google more explanations, but these search results are probably pretty much all that we have as a first-hand source about explanation of the word.&#xA;I mean, if people at that time had already difficulty grasping that word, I would say it is impossible to know more than they do.&#xA;I remember incidentally that Stephen Owen rendered this word &quot;Kingfishers&quot;, if that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T13:22:24.217" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33319" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33320" CreationDate="2019-03-20T15:22:25.517" Score="2" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone sent me this picture and asked me if I knew what it was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rpMFG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rpMFG.png&quot; alt=&quot;pic&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a couple of hunches and browsed through Pleco's &lt;strong&gt;Small Seal Script Chinese character font&lt;/strong&gt;. The small seal script for 良 looks very similar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fYZj4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fYZj4.png&quot; alt=&quot;pic&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm not expert &amp;amp; there might be some rookie mistake I'm making here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it the picture &lt;em&gt;actually&lt;/em&gt; the character 良 -or- have I somehow lost the plot here on this one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-03-20T16:01:50.143" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T16:11:50.097" Title="Is this the character 良?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33319" CreationDate="2019-03-20T15:56:05.320" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is「良」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lxkoK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lxkoK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's just a minor shape variation, probably influenced by Qin bamboo or Han clerical brush writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qkiZu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qkiZu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In small seal script, the bottom of「良」is corrupted into「亾」(「亡」), so as long as you see something resembling「亾」then that's a positive identification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-03-20T16:11:50.097" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T16:11:50.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33321" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33323" CreationDate="2019-03-21T03:54:15.317" Score="5" ViewCount="4380" Body="&lt;p&gt;While expressing gratitude in spoken Mandarin, I believe people use &lt;strong&gt;谢谢&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;感谢&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;谢谢&lt;/strong&gt;你的时间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;谢谢&lt;/strong&gt;你带我来这里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;感谢&lt;/strong&gt;你的时间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;感谢&lt;/strong&gt;你带我来这里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does &lt;code&gt;感谢&lt;/code&gt; imply a higher level of gratitude? Is there a difference in usage (stemming from culture, origin, etc.), or can they be used interchangeably?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have also seen &lt;strong&gt;多谢&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;跪谢&lt;/strong&gt; used in the signature of emails. Do these words implicitly convey different &amp;quot;levels&amp;quot; of gratitude?　&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a little confused with the difference in usages of these 4 forms of &lt;em&gt;thanks&lt;/em&gt;. Any explanations or suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m9lrS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m9lrS.png&quot; alt=&quot;Google Translate Screenshot&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/46avR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/46avR.png&quot; alt=&quot;Youdao Translate Screenshot&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21616" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T17:31:42.057" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T17:37:49.720" Title="What's the difference between 谢谢 vs 感谢 vs 跪谢 vs 多谢?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33321" CreationDate="2019-03-21T05:10:57.010" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;谢谢: &lt;em&gt;thanks&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;thank you&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感谢: &lt;em&gt;thank you so much&lt;/em&gt;, or sometimes: thanks someone gratefully/appreciatively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跪谢: internet slang, literally meaning: &lt;em&gt;kneel down to someone and say thanks&lt;/em&gt;, like 跪求, same as 感谢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多谢: &lt;em&gt;thanks&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;thanks a lot&lt;/em&gt;, same as 谢谢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T17:33:33.007" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T17:33:33.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33321" CreationDate="2019-03-21T05:52:47.563" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;谢 is a verb for 'to thanks'. It is mostly used in literary form, e.g. &quot;谢天谢地&quot;, &quot;谢主隆恩. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In colloquial form &quot;多谢&quot; (literally means 'many thanks' or 'thanks a lot') would replace &quot;谢&quot; for &quot;thanks&quot;. It is often used as a proclamation, e.g. &quot;多谢!&quot;. &quot;多谢&quot; is also used as a common verb, e.g. 要多谢上帝 (have to thanks God)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;谢谢&quot; (reduplicating 谢 to stress a higher degree) is also commonly used as a proclamation, e.g. &quot;谢谢!&quot;. However, &quot;要谢谢上帝&quot; is less common than &quot;要多谢上帝&quot; when both are used as a common verb&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;感谢&quot; is less common as a proclamation than 多谢 or 谢谢. Far fewer people would say &quot;感谢你&quot; instead of &quot;多谢你&quot; or &quot;谢谢你&quot; ; However, it is used as a common verb the most.  &quot;要感谢上帝&quot; is more common than &quot;要多谢上帝&quot; or &quot;要谢谢上帝&quot;. And &quot;感谢&quot; is also a noun for &quot;gratitude&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多谢 (thanks) - 1. proclamation; 2. verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢 (thanks) - 1. proclamation; 2. verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感谢 (thanks/ gratitude) - 1.verb;  2.noun (e.g.這份感谢 = this gratitude)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;proclamations are terms like: 多谢! 對不起 (sorry)! 可惡 (damn)!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;跪谢 literally means &quot;kneel down and thanks&quot; it is a shortened form of  &quot;跪下說多谢&quot;, which is a verb phrase&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Similar to 叩谢 (叩頭感谢) kowtow and thanks&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-21T06:52:02.273" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T06:52:02.273" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33324" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33327" CreationDate="2019-03-21T07:01:54.853" Score="1" ViewCount="485" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know its meaning. But I can't understand it in grammar.&#xA;And does that means when it becomes an adage or 梗, we don't need to care about the grammar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20986" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T11:21:56.527" Title="How to understand 美人只配强者拥有?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33324" CreationDate="2019-03-21T07:48:55.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not an adage. It is a correct sentence.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;配 originally means &quot;match&quot;, derived for meaning &quot;deserve&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore, this sentence should be a passive sentence meaning: &quot;Beauties should only be deserved by the strongs to own&quot; (literally, word-to-word) or &quot;Only the strongs deserve beauties&quot; (native). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T07:48:55.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33324" CreationDate="2019-03-21T08:12:10.900" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;美人只配(被)强者拥有&amp;quot; is  a [(topic) + (comment/ opinion)] sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;this phrase diminish the value of beauties&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It is not an adage&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Topic: 美人 (beautiful women)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Comment: 只配被强者拥有 (only worthy of being owned by the strong ones)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美人 (beautiful women)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只配 (only worthy of)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;被(by) omitted&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;强者(the strong one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拥有 (to own)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence above means &amp;quot;Beautiful women only deserve to be owned by the strong ones&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Substitute the topic and comment&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;木棒只配給材民作武器&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Topic: 木棒 (Wooden stick)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comment: 只配給村民作武器 (only worthy of used as weapon by villagers)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;聖劍只有英雄才配揮舞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Topic: :聖劍 (Holy sword)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comment: 只有英雄才配揮舞 (only hero deserve to swing it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;美人只配(被)强者拥有&amp;quot; is different from &amp;quot;只有强者才配拥有美人&amp;quot; (only the strong ones deserve to own beautiful women). Which is a [SVO] sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有强者才配拥有美人 (only the strong ones deserve  to own beautiful women)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;this phrase elevate the status of the strong ones&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[S] = 强者 (the strong ones)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[V] = 拥有 (own)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[O] = 美人 (beautiful women)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;只有 ~ 才 ~ is a conjunction  (only)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;配 (worthy of) is an adverb for the verb 拥有 (own)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T19:23:45.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23526" CreationDate="2019-03-21T10:18:42.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some strategies I put together.  Essentially, the best strategies must include the following elements:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the sound and the form must appear at the same time;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;words are the basic memorising units;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the number of words must be manageable; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;students must practice writing regularly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not very efficient if students spend too much time focusing on individual Chinese characters. For detailed explanation, read here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://mslmaster.com/index.php/teaching-learning-resources/10-resources/52-how-to-memorise-chinese-characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://mslmaster.com/index.php/teaching-learning-resources/10-resources/52-how-to-memorise-chinese-characters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastEditorUserId="21634" LastEditDate="2019-04-02T01:52:06.673" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T01:52:06.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32966" CreationDate="2019-03-21T15:01:37.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;图画：drawing， CAD drawings/blueprint/construction drawing .etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;绘画：painting，Art painting/oil painting/literary sketch/photographic painting .etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;画画： “画画是一种在二维的平面上以手工方式临摹自然的艺术”，nowadays,its more for kids.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21635" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T15:01:37.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33330" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-21T21:55:13.007" Score="5" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;In writing regulated verses 近體詩, there's a saying &quot;一三五不論，二四六分明。&quot; (We don't care the tone 平仄 of the odd-numbered characters in each line, but we care about that of the even-numbered ones.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%83%E8%A8%80%E7%BB%9D%E5%8F%A5?timestamp=1553202231268&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu's page about seven-character jueju 七絕&lt;/a&gt; shows that the tone of the 5th character of each line is fixed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if one has the freedom to choose the tone of the 5th character in a seven-character jueju.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a concrete example.  Is it ok to take a deflected 仄 tone at the 5th character at the first (out of four) verse?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;秋風拂澗泛桑葉，舉目棕巢掛禿枝。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  平平仄仄仄平仄，仄仄平平仄仄平。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  碧水浮鵝追舫艇，舟乘遠去土盧茲。[1]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  仄仄平平平仄仄，平平仄仄仄平平。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[1]: 土盧茲 (Toulouse, capital of Occitane region in France)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remarks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In principle, I'm following &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hkpl.gov.hk/tc/common/attachments/extension-activities/literature/Shi_Wen.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shiwen 詩韻&lt;/a&gt; published by the Hong Kong Public Library (HKPL).  This is &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; standard for regulated verses in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hkpl.gov.hk/tc/extension-activities/event-category/23490/chinese-poetry-writing-competition&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;HKPL's Chinese Poetry Writing Competition&lt;/a&gt;.  In practice, I'll first use my mother tongue &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/cantonese&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;cantonese&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;cantonese&lt;/a&gt; to determine the tones 平仄, before verifying Pingshui Yun 平水韻 online.  Cantonese's accuracy rate is over 90% since it preserves 入聲 in medieval Chinese.  The rationale for sticking to an ancient phonetic standard for composing regulated verses nowadays is to maintain the universality of this genre of poems: if poets compose in their own dialect, the 平仄 tones won't be carried to other dialects.  This inhibits others from appreciating the poem, and this genre would loss its influence in the long run.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I know very well that the first verse has a problem of &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%AD%A4%E5%B9%B3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;isolated plane tone&quot; 孤平&lt;/a&gt; according to &quot;the second school of thought&quot; 乙派 in the linked Baidu 百度 page, but let's adopt the &quot;first school of thought&quot;'s 甲派 viewpoint on this issue.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;From my user profile, I'm &lt;em&gt;neither&lt;/em&gt; a writer &lt;em&gt;nor&lt;/em&gt; a poet.  I've written some regulated verses simply to cultivate my character 陶冶性情.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21386" LastActivityDate="2021-02-04T02:13:26.053" Title="Tone 平仄 of the 5th character in a seven-character jueju 七絕" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33321" CreationDate="2019-03-22T03:35:11.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;谢谢 is just &quot;thanks&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感谢 is a bit more formal than 谢谢, but the difference is subtle, you can pretty much use these two randomly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跪谢 is basically &quot;kneel down and thanks&quot;, which was how lower class people show thanks to higher class people in the old time. Now it's used as an internet slang, like when you posting for help/info online, you can use 跪谢！ in the end of the context naturally. It's not formally used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多谢 is &quot;thank you very much&quot;, showing stronger gratitude than 谢谢, and can also be used formally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21637" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T03:35:11.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33332" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33334" CreationDate="2019-03-22T04:20:12.890" Score="0" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually my Chinese is a good enough to recognize people saying new phrases I haven't learned yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just now in a convenience store in Chiayi I'm sure the busy server just told me 一下 and I thought that must mean &quot;wait a sec&quot; but I assume it's very colloquial to use just 一下 without a verb or no longer sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my hunch right or did I hear wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T09:44:19.263" Title="Do people say 一下 as a very colloquial &quot;just a sec&quot;?" Tags="&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33321" CreationDate="2019-03-22T05:50:07.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to add some points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The example you mentioned in your statement “感谢你的时间” makes no sense, I guess you might want to say: &amp;quot;感谢你（为我）抽/腾出时间&amp;quot;（“Thank you for making time（for me”）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;About &amp;quot;跪谢&amp;quot;: people in mainland China use it usually when asking for help, for example &amp;quot;求复联3的种子，跪谢&amp;quot; which means &amp;quot;Beg for the &lt;em&gt;free BT download link&lt;/em&gt; of Avengers 3，kneel down and thanks&amp;quot;（My translation of &amp;quot;种子&amp;quot;is not accurate, but I've tried my best to make it easy to understand）&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g69oo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g69oo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;A search page of &amp;quot;跪谢&amp;quot;in Baidu&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that “跪谢” is usually a separate sentence after your request.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you want to level up the gratitude，you could say “十分/非常/万分感谢”（十分、非常、万分 all mean “very much”）but don't say “十分多谢”&#xA;or “十分跪谢”，it makes no sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to make it sounds more casual or soften the intensity of gratitude, like when a friend of yours does you a little favor, you could say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢啦 / 谢了啊 / 谢了哈 / 谢了哦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of reduplicated word has similar effect:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谢谢谢谢 / 感谢感谢 / 多谢多谢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21515" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T17:37:49.720" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T17:37:49.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33332" CreationDate="2019-03-22T09:13:00.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My thought is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He probably said '等一下' but you didn't hear the word '等' due to the noisy  environment, or the speaker's volume was too low when he spoke&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reason to use only '一下' (a sec') instead of the complete phrase '等一下' (wait a sec') is he knew you were waiting, and your expression told him that you were asking &quot;How long do I have to wait?&quot; in your mind, so he just gave you a short answer instead of a whole sentence, based on the presumption that you knew what '一下' was referring to. (&lt;em&gt;referring to the length of time you have to wait-- a question that wasn't actually asked but implied in your manner&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine a dog owner was eating and his dog looked at the food intensely, the dog owner might simply say &quot;不&quot; instead of a full sentence &quot;狗不能吃人类的食物, 所以不能给你&quot;  because he presumed the dog would understand what the word &quot;不&quot; referring to. ( he imagined the dog was asking &quot;can I have some?&quot; - answer was &quot;不&quot; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People give short answers all the time in conversation with the presumption of both of you knew what it meant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-22T09:44:19.263" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T09:44:19.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33324" CreationDate="2019-03-22T11:21:56.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;美人只配强者拥有&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a different opinion about the sentence here.  If you think deep, it doesn't seem to be logical. Usually, 只配 is used in a active voice, as in 你只配给我提鞋. Used in a passive is a bit odd in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if I heard it, I would think it means the same as 只有强者才配拥有美人. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T11:21:56.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33336" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33337" CreationDate="2019-03-22T11:32:00.443" Score="3" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have learned 3 cases:&#xA;1. 的: possession&#xA;我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;家 &#xA;2. 的: adjective + de + noun&#xA;我喜欢红色&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;杯子。&#xA;3. 的: after adjective&#xA;我的头发长长的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other cases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21599" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T12:25:16.163" Title="All the cases where 的 (de) can be used" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33336" CreationDate="2019-03-22T12:18:52.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is also used for constructing relative clause, such as, 那个穿白衣服的人是老板。我喜欢妈妈做的菜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T12:18:52.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33336" CreationDate="2019-03-22T12:19:14.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When read [ de ]:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Transform noun to adjective:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;同学 my classmate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;名字 your name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;红色&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;苹果 red apple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be used to form a structure without a central word:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)Adjective can be used as noun:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; this is mine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;菊花开了，有红&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;，有黄&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; The chrysanthemums are in bloom; some are red and some yellow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)Express a situation, reason, a (impatient or negative) emotion etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瞧这日子过&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;！Look at the days going by!(the speaker are feeling angry or despairing etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3)something else has nothing to do with somebody:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你睡你&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;，外面的骚动和你无关 You go on sleeping. The disturbance outside has nothing to do with you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4)Some &amp;quot;symmetrical&amp;quot; uses&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;战争结束了，士兵们死&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;死，伤&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;伤 The war is over, the soldiers are dead and wounded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;和朋友去山里野营，大家吃&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;吃，睡&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;睡 Camping in the mountains with friends, eating and sleeping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Express &amp;quot;I'm sure&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这件事我知道&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; I do know this thing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;AB的&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A and B have similar meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老乡们沏茶倒水&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;，对我们很热情 The villagers poured tea for us and treated us with familiarly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沏茶 is A, 倒水 is B, they all mean &amp;quot;give you tea to drink&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The other three pronunciations are also commonly used:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When read [ dí ]:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——他是对的 he is right&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;确 yes(answerer also think he is right)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When read [ dì ]:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means the center of an arrow target.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;目&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; purpose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;放矢 shoot at random(means pointless)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When read [ dī ]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no special meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;士 taxi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;哥 taxi driver&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; call a taxi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21586" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T12:25:16.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33339" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33347" CreationDate="2019-03-22T15:25:14.910" Score="2" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read this sentence today :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你想让我给你打电话吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated as : &quot;Do you want me to call you?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is :&#xA;What is the function of 让 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have read that 让 can be used to form causative sentences but I don't think that one sentence has any correlation with causative.&#xA;Why doesn't the speaker just say :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你想我给你打电话吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;instead???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T04:59:14.760" Title="What's the function of 让 here?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33340" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33370" CreationDate="2019-03-22T16:18:13.317" Score="0" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What I know:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;During the period leading up to the Opium Wars, trade into China from Europe was locked down to 13 buildings in Canton known as the 13 factories. European merchants were only permitted to do business in the 13 factories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What I want to know:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;What title were the merchants who had authorization to deal with the europeans in the 13 factories called? Was there a title for these merchants who were allowed to deal with the outsiders? Was this even a special privilege, or could anyone walk into the 13 factories and strike a deal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While we're at it, what's a better name than &quot;the period leading up to the Opium Wars&quot; for this period in Chinese history? That's obviously a eurocentric way to specify the time period, and I'd rather not do that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm shamelessly crossposting this with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/51746/what-title-did-the-merchants-permitted-to-deal-with-cantons-13-factories-carry&quot;&gt;History Stack Exchange&lt;/a&gt;, because I can't figure out which one is the &quot;right&quot; place to put this question. If there's a clear policy on which one I should have used, please accept my apologies in advance and educate me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="355" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T16:01:48.190" Title="What title did the merchants who dealt with Canton's 13 Factories have?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33339" CreationDate="2019-03-22T18:28:44.673" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;see examples for 想让 at bkrs: &lt;a href=&quot;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E6%83%B3%E8%AE%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E6%83%B3%E8%AE%A9&lt;/a&gt; and iciba: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E6%83%B3%E8%AE%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/%E6%83%B3%E8%AE%A9&lt;/a&gt;: 想让某人／事物做某事  want sb./sth. to do sth. (approx.= want to cause sb to do sth.) it would seem to observers that, 让 reinforces wish，(wish is to cause action), redundancy not uncommon phenomenon in Chinese, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想 has many meanings besides (6) 希望, 想要 hope; want 料想; 猜想 [anticipate]&#xA;余读孔氏书, 想见其本人 among 1-12 at bkrs, so that 让 seems to clarify the meaning as &quot;want&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-03-22T19:08:20.893" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T19:08:20.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33299" CreationDate="2019-03-22T19:31:36.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This should be a question for history not Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the language part: &#xA;In ancient China, multiple kinds of currency are used like gold, silver, copper coin and even cloth. 文 is the unit for copper coin like this &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_dynasty_coinage&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ming dynasty coinage&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the history part:&#xA;During Ming dynasty, 1000 文 ≈ 1 两 silver which can buy 2 石 rice = 188.8 kilogram rice = 416.2 pound rice. So 300 文 is about 124.9 pound rice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T19:31:36.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33343" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33344" CreationDate="2019-03-22T20:52:50.720" Score="2" ViewCount="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a child's essay [1]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天是元宵节，妈妈说，在滨江公园有猜灯谜的活动。她还说，看花灯、猜灯谜、还有吃汤圆是元宵节的民俗。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚上七点半，我和妈妈还有亲戚一起来到滨江公园，人真多，非常热闹！那里没有猜灯谜，我好失望。但是我们放了烟花，还放了孔明灯和河灯，真是太有趣了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我觉得最有意思的是放孔明灯。我先在上面写了“希望我学习100分”，然后妈妈把蜡烛固定在孔明灯上，我用打火机点燃蜡烛，孔明灯全都鼓起来时，就松开手，它就慢慢地升向了天空。我真希望能梦想成真。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The very last sentence translates in my perception to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really hope that it is possible for my dreams to come true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would have probably transposed the sentence moving the 能, like so (better yet, drop the melancholic note by substituting it for the firmer 会):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我真希望梦想能成真&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really hope that my dreams can come true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my line of thought correct for the translation? Are both translations accurate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https://zw.liuxue86.com/z/3628756.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zw.liuxue86.com/z/3628756.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12122" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T21:06:42.127" Title="Difference in meaning based on position of modal verb" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33343" CreationDate="2019-03-22T21:04:17.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are accurate. 梦想成真 is a set phrase, so using 能 before it is acceptable. Note that if it is not a set phrase you need to put 能 before the verb 成真 here, but because it is a set phrase, it is usually perceived/interpreted as a whole. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also break it up and put 能 before 成真. Both are valid here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T21:04:17.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33343" CreationDate="2019-03-22T21:06:42.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both translations are correct, you can make them flow better by writing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我真希望能够梦想成真&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我真希望我的梦想能实现&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your thought of difference between 能 and 会，there is a very nice &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hwjyw.com/jxyd/cybx/200803/t20080304_13437.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;reference&lt;/a&gt; which you can read about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T21:06:42.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33339" CreationDate="2019-03-23T02:01:08.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to add some points:&#xA;I think &quot;want&quot; should,more accurately, be translated as&quot;想要&quot;,here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do you want a cup of tea?&#xA;你想要一杯茶吗?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What on earth do you &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; me to do?&#xA;你究竟&lt;em&gt;想要/想让&lt;/em&gt;我做什么?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in my view,when &quot;want&quot; followed by a noun phrase,（like &quot;want sth&quot;）it can only be translated as &quot;想要&quot;, when followed by an action（like &quot;want to do sth/want sb to do sth）,it can be translated as both “想要” and “想让”,and here “要” and “让” function the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that being said,in colloquial conversations,we may also omit “要” sometimes,like&#xA;“你想我给你打电话吗?”&#xA;“你想我帮你些什么?”（What do you want me to help with?）&#xA;It can be understood as well,but i won't suggest you speak in this way if you are not very fluent in speaking Chinese or have a broad accent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21515" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T02:01:08.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33339" CreationDate="2019-03-23T04:59:14.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fundamentally, 让 means 'to let/have/make someone do something'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The causative meaning is derived from this, when A is the cause of B, A make B happen, A让B发生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你想让我给你打电话吗？ Word by word is 'do you want to let/have/make me call you?', but in Chinese the 让 is merely a filler, it doesn't carry the intensity as in this English sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你想我给你打电话吗？is correct but sounds informal because it feels &quot;uneven&quot; in prosody. Native speakers will tend to use a 2-character verb (phrase) in the place of 想, such as 想让, 想要, or 希望.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T04:59:14.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33348" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-23T09:31:42.780" Score="3" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning Korean, and my dictionary gives an English meaning for 葛藤(갈등) as 'conflict' or 'troubles'. Why do these characters combine do give this meaning? Both characters seem to mean some kind of plant (although in each case, I'm getting varying definitions as to exactly which plant!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16529" LastEditorUserId="16529" LastEditDate="2019-03-23T11:07:24.053" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T01:21:43.040" Title="Why does 葛藤(갈등) mean 'conflict' or 'troubles'?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33372" CreationDate="2019-03-23T12:59:26.493" Score="-1" ViewCount="2660" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the title says, I am looking for an app to learn stroke order and writing chinese characters. Ideally, the software would eventually teach me to draw a character (with my fingers on the touchscreen) based on a given Pinyin, and verifies if I obey the stroke order and the direction of the strokes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that app contains about thousand characters it would be enough for the beginning. I find it vain to do this on paper using &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineseconverter.com/en/convert/chinese-stroke-order-tool&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;animations like those available online&lt;/a&gt;. Since the chinese language kit on the phone already recognizes drawings of characters (cf. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16909/apple-tablet-dictionary-that-supports-drawing-input/17606&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;), this should be easily implemented and was probably already done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am interested in the simplified characters with their official stroke order. Please do not say that this is &quot;off-topic&quot;. It is vital for me to learn this. Thank you for sharing your insights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21646" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T13:44:33.900" Title="App to learn stroke order and writing chinese characters" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33350" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-23T15:22:44.210" Score="4" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;你会不会怕我&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/zkvr7fAviiY?t=1683&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What tense is this sentence? It seems like future tense, but if you watch the video the person talking (the dad) is talking to his daughter. But, that makes me think it is current tense. So, then what does 会 mean in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16080" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-19T01:40:59.100" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T01:40:59.100" Title="What tense is 你会不会怕我?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33348" CreationDate="2019-03-23T19:23:03.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Wiktionary page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%91%9B%E8%97%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;葛藤&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etymology: From the tendency of the vines of kudzu and rattan to become entangled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No citation is provided, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Korean Wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EA%B0%88%EB%93%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;갈등&lt;/a&gt; says something similar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;어원: 왼쪽으로 감아 자라나는 칡과 오른쪽으로 감아 자나라는 등나무가 서로 얽히고 설킨 모습에서 유래.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etymology: It is derived from the shape of the wisteria that is wrapped to the left and the wisteria which is wrapped to the right and entwined to the right. (Google Translate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, no citation is provided, unfortunately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T19:23:03.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33350" CreationDate="2019-03-23T22:13:56.700" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usage here is like 'would' in English. 'Would' can be either past tense, or present tense with subjunctive mood. 会 can be either future tense, or present tense with subjunctive mood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this usage is influenced by Taiwanese Mandarin where there's a common pattern to turn simple V+O structure into 有没有/会不会 + (V+O as O) to soften the tone. This is considered redundant and borderline ungrammatical in the schools in mainland China, but in daily spoken language it's very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T22:13:56.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33350" CreationDate="2019-03-24T00:41:56.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tense is a fraught subject, even in English. Many members here tell us, Chinese has no tense. I'm inclined to believe them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你会吃青菜吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you eat Chinese cabbage? （Ostensibly Present Tense, this sentence asks about the past, present and future.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你会不会吃青菜吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you eat Chinese cabbage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你会不会怕我？&#xA;Are you afraid of me? (Do you fear me?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To invoke the subjunctive, we need a [condition]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果[我穿得像个可怕的印第安人]，你会怕我吗？so I wouldn't go for 'would' in your sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 会 below equates to 'certainly, definitely,' maybe there is a bit of that in your 会？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;长风破浪&lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt;有时。（——唐· 李白《行路难》）&#xA;There is definitely a time for daring. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2019-03-27T17:46:37.483" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T17:46:37.483" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33350" CreationDate="2019-03-24T09:04:19.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given the fact that Chinese (Mandarin) is a tonal and an analytic language which comparison to English (which isn't), by placing independent element side by side to create a sentense, but do not use inflection - modifying words to indicate grammatical meaning such as plural, gender, tense,  case, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to create or add a past/future tense, you may add a tense condition first before the origin sentense. Example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两年前, 你会怕我吗? (Past tense)&#xA;Are you afraid of me 2 years ago?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明天, 你会怕我吗? (Future tense)&#xA;Will you be afraid of me tomorrow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** Notice the Engliah translation has already adapted its past/future tense base on the addee condition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Present tense? That depends how &quot;long-winded&quot; are you yapping for words. &#xA;You may add words and form sentense like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在你怕我吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but after a while when you have master this language, you'll find many ways that 你怕我吗? would be enough for present tense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21650" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T09:04:19.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33349" CreationDate="2019-03-24T13:33:19.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you tried &lt;a href=&quot;https://skritter.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Skritter&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They offer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Handwriting Recognition&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  With Skritter you write characters in your browser and get real-time grading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which sounds like what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T13:33:19.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33357" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-24T15:55:17.500" Score="2" ViewCount="511" Body="&lt;p&gt;All 3 words seem to mean to interview, interview but what are the differences between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T20:05:05.237" Title="Differences between 访问，面试 and 采访" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33357" CreationDate="2019-03-24T19:13:12.593" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;面试, literally 'in-person test', refers to interview or admission test for a job or school application.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;采访, literally 'pick and reach out', refers to journalist interviewing a random or specific person on the scene.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;访问, literally 'reach out and inquire', refers to someone paying some specific person or place a visit with in-depth conversations, e.g. a journalist interviewing a domain expert, or a president visiting another country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="798" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T19:13:12.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33357" CreationDate="2019-03-24T20:05:05.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;for differences users suggest consulting online dictionaries, esp. bkrs, iciba (anyhow which resource would only supply &quot;interview&quot; for all３?)bkrs: all 3 can be nouns,as verbs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;访问&lt;/strong&gt;： (1) [visit; call on]∶拜访, 有目的地探望天刚黑时去访问了几位朋友&#xA;(2) [go sightseeing; visit]∶观光; 游历 想在一个月后访问英国 CL:次 总统正在访问欧洲 &quot;interview&quot;: 记者访问了这位战斗英雄。 A reporter interviewed the combat hero freq. rank  #726  同义/synonyms: 拜访, 拜会, 造访, 走访&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;面试&lt;/strong&gt; to be interviewed (as a candidate)当面考试 mainly used as noun ((就某问题)交谈, 面谈; 座谈) #5679&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;采访&lt;/strong&gt;[cover; gather material report] 采集素材, 调查访问&#xA;调查刑事案时采访证人to interview to gather news&#xA;to hunt for and collect to cover 1) 搜集寻访；探问寻访。2) 见“采访使”hist. informant, responsible for gathering information about conduct of other officials,Tang Dyn. 唐朝  #1161&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T20:05:05.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33360" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-25T03:52:41.917" Score="2" ViewCount="730" Body="&lt;p&gt;What derogatory terms are there for Chinese people in Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I am looking for derogatory terms that apply to any person of Chinese ancestry regardless of birthplace, nationality, culture, political affiliation or Chinese language ability. (Examples in English would be &quot;chinaman&quot;, &quot;chinky&quot;, and &quot;ching chong&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T08:57:58.530" Title="What derogatory terms are there for Chinese people?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33360" CreationDate="2019-03-25T05:47:10.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;支那&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E6%94%AF%E9%82%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bkrs&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;phonetic transcription of China (Japanese: Shina), colonial term, generally considered discriminatory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;trad./Budd. China (now derogatory)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is used for example by Japanese occupiers in《劫中劫》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;支那人 derog. Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T08:57:58.530" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33362" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33363" CreationDate="2019-03-25T06:20:55.787" Score="1" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a customer service standpoint , how to formally say : &quot;I am yyy calling from xxx company, how can I help you ?&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1：“我是客服 yyy，从 xxx 公司 打过来的。请问有什么可以帮助您 ？”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2： “我叫 yyy , 从 xxx 公司给您打电话了。请问怎么能帮助您 ？”&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Any corrections/improvements/ other suggestions ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21616" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T07:04:46.580" Title="How to formally say : &quot;I am yyy calling from xxx company, how can I help you ?&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;formal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33362" CreationDate="2019-03-25T07:04:46.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Say 你好 (Hello) first&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It sounds more formal to state what company you are from before stating your name. &amp;quot;我是 xxx 公司的客服 yyy&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;我是 xxx 公司的客服, 我的名字是 yyy&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since you are speaking with the customer on the phone, &amp;quot;打过来的&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;给您打电话了&amp;quot; is redundant. Just like you wouldn't need to say &amp;quot;I am talking to you in person&amp;quot; if you are face to face with the customer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Either 请问有什么可以帮助您 or 请问怎么能帮助您 is fine for &amp;quot;how may I help you?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;add final particle (呢) to soften tone, express keenness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Say &amp;quot;请问有什么&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;可以帮助您呢?&amp;quot;  instead of &amp;quot;请问有什么可以帮助您呢?&amp;quot; to stress 'it is I who will help you'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你好, 我是 xxx 公司的客服, 我的名字是 yyy, 请问有什么我可以帮助您呢?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你好, 我是 xxx 公司的客服 yyy, 请问有什么我可以帮助您呢?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T07:04:46.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16113" CreationDate="2019-03-25T08:01:00.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;if people say &quot;食蕉&quot; to you in a foul way, it means &quot;suck dick&quot; and not eat shit!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21654" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T08:01:00.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33366" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-25T10:42:51.583" Score="3" ViewCount="1688" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played this game called Sleeping Dogs that I really loved! It took place in Hong Kong and the main character Wei Shen has this tattoo on his arm that I thought would be cool to have. After doing some research I was told this was Seal Script and was not commonly used among the Chinese people. I would like some help deciphering this please and thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tattoo worn by Wei Shen in Sleeping Dogs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/riImG.png&quot; alt=&quot;one&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A picture of a cosplayer as well as another tattoo the character has which may add some context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/20TEk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;two&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QpThk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;three&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21655" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-03-27T03:42:59.677" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T15:05:47.820" Title="Can anyone translate this Seal Script into english for me?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33265" CreationDate="2019-03-25T11:17:51.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: Before modern times, ‘妳' already existed, but it was pronounced nǎi, and was a somewhat rare variant of 奶, which primarily means milk and by extension breasts, grandmother. Starting in the early 1900s, reformers in China used the same character as a female version of the second person pronoun 你, as it replaces the 人 (person, man) on the left side of 你 with a 女 (woman).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following the iconoclastic May Fourth Movement in 1919, and to accommodate the translation of Western literature, written vernacular Chinese developed separate pronouns for gender-differentiated speech, and to address animals, deities, and inanimate objects. In the second person, they are nǐ (祢 &quot;you, a deity&quot;), nǐ (你 &quot;you, a male&quot;), and &lt;strong&gt;nǐ (妳 &quot;you, a female&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;)... these distinctions are only made in Taiwanese Mandarin; in simplified Chinese, tā (它) is the only third-person non-human form and nǐ (你) is the only second person form. The third person distinction between &quot;he&quot; (他) and &quot;she&quot; (她) remain in use in all forms of written standard Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21656" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T11:17:51.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33366" CreationDate="2019-03-25T12:34:25.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;at frist glance, the right part:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;ｘｘｘｘｘ&#xA;ｘｘ之ｘ弟&#xA;ｘ水東君ｘ&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i'm watching movie at this moment, would decipher the rest later:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T12:34:25.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33366" CreationDate="2019-03-25T12:35:29.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Draft decipherment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;告&lt;code&gt;鹿&lt;/code&gt;右Ｘ各　ＸＸＸ以&lt;code&gt;金&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瓜孔豕Ｘ亞　受Ｘ止而弟&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;豆&lt;/code&gt;Ｘ月&lt;code&gt;勒&lt;/code&gt;子　Ｘ水東君&lt;code&gt;者&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;　&lt;/code&gt; - Uncertain characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ｘ - can't read&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9VOaT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9VOaT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither of the tattoos say something legible, in my opinion. The characters are for artistic flair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T04:52:18.533" CommentCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2019-03-25T12:35:29.163" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33340" CreationDate="2019-03-25T16:01:48.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What title were the merchants who had authorization to deal with the europeans in the 13 factories called&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they're called 行商 (hong/factory merchant)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;indeed, there're several chinese books about the thirteen hongs (十三行); for an english one, have a look of &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;the 'fan kwae' at canton before treaty days, 1825-1844&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you can read literary chinese, try the book 夷氛聞記, by 梁廷枏:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%A4%B7%E6%B0%9B%E8%81%9E%E8%A8%98/%E5%8D%B701&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/夷氛聞記/卷01&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;what's a better name than &quot;the period leading up to the Opium Wars&quot; for this period in Chinese history? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in westerner's term, i think &quot;before treaty days&quot; is quite good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in chinese's term, i would suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘉道年間 (1796-1850)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道光年間 (1821-1850)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T16:01:48.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33371" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-25T17:17:34.187" Score="2" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;A foreign friend of mine asked me the following questions and I cannot explain to him very well. So I am looking for help here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I said to him: it's ok to say a sentence in different word order, let's say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你昨天付了钱吗&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;昨天钱你付了吗&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;昨天钱付了吗你&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But he questioned: Isn't there any difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I considered and said yes, and made up 3 scenes for each one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（普通夫妻）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;昨天晚上小李请我吃的饭。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你昨天付了钱吗？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;没有，都是他埋的单。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;comment: Here is a plain question on whether I paid for (anything) yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（中年男子和停车场收费大爷）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;师傅麻烦抬一下收费杆&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;昨天钱你付了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不好意思忘记了，我连今天的一起给了吧&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;comment: Here the toll collector is definite that I haven't paid parking fee for yesterday, and he is not very happy, and he is asking for it. So I do not answer whether I paid yesterday but say sorry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（穷人与小旅馆老板娘）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;再让我歇一晚上吧……&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;笑话！昨天钱付了吗你！赶紧挪窝让别人进来！&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;comment: Here the landlady is furious, and she doesn't care whether or not the poor guy will make up the room rate, and all she want to do is get rid of him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I said each of the sentence is the best choice under these circumstances, thus not exchangeable (if we want to express the emotion of each character).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He asked if there is a guideline to understand these sentences and how to compose a sentence in best word order. I answered something but felt it not very well-rounded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arh so I post this question on almighty forum~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T23:37:10.330" Title="How does word order affect the meaning of a sentence" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33349" CreationDate="2019-03-25T20:05:03.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know of two apps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://iphone.pleco.com/manual/30200/dict.html#stroke&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco with Stroke Order Add-on&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt; is a comprehensive free Chinese app with many paid-for add-ons. IIRC, you can download a free trial of the stroke order.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.eon.com.hk/estroke/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;estroke&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;This is a dedicated paid-for stroke order app. It also pronounces the name of the stroke while drawing the character. I find the interface messy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Which system do you use? Android or iOS?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21658" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T20:05:03.073" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33371" CreationDate="2019-03-25T23:37:10.330" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think different word orders put emphasis on different topics. 你昨天付了钱吗 is a normal sentence so I don't think there is a particular emphasis on anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天钱你付了吗, however, put the object in front, so it's emphasizing the object and the verb rather than the subject. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 昨天钱付了吗你 is the same as 昨天钱你付了吗, but using a 倒装 to, still, put an emphasis on the verb-object information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T23:37:10.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33348" CreationDate="2019-03-26T01:21:43.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s semantic extension.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The plant refers to a kind which forms entangled vines. This is extended to mean &lt;em&gt;troubled, complex relationships&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;conflicts&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T01:21:43.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33375" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33380" CreationDate="2019-03-26T10:09:52.647" Score="3" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based in the dictionary, 长短 = length and 长度 = length. What is the usage or difference between the two words? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T12:06:35.710" Title="Usage of 长短 vs 长度" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33376" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33702" CreationDate="2019-03-26T10:11:43.947" Score="2" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;Oh great. I have to ask in English to get it past StackExchange filters.&#xA;Characters with radicals typically have pronunciations close to the bare character.&#xA;For example: &quot;韦“ (wei) versus &quot;伟“ (wei) or &quot;敢“ (gan) versus &quot;憨“ (han)&#xA;But &quot;也&quot; (ye) and &quot;他“ (ta) are very much exceptions. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有部首旁的汉字的发音通常按照没有部首旁的字。 例如 “韦”/”伟“、 “清”/“青”、 “敢”/“憨”等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但是 “也”/“他” 根本在例外。为什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15159" LastEditorUserId="15159" LastEditDate="2019-03-26T10:27:48.090" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T17:55:26.960" Title="为什么 “也” 发音为 &quot;ye&quot; 但是 “他”发音为&quot;ta&quot;？？？" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33377" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33382" CreationDate="2019-03-26T10:35:32.320" Score="5" ViewCount="785" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know how to analyze &quot;是其于主也至忠矣&quot; word for word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;公行之计，是其于主也至忠矣，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would appreciate your help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20663" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2019-03-26T23:00:58.553" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T01:14:35.160" Title="How do I analyze &quot;是其于主也至忠矣&quot;?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33376" CreationDate="2019-03-26T11:12:50.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Old Chinese reconstructions&lt;/a&gt; when analysing phonetic components of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他 - Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*l̥ˤaj/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/tʰɑ/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; Mandarin Pinyin: &lt;strong&gt;tā&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也 - Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*lAjʔ/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; MC: &lt;strong&gt;/jia&lt;sup&gt;X&lt;/sup&gt;/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; Mandarin Pinyin: &lt;strong&gt;yě&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有部首旁的汉字的发音通常按照没有部首旁的字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should probably learn that 部首 is a dictionary indexing tool, and has nothing to do with the functions of character components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-03-26T14:14:21.870" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T14:14:21.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33377" CreationDate="2019-03-26T11:37:17.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;公 - Sir (honorific)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行 - implement; carry out (v)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 -  possessive form:  similar to ['s ] in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;计 -  plan (direct object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 - affirm (v)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其 - it (pronoun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于 - to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;主 - master (indirect object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也 - (= 也算) can be considered&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至 - utmost&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忠 - loyal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;矣 - final particle (for emphasis)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公行之计，是其于主也至忠矣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The plan he came up with, suggest it to his master can be considered a showing of his utmost loyalty,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T11:37:17.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33375" CreationDate="2019-03-26T11:56:03.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 长短 and 长度 mean 'length'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;长短 is mostly used colloquially; 长度 is more common in both literary and colloquial form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When in smaller scale, the two terms are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 剑的&lt;strong&gt;长短&lt;/strong&gt;通常是70-110厘米 = 剑的&lt;strong&gt;长度&lt;/strong&gt;通常是70-110厘米 (The length of a sword is usually 70-110 cm)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When something can be short or long, using 长短 should be safe, e.g. 路线的长短不一 (the length of routes vary)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but using 长度 is the safest: 路线的长短不一 = 路线的长度不一*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When in larger scale, we only use 长度&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 泰坦尼克号的&lt;strong&gt;长度&lt;/strong&gt;是269米 (length of Titanic is 269 m)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We don't say 泰坦尼克号的长短是269米&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ships like Titanic can never be described as short&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;长短 can also be a shortened form  of '长处短处' (strengths and weaknesses); 说人长短 means &amp;quot;criticize someone&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T12:06:35.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33377" CreationDate="2019-03-26T12:12:42.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To analyse the quote, I would dive into the original text and read the article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part you quoted is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/zhan-guo-ce/huo-wei-gong-zhong/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;或谓公仲&lt;/a&gt; in 战国策，where 或 means someone. The article is documenting someone trying to lobby the lord of 韩国 to be the first one to show loyalty to 秦国。By that time, 秦国 is getting strong and starting to show the ambition of unifying the whole China. That someone is trying to persuade the lord of 韩国 that given 韩国 is relatively weak, showing loyalty to 秦国 is a wise choice and the earlier, the better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The quote you have, is a small summary of the advantages, it means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（这样一来），您（the lord）所做的事情，就是向秦国表明，韩国对秦王是非常忠诚的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will write the part of analyzing word by word mostly in Chinese as it is more accurate doing it this way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“公”指的是韩国国君&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“行”的意思是“执行”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“之”是连接词，可以当做“的”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“计”的意思就是“计策”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“是”的意思是”就是“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“其”指的是某人所建议的这件事情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“于”的意思是“对于”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“主”指的是“秦王”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“也”是连接词，在古文中多当做“是”来讲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“至”就是“极度”的意思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“忠”就是“忠诚”的意思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“矣”表示陈述语气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T20:29:32.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33377" CreationDate="2019-03-26T12:36:15.150" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is how I read this passage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公行之計是其於主也至忠矣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[If] you/公 use&lt;/strong&gt; (行) &lt;strong&gt;this&lt;/strong&gt; (之; read it as 此) &lt;strong&gt;strategem&lt;/strong&gt; (計)&lt;strong&gt;, this&lt;/strong&gt; (是) &lt;strong&gt;inevitably [shows]&lt;/strong&gt; (其; read it as 乃 or 然) &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; (於) &lt;strong&gt;the lord&lt;/strong&gt; (主) &lt;em&gt;pause&lt;/em&gt; (也) &lt;strong&gt;great loyalty&lt;/strong&gt; (至忠) &lt;strong&gt;!&lt;/strong&gt; (矣)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Using this strategem is a display of [your] loyalty/devotion towards the lord&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T12:41:18.937" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33377" CreationDate="2019-03-26T12:45:52.017" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The verse is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=5689&amp;amp;page=80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國策　卷二十八&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though the OP asked one particular verse, and we must comprehend the related text (from page 80-82), in order to interpret it correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或謂公仲曰．今有一舉而可以&lt;strong&gt;忠於主&lt;/strong&gt;．&lt;strong&gt;便於國&lt;/strong&gt;．&lt;strong&gt;利於身&lt;/strong&gt;．願公之行之也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天下散而事秦．則韓最輕矣．天下合而離秦．則韓最弱矣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;合離之相．續則韓最先危矣．此君國長民之大患也．今公以韓先合於秦．天下隨之．是韓以天下事秦．秦之德韓也．厚矣．韓與天下朝．秦而獨厚取．德焉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;公行之計．是其於主也．至忠矣&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天下不合秦．秦令而不聽．秦必起兵以誅不服．秦久與天下結怨．構難而兵不決韓．息士民以待其釁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;公行之計．是其於國也．大便也&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昔者．周佼以西周善於秦而封於梗陽．周啟以東周善於秦而封於平原．今公以韓善秦．韓之重於兩周也．無計．而秦之爭機也．萬於周之時．今公以韓為天下先．合於秦．秦必以公為諸侯．以明示天下．&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;公行之計．是其於身大利也．願公之加務也&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone suggested (或謂) to mr 韓公仲 (公仲), said (曰) &amp;quot;there's now (今有) a strategy (一舉) that is loyal to the lord (忠於主), convenience to the nation (便於國), benefit to yourself (利於身), hope (願) your honourable (公) execute it (行之)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &amp;quot;公行之計．是其於主也．至忠矣&amp;quot;, I would interpret it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[If] your honourable (公) execute (行) this (之--&amp;gt;此) strategy (計), such execution is (是其), for the lord (於主), absolutely loyal (至忠).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是其, reverse it to 其是, so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If] your honourable (公) execute (行) this (之--&amp;gt;此) strategy (計), such execution (其) is, (是) for the lord (於主), absolutely loyal (至忠).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也 and 矣 is, particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T01:14:35.160" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33376" CreationDate="2019-03-26T13:07:47.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有部首旁的汉字的发音通常按照没有部首旁的字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, this assumption is &lt;strong&gt;incorrect&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;潢．熿．獚．璜．磺．穔．簧．蟥．趪．鷬 and 黃, all share the same pronunciation wong4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%BB%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=黃&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, what about &lt;h1&gt;黌&lt;/h1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it has the component 黃 in the bottom part. unfortunately, this one is pronounce as hung4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%BB%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=黌&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the moral is: don't assume the pronunciation of any chinese character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T13:07:47.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33376" CreationDate="2019-03-26T13:19:07.580" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Words &quot;come&quot; and &quot;become&quot; pronounce similarly. So you think &quot;也&quot; and &quot;他&quot; should also make like this way, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is no Chinese thinking mind, if you study more, you will see lots of similar samples, even &quot;己&quot; and &quot;已&quot; are different on pronunciation and meaning also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21667" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T13:19:07.580" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17063" CreationDate="2019-03-26T16:05:01.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CcVzB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CcVzB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;合集33170&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;戰國・楚&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xaRGR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xaRGR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;曾侯乙鐘&lt;br&gt;集成325&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;戰國・楚&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GDA2Y.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GDA2Y.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;信1・039&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1kHPP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1kHPP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;睡・秦106&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西漢&lt;br&gt;隸&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GdZno.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GdZno.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;定縣漢簡10&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YZE48.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YZE48.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「也」originally depicted a child「子」with an emphasised mouth「口」, indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;to wail, cry&lt;/em&gt;. This word was later written as「嗁」and now written as「啼」. The meaning &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; is unrelated, and is a phonetic loan, derived from an early usage of「也」as a modal particle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please take note of the phonetic component of「嗁」;「遞」and「地」are homonyms in Mandarin, and the latter uses「也」as a phonetic component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The arms of the child were later omitted, possibly to reduce the chance of confusing「也」and「子」. For reference,「子」appeared as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DlKah.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DlKah.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;甲2903&lt;br&gt;合集20576&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;戰國&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DIiq5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DIiq5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;曾子簠&lt;br&gt;集成4488&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;楚&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hiVdN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hiVdN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;包2・66&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0937Z.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0937Z.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;睡・秦62&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qgyTO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qgyTO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小學堂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;蘇建洲《楚文字論集》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-03-26T17:26:59.707" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T17:26:59.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33387" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33388" CreationDate="2019-03-26T17:40:00.427" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing a formal business email to a client, and at the end I would like to ask him when would be his most convenient time to have a phone call. The sentence goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请您让我知道哪个时候您最方便接电话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if it would be better to use 什么时候 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone could please advice me on what subtle differences there are in the meanings of these two phrases, and suggest which to use, that would be very much appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21668" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T20:40:52.760" Title="Usage advice: 什么时候vs哪个时候" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33387" CreationDate="2019-03-26T20:40:52.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with zyy that 什么时候 is definitely better in the sentence.&#xA;哪个时候 is like literally translated from &quot;which moment&quot;, but in Chinese, we express as &quot;what time&quot; so you should use &quot;什么时候&quot; or &quot;什么时间&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21669" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T20:40:52.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33389" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33392" CreationDate="2019-03-26T21:53:09.660" Score="1" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading Assimil Chinese with Ease and came across this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你见过他？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since this is a question, is 吗 necessary for the question? Perhaps an error? Or can you omit 吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20543" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T18:38:07.163" Title="Error in Book? Need help" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33390" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-26T23:00:55.847" Score="4" ViewCount="354" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, 愛 means romantic love. However, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/067402270X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese&lt;/a&gt; by Paul Rouzer has this to say about its use in literary Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This character [愛] usually does not imply &quot;romantic love&quot; in literary&#xA;  Chinese, as it does in the modern East Asian languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So which character(s) are used for romantic love in classical Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastEditorUserId="20826" LastEditDate="2019-03-26T23:45:28.000" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T23:31:05.873" Title="What is the character for romantic love in classical Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33391" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33408" CreationDate="2019-03-26T23:03:00.743" Score="5" ViewCount="747" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not a question about the literal translation of the sentence: &quot;I'm proud that you are my dad.&quot; The question itself is more like: what do Chinese people say when they want to express their feelings to someone that they are proud of? Like, when children are proud of their dad?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6188" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T12:58:52.443" Title="How do Chinese people say it when they are proud of someone?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33389" CreationDate="2019-03-27T02:27:55.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can omit the &quot;吗&quot;, but:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In writing, you need a question mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In speech, a rising intonation must be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T02:27:55.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33394" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-27T02:31:58.140" Score="5" ViewCount="572" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is a &quot;thing&quot; called &quot;东西&quot; and not &quot;南北&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21654" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2019-04-01T12:20:53.177" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T11:03:24.283" Title="Why is a &quot;thing&quot; called &quot;东西&quot; and not &quot;南北&quot;?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33394" CreationDate="2019-03-27T03:40:47.423" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meaning &lt;em&gt;things&lt;/em&gt; was developed through a series of semantic extensions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「東西」originally literally meant &lt;em&gt;east and west&lt;/em&gt;, then developed the meaning &lt;em&gt;from east to west&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Later, it gained the meaning of the four cardinal directions (i.e.「東西南北」).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東西 (4): 猶四方。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;唐　杜甫　《無家別》詩：＂我里百餘家， 世亂各東西。＂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;宋　晁補之　《魚溝懷家》詩：＂生涯身事任東西， 藥笥書囊偶自齎。＂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Then it acquired the meaning of &lt;em&gt;the products manufactured or natural resources acquired from all directions&lt;/em&gt; (東西南北).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東西 (6): 物產於四方，約言稱之為東西。古代亦以指產業。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;宋　王溥　《唐會要・逃戶》：＂大中　二年制：＇所在逃戶，見在桑田屋宇等，多是暫時東西。＇＂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finally, it became used for today's &lt;em&gt;things&lt;/em&gt; in a very abstract manner, as in the following Yuan Dynasty quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東西 (8): 特指人或動物 (含愛、憎感情)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;元　馬致遠　《青衫淚》第三摺：＂但犯着吃黃虀者，不是好東西。＂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage and meaning extension is quite clearly traceable in historical works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, 東西 is short for 東南西北, and originally meant &lt;em&gt;resources and products manufactured from all directions&lt;/em&gt; &amp;gt; &lt;em&gt;things&lt;/em&gt;. It is not 南北 because 南北 is another word meaning &lt;em&gt;northern and southern regions&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reference:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;漢語大詞典&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T02:37:16.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33394" CreationDate="2019-03-27T04:27:31.167" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There were two large markets in ancient &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27an&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chang'an&lt;/a&gt; (长安/長安) city of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tang&lt;/a&gt; (唐) dynasty, one called east market (东市/東市) and the other one called west market (西市), gradually people perfer to say &lt;strong&gt;to buy east and west&lt;/strong&gt; (去买东西/買東西) rather than &lt;strong&gt;to buy goods in east and west market&lt;/strong&gt; (去东西市购买商品/去東西市購買商品). The new business district &lt;strong&gt;West Market of Great Tang&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baike.baidu.com/view/417199.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大唐西市&lt;/a&gt;) has reconstructed on the old site of the ancient west market in Xi'an Shaanxi (陝西西安/陕西西安) today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-03-28T15:51:32.050" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T15:51:32.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33397" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-27T08:21:24.220" Score="3" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got this out of the Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language, it really spoke to me, but was wondering if the translation is as true as they depict it. Nothing is as good as running it by fluent speakers of the language. Thank You!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Better to be a broken piece of jade, than a whole piece of clay&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WjW5a.png&quot; alt=&quot;one&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21655" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T08:42:37.937" Title="Is this a true translation of a famous quote?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33397" CreationDate="2019-03-27T08:32:41.053" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Almost&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translating「瓦全」as &lt;em&gt;a whole piece of clay&lt;/em&gt;, in my opinion, is not immediately intuitive (and that's not really what the literal translation is anyway). I would translate「寧爲玉碎不爲瓦全」to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Better to be shattered jade than to be flawless china&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The message is: &lt;em&gt;A principled person would rather die upholding righteousness than to live an ignoble existence.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T08:32:41.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33397" CreationDate="2019-03-27T08:37:16.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;宁为玉碎 不为瓦全 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;literally mean 'rather be jade in pieces than be clay and keep whole' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;figuratively means 'rather die for principle and honor than survive in disgrace and humiliation'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-27T08:42:37.937" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T08:42:37.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33360" CreationDate="2019-03-27T08:47:17.320" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend to avoid using this, for obvious reasons, but you can consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;东亚病夫&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 sick man of Asia, sick man of East Asia (metaphor used by some Western writers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in reference to the critical condition of China's economy and government, or the poor health of its people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 later also variously applied to Japan, the Philippines, and other Asian countries)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T08:47:17.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33349" CreationDate="2019-03-27T09:43:07.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I take advantage of both Pleco and Skritter. &#xA;I use Pleco for looking up the meaning of Chinese words and use Skritter to save words then play games with words I've saved before to remember stroke order and components of Chinese characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21672" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T09:43:07.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33391" CreationDate="2019-03-27T09:51:10.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently watched the movie &quot;A Love So Beautiful&quot; (致我们单纯的小美好) and learned the sentence  &quot;我以你为荣&quot;, meaning I'm proud of you. It's right on the first episode. By the way, this movie is so lovely and you can learn a bunch of interesting phrases for sure, I highly recommend to everyone ;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21672" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T09:51:10.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33404" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33407" CreationDate="2019-03-27T10:15:06.177" Score="3" ViewCount="1163" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;英语太难了，学得我头大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just don't want to use &quot;head exploding&quot; which scares me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T11:26:36.577" Title="How do you say 头大 in English?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33404" CreationDate="2019-03-27T10:50:42.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;头大 just means 'head is big' as in &quot;头大没脑&quot; (big head but no brain)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The common phrase is 头也大了 or 头都大了 . e.g. &quot;英语太难了，学得我头也大了。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English expression &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dictionary.com/browse/make-one-s-head-spin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;make my head spin&lt;/a&gt;&quot;  is a good counterpart of it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also simply say &quot;my brain hurt&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-27T10:58:29.020" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T10:58:29.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33404" CreationDate="2019-03-27T11:26:36.577" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;頭大 figuratively means &lt;em&gt;to be distressed/overwhelmed/worried&lt;/em&gt;. In English, the equivalent word is the figurative &lt;em&gt;headache&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英語太難了，學得我頭大&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;English is too difficult; studying it is (too overwhelming) / (giving me a headache)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T11:26:36.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33391" CreationDate="2019-03-27T12:58:52.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplest sentence would be something like: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;我为[insert person]骄傲。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So in your case：我为爸爸骄傲。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Slightly more sophisticated: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;我为你感到自豪。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;@Ha Hae's 我以你为荣 would also work but would translate to something like “You are in my place of honour.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21649" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T12:58:52.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33409" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33410" CreationDate="2019-03-27T13:07:36.067" Score="2" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese translation of the film Widows seems to be translated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《剋·寡婦》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is 剋 doing here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reference I can find to it in dictionaries is in Words.HK which says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;動詞&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;帶嚟衰運；令人事事都唔如意&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;to work against; to counteract&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剋夫&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;hak1 fu1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(of women) to bring extremely bad luck to the husband; or more specifically, have one's husband destined to die soon after marriage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢一出世就剋死咗佢阿媽。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;keoi5 jat1 ceot1 sai3 zau6 hak1 sei2 zo2 keoi5 aa3 maa1.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;As soon as he was born, he has destined to mourn his mother's death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that doesn’t seem to fit the film translation title, unless they’re insinuating that the women caused their own widowedhood, which contracts the synopsis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;their criminal husbands are killed on a botched job&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T23:48:04.910" Title="What is 剋 doing in the Cantonese translation of the movie title “Widows”?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33409" CreationDate="2019-03-27T13:32:29.507" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;剋 and 黑 are pronounced the same in Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剋·寡婦 is a wordplay of a common term 黑寡婦 (Black widow: 1. A woman who murders her husband(s) 2. a kind of spider) And as the title implied, it is about a widow who has 剋夫命 (Be accused of bringing bad luck that cause her husband to die)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese rarely translate foreign movies titles word for word. More often than not, the Chinese writer would totally ignore the original title, and make a new one in Chinese to attract Chinese viewers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some good example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meet the Fockers --&gt; 非常外父智擒霍老爺 (sounds funny)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wedding Crashers --&gt; 冒牌伴郎智擒姊妹團 (sounds funny)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mackenna's Gold --&gt; 神龍猛虎闖金關 (sounds heroic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sound of Music --&gt; 仙樂飄處處聞 (sounds poetic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Longest Day --&gt; 碧血長天 (sounds epic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Greatest Show On Earth --&gt; 馬戲千秋 (sounds epic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-27T23:48:04.910" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T23:48:04.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33390" CreationDate="2019-03-27T14:03:45.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1, 愛, is traditional Chinese, be used it HongKong, Marcau, and Taiwan.&#xA;2, 愛，can be a noun, can be a verb. But 戀 is more focusing on verb. and they are not in same meaning. We say 我爱她。but never say 我戀她。&#xA;3, passions=激情， alluring=艷, 艷 more means on color.&#xA;4, In Chinese, every character is already very basic meaning, it must use in context, otherwise you hardly can use a basic character to present more meaning.&#xA;5, From a Chinese option, I never think / study Chinese in this style, hope you just read newspaper or book could improve your Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a developer, would like to find some technique thing, I don't know how / why I go into here, but whatever, hope I can explain well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21667" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T14:03:45.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33413" CreationDate="2019-03-27T15:24:28.123" Score="2" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked a similar question here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/33409/4136&quot;&gt;What is 剋 doing in the Cantonese translation of the movie title “Widows”?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese title of the film &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-mo/%E6%88%91%E5%80%91_(2019%E5%B9%B4%E9%9B%BB%E5%BD%B1)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Us&lt;/a&gt; has been translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;香港譯《我們·異》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-mo/%E6%88%91%E5%80%91_(2019%E5%B9%B4%E9%9B%BB%E5%BD%B1)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; also mentions that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中國大陸、台灣譯《我們》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it seems that the Cantonese title is quite different here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guangzhouhua-Putonghua only mentions Mandarin definitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Words.HK only gives the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;語素&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;有分別；同其他嘢唔一樣&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;different&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;異口同聲&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;ji6 hau2 tung4 sing1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;saying something together; literally, different mouths but same voice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差異&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;caa1 ji6&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;difference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;唔正常嘅&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;unusual; extraordinary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;異味&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;ji6 mei6&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;peculiar smell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;異常&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;ji6 soeng4&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;abnormal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm still not getting the pun, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T15:57:32.543" Title="What is 異 doing in the Cantonese translation of the movie title “Us”?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33412" CreationDate="2019-03-27T15:52:14.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;異 here short for '靈異' (supernatural) or 異形 (alien)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《我們·異》 means &quot;Us - Supernatural&quot; or &quot;Us -Alien&quot; ('alien' here might refer to alien from outer space, but it can also refer to the concept of 'non-native'. In the context of this movies, it implies &quot;unearthly or supernatural being&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-27T15:57:32.543" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T15:57:32.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33389" CreationDate="2019-03-27T18:38:07.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;fefe is right in that omitting &quot;吗&quot; is allowed, but they have slightly different meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你见过他？has a bit of on the rhetorical sense in it, and seems more surprised - it can be somewhat close to &quot;You've met him, really?&quot; or &quot;Oh, you have ever met him?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你见过他吗？is more of a question, as in purely asking &quot;Have you ever met him, or not?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21675" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T18:38:07.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33415" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33432" CreationDate="2019-03-28T02:16:49.083" Score="6" ViewCount="848" Body="&lt;p&gt;How should you start a letter in Chinese? More specifically, what's the difference between starters such as 尊敬的，亲爱的，and 敬爱的, and in which cases should you use which one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;写信的时候，“尊敬的”、”亲爱的“、与“敬爱的” 有什么分别？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&#xA;I do know that 尊 and 敬 both mean respect, and 亲 means love between friends or family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21649" LastEditorUserId="21649" LastEditDate="2019-03-28T12:08:43.597" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T13:37:15.760" Title="How should you start a letter in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33416" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33418" CreationDate="2019-03-28T02:23:00.910" Score="4" ViewCount="1250" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from the book 我是马拉拉 (the Chinese version of &lt;em&gt;I am Malala&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r8VZR.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r8VZR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;我是马拉拉 snippet&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I transcribe it to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2012年10月9日，星期二那天发生的事情，改变了一切。那天原本要大考，对学生们来说算不上太美好的日子。但和大多数同学不一样，我号称“小书虫”，感觉考试并不是什么大事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tuesday, 9-th October 2012.  That day's happenings changed everything.  That day, we originally had a test, with students saying [something? 算不上], it's a beautiful day.  But I'm different to most students, I'm known as &quot;bookworm&quot;, I feel a test is not at all a big deal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 算不上 mean in this snippet?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dict.cn translates &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%AE%97%E4%B8%8D%E4%B8%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;算不上&lt;/a&gt; to &quot;be not really&quot;, so I'm guessing it negates the &quot;it's a beautiful day&quot;, so the students think it's &quot;not really a beautiful day&quot; or something like that.  However, I'm not clear on this.  (I think I understand the rest of the snippet.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T16:16:02.850" Title="What does 算不上 mean in 算不上太美好的日子?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33416" CreationDate="2019-03-28T02:30:27.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your guess is correct. To be precise, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/eng/%E7%AE%97%E4%B8%8D%E4%B8%8A/#keyfrom=dict2.index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;算不上&lt;/a&gt; means &lt;em&gt;can't be counted ; can't be regarded ; not much&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the sentence means &lt;em&gt;that day can't be regarded as a much beautiful day for students&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我告诉她以古巴之外的任何标准来衡量，我都算不上一个富有的人。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I told her that I was not rich by any standard outside of Cuba.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;哦，爸爸，如果这还算不上鼓励别人结婚的话，我真不知道什么是鼓励了。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Well, papa, if this is not encouragement to marry, I do not know what is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;然而，这或许又算不上是新闻，我想大家都知道你会变得很像那些与你一起出去玩的人。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Well, maybe it is not a newsflash. I think we all know that you become like those that you hang out with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T02:44:06.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33416" CreationDate="2019-03-28T02:31:14.987" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate 算不上 to be &quot;cannot count as&quot;, so in your context, it would mean &quot;you can't count today as a beautiful day as there is an exam&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21649" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T02:31:14.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33419" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33421" CreationDate="2019-03-28T03:18:55.417" Score="4" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/topic/Television-Dramas&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.quora.com/topic/Television-Dramas&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find &lt;code&gt;TV dramas&lt;/code&gt; only refer to Chinese/Japanese/Korean 电视剧 on the quora topic. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English 电视剧 only are called TV series?&#xA;If an English 电视剧 only has one season, can it be called &lt;code&gt;series&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T07:33:08.547" Title="Is 电视剧 equivalent to &quot;TV series&quot; or &quot;TV drama&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33419" CreationDate="2019-03-28T07:33:08.547" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;「電視劇」is equivalent to &lt;em&gt;TV drama&lt;/em&gt;.「電視劇」does not tell you anything about the length of the series (if there even is a series) or the number of seasons in the series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If an English 电视剧 only has one season, can it be called &lt;code&gt;series&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. A &lt;em&gt;TV series&lt;/em&gt; represents a connected group of TV shows with the same title/name. &lt;em&gt;Series&lt;/em&gt; are only divided into &lt;em&gt;seasons&lt;/em&gt; because of traditional American TV airing practice, where half the year is devoted to viewing and the other half is a re-run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TV dramas are a product which responds to supply and demand; by nature, if a TV series is not performing by popularity metrics, then there will be no contract to make another season in the series. There are many single-season TV series out there (for various reasons, not only due to lack of popularity).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A TV drama &lt;strong&gt;series&lt;/strong&gt; is called「連續劇」in Chinese. &lt;em&gt;Dramas&lt;/em&gt;, in general, are just called「戲劇」, so you can get single &quot;episode&quot; (more like a mini-film) dramas called「單元劇」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T07:33:08.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33416" CreationDate="2019-03-28T08:50:21.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another translation would be &quot;&lt;strong&gt;not exactly&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, or &quot;not exactly considered&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence would be, &quot;that day was not exactly considered a beautiful day because there was an exam&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21680" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T08:50:21.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33416" CreationDate="2019-03-28T08:55:59.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;算不上   -&gt;    cannot count to be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21667" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-03-28T09:29:37.820" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T09:29:37.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33425" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33427" CreationDate="2019-03-28T14:06:16.547" Score="3" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airplane&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Airplanes&lt;/a&gt; are a type of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;aircraft&lt;/a&gt; (helicopters [直升機], hot air balloons [熱氣球] are also aircraft).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飛機 is a very common Chinese word, but what does it mean? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does 飛機 mean &quot;airplane&quot;? If no, what is &quot;airplane&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does 飛機 mean &quot;aircraft&quot;? If no, what is &quot;aircraft&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When someone says 飛機, do they mean &quot;airplane&quot;, or do they mean &quot;aircraft&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-21T21:26:26.163" LastActivityDate="2020-07-21T21:26:26.163" Title="Does 飛機 mean &quot;airplane&quot; or &quot;aircraft&quot;?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33425" CreationDate="2019-03-28T14:12:07.837" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;飞机 is specifically for airplane&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飞行器 is for general aircraft&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T14:12:07.837" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33425" CreationDate="2019-03-28T14:14:16.303" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;飛機 - &lt;em&gt;Aeroplane&lt;/em&gt;, short for 固定翼飛機 (&lt;em&gt;fixed-wing flying machine&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;航空器 - &lt;em&gt;aircraft&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飛行器 - both &lt;em&gt;aircraft&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;spacecraft&lt;/em&gt;, i.e. &lt;em&gt;all flying machines which travel through the atmosphere&lt;/em&gt;. Includes space rockets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference, &lt;em&gt;spacecraft&lt;/em&gt; is 航天器.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answering the queries directly,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does 飛機 mean &quot;airplane&quot;? If no, what is &quot;airplane&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, 飛機 means &lt;em&gt;airplane/aeroplane&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does 飛機 mean &quot;aircraft&quot;? If no, what is &quot;aircraft&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Aircraft&lt;/em&gt; is 航空器.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When someone says 飛機, do they mean &quot;airplane&quot;, or do they mean &quot;aircraft&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They should mean &lt;em&gt;aeroplane&lt;/em&gt;. If they mean &lt;em&gt;aircraft&lt;/em&gt;, well, that's improper use of the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-03-28T14:24:45.350" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T14:24:45.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33416" CreationDate="2019-03-28T16:16:02.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you add the informal tone to it, &lt;code&gt;算不上太美好&lt;/code&gt; combined is something like &lt;code&gt;not the best&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tuesday, October 9th 2012, everything changed. An important exam was due,&#xA;  so not the best day for the students. But to me, an exam never felt&#xA;  like a big deal, because unlike others, I am the &quot;bookworm&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9846" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T16:16:02.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33425" CreationDate="2019-03-28T19:26:50.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;飞机 / 飛機 literally means “flying machine”, which is a really &lt;strong&gt;inaccurate&lt;/strong&gt; colloquial term. It can mean an airplane in its narrow sense, and it can also mean an aircraft in its broader sense, and some people even use this word for a space shuttle! Never use this term if you want to describe accurately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some well-educated people believe that the broader sense is &quot;wrong&quot;, but who cares? All the native Chinese speakers accept the broader sense &lt;strong&gt;except some pedants&lt;/strong&gt;. You can see many pedants on Stack Exchange, but this is not the real world. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/27278560/answer/35987002&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Welcome to the real world&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to refer to an aircraft, use the term 航空器.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to refer to an airplane, use the term 定翼机 / 定翼機.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to refer to rotorcrafts, use the term 旋翼机 / 旋翼機, which include helicopters, or 直升机 / 直升機 in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to refer to a ornithopter, use the term 扑翼机 / 撲翼機.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-03-31T16:20:16.510" LastActivityDate="2019-03-31T16:20:16.510" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33430" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33435" CreationDate="2019-03-28T20:07:19.083" Score="1" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought about asking this on parenting.se but it seemed specialized enough that this site made more sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a white man married to a Chinese woman, living in the US. Her parents live in China and are retired (they're about 65yo), and my wife is an only child. Her mother has come over to stay with us twice for long periods to be with and help take care of our son (currently 3yo). She has been immensely helpful both times. Both her parents only speak Mandarin and their regional dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although there are some (ahem) advantages to not being able to communicate with my in-laws, I've spent considerable time trying to learn Mandarin. It's been frustrating: sometimes I should be able to understand something she's saying (i.e. I know the vocabulary) but can't because her regional accent makes some sounds different from standard. E.g. 'n' and 'l' are the same in her dialect. She can't hear or pronounce the difference between 'snow' and 'slow'. This goes both ways: my pronunciation often isn't good enough for her to distinguish what I'm saying... even though when she finally does get it and repeats it for me, it sounds exactly the same to me (ugh!). So when my wife isn't around (or just as often, gets tired of acting as translator) it would be nice for either of us to be able to write out what we're saying, phonetically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My mother-in-law's generation didn't learn pinyin. To me it seems fairly easy to learn but that's probably because the Latin alphabet is second-nature to me as a native English speaker. She can associate Chinese characters with phonemes of course, but not with Latin letters (although she can actually identify and say all the letters in the English alphabet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've asked my wife about teaching her mom pinyin, but my wife was dismissive and annoyed at the suggestion: usually something like &quot;they're too old to learn&quot;. So before I ask my mother-in-law myself if she's interested in learning pinyin so we can communicate better, I wanted to get advice from strangers on the internet. Is it reasonable to try to get her to learn pinyin? Anybody else been in a similar situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21689" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T05:19:38.567" Title="Asking Chinese mother-in-law to learn pinyin?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33415" CreationDate="2019-03-28T23:25:42.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;亲爱的&quot; is equivalent to &quot;Dear&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尊敬的 is a more respectful manner to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18313" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T23:25:42.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33415" CreationDate="2019-03-29T01:01:39.693" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;尊敬的&quot;: to your boss or leader (the person who has power and you are not familiar with)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;亲爱的&quot;: to your mother or lover, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;敬爱的&quot;: the person who teach you, guide you, and also care about you or love you. (tutor, teacher, mentor, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21690" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-03-29T01:34:00.513" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T01:34:00.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33433" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33434" CreationDate="2019-03-29T02:23:26.597" Score="2" ViewCount="317" Body="&lt;p&gt;CJK means Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Well, which organization defines the standard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T02:50:48.140" Title="Which organization defines CJK Unified Ideographs?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33433" CreationDate="2019-03-29T02:41:57.033" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.unicode.org/faq/han_cjk.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Frequently Asked Questions&lt;/a&gt; page for &lt;strong&gt;Chinese and Japanese&lt;/strong&gt; on Unicode there is a question that asks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Who is responsible for future CJK characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: The development and extension of the CJK characters is being done by the Ideographic Rapporteur Group (IRG), which includes official representatives of China, Hong Kong (SAR), Macao (SAR), Singapore, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, plus a representative from the Unicode consortium. For more information, see the &lt;a href=&quot;http://appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/%7Eirg/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;IRG home page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The IRG is very carefully cataloging, reviewing, and assessing CJK characters for inclusion into the standard. The only real limitation on the number of CJK characters in the standard is the ability of this group to process them, because the characters are increasingly obscure (no person knows more than a fraction of the set already encoded).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each region has their own &lt;em&gt;official representatives&lt;/em&gt; who helps in maintaining standards in connection with IRG.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your titled also asks about unified standards. The same FAQ above has a separate question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: What is the process for proposing new CJK unified ideographs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is answered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Newly proposed CJK unified ideographs are first submitted to the IRG through national bodies or liaison organizations, and are then assembled into a new &amp;quot;IRG Working Set&amp;quot; that goes through several rounds of detailed review and scrutiny before being approved for standardization as a new CJK unified ideographs extension. Individuals who wish to propose the encoding of new CJK unified ideographs are encouraged to work with their respective country's national body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is more or less the same: regional organizations work with IRG on these issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T02:50:48.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33430" CreationDate="2019-03-29T03:38:42.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your mother-in-law confuses n and l, it's unlikely that knowing pinyin would be enough for her distinguish those words like in standard Chinese. Just because she knows what an n or l is doesn't mean that she'll know which words are supposed to begin with what consonant. If you want her to distinguish n/l in her speech (not sure from your question whether you are), you're not just teaching her pinyin; you'd have to teach her the pinyin of &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; the n/l words, and then have her speak it that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, my parents merge s/sh, z/zh, c/ch, and n/ng. They know pinyin, and they know they confuse those sounds, but they don't necessarily know how those words are supposed to be spelled.  Plus, I've told my mom that 弄 (nòng) should not be pronounced lòng, but she does it anyway, even though she distinguishes n/l in almost all other circumstances. Old habits die hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an another analogy, let's say you are a speaker of American English and have a British friend who can't understand it when all those pesky Americans who keep pronouncing &quot;caught&quot; like &quot;cot&quot;. Would you really know whether &quot;not&quot;, &quot;naught&quot;, or &quot;nought&quot; is the one with the /ɑː/ or the /ɔː/?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to understand her better, I'd recommend just getting used to the n/l merger or whatever idiosyncratic pronunciation your mother-in-law uses. When she says n, consider if it could've been an l word, and vice versa. Have her write out the characters on a piece of paper instead of in the air. Perhaps even just have her dictate into Google Translate or Bing Translator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for how she can understand you better, consider pulling out your phone and using an IME instead of writing out the pinyin. Even if she learns pinyin, it's probably going to be a lot slower for her to read it than hanzi. When I was first learning hangeul, it took me a few months to get comfortable enough to not mix up some letters. Something with haphazardly designed letters like Latin, and something with quirky spelling conventions like pinyin, are probably going to be pretty hard to read for an elderly person. With regional dialects, she might be getting the tones or other phonemes of the word wrong too, so she might have trouble decoding what you wrote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, maybe ask your wife why she thinks her mother has trouble understanding you. Are you subtly mispronouncing the words somehow (maybe in terms of tone), or does your mother only understand a certain nonstandard pronunciation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastEditorUserId="11374" LastEditDate="2019-03-29T04:18:47.223" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T04:18:47.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33436" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-29T04:45:06.167" Score="0" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Higher Brothers' (海尔兄弟) recent song &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/i5mqA9EoCA8?t=12&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gong Xi Fa Cai&lt;/a&gt; (恭喜发财), &lt;a href=&quot;https://genius.com/Higher-brothers-gong-xi-fa-cai-lyrics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;there's a line&lt;/a&gt; that says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;恭喜你 恭喜你发财&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure they're pronouncing 你 as nie, and I've never heard it pronounced that way before. Looking through the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BD%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary page for 你&lt;/a&gt;, I don't see any dialects, Chengdu included, that pronounce it as anything like nie.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In their other song &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/4_AuNtPt-6A?t=13&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;你，我&lt;/a&gt; they're pronouncing 你 as ni as I'd expect, though it might be a different singer (can't really tell).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a pronunciation that other people actually use? Or are they just doing it for the musical effect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-03-29T05:22:12.497" LastActivityDate="2021-02-26T11:34:55.790" Title="Why is Higher Brothers pronouncing 你 as &quot;nie&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33430" CreationDate="2019-03-29T05:19:38.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say it's not reasonable to ask her to learn pinyin or even to count on pinyin as a means of communication. Even as a learner of Chinese as a second language, it is painful to try and read pinyin-only text. Reading speed in pinyin is very slow compared with Chinese character reading speed, as you end up having to sound out and repeat the words in your head to figure out what they mean — sort of like repeating a knock-knock joke until you get it. Word boundaries are also not obvious, and Chinese has many homophones that are much more easily distinguished by character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some form of Google translate usage is likely to be more helpful...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15071" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T05:19:38.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33436" CreationDate="2019-03-29T05:21:35.423" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You've got the right direction searching through Chengdu pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation here is definitely not &lt;code&gt;nie&lt;/code&gt;, but just a Sichuanese pronunciation of 你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《现代汉语方言音库 • 成都话音档》lists 你 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ȵi⁵³&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps is the combination of a /ȵ/ initial with a falling tone on the /i/ that gives it a bit of a &quot;-eh&quot; sound at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BD%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; page you mention above does hint at this as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Chengdu, SP): nyi3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;yi&lt;/code&gt; combo would give you that sound you're hearing there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T05:21:35.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33415" CreationDate="2019-03-29T13:37:15.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never used any of these starters, even at the time I used paper to write the letters and mailed them. I would start with something very simple, such as 张老师、李先生、王女士. Translating “dear” into Chinese makes me uncomfortable. I could be old-fashioned!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T13:37:15.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33425" CreationDate="2019-03-29T23:02:53.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, it has a diiferent words for variety of flying machines. In Chinese, we only use 飞机 as a general term. For example, 直升飞机(直升机), 航天飞机(spacecraft). Airplane is a type of aircraft. Aircraft could be some other machines other than airplane. So, depending on what you are really talking about, aircraft could be interpreted as 飞机(airplane), 飞行器，热气球(hot air balloons) and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T23:02:53.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33444" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33477" CreationDate="2019-03-30T02:06:27.530" Score="3" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading the Wikipedia page on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hypercorrection&lt;/a&gt;, and I noticed this particle section on Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, some speakers omit the initial [ŋ]. For instance, the character 牙 (Jyutping: ngaa4, meaning &quot;tooth&quot;), ends up being pronounced &quot;aa4&quot;. Prescriptivists tend to consider these changes as substandard and denounce them for being &quot;lazy sounds&quot; (Chinese: 懶音; Jyutping: laan5 jam1). However, in a case of hypercorrection, some speakers have started pronouncing words that should have a null initial using an initial [ŋ], even though according to historical Chinese phonology, only words with light tones (which correspond to tones 4, 5, and 6 in Jyutping) had voiced initials (which includes [ŋ]). Because of this hypercorrection, words such as 愛 (Jyutping: oi3, meaning &quot;love&quot;), which has a dark tone, are pronounced by speakers with an [ŋ] initial, &quot;ngoi3&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This lead to me to think about the pronunciation of 啱. Looking at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%95%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;entry&lt;/a&gt; on Wiktionary, it only has one pronunciation (ngaam1). It is in the first tone, but still has an ng- initial, and is the only counter-example I could find to the above paragraph. How accurate is the above paragraph from Wikipedia? If it is accurate, why is it that only tones 4, 5, and 6 that have ng- initials, and why does 啱 not follow that rule? I am also hoping that the etymology of 啱 will help explain this. I am assuming that 啱 is not the &quot;original character&quot;, and is a newly invented character due to uncertain origins. The Wiktionary entry does have some speculations, but I also am wondering if other (possibly definitive) theories exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12846" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-06-02T13:21:06.730" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T13:21:06.730" Title="Pronunciation and etymology of 啱" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33444" CreationDate="2019-03-30T02:43:58.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;that only tones 4, 5, and 6 that have ng- initials&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, it's incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for the initial &quot;ng-&quot;, there're several syllables have the tone from 1 to 6, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nga1　丫&#xA;nga2　啞&#xA;nga3　亞&#xA;nga4　牙&#xA;nga5　瓦&#xA;nga6　訝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ngaau1　咬&#xA;ngaau2　拗&#xA;ngaau3　坳&#xA;ngaau4　肴&#xA;ngaau5　咬&#xA;ngaau6　樂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ngai1　繄&#xA;ngai2　矮&#xA;ngai3　翳&#xA;ngai4　危&#xA;ngai5　蟻&#xA;ngai6　藝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ngau1　勾&#xA;ngau2　嘔&#xA;ngau3　漚&#xA;ngau4　牛&#xA;ngau5　偶&#xA;ngau6　吽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/pho-rel.php?initial=ng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/pho-rel.php?initial=ng&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the quoted wiki page, it's doubtful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-03-30T02:43:58.933" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33447" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33449" CreationDate="2019-03-30T10:50:42.620" Score="4" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, both 翼 and 翅膀 mean &quot;wing&quot;. I've heard people say &quot;雞翼&quot;, &quot;雞翅膀&quot;, &quot;固定翼飛機&quot;, &quot;鳥翅膀&quot;. All of these are wings, so what is the difference between 翼 and 翅膀? When should one be used over the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T07:21:49.063" Title="What is the difference between 翼 and 翅膀?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33447" CreationDate="2019-03-30T12:33:39.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;users recommend consulting online dictionaries noting large number of usage examples, bkrs: &lt;strong&gt;翼&lt;/strong&gt;I &lt;strong&gt;b.f.&lt;/strong&gt;（bound form !)&#xA;1) wing (双翼) ①&amp;lt;名&gt;鸟类或昆虫的翅膀。&#xA;2) flank (左翼) &#xA;examples of &lt;strong&gt;bound form use&lt;/strong&gt;: 右翼 左翼 两翼 侧翼 羽翼 机翼 不翼而飞 鼻翼 比翼 如虎添翼 极右翼 比翼齐飞 南翼 双翼 尾翼 比翼鸟 蝉翼 卵翼 水翼船 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;翅膀&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;unbound&lt;/strong&gt;！(free)① 翅通称。&#xA;② 物体上形状或作用像翅膀的部分：飞机翅膀。&#xA;某些动物用以飞行的器官或某些象翅膀的东西 鸟类及昆虫的翼&lt;strong&gt;CL:个,对&lt;/strong&gt; (naturally no CL for 翼)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-03-30T12:33:39.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33447" CreationDate="2019-03-30T12:33:50.813" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;翅膀 is a compound word only refers to actual wing attached to living creatures. Airplane's wing can only be called 機翼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翼 is a general term for wing. Beside describing all kind of wings. It can also be used metaphorically.  For example: '左翼' (left wing) '右翼' (right wing) in politic; '側翼'  (side wing) in military formations;  翼鋒 (left or right side striker) in soccer; 東翼 (East wing), 南翼(South wing), 西翼(West wing), 北翼(North wing) of a building&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot replace 翼 with 翅膀 in these examples &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-03-30T12:39:16.230" LastActivityDate="2019-03-30T12:39:16.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33450" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33453" CreationDate="2019-03-30T18:30:00.203" Score="2" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stories like both Confucius's Analects and Ying Shao's Fengsu Tonyi seem to use the characters in different ways than I've encountered so far. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, I'm currently working on translating a part of Chapter 9: Guiashen from Fengsu Tonyi:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世間多有狗作變怪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;謹按：桂陽太守汝南李叔堅，少時為從事，在家，狗人立行，家言當殺之。叔堅云：「犬馬諭君子，狗見人行，效之何傷？」叔堅見縣令還，解冠榻上，狗戴持走，家大驚，時復云：「誤觸冠，冠纓挂著之耳。」狗於竈前蓄火，家益怔忪。復云：「兒婢皆在田中，狗助蓄火，幸可不煩鄰里，此有何惡？」里中相罵，不言無狗怪，遂不肯殺。後數日，狗自暴死，卒無纖介之異。叔堅辟太尉椽、固陵長、原武令，終享大位。子條、蜀郡都尉，威龍、司徒掾。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm getting confused after the first sentence because my understanding of the words seems to be very different from what Ying Shao intended. Any tips for translating these types of stories in the future? Or any help getting started on this one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21703" LastActivityDate="2019-03-31T12:35:35.957" Title="How would a person start translating classical stories from the Han dynasty?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33447" CreationDate="2019-03-30T19:20:43.283" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;翅膀 is Modern Vernacular Chinese, while 翼 is Classical Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of Classical Latin terms used in Modern English, such as &quot;de facto&quot;, &quot;de jure&quot;, and &quot;etc&quot;. The difference between 翅膀 and 翼 is just like the difference between &quot;fear of heights&quot; and &quot;acrophobia&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;鸡翼 / 雞翼 = 鸡翅膀 / 雞翅膀 = chicken wing(s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 翅膀 is preferred to be used for living animals, such as 鸡翅膀 (chicken wings), while 翼 is more often used for aircrafts or politics, such as 机翼 / 機翼 (aircraft wings) and 左翼 (left-wing politics).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that it is mainly because technical terms are always chosen from classical words while colloquial terms are mainly chosen from vernacular words. This phenomenon also exists in English: when talking about technical terms, people choose words from Latin or Greek, such as acrophobia, pedophobia, xenophobia; when talking about colloquial terms, people choose words from English, such as fear of heights, fear of children, fear of foreigners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-04-01T07:21:49.063" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T07:21:49.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33450" CreationDate="2019-03-31T03:04:25.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;imo, the story is straightforward, and easy to compenhend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's my suggested interpretation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;世間多有狗作變怪．朴殺之．以血塗門戶．然眾得咎殃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there're many canine monsters in the world (世間多有狗作變怪)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kill a dog (朴殺之), use it's blood to paint the door (以血塗門戶); but, people would have bad luck and disaster (然眾得咎殃).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;謹按．桂陽太守汝南李叔堅．少時為從事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's a legend (謹按): the administrator (太守) of 桂陽, mr 李叔堅, whose was born in 汝南, was a 從事 (an official position) when he was young.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[name and official title were not translated]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, a more precise translation of &quot;謹按&quot; is &lt;strong&gt;&quot;cautious note&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; (謹慎+按語). however, mr 應劭 used this term so often, that; these're always part of the text, not as explanatory note of particular sentences/paragraphs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my apologies for any confusing caused :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在家．狗人立行．家言當殺之．叔堅云．犬馬諭君子．狗見人行．效之何傷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[one day] when he's at home (在家), his dog stand, and walk like a man 狗人立行. his family members said they should kill it (家言當殺之).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;he said (叔堅云): &quot;dogs and horses are metaphors of superior person (犬馬諭君子). so, our dog observe human's behaviour (狗見人行), and make replication, what's the problem? (效之何傷)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Any tips for translating these types of stories in the future&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one need certain level of competence to read classical / literary chinese; prior to make translation. the only method is read more, and more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2019-03-31T12:35:35.957" LastActivityDate="2019-03-31T12:35:35.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32763" CreationDate="2019-03-31T04:09:34.900" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the translation can be based on meaning, not actual words. The result may sound more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)&#xA;什么东西是富人没有的，穷人有的，而且比上帝还伟大？&#xA;答案：没有这样的东西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)&#xA;你会把他变得猪狗不如。or 你会把他变得一文不值。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastEditorUserId="21634" LastEditDate="2019-03-31T05:14:57.323" LastActivityDate="2019-03-31T05:14:57.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33450" CreationDate="2019-03-31T10:12:57.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, to translate you must needs first understand. A simple rendition of the words in English will not work, even if you are dealing with modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a presentation I translated the first poem  in 诗经。Must be more than 2000 years old, possibly 3000. The first verse is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;关关雎鸠，在河之洲。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;窈窕淑女，君子好逑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, 关关 is onomatopoeia, it's just 'quack quack' or some similar water fowl sound，not 'shut shut' or anything like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 窈窕淑女，君子好逑。 I wrote &quot;Fair maiden, I love thee.&quot; then 逑 is 配偶 here, want a mate, in a complex allusion to the aforementioned birds, indicating to me strong sexual attraction, which can be romantically rendered as 'I love thee'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bow to 水巷孑蠻's superlative knowledge and experience and always admire his excellent answers. However, for 謹按 I might try 'a cautionary tale', depending on the rest of the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-03-31T10:12:57.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33461" CreationDate="2019-03-31T14:20:07.413" Score="1" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;大家好，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想知道怎么说&#xA;I translate from English into Chinese.&#xA;I interpret from English into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempts：&#xA;我从英文笔译成汉语。&#xA;我从英文口译成汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm unaware of whether it is better to use cong...dao...从。。。到&#xA;I saw the use of 成 （and 译成） many times （but not 笔译成）so I think it must be in use. A confirmation would be welcome though.&#xA;So should I add 笔译成 biyi, or 口译成 kouyi ? In english it's very important to specify that I don't 翻译 only because it's too vague. Translations are always written and interpretations always oral. Please keep that in mind when giving me your answers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19189" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T06:01:55.150" Title="译成 To translate from... into" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32763" CreationDate="2019-03-31T15:01:53.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may try to settle that translation issue by seeing it from a different perspective. A daoist perspective might help, such as the use of &quot;emptiness&quot; instead of &quot;nothingness&quot;:&#xA;空/ 空性 / 空间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rich people want emptiness because they're full (they need time too)&#xA;Poor people are close to emptiness cause they don't have much and have time if they don't work. (Although A LOT / MOST poor people work though...but I say this for the translation. :D ) &#xA;Emptiness / Time / Dao is greater than everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just my 2 cents on that possible translation. Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19189" LastEditorUserId="19189" LastEditDate="2019-03-31T15:07:44.077" LastActivityDate="2019-03-31T15:07:44.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33458" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-01T00:11:23.907" Score="0" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an interview and the interviewer's name is Erjie. I'd like to be able to pronounce when I get there. Can anyone give me guidance on how to pronounce his name? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FWIW, the person is from Singapore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21712" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T02:41:03.847" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T02:41:03.847" Title="How do you pronounce Erjie?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33458" CreationDate="2019-04-01T00:46:55.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming that this person's name is spelt according to standard Mandarin Pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[jie]&lt;/strong&gt; is pronounced something like &quot;jyeh&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[er]&lt;/strong&gt;, in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;International Phonetic Alphabet&lt;/a&gt;, is &lt;strong&gt;/ˀɤɻ/&lt;/strong&gt;, made up of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_back_unrounded_vowel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;close-mid back unrounded vowel&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroflex_approximant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;retroflex approximant&lt;/a&gt;. Speaking for an American English audience,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A fair approximation of the close-mid back unrounded vowel is IPA &lt;strong&gt;/o/&lt;/strong&gt;, which is the vowel in the English word &quot;g&lt;strong&gt;o&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The retroflex approximant can be given as the consonant in the English word &quot;&lt;strong&gt;r&lt;/strong&gt;ed&quot;. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/research/gsound/Eng/Database/Phonetics/Englishes/ByWord/Word_075_red.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/research/gsound/Eng/Database/Phonetics/Englishes/ByWord/Word_075_red.htm&lt;/a&gt; and listen to &quot;Standard American&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Putting this together, and ignoring the tones, you should be pronouncing the name like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[er]&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8AOX0FssQk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8AOX0FssQk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[jie]&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m6bQVJtPT8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m6bQVJtPT8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The sound plays at about 4 seconds in both videos.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T00:46:55.000" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33460" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33465" CreationDate="2019-04-01T04:15:43.637" Score="3" ViewCount="497" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, when a lengthy document or a book is translated into different languages, will the classical Chinese be the shortest translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put in another way, if the same book is printed in different languages with basically the same font size, will the classical Chinese one be the shortest?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, for Psalm 119 from the Old Testament:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English (King James Version): 2,598 words.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;German (Hoffnung für Alle): 3,050 words.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;French (La Bible du Semeur): 2,574 words.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Japanese (聖書新改訳): 7,348 characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Korean: (현대인의성경): 7,099 characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classical Chinese (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E8%81%96%E7%B6%93_(%E6%96%87%E7%90%86%E5%92%8C%E5%90%88)/%E8%A9%A9%E7%AF%87#%E7%AC%AC%E7%99%BE%E5%8D%81%E4%B9%9D%E7%AF%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;文理和合&lt;/a&gt;)：3,417 characters. Since &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.actranslation.com/chinese/chinese-wordcount.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;each 1000 Chinese characters will usually be translated into about 600-700 English words&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, this is roughly 2,000 English words.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2021-03-27T13:59:35.507" Title="Is Classical Chinese the shortest language?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33456" CreationDate="2019-04-01T05:56:39.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you should use a dispositive marker like 将&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我将英文译成中文。 我将英文译成中文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉语 refers to spoken Chinese; for written Chinese, use 中文&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can use preposition [由 ~ 成] or [从 ~ 成] (they both mean &amp;quot;from ~ to&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我将哈利波特由英文译成中文 or simply &amp;quot;我將哈利波特译成中文&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you can omit '由英文' because we all know Harry Potter is originally an English novel&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;翻译 is the standard term for both written translation(笔译) and spoken translation (口译) -- &lt;em&gt;the terms you cited. In practice, no Chinese would use those terms&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Native Chinese would not replace 翻译/译 with either 笔译 or 口译 . We can tell it is a written translation or spoken one by looking into the context. If you say a book is translated into Chinese, you don't need to say it is written; When you say the translators in a meeting translate for the heads of state, we know they are translating orally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interpreter is called 传译員; to interpret someone's speech in real time is called 传译 or 即时传译&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T06:01:55.150" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33460" CreationDate="2019-04-01T06:10:40.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes，Classical Chinese is the shortest language（in my memory）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;classical chinese：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;关关雎鸠，在河之洲。窈窕淑女，君子好逑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;modern Chinese：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;关关鸣叫的水鸟，栖居在河中沙洲。善良美丽的姑娘，好男儿的好配偶。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;merrily the ospreys cry, on the islet in the stream.gentle and graceful is the girl,a fit wife foe the gentleman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you read the 《山海经》(Classic of Mountains and Seas or Shan Hai Jing),pre-Qin China book.you will know it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21635" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T06:10:40.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33464" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-01T09:43:51.280" Score="1" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;what is the best translation for English for the following words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;初试锋芒，渐入佳境，登堂入室，独孤求败&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For badges of game achievements&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9238" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T12:42:04.810" Title="what's the best translation for English for the following words?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33460" CreationDate="2019-04-01T13:50:01.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;it depends on the topic; style of writing, and translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[for alphabetic language, one word might contain numerous characters, while for ideographic language, one word = one character]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;when classical chinese is longer&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;traduttore, traditore&quot; (to translate is to betray) - 迻譯即背叛　⋯　2 vs 5 words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nautical terms, such as cutter, ketch, schooner; in which, one can grep its meaning and form an mental image directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in classical chinese, the word is longer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cutter - 雙頭帆小船　⋯　1 vs 5 words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ketch - 高前桅雙桅帆船　⋯　1 vs 7 words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;schooner - 高後桅雙桅帆船　⋯　1 vs 7 words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, buddhism terms, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%98%BF%E8%80%A8%E5%A4%9A%E7%BE%85%E4%B8%89%E8%97%90%E4%B8%89%E8%8F%A9%E6%8F%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;अनुत्तरा सम्यक् सम्बोधि (anuttarā samyak sambodhi) &lt;/a&gt;&#xA;- 阿耨多羅三藐三菩提　⋯　3 vs 9 words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bhūtânityatā - 諸行無常　⋯　1 vs 4 words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bhūtânātmatā - 諸法無我　⋯　1 vs 4 words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;śāntaṃnirvâṇam - 涅槃寂靜　⋯　1 vs 4 words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cbeta.kepan.org/sahant/7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://cbeta.kepan.org/sahant/7&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cbeta.kepan.org/sahant/37&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://cbeta.kepan.org/sahant/37&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;when classical chinese is shorter&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, chinese poem should be the shortest, amongst any languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;taoism related text is, also. e.g. in 周易參同契:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金伐木榮．三五與一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cutting down by metal, the wood prosperous; three, five and one. (frankly, i don't think this book is &quot;translatable&quot;; i just give a word-to-word translation here, omitting background knowledges, assumptions; and implications)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=99940&amp;amp;page=59&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=99940&amp;amp;page=59&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now, 8 classical chinese word vs 11 english words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;when a lengthy document or a book is translated into different languages, will the classical Chinese be the shortest translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, again, it depends on the topic; style of writing, and translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T13:50:01.700" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33394" CreationDate="2019-04-02T00:45:44.617" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Likely from 动使, short for 动使之物, generically referring to &quot;things&quot;, originating in 五代 to 两宋 period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The theory that it came from 东西市 in Tang Dynasty (唐) is unsupported by evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东西市 originates in Han Dynasty (汉), around one millenia earlier. But no such usage of 东西 is found in any material throughout this period. In fact, the earliest usage of 东西 as &quot;things&quot; dates to Song Dynasty (宋), long after Tang ended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A short article for reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxue.com/?p=3764&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.guoxue.com/?p=3764&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastEditorUserId="16058" LastEditDate="2019-04-02T10:53:50.163" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T10:53:50.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32763" CreationDate="2019-04-02T00:59:06.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may find workarounds in specific contexts but &lt;strong&gt;you can't generally&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having a negative indefinite pronoun with no verbal negation is in fact one quirk of European languages (crudely speaking).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the Wikipedia article about &quot;Standard Average European&quot;:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Average_European&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Average_European&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no, it's a very particular feature of certain European languages and not universal. There isn't going to be a solution for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to your general question, it depends on the translator. Many good translators try to work around the issue or reproduce the original meanings in some similar ways. But even then, there are cases when you just can't do anything about it, and either information is lost, or you see a footnote explaining roughly what's going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example: Japanese and Korean systematically mark politeness and respect, meaning basically &lt;em&gt;for every sentence&lt;/em&gt; they can specify if it is polite and/or respectful and/or humble, or the opposite of those. There's no way to reproduce that in, say, English. (E.g. if A asks B &quot;What is it?&quot; in polite forms, there's little chance that they are best friends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation is generally guaranteed to lose information most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastEditorUserId="16058" LastEditDate="2019-04-02T01:21:52.630" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T01:21:52.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33468" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33470" CreationDate="2019-04-02T07:23:22.707" Score="1" ViewCount="929" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference in the usage of 理由 vs 原因? Both seem to translate to &quot;reason.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to my understanding, 理由 is more like the rationale behind a decision, behind a move, etc. and 原因 is more like the reason for coming late, the reason for doing something? Any clarifications or suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21616" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-02T07:45:41.423" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T05:55:13.240" Title="Usage of 理由 vs 原因" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33468" CreationDate="2019-04-02T07:51:39.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;原因 is a condition that &lt;strong&gt;causes&lt;/strong&gt; an outcome or another event, such as an accident.&#xA;But is also have some means of &lt;strong&gt;reason&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;ex: We do not yet know all the 原因(causes) of blindness.&lt;BR&gt;&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;理由 is the &lt;strong&gt;reason&lt;/strong&gt; why something is done this way or that way&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;ex:&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;A: Primary and secondary schools should fully implement the teaching of mother tongue.&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;B: why? Please give three 理由(reasons).&lt;BR&gt;&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;借口 is another similar word and it has a certain emotional color, like &lt;strong&gt;excuse&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;ex: Don't make 借口(excuses) for your being late.&lt;BR&gt;&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;原因 and 理由 are often mixed in daily communication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13750" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T07:51:39.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33468" CreationDate="2019-04-02T08:02:32.600" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;理由 (logic + cause): justification; argument; reason&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原因 (origin + cause): cause; reason&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When stating a 理由 (reason) for an action, you need to explain the justification, logical argument for the action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When stating a 原因 (reason) of an action, you need to state the origin or cause of the action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;秦儈殺岳飛的理由是'莫需有'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reasons (justification) for Qin Yu  to kill Yue Fei was 'no need to state'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;He didn't have any justification so he just said it is not necessary to have one&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;秦儈殺岳飛的原因是為了迎合高宗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason (cause) of Qin Yu killing Yue Fei was he wanted to cater to the Emperor (Gao Zong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Gao Zong's father and brother were the two previous two Emperors who were captured by the enemy.  Yue Fei wanted to defeat the enemy was a good thing, but he also wanted to save the two former Emperors and bring them back home. Gao Zong cannot openly object that, but everyone knew having the former Emperors back would endanger Gao Zong's status as the Emperor. Qin Yu wanted to please Gao Zong was the cause of his action&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simpler examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;開除他的理由 The justification (reason) for him to be fired&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;開除他的原因  The cause (reason) of he being fired&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T05:55:13.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33468" CreationDate="2019-04-02T08:40:04.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;answered by online dictionaries, e.g. (excerpts from) bkrs:&#xA;理由：［reason grounds justification CL:个] 事情的道理、 根由 事情的道理 e.g. 理由不足的答辩,没有理由抱怨,有充分理由相信,他没理由抱怨你 #1636&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原因 cause origin root cause reason 1) 由于某原由而产生 2) 事态的起因 e.g. 原因和结果 成功的原因 由于这个原因 将其归之于心理上的原因 原因在于 这次冲突有着非同寻常的原因 真正的原因在于他事事要随心所欲 #577 同义: 缘故, 原故, 原委, 原由 (for English see bkrs, dictionaries show 原因 independent of human thought/argumentation,which are implied by 理由)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T08:40:04.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33473" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33474" CreationDate="2019-04-02T10:13:46.637" Score="2" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the Wiki page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%87%AA%E8%B4%A1%E8%AF%9D%E6%B0%91%E4%BF%97%E7%89%B9%E8%89%B2%E8%AF%8D%E6%B1%87%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;自贡话民俗特色词汇列表&lt;/a&gt; there's an entry that says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;毛狗：狐狸(民间因犯忌讳而改称)。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the taboo against 狐狸 (fox) though?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some relation to 狸 being a homophone with 利? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T10:33:54.943" Title="What is the taboo against &quot;fox&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33473" CreationDate="2019-04-02T10:33:54.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The taboo is just due to the general view that foxes are inauspicious/trickster/fierce animals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference 1 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://new.qq.com/omn/20171112/20171112A08Q1T.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://new.qq.com/omn/20171112/20171112A08Q1T.html&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;蜀话中的忌讳说凶恶动物&lt;/strong&gt;，例如蛇在四川话中的讳称有“梭老二”、“梭梭”、“干黄鳝”、“长虫”等，老虎在四川话中的讳称有“猫猫”、“大猫”、“大头猫”、“扁担花”等，&lt;strong&gt;狐狸在四川话中的讳称为“毛狗”，老鼠在鼠话中的讳称有“耗子”、“老水子”、“高客”、“喜马”等&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference 2 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/7890ddc05fbfc77da269b180.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/7890ddc05fbfc77da269b180.html&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;俗传狐狸成精后,会变成女人害人,故成都、重庆、南川、阆中、泸州、西充、綦江、金堂、仪陇、云阳等地改称为“毛 狗”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T10:33:54.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33475" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33478" CreationDate="2019-04-02T12:23:38.413" Score="6" ViewCount="828" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: When handwriting 黄 (huáng; yellow) is it incorrect to have a disconnected 草 (cǎo; grass) radical on top?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, this is what I have in mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cmf1v.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cmf1v.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;writing 黄 with or without a disconnected 草 radical&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the one on the left in the above image incorrect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T14:36:13.200" Title="When handwriting 黄 (huáng; yellow) is it incorrect to have a disconnected 草 (cǎo; grass) radical on top?" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33475" CreationDate="2019-04-02T12:50:09.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The character 草 was written as 艸 (combined with two 屮-s) at first, the component 早 below was added later, while the component 艹 in modern simplified Chinese is absolutely a wrong form.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The character 黄 is a simplified Chinese character, the traditional form is 黃, which is combined with 廿, 一, 田 (or 由 sometimes) and 八, there is no relationship with 艹.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The handwriting in your picture may be incorrect, I searched in Google and I didn't find any version like yours. You could changed it to 廿 (traditional form) or 龷 (simplified form).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T12:50:09.717" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33444" CreationDate="2019-04-02T13:35:16.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;So it is a general rule of thumb that any Cantonese syllable with the voiced initial consonants &lt;code&gt;ng-&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;n-&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;l-&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;m-&lt;/code&gt; plus tones &lt;code&gt;1/2/3&lt;/code&gt; is not &quot;Classical&quot;, as it violates the defining voicing-based tone split of the four tones that happened in the transition from Middle Chinese to Modern Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that 啱 is either not derived from Middle Chinese (so from a Tai-Kadai or an Austroasiatic or other non-Sinitic source), or it has gone through a more complex history that means it's only indirectly traceable to a Old or Middle Chinese lexeme (it thus &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; have a regular Old/Middle Chinese complement, which is often considered its 本字).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the world of Chinese word etymology, things have very seldom been certain. A lack of good corpus data and earliest attestations for these dialectal characters is a major reason for the current state of affairs. Not much can be said &quot;definitively&quot; at all, though we do know it is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/kangxi-zidian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kangxi Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The theories on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%95%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; seem &lt;em&gt;possible&lt;/em&gt;, perhaps even &lt;em&gt;reasonable&lt;/em&gt; (though unsourced at this point; I have found a source that points to the connection with 諳 deriving from a certain Mr 楊子靜, perhaps through his 廣州話分韻詞林), but that is all that can be said about them really. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other colloquial word that comes to mind with &lt;code&gt;ng-&lt;/code&gt; with tones &lt;code&gt;1/2/3&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1691/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;奀&lt;/a&gt;, although that has a variant with the null initial too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2019-04-03T08:39:17.967" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T08:39:17.967" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33475" CreationDate="2019-04-02T14:17:46.910" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither the PRC form「黄」nor the ROC/HK form「黃」contains「艸・艹」. The top of the PRC form「黄」is written as「龷」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HiE9r.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HiE9r.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;甲806&lt;br&gt;合集32509&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WO7NW.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WO7NW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;京津636&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0p3Zu.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0p3Zu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;耳尊&lt;br&gt;集成6007&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「黃」originally depicted a &lt;em&gt;person&lt;/em&gt;「大」with a swollen chest/abdomen as a kind of &lt;em&gt;deformity/sickness&lt;/em&gt;, indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;weak, feeble&lt;/em&gt;; a &lt;em&gt;mouth&lt;/em&gt;「口」was added to the top later, emphasising the person &lt;em&gt;sighing in distress&lt;/em&gt;. The word that「黃」originally represented is now written as「尪」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The modern descendant shapes from the above are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;ROC/HK form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;東周&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Drums_of_Qin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;石鼓&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DTmGo.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DTmGo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;汧殹&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷・臺標&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CW9Rx.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CW9Rx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷・港標&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2EQ7A.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2EQ7A.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;PRC form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/viX1h.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/viX1h.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;睡・秦34&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;東漢&lt;br&gt;隸&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oqH2q.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oqH2q.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;張遷碑&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷・陸標&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XWHCs.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XWHCs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As can be seen, there was never a「艸・艹」component in the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-04-02T14:36:13.200" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T14:36:13.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33479" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33480" CreationDate="2019-04-02T15:45:39.027" Score="2" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 上帝 is associated by many with western religions. My question is, is there any occurrence of this word in ancient chinese writings or inscriptions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21714" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T17:12:59.150" Title="How old is the usage of the word 上帝？" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33479" CreationDate="2019-04-02T15:59:47.817" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure. The sequence「上帝」can be seen in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shang Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;oracle bone inscriptions&lt;/a&gt;, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bh=10166&amp;amp;bhfl=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《甲骨文合集》10166&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/omiQi.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/omiQi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=%E4%B8%8A%E5%B8%9D&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here are some other samples in oracle bone inscriptions&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「上帝」originally meant &lt;em&gt;highest ruler&lt;/em&gt;「帝」residing in &lt;em&gt;heaven&lt;/em&gt;「上」(&lt;em&gt;above&lt;/em&gt;). Other than this meaning,「上帝」doesn't bear much resemblance to the Christian's &lt;em&gt;God&lt;/em&gt;, having nothing to do with universe creation or morality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-04-02T17:12:59.150" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T17:12:59.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33481" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-03T03:33:14.627" Score="1" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would be the correct translation for 包饺子 ?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is it a word of 3 hanzi, or just a sentence wrap...  dumplings ?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;包 is used as a verb or a name ?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Many dictionaries give &quot; to wrap meat dumpling &quot;, and 包 is also a measure word!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What about the verb to stuff ?  stuffed dumplings ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thanking you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T05:45:29.563" Title="Chinese modern vocabulary 包饺子" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33481" CreationDate="2019-04-03T03:43:24.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;包餃子 just means to &lt;em&gt;make (wrap) dumplings&lt;/em&gt; - it is not a three character word. Consider the similar phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;包傷口&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;To dress wounds&lt;/em&gt; (wrap wounds in bandages)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say &lt;em&gt;to stuff&lt;/em&gt;, you can use the verb 塡 (&lt;em&gt;to fill&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把餡料塡進火鷄裏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Put the stuffing in the turkey&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T04:26:58.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33481" CreationDate="2019-04-03T03:49:02.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many Chinese characters have multiple functions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;包 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/373/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/373/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] [v] wrap; pack; bundle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] [n] [classifier] package; bundle; sack; packet; parcel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] [n] bun (food)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[4] [v] include; contain; cover&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[5] [v] undertake; guarantee; assure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[6] [v] charter; hire; contract&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[7] [v] surround; encircle; envelop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;包 in 包饺子 is a verb for &amp;quot;to wrap&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To pack filling into bun is called &amp;quot;包饀&amp;quot; (包 is verb ; 饀 is noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'to stuff' filling into food items in Chinese is 釀 as in 釀豆腐, 釀青椒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'to fill' sausage in Chinese is 灌 as in 灌香腸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T04:06:07.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33481" CreationDate="2019-04-03T05:45:29.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While this could be construed as a construct of 包 and 饺子, I'd argue that it is a single word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt; both list 包饺子 as a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;VO&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a verb-object word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; even defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 V.O. wrap meat dumplings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 COLL. surround and annihilate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially now that 包饺子 has a phrasal usage it is more likely to be considered a single word - one with a literal meaning and one with a figurative meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T05:45:29.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33500" CreationDate="2019-04-03T06:20:27.057" Score="1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen a lot of books published near the end of the Qing dynasty where 叫 is usually always written 呌.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does seem less common during the Republic of China era, but I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When was 呌 replaced with 叫?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T08:34:28.053" Title="When was 呌 replaced with 叫?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33486" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33487" CreationDate="2019-04-03T12:06:40.663" Score="5" ViewCount="1363" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are various ways to express the verb &quot;fit&quot; in Mandarin, such as 適合，配合，對 and so on. I'm not sure which one to use when expressing sentences like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The clothes no longer fit me.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I need clothes that fit me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is that the clothes are the wrong size now, there is nothing else wrong with them. (不)適合我 seems like it could also mean &quot;I (don't) like the style&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would I even use a word like &quot;適合&quot; here, or an expression like 穿不上? Is it different if the clothes are too big instead of too small?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T12:29:00.380" Title="What is the idiomatic way to say &quot;clothing fits&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33486" CreationDate="2019-04-03T12:28:12.080" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaker and glad to help you.&#xA;In Chinese, there is a more idiomatic way to express that the clothes do not fit.&#xA;You can simply say &quot;合身&quot;.&#xA;As an example: 这件衣服不合身, 它太大(或小)了.&#xA;(Translation: These clothes do not fit me because they are too large (or small).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you use &quot;适合&quot;, a misunderstanding may occur. This word can also be used to describe how the clothes look on you. (Just as your example: you use it to say you don't like the style.&#xA;As an example: 这件衣服不适合我, 它显得太年轻了.&#xA;This means these clothes are often preferred by younger people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you say: 这件衣服穿不上&#xA;You only emphasize that these clothes are too small for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21724" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T12:28:12.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33486" CreationDate="2019-04-03T12:29:00.380" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;合身 stands for clothing fits someone's body, so the short answer is 不合身 or 尺寸不对 which stands for the size of xxx won't fit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12489" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T12:29:00.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33489" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-03T12:40:25.120" Score="4" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder if there is any research conducted in China, on the relative difficulty of Chinese speakers learning different dialects. I'm looking for something like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the research by the Foreign Service Institute&lt;/a&gt; (this is the relative difficulty of learning a foreign language for English-speakers). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm especially interested in how hard it is for Mandarin speakers to acquire Cantonese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T05:57:22.410" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T06:01:25.140" Title="Is there any study on the relative difficulty of native Chinese speakers with different dialects learning another dialect?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33464" CreationDate="2019-04-03T12:42:04.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First Shrine/First try&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Getting better at xxx/ Getting in the flow&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Next Level Profficiency&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unbeatable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12489" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T12:42:04.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33489" CreationDate="2019-04-03T12:59:39.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(This may not be a proper answer.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if there is any study about that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relative difficulty is based on learners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For nonnative speakers, they may find learning Cantonese is as difficult as learning Chinese. For Mandarin speakers who were born in the north of China, they may consider Cantonese as difficult as a foreign language. But for people who were born in Fujian Province, they may learn Cantonese easier than others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a wide variety of dialects in China. Usually, people from the same region may understand each other's dialect well. But this is not true in Guangdong Province.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For most Mandarin speakers, they may find Northeast Dialect, Henan Dialect, Tianjin Dialect and Sichuan Dialect most easy to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21724" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T12:59:39.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33493" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-03T20:08:52.263" Score="1" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 了 ever/sometimes/never omitted for past subjunctive?  What if not subjunctive; i.e., positively something did happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wohok.com gives for 没 two example sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我没买这个&#xA;我没有买这个&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and translates both as &quot;I didn't buy this.&quot;  (Could argue this is not subjunctive, but I am familiar with languages where a negative is always subjunctive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——————&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22524/what-is-the-difference-between-%E6%B2%A1%E6%9C%89v-and-%E6%B2%A1v&quot;&gt;What is the difference between 没有+V. and 没+V.?&lt;/a&gt; answers that there is no practical difference between 没有 and 没, but a comment suggests subtle differences in meaning or connotation.  (Have to translate a lot of Chinese to figure out what it is saying!) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastEditorUserId="15442" LastEditDate="2019-04-04T07:02:19.683" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T11:00:55.227" Title="&quot;I didn't buy that&quot; without 了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33493" CreationDate="2019-04-03T22:27:12.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;regarding 了 and negation note e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://human.bsru.ac.th/e-learning/@PWP%20to%20PDF/57%20PDF%20Chiness/57%20Chiness%20Nongnut%202104308.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://human.bsru.ac.th/e-learning/@PWP%20to%20PDF/57%20PDF%20Chiness/57%20Chiness%20Nongnut%202104308.pdf&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3）否定句中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;♥ 否定句中，“没”与“了”不能同时出现。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;♥ 我吃完饭了。→我没吃完饭。→*我没吃完饭了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;♥ 注意：动词前有表示一段时间的词语，句末可用语&#xA;气助词“了”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;♥ 我好长时间没看到他了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;♥ 他好久没上班了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;♥ 一年多没回家乡了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;naturally still applies to conditional clauses corresponding to English past subjunctive mood 过去虚拟语气:if I had not bought that 要是我没（有）买这个 (w/o 了）&#xA;naturally 过 is possible (要是)我没（有）买过这个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to find more articles concerning absence of 了 in negative clauses search web using e.g. 汉语语法：动态助词＂了＂ 用法与意义＋否定句，get e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cim.chinesecio.com/hbcms/f/article/info?id=3c85e3090860428da0854f5fbab24aa5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cim.chinesecio.com/hbcms/f/article/info?id=3c85e3090860428da0854f5fbab24aa5&lt;/a&gt; : (三)否定句和疑问句&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.带有表示完成的“了”的句子的否定形式是没(有)+ 谓语动词注意：在用“没”的句子里,不可以再出现“了”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.问句比较容易,用“吗”的疑问句和正反疑问句。如：他写了三个汉字吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他写没写三个汉字？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for English could google &quot;Chinese grammar: aspect particle 了: negation&quot;  get e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://intensive-chinese.blogspot.com/2012/01/used-as-aspect-particle-and-as-modal.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://intensive-chinese.blogspot.com/2012/01/used-as-aspect-particle-and-as-modal.html&lt;/a&gt; (f) If you want turn an affirmative sentence which contains the aspect particle “了” into a negative sentence, you can do so by prefixing the adverb “没有” to the verb whilst dropping the aspect particle, e.g.:&#xA;       他      吃了 晚饭 就 去 看 电影。&#xA;       他 没有 吃   晚饭 就 去 看 电影。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We should never use “不” to negate a verb in the past tense or present perfect tense. For this purpose, we use  “没有”; and when using “没有” , we also drop “了” .  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-05-05T08:27:32.300" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T08:27:32.300" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32636" CreationDate="2019-04-04T02:15:38.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;青天” normally compare to Non-corrupt officials, can't directly translate to cyan sky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21727" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T02:15:38.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-04T03:43:31.493" Score="1" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may have know 眼睛 is eyes, and 眼镜 is glasses. They sound quite similar.&#xA;I get confused when listening to someone say &quot;yanjing&quot;. I may not know what the speaker refers to, eyes or glasses. How do Chinese people distinguish these two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21599" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T03:18:21.750" Title="Distinguish between 眼睛 (Yǎnjīng) eyes and 眼镜(Yǎnjìng) glasses" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2279" CreationDate="2019-04-04T05:36:12.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could always try the good old reliable method of drills. I've been using   &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.archchinese.com/mandarin_chinese_tone_drill.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.archchinese.com/mandarin_chinese_tone_drill.html&lt;/a&gt; to help me improve my comprehension. So far I've only been using the single syllable option which free but they also have multiple syllables (haven't tried so can't vouch for it). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(PS: If anyone else has knows of sites like this please share)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21729" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T05:36:12.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33498" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33499" CreationDate="2019-04-04T06:23:18.177" Score="3" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am living in Taiwan learning Mandarin Chinese (with traditional characters). When speaking in English I try to refer to the language as Mandarin both for clarity, and because I imagine people who speak other dialects of Chinese might not like the idea that Mandarin would be considered the 'default' dialect. I'm unsure how to make this distinction in Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is two parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are non-Mandarin Chinese speakers offended by referring to Mandarin Chinese as simply &quot;Chinese&quot;? Is that a politically-fraught term?  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do I differentiate between the dialects when speaking/writing in Chinese? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. This is my first question in this group, so I apologize if I have broken a rule. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21730" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-04T07:01:32.747" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T07:15:46.353" Title="Is referring to Mandarin as just &quot;Chinese&quot; problematic?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33498" CreationDate="2019-04-04T06:49:38.313" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are non-Mandarin Chinese speakers offended by referring to Mandarin Chinese as simply &quot;Chinese&quot;? Is that a politically-fraught term?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native Cantonese speaker, I do not object people referring to Mandarin as 'Chinese' because it is the official language of Mainland China, and Most Chinese do live in Mainland China &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, Cantonese and other Chinese dialects are Chinese too. Canadian Government treat Mandarin and Cantonese as equal. When Canadian ask you &quot;do you speak Chinese&quot; and get an answer &quot;yes&quot;, they do not automatically presume you are a Mandarin speaker, they would also ask &quot; Mandarin or Cantonese?&quot;  because the population of Mandarin and Cantonese speakers are roughly the same here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do I differentiate between the dialects when speaking/writing in Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dialect is a spoken language, there are hundreds of different &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_varieties_of_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;dialects&lt;/a&gt; in China, most of them are not mutually intelligible. It is hard to differentiate between minor sub-dialects even for Chinese, I can only tell the difference between Major dialects like Mandarin and Cantonese and some Cantonese sub-dialects&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All Chinese write in one standard language system. (Standard Written Chinese - SWC) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People who speak different dialects in China are expected to communicate with each others using the official dialect Mandarin in speech and the standard written Chinese (SWC) in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Base on this practice, foreigners should be able to presume someone who speak &quot;Chinese&quot; can speak Mandarin, therefore, referring Mandarin as Chinese should not offend non-native Mandarin speaking Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-04T07:15:46.353" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T07:15:46.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33485" CreationDate="2019-04-04T08:21:59.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to know about &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.coursehero.com/file/p2ivi5k/1-In-October-of-1955-the-Ministry-of-Education-and-the-Committee-for-the-Reform/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;First Set of Variant Characters To Be Standardized&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In October of 1955 the Ministry of Education and the Committee for the Reform held two important conferences in Beijing, the National Conference on Script Reform (Quanguo Wenzi Gaige Huiyi) and the Symposium on the Standardization of Modern Chinese (Xiandai Hanyu Guifanhua Xueshu Huiyi) , the first focusing on Chinese character simplification and second on the definition of Putonghua. The first meeting resulted in the passing of the Revised Draft of the Scheme for the Simplification of Chinese characters (Hanzi Jianhua Fang’an Xiuzheng Cao’an) as well as the Draft of the List of the First Set of Variant Characters to be Standardized (Di Yi Pi Yitzi Zhengli Biao Cao’an), both of which were given full propaganda support by the CCP, the government, the People’s Daily, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original looked something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SaaC8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SaaC8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese it is now called &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E7%AC%AC%E4%B8%80%E6%89%B9%E5%BC%82%E4%BD%93%E5%AD%97%E6%95%B4%E7%90%86%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;第一批异体字整理表&lt;/a&gt; and is explained like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《第一批异体字整理表》，是1955年中华人民共和国文化部和中国文字改革委员会发布的正体字选字表，原来有810组，淘汰异体字1,055个（但“妳”、“粇”二字分别出现两次），于1956年2月1日开始实施。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list contains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fnVaL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fnVaL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There you have it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;叫［呌］&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These regulations seem to have come into place on February 1st of 1956.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-04T08:34:28.053" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T08:34:28.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33501" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-04T12:59:39.070" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 華誕 and 誕辰 are more respectful ways of saying 生日 (birthday).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 華誕, I have seen: &quot;最高元首華誕&quot;, &quot;蘇丹華誕&quot;, &quot;日本皇華誕&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 誕辰, I have seen: &quot;國父誕辰&quot;, &quot;先知默罕默德誕辰&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, within a text, I see 華誕 being consistently used for the birthday of a particular person, and 誕辰 being used exclusively for the birthday of another person. So I wonder: is there a convention for selecting one over the other for particular &quot;types&quot; of people, or is selection completely arbitrary and always interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T16:10:03.740" Title="What is the difference between 華誕 and 誕辰?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33503" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33511" CreationDate="2019-04-04T23:35:01.647" Score="4" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West in English (using the translation by Anthony C. Yu, don't know enough language to understand the source) and there seems to be a recurring theme of using the elements for characters and (maybe) their interactions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, I keep seeing &quot;mother of wood&quot; (meant for Pig, from context)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example in Chapter 63:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;When the mother of wood was taken by the water monster&#xA;The mind−ape did not flinch from a difficult rescue. &#xA;One used his secret skills to open the locks; &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and further on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;The yellow−wife blindly joined in the prostration, &#xA;While the mother of wood foolishly agreed. &#xA;The monsters used force to oppress the true nature; &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;And hosts of sages helped to wage the fight. &#xA;The mother of wood suffers for showing mercy. &#xA;Determination moves the yellow−wife. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is mother of wood meaning? Yellow-wife?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At another point (quote missing) the demon that punches his nose to make fire, he is said to &quot;arrange the carts of elements in a pattern&quot; before doing so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a feature of the language that is lost in translation (a pun I can't understand), or does it have some aspect of symbolism (like Monkey as &quot;mind-ape&quot;)&#xA;I would be sad to miss out on an interesting layer of the text due to that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry if this is the wrong site to ask in, I hesitated between Literature and here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21735" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T11:32:44.003" Title="Journey to the West: &quot;Mother of wood&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33496" CreationDate="2019-04-04T23:53:59.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In different city or province people have very different pronunciations, we call it &quot;方言&quot;(dialect),so I don't know the situation in other cities, I'm a beijinger,I can tell how beijingers distinguish these  two words.眼睛 the last word 睛 will be light reading, but 眼镜 the last word 镜 will be normal reading, otherwise,beijingers used to add a &quot;er&quot; pronunce in some specific words ,such as眼镜er,but 眼睛 has no 'er' pronunce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21736" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T23:53:59.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33496" CreationDate="2019-04-05T00:37:43.100" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;普通话&lt;/strong&gt; see e.g.bkrs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眼睛 &lt;strong&gt;yǎnjing&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;CL:只[zhī],双[shuāng]&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;context e.g.擦亮眼睛,眼睛发花,眼睛的错觉,闭上你的眼睛,... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眼镜 &lt;strong&gt;yǎnjìng CL:副[fù]&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;context e.g.一副新眼镜,戴眼镜,摘下眼镜,把眼镜忘在家里,眼镜蛇,...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T00:37:43.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33506" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33512" CreationDate="2019-04-05T01:13:36.877" Score="2" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got an answer from the internet but cannot make too much out of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My biggest issue is 蓍蔡. A search reveals this to mean &quot;a person of high moral standing&quot; or some sort of big turtle. So I am not quite sure what to do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20732" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T06:11:45.433" Title="What does &quot;明微推远，憭若蓍蔡&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33507" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33509" CreationDate="2019-04-05T03:04:32.183" Score="2" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;晴雯死了。宝玉祭文。黛玉听见了。宝玉说，”有什么不妥的地方，还请你替我修改修改。“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宝玉写的是：红绡帐里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黛玉说，”何不说 ‘茜纱窗下’“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 茜 just 红色? Or is it what the window screen is made of? Is it 芦苇?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T05:02:08.013" Title="What is 茜 in the phrase 茜纱窗下?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33496" CreationDate="2019-04-05T03:18:21.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can distinguish from its pronunciation, there're four tones in Chinese &quot;PINYIN&quot;, the first, the second, the third and the forth. 睛 is the first tone, 镜 is the forth tone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21737" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T03:18:21.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33507" CreationDate="2019-04-05T03:59:45.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt; defines 茜纱 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;qiànshā&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  red yarn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes, 茜 = 红 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;David Hawkes English translation in &lt;em&gt;The Story Of The Stone Volume 3&lt;/em&gt; reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;rosy-misted casement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yang Hsien-Yi &amp;amp; Gladys Yang's translation in &lt;em&gt;A Dream of Red Mansions Vol. 2&lt;/em&gt; reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;madder-gauze window&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems as if H. Bencraft Joly never translated this portion of the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-05T05:02:08.013" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T05:02:08.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33501" CreationDate="2019-04-05T04:33:10.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;都是一个意思，一般华诞表示国家的生日，是很美妙的事件。诞辰没有华诞那么宏大美好，但也有赞美的意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21738" LastEditorUserId="21738" LastEditDate="2019-04-05T14:32:38.003" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T14:32:38.003" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33503" CreationDate="2019-04-05T08:53:28.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;comparing the original text, with the english version you provided; i would say, most meanings, details and metaphors are lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the scenario that &amp;quot;mother of wood&amp;quot; was caught, and recused by &amp;quot;mind ape&amp;quot; is paragraphs 9 - 11 &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/xiyouji/ch63/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ctext.org/xiyouji/ch63/zh&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rant about the translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the mother of wood was taken by the water monster&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the monster is a (nine-heads reptile &amp;quot;九頭蟲&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One used his secret skills to open the locks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, the &amp;quot;mother of wood&amp;quot; was tied on the pillar (那獃子綁在柱上). later, mind-ape cut the rope by bite (行者四顧無人，將拑咬斷索子叫走). no locks lah.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;such translation, is like, &amp;quot;middlemarch&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;pride and prejudice&amp;quot; in 500 words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what is mother of wood meaning? yellow-wife?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;first of all, the book &amp;quot;journey to the west&amp;quot; is full of taoism metaphors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, there're two main groups of taoism, alchemist (外丹) and internal alchemy (內丹). further, over thousands of years, there're many sects, which explain taoism literatures in completely difference ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yellow-wife should be &amp;quot;黃婆&amp;quot;, a more precise term should be yellow matchmaker (黃 + 媒婆). the metaphor is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a matchmaker let males and females to get married, intercoursed, producing offsprings. he/she should never be part of the &amp;quot;children production&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yellow matchmaker (黃婆) means the element earth (土), which has the colour yellow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kanripo.org/text/KR5i0059/001?query=%E7%9C%9E%E5%9C%9F%E5%8F%88%E5%90%8D%E9%BB%83%E5%A9%86#001-01p040a&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;悟真篇闡幽&lt;/a&gt;, stated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;眞土又名黃婆&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;調水火而和金木者也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the original text is longer, with more metaphors. here's a brief explanation for beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the yellow matchmaker (黃婆) is to mediate between other four elements: water, fire, metal and wood; it do nothing by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;back to the journey to the west, the third disciple (沙僧) always was the mediator between the first and second disciple. that's why the author assigned the nickname yellow matchmaker (黃婆) to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what is mother of wood meaning? yellow-wife?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mother of wood is 木母, this nickname is assigned to the second disciple (豬八戒). i can't get the rationale at this moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;frankly, if you have knowledge of taoism, this book is more funny :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T08:53:28.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33506" CreationDate="2019-04-05T09:12:59.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My interpretation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;明微推遠，憭若蓍蔡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[his words are] clear (明), precise (微), incredibly profound (推遠), as wise (憭) as that of (若) the most renowned and famous (蓍蔡)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the reference definition for「蓍蔡」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;漢語大詞典&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;比喻德高望重的人。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;明　張居正　《少師存齋徐相公七十壽序》：＂天下方以公為蓍蔡，何可一日無也。＂&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;明　陸深　《溪山餘話》：＂公和易，不事邊幅，喜為後生輩談論講說，終日不倦……所謂國家之蓍蔡，若人是已。＂ &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;清　褚人穫　《堅瓠秘集・守龜》：＂古人目老成人，則曰國之蓍蔡。＂ &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-04-09T06:11:45.433" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T06:11:45.433" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33506" CreationDate="2019-04-05T09:13:28.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the 國語辭典 has the entry &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000127368&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;蓍蔡&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, which stated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比喻有先見之明的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly, as a metaphor of &quot;person with foresight&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;上稽天時．下測物變．明微推遠．憭若蓍蔡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;understand the tinniest (明微), able to predict long time ahead (推遠); smart (憭．慧也) as (若) any persons with foresight (蓍蔡)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QjAxMTg4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QjAxMTg4&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T09:13:28.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33514" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33521" CreationDate="2019-04-05T10:48:55.537" Score="1" ViewCount="485" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the right way to say &quot;what a coincidence&quot; when I see a friend? Like for example if I see a friend at a shopping mall by coincidence do I say &quot;真巧呀&quot; or &quot;真巧合呀&quot;? Or is there any better way to phrase the sentence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T12:59:20.660" Title="Translation for &quot;what a coincidence&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33515" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33516" CreationDate="2019-04-05T11:01:11.507" Score="3" ViewCount="543" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this sentence and the translation is roughly &lt;code&gt;&quot;I'm a little tired of him.&quot;&lt;/code&gt; but I'm curious as to what purpose 过 serves here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I right to think that &lt;code&gt;我有点过厌他。&lt;/code&gt; also means &lt;code&gt;&quot;I'm a little tired of him.&quot;&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20231" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-05T11:07:18.530" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T05:29:53.080" Title="What does the 过 mean in 我有点过厌他?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33515" CreationDate="2019-04-05T11:10:48.070" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am sure it is a typo &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有点过厌他 should be  我有点讨厌他 (I am a little bit disgusted with him/ I am kind of hating him)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讨厌 = disgusted with; hate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;过厌 makes no sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In traditional Chinese characters, you wouldn't confusing 過(过) with 討(讨) so easily&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-05T11:18:29.867" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T11:18:29.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33515" CreationDate="2019-04-05T11:24:35.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我有点过厌他 literally，&quot;a little too tired of him&quot;  see online dictionaries, esp. bkrs: 过 IV&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 过分; ; 过于; 太甚 [excessive]&#xA;以其境过清, 不可久居, 乃记之而去。 --唐·柳宗元《至小丘西小石潭记》&#xA;古者天下之人爱戴其君, 比之如父母; 拟之如天, 诚不过也。 --清·黄宗羲《原君》&#xA;(2) 又如: 过爱(过分的爱); 过余(过分); 过头话(过分的大话)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;maybe 讨厌 would make better sense, and be much more common&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-04-05T11:33:34.853" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T11:33:34.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33503" CreationDate="2019-04-05T11:32:44.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;木母 (&quot;mother of wood&quot;) in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Five Elements (五行) Theory&lt;/a&gt; corresponds to &lt;em&gt;water&lt;/em&gt;, and the phrase is actually a Taoist alchemist's reference to the liquid (water-like) metal, mercury.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese zodiac considerations match the pig to the Earthly Branch (地支) 亥, which has the correspondence 阴水 (contrast this with the monkey!) and the Trigram 坎.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Water is also associated with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jing_(Chinese_medicine)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;精, essence&lt;/a&gt;, in Chinese medical theory, appropriate for Zhu Bajie's particular weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relationship between Zhu Bajie and Sun Wukong, and the role of the &quot;Yellow-wife&quot; Sha Wujing as mediator, has its parallels with Taoist alchemical theory (specifically the 三要 Three Essentials of internal alchemy) and the Buddhist Three Jewels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T11:32:44.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33519" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-05T12:11:59.823" Score="0" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a wonderful print that I inherited that has two seals on it. I am completely at a loss on how to find out what artist they are referring to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/54wOn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/54wOn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21741" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-04-05T12:30:32.633" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T12:31:56.543" Title="Can anyone read Seal Script? I’m completely stuck" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33519" CreationDate="2019-04-05T12:31:56.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;㥁(德)不在遠 (&lt;em&gt;virtue is not far&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;陽春煙景 (&lt;em&gt;a warm spring and misty/foggy scenery&lt;/em&gt;, meaning &lt;em&gt;beautiful scenery&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't believe these are artist names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T12:31:56.543" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33514" CreationDate="2019-04-05T12:59:20.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;真巧啊&quot; or &quot;好巧啊&quot; is enough for the situation you care about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21742" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T12:59:20.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33501" CreationDate="2019-04-05T16:00:46.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, &quot;華&quot; is simply a word-beautifier. That is, &quot;華誕&quot; is a &quot;beautified&quot; version of &quot;誕辰.&quot; People would normally use &quot;誕辰&quot; in spoken language when referring to the birthday of someone (might have already died and) held in reverence, whereas &quot;華誕&quot; is more likely to appear in written language or the title of the event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I see 華誕 being consistently used for the birthday of a particular person, and 誕辰 being used exclusively for the birthday of another person. Is there a convention for selecting one over the other for particular &quot;types&quot; of people?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not think so. I think it is more likely that each organizer picked the word for their own events (or holidays,...etc.) and stuck to the names. Or it could be the preference of the writer (or journalist,...etc.) if such convention is not established.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21066" LastEditorUserId="21066" LastEditDate="2019-04-06T16:10:03.740" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T16:10:03.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33523" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-05T18:47:35.943" Score="1" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see Chinese-Chinese definitions which re-use the characters of the word.  For example, 领导 defined as 动：带领并引导大家开展工作. If I already knew 带领 and 引导 then I probably could guess 领导, so it's not very helpful.  In English, the &quot;rule&quot; is that you never use the word in the definition. Are there any rules or features of Chinese-Chinese dictionaries that can help me in situations like these? Should I be looking up the individual characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T02:56:46.130" Title="Chinese-Chinese dictionary definitions re-using characters from the word" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33523" CreationDate="2019-04-05T22:21:22.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;带(lead) + 领(lead) = &lt;strong&gt;带领&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;to lead&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;引(guide) + 导(guide) = &lt;strong&gt;引导&lt;/strong&gt;: &quot; &lt;strong&gt;to guide&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;领(lead)+ 导(guide) = &lt;strong&gt;领导&lt;/strong&gt;: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;to lead and guide&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;领导 contains the meanings of both  带领 and 引导, I don't see anything wrong with the definition using 带领 and 引导. Yes, both 带领 and 引导 repeated one character from 领导, but they are unique compound words on their own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is ok. as long as the dictionary doesn't use the exact compound word in the definition like 领导(v): 领导&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is unavoidable for many different compound words to have a common character among them, you have to look at the whole compound word instead of looking at the two characters individually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The examples below all contain '正' (correct, positive, straight, upright....) but each compound word containing '正' would have very different meaning to each others&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;正直 = honest&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;正確 = correct&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;正常 = normal&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more thing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;领导(动)：带领并引导大家开展工作&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The definition should just be: &quot;带领并引导&quot; (to lead and guide)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;领导大家开展工作 would be a good example sentence &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-06T02:56:46.130" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T02:56:46.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33525" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-06T08:50:35.083" Score="0" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does &quot;以&quot; have the same meaning in the following sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;敗義&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;求生， 豈荀巨伯所行邪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;志士仁人 無求生&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;害仁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20663" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-07T05:01:07.900" LastActivityDate="2019-04-07T05:01:07.900" Title="&quot;以&quot; in &quot;敗義以求生， 豈荀巨伯所行邪&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33525" CreationDate="2019-04-06T09:09:04.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &amp;quot;敗義[&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;]求生， 豈荀巨伯所行邪&amp;quot;,  '以' functions as  &amp;quot;to&amp;quot; in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;commit immoral act [&lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt;] survive, isn't something I (荀巨伯) would do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;it makes no sense to interpret  it as &amp;quot;commit immoral act with attempt of surviving&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &amp;quot;志士仁人 無求生[&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;]害仁&amp;quot;, '以' functions as &amp;quot;with&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;by&amp;quot; in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;principled and kind person, would not try to survive &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; immoral act&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;principled and kind person, would not try to survive &lt;strong&gt;by&lt;/strong&gt; committing immoral act&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;it makes no sense to interpret  it as &amp;quot;trying to survive to commit immoral act&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T20:34:09.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33527" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-06T09:15:02.440" Score="0" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese there are a lot of conjunctions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;与,和,就,跟,同,并,及,乃(廼迺),而,也,共,又,亦,且,兼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all of which are usually and lazily translated as English &quot;&lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt; I wonder which of those glyphs is definitely exclusively &quot;&lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; and not &quot;&lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Apendix:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between &quot;and&quot; and &quot;with&quot; can be seen in the example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A and B go to school.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; can go withiout &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt; or with it. &#xA;It's a statment that &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; go to school, &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt; goes too, but it's not implied that they do it TOGETHER holding hands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A with B go to school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, here it's stressed that they do it &lt;strong&gt;together&lt;/strong&gt; and not alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result &quot;with&quot; is more specific than &quot;and&quot;. &quot;And&quot; can include &quot;with&quot; but not vice-versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2019-04-07T13:48:57.750" Title="Which is &quot;with&quot; and which is &quot;and&quot; in 与,和,就,跟,同,并,及" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33394" CreationDate="2019-04-06T11:03:24.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;there are two explanation. one is &quot;West/East market&quot;. The other is about 五行. 东 is woods and 西 is metals，东西means entities that is not imaginary. no one knows which is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21607" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T11:03:24.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33529" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33556" CreationDate="2019-04-06T11:45:30.693" Score="3" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know a few words for &quot;thing“， including 东西 and 事情. I've looked online, and haven't found any other commonly used words, or indication of when to use which. Are they the same? Is one more formal than another? Is there a better, more formal word I should use? Or is the word &quot;thing&quot; just not used a lot in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对不起，我的中文不好！这是我最好的翻译。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我知道一些办法说“东西”或者“事情”的意思。我查资料在网上的时候，不会找到了其他字（除了东西和事情以外），也没找到了什么时候应该用”东西“或者”事情“。是一样的吗？一个是比较正式的吗？还是中国人就不常用“事情”或者“东西”的意思？谢谢大家！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T13:08:13.007" Title="Words for &quot;thing&quot;? Different usages? 办法说“事情“或者”东西“？用的时候是一样的吗？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33530" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33536" CreationDate="2019-04-06T11:58:26.270" Score="4" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to write a recipe in Chinese, in which I'd like to be able to say something along the lines of &quot;first, one must...&quot; (I know , since a recipe is more informal, I could probably use &quot;you&quot; and be fine, but I'd like to know &quot;one&quot; for future reference). I've tried putting various sentences into online translators (eg &quot;one must wait in line&quot;, &quot;one should be kind&quot;, etc.), and they either drop the subject completely or use &quot;一个人“ as the subject. Is that correct? It sounds somewhat strange to me to either drop a subject in formal writing or just use 一个人, but I'm definitely not a native speaker. &lt;strong&gt;How would I express the idea of &quot;one&quot; as the subject of a sentence?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T22:22:30.877" Title="&quot;One&quot; (eg. one must) in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33531" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33575" CreationDate="2019-04-06T12:05:35.590" Score="5" ViewCount="481" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently taking a Chinese class with native speakers, and one criticism I've gotten a lot on my writing is that I use “和” way too much. I understand that Americans say &quot;and&quot; more than would be culturally appropriate in China, but my teacher has recommended I take out &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; ands, including in lists (eg. 这家餐馆有水饺、米饭，&lt;strong&gt;和&lt;/strong&gt;面条 --&gt; 这家有餐馆水饺、米饭、面条。). It sounds strange to me not to use &quot;and&quot; at al, but again, not a native speaker. &lt;em&gt;Should I just use something like 而且 instead and avoid 和，or just try as hard as I can never to use &quot;and&quot;, even in lists? Or do Chinese people use &quot;和“ more than my teacher seems to indicate? Also, is there a difference between writing and speaking in the matter?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: feel free to add a Chinese translation! I wasn't sure on quite a few words and phrases and figured it'd be better to call in some outside help on this one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorUserId="18760" LastEditDate="2019-04-21T07:42:56.520" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T01:30:10.053" Title="Do Chinese people not use &quot;和&quot;?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33530" CreationDate="2019-04-06T12:09:55.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;“one” can be translated as 一个人，but usually that translation is not literary enough I think. You can translate it as “顾客” （client ）in this situation.  If  this word is used in hospital，“病人” is though to be a better translation.  Therefore，the proper translation is related to the situation you are in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17747" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T12:09:55.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33529" CreationDate="2019-04-06T12:32:13.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;如果你用的thing指的是一件物品，那么thing的意思就是“东西”，如果你用的thing指的是事情，那么thing的意思是“事情”或者“事件”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21738" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T12:32:13.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33988" CreationDate="2019-04-06T16:42:27.787" Score="5" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my understanding, 反切 is presented in the format &lt;code&gt;XY 切&lt;/code&gt;, where a pronunciation of a character is determined from the inital of &lt;code&gt;X&lt;/code&gt; and the rime of &lt;code&gt;Y&lt;/code&gt;. However, there are still some points that are unclear to me I hope others can help clarify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It seems that sometimes, the tone from &lt;code&gt;Y&lt;/code&gt; does not seem to match with the end product. For instance, 東 has the 反切 of &lt;code&gt;德紅切&lt;/code&gt;, but based on the above principal, I would expect the reading to be &lt;code&gt;dong2&lt;/code&gt;. However, the actual reading is &lt;code&gt;dong1&lt;/code&gt;. Why does this happen? I'm assuming it has something to do with what the tones of these characters were in Middle Chinese, and that they shifted in modern varieties of Chinese. If that is the case, is there straightforward or general mapping of tones in Middle Chinese to tones in Modern Chinese? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are also some instances where the initial of &lt;code&gt;X&lt;/code&gt; and the rime of &lt;code&gt;Y&lt;/code&gt; don't create valid syllables. 浹, &lt;code&gt;子協切&lt;/code&gt;, would produce some sound like &lt;code&gt;zie2&lt;/code&gt;, even though that isn't a valid syllable in Mandarin. What happens in cases like these? Wiktionary also states that the expected sound is &lt;code&gt;jie&lt;/code&gt; (no tone listed), when the character is pronounced &lt;code&gt;jia1&lt;/code&gt; (PRC) or &lt;code&gt;jia2&lt;/code&gt; (ROC). Is there an explanation for cases like these where the expected sound is different from the current pronunciation?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do the answers from the above two points also apply to other varieties of Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12846" LastEditorUserId="12846" LastEditDate="2019-04-06T17:08:25.540" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T10:46:37.023" Title="Using 反切 to determine readings of characters in modern varieties of Chinese" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33534" CreationDate="2019-04-06T17:16:48.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English page on Wikipedia for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fanqie&lt;/a&gt; explains this phenomenon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Effects of sound change&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The method described the pronunciations of characters in Middle Chinese, but the relationships have been obscured as the language evolved into the modern varieties over the last millennium and a half. Middle Chinese had four tones, and initial plosives and affricates could be voiced, aspirated or voiceless unaspirated. Syllables with voiced initials tended to be pronounced with a lower pitch, and by the late Tang dynasty, each of the tones had split into two registers (traditionally known as yīn 陰 and yáng 陽) conditioned by the initials. Voicing then disappeared in all dialects except the Wu group, with consonants becoming aspirated or unaspirated depending on the tone. The tones then underwent further mergers in various varieties of Chinese. Thus, both the changes in both the initial and the tone were conditioned each other, as represented by different characters in the fanqie pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the characters of formula 東 [tuŋ] = 德 [tək] + 紅 [ɣuŋ] are pronounced dōng, dé and hóng in modern Standard Chinese; thus, the tones no longer match. That is because the voiceless initial [t] and the voiced initial [ɣ] condition different registers of the Middle Chinese level tone, yielding the first and the second tones of the modern language. (The pinyin letter d represents the voiceless and unaspirated stop [t].)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That effect sometimes led to a form of spelling pronunciation. Chao Yuen Ren cited the example of the character 强, which had two readings in Middle Chinese. It could be read as [ɡjɑnɡ] in the level tone, meaning &amp;quot;strong, powerful&amp;quot;, which developed regularly into the modern reading qiáng. However, it could be read also as [ɡjɑnɡ] in the rising tone, meaning &amp;quot;stubborn&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;forced&amp;quot;. The regular development would be for the voiced initial [ɡ] to condition the yang register of the rising tone, becoming the fourth tone of modern Chinese and for the rising tone to condition an unaspirated initial. Thus, jiàng would be expected, and this does occur in the sense &amp;quot;stubborn&amp;quot;, but the character also has the unexpected pronunciation qiǎng for the sense &amp;quot;forced&amp;quot;. Chao attributed that to the fanqie formula 强 = 其 [ɡi] (level tone) + 兩 [ljɑnɡ] (rising tone) given in dictionaries. Here, the first character is now pronounced qí because in the level tone, the voiced initial becomes aspirated, but the second character is now pronounced liǎng. That is because in the rising tone, sonorants like [l] conditioned the yin register, which led to the modern third tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T17:16:48.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33530" CreationDate="2019-04-06T22:22:30.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whereas in German the use of 'man' (= one) is still common, not many English speakers (except maybe Elizabeth R) use 'one' anymore, they say 'you' instead. That's what you can do in Chinese too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One must pay attention in class.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你（们）在课堂上应该集中注意力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or use nothing in an imperative sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One must pay attention in class.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在课堂上应该集中注意力。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One must pay attention to the traffic signs.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;开车一定要注意交通标识。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't go randomly using 一个人, though in the right context that could work too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T22:22:30.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33531" CreationDate="2019-04-06T22:45:40.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strange question! Of course Chinese people use 和。Just not in all the places you might use 'and' in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't see anything wrong with your sentence. 这家餐馆有水饺、米饭和面条。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a list you should use the 顿号，this fella: “、” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2加2等于4 &#xA;2 and 2 are 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;better and better&#xA;越来越好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm tall and thin, he's short and fat.&#xA;我又高又瘦，他又矮又胖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T22:45:40.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33538" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33540" CreationDate="2019-04-07T01:45:48.410" Score="5" ViewCount="1348" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google Translate says &lt;strong&gt;job offer&lt;/strong&gt; is 工作機會.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn't feel right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you say job offer in Cantonese and Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T05:00:53.833" Title="How to say job offer in Mandarin/Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33539" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-07T02:27:31.840" Score="1" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;In formal writting in Chinese, should we write&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;事情已经过去了一万二千三百四十五天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;事情已经过去了12345天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;事情已经过去了12,345天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is considered more standard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T15:15:38.097" Title="Chinese numerals or Arabic numerals?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33538" CreationDate="2019-04-07T02:37:24.277" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Job offer' is a noun.  It means 工作提案 in literal sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;聘用提案&lt;/strong&gt; (hiring offer) world be a better Chinese counterpart&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can also use a more literary term '邀聘' [invite to a job(v); job invitation (n)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大飯店開張要大量招聘各部門員工&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening of a grand hotel requires hiring of a large number of employees in various departments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(招聘 means calling for people to apply for the positions)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而行政總廚一職我想邀請XX酒店的大廚擔任&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I want to invite the head chef of XX Hotel to serve as the executive chef.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(邀請 means 'to invite')&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但XX酒店的大廚對這個&lt;strong&gt;邀聘&lt;/strong&gt;看法又如何？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how the head chef of XX Hotel thinks of this  &lt;strong&gt;job invitation&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;邀聘 as a verb means 'invite to a job' (邀請受聘)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;邀聘 as a noun means 'hiring invitation' (聘用邀請)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(This job is only offered to you, we are not opening this position to the public)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最後XX酒店的大廚接受了我們的&lt;strong&gt;邀聘&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the head chef of XX Hotel accepted our &lt;strong&gt;job invitation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最後XX酒店的大廚接受了我們的&lt;strong&gt;聘用提案&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the head chef of XX Hotel accepted our &lt;strong&gt;job offer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;side note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, 'hotel' is '酒店' , 'head chef' is 大廚 or 頭廚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, 'hotel' is '飯店' , head chef' is 總廚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-07T05:13:33.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33539" CreationDate="2019-04-07T04:44:28.110" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In formal writing in Chinese, should we write 事情已经过去了一万二千三百四十五天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only when you are writing in vertical writing format -- from top to bottom, right to left in columns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7PuUX.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7PuUX.gif&quot; alt=&quot;vertical writing format&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for horizontal writing format like English, when we see sentence like &quot;My phone number is 001-2000-110&quot; we would read it as &quot;my phone number is zero zero one- two zero zero zero- one one zero&quot; but we would never write it that way. The same is true in Chinese if you write horizontally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-04-07T04:44:28.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33543" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33544" CreationDate="2019-04-07T05:41:07.673" Score="4" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;In currency exchange booths, and in conversation, I've noticed this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;US dollar = 美元, 美金.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hong Kong dollar = 港幣&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Japanese Yen = 日元&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Singapore dollar = 新幣&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Euro = 歐元&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also 英鎊 for the pound sterling, but I understand where that comes from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 元 (圓), 幣, and 金? Is there a rule for using one over the other? Or is usage based on historical and/or personal preferences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've personally never seen anyone use &quot;日幣&quot;, &quot;歐金&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastEditorUserId="20826" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T00:04:19.570" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T00:04:19.570" Title="What is the difference between 元 (圓), 幣, and 金?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33543" CreationDate="2019-04-07T06:22:18.067" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;元/圓 (dollar) is a unit of money, 澳洲元/圓 = Australian Dollar; 美元/圓 = US Dollar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;圓 is the correct character, 元 is a sound-alike shorthand&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japan only use 圓, therefore, 日圓 = Japanese Yen &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幣 means 'coin' , referring to currency, 人民幣(People's coin) = China's currency; 新台幣 (New Taiwan coin) = Taiwan's currency&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is correct that choosing 圓 or 幣 mostly based on historical or personal preferences. Historically 圓 is more colloquial, general public would refer foreign coins as 圓; while 幣 is more formal and literary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calling 美元 as 美金 is a unique case. No other country's currency is called 金.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back in the days when US tried to make US dollar the common currency of the world thus enable America to gain control of the world trade, they announced US dollar's value will be hooked with America's gold reserve . It meant America could only issue the amount of currency with equal value of gold in reserve. That effectively made US dollar as trust worthy as gold. American dollar was in effect, American gold. They could do that because at that time they had the largest gold reserve in the world. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays it is no longer the case, US dollar no longer hooked up with gold's value, it is now based only upon the trust on America's economy &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong people also use 紙 (as in 銀紙, meaning banknote) colloquially to refer to currency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加紙, 加圓 and 加幣 all refer to Canadian currency &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;港紙, 港圓 and 港幣 all refer to Hong Kong's currency&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-08T02:32:54.023" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T02:32:54.023" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33534" CreationDate="2019-04-07T11:58:25.437" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sound shift&lt;/em&gt;, although an important factor, is not the primary reason that &lt;em&gt;Fanqie&lt;/em&gt; doesn't fully work for determining the sound of characters in modern varieties of Chinese. In actuality, &lt;em&gt;Fanqie&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; fully worked for &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt; variety of Chinese, modern or ancient. This is because the phonology recorded in rime dictionaries wasn't for any particular language, but at the very outset was a compromise between Northern and Southern varieties - that is, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt; was itself artificial, never being a natural language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　昔開皇初，有儀同劉臻等八人，同詣法言門宿。夜永酒闌，論及音韻，以今聲調既自有別，諸家取捨亦復不同。吳楚則時傷輕淺，燕趙則多傷重濁；秦隴則去聲為入，梁益則平聲似去。又支、脂、魚、虞共為一韻；先、仙、尤、侯俱論是切。欲廣文路，自可清濁皆通，若賞知音，即須輕重有異。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　呂靜《韻集》、夏侯該《韻略》、陽休之《韻略》、周思言《音韻》、李季節《音譜》、杜臺卿《韻略》等各有乖互。江東取韻，與河北復殊，因論南北是非，古今通塞，欲更捃選精切，除削疏緩；蕭顏多所決定。魏著作謂法言曰：「向來論難，疑處悉盡，何不隨口記之。我輩數人，定則定矣。」法言即燭下握筆，略記綱紀，博問英辯，殆得精華。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　於是更涉餘學，兼從薄宦，十數年閒，不遑修集。今返初服，私訓弟子，凡有文藻，即須明聲韻。屏居山野，交遊阻絕，疑惑之所，質問無從。亡者則生死路殊，空懷可作之歎。存者則貴賤禮隔，以報絕交之旨。遂取諸家音韻、古今字書，以前所記者，定為《切韻》五卷。剖析豪氂，分別黍累，何煩泣玉，未得縣金，藏之名山。昔怪馬遷之言大，持以蓋醬，今歎楊雄之口吃。非是小子專輒，乃述群賢遺意，寧敢施行人世，直欲不出戶庭。于時歲次辛酉，大隋仁壽元年。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;—— &lt;strong&gt;陸法言《切韻・序》&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Some time ago, during the first year of the&lt;/em&gt; 開皇 &lt;em&gt;era, I was host to&lt;/em&gt; 劉臻 &lt;em&gt;and seven other ministers&lt;/em&gt; (蕭該, 顏之推, 盧思道, 李若, 辛德源, 薛道衡, and 魏彥淵)&lt;em&gt;. After an evening of joyous drinking and feasting, the discussion turned to the subject of phonology.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The sounds of previous eras and the other geographical regions are different, and the subject had different schools of discipline: the&lt;/em&gt; 吳楚 (southern) &lt;em&gt;topolects were light and gentle; the&lt;/em&gt; 燕趙 (northern) &lt;em&gt;topolects were heavy and thick; the&lt;/em&gt; 秦隴 &lt;em&gt;topolects&lt;/em&gt; (now around &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaanxi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shaanxi&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gansu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gansu&lt;/a&gt;) &lt;em&gt;read the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8E%BB%E8%81%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;departing tone&lt;/a&gt; as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checked_tone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;checked tone&lt;/a&gt;; the&lt;/em&gt; 梁益 &lt;em&gt;topolects&lt;/em&gt; (now around &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sichuan&lt;/a&gt;) &lt;em&gt;read the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B9%B3%E8%81%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;level tone&lt;/a&gt; as the departing tone. Some schools treat&lt;/em&gt;「支」&lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt;「脂」&lt;em&gt;,&lt;/em&gt;「魚」&lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt;「虞」&lt;em&gt;with the same rhyme; some treat&lt;/em&gt;「先」&lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt;「仙」&lt;em&gt;,&lt;/em&gt;「尤」&lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt;「侯」&lt;em&gt;with the same initial. If one wished to indulge in a wide variety of literature, then one can personally interchange light and heavy sounds; however, if one wished to understand phonology, then one must clearly differentiate them.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The subject matter given in&lt;/em&gt; 呂靜《韻集》&lt;em&gt;,&lt;/em&gt; 夏侯該《韻略》&lt;em&gt;,&lt;/em&gt; 陽休之《韻略》&lt;em&gt;,&lt;/em&gt; 周思言《音韻》&lt;em&gt;,&lt;/em&gt; 李季節《音譜》&lt;em&gt;,&lt;/em&gt; 杜臺卿《韻略》 &lt;em&gt;and others were all different to the point of being contradictory. The phonology of&lt;/em&gt; 江東 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiangnan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jiangnan&lt;/a&gt;) &lt;em&gt;is completely different to that of&lt;/em&gt; 河北 (northern regions)&lt;em&gt;. Thus, we discussed differences between the northern and southern topolects and between past and present, leading on to the choice of a precise and refined phonology standard, freed from clumsy and inelegant representations of sound, with many of the choices made by&lt;/em&gt; 蕭該 &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; 顏之推. 魏彥淵 &lt;em&gt;later wrote to me: &amp;quot;That was a challenging discussion, but the most difficult of problems have been solved. Why don't you record the results of our conference? We'll treat the points that we have agreed upon as the established rules&lt;/em&gt; [of phonology]&lt;em&gt;.&amp;quot; Holding a brush under the candlelight, I proceeded to summarise the phonological rules decided, the studious questions asked, and their incisive responses of that evening, attempting to capture their quintessence.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Over the next ten to twenty years, the knowledge established that evening underwent ceaseless additions from knowledgeable scholars and officials. Today, I've regressed to my roots, and have taken on students; as long as they compose works, they must understand the rules of phonology. I'm living among the mountains; ceasing to travel on far journeys for academic pursuits, the questions that I harbour have no place to be discussed. As for the old friends and colleagues of mine: those who have long since passed away, I impossibly wish for their resurrection; and those who are still alive have gone down different paths in their lives, and I wish to sever ties with them. From the phonological studies taken from the different schools and literature on the subject matter from the past to present, the body of knowledge amassed is composed into the five volumes of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qieyun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qieyun&lt;/a&gt;. Minute differences are stressed and fine details are emphasised, whilst not being obstinate and conceited&lt;/em&gt; [in its opinions]&lt;em&gt;. It is truly an illustrious composition, worthy as a treasured legacy for many generations. I previously criticised &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sima_Qian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sima Qian&lt;/a&gt; for the veneration of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Records_of_the_Grand_Historian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;his own work&lt;/a&gt;, but now I'm fond of teasing those who gaze on, open-mouthed in awe&lt;/em&gt; [at such grand creations]&lt;em&gt;. However, I don't dare to presume the work's propensity towards widespread popularity, and only wish  for it to be used within the households.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Preface to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qieyun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qieyun&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, by 陸法言&lt;br&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;辛酉 &lt;em&gt;year,&lt;/em&gt; 仁壽 &lt;em&gt;era of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sui Dynasty&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-07T12:11:59.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32377" CreationDate="2019-04-07T12:29:11.147" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To make it simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忍受不住 you need to have a verb &quot;忍不住(要)看电视/打游戏&quot; &quot;忍不住哭了出来&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;忍受不了 you need to have a noun &quot;忍受不了噪音&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I won't say people never use &quot;忍不住诱惑/疼痛&quot;,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but strictly speaking, it should be &quot;禁不住/抵御不了诱惑&quot; and &quot;承受不了疼痛&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Less importantly, it's more natural to use 忍不住 rather than 忍受不住，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but 忍受不了 (slightly more formal) or 忍不了 both sounds fine to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(edited with examples)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21758" LastEditorUserId="21758" LastEditDate="2019-04-08T15:11:00.780" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T15:11:00.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33531" CreationDate="2019-04-07T12:46:55.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;这家餐馆有水饺，米饭和面条&quot; sounds much more natural to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned &quot;而且&quot;， it's not identical to &quot;和&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;而且&quot; is used to connect sentences, usually in pair with &quot;不仅&quot;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这家餐馆不仅有水饺，而且有面条&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally use &quot;还&quot; more frequently than &quot;而且&quot; in this case：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这家餐馆不仅有水饺，还有面条&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That sounds better to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21758" LastActivityDate="2019-04-07T12:46:55.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33527" CreationDate="2019-04-07T13:31:02.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some characters need to have the meaning in combinations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与,和,同 is similar, you can say &quot;我与你一起去&quot;， or &quot;我和你&quot;， &quot;我同你&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;和&quot; is most frequent. &quot;与&quot; is slightly formal.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;同&quot; sounds like literature or ancient Chinese, but you can still use it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Here &quot;一&quot; also means &quot;together&quot; but you can only use it in &quot;一起&quot;， &quot;一同&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;unless you are writing ancient Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;跟&quot; means follow. &quot;我跟你去&quot; you can think it as &quot;and&quot;, but it's more like follow.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's also used as together orally, but &quot;follow&quot; is the source of the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也，亦 are more used as conj. mainly for &quot;same&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can use &quot;你去，我也去&quot; or &quot;你去，我亦去&quot;, but &quot;亦&quot; sounds very ancient&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;而且&quot; is usually used together as prep. or conj., to connect facts:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;这杆笔便宜而且好用&quot; &quot;这杆笔便宜而好用&quot; &quot;这杆笔便宜且好用&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就，乃，共 is mainly used in ancient Chinese as &quot;and&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Frequently in ancient Chinese， 就 means approach and 乃 means then&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They are still uncommonly used as &quot;and&quot; even in ancient Chinese&lt;br&gt;&#xA;共 usually means share or total， it's sometimes used &quot;and&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but &quot;共同&quot; is used in modern Chinese as adv.， usually formal: &quot;我和你共同前往&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兼 is mainly used as prep. to connect titles in modern Chinese, meaning &quot;also&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;及 is usually formal, and used as prep. in third person: &quot;李雷（以）及韩梅梅参观了学校&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make it short:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;和 -&gt; and prep.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;而,且 -&gt; and conj.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;兼,也,亦 -&gt; also&lt;br&gt;&#xA;跟 -&gt; follow&lt;br&gt;&#xA;及,与 -&gt; with&#xA;同,一,共 -&gt; together&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21758" LastEditorUserId="21758" LastEditDate="2019-04-07T13:48:57.750" LastActivityDate="2019-04-07T13:48:57.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33529" CreationDate="2019-04-08T02:22:06.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;thing has means of &quot;东西” and “事情”， while you point to goods it means &quot;东西”， while you point to matter it means &quot;事情”。 It's used widely in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21737" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T02:22:06.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33539" CreationDate="2019-04-08T03:41:02.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you write horizontally, it should always be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;事情已经过去了12345天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you write vertically, it should always be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;已&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;经&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;万&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;二&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;千&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;百&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;四&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;十&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;五&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T03:41:02.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33552" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33553" CreationDate="2019-04-08T04:59:50.530" Score="7" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I registered to a running tracker app. The app required me to fill some personal information and two of them were my 体重 (weight) and 身高 (height).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder why one uses 体 while the other one uses 身. Both can mean &amp;quot;body&amp;quot; but I just wonder why it isn't 体高/身重.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could somebody please explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T22:57:55.503" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T22:57:55.503" Title="Why is &quot;weight&quot; = 体重 and why is &quot;height&quot; = 身高?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33552" CreationDate="2019-04-08T05:47:51.790" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;身高 is short for 身體高度&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;體重 is short for 身體重量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;身體 can be shortened to either 身 or 體&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, 身重 and 體高 are also legitimate shortened forms of 'body weight' and 'body height' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially 體高-- it is the proper term for describing the height of non-human object. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 體高 in &quot;高達體高18米&quot; (Gundam's height is 18M) is the correct term, because Gundam is a machine, not a person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We use 身高 and 體重 far more often than 身重 and 體高 when describing a human's height and weight, eventually, no one use 身重 and 體高 to describe a human's height and weight anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-08T05:52:53.853" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T05:52:53.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17345" CreationDate="2019-04-08T09:24:07.097" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes,「声」represented the word now written as「磬」(&lt;em&gt;stone chimes&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「声」was originally part of「殸」(&lt;em&gt;stone chimes&lt;/em&gt;), and this character later became「磬」. Later on, people began cutting off the components from「聲」(&lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt;) to use「声」as a shorthand for「聲」(&lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt;), but「磬」and「聲」represented different words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「聲」(&lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt;) is comprised of「殸」(&lt;em&gt;stone chimes being struck&lt;/em&gt;) and「耳」(&lt;em&gt;ear&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EGGFC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EGGFC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;前&lt;/a&gt;7.42.1&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=8613&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集8613&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c6lBo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c6lBo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;鎛&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HChcD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HChcD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KSBNj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KSBNj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「声」depicts &lt;em&gt;stone chimes&lt;/em&gt;「石」suspended with &lt;em&gt;threads/string&lt;/em&gt;. In「殸」, &lt;em&gt;a hand holding a striking implement&lt;/em&gt;「殳」was added to emphasise that the instrument is meant to be struck. Finally, another semantic「石」(&lt;em&gt;rock, stone&lt;/em&gt;) was added on to「殸」, as a further emphasis that the instrument was made of stone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the modern form, the &lt;em&gt;threads&lt;/em&gt; used for suspending the chimes is written as「士」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ExxHL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ExxHL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乙&lt;/a&gt;3212&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=13505&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集13505&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jPIRK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jPIRK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;乙1277&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=376&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集376&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IzJot.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IzJot.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;己侯貉子簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=3977&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成3977&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty#Eastern_Han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xN1AF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xN1AF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;景北海碑陰&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EPJ6m.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EPJ6m.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「石」was originally a depiction of &lt;em&gt;stone chimes&lt;/em&gt;, and its original meaning is &lt;em&gt;stone, rock&lt;/em&gt;. A &lt;em&gt;distinguishing symbol&lt;/em&gt;「口」was added later to mark the name of an ancient region called「石」, and is inherited in the modern form. The &lt;em&gt;stone chimes&lt;/em&gt; component was later simplified into「厂」, then the strokes were further altered slightly into「丆」, resulting in the modern shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/search_source.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中華語文知識庫・漢字源流&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-04-09T07:21:12.183" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T07:21:12.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33529" CreationDate="2019-04-08T12:54:31.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;事情: an abstract noun, means things, or matter, event.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;事情进展怎么样了？&lt;br/&gt;How it the thing/matter going?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这件事情你怎么解释？&lt;br/&gt;How do you explain the thing/event?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东西: a concrete noun, means things, or stuff, goods.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;东西太贵了，我们负担不起。&lt;br/&gt;The things/goods are so expensive that we could not afford.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;集市上有各种各样的东西。&lt;br/&gt;There are a varieties of things/stuff in the market.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T12:54:31.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33529" CreationDate="2019-04-08T13:08:13.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;「事情」refers to an &lt;em&gt;event&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;situation&lt;/em&gt;. I wouldn't translate it as &lt;em&gt;thing&lt;/em&gt;; the only situation where &lt;em&gt;thing&lt;/em&gt; is an acceptable translation is something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他辦事情去了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;He went to take care of something&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &lt;em&gt;something&lt;/em&gt; could have easily been substituted with &lt;em&gt;a situation&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I disagree with the other answers here; there are several things that are abstract but  which can be referred to as a「東西」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感情是個很奇怪的東西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Emotions are a very strange thing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot replace this with「感情是個奇怪的&lt;strong&gt;事情&lt;/strong&gt;」, which doesn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T13:08:13.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33539" CreationDate="2019-04-08T13:12:36.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;事情已经过去了一万二千三百四十五天。 Vs  事情已经过去了12345天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of formality, I would say the first one (事情已经过去了一万二千三百四十五天) is more formal. That's what I was taught from school. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T13:12:36.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33558" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-08T13:37:24.267" Score="3" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the time, I've only heard of 敌人 = enemy, in TV shows and dramas. Yesterday I saw the word 冤家  in a folk song which apparently also means enemy in the dictionary. So I was wondering what's the usage or differences of 敌人 and 冤家? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T04:21:38.597" Title="敌人 vs 冤家 difference" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33558" CreationDate="2019-04-08T14:26:47.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess is that 敌人 is your enemy. 冤家 is your family and who is working against your wish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T14:26:47.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33558" CreationDate="2019-04-08T14:44:23.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;most dictionaries do not give a single translation, but a number of them plus examples showing difference,e.g. bkrs: &lt;a href=&quot;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E5%86%A4%E5%AE%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E5%86%A4%E5%AE%B6&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(1) [enemy; foe]&lt;/strong&gt;∶死对头, 指有冤仇的人&#xA;冤家相见, 分外眼红&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(2) [one's destined love]&lt;/strong&gt;(in opera)∶称给自己带来痛苦而又不舍抛弃的似恨而又实爱的人&#xA;这一干风流冤家, 尚未投胎入世。 --《红楼梦》 freq.rank #17757 (敌人 #1669) syn. &#xA;examples:做冤家对头 冤家路狭&#xA;冤家路窄 同义(2): 对象, 朋友, 情人, 情侣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T14:44:23.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33558" CreationDate="2019-04-08T14:46:13.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;「敵人」is straightforward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「敵」means &lt;em&gt;enemy, opponent&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「人」means &lt;em&gt;person&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「冤家」is made from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「冤」(&lt;em&gt;crooked, unjust&lt;/em&gt;; cf. 「冤枉」)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「家」(&lt;em&gt;suffix used after a noun to specify a type of person&lt;/em&gt;; cf.「人家」,「老人家」)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「冤家」literally means &lt;em&gt;someone who has treated you wrongly&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are circumstances where「冤家」can mean the same thing as「敵人」, like for two opposing bitter enemies who want to exact revenge on each other. There must be an element of「仇」(&lt;em&gt;hatred&lt;/em&gt;) for them to be interchangeable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「敵人」can mean &lt;em&gt;rival, competitor&lt;/em&gt; (like in a game or business), but you cannot use「冤家」for this meaning. There is no「仇」in this circumstance.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「冤家」can also mean &lt;em&gt;someone who doesn't treat you fairly, but is dear to you &gt; lover&lt;/em&gt;. I guess the implication was originally that your closest family/lover/friends sometimes treat you unjustly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-04-08T20:06:54.463" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T20:06:54.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33558" CreationDate="2019-04-08T22:53:30.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;敌人 means &amp;quot;enemy&amp;quot; in general (someone you have to defeat or eliminate for any reason)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仇人/ 仇家/ 仇敌 means &amp;quot;hated enemy&amp;quot; (someone became your enemy by wronged you in a heinous way from your point of view)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冤家 also means &amp;quot;enemy&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;foe &amp;quot;, e.g. 冤家對頭 (natural enemy/ foe) . Before the modern era, France and England for hundreds of year were 冤家對頭 (natural enemy) to each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one thing worth mentioning-- the term '冤家' is often used to describe 'sweetheart' or 'destined love' in opera&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冤家 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/57933/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/57933/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;enemy / foe / (in opera) sweetheart or destined love&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The origin of this usage came from the fact that Chinese believe in reincarnation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have a saying: &amp;quot;無仇不成父子; 無冤不成夫妻&amp;quot; (&lt;em&gt;People became father and son only because they were hated enemies in their former lives; people became husband and wife only because they wronged each other in their former lives&lt;/em&gt;).  '冤家' in effect is short for '前世冤家' (enemies from former life = the ones who are fated to be couple in this life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even the ancient Chinese knew the one closest to you, is the one who can torture you the worst.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays people commonly use the term '冤家'  for 'couple at odd' or 'couple in conflict' in day to day speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欢喜冤家 (amusing enemies) -- couple who love and hate each other (deep down they are more in love than hating each other )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鬦气冤家 (at odd enemies) - a loving couple that fight, argue and try to one up each other often&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;俏冤家 (lovely enemy)- someone you are in conflict with but can't really hate her/ him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T03:24:24.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33531" CreationDate="2019-04-09T07:45:03.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;和 comes from old verb &quot;to mix two things into one&quot;. From &quot;to mix&quot; 和 developed meaning &quot;with&quot; and &quot;and&quot;. But the old meaning still lingers there, that's why 和 can't be used in some situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老板喜欢咖啡和茶。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;works like charm cause you literally can &quot;mix&quot; coffe and tee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天和明天都可以吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the same here.&#xA;but &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;*我去了超市和买了水果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- not good. WHat are you &quot;mixing&quot;? &quot;market&quot; and &quot;buying&quot;? Noun and verb? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about而且:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;且 means 'further'. It was used as a future tense marker in old Chinese, just like 'will' is used in English.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;而 is a subordinate conjunction. That is, it serves functions of 'but, and, where, who, when ect.' thus subordinating one sentence clause to the other. But how one should translate 而 is unknown (to me at least), it's quite volatile in it's meaning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;而且 means &quot;further than this&quot;, 'but more' or 'even more'. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 而且(even more) and 和 (to mix) are quite different in their meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="11754" LastEditDate="2019-04-09T22:32:56.053" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T22:32:56.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33531" CreationDate="2019-04-09T15:45:13.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from an announcement of the state council.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;省、自治区、直辖市人民政府，国务院各部委、各直属机构：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　经国务院批准，现将2019年元旦、春节、清明节、劳动节、端午节、中秋节和国庆节放假调休日期的具体安排通知如下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice in the first line when listing the receivers, there is no 和 at the end. But in the second line when listing the holidays, there is 和 connecting the last two. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So both are perfectly fine and feel free to use whatever you are happy with. Of course if you are writing long essays, you might want to have more variations in the style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T15:45:13.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33538" CreationDate="2019-04-10T05:00:53.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;colloquially most people just say &quot;offer&quot; instead of trying to translate it. In formal documents it may say 录用信/录用函.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19053" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T05:00:53.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33515" CreationDate="2019-04-10T05:29:53.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;the right meaning should be 我有点受不了他 ,  tired of  somebody means &quot;对 somebody 受不了/厌烦/讨厌/闹心&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21781" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T05:29:53.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33552" CreationDate="2019-04-10T09:01:28.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;身 is the main part of your body. 体 is the whole body.&#xA;身 should not include your arms. Think about that if you put up your hands over your head, you becomes higher but that is invalid because arms are branch of your body.&#xA;体 includes all your part of the whole body. So 体重 includes the weight of all parts of your body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, even if you say 身重/体高. We can also understand the meaning, just feel a little strange. So it's just a habit. Maybe in the ancient, they are different and everyone think 身高/体重 is correct. Now even we don't distinguish them, we still say 身高/体重 but no one knows why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21783" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T09:01:28.393" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33279" CreationDate="2019-04-10T09:02:31.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English,maybe some medical terminology doesn't applied in daily,but in Chinese most mdeical terminologies are not hard to understand，so they are commonly used in oral Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21784" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T09:02:31.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33531" CreationDate="2019-04-10T15:52:29.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The , before 和 can be removed, it looks more natural for native&#xA;这家餐馆有水饺，米饭和面条&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can use 及 to replace 和&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21786" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T15:52:29.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33573" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-10T20:44:09.340" Score="3" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I am trying to figure out whether I can only say 你 呢？or whether I can add to that and say 你 爸爸 和 妈妈 呢？If the second option works, it would be nice to know!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21788" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T10:25:36.087" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T10:25:36.087" Title="Is this a correct way to use 呢？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33573" CreationDate="2019-04-10T21:21:55.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depend on the context, [(noun) + 呢] could mean &amp;quot;how about (noun)?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;where is (noun)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你&amp;quot; is a noun and &amp;quot;你爸爸和妈妈&amp;quot; is a noun phrase. Both can be turned into a shortened question by adding the final particle &amp;quot;呢&amp;quot;. Therefore,  saying &amp;quot;你爸爸和妈妈呢?&amp;quot; to ask &amp;quot;how about your father and mother?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;where are your father and mother?&amp;quot; is no difference from saying &amp;quot;你呢?&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;how about you?&amp;quot; in grammar structure (&lt;em&gt;The question can't be &amp;quot;where are you&amp;quot;, since I am talking to you, I know you are here with me&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;呢 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1029/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1029/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[1][final particle] used mostly to make a shortened question by repeating only some element of a previous question&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;為什麼祇有你來了? 你爸爸和妈妈呢? (Why only you come here? Where is your father and mother?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;說什麼無親無故? 你爸爸和妈妈呢? (What are you talking about having no family or friends? How about your father and mother?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;怎會沒人幫他? 你呢? (How could no one helping him? How about you?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;怎會沒人幫他? 你爸爸和妈妈呢? (How could no one helping him? How about your father and mother?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, [(noun) + 呢] could be a shortened question by omitting the actual question, presuming people would understand what is being asked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大家都同意了, 你呢? (Everyone agrees, how about you?) is the shortened form of &amp;quot;大家都同意了, 你呢? &lt;em&gt;你同不同意&lt;/em&gt;?&amp;quot; (Everyone agrees. How about you? &lt;em&gt;Do you agree?&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Since 同意了 is mentioned in the sentence, we can presume asking 你呢? is asking 你(同不同意)?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T01:08:07.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33531" CreationDate="2019-04-11T04:39:39.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is from my personal understanding only!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;And&quot; in English may be used to join words, phrases and sentences, but &quot;和&quot; in Chinese should be used only to join words to be used for listing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;而且&quot; is used to join sentences, similar concepts together for reinforcement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are sentences specifically made for &quot;和&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我今天和明天都可以。 I am available on today and tomorrow.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我可以跑步和游泳。 I can run and swim.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and for &quot;而且&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我今天可以，而且我明天也可以。 I am available on today, and I am also available on tomorrow.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我可以跑步，而且我也可以游泳。I can run, and I can also swim.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, when you write, make the sentences concise. But when you are speaking, and would like to add additional information on the spot, make sure not to use the wrong word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few more examples that use neither &quot;和&quot; nor &quot;而且&quot;. Because the sentences are not similar concepts to be reinforced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I went to the supermarket to buy drinks, and met Li.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去超市買飲品時，遇到了李。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He said a joke and I could not hold the laughter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他說了個笑話，然後我就忍不着笑。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He pulled me aside, and told me a story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把我拉到一邊，然後跟我講了個故事。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastEditorUserId="11486" LastEditDate="2019-04-17T05:07:47.590" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T05:07:47.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33576" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33580" CreationDate="2019-04-11T09:07:53.480" Score="3" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;The beginning of &lt;em&gt;Press-Ganging Able-Bodied Men&lt;/em&gt;《抓壮丁》has the following passage filled with three consecutive lines starting with left tortoise shell brackets (〔) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GdtSo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GdtSo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and transcription:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;〔中秋节前一天。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  〔一个暴发户，货高利货，大斗进小斗出，盘剥起家的地主的堂屋。（如在广场演出，只要一张桌子，四根板凳或椅子就行了。）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  〔开幕时，李老拴坐在桌前抽水烟，一边唱着《江油关》。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find it especially interesting that the brackets don't close, i.e.: you don't see the opposite facing tortoise shell bracket (〕) close off the sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What role do these &quot;〔&quot; brackets play here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T18:33:19.213" Title="What usage do left tortoise shell brackets (〔) play in plays?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33577" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33579" CreationDate="2019-04-11T12:22:26.047" Score="2" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this question is somewhat unclear since the word &lt;em&gt;shi&lt;/em&gt; 是 never &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; meant &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt;, but carries (and has done so for a long time) several meanings.&#xA;The Gu Hanyu da cidian (via Pleco) lists some of them (not a direct quote; the numbers denote the century of the sources that the example sentences were taken from):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;正確(5)；訂正(3)；以爲是(-4)；表示肯定或加強肯定之詞(-3) etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But very generally speaking, &lt;em&gt;shi&lt;/em&gt; was used in the language of the Lunyu (which I call here Classical Chinese) to denote »this« rather than any of its other meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when did &lt;em&gt;shi&lt;/em&gt; start to mainly have the meaning as a copula that it has today, &lt;em&gt;to be&lt;/em&gt;, as in »She is a student«, »Those are books«?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T16:51:14.313" Title="When did the meaning of shi 是 shift from »this« (此) to being a copula (»be«)?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33531" CreationDate="2019-04-11T12:47:34.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think, as a Chinese myself, I tend to use 还有，跟，还是more when speaking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21791" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T12:47:34.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33577" CreationDate="2019-04-11T16:51:14.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quote from the 2017 paper &quot;Some New Insight into the Historical Source of the Chinese Copula Shì/*deʔ 是 &quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wang (1937) claims that there was no genuine copula in the Chinese language until the emergence of the copula &lt;em&gt;shì&lt;/em&gt; / *deʔ 是 around the 5th century — a dating he later modified to the 1st century (Wang 1958) — evolving from the demonstrative shì. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the general consensus, and this idea has been established for the best part of 80 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there is the statement that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[S]ome later studies, especially those based on excavated materials (Qiu 1979; Tang 1991), argue that the copular use of &lt;em&gt;shì&lt;/em&gt; starts from the Warring States period (475–221 BCE). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Li and Thompson (1977) is the classic source for citing this well-trodden pathway cross-linguistically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;TOPIC - COMMENT &gt; SUBJECT - PREDICATE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[NP1] - [&lt;strong&gt;DEM&lt;/strong&gt;] [NP2] &gt; [NP1 &lt;strong&gt;COPULA&lt;/strong&gt; NP2]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2017 paper quoted says that 是 was always somewhat atypical as a demonstrative, always having had anaphoric reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T16:51:14.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33576" CreationDate="2019-04-11T18:25:38.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you are reading is a play script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is one of the common ways to mark non-dialogue lines in the script with &quot;〔&quot; or &quot;[&quot; ahead of the line. So in this case it's not actually functioning as half bracket, but rather just a head mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20982" LastEditorUserId="20982" LastEditDate="2019-04-11T18:33:19.213" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T18:33:19.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33581" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33582" CreationDate="2019-04-11T18:31:22.857" Score="2" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the abbreviation of “相同意思的词” “同义词” instead of “同意词”？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T10:27:30.167" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T10:27:30.167" Title="Why “相同意思的词” is called “同义词” instead of “同意词”？" Tags="&lt;abbreviations&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33581" CreationDate="2019-04-11T18:39:00.440" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;同义词 = 相&lt;strong&gt;同&lt;/strong&gt; 定&lt;strong&gt;义&lt;/strong&gt;(definition) 的&lt;strong&gt;词&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;aka words with same definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why 同意词 isn't used, I cannot find any authoritative source, however I believe it's mainly to avoid conflict with the word 同意 (v. agree, n. agreement).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20982" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T18:39:00.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33558" CreationDate="2019-04-12T00:46:06.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;敵人 is a extensive word meaning someone that opposes you. However, they can also be your friends, as shown in the idiom 亦敵亦友, which means someone who is your enemy while being your friend.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;冤家 is someone who hates you very much. He might have hatred towards your whole family (世仇). However, it can also be a nickname lovers use to refer to their other half.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;These are the differences between 敵人 and 冤家.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T00:46:06.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33584" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-12T04:39:29.440" Score="2" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;The body (身) is only one inch (寸), which should mean &quot;矮&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Throwing (委) the arrow (矢), which should mean &quot;射&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is wrong here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T07:08:30.957" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T18:44:19.763" Title="The meaning of “射” and “矮”?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33584" CreationDate="2019-04-12T05:39:30.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;射 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/xs/5C04.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/xs/5C04.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uzI2G.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uzI2G.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) (本作“射”。会意。金文字形,象箭在弦上,手(寸)在发放。&lt;strong&gt;小篆把弓矢形讹变成“身”字,误。&lt;/strong&gt; 本义:用弓发箭使中远处目标)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;射 is a 会意字 (ideogrammic compound character)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 寸  part in 射 was originally a pictograph of hand (手)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 身 part in 射 was originally a pictograph of bow (弓) and arrow (矢), &lt;strong&gt;it was mistakenly changed into 身 when the character evolved to 小篆 style&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;矮 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/sw/77EE.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1f/sw/77EE.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DXMF6.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DXMF6.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;短人也。从矢委聲&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;矮 is a 形声字 (phono-semantic compound character)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 矢 part in 矮 was originally a pictograph of an arrow head, that represents short stature (arrow head is short compare to all other pointed weapon); the 委 part is the phonetic component of the character, it is there for the sound, and the actual meaning of 委 is irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T05:52:42.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33584" CreationDate="2019-04-12T05:44:32.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at modern forms of characters and trying to analyze them for their meaning doesn't always work out. If you are planning to go deeper into these studies you might want to try out &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.outlier-linguistics.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Outlier Linguistics&lt;/a&gt;' Dictionary. You can see their analysis of the two characters you're asking about below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Outlier&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;矮&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FORM&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  矮 ǎi is composed of 委 wěi (also wēi) and 矢 “arrow,” hinting at the original meaning “to be of short stature.” 委 gives the sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Reference&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  李學勤，2012《字源》，天津：天津古籍出版社，2013年7月2次印刷。p. 473&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;射&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FORM&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ancient form:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HVZU0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HVZU0.png&quot; alt=&quot;射&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  射 was originally a bow (弓) and arrow (矢) being drawn by a hand (寸), depicting the original meaning “to shoot an arrow.” &#xA;  Over time, 弓 and 矢 merged together and were corrupted into 身.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Reference&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  李學勤，2012《字源》，天津：天津古籍出版社，2013年7月2次印刷。p. 471&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the original reference material outlier translated above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《字源》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;矮&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;形声字。从矢，委声。本义为身材短。《说文》：“矮，短人也。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;射&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;shè 船纽、铎部;船纽、祃韵、神夜切。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  yè 喻纽、铎部;以纽、祃韵、羊谢切。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;会意字。像矢(箭)在弓弦上将射发之形。《说文》：“䠶，弓弩发于身而中于远也，从矢，从身。”又说：“&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pv2a2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pv2a2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;，篆文䠶，从寸。寸，法度也，亦手也。”商代文字偶见繁形，像一人两手拉弓射箭形。一般商周文字射字则省去“人”，只作弓上注箭形。西周文字或作一手(又)拉弓射箭形。战国文字“射”形变，“弓”、“矢”二者不再互相配合为象形字，而是相并立;“弓”不再用象形字，改为简省形并且成为偏旁;“矢”字倒书并加短横，或虽正书而形变较大。秦简中“弓”又被讹作“身”，“又”则被加一短画成为“寸”。汉代隶书显然受秦文字的影响而定型。射用做动词，义为射箭，多见于商代田猎卜辞。 《粹》 1018：“王其射鹿，(擒)。弗。”或指祭祀之射牲。《粹》314：“于且(祖)丁[]。于父己。于父甲。其射。”做名词用时， “射”指官名或射手。 《粹》15：“贞：令多射䢍。”西周金文“射”指射箭。长甶盉：“穆王鄉(饗)豊，即井(邢)白(伯)大祝射。”西周有“司射”之官。静簋：“王令静司射學宫。”静盖任“射人”官职。战国文字“射”字通“夜”，《包山楚简》 138有“坪射公”，“坪射”，地名，读为“平夜(舆)”。《春秋·桓公九年》“射姑”，《史记·鲁周公世家》作“夜姑”，可证。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T07:10:20.610" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T07:10:20.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33587" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33589" CreationDate="2019-04-12T06:35:25.970" Score="2" ViewCount="413" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Liang Qichao‘s 新民說 there is the chapter 公德，wherein he cauterizes the ostensible tendency of the Chinese to disregard collective virtue (公德) and only cultivate personal virtue (私德).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那些只顾自己闷头做好人的人，强调自己虽然没为集体带来利益，但也没带来祸害。这是什么话？难道不知道对集体没好处的人就是有坏处的人吗？为啥这样说呢？因为集体能给我带来利益，而我却不能给集体带来利益，这就等于是我白沾集体的光，丝毫没对集体予以回报。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rough meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Those who only mind themselves, pondering how to be a good person emphasize that, whilst they have brought no merit to the collective, they also haven’t contributed to its detriment. What kind of talk is this? Because, that the collective can bring advantage to me, but I cannot bring gains to it, amounts to 我白沾集体的光，丝毫没对集体予以回报。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T09:51:29.083" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T09:51:29.083" Title="What does 白沾 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33587" CreationDate="2019-04-12T07:12:09.183" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;one possibility: &quot;be gratuitously rewarded&quot;&#xA;(gratuitously benefit from)&#xA;see bkrs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;白&lt;/strong&gt; 副 （无代价; 无报偿） free of charge; gratis:&#xA;白吃 eat without pay&#xA;白给 give away free of charge; give for nothing&#xA;白看戏 see a free play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;沾&lt;/strong&gt;II(8) 受赏 [be rewarded]。 如: 沾赉(受赏赐; 赏赐); 沾赏(受赏赐); 沾丐(给人以利益); 沾锡(赏赐)&#xA;cf。II(1) 假借为&quot;霑&quot;。 浸润; 浸湿 [moisten; soak]&#xA;沾, 一曰益也。 --《说文》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T07:12:09.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33587" CreationDate="2019-04-12T07:12:24.410" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;沾便宜 is a variant of 佔便宜, in this case, »take unfair advantage of someone«. &#xA;In that sense, 沾光 means »to bask in the light of someone«. &#xA;I'd read 白 as »free« or »for nothing« here.&#xA;So the part of the sentence reads: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而我却不能给集体带来利益，这就等于是我白沾集体的光，丝毫没对集体予以回报。 &#xA;  So, if I can't give any advantage to the community, it means that I take its advantages for free, without giving anything back. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T07:12:24.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33590" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33591" CreationDate="2019-04-12T07:38:12.670" Score="1" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 颜色 (yánsè / colour; facial expression/looks) is clearly related to several chengyu: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五颜六色&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;容颜失色&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;正颜厉色&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;和颜悦色&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;怡颜悦色&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;喜颜悦色&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that many two-character words AB are similar to 颜色, in that there are several chengyu of the form &quot;-A-B&quot;. &#xA;I had a quick look and only noticed 情理 (通情达理，合情合理，揣情度理…). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could call words like 颜色 and 情理 &quot;potent&quot; (or &quot;chengyu-potent&quot;). I have few questions related to this topic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are there any resources about such &quot;potent&quot; words? Is there a term in Chinese for such words? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One could in theory extract a list of potent words from any list of two-character words together with a chengyu dictionary. Which HSK 1, 2, … 6 words are potent? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At the moment I can't think of any interesting examples AB where there are &quot;A-B-&quot; -related chengyu (a different sort of chengyu-potent word). Are there any?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2508" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T15:08:45.497" Title="Words related to several 成语 (via 《AB》 → 《-A-B》)" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33590" CreationDate="2019-04-12T10:48:24.290" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Are there any resources about such &amp;quot;potent&amp;quot; words? Is there a term in Chinese for such words?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;One could in theory extract a list of potent words from any list of two-character words together with a chengyu dictionary. Which HSK 1, 2, … 6 words are potent?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very common for Chinese to combine two compound words and rearrange the order to create idiomatic phrase. It would make the speech more classical and literary.  Most of them are not actual proverb or idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The examples you listed are not idioms; 五颜六色 and 和颜悦色 are common phrases, but the rest are not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to create idiomatic phrase is just break up a compound word and apply separate adjective or adverb to them. Too many words have this potential, I am afraid it is impossible to list all the combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some dictionary might provide examples of idiomatic phrases  but it is not a standard feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Examples&lt;/strong&gt; of combine two compound words and rearrange the order to create idiomatic phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人馬 (men and horses = fighting force)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;強壯 (strong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人馬 + 強壯 = 人馬強壯 --&amp;gt;&lt;strong&gt;人強馬壯&lt;/strong&gt; (the fighting force is strong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;窮極 (extremely)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兇惡 (fierce)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;窮極 + 兇惡 = 窮極兇惡 --&amp;gt; &lt;strong&gt;窮兇極惡&lt;/strong&gt;  (extremely fierce)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Examples&lt;/strong&gt; of breaking up common compound words and apply separate adjective or adverb to them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清楚 (clear) --&amp;gt; 一清二楚 (completely clear), 不清不楚 (not clear at all)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乾淨 (clean) --&amp;gt; 一乾二淨 (completely clean), 不乾不淨 (not clean at all)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成就 (achievement) --&amp;gt; 東成西就 (having achievement everywhere)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;At the moment I can't think of any interesting examples AB where there are &amp;quot;A-B-&amp;quot; -related&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;天地: (AB) → (A~B~): 天崩地裂，天旋地轉，天昏地暗 (&lt;em&gt;天地崩裂，天地旋轉，天地昏暗&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;天地: (AB) → (~A~B): 烏天黑地，驚天動地 (&lt;em&gt;天地烏黑，驚動天地&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T15:08:45.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33584" CreationDate="2019-04-12T18:23:46.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The body (身) is only one inch (寸), which should mean &quot;矮&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some characters containing「寸」as a semantic component, directly as part of the immediate decomposition or secondarily as part of one of the decomposed components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得導持尋付尊奪肘專耐&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be clear that「寸」probably never means &lt;em&gt;inch&lt;/em&gt; as part of other characters.「寸」is a depiction of a &lt;em&gt;hand with a mark around the wrist area&lt;/em&gt;, and when it contributes &lt;em&gt;meaning&lt;/em&gt; to a character, you should treat it as the same &lt;em&gt;meaning&lt;/em&gt; as「手・扌」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1cAnA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1cAnA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;51&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZT10U.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZT10U.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The mark around the wrist area&lt;/em&gt; is called「寸口」in the terminology of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and indicates the location where the &lt;em&gt;pulse&lt;/em&gt; is taken.「寸」was later used as a &lt;em&gt;unit of length&lt;/em&gt;, but it should be clear that this is not its original meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Like most other character components, the stand-alone character「寸」developed a wildly different meaning from its role as a component in other characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Other components with the same &lt;em&gt;meaning&lt;/em&gt; function as「手・扌」include「又」(&lt;em&gt;picture of a right hand&lt;/em&gt;),「」(&lt;em&gt;picture of a left hand&lt;/em&gt;), and「爪・爫」(&lt;em&gt;picture of a hand pointing downwards&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The「身」part of「射」is a graphical corruption, from a merger between「弓」(&lt;em&gt;bow&lt;/em&gt;) and「矢」(&lt;em&gt;arrow&lt;/em&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pxx8h.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pxx8h.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乙&lt;/a&gt;1290&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=974&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集974&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2uHwt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2uHwt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;靜簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4273&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4273&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東周&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Drums_of_Qin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;石鼓&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XCJHS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XCJHS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦朝&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QYqAs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QYqAs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡・雜&lt;/a&gt;34&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DqOUL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DqOUL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the sequence above, Shape #1 is plainly a picture of a &lt;em&gt;bow and arrow&lt;/em&gt;. Shape #2 adds a &lt;em&gt;hand&lt;/em&gt;「又」, emphasising the &lt;em&gt;action&lt;/em&gt; meaning in「射」. Shapes #3-4 show the corruption process of the &lt;em&gt;bow and arrow&lt;/em&gt; into「身」. Shape #4 changes「又」into「寸」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A character with a similar structure to「射」is「發」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Zhengzhang_(1981%E2%80%931995)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Zhengzhang&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*pad/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to shoot arrows &gt; to emit &gt; expand, develop&lt;/em&gt;).「發」is comprised of phonetic「癶」(OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*paːd/&lt;/strong&gt;), semantic「弓」, and semantic「殳」(&lt;em&gt;hand holding a striking weapon&lt;/em&gt;, emphasising an &lt;em&gt;attacking action&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Throwing (委) the arrow (矢), which should mean &quot;射&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「矮」(&lt;em&gt;Zhengzhang&lt;/em&gt; OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*qraːlʔ/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;short stature&lt;/em&gt;) is comprised of semantic「矢」and phonetic「委」(&lt;strong&gt;/*qrolʔ/&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「矢」(&lt;em&gt;arrow [shaft]&lt;/em&gt;) is being used as a &lt;em&gt;length&lt;/em&gt; measurement here; you can view it as either the length of the arrow itself or a standardised distance for measuring archery prowess. In English, &lt;em&gt;yard&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;feet&lt;/em&gt;, etc. were similar measures of length, taken from actual objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Compare some characters describing &lt;em&gt;length&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;measurement&lt;/em&gt;: 短矩矬矱.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are other characters that use「矢」for the meaning &lt;em&gt;arrow&lt;/em&gt; rather than &lt;em&gt;length&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;measurement&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The sound development is &lt;strong&gt;/*qraːlʔ/&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/ʔˠɛ&lt;sup&gt;X&lt;/sup&gt;/, 烏蟹&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;切&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &gt; Pinyin: &lt;strong&gt;ǎi&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T18:44:19.763" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T18:44:19.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33595" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-12T19:56:38.363" Score="2" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before I jump into the question, a bit of context for my situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm in Mandarin 1 currently in HS, about 7 months in from the beginning of the school year, and I'm having some problems. According to my Mandarin teacher, I seem to be ahead of my class, as my vocabulary and grammar is a bit more complex (since I study a bit outside of class).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though, while I can learn characters and definitions pretty well, I'm having a lot of trouble with my listening and speaking. I feel as if my tones aren't too differentiable, and I feel like I don't really keep track of tone usage when I try to speak. When I listened to my Mandarin teacher speaking a bit more quickly, even though it was a sentence I would've understood if it was slowed down a bit, I only picked up a few words, and I had a lot more trouble trying to differentiate the tones while listening to her speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any recommendations on how I can try to improve both speaking and listening? Thank you so much! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21796" LastEditorUserId="21796" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T21:23:30.907" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T11:45:52.493" Title="Help with tones?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;listening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33595" CreationDate="2019-04-12T23:38:28.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Watch your favorite movie in Mandarin. watch it over and over, try to understand what they say.  Your ears will get more and more familiar which how they speak. Here are some recommendations with subtitles(a television series): &#xA;Legend of Condor hero: about a stupid kid that is pure and his pureness and kindness will develop this cool story: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4crHldKx6c&amp;amp;list=PLJIYzNjvxw8v2TkPFnjYx-xD2IqOKjbYk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4crHldKx6c&amp;amp;list=PLJIYzNjvxw8v2TkPFnjYx-xD2IqOKjbYk&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;red cliff(movie): a famous ancient story in China about wars between three kingdoms, I didn't find the first part:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t01RBOzYZu0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t01RBOzYZu0&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Next practice some basic set of sentences: learn them and speak it. it is like a spot, your muscle will remember what to do after you practiced a lot and you'll find yourself able to do cool surprising stuff afterward!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tones are easy, there are really 4 tones:&#xA;the first tone somehow feels like you are being monotone. &#xA;the second tone feels like you are trying to rush the sentence.&#xA;The third tone feels like you are slowing the sentence.&#xA;And the last tone feels like a command type of tone.&#xA;learn more about them here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/17&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/17&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyway, the point is there are two parts: first and most important part, listening to movies and radio and etc and you'll know how to speak as you'll have the understanding meaning part practiced, even though you may suck at speaking it(like Chinese teacher teaching your science class with their accents). 2) To get a better accent, you just have to speak with the correct accent more, again like practicing a sport, you might not even do 1000 pounds deadlift at first, but that's because you are too new to the sport lol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastEditorUserId="20803" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T23:55:24.250" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T23:55:24.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33558" CreationDate="2019-04-13T07:42:54.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many other similar words like these two words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMO, it's all about the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;对手&lt;/code&gt; is more oral. It means competitor (竞争对手) in English. You want to win the competition but you don't want to kill him/her.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这次游泳比赛中你的主要对手是张三。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;高考快要开始了，清华大学在我省录取名额只有3人，我们是同学，也是对手。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;仇人&lt;/code&gt; is more oral. It means the person has done something bad to you. Like frame you up or even kill your close family or friends.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;成昆是谢逊师父，但也是他的仇人，因为他杀了谢逊全家。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;敌人&lt;/code&gt; is more formal. It just means enemy. It's more likely to describe a group of people, organization, army or country. In many cases, it means an army.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我军对敌人采用了各个击破的战术。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我军用猛烈的炮火摧毁敌人修筑的工事。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;冤家&lt;/code&gt; is very oral. It can mean enemy, competitor, or can even be the nickname of lovers to each other in some traditional Chinese literary works.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;冤家宜解不宜结,你们还是化干戈为玉帛吧。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这么着，我还得那边去招呼那个冤家呢。(&lt;em&gt;红楼梦&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;仇敌&lt;/code&gt; is a strong expression of an enemy. It's more formal.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们和恐怖分子是不共戴天的仇敌。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;宿敌&lt;/code&gt; means you've been enemies for a long time. It's a very formal word.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;根据现代版故事剧情，原著中的宿敌蒙特格家族与凯普莱特家族因2000年在一个不知名的英国集镇发生的一起致命车祸而从此结下世仇。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;美国表示他们不准备加入到和宿敌恢复正常关系的行动中。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T07:42:54.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33598" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-13T09:05:42.313" Score="0" ViewCount="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main translation of 重剑 is epee, which is a fencing sword. However, in a novel, I saw the term used in a fighting scene. It was also described to be placed on the character's back. Since the two words separately are heavy and sword, is it possible that the author meant it to be a broadsword or something similar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21212" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T09:18:25.503" Title="Meaning of 重剑 aside from the fencing sword epee" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33598" CreationDate="2019-04-13T09:18:25.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most likely, it means &lt;strong&gt;heavy sword&lt;/strong&gt;. In this case, we should comprehend it separately. So 重剑 can mean &lt;em&gt;a very heavy sword&lt;/em&gt;. It's not that epee in sports.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T09:18:25.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9740" CreationDate="2019-04-13T10:58:15.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;买 mai3 = buy, buy is 3 letters and so it’s the tone in mai3 买&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卖 mai4 = sell, sell is 4 letters and so it’s the tone in mai4 卖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 4 is bigger than 3, so you know that in sell (4 letters) = mai4 (4th tone) you have one more piece = 十 （十 + 买 = 卖）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21806" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T10:58:15.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="993" CreationDate="2019-04-13T11:01:57.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think, although pinyin is super helpful, it has serious issues inherent in design. There are many confusing elements there, and this disappearing of &quot;o&quot; sound is only one of them. There are other ones, such as &quot;i&quot; pronounced so differently in &quot;qi, ci, chi&quot;, and how come &quot;an&quot; sounds so different in &quot;wan&quot; and &quot;yan&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin and Mandarin pronunciation are two different things. Pinyin must be bent and manipulated numerous times to be able to fit to natural speech pattern, which exited long before the invention of pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If interested, read more here: The gulf between pinyin and Mandarin Chinese pronunciation   &lt;a href=&quot;https://mslmaster.com/index.php/teaching-learning-resources/10-resources/54-the-gulf-between-pinyin-and-mandarin-chinese-pronunciation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://mslmaster.com/index.php/teaching-learning-resources/10-resources/54-the-gulf-between-pinyin-and-mandarin-chinese-pronunciation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T11:01:57.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33602" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-13T13:22:13.970" Score="0" ViewCount="215" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just saw the Chinese poster of Japanese animation movie called &quot;I Want to Eat Your Pancreas&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is its title in Chinese :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想吃掉你的胰脏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder why they used 吃掉 instead of just 吃. Is there any difference between 吃 and 吃掉?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T15:00:04.420" Title="吃 VS 吃掉 difference" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33602" CreationDate="2019-04-13T15:00:04.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;吃 only means eat, while 吃掉 means eating the whole thing.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吃掉你的胰臟 means that eating the whole pancreas.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;吃掉 is also slightly more derogatory than only 吃.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T15:00:04.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33595" CreationDate="2019-04-13T15:08:02.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As said in a story:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2 men learn Chinese together. One learns by reading Chinese books and listening to Chinese radio broadcasts. The other one found a Chinese girlfriend and told her to teach him Chinese. The latter succeeded.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This shows that doing something you like will let you learn something faster. Try playing your favourite mobile games but instead, change the language to Chinese. Also, you can consider watching funny Chinese videos on YouTube. You can listen to Chinese while having fun. It might not come to effect immediately, but it will be helpful in the long term.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Remember that losing interest is the fatal cause of not succeeding in learning something. You need something to boost yourself to continue learning Chinese.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hope this can help you! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T15:08:02.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33539" CreationDate="2019-04-13T15:15:38.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese, I would say that NO ONE CARES if you wrote &quot;一万二千三百四十五&quot; or &quot;12,345&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The first one is written in Chinese numerals, the second one in Arabic numerals, they are much pretty the same.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you insist on writing Chinese numerals, I would recommend you do say &quot;事情已經過去了超過一萬天&quot;, if you want to emphasize that the event has passed for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T15:15:38.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33531" CreationDate="2019-04-13T15:20:44.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are confused, just remember '和' is basically the same with 'and'. You won't say “我喜歡蛋糕和餅乾和巧克力和糖果” as you won't say &quot;I like cakes and biscuits and chocolates and candies&quot;. You should put the '和' between the second last item and last item, such as “我喜歡蛋糕、餅乾、巧克力和糖果” (&quot;I like cakes, biscuits, chocolate and candies&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T15:20:44.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33608" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-13T16:46:24.943" Score="3" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;This particular phrase comes from《诗经·秦风·无衣》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full: 岂曰无衣？与子同袍。王于兴师，修我戈矛。与子同仇！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20732" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T04:10:05.733" Title="What is the usage of 子 in 「修我戈矛，与子同仇」?" Tags="&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33610" CreationDate="2019-04-13T16:50:33.267" Score="3" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this sentence :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;孩子们丢的东西都找到了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the object (丢的东西) placed between the subject and the verb here???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T01:30:43.900" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T01:55:03.803" Title="Why is 丢的东西 placed in the middle of 孩子们丢的东西都找到了?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33609" CreationDate="2019-04-13T17:16:01.910" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;孩子们丢的东西都找到了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The object is &quot;东西&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;东西都(被)找到了 - things have all been found (&lt;em&gt;被 omitted&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;孩子们丢的 is an adjective phrase that describes the object &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;things? what things?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Things &lt;strong&gt;that was lost by the kids&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;孩子们丢的&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can use 的 to turn any sentence into an adjective phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美国进口 - American import&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美国进口的 - that is American imported&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美国进口的牛肉 - beef that is American imported &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-13T17:24:24.193" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T17:24:24.193" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33608" CreationDate="2019-04-13T18:41:26.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;子是对男性的敬称，here it means &quot;you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your quote 与子同仇，it means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（我）与你同仇敌忾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, we call 孔仲尼 as 孔子 to show respect. Also we have 庄子、墨子、孟子、老子……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2019-04-13T18:47:46.000" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T18:47:46.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33612" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33614" CreationDate="2019-04-13T20:35:08.407" Score="2" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been reading a book and stumbled upon what looks like a double conjunction 以及与:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们惊讶地发现，虽然属于不同的时代，但那些动植物相互之间，&lt;strong&gt;以及与&lt;/strong&gt;现代生物之间都有许多相似之处.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a mistake? If not, then surely author differenciates between 以及 and 与, he gives them different functions. What are those functions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an alternative way to form such a sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-14T01:44:20.310" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T09:40:44.250" Title="what is 以及与? is it &quot;and + and&quot;, if so why use such a thing?" Tags="&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33595" CreationDate="2019-04-13T22:34:38.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am also a fairly new student with similar problems. These are things that have helped me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you learn new vocabulary, make sure you learn the tone at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Practise tones out loud. Don't be afraid to exaggerate them a bit (or a lot). Chinese children over pronounce their tones when they learning as well. Practise single tones, then tone pairs. It might help to record yourself so that you know what you sound like.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get some audio of simple sentences, maybe from your teacher, from Youtube, from podcasts, etc. Listen and repeat, over and over. This will help get used to how tones work together. There is a (free) program called Audacity. It can chop up audio files, and slow them down, so that you can isolate the bits of a sentence you want to work on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another practice technique is to listen to a recording, and listen just for the tones. Don't worry about the meaning at all. You can say it back, again don't worry about the actual words, just follow the intonation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your teacher, if she always speaks fast, maybe ask her to slow down a little bit. If it's just sometimes, then don't worry about it. Hearing a mix of fast and slow will help your brain get used to how things sound. You don't have to consciously understand every word to still be learning. Also, sometimes your brain is just a bit slow, like she says something and you don't understand, but then a little while later you suddenly realise what she said. This is completely normal, and a sign that you are learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20347" LastActivityDate="2019-04-13T22:34:38.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33612" CreationDate="2019-04-13T23:39:16.803" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们惊讶地发现，虽然属于不同的时代，但那些动植物相互之间，以及与现代生物之间都有许多相似之处.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'以及' means &quot;and also&quot;; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;与&quot;  means &quot;and&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's break the sentence apart and see what's missing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;那些动植物&lt;/strong&gt;相互之间 (between &lt;strong&gt;those animals and plants&lt;/strong&gt; themselves)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;以及 (and also)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;between (&lt;em&gt;subject omitted&lt;/em&gt;) 与 (and) 现代生物之间 (modern living things)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;都有许多相似之处. (all have many similarities)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author wanted to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those (ancient) animals and plants had many similarities between themselves; and also have many similarities between them and modern living things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be more clear if he didn't omit the repeated subject&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[那些动植物相互之间]，[以及] [(&lt;em&gt;那些动植物&lt;/em&gt;)与现代生物之间] [都有许多相似之处]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[between those animals and plants themselves]，[and also] [between (&lt;em&gt;those animals and plants&lt;/em&gt;) and modern living things] [all have many similarities ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the repeated subject (那些动植物) was omitted&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-14T03:43:09.163" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T03:43:09.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33595" CreationDate="2019-04-14T00:39:01.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say time and repetition are the keys to get it right. Try to do small various types of repetition over a long period of time. Also, have sufficient listening exercise, which are not necessarily focused on tones. Listening exercises can help you gradually adapt to the natural speech pattern, which can be very different from the pinyin scripts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin and tones are only a poor imitation of natural speech. If you focus on tones too much, you will loose the forest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have an article “The gulf between pinyin and Mandarin Chinese pronunciation”, trying to explain this: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mslmaster.com/index.php/teaching-learning-resources/10-resources/54-the-gulf-between-pinyin-and-mandarin-chinese-pronunciation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.mslmaster.com/index.php/teaching-learning-resources/10-resources/54-the-gulf-between-pinyin-and-mandarin-chinese-pronunciation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T00:39:01.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33616" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-14T01:46:20.530" Score="1" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to confirm if my research on the usage is correct or not for 躲 and 藏.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on my research so far, 躲 means hide (people) while 藏 means hide (objects).  I'm unsure about the timing of the word because I heard that 躲 also means hide for a long time while 藏 can also mean hide for a short while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that true? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T01:57:54.570" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T12:13:03.140" Title="Does 躲 mean hide for a long time while 藏 can also mean hide for a short while?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33609" CreationDate="2019-04-14T02:13:47.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An important question in Western Grammar is: In a passive sentence, is the subject the object?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was injured. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditionally, 'I' is the subject of the verb 'was'. However, 'I' did nothing. 'I' was 'done to', by person or persons unknown. The one that is 'done to' is defined as the object. However, apart from 'I', there is no other thing mentioned here, so 'I' should be the 'subject'.&#xA;Also, the 'verb be' is not normally associated with any case except nominative case, the 'subject' case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That aside, Chinese has no Relative Clauses. Chinese is conceptually simpler, more straightforward and more logical than, say, English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adjectives are not essential. They can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东西都找到了。&#xA;The things have all been found. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we render the Chinese directly: Things all found. (Is 'Things' subject or object? If 'Things' is not the subject, what is?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孩子们丢的东西都找到了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The things (which) the children lost have all been found. or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;All the things (which) the children lost have been found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we render the Chinese directly:&#xA;'children lose' 的 things all found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except 'children lose' is not a suitable adjective in English, it will mess up the meaning, so it has to be put in a Relative Clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you translate Chinese to English, any complex adjectival phrases will require a Relative Clause in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T02:13:47.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33616" CreationDate="2019-04-14T02:35:55.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are partly correct!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;躲 usually means hide (people), and 藏 means hide (object).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, 躲 is basically like the active form of hide, and 藏 is the passive form of hide.&#xA;For example, 小白兔躲在草叢裏 means the bunny hid itself in the bush, while 小男孩把小白兔藏在草叢裏 means the bunny was hidden by the boy.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hope this can help you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T02:35:55.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33616" CreationDate="2019-04-14T03:22:36.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;see online dictionaries&lt;/strong&gt; e.g. bkrs, &lt;strong&gt;躲&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;隐藏&lt;/strong&gt;） hide (&lt;strong&gt;oneself&lt;/strong&gt;):&#xA;躲在树林中 hide among the trees&#xA;兔子躲在高高的草丛中。 The rabbit hid in the high grass.&#xA;（避让） avoid; dodge:&#xA;躲雨 take shelter from the rain&#xA;警察向他开枪时，他躲开了。 He dodged when the police fired at him.&#xA;你怎么老躲着他 ? Why do you keep avoiding him?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;藏&lt;/strong&gt; 1) hide; conceal&#xA;你把钱包藏 哪儿了？ Where did you hide the purse?&#xA;2) store; lay by&#xA;（&lt;strong&gt;躲藏; 隐藏&lt;/strong&gt;） hide; conceal:&#xA;狐狸尾巴是藏不住的。 A fox cannot hide its tail.&#xA;他藏在树后。 He concealed himself behind the trees.&#xA;（收存; 储藏） store; lay by:&#xA;藏粮于民 store grain among the people&#xA;你把你的钱藏在什么地方? Where do you keep your money?&#xA;所有事实都藏在他的记忆里。 All the facts were stored in his memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;躲藏to conceal oneself&#xA;to go into hiding&#xA;to take cover&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隐藏 hide; conceal; remain under cover; go into hiding;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thus 藏 can mean &quot;hide (store away)for a long time&quot;, much more at bkrs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-04-14T03:28:24.850" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T03:28:24.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33616" CreationDate="2019-04-14T03:26:40.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;躲 means to hide somewhere (and constantly change locations lest to be found) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;藏 means to hide somewhere (and stay still).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, 躲 is in active-mode, while 藏 is in passive-mode. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T03:26:40.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33609" CreationDate="2019-04-14T03:32:29.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The subject in the sentence &quot;孩子们丢的东西找到了&quot; is not &quot;孩子们&quot; but &quot;东西&quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It translate to &quot;That thing the kids lost has been found.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-14T03:55:12.157" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T03:55:12.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33612" CreationDate="2019-04-14T03:55:17.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;以及&quot; means &quot;as well as&quot; or &quot;also&quot;&#xA;&quot;与&quot; means &quot;with&quot; or 'to'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence translates to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To their surprise, they found out that, despite belonging to different ages, those organisms  bear a strong resemblance to each other, as well as to  modern-day ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="20657" LastEditDate="2019-04-14T09:40:44.250" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T09:40:44.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33608" CreationDate="2019-04-14T04:10:05.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who said that you have no clothes to wear,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will share with you my robe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king has called upon us that,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we make ready with spears and Ge's (戈)，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we fight against our enemies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T04:10:05.733" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33558" CreationDate="2019-04-14T04:21:38.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;敌人 means enemy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冤家 means someone you have a grudge with. or someone you have unpleasant experience when he/she is present. The word is often used in a humerus tone. For example, when a married women says &quot;我那冤家&quot; to refer to her husband, she doesn't mean he is an enemy of hers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T04:21:38.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33183" CreationDate="2019-04-14T04:27:41.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase you are looking for is “善待自己”。 It means &quot;cherish yourself&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T04:27:41.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32377" CreationDate="2019-04-14T04:32:20.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;忍受不了 cann't bear it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人受不住 cann't bear it ANYMORE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T04:32:20.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33627" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-14T06:13:28.573" Score="1" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;I.e. a person trying to hide his/her true identity? I asked Chinese friends but they are providing different options and I’m not sure if there is a direct equivalent of the English word. I’d like to have a traditional characters for this, thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21807" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T13:43:26.363" Title="„Incognito” in mandarin" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33616" CreationDate="2019-04-14T06:22:07.283" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;躲 means &quot;to evade&quot; as in 躲避 (dodge/ evade), 躲開 (dodge)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;躲在家中不見人 means &quot;stay home to evade people&quot; The main point is not to hide, people know where you are, the main point is 'stay home to evade (people)' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;躲 is an intransitive verb, meaning it doesn't take object, you cannot say 我把他躲在家中; you can only say 他躲在家中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would &quot;躲在家中不見人&quot; can be translated as &quot;hide at home and not seeing anyone&quot; ? Because 躲 can be interpreted as the shortened form of 躲藏(hide and evade). You can replace 躲 with 藏 and write &quot;藏在家中不見人&quot;  and the meaning would not change. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the confusing part about 躲. you can use it as a single character verb for &quot;to evade&quot;;  you can also use it as a shortened form of the compound word &quot;躲藏&quot;  for &quot;to hide&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;藏 means &quot;to hide&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be used with or without object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;警察來了他就藏 (intransitive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他藏在家中 (intransitive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我藏他在家中 (transitive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他藏錢在家中 (transitive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;So based on my research so far, 躲 means hide (people) while 藏 means hide (objects).&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You got it wrong, 躲 is an intransitive verb, meaning &quot;to evade&quot;. Only human and animal can do that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;藏 means &quot;to hide&quot; . As a transitive verb, 藏 can be applied to people or object. e.g. &quot;to hide people&quot; , &quot;to hide object&quot; ; as an intransitive verb,  only human and animal can do that. e.g. &quot;people hide&quot;. &quot;animals hide&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-14T06:47:05.197" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T06:47:05.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33627" CreationDate="2019-04-14T07:39:50.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oxford&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incognito&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Adj.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  化名的 huàmíng de&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  to be incognito&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  使用化名&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  to remain incognito&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一直隐姓埋名&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Adverb&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  化名地 huàmíng de&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T07:39:50.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33630" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33632" CreationDate="2019-04-14T08:09:26.190" Score="4" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I have ever asked this question once but not in a detailed way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sentence :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天的考试要((用到))词典，请大家把词典也放在桌子上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder why they put 到 after 用... I know 到 is used as a result complement BUTTT what kind of result does it try to indicate here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T07:41:26.927" Title="Why is 到 necessary here?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33630" CreationDate="2019-04-14T09:25:00.433" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could say 要用词典 and there is nothing wrong with it, and to me it means almost exactly the same, but when you say 用到, the emphasize goes slightly towards 词典. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the result it tries to indicate is that &quot;a dictionary is used&quot;. It's different with other cases such as 想到借口 and 申请到护照 because in latter cases, the result is something that follows the action, but in the case of 用到词典, the result is the action itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6603" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T09:25:00.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33630" CreationDate="2019-04-14T16:43:22.110" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Combination of a verb with 到 generally implies some sort of &quot;finished&quot; state, in an sense it's similar to some sort of perfect tense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;走到&lt;/strong&gt; 公園 / I &lt;strong&gt;walked&lt;/strong&gt; to the park&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;吃到&lt;/strong&gt; 炸雞了 / I &lt;strong&gt;finally ate&lt;/strong&gt; that fried chicken&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在字典裡 &lt;strong&gt;查到&lt;/strong&gt; 這個字了 I &lt;strong&gt;found&lt;/strong&gt; this word in a dictionary&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the suffix &quot;到&quot;, the verb along could be &quot;unfinished&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;走去&lt;/strong&gt; 公園 / I &lt;strong&gt;walk&lt;/strong&gt; to the park&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我 &lt;strong&gt;吃&lt;/strong&gt; 炸雞了 / I &lt;strong&gt;ate&lt;/strong&gt; fried chicken&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在字典裡 &lt;strong&gt;查&lt;/strong&gt; 這個字了 I &lt;strong&gt;looked&lt;/strong&gt; this word &lt;strong&gt;up&lt;/strong&gt; in a dictionary&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now back to your example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天的考试要用到词典，请大家把词典也放在桌子上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that &quot;今天的考试&quot; is not the subject of the verb &quot;用到&quot; -- since the &quot;exam&quot; would not be the user of a dictionary. The user of that dictionary is &quot;大家&quot;. Alternatively that sentence can be rephrased to be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天的考试，大家要用到词典，请把词典也放在桌子上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd translated this to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Each one of you will be using a dictionary in the exam today, please also put it on the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if we remove &quot;到&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天的考试，大家要用词典，请把词典也放在桌子上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO it can be translated into something like any of these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Everyone intends to use a dictionary...(omit)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Everyone is asked to use a dictionary...(omit)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Everyone must use a dictionary...(omit)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a sense, adding &quot;到&quot; disambiguates from these different contexts -- well, usually appending more modifiers disambiguates better... :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that was a different example then whan you provided, and I admit that it is a bit of a streatch. Let's revisit this one without the &quot;到&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天的考試要用词典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I must not insert an auxiliary subject into the sentence for translating, it is almost tempting to come up with something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The exam today will use a dictionary&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Today's exam will use a dictionary&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Translating word-by-word. A pretty common thing being done by many English learners)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall the call-to-action is not differ and pretty clear -- dictionary on the table! -- but that's because the options are pretty limited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4036" LastEditorUserId="4036" LastEditDate="2019-05-09T07:41:26.927" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T07:41:26.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="307" CreationDate="2019-04-15T01:08:33.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;「葉」didn't become「叶」from any systematic rules. The character「叶」was a non-standard and old variant of「協」(&lt;strong&gt;xié&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;em&gt;to cooperate, collaborate&lt;/em&gt;).「葉」and「協」are homophones in some Chinese languages (notably Shanghainese; &lt;strong&gt;hhiq [T5]&lt;/strong&gt;), and so this variant of「協」was chosen as a phonetic loan for「葉」in the First Round Simplification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-04-15T01:08:33.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33634" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33636" CreationDate="2019-04-15T04:33:03.187" Score="2" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;是个很好的例子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either with or without 就, it can be translated to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is a good example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T15:02:01.960" Title="How to translate 就 into English as in 这就是个很好的例子?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33630" CreationDate="2019-04-15T05:04:54.013" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/673/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/673/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[particle] used after a verb to indicate attainment/achievement or potentiality&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到 in this sentence indicate &lt;strong&gt;potentiality&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天的考试&lt;strong&gt;要用&lt;/strong&gt;词典，请大家把词典也放在桌子上 - In today's exam, you &lt;strong&gt;have to use&lt;/strong&gt; a dictionary, please put your dictionary on the table as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you have to use a dictionary/ you need to use a dictionary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天的考试&lt;strong&gt;要用到&lt;/strong&gt;词典，请大家把词典也放在桌子上 - In today's exam, you &lt;strong&gt;would have to use&lt;/strong&gt; a dictionary, please put your dictionary on the table as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;词典 is a potential item that's chosen to be required&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If the sentence was &amp;quot;今天的考试要用到词典和计算器&amp;quot; then dictionary and calculator are the two potential items that are chosen to be required&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the sentence was &amp;quot;今天的考试要用到词典但用不到计算器&amp;quot; then dictionary is a potential item that's chosen to be required, while calculator is a potential item that's not chosen to be required&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鎮壓示威&lt;strong&gt;要用&lt;/strong&gt;武力 Repression of demonstrations &lt;strong&gt;requires the use&lt;/strong&gt; of force&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(武力 is the only solution)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鎮壓示威&lt;strong&gt;要用到&lt;/strong&gt;武力 Repression of demonstrations &lt;strong&gt;would requires the use&lt;/strong&gt; of force&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;武力 is a potential solution that's chosen to be used&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-15T05:53:26.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33634" CreationDate="2019-04-15T06:39:15.740" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/808/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/808/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 has many usages,  I would say &quot;definitely&quot; is applicable here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是个很好的例子 - This is a very good example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这(就)是个很好的例子 - This (definitely) is a very good example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是他偷了我的钱 - He is the one who stole my money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(就)是他偷了我的钱 - He (definitely) is the one who stole my money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'就' (definitely) here is for emphasis function. Without it, the sentence's meaning doesn't change much, but with it, the emphasis on the object and the tone of seriousness would increase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;就是他 - you sure it is him&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;是他 -  you say it is him&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it is for emphasis, you can use 'exactly' or 'actually instead of 'definitely' in English &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="21805" LastEditDate="2019-04-15T10:08:35.120" LastActivityDate="2019-04-15T10:08:35.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33634" CreationDate="2019-04-15T08:29:32.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;就： Original meaning 本义: Meaning (orig) to move to a high place (now) meaning just.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Character decomposition 字形分解 [?]:&#xA;Compound 就 from building-jing 京 jīng and phonetic injured-hand-you 尤 yóu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe that is the sense in 就业: get a job (on the notion of: a job is better than no job, a step up?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是个很好的例子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is a good example.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这就是个很好的例子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This really is a good example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-04-15T08:29:32.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33183" CreationDate="2019-04-15T14:30:25.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answers above are all directly and correctly translated. But as a Chinese, I don't recommend the phrases with the character '爱'. Because here in China, if we see a guy with a tattoo '爱' on his body, we will think he is not a good person and he may live a violent life like a gangster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's think back again what hides behind in the 'love yourself'. In my opinion, it means don't push yourself too hard. Living life under too much pressure is not our wishes. But why sometimes we have to? Because we do not satisfy what we have, we want more. And the desire is endless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are that kind of guy who is tired of competition and decides to enjoy life. The most appropriate translation of 'love yourself' in Chinese is 知足.&#xA;知 is 知道 means 'know', and 足 is 足够 means 'sufficient'. 知足 means you enjoy your current life, love what you have and satisfied. It holds an idea of ancient Chinese philosophy which is also popular nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not good at writing in English, but hope my answer will help you make a life decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21800" LastActivityDate="2019-04-15T14:30:25.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33639" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33640" CreationDate="2019-04-16T00:13:32.223" Score="1" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;For instance, in medical terminology, we can tease out the meaning from the words. But I cannot tell why we use 质 for proton and 荷 for charge. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20732" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T04:04:52.977" Title="Why is proton called 质子 and charge called 电荷?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33639" CreationDate="2019-04-16T00:25:50.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;質子 means 有質量的粒子 (&lt;em&gt;subatomic particle with mass&lt;/em&gt;, in contrast with electrons which comparably have very little mass), where 質量 means &lt;em&gt;mass&lt;/em&gt; (specifically in the field of physics). Although neutrons also have mass, they're called 中子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;荷 generically means &lt;em&gt;load, burden&lt;/em&gt;, and in 電荷 it literally means &lt;em&gt;electric load&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;electric charge&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T00:25:50.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33634" CreationDate="2019-04-16T01:14:02.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This, exactly, is a good example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This, out of a thousand any of others, is a good example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T01:14:02.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33642" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-16T03:14:52.143" Score="0" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=auto&amp;amp;tl=zh-CN&amp;amp;text=mistreat&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google translate&lt;/a&gt;, one of the Chinese translations of “mistreat” is “三顿饭”:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JBqCw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JBqCw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does “三顿饭” have anything to do with &amp;quot;mistreat&amp;quot;? Is it an idiom?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T17:07:57.990" Title="Why “mistreat” is translated as &quot;三顿饭&quot; by Google translate?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33639" CreationDate="2019-04-16T04:04:52.977" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;质 in Chinese mean inseparable (不可分割) such as 质数 （prime number）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another explaination, 质：事物的根本特性.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/38322079&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/38322079&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T04:04:52.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33642" CreationDate="2019-04-16T09:52:48.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mistranslation is the cause of this ridiculous translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't trust Google translate, especially when it comes to Chinese. Just report this mistranslation to Google.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T11:25:37.470" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T11:25:37.470" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33254" CreationDate="2019-04-16T13:40:48.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The form is 翻天覆地。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other form is using simplified Chinese . Applicable to communications but when it comes to traditional form, only 翻天覆地&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18747" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T13:40:48.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33627" CreationDate="2019-04-16T13:43:26.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Browsing incognito is the phrase we often see on the internet . according to  this context, we use incognito to anonymously surf the internet and hence no trace is left &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we say 無痕上網。 痕in this Chinese phrase means trace . This Chinese phrase means surfing the website without trace &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18747" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T13:43:26.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33647" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33652" CreationDate="2019-04-16T14:49:32.040" Score="0" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to describe the plot of the work 红楼梦 using the phrase &quot;the 贾 family's decline&quot;. The word for decline, though is confusing me. After putting &quot;decline&quot; through a few online translators, I've received the word 衰落. But when I reverse the translation to check it, sometimes I get decline and sometimes decadence, which is not what I'm trying to say. Is there a more appropriate word in this context to say decline without the implication of decadence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T04:26:09.087" Title="衰落：decadence or decline?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33647" CreationDate="2019-04-16T18:34:50.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The term 'decadence' should be translated as '沈溺與腐化' (indulge and corrupt) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The term 'decline' should be translated as  &lt;strong&gt;衰落 (decline/ descend)&lt;/strong&gt;; 衰退 (decline/ recede); 減弱 (decline/ weakening); 減少 (decline/ decrease)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think translating '衰落' as 'decadence' is accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate &quot;the 贾 family's decline&quot; as &quot;贾家的衰落&quot; is a correct translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;衰落: decline/ descend from a high status or position&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;衰退: decline/ recede from the front or forward position&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;減弱: decline/ weakening in strength&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;減少: decline/ decrease in number or amount&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-17T04:26:09.087" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T04:26:09.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33649" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33650" CreationDate="2019-04-16T20:41:29.933" Score="2" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to express the idea of a government shifting to democracy. The sentence I'm trying to say is &quot;that forced the government to listen to the people&quot;, and I can translate it all except &quot;the people&quot;. I know the words 人  and 人类 for that sort of thing, but 人 seems too informal and like it's missing something, and 人类 I've learned means humanity, which isn't really the sense I'm trying to get at here. How would I translate &quot;the people&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T20:51:43.423" Title="&quot;The people&quot; translation?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33649" CreationDate="2019-04-16T20:51:43.423" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To emphasise the &lt;em&gt;social&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;citizen&lt;/em&gt; aspect of &lt;em&gt;the people&lt;/em&gt;, you should use「民眾」or「人民」, or in a combining word, just「民」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「人類」is not correct, that has the same meaning as English &lt;em&gt;humans&lt;/em&gt;. You use it to emphasise the &lt;em&gt;biological species&lt;/em&gt; aspect to contrast it with e.g.「犬類」(&lt;em&gt;canines&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T20:51:43.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33254" CreationDate="2019-04-17T00:12:13.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a small correction, it should be written as &quot;翻天覆地&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;覆 has two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;覆 is a variant of 复 (standard simplified)/復 (standard traditional) which means &quot;to reply to a letter.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;覆, in a more standard way, means &quot;to overturn&quot; &quot;to cover&quot; &quot;to capsize.&quot; &lt;em&gt;In this definition&lt;/em&gt;, it retains the same look in both Traditional and Simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idiom uses the latter usage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20732" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T00:12:13.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33647" CreationDate="2019-04-17T01:36:47.803" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase you are looking for is &quot;come/go down in the world&quot;, meaning to lose wealth or high social rank in one's past. It can be translated to Chinese as &quot;家道中落&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T01:36:47.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33655" CreationDate="2019-04-17T06:03:49.880" Score="2" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does &lt;code&gt;跟&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;和&lt;/code&gt; sounds the same meaning in this case ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我今天跟妈妈去买菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我今天和妈妈去买菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21805" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T07:09:33.550" Title="Does 跟 and 和 sounds the same meaning in this case?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27554" CreationDate="2019-04-17T06:27:31.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the first result on google:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/chanind/hanzi-writer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/chanind/hanzi-writer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21363" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T06:27:31.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33653" CreationDate="2019-04-17T06:49:35.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both '跟' and '和' contain the meaning of 'and/ with'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, both &amp;quot;我今天跟妈妈去买菜&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;我今天和妈妈去买菜&amp;quot; can be interpreted as &amp;quot;My mother &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; I go to buy food ingredients today&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But '跟' also contains the meaning of &amp;quot;follow&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, &amp;quot;我今天跟妈妈去买菜&amp;quot; can be interpreted as &amp;quot;I follow my mother to go to buy food ingredients today&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the problem is writing '我今天' makes  '我' the subject, and '跟妈妈去买菜' the verb phrase; instead of '我跟妈妈' being the subject and '去买菜' being the verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to avoid the confusion, you should write &amp;quot;我跟妈妈今天去买菜&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;我和妈妈今天去买菜&amp;quot;(I and my mother go to buy food ingredients today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'我跟妈妈' (I and my mother) -  would clearly be the subject&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;in '我今天跟妈妈去买菜',  '我' would be the subject, and  '跟妈妈去买菜' could mean 'follow my mother...' or 'with my mother...'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if you wrote '我今天和妈妈去买菜', even the subject is still '我' but '今天和妈妈去买菜' can only mean &amp;quot;go to buy food ingredients &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; my mother today&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T07:09:33.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2479" CreationDate="2019-04-17T07:19:28.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;iu sounds like you, &lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.international-lan.com/learning-mandarin-tones-important/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;learning Mandarin tone is so important&lt;/a&gt; to be accurate in Mandarin speaking world, as a Mandarin learner, I found the tones are more frustrating, is there a better way to remember which word is which tone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17161" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T07:19:28.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33657" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33659" CreationDate="2019-04-17T13:54:13.373" Score="4" ViewCount="1527" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at this recipe here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.xinshipu.com/zuofa/9787&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.xinshipu.com/zuofa/9787&lt;/a&gt;, and noticed the word &quot;生抽“. After inputting it in various online translators, they all said it meant soy sauce. However, the recipe calls for both 生抽 AND 酱油 as separate ingredients, and it wouldn't make sense to require soy sauce twice. Am I just misreading the recipe or are they different things? What better translation is there for 生抽？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T03:52:00.150" Title="生抽 vs. 酱油- differences?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33657" CreationDate="2019-04-17T14:28:27.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;bkrs&#xA;:&lt;strong&gt;生抽&lt;/strong&gt; light soy sauce (Russ) superior quality,white, fresh, liquid, soy sauce, iciba: light soy sauce&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;酱油&lt;/strong&gt; soy sauce cf. 生抽 (extracted raw),酱 paste, jam, dial. dense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T14:28:27.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33657" CreationDate="2019-04-17T15:08:11.903" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;生抽&lt;/strong&gt;酱油 (light soy sauce) and &lt;strong&gt;老抽&lt;/strong&gt;酱油 (dark soy sauce) are two different types of 酱油 (soy sauce). &lt;strong&gt;生抽&lt;/strong&gt; is the abbreviation of &lt;strong&gt;生抽&lt;/strong&gt;酱油 while &lt;strong&gt;老抽&lt;/strong&gt; is the abbreviation of &lt;strong&gt;老抽&lt;/strong&gt;酱油, &lt;strong&gt;酱&lt;/strong&gt; is the abbreviation of &lt;strong&gt;酱油&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;酱&lt;/strong&gt; also refer to a general name of all kinds of &lt;strong&gt;sauces&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-04-18T03:01:37.780" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T03:01:37.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33660" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33661" CreationDate="2019-04-17T15:49:14.903" Score="4" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;An &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;eggcorn&lt;/a&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In linguistics, an eggcorn is an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker's dialect (sometimes called oronyms). The new phrase introduces a meaning that is different from the original but plausible in the same context, such as &quot;old-timers' disease&quot; for &quot;Alzheimer's disease&quot;. An eggcorn can be described as an intra-lingual phono-semantic matching, a matching in which the intended word and substitute are from the same language. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia also gives a bunch of English examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;ex-patriot instead of expatriate  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;mating name instead of maiden name&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;on the spurt of the moment instead of on the spur of the moment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;preying mantis instead of praying mantis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;for all intensive purposes instead of for all intents and purposes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What similar phenomenons happens in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T21:39:47.907" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T21:39:47.907" Title="Chinese equivalent of eggcorns?" Tags="&lt;linguistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33660" CreationDate="2019-04-17T16:57:39.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;白字 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/14500/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/14500/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wrong character of phonetic equivalent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Examples of 白字詞句&lt;/strong&gt; (words or phrases contain wrong character of phonetic equivalent):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'白撞'(to trespass under a false pretext) --&amp;gt; 白狀 (狀 is a wrong character that sounds the same as 撞 in Cantonese; 白狀 literally means 'baseless account')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'脾氣' (temperament)--&amp;gt; '皮氣' (&lt;em&gt;皮 is a wrong character that sounds the same as  脾;'皮氣' literally means 'skin and Chi' implies 'outside and inside'&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;漫長競賽 (long long competition) --&amp;gt; '萬場競賽' (countless competition) (&lt;em&gt;萬場 and 漫長 sound similar in Cantonese&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'量少非君子, 無度不丈夫' --&amp;gt;  '量少非君子, 無毒不丈夫' (&lt;em&gt;道 was misheard as 毒&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The phrase '無度不丈夫' (true man cannot be without magnanimity) from the original idiom was misheard as  '無毒不丈夫' (true man cannot be without venom) and the wrong one got spread so far and wide, it became a common phrase on its own. Nowadays, when someone is about to do evil thing, this phrase would be used for an excuse&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T17:25:48.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33662" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-17T19:16:13.323" Score="0" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working through some material. I'm coming from an English/Latin perspective towards understanding this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the following translations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;材料 - material - cáiliào&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;物料 - materials - wùliào&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the first character a form of modifier? I'm a bit confused because liào(料) seems to also translate as material. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21821" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T05:17:54.540" Title="Substance in Chinese" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33662" CreationDate="2019-04-17T20:37:49.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin has relatively few distinct sounds (about 1300) and each character corresponds to one of those sounds.  The language has tended toward more disyllabic words to reduce ambiguity.  Often these words consist of two characters whose meanings are both close to the meaning of the whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T20:37:49.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33662" CreationDate="2019-04-17T20:43:06.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are compound words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike English alphabets, Chinese characters contain meaning(s). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most characters have multiple meanings, to reduce ambiguity, two characters would be combined to form one compound word that can express a more specific term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from this post &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22253/%e8%ae%a4%e8%af%86-vs-%e7%9f%a5%e9%81%93-based-on-glyph-origins/22264#22264&quot;&gt;认识 vs 知道 based on glyph origins&lt;/a&gt; you can see examples of two characters combine make a more term specific&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;材(useful) + 料 (material) = 材料 (material ; ingredients)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;物(thing)  + 料 (material) = 物料 (materials)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;布(cloth) + 料 (material) = 布料 (cloth material)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衣(clothes ) + 料 (material) = 衣料 (clothing material)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;燃 (burn) + 料 (material) = 燃料 (fuels)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-17T20:56:40.933" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T20:56:40.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33665" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-18T00:13:34.000" Score="8" ViewCount="2309" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have inherited  a beautiful Chinese silk artwork.  I would like to know what age it is and what the script and seal mean.  Much appreciated if anyone can help &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UPHoc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UPHoc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;artwork on silk&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21822" LastEditorUserId="20030" LastEditDate="2019-04-19T00:40:32.807" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T05:48:53.760" Title="Chinese Seal on silk painting - what does it mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33662" CreationDate="2019-04-18T00:17:24.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;✓ this type of compound is called &lt;strong&gt;偏正&lt;/strong&gt;式合成词，偏正 lg. &lt;strong&gt;modifier&lt;/strong&gt; and word it &lt;strong&gt;modifies&lt;/strong&gt;，材料、物料 belong to type A2 below, see e.g.＂实用汉语语法＂on 合成词的构造方式：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（A）&lt;strong&gt;名素＋名素&lt;/strong&gt;（A1)鸡蛋 牛奶 羊毛 脚印 （A2) 布鞋 粉笔 铁皮 丝袜 （A3) 脸盆 饭碗 书架 衣柜 (A4)海参 河马 汾酒 山羊 (A5) 书本 人口 纸张 船只 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（B）&lt;strong&gt;形素＋名素&lt;/strong&gt; 温泉 红旗 高粱 大娘 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（C）&lt;strong&gt;形素＋动素&lt;/strong&gt; 单干 迟到 热爱 静坐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（D) &lt;strong&gt;动素＋名素&lt;/strong&gt; 抹布 睡衣 拖鞋 闹钟 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（E）&lt;strong&gt;名素＋形素&lt;/strong&gt; 冰凉 火热 桔黄 草绿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以上A类可以分为五个小类：A1 的名１是名２的领属者；A２的名１是名２的材料；A３的名１是名２的用途；A４的名１是名２的出处；A５的名２是名１的单位。A类都是名词，B类也都是名词，C类是动词。D类的＂抹布＂相当于＂抹的布＂，是偏正结构，其他各例可以类推，注意不要跟述宾结构相混；D类都是名词。E类的＂冰凉＂相当于＂冰似的凉＂，是偏正结构，其他各例可以类推，注意不要跟主谓结构相混；E类都是形容词。Besides above 偏正 type there are the 联合式合成词、述宾式合成词、述补式合成词、主谓式合成词、附加式合成词、重叠式合成词  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T00:17:24.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33665" CreationDate="2019-04-18T03:07:51.903" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;the four bigger characters are &quot;江南春曉&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiangnan&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;江南&quot;&lt;/a&gt; referring to &quot;lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the yangtze river&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;春曉&quot; means &quot;mornings of the spring&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the smaller characters are &quot;己亥初秋逸ｘ&quot; (ｘ: not yet identified)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;己亥 is one of the sexagenary cycle, in marking year, it's 2019-60i, e.g. 2019, 1959, 1899, 1839 . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;初秋&quot; means early autumn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;初&quot; is the best i can guess, might be wrong :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;逸ｘ&quot; is, most likely, the name of the painter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the seal, i suspected the right one is &quot;茂&quot;, and, the left character is &quot;山&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2019-04-18T03:30:51.697" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T03:30:51.697" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33665" CreationDate="2019-04-18T03:37:40.987" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Title is &lt;code&gt;江南春曉&lt;/code&gt; pronounced Jiang Nan Chun Xiao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;江 mean river, most used for Changjiang River in China: Asia longest and the world third longest river&lt;br&gt; &#xA;南 mean south or southern&lt;br&gt;&#xA;春 mean spring&lt;br&gt;&#xA;曉 mean morning or dawn&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 江南春曉 mean A Spring Morning in Southern China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The script beside the title is &lt;code&gt;己亥永秋逸之&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;己亥 is a kind of Chinese calendar to name the year, it cycle every 60 years, so it can mean 1059，1119，1179，1239，1299，1359，1419，1479，1539，1599，1659，1719，1779，1839，1899，1959，2019, if the painting is created in Qing dynasty (AD 1644–1911) it can mean any of the following year 1659，1719，1779，1839，1899  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com/en/index.php/Heavenly_Stems_%26_Earthly_Branches&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Click for More info&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;永 mean forever&lt;br&gt;&#xA;秋 mean autumn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;永秋 I am not sure but it can be the name of the painter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逸之 is like Best Regards in English letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the seal it contain two characters, on the left side it has 山 which mean mountain, I can't identify the character on the right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21824" LastEditorUserId="21824" LastEditDate="2019-04-18T03:43:06.123" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T03:43:06.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33657" CreationDate="2019-04-18T03:52:00.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;生抽酱油&lt;/code&gt; (light soy sauce) is salty and light in color, it add flavor to dishes in cooking&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;老抽酱油&lt;/code&gt; (dark soy sauce) is less salty and dark in color, it make dishes dark brown in color.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thespruceeats.com/dark-soy-sauce-694243&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Click for more Info&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21824" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T03:52:00.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33662" CreationDate="2019-04-18T05:17:54.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good dictionary definitely helps to get translation right. Online translation is often too primitive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I'm working through some material.&quot; What kind of &quot;material&quot; is in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reference material means 參考資料. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Teaching material means 教材.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When it comes to art, it is 素材.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When it means the content of books, it is 內容.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;材料 and 物料 are probably not a right choice in your situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not easy to say 材 and 物 are the modifiers of 料. A Chinese word can be composed by two characters with similar meaning. 材 is material and so as 物. 材, 物, 料 are synonym in some context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of 材料 and 物料 go beyond the context of &quot;material&quot;. Discussing them in details is quite lengthy. Briefly speaking, in current common usage, 材料 is prepared for make or build things and 物料 is for the study of substance. But it is not clear-cut. There is a wider range of words for translation between Latin/English and Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T05:17:54.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33616" CreationDate="2019-04-18T05:42:32.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;躲 is an act of evading from being caught or hurt, similar to 避. One of the way to evade is hiding. People and animals can evade from hazard themselves while a vase not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;藏 is the boarder sense of hiding, for both person and object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no usage constraint on long time or short time for 躲 and 藏.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T05:42:32.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33672" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33683" CreationDate="2019-04-18T06:32:54.220" Score="3" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed people avoid the word &lt;em&gt;方便面&lt;/em&gt; these days, instead opting for the word &lt;em&gt;泡面&lt;/em&gt;. I'm not sure exactly when this switchover occurred but it does seem very pervasive at the moment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt; does define &lt;em&gt;泡面&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;{TW usage} instant noodles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it just that &lt;em&gt;泡面&lt;/em&gt; sounds &lt;strong&gt;fancier&lt;/strong&gt; that it has cotton on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T10:25:32.070" Title="When did 方便面 become 泡面 and why?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33672" CreationDate="2019-04-18T07:35:35.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When 速食面/ 方便面 (instant noodle) was invented,  you needed to put the noodle into boiling water and cook it for 3 minutes. That requires using of a stove (it is still the majority type today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泡面 is a later version of instant noodle. All you need to do is pour boiled water into the foam cup (the foam cup is also the package) and cover it up for three minutes. Since most family have electric hot water dispenser, you don't need to use the stove to cook instant noodle anymore. The noodle is also called 'cup-noodle' (杯面) and all cup-noodle are '泡麵' ; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some 泡麵 come in regular package instead of foam cup package. you have to use your own bowl&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'泡' in '泡面' means 'infuse', not 'bubble'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Taiwan people call all instant noodles including the ones that needed cooking as '泡面', it may had been a generalization practice. Just like most Hong Kong people call all  instant noodles &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/723/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;公仔麵&lt;/a&gt;. BTW, The official name for instant noodles in Hong Kong is   即食麫. In Guangdong , also called 即食麫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There's a new style of Japanese ramen noodle called 泡系拉麵 (foam series ramen) which the soup of the ramen is thickened and foamed. If this style became popular in Taiwan, the term '泡麵'(foam noodle) may be confused with '泡麵'(infuse noodle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="18747" LastEditDate="2019-05-06T10:25:32.070" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T10:25:32.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33665" CreationDate="2019-04-18T11:35:53.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its 江南春晓, 己亥初秋逸之, and seal 茂山（right-to-left）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;江南春晓 is the title or name of this work, means A Spring Morning in Southern China as @Simon already said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;己亥 is the year this work is done, and 初秋 denotes the time: at the beginning of autumn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逸之 is the name of the author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21829" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T11:35:53.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33634" CreationDate="2019-04-18T12:20:49.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这就是个很好的例子 is probably like &lt;em&gt;This demonstrates a very good example.&lt;/em&gt; It's not a word-for-word translation though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这就是个很好的例子 is saying &quot;If you want to find a good example, here is a one.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T12:20:49.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33665" CreationDate="2019-04-18T12:32:56.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding the seal &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O37TC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O37TC.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it is perhaps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;岷&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B2%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a placename&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21830" LastEditorUserId="21830" LastEditDate="2019-04-23T05:48:53.760" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T05:48:53.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33678" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33679" CreationDate="2019-04-18T14:27:29.040" Score="0" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing about certain historical leaders of China, and I'd like to say something along the lines of &quot;he opened China to foreign investment&quot; or &quot;he opened China to foreign influence&quot;, etc. I can translate it except for the &quot;opened&quot;, part. I know 开 means to literally open something, like a door, and I've put my sentence into various online translators and gotten &quot;开放&quot; for &quot;open&quot; in context. Does that work or should I use something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T17:02:20.330" Title="Metaphorical &quot;opening&quot; translation" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33678" CreationDate="2019-04-18T14:31:33.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sounds right. Something along the line 对外资开放, which means give access to foreign investments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T14:31:33.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33678" CreationDate="2019-04-18T14:54:52.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Or you can say in the literal sense, that 他打开了中国的大门。or 他向外商投资打开了中国的大门。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T14:54:52.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33634" CreationDate="2019-04-18T15:02:01.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a post &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/19419/a-unified-theory-of-%E5%B0%B1-meaning&quot;&gt;&quot;unified theory of 就&lt;/a&gt;&quot; read it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer: 就 is &quot;AND&quot; , thus your sentence must be translated as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;And&lt;/strong&gt; this is a good exapmle&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, what does this mean? Well, what does adding &quot;and&quot; in this position mean in English? Hard to say, yes? The same in Chinese case. Natives struggle to explain what 就 does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T15:02:01.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33678" CreationDate="2019-04-18T16:20:44.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;to check that 开放 works find example phrases at online dictionaries, e.g. iciba, bkrs, submitting e.g. &quot;opening to outside&quot; get 对外开放&#xA;[法]open door to the outside world；  [法]open to the outside world；   [法]opening to the outside world + many more examples, also note Chinese motto (邓小平)&lt;strong&gt;改革开放&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;find many more examples for 开放 at bkrs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T16:20:44.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33672" CreationDate="2019-04-19T00:04:06.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think, your intuition is right. 泡面 sounds fancier, and people prefer fancier names unconsciously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方便面 sounds cheap; they were just instant noodles for filling one‘s empty stomach. The name reminds the way how migrant rural workers eat 方便面, which is very common to see in train stations of big cities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泡面 sounds as elegant as 泡茶 (make tea); because usually it takes time to 泡 (verb) something and then to enjoy what has been 泡-ed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16740" LastEditorUserId="16740" LastEditDate="2019-04-19T00:18:07.187" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T00:18:07.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33684" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33728" CreationDate="2019-04-19T08:51:40.447" Score="2" ViewCount="398" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some commented about a joke,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;还真别说，这个笑话有点意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translator gives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Don't mention it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T17:27:21.167" Title="What does 还真别说 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33684" CreationDate="2019-04-19T08:53:18.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;还真别说，这个问题挺不好回答。&#xA;大概可以这么解释吧：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It really shouldn't be played down&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="19295" LastEditDate="2019-04-19T09:27:14.033" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T09:27:14.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25664" CreationDate="2019-04-19T09:05:23.793" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;融资：to find money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“融” 听起来比 “要” beg 高大上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T09:05:23.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33687" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-19T11:36:18.980" Score="2" ViewCount="659" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to say the sentence &quot;I have a replacement class this Saturday&quot;. I translated &quot;replacement class&quot; in Google translate and got 替换课程. But when I typed the full sentence on Google translate it is 替补课. So should my sentence be 这个星期六我有替换课程 or 这个星期六我有替补课 or is there any other more appropriate/colloquial way to say it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T12:02:16.247" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T12:02:16.247" Title="What is the right translation for &quot;replacement class&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33595" CreationDate="2019-04-19T11:45:52.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look to the Hangout N° 2  there :&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yoyochinese.com/blog/learn-mandarin-top-10-yoyo-chinese-live-hangouts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.yoyochinese.com/blog/learn-mandarin-top-10-yoyo-chinese-live-hangouts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can help :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T11:45:52.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33689" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-19T13:30:05.637" Score="2" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;烏, &lt;em&gt;wū&lt;/em&gt;, crow, 10 strokes, 灬 radical&lt;br&gt;&#xA;鳥, &lt;em&gt;niǎo&lt;/em&gt;, bird, 11 strokes, 鳥 radical&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the way since at least seal script, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:%E9%B3%A5-seal.svg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鳥&lt;/a&gt; seems like just &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:%E7%83%8F-seal.svg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;烏&lt;/a&gt; with an additional stroke. They both describe birds in one way or another. Why was 烏 not used as the building block, as a separate radical, or even as a –1 stroke variant of 鳥?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20431" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T02:15:19.443" Title="How did 鳥 end up a Kangxi radical but not 烏?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21035" CreationDate="2019-04-19T15:13:26.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I created a python module which converts a whole sentence into Pinyin. It also supports Cantonese/Jyutping. There's an accompanying REST API: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/lucwastiaux/python-pinyin-jyutping-sentence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/lucwastiaux/python-pinyin-jyutping-sentence&lt;/a&gt; . It attempts to separate the sentence into words (which I haven't seen other chinese-to-pinyin modules do), using the jieba library.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Installing the module&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;pip install pinyin_jyutping_sentence&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mandarin / simplified characters&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; import pinyin_jyutping_sentence&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; pinyin_jyutping_sentence.pinyin(&quot;提高口语&quot;)&#xA;'tígāo kǒuyǔ'&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cantonese / traditional characters&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; import pinyin_jyutping_sentence&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; pinyin_jyutping_sentence.jyutping(&quot;我出去攞野食&quot;)&#xA;'ngǒ cēothêoi ló jěsik'&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Calling the REST API&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mandarin&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import requests&#xA;import json&#xA;&#xA;url = &quot;http://api.mandarincantonese.com/pinyin/办所有的事情&quot;&#xA;response = requests.get(url)&#xA;print(json.loads(response.content)[&quot;pinyin&quot;])&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; bàn suǒyǒu de shìqíng&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cantonese&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;# calling the API from python&#xA;import requests&#xA;import json&#xA;&#xA;url = &quot;http://api.mandarincantonese.com/jyutping/我哋盪失咗&quot;&#xA;response = requests.get(url)&#xA;print(json.loads(response.content)[&quot;jyutping&quot;])&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; ngǒ déi dongsāt zó&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21836" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T15:13:26.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33691" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-19T17:02:40.797" Score="1" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know how Google Translate translates this, but wondering how those who actually use Mandarin/Chinese would say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you very much in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21838" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T20:22:06.287" Title="Matrix movie quote question: Advice on saying/translating &quot;There is a difference in knowing the path and walking the path&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33691" CreationDate="2019-04-19T17:17:16.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;There is a difference in knowing the path and walking the path&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idiom 知易行難 (knowing how to do something is easy; put it into action is hard) match this quote quite well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知 - know; aware&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;易 - easy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行 - implement; walk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;難 - difficult&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The writer might know this idiom but thought 行 meant walk&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put this idiom into quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正所謂「知易行難」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你知道「知易行難」的道理嗎?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;古語有云 「知易行難」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To translate the quote from Matrix directly, you can say  &amp;quot;知道路怎麼走和真的去走這條路是有分別的&amp;quot; (There is a difference between knowing the path and really walking the path)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PaleNeutron wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;popular way is &amp;quot;说起来容易做起来难&amp;quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The elegant way to say it is &amp;quot;说時容易做時难&amp;quot;, which is a common expression&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T20:22:06.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33691" CreationDate="2019-04-19T17:26:58.343" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese versions of some quotes at &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikiquote.org/zh-cn/%E9%A7%AD%E5%AE%A2%E4%BB%BB%E5%8B%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikiquote.org/zh-cn/%E9%A7%AD%E5%AE%A2%E4%BB%BB%E5%8B%99&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.juzimi.com/article/%E9%BB%91%E5%AE%A2%E5%B8%9D%E5%9B%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.juzimi.com/article/%E9%BB%91%E5%AE%A2%E5%B8%9D%E5%9B%BD&lt;/a&gt; many w/o original, there find &lt;strong&gt;明白一件事和做这件事是不同的&lt;/strong&gt; which sounds like a possible translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T17:26:58.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33689" CreationDate="2019-04-19T18:06:10.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;烏 specifically referring to 'crow' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鳥 referring to 'bird' in general. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many 'bird' related characters, but I don't know any 'crow' related character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鴨(duck)、鵝(goose)、鶴(crane)、鷹(eagle)、鴉(crow) are all bird, but only 鴉 is crow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;烏 also means 'black' because all crows are black, we even have an idiom '天下烏鴉一般黑' pointing out this fact&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-20T02:15:19.443" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T02:15:19.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33709" CreationDate="2019-04-19T18:45:16.497" Score="8" ViewCount="4201" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently watching a TV show called ”匆匆那年“, at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Tub19BTX4&amp;amp;list=PLn8V6LgDVrvJ3SAHEtI4i6hEL_ODIulko&amp;amp;index=7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Tub19BTX4&amp;amp;list=PLn8V6LgDVrvJ3SAHEtI4i6hEL_ODIulko&amp;amp;index=7&lt;/a&gt;. I've only watched half an hour of the seventh episode, but I've already heard the word &quot;丫&quot; a few times. For example, at 30:22, one of the characters says, &quot;你丫不会要哭吧“, and I understand what the sentence means, but &lt;strong&gt;why is “丫&quot; used and what does it mean? I've never heard it in China, is it used in some parts of China and others not? Are there only certain contexts when it could be used?&lt;/strong&gt; Unfortunately, I can't find the other times I heard it in that episode currently, but I know I heard it and saw it a few times. I've tried searching on Google and various online translators, but I couldn't find a conclusive answer on when to use it or what it means. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我正在看一个电视节目叫”匆匆那年“。我就看了半个小时的第七集，已经听过了一些次句话用“丫”。比如，在这个 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Tub19BTX4&amp;amp;list=PLn8V6LgDVrvJ3SAHEtI4i6hEL_ODIulko&amp;amp;index=7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Tub19BTX4&amp;amp;list=PLn8V6LgDVrvJ3SAHEtI4i6hEL_ODIulko&amp;amp;index=7&lt;/a&gt;) 的30:22，一个人说，”你丫不会要哭吧“。我听懂这句话的意思，&lt;strong&gt;可是“丫”是什么意思，而且为什么需要用它? 我在中国没听过了，有的中国部分用它很多，有的没用它吗？&lt;/strong&gt; 不好意思，我现在不会找到那些其他次我听过了“丫”，但是我知道我听过了它。我在Google上查资料了它，也不会找到一个好的解答。谢谢！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外，我知道我的中文不好，如果你会改善我的写作，请帮我！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastEditorUserId="16117" LastEditDate="2019-04-24T21:02:08.063" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T21:02:08.063" Title="What does 丫 mean? 丫是什么意思？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33689" CreationDate="2019-04-19T19:41:14.057" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Radicals are not building blocks of characters, they're dictionary entry organisation headers. They're equivalent to the first letter in an English word. The radicals are &lt;em&gt;chosen&lt;/em&gt; so that some characters are easily and obviously grouped under these headers, but some radicals are very arbitrary (see e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Radical 4&lt;/a&gt; and the characters grouped under it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The optimisation of a Chinese dictionary (at least the Kangxi dictionary) is concerned about how to organise 50,000 characters whilst choosing the number of appropriate dictionary headings (&lt;em&gt;radicals&lt;/em&gt;) to split these 50,000 characters under.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this light,「烏」is less suitable than「鳥」as a header, because many more characters are clearly grouped under「鳥」rather than「烏」. However, if one looks at &lt;em&gt;Shuowen Jiezi&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Shuowen_Jiezi_radicals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;which has 540 radicals&lt;/a&gt; (as opposed to Kangxi's 214), one has more leeway in including radicals; indeed, &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; has「烏」as a radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T19:41:14.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33695" CreationDate="2019-04-19T19:45:09.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E4%B8%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E4%B8%AB&lt;/a&gt; 3)girl &#xA;4) dial. &#xA;丫的 Beijing dialect, vulg. he,she,you (orig. 丫头养的, 丫挺的, i.e. illegitimate (born out of wedlock) child)&#xA;(of course 丫头 is well known)&#xA;more examples: ０：５０：我让你丫滚蛋 １：１１：合着你们丫都知道吗 １：１７：你丫脑袋也开窍了８：２０：你丫能不能客气啊８：２４：你丫自己心里有火 １０：１２：丫有病 １３：０６：丫就是一变态 (丫 by itself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;additional slang,colloquialisms, technical sports terms (using bkrs): awesome 牛:&#xA;６：４２；全国最牛的高中篮球比赛１８：０４：挺牛了20:59:太牛了那球啊 &#xA;８：１２：你能别这么磨叽（(dialect) to dawdle&#xA;to waste time）吗&#xA;８：３２：屁大（coll. unimportant; minor）点事至于吗这么磨叽了，至于吗（seriously?, why?, really?), ８：４０：说你了这么着（这样、如此）瞧你那德行&#xA;１２：０４：我让你挡拆挡拆（pick and roll (basketball)&#xA;screen and roll）２１：０８：如果不是最后回振的那个绝杀（to deal the fatal blow (sports, chess etc)）&#xA;to score the winning point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-04-19T23:37:00.567" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T23:37:00.567" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33695" CreationDate="2019-04-19T21:52:36.750" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;你丫&quot; is a phrase from Beijing dialect. The word &quot;丫&quot; itself doesn't have a meaning in this context. It is a slang, not an appropriate way of speaking. You can think of it as adding F words in an English sentence. &quot;你丫&quot; is not as flexible as the F word though. For example, you can't say &quot;他丫&quot;. This is a special phrase only appear in the second person pronoun context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find a better source for this phrase than this one on Baidu's wiki site: &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BD%A0%E4%B8%AB%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BD%A0%E4%B8%AB%E7%9A%84&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21839" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T21:52:36.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33695" CreationDate="2019-04-19T23:17:23.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;你丫的 is a milder interjection compared with 你妈的. You could say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈的，你不会要哭吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丫的，你不会要哭吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你丫的 is less vulgar than 你妈的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T23:17:23.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33684" CreationDate="2019-04-19T23:35:01.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;还真别说 (or 你别说) is a colloquial term, meaning &lt;em&gt;Things are different from what you would say about them&lt;/em&gt;. It expressed that something is not just like what you thought it would be. it usually follows the reason. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还真别说，这个笑话有点意思 expresses &lt;em&gt;originally, we thought the joke would not be very interesting, but now I find it's not that bad.&lt;/em&gt; The lieral translation can be: &lt;em&gt;Don't say that joke is tedious, it's actually quite interesting.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-04-20T08:08:31.327" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T08:08:31.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33376" CreationDate="2019-04-20T02:19:12.447" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;(yeah, right, downvote. Don't write your own researched writing, just press a button. Boooooo!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Okay, you folks all missed it. (by the way, @peter : &quot;di&quot; sounds somewhat like &quot;ta&quot;, see below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The AMAZING history of《也》...&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Turns out that 《也》 has an amazing history, and has taken on three &lt;em&gt;distinct&lt;/em&gt; meanings over that annoying &lt;em&gt;&quot;five thousand years of Chinese history&quot;&lt;/em&gt; that you always hear about. The morphology is simply amazing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Modern Meaning&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The modern &quot;also&quot;《也》(ye) is somehow a bastardization of《亦》(yi)...It is unclear how this happened, but you can see how they KIND-A look the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Post-Oracle Bone Meaning&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient chinese, you didn't say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Oranges are fruit&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Oranges this, fruit that&#xA;&#xA;橙是果也&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 《也》is a completely different word from the modern character. In the ancient meaning, it was &quot;that&quot;, and was pronounced closer to &quot;ta&quot;. Hence《他》(&quot;ta&quot;) for &quot;him&quot; and 《地》 (&quot;di&quot;) for ground.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Along the way, the 《也》 got dropped, leaving just 《是》 (shi), which then became &quot;is&quot;, if only because the &quot;that&quot; part of the sentence disappeared, so what the heck, why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Hold up, it gets better...&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;&quot;Down home&quot; Oracle Bone-Era Meaning&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《也》as &quot;that&quot; is in itself a loan character from the very EARLY Zhou Dynasty era, when &quot;concept words&quot; repurposed mostly unused characters. Turns out Oracle Bone-era Chinese writing was centered on pretty basic stuff (&quot;will it rain?&quot;, &quot;will my cow die?&quot;), so most characters were pretty basic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;文 and 字&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These characters were referred to as 《文》, and tended to be actual pictographs, while fancy stuff made up of multiple characters glomed together were referred to as 《字》. Hence the term 《文字》. In fact, 《文》is itself a 文, and 《字》 is itself a 字！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fun Tangent&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《愛》(ai), &quot;to love&quot; Is an early 字. It didn't mean &quot;hey gal, I luv ya!&quot;, it meant to lovingly take care of someone or something, and was a picture of a mother taking her toddler out for a walk (even wearing his cute little baby booties if you can believe it!!!), with a heart thrown in to show the care implied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Back to the story...&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During Zhou, scribes needed to write down concepts which didn't have 文 ... how else were they going to write the various classics? They couldn't just go on and on about cows, rain and meat, so they had to do SOMETHING.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So they borrowed 文 that SOUNDED like the concept words they needed to write down. It appears that they didn't modify sound-alike characters, they just reused them! So for a period of time, a character had two meanings: the &quot;down home&quot; 文 meaning like &quot;dustpan&quot;(《其》) or &quot;scorpion&quot; (《萬》), and the conceptual meaning like &quot;them&quot; or &quot;10,000&quot;. The likelihood of using &quot;dustpan&quot; and &quot;that group over there&quot; was pretty small. So it kind-a worked. But still,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;...that's not confusing at all...&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the &quot;radical&quot; system was invented later, the original &quot;down home&quot; use of the 文 was often remapped to a 字,with a radical attached to provide category meaning (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know radical is a lookup method...shaddap already...). So 《其》 became 《箕》 by adding a bamboo radical (so now you know what dustpans were made out of back then!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, the ancient, down home 文 use was just lost, and another word and/or character took the &quot;down home&quot; meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But what about 《也》?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't mean to leave you with a cliffhanger, but sadly, I won't be telling you what the actual oracle bone-era meaning was, will let you look up yourself...it's pretty...ummmm, surprising. So much so that caused quite a bit of stir over the years as embarrassed scholars tried to deny it. In fact, you can still see the &quot;NO NO NO NO, THAT'S NOT RIGHT!&quot; annotations added to the ancient dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To this day, the down home meaning was somewhat controversial, with a nonsense definition of &quot;water pail&quot; being insisted upon. But the real meaning is pretty well accepted now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The end.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Addendum: Examples of 文 and 字&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples of ancient characters (古文) that lost their down home meanings, and how they got replaced with 字. Note that the first example looks like a 字, but it's really a 文.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;文: modern/ancient meaning, down home meaning, replacement 字    &#xA;萬：10k, scorpion, 蠆&#xA;其：conceptual theirs/his/that stuff over there, dust pan, 箕&#xA;為: to be/for/etc., monkey (or possibly elephant), 猴 (or possibly 象)&#xA;也：also/concrete &quot;that&quot;, &amp;lt;redacted&amp;gt;, &amp;lt;redacted&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;PS: For those who don't know what &quot;down home&quot; means, it's a southern US term for backwoods, countryside things. In Chinese, you'd say 《土》.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References: (require knowledge of Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E4%B9%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=也&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/sw/4E5F.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/sw/4E5F.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/sw/7231.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zdic.net/z/1e/sw/7231.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15159" LastEditorUserId="15159" LastEditDate="2019-04-25T17:55:26.960" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T17:55:26.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33703" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33704" CreationDate="2019-04-20T02:20:16.067" Score="0" ViewCount="329" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the literal meaning of 以 in 以 ... 來 pattern like in the following sentence: 以我的情況來看. What is the syntactic role of this word (verb, particle, etc)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21842" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T01:46:33.530" Title="What is the meaning of 以 in 以 ... 來 pattern?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33703" CreationDate="2019-04-20T02:31:58.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;[以 ... 來 + (v)] = [with/ according to/ base on ... to + (v)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;]我的情況[&lt;em&gt;來&lt;/em&gt;]看 = [&lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt;] assess it [&lt;strong&gt;base on&lt;/strong&gt;/ according to] my situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;]我的想法[&lt;em&gt;來&lt;/em&gt;]說 = [&lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt;] judge it [&lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt;/ according to] my thinking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;]他的指示[&lt;em&gt;來&lt;/em&gt;]做標準 = [&lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt;] make standards [&lt;strong&gt;according to&lt;/strong&gt;/ with] his instruction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you can replace 以 with 從 in your sentence, 以 means 'from'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you can replace 以 with 用 in your sentence, 以 means 'with'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you can replace 以 with 跟據 in your sentence, 以 means 'according to'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-20T20:09:31.113" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T20:09:31.113" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33684" CreationDate="2019-04-20T03:01:02.010" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;说 is the key to understanding. Here it means to judge, deny, or disapprove (especially quickly). 还真别说 translated character by character is &quot;just really don't judge too soon&quot;. As a whole it means &quot;(contrary to what I expected,) I just realize that...&quot;, or &quot;admittedly&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6657" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T03:01:02.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33703" CreationDate="2019-04-20T03:39:02.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your 'sentence' is a phrase. On its own doesn't really tell us much. It needs a bit more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以我的情況來看， 我明天去不了浙江。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In my present situation, I don't think I will be able to go to Zhejiang tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以我的经济情況來看， 我买不了这辆S600奔驰。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In my present economic situation, I don't think I can afford to buy this S600 Mercedes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How you translate 以 will always depend on the context. There are no hard and fast rules. Oftentimes it won't get translated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS： 我把車輛賣掉了 does not mean &quot;I took the car and sold it&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把那輛車賣掉了 = 我卖掉了那辆车。= I sold that car.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you ask a Chinese friend to translate &quot;I sold that car.&quot;, he or she will probably tell you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把那辆车卖掉了。Chinese people prefer this word order I find. Why? 不知道！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite why Chinese uses 把 to achieve a different syntax I don't know, but this 把 or 将 or sometimes 给 don't contribute any meaning, they just allow for a different word order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T03:39:02.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33695" CreationDate="2019-04-20T04:46:17.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rule of thumb, think of 丫 as &amp;quot;motherfucker&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actual meaning of the word depends on the context and tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time, it is just a word use between close friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不会要哭吧?&#xA;Wait, are you gonna cry?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你丫不会要哭吧?&#xA;Wait, you motherfucker gonna cry?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be used for emphasis, or mean a plain insult, show hostility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你能不能客气点啊?&#xA;Can't you be nice? (Mild complaint)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你丫能不能客气点啊?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can't you motherfucker be nice?  (A bit stronger)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You motherfucker can't say it nicely, can you? (Guy stands up, gonna start a fight)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like &amp;quot;motherfucker&amp;quot;, you don't use it easily to strangers, that'll gets you into trouble. Mostly it's used between friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21843" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T04:46:17.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33695" CreationDate="2019-04-20T06:34:07.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;“你丫” is an abbreviated version of &quot;你这个丫头养的&quot; or “你是丫头养的” = 你是丫环生的 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你丫 = You (more precisely = You the bastard)&#xA;So &quot;丫&quot;(or the full version of 丫头养的）is a qualifier for &quot;你you&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丫头 or丫环, 丫鬟 = maid （often young and poor, coming from a peasant family）.  养的 = 生的. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. You are a bastard, your mother is not a respected lady, but a maid who had sex with her master, that's why you exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes people simply use this one word “丫” , in this case, it often means &quot;He&quot; or that guy, that bastard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21845" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T06:34:07.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33695" CreationDate="2019-04-20T06:43:20.240" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a short word for &quot;丫头养的&quot; only used in area around Beijing city，&quot;丫头&quot; means slave girl or young girl servant. &quot;养的&quot; means feed by. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is bad language saying somebody's mother is young girl servant, some kind of &quot;son of bitch&quot;. However this talking is generalized nowadays, &quot;你丫...&quot; is more compare to &quot;You fucking ...&quot;(你他妈的...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21844" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T06:43:20.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33314" CreationDate="2019-04-20T07:01:12.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You Could find the book preview here &lt;a href=&quot;https://cup.columbia.edu/sampler/9789622016026/google-preview&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Broken Seals - Part One of The Marshes of Mount Liang&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure the passage you want is there. But it is hard for me find the exact page for you since I am a Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21846" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T07:01:12.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33691" CreationDate="2019-04-20T07:11:18.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When people say &quot;There is a difference in knowing the path and walking the path&quot;, they usually means &quot;Do something is much harder than know something&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on your context, the formal way is &quot;知易行难&quot;, but the popular way is &quot;说起来容易做起来难&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One step further, &quot;知行&quot; is the core theory of a school in Ming, ref. &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%9F%A5%E8%A1%8C%E5%90%88%E4%B8%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;知行合一&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21846" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T07:11:18.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33314" CreationDate="2019-04-20T07:43:44.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On p. 94 of &lt;em&gt;The Broken Seals: Part One of The Marshes of Mount Liang&lt;/em&gt; we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OF6oQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OF6oQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Abbot, with the monks behind him, returned to the temple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As For Lu Zhishen, as soon as he sat down on the meditation couch in the meditation hall, his head sank and he fell fast asleep. But the two contemplatives who had been appointed his spiritual mentors, gave him a shake and said: &amp;quot;That's not allowed here! If you're going to be a monk, you've got to learn to meditate!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I went to sleep,&amp;quot; Lu Zhishen replied. &amp;quot;What business is it of yours?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;This is a fine kettle of fish!&amp;quot; one of the monks said in disgust.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Fish, turtle, I'll eat anything,&amp;quot; said Lu Zhishen innocently. &amp;quot;But where is this fish?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;This is going to be a tough one!&amp;quot; the monk exclaimed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A nice fat turtle is very tasty,&amp;quot; Lu Zhishen said. &amp;quot;It's an excellent dish! What makes you say it's tough?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His mentors gave up and left him to sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T07:43:44.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33691" CreationDate="2019-04-20T11:35:41.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably, 眼高手低 denotes the same sense. It describes that one possesses good knowledge or vision, but can't achieve much practically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More closely, it can be 理论和实践是不同的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-04-20T11:45:11.690" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T11:45:11.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33531" CreationDate="2019-04-20T20:21:31.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;以及 is a word which can pretty much be used the same way as &quot;and&quot; in English. However, it is a rather formal word, not often used in conversation. Its connotations are similar to that of &quot;as well as&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, if you structure it right, 和 can almost always be eliminated. For example, in noun phrases, you can use 跟, which usually sounds closer to native speaker usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21723" LastEditorUserId="21723" LastEditDate="2019-04-21T03:59:06.980" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T03:59:06.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33715" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-21T01:32:04.027" Score="0" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;My name is John Su. I am came from an Indonesian speaking family, not a Chinese a speaking one. I need to know of an English or Malay or at least a mixed language website that tell exactly the Generation-Poem of the Su surname? Thank-you in advance for your kind help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21850" LastActivityDate="2021-05-09T04:39:44.317" Title="蘇 (Su) surname Generation Poem" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;surnames&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33703" CreationDate="2019-04-21T01:46:33.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;以我的情況來看 - In my case ... I think, we need more, because what you give is not the whole sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21850" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T01:46:33.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33687" CreationDate="2019-04-21T01:57:28.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The scenario you described is usually called 调（tiáo）课 in Chinese. I am not sure if there is a corresponding noun for replacement class in Chinese, but the sentence you had&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have a replacement class this Saturday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can be translated to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们有一节课调（tiáo）到这周六了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T01:57:28.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33718" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33721" CreationDate="2019-04-21T02:28:43.907" Score="0" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've asked a question regarding 就 before &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/33185/usage-of-%E5%B0%B1-in-these-two-examples&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and the answer helped a lot. But I'm a bit confused regarding another example sentence that I came across. The sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大的行李托运了，这个小的行李就随身带着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context is that there are two friends, A and B, and they are at the airport. A asked B what he/she did with the luggage, and B replies by saying the above sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that it means &quot;The big baggage I checked, and this small one I'm going to carry with me.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding of 就 is that it's something equivalent to &quot;then,&quot; but I'm having trouble connecting that to this specific sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would it mean in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20231" LastEditorUserId="20231" LastEditDate="2019-04-21T02:48:46.823" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T07:05:03.393" Title="What's the usage/meaning of 就 in this case?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33718" CreationDate="2019-04-21T02:44:16.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given the context,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大的行李托運了，這個小的行李就隨身帶着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The big baggage I checked, and this small one (I'm going to) carry with me.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can rewrite &lt;em&gt;I'm going to&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;em&gt;will &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; be&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The big baggage I checked, and this small one &lt;strong&gt;will then be&lt;/strong&gt; carried with me.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation of「就」to &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; should be clearer in this way of phrasing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T03:09:20.210" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33718" CreationDate="2019-04-21T03:12:56.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(既然)大的行李(已经)托运了，这个小的行李就随身带着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;就&quot; usually means a secondary step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more classic example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他拿走了草莓, 我就只能选苹果了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21846" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T03:12:56.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33718" CreationDate="2019-04-21T03:22:19.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/808/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/808/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[5] [prep] with regard to; concerning; as far as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大的行李托运了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小的行李随身带着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first part of the sentence stated the transporting solutions for the large items; the second part of the sentence stated the transporting solutions for the small items&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就 as a preposition, connect the second part with the first part&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大的行李托运了， -  The large baggage items have been checked-in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个小的行李(就)随身带着 -  (with regard to) the small baggage items, (I) will carry them with me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你帶主力軍向東撒退 - you take the main force retreat to the East&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我帶其他部隊向西撒退 - I take the rest of the army retreat to the West&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你帶主力軍向東撒退, 我(就)帶其他部隊向西撒退 - you take the main force retreat to the East, (with regard to) I,  (I) will take the rest of the army retreat to the West&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see the role of 就 as a preposition (with regard to; concerning; as far as) more clearly in the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大的行李托运&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小的行李随身带着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大的行李(就)托运, 小的行李(就)随身带着 - (with regard to) the large baggage items, (they) will be checked-in; (with regard to) the small baggage items, (I) will carry them with me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你帶主力軍向東撒退&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我帶其他部隊向西撒退&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你(就)帶主力軍向東撒退, 我(就)帶其他部隊向西撒退 - (with regard to) you, (you) will take the main force retreat to the East; (with regard to) I, (I) will take the rest of the army retreat to the West&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we have 'if' implied in the sentence, then 就 would mean 'then':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(如果)大的行李托运, 小的行李(就)随身带着 - (If) the large baggage items will be checked-in; (then) the small baggage items will be carried with me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(如果)你帶主力軍向東撒退, 我(就)帶其他部隊向西撒退 - (If) you take the main force retreat to the East; I'll (then) take the rest of the army retreat to the West&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;就 means 'then' only when there's a 'if'(如果) or 'since'(既然) implied before it in the sentence&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In the cases of the examples in my answer, a '&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/368/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;而&lt;/a&gt;' is implied&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;你帶主力軍向東撒退, (而)我(就)帶其他部隊向西撒退&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In your previous question about 就, '等你来天津' (when you come to Tianjin) 'if' is implied&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T04:40:15.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="993" CreationDate="2019-04-21T04:39:36.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition, if you write &lt;code&gt;jiou&lt;/code&gt; it will be &lt;code&gt;ji'ou&lt;/code&gt;(奇偶) rather than 就(jiu) and &lt;code&gt;*iu&lt;/code&gt; disambiguates that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21829" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T04:39:36.130" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33723" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33724" CreationDate="2019-04-21T05:25:56.050" Score="1" ViewCount="464" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a phrase in Chinese which means the residency program that physicians go through after graduation from medical school. See here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residency_(medicine)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residency_(medicine)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21853" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T08:38:16.110" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T08:38:16.110" Title="Chinese phrase for a physician's &quot;residency program&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33723" CreationDate="2019-04-21T06:13:00.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translates &quot;residency&quot; as &quot;住院醫師&quot; (doctor who live/stay in the hospital ) . I think 駐院醫師 (stationing doctor) is more accurate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;住院 could mean 留醫 (hospitalized; hospitalization)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;residency program&quot; for physicians go through after graduation from medical school&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The physicians in the program are basically 實習醫師 (intern doctors). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate &quot;residency&quot; as &quot;駐院醫師&quot; and &quot;residency program&quot; as &quot;實習醫師駐院計劃&quot; (intern doctor hospital stationing program) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-22T00:27:23.807" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T00:27:23.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33718" CreationDate="2019-04-21T07:05:03.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I take 就 here as an &lt;strong&gt;adverb&lt;/strong&gt;, meaning &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大的行李托运了，这个小的行李就随身带着&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence omitted the subject: 我们. If we added it back, it can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(我们把)大的行李托运了，这个小的行李(我们)就随身带着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, it is saying &lt;em&gt;Now that we have the big luggage checked, for the small one, we &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; carry with us.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T07:05:03.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33695" CreationDate="2019-04-21T12:40:43.083" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;丫 means &quot;why&quot;, like Y, and is used when you happen to have a question about a subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21857" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T12:40:43.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33531" CreationDate="2019-04-21T12:48:48.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;老板喜欢咖啡和茶 wont confuse the reader, since when 和means mix, it will be mixing water and some powder-like things to get soft/semi-solid mixture: 和面、和稀泥 and is pronounced &lt;code&gt;huo2/huo4&lt;/code&gt; rather than &lt;code&gt;he2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, if the boss do likes mixed coffee and tea, it will goes like: 老板喜欢加了咖啡的茶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21829" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T12:48:48.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33684" CreationDate="2019-04-21T16:22:06.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;还真别说&quot; literally translates to &quot;you don't say&quot;. It means the same kind of &quot;contrary to common belief&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike &quot;you don't say&quot; which is usually used as a standalone sentence to express surprise and strong disbelief, &quot;还真别说&quot; is way milder and mainly used as a phrase to &lt;em&gt;start a sentence&lt;/em&gt; with some following up comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's when you give a thing a second thought, and find out it &lt;em&gt;actually&lt;/em&gt; has some other interesting properties that you didn't notice before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you can safely replace &quot;还真别说，...&quot; with &quot;Wow, it actually ...&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;On second thought, it actually...&quot; is an option too, but it's a bit too formal. &quot;还真别说&quot; appears mostly in spoken language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还真别说，这个笑话有点意思。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You don't say, the joke is funny. (weird, too strong)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wow, the joke is actually funny. (better)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21843" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T16:22:06.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33687" CreationDate="2019-04-21T16:32:55.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in addition to what @zyy answered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;调 means making adjustments&#xA;课 means class&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;调课&lt;/code&gt; sometimes implicitly means that we are swapping two classes, so it is slightly different from &lt;code&gt;replacement class&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other possible translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这周六我有一节课要补&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这周六要补上一节课&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21829" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T16:32:55.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33531" CreationDate="2019-04-22T01:30:10.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When people try to express a &lt;code&gt;list&lt;/code&gt;, both &lt;code&gt;水饺、米饭，和面条&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;水饺、米饭、面条&lt;/code&gt; are acceptable. Use &lt;code&gt;和&lt;/code&gt; is better but without it is also acceptable when &lt;strong&gt;list length is larger than 2&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, &quot;这家餐馆有水饺、米饭&quot; is a quite strange expression. People usually say &quot;这家餐馆有水饺和米饭&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21846" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T01:30:10.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33731" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33732" CreationDate="2019-04-22T05:29:09.403" Score="2" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a sentence that I can't quite grasp the meaning of. The sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他虽然并不聪明， 可是很努力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's an example from a Mandarin Chinese textbook I'm using, teaching the usages of 虽然 ~ 可/但(是).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran the sentence through a translator and it means &quot;Although he is not smart, he works very hard.&quot; My question is, what does the 并 mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that if it's used as a verb it means &quot;to combine&quot; and if used as an adverb it means &quot;also, simultaneously, etc.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, would the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他虽然不是聪明， 可是很努力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;be equivalent to the one above? The second sentence makes more sense to me intuitively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20231" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T07:43:26.187" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T07:43:26.187" Title="What is the purpose of 并 in 他虽然并不聪明， 可是很努力?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33731" CreationDate="2019-04-22T05:50:31.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;並/并 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/844/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/844/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3] [adv] (used before a negative for emphasis) actually; definitely; really&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他虽然&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;(not)聪明， 可是很努力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他虽然&lt;strong&gt;并不&lt;/strong&gt;(actually not)聪明， 可是很努力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other example of 并 as an adverb before a 'negative':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;無(doesn't have) --&amp;gt; 并無 (actually doesn't have)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未(have not/ not yet)--&amp;gt; 并未 (actually have not/ actually not yet)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒 (doesn't have/ did not)--&amp;gt; 并沒 (actually doesn't have/ actually did not)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;並 in '並有'(also have) or '並已'(had also) means 'also' since  有 and 已 are not negative&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'並' 不一定 等於 '並且' ('並' does not always equal 'and also')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'並' 并不一定 等於 '並且' ('並' actually does not always equal 'and also')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T06:01:45.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33733" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-22T13:11:16.350" Score="1" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;So this is actually the third question I've asked regarding 就... It's quite difficult for me to grasp. I've gained a lot of insight from the past two question (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/33185/usage-of-%E5%B0%B1-in-these-two-examples&quot;&gt;Usage of 就 in these two examples&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/33718/whats-the-usage-meaning-of-%E5%B0%B1-in-this-case&quot;&gt;What's the usage/meaning of 就 in this case?&lt;/a&gt;) but I came across an example sentence that has thrown me off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I took a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/808/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this online Cantonese dictionary&lt;/a&gt; that a previous answerer was kind enough to provide me with, but I'm finding it difficult to fit this use case into the grammatical rules and examples given. The specific sentence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你一大早就出門趕飛機，現在很累吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context is when a friend is greeting another friend at the airport after a flight. The meaning of the sentence is not hard to grasp (my rough translation is &quot;You came out to catch the early morning flight, are you tired right now?&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would the meaning be here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20231" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T07:44:08.023" Title="Usage of 就 after a noun and before a verb" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33733" CreationDate="2019-04-22T13:23:39.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence is expressing in a colloquial way, and can be interpreted as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你一大早（起床）就出门赶飞机，现在很累吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 起床（getting up）is omitted，就 means the later thing happens right after the former one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你（在）一大早就出门赶飞机，现在很累吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在 is omitted，就 at here means the mentioned thing happened at an earlier time（eg. 我们很早以前就认识）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21829" LastEditorUserId="21829" LastEditDate="2019-04-22T13:31:37.203" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T13:31:37.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33733" CreationDate="2019-04-22T15:10:24.597" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/808/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/808/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] [adv] right away; at once; thereupon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一大早 = (at) dawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一大早 [就 + v]  = [immediately + v] (at) dawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一大早[就出门] =  [immediately go out] (at) dawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;六點鐘 = (at) six O'clock&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;六點鐘 [就 + v] = [immediately + v] (at) six O'clock&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;六點鐘就出门 = [immediately go out] (at) six O'clock&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;在 in (在)一大早 and (在)六點鐘 is omitted&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'(at) dawn' and '(at) six O'clock' are conditions, 'go out' is the 'following action'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 denotes a condition is/was/will be met and a following action &lt;strong&gt;is/ was / will be carried out immediately&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more example of: [condition is met] + [就 (immediately)] + [following action]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚飯後 = after dinner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 = immediately&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出门 = go out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚飯後就出门 = go out immediately after dinner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(the condition needed for you to go out is after you finished dinner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This usage is similar to :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[如果X] [就] [Y]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;([if X] [then] [Y])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X is the condition; Y is the following action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 denotes &lt;strong&gt;if&lt;/strong&gt; the condition is met, the following action &lt;strong&gt;will then be carried out&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'晚飯後就出门' doesn't imply 'if' -- (you are going to finish dinner), therefore, 就 is not translated as 'then' but 'immediately'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T15:42:27.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33736" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33738" CreationDate="2019-04-22T15:17:26.503" Score="3" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only the Unicode-included Unified and six extensions considered for the question (87887 symbols, 12 compatibility included).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possible contenders:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BabelStone Han: includes all of original map and partially all the extensions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source/Noto: includes all possible 65 535 physical TrueType-includable symbols, but also incomplete outside the original map.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MingLiU: circumvents the problem by having multiple files and covers all B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the biggest one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20076" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-22T15:49:14.347" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T16:11:18.577" Title="What is the biggest font by percentage of CJK symbols already encoded?" Tags="&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33737" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-22T15:31:39.240" Score="3" ViewCount="508" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m currently working on a textiles project for University inspired by Asian streetwear subculture and my main focus is androgyny and gender fluidity with the aim to create a collection of unisex/genderless clothing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if anyone knew the mandarin and the more current colloquial slang (if there is any) for some terms (eg. Androgynous, gender fluid, unisex/genderless, gender neutral). The reason I’d love to know some of these terms is because I’d like to actually use the simplified Chinese within my designs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My family have recently moved to Shanghai and I live there when I’m not studying in the UK but I have to admit I have an appalling grasp on the language! While I guess I could ask people over there, I would never want to use language in my work that could be deemed offensive or derogatory and don't want to risk this happening, and I haven't found a lot of literature on the topic while searching the internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have any suggestions for me, I would hugely appreciate the help! Thank you so much in advance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21864" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T17:38:12.367" Title="What are Chinese terms for 'androgynous', 'gender neutral', 'non binary' etc. to imply gender neutrality?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;colloquialisms&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33736" CreationDate="2019-04-22T15:48:19.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://fonts.jp/hanazono/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanazono&lt;/a&gt; is a good contender:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;U+4E00  .. U+9FA5  URO 20,902 chars (fully implemented)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  U+9FA6  .. U+9FEA  URO addition 69 chars (fully implemented)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  U+3400  .. U+4DB5  Ext-A 6,582 chars (fully implemented)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  U+20000 .. U+2A6D6 Ext.B 42,711 chars (fully implemented)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  U+2A700 .. U+2B734 Ext.C 4,149 chars (fully implemented)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  U+2B740 .. U+2B81D Ext.D 222 chars (fully implemented)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  U+2B820 .. U+2CEA1 Ext.E 5,762 chars (fully implemented)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  U+2CEB0 .. U+2EBE0 Ext.F 7,473 chars (fully implemented)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  U+F900  .. U+FAD9  CJK Compatibility Ideographs 472 chars (fully implemented)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  U+2F800 .. U+2FA1D CJK Compatibility Ideographs Supplement 542 chars (fully&#xA;                     implemented)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  IVD .. (version 2016-08-15) 28,770 chars (8,828 variants included)&#xA;  (fully implemented)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good option would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;天珩&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;CJK基本区     [4E00-9FEA] 20971字&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  CJK扩展A  [3400-4DB5] 6582字&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  CJK扩展B  [20000-2A6D6] 42711字&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  CJK扩展C  [2A700-2B734] 4149字&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  CJK扩展D  [2B740-2B81D] 222字(原先扩展D废除一字，字库中放于2A6FF，非标准码位请勿乱用)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  CJK扩展E  [2B820-2CEA1] 5762字&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  CJK扩展F  [2CEB0-2EBE0]7473字&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  CJK兼容   [F900-FAFF] 512码位实际472字&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  CJK兼容扩展     [2F800-2FA1F] 544码位　实际542字  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Babel Stone&lt;/a&gt; only claims:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;53.3%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;coverage with their Babel Han font.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-22T16:11:18.577" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T16:11:18.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33737" CreationDate="2019-04-22T15:50:55.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;男性 (male); 男性服装 (male clothing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女性 (female); 女性服装 (female clothing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中性 (unisex); 中性服装 (unisex clothing) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;other choices: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男女皆宜的/ 男女合适的 (for men or women)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-22T15:58:41.937" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T15:58:41.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33737" CreationDate="2019-04-22T17:12:59.170" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E6%80%A7%E5%88%A5%E9%85%B7%E5%85%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;性别酷儿&lt;/a&gt; mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;性别酷儿（Genderqueer、gender-fluid、non-binary）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and also goes into specific definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;非二元性别（Gender Queer，Gender non-binary） &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;精神双性人（Bigender）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;精神三性人（Trigender）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;精神无性人（Agender）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;精神泛性人（Pangender）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;性别流体（Gender fluid）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%85%A9%E6%80%A7%E5%85%B1%E4%BA%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中性&lt;/a&gt; also works for gender neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-04-22T17:38:12.367" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T17:38:12.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33733" CreationDate="2019-04-22T17:45:06.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你一大早就出門趕飛機&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;literal translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You, once dawn, (and+already) go out catch plane.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;almost human translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Once a dawn, and you already go out catch plane.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 - is conjunction which evolved from verb &quot;to take&quot;. So basicly 就 is English &quot;and&quot;.&#xA;It, being a conjunction, has a perks: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has connotation of &quot;necessary contidion&quot; marker (antonym of 才)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has connotation of &quot;already&quot; that is &quot;ealier then expected&quot; marker. (antonym of 才)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;read posts: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/21963/%E8%BF%99%E5%B0%B1%E6%98%AF%E5%8F%B0%E6%B9%BE-%E8%BF%99%E6%89%8D%E6%98%AF%E5%8F%B0%E6%B9%BE-cracking-the-%E5%B0%B1-again&quot;&gt;这就是台湾，这才是台湾. Cracking the 就 again&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/19419/a-unified-theory-of-%E5%B0%B1-meaning&quot;&gt;A unified theory of 就 meaning&lt;/a&gt; (read my answer, not the question :)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T17:45:06.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33742" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33745" CreationDate="2019-04-22T17:50:01.843" Score="5" ViewCount="1603" Body="&lt;p&gt;These both seem to mean &amp;quot;on time&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;on schedule&amp;quot; (compared to 及时, which I believe means &amp;quot;in good time&amp;quot;, i.e. before the scheduled / agreed time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T21:37:49.520" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T21:39:29.660" Title="What is the difference between 准时 and 按时?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33743" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-22T18:54:41.730" Score="3" ViewCount="443" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese (Mandarin) use [x] to pronounce &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; sound. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;It does not have any sounds such as [h] and [ɸ]&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm not sure if it is fine to assume that all the &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; in pinyin are pronounced as [x]. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/8436/pinyin-h-sound-pronounciation&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; and the answer, [x] is the standard sound, but is there any case to use a different sound on the &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; in pinyin? If so, how can I know if it is pronounced as such, given that &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/17813/are-there-any-online-dictionaries-that-supply-ipa-transcriptions-for-mandarin&quot;&gt;it is generally impossible to know which IPA sound is used in Chinese words&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6228" LastActivityDate="2021-04-13T13:27:44.967" Title="Are the &quot;h&quot; in pinyin always pronounced as &quot;[x]&quot; in IPA?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;ipa&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33742" CreationDate="2019-04-22T21:11:01.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question, their difference is tiny and hard to catch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;准时 is emotionally neutral while 按时 is less neutral. To be more clear, 准时 is emphasising on the physical aspect of being on time, while 按时 is emphasizing on a person's behaviour of being on time. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;火箭准时发射&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我会按时到达&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While you can still say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我会准时到达&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but the emphasis is not quite the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T02:47:14.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33742" CreationDate="2019-04-22T22:11:10.273" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;准 = accurate; precise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;准时 = &lt;strong&gt;on time&lt;/strong&gt;/ on schedule (event or action take place at a &lt;strong&gt;precisely&lt;/strong&gt; scheduled/ appointed time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;按 = according to; base on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;按时 = &lt;strong&gt;on schedule&lt;/strong&gt;/ on time (event or action take place &lt;strong&gt;strictly&lt;/strong&gt; following a scheduled/ at an appointed time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also: 按时 (base on hourly schedule/ on schedule timely), 按年(base on an annual schedule ) 按月(base on a monthly schedule ), 按人头 (base on head count)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 按时吃药, 按年交税, 按月付款, 按人头付款 ( Take medicine on schedule hourly/ timely, pay taxes base on an annual schedule , pay a sum base on a monthly schedule, pay a sum base on head count)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;准时 can be adverb or adjective - you can say &amp;quot;he is always 准时&amp;quot; but not &amp;quot;he is always 按时&amp;quot; because 按时 is an adverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T22:16:58.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17201" CreationDate="2019-04-22T22:15:02.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this could be the nearest word in English &quot;Modus Operandi&quot; for &#xA;套路 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21865" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T22:15:02.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33742" CreationDate="2019-04-22T23:08:19.920" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;answer by web search,e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://hinative.com/zh-CN/questions/206511&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hinative.com/zh-CN/questions/206511&lt;/a&gt;  temari: 按时 in time, 准时 on time,...&#xA;jingjing: 准时是形容词，可以在句子里直接作谓语，比如，我一向很准时。&#xA;按时是副词，不可以说，我很按时....&#xA; kittysama:按时带点被动性，准时更强调主动性。...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T23:08:19.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33742" CreationDate="2019-04-23T00:52:02.273" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;＂实用汉语近义虚词词典＂：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;按时（副）／及时（形）＂／准时（形） &lt;strong&gt;［相同］&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;都可以作状语，都表示在确定的时间内。＂按时、准时＂意思更接近，常可互换，但意思稍不同：＂准时＂表示＂在准确的时间＂，强调＂准＂，句中都有表示具体时间点的词语；＂按时＂指在预定或规定的时间，对时间的准确性要求不那么高，句中可以表示具体时间点的词语，也可以没有：（１）下午４点，飞往成都的CA２３７１次航班准时从白云机场起飞（按时✓及时✗）（２）晚上８点整，８６次列车准时到达北京车站。（按时✓及时✗）（３）每天早上６点，老王都会准时到操场上锻炼。（按时✓及时✗）（４）这份材料明天下午要用，请准时完成。（按时✓及时✗）（５）每次集体活动她都准时参加。（按时✓及时✗）（６）开幕式９点开始，请按时出席。（准时✓及时✗）（７）我每天早上８点按时上班。（准时✓及时✗）（８）如果不按时交电话费，电话就会被停掉。（准时✓及时✗）（９）请同学们按时交作业。（准时✓及时✗）（１０）他每天按时睡觉，按时起床，生活很规律。（准时✓及时✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［不同］&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;１。&lt;/strong&gt;＂及时＂与＂按时、准时＂差别较大，不能互换。＂按时、准时＂所指的是一个规定的时间，而＂及时＂的时间是随事件的发生来确定的，表示＂在适当的、最需要的时候＂：（１）幸亏小王及时发现问题，要不然就会出大事故。（按时✗准时✗）（２）警察及时赶到，抓住了小偷。（按时✗准时✗）（３）如果不是他及时来取措施，后果会更严重。（按时✗准时✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;２。&lt;/strong&gt;＂及时、准时＂都是形容词，可以受＂不＂和＂很、非常、特别＂等程度修饰，可以作谓语、补语、定语，但意思不同，不能互换；＂按时＂是副词，没有这些用法：（１）由于抢救不及时，病人没能醒过来。（按时✗准时✗）（２）这场雨很及时，正好赶在播种前。（按时✗准时✗）（３）警察来得非常及时，再晚一点，小偷就跑了。（按时✗准时✗）（４）由于得到了及时的治疗，本村良子很快就恢复了健康。（按时✗准时✗）（５）心理医生对她进行了及时的心理指导。（按时✗准时✗）（６）２３３路车常常不准时，乘客意见很大。（按时✗及时✗）（７）现在正好５点，你很准时。（按时✗及时✗）（８）李明是一个特别准时的人。（按时✗及时✗）（９）地铁是一种很准时的交通工具，一般不能延误。（按时✗及时✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;３。&lt;/strong&gt;＂及时＂还表示＂马上、立刻＂，＂按时、准时＂没有这个意思：（１）有病要及时请医生看。（按时✗准时✗）（２）有什么情况要及时向领导报告。（按时✗准时✗）（３）如果发现问题，就应该及时想办法解决。（按时✗准时✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T21:39:29.660" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T21:39:29.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33743" CreationDate="2019-04-23T05:01:59.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, h = [x] (also ㄏ in bopomofo).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has an entire chart entitled &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Help:IPA/Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; that lists consonants:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IWQvs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IWQvs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and vowels &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LqMf9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LqMf9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many old dictionaries, especially topolectical dictionaries, used IPA or a simplified version of IPA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Rong_(linguist)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Li Rong&lt;/a&gt;'s (李荣) edited &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Dictionary_of_Modern_Chinese_Dialects&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects&lt;/a&gt; (现代汉语方言大词典). Here's an example from《哈尔滨方言词典》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eV4TT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eV4TT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you can clearly see 火 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;xuo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also see that the other terms are also written using IPA, albeit slightly simplified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T05:01:59.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33751" CreationDate="2019-04-23T09:26:52.440" Score="2" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far I know that 大半 = most, most likely while 多数 = most, majority. I've heard people say &quot;我多数会来&quot;. And this sort of confused me since I thought 大半 is the word that means most likely instead of 多数. Can you guys explain the differences/usages between the two words? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T21:36:39.067" Title="大半 vs 多数 usages" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33750" CreationDate="2019-04-23T11:18:14.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大半 (greater than half/ more than half/ majority half)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine divide something in half. If the two halves are of equal size, both of them would be 一半(equal half), if one half is bigger, it would be the 大半(greater half/ majority half), and the smaller half would be the 小半(lesser half/ minority half)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine divide something in a 95% / 5% ratio, you cannot call the 5% as 'half' anymore. In this case, the 95% would be the 大部份 (greater part/ number/amount) and the 5% would be the 小部份 (lesser part/ number/amount)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;多数 (majority)/ 大多数 (great majority; most of)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine divide a number of things into groups, for example: [100 = 60 +40] or [100 = 60 +30 +10] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;60 would be the 多数 (majority), 40, 30 and 10 would be the 少数 (minority)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to describe likelihood, we usually say 多数(51-99% chance)  or 多半 (51+% chance) e.g. 他多数不會來 (he most likely won't come)/ 他多半不會來 (more than 50% chance he won't come)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to describe number or amount, we can use 大半(greater than half). 大部份 (most of) and 大多数 (majority; most of) e.g. 大半土地, 大半財產, 大半人口, 大部份土地, 大部份財產, 大部份人口; 大多数土地, 大多数財產, 大多数人口&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;大半, 大部份, 大多数/ 多数 opposite of 少半, 小部份 and 少数&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;also: 绝大多数 (super majority- 90%+); 极少数 (tiny minority 10%-)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-26T21:36:39.067" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T21:36:39.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33750" CreationDate="2019-04-23T12:05:12.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Difficult question: more than half &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; most of something, quite literally, in English or Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'most likely' = 最有可能的 or 极有可能的 not 大半&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think they are the same here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这些苹果大半是坏的。  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这些苹果多数是坏的。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but not the same here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在亚洲，多数人不喜欢被晒黑。(OK without research, a presumption.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;在亚洲， 一大半人不喜欢被晒黑。(Invalid without research and numbers, )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T12:05:12.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33753" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33756" CreationDate="2019-04-23T12:28:48.563" Score="5" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is &quot;xiang4&quot; in 摄&lt;strong&gt;像&lt;/strong&gt; and 照&lt;strong&gt;相&lt;/strong&gt; different from each other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other similar words are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;相片、相框、录像、影像、相机、摄像机&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The xiang in each word seems have same meaning but with different form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that because 像 refers to the animated one and 相 refers to still images？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21829" LastEditorUserId="21829" LastEditDate="2019-04-24T02:26:08.503" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T02:26:08.503" Title="Why is &quot;xiang4&quot; in 摄像 and 照相 different from each other?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33750" CreationDate="2019-04-23T13:00:25.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;大半&lt;/strong&gt; bkrs (excerpts)：I&#xA;[the larger half; for the greater part; more than half] 超过一半的部分&#xA;II&#xA;(1) [mostly; very likely; probably] 很可能&#xA;他大半不来了&#xA;(2) , 大概 #6978&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;多数&lt;/strong&gt; bkrs：1) majority&#xA;2) lg. plural 必要的多数 the requisite majority&#xA;简单多数 simple majority&#xA;绝大多数 an overwhelming majority&#xA;三分之二的多数 a two-thirds majority&#xA;特定多数 qualified majority&#xA;微弱的多数 a small majority&#xA;相对多数 relative majority #2270 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;words close in meaning are &lt;strong&gt;大半&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;多半&lt;/strong&gt; cf. ＂实用汉语近义词典＂大半（副；名）／多半（副；名） &lt;strong&gt;［相同］&lt;/strong&gt; 都是副词兼名词，意思相同，以下情况可以互换：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;１。&lt;/strong&gt; 都是副词，做状语，表示范围，意思是＂大多数、大部分＂前面可以加＂一＂：（１）公司里的职员（一）大半是３５岁以下的年轻人。（多半✓）（２）他家的电器（一）大半是国产的。（多半✓）（３）我们学院的留学生（一）多半来自东南亚。（大半✓）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;２&lt;/strong&gt;都是名词，作定语、宾语，表示数量超过一半、大部分；前面可以加＂一＂：（１）（一）多半的孩子喜欢吃麦当劳。（大半✓）（２）他把（一）多半的行李放在了朋友家里。（大半✓）（３）昨天买的东西我已经吃了（一）大半了。（多半✓）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［不同］&lt;/strong&gt;＂多半＂还可以作状语，表示对情况的估计、推测，意思是＂很可能、在多数情况下＂，还可以用在表示推测的问句中；＂大半＂一般不这样用：（１）昨天下雨了，他们多办没有去野餐。（大半✗）（２）我的头疼嗓子疼，多半是感冒了。（大半✗）（３）他看上去精神不大好，多半是没有休息好。（大半✗）（４）我看小张多半不会来了吧？（大半✗）（５）你多半是要去图书馆吧？（大半✗）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note contradiction with&#xA;bkrs, iciba seems to confirm bkrs: Most probably she isn't going.她大半不去了。It's so cloudy and cold that it's likely to snow.天气又阴又冷，大半要下雪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T13:00:25.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33715" CreationDate="2019-04-23T13:28:56.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generation poems are specific to a particular male line of a family, rather than everyone sharing a surname.  Unless one of your ancestors along the male line decided to choose a generation poem, you won't have one - but that is quite normal!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More information in English: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_name#Generation_poem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_name#Generation_poem&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15320" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T13:28:56.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33753" CreationDate="2019-04-23T18:06:32.290" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A minor correction, it should be xiang4 instead of xiang2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we are talking about photography, 相 typically refers specifically to a photo, while 像 usually refers to visual representations in general (be it still, like 图像, or moving, like 录像).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;摄 translates to &quot;capture&quot;, and therefore 摄像机 is a device that capture images (that aren't necessarily photos). On the other hand, 照相 can only refer to taking photos. So 相机 (the abbreviation of 照相机) is a device that takes photos. The choice of words here mainly describes the main function that the device is designed for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17578" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T18:06:32.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33757" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-24T11:26:13.247" Score="3" ViewCount="563" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've inherited a Chinese cloth painting from my ancestors. I'd be grateful if you could help me know more about the artwork through the signature and seal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2KmvH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2KmvH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;signature&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LIZet.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(Full artwork)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21876" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-06-22T12:38:03.020" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T19:52:14.020" Title="Please help identify traditional Chinese painting" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1831" CreationDate="2019-04-24T13:01:41.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another one is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chine-culture.com/en/chinese/chinese-writing-grids-generator.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chine-culture.com/en/chinese/chinese-writing-grids-generator.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you learn Chinese you will like there's pinyin on my grids :&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dropbox.com/s/rxzdhaze85qaq8w/liens%20de%20t%C3%A9l%C3%A9chargement%20grille%20%C3%A9criture.docx?dl=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.dropbox.com/s/rxzdhaze85qaq8w/liens%20de%20t%C3%A9l%C3%A9chargement%20grille%20%C3%A9criture.docx?dl=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;follow that link to get updates : &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/saintj0seph&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.facebook.com/saintj0seph&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T13:01:41.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33759" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33761" CreationDate="2019-04-24T23:59:29.350" Score="3" ViewCount="620" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my Chinese class we’ve recently had a chapter quiz. I missed the following question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate “He looks like Guan Gong” into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My response: 他看关公一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Teacher’s correction: 他看&lt;strong&gt;起来像&lt;/strong&gt;关公一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is why is my response grammatically incorrect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both answers translate the same in Google Translate, but why is the “看起来” needed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13605" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T14:15:15.157" Title="He “looks like”" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17201" CreationDate="2019-04-25T00:59:18.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a chinese,but my english is poor.so by my words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都是套路:these are designed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17843" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T00:59:18.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33759" CreationDate="2019-04-25T02:21:36.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;V+起来 indicates that V is used as 感官动词(sense verb), like look/smell/sound/taste/feel in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He looks like Guan Gong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think about it, &quot;He&quot; is not the subject of the action &quot;look&quot;, he doesn't look at anything&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A clearer example is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This flower &lt;strong&gt;looks&lt;/strong&gt; beautiful and &lt;strong&gt;smells&lt;/strong&gt; sweet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A flower doesn't have eyes and nose, look and smell are sense verbs here, so the translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这朵花&lt;strong&gt;看起来&lt;/strong&gt;很漂亮, &lt;strong&gt;闻起来&lt;/strong&gt;很香&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, V+上去 is same as V+起来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T02:21:36.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33762" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-25T10:51:19.767" Score="0" ViewCount="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every time I go to the dictionary of Written Chinese, it stops working! How should I fix!? &lt;a href=&quot;http://dictionary.writtenchinese.com/#sk=idiot&amp;amp;svt=pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dictionary.writtenchinese.com/#sk=idiot&amp;amp;svt=pinyin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21880" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T12:16:21.410" Title="What can I do about &quot;Written Chinese&quot;?" Tags="&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-04-25T13:33:26.403" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33762" CreationDate="2019-04-25T12:16:21.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It shows a server error (503), so you probably can't do anything about it, except using another dictionary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try one of these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.naver.com/linedict/zhendict/#/cnen/home&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LINE Dict Chinese-English&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG Chinese Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.naver.com/linedict/zhendict/#/cnen/home&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21879" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T12:16:21.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33764" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33766" CreationDate="2019-04-25T13:57:29.647" Score="1" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this language is Chinese or Japanese, pardon my ignorance, but I'm trying to figure out what it says here and what this artifact is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/62OGC.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/62OGC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OEc6r.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OEc6r.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sK3vu.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sK3vu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21882" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T14:27:02.923" Title="Trying to figure out what says here and what this artifact is" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33759" CreationDate="2019-04-25T14:15:15.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your problem is not the grammar, but the vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看 means &quot;look&quot;, but only in the sense of &quot;to look at&quot;, not &quot;to look like&quot;.&#xA;像 means &quot;to look like&quot; / &quot;to resemble&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;He looks like Guan Gong&quot; can be translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他像关公。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why 看起来 ? Maybe the teacher wanted to keep the 看 because that's what you used. 看起来 here is an adverb that means &quot;seemingly&quot; / &quot;seems to&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他看起来像关公 He seemingly looks like Guan Gong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 一样 is not necessary here, but gives the sentence a nicer rhythm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T14:15:15.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33764" CreationDate="2019-04-25T14:27:02.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This appears to be the end piece of a folding fan. Maybe the rest of the fan is missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters should be read from right to left:&#xA;金澤 jin1ze2&#xA;櫻谷特製 ying1gu3 te4zhi4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;金澤 is the Japanese city Kanazawa. 櫻谷 means &quot;Cherry blossom gorge&quot; and would be pronounced &quot;Sakuraya&quot; in Japanese. This is probably the name of a place or a company. 特製 means &quot;special product of&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So presumably this is a special product of Sakuraya in Kanazawa. While the names appear to be Japanese, these words would mean exactly the same thing in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T14:27:02.923" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33767" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33770" CreationDate="2019-04-25T21:13:27.643" Score="5" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to say &quot;the Song Dynasty used this invention to make paper money&quot;. So far I've got &quot;宋朝用了这个发明做纸钱“。 The &quot;make money&quot; part is messing with me- I know &quot;做钱“ can mean to print counterfeit money, and I'm not trying to express that. I also know the word &quot;赚钱”, but I know that's to earn money in a job, not to print it. And does the word &quot;纸钱“ effectively express the idea of paper money, like bills, or does it just sound strange? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the simplest word would be best! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My research: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've plugged &quot;make money&quot; into various online translators, and either gotten &quot;赚钱&quot; or &quot;做钱&quot;, hence the question. &#xA;For &quot;paper money&quot;, I've gotten &quot;纸币&quot; and &quot;纸钱“, neither of which I'm totally sure of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16117" LastActivityDate="2019-06-12T12:25:58.160" Title="How to say &quot;make money&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33767" CreationDate="2019-04-25T21:37:19.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宋朝使用这一发明来印发纸质流通货币&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;宋朝使用这一发明来印发纸币&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2019-04-25T22:50:38.240" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T22:50:38.240" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33767" CreationDate="2019-04-25T21:39:55.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;evidently &quot;make money&quot; in English does not mean &quot;print money&quot;, for which may use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/print%20money&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/print%20money&lt;/a&gt;  印钞票, 印刷货币 also find examples there, for vocabulary of paper money production in Chinese during Song Dynasty, google 宋代：印钞票, find e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://collection.sina.com.cn/qbtd/2018-03-13/doc-ifyscsmv0588158.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://collection.sina.com.cn/qbtd/2018-03-13/doc-ifyscsmv0588158.shtml&lt;/a&gt; 钞票不断印制&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-04-25T22:02:09.960" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T22:02:09.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33767" CreationDate="2019-04-25T21:43:57.667" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;生产纸币: to manufacture paper money/ to produce paper money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;制造纸币: to make paper money / to produce paper money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发行纸币: to issue paper money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;印制纸币: to print paper money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;米凯乐 wrote: &lt;em&gt;宋朝用了这个发明做纸钱&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be &lt;strong&gt;宋朝用这个发明来制造纸币&lt;/strong&gt; (来= to)- Song Dynasty used this invention to make paper money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'做' means 'being', it should be '制造'(make)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the difference between 制造 and 制作 &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/26673/difference-between-%e8%a3%bd%e4%bd%9c-and-%e8%a3%bd%e9%80%a0/26675#26675&quot;&gt;Difference between 製作 and 製造?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T21:06:11.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33772" CreationDate="2019-04-26T00:31:38.377" Score="1" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that 你们 is plural as in you're talking to more than 1 person; however, this question is said to one person so how come we do not say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你家有几口人&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do we add a 们 to it or am I misunderstanding something here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17614" LastActivityDate="2019-06-12T12:23:52.237" Title="Confused about 们 in this particular sentence &quot;你们家有几口人&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33771" CreationDate="2019-04-26T00:51:26.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;你家有几口人?&quot; is asking the singular 'your family' (one single family as a unit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你们家有几口人?” is asking the plural 'you' (everyone in the family can answer this question. You as a member of the family, can answer this question on everyone's behalf)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你的家中有几口人?&quot; is asking the singular 'you' (how many people are in your family)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All sentences above are valid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-26T01:39:26.317" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T01:39:26.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33771" CreationDate="2019-04-26T06:41:54.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not really as @Tang Ho said. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are talking to a single person, asking &lt;code&gt;你们家有几口人&lt;/code&gt; is equivalent to &lt;code&gt;你家有几口人&lt;/code&gt;, here 你们 refers to all the members of his/her family and sounds a little bit more polite. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are talking to a person together with his/her family members nearby, you should ask 你们家有几口人, because they are probably listening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you’re asking a group of people how many members are there in their family respectively, you will asking 你们家&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt;有多少口人 and here &lt;code&gt;你们&lt;/code&gt; refers to all the people you are talking to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And we tend to omit the 口. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你/你们家有多少人？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21829" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T06:41:54.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33774" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33775" CreationDate="2019-04-26T06:51:52.210" Score="3" ViewCount="735" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that very often the word 万 (wàn) occurs in poetry (e.g. poetry of the Tang dynasty). My dictionary reports its meaning as &quot;ten thousands&quot;, but it looks like it's used in place of a generic &quot;great number&quot;. A sentence I notice very frequently is &quot;万里&quot; (wàn lǐ): I feel like this is just a way to mean &quot;a very long distance&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what is the proper meaning and usage of &quot;万&quot;? Is it correct to use it for &quot;great&quot;, &quot;enormous&quot;? On the other side, to mean &quot;huge&quot;, &quot;great&quot;, is it correct to use &quot;万&quot;, 10000, and not something else (maybe even numerically bigger), like, &quot;one million&quot;, &quot;one billion&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11269" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T14:41:59.470" Title="Usage of 万 (wàn): ten thousands or just a great number?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33774" CreationDate="2019-04-26T07:15:49.050" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct, 万, 千 and 百 literally mean 10000, 1000 and 100. These words are often used as a figurative number for 'great', 'huge' or 'immense' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万人空巷 doesn't literally mean ten thousand people spilling out to the streets. 万人 means 'great number of people'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万水千山 doesn't literally mean ten thousand bodies of water and one thousand mountains.  万水千山 means many, many mountains and bodies of water = &quot;immense distance&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千锤百炼 doesn't literally mean hammer one thousand times and temper one hundred times. 千锤百炼 means &quot;extendedly forged&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other numbers like 六, 九, 十 are often used metaphorically for 'all, entire, ultimate' too.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;六軍(whole army)，九阴九阳(extreme/ ultimate yin and extreme/ ultimate yang), 十全十美 (perfect)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;万, 千 and 百 are not figurative number, when they are with actual numbers.  一万, 二千 and  三百 can only mean 10000, 2000 and 300&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-04-26T10:21:58.380" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T10:21:58.380" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33774" CreationDate="2019-04-26T07:36:07.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;see bkrs &lt;a href=&quot;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E4%B8%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E4%B8%87&lt;/a&gt;, iciba &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/%E4%B8%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/%E4%B8%87&lt;/a&gt; for 万，used in fixed expressions: 万民,万国博览会 (world's fair),万事万物,万难(e.g.推辞),(extremely),万不可说,万能(omnipotent),天地万物,There is no god but God: 万物非主，唯有真主, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;,  。。。万岁！long live 。。。！Jp. “Banzai!” e.g.全世界人民大团结万岁!毛主席万岁，万万岁！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T07:36:07.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33777" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33778" CreationDate="2019-04-26T10:48:27.303" Score="3" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually see adjectives like 干净 and 清洁 for clean but I couldn't find a general verb for clean in Chinese. Let's say I want to say. &quot;please clean your room before you leave&quot;. What's the right clean(verb) word to use in this sentence? And btw it will be really nice and helpful if you guys can provide some common &quot;clean&quot; verbs for different situations :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T13:43:35.260" Title="The word for clean (verb)" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33777" CreationDate="2019-04-26T11:09:58.073" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;清洁 can also be used as a verb &quot;to clean&quot;, not just as an adjective&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;清理 is only really used as a verb &quot;to clean&quot; in general. It can also mean &quot;to tidy up&quot; (no water required), and even &quot;to dispose of&quot; (even euphemistically, like 处理).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;洗 is used for &quot;to wash&quot;, but where it overlaps with &quot;to clean&quot; is often in a construction with 给, e.g. 给X洗干净 &quot;give X a (good/thorough) clean&quot;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;清洗 is a more literary version of the above.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;清涤 and 洗涤 are even more literary versions of the above, used in certain newspaper articles, official notices, translations of the Bible etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;打扫 is used for &quot;to sweep&quot;, but often gives the impression of &quot;tidying up&quot; and especially of rooms / parts of the house that don't require water for cleaning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;整理 is to &quot;tidy up&quot; or &quot;arrange&quot;, and is also especially common for tidying up one's room.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2019-04-26T11:22:15.413" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T11:22:15.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33777" CreationDate="2019-04-26T13:43:35.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;or you can try this sentence in a very conversational tone: 把你的房间整干净再走。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T13:43:35.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33774" CreationDate="2019-04-26T14:41:59.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;萬&quot; is explained by other, for your query:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;is it correct to use &quot;万&quot;, 10000, and not something else (maybe even numerically bigger), like, &quot;one million&quot;, &quot;one billion&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, in ancient times, &quot;億&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;兆&quot; were used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the modern explanation of these two are, mathematically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%84%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;億: 100,000,000&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;兆: 100,000,000,000&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;certain usages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尚書　呂刑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一人有慶．兆民賴之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;兆民&quot; means &quot;all people&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梁書　列傳第三十九&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;立我蕭宗．重興我梁國．億兆黎庶．咸蒙此恩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;億兆黎庶&quot;, in which &quot;億兆&quot; literally means hundred of million (億) of hundred of billion (兆). well, just shortcut it into &quot;all people&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you can read literary chinese, there're many similar usages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the bottom line is, &quot;千&quot; (1,000), or &quot;萬&quot; (10,000) is very humble &quot;great number&quot;, in chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T14:41:59.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33781" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33782" CreationDate="2019-04-27T10:32:58.363" Score="1" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked a good friend of mine to write the following text in Chinese: if tenant is a company, it should provide the name of the representative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She translated into: 若承租人是公司，则必须提供法定代表人资料。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it's based of a contract, it should be written as officially as possible. But I have a hard time analysing this text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does: 若承 and 则必 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How are these related and how to construct a sentence with it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6188" LastActivityDate="2019-04-27T11:06:56.703" Title="Is the text 若承租人是公司，则必须提供法定代表人资料 official and correct?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;formal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33781" CreationDate="2019-04-27T10:41:25.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The text sounds very official and formal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;若 (if)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;承租人 (tenant)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 (is)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公司 (company)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;则 (then)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必须 (must)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;提供 (provide)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;法定 (legal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;代表人 (representative)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;资料 (information)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;若承租人是公司，则必须提供法定代表人资料。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the tenant is a company, then it must provide the information of the legal representative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I think 法定(legal) is not needed, since the representative is bonded by a legal agreement with the company&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-27T11:06:56.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3083" CreationDate="2019-04-27T20:22:03.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese use the more than one character to create meaning. are not actually have meaning of each word. &#xA;On the other hand, classical chinese does written in a way that each single character got it own meaning. Which are a requirement for Chinese high school students to study. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21902" LastActivityDate="2019-04-27T20:22:03.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33784" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33786" CreationDate="2019-04-27T22:04:54.590" Score="1" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a set phrase for this term? It seems to me that an acceptable translation would be 舞台左右侧, but that seems rather long. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在中文里面，这词有一个约定俗成的翻译吗？我觉得”舞台左右侧“这翻译还行，但还是有点长。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21723" LastActivityDate="2019-04-27T23:02:57.100" Title="Translating &quot;wings&quot; (of a stage)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33784" CreationDate="2019-04-27T22:33:31.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;侧面 is what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to be more specific, you can write 舞台的侧面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20732" LastActivityDate="2019-04-27T22:33:31.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33784" CreationDate="2019-04-27T23:02:57.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;see online dictionaries, e.g. &lt;strong&gt;iciba&lt;/strong&gt;: wing   in the wings&#xA;1In the stage wings, unseen by the audience. 在观众看不到的舞台&lt;strong&gt;两侧&lt;/strong&gt;  bkrs:舞台&lt;strong&gt;两则&lt;/strong&gt; 舞台左侧 舞台右侧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-27T23:02:57.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33767" CreationDate="2019-04-28T05:55:00.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;does the word &quot;纸钱“ effectively express the idea of paper money, like bills, or does it just sound strange?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes it is strange in this case.&#xA;(Chinese explanation for now, will edit soon.)&#xA;纸钱有冥币的意思, 在祭祀鬼神先祖，祭奠逝去亲人时焚化。&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_paper&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_paper&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/zh/%E7%B4%99%E9%8C%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/zh/紙錢&lt;/a&gt; ，例:“烧纸钱”，陈毅的诗“捷报飞来当纸钱” &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%A2%85%E5%B2%AD%E4%B8%89%E7%AB%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/梅岭三章&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18688" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2019-06-12T12:25:58.160" LastActivityDate="2019-06-12T12:25:58.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33788" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33790" CreationDate="2019-04-28T10:46:46.553" Score="6" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the dictionary, 兵器 = weapons, weaponry while 武器 = weapons, arms. It sounds like they are synonyms to me so I was wondering if those two words are synonyms or do they have some difference in meaning? If they are different can you guys provide some sample sentences for illustration? Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T23:32:21.857" Title="What's the difference between 兵器 and 武器?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33788" CreationDate="2019-04-28T11:15:12.880" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate it the other way:「武器」is &lt;em&gt;weapons, weaponry&lt;/em&gt;, while「兵器」is &lt;em&gt;weapons, arms&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「兵器」should be translated to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_weapon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;conventional weapons&lt;/a&gt;, that is, weapons used in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_warfare&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;conventional warfare&lt;/a&gt; involving soldiers「兵」- polearms, swords, bows, trebuchets. Some definitions of「兵器」exclude gunpowder weapons.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「武器」is a all-encompassing broad term for any type of military「武」weapon, extended to mean &lt;em&gt;weapon&lt;/em&gt; in general. Anything that cannot be categorised as「兵器」, like &lt;em&gt;demoralising propaganda&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;radar support system&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;nuclear missile&lt;/em&gt; can be called「武器」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-04-28T11:21:52.473" LastActivityDate="2019-04-28T11:21:52.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33788" CreationDate="2019-04-28T11:16:14.677" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兵 (military)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兵器 (tool for military) = weapons; weaponry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;武 (force)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;武器 (tool for force) = weapons; arms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 兵器 and 武器 means weapons. The difference is 兵器 is more specifically referring to weapon for warfare, while 武器 is a more general term for all weapons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;冷兵器 (cold weapons) that are commonly used by soldiers like 刀、劍、長槍、弓箭 、狼牙棒 (Knife, sword, lance, bow and arrow, mace) can all be called 兵器 or 武器.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;現代兵器 (modern weapons) like 衝鋒槍、坦克、導彈 (sub-machine gun, tank, guided missile) are all 兵器/ 武器 too&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, anything that can be used for attack can be qualified as 武器. For example, 剪刀、石塊、摺椅、菜刀 (scissors, stones, folding chairs, kitchen knives) can all be 武器, but no one would call them 兵器 because those items were not commonly used in war&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The term 武器 can be used metaphorically, for example: 用言語作为武器 (use words as weapon), but we don't use 兵器 this way&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something that can be called 兵器 can also be called 武器; something that can be used as 武器 but isn't commonly used in war cannot be called 兵器&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-28T11:43:12.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33788" CreationDate="2019-04-28T17:26:26.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;answer available in online dictionaries, e.g. （excerpts from）bkrs, &lt;strong&gt;武器&lt;/strong&gt;#1833：① [weapon; implements of warfare; military hardware; arms]直接用于杀伤敌人有生力量和破坏敌方作战设施的器械、装置，如刀、枪、火炮、导弹等。&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;②  [means]&lt;/strong&gt;∶泛指进行斗争的工具：思想武器。常规武器 conventional weapons 化学武器  细菌武器  放下武器  核武器  轻武器 small arms 拿起武器 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;兵器&lt;/strong&gt; #10265[weapons; arms;armament] 军事斗争中包含有各种杀伤力、 破坏力的器械装置 兵器消毒(desactivation) 奇型兵器 (rare form) 远战兵器 中国古代兵器 兵器库 (weapon depot),more at bkrs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;google＂武器＂跟＂兵器＂有什么不同-&gt; e.g.&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2052465331002155467.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2052465331002155467.html&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-28T17:26:26.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33792" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-28T18:29:09.153" Score="1" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unicode appears to define the composed forms of some radicals (e.g. 725C 牜or 2EA9 ⺩), but far from all (e.g. the left-half version of 6728 木). Yet there are texts (e.g. figure 18.7 in chapter 18 of the description of the Unicode standard (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode12.0.0/ch18.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode12.0.0/ch18.pdf&lt;/a&gt;) ) which contains that character. Is there a collection of the encodings of the composed radical forms? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21907" LastEditorUserId="21415" LastEditDate="2019-04-30T15:29:51.510" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T15:29:51.510" Title="Composed forms of radicals in unicode" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33794" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33800" CreationDate="2019-04-29T09:14:21.970" Score="0" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got my son a R/C car that has the instructions to pair the remote in the Chinese language. I tried many online tools to scan and translate the image, but to no success. Can anyone help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1obX1.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1obX1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;R/C controller instructions in chinese&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21912" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T03:30:29.650" Title="Looking for chinese R/C car remote instructions translated" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33794" CreationDate="2019-04-29T13:10:09.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;use online translators on ２。４G 遥控器使用说明&#xA;首次使用需对码，本产品有记忆功能，以后换电池无须再对码&#xA;（１）长按＂M＂键３秒以上，直到第一颗LED闪烁&#xA;（２）打开车身电源，第一颗LED变为长亮，对码成功&#xA;（３）遥控器１０秒钟无操作自动待机按任意键唤醒&#xA;（４）按键说明：△前进▽后退◁︎左转▷右转S调速P刹车&#xA;按S键设定车速，前进时１颗灯为低速，２颗灯为中速，３颗灯为高速，倒车时仅有中速一个档位，按P键保持刹车状态，指示灯全闪，再次按刹车键解除刹车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T13:10:09.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33796" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-29T16:02:45.827" Score="1" ViewCount="423" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that there are multiple languages in China, for example, Hokkien, Cantonese and Mandarin, and they are not mutually intelligible. However, all three use more or less the same writing system. So, I was wondering if Chinese who speak different languages use writing to communicate in everyday situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if a Chinese tourist from one province is in a different one, do they write their questions down on a piece of paper when they need help from someone who does not speak their language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9509" LastEditorUserId="9509" LastEditDate="2019-04-29T16:57:27.980" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T03:48:48.313" Title="Do Chinese speaking different languages use written Chinese to communicate?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33796" CreationDate="2019-04-29T16:32:56.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, all three use more or less the same writing system. So, I was wondering if Chinese who speak different languages use writing to communicate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll start off by quoting a Wikipedia section on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vulgar Latin&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;By its nature, Vulgar Latin varied greatly by region and by time period, though several major divisions can be seen. Vulgar Latin dialects began to significantly diverge from Classical Latin by the third century during the classical period of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, throughout the sixth century, the most widely spoken dialects were still similar to and mostly mutually intelligible with Classical Latin. In terms of regional differences for the whole Latin period, &quot;we can only glimpse a tiny amount of divergence with the actual written data. &lt;strong&gt;In texts of all kinds, literary, technical, and all others, the written Latin of the first five or six centuries A.D. looks as if it were territorially homogeneous, even in its 'vulgar' register.&lt;/strong&gt; It is only in the later texts, of the seventh and eighth centuries, that we are able to see in the texts geographical differences that seem to be the precursors of similar differences in the subsequent Romance languages.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you imagine an alternate universe where speakers of French, Spanish, Italian, etc. never wrote their own languages up until even now, but all wrote in Latin instead, then suddenly Italian culture became dominant in a politically unified Europe, subsequently basing a modern written standard on Italian, this provides a kind of analogy to China of today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, Chinese languages are traditionally written with the same writing system. However, the &lt;em&gt;de-facto&lt;/em&gt; written standard was not in the different languages' vernacular; prior to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Fourth_Movement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;May Fourth Movement&lt;/a&gt;, written communication was done in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Classical Chinese&lt;/a&gt;, while afterwards the national standard, called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Standard Chinese&lt;/a&gt;, became based on a bunch of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear, people who speak Hokkien, Cantonese, and Mandarin all write in the national standard as a Chinese &lt;em&gt;lingua franca&lt;/em&gt;. Communication is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; done by speakers of different languages writing in their own vernaculars such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Written Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;, Written Wu (&lt;a href=&quot;https://wuu.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%81%E9%9D%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia site here&lt;/a&gt;), Written Gan (&lt;a href=&quot;https://gan.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%81%E9%9D%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia site here&lt;/a&gt;), etc, although in principle these vernaculars are highly readable with a minimal amount of training by non-speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-04-29T16:39:27.723" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T16:39:27.723" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33796" CreationDate="2019-04-29T22:33:52.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, of course not, that's what Putonghua is for! As long as you learn some Putonghua, you can talk to &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; people in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not 20Km from here is 高淳。They speak an old Southern Song dynasty dialect. If you only speak Putonghua, you won't understand them. However, they all also speak Putonghua, they learn it in school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My gf can speak to her grandma, who is from a little village in Hunan, because grandma went to school and can speak Putonghua (though they tend to say H as F, the opposite of 福建). Granddad never learnt Putonghua, so conversation is limited, but he understands Putonghua to a degree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know 2 girls from 西藏。 Not sure what language they speak and they have no English, but we can talk in Putonghua. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've met students from 广州。They tend to have a funny accent in Putonghua sometimes, but so do I as a foreigner!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to &quot;communicate in writing&quot; I notice many times, if you don't understand a word, people will often write the word with their finger on the palm of their left hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T22:33:52.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33788" CreationDate="2019-04-30T00:09:06.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese I think No difference!&#xA;Only when to make combination, like 杀伤性武器，制式兵器 etc.&#xA;To get used to these combinations, read a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19293" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T00:09:06.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33794" CreationDate="2019-04-30T03:30:29.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll just translate from @user6065's transcript: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;２.４G 遥控器使用说明 &lt;br&gt; 首次使用需对码，本产品有记忆功能，以后换电池无须再对码 &lt;br&gt;（１）长按＂M＂键３秒以上，直到第一颗LED闪烁 &lt;br&gt;（２）打开车身电源，第一颗LED变为长亮，对码成功 &lt;br&gt;（３）遥控器10秒钟无操作自动待机按任意键唤醒 &lt;br&gt;（４）按键说明：△前进▽后退◁︎左转▷右转S调速P刹车 &lt;br&gt;按&quot;S&quot;键设定车速，前进时１颗灯为低速，２颗灯为中速，３颗灯为高速，倒车时仅有中速一个档位 &lt;br&gt; 按&quot;P&quot;键保持刹车状态，指示灯全闪，再次按刹车键解除刹车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.4G Remote Control Instructions &lt;br&gt;&#xA;You need to pair it the first time you use it, the product has a memory function, it is not necessary to pair it again even if the batteries are changed &lt;br&gt;&#xA;(1) Press and hold the &quot;M&quot; key for at least 3 seconds, until the first LED lights up. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;(2) Open the car battery compartment, if the first LED is lit up the pairing was successful &lt;br&gt;&#xA;(3) If the remote control is not used for 10 seconds it will go into standby mode, press any key to wake &lt;br&gt;&#xA;(4) △ = Forwards, ▽ = Reverse, ◁︎ = Left, ▷ = Right, &quot;S&quot; = Change speed, &quot;P&quot; = Brake &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Press &quot;S&quot; key to set speed, the first light is low speed, the second light is medium speed, and the third light is high speed; there is only medium speed when reversing &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Press &quot;P&quot; key to maintain braking, when braking all lights will be lit, press &quot;P&quot; key again to release brake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21649" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T03:30:29.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33796" CreationDate="2019-04-30T03:48:48.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my answer to this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/33498/is-referring-to-mandarin-as-just-chinese-problematic/33499#33499&quot;&gt;Is referring to Mandarin as just &amp;quot;Chinese&amp;quot; problematic?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;All Chinese write in one standard language system. (Standard Written Chinese - SWC) People who speak different dialects in China are expected to communicate with each others using the official dialect Mandarin in speech and the standard written Chinese (SWC) in writing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to your question is 'no'. If someone went to school and learned how to write in standard written Chinese, he would also learned how to speak Mandarin, regardless of what his native dialect was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no need to communicate in writing when one Chinese encounter another Chinese, because ALL Chinese are expected to know how to speak one common language (Putonghua/ Mandarin)- and learning this language is mandatory in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T03:48:48.313" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33788" CreationDate="2019-04-30T23:32:21.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;武器 can sometimes be used figuratively, 兵器 cannot. When they mean 'weapons' they are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2870" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T23:32:21.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33767" CreationDate="2019-05-01T08:47:01.863" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;赚钱&#xA;I am chinese。我的答案比较准确，你们可以看一下。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21920" LastActivityDate="2019-05-01T08:47:01.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33805" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-01T15:09:31.737" Score="0" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me translate that sentence.&#xA;I can use 不好意思 or 对不起 in that situation, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21921" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T15:41:28.463" Title="Excuse me, Can I post your photo on facebook in mandarin" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33805" CreationDate="2019-05-01T18:22:54.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不好意思,对不起,may not be appropriate, 不好意思 sorry e.g. 不好意思，麻烦您了。for more choices users suggest looking up examples in online dictionaries, e.g. submit &quot;can I&quot; to LINE dictionary,relevant examples: 我也&lt;strong&gt;能&lt;/strong&gt;来吗？我&lt;strong&gt;能&lt;/strong&gt;借把剪刀吗？ 我能不能借枝笔？, submit &quot;post picture&quot;:在一些论坛上你能&lt;strong&gt;张贴图片&lt;/strong&gt; ...我孩子吃脚趾头的照片贴出来, &quot;facebook&quot;:请用脸谱（FACEBOOK）跟我联系。 我在&lt;strong&gt;脸谱&lt;/strong&gt;网上看见了他  &quot;excuse me&quot; 请问这附近哪里有毛厕？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-05-01T18:54:56.010" LastActivityDate="2019-05-01T18:54:56.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33805" CreationDate="2019-05-01T18:41:47.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不好意思 or 对不起 are for apologizing, not asking permission. Apologizing is one possible function of 'excuse me', but that's not the sense you're using here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple handy phrases that act more like 'ask-permission-excuse-me' are 劳驾　and 借光， but they're more appropriate when you're asking someone to do something for you, not when you're asking for permission to do something. For this example sentence, you probably want something like the “...你不介意吗” pattern. ('do you mind if...')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18891" LastActivityDate="2019-05-01T18:41:47.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33805" CreationDate="2019-05-01T21:25:22.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally, when you ask for permission, you can just ask it straight in a question form. In your case, you wanted to ask &amp;quot;Can I post your photo on Facebook?&amp;quot; would become &amp;quot;我可以在Facebook上发布你的照片吗？&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To be polite and show humbleness, adding a simple 請問 (may I ask) is enough -- &amp;quot;請問我可以在Facebook上发布你的照片吗？&amp;quot; (may I ask, if I can post your photo on Facebook?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To show more humbleness, add 不好意思 or 对不起 is appropriate. You are apologizing for intruding that person's space and taking up that person's time; for even request that person to pay attention to your request.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;不好意思 請問 我可以在Facebook上发布你的照片吗？&amp;quot; (excuse me, may I ask, if I can post your photo on Facebook?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-01T21:52:44.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33805" CreationDate="2019-05-02T01:05:32.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Excuse me, is it OK with you if I post your photo on Facebook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'excuse me' here: 打扰一下， 请问一下， 请问 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打扰一下，我可以把你的照片传到脸谱网上马？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;请问，我是否可以把你的照片传到脸谱网上？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;请问，如果我把你的照片传到脸谱网上，是否可以？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-05-02T01:05:32.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33805" CreationDate="2019-05-03T11:59:11.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不好意思 is OK while 对不起 is not. &#xA;In Mandarin Chinese 不好意思 is a subtype of &quot;Excuse me&quot;, equivalent to the Cantonese 唔該. 不好意思 is a weaker version of &quot;sorry&quot; which can mean a minor disturbance to somebody, although it also means &quot;unfortunate and apologies&quot; after something bad happens. But 对不起 means a stronger &quot;I'm sorry&quot;. It means you've done something wrong or you are determined to do something bad. Since you are negotiating, you could just use 请问 (May I ask) or 打扰一下 (bear me a minute) to be polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;请问/打扰一下，我能把你的照片放上脸书吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21792" LastActivityDate="2019-05-03T11:59:11.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33812" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33819" CreationDate="2019-05-03T15:29:47.780" Score="0" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried a usually effective OCR on it, and tried imitating the appearance in a handwriting recognizer, but neither gives anything that seems possibly correct.  If context helps, it is preceded by  樂.  The editing was to hide confusing background from the OCR.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m2UWO.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m2UWO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15442" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T11:22:31.263" Title="Can’t identify this character" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33813" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-03T22:41:11.730" Score="1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm reading this manhua to practice my Chinese (I'm A2 level) and this sentence came up: 这庙又不是我家开的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean “this is shrine is not my home to open”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21929" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T08:50:21.303" Title="Translation of 这庙又不是我家开的" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33813" CreationDate="2019-05-03T23:18:28.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;这庙又不是我家开的&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a [topic + comment] sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这庙 = 'This' temple' (这庙 is the topic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is the comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又 (the actual meaning of 又  is 'also' or 'again' ; when placing before a negative, it serves as a modal word for emphasis, similar to 'actually' in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不是 = is not &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我家 = my family (subject)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开 = opened/ operated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 = pronoun for 庙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Topic: 这庙 - This temple&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Comment: 又不是我家开的(庙)- actually is not my family operated (temple)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-03T23:35:23.230" LastActivityDate="2019-05-03T23:35:23.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33813" CreationDate="2019-05-04T00:34:05.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tang Ho's answer is correct, but the grammar on the English side is a bit incorrect.&#xA;While the literal translation is &quot;This temple actually is not my family operated&quot;, the more proper translation would be &quot;This temple isn't actually operated by my family&quot;. Phrasing in Chinese is somewhat different from phrasing in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21930" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T00:34:05.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33817" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-04T00:42:01.793" Score="0" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currenly looking for the small seal character for the words 生 (Sheng) and 智 (Hui)? Which I cannot find in the wiktionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21850" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T02:41:18.627" Title="Small Seal Request" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33817" CreationDate="2019-05-04T01:05:14.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you mean you want to convert them to small seal characters?&#xA;If so, you can use this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.diyiziti.com/Builder/69&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;converter&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;If you do not know a lot of Chinese yet, just enter the Chinese words you want to convert in the big box next to &quot;内容&quot;, then hit the button shows &quot;在线转换&quot; (with 2 arrows goes around each other, looks like a refresh icon, on the left of the texts). Then you should get small seal characters (小篆).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19840" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T01:05:14.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33812" CreationDate="2019-05-04T01:14:10.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Puede que es 樂園 （乐园）: el paraíso&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T01:14:10.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33837" CreationDate="2019-05-04T08:54:42.147" Score="2" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard 肉 pronounced &lt;code&gt;you&lt;/code&gt; (not sure of the tone, 4th probably, as in: yòu) on multiple occasions. It seems to be a northern Chinese thing - as opposed to a southern thing - but I'm not sure on specifics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In which locales is 肉 pronounced &lt;code&gt;you&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I'm getting a lot of responses with Cantonese examples, which is interesting, but I'm fairly certain that this is a &lt;em&gt;northern&lt;/em&gt; Chinese thing as I mentioned in my question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-05-05T06:38:45.277" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T15:31:28.233" Title="Where is 肉 pronunced &quot;you&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33821" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-04T10:10:44.960" Score="1" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering how would a contract in Chinese state that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Utilities (gas, water and electricity) are 200 every month and will be settled with a final settlement at the end of the year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;EDIT -&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what I have tried so far is: 水, 電, 油費 應該每月支付, 年末&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I am not sure whether there is a word for utilities that is commonly used. I hear 水電費 more often, but that does not include gas.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In English I use the word should more often, but I don't see that being used in contracts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In addition, the last issue is, I don't know how to say a final settlement.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6188" LastEditorUserId="6188" LastEditDate="2019-05-04T10:32:27.797" LastActivityDate="2019-06-03T14:12:18.137" Title="How would one write the following officially?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33820" CreationDate="2019-05-04T11:05:13.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, it is pronounced close to “you”. And I think in the northeastern provinces, it is pronounced as “you” as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T11:05:13.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33823" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-04T11:11:52.603" Score="2" ViewCount="645" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the dictionary, I get the meaning that all 4 words mean brain, mind, head. So what's the difference between each of the words? And what is the usage of each word? It will be really helpful if to me if you guys can provide sample sentences to show me how to use the words. Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T01:52:20.193" Title="脑袋 vs 脑子 vs 头脑 vs 脑筋" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33812" CreationDate="2019-05-04T11:22:31.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;definitely 园 (walled garden, now just garden)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15159" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T11:22:31.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33826" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-04T12:41:57.537" Score="0" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are 求 (beg) and 球 (ball) both written in pinyin as Qiú homonyms? I am trying to get the pronunciation for ball right. Are there authoritative homonym lists maintained somewhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21933" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T15:50:16.693" Title="Are begging and ball homonyms in spoken mandarin?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33821" CreationDate="2019-05-04T12:42:59.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;see e.g. LINE dictionary examples:utilities:水电费都包括吗？ 租金含水电费吗, &lt;strong&gt;gas&lt;/strong&gt;: 我去缴纳 &lt;strong&gt;煤气费&lt;/strong&gt; every month 每月首日支付租金 settled at end: 每年年底结帐 final settlement date 到期日 suggestion as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每月支付煤气水电费２００美元（？）以年底到期日结帐  (to be settled at end of year settlement date)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;added 6/3/19: another term for &quot;gas&quot; 燃气费&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-06-03T14:12:18.137" LastActivityDate="2019-06-03T14:12:18.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33823" CreationDate="2019-05-04T13:13:00.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;脑袋 is literally referring to the head, the biological head of a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脑子 is also referring to the biological brain. You can say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的脑子里有许多奇怪的想法 means he is having a lot of weird thoughts in his brain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他脑子不好使 means he is not smart&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;头脑 and 脑筋 are similar, they both mean &lt;em&gt;mind&lt;/em&gt; in some way, but are used in different places&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很有头脑 means he is a smart guy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脑筋急转弯 is a puzzle game like the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who is closer to you, your mom or your dad?&#xA;Mom is closer, because dad is farther.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;头脑 and 脑筋 are most commonly used in those two places, so you are good with them once you have those two examples in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T13:13:00.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33820" CreationDate="2019-05-04T15:35:20.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, 肉 is pronounced as 'yuk' instead of 'you'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In Putonghua, 肉 is pronounced as 'rou'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In Northeastern China, people sometimes pronounce it as 'you', for example 膠東, 瀋陽 and 山東.&#xA;However it is an old pronunciation, and people seldom pronounce it as 'you' nowadays, but 'rou' instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastEditorUserId="21794" LastEditDate="2019-05-10T15:31:28.233" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T15:31:28.233" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33813" CreationDate="2019-05-04T15:37:24.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact it should be &quot;This temple is not operated by my family.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The biggest problem of Chi-Eng translation is that you cannot directly translate every single word to get the correct sentence. You have to correct the 主謂動賓.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T15:37:24.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33805" CreationDate="2019-05-04T15:41:28.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a matter of fact, Facebook is 臉書, instead of 臉譜網. ‘臉譜’ means 'face mask'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To make you sound more polite, you should use 'may' instead of 'can'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So the sentence would be &quot;(不好意思，) 請問我可以把你的照片放上臉書嗎？&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hope this can help you :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T15:41:28.463" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33826" CreationDate="2019-05-04T15:50:16.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, they are both written in pinyin as 'Qiú'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can check &lt;a href=&quot;https://zidian.911cha.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新華字典&lt;/a&gt; for more details.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is a trustable dictionary website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T15:50:16.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33823" CreationDate="2019-05-05T01:52:20.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;which dictionary? online dictionaries e.g. iciba, bkrs, LINE dict. make distinctions providing sample sentences showing these distinctions,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bkrs(excerpts): &lt;strong&gt;脑袋&lt;/strong&gt;  #2214 head skull brains mental capability CL:颗,个1) 头。我脑袋疼&#xA;2) 犹脑筋 most frequently in:脑袋瓜 脑袋瓜儿 1) 头部。如：「他走路不小心跌倒，脑袋瓜受了点伤。2) 记忆、想像、思考等能力。如：「他一整天都在发呆，脑袋瓜不知道在想些什么 syn. 首级([chopped-off head] 古时指斩下的人头), 头, 首, 头颅&#xA;iciba:1.她使出全身力气抡起榔头砸向他的脑袋(at his head)2.球砸中他的脑袋，从而让他化解了一次射门。(hit on the head)3.他当时就威胁要打爆他的脑袋。(blow his head off)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;脑子&lt;/strong&gt; #2528 (1) [brain]∶见&quot;脑&quot; 脑髓&#xA;(2) [mind]∶大脑的思维活动&#xA;问题是复杂的, 我们的脑子也要复杂一点 CL:个gè （脑） brain&#xA;（脑筋） brains; mind; head; mental power; intelligence:&#xA;没脑子 no brains most frequently in: 动脑子 (use one's head/brain) 疑念在他脑子里翻腾起伏 脑子里闪过了一个念头&#xA;syn,同义①: 脑, 脑力, 头脑, 脑筋&#xA;同义②: 脑髓, 脑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;头脑&lt;/strong&gt; #3068 I n.&#xA;1) brains; mind&#xA;她很有政治头脑。 She's politically-minded.&#xA;2) coll. head; leader&#xA;3) main threads; clue&#xA;II cons.&#xA;1) SV tóu SV nǎo: SV-looking&#xA;傻头傻脑 stupid-looking&#xA;2) A tóu B nǎo: miscellaneous things for AB&#xA;针头线脑 odds and ends needed for needlework&#xA;（思维能力） brains; mind:&#xA;头脑不清 mixed-up; muddleheaded 很有头脑  有数学头脑&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不用头脑  胜利冲昏头脑  （头绪） main threads; clue:&#xA;摸不着头脑 cannot make head or tail of sth.&#xA;most  frequently in:有头脑 冲昏头脑 头头脑脑 syn.同义①: 眉目, 线索, 头绪, 条理&#xA;同义②: 脑筋, 脑子, 脑, 脑力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;脑筋&lt;/strong&gt; #9288 (1) [brains; mind; head]∶指思维、 记忆等能力 动脑筋 (2) [ideas]∶指思想意识&#xA;脑筋太旧 1) 脑神经 2) 泛指思考力、记忆力等 脑筋昏乱  脑筋简单  脑筋灵敏 syn. 脑子, 脑, 脑力, 头脑&#xA;most frequently in:动脑筋 伤脑筋 cause sb. enough headache; knotty; troublesome; bothersome:&#xA;死脑筋(1) [one-track mind]∶思想僵化固执&#xA;(2) [stubborn person]∶指这样的人&#xA;他真是个死脑筋&#xA;换脑筋 指改造思想或改变旧的观念 view from a different perspective&#xA;老脑筋 old way of thinking; a stubborn old brain; be old fashioned&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂汉语同义词词典＂脑袋／头颅 ［同］名词。指头［异］［脑袋］用于人，也用于动物。可带形容词＂大、小＂等作的定语。用于口语。例：（１）灯光下，坐着一个大脑袋的国民党军官。（李准＜黄河东流去＞）（２）他极愿帮我们的忙，可是连他也不住地抓脑袋（老舍＜八方风雨＞）（３）池塘里有一群小蝌蚪，大脑袋，黑身子，甩着长长的尾巴，快活地游来游去。（小学课本＜语文＞）（４）鲤鱼被揪着脑袋从渔篓里拽出来。（陈玙＜夜幕下的哈尔滨＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;［头颅］只用于人。使用范围比＂脑袋＂窄。用于书面语。例：（１）敢死队成员纷纷表示，愿为革命抛头颅（洒热血&#xA;lay down one’s life），洒鲜血（初中课本＜中国历史＞）（２）他赞美过明末的东林党反抗魏忠贤(1568―1627）的行为，曾写过一首诗说：＂莫道书生空议论，头颅掷处血斑斑＂。（样述，健比终存天地间＞）（３）关帝庙洛阳十五里地，本是汉朝关羽头颅埋葬的地方。（李准＜黄河东流去＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T01:52:20.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33834" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33835" CreationDate="2019-05-05T06:01:40.297" Score="6" ViewCount="496" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that 零 originally meant rain, however for some reason it eventually became fragments and then also zero. How did the meaning of this character shift to become fragments (rain drops, maybe?) as well as zero?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21938" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T12:40:18.740" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T12:40:18.740" Title="How did 零 come to mean zero?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33834" CreationDate="2019-05-05T06:17:27.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;零 originally meant rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not just &lt;em&gt;rain&lt;/em&gt;, but specifically &lt;em&gt;gentle rain&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77391&amp;amp;page=129&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;雨部&lt;/a&gt;》：＂零，&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BE%90%E5%BE%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;徐&lt;/a&gt;雨也。＂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Semantic extension:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Gentle rain&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;scattered/fragmentary&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;small/fractional&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;zero&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T06:17:27.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33813" CreationDate="2019-05-05T08:45:07.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase &lt;code&gt;somebody + 家开的&lt;/code&gt; is a very common phrase in Chinese that expresses the idea that &lt;code&gt;something&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;owned by someone's family&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;operated by someone's family&lt;/code&gt; (this is a bit of a pedantic explanation but it helps with comprehension). One very typical example of this comes out during road rage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“路是你家开的啊”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://popupchinese.com/lessons/intermediate/beijing-autopia-2157&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Popup Chinese&lt;/a&gt; lesson talks about how &lt;code&gt;sb. + 家开的&lt;/code&gt; works. In their dialogue they even have the example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;天是你们家开的？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You think the whole sky is yours?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Talking about how people would talk if they had flying cars. You can even have a listen to get a better grasp of usage and meaning of this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-05-05T08:50:21.303" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T08:50:21.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33820" CreationDate="2019-05-05T15:33:21.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;People from northen east provinces（Dongbei，which includs：黑龙江Heilongjiang, 吉林Jilin，辽宁Liaoning）with accents pronounce 肉 as you4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21829" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T15:33:21.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33834" CreationDate="2019-05-05T16:53:10.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;google ＂零＂词源说明 get e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%9B%B6/36714&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%9B%B6/36714&lt;/a&gt; 零，是形声字，古同“泠”，清凉。从雨令声，令为领省，即暴雨之前零星的雨滴，《说文》，“零，余雨也”。疾雨曰骤，徐雨曰零，久雨曰苦。引申出零落、零丁等义。古文中零非数词，近代以后方假借为数词。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T16:53:10.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33839" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33842" CreationDate="2019-05-05T23:50:37.253" Score="2" ViewCount="379" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today, while scrolling through my Instagram feed, I found this saying :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你不需要有多完美，也可以做得很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder what 有多 means. I tried to look for its meaning on the dictionary but it's not listed as a single word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone please explain its meaning and function here? Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T12:01:32.317" Title="What does 有多 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33840" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-06T00:15:50.003" Score="0" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hiiiii&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Here is a crossword puzzle about Poems!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KgZr6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KgZr6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: Do you love me?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2: Mid-autumn barbecue&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3: Ching Ming so many rain&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4: Ghosts come from rain, Emperors come from clouds&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5: I want to beat west&lt;br&gt;&#xA;6: Eight thousand miles&lt;br&gt;&#xA;7: Qin and Han&lt;br&gt;&#xA;8: Pine trees. Moon?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastEditorUserId="21794" LastEditDate="2019-05-06T15:02:54.540" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T03:39:15.073" Title="Chinese Poem Crossword Puzzle" Tags="&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33840" CreationDate="2019-05-06T01:12:25.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;An Idiom puzzle should looks like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d82H5.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d82H5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.continuously non-stop like river&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.one column supports the sky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.full of natural resources&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.forever young&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.gain without working for it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.extremely trendy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一. a column that withstands strong river flow &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二. having a skill&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三. mature age&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四. the end of time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五. needs from time to time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2lxr8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2lxr8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.川流不息 (continuously non-stop like river)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.一柱擎天 (one column supports the sky)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.地大物博 (full of natural resources)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.長春不老 (forever young)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.不勞而獲 (gain without working for it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.盛極一時 (extremely trendy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一.中流砥柱 (a column that withstands strong river flow )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二.一技之長 (having a skill)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三.春秋鼎盛 (mature age)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四.天荒地老 (the end of time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五.不時之需 (needs from time to time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-06T05:11:54.390" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T05:11:54.390" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33839" CreationDate="2019-05-06T02:14:04.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;有多  functions similar to &quot;being how&quot; in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完美= perfect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多完美 = how perfect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有多完美 = being how perfect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;强大 = strong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多强大 = how strong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有多强大 = being how strong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不管他技巧[&lt;strong&gt;有多&lt;/strong&gt;]完美,實力[&lt;strong&gt;有多&lt;/strong&gt;]强大, 他也不是我對手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter [&lt;strong&gt;how&lt;/strong&gt;] perfect his skill [&lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt;], [&lt;strong&gt;how&lt;/strong&gt;] strong his power [&lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt;], he is still no match for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T02:14:04.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33834" CreationDate="2019-05-06T03:35:46.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/28741992/answer/41996789&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/28741992/answer/41996789&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;零 hadn't meant 0 in the ancient Chinese. It just because 10X reads 一百零几 -- means more than 100, so 零 filled up the position of 0 when the 0 conception came into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T03:35:46.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33840" CreationDate="2019-05-06T06:30:34.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;3# 清明时节雨纷纷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6# 八千里路云和月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7# 秦时明月汉时光&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8# 明月松间照&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T06:30:34.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33845" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33865" CreationDate="2019-05-06T12:30:38.520" Score="6" ViewCount="863" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know whether there is a way to distinguish vegetarian from vegan in Chinese or is the only word available 素食者？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19391" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T02:31:22.397" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T02:31:22.397" Title="Is there a way to distinguish &quot;vegetarian&quot; from &quot;vegan&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33845" CreationDate="2019-05-06T12:43:30.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia distinguishes them like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%B4%94%E7%B4%A0%E4%B8%BB%E7%BE%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;维根主义（英语：Veganism）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%B4%A0%E9%A3%9F%E4%B8%BB%E7%BE%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;素食主义（英语：vegetarianism）&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;维根 here is a transliterated loanword from English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia also offers the translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;纯素主义 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for veganism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although these words, may, work in their written forms - you might generally not be understood using these words colloquially, because nobody really talks like this. Better alternatives would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不吃肉 = vegetarianism&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不吃动物(产)品 = veganism&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-05-06T14:38:26.033" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T14:38:26.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33845" CreationDate="2019-05-06T14:49:39.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;see online dictionaries, e.g. &lt;strong&gt;linguee&lt;/strong&gt;: &#xA;vegan food&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;纯素食&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;​&#xA;veganism, a diet consisting solely of plant products&#xA;纯素食主义&#xA;​&#xA;a vegan&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;纯素食者&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;iciba&lt;/strong&gt;:vegan n. &lt;strong&gt;严格的素食主义者&lt;/strong&gt;；&#xA;n. A strict vegetarian;&#xA;​confirm: &lt;strong&gt;bkrs&lt;/strong&gt;:纯素食vegan&#xA;vegan food&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T14:49:39.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33845" CreationDate="2019-05-06T15:50:17.430" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A informal way to say it:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;vegetarian: 蛋奶素&#xA;vegan: 純素&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T15:50:17.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33839" CreationDate="2019-05-06T22:19:02.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你不需要有多完美，也可以做得很好。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You don't need to be absolutely perfect, you can also do it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You don't need to be that perfect, you can also do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand 不需要有多完美 as: don't need to have great perfection, don't need that much perfection&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你有多爱我？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How much do you love me?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;从这里去那里有多远?。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How far is it from here to there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T22:19:02.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33850" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-07T03:14:21.620" Score="0" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dINEC.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dINEC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; This is a seal on the lower left corner of a large scroll.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21950" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T04:08:56.020" Title="This is a seal on a painting. I have identified several but 8 are still unknown. Please can anyone read this seal?" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33850" CreationDate="2019-05-07T03:45:53.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;imo, these character are in non-stardand small script; my best guess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the bottom right is &quot;春&quot; (u+6625)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%98%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=春&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;top left is &quot;堂&quot; (u+5802)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%A0%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bottom left is &quot;製&quot; (u+88fd)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%A3%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=製&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;top right character, not yet recognised :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T03:45:53.327" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33852" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36763" CreationDate="2019-05-07T08:49:31.083" Score="1" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are different sequences of movements in martial arts (套路 - forms) all having their names. Some of these names are quite clear but some are hard to understand for me. For example a double hand form is called: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;工字伏虎拳對拆 (工字伏虎拳对拆)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This form name comes from 洪家拳 system which is well-known in southern China  (Guangdong province). So the names of forms are in Cantonese dialect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part of the name 伏虎拳 is clear for me but I can't find anywhere the meaning of 對拆. It should mean something like 'sparring set' or 'versus' but only 對 (对) can mean 'versus'.  Is 對拆 some kind of a regional Cantonese word? Also, an additional question: how could 工字 be translated (if it can)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I wonder: can I write/say 對拆套路 by analogy to 武器套路 or 拳術套路 (拳术套路)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20766" LastEditorUserId="20766" LastEditDate="2019-05-07T09:30:24.040" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T04:49:42.590" Title="Meaning of 对拆 (對拆) in 套路 names" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33853" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-07T09:43:53.630" Score="0" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some has translated it into &quot;say something with sarcasm&quot;, but it lost the connotation of the literal meaning of this idiom, the strange, unnatural, ugly-sounding and a bit sissy tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T10:45:03.383" Title="how to translate the idiom 阴阳怪气?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33820" CreationDate="2019-05-07T10:31:59.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is common across all accents that merge the initial Pinyin r- (IPA: /ʐ/) into pinyin y- (IPA /j/). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese-influenced Mandarin very noticeably does this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most accents of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Northeast&lt;/a&gt; (noticeably &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/20838-northeastern-dialect-%E4%B8%9C%E5%8C%97%E8%AF%9D/page/2/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shenyang&lt;/a&gt;) &lt;a href=&quot;https://shenyanglostnfound.com/blog/northeast-chinese-dialect-101/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;also&lt;/a&gt; do this (although erhua is still present)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Apparently, &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9D%92%E5%B3%B6%E8%A9%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qingdao&lt;/a&gt; Mandarin (and I assume other coastal Shandong dialects) have a full-on split-merger, where only some r- lexemes become y- (肉 → 又 is one of these).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T10:31:59.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33853" CreationDate="2019-05-07T10:45:03.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/eerie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;eerie&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;strange in a frightening and mysterious way&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阴阳怪气 describe &amp;quot;an unnatural tone or vibe&amp;quot; (doesn't sound/ feel like male or female)  I would translate it as &amp;quot;eerie vibe&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说话阴阳怪气 could be translated as &amp;quot;talk with an &lt;strong&gt;eerie voice&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这人阴阳怪气  could be translated as &amp;quot;this man &lt;strong&gt;projects an eerie vibe&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T10:45:03.383" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33852" CreationDate="2019-05-07T11:55:17.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here 拆 means 拆解，dismantle something into basic component, so as to understand and apply it to handle complex combination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4389" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T11:55:17.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33839" CreationDate="2019-05-07T12:01:32.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;有多 is not a phrase, so you won't find it in a dictionary. The right split is 你不需要有 | 多完美。means you don't have to be perfect to do something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4389" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T12:01:32.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33852" CreationDate="2019-05-07T15:47:59.943" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;bkrs&lt;/strong&gt;：&lt;strong&gt;对折&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;1) 对半的折扣。（一半的折扣） fifty per cent discount; 50％ discount; reduced by one half:&#xA;照货价对折 allow a fifty per cent discount off the price; reduce the price by one half&#xA;2) 对半摺叠。to &lt;strong&gt;fold in two&lt;/strong&gt; 。print.folio&#xA;freq. rank #60050&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;linguee&lt;/strong&gt;:sell at a 50% discount&#xA;不常见: fold in two  folio e.g. 以书中第 6 对折页（ 图 16）为例 as seen in folio 6v (image 16),&lt;br&gt;&#xA; also note example in TV show 今日说法&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tv.cctv.com/2019/04/08/VIDEVF1V14RsBWtaIkbNuEzg190408.shtml?spm=C52056131267.PkHCdznQvTLi.0.0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tv.cctv.com/2019/04/08/VIDEVF1V14RsBWtaIkbNuEzg190408.shtml?spm=C52056131267.PkHCdznQvTLi.0.0&lt;/a&gt;  ）；０：１５：有去无回的外出 ０：１８：普通的案件的话 ０：１９：police officer: &lt;strong&gt;车牌不会对折&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;bkrs: &lt;strong&gt;工字&lt;/strong&gt; in the shape of character 工，工字形(梁)断面 I-beam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;对拆&lt;/strong&gt;：&quot;对拆&quot;什么意思!? &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/140590125.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/140590125.html&lt;/a&gt; 合起来就是说，俩人相互（演练自己的招数并）拆解对方的招数（，从而找出对方的破绽，用来修补破绽），现在的话讲就是找BUG。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-05-07T16:44:32.747" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T16:44:32.747" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33859" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33880" CreationDate="2019-05-07T17:10:25.587" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently heard a live performance of an amazing song by a Chinese woman in the United States. She said the title of the song is &quot;Lu Hua&quot;, and I was able to find a version on YouTube:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywgm4BeoR8c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywgm4BeoR8c&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone tell me more about this song? Like what it means, who the original artist is, and if there is a high-quality soundtrack available anywhere (like Spotify).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21953" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T07:58:29.377" Title="A song called &quot;Lu Hua&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33860" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-07T19:54:00.450" Score="1" ViewCount="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 傳 in 傳統 is easy to understand. Tradition is transmitted. As the dictionary(MOE) says: 世代相傳.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about the 統？It has many meanings, including verbal ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One (絲的頭緒) refers to the main thread of silk. So is 傳統 the essential, important part of transmission?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Another says: 相繼不絕的體系、關係。如：「血統」. So is it the uninterrupted transmission?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A third one says: 綱要, the essentials, similar to my first guess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T22:37:57.453" Title="What is the 統 in 傳統？" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33861" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33863" CreationDate="2019-05-07T22:31:31.013" Score="2" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was born in Montreal and my parents are both Hakka from Calcutta.  They never taught me the language and now in my thirties, I'm realizing how important it is to me to go back to my roots.  I want to learn my mother tongue!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would anyone out there have any good resources, recordings, textbooks, etc. that would help me learn the basics?  I have already seen Eric Chen's Youtube lessons, which are great, but unfortunately, quite limited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21956" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-05-08T08:58:36.927" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T16:40:50.990" Title="Does anyone out there have an old textbook about learning Moiyen Hakka?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;hakka&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33860" CreationDate="2019-05-07T22:37:57.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A phrase you'll often hear is: &quot;It's a tradition in our family.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now extend family to 民族&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word tradition comes from: trans 过 + dare 送给 (Originally in the sense of Jewish instruction, Mosaic Law, it seems.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;传统: 传承血统 pass on bloodline&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereby, 血统 does not just indicate the dna I think, but all the idiosyncrasies that come with it, the dances, the funny hats, the strange and wonderful delicacies, the social expressions of that bloodline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T22:37:57.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33861" CreationDate="2019-05-08T03:37:31.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a book entitled &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.cn/dp/B00WLKE0SA/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_zh_CN=%E4%BA%9A%E9%A9%AC%E9%80%8A%E7%BD%91%E7%AB%99&amp;amp;keywords=%E6%A2%85%E5%B7%9E%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80%E6%B0%91%E4%BF%97%E5%9B%BE%E5%85%B8&amp;amp;qid=1557286475&amp;amp;s=gateway&amp;amp;sr=8-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dialect  and  Folkways  Handbook  in  Meizhou&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (梅州方言民俗图典) that you can purchase but it is probably more like a dictionary than anything else. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Resources for, specifically, Moiyen (梅州) Hakka are going to be far more scarce than for a broader topic like the Hakka language in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching for Meixian (梅縣) Hakka would even greatly increase the number of results you get. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;现代汉语方言音库・梅县话音档&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;梅县客家方言志 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;梅县方言词典&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-05-08T04:02:27.037" LastActivityDate="2019-05-08T04:02:27.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33864" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33866" CreationDate="2019-05-08T04:45:42.670" Score="2" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;Native Chinese speakers should be able to solve this puzzle. Just want to know if the hints I give are too hard or too easy. And how long it take for you to solve it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jEhIj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jEhIj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Shock heaven and move earth&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;pitiful; deserving or arousing pity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;having common goal&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;be successfully completed once condition is met (when water arrive, a water pathway will form)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;back against the castle and make a stand&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;wonderful world&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;mutual destruction&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;great number of people spill out to the street&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;calm and corrected&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;chilly night&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;hopeless situation; at the end of one's rope&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pine, bamboo and plum&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A. No going back (the origin of 覆水難收)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B. party every night&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C. united we stand; people's power&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D. great distance (many mountains and bodies of water)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E. overnight sensation; awe inspiring&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;F. match made in heaven&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G. red light district  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;H. tomorrow's yellow flower; old news&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I. it is a cruel cold world&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;J. clear border&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K. tough to be at the top&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;L. be tender to the ladies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M. break rock and shock the heaven&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N. total despair&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will post the answer later&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want more hints, you can start from the one below&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/13lwI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/13lwI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Answer in traditional Chinese &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lnbRi.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lnbRi.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Shock heaven and move earth - 驚天動地&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;pitiful; deserving or arousing pity. - 楚楚可憐&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;having common goal -志同道合&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;be successfully completed once condition is met (when water arrive, a water pathway will form) - 水到渠成&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;back against the castle and make a stand - 背城借一&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;wonderful world - 花花世界&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;mutual destruction - 玉石俱焚&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;great number of people spill out to the street - 萬人空巷&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;calm and corrected - 處變不驚&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;chilly night - 夜涼如水&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;hopeless situation; at the end of one's rope - 山窮水盡&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pine, bamboo and plum - 嵗寒三友&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A. No going back (the origin of 覆水難收)-馬前覆水&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B. party every night - 夜夜笙歌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C. united we stand; people's power - 眾志成城&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D. great distance (many mountains and bodies of water)- 萬水千山&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E. overnight sensation; awe inspiring - 一鳴驚人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;F. match made in heaven - 天作之合&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G. red light district - 花街柳巷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;H. tomorrow's yellow flower; old news - 明日黃花&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I. it is a cruel cold world - 世態炎涼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;J. clear border - 楚河漢界&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K. tough to be at the top - 高處不勝寒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;L. be tender to the ladies - 憐香惜玉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;M. break rock and shock the heaven - 石破天驚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N. total despair - 萬念俱灰&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-09T08:17:01.357" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T08:17:01.357" Title="Is it a solvable Idiom Crossword Puzzle?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;puzzle&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-07-30T23:29:52.767" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33845" CreationDate="2019-05-08T07:34:47.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;vegetarianism 素食主义&#xA;means no animals for meals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;veganism 纯素主义&#xA;means no animals for meals or clothes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, these words are not popular in China. I don't think Chinese people even understand those &lt;strong&gt;jargons&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd better say 我不吃肉 (I don't eat meat) if you are a vegetarian, and you'd better say 我不吃肉，连衣服也不用动物制品 (I don't eat meat, not even animals for clothes) if you are a vegan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-05-11T01:05:51.133" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T01:05:51.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33864" CreationDate="2019-05-08T09:32:26.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is what I got without hints:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2kFBI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2kFBI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and after the hints:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jXrD8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jXrD8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my personal feelings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;万水千山&amp;amp;山穷水尽 is a bit hard without hints, I was thinking about 万里之遥&amp;amp;遥不可及/遥遥无期.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;背城借一，I didn't even know this word until I googled &quot;带城和一的成语&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A and 4, I still don't know what they are.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE after new hints:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y4XRl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y4XRl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastEditorUserId="18144" LastEditDate="2019-05-09T01:26:09.053" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T01:26:09.053" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33861" CreationDate="2019-05-08T10:15:16.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;With any of the Chinese topolects, having a good foundation in standard Mandarin will open up a lot more resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other thing with the Hakkasphere is that it is a lot more fragmented (considering the person to distance covered ratio of the diaspora), compared to e.g. the Cantonese speaking world or even the Hokkien/Hoklo/Minnan world. Although you specifically want Moiyen/Meixian Hakka, I'd also consider &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixian_dialect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sixian Hakka&lt;/a&gt;, which is the Taiwan version of the Moiyen &quot;side&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online though, we have a substantial amount of resources. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a dictionary of &lt;a href=&quot;https://hakka.dict.edu.tw//hakkadict/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hakka expressions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the official &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ministry of Education on Taiwan dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;courses of Memrise &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://decks.memrise.com/courses/english/?q=Hakka&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Decks&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;two official Glossika courses (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ai.glossika.com/language/learn-hakka-sixian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sixian&lt;/a&gt; and Hailu)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;THere's even Taiwan's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hakkatv.org.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hakka TV&lt;/a&gt;, as well as a wealth of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jw.org/hak/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;religious&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jw.org/en/publications/?contentLanguageFilter=hak_id&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;literature&lt;/a&gt; (including the &lt;a href=&quot;https://live.bible.is/bible/HAKTHV/MAT/1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bible with audio&lt;/a&gt;), and a large collection of Hakka opera (漢劇), including &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EWttBN16h4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;classic tales&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-05-08T10:15:16.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33869" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-08T13:51:55.953" Score="1" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9qXtx.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9qXtx.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;This is a large seal, 4&amp;quot; in both height and width, found on a large Chinese Scroll.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The seal seems to refer to the Divine Name given to the Empress Xiaogheghdan, the Birth Mother of Qianlong Emperor (乾隆帝), after her death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21950" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-04T09:55:11.337" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T09:55:11.337" Title="Is this the seal of Empress Xiaogheghdan, birth Mother of Qianlong Emperor?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33869" CreationDate="2019-05-08T15:03:31.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's &quot;重&quot; X &quot;精藏之寶&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the bottom right character is, not yet recognised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-05-08T15:03:31.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33874" CreationDate="2019-05-08T16:09:28.727" Score="3" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lu Xun says &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.m.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E6%91%A9%E7%BE%85%E8%A9%A9%E5%8A%9B%E8%AA%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夫國民發展，功雖有在於懷古，然其懷也，思理朗然，如鑒明鏡，時時上征，時時反顧…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夫 is probably the literary auxiliary for introducing a new topic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有，I assume means “partly”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;思理：I’m very unsure about this. Might go with 思辨能力: the ability for analytical thought&#xA;朗然:brightly, clearly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation attempt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As for the development of the populace, the merit in part depends on keeping the Ancient Tradition. But it’s keeping must happen with clear analytical thought, as a mirror or a clear lens, at times proceeding, at times looking back...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many parts about which I am uncertain. Can you point out mistakes or improvements?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2019-06-07T18:03:31.247" Title="Translating sentence of Luxun" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33872" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33873" CreationDate="2019-05-08T16:44:36.470" Score="2" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;千里之行，始于足下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on the Internet. Per consensus from native speakers, it appears it can be loosely translated as 'the journey of a thousand miles begins at your feet'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm able to understand what the nouns 千里, 足, as well as what the verb 始, are all doing in this sentence. However, what are the characters 之行 and 于，下 doing? Are they acting as adjectives, prepositions, adverbs, or something else? How does each character modify the preceding characters to arrive at the full meaning? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21959" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-04T14:34:49.783" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T11:51:11.653" Title="How do the terms in 千里之行，始于足下 modify its meaning?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33872" CreationDate="2019-05-08T16:51:10.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually your translation is a pretty verbatim one. I will give the word for word translations for each phrase and let you feel what parts they play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千=thousand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;里=miles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之=of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行=journey&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;始=start, begin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于=at, from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;足=feet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下=under&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something to comment on: in chinese, “A之B” is somewhat equivalent to &quot;B of A&quot;, meaning B is part of A, or B is described by A.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="21960" LastEditDate="2019-05-08T16:56:22.237" LastActivityDate="2019-05-08T16:56:22.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33871" CreationDate="2019-05-08T17:33:50.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your translation is mostly accurate. But I don't think 有 means &quot;partly&quot; directly. In Chinese, 有 usually means &quot;there is/are&quot;. So a more &quot;verbatim&quot; translation would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;..., although there are merits in keeping the ancient tradition,...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with the following correspondence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽=although&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有=there are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;功=merits&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在于=in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怀古=keeping…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 思理, you may know that 思 means &quot;think, thought&quot;, and 理 means &quot;reason&quot;. So 思理朗然 means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with clear thinking and reasoning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the thinking and reasoning must be clear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastActivityDate="2019-05-08T17:33:50.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30643" CreationDate="2019-05-08T21:36:40.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;see Chinese grammars, e.g. Adverbial Phrase Placements in L1-Chinese ESL&#xA;Learners' Writing &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4bf3/7bd9e7a58932a498e25da9402305ab4c7e4d.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4bf3/7bd9e7a58932a498e25da9402305ab4c7e4d.pdf&lt;/a&gt;  Punctual  time  adverbs  may  be &#xA;positioned before the main verb as shown in (2) or they can move to the beginning of a &#xA;sentence, before the subject of the verb, as shown in (2a)&#xA;明天我要去公园。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;＂汉语语法基础＂&lt;/strong&gt; ３。２０ &lt;strong&gt;状语的位置&lt;/strong&gt; 句间定语的位置只有一个：主语之后，中心语之前，要紧接着中心语。因此定语就没有必要单讲它在句子里的位置。状语的情况与此不同。它也必须位于中心语之前---这一点跟定语相同，却不一定要位于主语之后--- 这一点跟定语不同。位于主语之后的状语是一般的情况，不需要再谈；位于主语之前的状语，可以叫作句首状语，需要谈一谈。１。表示时间的名词或者方位结构可以作句首状语。例：（１）今天我想讲一点关于我们的党的作风问题。（毛泽东，整顿党的作风）（２）现在我们的党还有什么问题呢？（同上）（３）五四运动时期，一般新人物反对文言文，提倡白话文，反对旧教条，提倡科学和民主，这些都是很对的。（毛泽东，反对党八股）（４）抗日战争爆发以后，革命的文艺工作者来到延安和各个抗日根据地的多起来了。（毛泽东，在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表示处所的名词或者方位结构这种可能就比较少，＂屋里坐着一个人＂之类的句子是无主语，状语尽管在一句之首，但是根本安不上主语，跟这里谈的性质不同；而＂咱们北京见！＂虽然有了主语却又不大好提在主语之前说成＂北京咱们见！＂&#xA;II。一部分副词可以作句首状语。如：（５）刚才凯丰同志讲了今天开会的宗旨。（毛泽东，反对党八股）（６）难道我们还欢迎任何政治的灰尘、政治的微生物来玷污我们的清洁的面貌和侵蚀我们的健全的机体？（毛泽东，论联合政府）（７）忽然她浑身一跳，就扑到床上，从破棉絮堆里抱过那不满半岁的孩子。（茅盾，当铺前）（８）幸亏荐头（employment agent (arch.)job broker）的情面大，辞退不得，便改为专管温酒的一种无聊的职务了。（鲁迅，孔乙己）&#xA;能够作句首状语的副词不太多。有些句首状语不宜于放在主语之后，如果放在主语之后，意思就有所改变，例如（８）的＂幸亏＂。试比较：幸亏他来了。--- 他幸亏来了。＂幸亏＂作句首状语，＂有幸＂的不是主语，而是主语以外的人。＂幸亏＂作句间状语，则＂有幸＂的就是主语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since different types of adverbials, see e.g.this site,  The word order of co-existing adverbs in a sentence can be split by the subject with time adverbial occurring before the subject,it seems that time adverbial adjuncts consisting of 2  parts can be split by the subject (and be justified by belated realization of need for more precise statement) although this splitting seems uncommon, in other words it seems hard to find examples on the web.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-05-09T04:48:06.300" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T04:48:06.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33876" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-09T00:06:55.423" Score="1" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;1 hour ago, my friend sent me a mysterious thing.&#xA;Can you tell me what is this mysterious thing?&#xA;Here's the mysterious thing:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B6u78.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B6u78.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21961" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T01:25:26.430" Title="What is this thing?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33876" CreationDate="2019-05-09T01:25:26.430" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's 男, you can copy and google it, it means male&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T01:25:26.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33840" CreationDate="2019-05-09T02:32:05.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1#高秋暮落蒹葭雨，顾盼伊人东水湄。（我编的(๑&gt;؂&amp;lt;๑））&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2#中秋高宴会&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3# 清明时节雨纷纷&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4# 纷纷雨外灵均过，瑟瑟云中帝子归&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5# 我欲西征君又东&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6# 八千里路云和月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7# 秦时明月汉时关&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8# 明月松间照&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另及：显然灵均、帝子并非ghost和emperor，此处应该也不是指词士、王子，而是自屈原用时之本义，泛指神灵，一是应鄱阳湖楚地之实，二是赞其灵异。虽然其他提示似乎也有望文生义之弊，不过似乎这样比较容易做出答案（笑）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-05-09T03:39:15.073" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T03:39:15.073" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28071" CreationDate="2019-05-09T03:51:11.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be very honest, we call them &lt;strong&gt;Tony&lt;/strong&gt;. No kidding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21963" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T03:51:11.450" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33859" CreationDate="2019-05-09T07:58:29.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;芦花 is the correct song name. 崔晓琳 is the original artist, but the artist 雷佳 version is more popular.&#xA;You can listen it here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://y.qq.com/n/yqq/song/000lL1ly0LYiE6.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://y.qq.com/n/yqq/song/000lL1ly0LYiE6.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17846" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T07:58:29.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33820" CreationDate="2019-05-09T09:27:54.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can provide anecdotal evidence of this accent in northeast cities near 沈阳 (Shenyang) (but not coastal cities like 大连——they have a different accent).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My girlfriend was born and raised in a city near 沈阳 called 鞍山, as were her father and mother. Her father merges (pinyin) r  and y into y. When I first met him he introduced some info about his city, including the &quot;yinkou&quot; (人口). People there say &quot;yoù&quot; (肉), &quot;yènao&quot; (热闹), and pretty much everything else follows this pattern, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On another note, pinyin chi/zhi are allophones of ci/zi there, as well, it seems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15883" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T09:27:54.993" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33883" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33884" CreationDate="2019-05-09T15:47:12.020" Score="1" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've just posted the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/q/16910/6031&quot;&gt;What produces these amazing 3D structures in Tibet?&lt;/a&gt; in Earth Science SE with the screen shots below. I'm told that the area is called 札达土林 in Chinese, and that seems to be &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanda_County&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zanda County in Tibet&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to know if that location information is accurate? Is there a better way to identify the location where these images were taken? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to search further in order to eventually get some GPS coordinate so I can add to the linked question; &quot;Zanda County in Tibet&quot; is too large of an area pin down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Screen shots from the video &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpws4xLMK7Y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;航拍西藏 2018&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ifmn2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ifmn2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;札达土林 Zanda County in Tibet&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fyF5Z.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fyF5Z.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;札达土林 Zanda County in Tibet&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18487" LastEditorUserId="18487" LastEditDate="2019-05-09T18:04:52.987" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T18:04:52.987" Title="How to better identify the location of these land forms?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33883" CreationDate="2019-05-09T16:22:31.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;札达土林 is not Zanda County, but rather the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tripadvisor.com.br/Attraction_Review-g1136581-d1871496-Reviews-Zhada_Earth_Forest_National_Geopark-Zanda_County_Tibet.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhada Earth Forest National Geopark&lt;/a&gt;. Note that 札达 in Standard Mandarin pinyin is &lt;em&gt;Zhádá&lt;/em&gt;, hence the English translation. The native Tibetan version, རྩ་མདའ, is transliterated with Wylie transliteration as &lt;em&gt;rtsa mda'&lt;/em&gt;, and the spelling &quot;Zanda&quot; is an approximation of the modern Tibetan pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;土林 literally does translate to &quot;Earth (as in soil, dirt) Forest&quot;, but refers to any &quot;forest of rock formations&quot;. Other examples include the one in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tripadvisor.com.hk/Attraction_Review-g1795777-d1801274-Reviews-Yuanmou_Earth_and_Forest_Scenic_Resort-Yuanmou_County_Yunnan.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yuanmou, Yunnan&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T16:22:31.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33684" CreationDate="2019-05-09T17:27:21.167" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it is kinda like indeed, i think?&#xA;my understanding is that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you just read/heard sth&#xA;  your first thought was: what is that bullsh*t/i dont agree with that/etc&#xA;  a few seconds later: i kinda like it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21967" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T17:27:21.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33886" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-09T19:07:28.077" Score="2" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following phrase, what does 好 mean in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jw.org/cmn-hant/%E5%87%BA%E7%89%88%E7%89%A9/%E6%9B%B8%E7%B1%8D/%E8%81%96%E7%B6%93%E7%9C%9F%E7%90%86/%E8%B4%96%E5%83%B9%E4%B8%8A%E5%B8%9D%E6%9C%80%E5%AF%B6%E8%B2%B4%E7%9A%84%E7%A6%AE%E7%89%A9/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Traditional&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們​人人​天生​都​不完美，每​逢​想​做​對​的​事，內心​往往​要​經歷​好​一​番​掙扎，而且​都​會​說​錯​話​做​錯​事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jw.org/cmn-hans/%E5%87%BA%E7%89%88%E7%89%A9/%E4%B9%A6%E7%B1%8D/%E5%9C%A3%E7%BB%8F%E7%9C%9F%E7%90%86/%E8%B5%8E%E4%BB%B7%E4%B8%8A%E5%B8%9D%E6%9C%80%E5%AE%9D%E8%B4%B5%E7%9A%84%E7%A4%BC%E7%89%A9/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simplified&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们​人人​天生​都​不完美，每​逢​想​做​对​的​事，内心​往往​要​经历​好​一​番​挣扎，而且​都​会​说​错​话​做​错事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15085" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-05-13T01:07:40.413" LastActivityDate="2020-05-13T01:07:40.413" Title="What does 好 mean in this context?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33886" CreationDate="2019-05-09T23:33:36.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;经历​好：V＋好，好 functions as complement of result 结果补语 cf.&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5f9ec9b00100i4jg.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5f9ec9b00100i4jg.html&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;3、动词+好:晚饭做好了没有？我要写好毛笔字。这件事情我已经想好了。我们说好了一起回家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yufa! A Practical Guide to Mandarin Chinese Grammar， &#xA;verbs associated with 好 meaning &quot;properly&quot; or &quot;securely&quot; are 学、做、放、带、拿、准备，etc.e.g.各位旅客请在座位上坐好，并且系好安全带，飞机就要起飞了。大家都准备好了吗？可以出发了吧？&#xA;When 好 indicates completion of a task,an assignment,piece of work it shares similarities with 完，therefore they sometimes are interchangeable. However 好 tends to mean the completed work can be shown, whereas 完 indicates that once sth. is done it's gone.: verbs associated with this meaning are 作、写、画、洗、翻译，etc.e.g.王老师花了三年，才把那语法书写好。Compare 今天的功课真多，我写了三个多小时，还没写完。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here  挣扎 desperate struggle， ​番​ classifier for the frequency or number of times an action or&#xA;deed is carried out - mostly used in idiomatic phrases, 好一番挣扎 numeral measure word combination &#xA;数词和量词 e.g. 费了好一番力气 I wasted a lot of effort, therefore 经历好一番挣扎 can mean &quot;lived through/experienced/went through a good deal of desperate struggle&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-05-10T02:43:45.200" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T02:43:45.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-10T00:56:07.960" Score="1" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I made this for fun, please try to solve it. I will post the answer later if no one can solve the whole puzzle.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suggestions on improving the hints are welcome. Since I know the answer, it is hard for me to judge if a hint is too detailed or too vague.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KodsI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KodsI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Heaven gave me my talents have to be of some use  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Evenly match &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The universe will eliminate the ones who don't take care of oneself &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Complete silence &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Highly talented or educated &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;From all over the nation/ eight famous mountains in China &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Copy; Imitate&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Long historic background&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Too happy to think of home&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;knowing black from white&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;New wave of talents&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Incomes can't cover expenses&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The walking dead&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;kick someone when he's down&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Take it calmly&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sincerity can split  metal and rock&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Close the stable door after the horse has bolted&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not educated and have no skill&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Deeply shamed&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Beast like; savage&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not essential&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The People are struggling to survive&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;unrivaled in the world&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;fake laugh&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. Never submit, never yield&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. although committed no crime, your face is loathsome&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c. corrupted people are the same everywhere&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d. reduce the number but raise the fighting ability of an army&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e. The ultimate; no better than this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f. With one touch turns rock into gold&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;g. Hire on merit base alone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;h. Twisting the facts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i. Having good foresight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;j. Creating a new world&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;k. Go straight in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;l. Honor bound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;m. Desolate place&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;n. criticizing orally and in writing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;o. the sky has only one sun, the people have only one ruler&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p. too happy, I can't stand it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;q. lose; can't defeat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;r. Drown&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;s. Think carefully and thoroughly before taking action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;t. life like; like it is alive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;u. make deal with dangerous people; courting disaster&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;v. great feast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is too difficult for you, you can start with the one below that contains hints words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2dncP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2dncP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-10T01:41:24.850" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T05:03:15.287" Title="Idiom, common phrase crossword puzzle" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;puzzle&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-07-27T00:11:14.773" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33886" CreationDate="2019-05-10T01:18:51.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct word boundary should be 好​一​番, which means a lot of. In your sentence, &quot;we have to go through a lot of struggles.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T01:18:51.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33890" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33891" CreationDate="2019-05-10T02:41:40.693" Score="0" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dictionary says that 倔强 = stubborn, 固执 = stubborn, 顽固 =obstinate, stubborn. I looked up some sample sentences and felt like 倔强 and 固执 are synonyms. So are 倔强 and 固执 synonyms or do they have some difference in actual usage? If they have some difference can you guys provide some situation to use 倔强 and 固执? Because I don't know how to differentiate them .  And btw does 顽固 mean obstinate only or can it also mean stubborn like 倔强 and 固执? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T21:04:27.927" Title="倔强 vs 固执 vs 顽固 usage" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33890" CreationDate="2019-05-10T04:01:16.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倔 = blunt 强 = strong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倔强 =  stubborn (resist with strong will, e.g. force, persuasion)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;固 = fixed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;执 = holding on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;固执 = stubborn (fixated and holding on to it, e.g. opinion, believe)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;顽 = tough&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;固 =  fixed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;顽固 = stubborn  (stubbornly fixated , e.g. opinion, believe)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;倔强, 固执 and 顽固 can all be a description of someone's stubborn personality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;倔强 emphasize on the &lt;strong&gt;strong-willed&lt;/strong&gt; aspect of stubborn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;固执 emphasize on the &lt;strong&gt;fixation&lt;/strong&gt; aspect of stubborn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;顽固 emphasize on the &lt;strong&gt;unyielding&lt;/strong&gt; aspect of stubborn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You try to force or persuade your daughter to give up an unrealistic dream, but she stubbornly refuses. That is she being 倔强 (she is so strong-willed, she wouldn't yield to force or persuaded by reasons)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You try to convince an old man that he should not trust traditional Chinese medicine over modern western medicine, but he stubbornly holding on to the believe that traditional Chinese medicine works better than modern western medicine. That is he being 固执 or 顽固 (he is fixated on his believe and firmly holding on it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;固执 is a neutral term, we have a saying 擇善固执 (pick a good believe and hold firm), so when  we say someone being 固执 on a subject, we do not imply he is actually right or wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;顽固 is mostly a derogatory term, when we say someone being 顽固 on a subject, we actually imply he is wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T21:04:27.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33820" CreationDate="2019-05-10T04:28:12.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It indicates an uneducated person. I grew up from the northeast. Usually the aged and uneducated used to pronounce it as you4. Younger generations and the educated won't pronounce it like that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T04:28:12.177" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33890" CreationDate="2019-05-10T05:15:44.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;固执 and 顽固 may be considered synonyms, not synonymous with 倔强, for any difference between 固执  and  顽固  see ＂汉语同义词词典＂［同］形容词。形容人坚持某种主张，不肯改变。［异］&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;［&lt;strong&gt;固执&lt;/strong&gt;］着重于不管是否正确，一味坚持自己的意见和作法，不肯变通。用来形容人的＂性情、性格、脾气、想法＂等。多用于&lt;strong&gt;贬义&lt;/strong&gt;。例：（１）看来，他也很固执，我并不希望我的话能轻易说服他。（孙梨＜读作品记（三）＞）（２）第二年换了个学堂，老师守旧固执，不让我继续读新国语课本而要我回头来重新学老一套。（方敬＜童年琐忆＞）（３）傅涛教授不由得细细地打量着这个固执而古怪的孩子。（张浩＜从森林里来的孩子＞）（４）向他告辞的时候，他起身要送我到门口，他固执地颤抖着拿了拐杖就往外走。（赵清阁＜日记拾遣＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;［&lt;strong&gt;顽固&lt;/strong&gt;］着重于思想保守，不愿意接受新鲜事物或坚持政治上的反动观点，死不改变。&lt;strong&gt;语意比＂固执＂重&lt;/strong&gt;。用来形容非常守旧落后的人或敌对分子、反对势力等。&lt;strong&gt;贬义词&lt;/strong&gt;。常说＂顽固不化＂。可构成＂顽固性＂、＂顽固派＂、＂顽固分子＂。例：（１）上级批评俺家他爹不参加土地合作社。不是他不参加，是俺家他爷爷顽固。（孙梨＜杨国元＞）（２）他代表匈奴那一部分最顽固的社会势力。不事生产，只靠劫掠虏获为生，在抢劫杀人中得到快乐。（曹禺＜王昭君＞）（３）我们从血的教训中更清醒地认清了种族主义顽固派的本质，所以不得不重新考虑此前做出的关于参加政府，联合执政的决定。对种族主义只能镇锋相对。（４）他否认生产迅速集中的趋势，强调小生产的顽固性，并认为卡特尔和托拉斯可以免除危险。（周一良、吴于廑主编＜世界通史＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;［附］＂固执＂兼属动词。表示坚持己见，不肯改变，如＂不要固执己见＂。＂顽固＂与＂老＂构成名词＂老顽固＂，指思想极其守旧，不肯接受新事物的人，如＂他爹是个老顽固＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bkrs: &lt;strong&gt;倔强&lt;/strong&gt; [stubborn; unbending; unyielding] 刚强, 不屈服 倔强劲 倔强的脾气 他从小性格倔强。强硬直傲，不屈於人。syn.同义: 拗, 倔头倔脑, 犟头犟脑, 桀傲不驯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-05-10T06:07:04.150" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T06:07:04.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33894" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33895" CreationDate="2019-05-10T08:58:02.363" Score="2" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure what are the possible part-of-speeches of 只有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the part-of-speeches of 只有 in these sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;水深也'只有'十二米&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'只有'通过学者的社区考验过的思想，才有活力&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15481" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T22:08:39.610" Title="part-of-speech of 只有" Tags="&lt;adverbs&gt;&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33894" CreationDate="2019-05-10T09:40:39.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;只有 can mean 'only/ just/ merely' in the first example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;水深也'只有'十二米 = &quot;The water depth is &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;merely&lt;/strong&gt; 12M&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'也' before '只有' is a modal word that put emphasis on the 'not substantial' aspect in the term 'only/ just/ merely', if '只有' means 'only', '也只有' would mean 'just only'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;只(only) is an adverb for the verb 有 (has)  '十二米' here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;只有 can only mean 'only' in the second example, because there is a &quot;才有&quot; (can then have) in the second part of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;只有&lt;/strong&gt;'通过学者的社区考验过的思想，&lt;strong&gt;才有&lt;/strong&gt;活力 = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Only&lt;/strong&gt; through scholars' socially experimented thinking, &lt;strong&gt;can then&lt;/strong&gt; have life (be alive)..&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'才有' in the second part indicates the statement in the first part is a requirement'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;只有 (only) is an adverb for the verb 通过 (thought) here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-13T11:13:10.510" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T11:13:10.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33896" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33897" CreationDate="2019-05-10T10:47:24.733" Score="4" ViewCount="464" Body="&lt;p&gt;上午 apparently means &quot;morning&quot;. But I don't understand the logic of this word for two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Isn't the meaning of 午 &quot;noon&quot;?&#xA;2) With the words 早上 (early morning) and 晚上 (evening) then 上 is the second character, while in 上午 it is the second character, which always confuses me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the logic of the above observations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any &quot;trick&quot; to remember these words better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20712" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T06:00:36.707" Title="Logic of the word 上午 (shànɡwǔ, morning)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33896" CreationDate="2019-05-10T11:10:29.383" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;上午, 下午 has the same logic as 上週, 下週. 上 is a prefix meaning &lt;em&gt;previous, before&lt;/em&gt;, and 上午 means &lt;em&gt;before noon&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you must assign a meaning to 上 in 早上 and 晚上, I would interpret it to be a suffix meaning &lt;em&gt;at, during, in,&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;within&lt;/em&gt;. 早上/晚上 means &lt;em&gt;during&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;in the morning/evening&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用在名詞後。表示一定的處所或範圍。(&lt;em&gt;Used after a noun, indicating a specific location or [within a specific] range.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《孟子・梁惠王上》：＂王坐於堂上，有牽牛而過堂下者，王見之曰：＇牛何之？＇＂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《戰國策・秦策一》：＂人生世上，勢位富貴， 蓋可忽乎哉！＂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《醒世恒言・三孝廉讓產立高名》：＂有一人姓許名武，字長文，十五歲上，父母雙亡。＂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;巴金　《探索集・懷念老舍同志》：＂在他們的心上、在他們的筆下，他至今仍然活着。＂&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T11:10:29.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30644" CreationDate="2019-05-10T19:01:40.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think its not about sb's demand, but about giving. 你不会给她星星.&#xA;I would say its like &quot;love is when you can't give your sweetheart less than he/she needs&quot;, but not literally CAN NOT, its actually more about DONT WANT to give her less&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21976" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T19:01:40.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33899" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33900" CreationDate="2019-05-10T21:22:24.080" Score="1" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen these two sentences on Duolingo:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们都是老师。 (We are all teachers.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们对不是美国人。 (None of them are American.) (Not sure if this was exactly the one that I was supposed to translate...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the second one can also be written as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们都不是美国人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's the difference between 都 and 对?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21977" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T11:09:36.133" Title="What's the difference between 都 and 对?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-12-10T08:32:28.680" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33899" CreationDate="2019-05-11T01:46:03.990" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been learning Chinese for 12 years and I don't think I've seen 对 used in that way before. However, the「对不是」 could be a typo of 「绝对不是」 &quot;certainly not&quot;. So, maybe it could be this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们都不是美国人。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  None of us are American.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们绝对不是美国人。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  We're definitely not American.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15883" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T01:46:03.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33896" CreationDate="2019-05-11T12:46:53.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question! Time is very important!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The West has: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a.m.: ante meridiem, before noon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;p.m.: post meridiem, after noon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(meridiem: accusative of meridies &quot;midday, noon&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A day, divided into 2 halves, each on 1 side of noon. Observed from the point of midday, ante is what was, post is what will be. The sun waxes, the sun wanes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上午 = 午夜 到 中午&lt;br&gt;&#xA;下午 = 中午 到 午夜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中午表示，上午已经过去，下午还没到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上：过去的时间&#xA;下：未来的时间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;‘上早’这个词不存在。‘上早’是什么意思？'earlier than early'? 午夜？？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;'上晚‘这个词不存在。‘上晚’是什么意思？'earlier than evening'? 午后？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 午 seems to be a picture of a big hammer used to husk rice. How did that come to be midday? Maybe, in ancient China, people did this at noon, so they could eat? 有人知道？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if you are a photon (光子）all this is unimportant, you are completely timeless!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T12:46:53.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33903" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33904" CreationDate="2019-05-12T01:01:27.487" Score="2" ViewCount="3296" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/22145/4136&quot;&gt;Very frequently used word in Mandarin that sounds like &amp;quot;nica&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;nigah&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; question, but I often hear another word in Chinese Mandarin that sounds like &quot;jigga.&quot; It seems to be used very frequently and is almost certainly not a reference to Jay-Z. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know what it is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T04:14:25.150" Title="Word in Mandarin that is often used that sounds like &quot;jigga&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33903" CreationDate="2019-05-12T01:01:27.487" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word that sounds like &quot;jigga&quot; would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E8%BF%99%E4%B8%AA%0D%0A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;这个&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  zhè​ge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;this / this one &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is sometimes also pronounced &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;zhèi​ge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which would account for any variations in pronunciation that you might hear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T01:01:27.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33888" CreationDate="2019-05-12T03:05:00.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HMO5M.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HMO5M.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;生我才必有用 (Heaven gave me my talents have to be of some use)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不相上下 (Evenly match)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人不為己天誅地滅 (The universe will eliminate the ones who don't take care of oneself)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;鴉雀無聲 (Complete silence)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;才高八斗 (Highly talented or educated)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;三山五嶽 (From all over the nation/ eight famous mountains in China)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;依樣葫蘆 (Copy; Imitate)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;源遠流長 (Long historic background)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;樂不思蜀 (Too happy to think of home)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;黑白分明 (knowing black from white)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;後起之秀 (New wave of talents)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;入不敷支 (Incomes can't cover expenses)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;行屍走肉 (The walking dead)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;落井下石 (kick someone when he's down)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;處之泰然 (Take it calmly)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;精誠所至金石為開 (Sincerity can split metal and rock)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;賊過興兵 (Close the stable door after the horse has bolted)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不學無術 (Not educated and have no skill)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;無地自容 (Deeply shamed)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;如狼似虎 (Beast like; savage)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;可有可無 (Not essential)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;民不聊生 (The People are struggling to survive)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;天下無敵 (unrivaled in the world)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;皮笑肉不笑 (fake laugh)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. 不屈不撓 (Never submit, never yield)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. 雖無過犯面目可憎 (although committed no crime, your face is loathsome)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c. 天下烏鴉一様黑 (corrupted people are the same everywhere)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d. 精兵簡卒 (reduce the number but raise the fighting ability of an army)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e. 至高無上 (The ultimate; no better than this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f. 點石成金 (With one touch turns rock into gold)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;g. 用人唯才 (Hire on merit base alone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;h. 指鹿為馬 (Twisting the facts)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i. 高瞻遠矚 (Having good foresight)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;j. 開天闢地 (Creating a new world)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;k. 長軀直入 (Go straight in)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;l. 義不容辭 (Honor bound)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;m. 不毛之地 (Desolate place)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;n. 口誅筆伐 criticizing orally and in writing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;o. 天無二日 民無二主 (the sky has only one sun, the people have only one ruler)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p. 樂不可支 (too happy, I can't stand it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;q. 不敵 (lose; can't defeat)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;r. 滅頂 (Drown) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;s. 三思而後行 (Think carefully and thoroughly before taking action)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;t. 栩栩如生 (life like; like it is alive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;u. 與虎謀皮 (make deal with dangerous people; courting disaster)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;v. 大魚大肉 (great feast)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T03:05:00.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33906" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-12T04:53:51.667" Score="3" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary lists 錘, 槌, 鎚, and 椎 to all have the meaning of &amp;quot;hammer&amp;quot;, but I'm not sure if that was the original meaning for any of those characters, and they all (or at least some) appear to have different origins and developments from each other. For instance, 說文解字 has the definitions for the following three characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;錘：八銖也。从金垂聲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;槌：關東謂之槌，關西謂之㭙。从木追聲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;椎：擊也。齊謂之終葵。从木隹聲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of these entries have hammer as a definition (although 椎 has the definition of &amp;quot;to strike&amp;quot;). 鎚 doesn't seem to be listed in 說文解字, so I'm assuming it was created later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did all of these characters gain the meaning of &amp;quot;hammer&amp;quot;, and how are these four characters related?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12846" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T20:01:45.157" Title="Etymologies and relationship between the characters 錘, 槌, 鎚, and 椎" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33896" CreationDate="2019-05-12T05:49:57.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;上 = before&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下 = after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;午 = noon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上午 = before noon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下午 = after noon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are formal Chinese expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早上 and 晚上 are informal expressions, and they were not accepted in Chinese until the popularity of Mandarin. The 上 suffix here is just a meaningless suffix in colloquial Mandarin. The formal expressions should be 早晨 (morning) and 夜晚 (evening).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子 and 上 are two most common meaningless suffixes in colloquial Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-05-12T06:00:36.707" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T06:00:36.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33906" CreationDate="2019-05-12T06:53:52.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my answer to this question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/33124/if-you-can-use-chinese-nouns-as-verbs-or-vice-versa&quot;&gt;If you can use Chinese nouns as verbs, or vice versa&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically, a word was either coined for a noun or verb first, and then its meaning extended to other word type for convenience's sake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, It is possible that when people invented drill, they called it '鑽' (n); later when they needed a word to describe the action of 'to drill' , it is very convenience to add the meaning to the existing noun and make '鑽' both noun and verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or it is the other way around, people called the action of 'to burrow' as '鑽'(v); when 'drill' was invented, they just use the verb '鑽' to name it, because a drill 'burrow' into things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when a noun is closely associated with an unique action (verb), it would be used as a verb eventually; similarly when a verb is closely associated with an object (noun), it would be used as a noun eventually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Either 椎 was coined as a verb for &amp;quot;to strike&amp;quot; and gained the meaning of the noun for &amp;quot;hammer&amp;quot; later; or 椎 was coined as a noun for &amp;quot;hammer&amp;quot; and was given the meaning of the verb &amp;quot;strike&amp;quot; later.  Because the main function of a hammer is 'to strike things'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is most likely that 錘 original meant something else, and later became a variant of 椎 because they sounded alike&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/7406/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;槌&lt;/a&gt; is defined as hammer; mallet; gavel; pestle. It should be the original form of the character for 'hammer'  when hammer was made of wood&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;鎚 is not listed in the dictionary, it seems to be a modern variant of 槌 when metal hammer appeared&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T06:53:52.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33909" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33910" CreationDate="2019-05-12T11:23:27.297" Score="1" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently came across an anomaly in Chinese orthography which I can't explain myself. Please take a look at the following picture (screenshot from the Duolingo course on Chinese, I guess in lecture &amp;quot;Hobbies 2&amp;quot; but I am unsure about that)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tSZup.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tSZup.png&quot; alt=&quot;The orthography of 苹 proposed by Duolingo.&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-stroke-order.php?word=%E8%8B%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YellowBridge site&lt;/a&gt;. What you see is that there is consensus missing in the orthography of 苹 (within Duolingo's writing, the writing of the Windows typesetting system, and the writing YellowBridge proposes as a stroke order diagram). The difference lies in the two diagonal strokes in the middle of the character. Sometimes they are written from top to bottom, sometimes from bottom to top.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, I thought these must be two different characters with the same pronunciation &amp;quot;píng&amp;quot;. But I found out to the better that they ought to be the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to make a question out of this report, I would ask: Why is this? What should I think about this, and how should I write? When you write by hand, what orthography do you usually use? What do other people think about this anomaly? Do they understand both writings? Are they both likely common, and both generally equally understood/accepted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21646" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-11-06T05:21:27.663" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T05:21:27.663" Title="What about the orthography of 苹 (like in 苹果)? It seems consensus is missing" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;&lt;orthography&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33909" CreationDate="2019-05-12T12:09:10.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.unicode.org/faq/han_cjk.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Unicode perspective&lt;/a&gt; it is the same character. Depending on the font and the environment you are using it may look different. Take for instance a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.unicode.org/charts/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;code charts&lt;/a&gt; of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode12.0.0/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Unicode 12&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qf4ix.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qf4ix.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As can be seen above the Chinese and Japanese tend to write the same character slightly differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you check what font and language that is used on Duolingo, you will probably find a Japanese version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19031" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T12:09:10.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33909" CreationDate="2019-05-12T16:30:40.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid that the other answer missed the point here - the font that Duolingo displays is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_Gothic_typeface&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;East Asian Gothic typeface&lt;/a&gt;, which is a derivative of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_(typefaces)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ming Typeface&lt;/a&gt;. Gothic and Ming are &lt;strong&gt;print typefaces&lt;/strong&gt;, and you don't use them to imitate handwriting (&lt;em&gt;orthography&lt;/em&gt;, as specified in the question). Yes, your Duolingo does indeed show a Japanese or Korean printing font, but you don't imitate printing fonts in handwriting regardless (even if they're Chinese printing fonts).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yellowbridge's font is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Regular Script&lt;/a&gt; typeface, which is a proper model for handwriting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese has a model handwriting font used in schools called &lt;em&gt;textbook font&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Kyokashotai&lt;/em&gt;, 敎科書體), which you can preview &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fonts.com/font/ricoh/hg-kyokashotai/hg-kyokashotai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gQEJd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gQEJd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「苹」is not a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;regulated character&lt;/a&gt; in Japanese, so I wouldn't use it as a basis for comparison.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T16:30:40.610" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33903" CreationDate="2019-05-12T23:38:10.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Or perhaps 几个 （ji3 ge4) (which means &quot;how many&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21992" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T23:38:10.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33913" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-13T00:09:10.110" Score="0" ViewCount="439" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking of getting a tattoo on my wrist, one saying: &quot;Live your life&quot; or  &quot;love your life&quot; or &quot;be yourself&quot; in kanji.  (Not more then 2 characters if possible.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked on the Japanese Stack Exchange and I got sent here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21993" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T01:16:18.610" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T03:08:20.880" Title="Is there a kanji tattoo meaning e.g. &quot;live your life&quot; or &quot;love your life&quot; or &quot;be yourself&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33914" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-13T00:23:16.617" Score="0" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just wanted to ask for the right answers for these questions... &#xA;In these 2 paragraphs, are my 标点符号 right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我家有五口人，爷爷   、奶奶、爸爸、妈妈和我。爸爸在电脑公司工作，他是一名工程师；妈妈在一所学校教数学，爷爷和奶奶早就退休，但他们也有很多活动；爷爷在老年大学学习书法，他最喜欢说的话是：“活到老，学到老”，奶奶喜欢养花，每天精心伺候我们家四季常开的鲜花。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一位先生来到一个工地看见3个建筑工人在干同样的活，于是他问其中的一位：“你在做什么？”，那个工人回答道：“你没看到我在砌一块砖？”，那位先生又问第二个工人：“你在忙什么？”，他一脸不高兴地回答：“我在做一个窗户”，第三个工人在听到同样的问题时，兴高采烈地说：“我在盖一座大教堂。”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in this table, which is more suitable to which? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/avfvU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21994" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-05-13T00:55:59.627" LastActivityDate="2019-06-12T04:11:34.367" Title="Asking for right answers for 中级 questions" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33914" CreationDate="2019-05-13T01:49:37.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;急急忙忙 地 跑过来|&#xA;兴高采烈 地 庆祝胜利|&#xA;迫不及代 地 打开了包裹|&#xA;迟疑 地 往前走|&#xA;生气 地 骂他的孩子|&#xA;风趣 地 开了一个玩笑|&#xA;热烈 地 欢迎我们|&#xA;客气 地 谢绝了他的邀请|&#xA;激动 地 说|&#xA;得意 地 拿出自己画的画儿 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T01:49:37.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33916" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33919" CreationDate="2019-05-13T02:05:51.703" Score="5" ViewCount="1443" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a PICTURE OF ME.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a PICTURE OF MINE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both can be translated to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是我的图片&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T12:53:14.803" Title="How to distinguish PICTURE OF ME and PICTURE OF MINE in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33917" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33921" CreationDate="2019-05-13T02:59:06.293" Score="1" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the dictionary, 之后 = after, afterwards while 过后 = afterwards, after. I wanted to find the difference in usage between those two words, so I analysed some sample sentences. I feel like 过后 is mostly used for describing &quot;after the event&quot; while 之后 seems to fit for anything. Is 过后 and 之后 used as I described or are there other ways to differentiate their usages? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T19:27:53.227" Title="之后 vs 过后 usage &amp; differences" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33913" CreationDate="2019-05-13T03:03:40.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;自爱 (love; respect oneself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爱生命 (love life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是我 (I am myself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T03:03:40.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33916" CreationDate="2019-05-13T03:11:09.493" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;这是我的照片 can be interpreted as &quot;It is a photo of me&quot; or &quot;It is a photo that belong to me&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid confusion, you can write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这照片是我的 = &quot;this photo is mine&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这照片中的人是我  = &quot;the person in this photo is me&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这照片上的人是我  = &quot;the person on this photo is me&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;照片 = photo; picture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;图片= graphic; picture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-13T06:51:58.623" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T06:51:58.623" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33916" CreationDate="2019-05-13T03:29:48.483" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;search web 英文语法，物主代词 one result &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yygrammar.com/Article/201309/3413.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.yygrammar.com/Article/201309/3413.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;answering comment:more specific: submit &quot;of mine&quot;, &quot;of me&quot; to online dictionaries, e.g. iciba: of mine 我的一个朋友是个非常容易焦虑不安的人 (hence 这是我的一张照片）of me 要看一下我穿过终点线时的照片 吗 ? to emphasize picture shows person, may add person's activity, or location as in quoted example, 这是我穿着囚服的图片（me wearing prison clothes), 这是在监狱里拍摄我的一张相片（picture of me taken in prison)，or submit &quot;picture shows&quot; to iciba: 这张照片照的是女孩的侧面。hence 这张照片照的是我（自己、本人）to specify possession: 这是属于我的一张图片&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-05-13T06:27:14.173" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T06:27:14.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33917" CreationDate="2019-05-13T03:45:19.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;(noun) 之后&quot; = &quot;after (noun)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;2018 之后&quot; = &quot;after 2018&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;暴風之后&quot; = &quot;after the storm&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;(noun) 过后&quot; = &quot;after (noun) had passed&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;2018 过后&quot; = &quot;after 2018 had passed&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;暴風过后&quot; = &quot;after the storm had passed&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;之后 (verb)&quot; / &quot;过后 (verb)&quot; = &quot;afterward (verb)&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;之后再補償&quot; = &quot;compensate afterward&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;过后再補償&quot; = &quot;compensate afterward&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;(verb) 之后&quot; = &quot;after (verb)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;清朝灭亡之后&quot; =  &quot;After Qing Dynasty ended&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;政府成立之后&quot; = &quot;After the the government is founded&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;we cannot use &quot;verb + 过后&quot;.  Both &quot;清朝灭亡过后&quot; and  &quot;政府成立过后&quot; are grammatically incorrect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-13T19:27:53.227" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T19:27:53.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33917" CreationDate="2019-05-13T04:34:03.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;bkrs：&lt;strong&gt;过后&lt;/strong&gt; (1) [afterwards]∶往后&#xA;这个问题先这么解决, 有什么事, 过后再说&#xA;(2) [later]∶后来&#xA;那件事我过后才知道 after the event syn. 后来, 后头, 嗣后, 随后, &#xA;过后 may &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; occur as &lt;strong&gt;one word&lt;/strong&gt; in phrases like (taken from bkrs) 仔细想过后再动作。紧急情况过后的评价.连雨天过后出现了晴天.where 过  functions as experienced action marker,1) completion of an action&#xA;2) that an action has taken place, but does not continue up to the present, and 后 as postposition  corresponding to English preposition,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on the other hand 之后 occurs as one word both as adverb: afterwards, later 之后他到国外去了 and postposition: after,从那之后 since then&#xA;两周之后  她毕业之后  天黑之后 syn. 后, 往后, 尔后, 以后&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T04:34:03.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33916" CreationDate="2019-05-13T05:16:40.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a unique feature of Chinese, that things like that are hard to distinguish without a context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“这是我的照片” can be translated into “This is a picture of me” and “This is a picture of mine” depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar examples are:&#xA;中国足球队谁都打不败。&#xA;中国乒乓球队谁都打不败。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exact same structure gives out two completely different meanings, which can only be interpreted correctly in contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T05:16:40.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33926" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33927" CreationDate="2019-05-13T07:55:01.893" Score="2" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently got an old Japanese Orihon (folding book) which has a lengthy passage in seal script - my assumption was that Japanese seal script would be the same as Chinese seal script, but if I'm wrong about that please correct me!&#xA;I managed to translate one title (not pictured) within the book as '將進酒', so given that the book contains a Li Bai poem I'm assuming it may be a collection of Chinese poems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that these things are very hard to translate, so if anyone is able to do it I am very thankful in advance. I don't necessarily need the whole thing translated into English too; just if someone could let me know roughly what it is (e.g a poem, a story, a description etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&#xA;Thomas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VCW5X.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VCW5X.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Seal Script Passage&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21312" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-10T06:01:18.507" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T06:01:18.507" Title="Passage in Seal Script - 18th C Japanese Book of Chinese Poems (Poem identified: 唐・賈至《西亭春望》)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33926" CreationDate="2019-05-13T08:53:09.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In modern script:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;唐　賈至　《西亭春望》&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;日長風暖柳青青　北雁歸飛人窅冥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;岳陽城上聞吹笛　能使春心滿洞庭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the character variants inserted in their place:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QvIdF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QvIdF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T08:53:09.117" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33913" CreationDate="2019-05-13T10:58:54.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;live your life: 好好生活&#xA;love your life: 热爱生活&#xA;be yourself: 做自己  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T10:58:54.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33909" CreationDate="2019-05-13T11:01:41.657" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;苹 is the only right writing in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T11:01:41.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33903" CreationDate="2019-05-13T11:06:57.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;jigga&quot; ：几个  （ji3 ge4) &#xA;it means 'how many?' or  'several'. &#xA;it depends on your tone, query  or indicative mood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T11:06:57.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33899" CreationDate="2019-05-13T11:09:36.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'他们对不是美国人。 '  is a wrong sentence.&#xA;the right one is '他们都不是美国人。'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T11:09:36.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33886" CreationDate="2019-05-13T11:16:04.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'好' means 'quite' in ‘好一番’.&#xA;'好' is adverb here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T11:16:04.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33916" CreationDate="2019-05-13T12:53:14.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the easist way to distinguish the two is to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這照片是我的 (mine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這照片是我 (me)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... when you need to say these two phrases in the same conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second phrase looks odd but it works when you are showing the photo :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Amother option is adding verb, but that is adding more information which might be unavailable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這照片是我拍的 (I took this photo (implies possition))&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這照片是我買的 (I bought this photo)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or adding some prepositons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這照片裡是我 (What is in the picture is me)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4036" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T12:53:14.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33894" CreationDate="2019-05-13T22:08:39.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;水深也'只有'十二米。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The water is deep.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The water is 12 metres deep.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The water is only/just 12 metres deep.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(only: Old English ænlic, anlic &quot;only, unique, solitary,&quot; literally &quot;one-like,&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'only' describes the depth of the water, (e.g. the depth is unknown, irregular, deceptive, 12 metres) I would set 'only' as an adjective for 12 metres (which is deep for a person, but shallow for a container ship. Implication: the water may not have sufficient depth.), '1 times 12 metres', so only is basically 1 &quot;one-like&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隻 （= 只） shows 1 bird 隹 in the right hand 又 （a picture of the right hand) with a basic meaning of '1 thing'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'只有'通过学者的社区考验过的思想，才有活力。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Only when the ideas of the academic community are put to the test do they flower. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Tang Ho, in my opinion, rightly points out, 只有 ... 才有 seem to hang together, only when .... only then. (Chinese is full of such double constructions.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since when and then both indicate times, in this case projected into the future, I would stick with 'only' as an adjective, an adjective for time. (the only time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'只有'通过学者的社区考验过的思想，才有活力。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The only time the ideas of the academic community flower is when they are put to the test.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The one time the ideas of the academic community flower is when they are put to the test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T22:08:39.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33935" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36543" CreationDate="2019-05-14T00:47:57.467" Score="8" ViewCount="1392" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some Chinese words mix Roman letters and Chinese characters. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AA制&lt;/strong&gt;, meaning to split the bill evenly (or &quot;go dutch&quot; as that's often called in English).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;N次方根&lt;/strong&gt;, meaning &quot;nth root&quot; (i.e., including square roots, cube roots, etc. as special cases).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other examples of Chinese words that mix scripts like this? Some guidance on answering this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm not particularly interested in words that include arabic numerals alongside Chinese characters. I'm assuming there are a lot of these (and also that they could be written in all Chinese characters if desired).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Slang and technical vocabulary are both fine. If a word has a dictionary entry, an encyclopedia (or subject-specific encyclopedia) page, or if you're pretty sure it has wide usage, I'm perfectly happy upvoting it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would be thrilled if anyone found examples that included something other than the Roman letters as used in English (i.e., A-Z). On the other hand, I doubt there are such cases.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T13:20:44.707" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T13:20:44.707" Title="Chinese words with non-Chinese letters / characters?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;&lt;internet-slang&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33936" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-14T01:45:50.787" Score="3" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kNBGj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kNBGj.png&quot; alt=&quot;Tsz Shan Monastery&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/maps/@22.4736067,114.2063175,3a,75y,224.64h,128.18t/data=!3m11!1e1!3m9!1sAF1QipOJ9qtg7_NzbRLPCzabL5aJz-PlMUz4WEMKQpg!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOJ9qtg7_NzbRLPCzabL5aJz-PlMUz4WEMKQpg%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya96.94653-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352!9m2!1b1!2i48&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's from the Tsz Shan Monastery in the New Territories in Hong Kong.  And I reading it up-down, left-right, or simply left to right on both levels?  Many thanks to whoever can help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6763" LastEditorUserId="20826" LastEditDate="2019-06-13T05:44:53.920" LastActivityDate="2019-06-13T05:44:53.920" Title="Unusual looking characters at a temple in Hong Kong?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33936" CreationDate="2019-05-14T01:51:29.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.easyatm.com.tw/wiki/%E4%B8%80%E7%94%9F%E8%A3%9C%E8%99%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一生補處&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;故“一生補處”，乃階地不退轉，功德不斷增長至成佛道之意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore 'one life make up' means 'accumulate your good deed and merit in this stage (alive as a human) of existence, and eventually achieve enlightenment'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T01:58:26.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33935" CreationDate="2019-05-14T02:17:03.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong, most imported terms are officially transliterated, there's no need to use any English alphabet in these terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;store = 士多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;toast = 多士&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;taxi = 的士 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bus = 巴士&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in Hong Kong, some English words are so commonly used, we just use them directly within Chinese sentences, there's no need to add any Chinese character to these terms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;keep fit --&gt; &quot;平日唔 keep fit 嘅人&quot; (the people who don't normally keep fit) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;party --&gt; &quot;今晚來我屋企開 party&quot; (come to my house for party tonight)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;memo --&gt; &quot;出 memo 通知大家&quot; (send memo to notify everyone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some English+Chinese term I can think of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/XO%E9%86%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;XO醬&lt;/a&gt; (XO sauce)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;PK戦 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penalty_shoot-out_(association_football)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Penalty shoot-out&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;BB (baby- 嬰兒) Cantonese only&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;'O記' (Organized Crime and Triad Bureau)  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong Chinese also use 'D' instead of '啲' (Mandarin 的) in casual setting (like web chat, gossip column or comic) because they sound exactly the same , Example: &quot;嗰D人&quot; = &quot;嗰啲人&quot; (Mandarin 那些人) = &quot;those people&quot;; &quot;呢D嘢&quot; = &quot;呢啲嘢&quot; (Mandarin 這些東西) = &quot;these things&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;PK戦 is imported from Japanese. The Chinese term for Penalty shoot-out is &quot;互射十二碼&quot; or &quot;點球戰&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The official Chinese name for 'O記' or 'OCTB'  is &quot;Organized Crime and Triad Bureau&quot; (有組織罪案及三合會調查科)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-14T17:15:20.657" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T17:15:20.657" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33234" CreationDate="2019-05-14T02:56:29.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one of those cases where the flexibility of English to simply invent words that are intelligible makes the translation job a lot harder. Thus, there's probably no good answer because it will be a case-by-case basis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because de- has a plethora of meanings, there will be a plethora of translations. For de- in the sense of &quot;removal,&quot; like &quot;de-caffinated,&quot; 去 will likely be used (去咖啡因). In the sense of separation or division，like delamination，you might see 分 (分层). &#xA;Because de- is a latin suffix, it shows up more frequently in scientific or technical words that might have their own way to be expressed in Chinese, such as de-emphasize = 淡化. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21437" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T02:56:29.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33935" CreationDate="2019-05-14T03:22:48.130" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not totally sure if this is what you are looking for but apart from A-Z, there are examples like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%9C%93%E5%91%A8%E7%8E%87%E6%97%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;π节&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where the pi symbol is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alpha is also often used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;α其 (alpha phase)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;α状态 (alpha state)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;α物质 (alpha substance)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;α实验 (alpha test)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beta also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;β折叠 (beta pleated sheet)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gamma:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;γ环 (gamma loop)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;γ纤维 (gamma fibers)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;γ粒 (gamma granules)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phi:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;φ现象 (phi phenomenon)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The percent sign:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%25%0D%0A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;%&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;might fit your criteria, even though it is usually grouped with numbers, as it is often read &quot;pā&quot; in Taiwan. E.g.: &lt;code&gt;五十%&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obscenities and sensitive terms also have many combinations of letters with Chinese characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=nude%20picture%20%28from&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;L照&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for: nudes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%82%BB%E9%80%BC/977754?fromtitle=%E5%82%BBB&amp;amp;fromid=22400154&amp;amp;fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;傻B&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for: idiots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Straight up letters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%28Tw%29%20%28Internet%20slang%29%20to%20post%20%28online%29%20&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PO&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in: po文. Which seems suspiciously like a shortening of the English word &quot;post.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An English word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in: word哥. Which people think sounds like &lt;code&gt;我的&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-05-15T06:39:10.813" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T06:39:10.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33935" CreationDate="2019-05-14T03:45:13.247" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are lots of them, here's what I can recall:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;T恤衫，T-shirt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X光片，X ray image&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;卡拉OK，karaoke&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K线图，&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E7%BA%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Candlestick chart&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A型血，Blood Type A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P图(v.)，Photoshop an image&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;维生素C，Vitamin C&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;O型腿，&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%E5%9E%8B%E8%85%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blount's diseas&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TCP协议，Transmission Control Protocol&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;RSS源，RSS feed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UI设计，User Interface design&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of the words are widely used, most of them combine the English letter and Chinese so the word is easier to understand. Basically everyone knows the 26 English letters, so only the words are translated to keep things simple. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19456" LastEditorUserId="19456" LastEditDate="2019-05-15T02:07:26.893" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T02:07:26.893" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33942" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34114" CreationDate="2019-05-14T07:35:52.400" Score="2" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is another part of the same book I posted on here yesterday - I'm certain I've got one of the characters, I'm unsure of another, and I'm really struggling with the last one. If anyone is able to read them it would be of immense help - contextually, it would make sense for it to be the title of an old Chinese poem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've gotten as far as (reading Right - Left) &quot;X 厡(?) 圖&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uu16d.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uu16d.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Title in Seal&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if anyone is able to help with the seals in the below picture, that'd be great (they're a bit too artsy for me to read).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&#xA;Thomas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xcS1A.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xcS1A.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Artist Seals&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21312" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T11:24:16.473" Title="Seal Script Title + Artist Seals" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33935" CreationDate="2019-05-14T10:33:00.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3Q = Thank you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;881 = Bye-bye&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two Taiwan classics for y'all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T10:33:00.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33944" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33956" CreationDate="2019-05-14T17:15:18.077" Score="1" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;在有形的以太&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should mean &quot;&lt;em&gt;here in tangible ether&lt;/em&gt;&quot; but I don't understand the function of &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can't I say the exact same thing writing it like that: &lt;strong&gt;在有形以太&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22017" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T07:05:16.223" Title="What is the function of 的 in the sentence below?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33944" CreationDate="2019-05-14T21:50:31.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;see any grammar on when to use or not to use (and when optional) structural particle （结构助词）的，&#xA;bkrs：有形 有形状的、感官能感觉到的，examples，iciba：有形财产、有形动产、有形固定财产、有形货物、有形贸易、有形商品、有形损耗、有形损耗、有形的翅膀，Linguee：有形的数据、有形的 公 共 产品 public goods、 有形的 破 坏 、有形的进展、有形的联 系、有 形 的基础，may conclude 的 not used mostly in commercial or financial standing expressions, but used in others like 以太&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-05-15T03:54:31.800" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T03:54:31.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33947" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-15T00:30:01.923" Score="1" ViewCount="810" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to psychologist Angela Duckworth and colleagues, &quot;grit&quot; is defined as &quot;perseverance and passion for long-term goals&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be the closest term for &quot;grit&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google gives me &quot;sand&quot; and &quot;gravel&quot; as its meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;砂砾 (shālì) = gravel&#xA;沙子 (shāzi) = sand&#xA;粗砂石 (cū shā shí) = coarse sandstone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks, Nate&#xA;PS. I've also inquired Professor Duckworth and still waiting for her response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22020" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T01:35:47.410" Title="How would you translate &quot;grit&quot; (personality trait) to Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33947" CreationDate="2019-05-15T01:06:49.533" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5463/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;毅力&lt;/a&gt; (n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;perserverance; willpower&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He has &lt;strong&gt;grit&lt;/strong&gt; = 他有&lt;strong&gt;毅力&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/57145/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;堅毅&lt;/a&gt; (adj)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;be strong-willed and perseverant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is very &lt;strong&gt;gritty&lt;/strong&gt; = 他很&lt;strong&gt;堅毅&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;堅毅 (n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;strong will and perserverance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;strong&gt;grittiness&lt;/strong&gt; = 這份&lt;strong&gt;堅毅&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;推行革命要有&lt;strong&gt;毅力&lt;/strong&gt; - Carrying out the revolution requires &lt;strong&gt;perseverance&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;grit&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;堅毅的&lt;/strong&gt;人能衝出困境，走向高峯 - &lt;strong&gt;perseverant&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;gritty&lt;/strong&gt;) people can break out of  predicament and get to the top&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;成功全憑民眾的一股&lt;strong&gt;毅力&lt;/strong&gt;/成功全憑民眾的一份&lt;strong&gt;堅毅&lt;/strong&gt; - Success depends on the &lt;strong&gt;perseverance&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;grittiness&lt;/strong&gt;) of the people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T01:35:47.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33947" CreationDate="2019-05-15T01:22:45.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should offer a sentence, because the translation will vary, depending on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;grit &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; sand or gravel!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sense of &quot;pluck, spirit, firmness of mind&quot; first recorded American&#xA;  English, 1808.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Duckworth's idiomatic definition is, well, not worth a duck, in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here grit is 毅力， willpower&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果他们颁发毅力金牌，卡伦应该站在领奖台上。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If they gave gold medals for grit, Karen would be right up there on the winners' podium. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but you might choose 勇气 courage or  坚韧不拔。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T01:22:45.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33950" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-15T02:36:24.337" Score="1" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since my native language is Arabic, our 语法 is somehow very strict, but I find the Chinese 语法 somehow flexible.  In Arabic we have a certain 语法 structure that is called 褒贬法, translating it into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we want to praise someone we would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;！ياله من رجل رائع&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the translation would be 好人啊！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this is the only way I know to praise someone in Chinese, but in Arabic we have a certain ways and specific words for this structure, and I did some research and all I could find was about praising (褒) and almost nothing about (贬).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is, does Chinese actually have this method? And if not, what is the closest way to express 褒贬？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21994" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-09T01:14:31.810" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T01:14:31.810" Title="Does Chinese have an equivalent to Arabic-style praising grammar (translates to 褒贬句)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;linguistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33935" CreationDate="2019-05-15T02:38:01.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think X-线 might be right as well!  Which is X-ray&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21994" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T02:38:01.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33950" CreationDate="2019-05-15T04:16:21.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't a certain structure of praising or disparaging something in Chinese actually. The meaning of a Chinese sentence is all about the words it uses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If simply expressing approving/disapproving attitude, we may just use 很好/不好（很壞）as below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-XXX很好&#xA;誠信很好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-XXX不好&#xA;說謊不好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More naturally, we should append a category noun and use 是 structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-誠信是好品質&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-說謊是壞行為&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from basic 好/壞, in daily life we use various words to show approval/disapproval:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-誠信乃万善之始&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-說謊應遭人唾棄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, words having similar meanings can be distinguished according to their 褒貶色彩. E.g. 深謀遠慮（褒） 老謀深算（中） 深奸巨滑（貶）. And when we use it, the attitude is conveyed by choosing the word itself. I try to write a paragraph and use these kind of words as many as possible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-以上十年，左右&lt;strong&gt;佞臣&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;肆奸植黨&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;掠脂斡肉&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;上下交征&lt;/strong&gt;！今幸天易&lt;strong&gt;明&lt;/strong&gt;主，國舉&lt;strong&gt;良&lt;/strong&gt;相，&lt;strong&gt;深謀遠慮&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;雷厲風行&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;斬惡剷奸&lt;/strong&gt;，還朝堂以清明，社稷以昇平。自此&lt;strong&gt;尸位素餐&lt;/strong&gt;之徒，紛&lt;strong&gt;丟&lt;/strong&gt;權柄，&lt;strong&gt;蠹國害民&lt;/strong&gt;之輩，立&lt;strong&gt;撒&lt;/strong&gt;頭顱。人心大快，莫過於此。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T04:16:21.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33953" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33965" CreationDate="2019-05-15T04:57:54.230" Score="1" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to construct a sentence along the lines of, &quot;There were two hard parts...,&quot; where I use the existential 有. The issue I'm having is how I convey the meaning that this 'existence' is confined to the past. Should I be using the perfective aspect 了 like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有了两不好的部分。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or should I include some clause afterwards to indicate the new state of things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有了两不好的部分。。。现在都没这部分了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is there some other way to do this that I'm missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21969" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T09:00:43.567" Title="Existential sentences that used to be but are no longer" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33953" CreationDate="2019-05-15T05:18:35.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Were here can be translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;本来有&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Making your sentence something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（这儿?）本来有两个不好的部分&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cannot expresses &quot;were,&quot; the only thing it can express is &lt;code&gt;(I) **now** have sth.&lt;/code&gt; &amp;amp; more specifically: (I'm) pregnant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-05-15T05:42:45.300" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T05:42:45.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33953" CreationDate="2019-05-15T05:25:26.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;online dictionaries have examples, e.g. submit &quot;there were&quot; to iciba: &quot;there were&quot; 我们学校曾经有许多树 suggestion:曾经有 (非常困难的部分 hard parts, also from iciba)), to see whether 有了 is possible check iciba's examples for 有了 (of course &quot;have become pregnant&quot; comes to mind) 丈夫有了外遇、有了取得进展的迹象、飞机的念头在参军之前就有了，conclusion 有了 conveys sense of something having happened&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;according to users' memory there is a previous question&#xA;containing info about verbs that cannot be followed by completed action marker 了 （有 among them with exceptions), but so far unable to find it, the following may therefore (inadequately） duplicate previous answer) &lt;a href=&quot;https://app.ninchanese.com/stage/grammar-lesson/43/56&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://app.ninchanese.com/stage/grammar-lesson/43/56&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Verbs that describe a state, (in case of a change to a new state 了 may occur, see above 有了 or 知道了，learned）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;previous Q&amp;amp;A has been found see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/20856/which-verbs-do-not-go-with-%e4%ba%86-and-or-%e8%bf%87/20857#20857&quot;&gt;Which verbs DO NOT go with 了 and or 过?&lt;/a&gt; esp comment#2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-05-16T09:00:43.567" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T09:00:43.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33944" CreationDate="2019-05-15T07:05:16.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Between an adjective and a noun, you can add a 的 if you like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;美麗的姑娘 beautiful girl&lt;br&gt;&#xA;好玩的游戲 entertaining game&lt;br&gt;&#xA;複雜的語法 complicated grammar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding the 的 is the norm if the adjective has two characters. But it's possible to leave it out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黑暗森林 dark forest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;意外事故 unexpected accident&lt;br&gt;&#xA;美好時光 happy time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did the poet use 的 here? Some possibilities:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- 以太 is an unusual word, putting a 的 before it makes the sentence easier to understand.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- The poet may have liked the flow of the sentence better with 的.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- Using 的 here is more normal than not using it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12420" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T07:05:16.223" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33957" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-15T07:23:33.403" Score="1" ViewCount="521" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chinese (Mandarin or Classical Chinese) proverb equivalent to the American proverb &quot;the squeaky wheel gets the grease&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked it up in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english-chinese-traditional/the-squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cambridge English-Traditional Chinese dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, and it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;嘎吱響的輪子先上油；最明顯的問題先得到關注&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's a direct translation of the proverb. I'm wondering if there are any equivalent proverbs of Chinese origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T09:46:13.603" Title="Is there a proverb that means &quot;the squeaky wheel gets the grease&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33935" CreationDate="2019-05-15T07:48:59.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would be thrilled if anyone found examples that included something&#xA;  other than the Roman letters as used in English (i.e., A-Z). On the&#xA;  other hand, I doubt there are such cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Japanese hiragana &lt;code&gt;の&lt;/code&gt; has found some use in Chinese. In most places where it appears, it is used in place of &quot;的&quot; (Mandarin) or &quot;之&quot; (Classical Chinese) to indicate possession.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://backnumber.dailyportalz.jp/koneta05/09/19/02/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pictures&lt;/a&gt; (the article is in Japanese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More information:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_(kana)#Usage&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;No (kana)&lt;/a&gt; - Wikipedia article about &lt;code&gt;の&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=34373&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Impromptu biscriptalism on a Starbucks cup&lt;/a&gt; - Informal mixing in contemporary China.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastEditorUserId="20826" LastEditDate="2019-05-15T08:06:42.707" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T08:06:42.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33957" CreationDate="2019-05-15T08:30:16.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;submit e.g. &quot;squeaky wheel  grease&quot; to iciba：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/squeaky%20wheel%20%20%20grease&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/squeaky%20wheel%20%20%20grease&lt;/a&gt;   1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The squeaky wheel gets the grease.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会叫的孩子有糖吃.  more at iciba (&quot;classical&quot; in doubt)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-05-15T08:35:29.763" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T08:35:29.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33957" CreationDate="2019-05-15T08:56:11.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding of &quot;the squeaky wheel gets the grease&quot; is &quot;If you don't complain, your situation will not change for the better&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sense, you can say 「不平則鳴」(express your opinion when unfairness occur) is similar to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another answer found here is「&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Chinese-equivalent-proverb-not-translation-of-The-squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;愛哭的孩子有糖吃&lt;/a&gt;」 seems like an direct translation of a similar English expression &quot;It is cry babies who get candies&quot;. Not much different from 「嘎吱響的輪子先上油」(The squeaky wheel gets the grease) in sentiment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, traditional Chinese people are more reserved, less likely to complain loudly compare to Western thinking people. That's why ideas like &quot;The squeaky wheel gets the grease&quot; or &quot;It is cry babies who get candies&quot; were kind of foreign to us. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We agree with the expression 「先打出頭鳥」(the bird that sticks its head out gets shot first) more. Japanese also have a similar expression &quot;出る釘は打たれる&quot; (the nail that sticks out gets hammered). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-15T09:09:24.397" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T09:09:24.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33957" CreationDate="2019-05-15T09:46:13.603" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC Dictionary of Chinese Proverbs&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哭夜的孩子多吃奶&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Lit&lt;/strong&gt; Babies [who] cry [at] night get more milk.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Fig&lt;/strong&gt; Those who speak out or complain get more help. &amp;quot;The squeaky wheel gets the oil.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_squeaky_wheel_gets_the_grease&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The squeaky wheel gets the grease&lt;/a&gt; also mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Cultural differences&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, one of the Chinese proverbs goes &amp;quot;会哭的孩子有奶吃&amp;quot;, which means &amp;quot;The crying baby gets the milk&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T09:46:13.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33962" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-15T13:21:38.903" Score="4" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;Linguists claim that subordination is universal across the world languages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subordination in English looks can be understood by looking into these examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;I know a person who has a dog&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;I know a person who has a dog which barks at a cat&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;I know a person who has a dog which barks at a cat which lives in a house&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;I know a person who has a dog which barks at a cat which lives in a house which is located in a city which ....&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You get the idea...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know how could we translate the longest English sentence from the examples into Chinese (with preserving the subordination), that is, leave everything in one sentence.&#xA;like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我知道一个的人。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;我知道一个有狗的人。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am no Chinese nor English native speaker, but my intuition is telling me that this sentence, however unnatural, sounds more naturally in English than in Chinese, is that the case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I even have doubts if subordination really exists in Chinese...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16881" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T20:56:32.783" Title="Subordination in Chinese" Tags="&lt;sentence&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33962" CreationDate="2019-05-15T14:12:40.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;I know a person who has a dog which barks at a cat which lives in a house which is located in a city which&quot;&#xA;taken literally seems to mean the cat lives in the house,... &#xA;intended meaning seems to be that &quot;has dog&quot; and &quot;lives in house&quot; are both &quot;subordinated&quot; to person, therefore this seems not to be a chain with consecutive &quot;subordination&quot;, thus splits into &quot;person who has a dog which barks at a cat&quot; and &quot;person who lives in a house which is located in a city which&quot;, word for word translation may be: 我认识养对一只猫狂吠的一只狗的一个人，他住在位于（。。。的）个城市的栋房子里，but should likely be split up,  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-05-15T14:18:35.283" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T14:18:35.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33962" CreationDate="2019-05-15T14:17:31.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I extrapolate what you are doing, it actually becomes &quot;unnatural&quot; to me, because the subordinate clause is inserted in front of the noun that is being modified, but after the original verb. Your examples can be translated like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a person.&#xA;我認識某個人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a person who has a dog.&#xA;我認識某位有養狗的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a person who has a dog which barks at a cat.&#xA;我認識某位養有會對貓吠的狗的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a person who has a dog which barks at a cat which lives in a house.&#xA;我認識某位養有會對那隻住在屋裡的貓吠的狗的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I briefly add/tweak some charaters so that it makes more sense to me.... I'll leave it up to you to see if you can just &quot;get the idea&quot;. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I &quot;naturally&quot; say these, it'll probably not be all subornate clause but shorter SVO phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a person&#xA;我認識某個人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a person who has a dog&#xA;我認識某個人，有養狗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a person who has a dog which barks at a cat&#xA;我認識某個人，養的狗會對貓吠&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a person who has a dog which barks at a cat which lives in a house&#xA;我認識某個人，那人養的狗會對貓吠，那貓還住在房子裡&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4036" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T14:17:31.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33953" CreationDate="2019-05-15T14:29:14.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd suggest you adding some time information in the front to emphasis the fact it is in the &quot;past&quot; as that is definitely unambiguous. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;以前&lt;/strong&gt; 有兩個不好的部份...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;之前&lt;/strong&gt; 有兩個不好的部份...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, these ones can also be used. They means &quot;originally&quot;, which implies &quot;in the past, and now changed&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;原本&lt;/strong&gt; 有兩個不好的部份...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;原來&lt;/strong&gt; 有兩個不好的部份...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4036" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T14:29:14.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3083" CreationDate="2019-05-15T18:09:24.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What does &quot;comfortable&quot; mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It means pleasant, having good feeling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What does &quot;com&quot; mean? What does &quot;fortable&quot; mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't know what they mean. &quot;Comfortable&quot; is one word. You can't separate the word into meaningless syllables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is exactly how we feel when you ask me what a single Chinese character means. I don't know what it means, because you can't separate a word. For example, 对不起 is just &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; word that means &quot;sorry&quot;. This word is inseparable for us, native Chinese speakers, so you should not ask what 对 means, what 不 means, or what 起 means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you read Classical Chinese (文言文), you can ask what a single Chinese character means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you read Modern Chinese, never ask what a single Chinese character means. It has no meaning. &lt;strong&gt;Multiple&lt;/strong&gt; Chinese characters make &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; word, and it is regarded as an &lt;strong&gt;inseparable&lt;/strong&gt; word for us, native Chinese speakers. Only professional etymologists can tell you what each character means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-05-15T18:21:37.220" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T18:21:37.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33967" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-15T19:09:37.927" Score="0" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;An unprecedented look into the food and culture of ice, from Iceland's premier chef and the owner of Reykjavik's Restaurant Dill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个史无前例的食物和冰岛的文化，从冰岛总理厨师和雷克雅未克的所有者迪尔餐厅。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17799" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T19:12:14.700" Title="Is this translation English to Chinese translation correct or close?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33967" CreationDate="2019-05-15T23:55:19.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;An unprecedented (一个前所未有的)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;look into  (探讨)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the food and culture of Iceland (冰岛的食品与文化)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;from Iceland's premier chef and the owner of Reykjavik's Restaurant Dill (从冰岛顶级厨师兼雷克雅未克区的迪尔餐厅老板)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese grammar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从冰岛顶级厨师兼雷克雅未克区的迪尔餐厅老板(的角度), (去作)  一个前所未有的, (对)冰岛食品与文化的探讨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from Iceland's premier chef and the owner of Reykjavik's Restaurant Dill ('s point of view) (to take ) an unprecedented look into the food and culture of Iceland&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'premier' is not a noun here, it is an adjective for &amp;quot;leading&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The guy is a leading chef and he is also a restaurant owner&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;史无前例 usually referring to ground breaking/ historic event. A look into the food and culture of Iceland doesn't seem to fit the requirement. If America elected a gay or female president, that would qualify as 史无前例&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T19:12:14.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33969" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33970" CreationDate="2019-05-16T02:15:24.617" Score="2" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;When we were talking about chengyu 知难而上, one my Chinese friend said,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你没看出来这里面的&lt;strong&gt;玄机&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then he explained 知难而上 can be understood as 知男而上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the dictionary, 玄机 means mystery. However, I think it being traslated to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You don't see the mystery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is inappropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the exact meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T08:45:13.930" Title="What does 玄机 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33969" CreationDate="2019-05-16T03:12:10.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try understand it this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;You don't see &lt;strong&gt;the mechanics&lt;/strong&gt; behind it.&quot; (You don't know how it works.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, 知难而上 means you know something's hard but you still go for it regardless, it certainly can NOT be understood as 知男而上, he was just trolling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19456" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T03:12:10.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33962" CreationDate="2019-05-16T05:22:10.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Linguists claim many things when the day is long! Look at what they say with a critical eye, not blind acceptance. You should not extrapolate from English and say 'all languages must be like that.' Chinese will not do that. Chinese has a superior logic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, the proposal, though it can be understood, and translated, after a fashion, does not spring from natural language. The longer a sentence is, the more likely it will be misinterpreted. It is therefore not desirable, even if you can, to build enormously long sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_the_House_That_Jack_Built&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The House that Jack built&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;This is the cat&#xA;That killed the rat that ate the malt&#xA;That lay in the house that Jack built.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese can use anything as an adjective. Chinese therefore has no need of Relative Clauses. Languages with Case cannot use anything as an adjective without contravening their self-imposed Case Rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of language is to transmit information. If the information is not clear, the language has failed in its purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a person ([who has a dog] {which barks at a cat})&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I know a ([has a [barks at a cat] dog]) person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, I would not go much further than this, although it is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a man, he has a dog, that dog likes to bark at cats.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我认识个人，他有一只狗，那只狗很喜欢对着猫叫。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T05:22:10.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33967" CreationDate="2019-05-16T05:26:09.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An unprecedented look into the food and culture of ice, from Iceland's premier chef and the owner of Reykjavik's Restaurant Dill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰岛顶级大厨，同时也是位于雷克雅未克的饭店DILL的拥有者，对用冰做成的食物和冰文化作了一次前所未有的考察。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T05:26:09.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33973" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33976" CreationDate="2019-05-16T05:54:38.157" Score="8" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently studying Basic Mandarin Chinese by Cornelius C. Kubler and encountered the following sentence in Unit 8 Part 4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我开车开了半天了，我们换个人开，行不行？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without 开了 the first part of sentence makes sense to me - the person tells that he/she drove car for a long time. However, the function of 开了 is unclear. Does it describe the duration of driving 半天 or the action 开车 itself? Or maybe it is redundant but helps sentence sound more natural? Is there a kind of construction &lt;code&gt;verb+object+verb+了&lt;/code&gt; and if so, what are the other use cases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18718" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T23:23:43.243" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T23:23:43.243" Title="Function of 开了 in 我开车开了半天了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33969" CreationDate="2019-05-16T06:19:42.447" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;May I guess he is talking about 哲♂學. It's a subculture (亞文化) in China. 哲♂學 originates from several porn films Billy Harrington starring in. There are many （梗/哏）in this subculture. For example: 迎男而上/男上加男/滿頭大漢/左右為男 etc. When typing them, one usually adds ♂ in between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T06:19:42.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33973" CreationDate="2019-05-16T07:39:30.533" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Basic SVO form: &quot;我开车&quot; (I drive) = [我(s)+ 开(v) + 车(o)] or [我(s)+开车(v)]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Add description of the duration : [我开(半天)车] = [I drive (half a day)]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Add verb particle '了' to indicate the verb is completed : [我开(了)半天车] = [I (have driven) half a day]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;repeat the verb 'drive'  to emphasize it : [(我)(&lt;strong&gt;开车&lt;/strong&gt;)(&lt;strong&gt;开&lt;/strong&gt;)(半天)] = [(I) (drive), (drive) (half a day)]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Add verb particle '了' to indicate the verb is completed: [我开车开(&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;)半天] = [I drive, (&lt;strong&gt;have driven&lt;/strong&gt;) half a day]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Add particle '了'  at the end to indicate the duration has been completed : [我开车开了半天(&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;)] = [I drive, have driven half a day (&lt;strong&gt;already&lt;/strong&gt;)]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is there a kind of construction verb+object+verb+了 and if so, what are the other use cases?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following Examples' structure are the same as above&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;游泳--&gt; 游一小時泳--&gt; 游了一小時泳--&gt; 游泳游了一小時--&gt; 游泳游了一小時了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打工--&gt; 打一天工--&gt; 打了一天工--&gt; 打工打了一天--&gt; 打工打了一天了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃飯--&gt; 吃飯十分鐘--&gt; 吃了十分鐘飯--&gt; 吃飯吃了十分鐘--&gt; 吃飯吃了十分鐘了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-16T07:57:05.663" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T07:57:05.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33973" CreationDate="2019-05-16T09:54:04.983" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;grammar topic:&lt;strong&gt;complements of duration&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;with object&lt;/strong&gt;, raised at this site several times (still searching locations),anyhow here is an excerpt from Yufa! A Practical Guide to Mandarin Chinese Grammar 13 The complement of duration&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(b) The verb-repetition pattern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb-repetition pattern is: verb + object + verb + complement. When the verb has&#xA;an object, the verb must be repeated before the complement of duration appears.昨天他跳舞跳了一个晚上，所以今天早上起得很晚。 &#xA;He danced all night last night, so he got up late this morning.&#xA;张：王老师教书教了多长时间了？   Zhang: How long has Teacher Wang been teaching? 李：他教了快十五年了。Li: He has been teaching for almost 15 years&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T09:54:04.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33979" CreationDate="2019-05-16T11:40:41.410" Score="3" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's the final excerpt from part one of 三字经 [1]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;父子恩 夫婦從  兄則友  弟則恭  長幼序  友與朋 君則敬  臣則忠  此十義  人所同&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;父子恩  夫妇从  兄则友  弟则恭  长幼序  友与朋 君则敬  臣则忠  此十义  人所同&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation [2]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kindness between father and child,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;harmony between husband and wife,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;friendliness from elder brothers,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;respect from younger brothers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Precedence between elders and youngers,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;support between friends,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Respect from the sovereigns,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;loyalty from the subjects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These ten obligations are the same for all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I count only eight obligations in this excerpt. Where, then, are the remaining two that the autor of the poem speaks of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dfg.cn/gb/zhhy/whdc/04-sanzijin.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.dfg.cn/gb/zhhy/whdc/04-sanzijin.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/sanzijing.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/sanzijing.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12122" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T12:36:20.627" Title="Ten obligations in 三字经" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;literature&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33977" CreationDate="2019-05-16T12:36:20.627" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;the trimetrical classic (三字經) is extracted from ancient confucianism literatures, in three characters verses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the eight verses in question are derived from &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/liji/li-yun/zh?searchu=%E4%BA%BA%E7%BE%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;禮記　禮運&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;父慈．子孝．兄良．弟弟．夫義．婦聽．長惠．幼順．君仁．臣忠&lt;strong&gt;十&lt;/strong&gt;者．謂之人義&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you've some knowledge of confucianism, you can find components of &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000159520&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;五倫&lt;/a&gt; from these eight verses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;君臣．父子．兄弟．夫妻．朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;each one of these have two &quot;人義&quot;; so five of them makes ten &quot;人義&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T12:36:20.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33980" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-17T00:08:41.273" Score="0" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我明天开始放寒假。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding of 放 is 'start', but in the above sentence 开始 means 'start', so what does 放 mean here? Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T01:16:19.933" Title="我明天开始放寒假。What is the meaning of 放？" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33980" CreationDate="2019-05-17T00:21:21.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The basic meaning of 放 is 'to release' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;放&lt;/strong&gt;假 means '&lt;strong&gt;be released&lt;/strong&gt; (from job or school) for day off, vacation or holiday&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;放&lt;/strong&gt;寒假 means '&lt;strong&gt;be released&lt;/strong&gt; (from school) for Winter holiday' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Working men don't have Winter holiday, they have &quot;新年假期/ 年假&quot; (new year holiday)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;放大假 = be released (from a job) for vacation &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;放工 = be released (from a work day) = finish a work day and be let go = 'quit time'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;放学 =  be released (from a school day) = finish a school day and be let go  = 'school out'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;放监 =  be released (from jail) = finish jail sentence and be let free &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;开始 means 'start', so what does 放 mean here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As stated above '放' doesn't mean 'start'. If you are in the middle of Winter Holiday, you are &quot;正在放寒假&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开始(放)寒假  means 'start (being released from school for) Winter holiday' = 'start (having) Winter holiday'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-17T01:16:19.933" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T01:16:19.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33982" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-17T03:26:56.463" Score="0" ViewCount="3768" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could anybody help me to pronounce the Chinese word 月 (Yue)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any word in English whose pronunciation is similar to this?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22035" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T09:01:40.233" Title="How to pronounce the word 月 (Yue) in English？" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33982" CreationDate="2019-05-17T04:22:50.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try yoo (yü) from 'yoohoo' and eh from 'Eh? What?' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yoo-eh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After j, q, x and y u is always ü, although it is not written as ü, which is easy for Germans, but not so easy for the English to say, it is like oo in 'shoo shoo'(go away), an Umlaut u = ü &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T04:22:50.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33982" CreationDate="2019-05-17T05:11:47.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;月 is written as “yue” in Pinyin. It can be broken into two parts: initial and final. (IPA is also: /ɥe/ | /ɥ/ = y | /e/ = ue). Y &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;is said to be&lt;/a&gt; an approximation of the &lt;strong&gt;hu&lt;/strong&gt; in the French word “huit.” Ue is said to be similar to the “&lt;strong&gt;e&lt;/strong&gt;” in the English word “hey.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You’d be better off just repeatedly listening to the Chinese word being pronounced and trying to imitate the pronunciation though. &lt;a href=&quot;https://forvo.com/word/%E6%9C%88/#zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Forvo&lt;/a&gt; has a good collection of people reading words that you can check out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-05-17T07:31:08.963" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T07:31:08.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33985" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-17T07:53:54.203" Score="4" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the second round of simplification (actually, its second part), there is a scheme dividing the processes into classes by the method used, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;leaving only part of the character that leaves the main impression;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;retain the form and smoothen fine details;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;replacing character altogether with a simpler one read similar;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;replacing only a phonetic with simpler one;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;use the hand-written form;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;replace altogether by a new ideographic composition;&#xA;etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a similar breakdown of how the simplifications were achieved for each particular one in the current list?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20076" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T09:43:44.303" Title="Is there a breakdown of the simplification scheme into methods?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33534" CreationDate="2019-05-17T08:14:37.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not probably a complete answer, but a fascinating glimpse of such a method is given by this problem from the 2008 ILO:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ioling.org/booklets/iol-2008-team-prob.en.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.ioling.org/booklets/iol-2008-team-prob.en.pdf&lt;/a&gt; (question);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ioling.org/booklets/iol-2008-team-sol.en.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.ioling.org/booklets/iol-2008-team-sol.en.pdf&lt;/a&gt; (answer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They explaing how it happens that 反切 frequently works for Cantonese – and what kinds of shifts make Mandarin barely feasible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20076" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T08:14:37.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33987" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-17T08:44:12.980" Score="2" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every time I watch an English show with Chinese subtitles, it's so much easier to read the subtitles than in a Chinese show.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think is the reason for it?&#xA;Who does the translations?&#xA;Can you recommend a good site the offers shows with Chinese subtitles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22036" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T01:43:25.733" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T03:51:45.413" Title="Why Chinese subtitles in American shows are relatively simple?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33534" CreationDate="2019-05-17T10:46:37.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The tones system is actually one of the easiest parts of mapping Middle Chinese to any modern Chinese variety. This information has been assembled on the Wikipedia entry for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_tones_(Middle_Chinese)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Four tones (Middle Chinese)&lt;/a&gt;. For modern standard Mandarin, this is rather simple and pretty consistent, apart from 阴入 (unvoiced initial consonant with final 'stop' consonant) which is almost completely irregular. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is possible to map all the regular sound changes from Middle Chinese to any (well documented) modern Chinese variety; see &lt;a href=&quot;https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=oberlin1525534507019502&amp;amp;disposition=inline&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;page 30 of this paper&lt;/a&gt;. In the case of 浹:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;浹 as a 阴入 character (&lt;code&gt;子協切&lt;/code&gt; , 子 is unvoiced and so 阴, 協 belongs to 入) falls into &quot;tone unpredictable&quot;, and you also expect more problems on the way. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 子 resulting in j- and not z- is actually predictable and mostly regular in Mandarin. You mention &lt;code&gt;*zie&lt;/code&gt;, which of course is not valid a pinyin syllable in modern standard Mandarin, but actually &lt;em&gt;was&lt;/em&gt; valid in the Mandarin of previous centuries, and retained in Peking opera stage pronunciation. This sound change is called the &lt;em&gt;loss of the &quot;round-sharp distinction&quot;&lt;/em&gt; (尖团音) from Beijing Mandarin in about the late 19th century (judging from the Western dictionaries of the time), which merged the /ts/ sound of 子 into the /tɕ/ sound of 即 if there was an /i/ sound after it (after applying other changes first though...)!. In the parlance of the Qieyun 切韵 dictionary, we would say &quot;because 協 is in division IV&quot;. From a linguistic perspective, it is just the &quot;palatalisation of alveolar sibilants before /j/&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;code&gt;-ia&lt;/code&gt; in 浹 &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; irregular: we would expect &lt;code&gt;-ie&lt;/code&gt; from the fanqie. This irregularity is common across all the characters with 夾 as a phonetic, so at least it was (semi-)consistent! &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Certainly. The details will differ. It must also be said that the topolectal differences contribute a lot to our understanding of fanqie. Additionally, it has often been the major source of training speakers to speak in topolect, especially when it comes e.g. to personal names, to formal loanwords.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T10:46:37.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33989" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-17T11:49:26.363" Score="1" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to ask about chinese firstname?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is your name /fullname/? - 你叫什麽名字？- 我叫李燕 /lastname + firstname/。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whan is your surname? - 你貴姓？ - 我姓李。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is your name /firstname/? - [Chinese version of this question? / Or does this question have no sense in Chinese?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are still short names in Chine, as I know you can call your friend 李燕 like 燕燕. So may be question about your firstname still make sence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T01:46:02.903" Title="How to ask about chinese firstname?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;surnames&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33990" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33992" CreationDate="2019-05-17T12:04:43.460" Score="1" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to shorten 你叫什么名字? to 你叫什么?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will it still mean the same? Or it is possible to reply to 你叫什么? with something different, not just Surname+Name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你叫什么? - 叫我‘你的噩夢’ :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T00:59:50.047" Title="Is it possible to shorten 你叫什么名字? to 你叫什么?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33989" CreationDate="2019-05-17T12:31:15.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please read my answer to this post &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/31395/why-is-there-such-a-difference-between-first-name-and-last-name&quot;&gt;Why is there such a difference between &amp;quot;first name&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;last name&amp;quot;?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, 姓名 is almost interchangeable with 名字 in modern time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone ask &amp;quot;你的名字是什么?&amp;quot; It is more common to state your full name (全名) than just your given name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to ask someone's last name, you can say: &amp;quot;請問你姓什麼?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;請問貴姓?&amp;quot; (May I ask, what is your family name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to ask someone's full name, you can say: &amp;quot;請問你全名是什麼? or &amp;quot;請問你的姓名是什麼?&amp;quot; (May I ask, what is your full name?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to ask someone's first name, you can say: &amp;quot;請問你名字叫什麼?&amp;quot; (&lt;em&gt;You are literally asking someone's given name and courtesy name. Since most people in modern time have no courtesy name, 名字 could only mean 'first name'. However, as I stated before,  姓名 and 名字 are interchangeable in modern time. people could answer with their full name or first name&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To &lt;strong&gt;specifically&lt;/strong&gt; asking for someone's first name, you need to be specific and ask: &amp;quot;你父母給的取的名字是什麼?&amp;quot; (What is the name given to your by your parents?) &lt;em&gt;Your family name is born with you, only your first name is given to you by your parents&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More on Chinese name: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23976/what-does-this-symbol-mean/23977#23977&quot;&gt;What does this symbol mean?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T00:43:58.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33990" CreationDate="2019-05-17T12:47:33.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. It is rude to say so in Chinese. It is quite hard to understand as it is a kind of language sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to shorten the sentence is &quot;你的名字是？&quot;  though it is not as good as the original sentence &quot;你叫甚麼名字？&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplicity is important but in some case can be fatal and lead to misunderstanding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22037" LastEditorUserId="22037" LastEditDate="2019-05-17T13:09:18.863" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T13:09:18.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33987" CreationDate="2019-05-17T16:50:59.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is the characteristic of the &quot;subtitle community&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, before American (or western, but mostly American) shows are widely legally imported to China, the Chinese audience pretty much relied on piracy as their only source. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subtitles of those, are of course contributed by the community, which, by its origin, is of &quot;various&quot; quality. This is still the case now because some publishers would purchase subtitles from the community and pair it with legally imported shows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to directly answer your question: because most of the time they are not created by professionals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9846" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T16:50:59.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33990" CreationDate="2019-05-18T00:53:51.767" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;你叫甚麼名字?&quot; specifically asking someone's name, which mean you are treating the person you are asking as a human; &quot;你叫甚麼&quot; could mean &quot;what is your name&quot; but it can also mean &quot;what are you called&quot; ;the answer to &quot;你叫甚麼?&quot; could be &quot;Peter&quot; or &quot;The Devil&quot;. And worse, &quot;你叫甚麼?&quot; can be literally interpreted as &quot;what are you yelling about?&quot; or &quot;why are you yelling?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think &quot;你叫甚麼名字?&quot; is too wordy, you can use &quot;什稱呼?&quot; (how may I address you?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請問先生你叫什麼名字? (May I ask, Mister, what is your name called?) --&gt; 先生什稱呼? (how may I address you, Mister) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T00:59:50.047" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T00:59:50.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33989" CreationDate="2019-05-18T01:54:54.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you just need to know Chinese people will probably tell you their whole name，姓名，when you ask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你叫什么名字？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我叫张聪明。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你就姓张，名聪明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first part will be the surname, 姓, the second part will be the given name, 名。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, now you know the given name!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only trouble comes when their surname is double, 复姓， like 欧阳 or 上官。So, if you hear 4 words, the person probably has a double surname, or is not Han.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are not many 复姓，double surnames, so you won't hear them very often. Look on &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/496974968.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;, 复姓 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T01:54:54.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33996" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-18T04:21:08.593" Score="3" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would you translate 左右着他们 here? What other phrase could I substitute for 左右着他们 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在古代的时候，科学水平还没那么高，人们对自然的认识也是有限的。因此，碰见灾难的时候，就会认为后神灵在左右着他们，所以人们祈求于神灵。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就会认为后神灵在左右着他们，&#xA;then they might believe the Gods/spirits are ??? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;左右着他们&lt;br&gt;&#xA;stopping them&lt;br&gt;&#xA;punishing them&lt;br&gt;&#xA;near them&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ruling them&lt;br&gt;&#xA;guiding them&lt;br&gt;&#xA;around them  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T05:05:46.067" Title="What is the meaning of 左右着 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33996" CreationDate="2019-05-18T04:40:19.240" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;佐 means 'assist' ; 佑 means 'protect'. &amp;quot;佐佑&amp;quot;(to assist and protect) is different from &amp;quot;左右&amp;quot; (to make someone go left or right = &amp;quot;to influence&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;左右 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/332/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/332/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[v] influence; master; control&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your sentence, 左右着他们 would mean: &amp;quot;influence them&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;control them&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;左右朝政 (exert influence/control over the government's policy; influence the government)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大企業以財力左右政局 (Large enterprises use financial resources to influence/ control politics)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;左右局勢 (exert influence/control over the situation; influence/control the situation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;憑他一人之力是無法左右大局的 (With his power alone, he can’t influence/ control the big picture)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;左右(to influence) might or might not had been evolved from 佐佑(to assist and protect). In any case, its meaning in modern Chinese is completely different from 佐佑&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;左右&lt;/strong&gt; = to make go &lt;strong&gt;right&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;left&lt;/strong&gt; = to influence; to control&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;佐佑&lt;/strong&gt;= &lt;strong&gt;佐&lt;/strong&gt;助 (to assist) 庇&lt;strong&gt;佑&lt;/strong&gt;(protect)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T05:05:46.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33998" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-18T09:32:44.810" Score="0" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the dictionary, 忍耐 = endure, bear with, restraint oneself while 忍受 = bear, endure. But when I look at sample sentences, the usage of both words sort of overlap each other. So how do I use each word? Is there any distinguishing usage between the word? Oh BTW, this is just my guess but I sort of did notice a slight difference which is 忍受 seems to mean bear/endure a situation while 忍耐 seems to mean exercise patience/put up with someone or something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-05-19T03:37:37.807" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T06:43:43.317" Title="忍耐 vs 忍受 usage/difference" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33998" CreationDate="2019-05-18T12:05:23.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I answered a similar question here &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?3,114539,114551#msg-114551&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?3,114539,114551#msg-114551&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5153/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;忍耐&lt;/a&gt;- (n) patience; forbearance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5153/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;忍耐&lt;/a&gt;- (v) exercise patience; restrain oneself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5151/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;忍受&lt;/a&gt;- (v) to endure; to bear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's try put the terms into sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我未預備好，你要忍耐一吓。- I am not ready yet,  you have to be patient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我未預備好，你要忍受一吓。- I am not ready yet, you have to endure it. (&lt;em&gt;Doesn't seem as suitable as be patient in this sentence.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我無法'忍受'這種痛苦！- I can't 'endure' this kind of pain.; I can't 'bear' this kind of pain. (&lt;em&gt;it seem like 忍受 translate to 'endure' or 'bear' is correct.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我無法'忍耐'這種痛苦！ - I can't 'be patient with' this kind of pain (&lt;em&gt;This sentence doesn't make much sense&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忍耐是有限度的。 (Patience has a limit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忍受痛苦是有限度的 (Enduring pain has a limit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T20:56:18.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33998" CreationDate="2019-05-18T16:23:29.340" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;according to OP's earlier comments  &quot;the dictionary&quot; seems to refer to Pleco dictionary. Some users would like to suggest again consulting online dictionaries, like bkrs, iciba, Linguee, esp.noting large number of usage examples showing collocation.The following may provide additional info.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＂汉语同义词词典＂&lt;strong&gt;忍耐／忍受／容忍&lt;/strong&gt; ［同］动词。表示承受住。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;［异］［&lt;strong&gt;忍耐&lt;/strong&gt;］着重于把痛苦的感觉或某种感情、情绪抑制住，不使表现出来。例：（１）他们勇敢、勤劳，能吃苦，能忍耐。巴金＜我们会见了彭德怀司令员＞）（２）他凭着超人的意志，忍耐最大的痛苦。（臧克家＜陈毅同志与诗＞（ed.陈毅同志喜欢写诗）（３）我为什么偏不忍耐几天，要这么急急地告诉她真话的呢？（鲁迅＜伤逝＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;［&lt;strong&gt;忍受&lt;/strong&gt;］着重于把痛苦、困难、不幸的遭遇或不良的待遇等勉强承受下来。语意比＂忍耐＂重。常说＂难以忍受＂。例（１）人们的践踏和狂风暴雨我都须忍受。（冰心＜分＞）（２）你要知道，我宁肯忍受痛苦，也不愿受人奴役。（刘白羽＜昆仑礼赞＞）（３）光说她这种居高临下的态度，已经叫何守礼难以忍受。（欧阳山＜圣地＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;［&lt;strong&gt;容忍&lt;/strong&gt;］着重于宽容、承受。对象多是缺点、错误，痛苦的、不合理的、不能接受的事情。多用于否定形式。常说＂不能容忍＂。例（１）他的错误言行使人不能容忍。（张洁＜沉重的翅膀＞）（２）这对于已经接受了现代科学文化熏陶和思想洗礼的鲁迅来说，他不能容忍这门荒唐的婚事。（王欣＜鲁迅的＂悲喜＂婚姻＞）（３）据说萧邦最不喜欢贝多芬，简直不能容忍他的音乐。＜宗璞，红豆＞）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also note above use of result complement 住 after 忍受 （see &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/search?q=%E5%BF%8D%E5%8F%97%E4%BD%8F&quot;&gt;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/search?q=%E5%BF%8D%E5%8F%97%E4%BD%8F&lt;/a&gt; for 忍受 with negative potential complement 忍受不住／了.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-05-19T00:53:39.147" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T00:53:39.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34001" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-19T00:27:00.850" Score="0" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C0kU5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this passage on 北京大学's website but I can't even go back to the page of contents. I want to know the name of the book。it's the 阅读 section of the site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22043" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-08T08:38:27.240" LastActivityDate="2020-08-08T08:38:27.240" Title="What book is this passage from?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34001" CreationDate="2019-05-19T00:38:50.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.purpleculture.net/chinese-course-learn-mandarin-grade-1-set-3-vol-2-p-20401/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.purpleculture.net/chinese-course-learn-mandarin-grade-1-set-3-vol-2-p-20401/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对外汉语本科系列教材&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一年級教材&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉语教程&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第三冊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese Course - Learn Mandarin Grade 1 Set 3 Vol 2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GbT0N.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GbT0N.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第九十一课 Lesson 91&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一、课文: 妻子的秘密&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T00:38:50.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33989" CreationDate="2019-05-20T01:46:02.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two aspects: I think the original question asks whether it is ever appropriate to ask for a Chinese person's 小名, which is more like a nickname, the designation they might use amongst people they're more familiar with.&#xA;1). Anytime you ask someone's name, you get their full name anyway, so just the first name is automatically included, generally.&#xA;2). But if you're trying to look for how to designate or address a person as more familiar, it is way better to observe the actual use contexts for their 小名 in their actual life, and let that come somewhat organically.  小名 an address that's used in relationships that are already familiar, and not necessarily a tool to inject familiarity into a relationship that is not that already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22049" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T01:46:02.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34005" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-20T03:28:57.877" Score="0" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I came across 铺就, today I have 造就。I tend to think of 就 as 'then'. Maybe that is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What did 就 originally mean? It seems to show a building and an injured hand??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other words with *就。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;成就，将就，迁就，牵就 even 可就&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I understand 就 in these combinations? What is its role?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T09:40:39.077" Title="What exactly does 就 mean in combination with other words?" Tags="&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34005" CreationDate="2019-05-20T03:54:13.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/xs/5C31.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;就&lt;/a&gt; has the meaning of 完成;成功 (accomplish) in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/0/14f/331540.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;造就&lt;/a&gt; (bring up / achievements) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/c/0/13e/306996.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;成就&lt;/a&gt; (achieve;accomplish).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(9) 完成;成功 [accomplish]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(10) 又如:就亲(成就婚事,成亲);就名(成就功名)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When in 将就, 迁就 it means &lt;em&gt;accommodate&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(12) 迁就;将就 [accommodate oneself to; suit; fit; yield]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(13) 又如:半推半就;牵就;就着(就便;顺便);就滑(随便;方便)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meaning of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/18/sw/5C31.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;就&lt;/a&gt; is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就，高也。从京从尤。尤，異於凡也。，籒文就。疾僦切 文二　重一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The left part 京 means &lt;em&gt;high; tall&lt;/em&gt;, the right part 尤 means &lt;em&gt;special; out of the common&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T03:54:13.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34005" CreationDate="2019-05-20T06:26:21.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an extended discussion about 就 here &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?7,138618,page=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?7,138618,page=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My thinking is. 就 mainly means &quot; then; just; only; near; close to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The original meaning of 就 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shuowen.org/view/3315&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.shuowen.org/view/3315&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'就，高也。从京从尤。尤，異於凡也  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;京 = high &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;尤 = extraordinary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就 = high&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;廣韵曰。就、成也。迎也。卽也。皆其引伸之義也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The core meaning of 就 is 'success; complete'; other means like 'get near' or 'then' are all extended from the original meaning &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'就' in '铺就' and  '造就' are adverb for 'completed' because '铺' and '造' are verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;铺 = to pave&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;铺就 = finish paving&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;造 = make&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;造就 = completed making = create&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成就 (achievement) is a compound word &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成= completed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 = height; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成就 = achievement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将就，迁就 are also compound words &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'就' in '将就'(put up with)  and  迁就 (accommodate) is a verb for 'approach' (you make accommodation to approach someone else's need or demand)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T06:26:21.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34008" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-20T06:31:34.430" Score="1" ViewCount="3394" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering what Chinese people would write when they write a condolence card. Is it just a translation from the English or are there specific sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6188" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T03:04:06.690" Title="What do Chinese write on a condolence card?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;culture&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34008" CreationDate="2019-05-20T12:08:14.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The link user6065 gave is somewhat misleading. Chinese do not have the tradition of writing a condolence CARD. The wiki how page provided seems to be a machine translation of the English wiki how. So it doesn't mean anything if you want to write its counterpart in Chinese. The second link is about 唁电/唁函, which is a very formal letter or message you write personally after someone's death, to express condolence to the family and friends of the dead. It's not very similar to a condolence card in English context. Only if having very important relationship with the dead, and not able to mourn for the dead in person, can you write a 唁电/唁函. It's weird to write one for the death of a pet, or your neighbor you don't know much about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To write a well-composed 唁电/唁函, one needs to 遣詞雅正 用語沉肅 不枝詞蔓語 賣弄文采 亦不因陋就簡 有失鄭重.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing all these above, let's talk about how to write a 唁电/唁函.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Start with addressing the person or collective you write to:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-No other words needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敬爱的陈旭师母：（incorrect）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陈旭师母：（correct）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Main body&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Main body comprises 4 parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Express your deep sorrow at the news&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Exalt the dead for his good qualities and good deeds, from your memories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Express gratitude, for how the dead helped you during lifetime. And you will always remember the dead and his spirit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Comfort the family/friends, encourage them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Appropriate closing&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-There are many standard opts for this part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Your signature, time and date&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T12:08:14.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34010" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-20T16:08:39.647" Score="2" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;A saw this inscription on a flute. Can someone tell what does it is? &#xA;I'm really curious. &#xA;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lvlqV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lvlqV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Inscription&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22053" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-05-21T04:19:48.590" LastActivityDate="2019-10-29T10:02:45.387" Title="What is this flute inscription?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34008" CreationDate="2019-05-21T05:36:45.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Toosky Hierot wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chinese do not have the tradition of writing a condolence CARD&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, I agree,  we do condolence mostly orally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'condolence card'(慰問卡) is mostly accompany with delivered well-wishing gift like flower or fruit basket to family member of a deceased, or to sick or injured person. We do not need to send condolence card to someone who was dumped by his girlfriend or someone just failed a midterm exam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what I would write in a condolence card:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A friend's mother whom I had never seen died:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;致 (your friend's name):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請節哀 (please not to wallowing in sadness too much)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~ (your name) 啓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A friend just broken his leg in a car accident:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;致 (your friend's name):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;願你早日康復 (wish you recover soon)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~ (your name) 啓&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;As for the formal newspaper post/ letter of condolence (唁电/唁函)  to the family members of a deceased, who had an important relationship with you, it is another matter. You should write a personal letter like you would to a dear friend&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-21T05:48:32.487" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T05:48:32.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34012" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-21T07:22:51.833" Score="3" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in any answer to that question. I already found a few elements in the older question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2038/how-were-chinese-characters-taught-to-chinese-children-before-the-introduction-o&quot;&gt;How were Chinese characters taught to Chinese children before the introduction of pinyin?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have already found some information on the web, and it looks like kids were learning using &amp;quot;expressions dictionaries&amp;quot; to fix grammar points, use of function words as &amp;quot; 之 平 者 也 “ and there was no use of any grammar books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be very happy to find links for any of these &amp;quot;expressions dictionaries&amp;quot; available on internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22057" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-12-24T13:44:29.313" LastActivityDate="2020-12-24T13:49:24.167" Title="What were the tools that Chinese teachers could use in China before the introduction of Zhuyin and Pinyn" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34005" CreationDate="2019-05-21T09:40:39.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就 as a standalone verb it used to mean &quot;to take&quot;, but now it usually does not stand alone, but the meaning remains.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;就 as a conjunction means &quot;AND&quot;, thus extending original meaning &quot;to take&quot;. Since you are &quot;with an object&quot; when you &quot;take it&quot;, that is, it can be said that you are in a situation of &quot;you AND it&quot;. Mind you there are many &quot;and&quot; in chinese (跟, 及, 也, 和, 并, 与, 而, 同 ect.) each has it's own connotation and perhaps evolved from a verb.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there is a disscussion about it, here &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/19419/a-unified-theory-of-%E5%B0%B1-meaning/21014#21014&quot;&gt;A unified theory of 就 meaning&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11754" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T09:40:39.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34016" CreationDate="2019-05-21T13:27:23.883" Score="1" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Predatory lending&lt;/em&gt; is usually associated with 'loan-sharks' who trap a &lt;em&gt;borrower&lt;/em&gt; into a circumstance where he will likely encounter difficulty in repayment. Usually, the borrower finds himself in a hole that continues to become 'deeper'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Predatory lending&lt;/em&gt; is also associated with &lt;em&gt;debt-bondage&lt;/em&gt; where the borrower's debt is sold to another party who will utilise the borrower's labour to repay the debt. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the translation for the following terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The concept of &quot;predatory lending&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A person who practices predatory lending (the lender) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The person who is trapped by predatory lending&#xA;(the borrower)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21015" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T21:17:48.520" Title="What is the translation for terms associated with &quot;predatory lending&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34012" CreationDate="2019-05-21T14:14:31.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can read traditional Chinese characters, I recommend the book &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bnasie.eu/Asset/Source/bnBook_ID-165_No-1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;釧影樓回憶錄&amp;quot; by 包天笑 (PDF file)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is in written vernacular Chinese, an easy read, with numerous &amp;quot;gems&amp;quot;. The author talks about his own experience of learning, and attending examinations at about 1883. related chapter: p43~p54, p72~p78, p83~p114.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Briefly, when children had a teacher, or went to a private school (私塾), they were given a book (without punctuations); the teacher would pronounce a verse, students recited what the teacher said; again and again, until they can recall from memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While reciting the teacher's words, the students look at the characters, so they could gradually connect each character wiht its pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, at the same time, students marked the pause and stop (句讀) with dots &amp;amp; circles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such activities were repeated daily, weekly, and monthly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They started from the trimetrical classic (三字經), thousand character writing (千字文) or other &amp;quot;books for children learning&amp;quot; (童蒙讀物). afterwards, the &amp;quot;proper&amp;quot; reading materials are four books and five classic (四書五經).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your question: in the past, no one cared about unifying the pronunciation; each learned in his/her dialect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the tools needed: just books, brush pens and black ink, red ink. Possibly a  &amp;quot;夏楚&amp;quot; (a stick?) as a punishment instrument.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-12-24T13:49:24.167" LastActivityDate="2020-12-24T13:49:24.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34014" CreationDate="2019-05-21T14:53:44.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;see online dictionaries, iciba:predatory lending 掠夺性贷款 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iciba.com/predatory%20lending&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.iciba.com/predatory%20lending&lt;/a&gt; find 2 examples sentences, predatory lender 掠夺性贷款人 victim of pred. lending 掠夺性贷款(的)受害人/者，for confirmation submit 掠夺性 to bkrs: 掠夺性贷款；高利贷 predatory credit practice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;additional relevant vocabulary at &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%8E%A0%E5%A4%BA%E6%80%A7%E8%B4%B7%E6%AC%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%8E%A0%E5%A4%BA%E6%80%A7%E8%B4%B7%E6%AC%BE&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E6%8E%A0%E5%A4%BA%E6%80%A7%E8%B4%B7%E6%AC%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E6%8E%A0%E5%A4%BA%E6%80%A7%E8%B4%B7%E6%AC%BE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-05-21T15:07:20.297" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T15:07:20.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34014" CreationDate="2019-05-21T21:17:48.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very common term is &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000068808&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;高利貸&lt;/a&gt; in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;高: high&lt;br&gt;&#xA;利: interest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;貸: loan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also called 高利盤剝, 閻王債 or &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000157143&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;印子錢&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shop is named &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E5%9C%B0%E4%B8%8B%E9%8C%A2%E8%8E%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;地下錢莊&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T21:17:48.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34019" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34022" CreationDate="2019-05-22T00:14:45.243" Score="5" ViewCount="719" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between asking a question using 是不是 and 吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, what's the difference between these 2 questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是不是中国人?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是中国人吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21614" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T11:08:00.990" Title="Using 是不是 vs. 吗" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34019" CreationDate="2019-05-22T01:10:14.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;generally speaking the position of 是不是 in a sentence is not fixed, cf.&quot;实用汉语语法＂：值得注意的是，由＂是不是＂组成的正反形式可以移动位置，例如：是不是我这孩子平时的举动有点叫人说闲话？（曹愚）-＞我这孩子是不是平时的举动有点叫人说闲话？-＞我这孩子平时的举动是不是有点叫人说闲话？-＞我这孩子平时的举动有点叫人说闲话，是不是？&#xA;随着＂是不是＂的移动，疑问焦点也相应移动---疑问焦点落在＂是不是＂后头最靠近的成分上。Instead of 你是不是中国人? 是不是你是中国人? 你是中国人,是不是? would seem possible (although somewhat verbose)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-05-22T01:10:14.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34021" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34039" CreationDate="2019-05-22T03:25:31.603" Score="2" ViewCount="747" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.99lib.net/book/90/6548.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;十里桃花三生三世&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dl.oceanofpdf.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/OceanOfPDF.org_To-the-Sky-King-Tang-Qi.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;To-the-Sky-King-Tang-Qi.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;可叹大师兄竟救了玄女，将一条&lt;strong&gt;白眼狼&lt;/strong&gt;引入昆仑山。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, First Apprentice had looked after Xuan Nu, taken her&#xA;  in, and by so doing unleashed &lt;strong&gt;white-eyed terror&lt;/strong&gt; upon Mount Kunlun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked up 白眼狼 means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ungrateful soul&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How it can be translated into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;white-eyed terror&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T04:33:15.013" Title="Translation of 白眼狼" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34019" CreationDate="2019-05-22T07:47:08.363" Score="5" Body="&lt;h3&gt;吗&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;吗&lt;/code&gt; is pretty much like a &lt;code&gt;question mark (?)&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你吃午餐了 -&gt; &lt;code&gt;You had your lunch.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你吃午餐了&lt;strong&gt;吗&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;You had your lunch?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你是中国人 -&gt; &lt;code&gt;You are a Chinese.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你是中国人&lt;strong&gt;吗&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;Are you a Chinese?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;是不是&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google doesn't has a good translation for it, but it basically means &lt;code&gt;yes(是) or no（不是）&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;is（是） or isn't（不是）&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;中国人 -&gt; &lt;code&gt;You are a Chinese.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;不是&lt;/strong&gt;中国人 -&gt; &lt;code&gt;You aren't a Chinese.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;是不是&lt;/strong&gt;中国人 -&gt; &lt;code&gt;You are a Chinese or you aren't a Chinese&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;Are you a Chinese?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;You are a Chinese or you aren't a Chinese&lt;/code&gt; is rather weird in a normal sentence, because this is directly convert from Chinese to English, in fact it is just a question like &lt;code&gt;Are you a Chinese?&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Additional reading&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;否 = 不是&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of &lt;code&gt;是不是&lt;/code&gt;, one can also use &lt;code&gt;是否&lt;/code&gt;, just replace &lt;code&gt;不是&lt;/code&gt; by &lt;code&gt;否&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你&lt;strong&gt;是否&lt;/strong&gt;中国人？ -&gt; &lt;code&gt;You are a Chinese or you aren't a Chinese&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;Are you a Chinese?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9312" LastActivityDate="2019-05-22T07:47:08.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34023" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-22T09:58:12.317" Score="3" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;As per title, what's the difference between these 2 terms?&#xA;My teacher said that in China, 主任 is considered as low position, and 主管 is higher. &#xA;But looking at the translation 主任 means director, which is generally a high ranked position, whereas 主管 means supervisor which can be just anybody's 1st line manager.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it true only in China or elsewhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21231" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T10:20:48.803" Title="What's the difference between 主任 and 主管?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34023" CreationDate="2019-05-22T10:57:13.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5759/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;主任&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;director; head; supervisor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5767/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;主管&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in charge; be responsible; a person in such a position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a person in charge of a department = department head&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two terms are just different ways of referring 'head of a department'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since there are many levels of the department,  we can't say 主管 must rank higher than 主任.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: both 人事部主任 and 採購部主管 are under the same CEO, depend on which department is more important in the company, 人事部主任 might rank higher than 採購部 主管 or vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most importantly, a department can has either a 主任 or a 主管 as the department's head, but not both. 人事部 can either has a 主任 or 主管, but not both. (If we have a 人事部主任 and a 人事部主管, who is in charge then?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-22T10:57:13.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34025" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-22T19:00:27.663" Score="4" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to write in full cursive with my own personal style and this is one of my first letterings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm quite happy and I think that it does look readable, but I'm afraid that the two long line I left in the middle of the first sentence could break its logic. The long line in the second one should divide this &quot;有形&quot; from this &quot;以太&quot;.&#xA;I found many different way to write the same Hanzi in cursive and I'm afraid I made up a mess mixing styles that don't match among them... but I almost like the final result and I hope it can be considered a good work.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to you is this strange or wrong? &#xA;Do the Hanzi have a logical and coherent style?&#xA;Can you easily understand what it means? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Icv6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Icv6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope not to be off topic, if so I really apologize. I have no intention to waste anyone's time, I'd just like to have an opinion from people I can trust.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22017" LastActivityDate="2020-04-19T07:42:27.037" Title="Can someone tell me if this script is correct?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34026" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-22T21:02:31.960" Score="2" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我太喜欢和他做朋友了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can we use 做 in this meaning in other sentences?&#xA;Where can I read more about it and what is the name of this &quot;rule&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what is the meaning of the 了 in this sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18819" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T01:31:48.847" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T03:39:09.627" Title="Why do we use 做 in 我太喜欢和他做朋友了 as &quot;being&quot;?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-13T09:02:07.813" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34026" CreationDate="2019-05-22T21:28:00.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;做 + identity = be identity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:做好人，做首領 (good person and leader are identities)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做 + procedure/action = do procedure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 做大事， 做錯，做工 (great thing, mistake and work involve procedures or action)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the final particle 了 is a modal word for emphasis, if you remove it, the meaning of the sentence would not change, but the tone would be flat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;要(做)大人物就要(做)大事&quot; = &quot;to (be) a great man, you need to (do) great thing&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why do we use 做 in this sentence as “being”?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朋友 is an identity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-22T21:34:01.740" LastActivityDate="2019-05-22T21:34:01.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34026" CreationDate="2019-05-22T22:37:15.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, whereas in English you 'be a friend,' in Chinese you '做朋友。‘ Not much of a rule. Why does that surprise you? Do you think Chinese must copy English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/505A.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Number 8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我太喜欢和他做朋友了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could write:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我太喜欢当他的朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I was reading an interview with a TV presenter today. He was asked if he acts role of an intellectual in his TV show. He said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我只是在做我自己” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there may be a &lt;em&gt;similar&lt;/em&gt; form in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: You should try to be more friendly.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: I don't do friendly! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 了? That is a whole Pandora's Box of questions!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplest answer is, it makes the sentence sound complete. Otherwise it sounds strange, according to a Chinese friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2019-05-23T09:39:16.643" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T09:39:16.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34029" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-22T23:22:17.053" Score="0" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6cXuM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6cXuM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;notebook1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MLhBP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MLhBP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;notebook2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you help me translate these notebok pages please&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22065" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T07:24:20.153" Title="Can You Help Me Translate?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-05-18T01:28:18.630" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34008" CreationDate="2019-05-23T03:04:06.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually Chinese people don't use condolence card, we use &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%8C%BD%E8%81%94/10979605?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;挽联&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;驾鹤西游 a euphemistic way to say someone passes by.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E2uwv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E2uwv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dF1OF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dF1OF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T03:04:06.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34029" CreationDate="2019-05-23T08:40:55.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“？” in the parenthesis means the character that I am unable to recognize currently. One &quot;?&quot; represents one unrecognized character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Page 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咱们可以把地下室改成体操室，乒乓球室，(&lt;em&gt;？跑跑跳跳&lt;/em&gt;, run and jump)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can refurnish the basement to the gymnastics room or the table tennis room. (Not sure about the last few words in this sentence, so I just provide my guess above in parentheses)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.&#xA;地下室的那些大件，我们无法弄出地下室。是否可以在（？？？）网上（？？？？）? 有婴幼儿大件物流免费送出，自己负责搬运。清理后：1. 体操 2. 乒乓球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We aren't able to move the bulky packages out the basement. Can we ... online ...? Free large infant products, but we aren't responsible for moving them out. After removing them: 1. gymnastics 2. ping-pong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B. &#xA;(I can only recognize some keywords from this section for now.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;衣帽间（cloakroom）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;床垫（mattress）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;床架（bed frames）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Page 2: (This is a recipe)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周三晚餐：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dinner for Wednesday：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.煎荷包蛋 Fried eggs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.滚牛肉丸  10粒 Making the beef ball， 10 counts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.纯油炒西兰花、青豆粒 Fried broccoli and peas with oil &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.煮饭 Boil the rice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22068" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T08:40:55.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24163" CreationDate="2019-05-23T09:47:18.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience, while 请问 is technically the proper and polite way to preface a question to a stranger, almost nobody uses it (in Mainland China, at least). You'll more commonly see people go up to another person and just say 你好 and then go on with their question (I've picked up this habit as well). This could be because asking questions to strangers is so common in China, the formality is seen as superfluous. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not to say you shouldn't use 请问, but just telling my experience. By all means, be polite, even if it's not necessary :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6738" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T09:47:18.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1206" CreationDate="2019-05-23T09:53:03.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For your past tense example, you might consider using 可惜 - &quot;pity&quot; or &quot;it's a pity that...&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6738" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T09:53:03.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34029" CreationDate="2019-05-23T12:04:09.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;h1&gt;1st picture:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;咱们可以把地下室&lt;s&gt;&lt;strong&gt;改为&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/s&gt;&lt;strong&gt;变成&lt;/strong&gt;(not sure)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;体操室，乒乓球室，玩跑跑&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;跳跳&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;(not sure)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;We can alter the to basement to a gymnastics room, a table tennis room, to play and jump there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.&#xA;地下室的那些大件，我们无法&lt;s&gt;&lt;strong&gt;把&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/s&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;弄出地下室。是否可以在&lt;strong&gt;南宁生&lt;/strong&gt; (not sure) 网上&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;发布消息，有婴幼儿大件物品&lt;strong&gt;免费&lt;/strong&gt; (later inserted word) 送出，&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;自己负责搬运。&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地下室的那些大件，我们无法弄出地下室。是否可以在 &lt;strong&gt;？？？&lt;/strong&gt; 网上发布消息，有婴幼儿大件物品免费送出，自己负责搬运。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;We can't get the big items in the basement out. Should we post a message on the &lt;strong&gt;???&lt;/strong&gt; website, that we have some free big infant items, but need to move it by self.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清理后：①体操②乒乓球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Left (after cleaning): 1. gymnastics 2. ping pong (table tennis)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B.&#xA;娱乐室的一侧衣帽间存放了两张&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;床垫和铁床&lt;s&gt;&lt;strong&gt;执&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/s&gt;架，基本已满。&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;娱乐室的一侧衣帽间存放了两张床垫和铁床架，基本已满。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;There are two mattresses and iron bed frames stored in one side of the recreation room, almost full.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;①另一侧的物品是否打算捐出？&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Should the items on the other side intended to be donated?&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;②睡房的三张海&lt;s&gt;&lt;strong&gt;执&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/s&gt;绵垫捐出吧，床垫&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;已经够多了。&lt;s&gt;&lt;strong&gt;睡房&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/s&gt;衣帽间打算整理一下，放衣物。&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睡房的三张海绵垫捐出吧，床垫已经够多了。衣帽间打算整理一下，放衣物。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;There are enough mattresses, we can donate three sponge mats in the bedroom. The cloakroom is going to be sorted to store clothes.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;&lt;strong&gt;执&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/s&gt;: about to write 垫 and then deleted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;2nd picture:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用外卖饭盒的铁线做&lt;strong&gt;个&lt;/strong&gt; (not sure for it's blocked) 挂勾 (should be 挂钩 here)&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Make a hook with the iron wire (means the handle here) of the takeaway box.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周三晚餐 (written as 歺 here)：&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Dinner for Wednesday:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.煎荷包蛋，三只&lt;br/&gt;fried poached egg, of three.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;2.滚牛肉丸，10粒&lt;br/&gt;rolled beef balls, of ten.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;3.蚝油炒西兰花，青豆粒&lt;br/&gt;fried broccoli with oyster sauce, and green beans.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;4.煮饭&lt;br/&gt;cook rice.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T07:24:20.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34035" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34036" CreationDate="2019-05-23T17:22:22.317" Score="0" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can this two hanzi alone &quot;尚活&quot; support the meaning &quot;still alive&quot; without this last one &quot;着&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if yes, what does &quot;着&quot; add to the general sense? &#xA;I mean, what's the difference between &quot;活着&quot; and &quot;活&quot;? I've seen both used in similar situations, and I found this &quot;尚活着&quot; written poem without a real grammatic context, so I wandered if &quot;活&quot; alone can't stand the meaning &quot;alive&quot; in an abstract text. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22017" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T01:14:10.017" Title="尚活 can still work without 着?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34035" CreationDate="2019-05-23T20:12:09.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;see grammar,dictionaries,bkrs：&lt;strong&gt;活&lt;/strong&gt;：to live&#xA;alive living （work workmanship）动&#xA;（生存; 有生命） live:&#xA;吃为了活，不要活为了吃。 Eat to live， but do not live to eat.&#xA;他们将永远活在我们心中。形&#xA;（在活的状态下） alive; living:&#xA;活老虎 a live tiger&#xA;活捉 capture alive&#xA;活字典 a walking dictionary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;着&lt;/strong&gt; durative aspectual particle,动态（时态）助词，表示动作还在持续,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;活着&lt;/strong&gt; I&#xA;[live] 度过生活&#xA;我只为科学而活着, 也只关心科学&#xA;II&#xA;(1) [alive; living]∶有生命; 非死状态&#xA;他站在死去的和活着的人们之间&#xA;(2) [surviving]∶仍然有生命, 仍然没死&#xA;我青年时期一个仍然活着的朋友&#xA;it might seem therefore that 尚活 could mean &quot;still alive, living&quot; cf. 尚病,年岁尚小,尚未死，but in fact 尚活 always seems to be followed by 着, web shows exceptions LOFALi爱尚活的微博_微博,尚活族  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T20:12:09.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34029" CreationDate="2019-05-24T04:21:38.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;蚝油炒西兰花。“蚝油” is some sort of oil which is made from oyster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T04:21:38.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34021" CreationDate="2019-05-24T04:33:15.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think “white-eyed terror” is a good translation. &quot;ungrateful terror&quot; is better here. we use 白眼狼 to describe someone who is not grateful in China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T04:33:15.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34040" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-24T06:03:16.457" Score="1" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the album art for Twins' first album (我們的紀念冊), 紀 and 冊 are written as simplified characters. What's the reason for this (aside from artistic ones), and would people notice this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the album art in question:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pRSLN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pRSLN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;我們的紀念冊 by Twins&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Found another mixed script album art (雙生兒). This does not look like sloppy font to me...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LFARs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LFARs.png&quot; alt=&quot;雙生兒 by Twins&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22079" LastEditorUserId="22079" LastEditDate="2019-05-31T08:01:58.040" LastActivityDate="2019-05-31T08:01:58.040" Title="Mixed Simplified-Traditional script on Twins' album cover - why?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34041" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34045" CreationDate="2019-05-24T08:25:16.507" Score="0" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;举案齐眉 - 汉英大词典&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A wife lifts the tray to a level with her eyebrows to show great&#xA;  respect for her husband&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any shorter translations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Why do people still admire such kind of marriage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-05-28T13:43:32.513" Title="A shorter translation of 举案齐眉" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34042" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-24T08:46:27.120" Score="0" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &quot;高兴/地/说&quot;, is 高兴 an adjective or an adverb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following link is a document on &quot;Part-Of-Speech Tagging Guidelines for the&#xA;Penn Chinese Treebank (3.0)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&amp;amp;context=ircs_reports&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&amp;amp;context=ircs_reports&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese Treebank 8.0 data can be downloaded from &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wakespace.lib.wfu.edu/bitstream/handle/10339/39379/LDC2013T21.tgz?sequence=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://wakespace.lib.wfu.edu/bitstream/handle/10339/39379/LDC2013T21.tgz?sequence=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am building a Chinese part-of-speech tagger model using the Ontonotes corpus, which contains Penn Chinese Treebank data. After reviewing many of the annotated sentences, I fail to understand the annotation of many 'VA' adjectives that precede (的/地(DEV) verb(VV)). I processed the annotated sentences into a file, and by regular expression I found that words in this case are twice more likely to be annotated as VA than to be annotated as AD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my impression, regarding &quot;XXX 地 verb&quot;, XXX is always an adverb. But in the corpus, hundreds of cases like this are annotated as an adjective, like &quot;可以/VV/O 轻易/&lt;strong&gt;VA&lt;/strong&gt;/O 地/DEV/O 改变/VV/O&quot;, ..., etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See page 14 of the document. 高兴 seems to be an adverb (AD) instead of an adjective (VA). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zXneB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zXneB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are the words like this annotated as VA instead of AD? How to tell whether words of this case should be annotated as VA, JJ, or AD ? Or are the part-of-speech tags of the words really correctly annotated in the Chinese Treebank data?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15481" LastActivityDate="2020-06-28T06:54:50.653" Title="Part-of-speech problems about adjectives or adverbs preceding 地" Tags="&lt;adverbs&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34042" CreationDate="2019-05-24T09:01:05.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;依照英汉词典的规律，happy被翻译成&amp;quot;高兴的&amp;quot;，happily被翻译成&amp;quot;高兴地&amp;quot;。&#xA;所以单独看&amp;quot;高兴&amp;quot;，不能判断其是形容词还是副词。而应该是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;高兴的&amp;quot;是形容词&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;高兴地&amp;quot;是副词&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T09:01:05.713" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34041" CreationDate="2019-05-24T09:22:55.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;举案齐眉 &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%BE%E6%A1%88%E9%BD%90%E7%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%BE%E6%A1%88%E9%BD%90%E7%9C%89&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是指送饭时把托盘举得跟眉毛一样高。&lt;strong&gt;形容夫妻间互相敬重&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Describe the mutual respect between husband and wife&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The act of 举案齐眉 indicates the married couple treating each other respectfully and pleasantly as treating a guest,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another idiom 相敬如宾 (mutually respect each other like a guest) stated it even more clearly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The literal translation of 举案齐眉 and 相敬如宾 are different, but the metaphorical meanings are the same, therefore, you can translate both idioms as: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;mutually respect&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (between husband and wife) or more descriptively: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;having a harmonious relationship&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (in marriage)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夫妻倆三十年來举案齐眉，相敬如宾 (In the past 30 years, husband and wife show great respect to each other, having a harmonious relationship)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the problem in long marriage is losing respect between spouses. Taking the relationship for granted, they forgot their spouse is still an individual being who expectes to be treated politely and respectfully. You still need to say thank you to your wife when she put your dinner in front of you. you still need to respect your husband's opinion even it is an idiotic one and not laugh at him. Just like you wouldn't do that to an important guest (you can still disagree and debate with him politely)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-28T13:43:32.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34046" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-24T09:23:56.713" Score="5" ViewCount="1242" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw two versions of a sentence &quot;He is a teacher&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他是老师。 VS 他是一个老师。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After googling I've become even more confused by versions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他是一位老师。 AND 他是一名老师。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they actually different? What is the difference? Is it possible to use these ‘一什么什么’ in questions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Found one more version:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他是个老师。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is said to be informal &lt;a href=&quot;https://hinative.com/en-US/questions/7371037&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;at this link&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2019-05-24T11:47:16.300" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T23:34:09.887" Title="How does 一个， 一位，一名 change the meaning of a sentence?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34047" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34049" CreationDate="2019-05-24T09:59:12.270" Score="1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a translation of &quot;无效&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that mean &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;incorrect&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22080" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T05:59:59.440" Title="Translation for 无效" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34047" CreationDate="2019-05-24T10:05:25.960" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'invalid' should be a more proper one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22081" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T10:05:25.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34047" CreationDate="2019-05-24T10:28:44.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;无效  can mean 'invalid' or &quot;ineffectual/ unsuccessful&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;球在哨响后才入球笼门，因此无效 - The ball was kicked in after the whistle, therefore, the goal is invalid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;化疗电疗均告无效 - Both chemotherapy and electrotherapy have been ineffectual&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抢救无效，病人当场死亡 - The emergency rescue effort was unsuccessful, the patient died on the spot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-05-27T05:59:59.440" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T05:59:59.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34046" CreationDate="2019-05-24T10:38:38.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Concerning your two example sentences, I believe that the difference is a matter of respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;名 : a person or a member of a group &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;位 : a person (showing respect)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from that there should not be any difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/Grammar%20exercises/Measure%20words.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/Grammar%20exercises/Measure%20words.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21363" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T10:38:38.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34051" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34059" CreationDate="2019-05-24T13:35:06.840" Score="-1" ViewCount="46" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have to create a website for China, and i have a sentence to translate which is : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please fill the code shown&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This message is followed by a Captcha Code. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for help guys.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22080" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T23:47:01.067" Title="How can i translate &quot;Please fill the code shown&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-05-25T03:10:10.597" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34051" CreationDate="2019-05-24T18:22:13.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Traditional Chinese Version:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;請在這裡填寫顯示的代碼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simplified Chinese Version:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;请在这里填写显示的代码&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22086" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T18:22:13.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9469" CreationDate="2019-05-24T20:54:09.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There is some correlation of happiness, passion and faster pace in other languages too.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Italian, the word allegro both denotes cheerful and also the brisk paced music style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Latin, the word alacer (from which allegro came from), means exactly both happy and fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English also cheer means both to become happy or when a crowd starts moving in a positive attitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess that it is just normal that natural languages observe a correlation with livid movements and happiness as opposed to a depressed, quiet mood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21938" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T20:54:09.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9469" CreationDate="2019-05-24T23:37:51.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;because the happy time always felt short like the time is running fast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T23:37:51.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34041" CreationDate="2019-05-24T23:43:59.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;now our new generation of chinses people just use it to describe a couple who have a very good relation,which means they do not wrangle and always admire each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T23:43:59.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34051" CreationDate="2019-05-24T23:47:01.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;请填写验证码。if the blank is on the left of the code.请填写右侧验证码 would be better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T23:47:01.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34035" CreationDate="2019-05-24T23:51:12.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;literally,尚活 works.is it right to express &lt;em&gt;you can use it that way&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15909" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T23:51:12.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34035" CreationDate="2019-05-25T01:14:10.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good way to see how a word is used is to search it in Google &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E5%B0%9A%E6%B4%BB%22&amp;amp;tbm=nws&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwiO_I_qvbXiAhUGKY8KHUvdCj0Q_AUICigB&amp;amp;biw=1280&amp;amp;bih=672&amp;amp;dpr=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;news&lt;/a&gt;. There are examples of 尚活着:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;復星集團是中國併購4大天團中，&lt;strong&gt;尚活著&lt;/strong&gt;好好的唯一一家。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;它是國家與社會，個體互動下，&lt;strong&gt;尚活著&lt;/strong&gt;的一份證據。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「俄羅斯媒體錯誤報導，霍洛斯托夫斯基尚活著且在家休養。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also examples of 尚活 by itself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每次我看到這一幕時，總不禁會想起來，如今尚活在藍軍裏頭的那些曾經服務於警總單位的「老伯伯老奶奶」們，真是情何以堪！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有關高砂義勇隊的戰歿及生還人數，以及至今究竟有多少人尚活在世上，不僅有不同說法，也還有種種猜測。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;AppWorks 創辦人林之晨提到，至今尚活耀於市場的新創團隊所有企業年營業額加總有19 億美金&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;雲南省一名孫姓黑道份子， 1998 年遭到法院判處死刑， 20 年後尚活在人世間不說，還搖身一變成為夜店大亨在外趴趴走。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T01:14:10.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34062" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-25T01:58:24.423" Score="4" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background:&lt;/strong&gt; Jutland is the peninsula which makes up part of Denmark, and it was the site of the WWI Battle of Jutland (which is one of the main reasons &quot;Jutland&quot; would be written about at all in other languages). In Danish, it's pronounced &lt;code&gt;ˈjylanˀ&lt;/code&gt;, and in German, it's pronounced &lt;code&gt;ˈjyːtlant&lt;/code&gt;. That is, it starts with a &quot;y&quot; sound, and in German (the language of one of the participants of the battle), it retains the &quot;t&quot; sound as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Choice of 日?:&lt;/strong&gt; So if it starts with a &quot;y&quot; sound, why was 日 chosen to transliterate the first syllable? In Mandarin, this is a poor fit. However, in Cantonese, it is pronouned &lt;code&gt;jat6&lt;/code&gt; (where &quot;j&quot; is, like in German, a &quot;y&quot; sound). This doesn't fully resolve the mystery though--the 德 in Cantonese is &lt;code&gt;dak1&lt;/code&gt;, which is a &lt;em&gt;worse&lt;/em&gt; fit than the Manadarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When was Jutland first written as 日德兰? What dialect was being used to make this transliteration?*&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T07:26:52.663" Title="Why was Jutland transliterated as 日德兰?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34063" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34084" CreationDate="2019-05-25T02:16:41.420" Score="1" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've gone through these dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ABC Cantonese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;广州话方言词典&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;广州话-普通话词典&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CCCanto&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Words.HK&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and they all seem to be very &lt;em&gt;Yuehai&lt;/em&gt; (粵海).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How limited is it to only base a Cantonese dictionary on the Yuehai topolect?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first question that comes to mind is &lt;em&gt;pronunciation&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of the above dictionaries seem to do a weak job of Yuehai pronunciation to being with. For instance 屋 is only listed with &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; pronunciation in each of the dictionaries: &lt;code&gt;uk1&lt;/code&gt; in ABC Cantonese and Words.HK &amp;amp;&amp;amp; &lt;code&gt;nguk1&lt;/code&gt; in《广州话方言词典》and《广州话-普通话词典》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more comprehensive dictionary would, presumably, list both pronunciations perhaps differentiating between 老派 and 新派 pronunciations. But, this is all without getting into different pronunciations in different locales. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second question that comes to mind is vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many different branches of Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yong-Xun&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qin-Lian&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Goulou&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Siyi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gao-Yang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wu-Hua&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the &lt;em&gt;majority&lt;/em&gt; of vocabulary might be very similar throughout the different branches of Cantonese, there would still be tons of words and phrases that would be neglected in a simple Yuehai-based Cantonese dictionary, no?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m not an expert, I do have an inkling, but I’d like to know what people more versed in the subject than I am think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-05-25T02:25:26.507" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T14:34:21.783" Title="How limited are Cantonese dictionaries?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34062" CreationDate="2019-05-25T03:01:36.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;日 in Jyutping (Cantonese pinyin) is  [jat6] which sounds similar to 'Ju' in &quot;Jutland&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德 in Jyutping is  [dak1]  which sounds similar to 'tl'  in &quot;Jutland&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 兰 is the common transliteration in both Cantonese and Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T03:01:36.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34062" CreationDate="2019-05-25T05:43:48.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Q: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/755916342190025324.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中日德兰是怎么翻译&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   英文是midtjyland,应该翻译成米迪兰，也差不多了，为什么会翻译成中日德兰，感觉好恶心，把中日扯上关系，是否因为历史原因，那里中国，日本，德国，荷兰，四国人都差不多人口，一起生活，还是四国的经济实力都差不多在那里地区。如果不是这些问题，翻译成这样简直恶心，哗众取宠。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A:  这是二战时期中方学者的翻译吧，德语Jütland半岛。当时的知识分子很多自带粤语闽南语口音，那时的很多翻译现在看真是哭笑不得。像这种翻译一看就是不规范的，mid作为地名不建议翻成“中”，比如米德尔斯堡Middlesbrough 。又比如Newcastle纽卡斯尔，就不宜翻成“新堡”，而可笑的是，New Zealand居然又翻成新西兰，New York怎么又不敢翻成“新约克”？所以中方的翻译问题太多，一是规范形同虚设，而是译者自己的外文水平不敢恭维，一旦错译又约定俗成以讹传讹了，比如很多法语葡语的翻译笑料。midtyland准确的音译应该是米居兰。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Baidu Zhidao answer suggests Cantonese or Min Nan. Again, there are many variations of Cantonese and Min, how the individual characters were pronounced in the topolect that the translator who transliterated this spoke, we'll probably never know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-05-25T06:04:28.757" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T06:04:28.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34066" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-25T09:00:04.183" Score="0" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thouhgt about posting here twice as I know rules do not allow for users to simply ask for translations. But after a few efforst in trying to translate it myself, I decided to ask for your kind help.&#xA;The phrase that i would like to translate is here below. Does it mean &quot;I am generous. Kim.&quot;? Or is there anything I am missing out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睇下我嘅. Kim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22088" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T14:02:30.343" Title="Help with Cantonese correct translation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34023" CreationDate="2019-05-25T10:20:48.803" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When &quot;主管&quot; is used as a noun, it is usually a title for a position in a private company, who is in charge of a department, e.g., &quot;人事部门主管&quot;.  It is a very general word, sometimes informal.  But if there are &quot;主管&quot; and &quot;主任&quot; in the same company, then often &quot;主管&quot; is of higher position, but not necessarily. I seldom see in the press that &quot;主管&quot; is used as a noun to describe an government officer or nation-owner company because  basically they often have more formal titles, which can be &quot;主任&quot; when he or she is the leader of a &quot;中心&quot; or &quot;办公室&quot;, and for department X=科/处/局/厅/部/乡/镇/县/区/市/省 is &quot;X长&quot;, basically, e.g, &quot;信息化与网络中心主任&quot;, &quot;劳动局局长&quot;.  It is safe to say &quot;政府各部门主管&quot; （leaders of departments of the government）, but in mainland it is often as &quot;政府各部门领导同志&quot;.  However, it may be used as a verb to describe a government officer, e.g., &quot;陈副市长主管教育。&quot;（Vice Mayer Chen is in charge of educational affairs.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe &quot;主任&quot; is seldom used as a verb.  It is mainly used as a noun, which is title of the chief officer of &quot;中心&quot; or &quot;办公室&quot;, sometimes &quot;委员会&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The interesting part is, &quot;主任&quot; is not necessarily a leader, but only a high-end professional.  &quot;王主任&quot; can often mean an experienced doctor (Physician, surgeon , dentist ...) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 主管 and 主任, who is more powerful?  In a private company, &quot;主管&quot; can be in a higher position, but it varies with companies.  But when the 主任 is of government or who works for government, his or her position varies a lot.  He or she can be &quot;街道办主任&quot;, who is an officer of not-that-high position, in charge of several blocks, or &quot;中央网络安全和信息化委员会主任&quot;, who is, well, President Xi Jinping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4028" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T10:20:48.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34066" CreationDate="2019-05-25T10:21:43.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;睇下我嘅 means &quot;look at mine.&quot; or &quot;look at my (something).&quot; depends on what they're doing. &#xA;睇 means &quot;look&quot; .  下is a empty word. 我means me or I. 我嘅 means my or mine.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T10:21:43.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34019" CreationDate="2019-05-25T10:57:10.873" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an important difference when you actually say these two sentences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你是中国人吗？&quot;  means &quot;Are you a Chinese?&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Why do I ask that?  Because &quot;you&quot; behaves or looks like a Chinese, but I am not quite sure (for example, &quot;you&quot; can be a Korean or Japanese).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你是不是中国人？&quot; means &quot;Are you a Chinese or not?&quot; or &quot;Aren't you a Chinese?&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Why do I ask that?  Because &quot;you&quot; is a Chinese, but behaves or looks quite different from a normal Chinese, often in a bad way.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence is often said with an emphasis on &quot;是不是&quot; to show the emotion.  However, even you just write them down, the second one is more emotional.  In China, because of the 20th centery history, the second one sometimes has some connection with &quot;叛国&quot; (treason), please be aware of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you are talking about something less sensitive, e.g.&#xA;这是苹果吗？ vs. 这是不是苹果？  Using the first sentence unless you urge to know the answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, &quot;X不X&quot; or &quot;X不XY&quot; has stronger feeling than &quot;吗？&quot; especially &quot;X&quot; is a word with the meaning of certainty （是be有have） instead of probability（可以may）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4028" LastEditorUserId="4028" LastEditDate="2019-05-25T11:08:00.990" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T11:08:00.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34070" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-25T19:09:06.353" Score="0" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like some help determining if these names are good/appropriate/authentic for male characters in an ancient Chinese story?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(从霜)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(千秋)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(兰韵)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(清绝)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(飞流)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(花箨)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(飞瑶)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(忘机)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also like to ask for some good sources to find authentic ancient Chinese names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22090" LastEditorUserId="22090" LastEditDate="2019-05-25T20:26:09.013" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T06:03:20.553" Title="Help with names for ancient Chinese novel characters" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34066" CreationDate="2019-05-25T23:18:41.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to put the sentence in a wider context in order to find out what it really means because, as typical with any (if not all) Chinese words, they are context sensitive and will mean very different things in different situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm certain that it does NOT mean &quot;I am generous. Kim.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;睇&quot; formally means &quot;look, watch&quot;. Therefore, &quot;睇戲&quot; means watch a movie. But in its colloquial and everyday usage, &quot;睇&quot; often means looking after, protecting or taking care of. Therefore, &quot;睇下我&quot; means &quot;take care of me&quot; or &quot;do me a favor&quot;. Perhaps, someone was asking for Kim's protection?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4300" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T23:18:41.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34070" CreationDate="2019-05-26T02:03:55.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;imo, none of these “terms” are suitable for male name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;sources to find authentic ancient Chinese names&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the proper way is, refer to the four-and-twenty histories (二十四史), in which, there’re biographies (列傳)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here’s the table of content of the 列傳, from the book 後漢書:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/hou-han-shu/lie-zhuan/zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ctext.org/hou-han-shu/lie-zhuan/zh&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you may grep some names from it, and, these are authentic names of 漢 dynasty :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the second way is, read tales and notes (小說筆記). that, these books recorded numerous stories, and each story mentioned names of their characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here’s two excerpts “宋名臣言行錄” &amp;amp; “六科舊僚題名”, from the book 水東日記:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;chapter=755528&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;chapter=755528&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;chapter=491456&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;chapter=491456&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T02:03:55.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34070" CreationDate="2019-05-26T02:09:17.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mainstream names are different in different times. You may search for celebrities of ancient dynasties to grasp the trend of that time. As for your list provided, however, I don't think any of them is likely to be a name of a real person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me explain in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;主要的问题在于名称的寓意不明。不论今古，名字总要寄托命名者的期望或态度。尤以古代为看重。这里的大部分名字读来让人一头雾水，故不好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“从霜”不知所云。稍微检索一下，你就会找到“从道”，“从实”，“从古”，“从直”等名字，是不是一眼能看出其内涵？即便“霜”取高洁之意，也不是这么个用法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“千秋”就如“千古”与“百年”一样，可作人逝世的婉辞，是不适宜作名字的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“兰韵”中“兰”字确实不错，但是“韵”字实在奇怪，如果你知道“韵”本义就是“和谐的声响”，“竹韵”就是“风过竹叶发出的悦耳的声音”的话，“兰韵”这个名字就很无厘头了。或许有人说“兰韵”是想表达什么“如兰的风韵”什么的，“韵兰”才是更贴切的那个。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“清绝”。用“清”字的人确实很多，但是“绝”字就要考量考量了。“绝”的本义是“断”，所谓“断绝”是也。其引申的，形容词性的所谓“独特”等等意思，其实与“断”有很大关系。我猜想，如此起名的人很少，果然，检索后一个人也没有，至多是自号“绝学先生”罢了。另外，“清绝”搭配，不知所指。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“飞流”。这个名字不好在两个地方。一是，“飞流”可作瀑布解，李飞流？似乎还成，不过转念就是“李瀑布”，一下子就奇葩了起来。二是，“飞流”其实还可以作动词解，就是“飞行”的意思，也不好。注意这里我并非要说一个词又是名词又是动词不好，而是不论哪种，其含义在中华文明中没有什么特别的寓意。古人看到这种名字，就跟今人看到“李汽车”，“王吃饭”一样摸不着头脑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“花箨”。“花”字常为姓，在名字中确实少见。“箨”？我唯一能想起的词是“箨叶”“箨环”，都是竹子等植物上的一种保护结构。先不说花有没有“箨”，光是这两个字就足够诡异了。你仔细想想，要是有人起名，想强调花的美节，那一定会就用那种花名了，单用个“花”字，什么意思呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“飞瑶”。无效组合，不知所云。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“忘机”是这之中最正常的。也是唯一我认为可以当作“小说”中人名的。但是古代的真人恐怕难以取这个名，原因就不详述了。（但是取为字是挺不错的）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;结论：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1、古代人名须有寓意、需符合我国文化语境，不是随便拿两个好听、美义的字就可以用的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2、小说人名不同于真实人名。小说人名是作者赋予，能用以暗示其性情、褒贬乃至命运，是决定论的东西，小说人物也没办法反抗作者。而那些名字中的许多，真人是不会取的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T02:09:17.367" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34074" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34077" CreationDate="2019-05-26T06:37:17.447" Score="1" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apologies if the title isn't clear, I'm not sure how to express this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to establish roughly how many words a Classical Chinese text results in, once translated into English. Classical Chinese being an extremely concise language, I imagine a translation into English should render at least twice as many words--but is there an approximation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if I take the first sentence of the classical Chinese-language Wikipedia entry for &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh-classical.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%87%E8%A8%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Classical Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&quot; (&quot;文言&quot;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;文言者，華夏、四裔所以書其言，而述志表情也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A fairly liberal English translation (my own) might render this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Classical Chinese is how China and [its] frontier lands wrote their&#xA;  language, stated their ideals, and expressed their feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This yields a Classical Chinese to English word count ratio of nearly 1:1 (here, it's 18:19), which is suspect, in that the brevity of the former is underrepresented; I'd expect something closer to 1:2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a stretch, everything after the last comma in the original sentence could be translated simply as &quot;and expressed themselves&quot;, giving a ratio of 6:5, which is absurd, because any beginning student of Classical Chinese knows that it isn't wordier than English!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it doesn't strike me as meaningful to attempt to generate a heuristic from a sole example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a rule of thumb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22094" LastEditorUserId="22094" LastEditDate="2019-05-26T06:44:17.380" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T10:06:31.170" Title="Word count in Classical Chinese vs English" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34062" CreationDate="2019-05-26T07:26:52.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;my best guess is that it's transliterated from jutland in british english, according to cantonese. here's the rationale:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the earliest book mentioned jutland in chinese, is &amp;quot;海國圖志&amp;quot; by 魏源, which was published in 1843. in its preface, mr 魏 stated that his book is derived from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Zexu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;林則徐&lt;/a&gt;'s translation of a foreign book &amp;quot;四洲志&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/02087119.cn/page/n44&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;海國圖志&amp;quot; volume 58, page 44-66&lt;/a&gt;, the entry of &amp;quot;嗹國&amp;quot; (the old name of denmark in chinese) stated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東有三島．曰臘蘭．曰府領．曰西蘭 (p45)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lolland --&amp;gt; 臘蘭, funen --&amp;gt; 府領, zealand --&amp;gt; 西蘭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;imo, cantonese perfectly transliterated the british english, in the translation of 府領 &amp;amp; 西蘭.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西蘭島之戈西哈林．即國都也 (p45)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即都城．一作可品哈音．一作哥卑納給 (p47)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;copenhagen --&amp;gt; 戈西哈林, 哥卑納給&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;københavn --&amp;gt; 可品哈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, 可品哈 in cantonese is, perfect match of danish &amp;quot;københavn&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隔海西北為人德蘭部 (p47)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人德蘭東北西俱海 (p48)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jutland, initially is transliterated as &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;人德蘭&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一入德蘭部．一石勒蘇益克部．一科爾斯德音部．一勞英不爾厄部 (p61)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i suspected &amp;quot;入&amp;quot; is a typo error of &amp;quot;人&amp;quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in another book &amp;quot;瀛寰志略&amp;quot; by 徐繼畬, printed in 1848; the entry &amp;quot;denmark&amp;quot; is in &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/02087085.cn/page/n72&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;volume 4, p73-79&lt;/a&gt;, jutland was also translated as &amp;quot;人德蘭&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;極北曰人德蘭．地極廣莫．多沙磧 (p76)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人德蘭之東南．有大島曰非俄尼亞 (p77)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q1vNV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q1vNV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;back to the question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When was Jutland first written as 日德兰? What dialect was being used to make this transliteration?*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i think cantonese was used. compare &amp;quot;府領&amp;quot; to funnel, &amp;quot;西蘭&amp;quot; to zealand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the time, it must be later than 1848.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;prior to these two books, info of europe countries were rare, and brief. so, jutland in chinese, was first introduced in 1843, by mr 林.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, why 人德蘭 changed to 日德蘭?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, using the character &amp;quot;人&amp;quot; in places name is, very awkward . e.g. &amp;quot;people of jutland&amp;quot;, it would become &amp;quot;人德蘭人&amp;quot;. most likely, someone thought the same, then changed it from 人 (yan4, low level tone) to 日 (yat6, low entering tone) such change preserved the low tone and the phoneme /a/.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just to remind, such is my &lt;strong&gt;guess&lt;/strong&gt; only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T07:26:52.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34074" CreationDate="2019-05-26T08:52:54.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;have a look of this topic: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/34074/word-count-in-classical-chinese-vs-english&quot;&gt;Word count in Classical Chinese vs English&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now, be calm; please. the quoted wikipedia entry is, imo, unacceptable, in classical / literary chinese. so, your translation and comparison is, invalid. remember:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;garbage in, garbage out&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i assumed your understand the difference between classical chinese and literary chinese. the internet archive have books printed in chinese and english; that you might do a empirical research.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/fourbooksgreatle00confuoft/page/n6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;華英對照四書&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/zhushijiaozhengh00legg/page/n6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;註釋校正華英四書&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;james legge's english translation is quite good, you can depend on it. e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孟子　盡心上 chapter 6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;孟子曰．人不可以無恥．無恥之恥．無恥矣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mencius said, &quot;a man may not be without shame. when one is ashamed of having been without shame, he will afterwards not have occasion for shame.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;16&lt;/strong&gt; chinese words vs &lt;strong&gt;26&lt;/strong&gt; english words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孟子　盡心上 chapter 7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;孟子曰．恥之於人大矣．為機變之巧者．無所用恥焉．不恥不若人．何若人有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mencius said, &quot;the sense of shame is to a man of great importance.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;those who form contrivances and versatile schemes distinguished for their artfulness, do not allow their sense of shame to come into action.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;when one differs from other men in not having this sense of shame, what will he have in common with them?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;30&lt;/strong&gt; chinese words vs &lt;strong&gt;56&lt;/strong&gt; english words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gFnUs.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gFnUs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a rule of thumb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no. i don't think so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps, just curious, where and why students need to learn classical chinese in english?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2019-05-27T10:06:31.170" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T10:06:31.170" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34040" CreationDate="2019-05-26T19:58:48.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess the two words that written in simplified Chinese because maybe this album is for simplified Chinese users. Also, the two words &quot;紀&quot; and &quot;冊&quot;, are difficult for simplified Chinese users to understand the meaning. I'm not sure either, sorry. But it's so weird that contain both traditional and simplified Chinese characters. Idk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22086" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T19:58:48.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34040" CreationDate="2019-05-27T01:16:19.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of &quot;Simplified&quot; characters existed as short-hand forms of Chinese characters long before the &quot;simplification&quot; of the written language in the PRC. Conversely, the PRC hasn't given up &quot;traditional&quot; characters completely. I wouldn't be surprised to see some mixing here and there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21935" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T01:16:19.180" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34070" CreationDate="2019-05-27T05:51:21.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The list below are all nonsensical&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(从霜)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(千秋)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(兰韵)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(清绝)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(飞流)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(花箨)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(飞瑶)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(忘机)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me try to make them more sensible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(韩霜) - sounds the same as 寒霜 (cold frost)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(千秋) eon (This one is actually not bad for a fictional name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(万鈞) tremendous power&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(绝清) absolutely clear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(飞川) extremely fast river&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(憐花) tender to flower (lady) - sounds the same as 蓮花 (lotus flower)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(飞瑶) no help for this one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(忘紀) sounds the same as 忘己 (forget oneself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make up Chinese names for fictional characters, you can reference actual Chinese novels (also read Toosky Hierot's post for tips)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T05:51:21.667" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34081" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-27T10:11:24.300" Score="2" ViewCount="1171" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 害怕 only used in the literal sense of &quot;be afraid of, be scared&quot;, meaning &quot;to be afraid of snakes&quot;, etc. and 恐怕, on the other Hand, for abstract worries? and can 怕 be used in both senses? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19266" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T15:19:34.677" Title="What is the difference between 怕，害怕 and 恐怕" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34081" CreationDate="2019-05-27T12:37:03.847" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The context in which I would use 恐怕 is something similar to &quot;I'm worried this  might be the case&quot;. I'd say it is used to describe a predicition or extrapolation, sometimes can be translated to be just &quot;probably&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這池恐怕有三公尺深 :　 The pool here is probably 3 meter deep (and that worries me)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我恐怕會被留校 : I guess I'm going to be in detention&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怕 alone can be translated to &quot;be afraid of&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我怕蛇 : I am afriad of snakes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我怕高 : I am afraid of height&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... or &quot;be weak against / be bad at&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我怕燙 : I'm weak against hot (food/drink)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我怕冷 : I'm weak against cold (weather)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... or &quot;being a chicken and not willing to face it&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;害怕 is more of a mental state and perhaps less of a verb. If it is, it's probably a intranstive verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我對這裡的交通感到害怕 : I feel scared by the traffic here&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這電影院令人害怕 : The movie theather make me scared&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of &quot;害&quot; usually implies &quot;bad effect&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now... there could be use cases in which 害怕 and 恐怕 are shortend to be just 怕. In this sense, perhaps 怕 is more abstract than the other two. In summary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;區別的方法只怕很難說明 : Describing how to disambiguate is probably going to be difficult.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;:-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4036" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T12:37:03.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34081" CreationDate="2019-05-27T15:19:34.677" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;online dictionaries have the answer (note example phrases): bkrs: &lt;strong&gt;怕&lt;/strong&gt;：动&#xA;（害怕; 畏惧） fear; dread; be afraid of:不怕疲劳&lt;br&gt;&#xA;不怕任何困难  怕得要命  狼特别怕火  没有什么可怕的。&#xA;（担心） be afraid of; have a fear of; for fear; fear lest:她怕把孩子吵醒 我怕打扰你而没有来拜访你  &lt;strong&gt;副&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;（也许，表示估计） I'm afraid; I suppose; perhaps:会议怕要延期了 事情怕不这么简单&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;害怕&lt;/strong&gt;to be afraid to be scared 因遇到危险、困难而畏惧或发慌。害怕得要命 她不再害怕他们会误解她了 &#xA;这小女孩非常害怕打雷 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;恐怕&lt;/strong&gt;(1) [I'm afraid]∶表示估计并担心&#xA;我恐怕迟到了 恐怕不成。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(2) [perhaps; maybe]∶表示估计, 相当于&quot;大概&quot;、 &quot;也许&quot;&#xA;天气那么热, 恐怕就要下雨了 他们恐怕需要我们的帮助 恐怕他是忘了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;much more including English at bkrs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T15:19:34.677" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34063" CreationDate="2019-05-28T11:15:32.507" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what you mean by &quot;Cantonese&quot;. The practical definition &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; Yuehai Yue, from Guangzhou down to Hong Kong and Macau.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any dictionary will be limited. From a purely practical point of view, the scope of the lexicographer's project must be in some way worth the resource put in. Hence dictionaries limit their scope quite significantly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice for Cantonese then, most dictionaries [as pointed out above] specify not 廣東話 but specifically 廣州話 - the bias towards the Yuehai 粵海 region is made explicitly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;The Dominance of the Yuehai Prestige Dialect&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is (in essence) one of the definitions of a prestige dialect, and the Cantonese as spoken in Guangzhou 廣州 has always been the leading example of the Yue 粵語 branch of Chinese. The fact that people originating from Guangdong 廣東 and Guangxi 廣西 provinces were already using the speech of Guangzhou 廣州 as their lingua franca gave it a prestige (the province was divided into two in the late Song dynasty). This meant in the early Repulican period, a Teochew 潮州話 speaker, a Hakka 客家話 speaker and possibly a Hmong speaker would have used 廣州話 as their lingua franca, even if they were doing business in Nanning 南寧 in Guangxi. Across the Sinosphere of SE Asia, the older term 廣府話 became standard across both Yue and Min speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rising prestige of Hong Kong 香港 through the 20th century only reinforced the trend of Yuehai dominance. The Yue-speaking diaspora throughout the world had already adopted the speech of Guangzhou 廣州話 by the mid 20th century (the largest Yue-speaking group that didn't do so was the Taishan [Toisan/Hoisan] 台山 group in California), and with a greater influx from HK into the diaspora, the strength of the Yuehai group of Cantonese increased within the Cantonese community overseas, even as Mandarin made strong inroads in Cantonese speaking territories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;On the other Yue varieties&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, any interest in the other Yue varieties would be documented, not by mainstream dictionaries, but fairly specialised linguist's dictionaries and papers. The dialect of Bobai 博白, Guangxi Province, is well known for having one of the largest tone inventories in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The divergence and diversity with Yue should not be underestimated. The perception as just a &quot;rougher version&quot; (lit.: 鄉音 village sound) of (Guangzhou / Yuehai) Cantonese is broadly untrue. Everything from tones, sound system, [synchronic] sound changes, even some grammatical constructions as well as vocbulary can be different. Hence you are right to say that a lot of words would not be found in a mainstream Cantonese dictionary. But we would need a few more dictionaries to made before this can be quantified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the most salient and well documented examples is &lt;a href=&quot;http://taishanese.blogspot.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Toisanese&lt;/a&gt;, which maintains the Middle Chinese distinction between alveolar and palatal/retroflex sibilants, but recasts it as a /ɬ/ vs /s/ distinction, and has a toneme for making the plural pronouns (我 /ŋɔɪ˧/ for &quot;I&quot; to 哦 /ŋɔɪ˨˩/ for &quot;we&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Dictionary_of_Modern_Chinese_Dialects&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;現代漢語方言大詞典&lt;/a&gt;, only two Yue varieties are represented: Guangzhou (of course) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/7218091636&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dongguan&lt;/a&gt;. Wiktionary has &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Taishanese_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some support for Toisanese&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2019-05-29T14:34:21.783" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T14:34:21.783" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34085" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-28T12:24:27.723" Score="-4" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rdLvk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rdLvk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Notes under a mouse&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kindly help me translate these notes under a mouse :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22065" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T05:35:05.123" Title="Need Help to Translate Please" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-05-29T07:49:03.183" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34086" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34087" CreationDate="2019-05-28T21:17:38.353" Score="4" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;What meaning of 將 applies?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Origin&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 孟子there is a sentence where he describes various failings to the king (such as war preparations) and goes on to ask, whether his majesty delights in such. And then the king denies it and says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;將以求吾所大欲也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;將 has an incredibly long list of meanings. Is the meaning here 做、施行 (as in 草率將事)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in other words, would the following be a straight forward translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do (those things) to seek what I greatly desire!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The passage on &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han?searchu=How%20far&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ctext&lt;/a&gt;:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ijok1.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ijok1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T00:09:36.047" Title="將以求吾所大欲也 meaning of 將" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34086" CreationDate="2019-05-29T02:17:20.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;i would interpret 將 in that sentence as &amp;quot;in near future&amp;quot; (即將).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抑王興甲兵．危士臣．構怨於諸侯．然後快於心與&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王曰．否．吾何快於是．將以求吾所大欲也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mencius challenged 齊宣王, said &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; (抑), your majestic (王) increases (興) armours (甲) and soldier (兵), [puts] your officials (士臣) in risk (危), makes up (構) enmities (怨) amongst (於) dukes (諸侯). and then (然後) [you'll be] cheerful (快) in (於) [your] heart (心)?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;his majestic (王) said (曰) &amp;quot;no (否). how come (何) i (吾) [would be] cheerful (快) for (於) these (是)? in near future (將), [these policies are] for (以) seeking (求) my (吾) greatest desire (大欲)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;your translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do (those things) to seek what I greatly desire!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;quite good, as a shortcut :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;info added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, 齊宣王's greatest desire is in the following text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;id=12913&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;id=12913&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;. . . 欲辟土地．朝秦楚．莅中國而撫四夷也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[your] desire (欲) [is]: open up (辟 --&amp;gt; 開闢) [more] land (土地), [have representatives] in the court (朝 --&amp;gt; 朝廷), from the nation of 秦 and 楚, administrated (莅 --&amp;gt; 蒞) the china (中國), and (而) soothe (撫) all surrounding barbarians (四夷).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at that time (bc 319-301), 齊 is a small nation in 山東半島. then, &amp;quot;中國&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;關中平原&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T03:15:27.783" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34085" CreationDate="2019-05-29T05:35:05.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tuesday night:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fry two chicken legs (add a few drops of oyster sauce)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Egg fried rice&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;10 beef balls&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22106" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T05:35:05.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34089" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34097" CreationDate="2019-05-29T08:26:06.530" Score="3" ViewCount="478" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the following passage in &lt;em&gt;Press-Ganging Able-Bodied Men&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iJCaG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iJCaG.png&quot; alt=&quot;p&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the text for reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;王保长&lt;/strong&gt;（笑）这个事情还是我替你办了就是。我先放出个谣言去，说芋子娃在前方打死毬了；再找个人把她的娃娃拐到外县去卖了他，断了她的这几门想法；然后请莫仙娘去劝她一下，那就保险……成功。（作态）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe I'm just a yokel, but I don't believe that I've &lt;em&gt;ever&lt;/em&gt; seen a semi-colon used in Chinese texts before. I also don't know if this is how the original text was written or if it is just how the publishers of this edition decided to treat the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct usage?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When are semi-colons used in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T05:19:22.467" Title="When are semi-colons used in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34040" CreationDate="2019-05-29T08:35:35.370" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's just a mistake of staff here. Maybe they used a wrong glyph but didn't find that.&#xA;As @K Man said, sometimes, people can't distinguish Simplified and Traditional exactly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17846" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T08:35:35.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34091" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34124" CreationDate="2019-05-29T11:12:12.003" Score="3" ViewCount="348" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am hoping to find some resources (hopefully open-source) that allow to type similar to style expected from Chinese students in mainland/Taiwan/Hong Kong schools. If anyone knows Japanese kyōkasho tai fonts as well, they would also be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20076" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T05:22:40.033" Title="Are there any fonts imitating the correct handwritten forms for Chinese students?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9469" CreationDate="2019-05-29T13:52:31.297" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;when 快 exist alone it means fast&#xA;when it bundles with 乐（happy) like 快乐 it meaning happyness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22109" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T13:52:31.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34094" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34099" CreationDate="2019-05-29T14:13:08.017" Score="2" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does &quot;免费&quot; mean &quot;free&quot; when we are talking about price? Or is it like &quot;freedom&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22080" LastEditorUserId="20826" LastEditDate="2019-05-31T09:45:31.803" LastActivityDate="2019-05-31T09:45:31.803" Title="Does &quot;免费&quot; mean &quot;free&quot; in terms of price?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34094" CreationDate="2019-05-29T14:51:10.967" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's &quot;Free&quot;. It's not like &quot;Freedom&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21012" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T14:51:10.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34094" CreationDate="2019-05-29T15:25:08.130" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%85%8D%E8%B2%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;免费&quot;&lt;/a&gt; is &quot;free&quot; in terms of price.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;免&quot; means &quot;exempt&quot;; &quot;费&quot; means &quot;costs&quot; or &quot;fees&quot;. &quot;Exempt from costs&quot; = &quot;free&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%87%AA%E7%94%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;自由&quot;&lt;/a&gt; is &quot;free&quot; as in freedom/liberty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastEditorUserId="20826" LastEditDate="2019-05-29T15:30:22.153" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T15:30:22.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34089" CreationDate="2019-05-30T03:13:24.153" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is less common, but you will find semicolons used every once in while in Chinese text. The way of using it in Chinese is similar to English, where a comma is not enough but a period is too divisive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good example is 开心，就开怀大笑；伤心，就掩脸痛哭。&#xA;A comma in between 大笑 and 伤心 would be odd, and a period would fail to show  that the two phrases are related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The semicolons work for the excerpt from &lt;em&gt;Press-Ganging Able-Bodied Men&lt;/em&gt;, because it separates the three steps of how the person would 替你办事. An alternative would be to write out 第一、第二、第三, but then it would be less concise and fluid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22100" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T03:13:24.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34098" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-30T03:56:53.513" Score="0" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to find out what these symbols mean so I can find an approximate age. I have no experience with Chinese symbols any help would be really appreciated.  Thank you. &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1lxm7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22112" LastEditorUserId="22112" LastEditDate="2019-05-30T05:12:58.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-31T07:04:38.130" Title="Chinese inscription teapot" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34094" CreationDate="2019-05-30T05:07:34.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;免费&quot; means &quot;free of charge&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;免&quot; means &quot;exempt&quot; or &quot;no&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;费&quot; means &quot;costs&quot; or &quot;fees&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;smoke free&quot; or &quot;smoking-free&quot; means &quot;不可吸烟&quot;, &quot;无烟区&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T05:07:34.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34089" CreationDate="2019-05-30T05:19:22.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Semicolon is common to see in Chinese literature. Its meaning is similar to English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T05:19:22.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5796" CreationDate="2019-05-30T06:26:47.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;See Lai is usually used in a negative light and is cantonese slang. When you use see lai, you are implying that you don't respect the person (who is female), either by making fun of their age, looks or intelligence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to address someone's wife, you should use tai tai （太太）or lou po （老婆）. If you want to speak to a female who you don't know their name, use siu jie （小姐）which translates to &quot;Miss&quot;, which is more polite and likely to flatter them if they are quite old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22114" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T06:26:47.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34098" CreationDate="2019-05-30T06:46:47.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only see that they are traditional Chinese characters. the first one is &quot;鉄&quot;， it means &quot;iron&quot;, a kind of metal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your photo is not clear enough to see, can you post a clearer one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T06:46:47.437" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34103" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-30T07:56:35.443" Score="0" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/la4yF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to find out more about this teapot, near the bottom there is an inscription in what looks like chinese. Thank you for the help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22112" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T09:59:57.507" Title="Chinese Teapot inscription" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-05-30T14:42:23.613" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34103" CreationDate="2019-05-30T08:59:40.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's &quot;鉄鋳&quot;. It means &quot;It's made of metal.&quot;  鉄 means metal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are another kind of (simplified) traditional Chinese characters(铁铸). some people may say they are Japanese kanji, but you know kanji(汉字) are from China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters have different shape in different period, in different area, such as Hongkong and Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastEditorUserId="22002" LastEditDate="2019-05-30T09:59:57.507" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T09:59:57.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34098" CreationDate="2019-05-31T07:04:38.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The image is quite blurry but I think it says 铁铸, which are simplified Chinese characters meaning cast iron.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22100" LastActivityDate="2019-05-31T07:04:38.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34107" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-31T19:13:27.540" Score="4" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;My teacher brought this up and now I want to know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When there are two verbs in a sentence (one's a helping verb) and you want to use 又 or 再, why is their placement different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got these example sentences from a native:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天下雨，今天下雨了，明天又會下雨。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天會再來。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like when you use 又, it goes before both verbs, helping verb &amp;amp; main verb (會 &amp;amp; 下）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when you use 再, it goes between the helping verb &amp;amp; main verb, 會 &amp;amp; 來 (unless you really do want to modify the helping verb itself, but usually that's not what people mean).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So...why do these two words for &quot;again&quot; not go in the same place in a sentence, even though they're both adverbs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't know why, but the difference makes intuitive sense to me...I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22131" LastActivityDate="2019-09-13T06:41:39.473" Title="Difference in word order of these two adverbs: 再 又" Tags="&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34107" CreationDate="2019-05-31T19:57:55.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再 = again/ then (adv)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又 = too/ again (adv)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又再 = again (adv)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再 and 又 can be placed before or after the modal verb 會&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following are all grammatically correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;明天又會下雨 tomorrow too, would rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;明天會又下雨 tomorrow would rain too&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;明天會再下雨 tomorrow would rain again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;明天再會下雨 tomorrow again, would rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It just happens that 又會 and 會再 are more popular than 會又 and 再會 in day to day speech&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at 又 or 再 as the shortened form of 又再(again), you can clearly see the modal verb 會 can be placed before or after the adverb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;明天(會)又再下雨 tomorrow (would) rain again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;明天又再(會)下雨 tomorrow again, (would) rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;會又再 and 又再會 are equally common&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-31T20:12:26.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34109" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-31T23:30:02.840" Score="1" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have relatives in Malta. I want to know why in Chinese people in Malta are from 马耳他屿. Are they seen as (residing in an island where people would be) having ears like that of horses, perhaps due to their overall keenness on learning about languages (and culture)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19391" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T02:07:43.493" Title="马耳他屿, 为什么这个岛屿用了这些字？" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34109" CreationDate="2019-06-01T02:07:43.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A9%AC%E8%80%B3%E4%BB%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;马耳他&lt;/a&gt; is just a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;transliteration&lt;/a&gt; of the name &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Malta&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many Chinese transliterations are just purely phonetic and the characters are simply representations of the pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T02:07:43.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34111" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-01T04:24:56.617" Score="2" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just wonder about how to distinguish the words 高价 vs 高架. Both of them seem to have the same pronunciation gāo jià. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any additional cues for distinguishing them in a sentence? or Do people use contextual information to distinguish them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22133" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T23:55:05.463" Title="How to distinguish two words the same pronunciation but different meaning (gāo jià)" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34111" CreationDate="2019-06-01T05:16:08.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Chinese native speaker, I use contextual information to distinguish them while listening. It's very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different tones also used to distinguish them. Same pronunciation and same tone is not very common in different Chinese phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every Chinese pronunciation has many different characters, so you can easily distinguish them by their shapes while reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T05:16:08.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34010" CreationDate="2019-06-01T09:47:07.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The full text is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;高適《塞上聽吹笛》&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雪淨胡天牧馬還&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;月明羌笛戍樓間&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;借問梅花何處落&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;風吹一夜滿關山&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that the other proposed answer in the comments, apart from rendering the text in Simplified Chinese, also incorrectly identified the character「戍」as「戌」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T09:47:07.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33942" CreationDate="2019-06-01T11:24:16.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D6gnN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D6gnN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;桃原圖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the other two seals, I'm fairly sure that they're both referring to one person mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ic.daito.ac.jp/%7Eoukodou/gallery/pic-1349.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;on this page&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XAOUH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XAOUH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明義父&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YmC5R.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YmC5R.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I won't presume the order that you're supposed to read this, so the characters in their positions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惇　　平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信＊　印&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;＊&lt;em&gt;Not sure of this character, looks like some sort of modification from&lt;/em&gt;「言」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T11:24:16.473" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34115" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-01T23:04:51.180" Score="1" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read this sentence today :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每天给自己的手机充电，&#xA;  也不要忘了给自己的口语充个电！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder why the second sentence use 个 between 充 and 电 while the first one doesn’t.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone please explain it to me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18792" LastEditDate="2019-06-01T23:22:12.910" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T23:28:46.343" Title="Why does the second sentence use 个?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34116" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34123" CreationDate="2019-06-01T23:19:39.743" Score="3" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;There’s this sentence in one of DuChinese’s readings :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;首先，我们要涂粉底液。如果你的黑眼圈很严重，你可以再用一点遮瑕的东西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It makes me confused why the writer doesn’t add “的东西” when they mentioned “粉底” in the first sentence but added it when they mentioned “遮瑕”...&#xA;Why didn’t they add “液” behind “遮瑕” just like what they did to “粉底”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T01:20:26.800" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T01:20:26.800" Title="Why does 你可以再用一点遮瑕的东西 use 东西?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34115" CreationDate="2019-06-01T23:28:46.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s vernacular language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Charge your phone every day, and don’t forget to also give your speaking [skills] &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; charge!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;個 is a generic counter for an event or session in this case, and will commonly be heard in a casual spoken style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can get similar constructions e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吃個飯 (have a meal)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;旅個遊 (go on a travel)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T23:28:46.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34111" CreationDate="2019-06-01T23:55:05.463" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can not distinguish two different words with the same pinyin. As the sounds of Mandarin are quite limited, and each character has only one syllable, the result is that it is inevitable that many words sound either the same or similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My favourite example is &#xA;事事, 试试, 事实，实施，失实，石狮，史实&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These words can be very confusing using pinyin, but not in characters. Once these words are written in characters, the meanings are crystal clear without the need of any context to explain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If interested, take a look at this article, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mslmaster.com/index.php/teaching-learning-resources/10-resources/48-why-learning-mandarin-using-only-pinyin-will-create-more-hurdles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.mslmaster.com/index.php/teaching-learning-resources/10-resources/48-why-learning-mandarin-using-only-pinyin-will-create-more-hurdles&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T23:55:05.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34116" CreationDate="2019-06-02T00:31:14.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;粉底 is a specified object, it is a 'base powder' that you put on your face for cosmetic reason. when it is placed before the noun 液(liquid), 粉底  becomes an 'adjectival noun' that modifies the noun '液' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;粉底液 means 'base powder liquid'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东西 (thing) in 遮瑕的东西  is a unspecified object, it can be anything, as long as it can cover the dark eye circles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遮瑕 (cover flaw) is a verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遮瑕的 (flaw covering) is an adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遮瑕的东西 is a noun phrase ([adj] + [noun]) ; it means &quot;something that covers flaw&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-02T00:36:40.493" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T00:36:40.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34121" CreationDate="2019-06-02T01:50:08.907" Score="1" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 来自 used in daily conversations? For example, if I want to say &quot;I come from Malaysia.&quot; Should the sentence be 我来自马来西亚。or 我是从马来西亚来的。? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T02:12:36.577" Title="Is 来自 a 口语 or 书面语?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34120" CreationDate="2019-06-02T02:04:18.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For people, 来自(came from) is more literary than colloquial, As your example stated 我来自马来西亚 is more literary  and 我是从马来西亚来的 is more colloquial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for objects, 来自 is a common preposition for 'from' in day to day speech&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這些橙&lt;strong&gt;来自&lt;/strong&gt;加州 - These oranges are &lt;strong&gt;from&lt;/strong&gt; California (the oranges didn't come here on their own, someone delivered them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這病毒&lt;strong&gt;來自&lt;/strong&gt;非洲 - This virus is &lt;strong&gt;from&lt;/strong&gt; Africa (the virus didn't travel on it's own, someone carried it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-02T02:12:36.577" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T02:12:36.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34107" CreationDate="2019-06-02T02:10:26.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this example sentence provided in the questions is a tricky one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;昨天下雨，今天下雨了，明天又會下雨。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it appears that &quot;又&quot; here can mean &quot;repeat&quot; here, I'd say it might not be the case. This sentence may be translated to English as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;It rained yesterday, today, and it'll also going to be raining tomorrow.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... and the concept of &quot;repeating&quot; is not explicitly stated as a word in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like this use case of &quot;又&quot; is more of a junction word rather than a verb modifier. Which means it translates to &quot;and&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some examples of such:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;這書櫃外觀好看、又便宜。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他才喝完了一瓶啤酒，又點了杯威士忌。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;錢包被偷了又遇上車禍&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing that's why &quot;又&quot; is placed between the last 2 subordinates in the example rather than right before the main verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here are some examples where it does means &quot;repeating&quot; or &quot;again&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她又看了一遍這部電影&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;又是一天過去了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;那輛車又出現在這個路口，應該是迷路了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... as in these cases, it's just placed before the main verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4036" LastEditorUserId="4036" LastEditDate="2019-06-02T02:15:44.423" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T02:15:44.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34116" CreationDate="2019-06-02T02:14:20.430" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not use 东西？Well, in English you also would probably not say, 'apply the foundation creme thingy.' 'apply the foundation creme' suffices. The writer knew it was a liquid,液.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;再用一点遮瑕的东西。&quot; The writer is not sure what exactly this is: creme, powder, liquid, emulsion, so he/she said 'thingy, 东西'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concealing blemishes is a science. What is best is a quandry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;BLEMISH-HIDING TIP #3: PICK YOUR FLESH-TONED CONCEALER WISELY&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When it comes to disguising imperfections such as blemishes on your&#xA;  face, a creamy concealer is always a good idea. A powder can actually&#xA;  give your skin a cakey look and draw more attention to the thing you&#xA;  wanted to hide in the first place. No thanks! After applying your&#xA;  color correcting or highlighting concealer, try the L’Oréal Paris&#xA;  Infallible Total Cover Concealing and Contour Kit, which comes with&#xA;  four flesh-toned shades. Apply the closest match to your skin tone&#xA;  with your makeup blender so that you can cover your pimple from angles&#xA;  that you wouldn’t be able to reach with your finger. And don’t rub the&#xA;  concealer on—be gentle by lightly dabbing and rolling the makeup&#xA;  blender over your skin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;首先，我们要涂粉底液。&#xA;First of all, we have to apply the foundation creme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你的黑眼圈很严重，你可以再用一点遮瑕的东西。&#xA;If you have very dark rings under your eyes,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你可以再用一点遮瑕的东西。&#xA;you can use a little blemish mask to cover them up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, I think the blemish mask should come first! It's hard to look beeootiiful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T02:14:20.430" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34091" CreationDate="2019-06-02T05:06:25.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the closest thing to handwritten forms for Chinese-language regulation is in the 楷書 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;regular script&lt;/a&gt;) style, here are my suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hong Kong: &lt;strong&gt;Free-HK-Kai_4700&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://freehkfonts.opensource.hk/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://freehkfonts.opensource.hk/download/&lt;/a&gt; (definitely open source)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ROC (Taiwan): &lt;strong&gt;TW-Kai-98&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://data.gov.tw/dataset/5961&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://data.gov.tw/dataset/5961&lt;/a&gt; (unsure if open source)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ROC (Taiwan) regular script font (&lt;strong&gt;TW-Kai-98&lt;/strong&gt;) is a government-mandated standard, so you can be sure of its ability to represent the ROC (Taiwan) standard. The Hong Kong one (&lt;strong&gt;Free-HK-Kai_4700&lt;/strong&gt;) is an open-source modification from &lt;strong&gt;TW-Kai-98&lt;/strong&gt;, and they have regulated 4700 characters so far (roughly the total number of characters taught in Hong Kong schools).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;EPSON has made a &lt;em&gt;kyokasho&lt;/em&gt; font quite a while back which is free to download, but I haven't checked the license on its use. You can get the link at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Japanese.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Japanese.html&lt;/a&gt; (CTRL+F &lt;strong&gt;epkyouka&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside, it is not enough to use the fonts to get the correct character forms for each standard - you need to use the correct input method too. Using a &lt;strong&gt;Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan)&lt;/strong&gt; IME is not appropriate (in an official governmental standard sense) to publish documents adhering to &lt;strong&gt;Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong)&lt;/strong&gt;, or vice-versa, because the suggested characters (Unicode codepoints) that display may be different across the IMEs, although the chance of an actual discrepancy happening is very, very slim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-06-02T05:22:40.033" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T05:22:40.033" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34116" CreationDate="2019-06-02T06:43:31.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a very interesting question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know 东西南北中 is used for directions, it means east, west, south, north, center. And in ancient China, we used 金木水火土 in corresponding to 东西南北中。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;东（金 gold）西（木wood）南（水water）北（火fire）中（土soil）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only gold and wood can be carried in basket(ancient basket are mostly made from bamboo, many holes), so we used 东西 to represent tangible stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But afterwards, 东西 was used for not only tangible stuff. For example, 他这个老东西，真不是个东西。（that old man, is not a good person.） But when it means non-tangible stuff, it's derogatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastEditorUserId="22002" LastEditDate="2019-06-02T07:30:16.880" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T07:30:16.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34116" CreationDate="2019-06-02T22:40:23.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is that conventionally &quot;粉底液&quot; refers to a line of cosmetic products that often aim to soften your skin tone.&#xA;In fact, you can feel free to replace &quot;遮瑕的东西&quot; with “遮瑕霜”, which is a standalone none as well as “粉底液”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(No, no no no, &quot;粉底的东西&quot; won't work.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22139" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T22:40:23.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34128" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34129" CreationDate="2019-06-03T10:08:42.863" Score="2" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;So this morning I was trying to have a conversation in mandarin with my Malaysian Chinese friends. During the conversation, I pronounced 辆 in 4th tone just the way I learned online. Apparently, they said it is supposed to be pronounced the 3rd tone but when I went home and searched it up on a few dictionaries, all of them pronounce as 4th tone. I am not sure if it is  just my friends that are mistaken or if there are more than one pronunciation for 辆. What do you guys think? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T09:38:19.480" Title="Pronunciation of 辆" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34128" CreationDate="2019-06-03T11:51:26.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about Malaysian Mandarin, but in Standard Mandarin (both ROC (Taiwan) and PRC),「輛」is pronounced in the 4th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is indeed pronounced in 3rd tone is「兩」.「兩」is the original character for「輛」, so in ancient texts when「兩」is used as a word to do with vehicles/horses, it is also pronounced in the 4th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest that them pronouncing「輛」in the 3rd tone is an influence from a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Min&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minnan language&lt;/a&gt;. According to Wiktionary, the tones for「兩」and「輛」are identical in certain dialects of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkien&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hokkien&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teochew_dialect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Teochew&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%85%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「兩」&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hokkien: nn̄g / nňg / nō͘ / &lt;strong&gt;lióng / liáng&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Teochew: no6 / &lt;strong&gt;liang2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%BC%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「輛」&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hokkien: &lt;strong&gt;lióng / liáng&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Teochew: &lt;strong&gt;liang2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-06-03T11:51:26.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34130" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-04T13:17:54.727" Score="3" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;For instance, &quot;email&quot; (or &quot;e-mail&quot;) is one that has been essentially canonized (e.g. it has been added to various canonical dictionaries), but what about other instances of the addition of this morpheme and its Chinese translation? Is there a general heuristic or rule for indicating digitalization in Chinese, analogous to the English 'e-'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a few attempts on Google Translate, it seems like the way to go is to preface the word with “电子” (which means &quot;electronic&quot;) – this seems right, but are there exceptions I should know about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22148" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T06:11:55.353" Title="What is the Chinese equivalent of the English morpheme 'e-' indicating &quot;digitalization&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34131" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="37373" CreationDate="2019-06-04T19:13:49.797" Score="2" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;Non-Chinese names and places are usually transliterated by using similar sounding characters.&#xA;Assuming that no established Chinese transliteration exists for a certain family or place name, and assuming that the transliteration should be purely phonetic, not drawing on the meaning of the word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I choose from the many characters of the same pronunciation?&#xA;Is there a predefined (maybe even official) list of characters to choose from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm asking because certain characters will definitely look odd in a place or family name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11341" LastActivityDate="2020-03-24T21:51:38.850" Title="Characters for foreign names / places" Tags="&lt;names&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;&lt;surnames&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34128" CreationDate="2019-06-05T08:31:59.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard way of pronouncing 輛 is the 4th tone, however Malaysian Mandarin - similar to Singaporean Mandarin - is slightly different from standard Mandarin and influenced by dialects of their ancestors (I think Hokkien and Cantonese are the most common).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most Malaysians will understand standard Mandarin, but since they pronounce some words differently, I imagine it can be confusing for Chinese learners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia entries on&#xA;Malaysian Mandarin: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Singaporean Mandarin: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singaporean_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singaporean_Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22100" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T08:31:59.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34116" CreationDate="2019-06-05T09:46:55.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a Chinese question. &quot;东西&quot; here means &quot;anything&quot; that can &quot;遮瑕.&quot; The speaker does not restrict it to liquids (&quot;液&quot;). That's all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22152" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T09:46:55.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34135" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-05T13:49:06.657" Score="0" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it ok to use colour in mordern Chinese names (I don't mean surname like 黃，白）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, there is a name like 叶红鱼，but she seems to be a person from a tale. So I guess is there any mordern names with color in name (not surname).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://ninchanese.com/blog/2016/04/07/chinese-names/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here is a good guide&lt;/a&gt; about names but there is nothing about colours&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2019-06-05T15:38:08.983" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T17:29:58.390" Title="Is it ok to use colour character in name (not surname character)?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34135" CreationDate="2019-06-05T17:01:08.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Color character can be used in names. But be careful, a bad combination will ruin everything. I try to make up some. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;葉紅 is better than 葉紅魚. It evokes imagination of leaves turning red in the fall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(It turned out that it's better if the name matches the surname.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黃 itself is a surname, so I ve heard of few people's names with it.  I propose a name with it, however, for I like it very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;懷黃&lt;/strong&gt; 黃 means gold seal, a tally of official position. &lt;strong&gt;佩紫懷黃&lt;/strong&gt;是也。&lt;strong&gt;懷&lt;/strong&gt;, hold. So 懷黃 means hold the gold seal, equivalent of take official position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（懷 itself is a rare surname）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;紫 is always a noble color. The uniforms of high rank officers in many dynasties are of 紫. 有言&lt;strong&gt;事金紫&lt;/strong&gt;也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may think “佩紫” in “佩紫懷黃” is good （though here 紫 doesn't refer to the color of the uniform）, but it is  phonetically poor to many ears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;紓紫&lt;/strong&gt; has a close meaning as in &lt;strong&gt;綰黃紓紫&lt;/strong&gt; and sounds good as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately 綠 is usually the color of low rank officer's uniforms. But if we give good interpretation, it can also means a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;沈綠&lt;/strong&gt;（chen3 lv4）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沈 is not a surname here. For example, 方沈綠 is the full name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沈 is a variant of 沉, but 沈 looks more poshԅ(¯ㅂ¯ԅ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interpretation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沈綠：dark green. A comfortable, modest color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Homonymic to 承（cheng3）綠，and 綠 is 籙's original character. So we can interpret it as &lt;strong&gt;承籙&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;圖籙&lt;/strong&gt;，帝王承天命之書也。&lt;strong&gt;承籙&lt;/strong&gt; is one of the most ambitious, exaggerate words★.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then 沈綠 is a superficially modest but actually exaggerate name. And if you explain all things to others you will receive awes for the cultural depth (and pretentiousness (don't care this part, COOL is more important than anything eles!))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many other colors, such as 朱/紅/緋/彤/丹/赭/茜/絳/栗/橘/翠/緗/蒼/青/皂/杏/漆/皓/黛/玄/ ……………………&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you may perceive, the examples I give are all about bureaucratic ambition but this is just one of the many topics of a name. So you are totally free of coming up with names of different styles with color characters in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. My most self-content name that I propose is 李 嶔彧 (´▽｀)ノ♪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The poem &lt;strong&gt;紅紅白白花臨水，碧碧黃黃麥際天&lt;/strong&gt; suddenly comes to my mind. And I think 際黃（Bordered by wheat fields） is a good choice. （Better with a surname of fourth tone, e.g. 宋際黃）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-06-05T17:29:58.390" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T17:29:58.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34137" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-05T19:52:00.153" Score="2" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this possible for you to transcript (and translate ?) this old chinese text : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zupimages.net/viewer.php?id=19/23/5wnr.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zupimages.net/viewer.php?id=19/23/5wnr.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[url=&lt;a href=&quot;http://zupimages.net/viewer.php?id=19/23/5wnr.jpg][img]https://zupimages.net/up/19/23/5wnr.jpg[/img][/url]&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zupimages.net/viewer.php?id=19/23/5wnr.jpg][img]https://zupimages.net/up/19/23/5wnr.jpg[/img][/url]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's commentaries about this Sun tzu &quot;Art of War&quot; quotation :&#xA;故用間有五：有鄉間，有內間，有反間，有死間，有生間。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22154" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-06-07T07:01:38.947" LastActivityDate="2019-06-07T14:49:42.270" Title="Chinese commentary about a Sun Tzu quotation" Tags="&lt;transcription&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34137" CreationDate="2019-06-05T20:06:17.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple Google search for 'art of war': &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Art of War&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;By Sun Tzu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;XIII. The Use of Spies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Hence the use of spies, of whom there are five classes: (1) Local spies; (2) inward spies; (3) converted spies; (4) doomed spies; (5) surviving spies.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;故用間有五 - Hence there are five classes of spies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有鄉間 -  there are Local spies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有內間 - there are inward spies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有反間 - there are converted spies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有死間 - there are doomed spies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有生間 - there are surviving spies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read the explanation on the five kinds of spies on that web-page&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-05T20:14:25.087" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T20:14:25.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34139" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-05T20:33:16.700" Score="1" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;I almost always hear 来 pronounced as lài in 回来了, but are there any rules of tone sandhi that account for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21935" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T14:42:54.493" Title="Should the second character in 回来了 be pronounced with second or fourth tone?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34139" CreationDate="2019-06-06T01:04:43.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Single character will have generally accepted tone or tones，but when used in combination with the others，things may get more complex. It is even better for you if you can remember which tones are not commonly used instead of the “correct” for a character in a phrase. In this case，I would say the third tone is not quite common，but you may hear the rest from time to time as they kinda show different emotions or hidden intentions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22155" LastEditorUserId="22155" LastEditDate="2019-06-06T06:02:54.403" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T06:02:54.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34141" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-06T03:06:27.820" Score="0" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;到达北京市国际邮件交换站Yanwen&#xA;北京市 in English ,north american thankyou&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22156" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T03:38:45.513" Title="I'm getting a package and I'm trying to find out what this phrase mean" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-06-07T07:01:23.880" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34141" CreationDate="2019-06-06T03:38:45.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;到达北京市国际邮件交换站: Arrive at Beijing international mail processing center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22002" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T03:38:45.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34137" CreationDate="2019-06-06T07:50:03.860" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have good and fully understand this part of the text.&#xA;That's the other part, the commentaries who is after, what interest and ask me question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a beginning :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鄉間講義開宗集註作因間XX正義作鄉間XXXXX作鄉間XXXXXXXXXX鄉間XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX&#xA;  XXX間XX&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22154" LastEditorUserId="22154" LastEditDate="2019-06-07T12:37:04.220" LastActivityDate="2019-06-07T12:37:04.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34139" CreationDate="2019-06-06T14:42:54.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker. The term 回来了 is of course pronounced with ㄏㄨㄟˊ ㄌㄞˊ ㄌㄜ˙, so the second character is pronounced with 2nd tone. And the word 来 can only be pronounced with 2nd tone. (I've never heard 4th tone.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22152" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T14:42:54.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34145" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34149" CreationDate="2019-06-06T17:58:34.230" Score="1" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between 事情 and 事件? They both seem to be generic terms that refer to &quot;event, thing, affair&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事件：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4421/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4421/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事情：&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4090/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4090/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Are they interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Is there a difference between Cantonese and Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2019-06-13T08:30:12.720" Title="Difference between 事情 and 事件？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34146" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-06T18:08:11.737" Score="0" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese 返嚟 is often used when asking someone about where they obtained something from. For instance, &quot;學返嚟“ could be used in a sentence asking someone, &quot;Where did you learn this from?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the Mandarin equivalent for 返嚟 in this context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T20:55:38.667" Title="Mandarin equivalent for 返嚟?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34146" CreationDate="2019-06-06T20:55:38.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most usual verbal suffix is just 來/来 &lt;em&gt;lái&lt;/em&gt;. This can be combined with 著/着 &lt;em&gt;zhe&lt;/em&gt; after it. See Definition 7 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7 用在动词后，表示做过（一般均可用“来着”）：昨天他哭～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of 来着 is very frequent in northern colloquial Mandarin, but is a more general past tense marker with some sense of &quot;just now&quot;, with &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IGDiCwAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PT119&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an idea of a continuous state&lt;/a&gt; according to some analyses. It is a very well researched construction in academic studies of Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common equivalent for Cantonese &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/5203/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;返嚟&lt;/a&gt; is Mandarin &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/10287/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;回來/来 &lt;em&gt;huílai&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, but this is more restricted in usage as a verbal suffix, and has a stronger connotation of &quot;coming back home&quot; (e.g. buying something back, receiving something back as a ransom), which is not required in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T20:55:38.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34145" CreationDate="2019-06-07T03:33:04.010" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The definitions of these two terms are quite different, clearly not interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no difference between Cantonese and Mandarin for these terms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事件: event; occasion; happening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偷車&lt;strong&gt;事件&lt;/strong&gt; (car stealing &lt;strong&gt;occasion&lt;/strong&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天安門&lt;strong&gt;事件&lt;/strong&gt; (Tiananmen Square &lt;strong&gt;event/ incident&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;密室殺人&lt;strong&gt;事件&lt;/strong&gt; (the &lt;strong&gt;occasion/ happening&lt;/strong&gt; of murder in a locked room )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事情: matter; affair; thing; business&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事情就是這樣 (the  &lt;strong&gt;matters/ things&lt;/strong&gt; are like this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒你的事情 (there are no &lt;strong&gt;business&lt;/strong&gt; of yours)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這&lt;strong&gt;事情&lt;/strong&gt;我管不了 (I can't deal with this &lt;strong&gt;affair&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事件 is something already completed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事情 can be something already happened or something that's on going.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;事情&lt;/strong&gt;到了這個地步 (&lt;strong&gt;things&lt;/strong&gt; have got to this point)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我也不知&lt;strong&gt;事情&lt;/strong&gt;再發展下去會什樣 (I don't know what will happen as the &lt;strong&gt;matter&lt;/strong&gt; continue to develope)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot say &lt;strong&gt;事件&lt;/strong&gt;到了這個地步 or &lt;strong&gt;事件&lt;/strong&gt;再發展下去, because a 事件 is something that had been completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-07T03:42:45.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34116" CreationDate="2019-06-07T13:47:07.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use foundation liquid first if black rim of the eye is serious, use other article again &#xA;先使用 粉底液 ，如果黑眼圈严重，再使用其他东西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22161" LastActivityDate="2019-06-07T13:47:07.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34137" CreationDate="2019-06-07T14:49:42.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, what are you thinking about that :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鄉間講義開宗集註作因間直解正義作鄉間直解曰舊本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作鄉間今從之？？下之文以鄉間可為是故今從之識者校正之故者疑證古人之言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曰舉五間之目﻿ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22154" LastActivityDate="2019-06-07T14:49:42.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34152" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34153" CreationDate="2019-06-08T06:00:09.060" Score="2" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;Left screenshot is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E5%B7%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yellowbridge&lt;/a&gt;; right from &lt;a href=&quot;https://hanziyuan.net/#%E5%B7%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Richard Sears (Uncle Hanzi)&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2c1Xe.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2c1Xe.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I circled in green the lone &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters#Pictograms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pictogram&lt;/a&gt; that most obviously pictures a hand holding a carpenter's square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For productivity, I colored in red a semicircle in merely 3 of the pictograms, but this semicircle figures in the other pictogram. Are these semicircles intended to symbolize the human hand?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I still can't picture how these pictograms evolved to 巨. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11787" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-06-08T07:37:52.280" LastActivityDate="2019-06-08T08:30:41.617" Title="How does 巨 resemble a hand (彐) holding a carpenter's square (工)?" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34152" CreationDate="2019-06-08T06:39:49.317" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The forms you're looking at are actually the ancestors of「矩」.「巨」was formed by cutting off the person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The analysis starts from this form&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QEWcZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QEWcZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;伯矩盉蓋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=9412&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成9412&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which depicts a &lt;em&gt;person&lt;/em&gt;「大」holding a &lt;em&gt;tool&lt;/em&gt;「工」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Carpenter's square&lt;/em&gt; is much too specific, and I would think that it is an over-interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Exaggerate the person's hand to emphasise that the tool was held:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8hSnC.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8hSnC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;伯矩卣&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=5228&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成5228&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Swap out「大」with the similar-meaning「夫」(&lt;em&gt;man&lt;/em&gt;), and permanently detach part of the hand onto the tool:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QVPyz.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QVPyz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;裘衛盉&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=9456&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成9456&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The left hand side of the above character should now heavily resemble「巨」, which is created from omitting「大」or「夫」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/03FkJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/03FkJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;語&lt;/a&gt;5&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6xYmL.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6xYmL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77390&amp;amp;page=27&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;工部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ge8H3.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ge8H3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「夫」was later semantically corrupted into「矢」(&lt;em&gt;arrow &gt; length, measurement&lt;/em&gt;), forming「矩」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty#Eastern_Han&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;東漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1dJup.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1dJup.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;桐柏廟碑&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rUHGt.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rUHGt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-06-08T08:30:41.617" LastActivityDate="2019-06-08T08:30:41.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30643" CreationDate="2019-06-08T08:04:14.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although both versions native speakers can understand, we use the &quot;non-split&quot; version (the first sentence) more often. I think it's because the subject (主詞) is usually the first word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22152" LastActivityDate="2019-06-08T08:04:14.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34161" CreationDate="2019-06-08T16:26:29.187" Score="1" ViewCount="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever I try to use any available translator I've got strange results like &#xA;&quot;special for free light&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;16款自由光专用&#xA;What can this sentence mean in car or electric wiring context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22167" LastActivityDate="2019-06-08T20:53:27.167" Title="Meaning in car/wiring context" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34157" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-08T19:07:00.943" Score="2" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 顺顺溜溜 and 顺顺当当 seem to be translated in the same way (&quot;smoothly&quot;). Is there any difference in usage? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22130" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-06-09T05:56:40.797" LastActivityDate="2019-06-09T05:56:40.797" Title="Difference between 顺顺当当 and 顺顺溜溜?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34158" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34162" CreationDate="2019-06-08T19:21:07.190" Score="1" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this seal recently visiting a friend of mine who collects old paintings and calligraphy in Shanghai. I'm hoping that someone here knows what these characters are. Any help is greatly appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YMXmR.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YMXmR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Seal 1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Here is the full image, including the calligraphy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4xsj9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4xsj9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22168" LastActivityDate="2019-06-09T00:03:31.883" Title="Can anyone identify the characters on this seal?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34157" CreationDate="2019-06-08T19:53:00.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;bkrs： &lt;strong&gt;顺顺溜溜&lt;/strong&gt; smoothly and obediently 顺利不受阻挠。&#xA;红楼梦．第三十六回：「先时在外头关，那个月不打饥荒，何曾顺顺溜溜的得过一遭儿。」no frequency rank, 1 usage example at &lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.naver.com/linedict/zhendict/#/cnen/example?query=%E9%A1%BA%E9%A1%BA%E6%BA%9C%E6%BA%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://dict.naver.com/linedict/zhendict/#/cnen/example?query=%E9%A1%BA%E9%A1%BA%E6%BA%9C%E6%BA%9C&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bkrs: &lt;strong&gt;顺顺当当&lt;/strong&gt;#35152 by a happy chance; win in a canter; smoothly; easily，smooth and easy (of tasks/etc.)顺顺当当过日子 many more example phrases at bkrs, 10 usage examples at &lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.naver.com/linedict/zhendict/#/cnen/example?query=%E9%A1%BA%E9%A1%BA%E5%BD%93%E5%BD%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://dict.naver.com/linedict/zhendict/#/cnen/example?query=%E9%A1%BA%E9%A1%BA%E5%BD%93%E5%BD%93&lt;/a&gt; users can draw their own conclusions which is the more common more modern term&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastActivityDate="2019-06-08T19:53:00.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34155" CreationDate="2019-06-08T20:53:27.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'For use in a '16 Cherokee'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;款 referring to the model type/year (2016)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自由光 being the model (Jeep Cherokee)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;专用 Exclusive use / Dedicated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22170" LastActivityDate="2019-06-08T20:53:27.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34158" CreationDate="2019-06-09T00:03:31.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;the seal, my best guess is &quot;敏之&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the left character is 㞢 (u+37a2), a variant of 之 (u+4e4b):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E3%9E%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=㞢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the right character had a left-right structure, the right component is 攴 (攵):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%94%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=攴&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unfortunately, the left component is hard to recognise, so &quot;敏&quot; is my guess only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%95%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=敏&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-06-09T00:03:31.883" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34163" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-09T00:09:53.633" Score="0" ViewCount="744" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some &lt;em&gt;Boya Chinese&lt;/em&gt; textbooks and want to buy more to have a complete set to work through. Searching for the books, I find very strange naming conventions. Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elementary 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elementary Start&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Intermediate I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quasai-Intermediate 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Intermediate Spurt I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Advanced Hover III&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pre-Intermediate Speed-Up&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reading and Writing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I want to buy and work through a complete set, including any corresponding workbooks, what is the order?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="183" LastActivityDate="2019-06-09T06:29:45.033" Title="What is the sequence of the Boya Chinese textbooks?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34157" CreationDate="2019-06-09T05:43:03.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both terms are rarely used in colloquial Chinese, more common in old Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22152" LastActivityDate="2019-06-09T05:43:03.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34166" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34167" CreationDate="2019-06-09T05:54:50.560" Score="3" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to find 就 used as &quot;at once&quot; in a sentence so that I can add it to my flashcards but the only sentence I've found like that would be &quot;你现在就去做&quot;.&#xA;Issue is, 现在 already means &quot;now&quot; so that makes 就 redundant in the sentence doesn't it? Can anyone give me a proper sentence that uses 就 to mean &quot;at once&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-06-09T05:58:31.190" LastActivityDate="2019-06-10T06:10:16.917" Title="Does 现在 make 就 redundant in &quot;你现在就去做。&quot;?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34166" CreationDate="2019-06-09T06:23:34.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;就 in 你现在就去做 functions as the adverb &quot;just&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你现在去做 = you go do it now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你现在(就)去做 = you (just) go do it now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example of 就 = at once; right away:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃完飯去 = go after finish dinner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃完飯(就)去 = go (right away) after finish dinner&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;吃完飯 is the requirement. Once this requirement is met, then 去 occur at once&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完成工作付工資 = when you finished work, I will pay your service fee &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完成工作(就)付工資 = when you finished work, I will pay your service fee (right away)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;完成工作 is the requirement . Once this requirement is met, then 付工資 occur at once&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 你现在就去做 doesn't include a requirement, 就 doesn't carry the meaning of 'at once; right away'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was 你等到明天就去做 (you go do it at once when tomorrow comes); 等到明天(wait till tomorrow arrives) would be the requirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-09T06:42:05.713" LastActivityDate="2019-06-09T06:42:05.713" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34163" CreationDate="2019-06-09T06:29:45.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven’t heard of this series before, but looking at information from the publisher (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pup.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Peking University Press&lt;/a&gt;) and various booksellers I can see the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;博雅汉语 = Boya Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; (1st edition, published around 2004–2009)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;初级起步篇I = Elementary starter I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;初级起步篇II = Elementary starter II&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;准中级加速篇I = Pre-intermediate speed up I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;准中级加速篇II = Pre-intermediate speed up II&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中级冲刺篇I = Intermediate spurt I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中级冲刺篇II = Intermediate spurt II&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;高级飞翔篇I = Advanced hover I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;高级飞翔篇II = Advanced hover II&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;高级飞翔篇III = Advanced hover III&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;博雅汉语 = Boya Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; (2nd edition, published around 2012–2016)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;初级起步篇I = Elementary I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;初级起步篇II = Elementary II&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;准中级加速篇I = Quasi-intermediate I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;准中级加速篇II = Quasi-intermediate II&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中级冲刺篇I = Intermediate I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;中级冲刺篇II = Intermediate II&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;高级飞翔篇I = Advanced I&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;高级飞翔篇II = Advanced II&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to these main textbooks there are various extras, like the &lt;em&gt;Guide books&lt;/em&gt; aimed mainly at teachers and &lt;em&gt;Reading and writing&lt;/em&gt; giving extra resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19031" LastActivityDate="2019-06-09T06:29:45.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34169" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34170" CreationDate="2019-06-09T11:32:19.093" Score="1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been in Hong Kong long enough to notice some patterns appearing in the names of Hong Kong's places. Most of the places had 角 or 灣 in them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;角: 旺角, 大角嘴, 北角, 沙頭角&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;灣: 灣仔, 西灣河,  銅鑼灣, 荃灣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a reason why 'corner' and 'bay' are used very commonly for place names in Hong Kong? I can guess for 'bay' because Hong Kong is a harbor with coasts, quarries and bays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for 角, why would so many places be named after corners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="21386" LastEditDate="2019-06-11T00:26:07.723" LastActivityDate="2019-06-11T00:26:07.723" Title="Commonalities in Hong Kong place names" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34169" CreationDate="2019-06-09T11:52:54.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has a page entitled &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_names_of_Hong_Kong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Place names of Hong Kong&lt;/a&gt;, which mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kok (角) - point (of land), horn, angle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Point is also a common term in English place names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good example of this can be found on another Wiki page: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_names_of_cities_and_towns_in_Hong_Kong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Origins of names of cities and towns in Hong Kong&lt;/a&gt;. Here they have the example of 沙頭角:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;City&lt;/strong&gt; | &lt;strong&gt;Language Origins&lt;/strong&gt; |  &lt;strong&gt;Meaning&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sha Tau Kok    | Chinese   | sandy head point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good example might be &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Point&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;North Point&lt;/a&gt; (北角). As this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ejinsight.com/20150130-north-point-hong-kongs-living-history/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ejinsight&lt;/a&gt; article examplains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many of Hong Kong’s geographical place names have been in use for more than 150 years. Some describe their specific locations. North Point is one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;North Point sits on the northernmost tip of Hong Kong Island, a major cross-harbor interchange on the MTR line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-10T08:29:54.440" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34166" CreationDate="2019-06-09T23:33:58.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;就 expresses &lt;em&gt;emergency&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;handling something quickly&lt;/em&gt;  in Chinese. It's been used when something need to/must/want to be handled at certain point of time. E.g. 我现在就去; 我明天就上班; 我(现在)就来; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-06-09T23:33:58.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34172" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34173" CreationDate="2019-06-10T02:00:47.390" Score="2" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 似乎 and 宛如 are translated in the same way (&quot;as if...&quot;). What are some examples where using one would be more appropriate than the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22130" LastActivityDate="2019-06-10T20:21:44.360" Title="What is the difference in usage between 似乎 and 宛如?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34172" CreationDate="2019-06-10T02:20:18.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;似乎(as if; seem like) is more modern and colloquial, 宛如(just like; as if) is very classical and literary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;似乎 mainly refer to metaphorical resemblance, 宛如 mainly refers to physical resemblance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;似乎&lt;/strong&gt;要打仗了 (&lt;strong&gt;seem like&lt;/strong&gt; we will go to war)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;似乎&lt;/strong&gt;忘了自己是誰 (&lt;strong&gt;seem like&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;as if&lt;/strong&gt; forgotten who he is)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五座山峰一列排開，&lt;strong&gt;宛如&lt;/strong&gt;五指，故名五指山 (the five mountain peaks stand side by side, &lt;strong&gt;just like&lt;/strong&gt; five fingers in human hand, hence the name 'Five Fingers Mountains'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看他面目猙獰，&lt;strong&gt;宛如&lt;/strong&gt;惡鬼猛獸 (look at his ferocious face, &lt;strong&gt;just like&lt;/strong&gt; a demon or a beast)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The modern/colloquial equivalent of '宛如' is '就像'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-10T20:21:44.360" LastActivityDate="2019-06-10T20:21:44.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34174" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-10T03:59:11.303" Score="1" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm creating a half Japanese half Chinese character and I'm trying to figure out whether or not 宁和 can be used as a name. I'm also wondering if it means to aspire to peace and is read a &quot;ninghe&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22175" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T09:21:17.127" Title="Can 宁和 be used as a real name" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34175" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-10T05:32:31.647" Score="0" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=Bc36AQAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA23&amp;amp;lpg=PA23&amp;amp;dq=brinkley%20%22burbank%20of%20humanity%22&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=b_TLOVBXSA&amp;amp;sig=ACfU3U1dqpmc5MRRMyw99EFRQAK9q1BdIg&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwj5uIPslt7iAhUFfSsKHV1dBCIQ6AEwAXoECAIQAQ#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=brinkley%20%22burbank%20of%20humanity%22&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Border Radio: Quacks, Yodelers, Pitchmen, Psychics, and Other Amazing Broadcasters of the American Airwaves&lt;/a&gt; by Gene Fowler and Bill Crawford has a section speaking of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;John R. Brinkley&lt;/a&gt; that says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;China Press&lt;/em&gt; hailed the goateed physician as “The Burbank of Humanity.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any source on the original text of this quote?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T17:05:27.593" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T12:13:29.540" Title="What is the original text to the quotation of “The Burbank of Humanity”?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34166" CreationDate="2019-06-10T06:10:16.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Language has built-in redundancy. I think that is in order to make sure the message gets across.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might ask: When exactly is 'now'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你现在就去做&#xA;Go and do it now, immediately!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, I think 就 is emphatic: 你立刻去做。or 你立刻就去做。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就 is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/19419/a-unified-theory-of-%E5%B0%B1-meaning/21014#21014&quot;&gt;Pandora's box&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At once originally (early 13c.) meant &amp;quot;simultaneously,&amp;quot; later &amp;quot;in one&#xA;company&amp;quot; (c. 1300), and preserved the sense of &amp;quot;one&amp;quot; in the word; the&#xA;phrase typically appeared as one word, atones; the modern meaning&#xA;&amp;quot;immediately&amp;quot; is attested from 1530s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'at once' would normally be translated as 赶快， 马上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence has 就：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天一下儿就冷了。&#xA;All at once the weather turned cold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but 'at once' comes from ‘一下儿’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-10T06:10:16.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34177" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34184" CreationDate="2019-06-10T06:37:45.427" Score="0" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;快 is one of the HSK level 2 vocabulary words which means &quot;quick&quot;. Issue is this: I know online translators are unreliable but each translator I've used translates &quot;快点去开门&quot; as &quot;Go and get the door&quot; while completely missing the &quot;quickly&quot; aspect. When I instead type &quot;快点去开门&quot; the translators understand it to mean &quot;Hurry up and get the door.&quot; (as it should). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is this a problem with the online translators or is the &quot;点&quot; required? I know a few different ways &quot;点&quot; is used but I can't tell what its purpose in &quot;快点&quot; is. If the &quot;点&quot; is necessary to get the point across (no pun intended) why does every HSK vocabulary list I look up list &quot;快&quot; rather than &quot;快点&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastEditorUserId="22149" LastEditDate="2019-06-13T03:12:18.057" LastActivityDate="2019-06-13T03:12:18.057" Title="快 vs 快点, what's the point of &quot;点&quot; in this case?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13811" CreationDate="2019-06-10T07:03:38.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my book New practical Chinese HSK5 what I understood.&#xA;十分不满  or 十分不满意=fully not satisfied&#xA;Not satisfied at all&#xA;In the other hand&#xA;不十分满意=not fully satisfied &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22176" LastActivityDate="2019-06-10T07:03:38.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34179" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34180" CreationDate="2019-06-10T09:59:57.530" Score="2" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have rode this &lt;em&gt;automated people mover&lt;/em&gt; inside Hong Kong airport and the voice always says &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Please hold the handrail during the whole journey&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; everytime when the train starts to move and after announcing the next stop. How do you write it in Chinese (or maybe even in Cantonese)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you don't know what I mean, here is the link to it:&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/-CgqmrWGIEY?t=54&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/-CgqmrWGIEY?t=54&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(P.S. That is not my YouTube video, just an example)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Thank you very much in advance to those who answer.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22179" LastEditorUserId="21386" LastEditDate="2019-06-11T00:26:17.467" LastActivityDate="2019-06-11T00:26:17.467" Title="&quot;Please hold the handrail during the whole journey&quot; in Chinese/Cantonese? (As heard in Hong Kong airport trains)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34179" CreationDate="2019-06-10T10:08:12.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the video the Mandarin is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;請沿途緊握扶手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ni3ntJ7CI2gJ:https://issuu.com/metro_china/docs/20120831_cn_hong-kong%20&amp;amp;cd=8&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;ct=clnk&amp;amp;gl=tw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google webcache&lt;/a&gt; also says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;九巴的勸喻，貼在車廂扶手左右：「 上 車 後 請 沿 途 緊 握 扶 手 」，英 語「 Please hold the handrail during the whole journey. 」為 九 巴 的 愛 心 ，我 不 能 不 長 嘆，釋放善意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like a common saying on public transportation in HK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-10T10:15:31.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34179" CreationDate="2019-06-10T10:18:30.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try 请(您)全程握紧扶手. Compare to 请您全程系好安全带. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-06-10T10:18:30.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34182" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34185" CreationDate="2019-06-10T13:50:15.577" Score="2" ViewCount="1042" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen some sentences, and some of them use &lt;code&gt;上网&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;通过上网聊天，我认识了很多新朋友&#xA;&#xA;Through online chat, I meet many new friends&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;whereas for another case, it uses &lt;code&gt;网上&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;网上购物是最流行的生活方式&#xA;&#xA;Online shopping is the most popular lifestyle.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both sentences, they mean as &quot;online&quot;. But I'm a bit confused on the word order, when should we use &lt;code&gt;上网&lt;/code&gt; and when should we use &lt;code&gt;网上&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21231" LastActivityDate="2019-06-30T12:29:56.103" Title="上网 vs 网上 word order" Tags="&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34182" CreationDate="2019-06-11T03:44:24.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;上网 is used when someone is doing the action of going online. &#xA;网上 (or sometimes 网路上）means online / on the web.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, of the two examples you provided, you could use 网上 or 上网 under different circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;通过上网聊天，我认识了很多新朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could use &quot;网上&quot; to express a similar meaning: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在网上认识了很多朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;网上购物是最流行的生活方式&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could use &quot;上网&quot; to express a similar meaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;很多人喜欢上网买东西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps clear things up! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22100" LastActivityDate="2019-06-11T03:44:24.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34177" CreationDate="2019-06-11T06:53:08.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;点 (or 点儿 in Northern-speak) is short for 一点 (一点儿) / &quot;one bit&quot;, so 快(一)点(儿) means &quot;quick by a bit&quot; = a bit more quickly (than the speed at the point of speaking).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I love the pun in your &quot;What's the point of 点...&quot;; one of the definitions of 点 is &quot;point / dot&quot; (as in decimal point; 5.3 = 五点三).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-11T06:53:08.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34182" CreationDate="2019-06-11T07:39:33.543" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;上网 is a Verb Object construction internally (&quot;ascend net&quot; = to get on the web). 上网购物 is a Serial Verb construction: first action 上网, second action 购物. Both actions are equal, not subordinate/main, as both are needed. &quot;Serial&quot; because they are chronological (need to 上网 first, before you can 购物, another Verb Object construction internally). A similar construction: 上车买票 &quot;ascend vehicle buy voucher&quot; = get on the bus/tram/train and buy the ticket).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;网上 is an Adverb (answers the question &quot;where&quot;: &quot;where buy things?&quot; --&gt; 网上购物 &quot;net on buy thing&quot; = to shop online).  Can be an Adjective (what kind of shopping? online shopping).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-11T07:39:33.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34186" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-11T08:35:26.453" Score="3" ViewCount="341" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been trying to figure out if 无聊 and 闷 have some difference in terms of usages. So I have thought of some scenarios below. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Decribing an activity&quot;. If I want to say this activity is very boring. Is the sentence &quot;这个活动很无聊&quot; or &quot;这个活动很闷&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Describing a person&quot;. If I want to say that person is a boring person. Should it be &quot;他是一个很无聊的人&quot; or &quot;他是一个很闷的人&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Describing as feeling&quot;. If I want to say &quot;I am so bored this few days&quot;. Should it be &quot;这几天我很闷&quot; or &quot;这几天我很无聊&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's all the scenario I can think of so far. I'm not sure if I constructed the sentences correctly so do correct me if I'm wrong. And do feel free to add more differences in their usages if I missed out some aspects! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T22:24:37.997" Title="无聊 vs 闷 differences in usage" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34182" CreationDate="2019-06-11T11:35:45.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;上网 and 网上 are interchangable in the two cases but not all, the meanings are similar but different in Chinese. 上网 literally means &lt;strong&gt;go to the internet&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinglish, while 网上 literally means &lt;strong&gt;on the internet&lt;/strong&gt;. The word &lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt; in &lt;strong&gt;上 + somewhere&lt;/strong&gt; structure is a verb like that &lt;strong&gt;to go&lt;/strong&gt; in English, generally means &lt;strong&gt;go to&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;get on&lt;/strong&gt;, like 上网, 上车, 上楼, 上学, 上课. The word &lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt; in &lt;strong&gt;somewhere + 上&lt;/strong&gt; structure is a preposition like that &lt;strong&gt;on&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;upon&lt;/strong&gt; in English, like 网上, 车上, 楼上, 地上, 桌上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T14:15:18.900" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T14:15:18.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34177" CreationDate="2019-06-11T11:48:55.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一点&lt;/strong&gt; means a &lt;strong&gt;dot&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;point&lt;/strong&gt; originally, also means &lt;strong&gt;a bit&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;a little&lt;/strong&gt;. But, often, an extra &lt;strong&gt;儿&lt;/strong&gt; is appended for the meaning &lt;strong&gt;a bit&lt;/strong&gt;. That means, if you say &lt;strong&gt;这一点&lt;/strong&gt; it usually means &lt;strong&gt;this point/view&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;这一点儿&lt;/strong&gt; it means &lt;strong&gt;so little&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;few&lt;/strong&gt;. But sometimes you don't need it, depending on the context. The tone of &lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt; is the fourth tone here. If you read &lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt; in the first tone, it means generally &lt;strong&gt;one o'clock&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, &lt;strong&gt;现在一点了&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;strong&gt;it is one o'clock&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When translate it in Google, I got &lt;strong&gt;hurry to open the door&lt;/strong&gt;, just &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=auto&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=%E5%BF%AB%E7%82%B9%E5%8E%BB%E5%BC%80%E9%97%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;try it here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-06-11T11:55:25.880" LastActivityDate="2019-06-11T11:55:25.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34189" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34190" CreationDate="2019-06-11T13:07:50.860" Score="1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is obviously a newly invented character designed by someone with a message. What the message is, or what the point of the character is completely escapes me though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sPKX3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sPKX3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it's IDS is: ⿲舌⿳十⿴囗⿱龹贝⿱一八乚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-06-11T14:52:44.310" LastActivityDate="2019-06-11T14:52:44.310" Title="What is this character: ⿲舌⿳十⿴囗⿱龹贝⿱一八乚?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34189" CreationDate="2019-06-11T13:51:44.910" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3330&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;polysyllabic invented &quot;character&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, part of the online language of Chinese netizens (网语). It is a graphical representation of what one could call a &quot;modern idiom&quot;: &lt;strong&gt;贵圈真乱&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;guì quān zhēn luàn&lt;/em&gt;, roughly meaning &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/22475348&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Your social circle is a mess&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase was popularised on BiliBili, although its roots apparently date back to the mid 2000s. Baidu &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%B4%B5%E5%9C%88%E7%9C%9F%E4%B9%B1/7116462&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;has an entry&lt;/a&gt; on the term. The use of 贵 as a sarcastic honorific is very much in vogue in Chinese netspeak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;mess&quot; referred to can cover all manner of 'disapproved' conduct, although the general tone is not necessarily vitriolic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-06-11T13:51:44.910" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34186" CreationDate="2019-06-11T14:35:36.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;无聊 (meaningless; uninteresting; listless) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闷 (bored; boring)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When using 无聊 to describe an event, your opinion on this event is 'it is meaningless' (therefore boring)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When using 闷 to describe an event, your opinion on this event is 'it is boring' (It just describes how you feel, no mention of the reason)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When using 无聊 to describe a person, your opinion on this  person is 'he is uninteresting' (therefore boring)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When using 闷 to describe a person, your opinion on this person is 'he is boring' (It just describes how you feel, no mention of the reason)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When using 无聊 to describe your feeling, you mean you feel listless, nothing interest you (therefore bored) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When using 闷  to describe your feeling, your mean you feel bored (It just describes how you feel, no mention of the reason) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(for event) 无聊 = boring (because it is meaningless in your opinion)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(for event) 闷 = boring (for whatever reason, may be the event is too long, may be things keep repeating and nothing new happen)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(for person) 无聊 = boring (because the person is uninteresting in your opinion)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(for person) 闷 = boring (for whatever reason, may be that person's topics for conversion do not interest you, maybe that person doesn't like to talk at all.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(for feeling) 无聊 = bored (because you are not interested in anything at the moment)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(for feeling) 闷 = bored (for whatever reason, may be you are at something interesting for too long and the fun wore off, may be you are unable to do the thing that does interest you)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别再做这种&lt;strong&gt;无聊&lt;/strong&gt;事了 (Stop doing &lt;strong&gt;meaningless&lt;/strong&gt; things like this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you cannot replace 无聊 with 闷 because 闷 doesn't contain the meaning of 'meaningless'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;這人很&lt;strong&gt;无聊&lt;/strong&gt;，一天到晚说人事非 (this guy is very &lt;strong&gt;uninteresting&lt;/strong&gt;, he just gossiping about people all day long)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you cannot replace 无聊 with 闷 because 闷 doesn't contain the meaning of 'uninteresting'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个人去看戏我会很&lt;strong&gt;闷&lt;/strong&gt; (I would feel &lt;strong&gt;bored&lt;/strong&gt; if I go to see a movies alone )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you cannot replace 闷 with 无聊 because 无聊 contains the meaning of 'listless' but you do interested in watching movies&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T22:24:37.997" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T22:24:37.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33914" CreationDate="2019-06-12T04:11:34.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我家有五口人：爷爷、奶奶、爸爸、妈妈和我。爸爸在电脑公司工作，他是一名工程师；妈妈在一所学校教数学；爷爷和奶奶早就退休，但他们也有很多活动。爷爷在老年大学学习书法，他最喜欢说的话是“活到老，学到老”；奶奶喜欢养花，每天精心伺候我们家四季常开的鲜花。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一位先生来到一个工地看见三个建筑工人在干同样的活，于是他问其中的一位：“你在做什么？”那个工人回答道：“你没看到我在砌一块砖？”那位先生又问第二个工人：“你在忙什么？”他一脸不高兴地回答：“我在做一个窗户。”第三个工人在听到同样的问题时，兴高采烈地说：“我在盖一座大教堂。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer to the 标点符号 question. Though the first paragraph can be marked otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-06-12T04:11:34.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34193" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34194" CreationDate="2019-06-12T06:07:04.523" Score="0" ViewCount="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two Chinese operatic terms that I'm looking at at the moment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;二流&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;倒板&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither of these terms show up in any dictionary that I have gone through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen both translated just phonetically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;erliu&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;daoban&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if there are better English equivalents for these terms though?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-06-12T07:46:31.097" Title="English translations for the operatic terms 二流 and 倒板?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34193" CreationDate="2019-06-12T07:46:31.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would argue that it is wisest to simply transliterate (with Pinyin) with the Chinese characters included. As both these are specific terms with no equivalent in Western culture, transliteration with some explanation is best. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;erliu&lt;/em&gt; (二六, a medium tempo &lt;em&gt;xipi&lt;/em&gt; tune)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;daoban&lt;/em&gt; (倒板, literally &quot;lead-in meter&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, academic studies have provided standard translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;二六 = &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_WJ8CwAAQBAJ&amp;amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;amp;dq=%22erliu%22&amp;amp;pg=PA14#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=%22erliu%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;two-six meter&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;倒板 = &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&amp;amp;lr=&amp;amp;id=7Ok0dxV9K10C&amp;amp;oi=fnd&amp;amp;pg=PA68&amp;amp;dq=%22daoban%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lead-in meter&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-06-12T07:46:31.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34196" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-12T12:04:27.067" Score="0" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a resource that explains the translation of English names to Chinese. In this case i am trying to understand why Broadway is translated to 百老汇。&#xA;Anyone knows? Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22192" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T07:21:31.830" Title="Etymology of foreign names translated to Chinese" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33771" CreationDate="2019-06-12T12:23:52.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's a cultural issue: Chinese people tend to &quot;collectivize&quot; things when they are talking about institutions or groups of people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, even if there are only two people talking, they tend to use 你们 and 我们 even if they are alone. That's a way to sound more polite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not wrong to use 你 or 我, it's just a habit to use the plural when talking about family, school, company, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2019-06-12T12:23:52.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33733" CreationDate="2019-06-12T12:45:20.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;就 - then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure &quot;一……, 就……&quot; means &quot;once..., then...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你一大早就出門趕飛機，現在很累吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You once (it's) dawn then came out (to) catch (the) plane, now very tired, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2019-06-12T12:45:20.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33731" CreationDate="2019-06-12T12:50:28.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;并 (at negations) = (not) at all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他虽然&lt;strong&gt;并&lt;/strong&gt;不聪明， 可是很努力。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Although he's not clever &lt;strong&gt;at all&lt;/strong&gt;, he's very diligent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2019-06-12T12:50:28.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34196" CreationDate="2019-06-12T13:02:21.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Most&lt;/strong&gt; foreign names are &lt;strong&gt;transliterated&lt;/strong&gt;, not translated into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;百老汇 /Bǎi lǎo huì/ is a transliteration of Broadway&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only a few English names of place are common enough to be translated by their actual meaning in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Buffalo city - 水牛城 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Phoenix city - 鳳凰城&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For people's name, even the simplest English names like &quot;Stone&quot; and &quot;White&quot; are transliterated as &quot;史東&quot; (Shǐ Dōng) and &quot;韋特&quot; (Wéi Tè) instead of translated as &quot;石&quot; (stone) and &quot;白&quot; (white)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-12T13:24:01.407" LastActivityDate="2019-06-12T13:24:01.407" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13015" CreationDate="2019-06-12T13:58:20.053" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;安康！(ankang)) means 'may you enjoy of a good health'; seems rather correct for a final salutation inside an email. Specialists can tell much better of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22193" LastActivityDate="2019-06-12T13:58:20.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34202" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34203" CreationDate="2019-06-12T15:17:16.340" Score="1" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;The symbol “~” appears in many definitions. What does it mean? &#xA;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2   纯；专：专～。～心～意。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E4%B8%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E4%B8%80&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1   头的前部，脸：脸～。颜～。～目。～～相觑。 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E9%9D%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E9%9D%A2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2   旧时指读书人：～子。～民。学～。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%A3%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%A3%AB&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE:&#xA;And, what does it mean when there are two consecutive swung dashes? Such as in:  “～～相觑。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21396" LastEditorUserId="21396" LastEditDate="2019-06-12T16:38:57.767" LastActivityDate="2019-06-13T08:20:35.400" Title="The Meaning of “~” in Definitions" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34202" CreationDate="2019-06-12T15:36:00.567" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The use of this &lt;em&gt;swung dash&lt;/em&gt; means the entry character or word is used in the corresponding words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 旧时指读书人：～子。～民。学～。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... is equivalent to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 In olden times, refers to educated people. 士子。士民。学士。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a common typographical convention, used in many dictionaries &lt;a href=&quot;http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=swung%20dash&amp;amp;sub=Search%20WordNet&amp;amp;o2=&amp;amp;o0=1&amp;amp;o8=1&amp;amp;o1=1&amp;amp;o7=&amp;amp;o5=&amp;amp;o9=&amp;amp;o6=&amp;amp;o3=&amp;amp;o4=&amp;amp;h=000000000000&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;globally&lt;/a&gt;, including in &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/a/153769&quot;&gt;English&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: for reduplication or for other forms of repeat of the entry, the swung dash is often repeated, viz for 面&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~ ~ 相觑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... is equivalent to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;面面相觑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-13T08:20:35.400" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34204" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34269" CreationDate="2019-06-12T16:01:21.697" Score="2" ViewCount="1284" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the US I usually ask for the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A #2 (top) to #1 (bottom) fade on the sides and neck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The neckline grows way too low so I ask them to cut that to a certain length&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Half an inch off the top&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cut the sideburns to a certain point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really don't know how to ask for this in China, and I searched online and the answers are rather inconsistent. Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6548" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T01:08:15.443" Title="How would I ask for a fade haircut plus a little bit off the top in chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34205" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34279" CreationDate="2019-06-13T07:29:51.130" Score="1" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on translating the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一年学费都要化千把，一套童子军服都要四五百&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book takes place during the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Second Sino-Japanese War&lt;/a&gt; which is during the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_(1912%E2%80%931949)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Republic of China&lt;/a&gt; era.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to make the numbers more relevant for modern readers, but I'm struggling to figure out how much &lt;em&gt;a thousand&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;four or five hundred&lt;/em&gt; is actually worth in today's currencies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My searches keep bringing up info about Taiwanese money, and not Mainland Chinese money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-06-13T07:36:57.070" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T13:59:51.317" Title="What was money worth during the Republic of China (1912 - 1949) era?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34145" CreationDate="2019-06-13T08:30:12.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Broadly speaking, 事情 tends to be neutral; 事件 for nasty things (rather like &quot;incident&quot; in English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-13T08:30:12.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30643" CreationDate="2019-06-13T08:52:50.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard word order is Subject Adverb Verb Object.  Time adverbs are much more fluid in positioning than place adverbs, i.e., can do S time-adverb V O, or time-adv S V O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is what I call &quot;focus&quot; (I distinguish between &quot;focus&quot; and &quot;emphasis&quot;, as there are emphasis words, e.g., 并 to go with 不, emphasizing the negative).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他今天八点要去看电影: sentence starts with 他, so the focus is on 他 (not 我, not 你), i.e., What's he going to do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天他八点要去看电影: sentence starts with 今天, so the focus is on 今天 (not yesterday, not tomorrow), i.e., &quot;What's happening today? He is going to see a film at 8 o'clock&quot; (whereas I'm going to do something else, say; implied, not necessarily overt contrast).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ditto with:&#xA;电影六点就开始了: sentence starts with 电影, so focus is on 电影.&#xA;六点电影就开始了: sentence starts with 六点, so focus is on 六点.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's what I call (in my teaching) the linguistic flagging up equivalent of physically holding up 1 of, say, 3 objects.  All eyes will look at the object held up, so when you say, &quot;It is...&quot;, they know which of the 3 objects &quot;it&quot; refers to.  So when you start with 今天, they'll focus on 今天, not 昨天 or 明天.  When you start with 他, they'll focus on 他, not 我, not 你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-14T01:28:31.877" LastActivityDate="2019-07-14T01:28:31.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34208" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-13T09:46:27.697" Score="3" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;Somebody showed me a group picture that included their face, and asked me “你可以找到我嘛”. After replying I asked why 嘛 is used instead of 吗 for this question. My Chinese is not great and my Chinese friend isn't great at explaining Chinese grammar to me in English, but they did say 语气词. Which, as I understand it, names this grammar construct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is 语气词? Why is it used here? How do I use it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clarification; this was a text message conversation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22196" LastEditorUserId="22196" LastEditDate="2019-06-13T15:06:21.080" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T16:54:57.613" Title="What is &quot;语气词&quot;? Why does this question end with 嘛 instead of 吗?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34208" CreationDate="2019-06-13T10:01:37.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;'s definition of 嘛:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 (used to persuade sb. to do sth.)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;来嘛, 不要太任性。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Lái ma, bụ̀yào tài rènxìng.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Come on, don't be so stubborn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 (used to emphasize the obvious)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;是星期日嘛。办公室当然关了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Shì Xīngqīrì ma. Bàngōngshì dāngrán guān le.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  It's Sunday. Of course offices are closed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here 嘛, despite it's similar pronunciation, has very different usage to 吗. It is mostly used in persuasion or to emphasize something that is obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking your sentence if it had been 吗 instead we would have something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你可以找到我吗？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you find me?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but your sentence: 你可以找到我嘛 works out to something more like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;See if you can find me!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-06-13T10:33:07.890" LastActivityDate="2019-06-13T10:33:07.890" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34210" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34211" CreationDate="2019-06-13T10:49:15.993" Score="1" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this line from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lsllw.cn/Article/Article.asp?nid=1264&amp;amp;page=2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;第一章 6 载昆 夫人 古老夫子&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“你们，莫冒火，听我来唱戏，”古老夫子真的唱起来。“事其所以观其所由，大势一去水东流。夫人呀，莫生气，请饮酒！” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm curious where the line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;事其所以观其所由，大势一去水东流&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;originates from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事其所以观其所由 should probably be: 视其所以 观其所由. I can't find any information for “大势一去水东流” apart from the article linked above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any idea where it originates from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-06-13T17:36:37.027" Title="What is the line “大势一去水东流” from?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34210" CreationDate="2019-06-13T12:00:17.553" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“大势一去&lt;strong&gt;水东流&lt;/strong&gt;” seemingly means &amp;quot;大势一去 就如長江水东流&amp;quot; (when defeat becomes inevitable, it is like the &lt;strong&gt;water of Yangtze River flow East&lt;/strong&gt;, --It can't be turned back)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using &amp;quot;River water run East&amp;quot; metaphorically for the meaning of  &amp;quot;irreversible situation&amp;quot; is very common in Chinese poetry, the following are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shicimingju.com/chaxun/list/3710.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;念奴娇 赤壁怀古&lt;/a&gt;》宋·苏轼：&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;大江东去&lt;/strong&gt;  .....&amp;quot; (The water of Yangtze River flow East and won't return...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;https://6point7billion.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/%E6%A5%8A%E6%85%8E-%E3%80%8C%E6%BB%BE%E6%BB%BE%E9%95%B7%E6%B1%9F%E6%9D%B1%E9%80%9D%E6%B0%B4%E3%80%8D-%E8%AA%BF%E5%AF%84%E3%80%8A%E8%87%A8%E6%B1%9F%E4%BB%99%E3%80%8B%E8%A9%9E/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;臨江仙&lt;/a&gt;》楊慎:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;滚滚长江东逝水&lt;/strong&gt;....&amp;quot; (The water of the rolling Yangtze River disappear to the East...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;https://fanti.dugushici.com/ancient_proses/70229&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;虞美人&lt;/a&gt;》 南唐后主李煜:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;....&lt;strong&gt;一江春水向東流&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; (....The water of a river flow East in Spring)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“事其所以观其所由， came from 论语 &lt;em&gt;“视其所以，观其所由，察其所安，人焉廋哉！&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;大势一去  is referring to the idiom &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%A7%E5%8A%BF%E5%B7%B2%E5%8E%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大势已去&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;宋·朱熹《朱子谏类》卷五十一：“.... 莫是大势已去。”&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The phrase 水东流 appeared in the first line of &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%BB%A1%E6%B1%9F%E7%BA%A2%C2%B7%E6%B1%89%E6%B0%B4%E4%B8%9C%E6%B5%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;满江红&lt;/a&gt;·&amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;汉水东流....&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The '戏'(opera) that 古老夫子 '唱'(sung) was a mix and match from different sources -- an original creation from the author of 《普提山下》陈果卿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-13T17:36:37.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34212" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34213" CreationDate="2019-06-14T00:16:03.357" Score="1" ViewCount="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lyric from this song: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://mojim.com/cny111282x11x2.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://mojim.com/cny111282x11x2.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=auto&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=%E9%81%A5%E6%9C%9B%E5%8D%B4%E9%97%B4%E9%9A%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://translate.google.com/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=auto&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=%E9%81%A5%E6%9C%9B%E5%8D%B4%E9%97%B4%E9%9A%94&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遥望 means to look into the distance?&#xA;却 is however?&#xA;间隔 is interval or space?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the significance of 却 and 间隔？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They seem to have no purpose in this statement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4181" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T01:08:59.317" Title="How does 遥望却间隔 translate to &quot;Look at the distance?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34212" CreationDate="2019-06-14T00:54:19.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The level of lyric writing is generally bad in Hong Kong compare to the golden era of 70's and 80's. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遥望 - look from afar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;却 - but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;间隔 - divided. - &lt;em&gt;It should use 相隔 (separated)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The writer wrote &quot;遥望却间隔&quot;  wanted to express &quot;I (can) watch (her) from a distance but we are divided, (therefore I can't get near her) &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Look at the distance&quot; is the translation of 遥望 only&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遥望却间隔 should be translated as &quot;can only look from afar but we are divided&quot; (which is the original meaning, and the phrasing is quite awkward )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better phrasing is 可望(而)不可即 (can watch but cannot get close)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-14T01:08:59.317" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T01:08:59.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34204" CreationDate="2019-06-14T04:12:00.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The neckline grows way too low so I ask them to cut that to a certain&#xA;  length&quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try 把后面的头发往上剪 or 把后面的头发往上剃一些&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cut the sideburns to a certain point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try 把鬓角往上剃一些.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T04:12:00.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34215" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-14T06:29:13.177" Score="0" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;Case 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他的字写得好。（✕） &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他的字写得很好。（〇）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他的字写得好，是因為比別人勤勞練字的關係。（〇）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他的字写得很好，是因為比別人勤勞練字的關係。（✕）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 很 compulsory in case one while it is redundant in case two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21066" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T14:48:44.180" Title="Add 很 or not in these cases" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34215" CreationDate="2019-06-14T06:59:23.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Case one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 is optional, you can say 他字写得很好，歌唱得很好，琴也彈得很好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很 is also optional, you can simply say 他字写得好，歌唱得好，琴也彈得好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的, and 是 are all optional, you can simply say 他字写得好，因為他比別人練得更勤力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, you can  say  他的字写這麼好，是因為他比別人練得更勤力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You find 他的字写得很好，是因為比別人勤勞練字的關係。awkward, because the better adverb in this context is not 很(very) but 這麼 (this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他字写得(這麼)好  ... = His penmanship is this good because... (&lt;em&gt;這麼好 make the sentence sounds incomplete, therefore, point to the need of a cause&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他字写得(很)好是因為... = His penmanship is very good because... (&lt;em&gt;很好 make the sentence sounds completed, therefore, doesn't point to the need of a cause&lt;/em&gt; as much)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-14T07:10:48.750" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T07:10:48.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34196" CreationDate="2019-06-14T07:21:31.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Transliterating Western names can be tricky for the person whose name is being transliterated. The transliterator can play a trick on him/her by choosing characters that sound like the Western name but mean something horrible, so one should get a second or even third opinion, preferably from different dialect speakers, as the same characters will/can sound different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John DeFrancis covered this in one of his books.  I'm paraphrasing as I can't remember the exact details now.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rendering Western names into Chinese went through a number of phases over the years: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(i) Account for all the sounds in the Western name and do it in the same (Western) order, e.g., Michael Wilkinson would be done as Mai-ke-er Wei-er-jin-sen (I'm not doing the characters because it depends on what the transliterator chooses); &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(ii) Since it's to be a &quot;Chinese&quot; name, then do it in the Chinese order (surname first, then personal name), so Wei-er-jin-sen Mai-ke-er; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(iii) Since it's a &quot;Chinese&quot; name, then follow the Chinese convention (most commonly 1-plus-2: 1 character for surname, 2 for personal name), so Wei Mai-ke.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was at this third phase that an Italian (called Bozzetto or something like that) was given a Chinese name which sounds rather like Bozzetto.  Every time someone asked him in Chinese what his name was and he'd proudly say the 3 syllables, they laughed.  He later discovered that the transliterator had given him the Chinese name of 不知道.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone with the surname Moyse was given 莫伊斯 Mò Yīsī, which sounds like Moyse and adopts characters used in classical Chinese.  However, it also sounds like 没(有)意思, especially if said in a regional accent.  She then went for the sounds of her first name Sarah; it came out sounding just like &quot;salad&quot;.  So, she's now gone for a Chinese name that doesn't contain any of those sounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T07:21:31.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33733" CreationDate="2019-06-14T07:44:08.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one of a list of 就 used as an adverb (goes before the verb).  It's the immediacy 就 here (vs tardiness 才), for which there isn't always an English equivalent -- the English might come out as a different word each time, or one doesn't account for 就 in the English version.  Thinking of immediacy 就 as &quot;already&quot; might help: already left for the airport as early as...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It tends to have a subjective (vs neutral) quality to it.  One way to test the point of something is to remove it and see what happens:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你一大早就出門趕飛機：stronger with 就; in the speaker's view, the 一大早 is very early (already out of the door at early morning).&#xA;你一大早出門趕飛機：this 就-less version is not so strong; the 一大早 is not seen as THAT early (as the 就 version).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a comparison, 五分钟就好了 / 五分钟才好: &quot;5 mins&quot; is the same length of time in both examples, yet the immediacy 就 version makes &quot;5 mins&quot; a short time (subjective quality; e.g., if the train's leaving in 6 mins, 5 mins is short -- whatever it is will get done in 5 mins, so you'll be in time to catch your train), vs the tardiness 才 version (if your train's leaving in 4 mins, then 5 mins is too long).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: no situational 了 for tardiness 才.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T07:44:08.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34215" CreationDate="2019-06-14T08:33:42.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的字写得好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的字写得很好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both sound natural to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的字写得好，是因為比別人勤勞練字的關係。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sounds natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的字写得很好，是因為比別人勤勞練字的關係.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sounds a bit odd, because the two clauses states different aspects. 他的字写得很好 states &lt;em&gt;his writing is quite good&lt;/em&gt;, which sounds a complete statement and doesn't need a reason. But others might have different opinions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T08:33:42.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27091" CreationDate="2019-06-14T08:59:18.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A 比 B 高: only says A is taller than B (could both be very short)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 比 B 更高: B is already very tall (say 6' 5&quot;), A is even taller (say 6' 8&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 比 B 高多了: A is a lot taller than B (don't know by how much, just a lot) (could both be short; it's just that A is a lot taller)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 比 B 高 amount: A is taller than B by amount (could both be very short)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A and B can be humans, can be things like storeyed buildings, hills/mountains, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastEditorUserId="22187" LastEditDate="2019-06-14T14:21:24.170" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T14:21:24.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28990" CreationDate="2019-06-14T10:25:20.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplistic way to remember it is: they are various forms of 啊 depending on (the shape of the mouth in) the ending sound of the previous syllable.  There're also 哪 which is 啊 preceded by a final n-sound (人哪 Oh people!); 哇 (好哇；不够哇);啦 (preceded by 儿 sound in Northern-speak)；etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there is still a difference between them in some cases (need more context), sometimes conveying surprise, disbelief, amazement, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T10:25:20.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28707" CreationDate="2019-06-14T11:39:53.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my teaching, I distinguish between grammatical usage and cultural/social usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;I don't have enough money today&quot;:  我今天没有足够的钱 is grammatically correct (SVO construction), but people tend to say (cultural/social usage): 我今天的钱不够 (Topic Comment construction: topic 钱, comment 不够).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My explanation for the above is: the focus (not emphasis, as there are emphasis markers) is not on 我 (the sentence is not about &quot;me&quot;) but on 钱 (the sentence is about &quot;money&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T11:39:53.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34215" CreationDate="2019-06-14T14:48:44.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;很:&#xA;(i) is often used for balancing (e.g., 很好), so doesn't necessarily carry its full weight (cf. English, when you say &quot;I'm very well&quot;, in answer to &quot;How are you?&quot;, where you don't necessarily mean VERY); &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(ii) is an absolute (vs relative) value, so no contrast/comparison implied (这个很好 is an absolute statement, just commenting on &quot;this&quot;; vs 这个好 is a(n implied) relative statement, sort of &quot;THIS ONE's good [implied: vs that one]&quot;).  This is why absolute 很 cannot be used in a 比 sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your examples:&#xA;Case 1&#xA;他的字写得好。（✕）--&gt; There's nothing wrong with this, if the context implies a contrast (他的字写得好, vs his singing / cooking, say, or vs someone else's 字)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的字写得很好。（〇）--&gt; This is just an absolute statement, so no implied contrast with his other skills or someone else's 字.  (But can be used as an implied contrast -- need context; &quot;rules&quot; are never 100%, remember.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的字写得好，是因為比別人勤勞練字的關係。（〇）--&gt; No absolute 很 because it's a comparison: His characters are better because...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的字写得很好，是因為比別人勤勞練字的關係。（✕）--&gt; This one is acceptable, actually, although the second half has a comparison, because it could be that his characters are (very) well written because he practises more.  Reason: the first half is a statement on its own (not a comparison with the second); the second half is the reason for why his characters are well written; so it's not a direct comparison as such (cf. Can't do: 他的字写得比别人很好 where absolute 很 and the comparison are sitting in the same sentence).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T14:48:44.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5928" CreationDate="2019-06-14T15:27:01.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another seemingly-double-question-word example is: 你知道他叫什么名字吗 (什么 and 吗).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The breakdown is: &#xA;(i) outer &quot;Onion Ring&quot;: 你知道……吗 Do you know [fact]?&#xA;(ii) inner &quot;Onion Ring&quot; / the &quot;fact&quot; bit: 他叫什么名字 &quot;he is called what name&quot;&#xA;Do you know what his name is? (Coincidentally, the &quot;what&quot; here in English is not the question bit either.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cf. 你知道他叫什么名字: only one question word (什么), which is in the &quot;fact&quot; bit (comes after 知道; 知道 being for knowing a fact).  This is a statement: You know what his name is.  (However, people often take short cuts, especially when speaking, so this can be a question, with the 吗 left out, because it's clear from the context that the speaker's asking the listener.)  Context is practically always necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T15:27:01.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6240" CreationDate="2019-06-14T15:56:24.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often, it feels that the language will play tricks on you, especially when you're starting to get complacent (about having formulated some clever &quot;rule&quot; or mnemonic).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general rule (note the use of &quot;general&quot;) is one element of the character is the radical -- tells you what category it is: hand-related, water-related, etc.; the other is the phonetic -- tells you what the sound is (not the tone).  Well, not always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the example I always use in my teaching (I'm not bringing the tones in, as same phonetic doesn't always = same tone):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reading for 番 is &quot;fan&quot;, so it should follow that 翻 should be &quot;fan&quot; as well.  Correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reading for 潘 should be &quot;fan&quot; too, since it has the same phonetic 番. Wrong.  It's Pan (a surname). OK, even if they have different initial consonants (&quot;f&quot; / &quot;p&quot;), at least they have the same vowel sound (&quot;an&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;播: (i) first guess: reading should be &quot;fan&quot;.  Nope.  (ii) &quot;pan&quot; then, given the 潘 experience above. Nope.  What's the reading? &quot;bo&quot; --&gt; totally different initial consonant from the others, totally different vowel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you're thinking it's because the simplification process has ended up making them all have the same phonetic: no, the characters are the same images in the traditional script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule / Lesson: Do not take the Chinese language for granted.  Never be complacent!  (As I say to my poor students who feel constantly wrong-footed.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T15:56:24.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30286" CreationDate="2019-06-14T16:29:15.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you google &quot;Chinese wedding&quot; and go to Images, you will see this double happiness character on the tapestry at the ancestral worship table (where the happy couple will present tea to the ancestors).  It can also go on almost everything else at a wedding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is one of the easiest to do in Chinese paper cutting as it's angular and symmetrical. Have a look at this video if you're interested (it's only 2:22 long):  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht9ZcPQV7ds&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht9ZcPQV7ds&lt;/a&gt;. Don't forget: you need to use red paper, as red is the auspicious colour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T16:29:15.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9369" CreationDate="2019-06-14T16:33:29.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;够 is the simplified version.  夠 is the traditional version.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I wonder if this is a case of the Language Reform Committee -- who were in charge of the simplification of the characters -- needing to be seen to be doing something, so they just switched the 2 components over, box ticked!  Haha.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T16:33:29.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12846" CreationDate="2019-06-14T16:57:26.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese language, especially formal register Chinese, seems to like balanced words, i.e., 2 characters (chars).  There are different permutations internally for 2-char words (V O rendered externally as a V; adj N rendered externally as a N; etc.).  I am only using the permutation that has both chars with the same meaning (be it V V, or N N, e.g.).  Analysing the list of 2-char words I have compiled for my teaching, I also noticed that some are 1st char is formal register, 2nd char is informal (e.g., 邀请); whilst some are the other way round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;邀请 yāoqǐng: I teach my students &quot;Guessology&quot; (my own coinage) to arrive at the final meaning: just go for the meaning of one of them (请 for them at the lower levels; it's one of the first chars they learn, in 请问, e.g.), and let that represent the whole.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I teach them to think of it in terms of the &quot;Rule of Balance&quot;: to balance a word, you have to find friends (you don't get enemies to form a team), so if 请 = to invite (among other meanings: to request, to treat [hospitality-wise, not hospital-wise]), then you can fairly confidently predict that 邀 should = to invite (even if you have no idea what the pronunciation is).  So, you don't need to know the meanings of both chars to get the meaning of the whole word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is, of course, a very rough &quot;rule&quot;.  It's a strategy I teach my students, especially for exams and real life, where they won't/mightn't have the time to look up half-unknowns in a dictionary, digital or not.  This is, of course, useful for reading only (with your eyes), as you don't need the pronunciation, just the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can extend the Guessology logic to other unknowns. If you guess that 邀 = to invite (from 请), then the next time you come across 邀 in combination with another unknown char, you can apply the same rule: if 邀 = to invite, then the unknown char must also = to invite, say. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, &quot;rules&quot; are never 100%.  If it's 邀买 (in 邀买人心), then it's V1 V2 (2 different meanings put together for a chronological process), or 邀功 (take credit [for sb else's effort]), then it's V O construction.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, always be flexible and consider all sorts of other possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastEditorUserId="22187" LastEditDate="2019-06-14T17:50:20.557" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T17:50:20.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22079" CreationDate="2019-06-14T17:35:32.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I translate professionally, and teach translation as well, and I have no comfortable solution.  It is one of those cross-cultural conundrums that cannot be resolved satisfactorily with even a short equivalent, as family ranking is so precise to the Chinese, but if I must, then here's my squirm-my-way-through solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Brother&quot; and &quot;sister&quot; are not so bad, because at least one can translate them into Chinese as 哥哥/弟弟, 姐姐/妹妹, and hope to get away with it.  Not ideal, but doable, if clunky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The really impossible ones are the other relatives: 2 hoops to go through for uncle / aunt (paternal side or maternal? older or younger than parent?); even more hoops to go through for cousins (male or female? paternal side or maternal? older or younger than speaker or reference person?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I do, if the context allows such vagueness in the Chinese and I have no way of verifying further details for the &quot;uncle/aunt/cousin&quot;, is to go for &quot;亲戚 qīnqi / relative&quot; (or 亲人).  (Or turn the job down...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastEditorUserId="22187" LastEditDate="2019-06-15T05:12:10.387" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T05:12:10.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34174" CreationDate="2019-06-14T20:29:41.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;宁和 can be used as a real Chinese name. 宁 is a common family name and 和 is totally ok for a given name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used as a family name, 宁 pronounced as ning4. With such pronunciation, it also can mean &quot;rather&quot;, like 宁死不屈(rather die than surrender).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When pronounced as ning2, it means quiet/peace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear, people will say ning4和 but won't understand the name as &quot;rather peace&quot;. Usually, this name will be considered as &quot;quiet and peace&quot;. It is a valid name but won't have the &quot;aspire&quot; to peace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the above is for Chinese name, not quite sure if it is allowed to only have 2 characters in Japanese name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T20:29:41.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34186" CreationDate="2019-06-14T21:44:00.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;无聊 = boring, meaningless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闷 = men1 / men4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;men1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Seal/make air not flow: 这道菜需要闷十五分钟&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not speak/not express: 闷声坐着&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;men4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The feeling of air does not flow: 电梯里太闷了 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sulk/Gloomy mood: 他这两天看起来很烦闷&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Describing an activity&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个活动很无聊 = This activity is boring(Maybe many things happen in the activity but you are not interested)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个活动很闷 = Not too many people speak during the activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Describing a person&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是一个很无聊的人 = He is a boring person. (This person may do many things but all meaningless/you are not interested)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他是一个很闷的人 = He doesn't express himself much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Describing as feeling&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这几天我很无聊 = I'm bored these days. (I don't have anything interesting to do)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这几天我很闷 = I'm in a bad mood these days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: The 闷men4 Gloomy mood, usually this mood is held by oneself, not expressing it. Like 他一个人到旁边生闷气去了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9887" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T21:44:00.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34233" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-14T23:20:29.870" Score="2" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UAdrY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hello so I ran into this tattoo and I love how it looks but I would hate to get something I don’t even know means just because it’s cute so I was wondering if someone would be kind enough to translate this for me please. I would also like the words “love,faith,courage” translated please, it would be great if you can help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22203" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T23:19:09.713" Title="Can someone please translate what she has on her back?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34233" CreationDate="2019-06-15T00:02:14.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It says 主幸活, but this is not a phrase, just three Characters representing three concepts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;主 short for &amp;quot;天主&amp;quot; (Lord in heaven) or simply &amp;quot;主&amp;quot; (The Lord), meaning God&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;幸 short for &amp;quot;幸福&amp;quot; (happiness)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;活 short for &amp;quot;生活&amp;quot;(n) (living) or &amp;quot;活著&amp;quot;(adj) (alive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tattoo implies &amp;quot;believe in God and you will live a happy life&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect she confused &amp;quot;生活&amp;quot;(living) with &amp;quot;生命&amp;quot; (life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;God. Happiness. Life&amp;quot; make more sense than &amp;quot;God. Happiness. Living(n)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T23:19:09.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34236" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34259" CreationDate="2019-06-15T03:33:03.957" Score="2" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the following sentence in a grade three 语文 school book in China (&lt;a href=&quot;https://confucius-institute.centre.uq.edu.au/text-strange-big-rock&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;transcript&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他终于弄明白了&lt;/strong&gt;，这块大石头是从遥远的秦岭被冰川带到这里来的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [&lt;em&gt;My translation&lt;/em&gt;] He finally understood, this big rock is from the distant Qinling glacier and lead here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;：Why is &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E5%BC%84/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;弄&lt;/a&gt; (nòng) in 他终于弄明白了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I see it, 他终于明白了 (without 弄) would have exactly the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T12:29:25.930" Title="Why is 弄 (nòng) in 他终于弄明白了?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34236" CreationDate="2019-06-15T04:25:03.693" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;弄 = &amp;quot;to make/ to get&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干净= clean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弄干净 = make/ get (it) clean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;错 = wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弄错 = get (it) wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清楚 = clear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弄清楚 = make (it) clear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他终于明白了 - he finally understands&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明白 (understand) is a verb here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他终于弄明白了 - he finally figured out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弄明白 = make (himself) understand = figures out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T06:02:02.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14609" CreationDate="2019-06-15T08:32:24.187" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My immediate thought would be: 你跟玛丽还在一起吗？This would work for married couples as well as couples who are not married.  The context would make it clear, so it's the most flexible version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T08:32:24.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34247" CreationDate="2019-06-15T09:11:55.367" Score="6" ViewCount="1896" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read this sentence :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;前几天爸妈出差去了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which translates to : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A few days ago, my parents went on a business trip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might sound stupid but why is it “出差去” and not “去出差” when it’s “go on a business trip”?&#xA;Or perhaps, both phrases are just the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is there other cases where words are reversed like this?&#xA;I have yet to know much about Chinese but what I mean is, when you look at the words order, it might be just fine (?) to translate it as “去出差” (go on a business trip) without having to reverse the words order into “出差去”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18792" LastEditDate="2019-06-16T09:53:13.717" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T03:57:09.993" Title="Why is it 出差去 and not 去出差?" Tags="&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34239" CreationDate="2019-06-15T10:09:06.220" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not really a case of words being reversed, it has more to do with the grammatical functions of the word “to go.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you check out &lt;em&gt;Pleco&lt;/em&gt;’s definition of 去 you’ll see it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4 [before and / or after a verb] go in order to; be going to (do sth. there)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the give a really good example where 去 is moveable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;咱们去看电影。(= 咱们看电影去。= 咱们去看电影去。)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Zánmen qù kàn diànyǐng. (or) zánmen kàn diànyǐng qù. (or) zánmen qù kàn diànyǐng qù.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Let’s go to see a movie. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T10:09:06.220" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34241" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34254" CreationDate="2019-06-15T14:40:11.840" Score="0" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an Essay I wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;费先生关于「焉有稼」所说的仿佛有道理。这样的观念让上者成为了「五谷不分」的人。但他&lt;strong&gt;关于&lt;/strong&gt;孟夫子写的略有偏见&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher corrected the second (bold) 关于 to 对。 Is this presumably to avoid repetition, or are there subtleties creating a preference, when used in conjunction with different verbs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T08:57:02.263" Title="why 对 and not 关于？" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34242" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-15T15:39:55.810" Score="0" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please help me identify the characters of the seal (again).&#xA;My friend identified one of the characters as ’和’ but she's not sure with it.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GK6JI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22210" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T13:55:46.730" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T13:55:46.730" Title="Please help me identify the characters on the seal (Characters identified: 知惠子)" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34239" CreationDate="2019-06-16T01:56:07.373" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm loathe to disagree with user3306365 but, I'm not so sure 去 is simply &quot;the verb 'to go'&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In German we have 2 words: her (say 'hair') and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hin (say hin to rhyme with in). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These combine with countless verbs to indicate direction:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;her: direction from somewhere to the speaker = 来&lt;br&gt;&#xA;hin: direction to somewhere from the speaker = 去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前几天爸妈出差去了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Einige Tage gelegen gingen meine Eltern auf Geschäftsreise &lt;strong&gt;hin&lt;/strong&gt;. (verb is: &lt;strong&gt;hin&lt;/strong&gt;gehen)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A few days ago, my parents went on a business trip. (English loses the 去）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think, 去 before a verb in Chinese corresponds with the so-called 'to infinitive' and is also not 'go'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite why the Chinese say 去出差 is a mystery to me, because 出差 already means &quot;go away on a business trip&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T01:56:07.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2655" CreationDate="2019-06-16T06:12:14.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like the original translator's 被送到医院去了: 被 tends to be for nasty things, with an element of what I call &quot;sitting duck&quot; (&quot;can't-do-anything-about-it&quot;-ness) about it.  被送到医院去了, to me, almost conjures up an image of the drinker being carted off to the hospital, which is appropriate here, I feel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also like 孤影萍踪's 你可别 (over 你最好别) as it's stronger, which is appropriate here too, given the circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T06:12:14.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="906" CreationDate="2019-06-16T06:33:58.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This 的 is called Situational 的 or part of 是……的 with the 是 left out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Situational 的 = &quot;that's the way things are&quot;, for adding to a fact that's not to be gainsaid.  I find using &quot;you know&quot;/&quot;let me tell you this&quot; useful sometimes (e.g., 他不吃肉 vs 他不吃肉的 He doesn't eat meat, you know；他不會來 vs 他不會來的 He won't be coming, let me tell you this), but there'll be other English renditions depending on the context.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could say it's for emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22187" LastEditorUserId="22187" LastEditDate="2019-06-16T07:58:55.850" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T07:58:55.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34252" CreationDate="2019-06-16T06:43:24.143" Score="0" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentences below all use the word &quot;for&quot; to indicate purpose. I tried to think of a few sentences that may use &quot;for&quot; a little bit differently. Can you help me understand how to use &quot;for&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you translate &quot;do you have a microwave for guests to use?&quot; Is it: “你有一个客人可以用的微波炉吗？” is there a better way to say that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also:&#xA;&quot;This microwave is for guests use only.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Is this gift for me?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;That chair is not made for adults. It is only for kids.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16080" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-06-17T04:53:55.650" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T11:34:34.047" Title="Various uses of the English &quot;for&quot; to indicate purpose" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34239" CreationDate="2019-06-16T06:53:49.100" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;adding some thoughts here as a native speaker:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can say 前几天爸妈去出差了。There's no semantic difference to me in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Under the hood, the syntax are different. In 去出差, 去 indeed means &quot;to go&quot;, and the phrase's nothing more complicated than the literal translation you've mentioned: &quot;go on a business trip&quot;. &#xA;But in 出差去, it's the 出差 that's the verb. 去 following verbs, just adds the feeling of &quot;already gone&quot;. For example, 他吃晚饭了 means he's had dinner, while 他吃晚饭去了 means he's left for dinner.&#xA;出差 business trip itself already carries the meaning of gone/left. Therefore in this case, it actually doesn't make a big difference with or without 去 in the end.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just like &quot;go&quot; in English, 去 sometimes can be tricky in terms of pragmatics. In user3306356's example 咱们看电影去。 看电影去 has a more cheerful, friendly tone compared to 咱们去看电影。In fact, the 去 + verb sounds so decisive that I rarely hear people use it without adding a 吧 in the end to soften the tone, when proposing an idea in daily communication.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22211" LastEditorUserId="22211" LastEditDate="2019-06-16T22:38:09.907" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T22:38:09.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34242" CreationDate="2019-06-16T06:58:42.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters are &lt;strong&gt;知惠子&lt;/strong&gt;, which point to a Japanese name probably pronounced as &lt;em&gt;Chieko&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;ちえこ&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;You should visit the chat rooms in japanese.stackexchange.com to confirm this.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T06:58:42.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34239" CreationDate="2019-06-16T07:50:27.607" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am Chinese so I can explain it to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;出差“means go on a business trip and “去” also means go.&#xA;It is duplicated so we usually say it &quot;出差“ not &quot;去出差“ since &quot;出差&quot; has the meaning of &quot;去&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;出差去了“ this actually equals to &quot;出差了&quot; the &quot;去&quot; is a sometimes a habitual words in this sentence. I think the only meaning is the status is already go.but &quot;去&quot; can be omitted.&quot;出差去了“ and &quot;出差了&quot; have same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22212" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T07:50:27.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27328" CreationDate="2019-06-16T07:52:29.170" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;轻快的跑步&#xA;跑步很轻快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跑步轻快 is not a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22212" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T07:52:29.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31316" CreationDate="2019-06-16T07:54:43.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我今天已经把猫食放了 is the right sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 把 猫食 放了 I set the cat's food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天我已经把猫食给放了 or 我今天已经把猫食放了 is all natual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22212" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T07:54:43.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34246" CreationDate="2019-06-16T08:05:22.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many ways to say it.&#xA;你有给客人用的微波炉吗？&#xA;你有一台微波炉好给客人用吗？&#xA;你有给客人用的微波炉吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Is this gift for me?&quot;&#xA;这个礼物是给我的吗？&#xA;这是给我的礼物吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;That chair is not made for adults. It is only for kids.&quot;&#xA;这把椅子不是给成人制作的，只是给孩子的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22212" LastEditorUserId="11374" LastEditDate="2019-06-17T11:34:34.047" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T11:34:34.047" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34241" CreationDate="2019-06-16T08:08:05.237" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;since &quot;关于&quot; is for object not for people.&#xA;&quot;对&quot;is for a man not for object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22212" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T08:08:05.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34241" CreationDate="2019-06-16T08:43:59.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not about avoiding repetition, but the difference of 关于/对 in usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对…（持态度）is a collocation. It is similar to &quot;toward&quot; as in &quot;attitude toward&quot; collocation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他对你颇有偏见&lt;/strong&gt;（correct）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他关于你颇有偏见&lt;/strong&gt;（incorrect）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;关于 serves as &quot;about&quot; &quot;with regard to&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;胡适所作关于新诗的那番论调饱受非议&lt;/strong&gt;（correct）（&lt;strong&gt;discussion/view（derogatory）&lt;/strong&gt; on/about modern poetry）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;胡适对鲁迅为人的论断彰显其翩翩风度&lt;/strong&gt;（correct）（&lt;strong&gt;judgement/conclusion&lt;/strong&gt; of 鲁迅's humanness）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-06-16T08:57:02.263" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T08:57:02.263" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34255" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34258" CreationDate="2019-06-16T09:10:26.107" Score="2" ViewCount="396" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我每天吃吃睡睡，从来不运动，吃饱就睡，醒了，就吃，怎么还是不胖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder why the writer didn’t add 了 after “吃饱” whereas they added 了 after 醒.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know what 了 indicates here, it’s just that I don’t know why the writer didn’t treat “吃饱就睡” and “醒了就吃” equally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) Is it for the sake of “even amount of characters (4 - 4)”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) Is it okay if I add 了 after 吃饱 &gt; “吃饱(了)就睡”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One trivial question to add :&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A native once corrected me for not putting 都 after 每天, then why&#xA;  doesn’t this one have 都 in it though?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18792" LastEditDate="2019-06-16T09:31:45.543" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T15:24:25.793" Title="Why one uses 了 and the other one doesn’t?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34256" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34359" CreationDate="2019-06-16T10:18:14.643" Score="3" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some letters (A-Z) have Chinese character counterparts. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;X = 叉&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;U = 优&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other examples of this phenomenon are there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2021-04-13T22:49:39.697" Title="What letters (A-Z) have Chinese counterparts?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34256" CreationDate="2019-06-16T12:09:29.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the case of &quot;U = 优&quot;, 优 is a sound-alike loan word of &quot;U&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;i&quot; = &quot;愛&quot; /Ài/ (as in &quot;愛鳳/ iPhone&quot;) - &lt;em&gt;愛 is the loan word for &quot;i&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;嗑&quot; /Kē/ = &quot;k&quot; (as in &quot;嗑毒品/ K毒品&quot;) - &lt;em&gt;k is the loan word for &quot;嗑&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much like:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bus - 巴士&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taxi - 的士&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the case of &quot;X = 叉&quot;, &quot;叉&quot; is a graphical representation of the alphabet &quot;X&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;X&quot; looked like a &quot;交叉&quot; (cross), therefore, people nicknamed &quot;X&quot; as &quot;叉&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-16T12:32:43.937" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T12:32:43.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34255" CreationDate="2019-06-16T12:17:59.367" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Overall, your analysis is correct. It's indeed for the sake of “even amount of characters (4 - 4)” in this case. It might be more obvious if it writes: &quot;吃饱就睡，醒了就吃&quot; or &quot;吃饱就睡，睡醒就吃&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃饱了就睡 is also correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T12:17:59.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34236" CreationDate="2019-06-16T12:29:25.930" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;弄xx in Chinese implies that it takes some efforts, such as practicing, thinking and etc to get things crossed. So, 弄明白 is saying that he has done some research or mulled it over for some time in order to understand it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我终于明白了 means &lt;em&gt;I finally realize/get the idea&lt;/em&gt;. It could be that the idea suddenly came to my mind and I might not have to take any efforts to work it out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T12:29:25.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34239" CreationDate="2019-06-16T12:44:04.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, you have received several answers from native speakers. But I'd like to add some contexts and hope that would help you understand it better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A1: 你爸妈做什么去了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B1: 我爸妈出差去了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A2: 你爸妈上哪去了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B2: 我爸妈去出差了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A3: 你爸妈呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B3: 我爸妈出差了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, all are correct. Which one would be put in practice? Most likely corresponding to the proceeding question. But I'm not stating that replying other options would be wrong. It's just the &lt;strong&gt;most likely&lt;/strong&gt; answer we probably get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T12:44:04.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31316" CreationDate="2019-06-16T15:13:56.533" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我今天已经放了猫粮了 sounds more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22216" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T15:13:56.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34255" CreationDate="2019-06-16T15:24:25.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 is omitted to match the 4 syllables of the following sentence. 吃了就睡，醒了就吃 also works nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22216" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T15:24:25.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34239" CreationDate="2019-06-16T15:33:45.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;as a native speaker, I think both ways are acceptable and commonly seen, and I feel no difference between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I have to pick some difference, I'll say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;去出差了&amp;quot; focuses on the verb &amp;quot;去&amp;quot;, this expression highlights your &amp;quot;parent's&amp;quot; action.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我爸妈&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;出差了。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My parents&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;went&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;on a business trip.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;出差去了&amp;quot; focuses on the state of &amp;quot;出差&amp;quot;, this expression highlights your &amp;quot;parent's&amp;quot; state.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我爸妈&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;出差&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;去了。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My parents was&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;on a business trip&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, &amp;quot;Someone...去了&amp;quot; is rarely used on formal occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope it helps you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22217" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T15:33:45.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34264" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34308" CreationDate="2019-06-16T15:42:21.460" Score="3" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Motivation&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While writing &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1584/21386&quot;&gt;my recent meta question&lt;/a&gt;, I've cited &lt;a href=&quot;http://linuxyeo.pixnet.net/blog/post/288479369-%E7%B0%A1%E9%AB%94%E5%AD%97%E8%88%87%E5%8E%BB%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E5%8C%96---%E8%B6%99%E5%96%84%E8%BB%92%3B-%E6%97%A5%E8%AA%9E%E4%B8%AD%E8%88%87%E6%BC%A2%E8%AA%9E%E7%94%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dr. Gavin Chiu (趙善軒)'s article&lt;/a&gt; to explain the character '進' and its simplified character '井'.  However, a user points out that the linked article is not real academic material, and that such explanation is invalid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Question&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do the glyphs '⻌' and '隹' come up together to bring the meaning of '進'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;My attempt&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bone script (甲骨文) for '進' reads &lt;a href=&quot;http://ccamc.co/cjkv.php?cjkv=%E9%80%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v3Xfc.gif&quot; alt=&quot;進甲骨文&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://ccamc.co/cjkv.php?cjkv=%E9%80%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shuowen Jiezi&lt;/em&gt; (說文解字)&lt;/a&gt;, there's simply a one-line explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;登也。从辵。閵省聲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not hard to identify the left glyph in the ancient writing &lt;a href=&quot;http://ccamc.co/cjkv.php?cjkv=%E9%80%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NH2mf.gif&quot; alt=&quot;說文解字&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in 說文解字 as '辵', but I can't understand the role of '登' in 說文解字's explanation for '進'.  The right glyph '隹' clearly represents a bird &lt;a href=&quot;http://ccamc.co/cjkv.php?cjkv=%E9%80%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BeAgl.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source of images for ancient scripts: &lt;a href=&quot;http://ccamc.co/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Complete Collection of Ancient and Modern Characters&lt;/em&gt; (古今文字集成)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21386" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-06-20T06:32:07.197" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T06:57:29.367" Title="Glyph origins of '進'" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34265" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34267" CreationDate="2019-06-16T16:20:26.713" Score="3" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of them mean eat/eating etc. So I am trying to find out purpose of the 在. Lingodeer app uses it almost in every sentence but Duolingo almost never uses it. So what is the right way or what is the right situation to use one or another? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6042" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-06-17T00:21:20.333" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T00:21:20.333" Title="What is difference between 吃 and 在吃?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34208" CreationDate="2019-06-16T16:43:07.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pinyin is a normal computer input method used very commonly in China. But it doesn’t contain any tone marks. So if you type “Ma” in this input method, these two words “嘛” and “吗” appear just at the same time. Sometimes, an interrogative sentence ended up by “嘛“ (instead of “吗”) is just a typo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should use “吗” on formal occassion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Native speaker.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22219" LastEditorUserId="22219" LastEditDate="2019-06-18T16:54:57.613" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T16:54:57.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34265" CreationDate="2019-06-17T00:02:36.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can look &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%9C%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; in the new-look zdic for many uses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example sentences you can look &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/w/%E5%9C%A8/#keyfrom=dict2.top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.naver.com/linedict/zhendict/#/cnen/entry/cf734fa4bfee4701a2ea4df0da29af33&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often 在 is used with words like 上、下、里 as a double preposition. Watch out for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 吃 and 在吃？Not much and subtle! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要吃饭还是吃面？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Would you like rice or noodles?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我吃饭。I want rice.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我吃面。I want noodles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在厨房里吃晚饭。I'm in the kitchen eating my dinner.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我在吃晚饭。I'm eating my dinner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你干嘛呢？What are you doing?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我吃饭呢！I'm eating!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你干嘛呢？What are you doing?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我在吃饭呢！I'm eating!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T00:02:36.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34268" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34273" CreationDate="2019-06-17T03:45:45.743" Score="4" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Malaysia/Singapore, “Raja” is often transliterated to 拉惹，although Wikipedia uses 拉者as the name for its article on the title.&#xA;e.g. Ayer Rajah 亚逸拉惹&#xA;Perlis’s Raja 玻璃市拉惹（&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/zh-sg/%E7%8E%BB%E7%92%83%E5%B8%82%E6%8B%89%E6%83%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/zh-sg/%E7%8E%BB%E7%92%83%E5%B8%82%E6%8B%89%E6%83%B9&lt;/a&gt;）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拉&lt;em&gt;惹&lt;/em&gt;勒南 Ra&lt;em&gt;ja&lt;/em&gt;ratnam&#xA;惹兰 (Jalan) also frequently appears in street names. Why is 惹 used to transliterate ~ja other languages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a perhaps unrelated note, why is 瑞 in 瑞士 and 瑞典used to transliterate the ~sw/su in Swiss or Sweden?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Were 瑞/惹 read something like sw/ja respectively in a more popular dialect of Chinese when such transliterations were standardised? Are there other examples of transliterations into Chinese reflecting dialectal pronunciations (e.g. 麦当劳 McDonald’s?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17334" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T10:50:53.270" Title="Origin of transliteration of ~j/sw to ~r in Mandarin" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34204" CreationDate="2019-06-17T03:50:04.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A #2 (top) to #1 (bottom) fade on the sides and neck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上面二号，旁边和脖子一号的渐变式发型&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Half an inch off the top&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上面剪短半寸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cut the sideburns to [this] point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把鬓角剪到这里&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had some trouble finding a translation of neckline, especially since the definition of neckline as in beard isn’t even in English dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastEditorUserId="11374" LastEditDate="2019-06-18T01:08:15.443" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T01:08:15.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34239" CreationDate="2019-06-17T03:57:09.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have three entities in the expression &quot;出差&quot;,that is, &quot;家&quot;,&quot;差&quot; and &quot;外&quot;.&#xA;&quot;去出差&quot; stresses &quot;去出&quot;+&quot;差&quot;,here the speaker focuses on &quot;business trip&quot;. &#xA;&quot;出差去&quot; focuses on &quot;not at home(家),or leaving home&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T03:57:09.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17813" CreationDate="2019-06-17T04:07:43.093" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; supplies IPA pronunciation for a wide variety of dialects, both ancient and modern, including tone numbers. It’s automatically generated from the pinyin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T04:07:43.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34246" CreationDate="2019-06-17T04:22:50.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As daotian answered, “for” as used in your three sentences would be best translated by 给.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other uses of “for,” see &lt;a href=&quot;https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english-chinese-simplified/for&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english-chinese-simplified/for&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;intended to be given to = 给&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;having the purpose of = 为了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because of = 因为，由于；作为…的结果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T04:22:50.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34268" CreationDate="2019-06-17T10:50:53.270" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瑞 is seoi6 (IPA: /sɵy̯²²/) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2582/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;in Cantonese&lt;/a&gt;, and sūi (IPA: /sui²²/) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/&amp;#39;%E7%91%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;in Hokkien&lt;/a&gt;, so is a fairly close match to the French word &lt;em&gt;Suisse&lt;/em&gt; and the English name for &lt;em&gt;Sweden&lt;/em&gt;. The origin of a lot of translations for smaller Western countries came from the Chinese varieties of the southern ports of Guangzhou (Canton) and Xiamen (Amoy) amongst others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惹 in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/&amp;#39;%E6%83%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some varieties of Hokkien&lt;/a&gt; (specifically Zhangzhou, which gave rise to Penang's variety) is pronounced jiá (IPA: /d͡ʑia⁵³/), which again is a closer match to the voiced affricate of -ja ज in Sanskrit-derived Indo-Aryan languages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 者 version is one option that Mandarin has (being an affricate, and in right area of the mouth), and also has the right semantic connotations (representing a person).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it is not a general phenomenon, topolectally-divergent transliteration is still a thing. Compare how &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%A4%A7%E5%8D%AB%C2%B7%E8%B4%9D%E5%85%8B%E6%B1%89%E5%A7%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mainland Chinese&lt;/a&gt;, Malaysians and Singaporeans transliterate David Beckham's surname (貝克漢姆, simpl. 贝克汉姆) with how &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E5%A4%A7%E5%8D%AB%C2%B7%E8%B4%9D%E5%85%8B%E6%B1%89%E5%A7%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hong Kongers/Macanese&lt;/a&gt; do so (碧咸), with how &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%A4%A7%E5%8D%AB%C2%B7%E8%B4%9D%E5%85%8B%E6%B1%89%E5%A7%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taiwanese&lt;/a&gt; do so (貝克漢). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T10:50:53.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27144" CreationDate="2019-06-17T12:37:01.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;麵 and 麪 both means &lt;strong&gt;flour&lt;/strong&gt; while 面 means &lt;strong&gt;face&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;side&lt;/strong&gt; in traditional Chinese. 面 pronounced &lt;strong&gt;miàn&lt;/strong&gt; while 丏 pronounced &lt;strong&gt;miǎn&lt;/strong&gt;, the ancients created the pictophonetic characters 麵 and 麪 with two different phonetic indicator with the same syllables. 麵 and 麪 are interchangable in traditional Chinese, but later 麵 was treated as the formal form while 麪 as the variant form. Both are simplified to 麺 not 面 (combined with a 麦, meas &lt;strong&gt;wheat&lt;/strong&gt;, the simplified form of 麥, and a 面) in mainland China, but in simplified Chinese 面 covers the meaning of 麺, that means 面 is a super set of 麺 (麵 and 麪) in simplified Chinese. Though 麺 is right when used for &lt;strong&gt;flour&lt;/strong&gt; but hardly anybody used it. This is a strange case in Simplified Chinese. There is another similar example, 餘 means &lt;strong&gt;rest&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;remaining&lt;/strong&gt; while 余 means &lt;strong&gt;me&lt;/strong&gt; (used in classic Chinese) in traditional Chinese. 餘 was simplified to 馀, but also 余 covers the meaning of 馀, that mean 余 is a super set of 馀 (餘) in simplified Chinese. The same as above, 馀 is also right when used for &lt;strong&gt;remaining&lt;/strong&gt; but hardly anybody used it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-06-17T12:45:54.590" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T12:45:54.590" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34208" CreationDate="2019-06-17T12:59:40.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;嘛has meaning of a little spoiled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22212" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T12:59:40.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34277" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-17T13:55:39.650" Score="3" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across 家医院 in example sentences in an anki deck I downloaded. &#xA;I know that 医院 means hospital. I tried to look up 家医院 in two dictionaries but could not find it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is 家医院? Is it equivalent to 医院? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appears for example in the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他在那家医院工作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20857" LastEditorUserId="25265" LastEditDate="2020-07-29T10:16:43.277" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T10:16:43.277" Title="What does 家 mean in 家医院?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34277" CreationDate="2019-06-17T13:59:27.337" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;家 is the measurement word for  医院&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20411" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T13:59:27.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34205" CreationDate="2019-06-17T13:59:51.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_customs_gold_unit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, in 1941 20 Chinese yuan was equal to 1 United States dollar, so 1 Chinese yuan was equal to 0.05 US dollars at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using an &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1941?amount=0.05&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;inflation calculator&lt;/a&gt; for the US dollar, 1 Chinese yuan would be 0.87 US dollars in 2019. This would give the cost of the school fees to be 870 US dollars or 27,500 NTD, and the children's uniform to be 350–390 US dollars or about 11,000 – 12,000 NTD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20810" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T13:59:51.317" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34280" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34283" CreationDate="2019-06-17T15:02:11.493" Score="1" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;After studying Chinese for extended period of time, I stay perplexed with names of countries surrounding continental China: 蒙古 （menggu, Mongolia), 越南 (yuenan, Vietnam)，印度 (yindu, India)，印尼 (yinni, Indonesia), 馬來西亞 (malaixiya, Malaisia). As you can see, the chinese spelling of these toponims is almost equal to western one. From the historical point of view ancient Chinese absolutely must have special names for all these countries (or at least the kingdoms). However, the similarity between chinese and western spelling suggests that these toponims came to modern Chinese from western languages which replaced old names. If I am right in my theory, what is was the reason of such a substitution? And if any special name for ancient limitrophing countries existed (like, for example, 梵 for India), is it still relevant to use it in a modern language? Let's say, sometimes Korea is referred as 朝鮮, China itself as 天下 (these are more like epithets). Is there any special name for, say, Indochina, Philippines, Malaisia and Indonesia?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21842" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T15:01:24.460" Title="Toponims of China limitrophing countries" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34280" CreationDate="2019-06-17T16:02:22.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any special name for, say, Indochina, Philippines, Malaisia and Indonesia?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ancient chinese names of kingdoms / nations in this area, here're some:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安南, 占城 ~ somewhere in today's vietnam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真臘 ~ roughly today's cambodia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;暹羅 ~ thailand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;滿剌加 ~ malacca, malaysia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爪哇 ~ java, indonesia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三佛齊 ~ sumatra, indonesia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;浡泥 ~ brunei&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蘇門答剌 ~ sumatera, indonesia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蘇祿 ~ sulu, philippines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for indian subcontinent, some more ancient chinese names:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;榜葛剌 ~ bangladesh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;錫蘭, 楞迦 ~ sri lanka&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;泥婆羅, 巴勒布, 廓爾喀 ~ nepal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;india, well, many names:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;身毒, 天竺, 印度, 溫都斯坦, 痕都, 忻都, 興都, 痕都斯坦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all these are transliterated from&quot;hindu&quot;, &quot;hindustan&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and, a special one: &quot;披楞&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 18th century, it was used to refer to the british india . in context, or point of view, it could be interpreted as &quot;british empire&quot;, or the west bengal (calcutta is the capital :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2019-06-18T15:01:24.460" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T15:01:24.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34277" CreationDate="2019-06-18T00:23:09.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase is 那家医院(that hospital). more examples: 一家医院; 这家医院; etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那医院 is not natural. We say 那家医院. 家 is probably a measure word. E.g 一家，两家，三家，开一家商店，... ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-06-18T00:28:23.290" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T00:28:23.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34280" CreationDate="2019-06-18T03:54:38.830" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have &lt;em&gt;heard&lt;/em&gt; that it is China's policy to choose names for foreign countries in accordance with the wishes of the foreign country, and they usually either transliterate or calque the country's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exonym_and_endonym&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;endonym&lt;/a&gt;†. Insofar as English-speaking countries do this, the names will be similar. Insofar as they don't, they will diverge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me address several examples to demonstrate that China sticks with endonyms of the modern state most of the time, rather than imposing a historical exonym:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mongolia calls itself &lt;strong&gt;Монгол&lt;/strong&gt; Улс (&lt;strong&gt;mongol&lt;/strong&gt; uls). &lt;strong&gt;蒙古&lt;/strong&gt; is both the historical and modern Chinese term for Mongolia, and (like &quot;Mongolia&quot; in English) it obviously comes from the endonym.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Republic of Korea calls itself &lt;strong&gt;한국&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;hanguk&lt;/strong&gt;), which is exactly cognate to &lt;strong&gt;韩国&lt;/strong&gt;. &quot;Han&quot; was a traditional name for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some Korean states&lt;/a&gt;, but the ROK explicitly chose their name to make reference to that. It was not simply China deciding to attach one of their old names to the modern country arbitrarily. Japan calls the ROK 韩国 too--English is the weird language here (and &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; attaching a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goryeo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;historical name&lt;/a&gt; arbitrarily)!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The DPRK calls itself &lt;strong&gt;조선&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;chosŏn&lt;/strong&gt;), also cognate to &lt;strong&gt;朝鲜&lt;/strong&gt;. Again, this is a historical term for a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Korean kingdom&lt;/a&gt;, and the DPRK intentionally chose to associate themselves with that name. Japan calls them 朝鮮 too (actually 北朝鮮, which pisses them off), and English is the weird case.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Laos calls itself &lt;strong&gt;ລາວ&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;lao&lt;/strong&gt;), and the modern Chinese transliteration of that is &lt;strong&gt;老挝&lt;/strong&gt; (not 辽国!). There were a variety of different transliterations that China used to use, and the current choice wasn't official until the 50's. The English is also a transliteration of the endonym.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Myanmar (no longer called Burma in English) calls itself &lt;strong&gt;မြန်မာ&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;myăma&lt;/strong&gt;). &lt;strong&gt;缅&lt;/strong&gt;甸 is clearly derived in part from that endonym. I don't know where the 甸 comes from, but I think 缅甸 is a long-standing historical term.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cambodia calls itself &lt;strong&gt;កម្ពុជា&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;kampuciə&lt;/strong&gt;), and China transliterates that as &lt;strong&gt;柬埔寨&lt;/strong&gt; (if you speak a southern dialect, the 柬 makes more sense for &quot;kam&quot;). The English is also a transliteration, although not particularly accurate. I assume that China doesn't call them 真腊 for the same reason that no one calls Germany &quot;The Holy Roman Empire&quot; or &quot;Prussia&quot;--真腊 was a state that ceased to exist over a thousand years ago, and the modern Cambodian state doesn't call themselves that.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;India calls itself &lt;strong&gt;India&lt;/strong&gt; in English and भारत (Bhārat) in Hindi. India has many other languages, but most of its endonyms are related to Bhārat, and a few are related to India (e.g., &lt;strong&gt;இந்தியா&lt;/strong&gt; = Indhiya). China has called India many names over the years. Currently it uses &lt;strong&gt;印度&lt;/strong&gt; (obviously related to India), which has been in use since at least when Xuanzang traveled there. Another historical name is 天竺, but guess what? That's a transliteration of the same thing, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianzhu_(India)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;except via Persian (Hinduka)&lt;/a&gt;. This is arguably a case where China is not closely following the current endonym, but it's &lt;em&gt;definitely not borrowing the name from English&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyhow, I hope these examples drive home the point that modern Chinese names for foreign countries are mostly chosen based on that country's endonym. They don't necessarily follow historical terminology in Chinese, nor do they borrow much from &quot;western&quot; naming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;† I don't have any citation for this, but here's an example for a city: Seoul used to be called 汉城 but, at the request of the ROK government, is now called 首尔 (to better reflect the endonym).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T03:54:38.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33998" CreationDate="2019-06-18T06:37:13.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;耐：undergoing a long time of uncomfortable condition &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受：suffering mistortures&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so sometime after &quot;忍耐&quot;， you be may be more powerful in the future，stronger，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;忍受&quot; stresses more the bad feeling in process of enduration&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastEditorUserId="22221" LastEditDate="2019-06-18T06:43:43.317" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T06:43:43.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31964" CreationDate="2019-06-18T06:42:29.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;日：day；号：the rank number&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11号：the 11th day of the month. But Chinese prefer a concise expression, just 11th,that is 11号&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T06:42:29.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34277" CreationDate="2019-06-18T08:23:56.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;家医院&amp;quot; alone does not make sense. From your sentence, you should break it into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他 在 那家 医院 工作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He works in that hospital.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那家 is a function word, which you can replace with &amp;quot;that&amp;quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Equivalently, you can also use 那个=那家&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22232" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T08:23:56.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34287" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34288" CreationDate="2019-06-18T09:35:12.433" Score="1" ViewCount="43" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not too sure about 呆. If you say 这个孩子有一点儿呆， does that translate as this child is a bit stupid (just slightly offensive opinion, like 笨), or is it more like 'this child has a learning difficulty' (medical condition)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T13:28:55.857" Title="Is 呆 just a casual description or a medically-related thing" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34287" CreationDate="2019-06-18T10:44:40.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1535/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;呆&lt;/a&gt;  mean &quot;dumb&quot; or &quot;stupefied&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;呆&quot; in &quot;这个孩子有一点儿呆&quot; modifies a noun, therefore, it is an adjective for &quot;dumb&quot; or &quot;silly&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;this child has a learning difficulty&quot; means  &quot;这个孩子有一点学习障碍&quot; which is a medical term for such condition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 呆 as &quot;dumb&quot;: &quot;呆子&quot; (dumb person); &quot;呆頭呆腦&quot; (dumb looking)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 呆 as &quot;stupefied&quot;: 呆了一呆 (stupefied for a moment) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T10:44:40.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34287" CreationDate="2019-06-18T11:02:20.263" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the first slightly stupid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;not learning difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22212" LastEditorUserId="22212" LastEditDate="2019-06-18T13:28:55.857" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T13:28:55.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34290" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-18T13:56:19.077" Score="2" ViewCount="1246" Body="&lt;p&gt;so far I went through a few forums to look at existing questions on 孤单 vs. 孤独 vs. 寂寞 usage. The answers from each person have a bit of difference so I would like to check if what I understood so far is correct. Based on what I researched and compiled together so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孤单 seems to mean alone physically and having no one to rely on even if the person has many friends. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孤独 seems to mean the person has many friends but no one understands the person so the person feels alone in the heart. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寂寞 seems to mean no one is around or with the person so the person feels alone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you guys think about this? Feel free to give some opinions and sample sentences if I made some mistakes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-06-18T14:41:09.037" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T08:38:08.943" Title="孤单 vs 孤独 vs 寂寞 usage" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34291" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34295" CreationDate="2019-06-18T15:11:48.977" Score="2" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often come across words like this in a dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;肚皮 &amp;lt;方&gt; 腹部; 肚子 (dù·zi)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if there's a way (a website or a dictionary or whatever other way instead of asking someone) where I can search what 方言 the word came from and what is its relevance to &lt;em&gt;putonghua&lt;/em&gt; (if it's used at all and its acceptance, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T05:28:59.900" Title="How can I find where a dialect word come from?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34292" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-18T18:30:59.317" Score="0" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VTJxs.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VTJxs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;I recently received a painting that I am curious about who the artist is. These are the name seals in the lower left hand corner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22236" LastActivityDate="2019-06-20T09:12:56.593" Title="help translating art seals" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34293" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34294" CreationDate="2019-06-18T21:26:52.160" Score="0" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you please translate this Chinese scroll for me? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FdilC.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FdilC.jpg&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22237" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T15:20:31.523" Title="Can you help translate this Chinese scroll?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34293" CreationDate="2019-06-18T22:17:53.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;生意興隆 - (A wish) for booming businesses&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are called &quot;Fai Chun&quot;:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fai_chun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fai_chun&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2019-06-19T15:20:31.523" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T15:20:31.523" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34291" CreationDate="2019-06-19T00:59:33.447" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There ARE dialect dictionaries available in this country, for example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%8E%B0%E4%BB%A3%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80%E5%A4%A7%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8/7763435&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;现代汉语方言大词典&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But it includes 41(!) volumes and may cost you more than $300. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T00:59:33.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34290" CreationDate="2019-06-19T02:34:11.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孤 =(alone);单 = (single)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孤单 = alone/ solitary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孤=(alone); 独 = (single/alone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孤独 = alone/ solitary/ unsociable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寂 = quiet; 寞 = deserted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寂寞 = lonely; loneliness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;孤单 mainly describes a physical state of being alone. It can be used to describe a feeling of loneliness, as in &amp;quot;感到孤单&amp;quot; (feel alone = lonely)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;孤独 also describes a physical physical state of being alone. It can be used to describe a feeling of loneliness, as in &amp;quot;感到孤独&amp;quot; (feel alone = lonely), It can also be used to describe a personality, as in &amp;quot;他性恪很孤独&amp;quot; (he is very unsociable) - &lt;em&gt;You cannot say &amp;quot;他性恪很孤单&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;寂寞 is mostly an emotion or feeling. You can be surrounded by friends and still feel lonely. For example: &amp;quot;無敵是最寂寞&amp;quot; (unrivaled people are the most  lonely people)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;People do not physically being 寂寞; being physically 孤单/孤独 (alone) can make you feel 寂寞, but being 寂寞 (lonely) doesn't require being alone&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Actually, feeling 孤单/孤独 (feel alone = lonely) doesn't require physically  being alone&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T03:03:42.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34297" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34299" CreationDate="2019-06-19T04:20:50.277" Score="3" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tUBRX.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tUBRX.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;McDonald&amp;#39;s Big Mac box with 巨无霸 written on it&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is a Big Mac called &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B7%A8%E6%97%A0%E9%9C%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;巨无霸&lt;/a&gt; (jùwúbà)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translating the individual hanzi:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B7%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;巨&lt;/a&gt; (jù) = huge&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%97%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;无&lt;/a&gt; (wú) = without&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%9C%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;霸&lt;/a&gt; (bà) = tyrant; lord&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 巨 seems reasonable (essentially the &quot;big&quot; part of &quot;Big Mac&quot;), but the rest doesn't make sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T19:01:40.513" Title="Why is a Big Mac called 巨无霸 (jùwúbà)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34297" CreationDate="2019-06-19T04:46:48.270" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B7%A8%E6%97%A0%E9%9C%B8/1226195&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B7%A8%E6%97%A0%E9%9C%B8/1226195&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巨无霸 (巨毋霸) was a historical character who was famous for being a giant. Later people commonly use '巨无霸' as a nickname for something that is 'giant size'. For example, compare to modern dragonfly's modest 1-4 inches length, the dragonfly- like Meganeuropsis was no doubt a 'giant'(巨无霸) with it's 18 inches long body&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meganeuropsis- 青蜓中的&lt;strong&gt;巨无霸&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;giant&lt;/strong&gt; among dragonflies)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pHuqv.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pHuqv.png&quot; alt=&quot;Meganeuropsis&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巨无霸 is not a translation of 'Big Mac', it is a Chinese name for 'Big Mac' . Someone gave 'Big Mac' this Chinese name because the selling point of 'Big Mac' is &quot;it is BIG&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'Big Mac' is 'giant' among hamburgers&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-19T11:10:35.873" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T11:10:35.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34290" CreationDate="2019-06-19T05:02:25.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;cf.&quot;汉语同义词词典&quot;：&lt;strong&gt;孤单／孤独&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;［同&lt;/strong&gt;］形容词。形容独自一个。&lt;strong&gt;［异］&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;［孤单］&lt;/strong&gt; 着重于单身无靠，感到寂寞，或孤零零单独一个。可形容人和人的感觉，也可形容具体的物。可重叠为＂孤孤单单＂，＂孤单单＂。例：（１）每个同志，不是孤单的个人，而且是战斗集体中的一员。（臧克家（高歌忆向阳））（２）哥哥孤单地站在月台上，用忧虑的眼睛凝视着我，似乎掉下了泪。（陈残云（异国乡情））（３）＂我没有家了!＂李麦心里想着呆呆地看着地上的东西。夕阳把她修长的影子投在地上，她有生以来，第一次感到孤单。（李准（黄河东流去））（４）大概有十一点多了，样子看见了人和厂那盏极明而怪孤单的灯。（老舍（骆鸵祥子））（５）可是我死了，我告诉你爹！你身边就一个亲骨肉都没有了。没有我，你就是一个孤孤单单的老头子。（曹禺（王昭君））（６）走了一里多路，我才看见这里有一座小小的房子，孤单单地挺立在出峁上，。。。（秋心（灾后行））&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［孤独］&lt;/strong&gt;  着重于独自一人，没有人与之相处或不愿与人相处，寂寞无助。只形容人，可形容人的感觉，还可形容人的性情。不能重叠。例：（１）但他并不孤独，他朋友很多，各式各样的全有，还有许多莫逆之交。（楼适夷（痛悼傅雷））（２）陈忠林老爷爷是个很孤独的人，老伴早去世了，没有儿女，没有近亲，只有几个上了年纪的穷朋友。（陈大远（坎坷的白银时代））（３）在忧患离乱的十年间，我几乎是孤独的跋涉在风雨如晦又是荆棘从生的荒野上，摸索着前进的道路。（何为（（闽居纪程）自序））（４）来到了这个人地两生的地方，王跑感到孤独了。（李准（黄河东流去））（５）他为人很是孤独，从来也不和人们来往。（何为（湖畔））（６）她从小不爱讲话，不爱笑，孤独，不爱理人。（杨沫（青春之歌））&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［附］&lt;/strong&gt; ＂孤单＂还形容力量单薄，如＂完成这么繁重的任务，你一个人力量太孤单了＂。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;寂寞／寂寥&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;[同］&lt;/strong&gt; 形容词。形容冷漠凄情，不热闹。［异］［寂寞］着重于主观感觉的孤单冷情：寂静。可用于人，多形容心情，也可用于事物，多形容环境，如＂～的山林、～的原野＂。通用于口语和书面语。例（１）那士兵回答道：＂没有事儿，一个人站着孤零零的，怪寂寞，想找个人说说话。＂（歌阳山（圣地））（２）有朋友，就不怕穷。我穷，我的生活不安定，可是我并不寂寞。（老舍（八方风雨））（３）大哥一个人在房里读夜书，他大概觉得寂寞罢。（巴金（最初回忆））（４）郭老、矛盾先生走了之后，也给我增加了寂寞之感。（臧克家（长夜漫漫终有明））&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;［寂寥］&lt;/strong&gt; 着重于客观环境的空旷、冷寂，也形容主观感觉的孤单冷清。用于书面语，书面语的色彩比＂寂寞＂浓。文学语体。例：（１）夜深人静，古庙里鸦雀无声，庭阶寂寥，院子里的古松投下浓淡的疏影，东西厢房都已昏黑了，庙殿森然的挺立着。（马加（北国风云录））There are 4 more examples （not copied)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6065" LastEditorUserId="6065" LastEditDate="2019-06-19T08:38:08.943" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T08:38:08.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34302" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-19T06:38:19.533" Score="1" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two words 移民 and 移居 are really confusing to me, I’ve searched the dictionary but they are still vague to me. Can someone help me with the use of these 2 words and add some examples?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T17:22:44.883" Title="Differences between 移民 and 移居" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34302" CreationDate="2019-06-19T07:10:27.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;移民(v) immigrate; (n) immigrant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;移居(v) migrate; move to ~ (to live)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;移居中国= move to China (to live) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You just need to move to China to quality as 移居, even you don't become a citizen of China. Since it is very likely for someone 移居 to a country will later become an immigrant to that country, &quot;移居&quot; can also implies &quot;to immigrate&quot;.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you just move from Beijing to Shanghai, you are definitely not &quot;移民&quot;(immigrating) from Beijing to Shanghai; you are &quot;移居&quot; (migrate to) Shanghai from Beijing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;移民&lt;/strong&gt;中国 = &lt;strong&gt;immigrate&lt;/strong&gt; to China - &lt;em&gt;You are expecting to become a Chinese citizen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;中国&lt;strong&gt;移民&lt;/strong&gt; =  Chinese &lt;strong&gt;immigrant&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;移居 is not a noun, therefore, there is no such thing as 中国移居&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-19T07:28:15.060" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T07:28:15.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34304" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34315" CreationDate="2019-06-19T07:39:53.057" Score="1" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, my focus today is the use of 正好, but it usage seems a little muddled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first usage, as an adjective is quite clear:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Just right (not too big, nor small; not too hot, nor cold etc). 这个饭不太辣不太淡 - 这个饭正好。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then, when it is used as an adverb, things seem to get murky. I have found a number of meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Coincidence. 我妹妹出生那天，正好下雪，所以爸爸妈妈叫他 小学&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;最好 / at best. 今天开会来了多少人? 正好20人 (sort of relates to meaning #1, as 19 and 21 people would be bad). This is a bit confusing though, as '来了' suggests we are talking about the past (how many people came) while the answer is almost making a suggestion (in the present/future)?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Should. 你也上超市吗? 我们正好一起去吧。Sort of relates to #3? We should go together (i.e. going alone would be bad, [and going with a huge group of people would be bad also])&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At this time. 我正好没有什么人主张. Kind of like 现在?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;?? 王老师来了，领正好声响. Does this come under coincidence (#1)? Or is there another meaning going on here?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[7.] On the basis of my understanding of the above, and the fact that my textbook describes 正好 as meaning 'the right time or opportunity to do something', I suggested the following example to my teacher. Imagine a friend wants you to help him organize his CD collection because it is so massive, but you are very busy. 3 weeks later, he invites you to dinner and therefore you say: 谢谢。我一定来。正好我们同时整理你的光盘! I.e. it would be the &lt;em&gt;right opportunity&lt;/em&gt; to simultaneously sort out your CDs. But this is apparently wrong. Does anyone know why?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone think of any other uses of 正好? Also, I have been told that all the adverbial uses are actually the same and have a unifying meaning. Does anybody have a clue how you could unify all these meanings?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-06-19T09:02:49.450" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T12:02:55.533" Title="Uses of 正好 / zhènghăo" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34305" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-19T10:36:54.160" Score="2" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having trouble translating the following situation to Mandarin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shown an image&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v8Xtf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v8Xtf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a person is asked: &quot;Is this an apple or not?&quot;/&quot;是不是苹果?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and for whichever reason they reply: &quot;It is not.&quot;/&quot;不是｡ &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you correct them: &quot;It &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; an apple.&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for any help/suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22240" LastActivityDate="2019-06-21T09:38:38.833" Title="Correcting a false negative answer to a 是不是 question" Tags="&lt;yes-no-questions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34297" CreationDate="2019-06-20T06:09:45.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;巨无霸 means big, no other can compare. It really fits the Big Mac's character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-06-20T06:09:45.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34264" CreationDate="2019-06-20T06:30:54.510" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HSAk8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HSAk8.png&quot; alt=&quot;⿱隹止&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;京津&lt;/a&gt;4001&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=32535&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集32535&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E9%9A%B6%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸定&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Zw1H.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Zw1H.png&quot; alt=&quot;⿱隹止&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「進」 was originally constructed from semantic &lt;a href=&quot;https://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=1101&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「隹」 (&lt;em&gt;picture&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;of a bird&lt;/em&gt;) and semantic &lt;a href=&quot;https://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=141&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「止」 (&lt;em&gt;picture&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;of a foot&lt;/em&gt; &amp;gt; &lt;em&gt;motion&lt;/em&gt;), indicating the &lt;em&gt;flying motion of a bird&lt;/em&gt;, which infers the meaning &lt;em&gt;forward, advance&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;birds cannot fly backwards&lt;/strong&gt;). Later on, 「彳」 (left half of &lt;a href=&quot;https://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=447&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「行」, &lt;em&gt;picture&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;of a road intersection&lt;/em&gt; &amp;gt; &lt;em&gt;roads, movement, path&lt;/em&gt;) was added to form the equivalent semantic component 「辵・⻍」 (&lt;em&gt;walking, motion&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7vJGZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7vJGZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;進&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;圜器&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=10360&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成10360&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Silk_Manuscript&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;帛&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HvtYc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HvtYc.png&quot; alt=&quot;進&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;帛乙&lt;/a&gt;8.5&lt;br&gt;長沙子彈庫&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dmb7t.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dmb7t.png&quot; alt=&quot;進&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;白石神君碑&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MDanO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MDanO.png&quot; alt=&quot;進&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, 「辵」 is the full form of 「⻍」. As stated earlier, 「辵」 is made up from a merger between 「彳」 and 「止」, shown again via 「過」 below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bd4uf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bd4uf.png&quot; alt=&quot;過&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;過伯簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=3907&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成3907&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;戰國・楚&lt;br&gt;簡・帛&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/erLq2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/erLq2.png&quot; alt=&quot;過&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/ChuwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;語叢3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guodian_Chu_Slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭店楚簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8SWAr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8SWAr.png&quot; alt=&quot;過&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;效律&lt;/a&gt;9&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;東漢&lt;br&gt;隸&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QhbPz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QhbPz.png&quot; alt=&quot;過&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;華山廟碑&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F0L6f.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F0L6f.png&quot; alt=&quot;過&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;何琳儀《戰國古文字典：戰國文字聲系》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-10-07T06:57:29.367" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T06:57:29.367" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34309" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34565" CreationDate="2019-06-20T08:16:54.190" Score="0" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across a sentence with the fragment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;叫作‘素以为绚’，这是见诸《论语》的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although, 素以为绚, is from Analects it doesn't seem to appear in any English dictionaries that I have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T17:02:30.377" Title="How has &quot;素以为绚&quot; be rendered into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34309" CreationDate="2019-06-20T08:23:24.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/analects/ba-yi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;James Legge&lt;/a&gt;'s translation put it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The plain ground for the colors&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ia902605.us.archive.org/30/items/TheDiscoursesAndSayingsOfConfucius/The_Discourses_and_Sayings_of_Confucius.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gu Hongming&lt;/a&gt;'s translation is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;O fairest is she&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Who is simple and plain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-06-20T08:23:24.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34292" CreationDate="2019-06-20T09:12:56.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the very least, you need to provide a clearer image. Even a higher resolution one would do. I can't see much from this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eNEFp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eNEFp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ＸＸ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ｘ天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;家浧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ｘ國&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-20T09:12:56.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34312" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-20T10:06:32.033" Score="3" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 违犯 and 违反 share the meaning &amp;quot;to violate&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the differences between these two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T14:22:16.687" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T14:22:16.687" Title="What are the differences between 违犯 and 违反?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34312" CreationDate="2019-06-20T10:32:35.927" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Longman Advanced Chinese Dictionary&lt;/em&gt; has a footnote on their entry for 違背 which explains the differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【違背•違反•違犯】&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  wéi bèi / wéi fǎn / wéi fàn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  都是動詞﹐都有不合﹑不遵守的意思。區別在：「違背」側重於背離﹐不遵守﹐能用於自己的心意﹑情感等﹐語意較輕；「違反」和「違犯」語意比「違背」重；「違反」側重於不符合﹐如「違反紀律」﹑「違反操作規程」等；「違犯」側重於觸犯﹐適用範圍比「違反」小﹐如「違犯國法」﹑「違犯制度」等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All three are verbs. They all basically carry the same meaning but「違反」and「違犯」are stronger.「違反」emphasizes the idea of &lt;em&gt;falling short of&lt;/em&gt;, while 「違犯」emphasizes the action of &lt;em&gt;going against&lt;/em&gt;.「違犯」is more specific and its scope of usage is more limited in comparison to「違反」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might also notice that 犯 is used in instances like &lt;em&gt;breaking&lt;/em&gt; the law, where as 反 is just doing the opposite of something and is often used as the prefix: counter-.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Longman&lt;/em&gt; also provides some examples of usages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;違犯法紀&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[To] break the law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;違反原則&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[To] go against [one's] principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-06-20T10:44:00.163" LastActivityDate="2019-06-20T10:44:00.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34314" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-20T11:26:08.567" Score="0" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find it interesting that these two are phonetically similar. Is there a historical background to this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22158" LastEditorUserId="21998" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T08:32:05.597" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T08:32:05.597" Title="Why does 努力 which means &quot;to make a great effort&quot; sound so similar to 奴隸 which means &quot;slave&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34304" CreationDate="2019-06-20T11:48:32.120" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;正好 is not an adjective, the same as 'just right' is not an adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正 shows a foot, stopping at a line or wall. = right, proper&lt;br&gt;&#xA;好 shows a woman and a son. Apparently to indicate a good life. This was before the 21st century! Today, this may not be considered the only way to fulfillment!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just = &quot;exactly, precisely, punctually, not more than&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;good = &quot;excellent, fine; valuable; desirable, favorable, beneficial; full, entire, complete, pleasing;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个饭正好&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This dish is exactly fine/complete.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;正好下雪&lt;br&gt;&#xA;punctually favourable snow was falling&lt;br&gt;&#xA;正好20人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;exactly (the) desirable 20 people&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们正好一起去吧&lt;br&gt;&#xA;we exactly (mutually) beneficial go together&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我正好没有什么人主张&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I precisely (the) desirable don't have anyone to make decisions for me &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, I would not translate the Chinese into English quite like this. I just want to indicate what is going on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 正 and 好 have more than one interpretation, in English as well as in Chinese. So when you mix them, permutations of meaning arise. There is no &quot;one size fits all&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What Dan said: 正好我们可以整理一下你的光盘。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或者： 我们正好可以同时整理你的光盘。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-06-20T11:48:32.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34316" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34318" CreationDate="2019-06-20T16:42:10.580" Score="4" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading the article  titled 沙场骁将浩气长存——沉痛悼念杨勇同志  in 人民日報, published on 1983/01/22. It describes the combat tactics of PRC general &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Yong_(general)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楊勇&lt;/a&gt;, who had just passed away. A passage reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;第一旅在西关向城内进行主要攻击；第二旅在北关向城内实施助攻；第十九旅主力调郓城东关，随时准备歼灭&lt;strong&gt;东突&lt;/strong&gt;之敌；各旅突破后，迅速向纵深穿插、割裂敌人而歼灭之。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is, what 东突之敌 means here. Today we see the character combination in connection to those who wish to establish an „East Turkestan“. I don’t think that is the meaning here. Here we are talking about a battle between GMD and KPC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would roughly translate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The first Brigade at Xiguang carried out the primary strike at the city centre. &#xA;  The second brigade at Beiguan executed the auxiliary strike at the city centre. The nineteenth brigade’s Main force tranfered to Dongguan at Yuncheng and prepared to annihilate the Dongtu enemy??? in due time...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 突破 the 突 appears with the meaning of „dash forward, “break through”. Is 东突之敌 the enemy who had broken through in the east?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even larger part of the text: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我感到，杨勇同志之所以军政全优，指挥有方，能驾驭战场的千变万化，掌握战争的主动权，一个成功的经验，是他有刻苦顽强的钻研精神。在戎马倥偬的岁月里，他努力学习毛主席的军事思想，认真领会上级的意图。由于他较多地接触刘、邓首长，尤其善于把刘、邓首长的作战指挥思想，运用于自己指挥的战役战斗，所以在作战指挥中，形成了一种决心果断、指挥灵活、能攻善守、英勇顽强的战斗风格。在1947年7月的鲁西南战场上，我们将郓城之敌包围。敌人是国民党五十五师师部和两个旅。该敌善于阵地防守，在郓城四周布满了地堡群及暗堡射击孔。面对这样一个强劲敌人，杨勇同志根据刘、邓首长关于“攻城部队一定要选择敌防御薄弱、对我有利地段为主攻方向，集中兵力火力突破”的经验，当即命令第二十旅在南关向城内实施主要攻击；第一旅在西关向城内进行主要攻击；第二旅在北关向城内实施助攻；第十九旅主力调郓城东关，随时准备歼灭东突之敌；各旅突破后，迅速向纵深穿插、割裂敌人而歼灭之。一夜激战，全歼守敌五十五师师部及二十九、七十四两个整旅，共达15，000余人，受到了刘、邓首长的通令嘉奖。郓城战斗结束后，我第一纵队在杨勇同志指挥下，迅速组织了六营集战斗。六营集是个不大的村庄，挤满了1万多敌人。原计划以我纵队及第6纵队主力，从六营集南、北、西三路包围实施总攻击，一举全歼敌人。后来杨勇同志考虑到：若迫敌为困兽之计，其兵力火力集中，我付代价必大，莫如趁敌兵力拥挤混乱、企图突围之际，诱敌于野外歼灭之。这一打算，得到邓小平政委批准。六营集东南方有一块几平方公里的大洼地，杨勇同志决心用“围三阙一”的方法，网开一面，虚留生路，作为敌人的“逃路”。夜晚，为了给敌人以“安全”感，杨勇同志让驻守在这里的文工团、通信营、卫生所等纵队直属单位加强灯火管制。走投无路的敌人，发现这里尚存一线生机，就在深夜全部钻进了我们准备好了的“口袋阵”。战斗历时3日，歼敌两个相当军的整编师，创造了运动战的范例。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2019-06-21T03:00:37.637" Title="What does 东突之敌 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34317" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-20T18:31:02.013" Score="6" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found various pages with questions from the last imperial exam in 1904. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-types-of-questions-were-asked-on-Imperial-Examinations-during-the-Song-Dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; one seems most practical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the immense importance of the event, I hope that more records of (prior) exams should survive. How to find them? I am also interested in any surviving answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastActivityDate="2019-06-21T03:46:26.163" Title="Where to find questions from the imperial exam?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34316" CreationDate="2019-06-21T03:00:37.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you interpretation is correct. 东 here means 从东方，突 means 突破，therefore 东突之敌 means 从东边突破（包围圈）的敌人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2019-06-21T03:00:37.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34317" CreationDate="2019-06-21T03:46:26.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;about the imperial examinaion (科舉制度), i recommend the book &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bnasie.eu/Asset/Source/bnBook_ID-165_No-1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;釧影樓回憶錄&lt;/a&gt; by 包天笑 (page 81-103). it talked about his experience (~1890) to attend the 縣試, 府試 and 院試 (the first three entry level exams) with details; very interesting :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the first &quot;entry&quot; in another book &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;chapter=610940&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;世載堂雜憶&lt;/a&gt; by 劉禺生, is &quot;清代之科舉&quot;, also a good read&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about questions in the exam 縣考:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大題者，於&quot;四書&quot;文中，兩章三章，或一節一句為題目，不得割裂 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小題者，於&quot;四書&quot;文中，任擇一句為題&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;第一場試《論語》、《學》《庸》時文一篇，《孟子》文一篇，試帖詩一首&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;第二場試時文一篇，五經文一篇，試帖詩一首&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;第三場考八股文一篇，史論一篇，試帖一首&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;第四場試雜作，律賦一篇，古近體詩數首，有加時文一篇者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;終場亦作時文起講，或作兩大比時文不等&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about questions in 院考:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;試題為《論語》、《學》、《庸》題目八股文一，《孟子》題目八股文一，五言六韻試帖詩一首。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;翌日覆試，或作起講，或作八股文兩大比，限香一寸，並默寫正場起講&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i'm sorry to provided these in chinese only, hope you can comprehend and get the info.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-06-21T03:46:26.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34320" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34321" CreationDate="2019-06-21T04:25:43.627" Score="2" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence is from the 3-rd grade 语文 book I'm studying (the exact pages are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nanshansi123.com/kewen/sannianjishangce/1200.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个星期天，&lt;strong&gt;宋耀如一家用过早餐&lt;/strong&gt;，准备到一位朋友家去。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says &quot;One Sunday, [something], ready to go to a friends house.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I parse 宋耀如一家用过早餐?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;宋耀 is a man's name,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%80%E5%AE%B6/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一家&lt;/a&gt; go together to form &quot;household&quot;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't know what 如 is doing here (possible &quot;like&quot;, as in &quot;like a household&quot;),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%A8%E8%BF%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;用过&lt;/a&gt; = used (past tense),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%97%A9%E9%A4%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;早餐&lt;/a&gt; = breakfast (but this seems mismatched with &quot;used&quot;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe &lt;a href=&quot;http://%E8%BF%87%E6%97%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;过早&lt;/a&gt; = premature.  I'm totally lost here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T23:22:48.780" Title="How do I parse 宋耀如一家用过早餐?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34320" CreationDate="2019-06-21T04:36:10.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, it helps to know the names and background of the people you're reading about. The appearance of the name &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soong_Ching-ling&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;宋慶齡&lt;/a&gt; in the text should instigate an immediate background check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;宋耀如 is 宋慶齡's father - his proper name is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Soong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;宋嘉澍&lt;/a&gt;, and 宋耀如 is his &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_name&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;courtesy name&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一個星期天，宋耀如一家用過早餐，準備到一位朋友家去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;One Sunday, the house (family) of&lt;/em&gt; 宋耀如 &lt;em&gt;had breakfast and planned to go to a friend's house&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;friend&lt;/em&gt; should be primarily assumed to be that of 宋耀如, and by extension a family friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI: 用餐 is another way of saying 吃飯, if not a bit more old-fashioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-21T04:42:48.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10335" CreationDate="2019-06-21T06:12:22.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BD%A0%E5%A5%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BD%A0%E5%A5%BD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 你好 actually has a common usage with Hello in English, it will be used by the time you want to say hi to people. But the difference between them is, I don't think Hello has a specific meaning in English, but 你好 in Chinese do have a specific meaning. To understand this better, you must know this first, in Chinese, every single word in chinese hold a specific meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22252" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-06-21T09:44:48.110" LastActivityDate="2019-06-21T09:44:48.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34323" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34325" CreationDate="2019-06-21T08:07:47.717" Score="1" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm seeing a few references to 海半仙 in articles I'm going over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.douban.com/note/659102354/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;there is this note on Douban&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;相传，同山镇上的酩酊山巅住着一位通晓天地玄机的酿酒仙人，叫海半仙。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are references there to the &lt;em&gt;Classic of Mountains and Seas&lt;/em&gt;, so I'm assuming there would be some sort of reference to this in English, but I'm not really finding anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only thing I've remotely found is this &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E9%99%88%E5%A5%95%E5%A6%83/%E6%B2%99%E7%9B%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sandbox&lt;/a&gt; on Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tongshanshao a kind of wine, also called shocks or sorghum wine.In the remote hometown of xi shi, there is a town called tongshan town, which is rich in sorghum. Sorghum rice has no longer been used as food for many years, so the common people there use it to make soju, and carry forward it into a characteristic. As a result, this kind of wine has a common name, called &quot;tongshan shao&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than this I'm not really able to find anything about 同山镇 -or- 海半仙 -or- 翠屏 in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-21T03:00:12.417" Title="Does 海半仙 have an English translation?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34305" CreationDate="2019-06-21T09:38:38.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There shouldn't be much chance of confusion here, because when you respond, you would be using words to indicate correctness, like 對（対）or 錯 instead of 是. So, if they respond to your question with 不是 and then you say 是 there should be no doubt that you are contradicting them, rather than affirming the correctness of their answer. Chinese is more convenient than English in this regard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, a few ways to answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不對，是蘋果&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你答錯了，是蘋果&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;它就是蘋果&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;是啊&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... or variations on the above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, of course, as the commenters mention, for the sake of pedagogy you could find out why they got the answer wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17874" LastActivityDate="2019-06-21T09:38:38.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34323" CreationDate="2019-06-21T12:05:31.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chinese,半仙==半+仙==half+fairy(generaly male)。Generally, 半仙 is a human but with some magical power, rather than a ghost, the 半 means a half, not a entire fairy（because He is still a human）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The adjective 海 in 海半仙，most probally the place this 半仙 lives is close to （OR in） a sea or lake （waterside）. It can also be a family name of 半仙, but mostly is the place relating to water. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may encounter 陈半仙，where 陈 mostly is a family name, because 陈 in China is a very popular family name, but 海 is not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-06-21T12:05:31.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34326" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34343" CreationDate="2019-06-21T18:02:40.233" Score="3" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it related to this phrase: 问个屁/問個屁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19725" LastActivityDate="2020-12-12T17:28:21.273" Title="Can someone please explain this term/slang “问个P”" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34361" CreationDate="2019-06-21T19:47:59.277" Score="1" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;p&gt;Encountered this in the Pimsleur transcript:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nánrén: Wô gêi nî yìdiânr Rénmínbì. &lt;strong&gt;Nò&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;  Shí jiû kuài Rénmínbì. Xiànzài nî yôu&#xA;  duöshâo qián?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;男人：我给你一点儿人民币。&lt;strong&gt;讷&lt;/strong&gt;。 十九&#xA;  块人民币。现在你有多少钱？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Man: I’ll give you some Renminbi. &lt;strong&gt;Here you&#xA;  go.&lt;/strong&gt; 14 Renminbi. Now you have how much&#xA;  money?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They use it many times and always in the context of someone giving money or an item in a business transaction.  The translation is always &quot;here you go&quot; or &quot;here you are&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find any other uses of this word in this way, or any dictionary mentioning this meaning.  Is this a common expression?  Is it regional?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the same thing as 喏 / nuò?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T04:41:15.780" Title="讷 as nò, an exclamation meaning &quot;Here you go&quot;" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34326" CreationDate="2019-06-21T22:10:02.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Politely, roughly 'nonsense'. Various less polite Anglo-Saxon expletives may be substituted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;问个屁 Ask/Talk nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你错了&#xA;You are wrong.&#xA;错个屁!&#xA;Wrong my foot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-06-21T22:10:02.673" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8589" CreationDate="2019-06-22T01:01:44.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that the character of &quot;饺子&quot; in Chinese is something encapsulated by a sheet,and cooked by boiling. &quot;意&quot; should be &quot;意大利&quot;(Italian). All here(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.foodsubs.com/PastaStuffed.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.foodsubs.com/PastaStuffed.html&lt;/a&gt;) should be called &quot;意饺&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of the cooking method of boiling, The sheet of &quot;饺子&quot; should be thin enough, and the volume should be small enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;包子&quot;, as a kind of dumpling, its volume can be larger because it is cooked by steaming. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T01:01:44.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34326" CreationDate="2019-06-22T01:04:16.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the pronunciation of 屁 is pi (4th tone). Very close to the English letter P.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-12-12T17:27:52.870" LastActivityDate="2020-12-12T17:27:52.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34331" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34333" CreationDate="2019-06-22T03:08:04.350" Score="2" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was listed as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Enlai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhou Enlai&lt;/a&gt; (周恩来) quote in my 3-rd grade Chinese book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为了中华之崛起而读书&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Wèile Zhōnghuá zhī juéqǐ ér dúshū&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Reading for the rise of China [&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=auto&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=%E4%B8%BA%E4%BA%86%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E4%B9%8B%E5%B4%9B%E8%B5%B7%E8%80%8C%E8%AF%BB%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I parse this quote?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breaking it apart:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E4%B8%BA%E4%BA%86/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;为了&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;for&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中华&lt;/a&gt; = formal abbreviated term meaning &quot;China&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B9%8B/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;之&lt;/a&gt; = (?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B4%9B%E8%B5%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;崛起&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;rise sharply&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%80%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;而&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;and&quot; or &quot;also&quot; (?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%AF%BB%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;读书&lt;/a&gt; = read books&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I get the general meaning: reading books will lead to China's steep rise.  But it's not clear how it pieces together, and thus I may have totally misinterpreted it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T07:12:37.353" Title="How do I parse the Zhou Enlai quote 为了中华之崛起而读书?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34331" CreationDate="2019-06-22T04:02:01.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You parsed the sentence correctly, and got the correct meaning for most of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E4%B9%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;之&lt;/a&gt; means 的 (of). And &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E8%80%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;而&lt;/a&gt; is a conjunction, to connect the two subsentences. It's not necessary but if you want you can take its meaning as &lt;em&gt;and / and then / and yet&lt;/em&gt; ... to help understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: The google translation is quite straightforward and correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-06-22T04:18:21.777" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T04:18:21.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34331" CreationDate="2019-06-22T05:22:54.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[为了 (A) 而 (B)] = [to (B) for (A)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a two parts conjunction that connect A and B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为了[中华之崛起] = For [China's rising to prominence]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而 [读书] = to [read]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为了中华之崛起而读书 = to read for China's rising to prominence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you can omit 'to' in the English sentence and say &amp;quot;read for China's rising to prominence&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you can also omit &amp;quot;而&amp;quot;  in the Chinese sentence and say &amp;quot;为了中华之崛起读书&amp;quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之 = 的. In this context,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A noun followed by 之/的 make it an adjectival phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中华(noun)- China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中华之 (adjectival phrase) - China's / of China&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;崛起 means rise abruptly; rise to prominence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T05:31:00.687" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34334" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-22T05:43:52.840" Score="2" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought it’d be easy to say “I didn’t do well on my exam/I did poorly on my exam” but turned out it’s not an easy one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried to translate it multiple times and here’s what I got (I’ve tried to look for each of these following sentences in Google and all of them exist, even being spoken by native) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. 考试考得不好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. 考试考不好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c. 考试没考好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d. 考试差了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I &lt;strong&gt;won’t be asking&lt;/strong&gt; about each of them here though. My questions are :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In sentence a (考试考得不好), what does 得 here indicate?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it “potential complement” or a simple “得 particle (that’s usually being explained along with the other two de &amp;gt; 的, 地)”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean, how do native Chinese speakers see “didn’t do well on an exam”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they see it as one’s inability to achieve something (which means I most likely should use potential complement), or,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they see it simply as an adverb to show &lt;strong&gt;how&lt;/strong&gt; one does something &amp;gt; didn’t do &lt;strong&gt;well&lt;/strong&gt; on an exam/did &lt;strong&gt;poorly&lt;/strong&gt; on an exam (which means I can simply use 得 as a particle instead of complement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If potential complement turns out to be the case here... Based on what’s written in &amp;gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/potential_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/potential_complement&lt;/a&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference between the affirmative and negative forms is swapping a 得 for a 不.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then why does sentence a (考试考得不好) exist whereas we don’t need 得 to make a negative form in potential complement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know Chinese grammar isn’t as strict as English but just... Why? ㅠㅠ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That’s all for now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry if this question sounds stupid and that maybe it’s just me because anyone else finds it just easy to express such thing in Chinese. I don’t find it easy though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T01:24:31.700" Title="Which grammatical rule is being used here?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34334" CreationDate="2019-06-22T06:51:49.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;得&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;考试考得不好&amp;quot; is a &amp;quot;degree/result complement&amp;quot; that indicates 'the degree' of a verb, or 'the result' of a verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;考试考得不好 = [考试(to take exam) - 考&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt; take exam &lt;strong&gt;to the result of&lt;/strong&gt; - 不好(not good)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;考试考得不好 = [考试(to take exam) - 考&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt; take exam &lt;strong&gt;to the level of&lt;/strong&gt; - 不好(not good)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More detailed example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;考试考得不好，祇得到  D 平均 - the &lt;strong&gt;result&lt;/strong&gt; of the verb was bad)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;考试考得很吃力 - the &lt;strong&gt;degree&lt;/strong&gt; of the verb 'taking exam' is at the degree of 很吃力 (laborious level)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: 得/不 as potential complement:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;考&lt;strong&gt;得&lt;/strong&gt;好试 = &lt;strong&gt;able to&lt;/strong&gt; take exam well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;考&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;好试 = &lt;strong&gt;unable&lt;/strong&gt; to take exam well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T07:06:18.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34326" CreationDate="2019-06-22T07:44:30.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are you asking for? This is nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22212" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-12-12T17:28:21.273" LastActivityDate="2020-12-12T17:28:21.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32594" CreationDate="2019-06-22T07:50:25.790" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is some rules for naming a baby.&#xA;1.Avoid same name with Historical Figure.&#xA;2.Never to using a very strong word such as 钢。&#xA;3.The name should be speak loudly.&#xA;4.where is weak of 五行 then take that word. such as if you weak of 木 then the word should have the 木. for example 林.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 桂英 should not be your baby's name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22212" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T07:50:25.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34339" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34340" CreationDate="2019-06-22T13:06:31.597" Score="1" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;this week, the christie's have an auction of this jade cup:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ufMjQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ufMjQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i suspected this one is the object of emperor 乾隆's poem 痕都斯坦玉羊頭瓜辨瓢歌&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/djE3T.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/djE3T.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the poem title is 玉羊頭瓜&lt;strong&gt;辨&lt;/strong&gt;瓢&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is it an typo of 瓣?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cause, in the poem, the 5th verse mentioned 瓜分數&lt;strong&gt;瓣&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鹿臺嘉産来遐陬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;彼中良工細雕鎪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;式異漢盃及商卣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瓢飲一具琢羙球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;瓜分數瓣花葉浮&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曲柄廻顧為羊頭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;匪夷所思用意周&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其脂非逺其性柔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;東陵闗内伊誰候&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T13:34:07.423" Title="this mughal jade cup, it's &quot;瓜瓣瓢&quot; or &quot;瓜辨瓢&quot;?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34339" CreationDate="2019-06-22T13:28:36.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like it should be 瓜瓣瓢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;瓜瓣瓢 probably means a 瓢 made from 瓜瓣. In contrast, 瓜辨 is not a word (AFAIK).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;See a printed version of 清・金士松《喬羽書巢詩集》 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;file=105725&amp;amp;page=51&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;file=105725&amp;amp;page=51&lt;/a&gt;). Since your screenshot looks like it's from a handwritten version of 《御製詩四集》, I suspect that it's a handwriting error. Well, printing is less likely to introduce errors :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V0c3v.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V0c3v.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-06-22T13:34:07.423" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T13:34:07.423" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34331" CreationDate="2019-06-22T22:45:35.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Found this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zybang.com/question/d2c663aadcc7d97a71c5762281ea7bab.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Hope it is accurate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1910年夏,12岁的周恩来,跟随伯父到东北奉天,先在铁岭银岗书院读了半年&#xA;书,后来,转入奉天关东模范学堂读书.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有一次,老师提出“为什么读书”的问题,要同学们回答.&#xA;有的说“为了明礼而读书”,&#xA;有的说“为了光宗耀祖而读书”,&#xA;还有一个学生说“为了帮助父亲记账而读书”, 弄得哄堂大笑.&#xA;当老师问到周恩来时,他站起来响亮而严肃地回答说：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“为中华崛起而读书.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;充分表达了少年周恩来要为祖国独立富强而发愤学习的宏&#xA;伟志向.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12岁的周恩来讲这样的！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么读书?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;为中华崛起而读书.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For the betterment of our motherland we study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T22:45:35.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34342" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34347" CreationDate="2019-06-23T07:01:05.067" Score="0" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from my 3-rd grade 语文 book (there's a version &lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/9793ce65b84ae45c3b358c8b.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在正是金秋时节。我们已经看到了她缤纷的色彩， 听见了她美妙的声音，分享了她带给我们的欢乐。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It's currently Golden Autumn.  We already see her diverse (&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BC%A4%E7%BA%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;缤纷&lt;/a&gt;的) colors (&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%89%B2%E5%BD%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;色彩&lt;/a&gt;), heard her wonderful (&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BE%8E%E5%A6%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;美妙&lt;/a&gt;的) sounds (&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A3%B0%E9%9F%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;声音&lt;/a&gt;), [and] shared (&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%88%86%E4%BA%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;分享&lt;/a&gt;了) the joy (&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%AC%A2%E4%B9%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;欢乐&lt;/a&gt;) she provides us (&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B8%A6%E7%BB%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;带给&lt;/a&gt;我们的).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I've managed to understand it correctly, but it looks like &quot;Golden Autumn&quot; (金秋时节) is being referred to using the female pronoun 她 (instead of &quot;it&quot; 它), perhaps for poetic reasons, or perhaps this is normal.  I just want to check this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is Autumn being referred to by the female pronoun 她?  Is this normal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-06-23T07:07:58.243" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T23:00:13.840" Title="Is Autumn being referred to by the female pronoun 她? Is this normal?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;pronouns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34326" CreationDate="2019-06-23T10:15:52.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's 问个屁. P -&gt; 屁. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;问个屁 means &lt;em&gt;Don't ask!&lt;/em&gt;. It indicates that you are annoyed by the questioner. It's a way to block their questions to annoy you any further. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a ruder way to say 别问了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T10:15:52.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34314" CreationDate="2019-06-23T10:48:24.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not an expert on morphemes and cognates. My two cents, that it is just coincidental. So are other words, such as 输血 and 数学，水饺 and 睡觉，事实 and 石狮. To make it a bit gross, 食 and 屎. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21634" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T10:48:24.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34334" CreationDate="2019-06-23T11:03:18.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Then why does sentence a (考试考得不好) exist whereas we don’t need 得 to&#xA;  make a negative form in potential complement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simple answer: Your wiki-link is wrong. You can find many examples of “something 得不 something”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you can think of 得 as 'how' and sometimes 'to', both and neither. The 得 probably won't find its way into the English translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你这次考[得]{怎样}？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[How] {What kind did you do} in the exam this time?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我考[得]不好。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I [how] didn't do well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那边冷不冷？Cold over there?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;冷[得]发抖！ So cold [how cold?] I'm shivering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这么高的山，你爬[得]上去吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Such a high mountain, aren't you afraid [to] climb it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To translate 'didn't do well' try '没有发挥好'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't do well in the exam this time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我这次考试没有发挥好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess this is one of my off-days.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我想我今天没有发挥好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T11:03:18.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34346" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-23T21:12:02.973" Score="1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;While practicing writing of simple sentences, I realized that after missing I stroke, I was tempted to fix it the same way I'd do it in English - by thickening the strokes I'd like to keep. I know that Chinese people have a &quot;shorthand&quot; way of making notes. Given the multitude of characters, how do they correct mistakes in writing? Is there a standard way of, say, crossing out a character?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19231" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T18:24:09.427" Title="How do Chinese people correct their characters?" Tags="&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34342" CreationDate="2019-06-23T23:00:13.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, It is a very common way to refer something to pronoun 她 in Chinese, commonly known as personification. In such a way, the author can strengthen his/her feelings about autumn. There are also many similar cases: such as 长江/黄河/故乡(Yangzi River/Yellow River/hometown) can often be referred to 她 as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22263" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T23:00:13.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34320" CreationDate="2019-06-23T23:17:53.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the problem you met is a common problem in Chinese, how to split a sentence into words(commonly known as tokenization in natural language processing). Actually, there are sometimes more than one way to split a sentence, such as 用过 and 过早 are both meaningful words, however, we would like to pick up the most probable way for splitting. In your case,  用过/早餐 is more often than 用/过早/餐. If you are not sure about your case, you may try some tools like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.toolnb.com/tools/fc.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.toolnb.com/tools/fc.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22263" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T23:17:53.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34320" CreationDate="2019-06-23T23:22:48.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One sunday, 宋耀如's family is ready to go to a friend's house after finish their breakfast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22264" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T23:22:48.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34351" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-24T03:30:13.443" Score="4" ViewCount="781" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example：西，南，而，憂，覚，蔸，悪，間，見，寓，凳，血，寠，and many others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shapewise, they are almost symmetrical but not exactly symmetrical. Why are they not created as symmetrical characters? After all, symmetry is aesthetically pleasing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T21:50:47.800" Title="Why are many Chinese characters almost symmetrical but not exactly symmetrical?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34352" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-24T03:38:31.210" Score="3" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since &quot;繁&quot; means &quot;complicated&quot;; “繁体字” seems to have a slightly negative implication. Would &quot;正体字&quot; be a better translation for &quot;traditional Chinese&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T03:16:08.400" Title="Is &quot;繁体字&quot; a “贬义词”？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34352" CreationDate="2019-06-24T04:04:01.590" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;繁 in 繁体字 is in contrast to 简 in 简体字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;繁 = complex; 简 = simple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Mainland Chinese who use simplified Chinese (简体字) , the traditional Chinese would naturally be called 繁体字 by them. It is not a derogatory term&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正 in 正體字 short for 正統 &amp;quot;traditional standard&amp;quot;. It is in contrast to 簡 in 簡體字&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正 = standard; 簡 = simplified&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Taiwan Chinese who use traditional Chinese, 簡體字 would naturally be treated as simplified version of their standard Chinese (正體字)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 繁体字 (China prefer) and 正體字 (Taiwan prefer) are correct translation of &amp;quot;traditional Chinese&amp;quot;. In the case of Hong Kong Chinese, both terms are equally common&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T12:35:15.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23260" CreationDate="2019-06-24T06:58:35.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If in Indonesia there are so many choices to be able to watch various kinds of film genres such as romance dramas and others. Like &lt;a href=&quot;https://genflix.co.id/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Genflix&lt;/a&gt;, which provides many choices of film genres that you can make your mainstay in your spare time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22266" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T06:58:35.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34351" CreationDate="2019-06-24T07:12:35.527" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This basically comes down to the vagaries of most CJK fonts being based on calligraphic scripts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calligraphy&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese calligraphy&lt;/a&gt;, characters are constructed out of individual &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_(CJK_character)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;strokes&lt;/a&gt;; these are written with a brush or pen in one continuous motion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xhl6c.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xhl6c.gif&quot; alt=&quot;stroke&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common script type, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;regular script&lt;/a&gt;, was designed to be written with a brush. Certain techniques should be used when writing in this style, which gives it its distinctive, slightly-asymmetric look:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;…clearly emerging from the womb of early period semi-cursive script. If one were to write the tidily written variety of early period semi-cursive script in a more dignified fashion and were to use consistently the pause technique (dùn 頓, used to reinforce the beginning or ending of a stroke) when ending horizontal strokes, a practice which already appears in early period semi-cursive script, and further were to make use of right-falling strokes with thick feet, the result would be a style of calligraphy like that in the &quot;Xuān shì biǎo&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This script was so influential that virtually all modern scripts and types are based on it. Even if there are types that are designed for computers like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_Gothic_typeface&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;East Asian Gothic typeface&lt;/a&gt;, some asymmetric properties are preserved, like the &quot;J hook&quot; (钩) feature:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kmqas.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kmqas.png&quot; alt=&quot;round sans&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you look at earlier scripts, like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;seal script&lt;/a&gt;, you can find more symmetry, because the pictograms they were based on were based on symmetric things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/j8xsi.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/j8xsi.png&quot; alt=&quot;seal script&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, the character &lt;code&gt;西&lt;/code&gt; could look like this in the earliest, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/zd/zx/jg/%E8%A5%BF&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;oracle bone script&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/svAQv.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/svAQv.png&quot; alt=&quot;oracle bone&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2583" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T07:12:35.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34346" CreationDate="2019-06-24T18:24:09.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;for example this picture，hope to help you:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/l2q3f.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22270" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T18:24:09.427" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34297" CreationDate="2019-06-24T19:01:40.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Big Mac=巨无霸&#xA;BROCKEN GIGANT=巨无霸&#xA;Maximals=巨无霸(《Transfomers :Beast War》）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22270" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T19:01:40.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34352" CreationDate="2019-06-24T19:43:19.647" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To start off, whether or not「繁體字」is a 貶義詞 is not relevant if a language decides to make it &lt;em&gt;official vocabulary&lt;/em&gt;. Non-PRC-standard forms of characters official in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Korea are called「繁體字」in PRC, Hong Kong, and Macau.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The「繁」in「繁體字」merely serves as a complement to the PRC-standard「簡」in「簡化規範字」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using「正體字」in place of「繁體字」is &lt;strong&gt;not recommended&lt;/strong&gt;.「正體字」is the ROC (Taiwan) practical equivalent of PRC's「規範字」, and specifically refers to the standard promulgated by the administration. Every administration (ROC (Taiwan), Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Korea, PRC) has different standards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As an example,「衞」is standard in Hong Kong but「衛」is standard in ROC (Taiwan). Both are「繁體字」in contrast with PRC’s「卫」, but Hong Kong’s「衞」is not a「正體字」as per the ROC standard, which would instead class it as a「異體字」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note that「繁體字」is not officially a recognised concept in ROC (Taiwan) Chinese, which only has「正體字」and「異體字」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say that there is no real equivalent of「繁體字」. The closest concept is「正字」, but that overwhelmingly refers to the orthodox forms found in the &lt;em&gt;Kangxi Dictionary&lt;/em&gt;, which records many vulgar (俗) variants even more complex than orthodox forms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-06-26T20:58:58.850" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T20:58:58.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34256" CreationDate="2019-06-24T20:05:26.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A(ei)诶；&#xA;B(bi)必、币、毕、闭、碧；&#xA;C(sei)；&#xA;D(di)弟、地、第、帝；&#xA;E(yi)易、意、义、驿、亿；&#xA;F(ai fu)爱抚、爱付；&#xA;G；&#xA;H(ei chi)诶吃；&#xA;I(ai)爱；&#xA;J(zhei)；&#xA;K(kei)尅、剋；&#xA;L(ai lou)爱楼、(ai ou)爱偶；&#xA;M(ai mu)爱木；&#xA;N(en)嗯、恩；&#xA;O(ou)偶、欧；&#xA;P(pi)皮、屁；&#xA;Q(kiu)；&#xA;R(er)二；&#xA;S(ai si)艾斯；&#xA;T(ti)题、体、替、涕；&#xA;U(you)尤、右、又、由、友、邮、优；&#xA;V(wei)位、味、喂；&#xA;W(da bo you)打波右、(da bu liu)达不流(changlish)；&#xA;X(ai ke si )爱克思；&#xA;Y(wai)外、歪；&#xA;Z；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22270" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T20:05:26.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34351" CreationDate="2019-06-24T21:40:53.467" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese aesthetics value balance in asymmetry, i.e. yin and yang - not the same, but equal and complementary. Symmetry can be beautiful in a way but often this sort of balanced inequality is more pleasing and natural, such as the Renaissance-era use of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrapposto&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;contrapposto&lt;/a&gt;. Notice how compared to a stiff symmetrical stance, the S-curve in contrapposto feels relaxed and calm. In general symmetry is a limited tool in art, the vast majority of classically beautiful art is not symmetrical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of lines that are complementary but not symmetrical create harmony and a sense of motion. In Chinese calligraphy even a simple single horizontal stroke should not be a straight, even line (which looks motionless and dead) but rather a strong, dynamic line with a definitive beginning and end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C5RCl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C5RCl.png&quot; alt=&quot;a horizontal stroke&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Chinese typefaces are based on Chinese calligraphy to some degree but they still make allowances to this principle as an aesthetic choice. As another poster noted, seal script has many symmetrical characters, and asymmetrical ones developed after that, so using symmetrical forms has that connotation to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22272" LastEditorUserId="22272" LastEditDate="2019-06-24T21:50:47.800" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T21:50:47.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34327" CreationDate="2019-06-25T04:07:32.757" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the correct character might be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;吶 na4 used as an auxiliary word 语助词&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say 吶 na4 sometimes when giving someone something, so saying 吶 + the gesture of giving the thing away does translate to &quot;here you go&quot;. The way I have heard it the most is &quot;呐，这个给你&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'd only use 吶 in informal speech with family or friends. It's quite casual and I don't think it's appropriate for professional settings, including business transactions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Reference Notes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%91%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zdic entry&lt;/a&gt; of 吶, it lists 讷 as interchangeable with 吶 when pronounced ne4 which means slow of speech or to speak with a stammer (讲话迟钝或口吃). I'm guessing this might be where typo stems from. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;From the same &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%91%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zdic entry&lt;/a&gt; mentioned above, one of the meanings of 吶 is 表示提醒注意 to get someone's attention. I think this &quot;getting attention&quot; + &quot;the gesture of handing over something&quot; combined implies the meaning of &quot;here you go&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As an auxiliary word 語助詞, you can use 吶 in other cases without the meaning &quot;here you go&quot;, for example &quot;天吶&quot; equivalent to &quot;天啊&quot; which is an exclamation similar to &quot;Gee&quot; or &quot;Yikes&quot; or &quot;Oh&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吶 is commonly seen as part of the word 吶喊 which means to shout / cry out.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22100" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T04:07:32.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34362" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34365" CreationDate="2019-06-25T20:03:25.330" Score="0" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;They seem to be defined identically in this usage case (though 摔 has other meanings). Is there any difference in usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22130" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T22:48:27.723" Title="What is the difference between words that mean &quot;to throw&quot;: 摔, 扔, 投" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34363" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34364" CreationDate="2019-06-25T20:52:55.433" Score="0" ViewCount="39" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are defined in a similar way. What is the difference in usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22130" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T22:31:12.623" Title="Difference between words that mean &quot;take by force&quot;: 抢 and 夺" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34363" CreationDate="2019-06-25T22:16:43.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;抢 -  snatch; &lt;strong&gt;vie for&lt;/strong&gt;: '抢' emphasizes the 'contesting' nature of 'taking by force'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夺 -  seize; &lt;strong&gt;compete&lt;/strong&gt;; deprive; &lt;strong&gt;decide&lt;/strong&gt;: '奪' emphasizes the 'possessing' result of 'taking by force'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Look at the word &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/55938/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;抢夺&lt;/a&gt;  (snatch; seize; take by force; steal):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;抢 (to snatch) mainly describes the action. If someone is &lt;strong&gt;in the process&lt;/strong&gt; of grabbing money by force, we say it is an act of 抢钱, not 夺钱 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;夺 (seize) mainly describes the result. If someone &lt;strong&gt;completed&lt;/strong&gt; seizing power from the other, we say it is an act of 夺权, not  抢权 (抢权 imply you are still fighting for the power)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example with more context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'意图夺权' means you 'intend to seize power'; '意图抢权' means 'intend to vie for power'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T22:31:12.623" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T22:31:12.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34362" CreationDate="2019-06-25T22:42:34.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When 摔, 扔, 投 mean 'to throw':  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;摔 is a more forceful throw. For example, '把杯子摔在地上' (you throw the cup onto the ground with considerable force)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;扔 is a more generally directed throw. For example, '把垃圾扔在地上' (you just throw the garbage onto the ground, doesn't matter which direction)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;投 is a more specifically aimed throw. For example, '把篮球投入篮中' (you aim and throw the basketball into the basket) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T22:48:27.723" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T22:48:27.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34366" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-26T03:20:24.140" Score="2" ViewCount="397" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 暴走 mean? I tried searching and it said something about running away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the full sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这就是让卡罗琳听到，估计也会暴走。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21212" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T23:49:22.780" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T23:49:22.780" Title="What does 暴走 mean in 这就是让卡罗琳听到，估计也会暴走?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34367" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-26T03:24:36.873" Score="0" ViewCount="645" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at the dictionary, I see that &quot;throw rubbish&quot; in Cantonese is &quot;掉垃圾&quot;. However, in the past, I remember hearing something different for &quot;throw rubbish&quot;: &quot;wang垃圾&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need some help:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the character used to represent &quot;wang&quot; in &quot;wang垃圾&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In what region is &quot;wang垃圾&quot; used? It certainly does not appear to be Guangzhou or Hong Kong Cantonese.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T22:03:12.027" Title="Different way of saying &quot;throw rubbish&quot; in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34367" CreationDate="2019-06-26T04:32:32.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you mean &lt;em&gt;reng&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扔垃圾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can mean either to discard of garbage or litter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T04:32:32.640" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34327" CreationDate="2019-06-26T04:41:15.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;喏&lt;/strong&gt; (or 诺) seems to fit the description here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we look at &lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt;’s definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nuò&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;INTERJ&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;1 {regional} here!; there!; look! (used when showing or offering sth to sb&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;2 {classical} (the old form of nuò 諾/诺) promise, affirm, agree&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;3 (say) yes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off nuò would carry effectively the same pronunciation as the given: nò.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly the idea of say 喏 when handing something to someone is explicitly mentioned here in definition number one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T04:41:15.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34366" CreationDate="2019-06-26T05:08:27.680" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%9A%B4%E8%B5%B0/649&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;暴走&lt;/a&gt; (literally mean: &quot;wildly run&quot; )（动漫术语)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a Japanese anime/manga lingo that imported to Chinese. The Chinese equivalent of &quot;暴走&quot; is &quot;失控&quot; (out of control; lose control)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;暴走 means &quot;out of control&quot; - (also, 'act violently' is implied. The obvious sign of someone is out of control is not following the common sense and/or act violently)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;暴走族 (clan that run wildly) is a Japanese term for &quot;bike gang&quot;, the Chinese equivalent of &quot;暴走族&quot; is &quot;飛車黨&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-26T05:20:34.160" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T05:20:34.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5581" CreationDate="2019-06-26T05:44:11.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wubi method&lt;/a&gt; is known to support typing radicals easily, but it will take quite some time to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一 - ggl&#xA;丨 - hhl&#xA;丿 - ttl&#xA;丶 - yyl&#xA;衤 - 衤&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22278" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T05:44:11.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34376" CreationDate="2019-06-26T13:14:38.517" Score="5" ViewCount="1317" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is driving me crazy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've always thought that Mandarin was the common language of China and Putonghua was the term use to express this language spoken with standard pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've often heard speakers of Mandarin tell me that they can't really speak Putonghua. So they tell me in Mandarin that they can't speak Putonghua. So Putonghua is one version of Mandarin right. If this is so then Mandarin is not 普通话 in Chinese. What is Mandarin Chinese in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would clarify a lot if the following could be translated into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is not a language as such but a family of languages.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mandarin and Cantonese are two of the many Chinese languages.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Standard Mandarin is called Putonghua.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen explanations online for Chinese, Mandarin, Putonghua but there always seems to be overlap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21462" LastActivityDate="2021-04-13T15:25:34.037" Title="Is Putonghua Mandarin Chinese or is it standard Mandarin Chinese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34373" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-26T13:33:29.290" Score="2" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have so much with trouble finding Chinese names it's beyond shameful. I always worry about the name sounding nonsensical or just evoking the feeling of &quot;say what? O_o&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyways, I'll have to trouble everyone again &amp;amp; ask...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do these names sound good for a male character in a fantasy chinese novel?&#xA;Are they correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;远宁&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;温宁&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;文宁&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;玟宁&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you hadn't noticed, I really like the character &quot;宁&quot;, so if you have better male names that end with &quot;宁&quot;, please let me know!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22090" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T02:54:31.757" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T03:24:24.623" Title="Do the names 远宁, 温宁, 文宁, or 玟宁 sound good for a male character?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34372" CreationDate="2019-06-26T14:07:12.487" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the basic level:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Putonghua = Mandarin = Standard Mandarin Chinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the way Chinese is spoken of in common terms, these all mean the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Standard Chinese&lt;/a&gt; puts this pretty plainly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard Chinese, also known as Modern Standard Mandarin, Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin Chinese (MSMC), or simply Mandarin, is a standard variety of Chinese that is the sole official language of China, a national language of Taiwan and one of the four official languages of Singapore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many speakers have their own dialects and believe that their spoken &amp;quot;Chinese&amp;quot; is not standard this is why they tell you that they cannot speak Mandarin or Putonghua or whatever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T14:07:12.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34366" CreationDate="2019-06-26T14:15:37.620" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a Japanese anime word that is adopted to Chinese. It has a similar meaning as the English word rampage, but can be used to an individual. i.e. a period of violent and uncontrollable behavior&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T14:15:37.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34372" CreationDate="2019-06-26T14:20:08.200" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;em&gt;linguistically&lt;/em&gt; Mandarin is equivalent to &lt;strong&gt;官话&lt;/strong&gt;, but be careful when using the concept with Chinese people. 北方话 is more widely understood, but even then... caveats abound. &quot;Standard Chinese&quot; is equivalent to the standards embodied by 普通话／国语／华语, and &quot;Standard Mandarin&quot; is an alternative name for this in the West, but this term has no cognate or calque in the Sinosphere (note that non-Chinese Eastern persepectives are different again).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several issues here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;language vs 语言 vs dialect vs 方言 / topolect&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mandarin vs Standard Mandarin vs 普通话／国语／华语 vs 官话 vs 北方话&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;approach to speech varieties: labelling by social construct (Mandarin, 官话 and 普通话／国语) vs by locality (北方话) vs by classification through linguistic features (also &quot;Mandarin&quot;, but also &quot;Yue&quot; 粤语).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend doing some research into each of these separately, and to see how popular perceptions are in China and outside, and how linguistic research uses terms carefully to describe each of these aspects. A good bit of research into the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Standard_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;history of Standard Chinese&lt;/a&gt; would be of use to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The level of linguistic knowledge required by someone working in northeastern Fujian to know that the topolect of Fuqing 福清话 and that of Fuzhou 福州话 are closely related won't require that person to be aware that this is classified into the Min Dong 闽东话 family. Similarly with the situation in the north; a Northeasterner 东北人 from Shenyang 沈阳 might have had to adopt speech patterns and listening skills to work in Jinan 济南, Shandong, but knowledge that these two are separate branches of &lt;em&gt;sensu stricto&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Mandarin&quot; 官话 would not be necessary. That person would acknowledge that both were 北方话, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These linguistic branches are &quot;not really a thing&quot; in the popular culture of China, whereas &quot;Standard Mandarin&quot; is in the (intellectual) life of the West, as it is taught as such in Western classes of standard Chinese. It is similar to the 字 vs 词 issue: these labels do not map to the same linguistic reality as letter vs word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T14:20:08.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31365" CreationDate="2019-06-26T16:46:03.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I finally came back to it, and you can see the result in the Chinese version of the intro to the blog post in the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, I mapped meter-&gt;诗体, stanza-&gt;律师/诗节 (the former in names of specific stanzas, the latter when referring to stanzas in a poem), line-&gt;诗行, foot-&gt;格, and tried to get into the etymology of terms to come up with the names. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sapphic stanza -&gt; 萨夫律诗;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alcaic stanza -&gt; 阿尔凯乌斯律诗;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Glyconic -&gt; 格莱坎诗行；&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lesser/greater Asclepiad -&gt; 大/小阿斯克里皮亚低斯诗行, shortened to 大/小斯克里诗行;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hagesichorean -&gt; 哈节西口拉诗行, because the term comes from Hagesichora, the name of a character introduced by this kind of line in a poem by Alcman (I think);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cretic -&gt; 克里提克格 and Bacchic -&gt; 巴克斯格;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dactyl -&gt; 长短短（格） and choriamb -&gt; 长短短长（格）, because they are feet with structure –uu and –uu– respectively;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pherecratean -&gt; 斐勒克拉忒斯诗行;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dactylic hexamenter -&gt; 长短短六格诗行;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elegiac couplet -&gt; 挽歌对句 (literal calque);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Expanded with X choriambs&quot; -&gt; X个长短短长扩大的 (X=单，两，三，……);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Expanded with X dactyls&quot; -&gt; X个长短短扩大的 (X=单，两，三，……).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that's all I needed in the post. Note that 行 is always háng, and means &quot;line&quot;, as found in Hú Shì's lines &quot;病中得他书/不满八行纸&quot;, &quot;Bìng zhōng dé tā shū / Bù mǎn bā háng zhǐ&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6273" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T16:46:03.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34378" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34386" CreationDate="2019-06-26T17:34:12.393" Score="-1" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good Day!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have an interesting conundrum - I can speak Chinese just fine (in fact I just took an HSK placement exam at the local Confucius Centre and was ranked at 4 for listening and speaking). I however, cannot write (or type if you will) nor can I read past (approx. HSK 2). I would rather learn simplified characters as the people I converse with use those (mainland-Chinese). Any advice? Some background, my wife is Chinese (but due to time constraints and work schedules can't teach me), I lived in China for 18 months, I have only be actively trying to learn Mandarin for about 3 years now, and we speak daily in the home. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I have tried learning how to read by using Duolingo which seeing as I can listen (and understand) it has helped a little by learning by association. I also took a class in 2012 as an elective in Uni, but the teacher wasn't great (just checked she has a whooping 1.9 on RateMyProf) and I struggled to understand her let alone a totally foreign language. I understand pinyin just fine, but want to be able to learn the characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is -given the above information. Does any one have any resources they would recommend to me to help me learn to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22277" LastEditorUserId="22277" LastEditDate="2019-06-27T14:15:50.437" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T15:27:57.390" Title="Can Speak - Can't Read" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;reading&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ClosedDate="2020-08-10T11:21:05.710" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34372" CreationDate="2019-06-26T19:34:01.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a perspective of a foreigner who lived in China. A lot of the people I spoke to didn't really distinguish (at least in a verbal sense) between &quot;Mandarin [being] the common language of China and Putonghua [as a means to] use to express this language spoken with standard pronunciation.&quot; Where I lived (Xi'an) a lot of people especially those over approx. 40 spoke Shaanxihua, as their native and primary dialect, and some don't even speak Mandarin or Putonghua altogether. So this distinction blends in casual speech, as they referred to it synonymously. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for a more formal understanding @Michaelyus hit it right on the nose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22277" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T19:34:01.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34366" CreationDate="2019-06-27T01:53:53.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GGLvX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GGLvX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know this game - King of Fighters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game, when the bottom power slot is full, you can brust it. The mandarin people call it &quot;brust the bean&quot;(爆豆), in my dialect, it's called &quot;brust the slot&quot;(炸管儿.)&#xA;Whatever it is called, after brusting it, your role gets into a rage mode -- maybe moving faster, maybe having heavier ATK, maybe haing some special skills. This mode you can call it 暴走模式 (furious mode) - you can think of Hulk mode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="19295" LastEditDate="2019-06-28T01:36:47.443" LastActivityDate="2019-06-28T01:36:47.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34381" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34382" CreationDate="2019-06-27T09:25:37.060" Score="1" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across a problem. I rendered the character &lt;code&gt;闾&lt;/code&gt; into English as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lü&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in an article, but I'm being told that the proper writing should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lyu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, to me this looks like gobbledygook -or- some Wade–Giles-type / Postal-type romanization. But, the article I was referenced was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dzwww.com/xinwen/shehuixinwen/201802/t20180202_17001346.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;护照名字里的“ü”要写成“yu” 这一新规已施行6年&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In which one paragraph reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;根据国家质量监督检验检疫总局、国家标准化管理委员会2011年10月31日发布、2012年2月1日起实施的《中国人名汉语拼音字母拼写规则》（国家标准编号：GB/T 28039-2011），并商教育部语言文字信息管理司，在公安机关出入境管理机构签发的出入境证件中，人名汉语拼音L（“吕”等字）、N（“女”等字）中的大写字母用YU代替，分别打印为LYU、NYU；LE（“略”等字）、NE（“虐”等字）两个音节中的大写字母用U代替，分别打印为LUE、NUE。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I understand this though, this is a technical issue and not a linguistic one. For characters like &lt;code&gt;闾&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;em&gt;lü&lt;/em&gt; should be absolutely correct where as &lt;em&gt;lyu&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;lv&lt;/em&gt; would just be a technical workaround for passports and airline tickets, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any as to why &lt;em&gt;lyu&lt;/em&gt; would be the correct spelling for an article, is beyond all reason to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How correct and how widespread is the usage of writing pinyin &quot;ü&quot; as &quot;yu&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T10:28:50.893" Title="How correct and how widespread is the usage of writing pinyin &quot;ü&quot; as &quot;yu&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34381" CreationDate="2019-06-27T10:21:19.020" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a workaround, and I would recommend that it be treated as such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The official romanisation of Chinese has an international standard, currently (as of mid-2019) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iso.org/standard/61420.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ISO 7098:2015&lt;/a&gt;. This does mandate the use of pinyin ü where required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the article refers to a PRC national standard, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cmaph.org/attachment/2013530/1369881701399.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GB/T 28039-2011&lt;/a&gt;, for &quot;acceptable&quot; (not correct) romanisation in international fields (it gives international sports tournaments as an example). Toneless pinyin, how to do double-barrelled surnames, and how to deal with a lack of ü are all covered. For the latter, it specifically states under section 6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;根据技术处理的特殊需要，必要的场合 (如公民护照、对外文件和书刊等)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was extended by the website above, but with a rule to transliterate 略 &lt;em&gt;lüè&lt;/em&gt; and 虐 &lt;em&gt;nüè&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; to &lt;em&gt;lyue&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;nyue&lt;/em&gt; respectively, but to as &lt;em&gt;lue&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;nue&lt;/em&gt; (as doing so does not introduce any ambiguity anyway).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why ü as yu? That's the most sensible option for the sound represented in IPA by /y/, if you exclude all other diacritics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &quot;ü&quot; sound in Hanyu Pinyin is the same sound as &quot;yu&quot;. 女, with &quot;ü&quot;, rhymes with 语, with &quot;yu&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongyong_Pinyin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tongyong Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;, official in Taiwan between 2002 and 2008, uses &quot;yu&quot; consistently instead of &quot;ü&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyutping&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jyutping&lt;/a&gt; romanisation for Cantonese (which also has the /y/ vowel frequently) uses &quot;yu&quot; consistently too.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In what circumstances would one see this then? Passports and other &quot;inherently international&quot; official ones seem to the main target, where known technical issues exist. I personally would consider this workaround to be less correct than the use of ü (as per international standards), but if you are writing an article with a specific company, they may be using that online source as a sort of &quot;house style&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the wild, of course, the most common is &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.info/news/2009/v-for-u/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;in practice&lt;/a&gt; &quot;v&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2019-06-27T10:28:50.893" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T10:28:50.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34384" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34385" CreationDate="2019-06-28T03:18:31.880" Score="0" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from my 3-rd grade Chinese 语文 book (transcript is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lbx777.com/multimedia/kwld/read_051.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;秋天的雨，有一盒五彩缤纷的颜料。你看，它把黄色给了银杏树，黄黄的叶子像&lt;strong&gt;一把把小扇子&lt;/strong&gt;，扇哪扇哪，扇走了夏天的炎热。它把红色给了枫树，红红的枫叶像&lt;strong&gt;一枚枚邮票&lt;/strong&gt;，飘哇飘哇，邮来了秋天的凉爽。金黄色是给田野的，看，田野像金色的海洋。橙红色是给果树的，橘子、柿子你挤我碰，争着要人们去摘呢！菊花仙子得到的颜色就更多了，紫红的、淡黄的、雪白的……美丽的菊花在秋雨里频频点头。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is there repetition of the measure words in 一把把小扇子 and 一枚枚邮票?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would guess this is for poetic reasons, but I'm not sure.  I've never seen this before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use above seems different to the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/21100/&quot;&gt;What is the meaning of &amp;quot;一把把&amp;quot; on &amp;quot;他更是一把把她的书包给枪了过去“？&lt;/a&gt; where it seems only the first 把 is the measure word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-06-28T03:43:38.333" Title="Why is there repetition of the measure words in 一把把小扇子 and 一枚枚邮票?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-06-28T05:56:23.770" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34384" CreationDate="2019-06-28T03:36:09.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a similar question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/25785/what-does-the-second-%e5%b9%85-mean-in-the-following-sentence/25787#25787&quot;&gt;What does the second &amp;quot;幅” mean in the following sentence?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer there should be applicable here too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;一幅幅&quot; in &quot;一幅幅美丽的山水画&quot; mainly means 'one after another'&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the same logic,  一把把小扇子 and 一枚枚邮票 means &quot;one small fan after another&quot; and &quot;one stamp after another&quot; (meaning many fans and many stamps)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-28T03:43:38.333" LastActivityDate="2019-06-28T03:43:38.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34378" CreationDate="2019-06-28T05:16:55.893" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quick way to learn characters is grinding flashcards in the spaced repetition app &lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.ankiweb.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anki&lt;/a&gt; – there are plenty of existing HSK vocab sets that other users have made. You can also check out &lt;em&gt;Remembering Simplified Hanzi&lt;/em&gt; by James Heisig and Timothy Richardson to help with making mnemonics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reading, I like &lt;a href=&quot;https://duchinese.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Du Chinese&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://decipherchinese.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Decipher Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (now dead), which provide interesting articles with integrated word segmentation and a mobile-friendly pop-up dictionary. Du Chinese also has sentence-level translation, which is great when you can't quite figure out how the sentence works. You can filter articles by difficulty to something you're comfortable with. You may be interested in graded readers in general. There are some paid graded readers in Pleco Dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastEditorUserId="11374" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T15:27:57.390" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T15:27:57.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34366" CreationDate="2019-06-28T11:29:34.180" Score="-1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, 暴走=暴+走，暴means blastly,ballistically。So 暴走 means walk blastly （still walk rather run）。This expression is not so popular in formal Chinese, only the case of 暴走族，meaning a group of people exercising by walking very fastly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence:这就是让卡罗琳听到，估计也会暴走, is not popular in formal Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.You might be reading the book 特工酷女神. The language used by the author should be avoided in formal Chinese. I suggest you to throw this book into rabbish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastEditorUserId="22221" LastEditDate="2019-06-28T11:42:08.823" LastActivityDate="2019-06-28T11:42:08.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34182" CreationDate="2019-06-28T11:53:48.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;上网==上+网，here 上 is a verb, meaning surf, go on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;网上==(在)+网+上，here 在...上 means on, a preposition. But in most time, 在 is dropped off. In the same way, 桌上==在桌上， 纸上==在纸上,here 上 after nouns is the preposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, 线下==(在)线下，碗里==（在）碗里，屋外==(在)屋外&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastEditorUserId="22221" LastEditDate="2019-06-30T12:19:10.990" LastActivityDate="2019-06-30T12:19:10.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34331" CreationDate="2019-06-28T11:57:59.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;为了中华之崛起而读书==为了+(中华+之+崛起)+而+读书&#xA;为了....而=for&#xA;中华+之+崛起=Chinese's standing up&#xA;读书==reading books&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-06-28T11:57:59.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34391" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-28T13:46:09.757" Score="1" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve been looking into the word “pest”, and the dictionary showed me 害虫, but 虫 means insects, so I wonder whether the word 害虫 only means harmful insects or it also can be used to refer to other pests like snakes or rats?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T00:28:48.720" Title="Does 害虫 and 益虫 cover different types of animals?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26958" CreationDate="2019-06-28T14:45:34.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;嚴宁李 - Yan Naing Lee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yan = (&quot;strict&quot;)&#xA;Naing = (&quot;rather&quot;)&#xA;Lee = (&quot;smooth; clever; sharp&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess this Hong Kong Chief Inspector's full name is saying he is &quot;Strict but rather smooth, clever and sharp,&quot; which is accurate. Lol&#xA;It kinda of a disappointement that the TV show version of Rush Hour blantly whitewashed this character 50% and called him &quot;Jonathan Lee&quot;. smh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22286" LastActivityDate="2019-06-28T14:45:34.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34391" CreationDate="2019-06-28T18:53:33.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;害虫 and 益虫 can only refer to insects, animals like snakes or rats can be called 有害动物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But nowadays terms like 害虫 or 有害动物 are getting less and less use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2019-06-28T18:53:33.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34391" CreationDate="2019-06-29T02:58:48.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;昆虫 means insects. 虫 does &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; mean insects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虫 means &lt;strong&gt;worms&lt;/strong&gt;, and the meaning is roughly extended to  &lt;strong&gt;creepy-crawlies&lt;/strong&gt;, and is sometimes even extended to &lt;strong&gt;small animals&lt;/strong&gt;, including insects, snakes,  crabs, shrimps, tadpoles, frogs, clams, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient China, all the animals were classified into four categories, namely 虫鱼鸟兽, where small animals except fishes and birds were in the 虫 category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/l7Hpg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/l7Hpg.png&quot; alt=&quot;Four categories of animals according to classical Chinese classification&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2019-07-01T00:28:48.720" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T00:28:48.720" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34395" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-29T07:59:52.300" Score="1" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;my Wenlin dictionary describes 子 as also a measure word for bundles/hanks etc.&#xA;Can anyone confirm this ? by sample sentence ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22057" LastActivityDate="2019-06-30T01:05:35.437" Title="Is it OK to use 子 as a measure word" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34395" CreationDate="2019-06-29T09:17:34.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Classifier for 'bundles/hanks' is '束', as in '一束花' (a bundle of flower); '一束头发' (a hank of hair)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only classifier using 子 is for 'chess/ Go piece' or 'chess/ Go move',&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'讓你兩子棋' (give you two stones handicap) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;需要深入思考每一&lt;strong&gt;子&lt;/strong&gt;棋&quot; (need to think deep for each chess &lt;strong&gt;move&lt;/strong&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;'步' as  in &quot;需要深入思考每一&lt;strong&gt;步&lt;/strong&gt;棋&quot; is more common that 子 when using as classifier for chess move&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A prominent example for 子 as a classifier for chess/Go piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一&lt;strong&gt;子&lt;/strong&gt;錯, 滿盆皆落索 - one &lt;strong&gt;piece&lt;/strong&gt; (of chess) (placed) wrong, the entire game (situation) become untenable &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-06-29T09:46:04.420" LastActivityDate="2019-06-29T09:46:04.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34395" CreationDate="2019-06-29T09:45:37.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, yeah, &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; (which wenlin is based off) does say indeed say that but it doesn't really expand upon it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pleco&lt;/em&gt; gives examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;MEASURE WORD&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [for sth. long and thin]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一子儿挂面&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  yī zǐr guàmiàn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  a bundle of fine dried noodles &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一子儿毛线&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  yī zǐr máoxiàn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  a skein of knitting wool &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently you can use it with things that are &lt;em&gt;long and thin&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt; also gives the same examples but stylizes them like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一子(儿)挂面&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  a bundle of fine dried noodles &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一子(儿)毛线&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  a hank of knitting wool &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;MoE&lt;/em&gt; also has an entry that reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;量 用於能用手指掐住的一束細長的東西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《敦煌變文集‧漢將王陵變》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  若借大王寶劍, 卸下一子頭髮。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that the example sentence doesn’t have erhuaization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-06-29T10:06:26.393" LastActivityDate="2019-06-29T10:06:26.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34391" CreationDate="2019-06-29T11:17:46.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;虫 means the insect. one kind of it is 害虫， pest in English&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Chinese, especially in some dialects, 虫 also was extended to other animals, for example, 长虫==蛇(snake）， 大虫==老虎(tiger). These extension cases are few.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sometimes 害虫 also refers to some bad persons who harm the society&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-06-29T11:17:46.210" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34395" CreationDate="2019-06-29T11:19:47.710" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No used frequently as the quanity word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching google with &quot;一子儿头发&quot;, you find only 12 results, most are either archaic or dialect. But with &quot;一把头发&quot;,you have 102 results, and with “一绺头发”，you have 106 results，with &quot;一缕头发&quot;,you have 96 results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a professor on mechanics and a native chinese speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastEditorUserId="22221" LastEditDate="2019-06-30T01:05:35.437" LastActivityDate="2019-06-30T01:05:35.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34400" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34401" CreationDate="2019-06-29T20:59:57.950" Score="2" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 我给你讲 and 我跟你讲? These two phrases both seem to translate to I told you. But when would one be preferable to another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22287" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T23:45:16.617" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T23:45:16.617" Title="Difference between 给 and 跟 (e.g. in 我给你讲 and 我跟你讲)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34400" CreationDate="2019-06-29T23:36:54.913" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;給 = Give/Let, 跟 = With/Together. When used with another verb together, &quot;給&quot; designate the &quot;transceiver&quot; / &quot;receiver&quot; of the verb, while with &quot;跟&quot;, both party are the subjects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The examples you chose is a indistinguishable case (there are probably a lot of them). Let me elaborate with something else:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我給你吃飯 = I let you eat&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我跟你吃飯 = I eat with you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你給我吃飯 = You let me eat&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你跟我吃飯 = You eat with me / You and I eat together&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我給你休息十分鐘 = I give you 10 minutes to rest&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我跟你休息十分鐘 = I rest for 10 minutes with you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你跟我休息十分鐘 = You rest 10 minutes with me / You and I rest for 10 minutes together&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我給你看看 = I'll show you this / (I give you a look of this)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我跟你看看 = Let's see this / (I look at this with you)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your examples, I guess we can distinguish them literally with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我給你講 = I give you a speech&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我跟你講 = I speak with you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the physical actions of these two are probably not distinguishable from each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4036" LastActivityDate="2019-06-29T23:36:54.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34182" CreationDate="2019-06-30T12:29:56.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;上网, literally &quot;to get on the internet&quot; [上=(verb)to get on something, 网=(noun)internet], means to surf on the internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;网上, literally &quot;on the internet&quot; [网=(noun)internet, -上=(postposition)on something], means to be online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上网聊天 = to use the internet in order to chat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;网上聊天 = to chat online&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastActivityDate="2019-06-30T12:29:56.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34403" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34410" CreationDate="2019-06-30T12:45:37.753" Score="0" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;may I ask if 敢于 and 勇于 are interchangeable words? In English, both of them mean dare to, have the courage to do something. I looked up some sentences involving both words and it seems to be used in a number of similar situations. The only difference that I seem to notice based on the sentences I read is that 敢于 carries the meaning of dare to fight for something or do something while 勇于 carries the meaning of having the courage to face difficult times. Not sure if it's correct. For eg, is it 敢于承认错误 or 勇于承认错误. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T02:49:03.533" Title="敢于 vs 勇于 difference in usage" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34404" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34408" CreationDate="2019-06-30T17:39:21.013" Score="2" ViewCount="1914" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a Youtube video by a popular Youtube blogger who lives in China and is married to a Chinese woman, and he says in that video that the Chinese language has the idiom 能骗就骗 (&quot;if you can cheat, then cheat&quot;). The blogger explicitly calls this phrase by the word &quot;idiom.&quot; Here is the link that brings you to the corresponding moment of that Youtube video: &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/5ncOyYzOP3w?t=333&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;. The video is quite popular and has almost 3 million views and 40+ thousand likes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I talked with a few native Chinese speakers about that phrase and got conflicting opinions about its role in the Chinese language. Two people said that depending on the situation, this phrase is used in two different ways - as a negative characteristic (e.g., &quot;he is such a hardcore cheater and scammer that he will ruthlessly cheat whenever he can and no matter what&quot;) or as an encouragement to cheat a bit where it is relatively appropriate (e.g., &quot;just cheat on your school test if you can&quot; or &quot;just cheat a bit on your taxes if it is safe to do so&quot;). Another native speaker said that he had never seen this phrase being used in the second way and that the phrase is simply a name for cheaters. Another Chinese said that this is not an idiom, but rather merely a grammatically correct phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an attempt to find out the truth about that phrase, I decided to ask here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that I am not going to make any negative judgement about the Chinese or their culture based on the usage of this phrase, so please do not sugarcoat things. Every language has expressions of all kinds, and every nation consists of people of all kinds. For example, the English language has the idiomatic phrase &quot;Never give a sucker an even break.&quot; This phrase means that one should take advantage of those who are not well informed if given the chance. The German language has the idiom &quot;Der Ehrliche ist immer der Dumme&quot; (&quot;the honest one will always turn out to be the dumb one&quot;). The Russian language has the idiom &quot;Не наебешь - не прoживешь&quot; (&quot;if you don't f*ck people over, you won't survive&quot;). Everyone chooses his own strategy and principles. So my question is purely linguistic and is purely about that the use of 能骗就骗 from the linguistic standpoint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My question is this: Is the phrase 能骗就骗 idiomatic or just a random grammatically correct phrase, and how is this phrase used in the Chinese language?&lt;/strong&gt; In particular, is it sometimes used as an encouragement to trick or cheat? Any examples are very welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22293" LastActivityDate="2019-07-04T04:00:35.810" Title="Usage of 能骗就骗 (if you can cheat, then cheat)" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34405" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34409" CreationDate="2019-06-30T18:32:17.273" Score="0" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lFlBI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I  think this might be a brand name .&#xA;I have this little charm and I’m dying &#xA;To find where iit comes from. Or how to buy more.&#xA;Thank you INCREDIBLY for your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22294" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T02:15:37.200" Title="Hi! Can You tell me what this Word is (is it a brand?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-07-01T03:18:36.537" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34406" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34412" CreationDate="2019-06-30T20:35:49.173" Score="0" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;While perusing an article on allsetlearning.com about complements, I came across an interesting example of an ungrammatical sentence: 回来中国, where the object and complement are both placed after the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article suggests fixing this by rearranging it into: 回中国来, justifying it by saying &quot;You can't say 回来中国 because 回 is the verb, 来 is the complement, and 中国 is the object. You can't put both a complement and an object after a single verb, but it's OK to put just a 来 or 去 after the object.&quot; In this corrected sentence, what is the function of 来？Is this serial verb construction? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a similar vein, the article also recommends two alternative solutions: doubling the verb -- placing one before the object and one before the complement-- and moving the object to the front of the phrase. To this end, I came up with these two phrases: 回中国回来 and 中国回来。Although I realize the phrasing may be a bit awkward, I was wondering if they were grammatically correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Link to article: &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Direction_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Direction_complement&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Degree_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Degree_complement&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank You!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22287" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T04:45:37.930" Title="Fixing sentences with object and complement after a verb" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34403" CreationDate="2019-07-01T00:57:44.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;敢于：there is no fear.&#xA;勇于:I have the subjective and do not afraid of failure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22212" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T00:57:44.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34404" CreationDate="2019-07-01T02:09:17.973" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;能骗就骗 is a direct translation from a Cantonese expression &quot;呃得就呃&quot; (scam just because you can/ scam whenever you can)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a negative remark on someone's behavior; There's no encouragement of swindling &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;戴條手鍊可以防癌? 仲要賣成千蚊? 唔好呃得就呃噃!&quot; (Wearing a bracelet can prevent cancer? And it costs a thousand dollar? Don't scam people just because you can)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;條友呃得就呃, 千祈咪上當!&quot; (this guy scam people whenever he can, don't fall for it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;呃得就呃 is commonly used in Cantonese, but 能骗就骗 may not be as popular in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As  AnnieFromTaiwan pointed out 能X就X is a common sentence pattern, so is X得就X in Cantonese. However, the instances you can apply &quot;呃得就呃&quot; to are so numerous, it stands out among all other similarly structured phrases and has became a '&lt;strong&gt;common expression&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-04T04:00:35.810" LastActivityDate="2019-07-04T04:00:35.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34405" CreationDate="2019-07-01T02:15:37.200" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's Japanese and it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guriko (Glico) グリコ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kafeore (Café au lait) カフェオーレ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Glico is a food brand and Kafeore is one of its product lines: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cafeore.jp/info/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cafeore.jp/info/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22079" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T02:15:37.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34403" CreationDate="2019-07-01T02:49:03.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You already found the answer in your English interpretation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敢于 =  dare to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勇于 = have courage to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敢於挑戰強權 (dare to challenge power)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勇於挑戰強權 (have courage to challenge power)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To find the difference between '敢于' and  '勇于', you only need to find out the difference between 'dare to' and 'have courage to'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Dare to' doesn't always equal to 'have courage to'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may dare to do something because you are confident or you are willing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;敢于对抗强敌 can mean 'you are brave at facing strong enemy' or 'you are confident in facing strong enemy'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勇于对抗强敌 just mean you are brave at facing strong enemy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;敢于尝试新口味&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;dare to try new taste&amp;quot; (it doesn't require courage to dare, it just requires willingness)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;勇于尝试新口味&amp;quot; implies trying new taste require courage, which is too exaggerated, the worst thing can happen is you don't like the new taste&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;敢于起用新人当主角&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;dare to use new face for the leading role&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;勇于起用新人当主角&amp;quot; implies using new actor for the leading role require courage, but more often than not, it just requires willingness on the director's part to give new actor a chance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T02:49:03.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34352" CreationDate="2019-07-01T03:34:30.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am from mainland China. I think the name 繁体字 (&lt;strong&gt;Complicated Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;) is a little derogatory, for there is not such a term before. The &lt;strong&gt;Simplified Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; characters was created first, and then original characters was called &lt;strong&gt;Complicated Chinese&lt;/strong&gt; characters. Since our ancestors used them for thousands of years, the govenment didn't simplified them even if there is not any printing technology at the ealier time. Though the printing technology was invented later, but it is still backward compared to these days. The traditional characters had remained unchanged for thousands of years. However, in the last few decades, they are simplified for learning easily while the characters that the ancients used for thousands of years was called the &lt;strong&gt;Complicated Chinese characters&lt;/strong&gt;, of course I don't think the name is such neutral. You know that in fact also there is not such a term in English, instead it is called &lt;strong&gt;Traditional Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;. The Taiwan side also complains the term 繁体字, they wants to “rectify” the name to 正体字 (&lt;strong&gt;Formal/Orthodox Chinese&lt;/strong&gt;). The new term had been accepted by some websites of Traditional Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-07-03T03:16:08.400" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T03:16:08.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34406" CreationDate="2019-07-01T04:45:37.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different from other verb complements that you can place directly after the verb and before the object, the verb complement 来 and 去 require the object to be placed between the verb and them, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Insert the object between the verb 回 and the verb complement 来 as in '(回)中国(来)' = '(back to) China (here)' connects the object with the verb in Chinese grammar&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Place the object after both the verb 回 and verb complement 来 as in'(回来)中国' = '(back to here) China' , the verb and the object would become disjointed. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb complement that can be placed directly after the verb and before the object here is 到, as in '回(到)中国' = 'back (at) China' not '回(来)中国' = 'back to (here) China'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T04:45:37.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34413" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-01T08:21:54.667" Score="3" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to identify these artist seal meaning, if anyone can help it would be much appreciated.I have tried researching this myself but to no avail&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XnuIu.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XnuIu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XnuIu.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22299" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-07-01T08:24:58.950" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T10:30:11.010" Title="Artist Seal Meaning" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34413" CreationDate="2019-07-01T10:30:11.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The seal says「萅」, which is one of the earlier forms of「春」(&lt;em&gt;spring&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「春」(Mandarin Pinyin: &lt;strong&gt;chūn&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;spring&lt;/em&gt;) was originally constructed from simultaneously semantic and phonetic「屯」(&lt;strong&gt;tún&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;picture of a sprouting plant&lt;/em&gt;), and various other optionally present semantic components including「木」(&lt;em&gt;picture of a tree&lt;/em&gt;),「屮・艸」(&lt;em&gt;grass, plants, vegetation&lt;/em&gt;), and「日」(&lt;em&gt;sun&lt;/em&gt;), inferring &lt;em&gt;sun shining on newly sprouting vegetation &gt; spring&lt;/em&gt;. The surviving glyph「春」is from an original combination of「艸・艹」,「日」, and「屯」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dFarh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dFarh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;粹&lt;/a&gt;1151&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=29715&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集29715&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the above character,「艸」is split into two「屮」, which surround「日」, all on the left hand side.「屯」is the portion found on the right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The combination of「艸」and「日」here survives as a component in a few characters, e.g. the left hand side of「朝」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later on, the components were subject to various changes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both parts of「艸」migrated to the top,「屯」moved to the middle, and「日」moved to the bottom:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3UtvA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3UtvA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;蔡侯墓殘鐘&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=224&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成224&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Silk_Manuscript&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;帛&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iOu7b.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iOu7b.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;甲1.2&lt;br&gt;新蔡葛陵&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ybABG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ybABG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77389&amp;amp;page=46&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;艸部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The last form above is the same as the image in the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「屯」and「艸」switched places:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z6FYL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z6FYL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;日乙252&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Everything apart from「日」was graphically corrupted, leading on to the modern form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty#Western_Han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆～&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tgxts.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tgxts.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;乙前85下&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawangdui_Silk_Texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;馬王堆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;老子&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m6zuO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m6zuO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T10:30:11.010" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34415" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34423" CreationDate="2019-07-01T17:38:11.937" Score="2" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I realise that you probably shouldn't think of Chinese sentences in terms of Latin grammar, right? That is probably doomed to failure. But on the other hand, I have noticed that often, Chinese sentences push the nominative object/the subject of the sentence after the verb that it is supposedly doing, and I'm not too sure why this structure is sometimes preferred to a standard S V O approach.&#xA;I should point out here that I'm not referring to a O V structure such as 我的车该擦了which implies the passive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is probably best explained using some examples. So, here goes...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;朋友要的词典玛丽买到了 - here, I could understand both 玛丽把朋友要的词典买到了 and 玛丽买到了朋友要的词典 but the structure above seems a bit... random&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;前面开一辆车 - why not 一辆车在前面开?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any thoughts or links very welcome - not sure what to search for!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks, Hashamyim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T11:29:32.893" Title="Where does the 'nominative object' go?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34416" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-01T20:24:33.437" Score="3" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm genuinely confused about this. Does repeated &quot;什么&quot; have special meaning? Or are they just wordplay?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read something like this &quot;那什么什么&quot; but I can't comprehend it at all. I tried looking for similar phrases and found them to be even more incomprehensible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was no context to this &quot;那什么什么&quot; I read, hence my confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="21363" LastEditDate="2019-07-10T07:12:56.707" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T05:48:17.530" Title="Meaning of repeated &quot;什么&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34416" CreationDate="2019-07-01T23:00:19.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;那什么&quot; is just a filler word, like &quot;you know&quot;, &quot;I mean&quot;, etc. It just makes a pause in a sentence so that you can have time to think and organize your words. It doesn't really have any meanings. And you can make the pause longer by repeating &quot;什么&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22305" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T23:00:19.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34418" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34479" CreationDate="2019-07-02T00:16:25.487" Score="2" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the characters on this? One seems clearly to be 商, but I can't figure out the one that seems to be facing the other direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LF9vmm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LF9vmm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LF9vm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;larger image&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13362" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-04T00:22:09.313" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T00:22:09.313" Title="What are the characters on this? (Character identified: 壽)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34404" CreationDate="2019-07-02T00:26:17.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin, it is just a random grammatically correct phrase, not an idiom. But as Tang Ho pointed out, it might be popular in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22305" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T00:26:17.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34331" CreationDate="2019-07-02T07:12:37.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It helps to put this quote into context. Zhou Enlai came from Chuzhou, which is today part of Huai'an. Chuzhou was undeveloped and very small at that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lack of development in Chuzhou and all of that area, which is in northern Jiangsu Province, was bitterly felt during the brutal Japanese invasion of the region prior to Pearl Harbor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That famous quote means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Study for the development of China&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user22307" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T07:12:37.353" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2019-07-02T07:12:37.353" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34416" CreationDate="2019-07-02T10:42:11.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;那什么什么 sounds like the speaker indicates that there are more things coming up or it can not be described by only one sentence or word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 那什么什么的: like ～~. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T10:42:11.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27076" CreationDate="2019-07-02T10:47:36.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;agreed with Dan's answer, “来“should be a preposition here, its function is to denote an intention / express going to do sth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22310" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T10:47:36.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34415" CreationDate="2019-07-02T11:22:45.593" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is all subsumed under &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topicalization&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;topicalisation&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. Chinese does it, but so do others (even Latin!). Indeed, most languages have a way of focusing on something, and Chinese allows certain word orders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first example is &lt;a href=&quot;https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0088905&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;object NP fronting&quot;&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ling.sinica.edu.tw/files/publication/j2002_4_03_5437.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;object preposing&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;朋友要的词典&lt;/strong&gt; 玛丽 &lt;strong&gt;买到了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;comes from...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;玛丽 &lt;strong&gt;买到了&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;朋友要的词典&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is particularly favoured when the wording of the object is long, and especially when it is much longer than the subject. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second example is &lt;a href=&quot;http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.35.8071&amp;amp;rep=rep1&amp;amp;type=pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;locative inversion&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;前面&lt;/strong&gt; 开着 &lt;strong&gt;一辆车&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In general &lt;a href=&quot;http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.35.8071&amp;amp;rep=rep1&amp;amp;type=pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the sentence&lt;/a&gt; would require a 着 here.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more canonical sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一辆车&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;(在)前面&lt;/strong&gt; 开着 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... doesn't sound as good for this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only specific types of verbs are permitted to undergo locative inversion, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4047855.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;specifically&lt;/a&gt; unaccusative and passivised verbs. There are very few transitive verbs that can do so, most notably 放 &lt;em&gt;fàng&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These non-SVO orders have several different functions. This locative inversion has &lt;a href=&quot;http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.35.8071&amp;amp;rep=rep1&amp;amp;type=pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;two main ones&lt;/a&gt;: describing the landscape, and &lt;em&gt;presentation focus&lt;/em&gt;. These two are relatively similar to English, although the specific number of verbs allowed by English in this construction is lower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="484" LastEditDate="2019-07-02T11:29:32.893" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T11:29:32.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34424" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34427" CreationDate="2019-07-02T12:04:59.407" Score="1" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to properly translate &lt;code&gt;反常识的&lt;/code&gt; to English in academic writing? I want to express a surprising and unusual phenomenon that shouldn't appear in an experiment, which is not expected and against the physical principle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, it is quite &lt;code&gt;反常识的&lt;/code&gt; that the performance of A is .... blah...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22232" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T09:38:53.047" Title="How to say 反常识的 in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34424" CreationDate="2019-07-02T13:03:59.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google result for 反常识的 is &quot;unconventional&quot;. It doesn't seem  to fit the description in the context you described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the word you are looking for is [ &quot;&lt;strong&gt;inconceivable&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;em&gt;(adj): beyond reason, belief&lt;/em&gt; ] - implies a finding seemingly defies the law of physic or conventional believes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;inconceivable&quot; in Chinese is 不可思議; 無法想像&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If an experiment's result seemingly defies the law of physic, the most likely cause would be: 1. Mistakes were made during the experiment. 2. Someone forged the result 3. The previous notion was wrong.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt; (add from my comment):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反&quot; contains the meaning of 'to counter' . Therefore, someone think &quot;Counter-intuitive&quot; contains the word 'counter' must be the right answer and my answer suggested giving up the phrase &quot;反常识的&quot; and use &quot;不可思議&quot; or &quot;無法想像&quot; to describe &quot;a surprising and unusual phenomenon&quot; . Actually &quot;counter-intuitive&quot; is not much different from &quot;unconventional&quot;- meaning something that is not conventionally done or intuitively thought &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: A green button instead of a red button activate self-destruct command is 'counter-intuitive' because we usually label dangerous function with the color red. I would translate 'counter-intuitive' as &quot;違反直覺的&quot; and &quot;&lt;strong&gt;反常识的&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;against common sense&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-03T09:38:53.047" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T09:38:53.047" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34416" CreationDate="2019-07-02T15:37:46.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found it to be a filler word, almost like people using &quot;这个, 这个, 这个...&quot; when speaking or &quot;那个, 那个, 那个...&quot; Or an English example would be the stereotypical Canadian , &quot;EH!?&quot; (which we do say). There really isn't any direct or formal meaning, if there is it is purely contextually based. But from my experience 99.9% of the time it is just a filler word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22277" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T15:37:46.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34424" CreationDate="2019-07-02T19:02:52.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you mean &quot;Counterintuitive&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22305" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T19:02:52.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34424" CreationDate="2019-07-03T07:25:06.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;常识=common sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;反常识==incredible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T07:25:06.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34429" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34430" CreationDate="2019-07-03T09:42:46.120" Score="3" ViewCount="388" Body="&lt;p&gt;This recent New York Times article entitled &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/opinion/hong-kong-protest.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hong Kong Has Nothing Left to Lose&lt;/a&gt; mentions, in the opening sentence, that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After breaking into Hong Kong’s legislature, protesters left a message for Carrie Lam, the city’s top government official, spray-painted on a pillar: &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/swiftintime/status/1145925863516454914&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“It was you who taught me that peaceful protests are futile.”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The link to the twitter pic has now been protected and is not publicly available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any idea what the original text to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It was you who taught me that peaceful protests are futile&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m assuming it wasn’t English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Found the image later:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pBfiY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pBfiY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-04T11:25:28.843" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T10:39:04.993" Title="Backwards translation: “It was you who taught me that peaceful protests are futile.”?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34429" CreationDate="2019-07-03T11:05:01.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was you who - 是妳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;taught me - 教我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;peaceful protests - 和平示威&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are futile - 是沒用的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cn.nytimes.com/opinion/20190703/hong-kong-protest/zh-hant/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is the Chinese version of that article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;It was you who taught me that peaceful protests are futile&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;是妳教(識)我和平示威是沒用(的)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot presume it wasn't originally in English because Hong Kong is an international city, a lot of protest slogans are written in English for foreign news media's view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is an open secret among Chinese that arguing with the CCP government is useless. The protesters have better chance at pulling support from the international community, and the international community would in turn apply pressure to the CCP.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T11:11:16.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34431" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-03T13:28:59.367" Score="4" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve found that 本 and 版 can be used to describe the edition of a published material, but do they have any differences between them? If they have, please give some examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2019-07-12T07:15:38.220" Title="What are the differences between 本 and 版 when it comes to edition" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34431" CreationDate="2019-07-03T15:39:43.913" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, there is no difference in the meaning, but the two characters are not interchangeable, since some publication use one over the other, it is up to the publisher or convention to decide whether to use 本 or 版. However, there are some general rules that apply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The phrase 版本 means &quot;edition&quot; in general. It can refer to edition &quot;without&quot; specifications (i.e. 3rd. edition, international edition). For example:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我喜欢这个版本。(I like this edition.)(can be shortened to: 我喜欢这版)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我喜欢最新的版本。(I like the newest edition.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can refer to edition with numbering. However, this expression is usually used to refer to &quot;drafts&quot; or &quot;versions&quot;, not &quot;editions&quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我喜欢版本二。(I like the second draft.)(notice the number comes after the phrase.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我喜欢第三个版本。(I like the third draft(version).)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note one doesn't (or it's really strange to) say &quot;第三版本&quot;. If you want to drop &quot;个&quot;, you have to say &quot;第三版&quot;, as demonstrated in 2..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;版 is the most common character to refer to editions with specifications. It is used in daily conversation to refer to any kind of edition, not only publication. For example:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;第一版 (First edition)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;初版 (First edition)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;国际版 (International edition)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;珍藏版 (Collecter's edition)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;复刻版 (Reprint)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to refer to an edition but do not know whether the publisher uses 本 or 版, it's probably 版.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;本 also refer to edition, but it only refers to publications and does not refer to &quot;the number&quot; of edition (with exceptions, shown in example). It is almost always limited to certain expression. Japanese publication use 本 to refer to edition more often. For example:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;首发本 (First edition, Premier)(exception to no numbers rule)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;第一本 (This expression is not valid)(This expression means &quot;the first book&quot; as in a stack of book, or something like that.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;通行本 (Normal edition)(This expression refers to the normal, non-special edition that is circulating in public.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;精裝本 (Hardcover edition)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;单行本 (Standalone edition)(This phrase is from Japanese.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;文库本 (Small-format paperback edition)(This phrase is from Japanese.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list above is not exhaustive, but it covers the most common expressions. Note that apart from the two Japanese expression, 首发版, 通行版, and 精裝版 are all valid and common expressions, it is just a choice of style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;刷 is a common character related to &quot;edition&quot;, it refers to &quot;impression&quot; or &quot;print runs&quot;. For example:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;初版一刷 (First edition, first impression)(the first print run of the first edition)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, this is for publications only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22315" LastEditorUserId="22315" LastEditDate="2019-07-04T18:04:04.377" LastActivityDate="2019-07-04T18:04:04.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34433" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34435" CreationDate="2019-07-03T15:54:08.753" Score="0" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/a/0GzzcKM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://imgur.com/a/0GzzcKM&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/a/wtj7sah&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://imgur.com/a/wtj7sah&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;theme name  is Fo mo dao xian buddhism, also would apreciate if you tell me what does that mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22316" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T20:28:47.723" Title="there's this theme for android i don't understand the characters, can you help me translate it? (the characters are on images bellow)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34434" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35538" CreationDate="2019-07-03T16:05:24.363" Score="6" ViewCount="398" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quoting Wiktionary, the glyph origin of the character 「腺」 is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A 国字 (kokuji, “Japanese-coined character”) coined in the late 1700s–early 1800s by rangaku scholar Udagawa Genshin as a translation for Dutch klier (“gland”), as an ideogrammic compound (會意): ⺼ (“flesh; body”) + 泉 (“spring; fountain; source; producer of liquid”), together expressing the idea “part of the body that produces liquid secretions”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the origin of its pronunciation is described like so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The reading sen is based on the kan'on of the 泉 base.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which yields a 慣用音 of 「せん」(sen). However, it seems that other Sinitic and Sino-xenic languages' pronunciation of 「腺」 doesn't match with 「泉」, but rather 「線」. For comparison:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;                     腺 / 線（私箭切）           泉（疾緣切）&#xA;標準漢語                   xiàn                    quán&#xA;粵語（廣州話）              sin3                   cyun4&#xA;閩南語（廈門話）    siàn（文）/ sòaⁿ（白）   choân（文）/ chôaⁿ（白）&#xA;日語（漢音）             せん（sen）              せん（sen）&#xA;朝鮮語                   선（seon）              천（cheon）&#xA;越南語                    tuyến                   tuyền&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese seems to be the only language where the reading is consistent across all three characters. Why is this the case? Is there a connection between 「腺」 and 「線」? Or was there simply an error when 「腺」 was introduced to China/Korea/Vietnam?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12846" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-05-15T01:48:58.927" LastActivityDate="2020-05-15T01:48:58.927" Title="Pronunciation of 腺" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34433" CreationDate="2019-07-03T20:14:00.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The big character on the first image is 魔 (demon) and the poem is  a statement from the perspective of 魔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The big character on the second image is 道 (The Truth/ The Way) and the poem is a statement from the perspective of 道&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the philosophy sense 魔 and 道 are the opposite of each other: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;道 represents 'enlightened mind' that extended to 'just, peaceful, kind, selfless and everything positive'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;魔 represents 'fallen mind' that extended to 'unjust, violent, cruel, selfish and everything negative'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the two poems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;天地不仁何乞憐，我以我血染青天，魔前一扣三千年，回首凡塵不做仙&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The universe is unkind, what is the use of begging for mercy? I'd use my blood to paint the blue sky red; Three thousand years since I had submitted to the way of demon, looking back at the mortal world, I'd rather not being a god)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;曾經滄海難為水，除卻巫山不是雲，萬花叢中懶回顧，半緣修道半緣君&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Experienced the vast ocean, it is hard to be a pool of still water; Experienced the grand cloud-sea on top of Wushan,  other clouds are no longer impressive;  In the middle of an endless flower field, I don't have the desire to look back; Either you can achieve all these or not, half depend on the study of Dao and half depend on yourself )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-03T20:28:47.723" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T20:28:47.723" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34372" CreationDate="2019-07-04T00:32:48.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;PuTongHua&quot; (普通话, sorry, can't easy type tone mark right now) is the same as &quot;Standard Chinese&quot; and &quot;Standard Mandarin Chinese&quot;. &quot;PuTongHua Mandarin Chinese&quot; is somewhat rendundant; so don't use it. Literally, the phrase 普通话 means something like &quot;&lt;em&gt;Universal Connecting Language&lt;/em&gt;&quot; (think &quot;getting through&quot; on the telephone, the verb 通 is used to describe this), which is a good description of its function in the Chinese society, because it provides a common language with which speakers of localized Chinese language-forms can use to communicate with each other with in lieu of knowing each others' respective ones so long as they know it, and it is taught widely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;English&lt;/em&gt; term &quot;Mandarin&quot; on its own, however, which is a weird jaunted-through-India borrowing-translation of the Chinese name 管话 (GuanHua, or &quot;officials' language&quot;) technically refers to a larger &quot;language&quot; (语) that comprises not just the standard, but also various deviant forms such as Sichuanese Mandarin (四川话), spoken in the Sichuan Province and quite different (though not so different as, say, Cantonese, which is considered a part of a separate 语， called 粤语 (YueYu, &quot;Yue language&quot;).).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nonetheless, &lt;em&gt;in common usage&lt;/em&gt; when most people say the term &quot;Mandarin&quot; in English, 普通话 is what is meant and not a more regionalized form like 四川话.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16171" LastActivityDate="2019-07-04T00:32:48.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34372" CreationDate="2019-07-04T02:54:47.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would clarify a lot if the following could be translated into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Chinese is not a language as such but a family of languages.&#xA;--中国话不是一种语言而是许许多多的语言。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Mandarin and Cantonese are two of the many Chinese languages.&#xA;--普通话和广东话是很多中国语言中的两种&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Standard Mandarin is called Putonghua&#xA;--标准普通话(标准中国话)叫做普通话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22320" LastActivityDate="2019-07-04T02:54:47.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34439" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34440" CreationDate="2019-07-04T07:59:44.007" Score="0" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;When using 比, you are able to add a classifying degree. For example,&#xA;一个苹果比一个香蕉贵&lt;em&gt;一块元&lt;/em&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you do the same with 不如?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个香蕉不如一个苹果贵&lt;em&gt;一块元&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2019-07-04T11:34:55.470" Title="Indicating degree with 比 and 不如" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34439" CreationDate="2019-07-04T11:28:08.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Can you do the same with 不如?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, you can't. 不如 means &amp;quot;not as&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;一根香蕉不如一个苹果贵(一元)&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;A banana is not as expensive as an apple (by a dollar)&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is ungrammatical in either Chinese or English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A banana is not as expensive as an apple&amp;quot; doesn't matter it is ten cents less or one dollar less&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has to be &amp;quot;一根香蕉不如一个苹果贵&amp;quot; (A banana is not as expensive as an apple)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we use [(A) not as (adj) as(B)]. e.g. [(a duck) is not as (heavy) as (a goose)], we cannot make it specific, because a goose can be heavier than a duck by wide range of degree&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you cannot put a specific amount/number after &amp;quot;鴨不如鵝重&amp;quot; and say &amp;quot;&amp;quot;鴨不如鵝重30％&amp;quot; ; you can only say &amp;quot;鵝一般來說比鴨重30％&amp;quot; (a goose in general is 30% heavier than a duck)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-04T11:34:55.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34441" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34442" CreationDate="2019-07-04T13:43:31.263" Score="4" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a meaningful difference between these two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen that 缺少 tends to be used with towns (这个城市缺少一个泳池), while 缺乏 seems to be more on the small-scale (你缺乏合适的经验).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm not sure if this is just a coincidence, or if there is a better way to distinguish the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T14:19:23.430" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T14:19:23.430" Title="What's the difference between 缺乏 and 缺少?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34441" CreationDate="2019-07-04T16:13:39.047" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two criteria to determine whether to used 缺乏 or 缺少:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the sense of syntax, 缺乏 can only refer to abstract ideas or groups of item (somewhat abstract, I think) and it cannot be used to refer to numbers of items or any specific item. 缺少 can refer to anything which 缺乏 can refer to, plus it can be number specific. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你缺乏合适的经验。 &gt;&gt;&gt; abstract idea&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我缺乏信心。 (I lack confidence.) &gt;&gt;&gt; abstract idea&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们缺乏物资。 (We lack supplies.) &gt;&gt;&gt; group of item&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我缺乏维生素 C。 (I lack vitamin c.) &gt;&gt;&gt; group of item (one does not have to have &quot;a specific molecule&quot; of vitamin c, thus 缺乏 can be used here.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of the above 缺乏s are interchangeable with 缺少.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个城市缺少一个泳池。 &gt;&gt;&gt; number specific&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我缺少几本书。 (I lack a few books.) &gt;&gt;&gt; specific items&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in daily speech, 缺少 is often shortened to 缺, it sounds more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the sense of meaning, 缺乏 means &quot;lack&quot; in a more serious or more severe sense. 缺少 (or just 缺) means &quot;lack&quot; in general. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你缺乏勇气。 &gt;&gt;&gt; emphasise the seriousness of &quot;lack&quot;. In this case, using the shortened form (你缺勇气) might seem a bit weird since this sentence probably is used in a more serious context.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这个城市缺少一个泳池。 &gt;&gt;&gt; just &quot;lack&quot; in general, not in an urgent or serious way. Using 缺 (这个城市缺一个泳池) is also fine.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我们缺乏物资。 &gt;&gt;&gt; probably want to emphasise the &quot;lack&quot; when one is in a bad scenario.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One only uses 缺乏 or 缺少 when one wants to emphasise the difference in meaning. Otherwise, people just say 缺 when refer to the general idea of &quot;lack&quot;. In the written language, the shortened form 缺 is used less often since it is less formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, 缺少 = 缺, and 缺乏 is a specific and emphasised version of 缺少. It is a bit like 缺 means &quot;lack&quot;, and adding 乏 makes it more serious (and can only refer to more abstract ideas :p).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22315" LastActivityDate="2019-07-04T16:13:39.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34444" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34446" CreationDate="2019-07-05T02:40:59.570" Score="1" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be at least three ways of saying &quot;Confucius&quot; in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%20%E5%AD%94%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孔子&lt;/a&gt; (Kǒngzǐ)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E5%AD%94%E4%B8%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孔丘&lt;/a&gt; (Kǒngqiū)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E4%BB%B2%E5%B0%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;仲尼&lt;/a&gt; (Zhòngní) with some variants:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%AD%97%E4%BB%B2%E5%B0%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;字仲尼&lt;/a&gt; (Zì Zhòngní)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%AD%94%E4%BB%B2%E5%B0%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孔仲尼&lt;/a&gt; (Kǒng Zhòngní)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(There's possibly more I'm unaware of.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm just wondering if these are all the same, or if there's some distinction between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are there distinctions between the various terms for &quot;Confucius&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T04:08:29.473" Title="Are there distinctions between the various terms for &quot;Confucius&quot; (孔子, 孔丘, 仲尼)?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34444" CreationDate="2019-07-05T03:37:39.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First you need to know about how people were named at that time. Back then one's name had three parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;姓 (family name), 名 (given name), 字(also given name, but doesn't exist today)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孔 was his 姓, 丘 was his 名, and 仲尼 was his 字.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't need to explain the family name much. As for 名 and 字, the difference is that 字 is more formal than 名. And one often calls himself by 名 to show modesty and calls the one he is talking to or mentioning by 字 to show respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, &quot;子&quot; is a suffix after the family name to mention someone who is well-respected (for example, a teacher, a well-educated person, etc., and Confucius was both and more).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="21960" LastEditDate="2019-07-05T03:45:39.327" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T03:45:39.327" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34444" CreationDate="2019-07-05T03:45:09.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;孔丘&lt;/strong&gt; is Confucius's personal name 名 (míng) given to him as an infant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;仲尼&lt;/strong&gt;  (or 孔仲尼 if you add his family name) is Confucius's &quot;courtesy name&quot; 字 (zì), bestowed upon him at adulthood. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;According to the Book of Rites, after a man reaches adulthood, it is disrespectful for others of the same generation to address him by his given name, or míng. Thus, the given name was reserved for oneself and one's elders, while the zì would be used by adults of the same generation to refer to one another on formal occasions or in writing; hence the term &quot;courtesy name&quot;.&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_name&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;From the Wikipedia Entry of &quot;Courtesy Name&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;孔子 or 孔夫子 (kǒng fū zǐ)&lt;/strong&gt;, both means &quot;Master Kong&quot; to show respect. These are the most commonly heard name nowadays when referring to Confucius.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22100" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T03:45:09.463" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34444" CreationDate="2019-07-05T03:46:30.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chinese mostly call &amp;quot;Confucius&amp;quot; as &amp;quot;孔子&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孔 is his family name, 子 is an honorific reserved only for the greatest intellectuals/ philosophers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;丘 is his first name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;仲尼 is his &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_name&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;courtesy name&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;聖 is an honorific reserved only for the most respected person, therefore, people sometimes refer 孔子 as 孔聖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;孔子 is also referred as 萬世師表 (model for all teachers in all time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The term &amp;quot;孔夫子&amp;quot; is also referring to &amp;quot;Confucius&amp;quot;. 夫子 is another honorific for great intellectuals&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you study Chinese Culture, you have to know about these people&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孔子&lt;/a&gt;， &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;老子&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuang_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;莊子&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mencius&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孟子&lt;/a&gt;，&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;孫子&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;墨子&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T04:08:29.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34448" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-05T06:44:38.220" Score="-1" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wz29p.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone convert this Chinese snippet into copyable TEXT so I can copy it. Thank you! I’ve been having hard time searching the characters on the internet &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22333" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-16T13:08:26.297" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T13:08:26.297" Title="How do I transcribe this WeChat snippet? (Characters identified: 你我当年)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-07-14T09:14:29.097" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34448" CreationDate="2019-07-05T06:50:32.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's the answer, but body must be at least 30 characters... &#xA;你我当年&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20714" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T06:50:32.870" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34450" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-05T10:22:45.863" Score="4" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve searched dictionary and found 2 words: 参选 and 竞选.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m a bit confused, since it seems that 参选 is used more, but in Vietnamese (my mother tongue) we used the word “tranh cử” (爭舉). So what is the correct word to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T04:42:56.703" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T04:42:56.703" Title="How to say ‘run for office’ in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32585" CreationDate="2019-07-05T13:42:34.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think those appear mostly on calendars or newspapers in order to save space (especially in headlines). No one uses those in speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22315" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T13:42:34.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29465" CreationDate="2019-07-05T13:57:07.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several historical counting systems in Chinese, many of those use the same character to represent different values. Although there is a standard counting system today, the remnant 兆 causes confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 兆 in mainland China refers to a million. However, 兆 in Taiwan refers to this number 1,000,000,000,000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason I wrote out 1,000,000,000,000 is that interestingly, English has the same confusion, since there exist not only one counting system in English, namely &quot;the long system&quot; and &quot;the short system&quot;. In &quot;the long system&quot;, 1,000,000,000,000 is referred to as a &quot;billion&quot;; in &quot;the short system&quot;, 1,000,000,000,000 is referred to as a &quot;milliard&quot;. This discrepancy cause lots of transatlantic confusions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, , this confusion is easily avoidable. Since 万 means 10,000 and 亿 means 100,000,000 across all systems, 万亿 is no doubt 1,000,000,000,000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22315" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T13:57:07.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34453" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34456" CreationDate="2019-07-05T14:13:18.863" Score="1" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I'm struggling to see the difference between these two verb-noun collocations.&#xA;In your opinion, is there are a difference between:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;受到影响 and 产生影响 to (be) influenced&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;受到兴趣 and 产生兴趣 to (become) interested??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like there should be a difference, but I'm at a loss to see what it could be... maybe active/passive?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T14:12:13.620" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T14:12:13.620" Title="What's the difference between 受到 and 产生 when used with 影响, 兴趣, etc" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34450" CreationDate="2019-07-05T15:03:19.593" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 竞选 and 参选 are common with slight difference in usage. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你会不会参选？ (Will you &quot;enter the election&quot;?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她会竞选连任。 (She will run for reelection.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to pinpoint when one will be favoured over the other, but the examples above will seem weird if the other phrase is used. I think it's due to the literal translation of the phrase: 参选 means &quot;enter the election&quot; and 竞选 means &quot;compete in an election&quot;. (or maybe it's just convention that dictates which one is favourable.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to specify what office one is running for, you can express it as &quot;选 + name of office&quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她要选总统。 (She is running for president.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他要选市长。 (He is running for mayor.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22315" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T15:03:19.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34453" CreationDate="2019-07-06T02:10:45.060" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;受到影响 = to be influenced&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受到A的影响 = to be influenced by A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;产生影响 = to have an influence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对A产生影响 = to have an influence on A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;受到兴趣: no such expression&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;产生兴趣 = to become interested&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对A产生兴趣 = to become interested in A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="21960" LastEditDate="2019-07-06T02:18:26.653" LastActivityDate="2019-07-06T02:18:26.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34457" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34458" CreationDate="2019-07-06T02:24:37.823" Score="0" ViewCount="752" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that there are always multiple ways to say a Chinese name because the pronunciation depends on the dialect being spoken. I'm curious about how this works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a Cantonese-only speaker mentions the name of a Mandarin-only speaker, do they say their name using Mandarin pronunciation or Cantonese pronunciation? What about if the speaker is talking about a very famous person?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If two speakers are both fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin, and code switch with each other in both languages, do they use both pronunciations of each others' names? Would they pick one pronunciation and go with that all the time? Maybe use the pronunciation that the other introduced themselves with? This might be more of a sociolinguistics question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22337" LastActivityDate="2019-07-06T04:43:07.980" Title="How do names translate between Mandarin and Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34457" CreationDate="2019-07-06T04:30:04.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Firstly I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that there are always multiple ways to say a Chinese name because the pronunciation depends on the dialect being spoken. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a Cantonese-only speaker mentions the name of a Mandarin-only speaker, do they say their name using Mandarin pronunciation or Cantonese pronunciation? What about if the speaker is talking about a very famous person?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The language of the name would, theoretically, be the same as the language being spoken. If the conversation was in Cantonese the name would be read in Cantonese; if the discussion was in Mandarin the name would, likewise, be read in Mandarin. (Although there are catches to this.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If two speakers are both fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin, and code switch with each other in both languages, do they use both pronunciations of each others' names? Would they pick one pronunciation and go with that all the time? Maybe use the pronunciation that the other introduced themselves with?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personal names are seldom spoken between people. A common nickname would be more likely and unless it was in front of others who only spoke one of the languages that they speak it would likely be set in whichever language they are more comfortable in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, obviously there are going to be some exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nick Cheung has become a joke because he can't pronounce his own name properly in Mandarin. In this commercial he, infamously, calls himself &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO8AexTAKdA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;渣渣辉&lt;/a&gt; instead of 张家辉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was once an anecdote that talked about someone interpreting from Cantonese to Mandarin. The translator came across the name 印度 (India) and mistranslated it as something close to 阴道 (vagina) because &lt;code&gt;dou&lt;/code&gt; in Cantonese often becomes &lt;code&gt;dao&lt;/code&gt; in Mandarin - but in this case it should have been &lt;code&gt;du&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Names and titles are somewhat ingrained in peoples brains and it is quite hard to switch between the different languages. You might hear people speaking Mandarin and reverting back to their own dialects when they're at a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-06T04:43:07.980" LastActivityDate="2019-07-06T04:43:07.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34434" CreationDate="2019-07-06T08:47:50.593" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;泉 is pronounced as せん（sen） in Japanese. Many modern scientific terms were first translated into Japanese（in 19th centrury Japan was open to West World）, and then some Chinese scholars just borrow the term from Japanese Characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;氮 may be another case, where 炎 is read as yan（3），but 氮 read as dan（4）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-07-06T08:47:50.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34460" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-06T23:59:57.837" Score="2" ViewCount="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o21eJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o21eJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have several scroll paintings and have no idea who the artist is or what they are titled.&#xA;not even sure what the exact language is on the scrolls.&#xA;Please help to translate the writing in the photo or atlas point me in a direction to where I may find a credible answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22341" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-07T01:19:13.440" LastActivityDate="2019-07-07T01:40:33.047" Title="Translation needed for painting scrolls" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34460" CreationDate="2019-07-07T01:40:33.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is traditional Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;絹本麒麟送子中堂&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;絹本六子戲彿中堂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;絹本 means &quot;silk cloth&quot;.  &lt;em&gt;It describes the material of the scroll&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《麒麟送子》 (Qilin Delivers Baby) is the title of scroll 1&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;《六子戲彿》 (Six Children Playing With Buddha) is the title of scroll 2&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;中堂 is a hanging shaft hung on the central wall of a room. &lt;em&gt;It describes the function of the scroll&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-07-07T01:40:33.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34462" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-07T02:41:28.690" Score="2" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Wenlin dictionary describes 身 as also a measure word for &amp;quot;suits of clothing&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it commonly used by Chinese speakers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22057" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-09T22:17:45.427" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T22:17:45.427" Title="Is 身 commonly used as a measure word?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34462" CreationDate="2019-07-07T03:01:19.153" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;身 as a classifier means 'a suits of' or &quot;a body full of&quot; but it usually only use '一' (one)  as counting word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他一身白色衣褲鞋帽 = He in a suits of white clothing, shoes and hat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;他兩身白色衣褲鞋帽 is ungrammatical&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一身酒味 = a body full of alcohol smell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;兩身酒味 is ungrammatical&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-07T03:09:52.303" LastActivityDate="2019-07-07T03:09:52.303" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34462" CreationDate="2019-07-07T23:26:31.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you might see 一身正气，which means this person you wan to describe is full of sense of justice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22345" LastActivityDate="2019-07-07T23:26:31.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34466" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34467" CreationDate="2019-07-08T02:05:32.463" Score="0" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E6%9E%9C%E5%B2%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; has the following entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;果岭&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  guǒ​lǐng​&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;green (golf) (loanword)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;果岭 doesn't really sound anything remotely like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golf_course#Greens&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;green&lt;/a&gt;, 岭 especially doesn't match up with the end of &lt;em&gt;green&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did green become 果岭?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T08:03:00.343" Title="How is 果岭 a loanword from the English &quot;green&quot; (i.e.: putting green)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34466" CreationDate="2019-07-08T07:43:35.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like you said in the comment, something like 格林 indeed would have been a better phonetic approximation. But the translation (even by sound) should also consider its meaning if possible. 岭 means hill or mountain in Chinese. And since a golf course resembles a hill for having ups and downs, 岭 would be more approriate to describe such an area. However I think 果 is purely phonetic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T07:43:35.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34468" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-08T07:55:14.143" Score="0" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was trying out 听故事学中文 and read the story about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.learningchinesethroughstories.com/1997722359240392081121147.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;三块巧克力&lt;/a&gt; (another version is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rensheng5.com/zheligushi/id-102198.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).  I'll add my translation below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有个孩子放学后，在客厅里玩篮球，不慎打落书架上的一个花瓶。孩子慌忙用胶水把碎片粘起来，胆战心惊地放回原位。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;After school a child was playing basketball in the living room, and carelessly broke a vase on a bookshelf.  The child hurriedly glued the pieces together, and scared he returned it back to its original position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当天晚上，母亲发现花瓶有些“变化”，就问孩子：“是不是你打碎了花瓶？”&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;That evening, his mother found the vase had &amp;quot;changed&amp;quot;, and asked him &amp;quot;did you break the vase?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孩子灵机一动，说：“有一只野猫从窗外跳进来，碰倒了花瓶。”母亲很清楚，孩子在撒谎，但她没有说什么。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The boy had a bright idea and said &amp;quot;a stray cat came in through the window and knocked off the vase&amp;quot;.  His mother was clear that he was lying, but didn't say anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;睡觉前，母亲从抽屉里拿出一块巧克力递给孩子说：“这块巧克力奖给你。因为你运用神奇的想象力，杜撰出一只会开窗户的猫，以后，你一定可以写出好看的侦探小说。”&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;After sleeping, the mother took a chocolate bare from a drawer and said &amp;quot;this chocolate is your prize, because you used our mythical imagination to make up a cat coming in through the window, and afterwards you can write good detective novels.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;接着，她又在孩子手里放了一块巧克力：“这块巧克力奖给你。因为你有杰出的修复能力，裂缝黏合得几乎完美无缺。”&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Continuing, she gave him another bar of chocolate, saying &amp;quot;this is a prize, because of your outstanding restoration; the cracks are glued together almost flawlessly.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;母亲又拿出第三块巧克力，说：“最后一块巧克力，代表我对你深深的歉意。作为母亲，我不应该把花瓶放在容易摔落的地方，希望你没有被砸到或者吓到。”&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The mother took out another bar of chocolate, and said &amp;quot;this last bar of chocolate expresses my deep regret towards you.  As your mother, I should not have left a vase in a place where it can be easily broken, and hope you are not smashed or frightened.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孩子听了，羞愧地低下了头。从此以后，他再也没有撒过一次谎。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The boy listened, and ashamed he lowered his head; he never lied again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是比惩罚更深刻的奖励。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Compared to a punishment, this is a profound reward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I've basically translated it okay, and get the general mechanics of the situation, but I'm failing to see anything profound about this story: after all, the mother rewards him for lying, and seems to blame herself for him breaking the vase while playing basketball.  It seems like he would continue to lie, after benefiting from it.  However, it's possible I'm missing some subtleties here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What is the moral of the short story 三块巧克力?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-09T07:32:53.087" Title="What is the moral of the short story 三块巧克力?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34468" CreationDate="2019-07-08T08:56:33.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possible explanations (some of which are found on the Internet):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) The mother responds to the boy's rebelliousness with forgiveness, love and understanding, thus made him ashamed of having intended to lie and deny everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) If the mother had punished him, the boy might become even more determined to lie the next time he does something wrong, in order to escape punishment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) The mother saw the good side  (that the boy repaired the vase), which I believe symbolizes encouraging him to fix a mistake rather than to lie about one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) The mother tried to find problems from herself (third chocolate) rather than simply blaming his son for breaking the vase. Maybe this sets a example for her son, teaching him to try to find his own problem rather than shifting responsibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But still, such things usually don't have a standard answer so you're welcome to interpret it in any way that is acceptable. And since such stories often describe idealistic situation, it is perfectly normal for us to find them unrealistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I found a more complete version, which contains more descriptions of their emotions and stuff, and might help you with the understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一天，男孩儿贝克放学后在客厅里玩篮球。正玩得起劲的时候，篮球不慎打落书架上的一个花瓶，花瓶“咚”地一声摔到地板上，瓶口顿时摔掉一大块碎片。更令孩子大为惊骇的是，这个花瓶不是普通的摆设品，而是家里祖辈相传的一件古董。为了掩盖自己闯下的弥天大祸，孩子慌乱地把碎片用胶水粘起来，胆战心惊地放回原位。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由于每天都会亲自擦拭花瓶上的灰尘，所以当天晚上，细心的母亲就发现了花瓶的“变化”。吃晚餐时，她问孩子：“是不是你打碎了花瓶？”害怕受到惩罚的孩子灵机一动说，一只野猫从窗外跳进来，怎么赶也赶不走，它在客厅里上窜下跳，最后碰倒了架子上的花瓶。母亲很清楚，孩子在撒谎，因为每天都是她在上班前把窗户一扇扇关好，下班回来再一一打开的。然而面对孩子胆怯的眼神和家人疑惑的目光，母亲只是不动声色地说，看来是我疏忽了，没有关好窗户。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就寝前，孩子在床前发现了一张便条，母亲让他马上到书房去。本以为蒙混过关的孩子顿时心里一沉，看来还是难逃一劫。既然已经撒了谎，他打定主意，无论母亲说什么，都据死不承认，这样他就是发再大的火也拿他无可奈何了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;书房里，橘红色的灯光柔柔地弥散开来，母亲的脸平静地沉浸在光晕中，没有一丝波澜。看到孩子忐忑不安地推门进来，她从抽屉里拿出一个巧克力盒子，把其中一块巧克力递给孩子：“贝克，这块巧克力奖你，因为你运用神奇的想象力创造出一只会开窗户的小猫，以后你一定可以写出很好看的侦探小说。”接着，她又在孩子手里放了一块巧克力：“这块巧克力奖给你杰出的修复能力。虽然用的是胶水，但是裂缝吻合得几乎完美无缺呢。不过记住，你用的胶水是用于修复纸质物品的，修复花瓶不仅需要更强有力的胶水，还需要更高的专业技术。明天我们把花瓶拿到艺术家那里，看看他们是怎样使一件工艺品完好如初的。”母亲一边说，一边又拿起第三块巧克力：“这最后的一块巧克力代表我对你的深深歉意。作为母亲，我不应该把花瓶放在那么容易摔落的地方，尤其是当家里有一个热衷体育的男孩子的时候。希望你没有被砸到或者吓到，我的小甜心。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“可是，妈妈，我……”孩子之前那颗叛逆的心早就飞到了九霄云外，他努力解释什么，然而只笨拙地吐出几个单词。母亲用手指轻轻挡在孩子唇上：“我的巧克力盒子已经空了，所以我们的谈话已经结束了，现在去睡觉吧，晚安贝克。”她温柔地吻了吻贝克的前额，然后走出了书房。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之后的日子，一切照旧，唯一的变化是，孩子再也没有撒过一次谎，每当他不由自主地想要撒谎时，那三块巧克力就会立即浮在眼前。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没有一句责骂，没有一点非难，明明犯了错误，却得到了三块巧克力的奖励。表面看起来匪夷所思，实际上正是这三块巧克力告诫孩子做人要诚实，它们时时刻刻都是孩子心灵上的警醒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T08:56:33.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34470" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-08T10:48:29.863" Score="1" ViewCount="193" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence below the is word 晚 a verb or an adjective? In the Pleco and other dictionaries says that it is an adjective but I have not seen an adjective with 了 and a duration in any grammar book. Is there a 莱 before understood but not written? Is this a frequently used sentence or better 迟到一个半小时. Here there is no problem since 到 is a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她叫我 十一 以前 到家， 但是我 晚了一个半小?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T23:24:06.097" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T16:58:48.253" Title="Is 晚 a verb or an adjective in the sentence 我 晚了一 个半小?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34470" CreationDate="2019-07-08T11:09:37.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;(1) I think 晚 is used as a verb here, meaning &quot;to be late&quot;. In Chinese an adjective is often used as a verb, for example, 你瘦了 (You have become thinner).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Remark.&lt;/em&gt; In this case we often say the adjective is used as a verb or as the predicate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 了 doesn't go tegother with 一. Here 晚了 is the past form, meaning &quot;was late&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) If you add 来 to this sentence: 我晚来了一个半小时, then 来 becomes the verb and 晚 becomes an adverb to describe 来. But I wouldn't recommend to use 来 here because&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;She told me to get home by 11, but I came home late by an hour and a half&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sounds a little weird with &quot;came&quot;. So we better change it to &quot;got&quot;, which corresponds to 到 in Chinese, that is, 我晚到了一个半小时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) 迟到 also means &quot;to be late&quot;, but usually for something formal, like a meeting, a lecture or a movie, or for work. One wouldn't use 迟到 for going home, even if it is grammatically correct. However, 晚到 can be used for this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="21960" LastEditDate="2019-07-09T02:10:24.283" LastActivityDate="2019-07-09T02:10:24.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34468" CreationDate="2019-07-08T11:25:34.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;but I'm failing to see anything profound about this story&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moral of the story is 以德服人, 勝於以法冶人. (use kindness to convince people to do the right thing on their own is better than use punishment to deter people from doing the wrong thing out of fear). It is a typical ideal of '儒家思想' (Confucianism)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main plot of the story is about how the mother dealt with her son's misbehavior. Instead of using punishment to deter him, she used kindness to encourage her son to stop lying to her on his own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If she punished him, he might not lie to her again out of fear, but treating him with kindness, he would be graceful to her and be ashamed if he ever lie to her again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice, she did not teach her son lying is wrong, her goal was to make her son feels 'lying &lt;strong&gt;to his mother&lt;/strong&gt; is wrong' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is a different story with a similar message:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qin Mugong (秦穆公)'s beloved horse was stolen and eaten by the savage tribe in his country. The minister of law wanted to arrest the savages and punish them, but Qin Mugong did not agree. He actually sent the savages fine wine to drink instead. Saying: &quot;Eating horse meat without drinking wine is harmful to one's health. The savages too are my subjects under my care&quot; The savages were graceful to the lord and never caused any trouble in Qin again. You can say it is a display of management wisdom in Qin Mugong's part. If he punished those savages, they would be resentful to the government and cause more trouble in the future. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In 法家思想 (Legalism), the son who lied and the savages who stole should be punished according to the degree of their crime.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-09T02:43:45.143" LastActivityDate="2019-07-09T02:43:45.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34470" CreationDate="2019-07-08T12:21:32.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;晚 in &quot;我晚了一个半小时&quot; is an adjective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我(是)晚了一个半小时&quot; = &quot;I (am) late for one and half hour&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb 'be' (是) is omitted in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The verb 'be' cannot be omitted in English. &quot;I was late for one and half hour&quot; cannot be reduced to &quot;I late for one and half hour&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;我去晚了一个半小时&quot;, '去' is a verb and '晚' is an adverb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T12:21:32.543" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34475" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-08T14:11:32.657" Score="3" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;图中的男人跟男孩儿可能是什么关系？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When to use 是什么关系 or 有什么关系?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will it be right to use the later in the above phrase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-04T03:51:49.113" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T03:51:49.113" Title="When is it right to use 是什么关系 rather than 有什么关系?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34475" CreationDate="2019-07-08T17:49:56.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;什么关系 = what &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; the relationship / connection&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;什么关系 = &lt;strong&gt;have&lt;/strong&gt; what relationship / connection&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are grammatically correct, but in different context, &quot;有什么关系&quot; could mean &quot; what does it matter&quot; e.g. &quot;他死了有什么关系?&quot; = (what does it matter that he died)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A and B 是 XX 关系 =  the relationship between A and B is of XX&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A and B 有 XX 关系 = A and B have the relationship of XX&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Y 有什么关系 = what does Y matter&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Y 没 关系 = Y doesn't matter&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Y 没什么关系 = Y doesn't matter whatsoever&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;A 和 B &lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt; 父子的关系&quot; (The relationship between A and B &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; of father and son)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;A 和 B &lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt; 父子 关系&quot; (A and B &lt;strong&gt;have&lt;/strong&gt; the relationship of father and son)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你输了&lt;strong&gt;有什么关系&lt;/strong&gt;?&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;What does it matters&lt;/strong&gt; that you lost?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你输了&lt;strong&gt;没关系&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;it doesn't matter&lt;/strong&gt; that you lost)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你输了&lt;strong&gt;没什么关系&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;it doesn't matter whatsoever&lt;/strong&gt; that you lost)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-08T18:25:39.327" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T18:25:39.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34477" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-08T18:48:49.487" Score="2" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is wrong with this sentence and why? I would like to have a grammatical explanation.&#xA;我们八点上课，老师八点半才到了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22349" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T09:29:03.497" Title="What is wrong with this sentence and why? 我们八点上课，老师八点半才到了。" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34477" CreationDate="2019-07-08T19:09:40.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Verbs taking 才 do not take 了:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that verbs following 才 should not take 了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;✘ 我昨天晚上十一点&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;到家&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;✘ 她四十岁&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt;结婚&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt; 。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_lateness_with_%22cai%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing lateness with &amp;quot;cai&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;, Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22350" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T09:26:48.037" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34418" CreationDate="2019-07-08T19:16:53.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one of the decorative variants of「壽」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In isolation it's a bit hard to recognise, as usually it's accompanied by a multitude of other variations in a collective art piece category known as「百壽圖」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rAlSn.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rAlSn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T19:16:53.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34477" CreationDate="2019-07-08T19:21:14.473" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;了  indicates the verb is 'completed' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们八点上课，老师八点半才到。 would be a correct  sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;才&lt;/strong&gt; in 八点半才 indicated 'reaching 8:30' is a &lt;strong&gt;requirement&lt;/strong&gt; for the action 'arrive' to apply, therefore, 到 is not a definitely completed action here. That is why the verb particle 了 that indicates the verb is 'completed' is not applicable when it is following 才 in a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们八点上课，老师七点半 就到了 would also be a correct sentence, because 就 indicates 'already' therefore the verb particle 了 that indicates the verb is 'completed' is applicable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;才 functions differently in different context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;八点半(才) = (only when it is) 8:30 ; 八点半(才)到 = arrive (only when it is) 8:30&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(才) 八点半 = it is (just) 8:30; (才)八点半就到 = It is (just) 8:30, he already arrived; (才)八点半就到(了) = It is (just) 8:30, he (had) arrived already &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Example 1. 'when it is 8:30' is a requirement for 'arrive' to happen. Therefore, you cannot add '了' to indicate the verb is completed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-11T10:49:25.743" LastActivityDate="2019-07-11T10:49:25.743" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34481" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-09T05:46:04.693" Score="2" ViewCount="568" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the available Hainanese (海南話) dictionaries? In particular, dictionaries of the Wenchang (文昌) dialect. If those are not available, dictionaries of the Haikou (海口) dialect are also fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not mistaken, the government in Guangdong once published a series of dictionaries of the languages of Guangdong, including Cantonese, Hakka, and Hainanese. However, I don't remember the name of the series. (EDIT: I was mistaken. I was thinking about &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong_Romanization&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Guangdong Romanization&lt;/a&gt; (廣東拼音方案) for Cantonese, Hakka, Hainanese, and Teochew)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastEditorUserId="20826" LastEditDate="2019-07-24T05:53:50.850" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T05:53:50.850" Title="Resource request: Hainanese dictionaries" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34468" CreationDate="2019-07-09T07:32:53.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key is what the mother did towards the lie of her son. She rewarded his son by giving chocolates instead of blaming or anything, which actually turned out a better result (his son felt ashamed and never lied again). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The story tells us that blaming sometimes is not the best way to deal with wrongdoings. There could be some other alternatives like what the mother did. So, it suggest that we should be wise when we encounter such cases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-07-09T07:32:53.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34483" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-09T08:01:11.470" Score="4" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;All 4 words listed above all in some way have the meaning of fine, exquisite, detailed. So what are the differences between them? Please provice some examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T23:43:40.520" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T23:43:40.520" Title="Differences between 细腻, 细致, 精细 and 深入" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34481" CreationDate="2019-07-09T09:45:53.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%B5%B7%E5%8F%A3%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8/12155637&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;海口方言词典&lt;/a&gt; (Haikou Topolect Dictionary) is the go-to for Hainanese dictionaries. Part of the venerable &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Dictionary_of_Modern_Chinese_Dialects&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;现代汉语方言大词典&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects&lt;/em&gt;) series, it was published in 1996, and can be &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=bn%3A9787534328862&amp;amp;qt=notfound_page&amp;amp;search=Search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;accessed&lt;/a&gt; in libraries around the world. The transcription of sounds is done in IPA with Chao tone letters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Wenchang specifically, there is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hnszw.org.cn/data/news/2015/04/77216/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;方言 chapter&lt;/a&gt; of the 文昌县志 (&lt;em&gt;Wenchang Annals&lt;/em&gt;, I suppose), published in 2000 and also &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.worldcat.org/title/wenchang-xian-zhi/oclc/47926838&amp;amp;referer=brief_results&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;found in libraries&lt;/a&gt;. The related &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.worldcat.org/title/qionghai-xian-zhi/oclc/36343320&amp;amp;referer=brief_results&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dialect of Qionghai&lt;/a&gt; is also recorded in part 25 of its &lt;em&gt;Annals&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%90%BC%E6%B5%B7%E5%8E%BF%E5%BF%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;琼海县志&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise you will have to glean vocabulary items from scientific journals and websites. E.g. the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.worldcat.org/title/hainan-minyu-de-yuyin-yanjiu/oclc/730474549&amp;amp;referer=brief_results&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;海南闽语的语音研究&lt;/a&gt;, a study from 2006.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-07-09T09:45:53.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34416" CreationDate="2019-07-09T12:49:40.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd sometimes use it is as a placeholder for something I want to refer to, especially if the thing is a bit of a mouthful, and I can't remember what it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 就好像刚才说的那什么什么，这里不就挺适用了吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A: That &quot;thing&quot; that we talked about just now, wouldn't it be great for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 你是说超级武器霸王 要你命3000？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: You mean watermelon knife?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 啊对对对就是那个。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A: Ah yeah yeah yeah that's it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Granted, this may not be a common usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Sometimes I‘d use 谁谁谁 as placeholder when referring someone too if I can't quite remember the person's name. 那谁谁谁。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22355" LastActivityDate="2019-07-09T12:49:40.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34366" CreationDate="2019-07-09T13:18:16.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;berserk&quot; would be a very fitting translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这就是让卡罗琳听到，估计也会暴走。&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&quot;I guess even Caroline will go berserk if she heard about this.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22355" LastEditorUserId="22355" LastEditDate="2019-07-10T01:19:01.923" LastActivityDate="2019-07-10T01:19:01.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34483" CreationDate="2019-07-09T19:33:36.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;「细」 in 「细腻」，「细致」 and 「精细」 denotes 'detailed'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「腻」 has the meaning of 'saturated/ rich', 「&lt;strong&gt;细腻&lt;/strong&gt; mainly means '&lt;strong&gt;exquisite&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 「小说中对感情的描写十分&lt;strong&gt;细腻&lt;/strong&gt;」 - In the novel, the depictions of emotions are very &lt;strong&gt;exquisite&lt;/strong&gt; (rich in details)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「致」 has the meaning of 'neat',  「&lt;strong&gt;细致&lt;/strong&gt;」 mainly means 'neat and &lt;strong&gt;detailed&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 「小说中对感情的描写十分&lt;strong&gt;细致&lt;/strong&gt;」- In the novel, the depictions of emotions are very &lt;strong&gt;exquisite&lt;/strong&gt; (neatly displayed in details)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「精」 in 「精细」 has the meaning of 'refined' 「&lt;strong&gt;精细&lt;/strong&gt;」 mainly means '&lt;strong&gt;precise&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 「小说中对感情的描写十分&lt;strong&gt;精细&lt;/strong&gt;」- In the novel, the depictions of emotions are very  &lt;strong&gt;precise&lt;/strong&gt; (accurately detailed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;深入 literally means 'in-depth'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 「小说中对感情的描写十分&lt;strong&gt;深入&lt;/strong&gt;」 - In the novel, the depictions of emotions are very  &lt;strong&gt;in-depth&lt;/strong&gt; (thorough and detailed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「细腻刻画」 - exquisite (&lt;em&gt;rich and detailed&lt;/em&gt;) description&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「细致图案」 - detailed (&lt;em&gt;detailed and neat&lt;/em&gt;) patterns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「精细安排」 - precise (&lt;em&gt;refine and detailed&lt;/em&gt;) arrangement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「深入调查」 - in-depth (&lt;em&gt;thorough and detailed&lt;/em&gt;) investigation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-09T19:53:53.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="936" CreationDate="2019-07-09T23:08:40.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not at all literate in the Chinese written language (as I understand that as spoken languages, Cantonese and Mandarin are further apart than they are textually). I only hope to add that language is always morphing and growing in meaning, and this is a universal phenomenon. That is, to claim that any word within any language “means this or that”, is to misunderstand language entirely. Few words are singularly defined, and still fewer retain their original meaning over the period of multiple generations. Languages are fluid in application and context, therefore a words “meaning” can merely be subjective to its placement within syntax, and the time within which it is used (and by whom it is being used), to name only a few variables concerning words and their definitions. I only hope to add to the dialogue, and am not claiming expertise in any way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22358" LastActivityDate="2019-07-09T23:08:40.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34481" CreationDate="2019-07-10T02:24:15.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's also a book entitled:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《 一种方言在两地三代间的变异：文昌话和漳州话在本土与海外的时地差异 》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That you might be interested in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also looks like《方言》1986年第2期 has an article called:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;海南岛文昌方言音系&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this isn't really helpful but here's a horrible screenshot of a terrible picture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kk47e.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kk47e.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-10T02:29:29.263" LastActivityDate="2019-07-10T02:29:29.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34416" CreationDate="2019-07-10T06:22:06.520" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;什么什么&lt;/strong&gt; can be used as a &lt;strong&gt;filler like &quot;blabla&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. In Japanese the pedant is used (何). Good translations would be &quot;and so on&quot; or &quot;blabla&quot;, imo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example, when trying to explain how &quot;As soon as&quot; works in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;他一什么什么，他就做什么什么。。。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&gt; This is the generic version of the usage of &quot;as soon as&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate this with &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;As soon as he [...], he makes/does [...]&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;whereas the [...] is filled by 什么什么 and in English this could be &quot;blablabla&quot;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;As soon as he blablabla, he makes/does blablabla&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Source&lt;/em&gt;: My own experience as a non native speaker and my wife (who is a native speaker and whom I am going to ask today evening to confirm my answer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; I asked her, she can confirm my answer. But there also is another usage of repeated 什么:&#xA;Your question refers to &quot;那什么什么&quot; - which is used as a substitution, in  case you forget a word during a conversation. So instead of saying the name of the thing you use &quot;那什么什么&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, a similar concept exists for persons/names. If you forgot a person's name or do not want to use the name the substitute &quot;那谁&quot; would be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21363" LastEditorUserId="21363" LastEditDate="2019-08-15T14:07:42.007" LastActivityDate="2019-08-15T14:07:42.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34492" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-10T10:11:06.633" Score="2" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried browsing examples, but the only potential difference I see is that you can say &quot;它也会杀死庄稼&quot;, but I am not sure if 杀害 also refers to plants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T21:26:52.563" Title="Is there a difference between 杀害 and 杀死?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34492" CreationDate="2019-07-10T11:15:05.663" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;害 in &lt;strong&gt;杀害&lt;/strong&gt; (kill; &lt;strong&gt;murder&lt;/strong&gt;) means 'victimize'. You can only victimize creatures that have emotion, capable of feeling pain. '杀害' mostly refer to murder of human; And only killing of human can be deemed 'murder' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: only human intentionally killing other human is called 'murder' . A tiger killing a human is not a murder, but a killing&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;杀死&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;kill&lt;/strong&gt; someone/ something &lt;strong&gt;dead&lt;/strong&gt;) can apply to any living organism, from single cell bacteria to human&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-10T11:27:02.817" LastActivityDate="2019-07-10T11:27:02.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34492" CreationDate="2019-07-10T11:33:05.617" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For most case, the &lt;strong&gt;杀害&lt;/strong&gt; emphasizes on the &lt;strong&gt;purpose&lt;/strong&gt;(the intention of killing), and the &lt;strong&gt;杀死&lt;/strong&gt; emphasizes on the &lt;strong&gt;result&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;strong&gt;杀害&lt;/strong&gt;, the &lt;code&gt;杀&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;害&lt;/code&gt; are both verb, and both meaning &lt;strong&gt;to kill&lt;/strong&gt;, they almost have same meaning, just the &lt;code&gt;害&lt;/code&gt; is more like &lt;strong&gt;make it suffer&lt;/strong&gt;, so &lt;strong&gt;杀害&lt;/strong&gt; shouldn't refers to plants, unless it's personified to suffer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;And in &lt;strong&gt;杀死&lt;/strong&gt;, it means &lt;strong&gt;kill something dead&lt;/strong&gt;, the &lt;code&gt;杀&lt;/code&gt; is the &lt;strong&gt;kill&lt;/strong&gt; part and &lt;code&gt;死&lt;/code&gt; is the &lt;strong&gt;dead&lt;/strong&gt; part, so it can refers to anything that is alive and &lt;strong&gt;can die&lt;/strong&gt;, like plants in your case.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22361" LastActivityDate="2019-07-10T11:33:05.617" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34416" CreationDate="2019-07-10T11:57:43.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like any other words, the &lt;strong&gt;什么&lt;/strong&gt; has more then one meanings, and those meanings can interact with each other, and the meaning of &lt;strong&gt;什么什么&lt;/strong&gt; depends on the meanings of each &lt;strong&gt;什么&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's not a good idea to talk about it without context, for your case, I'm curious if there is any punctuation? like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;那什么什么……&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;那什么什么？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;那什么什么！&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there isn't any, just forget about it, it's just meaningless like &lt;strong&gt;an x without equation in algebra&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22361" LastActivityDate="2019-07-10T11:57:43.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34496" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34497" CreationDate="2019-07-10T15:58:08.313" Score="0" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm adding a Chinese translation to my [videos], &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJv0STX-xSkapow54orIJ6g&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt; and I want to know if this translation is Simplified Chinese or what? Here's an image:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Qdtc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Qdtc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22362" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-14T01:30:02.623" LastActivityDate="2019-07-14T01:30:02.623" Title="What language is this, Simplified Chinese, or...?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34496" CreationDate="2019-07-10T16:39:03.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say it is Simplified Chinese, just looking at some of the characters (e.g 他们 is simplified whereas 他們 would be traditional). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22277" LastActivityDate="2019-07-10T16:39:03.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34498" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34502" CreationDate="2019-07-10T22:11:46.827" Score="4" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;I want to say that Freiburg (in Germany) is located east of France.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My sentence was this:&#xA;弗莱堡在法国的东边。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also how we did it in class. But I'm starting to worry this sounds like it's IN THE east of France, since a Chinese friend of mine was very confused by it.&#xA;What woule be correct here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22365" LastActivityDate="2019-07-11T12:13:29.147" Title="A city is located east/north/west/south of a country; what is the correct Chinese grammar for that?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;preposition&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34498" CreationDate="2019-07-10T23:34:51.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To avoid the ambiguity, I would say 弗莱堡在法国以东. This clearly expresses that it's out of France. It's a bit formal phrasing though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other alternatives including yours can be interpreted either way (out of/within France). However, people could figure out what you intend to mean if you provide more context or explanation. For example, 弗莱堡在法国东边, 不在法国境内，在法国境外。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-07-10T23:39:59.410" LastActivityDate="2019-07-10T23:39:59.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34492" CreationDate="2019-07-11T02:16:47.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just share some of my own understandings here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杀死 and 杀害 are all verbs. 杀死了 and 杀害了 show results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;杀死 is just a statement of fact, but 杀害 is accompanied by human's emotions.(Most are pity and compassion emotions) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a good leader is murdered by terrorists or a loyal minister is assassinated by  traitor. If you use 杀害, more expressive of your regret for the dead. If you use 杀死,just statements a fact without human emotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19544" LastActivityDate="2019-07-11T02:16:47.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34498" CreationDate="2019-07-11T06:38:29.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A在B的东边 has two meanings，one meaning is that A is inside of B, another could be outside of B. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one can be stated more clearly as: A在B的东部，and the second one as A在B的东边上（也可用：A在B的东面）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you say A在B的东边，most Chinese will judge which mean by the context or by further questions. So you do not need worry too much&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastEditorUserId="22221" LastEditDate="2019-07-11T12:13:29.147" LastActivityDate="2019-07-11T12:13:29.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34498" CreationDate="2019-07-11T11:32:45.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I want to say that Freiburg (in Germany) is located east of France.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弗莱堡在法国东边 could mean &quot;Freiburg is in the Eastern part of France&quot; or &quot;Freiburg is located somewhere East of France's border&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid ambiguity you can write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弗莱堡在法国以东 (Freiburg is located somewhere East of France's border)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弗莱堡在法国东边的德国境内 (Freiburg is at the East side of France, in Germany)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-07-11T11:32:45.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34496" CreationDate="2019-07-11T15:45:58.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese.&#xA;But to me this doesn't sound like nice spoken language, maybe because it's translated from bable or somewhere else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22372" LastActivityDate="2019-07-11T15:45:58.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34492" CreationDate="2019-07-11T21:47:38.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;杀害 implies killer has bad intention while 杀死 just means to kill&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastEditorUserId="22375" LastEditDate="2019-09-24T21:26:52.563" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T21:26:52.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34506" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34515" CreationDate="2019-07-12T01:34:30.893" Score="4" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary explains the two glyph origins of 「兹」 as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unorthodox variant simplified from 茲 with 䒑 as the top component instead of 艹 found in the Ming dynasty orthographic dictionary 《俗書刊誤》.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Variant form of 玆 with 䒑 instead of doubled 亠 as the top component. Found in the Tang dynasty orthographic dictionary Ganlu Zishu 《干祿字書》, which lists both 兹 and 茲 as unorthodox forms of 玆. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For characters in the phonetic series 「兹」, most sources (from my experience) explain the characters as semantic 「X」 + phonetic 「茲」. To illustrate, here is a part of the entry for 「滋」 from Chinese Linguipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;從水，表示與水相關；茲聲，表示音讀。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And below is the entry for 「滋」 in 說文解字:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;益也。从水茲聲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it seems that there are two seal script forms; one that matches the structure 「水」 + 「茲」 (left), and the other matches the structure 「水」 + 「玆」 (right).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/zo6DFhU.jpg&quot; width=&quot;240&quot; height=&quot;240&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/digJcPR.jpg&quot; width=&quot;240&quot; height=&quot;240&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare the seal script forms of 「茲」 and 「玆」 respectively:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/Ssj00uZ.jpg&quot; width=&quot;240&quot; height=&quot;240&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/NKeGKLb.jpg&quot; width=&quot;240&quot; height=&quot;240&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also appears that abbreviated 「絲」 was the original phonetic component in older forms like oracle bone script, and was later replaced with 「茲」 or 「玆」. Both of these characters have the Fanqie spelling of 子之切, but seem to have different origins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a phonetic component, were both 「茲」 and 「玆」 used, and later converged into 「兹」? Or is there a different story behind it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12846" LastEditorUserId="12846" LastEditDate="2019-07-12T04:34:59.883" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T14:46:45.267" Title="兹 as a phonetic component" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34496" CreationDate="2019-07-12T04:43:25.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's definitely simplified Chinese, all you are looking for is here, include English and other versions:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://koran.link/zh__1/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://koran.link/zh__1/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://koran.link/zh__2/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://koran.link/zh__2/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2019-07-12T04:43:25.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34506" CreationDate="2019-07-12T05:52:48.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Oracle Bone Script, it is  and very close to 絲. They are both two bundles of silk. 絲 has some threads below while  has none.  They are probably used interchangeably later but eventually  got the meaning of fine and small from the fine threads of silk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;艸 is added to  lately in during the Age of Warring State to differentiate its meanings from 絲.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting from Oracle Bone Script,  is used to write 此 for the sense of pronoun this. This preserves in the common meaning of 茲.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-12T05:52:48.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34431" CreationDate="2019-07-12T07:15:38.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's start from a brief introduction of book and printing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the old days, books were either handwritten or printed. Pages are sewn into a book with a thread. A book is 本. There was no copyright control in those days. We can expect that those books are copied again and again. Eventually various versions can be found.  Each version is named 本.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is similar to various versions of the Bible. 思高本 and 和合本 are two common Chinese versions of the Bible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the art of printing, each page of a printed book is crafted art on a block of wood. It is 版. Printers soaks it with ink and presses it on a paper to make a page. This is why a page sometimes named 版.  One print of a book use the same set of 版. This is why a print called 版. For example, 初版 for first print, 二版 for second print, and 一版再版 means that first print are sold out and then reprint. Sometimes second print might come with some minor corrections and some modifications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, 本 refers to versions of a book with different arrangement or source. 版 refers to a print of book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With modern printing and typesetting, a publication got it revisions easier and easier, the boundary between 版 and 本 becomes harder and harder to define. People coined the word 版本 from 版 and 本 to refer to all variants of a book. Nowadays, people are lazy to differentiate 版 and 本 and use them interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, if you insist their differences, keep in mind that a version is 本 and a print is 版.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-12T07:15:38.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34510" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34514" CreationDate="2019-07-12T08:03:39.257" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently come across this sentence:&#xA;她惊讶得说不出话来&#xA;Which I couldn't understand for a while, but now it seems like 说话 and 出来 overlap:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;说    话&#xA;   出    来&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a normal thing to happen in Chinese, or am I misinterpreting whats going on here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I might be conflating two problems here, but when I asked my friend, he suggested to say this as:&#xA;她惊讶得话都说不出来&#xA;But this only confused me further, as to why it's 话……说, and not 说……话. He proceeded to give me examples of a “can’t even …” structure, but they didn't follow the same pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她惊讶得话都说不出来 → 话……说[!]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;手机都放不下来 → 放……来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;猫都拿不上来 → 拿……上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how does this work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T00:52:54.400" Title="Double (overlapping) separable verbs?" Tags="&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;separable-verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34511" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-12T09:26:17.150" Score="1" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to understand the differences between the three (de) in Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22380" LastEditorUserId="22380" LastEditDate="2019-07-12T09:37:41.613" LastActivityDate="2019-07-12T11:12:48.270" Title="What are the differences between 的,地 and 得?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-07-12T12:51:51.113" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34511" CreationDate="2019-07-12T11:12:48.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;let me answer the question you asked:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Firstly, I assume you are an English speaker.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;的,地 and 得 are three very basic linking words in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;'的'&lt;/strong&gt; is used follows attributes which are the adjectives you called.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For instance:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In English: &lt;code&gt;She  is   a   lovely  girl.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In Chinese:  &lt;code&gt;她  是  一位  漂亮的  女孩。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, you can notice that 'lovely' substituted by '漂亮的' in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;'地'&lt;/strong&gt; is used follows attributes as adverbs.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For instance:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In English: &lt;code&gt;He drives carefully.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In Chinese:&lt;code&gt;他 小心地 开车。&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;The 'carefully' is replaced by '小心地'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;'得'&lt;/strong&gt; often express the meaning of degree and possibility.  It is very complex to use and even the native speaker can make a fault. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering you are a learner, I recommend you to memorize this structure:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;verb + 得 + a sentence&lt;br&gt;&#xA;in the structure above, 得 is very similar to 'so that'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For instance:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;English:&lt;code&gt;I'm    so tired that     I can't walk anymore.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Chinese: &lt;code&gt;我    累得               走不动路了&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It linked the relationship between 'can't walk anymore' and 'tired'.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also express the possibility:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;English:&lt;code&gt;The floor needs    mopping.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Chinese:&lt;code&gt;地板      得       拖了&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In another word, 得 can replace 'need' and this a very idiomatic Chinese phraseology. I highly recommend you to replace '需要' terms of '得' in oral Chinese.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you keep any questions, just ask. I'm very glad to help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22381" LastActivityDate="2019-07-12T11:12:48.270" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34510" CreationDate="2019-07-12T11:32:37.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I can tell you is that this kind of structure is to express emphasis.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'她惊讶得说不出话来' has the same meaning as '她惊讶得话都说不出来'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But the latter uses the inverted pattern, which is always used as for emphasis.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'说话' and '出来' in this kind of situation do not overlap. What's more, '出来' stresses the act of speaking.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It may be translated as 'I even can't work this simple question out.'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still don't understand, don't hesitate to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22381" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2019-07-15T00:52:54.400" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T00:52:54.400" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34510" CreationDate="2019-07-12T12:36:59.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;说(v): say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;话(n): words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说话 = say(v) + words(n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The combination of 说话, was made into a single verb for &amp;quot;to speak/ to talk&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we want to express &amp;quot;can't speak&amp;quot; we can treat &amp;quot;说话&amp;quot; as a single word &amp;quot;speak&amp;quot; and write 不能(can't) 说话 (speak);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can also treat 说 as verb, 话 as noun. In this case [说不出] is a [verb (say)+ potential particle(can't) + result complement (out)] verb phrase, and the noun 话 is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of compound words are made up of verb and noun the same way, and they can be broken down back to  verb and noun elements when you need to modify the verb or the noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吃(v) = eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;飯(n) = rice/meal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吃飯 = eat(v) + meal(n)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;吃飯 (v) = having meal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can insert adverb and verb particle between 吃 and 飯, for example:  &amp;quot;吃(完了)飯&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;(finished) having meal&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My point is, a compound word verb can be broken down back to their original word types and be modified separately&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃飯 --&amp;gt; 吃(完了)(我煮的)飯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(完了) modifies 吃&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(我煮的) modifies 飯&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说话 --&amp;gt; 说(出) (可怕的)话&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;出) modifies 说&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(可怕的) modifies 话&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说(出)可怕的话(来)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出 and 来 is a two parts result complement. You can see it more clearly if you remove the object 可怕的话, and look at &amp;quot;说 ~ 出来&amp;quot; (say ~ out) alone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;话都说不出来 is a [topic + comment] sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;话都&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;even (&lt;em&gt;a single&lt;/em&gt;) word&amp;quot; is the topic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;说不出来&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;unable to (&lt;em&gt;be&lt;/em&gt;) spoken out&amp;quot; is the the comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-12T12:58:56.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34506" CreationDate="2019-07-13T03:08:36.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KrQK4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KrQK4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鐵&lt;/a&gt;178.2&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=11606&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集11606&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aQFkm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aQFkm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;沈子它簋蓋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4330&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4330&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FWJuV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FWJuV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77390&amp;amp;page=3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;部・&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E9%9A%B6%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸定&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MI8nV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MI8nV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;br&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character was originally「」, largely used as a phonetic loan for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Zhengzhang_(1981%E2%80%931995)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhengzhang OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*ʔsɯ/&lt;/strong&gt;, meaning &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; (now written as「茲」).「」came from a variant way of writing「絲」(&lt;strong&gt;/*slɯ/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;silk&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later on,  horizontal lines or「Ｕ」shapes as &lt;em&gt;differentiating marks&lt;/em&gt; were added to the top portion of「」, just below the notches, possibly to differentiate the original character from a myriad of other uses in the &lt;em&gt;Zhou&lt;/em&gt; period (proper nouns and other phonetic loans). These additions ambiguously formed what is now written as「玆」or「茲」, which are really just variant shapes of each other:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東周&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Drums_of_Qin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;石鼓&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FqDwe.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FqDwe.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KxMQK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KxMQK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77390&amp;amp;page=4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;玄部・玆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;隸定&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P1Akn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P1Akn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Silk_Manuscript&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;帛&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/72Rjv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/72Rjv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;緇衣・13&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guodian_Chu_Slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭店楚簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PDhxg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PDhxg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77389&amp;amp;page=40&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;艸部・茲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;隸定&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JNvbo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JNvbo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other readings associated with「」or「玆」to note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reading「」as「幽」(&lt;em&gt;concealed &gt; dark&lt;/em&gt;) is either an erroneous interpretation of「」as the phonetic component of「幽」, or saying that originally「」had another pronunciation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reading「玆」as &lt;em&gt;black&lt;/em&gt; should be a phonetic loan for「緇」(&lt;strong&gt;/*ʔsrɯ/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;black silk&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reading「玆」as「玄」(&lt;strong&gt;/*ɡʷeːn/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;black, dark&lt;/em&gt;) is the association of「玄」with「玆」. In this sense,「玆」can be viewed as another character, formed by reduplicating「玄」to also represent &lt;strong&gt;/*ɡʷeːn/&lt;/strong&gt;, and unrelated in sound etymology to &lt;strong&gt;/*ʔsrɯ/&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Continuing on for the morpheme &lt;strong&gt;/*ʔsɯ/&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt;), the two「亠」on top of「玆」were sometimes joined to form「䒑」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XCytM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XCytM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;為吏之道51&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;隸定&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/67fEQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/67fEQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Alternatively,「䒑」is also a brush calligraphy variation of「艹」. Today, several character variations are due to swapping「艹」with「䒑」or vice-versa, the most prominent being「著」and「着」which were both originally corrupted from「箸」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character development &lt;em&gt;timeline&lt;/em&gt; should then be「」,「玆・茲」,「兹」. Although this cannot directly answer the question as to why sometimes「茲」is preferred over「玆」or vice-versa as a phonetic component, from the historical development it is possible to see that the facts behind character structure and development was very concealed to later writers, influencing the muddled choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really &lt;em&gt;had&lt;/em&gt; to choose one component or the other out of「茲」or「玆」, then pending on the character, that choice is sometimes quite easy.「茲」is &lt;em&gt;defined&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;艸木多益&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while「玆」is &lt;em&gt;defined&lt;/em&gt; as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;黑也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for a character like「滋」which is defined as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;益也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious choice is「茲」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國哲學書電子化計劃&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=77351&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;宋・徐鉉等奉敕校定　漢・許慎《說文解字》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-07-13T04:31:28.860" LastActivityDate="2019-07-13T04:31:28.860" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34516" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35774" CreationDate="2019-07-13T10:15:51.247" Score="3" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very specialized question.  There is a branch of mathematical logic called Homotopy Type Theory in English, and in Chinese 同伦类型论.  There is a Baidu page on it baike.baidu.com/item/同伦类型论.   A big current question in this field is in English the &quot;initiality theorem.&quot;  In fact &quot;initial&quot; here is related to the idea of an initial object in category theory, and initial object in Chinese is often  初始对象.   But initiality theorem certainly cannot be expressed as  初始 定理 since that already means other things. I tried searching  同伦类型论 with initiality theorem and got no hits at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone tell me if there is a current standard Chinese name for this initiality theorem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of &quot;initiality&quot; is sometimes expressed as 初始性质 and that may be the closest i will get.  As I said, this is a very specialized question.  There may just not be any standard Chinese name for this theorem yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="2223" LastEditDate="2019-07-13T18:06:48.020" LastActivityDate="2020-04-23T21:23:17.313" Title="Is there a Chinese name for the initiality theorem?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34517" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34518" CreationDate="2019-07-13T13:45:32.933" Score="0" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've learned that 的 can be used to say that some noun has some quality, for instance 你说的太快了 is saying that 你说 (your speech) has the quality of being 太快了 (too fast) or in other words &quot;You speak too fast&quot;. I'm now learning about the word 最 which is defined as &quot;the most; -est; (indicator for superlative)&quot; and the example they give is 我要最便宜的手机。In this sentence they're saying they want the cheapest phone but the order of the noun and adjective have switched places. Wouldn't the correct word order be 我要手机的最便宜 in order to say that you want the cell phone with the quality of being the cheapest? Or does the order not matter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-07-14T00:36:55.857" Title="What is the proper order to list the noun and adjective when using 的" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34517" CreationDate="2019-07-13T14:53:40.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a couple things getting mixed up here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, 你说的太快了 shouldn't use 的 but rather 得 so it would be written:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你说得太快了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Although it seems that most people online cannot write this correctly either.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Verbs can only be qualified by: 得.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 can modify verbs into nouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;说的 - the things said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;画的 - the thing drawn (i.e.: the picture)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;写的 - the thing written&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why 的 is wrong in the example you give because 说的 refers to the content of what was said and not how it was spoken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要手机的最便宜 is basically nonsensical and almost equates to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I want phone's most cheap&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;whatever that means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese sentences are SVO (subject + verb + object) and here the A (attributive) modifies the object so it becomes SVAO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.writtenchinese.com/simple-guide-to-chinese-sentences-structure/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Written Chinese&lt;/a&gt; has a page talking about attributives with the 的 particle:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Between the attributive and the subject and object, is the ‘的’ particle. 的 is the mark of an attributive, although the ‘的’ particle is not used for some attributives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Examples of attributives with the 的 particle&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（美好）的时光总是过得很快。 ( (měi hǎo) de shí guāng zǒng shì guò de hěn kuài.) Good times always go by quickly. (Time flies when you’re having fun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（桌子上）的花开了。( (zhuō zi shàng) de huā kāi le) The flowers on the table blossomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;An example of attributives (without 的)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他喜欢上了（那个）（红头发）女孩。(tā xǐ huan shàng le (nèi gè) (hóng tóu fa) nǚ hái.) He is falling in love with that red haired girl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-14T00:36:55.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34519" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34520" CreationDate="2019-07-13T19:37:16.190" Score="3" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/34518&quot;&gt;This answer&lt;/a&gt; gives an example sentence meaning &quot;you speak too quickly&quot; to illustrate the usage of &lt;code&gt;得 (·de)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1) 你说得太快了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to say &quot;you either speak too quickly or too slowly&quot;, I'm pretty sure it's possible to say (2). Although (2) might be analyzed as two separate clauses: a clause with an explicit subject and a clause with a null subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2) 你说得太快了或者说得太慢了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure sentence (3) is wrong. Is there another conjunction that can be used instead of&lt;code&gt;或者&lt;/code&gt; that makes the sentence grammatical with the intended meaning of &quot;you either speak too quickly or too slowly&quot;? I added spaces to (3) for emphasis only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;*3) 你说得太快了 或者 得太慢了。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22378" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-14T00:20:42.343" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T13:29:52.093" Title="Translation of &quot;you either speak too quickly or too slowly.&quot; without repeating 说" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34519" CreationDate="2019-07-14T00:39:20.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there another conjunction that can be used instead of或者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[不是(A)就是(B)] = [If not (A) would then (B)] = [Either (A) or (B)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不是(A: 說得太快),就是(B: 說得太慢)&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你不是說得太快, 就是說得太慢&quot;  = &quot;you either speaking too fast or speaking too slow&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你不是說得太快, 就是太慢&quot; = &quot;you either speaking too fast or too slow&quot;&#xA;(&lt;em&gt;omit the repeating verb&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[有時(A),有時(B)] = [sometimes (A), sometimes (B)] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;有時(A:說得太快), 有時 (B:說得太慢)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;你有時說得太快, 有時說得太慢&quot; = &quot;you sometimes speaking too fast, something speaking too slow&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The final particle 了 is optional&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-14T02:57:32.573" LastActivityDate="2019-07-14T02:57:32.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34521" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-14T07:28:42.100" Score="2" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentences 他努力工作 and 他应该用功学习.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;努力 is an adjective, or a verb. In Pleco only has this two options but it seems to be a adverb, that modifies the verb 工作. Or is 工作 a verb and both are verbs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I heard my teacher say 用功 that it is not an adjective in the above sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any clues?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-15T14:33:35.710" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T14:33:35.710" Title="努力工作 用功学习 adjective, verb or adverb" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34521" CreationDate="2019-07-14T08:39:15.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;努力 can be a noun for 'great effort' or a verb for 'to strive/ to work hard' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;努力地 (in a hard working manner) is 努力's adverb form &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence &quot;他努力工作&quot;  omitted '地' in  &quot;他努力(地)工作&quot; (he works in a hard working manner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用功 is also a verb for 'work hard'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用功地 (in a hard working manner) is 用功's adverb form&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence &quot;他应该用功学习&quot;  omitted '地' in &quot;他应该用功(地)学习&quot; (he should study in a hard working manner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of 努力; 用功 as verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;他在努力&quot; - &quot;He is working hard&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不要阻他用功&quot; - &quot;Don't stop him from working/ study hard&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Most common usage of 用功 is  &quot;to study hard&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;can you omit anytime with any adjective you use as an adverb?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depend on the context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;強烈 (strong)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;強烈地 (strongly) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at the following two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;強烈反對&quot; = [強烈(adj)+反對(n)] = &quot;strong objection&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;強烈地反對&quot; = [強烈地(adv)+反對(v)] =  &quot;strongly object&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you omit 地 in sentence #2, it would become the same as sentence #1 . We would not know &quot;強力反對&quot; mean &quot;strong objection&quot; or  &quot;strongly object&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But with enough context, we can tell which is which.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(他)強烈反對&quot; = &quot;(He) strongly objects&quot; - &lt;em&gt;With the subject &quot;&lt;strong&gt;he&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, we know 強烈反對 must be [adverb +verb]&lt;/em&gt; . Therefore, we can omit the adverb marker '地' in &quot;(他)強烈(地)反對&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(他的)強烈反對&quot; = &quot;(his) strong objection&quot; - &lt;em&gt;With the possessive pronoun &quot;&lt;strong&gt;his&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; , we know 強烈反對 must be [adj + noun]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-14T11:40:37.423" LastActivityDate="2019-07-14T11:40:37.423" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34523" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-14T10:53:00.790" Score="1" ViewCount="604" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong, Cantonese is used for speaking and Traditional Chinese is used for writing. However, Cantonese does indeed have it's own writing system (which I've seen in Whatsapp chats, lyrics of music videos, etc;). This tends to cause confusion, because the characters used are treated differently than standard written Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 啲&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mqwco.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mqwco.png&quot; alt=&quot;Di = &amp;#39;some&amp;#39;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I've always wondered, wouldn't it be simpler if Hong Kong adapted the written version of Cantonese in place of Traditional Chinese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Incorporate spoken Cantonese characters in the Master list of all Traditional Chinese characters?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Eliminate the use of Cantonese characters and instead use just Jyuntping/ Yale Romanization (as in Mainland China, Pinyin input is used)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastActivityDate="2019-07-14T23:06:36.293" Title="Why does Hong Kong use a different spoken and written language?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;romanization&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34523" CreationDate="2019-07-14T12:11:55.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong using Standard Written Chinese instead of Written Cantonese because  Standard Written Chinese (SWC) is the national standard. Most non-Cantonese speakers might not understand Written Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English: &amp;quot;I hate him very much&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard Written Chinese: &amp;quot;我很討厭他&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Written Cantonese: &amp;quot;我好憎佢&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English: &amp;quot;who ate my apple?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard Written Chinese: &amp;quot;誰吃了我的萍果?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Written Cantonese: &amp;quot;邊個食咗我個萍果?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Mandarin speaker would have hard time understanding the meaning of '邊個'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Actually, some less formal publications like comic and gossip column do allow  the use of written Cantonese&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for eliminate the use of Written Cantonese, it is a unreasonable suggestion. Spoken and written Cantonese are important parts of our heritage. They will not be abandoned as long as there are still Cantonese alive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-14T23:06:36.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34186" CreationDate="2019-07-15T09:16:21.900" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;无聊=nothing intrested enough to be talked&#xA;闷=heart inside door,no none is active&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T09:16:21.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34519" CreationDate="2019-07-15T13:29:52.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你说得不是太快就是太慢 is what I would say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18761" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T13:29:52.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34528" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34529" CreationDate="2019-07-16T02:12:09.177" Score="0" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在我们这边是有这种&lt;strong&gt;说法&lt;/strong&gt;——混血儿会比较聪明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know several meanings for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;官方说法, Official statement;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讨说法, seek explanation or justice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今日说法, talk about law.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, here 说法 means a kind of public opinion. Can it be translated to &lt;code&gt;saying&lt;/code&gt; which convey the 说 part meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-16T03:24:44.023" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T02:49:14.840" Title="What's a good translation for 说法？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34528" CreationDate="2019-07-16T03:52:12.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yup, in this context, the translation of &lt;code&gt;saying&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;common saying&lt;/code&gt; would work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides the several meanings you pointed out, 说法 also has another meaning that is commonly seen: wording or the way that something is said. An example is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你刚刚说得有点太复杂，换一种说法意思可能清楚些。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way you were explaining was a little too complicated, perhaps changing the wording might make it clearer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22100" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-16T03:52:12.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34314" CreationDate="2019-07-16T09:27:27.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a coincidence as Mandarin Chinese evolved from Medieval Chinese.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In Korean, whose pronunciation is close to Medieval Chinese, 努力 is pronounced &quot;noryeok&quot;, and 奴隸 is pronounced &quot;no(r)ye&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mandarin Chinese is a mixture of Medieval Chinese and Manchurian phonetic system. When you trace many phonetically similar characters and words to 500 to 1000 years ago, you may find them totally different in pronunciation.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-07-17T02:04:28.207" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T02:04:28.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33330" CreationDate="2019-07-16T15:47:44.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is actually a big topic on the tone of Chinese poetry, even in different dynasties the rule is slightly different. I recommand you read Wang Li's (王力) book named 《诗词格律》, which has a systematic description on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22406" LastActivityDate="2019-07-16T15:47:44.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34532" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-17T01:13:39.297" Score="0" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to ask how to say “instead of” in cantonese in the following context? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Can you pay me in Canadian dollar instead of Hong kong dollar?” (Or the general form of X instead of Y)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way might be to use “不如”, but i feel this is too strong. What is a more acceptable way to say “instead”? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastActivityDate="2019-07-18T10:10:08.727" Title="Saying “instead of” in cantonese" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34533" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34536" CreationDate="2019-07-17T01:13:45.217" Score="0" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say I want to cover my ears. Is it 捂住耳朵, 遮住耳朵 or 盖住耳朵? And then if I want to say cover up a situation, is it 遮住事情 or 遮盖事情? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-07-18T10:36:26.983" Title="遮 versus 捂 versus 盖 in terms of usage" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34533" CreationDate="2019-07-17T01:57:25.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;cover up a situation：掩盖事情 or 藏住事情 or 捂住事情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T01:57:25.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34532" CreationDate="2019-07-17T02:07:33.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of =  代替; 而不是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[use(A) &lt;strong&gt;instead of&lt;/strong&gt; (B)] = [use (A) &lt;strong&gt;代替&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;substitute&lt;/strong&gt; (B)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[use(A) &lt;strong&gt;instead of&lt;/strong&gt; (B)] = [use (A) &lt;strong&gt;而不是&lt;/strong&gt;/ &lt;strong&gt;but not&lt;/strong&gt; (B)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use carrot &lt;strong&gt;instead of&lt;/strong&gt; stick = 用利誘&lt;strong&gt;代替&lt;/strong&gt;威逼; 用利誘&lt;strong&gt;而不是&lt;/strong&gt;(用)威逼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use John &lt;strong&gt;instead of&lt;/strong&gt; Peter = 用約翰&lt;strong&gt;代替&lt;/strong&gt;彼得; 用約翰&lt;strong&gt;而不是&lt;/strong&gt;(用)彼得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kill John &lt;strong&gt;instead of&lt;/strong&gt; Peter = 殺約翰&lt;strong&gt;而不是&lt;/strong&gt;(殺)彼得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用利誘&lt;strong&gt;而唔係&lt;/strong&gt;(用)威逼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;殺約翰&lt;strong&gt;而唔係&lt;/strong&gt;(殺)彼得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;pay me in Canadian dollar instead of Hong kong dollar&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; in Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用加幣代替(用)港元付款(俾我); 用加幣而唔係(用)港元付款(俾我)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;words in () are optional&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You are correct, '不如' means 'better off'. It is different from &amp;quot;instead of&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;用利誘(不如)用威逼&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;(better off) use stick than use carrot&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T03:08:44.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34533" CreationDate="2019-07-17T02:33:34.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;捂: cover small things almost entirely by a hand or hands&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;遮: cover large things partially or entirely by things like a sheet or a piece of paper&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;盖: cover something entirely by things like a lid or a cap&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;捂住耳朵 is better than 遮住耳朵 or 盖住耳朵 obviously.&lt;br/&gt;The latter two are also acceptable and understandable.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;cover up a situation: &lt;b&gt;掩盖&lt;/b&gt;/&lt;b&gt;遮盖&lt;/b&gt;/&lt;b&gt;遮掩&lt;/b&gt;/&lt;b&gt;隐藏&lt;/b&gt;事实/事情, &lt;b&gt;掩盖&lt;/b&gt; is the most frequently used word.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T02:33:34.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34528" CreationDate="2019-07-17T02:49:14.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;说法 generally means &lt;strong&gt;statement&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;讨说法 means &lt;strong&gt;ask for a statement&lt;/strong&gt; (from other person or official etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今日说法 is a special case, the two characters 说法 are two different words but not one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今日, &lt;strong&gt;说&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;法&lt;/strong&gt; the literal meaning word by word are:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;today, &lt;strong&gt;talking&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;the law&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;The talking about the law today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 法 pronounced the 3rd tone here while in the word 说法 it is neutral tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T02:49:14.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34538" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34539" CreationDate="2019-07-17T04:43:38.997" Score="0" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the function of 哩 in 哩兩個人好相似? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And how different is it if you just say 兩個人好相似?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T05:11:09.167" Title="What is the function of 哩? (Cantonese)" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34538" CreationDate="2019-07-17T05:02:38.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard character for ni1 / nei1 is 呢, not &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/658/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;哩&lt;/a&gt;, which mean 'mile'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呢兩個人好相似&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;呢&lt;/strong&gt; in this context functions as '&lt;strong&gt;this&lt;/strong&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呢 (this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兩個人 (two persons)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好相似 (very alike)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;呢&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1029/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1029/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jyutping: ni1 / nei1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[粵][pron][adj] &lt;strong&gt;this&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;And how different is it if you just say 兩個人好相似?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;呢兩個人好相似 (this two people are very alike)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;兩個人好相似 (two people are very alike)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is just like omitting 'this' in &amp;quot;(this) two people are very alike&amp;quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can omit '呢/this' if we know which two persons the sentence is referring to&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T05:11:09.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34540" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34544" CreationDate="2019-07-17T08:00:46.397" Score="0" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been taught that 了  particle is not used in a negative sentence,  but I'm confused with this one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“我以前很忙，但是现在不忙了。”&#xA; Is this right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say this. &#xA;我以前很忙，但是现在有空了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Help please&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22405" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T21:15:37.180" Title="了 particle usage" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34540" CreationDate="2019-07-17T09:55:49.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both “我以前很忙，但是现在不忙了。” and &quot;我以前很忙，但是现在有空了。&quot; are correct and of the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;了&quot; here is an auxilary 汉字，which can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &quot;了&quot;, you express some feeling of relaxiation. Without &quot;了&quot;, you express the contrast fact between 以前 and 现在。 However the difference is nuiance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you add &quot;已经&quot;, for example  “我以前很忙，但是现在&lt;strong&gt;已经&lt;/strong&gt;不忙了。” and &quot;我以前很忙，但是现在&lt;strong&gt;已经&lt;/strong&gt;有空了。&quot; ，then you had better keep the &quot;了&quot; to match &quot;已经&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T09:55:49.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34314" CreationDate="2019-07-17T12:26:39.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why the word &lt;strong&gt;weather&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;whether&lt;/strong&gt; pronounced the same but meanings are different?&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Why the word &lt;strong&gt;steel&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;steal&lt;/strong&gt; pronounced the same but meanings are different?&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Why the word &lt;strong&gt;see&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;sea&lt;/strong&gt; pronounced the same but meanings are different?&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why the word &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;four&lt;/strong&gt; pronounced the similar but meanings are entirely different?&lt;br/&gt;Why the word &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; pronounced the similar but meanings are entirely different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is English so strange? Is there any relationship between these pairs of words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T12:26:39.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34543" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-18T03:44:35.933" Score="3" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ol34C.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone else tell me what the last character is please?&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FxjnZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22411" LastEditorUserId="22411" LastEditDate="2019-07-18T11:05:53.507" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T12:30:56.077" Title="Cannot recognise a chinese chracter handwriting" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34540" CreationDate="2019-07-18T09:14:04.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;了, in verb sense, means &quot;put to the end&quot;, &quot;terminate&quot;. You can find it in the phrase 了結 and 不了了之. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find it in the end of the sentence, it means something already done, for example, 知了 (acknowledged), 走了 (gone), 食了 (eaten) or changed to particular states, for example 壞了 (already turned bad), 空了 (already turned empty, emptied), 碎了 (already broken).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same rule can applied to 不忙了, 有空了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不忙了: (changed to) no longer busy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有空了: (changed to) free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;我以前很忙，但是現在不忙了。&quot; and &quot;我以前很忙，但是現在有空了。&quot;, both sentence are right &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-18T09:14:04.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34532" CreationDate="2019-07-18T10:10:08.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you pay me in Canadian dollar instead of Hong Kong dollar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A native way to say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;唔該畀加紙我，唔好畀港紙。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or more directly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我收加紙，唔收港紙。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just state the positive term and then the negative term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;靠左唔好靠右。 keep left instead of right&#xA;&#xA;買大唔好買細。 buy the big one instead of small one&#xA;&#xA;同人講我出咗國，唔好話我入咗醫院。 tell others I am overseas now instead of telling them I stay in the hospital.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不如 is for suggestion and preference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你畀港紙我 不如畀加紙我。 I suggest you pay me in Canadian dollar instead of Hong Kong dollar. / It'd be better to pay me in Canadian dollar instead of Hong Kong dollar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去行公司，不如去睇戲. Instead of shopping in a department store, I suggest we go to watch a film in a cinema.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-18T10:10:08.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34533" CreationDate="2019-07-18T10:36:26.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on your situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you don't want to hear something and cover your ears, it is 捂住耳朵.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you don't want your ears from being seen and cover them, it is&#xA;遮住耳朵.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you simply cover your ears, it is 蓋住耳朵.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遮住耳朵 and 蓋住耳朵 might be used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 遮住事情 and 遮盖事情 are right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if your intention is to hide something bad in deceptive way, the more precise word is 隠瞞事情.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-18T10:36:26.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34547" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34566" CreationDate="2019-07-19T04:55:36.953" Score="1" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am quite confused by the sentence 这本书我要再看一遍. It seems to me like a sentence with a simple subject/verb/object structure, with no complicated time or place words. But why does the object (这本书) come first? Why is it not 我要再看一遍这本书?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some rule describing this scenario?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22418" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T16:37:57.237" Title="Why does the object come first in the sentence 这本书我要再看一遍?" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;word-order&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34314" CreationDate="2019-07-19T08:23:08.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They don't sound similar, the tones are different for &lt;code&gt;努力&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;奴隶&lt;/code&gt;. You're just viewing it as a foreigner so consider them to be similar. With this kind of logic, countless words sound similar in Chinese, especially single character words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21998" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T08:23:08.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34543" CreationDate="2019-07-19T08:52:48.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Just provide a guess: ‘学’.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Combined with the other two characters you give in the first image, you can get a phrase “右同学”, which means &quot;Student You&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I recognized a place name in the larger image you give: “高敞郡新林面新坪里”(starting from the fourth in the upper right corner), in English is &quot;Sinpyeong-ri, Sinlim-myeon, Kochang-gun&quot;, a South Korean place name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, it's &lt;strong&gt;weird&lt;/strong&gt; to see someone wrote a phrase like “右同学” in calligraphy writing. So, maybe my inference just go wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22419" LastEditorUserId="22419" LastEditDate="2019-07-20T12:30:56.077" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T12:30:56.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34543" CreationDate="2019-07-19T10:16:54.473" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese handwriting and calligraphy tradition allow for huge variability in appearance of characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With these three characters, first two are easily identified as 右 and 同. (Though the writer smooshes together the strokes of the mouth 口 part and the result resembles cursive letter &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;, yet his strokes clearly follow the right order.) For comparison, here are possible appearances of these characters from the &lt;em&gt;Compilation of Cursive Characters&lt;/em&gt;《草字彙》:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YkhhM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YkhhM.png&quot; alt=&quot;右 and 同，from 草字彙&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the third character, the right part quite clearly identifies as 匕, which got transformed into S-like or b-like stroke crossed by a checkmark-like stroke. According to the cursive character compilation《草字彙》, this transformation is a typical one for this radical:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fO2rp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fO2rp.png&quot; alt=&quot;匕，from 草字彙&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That leaves us with only a few characters that have 匕 on the right, like 比 (compare)，北 (north)，此 (this)，化 (chemistry), as well as more rare characters like 牝 (female animal), 叱 (shout), 吡，妣，秕，舭。Only 此 seems to make sense with the preceding characters.   Moreover, I checked database of old cursive characters, and variants of 此 resemble what you have here most closely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hP5G2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hP5G2.png&quot; alt=&quot;此，from 王羲之書法字典&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in conclusion, I think this is most likely 右同此.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19931" LastEditorUserId="19931" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T10:26:23.417" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T10:26:23.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5754" CreationDate="2019-07-19T13:48:22.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try the site: biblenumbers.atwebpages.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese gematria following a pattern similar to the Greek and Hebrew can be found at the web pages listed below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is based on the traditional Chinese using the Big5 character set. The first character &quot;one&quot; is given the number 1, and so on through all the Chinese characters. Since Big5 is set up with &quot;gaps&quot; between blocks of characters, the numbers jump accordingly just like the Greek and Hebrew, but not by increasing powers of ten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find the explanation of the Chinese gematria system here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/data/schema.htm#chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/data/schema.htm#chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese character gematria convertor is on this page:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/convertor.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/convertor.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Complete gematria studies of a few Bible passages are listed below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exodus 34:6-7&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/proclamation_in_chinese.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/proclamation_in_chinese.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Genesis 1:1&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/genesis_1_1_chinese.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/genesis_1_1_chinese.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John 1:1&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/john_1_1_chinese.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/john_1_1_chinese.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Revelation 1:8&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/revelation_1_8_chinese.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/revelation_1_8_chinese.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Revelation 21:6 &amp;amp; 22:13&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/rev_22_13_chinese.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/rev_22_13_chinese.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Revelation (the entire vision)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/revelation_chinese.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://biblenumbers.atwebpages.com/chinese/revelation_chinese.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22422" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-08-30T11:31:46.913" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T11:31:46.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34553" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34554" CreationDate="2019-07-19T21:21:41.557" Score="0" ViewCount="40" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not so familiar with how you say this in english grammar. But how do you say this pattern in cantonese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: the bag you asked me to buy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the syntax when translating to cantonese ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T22:34:10.497" Title="“The X you asked me to Y” (cantonese)" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34553" CreationDate="2019-07-19T22:19:15.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“The (n) you asked me to (v)” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;你叫我(v)嗰個(n)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“The (bag) you asked me to (buy)” = &quot;你叫我(買)嗰個(袋)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“The (person) you asked me to (kill)” = &quot;你叫我(殺)嗰個(人)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;嗰個你叫我(v)嘅(n)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“The (bag) you asked me to (buy)” = &quot;嗰個你叫我(買)嘅(袋)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“The (person) you asked me to (kill)” = &quot;嗰個你叫我(殺)嘅(人)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;個 is the classifier for the noun, replace 個 with other classifier when necessary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你叫我做嗰(件)(事)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嗰(件)你叫我做嘅(事)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classifier for  '事' is '件', not '個'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In many cases, you cannot transfer English grammar directly into Chinese  sentence, this is one of them &quot;嗰個袋(that bag) 你叫我買 (you asked me to buy)&quot; is not grammatical in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T22:34:10.497" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T22:34:10.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34555" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-19T23:48:44.837" Score="0" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ATctn.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ATctn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Can anyone tell what it&amp;#39;s supposed to say?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone tell what this tattoo is supposed to say, or if it actually means anything at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22423" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T07:24:15.210" Title="Can anyone figure out if this tattoo means anything?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34555" CreationDate="2019-07-20T00:11:05.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to 答非所问 for a quick second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20060712150335/http://www.naturalexpressions.org/Tattoo_Flash_CKE.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;used&lt;/a&gt; to be this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.naturalexpressions.org/Tattoo_Flash_CKE2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;font&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Natural Expressions&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Chinese/Kanji &amp;amp; Egyptian Flash/Design Sheets&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that offered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8 Chinese/Kanji &amp;amp; Egyptian Flash/Design Sheets&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Here are some wonderful Chinese/Kanji &amp;amp; Egyptian Flash Design Sheets which are very popular and a must for any modern tattoo parlor. This set of the 8 flash sheets contains 100's of different images/characters! Line drawings are not included/available with this set. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which included this English to Chinese/Kanji tattoo translation sheet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hqCiz.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hqCiz.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all for this price of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;U.S. $64.99&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/2006/08/gibberish-asian-font-mystery-solved.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanzismatter&lt;/a&gt; also deciphered the tattoo writings like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XgAMB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XgAMB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as they mention it's mostly all gibberish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T00:11:05.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34557" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-20T01:15:57.673" Score="1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.naturalexpressions.org/CKE_8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; crazy English to Chinese/Kanji tattoo translation font we have the following character notated with the letter &quot;Y&quot; underneath.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/40AK6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/40AK6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/2006/08/gibberish-asian-font-mystery-solved.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanzismatter&lt;/a&gt; notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The character for &quot;Y&quot; is a mystery, looking something like 米米産 as one character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There must be a method to the madness. Where does &quot;⿲米米産&quot; come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T04:03:20.540" Title="Where does &quot;⿲米米産&quot; come from?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34557" CreationDate="2019-07-20T01:59:06.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looked more like 林產 (from forest; forest related product: e.g. lumber). The 'y' under it is a selection code for that tattoo. Meaning you can just say &quot;I want to have tattoo y&quot; if you don't know how to read the  actual tattoo. Just like you can tell the waiter &quot;I want to order number 23 on the menu&quot; instead of stating the full name of the dish &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-20T02:22:36.517" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T02:22:36.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34547" CreationDate="2019-07-20T02:01:44.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the passive and active are not distinguished by gramma norm. Their distinction is inferred by semantics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 我(I) read 书(book),can never be 书(book) read 我(I). That is the semantics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, we have the hanji &quot;被&quot;,but if the meaning can be determined from the semantics, this &quot;被&quot; is omitted usually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you would like, you can say 这本书***被***我要再看一遍? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T02:01:44.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34555" CreationDate="2019-07-20T07:24:15.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tattoo writing is not always identifiable. It is just a painting on the skin. Characters might be degenerated. But, it is not Chinese writing from its shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddha%E1%B9%83_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Siddhaṃ script&lt;/a&gt; which is used in Buddhist Sanskrit writing. There are lots of variants over centuries. Tibetan script is a variant of Siddhaṃ script too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best guess is the mantra, Oṃ Maṇi Padme Hūṃ (嗡嘛呢叭咪吽), also known as sadaksara (six syllabled, 六字真言). There is no unique interpretation of this mantra. It is about jewel and lotus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mrsuf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mrsuf.png&quot; alt=&quot;in siddham&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mantra is so widespread along with Buddhism and have been translated in various languages in the past. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lyeOT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lyeOT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/1348_Mogaoku_Stele.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T07:24:15.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="150" CreationDate="2019-07-20T09:13:23.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;NiTaMaDe simply means fuck you, thats all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22425" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T09:13:23.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34562" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34563" CreationDate="2019-07-20T09:43:47.713" Score="1" ViewCount="43" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me in translating these instructions. The English website has been shut down.  I'm trying to find out how to do a hard reset on this device.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The products English website was &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.onnchina.com/mp3_mp4/product172.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Onn-w7 website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7WrZM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7WrZM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Page 1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mis3i.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mis3i.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Page 2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22426" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T11:17:07.457" Title="Help translating instructions since English website has been shut down" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34562" CreationDate="2019-07-20T11:09:27.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Press the power button for more than three seconds. This is what instruction says: &lt;code&gt;电源开关长按3秒以上开机&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/0Rzs_MSKSS4?t=303&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; Belorussian guy, you can take a needle and press the reset button inside the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1X_8nHpXXXXbhXFXXq6xXFXXXp/206306760/HTB1X_8nHpXXXXbhXFXXq6xXFXXXp.jpg?size=53837&amp;amp;height=790&amp;amp;width=790&amp;amp;hash=fe3f864fb8512fa791ca82bdfde5722c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;round hole near the SD card slot&lt;/a&gt;. (This method is not on the manual.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These methods might not do an actual hardware reset, though. No guarantees here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19931" LastEditorUserId="19931" LastEditDate="2019-07-20T11:17:07.457" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T11:17:07.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34564" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34568" CreationDate="2019-07-20T15:28:56.000" Score="3" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a Rénmín Rìbào article from May 14th 1950, called 《南疆妇女开始揭下面纱》, which requires login to read. It describes some abusive imam:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喀什城内的大地主、穆斯满教依祥派阿訇苏皮禾加，利用他的特权和巫术，压迫和欺骗人民，尤其是百般地蹂躏妇女&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the title 阿訇 and the similarity between “Musulmán” and  穆斯满 it must be a Muslim denomination, but neither did I find Chinese material on 穆斯满, nor on 衣祥派. I read several Rénmín Rìbào articles from the period and all use 伊斯兰。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11365" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-21T02:59:04.967" LastActivityDate="2019-07-21T04:27:30.630" Title="What denomination does 穆斯满教依祥派 refer to?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34309" CreationDate="2019-07-20T16:06:18.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You asked a hard question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original text of Analects is as following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;子夏曰、巧笑倩兮、美目盼兮、素以為絢兮、何謂也。&#xA;子曰、繪事後素。&#xA;曰、禮後乎。&#xA;子曰、起予者商也、始可與言詩已矣。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a wide range of opinions in the interpretation of 素以為絢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子夏 was a discipline of Confucius. He asked Confucius the meaning of an ode 碩人 in &quot;The Book of Song&quot; (詩經). The ode praises a noble lady 莊姜, who was the wife of the Duke of Dukedom 衞.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the known version of 碩人 contains only 巧笑倩兮 and 美目盼兮, but 素以為絢兮 is missing. This breeds speculations and opinions from Han Dynasty to nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confucius did not explain 巧笑倩兮 and 美目盼兮. They are too obvious. He explained 素以為絢 with 繪事後素.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;James Legge translated 素以為絢 as &quot;The plain ground for the colors&quot; and 繪事後素 as &quot;The business of laying on the colors follows (the preparation of) the plain ground&quot;. This is what the majority of scholars interpret it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For simplicity, before you draw or paint, you need a plain ground. On&#xA;  a plain ground you could draw and paint anything colourful.&#xA;  This is what 素以為絢 means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The story does not end here. After the explanation of Confucius, 子夏 connected it with 禮, namely ceremonies, which is the core theme in Confucius study. (If a person with qualities of plain ground, namely, honest and trustful, he would learn 禮 well.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confucius commented that 子夏 got what his mean and then he had the qualification to discuss the odes in &quot;The Book of Song&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The odes are full of allusions and metaphors. They requires a learner not only understanding the literal meaning of the words, but also getting the underlying meaning of odes and connecting them to life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The story of 素以為絢兮 in the Analects illustrates how to learn and use &quot;The Book of Song&quot;.  It is more than the words 素以為絢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T16:06:18.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34547" CreationDate="2019-07-20T16:37:57.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many languages have this type of sentence construction to put topic first. It is not unique in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find it in English too. &quot;This dress, I really want to buy&quot;. This dress is the topic of sentence. In Chinese 這本書，我要再看一遍。這本書 is the topic of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of construction is quite common in classic Chinese. In Mencius, &quot;魚，我所欲也。熊掌，亦我所欲也。&quot; 魚 and 熊掌 is the topic of a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Japanese, putting topic with &quot;は&quot; construction is even more common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T16:37:57.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34302" CreationDate="2019-07-20T17:22:44.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original sense of 移民 is that a government migrates people to a particular region, either by force or by incentive.  移 is &amp;quot;to move&amp;quot; and 民 is &amp;quot;people&amp;quot;. The people migrated is also known as 移民.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese diaspora, lots of Cantonese people emigrated to foreign countries for work. The department in foreign country that deals with immigrants is Immigration Department, 移民局.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it binds to English meaning of emigration, namely, the act that a person migrates to a foreign country, although it does not fit well to the characters 移民.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some sense, it includes the meaning of acquiring foreign citizenship although it is not necessarily true. The best term about this is naturalisation. In Chinese it is 歸化.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 你移民美國. You emigrates to UK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;移居 is to move home to another area. 居 is a house, a dwelling. The meaning is very simple comparing to 移民.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;水上人由船上移居陸上. Tankas moves their home from their boats to the land.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;移居德國. Migrate to Germany.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T17:22:44.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34564" CreationDate="2019-07-21T02:56:28.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a copy of the text &lt;a href=&quot;http://rmrb.zhouenlai.info/%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E6%97%A5%E6%8A%A5/1950/05/1950-05-14.htm#0051465&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h1&gt;南疆妇女开始揭下面纱&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;第3版()&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  专栏：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;南疆妇女开始揭下面纱  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今年二月间举行的南疆喀什噶尔（即疏附）市各族各界人民代表会议上，妇女代表们打破了几千年封建传统的桎梏，响亮地喊出第一声：“揭下面纱，婚姻自由”。现在很多妇女都已经揭下了过去不分冬夏都罩着的面纱，当地的封建统治者也已经不敢再骑马扬鞭，对她们实行鞭笞了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;南疆的妇女，尤其是维吾尔族的妇女，多少年来一直在这一层面纱后过着牢狱一般的生活。她们没有婚姻、人身、教育的自由。在婚姻方面，这里盛行着早婚和多妻的陋习。十二岁的少女，还没有发育健全，便离家成婚。十四、五岁的女子，已是怀抱婴儿的母亲了。老夫少妻的现象也很普遍，许多五、六十岁的老年人，往往与十二岁的幼女成婚。一般富豪和特权者把妇女当作玩具，今日结婚，明日抛弃。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;喀什城内的大地主、穆斯满教依祥派阿訇苏皮禾加，利用他的特权和巫术，压迫和欺骗人民，尤其是百般地蹂躏妇女。喀什中学主任伊不拉英士尔逊说：“苏皮禾加的结婚和离婚，象开玩笑一样。他才三十岁，至少娶了一百五十个老婆。他娶老婆并不花钱，利用他禾加（圣裔）的地位，别人不敢违抗，就得把女子送去。他离了婚的女子，无人再敢娶。”挑水老头子买买提明说：“苏皮禾加娶老婆象喝凉水一样，隔三间二，不是听说他‘抓秧哥’（结婚），就是听说他‘洋度’（离婚）。曾遭苏皮禾加离弃的女子拜儿哥孜汉愤恨地叙述她的遭遇说：“一九四五年，苏皮禾加要娶我。我哥哥说：‘苏皮禾加娶女人如同到马市上骑别人的马一样，既不出钱，又不负责，结果是抛弃。’我也不想嫁。苏皮禾加就叫媒婆则那甫汉转告他的话说：‘我是圣人，她若不嫁我，我念咒把他（指女父）咒死；念穷，叫他发不了财。念的叫她跛了，瞎了，一辈子没有人要她。’我父亲害怕，就许了他。结婚后六个月，有一天他对我说：‘你的期满了，你请假吧，我准你的假，你回去吧。’我向他深深的鞠躬，同时说：‘谢谢禾加。’同他结婚的女子都是：他要娶，不敢不去；他要离，不得不走，还得谢他，不敢向别人说什么话。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;妇女在婚后的生活更是痛苦和不自由的。奴尔尼沙汉与皮山县乡长艾买提伯克阿吉结婚后，她的丈夫时常将村里的女人招引到家中弹弦作乐，有时还留宿。次日得给他们烧洗澡水，稍有迟慢就是一耳光。还有最野蛮的是所谓“耀把什”，这就是婚前男方提出条件，不准妇女与十二岁以上的男子见面。苏皮禾加每天早起就将他的妻子们锁进黑屋子里，不让她们知道他的家庭里的事，也不让她们和外面的任何男子见面。除此以外，做妻子的还要伺候丈夫吃饭，等丈夫吃完后才能吃他的残汤剩饭。妻子不能跟丈夫并肩在街上走，总要跟在他后面几步。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;妇女既是这样受压迫，因此女子受教育的机会就很少。疏附县共有妇女十二万六千四百五十人，据本年初当地文化教育机关统计，受教育的情况是：中等学校仅有一百三十名女生，小学校也仅有三千九百三十八名女生，其余百分之九十七以上都是文盲。这是号称南疆文化中心的喀什的情形，其他各地情况就可想而知了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新疆解放后，广大的妇女同胞们开始走上了光明幸福的道路。新疆省人民政府最近发布的施政方针第四项中明确规定：“妇女与男子享有平等的权利，实行婚姻自由。”在中国共产党领导下，各族各界妇女组织了自己的民主妇女联合会，正为着妇女的权利而奋斗。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  （新华社）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe &lt;em&gt;Ishan&lt;/em&gt; is the equivalent of 衣祥派.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pustaqa.com/history-of-xinjiang-in-peoples-republic-of-china-1950-1980/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;History of Xinjiang: In the People’s Republic of China (1950s-1980s)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Besides the majority Sunni Muslims in southern Xinjiang, there were various other sects, including Isma’ilis among the Tajiks in Tashkurgan, Shi’ites in Yarkand (Twelve Imam sect descendents of seventeenth-century Punjabi immigrants) and various Sufi orders. These orders were collectively known as &lt;em&gt;Ishan&lt;/em&gt;, from a Persian word meaning ‘them’ and referring to the orders’ hereditary leaders, believed to be descendents of the orders’ founders and of the Prophet. (Chapter 3 discussed the introduction of these mystical orders into Xinjiang and the secular power achieved by the Naqshbandiyya in particular). Despite the wars and political upheavals from the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century, many ishan groups remained active during the first half of the twentieth century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd think a guy who'd taken over one hundred and fifty wives by the age of thirty and was a massive landlord would be more well written about, but I can't seem to find much info on him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-21T04:27:30.630" LastActivityDate="2019-07-21T04:27:30.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34323" CreationDate="2019-07-22T02:07:40.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chapter 102 of《红楼梦》entitled &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/hongloumeng/ch102/zhs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《宁国府骨肉病灾祲　大观园符水驱妖孽》&lt;/a&gt; there is a character who is called: 毛半仙. Here's an excerpt of a paragraph from the original text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;贾蓉道：“不是说不治，为的是前日母亲往西府去，回来是穿著园子里走过来的。一到了家，就身上发烧，别是撞客著了罢。外头有个毛半仙，是南方人，卦起的很灵，不如请他来占算占算。看有信儿呢，就依著他；要是不中用，再请别的好大夫来。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John Minford's translation of the paragraph is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘I didn’t say she couldn’t be cured,’ said Jia Rong. ‘What was going through my mind was this: when Mother went over to Rong-guo House the other day, she came back through the Garden. And the fever began as soon as she reached home. It could be that she encountered some evil spirit on the way and is now possessed. I happen to know of an excellent fortune-teller in town, by the name of Half-Immortal Mao. He hails from the South, and is something of a specialist in The Book of Changes. I think we should ask him for a consultation first. See if he can shed any light on the matter. If that gets us nowhere, then let’s by all means look for another doctor.’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 毛半仙 = Half-Immortal Mao, a very literal translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later we see another instance with Half-Immortal Mao:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;毛半仙道：“既如此，取净水洗手，设下香案，让我起出一课来看就是了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but here his name is simplified:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘Very well,’ replied Mao. ‘First I shall require some clean water with which to wash my hands. Then, will you be so good as to light some incense, and to set up a small altar? And I shall proceed with the divination.’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 毛半仙 = Mao.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yang Hsien-Yi &amp;amp; Gladys Yang's translation in A Dream of Red Mansions Vol. 3 translates it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mao Pan-hsien&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and also shortens to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in further references.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other results on Wikipedia get similar translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wang Banxian (Chinese: 王半仙)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hsu Ban-hsian (許半仙) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wu Ban-hsien (吳半仙) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-22T02:18:25.473" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T02:18:25.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34571" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34572" CreationDate="2019-07-22T04:11:08.537" Score="0" ViewCount="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was flipping through The &lt;em&gt;Hanyu Da Cidian&lt;/em&gt; when I came across an entry for the word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;道搿&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  dàogé&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the definition is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;英语dog的音译。谓狗。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and they provide the reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《文明小史》第三五回&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ﹝毓生﹞却回到屋裏, 拍桌大駡道：‘ 中國 的官這般没信實, 還不如外國的道搿哩。’一個夥計嘴快, 搶着説道：‘掌櫃的, 這話錯了。難道你認得外國的道搿麽？’ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese obviously has a word for dog &amp;amp; it's clearly written in Hanyu Da Cidian's definition above: 狗. 道搿 doesn't seem to add anything to the word that isn't already there. The fact that 道搿 exists at all though does show that there must have been some sort of need for a word as such. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What purpose did &quot;道搿&quot; serve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T07:18:47.983" Title="What purpose did &quot;道搿&quot; serve?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34571" CreationDate="2019-07-22T05:15:58.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fact that it is a transliteration of English &quot;dog&quot; points to its possible use and appearance. Perhaps, it was used for those foreign breeds of dogs that looked different from the breeds that Chinese people were accustomed to at that time (end of Qing dynasty).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But also note that this particular word (道搿) does not seem to appear in any other text than the mentioned novel (文明小史). So it might have been simply the novelist's invention, that the authors of &lt;em&gt;Hanyu Da Cidian&lt;/em&gt; still felt they needed to explain. (Mind you that this dictionary was compiled before widespread use of corpus linguistics, so the authors wouldn't really know if this word is just a one-time appearance across all of the Chinese literature, or if it got some traction and started to be used by others.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19931" LastEditorUserId="19931" LastEditDate="2019-07-22T07:18:47.983" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T07:18:47.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34571" CreationDate="2019-07-22T05:16:15.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What purpose did &quot;道搿&quot; serve?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice, the conversation was in Chinese. 毓生 wanted to mix English into Chinese to sound cool, but couldn't pronounce the English word &quot;dog&quot; so he used  transliteration &quot;道搿&quot; instead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why this kind of strange transliteration existed? Because most early English learners in China didn't know English pronunciations. To aid them to pronounce English words, the publishers of English learning books at the time listed transliterations of those words so the learners could phonetically learn/read the English with Chinese pinyin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could find strange transliteration like this in 通勝 (Tongsheng), I remember one very well -- &quot;可士必吐&quot; (transliteration of 'hospital')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just try to say '可士必吐' very fast, it would sound like 'hospital'. It was the best early English learner could do to pronounce English words without knowing English pronunciations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of those transliterations actually made it into modern Chinese vocabulary. For example &quot;吐司&quot; (Mandarin); 多士 (Cantonese) for &quot;toast&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-22T05:32:46.000" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T05:32:46.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34574" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34592" CreationDate="2019-07-22T16:09:21.067" Score="3" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;The shape of 「肉」 in its component form is differentiated from 「月」 in Taiwan and sometimes in Hong Kong's table of standard character forms, but appear the same in other regions' standards and in traditional print. Conversely, 「舟」 in its component form seems to be differentiated from 「月」 in traditional print. Take the entry for 「服」 from the Kangxi Dictionary for instance (notice the two &quot;dots&quot; in 「舟」 versus the two horizontal strokes in 「月」 in the characters above and below):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/OS3gGZ4.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly enough, it seems that a large chunk of characters with 「舟」 in its component form is a result of being corrupted from 「凡」 (e.g. 「服」, 「前」, etc.), but traditional print shapes still differentiate it from 「月」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern times, this distinction is not found in any regions' standard with the exception of South Korea I believe, which is largely similar to Kangxi dictionary's character forms (although I don't know if Koreans are taught to write that way as well, or if their handwritten forms are different). I'd like to understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Was the component form of 「舟」 ever differentianted from 「月」 in handwriting (from 楷書 onwards)? It seems that there were efforts to differentiate the various origins of 「月」 in a character, but were those efforts ever widespread?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Would it be seen as strange for someone make that distinction in their handwriting today (although the usefulness of actually doing this can be debated)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Reworded the questions after reading a very informative answer here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12402/is-there-any-character-with-radical-%e6%9c%88-that-has-a-meaning-of-%e6%9c%88-not-%e8%82%89/12455#12455&quot;&gt;Is there any character with radical 月 that has a meaning of 月 (not 肉)?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12846" LastEditorUserId="12846" LastEditDate="2019-07-22T21:25:43.273" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T10:23:00.413" Title="Handwritten shape of 「舟」 when it appears like 「月」 and the component form of 「肉」" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34576" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-23T01:54:22.637" Score="1" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VA5pF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VA5pF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Character-Damo 2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rXBXZ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rXBXZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Bodhidharma Damo Daruma strong text&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help with translating this? I think I see characters for Buddha, Chan Zen and Insight or Seeing Clearly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22438" LastEditorUserId="22438" LastEditDate="2019-07-24T00:10:25.800" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T09:42:12.307" Title="Help with Zen Painting translation?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34578" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-23T15:03:56.873" Score="8" ViewCount="532" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was going through Babel Stone's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PUA&lt;/a&gt; page when I came across, some, of the following characters. This one is Japanese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GGDMO.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GGDMO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Kanji-Latin hybrid = 慶 in the name of Keiō University (慶應大学)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is Korean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ezi8K.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ezi8K.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Hanja-Hangul hybrid = 圖 do &quot;map&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babelstone.co.uk/CJK/Evidence/Korea_Road_Atlas.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Evidence&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is Zhuang:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WmVWy.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WmVWy.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Sawndip-Latin hybrid = enj &quot;to stick out one's chest or stomach&quot; (= ⿰益先 in Ext. G)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we've got Kanji-Latin hybrid, Hanja-Hangul hybrid &amp;amp; Sawndip-Latin hybrid characters, but where are the Hanzi-Latin hybrid characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What Hanzi-Latin hybrid characters exist? (If any?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-07-27T14:14:00.420" Title="What Hanzi-Latin hybrid characters exist?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34540" CreationDate="2019-07-23T21:15:37.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不……了 = not ... anymore&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;忙&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; busy &lt;strong&gt;anymore&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我以前学习英语，现在&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;学习&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;。I used to study English, now I do&lt;strong&gt;n't&lt;/strong&gt; study &lt;strong&gt;anymore&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T21:15:37.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34580" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34581" CreationDate="2019-07-23T22:52:34.040" Score="1" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find distinct words referring to green and orange melons. Would it just be 橙色的 and 绿色的哈密瓜?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21935" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T01:41:50.193" Title="Is there just one word, 哈密瓜, for both honeydew melons and cantaloupes?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34580" CreationDate="2019-07-23T23:17:51.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honeydew is also known as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蜜露甜瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which can be shortened to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蜜瓜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8E%9A%E7%9A%AE%E7%94%9C%E7%93%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; also proposes the following terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;罗马甜瓜 (Cantaloupe)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;白兰瓜 (Honeydew)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哈密瓜 all the meanwhile is also interchangeable with Hami Melon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蜜瓜 can also be a term for muskmelons in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is very malleable so YMMV &amp;amp; you might just be better off with something like 绿哈密瓜. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-24T01:41:50.193" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T01:41:50.193" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34580" CreationDate="2019-07-24T01:33:49.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Names probably depends on location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong, green Honeydew is 蜜瓜 and orange Cantaloupe is 哈密瓜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蜜瓜 comes from the name Honeydew. 蜜 is honey in Chinese. It is very sweet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哈密瓜 comes from a place name 哈密 in Northwestern China. It is less sweet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T01:33:49.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34578" CreationDate="2019-07-24T02:04:27.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is hard to eliminate all possibilities. But from daily life, there is no such hybrid characters. It is more simple to treat a Latin letter as a character. There is no practical use of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 維他命Ａ (Vitamin A, also known as 維生素甲)，Ｔ尺 (T-square, also known as 丁字尺)，Ｔ恤(T-shirt, also known as 短袖圓領衫).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Hong Kong, it is common to write Arabic numerals and Latin letters for shorthand in work or less formal conversation, mixing homophone and shape and English. For example, 0T for 檸茶(lemon tea), 0水 for 檸水(lemon water), c9 for 師奶 (housewives). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might find hybrid in the brand logos and some artistic designs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a joke in a Hong Kong film Love Undercover (新紮師妹) and create a fake hybrid character like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p5qIC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p5qIC.png&quot; alt=&quot;Sir as surname&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T02:04:27.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34578" CreationDate="2019-07-24T02:06:54.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hanzi-Latin hybrid characters should be a system using Hanzi and Latin characters simultaneously&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hanzi strobes and Latin charaters definitely can not be mingled in ONE symbol. I never heard that. However Hanzi characters and Latin charaters can occur sequentially in a sentence and a paragraph&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T02:06:54.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34585" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34617" CreationDate="2019-07-24T02:11:11.587" Score="3" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people get the single Chinese character &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E7%A5%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;神&lt;/a&gt; (shén) tattooed on them (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://itattoopictures.blogspot.com/2009/05/god-japanese-character-tattoo.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://o-tattoo.info/2019/god-tattoos-for-men/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;) thinking it means &quot;God&quot;.  I suspect most of them are Christians, where it's a fundamental part of their beliefs that God is unique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does the single character 神 refer to &quot;God&quot; (the unique God, such as in e.g. Christianity) or just &quot;god&quot; or &quot;deity&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plurals are used differently in Chinese and English, which makes me a bit skeptical.  Also, most things in Chinese require multiple characters to refer to them uniquely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T10:25:31.517" Title="Does the single character 神 refer to &quot;God&quot; (the unique God, such as in e.g. Christianity) or just &quot;god&quot; or &quot;deity&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34585" CreationDate="2019-07-24T02:30:04.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;神 means an entity having a supernatural power. it can be a god, a stone, a temple, a student with very ability to learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;神 means any thing you can not achieve figuratively&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T02:30:04.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34585" CreationDate="2019-07-24T02:33:08.833" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends. When Christianity came again in China, missionaries borrowed local religious terms. You can expect these words are not unique to Christianity. The actually meaning relies on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one is from Christianity background, 神 is God. If not, it is not. There are alternative words for God like 上帝 and 天主.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;神 was created long long time ago in oracle bone script. There is a wide range of meanings attached to it. Apart from a supreme god, and deities, even spirit of human being can call 神.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T02:33:08.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34588" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-24T03:14:43.773" Score="1" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;外援&quot; literally means &quot;foreign assistance&quot;. Why are &quot;外籍球员&quot; called &quot;外援&quot; then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T10:03:12.120" Title="Why “外籍球员” is written as &quot;外援&quot; instead of &quot;外员&quot;？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;abbreviations&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34588" CreationDate="2019-07-24T03:45:14.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;外援 Is short for 外來援軍 (reinforcement from outside). It refers to players who came from outside of your organization&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although in practice, all the 外援 are 外籍球员, but in theory, a team can borrow a player from another local term for a period, and that player from other term can also be called 外援 (outside reinforcement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My point is, 外 in 外援 doesn't refer to 外籍(foreign), it refers to 外來 (from outside); and 援 is not a short form of 援助 (assistance), but a short form of 援軍 (reinforcement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I stated before, since all the 外援 are 外籍球员, people can safely presume 外援 = 外籍球员&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;outside of team sport lingo, 外援 mostly refers to &quot;Foreign aid&quot;, short for 對外援助 or 外來援助&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-24T10:03:12.120" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T10:03:12.120" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34585" CreationDate="2019-07-24T06:16:58.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;神 is a common title for immortals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KDoC8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KDoC8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They're all 神.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T06:16:58.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34576" CreationDate="2019-07-24T09:36:35.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The calligraphy seems identify two namings(both should be male names): 張果(right column), 朱自然(left column)&#xA;But I didn't found any related information or related about Zen for these namings from Google.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22443" LastEditorUserId="22443" LastEditDate="2019-07-24T09:42:12.307" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T09:42:12.307" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34574" CreationDate="2019-07-24T10:23:00.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(Part 1) Was the component form of 「舟」 ever differentianted from 「月」 in handwriting (from 楷書 onwards)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you count handwritten dictionaries or volumes, then yes, they're usually recorded as variant characters. See a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/ytz_13379j.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師 record&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tJC67.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tJC67.png&quot; alt=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/ytz_13379j.html&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(Part 2) It seems that there were efforts to differentiate the various origins of 「月」 in a character, but were those efforts ever widespread?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're talking about &lt;em&gt;handwriting&lt;/em&gt;, I don't believe that this is true in a mass-scale sense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ckJGf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ckJGf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Excerpt from a Song Dynasty version of Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're talking about the print styles in the Kangxi dictionary, I'll draw your attention to the layout first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PiEee.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PiEee.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can probably infer, Kangxi print styles made a conscious effort to incorporate &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; small seal script features. General print shapes before or even after &lt;em&gt;Kangxi&lt;/em&gt; did not really do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P6G13.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P6G13.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Excerpt of&lt;/em&gt; 《論語主疏》 &lt;em&gt;printed in the fourth year of Qianlong&lt;/em&gt;, from &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&amp;amp;res=77721&amp;amp;by_collection=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ctext&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Would it be seen as strange for someone make that distinction in their handwriting today (although the usefulness of actually doing this can be debated)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can take the ROC standard as an example, because we know that they differentiate between「月」and「⺼・肉」...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KZ7W9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KZ7W9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...but not with「舟」!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1aHSp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1aHSp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the effort in distinguishing them results in such a small change in the print shape that, if you carry this on in handwriting, I doubt that it'll be seen as weird. It'll be kind of weird if you fully wrote「舟」though, I'd imagine that someone not familiar with paleography might not even recognise the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T10:23:00.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34585" CreationDate="2019-07-24T13:45:47.007" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The proper Chinese term for God is 上帝 (Shang Ti) or the Highest Sovereign. See: Legge's &quot;Notions of the Chinese on God and Spirits.&quot; 神 is the term for &quot;god(s)&quot; as in small capital g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To the Chinese, 神 are inferior to 上帝. 上帝 could be considered as being in the class/order of 神, but 神 can never be considered equal to 上帝.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no plural or singular forms of nouns in Chinese, so 神 could be &quot;god&quot; or &quot;gods&quot; depending on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Christian missionaries used 神 because 上帝 was distinctly singular. The Chinese understanding was that there was only one. The concept of the Trinity caused Westerners to use 神 and impose their own understandings on that word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22427" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T13:45:47.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34594" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-24T18:12:04.797" Score="1" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I was listening to the song &quot;我的新衣” by Vava, and at a point the rapper Ty sings. And for some reason in this verse走到街上就像一千台进口奔驰 instead of 街 I listen he raps kāi. Can someone please tell me what he raps? Is it maybe some local accent and that's why I'm not hearing him pronouncing 街（jiē）properly? Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21929" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-07-24T21:14:19.267" LastActivityDate="2020-12-29T21:14:55.773" Title="Help with song lyrics pronunciation （我的新衣）?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;songs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34595" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34596" CreationDate="2019-07-24T18:31:01.850" Score="0" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have do not speak Chinese and need to know what the verb (as an instruction) &quot;&lt;strong&gt;repeat&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; means.&#xA;I'd like to use it when asking someone to repeat what I say just after me. I wish to use the verb &quot;&lt;strong&gt;repeat&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; as it is to make it as simple as possible.&#xA;Thanks in advance..&#xA;Cheers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22447" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T20:15:16.597" Title="&quot;Repeat&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34595" CreationDate="2019-07-24T19:37:01.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Repeat&quot; in Chinese is '重复'(repeat &lt;em&gt;an action&lt;/em&gt;) or '复述'(repeat &lt;em&gt;a speech&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you just say &quot;复述&quot;, It would sound too blunt. To be polite, you could say: &quot;请复述(一次)&quot; - &quot;please repeat (once)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please notice, the term &quot;复述&quot; is very literary. The colloquial way to say &quot;please repeat&quot; is &quot;请跟着再说一遍&quot; (please follow and repeat/ please repeat it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to say: &quot;please repeat after me&quot; you can say &quot;请跟着我再说一遍&quot; (please follow me and repeat) or 请复述我說的词句/字句&quot; (Please repeat the words/ word I say)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to say: &quot;please repeat this words&quot; you can say &quot;请复述这个词句/字句&quot; (please repeat this words/word)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-24T20:15:16.597" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T20:15:16.597" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34597" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-24T19:56:22.993" Score="2" ViewCount="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I write to other Americans about Chinese colleagues the name order is often confusing.  As a made up example, (so as not to use a real person's name) if someone's name is Chiao Chien then even for someone who knows some Chinese family names it is impossible to tell from the spelling whether that has surname first, or given name first.  Somewhere I learned a convention that you can write CHIAO Chien or Chien CHIAO to show the surname is CHIAO, no matter which order it is written. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I do not know if this is a good convention. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a good way to show which is the surname?  Is there a better way (without simply saying explicitly each time which is the surname and which name order I am using)?, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T01:14:51.357" Title="Conventions for indicating a surname" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34594" CreationDate="2019-07-24T21:17:17.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation is most likely from a topolectical influence. If you check &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A1%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary's entry on「街」&lt;/a&gt;, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Op6x.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Op6x.png&quot; alt=&quot;screenshot showing pronunciations in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Min Bei, Min Dong, Min Nan and various topolects&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: as @user3306356 has noted, the rapper is speaking/rapping/singing in a topolect of Chengdu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-12-29T21:14:55.773" LastActivityDate="2020-12-29T21:14:55.773" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34606" CreationDate="2019-07-24T23:37:16.607" Score="1" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Related to the video game Dishonored. I'm not looking for the characters for 'Ashamed' or 'Insulted', words that would not work to properly describe in English the game title :D. Any other choices? I need something like 'I lost my honor by being betrayed' or 'the betrayal stole my honor'. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22448" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T03:02:49.270" Title="What are the Chinese characters for the American English word &quot;Dishonored&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7215" CreationDate="2019-07-25T00:12:25.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree, 狗改不了吃屎 refers to &quot; A person who cannot change his bad habbit&quot; , note that the emphasis is on the person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;江山易改，本性难移 means it is easier to change the 江山/the country/the world than to change a single person character. The emphasis is completely different than the previous one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20393" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T00:12:25.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34599" CreationDate="2019-07-25T01:08:30.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;汉奸&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;狗汉奸&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;叛徒&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Pronounced as Han Jian, Gou Han Jian, or Pantu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-10-24T03:02:49.270" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T03:02:49.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34597" CreationDate="2019-07-25T01:14:51.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes，using capital letters is adopted in China journals now. &#xA;I sometime use this comma style, like my name &quot;Chen, Kui Fu&quot;.The word Chen before the comma is my surname, and what follows the comma is my give name, &quot;Kui Fu&quot;. I think this style is very efficient in publishing papers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T01:14:51.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34367" CreationDate="2019-07-25T04:01:42.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, we seldom say 扔(weng1)垃圾 as 扔 is more commonly used in wriiten Chinese. We either say 掉(deu6) 垃圾 or 抌(dam2)垃圾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22449" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T04:01:42.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34599" CreationDate="2019-07-25T04:12:10.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say 背叛之辱 is pretty good as it means feeling humiliated after being betrayed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22449" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T04:12:10.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34599" CreationDate="2019-07-25T05:47:29.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you transliterate  &quot;Dishonored&quot;  and  use &quot;狄仕安纳特&quot; /Dí shì ān nà tè/ ? The original meanings of the characters are irrelevant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for translation, I think 雪恥者 (the one who seeks to restore his honor) is quite simple and direct . The one who lost his honor by being betrayed would naturally make restore his honor his mission in life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chinese editors have a habit of renaming foreign titles instead of translate them, you can give it a new name base on the plot.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-25T06:06:39.903" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T06:06:39.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34599" CreationDate="2019-07-25T06:52:28.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game is called &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%86%A4%E7%BD%AA%E6%AE%BA%E6%A9%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;耻辱&lt;/a&gt; on the mainland. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;羞辱 also on the mainland&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;冤罪杀机 in HK &amp;amp; TW&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the details might not be 100% accurate as it looks like Wikipedia is giving contradictory information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dishonored 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;耻辱2 (Mainland)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;羞辱2 (Mainland)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;冤罪杀机 (HK &amp;amp; TW)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-07-25T08:06:12.337" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T08:06:12.337" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34607" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34608" CreationDate="2019-07-25T09:24:12.477" Score="5" ViewCount="422" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 4 elements of this character are well known (claw/plectrum; net; north-east; short measurement), but I cannot see any connection between them that might result in the concept of 'baron'.  Can anyone shed some light on this mystery?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22453" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-07-27T09:46:45.233" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T20:37:05.257" Title="Meaning of the elements of 爵 (baron)" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34607" CreationDate="2019-07-25T10:35:40.863" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 4 elements of this kanji are well known (claw/plectrum; net; north-east; short measurement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, this way of interpreting Chinese character components is not correct. As part of other characters, for the vast majority of the time, character components represent either meaning or sound of the word they &lt;strong&gt;originally were created for&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「爪・爫」and「寸」are both pictures of hands (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/65190/what-is-the-meaning-of-the-radical-%e6%89%8b-as-a-part-of-character&quot;&gt;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/65190/what-is-the-meaning-of-the-radical-%e6%89%8b-as-a-part-of-character&lt;/a&gt;);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「罒」only means &lt;em&gt;net&lt;/em&gt; when it is an abbreviation of「网」(and since you haven't established that「爵」has had the same character components and structure since its inception, you can't make any assumptions about the character components);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「艮」doesn't mean &lt;em&gt;north-east&lt;/em&gt;; in this case it is an abbreviation of「皀」which is a picture of a food basket and forms the bottom part of「食」(&lt;em&gt;to eat&lt;/em&gt;); see &lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/65804/what-is-the-etymology-of-the-kanji-%e9%a3%9f&quot;&gt;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/65804/what-is-the-etymology-of-the-kanji-%e9%a3%9f&lt;/a&gt;. The abbreviation of「皀」into「艮」has a different origin to「艮」itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not that any of this matters for this particular character, because every component you've listed (apart from arguably「寸」) is a result of graphical corruption.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XXOJs.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XXOJs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TGFiA.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TGFiA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;乙&lt;/a&gt;4508&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=22067&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集22067&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HjfmE.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HjfmE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;前&lt;/a&gt;5.5.2&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=3409&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集3409&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Bzd7.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Bzd7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;爵父癸卣蓋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4988&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4988&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「爵」was originally a picture of an alcohol vessel. As seen in the top two illustrations, the vessel was of various shapes, sometimes with three legs, sometimes with a few columns near the top, and sometimes with a long handle. This is reflected in the character shape variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1WYGi.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1WYGi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;伯公父勺&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=9935&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成9935&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uNFV5.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uNFV5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;秦律雜抄37&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zCz23.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zCz23.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keeping the columns and the handle,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The body and legs of the character were later semantically corrupted into or replaced with「鬯」, then corrupted into「皀」and finally abbreviated into「艮」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The handle was later replaced with「又」, then「寸」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The columns near the top were corrupted into「爪・爫」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The area near the mouth of the vessel was corrupted into「罒」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「鬯」depicts another kind of wine vessel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SNJk2.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SNJk2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;京都1264&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=23127&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集23127&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QEnHb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QEnHb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;夨令方彝&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=9901&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成9901&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gv8D1.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gv8D1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77390&amp;amp;page=41&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;鬯部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/98H96.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/98H96.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning to do with &lt;em&gt;feudal title of an official&lt;/em&gt; (&amp;quot;baron&amp;quot;) is either a phonetic loan or semantic extension (wine ceremonies were usually conducted by people who can afford them, most commonly officials).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國哲學書電子化計劃&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=77351&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;宋・徐鉉等奉敕校定　漢・許慎《說文解字》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T20:37:05.257" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27127" CreationDate="2019-07-25T20:02:03.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to google, 高举旗帜 means 'Raise the flag'.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vbXEq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vbXEq.png&quot; alt=&quot;Image of top search&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22454" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T20:02:03.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34610" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-25T21:25:05.793" Score="1" ViewCount="532" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something that can be useful for an intermediate language student of a language is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolingual_learner%27s_dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;monolingual learner's dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, which uses a restricted set of vocabulary to define a much larger set of headwords. A particularly impressive example of this for English is &lt;a href=&quot;http://learnthesewordsfirst.com/about/what-is-a-multi-layer-dictionary.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Learn These Words Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, which starts with just 60 vocabulary words and builds up in several layers to the 2000 words used in the definitions in the 70,000 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ldoceonline.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Longman English Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;. Does anything like this exist for Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18392" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T09:47:08.027" Title="Is there a good monolingual learner's dictionary for Chinese?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;dictionary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34611" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-07-26T00:58:26.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading, stories and books, and other Chinese literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22454" LastEditorUserId="22454" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T01:09:11.193" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T01:09:11.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34612" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-07-26T00:58:26.990" Score="0" Body="The Chinese literature" OwnerUserId="22454" LastEditorUserId="22454" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T01:09:43.787" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T01:09:43.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34610" CreationDate="2019-07-26T02:43:37.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i would recommend the 國語辭典. it’s authoritative, maintained by the 教育部, of taiwan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/search.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/search.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;further, you can download it freely (cc 3.0 licence):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.publicense.moe.edu.tw/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.publicense.moe.edu.tw/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T02:43:37.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34614" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34625" CreationDate="2019-07-26T04:33:36.487" Score="3" ViewCount="564" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, a woman would call her mother in law her &quot;家婆&quot; or her &quot;奶奶&quot;, and address her only as &quot;奶奶&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding of the same terms in Mandarin is, a woman would call her mother in law her &quot;婆婆&quot; and address her as &quot;婆婆&quot; as well (&lt;em&gt;Cantonese do not do that, because &quot;婆婆&quot; can mean 外婆 - 'mother's mother ' in Cantonese&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, do Mandarin speakers use the term &quot;家婆&quot; to refer to a woman's mother in law? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also suspect Mandarin speaking women do not address their mother in law as &quot;奶奶&quot; because &quot;奶奶&quot; could also mean grand mother (father's mother) in Mandarin. (&lt;em&gt;Cantonese do not use &quot;奶奶&quot; for &quot;father's mother&quot;, Father's mother is 嫲嫲 or 阿嫲 in Cantonese&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;when Cantonese people mention Mandarin, we are referring 普通話, the official standard Mandarin dialect. Sub- dialects within Mandarin are not considered.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-27T13:15:26.503" LastActivityDate="2019-07-27T13:17:00.527" Title="Is 家婆 the term for a woman's &quot;mother in law&quot; in Mandarin too?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34615" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34702" CreationDate="2019-07-26T06:11:36.360" Score="2" ViewCount="493" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1153249918129192960&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tweet&lt;/a&gt; kicked off my interest in this topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AFAIK, &quot;The Legend of Oghuz Khagan&quot; is one of the classics in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Uyghur&lt;/a&gt; literature and it has been called one of the great poetic epics of Uyghur history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.renren.com/share/235307721/4665878884&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a translation&lt;/a&gt; into Chinese by &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%80%BF%E4%B8%96%E6%B0%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Geng Shimin&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does an English translation exist of &quot;The Legend of Oghuz Khagan&quot;? The work doesn't seem to be very long, but I can't seem to find much info on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T05:53:13.553" Title="Is there an English translation of &quot;The Legend of Oghuz Khagan&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34616" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34621" CreationDate="2019-07-26T08:30:05.810" Score="3" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw the word 商砼 written all over a large vehicle but &lt;em&gt;Pleco Basic Chinese-English Dictionary&lt;/em&gt; defines 砼 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;NOUN&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  DATED&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  concrete &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm curious as to why they say 砼 is dated, I couldn't find a lot of other information about this. The character seems very much in use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T20:34:11.843" Title="Why is 砼 considered to be dated?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34585" CreationDate="2019-07-26T08:58:33.640" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on your religion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditionally,&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shen_(Chinese_religion)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;「神」&lt;/a&gt;is just a supernatural being, applied to anything from mountain gods to river gods to the sky god.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ancient China only ever had a &quot;Highest God&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangdi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;「上帝」&lt;/a&gt;, not a &quot;Unique God&quot; like Christianity/Islam/Judaism.「上帝」was never said to do things like &lt;em&gt;create the universe&lt;/em&gt;. If you're looking for special vocabulary for a &quot;Unique God&quot; in the Chinese language, you won't find one, because that is not really a Chinese concept (nor a concept in most other ancient languages, which were all polytheistic, if hierarchical).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All Chinese-origin words that you see which purportedly refers to the &quot;Unique God&quot; are strictly a &lt;strong&gt;repurposement of existing Chinese vocabulary by Christians&lt;/strong&gt; (or whatever other religion). Specifically,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「神」and「上帝」are used by &lt;em&gt;Protestant Christians&lt;/em&gt; in an attempt to connect Christianity to some form of native Chinese belief. Specifically,「上帝」is explicitly used to connect the Christian's God to the Ancient Chinese &lt;em&gt;Shangdi&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「上帝」is avoided by &lt;em&gt;Catholic Christians&lt;/em&gt;, who overwhelmingly uses the term「天主」. Apparently, this is due to the exact same reason as &lt;em&gt;Protestant Christians&lt;/em&gt; but in reverse: a previous pope wanted to explicitly &lt;em&gt;avoid&lt;/em&gt; the Christian's God with Chinese &lt;em&gt;Shangdi&lt;/em&gt;, because &lt;em&gt;Shangdi&lt;/em&gt; was just part of a polytheistic religion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ironically and rather unfortunately for Catholics,「天主」&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%BB_(%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;was the name of an ancient non-unique deity&lt;/a&gt; in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;State of Qi&lt;/a&gt;, and was only one deity among eight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In casual language,「神」is a kind of slang meaning &lt;em&gt;amazing&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;awesome&lt;/em&gt;, in the same manner that &lt;em&gt;god&lt;/em&gt; is used as a word for someone who is really good at something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「你打球好神！簡直比NBA球星還厲害！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Your [basket]ball play is amazing! Even better than NBA stars!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless someone explicitly states that they meant the Christians' God, I would rather think that the tattoos of「神」mean &lt;em&gt;god&lt;/em&gt; as in &quot;I'm a God/I'm awesome&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T10:25:31.517" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T10:25:31.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34610" CreationDate="2019-07-26T09:25:07.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China,students commonly use physical book of 新华字典 and 现代汉语词典，they don't have official online website. In fact,the work about dictionary digitization in mainland China is very poor.Most people have to use Baidu or other search engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native speaker,&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt; is a good tool for me,but I think it is maybe difficult for non-native speakers,because much content provided you will never use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21784" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T09:25:07.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34610" CreationDate="2019-07-26T09:40:03.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong has an official monolingual Primary Education character-to-word dictionary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.edbchinese.hk/lexlist_ch/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;香港小學學習字詞表&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has an English mode too (click 轉往：中英對照香港學校中文學習基礎字詞 at the top of the page)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T09:47:08.027" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T09:47:08.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34616" CreationDate="2019-07-26T18:49:08.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not think it is dated, I have been seeing this characters in company names as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 砼 is invented as a substitute for word 混凝土，which is often used but complicated to write. 砼 means 人工石，which is what concrete is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%A0%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度百科&lt;/a&gt; and other resources to find information on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2019-07-29T20:34:11.843" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T20:34:11.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34622" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-26T23:24:41.737" Score="4" ViewCount="487" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%92%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%E5%92%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt; provide a pronunciation of 咯 (as in the sentence-final particle indicating that something is obvious) as lo5. &quot;lo&quot; isn't listed on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_table&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's pinyin table&lt;/a&gt;, and I thought only bo/po/mo/fo could drop the &lt;em&gt;u&lt;/em&gt; from &lt;em&gt;-uo&lt;/em&gt;. Is this the standard pinyin? Is &quot;lo&quot; pronounced the same as &quot;luo&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastActivityDate="2019-07-27T10:28:15.503" Title="Is lo (咯) valid pinyin?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34614" CreationDate="2019-07-27T06:32:58.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No,I’ m native mandarin speaker,i have not heard anyone use 家婆 in northern China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21784" LastActivityDate="2019-07-27T06:32:58.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34614" CreationDate="2019-07-27T07:03:15.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason I ask this question is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/40355/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this dictionary&lt;/a&gt; said the term 家婆 is used in both Cantonese and Mandarin/Standard written Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a closer look at the entry, I noticed it only listed the jyuping (Cantonese): /gaa1 po4*2/ for this entry. The Mandarin pinyin is not listed. The only reason I can think of is this term is Cantonese only. The note that stated this term is used in both Cantonese and Mandarin is obviously incorrect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-07-27T07:03:15.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34614" CreationDate="2019-07-27T09:33:17.303" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess we should first remember that &amp;quot;Mandarin&amp;quot; is a related group with &lt;strong&gt;many dialects&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mDx4w.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mDx4w.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;使用者分佈圖；深綠: &lt;strong&gt;官話&lt;/strong&gt;, 淺綠: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E6%99%8B%E8%AF%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;晉語&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「家婆」is &lt;em&gt;topolectical&lt;/em&gt; (方言詞). In certain Mandarin &lt;em&gt;dialects&lt;/em&gt;,「家婆」is a valid term for &lt;em&gt;the husband's mother&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黃飛卿　《五伯娘和新兒媳》：＂五伯娘，你剛做家婆就這麼嘴碎。＂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A9%86%E5%A9%86#Synonyms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;dialectical synonyms of husband's mother&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; for the Mandarin dialects which use「家婆」for this meaning. Note: no Mandarin dialect appears to use「奶奶」for this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Standard Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (普通話, 國語, 華語), which (with minor variations) is the national written and spoken standards of PRC, ROC (Taiwan), and Singapore, the word referring to &lt;em&gt;husband's mother&lt;/em&gt; is unambiguously「婆婆」.「家婆」is non-standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-27T13:17:00.527" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34578" CreationDate="2019-07-27T09:42:46.253" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you consider only &quot;official&quot; characters encoded in the Unicode 12.1, as opposed to the Private Use Area (PUA) that you are referring to, or other unstandardized and humorous characters, then there doesn't seem to be any Latin-Hanzi hybrids. &lt;strong&gt;At all.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I carefully looked through Unicode 12.1 ranges for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese characters, specifically:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U3400.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U20000.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B&lt;/a&gt; – this document alone took me 3 days to process.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2A700.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK Unified Ideographs Extension C&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2B740.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK Unified Ideographs Extension D&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2B820.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2CEB0.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK Unified Ideographs Extension F&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/UF900.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK Compatibility Ideographs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U4E00.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CJK Unified Ideographs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And noticed plenty of unusual and peculiar ideographs, like these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gc4RV.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gc4RV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Unusual Chinese characters&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XDEnc.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XDEnc.png&quot; alt=&quot;Strange Chinese and Japanese hieroglyphs&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EROib.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EROib.png&quot; alt=&quot;Peculiar Chinese and Japanese characters&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But not a single character contains a Latin letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest to look like having a letter inside are these two. They have a stroke that looks precisely like a lowercase Greek &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;alpha&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nNtVE.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nNtVE.png&quot; alt=&quot;A radical looks like Greek alpha letter&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19931" LastEditorUserId="19931" LastEditDate="2019-07-27T14:14:00.420" LastActivityDate="2019-07-27T14:14:00.420" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34622" CreationDate="2019-07-27T10:28:15.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Definition&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to yabla, 'Io' is a valid pinyin.&#xA;Quoting yabla:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;咯 &#xA;  luò&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to cough up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;咯 &#xA;    lo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;(final particle similar to 了, indicating that sth is obvious)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;咯 &#xA;  gē&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(phonetic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Usage&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example Usage just for that middle one(from yabla):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;哟呵呵呵我们回来咯回来了回来了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;yohēhēāwǒmenhuílailohuílailehuílaile&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English:&#xA;Ha ha ha ha! We are back. -You are back. You are back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Sidenotes&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pinyin table from allsetlearning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PWZVY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PWZVY.png&quot; alt=&quot;pinyin table&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That proves to me that lo is a valid pinyin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22454" LastActivityDate="2019-07-27T10:28:15.503" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34628" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-27T20:45:11.037" Score="4" ViewCount="302" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why are words like 天、面、先、盐 romanized in pinyin as tian, mian, xian, and yan, even though the ending is pronounced [iɛn], and would be better represented as -ien? Likewise, why are words like 卷、全、选、元 romanized as juan, quan, xuan, and yuan, when the final is pronounced [yɛn] and would be better represented as -uen? (at least the way northern Chinese people pronounce it – it seems that southern Chinese people pronounce it as [yan])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it that those words actually were pronounced with a [ian] and [yan] final in the past? That doesn't seem like a complete explanation, as Wade-Giles uses -ien, and Wade-Giles is from 1892 (although it does use -üan and not -üen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastEditorUserId="11374" LastEditDate="2019-07-27T21:14:02.817" LastActivityDate="2021-04-28T10:37:12.347" Title="Why -ian instead of -ien and -üan instead of -üen?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34628" CreationDate="2019-07-28T00:38:18.447" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some Chinese Pinying scholars indeed say 盐 deflect to yien.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For most chinese, ju,qu,xu can not be pronouced out. Only xü,jü,qü can work. However, writing ü is more labored than u, so u replaces ü when confusion does not occur.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-07-28T00:38:18.447" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34628" CreationDate="2019-07-28T11:20:10.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Putonghua is based on one typical Northern dialect. Maybe now southern and northern people read the same character differently, as in [jεn] vs [jan] [in IPA symbol], but the romanization is based on the northern pronunciation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2019-07-28T11:20:10.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34631" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34633" CreationDate="2019-07-28T18:53:05.203" Score="4" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I am trying to convey to someone that I still have much to learn. The first thought that came to my mind was&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我还有很多要学习了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am unsure if the 要...了 structure is necessary. Without it the sentence literally means &quot;I still have a lot of learning&quot; or am I am I reading that too literally? Also 要...了 more closely means &quot;about to happen&quot; so that makes the sentence more closely resemble &quot;I still have a lot I'm about to learn&quot; and that also sounds a bit silly. Is there a different grammar structure that would be more appropriate here or am I going about this all wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T04:36:01.553" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T04:36:01.553" Title="Is the 要...了 grammar structure needed in 我还有很多要学习了?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34631" CreationDate="2019-07-28T23:18:16.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;活到老学道老。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or， more prosaic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还有很多要学习了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-07-28T23:18:16.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34631" CreationDate="2019-07-28T23:23:03.170" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct grammar would be “我还有很多要学习呢”. You may have heard “我要学习了”, which means &quot;I'm about to go study&quot;, but the former sentence means &quot;I still have a lot of learning to do.&quot; The difference is in “呢” and “了”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19845" LastActivityDate="2019-07-28T23:23:03.170" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34634" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34635" CreationDate="2019-07-29T02:29:42.300" Score="3" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a general template for translating, &quot;hopefully we can treat each with more X&quot; where X is some noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully we can treat each other with more consideration.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully we can treat each other with more generosity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully we can treat each other with more thoughtfulness.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this different for Cantonese and Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These translations don't quite feel right (for consideration):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;希望我們可更互相體貼&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;希望大家對大家有更多體貼&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T22:40:09.260" Title="How to say &quot;Hopefully we can treat each other with more X&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34634" CreationDate="2019-07-29T03:19:34.553" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English grammar: [1. hopefully] [2. we can] [3. treat each other] [4. with more (n)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese grammar: [1. hopefully] [2. we can] [3. with more (n)] [4. treat each other]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 以更多(n)] [4. 互相對待]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 以更多寬容] [4. 互相對待]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 以更多體諒] [4. 互相對待]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 以更多體貼] [4. 互相對待]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English grammar: [1. hopefully] [2. we can] [3. treat each other] [4. more (adv)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese grammar: [1. hopefully] [2. we can] [3. more (adv)] [4. treat each other]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 更(adv)] [4. 互相對待]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 更寬容地] [4. 互相對待]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 更體諒地] [4. 互相對待]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 更體貼地] [4. 互相對待]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English grammar: [1. hopefully] [2. we can] [3. be more (adj)] [4. with each other]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese grammar: [1. hopefully] [2. we ] [3. with each other] [4. can be more (adj)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我們] [3. 互相之間] [4. 能更 (adj)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我們] [3. 互相之間] [4. 能更寬容]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我們] [3. 互相之間] [4. 能更友好]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我們] [3. 互相之間] [4. 能更體貼]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can replace 希望 with 但願; replace 能 with 能夠 or 可以; replace 更 with 更加&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(A)is a less common way to speak in Chinese compare to (B) or (C)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我地能夠] [3. 以更多(n)] [4. 互相對待]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我地能夠] [3. 更(adv)] [4. 互相對待]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我地] [3. 互相之間] [4. 能夠更(adj)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我地能夠] [3. 以更多寬容] [4. 互相對待]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我地能夠] [3. 更寬容噉] [4. 互相對待]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 希望] [2. 我地] [3. 互相之間] [4. 能夠更寬容]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can replace 希望 with 但願; replace 能夠 with 可以; replace 更 with 更加&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T04:15:52.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34636" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-29T05:37:06.557" Score="5" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;《&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.cn/dp/B06XTC2BJK/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_zh_CN=%E4%BA%9A%E9%A9%AC%E9%80%8A%E7%BD%91%E7%AB%99&amp;amp;keywords=%E5%AF%8C%E9%A1%BA%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80&amp;amp;qid=1564377852&amp;amp;s=gateway&amp;amp;sr=8-1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;富顺方言&lt;/a&gt;》has an entry that reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【轧】&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  读音：ōā（连读）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  释义：碾压，轧扎。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  举例：1、小心车子轧斗人！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2、有一道菜叫“轧海椒”，下饭安逸得板。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing that is confusing me is the:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;读音：ōā（连读）  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've checked in the actual print edition of the book and actually it seems that the Kindle edition gives more information the book only prints:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;读音：oa（连读） &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;without any diacritics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would &lt;code&gt;ōā（连读）&lt;/code&gt; even sound like? It seems more likely to be a mistake than anything else. Any ideas on the pronunciation of &quot;轧&quot; in 富顺(县)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T14:02:05.243" Title="Pronunciation of &quot;轧&quot; in 富顺(县)?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34636" CreationDate="2019-07-29T09:09:59.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;軋&lt;/strong&gt; is actually has 2 pronunciations based on the meaning.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For this case(&lt;strong&gt;輾壓, rolling or flattening out&lt;/strong&gt;) should pronounced as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;yà&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, like the first syllable of word &quot;&lt;strong&gt;yard&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For another meaning like &lt;strong&gt;&quot;聚集&quot;(gathering)&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&quot;借調&quot;(secondment)&lt;/strong&gt;, should pronounced as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;gá&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, like the first syllable of word &quot;&lt;strong&gt;gallon&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check this: &lt;a href=&quot;http://stroke-order.learningweb.moe.edu.tw/advExplain1.do?big5=AAEE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Traditional version&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://zidian.911cha.com/zi8f67.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simplified version&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm native Chinese speaker, living in Taiwan currently.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22443" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T09:09:59.487" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34628" CreationDate="2019-07-29T13:47:42.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems /ian/ can be a valid &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonetic_transcription&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;broad transcription&lt;/a&gt; of (Pinyin) &lt;strong&gt;ian&lt;/strong&gt;, but [iɛn] and [ian] can be allophones. Pinyin is best thought of as broad transcriptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15859" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T13:47:42.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29379" CreationDate="2019-07-30T16:24:58.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Transcription in Chinese characters&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;ai shi bu ke ni de&amp;quot; is 愛是不可逆的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Grammar&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are grammatically correctly and literally correct. In textbook grammar, it is a pattern of &lt;em&gt;subject + &amp;quot;是&amp;quot; (verb to be) + an adjective (a phrase ended with 的)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;龜是硬的。 Tortoise is hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鬼是恐佈的。 Ghost is terrific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不可逆的 and 不可逆轉的 are phrases ended with 的. Actually they are negation of 可逆的 and 可逆轉的 correspondingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可 is commonly used in translation of -(a)ble in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In more advanced usage, 是 and 的 are optional. We could write 愛不可逆 and 愛不可逆轉 as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Usage&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;不可逆的&amp;quot; is accurate translation of irreversible. But Chinese readers may not get its meaning. Or they may conceive that love is something that cannot be resisted or disobeyed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 愛是不可逆轉的 is grammatically and literally correct for translating &amp;quot;love is irreversible&amp;quot;, it is not so comprehensible for Chinese readers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;逆轉 usually describes that a situation is reversed, from good to bad, or from bad to good. If one is in love, it is 愛. If one is no longer in love, it is 不愛. 愛 could change to 不愛. 逆轉 is problematic when it describes 愛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You make a nice elaboration in your comment. &amp;quot;'Love' or the emotion is something that when given by somebody is difficult to take it back or to reverse that decision once taken.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In search for better translation, your comment reminds me a line &amp;quot;愛是可發不可收&amp;quot; in the lyrics from a Cantonese song 愛在深秋, sung by Alan Tam (譚詠麟), written by lyrist Andrew Lam (林敏聰). 可發 is &amp;quot;able to give&amp;quot; and 不可收 &amp;quot;unable to take it back&amp;quot;. But it is poetic and somehow ambiguous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some more idiomatic phrases like 覆水難收. 覆水難收 literally means &amp;quot;Spilt water can't be gathered up&amp;quot;. We use it to describe &amp;quot;What is done can't be undone&amp;quot;. But I would hesitate to write 愛是覆水難收.  It looks like that &amp;quot;love is put to the end and is not recoverable&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese would use &amp;quot;split water&amp;quot; to describe something that unable to get back. It would be more understandable to write 愛如潑水不可收, literally &amp;quot;love is like split water and one cannot take it back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, we can write 愛過無法磨滅. (Once) loved, (there is) no way to remove (the fact, its trace, its memory).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many words to describe &amp;quot;irreversible&amp;quot;. But &amp;quot;love is irreversible&amp;quot; has implicit meaning and it is very difficult to translate it directly without misleading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T16:24:58.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34640" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-30T19:48:44.897" Score="3" ViewCount="2109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just noticed in Google Translate, &quot;marshmallow&quot; becomes 棉花糖. But I thought 棉花糖 was cotton candy. Does 棉花糖 refer to both? That seems strange. How can two different things be called by the same name? Can anyone explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there another word for &quot;marshmallow&quot;? Another translation I saw is 棉花軟糖.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15671" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T02:30:23.267" Title="Why is &quot;marshmallow&quot; and &quot;cotton candy&quot; both 棉花糖?" Tags="&lt;food&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34640" CreationDate="2019-07-30T21:23:47.610" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 棉花糖 refers to both marshmallow and cotton candy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Marshmallow is like a cotton boll or a cotton pad while cotton candy is like a loosen cotton boll. Both are cotton-like candies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is nothing new that a name refers to two things. People name novelties with their first impression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a very common phenomenon. Look up the definitions of &quot;recorder&quot; in a dictionary. It refers to an recording apparatus, a wind music instrument, and a person who keep record.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;棉花軟糖 is a name seldomly used. People use 棉花糖 exclusively in daily life. So do marketers. Marshmallow is a kind of very common commodity while cotton candy not. In daily conversation, if you mention 棉花糖 with no particular scenes or hints, people will recall marshmallow first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T21:23:47.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34642" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-31T01:52:44.307" Score="2" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading about 雪莲。 It says “雪莲花香袭人，”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure that ’香气袭人‘ is used to indicate a good smell, not a stench. Is that correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 袭 seems to mean 'attack, assail'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, if a smell 'assailed my nostrils,' that would indicate a foul, nasty smell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Attack' or 'assail' also have negative connotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E8%A2%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt; has a meaning for 袭: (14) 盖 [cover], but that does not really mean a smell is good or bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can ’香气袭人‘ ever indicate a bad smell? Why does a good smell '袭人’？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T17:50:36.910" Title="Is 香气袭人 only ever used for a good smell?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34643" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-31T02:05:38.337" Score="0" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this in my moms stuff that she gave me a long time ago, help?&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1ZgJd.jpg&quot; alt=&quot; &quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22476" LastEditorUserId="22454" LastEditDate="2019-08-02T03:25:19.253" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T03:25:19.253" Title="Does any know what the translation is?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-08-02T03:26:56.330" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34642" CreationDate="2019-07-31T02:31:22.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;袭 in 袭人 is referring to 'to rush '  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;袭人&quot; means &quot;rush upon people&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一阵阵恶臭&lt;strong&gt;袭人&lt;/strong&gt;而來 - waves of horrible stench come rushing upon people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一阵阵花香&lt;strong&gt;袭人&lt;/strong&gt;而來 - waves of floral fragrant come rushing upon people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;強烈硫黃味&lt;strong&gt;袭人&lt;/strong&gt;鼻腔 - a strong sulfur smell rush upon people's nasal cavities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;花香 is a popular topic for poets and &quot;花香袭人&quot; (floral fragrant rush upon people)sound poetic but not any other smell. Phrases like &quot;肉香袭人，酒气袭人，屍臭袭人&quot; all sound unnatural because these smell are not popular topic for poets&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile,  &quot;扑鼻&quot; (rush into nose) is as literary as &quot;袭人&quot; but less poetic sounding. &quot;花香扑鼻，肉香扑鼻，酒气扑鼻，尸臭扑鼻&quot; are all natural sounding literary phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-31T03:14:54.910" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T03:14:54.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34643" CreationDate="2019-07-31T03:04:36.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is 勇(brave; courage),  as in 勇敢(brave)，勇气(courage)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T03:04:36.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34643" CreationDate="2019-07-31T03:06:44.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;勇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;brave&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bold&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;adventurous&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;daring&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;courageous&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;firm&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;undaunted&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T03:06:44.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34648" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34652" CreationDate="2019-07-31T17:41:31.217" Score="1" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;My current task includes writing-out numbers in different languages, also mandarin. I have never grappled with mandarin but I checked several resource and tested my algorithm to the best of my believe. But to really make sure that everything works fine I would highly appreciate a second look of a native speaker. Since I don't know any native speakers I came to this place looking for help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My algorithm can be accessed here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://codepen.io/f16r/pen/xvrwOx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://codepen.io/f16r/pen/xvrwOx&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;It is intended to work from 0 to 19999.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help is highly appreciated.&#xA;Thank you very much!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22479" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T23:34:04.870" Title="Writing-out numbers in mandarin till 19999 algorithm" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34649" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34650" CreationDate="2019-07-31T19:24:42.757" Score="3" ViewCount="1073" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any alternative characters to clarify the difference, as the English words and their Greek roots have different meaning. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22448" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T00:39:51.143" Title="Empathy and Sympathy use same characters in Chinese 同情?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34649" CreationDate="2019-07-31T21:07:15.507" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=29&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwiMqILw-9_jAhVsT98KHW1GCy4QmhMwHHoECA0QAg&amp;amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSympathy&amp;amp;usg=AOvVaw3NSG8Ot2F_7pEuY8AWxe8R&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiki&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the &lt;strong&gt;capacity to place oneself in another's position&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sympathy is the &lt;strong&gt;perception, understanding, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form&lt;/strong&gt;. This empathic concern is driven by a switch in viewpoint, from a personal perspective to the perspective of another group or individual who is in need&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Base on the definitions, translate 'sympathy' to 同情 is correct, but the meaning of 'empathy' should be &lt;strong&gt;體諒&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;同情&quot; means &quot;pity&quot; or &quot;sympathy&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;體諒&quot; means &quot;considerate/ understanding&quot; , notice the components of &quot;體諒&quot; are 體(experience) + 諒(understand)-- To 體諒 means &quot;you put yourself in another's position and understand how the other feels&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;體諒&quot; is not the same as &quot;同情&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;同情&quot; someone, means you are pitying, feeling sorry for that someone&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you say you have empathy (體諒) for someone, it doesn't necessary mean you feel sorry for that someone. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我能[&lt;strong&gt;體諒&lt;/strong&gt;]美國一部分白人要保自己的特權階級地位而投川普的票，但我並[&lt;strong&gt;不同情&lt;/strong&gt;]他們&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can [&lt;strong&gt;have empathy&lt;/strong&gt;] for those white Americans who wanted to protect their privileged class status and voted for Trump, but I [&lt;strong&gt;have no sympathy&lt;/strong&gt;] for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Of course if you have empathy for someone, you are much more likely to have sympathy toward that someone as well&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-07-31T21:23:06.903" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T21:23:06.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34648" CreationDate="2019-07-31T23:34:04.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your algorithm have to handle 0 between first and last digits as well. Insert 零 for those cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10003 should be 一萬零三.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10301 should be 一萬零三百零一.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;30028 should be 三萬零二十八.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;41009 should be 四萬一千零九.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T23:34:04.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34649" CreationDate="2019-07-31T23:38:34.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;sympathy translates as &quot;together feeling&quot;, so 同情， 同情心 are good. sympathy has an antonym: 冷淡, but empathy does not. Empathy is an ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;empathy is a relatively new word, the English version of German '(sich) einfühlen.' = 'in feel, feel your way in'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally in relation to art, empathy is: &quot;A term from a theory of art appreciation that maintains appreciation depends on the viewer's ability to project his personality into the viewed object.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;empathy: emotional transfer 感情移入&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern parlance, empathy and sympathy are confused. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T23:38:34.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34655" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-01T09:10:06.630" Score="2" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both Taipa and Cotai contain the character 氹/凼 in their names, with some saying that 凼 is the simplified version of 氹. However, I’ve seen 氹 being used in simplified scripts as well. So, which character is the correct simplified name of Taipa and Cotai&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T18:58:07.163" Title="What is the correct simplified character for Macau’s Taipa and Cotai?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34655" CreationDate="2019-08-01T10:35:06.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no &amp;quot;Simplified&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Traditional&amp;quot; versions of this character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E6%B0%B9%E4%BB%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;澳門本地的「氹」（現代字）為異體字，古作「凼」、「窞」，數碼時代，由於內地字型中缺氹字，產生中國內地部份出版物顯示古字凼仔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The local character used in Macao,&lt;/em&gt;「氹」&lt;em&gt;, is the modern version; in older times, it was written as&lt;/em&gt;「凼」&lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt;「窞」&lt;em&gt;. In the digital age, due to Mainland China initially lacking support for the character&lt;/em&gt;「氹」&lt;em&gt;, various publications substituted the character&lt;/em&gt;「氹」&lt;em&gt;with the character&lt;/em&gt;「凼」&lt;em&gt;instead.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The modern way to write it is「氹」.「凼」was used in the past, when the Mainland didn't encode the character in their digital standards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T10:35:06.033" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34655" CreationDate="2019-08-01T14:58:34.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the info provided by wiki is, very doubtful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the character 氹 (u+6c39) was used in 廣東通志　卷五十一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;蓄水之地為氹　圖錦切&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this book was &quot;composed&quot; in 1730 (雍正八年). isn't it old enough to refute the claim of modern version (現代字）, or variant (異體字)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wCmZ4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wCmZ4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;further, the preface of the book &quot;經詞衍釋&quot; mentioned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;揭於通衢曰淘沙氹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the preface was written in 1873.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wbQth.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wbQth.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would say that 氹 was a cantonese character (粵字), with a long history; that most ordinary rime books, dictionaries did not contain it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T14:58:34.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34655" CreationDate="2019-08-01T18:58:07.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's start from the geography and history of Macau first. Taipa is 氹仔 and Coloane is 路環. They were both islands. The reclamation between Coloane and Taipa picked their initials and got its name Cotai (路氹).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;氹 is a pit or a pool of water in Cantonese. It is a local form of character 潭. There is a hill on Taipa named 大潭山. Actually 氹仔 is alternative form of 潭仔. There are many names of this island but the people of Macao finally settles it with 氹仔.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;氹 is Cantonese only character and early Chinese computing standard GB2312-80 ignores this character. When addressing to this ignorant, some publications in China (PRC) use 凼 instead. 凼 is in the list of GB2312-80.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;凼 is not a simplified form of 氹. It is just an early computer problem in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your information, 路環 is a short form of 過路灣. People of Hong Kong and Macau pronounce 灣 as 環 in some place names. Coloane comes from 過路灣 actually. 過路灣 is an old name of the island and no longer in use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T18:58:07.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34660" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-01T21:17:51.180" Score="0" ViewCount="685" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know how to say, &quot;What's your problem?&quot; as an insult in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19845" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T15:34:13.587" Title="How do you say, &quot;What's your problem?&quot; in Mandarin？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34661" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34669" CreationDate="2019-08-01T23:50:47.453" Score="2" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to figure out how exactly to use 拆开 and what it means since I saw it in a song: Mine, Mine by 周杰伦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the song, the translation i got was disassembling which i would think to be like taking something apart? Though i also get the definition online as to take apart  or separating, with examples of opening letters and presents: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不等我就把所有的礼物都拆开了？&#xA;Would you commonly use this for opening gifts/letters or also in other contexts to mean disassembling something?&#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19781" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T14:03:51.827" Title="What exactly does 拆开 mean and is it commonly used?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34661" CreationDate="2019-08-02T01:25:30.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's fine to use &quot;拆開&quot; to open up a gift, or a package, box, etc., &quot;打開&quot; is also applicable.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For disassembling usage, you might to take apart something 3C products or electronic/mechanical devices, like cell phone, radio, television controller, etc. Use &quot;拆解&quot; also applicable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22443" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T01:25:30.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34661" CreationDate="2019-08-02T02:20:33.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the choice of wording is based on preferences of the artist/writer, and at other times there is some interpretation done with some poetic license.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like the use of the words 拆开 is more appropriate compared to 打开, as the word 拆 has the subtle difference of pulling something apart to indicate the nuance of impatience and untidiness, which is suggested by the lyrics: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;You didn't wait for me to open up all the present.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term 拆开 is more commonly used in specific contexts when you have to take something apart, whereas 打开 is a more generic term that can represent any type of action that involves the opening of something (e.g. a window or a box).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T02:20:33.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34640" CreationDate="2019-08-02T02:30:23.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translated words are often problematic because of the ambiguity that it causes. In this case 棉花糖 can be taken as a direct translation of the word cotton (棉花) and candy (糖), but because the texture of marshmallows can also be described as fluffy like cotton, it is also translated as 棉花 (fluffy) 糖 (candy).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid some of the confusion, cotton candy is also sometimes translated to Chinese using its synonym 'fairy floss' 仙女牙線, which is a direct translation of the word fairy (仙女) and floss (牙線).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T02:30:23.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27171" CreationDate="2019-08-02T02:48:52.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Admittedly there is almost no difference based on the dictionary definition for its usage, and you'll find the same issue when applying it to other objects like cigarettes and bananas where both words are used almost interchangeably. But I might offer you some insight into another aspect that you can consider in how the words can be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The choice of the appropriate word, as suggested by some of the answers, depends on the context as well as the fluency of the sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you wanted to purchase this item, you might actually use 買一个油条 to indicate or emphasis the quantity rather than the shape of item, which sounds better than 買一条油条 or 買一根油条.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When describing the item being consumed, 吃一条油条 might sound less fluent due to the repetition of the word, but the emphasis on the shape of the item helps you to understand how someone would eat it (because it is long and slender). You can also use 吃一根油条 but I don't hear it used as often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T02:48:52.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34642" CreationDate="2019-08-02T02:57:48.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 香 means fragrant (when used as an adjective) or fragrance/perfume/spice (when used as a noun), so 香气 generally can only mean a pleasant smell by definition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is not uncommon in some context for it to be used to mean the opposite, such as when you are being sarcastic. So you have to be aware of the situation to interpret the correct meaning of the phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of the phrase 袭人 is a literary device that helps to convey both the nature and feeling evoked by the smell as something that you can't see, but which overwhelms/covers you. Combine the two 香气袭人, and you create a very visual metaphor for describing a moment when you are suddenly overcome with a lovely scent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T02:57:48.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34667" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-02T11:05:21.760" Score="3" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the proper way to say, &quot;On the way to or from school (suppose from home)...&quot; For example: &quot;On the way to or from school students like to look through the cars windows.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When referring to: going to, coming from work you use the expression 上下班 but I think my teacher said you cannot use  上下学. The expression 放学回家 means going back from home after school finishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone tell me the right expression? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I want to give good point to an answer how can I do it? Last question I didn't know how.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-01T00:11:14.667" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T00:11:14.667" Title="How does one express &quot;On the way to or from school&quot;? Is 上下班 okay?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34667" CreationDate="2019-08-02T11:38:06.880" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One the way = 途中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the way to school - 上学途中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the way to work - 上班途中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the way home - 回家途中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the way home from school - 放学回家途中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the way home from work - 下班回家途中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say 上下班 because it is short for &quot;上班, 下班&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We usually say  &quot;上学, 放学&quot; not &quot;上学, 下学&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although not the logical shortened form, people still use the term 上下学 instead of '上放学' because '上' matching '下' better than '上' matching '放'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you can replace 下班 with 放工&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-02T12:44:41.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T12:44:41.587" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34661" CreationDate="2019-08-02T14:03:51.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason we use 拆 because gifts are usually sealed, wrapped, or tied. The verb 拆 means to remove some structures. For gifts, it is unsealing, unwrapping and untying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;開 is to open up a box or reveal the content.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is no wrapping but simply a box, 打開 is enough. For example, if it is a wedding ring inside a box, the receiver simply opens the box.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T14:03:51.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34667" CreationDate="2019-08-03T00:07:03.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I never did that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the way to or from school，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在往返学校的路上，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;students like to look in the cars parked along the road.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;学生们总是爱往停在路边的汽车里看。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(There may be something worth stealing!)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;（车里也许会有值得盗取的东西！）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T00:07:03.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34667" CreationDate="2019-08-03T00:12:08.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;上下学 sounds stilted to my ear(or even wrong), though it's fairly understandable. It might be a regional matter. (I'm from mainland China. )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would probably put 在上学和放学的路上, 在上学和放学的途中, 在学校和家往返的路上 or 在学校和家往返的途中. It's a bit long. I can't think of a neat way to express it off the top of  my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T00:12:08.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34649" CreationDate="2019-08-03T00:39:51.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, 'empathy' is the &lt;strong&gt;ability&lt;/strong&gt; to understand others' feelings and problems. So, the correct Chinese is 同感力 and I also see some translate it as 同理心, 共情 and etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Sympathy' is the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;feeling of being sorry&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; for someone who is in a bad situation. So, 同情 or 同情心 can fit for this sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 'empathy' and 'sympathy' have some overlap in meaning because if you have great empathy with people, it also suggests that it's easy for you to feel sympathy for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T00:39:51.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34673" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34690" CreationDate="2019-08-03T21:22:15.650" Score="2" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning Mandarin primarily using Lingodeer and when colors were first introduced I was taught to say “_色的” such as in “月亮是白色的”. Now in Lingodeer I am learning of how to put emphasis on certain words and the example they gave was as follows, “妈妈的头发黑黑的”. Evidently “_色的” is not needed in this situation. Is it simply that “黑” or any other color is an adjective rather than a noun and the purpose of “_色的” is to turn a color into a noun? That's the only thing that comes to mind because I had always interpreted sentences such as “月亮是白色的” to mean &quot;The moon is the color white ('s belonging)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T15:22:29.103" Title="When is it necessary to say “_色的” when telling the color of something?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34674" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34679" CreationDate="2019-08-03T22:19:26.600" Score="2" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning Mandarin using Lingodeer and I've encountered the sentence, “这个女孩眼睛大” and I am wondering why it isn't necessary to refer to the girl's eyes with “的” in this sentence? I know that “的” can be left out when referring to someone you're intimate with or related to but I don't think your eyes fall into either of those categories...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-04T03:17:53.833" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T03:30:18.730" Title="Why is “的” not necessary when talking about someone's body parts?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34675" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34678" CreationDate="2019-08-03T23:32:50.157" Score="0" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a bit stuck translating these 6 characters. What does he mean with : &lt;strong&gt;经济生活途径&lt;/strong&gt;? （Probably not 'economic life way')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;记者对社会学者进行访谈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;记者：您认为目前人们交友的目的是什么？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学者：。。。。 在他们看来，现代都市的人际关系应该务实，要寻求能为双方带来收益和便利的&lt;strong&gt;经济生活途径&lt;/strong&gt;。。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take this part:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;要寻求能为双方带来收益和便利的&lt;strong&gt;经济生活途径&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, in 1. it says: 要寻求 。。。途径 = must seek ... a way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further on it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我曾调查过一位叫王威的先生，他很有经济意识，他的人际关系主题鲜明，即以&lt;strong&gt;经济生活&lt;/strong&gt;为中心。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is he really saying, city dwellers can only make friends through financial cooperation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I interpret this as below. Does that seem right? I can't see a way to translate &lt;strong&gt;经济生活途径&lt;/strong&gt; as a word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在他们看来，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;from their point of view,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;现代都市的人际关系应该务实，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the inter-personal relations of modern city dwellers should be pragmatic,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;要寻求能为双方带来收益和便利的经济生活途径&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(they) must seek a way （途径） to bring profit and help to both parties make a living （经济生活）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T17:29:41.147" Title="What does 经济生活 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34674" CreationDate="2019-08-04T01:08:13.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is actually related to the sense you describe, but not exactly the same. You should think of dropping &quot;的&quot; as implying that there is an &lt;em&gt;intimate connection&lt;/em&gt;, in a &lt;em&gt;general&lt;/em&gt; sense and not specifically &quot;romance&quot;, between the subject and the possessed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are intimately possessed of your eyes as they are a part of your body, hence, you can drop &quot;的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, it is not &lt;em&gt;wrong&lt;/em&gt; to use &quot;的&quot; in that you won't be understood if you do, but it does add a more formalizing air.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16171" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T01:08:13.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34673" CreationDate="2019-08-04T01:12:32.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is to use the color as a noun that means &quot;a thing possessed of the attribute of appearing with that color&quot;. Namely, &quot;白色的&quot; means &quot;a quality-of-whiteness-possessing object&quot; and hence, &quot;月亮是白色的&quot; means &quot;the moon, spoken of poetically, is (是) an object which possesses the quality of white coloration (白色的)&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16171" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T01:12:32.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34675" CreationDate="2019-08-04T02:09:27.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about &quot;to seek &lt;strong&gt;business opportunities&lt;/strong&gt; which can bring mutual benefits and favors&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21813" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T02:09:27.950" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34674" CreationDate="2019-08-04T03:18:00.623" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 这个女孩眼睛大,  这个女孩 (this &lt;strong&gt;girl&lt;/strong&gt;) is the subject and 眼睛大 is an adjectival phrase for it. Meaning &quot;[这个眼睛大的][&lt;strong&gt;女孩&lt;/strong&gt;]&quot; (this girl with big eyes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 这个女孩的眼睛大,  女孩的眼睛 (this girl's &lt;strong&gt;eyes&lt;/strong&gt;) is the subject and 大 is an adjective for it. Meaning &quot;[&lt;strong&gt;这个女孩的眼睛&lt;/strong&gt;][很大]&quot; (this girl's eyes are big)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[他][眼大] = [he] [is big-eyed]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[他的眼][大] = [his eyes] [are big]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[他][手快] = [he] [is fast-handed]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[他的手][快] = [his hands] [are fast]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-04T03:30:18.730" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T03:30:18.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3032" CreationDate="2019-08-04T06:15:32.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also check out my little web site: &lt;a href=&quot;https://tonemarks.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tonemarks.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4645" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T06:15:32.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34681" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34684" CreationDate="2019-08-04T09:44:59.847" Score="3" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm perplexed by the line 掉的那么地刺耳 of the song &lt;a href=&quot;https://g.co/kgs/Vr1Fj7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;过不去&lt;/a&gt;. Doesn't the 的 demand a noun to go after it? Is the 刺耳 a verb or a noun? And what's the meaning of the entire line? My highly insecure guess would be &quot;falling so shrill&quot; (???).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22495" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T03:23:47.807" Title="Confused by 的 and 地 in 掉的那么地刺耳" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34681" CreationDate="2019-08-04T10:06:35.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doesn't the 的 demand a noun to go after it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when there isn't a noun, that means the phrase is &lt;em&gt;referring&lt;/em&gt; to a noun, which is omitted in this case due to context (刺耳 is an &lt;em&gt;adjective&lt;/em&gt;). This is what you're missing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;掉的「淚水」那麼地刺耳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the original text translates (liberally) to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而淚水比什麼都還重&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;掉的那麼地刺耳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;...but tears are heavier than anything else,&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;falling in ear-piercing drops&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「刺耳」is basically something completely opposite to &lt;em&gt;soothing to the ears&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T10:11:56.600" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34675" CreationDate="2019-08-04T17:29:41.147" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Base on the context, 经济生活途径 should mean &amp;quot;economical way of living&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;经济 as an adjective &amp;quot;economical&amp;quot; means effectively spending resources for the maximum benefits and convenience (收益和便利)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;生活途径 = way of living&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要寻求(need to seek) 能为双方带来(can bring both parties) 收益和便利的(of benefits and convenience) 经济生活途径 (economical way of living)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Need to seek an economical way of living that can bring both parties benefits and convenience&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T17:29:41.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34681" CreationDate="2019-08-05T03:23:47.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there's a mistake in the lyrics, IMO it should be &lt;code&gt;掉[得]那么地刺耳&lt;/code&gt; since &lt;code&gt;刺耳&lt;/code&gt; is an adverb for the verb &lt;code&gt;掉&lt;/code&gt; here. So the lyrics basically says &lt;code&gt;(tears) are dropping so harshly&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW there are tons of grammar errors in Chinese pop lyrics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12397" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T03:23:47.807" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34685" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-05T03:34:37.513" Score="1" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a situation like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My friend: 你知道StackExchange吗?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Me: 不知道啊, 孤陋寡闻了.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how can I properly translate &lt;em&gt;孤陋寡闻了&lt;/em&gt; here? &quot;&lt;em&gt;I am being ignorant&lt;/em&gt;&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12397" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-05T06:03:05.600" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T11:05:58.377" Title="How can I say &quot;孤陋寡闻&quot; in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34686" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-05T03:35:05.307" Score="4" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone please help me translate this I've literally spent five or six hours and can't find anything thank you so much in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dCj9U.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dCj9U.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22499" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-05-01T02:33:35.687" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T02:33:35.687" Title="Pewter tea container seal character translation (Characters identified: 榮製)" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34685" CreationDate="2019-08-05T05:14:18.517" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;ignorant&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;lack knowledge&amp;quot;, doesn't mean you are stupid or dumb, so  translating &amp;quot;孤陋寡闻&amp;quot;  as &amp;quot;being ignorant&amp;quot; is correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &amp;quot;ignorant&amp;quot; is a derogatory term. If you don't want to be too harsh, you can translate &amp;quot;孤陋寡闻&amp;quot; as  &amp;quot;ill-informed&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friend: 你知道 StackExchange吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Me: 不知道啊, &lt;strong&gt;孤陋寡闻了&lt;/strong&gt;. (&lt;strong&gt;I'm so ill-informed&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ill-informed&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;ill-informed&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;(adj)&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;not having a lot of knowledge especially about current news and events&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T05:19:41.730" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34686" CreationDate="2019-08-05T05:46:50.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should be &quot;榮製&quot;, reading from right.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Meaning might be &quot;Produced honorably&quot; or &quot;Qualified produced&quot;(a bit extended meaning)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22443" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T05:46:50.390" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34685" CreationDate="2019-08-05T11:05:58.377" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;你知道 StackExchange吗?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You know StackExchange?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不知道啊, 孤陋寡闻了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nope, I'm so out of touch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T11:05:58.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34673" CreationDate="2019-08-05T15:22:29.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ah..I'm not an expert in Chinese language but a native speaker, so the answer is just according to my experience. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very likely the character &quot;色&quot; could be omitted if you're about to use a &#xA;word which its most usage is to state a color: white, red, yellow, etc. So the following are both grammatically good: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. 月亮是白色的 (the moon is of white color)&#xA;2. 月亮是白的 (the moon is white)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when you want to be more accurate, the absence of &quot;色&quot; could cause ambiguity:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. 剑是青铜色的 (sword is of bronze color)&#xA;2. 剑是青铜的 (sword is made of bronze)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What really cannot be omitted is &quot;的&quot;. It is &quot;的&quot; that turn a noun into an adjective. We often use &quot;X 是 Y 的&quot; to tell &quot;X is of the property of Y&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could list some characters that in most cases their usage is to state a color: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;红 red&#xA;黄 yellow&#xA;蓝 blue&#xA;黑 black&#xA;灰 gray&#xA;白 white (also has the meaning in vain, but it's an adverb then)&#xA;紫 purple&#xA;绿 green&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22503" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T15:22:29.103" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34691" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34692" CreationDate="2019-08-06T05:03:22.907" Score="4" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was scrolling through the map when I stumbled across a village called:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xz2wV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xz2wV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;猫猫箐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%8C%AB%E7%8C%AB%E7%AE%90%E6%9D%91/9366167?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt; has an entry on the place but it doesn't talk about where they got their name from. It seems quite bizarre. Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-06T06:13:03.303" Title="Why is there a village called &quot;Cat Cat Bamboo&quot; (猫猫箐)?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34691" CreationDate="2019-08-06T05:03:22.907" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found an answer while I was writing up the question &amp;amp; figured I might as well share it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/194108024_708300&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sohu&lt;/a&gt; has an article entitled:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你以为昆明的路名都是瞎起的？&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in which they have an explanation of the name:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;猫猫箐&lt;/strong&gt;：在西山龙门西南面的山里，因为曾有虎豹（俗称猫猫）出没得名。此外，在嵩明县阿子营乡东南部也有一个猫猫箐，因“从前箐里有野猫出没而得名。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yx349.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yx349.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;pic&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They claim that the area used to have tigers and leopards that would emerge from the bamboo groves on the mountains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure about the assertion that they used to have leopards, though. In South Western Mandarin 猫猫 can definitely be a jocular term for tigers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tiaodengyedu.com/html/348/348599/111232685.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《成都方言》&lt;/a&gt; has the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;猫猫 maomao ①猫。成都童谣：“～你不走，乖乖瞌睡有；～你不来，乖乖瞌睡来；～你不咬，乖乖要睡了。”②趣称老虎：～跑到村子里来了。亦作“花猫猫”。&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-06T06:13:03.303" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34693" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-06T15:25:02.467" Score="0" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking into getting a Chinese tattoo saying “Just go with the flow” down my spine but I don’t want to trust Google translate and would much rather get the answers through here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22510" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-06T15:50:13.480" LastActivityDate="2019-08-06T18:07:54.150" Title="Pls help translate a short sentence" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-10T11:20:17.177" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34693" CreationDate="2019-08-06T15:45:26.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just go with the flow might be translated to &quot;隨波逐流&quot;, but the meaning is a bit negative: just follow up the others or no central thought in your mind.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something positive could be translated to &quot;乘風而行&quot;, while the flow in the sentence could be replaced with 'wind'. The meaning is more like to love freedom or liberty without any restrictions or bindings, just go anywhere you want. This is better while you need to take it on tattoo :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22443" LastEditorUserId="22443" LastEditDate="2019-08-06T16:06:54.143" LastActivityDate="2019-08-06T16:06:54.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34693" CreationDate="2019-08-06T15:47:42.903" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;顺其自然&lt;/strong&gt; is the phrase you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even when you put it into Google:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZtrkD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZtrkD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they want to show you results for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Go With The Flow (Song by Tiger Huang)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-06T15:47:42.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34693" CreationDate="2019-08-06T18:07:54.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some more suggestions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zi.media/@whyhtd01com/post/cVwTmj&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隨遇而安&lt;/a&gt; (idiom): not forcing, be content with whatever come your way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.liaotuo.com/remen/suiyuan.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隨緣&lt;/a&gt; (Buddhism term): not forcing, accept fate and act accordingly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-08-06T18:07:54.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34697" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34698" CreationDate="2019-08-06T23:28:02.740" Score="1" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence ‘I want to be[come] a policeman’, why is the verb for ‘become’, ‘do’?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想做一个警察。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wǒ xiǎng zuò yīgè jǐngchá.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen one of the dictionary definitions of 做 to mean ’become’, but this is only after coming across this sentence. I have not heard of 做 meaning anything other than ‘do’ with many expansive concepts related to it, and have only heard of 成 to mean ‘become’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, my question is twofold. Why use 做 instead of 成 - what is the difference in meaning? And, how does the word 做 as a singular character have such a broad meaning from ‘doing’ to ‘becoming’ without the addition of another character (e.g. 做出)? Meaning, the two concepts, though perhaps related, are quite distant without adding additional meaning (e.g. 自 or something). So, what is the background that causes this contextual meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19184" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T04:47:56.753" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T04:47:56.753" Title="How does &quot;do&quot; (做) mean &quot;become&quot; (成)?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-08-13T09:01:11.780" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34697" CreationDate="2019-08-07T00:25:45.217" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;做&quot; contains the meaning of  &quot;be &quot;, not &quot;become&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我想&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;一个警察&quot; means &quot;I want to &lt;strong&gt;be&lt;/strong&gt; a police&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it is &quot;成为&quot; that means &quot;become&quot;, not just &quot;成&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;成 is mostly used as a result complement for varieties of verb&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我想&lt;strong&gt;成为&lt;/strong&gt;一个警察&quot; means &quot;I want to &lt;strong&gt;become&lt;/strong&gt; a police&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;how does the word 做 as a singular character have such a broad meaning from ‘doing’ to ‘becoming’ without the addition of another character&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I stated, 做 can mean 'be' but not 'become'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You know when does it mean 'be' or 'do' by looking into the context.&#xA;When the object after 做 is a task or action, you know 做 means 'do'; When the object after 做 is an identity, you know 做 means 'be'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做功課，做木工，做好事 = do homework, do woodwork, do good thing (功課，木工，好事 are all nouns for action)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做學生，做木匠，做好人 = be a student, be a carpenter, be a good person (學生，木匠，好人 are all nouns for identity)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Notice: don't confuse 做(do/ be) with 造(make), e.g. 做個包子 (be a bun) is not the same as 造個包子 (make a bun)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-07T01:45:15.900" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T01:45:15.900" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34699" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-07T02:48:09.120" Score="2" ViewCount="467" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any fonts that try to compose &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideographic_Description_Characters_(Unicode_block)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Unicode Ideographic Description Characters&lt;/a&gt; into one character? E.g., ⿰女子 would look like 好. I know the Wikipedia page says &quot;rendering systems are not intended to automatically compose the pieces into a complete ideograph&quot;, but this could be helpful for scripts like Sawndip that aren't fully encoded in Unicode. Composing characters overlaid with ⿻ would probably be impossible, but it seems that it shouldn't be hard to at least try to compose characters that are put together just side-by-side with ⿰ ⿱ ⿲ ⿳, especially since something like this is &lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/script-development/hangul&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;already done for Old Hangul syllable blocks&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-20T21:56:34.413" LastActivityDate="2020-08-20T21:56:34.413" Title="Fonts that compose Ideographic Description Characters into one character" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34699" CreationDate="2019-08-07T03:05:19.730" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can edit two like a picture and insert it in text&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T03:05:19.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34701" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34704" CreationDate="2019-08-07T05:28:50.353" Score="7" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apologies that this is a bit off the main focus of the forum, but there aren't any Mongolian or Tibetan stacks yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are dozens to hundreds of Chinese sites repeating each other that Qarhan (&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%AF%9F%E5%B0%94%E6%B1%97%E7%9B%90%E6%B9%96&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;察尔汗&lt;/a&gt;)&amp;mdash;an important playa in Qinghai that gets called a 盐湖 apparently because Chinese doesn't distinguish between salt flats and salt lakes&amp;mdash;is a transcription of a Mongolian name meaning &quot;world of salt&quot; (盐的世界) or &quot;salt pond&quot; or &quot;salt marsh&quot; (盐泽). None of those sites offer the supposed Mongolian word and apparently none can, since there's no Mongolian word for &quot;salt&quot; (let alone &quot;world&quot; or &quot;lake&quot;) that sounds even vaguely similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The larger &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qaidam_Basin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qaidam Basin&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%9F%B4%E8%BE%BE%E6%9C%A8%E7%9B%86%E5%9C%B0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;柴达木盆地&lt;/a&gt;) around Qarhan also gets glossed&amp;mdash;also incorrectly&amp;mdash;as a transcription of a Mongolian name about salt, which shows what's probably going on with Qarhan. The &lt;em&gt;Tibetan&lt;/em&gt; word for salt is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%BD%9A%E0%BE%AD&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ཚྭ&lt;/a&gt; (Wylie: ''tshwa'') which would get transcribed &lt;em&gt;ca&lt;/em&gt; in Tibetan Pinyin if it were coming over directly. It gets turned into ᠴᠠ (''ča'') or ца (&quot;tsa&quot;), however, in Mongolian which the Chinese system romanizes as &lt;em&gt;qa&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it looks like Qarhan should be from a &lt;em&gt;Tibetan&lt;/em&gt; word about salt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's nothing &quot;world&quot; or &quot;pond&quot; or &quot;marsh&quot; that even remotely fits, but the Tibetan word for &quot;plain&quot; or &quot;flatland&quot; seems to be ཐང (''thang'') so maybe the original name was something like &quot;salt flat&quot; and and was written ཚྭ་ཐང་ or ཚྭ་ཐང་།... Maybe?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But do any of y'all know enough about Tibetan, Mongolian, Chinese transcriptions, or Chinese Baidufu to be able to find out what actually happened there? Default Google just keeps washing up more sites repeating the obviously wrong and obviously copied-from-others'-work story about it being directly from Mongolian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17462" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T16:09:59.997" Title="察尔汗: Mongolian and Tibetan transcription into Chinese" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;place-names&gt;&lt;tibetan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34615" CreationDate="2019-08-07T05:53:13.553" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.academia.edu/37520797/EPIC_AS_A_LITERARY_GENRE_AND_THE_TURKISH_EPIC_OGUZ_KHAN_&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Harun Doğruyol&lt;/a&gt; has written on the topic and has found similar issues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;During my research I did not come across any English version of this epic,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but thankfully he also says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;so I have translated the first and pagan version and have attached it to my article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Legendary Turkish Warrior (Alp) Oguz Khan and His Epic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Birth of Oguz Khan  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;……They said let it be.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Here is his image:  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After that they also got in happy and joyful mood&lt;br&gt;&#xA;One day  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Their eyes brightened up, became colorful, filled in light&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That day Moon Khan gave birth to a boy  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bluish, sky-blue was his face&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Redd*ish was his mouth, like a fire was his color of face  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Crimson were his eyes, dark was his face&lt;br&gt;&#xA;His eyebrows were more beautiful than fairies’, how black!  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He came to his mother’s breast he took it and sucked milk&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He did not want to suck milk anymore  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He wanted raw meat, meal and, food&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He wanted wine from his surroundings and, wanted to have fun  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Immediately, he started to talk, utter and say&lt;br&gt;&#xA;After forty days he started to walk and play&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;His feet were as if they were ox’s feet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;His ankles were as if they were wolf’s ankles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;His shoulders were similar to that of sable’s&lt;br&gt;&#xA;His chest is identical to that of a big bear’s&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He was a human but full of hairs&lt;br&gt;&#xA;His body was covered with hairs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He herded the flocks of the horses he caught and rode them&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Days passed, so many years passed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz also grew up and became a handsome hero&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The youth of Oguz Khan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In that age! In that place!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There was a big forest inside Oguz’s homeland&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lots of rivers and streams flowed through this forest&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lots of game animals live in the forest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lots of game birds also flew over it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the forest did a big rhinoceros live&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It ate and didn’t let either animal or human live&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It attacked herds and always ate horses&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It troubled people, took their lives&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It never granted humans their lives&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Such a monster was it, it was that much frightful&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There was a person who was very “Alp” (heroic, sublime, frightful, sacred Turkish warrior) called Oguz Khan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In order to kill that rhinoceros he went to that spot&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He took a spear and a sword with a shield and arrows&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He challenged the rhinoceros that it would die soon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He hunted a deer while hunting in the forest&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He tied it to a tree with a willow branch&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He returned to his house before the morning broke&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When it was dawn he checked the deer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He realized that the rhinoceros had already swallowed the deer&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He caught a bear also instead of a deer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Taking off his golden belt of kingship&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He hanged the bear downstairs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It was morning again, it began to dawn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He came and realized that the rhinoceros had taken his bear&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally this case annoyed him extremely&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He approached the tree himself and stayed under it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the rhinoceros came, it saw Oguz and stopped&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It hit Oguz’s shield with its head &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz hit its head with his spear&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Killing the rhinoceros Oguz saved his homeland&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Beheading it with his sword he took its head&lt;br&gt;&#xA;e returned his home and delivered the news to his country&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One day he saw a white falcon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It perched on the rhinoceros and eating its intestine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He shot an arrow with his bow, the arrow killed the falcon&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He beheaded it then, he murmured himself:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“The rhinoceros ate both the deer and the bear”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“My spear killed it, because it was made of iron”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“A little white falcon ate the huge rhinoceros”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“The arrow and the bow killed it because it was made of copper”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One day&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Oguz’s marriage with the daughter of the sky&lt;br&gt;&#xA;While Oguz was begging of the God&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The darkness fell suddenly, a light descended from the sky&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Such a light was it, brighter than the moon and the sun&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz Khan walked and approached the light&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He saw a girl sitting in the middle of the light&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There was a beauty spot was on her head, as bright as a fire&lt;br&gt;&#xA;She was so beautiful, as if she was the North Star&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Such a beautiful girl was she, the sky smiles with her when she similes&#xA;When she wants to cry, the sky cries with her&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The time Oguz saw the girl, he was overwhelmed&#xA;He fell in love with her; he loved her whole heartily &#xA;He entered the bride’s chamber, got what he wanted&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She became pregnant, after days and nights passed&#xA;Her eyes brightened up when her three sons were born&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They named the first son “Sun“ &#xA;They found the name “Moon” for the second son&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They were glad that third one’s name was “Star”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Oguz’s marriage with the daughter of the ground&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz Khan went to the forest to hunt one day&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There was a tree standing in the middle of the lake&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A girl was sitting in the cavity of the tree&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Her eyes were bluer than the sky, she was a God’s daughter&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Her hair was wavy as if a river wave&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Her tooth was like a pearl shining in her mouth&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anybody living in the world would say that&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ah! Ah! We are dying! My God! We are dying!   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They would say and shout and shout&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Like sweet milk’s becoming kumiss (traditional drink)   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When Oguz saw the girl, he was out of mind&lt;br&gt;&#xA;An ember of fire entered his heart whatsoever   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He loved her whole heartily, he took her hand&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He entered the bride’s chamber, got what he wanted&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They named the first son “Sky“&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They found the name “ Mountain” for the second son   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They were glad that third one’s name was “Sea”&#xA;When Oguz heard this, he had his lineage praised with songs in his homeland   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He gave a big feast&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He provided wealth to his homeland   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missing part&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oguz-Khan’s becoming the “Supreme Khan” of the Turks  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;51&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He gave orders to his inner homeland&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The people agreed to meet, went to Oguz   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz had forty tables prepared&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He had different kinds of food cooked with lots of wine   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;People sat at the tables drank so much kumiss&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So much wine was drunk and so much sweet was eaten   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After the feast he gave this order&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“O! My men! and my nation!”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“I’m now your Khan”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Never let either the shield or the arrow fall from your hand”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“A seal that would lead us should become our sign&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“The Alps should become like wolves howling”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“With iron spears our country should become a forest”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Our hunting ground should be filled with the wild horses”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“Our country should abound with rivers and seas”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“The sun in the sky should become our nation’s flag”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“The sky should become our tent”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“The world should become my country and my nation should be plenty”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He also delivered his order to all round his country&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He informed the ambassadors, everybody learned it   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In one of his messages, he addressed his nation as this:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Since I’m the supreme Khan of the Uighurs” (first settled Turkish tribe)   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“I’m supposed to be the Khan of the world”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Every part of the world is under my rule”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“My wish is that you would obey me”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“My request is that you should be ready for my order”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“Whoever submits to me will be rewarded”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“He will be my comrade, he could always ask for my help”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“Anyone who does not obey me and rebels against me”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“I will prepare my army, he is my enemy”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“I declare that I will attack and run over and suppress him”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“I will destroy him, run over and hang him”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It was also in that age:   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There was another Khan called Golden Khan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He sent his messenger to Oguz Khan   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He presented the rare rubies and gold and silver&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He sent diamonds and showed respect   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Presenting the best gift, he made friends with him&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He surrendered himself to Oguz and also made him happy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Oguz Khan’s raids in the west along the Idil River   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There was a great and majestic Khan called Urum Khan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He was dwelling on the left side of Oguz, he was Oguz’s neighbor   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He had lots of cities and innumerable armies&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He ignored Oguz’s orders   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He never followed Oguz’s orders and resisted him&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He said that “I would never obey you”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz sent him a command, he ignored&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Oguz decided to destroy him   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz set off and raised a flag&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He crossed the skirts of the Ice Mountain in forty days   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He had the tents set up, he fell asleep&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When the morning was about to break, a light entered his tent   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A male wolf appeared, breathing&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A wolf with a blue mane, such a wolf with a bluish furry   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He addressed Oguz as if it was a human being&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He began to utter some words as if it was a language   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He said “O! Oguz, I know what your wish is”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“You wanted to start a war in Urum’s province”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“O! Oguz I will lead your army”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“I will walk in front of your army”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hearing this Oguz had his tent rolled up&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When he went to his army, he was surprised to see this:   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A big male wolf   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lf like an advance guard&lt;br&gt;&#xA;With its blue mane, and blue hair, like a scout making way   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He was walking in front of them&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Finally he stopped one day, after many days   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz’s army stopped, behind him&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There was a river called Idil-Müren   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The war started suddenly, by the river bank&lt;br&gt;&#xA;With spears and arrows on the skirts of the Black-Mountain   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There were lots of fights among the soldiers&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The people’s minds were confused, they were worried   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Such a hard fight was it that&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The color of the water of Idil-Müren became full of red blood   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz Khan became successful and Urum Khan escaped&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He took his kingdom and his nation   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz’s tent was full of loot&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Whether dead or alive everything became his slave&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Oguz Khan’s raid to Kıpçak   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Urum Kağan had a brother called Uruz&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Chief Uruz’s son survived too   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chief Uruz sent his son to a city&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A city set up on the mountain, by a secret river   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chief Uruz told him “the city should be protected”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Until the fight is over, the city should be preserved”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He said “Bring your people back after the war”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hearing this, Oguz stopped eating and drinking anything   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz moved his army, and reached the city&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Uruz sent a messenger to Oguz   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He sent a lot of gold, silver, and pearl as gifts   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He declared: “O! Oguz Khan you are my Khan”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“My father gave me this city and said: “You are my son”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“Spare this city for me, it should be protected”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“The city should be preserved until the fight is over”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“After the war, return back with the city under your rule”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Chief Uruz said more   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“If my father is an enemy of Oguz Khan”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Do not blame me, if my ancestor is guilty”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“I’m always with you under your rule”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“I obey your command, I’m devoted to you”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“My state is your state”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Our generation is your descendant”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“God ordered you to rule the earth”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“I submit to you my head and my country”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“I’m going to sent you my gifts and taxes”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“I will always be your friend”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz became happy with this brave man’s words&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Smiling, he bestowed him an authority to rule    &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He said “you gave me lots of gold and gifts”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“You preserved your city so well”      &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“For protecting your city so well”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“I gave you the name Saklap” (the preserver)   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz became friend with him, he moved his army&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He came to Idil River and stayed by the banks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The river called Idil was a big river&#xA;Looking at the river, Oguz asked his chiefs:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“How could we pass this river?”&#xA;There was a chief, he bowed to Oguz&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He was a very clever chief called Uruğ :army chief&#xA;He gave Oguz Khan advice &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Searching the surrounding, he saw lots of trees and branches&#xA;He cut and shaped the branches, he made a raft&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lying on the raft, he passed the Idil River&#xA;Oguz became very happy and gave this order:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“Stay here, and be a sanjak (province) chief”&#xA;“I declare that you will be called Kıpçak (trunk) from now on”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz returned to his army and they set off again&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When they began to march, the wolf appeared&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Emergence of Turkish tribes “Karluk”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Such a wolf, a male wolf&#xA;With blue hair and blue mane&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This wolf said to Oguz&#xA;“O! Oguz move your army now”&#xA;“Take your people and your army with their horses”&#xA;“I will lead you to the right way”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz saw the wolf walking in front &#xA;The advance guards of the army were following him&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Seeing this scene, Oguz became happy&#xA;He rode his multi-colored horse happily&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz Loved his multi-colored horse whole heartily&#xA;But the horse ran away to the mountain and disappeared&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It was a big mountain covered with ice&#xA;Its summit is too white because of the severe cold&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There was a very brave very Alp chief in the army&#xA;He was neither afraid of God nor Satan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He was not bothered with fatigue and cold&#xA;He went to the mountain and after nine days&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He caught the stallion, and pleased Oguz&#xA;He was covered with snow&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He looked like a snowman&#xA;Seeing him, Oguz smiled at him&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Declared “Stay here and be a chief of the chiefs here”&#xA;Your name will be Karluk (snowy) forever&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He gave him lots of diamonds and gifts&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He went on his way bestowing him presents&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Emergence of the Turkish tribes “Kalaç”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;While Oguz was moving forward, He was surprised too much&#xA;He saw a big house, its windows were made up of silver&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The walls were made up of gold, the roof made up of iron&#xA;There was no key, the door was locked&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There was a soldier called Tömürdü Kagul in the army&#xA;He was very skilful, Oguz ordered him &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“You will stay here and you will open the door”&#xA;“After you have entered the house, join the army later”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz told this soldier to stay and open (kal! aç!)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Therefore he named him Kalaç&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Curcet raid and emergence of Turkish tribes “Kanglı”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    One day&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The wolf with blue hair and with mane disappeared&#xA;Oguz realized this and stopped&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He decided to have his tent set up there&#xA;This was a barren area without fields, good enough to beat the enemy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The province called Curcet which had vast pastures&#xA;And lots of wealth, lots of cattle, lots of horses&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Curcet Khan had lots of gold and silver&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He had lots of diamonds&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Curcet Kagan with his army and people &#xA;Rebelled against Oguz Khan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz spilled the enemy’s blood with spear and sword&#xA;Oguz suppressed and overcame him&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz killed him beheading&#xA;He divided the loots among his men and made the nation submit to him&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz’s officials and soldiers and nation&#xA;Took and gathered all the countless goods&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The horses, and oxen and mules were not enough&#xA;To carry the goods taken in the war&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There was a soldier clever and, experienced in the army&#xA;His name was Barmaklıg Cosun Billig a very capable man&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He designed an oxcart, this skillful man of Oguz&#xA;Put everything in taken during the war&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In order to pull the oxcart, the living beings were harnessed in front&#xA;The loots were put at the back of the oxcart&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz’s chiefs and nation were surprised&#xA;They designed oxcarts similar to his&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the oxcarts were moving, they shouted: Kanga! Kanga! &#xA;Therefore their names became “Kanga” (oxcart)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Seeing this Oguz laughed at &#xA;And ordered “The living beings should pull the lifeless”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“Your name is now Kangalug, and the oxcart is your sign”&#xA;He left them ad proceeded&#xA;Oguz’ raids to the south&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The holy wolf with blue hair and blue mane appeared&#xA;India, Tangut too became Oguz land&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz marched towards Syria&#xA;He fought, beheaded, added it to his country&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This should be known by everybody&#xA;There was a province called Barkan in the south&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It was a wealthy area with lots of game bird&#xA;The climate was hot; it was a region of the wild animals&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It had lots of gold and silver&#xA;The People there were dark skinned by divine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Khan of the Region was called Masar (Egypt)&#xA;Oguz went there, fought hard and dominated&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When he had a victory, Masar Khan escaped&#xA;He took over the land and added it to his country&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He took countless properties and horses, his friends became happy&#xA;He returned his homeland and his enemies became desperate&#xA;Oguz granted the title of Khan to his six sons&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This should be mentioned, everybody should know&#xA;There was an old man under Oguz’s service&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White bearded, gray haired, very experienced&#xA;A very noble man, clever and considerate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;His title is “Tüşimel” in other words: the vizier of The Khan&#xA;His name is Sublime Turk, Oguz’s distinguished man&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He had a dream during his sleep. &#xA;He saw a golden bow, and three silver arrows&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The golden bow was extending from the east to the west&#xA;Three silver arrows were flying to the north&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He told Oguz about his dream&#xA;He interpreted his dream, with inspiration&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He said: “My dream should bring you peace and comfort”&#xA;“I hope it will bring unity and security to my Khan”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“What I had in my dream, should come to truth&#xA;With the help of the God of Sky&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The earth should be filled with your tribe&#xA;God should grant the earth to your linage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oguz was pleased with the Sublime Turk’s words&#xA;Oguz took his advice and comforted to it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When he woke up in the morning&#xA;He had his younger and older sons called&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He said: “I want to hunt”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“As I’m old now I do not have the courage”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“Sun, Moon, Star go to the east”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Sky, Mountain and Sea go to the west”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hearing this order, three of his son went to the east&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Three of them went to the west&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sun, Moon, Star hunted a lot of games and birds&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They found a golden bow&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They presented it to the Khan, he became happy and smiled&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He divided the bow into three parts&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He said: “O! my sons the bow is yours&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Your arrows should reach the sky”   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sky, Mountain, Sea hunted lots of games and birds&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They found three silver arrows   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They presented it to the Khan, he became happy and smiled&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He divided the arrows into three parts   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He said: “O! my sons this arrow is yours&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Your arrows should reach the sky”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Oguz gave a big feast       &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After saying all these, Oguz organized a general meeting&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The chiefs and the people came and greeted each other&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Everybody came and be seated in Oguz tent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missing part&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;179&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Oguz’s own big tent   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missing part&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;180&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He had a forty fathom tall pole erected on the right side of his tent&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He put a golden chicken at the top of the pole&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He tied a white sheep at the bottom of the pole&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He had a forty fathom tall pole erected on the right left of his tent&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He put a silver chicken at the top of the pole&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He tied a black sheep at the bottom of the pole&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On his right side there were Grey Arrows, on the left Three Arrows&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They sat down and had fun more than forty days&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They ate and drank and attained their desire&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Oguz divided his country among his sons and gave it to his sons&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He said “O! my sons”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“So many wars have I been through, so many borders have I crossed”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“So many spears and arrows have I thrown”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“So long distances have I traveled on horse, so many enemies did I make cry”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“I have made happy most of my friends”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“Thank God I have paid my debt”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“To the God of Sky”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“I give this country to you, this country is now yours”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated by Harun DOGRUYOL (Based on Togan Zeki Velidi, Oğuz Destanı, Enderun Kitapevi, 2. Basım, Istanbul, 1982&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T05:53:13.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34703" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-07T07:33:51.007" Score="3" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good Morning. &#xA;Today reading my chinese textbook i found the following sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刚才上音乐课时把书包放在了教室的外面。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never seen the 了 after a preposition 在. ¿is it right or a mistake? I think the right position would be at the end of the sentence.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T01:21:40.790" Title="了 position with 把 construction" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34701" CreationDate="2019-08-07T09:06:03.527" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;in brief, 察爾汗 is derived from mongolian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the long explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about 1763, there was a large-scale standardisation of names from mongolian, tibetan and various languages used by muslim into han chinese and manchurian. the result was the 24-volume book &quot;欽定西域同文志&quot; (~ made by imperial order 欽定, western region 西域, same language 同文, record 志).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the internet archive (which is blocked in &quot;that area&quot;) has a copy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/search.php?query=%E6%AC%BD%E5%AE%9A%E8%A5%BF%E5%9F%9F%E5%90%8C%E6%96%87%E5%BF%97&amp;amp;and[]=subject%3A%22%E5%9B%9B%E5%BA%AB%E5%85%A8%E6%9B%B8%E8%96%88%E8%A6%81%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/search.php?query=欽定西域同文志&amp;amp;and[]=subject%3A%22四庫全書薈要%22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;volume 1 has the rationale, guidelines (p1-p42) and table of contents (p43-p57), volume 14-17 are kokonur related&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06078133.cn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/06078133.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my interpretation is, the mongolian character &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%86%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%B0%D0%B0%D0%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;цагаан&quot; &quot;tsagaan&quot;&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;white&quot; colour) is transliterated to &quot;察罕&quot; (older version) or 察爾汗 (modern version) in chinese and &quot;qarhan&quot; in english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the above mentioned book, volume 14, there're several places starting with &quot;察罕&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;察罕鄂博&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06078140.cn/page/n72&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/06078140.cn/page/n72&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;察罕哈達&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06078140.cn/page/n78&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/06078140.cn/page/n78&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;察罕托輝烏魯&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06078140.cn/page/n88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/06078140.cn/page/n88&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;察罕托羅海&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06078140.cn/page/n106&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/06078140.cn/page/n106&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dD4dN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dD4dN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mus61.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mus61.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all of them mentioned &quot;蒙古語察罕白色&quot; (~in mongolian, &quot;qarhan&quot; means white colour). most likely, &quot;qarhan&quot; / &quot;tsagaan&quot; (察罕) referred to the color of salt, not the salt itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;further description of playa, or salt lake are modern suffix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="17462" LastEditDate="2019-08-07T16:09:59.997" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T16:09:59.997" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34697" CreationDate="2019-08-07T09:47:41.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I might ask a child: 你长大想做什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The child might answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想做一个警察。or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我想当一个警察。or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我想成为一名警察。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do words have more than 1 meaning? People give words meanings!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做個包子 be a wimp is not the same as make a steamed bun 造個包子. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bun in the oven is something else entirely!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T09:47:41.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34703" CreationDate="2019-08-07T14:07:04.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are correct. And I don't see much difference whether to put 了 after 在 or at the end of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if I had to find a difference I'd say they stress on different parts of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)  To stress the action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你刚刚干啥去了 = what were you doing just now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我刚刚把书包放在了教室的外面 = I was just putting my schoolbag outside the classroom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) To stress where the person put the bag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的包呢 = where is your bag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我刚刚把书包放在教室的外面了 = I just put my bag outside the classroom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, the difference is hardly noticed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T14:07:04.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34708" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34709" CreationDate="2019-08-07T15:48:46.150" Score="1" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 打颤 and 打战 mean shiver but I saw that in 兩岸詞典 they say that 打战 in the Mainland is not used “陸：今不用”. So which is the correct word to write for Mainland Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T02:22:07.113" Title="Correct word for shiver 打颤 or 打战" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34708" CreationDate="2019-08-07T16:07:09.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;打颤 is ok. Other translations include 颤抖, 哆嗦. I've never seen 打战 used in the Mainland, but 打寒战 (also 打寒颤) is ok (literally it means to shiver because of feeling cold, but it can also be used for someone shivering when experiencing a fright).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say 打战 in the Mainland probably it's gonna be interpreted as &quot;go to war&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="21960" LastEditDate="2019-08-08T02:22:07.113" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T02:22:07.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34710" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34718" CreationDate="2019-08-07T20:39:20.737" Score="2" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been studying a simple dialog that says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A&gt; 你家住在哪里? 还住在城里?&#xA;The answer was.&#xA;B&gt; 没有。我们最近搬到郊外住了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If A was asking about the present how can you answer with 没有.besides the question does not have the verb 有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer would be, 我们不住在城里。我们最经搬到郊外。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the dialog correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-08-08T01:10:50.740" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T05:13:23.727" Title="没有 as an answer. Cannot be 不?。" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34710" CreationDate="2019-08-07T22:11:46.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer you question, the dialog is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没有 can be used colloquially to just mean negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22514" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T22:11:46.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34710" CreationDate="2019-08-07T23:53:45.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A:你家住在哪里? 还住在城里? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 没有 and 不 denote negative, B is replying to latter part of the  question &quot;还住在城里嗎?&quot; B's reply would either be positive or negative. And he doesn't need to repeat A's question in his answer, so he could simply answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;不&quot;(meaning 不是住在城里) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;没有&quot; (meaning 没有住在城里)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我们最近搬到郊外住了&quot; is not a part of the answer but an additional explanation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice &quot;还住在城里嗎?&quot; is a question asking for confirmation of positive or negative, so you can simply reply with a negative &quot;不/ 不是 /没有&quot;, or a positive &quot;是&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if the question is specifically asking &quot;是不是&quot; or &quot;有没有', you have to answer specifically with &quot;是/ 不是&quot; or &quot;有/ 没有&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &quot;有沒有工作?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &quot;有&quot; (you cannot reply with &quot;是&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &quot;沒有&quot; (you cannot reply with &quot;不是&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &quot;是不是你?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &quot;是&quot; (you cannot reply with &quot;有&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &quot;不是&quot; (you cannot reply with &quot;沒有&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also: reply with the verb used in the question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 去不去玩?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 去 (you cannot reply with &quot;有去&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 不/ 不去 (you cannot reply with &quot;沒/ 沒去&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-08T00:13:21.890" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T00:13:21.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34703" CreationDate="2019-08-08T01:21:40.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, a quick look &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.youdao.com/example/blng/eng/%E5%9C%A8%E4%BA%86/#keyfrom=dict.main.moreblng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, for example, finds many sentences with 在了。 Maybe some are not right, often the English is questionable, but generally, this confirms that 在了教室的外面 （outside the classroom) is OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prepositions are mostly dual in Chinese, so in your sentence, it is not just 在 but 在... 外面。Below we have 在...上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this sentence with 在了 and 了：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把聪明都用在了犯罪上，太可惜了。&#xA;Too bad he used his genius for crime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T01:21:40.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34714" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-08T12:40:03.717" Score="3" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm usually confused with the light tone thing. Here I have the word 曲子 which according to the Internet should be pronounced as qǔzi. However, I have heard some people pronounce it as qū (1st tone) zǐ (3rd tone) and also qú (2nd tone) zǐ (3rd tone). So I'm not sure which way I should pronounce for this word. How do you guys usually pronounce it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh btw, I realize that it might be the same case with 椅子 (yǐ zǐ) which I often hear is pronounced as yí (2nd tone) zǐ (3rd tone). So I usually follow the one I hear more often. Could 曲子 pronunciation be the same case as this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-09T06:48:49.093" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T07:54:01.493" Title="曲子 pronunciation" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34714" CreationDate="2019-08-08T15:59:34.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;曲子(qu3zi) should be the only pronunciation. Here 曲 means a song or a drama.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;曲 pronounce as 1st tone has different meaning, like 曲折(tortuous, winding) or 曲解(misinterpret), means not straight, curve or bend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22443" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T15:59:34.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34642" CreationDate="2019-08-08T17:50:36.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the dictionary, the character 袭 has the meaning “触及” (to touch), as in “寒气～人” and “芳菲菲兮～予”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21518" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T17:50:36.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34714" CreationDate="2019-08-09T01:03:16.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Malaysian Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Malaysian Mandarin's phonology is closer to that of Taiwanese Mandarin than towards the Beijing pronunciation, due to the influence of other dialects such as Cantonese and Hokkien. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Malaysian Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 马来西亚华语; traditional Chinese: 馬來西亞華語; pinyin: Mǎláixīyà Huáyǔ) is a variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Malaysia by ethnic Chinese in Malaysia. Malaysian Chinese tend to perceive the Mandarin Chinese is a variation of Standard Mandarin (Putonghua); however, it is a Mandarin dialect in its own right. Its closest linguistic cousin is not Standard Mandarin, rather it is Singaporean Mandarin, the variety widely used in films like Tiger Woohoo 大日子(2010), Namewee's Nasi Lemak 2.0 and movies created by Singaporean movie director Jack Neo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick detour&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singaporean_Mandarin#Large_numbers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Phonology and tones (Singaporean Mandarin)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The character 息 is pronounced with the 2nd tone in Standard Singaporean Mandarin, similar to that in Taiwan. In Mainland China, 息 is pronounced as a light (neutral) tone (simplified Chinese: 轻声; traditional Chinese: 輕聲; pinyin: qīng shēng) instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E6%9B%B2%0D%0A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG: 曲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Taiwan pr. [qu2]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's Malaysian Mandarin for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T01:03:16.930" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34710" CreationDate="2019-08-09T05:13:23.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the question that was asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A&gt; 你家住在哪里? 还住在城里? The answer was. B&gt; 没有。我们最近搬到郊外住了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The response provided here (没有) is emphasizing the second part of the question 还住在城里? regarding whether you still live in the city (i.e. not anymore, we recently moved to the outer suburbs). Since 还 indicates a state, the response 没有 tells you that the state does not exist anymore so it makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your response of 我们不住在城里。我们最经搬到郊外。has a slightly different meaning, which could suggest that the person asking the question was incorrect about you ever having lived in the city, and that you have moved recently to the outer suburbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should also point out that there appears to be a typo for the phrase 我们最经搬到郊外, I think you meant 最近 and not 最经.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T05:13:23.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34699" CreationDate="2019-08-09T06:42:36.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let’s turn this into an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you wish to create arbitrarily new characters, give GluphWiki.org a try. Make a version in their editor (not flawless, as you’ll have to physically stretch and resize components, but better than lots), save and then extract as one-glyph font. (The symbol will be at GETA MARK [U+3013].) Only watch out for their naming practices and be careful to keep to the national preferences. These glyphs look best with Hanazono fonts, which are basically pre-made from GlyphWiki.org, so try it on. Especially the Hanazono-AFDKO (Google it) versions, as they are well-versed in setting up the variants.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If, however, your wish is to recreate some characters really existing but not in Unicode, first scan BabelStone Han PUA font, it might be there. Works best with BabelStone Han (actually, is part of it), so you might want to install that. Note: only includes PRC forms.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The actual composer of IDS (for lost of well-known non-Unicodes) is the Hanazono Mincho I from the aforementioned AFDKO. Scan its proof (&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cjkvi/HanaMinAFDKO/releases/download/8.030/HanaMinI.proof.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/cjkvi/HanaMinAFDKO/releases/download/8.030/HanaMinI.proof.pdf&lt;/a&gt;) to learn which are supported. Note that the most well-popularized examples of non-Unicodes are sometimes even in mass-use fonts, such as ⿰氵恩 (only unencoded Korean Name) or ⿳雲⿲雲龍雲⿰龍龍 (taito) are in Source Han sans.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20076" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T06:42:36.753" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34714" CreationDate="2019-08-09T07:54:01.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In that case seem a tonal sandhi  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; here wiki explanation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17050" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T07:54:01.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34721" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-09T13:32:28.833" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;are there free fonts for simplified chinese that I can download?  I have some default fonts but not the one I want.  I want to explore more fonts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22516" LastActivityDate="2019-08-10T10:53:40.397" Title="looking for a chinese simplified fonts which unable to find under the default fonts in Words" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34722" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34725" CreationDate="2019-08-09T13:45:57.553" Score="5" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new here, recently discovered this site to learn more about glyph origins of certain characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often see this character 袭 when related to terrorist attacks in the news. 袭 means raid or attack as far as I know.&#xA;At first I thought it was phono-semantic, like a dragon attacking, and clothes 衣 as phonetic. But zdic states that it's original meaning means grave clothes, so 衣 is the semantic here. Shuowen says the dragon is doubled 龖 and acts as the phonetic. However 龖 is dá which sounds nothing like xí. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where did 袭 originate from, was it related to dragons, or clothes, or both? And if it used to mean grave clothes, how did it end up meaning raid/attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22517" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-08-09T14:03:18.233" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T01:19:04.343" Title="Etymology of glyph 袭 = dragon + clothes?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34724" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-09T15:30:32.607" Score="0" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anyone knows how to type a Simplified Chinese degree symbol (°) on a regular English keyboard? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user22518" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T15:59:46.690" Title="How to type a Simplified Chinese degree symbol on a regular English keyboard?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34722" CreationDate="2019-08-09T15:50:04.333" Score="4" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Phonology&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「龖」is indeed thought to be the phonetic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since these characters were created very early on, we need to use our best guesses of the sounds of these characters when they were created to make sense of the phonetic components. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Zhengzhang_(1981%E2%80%931995)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhengzhang's Old Chinese reconstructions&lt;/a&gt; gives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;龖: &lt;strong&gt;/*l'ɯːb/&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/dʌp̚/&lt;/strong&gt;, Mandarin: &lt;strong&gt;/tä³⁵/&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;襲: &lt;strong&gt;/*ljɯb/&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Middle Chinese: &lt;strong&gt;/ziɪp̚/&lt;/strong&gt;, Mandarin: &lt;strong&gt;/ɕi³⁵/&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bypassing a detailed treatment of the phonology involved, a very simplified explanation is that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_of_articulation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;consonants pronounced at a similar place of articulation&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel#Articulation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;vowels articulated with similar tongue positions&lt;/a&gt; tend to change into each other over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To see the relationships between the consonants according to their different places and manner of articulation, you can view the columns and rows of the IPA table given in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet#Pulmonic_consonants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/URfw7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/URfw7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tdy1r.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tdy1r.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_approximant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;palatal approximant /j/ (in &lt;strong&gt;/*ljɯb/&lt;/strong&gt;) is related to the vowel /i/&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The palatal approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic equivalent of the close front unrounded vowel [i].&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;/-p/&lt;/strong&gt; ending (&lt;strong&gt;/dʌp̚/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;/ziɪp̚/&lt;/strong&gt;), in Middle Chinese is classified as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checked_tone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;checked tone&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and this &quot;tone&quot; (meaning the &lt;strong&gt;/-p/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;/-t/&lt;/strong&gt;, and &lt;strong&gt;/-k/&lt;/strong&gt; endings) has been lost in Mandarin and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checked_tone#Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;redistributed to Mandarin's four tones&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;H1&gt;Paleography and semantics&lt;/H1&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the modern form, the two「龍」have been reduced to one in「襲」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dMvUM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dMvUM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;⿹戈冬方鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2824&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2824&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9wpf1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9wpf1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;法&lt;/a&gt;105&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3armh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3armh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meaning is indeed to do with &lt;em&gt;fabric on clothing for dead people&lt;/em&gt;, extended to mean &lt;em&gt;layer upon layer of clothing&lt;/em&gt;, then finally &lt;em&gt;carry on and on; following customs, traditions&lt;/em&gt;. This meaning is written as「沿襲」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The link between &lt;em&gt;clothing&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;attack&lt;/em&gt; is obscure, if any, and is more likely to be a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus#Rebus_principle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rebus borrowing&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you must link &lt;em&gt;clothing&lt;/em&gt; with &lt;em&gt;attack&lt;/em&gt;, a rather far-fetched way to analyse it is through the following series of extensions (the meanings of which have actually all existed in literature):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Layers upon layers of clothing&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;to hide or conceal something&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;surprise raid/attack&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;attack&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-08-12T01:19:04.343" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T01:19:04.343" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34721" CreationDate="2019-08-09T16:28:01.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might download Noto Sans CJK and Noto Serif CJK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/get/noto/help/cjk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com/get/noto/help/cjk/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Choose SC version (SC for simplified Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T16:28:01.420" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34728" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-09T19:00:12.567" Score="1" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bought these stickers at a reuse store and I'm not sure what it says, and if the words seem fitting, I was going to put it on my binder I will use for my Mandarin classes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZvTS0m.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZvTS0m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22519" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T06:11:18.093" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T06:11:18.093" Title="What does this sticker say? (Characters identified: 萬事如意)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-08-15T06:15:37.533" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34728" CreationDate="2019-08-09T19:35:49.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;萬事如意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translate: Good luck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My interpretation: May all things go your way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T19:35:49.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34721" CreationDate="2019-08-09T22:46:21.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Get &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wfonts.com/font/simsun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simsun&lt;/a&gt;, it is used everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other fonts, just search 'free chinese fonts' to find hundreds of different fonts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.freechinesefont.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T22:46:21.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34728" CreationDate="2019-08-10T03:07:02.100" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;萬事如意 /wan4 shi4 ru2 yi4/ (May everything be as you wish)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one of those auspicious sayings people use around Chinese New Year. People often say this to one another, and/or write the four characters on red paper to use as wall decoration around Chinese New Year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can certainly use them to decorate your binder. Happy learning!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6351" LastActivityDate="2019-08-10T03:07:02.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34732" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34735" CreationDate="2019-08-10T04:41:34.177" Score="0" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/i_BYzgl3yEo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/i_BYzgl3yEo&lt;/a&gt; at 0:46 or at 0:59 a person in background screams out something like &quot;lalatije.&quot; What is that word and how its written? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22522" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-10T06:21:36.937" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T04:50:39.180" Title="What is this word (audio)" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;audio&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34721" CreationDate="2019-08-10T10:53:40.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CJK_fonts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;list&lt;/a&gt; of almost all CJK fonts in wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22523" LastActivityDate="2019-08-10T10:53:40.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34734" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34739" CreationDate="2019-08-11T02:08:55.417" Score="-3" ViewCount="3744" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trying to figure out how to write Daddy in the sexual sense. Not the father-to-child kind like 爸爸.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In America, certain slang is used during sex like &quot;daddy&quot;, &quot;papi&quot;, etc. To refer to the guy by the girl. In turn, the guy would call her his &quot;little girl&quot;, &quot;princess&quot;, &quot;little slut&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a chinese version of that or do I have literally write like &quot;sex daddy&quot; or &quot;fuck daddy&quot; like 性 爸爸 or  迪克 爸爸 or 性父亲?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And which one is more fitting for this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22529" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T13:48:21.433" Title="Is there Chinese slang for sexual references?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34732" CreationDate="2019-08-11T04:50:39.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 来了，老弟儿！ It sounds like 老爹er in some way(due to the accent of the speaker). It means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Here you come, buddy!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T04:50:39.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34736" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34771" CreationDate="2019-08-11T12:26:12.383" Score="1" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first it seemed like 教给 is just a verb and a preposition, but 教 can be used directly: 我可以教你。&#xA;Is that a separate piece of vocabulary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T10:00:46.250" Title="What's the difference in use between 教 and 教给?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34736" CreationDate="2019-08-11T12:47:50.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact，教（jiao）it could combine with anyone or anything. Such as &quot;我可以教你&quot; .&#xA;it means :I can teach you. Of couse, it also can not combine with anyone or anything.&#xA;&quot;我教！&quot; it's used at some suitations, like someone askes who can teach me? You can say &quot;我教&quot;，it means I teach you，but you can omit object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, &quot;教给&quot; When you want to teach somebody, you should say the exact object. You need use&quot;教给&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22531" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T12:47:50.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34724" CreationDate="2019-08-11T12:51:59.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe, you should need a Chinese Input application. You can use this symbol：&quot;。。。。。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22531" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T12:51:59.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34734" CreationDate="2019-08-11T13:48:21.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term sugar daddy has been translated as such:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%94%9C%E7%88%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甜爹&lt;/a&gt; is an option, but it looks like a direct translation from English and doesn't seem to be very widespread, as a term.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.backchina.com/forum/20160424/info-1373160-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;干爹&lt;/a&gt; is another option and it seems to be the most common.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.backchina.com/forum/20160424/info-1373160-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;糖爸爸&lt;/a&gt; is another.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/39746455&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甘爹&lt;/a&gt; is also an option.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;金主爸爸&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for just &lt;em&gt;daddy&lt;/em&gt; you can see that both 爹 and 爸 are used in the above terms, but it would be quite ambiguous by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T13:48:21.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34697" CreationDate="2019-08-11T13:54:27.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not the same, of course, as how we'd say it in English, but this is Mandarin after all. The trick is in trying to too-closely associate the English and Mandarin words in the &lt;em&gt;conventional&lt;/em&gt; ways of speaking in the two languages, and that just doesn't work. The use of &quot;做&quot;, meaning to &quot;do&quot; or to &quot;perform&quot;, actually &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; make a lot of sense when you think of it this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In this context, &quot;做&quot; means &quot;&lt;em&gt;to perform the duties of&lt;/em&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;em&gt;to do the work of&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;警察 is a societal role and, hence, it is defined by the performance of certain duties or activities and you are stating a desire to commence the performance of those activities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To more explicitly translate not just the &quot;gist&quot; but the underlying &lt;em&gt;cognition&lt;/em&gt; behind this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想做一个警察&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;into English words of the closest possible meanings and with proper grammar, it would look like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I desire (想) to do/perform [the work/duties of] (做) [one (一) instance (个) of] a police officer (警察)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where items in [] are implied/optional in one or the other language. Hence, making it cleaner,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I desire to take up the mantle of and perform the duties involved in being a police officer.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A less verbose expression of the same thing and, perhaps more natural to an English speaker, may be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I would like to act in the capacity of a police officer.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so finally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I want to be a police officer.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at maximal concision though, of course, we can condense even further in casual talk:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I wanna be a cop!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16171" LastEditorUserId="16171" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T14:00:15.290" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T14:00:15.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34741" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-12T07:12:56.893" Score="3" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;For sports you have some verbs like 打 when you do the sport with your hand like 打篮球 or 踢 when you do it with your feet like 踢足球. What about sports you use both hands and feet or none? What verb accompanies the main verb? For example in the sports below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karate, judo, all martial arts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hockey, polo &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ski, snowboard, surfing, sailing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Swimming, triathlon, running, climbing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-15T06:37:21.013" LastActivityDate="2019-08-15T06:37:21.013" Title="Sports verbs 打 and 踢: which one is suitable for martial arts?" Tags="&lt;sport&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34741" CreationDate="2019-08-12T07:50:25.130" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, when it comes to sports, Chinese constructs the actions using a verb-object composition. 打 and 踢 are certainly not the only verbs that can be used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the question in your title, the correct verb to use for Martial Arts is 打 if the Martial Arts in question has a &quot;fist&quot; in the title (e.g. 打太极拳) or 练 (e.g. 练武术). Very often the two are interchangeable, though that may sometimes sound awkward (but nevertheless, remain correct). I would veer toward using 练 as the verb for Martial Arts because it means to &quot;practice&quot; the martial art, which is something that everybody does no matter what the point of the martial art is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To list your other sports:&#xA;hockey 打曲棍球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;polo 打马球&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;skiing 滑雪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;snowboarding 滑雪板&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;surfing 冲浪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sailing 帆船&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;swimming 游泳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;triathlon 跑（铁人）三项&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;running 跑步&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;climbing 爬山 or 攀岩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19368" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T07:50:25.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34724" CreationDate="2019-08-12T09:19:41.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese word processors have the option to use &lt;code&gt;U+2103&lt;/code&gt; ℃ or &lt;code&gt;U+2104&lt;/code&gt; ℉, to get over the typographical problem of displaying a degree much closer to the C or F than otherwise allowable in fullwidth text. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is also true that the Chinese 度 is used more commonly in everyday text and in most newspapers; my personal contact with ℃ has been in academic papers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these are in the Unicode block &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterlike_Symbols&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Letterlike Symbols&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, alongside ℏ, the  &quot;Planck constant Over Two Pi&quot; &lt;code&gt;U+210F&lt;/code&gt; and Ω the Ohm sign &lt;code&gt;U+2126&lt;/code&gt;; most common is likely the ™ trademark sign &lt;code&gt;U+2122&lt;/code&gt;, also repurposed in modern Chinese's Internet slang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T09:19:41.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34724" CreationDate="2019-08-12T15:59:46.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In China，people use input software to type.For me,I choose Baidu Input.So I just type &quot;du&quot; on keyboard,then I can choose ° from it，or as I type &quot;wendu&quot; on keyboard,℃ is on the list for choose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22540" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T15:59:46.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34745" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-12T19:16:43.553" Score="3" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know of the commonly cited rules for third tones, which are the following (copied from somewhere else, so excuse the grammatical errors):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;When word with the 3rd tone is used alone, or used at the end of the expression, it's pronounced as the original tone, i.e. the 3rd tone. e.g. 雪, 滑雪.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When two words with the 3rd tone are used together, the 1st one is pronounced as the 2nd tone. e.g. 老虎, 海岛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When word with the 3rd tone is used before other words with the 1st/2nd/4th tone, it's pronounced as the 半三声 (only the first half of the 3rd tone, without the rising tone part). e.g. 卡车, 草莓.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When three words with the 3rd tone are used together;&#xA;If the first two words are closely linked, i.e. 2+1 construction, then the first two words are pronounced as the 2nd tone. e.g. 草稿纸, 古典美.&#xA;If the last two words are closely linked, i.e. 1+2 construction, then the 1st word is pronounced as 半三声, the 2nd word is pronounced as the 2nd tone. e.g. 米老鼠, 老领导.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'd like to know is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A third tone should generally be pronounced as a full third tone whenever it is the last syllable in a word/expression. Is that true even when speaking quickly, meaning the final third tone of a word is quickly followed by a non-third tone? Or should it be a half third tone in that case?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What about the following examples of multiple third tones: &#xA;使馆里，大使馆里，地铁里? &#xA;or &#xA;米老鼠我不太喜欢？&#xA;These don't quite fit any of the categories above. How should the tones be altered (if at all)? Does anyone know the rules? None of my Chinese friends are certain so I hope someone here does.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22541" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2019-08-13T00:21:26.900" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T08:38:30.997" Title="Question about third tone sandhi in two specific cases" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34746" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-12T22:01:00.007" Score="2" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uK7Ry.png**Help**&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uK7Ry.png**Help**&quot; alt=&quot;jacket with either Chinese or Japanese writing on it&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Help i have a jacket here that I want to buy but I need to know what it says and the site does not provide that information&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22542" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T23:53:53.837" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T13:05:08.923" Title="Can anyone tell me what this jacket says (Characters identified: 盖世英雄)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34746" CreationDate="2019-08-13T00:24:47.487" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;read right to left, top to bottom:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;盖世：gài​shì：unrivalled&lt;br&gt;&#xA;英雄: yīng​xióng: hero&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T00:24:47.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34748" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34749" CreationDate="2019-08-13T05:18:55.607" Score="0" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title already describes what i would like to know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to pronounce the Chinese name Liqun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22545" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T05:35:28.250" Title="How do you pronounce the name &quot;Liqun&quot;" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34748" CreationDate="2019-08-13T05:35:28.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“李群” “/Lǐ Qún/ I think &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;李 /li3/ is a common family name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/qun2/ can be 裙(skirt), 羣 or 群 (multitude;crowd; group)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I don't think any parent would name their child 李裙&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T05:35:28.250" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34751" CreationDate="2019-08-13T06:28:40.647" Score="9" ViewCount="2826" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I understand correctly, 王 means &quot;king&quot;, &quot;monarch&quot; or &quot;sovereign.&quot; I also see that 皇 means &quot;emperor&quot;, &quot;sovereign&quot; or &quot;ruler.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is 皇 higher than 王?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in the case of female monarchs (considering both consorts and non-consorts), can females be called 王 and also 皇? Or are there gender-specific terms for female monarchs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-15T06:16:32.273" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T14:19:30.287" Title="What is the difference between 王 and 皇?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34750" CreationDate="2019-08-13T08:25:50.793" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;The generic way to refer to the &lt;em&gt;highest ruler&lt;/em&gt; of any country/region is「君主」, corresponding to &lt;em&gt;monarch&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we talk about an English translation, specifically &lt;strong&gt;avoiding&lt;/strong&gt; how these terms are used in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, then「國王」is used to translate the English equivalent of &lt;em&gt;king&lt;/em&gt; and「皇帝」is used to translate &lt;em&gt;emperor&lt;/em&gt;, which are strictly gender neutral. Their specifically female equivalents are「女王」and「女皇」, respectively, for &lt;em&gt;regnants (non-consorts)&lt;/em&gt;, and「王后」and「皇后」for &lt;em&gt;consorts&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margrethe_II_of_Denmark&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Margrethe II&lt;/a&gt;,「丹麥&lt;strong&gt;女王&lt;/strong&gt;」 (&lt;em&gt;Queen Regnant of Denmark&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusta_Victoria_of_Schleswig-Holstein&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein&lt;/a&gt;,「德國&lt;strong&gt;皇后&lt;/strong&gt;」(&lt;em&gt;Empress Consort of the German Empire&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Napoléon Bonaparte&lt;/a&gt;,「法國&lt;strong&gt;皇帝&lt;/strong&gt;」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_the_French&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Emperor of the French&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_of_Saudi_Arabia&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud&lt;/a&gt;,「沙特阿拉伯&lt;strong&gt;國王&lt;/strong&gt;」(&lt;em&gt;King of Saudi Arabia&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Equivalent titles for territories historically surrounding and interacting with China, like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khagan&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Khagan&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raja&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Raja&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, have their own Chinese transcriptions (可汗, 羅闍).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese-language influenced regions, the situation is different, and whether a person holds the titles「王」or「皇」is more complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「皇」as a monarchial title was invented by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qin Shihuang&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;the First Emperor of China&quot;. The「君主」of the previous &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhou Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; (and earlier) held the title「王」. Note that the Zhou Dynasty themselves invented another term for &lt;em&gt;highest ruler&lt;/em&gt;, called「天子」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Heaven&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;son of heaven&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;), which wasn't shared by the predecessing &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shang Dynasty&lt;/a&gt;. The timeline for the &quot;highest ruler of China&quot; title is something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shang Dynasty:「后」&gt;「王」(&lt;strong&gt;Yes,「后」was a title originally used by Shang Kings. The meaning &lt;em&gt;queen (consort)&lt;/em&gt; arose later.&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Zhou Dynasty:「王」,「天子」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qin Dynasty and beyond:「皇」,「天子」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Occasionally for non-&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Han&lt;/a&gt; rulers of China, in addition to their Chinese titles:「可汗」&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The context for inventing「皇」was the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin%27s_wars_of_unification&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qin's wars of unification&lt;/a&gt;, where the de-facto rulers of the smaller &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Warring_States&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Warring States&lt;/a&gt; all declared themselves to be「王」.「皇」was thus invented to be an &lt;em&gt;overlord title&lt;/em&gt;. From Qin unification onwards, any &quot;leader&quot; of &quot;a small state&quot; within China, or in contact with China and admitting themselves into the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinocentrism#Sinocentric_system&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sinocentric system&lt;/a&gt;, would likely be called a「王」(&lt;strong&gt;おう, 왕, vương&lt;/strong&gt;). In Sinocentric-style vocabulary, they are &lt;em&gt;granted the title of&lt;/em&gt;「王」&lt;em&gt;by the Chinese Emperor&lt;/em&gt; (封王).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_An&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Liu An (劉安)&lt;/a&gt;,「淮南王」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Huainan&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Prince of Huainan&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_kings_of_Wa&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Five Kings of Wa&lt;/a&gt;,「倭の五王」; see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Na_gold_seal&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;King of Na gold seal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sejong_the_Great&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sejong the Great (世宗大王)&lt;/a&gt;,「朝鮮國王」(&lt;em&gt;King of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseon&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Joseon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For China,「皇」corresponds to the Chinese Emperor; for Korea, Japan, and Vietnam,「皇」corresponds to their respective「君主」as soon as they are removed from the Sinocentric system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruhito&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Naruhito (德仁)&lt;/a&gt;,「日本天皇」(&lt;em&gt;Emperor of Japan&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunjong_of_Korea&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sunjong (純宗　隆熙帝)&lt;/a&gt;,「大韓帝國皇帝」(&lt;em&gt;Emperor of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Empire&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Korean Empire&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%AA_L%E1%BB%A3i&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lê Lợi (黎利)&lt;/a&gt;,「大越皇帝」(&lt;em&gt;Emperor of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%90%E1%BA%A1i_Vi%E1%BB%87t]&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Đại Việt&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To remain within the Sinocentric system, but simultaneously call themselves「皇」, the monarchs would style themselves「王」only when they deal with China in diplomatic missions. &lt;strong&gt;Korean Kings were the only ones which styled themselves「王」and dealt with China as「王」&lt;/strong&gt;; both Japanese and Vietnamese monarchs styled themselves as「皇」in their own regions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-08-13T14:07:51.267" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T14:07:51.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34750" CreationDate="2019-08-13T08:59:54.440" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%8E%8B%E5%A7%93/399146?fromtitle=%E7%8E%8B&amp;amp;fromid=817418&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;王&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王由三横一竖构成，三横代表天、地、人，一竖贯通天、地、人，这就是天、地、人都要归“王”管的不二哲学。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The character 王 consists of three horizontal lines and one vertical line. The three horizontal lines represent heaven, land and man, the one vertical line runs through  and connecting heaven, land and man represents the highest ruler, meaning the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;droooze wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「&lt;em&gt;王」是個斧鉞刀片的象形字，後來作爲古代君主的象徵。「三者，天、地、人也」說法自從漢代《說文》，不可信&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;droooze explained 王 was originally a pictograph of ceremonial weapons and  then given the meaning of 'ruler'. As for the origin story of &amp;quot;Connecting heaven, land and man&amp;quot;,  it was a later interpretation from 《說文》in the Han period, therefore, not true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%9A%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;皇&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“皇”是“煌”的本字。‘皇’和‘王’古为煇煌、光明之意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meaning of 皇 is now written as 煌 (splendid; brilliant; sparkling)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;甲骨文里的‘皇’，很明显一盏正在燃烧的灯 In the Oracle ‘皇’ was obviously a burning light&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2kKBx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2kKBx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说文解字：“皇，大也，从自、王。自，始也。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;皇 = 自 + 王;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自 = 'first; alpha'; 王 = 'highest ruler; king'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In layman's term,  王 = highest 'ruler'  and 皇 = 'alpha highest ruler'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern language, 皇 generally refers to emperor, and 王 refers to king&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;female 王 is called 女王 (queen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;female 皇 is called 女皇 (queen ; Empress)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Spring and Autumn Period, all the rulers of nation were called 王. After 秦國 (Qin nation) united all China, the ruler of Qin changed his title from 秦王 (king of Qin) to 秦始皇帝 (The Alpha Emperor of Qin / Emperor Qin Shihuang) . Since then, the highest rulers who had control of a united China were all titled 皇帝 instead of 王. And 皇帝 had the power to appoint 王爵 (kingship) to his relatives or anyone else worthy of the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T09:34:45.090" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34750" CreationDate="2019-08-13T15:21:21.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;in the case of female monarchs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, there was only one &quot;female&quot; emperor in china history: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Zetian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Empress Wu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when she was in throne, she got many regnal names, most ended with &quot;皇帝&quot; e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;則天大聖皇帝&quot;, &quot;聖母神皇&quot;, &quot;聖神皇帝&quot;, &quot;金輪聖神皇帝&quot;, &quot;天冊金輪聖神皇帝&quot;, &quot;越古金輪聖神皇帝&quot; &amp;amp; &quot;慈氏越古金輪聖神皇帝&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;only when she was dead, her formal posthumous name is &quot;則天順聖皇后&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, the character &quot;皇&quot; is gender neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So is 皇 higher than 王&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yes. there's only one 皇, with numerous 王, under the sun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T15:21:21.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34750" CreationDate="2019-08-13T16:33:35.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;皇 is the person sitting on the Iron Throne, 王 is like King in the North.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22548" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T16:33:35.133" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34750" CreationDate="2019-08-13T18:47:53.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think they are basically the same. I'm a native Chinese speaker and I can't differentiate them. Although they have a similar meaning, they are used in different places. I suggest you get familiar with the common words that include 王 or 皇 and there is no need to differentiate them. The words that spring to my mind are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;王族&#xA;大王&#xA;王八蛋&#xA;姓王&#xA;称王&#xA;&#xA;皇家&#xA;皇帝&#xA;皇族&#xA;皇上&#xA;吾皇&#xA;奉天承运皇帝诏曰&#xA;皇宫&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22549" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T18:47:53.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32734" CreationDate="2019-08-13T22:53:02.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;“跑步” here is a noun means the task/cycle you done of running.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When you use “跑得” after “跑步”, you may want to pointing to the state of his running act/action,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It’s causing conflicts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“跑” means the act/action or general state of running,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When you use “跑步” instead of “跑”, you are specially pointing to a task/cycle of his running.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If just pointing to a short action or general state, just use “跑”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你跑得很快！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are pointing his running cycles, use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你跑步很快&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="13636" LastEditDate="2019-08-13T23:06:23.517" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T23:06:23.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33390" CreationDate="2019-08-13T23:25:35.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This should be a clever question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classical Chinese&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“爱” should be love to culture, nature, mess people or emperor(the culture emblem)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“恋” should be romantic love to another person, a butterfly loves a flower (蝶恋花)&#xA;“情” is a noun of “exist love/adore”, more clearly --“恋情”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For further,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“慕” should like “adore”, always use as “爱慕”, “倾慕”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In traditional/full Chinese writing these words are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;愛、戀、蝶戀花、情、慕、愛慕、傾慕&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="13636" LastEditDate="2019-08-13T23:31:05.873" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T23:31:05.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34107" CreationDate="2019-08-14T00:49:58.230" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“又” means it &lt;strong&gt;is happened&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;again&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; it is/will &lt;strong&gt;passively&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;happened&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;“再” means it &lt;strong&gt;will happen&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;again&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; should &lt;strong&gt;initiative&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;happened&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13636" LastEditorUserId="13636" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T01:03:44.713" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T01:03:44.713" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34760" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34761" CreationDate="2019-08-14T02:21:39.430" Score="3" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a set phrase that goes something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(我)管你张三还是李四&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen variations on it like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我管你张静还是李静呢&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to remember one where the surname stays the same though, something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;管你是张飞还是张家辉&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What common variants on this phrase exist where the surname stays the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T04:03:55.400" Title="“管你是[surname] + [name]还是[same surname] + [different name]”" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34760" CreationDate="2019-08-14T03:05:03.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我管你张三还是李四&quot; literally means &quot;I care you are John, Dick or Harry&quot;. And the actual meaning is &quot;我(不)管你张三还是李四&quot; meaning &quot;I (don't) care you are John, Dick or Harry&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the opposite term &quot;管&quot; (care) instead of the actual term &quot;不管&quot; (don't care) is a sarcastic way of making a statement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What common variants on this phrase exist where the surname stays the same?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not a set phrase, you can substitute any names/nouns to indicate &quot;I don't care who you are&quot;. For example: &quot;我(不)管你是皇帝还是王八&quot;, &quot;我(不)管你成龍还是成蟲&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When someone said he is the emperor but you don't care, you can say &quot;我管你皇帝还是王八&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When Jackie Chan demands you to do something because he is Jackie Chan, and you don't want to do it, and don't care it is Jackie who demanded it,  you can say &quot;我管你成龍还是成蟲&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more: &quot;我管你特朗普还是特朗通，你是个混蛋&quot; roughly translated as &quot;I don't care you are Donald Trump or Donald Dumb, you are an asshole&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T03:50:20.047" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T03:50:20.047" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34750" CreationDate="2019-08-14T04:32:12.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;中国帝制中，皇是只有一个的，王则可以有多个，王是由皇帝指定的。&#xA;按照地域管理范围，整个国家都是属于皇帝的，王的属地是由皇帝分配的，在属地内王有最大的管理权。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22552" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T04:32:12.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34750" CreationDate="2019-08-14T08:04:39.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have known that &quot;王&quot; translates to &quot;king&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first Chinese dictionary 《说文解字》which was compiled about 1900 years ago explains the word &quot;皇&quot; as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大也。从自。自，始也。始皇者，三皇，大君也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence translates into English as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(as an adjective it means) great. (as a noun it often) bears the meaning that a king being the first/most prestigious one of its kind, like in &quot;始皇&quot; (the first emperor) 三皇 (the three emperors, that is, three legendary kings in ancient times). They are all great kings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;皇&quot;, when it is used to refer to a king, or an emperor, it simply meaning &quot;king the great&quot; or &quot;emperor the great&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T08:04:39.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34750" CreationDate="2019-08-14T08:14:37.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;王 is the king. 皇 is the emperor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, 皇 is greater than 王.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T08:14:37.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34750" CreationDate="2019-08-15T05:32:04.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think you can compare 皇 to 王 directly unless there is more context. Based on the words, 皇 is a broader term that describes royalty in general, whereas 王refers to a specific title/position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you add more descriptors around the word then you can start to make some comparisons, some of which are actually equivalent, for example 女王 (queen) and 女皇 (empress) are equivalent the same way that king and emperor can mean the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other cases, if you talk about 皇家 (royal family) and 國王 (king/head of state or country) then you are comparing different things that are modified by the words 皇 and 王 respectively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-15T06:17:34.737" LastActivityDate="2019-08-15T06:17:34.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34741" CreationDate="2019-08-15T05:47:32.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Verbs can be quite complex in Chinese, because the way you describe the action depends on what you want to emphasize. There are different forms of martial arts where 打 OR 踢 are applicable depending on the style/form and the specific action used. For example, Judo doesn't seem to involve striking an opponent with your foot, and Tae Kwon Do seems to be exclusively using the feet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example you provided, the word 打 in 打篮球 is actually a generic term used to talk about 'playing' or 'participating' in a sport (it can also mean to strike, which makes it a little bit confusing). So you can say play basketball, tennis and even Tai Chi (打太极拳) and it would be perfectly acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to be more specific about the action, 打篮球 and 投篮球 mean very different things because the latter refers to the actual action of shooting a basketball, and you can also use the term 射球 in the context of a basketball game to refer to a shot or shooting the ball.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think because there is a difference in sports involving the hands, which can be a direct strike or with an implement like a bat or racquet, or using different actions of the hand/arm, it means that there are more ways to describe the action compared to sports where you use the foot or leg (which is generally contacting the ball or person directly), and that's where 踢 is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-08-15T05:47:32.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32562" CreationDate="2019-08-15T20:32:43.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please forgive ahead of time.. I am not in any way expertized either in Chinese, or bone oracle script/pictograms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only have a couple of books that have been helpful towards what I have found so far, and another on the way. It seems some is at least somewhat similar to what has been posted above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few I have not figured out yet ( circled in yellow ), and maybe they were already covered, I just can not tell..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I try to follow some of the links provided above, I get error pages..  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My interest in this particular bone oracle is that am planning on having an artist paint it for me, and am trying to gather as much information about the scripts so can have a calligrapher add some descriptive bone oracle script alongside the painting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope I have the image code correct.. Click on image to enlarge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/ZfzQJ5j.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://imgur.com/ZfzQJ5j.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Bone Oracle&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22567" LastEditorUserId="22567" LastEditDate="2019-08-16T00:48:08.137" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T00:48:08.137" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33036" CreationDate="2019-08-16T02:59:07.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;just an update I got my yDNA (paternal lineage) results and confirmed that our family surname is '劉'. I'm still trying to figure out his given name from the paper trails. thank you a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21480" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T02:59:07.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34745" CreationDate="2019-08-16T08:38:30.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To the first question, I think 3rd tones are only full when its in the &lt;strong&gt;end of the sentences&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To the second question, I think it depends on &lt;strong&gt;how you do the segmentations&lt;/strong&gt;. The last character in every parts will be 3rd tone while other are 2nd tones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say 米老鼠 would be segged as 米 / 老鼠, so the tones would be [3, 2, 3].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other examples: 剪指甲 would be segged as 剪 / 指甲, so the tones would be [3, 2, 3].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我有好幾本火影忍者的漫畫&quot; is a sentence, and the first nine characters are 3rd tones. It can be segged as 我有 / 好幾本 / 火影 / 忍者 , and the tone is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2,3 / 2,2,3 / 2,3 / 2,3 ].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;展覽館小老鼠很口渴只好找井水洗水果 &quot; is another sentence, and all the characters are 3rd tones. It can be segged as 展覽館 / 小 / 老鼠 / 很 / 口渴 / 只好 / 找 / 井水 / 洗 / 水果, and the tones is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2,2,3 / 3 / 2,3 / 3 / 2,3 / 2,3 / 3 / 2,3 / 3 / 2,3]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20062" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T08:38:30.997" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34770" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-16T09:20:51.460" Score="2" ViewCount="392" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a resource online that shows the stroke orders of a character in just one box for my Anki flashcards on my phone. The format should look something like &lt;a href=&quot;https://kanji.nihongo.cz/jiscode/13115/l/en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; (unfortunately it's Kanji only which doesn't have characters like 员) or even better &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ObesD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;colored&lt;/a&gt; (from Fluent Forever's model decks)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the resources I've found so far use &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-stroke-order.php?word=%E5%9B%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;animations&lt;/a&gt; (which might not even play on my phone, it'll also take quite a while to finish if it does especially for complex Hanzi) or the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.archchinese.com/chinese_stroke_sequence_image_generator.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;grid format&lt;/a&gt; which doesn't sit well with the aspect ratio of phones (the steps will look small to the eyes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know some Chinese resources with the stroke order diagrams I want?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22573" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T05:51:32.470" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T19:50:36.523" Title="Chinese stroke order diagram styles resources" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;stroke-order&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34736" CreationDate="2019-08-16T10:00:46.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We use &quot;教&quot; as &quot;teach&quot;, e.g., &quot;我可以教你&quot; = &quot;I can teach you&quot;, &quot;他教数学&quot; = &quot;He teaches math&quot;, &quot;(这道题)我教过你了&quot; = &quot;I have taught you (how to solve) this question.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we say &quot;教给&quot; we usually mean &quot;give&quot;, like &quot;这件事/物品交给你了&quot; = &quot;This thing is given to you，(and from now on you should be responsible for it)&quot;, &quot;把这本书教给Tom&quot; = &quot;Give/Bring this book to Tom&quot;. However, sometimes we can use &quot;教给&quot; as &quot;teach&quot;, depending on &quot;what&quot; you give to someone. For example, &quot;你来教他这个技术&quot; = &quot;(你)把这个技术/方法教给他&quot; = &quot;(You) teach him the technique/way (of doing ...)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22574" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T10:00:46.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34416" CreationDate="2019-08-16T12:46:12.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is to express the tone of &lt;strong&gt;emphasis&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22575" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T05:48:17.530" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T05:48:17.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34770" CreationDate="2019-08-16T13:24:31.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This site is quite good. It doesn't contain any ancient Flash or Java components, and displays the character in complete stroke order in one single static image, or animation if you prefer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://strokeorder.com.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://strokeorder.com.tw/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/98pgk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/98pgk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the interface is in Chinese, it's easy to understand, you put a character in the text field and click the magnifying glass button to search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11486" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T13:24:31.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34750" CreationDate="2019-08-16T13:30:24.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me talk about the difference between &lt;strong&gt;皇，帝，王&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original meaning of &quot;皇&quot; is big, bright and beautiful. Also used to refer to the heavens, as well as the visualized days -    things like &quot;God&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The source of the &quot;帝&quot; (according to the test) is &quot;Flower&quot;, which has the meaning of reproduction and creation of life, and is    used to refer to the &quot;creator&quot; - that is, 帝. This is similar to &quot;皇&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If these two words are hard to say high ground, **&quot;皇&quot; should be a little higher than the &quot;帝&quot;.**Although the 皇 was placed in front of the 帝 in the saying of the &quot;Three 皇 and Five 帝&quot;, the 帝 should be borrowed first. Probably    because 皇 is better than 帝, but also keeps the sky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;王 is intended to be an axe weapon - in Oracle, 王 is a double-sided axe. It refers to a weapon that also refers to the military power represented by the weapon, and is further extended to be a military leader. Later - everyone knows - after the wizard fell, the military leader became the national leader.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;皇 is highest, 帝 is second, 王 is last.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22575" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T13:30:24.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34776" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-16T16:45:38.473" Score="2" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen the word for mushroom [蘑菇, mógū] to be an action such as dilly dally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this an inherent idiom in the written language apparent across a large spectrum of dialect, whereas the word mushroom connotes, from some reason such an action? Or is it local to spoken dialects of Manderin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19184" LastActivityDate="2019-08-17T01:11:05.833" Title="How widespread is the idiom 蘑菇?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34776" CreationDate="2019-08-16T22:34:57.693" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard it's being used especially by older people in northest region. For example, 别蘑菇了，老蘑菇什么. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a synonym of 磨蹭. Maybe, 蘑菇 sounds folksy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might find it's used in some old novels as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T22:34:57.693" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2019-08-17T00:16:20.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an elderly Chinese lady collecting bottles for years from one specific location in my yard. I have now moved the bin, I want her to know the new location, something like &quot;Empty cans bottles HERE&quot; and I will place a directional arrow...Thank you...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22577" LastActivityDate="2019-08-17T00:16:20.567" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34776" CreationDate="2019-08-17T01:11:05.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was told it sounds like 东北话。I'm sure they just writ wrong!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;磨蹭 or 磨叽， 磨磨叽叽 which have a meaning 'dawdle'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;zdic has: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;比喻故意纠缠不清或拖延时间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如：「别蘑菇，我忙得很。」也称为「摩姑」、「磨咕」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-17T01:11:05.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2019-08-17T05:33:19.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;请回收利用 usually means waste recovery. You can try to write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;回收废品&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the streets and lanes of China, recyclers often collect waste products, which are usually paper and some of them are electrical appliances，there are also some daily necessities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there（废品）is no doubt that it is absolutely useless to people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22575" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T05:50:06.863" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T05:50:06.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34781" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-17T09:52:40.913" Score="2" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was confused by the lyrics of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Huy630mXDw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;children's song 三个和尚&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一个和尚挑水吃&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  两个和尚抬水吃&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  三个和尚没水吃呀&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  三个和尚没水吃&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  没水吃呀  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen other versions of the song that use 喝 instead of 吃, which makes more sense to me. Can 吃 be used to mean &quot;drink&quot; as well as &quot;eat&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9263" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T07:12:50.473" Title="Can 吃 be used for liquids?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34782" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-17T11:13:56.287" Score="1" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've looked up homemaker, a generic and gender neutral term for house husband, house wife, or a person who stays at home and looks after the family and does house chores, in the Pleco dictionary, but couldn't find such a word. I wonder whether any such word exists in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19391" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T02:29:24.853" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T02:29:24.853" Title="Does Chinese have a gender-neutral term for &quot;homemaker&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34782" CreationDate="2019-08-17T12:52:27.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;持家者 = 主持家中事務的人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The homemaker = the person who does most of the housework in the family &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In my opinion, it doesn't matter it is the wife or the husband or anyone else-- who ever does most of the cleaning and cooking is the homemaker of the family-- If both husband and wife share the housework evenly, they are both 持家者&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;持家有道 - (good at taking care of the household) is a praise for a good wife &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term 持家 literally means &quot;maintain/ holding the household&quot; which also mean all the responsibility within the household belong to that person including taking care the children. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-18T00:06:41.457" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T00:06:41.457" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34784" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-17T20:41:07.160" Score="1" ViewCount="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gkia9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gkia9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you please tell me what this says and, if you can write it so, I can copy and paste it would be great&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22583" LastActivityDate="2019-08-17T23:47:28.113" Title="What does this say" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-08-18T09:20:21.350" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34785" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-17T21:18:06.110" Score="0" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_society&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Honor societies&lt;/a&gt; and fraternities are a fixture in U.S. colleges. Most often they use Greek letters for their names, and some have names in English. However, the men's honor society of Santa Cruz High School (Santa Cruz, California) is called &quot;Hi Tow Tong&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &quot;Tong&quot; is well explained as a neighborhood hall or benevolent association. In light of the origins of most of the Chinese in California at the time, I suspect, but am not sure, that the spelling is a Wade-Giles spelling of Cantonese. There are lots of other local tongs (not high school clubs) listed in Wikipedia's article on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tong_Wars&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tong Wars&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to a &lt;a href=&quot;https://santacruzsportshistory.com/facilities/santa-cruz-sports-facilities-through-the-years/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog post&lt;/a&gt; containing much later text from the school student newspaper,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hi Tow Tong Men’s Honor Society was organized in 1910. The first initiation ceremonies were adopted embracing the sentiments of Confucius, Jesus and other world leaders to emphasize the thought that leadership ability carries with it the responsibility to serve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does &quot;Hi Tow&quot; mean? Are several readings possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22584" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T08:58:52.567" Title="The name of the California high school fraternity, Hi Tow Tong" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34781" CreationDate="2019-08-17T23:12:09.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well you can 吃酒，or 吃喜酒 at a wedding, but that involves eating and drinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%90%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt; has: (4) 饮;喝 [drink]。如:吃血(饮血酒);吃茶(喝茶)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A song about human nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个和尚挑水吃 When you're alone you have to help yourself.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;两个和尚抬水吃  2 people can cooperate&lt;br&gt;&#xA;三个和尚没水吃呀  when there are 3 people, each thinks, 'Why should I do it? Let them do it.'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;三个和尚没水吃&lt;br&gt;&#xA;没水吃呀 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: thinking about oil, which is a liquid，I was just reading an article about 副食品:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;食用油大战，使人们&lt;strong&gt;吃&lt;/strong&gt;上了精炼洁净的瓶装油。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2019-09-01T00:35:01.867" LastActivityDate="2019-09-01T00:35:01.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34784" CreationDate="2019-08-17T23:47:28.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;加藤 Jiā​téng： Katō (Japanese surname）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;直 zhí：straight&lt;br&gt;&#xA;樹 shù: tree &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone's name perhaps?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-17T23:47:28.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34788" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34789" CreationDate="2019-08-18T00:28:45.587" Score="1" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems like an easy question, but there doesn't seem to be an easy answer!&#xA;If I have three apples in my hands and I give you two, I could say 'I'll give you these two apples, but I will keep this one'.&#xA;What is the verb for 'to keep' in this scenario? 拥有? 保持? 留下?&#xA;All thoughts much appreciated!&#xA;Hashamyim&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T05:51:04.300" Title="How to say 'to keep' in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34788" CreationDate="2019-08-18T02:08:53.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;留(下)&lt;/strong&gt; is your best bet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example from &lt;em&gt;Oxford C-E&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我留下20块钱，下剩的给你。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I'll keep 20 &lt;em&gt;yuan&lt;/em&gt; and the rest is for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T02:08:53.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34785" CreationDate="2019-08-18T04:38:44.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;tow tong&quot; means &quot;道堂&quot;, without doubt. e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eoQxt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eoQxt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%A0%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;堂 (u+5802) &lt;/a&gt;should be interpreted as &quot;association&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%81%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;道 (u+9053)&lt;/a&gt; means &quot;tao&quot;, the proper way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the first character &quot;hi&quot;, my best guess is, in sequence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%87%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;凱 (u+51f1)&lt;/a&gt; roughy means &quot;victory&quot;, that &quot;hi tow tong&quot; would be &quot;the association of the tao of victory&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;second is &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%96%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;開 (u+958b)&lt;/a&gt; roughy means beginning, that &quot;hi tow tong&quot; would be &quot;the association of the tao of beginning&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T14:44:33.030" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T14:44:33.030" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34788" CreationDate="2019-08-18T04:53:57.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your example, I'll give you these two apples, but I'll keep them it means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;保留&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'to keep' can be said that &lt;strong&gt;保持 保存 维持&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Like&lt;BR/&gt;That's why I must trust you to keep this secret &lt;BR/&gt;那就是为什么我必须得相信你会&lt;strong&gt;保守&lt;/strong&gt;这个秘密的原因。&lt;BR/&gt;&#xA;  I had to keep in with the people who mattered. &lt;BR/&gt;我得和管事儿的人&lt;strong&gt;保持&lt;/strong&gt;良好关系&lt;BR/&gt;I wanted to keep in touch, but when I called him he gave me the brush-off. &lt;BR/&gt;我想和他&lt;strong&gt;保持&lt;/strong&gt;联系，但当我打电话给他时，他却不理睬我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'to keep' is a sense of &lt;strong&gt;continuity&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;BR/&gt;Its effect is to put something in a certain state&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22575" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T05:51:04.300" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T05:51:04.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34660" CreationDate="2019-08-18T06:28:05.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its original meaning is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的问题是什么?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another popular saying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你怎么回事啊？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22575" LastEditorUserId="6696" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T08:26:04.553" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T08:26:04.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34781" CreationDate="2019-08-18T08:57:55.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my point of view, 吃 here is a correct but uncommon usage. See&#xA;the first explaination &lt;a href=&quot;https://hanyu.baidu.com/zici/s?wd=%E5%90%83&amp;amp;query=%E5%90%83&amp;amp;srcid=28232&amp;amp;from=kg0&amp;amp;from=kg0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T08:57:55.050" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34416" CreationDate="2019-08-18T09:14:01.117" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this means &quot;stuff&quot;, just like that in British English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T09:14:01.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34660" CreationDate="2019-08-18T12:11:00.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you wish to express &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What's your problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this in the sense of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do you have a problem with that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你有什么&lt;strong&gt;意见&lt;/strong&gt;吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;意见&lt;/strong&gt; means, in general, &lt;em&gt;opinion&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;comment&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;suggestion&lt;/em&gt;. (Compare with 建议 which possesses a similar meaning yet with a softer connotation). The former may suggest there is a variance in opinions to the extent of contention,  while the latter describes a suggestion in the sense of a non-dictating recommendation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on your tone of voice and context, &lt;strong&gt;意见&lt;/strong&gt; may convey a different attitude, but it tends to sound argumentative in most cases. &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/6209673.html?qbl=relate_question_0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Consult this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do note&lt;/strong&gt; that this way of expression might get you in trouble, so use your words wisely! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T12:11:00.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34796" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34804" CreationDate="2019-08-18T15:14:34.870" Score="4" ViewCount="1844" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would ask this on ELL but I honestly have no idea how to express this in English. Online translation give &amp;quot;brain short circuit&amp;quot;, which sounds more like terminology than self-mockery. I am looking for a translation that fits here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你刚刚要说什么? (= what were you gonna say?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 没什么, 我脑袋短路了. (= nothing, I just ____.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another imaginary situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some guy solves a math problem using a very complex method, and some other person shows him that it can be done very simply, and he says: &amp;quot;Oh! Right! I ___(脑袋短路了).&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T15:52:39.853" Title="How to translate 脑袋短路 into English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase-request&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34796" CreationDate="2019-08-18T19:43:05.857" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;脑袋-短路, based on what I understand, just means literally that the brain short-circuited or malfunctioned as an electrical circuit would. The expression that comes to mind in English is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I blanked out for a second. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My mind went blank. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or perhaps &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I spaced out for a second. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19184" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T19:43:05.857" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34798" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34799" CreationDate="2019-08-18T21:37:25.603" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading a text from &lt;em&gt;The Chairman's Bao&lt;/em&gt; titled &quot;Australian Boy Finds 56-year-old Message in a Bottle&quot; and I came across the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在的Paul已经63岁了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 的 do here? Could it be omitted? How's this construction called and where I could read more about it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19231" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T05:47:35.600" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T05:47:35.600" Title="What does 的 do in &quot;现在的Paul已经63岁了“?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34798" CreationDate="2019-08-18T22:35:19.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possession, just as always, with flexible senses - here, in an abstract sense by the time known as &quot;now&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The Paul, who is in the possession (的) of now (现在) - Now's Paul - already (已经) has realized (了) the age of 63 years (岁).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or in a more succinct form, still preserving the cognition,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Paul of now already attained 63 years of age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, in a more colloquial, conventional form,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As of now, Paul is already 63.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the &quot;already&quot; (已经), it sounds like there was some expectation elsewhere in the text that he was not so old by now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ADD&lt;/strong&gt;, see comments: This whole unit 现在的, in this instance, can also be understood as an adjective phrase - in that sense, it signifies that &quot;nowness&quot; is a quality held &lt;em&gt;by&lt;/em&gt; Paul (effectively, the inverse of the interpretation described above), so the &quot;Paul of the present time&quot;, or the &quot;Paul with existing-in-the-present-time-ness&quot;. X的 in general is an adjective meaning &quot;Xness-possessing&quot;. This is actually the most common interpretation, it's just that here, with this specific term, we have an alternative one that also makes sense as well, but in other cases one or the other will be clearly more sensible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16171" LastEditorUserId="16171" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T01:59:07.030" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T01:59:07.030" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34788" CreationDate="2019-08-18T22:53:59.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;'I have 3 apples, I'll give you two apples, I'll keep this one'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我有三个苹果，我给你两个，一个留给我自己。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T22:53:59.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34796" CreationDate="2019-08-18T23:04:45.407" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this with glitch:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也许，我脑袋里哪里短路了。&#xA;Maybe there was a glitch in my brain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没什么, 我脑袋短路了。&#xA;Nothing, just a brain lapse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T23:04:45.407" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34798" CreationDate="2019-08-18T23:25:55.433" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember when I first saw things like 小小的我， 年轻的他 it seemed strange. In English you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;poor little me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but normally, in English, we need a relative clause to describe Paul 'Paul, who ... '.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paul put the message in a bottle as a boy. Now he is 63.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现年63岁的保罗对那一天记忆犹新。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Paul, who is now 63, remembers that day well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T23:25:55.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34798" CreationDate="2019-08-19T01:21:03.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;的 can be either a possessive maker or an adjectival marker&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 的 as a possessive maker: &quot;保罗的車&quot; = &quot;Paul's car&quot; (的 marks the noun car as the object that's possessed by Paul)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 的 as an adjectival marker: &quot;年老的保罗&quot; = &quot;old aged Paul&quot; (的 marks 年老 as an adjective for Paul)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: &lt;em&gt;&quot;Paul? Which Paul?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &lt;em&gt;&quot;The old aged Paul&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 的 in 现在的Paul已经63岁了 is not a possessive maker but an adjectival marker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: &lt;em&gt;&quot;Paul? Which Paul?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &lt;em&gt;&quot;The Paul today&quot; (not the Paul in the past/ not the eight years old Paul)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;现在的 Paul 已经63岁了&quot; is a [topic + comment] sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;现在的 Paul&quot; (the Paul now) is the topic&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;已经63岁了&quot; (is already 63 years old) is the comment&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you remove 的 and write: &quot;现在 Paul 已经63岁了&quot; Then it would be translated as &quot;Paul is now 63 years old&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T02:15:53.930" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T02:15:53.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34796" CreationDate="2019-08-19T01:50:32.317" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;brain fart&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Google&lt;/em&gt; defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a temporary mental lapse or failure to reason correctly.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &quot;I'm having a brain fart and can't spell his name correctly&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英语学科网 has an article entitled &lt;a href=&quot;http://yy.zxxk.com/article/458052.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;“大脑短路”用英语怎么说？&lt;/a&gt;, which mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There's a scientific term for this totally common phenomenon, which we like to call a &quot;brain fart.&quot; &quot;Brain fart&quot; is used to refer to a temporary mental lapse or failure to reason correctly.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  这种非常普遍的现象有个学名，我们称之为“大脑短路”。&quot;大脑短路&quot;是指暂时的大脑失灵，无法正确地进行推断。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Below is a list of brain farts that pretty much everyone has had one time or another.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  下面就是我们每个人都很可能曾经做过的脑子短路事件清单：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T02:01:47.560" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T02:01:47.560" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34796" CreationDate="2019-08-19T06:23:40.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about brain lag?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Brain%20Lag&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Urban Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; it defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When it takes one's brain a few seconds to catch up with their actions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think I had heard someone said this in your kind of scenario&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some guy solves a math problem using a very complex method, and some other person shows him that it can be done very simply, and he says: &quot;Oh! Right! My  brain lagged.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22593" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T06:23:40.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34796" CreationDate="2019-08-19T06:28:02.590" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/34804/22594&quot;&gt;&quot;brain fart&quot;&lt;/a&gt; is definitely the common way to say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you could also use &quot;zoned out&quot;, like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Whoa, sorry, I zoned out for a second...&quot; (哇，不好意思，脑袋短路...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22594" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T06:28:02.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34660" CreationDate="2019-08-19T06:30:49.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你有毛病啊?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or even simpler&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你有病啊?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a similar vein, if you want to call someone crazy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你疯了吗??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22594" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T06:30:49.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34781" CreationDate="2019-08-19T07:05:09.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/azm4j.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/azm4j.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to 《汉英简明词典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃 actually can mean &quot;drink&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, 吃水 here dose not merely mean drink water, it can further extend to use water for daily life, such as washing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar expression, &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%90%83%E6%B0%B4%E4%B8%8D%E5%BF%98%E6%8C%96%E4%BA%95%E4%BA%BA/4526495?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;吃水不忘挖井人&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19295" LastEditorUserId="19295" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T01:52:11.523" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T01:52:11.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34782" CreationDate="2019-08-19T11:04:59.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;By Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary 8th Edition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a person who works at home and takes care of the house and family 料理家务者；操持家务者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3706" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T11:04:59.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34810" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34813" CreationDate="2019-08-19T12:37:12.730" Score="2" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to write in chinese. Since we were friends.... or ever since we made friends.... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my essay. I wrote 自从我们是朋友。And the teacher correct it, you cannot use the verb 是. She wrote 自从我们交上了朋友，。。  but i cannot find many sentences with 交上 in the internet. What i found was 自从我们成为了朋友，。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are both right? have the same meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T02:27:39.873" Title="make/become friends. 成为朋友，交朋友。 Since we were friends" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34750" CreationDate="2019-08-19T14:19:30.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a simple explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine you go back to the Zhou Dynasty, and became the leader, you found it is hard to manage the big territory without cars and planes, so you enfeoff your territory to many relatives and friends, they manage it for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are 天子, your relatives are 王, and your friends are 公, and then 伯 and other lower titles. Besides the title, they are all the leaders in their own country, yes they are countries, but the leaders obey to you since you are 天子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you go to Qin Dynasty or any following dynasties, you don't want to enfeoff any more, cuz they all want to steal your 天子 title. Now you have to manage your whole land by yourself, then you think, I am the greatest ever, I am 皇帝.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes, you like some friends very much, you may give him the rank of nobility 王, but there are many differences between this honor 王 and the enfeoffment 王.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13440" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T14:19:30.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34810" CreationDate="2019-08-19T17:30:24.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Since&quot; can mean &quot;既然&quot; (as) or &quot;自从&quot; (from the time) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Since we are friends&quot; is not translated as &quot;自从我们是朋友&quot;. It is translated as &quot;既然我们是朋友&quot; (as we are friends).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Since the time we were friends&quot; is translated as &quot;自从我们是朋友那時候起&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your teacher is correct, &quot;自从我们(是)朋友&quot; is problematic because the verb &quot;是&quot; (is) doesn't has the meaning of &quot;become&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Since we'd became friends&quot; should be translated as &quot;自从我们&lt;strong&gt;交上了&lt;/strong&gt;朋友&quot; or &quot;自从我们&lt;strong&gt;成为了&lt;/strong&gt;朋友&quot; (Since the time we'd &lt;strong&gt;became&lt;/strong&gt; friends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T02:27:39.873" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T02:27:39.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2250" CreationDate="2019-08-19T18:05:16.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct tranlation is &quot;Who let you&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22599" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T18:05:16.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34810" CreationDate="2019-08-19T23:11:42.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ever since implies the friendship has lasted a while. 交上了朋友 somehow indicates now or recent past to me. So I prefer 成为朋友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自从我们成为朋友，我就一直想告诉你：你有口臭！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ever since we became friends, I've been wanting to tell you: you have smelly breath!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T23:11:42.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34816" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34817" CreationDate="2019-08-20T06:10:56.193" Score="2" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought I have finally been able to wrap my head around this structure, but it seems no, not really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I have seen this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨晚我的朋友_表达_得很明确。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But according to my native speaker friend, you cannot say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨晚我的朋友_表达表_得很明确。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, he also said you can make the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨晚我的朋友_表达_意思_表达_得很明确。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thinking was that verb repeating kicks in when there is an object, but then he made this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨晚我的朋友_讲话讲_得很明确。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence my questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does this mismatch come from the fact that 表达 is just a verb, while 讲话 is technically a verb + object, just like 游泳，吃饭，放假 etc.?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can I just say _表达_意思_表 without repeating the 达 part, as in 他_讲课讲_得好, 每年冬天我们_放假放_三个星期 etc.?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T06:40:58.647" Title="Why can't I repeat the verb with degree complement in “昨晚我的朋友表达得很明确”?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34816" CreationDate="2019-08-20T06:40:58.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yes. 表达 isn't a VO, it can't be split like you're trying to split it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No. 表 isn't used by itself as a verb like that. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you could just opt for something much simpler like: &lt;em&gt;已经说得很清楚&lt;/em&gt;, rather than the mouthful that your current sentence would become.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T06:40:58.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34818" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34819" CreationDate="2019-08-20T10:06:53.247" Score="2" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I am a westerner and I study Chinese, I am currently undergoing the hard task of choosing a Chinese name for myself. The last thing I want to do is to simply translate my Italian name in Chinese... instead, I want to pick up a name that really sounds Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My passion for Chinese culture led me to buy an old book that aims at leading the reader to choose an auspicious Chinese name based on zodiac, yin/yang, binomials, stroke numbers etc. I was born on May 27, 1988 (year of the dragon), around 8:30 a.m., and after some study and attempts, I came up to what sounds to me like a fair name, but I would really like to hear from any Chinese native speaker or experts among you if, to your ears, this sounds like a good name for a male.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, here we go: the surname is 波 (Bo1), given name 傲蟀 (Ao2 Shuai4) - I  really liked the idea of having both a character that reminds of the cricket, with its fighting spirit and good fortune meaning, and a character that conveys the meaning of being proud.&#xA;Does this sound like a nice/good/fair/natural name to you? Any possible suggestions?&#xA;I really appreciate any feedback you may give me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I insert the answer to your comment/question also here: I have chosen 白+鷺振. I like the idea that the 白鷺 bird (and the sound of my actual Italian surname) is suggested by the surname 白 and by the first character of the given name. According to my little understanding of Chinese traditional beliefs regarding names (based on the little book I mentioned at the very beginning), it seems to me that 白+鷺振 works fairly well also in terms of ying/yang, being an auspicious combination of Yang+yin+yin. Moreover, it seems that the zongge of the name (total strokes of the three characters) amounts to 39, related to happiness and blessing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this works!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22604" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T13:35:48.777" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T14:24:35.480" Title="Does 波傲蟀 sound like a natural name?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34818" CreationDate="2019-08-20T11:54:25.903" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;no, &amp;quot;波傲蟀&amp;quot; is not a natural chinese name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the answer below is extremely superstitious, read with cautions.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there're many sects of fortune telling; here, i convert your birthday to &amp;quot;eight characters&amp;quot; (八字), with our any adjustment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;was born on May 27, 1988 (year of the dragon), around 8:30 a.m.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;your eight characters would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;甲 壬 丁 戊&#xA;辰 午 巳 辰&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in terms of five elements (五行):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;木 水 火 土&#xA;土 火 火 土&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a simple saying of it is: 五行欠金 (lack of the metal element)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for such case, people would choose a baby name with the component 金 (radical 167), might be 木 (radical 75) &amp;amp; 水 (radical 85). meanwhile, they would avoid any character with the component 火 (radical 86) &amp;amp; 土 (radical 32).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i see. ok, without yin &amp;amp; yang, my first suggestion is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;白鷺, 振&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;your surname &amp;quot;ballo&amp;quot;, it sounds identical to &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%99%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;白 (u+767d)&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%B7%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鷺 (u+9dfa)&lt;/a&gt; according to cantonese.  these two characters together, means &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_egret&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;little egret&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's a double characters surname. little egret (白鷺) is a good symbol in chinese culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from 禽經:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鷺．白鷺也．小不踰大．飛有次序．百官縉紳之象&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;about the given name &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E6%8C%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;振 (u+632f)&lt;/a&gt;, it roughly means flap. when a little egret flaps its wings, it determines to fly, upwards into the sky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this character is chosen according to a poem (indeed, there're countless poems talked about little egret).in the book of poetry &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/book-of-poetry/zhen-lu?searchu=%E9%B7%BA&amp;amp;searchmode=showall&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(詩經　周頌　臣工之什　振鷺):&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;振鷺于飛．于彼西雝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我客戾止．亦有斯容&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在彼無惡．在此無斁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;庶幾夙夜．以永終譽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;more about 鷺:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06072836.cn/page/n134&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;御定駢字類編　卷二百五　p134-144&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/06074374.cn/page/n65&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;御定分類字錦　卷五十六 鷗鷺第十七　p65-78&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;these two are cheat-sheets, most, if not all related texts / poems are recorded. need some level of competency to read it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my second suggestion, considering yin &amp;amp; yang, is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;巴, 鑫&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, the first syllable of &amp;quot;ballo&amp;quot; in italian, is quite similar to &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%B7%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;巴 (u+5df4)&lt;/a&gt; in cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's a &amp;quot;common&amp;quot; han chinese surname.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;back to five elements, your birthday is considered as having one wood (木), one water (水), three fire (火), three earth (土), and without any metal (金).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, the compensation is choosing a name with component 金, in order to &amp;quot;feel / think&amp;quot; that name plus birthday together, all five elements are included.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that why the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%91%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鑫 (u+946b)&lt;/a&gt; is chosen. it means &amp;quot;prospering or good profit&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you examine the character closely, 鑫 is composed by three 金, which matches three fire and three earth in your birthday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the name &amp;quot;巴鑫&amp;quot; would be a ordinary, common one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the above show a basic method only, different sects of fortune telling would have different considerations or compensations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T18:03:37.897" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34820" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-20T13:18:11.517" Score="2" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if anyone could help with the translation of this seal (image has been flipped), and the characters on the side as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No knowledge here, but have tried handwriting the seal characters in google translate and think they may be 霄籁? Heaven Music?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jkDeP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jkDeP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bTcO9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bTcO9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22605" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T15:04:20.327" Title="Seal &amp; Calligraphy translation" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34820" CreationDate="2019-08-20T13:32:54.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;范霞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A name. Its pronunciation is dependent on where the artist comes from, so I won't give one here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calligraphy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一九六四秊（年）七月秉昌刻于香江&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carved at 香江 (location) on July 1964 by 秉昌 (another name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure about the last character「江」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these proper nouns (names, locations) refer to multiple places/people in the East Asian cultural region, so only you (who knows the context) would be able to fully get the background information of the object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks @TangHo and @水巷孑蠻 who mentioned that 香江 is a poetic name for Hong Kong and that 秉昌 is the first name of a famous seal carver (陳秉昌) from Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case, 范霞 is probably a Chinese name, and is the customer who requested their seal carved by 陳秉昌.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still no translation, but I'll provide Cantonese and Mandarin Romanisations for 范霞:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cantonese: Faan&lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt; Haa&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mandarin: Fàn Xiá&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T15:04:20.327" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34823" CreationDate="2019-08-20T22:46:42.777" Score="0" ViewCount="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence in question is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的心又似小木船&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it is translated: my heart is like a &lt;strong&gt;small&lt;/strong&gt; wooden boat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can it also mean: my heart is &lt;strong&gt;a little bit&lt;/strong&gt; like a wooden boat?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20410" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T23:28:18.627" Title="Differentiating between adjective and adverb?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34822" CreationDate="2019-08-20T23:28:18.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我的心似小木船。&#xA;My heart is like a small wooden boat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a little bit like would be 有点儿像&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的心有点儿像一艘小木船。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T23:28:18.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34824" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34826" CreationDate="2019-08-21T04:05:15.320" Score="8" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, my real question is: did 瑞 used to be pronounced &lt;em&gt;suì&lt;/em&gt; in 官话?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My roundabout way at getting to this is from the transliteration of Switzerland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at Chengduese.《现代汉语方言音库 • 成都话音档》records 瑞 with two pronunciations. One being:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;zuei²¹³&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which could be roughly written in faux-&quot;pinyin&quot; as &lt;em&gt;rui&lt;/em&gt;; which approximately (details aside) matches most MSM pronunciations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;suei²¹³&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is essentially (for our purposes here) &lt;em&gt;sui&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the rule of thumb for 老派 Chengduese is that names and places are read &lt;em&gt;sui&lt;/em&gt; and not &lt;em&gt;rui&lt;/em&gt;. Which would make the pronunciation of 瑞士 something more akin to &lt;em&gt;sui si&lt;/em&gt; - which sounds much closer to the actual pronunciation of Switzerland. What makes for an even better case for this pronunciation is a comparison to Japanese. The Japanese pronunciation of Switzerland is Suisu (スイス) and it's Ateji (当て字) is &lt;strong&gt;瑞西&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How was Switzerland transliterated into Chinese? Was it through some topolect -or- did 瑞 originally carry the pronunciation &lt;em&gt;sui&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: I supposed 瑞典 (Sweden) might also be an interesting case to look into - with similar &lt;em&gt;sui/swe&lt;/em&gt; sounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit #2: Looking at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%91%9E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; Min nan/Hakka/Cantonese all seem to be much closer to &lt;em&gt;sui&lt;/em&gt; than &lt;em&gt;rui&lt;/em&gt; also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit #3: Wiktionary’s entry for 瑞士 does confirm some things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From French Suisse, borrowed through a southern Chinese dialect (where 瑞 is pronounced with an s- initial). See also 瑞典 (Ruìdiǎn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it’s sorely lacking specifics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit #4: &lt;a href=&quot;http://blueiris4.lofter.com/post/2e6b70_59a85f1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;apparently&lt;/a&gt; 山东 topolect also reads 瑞 as sui.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit #5: Grand Ricci also gives the pronunciation: shuì.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-21T11:06:29.673" LastActivityDate="2019-08-22T01:04:57.547" Title="How was Switzerland transliterated into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7160" CreationDate="2019-08-21T07:07:17.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;哎呀!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is how you write Āiyā! in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22608" LastActivityDate="2019-08-21T07:07:17.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34824" CreationDate="2019-08-21T15:18:06.317" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did 瑞 used to be pronounced suì in 官話?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was pronounced far closer to &lt;strong&gt;suì&lt;/strong&gt; than today’s &lt;strong&gt;ruì&lt;/strong&gt;, and more than enough to warrant the use of 瑞 as a transcription for &lt;em&gt;Switzerland&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Sweden&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VOGbf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VOGbf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excerpt from&#xA;元・周德清&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhongyuan_Yinyun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《中原音韻》&lt;/a&gt;,&#xA;detailing the phonology of 13th Century Central Plains speech, a.k.a.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Old Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;. The&#xA;characters 睡, 稅, 說, and 瑞 are pronounced identically. The expected&#xA;Mandarin reflex of 瑞 is &lt;strong&gt;shuì&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IIZ1I.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IIZ1I.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excerpt from the Ming Dynasty publication 《洪武正韻》, which details the speech of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_(late_imperial_lingua_franca)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ming-era Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;. The dictionary gives the &lt;em&gt;Fanqie&lt;/em&gt; of 瑞 as 殊偽切.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever changed the pronunciation to &lt;strong&gt;r-&lt;/strong&gt; must have happened relatively recently...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-22T01:04:57.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31830" CreationDate="2019-08-21T15:28:26.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a feeling that this coin may come from Vietnam, or those characters are not Chinese. As the clothing of that man is not in a fully traditional Chinese style. There are some types of ancient Chinese characters that are hard to recognize today, but men in those eras didn't wear like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22610" LastActivityDate="2019-08-21T15:28:26.957" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2019-08-22T03:37:22.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;請回收 / 請回收再造 - Please recycle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;請回收廢紙 / 請回收紙張 - Please recycle waste paper / Please recycle paper&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(in Traditional Chinese)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Additional information&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are Three R's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reduce （減少使用）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reuse （廢物重用 / 重複利用）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Recycle （循環再造）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And an additional R sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Replace （替代使用）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%92%B0%E4%BF%9D3R&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/環保3R&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3511" LastActivityDate="2019-08-22T03:37:22.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23431" CreationDate="2019-08-22T08:42:13.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English it means, in a group of three people, there will be someone who I can learn from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22616" LastActivityDate="2019-08-22T08:42:13.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34831" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-22T15:11:43.757" Score="1" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to write an eassy about festivities and I included the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;公历每年十二月十五日是这个西方传统的节日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The teacher said this was not correct Chinese, instead, I should have written:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;圣诞节这个西方传统节日&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;每年的十二月二十五日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also saw other examples in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;圣诞节是在每年的十二月十五日。Festivity + 是在每年的 + date.  中秋节&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;农历八月五日。Festivity 是 +&#xA;  date. 中国的春天一般&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;一月底到二月初。 Chinese Festivity + 在 date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I am a bit confused. From what I learned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1) It seems that you cannot first put the date and then 的 festivity.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2) You can put the event and then 是在，是，and 在 and after that, the date.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these two assumptions correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saludos desde España.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastEditorUserId="2792" LastEditDate="2019-08-23T00:54:02.600" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T00:54:02.600" Title="Express when festivity or event happens" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;greetings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34831" CreationDate="2019-08-22T18:18:37.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course you can put the event before or after the date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you write the name of an event first, you can add the information of &lt;strong&gt;when&lt;/strong&gt; this event occurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: [圣诞节] [&lt;strong&gt;是在&lt;/strong&gt;] [十二月二十五日] = [Christmas] [&lt;strong&gt;is on&lt;/strong&gt;] [25th December]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you write a date first, you can add the information of &lt;strong&gt;what&lt;/strong&gt; this date represents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: [十二月二十五日] [&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;] [圣诞节] = [25th December] [&lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt;] [Christmas]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的生日是在日十二月二十五日 - My birthday is on December 25th.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十二月二十五日是我的生日 - December 25th is my birthday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you are describing &amp;quot;when the event occurs&amp;quot;, you can omit &amp;quot;在&amp;quot; and write &amp;quot;圣诞节是十二月二十五日&amp;quot; (Christmas is 25th December) or &amp;quot;我的生日是十二月二十五日&amp;quot; (My birthday is 25th December)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you are describing &amp;quot;what the date represents&amp;quot;, you cannot add &amp;quot;在&amp;quot;  and write  &amp;quot;十二月二十五日是在圣诞节&amp;quot; (25th December is on Christmas) or &amp;quot;十二月二十五日是在我的生日&amp;quot; (25th December is on my birthday )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can add more information about the date. &amp;quot;十二月二十五日&amp;quot; just means &amp;quot;25th December&amp;quot; ; &amp;quot;每年的十二月二十五日&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;25th December of every year&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T00:00:18.430" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34831" CreationDate="2019-08-22T23:33:12.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you have is good:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;圣诞节这个西方传统节日在每年的十二月二十五日。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but you can shift it around:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每年的十二月二十五号是西方的传统节日——圣诞节。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you may use 是、在、是在, como quieras.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¡Recuerdos desde China a mi querida Andalucía!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-22T23:33:12.483" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34835" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34836" CreationDate="2019-08-23T07:19:53.663" Score="0" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know you can say 维持治安, but not ie. 保持治安, yet other examples seem to be very similar in terms of use—is that a collocation issue or different meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://hinative.com/zh-CN/questions/150380&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hinative.com/zh-CN/questions/150380&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://hinative.com/zh-CN/questions/150380&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hinative.com/zh-CN/questions/150380&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15458" LastEditorUserId="15458" LastEditDate="2019-08-23T08:23:35.863" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T09:27:49.000" Title="What is the difference between 保持, 维持 and 维护?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;synonyms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34835" CreationDate="2019-08-23T09:14:56.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;保 = maintain; guarantee; 持 = hold ; [保持 = to maintain; to keep ]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;维 = maintain; safeguard; 持 = hold ; [维持 = to maintain; to keep ; to safeguard]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;维 = maintain; safeguard; 护 = protect; [维护 = to protect]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it means &quot;maintain&quot; or &quot;keep&quot; 保持 and 维持 are interchangeable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;保持良好治安 = 维持良好治安 (maintain good level of public order)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;保持平衡 = 维持平衡 (maintain balance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I know you can say 维持治安, but not ie. 保持治安&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is because 治安 only means &quot;level of public order&quot; It can be good or bad. &quot;保持治安&quot; (maintain level of public order) doesn't specify what level of public order is being maintained; while &quot;维持&quot; has the meaning of &quot;to safeguard&quot; therefore &quot;维持治安&quot; (to safeguard level of public order) strongly implies   the level of public order is being safeguarded is high -- We safeguard the level of public order only when it is high.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As my examples indicated, if the level of public order is specifically stated, e.g. &quot;良好&quot; (good) then you can use either 保持 or 维持&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also indicated in my example, 维护  means &quot;to protect&quot;  &quot;维护治安&quot; doesn't need to specify what level of public order is being protected --  We protect the level of public order only when it is high. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-23T09:27:49.000" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T09:27:49.000" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34837" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34838" CreationDate="2019-08-23T09:25:25.360" Score="1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel like there must be an answer to this question. I know each of the individual titles &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;外公，外婆，爷爷，奶奶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I can't seem to find how to say a collective title 'grandparents' as we would use in English, nor will my dictionary turn up a good answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone tell me if there is a proper way to say grandparents in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="62" LastEditorUserId="2792" LastEditDate="2019-08-23T12:31:01.650" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T00:11:55.860" Title="How to say grandparents (as in the collective group) rather than the specific individual?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34837" CreationDate="2019-08-23T11:22:56.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%A5%96%E7%88%B6%E6%AF%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;祖父母&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;祖父母是指父亲的父母亲，又称“爷爷、嫲嫲”、“爷爷、奶奶”。母亲的父母称为外祖父母，在中国南方称为外公、外婆，在中国北方则称为姥姥（或姥娘）、姥爷。自己则分别是祖父母和外祖父母的孙儿或孙女、外孙或外孙女。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also links to the English page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandparent&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grandparent&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grandparents_Day&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;National Grandparents Day&lt;/a&gt; is also translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%A5%96%E7%88%B6%E6%AF%8D%E7%AF%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;祖父母节&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-23T11:30:35.857" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T11:30:35.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34839" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34843" CreationDate="2019-08-23T17:49:41.220" Score="4" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I express that an event in the past could have occurred, if not for some other condition that prevented it from occurring?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We &lt;strong&gt;could&lt;/strong&gt; have deployed the code on Tuesday, &lt;strong&gt;but&lt;/strong&gt; our tests were failing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I &lt;strong&gt;would&lt;/strong&gt; have bought groceries, &lt;strong&gt;if&lt;/strong&gt; my car had not broken down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He &lt;strong&gt;almost&lt;/strong&gt; passed the test; &lt;strong&gt;unfortunately&lt;/strong&gt; he ran out of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She &lt;strong&gt;might&lt;/strong&gt; have finished the race, &lt;strong&gt;however&lt;/strong&gt; she was dehydrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English we have a lot of different words that can be substituted in for the bolded words above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the simplest way to express this pattern?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some other variations that can also express this pattern?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22570" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T09:57:41.593" Title="Express that an event in the past could have occurred, if not for some condition" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34839" CreationDate="2019-08-23T19:15:44.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the conjunctions in the examples you stated are applicable in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but = 但是/但&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: [本來][X][但][Y] = [originally][X][but][Y]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if not for = 如果不是/如非 (literary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: [如非][Y][那][X] = [If not for] [Y] [then] [X]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unfortunately = 可惜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: [應該是/應該會][X][可惜][Y] = [should be][X][unfortunately][Y]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;however = 不過/只不過&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: [原本][X][不過][Y] = [originally][X][however][Y]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;X = event should had happened; Y = reason it didn't happened&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[明明][X][卻][Y] = [clearly][X][but][Y]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[本應][X][最後][Y]= [originally should][X][at the end][Y]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Y= what ended up happened instead&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depend on the context, some conjunctions are interchangeable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[本來][X][但][Y] --&amp;gt; [本來][X][不過][Y]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[應該是][X][可惜][Y] --&amp;gt; [應該是][X][不過][Y]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T19:31:39.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34841" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-23T19:42:16.983" Score="2" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering how to say and write mixer in Chinese? This is the type of mixer I'm asking about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RbnTg.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RbnTg.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22626" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-29T05:12:27.117" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T05:12:27.117" Title="How do you say mixer in chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34841" CreationDate="2019-08-23T19:50:36.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php&lt;/a&gt; , input 'mixer' in the searching field, choose 'English meaning' and search. It will display the results related to 'mixer'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/14251/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;攪拌機&lt;/a&gt; :mixer; blender&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/36355/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;攪拌器&lt;/a&gt; :beater; blender; mixer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T19:50:36.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34839" CreationDate="2019-08-23T23:43:06.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;express that an event could have occurred in the past, if not for some&#xA;  other condition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this many languages employ the subjunctive. Spanish, for example, has 8 forms of the subjunctive. Which form to use when??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is a lot easier. Just use a word that somehow indicates 'if' and you have a subjunctive form， like 我们本可以 = we could have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could have deployed the code on Tuesday, but our tests were unsatisfactory.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们&lt;strong&gt;本可以&lt;/strong&gt;在周二启动这个软件，但我们的测试结果并不让人满意。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(this never seems to bother Microsoft)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would have bought groceries, if my car had not broken down.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;不是我的车坏了，我就会买些杂货。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He would have passed the test, if he had not been so slow.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;如果&lt;/strong&gt;他不是这么慢&lt;strong&gt;的话&lt;/strong&gt;，他会通过考试的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She might have finished the race, had she not become dehydrated.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;如果&lt;/strong&gt;她没有脱水&lt;strong&gt;的话&lt;/strong&gt;，她大概已经完成了比赛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T23:43:06.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34844" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34845" CreationDate="2019-08-24T02:46:17.543" Score="1" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a trip to Hangzhou, almost 2 years ago, I participated in one (the biggest if I'm not mistaken) of the &lt;em&gt;Chinese National Amateur Weiqi Championship&lt;/em&gt; as a (Brazilian) foreigner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During one of the subevents, the organization wanted the foreign participants to play a team game against monks from a monastery. Kind as they almost always (&lt;em&gt;not on the Weiqi board lol&lt;/em&gt;) are, the monks brought us some souvenirs, the main one being a fan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the fan, there is an inscription that, according to the event official translator is difficult to translate. I don't recall the meaning she gave me back then, but it was something related to the Japanese &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shu Ha Ri&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (she didn't mention &lt;em&gt;Shu Ha Ri&lt;/em&gt;, that's my perception actually). Here is a picture of the fan (now with Kim Jiseok 9p's autograph also):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2xpc0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2xpc0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Hangzhou Fan&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shu Ha Ri&lt;/em&gt; would be a succinct description of the cycle of mastery of a craft, usually referring to &lt;em&gt;Aikido&lt;/em&gt;. On the Wikipedia page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is known that, when we learn or train in something, we pass through the stages of shu, ha, and ri. These stages are explained as follows. In shu, we repeat the forms and discipline ourselves so that our bodies absorb the forms that our forebears created. We remain faithful to these forms with no deviation. Next, in the stage of ha, once we have disciplined ourselves to acquire the forms and movements, we make innovations. In this process the forms may be broken and discarded. Finally, in ri, we completely depart from the forms, open the door to creative technique, and arrive in a place where we act in accordance with what our heart/mind desires, unhindered while not overstepping laws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I remember is the official translator telling me that it was something like (&lt;em&gt;I really don't remember her words accurately&lt;/em&gt;) &quot;first you see; then you don't; then you don't need to&quot;. Contextualizing: first (&lt;em&gt;Shu&lt;/em&gt;), you would think that everything is simple, you simply follow rules; then (&lt;em&gt;Ha&lt;/em&gt;) you realize that things are much bigger then they seem, you can innovate with your knowledge, but you're just scratching the surface, you're overwhelmed; then (&lt;em&gt;Ri&lt;/em&gt;), finally, you don't need to see anything, you represent the craft, &lt;em&gt;you are it&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this should be some sort of somewhat famous &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;chengyu&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, but I'm not sure, it didn't seem that familiar to the translator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So... &lt;strong&gt;could someone please give me the meaning of the inscription and some references on the topic?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22629" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T19:54:37.180" Title="Meaning of a Fan Inscription" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34844" CreationDate="2019-08-24T03:19:54.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a 棋諺 (Go saying/ common wise words for Go playing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;見棋不是棋 would mean &lt;em&gt;the hand that's obvious to you is not the hand&lt;/em&gt; --- meaning you need to look beyond the obvious and decide your move with more in-depth analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put: If a move is obvious to you, it would also be obvious to your opponent, therefore, it wouldn't be as effective as a surprise move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shu Ha Ri 守破離 is a martial art saying. The only commonality between 守破離 and 見棋不是棋 is they are both &quot;saying/ common wise word&quot; (口訣).&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other 棋諺 I remember: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://kknews.cc/history/8znnv24.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;左右同形中間有棋&lt;/a&gt; : refers to &quot;the middle point is the key to connecting two weak groups with the same shape&quot;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%83%E6%AD%BB%E5%85%AB%E6%B4%BB/17654330&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;七死八活&lt;/a&gt; : &quot;seven dead, eight alive&quot;, referring to the minimum number of stones in a row on the side that you need in order to live.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;白鶴守巢 : &quot;white crane guarding nest&quot; or, as usually translated into English: the &lt;em&gt;crane's nest&lt;/em&gt;, a specific famous instance of a &lt;em&gt;snapback&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I play Go too, but I am only at SDK level&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="22629" LastEditDate="2019-08-24T19:54:37.180" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T19:54:37.180" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34841" CreationDate="2019-08-24T08:20:18.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a general and literal translation, the answer is exactly what @Tang Ho had mentioned： &lt;code&gt;搅拌机&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in regard to the specific type of model you referred, &lt;code&gt;打蛋器 Eggbeater&lt;/code&gt; may be a better translation with less ambiguity in daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is because, &lt;code&gt;搅拌机&lt;/code&gt; is often interpreted as something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/G3NyT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/G3NyT.png&quot; alt=&quot;搅拌机&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n9uo5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n9uo5.png&quot; alt=&quot;搅拌机&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while by searching &lt;code&gt;打蛋器&lt;/code&gt;, the following content can be most likely found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tCUOv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tCUOv.png&quot; alt=&quot;打蛋器&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1zYuc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1zYuc.png&quot; alt=&quot;打蛋器&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6750" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T08:20:18.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34785" CreationDate="2019-08-24T08:58:52.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess is it's probably 諧道堂 [haai4 dou6 tong4] 'Society of the Harmonious Tao', but I have nothing to back that up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18426" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T08:58:52.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34849" CreationDate="2019-08-24T08:59:24.023" Score="2" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;A great love: you can hope for, wait for, die for, kill for, long for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is always this 'stranded preposition', &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a love worth killing for.&#xA;这是一种值得杀戮的爱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't want to kill love.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will (if necessary) kill for, in the name of, because of, this love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone have a better translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T21:32:17.013" Title="Translate: This is a love worth killing for" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34848" CreationDate="2019-08-24T10:21:54.120" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First talk about translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;This is (&lt;strong&gt;a love&lt;/strong&gt;) worth killing for&quot; should be translated as 这是(&lt;strong&gt;一份&lt;/strong&gt;)值得為之而杀戮的(&lt;strong&gt;爱&lt;/strong&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;為之而 = for&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一种爱&quot; means &quot;a kind of love&quot;. It is different from &quot;a love&quot; (一份爱)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, your translation is quite accurate, but the problem with straight translation is -- &quot;things get lost in translation&quot;. A common English expression may not be understood by many Chinese &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English idiom &quot;at the end of one's rope&quot; literally means &quot;在繩索的末端&quot;. Which few if any Chinese could understand it base on the wording. However, the equivalent of this English idiom does exist in Chinese. And it is &quot;窮途末路&quot; (No more road; reaching an dead end). Both idiom metaphorically describe &quot;being hopeless&quot; ; &quot;nowhere to turn&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A similar idiom is 走投無路 (nowhere to run)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the same reason, I would rather interpret an English expression with a matching one in Chinese than translate the English expression  word for word but doesn't express the metaphorical meaning clearly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line &quot;a love worth killing for&quot; in other words is &quot;It is a love worth doing anything to have&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same sentiment in Chinese would be &quot;一份值得&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/19417/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不擇手段&lt;/a&gt;去得到的愛&quot; (a love worth having by hook or by crook) meaning you would do anything - including killing, to obtain this love&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;An idiom similar to 不擇手段 is 不惜一切 (not hesitate to give one's all)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-25T21:32:17.013" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T21:32:17.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23431" CreationDate="2019-08-25T04:18:41.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If only 3 people here there must be something they can teach me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There must be some abilities that the 2 people have and I(the 1) do not have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means I must be &lt;strong&gt;Modest&lt;/strong&gt; even if I know lots of things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And If something is not good with them I see it and I must correct it for myself and do not make same mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22212" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T04:18:41.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31801" CreationDate="2019-08-25T07:01:28.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Insecurity comes from uncertainty and makes people feel worried and unsafe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are so many ways to say insecurity. Here are a few of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不安&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不安心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不心安&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心感不安&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心有不安&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;惶恐不安&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;局促不安&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不妥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不妥當&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不實在&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不踏實&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, Initiate 不 becomes 唔. For example, &lt;code&gt;不安心&lt;/code&gt; usually becomes &lt;code&gt;唔安心&lt;/code&gt;. So as &lt;code&gt;唔妥&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;唔踏實&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to &amp;quot;insecurity about your looks, weight, smarts&amp;quot;, it could be &lt;code&gt;無自信&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;無信心&lt;/code&gt;. For example, 對自己容貌無信心.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is more common to specify this kind of insecurity. For example, in Cantonese, &lt;code&gt;驚畀人笑&lt;/code&gt; (worry about being laughed) , &lt;code&gt;驚做唔到&lt;/code&gt; (worry about incapable to do), &lt;code&gt;驚出醜&lt;/code&gt; (worry about performing in a bad way). &lt;code&gt;驚&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;怕&lt;/code&gt; is very common word to describe insecurity. It is anxiety about something go wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some literally translate English phrases like &amp;quot;sense of security&amp;quot; as &lt;code&gt;安全感&lt;/code&gt; and &amp;quot;sense of insecurity&amp;quot; as &lt;code&gt;不安感&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T07:01:28.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34852" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34856" CreationDate="2019-08-25T08:57:40.650" Score="2" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you make grammatical sense of 飞架 in the expression &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.takungpao.com/news/232108/2019/0110/232225.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;港珠澳大桥飞架三地&lt;/a&gt;? Is it &quot;the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge flies a three-city frame&quot;? Or &quot;the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge: flying and supporting three cities&quot;? Or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22495" LastEditorUserId="22495" LastEditDate="2019-08-25T09:29:20.313" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T23:39:29.750" Title="Translation of 飞架 in 港珠澳大桥飞架三地" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34852" CreationDate="2019-08-25T09:17:01.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the sentence was &quot;港珠澳大桥高架三地&quot;, we can understand &quot;高架&quot; means &quot;rise high&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine the bridge was like a dragon, and this dragon flying high above the sea through three territories &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;港珠澳大桥飞架三地 would mean &quot;the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge rises high above the sea like dragon fly through three territories&quot;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飞架 would mean &quot;rises high and extends far&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飞架三地 would mean &quot;rises high and extends across three territories&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;simply &quot;fly across&quot; -- &lt;em&gt;describe the bridge as a metaphorical dragon&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-25T13:49:19.007" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T13:49:19.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34854" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-25T17:49:14.793" Score="0" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have gotten interested in an &lt;a href=&quot;http://dari-rulai-temple.org/zh-hans/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;esoteric Buddhist school originating from China&lt;/a&gt; and I was wondering what &quot;dari rulai&quot; meant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have sort of figured out part of it: &quot;dari&quot; is probably great-day or great-sun. But I cannot figure out &quot;rulai&quot; at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22638" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-29T05:11:39.873" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T05:11:39.873" Title="Translation of 大日如来寺?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34854" CreationDate="2019-08-25T21:54:04.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;大日如來&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mahāvaircana, the Buddha who is the central teacher and object of veneration in Vajrayāna Buddhism (密宗).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;The Great Sun Buddha&lt;/strong&gt;, is the transcendent and cosmocratic apotheosis of the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni (釋迦牟尼).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Under the earlier designation Vairocana (&quot;the luminous one&quot;), he represents Buddhism's most profound speculation on the emptiness and interpenetration of all elements in the universe (dharmadhātu, 法界).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As Mahāvairocana he is concretely envisaged as the all-encompassing lord of the cosmos and is the object of worship for a form of Tantric Buddhism (密宗) that spread from India to Sumatra, China, Japan, and Tibet.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(Encyclopedia of Religion, Orzech)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally the name referred to the light of the sun, but later on took on connotations of the buddha as fundamental principle of the universe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is one of the five buddhas 五佛 depicted in the maṇḍalas of the vajradhātu (金剛界) and garbhadhātu (胎藏界).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The name is transcribed into Chinese as 摩訶毗盧遮那 and 毗盧遮那佛, and is translated variously as 最高顯廣眼藏, 遍照王如來, 光明遍照, 大日遍照, 遍一切處, 遍照尊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: 《 English-Chinese-English Dictionary of Buddhist Terms 》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大日如來&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梵名 Mahāvairocana 。為密教供奉之本尊與最上根本佛。音譯作摩訶毗盧遮那。又作毗盧遮那佛、最高顯廣眼藏、遍照王如來、光明遍照、大日遍照、遍一切處、遍照尊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其名有三義，即：&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(一)除暗遍明義，謂如來智慧日光遍一切處，作大照明，無有內外、晝夜之別。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(二)眾務成辦義，謂如來日光遍照法界，能平等開發無量眾生之善根，乃至成就世、出世間種種殊勝事業。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(三)光無生滅義，謂佛心之日雖為無明所覆障，而無所減；究竟如法實相三昧圓明，而無所增。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;以如此諸種原因，故世間之日不可為喻，但取其少分相似處，故加以‘大’字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大日如來係密宗將宇宙實相佛格化之根本佛，亦為一切諸佛菩薩所出之本原及所歸之果體；其身口意業遍虛空，演說如來之三密門金剛一乘甚深教。《大日經疏》卷一謂，大日如來分本地法身與加持受用身兩種，其中，本地法身指如來之自證極位，加持受用身指說法之教主；彼以平等之身口意秘密加持為所入之門（即以身平等之密印、語平等之真言、心平等之妙觀為方便），故知加持受用之身即是毗盧遮那遍一切身，此二身畢竟無二無別。故密宗以大日如來為最高之佛格與根本總德。以其與諸法遍在，故密號遍照金剛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又因大日如來為金、胎兩部曼荼羅之主尊，故非常被重視，其智德以金剛界大日如來表示之，其理德則以胎藏界大日如來表示；理、智雖然二分，實際亦不相離。金剛界大日為金剛界九會中，除理趣會以外之中尊，位於五佛中央，現菩薩形，身呈白色，戴五智寶冠，結智拳印，結跏趺坐於七獅子座，此即智法身。胎藏界大日則為位於中台八葉院中央之理法身，亦現菩薩形，身呈黃金色，頭戴五佛寶冠，結法界定印，坐於八葉蓮華台上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: 《佛光大辭典》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如來 Tathāgata (तथागत), 多陀阿伽陀.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tathāgata (怛他揭多) defined as he who comes as do all other Buddhas; or as he who took the 真如 zhenru or absolute way of cause and effect, and attained to perfect wisdom; or as the absolute come; one of the highest titles of a Buddha. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the Buddha in his nirmāṇakāya (निर्माणकाय), i. e. his 'transformation' or corporeal manifestation descended on earth. The two kinds of Tathāgata are (1) 在纏 the Tathāgata in bonds, i. e. limited and subject to the delusions and sufferings of life, and (2) 出纏 unlimited and free from them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are numerous sutras and śāstras bearing this title of 如來 (rulai).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: 《 Soothill-Hodous Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms 》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2019-08-25T22:03:51.040" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T22:03:51.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34852" CreationDate="2019-08-25T23:33:55.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could easily understand &lt;strong&gt;飞架&lt;/strong&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;(to) span&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;’s definition of 飞架 is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;arch/span high over (e.g., of a great bridge)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pleco C-E&lt;/em&gt;’s definition is fairly similar and they add the example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一桥飞架南北, 天堑变通途。(毛泽东)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Yī qiáo fēijià nán-běi, tiānqiàn biàntōng tú. (Máo Zédōng)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A bridge will fly to span the north and south, | Turning a deep chasm into a thoroughfare. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at your original question we could come up with something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飞架三地 = spans over three cities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-or- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to take a leaf out of Pleco’s book you could render it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;flys to span over three cities&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but that doesn’t sound nearly as natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-25T23:39:29.750" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T23:39:29.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34857" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34858" CreationDate="2019-08-26T02:36:44.813" Score="0" ViewCount="1064" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know them both means big bother. Though there are differences somehow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小明，谢谢这位给你让座的大哥哥。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T18:30:28.453" Title="What's the difference between 大哥 and 大哥哥?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34857" CreationDate="2019-08-26T04:46:10.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Referring someone as 大哥哥 (big brother) to a kid is not unlike referring a &quot;狗&quot; (dog) as &quot;狗狗&quot; (doggy) to a child. It is a kind of 'baby/ kid talk'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大哥 is a proper term for &quot;big brother&quot;. Just like in English, depend on context, 大哥 (big brother) can mean your own elder brother, your lover, a stranger who is older than you or about  the same age as you and so on &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-26T07:43:29.550" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T07:43:29.550" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34859" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-26T04:55:09.867" Score="8" ViewCount="362" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this comment just now:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“秘”声符是“必”没问题，但是并不是说“秘”和“必”一定同音，“秘”这个字是北京话读错了，其实应该读bi，“秘鲁”一词还残存bi的读音&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which got me thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;秘 is still read &quot;bi&quot; in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;surnames&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;transcriptions (e.g.: Peru)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cccanto.org/search.php?q=%E7%A7%98&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantonese&lt;/a&gt; carries the pronunciation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;bei3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tiaodengyedu.com/html/348/348599/111232651.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sichuanese&lt;/a&gt; also has 秘 as &quot;bei&quot; in certain instances:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;秘密 beimi 秘，读“背”。成都人通常称有所隐蔽，不让人知道的话及事情：～档案│～活动。又为“背密”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathews%27_Chinese%E2%80%93English_Dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Matthews'&lt;/a&gt; also has it listed under &quot;bi&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hGXwY.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hGXwY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%A7%98&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Middle Chinese&lt;/a&gt; pronunciations also seem to be way close to &quot;bi&quot; than &quot;mi.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what gives? Where did &quot;mi&quot; come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: I'm thinking maybe 秘 sounded like 屄, and it was changed purposely because of taboos. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/219931086_413427&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.sohu.com/a/219931086_413427&lt;/a&gt;) &quot;山东方言对女性的某个器官的发音为“比”，因此，为了避免与比字同音，凡是在读笔字时都要读成北，于是，便有了钢北，毛北，圆柱北。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-26T05:34:21.860" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T08:50:06.943" Title="How did 秘 &quot;bi&quot; become &quot;mi&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34860" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34862" CreationDate="2019-08-26T12:04:57.323" Score="1" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, how does one construct a phrase/sentence involving “whether or not”? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: We don’t know if they are husband or wife. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came across this conversation: 係唔係老公老婆呢就唔知啦！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wanted to know what the function of “呢就” is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastActivityDate="2019-09-01T19:26:28.357" Title="Sentence construction for “whether or not”" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34861" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34863" CreationDate="2019-08-26T16:02:32.897" Score="3" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does it mean &quot;not the defendant&quot;? The translation I have available (which isn't mine) is the following: &quot;let alone the defendant&quot;, so which of us, if any, is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22611" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-29T05:10:41.963" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T05:10:41.963" Title="What does this mean: 更不是被告?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34860" CreationDate="2019-08-26T18:53:11.227" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;呢就 is not a single term. They are two word particles attach to different part of the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence construction of ”係唔係老公老婆呢就唔知啦！&quot;is as follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[係唔係老公老婆][&lt;strong&gt;呢&lt;/strong&gt;], [&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;][唔知啦！]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;about&lt;/strong&gt;] [are (they) husband and wife?], [&lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt;]  [(we) don't know！]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;XXX呢 = about XXX&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就YYY = just YYY&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人呢(about man), 就係生嘅 (is just alive - &lt;em&gt;therefore flexible&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;規矩呢(about rule), 就係死嘅 (is just not alive - &lt;em&gt;therefore rigid&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;租金呢(about rent), 就一人一半 (would just be half and half between us)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can do without the particles in the sentences. That make them more direct and also more blunt: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;係唔係老公老婆?&quot; &quot;唔知!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;人係生嘅, 規矩係死嘅&quot; (&lt;em&gt;it is a very common Cantonese expression&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;租金一人一半&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-27T05:18:32.517" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T05:18:32.517" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34861" CreationDate="2019-08-26T19:07:17.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;not the defendant&quot; is just &quot;不是被告&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;let alone the defendant&quot; in Chinese is &quot;更不必提被告&quot;  or &quot;更不用說被告&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;更&lt;/strong&gt;不是被告&quot; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;specifically&lt;/strong&gt; not the defendant&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他不是被告 = he is not the defendant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;次被告也判死刑, 更不必提被告 = even the second defendant is sentenced to death, not to mention (let alone) the defendant. -- &lt;em&gt;of course he has to be sentenced to death&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犯案的不是陳某或張某, 更不是被告 = The one who committed the crime is not Chen or Zhang, certainly (specifically) not the defendant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-27T00:00:27.020" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T00:00:27.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34864" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-26T22:44:00.423" Score="0" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most dictionaries, 'feed' is translated to '飼料' (Food for livestocks). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However if the word 'feed' is used in a computer technology context as to mean &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_feed&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;'data feed'&lt;/a&gt;, what is the right Chinese translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My ideal translation is to be able to convey an imagery of a continuous flow of data to the user's end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is because the word 'feed' is used to describe a UI element on a website which supports an 'endless scroll' feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6634" LastEditorUserId="6634" LastEditDate="2019-08-26T23:46:14.843" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T03:07:43.390" Title="What is the right Chinese translation of the technical term 'Data Feed'?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34864" CreationDate="2019-08-26T23:54:25.927" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;馈送&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E9%A6%88%E9%80%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to feed (a signal to a device, paper to a printer etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also happens to be an alternative name for &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E6%B6%88%E6%81%AF%E4%BE%86%E6%BA%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;web feed&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-27T03:48:36.807" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T03:48:36.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34864" CreationDate="2019-08-26T23:58:20.397" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Data is 數據. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Data feed is translated as 數據饋送  (Cantonese call it &lt;em&gt;數據傳送&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We call data transmitting via satellite &quot;satellite feed&quot; (衛星饋電) (&lt;em&gt;衛星傳訊&lt;/em&gt; in Cantonese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T23:58:20.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34857" CreationDate="2019-08-27T01:23:09.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;大哥&quot; normally refers to a family member such as an older bother or older cousin.&#xA;&quot;大哥哥&quot; is broadly used when calling any young male but older than you and not a relative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22648" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T01:23:09.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34868" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34869" CreationDate="2019-08-27T01:45:26.570" Score="0" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;饮食起居: 饮(drink), 食(food), 起(?), 居(house).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does &quot;起&quot; mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%A5%AE%E9%A3%9F%E8%B5%B7%E5%B1%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度百科&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;饮食起居，拼音是yǐn shí qǐ jū，出自《祭杜祁公文》，解释为指人的日常生活。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18167" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-27T03:43:03.413" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T23:37:03.020" Title="What does &quot;起&quot; mean in &quot;饮食起居&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34868" CreationDate="2019-08-27T02:11:58.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;起居 is a word in and of itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《&lt;em&gt;规范&lt;/em&gt;》defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;活动和休息；指日常生活。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The breakdown goes something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;起 = 活动&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;居 = 休息&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 起 here basically means &lt;em&gt;to be active&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T02:11:58.727" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34868" CreationDate="2019-08-27T11:00:51.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should be aware of the &lt;em&gt;contrasting pairs&lt;/em&gt; in this phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;飲 (to drink)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;食 (to eat [not &lt;em&gt;food&lt;/em&gt;])&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;起 (to rise up, get up &gt; be active)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;居 (to rest)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like in English, when a pair of opposites in a category are stated, it sometimes means &lt;em&gt;all things&lt;/em&gt; of that category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The beautiful and the ugly&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;All folks, old and young&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T11:00:51.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34864" CreationDate="2019-08-27T22:57:26.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My ideal translation is to be able to convey an imagery of a&#xA;  continuous flow of data to the user's end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go with the flow, 流！Don't get hung up on &lt;strong&gt;feed&lt;/strong&gt; , flow bro, stream sis!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;来自....辅助.....数据..源.......得.....增量......数据..流。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;from auxiliary data source get incremental data flow&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Incremental data feed from secondary data sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;数据流（data&#xA;  stream）最初是通信领域使用的概念，代表传输中所使用的信息的数字编码信号序列。然而，我们所提到的数据流概念与此不同。这个概念最初在1998年由Henzinger在文献87中提出，他将数据流定义为“只能以事先规定好的顺序被读取一次的数据的一个序列”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T22:57:26.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34868" CreationDate="2019-08-27T23:37:03.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the whole phrase 饮食起居 means your daily regimen. Otherwise, split it into pairs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饮食：(your) drink and food = food and drink&lt;br&gt;&#xA;起居：(your) everyday life&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The place where you 起 (rise, start the day) is the place where you 居 (live, stop at the end of the day). Life is what happens in between. (Unless you are on holiday. I love the phrase 假日, 'false days' as a brilliant antonym to 饮食起居。 Days when you do something different.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What does &quot;起&quot; mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where you start your day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T23:37:03.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34873" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34874" CreationDate="2019-08-28T02:24:00.563" Score="0" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are all Chinese characters in all fonts placed in a perfect square grid, or are there fonts which make characters slightly rectangular such as 5:6 aspect ratio or 8:9 aspect ratio, etc. E.g. you find stuff like this all over the place, but I haven't seen any rectangle versions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VElNC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VElNC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-29T05:10:25.943" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T05:10:25.943" Title="Are Chinese characters always in a perfect square shape, or are there fonts with rectangular characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;writing&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34873" CreationDate="2019-08-28T06:51:48.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I know all fonts put the character in a 'perfect' square.&#xA;Handwritten, Chinese/Japanese people do not put them in a perfet square of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21363" LastActivityDate="2019-08-28T06:51:48.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34875" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-28T17:02:04.040" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking up these three words it's not clear which is which and often 缩写 seems to be used in most cases I've come across, which doesn't seem to be correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone confirm what are the equivalents in Chinese for these three words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;acronym; initialism; abbreviation&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21998" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-29T05:09:55.133" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T03:59:08.650" Title="Words for acronym, initialism and abbreviation" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34875" CreationDate="2019-08-28T21:12:57.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;缩 in 缩写 means &quot;to condense/ to contract&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Acronym and initialism are both (首字母)缩写. (contracting a phrase using the first alphabet of each word in the phrase)&#xA;聯邦調查局 (&lt;strong&gt;F&lt;/strong&gt;ederal &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;ureau of &lt;strong&gt;I&lt;/strong&gt;nvestigation) 的 (首字母)缩写 是 &lt;strong&gt;FBI&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中央情報局 (&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;entral &lt;strong&gt;I&lt;/strong&gt;ntelligence &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;gency) 的 (首字母)缩写 是 &lt;strong&gt;CIA&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;abbreviation is (字句)缩写 (abbreviate a phrase by omitting some part of it) ; 簡化; 簡稱 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;中央情報局 簡稱 中情局 (the abbreviation of 中央情報局 is 中情局)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;美國 其實是 阿美利堅合眾國 的簡稱 (America is actually the abbreviation of United States of America)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;阿美利堅合眾國 (&lt;strong&gt;U&lt;/strong&gt;nited &lt;strong&gt;S&lt;/strong&gt;tates of &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;merica) 的 (首字母)缩写 是 &lt;strong&gt;USA&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between acronym and initialism is,  you can read acronym as one word e.g. &lt;strong&gt;M&lt;/strong&gt;others &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;gainst &lt;strong&gt;D&lt;/strong&gt;runk-driving = MAD. But you read each alphabet in an initialism&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically 缩写 is a correct translation of all three terms&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-08-30T03:59:08.650" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T03:59:08.650" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34875" CreationDate="2019-08-29T02:14:21.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are Wikipedia's translations along with links to the correct articles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%A6%96%E5%AD%97%E6%AF%8D%E7%B8%AE%E7%95%A5%E5%AD%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Acronym = 首字母缩略字&lt;/a&gt; -or- &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%B8%AE%E5%AF%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;首字母缩略词&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%B8%AE%E5%AF%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Initialisms = 字母词&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%B8%AE%E5%AF%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;abbreviation = 缩写&lt;/a&gt; -or- &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%B8%AE%E5%AF%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;省略&lt;/a&gt; -or- &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%B8%AE%E5%AF%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;缩略语&lt;/a&gt; -or- &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%B8%AE%E5%AF%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;缩写词&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colloquially though these would probably all just be referred to as some type of 缩写. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T02:14:21.197" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34880" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34881" CreationDate="2019-08-29T06:51:29.023" Score="3" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across a few variations of the phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人不坏，没后代&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;including:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;猪不坏，没猪卖，人不坏，没后代！&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;男不坏女不爱，人不坏没后代&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人不坏没后代鸡不坏没蛋卖&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it is the act of copulating itself that is considered &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt;? I'm not totally sure. What is the concept behind 人不坏，没后代?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T07:56:04.057" Title="What is the concept behind 人不坏，没后代?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34880" CreationDate="2019-08-29T07:50:03.840" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked a few of my students about this, and they mentioned something about sex being bad, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell, there's nothing that doesn't have some bad aspect to it, even the best things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One student specifically mentioned the second variation, 男人不坏，女人不爱，没有后代: &quot;if there weren't bad boys in the world, women wouldn't fall in love, and that would be the end of it, wouldn't it?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the variations about the animals, maybe it's just for the rhyme. But the one about bad men/boys, you seem to have the right idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15883" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T07:50:03.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34880" CreationDate="2019-08-29T07:56:04.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I won't say that having intercourse is &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt; but i think its more like &lt;em&gt;naughty&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMO, the concept of this phrase using the word 坏 is because unlike current generation, which is more open minded to talk about sex, the older generation mostly shy to bring up the topic about having copulation due to their conservatism. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So instead of interpret the word 坏 as &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;naughty&lt;/strong&gt; would suit this case better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22660" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T07:56:04.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34883" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34895" CreationDate="2019-08-29T16:02:29.383" Score="3" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每次地理考试我都不及格. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 考试 a verb? If it is a verb why is the object before it? If it is a noun could not 有 be missing before 地理?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-08-30T00:31:44.970" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T10:49:35.307" Title="Object before the verb 每次地理考试我都不及格" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34883" CreationDate="2019-08-29T17:15:59.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;考試 can mean both a noun and a verb, either &lt;em&gt;an exam&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;to take an exam&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several things to consider in this example. There is a larger combination of the usage between 考試 and 及格 namely the phrase 考試不及格. This phrase itself means &lt;em&gt;to fail an exam&lt;/em&gt;. In that context, 考試 is only acting as a noun. However, the present example the exam is a specific type of exam, a geography exam, therefore the word 地理 is added to the noun 考試. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not uncommon, e.g. dark chocolate, 黑巧克力 etc. What type of chocolate? Dark chocolate. What type of exam? Geography exam. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19184" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T17:15:59.313" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34883" CreationDate="2019-08-30T00:19:00.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;每次.....地理.........考试.我.都......不及格。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;every geography exam I all ....not reach qualification&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I flunk the geography exam every time.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is nothing unusual about words being used for various functions. We don't know what function test has in a sentence until you see the sentence. 'I test ..., a test'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I asked you what is 'geography', you would probably say, &quot;It's a noun.&quot; but in your sentence, it is used as an adjective, to describe what kind of exam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu has for: 及格：指达到规定的最低标准。= just pass&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;格 is probably 合格 或者 资格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;及格 (just) reach 及 qualification 格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence is not lacking 有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T00:19:00.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34883" CreationDate="2019-08-30T00:58:51.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每次地理考试我都不及格.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I fail every geography exam (the literal translation is: Every geography exam I don't qualify for a pass).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;每次&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;地理考试我都不及格.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every time &lt;strong&gt;there is&lt;/strong&gt; a geography exam I fail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can see that the characters 考试 is being used as a noun, and your suggestion of using 有 in front of the noun changes the meaning of the sentence a little bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's how you could use it as a verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每次考地理我都不及格. (Every time geography is tested I fail)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;每次考试有地理我都不及格. (Every test if there is geography I fail).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T00:58:51.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34887" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34891" CreationDate="2019-08-30T14:13:03.603" Score="4" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have come across quite a few instance of 这回事(儿) instead of 这件事.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there is a real difference between the two, or is it just a syntactical preference of the speaker?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19074" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T16:20:22.790" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T09:34:08.107" Title="What does 回 do in 这回事?" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-30T16:06:39.080" Score="3" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to say &quot;the park is great for playing&quot; but I can only think about saying 公園很好玩的地方。Is there a way where I can describe the park as being a good or the best place for playing? thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22667" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T00:38:36.467" Title="How to say &quot;for&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34889" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34890" CreationDate="2019-08-30T16:46:40.190" Score="2" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking up the Vietnamese word cửa hàng. Hàng Seems fairly straight forward as it used to be written with the Chinese character 行 and pronunciation is quite similar also. Cửa is not as simple; it seems to be a form of  (or perhaps ) but  there is very little info about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%A8%B7%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt; does say that it is a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Han character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;举 and 门 makes me think that it's got something to do with being 'open' (i.e.: for business) but I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T09:39:02.937" Title="Where did  originate from?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34889" CreationDate="2019-08-30T17:22:51.563" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Vietnamese word for &lt;em&gt;shop&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;cửa hàng&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cửa&lt;/strong&gt; is not &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_vocabulary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sino-Vietnamese&lt;/a&gt;, but a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietic_languages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vietic&lt;/a&gt; morpheme. IF (and that's a big IF) &lt;strong&gt;cửa&lt;/strong&gt; in &lt;strong&gt;cửa hàng&lt;/strong&gt; means &lt;em&gt;door&lt;/em&gt;, then &lt;strong&gt;cửa&lt;/strong&gt; can be represented by「」, which just means &lt;em&gt;door&lt;/em&gt;, and「舉」is not part of the meaning of &lt;strong&gt;cửa&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「」or「」(&lt;strong&gt;cửa&lt;/strong&gt;) is made up of semantic「門」(&lt;em&gt;door&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic「舉」(&lt;strong&gt;cử&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese has a similar word:「門市」, which is &lt;em&gt;the front of a store&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-08-31T09:39:02.937" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T09:39:02.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34887" CreationDate="2019-08-30T18:35:11.427" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/833/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;回&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[6] (measure) time (as used to indicate number of occurrence)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[7] (measure) piece (as used for happenings or events)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回 is a measure word for event or occurrence ; 这回事 means &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;this&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;piece of&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;strong&gt;event&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;this&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;time of&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;strong&gt;occurrence&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different between 回 and 件 as measure word is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回 measure specific course of events (&lt;em&gt;how many times it happens&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;件 measure event as an unit (&lt;em&gt;how many of it exists&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就是这一回事 = it is this occurrence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當沒有这回事 = pretend there is no such occurrence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就是这一件事 = It is this event&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當沒有这件事 = pretend this event doesn't exist&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We also say 这回战斗(This battle) or 这回会谈(this discussion) ; but not 这件战斗 or 这件会谈.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T18:35:11.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34888" CreationDate="2019-08-30T18:59:57.823" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The park is (&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;) playing&amp;quot; = 這公園(&lt;strong&gt;是用於&lt;/strong&gt;)遊樂(&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;or 這公園是遊樂(&lt;strong&gt;用的&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The park is great (&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;) playing&amp;quot; = 這公園是很適合(&lt;strong&gt;用於&lt;/strong&gt;)遊樂(&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;or 這公園是很適合(&lt;strong&gt;於&lt;/strong&gt;)遊樂(&lt;strong&gt;用的&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Handgun is (&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;) killing people&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;手槍是(&lt;strong&gt;用於&lt;/strong&gt;)殺人(&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;)&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;手槍是殺人(&lt;strong&gt;用的&lt;/strong&gt;)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Handgun is good (&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;) killing people&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;手槍是很適合(&lt;strong&gt;用於&lt;/strong&gt;)殺人(&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;)&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;手槍是很適合(&lt;strong&gt;於&lt;/strong&gt;)殺人(&lt;strong&gt;用的&lt;/strong&gt;)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用於 is a more literary term. The colloquial term is 用来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T20:54:07.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34888" CreationDate="2019-08-31T00:38:36.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you won't always use a Chinese word for &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; when translating. Your sentence doesn't need it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The park is a great place for playing in.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这个公园是一个玩耍的好地方。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mostly, &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; will turn up in translation, when you need it, as 给 or 为&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want all of you students to write poems &lt;strong&gt;for me&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我想让你们所有人&lt;strong&gt;给我&lt;/strong&gt;写诗。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please write something for me.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;请&lt;strong&gt;为我&lt;/strong&gt;写点什么。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T00:38:36.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34883" CreationDate="2019-08-31T10:49:35.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is very interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;考試 here is not an object. It belongs to 每次 phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can simply treat it like this pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每次 + conditional phrase + consequence phrase (usually with 都 or more archaic with 皆 indicating that it is always like that).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a common pattern for expressing recurring consequence under certain conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this pattern, we can break it into two parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每次地理考試　我都不及格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每次大雨　我都繞路 (Heavy rain -&amp;gt; I go for indirect route)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每次地震　我都不在 (Earthquake -&amp;gt; I am not there)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每次閃燈　都是紅色 (Light flashes -&amp;gt; (it is) red in colour)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每次你去澳門　都忘記帶禮物 (You go to Macau -&amp;gt; (you) forget to bring some presents)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每次外婆看醫生　母親都會陪同 (Grandmother visits doctor -&amp;gt; Mother go with her)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每次出戰　皆勝 ((someone) has -&amp;gt; (someone) wins)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure you can add 有 in the 每次 phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每次有地理考試　我都不及格&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning is the same but there are some subtle grammatical changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The interesting thing happens here. Chinese languages do not explicitly show the part of speech like English. Most Chinese speakers cannot tell what the grammatical properties of words is unless it is very simple.  There would be a spectrum of answers because most Chinese grammar books imitates Western grammar books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually there are two layers of grammar of words. First is the natural layer. Some words bear clear property naturally, for example, 踢 (kick) is verb, 紅 (red) is adjective, 葉 (leaf) is noun. But many more words are vague and ambiguous. In order to make sentence comprehensible, second layer let the placement of words in sentence to decide the grammatical properties of in usage. For example, 踢 in 一踢 is a noun because it follows 一  like 一杯, 一場. This overrides its natural property in usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;每次 is like 每個. There is a noun following 每次. We can find phrase like 每次大雨 and 每次火災. We can conclude that 地理考試 in 每次地理考試 works as noun here. For 每次你去澳門, 你去澳門 is  a phrase functioning as noun as well. So do 每次有地理考試. 有地理考試 functions as noun here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;地理考試 is a noun in 每次地理考試&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有地理考試 is a sentence dressing itself as a noun in 每次有地理考試.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phrase and sentence patterns is very important in Chinese languages. In general, word order dictates the meaning of words and their parts of speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T10:49:35.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34864" CreationDate="2019-08-31T11:38:31.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Feed is 餵, 哺, 飼, 供, 給, 送, 進, 注, 入, 輸.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Data feed might be translated as 注入資料, 注入數據. But by its nature it is like broadcasting on the web. We could call it 資料轉播, 網上轉播, 數據轉播, or use 廣播 instead of 轉播 alternatively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is better to translate according to the context to make audience understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T11:38:31.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34898" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34899" CreationDate="2019-08-31T19:27:10.813" Score="0" ViewCount="46" Body="&lt;p&gt;I travelled to Shanghai a long time ago and recently got to come back for CPhI. I returned to Tianzifang, where I bought these beautiful poscards, and though I can speak and read some Chinese, I couldn’t relocate the shop before I had to leave. I then followed the QR code to wechat, but couldn’t figure out how to buy online. Can anyone read this text and give me a pointer about where I might find a place online to replenish my supply?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0BELz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0BELz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iFd02.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iFd02.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20961" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T20:58:04.170" Title="Lost Postcard Shop" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34898" CreationDate="2019-08-31T20:58:04.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The cover shows 手绘上海．外滩 hand-painting Shanghai.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The back side shows 本心书店. This is what you need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check the following links.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本心书店 on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wadongxi.com/shop/2252547&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;挖东西&lt;/a&gt; and on &lt;a href=&quot;https://shop67707488.world.taobao.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;淘宝&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15752" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T20:58:04.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34781" CreationDate="2019-09-01T02:14:12.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure. You can eat liquid, if you understand the notion of &quot;eating&quot; (吃) in a more general sense as &quot;consuming by way of admission into the mouth&quot; as opposed to &quot;chewing&quot;. For example, another use of this in this way is that the act of taking medicines orally is called &quot;吃药&quot; - to &quot;eat medicine&quot; (to take by injection is not called this, but rather &quot;打针&quot; - to &quot;hit needle&quot;, and the term [verb] for the act of injecting a substance with a needle is &quot;注射&quot; [not really sensible individually as they're two characters with generic meanings surrounding this process]), even though one typically does not chew most pill medicines unless they are made for it. It's a wider cognition/conceptualization than with which English speakers conventionally understand by &quot;eating&quot;, which should be expected since this is Mandarin, not English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as said in the other posts, it's not common to use with liquid, 喝 is typically used instead (&quot;drink&quot;, to consume specifically liquid with no chewing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16171" LastEditorUserId="16171" LastEditDate="2019-09-01T02:20:36.877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-01T02:20:36.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34860" CreationDate="2019-09-01T19:26:28.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you know how &quot;呢&quot; is being pronounced here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tang Ho is reading it as &quot;係唔係老公老婆呢，就唔知啦！&quot;, with &quot;呢&quot; pronounced as ne1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is also possible that it is &quot;係唔係老公老婆，呢就唔知啦！&quot;, with &quot;呢&quot; pronounced as ni1, where &quot;呢&quot; is short for &quot;呢個&quot;, meaning &quot;this&quot; in Cantonese. So in that reading, it would mean &quot;Are they husband and wife, this [question] we don't know [the answer to]!&quot;, equivalent to &quot;是不是老公老婆，這就不知道了&quot; in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5978" LastActivityDate="2019-09-01T19:26:28.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34903" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-01T21:57:12.553" Score="0" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Xi Jinping's 2018/2019 New Year &lt;a href=&quot;http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201901/01/WS5c2ad70aa310d91214051e48.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Address&lt;/a&gt; there is this phrase:&#xA;我看望了彝族村民吉好也求、节列俄阿木两家人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The official (?) &lt;a href=&quot;http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201901/01/WS5c2ad70aa310d91214051e48.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;translation&lt;/a&gt; is only vague:&#xA;&quot;I visited the families of two villagers from the Yi people&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder about what a close translation would look like. Judging from news reports, I take it that 吉好也求 is a name. Also 节列俄阿木 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cac.gov.cn/2019-01/04/c_1123946182.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;seems&lt;/a&gt; to be a name. Is it? Or does it refer to a &quot;Russian(-Afghan?) section&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22495" LastEditorUserId="22495" LastEditDate="2019-09-01T22:22:02.243" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T02:23:08.650" Title="Is 节列俄阿木 a name?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34903" CreationDate="2019-09-02T01:35:14.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it is a name. It is a name of a man of Yi nationality, so it is different from most Chinese names (those of Han nationality).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T01:35:14.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34907" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-02T02:26:06.243" Score="4" ViewCount="565" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the character&quot;冒&quot;，is the top part &quot;日&quot; or &quot;曰&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, are both &quot;日&quot; and &quot;曰&quot; used as a radical at the top of some characters? How to distinguish them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T02:43:21.807" Title="For the character&quot;冒&quot;，is the top part &quot;日&quot; or &quot;曰&quot;？" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34908" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-02T02:36:08.857" Score="0" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jKhmH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jKhmH.png&quot; alt=&quot;1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i51B7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/i51B7.png&quot; alt=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hPSzz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hPSzz.png&quot; alt=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above images seem to indicate different answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T00:10:32.507" Title="Is the first stroke of &quot;啟&quot; 点 or 撇 or 横？" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34907" CreationDate="2019-09-02T02:43:21.807" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For the character&quot;冒&quot;，is the top part &quot;日&quot; or &quot;曰&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冒 is comprised of simultaneously semantic and phonetic 冃 (&lt;strong&gt;mào&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;hat&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic 目 (&lt;strong&gt;mù&lt;/strong&gt;). The word that both 冃 and 冒 originally represented is now written as 帽.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Components are usually added on when the original character is too simple (and so can get confused with something else), or when the original character is overloaded with too many other uses (in this case, 冒 is used for things like 冒汗, 冒險, 冒認).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In general, are both &quot;日&quot; and &quot;曰&quot; used as a radical at the top of some characters? How to distinguish them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are asking about just a part of a character, not talking about dictionary header entries, then they are just &lt;em&gt;charcter components&lt;/em&gt; (部件), not &lt;em&gt;radicals&lt;/em&gt; (部首).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, have a look at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3635/whats-the-deal-with-origin-of-the-character-%E6%9B%B0/61301#61301&quot;&gt;https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3635/whats-the-deal-with-origin-of-the-character-曰/61301#61301&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;towards the bottom, where it is explained that you can’t tell 日 and 曰 apart in another character, unless you have an understanding of the character’s history, or at least the function of its components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T02:43:21.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34910" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-02T02:54:06.327" Score="3" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, the word &quot;conservative&quot; seems neutral. However, the Chinese word &quot;保守&quot; seems to carry a negative connotation (Am I right)? What word should I use if I would like to express the english word &quot;conservative&quot; in a neutral way? How about in a positive way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T08:46:13.287" Title="Is &quot;保守&quot; considered derogatory in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34911" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-02T03:07:23.687" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm struggling to clearly understand how to use the term 走勢. I've been told that this translates to &quot;trend&quot; but I'm not clear if this suggests trend in terms of general popularity, or trend in terms of market value. In what financial context can I use this term? For reference, I'm looking at this article and how it's being used: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.etoro.com/zh-tw/blog/market-insights/%E5%BD%B1%E9%9F%BF%E6%AF%94%E7%89%B9%E5%B9%A3%E8%B5%B0%E5%8B%A2%E7%9A%84%E5%B9%BE%E5%A4%A7%E9%97%9C%E9%8D%B5%E5%9B%A0%E7%B4%A0/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;影響比特幣走勢的幾大關鍵因素&lt;/a&gt; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22679" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T04:35:49.960" Title="How to use 走勢 in finance/tech industry" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34911" CreationDate="2019-09-02T03:29:47.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;走勢 in this context means &quot;(directional) trend&quot; - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;trend&lt;/strong&gt; of gold price is downward (a direction) -  黃金價格&lt;strong&gt;走勢&lt;/strong&gt;向下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;trend&lt;/strong&gt; of gold price is upward (a direction) - 黃金價格&lt;strong&gt;走勢&lt;/strong&gt;向上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar word is &quot;趨勢&quot; trend; tendency &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gold price is is &lt;strong&gt;trending upward&lt;/strong&gt;  - 黃金價格呈&lt;strong&gt;上升趨勢&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;So sounds like the meaning is closer to &quot;price/directional trend&quot;?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not limited to price, It can apply to 銷量 too. E.g. &quot;iPhone 在中國的銷量走勢向下&quot; (iPhone sell in China is trending downward )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T04:35:49.960" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T04:35:49.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34910" CreationDate="2019-09-02T03:57:25.257" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the stand point of innovative and liberal thinkers, 保守思想 (conservative thinking) does carry a negative connotation of inability to adapt &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 思想保守的人不願譲子女與外國人通婚 (conservative thinking people do not want their children to marry foreigners) . Since most people nowadays do not mind international marriage, the ones who oppose it had became the minority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 保守思想(conservative thinking) is polite words for 陳舊思想(old thinking) or 落伍思想 (outdated thinking) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 保守 as an adjective or adverb on it's own is neutral&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 保守估計 (conservative estimate); 保守作風 (conservative style); 保守(地)估計 (conservatively estimate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How about in a positive way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can replace 保守 with 穩建 (cautious) which implies &quot;careful&quot; and &quot;steady&quot; or 慬慎 (cautious)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 作風穩建; 立場慬慎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T18:50:46.003" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T18:50:46.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34914" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34915" CreationDate="2019-09-02T06:04:48.027" Score="1" ViewCount="1217" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve seen people &lt;a href=&quot;http://cheftonio.blogspot.com/2013/04/modern-kai-shao.html?m=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;explain the custom&lt;/a&gt; of relatives and friends to introduce potential future partners, and referring to it in English as “kai shao”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the Chinese origin for this? The closest I can think of is 介绍 (to introduce), but the pinyin (jièshào) is pretty far off. The Cantonese pronunciation (gaai siu) is closer but still doesn’t sound right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6004" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T07:26:44.143" Title="What is the Chinese origin of “kai shao”" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34914" CreationDate="2019-09-02T06:45:05.277" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just 介紹.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Following the blog post, it mentions &lt;em&gt;Philippines&lt;/em&gt; culture.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Looking up &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_Philippines#Hokkien&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;languages of the Philippines&lt;/a&gt;, we get &lt;em&gt;Hokkien&lt;/em&gt; as a major Chinese topolect.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Looking up &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BB%8B%E7%B4%B9#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;介紹 in Wiktionary&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;em&gt;Hokkien&lt;/em&gt; Romanisation is &lt;strong&gt;kài-siāu&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The blog post spelling it as &quot;kai shao&quot; is just not following a particular topolect's Romanisation, but just spelling it out by ear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T06:45:05.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34908" CreationDate="2019-09-02T06:59:24.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/benqg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/benqg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Under which regional standard are you studying your characters? That'll be your answer.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note: 橫 is a 隸書 style, and no region really writes it like that. You'll see Japanese people write 戶 with a 橫 instead, and that's where the influence comes from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T06:59:24.010" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34910" CreationDate="2019-09-02T21:39:36.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right.It implies a negativity in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regards to &quot;investment strategy&quot;,&lt;code&gt;保守&lt;/code&gt; could mean &quot;risk aversive&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One exception will be ETA, &lt;code&gt;保守估计&lt;/code&gt; actually just indicates a conservative time estimate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &quot;conservative&quot; is close to &lt;code&gt;稳妥&lt;/code&gt;。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T21:39:36.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34908" CreationDate="2019-09-04T00:10:32.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To get it simple:&#xA;The first stroke of 啓 is 橫 only when you are writing calligraphy.&#xA;The first stroke of 啓 can be either 撇 or 點 when you write normally. They are basically the same. However , when you type 啓, the first stroke tends to be 撇.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T00:10:32.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34903" CreationDate="2019-09-04T02:23:08.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;吉好也求&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;节列俄阿木&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是中国少数民族 彝族 的姓名&#xA;(this is &quot;Yi National&quot; of the Chinese minority name)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22692" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T02:23:08.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34914" CreationDate="2019-09-04T07:26:44.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;它是南方的方言。我认为直接用jie shao会更多人看懂。方言很少在国外使用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22693" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T07:26:44.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22921" CreationDate="2019-09-04T12:46:54.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;PangeaMT has launched a traditional Chinese translation panel which can be of use .&#xA;Go to &lt;a href=&quot;https://pangeamt.com/translate/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pangeamt.com/translate/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22694" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T12:46:54.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34837" CreationDate="2019-09-05T00:11:55.860" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;外公，外婆 are the parents of your mum. You call them 外祖父母.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爷爷，奶奶 are the parents of your dad. You call them 祖父母.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Understand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T00:11:55.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22921" CreationDate="2019-09-05T05:06:02.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You seem to have sufficient English-reading/writing skills. Therefore, you just might want to search for apps that teach English speaking people simplified Chinese.&#xA;Many offer the option to show traditional hanzi instead of simplied. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Short stories can be found here for example (Freemium-App): &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.duchinese.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.duchinese.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21363" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T05:06:02.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22921" CreationDate="2019-09-05T07:09:02.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with hinen and I also suggest you use this keyword &quot;童話故事&quot; to  find some related stories, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://storyfree.com/%E5%85%92%E7%AB%A5%E7%9D%A1%E5%89%8D%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this website&lt;/a&gt; also contains with some short stories you can read&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22699" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T07:09:02.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34781" CreationDate="2019-09-05T07:12:50.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it all depends on which Chinese you learned. In Chinese &quot;吃&quot; can be used for liquids, but in traditional we don't use &quot;吃&quot; for liquids, we use &quot;喝&quot; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22699" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T07:12:50.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34927" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34932" CreationDate="2019-09-05T10:38:51.447" Score="2" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen a few claims that 按揭 is a loanword from English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This article on &lt;a href=&quot;http://gb.oversea.cnki.net/KCMS/detail/detail.aspx?filename=YWJZ200002013&amp;amp;dbcode=CJFD&amp;amp;dbname=cjfd2000&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cnki&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;【摘要】 &amp;lt;正&gt; 《咬文嚼字》1997年第1期《试说“按揭”》一文说:“‘按揭’源于英语的mortgage。该词的后一半,gage的发音和广州话‘揭’的发音(kit)相近。可以肯定,‘揭’是音译。而‘按’却是意译。广州话的‘按’也有押、抵押的意思。……‘按揭’是一个半意译半音译的外来词。” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This comment on &lt;a href=&quot;https://m.iask.sina.com.cn/b/1519651.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iask&lt;/a&gt; goes a step further to say that it is a transliteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“按揭”是粤语的音译。“按揭”这个音译词要比意译简单,颇有新意和广告效应,并且国际通用,所以就比较盛行。我们传统的民族文化心理在吸收外来词时始终表现出一种倾向,即拒绝纯音译词,而乐于接受意译或部分意译。但是在新的历史条件下,人们的传统观念日益更新,更趋向于接受纯音译词,因此音译词的数量迅速增加。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ending &quot;-&lt;em&gt;gage&lt;/em&gt;&quot; in &quot;mortgage&quot; sounds nothing like ‘揭’ (kit) to me. 按 as &quot;on&quot; seems even less convincing, although it seems like a case could be made for &quot;ngon.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe something in the sounds is getting lost on me. Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T14:58:07.170" Title="How is &quot;按揭&quot; a Cantonese loanword of Mortgage from English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34864" CreationDate="2019-09-06T03:07:43.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just done some search about the translation of &quot;data feed&quot; and...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Microsoft Language Portal&lt;/a&gt; suggests 数据馈送 for SC, and 資料摘要 for TC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1013894008673621&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Facebook Ads&lt;/a&gt; suggests 数据信息库 for SC, and 資料摘要 for TC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.aws.amazon.com/marketplace/latest/userguide/data-feed.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon AWS&lt;/a&gt; suggests 数据源 for SC, no TC version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9800" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T03:07:43.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34930" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34931" CreationDate="2019-09-06T07:15:54.473" Score="1" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;大家好，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想翻译这些词。背景是一个杂志社的。&#xA;我知道 &lt;strong&gt;总编&lt;/strong&gt; 就是 &lt;em&gt;rédacteur en chef&lt;/em&gt; 可是 关于 &lt;strong&gt;主编&lt;/strong&gt; 我莫名其妙。我早想到把它翻译成 &lt;em&gt;éditeur&lt;/em&gt; 或者 &lt;em&gt;éditeur en chef&lt;/em&gt; 不过我不太肯定。原来，对记者的专业词汇不太熟悉。因此，我需要你们的帮助。&#xA;若有人知道，就告诉我啊。&#xA;多谢！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19189" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T23:53:54.620" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T00:03:15.530" Title="Translations of 主编 and 总编 in French" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34930" CreationDate="2019-09-06T08:19:48.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;主编&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Grand Ricci&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Rédacteur en chef (d'un ouvrage collectif).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;KEF&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 rédacteur en chef, compilateur en chef&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2 éditer (une publication)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;FLTRP&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;rédacteur en chef&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;CFDICT&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 rédacteur en chef&#xA;  2 diriger la rédaction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;总编&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;CFDICT&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;rédacteur en chef (de journal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia's page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E7%B8%BD%E7%B7%A8%E8%BC%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;总编辑&lt;/a&gt; mirrors to the french page for &lt;a href=&quot;https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9dacteur_en_chef&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rédacteur en chef&lt;/a&gt;. But the original Chinese page does also mention:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;总编辑，也称总编、主编&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it looks like the Chinese terms are quite interchangeable amongst themselves. 主编 also redirects to the page for 总编辑. I would try not to get too caught up in the semantics of the words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be quite a complicated question actually. It's quite a hard one to translate properly and it depends on the context. You can see here for more info &lt;a href=&quot;https://share.america.gov/zh-hans/editors/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. According to the article one way of translating these back into English is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;主编 = Managing editor &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;总编 = Executive editor&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 主编 might be something like Chef d'édition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-09-06T08:38:13.607" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T08:38:13.607" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34927" CreationDate="2019-09-06T14:58:07.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary [1] claims that among the explanations, none claims that 按 is a transcription for mort-. Seemingly there is a version that the original first character was 摸 /mo2/, which makes more sense, and it was replaced by 按 by meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/mo2kit3/ is a MUCH better match than /on3kit3/, and with what other final could English [gɪdʒ] be approximated, if Cantonese allows only -p, -t, -k outside of nasals? [t̚] and [dʒ] are both approximately dental as opposed to labial or velar, and, as any Korean would confirm, when finally unreleased [tɕ~dʑ] defaults to [t̚], so transcription appears flawless. As soon as English card goes to /kaat1/ [2], the behaviour of [dʒ]should not be surprising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%8C%89%E6%8F%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%8C%89%E6%8F%AD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https://wenlin.co/wow/Special:Wenlin/QQs%3Fs%3Dkaat1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://wenlin.co/wow/Special:Wenlin/QQs%3Fs%3Dkaat1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20076" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T14:58:07.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34933" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-06T16:39:29.300" Score="1" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to learn more about idioms. I was told this might be a good place to ask this question, so please delete this if this isn't good for this exchange. Are there widely used idioms specific to Taiwan or Hong Kong but not used on the mainland or overseas? Thank you in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22708" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T03:48:01.127" Title="are there region specific idioms?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34934" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34937" CreationDate="2019-09-06T21:35:23.947" Score="3" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence &quot;我一点儿也不喜欢这件衣服&quot;, translated as &quot;I don't like this piece of clothing at all&quot;, what is the function of &quot;也&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it valid to think of this syntax as &quot;not even a little bit [do I like this thing]&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some resources [1] suggest interchangeability with &quot;都&quot; in this context. Is that valid, or do they hold different connotations or used in different contexts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22not_at_all%22_with_%22yidianr_ye_bu%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22not_at_all%22_with_%22yidianr_ye_bu%22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22714" LastActivityDate="2019-09-07T01:20:03.820" Title="Function of &quot;也&quot; in &quot;一点儿也不喜欢&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34934" CreationDate="2019-09-06T22:50:33.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have a look in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E4%B9%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;(Section 1）&#xA;2 在否定句里表示语气的加强：一点儿～不错。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 文言语气助词（❶表判断；❷表疑问；❸表停顿；❹形容词尾）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Section 2) &#xA;1用在句末表示判断或肯定语气。相当于“啊”、“呀”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可以把‘也’交换成 ‘都’吗？这取决于上下文，在你的句可以。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我一点儿也不喜欢这件衣服。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我一点儿都不喜欢这件衣服。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T22:50:33.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34934" CreationDate="2019-09-06T22:52:26.517" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both “也”  and &quot;都&quot; in “一点儿也不喜欢” / “一点儿都不喜欢” functions as the adverb &quot;even&quot; (&lt;em&gt;used to emphasize something surprising or extreme&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一点儿&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;不喜欢&quot; = &quot;not liking it &lt;strong&gt;even&lt;/strong&gt; a little&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一元&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;不值&quot; = &quot;not worth &lt;strong&gt;even&lt;/strong&gt; one dollar&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(最后)一元&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;需要还清&quot; = &quot;have to payback in full &lt;strong&gt;even&lt;/strong&gt; (the last) one dollar&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-07T01:20:03.820" LastActivityDate="2019-09-07T01:20:03.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34933" CreationDate="2019-09-06T23:20:31.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;中國成语 (Chinese idioms) are universal because they are all literary phrases. All Chinese no matter what dialect they are speaking  write in Standard Written Chinese (SWC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, common expressions or folk sayings are very regional because they are mostly colloquial phrases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some popular expression in one dialect would be picked up by near by regions. For example, many Hong Kong Cantonese created expressions are understood and used by many mainland Chinese in the nearby regions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/20887/%e6%88%90%e8%af%ad-versus-%e4%bf%97%e8%af%ad-versus-%e8%b0%9a%e8%af%ad-what-is-the-difference/20891#20891&quot;&gt;成语 versus 俗语 versus 谚语, what is the difference?&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-07T04:02:14.680" LastActivityDate="2019-09-07T04:02:14.680" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34939" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34960" CreationDate="2019-09-07T07:46:28.233" Score="0" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure if there is a definite answer to the question. A lot of dialects distinguish between 老派 and 新派 for old-pronunciations and new-pronunciations. Many 新派 pronunciations though are heavily influenced by Modern Standard Mandarin. &#xA;&lt;em&gt;X普&lt;/em&gt; languages are obviously the attempt at speaking Mandarin which is heavily influenced by ones local language. 新派 is going to be the speaking of a local language that is heavily influenced (in most cases) by Mandarin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps these two just meet at the end of two separate spectrums. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is it too much to consider them as a bit of a mishmash?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T12:24:44.070" Title="What is the line between 新派 and X普 in topolects?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34940" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34941" CreationDate="2019-09-07T22:54:09.960" Score="2" ViewCount="943" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was a question &lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idThread=1407818&amp;amp;idForum=47&amp;amp;lp=chde&amp;amp;lang=de&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; which has a link to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.g-buschbacher.de/Lyrik/chin_weisheiten/Liebe_Inhalt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; &quot;Chinesische Weisheiten&quot; = Chinese wisdom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really believe there is such a saying. I think it is &quot;Quatsch&quot;, which is German for &quot;rubbish, nonsense&quot;, but I'd like to ask you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Eine gute Ehe ist ein Reisgericht, das man mit kaltem Wasser ansetzt&#xA;  und behutsam zum Kochen bringt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A good marriage is like a rice dish, one should begin with cold water&#xA;  and slowly bring it to the boil.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anybody know a saying like this??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T04:47:31.697" Title="Anyone heard a saying about marriage being like cooking rice?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34940" CreationDate="2019-09-08T01:23:37.743" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an expression &quot;米已成炊&quot; (rice is cooked) It describes &quot;既成事實&quot; (a realized fact) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When raw rice is cooked, it cannot be changed back to raw again. Old Chinese thinking considered marriage is permanent, must be treated with caution. If a man and a woman get married, it is like raw rice boiled to be cooked rice--  It is permanent, cannot be undone. The only option is to eat it, meaning accept it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This quote is not the same as the original Chinese one, just borrowed the concept of &quot;marriage is like cooked rice&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the past, if a man and a woman had sex, they had no choice but to get marry. &quot;米已成炊&quot; can also describe this fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The quote from your link said: &quot;一個美好的婚姻是用冷水準備並輕輕煮沸的米飯&quot; (a beautiful marriage is like rice cooked from cold water and slowly boiled) implies &quot;to ensure the marriage is a happy one, you should take time to prepare and not rush to commit.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese version is &quot;生米煮成熟飯&quot; (raw rice cooked to become cooked-rice)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-08T04:47:31.697" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T04:47:31.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34942" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34943" CreationDate="2019-09-08T02:21:47.243" Score="0" ViewCount="51" Body="&lt;p&gt;Saw these two characters in a Tai Ji DVD: 掤 and 挒, but I couldn't find them in my dictionaries.  Are these archaic, very specialized, or something else?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The English the definitions the Tai Ji teacher provided are:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;掤 - expanding energy,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;挒 - splitting energy.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the full list of &quot;energies&quot; that were discussed in the lesson. The definitions in the lecture seemed (to me) to be similar to the dictionary definition, except for the above two.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;掤 - expanding&lt;br&gt;&#xA;履 - roll back / redirect&lt;br&gt;&#xA;擠 - squeezing&lt;br&gt;&#xA;按 - pushing&lt;br&gt;&#xA;採 - pulling (down)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;挒 - splitting&lt;br&gt;&#xA;肘 - elbow&lt;br&gt;&#xA;靠 - body leaning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me know if 掤 and 挒 are very specialized words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T02:41:13.353" Title="Definitions for 挒 and 掤" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34942" CreationDate="2019-09-08T02:29:34.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;挒&lt;/strong&gt; is defined in &lt;em&gt;Grand Ricci&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;liè&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3 (Arts mart.) Se fendre; utiliser les deux forces opposées pour bloquer ou déséquilibrer l’adversaire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=auto&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=3%20(Arts%20mart.)%20Se%20fendre%3B%20utiliser%20les%20deux%20forces%20oppos%C3%A9es%20pour%20bloquer%20ou%20d%C3%A9s%C3%A9quilibrer%20l%E2%80%99adversaire.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google translates&lt;/a&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 (Arts mart.) Split; use the two opposing forces to block or unbalance the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arts mart. should probably just be switched to martial arts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;掤&lt;/strong&gt; is defined in &lt;em&gt;Grand Ricci&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;bīng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2 (Arts mart.) Mouvement des bras pr repousser l’adversaire ds la direction d’où il vient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=auto&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=2%20(Arts%20mart.)%20Mouvement%20des%20bras%20pr%20repousser%20l%E2%80%99adversaire%20ds%20la%20direction%20d%E2%80%99o%C3%B9%20il%20vient.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google translates&lt;/a&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 (Arts mart.) Movement of the arms to repel the opponent in the direction from which he has come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-09-08T02:41:13.353" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T02:41:13.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34944" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34945" CreationDate="2019-09-08T04:14:09.450" Score="0" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;This image comes from the paper &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.02202.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.02202.pdf&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zavj2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zavj2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Korean orthogonal Latin square&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's an old Korean orthogonal &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_square&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Latin square&lt;/a&gt; attributed to Choi Seok-Jeong, in the book Koo-Soo-Ryak.  It's of historical interest, since it predates Euler, and he's usually the one attributed to inventing Latin squares.  It's probably in the ballpark of 300 years old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The orthogonal Latin square is simple enough (they're basically today's numbers), and I can partially read some of the characters, e.g., it begins 九九母？？宫, but I'm really struggling to recognize most of the other characters.  I asked some Chinese colleagues and they can recognize more of the characters, but also struggle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T05:10:43.097" Title="What does this approx. 300-year-old Korean text by Choi Seok-Jeong say?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;old-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34944" CreationDate="2019-09-08T05:10:43.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is my transcription into an ROC/HK standard character set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《九九母數變宮陽圖》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;從？皆得九十數總積八百一十母數&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本宮圖即甲編母數名圖此圖自本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宮而一變&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;橫看從看&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;九數無一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;重複者〇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以下四圖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;係新定&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have a feeling the second character ？ is「衡」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Please be wary of phonetic loans. For example,「從」might be better off being interpreted as「縱」. With the above, you have the two characters as「縱衡」(&lt;em&gt;vertical and horizontal&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T05:10:43.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34946" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34947" CreationDate="2019-09-08T09:32:15.890" Score="1" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard people use 不好意思，请问厕所在哪里？for 'excuse me, where is the toilet?', and also 对不起 for 不好意思, although I think 不好意思 sounds more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is (and notice the pun): what is the role of puting 请问 before 厕所在哪里? My thought is that 厕所在哪里? probably sounds too 'direct' and 'demanding', and we add the extra 请问 to soften the question. So for instance, if a teacher is angrily demanding where a student's homework is, they would just say 你的作业在哪里?&#xA;And if a naughty child has hidden the car keys, his mother may say 车钥匙在哪里?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17320" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T03:18:42.647" Title="Asking where something is" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34946" CreationDate="2019-09-08T09:40:03.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah you've pretty much got it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;请问&lt;/strong&gt; is just a good, polite, way of giving the other person a heads up that you want to get some information out of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not necessarily &lt;em&gt;demanding&lt;/em&gt; to drop the 请问, it all depends on your tone of voice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for more demanding way just drop the 在哪里 altogether and add a 呢 on the end while being overbearing. 呢 can also be fine by itself but again, it mostly depends on your tone of voice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T09:40:03.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34948" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34961" CreationDate="2019-09-08T18:35:55.113" Score="2" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to list several features of a product and then at the end I want to finish with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;all this just for the minimum price&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;all this for the minimum price&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best attempt was &lt;code&gt;获得这一切只需要最低的价格&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is kind of similar to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;all this for just $29.99&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;all this for only $29.99&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or equally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;all this just for the minimum price of $29.99&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use the term 'minimum price' in my sentence because it makes sense in it's context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be interested in the Chinese version of the first sentence most importantly, but versions of all the others would be interesting as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the title for this could also be &lt;code&gt;all this for just/just for..&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: If &lt;code&gt;all this just for the minimum price&lt;/code&gt; seems weird then simply add the price on the end &lt;code&gt;all this just for the minimum price of $2.99&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21998" LastEditorUserId="21998" LastEditDate="2019-09-09T10:53:16.620" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T23:35:18.087" Title="All this for the low price of" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34948" CreationDate="2019-09-08T19:35:27.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;获得这一切只需要最低的价格&lt;/code&gt; sounds very unnatural. you can simply say &lt;code&gt;只要$29.99&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;只需$29.99&lt;/code&gt;) which contains the meaning of minimum price without mentioning it. To be clear about &quot;all this&quot;, I think you can use &lt;code&gt;以上&lt;/code&gt;(all above) or &lt;code&gt;以下&lt;/code&gt; (all below) or &lt;code&gt;全部&lt;/code&gt;(all)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your Chinese version referring to Chinese currency, the dollar sign is ¥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T19:35:27.547" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34946" CreationDate="2019-09-08T20:29:46.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very straightforward. &lt;strong&gt;请问&lt;/strong&gt; simply means &lt;em&gt;&quot;excuse me&quot;&lt;/em&gt; (as you yourself indicated in the example 'excuse me, where is the toilet?')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;请问&lt;/strong&gt; has the same softening effect to the inquisitiveness of a question and it can be applied in similar social situations as &lt;em&gt;&quot;excuse me&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;&quot;pardon me&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;&quot;I would like to ask whether...&quot;&lt;/em&gt; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T20:29:46.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34951" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34973" CreationDate="2019-09-09T05:09:13.340" Score="5" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 后?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &#xA;我二十分钟后应该就到了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe 后 means behind? I still don't get how 后 should be placed in the sentence. I thought it made more sense when it was,&#xA;我二十分钟应该就到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does 后 make the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22719" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-09-10T09:23:52.567" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T03:26:38.063" Title="What is the meaning of 后 in ~分钟后?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34948" CreationDate="2019-09-09T05:14:54.673" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today we have a special discount: all 5 products for only 5 yuan.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;今天我们有促销活动：五件商品只需要五元。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't much like this English: all this for the minimum price so I wouldn't translate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is translateable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all this for just $29.99&#xA;所有的这些只要二十九点九九美元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2019-09-09T09:23:36.697" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T09:23:36.697" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34951" CreationDate="2019-09-09T05:17:53.767" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;我二十分钟后应该就到了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I should arrive in 20 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally: I 20 minutes after should then arrive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T05:17:53.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34954" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35131" CreationDate="2019-09-09T06:18:34.647" Score="2" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does it make sense to say 我个心? I suppose its meant to be 我的心. I still cannot distinguish when to use it. Maybe it to do with the fact that I am a Cantonese speaker? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22719" LastEditorUserId="21363" LastEditDate="2019-09-09T06:57:33.090" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T21:51:10.373" Title="Difference between 的 and 个" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34954" CreationDate="2019-09-09T07:30:22.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我个心 does not make sense. I guess you're confusing 个 with 嘅.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;嘅&lt;/strong&gt;广东话讲得好唔好 =&gt; 我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;广东话说得好不好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;—————————————————————————&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;个(quantifier) pattern：number + 个 + noun&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;examples：一个人，六个核桃&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when used without a number it normally just mean one：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有个朋友 =&gt; 我有&lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt;个朋友&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;—————————————————————————&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;的(particle) pattern：noun/pronoun + 的 + noun&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;examples: 我的心，我喜欢的人，聪明的孩子&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22720" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T07:30:22.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34910" CreationDate="2019-09-09T08:46:13.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree. It depends on the context. 保守 doesn't sound negative to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I say the reason I don't take drugs is that I'm 保守 it shouldn't mean anything bad. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I say someone doesn't like taking risks is 保守 it also is totally neutral. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The negative version will be 守旧. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22720" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T08:46:13.287" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34957" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34958" CreationDate="2019-09-08T01:18:01.353" Score="2" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am tinkering with learning Chinese and am messing around with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Tao_Te_Ching&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tao Te Ching&lt;/a&gt;. The first sentence in Chinese is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;道可道，非恆道；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way this is typically translated is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Dao that can be told, is not the eternal Dao;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were try to &lt;em&gt;reflect&lt;/em&gt; the English version back into Chinese without knowing any Chinese yet, I would do something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;dao&amp;gt;&amp;lt;can be&amp;gt;&amp;lt;told&amp;gt;,&amp;lt;not&amp;gt;&amp;lt;the eternal&amp;gt;&amp;lt;dao&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this is not the way the Chinese sentence is structured. It is structured more like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;dao&amp;gt;&amp;lt;can&amp;gt;&amp;lt;dao&amp;gt;, &amp;lt;not&amp;gt;&amp;lt;permanent&amp;gt;&amp;lt;dao&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two questions. First, can you generically explain at a high level how they got the translation with all the words like &quot;that&quot; and &quot;the&quot;. Second, how is &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;dao&amp;gt;&amp;lt;can&amp;gt;&amp;lt;dao&amp;gt;&lt;/code&gt; equal to &quot;the dao that can be told&quot;. Is this some sort of convention in Chinese? Or how did they come up with this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to translate it given my zero knowledge of translation or Chinese, I would do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Dao permits Dao, negating a permanent Dao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I just way off, or is this part of the fun in translating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" OwnerDisplayName="Lance Pollard" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T06:31:40.817" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T06:31:40.817" Title="Why is 道可道，非恆道 translated to &quot;the Dao that can be told, is not the eternal Dao&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34957" CreationDate="2019-09-08T18:35:15.637" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 道 (&lt;em&gt;dào&lt;/em&gt;) has &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%81%93#Definitions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;several different meanings&lt;/a&gt;. One of these is &amp;quot;road/path/way&amp;quot;; another is &amp;quot;speak/utter&amp;quot;. This is where Wikisource's translation comes from: the first 道 means &amp;quot;road&amp;quot;, and the second means &amp;quot;speak&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese also has much less verbal morphology than English does. Where English uses the whole verbal phrase &amp;quot;is able to be spoken&amp;quot;, Chinese just uses two words, 可 (&amp;quot;able to&amp;quot;) and 道 (&amp;quot;speak&amp;quot;). The time of the action isn't relevant (it's a &amp;quot;gnomic&amp;quot; sentence), and the voice of the verb is clear from context: it's not a road speaking, it's a road that's able to be spoken/explained. Similarly, Chinese doesn't generally use anything equivalent to English &amp;quot;a&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;the&amp;quot;, but English requires them, so the translator adds them in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A big part of translation is knowing what needs to be stated in each language. This translation…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dao permits Dao, negating a permanent Dao&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;…isn't a very good one, in my opinion, because it's ignoring the context. Sure, 道可道 &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; mean &amp;quot;speaking permits a road&amp;quot;. But contextually, that doesn't make much sense at all. Out of the hundreds of possible interpretations, adding tense and voice to the verb (because English requires that), &amp;quot;the path which is able to be spoken aloud&amp;quot; seems like the most reasonable one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some more examples, here are how some professional translators handled this first sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Dao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Dao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name. (Legge)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Reason that can be reasoned is not the eternal Reason. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. (Susuki)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Dao that can be understood cannot be the primal, or cosmic, Dao, just as an idea that can be expressed in words cannot be the infinite idea. (Goddard)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that all of them supplied many, many words that don't correspond to anything in the Chinese sentence! English is a somewhat verbose language, in that it needs to use a lot more words, and specify a lot more details, than Chinese does. So the translator has to add those in to get good, understandable English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="Draconis" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T18:35:15.637" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34939" CreationDate="2019-09-09T12:24:44.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The line varies. But it is generally generational, where it intersects with culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in the West, generational divisions (Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials) are fairly ingrained. These come from common temporo-cultural reference points, where they have intersected with the influence of these factors into daily life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of the introduction of the motor car, domestic electricity, television and mass media, and the Internet - all life-changing technologies that caused huge divergence in lifestyle. Differences in morality, in politics; these also influence the way people speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the linguistic ecology of Chinese topolect-speaking people, similarly large changes have occurred. But they can vary, and I would say there is much less sociological study asking how and why the variation happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A specific example: the 《福清方言研究》 published in 1993 explicitly states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;老派人数少，一般是七十岁以上的老人。新派人数多，一般是六十岁以下的人。六十至七十之间的人有的是老派口音，有的是新派口音，有的兼而有之，很难用具体的岁数作为分界。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As defined by this study of the topolect of Fuqing, in Fujian, these 老派ers would have been born in the 1920s or before, whereas the 新派ers in the 1930s or after. What that local change corresponds to, I am not entirely sure (I'd imagine it was to do with early 20th century urbanisation, mass migration, or possibly the introduction of Mandarin-based education, but I don't know the history well enough). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T12:24:44.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34948" CreationDate="2019-09-09T12:44:59.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;最低$29.99，以上（功能/产品/blank/etc）全带走～ is an accurate, lively translation.&#xA;To be more formal: 包干最低$29.99。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT1：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see what you mean after reading the comments, then it shulould be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全•部•底•价！（no more, no less translation）（and certainly understandable by those who know the term 'minimum price'）（and • is for emphasis i.e. 'just'）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;均仅以底价出售（elaborate it a bit）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT2：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arrh, how tricky! Examine more a bit, I found that you are trying to say something, with all these awesome functions, is on sale at just the minimum price!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仅需底价，全部享有！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;comment: 获得这一切只需要最低的价格 is too wordy, and doen't fully convey the implication that how favorable, how rare chance the price is for such a multifunctional product, plus the specific term 'minimum price'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;获得这一切 is plain. 享有 conveys the benefits of having it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;只需要 can be shortened to 仅需.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;的 in a proper noun or specific term in Chinese is usually avoided.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-09-09T13:16:28.757" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T13:16:28.757" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34954" CreationDate="2019-09-09T19:51:03.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;个 is the simplified version of the traditional character 個.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;個 is a classifier for many objects including 心 in Cantonese.  '&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 你個頭，佢個胃，我個肺 (your head, his brain, my lungs)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese phrase 呢&lt;strong&gt;個&lt;/strong&gt;心 (this heart) in Mandarin would be 這&lt;strong&gt;顆&lt;/strong&gt;心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese phrase 我(呢)&lt;strong&gt;個&lt;/strong&gt;心 (this heart of mine) in Mandarin would be 我這&lt;strong&gt;顆&lt;/strong&gt;心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Mandarin 我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;心 in Cantonese would be 我&lt;strong&gt;嘅&lt;/strong&gt;心&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-09T22:57:17.247" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T22:57:17.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34948" CreationDate="2019-09-09T23:16:03.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;minimum price&amp;quot; implies &amp;quot;from +(price)&amp;quot; e.g. &amp;quot;from $29.99&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;All this for the low price of...&amp;quot;  should be translated as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;All this&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;全部一起&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(selling) for the low price of (&lt;em&gt;actual price&lt;/em&gt;)&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;以 (&lt;em&gt;actual price&lt;/em&gt;) 低價 (出售)&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;以 低價(&lt;em&gt;actual price&lt;/em&gt;) (出售)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;All this for the low price of $29.99&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;全部一起 以 $29.99 低價 出售&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;全部一起 以  低價 $29.99 出售&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example with an extended sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一套十二把廚刀，加十四吋實木砧板， 全部一起 以 $129.99 (超)低價 出售&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A set of twelve kitchen knives, plus 14 inches solid wood cutting board. All this for the (super) low price of $129.99&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T23:35:18.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34951" CreationDate="2019-09-10T00:02:58.680" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;二十分钟&lt;strong&gt;后&lt;/strong&gt; = &quot;20 minutes &lt;strong&gt;later&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt; 20 minutes&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二十分钟后就到了 (will arrive 20 minutes later/ will arrive after 20 minutes) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二十分钟&lt;strong&gt;前&lt;/strong&gt; = &quot;20 minutes &lt;strong&gt;earlier&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot; 20 minutes &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二十分钟&lt;strong&gt;內&lt;/strong&gt; = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; 20 minutes&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-10T00:21:36.233" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T00:21:36.233" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34130" CreationDate="2019-09-10T02:54:16.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, there's no exception for translating &quot;e-&quot; to &quot;电子&quot; unless it doesn't indicate &quot;digital&quot; electronic.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T02:54:16.420" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34966" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-10T08:57:30.220" Score="0" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first letter of a sentence in Pinyin is to be &lt;a href=&quot;http://pinyin.info/readings/zyg/rules.html#x4.9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;capitalized&lt;/a&gt;. Does this remain true if the sentence starts with an arabic numeral? For instance, Google Translate turns &quot;23万人&quot; into &quot;23 Wàn rén&quot; instead of &quot;23 wàn rén&quot;, as one may expect from European languages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22495" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T15:08:00.540" Title="Pinyin capitalization when sentence starts with a number" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34966" CreationDate="2019-09-10T09:31:47.323" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wouldn't the number be written out in Pinyin? i.e.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;23万人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Èr shí sān wàn rén&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T09:31:47.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34968" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34969" CreationDate="2019-09-10T13:30:46.523" Score="3" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English you could use two forms when expressing a sentence that has a plural form with a value of &quot;0&quot;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;You have 2 unread messages.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could be either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;You have 0 unread messages.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or the negative form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;You have no unread messages.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be the same thing in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;您有0条未读消息。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or the negative form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;您没有未读消息。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is using negative forms a common way to increase fluency in Chinese or are both forms equally fluent? In other words, if we could pick both form, would one be better than the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is this a general recommendation or are there exceptions around this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22724" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-16T13:06:14.450" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T13:06:14.450" Title="Is it more natural to express &quot;0&quot; with a negative form?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;sentence&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34968" CreationDate="2019-09-10T16:46:49.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like in most languages, expression of the concept of not having anything in Chinese is &lt;strong&gt;most naturally done&lt;/strong&gt; as a negative, viz &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;您没有未读消息。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My English voicemail employs &lt;em&gt;&quot;You don't have any unread messages&quot;&lt;/em&gt; in the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the use of 零 líng + a classifier like 個 gè is attested, albeit in very limited contexts, most commonly in temperature (to &quot;count&quot; 0 degrees of the scale, e.g. 零度). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T16:46:49.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34968" CreationDate="2019-09-11T03:08:28.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think in the context that you have described, which is a pre-formatted text that is used in computer programs, both would be seen to be equally acceptable because the context is clear and there is no real ambiguity as to why it is expressed in one or the other manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if we are talking about a natural conversational setting then it obviously makes more sense to express zero with a negative form. I thought it was just worth pointing out that the context is quite important if you are considering whether the expression is naturally or not when translated or in native form of another language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T03:08:28.283" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34946" CreationDate="2019-09-11T03:18:42.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think what the others have said is correct, but I should also add that you can in fact use 请问 not just as a polite or softening start to the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As with the spoken language, everything is about context and the way you express it (something more difficult to convey in written language). So a teacher could say 请问你的作业在哪里? This can be used emphasize that the teacher is not happy with the naught child, same way that we could use &quot;Excuse me&quot; in a stern tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T03:18:42.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34951" CreationDate="2019-09-11T03:26:38.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that the use of the character 后 helps to modify the certainty of the statement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By expressing the exact figures, the person would be trying to convey that the arrival should occur within the exact time (e.g. train arriving at the schedule time at the station). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To create more subtlety in the expression, 后 suggest that the arrival will take place after 20min, so most likely not before or exactly, but most likely after.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, adding 应该 also suggests uncertainty so they both contribute to modifying the accuracy of the time given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T03:26:38.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34974" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34975" CreationDate="2019-09-11T08:18:32.797" Score="2" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two dictionaries don't have entries for &quot;condone.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.yellowbridge.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Google translate answer is 縱容, which seems quite wrong at least for Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the Cantonese/Mandarin translation for condone? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="4049" LastEditDate="2019-09-12T02:40:58.610" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T02:40:58.610" Title="What's the Cantonese/Mandarin equivalent of &quot;condone&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34974" CreationDate="2019-09-11T08:47:20.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some words that are similar in meaning to condone (and indeed some dictionaries even translate them to condone):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• 容忍 or 容受 -&gt; tolerate; put up with. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• 赦免 -&gt; absolve, excuse, remit a punishment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The essence of condone is to accept with reluctance -- consequently, it's usually used in the negative in English (as in &quot;We do not condone the violence&quot;) or with a negative connotation (&quot;They took the silence to indicate that she condoned their behavior&quot; is a sentence that implies the behavior is somehow &quot;wrong&quot;). With this in mind, I feel 容忍 (in Mandarin at least) works well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19368" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T08:47:20.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34976" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34985" CreationDate="2019-09-12T01:05:01.377" Score="1" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I convey that two parties were unable to come to terms on a given issue?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example in English we can say this in a variety of different ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;We failed to reach an agreement on plans for dinner.&#xA;&#xA;We were unable to finalize the decision on how many employees to lay off&#xA;&#xA;We were unable to come to terms on how to split the profit.&#xA;&#xA;We could not agree on how to proceed with this issue.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22570" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T06:12:19.647" Title="How to say we failed to reach an agreement" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34994" CreationDate="2019-09-12T01:26:49.923" Score="4" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am hoping somebody could help me identify the name of a type of topping that goes with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congee&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;congee&lt;/a&gt; that my grandma would give me as a kid. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She didn't know English and had passed away years ago. I am unable to read or write in Chinese and can only speak Cantonese, but I know it used to be pronounced something like &quot;ma yip&quot;, the &quot;ma&quot; sounds like the &quot;ma yao&quot; in sesame oil and the &quot;yip&quot; sounds like leaf. I have tried asking my parents but they don't know the English name nor what the Chinese spelling would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I didn't have a cellphone back then so I don't have any pictures to show, but I remember it would look like shriveled up leaves and would taste salty (so goes well with congee). It looks sort of like the leafy bits of stir-fried &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipomoea_aquatica&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ong choy&lt;/a&gt; (without the thick stem). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried googling general &quot;congee toppings&quot; although I couldn't see anything similar to what I described (Perhaps it's not mainstream enough?). I also tried googling &quot;ma yip&quot; since I was able to find &quot;ong choy&quot;, however &quot;ma yip&quot; doesn't give me anything useful. Any help would be very appreciated, as I haven't had this since I was a child and would love to eat this again! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: My grandparents were from Chao Zhou if that helps any. My mom said this type of topping was unique to Chao Zhou and that only the older people liked it (it was not popular with younger generations)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22728" LastEditorUserId="22728" LastEditDate="2019-09-12T03:19:55.720" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T13:13:21.003" Title="Identifying a type of topping used for congee" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34977" CreationDate="2019-09-12T02:07:18.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bc31e.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bc31e.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i guess it is ganlancai（橄榄菜）which is popular in guangdong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22320" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T02:07:18.670" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34976" CreationDate="2019-09-12T02:13:36.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;failed to reach an agreement&#xA;--for bussiness,we say&quot;无法达成共识&quot; or &quot;协商失败&quot;&#xA;--for daliy life ,we say&quot;说不通” or“沟通失败”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22320" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T02:13:36.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34977" CreationDate="2019-09-12T02:36:42.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would it be &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A9%AC%E9%BD%BF%E8%8B%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;馬齒莧&lt;/a&gt;? I don't know about adding it to congee, but it is great for making soup &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/N2GRN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/N2GRN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T02:36:42.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34981" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34990" CreationDate="2019-09-12T02:44:05.147" Score="2" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;This dictionary lists &lt;em&gt;prophecy&lt;/em&gt; as 預言, but it doesn't list an entry for &lt;em&gt;self-fulfilling prophecy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you remain this negative, your thoughts will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the right translation for Cantonese/Mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T05:17:09.137" Title="How to say &quot;self-fulfilling prophecy&quot; in Mandarin/Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34981" CreationDate="2019-09-12T03:05:30.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;self-fulfilling = 自证&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, self = 自. You might see other place translate self to 自己。 That's because, in ancient Chinese, every word has only one character. In current Chinese, most words contain more than one character, such as 自+己 -&gt; 自己。 But when in words that format as combinations, every word only use their original character. That is 自 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fulfilling has no exact translation in chinese. So 证, which means proven, is used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is something more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;If you remain this negative, your thoughts will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can translate it word by word：如果你继续这么悲观，你的思想会陷入自证预言.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is a conversation between native speakers, a more common way is using idioms, something like 智子疑邻 or 杯弓蛇影。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22730" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T03:05:30.407" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34977" CreationDate="2019-09-12T03:42:13.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This one?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FVnBM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FVnBM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;All related material about this seasoning are in Chinese, can only find this one in wiki&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocynum_venetum&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocynum_venetum&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22731" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T03:42:13.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34984" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-12T04:21:42.597" Score="3" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a text talking about a GPS system. 北斗卫星 导航 系统&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;北斗系统终端不仅可以为船只导航，还能通过其特有的短报文通信技术，报告船只位置和随航人员的情况。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I just picture a computer terminal when I read 终端? A screen where I can see information and enter commands? Or does 终端 refer to more?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T13:15:43.033" Title="What should I picture when I read 终端？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34976" CreationDate="2019-09-12T04:35:35.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try 未能， 无法， 不能，失败 for 'failed', always depends on the context. 'reach an agreement' will also translate in various ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We failed to reach an agreement on our plans for the annual dinner.&#xA;我们未能就年度晚宴的计划&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未能 ... 达成协议。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;not can ... arrive become agreement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We were unable to finalize the decision on how many employees to lay off.&#xA;我们未能就裁员多少人的问题作出最后决定。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未能...作出最后决定&lt;br&gt;&#xA;not can... hammer out a decision&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We were unable to come to terms on how to split the profit.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们无法就如何分配利润达成协议。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could not agree on how to proceed with this issue.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我们不能就如何处理这一问题达成协议。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T04:35:35.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34986" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-12T05:21:00.383" Score="0" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WTc0Y.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tcFbw.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please help me identify the calligraphy and seal on this silk painting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22691" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T06:00:24.700" Title="Chinese seal identification" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34986" CreationDate="2019-09-12T05:49:31.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;花香鳥語&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fragrance of flowers and chirping of birds&lt;/em&gt; (= Springtime)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;庚子籤仲春&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Marked on the second month of the spring season on the year of&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BA%9A%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;庚子&lt;/a&gt;. Not sure of 籤 (&lt;em&gt;marked/labelled&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;志航寫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Written by&lt;/em&gt; 志航&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;志航&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Seal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-09-12T05:57:17.943" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T05:57:17.943" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34986" CreationDate="2019-09-12T05:54:44.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From right to left&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;花香鳥語 (Flower's Fragrance, birds' songs)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;庚子歳 仲春 in the middle of Spring in the year of &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BA%9A%E5%AD%90/599508&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;庚子&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;歳&quot; means &quot;year&quot;(年); &quot;仲&quot; means &quot;middle of&quot;; &quot;春&quot; means &quot;Spring&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The last 庚子年 was &lt;strong&gt;1960&lt;/strong&gt;; the next 庚子年 is 2020&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;志航寫 = wrote by Zhi Hang (志航 is the author)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-12T06:00:24.700" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T06:00:24.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34981" CreationDate="2019-09-12T07:31:42.433" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;self-fulfilling prophecy = 自我实现的预言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The act of making a prophecy, would help making it happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some prophecy fulfilling itself by enticing actions that lead to the result that it predicted. For example: Someone say he will never success, therefore no need to try. If he never try, he will never success. And the reason he never try is he predicted it would be no use trying. If he didn't make the prediction, he might actually try and success&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「我永遠不會成功」是一個自我实现的预言，因為如果你相信這個预言，你就不會去尝试，如果你不去尝试，這個预言就會实现&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I will never succeed&amp;quot; is a self-fulfilling prophecy, because if you believe in this prophecy, you will not try. If you don't try, this prophecy will come true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are the one who fulfill your own prophecy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Mandarin,  you can say:  &amp;quot;說着就會變真&amp;quot; (keep making the same prediction would make this prediction come true)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, you can say:  &amp;quot;講講下就會變真&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;說到變真&amp;quot; (repeat a prediction until it comes true) could work similarly to &amp;quot;說着就會變真&amp;quot; (keep making the same prediction would make this prediction come true)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &amp;quot;他常說沒人會嫁他，結果這話說到變真&amp;quot; (he often say no one would marry him, at the end this words became a self-fulfilling prophecy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Because he predicted no girl would marry him, so he didn't even try to ask girls for marriage, thus fulfilled his own prophecy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T21:11:47.280" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34991" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-12T09:13:51.907" Score="1" ViewCount="1157" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a screenshot from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.1point3acres.com/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&amp;amp;tid=547521&amp;amp;extra=page%3D5&amp;amp;mobile=2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1point3acres&lt;/a&gt; forums:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hMwLO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hMwLO.png&quot; alt=&quot; &quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;利口耳丝耳   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;利口丝久&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this mean? Is it a transliteration from English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also find phrases like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;利口 斯尔&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  利口 丝丝久&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on the site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: they seem to be &quot;interview question types&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.1point3acres.com/bbs/interview/uber-software-engineer-488521.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Uber ATG&lt;/a&gt; failed interview:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一道利口斯尔，一道利口散灵思&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.1point3acres.com/bbs/interview/data-science-473184.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;startup Element, Inc.&lt;/a&gt; failed interview:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;利口散灵思-&gt;这个不是算每个点到(0,0) square 的 sum 相减么。。还有啥最优解？莫非是Segment tree 或者 binary indexed tree?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22734" LastEditorUserId="23334" LastEditDate="2020-01-28T07:32:00.040" LastActivityDate="2020-12-10T09:27:49.857" Title="What does 利口耳丝耳 and 利口丝久 mean?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;technology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23357" CreationDate="2019-09-12T12:09:54.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yunnanese Mandarin originated in the Ming Dynasty in the area called Nanzhili which is now today the provinces of Jiangsu and Anhui,were areas that spoke Classical Mandarin the language of the courts and officials from the mid 14th to 19th centuries and also the entire Yangtze and North China area, during the expedition south they brought this Language with them and the dialects spoken in Yunnan habe almost a Jiamghuai quality to them however 4 of the 5 tones of Classical Mandarin are preserved in Southwestern Mandarin, where as in the Central plains, Jianghuai and Northeastern dialects the vocabulary and tones have changed drastically, Southwestern Mandarin is actually the most representative in all Modern mandarin dialects of Classical Mandarin due to many of the tones and vocabulary being preserved which were lost in Northern China. If you listen to Peking opera you will notice they do not speak Modern Mandarin but classical Mandarin fron the Ming Dynasty based on the Honanese or Luoyang dialect of the time. As for Yunnanese there are aspects of it which match Jianghuai Mandarin due to most of the original settlers of Yunnan originating in Nanking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22736" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T12:09:54.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34977" CreationDate="2019-09-12T13:05:21.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;...pronounced something like &quot;ma yip&quot;, the &quot;ma&quot; sounds like the &quot;ma yao&quot; in sesame oil and the &quot;yip&quot; sounds like leaf.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word is「麻葉」(&lt;strong&gt;maa&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt; jip&lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;), and is indeed a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaoshan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chaoshan&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; dish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://kknews.cc/food/b6gyogm.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;潮汕麻葉配番薯粥&lt;/a&gt; for a Chinese description.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: If you want to Google「麻葉」, you should either (1) set your language to Chinese only, or add a character like「粥」(&lt;em&gt;congee&lt;/em&gt;) after it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately,「麻葉」is also the name of a popular Sushi store in Japan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-09-12T13:13:21.003" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T13:13:21.003" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34984" CreationDate="2019-09-12T13:15:43.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;“北斗系统終端” should be interpreted as any devices such chart plotter, fish finder, handheld gps, vhf radio with built-in gps, gps watch, epirb with gps, mob device with gps, camera with gps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the list is much longer, with the satellite sms facilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you think of computer terminal only, it’s, well, you’re landbuddy :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have a look of marine products associated with gps, you’ll have the idea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fisheriessupply.com/sitesearch.aspx?keyword=gps&amp;amp;sitesearch=true&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fisheriessupply.com/sitesearch.aspx?keyword=gps&amp;amp;sitesearch=true&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T13:15:43.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34107" CreationDate="2019-09-13T04:15:51.100" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to give two differences between 再 and 又 for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Originally, 再 means 'second time', 又 means 'second time', or 'third time', or even more. But now, 再 sometimes also means repeatedly. In this sense, the two words,再，又, are replaceable. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;再 emphasizes the two concepts (verbs/nouns) must be &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;the same nature&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, while 又 is not limited.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more important thing is to know some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, the 再 in the following examples can not be replaced by 又.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;再見。          See you a second time, so it means 'see you', 'see you later', 'see you again', or 'Auf Wiedersehen' in German.&#xA;再會。          This sentence has the same meaning as 再見. &#xA;一而再，再而三   Do the same thing once, twice, and three times, so it means 'again and again.&#xA;再三            Do the same thing twice and three times, i.e. it means 'again and again' too.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 又 in the following examples can not be replaced by 再.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[既...又...]  襄兒既聰明,又可愛。   Xianger is not only bright but also cute.&#xA;[又...又...]  又驚又喜；又快又好    Shocked and happy； fast and good&#xA;[又名]        中國，又名海内，諸夏。 China is also known as '海内' or '諸夏'. &#xA;              牛頓來了，又走了。    Newton came and then left.    &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your question, 再會下雨 is indeed a wrong expression. Let me try to make is clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;再會下雨 means &quot;again 'could rain' &quot;. But once today is coming, 'could rain' will become 'rain' or 'not rain'. So &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;the same thing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 'could rain' will not happen &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;again&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; tomorrow. On the other hand, 會再下雨 means 'could rain again'. There is no problem in this expression.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;昨天下雨，今天下雨了，明天又會下雨.  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above sentence, 又會下雨 is right, because 下雨 and 會下雨 can be joined by 又。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Thanks for your interesting question. A piece of advice from me: I think you'd better learn from examples, it is helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6485" LastEditorUserId="6485" LastEditDate="2019-09-13T06:41:39.473" LastActivityDate="2019-09-13T06:41:39.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34997" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35005" CreationDate="2019-09-13T04:42:30.617" Score="2" ViewCount="615" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the correct pronunciation of the letters Z and C in Pinyin? Chinese phonology wikipedia says that Z is pronounced /ts/ and C is pronounced /tsʰ/, but several websites and videos say they are pronounced /dz/ and  /ts/, respectively. Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/pronunciation/The_%22c%22_and_%22z%22_sounds&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/pronunciation/The_%22c%22_and_%22z%22_sounds&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/GNJYTz_-7vQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/GNJYTz_-7vQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When i hear words with Z and C, I clearly hear the latter pronunciation ( /dz/ and /ts/ ). Why Wikipedia says that Z is pronounced /ts/ ? Why isn't there a consensus about the IPA transcription of these 2 letters? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22739" LastEditorUserId="22739" LastEditDate="2019-09-13T17:22:23.400" LastActivityDate="2021-04-13T14:39:17.637" Title="Pronunciation of Z and C in Pinyin" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="34999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34976" CreationDate="2019-09-13T07:29:42.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for an idiom, see 不欢而散.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2019-09-13T07:29:42.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35001" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35018" CreationDate="2019-09-13T12:58:26.113" Score="2" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've looked around and one place says it's from the skin of an animal, another one says it's an axe striking a beast and another one says it's a battle helmet with an animal skin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's the story behind it and it's relation to the meaning today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T03:08:47.967" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T03:10:22.647" Title="What is the glyph origin of 克?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35001" CreationDate="2019-09-13T13:39:44.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Outlier&lt;/em&gt; writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;克 depicts a battle helmet (now written 古) and an animal skin (now written 儿). It was used in bronze inscriptions to mean “to defeat.” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their reference is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;季旭昇，2004《說文新證》，台北：藝文印書館印行，2014年9月二版。p. 237&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And they also give the ancient form of the character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OXdrJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OXdrJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-09-13T13:39:44.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34636" CreationDate="2019-09-13T13:49:26.147" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A tentative hypothesis:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like there is a 挖 vs 蛙 split, which the dictionary has tried to notate. There is some kind of difference between the /w/ of 挖 and /ʋ/ of 蛙.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fortition of /w/ to [ʋ] is attested across all of northern Mandarin, and is particularly prevalent in Beijing and the Northeast. This dictionary &lt;em&gt;seems&lt;/em&gt; to suggest that this process is incomplete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that the pinyin orthography used by the book has &quot;w&quot; representing /ʋ/, and the &quot;o&quot; representing /w/ instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My evidence for this is 娃儿 being transcribed as &quot;wáer (连读)&quot; whilst still having 轧 as &quot;ōā (连读)&quot; in the dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-09-13T13:49:26.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35004" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-13T15:33:14.643" Score="0" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please help translate this painting to identify the artist and when it was painted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WgUpv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WgUpv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;*help*&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22691" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-14T01:07:36.507" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T01:07:36.507" Title="Translate a calligraphic painting to identify the artist and when it was painted" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34997" CreationDate="2019-09-13T18:41:36.770" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Expanding my comment into an answer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When discussing phonology of Chinese relative to English (or some other language), there are a couple important things to keep in mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sounds (which we try to represent unambiguously with IPA notation) are not the same as letters. The letter &quot;t&quot; in American English can correspond to several different sounds. For example, the &quot;t&quot;s in each of the following words would all be written differently in IPA: &quot;tea&quot;, &quot;steam&quot;, &quot;beat&quot;, and &quot;butter&quot;. Perhaps you would consider the &quot;t&quot; in &quot;tea&quot; to be the prototypical &quot;t&quot; sound. How is it written in IPA? Not as [t]! It's actually [tʰ]!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;IPA makes a 3-way distinction regarding voicing and aspiration. Some stops are truly voiced (in the sense of having vocal chords vibrating before the stop is even released). For instance [d]. There are unvoiced-unaspirated stops, where the vibration-start and the release are more-or-less simultaneous (e.g., [t]). And there are unvoiced-aspirated stops, where a puff of air comes out after the stop has been released and before the vibration of the vocal chords starts (e.g., [tʰ]).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese, English, and French all make &lt;em&gt;different&lt;/em&gt; two way distinctions in voicing/aspiration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese distinguishes [tʰ] and [t]. [d] is never produced but &quot;sounds like&quot; [t] to a Chinese listener.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;French (and Japanese, for that matter) distinguishes [t] and [d]. [tʰ] is never produced but &quot;sounds like&quot; [t] to a French listener.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English distinguishes [tʰ] and [d]. [t] is never produced (in isolation at the front of a syllable, anyway), but (on its own), it &quot;sounds like&quot; [d]. However, for English speakers listening to someone who makes a [t/d] distinction (e.g., someone with a strong French accent), the [t] usually sounds like a [tʰ].&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are unaware of the above, or you ignore it, it will be very confusing discussing the sounds in Chinese vs those in English. Here is my summary of how &quot;z&quot; and &quot;c&quot; sound, given the above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin &quot;z&quot; is pronounced [ts] by Chinese speakers. If English is your native language, you are likely going to perceive it as sounding like [dz]. If you also pronounce it as [dz], that will probably &quot;sound like&quot; [ts] to Chinese listeners, so there won't be any miscommunication.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pinyin &quot;c&quot; is pronounced [tsʰ] by Chinese speakers. If English is your native language, you will likely hear it as [tsʰ]. Note that the letters &quot;ts&quot; in English--for instance, in the word &quot;tsar&quot;, assuming you attempt to pronounce the t in there--are pronounced [tsʰ]! &quot;ts&quot; is not pronounced [ts]!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2019-09-13T18:41:36.770" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35006" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-13T22:57:36.657" Score="2" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the pronunciation of the vowel I in Pinyin si? /ɪ/, /ɘ/ or /ɨ/ ? Each website I read describe it differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please answer using IPA symbols. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22739" LastActivityDate="2021-04-13T09:30:18.710" Title="Pronunciation of the vowel &quot;i&quot; in Pinyin si" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35007" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35047" CreationDate="2019-09-14T00:00:42.780" Score="6" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;As it is extremely hard to find a good online summary of all Pinyin pronunciation rules, I am listening the sounds in a Pinyin chart: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php&lt;/a&gt; . I have read before that the final -iu is pronounced /iou/, but I can hear the &quot;o&quot; only in tone 3 (eg in Pinyin syllable &quot;liu&quot;). I am unable to hear it in tones 1 (high), 2 (rising) and 4 (falling). Is there vowel reduction in some tones or are those audios in this Pinyin chart bad?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22739" LastEditorUserId="22739" LastEditDate="2019-09-14T04:49:17.317" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T06:10:23.417" Title="Does pronunciation of a vowel change with tones?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22145" CreationDate="2019-09-14T02:15:29.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My mother is Chinese and I heard this word “ nigah” all the time .  She told me it means “um, ummmm”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22742" LastActivityDate="2019-09-14T02:15:29.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35006" CreationDate="2019-09-14T04:04:55.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest is /ɨ/, at least in Taiwan where the accent is very free-flowing. In Beijing it's more like the /z/ in the comments above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18991" LastActivityDate="2019-09-14T04:04:55.643" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35010" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35044" CreationDate="2019-09-14T09:00:29.593" Score="0" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UEjkS.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UEjkS.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;screenshot of Pleco&amp;#39;s &amp;quot;sentence&amp;quot; page for 欸&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above is a screenshot of Pleco's &quot;sentence&quot; page for &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E6%AC%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;欸&lt;/a&gt; which displays 5 different pronunciations.  This puzzles me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why does Pleco give so many pronunciations of 欸?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My impression is that 欸 is some kind of noise made to express surprise, so maybe it could have multiple pronunciations, but 5 is a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T07:12:15.143" Title="Why does Pleco give so many pronunciations of 欸?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35011" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-14T09:01:10.913" Score="0" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the pronunciation of the city Suzhou?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en-7tRfwDRI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt;, it looks like she says &quot;Shu dshjo&quot;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6oYyVCFCg8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; it's more &quot;Shu djo&quot;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?wdqb=%E8%8B%8F%E5%B7%9E%E5%B8%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; it sounds more like &quot;Su djo&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22744" LastActivityDate="2019-09-14T11:58:13.980" Title="Prononciation of Suzhou" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35011" CreationDate="2019-09-14T11:58:13.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your language is English, try 'sue joe' both first tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-09-14T11:58:13.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35013" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-14T22:53:10.220" Score="3" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've encountered myself quite a few times trying to express the word among in chinese and the meaning that it carries, just like in these two senteces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He's vey popular among the students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite a few students have passed the exam, and I am among them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I express this idea? For example, for the first one I would say: 他在学生们中很吃香的. Is it correct? Is it the best way to express what I am willing to express?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18456" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T15:29:04.043" Title="How to express among in chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35013" CreationDate="2019-09-14T23:22:15.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, sometimes you won't translate 'among', see your first sentence. Other times, 'among' will translate simply as 中, or a combination of 在 ... 中, like your second sentence. 在 ...  间 is also common, but there are other ways. Of course, exactly if and how 'among' is expressed will depend on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He's very popular among the students.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他很受学生（的）欢迎。  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quite a few students have passed the exam, and I am among them.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;相当多的学生通过了考试，我也在其中。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Reading this morning, I came across this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;国家文物局明确指出，“西市” 是隋唐丝绸之路的起点，要纳入申请世界文化遗产的名录当中。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;纳入 ...当中 or just plain 当中, in my opinion, is &quot;among&quot;, but I wouldn't translate it that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T06:00:38.553" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T06:00:38.553" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35016" CreationDate="2019-09-15T00:44:36.053" Score="1" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;I went to a library the other day and found Roald Dahl's Matilda.  I started reading, and I found what I think might be a typo (but maybe not---Roald Dahl has a quirky writing style):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/35vxo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/35vxo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The second page of Roald Dahl&amp;#39;s Matilda&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My transcription:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果那天&lt;strong&gt;我正好是诗情勃发&lt;/strong&gt;，我还可能这么写：”虽说稀奇，却是事实，...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my attempt at disassembling this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If [如果] that day [那天], I [我] just enough [正好] am [是] poem [诗] emotion [情] break out [勃发], I [我] still [还] can [可能] write this way [这么写]: &quot;although [虽说] it's odd [稀奇], but [却] it is [是] a fact [事实], ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm just wondering how to make sense of this, particularly the part in bold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;:  What does 我正好是诗情勃发 mean in the Chinese translation of Roald Dahl's Matilda (p.2)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T03:45:32.223" Title="What does 我正好是诗情勃发 mean in the Chinese translation of Roald Dahl's Matilda (p.2)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35015" CreationDate="2019-09-15T01:14:54.713" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://jssisdubai.com/document/uploaded/matilda.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;original English&lt;/a&gt; (p. 4) of 如果那天我正好是诗情勃发 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Or if I were feeling lyrical that day.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your breakdown is okay. &lt;strong&gt;诗情&lt;/strong&gt; is a word of its own though, it is defined by &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;poetic sentiment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might even make a case for &lt;strong&gt;诗情勃发&lt;/strong&gt; as a single term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese translations of English works are notoriously bad in general and this translation doesn't seem any more &lt;em&gt;natural&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T01:20:39.743" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T01:20:39.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35007" CreationDate="2019-09-15T02:48:33.407" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in Chinese Pinyin, o is prounounced as wooo,so ou can never occur, because wooou is difficult to prounounce in Chinese Pinyin. Only iu is allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the case ao, actually is au, but au in handwriting is apt to be confused with an, the latter occurs very frequently in Pinyin. To be distinct to an, the pronounce au is taken over by ao.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastEditorUserId="22221" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T06:10:23.417" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T06:10:23.417" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35001" CreationDate="2019-09-15T02:57:35.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;Dislcaimer: The interpretations of the glyph forms and OC reconstructions are my personal opinion. &lt;em&gt;Professional opinions&lt;/em&gt; state that this character is still open for interpretation.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pkJ5Q.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pkJ5Q.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;甲1249&lt;br&gt;合集31219&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xkADU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xkADU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;大克鼎&lt;br&gt;集成2836&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;春秋&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bBV8d.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bBV8d.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;公克敦&lt;br&gt;集成4641&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SaXbj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SaXbj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess you can view「克」(Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*kʰˤək/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to achieve victory over/subdue/defeat an opponent in a military confrontation&lt;/em&gt;), as being a merger between semantic「由」(&lt;em&gt;battle helmet&lt;/em&gt;, now written as「冑」) and reduced phonetic「革」(&lt;strong&gt;/*kˤrək/&lt;/strong&gt;). The graphically reduced「革」looks like「⿱廿尸」or「⿱口尸」(&lt;em&gt;picture of animal skin and horns&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Specifically, the bottom part of「由」is merged with the top part of the reduced「革」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「由」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Eo3xa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Eo3xa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;甲2123&lt;br&gt;合集557&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;戰國・楚&lt;br&gt;簡帛&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iFp7H.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iFp7H.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;六德・19&lt;br&gt;郭店楚簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PSPiq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PSPiq.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「皮」(&lt;em&gt;skinning an animal&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8LiHv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8LiHv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;九年衛鼎&lt;br&gt;集成2831&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XSbzZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XSbzZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;秦律十八7&lt;br&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西漢&lt;br&gt;隸&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3u0NJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3u0NJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;孫臏・220&lt;br&gt;銀雀山漢簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iyXT2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iyXT2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「革」(&lt;em&gt;picture of flattened animal skin&lt;/em&gt;). Roughly speaking,「⿱廿尸」or「⿱口尸」is「革」folded in half along the animal's spine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5xPDK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5xPDK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;花東474&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kUM8s.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kUM8s.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;康鼎&lt;br&gt;集成2786&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;戰國・楚&lt;br&gt;簡帛&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UaNa4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UaNa4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;遣策&lt;br&gt;天星觀楚簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V49sl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V49sl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;秦律雜抄16&lt;br&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KtUWl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KtUWl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T03:10:22.647" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T03:10:22.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35015" CreationDate="2019-09-15T03:45:32.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;诗情 (poetic sentiment) 畫意 (picture like feel)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;诗情畫意&quot; is a common expression for  &quot;artistic vibe&quot; (both poem and painting are art)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;lyrical&quot; (抒情)  is an adjective that describe a feeling of a person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;if I were feeling lyrical that day.&quot;  should be translated as &quot;如果那天我诗興大发&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;诗興&quot; means &quot;desire to create poem (desire to be artistic) &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;诗情勃发&quot; would mean &quot;my artistic vibe strongly express itself&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T03:45:32.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35021" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-15T09:42:25.090" Score="-1" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;what chinese or Mandarin word sounds phonetically like the word omniyat. And what is the meaning of that chinese word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22748" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T14:18:59.470" Title="Hi. what chinese or Mandarin word sounds phonetically like the word omniyat" Tags="&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16467" CreationDate="2019-09-15T10:54:11.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;U+2C686  = ⿱羽能&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;U+29AC1  = ⿰高毛&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;⿱石毛, not encoded, according to GlyphWiki, does not exist&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;⿱⿰知于日, UTC-01586, GlyphWiki &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.glyphwiki.org/wiki/utc-01586&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.glyphwiki.org/wiki/utc-01586&lt;/a&gt;. Will U+2327B  suffice?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;⿰⺼犬, not encoded, according to GlyphWiki, does not exist. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20076" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T10:54:11.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35025" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-15T12:09:55.100" Score="1" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;A while back I read the saying &quot;he who is in a rush shall walk slowly&quot;. I have seen it be attributed to Confucius (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wer-weiss-was.de/t/redewendung-wer-es-eilig-hat-soll-langsam-gehen/8457422&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.wer-weiss-was.de/t/redewendung-wer-es-eilig-hat-soll-langsam-gehen/8457422&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quotez.net/german/konfuzius.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.quotez.net/german/konfuzius.htm&lt;/a&gt;) sometimes, but never in any academic reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who is the author of the sentence and where was it written down first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22751" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T15:31:43.520" Title="Who said &quot;he who is in a rush shall walk slowly&quot;?" Tags="&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35025" CreationDate="2019-09-15T15:31:43.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;he who is in a rush shall walk slowly” was translation of a Japanese proberbs,  and many of them came from Chinese literatures &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idiom &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/analects/zi-lu/zh?searchu=%E6%AC%B2%E9%80%9F%EF%BC%8C%E5%89%87%E4%B8%8D%E9%81%94%EF%BC%9B%E8%A6%8B%E5%B0%8F%E5%88%A9%EF%BC%8C%E5%89%87%E5%A4%A7%E4%BA%8B%E4%B8%8D%E6%88%90%E3%80%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;欲速則不達&lt;/a&gt; (If you rush you are more likely not getting there)  came from 論語 and the writer was 子路. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T15:31:43.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35027" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35034" CreationDate="2019-09-15T15:42:55.953" Score="3" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you say “Once a [noun], always a [noun]” in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example : “Once a loser, always a loser” or “Once a flirt, always a flirt”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried to look for it online and found some patterns but I’m not sure if they are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here they are :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;…一次，…一世。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一日…，终身…。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update :&#xA;I found other patterns, but again, not sure whether they are correct :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;做一次...，一生都是...。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一旦...， 就永无止境。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;做一次…，就永远是…。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;…始终是…。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these patterns correct? If not, how do Chinese people usually say it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18792" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-09-16T22:52:03.963" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T06:08:50.087" Title="Once a [noun], always a [noun]" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35027" CreationDate="2019-09-15T22:04:47.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;what i can think of are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;烂泥扶不上墙 (Sludge can't help the wall)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一日为师，终生为父 (One day is the teacher, the life is the father.)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;一日为贼，终生为贼（One day is a thief, and life is a thief.）&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation is by google translate.:) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can add more when I can think of anything else. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="22717" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T22:13:49.747" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T22:13:49.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35029" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-16T00:19:23.610" Score="0" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the appendix of a textbook consists of the solutions to some exercises and hints to other exercises, should it be named as &quot;习题解答与提示&quot;or&quot;习题解答或提示&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is from 《群表示论》by Prof. 丘维声, who is a Chinese native speaker:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sc7YR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sc7YR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="21202" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T14:55:19.753" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T14:55:19.753" Title="Should one say &quot;习题解答与提示&quot; or &quot;习题解答或提示&quot;？" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35029" CreationDate="2019-09-16T00:22:32.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 习题解答与提示 is the right translation. At least that's what I remember seeing in my textbooks. I don't remember seeing any other use cases in any textbooks I have used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Logically, I think it means this is the section that includes 习题解答与提示. It doesn't matter whether some questions have solution or tips only. 习题解答或提示 is for an individual question, but this is a section title. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel 和 is more used when you speak, not on paper, in context like this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="22717" LastEditDate="2019-09-16T15:07:28.457" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T15:07:28.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35029" CreationDate="2019-09-16T01:21:48.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;正确的说法是习题解答与提示，也可以用习题解答和提示。和 means and, 或means or.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22755" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T01:21:48.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35027" CreationDate="2019-09-16T01:24:48.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;最开始的翻译比较恰当。比较像中国的slang.&#xA;作为中国人很高兴看到有人在学汉语，加油！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22755" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T01:24:48.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35027" CreationDate="2019-09-16T05:29:22.157" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;[Once an X, always an X] is the short form of [once (become) an X, (will) always (be) an X]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;X&quot; in this structure is a stigma or branding that &lt;strong&gt;cannot be removed from you&lt;/strong&gt;. For example: &quot;once a murderer, always a murderer&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The label &quot;murderer&quot; cannot be removed from someone who committed murder. This label will be attached to him forever, because &quot;murderer&quot; is permanent label, you can never un-murder someone. The same goes to the label &quot;liar&quot;. Once you are caught lying, the fact that you lied cannot be erased. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, it is translated as &quot;一旦成為殺人犯，一生也是殺人犯&quot; (once someone became a murderer, the status of murderer can never be removed from him)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you can replace &quot;一生&quot; with &quot;終生&quot; or &quot;永遠&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;[Once a Y, always a Y] is the short form of [once (become) a Y, (will) always (be) a Y]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Y&quot; in this structure is a nature or attributes that &lt;strong&gt;cannot be taken away from you&lt;/strong&gt;. For example: &quot;once a soldier, always a soldier&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, when someone retired from the armed forces, he would no longed be considered a soldier, however, the attributes of a soldier will always be in him.  &quot;Once a soldier, always a soldier&quot; is not a literal but a figurative phrase (I am no longer a soldier, but the heart of a soldier is still in me). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, it is translated as &quot;一日身為士兵，一生也是士兵&quot; (Even being a soldier for one day, the attributes of a soldier will never be taken away from me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;you can replace &quot;一生&quot; with &quot;終生&quot; or &quot;永遠&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T06:08:50.087" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T06:08:50.087" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35029" CreationDate="2019-09-16T05:45:35.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;习题解答与提示 means it contains both answers and hints to all the questions. If you don't want to look at the answer right away, you can look at the hints first to see if you can figure it out with a little help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;习题解答或提示 means it contains either answer or hints, meaning it can be answers to some questions and hints for other questions. I think it make very little sense to not list all the answers to all the questions. So, 习题解答与提示 should be the correct name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T05:45:35.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34976" CreationDate="2019-09-16T06:12:19.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;formal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未能/没能就...达成协议。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未能/没能在...的问题上达成/得到共识.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;casual&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没能说到一起去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意见没有得到统一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22720" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T06:12:19.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35037" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-16T07:56:55.450" Score="1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm really confused because I was taught that 们 is used as a plural word to do stuff like they and we but the sentence 你们不爱猫 apparently means you do not like cats shouldn't it be they don't like cats?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22758" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-09-16T10:27:22.303" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T22:32:18.930" Title="How dose the 们 work in sentences" Tags="&lt;conjunction&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35027" CreationDate="2019-09-16T09:14:30.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think, if you translated, &quot;Once a loser, always a loser&quot; you would have Chinese words, but not Chinese. You need the sense, not the words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狗改不了吃屎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;comes close. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这应该是个贬义的比喻吧：说一个人总是改不了固有的做派。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could look &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/8997214.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for similar phrases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T09:14:30.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35037" CreationDate="2019-09-16T09:55:09.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你们 = you (plural)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你 = you&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;们 = plural&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps &quot;ya'll&quot; would be another suitable translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They would be 他们。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他 = Him/Her&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T09:55:09.490" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35013" CreationDate="2019-09-16T15:29:04.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your first translation is good and correct. It matches the words with English, and it sounds pretty natural. &lt;code&gt;吃香&lt;/code&gt; is also a very good use of slang. It's just one way of speaking of the suggested answer - &lt;code&gt;他很受学生(的）欢迎&lt;/code&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the second sentence, I would say: &lt;code&gt;很多学生通过了考试，我也过了&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's good that to have word-word translation, but the purpose I learn another language is to communicate, not to work as a translator, so I'm a little liberal in using words. I've seen many answers here try to match each word and I don't quite get it. If I learn a language that way, I probably will never be able to speak up. So what I'm trying to say is, focusing on the meaning not the word itself. Just like in English, you can say &lt;code&gt;i'm among them&lt;/code&gt;, you can also say &lt;code&gt;i'm one of them&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;so did i!&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T15:29:04.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35004" CreationDate="2019-09-16T15:38:26.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;not too sure but my guess is: &#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;路轉影峯環&#xA;林泉溪畔 &#xA;湖山繞翠色&#xA;遠大前程&#xA;千里盡秋之月&#xA;寫於海外草屋&#xA;成森&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T15:38:26.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34760" CreationDate="2019-09-16T18:50:30.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, it doesn't matter how many variants there are, normally it depends on who you're talking to. Say the person you're talking to is 张静, you can change according to the context. If you need to emphasize on surname, you change surname, if you need to emphasize on name, you substitute a word for the name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the celebrities' names are used, because the word to substitute has some opposite meanings, such as 龙 vs 虫， 秋 vs 春，东 vs 西 etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T18:50:30.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35010" CreationDate="2019-09-17T07:12:15.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many single characters in Mandarin Chinese will alter their pronunciation based on the tones of the following, more meaningful characters/words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, 一 is pronounced yi1 (first tone), but when placed before a fourth tone character, its pronunciation changes to yi2 (second tone). These pronunciation changes help facilitate smooth tonal lines in the production of sentences. (Fun fact, if you ever take a class in harmony/melody and form, you'll start appreciating what &quot;good&quot; vocal lines are vs &quot;bad&quot; ones (in the traditional sense) and it lines up a lot with how tone-changes work in Mandarin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is essentially what is happening here, BUT in addition to this, the tone is an indication of the emotional aspect of the character 欸, which is merely a sound indicating some kind of latent emotion. Ei1 to call somebody, Ei2 to ask a question in surprise, Ei3 to indicate some kind of indignation, Ei4 to indicate some kind of affirmation. Essentially, this is the kind of tone that would help emphasize precisely how the speaker is feeling to the listener. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19368" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T07:12:15.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35045" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-17T14:58:46.790" Score="2" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;In football games, I heard people use &quot;卧草&quot; for time-wasting actions near the end of a game. Is &quot;卧草&quot; a proper Chinese word? I did not find it in dictionaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T19:48:31.940" Title="Is “卧草” a proper Chinese word?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35045" CreationDate="2019-09-17T15:05:38.137" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However it does share the same pronunciation of &lt;code&gt;我操&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;我肏&lt;/code&gt;, basically the Chinese equivalent of &lt;code&gt;WTF&lt;/code&gt;. Term &lt;code&gt;卧草&lt;/code&gt; became more popular due to widely existing profanity filtering on different internet platforms which mostly will filter out the origin term, while it also feels &lt;em&gt;slightly&lt;/em&gt; more polite (Think about shoot vs. shit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20982" LastEditorUserId="20982" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T15:11:32.717" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T15:11:32.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35007" CreationDate="2019-09-17T16:30:29.803" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, it is important to distinguish between the phonemic pronunciation and the phonetic pronunciation. The first represents how native speakers interpret sounds, the latter interpret how the sounds are effectively performed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Pinyin final -iu is phonemically pronounced /jəu/, not  /iou/ (reference: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Allophones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Allophones&lt;/a&gt;). When combined with the Pinyin initial l-, that Pinyin final becomes the Pinyin syllable liu, phonemically pronounced /liəu/. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, much more important to a language learner is the phonetic pronunciation. The phonetic pronunciations of -iu may be [jəu], [jou] or even [jo̝u] (vowel O raises due to assimilation to the adjacent high sounds /j/ and /u/), which sounds similar to /ju/. The latter is the pronunciation in the audio recordings of the Pinyin syllable &quot;liu&quot; in the provided Pinyin table. The same also occurs in the audio recordings of the other Pinyin syllables with the final -iu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the 3rd tone pronunciation of a Pinyin syllable with the final &quot;-iu&quot;, when pronounced in isolation, it falls ([jo]) and then rises ([u]); in this way, this tone has an effect of separation and therefore tends to block the vowel assimilation that I mentioned before. That's why the [o] sound is heard in this tone and barely heard in the other tones in the audio recordings of the provided Pinyin table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22739" LastEditorUserId="22739" LastEditDate="2019-09-18T11:33:16.693" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T11:33:16.693" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35007" CreationDate="2019-09-17T18:44:35.707" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a universal rule, but rather you just have to remember it as exceptions. Even for third tone &quot;Liu3&quot;, it could be either /liu/ (溜, as in 你中文说得很溜) or /lio/ (六). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22766" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T18:44:35.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35045" CreationDate="2019-09-17T19:48:31.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 卧草 is a grammatically valid phase which means &quot;lying on the grass&quot;. No dictionary would include it because if so, the dictionary would be too thick -- you can lie on anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17065" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T19:48:31.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35050" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-17T21:02:49.587" Score="9" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;顶真&amp;quot;, one uses a word near the end of the clause and then repeats that word to begin the next clause. For example, 忽聞海上有仙&lt;strong&gt;山&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;山&lt;/strong&gt;在虛無縹緲間.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if the same character repeats but means differently in different clauses? Is it still considered as &amp;quot;顶真&amp;quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;旅行社刚刚开&lt;strong&gt;张&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;张&lt;/strong&gt;三就去了印&lt;strong&gt;度&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;度&lt;/strong&gt;过了一段美好的时&lt;strong&gt;光&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;光&lt;/strong&gt;是恒河就去了好几&lt;strong&gt;次&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;次&lt;/strong&gt;年又去了日&lt;strong&gt;本&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;本&lt;/strong&gt;来是很好的经&lt;strong&gt;历&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;历&lt;/strong&gt;时一年有&lt;strong&gt;余&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;余&lt;/strong&gt;与他一路同&lt;strong&gt;行&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;行&lt;/strong&gt;了我编不下去了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A1%B6%E7%9C%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, (顶真) &amp;quot;是指上句的結尾與下句的開頭使用相同的字或詞，用以修飾兩句子的聲韻方法。需要注意的是，使用這個方式時，毋須限制上下句的字數或平仄，但上下句交接點一定要使用相同的字或詞&amp;quot;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that only the same character (or word) is required but not necessarily the same meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-06T14:18:49.723" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T14:21:42.900" Title="Is it considered as anadiplosis (顶真) when the same character repeats but means differently?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;&lt;rhetoric&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35051" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35052" CreationDate="2019-09-17T23:34:30.260" Score="0" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among the characters Rowan Atkinson has portrayed on TV and in movies is Mr. Bean, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%86%A8%E8%B1%86%E5%85%88%E7%94%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;憨豆先生&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese.  My impression is that people always call him 憨豆先生 (Mr. Bean) regardless of what role he is playing, not realizing his name is Rowan Atkinson (&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/rowan%20atkinson/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;罗温·艾金森&lt;/a&gt;).  However, this may just be among people I socialize with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is 憨豆先生 (Mr. Bean) commonly used to refer to Rowan Atkinson even when he's playing other characters, or when he's not acting?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T03:32:55.117" Title="Is 憨豆先生 (Mr. Bean) commonly used to refer to Rowan Atkinson even when he's playing other characters, or when he's not acting?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;names&gt;&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35051" CreationDate="2019-09-18T03:14:50.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No and yes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, because he is &quot;officially&quot; known as 罗温·艾金森. Some of my Chinese colleagues recognized this name, though they couldn't write it (same with me: I am a Ukrainian, and I don't know his name, but I can recognize it once I see it in writing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, because like in most parts of the world (particularly my home country Ukraine), he is most known by his character &quot;Mr. Bean&quot;. Therefore most of my Chinese colleagues could not recognize his official name at all, unless I told them 憨豆先生 or showed his photo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19931" LastEditorUserId="19931" LastEditDate="2019-09-18T03:32:55.117" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T03:32:55.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35053" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-18T04:20:43.323" Score="0" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她是一个从美国来的姑娘来中国训练中国的足球队。 (是。。的）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一发现她丢了她的题手包就连忙回饭店去，而在饭店里一直搜索总归放弃了。（连忙）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他第一次比赛的时候，虽然在培训他是足球队最好的运动员，但是他居然踢了一脚，没踢足球就不小心地摔倒去了。（居然）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.作弊，偷了别同学的钱，跷课， 等等，他并不是一个很诚实的人。（并+bu/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.已经两个星期了，如果作业还没做了你干脆别做吧。（干脆）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.找房子的时候你总是不满意，不是价格就是风格。（不是。。。就是）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.一老师告诉我们明天有一个考试大家就不约而同的抱怨了。（不约而同）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.看他用叉子吃苹果让大家莫名其妙。（莫名其妙）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.她的父母听到了她没及格了考试的时候不让她一个星期跟朋友们一起出去玩儿所以她费尽心机找办法偷偷的和她的男朋友见面。（费尽心机）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.她的男朋友跟她分手了但没告诉她原因就让她感觉很困惑。（困惑）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.那个星期每晚上没睡了五个小时多的觉，她不由得感觉筋疲力尽。（不由得）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hello, I wrote all these sentences for homework and got a really low grade I was kinda upset about, and I really want to understand grammatically the reason these sentences all have errors. My teacher just circled a lot in red but doesn’t explain how to fix it or why its wrong. If you could help me understand maybe the grammatical structures I’m messing up that would be so helpful for me to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19781" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T14:14:34.793" Title="What are the problems with my sentences?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35054" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35343" CreationDate="2019-09-18T04:53:00.660" Score="1" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like I'm moving to Beijing Jiaotong University, and I'm seeking Chinese courses at my level.  My reading level is around 三年级 (grade-3 level) and speaking level is probably less than that (maybe 二年级), enough to have conversations on unspecialized topics.  Mostly I'm self-taught, but I feel I should get a proper education.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm seeking in-person classes, with homework and/or exams.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm seeking a class at an appropriate level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the notes use pinyin for anything other than new vocabulary, it's probably too easy for me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the teacher speaks English, it's probably too easy.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ideally, the material would be what is normally taught to Chinese children.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching the web gives lots of courses, but they're hard to judge.  Most classes I find are at the absolute beginner level, optimized for passing HSK exams, or are tailored to doing business in China. They typically minimize reading and writing, and focusing on speaking and listening, to suit &quot;Western&quot; tastes.  I'm more seeking class for people who intend to permanently live in China.  I'm not sure what to look for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How can I find a suitable-level Chinese class in Beijing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought about a course while I was in Australia, but the study material is artificial and boring!  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;麦克：谢谢你来接我，最近还好吧？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  李志：我很好。你坐了这么久的飞机，一定很累了吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I attended some classes at Nankai University when I was there; the teachers are fantastic, the material is interesting, but the level was too low (absolute beginner).  I wish I could find something like that, but at a more suitable level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did not find this question addressed here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese&quot;&gt;Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese&lt;/a&gt;  I hope this question is of interest beyond just my personal needs, particularly since I ask about classes in Beijing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-16T13:04:50.667" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T13:04:50.667" Title="How can I find a suitable-level Chinese class in Beijing?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35053" CreationDate="2019-09-18T05:24:55.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are asking 11 questions in one post. If I answer all of them, It will be a very long post. Therefore, I would only answer the first question here and please post other questions in individual posts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;是&amp;quot; is the verb  &amp;quot;is&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the functions of &amp;quot;的&amp;quot; is as an possessive marker, adding it after a noun to indicate possessive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 中国 = China; 中国的 = &amp;quot;China's&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;of China&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another function of &amp;quot;的&amp;quot; is as an adjective marker. Adding it after any phrase turn it into an adjective phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:  &amp;quot;从美国来&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;came from America&amp;quot; ;  从美国来的姑娘 = the girl who came from America&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;她是一个从美国来的姑娘来中国训练中国的足球队。&amp;quot; is a run-on sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;她是一个从美国来的姑娘, 来中国训练中国的足球队&amp;quot;。(&amp;quot;She is the girl who came from America, came to China to train China's football teams&amp;quot;) is the proper form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;她(是)一个从美国来(的)姑娘&amp;quot; is  a correct answer for the adjective marker function. But your answer didn't use [是 + noun + 的] as a [verb + noun + possessive marker] form. If it was the requirement that you must use this function, your answer would be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct answer should be &amp;quot;这(是)中国(的)足球队&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;This (is) China('s) football team&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T05:30:50.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35050" CreationDate="2019-09-18T07:20:08.830" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;頂真&lt;/strong&gt; is a rhetoric method to make sentences reading more smoothly or meaning more tightly.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;The connected words should be the same meaning&lt;/strong&gt;. Check the following examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;將軍百戰死，壯士十年&lt;strong&gt;歸&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;strong&gt;歸&lt;/strong&gt;來見&lt;strong&gt;天子&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;天子&lt;/strong&gt;坐明堂: 歸-&amp;gt;come back, 天子-&amp;gt;emperor&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;江南可採&lt;strong&gt;蓮&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;蓮&lt;/strong&gt;葉何田田: 蓮-&amp;gt;lotus&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我出了村就&lt;strong&gt;過了河&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;過了河&lt;/strong&gt;就進了城: 過了河-&amp;gt;across the river&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for your example like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;度 is part of India (印度) on the left and means &amp;quot;passing&amp;quot; on the right.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;光 is part of &amp;quot;time&amp;quot; (時光) on the left and part of the adverb &amp;quot;just&amp;quot; (光是) on the right.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These above should not be counted as proper anadiplosis rhetoric method, maybe only &lt;strong&gt;历&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;past&lt;/strong&gt; meaning in general).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22443" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-06T14:21:42.900" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T14:21:42.900" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35053" CreationDate="2019-09-18T13:41:15.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;11 questions in a row! 甚矣于我！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I just correct your sentences minimally without explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.她是一个从美国来的姑娘，来中国训练中国的足球队。（You didn't use 是...的 structure actually）（苹果是红的。 is a valid example）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.一发现她的手提包丢了，她就连忙回饭店去，而在饭店里一直找不到，总归放弃了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.虽然在训练时他是足球队最好的运动员，但是他在第一次比赛的时候居然一脚没踢到足球，就不小心摔倒了。（居然）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.作弊，偷别的同学钱，翘课等等——他并不是一个很诚实的人。（并不）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.已经两个星期了，如果作业还没做你干脆别做了吧。（干脆）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.找房子的时候你总是不满意，不是价格不满意就是风格不满意。/找房子的时候你总是不是价格就是风格不满意。（不是。。。就是）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.一位老师告诉我们明天有一场考试，大家就不约而同地开始抱怨了。（不约而同）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.他用叉子吃苹果让大家莫名其妙。（莫名其妙）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.她的父母听到她考试没及格，一星期不让她跟朋友们一起出去玩儿，所以她费尽心思偷偷地和她的男朋友见了面。（费尽心机）（NOTE: 费尽心机 is derogatory）（怙恶不悛的连环凶杀犯费尽心机欲再次刑前越狱，不料防范严密终告失败。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.她的男朋友跟她分手但没告诉她原因，让她感觉很困惑。（困惑）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.那个星期每晚上少睡了五个多小时的觉，她不由得感觉筋疲力尽。（不由得）（inappropriate usage）（）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-09-18T14:14:34.793" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T14:14:34.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34660" CreationDate="2019-09-18T15:34:13.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你很多問題勒神經病嗎““5”4””4&#xA;再來你有病嗎&#xA;是沒去看醫生嗎&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22771" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T15:34:13.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35060" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-18T18:14:07.293" Score="1" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I edit a manuscript for non-chinese-speakers. The writer was an expert in Chinese language and literature. I want to learn, but I am not a native speaker. So, I have difficulty in interpreting how does the word '&lt;strong&gt;field&lt;/strong&gt;' relate to tense (as in present tense, past tense, etc.) in the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the Chinese language &quot;we can find out the tense of a verb or event from the &lt;strong&gt;inner and&#xA;  outer fields&lt;/strong&gt;, or - in the  case of contemporary spoken/written&#xA;  Chinese - from the particulate that denotes the degree of completeness&#xA;  [as in perfect or participle version] of the tense.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be your take on it? Could he have meant 'character field' or something else? And if it is about a field relating to how characters are written individually or in a sequence, what 'inner' and 'outer' fields mean do you think? Thanks heaps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22773" LastEditorUserId="22773" LastEditDate="2019-09-18T18:42:49.610" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T06:53:17.070" Title="What does the word 'field' mean in this context?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35061" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-18T20:24:51.207" Score="2" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hello I need help with these symbols and calligraphy. I purchased the painting on a flea market for my husband. We don'&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QWSbm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QWSbm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;t have a clue as to what it says but I would love to find out about the story on the painting. thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22774" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T10:24:39.590" Title="I just purchased this painting and I need some information" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35062" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-18T21:25:39.260" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JvtuG.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JvtuG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;here is the entire picture/painting[![This one is smaller from the bottom left hand side. This part says the location that is as much as I can read from it. the calligraphy is amazing and very old&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qrEm8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;[&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xGXHk.png&quot; alt=&quot;.&quot;&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xGXHk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;I recently purchased this painting and it has great calligraphy, I would love to know more about the story behind the painting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently purchased this painting and it has great calligraphy, I would love to know more about the story behind the painting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22775" LastEditorUserId="22775" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T17:07:37.987" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T17:07:37.987" Title="can you help translate this painting caligraphy" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35061" CreationDate="2019-09-19T02:46:18.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p3uOa.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p3uOa.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;漢光閣顧洛阜鑑藏中國古代書畵章&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Stamp of authenticity of John M. Crawford's collection of old Chinese art&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;乾隆鑑賞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Emperor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qianlong&lt;/a&gt; likes this&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;嘉慶御覽㞢寶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Certified as seen by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiaqing_Emperor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jiaqing&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;三希堂精鑑璽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Refined seal of the library of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emperors_of_the_Qing_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qing Emperors&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;南北東西只有相隨無別離&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;No parting ways, only companionship, on any road&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;敵國㞢富&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;As wealthy as an empire&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T10:24:39.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35062" CreationDate="2019-09-19T05:03:15.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;the calligraphy is the poem &amp;quot;趙伯駒六馬圖歌&amp;quot; by emperor 乾隆 (1736-1795).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;read top to bottom, right to left:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平川苜蓿豐且滋﹒清泉映帶沙岡披﹒戎人習馬知馬性&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此䖏調馬實所宜﹒牽者樴者二皆駵﹒白駒黒鬛緤栁枝&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昻蔵翹足驪其色﹒一戎跨背鞍不施﹒紫騮廻首嘶厥匹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有駓齕草意自怡﹒驥不稱力稱其徳﹒况復一一皆英竒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作者寓意應有在﹒夏官遺法誰深知﹒即今大宛致汗血&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;骨格皆合圖中姿﹒亦不渥洼詡作瑞﹒亦不交河資興師&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;迥立閶闔詄蕩蕩﹒欲起王孫走筆為&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the last &amp;quot;column&amp;quot; stated the date as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;辛巳首夏御題&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the first month of summer of the year 1761.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/txoxt.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/txoxt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T05:03:15.897" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35068" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35069" CreationDate="2019-09-19T11:44:27.223" Score="3" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was browsing Wikipedia when I came across this picture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xnX9L.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xnX9L.png&quot; alt=&quot;An excerpt from a 1436 primer on Chinese characters&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chineseprimer3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The description says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An excerpt from a 1436 primer on Chinese characters. (better version)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Original picture sourced from:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ebrey, Patricia. Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge&#xA;  University Press, June 13, 1996. ISBN 0521435196&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what is the title of the book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20826" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T11:54:55.240" Title="What is the title of this Ming era picture dictionary?" Tags="&lt;dictionary&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35068" CreationDate="2019-09-19T11:54:55.240" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title of the book is &lt;a href=&quot;https://kknews.cc/history/q452j6y.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;《新編對相四言》明刻本&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T11:54:55.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35070" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35077" CreationDate="2019-09-20T04:51:30.643" Score="1" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bought the Chinese version of Matilda, and I'm confused about this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PWq9F.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PWq9F.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Matilda, page 7&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, I'm confused about why &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E7%BB%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;给&lt;/a&gt; (usually meaning &amp;quot;to give&amp;quot;) is in these phrases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你给宠坏了&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;You're getting spoiled  [original English (&lt;a href=&quot;http://jssisdubai.com/document/uploaded/matilda.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ref.&lt;/a&gt;)]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;You give spoiled  [literal translation]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个人给丢在家里&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;left alone in the house  [original English]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;a person give lost in the house  [literal translation]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of 给 as &amp;quot;to give&amp;quot; makes no sense to me; perhaps 给 has an additional meaning I'm unaware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What is 给 doing in 你给宠坏了 and 一个人给丢在家里?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T09:32:39.090" Title="What is 给 doing in 你给宠坏了 and 一个人给丢在家里 (Matilda 玛蒂尔达, p.7)?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35071" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-20T05:40:02.607" Score="5" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is there an 'ear' radical in the character for smell? 闻 聞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find this pretty confusing. Perhaps there is a fun story behind it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T02:40:46.340" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T02:40:46.340" Title="Why is there an 'ear' component in the character for smell? 闻 聞" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35071" CreationDate="2019-09-20T06:00:39.280" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;「聞」(Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*mu[n]/&lt;/strong&gt;) is comprised of semantic「耳」(&lt;em&gt;ear&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic「門」(&lt;strong&gt;/*mˤə[r]/&lt;/strong&gt;), indicating the meaning &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;to hear&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. For example,「新聞」means &lt;em&gt;news&lt;/em&gt; (literally meaning &lt;em&gt;new information passed on by hearing/reading/etc.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「門」does not play a meaning role in「聞」. For that matter, it does not play a meaning role in「問」, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;To smell&lt;/em&gt; is a semantic extension. For example, in English, &lt;em&gt;there's something fishy going on&lt;/em&gt; is used to describe a situation which is not quite right, literally referring to &lt;em&gt;the smell of fish&lt;/em&gt;, but metaphorically referring to someone picking up information about their surroundings and deducing that something feels off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-09-20T06:13:05.473" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T06:13:05.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35071" CreationDate="2019-09-20T06:00:53.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;NOTE: This is a hypothesis, not a fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The complex form, 聞, has a rather straightforward ideogrammatic interpretation as a pair of doors (門) with an ear (耳) presenting itself within the space beneath them, suggesting a human placing or centering their ear at or within the frame of the door pair's (door bottom)-(floor top) gap to hear sound issuing from the space behind said door. (This, in addition to that 門 is phonetically similar to 聞.) Hence, it has the meaning of &lt;strong&gt;hearing&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e. hearing sound (音), perhaps whatever is going on on the other side of the door (i.e. snooping).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This element is used in more complex pieces with the meaning &lt;em&gt;hearing&lt;/em&gt; - e.g. see the compounds section on Wiktionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%81%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%81%9E&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 但聞. These suggest that, in a sense, the notion of &quot;hear&quot; became more generalized to the application of other sense organs - such as the nose - to an object of interests as well, essentially, to, more generally, &quot;hear a smell&quot; with the nose. It's generalized hearing, if you will, and carries the cognition of sensation or detection as a concept being a generalization of the notion of gathering information through the employment of the ear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16171" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T06:00:53.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35070" CreationDate="2019-09-20T06:17:42.147" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;「給」here is a colloquial, alternative way of expressing the same meaning as「被」. It is non-standard in Standard Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/J6ZlK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/J6ZlK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-09-20T06:36:10.280" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T06:36:10.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35071" CreationDate="2019-09-20T06:51:33.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Baidu has &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E2%80%9C%E9%97%BB%E2%80%9D%E7%9A%84%E8%AF%8D%E4%B9%89%E8%BD%AC%E5%8F%98/14697452&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“闻”字在先秦时期&lt;strong&gt;已经被用来表示嗅到&lt;/strong&gt;，《韩非子 · 十过》有**“闻酒臭而还”&lt;strong&gt;。我相信当时口语中&lt;/strong&gt;表示嗅到的词与“闻”同音**，但&lt;strong&gt;没有专字&lt;/strong&gt;，所以借用“闻”字来表示。这种现象在汉字中很普遍，如“朋”、“来”、“其”、“而”等等。如此观之，“闻”表示“嗅到”有可能是&lt;strong&gt;假借义&lt;/strong&gt;。由广变窄，变专的过程。文学接受进入高潮阶段的一种更高境界，是指读者在阅读文学作品，与之形成共鸣，并达到净化后进入的更高阶段，包括潜思默想、洞悉宇宙奥妙、体悟人生真谛和提升精神境界等状况与过程。 我个人简单认为： 领悟就是心灵受到某种触动，而使智慧知识上升等级的过程。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are the senses really all 1 sense? Is everyhting just in our minds? I recently read that the structures known as tastebuds are found in many other places in our bodies, apart from our mouths.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;见 is see, but 听见 is hear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a condition known as synesthesia. If you suffer from this, you may smell music, hear tastes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T06:51:33.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35021" CreationDate="2019-09-20T08:01:11.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just checked that omniyat is the real estate management company in Dubai, I suppose you may want to get a proper Chinese name for translation or propaganda?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here provide some opinions for your reference :D   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;歐米亞&lt;/strong&gt;: 歐 is Europe, 米 is America, 亞 is Asia. Maybe the company may want to expend market to another country in future?  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;奧你雅&lt;/strong&gt;: 奧 is profound or deeply, 你 is you, 雅 is elegant, graceful or stylish. Maybe the company could let you to find something unique or fashion houses or properties? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22443" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T08:01:11.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35070" CreationDate="2019-09-20T09:32:39.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those two phrases sound a bit stilted. When 给 is used as the sense of 被, it's better you add the one who performs that action. For example, 你给他宠坏了, 你给他教坏了 and etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玛蒂尔达几乎天天一个人给丢在家里 is not a very good sentence in my opinion. It might be ok colloquially, but it's not good in writing. 玛蒂尔达几乎天天被一个人丢在家里 is probably an improvement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T09:32:39.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35078" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-20T13:00:47.173" Score="0" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;Found this vase at home.&#xA;There is a seal with some characters on it.&#xA;Is anybody able to read the words? &#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iwnw2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22786" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T08:37:02.853" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T08:37:02.853" Title="What’s the characters on this seal of the vase? (Characters identified: 景德鎮製)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35078" CreationDate="2019-09-20T13:13:18.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is 景德鎮製.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read it vertically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;鎮景&#xA;製德&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T13:13:18.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35078" CreationDate="2019-09-20T13:13:22.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The seal should be: &lt;strong&gt;景德鎮製&lt;/strong&gt;, where &lt;strong&gt;景德鎮&lt;/strong&gt; is famous for the ceramics artifacts in China 江西 province.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22443" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T13:13:22.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35085" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35088" CreationDate="2019-09-21T01:18:34.597" Score="2" ViewCount="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is from a forum on Chinese football:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/szAV4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/szAV4.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1wr4x.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1wr4x.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this reply, the name &amp;quot;马德兴&amp;quot; is posted as &amp;quot;马兴&amp;quot;, very likely on purpose hinting that this person lacks &amp;quot;德&amp;quot; (virtue).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it some type of rhetoric? If yes, what rhetoric is this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T02:39:35.453" Title="What type of rhetoric (if any) is this?" Tags="&lt;rhetoric&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35086" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-09-21T01:25:30.880" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T01:25:30.880" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T01:25:30.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35087" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-09-21T01:25:30.880" Score="0" Body="The art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques." OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="21202" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T03:10:34.937" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T03:10:34.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35085" CreationDate="2019-09-21T02:13:56.470" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/9708/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;諷刺&lt;/a&gt;: to satirize; to mock&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/57228/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;暗諷&lt;/a&gt;: make an innuendo; indirectly mock&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://hkdic.my-helper.com/%E7%A6%AE%E7%BE%A9%E5%BB%89/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;禮義廉&lt;/a&gt;:  諷刺某人「無恥」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calling someone 「無恥」is 明駡 (direct insult)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calling someone「禮義廉」is 暗諷 (indirectly mock)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the technique of omitting part of a phrase to imply someone is lacking the omitted part -- it is called  &lt;strong&gt;暗示&lt;/strong&gt; (hinting) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他這人有勇無謀 (he has courage but doesn't have any strategy) &lt;strong&gt;clearly stating (明示)&lt;/strong&gt; he is not smart&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他這人很有勇 (he has courage) &lt;strong&gt;hinting (暗示)&lt;/strong&gt; he is not smart. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It works because 有勇無謀 is a common phrase, therefore, the hint is strong enough that anyone who know the phrase 有勇無謀 can correctly understand what is being hinted. Same goes to 禮義廉恥 --&gt; 禮義廉&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T02:39:35.453" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T02:39:35.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35089" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35090" CreationDate="2019-09-21T04:29:06.170" Score="0" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this in Matilda (p.13):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这本书的这一版本足有四百一十一页。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  that edition contained four hundred and eleven pages.  [original English (&lt;a href=&quot;http://jssisdubai.com/document/uploaded/matilda.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ref.&lt;/a&gt;)]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  the book's [这本书的] edition [这一版本] has (?) [足有] 411 pages [四百一十一页].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation is direct, except for 足有 instead of just 有.  I've found other examples of 足有 online, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;等你回到家，你的收件箱足有一英尺厚。 [&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%B6%B3%E6%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  When you come back, your inbox is a foot high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware 足 is sometimes used to mean &quot;enough&quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3852/%e8%b6%b3-why-is-foot-also-enough&quot;&gt;足: why is &amp;quot;foot&amp;quot; also &amp;quot;enough&amp;quot;?&lt;/a&gt;  So maybe 足 is used for emphasis in these sentences, but it'd be nice to clarify this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 足有 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T08:26:06.797" Title="What does 足有 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35089" CreationDate="2019-09-21T04:34:52.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;「足」means &lt;em&gt;fully, entirely&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...這一版本足有四百一十一頁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;hr&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;...this edition contains four hundred and eleven pages in its &lt;strong&gt;entirety&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;...this edition contains &lt;strong&gt;a full&lt;/strong&gt; four hundred and eleven pages&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The semantic relation is something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;sufficient/enough&lt;/em&gt; (足夠) &amp;lt;&gt; &lt;em&gt;full&lt;/em&gt; &amp;lt;&gt; &lt;em&gt;entire&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T04:34:52.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35089" CreationDate="2019-09-21T04:37:43.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; defines 足有 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;V.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (have/be) a full ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他讲了足有两个钟头。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Tā jiǎngle zúyǒu liǎng ge zhōngtóu.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  He lectured for a full two hours. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T04:37:43.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35089" CreationDate="2019-09-21T04:57:02.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;足有 (fully have) has the same meaning as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/17030/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;足足&lt;/a&gt;: fully (e.g. one year, a hundred ounces)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;足有四百一十一页 (fully have 411 pages)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;足足有四百一十一页 (fully have 411 pages)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;足足四百一十一页 (fully 411 pages)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the above mean: &quot;has 411 pages in its entirety&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;足 in 足有 means &quot;fully&quot;. It is different from the  足 in 足以, which  means &quot;enough&quot; . &#xA;E.g. &quot;要達到 1500c 才&lt;strong&gt;足&lt;/strong&gt;以將铁熔化&quot; (need to reach 1500c, to be &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; to melt iron)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason to use 足有(fully have) instead of just 有(have) is to emphasize the impressiveness of the number. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太阳&lt;strong&gt;有&lt;/strong&gt;地球130万倍的体积 - The sun &lt;strong&gt;has&lt;/strong&gt; the volumes of 1.3 million Earths  (a plain statement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太阳&lt;strong&gt;足有&lt;/strong&gt;地球130万倍的体积 - The sun &lt;strong&gt;actually has&lt;/strong&gt; the volumes of 1.3 million Earths (stress the impressiveness of the number)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T09:01:12.360" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T09:01:12.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35094" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-21T18:29:32.427" Score="1" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone translate this artists name please?  Thank you in advance.&#xA;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h3mLF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h3mLF.jpg&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22790" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T20:55:05.900" Title="Translation of artist signature" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35094" CreationDate="2019-09-21T20:55:05.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Handwriting: 青兹&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Seal: 兹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%9D%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;青&lt;/a&gt; has a lot of meanings. For example, blue, young, east, or grass.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%85%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;兹&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%8E%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;玆&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%8C%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;茲&lt;/a&gt; are variants.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;兹 may mean black or dirty.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;茲 means this, now or year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16050" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T20:55:05.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35098" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35102" CreationDate="2019-09-22T01:11:13.590" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;My experiences in China suggests that when someone says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我帮你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sup&gt;Wǒ bāng nǐ&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I help you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they will not only just &quot;help&quot; you, but do whatever it is for you.  For example, someone might say 我帮你拿着 when they mean they will carry something for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: When someone says 我帮你, does it imply they will assist you in doing something, or they will do it for you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to clarify whether my experiences are typical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T11:15:14.093" Title="When someone says 我帮你 (I help you), does it imply they will assist you in doing something, or they will do it for you?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35098" CreationDate="2019-09-22T01:52:13.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;帮&quot; in &quot;我帮你&quot; is a shorter form of the verb &quot;帮助&quot; (help)&quot;.  &quot;我帮你&quot; means &quot;I help you&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &quot;who will help me?&quot; - &quot;谁会帮(助)我?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: &quot;I will help you&quot; - &quot;我会帮(助)你&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;帮&quot; in [我帮你 + verb phrase] can be an auxiliary verb for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;help&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or a function word for &quot;&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; (in behalf of)&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我&lt;strong&gt;帮&lt;/strong&gt;你對付他 = &quot;I &lt;strong&gt;help&lt;/strong&gt; you to deal with him&quot; or &quot;I deal with him &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; you&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我&lt;strong&gt;帮&lt;/strong&gt;你拿着&quot; = &quot;I &lt;strong&gt;help&lt;/strong&gt; you to carry it&quot; or &quot;I carry it &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; you&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T01:52:13.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6827" CreationDate="2019-09-22T02:44:52.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WOb0n.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WOb0n.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鐵&lt;/a&gt;・197.1&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=10070&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集10070&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4SlFk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4SlFk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;燕&lt;/a&gt;165&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=37986&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集37986&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HcmMo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HcmMo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;利簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4131&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4131&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o9b2H.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o9b2H.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;秦律雜抄&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zBhmv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zBhmv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「未」depicts a flourishing tree (tree with more branches or longer branches than「木」), indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;fragrance&lt;/em&gt; (i.e. when trees/plants are in full bloom). The current shape is derived from a variant with two more branches drawn, and these extra branches became straightened out into one stroke over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This word that「未」represented is now written as「味」(e.g. 味道, &lt;em&gt;smell&lt;/em&gt;), while the senses &lt;em&gt;not yet&lt;/em&gt; (e.g. 未來, &lt;em&gt;future&lt;/em&gt;) and &lt;em&gt;earthly branches&lt;/em&gt; (地支) are both &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Rebus_(phonetic_loan)_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;phonetic loans&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/73TMo.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/73TMo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;蔡侯紐鐘&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=218&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成218&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&#xA;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EE7Mj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EE7Mj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77390&amp;amp;page=63&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;木部・末&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sNubm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sNubm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「末」depicts a tree with a mark at the upper end, indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;upper extremity &gt; end&lt;/em&gt;. The mark grew in length over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T02:44:52.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35098" CreationDate="2019-09-22T04:07:15.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it may depend on the context... &#xA;For example, when someone says &lt;code&gt;我帮你吃&lt;/code&gt;, it might be because there're too much food, and he will help you eat some of it. Or if you're incapable, that person will just help you but not eat. So I would say it really depends on the context...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T04:07:15.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35098" CreationDate="2019-09-22T10:49:13.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally, 我帮你 suggests that I will help you by covering it for you. Example, 我帮你写 means I will help you by writing it for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 我帮你一块写 means I will assist you in writing(you two write together). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. 一块，一起 and 一同 are synonyms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-09-22T10:56:39.987" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T10:56:39.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35098" CreationDate="2019-09-22T11:15:14.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to other answers, &lt;strong&gt;帮&lt;/strong&gt; would sometimes mean &quot;to do a favor&quot;, usually a trivial one. As per your question, in this context &lt;strong&gt;帮&lt;/strong&gt; implies that the helper does everything by himself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你可以&lt;strong&gt;帮&lt;/strong&gt;我关一下门吗 - Would you do me a favor and close the door?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;麻烦你&lt;strong&gt;帮&lt;/strong&gt;我结账 - May I have the bill? (literally: May I bother you to help me&#xA;  pay the bill?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the &quot;favor&quot; is more than just trivial (e.g, to help someone pay their debts), it is considered a kind of help in the wider sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T11:15:14.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35104" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35134" CreationDate="2019-09-22T16:11:24.937" Score="2" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;I first learned that 撤销 was the word for undo in computing terminology, for example to undo a database change or to undo a Git commit. However I've also encountered 撤消 for this same purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to cedict, 撤消 is a &quot;variant of 撤销&quot;. Does that imply that 撤销 is the proper way and 撤消 is perhaps a common misspelling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they both acceptable? Is one of them preferred?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22570" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T22:20:12.020" Title="Which is better for &quot;undo&quot; in computing: 撤消 or 撤销" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35105" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-22T20:26:28.357" Score="1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about hao to know if 几 is asking a question (how many) or making a statement (a few). If I heard the following sentence (not read), is there a way to hear the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;从上海到东京坐飞机要几个小时&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T04:20:04.893" Title="Is it ever ambiguous if 几 means &quot;how many?&quot; or &quot;a few&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35105" CreationDate="2019-09-23T00:59:21.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Need to tell from the tone. If it sounds like there's a question mark at the end, then it's how many. If it sounds like telling you the truth, then it is a few. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T00:59:21.177" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35107" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35108" CreationDate="2019-09-23T01:46:12.597" Score="0" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure that &quot;good enough&quot; is 够好，but I'm not sure if this structure can be extended to all adjectives. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would the same structure work for all/most adjectives?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Is it good enough? -&amp;gt; 够好吗？&#xA;Is he strong enough? -&amp;gt;&#xA;Is the horse fast enough? -&amp;gt;&#xA;My tea isn't sweet enough. -&amp;gt; &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone offer translation for the sentences above?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9372" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T02:38:38.630" Title="How to express ADJ + enough?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35107" CreationDate="2019-09-23T02:32:04.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yes [够 + adj] = [adj +enough]. It works for all adjectives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it &lt;strong&gt;good enough&lt;/strong&gt;? -&gt; 这&lt;strong&gt;够好&lt;/strong&gt;吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is he &lt;strong&gt;strong enough&lt;/strong&gt;? -&gt; 他&lt;strong&gt;够强&lt;/strong&gt;吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the horse &lt;strong&gt;fast enough&lt;/strong&gt;? -&gt; 这匹马&lt;strong&gt;够快&lt;/strong&gt;吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My tea isn't &lt;strong&gt;sweet enough&lt;/strong&gt;. -&gt; 我的茶不&lt;strong&gt;够甜&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[够 + noun] = [enough + noun]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;够钱&lt;/strong&gt;吗?  -&gt; Is it &lt;strong&gt;enough money&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;够人&lt;/strong&gt;了  -&gt; there are &lt;strong&gt;enough people&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[verb + 够 ] = [verb + enough]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;打够了&lt;/strong&gt;吗? -&gt; &lt;strong&gt;hit&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;object&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这痛苦我&lt;strong&gt;受够&lt;/strong&gt;了 -&gt; I've &lt;strong&gt;had enough&lt;/strong&gt; of this pain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T02:38:38.630" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T02:38:38.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35109" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35110" CreationDate="2019-09-23T03:16:23.337" Score="1" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to try giving another mathematics talk in Chinese.  I'm struggling with this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definition: The &lt;strong&gt;Latinity&lt;/strong&gt; lambda(G) of a graph G is the smallest d for which there exists a d-dimensional PLH with PLH graph isomorphic to G.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&amp;quot;Latinity&amp;quot; is a mathematical term which I coined as part of my research.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are my attempts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;定义：图G的&lt;strong&gt;拉丁度&lt;/strong&gt;lambda(G)是存在具有d维PLH图和G同构最小的d。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;定义：图G的&lt;strong&gt;拉丁度&lt;/strong&gt;lambda(G)是最小的d，这样存在d维PLH其中和G同构的PLH图。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They seem very clunky.  My main problem is that &amp;quot;for which&amp;quot; doesn't seem to naturally translate into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I translate the definition of &amp;quot;Latinity&amp;quot; into Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T00:13:09.140" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T00:13:09.140" Title="How do I translate the definition of the mathematical term &quot;Latinity&quot; into Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35109" CreationDate="2019-09-23T05:59:01.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;定义：图G的拉丁度lambda(G) = d，&#xA;d是使与G同构的d维PLH图存在的最小值。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T05:59:01.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35111" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-23T08:09:59.837" Score="1" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word to show your teeth in Chinese is 呲牙 or 龇牙? I have seen 龇牙 in dictionaries but 呲牙 in like Wechat and other places. So do they have any differences or are they the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20590" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T22:19:39.493" Title="What’s the correct character for the act of showing your teeth?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35111" CreationDate="2019-09-23T08:21:16.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are same meaning, just has different written words in some ancient books.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Check the Chinese sentences below:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;齜牙咧嘴 &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=kINxMw&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec1=1&amp;amp;op=sid=%22Z00000137351%22.&amp;amp;v=-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;教育部重編國語辭典修訂本&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;呲牙裂嘴 &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=qJD_My&amp;amp;o=e0&amp;amp;sec1=1&amp;amp;op=sid=%22Z00000140430%22.&amp;amp;v=-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;教育部重編國語辭典修訂本&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22443" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T08:21:16.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35113" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35116" CreationDate="2019-09-23T22:56:39.030" Score="4" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was having trouble with the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;两只饿到眼绿的老鼠正在房梁上打架&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because I could not understand the usage of 到 here. After I spent some time thinking I figure the meaning is that the rats were hungry &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; the extent that their eyes turned green (a metaphor of some sort?) but if that is indeed the case, what would you call this type of word? In English I believe the word &quot;to&quot; used in this way is called a preposition but I haven't seen anything online about the usage of prepositions in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-13T23:51:12.500" LastActivityDate="2020-05-13T23:51:12.500" Title="What part of speech is 到 (to) when used in 两只饿到眼绿的老鼠正在房梁上打架?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35114" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35117" CreationDate="2019-09-23T23:47:19.903" Score="0" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;For context the entire sentence is, &quot;吃这一声，周昂忽然一下子睁开了眼睛。&quot; Is it supposed to be something allong the lines of, &quot;[the sound of] eating, this single sound&quot;? This sentence isn't making much sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T07:17:33.380" Title="What is the meaning of &quot;吃这一声&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35113" CreationDate="2019-09-23T23:48:14.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like that, &quot;so hungry their eyes were green&quot;, haven't heard that before!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两只饿到眼绿的老鼠正在房梁上打架&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2 hungry that eyes green 的 mice just in the room roof-beams fight&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Two mice, both so hungry that their eyes were green, were fighting on a roof-beam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it should be &quot;饿的眼放绿光&quot;. Anyway, 饿到眼绿 means very very hungry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;饿到眼绿&lt;br&gt;&#xA;hungry until eyes green  到 = until&#xA;so hungry (their) eyes went green  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;饿的眼放绿光&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;hungry that eyes send out green light&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick search gave me &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/507048823.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;. Not sure if it is accurate. I can't find a source for &quot;饿的眼放绿光&quot; . I'm sure someone here knows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚上狼的眼睛看起来是绿色的，说饿的眼放绿光，其实就是说饿得向狼一样，见到食物就像饿狼看见人一样。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T23:48:14.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35113" CreationDate="2019-09-24T02:47:13.990" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are essentially correct. Here, 到 is a preposition that, depending on context, can represent &quot;to,&quot; &quot;(up) until,&quot; or &quot;up to.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 到目前为止 : up until this moment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;工作到天亮了 : work until the sky becomes light&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从周一到周四 : From Monday to Thursday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your particular example, there seems to be an implied “的程度&quot; at the end of the descriptor which is omitted, i.e. one can write 两只饿到眼绿&lt;strong&gt;的程度&lt;/strong&gt;的老鼠正在房染上打架, and in order to prevent a sentence from being clunky, this has been omitted since it's clear from context what is being said here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19368" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T02:47:13.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35114" CreationDate="2019-09-24T04:12:16.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The verb 吃(eat) has the extended meaning of 受(take) and the object has to be a physical contact or impact &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃一發子彈 (eat a bullet) = (take a bullet/ take a gun shot)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃一拳 (eat a punch) = 受一拳 (take a punch)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃一記耳光 (eat a slap on the face) =  (take a slap on the face) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃这一声 is not grammatical. because a sound doesn't make physical contact with the subject. The phrase should be written as  聽了这一声 (heard this sound)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T04:12:16.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32763" CreationDate="2019-09-24T06:06:01.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;lol the chinese is just saying that nothing IS greater than god.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there is a gap of nothing between the languages. need to learn me one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22799" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T06:06:01.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35114" CreationDate="2019-09-24T07:17:33.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;吃 here means &quot;imposed by&quot;&#xA;normaly 吃 means eating, as a result, you are full, or the volume or the size becomes larger. In an extended way, it means more and more heavy, more and more pressure passively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22221" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T07:17:33.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35121" CreationDate="2019-09-24T09:31:01.327" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to think of how to say &quot;if I don't study, I cannot learn&quot; in Chinese.  However, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%AD%A6%E4%B9%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;学习&lt;/a&gt; means both &quot;study&quot; and &quot;learn&quot;, so it translates to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If I don't study, I cannot learn.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  如果我不学习，我就不会学习。 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=en&amp;amp;tl=zh-CN&amp;amp;text=If%20I%20don&amp;#39;t%20study%2C%20I%20cannot%20learn.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Google's translation means &quot;if I don't study, I won't study&quot;, so it's quite weird.  Perhaps this is a possible workaround:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果我不学习，我不会取得知识。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(replacing &quot;learn&quot; with &quot;obtain knowledge&quot;, i.e., the definition of &quot;learn&quot;) but I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I say &quot;if I don't study, I cannot learn&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's other questions related to learn vs. study: (a) &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12680/learn-vs-study&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Learn&amp;quot; vs. &amp;quot;Study&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; (b) &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/19492/how-to-say-learn-without-involving-studying&quot;&gt;how to say &amp;quot;learn&amp;quot; without involving studying?&lt;/a&gt;, but I didn't find an answer there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T21:48:36.517" Title="How do I say &quot;if I don't study, I cannot learn&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35120" CreationDate="2019-09-24T11:14:20.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;study&amp;quot; emphasizes the process of &lt;strong&gt;obtaining/ seeking&lt;/strong&gt; knowledge (e.g. study math all night, not learn math all night).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;learn&amp;quot; emphasizes the process of &lt;strong&gt;receiving&lt;/strong&gt; knowledge (e.g. learn how to fight from someone, not study how to fight from someone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;If I don't study, I cannot learn&amp;quot; sound odd because it lack an object. If it has an object, it would be a more complete sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. If I don't &lt;strong&gt;study&lt;/strong&gt; (mathematics), I cannot &lt;strong&gt;learn&lt;/strong&gt; (mathematics) -- 如果我不&lt;strong&gt;学习&lt;/strong&gt;(数学)，我就不会&lt;strong&gt;学懂&lt;/strong&gt;(数学).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think 学习 and 学懂 are still too similar. You can replace &amp;quot;学习&amp;quot; (study) with &amp;quot;学/ 去学&amp;quot; (study); or replace &amp;quot;学懂&amp;quot; (learn) with &amp;quot;懂&amp;quot; (know/ understand).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;不去学就学不懂&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;cannot learn if you don't study&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;不学就不会懂&amp;quot; -  &amp;quot;would not know/ understand if you don't study&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;去学就会学懂&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;can learn if you study&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;学就会懂&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;would know/ understand if you study&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T11:29:35.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35122" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-24T14:58:29.283" Score="2" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone type the name of the artist in Chinese so I can begin research on this piece? I purchased a translation application that works well but it will not pick up words that have been written by hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7s4hp.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7s4hp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22790" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T11:21:02.957" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T11:21:02.957" Title="What is the name of the artist on this piece?" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35120" CreationDate="2019-09-24T16:04:29.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not nearly experienced enough to be giving advice but I'll try anyways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following a verb with 到 indicates that the desired effect has been achieved. For instance in your case 学习 would literally mean &quot;seek new knowledge&quot; (study) while 学习到 would mean &quot;gain new knowledge&quot; (learn) with the implication being that you succeeded. You might even get away with 学到 instead of 学习到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Altering your original example gives: 如果我不学习，我就不会学到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And google translate agrees with this translation (though google translate is by no means the best thing to compare against)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastEditorUserId="22149" LastEditDate="2019-09-24T21:48:36.517" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T21:48:36.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35122" CreationDate="2019-09-24T17:03:20.383" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;馬海德&quot;, most likely was &quot;shafick george Hatem&quot; and his wife &quot;周蘇菲&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;于延安 is roughly at (于) the communist headquarters (延安)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T17:03:20.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35120" CreationDate="2019-09-24T18:10:52.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;？Why all these 拗口 sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我若不去学，就不能学得会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn is always 学会, by its definition: gain knowledge or skills by studying, which is done when you learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T18:10:52.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32763" CreationDate="2019-09-24T18:25:10.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 文言文 will solve the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何者，富者所求也，贫者所名也，神明所不俦也？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;答曰：无者也。富者无所求也，贫者无所名也，神明无所不俦也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我将此子化为蛤蟆！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不可！汝将无化！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;善！请从无化！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-09-24T18:32:01.813" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T18:32:01.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35127" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-24T19:56:34.570" Score="0" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does this Cantonese sentence &quot;冧哥覆咗你未&quot; mean in English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22791" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-02-16T13:04:14.433" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T13:04:14.433" Title="What does this Cantonese sentence &quot;冧哥覆咗你未?&quot; mean in English?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35127" CreationDate="2019-09-24T20:18:45.697" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;冧哥 (the subject) roughly means &quot;Mr. Sweet talk&quot; (冧 has the meaning of &quot;sweet talk&quot; or &quot;coax&quot;; adding 哥 to the end of a noun is a common way to nickname someone. )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;覆咗 = replied (覆 is short for 答覆; 咗 is a word particle that indicates the verb is completed, It functions the same as 了 in Mandarin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你 = you (the object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未 = has not/ not yet &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;冧哥覆咗你未?&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; = &quot;Mr. Sweet talk replied you? (or he) has not?&quot; = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Has Mr. Sweet talk replied you yet?&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-24T20:43:24.400" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T20:43:24.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35127" CreationDate="2019-09-24T21:30:52.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Others have translated the full sentence into English. I just want to add that 冧哥 as &quot;Mr. Sweet talk&quot; is not a very common usage in Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T21:30:52.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34954" CreationDate="2019-09-24T21:51:10.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It totally make sense to &lt;em&gt;say&lt;/em&gt; 我个心 colloquially in spoken Cantonese.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我的心 is used in Mandarian or formal written Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, 个 in 我个心 is not really used as a quantifier in 我个心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;个 in 我有一个心 can be used as a quantifier, but it's not a common usage, every one has one heart.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;个 in 我个心 here, is the same as 's in &quot;I's&quot; or My in English&lt;br&gt;&#xA;so both &lt;em&gt;我个&lt;/em&gt; 心(Cantonese) or &lt;em&gt;我的&lt;/em&gt; 心(written/Mandarin) mean &lt;em&gt;my&lt;/em&gt; heart&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T21:51:10.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34066" CreationDate="2019-09-24T21:59:59.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;C xc. X. Kl睇下我嘅 LKmi. Kim&lt;br&gt;&#xA;does not make sense to any Cantonese speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C xc. X. Kl can hardly be understood, LKmi could be some kinda model number?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I suspect there could be some typo, but the full sentence could mean&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1 [some unknown meaning], look at my something, Kim.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2 [some unknown meaning], (I) need to check my something, Kim. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T21:59:59.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34367" CreationDate="2019-09-24T22:03:12.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I have heard &quot;Dell&quot; 垃圾 in spoken Cantonese&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but I don't know how to write the word &quot;dell&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T22:03:12.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35104" CreationDate="2019-09-24T22:20:12.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;the standard form is 撤销 according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jiaodui.com/bbs/simple/?t9865.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;现代汉语规范词典第3版&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;销 has the meaning to destroy, 撤销 is to destroy the current changes&lt;br&gt;&#xA;消 has a passive meaning. Since 撤消 is an active action, 撤销 is more proper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T22:20:12.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35037" CreationDate="2019-09-24T22:32:18.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你们不爱猫 means you (all) do not like cats/ all of you don't like cats&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你不爱猫 means you do not like cats&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他们不爱猫 they do not like cats&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess you are confused because you think &quot;you&quot; must be singular?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;You&quot; can be singular or pural&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T22:32:18.930" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34634" CreationDate="2019-09-24T22:40:09.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It think there may be a problem with your translation because  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully we can treat each other with more X  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is not very &quot;complete&quot; in Chinese&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'll change the sentence to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully we can treat each other with more X in the future&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;first before the translation, so in Chinese it is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;希望 &lt;em&gt;以後&lt;/em&gt; 我們可以/會對彼此有更多X&lt;br&gt;&#xA;for example, 希望以後我們會對彼此有更多體諒&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or 希望我們可以對彼此有更多體諒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T22:40:09.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34933" CreationDate="2019-09-25T03:48:01.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regional specific idioms do exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a comment I left on an answer above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;成语 are not universal that is just not true &amp;amp; regional 成语 exist. There exist books like《鄂尔多斯方言成语词典》、《陕北方言成语3000条》、《忻州成语词典》, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance you can check out this tieba post: &lt;a href=&quot;https://tieba.baidu.com/p/6257289965&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;【来自《百家姓》的方言成语】&lt;/a&gt; which mentions idioms like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;乌焦巴弓&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;周吴郑王&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;高夏蔡田&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;周吴郑王 is also noted in《汉语大辞典》as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;方言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T03:48:01.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34506" CreationDate="2019-09-25T14:46:45.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would this variation belong to a certain dynasty or time period? I cannot find an example of this and that leads me to believe it was created and used only by the individual who had it made.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PmYQl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PmYQl.jpg&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22790" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T14:46:45.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35140" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35142" CreationDate="2019-09-25T22:23:01.863" Score="4" ViewCount="536" Body="&lt;p&gt;As if them sharing a common appearance isn't enough, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%88%B0%20%E8%87%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;yabla&lt;/a&gt; shows that they can for the most part be used interchangeably. Since they mean nearly the same exact thing with a few caveats, what is the point of them having so much overlap? Why is there a need for 到 to exist at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T00:02:34.427" Title="到 vs 至, what is the key difference?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35141" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35143" CreationDate="2019-09-25T23:05:55.150" Score="0" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the sentence &quot;行进路线上的生物早早就避开了&quot; and I interpret &quot;行进路线&quot; to mean marching path. 行进 means marching/advancing and 路线 means route/path so marching path seems to make sense, but this is my first time seeing this manner of speech. Are you generally allowed to combine a verb and a noun together to form a new noun or is this a special case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I just came across another example, &quot;骷髅兵&quot;. Skeleton + Solider... .so... skeleton soldier? Is it truly that simple? This is how it works in English but I don't expect such a behavior to carry into Chinese. I apologize if this is a very noobie question but I'm just now encountering this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastEditorUserId="22149" LastEditDate="2019-09-26T00:00:55.447" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T11:36:48.250" Title="Any rule(s) about combining nouns with other words to form new nouns?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35140" CreationDate="2019-09-26T02:28:56.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 到 and 至 can function as &quot;preposition&quot; (to) or &quot;result/ degree complement&quot; (until; to the point of). The difference is 到 is more colloquial and 至 is more literary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;戰至一兵一卒 (fight to the last man) is a very literary phrase, in colloquial form, this phrase would become 戰鬥到剩下最後一個士兵. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not recommended to replace  &quot;至&quot; with &quot;到&quot; in literary phrases like 戰至一兵一卒, 延至凌晨 (delay until midnight)  and specially not in idioms like 至死不渝  ( you cannot say 到死不渝) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both 至 and 到 has the meaning of &quot;arrive&quot; and the difference is still literary and colloquial. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;至 has the meaning of &quot;ultimate&quot; or &quot;utmost&quot; that 到 doesn't has. e.g. 至高 cannot be changed to 到高&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;到 can function as a result complement that indicate the verb is successful, e.g. 學到 cannot be changed to 學至&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-02T09:58:32.893" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T09:58:32.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35141" CreationDate="2019-09-26T11:36:48.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course you can. It's much simpler in Chinese actually, because the etymology of Chinese words is pure Chinese, instead of various languages like of English words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you need to know that &quot;word&quot; is not a clear concept in Chinese. Basically, a sentence is composed of character combinations, among which some combinations (sometimes just a character by itself) are frequently used or have clear definition (e.g. scientific terms) thus regarded as words. What I want to say is that whenever the combination is meaningful, you are fine to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And interestingly, this feature contributes to the extensive phenomenon that a combination of characters (word if you want) can be read as different things according to  its context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如临深渊，&lt;strong&gt;相机&lt;/strong&gt;行事。&#xA;（像在深潭边走路一样谨慎，&lt;strong&gt;观察时机&lt;/strong&gt;灵活办事）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;买了一台新&lt;strong&gt;相机&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;（照相的机器）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;未详&lt;strong&gt;其实&lt;/strong&gt;，不敢妄言。&#xA;（没有清楚地知道&lt;strong&gt;那个事实&lt;/strong&gt;，不敢随便发表议论）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;其实&lt;/strong&gt;他昨天没有回来。&#xA;（&lt;strong&gt;确实&lt;/strong&gt;，作连词）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生啖鹿肉，&lt;strong&gt;颜色&lt;/strong&gt;不变&#xA;（生吃鹿肉，&lt;strong&gt;面容表情&lt;/strong&gt;不改变）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷暖彰益，&lt;strong&gt;颜色&lt;/strong&gt;调和。&#xA;（冷色和暖色相配凸现各自的好处，多种&lt;strong&gt;色彩&lt;/strong&gt;和谐相容）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;木石&lt;strong&gt;错置&lt;/strong&gt;，纷呈杂然。&#xA;（树木山石&lt;strong&gt;交错设置&lt;/strong&gt;，混杂地纷纷展现）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;错置&lt;/strong&gt;于此，其得宜乎？&#xA;（&lt;strong&gt;安排&lt;/strong&gt;（措置）在这里，难道合适吗？）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T11:36:48.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35144" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-26T16:02:48.647" Score="0" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the purpose of &lt;code&gt;作为此&lt;/code&gt; in this &lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.python.org/zh-cn/3/extending/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sentence&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;本指南仅介绍了作为此 CPython 版本的一部分提供的创建扩展的基本工具&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is translated &lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.python.org/3/extending/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;This guide only covers the basic tools for creating extensions provided as part of this version of CPython.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess it means something akin to &lt;code&gt;as&lt;/code&gt; in English. Would &lt;code&gt;作为&lt;/code&gt; also work or is &lt;code&gt;作为此&lt;/code&gt; required?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an alternative way of wording this sentence to not use &lt;code&gt;作为此&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22570" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T05:57:53.353" Title="作为此 Grammar Purpose" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35144" CreationDate="2019-09-26T17:00:10.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you have slightly misparsed the syntax of the statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us put some spacing and some brackets around the largest blocks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;本指南 仅 介绍了 [ 作为 此CPython版本 的 一部分 提供 的 创建 扩展 的 ] 基本工具&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see that &lt;code&gt;此&lt;/code&gt; modifies &lt;code&gt;CPython 版本&lt;/code&gt; and does not &quot;belong to&quot; 作为.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T17:00:10.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35113" CreationDate="2019-09-26T20:51:17.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other examples I can think of: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;红到发紫&lt;/code&gt; --this is often used to describe someone is very popular&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;富到流油&lt;/code&gt; -- this is used to describe someone is very rich&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all these cases, 到 can be replaced with 得. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To remember some use cases is a good way to remember how to use the word. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T20:51:17.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35148" CreationDate="2019-09-27T00:44:58.310" Score="4" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been scratching my head for quite a while now because I've been trying way to hard to pronounce words in the 4th tone. I understand how it's supposed to work (with tone decreasing) but it felt unnatural in comparison to the preceding 3 tones. After listening to several different audio sources it finally occurred to me that every word I've ever uttered in English has seems to qualify as 4th tone. I was only having difficulty because I was wasting my time trying to drop my tone even further than I would have done otherwise. Is this a quirk unique to me or is this something all English speakers do and somehow isn't being mentioned to new learners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T02:12:19.227" Title="Do native English speakers naturally speak in the 4th tone?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35147" CreationDate="2019-09-27T02:12:19.227" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know how native English speakers feel, but my perception is that words like &quot;hard&quot; &quot;luck&quot; are close to the fourth tone when you read them alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting fact is that even the tones are the same, the characters are pronounced significantly differently in a passage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a passage where all characters are of the fourth tone. You may try to read it aloud, or ask a native to read it (naturally, not robotic) for you and record it. Listen carefully to find out the truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;少帅见利忘义，为庇护政治势力，竟犯上作乱介入内战，酿就事变，太过放肆！后计划泄露，被控告重罪并入狱。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;梦碎后，教训历历在目，少帅大彻大悟下放下恶念，落泪叹道：“这就是宿命。现在落到这个地步，部下、后代亦被迫害，若未背信弃义算计大位，境况会是现在这样？太幼稚，太意气用事！”但少帅却未忘咒骂：“怪赵四那贱货，要是未泄密，刺客会被卫队看到？大业会败露？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个教训告诉各位，欲干大事，既要注意部队纪律、践诺信义，又要控制色欲、战胜诱惑。若欲占据宋氏幼妹，勿忘后院那位妒妇，是忿恨混入爱意，竟让赵四放弃父辈政治旧怨，暗地助力挫败叛乱。但，事变最后竟是促就抗日战线扩大，就事论事，亦算是个意外获利。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;各位，故事就到这，在下快递要到，外面在叫，再会~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Credit to Zhihu user 树神彧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T02:12:19.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35144" CreationDate="2019-09-27T05:57:53.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pre- translate:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;本指南仅介绍了作为此 CPython 版本的一部分&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This guide only introduces as/for this CPython version 的 part  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;提供的创建扩展的基本工具。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;provide 的 found/establish/create extend/extension 的 basic tool&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;本指南仅介绍了作为此 CPython 版本的一部分提供的创建扩展的基本工具&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This guide covers only the basic tools for creating extensions that are provided as part of this CPython release.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作为 = for&lt;br&gt;&#xA;此 = this&lt;br&gt;&#xA;作为此 CPython 版本&lt;br&gt;&#xA;for this version of CPython&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T05:57:53.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35150" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35153" CreationDate="2019-09-27T10:19:38.513" Score="0" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once I saw a woman get off a bus and I thought she said 我下一下 to inform the driver that she was getting off.  However, I mentioned that to a Chinese friend, and he seemed to think it's weird, so it's possible I misheard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's normal to say things like 我坐一下 or 我百度一下, where 一下 emphasizes that it would be quick; there are other examples in the Chinese Grammar Wiki article &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Verbing_briefly_with_%22yixia%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Verbing briefly with &quot;yixia&quot;&lt;/a&gt; (see also the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12700/when-to-use-%e4%b8%80%e4%b8%8b%e5%84%bf&quot;&gt;When to use &amp;quot;一下儿&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;).  So I don't see any reason why 我下一下 would be improper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it okay to say 我下一下 when e.g. getting off a bus?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T15:09:10.603" Title="Is it okay to say 我下一下 when e.g. getting off a bus?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35151" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35152" CreationDate="2019-09-27T11:31:03.307" Score="1" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;I still do not get how to use 该 in a sentence. For example, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就该吃饭了, you can just say 就吃饭了, can't you? &#xA;How do you use 该 properly in a sentence because I don't get its purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22719" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-09-28T10:37:47.880" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T22:21:35.933" Title="The usage of 该 in sentences" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35151" CreationDate="2019-09-27T12:28:23.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;就该吃饭了 is missing a subject for example 你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;=&gt; 你 &lt;em&gt;(現在就)&lt;/em&gt; 该吃饭了 You &lt;em&gt;should be&lt;/em&gt; eating &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就吃饭了 is not grammatically correct, it's missing 要 and a subject&lt;br&gt;&#xA;=&gt; 我 &lt;em&gt;(就)&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;要&lt;/em&gt; 吃饭了 I &lt;em&gt;'m&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;going to&lt;/em&gt; eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;该吃饭了 is proper because it implies the subject to be I/You&lt;br&gt;&#xA;该吃饭了 means I/You should be eating now, or Time to eat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastEditorUserId="22375" LastEditDate="2019-09-30T22:21:35.933" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T22:21:35.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35150" CreationDate="2019-09-27T15:09:10.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's (&quot;60%&quot; OK, &quot;40%&quot; wired ) to say &quot;我下一下&quot; to driver when you are getting off from a bus. Chinese people know what you mean, but few people would say like this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, people would say &quot;您好，我想下车&quot;.  it's quit nature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;your examples of &quot;我坐一下&quot;, &quot;我百度一下&quot;,  that's very OK, here &quot;一下&quot; means &quot;try once&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3718" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T15:09:10.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14476" CreationDate="2019-09-27T15:10:18.880" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;慢点儿 means take care , watching your way.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3718" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T15:10:18.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35155" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-27T18:55:55.490" Score="0" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to translate the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;both medicines and foods have common origin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;into simplified Chinese using different translation apps etc. and get weirdly different answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22822" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-04T14:18:59.843" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T14:18:59.843" Title="How do I translate &quot;both medicines and foods have common origin&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35155" CreationDate="2019-09-27T20:49:01.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;both medicines and foods have common origin&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.n-mart.com.tw/docs/a10.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;医食同源&lt;/a&gt;, and it is a common expression (more literary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In colloquial form, it would be &quot;医药与食物有共通的源头&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Medicines can be food; Food can be medicines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-27T20:58:42.837" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T20:58:42.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35157" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35162" CreationDate="2019-09-28T01:20:08.467" Score="2" ViewCount="517" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 刚才 and 刚刚?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 我刚才起床 and 我刚刚起床? Don't the both accomplish the same thing? 刚刚 means now and 刚才 means just now, right? Or does 刚刚 just less formal than 刚才?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22719" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T03:05:31.803" Title="The difference and usage of 刚才 and 刚刚" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32264" CreationDate="2019-09-28T01:41:22.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When lies are made the truth, the truth becomes lies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22825" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T01:41:22.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35157" CreationDate="2019-09-28T03:13:00.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 刚才 and 刚刚 mean &quot;just a moment ago&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is: &quot;刚才&quot; is a two characters compound word, made up of 刚(just; moment ago) and 才(just), meaning &quot;just a moment ago&quot;; and 刚刚 is the reduplication of the adverb 刚(just; moment ago).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reduplication an adverb put emphasis on it. For example, &quot;我刚起床&quot; alone already express all the meaning needed to be expressed, reduplicate  &quot;刚&quot; and write &quot;我刚刚起床&quot; put emphasis on the adverb, make it stronger.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 刚刚 is a frequently used term, it is treated more like a compound word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also: both &quot;我才起床&quot; and &quot;我刚起床&quot; has the same meaning of &quot;I've just got up from bed&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-28T07:02:09.647" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T07:02:09.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35160" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35161" CreationDate="2019-09-28T05:32:46.687" Score="0" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find myself fascinated by the character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E8%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蹦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the word &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%B9%A6%E6%9E%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蹦极&lt;/a&gt; (meaning &amp;quot;bungee jumping&amp;quot;).  It combines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the radical &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%B6%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;足&lt;/a&gt; (meaning &amp;quot;foot&amp;quot;), in the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%B7%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;跳&lt;/a&gt; meaning &amp;quot;jump&amp;quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the radical &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B1%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;山&lt;/a&gt; meaning &amp;quot;mountain&amp;quot;; and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the character &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;朋&lt;/a&gt; meaning &amp;quot;friends&amp;quot;, as in &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%8B%E5%8F%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;朋友&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's as if the character was deliberately designed to resemble friends jumping from a mountain.  I'm hoping this thought can be verified or contradicted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Was the character 蹦 (in 蹦极 &amp;quot;bungee jumping&amp;quot;) designed to look like people bungee jumping?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-29T02:37:09.273" Title="Was the character 蹦 (in 蹦极 &quot;bungee jumping&quot;) designed to look like people bungee jumping?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;glyph-origin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35160" CreationDate="2019-09-28T06:19:52.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's a cute mnemonic, but not how characters work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「蹦」does not specifically mean &lt;em&gt;bungee jumping&lt;/em&gt;, it just means &lt;em&gt;hopping/jumping/skipping&lt;/em&gt;, e.g. 蹦蹦跳跳 (&lt;em&gt;skippity-skip&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Identify clearly what each component does in a character, and &lt;strong&gt;don't recursively decompose characters&lt;/strong&gt;.「蹦」only contains two components:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Semantic component「足」(&lt;em&gt;foot &gt; actions to do with feet/legs&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Phonetic component「崩」&lt;strong&gt;bēng&lt;/strong&gt;  &#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't recursively decompose this into「山」and「朋」! These don't contribute anything direct to「蹦」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「崩」&lt;strong&gt;bēng&lt;/strong&gt; doesn't contribute anything apart from sound. If you must know the composition of「崩」, its meaning is &lt;em&gt;to collapse&lt;/em&gt;, metaphorically hinted with「山」(&lt;em&gt;a mountain collapsing&lt;/em&gt;), and its phonetic part is「朋」&lt;strong&gt;péng&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sadly, there are no friends and no mountains, but happily no collapsing in「蹦」. Stay safe!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-09-28T06:28:17.450" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T06:28:17.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35157" CreationDate="2019-09-28T07:32:46.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;刚刚 is an adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;刚才 is a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我刚刚起床 means: &lt;code&gt;I just got up&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我刚才起床 is kind of nonsensical as it is as it means something like:  &lt;code&gt;I a moment ago got up&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刚刚 is going to be the more likely choice when you're expressing things you did just now a moment ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T07:32:46.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19346" CreationDate="2019-09-28T09:38:16.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;「對」is composed of semantic「丵」(&lt;em&gt;picture of a large chisel&lt;/em&gt;, and a synonym, cognate, or original form of「鑿」), semantic「土」(&lt;em&gt;soil&lt;/em&gt;), and semantic「又」or「寸」(both &lt;em&gt;pictures of hands&lt;/em&gt;). The chisel was used as a tool to dig at the earth, shuffle, and (re)pack soil.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7qyux.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7qyux.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;佚&lt;/a&gt;657&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=18755&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集18755&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UY6aU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UY6aU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;方鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2614&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2614&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RARiG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RARiG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77389&amp;amp;page=94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;丵部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文&lt;/a&gt;或體&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xEymt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xEymt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wczPY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wczPY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;粹&lt;/a&gt;18&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=32118&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集32118&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJhvE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJhvE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;大盂鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2837&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2837&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ULx77.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ULx77.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;亳鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2654&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2654&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Silk_Manuscript&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;帛&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VfLFe.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VfLFe.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;帛乙3.8&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Silk_Manuscript&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;長沙子彈庫&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AVf38.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AVf38.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The action of &lt;em&gt;moving/shuffling/packing soil&lt;/em&gt; &amp;gt; &lt;em&gt;to develop and expand habitable land&lt;/em&gt; is the original meaning of「對」. This usage is seen in e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bh=36419&amp;amp;bhfl=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《甲骨文合集》36419&lt;/a&gt;:「......于東對......」(&lt;em&gt;expand and develop lands in the east&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《詩・大雅・皇矣》：「帝作邦作對」(&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;God&lt;/a&gt; has expanded territories and founded states&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since「對」has a whole host of old and modern meanings, it is probably easier to conceptualise most of these meanings as phonetic loans:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;To answer&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Correct, right&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;To mix and match&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pair&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More generally, the component「丵」indicates the meaning &lt;em&gt;using a weapon to attack something&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「對」, &lt;em&gt;to dig at soil&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「業」, &lt;em&gt;to attack (another tribe/state/country)&lt;/em&gt; &amp;gt; &lt;em&gt;to expand territory and get more resources/govern more land &amp;amp; people, to set up or expand enterprises &amp;amp; industries&lt;/em&gt; (創業)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「菐」, original form of「撲」(&lt;em&gt;to attack, to hit&lt;/em&gt; 撲擊)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note,「叢」does not contain「丵」, its modern form is a egregious corruption of the original components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《漢語大詞典》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國哲學書電子化計劃&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=77351&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;宋・徐鉉等奉敕校定　漢・許慎《說文解字》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T09:51:08.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35151" CreationDate="2019-09-28T10:53:26.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought more along the lines of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们该吃饭了。我饿死了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for fun, I thought I would try to say &quot;我们吃该饭了。“ where 该 means &quot;this&quot;. That does not sound good to Chinese ears I'm told! No! No! No!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can say:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;该公司&lt;br&gt;&#xA;该电视节目&lt;br&gt;&#xA;该工作&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why don't you like 该饭？？Why can't you put 该 with 饭 or 餐？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2019-09-28T11:34:39.230" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T11:34:39.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35157" CreationDate="2019-09-28T17:50:44.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are differences between 刚刚(just) and 刚才(a while ago)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 1pm起床...1:05刚刚起床...2pm刚才(在1pm)起床...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;so 我刚(刚)起床 can be a complete sentence,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but 我刚才起床 is a phrase, but not a complete sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我刚刚起床 = I just woke up&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我刚才起床(的时候)... = While I was waking up/ When I woke up, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T17:50:44.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34857" CreationDate="2019-09-28T18:30:28.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;大哥 and 大哥哥 can have a lot of different meanings, but in your context  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小明，谢谢这位给你让座的大哥哥。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;这位&lt;/em&gt; ...大哥哥, so 大哥(哥) is a stranger  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The differences between 大哥 and 大哥哥 in this context is the age difference.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;大哥哥 here probably looks under 25-ish years old, and seemingly a friendly person.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;大哥 if used here would refers to any adults who are older than 小明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T18:30:28.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16" CreationDate="2019-09-29T02:41:04.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;actually,&#xA;the tense maker 了has two different type.&#xA;that concept is equal to the conjunction of verb.&#xA;the first type of the 了1 , common condition is used like suffix just adding after the verb.&#xA;that means perfective maker. the action is completed. also like present tense as well as&#xA;past tense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the second type of 了2 ，is adding to the end &#xA;of the sentence, for instance, &quot;他突然之间就跑了&quot; that means emphasising the effect to present or probably cause a new case to present times.  and aboselusly, is prefect aspect.  so, the decision of adopting past perfect or present perfect is depends the adverb。&#xA;我离开上海了。（perfect tense）&#xA;我离开了上海 。   （present tense or past tense）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22830" LastActivityDate="2019-09-29T02:41:04.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35089" CreationDate="2019-09-29T04:36:53.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is just 足. There is no single word 足有, just 足 and 有 separately. It means &quot;in full, wholly&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的收件箱足有一英尺厚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Your mailing trunk is fully / wholly possessed of all the thickness comprehended by one English foot.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To break it down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你的 (your) + 收件箱 (mailing box / trunk) + 足 (fully or &quot;is fully&quot;) + 有 (possessing) + 一 (one) + 英尺 (English foot, the unit of measure, 304.8 mm) + 厚 (thick, big, fat, plump, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's more for laying especial emphasis on the fact that the mailbox (or I presume, a synecdoche for the &lt;em&gt;stack of papers within&lt;/em&gt;, as that seems to make more sense), is so big as named.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16171" LastActivityDate="2019-09-29T04:36:53.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35173" CreationDate="2019-09-29T18:43:49.553" Score="0" ViewCount="416" Body="&lt;p&gt;eg 後樂園 is completely kanji but I thought it was a place in Taiwan until I looked it up and it was in Japan. Also what about reading it in the Chinese reading (hou le yuan) instead of the actual Japanese reading (korakuen)? I’m confused on cultural notes such as these&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22833" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T05:43:04.880" Title="Is there a way to differentiate Kanji and Hanzi?" Tags="&lt;place-names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35170" CreationDate="2019-09-29T23:36:22.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can only differentiate Kanji and Hanzi by looking into the context. Most Japanese Kanji look exactly like Chinese Hanzi because they were copied from  Hanzi. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are few unique Kanji that's coined by Japanese and not in use in Chinese. Those are called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lingualift.com/blog/kanji-made-in-japan/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kokuji&lt;/a&gt;. Kokuji are inspired by Hanzi, but not copied from, they can be easily identified as Japanese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, some Japanese characters are simplified different from the Mainland China's simplied Hanzi, but the non-simplified Kanji all look the same as traditional Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-29T23:47:10.193" LastActivityDate="2019-09-29T23:47:10.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35170" CreationDate="2019-09-29T23:40:27.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kanji are almost exactly the same as the Chinese Traditional Characters... Know your history. There are a few differences though in a very short amount of characters which even in traditional Chinese seem different from the ones in Japanese, as Japanese went through its own simplifying process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To know if its Kanji or Hanzi you will have to see the context. Yet, proper names such as this one you mentioned tend to be written with the same characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16987" LastActivityDate="2019-09-29T23:40:27.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35174" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35178" CreationDate="2019-09-30T00:21:08.400" Score="3" ViewCount="400" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned my early Chinese from ChinesePod, and they talked about &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BA%92%E7%9B%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;互相&lt;/a&gt; (hùxiāng), but I just learned that &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%9B%B8%E4%BA%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;相互&lt;/a&gt; (xiānghù, reversing the characters) also has a similar meaning, namely &quot;each other&quot; or &quot;mutual&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(See e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22each_other%22_with_%22huxiang%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing &quot;each other&quot; with &quot;huxiang&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, from the Chinese Grammar Wiki, which has some ChinesePod influence, talk about 互相 and not 相互.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example from YouDao (who sourced it from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yingyuyufa.com/yutai/beidong/273.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;) is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们应该相互帮助&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  We should help each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like I could simply change this to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们应该互相帮助&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;without changing the meaning.  The other examples I looked at are similar (i.e., 互相 and 相互 are interchangeable), so I can't see much of a difference.  But the fact that ChinesePod seems more focused on 互相 over 相互 seems to imply something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 互相 and 相互?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T04:08:48.683" Title="What's the difference between 互相 (hùxiāng) and 相互 (xiānghù), both meaning &quot;mutual&quot;?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35175" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35176" CreationDate="2019-09-30T00:29:51.120" Score="0" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;I began learning Mandarin so that I could read Chinese fantasy novels (I've read several translated ones already). I'm a little confused because on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qidian.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qidian's website&lt;/a&gt; I see several tabs at the top, one says 全部作品 (Completed Works?) and another says 完本 (Completed Books?), am I understanding these correctly? What would be the difference between these two categories?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T05:16:30.470" Title="What is the difference between 全部作品 and 完本?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35175" CreationDate="2019-09-30T00:46:12.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;全部作品 means all works.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;完本 means completed books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T00:46:12.207" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35174" CreationDate="2019-09-30T00:56:44.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many Chinese compound words are made up of two characters contain a similar meaning. In those cases, you can reverse the order of the compound words and the meaning would not change. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both &quot;痛&quot; and &quot;苦&quot; has the meaning of &quot;pain&quot;,  And the standard compound word for &quot;pain&quot; is &quot;痛苦&quot;. Since the two characters have the same meaning, it is acceptable to reverse the order and say &quot;苦痛&quot; instead. (&quot;不堪苦痛&quot; means the same as &quot;不堪痛苦&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both &quot;冷&quot; and &quot;清&quot; has the meaning of &quot;unpopulated&quot;,  And the standard compound word for &quot;unpopulated&quot; is 冷清. Since the two characters have the same meaning, it is acceptable to reverse the order and say &quot;清冷&quot; instead. (&quot;埸面清冷&quot; means the same as &quot;埸面冷清&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both &quot;互&quot; and &quot;相&quot; has the meaning of &quot;mutually&quot;,  And the standard compound word for &quot;mutually&quot; is &quot;互相&quot;. Since the two character has the same meaning, it is acceptable to reverse the order and say 相互 instead. (&quot;相互攻擊&quot; means the same as &quot;互相攻擊&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the reason for doing so? I think it is a way to showcase one's literary knowledge, make you sound more refine. You need to know which compound word is made up of two characters that have the same meaning.  Less knowledgeable man may make a fool of himself by reversing the order of a wrong compound word. For example, saying &quot;用信&quot; instead of &quot;信用&quot;, or saying &quot;殺謀&quot; instead of &quot;謀殺&quot; is unacceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example of common reversible compound words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鬥爭 --&gt; 爭鬥 (fight) e.g. 一場爭鬥 = 一場鬥爭 (a fight)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;愛情 --&gt; 情愛 (love) e.g. 一段情愛 = 一段愛情 (a romance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空虛 --&gt; 虛空 (empty) e.g. 內部虛空 = 內部空虛 (empty inside)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;淒慘 --&gt; 慘淒 (miserable) e.g. 慘淒下場 = 淒慘下場 (miserable end)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;抗拒 --&gt; 拒抗 (resist) e.g. 無法拒抗 = 無法抗拒 (cannot resist)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;解辯 --&gt; 辯解 (explain and defend) e.g. 無法辯解 = 無法解辯 (cannot explain and defend)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;找尋 --&gt; 尋找 (search) e.g. 尋找消失的國度 = 找尋消失的國度 (searching for the disappeared kingdom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since not all compound words are reversible, it is safer to just use the standard forms. Reverse the order only when you know it is acceptable for sure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Notice: Some compound words with two characters having the opposite meaning can also be reversed. e.g. 不顧死生 = 不顧生死; 不論赢輸 = 不論輸赢&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-09-30T20:22:42.907" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T20:22:42.907" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33969" CreationDate="2019-09-30T05:08:23.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When we were talking about chengyu 知难而上, one my Chinese friend said,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你没看出来这里面的玄机&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Then he explained 知难而上 can be understood as 知男而上  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玄机 means mystery,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and the mystery here, contextually is the punchline/pun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T05:08:23.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35175" CreationDate="2019-09-30T05:16:30.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;完in完本 means completed, for example 写完了功課 means the homework is completed&lt;br&gt;&#xA;全部作品 means all of the works  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is that I can be writing 3 books at the same time, but none of them is completed, so these 3 books are my 全部作品, but none of them is 完本&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T05:16:30.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35174" CreationDate="2019-09-30T05:22:42.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My personal feeling is that 互相 is a verb/noun and 相互 is a noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们应该互相帮助&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We should help each other&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们的相互帮助可以...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Our mutual cooperation enables...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but it's my personal preference, I'm not sure this should be always the case&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T05:22:42.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35170" CreationDate="2019-09-30T05:43:04.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to differentiate Kanji and Hanzi and to master either one.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know more about the logic of either one, you can easily tell if it's Kanji and Hanzi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;後樂園 can be confusing but actually a single character後 as an adjective to describe 樂園 is a Japanese-style word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another example can be 介紹 and 紹介&lt;br&gt;&#xA;same characters with different order implies different languages&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T05:43:04.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35174" CreationDate="2019-09-30T05:44:43.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Tang Ho made a good point, but it is worth mentioning that 相互 is more a adjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such cases 互相 is inappropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相互作用力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;增进相互的了解&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T05:44:43.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35187" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-30T10:30:11.187" Score="2" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently encountered the word 随着, which was translated by my text as a figurative &quot;following&quot;, as in &quot;Following X, Y&quot;. At first glance, this &quot;following&quot; translation sounds very formal, almost too formal for conversational English, but it was unclear to me if my text author had intended to convey this connotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When learning a new word, how can I tell if it's used more in written or spoken speech? When a word is used predominantly in one register, how can I find what words substitute for it in other registers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've considered using corpora for this, but publicly accessible corpora for spoken Chinese are few and far between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ask in part because I've previously studied Japanese, where the distinction is strong enough that major references will distinguish written and spoken expressions, see the discussion &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1wm650/how_can_you_distinguish_written_from_spoken/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Are there any Chinese references that make this distinction? Or are the registers similar enough that separate word choice is rarely necessary? &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.tutorming.com/mandarin-chinese-learning-tips/differences-between-kouyu-and-shumianyu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; blog post seems to suggest otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should be clear that I'm not talking about elasticity here, I'm thinking of cases where 2 synonyms or grammatical constructions have non-overlapping distributions of felicity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15063" LastEditorUserId="15063" LastEditDate="2019-09-30T11:17:03.967" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T11:26:13.263" Title="How to determine if a word occurs more in written or spoken language?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30643" CreationDate="2019-09-30T19:10:12.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you can, if you want to shift the focus, and you know exactly why you're doing it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他今天八点要去看电影 = he's gonna do something sometime today&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天他八点要去看电影 = Today, he's gonna do something, (and tomorrow, he's gonna...)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example, is he free today?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Oh today he's gonna do something at 8pm&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But it's not a common phrasing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;电影六点就开始了 = The movie starts at 6pm&lt;br&gt;&#xA;六点电影就开始了 = 6pm is when the movie will start&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T19:10:12.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31693" CreationDate="2019-09-30T19:35:22.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;與&quot; is and, but it's restricted to same type of things&lt;br&gt;&#xA;concept A 與 conept B&lt;br&gt;&#xA;= dogs and cats &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;與其&quot; is about same type of things and its relationship&lt;br&gt;&#xA;person A &lt;em&gt;與其&lt;/em&gt; (person B's relationship)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;= I &lt;em&gt;and my&lt;/em&gt; friend... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;及其&quot; is about things and its ownership&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Concept A &lt;em&gt;及其&lt;/em&gt; things owned by concept A&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I and my course...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T19:35:22.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35140" CreationDate="2019-09-30T22:09:31.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E8%87%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;至&lt;/a&gt; implies an end destination while &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%88%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;到&lt;/a&gt; does not.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;到 means to arrive to a destination, but it may not be the end destination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至 has a stronger meaning, thus they are not interchangeable all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;至 is usually followed by an extreme situation, death, or a strict deadline of something&lt;br&gt;&#xA;戰至一兵一卒 means to fight until every one is no longer able to fight (death)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到 is followed by a condition, which may not be extreme&lt;br&gt;&#xA;戰鬥到剩下最後一個士兵 is one of the condition, you can also write&lt;br&gt;&#xA;戰鬥到剩下三十個士兵 to fight until meeting the condition of 30 solders left&lt;br&gt;&#xA;戰至三十個士兵 is also accepted, but it implies you have nothing left but these 30 solders&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到 is used in 到此一遊, which means I was there&lt;br&gt;&#xA;至此一遊 is not correct because 一遊 implies one of the destination, not the end destination&lt;br&gt;&#xA;事已至此 implies things have already come to this extreme situation&lt;br&gt;&#xA;事已到此 is &quot;ok&quot; but not usually used because 已 implies already, which usually requires a more extreme situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastEditorUserId="22375" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T00:02:34.427" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T00:02:34.427" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35174" CreationDate="2019-10-01T04:08:48.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say 相互 adds a bit emphasis on the mutual effect. It may be because the reversed order draws more attention. E.g. 我们应该增进相互了解. 尊重是相互的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;互相 is more casual. e.g.我们应该互相学习. If you say 我们应该相互学习， you express a bit stronger necessity of learning from each other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T04:08:48.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35192" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35193" CreationDate="2019-10-01T08:46:16.783" Score="0" ViewCount="44" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%93%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蓓&lt;/a&gt; n. bud (part of &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%93%93%E8%95%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蓓蕾&lt;/a&gt; (bèilěi))&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E8%90%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;萌&lt;/a&gt; n. bud; vt. sprout, germinate (part of &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%90%8C%E8%8A%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;萌芽&lt;/a&gt; (méngyá))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked a student (who happens to have the name 萌) if 蓓 and 萌 are the same, but she said they're different.  I'm not sure why though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess from the above is that 蓓 is bud that will turn into a flower, whereas 萌 is more general, and refers to anything that sprouts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 蓓 and 萌?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T08:51:46.667" Title="What's the difference between 蓓 (bèi) and 萌 (méng), both nouns that mean &quot;bud&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35192" CreationDate="2019-10-01T08:51:46.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%90%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;萌&lt;/a&gt; is a &lt;strong&gt;verb&lt;/strong&gt; meaning to &lt;em&gt;bud&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%93%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蓓&lt;/a&gt; is a &lt;strong&gt;noun&lt;/strong&gt; meaning &lt;em&gt;bud&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蓓 is usually just a compound character only found in the word 蓓蕾.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T08:51:46.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35194" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-01T14:24:54.703" Score="2" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wiedenhof's &lt;em&gt;A Grammar of Mandarin&lt;/em&gt;, page 25, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;xiǎng xiǎng&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; ‘keep on thinking’  doesn't show tone sandhi because the tones belong to separate clauses, unlike [xiáng xiǎng] ‘think for&#xA;  a moment’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What meaning of &quot;clause&quot; is used here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T16:02:13.127" Title="xiǎng xiǎng ‘keep on thinking’ vs xiáng xiǎng ‘think for a moment’" Tags="&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35195" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-01T14:40:19.397" Score="0" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wiedenhof's &lt;em&gt;A Grammar of Mandarin&lt;/em&gt;, page 25,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When following a frst or a second tone, and simultaneously preceding a&#xA;  non-neutral tone, a second tone is pronounced with a high level pitch&#xA;  55 (high to high), i.e. as a frst tone. &lt;strong&gt;This diference can be represented in  Pinyin&lt;/strong&gt;: ānmián yào ~ ānmiān yào ‘sleeping pills’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does &quot;represent&quot; here mean that, instead of the citation/lexical tones, the new tones after tone sandhi can be used as well? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T16:36:25.393" Title="tone sandhi represented in Pinyin" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35196" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-01T16:09:04.487" Score="3" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;我哥哥是我认识的人中最沉着的一个. I can understand the phrase but I don't see the meaning of 中 in the example. I have consulted in several places without success. Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22845" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-10-02T02:20:19.357" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T02:20:19.357" Title="What does 中 (zhōng) mean in 我哥哥是我认识的人中最沉着的一个?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35196" CreationDate="2019-10-01T16:13:27.587" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;中&quot; is a shorter form of &quot;之中&quot; (within; among) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我哥哥是我认识的人(中)最沉着的一个&quot; = &quot;我哥哥是我认识的人(之中)最沉着的一个&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我哥哥 = my brother&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 = is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我认识的人(&lt;strong&gt;之中&lt;/strong&gt;) = (&lt;strong&gt;among&lt;/strong&gt;) the people I know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最沉着的一个 = the calmest one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-01T16:33:27.937" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T16:33:27.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35195" CreationDate="2019-10-01T16:36:25.393" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iso.org/standard/13682.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this is not standard Pinyin&lt;/a&gt;, if this form of tone sandhi is written out. The author is simply trying to convey what it &lt;em&gt;would&lt;/em&gt; look like if written out (instead of retranscribing it with Chao-style tone letters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This type of sandhi (&quot;Mandarin T2 Sandhi&quot;, for &lt;em&gt;Tone 2 Sandhi&lt;/em&gt;), is mentioned only rarely, because it is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HztsDwAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;prosodic-driven process&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, i.e. it happens because the syllable is not in a strong position in the overall 'rhythm and melody' ( = prosody) of the utterance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, T2 sandhi is not an ingrained feature of standard Mandarin or even any one dialect of Mandarin (unlike T3 sandhi), but a &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YWWYBgAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA16&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;variation&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, and one that is far from universal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T16:36:25.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35200" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-02T08:29:17.617" Score="0" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the next sentence is the meassure word 条 after 这 missing? I have seen the  phares on a hsk game page in the  internet.  在这河里游泳危险&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T10:33:48.653" Title="Is there a meassure word missing in 在这河里游泳危险" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35200" CreationDate="2019-10-02T08:43:39.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes，you r right。And actually if you are using Chinese to communicate, you can ignore 条。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22847" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-10-02T08:48:06.160" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T08:48:06.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35203" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-02T09:55:12.607" Score="2" ViewCount="52" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my learning book &lt;em&gt;Easy Steps to Chinese 4&lt;/em&gt; textbook you can see the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在北京游览，乘坐什么交通工具比较方便。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the first part of the sentence, 在北京游览 means &amp;quot;visiting/touring Beijing&amp;quot; but is this a shortcut of 你在北京游览的时候  or  你在北京游览时?  Is there any difference between these three sentences? Could I say 在吃饭，我用筷子。 Any grammar reference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-05T23:51:29.157" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T23:51:29.157" Title="Is there any difference between beginning a sentence with 在北京游览 and （你）在北京游览（时候/时）?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35200" CreationDate="2019-10-02T10:20:33.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you break down &amp;quot;在这河里游泳危险&amp;quot; you can see a verb is missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Swimming in this river (is) dangerous&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be either &amp;quot;在这河里游泳(有)危险&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;在这河里游泳(很)危险&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classifier 条 is optional. when we are not counting the number of river. 这 (this) already indicated it is only one particular river&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;这河/ 这条河&amp;quot;  = &amp;quot;this river&amp;quot; - &lt;em&gt;You can omit the classifier 条 because there is no counting word&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;这一条河&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;this one river&amp;quot; - &lt;em&gt;You cannot omit the classifier 条 and write &amp;quot;这一河&amp;quot; because there is a counting word 一 here&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;这三条河&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;these three rivers&amp;quot; - &lt;em&gt;You cannot omit the classifier 条 and write &amp;quot;这三河&amp;quot; because there is a counting word 三 here&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T10:33:48.653" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35187" CreationDate="2019-10-02T10:58:34.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe this is an inappropriate answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dictionary for I know, doesn't make such distinction extensively (I remember few words did have a mark indicating its formality). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is simple. Unlike Japanese the language itself has a clear oral and written distinction, with quite different grammar, it's definitely fine to write something the same as you say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't mean there isn't any difference in wording. The words you put to use reflect your attitude, education and cultivation, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The features of usual spoken sentences  are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not concise, run-on, using common plain words for verbs, adjectives and adverbs, with many 的/了/多/着/... grammar words, simple sentence syntax.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the level of written language is of a wide range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So called oral/spoken language in Chinese, I think, are unsophisticated and unprocessed expressions that first come into your mind when you are about to utter words. Many well educated people, they actually say written language (in others' eyes), and on the contrary, many poor writings are close to internet chatting. (The least requirement of a written form is that you do not use many filler words and 的/了/多/着...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. Translation of the above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;spoken:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这可能算不上是答案。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是不知道哪本词典条条目目都给分书不书面的（但有的词还是有个正式程度的标）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;道理很简单呐。不像日语口语书面语分得很开，语法都不一样，中文你照说的写，完全没问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但这不是说用词一点区别都没有，你用什么词能看得出你这人的态度啊，学识啊，修养之类的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;口语一般有这些特点：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啰里吧嗦，一路逗号，大白话，的啊了啊多啊着啊一堆，句子成分也简单。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但书面语的程度分别就大了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我觉得中文所谓的口语啊，就是要说话了第一个想到的话，用的都是没来得及加工的简单东西。很多有文化的人，出口就是一般人想半天写的东西，反过来说，有的人写的乱七八糟的网上聊天似的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;written:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这解答也许难称合适。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就我所知，还无词典对词条书面程度广加类分，衹偶见标注罢了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但其缘故无繁。不若和语言文迥异，至于语法专用，汉语笔书白文，并无不妥。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此言并非教人无别而轻词用，遣词如何，恭倨、博浅、修鄙，皆在其中。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;口语大抵特点如下：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壅冗接缀，实词浅近，行句直脱，的了多着一类，赘词太多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而书面之层次则甚蕃。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所谓口语，依我孔见，不过口将言而句已生，直白粗砺，略无藻饰。富学之人，虽言而文于外人耳。反之，寡薄者为文之不堪，反倒若如今网聊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-10-02T11:26:13.263" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T11:26:13.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35206" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35210" CreationDate="2019-10-02T17:07:28.393" Score="1" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this &lt;a href=&quot;https://fabiaoqing.com/biaoqing/detail/id/352537.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;meme&lt;/a&gt; (?) on a group, and I'm not sure what is the exact meaning of this. Can someone help me ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19793" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T03:47:40.080" Title="What is the exact meaning of '能虐到我的只有没钱'?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35207" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-02T18:00:01.267" Score="2" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wiedenhof's &lt;em&gt;A Grammar of Mandarin&lt;/em&gt;, page 44,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;Weng&lt;/em&gt;&quot; syllables rhyme with the fnal -ong [ʊŋ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, he'd specified &lt;em&gt;weng&lt;/em&gt; as [wʌŋ], to add&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Weng&lt;/em&gt; displays the same type of variation as the fnal &lt;em&gt;-un&lt;/em&gt;: it may lose&#xA;  its rounding toward the end, [wəŋ].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Page 66 reads&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;there's free variation between [wʌŋ] and [ʊŋ] for both fnals, with&#xA;  complementary distribution&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can somebody please clarify the apparent ambiguities? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second paragraph, what does &lt;em&gt;end&lt;/em&gt; refer to? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastEditorUserId="15764" LastEditDate="2019-10-03T08:43:52.837" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T15:34:26.480" Title="&quot;Weng&quot; syllables rhyme with the fnal -ong" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35208" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-02T18:09:38.167" Score="3" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m working on materials for a &lt;a href=&quot;http://huayunband.org/?p=2003&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;concert of Chinese music&lt;/a&gt;, with an audience of general people here in Texas (not for the Chinese community).  So, I want meaningful and lucid titles in English along with some information to introduce the song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me with “二泉映月”?  I get something along the lines of “Moonlight reflection in the second spring”, and I suppose they know what “the second spring” is supposed to mean — that is, it’s an idiom or cultural reference.  Is this even supposed to have the literal meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9436" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T04:04:59.883" Title="Good translation for song title “二泉映月”?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35209" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-02T18:39:24.657" Score="1" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wiedenhof's &lt;em&gt;A Grammar of Mandarin&lt;/em&gt;, page 43,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The final spelled as -&lt;em&gt;o&lt;/em&gt; is only combined with the initials b-, p-,&#xA;  m-, f-. This vowel matches the vowel part of the final -&lt;em&gt;uo&lt;/em&gt; [wɔ]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However in page 45, the author states&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The fnal -&lt;em&gt;uo&lt;/em&gt; [wɔ] is spelled as -&lt;em&gt;o&lt;/em&gt; before the labial initials, b-,&#xA;  p-, m-, f-.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can somebody clarify the apparent contradiction?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T21:14:01.140" Title="Pronunciation of final -o" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35206" CreationDate="2019-10-02T20:10:00.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;虐 means &quot;torture&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In combat game lingo 完虐 (complete torture) means &quot;defeat someone in a completely dominating fashion that it is not even a fight but a one sided torture&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usage of 完虐 has extended outside of gaming field. It can be used in any field of competition, or simply describe &quot; dominating&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能虐到我的 - the thing that can defeat me like a one sided torture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只有没钱 - is only poverty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;He is not afraid of anything, but afraid of being poor very much&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-02T20:16:01.513" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T20:16:01.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35209" CreationDate="2019-10-02T21:14:01.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no contradiction; both of the statements are saying the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a final in Chinese that is pronounced [wɔ].&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is the final in syllables &quot;luo&quot;, &quot;ruo&quot;, &quot;wo&quot;, &quot;bo&quot;, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is sometimes spelled &quot;uo&quot; (as in &quot;luo&quot;) and sometimes spelled &quot;o&quot; (as in &quot;bo&quot;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Specifically, it is always and only spelled as &quot;o&quot; following  b-, p-, m-, and f-.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T21:14:01.140" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35203" CreationDate="2019-10-02T22:42:56.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;在北京游览，乘坐什么交通工具比较方便。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(When) On tour in Beijing, the public transportation system is relatively convenient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在北京游览，is a general reference, not aimed at any specific 你, so no 你 is mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is direct, &quot;在吃饭，我用筷子。&quot; is wordy. Try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我用筷子吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could try entering &quot;Chinese grammar of zai&quot; in any search engine, you will get a lot of results. I got 161 million results!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T22:42:56.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35213" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35315" CreationDate="2019-10-02T23:15:50.130" Score="7" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wiktionary has the following entry for the etymology of 邏輯:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Phono-semantic matching of English logic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the Chinese Wikipedia entry states the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;當代中文一般採取音譯方式，將其譯為邏輯。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which seems to imply there isn't sort of semantic hint in the Chinese translation. Looking at the invidiual characters 邏 (who's meanings revolve around &lt;em&gt;to patrol&lt;/em&gt;) and 輯 (&lt;em&gt;to collect&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to compile&lt;/em&gt;, etc.), I fail to see any semantic hints. Is the Chinese word 邏輯 actually a phono-semantic matching of the English word logic? If so, what is the semantic connection bewteen the two words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12846" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T05:21:33.113" Title="Is 邏輯 a phono-semantic matching of the English word logic?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;loanwords&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35208" CreationDate="2019-10-03T05:05:22.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%8C%E6%B3%89%E6%98%A0%E6%9C%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;二泉之名來自於人稱“天下第二泉”的無錫惠山的惠泉&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The name of &quot;Er Quan&quot; comes from the &quot;Hui Spring&quot; of  Hui Shan, Wuxi in China, known as the &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Second Spring of the World&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;二泉映月 literally mean &quot;Moon light reflecting from the world's second greatest spring&quot; (Hui Spring)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T05:05:22.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35208" CreationDate="2019-10-03T07:43:17.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Abing&lt;/a&gt; says, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Abing's most famous piece is entitled Erquan Yingyue (二泉映月, engl.: &lt;em&gt;The Moon's Reflection on the Second Spring&lt;/em&gt;), which is named after a spring in Wuxi (which is today part of Xihui Park). It is still played as a standard erhu piece, although it necessitates a special set of strings that are tuned lower than normal erhu strings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entry on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xihui_Park&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Xihui Park&lt;/a&gt; mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Second Spring under Heaven was the inspiration for the blind erhu player Abing's most famous composition, the Erquan Yingyue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Spring_under_Heaven&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Second Spring under Heaven&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Second Spring or Second-best Spring under Heaven (Chinese: 天下第二泉, Tiānxià Dìèr Quán) is the name of a spring in Xihui Park at the foot of Mount Hui. The park is located in western Wuxi in eastern China's Jiangsu province.&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the title is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Moon's Reflection on the Second Spring&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where the &quot;Second Spring&quot; refers to the name of an actual spring &lt;strong&gt;The Second Spring Under Heaven&lt;/strong&gt;, which can be found in Xihui Park, Wuxi, Jiangsu, today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in the article for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Spring_under_Heaven&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Second Spring under Heaven&lt;/a&gt; it talks about the English name of this piece and its translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hua Yanjun, a famous folk musician also called Blind Abing, spread the fame of the Second Spring in his song &lt;em&gt;The Moon Over a Fountain&lt;/em&gt; 二泉映月.[8] Although the usual English translation does not clarify what &quot;fountain&quot; is meant, the more literal translation would be &quot;The Moon Reflected in the Waters of the Second Spring.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you can also see possible name translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Moon Over a Fountain&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Moon Reflected in the Waters of the Second Spring&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally think that the aforementioned &lt;em&gt;The Moon's Reflection on the Second Spring&lt;/em&gt; is the most faithful translation though. But, &lt;em&gt;Moon over a Fountain&lt;/em&gt; gets a lot of Google hits and there are even recordings of this song on Spotify by said translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-03T09:35:47.493" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T09:35:47.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33493" CreationDate="2019-10-03T10:02:08.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;了 never appears in past negation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By definition, one of 了 grammatical functions is to indicate &lt;strong&gt;completed action&lt;/strong&gt;, and not past tense. Hence, if the action did not happen at all (没), it has also never been &lt;strong&gt;completed&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他还没来 - He still didn't come (and not&lt;code&gt;&lt;s&gt;他还没来了&lt;/s&gt;&lt;/code&gt;）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A side note to that is that 了 would appear in &lt;strong&gt;present&lt;/strong&gt; negation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他不来了 - He is not coming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T10:02:08.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34991" CreationDate="2019-10-03T11:04:08.633" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe 利口 is the Chinese for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://leetcode.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Leet Code&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[a] platform to help you enhance your skills, expand your knowledge and prepare for technical interviews.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the rest are just numbers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;耳丝耳 = 242&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丝久 = 49&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;斯尔 = 12&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;散灵思 = 304&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;丝丝久 = 449&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although there might be some mistakes in the numbers there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we take 利口散灵思 for example that gives us: LeetCode 304 which is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.csdn.net/fuxuemingzhu/article/details/83537572&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt; about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Range Sum Query 2D - Immutable（Python）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now back to the question at hand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.csdn.net/happyaaaaaaaaaaa/article/details/51525303&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Leetcode 22. Generate Parentheses&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.csdn.net/camellhf/article/details/72614638&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LeetCode 19. Remove Nth Node From End of List&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s.: the offical name for Leet Code in Chinese seems to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;力扣&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;maybe the alternative translation adds to the code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://leetcode.com/articles/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Leet Code&lt;/a&gt; has a list of articles here ordered by number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-12-10T09:27:49.857" LastActivityDate="2020-12-10T09:27:49.857" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35208" CreationDate="2019-10-03T13:46:55.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it should be introduced as (for non-chinese):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 唐 dynasty (618-907), mr &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Yu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;陸羽&lt;/a&gt; compared most springs (water comes out from earth naturally, not the season between winter &amp;amp; summer) in eastern china, ranked them; for the purpose of brewing tea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so &quot;二泉&quot; here is &quot;the second tastiest of all spring under the sky (天下第二泉) [for brewing tea].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;映月&quot;, should be interpreted as &quot;reflection of moon&quot;, literally. based on my reading experience, it implied loneliness and sadness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;together, i would interpret &quot;二泉映月&quot; as &quot;the lone reflection of the sad moon at the second tastiest spring for brewing tea&quot;, in order to trigger the interest of the audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2019-10-03T13:52:19.447" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T13:52:19.447" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35220" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-03T14:34:53.463" Score="2" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just saw &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Fish_%26_Begonia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the movie&lt;/a&gt;, and I can’t understand why it has this title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, &lt;strong&gt;A whale is not a fish!&lt;/strong&gt;  Is the word translated as “fish” used for all swimming animals?  Even if that’s the case, any idea why the movie producers would use a patently incorrect translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begonia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;begonia&lt;/a&gt; is a small herbaceous plant, that in no way resembles a big tree.  I think the big flowering tree is what the title is supposed to refer to, as one of the items on the Blu-Ray (a supplemental feature or a song; I don’t recall) gave it as &lt;em&gt;Big Fish and Chinese Blooming Crabapple&lt;/em&gt;.  I’ve tentatively identified it as &lt;em&gt;Malus spectabilis&lt;/em&gt;.  So, what’s all the talk about begonias?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9436" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T15:09:31.547" Title="“Big Fish &amp; Begonia” 大鱼海棠" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;movies&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35220" CreationDate="2019-10-03T15:09:31.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;lost in translation lah :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;according to wiki: the main actress is a fairy in charge of begonia (掌管海棠花)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the main actor, he change into &quot;鯤&quot; a legendary big marine creature, its body is more than several thousand chinese miles long (鯤之大・不知其幾千里也).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;big fish&quot; is a good enough name for such marine creature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyway, it's an anime for children, need to have a simple, easy to comprehend name, for both the local &amp;amp; foreign kids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T15:09:31.547" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35223" CreationDate="2019-10-04T02:27:51.923" Score="1" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E5%B7%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;差&lt;/a&gt; implies a kind of deficiency, so I expect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A比B差不多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to mean A is slightly &quot;worse&quot; than B in some way.  For example, I would expect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我比你差不多高&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to imply I am slightly shorter than you.  I'm not sure if this is correct, as &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B7%AE%E4%B8%8D%E5%A4%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;差不多&lt;/a&gt; is also used to mean &quot;about&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does 差不多 imply &quot;slightly less than&quot; when comparing quantities?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could imagine a conversation along these lines (I made this up):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A：你说那本书是50块，可是就是52块，你说错了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B：哎哟，差不多吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where A is grumpy that the book was 52 yuan, when B previously told A that it was 50 yuan, but B says it's 差不多 (much the same).  In this context, it seems like 差不多 means &quot;about&quot; and not &quot;almost&quot;.  Here 52 is greater than 50, so this raises some doubt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T04:40:14.593" Title="Does 差不多 (chàbùduō) imply &quot;slightly less than&quot; when comparing quantities?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35222" CreationDate="2019-10-04T03:29:50.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;差 = 相差 (difference) ;差距 (gap)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不多 = not much&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(adj) not much difference/ not much gap between&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(adv): almost / about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 差不多 as adjective:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;味道差不多 (not much difference in taste) - &lt;em&gt;could be slightly better or slightly worse&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;價格差不多 (not much difference in price) - &lt;em&gt;could be slightly higher or slightly lower&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 差不多 as adverb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多到了 means &amp;quot;we're almost there&amp;quot; (&lt;em&gt;not quite there yet, but close to&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;差不多死了  means &amp;quot;almost died&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;about to die&amp;quot; ( &lt;em&gt;not dead yet but will be soon&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When A ask B how much is the book,  and B said: &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;差不多&lt;/strong&gt;50块&amp;quot;, it mean &amp;quot;it &lt;strong&gt;is almost&lt;/strong&gt; 50 yuan&amp;quot; (= not quite 50 yuan)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When A found out the actual price is 52 yuan, he has every right to accuse B of lying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And B's excuse: &amp;quot;52块, 50块 &lt;strong&gt;差不多&lt;/strong&gt;吧?&amp;quot; (52 yuan and  50 yuan is &lt;strong&gt;not much a difference&lt;/strong&gt; right?) is using 差不多 in a different way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Does 差不多 (chàbùduō) imply “slightly less than” when comparing quantities?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 差不多 is used  as an adverb (is &lt;strong&gt;almost&lt;/strong&gt;) + quantities, it dose imply “slightly less than”, But when 差不多 is used as an adjective (&lt;strong&gt;not much difference&lt;/strong&gt;), then it only mean the objects are similar in some form of comparison.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A 比 B 差不多&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct form:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 跟 B 差不多 = not much difference between A and B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 比 B &lt;strong&gt;差&lt;/strong&gt;不了多少 = Compare to B, A is not much &lt;strong&gt;worse&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A 比 B 差不多 is not grammatical&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T04:12:08.077" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35222" CreationDate="2019-10-04T04:40:14.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common phrasing is A&lt;em&gt;和&lt;/em&gt;B差不多. 差不多，as a whole, means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;not much difference&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 你的身高和我差不多 or 我们俩个差不多一样高. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to use 比， you can say 和我比你还差得远，你和我比还差得远 etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's worth to note 你比我差不多 doesn't work quite well because 差不多 is almost a set phrase to mean &lt;em&gt;not much difference&lt;/em&gt;(which is different from what you expect it to mean).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T04:40:14.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35225" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35228" CreationDate="2019-10-04T07:47:20.093" Score="2" ViewCount="375" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching the movie &quot;fearless (2006)&quot; starring Jet Li and the character said to his friend &quot;After all these years of friend ship, you still don't know me?&quot; and then he goes with this phrase : &quot;刀不长眼&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's the Chinese conversation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;劲荪： 你走吧！&#xA;       就算我们这么多年朋友白交一场!&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;霍元甲： 你轰我走？这么多年的朋友，你不认我了？。。&#xA;        [A moment of silence and then he says]&#xA;        刀不长眼。&#xA;        所有人都退下。[shouting]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand the meaning of &quot;刀不长眼&quot; in this situation. because as long as I know 刀 means &quot;knife&quot; or a measure word for knife and 眼's translation is related to &quot;eye&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the meaning of &quot;刀不长眼&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22832" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T15:27:10.613" Title="What's the meaning of &quot;刀不长眼&quot;? Is it proverb or something like that?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35226" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-04T09:03:12.203" Score="0" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve found an interview and there is question that I have no idea what it's mean, the question is “什么时候发现自己师的”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I try to understand but not sure. Does it mean “When did you learn by yourself” or something? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T13:09:46.960" Title="What does 自己师 means?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35226" CreationDate="2019-10-04T09:26:09.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;师 is probably just a typo of 帅, handsome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T09:26:09.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35225" CreationDate="2019-10-04T13:07:00.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means the knife doesn't have eyes, it could hurt people easily.&#xA;In the sentence, it means if things lose control, some people will get hurt, so better it's better to calm down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22864" LastEditorUserId="12854" LastEditDate="2020-11-03T16:04:29.653" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T16:04:29.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35226" CreationDate="2019-10-04T13:09:46.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its probably a mistake,mostly its 帅 which means have a good looking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22864" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T13:09:46.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23431" CreationDate="2019-10-04T13:16:40.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means theres so much things u still need to learn from other people,even u pick three people on the road there gotta be something u could learn from them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22864" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T13:16:40.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35231" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35233" CreationDate="2019-10-05T00:02:16.610" Score="1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's common for children to be referred to as 小李, 小王, 小刘, etc. in Chinese (basically 小[姓], where [姓] is the family name).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I expect there is a certain age where it's no longer appropriate to call someone 小李, etc.  I also guess it's more likely that 小李 (sounding kind of cute) remains suitable for females longer than for males.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: At what age is it inappropriate to call people 小李, 小王, 小刘, etc.?  And is it different for males and females?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-10-05T00:43:50.613" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T06:02:13.707" Title="At what age is it inappropriate to call people 小李, 小王, 小刘, etc.? And is it different for males and females?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35231" CreationDate="2019-10-05T00:32:40.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The age depends more on the age difference of the speaker than anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An older person could call you 小李 as long as they were quite a bit older than you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the name stuck, it could last a lifetime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T00:32:40.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35231" CreationDate="2019-10-05T00:38:46.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not about the person's age, it is about is the person older or younger than you, and what kind of relationship between you and that person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone is about your age, and you two are close friends or at lease having a friendly relationship, it is OK. to call him 小李 or 老李&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone close to you is much older than you, it is OK. to call him 老李 but not 小李&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone close to you is much younger than you, it is OK. to call him 小李 but not 老李&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese men don't usually call a female friend 老李, 小李, 老王, 小王 .etc.  (it implies she is one of us guys) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are 80 years old, you still can call a 79 years old friend 老李, 小李, 老王, 小王 .etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T00:38:46.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35234" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-05T05:14:58.360" Score="1" ViewCount="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 正在 and 在 when using in sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我正在看电视&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在看电视  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't they accomplish the same thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22719" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T05:14:58.360" Title="The difference and usage of 正在 and 在" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-10-05T06:02:58.100" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35231" CreationDate="2019-10-05T06:02:13.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can not only precede 姓 but the last character of one's name. E.g. One of my friends' name is 王丽娟 and people around call her 小娟. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the point is that you can call whatever you feel right about the person. In my example,  小娟 sounds so cute  that only people who are on intimate terms might call her that name. The people who are on speaking terms might just call her 小王 instead if they feel she is young and energetic from their point of view. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't suggest that you try to call people 小x if you are not familiar with them unless they suggest it or people around call them like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T06:02:13.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35236" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35242" CreationDate="2019-10-05T07:05:33.913" Score="2" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我哋為咗決定去邊度度蜜月而閙交.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, I understand that the meaning is “we got into an argument when deciding where to go for a honeymoon.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the function of 而 and 為咗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-25T11:23:27.257" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T11:23:27.257" Title="What is the function of 而 and 為咗 in 我哋為咗決定去邊度度蜜月而閙交 in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;nuance&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35060" CreationDate="2019-10-05T07:47:09.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this is the case here, but in some theories of linguistics, 'field' is a technical term that refers to the way a text represents reality (or our experience of reality). I don't know what 'inner' and 'outer' fields would be, unless they could be referring to 'within the clause' and 'outside the clause'. If this is the case, the general idea is 'context', i.e. you can work out the tense from the context (e.g. 明天，昨天）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who is the original author of the text? Knowing their background could be helpful in understanding what framework they were using.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Okay, based on further info it looks like this answer is completely off-base.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20347" LastEditorUserId="20347" LastEditDate="2019-10-07T01:47:03.910" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T01:47:03.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35238" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35240" CreationDate="2019-10-05T09:07:10.907" Score="1" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 健忘 looks like a contradictio in adiecto: &quot;healthy&quot; + &quot;forget&quot;. Am I missing something? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22495" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T09:15:02.377" Title="Is the 健 in 健忘 (&quot;forgetful&quot;) ironic?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35238" CreationDate="2019-10-05T09:13:32.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;健 is not meaning healthy,it means &quot;good at something&quot;,like 健谈 means good at talking,康in健康means fine,healthy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22864" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T09:13:32.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35238" CreationDate="2019-10-05T09:15:02.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;健 in this word means &lt;em&gt;to be good at, to be skilled at&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;健忘 means &lt;em&gt;to be good at forgetting&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;forgetful&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T09:15:02.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35241" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-05T11:23:43.773" Score="0" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I was watching a show and they say, &#xA;你不用留爸爸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I got confused as to why they used 用 in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it the same when you don't use 用 in that sentence? Like,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你不留爸爸&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22719" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T23:09:21.587" Title="Usage of the word 用" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35236" CreationDate="2019-10-05T19:02:31.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;為咗&lt;/strong&gt; A &lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt; B] = [ to B &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; A]. It is a two parts function word for  &quot;&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[(&lt;strong&gt;為咗&lt;/strong&gt;) cause (&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;) verb]  =  [verb (&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;) cause] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;(&lt;strong&gt;為咗&lt;/strong&gt;)钱(&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;)工作&quot; =  &quot;work (&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;) money&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[我哋(&lt;strong&gt;為咗&lt;/strong&gt;)決定去邊度度蜜月(&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;)閙交] =  [we (&lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt;) quarrel (&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;) deciding where to go to have honeymoon] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, we have to omit &quot;to&quot; before the verb if there's a subject in the sentence , e.g. &quot;to work for money&quot; --&gt;  &quot;I work for money&quot;. but we don't omit &quot;而&quot; in &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;為咗&lt;/strong&gt;钱&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;工作&quot; in Chinese, because [&lt;strong&gt;為咗&lt;/strong&gt; cause &lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt; verb] is a set structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-06T02:55:30.277" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T02:55:30.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35194" CreationDate="2019-10-05T23:46:24.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia says &quot;a clause is a part of the sentence that contains a verb&quot;. So the first example has two separate verbs, and the second has one verb reduplicated to show aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20347" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T23:46:24.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35246" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-06T12:57:37.050" Score="2" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence: 我諗聽日先買飛嘅話一定買唔到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the function of “先”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original translation from a reference is “I don’t think you’ll be able to buy a ticket tomorrow.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not understand the role of “先”, and can it be discarded? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T21:51:18.210" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T21:51:18.210" Title="What is the function of 先 in 我諗聽日先買飛嘅話一定買唔到 (cantonese)" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35246" CreationDate="2019-10-06T16:20:40.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;先 here is short for 先至&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;先(first)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;至(then)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;先至 (first then)= &lt;strong&gt;till... then&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我諗&lt;em&gt;等到&lt;/em&gt;聽日(&lt;strong&gt;先&lt;/strong&gt;)買飛嘅話一定買唔到&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think if we &lt;em&gt;wait&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;till&lt;/strong&gt;) tomorrow (&lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt;) to buy ticket we will certainly fail to buy any&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &amp;quot;等到&amp;quot; (wait) is implied&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of difference between &amp;quot;先至/ 先&amp;quot; (till...then) and &amp;quot;先&amp;quot; (first/ for now)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做好功課(先至/先)准睇電視 - (Till) finish all the homework (then) allowed to watch TV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你地坐吓等陣(先) - you guys sit for a while and wait (first/ for now)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When &amp;quot;...先&amp;quot; is followed by a verb phrase, it is a short form of 先至, meaning &amp;quot;till ... then&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When 先 is at the end of a words clause, it means &amp;quot;first&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;for now&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T00:44:13.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35248" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35252" CreationDate="2019-10-07T01:09:43.040" Score="5" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;By &quot;China,&quot; I am referring to the Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan collectively, without regard to geopolitics. Is there a word that refers to this entire region that would not offend any Mainlanders, Taiwanese or citizens of the Special Administrative Units?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21935" LastEditorUserId="11374" LastEditDate="2020-09-18T03:04:06.340" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T03:04:06.340" Title="Is there a politically neutral Chinese term for Greater China that is acceptable to all Chinese speakers?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35250" CreationDate="2019-10-07T07:09:16.483" Score="0" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;A while back, my teacher asked me to use &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%B0%E5%AF%8C%E5%A4%9A%E5%BD%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;丰富多彩&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;richly colorful&quot;) in a sentence, but it wasn't received particularly well.  The relevant part in my writing was&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...丰富多彩地环境&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and she said 各种颜色 was more appropriate here.  (And it should be 的 instead of 地.)  I'm still quite uncomfortable with this term, particularly since it's an idiom.  I'm confused about both when it's suitable to use, and the surrounding grammar patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What kinds of things can be described as 丰富多彩, and how do I describe them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My impression from examples online is this it's not to be used to literally mean colorful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E6%96%87%E6%98%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;世界文明&lt;/a&gt;&lt;strong&gt;丰富多彩&lt;/strong&gt;，...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ... 让我的&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%9F%E6%B4%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;生活&lt;/a&gt;&lt;strong&gt;丰富多彩&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ... 我会设计&lt;strong&gt;丰富多彩&lt;/strong&gt;，形式多样的&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B4%BB%E5%8A%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;活动&lt;/a&gt; ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-10-07T07:14:21.883" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T09:38:20.873" Title="What kinds of things can be described as 丰富多彩 (richly colorful), and how do I describe them?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35249" CreationDate="2019-10-07T09:04:47.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;丰富多彩 is a combination of &quot;丰富&quot; (rich) and &quot;多姿多彩&quot; (colorful) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丰富 is mainly used for describing something with rich substance or contents;  多姿多彩 is mainly used for describing something &quot;colorful: entertaining; enjoyable&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Things that you can describe as 丰富多彩 (rich and colorful) including:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文笔，画功，剧情，生活，节目，故事 (Writing, drawing, plot, life, show, story) -- All these terms involve substance and enjoyment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;文笔丰富多彩 (rich and colorful writing) - your writings is rich in substance and have a lot of flair &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;画功丰富多彩 (rich and colorful drawing) - your drawings have a lot of contents and vibrant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剧情丰富多彩 (rich and colorful movies plot)- the plot of the movies is full of substance and entertaining&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest, I rather say 剧情丰富,多姿多彩 to make  the whole sentence idiomatic &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;丰富 (rich) can be used literally (abundant) or figuratively (rich)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;多姿多彩 (colorful) is mostly used figuratively  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-07T09:38:20.873" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T09:38:20.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35249" CreationDate="2019-10-07T09:21:22.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;丰富多彩 is never used in its literal sense. Always figurative. It describes  richness, diversity, colourfulness and etc. E.g 我们的生活丰富多彩。春节联欢晚会的节目丰富多彩。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T09:21:22.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35248" CreationDate="2019-10-07T13:51:04.600" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;maybe&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;大中華區&quot;. most multinational corporations used this term to describe the regions you mentioned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;such usage is correct, in context of nowadays, or recent decades. historically, taiwan was integrated into the chinese empire after ~1683. before that time, formosa was colonised by the dutch, spanish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Taiwan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;history of taiwan&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;last, and most importantly is: how do you define &quot;chinese speakers&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there're many ethnicities in &quot;greater china&quot; can speak chinese, they've their own cultures, languages and ideas of state / nation. so, &quot;politically neutral&quot; is, imo, unattainable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's better to seek a term that's vague, fuzzy enough; that no-one want to waste time and effort to argue its precise definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T03:23:45.960" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T03:23:45.960" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35253" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35254" CreationDate="2019-10-07T15:57:47.203" Score="2" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你日日喺我耳邊唱歌令我好壓抑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this statement, what is the function of 令？ and why is it not 對？ I was kind of expecting to see a “對” somewhere here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T10:37:24.317" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T10:37:24.317" Title="Function of 令 in 你日日喺我耳邊唱歌令我好壓抑 (cantonese)" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;nuance&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35253" CreationDate="2019-10-07T16:28:36.137" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;令 has the meaning of &amp;quot;make&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你日日喺我耳邊唱歌[令]我好壓抑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You sing by my ear side everyday [make] me very depress&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對 means &amp;quot;to&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你日日喺我耳邊唱歌, [對]我是一种折磨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You sing by my ear side everyday, [to] me is a kind of torture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You sing by my ear side everyday is a kind of torture [to] me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice: &amp;quot;令&amp;quot;(make) is a verb. &amp;quot;對&amp;quot; (to) is a preposition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T19:29:45.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35253" CreationDate="2019-10-07T22:59:19.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;令人 is a very common phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;令人：(used in conjunction with a verb) cause someone to (be, feel, etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;令人不可思议&#xA;令人失望&#xA;令人出乎意料&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你日日喺我耳邊唱歌[令]我好壓抑。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You singing in my ear every day is making me depressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T22:59:19.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35253" CreationDate="2019-10-08T00:17:13.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你日日喺我耳邊唱歌 &lt;strong&gt;令&lt;/strong&gt;我好壓抑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壓抑 is an adjective, so you can't use 對 here.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;令=make&lt;br&gt;&#xA;令 is followed by an adjective, eg壓抑&lt;br&gt;&#xA;.... makes me depressed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你日日喺我耳邊唱歌 &lt;strong&gt;對&lt;/strong&gt;我 ☓好壓抑 ✓造成好大困擾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;對=cause...to&lt;br&gt;&#xA;對 is followed by a noun/phrase&lt;br&gt;&#xA;... causes trouble to me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T00:17:13.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35248" CreationDate="2019-10-08T00:25:55.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;中國大陸和台灣 / mainland China and Taiwan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously Taiwan is not located inside mainland, so restricting China to mainland China may meet your purpose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T00:25:55.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35258" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35259" CreationDate="2019-10-08T07:04:29.947" Score="1" ViewCount="1089" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the sentence 唔知佢點解，佢閒日唔會打電話嚟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 閒日？&#xA;The official translation given by my reference is “weekdays”, but when i searched this in the dictionary, the meaning given is “free time”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is it? Is it a cultural difference? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T08:38:35.870" Title="Meaning of 閒日 (cantonese)" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35258" CreationDate="2019-10-08T07:31:41.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Words.hk defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;名詞&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  星期一至五, 唔屬於星期六日或公眾假期嘅日子（量詞：個）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  weekdays: Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday or Friday; usually with the restriction of a non-holiday&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And they give the example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;閒日飲茶有折喎！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  haan4 jat2 jam2 caa4 jau5 zit3 wo3!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Discount for dim-sum on weekdays! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;閒日 is literally made up of the characters for idle + day. Why weekdays are idle days could only be explained by slow business - because business is would, assumably, be good on the weekends and holidays. But you’d never hear this usage in Mandarin where it just simply means “off day,” i.e.: a day where one doesn’t work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guangzhouhua-Putonghua gives it a different Cantonese definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;背集；不逢集的日子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Non-market days.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CCCanto’s definition is also similar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;free time or off day&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T07:45:06.937" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T07:45:06.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35258" CreationDate="2019-10-08T08:18:23.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;閒日 means &quot;weekdays&quot; instead of &quot;weekend&quot; because restaurants, touring  and entertaining business get busy in weekend and holiday.  (I worked in restaurants, so I am familiar with this term)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;閒日(weekdays/non-busy days) is a lingo in the business mentioned above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more accurate translation of 閒日 should be &quot;non-holiday weekdays&quot; or literally &quot;non-busy day&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another Cantonese term for weekdays is &quot;拜頭&quot; (short for 禮拜頭). &quot;拜尾&quot; (short for 禮拜尾) means weekend. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T08:38:35.870" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T08:38:35.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35089" CreationDate="2019-10-08T08:26:06.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's a bit like 'a mouthful of ...'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22876" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T08:26:06.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35262" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-08T08:52:21.887" Score="3" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;the other one is '靠近方便, 贴近文明', both of which have different versions of English translations, most of them, though, suck. they go like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One small step forward&#xA;One giant leap toward civilization&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A small step for man, &#xA;A giant leap for mankind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Near the civilization&#xA;Near the wall&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;close to civilization, &#xA;Near to convenience &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8zW6e.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8zW6e.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any ones you guys find suitable and making sense to a western people?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22876" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T12:33:18.957" Title="how to translate this slogan '向前一小步，文明一大步' and the like in almost every public toilet in China" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26779" CreationDate="2019-10-08T09:06:01.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my understanding of this, many people don't see/ don't care the difference of these two types of 'hacker'. They just use them (黑客, 骇客) arbitrarily or prefer '黑客' for universal purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22876" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T09:06:01.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35262" CreationDate="2019-10-08T09:47:24.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;向前一小步， 文明一大步。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;靠近方便, 贴近文明。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What they both want to say is: Please pee in the urinal, not on the floor.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They just say it in a very discreet Chinese way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T09:47:24.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35262" CreationDate="2019-10-08T11:17:46.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The quote from your title:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'向前一小步，文明一大步。' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which literally translated to: &lt;code&gt;&quot;One small step forward, (is a) big step for civilization&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is kind of a paraphrase of Neil Armstrong's &lt;code&gt;&quot;One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind&quot;&lt;/code&gt; which translates, according to Wikiquote, to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'这是我个人的一小步，却是全人类的一大步。'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as mentioned above, this is a euphemistic way of asking people to get closer to the urinals in order to keep the floor dry and clean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="2792" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T12:33:18.957" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T12:33:18.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35266" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35267" CreationDate="2019-10-08T12:10:02.863" Score="0" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我愿意告诉你我的故事，可是后来就跟&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%B1%B3%E5%B7%B2%E6%88%90%E7%82%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;米已成炊&lt;/a&gt;一样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, it was intended as a warning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm willing to tell you my story, but afterwards I can't un-tell you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Chinese teacher indicated she understood what I meant, but gave me the impression the sentence didn't piece together well.  I'm particularly keen on using the idiom 米已成炊 as I need some practice using them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How can I use the idiom 米已成炊 to explain this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T04:27:21.433" Title="How can I use the idiom 米已成炊 to explain &quot;once I've told you, I can't un-tell you&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35266" CreationDate="2019-10-08T12:38:40.603" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;米已成炊 or 木已成舟 can't be used like the way you use them. They describe a &lt;strong&gt;situation&lt;/strong&gt; where you can do nothing but accept the fact because something has already happened and there's no way you could undo it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, it goes like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我已经把我的故事都告诉你了，没有办法再收回来了。 现在米已成炊了，我能怎么办呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我已经把我的故事都告诉你了，现在米已成炊, 没有办法再收回来了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T13:24:43.537" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T13:24:43.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35268" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-08T12:40:04.870" Score="2" ViewCount="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;我哋使唔使同佢準備個生日蛋糕？&#xA;The official translation is: “should we prepare a birthday cake for him?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering why the preposition “for” is used instead of “with”, given that 同 is used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thought is: should we prepare a birthday cake WITH him? (He prepares the cake together with us)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-10-03T01:35:21.560" LastActivityDate="2020-10-03T01:35:21.560" Title="What is the function of 同 in 我哋使唔使同佢準備個生日蛋糕？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;nuance&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35268" CreationDate="2019-10-08T13:19:53.623" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depend on the context, &amp;quot;同&amp;quot; as a preposition, can mean &amp;quot;with&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;for&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我哋使唔使[&lt;strong&gt;同&lt;/strong&gt;]佢準備個生日蛋糕&amp;quot; -- Do we need to prepare a birthday cake [&lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt;] him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我哋使唔使[&lt;strong&gt;同&lt;/strong&gt;]佢(&lt;strong&gt;一齊&lt;/strong&gt;)準備個生日蛋糕&amp;quot; -- Do we need to prepare a birthday cake [&lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt;] him (&lt;strong&gt;together&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;同&amp;quot; strongly implies &amp;quot;for&amp;quot; in your example sentence. Birthday boy usually doesn't prepare the cake himself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;[同]我打電話叫警察&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;make a phone call to the police [for] me&amp;quot;  (You don't need two people to make one phone call)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;同我去釣魚&amp;quot; is ambiguous, it can mean &amp;quot;go fishing with me &amp;quot; or &amp;quot;go fishing for me&amp;quot;. To eliminate the ambiguity, you can say &amp;quot;同我一齊去釣魚 (go fishing with me together) or &amp;quot;幫我去釣魚&amp;quot; (go fishing for me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again with the context: If it is a friend saying to you: &amp;quot;同我去釣魚好唔好?&amp;quot;, it would clearly be an invitation to you to go fishing [with] him; If you are a slave and your master say to you:&amp;quot;快啲同我去釣魚!&amp;quot; , then it would clearly be an order to you to go fishing [for] him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, when &amp;quot;同&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;for&amp;quot; you can replace it with &amp;quot;幫&amp;quot; (help/ for) e.g. &amp;quot;[幫]佢準備個生日蛋糕&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;[幫]我打電話叫警察&amp;quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T13:27:13.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35266" CreationDate="2019-10-08T13:52:19.240" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think my answer to this post &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/34940/anyone-heard-a-saying-about-marriage-being-like-cooking-rice/34941#34941&quot;&gt;Anyone heard a saying about marriage being like cooking rice?&lt;/a&gt; answered your question about when to use 米已成炊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;There is an expression &amp;quot;米已成炊&amp;quot; (rice is cooked) It describes &amp;quot;既成事實&amp;quot; (a realized fact)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When raw rice is cooked, it cannot be changed back to raw again. Old Chinese thinking considered marriage is permanent, must be treated with caution. If a man and a woman get married, it is like raw rice boiled to be cooked rice-- It is permanent, cannot be undone. The only option is to eat it, meaning accept it&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In the past, if a man and a woman had sex, they had no choice but to get marry. &amp;quot;米已成炊&amp;quot; can also describe this fact.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 木已成舟, it can be used more generally for describing something that has became a &amp;quot;realized fact&amp;quot; and the only option is to accept it. e.g. &amp;quot;就像木已成舟一樣, 最高法院法官就任後就不能被罷免&amp;quot;，(Just like a tree had turned into a boat, once a Supreme court judge is appointed, he cannot be removed from his position)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;木已成舟 can also replace 米已成炊 for describing &amp;quot;marriage is permanent&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you said you want to give a warning before you tell someone something, I presume you meant that person might not like what he will hear. If it is the case, I suggest &amp;quot;別說我沒警告你，一旦我把事情告訴了你，你就不能當没聽過&amp;quot; (Don't say I didn't warn you, once I told you the story, you cannot pretend you never heard it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't think of an idiom that mean: &amp;quot;別說我沒警告你&amp;quot; (Don't say I didn't warn you), but you can use an idiomatic phrase like &amp;quot;事先警告&amp;quot; (be forewarned)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T04:27:21.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35271" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35272" CreationDate="2019-10-08T14:22:46.497" Score="0" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence: 你要重新開過一次機。&#xA;The official translation is: you will have to restart the machine again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel this Has a very awkward word order since the object (機) is at the last after a string of modifiers and other words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this normal? Is there another way to say this from a beginner’s point of view? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T15:39:52.680" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T04:10:32.060" Title="Is this an awkward ordering of words? (Cantonese)" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35271" CreationDate="2019-10-08T15:13:30.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;機 is not the object, It is part of the verb phrase &quot;開機&quot; - &quot;turn (machine/ device) on&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like &quot;吃飯&quot; is a single verb phrase, where 飯 is not an object. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence is grammatical. Just too wordy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[(重新) + verb + (過)] is a set structure meaning [(from the start) + verb + (again)] e.g &quot;重新做過&quot; (from the start do it again)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The awkward part is 一次 is kind of redundant, &quot;Do it again&quot; already indicated &quot;do it one more time&quot; , you really don't need  to add &quot;一次&quot; (once) in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either 你要重新開過機 or 你要重新開一次機 (you have to start from the beginning and turn the device on again) would flow much more smoothly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T01:12:21.467" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T01:12:21.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35273" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-08T17:02:21.770" Score="2" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like for school my teacher gave us an example 看足球赛的学生. And she wanted us to do that format. Such as the music I like or students who are doing homework at school So is it the thing the subject is doing 的 and then the subject. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22881" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T05:11:47.950" Title="How do you use 的 at the end of a sentence" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35273" CreationDate="2019-10-08T19:28:53.867" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;看足球赛 is a complete sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding adjective marker &quot;的&quot; after a sentence or phrase turn it into an adjectival phrase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adjectival phrase describes the noun that follows.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Simple phrase]: 看足球赛 = watch football match&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Adjectival phrase]: 看足球赛(的) = (those who) watch football matches&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Adjectival phrase with subject]: 看足球赛(的)学生 = (those/ the) students (who) watch football matches&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Since 看足球赛的 is an adjective, you can follow the grammar structure of [subject + is + adjective] and write &#xA;&quot;那些学生 是 看足球赛的&quot; (those students are the ones who watch football matches)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="22375" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T05:11:47.950" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T05:11:47.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35241" CreationDate="2019-10-08T23:09:21.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你不用留爸爸 means &quot;you don't need to/have to try to make dad stay&quot;&#xA;你不留爸爸 would mean &quot;you don't try to make dad stay&quot;, so more like stating a fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22883" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T23:09:21.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34760" CreationDate="2019-10-09T03:59:49.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;管你X还是Y, 只要是Z&lt;br&gt;&#xA;只要是Z, 管你X还是Y&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The key is really what is Z, not X nor Y.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are unlimited variants of X and Y for this phrase. I don't see how remembering the same surname would be useful for mastering this phrase. You should be focusing on the differences between Z and (X,Y)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T03:59:49.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35271" CreationDate="2019-10-09T04:10:32.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你要重新開過一次機 is not quite standard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要重新開機 is a standard way to say you have to restart the machine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你要重新開過(一次)機 may have a slightly different meaning of saying&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You have to start the machine all over again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T04:10:32.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35278" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35283" CreationDate="2019-10-09T05:04:57.733" Score="0" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;佢唔單只感冒，仲發燒添。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Not only does he have a cold, but he also has a fever. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the function of 添？ I feel rather awkward saying it. I searched the dictionary and doesn’t look like it has added any meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20355" LastEditorUserId="21363" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T15:46:14.667" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T04:47:24.600" Title="Not only, but also (in cantonese)" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;nuance&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34981" CreationDate="2019-10-09T05:17:09.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 烏鴉嘴 for negative self-fulfilling prophecy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;note: 烏鴉嘴 is restricted to only &lt;em&gt;negative&lt;/em&gt; self-fulfilling prophecy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more native way to express&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you remain this negative, your thoughts will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to Chinese could be 你再這樣想/說, 你的烏鴉嘴就要成真了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(You'll jinx it if you keep saying it/thinking about it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T05:17:09.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35280" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-09T06:24:38.660" Score="0" ViewCount="910" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this video &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/SE_ccFHjL_w?t=749&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;One Child Policy: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)&lt;/a&gt; there's a description of only children:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;little emperors or little meatballs as they're sometimes called in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These terms are referring to spoiled only kids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Little emperor is easy: 小皇帝. But I don't think I've ever heard mention of &quot;little meatballs.&quot; What's the original term? 小丸子? 小肉丸?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas? Where'd the term originate from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T06:48:46.433" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T08:27:33.453" Title="What is the term little meatballs (referring to spoiled kids)?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35280" CreationDate="2019-10-09T06:56:47.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Little meat ball (小肉丸 or 小肉球) is not a standard English expression, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He is a child therefore he's small (小)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He is full of meat (肉)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;And he is plump/ round like a ball (丸/ 球) -- another words for fat&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oliver was making fun of that little plump child, saying he looked like a little meat ball (小肉丸). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you indulge your child with excessive food, allow him to not do any work or exercise, he will be spoiled and looked like a little meat ball, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T07:04:43.757" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T07:04:43.757" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35278" CreationDate="2019-10-09T07:11:50.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;仲 = also&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;添 = add / additionally&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[(&lt;strong&gt;仲&lt;/strong&gt;) ~ (&lt;strong&gt;添&lt;/strong&gt;)] is a set structure for [(&lt;strong&gt;in addition, also&lt;/strong&gt;) ~ ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仲發燒添 means &quot;in addition, also have fever&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T07:11:50.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35278" CreationDate="2019-10-09T08:23:36.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might be interested in these notes from &lt;em&gt;ABC Cantonese&lt;/em&gt; on the word 添:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 more &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;畀多我一百蚊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  bei2 do1 ngo5 jat1 baat3 man1 tim1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Give me one hundred dollars more &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;食多啲&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  sik6 do1 di1 tim1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Eat some more &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Notes: occurs at end of sentence to indicate action is expected to be repeated; usually pronunciation with high falling tone; also written as 㖭 tim1, 添 tim1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2 as well, also, more, again &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;佢撞到人唔道歉,仲鬧人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  keoi5 zong6 dou2 jan4 m4 dou6 hip3, zung6 naau6 jan4 tim1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  After bumping into somebody, he didn't apologize, and even scolded that person as well &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;噉做法仲弊&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  gam2 zou6 faat3 zung6 bai6 tim1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Doing it this way is also even worse &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Notes: follows 仲 zung6 to emphasize something additional is involved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T08:23:36.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35286" CreationDate="2019-10-09T08:24:18.873" Score="0" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following example sentence is from the book 标准教程 HSK 4上 (p.32):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DI8q6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DI8q6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;标准教程 HSK 4上 page 32&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最近小雨太忙了，没时间帮你，你还是[另外/另]找别人吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means something to the effect of &lt;em&gt;Recently Little Yu is too busy and has no time to help you, you had better find someone else.&lt;/em&gt;  It's an example of where either 另外 and 另 can be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand why 另外 (or 另) comes before 找 (are we searching again for help?), and I don't understand why we need both 另外 (or 另) and 别, which both mean another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is there both 另外 and 别 in this sentence, and why does 另外 come before 找?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T21:08:18.790" Title="Why is there both 另外 and 别 in the sentence 你还是另外找别人吧, and why does 另外 come before 找?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35284" CreationDate="2019-10-09T08:39:56.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;最近小雨太忙了，没时间帮你，你还是另外找人吧。sounds better, according to my 翻译者。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Little Rain&quot; is very busy, she's no time to help you, you'd better look elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Little Rain&quot; sounds like an Apache name!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T08:39:56.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35284" CreationDate="2019-10-09T08:51:13.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a very hamfisted example of what the book is trying to illustrate -- that 另外 and 另 can both be used to modify a verb, but that 另 is restricted to modify only monosyllabic verbs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the first part of your question: 另外/另 before 找 because it is specifically modifying the verb 找 using 另外/另 (note that you cannot use 另 for non-monosyllabic words according to the book).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second part of your question involves the meaning of 别, which here, I believe you should take into account that 别 attaches to 人， so that you have 别人 as one word meaning &quot;another person&quot; (or more specifically &quot;a person that is not already been mentioned&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case, 另外 is modifying 找, emphasizing that it is an additional and different task to be done, whereas 别人 mentions another person. I feel like it means something along the lines of &quot;you should rather (do the additional task of) finding another person&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19368" LastEditorUserId="19368" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T09:11:38.857" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T09:11:38.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35287" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-09T15:30:55.327" Score="1" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently came across 小葱拌豆腐一清二白 as a dictionary submission, but the explanation of the submitter was unclear. I have had mixed/little luck searching for the expression (or parts of it), and I also had no luck trying to obtain clarification from a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is this even one single expression? 一清二白 also appears to be a chengyu on its own.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the meaning/interpretation of 小葱拌豆腐一清二白 and/or  一清二白?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16280" LastEditorUserId="16280" LastEditDate="2019-10-10T18:03:56.597" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T18:03:56.597" Title="Idiom/chengyu meaning: 小葱拌豆腐一清二白" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35287" CreationDate="2019-10-09T17:35:56.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;小葱拌豆腐一清二白 is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4242/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;歇後語&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4242/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;歇後語&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;two-part allegorical saying; enigmatic folk simile; truncated witticism&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[literal] after-pause saying&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小葱 is green onion, which is white and green; 豆腐 is tofu, which is white&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The first part of the allegorical  小葱拌豆腐 means &amp;quot;green onion mix with tofu&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The second part of the allegorical 一青二白 means &amp;quot;it is either green or white&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;And 青 sounds like 清(clean), therefore the real expression is 一清二白 (clean and pure)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The term &lt;strong&gt;清白&lt;/strong&gt; (clean + white/ pure) is a compound word for &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;innocent&lt;/strong&gt;/ &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;guildless&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一清二白 emphasize both characters in 清白.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The common expressions using the same [一(X)二(Y)] structure include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;清楚 (clear) --&amp;gt; 一清二楚 (completely clear)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;乾淨 (clean) --&amp;gt; 一乾二淨 (completely and cleanly; completely clean)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;窮(poor) 白(bare/ empty) --&amp;gt; 一窮二白 (poor and have nothing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 清白 means &amp;quot;guildless&amp;quot; , then 一清二白 would mean &amp;quot;completely guildless&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike 一清二楚 and 一乾二淨, 一清二白 is not a common expression. That is one strike against it for listing in dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小葱拌豆腐 - 一清二白 is more of a enigmatic folk simile. its usage is only regional, if it end up as an dictionary entry, it has to be labeled as &amp;quot;regional folk saying&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never heard a similar expression of 小葱拌豆腐 in Cantonese before, the usage of this two-part allegorical saying is certainly not universal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples of two-part allegorical:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(Mandarin) 和尚打傘 - 無(髮)法無天 / (Cantonese) 和尚擔遮 - 無(髮)法無天 = &amp;quot;lawless&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(Mandarin) 肉包子打狗 - 有去沒回 = &amp;quot;gone forever&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(Cantonese) 寡母婆死仔 - 冇晒望 = &amp;quot;hopeless&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(Cantonese) 賣魚佬冲涼 - 冇(腥)聲氣 = &amp;quot;no result&amp;quot; ; &amp;quot;no sign&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T01:31:35.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35287" CreationDate="2019-10-10T00:41:44.857" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;一清二白 is a very common idiom. It's well defined in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E4%B8%80%E6%B8%85%E4%BA%8C%E7%99%BD&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this dictionary&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;◎ 一清二白 yī qīng èr bái&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) [be perfectly spotless]∶非常清白 e.g. 素来一清二白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) [be perfectly clear; as&#xA;clear as daylight]∶ 同“一清二楚” e.g. 记得一清二白&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小葱拌豆腐一清二白 is 歇后语 as the other answer indicated. 歇后语 usually have two parts. The first part describes a way how the second part is generated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, 小葱拌豆腐 is a type of Chinese dish, which only consists of 小葱 and 豆腐. 青 and 白 refers to colors. 拌(stir) is the way the dish is made. 豆腐 is white(白). 葱 is cyan or green(青).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when you look at the dish, you would easily tell 小葱 from 豆腐（and vice versa） because their colors are very distinctive. One is 青(一青), and the other is 白（二白）. That's how 一青二白 forms. 一青二白 and 一清二白 are homophones. In spoken, you wouldn't hear any difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;歇后语 is kind of word play in my view and usually used when one tries to make some funny/humorous effect, impress his listeners, etc. E.g. 做人要像小葱拌豆腐一样，一清二白.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T02:13:18.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35278" CreationDate="2019-10-10T04:47:24.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;添 can be optional. It's used to exaggerate his expression. You can say &lt;code&gt;佢唔單只感冒，仲發燒&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T04:47:24.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35246" CreationDate="2019-10-10T05:07:22.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it can be discarded. You can say &lt;code&gt;我諗聽日買飛嘅話一定買唔到&lt;/code&gt; and the meaning is the same. I'm not sure if it's &quot;until&quot;, but I feel it's similar to &quot;才“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T05:07:22.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9427" CreationDate="2019-10-10T07:19:25.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In these terms, I think 分 and 离 is more acceptable than 散. &lt;br/&gt;&#xA; &lt;strong&gt;分&lt;/strong&gt; usually used as a couple(not married) break up, &lt;strong&gt;离&lt;/strong&gt; means a married couple divorced. &lt;br/&gt; while &lt;strong&gt;散&lt;/strong&gt; is much less used in my experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6260" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T07:19:25.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35280" CreationDate="2019-10-10T20:27:47.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a very standard way to refer to a small/newborn baby/child. 小肉丸/球 is a way to materialize the baby as a small meatball, which is cute and delicate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because the kid is the only child, so parents stuff the child with excessive resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T20:27:47.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35294" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35296" CreationDate="2019-10-11T01:47:35.710" Score="4" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually when first learning Chinese we learn that &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%BA%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;为什么&lt;/a&gt; means &quot;why&quot;.  However, I recently encountered &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9B%A0%E4%B8%BA%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;因为什么&lt;/a&gt;, and I'm wondering if it's different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你因为什么给关进去?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Why were you put in?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;(玛帝尔达 (Matilda), page 114; &lt;a href=&quot;http://jssisdubai.com/document/uploaded/matilda.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English version&lt;/a&gt; pdf page 101)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It directly combines &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9B%A0%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;因为&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;because&quot; with &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;什么&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;what&quot;, so it looks like it means &quot;for what reason&quot; or &quot;why&quot;, i.e., it's the same as 为什么.  I'm not sure if there's any distinction though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 因为什么 and 为什么?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T21:41:44.897" Title="What's the difference between 因为什么 and 为什么?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35294" CreationDate="2019-10-11T03:43:25.483" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say you could opt to translate them these two different ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;为什么 = why?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;因为什么 = how come?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which matches to English fairly well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为什么, though, is usually part of a larger sentence structure like &lt;em&gt;[...]是因为什么原因[...]&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T03:43:25.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35206" CreationDate="2019-10-11T03:47:40.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the only thing can defeat me is poverty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22897" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T03:47:40.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35301" CreationDate="2019-10-11T07:18:39.243" Score="5" ViewCount="3324" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that there are two different pronunciations of 了：&#xA;- Usually it's pronounced &quot;le&quot;.&#xA;- in some situations it's pronounced &quot;liǎo&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我用了很多年才了解什么是武术。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As much as I realized, according to Google Translate, the second &quot;了&quot; is pronounced &quot;liao&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When is &quot;了&quot; pronounced &quot;le&quot; and when is it pronounced &quot;liao&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22832" LastEditorUserId="22832" LastEditDate="2019-10-11T07:37:21.433" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T02:55:54.593" Title="When is &quot;了&quot; pronounced &quot;le&quot; and when is it pronounced &quot;liao&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35299" CreationDate="2019-10-11T07:29:17.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/460/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;了&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/le5/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) [aspect marker] indicating completed action &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) [final particle] indicating change of situation &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/1764/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;算了&lt;/a&gt; /suan4 le5/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/8721/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;對了&lt;/a&gt; /dui4 le5/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/liao3/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) [v] finish; end; conclude; settle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) [verb particle] indicating possibility&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/2087/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不得了&lt;/a&gt; /bu4 de2 liao3/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/628/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;了解&lt;/a&gt; /liao3 jie3/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T07:29:17.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35299" CreationDate="2019-10-11T07:39:43.860" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if 了 is within a single content word, it should be produnced as &quot;liao&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if 了 acts as an independent auxiliary word indicating a change of state or introducing a new situation (Verbs have no past tense in Chinese, therefore some auxiliary words would be used to indicate it), it should be produnced as &quot;le&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese sentences, there are no blanks to separate the words. Therefore you must separate them in your mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, we can separate words like this (just do separation, it is not a correct translation):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我 用 了  很多   年  才  了解      什么  是  武术。&#xA;I  used many years to understand  what is  KongFu.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yeah, 了解 is a single content word (verb) meaning &quot;understand&quot; (we can't separate it into 了 and 解)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22899" LastEditorUserId="2792" LastEditDate="2019-10-13T02:55:54.593" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T02:55:54.593" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35294" CreationDate="2019-10-11T08:01:41.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: &amp;quot;为了什么殺人?&amp;quot;/ &amp;quot;为什么殺人&amp;quot; (why you kill?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: &amp;quot;为了錢&amp;quot;/ &amp;quot;为錢&amp;quot; (for money)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为了什么/ 为什么 = for what/ why&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we want to know the &lt;strong&gt;motive&lt;/strong&gt; for you to do it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you do it because you want the money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q:&amp;quot;因为什么而殺人?&amp;quot;/ &amp;quot;因什么而殺人?&amp;quot; (you kill because of what?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:&amp;quot;因为妒忌而殺人&amp;quot; / &amp;quot;因妒忌而殺人&amp;quot; (I kill because of jealousy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为什么 / 因什么 = because of what&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we want to know what is the &lt;strong&gt;cause&lt;/strong&gt; of you doing it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you don't want to be jealous, but jealousy is the cause&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为妒忌而殺人 sounds like you kill because you want to be jealous (of cause we understand you meant jealousy caused you to kill)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;为了錢而殺人 clearly stated you do it for money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;因为錢而殺人 just stated money is the cause, may be that guy you killed stole all your money and you killed him for revenge. In this case money is the cause, not your motive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么殺人 put the verb 殺人 directly after 为什么&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为什么而殺人 is in a [(因 ~ 而) + (v)] = [(v) (because of) ~] structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone ask you 为什么殺人(why you kill) , you can reply either &amp;quot;为錢而殺人&amp;quot; (state your motive) or &amp;quot;因錢而殺人&amp;quot; (state the cause)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T08:37:14.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35303" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-11T12:55:22.927" Score="2" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, I'm trying to understand the function of 的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;姐姐 给 我 买 的 衬衫.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought it might indicate possession, but (in my beginner understanding), that would require 的 to be between 2 nouns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22901" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-26T04:15:52.540" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T07:24:54.233" Title="What purpose is 的 serving in 姐姐给我买的衬衫?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35303" CreationDate="2019-10-11T13:19:40.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;See my answer to this post &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22204/why-no-%e7%9a%84-in-this-sentence&quot;&gt;Why no 的 in this sentence?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的 1.(adjective suffix): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;的 2.(possessive):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;的&quot; in  [姐姐给我买] [的] [衬衫] is an &quot;adjective suffix&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;姐姐给我买的&quot; (the one that my sister bought me) is an adjectival phrase that describes the noun &quot;衬衫&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What shirt? The shirt that my sister bought for me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Using the adjective suffix 的 can turn a very short phrase or a long sentence into an adjectival phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;失敗 (fail)--&gt; 失敗的人 (failed person/ the person who failed )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒有工作，整天玩電腦遊戲 (have no job and play computer games all day) --&gt; 沒有工作，整天玩電腦遊戲的人 (the person who has no job and plays computer games all day)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-11T13:35:29.533" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T13:35:29.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35306" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35307" CreationDate="2019-10-12T01:47:40.527" Score="3" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an Idiom/成語 for &quot;Worrying does not change the outcome&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be used when someone is spending a lot of time / energy worrying about something that they have no control over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for any help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22907" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T02:14:29.977" Title="Idiom/成語 for &quot;Worrying Doesn't Change the Outcome&quot;" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35306" CreationDate="2019-10-12T02:05:01.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/40877/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;杞人憂天&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was a man in Qi always worrying about the sky might fall. People use the term 杞人憂天 to describe someone worry too much, even about the most unlikely events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Worry about car accident is one thing, worry about alien invasion or zombie apocalypse is really 杞人憂天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-12T02:14:29.977" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T02:14:29.977" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35308" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35310" CreationDate="2019-10-12T05:32:49.403" Score="0" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just encountered in the HSK4 book 一份工作 while I'm accustomed to 一家工作.  Judging from Baidu (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E2%80%9D%E4%B8%80%E4%BB%BD%E5%B7%A5%E4%BD%9C%E2%80%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一份工作&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E2%80%9D%E4%B8%80%E5%AE%B6%E5%B7%A5%E4%BD%9C%E2%80%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一家工作&lt;/a&gt;), both are grammatically correct and widely used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am unsure if they're different or not.  My guess in this case is that they're the same, but sometimes the measure word changes the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 一份工作 and 一家工作?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T07:53:31.357" Title="What's the difference between 一份工作 and 一家工作?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35308" CreationDate="2019-10-12T05:54:26.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一份 is a proper classifier for 工作 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一份工作 is grammatical&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一家 is a proper classifier for 公司&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一家工作 is not grammatical ,  一家公司 is&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The examples you found about 一家工作 are mostly out of context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[(在同一家)(工作)] = [(work at) (the same place)] - &lt;em&gt;一家 is a classifier for an establishment that employ people, e.g. 一家公司, 一家工厂 or 一家出版社 which is omitted&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[(创立)(一家)(工作时间自由的公司)] = [(establish) (a) (company that has flexible work hours)] - &lt;em&gt;一家 is a proper classifier for 公司, not 工作&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;[(我)(上一家)(工作过的公司)] = [(the last) (company I've worked for)] - &lt;em&gt;一家 is a proper classifier for 公司, not 工作&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-12T06:06:02.773" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T06:06:02.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35308" CreationDate="2019-10-12T07:53:31.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct measure word for 工作 is 份, so 一份工作 is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一家工作 you linked in is shorthand for 一家&lt;strong&gt;公司&lt;/strong&gt;工作. In spoken, you might hear one say 我在这一家工作了很久 == 我在这一家&lt;em&gt;公司/单位&lt;/em&gt;工作了很久. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T07:53:31.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35311" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-12T10:20:22.457" Score="4" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;Need a word to describe someone who doesn't need the product but buys it because he/she has a coupon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would use 贪小便宜的 , but what is a proper equivalent in English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have seen the posts&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/308698/a-word-for-a-person-who-never-overpays&quot;&gt;https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/308698/a-word-for-a-person-who-never-overpays&lt;/a&gt;, still couldn't decide which is the best one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note：I am looking for the English equivalent of 贪小便宜的，rather than a Chinese synonym.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22909" LastEditorUserId="22909" LastEditDate="2019-10-16T06:57:43.073" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T06:57:43.073" Title="a word/phrase for 贪小便宜的" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35312" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-12T17:08:36.660" Score="1" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to ''Wiedenhof's A Grammar of Mandarin'', page 415, &lt;em&gt;shénmo&lt;/em&gt; is also a possible transliteration of 什麼 &lt;em&gt;shénme&lt;/em&gt;, with their final vowels being schwas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In what contexts is this true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15764" LastEditorUserId="15764" LastEditDate="2019-10-24T21:19:55.650" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T09:44:51.520" Title="shénmo pronounced as homophone of 什麼 shénme" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35311" CreationDate="2019-10-12T23:03:59.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use 葛朗台, which is actually the Chinese translation of the main character's name in &lt;em&gt;Eugénie Grandet&lt;/em&gt;, a novel by French author Honoré de Balzac. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A less witty one would be 小气鬼，which is equivalent to the English penny-pincher or cheapskate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22640" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T23:03:59.907" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35311" CreationDate="2019-10-13T01:56:53.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Need a word to describe someone who doesn't need the product but buys&#xA;  it because he/she has a coupon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want 1 word, in Chinese (or English?), for a compulsive redeemer of coupons. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a word does not exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to redeem this coupon.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我想使用这张优惠券。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he has a coupon for something, he will buy it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如果他有优惠券，他就会买东西的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a compulsive consumer: 一个强迫症消费者&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thrift: 节约, 节俭&lt;br&gt;&#xA;thrifty: 节俭的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a compulsive saver: 一个强迫症节俭者。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A person who has to use coupons if he has them might then be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a compulsive redeemer of coupons: 一个强迫症使用优惠券者???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She just has to use coupons.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;她强迫性地使用优惠券。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wasn't there a Hongkong film &quot;消费狂“ about a woman who could not stop buying?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T01:56:53.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35213" CreationDate="2019-10-13T04:42:21.870" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it's a transliteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese term「邏輯」first appeared in a Chinese translation of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_System_of_Logic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;John Stuart Mill's &lt;em&gt;A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. The Chinese translation title is 《穆勒名學》 by 嚴復, and the Chinese word「邏輯」is directly explained there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;案邏輯此翻名學。其名義始於希臘。為邏各斯一根之轉。邏各斯一名兼二義。在心之意。出口之詞。皆以此名。引而申之。則為論為學。故今日泰西諸學。&lt;strong&gt;其西名多以羅支結響。羅支即邏輯也。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To add, the only manner of any kind of semantic matching is「輯」(&lt;em&gt;compile&lt;/em&gt;), which is the explanation of「邏各斯」turning into「邏輯」. From the same paragraph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;strong&gt;故邏各斯名義最為奧衍&lt;/strong&gt;。而本學之所以稱邏輯者。以如貝根言。是學為一切法之法。一切學之學。明其體之尊。&lt;strong&gt;為用之廣。則變邏各斯為邏輯以名之。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but this isn't a semantic matching of the Greek root, and more a semantic matching of the rather wide application of the suffix &lt;em&gt;-ology&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-10-13T05:21:33.113" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T05:21:33.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35316" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35320" CreationDate="2019-10-13T05:04:26.417" Score="0" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't understand this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F9KE4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F9KE4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;什么时候我也会看到你们受这份罪的，你们两个。&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么时候我也会看到你们受这份罪的，你们两个。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I'll be seeing you some time, you two.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(玛帝尔达 (Matilda), page 127; &lt;a href=&quot;http://jssisdubai.com/document/uploaded/matilda.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English version&lt;/a&gt; pdf page 111)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't seem too well matched to the English text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When [什么时候] I [我] also [也] will [会] see [看到] you (plural) [你们] ??? [受这份罪的]，you both [你们两个].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps 什么时候我也 combines to mean something like &amp;quot;I always...&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does this sentence mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T06:58:56.333" Title="What does this mean 什么时候我也会看到你们受这份罪的，你们两个?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35316" CreationDate="2019-10-13T06:16:20.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;“You two… Someday I will see you both suffering from this.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possible syntax error exists. Please let me know :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;UPDATE&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for the misinterpretation above: that is not an answer to the question in OP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the English version, the Chinese translation contained something that may not even exist in the original transcript.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么时候我也会看到你们受这份罪的, 你们两个.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be a curse if no more context involved, whose corresponding translation is presented above. But according to the book, it seems that this Hortensia simply means &amp;quot;I'll be seeing you [be treated like this] some time, you two&amp;quot;. This is actually a simple warning that the Headmistress would be very harsh on these little girls, and Hortensia seems to be in audience only, i.e. stand by and watch the scene.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, a treatment described in that tale is truly something that one might &amp;quot;suffer&amp;quot; [since this is not only something one might going through, but also with so much agony and pain], so the Chinese translator used “受这份罪”. Instead I would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有一天/我/也会看到/你们两个[被这么对待的吧].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some time / I /will be seeing / you two [be treated like this].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T06:58:56.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35316" CreationDate="2019-10-13T07:51:09.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(when you suffered from trouble ,may someone laugh at you then you say this ) you two will get in trouble like me, oneday. (it seems like speaker is angry and ask you don't laugh at him. )&#xA;im a chinese, you can ask if you want .but my English is pooooool &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22913" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T07:51:09.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35316" CreationDate="2019-10-13T08:56:52.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;[什么时候] - Some day&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[我也会] - I too will&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[看到] - see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[你们受] - you suffer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[这份罪的]- this pain/ suffering&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;罪 in 受罪 doesn't mean &amp;quot;crime&amp;quot;. It is referring to &amp;quot;pain/ suffering&amp;quot; and 受罪(suffer - &lt;em&gt;like being punished&lt;/em&gt;) is a synonym of 受苦 (suffer- &lt;em&gt;pain&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[你们两个] - the two of you (&lt;em&gt;The speaker add this as a declaimer to make sure his target take notice how serious he is&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;什么时候我也会看到你们受这份罪的,你们两个!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Some day, I will see you suffer this pain too, the two of you&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar example: &amp;quot;You will pay for this! All of you will pay!&amp;quot; (你們會為此付出代價! 你們所有人都會付出代價!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T11:28:53.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35321" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-13T11:46:41.683" Score="4" ViewCount="698" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are the numbers of my google searh result with inverted commas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三五个：11,400,000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;三四个：&lt;strong&gt;33,800,000&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;四五个：14,500,000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;五六个：12,600,000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;四六个：&lt;strong&gt;4,710,000&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As can be observed, the frequency of &quot;三四个&quot; stands out among others and the frequency of &quot;四六个&quot; is significantly lower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that in China, saying &quot;六四&quot;, especially online, can be risky. But what's wrong with &quot;四六&quot;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T20:59:55.013" Title="Why people more frequently say &quot;三四个&quot;, less frequently say &quot;三五个&quot; or &quot;四五个&quot; or &quot;五六个&quot;, and even more less frequently say &quot;四六个&quot;？" Tags="&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35322" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-13T11:56:17.907" Score="0" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;My favourite... &#xA;Pls also provide jyutping&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22915" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T07:50:18.460" Title="How do I say “my favourite person” in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35323" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-13T13:01:33.763" Score="1" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read both 星岛日报 (published in Hong Kong) and 世界日报 (published in the US, but with an apparent focus on Taiwan) in print and online. Both papers are written in Traditional Chinese, but I notice that the Hong Kong paper is significantly more difficult to read. I notice a few Cantonese expressions scattered throughout, but this isn't enough to explain the increased difficulty. My impression is that 世界日报 uses more colloquial Mandarin expressions whereas 星岛日报 uses more conservative language harking back to Classical Chinese. Has anyone else noticed any pattern of differences in word choice or turns of phrase that would explain why Taiwanese newspapers are easier to read for Mandarin speakers than Hong Kong papers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21935" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T04:05:28.703" Title="Differences in reading difficulty between Taiwan and Hong Kong newspapers?" Tags="&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35321" CreationDate="2019-10-13T14:07:17.080" Score="6" Body="&lt;h3&gt;1. About 三四个，四五个，五六个 and ballpark numbers&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's common to express ballpark quantities with &lt;strong&gt;adjacent&lt;/strong&gt; numbers.&#xA;三四个 means about three or four. Same works for 四五个，五六个.&#xA;Thus you can infer the use and meaning of 一两个，两三个，六七个，七八个，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 鸡汤里放多少个八角？五六个就够了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's less common to use such expression for numbers bigger than ten, but you certainly can!&#xA;For number bigger than ten: 十一二个 or 十一十二个，十二三个，十三四个，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 聚会来了几个人？大概十五六个人吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason it's less common for numbers bigger than ten, is likely because people would prefer to ballpark it on the scale of tens, it's also less awkward-sounding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To further explain, imagine about 27-30 people came to my party. If I try to say 大概二十七八个人吧。It's long and awkward-sounding, it's also confusing to just read it! Thus, people would just say 将近三十人吧。(Almost thirty people.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;2. About why 三五个 is more frequently used&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will explain my best guess. First of all, 三五 is a kind of a special combination just by itself, it's used in classical Chinese literature to describe date, days, age, decades, it's also used in expressions related to astronomy, fengshui. The only reason I could come up with why 三五个 is widely accepted is because of the idiom/chengyu 三五成群。It means a small group of people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 这辈子我就三五个挚友。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;3. About why 四六个 is not an expression&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I explained earlier, Chinese use &lt;strong&gt;adjacent&lt;/strong&gt; numbers to express ballpark. 四 and 六 are not adjacent. You can infer the same for 五七个，七九个，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look closely at google search results, you would find out 四六个 is NOT used by itself. It's often separated by punctuation, like: “主题四：六个实战案例”，“四-六个月大的宝宝”，or used as part of a sentence “二四六个字押韵的诗词”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22910" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T14:28:35.037" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35322" CreationDate="2019-10-13T19:15:05.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;My &lt;strong&gt;favourite&lt;/strong&gt; person&quot; = &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;最喜愛嘅&lt;/strong&gt;人&quot; /ngo5 zeoi3 hei2 oi3 ge3 jan4/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;My &lt;strong&gt;favourite&lt;/strong&gt; toy&quot; = &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;最喜愛嘅&lt;/strong&gt;玩具&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;My &lt;strong&gt;favourite&lt;/strong&gt; movies star&quot; = &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;最喜愛嘅&lt;/strong&gt;明星&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;My &lt;strong&gt;favourite&lt;/strong&gt; hobby&quot; = &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;最喜愛嘅&lt;/strong&gt;嚐好&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;My &lt;strong&gt;favourite&lt;/strong&gt; son&quot; = &quot;我最喜愛嘅仔/ 我&lt;strong&gt;最寵愛嘅&lt;/strong&gt;仔&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can use either 喜愛 or 寵愛 if you have authority over the subject (human only).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example: 女兒 (daughter), 部下(subordinate), 妃嬪 (concubine), 學生 (pupil)...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can say: &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;最喜愛嘅&lt;/strong&gt;玩具&quot; but not: &quot;我&lt;strong&gt;最寵愛嘅&lt;/strong&gt;玩具&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-13T19:22:49.803" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T19:22:49.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35326" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35327" CreationDate="2019-10-13T21:32:38.513" Score="1" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to translate to my native language the content of this image:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rZ71M.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rZ71M.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the translation I have available (not made by me, unfortunately I don't know Chinese so I have to rely on what I find online):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Do you have to act so surprised that I've finally made it?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a better translation (if there is) of the &quot;act surprised&quot; part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22611" LastActivityDate="2019-10-15T00:00:31.810" Title="Could you please confirm or provide a better translation for this?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35326" CreationDate="2019-10-13T22:17:07.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你們倆 (you two)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看到我 (seeing me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;這個體育渣 (this sport-challenged person)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自己跑上來 (ran my way up here) &lt;em&gt;he is catching up to the two people far in front of him in a run&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嚇儍了 (are stunned)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你們倆看到我這個體育渣自己跑上來，嚇儍了(吧?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You two seeing me- this sport-challenged person, ran my way up here. Are you astonished?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I bet he would be left behind again when the two non-sport-challenged people start pulling away from him...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T22:22:49.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35326" CreationDate="2019-10-13T23:05:38.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do you have to act so surprised that I've finally made it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have finally become successful. You tell someone. This person is surprised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Within the context, I don't think Chinese would need the last part 'that I've finally made it'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你有必要表现得这么惊讶吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you have to act so surprised?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you really want the last part, try putting it first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我最终的成功真的让你这么惊讶吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That I've finally made it really surprises you that much?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: with the vpn on, I could see your picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们俩看到我这个体育渣自己跑上来吓傻了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You two, seeing me, a physical wreck, run up here on my own, I bet that scared you silly!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2019-10-15T00:00:31.810" LastActivityDate="2019-10-15T00:00:31.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35322" CreationDate="2019-10-14T07:50:18.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;我最鐘意嘅(人)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ngo5 zeoi3 zung1 ji3 ge3 (jan4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T07:50:18.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35311" CreationDate="2019-10-14T08:16:29.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;贪小便宜的=&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. a cheap ass&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. niggard&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. (likes to) take (petty) advantages of (others)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T08:16:29.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35312" CreationDate="2019-10-14T14:20:55.917" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word 什麼 being pronounced as &lt;strong&gt;shénmo&lt;/strong&gt; is not &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Standard Chinese&lt;/a&gt; (although it should be readily understandable). Therefore, the answer to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In what contexts is this true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is &lt;em&gt;almost never&lt;/em&gt;, unless one is specifically transcribing a topolectical variation of Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Shénmo&lt;/strong&gt; is probably a more accurate reflection of how it's pronounced among Southern Chinese speakers of Mandarin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;麼 always had another pronunciation with Pinyin &lt;strong&gt;mo&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;什麼 is quite an old word, with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Many variant pronunciations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d07k6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d07k6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Many variant spellings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/09vpf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/09vpf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so expect many topolectical variations!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T14:20:55.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1894" CreationDate="2019-10-14T16:11:01.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, you can learn to read both if you dispense with writing at first. You will learn to recognize a lot more characters in the same time it takes to learn how to write one of them. Unless you are filling out forms, you are unlikely to have any need to write by hand, and when you do, you can type the characters on your phone and copy them onto paper. As long as you can write your own Chinese name and are familiar with stroke order so you can look up new characters, you will do fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21935" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T16:11:01.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35321" CreationDate="2019-10-14T20:59:55.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you also includes&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一两个 and 两三个  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can see that the search results decrease as the number increases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T20:59:55.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35284" CreationDate="2019-10-14T21:08:18.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;最近小雨太忙了，没时间帮你，你还是[另外/另]找别人吧。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is somewhat like other and another in English.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You asked 小雨 for help. &lt;em&gt;小雨 can help you&lt;/em&gt;, but she is not available, so you should find &lt;em&gt;another&lt;/em&gt; person for help.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(小雨 is one of the people who can help you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If 小雨 doesn't have the ability to help you&lt;/em&gt;, then I'll say you should find &lt;em&gt;other&lt;/em&gt; people for help.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(小雨 is not one of the people who can help you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T21:08:18.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35246" CreationDate="2019-10-14T21:24:01.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don’t think (you/we)’ll be able to buy a ticket tomorrow.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我諗聽日買飛嘅話一定買唔到。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t think (you/we)’ll be able to buy a ticket &lt;em&gt;if (you/we) wait until&lt;/em&gt; tomorrow.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我諗聽日&lt;em&gt;先&lt;/em&gt;買飛嘅話一定買唔到。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T21:24:01.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35294" CreationDate="2019-10-14T21:41:44.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally, I think&lt;br&gt;&#xA;为什么 assumes you may or may not be innocent, while 因为什么 assumes you are innocent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T21:41:44.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35311" CreationDate="2019-10-15T17:57:03.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;贪小便宜的 basically means a stingy person or cheapskate. I think this is a pretty good description.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22930" LastActivityDate="2019-10-15T17:57:03.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35339" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35340" CreationDate="2019-10-15T18:31:10.513" Score="2" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a question about the chinese structures.&#xA;In this example talking about 大力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大力好动，乐于挑战自己，十分喜欢运动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first part of the sentence there is no verb which is normal but there is no 很。Afterwords the subject is no present anymore what i understand because is allways the same subject but it was the first time i saw an adjective for describing a person without a 很。¿大力很好动 would be better? Is it right 大力好动 or 他大方。?is it because the adjective is a bisilabic word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the next example.&#xA;他个子高高的，小眼睛、小鼻子、小嘴巴。他的头发是黑色的，短短的。&#xA;First talks about his high, then talks about eyes, nose with adjective before subject and then a normal estructure about his hair with the verb 是 ¿why not follow with 头发短短的，黑色的。¿when do you have to put the verb and when is not necessary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T18:02:48.690" Title="Structures for describing people, appearance or personality" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35339" CreationDate="2019-10-15T19:08:05.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;in &lt;code&gt;好动&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;好&lt;/code&gt; is the verb, which means &quot;like&quot;. So in your first example, it has 3 parts with different verbs, but all having the same meaning &quot;like&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in your second example, if you follow with 头发短短的、黑色的, where 黑色的 is to describe hair, so it is not in parallel with other adjectives in this sentence. So the sentence is broken into 2 to avoid this confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-10-15T19:08:05.097" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35342" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35344" CreationDate="2019-10-16T01:55:48.910" Score="0" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at job postings for interpreters and found a few for generic &quot;Chinese&quot; interpreters, a few more for both Mandarin &amp;amp; Cantonese, and just one for Mandarin only. To my surprise, I didn't find any for Taishanese, Min or other dialects. Am I right to assume that fluency in Mandarin and Cantonese is a de facto requirement to become a Chinese interpreter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21935" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T02:54:59.470" Title="Is it a common requirement for Chinese interpreters to be fluent in two or more dialects?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;resources&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35054" CreationDate="2019-10-16T02:00:42.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer my own question, I'm currently taking the part-time 1-on-1 classes from the &lt;strong&gt;LTL Mandarin School&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://ltl-beijing.com/chinese-tutor-beijing/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ltl-beijing.com/chinese-tutor-beijing/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was attracted to this because (a) I Googled it and most reviews were good, (b) the prices are clearly listed, and it's exactly what I paid (so no &quot;tricks&quot;---what it says is exactly what I paid), (c) the teacher comes to my office, which is incredibly convenient, and (d) I could start immediately (no waiting for semester dates, no enrollment process).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've had maybe 7 lessons thus far (2 hours each).  My comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm relieved that I'm not the top student; my teacher has students with better Chinese than me.  She knows how to help me.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I currently write a diary in Chinese, which I feel is a good approach as I want to learn how to discuss topics related to me.  These are not always comfortable topics.  E.g. my last diary entry was about my recent visit to Iran, and the impact Trump's sanctions are having there.  It's something I would talk about normally.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My teacher seems to understand how I feel about Chinese textbooks: they are incredibly boring, with fake dialogues.  I want opinions and controversy, not &quot;Mike picked up Li Wei from the airport&quot;---I want something I would be interested in reading ordinarily.  That being said, I still need to understand Chinese grammar, where it might be unavoidably dry.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My teacher is friendly and nice.  The two hours seem to go very quickly!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T02:00:42.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35342" CreationDate="2019-10-16T02:54:59.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably depends on the locations and needs.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People who speak dialects probably can understand at least either Mandarin or Cantonese. That can be the reaons why Mandarin and/or Cantonese is the requirement in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T02:54:59.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35339" CreationDate="2019-10-16T03:43:17.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大力好动，乐于挑战自己，十分喜欢运动。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;not a very well written sentence.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;=&gt;大力&lt;code&gt;好动&lt;/code&gt;，乐于挑战自己。他十分&lt;code&gt;喜欢运动&lt;/code&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;note: 好动 = 喜欢运动&lt;/code&gt;[1]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;=&gt;大力好动，(他)乐于挑战自己。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;好 is the verb, which means 喜欢[1]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;(他)乐于挑战自己&lt;/code&gt; is another sentence, with the verb 挑战&lt;br&gt;&#xA;大力好动，&lt;code&gt;(他)乐于挑战自己&lt;/code&gt; can be further reduced to&lt;br&gt;&#xA;=&gt;好动的大力乐于挑战自己。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他个子高高的，小眼睛、小鼻子、小嘴巴。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is tricky, the verb is 高高的.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;note: It can be reduced to this form and remains a complete sentence&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;=&gt;他高高的/他很高。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;...，小眼睛、小鼻子、小嘴巴。&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;acceptable but not very standard writing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;他的头发是黑色的，短短的。&lt;/code&gt; standard expression&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;code&gt;他(的)头发(是)短短的，黑色的&lt;/code&gt; also acceptable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastEditorUserId="22375" LastEditDate="2019-10-17T00:17:27.820" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T00:17:27.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6412" CreationDate="2019-10-16T03:47:45.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please remember the grammar of 了1 and 了2。obviously, its quite different. you have to &#xA;learn how to distinguish that words.&#xA;了1 always been put end of verb &#xA;is equal to the perfective aspect. (simplepast or present )&#xA;了2 put end of the sentence is equal to perfect aspect. ( perfect tense) is always indicate the effects of condition are related with present time. &#xA;我在看他的展览了。&#xA;我在看他的展览。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22830" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T03:47:45.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35347" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35351" CreationDate="2019-10-16T07:06:30.410" Score="0" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from HSK4上 (page 49):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rsx2L.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rsx2L.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;刚开始工作的时候，什么最重要？&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  刚开始工作的时候，什么最重要？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  What is most important when I first started working?  (&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=zh-CN&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=%E5%88%9A%E5%BC%80%E5%A7%8B%E5%B7%A5%E4%BD%9C%E7%9A%84%E6%97%B6%E5%80%99%EF%BC%8C%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88%E6%9C%80%E9%87%8D%E8%A6%81%EF%BC%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused here: I can't tell whether this means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;when starting work&quot; (perhaps each workday) or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;when entering the workforce&quot; (as in, first day of work, perhaps in my life, or perhaps at a new company).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My impression from context that it has the second meaning (it's related to a passage which begins 年轻人刚开始工作的时候，不要太急着赚钱...), but I don't know how I could figure that out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does 刚开始工作的时候... mean &quot;when starting work&quot; (each day) or &quot;when entering the workforce&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T22:39:59.057" Title="Does 刚开始工作的时候... mean &quot;when starting work&quot; (each day) or &quot;when entering the workforce&quot;?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35348" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-16T07:47:23.553" Score="-1" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;By intalling the FANG ZHENG XIAO ZHUAN TI FONT I've been able to type 小篆 characters. However there are many chacters which don't change when the font is applied to them. For the more modern characters this is understandable. For instance &quot;們&quot; doesn't change into seal script because it's a modern invention and there is no seal script for it. But there are many characters that DO have a 小篆form, but I can't get it to display. For instance the characters 飛，鬥，光，首ect, etc. don't display in seal script. Is there any other 小篆font I can use? I know I can cut and paste pictures of seal script characters, but I would much prefer them to be actual text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22816" LastEditorUserId="16481" LastEditDate="2020-07-29T10:16:58.313" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T10:16:58.313" Title="How can I type 小篆characters that are not in the FANG ZHENG XIAO ZHUAN TI FONT?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;seal&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35347" CreationDate="2019-10-16T07:56:08.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you wrote: &quot;在开始工作的时候什么最重要&quot; the sentence would be ambiguous:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在开始工作的时候&quot; could mean at the start of your work shift: e.g. &quot;在开始作的时候最重的要是检查安全&quot;(When you start to work, the most important thing is check safety)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could also mean when you start entering the work force: e.g. &quot;在开始工作的时候最重要的是與同事打好關係&quot; (When you entering the work force, the most important thing is creating a good relationship with colleagues)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since (在)开始工作的时候最重的要是检查安全 means (每天)开始工作的时候最重的要是检查安全. And you can't replace &quot;每天&quot;(everyday) with &quot;刚&quot; (just), &quot;刚开始工作的时候&quot; should be  interpreted as &quot;when first entering the work force&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T07:56:08.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35347" CreationDate="2019-10-16T10:20:18.180" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;刚开始工作的时候，什么最重要？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd interpret it as &lt;em&gt;when entering the workforce&lt;/em&gt;, which  is the second meaning you listed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When someone says 刚开始工作的时候, I'd assume he meant &lt;em&gt;when entering the workforce&lt;/em&gt;.  If they try to convey &lt;em&gt;when starting work each workday&lt;/em&gt;, I'd expect something like: 每天早上开始工作的时候; 每天开始工作的时候; 每天开始工作时; 每天工作开始时. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could bend that rule/convention sometimes, but it's not hard to figure out what they really mean in a given context anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T10:20:18.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35352" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-16T16:25:41.093" Score="5" ViewCount="722" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know both are adverbs and mean ‘indeed’, confirming the veracity of some condition or situation. &#xA;I can’t find any difference in the way they are commonly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know what the difference is?&#xA;Thank you so much!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22935" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T23:41:42.360" Title="What’s the difference between 实在 and 确实?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35352" CreationDate="2019-10-16T17:51:27.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though widely switchable in a lot cases, there are subtle differences. Just take a simple sentence as example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这&lt;strong&gt;实在&lt;/strong&gt;太难了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这&lt;strong&gt;确实&lt;/strong&gt;太难了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, &lt;strong&gt;实在&lt;/strong&gt; tend to express more subjective feeling while &lt;strong&gt;确实&lt;/strong&gt; tend to indicate more objective judgement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also just to mention that 实在 can also be used as an adjective, though there's no much relation with our comparison here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20982" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T17:51:27.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35352" CreationDate="2019-10-16T18:28:05.153" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 实在 and 确实 can be translated as  &quot;really&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;确 in 确实 refers to 确定 (confirmed) therefore 确实 can also means &quot;indeed&quot; (confirm a claim or suspicion)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;经调查后得知你确实不在场&quot; (After investigation, we learned that you indeed were not present at the scene) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you replace  确实  with 实在, you lose the &quot;confirm a claim or suspicion&quot; sense in the sentence&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-16T20:18:04.900" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T20:18:04.900" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35352" CreationDate="2019-10-16T21:48:35.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(...)确实(...) indeed (with evidence/reasons) or true&lt;br&gt;&#xA;whether or not you believe it, doesn't change the fact that something is indeed...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...实在... truly believe (from personal experience/reasons)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastEditorUserId="22375" LastEditDate="2019-10-18T23:41:42.360" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T23:41:42.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35347" CreationDate="2019-10-16T22:39:59.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not 'each day', but 'at the beginning'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;刚开始工作的时候，什么最重要？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What's the most important thing when you just start off in a new job?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T22:39:59.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35352" CreationDate="2019-10-16T23:12:29.643" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 实在 and 确实 can mean &lt;em&gt;indeed&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt;. However, 确实 sounds &lt;strong&gt;more factual&lt;/strong&gt;, so it's often used in a formal context. E.g. 经证实，此事确实与他无关。实在 sounds a bit 'emotional' or 'subjective' (增加了一点个人的感情色彩) and it's often used in &lt;strong&gt;informal or casual speech&lt;/strong&gt;. E.g. 我实在是不知道！(it could imply that I really don't know and please don't ask me again, please trust me, and etc.) If you say 我确实是不知道，you try to emphasize the fact that you don't know (may not necessarily have any other implications).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 实在 has other meanings. E.g. 他这个人很实在 means &lt;em&gt;he is quite honest.&lt;/em&gt; You can check on more meanings in a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-10-17T01:16:22.940" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T01:16:22.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35358" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35359" CreationDate="2019-10-17T02:47:41.757" Score="0" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among the (artificial) dialogues in the HSK4上 book (page 53) is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;价格还可以，就是不知道质量有没有保证。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The price is okay, it's just that I don't know if the quality is guaranteed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand why &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E4%BF%9D%E8%AF%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;保证&lt;/a&gt; is used here.  It seems like it could just be 质量好不好 instead.  It's possible that 保证 was added simply because the author was required to use the word 保证, not because it's normal to do so.  The seller does not go on to offer a &quot;guarantee&quot;, but just gives assurances of the quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm not sure, as the usage might be different to what I'm accustomed to &quot;guarantee&quot; meaning (this book does that a lot---uses grammar and meanings that don't have English parallels).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 保证 in 价格还可以，就是不知道质量有没有保证?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1244794067172280819.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; online which uses similar language, and one of the responses talks about &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%B4%A8%E4%BF%9D%E6%9C%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;质保期&lt;/a&gt;30天, i.e., a 30-day &quot;guarantee period&quot;.  It talks about a literal guarantee, not just honey words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T05:06:19.517" Title="Why is 保证 in 价格还可以，就是不知道质量有没有保证?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35358" CreationDate="2019-10-17T03:28:04.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;价格还可以，就是不知道质量有没有保证。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 质量有没有保证 in the context checks on two aspects: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;quality. (whether the quality is good or not)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;guarantee. (E.g. one-year, two-year, etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would probably be clearer to write: 价格还可以，就是不知道质量怎么样，有没有质保。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T03:28:04.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35358" CreationDate="2019-10-17T04:32:00.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;价格还可以 - the price is acceptable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就是不知道 - just don't know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;质量有没有保证 - can the quality be guaranteed or not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 质量好不好, you are questioning the quality of the product being high or low&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 质量有没有保证 you are questioning the trustworthiness of the product's quality and also the trustworthiness of the source. e.g. &amp;quot;The quality of rice-cooker made in Japan can usually be guaranteed (质量有保证)- &lt;em&gt;I would pay twice the price for a rice-cooker made in Japan instead of buying a cheaper American one(质量没保证) I just don't trust the American made rice-cooker since most of them don't even eat rice&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically low quality product is usually untrustworthy, and untrustworthy product is usually of low quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A written guaranteed is called &amp;quot;warranty&amp;quot; (保证 or 保养 in Cantonese) , but it is a warranty on the product itself , it doesn't guarantee the quality of the product is high, just guarantees it would be replaced or repaired if it broke&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other example of product's quality can be guaranteed (质量有保证/ 质量信得過):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;German car&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Swiss chocolate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jingdezhen Ceramics (景德镇陶瓷)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quanjude Beijing roast duck (全聚德北京烤鸭)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T05:06:19.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35339" CreationDate="2019-10-17T08:12:54.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can describe a person in the following catalogues:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;appearance &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;ability &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;personality &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;status &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;好动 (like to be active)，乐于挑战自己(like to challenge oneself) and 十分喜欢运动 (like sport very much) are all descriptions of a person's &lt;strong&gt;personality&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;大力(having great strength) is a descriptions of a person's physical &lt;strong&gt;ability&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a poor choice to mix 大力 with the rest of the descriptions that describe a person's personality &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他个子高高的 (he is tall) describe his appearance&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;小眼睛 (has small eyes)、小鼻子 (small nose)、小嘴巴 (small mouth)。 describe the features he has, and it is also a part of his appearance&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他的头发是黑色的(his hair is black)，短短的 (and short) 。 describe his hair, which is a feature he has, therefore also included in the appearance area.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of describe someone systematically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他个子高高的，小眼睛、小鼻子、小嘴巴。他的头发是黑色的，短短的 - He is tall, has  small eyes, nose and mouth, and his hair is black and short (descriptions of his appearance)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他很有氣力，十分敏捷，耐力很強  - he has great strength, very agile and has very strong endurance (descriptions of his ability)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他很好动，乐于挑战自己，十分喜欢运动 - he like being active, willing to challenge himself, love sport very much (descriptions of his personality)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;他在銀行工作，未婚，但有很多女友 - he works in a bank, single but has many girlfriends (descriptions of his status)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-17T08:44:48.413" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T08:44:48.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35339" CreationDate="2019-10-17T18:02:48.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say the sentences you provided are very colloquial, which means in such a flexible language as Chinese, they are all valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite of it, there are indeed some reasons why people would come up with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;动宾结构（verb-object construction）好动, though often used as an adj., consists of a verb+noun, and thus can play the role of predication and object. Many adj. are of such construction, e.g. 乐学/率性/恋旧/怀春…&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“是” is wordy, and are often omitted in conversation (and informal writings).(But such omitting sometimes convey other tones: 你谁啊？(contempt, sarcasm)).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;adjectives are treated as verbs extensively.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sentences are broke by topic change instead of grammar requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I write a brief passage including 啊lot of depiction to illustrate it further. And I will insert spaces to help reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的 邻居 张军 沉默寡言，喜怒 不 形 于 色，日 不 出户，足 不 下楼，旁人 难 窥知 其 生活 一二。年关 将 至，是夜 雪 骤 风 紧。我 上楼 时 瞥见 他 家 透出的 灯光 依然 晦暗，平日 习以为常，而 在 这 凛冬 万家灯火 之时，不由 少 发 怜悯。家里 最近 包了 饺子，我 想着 送过去 一些，正好 也 看看 他 的 生活 如何。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;左手里 盛饺子的 碗 还 火烫，门 却 半天 也 不开。正当 我 放下 敲门的 右手 要 分担 那 苦差 时，嘎 的 一声，一头宽 的 门缝 间，是 张军 背光 的 人影。我 看清 了：促狭 的 房间 靠墙 贴着 一铺 床，衣物 和 被褥 随意 交 裹 着，隔着 角落的 木衣柜，蒙着 报纸 的 窗户 下，是 一方 书桌，窄小 而 拥挤，叠着、立着，似乎 都是 书，一盏 台灯 却 从中 探出来，明晃晃 照着 几 页 纸，密密麻麻 都是 字——只能 看见 这些 了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“什么事？”他 合了合 门。“送 点 饺子。”我 有些 局促。“那 多谢 了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;……相顾 无语，我 只得 转身，然后 楼道 的 残晕 倏 地 消失 了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that a sentence is long and within it the grammar subject seamlessly changes. Adjectives function as predication plus predicative. Inversion is quite common in depiction and sometimes the subject is even omitted. Prepositive and postpositive attributives are balanced. Here and there 是 is replaced by other figurative verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, you can freely use all these techiniques to elaborate your writings. You don't have to be that accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T18:02:48.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35364" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-18T03:13:36.450" Score="3" ViewCount="2107" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you add an illustration please and elaborate on the strokes, each one and the detailed meaning nehind it? Ie..I have held this character close to my heart and wear it on my sleeve so to speak. Tattooed on my shoulder on my 25th birthday as a landmark or signpost to commemorate it's beauty and poetic renaissance vibration in which it is for me, unbound by any dating of self or time. In this regard it is why I ask. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that it also means a message as in a letter or mail and delivery method as well.  A doctor of medicine said this to me in a brief passing of kindred souls communication in an honest way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22945" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T06:22:40.263" Title="I am particularly fascinated by the Chinese character that is pronounced SHIN &amp; means faith or belief" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35364" CreationDate="2019-10-18T03:58:23.587" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character in question is: 信. This might not be the answer that you want, but this is how &lt;em&gt;Outlier&lt;/em&gt; explains the character:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FORM&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  信 xìn contains the meaning component 言 “speech; words,” indicating the original meaning, “sincerity; honesty.” 亻 rén gives the sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COMPONENTS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  亻&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  In 信 xìn, 亻 rén is a sound component, though this is not obvious in Mandarin.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  言&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  In 信, 言 “speech; words” is a meaning component, indicating “sincerity; honesty.”      &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MEANINGS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Character meanings&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  xìn   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1 (orig.) honesty&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2 → to trust, to believe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 ⇒ person who delivers letters (i.e., a trustworthy person. Only used in ancient texts)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4 ⇒⇒ letter; correspondence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5 ⇒⇒⇒ message; information&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-18T06:22:40.263" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T06:22:40.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35364" CreationDate="2019-10-18T04:07:12.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;信 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shuowen.org/view/1519&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.shuowen.org/view/1519&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/669/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/669/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《說文解字注》&lt;strong&gt;誠&lt;/strong&gt;也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信 originally meant &amp;quot;honest; sincere&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从人言&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;made up of 人(people) and 言 (words)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Extended meanings 信 contains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信(honest; sincere) --&amp;gt; 信(trust) --&amp;gt; 信(believe)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信(trust) --&amp;gt; 信(faithful)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信(sincere) --&amp;gt; 信(letter)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compound words with 信 as a component:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;誠信 (sincerity; honesty)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信用 (trustworthiness)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;守信 (trustworthy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相信 (believe)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信任 (trust)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信心 (confidence)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忠信 (faithful)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信仰 (faith; religious belief)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信奉 (believe in &lt;em&gt;(religion/ principle&lt;/em&gt;))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;書信 (letter)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;strokes order: &lt;a href=&quot;http://bishun.strokeorder.info/mandarin.php?q=%E4%BF%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://bishun.strokeorder.info/mandarin.php?q=%E4%BF%A1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T04:38:22.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35364" CreationDate="2019-10-18T05:00:20.767" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid that you are reading much too into this. There is no &quot;meaning behind &lt;strong&gt;each&lt;/strong&gt; stroke&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「信」(Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*s-ni[ŋ]-s/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;sincerity&lt;/em&gt;) is composed of semantic「言」(&lt;em&gt;speech&lt;/em&gt;, here vaguely hinting at &lt;em&gt;honest words&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic「人・亻」(&lt;strong&gt;/*ni[ŋ]/&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T05:00:20.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35368" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-18T09:11:36.657" Score="1" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thouht 还 ment besides or además(in spanish)， it gives more informatión but let me give you an example &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are clear examples like when you say i play piano, he plays piano to. Here where you have two subjects doing the same thing is obvius that you use 也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the next example I asked my teacher if you could use 还 instead of 也 and she said that if you use 还 it is not right or properly used. ¿is it because you are still talking about things about his studies in both sentences?. She said 还 would not be proper but would not explain clear to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他上课时开始不专心听讲。他的学习成绩&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;越来越差。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saludos desde España. Málaga. Greetings from Málaga Spain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastActivityDate="2019-10-19T05:34:14.417" Title="也 and 还 diference not clear enough" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35369" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35370" CreationDate="2019-10-18T09:27:04.117" Score="0" ViewCount="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chinese colleague wrote to me on WeChat:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我刚刚拔了三颗门牙&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I just had three teeth pulled out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I attempted to reply, but I think I totally botched it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从来每一次我听到“拔”我会想你在牙医时。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was trying to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From now on, every time I hear 拔, I will think of you going to the dentist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize now that 从来 should be &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E4%BB%8E%E6%AD%A4/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;从此&lt;/a&gt; (cóngcǐ; henceforth), but the rest of the sentence feels rather uncomfortable to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I say &quot;from now on, every time I hear 拔, I will think of you going to the dentist&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being a bit more careful, I came up with this attempt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从此我一听到“拔”那个字就记起你在牙医时拔出牙齿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T10:44:42.097" Title="How do I say &quot;from now on, every time I hear 拔, I will think of you going to the dentist&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35369" CreationDate="2019-10-18T10:22:15.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;从此我一听到“拔”那个字就记起你&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;from now on&amp;quot; is translated as &amp;quot;從今以後&amp;quot;, not just &amp;quot;从此&amp;quot; (since this moment/ since that moment)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;记起&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;remember&amp;quot;, you should use &amp;quot;会想起&amp;quot; (will think of) instead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在牙医时&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;牙医&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;dentist&amp;quot;, which is a person, you should either write &amp;quot;在牙医診所时&amp;quot; (when you were at the dentist's office) or &amp;quot;去看牙医时&amp;quot; (when you went to see the dentist)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;拔出牙齿 should be reduced to &amp;quot;拔牙&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;拔牙&amp;quot; is a common verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;從今以後，我一听到“拔”这个字，就会想起你在牙医診所拔牙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From now on, whenever I hear the word &amp;quot;pull&amp;quot;, I will think of when you were at the dentist's office getting your teeth pulled&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a good enough sentence, however &amp;quot;你在牙医診所拔牙&amp;quot; is an &amp;quot;image/ scene&amp;quot; in your mind, which is the object for the verb &amp;quot;想起&amp;quot;. Therefore, a better sentence should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;從今以後，我一听到“拔”这个字，就会想起你在牙医診所拔牙这件事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Use 这件事 (this event) instead of 那件事 (that event) because it is an immediate respond to the event you just heard of.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Use “拔”这个字 (the word &amp;quot;pull&amp;quot;) instead of “拔”那个字 (that word &amp;quot;pull&amp;quot;)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;從今以後我一听到“拔”这个字就会想起你在牙医診所拔牙的情況/情景&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Replace 情況 (situation) or 情景(scene) with 慘況 (horrible scene) would sound much more dramatic&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T10:44:42.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35372" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-18T19:58:09.413" Score="2" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are all vocabulary from HSK 4. They are all verbs, and they are translated as “adapt”, “fit”, “suit”.&#xA;Is there any difference in use or meaning between them?&#xA;Thank you so much!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22935" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T20:09:14.787" Title="What’s the difference between 符合, 适合 and 适应?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35372" CreationDate="2019-10-18T20:23:38.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;符合 means &quot;match&quot;. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他 符合 我们的 要求。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He matches our requirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;适合 means “fit” in a sense of &quot;good fit&quot;. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他 很 适合 这个 职位。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He is a good fit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;符合 and 适合 have similar meanings but are often paired with different nones. I would say 符合 is a more precise fit than 适合。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;适应 mean something quite different. It means &quot;get used to&quot;, it is the process of getting to 符合 and 适合.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6676" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T20:23:38.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35374" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35375" CreationDate="2019-10-18T23:04:01.567" Score="0" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;Inspired by &lt;a href=&quot;https://spanish.stackexchange.com/questions/662/words-for-strong-or-weak-rain-sprinkling-drizzling-pouring&quot;&gt;this question &lt;/a&gt;on the Spanish stack exchange&#xA;Things like &lt;em&gt;drizzle&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;mist&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;downpour&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22944" LastActivityDate="2019-10-19T01:39:20.410" Title="Different types of rain in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35374" CreationDate="2019-10-19T00:40:23.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many types of rain in Chinese vocabulary  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨: rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;煙雨: misty rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;微雨: drizzle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;毛毛細雨/ 毛毛雨/ 微絲細雨: very light rain/ drizzle  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;細雨 : light rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雨霧: rain and fog&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;過雲雨: brief rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;長命雨/ 長雨 long lasting rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晴雨/ 晴天雨: sunny sky rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夜雨: night rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;連夜雨: all night rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;分龍雨: narrow area rain (you can see clear sky few miles away) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大雨: heavy rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;傾盤大雨/ 滂沱大雨/ 豪雨:  heavy rain/ downpour&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;驟雨: sudden rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;局部地區性驟雨: regional sudden rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;全國性大雨: nation wide heavy rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;陣雨: intermittent rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;暴雨: severe rain/ heavy downpour&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;狂風暴雨: strong wind and severe rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;暴風雨/ 雨暴: rain storm &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雷雨: thunder and rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;熱帶雨 : tropical rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冷雨: cold rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冰雨: icy rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;春雨: spring rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夏雨: summer rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;秋雨: autumn rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;冬雨: winter rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hjenglish.com/new/p166348/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;梅雨&lt;/a&gt;: plum season rain (of middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze in  late spring and early summer) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;山雨: mountains rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;平原雨: rain over the plain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;海上雨: rain over the sea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;天降甘霖/ 甘霖: life giving rain from heaven (classical term)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;及時雨: needed rain that falls in time (idiom for &quot;help that comes in time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;黑雨 : black rain (highest level of warning in the rainstorm warning system in Hong Kong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-19T01:39:20.410" LastActivityDate="2019-10-19T01:39:20.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35376" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35377" CreationDate="2019-10-19T03:03:08.377" Score="1" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;空调&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%88%B6%E5%86%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;制冷&lt;/a&gt;得不太好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would be perfectly fine, using the grammar structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Subj. + Verb + 得 + Complement&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Potential_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there's no hits on Baidu for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E2%80%9C%E5%88%B6%E5%86%B7%E5%BE%97%E4%B8%8D%E5%A4%AA%E5%A5%BD%E2%80%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;制冷得不太好&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; which is a strong indicator that something is wrong.  I don't know what though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's wrong with 空调制冷得不太好 meaning &quot;The air conditioner cools poorly&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems it's correct to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;空调制冷&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E6%95%88%E6%9E%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;效果&lt;/a&gt;不太好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(See Baidu search for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E2%80%9C%E7%A9%BA%E8%B0%83%E5%88%B6%E5%86%B7%E6%95%88%E6%9E%9C%E4%B8%8D%E5%A4%AA%E5%A5%BD%E2%80%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;空调制冷效果不太好&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.)  That's fine and makes sense to me, but I don't understand why 空调制冷得不太好 is not also okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T03:07:26.287" Title="What's wrong with 空调制冷得不太好 meaning &quot;The air conditioner cools poorly&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35376" CreationDate="2019-10-19T04:58:08.943" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You’ve got the concepts down but the problem here is that 冷 is not a verb. So now you’ve got 得 modifying 冷 and not 制.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often times with words like this you might see repetition of the actual verb like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• 说话说得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• 跳舞跳得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• 写字写得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This way it’s the verb that’s being qualified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't a very common phrasing but here are some examples I found online:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.manmanbuy.com/p_556759.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;制冷制得很快&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://item.m.jd.com/ware/commentDetail/1436526_5da1f865-bf10-4a78-ace4-7936057a78c6.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;制冷制得比较柔&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://m.dobiez.com/book/5472/5472_111.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;调制冷制得好不好一样&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sto.cx/book-104733-19.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;这两天制冷制得有些不顺利&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-19T06:25:36.483" LastActivityDate="2019-10-19T06:25:36.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35368" CreationDate="2019-10-19T05:34:14.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;还 can be translated to something like &quot;not only that&quot; or &quot;furthermore&quot; in English. On the other hand, 也 means something like &quot;and&quot; or &quot;also&quot;. Their literal meaning is almost exactly the same, but 还 places an additional emphasis on the object that comes afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他上课时开始不专心听讲。他的学习成绩也越来越差。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This roughly translates to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He doesn't listen attentively during lessons. His results are also getting worse over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This places more or less equal emphasis on “不专心听讲” and “学习成绩”. On the other hand, the following version&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他上课时开始不专心听讲。他的学习成绩还越来越差。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;roughly means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He doesn't listen attentively during lessons. Not only that, his results are getting worse over time!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there is a greater emphasis on the 学习成绩越来越差 in the latter version with the 还 over the 也, and there's a slight difference in meaning. So although both are perfectly grammatical sentences, they do have slightly different meaning, and it depends on which meaning you want to express when choosing terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21852" LastActivityDate="2019-10-19T05:34:14.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35376" CreationDate="2019-10-19T10:03:08.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The air conditioner isn't cooling very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;空调冷却功能不太好。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;airco. cooling function not very good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-10-19T10:03:08.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35380" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-19T19:07:10.107" Score="1" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw both of them translated as ‘go through’... But do they have any more specific use or meaning difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22935" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-10-20T03:08:36.530" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T21:25:01.513" Title="As verbs, what’s the difference between 经历 and 通过?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35380" CreationDate="2019-10-19T20:24:59.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/7286/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;经历&lt;/a&gt; (v): to experience; to go through.  e.g. 经历人生起伏 (experience life's up and downs)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/9347/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;通过&lt;/a&gt; (v): to pass through ; to get past. e.g. 通过隧道 (pass through the tunnel)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/9347/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;通过&lt;/a&gt; (v): to pass; to adopt.  e.g. 通过法案 (to pass/ to adopt a bill)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;经历 translated as &quot;go through&quot; is referring to 'go through an experience' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;广岛曾经历过核弹轰炸 - Hiroshima experienced (went through) nuclear bombing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人人都会经历人生起伏 - Everyone will experience  (go through) life's up and downs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;通过 translated as is referring to 'go through a physical path or go/ pass through an object'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;火車通过隧道 - the train passes through a tunnel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T21:25:01.513" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T21:25:01.513" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35382" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35399" CreationDate="2019-10-19T21:02:14.627" Score="2" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that classifiers, verbs, and adjectives can be duplicated. However, the expression &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-demonstrating-climate-leadership-by-stephen-s-roach-2019-09/chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;五六十年代年代&lt;/a&gt; seems to contain a duplicated noun instead. The meaning is clearly &quot;the decades of the 50s and the 60s&quot;, but what's the grammar behind this construction? Google does not seem to find any further instance of 年代年代.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22495" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T23:43:09.220" Title="Reduplication in 五六十年代年代" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35382" CreationDate="2019-10-20T00:02:01.417" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s just a typo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have the, original, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-demonstrating-climate-leadership-by-stephen-s-roach-2019-09&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English&lt;/a&gt; for comparison:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This energy-efficient mode of long-distance rail connectivity stands in sharp contrast to the carbon-intensive US interstate highway system created for motor vehicles in the 1950s and 1960s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Along with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-demonstrating-climate-leadership-by-stephen-s-roach-2019-09/chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese translation&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这种节能高效的长距离连通模式，同上世纪五六十年代年代美国州际公路系统，形成了鲜明的对比。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original text contains zero hints of duplication for 年代. It seems to just be a straight up mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also clearly marked as a translation on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-demonstrating-climate-leadership-by-stephen-s-roach-2019-09/chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese page&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Translated by Congyi Shi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we know it's not original text from the writer themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only real time you’d see double nouns is when talking to a baby or an infant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(吃)饭饭 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(喝)水水 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt the translators intent was to patronize a young one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-20T01:55:15.247" LastActivityDate="2019-10-20T01:55:15.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35384" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="40794" CreationDate="2019-10-20T03:43:04.933" Score="2" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often see, what I refer to as, &lt;em&gt;implied erhua&lt;/em&gt; written in shop names, advertisements, on menus, etc. Take the following for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;嗝屁&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd rarely ever hear &lt;code&gt;gé pì&lt;/code&gt; read without &lt;em&gt;erhuaization&lt;/em&gt;. So the idea is that, although 儿 is not written, it is certainly implied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically it would be considered to be written incorrectly, as the example above should be written 嗝儿屁. But is this some kind of phenomenon that I'm half aware of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-23T04:22:15.777" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T17:14:30.987" Title="Implied erhua in writing?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;erhuayin&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35386" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35391" CreationDate="2019-10-20T10:22:14.550" Score="0" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this jacket and was wondering what the characters above the logo mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GFN9X.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GFN9X.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21614" LastEditorUserId="21614" LastEditDate="2019-10-20T10:26:28.593" LastActivityDate="2019-10-20T23:00:13.973" Title="What does this writing mean on this jacket?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35386" CreationDate="2019-10-20T11:03:13.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, it means &quot;no government&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22952" LastActivityDate="2019-10-20T11:03:13.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21208" CreationDate="2019-10-20T17:57:05.640" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Astoundingly, while there are explanations as to why these events happen in general, there is none concerning the actual symbol under question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;U+F981 exists for the reason of Korean standard KS X 1001, the primary Korean standard. It has a peculiar feature: it has multiple actual duplicate characters. For some reason, the standard decided: if a character has N Korean readings, it will be encoded N times, in locations corresponding to all readings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女 was encoded twice, due to the process of N-erosion in Korean: once, as Row 50 Character 19, with the other starting with [n], for the reading nyeo, another time as Row 69 Character 92, with other the other starting with [yeo], for the reading yeo. Hence, for a backwards compatibility with this standard, Unicode encoded the character once – but added another codepoint at U+F981, to guarantee that the Korean texts typed in some environment where the difference was vital (I don’t know, perhaps to make readings recoverable?), then the Row 50 character goes to the normal one, and the Row 69 one maps to the compatibility one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is lots of stuff in Unicode made for backwards compatibility, deal with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20076" LastActivityDate="2019-10-20T17:57:05.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35389" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-20T22:29:45.250" Score="3" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;This Chinese phrase 琴酒相壽 occurs in some calligraphy given to a colleague.&#xA;What does this mean in English? &#xA;I've tried basic Google searches and Google translator. I see other examples of the calligraphy but no explanation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19863" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-21T15:26:18.190" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T12:18:26.713" Title="What does 琴酒相壽 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35389" CreationDate="2019-10-20T22:48:52.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the same as 弹琴敬酒 为你祝寿, which means something like &quot;playing the &lt;em&gt;qin&lt;/em&gt; and drinking wine, to celebrate a loyal friend's birthday&quot;. Note that playing the &lt;em&gt;qin&lt;/em&gt; is considered a very high-class and cultured activity in ancient China, as well as being one of the four main skills any learned person must acquire---“琴棋书画”, i.e. playing the &lt;em&gt;qin&lt;/em&gt;, playing &lt;em&gt;qi&lt;/em&gt; (Chinese chess), calligraphy, and painting. So the phrase 琴酒相寿 has a certain poetic or picturesque feeling to it beyond the meaning of the words themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21852" LastActivityDate="2019-10-20T22:48:52.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35386" CreationDate="2019-10-20T23:00:13.973" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are the words 無政府. 無 means &quot;without&quot; or &quot;absent of&quot;, while 政府 means &quot;government&quot;. So literally, 無政府 means &quot;without government&quot;. Note that this does not necessarily carry as strong of a connotation as &quot;anarchy&quot;, although that is indeed often translated as 無政府狀態 (literally: &quot;state of no government&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21852" LastActivityDate="2019-10-20T23:00:13.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35392" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35393" CreationDate="2019-10-21T02:49:22.107" Score="1" ViewCount="424" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%A0%A1%E9%99%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;校院&lt;/a&gt; is infrequently used, while &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%A0%A1%E5%9B%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;校园&lt;/a&gt; is normal.  I'm not sure if this is because 校院 is incorrect, or because it's less common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's possible to find examples of 校院 being used online, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xianswdx.cn/action/list.php?tid=11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;校院简介&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 校园 and 校院?  Is 校院 incorrect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T04:23:19.140" Title="What's the difference between 校园 (meaning &quot;campus&quot;) and 校院? Is 校院 incorrect?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35392" CreationDate="2019-10-21T03:15:41.040" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;They refer to different things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;校园 means &lt;code&gt;campus/schoolyard&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;校院 means 校 &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; 院. In most cases they mean 学校(school) &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; 学院(college/academy/institute), e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;校院简介&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  本人在华并未以侨生身份申请其他大学校院。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  实行校院两级管理体制是高校深化体制改革的一项重要措施。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the context, they might mean 学校 and 医院, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“校院合作、工学结合”是我国卫生高等职业教育改革和发展的必然趋势。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: 校院 is infrequently used because we have another much more common word 院校 (学院 and 学校). 校院 seems to be used only when the order does matter. E.g. in 校院简介 and 实行校院两级管理体制, 学院 is considered as the lower level unit of 学校, then 校院 should be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-10-21T04:23:19.140" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T04:23:19.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35312" CreationDate="2019-10-21T11:18:45.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it is completely true that shén mo is not standard Chinese pronunciation, it is an extremely common way to pronounce it in regions across southeast asia---in particular, in Singapore and Malaysia. The vast majority of people there (locals in particular) pronounce it like this, instead of the technically &quot;correct&quot; shén me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Source:&lt;/strong&gt; I'm Chinese and I live in this region.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21852" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T11:18:45.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35389" CreationDate="2019-10-21T13:08:23.160" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;the phrase &quot;琴酒相壽&quot; is very &lt;strong&gt;odd&lt;/strong&gt;, imo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;相&quot; can only be interpreted as mutually (互相). in most scenarios, when there's only one host (the &quot;birthday-er&quot;), participants of the event would not have the same birthday as the host. so, even they play the &quot;琴&quot;, and drunk, for celebrating the host's birthday, it's one way, not mutually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;only in the situations of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;twins, triplets, or whom were born on the same day&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ceremony that people with the same age, &quot;birth-year&quot; (&quot;同甲&quot;, or &quot;同庚&quot;) celebrate together&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then, one of the twins, or one of the participants of the latter; he/she uses this phrase for celebrating others' birthday, it's valid and truthful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;otherwise, i would not recommend this one for celebrate someone's longevity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;considering several 4 characters idioms, with 1st, 2nd character as noun, 3rd one is &quot;相&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;萍水相逢&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;名實相符&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;骨肉相連&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;首尾相應&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鷸蚌相爭&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;isn't it clear, the usage of &quot;相&quot; as mutually?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that the reason why i say &quot;相壽&quot; is odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;anyway, have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="13199" LastEditDate="2019-10-22T12:18:26.713" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T12:18:26.713" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35396" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-21T16:44:06.437" Score="0" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have three point to be clear about describing people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) In describing a person structures like this are usual.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我有一个好朋友叫徐浙峰，他的个子高高的，头发短短的，眼睛像葡萄一样亮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What i understand is that in the sentences 他的个子高高的 the verb 是 is omitted after 个子 in a 是的 construction or no?  Could you say 他的个子高， without 的。 If so what is the diference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second sentence 头发短短的   他 is omitted at the begining. ¿is it because it is the second sentece and we asume tha we are talking about the same person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 他的个子高高的  which we saw in the first point is also seen as ，高高的鼻子 when describing as a second clause. What is the diference between 高高的鼻子  and 鼻子高高的。 Is it because the clause becaus must have a 有 when using 高高的鼻子 and a 是 maybe omitted in the first clause. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example in the next sentece the 有 could be omitted in many of the clauses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她有一头卷卷的黄头发，有一双乌黑的葡萄般的大眼睛，有一个高高的鼻子，还有一张樱桃小嘴。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Another point for me to be clear is that i found this article in chinese. From what I understand is better not to use 有 when describing people or even may not be right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;写外貌不用“有”&#xA;作文如何写外貌？孩子的作文里总会看到类似这样的句子：“XX可漂亮了，她有一头卷卷的黄头发，有一双乌黑的葡萄般的大眼睛，有一个高高的鼻子，还有一张樱桃小嘴。”&#xA;如果你试着去掉文中的“有”，把文字重新串联一遍，会发现作文顺了很多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例如：“XX可漂亮啦。一头卷卷的黄头发自然地披在肩上。她的眼睛太吸引人了，乌黑乌黑葡萄一般。高高的鼻子，和樱桃小嘴配合起来，有点混血的味道，同学们可喜欢她啦。”是不是读起来舒服多了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T13:41:44.880" Title="Description of a person in chinese" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35397" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35403" CreationDate="2019-10-21T20:03:31.373" Score="0" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;I seel only &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_170&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_170&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_163&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_163&lt;/a&gt; with (traditional?) version animated. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.strokeorder.info/mandarin.php?q=%E9%98%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Many sites don't know this characted&lt;/a&gt; at all. And others don't give animated gif. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T09:28:08.137" Title="Where to find animation for character 阝?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34046" CreationDate="2019-10-21T23:34:09.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, an article such as &quot;a&quot;, &quot;an&quot;, &quot;the&quot; is essential element before a countable noun. In Chinese it is optional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparing &quot;He is a teacher&quot; with &quot;他是老師&quot;. 他/He implies there is one person. &quot;a&quot; is redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;他是一位老師&quot; and &quot;他是一名老師&quot;,  &quot;一位&quot; and &quot;一名&quot; is a kind of respect to a teacher. 位 means position and rank. 名 means famed.  In the old days, Chinese showed their high respect to teachers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;一個&quot; is a common measuring word. Saying &quot;他是一個老師&quot; is like treating a teacher as a common object or a common person. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practical, 一 is redundant and people often say &quot;他是位老師&quot; and &quot;他是名老師&quot;. So do &quot;他是個老師&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Classical Chinese, we can writing &quot;他是一老師&quot; if we emphasize it it &quot;one&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T23:34:09.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35382" CreationDate="2019-10-21T23:43:09.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In article, &quot;上世紀五六十年代年代&quot; is a word processing mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is either &quot;上世紀五十年代六十年代&quot; or &quot;上世紀五六十年代&quot;. The author might be try to shorten the sentence but forget to remove the redundant &quot;年代&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T23:43:09.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35397" CreationDate="2019-10-22T00:02:14.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;阝and⻏ and ⻖are seldom written in single form in daily life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is more easy to find some animation from common characters like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.strokeorder.info/mandarin.php?q=%E9%82%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;邢&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.strokeorder.info/mandarin.php?q=%E9%98%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;阡&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you insist to have their animations, just down those gif files and modify them to your satisfaction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6158" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-22T09:28:08.137" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T09:28:08.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35389" CreationDate="2019-10-22T00:29:32.807" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a bit of wordplay in 琴酒相壽. The tricky part is 壽, which sounds the same as 授 (to give). 琴 is an instrument. 酒 is alcohol. 相 here denotes 表示一方对另一方的动作(one applies an action upon another). Both 琴 and 酒 are used to toast one's birthday. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;琴酒相授 literally means &lt;em&gt;to give 酒 and 琴&lt;/em&gt;. By replacing 授 as 壽, it implies the purpose  why they give 琴 and 酒. It's because they want to celebrate their 壽(birthday).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 琴酒相壽, as a whole, roughly means &lt;em&gt;play 琴 and give 酒 to celebrate one's birthday&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T00:29:32.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35402" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35404" CreationDate="2019-10-22T02:30:58.370" Score="1" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BA%8C%E5%80%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;二倍&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%A4%E5%80%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;两倍&lt;/a&gt; mean &quot;double&quot;.  I'm wondering if there's any distinction between the two, e.g. with respect to grammar, or when to use which.  (There is ordinarily a difference in usage between 二 and 两.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there any distinction between 二倍 and 两倍?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not mentioned on the Chinese Grammar Wiki page &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22multiples%22_with_%22bei%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing &quot;multiples&quot; with &quot;bei&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is not a duplicate of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9295/when-to-use-%e4%b8%80%e5%80%8d-vs-%e4%b8%a4%e5%80%8d&quot;&gt;When to use 一倍 vs 两倍&lt;/a&gt; nor &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29938/saying-doubled-in-chinese-%e4%b8%80%e5%80%8d-vs-%e4%b8%a4%e5%80%8d&quot;&gt;Saying &amp;#39;doubled&amp;#39; in Chinese 一倍 vs 两倍&lt;/a&gt; which ask about 一倍, while this question asks about 二倍.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T09:43:19.353" Title="Is there any distinction between 二倍 and 两倍?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35397" CreationDate="2019-10-22T02:46:17.160" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This animation is on &lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E9%98%9D-order.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikimedia commons&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2Wq0c.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2Wq0c.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is also another one here on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kanshudo.com/kanji/%E9%98%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;kanshudo&lt;/a&gt; but it's not a gif.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T02:46:17.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35402" CreationDate="2019-10-22T03:01:23.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are exactly the same. Maybe, 两倍 is used more frequently than 二倍, but I don't have actual data to support it. It's just my impression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T03:01:23.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35323" CreationDate="2019-10-22T04:05:28.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A historical reason,maybe.&#xA;There's a lot of immigrants from the Chinese mainland in Taiwan, those immigrants speak Mandarin.&#xA;Hong Kong people speak Cantonese,same as Guangdong,which is different from Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22958" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T04:05:28.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35396" CreationDate="2019-10-22T13:41:44.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I understand is that in the sentences 他的个子高高的 the verb 是 is omitted after 个子 in a 是的 construction or no?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的个子高高&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; compare to another similar example, say, 他的肚子肥大.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we say 他的个子高高&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; instead of 他的个子高高,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we say 他的肚子肥大 instead of 他的肚子肥大&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Omitting &amp;quot;是&amp;quot; to construct 是...的 phrase, generally, for some rhetoric reasons, is done only when using twin characters. Like 他的肚子&lt;strong&gt;胖胖&lt;/strong&gt;的，这朵花&lt;strong&gt;香香&lt;/strong&gt;的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not with twin words, &amp;quot;是&amp;quot; should &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; be omitted. We say 他的肚子&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;肥大的 but never 他的肚子肥大的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他的肚子肥大 is also right, but 是 and 的 are omitted together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For better understanding, imagine this in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I got lost in a terrible field. Trees were tall and dense, houses covered with lush mosses, like that everything around was haunted.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;houses covered with lush mosses&amp;quot;, grammatically should be &amp;quot;houses were covered with lush mosses&amp;quot;. But the &amp;quot;were&amp;quot; it omitted. It's for a rhetoric reason, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you say 他的个子高， without 的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. 的 can be omitted that you can directly say 他个子高.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, you can say 他个子高 他个子很高 他头发很少 他肚子胖, with 的 omitted. However, it's informal. Such is just said in casual circumstances, for simplification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 高高的鼻子 and 鼻子高高的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a difference even in translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她有高高的鼻子: He has a high nose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她的鼻子高高的: His nose is high&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just feel the difference in English: He &lt;strong&gt;has&lt;/strong&gt; a high nose -----vs----- His nose &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it because the clause must have a 有 when using 高高的鼻子 and a 是 may be omitted in the first clause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example in the next sentece the 有 could be omitted in many of the clauses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她有一头卷卷的黄头发，有一双乌黑的葡萄般的大眼睛，有一个高高的鼻子，还有一张樱桃小嘴。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. It can be omitted so that the sentence is like this: 她有一头卷卷的黄头发，一双乌黑的葡萄般的大眼睛，一个高高的鼻子，还有一张樱桃小嘴 for a rhetoric reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like that you say, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She has a pair of twin-tails, &lt;strong&gt;has&lt;/strong&gt; a couple of big eyes and, &lt;strong&gt;has&lt;/strong&gt; a big long nose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She has a pair of twin-tails, a couple of big eyes, and a big long nose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously the second one seems more beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another point for me to be clear is that I found this article in Chinese. From what I understand is better not to use 有 when describing people or even may not be right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; not right. It's right. Just seems ugly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notice comparing with the language you've already mastered when learning a new language is important. It can tell you many things.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22960" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T13:41:44.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35408" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-22T16:12:29.767" Score="1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to help some friends who constantly struggle with home repairs due to lack of home maintenance experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.homedepot.com/p/The-Home-Depot-Home-Improvement-3rd-Edition-with-DVD-0696238500/100677237&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;nice English book&lt;/a&gt; with a lot of pictures, but it is not very useful for non English speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried searching for the Simplified Chinese Google Translate results of &amp;quot;home improvement book&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;home repair book&amp;quot;, etc only coming across interior design, and appliance repair results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the correct Chinese term for this topic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22962" LastEditorUserId="15684" LastEditDate="2020-06-23T08:17:09.847" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T08:17:09.847" Title="How to say &quot;home improvement&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35409" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35416" CreationDate="2019-10-22T16:33:17.860" Score="2" ViewCount="47" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's take into consideration these examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Ta1 men dou1 bu4 xi3 huan1 wo3. They all dislike me.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Zhong1 guo2 de cheng2 shi4 dou1 hen3 da4. All the Chinese cities are big.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my European brain &quot;dou1&quot; is a part of a subject. I see/ hear/ think:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Ta1 men dou1 --- bu4 xi3 huan1 --- wo3.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Zhong1 guo2 de --- cheng2 shi4 dou1 --- hen3 da4.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when Chinese native speakers speak slowly, they never part sentences like this! For them &quot;dou1&quot; is a part of a verb... Which to me is extremely strange. They would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Ta1 men --- dou1 bu4 xi3 huan1 --- wo3.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Zhong1 guo2&lt;/em&gt; [probably also &quot;de&quot; goes to &quot;cheng2 shi4&quot; here!] &lt;em&gt;--- de cheng2 shi4 --- dou1 hen3 da4.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an explainable reason of that? I can guess it has to do with another or archaic meaning/ use of &quot;dou1&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21769" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T03:33:01.657" Title="Accent on &quot;dou1&quot; (all) after a subject" Tags="&lt;spoken&gt;&lt;accent&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35411" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35424" CreationDate="2019-10-23T01:38:42.877" Score="0" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the 标准教程HSK4上 book, chapter 6, 课文1, I felt 张远 was being annoying by asking a lot of questions about why 李进 didn't answer his phone.  So I wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果别人不想接电话，不用&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%AE%A1%E9%97%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;审问&lt;/a&gt;TA。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher was surprised by my use of 审问 (interrogate).  It's the kind of thing I would say in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone doesn't want to answer their phone, you don't need to interrogate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher seemed puzzled by 审问, and said 问 would be better.  But changing 审问 to 问 would change the meaning: you can ask, but don't ask so intensely that it feels like an interrogation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking she interprets 审问 literally, and it would be better to flag the use of this metaphor, perhaps with 像...那样.  Something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果别人不想接电话，不用像一个审问那样问TA。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it essential to highlight the use of a metaphor with 像...那样 or something to this effect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found some examples online:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男友&lt;strong&gt;像审问&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%8A%AF%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;犯人&lt;/a&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一样&lt;/strong&gt;问女友 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://3g.163.com/v/video/VOQ6GTAJ4.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不喜欢,&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%89%B9%E8%AF%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;批评&lt;/a&gt;学生&lt;strong&gt;像审问&lt;/strong&gt;犯人的&lt;strong&gt;那样&lt;/strong&gt;的教育 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_51243dc50102wsiy.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T06:41:09.583" Title="Is it essential to highlight the use of a metaphor with 像...那样 or something to this effect?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35412" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-23T03:48:01.927" Score="1" ViewCount="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is an oblique reference to 孙子兵法，but in a modern context it just means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'the government only cares about what is above ground, what is beneath the ground is unimportant'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女：海绵城市能解决城市内涝的窘况吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;男：长期以来，城市建设中存在“重地上，轻地下”的偏向。遇到强降雨时，最常见的办法就是通过管道“快速排出”。而海绵城市突破“以排为主”的传统管理理念，以建筑、道路、绿地等为载体，通过多种生态技术，构建合理的城市雨水开发利用系统。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the speaker mean with “重地上，轻地下”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T00:25:07.757" Title="How to interpret 重地上，轻地下？" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35411" CreationDate="2019-10-23T03:59:35.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果别人不想接电话，不用像一个审问那样问他 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个审问 (an interrogation) is a noun, but your sentence suggests 审问 is a verb with the object &quot;犯人&quot; omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem of your sentence is 像(审问)犯人那样(问)他 is an incorrect form of shorten &quot;审问&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct form is 如果别人不想接电话，不用像(审问)犯人那样(审)他 (if someone doesn't want to take your phone call, there's no need to interrogate him like interrogate a criminal suspect)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can reduce &quot;像(审问犯人)那样&quot; to &quot;像(审犯)那样&quot; . 审犯 (interrogate criminal suspect) is a common Chinese term &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can even shorten the sentence further by removing &quot;如果&quot; and &quot;像... 那样&quot; and write: &quot;别人不想接电话，也不用(审犯)般(审)他&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;也 implies 如果; 般 means 那样&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-24T01:41:14.447" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T01:41:14.447" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35414" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35415" CreationDate="2019-10-23T07:04:22.087" Score="2" ViewCount="301" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that there are two different pronunciations of 得： - Usually it's pronounced &quot;de&quot;. - in some situations it's pronounced &quot;dei&quot; as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;老百姓想自强&#xA;那就得学习点别人先进的东西。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When is “得” pronounced “de” and when is it pronounced “dei”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22832" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T08:40:08.800" Title="When is “得” pronounced “de” and when is it pronounced “dei”?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35414" CreationDate="2019-10-23T07:20:48.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得&lt;br&gt;&#xA;děi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a verb that means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;need/must&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们得走了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  We gotta go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得&lt;br&gt;&#xA;de&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is an auxiliary partial that modifies or qualifies a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;说得好！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Well said!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-23T08:40:08.800" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T08:40:08.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35409" CreationDate="2019-10-23T15:17:29.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes this is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都 &lt;em&gt;dōu&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_%22all%22_adverb_%22dou%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;most commonly encountered as an adverb&lt;/a&gt;, and fits into the pre-verbal position shared by adverbs of manner (e.g. 慢慢 &lt;em&gt;mànmàn&lt;/em&gt;). It has a stronger link in prosody to the verb than to the noun/pronoun before it, just as your Mandarin speaking friends have demonstrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does also emphasise the subject, but its semantic value is different, close to English &quot;even&quot; than to &quot;all&quot;, and it is still in pre-verbal position rather than than some kind of post-noun position (I don't think that really exists to be honest).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese does have ways of putting &quot;all&quot; in the noun phrase: &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22all%22_with_%22suoyou%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the use of 所有 &lt;em&gt;suǒyǒu&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and also &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Indicating_the_whole_with_%22quan%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the use of 全 &lt;em&gt;quán&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; to mean &quot;whole, entire&quot; which can be translated &quot;all&quot; in certain contexts. Note though that 都 is &lt;em&gt;still present&lt;/em&gt; pre-verbally in such constructions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T15:17:29.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35418" CreationDate="2019-10-23T19:40:13.380" Score="3" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;割 ge1, 剪 jian3 切 qie4, 刮 gua1, 砍 kan3, 斩 zhan3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you list the major things you can cut using these? And linguistic traps I shouldn't fall for (e.g. you cut fingernails with one but toenails with another (it's just an example))? I would like to master using these so I'm asking about examples but also the logic of these characters, please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS If there's one more character worth being added here, let me know!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21769" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T19:21:39.967" Title="How do you cut different things in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35417" CreationDate="2019-10-23T20:24:00.777" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cut things with a sickle (鎌刀) or in a motion similar to using a sickle is 割 (cut)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 割草，割辫，割头，割尾巴 (cut grass, cut braid, cut head, cut tail) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cut things with scissors (剪刀) or cut things with a scissoring motion is 剪(cut)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 剪头发，剪草，剪布，剪指甲 (cut hair, cut grass, cut cloth, cut finger nail)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cut things with a knife (刀), especially Kitchen knife (廚刀) or a motion similar to using a Kitchen knife is 切 (cut) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 切菜，切饼，切水果，切肉 (Cut vegetables, cut cake, cut fruit, cut meat)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cut things with an axe or other cutting tool using similar motion as using an axe is 砍 (cut; hack)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 砍头，砍木，砍柴，砍蔗 (cut head, cut wood, cut firewood, cut sugar cane)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;斩 (cut; hack) is similar to 砍 but mostly with a knife or other bladed weapons more slender than an axe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 斩頭，斩木，斩柴，斩蔗 (cut head, cut wood, cut firewood, cut sugar cane) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Both 砍 and 斩 contains the meaning of 劈 (hack)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;刮 is 'to scratch' or 'to shave'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:刮骨，刮须，刮皮，刮毛 (Bone scraping, shaving bread, skin scraping, shaving body hair)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To determine which character to use, just think of what tool or what motion you use to cut the object, for example: a basketball. How do you cut a basketball in half? Certainly not by 砍 (to hack) or 割 (to slice). The correct tool is 鋸(saw) and the motion is called &quot;to saw&quot; (鋸) as in 鋸开(saw open) 鋸断 (saw apart)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;if there's one more character worth being added here, let me know!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;削 (削皮刀- peeling knight; 削掉- to slice/ peel off)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;闸 (闸刀- chopper switch; 闸断- to chop apart)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; (刀- box cutter; 开 - to slice open/ to cut open)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剃 (剃刀- shaving blade; 剃掉 - to shave off)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-24T19:21:39.967" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T19:21:39.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35408" CreationDate="2019-10-23T23:32:02.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;home can be 家庭，improvement/repair can be 装潢/装修，book can be 手册。&#xA;So, 家庭装修手册 or 家庭装潢手册&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22967" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T23:32:02.750" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35412" CreationDate="2019-10-24T00:25:07.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, as a native speaker, my intuition is that it is not something from old Chinese. Not all those sentences or phrases that use very few words come from old Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, they just want to briefly summarize the current preference on urban construtation that people focus more on things above the ground rather than below the ground.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, it is quite common to say “重A，轻B” in formal situations. It is also very common that people summarize some key characteristics in a brief way, making it looks like old Chinese. You can find a lot of them in some political files or slogans, such as “兴国之要，兴国之魂，立国之本，立党之本”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4450" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T00:25:07.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35421" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-24T01:42:27.963" Score="0" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some Chinese, especially those in China, have no concpets of western humor and their interpretation could be unexpected. Satire can be interpreted as personal attack and self mocking can be interpreted as some crazyness.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you use the language to make some jokes that are considered okay and actually make them laugh?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is making jokes the wrong approach to make friends with Chinese? How do you make friends with Chinese using the language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastEditorUserId="22375" LastEditDate="2019-10-24T02:13:02.523" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T03:06:10.863" Title="Does (western) humor exist in Chinese culture? How do you use the language to make friends with Chinese?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;humor&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35402" CreationDate="2019-10-24T01:53:18.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you focus on the usage of &quot;double&quot; only,  二倍 and 两倍 are the same, but 两倍 is more standard and common usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking, 二倍 is very nonstandard, it could be considered wrong in some cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22375" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T01:53:18.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35376" CreationDate="2019-10-24T03:07:26.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;制冷&quot; is not a verb. Note that your dictionary link that is showing calls it a &lt;em&gt;noun&lt;/em&gt; (small &quot;n.&quot;). It means &quot;refrigeration&quot;, as in the power to refrigerate, not &quot;to refrigerate&quot; (v.). Hence it is invalid to insert it into the verb slot of the structure you are trying to use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, in fact, this actually leads the way to writing this sentence with proper grammar. Note that &quot;不太好&quot; is a degree word+adjective combination, giving 好ness in the degree 不太 (not so much), so you should instead just use the structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;N + degree + adj.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just as in, say, &quot;He is tall&quot; - 他很高。 Hence, what you'll want to do is delete the 得 and make 空调 into the possessive to create a noun phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;空调的制冷不太好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lit. &quot;The air conditioner's refrigerating power is not all that good&quot;. And sure enough, this rings up hits - though not many, so there's probably also a more idiomatic way of saying it, but at least it's &lt;em&gt;correct&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ADD: Yes, even better, just remove &quot;的&quot;- in this case you don't need it, because the refrigerating power is &lt;em&gt;intimately&lt;/em&gt; (and not incidentally) possessed by the air conditioner (c.f. speaking of parts of one's own body, or one's parents - same cognitive logic as 我妈妈 vs. 我的妈妈, etc.), hence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;空调制冷不太好.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and this now gets a LOT of hits on Baidu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16171" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T03:07:26.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35411" CreationDate="2019-10-24T06:41:09.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the bigger problem here is: &lt;strong&gt;word choice&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Swapping 审问 out for 拷问 would make the whole sentence more &lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;拷问&lt;/strong&gt; is defined in &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;v.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  interrogate with torture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;n.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  third degree&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Giving someone the &lt;em&gt;third degree&lt;/em&gt; is something we also speak of often enough in English for &quot;interrogations&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might also be confused with 考问, and vice versa, - the pronunciations are exactly the same and the meanings, in an extended sense, are not that far off from one another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;考问&lt;/strong&gt; is defined in &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;v.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  examine orally; question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes certain words are just not used in certain contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T06:41:09.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35421" CreationDate="2019-10-24T18:22:36.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A difficult question! In China, people of different ages, doing different jobs, having different hobbies may all find their own senses of humor. Many that the young finds laughable may not sound funny at all in an elder's ears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is, however, cultural gap between China and the West in the sense of humor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We don't think clumsiness, backfiring, trouble making, etc. are funny, as in many 'try not to laugh challenge' on YouTube. On the contrary, they are boring even annoying.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We sense humor in quick wit response, contradiction of words and action (in a funny way), unexpected turning of a story, etc. We call a piece of organized passage aiming at making people laugh 段子. 段子 are often based on something heated on the Internet, which is called 梗 (originating from 哏). People will laugh when you cleverly use a 梗, which is called 玩梗, but they are short lived, once they lost popularity, you seem silly to 玩老梗 (using an old fashioned 梗 to make a joke). And netizens will banter you with something like: “日本投降矣！” “北京申奥成功了！” “你也在网上冲浪？” (They are all very old events or old fashioned wording.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It s not easy to define the criteria of funny or not. Arhh, it has been so long since I last laughed at mere text. Nowadays jokes are all in the forms of pics, gifs, and videos mixed with texts. In daily life, people don't talk jokes to ease the atmosphere, instead they talk about funny things they experienced, or funny news they heard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-25T03:06:10.863" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T03:06:10.863" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35312" CreationDate="2019-10-24T20:12:13.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, 什麽 vs 什么 are just traditional Chinese vs simplified Chinese. They are the same characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, if you look up them in dictionary, they have the same pinyin, shenme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, pinyin is invented as a standard for the current Mandarin Chinese. In many dialects, me and mo are the same, even in many Mandarin dialects. I couldn't understand why linguists distinguish 么 with 莫墨莫 and so on since I don't distinguish between mo and me as a native speaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But historically, 么 is pronounced more close to mo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4450" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T20:12:13.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35427" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35430" CreationDate="2019-10-25T00:33:02.250" Score="3" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Mama! Papa don't &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt; me watch TV, he's &lt;strong&gt;making&lt;/strong&gt; me do house chores first&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are translated as 让 in Chinese, e.g.,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KnJ16.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KnJ16.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I even added more context on the sentence, with the hope that Google might be able to infer the proper translation of &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;make&lt;/strong&gt; to Chinese based on one's willingness/non-willingness to do something :) But then it's still 让&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FVXsd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FVXsd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to differentiate &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/whats-difference-between-let-and-make&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;let and make&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22974" LastEditorUserId="22974" LastEditDate="2019-10-25T01:40:40.330" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T07:44:18.890" Title="Let and Make, how to differentiate the two in Chinese" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35427" CreationDate="2019-10-25T01:18:53.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Papa don't allow me watch tv or Papa don't suggest me watch tv.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;let means shall we?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg:let us go to the great wall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;make means ask me to do something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22212" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T01:18:53.783" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34066" CreationDate="2019-10-25T01:23:11.337" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Chinese, but I don't know &quot;睇下我嘅&quot; means. It is not Chinese as I know. So you may want to get the correct Chinese sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22975" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T01:23:11.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35427" CreationDate="2019-10-25T03:01:37.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming make = force, then it would look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Let = 让&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make = 逼&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Let me sing = 让我唱&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make (force) me (to) sing = 逼我唱&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. in case anyone is confused about make = force, OP @MichaelBuen wrote the following in his comments on this page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My teacher make me sing my hated song&quot;, the kid is complaining to her mama that her teacher is forcing her to sing a song she don't want to sing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The word &quot;make&quot; means the same as “&quot;force&quot; or &quot;cause to happen / cause to feel something.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-25T05:41:52.727" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T05:41:52.727" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35427" CreationDate="2019-10-25T04:33:33.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are looking at this from the wrong angle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps first change 'don't' for 'won't'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Mama, Papa won't let me watch TV, he's making me do house chores first.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;妈妈，爸爸不让我看电视，让我先做家务。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The little brat is trying to play Mum against Dad, so the brat says &quot;Dad is &lt;em&gt;making&lt;/em&gt; me&quot;. Dad only asked him or her to tidy up his or her room a bit first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't watch TV now, please tidy your room first.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;现在不可以看电视， 请你先整理你的房间。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So your second 让 is only 'asking = 请', not 'making = 迫使'。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dad is not a despot, just a parent!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T04:33:33.933" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35432" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35438" CreationDate="2019-10-25T05:23:50.157" Score="4" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you look at the Chinese versions of the Tao Te Ching online (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Tao_Te_Ching&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, and elsewhere), there are periods (。), commas, semicolons, question marks, and exclamation marks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。無名天地之始；有名萬物之母。故常無欲，以觀其妙；常有欲，以觀其徼。此兩者，同出而異名，同謂之玄。玄之又玄，衆妙之門。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were no &lt;em&gt;commas&lt;/em&gt; back then! What is this! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering what an &quot;original&quot; version of the Tao Te Ching would look like. The oldest versions. Did they completely lack punctuation? Did each poem have titles like these versions do, or were the titles added later? Were the poems/verses structured in any particular way, or was it just one big wall of text? Or was it like the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Tao_Te_Ching&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia version&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, it would be interesting to know where I could find a primary source / reference to demonstrate the &quot;original form&quot;, like if it's on a digital archive at a museum or something online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T05:49:34.627" Title="What did the original Tao Te Ching use for punctuation?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;punctuation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35433" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35434" CreationDate="2019-10-25T05:58:16.977" Score="1" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, unpleasantness can be stated by changing &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/whats-difference-between-let-and-make&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;let to make&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classmate sharing pleasant things to classmate: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;My parents let me eat chocolates.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我父母&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;我吃巧克力&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classmate complaining to classmate: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;My parents are making me eat vegetables.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我父母&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;我吃蔬菜&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As both use use &lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;, the second example does not sound complaining at all. Or perhaps it sounds complaining, as most kids universally hates vegetables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s an example where enjoyment/non-enjoyment can’t be inferred:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;My parents let me eat apples.&#xA;&#xA;My parents are making me eat apples.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are translated as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我父母&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;我吃苹果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unpleasantness can be stated verbally using length of tones, sound volume.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in written Chinese, what’s the best way to state unpleasantness  in place of the word &quot;making me&quot;? Aside from prefixing the sentence with 哎呀 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22974" LastEditorUserId="22974" LastEditDate="2019-10-25T07:47:56.130" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T07:47:56.130" Title="How to state unpleasantness in written form? let becomes make" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35433" CreationDate="2019-10-25T06:23:18.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;让 (to make) implies &quot;to force/ to order&quot;. If something has to be forced upon you, that something is most likely unpleasant to you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;强迫/ 迫: &quot;to force&quot; . e.g. 我父母迫我吃苹果 (my parent force me to eat apple/ my parent make me eat apple)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;硬是要/ 硬要: &quot;to force&quot; . e.g. 我父母硬是要我吃苹果 (my parent force me to eat apple)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我父母硬是要[&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;]我吃苹果 (my parent stubbornly/ forcefully [&lt;strong&gt;make&lt;/strong&gt;] me eat apple)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我父母硬是要[&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;]我吃苹果 would not be misinterpreted as &quot;my parent stubbornly/ forcefully [&lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt;] me eat apple)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: &quot;係都要&quot; is the Cantonese equivalent of &quot;硬是要&quot;. e.g. &quot;我父母係都要我食苹果&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-25T06:32:41.220" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T06:32:41.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35435" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35437" CreationDate="2019-10-25T07:34:03.013" Score="2" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on someone’s &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35433/how-to-state-unpleasantness-in-written-form-let-becomes-make/35434#35434&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt; on question regarding &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35433/how-to-state-unpleasantness-in-written-form-let-becomes-make/35434&quot;&gt;how to state unpleasantness in Chinese&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;让 (to make) implies &quot;to force/ to order&quot;. If something has to be&#xA;  forced upon you, that something is most likely unpleasant to you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That seems to be true. Maybe that’s why my wife (Chinese) told me that both &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;making&lt;/strong&gt; are &lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt; in this sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mama! Papa won't &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt; me watch TV, he's &lt;strong&gt;making&lt;/strong&gt; me do house&#xA;  chores first”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mostly associate 让 with &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt;, perhaps I should associate 让 more with &lt;strong&gt;make&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for a native speaker, the following mostly sounds like commanding (&lt;strong&gt;making&lt;/strong&gt;). Correct me in this assessment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我父母&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;我吃苹果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and is best translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents are &lt;strong&gt;making&lt;/strong&gt; me eat apples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;instead of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt; me eat apples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So instead of looking for the equivalent word of &lt;strong&gt;make&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese, I should instead look for the equivalent word of &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt; in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus (if someone enjoy apples like they enjoy chocolates):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt; me eat apples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is best translated in Chinese as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我父母&lt;strong&gt;允许&lt;/strong&gt;我吃苹果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that the best translation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I correct with my assessment that &lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt; should be regarded more as &lt;strong&gt;make&lt;/strong&gt; than &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or am I just sweating it out too much?  Can I liberally use &lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt; for both &lt;strong&gt;make&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt;, as long as there is a context that can disambiguate the sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/13882/tang-ho&quot;&gt;Tang Ho&lt;/a&gt;'s &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35435/is-%E8%AE%A9-more-make-than-let/35437#35437&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt; is spot on. It all really depends on context, even Google does not blindly translates sentence. Chocolate is generally liked, &lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt; is translated as &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt;. Vegetables is generally disliked, &lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt; is translated as &lt;strong&gt;asked&lt;/strong&gt;(making/pursuading/forcing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are Chinese to English translations by Google:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我父母&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;我吃巧克力.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt; me eat chocolate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我父母&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;我吃蔬菜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents &lt;strong&gt;asked&lt;/strong&gt; me to eat vegetables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the difference there? We just replaced chocolate with vegetables, and Google Translate's algorithm determines what's the best English translation for the same &lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt; wording, sometimes 让 is &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt;, sometimes 让 is &lt;strong&gt;asked&lt;/strong&gt;(making/pursuading/forcing), depending on pleasantness/unpleasantness of the subject food&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我父母让我吃鸡肉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents let me eat chicken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我父母让我吃鸭肉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents asked me to eat duck meat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chocolate is generally liked. But if you need to make excuse to avoid eating chocolate, the readers(and even Google too) would know you don't like chocolate and decide &quot;&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;asked, making&lt;/strong&gt; (pursuaded, forced)&quot; instead of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我父母让我吃巧克力，我就假裝牙痛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents asked me to eat chocolate, and I pretended to have a toothache.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我父母让我吃蔬菜，我就假裝牙痛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents asked me to eat vegetables, and I pretended to have a toothache.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我父母让我吃鸡肉，我就假裝牙痛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents asked me to eat chicken, and I pretended to have a toothache.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我父母让我吃鸭肉，我就假裝牙痛.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents asked me to eat duck meat, and I pretended to have a toothache.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我父母終於肯让我吃巧克力.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents finally let me eat chocolate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我父母終於肯让我吃蔬菜.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents finally let me eat vegetables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我父母終於肯让我吃鸡肉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents finally let me eat chicken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我父母終於肯让我吃鸭肉.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My parents finally let me eat duck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22974" LastEditorUserId="22974" LastEditDate="2019-10-26T06:54:25.767" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T06:54:25.767" Title="Is 让 more [make] than [let]?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35427" CreationDate="2019-10-25T07:44:18.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the way to express the same thing is quite different between Chinese and English, so the interpretation is various according to different contexts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In OP's case, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Mama! Papa don't let me watch TV, he's making me do house chores first&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd expect, in this situation, a Chinese speaker would say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;妈妈，爸爸不&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;我看电视，他&lt;strong&gt;非让&lt;/strong&gt;我先做家务！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非 or 非得 can be emotional in Chinese to express one's complaining. It can describe a situation where I am not willing to do something but someone else tries hard to make me do it. E.g. 我不想去，可他非让我去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another word that can express 'force' or 'make' is 硬. E.g.他硬让我做我不喜欢做的事情！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In formal speech, 强迫 is a word for it. E.g. 他不愿意去，就不要强迫。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some other words, but context is the key to determine which one is best suit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T07:44:18.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35435" CreationDate="2019-10-25T09:04:55.350" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It all depends on the context. The readers would know which meaning of 让 you are referring to, by having the information of the activity is wanted or unwanted, and decide 让 means &quot;make&quot; or &quot;let&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most case, eating apple is something you like to do, therefore, &quot;让&quot; in &quot;我父母让我吃苹果&quot; should be interpreted as  &quot;let&quot; unless you specify you hate apple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &quot;我父母让我吃苹果，我就假裝牙痛&quot; - &quot;Whenever my parent make me eat apple, I would pretend to have a toothache.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you need to make excuse to avoid eating apple, the readers would know you don't like apple and decide &quot;让&quot; means &quot;make&quot; instead of &quot;let&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly:  &quot;我父母(終於肯)让我吃苹果&quot; - &quot;My parent (finally agree to) let me eat apple&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;From the words &quot;finally agree to&quot; we know you don't get to eat apple often or it has been a long time since you had one. We can confidently presume  &quot;让&quot; here means &quot;let&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-25T10:37:46.493" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T10:37:46.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35432" CreationDate="2019-10-25T10:31:00.723" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far, the earliest version of &lt;em&gt;Tao Te Ching&lt;/em&gt; found is on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guodian_Chu_Slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Guodian Chu Bamboo Slips&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, written in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Warring States&lt;/a&gt; era &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;State of Chu&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 楚簡書法网 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cjsfw.net/Html/?287.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cjsfw.net/Html/?287.html&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cjsfw.net/Html/?283.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cjsfw.net/Html/?283.html&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DHAHu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DHAHu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The text is given in verses, beginning with an 8-character rhythm, and the punctuation marks are found on the bottom right of the terminal character for the verse, as a verse breaker. The punctuation does not strictly correspond to a full stop or comma of today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-10-26T05:49:34.627" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T05:49:34.627" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35435" CreationDate="2019-10-25T11:23:23.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Note: I'm just a learner, but I'll try to answer this.)  I don't think &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%AE%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;让&lt;/a&gt; is one way or the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it's &amp;quot;let&amp;quot; (or &amp;quot;allow&amp;quot;) and not &amp;quot;make&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;女朋友不&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;我进她的卧室 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/468433535.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;My girlfriend won't &lt;strong&gt;let&lt;/strong&gt; me in her bedroom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it's &amp;quot;make&amp;quot; and not &amp;quot;let&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;哪些行为&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;你感到生气？ (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1547186397306749507.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;What behaviors &lt;strong&gt;make&lt;/strong&gt; you feel angry?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then we have other sentences where it's somewhere in between:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;第一次去男朋友家吃饭就&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;我洗碗 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-1095-180730-1.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The first time I went to my boyfriend's house to eat a meal, [they] &lt;strong&gt;had&lt;/strong&gt; me wash the dishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;让&lt;/strong&gt;他帮我找工作 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1116936690649712579.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I &lt;strong&gt;have&lt;/strong&gt; him help me find a job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these could instead mean &amp;quot;let&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;make&amp;quot; depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Further examples are at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Causative_verbs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T11:23:23.743" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35440" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35443" CreationDate="2019-10-25T12:53:11.500" Score="3" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sentence seems unproblematic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不喜欢抽烟。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I don't like smoking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I want to emphasize the strength of my dislike:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8D%83%E4%B8%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;千万&lt;/a&gt;不喜欢抽烟。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, searching for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E5%8D%83%E4%B8%87%E4%B8%8D%E5%96%9C%E6%AC%A2%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;千万不喜欢&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; on Baidu doesn't give many hits, so it seems like is very unusual.  However there seems to be plenty of hits for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E5%8D%83%E4%B8%87%E4%B8%8D%E8%A6%81%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;千万不要&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.  I don't really see the distinction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there something wrong with saying 千万不喜欢 to mean I absolutely do not like something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T08:57:02.577" Title="Is there something wrong with saying 千万不喜欢 to mean I absolutely do not like something?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35440" CreationDate="2019-10-25T15:32:37.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;absolutely&amp;quot; is translated as &amp;quot;绝对&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我不喜欢抽烟 (I don't like to smoke) --&amp;gt; 我絕對不喜欢抽烟 (I absolutely don't like to smoke)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;千万&amp;quot; functions like &amp;quot;must&amp;quot; in English. It is mainly used in serious warning/ reminder for a future action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千万 doesn't usually be used on it's own to modify a verb phrase, it is usually used to emphasize 要, /別 or 不能/不可&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千万要 - absolutely need to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千万不要/ 千万別 - absolutely don't&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千万不能/ 千万不可 - absolutely cannot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千万不喜欢抽烟 is ungrammatical because it miss a verb like 不要&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correct usage of 千万:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;这事情千万不可泄漏出去&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;This matter must not be leaked out&amp;quot;. (serious warning for not to leak out in the future)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;面见皇上时说话千万要小心&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;When you meet his majesty, you must speak carefully&amp;quot; (serious reminder for speak carefully in an up coming event)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千万不要抽烟 (you must not smoke) implies you are not smoking now and warning you not to in the future&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;千万別喜欢上抽烟 (you must not become addictive to smoking) implies you are not addictive to smoking now and warning you not to in the future&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T01:56:41.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35440" CreationDate="2019-10-25T18:02:02.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on examples, &lt;code&gt;千万不&lt;/code&gt;， &lt;code&gt;千万别&lt;/code&gt; are generally used when you give suggestions to others. e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;（你｜ta）千万别喜欢抽烟&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;（你｜ta）千万不要喜欢抽烟&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;（你｜ta）千万别去&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also implies that the like/dislike is what you're hoping for from another person.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, you want to emphasize your dislike, and you know that you don't like smoking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my observation, and you can try to apply this to other examples and see if it's applicable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T18:02:02.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35440" CreationDate="2019-10-25T23:25:27.940" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As other answers pointed out, 千万 is usually used as a warning. 千万 typically implies a reason why you should or should not do something (Otherwise you would suffer a certain consequence). E.g. 你走路时千万要小心 (否则很容易摔倒).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to emphasize the strength of your dislike in your example, you can say: 我真不喜欢抽烟。// I really don't like smoking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use other words to express your dislike too, such as 讨厌. E.g. 我讨厌抽烟。 Add more emphasis: 我很讨厌抽烟。 ,  我非常讨厌抽烟。 or 我特别讨厌抽烟。 The extremest could be 我真的是非常，非常，非常讨厌抽烟!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. In English, &quot;I absolutely do not like something&quot; is probably an idiomatic way. But when it's translated into Chinese, it might not be idiomatic any more because both languages expresses things in different manners. In this case, a direct translation would be: 我绝对不喜欢抽烟. But the sentence's rarely been said in practice. You are more likely to hear 我一点都不喜欢抽烟 from a Chinese speaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-10-26T08:57:02.577" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T08:57:02.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35444" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-27T02:38:10.223" Score="1" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading a book to explain &lt;a href=&quot;https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-11.html#%_sec_1.2.1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;factorial&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;n! = n*(n-1)*(n-2)....3*2*1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Decompose word &lt;code&gt;factorial&lt;/code&gt;阶乘, I am enlightened to see its meaning literally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Factor is 乘数, So factorial should 阶乘.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to describe such a situation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;顾名思义&quot;? 从字面上理解? 从拼写上理解?    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume 顾明思议 a bit better but merely not grasp the idea thoroughly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there some better phases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18167" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T06:45:41.430" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T08:06:16.820" Title="Alternatives to say &quot;顾名思义＂" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35409" CreationDate="2019-10-27T03:33:01.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I totally agree with Michaelyus's answer. I would like to add that, in examples like in your questions, if you remove 都, the meaning is still the same. The noun itself has included implicit &quot;all&quot; in it, so you don't need 都 for the noun. And, 都 is never used with noun.  Maybe thinking like this, you know it's different from Eurepean way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;中国的城市都很大&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;中国的城市很大&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;他们都不喜欢我&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;他们不喜欢我&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;中国人都很好&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;中国人很好&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;花园里的花儿都很美&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;花园里的花儿很美&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;天上的云都很白&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;天上的云很白&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T03:33:01.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35446" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35447" CreationDate="2019-10-27T05:47:17.320" Score="0" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have the phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;跟他交朋友&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Make friends with him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm wondering if it's ambiguous:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You go from a state of non-friendship with him, to a state of friendship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 你想成为我的朋友吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: 好的！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You both go out looking for friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 你想出去交新朋友吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: 好的！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps there's some subtlety here I'm missing, but it seems like it's ambiguous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Can 跟他交朋友 mean both &quot;become friends with him&quot; and &quot;with him, make [other] friends&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T07:40:32.490" Title="Is 跟他交朋友 ambiguous: can it mean both &quot;become friends with him&quot; and &quot;with him, make [other] friends&quot;?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35446" CreationDate="2019-10-27T06:32:17.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;跟他交朋友 is not ambiguous. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although 跟 can mean &quot;with&quot; or &quot;follow&quot; but 交朋友 is not usually something you follow someone to do. Therefore, &quot;跟他交朋友&quot; should always mean &quot;to make friend with him&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice: &quot;跟他去交朋友&quot; is ambiguous. Although 交朋友 is not something you follow someone to do, but the verb &quot;去&quot;(go) can be. However, 去 can also be a preposition for &quot;to&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;跟他[&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;]交朋友&quot; could mean &quot;follow him [&lt;strong&gt;to go&lt;/strong&gt;] make friends&quot; or &quot;[&lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt;] make friend with him&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make clear you mean  &quot;follow him to go make friends&quot; you can say &quot;&lt;strong&gt;跟著&lt;/strong&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;去&lt;/strong&gt;交朋友&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;following&lt;/strong&gt; him and &lt;strong&gt;go&lt;/strong&gt; make friends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or even more clear: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;跟著&lt;/strong&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;出去&lt;/strong&gt;交朋友&quot; (&lt;strong&gt;following&lt;/strong&gt; him and &lt;strong&gt;go out&lt;/strong&gt; to make friends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-27T06:55:34.440" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T06:55:34.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35444" CreationDate="2019-10-27T06:34:30.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I can think of is: 逐字理解 or 按字面意思理解.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T06:34:30.490" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35408" CreationDate="2019-10-27T06:58:44.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you looking for something to do it yourself? Try 家居装修DIY&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T06:58:44.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35444" CreationDate="2019-10-27T08:41:50.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;阶为逐级，乘为相乘，以阶乘冠factorial，可谓名实相合。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T08:41:50.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35312" CreationDate="2019-10-27T09:44:51.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think shenmo is the correct pronunciation for 什麼. Although shenmo won't confuse people since if you're talking informally, shenmo is a common mispronunciation non-chinese speakers. Some accents/ dialects also pronounce 什麼 as shenmo,so yeah it depends on where you speak and who you're talking to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22987" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T09:44:51.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35446" CreationDate="2019-10-27T10:13:57.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add a simple perspective to the other elaborated answer given, just think about the connotation to the English expression: &quot;I made friends with him&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 99.9% of the time, you would know that the meaning is only two people, you and another person, who become friends. If otherwise, the context would indicate this. The same logic applies in Chinese, in this case as well as in many other semantically ambiguous situations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T10:13:57.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35453" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35454" CreationDate="2019-10-27T11:14:57.457" Score="0" ViewCount="453" Body="&lt;p&gt;Speaking as a native speaker of American English, I notice from my perspective that Cantonese speakers tend to sound more &quot;British&quot; than Mandarin speakers. I'm not just referring to Hong Kong, but wherever Cantonese is spoken. Can anyone verify this and why it might be so? In particular, vowels in words like 再，十，去，你 and 想 come to mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21935" LastActivityDate="2021-01-16T11:29:40.570" Title="Why does Cantonese sound vaguely British?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;hong-kong&gt;&lt;accent&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35453" CreationDate="2019-10-27T15:22:08.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably because HK was a British colony. I did notice that HK Cantonese sounds differently compared to Cantonese in Guangdong, China. Personally I only feel it's softer but I don't know if it is related to the fact HongKonger was influenced by British English accent. Maybe you can do more research and provide clearer examples in your questions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T15:22:08.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35455" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35457" CreationDate="2019-10-28T00:00:14.640" Score="1" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;So my Chinese at the moment is pretty limited, and I can't seem to figure out the meaning of this four character mark on a bowl that I bought: 藝蘭軒備.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried translating the characters individually, and that leads me to believe it might mean that the bowl was made for a specific room in a house, but I'm really not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help is appreciated, thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pigpN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22989" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-28T09:37:53.003" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T09:37:53.003" Title="What does 藝蘭軒備 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35402" CreationDate="2019-10-28T01:13:55.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, the character 两 often precedes a quantifier, while 二 does not.&#xA;In ordinary life, we prefer 两倍/个/斤 to 二倍/个/斤.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when it comes to science and technology, 二 is preferred to 两. There is a jargon 二倍体(diploid) but 两倍体 does not exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="12687" LastEditDate="2020-03-19T05:22:14.153" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T05:22:14.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35455" CreationDate="2019-10-28T01:14:07.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;兿蘭軒 seems to be the company's name (House of artful orchid)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;備 can mean &quot;prepare&quot; , &quot;equip&quot; or &quot;reserve&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I search 兿蘭軒 I found a place called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Garden-Center/%E8%97%9D%E8%BB%92%E8%98%AD%E5%9C%92-519248351573853/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;藝軒蘭園&lt;/a&gt; and it is a flower shop. Does your bowl looked like it can be a vast or pot for plants? If it is a vest, then 兿蘭軒備 would mean this vast is prepared for this flower shop's 盆栽 (potted plant) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If the bowl is an actual dinnerware, then 兿蘭軒 might be a restaurant (which I can't find on line), and 兿蘭軒備 could mean &quot;equipment (dinnerware) of House of artful orchid restaurant&quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 兿蘭軒 was the name of a house/ institution, then 兿蘭軒備 would mean this was a decoration item used (equipped for display) by the House of Artful Orchid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-28T09:06:40.763" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T09:06:40.763" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35458" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35459" CreationDate="2019-10-28T02:37:18.480" Score="0" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;This snippet is from 标准教程HSK4上 chapter 7 (my translation):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小李：你的鼻子怎么流血了？快用纸擦擦。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Little Li: Your nose is [how] bleeding? Quickly get a tissue and wipe [it].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小林：&lt;strong&gt;我还不习惯北方的气候，估计是天气太干&lt;/strong&gt;。今天天气不是很冷，你怎么穿这么多？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Little Lin: &lt;strong&gt;I am still not accustomed to the north's climate, [my] estimate is the weather is too dry&lt;/strong&gt;.  Today the weather is not very cold, how come you wear so much?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand what caused 小林's nose to bleed.  The logic seems to be something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小林 is now in the north [of China].&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小林 is not accustomed to the north's climate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小林 estimated the weather is &amp;quot;too dry&amp;quot; [估计是天气太干], but this was incorrect.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;???&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;小林's nose is bleeding.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm going wrong somewhere here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 小林's nose bleeding?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like 小林 has predicted the north's weather is drier than it actually is.  But I would expect an underestimation of the dryness to lead to 小林's nose bleeding, not an overestimation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T05:54:27.333" Title="Why is Little Lin's nose bleeding? 还不习惯北方的气候，估计是天气太干。" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35458" CreationDate="2019-10-28T02:59:14.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The weather caused the problem of his nose. Specifically, he suspected it's too dry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that you misunderstand the word 估计 in the context. It's not an estimation actually. It's his suspection instead. I'd interpret 估计 as &lt;strong&gt;reckon&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;suspect&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;feel&lt;/strong&gt;, and etc in this context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我还不习惯北方的气候，估计是天气太干 // I am still not accustomed to the north's climate, I reckon (it's because) the weather is too dry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T02:59:14.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35458" CreationDate="2019-10-28T04:04:45.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When he said &amp;quot;天气太干&amp;quot; he actually meant &amp;quot;空气太干&amp;quot; (air is too dry)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese believe one of the causes for nosebleed is 體內燥熱 (dry heat inside body), and 干燥空气 (dry air) is a cause of 體內燥熱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To reduce 燥熱(dry heat), one should drink often and avoid fried, greasy food (fried food raise body temperature, greasy food is harder to digest thus put stress on the system, make it over work and heat up, causing nosebleed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我还不习惯北方的气候，估计是天气(空气)太干&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am still not accustomed to the north's climate, I guess it's because the weather (air) is too dry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;估计 simply means &amp;quot;guess&amp;quot; here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T04:04:45.403" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35458" CreationDate="2019-10-28T05:54:27.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Simply to answer your question:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Your understanding it right —— Lin underestimated the dryness which caused his nose bleeding.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lin says: 我还不习惯北方的气候，估计是天气太干。which means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lin failed to expect the climate is so dry, so he failed to moister his nose to prevent bleeding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2421" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T05:54:27.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35462" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35551" CreationDate="2019-10-28T19:02:49.387" Score="3" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;但是, 晓得 个 伊 来仔&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;/dé.zz̩ ɕiɒ.tə́ʔ ɦəʔ ɦi le.tsź̩/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Intended meaning: &quot;But, she came here knowing (that this fight was hopeless).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the use of 个 here correct? (伊 refers to an animate antecedent here.) If not, what is the proper way to write a relative clause?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21762" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T05:10:34.247" Title="(Shanghai Wu) &quot;但是, 晓得 个 伊 来仔.&quot; Is this correct?" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;&lt;shanghainese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35402" CreationDate="2019-10-28T20:18:58.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;二倍 could also be used in Cantonese meaning two times of something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 卖出二倍的价钱-selling at two times the price&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两倍 is used in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 两倍价钱-two times the price&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22993" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-10-29T00:49:35.160" LastActivityDate="2019-10-29T00:49:35.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35402" CreationDate="2019-10-29T01:49:49.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;两倍 is more often used than 二倍，because &quot;二&quot; sometimes means &quot;stupid&quot;.&#xA;Like “不要这么二！” means &quot;don't be stupid&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22997" LastActivityDate="2019-10-29T01:49:49.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35465" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-29T02:10:50.183" Score="6" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many years ago I played &lt;a href=&quot;https://cantr.net/en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantr II&lt;/a&gt;.  It's a text-based role playing game, but it's different to most: the aim of the game is not to &quot;level up&quot; or kill monsters.  In fact there's no specified &quot;goal&quot;.  What you do is develop an interesting character, and an interesting storyline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantr II basically forces characters to cooperate with each other: you need teamwork to do anything significant.  It's also very slow paced, e.g., walking from one town to another could take around 4 real-life days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantr II has multiple spawn points, with different spawn points having different languages.  Many people use it for language learning (&lt;a href=&quot;https://webzine.cantr.org/english/cantr-language-learning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cantr II webzine&lt;/a&gt;)---the slow-paced nature gives you time to write properly in a foreign language.  They used to have a Chinese spawn point, but it wasn't sufficiently popular, and was subsequently removed (&lt;a href=&quot;https://forum.cantr.org/viewtopic.php?f=53&amp;amp;t=18489&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be interested to know if there's anything else available.  I can't find anything else in English, but it's hard for me to search in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are there text-based online roleplaying games which can be used for practicing Chinese writing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/490/8099&quot;&gt;What computer games provide practice?&lt;/a&gt; gives another example &quot;Enter Zon&quot;, but it seems to no longer be available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update regarding Cantr II&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked a related question on LanguageLearning.SE: &lt;a href=&quot;https://languagelearning.stackexchange.com/questions/4435/is-the-online-role-playing-game-cantr-ii-much-use-for-language-learning&quot;&gt;Is the online role-playing game Cantr II much use for language learning?&lt;/a&gt;.  I just got an answer from &lt;em&gt;the author of the Cantr Webzine&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't see Chinese, but if even one other person can be found (to have someone else to speak with) that may be enough to open the language again, as well as others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Emphasis mine.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;(Posting this is a little bit &quot;adverty&quot;, so I'd like to declare I'm not affiliated with Cantr II in any way.)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T04:39:18.783" LastActivityDate="2021-03-28T15:48:54.977" Title="Are there text-based online roleplaying games which can be used for practicing Chinese writing?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;&lt;games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35466" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35468" CreationDate="2019-10-29T05:09:55.237" Score="0" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;From 标准教程HSK4上 (page 88):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A:&lt;strong&gt;听说你去丽江玩儿了&lt;/strong&gt;？那儿怎么样？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B:那里特别美，空气也很新鲜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I'm not mistaken, the 了 is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Change_of_state_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;change-of-state 了&lt;/a&gt;.  But this gives two possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The change of state is B going from B's former location to 丽江.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The change of state is B going from 丽江 to B's present location.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My impression is that since the 了 is not directly after 去 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_completion_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;completion 了&lt;/a&gt;), we can deduce B is still in 丽江, and maybe A and B are talking on the phone.  However, 玩儿 is also a verb, so maybe 了 implies its completion (instead of 去).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does 听说你去丽江玩儿了 imply they are still in 丽江?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T06:21:43.090" Title="Does 听说你去丽江玩儿了 imply they are still in 丽江?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35466" CreationDate="2019-10-29T05:52:16.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not necessarily. It depends. If you talk to the person face 2 face, then it is obvious that that person is not in 丽江 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you text to some one the same, you don't know whether that person is still in 丽江 or not. In this situation, it can mean either of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-10-29T05:52:16.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35466" CreationDate="2019-10-29T06:10:07.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:听说你去丽江玩儿了？那儿怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B:那里特别美，空气也很新鲜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the context, we can deduce that B is currently not in 丽江 because B replies &lt;strong&gt;那里&lt;/strong&gt;特别美. If B is still there, he/she would say &lt;strong&gt;这里&lt;/strong&gt;特别美.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 听说你去丽江玩儿了 could be interpreted either way you suggested. The sentence only tells you have gone to/arrived 丽江, but it doesn't tell you are currently out or not. Additional information must be required to determine whether you are still in 丽江 or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's clear, in your context, B is already out of the town.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS&lt;/strong&gt;. It's also possible that B is still on the train to 丽江, when A is talking to B on the phone saying 听说你去丽江玩儿了. But this is not the case in OP's context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-29T06:25:26.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35469" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-29T14:21:17.850" Score="0" ViewCount="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had some trouble translating this phrase into Chinese:&quot;candidates for cross-border leadership assignments&quot;.&#xA;Can anyone help me please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will be glad for your help :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23000" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T04:34:49.553" Title="&quot;candidates for cross-border leadership assignments&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35473" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-29T19:02:50.050" Score="4" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase means &amp;quot;to practice kung fu&amp;quot;. Which one is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;炼&lt;/strong&gt;功夫 (锻炼的炼)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;练&lt;/strong&gt;功夫 (练习的练)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen both versions floating about online but I've a feeling only one of them is correct and the other is just a common mistake, possibly even among native speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21462" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-08-09T22:13:32.093" LastActivityDate="2020-08-10T14:24:55.137" Title="Which one has the correct &quot;lian&quot;, 炼功夫 or 练功夫?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;sport&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35473" CreationDate="2019-10-29T19:31:05.037" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Zhongwen Chinese Popup Dictionary, 炼 means &quot;to refine, to smelt&quot;; while 练 means &quot;to practice, to train, to drill, to perfect (one's skills), exercise&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So obviously 练功夫 is more correct from a formal perspective, though both are possibly used informally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3472" LastActivityDate="2019-10-29T19:31:05.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35475" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-29T20:26:09.553" Score="0" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got a vase with this inscription that I would like some help with translating. I believe it might have been made in the winter year of 1921 (?), but not much else. Is it perhaps possible to find an artists signature? Any help is appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/KSCoHn7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/KSCoHn7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;vase&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23002" LastEditorUserId="22903" LastEditDate="2019-11-03T02:50:26.550" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T03:03:25.513" Title="Help with translating a traditional Chinese calligraphy inscription" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35476" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-29T20:48:16.397" Score="2" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;If someone asks me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在动物园看了几（___）老虎和马呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Choose the correct answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) 个&lt;br&gt;&#xA;b) 只&lt;br&gt;&#xA;c) 匹&lt;br&gt;&#xA;d) other ______&lt;br&gt;&#xA;e) all of the above&lt;br&gt;&#xA;f) none of the above&lt;br&gt;&#xA;g) screw Chinese, I'm going to study Klingon  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanx!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T03:56:54.063" Title="What measure word should I use when I have two nouns with different measure words?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35476" CreationDate="2019-10-29T22:50:47.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;a) 个 is the right answer to me. I have never studied Chinese, but can speak basic Cantonese..and this is what we would say in that case....hope this will help you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19943" LastActivityDate="2019-10-29T22:50:47.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35476" CreationDate="2019-10-29T23:07:01.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, a more correct way would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你在动物园看了几只老虎和几匹马呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你在动物园看了多少只老虎，多少匹马？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In colloquial speech, it might be ok to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你在动物园看了多少个老虎和马呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你在动物园看了几个老虎和马呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-29T23:07:01.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35473" CreationDate="2019-10-30T00:12:33.627" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As 练功 is a very common word, which could be shorthand for 练功夫. So, I think 练功夫 would be more common. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;炼功夫 is a bit off, in my opinion, because 炼 in the sense of 锻炼 is usually for something physical like 锻炼身体，锻炼体魄, etc. 功夫 is kind of a skillset, not something physical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T00:12:33.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35480" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35481" CreationDate="2019-10-30T01:21:10.897" Score="1" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote this message to a friend on WeChat, who previously helped me open a 工商银行 account:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我以为我没有工商卡，可是，我顺便找到了。我说错了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I thought I had no ICBC bankcard, but, I stumbled upon one.  I said the wrong thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was doing something else, and I found another bankcard from 工商银行 which I had long forgotten about, and realized I told him the wrong thing earlier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a bit uncomfortable with what I wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if 工商卡 is valid; maybe I should have written 工商银行卡 but it's a bit long.  It's not a credit card, but just a simple bankcard, so I didn't want to use 信用卡.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is my first attempt at using &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%A1%BA%E4%BE%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;顺便&lt;/a&gt; in a sentence.  I think it's okay, but I'm not 100% sure.  I don't see it violating advice given here &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/15993/what-is-the-difference-between-%e9%9a%8f%e6%89%8b-and-%e9%a1%ba%e4%be%bf&quot;&gt;What is the difference between 随手 and 顺便？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm just after a critique of this snippet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T05:15:34.937" Title="How is my sentence? 我以为我没有工商卡，可是，我顺便找到了。" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;sentence&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35480" CreationDate="2019-10-30T01:35:10.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds weird using 顺便 here. I think you should use 无意中 (by accident/undesignedly) instead, e.g. 我以为我没有工商卡，可是（or use 结果 instead to emphasize the opposite result）我无意中找出来一张。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 顺便 is intentional. e.g. 今天我去见我导师，顺便去大学图书馆借本书。The action that going to the library by the way is still intentional, it's planned. But for this case, the result that finding out the card is unmeant, undesigned. As you said 我以为我没有工商卡, so you won't try to search the card intentionally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: 工商卡 is valid, but we use 工行卡 or 工行的卡 more because 工商银行 is abbreviated to 工行 ususally. Similarly, you can say 招行/建行/中行/农行 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-10-30T01:47:39.210" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T01:47:39.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35469" CreationDate="2019-10-30T04:34:49.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I have the full paragraph? If not here's the translation&#xA;跨境領導任務的人選&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23004" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T04:34:49.553" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35476" CreationDate="2019-10-30T08:03:27.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct classifier for 老虎 (tiger) is 头&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct classifier for 斑马 (zebra) is 匹 (&lt;em&gt;I don't think people need to go to the zoo to see horses)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在动物园看了多少(头)老虎和多少(匹)斑马呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Cantonese, 隻/只 is the right classifier for both 老虎 and 斑马&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你喺動物園睇咗幾多(隻)老虎同斑馬呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T08:09:51.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35486" CreationDate="2019-10-30T08:10:38.803" Score="0" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;From 标准教程HSK4上 (page 93):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她看都没看过我一眼，怎么样才能使她喜欢我呢？  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=zh-CN&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=%E5%A5%B9%E7%9C%8B%E9%83%BD%E6%B2%A1%E7%9C%8B%E8%BF%87%E6%88%91%E4%B8%80%E7%9C%BC%EF%BC%8C%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E6%A0%B7%E6%89%8D%E8%83%BD%E4%BD%BF%E5%A5%B9%E5%96%9C%E6%AC%A2%E6%88%91%E5%91%A2%EF%BC%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; is not great here, but it gives some idea of how it works.  I think it translates to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She has never even glanced at me, how can I get her to like me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand how the first part 她看都没看过我一眼 pieces together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the logic is something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;一眼 = a glance&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看&lt;/strong&gt;一眼 = a glance at&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;一眼 a glance at me&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看&lt;strong&gt;过&lt;/strong&gt;我一眼 glanced at me once&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;没&lt;/strong&gt;看过我一眼 never glanced at me once&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt;没看过我一眼 never even &lt;s&gt;once&lt;/s&gt; glanced at me&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;看&lt;/strong&gt;都没看过我一眼 ???&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;她&lt;/strong&gt;看都没看过我一眼 She has never even glanced at me&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is there the first 看 in 她看都没看过我一眼?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu gives some examples where we just drop the 看, but they're relatively rare (so could be erroneous), e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自始至终，她都没看过我一眼！  (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.55duba.com/du58465/15946744.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T04:43:18.463" Title="Why is there the first 看 in 她看都没看过我一眼?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35485" CreationDate="2019-10-30T09:09:44.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a common pattern used for emphasizing that something &quot;hasn't even been...&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;v + 都没有 + v&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;动都没有动 = hasn't even been touched&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;看都没有看 = hasn't even been looked at&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;翻都没有翻 = hasn't even been flipped through&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-10-30T10:42:20.173" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T10:42:20.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35487" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-30T16:47:28.147" Score="2" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference in meaning of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它的眼睛大大的。&#xA;它的眼睛很大。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他有大大的眼睛。&#xA;他有大眼睛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And more generally, when might someone use reduplication for adjectives?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-10T10:22:07.750" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T10:22:07.750" Title="How does reduplication change the meaning of adjectives?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35476" CreationDate="2019-10-30T20:11:39.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In colloquial, I would totally say 你在动物园看了几只老虎和马呀？ It's not grammatically right, but I think we should follow the closest noun.  To me, 个 is wrong for animals in any event. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I listen to this song grown up: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;两只老虎，两只老虎&#xA;跑得快，跑得快&#xA;一只没有耳朵，一只没有尾巴&#xA;真奇怪，真奇怪&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't imagine 两个老虎.. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can listen to it on youtube &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orJ2tGFr2S0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orJ2tGFr2S0&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T20:11:39.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35487" CreationDate="2019-10-30T20:33:50.943" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reduplication of adjective put emphasis on it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same as English: &quot;big&quot; in &quot;He has big big eyes&quot; is more emphasized than the simple &quot;big&quot; in &quot;He has big eyes&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他有&lt;strong&gt;大大的&lt;/strong&gt;眼睛 = he has &lt;strong&gt;very big&lt;/strong&gt; eyes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它的眼睛&lt;strong&gt;大大的&lt;/strong&gt; = his eyes are &lt;strong&gt;very big&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice, not all adjective can be reduplicated, for example we do not reduplicate 巨 because 巨 is already a higher superlative of 大&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, we don't reduplicated adjectives that are made up of two same characters, For example, 茫茫 is a compound word, not a reduplication of 茫; 忽忽 is a compound word, not a reduplication of 忽&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-30T21:08:10.380" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T21:08:10.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35487" CreationDate="2019-10-30T23:07:20.590" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 它的眼睛大大的 and 它的眼睛很大 means the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 它的眼睛大大的 sounds &lt;strong&gt;cutie, animating, or vivid&lt;/strong&gt;(maybe also &lt;strong&gt;girlish&lt;/strong&gt;). 它的眼睛很大 only addresses the fact and doesn't have that effect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T23:07:20.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35476" CreationDate="2019-10-30T23:32:12.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use 只：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在动物园看见了几只老虎和斑马呀？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if it is not a question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我昨天在动物园看到了老虎、狮子、斑马还有孔雀。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T23:32:12.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35492" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35493" CreationDate="2019-10-31T00:52:07.163" Score="1" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note&lt;/em&gt;: My original question was &lt;em&gt;Why is 你去了北京 correct but 你去了北京吗 incorrect?&lt;/em&gt; but I was mistaken, so I'll change the question to try to make it more useful (and less confusing) to the future reader.  I'll edit so as to ensure the current answer remains relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seems to be an important difference between these (&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_completion_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;completion 了&lt;/a&gt; vs. &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Change_of_state_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;change-of-state 了&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你去&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;北京吗？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;You went to Beijing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你去北京&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;吗？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;You went to Beijing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had thought it wasn't much of a difference, but the distinction seems very consistent:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E2%80%9D%E5%8E%BB%E4%BA%86%E5%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E5%90%97%E2%80%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;”去了北京吗“&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (6 hits) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E2%80%9D%E5%8E%BB%E5%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E4%BA%86%E5%90%97%E2%80%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;”去北京了吗“&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (82,100,000 hits)  [actually, judging from later pages, these counts are incorrect and possibly misleading]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E2%80%9D%E5%81%9A%E4%BA%86%E4%BD%9C%E4%B8%9A%E5%90%97%E2%80%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;”做了作业吗“&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (7 hits) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E2%80%9D%E5%81%9A%E4%BD%9C%E4%B8%9A%E4%BA%86%E5%90%97%E2%80%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;”做作业了吗“&lt;/a&gt; (6,660 hits)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E2%80%9D%E5%90%83%E4%BA%86%E5%8D%88%E9%A5%AD%E5%90%97%E2%80%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;”吃了午饭吗“&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (7 hits) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E2%80%9D%E5%90%83%E5%8D%88%E9%A5%AD%E4%BA%86%E5%90%97%E2%80%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;”吃午饭了吗“&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (1,270,000 hits)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Searching for &lt;code&gt;了 吗&lt;/code&gt; at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/show-%E4%BA%86%E5%90%97-0.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt; gives 10 pages of sentences ending ...了吗？ and the only examples with 了 after the verb also end in ...了吗 e.g. 他们确定&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;会议的日子&lt;strong&gt;了吗&lt;/strong&gt;？.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Searching for &lt;code&gt;了 吗&lt;/code&gt; at &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/example/blng/%E4%BA%86_%E5%90%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt; is the same with the exception 你知道我看见&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;什么&lt;strong&gt;吗&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The top answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/10837/8099&quot;&gt;吃午饭了, should 了 be right after 吃？&lt;/a&gt; states 吃了午饭 cannot be turned into a question.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 你去了北京吗 less common than 你去北京了吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T03:28:30.180" Title="Why is 你去了北京吗 less common than 你去北京了吗?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35492" CreationDate="2019-10-31T01:48:44.017" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 你去了北京吗 and 你去北京了吗 are possible in practice, but they are used in different situations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你去了北京吗 is used when you try to &lt;strong&gt;confirm&lt;/strong&gt; the fact that someone really went to Beijing. Let's say you have two friends, Friend A and B. A told you that B has gone to Beijing last week. However, this information surprised you because you didn't expect B would go to Beijing for some reason. So, you might check with B with the question 你去了北京吗. The purpose is to confirm what A had said. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你去北京了吗 is used when you know someone has a plan to go to Beijing, but you don't know whether he has already been to or not. So you might ask him 你去北京了吗 to check if he has already been to Beijing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T01:48:44.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35492" CreationDate="2019-10-31T02:18:30.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Totally agree with Dan's answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your edited question: &lt;code&gt;Why is 你去了北京吗 less common than 你去北京了吗?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's Baidu's algorithm problem - probably wrong. If you search the same on Google, the results are pretty similar. ;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T02:18:30.000" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16" CreationDate="2019-10-31T02:54:42.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;for someone who new in Chinese, when you see 了, just seem as &quot;it's already done&quot;&#xA;it's suit for 70% situation, and in this situation, it can be ignored, if you delete 了，the meaning doesn't change, it's just emphasize &quot;its done, its done, its done&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you feel the meaning is strange, than …. just ignore it. in almost 99% of situation&#xA;the meaning wont change, if you delete 了 in sentense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T02:54:42.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35492" CreationDate="2019-10-31T03:28:30.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A.你去了北京嗎？&#xA;B.你去北京了嗎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;me:I want to go Beijin this summer&#xA;Next year&#xA;friend:Hey, B.你去北京了嗎？&#xA;  (hey, you tell me you want to go last summer, did you do that?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;me:I never been to Beijin, B.你去(過)北京了嗎？&#xA;  (I never been there before, did you?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;me:I just come back from Beijin, it's beautiful place.&#xA;friend:oh, A.你去了北京嗎？&#xA;  (oh, you did that yesterday?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they feel a little bit different, but after all, A:你去了北京嗎？B:你去北京了嗎？&#xA;is the same, all these example can can swap A and B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T03:28:30.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35487" CreationDate="2019-10-31T03:34:23.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's quite common to use repeated adjectives in song lyrics, to sound more rhythmic and make the lyrics &quot;fit&quot; the poetic structure.  For example, in the song &lt;a href=&quot;https://music.163.com/#/song?id=238073&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;雪莲&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;蓝蓝&lt;/strong&gt;的天空下青草荡漾&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;红红&lt;/strong&gt;的太阳映红了脸庞&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We do this in English too, e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Red_Wine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Red Red Wine&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T03:34:23.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35498" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-31T03:51:25.017" Score="1" ViewCount="47" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 神功 shén gōng mean? Most chinese dictionaries say it means miracle; remarkable feat but is that really it? This term is mentioned in a cultivation novel, so I want to know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23012" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T04:26:03.820" Title="What does 神功 shén gōng mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35476" CreationDate="2019-10-31T03:56:54.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in this ques, you can't use 個，never use 個 on animal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;隻 is fine, 隻 can use on all the animal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;匹 is a special quantify, almost use for horse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but in this situation, ask: &quot;How many&quot;(多少)lion and horse did you see in the zoo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在动物园看了几（___）老虎和马呀？ &gt;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在動物園看到&quot;多少&quot;老虎和馬啊？ will be more properly(but is all correct)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese you can separate them all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你們看到幾隻雞？幾隻鴨？幾隻兔子還有幾隻狗啊？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how many...,how many...,how many...,and how many...?did you see?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(sorry I can only type only traditional chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T03:56:54.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35498" CreationDate="2019-10-31T04:16:46.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;there's no such word in English, and it's old word only show on traditional novel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;神 god, 功 maybe you may seem as kind of Konfu(功夫)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in old novel, a very mighty Konfu only few people can master it, maybe you can name it as XX神功&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;just a kidding, if someone is good at cheating, maybe he will tell you &quot;I'll show you my &quot;cheating&quot;神功 on tomorrow exam&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or for Thor, you can name his skill as hammer神功 or lightning神功&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T04:16:46.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35487" CreationDate="2019-10-31T04:24:52.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A.she has a big eye&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B.she has a big big eye&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, what's the different? it's the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in real life you will say A.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but when you writing a story、a novel …. maybe you will use B. to describe something more detail, or make it more emotional &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T04:24:52.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35498" CreationDate="2019-10-31T04:26:03.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;神功 translated as &quot;miracle; remarkable feat&quot; is a mistake. The editor just confused 神功 with 神工, as in &quot;鬼斧神工&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;鬼斧神工&quot;  (ghost's axe; god's skill) = out-of-worldly skill/ feat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;功 in 神功 is referring to &quot;功夫&quot; (kung fu) or &quot;功法&quot; (method/ skill)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;神功 literally means &quot;god's method/ skill&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &quot;鐵頭功&quot; simply means &quot;iron head kung fu&quot;. To elevate this martial art method, people could add 神 (god like) to its name and call it  鐵頭神功 (it is not just a kung fu of iron head, it is a godly kung fu of iron head! )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T04:26:03.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35485" CreationDate="2019-10-31T04:43:18.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;the translate is correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她都没看过我一眼&#xA;She never saw me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她看都没看过我一眼&#xA;why? why? why! why!She has never, never, ever, even glanced at me once T.T&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;try not to explain each word [x都沒x] is just use to emphases &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T04:43:18.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35506" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-31T04:58:17.453" Score="0" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;自己已经将地级上品功法无相神功，以及无相步，无相指和无相剑法传授给了他，不知道他如今修炼的如何？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what Google says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He has already taught him the skills at the prefecture level, and there is no step by step, no point and no swordsmanship. He does not know how he is practicing now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the author is talking about the name of a cultivation method. What would it be called? How would this passage be translated as?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23012" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T03:56:41.190" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T03:56:41.190" Title="How do I translate 自己已经将地级上品功法无相神功...?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35480" CreationDate="2019-10-31T05:15:34.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;工商卡is not correct Chinese, but when you in china everyone know what 工商 is and everyone call it in that way, is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;didn't know your situation, but delete 順便，your 順便 used in right place, but it's impossible happening on this case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;順便找到了 &amp;lt;&amp;lt;&amp;lt; this is impossible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can 順便 take it with you &#xA;you can't 順便 found it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i think you should say: I forget I have a 工商卡，but I just found one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我以为我没有工商卡，可是我找到了一張&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T05:15:34.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35508" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35521" CreationDate="2019-10-31T05:18:03.243" Score="1" ViewCount="804" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems a little strange that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8F%AF%E4%B8%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;可不&lt;/a&gt; and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8F%AF%E4%B8%8D%E6%98%AF/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;可不是&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(by themselves) imply agreement (something like 就是).  The textbook 标准教程HSK4上 has some examples, e.g.: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 没想到咱们毕业都已经十年了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: &lt;strong&gt;可不是&lt;/strong&gt;！时间过得太快了，真想大家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm expecting there's an underlying reason for this I'm unaware of.  Perhaps it's a rhetorical question  like &quot;Is it not?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why do 可不 and 可不是 by themselves imply agreement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like they should both mean &quot;but no&quot; (i.e., disagreement).  Indeed, they also mean this, e.g. (sourced from YouDao):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;然而，这可不那么简单。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  This will not be easy, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T14:17:33.080" Title="Why do 可不 and 可不是 by themselves imply agreement?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35506" CreationDate="2019-10-31T05:28:51.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you are try to learning Chinese, don't start from these....definitely a bad sample&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;delete[地级上品功法无相神功，以及无相步，无相指和无相剑法]part, it's all proper noun, skill name, can't be translate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been taught him all the skill, I wondering how he trained today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T05:28:51.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35508" CreationDate="2019-10-31T05:46:05.443" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest you forget the link you post, I have to say there is no &quot;可不&quot; in Chinese.&#xA;it sound like &quot;ilik eapp le&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you cant explain[可][不][是]，[可不是,.....]at the front means [indeed....]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;然而however，这this可is不not那么that简单easy。 your example is not that complicated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastEditorUserId="23011" LastEditDate="2019-10-31T05:52:10.487" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T05:52:10.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35402" CreationDate="2019-10-31T06:08:05.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;the same, just a habit.&#xA;in number we use 一二三四五六七八九十.&#xA;but for thing we used to use 兩個、兩隻、兩張、兩百、兩萬&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;funny example 222,222,222&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we used to call it 兩億兩千兩百二十二萬兩千兩百二十二&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you can't remember, always use 二 is fine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T06:08:05.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35466" CreationDate="2019-10-31T06:21:43.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A:听说你去丽江玩儿了？那儿怎么样？&#xA;  B:那里特别美，空气也很新鲜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I delete 了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A:听说你去丽江玩儿？那儿怎么样？&#xA;  B:那里特别美，空气也很新鲜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no meter B is come back, or still in 麗江 talking on the phone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;two example is still all the same, you can't B's position in this conversation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 here let you know, he already &lt;strong&gt;&quot;arrived&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; 麗江&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T06:21:43.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34434" CreationDate="2019-10-31T06:47:13.647" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;we just call it 「線」、「限」，no reason and no one ever think about question like this. never connect it with 「泉」，in our eyes they don't event look the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;although we have a slang called 有邊讀邊，沒邊讀中間 XD&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T06:47:13.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35446" CreationDate="2019-10-31T07:40:32.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;in this situation it's definitely &quot;become friends with him&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unless you are in fraud intend , that your another answer is still correct.&#xA;Take him back, I'll give you 1m.&#xA;And you cut off one's hand and take back: I take him back, you didn't say take him back &quot;alive&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23011" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T07:40:32.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35508" CreationDate="2019-10-31T09:07:58.200" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;可不，可不是，可不是吗，可不就是吗，etc are colloquial phrases to agree what the other has just said. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not quite sure of the exact underlying reason, but I echo your suspicion -  &lt;em&gt;perhaps it's a rhetorical question like &quot;Is it not?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, we should be cautious that sometimes it can mean &lt;strong&gt;negation&lt;/strong&gt; too as in the OP's example: 这可不那么简单. In this case, we read as 这可/不那么简单. If you add 就 and 吗 in the sentence: 这可不就那么简单吗，it becomes a rhetorical question, meaning &lt;em&gt;Isn't it that simple&lt;/em&gt;=&lt;em&gt;it is that simple&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the way to determine (negative or positive) is based on the syntax and context. If 不 goes with 可，then it's positive. If 不 goes with the other part, then it's negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-01T04:18:47.403" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T04:18:47.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35508" CreationDate="2019-10-31T09:18:42.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the examples in your link, you can see &quot;可不&quot; is not a set term, it is two adverbs &quot;可&quot; (able to) and  &quot;不&quot; (not), followed by a verb or verb phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可不交稅 =可以不用交稅 (able to not pay tax)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可不即時作答 = 可以不用即時作答 (able to not answer right away)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Another form we  see 可不 together is &quot;可&quot; means &quot;actually&quot; and &quot;不&quot; means &quot;not&quot;, followed by an adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这件事(可)不简单 = this affair is (actually) not simple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要成功(可)不容易 = it is (actually) not easy to success&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;可不是 (could it be not?) functions the same as &quot;isn't it?&quot; in English . It is a rhetorical question (meaning it is actually a statement-- &lt;strong&gt;that expects the listener to agree&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-10-31T22:47:43.000" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T22:47:43.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35508" CreationDate="2019-10-31T20:34:39.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;可不 and 可不是 are short forms of 可不是吗/可不就是吗? it is is a rhetorical question, meaning agreement with emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in a sentence like: 这可不简单. It is a declarative sentence， meaning &quot;This is actually not easy &quot;. Usually used with 然而/但是 etc. meaning disagreement with previous context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23020" LastEditorUserId="23020" LastEditDate="2019-11-05T14:17:33.080" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T14:17:33.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35225" CreationDate="2019-10-31T20:59:55.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To understand Chinese, sometimes you need to think deeper. Your understanding is right, &quot;刀&quot; means knife, &quot;眼&quot; means eye. &quot;不长&quot; means without, while &quot;不&quot; means no or dont and &quot;长&quot; means have in this sentence. So, put them together, the sentence means the knife doesn't have eyes. Think deeper, what happens if some thing doesn't have eyes and move fast? It may hurt someone. So, the deeper meaning of this sentence is watch out, you gonna get hurt. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23021" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T20:59:55.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35529" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-01T01:48:30.057" Score="0" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tattoo symbol, what does it mean?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YS1AO.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YS1AO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23025" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T02:24:02.117" Title="What does this tattoo character mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-11-03T02:50:16.977" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35529" CreationDate="2019-11-01T02:24:02.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/222/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;安&lt;/a&gt; (safe; secure; content).  By itself, it is innocent enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &quot;安&quot; is also the last character in the name of a notorious Hong Kong Triad gang &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89%E5%90%88%E6%9C%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;新義安&lt;/a&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, this  tattoo reminds me of this particular crime syndicate, consider it is on a bicep-- a body part that represents power and strength...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the owner of this tattoo is a Hong Kong Chinese, I would stay clear of him, just in case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T02:24:02.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35532" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35536" CreationDate="2019-11-01T05:11:24.530" Score="2" ViewCount="861" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote a sentence which involved &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%95%85%E6%84%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;故意&lt;/a&gt; (gùyì; deliberately) and my teacher explained that 故意 is a negative word: you can't deliberately do something good using 故意.  (I won't reproduce that sentence, since it contains other errors.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in English, &quot;deliberately&quot; (&quot;intentionally&quot;; &quot;on purpose&quot;) is not necessarily a bad thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To help the students understand her, our teacher deliberately speaks slowly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I might translate this to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为了让学生明白她说的，我们的老师故意地说得慢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but then we have the problem of 故意 being negative.  I'm not sure if &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%89%E6%84%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;有意&lt;/a&gt; has the same issue, but it seems very similar to 故意.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a neutral way of saying &quot;deliberately&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T11:03:47.817" Title="Is there a neutral way of saying &quot;deliberately&quot;?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35532" CreationDate="2019-11-01T05:35:56.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为了让学生听得明白，我们老师&lt;strong&gt;有意识地&lt;/strong&gt;把语速放慢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有意 or 有意识地 doesn't have a negative connotation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good word that can fit for this context is &lt;strong&gt;刻意&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为了让学生听明白，老师&lt;strong&gt;刻意&lt;/strong&gt;放慢了语速。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally prefer 有意识地 for the context. It's because 有意识地 implies that you have realized something and then you deliberately make some adjustments to accommodate it. In OP's case, the teacher realized that the speed of his/her speaking mattered, so he/she deliberately spoke slowly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But other words 刻意，特意（suggested by others）can fit as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-01T11:03:47.817" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T11:03:47.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35508" CreationDate="2019-11-01T09:13:11.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are &lt;strong&gt;not the same word&lt;/strong&gt;, just written the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several different 可's in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;able to; can; permitted to&amp;quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;but; though&amp;quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;roughly, &amp;quot;actually&amp;quot; &amp;quot;so&amp;quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;roughly, &amp;quot;so&amp;quot;, as emphasis (usually stressed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and some other ones...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed it makes no sense for it to be &amp;quot;but not&amp;quot; and imply agreement. It means &amp;quot;isn't it so.&amp;quot; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16058" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T09:49:16.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35532" CreationDate="2019-11-01T09:23:41.693" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;'故意' implying someone intend to do some bad things. If you want to say someone intend to do things specially. You can use '特意'. This word do not imply any bad or good intention. It only emphasize 'specially'. But in most of case, Chinese love to use it in positive senarios, like me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为了让学生听得明白，我们老师特意把语速放慢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在下班的路上，他特意绕路去医院看望母亲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12765" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T09:29:04.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34434" CreationDate="2019-11-01T11:02:21.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We should first remember that「腺」's pronunciation derives from「泉」&lt;em&gt;in Japanese&lt;/em&gt; (where both are pronounced &lt;em&gt;sen&lt;/em&gt;), not &lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt;. As far as I can find, Chinese sources never actually defined「腺」's pronunciation as being derived from「泉」&lt;em&gt;in Chinese&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The source material from the Shen (2011) reference (&lt;em&gt;First report of the committee on medical terminology appointed by the China medical missionary association: Terms in anatomy, histology, physiology, pharmacology, pharmacy&lt;/em&gt;) does not appear to be available on the web, but there is no explicit indication that they adopted the pronunciation 「泉」. This is what the reference actually says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The terminology committee thought that the translation term used in Japan for&#xA;“gland,” 腺, pronounced chuan in Chinese, could denote a “flesh spring,” and&#xA;thus the committee &lt;strong&gt;considered it an appropriate translation term&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, in the Chinese reference (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zjujournals.com/soc/CN/article/downloadArticleFile.do?attachType=PDF&amp;amp;id=9324&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;download link&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gland 的译名，术语委员会认为来自日语的“腺”音 Chüuan，会意 flesh spring，&lt;strong&gt;是准确的&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's more, even though the committee report seems to have used the Romanisation &lt;strong&gt;Chüuan&lt;/strong&gt;, the source material text smells more like an orthographic translation from Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YQG38.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YQG38.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last part of the preface to the Japanese source text『西說醫範提綱釋義』by 宇田川 玄真 (&lt;em&gt;Udegawa Genshin&lt;/em&gt;). The definition of「腺」is boxed in red:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「腺」，新製字。音「泉」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without paying attention to &lt;em&gt;Japanese sounds&lt;/em&gt;, one might directly translate this as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「腺」 &lt;em&gt;, newly coined character. Read as Chüuan.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by transcribing「泉」into Chinese sounds, because the target language is, well, &lt;em&gt;Chinese&lt;/em&gt;. But &lt;em&gt;First report of the committee on medical terminology&lt;/em&gt; is an English text!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may have a look at Chinese materials which explicitly define the pronunciations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;「線」in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/kangxi/pic.php?f=zhdzd&amp;amp;p=1633&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《中華大字典》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qECap.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qECap.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or more rarely,「ㄒㄨㄢ」, which seemingly sounds closer to「泉」, but this is from the Taiwanese Hokkien dictionary 《彙音寶鑑》 (rather than the national language), and in Taiwanese Hokkien「線」may also contain an「ㄨ」(Hokkien, POJ: sòaⁿ / siàn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JZIR5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JZIR5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My explicit take on the questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Japanese seems to be the only language where the reading is consistent across all three characters. Why is this the case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because Japanese is rather phonologically poor; the distinctions made in the other languages have merged in Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a connection between 「腺」 and 「線」?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not in terms of &lt;em&gt;meaning&lt;/em&gt;. The original logic behind choosing「線」for the reading of「腺」may be lost; all we know is that Chinese dictionaries have defined this reading early on, and some Chinese topolects may pronounce them similarly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or was there simply an error when 「腺」 was introduced to China/Korea/Vietnam?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a few speculations but no hard evidence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chinese adopted an imitation of「せん」as the pronunciation of「腺」.「線」is not that far from「泉」in several topolects, so I doubt that it would have been seen as &amp;quot;weird&amp;quot;.&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An early definition like 讀若線 in an authoritative dictionary like 《中華大字典》 has large implications on later dictionaries, and may have influenced Korean and Vietnamese adoption of the term.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For Korean:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It may have adopted the Chinese definition (meaning &amp;amp; sound) directly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Interestingly, the 訓讀 of「腺」(샘, &lt;strong&gt;saem&lt;/strong&gt;, also the native word for &lt;em&gt;spring&lt;/em&gt; as in &lt;em&gt;water source&lt;/em&gt;) is coincidentally close to Japanese &lt;strong&gt;sen&lt;/strong&gt; in initial and vowel&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vietnamese may have adopted straight from Chinese (and please note, &lt;strong&gt;tuyến&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;tuyền&lt;/strong&gt; only differ in tone; there is not as much discrepancy as in Mandarin)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T11:02:21.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35539" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35542" CreationDate="2019-11-01T11:14:57.003" Score="0" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我觉得小夏后悔过去的比赛，小夏回忆没进球也也许让一个好机会错过。所以小夏在房间里老坐着。&lt;strong&gt;马克想帮助小夏带他去足球比赛再体验足球的兴奋&lt;/strong&gt;，让小夏高兴点儿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher made the following corrections (my question relates to the 5-th item below):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;she deleted the first &quot;也&quot;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;she said I should change 老 to 一直 in writing,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;she added &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8F%82%E5%8A%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;参加&lt;/a&gt; after 去,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;she underlined &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BD%93%E9%AA%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;体验&lt;/a&gt;, suggesting it's not the best choice of word (I think &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BB%8F%E5%8E%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;经历&lt;/a&gt; was preferred in conversation, but I don't recall exactly), and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;she said &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%85%B4%E5%A5%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;兴奋&lt;/a&gt; is incorrect, and it should be &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B9%90%E8%B6%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乐趣&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Please assume anything I said wrong above is my misunderstanding, not my teacher's mistake.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really understand what's wrong with my usage of 兴奋 here.  It seems there's a difference between the English and Chinese words here.  It's not the first time she's marked my use of 兴奋 as incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why does 兴奋 not mean what I think it means?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T01:10:37.857" Title="Why does 兴奋 (excitement) not mean what I think it means?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35506" CreationDate="2019-11-01T11:33:59.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have a look &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%A0%E7%9B%B8%E7%A5%9E%E5%8A%9F/776252?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &quot;无相神功&quot; comes from a novel about an insuperable form of Kungfu. This is not very serious literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将 = 把&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I set 无相 = formless, but maybe there are better translations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自己已经将地级上品功法无相神功，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I already （将） [taught him 传授给了他] the earth-level best kungfu method &quot;formless miracle&quot; &#xA;(无相神功 = a kind of kungfu, just a name, don't translate)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;以及无相步，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;also the &quot;formless step&quot; = (a kind of kungfu, just a name, don't translate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无相指和无相剑法 （go to 将）[传授给了他]，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the &quot;formless finger&quot; (just a name, don't translate)  and &quot;formless sword&quot; method&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不知道他如今修炼的如何？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;don't know what his kungfu is like now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不要打我哦！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T11:33:59.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35539" CreationDate="2019-11-01T11:46:44.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The major reason is that 兴奋 is generally &lt;a href=&quot;https://cn.linguee.com/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87-%E8%8B%B1%E8%AF%AD/search?source=auto&amp;amp;query=%E5%85%B4%E5%A5%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;used of people&lt;/a&gt;, and most commonly in the phrase 令人兴奋 &lt;em&gt;lìng rén xīngfèn&lt;/em&gt;. It can also be used of other biological entities in a scientific context, closer to English &lt;em&gt;excitation&lt;/em&gt;  (and the original derivation of the English word &lt;em&gt;excited&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original sentence has 足球的兴奋, which sounds odd because of 足球 not being a &quot;person&quot; of any kind. Not strictly incorrect, but definitely odd enough to merit correction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possible, but more minor, reason is that 兴奋 is strongly associated with the word for &quot;doping&quot; (兴奋剂 &lt;em&gt;xīngfènjì&lt;/em&gt;, literally &quot;stimulant/excitatory chemical&quot;) in the sports context. Perceived in a very negative light of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乐趣 is a lot more appropriate for this: it is not necessarily as &quot;childish&quot; as the English word &quot;fun&quot;, and can include the feeling of &quot;excitement&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T11:46:44.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35539" CreationDate="2019-11-01T13:41:28.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;兴奋&amp;quot; (excited) is an adjective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The noun &amp;quot;excitement&amp;quot; is translated as &amp;quot;激动&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The excitement of the fans&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;球迷的激动&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The excitement of football&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;足球的激动&amp;quot; and we know, unlike fans, football is not people, it can't has  excitement like fans do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better phrasing could be &amp;quot;足球使人兴奋之處&amp;quot; (what makes football exciting)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;马克想帮助小夏带他去足球比赛再体验 [&lt;strong&gt;足球的兴奋&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;马克想帮助小夏，(於是)带他去(看)足球比赛，(让他) 再体验 [&lt;strong&gt;足球使人兴奋之處&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mark wants to help Xiao Xia (therefore) he took him (to see) a football match, (let him) experience [&lt;strong&gt;what makes football exciting&lt;/strong&gt;] again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T01:10:37.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35544" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35545" CreationDate="2019-11-02T04:16:08.647" Score="3" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;方便倒是方便&quot; seems like a fixed expression, and from context it seems to be rejecting &quot;is it convenient?&quot; as a reason for doing something. I can't find an actual definition, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19983" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T02:51:42.500" Title="What does the expression 方便倒是方便 mean?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35544" CreationDate="2019-11-02T04:33:54.410" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;方便倒是方便 roughly means &lt;em&gt;though it's convenient&lt;/em&gt;. Usually it goes like 方便倒是方便, 可是 ... ... It implies there could be some other negative factors or concerns (though it's convenient). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. (quote from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/202073148_732743&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;online&lt;/a&gt;): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;方便火锅方便倒是方便, 其安全性又是另外一回事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-11-03T02:51:42.500" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T02:51:42.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35546" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35548" CreationDate="2019-11-02T05:26:00.747" Score="0" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm accustomed to sentences like 我听我老公 which literally states &quot;I listen to my husband&quot;, but it implies something like &quot;I do what my husband says&quot;.  I'm sure I've said 我听你的 to my teacher at some point, implying I'll just follow her advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when I wanted to express that I do whatever my GPS says, I wrote this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我就听我的GPS&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;intending to mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I follow my GPS's instructions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was in the context of avoiding getting flustered during traffic jams: following the GPS's instructions helps me relax.  However, my teacher indicated this is a weird thing to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's relevant, I've somewhat anthropomorphized my GPS, and her name is Lucy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I express &quot;I follow my GPS's instructions&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe a literal translation would be along the lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我按照我GPS的说明那样开车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T01:34:06.867" Title="How do I express &quot;I follow my GPS's instructions&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35546" CreationDate="2019-11-02T05:37:48.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Follow = 依照 (you are not obeying orders, you are listening to instructions and following them as stated)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;GPS' = 卫星导航的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;guidelines = 指引 (pointing and leading to a specific route)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;instructions = 指示 (pointing and showing a specific route)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following the GPS' guidelines/ instructions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;依照 卫星导航的 指示&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;指示 is the better choice because GPS also shows us maps&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Following&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; verbal orders is &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;听从&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;(listen and follow). We don't want to think GPS is giving us orders to obey, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T05:55:37.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35546" CreationDate="2019-11-02T10:10:20.803" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;跟着导航走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Short, concise and simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;跟着 = follow&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;导航 = gps&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;走 = go&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could even tell a lost taxi driver the same phrase to let them know to follow the gps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T10:10:20.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35475" CreationDate="2019-11-02T11:38:22.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it writes 辛酉冬月志良竹翁先生雅玩王枕遐敬赠, which means in the 11th month of 辛酉 year (1981, 1921, 1861, etc) in lunar calendar, 王枕遐 gave this gift to 志良竹翁先生.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23033" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T11:38:22.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35546" CreationDate="2019-11-02T12:06:07.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;按导航开; 按照导航来; Even 听导航的; Those are colloquial phrases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In formal writing,  it could be: 按照GPS导航所指引的路线来行驶. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T12:06:07.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35462" CreationDate="2019-11-02T12:18:26.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, clauses are often freely translated, since there is no such grammar structure. And the grammar of Wu Chinese is much similar with standard Chinese. I try to translate your sentence into both standard Chinese and Shanghai Wu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, she came here knowing (that this fight was hopeless).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(standard Chinese) 但是，她来这里的时候，就知道（这场战斗是没有希望的）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Shanghai Wu) 但是，渠（伊）来此地个辰光，就晓得（箇场仗是没啥希望个）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/de zy, ghi le tshy di gheh zen kuaon, zhieu shiau teh geh zan tsan zy meh sa shi vaon gheh/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following sentences which you intented to translate into are grammatically possible but less natural, and even less when clauses continue to grow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(standard Chinese) 但是，知道（这场战斗没有希望）的她来了这里。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Shanghai Wu) 但是，晓得（箇场仗没啥希望）个渠（伊）来仔此地。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23033" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T05:10:34.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34086" CreationDate="2019-11-02T13:52:38.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;將 here is a little ambiguous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;將以求吾所大欲也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;帶領 lead the army. I lead the army to seek for what I greatly desire.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;欲；打算 intent to. I intent to seek for what I greatly desire.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;取；拿 take. I take it to seek for what I greatly desire.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;施行 do. I do it to seek for what I greatly desire.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;就要；將要 will. I will seek for what I greatly desire.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer the second meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23033" LastEditorUserId="23033" LastEditDate="2019-11-03T03:12:17.443" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T03:12:17.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35546" CreationDate="2019-11-03T01:34:06.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你刚刚到了纳尼亚。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How on earth did you find this place?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你到底是怎么找到这个地方的？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just followed the instructions from my Lucy.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我只是按照我的露茜指令。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T01:34:06.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35544" CreationDate="2019-11-03T02:07:16.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without getting too wordy in translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你方便帮我取下包裹吗？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Could you pick up my parcel for me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方便倒是方便，但是我现在还有别的事要做。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yes, but right now I have something else to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;方便倒是方便 here = yes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T02:07:16.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35555" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35556" CreationDate="2019-11-03T03:32:12.410" Score="1" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the song《&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q7zFZncboA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;掐死大象的蚂蚁&lt;/a&gt;》by Bridge and 二毛 there's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mc1314.com/news/news-7807.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bar&lt;/a&gt; by &lt;em&gt;twenty-cents&lt;/em&gt;(?) that goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;咋个回事咋个回事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  十点半还不晓得回家&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  问起咋子问起咋子&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  也不晓得打个电话&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  有事有事安啥子事嘛啥子事嘛&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  和尚撞了道士上房揭瓦你要造次&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part that is tripping me up is: &lt;em&gt;和尚撞了道士&lt;/em&gt;. Most search results online for 和尚撞了道士 just come back to the lyrics for this song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T05:22:28.607" Title="What does &quot;和尚撞了道士&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35555" CreationDate="2019-11-03T03:32:12.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off: this is a Sichuanese song.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start with something you'll recognize:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Q: 怎么办？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A: 凉拌！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Sichuanese this is called: 展嘴巴劲 or 扳嘴巴劲 or 展牙巴劲. That is relevant because this is a form of Sichuanese 展嘴巴劲. It goes a little something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 有事&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: 和尚赶道士&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is something that is said when someone thinks that you are coming up with a pretext or an excuse to be busy rather that actually having anything to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There also seems to be quite a few variants on the phrase. Obviously from the question we have: 和尚撞了道士. A more common variant is 和尚赶道士. Online you can also find examples of: 和尚做道士 and 和尚撵道士.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a bunch of these in Sichuanese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;开腔嘛——开腔&amp;lt;枪&gt;打死人&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;负责——负他妈的床坝箦&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;赔——我陪你坐&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;真的——煮的哟&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;看嘛&amp;lt;马&gt;——看牛哦&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不敢&amp;lt;赶&gt;——过吆&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;好久&amp;lt;酒&gt;——没得好菜&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;长——往土坝里长&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;结婚——脑壳昏&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;花——眼睛花&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;钱——夹火钳&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;等于是——二加二等于四&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;啥子——帕子，帕子搭到脸上&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没关系——没川戏，没川戏看电影嘛&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-11-03T05:22:28.607" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T05:22:28.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35557" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35558" CreationDate="2019-11-03T04:49:21.307" Score="0" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;现在我觉得伊斯兰规矩太多了，别人总是批判我。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I currently feel like Islam has too many rules, other people are always criticizing me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My teacher and I had a somewhat long discussion as to whether it should say &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%89%B9%E5%88%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;批判&lt;/a&gt; (pīpàn) or &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%89%B9%E8%AF%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;批评&lt;/a&gt; (pīpíng) which both translate to &quot;criticize&quot;.  We didn't come to a concrete conclusion; she seemed to indicate it depends on the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, I'm expressing my frustration at the large number of rules of Islam, or perhaps more precisely, the large number of rules people think are part of Islam (which may or may not actually be part of Islam).  Other Muslims, in an attempt to help me, criticize me in various ways (e.g., how I'm praying, how I'm eating) and this is what I'm referring to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is 批判 or 批评 better in 别人总是批判我?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T07:14:54.750" Title="Is 批判 or 批评 better in 别人总是批判我?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35557" CreationDate="2019-11-03T05:34:55.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;批判 is to criticize in a &lt;strong&gt;formal, comprehensive&lt;/strong&gt; way. E.g. 对于传统文化我们要批判继承. (批评 isn't fit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;批评 is &lt;strong&gt;casual and specific&lt;/strong&gt;. E.g. 老师总批评我上课不认真听课. (批判 isn't fit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If those criticisms are casual, specific, and not that serious in your case, you should use 批评. I don't expect &quot;how I'm praying, how I'm eating&quot; deserves a comprehensive one. They might just criticize for your certain behavior and try to correct you. In this case, 批评(criticize)和指正(correct) are the words you could use.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find those criticisms annoying, you could use 指手画脚, 评头论足, and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.S.&lt;/strong&gt; Colloquially, you can say for your situation: 现在我觉得伊斯兰规矩太多了，经常有人说我这不对那不对的。(烦死了！)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-03T05:53:46.807" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T05:53:46.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35557" CreationDate="2019-11-03T06:42:04.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;批 = criticize; to judge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;判 = to judge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;评 = to comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;批判 means &amp;quot;to criticize (and judge)&amp;quot; of person or people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;批评 means &amp;quot;to criticize (and comment)&amp;quot; of anyone or anything&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;批判 comes from people who are in the position of passing judgement to the one being criticized; while 批评 can come from anyone in whatever position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A common citizen can 批评 his government, he can also 批评 Apple AirPod Pro being too expensive, but he cannot 批判 his government (he is not in the position to) or AirPod Pro (not human)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So who is in the position of 批判 you? The most common answer is &amp;quot;the public&amp;quot; (or the medias)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;批判 (criticize and judge) is a very formal and serious attack on someone, while 批评 (criticize and comment) can be a very minor complain (but it can also be a serious one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: Is 批判 or 批评 better in 别人总是批判我?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 别人 is referring to the public or an entire group that passing judgement on you, then 批判 is correct (in this case, 人們 is more specific than 别人)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 别人 is referring to a few people who complain, then 批评 is correct&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T07:14:54.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35560" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-03T10:46:41.533" Score="4" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any discernible rule concerning whether 木 as a component of a character has attached legs (as in 李) or has detached legs (as in 新)? Worse, this seems to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0#Alternative_forms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;vary&lt;/a&gt; from country to country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22495" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-11-03T11:16:41.490" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T12:30:14.847" Title="When does 木 as a character component get detached legs?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;&lt;strokes&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35569" CreationDate="2019-11-04T00:24:37.690" Score="4" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take, for example, the chorus to Beyond's 喜欢你.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;喜欢你 那双眼动人 笑声更迷人&#xA;愿再可 轻抚你 那可爱面容&#xA;挽手说梦话 像昨天 你共我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, the lyrics are in Standard Chinese even though they are sung in Cantonese. I see nothing particularly Cantonese about the grammar or vocabulary here. Would it not sound idiomatically correct if one tried to sing the same lyrics with Mandarin pronunciation? Instead, the so-called &quot;translation&quot; is this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;忘记你&#xA;美丽的眼睛 温柔的声音&#xA;我答应 忘记你&#xA;脆弱的背影 我们的故事&#xA;我努力 忘记你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21935" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T07:33:43.360" Title="Why is it necessary to &quot;translate&quot; songs to Mandarin that are written in Standard Chinese, but originally sung in Cantonese?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;&lt;songs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35561" CreationDate="2019-11-04T01:10:00.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very common to  write Cantonese songs in either Standard Written Chinese or Colloquial Cantonese. Both are sung in Cantonese pronunciations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We only translate colloquial Cantonese dialogues in movies or TV. into Standard Written Chinese as subtitles, so the Mandarin speaking audience can understand the dialogues&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We do not translate colloquial Cantonese lyrics into Mandarin, We just add a SWC lyrics beside the colloquial Cantonese one, or put SWC translation in brackets beside Cantonese terms that Mandarin speakers might not understand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Colloquial Cantonese: 邊有半斤八両咁理想?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;SWC translation of Colloquial Cantonese: 那有半斤八両這麼理想?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Colloquial Cantonese with SWC translation in brackets: 邊有(那有)半斤八両咁(這麼)理想?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For Cantonese songs written in SWC lyrics, there's no need for translations&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some Cantonese songs rewritten into Mandarin with completely different lyrics that's supposed to be sung in Mandarin. For example, 上海灘 has one &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZPE5RIHF5I&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;original version&lt;/a&gt; that's in Cantonese and one &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBKsfoTxi50&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mandarin version&lt;/a&gt; that's sung in Mandarin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-04T01:46:10.780" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T01:46:10.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35563" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35565" CreationDate="2019-11-04T01:53:14.023" Score="1" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Rhetorical_questions_with_%22nandao%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt; writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note that 难道 can only be used for rhetorical questions which could be answered with yes or no, and generally end with 吗.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And gives examples such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天是我的生日，&lt;strong&gt;难道&lt;/strong&gt;你不知道&lt;strong&gt;吗&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, none of the examples on 标准教程HSK4上 page 105 include 吗, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;怎么有买了这么多饼干和巧克力？&lt;strong&gt;难道&lt;/strong&gt;你不减肥了？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the examples I've seen, I'm getting the impression that the 吗 at the end can be included or omitted without changing the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Can we omit the 吗 at the end of a 难道 rhetorical question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T02:24:28.707" Title="Can we omit the 吗 at the end of a 难道 rhetorical question?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35563" CreationDate="2019-11-04T02:15:23.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;今天是我的生日，&lt;strong&gt;难道&lt;/strong&gt;你不知道吗？&quot; (Today is my birthday, &lt;strong&gt;could it be&lt;/strong&gt; you don't know that?) is a rhetorical question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Omitting &quot;吗&quot; and write &quot;今天是我的生日，难道你不知道？&quot; or &quot;难道你不知道今天是我的生日?&quot; is still perfectly acceptable as a rhetorical question, as long as there's a question mark at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even without &quot;难道&quot; , &quot;今天是我的生日，你不知道吗？&quot; can still be a rhetorical question if you are expected to know. And you are expected to answer &quot;of course I know&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are not expected to know, then it is a real question.  I really am asking &quot;is it true that you don't know?&quot; and your answer can be &quot;yes, I know&quot; or &quot;no, I don't&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-04T02:24:28.707" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T02:24:28.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35563" CreationDate="2019-11-04T02:19:22.010" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, definitely you can. However, in some situations, with 吗 it sounds more natural and less rude. And sometimes, with 吗 it might sound less criticizing, such as your first example 今天是我的生日，难道你不知道吗? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T02:19:22.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28836" CreationDate="2019-11-04T10:17:29.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the links you shared, the idea is come from the following quotation of &quot;The Unbearable Lightness of Being&quot; - &quot;Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.&quot;&#xA;And in those 2 Chinese articles it is described more like &quot;group emotional hijacking&quot; than &quot;group emotional contagion&quot;.&#xA;And yes, I think the author of the article &quot;刻奇（Kitsch）是什么？如何克服刻奇？&quot; misunderstood the conception in some way, then misled others who quote this article.&#xA;The author said this: &quot;不揣冒昧的理解是&quot; , means &quot;I presume that&quot;, and then expressed his/her understanding of Kitsch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23041" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T10:17:29.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10489" CreationDate="2019-11-05T04:07:12.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The comment by drooze above is spot-on.  The phrase &quot;everything happens for a reason&quot; suggests a &quot;good&quot; reason.  This idea has a long history in the West but is best encapsulated in Leibniz's idea that we live in the best of all possible worlds--God could not have made it better and has a good plan behind every seemingly bad event.  Voltaire has this play out to tragic and humorous effect in his short novel &lt;em&gt;Candide&lt;/em&gt;.  The Chinese 事出必有因 is a Buddhist idea, suggesting that every event has a relevant cause.  This is a karmic idea suggesting not basic goodness in the world but basic justice.  If something bad happens to you it's not because it is part of some cosmic plan that is ultimately good but because you did something bad at some point in your past (or past lives), and the bad event is a result of that.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23043" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T04:07:12.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35561" CreationDate="2019-11-05T07:33:43.360" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For your example, it is more like 2 different songs based on the same rhythm rather than translation, because the meaning of the lyrics are far from each other. And for the reasons we redo the lyrics in Mandarin:&#xA;a) Sometimes, the pronunciation of the original lyrics in Mandarin doesn't fit the rhythm.&#xA;b) Some of the expressions used in Cantonese are not commonly used in Mandarin, like in this example: &quot;愿再可&quot;, &quot;你共我&quot; are not standard expressions in Mandarin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23041" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T07:33:43.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35560" CreationDate="2019-11-05T12:15:22.533" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To start off,「木」is &lt;strong&gt;not supposed to&lt;/strong&gt; have detached legs and end up looking like「朩」. In one of the most stringent glyph standards, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Chinese_character#Orthodox_and_vulgar_variants&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Kangxi Dictionary style Ming (Serif)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, if the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;small seal&lt;/a&gt; shape contains「木」, then it does not have detached legs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wEuaV.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wEuaV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is for glyph shape fidelity reasons, and conversely, if it has detached legs, you can be certain that, at the very least, the &lt;em&gt;Kangxi Dictionary&lt;/em&gt; didn't think that it came from the component「木」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KuUwB.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KuUwB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this sometimes doesn't turn out correctly, as with ancient characters which were no longer used, such as「亲」and characters which use it as a component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lolEs.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lolEs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference,「亲」(&lt;em&gt;hazel tree&lt;/em&gt;) is a variation of「」, and is constructed from semantic「木」and phonetic「辛」. This word is now written as「榛」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vw7Lo.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vw7Lo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;中伯壺&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=9668&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成9668&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/veu3l.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/veu3l.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77390&amp;amp;page=59&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;木部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;臺標&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BAi2g.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BAi2g.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;臺標&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E9%9A%B6%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸定&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pztt6.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pztt6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Detached legs on「木」are strictly an invention from calligraphy, and overwhelmingly occur on the bottom of characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v49Gl.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v49Gl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, all character shapes directly affected by calligraphy, including those set by government standards, will have a chance of containing「木」appearing with detached legs. This is purely a shape phenomenon - it has nothing to do with the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters which are affected by calligraphy are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;strong&gt;The Taiwanese MoE standard&lt;/strong&gt;, which actively prescribes writing「木」on the bottom as「朩」, and this effect has bled into their print fonts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F7t7P.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F7t7P.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;strong&gt;PRC's regularised cursive shapes&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tVMnF.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tVMnF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;But I guess it is arguable whether regularised cursive is appropriate for any kind of character shape analysis.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T12:30:14.847" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35571" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35572" CreationDate="2019-11-05T19:13:39.383" Score="1" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am translating a high school math quiz for an English Language Learning student whose native language is Chinese. One of the sections on this quiz involves writing algebraic expressions for English statements. I have been able to use basic web translation tools for some of the questions, but I am having issues with the statement &quot;14 less than the result of 2 times y,&quot; which would have the answer 2y-14. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23046" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-11-06T00:30:14.087" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T00:30:47.390" Title="How can I express &quot;14 less than the result of 2 times y&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35571" CreationDate="2019-11-05T20:06:35.800" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say :      “比y的两倍小14”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23048" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-11-06T00:30:47.390" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T00:30:47.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35573" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-06T03:38:49.280" Score="4" ViewCount="450" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;足足有一刻钟，简默的脸上现出了惊喜和迷惑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is less than a quarter of an hour, or a full quarter of an hour, or what amount of time is being talked about here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23016" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-26T04:16:45.343" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T04:16:45.343" Title="What's the amount of time in 足足有一刻钟，简默的脸上现出了惊喜和迷惑?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35573" CreationDate="2019-11-06T03:52:53.780" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is (at least) a full quarter of an hour. Note that &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E8%B6%B3%E8%B6%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;足足&lt;/a&gt; is used for emphasizing that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;◎ 足足 zúzú&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[full;solid] 不少于&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T03:52:53.780" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35573" CreationDate="2019-11-06T05:04:29.240" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;足足有一刻钟 here means &quot;&lt;em&gt;a &lt;strong&gt;full&lt;/strong&gt; quarter of an hour&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;足足 means &lt;em&gt;fully&lt;/em&gt;. The word is usually emotional, implying that &lt;em&gt;that amount is a big deal&lt;/em&gt;. E.g. 我在这里足足等了你两个小时. (implying: two hours is really long time. It's a complaining about the fact that you kept me waiting for that long.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. Compare 足足有两小时 and 足有两个小时. They mean the same(a full two hours), but the former puts an emphasis. 足足 sounds like almost exceeding the amount(or perhaps already exceeds a little bit?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-07T00:01:27.413" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T00:01:27.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35576" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-06T19:55:46.563" Score="0" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mandarin is a complete &lt;strong&gt;MESS&lt;/strong&gt; regarding word classes. I can't think of an example right now, but I'm completely sure there are some words that reach the point of being a noun, adjective, verb and adverb depending on how they are used on a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes I think Chinese lexicologists and learning books makers just make a random draw of what word class they're going to put there and that's it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here's the question: What are the criteria used on dictionaries and learning materials to decide word classes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2019-11-06T20:09:49.283" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T05:50:36.563" Title="What are the criteria used on dictionaries to decide word classes?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35577" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35642" CreationDate="2019-11-06T20:09:25.410" Score="2" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, some of the characters we know come from the regularization of the cursive form, like the radical 言 became 讠, etc. But how do I find how some really weird characters came from, like 舊-&gt;旧, 靈-&gt;灵, 異-&gt;异 and so on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;To make it more clear, the above character are only examples. I'd like to know where they came up with the rules of EVERY AND EACH of the simplifications. Where do I find those rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2019-11-07T14:50:43.110" LastActivityDate="2019-11-15T22:25:21.853" Title="How do I find the rules used to create the simplified version of the characters?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35573" CreationDate="2019-11-06T22:50:56.823" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means a full quarter of an hour. Besides that, 足足 also have a meaning to describe the duration of the time is very long for the person at speaking. It's like an emphasize. In this sentence, it means the 15 minutes is pretty long for the person who writes this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23021" LastEditorUserId="23021" LastEditDate="2019-11-08T20:51:05.940" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T20:51:05.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35579" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35580" CreationDate="2019-11-07T01:48:46.637" Score="0" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大巧不工剑讲究的就是一个不工，意念要厚重，剑式要雄强圆厚，气势要庄严雄浑，你看看你使出的剑式，太过松散，转折太过刚硬，致使出剑无力，剑式笼罩的范围太小……”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m not learning Chinese, I just enjoy doing machine translations to read and translate, but Google and the dictionary can only take me so far. What is the sword style here called? Whats the translation of this passage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23016" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T04:00:34.357" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T06:00:47.710" Title="What is the sword style in 大巧不工剑讲究的就是一个不工，意念要厚重，剑式要雄强圆厚...?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35579" CreationDate="2019-11-07T03:15:53.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大巧不工 is from 《重剑无锋，大巧不工》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;重 heavy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;剑 sword&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;无 no&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;锋 sharp edge &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;大 big &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;巧 delicate  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不 no &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;工 work&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《重剑无锋，大巧不工》&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Epee with no sharp edge, delicate work&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The true power is not from the weapon, is from the one who uses it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is the sword style here called?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sword style means the the moves of the swordsman&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Whats the translation of this passage???&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大巧不工剑 is the name of the sword moves i assume.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;讲究的就是一个不工 is all about natural (不工 not artificial) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;意念要厚重 thoughts must be strong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剑式要雄强圆厚 moves must be strong and round and thick (round and thick here means the moves must be flexible and comprehensive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;气势要庄严雄浑 momentum must be 庄严 Solemn and serious 雄浑(雄壮浩瀚: expansive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你看看你使出的剑式，太过松散 look at your move, too loose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;转折太过刚硬 moves transition too solid (not flexible)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;致使出剑无力 causing your attack powerless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;剑式笼罩的范围太小 area covered by your moves is too small&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9331" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T03:15:53.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35576" CreationDate="2019-11-07T05:50:36.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before 2004, there's no word classes labels in Chinese dictionary. In 2004, 《现代汉语规范词典》add in this label, and in 2005,《现代汉语词典》add in this label.&#xA;But it really confused Chinese people because the conception of word classes comes from English, Chinese language do not have a strict gamma system from the start. You can refer to this Zhihu post for more detailed information: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/284461424&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhihu Post (In Chinese)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23041" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T05:50:36.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32490" CreationDate="2019-11-07T06:24:56.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The full sentence goes like this:&quot;去到长安，东北转角，逢着天门，便有下落&quot;, comes from Zhuge Shenshu Verse No.355. If you feel it doesn't make sense, then you get the point. This book was used to do Fortune-telling, so it meant to confuse the readers, so the  Fortune-tellers can pick up from here, use their knowledge (verbal tricks) to explain your destiny.&#xA;A word to word translation: &quot;Go to Chang An (The Capital City), north east corner, Meet Tianmen (Can be explained into a certain place or a certain time), then you find it.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23041" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T06:24:56.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35060" CreationDate="2019-11-07T06:53:17.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on my understanding, the author was trying to explain the conception of agglutinative language that tense information is expressed by auxiliary word before (inner field) and after (outer field) it. For example: &quot;我吃&quot; - &quot;I eat&quot;, &quot;我吃/了(Outer Field)&quot; - &quot;I ate&quot;, &quot;我/已经(Inner Field)/吃/了(Outer Field)&quot; - &quot;I have eaten&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23041" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T06:53:17.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35584" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35607" CreationDate="2019-11-07T10:23:40.307" Score="1" ViewCount="996" Body="&lt;p&gt;From 标准教程HSK4上 page 111:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The verb &quot;上&quot; means &quot;to achieve or reach (a certain quantity or degree)&quot;, often followed by an object indicating quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel a lot of discomfort with using this 上.  (I'm not really sure it's a verb either; it seems like it's preceded by a verb with this usage.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How does 上 work as a verb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some of my attempts at using it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;从这本书中我学&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;15页。 (From this book, I've read up to page 15.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我的头发自己剪&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;了。  (I cut my own hair.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我在北京一家宾馆住&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;三个月。  (I stay in a hotel in Beijing for 3 months.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我老婆拿&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt;遥控器。  (My wife took the remote control.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not really sure if I'm doing this right.  It feels unnatural---the only reason I'm using 上 in this way, is to practice using 上 in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T23:35:39.867" Title="How does 上 work as a verb?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35584" CreationDate="2019-11-07T11:00:05.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The verb &quot;上&quot; means &quot;to achieve or reach (a certain quantity or degree)&quot;, often followed by an object indicating quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A correct use for this sense of 上 is 这本书有上百页. Usually, this use of 上 is to indicate to what extent something could reach. E.g. 这种植物有上千种。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that this use of 上 works well with 有. E.g. 这里有上百种食物。And it often goes like 有上百，有上千， 有上万，... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't really say 有上(几)十个. There is no strong reason for that. It just starts with 百(上百个). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. this definition of 上 is clearly defined in dictionaries including the official ones such as 新华字典, 现代汉语词典. This is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://hanyu.baidu.com/zici/s?wd=%E4%B8%8A&amp;amp;query=%E4%B8%8A%20%E6%84%8F%E6%80%9D&amp;amp;srcid=28236&amp;amp;from=kg0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;16.达到；够（一定数量或程度）：～百人。～年纪。⒁（又shǎng）上声：平～去入。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-17T23:35:39.867" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T23:35:39.867" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35586" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-07T13:23:47.843" Score="2" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term literally indicates some kind of monkey jockey riding a racehorse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m guessing it means “lunatic”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can’t find it in any dictionary. Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21462" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T16:18:14.633" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T16:18:14.633" Title="What does 跳马猴子 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35586" CreationDate="2019-11-07T14:06:41.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to be &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/18/0324/11/6956316_739783044.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;东北方言 (northeast dialect)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;跳马猴子 - 顽皮淘气的孩子，多指男孩&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.docin.com/p-250630652.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;and&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'跳马猴子'指不老实的人，特别是小孩儿。如'你一天跳马猴子似的疯跑， 也不知道写作业'。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's usually used for naughty and active boys.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-11-07T14:29:33.670" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T14:29:33.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35584" CreationDate="2019-11-07T16:13:43.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a few examples 上 as verb: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;明天上学&#xA;下午上体育课&#xA;周末我要上北京&#xA;下周气温上30度&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T16:13:43.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35589" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-07T17:46:18.593" Score="2" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hello i have a doubt about where  在 has to be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two references listed below about our matter. The first one talks about movement or location and the second about movement with displacement for the 在 to be after the verb. That second one I think is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example verbs like  睡觉，站，坐，can have 在 after the verb. No movement is involved. like 弟弟不肯睡在房车里。 what about the 觉&#xA;。 why is it missing in this sentence? What about verbs like 想，考虑。where would you put the  在。 For example.  I was under the tree thinking about the future.  I am not moving can I say  我在想在树下面。 would be right or not?  And I have another doubt. It says in the firs reference from wiki&#xA;我 学习 在 图书馆。Wǒ xuéxí zài túshūguǎn. is incorrect. but 学习 does not imply movement so I am a bit confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you solve my doubts and make it clear for me? thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from wiki.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pattern is used regularly with special types of verbs, including: 住 (zhù), 放 (fàng), 坐 (zuò), and 站&#xA;(zhàn). These are verbs that imply movement or location. Technically, the structure is called a location&#xA;complement, but it can be understood without going into that much detail. Just remember that for verbs&#xA;implying movement or location like the ones above, the default sentence order changes and you get this&#xA;structure:&#xA;Subj. + [Special Verb] + 在 + Location&#xA;Examples&#xA;你 住 在 上海吗?Nǐ zhù zài Shànghǎi ma? Do you live in Shanghai?&#xA;他 坐 在 老板 的 旁边。Tā zuò zài lǎobǎn de pángbiān.He sits next to the boss.&#xA;你 应该 站 在 我 后面。Nǐ yīnggāi zhàn zài wǒ hòumiàn.You should stand behind me.&#xA;不要 坐 在我 的 床 上。Bùyào zuò zài wǒ de chuáng shàng.Don't sit on my bed.&#xA;你 的 衣服 不 可以 放 在 这里。Nǐ de yīfu bù kěyǐ fàng zài zhèlǐ.You can't put your clothes&#xA;here.&#xA;不要 站 在 路 中间。Bùyào zhàn zài lù zhōngjiān.Don't stand in the middle of the road.&#xA;不要 坐 在 地 上。Bùyào zuò zài dì shàng.Don't sit on the ground.&#xA;那 本 书 我 放 在 桌子 上 了。Nà běn shū wǒ fàng zài zhuōzi shàng le.I placed that book on&#xA;the table.&#xA;不要 走 在 草地 上。Búyào zǒu zài cǎodì shàng.Don't walk on the grass.&#xA;周末 我 不 想 待 在 家 里。Zhōumò wǒ bù xiǎng dāi zài jiā lǐ.I don't want to stay at home on&#xA;weekends.&#xA;Remember that this is an exception to the normal rule. A common mistake is to over apply this and produce&#xA;incorrect sentences. Note the incorrect and correct versions below.&#xA;我 工作 在 上海。Wǒ gōngzuò zài Shànghǎi.&#xA;我 在 上海工作。Wǒ zài Shànghǎi gōngzuò.I work in Shanghai.&#xA;我 学习 在 图书馆。Wǒ xuéxí zài túshūguǎn.&#xA;我 在 图书馆 学习。Wǒ zài túshūguǎn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from a book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.2 Dynamic and static differences A noticeable semantic dimension that&#xA;affects the use of action verbs in Chinese is the difference between&#xA;dynamic and static verbs. A dynamic action verb implies that the action&#xA;travels across a certain space, whereas a static action verb does not. This&#xA;can be clearly illustrated by the difference between ‘walk’ and ‘stand’:&#xA;when one walks, one moves from one location to another, whereas when&#xA;one stands, one either stays in one place or changes from a sitting position&#xA;to a standing position and no change of location is involved.&#xA;The dynamic or static nature of an action verb will decide whether a&#xA;location phrase associated with it precedes or follows it. A dynamic action&#xA;verb will have location phrases preceding it, whereas a static action verb&#xA;may have a location phrase either preceding it or following it. For&#xA;example:&#xA;他 在 公 园 里 散 步。 tā zài gōngyuán li sànbù He is having a walk in the&#xA;park.&#xA;*他 散 步 在 公 园 里。 *tā sànbù zài gōngyuán li He is having a walk in&#xA;the park.&#xA;他 在 草 地 上 坐 着。 Nota 4. tā zài càodì shàng zuò zhe He is sitting on&#xA;the grass.&#xA;他 坐 在 草 地 上。 tā zuò zài càodì shàng He is sitting on the grass.&#xA;Nota 4 The addition of the particle 着 zhe to the verb changes it from&#xA;narrative mode to descriptive mode. This will be discussed in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T00:51:01.247" Title="在 before or after the verb" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35590" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-07T18:33:28.103" Score="1" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the link below, the wiki page talks about 给 in this structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subj. + 给 + Target + [Verb Phrase]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Verbs_preceded_by_%22gei%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Verbs_preceded_by_%22gei%22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't understand 晚饭妈妈做了面条给我们吃。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part before 给 is not a subject. Rather, it's a complete sentence. How would you explain this grammar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastEditorUserId="25009" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T00:45:44.580" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T00:45:44.580" Title="phrase + 给 + target + verb" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35590" CreationDate="2019-11-07T21:34:41.597" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a [topic + comment/ opinion] grammar structure &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;晚饭 (dinner) is a topic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妈妈做了面条给我们吃。(mother made noodle for us to eat)  is a comment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The comment here is a basic [Subject +V + object]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can replace the topic, e.g. Change 晚饭 to 午餐 and write &quot;午餐妈妈做了面条&quot; = &quot;(for) lunch, mom made noodle&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can replace the comment, e.g. Change 面条 to 饺子 and &quot;晚饭妈妈做了饺子&quot; = &quot;(for) dinner, mom made dumplings&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Topic: 工作 (works)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comment: 很难找到 (very hard to find)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Topic + comment sentence: 工作很难找到 (works are very hard to find )&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;SVO sentence: 很难找到工作 (it is hard to find works)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Using [topic + comment sentence] emphasize the topic&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-07T21:56:04.493" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T21:56:04.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35592" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35595" CreationDate="2019-11-08T02:05:15.767" Score="1" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been told by a native speaker that 慢一点 is functionally the same as 小心一点, which in english is essentially &quot;be careful&quot;. Can someone else confirm?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find it a little odd and would consider this a mistake if it was in english, especially if being slower doesn't help (e.g. you're already doing it slowly but carelessly, or you need to do something quickly but decisively)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18920" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T00:36:37.930" Title="Does 慢一点 mean &quot;be careful&quot; even in a general context?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23261" CreationDate="2019-11-08T02:08:52.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was taught that 朋 (two moon radicals) implied two equal companions standing side by side, while 友 (left hand holding right hand) implied a more intimate (but not necessarily sexual) relationship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22903" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T02:08:52.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35589" CreationDate="2019-11-08T02:40:44.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;在&quot; has at least two functions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First &quot;在&quot; can be used to imply something is happening, for example, &quot;我在学习(I am studying)&quot;, and in this case it comes before the verb. The verb doesn't have to be about physical movement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second you can use 在 as a preposition, implying the place where something happened/is happening/will be happening. For example, &quot;我现在住在上海(I live in Shanghai now)&quot;. In this case it comes after the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;睡觉在&quot; is strange for a native Mandarin speaker. We would just say &quot;睡在&quot;.&#xA;&quot;我在想在树下面&quot; is also weird. The correct translation for &quot;I am thinking under tree&quot; is &quot;我在树下面想&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23048" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T02:40:44.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35592" CreationDate="2019-11-08T02:53:16.540" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that 慢一点 is the same as 小心一点. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am from Manchuria, and as far as I know, sometimes when people are gonna leave each other, a person may say 慢走 or 慢点走 as an expression for &quot;Goodbye&quot;. Maybe a personal bias, I don't think 慢走 is frequently used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also agree with you that, doing things slowly may not always help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23048" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T02:53:16.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35596" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35597" CreationDate="2019-11-08T07:52:28.937" Score="4" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was discussing &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%88%90%E8%AF%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;成语&lt;/a&gt; (a type of Chinese idiom) with my teacher, and she seemed to indicate that around the HSK5 level, there is a sharp increase in the number of 成语 that the student is required to learn.  She also indicated that it was a common complaint by students that 成语 are difficult and tedious to learn, and somewhat boring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if the following is accurate, but it seems like 成语 are seldom used outside of literature:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...by their nature, formal/literary constructions and so are &lt;strong&gt;not commonly used in conversation&lt;/strong&gt; (unless you want to sound highly educated). Thus this stuff is most useful for diary entries, stories, websites and other written documents.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://carlgene.com/blog/2010/07/20-actually-useful-chengyu-%E6%88%90%E8%AF%AD/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;20 Actually Useful Chengyu (成语)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why should someone learning Chinese as a second language learn 成语 idioms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I gather there's a reason beyond &quot;we like 成语&quot; since there's an emphasis on them in the HSKs.  Maybe it'll help me find motivation to study them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T02:26:00.770" Title="Why should someone learning Chinese as a second language learn 成语 idioms?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35596" CreationDate="2019-11-08T08:43:24.617" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Idioms and classical phrases are important because they are parts of the modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious benefit of using idioms, is it can greatly reduce the length of our sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跟他做交易真是[&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/60848/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;與虎謀皮&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idiom 與虎謀皮 in this sentence, expresess several ideas&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is dangerous to deal with him&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He is untrustworthy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He is a vicious character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is foolish to expect good result&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't use the idiom 與虎謀皮, you have to use extra words to express all the ideas above. The sentence would become something like this: &amp;quot;他不講信義，手段兇狠, 跟他做交易是一個十分危險而且愚蠢的行為&amp;quot; (He is vicious and untrustworthy, dealing with him is a very dangerous and foolish act)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just from reading  the four characters 與虎謀皮 , we know the person you are dealing with is 不講信義(can't be trusted)，手段兇狠 (vicious) and the deal itself is 危險 (dangerous) and  愚蠢 (foolish)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say learning idioms is as important as learning anything else in one's study of Chinese. Idioms are refined short cuts to express complex ideas in simple and comprehensive way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Origin of 與虎謀皮: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,131767,131767#msg-131767&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,131767,131767#msg-131767&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T14:26:16.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35596" CreationDate="2019-11-08T09:35:36.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not really useful for a foreign learning actually. I myself seldom use any English idioms as well. When it occurs in your reading, you just look it up in the online dict. When it occurs in conversation, you just ask the speaker to explain it. There is no necessity in learning 成语, or Classical Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you write, however, if you command few of them, you will find your writing unsophisticated, inexpressive, verbose and often hard to clearly describe things or situations. I think this is common for any language learners, such as you and me. If we do not exert our efforts in learning another language comprehensively, the most we can achieve is communication level. I think it's more about personal choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T09:35:36.707" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35596" CreationDate="2019-11-08T11:35:22.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should learn some because some of idioms are used frequently even in spoken. E.g. 自相矛盾: 你说的话自相矛盾. 尔虞我诈: 单位里的人整天尔虞我诈的。狐假虎威 ... ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't quite agree idioms are hard and boring. Actually, I found they are very interesting. There is an interseting story behind each idiom. My kid bought a book about idioms. It 's more like a storybook rather than a lexicon. It can also improve your Chinese reading. It's really a good read that I'd suggest to Chinese learners. It uses the simple languages for kid, which I assume would be suitable for second language learners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T11:35:22.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35596" CreationDate="2019-11-08T12:48:58.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One definition of an idiom is a group of words established by usage as&#xA;  having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words&#xA;  (e.g., rain cats and dogs, see the light).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason I would recommend that you learn idioms is that learning the Chinese language will require you to understand the meaning (intent) behind the spoken words. You can get a dictionary and start learning to translate but that won't help you with intent and understanding of the culture. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, how would you determine if a speaker was joking or being slightly suggestive or being forceful? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Idioms can help give you an insight into why a set of words mean what they do, why equivalent words may not be appropriate in one scenario but absolutely necessary in another. So, if you want to learn the language but not truly understand the culture, feel free to skip them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really depends on how deeply you want to immerse yourself in the culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3634" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T12:48:58.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35592" CreationDate="2019-11-08T20:29:14.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;慢一点 means take it easy or slow down on what you are doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eg. 做慢一点。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22993" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T20:29:14.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35596" CreationDate="2019-11-08T23:00:04.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on how much you want to learn about the language. If you're just targeting daily dialogue / reading food menu kind of level, you can skip idioms.  Anything beyond that I would say learning idiom helps.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, it should be the other way around;  How much you understands these idioms determined by your level of understanding the language.  Taking Tang Ho's example 與虎謀皮, a native speaker will most likely understand what it means by looking at it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find them difficult and tedious to learn, you can either improves your skill or ignore them (obviously hah).  But many of them are actually a 4 words summary of an experience which I find quite interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T23:00:04.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35596" CreationDate="2019-11-09T00:08:06.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To certain extent I understand your concern and I've seen extreme cases, where school teach idioms and assess students' work based on &lt;em&gt;how many&lt;/em&gt; idioms they use. It was like 20 years ago in high school/junior college in Singapore. I'm not sure about current situation, but as a native mandarin speaker saw Singaporean learn Mandarin in that way was stunning to me. However, I do appreciate the fact that idioms are sometimes interesting, and it helps you to memorize and build up vocabulary, however, personally I think the main purpose for learning a language is to use it as a tool to converse/communicate. Once you're able to use a language, and know the basic logics and the way the language is constructed, you can dive deeper in a more independent way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T00:08:06.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35596" CreationDate="2019-11-09T00:27:58.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;People who really enjoy the linguistic and cultural aspects of the Chinese language are usually very much fans of 成语 and do not need any particular incentives for learning them. Like parables, there is usually a short story that 成语 is derived from, so if you like to learn the language through stories this is actually quite a good way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can understand the rationale for learning Chinese idioms at higher levels, because it is kind of like when people reference things from Shakespeare or other classic English literature and people who learn English as a second language can get caught out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in fact Chinese idioms also fall into many different categories, from something that is actually very commonly used in everyday exchanges to ones that require you to be very well versed in classic Chinese literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as there are people who are advocates for plain English and keeping things simple, there is also a level of eloquence when you can use Chinese idioms that are appropriate for the occasion. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, you just have to find the elements of the language that work for you and keep practicing until you are comfortable with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T00:27:58.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35592" CreationDate="2019-11-09T00:36:37.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a particular context in which 慢一点 may be interpreted (functionally) to be the equivalent of 小心一点. As is often the case with languages, a lot of the nuances comes from the way the speaker and the listener interact in their dialogue, and I can see a case where this can be true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you know 小心一点 means to be more careful or cautious, and it is often a general expression that has a very similar meaning across most situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 慢一点 is a little bit more subject to the context, and as a general expression it just means to slow down (literally little bit slower). However, in the context where there is a sense of danger or unexpected situation encountered by someone, this can have the meaning of &quot;Stop&quot; (and think about what's happening). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can see how in this case 慢一点 can functionally be the same as 小心一点 when the intent of the speaker is for the person listening to take more care regarding the actions that they are about to undertake, or the situation that they are facing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T00:36:37.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35589" CreationDate="2019-11-09T00:51:01.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try to write short, simple questions. You will get clearer answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is important to know where things are. Chinese often locates things like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在雕塑前面 in front of the statue&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在桌子上 on the table&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在盒子里 in the box&lt;br&gt;&#xA;在城墙后边 behind the city wall&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ ] = where or whereto This &lt;strong&gt;[where or whereto]&lt;/strong&gt; is a location in space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我把花放[在雕塑前面]。I put flowers [in front of the statue].&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的书[在桌子上]。Your book is [on the table].&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的猫在那个盒子里。Your cat is [in that box].&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他的房子[在城墙后边]。His house is [behind the city wall].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A question you very often hear is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在做什么？= What are you doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can think of this 在 as an abstraction over where in spacetime, because it involves location and time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你在做什么？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我在思考未来。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你在做什么？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我在做饭。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你在做什么？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我在学习。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Talk about static and dynamic verbs is just confusing. Verbs are just words. Things may move or stand still. Your language should reflect this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am/was [under the tree], thinking about the future.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我[在树下]思考未来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我[在图书馆]学习。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I am/was [in the library] studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他[在公园里]散步。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He's [in the park] strolling. (He is moving, his location, [in the park], is static in time.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T00:51:01.247" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35584" CreationDate="2019-11-09T02:08:52.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native speaker. For the example you made I feel some of them would be more authentic if you use other verbs instead of 上 for example: &#xA;这本书我读了15页。 (From this book, I've read up to page 15.) &#xA;我给自己剪头发了。 (I cut my own hair.)&#xA;(I stay in a hotel in Beijing for 3 months.) This one sounds a little bit weird in the tense itself. If you want to say &quot;I am going to stay in a hotel in Beijing for 3 months&quot; its a good time to use 上，it would be:我要在北京一家旅馆住上三个月。 However, if you want to say &quot;I have lived in a hotel in Beijing for 3 months&quot;, it would be: 我在北京一家旅馆住了三个月。I know it is to consider tense in Mandarin since it doesn't have a very specific rule for tense. &#xA;我老婆拿了遥控器。 (My wife took the remote control.)&#xA;Here are some phrases that are commonly used with 上 as a verb:&#xA;我去上厕所 (I am going to the bathroom)&#xA;上床睡觉 (go to bed)&#xA;我上车了(I just got on the car) &#xA;我要上台了 （I am about to get on the stage) &#xA;上楼梯 （go upstairs) -&gt; 下楼梯 （go downstairs)&#xA;I hope these could be somehow helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23062" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T02:08:52.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35608" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35610" CreationDate="2019-11-09T02:20:04.080" Score="0" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我饿了，我也累了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand, both 了s are the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Change_of_state_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;change-of-state 了&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot think of a way to write this using only one change-of-state 了, which makes me think it's not possible.  I'm fairly sure &quot;我饿也累了&quot; and &quot;我饿和累了&quot; are both ungrammatical (perhaps a kind of &quot;Englese&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it possible to write &quot;I'm hungry and tired&quot; with a single change-of-state 了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T03:00:23.253" Title="Is it possible to write &quot;I'm hungry and tired&quot; (我饿了，我也累了) with a single change-of-state 了?" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35596" CreationDate="2019-11-09T02:26:00.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a native Chinese speaker who lived in the US for a few years. In my opinion, language always reflects the culture behind it. I still remember the time I learn idioms as a kid, it was difficult when I didn't know the story behind. I watched lots of animations that explain the story behind the idioms, and from there I start to have some interest in learning idioms. Lots of times, I find understanding idioms make the language alive or make the expression concise. If you feel learning idioms would not be helpful, it is okay not to spend the time and energy to learn it (just like I still don't know lots of big words in English). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23062" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T02:26:00.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35608" CreationDate="2019-11-09T03:00:23.253" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only thing wrong with &quot;我饿了，我也累了。&quot; is the second 我 is redundant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我饿了，也累了。&quot; is perfectly grammatical&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use  the [又 X 又 Y + 了] structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 我已經又累又饿了 (I am hungry and tired already)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T03:00:23.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35612" CreationDate="2019-11-10T17:47:21.350" Score="1" ViewCount="377" Body="&lt;p&gt;I previously already understood &quot;说话&quot; to mean &quot;to speak&quot; or something to that effect, but just recently I saw the term &quot;话说&quot; and was curious if it carried the same meaning (which is often the case I've noticed). I checked my go to dictionary (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%AF%B4%E8%AF%9D+%E8%AF%9D%E8%AF%B4+%E8%AF%B4+%E8%AF%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;) and according to that the definitions are slightly different, with &quot;说话&quot; defined as &quot;to speak/talk&quot; and &quot;话说&quot; defined as &quot;to discuss/recount&quot;. Is this how the two terms are actually used or is the dictionary teaching me wrong practices? Is it practical for me to even differentiate the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T05:59:27.153" Title="Difference between 说话 and 话说?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35611" CreationDate="2019-11-10T18:08:19.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to differentiate them as &quot;话说&quot; carries a different meaning. It is used when people want to start a topic. It is very commonly used in ancient novels, where authors always speak as a storyteller and use &quot;话说&quot; to begin the story. In informal conversations someone may also use it now (actually I used to say it many times), a little like &quot;by the way&quot; in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal opinion is that, practically you'd better avoid using &quot;话说&quot; in your writing when you are not a high level Mandarin writer, because I think &quot;话说&quot; is related to a specific writing style. You may use &quot;话说&quot; in informal conversations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23048" LastActivityDate="2019-11-10T18:08:19.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35613" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35616" CreationDate="2019-11-11T02:27:57.167" Score="1" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;From 标准教程HSK4上(p.124; nearly finished this book!):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;当你生病了，如果由于缺钱而不能及时去看医生，&lt;strong&gt;你的健康都难得到保证，就更别说幸福了&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translate this to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When you're sick, if because of lack of money [you] cannot promptly visit the doctor, &lt;strong&gt;your health is not easily ensured, it's best not to say happiness&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm uncomfortable with my understanding of the last part of this sentence, which seems quite different to English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How does 你的健康都难得到保证，就更别说幸福了 work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To highlight my particular issues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%9A%BE%E5%BE%97%E5%88%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;难得到&lt;/a&gt; a set phrase?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It seems like &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BF%9D%E8%AF%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;保证&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;guarantee&quot;) is being used as an intransitive verb, meaning something different (&quot;ensure&quot;) than what I'm accustomed to (e.g. the guarantee of a shopkeeper).  I just want to check that I'm reading this correctly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't know what &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9B%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;更&lt;/a&gt; is doing in this sentence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%88%AB%E8%AF%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;别说&lt;/a&gt; does not seem to mean &quot;don't speak&quot; here.  Is it metaphorical?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the intended meaning is something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you fall sick and don't have money to see a doctor, you can't ensure your health, so you cannot claim to have &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B9%B8%E7%A6%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;幸福&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where I'll just leave 幸福 untranslated as this nebulous notion of &quot;happiness&quot; and &quot;good fortune&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T09:15:32.497" Title="How does 你的健康都难得到保证，就更别说幸福了 work?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35613" CreationDate="2019-11-11T02:36:01.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here, &quot;就更别说&quot; means &quot;let alone&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;难得到&quot; is not a set phrase. It seems to me that &quot;得到保证&quot; is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;保证&quot; is still a noun in this sentence (I confirm this with my mom, a high school Chinese teacher in China).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23048" LastEditorUserId="23048" LastEditDate="2019-11-11T03:06:20.683" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T03:06:20.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35613" CreationDate="2019-11-11T02:39:52.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;如果 由于 缺钱 而 不能 及时 去 看医生[看病]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you cannot visit a doctor due to lacking of money&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;你的 健康 都 难[以] 得到 保证&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your healthy is difficult to be guaranteed. (You cannot guarantee your healthy)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;难以: difficult to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得到保证：be guaranteed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;更别说 幸福 了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;let along happinese&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;更别说：let alone ..., literally &quot;don't even mention&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9800" LastEditorUserId="9800" LastEditDate="2019-11-11T02:52:03.573" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T02:52:03.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35613" CreationDate="2019-11-11T02:52:42.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;难得到&amp;quot; is short for &amp;quot;难以得到&amp;quot; (hard to get). It is not a standard phrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(連)*你的健康都难得到保证，(就)*更别说幸福了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a common grammar structure here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[連 (X) 都 (+ statement) , 更别说 (Y)了]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[even (X) (+ statement) , let alone/ not to mention (Y)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[even (your health) (cannot be guaranteed/ ensured), let alone/ not to mention (your happiness)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If your health cannot be guaranteed/ ensured , then it is even less likely that your happiness can be guaranteed&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;連 is omitted in your sentence&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;就 can be omitted in your sentence&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example of [連 (X) 都 (+ statement) , 更别说 (Y)了] structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;連(我)都打不過他, 更别说(你)了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;even (I) can't defeat him, let alone (you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If I can't defeat him, it is even less likely that you can defeat him&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T03:35:00.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35611" CreationDate="2019-11-11T03:43:31.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;说话 means 'talking', 话说 means 'by the way', ‘they say’. As an addition to @魏小淇's excellent answer. You can view 话说 as 'according to some' or 'they say', like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'according to some, seems like Mr. Wang was fired yesterday' ‘话说，王先生好像昨天被开除了’&#xA;although, it seems like 听说 can be used too in that context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23068" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T03:43:31.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35618" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35620" CreationDate="2019-11-11T04:57:35.723" Score="1" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw in the translation of a set of Chinese lyrics that 斷腸 was translated into 'heartbroken' or 'broken heart'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a curious case where there is already a common expression for heart broken - 心碎, but in the lyrics the words 斷腸 was used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just wondering what the difference or nuances are with using 心碎 rather than 斷腸, or if this is even an accurate translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T06:53:11.973" Title="Literal versus contextual translation of 斷腸" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35618" CreationDate="2019-11-11T05:32:28.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 斷腸 should be translated as &quot;gut wrenching (pain/sadness)&quot; but &quot;heart broken&quot; is also correct because 斷腸 and 碎心 basically have the same metaphorical meaning -- &quot;extreme emotional pain&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;斷腸 (gut wrenching): an intense sadness/ emotional pain like one's intestine is being twisted apart&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;心碎 (heart broken): an intense sadness/ emotional pain like one's heart is being broke to pieces &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;心碎 is more common than 斷腸 when it come to describe emotional pain because &quot;心&quot; also represent &quot;emotion/mind&quot;, therefore,&quot;心碎&quot; expresses &quot;emotional damage&quot; in a more literally way, while 斷腸 is completely metaphorical&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another difference between 斷腸 and 心碎 is 斷腸 can be used as an adjective directly, for example: 斷腸人(heart broken one); 斷腸夢 (gut wrenching dream); 斷腸痛楚 (gut wrenching pain)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we only say &quot;碎心人&quot; (heart broken one), not 心碎人&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-11T05:58:54.200" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T05:58:54.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35618" CreationDate="2019-11-11T05:42:22.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When it comes to lyrics, I think it's more related to rhythms. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;你的眼泪 让我心碎&lt;/code&gt; (泪 &amp;amp; 碎）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;让我醉 别让我心碎&lt;/code&gt; （醉 &amp;amp; 碎）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;不愿别的男人见识你的妩媚 你该知道这样会让我心碎&lt;/code&gt; （媚 &amp;amp; 碎）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these lyrics couldn't be replaced with 断肠 because it is not the right rhythm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 断肠， you can't replace with 心碎 either. e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;想你想断肠 泪汪汪 心也茫茫&lt;/code&gt; (肠 &amp;amp; 汪 &amp;amp; 茫）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T05:42:22.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35611" CreationDate="2019-11-11T05:59:27.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;说话 means to speak/talk &#xA;话说 generally means &quot;(to) speak/talk about&quot;, for example：&#xA;1. 话说中国 (to talk about China)&#xA;2. 话说这个我不太明白 (speaking about this, I don't quite understand) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T05:59:27.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35280" CreationDate="2019-11-11T06:00:00.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Best Guess, &quot;little meatball&quot; should be refer to the Chinese word &quot;小宝贝&quot; which should be translate into &quot;little sweety&quot;, but &quot;little sweety&quot; is a common nickname in English. To avoid confusion of audience and highlight the imagination of being spoiled, the speaker used &quot;little meatball&quot; instead. &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;There's another interesting fact about this, in traditional Chinese families, using such nicknames in public can be considered as a sign of spoiling, since traditional Chinese culture do not encourage people to express their love and affections in public.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23041" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T06:00:00.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35618" CreationDate="2019-11-11T06:53:11.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;断肠 is mainly used in poem. &lt;a href=&quot;https://sou-yun.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://sou-yun.cn/&lt;/a&gt; suggests it may mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;割开或切断肠子 (cut intestine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;（典故）断肠猿 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;形容极度思念或悲痛 (miss, grief)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;秋海棠花 (Begonia flower)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, it should be the 3rd meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 心碎 is described as: 形容悲伤至极 (extremely sad). It cannot cover the meaning of 思念、想念 &quot;miss; think of; long for&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9800" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T06:53:11.973" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35613" CreationDate="2019-11-11T09:15:32.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you give more context, you will get a better translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当你生病了，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When you are sick,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;如果由于缺钱而不能及时去看医生，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and you can't go to see a doctor, because you don't have any money,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的健康都难得到保证，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;even your health can't be guaranteed,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;就更别说幸福了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;never mind talking about happiness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;健康都难得到保证&#xA;health even difficult get guarantee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 难得到 a set phrase? No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;保证 a guarantee&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T09:15:32.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35625" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35626" CreationDate="2019-11-11T23:46:55.640" Score="1" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general when using auxiliary verbs, where the auxiliary verb is in the past tense while the main verb isn't. An example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Because I like to read Chinese books, I &lt;strong&gt;began teaching myself&lt;/strong&gt; Mandarin. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;因为我喜欢读中国书，所以我&lt;strong&gt;开始了自学&lt;/strong&gt;汉语。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my placement of 了 correct? If not, what would be the appropriate way to convey this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T00:17:37.203" Title="Where to place 了 when using an auxiliary verb?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35625" CreationDate="2019-11-12T00:17:37.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's OK with or without 了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为我喜欢读中文书，所以我开始了自学汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为我喜欢读中文书，所以我开始自学汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem, as I see it, is: How can you know you like to read Chinese books before you have studied Chinese?? You cannot have read any! Kind of grates on logic!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为了能够看懂中文，我开始了自学汉语。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In order to be able to read Chinese, I began to study the Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T00:17:37.203" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35627" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-12T03:22:48.937" Score="5" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a linguist with an extremely superficial knowledge of Chinese, so I'd like to query some native speakers about a grammatical phenomenon I've been thinking about for some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Indoeuropean languages (at the very least) there are sentences that speakers claim are both grammatical and meaningful, but, when pressed to explain what they mean, they suddenly realize such sentences make no sense whatsoever. They are sometimes called &lt;strong&gt;Escher sentences&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) More people have been to Russia than I have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1), for example, sounds grammatical to native English speakers; however, it doesn't appear to have any precise, truth-conditional meaning (in particular, it is not clear what types of things are being compared cardinality-wise).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does Chinese have anything remotely similar to (1)? Google Translate offers the following translations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 去俄罗斯的人数比我多&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) 去俄罗斯的人比我要多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) 去俄罗斯的人比我更多。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are (2)-(4) grammatical and/or meaningful? Is this phenomenon ever attested in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for your help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23073" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T05:15:59.893" Title="Are there Escher sentences in Chinese? [kinda technical]" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35628" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35631" CreationDate="2019-11-12T03:51:08.337" Score="1" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I encounter an idiom (or &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%88%90%E8%AF%AD/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;成语&lt;/a&gt;) and think to myself &quot;oh, I like this 成语, maybe I should learn it&quot;.  However, I'll often find out later that nobody actually uses that particular 成语, and I've wasted my time learning it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I just stumbled upon &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%AE%8C%E4%BA%8B%E5%A4%A7%E5%90%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;完事大吉&lt;/a&gt; (wán shì dà jí) which means something like &quot;and there you have it&quot; (literally &quot;everything's finished&quot;).  It sounds like a useful 成语 that I might use, and only uses characters I've encountered before.  But I have no real idea if it's worthwhile learning or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a reliable way to check if a 成语 is widely used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T15:59:20.943" Title="Is there a reliable way to check if an idiom (成语) is widely used?" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35627" CreationDate="2019-11-12T04:07:32.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;More people have been to Russia than I have&amp;quot; doesn't make sense in English, therefore, it wouldn't make sense in Chinese neither.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)-(4) &lt;strong&gt;would not&lt;/strong&gt; be considered grammatical by native Chinese speakers at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Many people have been to Russia more than I have&amp;quot;  (有很多去俄羅斯比我去得多的人 ) does make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 病句 (ill sentences), some people do say things ungrammatically, mainly due to mistaken word type (e.g. mistaken adjective as adverb) or wrongly omit things that shouldn't be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他很有勇氣 (he has courage) --&amp;gt; 他很有勇敢 (he has brave)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;勇敢 is mainly an adjective or adverb, using it as a noun require a classifier, e.g. 這份勇敢 (this bravery)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;無法無天的行動 (lawless act) --&amp;gt; 無法行動 (can't take action)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;reduce 無法無天 (lawless) to 無法 (cannot) and omit the adjective marker &amp;quot;的&amp;quot; change the meaning completely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However 驚天動地的行動 (earth-shattering action) can be reduced to 驚天行動 and the meaning of the sentence would not be changed because 驚天 is clearly referring to 驚天動地&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T05:15:59.893" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35628" CreationDate="2019-11-12T04:49:14.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can always check dictionary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Input the idiom in the search box here. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0&lt;/a&gt; Read the description to see if it is a useful term in daily conversation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/60300/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;力挽狂瀾&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to pull strongly against a crazy tide; fig., to try hard to save a desperate crisis, overcome impossible odds, seize victory from the jaws of defeat, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can think of hundred of instances I can use this idiom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Steve Jobs &lt;strong&gt;力挽狂瀾&lt;/strong&gt;，把 Apple 從破產邊緣拯救了&amp;quot; - Steve Jobs &lt;strong&gt;overcame impossible odds&lt;/strong&gt; and saved Apple from the brink of bankruptcy.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;中國隊試圖&lt;strong&gt;力挽狂瀾&lt;/strong&gt;，在完場前十分鐘連追三球&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;The Chinese team try to &lt;strong&gt;overcome impossible odds&lt;/strong&gt; and get three goals ten minutes before the end of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since many idioms are used metaphorically, few, if any are useless in modern Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even for idioms that are not listed in the dictionary I linked to, there are still instances that the idiom can apply to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;項莊舞劍 (came from 項莊舞劍 志在沛公): Xiang zhuang sword dancing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This idiom means &amp;quot;perform an action with ulterior motives behind&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think hard enough, you  can come up with a usage for this idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pages might help: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mandarin.org.sg/ch/learning-resources/useful-idioms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;常用成语&lt;/a&gt; , &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cute.edu.tw/%7Egec/elearn/phrase200.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;常用成語200則&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T05:20:16.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35628" CreationDate="2019-11-12T05:20:48.693" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is by no means scientific but its a fairly good metric to tell you how common a word is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Search Engine Results Hits&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a well known idiom first and see what kind of numbers we get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;本末倒置&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNStaVDYdRGgOInhAjdqfhbXDOi_-w%3A1573535243563&amp;amp;ei=Cz7KXbD8IY2SwgPp5qiwCw&amp;amp;q=%E6%9C%AC%E6%9C%AB%E5%80%92%E7%BD%AE&amp;amp;oq=%E6%9C%AC%E6%9C%AB%E5%80%92%E7%BD%AE&amp;amp;gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i67j0l9.1209.4709..5621...0.4..0.226.2150.0j10j2......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71j35i39j0i273j0i131j0i22i30.S_A5Tql7n1Y&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjwre_J8-PlAhUNiXAKHWkzCrYQ4dUDCAo&amp;amp;uact=5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google hits&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3,030,000 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E6%9C%AC%E6%9C%AB%E5%80%92%E7%BD%AE&amp;amp;rsv_spt=1&amp;amp;rsv_iqid=0x95098f4b0000c961&amp;amp;issp=1&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;rsv_idx=2&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;rqlang=cn&amp;amp;tn=baiduhome_pg&amp;amp;rsv_enter=1&amp;amp;rsv_dl=tb&amp;amp;inputT=487&amp;amp;rsv_t=8b0bYoxw%2BjltrSfKNymH5N%2BP3WZAceV0G91m22aoafgBE1bhg7soubNC7%2Bxgt8rq3HBv&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=5&amp;amp;rsv_sug1=3&amp;amp;rsv_sug7=100&amp;amp;oq=%25E5%25AE%258C%25E4%25BA%258B%25E5%25A4%25A7%25E5%2590%2589&amp;amp;rsv_pq=ddb9b4b600013f42&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=1331&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu hits&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;19,200,000个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鸡飞狗跳&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNQBNGQpc9YZTINi90QYoMRZOPL4_Q%3A1573535266341&amp;amp;ei=Ij7KXcrGFMX_vATx362oAw&amp;amp;q=%E9%B8%A1%E9%A3%9E%E7%8B%97%E8%B7%B3&amp;amp;oq=%E9%B8%A1%E9%A3%9E%E7%8B%97%E8%B7%B3&amp;amp;gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l10.177634.185743..186612...2.4..0.498.2355.0j11j1j0j1......0....1..gws-wiz.....10..0i71j35i39j0i273j0i131j35i362i39j0i10j0i203j0i10i203.ix3UsY28RiA&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjK393U8-PlAhXFP48KHfFvCzUQ4dUDCAo&amp;amp;uact=5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google hits&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;23,900,000 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E9%B8%A1%E9%A3%9E%E7%8B%97%E8%B7%B3&amp;amp;rsv_spt=1&amp;amp;rsv_iqid=0x95098f4b0000c961&amp;amp;issp=1&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;rsv_idx=2&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;rqlang=cn&amp;amp;tn=baiduhome_pg&amp;amp;rsv_enter=1&amp;amp;rsv_dl=tb&amp;amp;inputT=1222&amp;amp;rsv_t=17d7iS1vqCuep%2FZfHo5S%2BPjHc70yxiJvvVdvryHLWV%2Bag47Yvx%2FYM%2FmVMLn4Zuxvbt73&amp;amp;oq=%25E6%259C%25AC%25E6%259C%25AB%25E5%2580%2592%25E7%25BD%25AE&amp;amp;rsv_pq=fd234bc00005088a&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=7&amp;amp;rsv_sug1=5&amp;amp;rsv_sug7=100&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=1935&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu hits&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;17,100,000个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So well known idioms would give us results in the millions and even in the tens of millions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now lets take a look at the word in question: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;完事大吉&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E5%AE%8C%E4%BA%8B%E5%A4%A7%E5%90%89%22&amp;amp;sxsrf=ACYBGNQ1Y_t5r0ccN6uSol1v6qL7CAZ9jg:1573535030705&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwju1q_k8uPlAhXYXCsKHYPyB4cQ_AUICSgA&amp;amp;biw=1280&amp;amp;bih=672&amp;amp;dpr=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google hits&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;110,000 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E5%AE%8C%E4%BA%8B%E5%A4%A7%E5%90%89&amp;amp;rsv_spt=1&amp;amp;rsv_iqid=0x95098f4b0000c961&amp;amp;issp=1&amp;amp;f=8&amp;amp;rsv_bp=1&amp;amp;rsv_idx=2&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;rqlang=cn&amp;amp;tn=baiduhome_pg&amp;amp;rsv_enter=1&amp;amp;rsv_dl=tb&amp;amp;inputT=495&amp;amp;rsv_t=f1488n%2Fr6rHeADhBfI1B7A8zRj4ccLVtAO9Ly0UMKSV%2FmJGYadgN3yP8fPqDXntypo8V&amp;amp;oq=%25E9%25B8%25A1%25E9%25A3%259E%25E7%258B%2597%25E8%25B7%25B3&amp;amp;rsv_pq=b8d2d37c00059ce3&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=10&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=757&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu hits&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;986,000个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly it's not a widely used as the aforementioned idioms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next let's look at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;News Results Hits&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;News is current and it can give us a closer look at what words are still in use and how they are used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;本末倒置&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?biw=1280&amp;amp;bih=672&amp;amp;tbm=nws&amp;amp;sxsrf=ACYBGNSTapoVymvxqrf00qEkj1595y3j9A%3A1573536322664&amp;amp;ei=QkLKXbWWKILEvwS62bCIBw&amp;amp;q=%E6%9C%AC%E6%9C%AB%E5%80%92%E7%BD%AE&amp;amp;oq=%E6%9C%AC%E6%9C%AB%E5%80%92%E7%BD%AE&amp;amp;gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i299k1l3.97426.99307.0.99483.14.11.0.0.0.0.288.1231.0j4j2.6.0....0...1c.1j4.64.psy-ab..8.6.1228...0.0.EnDWNsZRBAk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google news&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;47,300 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-8&amp;amp;cl=2&amp;amp;medium=0&amp;amp;rtt=1&amp;amp;bsst=1&amp;amp;rsv_dl=news_t_sk&amp;amp;tn=news&amp;amp;word=%E6%9C%AC%E6%9C%AB%E5%80%92%E7%BD%AE&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=12&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=476&amp;amp;rsv_sug1=2&amp;amp;rsv_sug9=eb&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;inputT=2567&amp;amp;rsv_sug=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu news&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;47,300 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;鸡飞狗跳&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?biw=1280&amp;amp;bih=672&amp;amp;tbm=nws&amp;amp;sxsrf=ACYBGNSpsbRPphnmB6JRaKLgSnZeR8DrRw%3A1573536298645&amp;amp;ei=KkLKXZr7JsTWvASppoOQDA&amp;amp;q=%E9%B8%A1%E9%A3%9E%E7%8B%97%E8%B7%B3&amp;amp;oq=%E9%B8%A1%E9%A3%9E%E7%8B%97%E8%B7%B3&amp;amp;gs_l=psy-ab.3...20783.22979.0.23066.12.11.0.0.0.0.245.1524.0j2j5.7.0....0...1c.1j4.64.psy-ab..5.3.587...0i13i10k1j33i299k1.0.iLOYE-ZOL8Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google news&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;121,000 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-8&amp;amp;cl=2&amp;amp;medium=0&amp;amp;rtt=1&amp;amp;bsst=1&amp;amp;rsv_dl=news_t_sk&amp;amp;tn=news&amp;amp;word=%E9%B8%A1%E9%A3%9E%E7%8B%97%E8%B7%B3&amp;amp;rsv_sug3=22&amp;amp;rsv_sug4=2164&amp;amp;rsv_sug1=6&amp;amp;rsv_sug2=0&amp;amp;inputT=7206&amp;amp;rsv_sug=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu news&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;82,700篇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;完事大吉&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?biw=1280&amp;amp;bih=672&amp;amp;tbm=nws&amp;amp;sxsrf=ACYBGNQ1Y_t5r0ccN6uSol1v6qL7CAZ9jg%3A1573535030705&amp;amp;ei=Nj3KXe7jKti5rQGD5Z-4CA&amp;amp;q=%E5%AE%8C%E4%BA%8B%E5%A4%A7%E5%90%89&amp;amp;oq=%E5%AE%8C%E4%BA%8B%E5%A4%A7%E5%90%89&amp;amp;gs_l=psy-ab.3...869.2810.0.3033.2.2.0.0.0.0.122.239.0j2.2.0....0...1c..64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.95moDad7XAA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google news&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1,110 results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?rtt=1&amp;amp;bsst=1&amp;amp;cl=2&amp;amp;tn=news&amp;amp;word=%E5%AE%8C%E4%BA%8B%E5%A4%A7%E5%90%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu news&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;26,300篇&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;完事大吉 doesn't seem to be that common but there are plenty of news organizations that apply this term in their publications. Here are some excerpts from over the past few weeks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;办理几个案件就完事大吉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;删除APP”就完事大吉了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有了成绩就完事大吉了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing to look at is 完事大吉 is basically a combination of two words you already know: 完事 (finish) and 大吉 (great fortune). It probably won't take a great effort to remember this &lt;em&gt;idiom&lt;/em&gt; and who knows maybe you'll know it the next time you run across it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-11-12T05:35:45.150" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T05:35:45.150" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35628" CreationDate="2019-11-12T12:43:44.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say it's a vocabulary building process, sometimes it's hard to get a list, because even if you have a list, you won't know if people are still using it now and it's hard to have an exhaustive list. Some english words/usage I was told are very old fashioned, but I learnt it in school. It's the same for idioms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I think might be useful to decide if it is a common/acceptable usage is to do a search online, and see where this word appears. If it appears in some local news, it should give you high confidence that is is commonly used word currently. If it appears in only dictionary kind of website, you need more research to decide. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="22717" LastEditDate="2019-11-12T15:59:20.943" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T15:59:20.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35633" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35634" CreationDate="2019-11-12T14:45:49.087" Score="4" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;不 and 一 both have the property of changing tone to suit the tone of the following character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phenomenon is called the tonal sandhi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would the correct/standard tone combination for this expression be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thoughts are: the 4th tone on ding causes the yi to take a 2nd tone, which causes bu to take a 4th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4-2-4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some reason 2-2-4 sounds ok to me too.&#xA;Are there other variations on this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21462" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-11-12T15:17:56.890" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T05:33:33.580" Title="What are the tones for 不 and 一 in the expression 不一定?" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35633" CreationDate="2019-11-12T15:15:07.763" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 4-2-4 is correct. According to the sandhi rule of 一&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在四声前边要读二声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. 一 should be pronounced in the 2nd tone before the 4th tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the sandhi rule of 不&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“不”在一二三声前面不变调，读四声&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. 不 doesn't change the tone (the 4th tone) before the 1st/2nd/3rd tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: 2-2-4 sounds weird to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/13/0105/00/2563128_258451570.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;一字与不字的变调问题&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T15:15:07.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35636" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35637" CreationDate="2019-11-12T21:33:19.520" Score="0" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bought a hooded shirt/short sleeve pullover from yesstyle. It looked cool but I also want to know what the front means and what the top text on the back means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E9s8R.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E9s8R.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/12sVH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/12sVH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23080" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T04:14:46.253" Title="Can someone translate what these say?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35636" CreationDate="2019-11-12T21:51:46.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first image says &quot;公平，公正，公开&quot; on the hoodie, firstly notice the bit of Japanese at the bottom. Chances are that isn't meant to be read in Chinese. Either way, the main three terms translate roughly as &quot;impartial&quot;, &quot;equitable&quot;, and &quot;public&quot; respectively. I guess the hoodie has something to do with freedom of speech or something similar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other central term is &quot;裁判&quot; which I had to look up, translations include: judgment, to referee, umpire, judge, and referee. Referee is also listed at the top of the hoodie in English. Honestly I have no clue what this hoodie is on about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;久夕ツフ&lt;/s&gt; スタッフ Are the Japanese characters at the bottom but I haven't found a translation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: In hindsight it's probably meant to be worn by a referee, eheh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastEditorUserId="22149" LastEditDate="2019-11-14T04:14:46.253" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T04:14:46.253" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35641" CreationDate="2019-11-13T00:28:37.487" Score="5" ViewCount="2442" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to convey the sentence &quot;我不会好好发音四个声调&quot; But that more directly translates as &quot;I cannot pronounce four tones well&quot; which is a bit ambiguous... that begs the question, which four tones? I'm sure anyone I say this to would understand but it doesn't sit well with me. In English it is easy, I'd say &quot;I cannot pronounce &lt;strong&gt;the&lt;/strong&gt; four tones well&quot; which implies the existence of exactly 4 tones, all of which I have trouble pronouncing. So far I have not seen a Chinese equivalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastEditorUserId="22149" LastEditDate="2019-11-13T01:23:59.807" LastActivityDate="2019-11-13T06:05:15.037" Title="How to express &quot;the&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35638" CreationDate="2019-11-13T02:52:10.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems you have the same problem as me! :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot pronounce the four tones well.&#xA;我不能准确地发音四个声调。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-13T02:52:10.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35638" CreationDate="2019-11-13T04:37:27.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The&lt;/strong&gt; is rarely explicitly expressed in Chinese. Like the comments mentioned below your question, the closest equivalent is going to be a combination of 这 (this) or 那 (that) and the appropriate measure word. You might notice Chinese ESL speakers struggle with definite articles in English and that is because similar usage is not found in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the specific sentence you’re trying to write, you’re better off with saying something more general like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(我的)口音很重&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(我)说话不标准&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(我说话)有点洋腔洋调的&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(我的中文)说得不好&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-11-13T06:05:15.037" LastActivityDate="2019-11-13T06:05:15.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35638" CreationDate="2019-11-13T05:45:46.003" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The definite article has no equivalence in Chinese. Its functions, however, can be found in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Something previously mentioned or known&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is a murderer. 他是&lt;strong&gt;个&lt;/strong&gt;杀人犯。(杀人犯 is &lt;strong&gt;a murderer&lt;/strong&gt;, a man that has commited murder. 个 is like the indefinite article.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is the murderer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By using nouns inherently specific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他就是凶手。(凶手 is &lt;strong&gt;the murderer&lt;/strong&gt; , it cannot be used without context.&#xA;他是个凶手(incorrect))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By using demonstratives: 这/那/这些/那些/此/彼&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他就是这个杀人犯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Something unique or identified by the speaker, terminologies.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot pronounce the four tones well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我发不好&lt;strong&gt;四声&lt;/strong&gt;。(平上去入(tradition)/阴阳上去(modern mandarin), as a whole isn't referred as 四个声调)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particularly, these sets of similar things are usually referred without measure words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;四书/十三经/六艺/五行/四君子/十八罗汉/一百零八星宿......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unique things, such as the sun, the moon... are referred exactly its name (Actually the definite article is unnecessary semantically)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;I want to go to a/the park&quot;, it's not hard to appreciate that 我想去公园。 already fully conveys the two possible interpretation, depending on the listener.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-11-13T05:45:46.003" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35577" CreationDate="2019-11-14T04:31:03.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before we try to answer the question proper, we need to first clarify that there are many 'simplified versions' of characters throughout the course of history, happening in many different times and under multiple context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The natural development of a character form would usually be from a simple to more complex structure to differentiate nuances in meaning. There are also various cases in which complex character structure need to be simplified for practical reasons. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Changes in form also result from the transitional history of the Chinese Script from Oracle Bone 甲骨 through the Bronze Script 金文, Seal Script 小篆, Scribe Script 隸書 and Standard Script 楷書 used today. The most significant changes are from Seal to Scribe, so a lot of 'simplification' would be happening at that time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also the independent Cursive Script tradition. There were two, to be precise - the 章草 &lt;em&gt;Zhang1cao3&lt;/em&gt; from the time of the Scribe Script to the 行草 &lt;em&gt;Xing2cao3&lt;/em&gt; which is conventional shorthand for the Standard Script [SS]. These have their own rules for simplification that is to be reckoned with for its own sake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If what you meant by 'simplified form' were all of the above, you might have to read several phD theses to get all the answers. So, I naturally assumed you were basically concerned with the rationale for creating the corpus of simplified script during the Simplification Movement in PRC in the 1950s. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you would find out from the answer below, many historical instances have been incorporated into the corpus. Making Simplified Chinese [SC] characters a conglomerate of different principles used in different context at different times, some as recent as the Simplification Movement itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The major corpus of the SC characters defined in the &lt;em&gt;Commonly Used Table of Standardized Chinese Characters&lt;/em&gt; 《通用規範漢字表》 are actually historical forms of writing, known in Chinese as 傳承字 &lt;em&gt;chuan2 cheng2 zi4&lt;/em&gt; or &quot;passed-down characters&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These come in two categories. One is a historically different way of writing the same word in Standard (block) Script or 楷書 &lt;em&gt;kai3 shu1&lt;/em&gt;. We shall call them &lt;em&gt;Standard Script Alt-Forms&lt;/em&gt; [SSA]. The other is Cursive Script [CS], adopted in block form as the Simplified Character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one interesting example for the former case: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;於－于　[SSA]&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the two characters have different origins (於 is a bird and 于 is a musical instrument), in most of the early Chinese texts, 于 and 於 are found to be used interchangeably as a preposition with the sound of &lt;em&gt;yu2&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be seen in the &lt;em&gt;Zhuangzi&lt;/em&gt;, a Pre-Qin text: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;〈齊物論〉&lt;em&gt;Qi2wu4lun4&lt;/em&gt;：是以聖人不由，而照之&lt;strong&gt;于&lt;/strong&gt;天。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Therefore the Sage does not abide by (worldly dualistic principles) but rather sheds light into (worldly feuds) &lt;strong&gt;from&lt;/strong&gt; (the perspective of) heaven. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same book contains prepositional usage of 於, in another of its seven inner chapters: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;〈大宗師〉&lt;em&gt;Da4zong1shi1&lt;/em&gt;：夫藏舟&lt;strong&gt;於&lt;/strong&gt;壑，藏山&lt;strong&gt;於&lt;/strong&gt;澤，謂之固矣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If we were to hide a boat &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; the valleys, or a mountain &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; the marshes, it would have been secure enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Loan instances aside, the character 于 was actually more consistently used as preposition than 於, which was commonly used as an interjection (&quot;Oh!&quot;), with the sound of &lt;em&gt;wu1&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is textual evidence that 于 was preferred over 於 as preposition in very early Chinese texts (dating back to the Western Zhou dynasty): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《詩·大雅·文王》：「文王在上、&lt;strong&gt;於&lt;/strong&gt;昭&lt;strong&gt;于&lt;/strong&gt;天。」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;King Wen is on high;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Oh!&lt;/strong&gt; bright is he &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; heaven.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the adoption of 于 as a simplified character was actually a return to an old form. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese [TC] could use both interchangeably anyway (as evident from the Classical texts quoted above), so I highly suspect that 於 as the &quot;standard&quot; TC character for preposition was actually a ROC reaction to the Mainland &quot;simplification&quot; of 于. (That awaits further study to confirm.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of these pre-existing SSA characters are vulgar forms of a single character in history. Eg. 體－体、塵－尘、無－无、靈－灵 (asked above) . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others are earlier forms of the same character, which often means the simplified character has a more pictographic quality: 采－採 (hand plucking fruit from a tree)、从－從 (one man following another)、网－網 (a net). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A significant number of SSAs come from loan forms: 后－後、里－裏/裡、余－餘. These are often sound loans which may or may not be related in meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 后 means Empress, while 後 is behind. The meanings are related because a good Empress should leave many offspring &lt;em&gt;behind&lt;/em&gt;. 《禮．曲禮》：「天子有后。」〔疏〕后，後也，言其後于天子，亦以廣後胤也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many traditionalists would criticize these cases as a corruption of the original meaning of words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the latter, 舊－旧 in question would be one of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;舊－旧 [CS]&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As can be seen in the calligraphy below: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hdTP7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hdTP7.png&quot; alt=&quot;origin of 旧&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The「日」is a shorthand for 「臼」 below, while「|」is an abbreviation of the shorthand for whatever else lies above the 「臼」. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be seen in this less cursive script that the「|」lies just to the left of the 「臼」. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/teZfU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/teZfU.png&quot; alt=&quot;demo of 「|臼」&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other cursive forms of the same character are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WNqu5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WNqu5.png&quot; alt=&quot;other 舊&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/susmW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/susmW.png&quot; alt=&quot;Wang Xizhi 舊&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HMLE0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HMLE0.png&quot; alt=&quot;Cai Xiang 舊&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples of the CS class of simplification are: 車－车、杨－楊、專－专 etc. Most of these are highly recognized, legitimate forms of simplification, crafted by the literati. (As opposed to the vulgar form introduced above.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Newly-Created Characters&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The remaining (the &lt;em&gt;real&lt;/em&gt; simplified characters) would be characters with arbitrarily simplified (or, some would say, &lt;em&gt;corrupted&lt;/em&gt;) radicals, the 半記號字 &lt;em&gt;Ban4ji4hao4zi4&lt;/em&gt;: 对－對、观－觀、鸡－鷄、 聂－聶、轰－轟、区－區、冈－岡. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Characters of abbreviated form, in which only the 'essential' radical(s) is(are) left behind: 开－開、关－關、医－醫、声－聲、時－时. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And characters simplified though the manipulation of its sound component. Many these are actually newly-created characters just for the sake of simplification. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We may swap one for another: 邻－鄰、艺－藝; or create entirely new-looking forms with little to no resemblance of one another: 惊－驚（京 and 敬 swap for sound, 忄 and 馬 for meaning; the traditional form has the specific meaning of startled steed）、护－護 (The 又 in 護 is also symbol for hand, which is swapped for 扌; 戶 is the new sound component that's been created). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Answer to the &quot;How&quot; Question:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those of you who can read Chinese, a comprehensive account can be found &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E5%AD%97#cite_note-48&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also highly recommend the expert edition of the etymological dictionary developed by &lt;a href=&quot;https://outlier-linguistics.thinkific.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Outlier Linguistics&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17879" LastEditorUserId="17879" LastEditDate="2019-11-15T22:25:21.853" LastActivityDate="2019-11-15T22:25:21.853" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35643" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-14T08:27:39.293" Score="2" ViewCount="716" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 能 and 会？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don’t they both mean “could”? What is the difference between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22993" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T23:01:09.190" Title="What is the difference between 能 vs. 会?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-11-15T07:58:06.460" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35584" CreationDate="2019-11-14T08:43:58.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The verb &quot;上&quot; means &quot;to achieve or reach (a certain quantity or degree)&quot;, often followed by an object indicating quality.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a mistake to state  &quot;上&quot; as a verb in this context. The correct role of &quot;上&quot; here is a &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/result_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;result complement&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[Verb + result complement] is often mistaken as a single verb, for example:  當上, 升上, 爬上&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當上局長 = become director&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;升上經理位置 = promoted to the position of manger&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爬上主角地位 = climb to the lead actor role&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;當(v - serve) + 上(result complement - to be) + 局長 (object - director)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;升(v- rise) + 上(result complement - reach) + 經理位置 (object - position of manger)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爬(v- climb) + 上(result complement - reach) +主角地位 (object - role of lead actor )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/56/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;上&lt;/a&gt; being a verb, that include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.(v) go up; ascend; get on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.(v) go to; leave for (a place)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.(v) be as many as; be up to; reach  * (&lt;em&gt;This dictionary made an error here. For example: &quot;上千人&quot; means &quot;over/ up to/ reach a thousand people&quot; and the &quot;上&quot; here is a preposition, used as a function word to indicate a limit or boundary&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.(v) appear on stage; enter the field * (&lt;em&gt;This definition is redundant, because 上台 (appear on stage) and 上場 (enter the field) mean &quot;go up to the stage&quot; and &quot;get on to the field&quot;. both meanings are under definition (1).&lt;/em&gt; ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.(v) fit; install; apply; put on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.(v) screw; tighten; twist; wind &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.(v) (mahjong) chow; call to create a run/sequence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My thought:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Text books and dictionaries sometimes, although rarely, do make mistakes from time to time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/26714/what-does-%E5%B0%BD%E4%BF%A1%E4%B9%A6%E4%B8%8D%E5%A6%82%E6%97%A0%E4%B9%A6-mean/26717#26717&quot;&gt;尽信书不如无书&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-14T09:15:29.190" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T09:15:29.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35645" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35649" CreationDate="2019-11-14T12:33:10.983" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in explanation of why certain symbol means what it means, in other words what object or scene it depicts. There is some books about that, like &quot;Origin and evolution of...&quot;, but I wonder if there's way to get that information for free - some website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23088" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T19:32:45.670" Title="Are there web-site with description of visual meaning of symbols?" Tags="&lt;glyph-origin&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35643" CreationDate="2019-11-14T16:58:50.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has been covered on nearly every Chinese learning platform and is one of the first problems learners encounter. Without being too mean I do have to ask, what amount of prior research have you done?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会 means you have the knowledge necessary to do something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能 means you have the ability to do something (nothing preventing you from doing it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;lastly 可以 means you have permission to do something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They all translate as &quot;can&quot; in English. There's some overlap between them but for a better comparison refer to this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22hui,%22_%22neng,%22_%22keyi%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22hui,%22_%22neng,%22_%22keyi%22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastEditorUserId="22149" LastEditDate="2019-11-14T17:20:27.880" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T17:20:27.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35643" CreationDate="2019-11-14T17:57:43.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For some cases, 能 and 会 doesn't have too much difference, for example, 我能写字 and 我会写字。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in some examples, 能 and 会 can mean different implications. For example, 我能去 vs 我会去. and this is how I interpret it: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我能去 means you can go, but you don't have to go. Similar for 可以. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会 means you can go and you will go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T17:57:43.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35648" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35650" CreationDate="2019-11-14T18:03:40.380" Score="3" ViewCount="458" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I talk about speed limits in Chinese?&#xA;For example, how would I say, &quot;That road has a 50 mile-per-hour speed limit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17336" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-15T00:12:03.513" LastActivityDate="2019-11-15T00:12:03.513" Title="How to give a number describing a &quot;kilometer per hour speed limit&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35645" CreationDate="2019-11-14T18:06:06.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is an online dictionary you can search for certain words. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vividict.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.vividict.com/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I hope this includes symbols you want to know.. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="22717" LastEditDate="2019-11-14T19:32:45.670" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T19:32:45.670" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35648" CreationDate="2019-11-14T18:11:57.373" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, for the example you provided, you may say &lt;code&gt;那条路限速50英里&lt;/code&gt; then I will know it is 50 miles/hour&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;secondly, in China the default unit is kilometers per hour for speed limit, so if you want to say &quot;that road has a 50 km/h speed limit&quot; you can just say &lt;code&gt;那条路限速50&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T18:11:57.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35643" CreationDate="2019-11-14T21:17:59.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As said in another answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;会 means you have the knowledge necessary to do something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;能 means you have the ability/permission to do something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;可以 means you have permission to do something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I think there's something missing from the answer when you regard these in terms of &lt;em&gt;intent&lt;/em&gt;. In certain cases of using 会, you can be emphasizing that you not only can, but you intend to do something (我会去做功課 vs 我可以去做功課）. They all translate as &quot;can&quot; in English, in many cases, but 会 can also be translated as &quot;will&quot; in certain cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E6%9C%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG 會/会&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E8%83%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG 能&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqb=%E5%8F%AF%E4%BB%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG 可以&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23089" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T21:17:59.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35643" CreationDate="2019-11-14T23:01:09.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe a look at the origins might help. You can look &lt;a href=&quot;http://zhongwen.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://hanziyuan.net/#%E8%83%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. I can't say how accurate the links are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think, the original 会 meant &quot;can, may by assent,&quot; or maybe &quot;know.&quot; Part of 会 is mouth-speaking-yue 曰 yuē. English 'can' is rooted in the word 'know'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are many experts in Chinese etymology who know much better than I.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会：聚合，合在一起&lt;br&gt;&#xA;会合： meet&lt;br&gt;&#xA;会议：meeting, conference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;会，㑹 = from inverted-mouth-ji 亼 jí and mouth-speaking-yue 曰 yuē and&#xA;  (rem- ) from field-tian 田 tián from ancient rice-mi 米 mǐ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;曾 = Compound 曽 mutant 曾 from mouth-speaking-yue 曰 yuē and (rem- )&#xA;  from field-tian 田 tián and separation-ba 丷八 bā.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能 is a picture of a bear. I believe it originally meant power, strength. The origin of English &quot;may&quot; is also in power: &quot;to be able to, have the power,&quot; thus 'can.' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;能 = Component 能 from (rem- ⺝⺼月 yuè) from ribs-rou ⺼肉 ròu and mouth-si&#xA;  厶 sī and (rem+ 匕 bǐ the-feet). (name- bear-neng 能 néng)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;厶 represents the head or the mouth&lt;br&gt;&#xA;⺼肉 represents the body&lt;br&gt;&#xA;匕 represents the feet (it says here) but I have read this may be the claws. I like to think of them as claws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine, 50 000 years ago. A tiny, ancient Chinese man wandering the hills. A 500Kg bear must have been incredibly frightening and powerful in comparison, a living symbol of strength and unstoppable ability!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;能：作功的本领 energy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;能量的简称 [power]。如:化学能;机械能;电能&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T23:01:09.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35654" CreationDate="2019-11-15T02:58:12.980" Score="2" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know if this colloquial phrase &quot;鸟不下蛋的地点&quot; is always taken as &quot;middle of nowhere&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I have started a fun sort of instagram account to try to learn how to write Chinese that I would speak - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.instagram.com/p/B2vXdnYFzTJ/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.instagram.com/p/B2vXdnYFzTJ/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22007" LastActivityDate="2019-11-15T05:30:35.307" Title="和这个白人女子, 在鸟不下蛋的地点. Hanging out in the middle of nowhere with this white girl" Tags="&lt;colloquialisms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35653" CreationDate="2019-11-15T05:30:35.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does anyone know if this colloquial phrase &quot;鸟不下蛋的地点&quot; is always taken as &quot;middle of nowhere&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the answer is 'yes'. It's a figure of speech. It could be taken as a euphemism for &quot;鸟不拉屎的地点&quot;, which is frequently used in informal speech. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally, 鸟不下蛋的地点 is the place where birds won't lay their eggs; 鸟不拉屎的地点 where birds won't defecate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-15T05:30:35.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35584" CreationDate="2019-11-15T05:35:52.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some examples from daily conversation or oral speakings:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1.我在上课，接不了电话。I'm in class so can't answer phone calls.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.快上车！Get in the car!Quick!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3.和他们拼了！上刺刀！Fight out with them! Charge your bayonets!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4.用餐请上4楼。4F for dinner.&#xA;The character  &quot;上&quot; could have many kinds of meanings Maybe like the word &quot;go&quot; or &quot;do&quot; in English depending on  specific situation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'll give you some suggestions for your examples.&#xA;从这本书中我学上15页。 (From this book, I've read up to page 15.)&#xA;我的头发自己剪上了。 (I cut my own hair.)&#xA;我在北京一家宾馆住上三个月。 (I stay in a hotel in Beijing for 3 months.)&#xA;我老婆拿上遥控器。 (My wife took the remote control.)&#xA;To translate the first sentence to Chinese naturally,you should say,&quot;这本书我（已经）读到第15页了。&quot; &#xA;读到 in Chinese means read up to.To make it clearer,the contents after two characters show where you ends your reading at last. &#xA;The second sentence is likely to be very strange to native Chinese speakers.“我自己剪了头发。”sounds better.Remember you don't need to connect 上  with past tense.The character does NOT indicate PAST tense.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The third sentence is a present tense according to grammar.But in Chinese, it's natural to add 了 or other words indicating the tense.Genarally we Chinese won't say “我在旅馆住三个月”as a statement but usually to NEGOTIATE , RECOMMAND or CONFIRM(usually with? after the sentence)when we say like this.But sometimes the tense showed by the character is not so particular(or even wrong with the fact), because it's just a habit to do this.We do not consider the fact carefully in daily life when we say this. &#xA;The last sentence is natural when it's in literature (like novels) We would say 拿了 more frequently or 拿着 when the person is still holding the nouns mentioned in the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23090" LastActivityDate="2019-11-15T05:35:52.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35656" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35659" CreationDate="2019-11-16T00:21:29.377" Score="2" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know of many verbs that can be expressed as a single character or two characters (i.e. 说 &amp;amp; 说话). The issue is that I don't know when it is appropriate to use one of over the other. Is it dependent on the subsequent word? For example, &quot;我吃米&quot; and &quot;我吃饭面包&quot;? Or is it the other way around? Neither? Personal preference perhaps!? I've read that &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14740/confusion-when-words-are-combined/14743#14743&quot;&gt;there is a natural tendency in Chinese to minimize the number of characters in compound words&lt;/a&gt;. That being the case, should I avoid using the two characters versions entirely?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T05:09:27.833" Title="When to use the single character vs double character form of a verb?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35657" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35658" CreationDate="2019-11-16T02:09:48.643" Score="1" ViewCount="51" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from the Chinese version of Matilda (p.182):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%9D%BE%E8%9E%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蝾螈&lt;/a&gt;仍旧在那个高玻璃杯&lt;strong&gt;装&lt;/strong&gt;的水里扭来扭去，看起来让人极不舒服。杯子对它来说太小了。玛帝尔达看着特朗奇布尔，她多么恨她呀。她再看那&lt;strong&gt;装&lt;/strong&gt;着蝾螈的玻璃杯，恨不得跑过去把它拿起来&lt;strong&gt;连&lt;/strong&gt;蝾螈带水&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B3%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;泼&lt;/a&gt;在特朗奇布尔的头上。她想到她真这样做了的话特朗奇布尔会怎样对待她，不禁发起抖来。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original English is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The newt was still squirming in the tall glass of water.  It looked horribly uncomfortable.  The glass was not big enough for it.  Matilda glared at the Trunchbull.  How she hated her.  She glared at the glass with the newt in it.  She longed to march up and grab the glass and tip the contents, newt and all, over the Trunchbull's head.  She trembled to think what the Trunchbull would do to her if she did that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand it mostly, but don't understand the function of 装 and 连.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What is 装 and 连 doing in this paragraph?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T02:50:46.900" Title="What is 装 and 连 doing in this paragraph about a newt in a glass from Matilda? E.g. 她再看那装着蝾螈的玻璃杯" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35657" CreationDate="2019-11-16T02:44:08.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;装 means contain, therefore 她再看那装着蝾螈的玻璃杯 means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She glared at the glass with the newt &lt;strong&gt;(contained) in&lt;/strong&gt; it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 连 means together with, therefore 恨不得跑过去把它拿起来连蝾螈带水泼在特朗奇布尔的头上 means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;She longed to march up and grab the glass and tip the contents, &lt;strong&gt;(with)&lt;/strong&gt; newt and all, over the Trunchbull's head&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T02:44:08.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35656" CreationDate="2019-11-16T05:09:27.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll try answering this (but be aware I'm just a learner).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The given examples are transitive vs. intransitive verbs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;说 vs. 说话&lt;/strong&gt;.  Here, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%AF%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;说&lt;/a&gt; is a transitive verb (i.e., it takes an object) whereas &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%AF%B4%E8%AF%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;说话&lt;/a&gt; is an intransitive verb (i.e., it doesn't take an object):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;说&lt;/strong&gt;“你好”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  He says hello&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你为什么那样&lt;strong&gt;说话&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Why do you speak that way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can alternatively think of &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%AF%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;话&lt;/a&gt; (noun) as what is being said (说).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;吃 vs. 吃饭&lt;/strong&gt;.  Again, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%90%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;吃&lt;/a&gt; is a transitive verb whereas &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%90%83%E9%A5%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;吃饭&lt;/a&gt; is an intransitive verb, so 我&lt;strong&gt;吃饭&lt;/strong&gt;面包 is incorrect, but 我&lt;strong&gt;吃&lt;/strong&gt;面包 is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, we can alternatively think of &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%A5%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;饭&lt;/a&gt; as the object being eating (吃).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I also note that both 说 and 吃 can be used as intransitive verbs, e.g., 你别说了 and 他什么都没吃.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;学 vs. 学习&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%AD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;学&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%AD%A6%E4%B9%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;学习&lt;/a&gt; which are both transitive verbs.  So both of these are grammatical:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;学&lt;/strong&gt;汉语。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我&lt;strong&gt;学习&lt;/strong&gt;汉语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, which do we choose?  See this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/743/whats-the-difference-between-%e5%ad%a6-and-%e5%ad%a6%e4%b9%a0&quot;&gt;What&amp;#39;s the difference between 学 and 学习?&lt;/a&gt;  It's somewhat a matter of preference, circumstance, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T05:09:27.833" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16331" CreationDate="2019-11-16T10:52:47.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;劳驾、做你有那个时？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This appears to be an almost word-for-word direct translation of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excuse me, do you have the time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this expression is idiomatic in English, so it's not going to translate well.  I don't think it would be understandable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;What's wrong with it?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8A%B3%E9%A9%BE/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;劳驾&lt;/a&gt; = excuse me; I believe this is correct and polite (maybe a bit rare).  I'd probably say &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%BA%BB%E7%83%A6%E4%BD%A0%E4%BA%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;麻烦你了&lt;/a&gt; (&amp;quot;trouble you&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;excuse me&amp;quot;) followed by &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%AF%B7%E9%97%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;请问&lt;/a&gt; (&amp;quot;may I ask&amp;quot;) so whoever I'm speaking to can notice I'm speaking Chinese before I start asking a question.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;、 is the wrong comma; it's used for lists, like A、B和C.  See: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/28335/commas-which-one-is-proper&quot;&gt;Commas, which one is proper?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%81%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;做&lt;/a&gt; = to do; this is not equivalent to &amp;quot;do&amp;quot; in the English sentence above, and is incorrect.  E.g. 做作业 = &amp;quot;to do homework&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BD%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;你&lt;/a&gt; = you; this is correct.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;有&lt;/a&gt; = to have; this matches the English sentence, but the English is idiomatic so it's not appropriate to translate this.  (We don't actually &amp;quot;possess&amp;quot; time.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%82%A3%E4%B8%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;那个&lt;/a&gt; = that; this is incorrect.  Chinese doesn't have a simple notion of &amp;quot;the&amp;quot;.  See: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35638/how-to-express-the-in-chinese&quot;&gt;How to express &amp;quot;the&amp;quot; in Chinese&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%97%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;时&lt;/a&gt; = time; but it does not match &amp;quot;time&amp;quot; in the English sentence.  那个时 doesn't work; the closest is &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%82%A3%E4%B8%AA%E6%97%B6%E9%97%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;那个时间&lt;/a&gt; = &amp;quot;that time&amp;quot; (using &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%97%B6%E9%97%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;时间&lt;/a&gt; = time).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Ordinary Chinese&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably the most natural option is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May I ask, what's the time now?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;请问，现在几点了？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Qǐngwèn, xiànzài jǐ diǎnle?&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although 请问 could be replaced by many other alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T10:52:47.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35663" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35668" CreationDate="2019-11-16T11:04:07.983" Score="0" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%8E%B0%E5%9C%A8%E6%98%AF%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88%E6%97%B6%E9%97%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;现在是什么时间?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Now is what time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be an alternative way of asking for the time in Chinese.  (The usual way is 现在几点了?)  However, something feels &quot;off&quot; about this question: I can only find it used in two situations, (a) when English is translated into Chinese, and (b) for questions such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BC%A6%E6%95%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;伦敦&lt;/a&gt;现在是什么时间?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  What time is it in London? (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2121483862679236667.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How appropriate is 现在是什么时间? for asking the time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T01:33:38.417" Title="How appropriate is 现在是什么时间? for asking the time?" Tags="&lt;time&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35663" CreationDate="2019-11-16T14:00:24.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The phrase is perfectly correct and grammatical, and is indeed often used, although perhaps less often than 现在几点了---the latter has the advantage of being easier to say and rolls off the tongue easily. But if you say 现在是什么时间 (or in certain contexts replacing 时间 with 时候), it will probably not strike anyone as being awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21852" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T14:00:24.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35666" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-16T14:25:42.693" Score="2" ViewCount="480" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it a difference in the tenses? Like one's a present and the other is future? Explain with examples please &#xA;And can we say 什么也不 and 什么也没？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23097" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T05:15:49.043" Title="Difference between 什么都不 and 什么都没" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35666" CreationDate="2019-11-16T14:29:53.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is not the tense but the context. 什么都不好 nothing is good. 什么都不对 nothing is right. 什么都没有 nothing is there. 什么都没变 nothing has changed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23098" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T14:29:53.577" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35663" CreationDate="2019-11-16T14:53:26.847" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 现在是什么时间 and 现在几点了 mean the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在几点了 is used in casual situations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现在是什么时间 sounds that the speaker might think there would be something happening shortly or at certain time, so he/she wants to know the time. For example, 现在是什么时间？ 我们该上课了吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The effect is subtle. They can be used interchangeably.  But 什么时间 does sound the time seems more important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. 现在是什么时间？ can also mean &lt;em&gt;What time is it for?&lt;/em&gt; E.g. A: 现在是什么时间？ B: 现在是午饭时间/早操时间/自习时间/etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T23:51:29.927" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T23:51:29.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35669" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35670" CreationDate="2019-11-16T17:15:38.060" Score="2" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does 汉字 refer to the actual written character while 词 refers to the meaning conveyed by that character? Or can they be used interchangeably?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T17:23:49.623" Title="What is the difference between 词 and 汉字?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35669" CreationDate="2019-11-16T17:23:49.623" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;汉字 means character while 词 means word. A word can consists of a single character (which is very common in old literature), or more than one characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23048" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T17:23:49.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35663" CreationDate="2019-11-17T01:33:38.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very appropriate to ask time using &lt;code&gt;现在是什么时间&lt;/code&gt;, even when you talk to someone, however, this sentence has different meaning when you don't end it with a question mark. It can be an accuse for someone who is not aware of the time. For example：&lt;code&gt;现在是什么时间！你怎么还在这里？&lt;/code&gt; which means you're too late to do something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T01:33:38.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35657" CreationDate="2019-11-17T02:50:46.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;装：  贮放;藏 hold, store&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那蝾螈仍旧在那个高玻璃杯装的水里扭来扭去,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the salamander was still in the tall glass beaker, twisting and turning in the water, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;连带：互相关连（关联）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恨不得跑过去把它拿起来连蝾螈带水泼在特朗奇布尔的头上。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(she) wished she could take the beaker and throw its contents in Trunchbull's face&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把它拿起来连蝾螈带水&lt;br&gt;&#xA; take the beaker and its (related) contents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh Trunchbull, you're so sexy! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T02:50:46.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35673" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35676" CreationDate="2019-11-17T04:35:03.060" Score="3" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;This article is talking about speaking books, e-books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与国外相比，中国的有声书产业尚处于起步阶段，行业规模和标准亟待统一。此外，优秀主播的培养也是一大缺口。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, 主播 refers to a TV or radio anchor person, the host of a show. That makes no sense to me here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此外，优秀主播的培养也是一大缺口。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also, there is a big shortfall （缺口） of training （培养） for outstanding （优秀）readers （主播）. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;主播：here the people who originally read the recording? Is that correct, or am I missing something? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not write: 阅读者？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T08:19:24.473" Title="Translate 主播 in this context" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35673" CreationDate="2019-11-17T04:49:18.993" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct. 主播 (anchor person/ program host) makes no sense in this context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one who read out the content in an &lt;strong&gt;有聲書&lt;/strong&gt; (Audiobook) should be called  &quot;誦讀者&quot; (one who recite text) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &quot;朗讀者&quot; (one who recite text in a clear voice) if the content is of poetic nature &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阅读者 mainly mean the one who read (with eyes, not reading out with voice)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I own a few Audiobooks, the one who read the book out is listed as &quot;narrator&quot; (叙述者), So. 叙述者 could be used in Chinese Audiobooks titles too&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-17T05:27:37.020" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T05:27:37.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35633" CreationDate="2019-11-17T05:33:33.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;不↖️ 一↗️ 定↖️  the symbol indicates four tones in Mandarin. If you have any problems with the four tones, just ask me in comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23090" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T05:33:33.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35673" CreationDate="2019-11-17T08:19:24.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 有声书, 主播 is not just a simple reader(阅读者). They are more like 说评书者 in the past. Back in the day, 说评书者 is kind of story teller. Usually they tell stories from those ancient novels on TV or radio. Nowadays, they pick all kinds of story books on variety of medias. 网络有声书 is a new popular media they are mostly focusing on now because of a large number of netizens out there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the term 主播 is more appropriate because 主播 can be a key factor to the success of a 有声书. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T08:19:24.473" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35666" CreationDate="2019-11-17T09:33:03.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, 不 means &quot;no&quot; or &quot;not&quot; while 没 stands for 没有 and is closer to &quot;don't&quot; or &quot;don't have&quot;. So 他什么都不吃 means something like &quot;he does not eat anything&quot;, while 他什么都没吃 means &quot;he didn't eat anything&quot;. So in this case, 不 conveys the meaning that something is universally not true (e.g. he is someone who just does not eat anything, or at least during a specified period of time he just does not want to eat anything) regardless of time or place, whereas 没 conveys the meaning that something did not happen/is not happening/will not happen specific to that time or place (e.g. he just happened to not eat anything on that day).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21852" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T09:33:03.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35678" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35680" CreationDate="2019-11-17T12:14:11.197" Score="-1" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your help &amp;lt;3&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TSk5g.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TSk5g.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sweatshirt has underneath the letters a weapon and underneath that &quot;Paris&quot; written so I´m a little concerned and confused on what it could mean... ^^´&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23102" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T14:34:41.763" Title="What does the lettering mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-11-21T09:21:29.343" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35666" CreationDate="2019-11-17T12:26:48.137" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's begin with 什么都 meaning &amp;quot;everything&amp;quot;; see &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22everything%22_with_%22shenme_dou%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing &amp;quot;everything&amp;quot; with &amp;quot;shenme dou&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; at the Chinese Grammar Wiki.  We can add a verb or an adjective afterwards:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;什么都 + adjective&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么都&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BE%8E%E4%B8%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;美丽&lt;/a&gt; (everything is beautiful)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;什么都&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%BE%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;辣&lt;/a&gt; (everything is spicy)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;什么都&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%AE%80%E5%8D%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;简单&lt;/a&gt; (everything is simple)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which we negate with 不:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么都不美丽 (everything is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; beautiful)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;什么都不辣 (everything is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; spicy)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;什么都不简单 (everything is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; simple)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the easy case.  See also the &amp;quot;Negating Adjectives&amp;quot; section of &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Standard_negation_with_%22bu%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Standard negation with &amp;quot;bu&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;什么都 + verb&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么都&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;有&lt;/a&gt; (to have everything)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;什么都&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%90%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;吃&lt;/a&gt; (to eat everything)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;什么都&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B9%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;买&lt;/a&gt; (to buy everything)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which we negate with 不 or 没 or 没有, which is where it gets tricky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, it's no longer about 什么都, but only about 没 vs. 不.  The most prominent Chinese.SE post about this is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/247/8099&quot;&gt;Why is 有 (yǒu) the only verb that requires 没 while other verbs can use 不?&lt;/a&gt;.  See also the Chinese Grammar Wiki's article &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22bu%22_and_%22mei%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Comparing &amp;quot;bu&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;mei&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is a common construction; how it's usually taught.  Given &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35666/difference-between-%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88%E9%83%BD%E4%B8%8D-and-%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88%E9%83%BD%E6%B2%A1/35679?noredirect=1#comment52981_35679&quot;&gt;tsh's comment&lt;/a&gt; below, it looks like there are other constructions beyond this (which I'm unable to comment on).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;什么都不 + verb vs. 什么都没 + verb&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed &amp;quot;没 + verb&amp;quot; often indicates a past non-event. From &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Negation_of_past_actions_with_%22meiyou%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Negation of past actions with &amp;quot;meiyou&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually verbs can be negated with 不 (bù), but that construction is used for habitual or present actions. &lt;strong&gt;If the verb is about an action in the past, though, 没有 (méiyǒu) should be used.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么都没吃 = 什么都没有吃 (to &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; eat anything [in the past])&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;什么都不吃 (to &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; eat anything [present or future])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么都没买 = 什么都没有买 (to &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; buy anything [in the past])&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;什么都不买 (to &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; buy anything [present or future])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 没有 is an exception here, e.g. 明天什么都没有 (to not have anything tomorrow [future]) is okay.  I believe 什么都没是 is also incorrect (there's a mismatch between 没 and 是).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Please note, I'm just a learner.  Hopefully if there's any misunderstandings on my part, someone can point them out to me in the comments.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T02:30:42.827" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35678" CreationDate="2019-11-17T12:41:42.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Um... That picture is mirrored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犯罪 (fàn zuì) A verb that means &quot;to commit a crime&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastEditorUserId="22149" LastEditDate="2019-11-17T14:34:41.763" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T14:34:41.763" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35681" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35684" CreationDate="2019-11-18T02:47:20.583" Score="0" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Chinese translation of Matilda (p. 195), we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“好，你把东西收拾一下，过两分钟我们在外面&lt;strong&gt;碰头&lt;/strong&gt;。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &quot;Good.  Gather up your things and I'll meet you outside in a couple of minutes.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and on the next page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;亨尼小姐在校门外和玛帝尔达&lt;strong&gt;碰头&lt;/strong&gt;，两人一起默默地穿过村子的大街。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Miss Honey joined Matilda outside the school gates and the two of them walked in silence through the village High Street.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand why 碰头 is used here, instead of say something like  见, 见面, or 看见.  I'm thinking it is perhaps more casual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt; Why use &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%A2%B0%E5%A4%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;碰头&lt;/a&gt; to mean &quot;meet&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T07:56:26.837" Title="Why use 碰头 (pèngtóu) to mean &quot;meet&quot; instead of say 见, 见面, or 看见? (In e.g. 过两分钟我们在外面碰头)" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35681" CreationDate="2019-11-18T04:37:18.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine two people get so close that their foreheads bump into each other. They see each other in such a close distance that there's no doubt that they have met.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term 碰头 (bump heads) use this graphical description metaphysically for &quot;meet&quot; (their heads are not actually touching each other)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to 携手 (hold hands) describes two people physically holding hands, but more often than not, the term is used as a metaphor for &quot;co-operate&quot; or &quot;join force&quot; (they are not actually holding hands in this case) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 碰头 (meet) and 見面/会面 (meet) is,  見面/会面 is always prearranged, while 碰头 can be accidental , (imagine two people walking in the street not looking ahead and run into each other by accident). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this description, we know 碰头 can also mean &quot;run into&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中国队与日本队在第一轮比赛中[&lt;strong&gt;碰头&lt;/strong&gt;] (相遇)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Team China and Team Japan [&lt;strong&gt;run into&lt;/strong&gt;] (meet)  each other in the first round &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-18T04:59:09.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T04:59:09.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35681" CreationDate="2019-11-18T05:59:01.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, the 碰 itself can mean &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;to meet&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. E.g. 我们周六再碰一下吧。// let's meet again on Saturday. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can form the words: 碰头, 碰见, 碰面. The dictionary definition of 碰头 is 会面；短时间地聚会(short meeting). The question 'why' in any language is hard to answer and sometimes even unanswerable. For this case, we can only imagine two people run into each other and figuratively it implies they 'meet'. Usually, 碰 happens in brief time(they bump into each other and then split immediately), which reflects that the meeting is short. That could somehow explain why 碰头 can mean &quot;short meetings&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My two cents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-18T07:56:26.837" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T07:56:26.837" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35685" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35687" CreationDate="2019-11-18T06:21:03.870" Score="1" ViewCount="662" Body="&lt;p&gt;你明天带着两万两前去天琴城，买我赢得第一。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google says 220,000 taels, but I’m not really sure. Could someone clarify?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23016" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-19T01:32:31.540" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T01:32:31.540" Title="Whats the amount of money in 你明天带着两万两前去天琴城，买我赢得第一?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35685" CreationDate="2019-11-18T06:30:24.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;it means 20000 两, the first 两 means 2, the second 两 is a unit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23104" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T06:30:24.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35685" CreationDate="2019-11-18T06:38:47.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;两 = 二 = 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;万 = ten thousand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两 = tael&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;两万两 / 二万两 = 20,000 taels (of silver)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One tael is about one ounce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;20,000 ounce of siver is about $400,000 US dollars &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Google says 220,000 taels&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got &quot;Two thousand two&quot; from Google. There's something wrong with Google Translate about this phrase (we all know Google Translate is not always reliable)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-18T06:52:22.603" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T06:52:22.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35685" CreationDate="2019-11-18T06:49:28.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translation is wrong. It should be 20,000两, where 两 is a unit. However, I'm not sure about the actual metal used here. It can be Silver of Gold, but it's likely to be Silver. I would say we need more info about the context. We are sure that it's not 220,000 (actually even if the machine interpreted it as 二万二, it should be 22,000 instead. Maybe something wrong with Google's algo)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T06:49:28.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35685" CreationDate="2019-11-18T06:51:22.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it depends on context here. 两万两 could be either &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;20000 taels&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;22000(块)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. You should look into more context to determine here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. From my experience, some people would say 两万两 to mean 22000, especially older people or people whose dialects have the preference. E.g. in Shanghai, 两 is used more than 二. I wouldn't be surprised when they say 两千两 to mean 2200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-18T08:06:27.753" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T08:06:27.753" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35666" CreationDate="2019-11-18T07:39:20.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's misleading to distinguish 不/没 by the &quot;tense&quot; it indicates. The information about time is always inferred form the whole context in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bold font&lt;/strong&gt; is where the time information is mainly inferred from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.没 表 已然/不存在（没 indicates things that have already become a fact, which can also be a presumed fact/the state of non existence.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他什么坏事都没干。（He hasn't done anything bad）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;到时&lt;/strong&gt;陈词庭上，你还要说什么坏事都没干？（By the time you argue in the court,  will you still insist that you haven't done anything bad?）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大火&lt;strong&gt;过后&lt;/strong&gt;，什么都没了。（After the conflagration, everything is gone.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.不 表 单纯否定/意愿（不 indicates simple negative/willingness.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她逛街&lt;strong&gt;向来&lt;/strong&gt;什么都不买。（She always buy nothing when shopping.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她&lt;strong&gt;昨天&lt;/strong&gt;逛街什么都不买，只看衣服。（Yesterday during the shopping, she didn't bought anything, but only chose clothes.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么都不干他事。（He had nothing to do with all the business.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他什么都不做，对小组成绩毫无贡献。≈他什么都没做，对小组成绩毫无贡献。（He didn't do any work, so he contributed nothing to the team accomplishments.）（The former stresses more on subjective willingness.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T07:39:20.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34174" CreationDate="2019-11-18T09:21:17.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recommend to use 和宁 with your surname, example: 王和宁 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23107" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T09:21:17.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35692" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35693" CreationDate="2019-11-18T13:57:34.373" Score="5" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aside from 一, 二 and 三 are there any other characters made from only horizontal 横 strokes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21462" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T03:19:15.700" Title="Characters with only horizontal 横 strokes" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35692" CreationDate="2019-11-18T15:08:15.343" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=4E96&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;亖&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; there is, also, this alternative character for 四.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=2011E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is an alternative form of 上.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=2011F&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is an alternative form of 下.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zisea.com/zscontent.asp?uni=20120&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is an alternative form of 二 (and also apparently the Japanese Ditto mark).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T15:08:15.343" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35694" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35695" CreationDate="2019-11-18T19:10:53.983" Score="2" ViewCount="502" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading a textbook and I already understand that 还 （hai) is used to indicate continuation or in addition to something, but for the following sentence it is not exactly clear. When I read the following sentence I see three meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快下雪了，我还以为今天是好天气 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It will snow soon, I &lt;strong&gt;also&lt;/strong&gt; thought today is good weather.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It will snow soon, I thought today is good weather.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It will snow soon, I still thought today is good weather.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does &quot;hai&quot; function in this sentence and why is the translation correct for .2 but not .1?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank You.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17614" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-19T01:29:38.800" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T01:29:38.800" Title="How does 还 function in 快下雪了，我还以为今天是好天气?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35694" CreationDate="2019-11-18T19:51:54.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It implies that I had been thinking today is a good day, until I noticed that it would snow soon. &lt;code&gt;还&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;code&gt;本来&lt;/code&gt; here, it indicates a continuation of original thought. For no. 3, I wouldn't say it's wrong, but it sounds very Chinglish to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It couldn't be &quot;also&quot;, because 快下雪 means bad weather, which is opposite to good weather. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T19:51:54.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35694" CreationDate="2019-11-18T23:07:51.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You always need the context to interpret correctly. Maybe the person likes snow? Nothing like a beautiful snowy day!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快下雪了，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's gonna snow soon,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我还以为今天是好天气。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I still reckon today's weather is great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;还以为： still believe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T23:07:51.133" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35694" CreationDate="2019-11-18T23:46:47.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think in this case 还 doesn't indicate the continuation or in addion to. It denotes this sense defined in dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（表示对某件事物没想到如此， 而居然如此）(something goes unlike one's original thought):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He really is resourceful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他还真有办法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快下雪了，我还以为今天是好天气&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence is saying that my original thought was today would be good weather,  but now it will snow soon(which is against my original thought).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that my interpretation is not a word for word translation. My intention is to explain the meaning of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Your translation 2 seems fine&lt;/strong&gt; because the past tense thought in English can express one's original thought in this case. &lt;em&gt;Still&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; are not appropriate because they denote different meanings instead of the sense addressed above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T00:10:40.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35698" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35702" CreationDate="2019-11-19T07:14:37.127" Score="0" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an idiom that means to make big claims but have little evidence to support them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13362" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T18:05:26.983" Title="Is there an idiom that means to make big claims but have little evidence to support them?" Tags="&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35698" CreationDate="2019-11-19T08:47:40.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure If 言过其实 can fit. it means &lt;em&gt;a statement surpassing the fact&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or 夸大其词？ it means &lt;em&gt;represent beyond the bounds of truth; make an overstatement;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T08:47:40.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35700" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35705" CreationDate="2019-11-19T09:50:20.230" Score="1" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to quip&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My package went to Nanjing, but I'm in Beijing; that's the complete opposite Jing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For it to be funny in English, the reader would have to know that 京 in Nanjing 南京 and Beijing 北京 is the same, and the joke is a play on how 南 and 北 are opposites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my attempt at writing it, which is a fairly literal translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我的快递发到了南京，但是我在北京。那儿是完全相反的“京”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's meant to be a joke.  However, I'm uncomfortable with the atypical grammar here.  I'm not sure it's even possible to express this in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it possible to quip &quot;My package went to Nanjing, but I'm in Beijing; that's the complete opposite Jing&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T02:10:36.483" Title="Is it possible to quip &quot;My package went to Nanjing, but I'm in Beijing; that's the complete opposite Jing&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;humor&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35700" CreationDate="2019-11-19T10:20:49.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In speech, you can say: 我人在'北'京，快递却发到了'南'京. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would add some joking effect when you put a bit emphasis on 北 and 南. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't have to say they are opposite literally. Your audience would seize that from your tone, which is the whole point of the joke. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T10:20:49.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35698" CreationDate="2019-11-19T10:54:25.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;空口无凭，言而无据，无根之论&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can coin four-character words to express it more accurately. It looks like that you mean academic claims.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me have a try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;论訇证寡（The claim is thunderous(figurative), but the evidence is little.）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;例句：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;像他这样的学术投机分子，才敢在会上作论訇证寡的报告。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Only in writing you can coin such words. Otherwise people won't understand you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T10:54:25.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35698" CreationDate="2019-11-19T11:02:05.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This thread would never be complete without the &quot;urban-dictionary&quot; style (i.e, slang), modern example for such idiom, the good old &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;吹牛&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, or its R-rated version &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;吹牛逼&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It generally means to brag about something, which &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; be true but usually isn't. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T11:02:05.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35700" CreationDate="2019-11-19T11:23:31.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your translation is accurate, but the point is that the original joke isn't funny, thus making the translation strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advice 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better not state both 北京 &amp;amp; 南京.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快递投给了南京，跟我在的京城反了个边。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advice 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better not play on 南 &amp;amp; 北.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我人在北京，快递给发了南京，真是中南海的文件发了总统府。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-11-19T11:28:42.447" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T11:28:42.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35700" CreationDate="2019-11-19T13:27:34.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我的包裹发到了南京，但是我人在北京，一个完全相反的「京」！&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;我的包裹发到了南京，但是我人在北京，怎么没发到东京？&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;我人在北京，但是我的包裹却偏偏背道而驰，跑到南京去了！&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;我人在北京，但是我的包裹却和我渐行渐远，往南京去了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-11-20T02:10:36.483" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T02:10:36.483" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35700" CreationDate="2019-11-19T14:12:37.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My package went to Nanjing, but I'm in Beijing; that's the complete opposite Jing.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我的包裹去了南京，但我在北京，这是两个完全反方向的京！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T14:12:37.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35698" CreationDate="2019-11-19T18:05:26.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to some good answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信口开河&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夸夸其谈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T18:05:26.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35708" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-20T16:14:56.957" Score="0" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;他听到我们这边有水瓶掉下去 砰地一声&#xA;（正好是停车场出口 万一有车就很危险）他马上和保安指出来 小朋友好乖哦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He heard bottle fell down ( ;$&lt;em&gt;#&lt;/em&gt;#? (I can't trans it)&#xA;He and bodyguard pointed out??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21921" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T01:43:30.050" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T02:59:13.017" Title="Please translate 他听到我们这边有水瓶掉下去 砰地一声 （正好是停车场出口 万一有车就很危险）他马上和保安指出来 小朋友好乖哦" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35708" CreationDate="2019-11-20T17:06:46.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not going to do a word-to-word translation. The original text seems like a piece of transcripts of someone talking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the parenthesis, where you can't translate, it is to describe where the accident happened - it is right at the exit of the parking garage. It can be very dangerous if there is a car drive by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他马上和保安指出来 is &quot;he immediately told(or point it out to) the security guard&quot;. 和 is not &quot;and&quot; here, but &quot;to&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小朋友好乖哦 tells me that in the previous description, 他 is a 小朋友. This sentence is opinion from the person who told this story. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="22717" LastEditDate="2019-11-26T02:59:13.017" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T02:59:13.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35710" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-20T23:46:33.770" Score="1" ViewCount="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a rule in Chinese that says that when you have two or more verbs in a sentence, you should put 了 in the last one. As in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们请经理吃了饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How bad would it sound if you put 了 before 请?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们请了经理吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's not bad at all, what would be the differece between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T12:11:45.860" Title="How bad does a sentence with an inicial 了 sound here?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35708" CreationDate="2019-11-21T01:08:38.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;他听到砰地一声 我们这边有水瓶掉下去&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他听到“砰”的一声，原来是我们这边有水瓶掉在了地上，摔碎了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He just heard the crash of our water bottle smashing on the ground,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(正好是停车场出口 万一有车就很危险）&lt;br&gt;&#xA;正好是在停车场出口，万一有车从碎玻璃上经过，会很危险。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(it was just in the car park exit, if there had been any cars, it could have been dangerous)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他马上和保安指出来 小朋友好乖哦&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他立即告诉保安停车场出口有碎玻璃。这真是一个很乖的小朋友。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He immediately told the guard. What a well behaved child!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T01:08:38.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35710" CreationDate="2019-11-21T02:01:40.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;他们请经理吃了饭&lt;/code&gt;- subtle emphasize what they eat, but not necessarily. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;他们请了经理吃饭&lt;/code&gt;- to emphasize who they buy dinner for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's another possible way to say this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;他们请经理吃饭了&lt;/code&gt;- subtle emphasis on the thing happened, but not necessarily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really depends on how you say it, your tune can change the emphasis too. They all have the same meaning. The second one probably has stronger effect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please correct me if i'm wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T02:01:40.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35710" CreationDate="2019-11-21T02:01:53.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most likely, I'd say 他们请经理吃饭了 or 他们请经理吃了饭 in practice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们请了经理吃饭 might be ok, but it doesn't look a normal word order. Usually, we just say: 他们请了经理 meaning &lt;em&gt;they invited the manager&lt;/em&gt;. What that invitation is for is often implied(assuming it can be figured out from the context). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is probably just me. Others might take different opinions.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T02:10:16.777" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T02:10:16.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35714" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35724" CreationDate="2019-11-21T02:16:35.217" Score="2" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could roughly understand the meaning of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sorry, I didn't help much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the simple Chinese-English dictionary, 上 means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;up&#xA;get on&#xA;good&#xA;superior&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are tons of meanings by the advanced dictionary. I couldn't figure it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T03:41:23.883" Title="What does 上 mean as in 抱歉我没帮上忙?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35714" CreationDate="2019-11-21T02:25:42.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;上 denotes this sense: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（用在动词后， 表示动作的结果）(Used after a verb to indicate its result)  E.g. 穿上外衣; 考上大学&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我没帮上忙 means (&lt;em&gt;the result is that) I have been being helpless.&lt;/em&gt;. It's not a word for word translation though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T02:25:42.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35716" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35718" CreationDate="2019-11-21T02:50:24.963" Score="1" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone please help me with the mark on this yixing teapot please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IJ83h.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IJ83h.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;chop mark on a chinese teapot&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23121" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T03:49:30.950" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T03:49:30.950" Title="What does this mark mean? (Characters identified: 周桂珍制)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34373" CreationDate="2019-11-21T03:37:18.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a webpage &lt;a href=&quot;http://name.renren.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://name.renren.com/&lt;/a&gt; where you can input Chinese names and get statistics.  As names by themselves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;远宁: 人人网上姓名为 远宁 的用户共有 26人，其中 女生42.31%， 男生57.69% &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;温宁: 人人网上姓名为 温宁 的用户共有 563人，其中 女生50.62%， 男生49.38% &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;文宁: 人人网上姓名为 文宁 的用户共有 543人，其中 女生52.85%， 男生47.15% &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;玟宁: no hits&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and if we append a random surname, say 李 or 王:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;李远宁: 人人网上姓名为 李远宁 的用户共有 40人，其中 女生52.50%， 男生47.50% &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;李温宁: 人人网上姓名为 李温宁 的用户共有 2人，其中 女生0.00%， 男生100.00% &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;李文宁: 人人网上姓名为 李文宁 的用户共有 267人，其中 女生63.67%， 男生36.33% &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;李玟宁: no hits&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;王远宁: 人人网上姓名为 王远宁 的用户共有 42人，其中 女生26.19%， 男生73.81% &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;王温宁: 人人网上姓名为 王温宁 的用户共有 3人，其中 女生100.00%， 男生0.00% &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;王文宁: 人人网上姓名为 王文宁 的用户共有 281人，其中 女生57.65%， 男生42.35% &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;王玟宁: no hits&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly 玟宁 is a poor choice.  Also 温 is interpreted as a surname.  It seems 文宁 is the most reasonable from the list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T03:37:18.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35716" CreationDate="2019-11-21T03:48:33.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;珍　周&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;制　桂&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Made by 周桂珍, craftswoman born in Yixing in 1943. You can &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHWA_enNZ604NZ604&amp;amp;biw=1920&amp;amp;bih=937&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sxsrf=ACYBGNRnjPJaVYTR-riCFP2x8XqdlKEvUQ%3A1574308089435&amp;amp;sa=1&amp;amp;ei=-QjWXbOEGpG88QOZ6LTQCQ&amp;amp;q=%E5%91%A8%E6%A1%82%E7%8F%8D&amp;amp;oq=%E5%91%A8%E6%A1%82%E7%8F%8D&amp;amp;gs_l=img.3..35i39j0l9.3378.3378..3786...0.0..0.212.212.2-1......0....1..gws-wiz-img.mLLWwuhHfsk&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjz5L_TsvrlAhURXnwKHRk0DZoQ4dUDCAc&amp;amp;uact=5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google image search&lt;/a&gt; the name to get more pictures of teapots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T03:48:33.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35719" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-21T05:54:37.613" Score="4" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's well known that Modern Standard Mandarin has merged what were historically velar stops and alveolar silibants when followed by front vowels. For instance, 京 is &quot;jing&quot; rather than &quot;ging&quot;, and 津 is &quot;jin&quot; rather than &quot;zin&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While there are plenty of southern dialects which preserve this distinction, I was under the impression that 北方话 dialects (regardless of whether they are in the north) had this merger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiX_aFtO67Y&amp;amp;t=54s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube video (from the 老饭骨 channel)&lt;/a&gt;, I heard what seems to be 激 pronounced by one of them as &quot;gi&quot; (the other uses standard &quot;ji&quot;). Is this distinction still a thing in at least some northern dialects? Or perhaps a merger where the velars won?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="788" LastEditorUserId="788" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T18:15:37.340" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T15:42:56.657" Title="Are there northern dialects which still preserve velars before front vowels?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35720" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-21T07:09:19.413" Score="1" ViewCount="458" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English word &lt;em&gt;spleen&lt;/em&gt; has two meanings in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;an organ near the stomach which produces and cleans the body's&#xA;blood.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a feeling of anger and disagreement.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, Chinese character 脾, apart from the meaning of an organ, can also mean a feeling of anger in the word 脾气. Is this a coincidence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked 《漢語大詞典》 for 脾气, and found that when interpreted as anger, all the examples are from modern Chinese literatures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;曹禺 《雷雨》第二幕： “哦， 太太怪可憐的， 為什麼老爺回來， 頭一次見太太就發這麼大的脾氣？”&#xA;  趙樹理 《張來興》：“以前聽說這位老師傅有脾氣， 只是聽說。”&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  沙汀 《航線》： “那個買辦， 早被頑固的訴苦弄出脾氣來了。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but when interpreted as disposition, there is examples from earlier literatures, like 《红楼梦》 from Qing dynasty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人的習性。 亦借指事物的特性。 ▶ 《紅樓夢》第八四回： “都像 寶丫頭 那樣心胸兒、脾氣兒， 真是百裏挑一的。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No corresponding meaning for spleen in English. Does this count as evidence that the meaning anger of 脾气 may be borrowed English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In American Heritage Dictionary, there is a meaning labeled as Obsolete that reads: This organ conceived as the seat of emotions or passions. And in 《漢語大詞典》, there is a meaning of 脾气 with examples from literatures dating back to before Christ:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;脾臟之氣. 《素問‧生氣通天論》： “是故味過於酸， 肝氣以津， 脾氣乃絕。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to has something to do with traditional Chinese medicine. Why does spleen is deemed to have something to do with emotion in both English and Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6043" LastActivityDate="2020-11-30T07:38:37.393" Title="Why does anger has something to do with spleen in both Chinese and English?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35714" CreationDate="2019-11-21T08:41:47.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt; functions here as a resultative complement, just like the second character in 做&lt;strong&gt;完&lt;/strong&gt; or 吃&lt;strong&gt;好&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the difference in English between &lt;em&gt;&quot;I have not helped you&quot;&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;&quot;I have not managed to help you.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;code&gt;managed&lt;/code&gt;, here, appears with the meaning of &lt;code&gt;&quot;could&quot;&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;&quot;succeeded&quot;&lt;/code&gt;. Think of &lt;code&gt;上&lt;/code&gt; in the same way in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T08:41:47.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35720" CreationDate="2019-11-21T11:36:21.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is my speculation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%84%BE/20358750&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%84%BE/20358750&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;中医解读:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;脾气的运动特点是主升举。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;脾为太阴湿土，又主运化水液，故喜燥恶湿。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Interpretation of Chinese medicine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The typical movement of the air in the spleen is upward rising &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Spleen is a cool, wet, water filtering organ. it likes dry and hot and dislikes wet and cool&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anger is also associate with 燥(dry) and hot . We say a person is easy to anger when his being 燥.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My assumption is: A person being angry because his 脾 is overly active causing 燥 (dryness) inside one's body and dryness cause anger&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;發脾气 (being angry)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;大脾气 (hot temper)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;脾气好 (mild temper)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;脾气差 (bad temper)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T11:49:27.280" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T11:49:27.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35720" CreationDate="2019-11-21T11:38:00.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Really interesting, and personally I think it's in very strong possibility. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;脾脏&quot;, &quot;脾胃&quot; and &quot;脾&quot; in traditional Chinese medicine are definitely not the &quot;spleen&quot; in modern anatomy. So the &quot;脾气&quot; in ancient Chinese may need to be understand specifically as &quot;the characteristic of the so-called spleen in traditional Chinese concept&quot;. &quot;anger&quot; or &quot;personality&quot; or &quot;disposition&quot; is not suitable in such case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I roughly searched the documents and found the transition seems happened mainly since the late Qing dynasty. That's very close to the time frame of the word &quot;脾&quot; be targeted to the word &quot;spleen&quot;. And maybe our ancestors found it's also acceptable that extending &quot;脾气&quot; from specifically describing the characteristic of &quot;脾&quot; to describing the characteristic synthetically of a person. So there is no need to find another Chinese word to match the the second meaning of spleen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I cannot eliminate the possibility that it is ancient Chinese who extended the meaning. And it passed pack to English society after modern anatomy transferred into China. And becomes the second meaning of the English word &quot;spleen&quot;. If anyone can reference samples in English work of early time, it would be very useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5869" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T11:38:00.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35714" CreationDate="2019-11-21T12:07:29.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should translate like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry 抱歉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I 我&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wasn't 没&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;able 上&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;help 帮忙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23124" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T12:07:29.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35710" CreationDate="2019-11-21T12:11:45.860" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;他们请经理吃了饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was dinner that they invited the manager to have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们请了经理吃饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was the manager that they invited to have dinner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23124" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T12:11:45.860" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29202" CreationDate="2019-11-21T12:18:08.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You shouldn't expect a strict grammar on the Internet, especially for social media. His meaning is clear, though his grammar is unpleasant. I feel uncomfortable with his sentences just as you do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23124" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T12:18:08.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25435" CreationDate="2019-11-21T12:29:03.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The target here is like an adverbial modifier which is unnecessary for grammar. It appears just as extra information. Instead, an object is necessary after a transitive verb. In your table, objects are included in the verb phrase. For example, 说 is a verb and 谎 is an object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23124" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T12:29:03.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35384" CreationDate="2019-11-21T12:43:02.373" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;嗝屁 is an informal word. You don't expect a strict structure in informal usages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23124" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T12:43:02.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35105" CreationDate="2019-11-21T12:47:39.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one of a few phenomena in Chinese that the meaning of a sentence depends not only on the letters but also the punctuation. You don't know the exact meaning of the sentence without a 。 or a ？ after it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23124" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T12:47:39.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35730" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-21T13:48:46.187" Score="1" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我认为保护环境将为子孙后代保证未来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to say that saving the environment will guarantee a future for future generations. Does it actually mean that or have I made mistakes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23127" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T02:08:45.360" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T02:08:45.360" Title="Is 我认为保护环境将为子孙后代保证未来 correct? Does it make sense?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35731" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-21T14:50:58.507" Score="2" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OjNkI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OjNkI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Can anyone give me any information about this old stamp?  possibly translate the symbols?  Very worn carved soapstone in tortoise shell case with red waxy ink.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23129" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T03:53:48.587" Title="Soapstone Seal Translation" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35730" CreationDate="2019-11-21T15:06:13.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's right. But, it's much better to say, 我认为保护环境就是保护子孙后代的未来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23130" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T15:06:13.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35730" CreationDate="2019-11-21T16:13:27.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A direct translation of 我认为保护环境将为子孙后代保证未来 will be something close to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I believe (我认为) protecting the environment (保护环境) will guarantee a&#xA;  future for offsprings (将为子孙后代保证未来)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While It's understandable, a better way of saying it could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;保护环境将保证下一代/后代的未来  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reason being:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1) 我认为 (I believe) was not in the origin content&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) 子孙后代 vs 下一代 - (your) offsprings vs future generations (which does not necessary related to you by blood)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastEditorUserId="5846" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T16:25:13.577" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T16:25:13.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35730" CreationDate="2019-11-21T23:16:20.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;保证未来 doesn't sound a natural phrasing. Usually, we say 对未来的保证 or 是未来的保证. A more natural one can be 我认为保护环境是对子孙后代未来的保证. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other way to express this kind of idea in Chinese can be: 为了子孙后代, 我们应该保护环境.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T23:45:05.087" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T23:45:05.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35736" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35737" CreationDate="2019-11-21T23:37:00.537" Score="0" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I have help reading what these two marks say? Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QtuPX.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QtuPX.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;marks&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23132" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T23:47:11.693" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T23:47:11.693" Title="Seal marks on a little pot (Characters identified: 吳祥君)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35736" CreationDate="2019-11-21T23:44:57.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;祥&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　　吳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;君&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Teapot maker called 吳祥君, born in 1966 in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yixing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yixing&lt;/a&gt;. You can &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%E5%90%B3%E7%A5%A5%E5%90%9B&amp;amp;rlz=1C1GCEU_en-GBNZ822NZ822&amp;amp;source=lnms&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwj-pJ2xvfzlAhWB7HMBHRPUDuMQ_AUoAnoECAsQBA&amp;amp;biw=1920&amp;amp;bih=937&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google image search&lt;/a&gt; this name to get more images of teapots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T23:44:57.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35738" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35740" CreationDate="2019-11-22T03:09:33.143" Score="5" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我老得麻烦同事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does 老得 means in here? Does it mean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm too old and have to bother colleagues constantly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find an &lt;a href=&quot;http://ting.eudic.net/webting/desktopplay?id=844fcdfc-2028-11e8-b7f2-000c29ffef9b&amp;amp;st=00:05:17.85&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我老得不能养猫了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm too old to have a cat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20623" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T03:24:33.283" Title="What does 老得 mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35730" CreationDate="2019-11-22T03:13:04.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;its a bit unnatural translation, 将and 为 are kinda unnecessary together, not to say the direct translation is not wrong, everyone can understand what you are trying to present, but a native speaker would not phrase it that way. I think rephrasing it as 我认为保护环境会保证子孙后代的未来 will be more suitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23068" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T03:13:04.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35738" CreationDate="2019-11-22T03:19:01.793" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should take 老得 separately in this case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老: &lt;em&gt;always; constantly&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;得(dei3): &lt;em&gt;need; have to&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我老得麻烦同事 means &lt;em&gt;I have to bother colleagues constantly.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 我老得不能养猫了(I'm too old to have a cat), 得 is pronounced as &lt;em&gt;de&lt;/em&gt; and 老 means &lt;em&gt;old&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It relies on context to determine whether 得 is pronounced de or dei3, which reflects different meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-22T03:24:33.283" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T03:24:33.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35105" CreationDate="2019-11-22T03:29:28.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on your tone and context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the statement itself does not have any prior or future statements, then it would likely be a question.&#xA;Here are the possible context：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从上海到东京坐飞机要几个小时 ？ In this case, you are asking a question， your tone would also be in an inquiring manner, to make it clear its a question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从上海到东京坐飞机要几个小时, 你总不能要我每天来回吧？ In this case its a statement (It takes a couple hours from Shanghai to Tokyo, you can't expect me to travel between them everyday ?）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23068" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T03:29:28.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35714" CreationDate="2019-11-22T03:41:23.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it carries the same meaning as the out in &quot;sorry,I wasnt able to help out&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out by itself does not mean much, but couple with help, it reinforced the help word&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23068" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T03:41:23.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35731" CreationDate="2019-11-22T03:46:28.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zbX2Y.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zbX2Y.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My interpretation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;肇　松&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吉　原&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The guess of「肇」is based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/jinwen?kaiOrder=64260&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this variant&lt;/a&gt; of「肁」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C3jCV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C3jCV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;耳尊&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=6007&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成6007&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E9%9A%B6%E5%AE%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸定&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UuxqC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UuxqC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Together, this makes a Japanese name 松原肇吉 (something like &lt;em&gt;Matsubara Tadayoshi&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;You should post this on &lt;a href=&quot;https://japanese.stackexchange.com&quot;&gt;https://japanese.stackexchange.com&lt;/a&gt; to doublecheck.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T03:53:48.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35666" CreationDate="2019-11-22T03:49:54.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;什么也不 indicate don't + anything/everything , 什么都没 indicates haven't / didn't + anything/everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我什么都没有 ， I don't have anything.&#xA;我什么都不要， I don't want anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我什么都没做， I didnt do anything,&#xA;我什么都不做， I don't want to do anything/ I won't do anything&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One indicates the situation while another one indicates the intention, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23068" LastEditorUserId="23068" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T05:15:49.043" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T05:15:49.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35746" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35749" CreationDate="2019-11-22T04:58:20.817" Score="2" ViewCount="355" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's the start of a short story I'm writing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;首先，大多数人强烈反对它，说人一定不要“&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%89%AE%E6%BC%94%E4%B8%8A%E5%B8%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;扮演上帝&lt;/a&gt;”。当时他们害怕极了，对于&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%AA%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;未来&lt;/a&gt;的效果有关心。人性会怎么改变？人有很多批评：使用它以后，人还是人吗？用这种&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%8A%80%E6%9C%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;技术&lt;/a&gt;就是根本不自然的。这些&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%AE%BA%E7%82%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;论点&lt;/a&gt;使世界&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%94%BF%E5%AE%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;政客&lt;/a&gt;也反对它，而且除了世界上最伟大的科学家，谁都不允许用这种技术。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其实这只是正式的说法，真实的故事也许我们再也并不&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%A1%AE%E5%88%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;确切&lt;/a&gt;知道。有人说各个政府认识这种技术太强大了，不想只让别国开发这&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%A1%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;项&lt;/a&gt;危险的技术，所以世界的政府都偷偷地进行研究。有人&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%B4%A3%E5%A4%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;责备&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%82%E5%B8%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;异常&lt;/a&gt;的科学家，就卖了这项技术然后跑去退休了。现在有一件肯定的事，这项技术是&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E6%97%A0%E5%A4%84%E4%B8%8D%E5%9C%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;无处不在&lt;/a&gt;的，而它是惊人的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我叫周子望。大约二十年以前科学家发明了一项是会改变世界的技术。那时候我就是个小朋友，并不知道科学家进行那么重要的研究。&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%97%A0%E8%AE%BA%E5%A6%82%E4%BD%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;无论如何&lt;/a&gt;，这新种技术会对我一生中有巨大的影响。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm asking for a critique of my writing (analogous to what CodeReview.SE does for code).  Please describe how it can be improved.  Part of the motivation is to identify my weaknesses, and identify better writing styles.  The words in links are new for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to build some mystery as to what this powerful new technology actually is, and what impact is has had on Zhou Ziwang's life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the basic idea in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, most people were strongly against it, saying we definitely don't want to play God.  At that time people were fearful, worried about future consequences.  How will mankind change?  People had many criticisms: After using it, will a person still be a person?  Using this technology is fundamentally unnatural.  These arguments caused world politicians to also oppose it, and further, except for the world's leading scientists, nobody was permitted to use this technology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, this is just the official explanation, the real story we'll perhaps never know for sure.  Some people say every government recognizes this kind of technology is powerful; they don't want to simply let other countries utilize this dangerous technology, so the world governments secretly conduct research.  Some people blame rogue scientists, selling the technology and then fleeing into retirement.  Now one thing is for sure, this technology is everywhere, and is astonishing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm Zhou Ziwang.  About 20 years ago, scientists discovered a technology that would change the world.  That time, I was a little kid, and did not know scientists were conducting this kind of important research.  In any case, this new technology has had a profound impact on my life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I include in case of &amp;quot;this makes absolutely no sense&amp;quot; sentences, but I'm not really concerned about the English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-23T08:16:35.610" Title="Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang and the revolutionary new technology" Tags="&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35746" CreationDate="2019-11-22T05:45:04.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;首先，大多数人强烈反对它，说人一定不要“扮演上帝”&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;At first, most people were strongly against it, saying we definitely don't want to play God.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;At first&quot; is not translated as &quot;首先&quot;. It should be translated as &quot;最初&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;大多数人强烈反对它 (most people were strongly against it)&lt;/em&gt; . Unlike in English, the object &quot;it&quot; is not needed in Chinese, The sentence should be 大多数人都强烈反对&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;说人一定不要 (saying we definitely don't want to)&lt;/em&gt; Poor choice of words, &quot;一定不要&quot; implies &quot;certainly don't want to have&quot;. Better write &quot;说人絕對不能&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;“扮演上帝 (play God)&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Play God&quot; here doesn't mean &quot;play the role of God in a play&quot; (扮演上帝), it means &quot;Act as if you were God&quot; (當自己是神)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;最初大多数人都强烈反对，说人絕對不能當自己是神&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;当时他们害怕极了，对于未来的效果有关心。At that time people were fearful, worried about future consequences.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;害怕极了 (extremely fearful) is not appropriate here, it implies &quot;fear of immediate and great harm &quot;, For the fear of uncertainty, you should write &quot;感到有點害怕&quot;(felt a bit of fear)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;效果(effect) should be changed to 影響(effect). The difference between the two is, 效果 is generally the effect of intentional action; and 影響 can be the effect of  intentional or unintentional action&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;worried about&quot; is not &quot;有关心&quot; (have cared) in Chinese, it is &quot;擔心&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;对于未来的影響 lack a subject, it should be 对于(它对)未来的影響&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;当时他们感到有点害怕， 对于它对未来的影响有点担心&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;人性会怎么改变？ 人有很多批评：使用它以后，人还是人吗？&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人 should be 人们. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;使用它以后，人还是人吗？ should be in quotation&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;add &quot;有人甚至說&quot; (some people even said) before the quotation because not all people voicing this same concern&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;人们有很多批评，有人甚至說：&quot;使用它以后，人还是人吗？&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;用这种技术就是根本不自然的。 Using this technology is fundamentally unnatural&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;就是根本 (is fundamentally) --&gt;根本就是&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;用 is a verb, 不自然的 is an adjective&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不自然的 (unnatural) is a little bit weak, suggest replace 不 with 违反, and you can skip the adjective marker 的 at the end because there's no noun following it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;使用这种技术根本就是违反自然。&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;这些论点使世界政客也反对它 These arguments caused world politicians to also oppose it&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;论点 (arguments) doesn't cause anything. &quot;Believe in arguments&quot; cause people to act. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;世界政客 = world politician.  The term '世界' doesn't clarify it is 'the whole world' or 'of the world'.  politicians doesn't represent government&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;也(too) --&gt; 都(all)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Better clarify the object of objection and replace the pronoun 它 with the actual object &quot;硏究这项技术&quot; (research this technology)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;根据这些论点，各国府政都反对硏究这项技术&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(I can't finish the entire essay in one setting, to be continued)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-23T08:16:35.610" LastActivityDate="2019-11-23T08:16:35.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35746" CreationDate="2019-11-22T07:25:52.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My general critique is you often pick the wrong term by rely on Google translate too much. Take 效果(effect) and 影響 (effect) from my other answer to your post for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way to fix this is for you to study the difference between similar Chinese terms that can be translated to a same English word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another flaws in your writing is wordiness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the example below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大约二十年(以)前科学家发明了一项(是)会改变世界的技术&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;大约二十年前科学家发明了一项会改变世界的技术&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Omit '以' in '以前' and '是' in '是会' make your sentence flow smoother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of wordniess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真实的故事 --&amp;gt;实情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To reduce wordiness, you should review every sentence and see which word can be omitted without changing the meaning you wanted to express.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another flaw in your writing is some sentence would miss a conjunction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: 也许我们再也不确切知道 --&amp;gt; 也许我们再也不(能)确切知道&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is likely due to carelessness. Just check carefully to see if there are needed conjunction gone missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T07:37:05.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35746" CreationDate="2019-11-22T08:35:53.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I write my piece of paragraph based on your English excerpt without referring to your own try. And hopefully it will meet your aim to identify a better style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起初，多数人强烈反对，称人决不能僭作神明。当时，对未来后果的忧惧笼罩着大众。人类将如何演变？对此批判四起：一旦施用，人还称得上人吗？这种技术本质有违自然。诸此论调，引起世界各国政要也加入反对阵营，结果，除领军科学家外，无人许可应用该项技术。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其实这不过是官方说辞，真相恐怕永不能为我们所确认。有传每个政府都清楚该技术之威力，但皆不愿让他国轻易利用，故只能隐秘开展研究。一些人谴责那些科学异端出卖科技后退休跑路，但无可否认，现在它已经随处可见，令人惊骇。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是周子望。约二十年前，科学家就已经开发出这足以改变世界的技术，而此时还是小孩的我无从知晓如此重要的研究正进行着。不论如何，这项新技术给我的人生带来了深远的影响。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese writing, you are supposed to drop, merge, and change the expression of subjects constantly, and compact several topic-related sentences into one using link words. After all, Chinese sentences are separated by topics, instead of grammatical clauses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concision is virtue. Avoid too many grammatical words such as 的/地/得.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese lacks &quot;tense&quot; in the grammar aspect, but it doesn't mean you are supposed to pay no attention to time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In any case, this new technology &lt;strong&gt;has had&lt;/strong&gt; a profound impact on my life.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;无论如何，这新种技术&lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt;对我一生中有巨大的影响。（x）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-11-22T08:58:12.060" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T08:58:12.060" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34859" CreationDate="2019-11-22T08:42:20.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is probably not the answer you're looking for, but both「秘」and「泌」underwent the same kinds of shifts (b &amp;gt; m) in certain topolects, so I would just treat it as a simple phonological shift within the labial consonant group (rather than something more &amp;quot;exciting&amp;quot;). I do not believe that the comments on it being a &amp;quot;Mandarin thing&amp;quot; are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FqZ84.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FqZ84.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although &amp;quot;time&amp;quot; seems like a cop-out, I would point to similar shifts over &amp;quot;time&amp;quot; like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mNnwI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mNnwI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T08:50:06.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35720" CreationDate="2019-11-23T01:41:50.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the premise is wrong. When I &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%80%9D%E4%BC%A4%E8%84%BE/10937645?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;look&lt;/a&gt;, I find:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;liver associated with anger&lt;br&gt;&#xA;spleen associated with overthinking and worry （悲（思）伤脾）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五行中脾属土，心属火。因此，心为脾之母，脾为心之子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The heart is the spleen's Mum! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怒伤肝，喜伤心，忧伤肺，&lt;strong&gt;悲（思）伤脾&lt;/strong&gt;，恐伤肾。脾开窍于口。其华在唇。在志为思，思虑过度，所欲不遂，可导致气滞、气结，影响脾的运化合升清。在液为涎。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why does spleen is deemed to have something to do with emotion in both&#xA;  English and Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not just the spleen. Our bodies are not machines housing a totally detached intellect. Every part is connected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-23T01:41:50.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13943" CreationDate="2019-11-23T03:28:38.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese Grammar Wiki article &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Simple_%22noun_%2B_adjective%22_sentences&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simple &quot;noun + adjective&quot; sentences&lt;/a&gt; writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nouns are linked to adjectives with 很 (hěn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In cases when 很 is used to link a noun with an adjective, it does not mean &quot;very&quot;, it's just a linking word: a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.digmandarin.com/using-hen-with-adjectives.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dummy-linking adverb&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;strong&gt;in the case of these &quot;Noun + Adj.&quot; sentences, you just have to think of this usage of 很 (hěn) as an exception.&lt;/strong&gt; It's just part of the structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The example they give is 他很高.  Writing 他是高 to mean &quot;he is tall&quot; is incorrect, we need to say 他很高.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you actually want to add the meaning of &quot;very&quot; into the sentence, you could use another adverb instead of 很 (hěn). One good choice is 非常 (fēicháng).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other cases, 很 means &quot;very&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the construct 很...的, it also means &quot;very&quot;.  I think it's because the 很 is optional: compare 一个&lt;strong&gt;很&lt;/strong&gt;高的&lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.youdao.com/w/%E6%B0%B4%E5%B9%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;水平&lt;/a&gt; with 一个高的水平.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the construct ...得很, it means &quot;very&quot; although placed afterwards.  See &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Adjectival_complement_%22de_hen%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Adjectival complement &quot;de hen&quot;&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://cn.hujiang.com/new/p552017/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar learning: Adjective + 得 很&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I believe repetition can result in 很 meaning &quot;very&quot;, e.g., 他很高很高, but maybe only children that talk like this (like &lt;a href=&quot;https://haokan.baidu.com/v?pd=wisenatural&amp;amp;vid=10930730957983243748&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-23T03:28:38.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35719" CreationDate="2019-11-23T05:05:23.400" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;传统河南话大部分都区分尖团音。上年纪的人改不掉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;河南人说普通话就是分尖团的。例如尖和间、箭和剑的音读出来是不一样的……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;河南南阳一带方言和粤语中仍然完整的保留着尖团音。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你听听京剧就知道了，里边的尖团音区分还是比较明显的，这说明在北京方言里还有一定的留存……&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/62512562&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/62512562&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/35130836&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/35130836&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/313313381&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/313313381&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18221" LastActivityDate="2019-11-23T05:05:23.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35755" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35757" CreationDate="2019-11-23T10:00:56.913" Score="0" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm analyzing &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35746/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-and-the-revolutionary-new-technology&quot;&gt;Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang and the revolutionary new technology&lt;/a&gt; and in particular these two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Intended English meaning:  How will mankind change?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  My writing: &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BA%BA%E6%80%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;人性&lt;/a&gt;会怎么&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%94%B9%E5%8F%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;改变&lt;/a&gt;？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/35749/8099&quot;&gt;Toosky Hierot&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BA%BA%E7%B1%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;人类&lt;/a&gt;将如何&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%BC%94%E5%8F%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;演变&lt;/a&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context is that a revolutionary new technology has been discovered, and people are worried about its implications for the future.  Thus, out of concern, they ask rhetorical questions like: &lt;em&gt;How will mankind change?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What are the advantages of 人类将如何演变 over 人性会怎么改变?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be my impression:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人性 = &quot;humanity&quot; whereas 人类 = &quot;mankind&quot;, so 人类 is accurate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm not seeing a major benefit to 将 = &quot;will&quot; over 会 = &quot;would&quot; (relevant question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23237/talking-future-tense-%e5%b0%86-%e8%a6%81-%e5%b0%86%e8%a6%81-%e4%bc%9a-%e5%b0%86%e4%bc%9a&quot;&gt;Talking future tense: 将，要，将要， 会， 将会&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I believe 怎么 and 如何 are interchangeable in this case (relevant question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1255/what-is-the-difference-between-%e6%80%8e%e4%b9%88-and-%e5%a6%82%e4%bd%95&quot;&gt;What is the difference between 怎么 and 如何？&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;演变 = &quot;evolve&quot; whereas 改变 = &quot;change&quot;.  I'm not clear about which is better here, but perhaps 改变 is closer to &quot;edit&quot; (?).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please let me know what I understand correctly/incorrectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-23T10:22:01.280" LastActivityDate="2019-11-23T13:20:36.540" Title="What are the advantages of 人类将如何演变 over 人性会怎么改变?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35755" CreationDate="2019-11-23T11:07:34.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人性会怎么改变  vs. 人类将如何演变&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人性 mainly refers to &quot; human morality&quot;. 人性会怎么改变 means &quot;how will humankind's morality be changed by this technology?  We see many examples of technology changes human's behavior and moral value. If it is your main concern, you should choose 人性 over 人类&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人类 mainly refers to &quot;the human kind&quot; in a broad sense. That includes biological and mental aspects. If this technology changes not only human's mind, but also body, then you should use 人类 over 人性&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;会(would) and 将(will) are both valid in this sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;怎么 and 如何 means the same, just 怎么 is more colloquial and 如何 is more literary&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;改变 = change; 演变 = evolve. A technology no matter how advance, it is not likely to change humankind  biologically. 改变 should be the right choice.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Base on your main concern (human morality vs. biological and mental change) you can choose to write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人性会怎么改变?/ 人性将怎么改变?/ 人性会如何改变?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;人类将如何改变?/ 人类会如何改变?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can replace 将 or 会 with 将会&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-23T13:20:36.540" LastActivityDate="2019-11-23T13:20:36.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35760" CreationDate="2019-11-24T02:54:04.717" Score="1" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose in the past I was fat, and now I'm no longer fat.  I'm wondering which 了 is appropriate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我长胖&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我长胖了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我长了胖&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我长了胖了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think we can just leave off the 了.  It makes sense to put 了 at the end as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Change_of_state_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;change-of-state 了&lt;/a&gt;.  However, it also seems to make sense to use a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_completion_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;completion 了&lt;/a&gt; after the verb (which I believe is 长).  Yet the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Advanced_%22le%22_after_an_object#Usage_of_Double_.E4.BA.86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;double 了&lt;/a&gt; doesn't seem to apply here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baidu results indicate both 我长了胖 and 我长了胖了 are plain wrong (but suggests 我长了肥胖 is possible).  I don't understand why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: If I was fat, and now I'm not, which is better: 我长胖 or 我长胖了 or 我长了胖 or 我长了胖了?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T17:48:11.677" Title="If I was fat, and now I'm not, which is better: 我长胖 or 我长胖了 or 我长了胖 or 我长了胖了?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;past-tense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35758" CreationDate="2019-11-24T03:06:26.133" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you used to be &lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt; and you're not any more you'd just use a construct like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以前很&lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(我)以前很胖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, 很 doesn't necessarily mean &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt;, but if you want to change it to 有点 that's cool too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(我)以前有点(儿)胖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-11-24T17:48:11.677" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T17:48:11.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35758" CreationDate="2019-11-24T03:08:47.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;我长胖了=I am putting on weight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other 3 versions are incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should reverse it to express your purpose:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我（已经）不胖了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我曾经很胖（但现在瘦下来了）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T03:08:47.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35758" CreationDate="2019-11-24T03:14:14.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose in the past I was fat, and now I'm no longer fat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should say 我瘦下来了, 我变瘦了 or 我瘦了 in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我胖了, 我变胖了 or 我长胖了 means &lt;em&gt;I'm getting fat&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are incorrect:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我长胖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我长了胖&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我长了胖了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T03:29:44.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35758" CreationDate="2019-11-24T04:26:07.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose?? All theoretical of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我以前很胖，现在不胖了！真的哦！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T04:26:07.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35764" CreationDate="2019-11-24T08:07:48.610" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;Continuing on from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35746/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-and-the-revolutionary-new-technology&quot;&gt;part 1&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当我是女孩时，世界上最重要的是吃巧克力和其它甜食。我爱吃麦当劳、我爱吃比萨、我爱吃巧克力蛋糕。我爸忙时就让我吃，如此我不打扰他，而他经常在电脑上工作。并不奇怪的是，我当时很胖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然我很小，但不得不注意到了别人不同的对待我，使我感到对自己的身体不满意，而我变得越来越难过了。我渴望变瘦了，或者至少不那么胖。那时候我知道吃热量高的食物让人长胖，可是甚至成年人遇到控制体重的困难，&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BB%85%E4%BB%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;仅仅&lt;/a&gt;少吃不够减肥。吃巧克力使我心里感到很满足。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please critique my writing.  Probably the bit I'm most uncomfortable with is &amp;quot;可是甚至成年人遇到控制体重的困难&amp;quot; but I'm not sure how else to write this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I spoke with my teacher about this, and she mentioned I should point out my level: I've nearly finished studying HSK4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried to incorporate feedback from the last part, e.g. I use 如此 here which arose last time, and even 我当时很胖 as a result of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35758/if-i-was-fat-and-now-im-not-which-is-better-%E6%88%91%E9%95%BF%E8%83%96-or-%E6%88%91%E9%95%BF%E8%83%96%E4%BA%86-or-%E6%88%91%E9%95%BF%E4%BA%86%E8%83%96-or-%E6%88%91%E9%95%BF%E4%BA%86%E8%83%96%E4%BA%86&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;.  I've tried to be more careful choosing words, and be a bit more succinct in my writing (neither of which is easy).  The passage is a bit shorter, but I feel if it's too short, it wouldn't be useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part of the reason for doing this is because standard Chinese language texts are incredibly boring.  There's no story, just isolated sentences without meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping not for a word-for-word correction to perfect Chinese, but more a critique: mostly just identifying the major issues (that I might be totally blind to).  Alternatively rewriting the passage in your own style is also very helpful; afterwards, I'll compare our word and grammar choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English version:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was a little girl, the most important thing in the world was chocolate and other junk food.  I loved eating McDonalds, pizza, and chocolate cake.  When my father was busy, he would let me eat so I wouldn't disturb him.  And he was often on his computer working.  Unsurprisingly, I became fat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I was young, I couldn't help be notice people treated me differently, and it made me feel unhappy with my body, and I slowly became sad.  I wanted to be skinny, or at least not so fat.  At that time I knew eating fatty foods causes people to become fat, but even adults struggle to control their weight, I can't just simply not eat and lose weight.  Eating chocolate made me feel content inside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T02:33:28.243" Title="Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang was fat when she was young" Tags="&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35763" CreationDate="2019-11-24T09:12:40.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Check ambiguity. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Writers should read his or her own writing, try to see if there are other possible  interpretations for certain phrases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: When you chose &quot;女孩&quot; in &quot;当我是女孩时&quot; you were thinking &quot;girl&quot; as a female child, but both &quot;女孩&quot; in Chinese and &quot;girl&quot; in English can refer to &quot; young female&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To remove ambiguity in &quot;当我是女孩时&quot; you can add  &quot;小&quot; before &quot;女孩&quot; and write &quot;当我是(小)女孩时&quot; to clarify  &quot;girl&quot;  refers to &quot;female child&quot; not &quot;young female&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Remember Chinese verbs have no tense&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Chinese verbs do not have tense, The tense of this sentence &quot;Although I was very small&quot; (虽然我很小) need to be clarified by other means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &quot;虽然我(那時還)很小&quot; - &quot;Although I was very small (at that time)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is just a single example, you should check your sentence to see if tense is needed or not, because in many instances the context already indicate the verb is in the pass tense or present tense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &quot;(十年前)当我(還)是女孩时&quot; clearly implies:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. The verb &quot;是&quot; is in past tense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. 女孩 (girl) refers to &quot;female child&quot; not &quot;young female&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;abuse of 了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;了&quot; indicate &quot;completion&quot; or change of &quot;state&quot; . You have to check if &quot;了&quot; is needed in a sentence. Take: &quot;我渴望变瘦了&quot; (I hope to get thin) for example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;了 in &quot;我渴望变瘦了&quot; implies &quot;I begin to hope to get thin&quot; (change of state)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;了 cannot modify 变瘦 to indicate the verb 变瘦 is completed because  the main verb &quot;hope&quot; indicated you were not thin already&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you didn't mean &quot;I begin to hope to get thin&quot;, you should just write &quot;我渴望变瘦&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can only point out some of  the bad habits I noticed. There are a lot of areas can be improved in your writing, but that involves more in-depth study on your part. Write more, get corrected more and analyze why a sentence you wrote is being corrected. Eventually you too can notice what mistakes you often make and learn not to make it again. Or discover the better way to express your thought by noticing how people edit your text to a more native style. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure other people can point out more of your mistakes and provide solutions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can compare your text with my editing to see if you can notice something:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当我是女孩时，--&gt; 当我(还)是(小)女孩时，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;世界上最重要的是吃巧克力和其它甜食。--&gt; (对我来说)世界上最重要的是吃巧克力和其它甜食。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爱吃麦当劳、我爱吃比萨、我爱吃巧克力蛋糕。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爸忙时就让我吃， --&gt; (每当)我爸忙(的)时(侯)就让我吃，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如此我不打扰他，而他经常在电脑上工作。--&gt; (这样)我(就)不(会)打扰他在电脑上工作。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;并不奇怪的是，我当时很胖。--&gt; (难怪)我当时(会那么)胖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然我很小，但不得不注意到了别人不同的对待我，--&gt; 虽然我(那时还)很小，但(已)不得不注意到别人(对我)(与别不同)的(态度)，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;使我感到对自己的身体不满意， --&gt; 使我对自己的身体(感到)不满意，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而我变得越来越难过了。我渴望变瘦了，--&gt; 我变得越来越难。我渴望变瘦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;或者至少不那么胖。那时候我知道吃热量高的食物让人长胖， --&gt; 至少以能瘦一点。那时候我(已)知道吃热量高的食物(会)让人(变)胖，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可是甚至成年人遇到控制体重的困难，--&gt; 可是(连)成年人(都会)遇到控制体重的困难，(何况,是我这个小女孩？)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;仅仅少吃不够减肥。--&gt; 仅仅少吃(是)不(足以)减肥(的)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃巧克力使我心里感到很满足。--&gt; (加上)吃巧克力(能)使我心里感到很满足，(减重就更困难了)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(the last two sentences are disjointed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T02:33:28.243" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T02:33:28.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35763" CreationDate="2019-11-24T09:45:39.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;even adults struggle to control their weight, I can't just simply not eat and lose weight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chinese way can be: 节食减肥大人都很难坚持，更何况我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not word for word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is quite different from English. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When I was a little girl, the most important thing in the world was chocolate and other junk food.  I loved eating McDonalds, pizza, and chocolate cake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, it can be: 小时候，我超爱巧克力和垃圾食品，像麦当劳，披萨，还有巧克力蛋糕。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; When my father was busy, he would let me eat so I wouldn't disturb him. And he was often on his computer working. Unsurprisingly, I became fat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese: 爸爸工作很忙，我经常趁他在电脑前工作时吃东西，这样他就无暇顾及我了。我自然也就胖了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-24T10:09:15.970" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T10:09:15.970" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35763" CreationDate="2019-11-24T16:14:00.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in your last question, I will give my own translation to help you.(●°u°●)​ 」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This time I will use a more colloquial style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当我还是个小女孩时，巧克力那样的垃圾食品在我的世界中最重要了。麦当劳、披萨、巧克力蛋糕，我都爱吃。爸爸忙着的时候就会准我吃，这样我便打扰不到他。他又经常用电脑工作，所以并不奇怪，我变得很胖。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尽管我还小，但还是不免发现周围人对我的区别对待，这使我对自己的身体很不满意，渐渐沮丧起来。我想瘦成闪电，不成也别这么胖呀。那个时候我就知道吃高脂食品让人长胖，但即便是成年人要控制体重也少不了一番挣扎，我更做不到简简单单不吃来办到。吃巧克力让我心里特别满足。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will also provide a more elegant, though rephrased extensively but more to my appetite, translation. It's certainly not an example for you to learn from, but I'd like to show how succinct and beautiful the language can be.(●°u°●)​ 」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在我还是小姑娘时，眼中世界再无什么比垃圾食品更重要——麦当劳、披萨、巧克力皆我所爱。父亲每&lt;strong&gt;忽遽&lt;/strong&gt;，便许我大食以&lt;em&gt;远&lt;/em&gt;搅扰；而他又常在电脑上忙，无怪乎我体态&lt;strong&gt;充腴&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我年虽幼，亦不免觉察人待我有别于常，由是&lt;strong&gt;不逞&lt;/strong&gt;于形体，日渐销沉。我愿姿体&lt;strong&gt;臞露&lt;/strong&gt;，至少，莫&lt;strong&gt;丰盈&lt;/strong&gt;如斯。彼时固晓富脂食品&lt;strong&gt;增人体重&lt;/strong&gt;，然大人不免困窘于&lt;strong&gt;纤体&lt;/strong&gt;，童子如我安能节食而&lt;strong&gt;瘦身&lt;/strong&gt;？只巧克力，就令我&lt;strong&gt;意足&lt;/strong&gt;啊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using different words to express the same thing makes you look scholar( *・ω・). &lt;strong&gt;Bold&lt;/strong&gt; words, in order, means 忙碌/胖/不满/很瘦/胖/让人长胖/减肥/减肥/心里满足.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using adequate verbs to express abstract action makes the passage advanced. &lt;em&gt;Italic 远&lt;/em&gt; means to get rid of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that to achieve these requires very high level of vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-11-24T17:40:08.560" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T17:40:08.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35767" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35769" CreationDate="2019-11-25T02:46:25.563" Score="0" ViewCount="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm having trouble with one part of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/35764/8099&quot;&gt;this answer from Tang Ho&lt;/a&gt; relating to the story &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35763/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-was-fat-when-she-was-young&quot;&gt;Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang was fat when she was young&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我爸忙时就让我吃， --&gt; (每当)我爸忙(的)时(侯)(他)就让我吃，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  When my father was busy, he would let me eat ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(On the left is my writing, and on the right is Tang Ho's suggestions/corrections.  The mental image I have is a father busy working on a computer, ignoring his daughter and distracting her with junk food.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my writing, I was trying to be succinct.  I certainly feel like adding &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%AF%8F%E5%BD%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;每当&lt;/a&gt; is an improvement (it's a new word for me) and conveys the idea that it happens repeatedly.  But maybe the other additions are unnecessary (?); I've seen these things omitted in writing previously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do we trade-off succinctness for accuracy in 每当我爸忙的时侯他就让我吃?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T04:04:18.653" Title="How do we trade-off succinctness for accuracy in 每当我爸忙的时侯他就让我吃?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35767" CreationDate="2019-11-25T03:43:02.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我爸忙时(他)就让我吃 is a correct translation for &lt;em&gt;When my father was busy, he would let me eat ...&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I guess your intended meaning is probably: &lt;em&gt;When my father was busy, he would &lt;strong&gt;not forbid&lt;/strong&gt; me from eating ...&lt;/em&gt;, 我爸忙时(他)就不管我吃东西&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T03:43:02.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35767" CreationDate="2019-11-25T04:04:18.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's nothing wrong with &quot;每当我爸忙时就让我吃&quot; I replaced &quot;忙时&quot; with &quot;忙的时侯&quot; because it is how modern colloquial Chinese would phrase it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronoun(他) in &quot;我爸忙时(他)就让我吃&quot; is not necessary because we know the subject is &quot;我爸&quot; from the context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T04:04:18.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35770" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35771" CreationDate="2019-11-25T10:59:48.910" Score="0" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've started reading 活着 which is supposedly a good book for new readers.  However, I'm having trouble understanding this part on page 7 (my translation).  [&lt;em&gt;Warning&lt;/em&gt;: it's about poop.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爹走到了城里，城里人见了都叫他先生。我爹是很有身份的人，可他拉屎时就像个穷人了。他不爱在屋里床边的马桶上拉屎，跟牲畜似的喜欢到野地里去拉屎。...&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;My father goes to the city, where city-folk meet him and call him &amp;quot;Mister&amp;quot;.  My father is a very esteemed person, but when he poops he's just like a poor person.  He does not like to poop in the toilet in his room.  Like livestock, he likes to go into the wilderness to poop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... 每天到了傍晚的时候，我爹&lt;strong&gt;打着饱嗝&lt;/strong&gt;，那声响和青蛙叫唤差不多，走出屋去，慢吞吞地朝村口的粪缸走去。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every day at dusk, my father [eats a lot and burps (??)], and it sounds like a frog's croak.  Leaving his room, he goes very slowly towards village entrance manure vat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走到了粪缸旁，他&lt;strong&gt;嫌缸沿脏&lt;/strong&gt;，就抬脚&lt;strong&gt;踩上去蹲在上面&lt;/strong&gt;。我爹年纪大了，屎也跟着老了，出来不容易，那时候我们全家人都会听到他在村口嗷嗷叫着。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;After reaching the manure vat, he [dislike vat dirtiness (??)], raises his foot, steps over and [crouches on top of it (??)].  My dad is elderly, and his poop is also old, and it doesn't come out easily.  At that time, our family members can all hear him at the village entrance shout &amp;quot;ao ao&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 打着饱嗝 and 嫌缸沿脏 and 踩上去蹲在上面 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translated 村口 to &amp;quot;village entrance&amp;quot;, but I'm not so sure about that too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T14:57:28.030" Title="What does 打着饱嗝 and 嫌缸沿脏 and 踩上去蹲在上面 mean in the novel 活着 p.7?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35770" CreationDate="2019-11-25T11:20:08.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;打饱嗝 = let out a (after full meal) belch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打着饱嗝 = letting out a (after full meal) belch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嫌 = dislike&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;缸沿 = edge of the (opening of) crock &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;脏 = dirty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嫌缸沿脏 = disgusted by the edge of the opening of the crock being dirty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;踩上去 = step upon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;蹲在上面 = crouch on top of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;踩上去蹲在上面 = step upon and crouch on top of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He was disgusted by the edge of the crock opening being dirty, didn't want to sit on it, so he stepped upon the edge of the crock and crouched on top of it (to take a dump)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T14:57:28.030" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T14:57:28.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34066" CreationDate="2019-11-25T14:12:29.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;「睇下」means 'take a look'&#xA;「我嘅」means 'my (thing)'&#xA;Kim is most probably a person's name. So I presume Kim is the one leaving the note. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole sentence means &quot;Take a look at mine!&quot; Kim is probably trying to show you something. (If that note is for you.)&#xA;No, it doesn't mean 'I am generous.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17879" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T14:12:29.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35773" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35775" CreationDate="2019-11-25T20:20:28.670" Score="4" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that 一带一路 sounds exactly right in Mandarin for Belt and Road.  But is there a general grammatical rule for why this uses 一?     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really does not mean &quot;one belt, one road,&quot; and if you wanted to say that you would use classifiers for 带 and 路.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T22:27:41.333" Title="What is the rule behind 一带一路?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34516" CreationDate="2019-11-25T20:22:55.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is currently no standard name for this theorem in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T20:22:55.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35773" CreationDate="2019-11-25T22:12:10.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a title of a project, not a sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「一带一路」」refers to &quot;The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「一带」(the one belt) refers to 「丝绸之路经济&lt;strong&gt;带&lt;/strong&gt;」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「一路」(the one road) refers to 「21世纪海上丝绸之&lt;strong&gt;路&lt;/strong&gt;」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are specific object, therefore the title cannot be just 「带和路」(belts and roads)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 「一个地带和一条通路」would be too wordy for a title. Not to mention 「丝绸之路经济带和21世纪海上丝绸之路」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T22:27:41.333" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T22:27:41.333" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35776" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35777" CreationDate="2019-11-26T00:26:31.213" Score="2" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;A girl asked me to help translate her introduction. I'm wondering, what is implied by 《三打白骨精》? Is this phrase used as an allegory or metaphor?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;《西游记》想必都是大家的童年回忆,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Journey to the West must be a childhood memory for all of us,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;《三打白骨精》更是最经典的场景之一，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The scene &quot;Three blows to the White Bone Spirit&quot; is perhaps one of the most classic scenes in the book,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;今天我们将以喜剧的形式又重现在舞台上，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;today, in comedy form, we will make this scene reappear on stage,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;接下来请欣赏话剧《三打白骨精》&lt;br&gt;&#xA;please enjoy the following play &quot;Three blows to the White Bone Spirit.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T03:05:30.833" Title="As an allegory, what is implied by 《三打白骨精》" Tags="&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35776" CreationDate="2019-11-26T02:44:38.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't believe there's any special implication. I bet it's just a fun story to watch, as it involves a beautiful female demon(妖精) trying to eat the monk(唐僧)'s meat to achieve immortality. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 白骨精 does have a modern interpretation which is short for 白领 + 骨干 + 精英, which is not related to this, but does (usually) refer to beautiful women, who are white collar elite worker, with high level education and income. Refer to definition here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%99%BD%E9%AA%A8%E7%B2%BE/16269738&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="22717" LastEditDate="2019-11-26T03:05:30.833" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T03:05:30.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16422" CreationDate="2019-11-26T03:30:26.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;自习&lt;/strong&gt;：practice by yourself. &#xA;When you said 自习, you more like describing the action, rather than the content. Also you still have teacher to teach you, but you just practice by yourself when no teacher around.(but you still have a teacher)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can think in this way: When you study in school, there are several study section. teacher teach you, practice when teacher around, practice when teacher not around. 自习 is the section to practice by yourself alone when teacher not around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自习 describe an action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;自学&lt;/strong&gt;：teach yourself without teacher.&#xA;if you watch online video course or tutorial, it still count 自学. kind of that you should manage your study progress by yourself, and there is no teacher who can give you any feedback. When you 自学 something, there is no 自习 section because you study by yourself all the time and no need to divide into &quot;practice by yourself&quot; section.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自学 describe a progress and an ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3292" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T03:30:26.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35780" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35783" CreationDate="2019-11-26T06:06:56.103" Score="1" ViewCount="52" Body="&lt;p&gt;Continuing from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35763/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-was-fat-when-she-was-young&quot;&gt;part 2&lt;/a&gt; (see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35746/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-and-the-revolutionary-new-technology&quot;&gt;part 1&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我妈注意到我当时变胖了，她想要帮我减肥但是长期以来的饮食习惯改不掉。&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%9A%BE%E9%81%93%E8%AF%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;难道说&lt;/a&gt; ，我已经&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%82%A3%E6%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;患有&lt;/a&gt;饮食&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A4%B1%E8%B0%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;失调&lt;/a&gt;了吗？我妈终于要求我总是忙于工作的爸爸帮我的忙，因此我爸带我去看医生。虽然我说“医生”，但即使到现在我也不确认。我问道，“老爸，我们去看医生吗？妈妈已经带我去看过了，但是没用”。我爸&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%8A%B9%E8%B1%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;犹豫&lt;/a&gt;地答道，“噢，这位医生不一样”。那么神秘的一句话！怎么“不一样”呢？现在我对那情况了解得更清楚，但是当时我才是小女孩。我经常去看医生，也相信我爸，没想到那件事影响我那么久。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please critique my writing.  Words with links are new for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically the idea is what &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/35764/8099&quot;&gt;Tang Ho&lt;/a&gt; said: &quot;Write more, get corrected more and analyze why a sentence you wrote is being corrected.&quot;  I've eventually concluded that it's not possible to learn Chinese without making many, many mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel totally blind a lot of the time: someone rewrites a sentence of mine and I'll feel is massively better, like I've been taken out of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Plato's cave&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English version:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My mother noticed I was getting fat, and she wanted to help me but a long-term eating habit is hard to break.  Perhaps I already have an eating disorder?  My mother eventually asked my father, who was always busy working, to help, so he took me to see a doctor.  While I say &quot;doctor&quot;, to this day I'm still not sure.  I asked &quot;Father, are we going to see the doctor? Mother already took me to see the doctor and it didn't work.&quot;  My father hesitantly replied &quot;oh, this doctor is not the same.&quot;  What a mysterious sentence!  How are they &quot;not the same&quot;?  These days I have a clearer understanding of the situation, but back then I was just a little girl.  I would often go to the doctor, and I trusted my father, I wouldn't have thought it has such a long-term impact on my life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T16:04:28.770" Title="Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang's father takes her to the &quot;doctor&quot;" Tags="&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35781" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-11-26T06:12:26.600" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-26T06:12:26.600" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T06:12:26.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35782" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-11-26T06:12:26.600" Score="0" Body="Requests for a review of the user's Chinese writing." OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-26T06:12:26.600" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T06:12:26.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35780" CreationDate="2019-11-26T06:55:08.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is my edition. Some are real grammar mistakes, some are more native way of phrasing. You can study it first, to see what you can discover on your own, and then ask specific questions on items you can't figure out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我妈注意到我当时变胖了，她想要帮我减肥但是长期以来的饮食习惯改不掉。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(当时)我妈注意到我变胖了，想要帮我减肥，但(我)(始終)改不掉长期以来的饮食习惯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;难道说 ，我已经患有饮食失调了吗？我妈终于要求我总是忙于工作的爸爸帮我的忙，因此我爸带我去看医生。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;难道说 ，我已经患有饮食失调了吗？(最后)我妈终于要求我(那个)总是忙于工作的爸爸帮忙。 (就这样)，我爸带(了)我去看医生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;虽然我说“医生”，但即使到现在我也不确认。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然说(是)“医生”，但到现在我也(不敢肯定)(那人真的是医生。)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我问道，“老爸，我们去看医生吗？妈妈已经带我去看过了，但是没用”。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我问道: “老爸，我们去看医生吗？妈妈已经带我去看过了，但是没用”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我爸犹豫地答道，“噢，这位医生不一样” 。 那么神秘的一句话！怎么“不一样”呢？ 现在我对那情况了解得更清楚，&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爸犹豫地答道: “噢，这位医生不一样”。 (当时我心想): &amp;quot;(真是)神秘的一句话！怎么'不一样'呢？&amp;quot; (到了)现在我(才)更(清楚了解)(当时的)情况，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;但是当时我才是小女孩。我经常去看医生，也相信我爸， 没想到那件事影响我那么久。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但当时我(還)小。(而且)经常去看医生，也相信我爸， 没想到那件事(對我的)影响(會)那么(深)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T11:57:03.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35784" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-26T11:39:10.337" Score="0" ViewCount="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is related to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35780/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwangs-father-takes-her-to-the-doctor&quot;&gt;Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang&amp;#39;s father takes her to the &amp;quot;doctor&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;.  In particular:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;English version: These days I have a clearer understanding of the situation, ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  My version: 现在我对那情况了解得更清楚 ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/35783/8099&quot;&gt;Tang Ho&lt;/a&gt;'s version: 到了现在我才清楚了解当时的情况 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I got rid of the brackets.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The message I want to get across is that the situation is &lt;em&gt;clearer than before&lt;/em&gt;, but this doesn't imply the situation is completely clear [there's still things which are unexplained].  It's why I chose to use 更清楚 which I intended to mean &quot;more clear&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unsure, but I think Tang Ho's version implies it's &quot;completely clear&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does 到了现在我才清楚了解当时的情况 imply that the situation is completely clear, or just that it's clearer than before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T13:26:07.033" Title="Does 到了现在我才清楚了解当时的情况 imply that the situation is completely clear, or just that it's clearer than before?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35784" CreationDate="2019-11-26T11:50:53.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;到了现在我才清楚了解当时的情况&quot; means &quot;the situation is completely clear for me now&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;Now I understand more clearly about the situation back then&quot; It should be &quot;到了现在我才(更)清楚了解当时的情况&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It implies you had some understanding back then, but now this understanding is more clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did not read your English translation. My editing is totally based on the impression I got from your Chinese writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-26T12:05:11.637" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T12:05:11.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35784" CreationDate="2019-11-26T13:26:07.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;clearer understanding&quot; may not be accurate for your context. I would think you don't quite clear of the situation, and now you are clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, it should go like: as a little girl, I don't quite understand the situation. But now I understand it. In Chinese, it could be: 我那时年纪小还不太懂，现在我才清楚是怎么回事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T13:26:07.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35780" CreationDate="2019-11-26T16:04:28.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you did a great job! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you let me correct, I would change the following sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;但是(我)长期以来的饮食习惯改不掉&lt;/code&gt; - to change the subject from mom to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;但即使到现在我也不确(定)&lt;/code&gt; - 确认 is to confirm something, 确定 is a status， and here we need a status &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T16:04:28.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35788" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-26T17:30:15.420" Score="1" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a list of simplified Chinese radicals? The radical 159 车 consists of 7 strokes, in fact it is its traditional version 車 which includes 7 strokes ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11960" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T01:42:23.957" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T05:03:52.650" Title="Is there a list of simplified Chinese radicals?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;radicals&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33969" CreationDate="2019-11-27T00:00:15.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;玄机 basically means the tricky/wicked logic behind scene which you or normal people will never think of, but it actually work very well in the reality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However,the case here is kind of wrong way. but it might borrow the word and express the similar meaning. because here it actually means funky and funny logic which might make you laugh. 知难而上 =&gt;知男而上 it is just Chinese word trick&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3292" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T00:00:15.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31549" CreationDate="2019-11-27T00:26:00.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;挺 is a tricky word. It make people feel &quot;very but not quite&quot; and you should expected &quot;but&quot; after sentence. If no sentence after it, you might ask for &quot;why not?&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when sentence has 挺 as adv., It might mean &quot;has high intention to do something but not enough motivation to do it because always has something stop me to do it.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 我挺喜欢她的:I quite like her.(but I do not have motivation to go next step of relationship with her, because there something stop my motivation.)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if 挺 is before adjective, It make people feel &quot;very but not quite, something off&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;她挺美的：she is very beautiful (but not quite, something off. for some reason, I just do not like her beauty)&#xA;他挺坏的： he is pretty bad.(but not quite bad, something off. for some reason, I just like this feeling)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3292" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T00:26:00.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35788" CreationDate="2019-11-27T01:32:06.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there's quite a few around.  My favorite is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/sinograms.html?r&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Search by Radical&lt;/a&gt; at chinese-tools.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a screenshot:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/d01PXb3B/Screenshot-from-2019-11-27-09-26-47.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ycZwn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stack Exchange&lt;/a&gt; version of the image.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T01:32:06.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35793" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-27T03:19:49.010" Score="4" ViewCount="453" Body="&lt;p&gt;This text is talking about the lights in 广州湛涌村。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由于如秋后，广州的日照时间缩短，自花苗上盆起，花农们就会利用电灯补光来延迟花期。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This bit confused me (I'm easily confused). Is it right that 自 ... 起 work together as 'from when' or 'starting from when' here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自...起 since&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;自&lt;/strong&gt;花苗上盆&lt;strong&gt;起&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;starting from when the seedlings are put in their pots&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is right, you can clearly see the power of Chinese to express ideas in a very concise manner!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T08:13:28.570" Title="Do 自 and 起 work together here?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35793" CreationDate="2019-11-27T03:38:14.880" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;自...起 since&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is correct, &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;自&lt;/strong&gt;???&lt;strong&gt;起&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Since&lt;/strong&gt; ???&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;自 = from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;起 = begin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(自) ??? (起)&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;(begin from) ???&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;(Since)&lt;/strong&gt;???&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;自&lt;/strong&gt;七月&lt;strong&gt;起&lt;/strong&gt;禁止捕魚&amp;quot; (Ban on fishing &lt;strong&gt;since&lt;/strong&gt; July)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other common structures with 自:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;自&lt;/strong&gt;(from) ??? &lt;strong&gt;以來&lt;/strong&gt;(thereafter)&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;since&lt;/strong&gt; ???&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &lt;strong&gt;自&lt;/strong&gt;美國立國&lt;strong&gt;以來&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;Since&lt;/strong&gt; the founding of the United States &lt;em&gt;thereafter&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;自&lt;/strong&gt; (from) ??? &lt;strong&gt;以後&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;之後&lt;/strong&gt; (after)&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;since&lt;/strong&gt; ???&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. &lt;strong&gt;自&lt;/strong&gt;美國立國&lt;strong&gt;以後&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;Since&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; the founding of the United States)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T04:03:08.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35444" CreationDate="2019-11-27T08:06:16.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;「顾名思义」可以很好描述这种情况。由「阶乘」的名字可以推断其含义。「顾名思义」不等同于「从字面上理解」。「顾名思义」通常意味着这个名字取得好，很简洁，能准确的反应其意义。如果一个名字很长，例如中华人民共和国中央政府，一般不能使用「顾名思义」这个词，但是可以使用「逐字理解」。「顾名思义」通常还要求对名字的理解/推断是正确的，与它类似的一个词「望文生义」也表示从字面推断其含义，但是对应的推断是错误的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「顾名思义」好像并没有什么特别好的同义词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23152" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T08:06:16.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35793" CreationDate="2019-11-27T08:13:28.570" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, your understanding is right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「自...起」 can be used for a point in time as well as in location. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 「自第二层起，所有楼层都是住宅」 meaning that “from the second floor, all floors are residential”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23152" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T08:13:28.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35788" CreationDate="2019-11-27T08:23:28.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a list of Chinese radicals, including both simplified and traditional versions. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Index:Chinese_radical&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Index:Chinese_radical&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23152" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T08:23:28.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="936" CreationDate="2019-11-27T08:27:35.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is so wrong interpreting 危机  (crisis / dangerous situation) which is made up of:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;危 险 = danger (definitive meaning)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;机 会 = opportunity (definitive meaning) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as &quot;within a situation of danger, (a crisis), there are also opportunities to be had&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as in English, the phrase &quot;bitter-sweet&quot; has to be wrong because you cannot have anything both bitter and sweet at the same time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase, bitter-sweet, has therefore to be interpreted to make any sense. Just drink a cup of sweetened coffee and you know what I mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I therefore see no objection to &quot;interpreting&quot; 危 机, which by itself means crisis / situation of danger, as contextually having within it elements of both danger and opportunities. Just as in a cup of sweetened coffee there are both elements of sweetness and bitterness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23155" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T08:27:35.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16422" CreationDate="2019-11-27T08:33:48.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;自 means by oneself. &#xA;学 usually means to learn something new. &#xA;习 usually means to review something which has been learned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23152" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T08:33:48.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33969" CreationDate="2019-11-27T08:45:13.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this talking is in such a situation:&#xA;1. The chengyu 知难而上 is used in a sentence. &#xA;2. Your friend said that 你没看出来这里面的玄机 and he explained that 知难而上 can be understood as 知男而上. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mystery (玄机) is that the sentence uses 知难而上 instead of 知男而上, since they have the same pronounce. Why this is a mystery? Because you cannot understand the sentence if you do not know the original word 知男而上 for 知难而上. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23152" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T08:45:13.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35801" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-27T11:07:28.063" Score="1" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this a correct translation? Emphasis on being colloquial - the tone similar to Eminem's &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pIvCLVy-mU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Y'all act like you never seen a white person before&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What, you look like you've never seen a Chinese girl speak English before! 您真的没看到中国女孩说英语吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22007" LastEditorUserId="22007" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T23:38:27.713" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T09:37:45.950" Title="Is &quot;Have never seen&quot; translated as 没看到" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35801" CreationDate="2019-11-27T11:17:21.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you look like you've never seen a Chinese girl speak English before！ // 您真的没看到&lt;strong&gt;过&lt;/strong&gt;中国女孩说英语吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T11:17:21.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35801" CreationDate="2019-11-27T12:33:26.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;What, you look like you [&lt;strong&gt;have never seen&lt;/strong&gt;] a Chinese girl speak English before! &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;什麼？你看起來就像你[&lt;strong&gt;從未看見過&lt;/strong&gt;]中國女孩說英語似的&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;什麼？你看起來就像你[&lt;strong&gt;從未見過&lt;/strong&gt;]中國女孩說英語似的&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;起&quot; in &quot;看起來&quot; and the second &quot;你&quot; can be omitted; &quot;没&quot; can replace &quot;未&quot; ; &quot;看到&quot; can replace &quot;看見&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T12:44:11.170" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T12:44:11.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35801" CreationDate="2019-11-27T13:42:36.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您真的没看到中国女孩说英语吗？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;What, you look like you've never seen a Chinese girl speak English before!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;It needs a 过&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/35802/8099&quot;&gt;dan&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/35803/8099&quot;&gt;Tang Ho&lt;/a&gt; indicate, it's missing a 过.  See &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_experiences_with_%22guo%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing experiences with &amp;quot;guo&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aspect particle 过 (guo) is used to indicate that an &lt;strong&gt;action has been experienced&lt;/strong&gt; in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他没看到我。  He doesn't see me. [perhaps present tense, e.g., 他 could refer to a taxi driver who doesn't see you]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他没看到&lt;strong&gt;过&lt;/strong&gt;我。  He has never seen me. [past tense = &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%BF%87%E5%8E%BB%E5%BC%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;过&lt;/strong&gt;去式&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Result complement&lt;/a&gt; for more about 没看到.  There's also a related question here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/8443/what-is-the-difference-between-%e7%9c%8b%e5%88%b0-and-%e7%9c%8b%e8%bf%87&quot;&gt;What is the difference between 看到 and 看过?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Other issues:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After adding in the 过, the Chinese and the given English translation don't match:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;您真的没看到&lt;strong&gt;过&lt;/strong&gt;中国女孩说英语吗？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;You really have never seen [a] Chinese girl speak English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The given Chinese sentence does not imply &amp;quot;you look like&amp;quot;.  To this end, we need some combination of &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%9C%8B%E8%B5%B7%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;看起来&lt;/a&gt; = &amp;quot;appear&amp;quot; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A5%BD%E5%83%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;好像&lt;/a&gt; = &amp;quot;as if&amp;quot; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B0%B1%E5%83%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;就像&lt;/a&gt; (there's other possibilities like &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BC%BC%E4%B9%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;似乎&lt;/a&gt;).  But this seems wordy in both Chinese and English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I feel like there's a mismatch between &lt;a href=&quot;https://youdao.com/w/%E6%82%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;您&lt;/a&gt; (nín), the polite form of &amp;quot;you&amp;quot; and the informal tone of the rhetorical question.  Indeed, by using 您 it sounds like you're asking a serious question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There's no equivalent to &amp;quot;never&amp;quot; in the Chinese.  It could be included with &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BB%8E%E6%9D%A5%E6%B2%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;从来没&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BB%8E%E6%9C%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;从未&lt;/a&gt;.  I think 从来 is first encountered when learning Chinese, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this context, I don't see a big distinction between &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B2%A1%E7%9C%8B%E8%BF%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;没看过&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B2%A1%E7%9C%8B%E5%88%B0%E8%BF%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;没看到过&lt;/a&gt; here, or even &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B2%A1%E7%9C%8B%E8%A7%81%E8%BF%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;没看见过&lt;/a&gt;.  (There's some websites which discuss &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/294011694&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;看 vs. 看到&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/36133453.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;看 vs. 看见&lt;/a&gt;, which seems to indicate all three are okay.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is no &amp;quot;What&amp;quot; in the translation.  Literally it's &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;什么&lt;/a&gt;, but I'd instead suggest &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%97%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;嗯&lt;/a&gt; as a grunt of surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese is a question, whereas the English is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Rhetorical questions using 难道&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A nice way to phrase rhetorical questions is with &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%9A%BE%E9%81%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;难道&lt;/a&gt; which means something like &amp;quot;don't tell me that ...&amp;quot;, which takes a bit of getting used to.  See &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Rhetorical_questions_with_%22nandao%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rhetorical questions with &amp;quot;nandao&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嗯，你难道从来没看过中国女孩说英语吗？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Oh!  Have you never seen [a] Chinese girl speak English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this captures the spirit of the question well, i.e., expressing surprise and disbelief.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T13:42:36.217" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35805" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35818" CreationDate="2019-11-27T14:04:30.813" Score="3" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across a couple of vowel diagrams. Here one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lxqxV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lxqxV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AGrOa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AGrOa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not really sure how to interpenetrate these charts. Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T15:36:37.593" Title="How to read these vowel diagrams?" Tags="&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35805" CreationDate="2019-11-27T15:46:46.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;具体说来，人的发音机制，大抵为肺部产生气压，由流体力学原理，声带周期性开合形成周期性&lt;strong&gt;声门波&lt;/strong&gt;，经过声道调制形成输出声波。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个过程可以视为&lt;strong&gt;脉冲幅度调制&lt;/strong&gt;，即&lt;strong&gt;周期冲激信号&lt;/strong&gt;经过&lt;strong&gt;成形滤波&lt;/strong&gt;后再通过&lt;strong&gt;幅度调制&lt;/strong&gt;系统。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对最终的声波行&lt;strong&gt;短时傅立叶变换&lt;/strong&gt;，并将窗长取较大值（一般在两个&lt;strong&gt;基音周期&lt;/strong&gt;以上）使频域波形&lt;strong&gt;混叠&lt;/strong&gt;，能够得到每次变换时刻的声音&lt;strong&gt;频谱&lt;/strong&gt;，将之作于横轴为时间，纵轴为频率，颜色深浅为幅度的图中，由于混叠假设，能够形成纵带状图样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;元音之分别，即在于其幅度&lt;strong&gt;谱包络&lt;/strong&gt;之形状，以峰值表征，并循增序排列，将其&lt;strong&gt;共振峰&lt;/strong&gt;标记为f1，f2（当然可能还有f3，f4等，但由人类听觉特别敏感的频率大约在几百至三千赫兹，所以频率更高的峰意义不如之前重大），以此为横纵坐标作图即得到你看到的图。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外值得注意的是，除非有超强的绝对音感，想要听出共振峰的频率是不可能的；另外即便知道共振峰的分布，人（一般）不具有精确主观调动肌肉改变声带调制特性的能力——也即，以上的图并不能直接指导发音，顶多只是记录罢了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The scientific terms are in bold font... If you are interested you may google them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T15:12:29.883" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T15:12:29.883" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35807" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-27T17:16:37.337" Score="1" ViewCount="37" Body="&lt;p&gt;做我被拒绝的舞蹈! Doing my &quot;got-rejected&quot; dance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Final answer: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;被拒绝后，我气得直跺脚跳 &quot;我被拒绝后的舞蹈!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22007" LastEditorUserId="22007" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T07:12:46.100" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T07:12:46.100" Title="Does this type of colloquial compound adjective translate directly: &quot;got-rejected dance&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;adverbs&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35808" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35811" CreationDate="2019-11-27T18:49:16.960" Score="2" ViewCount="329" Body="&lt;p&gt;例如, 一个人无论如何也学不会1+1=2怎么计算的时候可以说: 那个人智商 (真是) &lt;strong&gt;低&lt;/strong&gt;的&lt;strong&gt;发指&lt;/strong&gt;, 怎么教都教不会. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;问题: 汉语中有类似的句子描述一个人很容易上当受骗吗? 句型: 这么简单的骗术你都信, 你 (真是) XXX. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;XXX中不能有人身攻击, 必须切实到被描述者的真实情况. 在上面句子中&quot;&lt;strong&gt;那个人智商 (真是) 低的发指&lt;/strong&gt;, 怎么教都教不会&quot;前半句&quot;客观&quot;的描述了后半句的起因, 而不是一句骂人的气话. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最后, 我知道这个问题不是很礼貌. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20407" LastEditorDisplayName="user20407" LastEditDate="2019-12-07T06:19:37.993" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T06:19:37.993" Title="&quot;easily fooled&quot; in Chinese(slang)" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;slang&gt;&lt;spoken&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35808" CreationDate="2019-11-27T21:05:41.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;很蠢、很笨、笨笨的、呆呆的、没脑子、智商低、白痴、很傻、很呆、脑子不太灵光 etc etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it depends on the context to decide which one to use...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think 智商低的发指 is commonly used...发指 normally refers to someone/something very bad. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T21:05:41.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35808" CreationDate="2019-11-27T21:52:54.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/35291/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;羊牯&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;[n] an innocent fool, &lt;strong&gt;someone easily duped&lt;/strong&gt;, an ordinary person (lit., &amp;quot;castrated sheep&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/14362/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;水魚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;strong&gt;a dupe&lt;/strong&gt;; &lt;strong&gt;a sucker&lt;/strong&gt;; target or victim of a (pecuniary) fraud; to be tricked (Cantonese only)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A person can't learn 1+1 = 2 is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/26976/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;弱智人士&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/26178/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;智障人士&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;羊牯 and 水魚 are slang, for common phrase, a person that is easy to trick is being &lt;strong&gt;好騙&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;令人发指&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;outrageous&amp;quot; . Not a suitable word to use for &amp;quot;弱智人士/ 智障人士&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T03:40:31.930" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35808" CreationDate="2019-11-27T23:20:19.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;一般这种词都有贬义。如果委婉一点，我们可以说: &lt;em&gt;这个人头脑太简单了&lt;/em&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;问题: 汉语中有类似的句子描述一个人很容易上当受骗吗? 句型: 这么简单的骗术你都信, 你(真是)XXX.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, we can say: 你太容易上当了 or 你太好骗了. 你太傻了 or 你太笨了 might sound derogatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T23:35:08.403" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T23:35:08.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35807" CreationDate="2019-11-27T23:25:06.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not colloquial, normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跳他们不让我表演的舞蹈。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Dance the dance which they would not let me perform.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[relative clause] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A relative clause is an extended, trailing adjective. Chinese knows no relative clauses. Chinese puts these kind of things first. Case considerations precluded the use of such adjectives before nouns in Western languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dance the [which they would not let me perform] dance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dance the dance [(which) they would not let me perform].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;跳 [他们不让我表演的] 舞蹈。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ah, well, in that case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I stamped my feet in anger at my rejection. = I danced my &quot;I've-been-rejected&quot; dance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;被拒绝后，我气得直跺脚.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T03:25:45.577" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T03:25:45.577" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35807" CreationDate="2019-11-28T00:13:46.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no direct Chinese phrase to express this. It's a culture thing. We don't usually dance as an counteraction of rejection. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we'd probably say 我的表白被拒了(My confession of love has been rejected)，我要去跳舞发泄一下(I will go dance to blow off some steam)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T00:13:46.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35814" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35815" CreationDate="2019-11-28T03:32:39.523" Score="1" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is correct to translate &quot;The first day of a fast&quot; (fast — in religious meaning) as: 第一天快? Or the better to use 的: 第一天的快?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23158" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T09:02:09.667" Title="Usage of 的: The first day of (or without of) a fast?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35814" CreationDate="2019-11-28T04:22:07.177" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When 'fast' refers to no food/drink/both/[sometimes sex] for a period of time by religion (Ramadan, for example), it's &quot;斋戒.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 'fast' refers to no food/drink/both for a period of time for political reasons (hunger strike), it's &quot;绝食/绝食抗议.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When 'fast' refers to no food/drink/both for a period of time for medical purposes (blood test/surgery), it's &quot;禁食 (verb)/空腹（adj.).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;快&quot; means &quot;quick/fast/high speed&quot; in adj.  &quot;about to/nearly&quot; in adv.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In you case, I would say &quot;斋戒(的)第一天。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3436" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T09:02:09.667" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T09:02:09.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35807" CreationDate="2019-11-28T05:28:10.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;做我被拒绝的舞蹈!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Doing my got-rejected dance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Grammar problems&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%81%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;做&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;to do&quot;) is mismatched with &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%88%9E%E8%B9%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;舞蹈&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;dance&quot;); it should be &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%B7%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;跳&lt;/a&gt;, as in &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%B7%B3%E8%88%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;跳舞&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;to dance&quot;).  My impression is that using 做 sounds like you're &lt;em&gt;inventing&lt;/em&gt; a new dance (here 做 = &quot;to make&quot;), e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%88%9E%E5%9B%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;舞团&lt;/a&gt;刚&lt;strong&gt;做的新舞蹈&lt;/strong&gt;，跳出别样的&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%88%9E%E5%A7%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;舞姿&lt;/a&gt;，是我&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%90%91%E5%BE%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;向往&lt;/a&gt;的生活 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://haokan.baidu.com/v?pd=wisenatural&amp;amp;vid=4650635562047153801&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [The] dance group just invented a new dance, and performs different kind of positions; it's the life I yearn for.  (my translation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We need to indicate that the rejection happened in the past.  This can be done using &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_completion_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;completion 了&lt;/a&gt;, or with &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%90%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;后&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BB%A5%E5%90%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;以后&lt;/a&gt; (see: &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/After_a_specific_time_with_%22yihou%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;After a specific time with &quot;yihou&quot;&lt;/a&gt;).  Such as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%9B%B8%E4%BA%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;相亲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;strong&gt;被拒绝了的&lt;/strong&gt;感受是什么呢？ (&lt;a href=&quot;https://know.baidu.com/question/06847ca8beb5c5173fd2adb31dfd423807f5dd1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  What are the blind-date post-rejection feelings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;谈谈&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%82%80%E8%AF%B7/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;邀请&lt;/a&gt;女士跳舞&lt;strong&gt;被拒绝后的&lt;/strong&gt;心里感受 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/ca5cad3780eb6294dc886c36.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Discuss post-[inviting a woman to dance and being rejected] feelings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, I feel 后 is a more natural choice: it feels more immediate, and like a reaction to the rejection.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the original Chinese says something like &quot;inventing a my-rejection dance&quot;.  I believe fixing these points gives the correct meaning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;跳&lt;/strong&gt;我被拒绝&lt;strong&gt;后&lt;/strong&gt;的舞蹈！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Doing my post-rejection dance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this seems outside of the Chinese cultural sphere and might not be easy to understand [this happens a lot!], and seems why the other answers focus on giving alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T05:28:10.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1888" CreationDate="2019-11-28T06:34:30.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it means &amp;quot;here you go&amp;quot;.  This certainly confused me when I arrived in China.  (To be fair, the English &amp;quot;here you go&amp;quot; doesn't make any literal sense either.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Directly translated, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BB%99%E4%BD%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;给你&lt;/a&gt; indeed means &amp;quot;give you&amp;quot;.  However in English, when someone &lt;em&gt;gives&lt;/em&gt; you something, we usually expect it to be a gift.  When using 给你, it doesn't necessarily mean a gift: it might do (e.g. in  给你个礼物) but not always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When interacting with a shopkeeper, 给你 doesn't mean a gift.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BB%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;给&lt;/a&gt; (gěi) vs. &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%80%81%E7%BB%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;送给&lt;/a&gt; (sòng gěi)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;给&lt;/strong&gt;你一百元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a normal thing to say when giving a 100 yuan note to a shopkeeper.  &lt;strong&gt;It's not a gift: it counts towards the payment of something&lt;/strong&gt;, and the shopkeeper will still give you change.  It's a good way to highlight how you know it's 100 yuan you have given them [so they can't later claim you gave them a 50 yuan note].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;送给&lt;/strong&gt;你一百元&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the version of &amp;quot;give&amp;quot; which implies it's a gift.  Thanks for the 100 yuan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T06:34:30.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35805" CreationDate="2019-11-28T06:36:18.037" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In pronouncing any given vowel, the recorded &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrogram&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;frequency spectrum&lt;/a&gt; will show distinct amplitude peaks (of the frequency spectrum). These peaks are called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;formants&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and it is commonly accepted that the two lowest frequency formants taken together are enough to characterise the vowel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;first formant&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;F&lt;sub&gt;1&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; is the lowest frequency formant, and the &lt;strong&gt;second formant&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;F&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; is the second lowest frequency formant, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GZnhC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GZnhC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Spectrogram of American English vowels [i, u, ɑ] showing the formants F1 and F2. The darkness of the band corresponds to the height of the amplitude/frequency plot; darkest areas show local peaks. From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formant#/media/File:Spectrogram_-iua-.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formant#/media/File:Spectrogram_-iua-.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;F&lt;sub&gt;1&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; frequency (range) corresponds to the perceived &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel#Height&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;openness/height&lt;/a&gt; of the vowel, and the &lt;em&gt;F&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; frequency (range) corresponds to the perceived &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel#Backness&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;backness&lt;/a&gt; of the vowel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KrngK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KrngK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Wikipedia IPA vowel chart&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To demonstrate the effect of the &lt;em&gt;F&lt;sub&gt;1&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;F&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; components on vowels, you can use artificial vowel generators which take these parameters to produce audible vowels, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://auditoryneuroscience.com/vocalizations-speech/two-formants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://auditoryneuroscience.com/vocalizations-speech/two-formants&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, consider the&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chengdu&lt;/a&gt; /o/ sound, which the graph says is at &lt;em&gt;F&lt;sub&gt;1&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; ≈ 440, &lt;em&gt;F&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; ≈ 600 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pengzhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pengzhou&lt;/a&gt; /o/ sound, which the graph says is at &lt;em&gt;F&lt;sub&gt;1&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; ≈ 550, &lt;em&gt;F&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; ≈ 875 Hz&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The corresponding artificial vowels are (unmute the audio in the imgur image)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/wWwMxRm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chengdu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/OkyuSdn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pengzhou&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Produced from auditoryneuroscience.com with a fundamental frequency of 110 Hz&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T15:36:37.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="936" CreationDate="2019-11-28T07:53:11.053" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;QUOTE:- &quot;Contextually 机 appears in lots of words where it doesn't bring the meaning of &quot;opportunity&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's not entirely true, for in other areas it does. We therefore have  机 不 可 失， (don't let slip an opportunity)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please don't get me wrong. I am not disputing that 机 does have many other meanings, context which have nothing to do with &quot;opportunity&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such as machine, engine, 生 机，(lease of life), etc, as Kenny Li correctly pointed out. I am saying that he has not explored the wider range of uses for 机&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We therefore also have areas where 机, (used singularly), means opportunity, such 机 遇，(favorable opportunity)，and 趁 机, (take or seize the opportunity) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is that there is nothing contextually, linguistically wrong or improper to read  or interpret the 机 in 危 机 as &quot;opportunity&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And therefore when people, motivational speakers, politicians say that in a crisis, a 危 机 situation of danger, there are also opportunities to be seized or had by, if you like, unscrupulous opportunists, (as in a war, there are opportunities for gun runners), I have no particular linguistic objections.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T12:17:02.823" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T12:17:02.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="936" CreationDate="2019-11-28T09:05:44.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have clearly demonstrated, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8D%B1%E6%9C%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;危机&lt;/a&gt; does not simply break apart into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8D%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;危&lt;/a&gt; short for &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8D%B1%E9%99%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;危险&lt;/a&gt; (danger) and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;机&lt;/a&gt; short for &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%BA%E4%BC%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;机会&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%BA%E9%81%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;机遇&lt;/a&gt; (opportunity).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, that's not how Chinese works.  However, it is sometimes used idiomatically.  Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;危机，既是危险也是机遇 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/145186419_784258&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;危机等于危险加机遇「危机中的机遇」 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rhlawyer.com/falvwenben/2018/1225/11675.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;危机，有危险也有机遇 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.360doc.com/content/08/1112/23/21414_1914060.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;危机传播：危机与机遇并存 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://tieba.baidu.com/p/6041086973?red_tag=2825798515&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;危机=危险+机遇 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://club.1688.com/threadview/49025110.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searing Baidu for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E5%8D%B1%E6%9C%BA%20%E5%8D%B1%E9%99%A9%20%E6%9C%BA%E9%81%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;危机 危险 机遇&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; gives many pages of examples.  It may have evolved from improper usage, but that's how languages develop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, we might say &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;there's no I in team&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.  Obviously, there's a whole lot of words that don't contain I (and my sister likes to point out how there's an &quot;m&quot; and an &quot;e&quot;); it's illogical to think it has the same implications for every non-I-containing word.  You're meant to forego the literal meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T09:05:44.587" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35801" CreationDate="2019-11-28T09:37:45.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What, you look like you've never seen a Chinese girl speak English before!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不是, 你这就像从来没见过中国女生说英语一样! [or 你是从没见过中国女生说英语么!?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;过&quot; is necessary since we used &quot;have seen&quot;. So the answer to the title is: no, not good enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T09:37:45.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35823" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35824" CreationDate="2019-11-28T10:59:22.787" Score="2" ViewCount="331" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the novel 活着 (p.8):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我长大以后喜欢往城里跑，常常是&lt;strong&gt;十天半月&lt;/strong&gt;不回家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got no real idea what 十天半月 means.  Baidu suggests 十天半个月 is more common.  Literally it says &quot;10 days; fortnight&quot;.  The closest to an answer I could find is &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/814711244493832052.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Zhidao&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Answer 1: 半个月之类 一星期以上 类似于 上中下旬&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Answer 2: 10~15天之间&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't make sense of the first answer, and I have no idea if the second answer is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 十天半月 (or 十天半个月) mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T08:44:32.413" Title="What does 十天半月 (or 十天半个月) mean?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35823" CreationDate="2019-11-28T11:24:24.223" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;十天半月 or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/%E5%8D%81%E5%A4%A9%E5%8D%8A%E5%80%8B%E6%9C%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;十天半個月&lt;/a&gt; means 十天～半個月 (10 days to half a month).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我長大以後喜歡往城裏跑，常常是十天半月不回家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;After I grew up, I loved going into the city, often not returning home for about a fortnight at a time.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference, both the Baidu Zhidao answers say approximately the same thing. 上中下旬 means &lt;em&gt;the first, second, or third period of a month&lt;/em&gt;, with a period of a month being a 旬 (10 days).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T11:31:56.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29465" CreationDate="2019-11-28T11:56:42.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Chinese (mainland) national standard, only the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;metric prefix&lt;/a&gt; &amp;quot;mega-&amp;quot; (for 10&lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt;) is 兆, while a trillion (10&lt;sup&gt;12&lt;/sup&gt;) should always be 万亿, never 兆.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 一兆字节 (or 一兆 for short) means one megabyte (1 MB), and 一兆赫 means one megahertz (1 MHz).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zjj.beijing.gov.cn/wsbs/infoview.asp?ViewID=50494&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zjj.beijing.gov.cn/wsbs/infoview.asp?ViewID=50494&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10的6次方    兆   M&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10的4次方称为万，10的8次方称为亿，10的12次方称为万亿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, most people use 兆 for 10&lt;sup&gt;12&lt;/sup&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T12:34:00.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28569" CreationDate="2019-11-28T12:23:34.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Chinese (mainland) national standard, only the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;metric prefix&lt;/a&gt; &amp;quot;mega-&amp;quot; (for 10&lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt;) is 兆, while a trillion (10&lt;sup&gt;12&lt;/sup&gt;) should always be 万亿, never 兆.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 一兆字节 (or 一兆 for short) means one megabyte (1 MB), and 一兆赫 means one megahertz (1 MHz).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zjj.beijing.gov.cn/wsbs/infoview.asp?ViewID=50494&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://zjj.beijing.gov.cn/wsbs/infoview.asp?ViewID=50494&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10的6次方    兆   M&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10的4次方称为万，10的8次方称为亿，10的12次方称为万亿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, most people use 兆 for 10&lt;sup&gt;12&lt;/sup&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T12:32:51.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21462" CreationDate="2019-11-28T19:05:17.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just wanted to post an answer rather than edit my question, I hope this is ok. I think this information might be helpful to introductory students who browse this forum and are interested in taking the lower level HSK's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's been just over 3 years, but I did take the HSK 3 test and passed. I did very well on the listening and reading portions but not so well on the writing portion. This is different from what I expected -- I expected to do poorly on the listening but good on the other two parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The software for entering the characters was very difficult to use. However, I don't know if that varies according to location, and maybe it changes from time to time. It would have been very nice if it was available for download to practice with ahead of time. I expected to get a perfect score on the writing part since I knew how to handwrite with correct stroke order more than 700 characters at the time of the test. I was also very skilled at using several computer keyboard pinyin systems (I was very proficient with Android's).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, I found the difficulty of the test to be very similar to the practice exams that I had found online. It may have been just slightly more difficult, but was very comparable. I would recommend being able to complete online HSK materials with high scores before going in to the actual official exam at the same level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T19:05:17.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35823" CreationDate="2019-11-28T22:15:10.267" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a native speaker, for your example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我长大以后喜欢往城里跑，常常是十天半月不回家。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning of 十天半月 is actually vague here. It can mean 10-15 days, or it possibly means a long period of time, so every reader can have different understanding of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that the numbers in Chinese usually are not accurate, so even the guy usually not returning to home for two months, we can still say &quot;他常常十天半月不回家&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23165" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T22:15:10.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35829" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-29T00:37:30.213" Score="1" ViewCount="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;This text is talking about 苗族人酷爱银饰。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look up 载体 I find things I don't really understand, like: vector, carrier. I find: 用来承载软体的媒介。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;银饰早已不是单纯的装饰品，而是植根于苗族社会生活的文化载体。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to translate 文化载体 as 'cultural identity'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have a better suggestion, please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T00:53:18.413" Title="How should I translate 载体 here?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35829" CreationDate="2019-11-29T00:53:18.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;how about: 文化载体  'cultural carrier' or 'cultural media'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T00:53:18.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35831" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35832" CreationDate="2019-11-29T03:38:46.407" Score="2" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;For words like 衣服 and 朋友, we can pronounce either with full tones as yi¹fu² and peng²you³, or with neutralized tones of the second syllable like yi¹fu⁰ and peng²you⁰.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then comes 暖和 which confuses me. In the Taiwanese dictionaries that otherwise show full tones, this word is still spelled as nuan³huo⁰. What would be the tone of 和 if it was not neutralized? Or is this maybe a wrong question; does this syllable 和 huo⁰ only exist in neutral tone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20431" LastEditorUserId="20431" LastEditDate="2019-11-29T04:42:28.223" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T07:40:23.457" Title="Tone of 和 in 暖和" Tags="&lt;tones&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35831" CreationDate="2019-11-29T05:10:50.577" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;和 read huo has four pronunciations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;huō&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;huó&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;huò&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;huo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Liang’an&lt;/em&gt; defines neutral huo as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;形容某種使人感到舒適的狀態。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and gives the following example words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;暖和&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;熱和&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;軟和。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The definitions of the other pronunciations of huo certainly don’t fit. Why? Well because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;huō can only be found in the word 傻傻和和 which means stupid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;huó basically only means: to mix with water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;huò means to mix or to blend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this answer isn’t very satisfying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing that the 和 in 暖和 is the same as the one in 软和 then we can look back at an entry in &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;软和话儿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The given Pinyin for this word is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ruǎnhuóhuàr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 和 is marked huó. It fits the idea that sometimes these 和 words are also pronounced he and hé. For instance &lt;em&gt;MOE&lt;/em&gt; has the entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;暖和和&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;written as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;nuǎn hé hé&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again: it’s second tone. So if you want an answer with a tone &amp;amp; not just with a neutral tone, the second tone is your best bet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T07:40:23.457" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35833" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35849" CreationDate="2019-11-29T06:35:03.753" Score="2" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where did the phrase 恭喜发财 (Kung Hei Fat Choy) come from? And why is it so popularly used during Chinese New Year? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I knew it was first popularised in Canton areas probably around 18~19th century. Just wondering if there are any resources documenting some of its first usage during Chinese New Year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11162" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T05:24:12.477" Title="Etymology behind the phrase 恭喜发财 (Kung Hei Fat Choy) and its usage during Chinese New Year?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;chinese-new-year&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35823" CreationDate="2019-11-29T08:44:32.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English equivalent would be:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- in a few days;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-- for a little while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea being that the person has no definite idea when he or she will be back and hence the vagueness or &quot;elastic&quot; period of between 10 to 15 days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese divides a month into 3 periods of 10 days each called a 旬 (Xún) The first 10 is 上 旬, middle 10 is 中 旬, and last 10 is下 旬. (Much like the Western way of saying 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th quarter of a calendar year) Thus giving an elastic period of 10 days or so to play around with because of uncertainty, hence the 十天半月. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This practice stems from a time when traveling meant walking the whole way or horse cart or river boat unlike now where one could say quite definitely when things happen.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An equivalent with a longer period of time is &quot;一 年 半 载&quot; (Zài), in a year or so; in about a year's time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T08:44:32.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1888" CreationDate="2019-11-29T09:20:10.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a colloquial context, 给你, &quot;give you&quot;, especially when spoken threateningly, could mean &quot;take this&quot;, as in &quot;I'll rearrange your face&quot;     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T09:20:10.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34066" CreationDate="2019-11-29T13:19:43.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;睇下我嘅&quot;  (Taei har ngo gea)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;take a look at mine&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is definitely colloquial Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These kinds of &quot;rough&quot; phrases are usually meant to indicate something to boast or show off or a demeaning comparison, like, &quot;pay attention, you might learn something&quot;; &quot;this is how I would do it&quot;; &quot;you see those biceps?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase therefore has to be a follow-on to demean someone else's poor performance.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2019-11-29T13:25:44.250" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T13:25:44.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35837" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35838" CreationDate="2019-11-29T13:37:52.167" Score="1" ViewCount="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a way to express &quot;hmmn&quot; as in &quot;hmnn... what should I do?&quot; when I stumbled upon 噷. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_exclamative_particles#cite_note-22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, it says that it is a way to 'indicate thinking' but in &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%99%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;baidu&lt;/a&gt;, it doesn't appear to have that kind of meaning but rather conveys a sense of dissatisfaction or in a joking manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 噷 a common way to express the act of thinking or is there a better choice? Something like: [  ]..., 这该怎么办呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23170" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T13:50:51.887" Title="Is 噷 a common way to express thinking?" Tags="&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35837" CreationDate="2019-11-29T13:50:51.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;噷 is not the one you are looking for. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, we usually say 嗯.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T13:50:51.887" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29465" CreationDate="2019-11-29T14:47:00.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mainland China:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;91 2513 0522 6915 0159 = 91亿2513万522亿6915万159 (91亿亿)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 MB = 1兆字节&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taiwan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;91 2513 0522 6915 0159 = 91京2513兆522亿6915万159&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 MB = 1百万字节&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23033" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T14:55:52.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35840" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-29T15:07:49.637" Score="1" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;Memrise provides a phrase that sounds like da yoyo liang. Is yi becoming yo here, and if so under what circumstances would this change occur? Is it just a dialect issue or standard mandarin.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/efJ9L.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;memrise&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23172" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T15:59:57.707" Title="Pronunciation and characters for 打 110 Without Arabic numerals" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35841" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35881" CreationDate="2019-11-29T15:28:52.443" Score="3" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know 帖子 means post or thread on internet forum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is 顶楼? Is it the 1st reply?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21286" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T09:29:00.620" Title="What's the meaning of 帖子的顶楼？" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35841" CreationDate="2019-11-29T15:36:07.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand it: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一楼 = first post&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;顶楼 = latest post&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We often see post refer the previous posts as 楼下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.comicbus.com/view/15828.html?ch=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;85樓 (2019-10-07 02:23) is the latest post&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2樓  (2018-05-29 15:49) is the oldest post (一楼 must had been deleted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T15:36:07.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35840" CreationDate="2019-11-29T15:56:46.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's standard mandarin. Simple rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When used in telephone numbers, use yao&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In certain chess and card games, eg. mahjong, use yao&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All other circumstances except these two, use yi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These chinese webpages explain why and history of its pronunciation evolution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/20325042&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zhihu.com/question/20325042&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.guokr.com/question/103719/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.guokr.com/question/103719/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21286" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T15:56:46.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35844" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-29T17:58:47.387" Score="1" ViewCount="350" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to make a chinese name (girl). I wonder if you could help me, since I don't know what wouldn't be weird for a name. If any native speaker could help me, I'd appreciate it. &#xA;I want a name that consists of 2 characters. And here are some characters I find beautiful. (But if you know another, that would fit better you can tell me. So I especially like the character: 静，also other characters：智，雪，兰，夜，珍，琰， 玉，徐， or anything you would recommend. &#xA;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23173" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-11-30T04:35:21.193" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T05:17:18.347" Title="How can I make a two-character Chinese girl's name, perhaps using 静?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35845" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35846" CreationDate="2019-11-29T21:11:40.353" Score="1" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am going through some flashcards and was asked to translate &quot;This is my home&quot; into Mandarin. I proposed &quot;这里是我的家&quot; but the answer was &quot;这是我家&quot;. Is there anything incorrect about my translation? Namely is &quot;这里&quot; ok instead of &quot;这&quot; and is &quot;我的家&quot; ok instead of &quot;我家&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-29T21:40:18.627" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T10:54:51.437" Title="这 vs 这里, 我家 vs 我的家 to translate ”this is my home&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;possessives&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35845" CreationDate="2019-11-29T22:12:19.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这里 (here) refers to the 'location of the home' (an address, a place)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这 (this) refers to the 'physical home' (a house, a cardboard box) &lt;em&gt;这 can also be short for 这里 (here) in this context&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 我家 vs. 我的家, you can see my answer to this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22204/why-no-%e7%9a%84-in-this-sentence/22206#22206&quot;&gt;Why no 的 in this sentence?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The possessive '的' after a subject is usually kept, if it is a 'true possessive'(something you actually own) For example: The possessive 的 in 我的車 cannot be omitted and make it &quot;我車&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;On the other hand, if the '的' is a 'relative possessive'(something you don't actually own) can be omitted. For example: you can omit the '的' in '我的母亲' and write 我母亲.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;More example:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The possessive 的 in 这是我的太太; 他是我的女儿; 你的国家; 你的公司 can be omitted. You can write 这是我太太; 他是我女儿; 你国家; 你公司 (if you actually own the country or the company, then the possessive 的 should be kept)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我(的)妈妈的房子很高。 can be reduced to: 我妈妈的房子很高。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我(的)牛(的)角很长。 cannot be reduced to: 我牛的角很长。 or 我的牛角很长。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(you possess the cow and the cow possesses the horns, neither can be omitted.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically your answer used &quot;这里&quot; (here) instead of  &quot;这&quot; (this) is not a literal translation of the English sentence &quot;This is my home&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我家 can mean either &quot;you live there and own the place&quot; or &quot;you live there but do not own the place (you could have rented it)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我的家 implies &quot;you live there and own the place&quot; or &quot;you live there and you belongs to the family that own the place. In This case &quot;我的家&quot; implies &quot;我(们)的家&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这里是我的家&quot; is not a wrong translation for &quot;this is my home&quot; if you are referring to a place you or your family owns but it can still be reduced to &quot;这是我家&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-11-29T22:32:09.627" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T22:32:09.627" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35841" CreationDate="2019-11-29T23:59:48.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A post usually has a lot of replies or comments. 帖子的顶楼 means the reply(replies) or comment(s) at the top. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T23:59:48.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35844" CreationDate="2019-11-30T02:30:39.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria: 索菲亚 Suǒ​fēi​yà&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T02:30:39.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35833" CreationDate="2019-11-30T02:34:51.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;恭喜 (congratulations for joyous occasion) : &amp;quot;Bless you&amp;quot; is the standard opening for giving good wish to others, for example: 恭喜你大學畢業(congratulations on graduation from university), 恭喜你新居入伙 (congratulations on moving in to a new home). So &amp;quot;恭喜发财&amp;quot; (congratulations on getting rich) is just one of many things you can bless people with, no more common than &amp;quot;恭喜你新年快樂&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/591040765.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/591040765.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1826, an English man went to Guangzhou and worked in an American trade company. He wrote a book called 《洋人在广州》(Foreigners in Guangzhou). In that book he mentioned the Chinese who traded with the company would greet them with the Chinese phrase &amp;quot;恭喜发财&amp;quot; during the Chinese new year. (the common goal among merchants is making money after all). After the publication of the book, greeting people with &amp;quot;恭喜发财&amp;quot; in Chinese new year became more popular in Guangzhou. And presumably, this practice spread to the rest of the country too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect the reason &amp;quot;恭喜发财&amp;quot; is so popular is partly due to gambling was a national pastime in China at the time. Common folks could only openly gamble  during the new year period. Wishing someone getting rich implied wishing him good luck in gambling, beside congratulate the other on making a lot of money from the previous year (you wouldn't find out how much you made until you'd done the year end accounting)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I also suspect the reason &amp;quot;恭喜发财&amp;quot; is particularly popular among Cantonese,  is partly due to a jingle (順口溜): &amp;quot;恭喜发财，利士來&amp;quot; (congratulations on getting rich, give me red pocket money)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T02:46:39.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35840" CreationDate="2019-11-30T02:43:07.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe it is this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;打110&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  打一一零&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  dǎ yāo yāo líng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(It's the police emergency phone number.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very common practice in mainland China to say &quot;yāo&quot; in place of &quot;yī&quot; when &lt;em&gt;pronouncing phone numbers&lt;/em&gt;.  I've heard it's because 一 (yī) and 七 (qī) sound so similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't believe pronouncing yī as yāo is done outside of phone numbers, e.g., 2011年 would be pronounced “èr líng yī yī nián”.  See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese4kids.net/year-month-date-in-chinese/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chinese4kids.net/year-month-date-in-chinese/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not used when you're reading numbers normally, 我想买一百一十一个 is &quot;wǒ xiǎng mǎi yībǎi yīshíyī gè&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I went to Taiwan, the famous building 台北101 was pronounced by the taxi driver “Táiběi yī líng yī”, so my impression this is a mainland China custom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T02:43:07.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35844" CreationDate="2019-11-30T02:58:03.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about 甘静？ It's a character's name in the TV show 好先生. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T02:58:03.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35840" CreationDate="2019-11-30T03:09:52.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In characters, the phrase is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dǎ yāo yāo líng&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打幺幺零&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dial 1-1-0&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「一」is not &lt;strong&gt;yāo&lt;/strong&gt;; rather, a different word「幺」is used. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29277/pronunciation-of-%e5%a3%b9-%e4%b8%80-in-mandarin?noredirect=1&amp;amp;lq=1&quot;&gt;Pronunciation of 壹 / 一 in Mandarin&lt;/a&gt; for the use of &lt;strong&gt;yāo&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T03:09:52.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35844" CreationDate="2019-11-30T03:17:53.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What name to choose depends on what you want the name for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What do Chinese names usually look like?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To begin, ordinary Chinese names begin with the family name and end with the given name.  For example 李静 is one of my co-authors.  Her family name is 李 and her given name is 静.  And 静 by itself is a very common female name.  (See &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.momjunction.com/baby-names/chinese/girl/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.momjunction.com/baby-names/chinese/girl/&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most (not all) Chinese names have one of the formats:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[single-character surname][single-character given name]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[single-character surname][double-character given name]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never met a Chinese person who doesn't have a name in one of these formats---it's that common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many Chinese people put a lot of effort into their Childrens' names, sometimes hiring professionals to help choose a name.  Some families also have commonalities in their given names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Transliteration&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's common for non-Chinese people to choose names that are transliterations of their given names, as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/35848/8099&quot;&gt;Pedroski's answer&lt;/a&gt; gives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My name, 李蓓 is a partial transliteration: the 蓓 comes from the middle syllable in Rebecca.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Nicknames&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most Chinese people have nicknames too, typically given to them by their parents.  They usually don't (never?) include surnames, and are usually cutesy poo.  As I understand, such names can be virtually anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I chose a nickname years ago, I just chose 秋叶 (Autumn leaf) which I thought sounded okay.  I didn't have any problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General advice&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When making up names myself, I've found two useful approaches:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Looking up the name in &lt;a href=&quot;http://name.renren.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://name.renren.com/&lt;/a&gt;  It'll give you statistics on how common it is, and how masculine/feminine it is.  Here's the statisics for my name 李蓓: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;人人网上姓名为 李蓓 的用户共有 3943人，其中 女生92.82%， 男生7.18% &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 3943 people have the name, with 92.82% female and 7.18% male.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Looking up the name in &lt;a href=&quot;http://image.baidu.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://image.baidu.com&lt;/a&gt;  For example, my name: &lt;a href=&quot;http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&amp;amp;word=%E6%9D%8E%E8%93%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;李蓓&lt;/a&gt;.  And you can see what people called 李蓓 look like.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either that, or just ask someone in person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T03:17:53.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35840" CreationDate="2019-11-30T03:51:00.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;da yoyo liang&quot; seems like a &lt;strong&gt;dialectal&lt;/strong&gt; way to say &lt;strong&gt;打110&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“da yoyo liang” sounds like a Shanghainese version &lt;strong&gt;of 打112&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-11-30T03:58:18.623" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T03:58:18.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="936" CreationDate="2019-11-30T04:41:44.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;危：危險，危急 (danger)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;機：先兆，徵兆 (omen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;唐 司空圖《連珠》：“蓋聞變可揣&lt;strong&gt;機&lt;/strong&gt;，明難辨勢。金石之懸已扣，孰謂識微；風雲之候未形，罕知能制。” &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;清 李漁《閑情偶寄‧頤養‧卻病》：“病未至而防之者，病雖未作，而有可病之&lt;strong&gt;機&lt;/strong&gt;與必病之勢，先以藥物投之，使其欲發不得，猶敵欲攻我，而我兵先之預發制人者也。”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;危機：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;潛伏的禍害或危險 (hidden danger) ：危機四伏&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;嚴重困難的關頭 (crisis)：經濟危機&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23033" LastEditorUserId="23033" LastEditDate="2019-11-30T05:16:58.027" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T05:16:58.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35844" CreationDate="2019-11-30T05:07:21.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When traditional Chinese parents / more likely grandparents chose names for their off springs, they took into considerations of the following factors as well as needing to sound pleasant to the ear, without any negative pun, carry auspicious connotations, etc:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--   the season, (Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn), of birth;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--   whether first born or not;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--   a wish that the next born is a male or female;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--   the family was undergoing hard times; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--   whether, astrologically speaking, the child's birth date indicates a lack of or over abundance of one or more of the 5 Elemental Values, (Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth), and so give names that either enhance or reduce the particular Element;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--  in times of war, names of valor or of patriotic connotation;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, traditional Chinese child naming was a very very serious business as it could mean coming fortune or disaster or even shortened or lengthened longevity not only for the child but for the whole family as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, consider  李 嘉 誠, one of the riches Chinese in the World.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &quot;cuteness&quot; or &quot;coolness&quot;, (as is the practice now), was secondary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in your case, a female, the range is limited as females do not, in ancient China, bear any leading family or national burden, and so names that connote beauty, grace, gentleness, caring, kindness, etc, were the norms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to lack of expertise, and in any case a personal name is too individualistic a mater, I would not venture a recommendation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, as many non-Chinese have noticed, you can have either one or two personal name after the surname. The reason, generally, is that the &quot;middle&quot; character is the generational name and the last is your true personal name. This generational name thing only apply to boys. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So all boys and their first cousins of the same generation will have the same middle name. Why? so that if ever the extended family is separated by time and distance, as in a war or mass migration, boy cousins, uncles, nephews will know if ever they meet for the first time anywhere in the World from which generation of the extended family each belongs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These middle names were decided and agreed upon at least 3 to 5 generations ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2019-11-30T05:17:18.347" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T05:17:18.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35857" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-30T05:32:54.620" Score="2" ViewCount="771" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is a professional looking font that is good to use as italics? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The italics function in a word processor merely slants Chinese characters, and is unsuitable for professional looking documents.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’ve seen some documents or books that use a Kaiti typeface that might be considered an equivalent to italics.  I've looked at a number kaiti typefaces and haven’t found one with the right look yet.  Any recommendations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13362" LastEditorUserId="22953" LastEditDate="2019-12-01T00:42:46.067" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T00:42:46.067" Title="What is a professional looking Chinese font that could serve as an equivalent for italics?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;fonts&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35857" CreationDate="2019-11-30T10:22:16.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese script has no concept of “italics”. Of course, it is possible to slant characters, but – as you state – this is not a very professional solution. Given that you main body font is 宋体 (Songti, the equivalent to a serif font for Latin characters probably), it is a good idea to use another style like 楷体 (Kaiti) or 仿宋体 (Fangsongti). I personally like the latter, but because the Kaiti style is heavier, it will be probably more likely be perceived as different than the Fangsongti style which is not that heavy. To my knowledge, a Kaiti style is used more often than Fangsongti in Chinese printed matter (at least in books). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these styles are available from very different vendors. So, it is actually up to you to choose a nice combination. The fonts below are „Songti SC“ (which I like better than the older „STSong“), „Kaiti SC“ and „STFangsong“ that all ship with the current macOS and are designed by Changzhou SinoType Technology Co., Ltd. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From top to bottom: Songti, Kaiti, Fangsongti.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E8X6k.png&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, switching between fonts is probably only a good idea if you start a new paragraph, because it may be difficult for the reader to recognise the font change. For emphasis of single words, you could use a heavier font (粗体, bold) or you could use emphasis points, which are small dots placed under (or in vertical typography to the right of) the relevant characters. However, emphasis points are – at least to my knowledge – used only rarely and it may be difficult to typeset them depending on the software you use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6rvjh.png&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22953" LastEditorUserId="22953" LastEditDate="2019-11-30T11:12:31.780" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T11:12:31.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35845" CreationDate="2019-11-30T10:54:51.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt; &quot;This is my home&quot; is 这是我家 or 这是我的家.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这里是我的家 is &lt;em&gt;Here is my home&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T10:54:51.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35861" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-30T17:20:36.580" Score="4" ViewCount="741" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also is there a simple translation of it into English? As far as I can tell it says &quot;those you very adventurous dreams&quot;, but this doesn't really make any sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23177" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T15:56:39.820" Title="Is &quot;那些你很冒險的夢&quot; a common expression or just a song title?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35861" CreationDate="2019-11-30T17:36:18.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a native speaker, but I would say that it is completely fine to say this. Whether such an expression and choice of words are common, I can't judge. But from a grammatical point of view, I would consider it correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate this expression as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;those (very) adventurous dreams of yours&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;those (very) adventurous dreams you have/had&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, “你” means “your” in this context, not just “you”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reading could be (thanks to Tang Ho for pointing that out):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;those dreams of the adventurous you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;those dreams of you being adventurous&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here “you” is the person in the dream, not the one who dreams. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the meaning is a bit different, I think both readings are possible. And although the second translation may be more literal, I personally would go with the first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22953" LastEditorUserId="22953" LastEditDate="2019-12-01T10:31:30.617" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T10:31:30.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35861" CreationDate="2019-11-30T18:07:31.380" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a song title for singer JJ and it's better translation for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Those Adventurous Dreams of Yours&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because it's written for the writer's girlfreind , and he want to complete the dreams with the girl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps. there's no one will say &lt;code&gt;那些你很冒險的夢&lt;/code&gt; in real life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19799" LastEditorUserId="19799" LastEditDate="2019-11-30T18:14:12.530" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T18:14:12.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35861" CreationDate="2019-11-30T19:53:31.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;那些 = Those&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你很冒險的 = of you being very adventurous&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;夢 = dreams&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[那些][你很冒險的][夢] = [Those] [dreams][of you being very adventurous]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those dreams are not adventurous, you are!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你很冒險&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;you are adventurous&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;的&amp;quot; is an adjective suffix that turns the regular sentence &amp;quot;你很冒險&amp;quot; into an adjective phrase (你很冒險的) to modify &amp;quot;夢&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Q: &amp;quot;Dreams?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;What dreams?&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A: &amp;quot;the dreams of you being adventurous&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not a common expression, but it is not totally senseless. It can be phrased more clearly though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;那些你在中夢很冒險的夢&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;quot;(those dreams that you are very adventurous in them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;你那些很冒險的夢&amp;quot; mean the dream is adventurous. Not you. &amp;quot;those adventurous dreams of yours” should be &amp;quot;你那些冒險夢&amp;quot; (those adventure dreams of yours). Adventure here would be a adjectival noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Q: &amp;quot;Dreams?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;What dreams?&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A: &amp;quot;The adventure dreams&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T21:17:09.410" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33116" CreationDate="2019-11-30T21:08:36.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in Chinese  it means soul  and it also means spirit &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23179" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T21:08:36.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35867" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-01T02:08:06.123" Score="0" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I &lt;s&gt;waste&lt;/s&gt; spend time on TikTok &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.douyin.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;斗音&lt;/a&gt; with the hope it improves my Chinese.  Occasionally I stumble upon videos which describe advice for improving one's Chinese handwriting.  They might describe common handwriting problems by Chinese people.  I find this rather useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. one described how &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%80%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;考&lt;/a&gt; has &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;丂&lt;/a&gt; at the bottom, but is often mistakenly written as if it has 与 (minus the 3-rd stroke) at the bottom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm not sure how I go about finding those videos specifically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I specifically find handwriting advice videos on 斗音?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-12-06T09:33:09.783" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T09:33:09.783" Title="How do I specifically find handwriting advice videos on TikTok 斗音?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;handwriting&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33116" CreationDate="2019-12-01T02:08:43.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you wish to specifically mean the human &quot;soul&quot;, in some religious, other worldly sense, you say 灵 魂.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because 灵 means spirit also, and to just say 魂 means spirit lacks accuracy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Between the two, 灵 has a much wider usage as it could also mean something non-other Worldly, or non-spiritual, such as 机灵, (smart), 灵活, (agile), whereas 魂 is confined to the non-human spiritual other Worldly realm.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in English, you say &quot;competitive spirit&quot;, you don't say &quot;competitive soul&quot; So do not use 魂 if you wish to mean the &quot;spirit&quot; in this sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2019-12-01T02:44:25.127" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T02:44:25.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35861" CreationDate="2019-12-01T02:40:48.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a pop song title and so some expressive artistic licence could be allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not the grammar we are hot under the collar about here, but to a native speaker it sounds &quot;fractured, broken, affected&quot;, clumsy even, like someone pointed out you don't ordinarily speak like that in real life, just as in English you don't in ordinary conversation say to someone who is &quot;under the weather&quot;, OMG, your countenance is a whiter shade of pale.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T02:40:48.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35870" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35871" CreationDate="2019-12-01T03:27:35.187" Score="0" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;Continuing from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35780/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwangs-father-takes-her-to-the-doctor&quot;&gt;part 3&lt;/a&gt; (with the story starting at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35746/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-and-the-revolutionary-new-technology&quot;&gt;part 1&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们到了&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8C%BB%E5%8A%A1%E5%AE%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;医务室&lt;/a&gt;，这家楼看起来像实验室，而并不是像普通的医院。我看着我爸，他似乎已经对这个地方很熟悉，甚至知道怎么走。他说了“我的朋友在这儿工作”。我们一进去就看到医生了，而他带我们去他的办公室。医生立刻从桌子的抽屉中取出了一只&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B3%A8%E5%B0%84%E5%99%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;注射器&lt;/a&gt;，说“这会解决你的体重问题 ”。我有奇怪的感觉，但是我爸悄悄地说“我已经告诉了他你来这儿的原因”。虽然我当时还&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%89%E6%89%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;有所&lt;/a&gt;怀疑，但我就只是相信父母&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%80%8C%E5%B7%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;而已&lt;/a&gt;，因此我让他给我&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B3%A8%E5%B0%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;注射&lt;/a&gt;。没有发现了立即而明显的后果，所以然后医生就走了，而我们回家了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please critique my writing.  New words for me are in links.  I'm at an &quot;almost mastered HSK4&quot; level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid 一进去就[...] is too often used in relation to premature ejaculation (一进去就射了), which would be totally inappropriate here.  But maybe what I've written is okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I'm not sure if 而已 is appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I won't include an English version: that's not the point of this exercise.  I'm fairly confident it's understandable (or at least if it needs modifying, it won't require much back-and-forth in the comments).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T06:30:50.330" Title="Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang gets an injection from the &quot;doctor&quot;" Tags="&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35870" CreationDate="2019-12-01T04:46:39.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hard to explain this one. 栋 for a building and 座 for a certain kind of building?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们到了医务室，这&lt;strong&gt;家&lt;/strong&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;栋&lt;/strong&gt;)楼看起来像(&lt;strong&gt;座&lt;/strong&gt;)实验室&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;像 is a verb in Chinese so you don't add 是. Alternatively use 像是 as a single phrase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而并不&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;(remove)像普通的医院&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的 should be removed, I believe, so is 了. Also I would reverse the order to &lt;code&gt;My friend works here', he says. (“我朋友在这儿工作, 他说)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他说了“我的朋友在这儿工作”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reorder 了? &lt;code&gt;我们一进去就看到了医生&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们一进去就看到医生了,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure about 而, because I don't feel any logical relation here. Maybe use a word for temporal relation, e.g. 立刻, &lt;code&gt;他立刻带我们去了他的办公室&lt;/code&gt; (adding 了 for past tense)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而他带我们去他的办公室。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would use &lt;code&gt;我感觉有些奇怪&lt;/code&gt; (I feel somehow strange) rather than &lt;code&gt;我有奇怪的感觉&lt;/code&gt;(I have some strange feelings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有奇怪的感觉，但是我爸悄悄地说“我已经告诉了他你来这儿的原因”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而已 is fine I think, but maybe 当时 to the &quot;believe&quot; part, because I think that part need it more. Also 注射了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然我当时还有所怀疑，但我就只是相信父母而已，因此我让他给我注射。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没有立即发现明显的后果(&quot;Didn't immediately see obvious result&quot;). But not sure about the &quot;发现&quot;. Here you are expecting to &quot;feel&quot; something, e.g. &lt;code&gt;没有立即感到明显的变化&lt;/code&gt;(Didn't immediately feel any difference). Or just &quot;没什么明显的感觉&quot; (Didn't feel anything noticeable)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;没有发现了立即而明显的后果&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again I don't feel the logical relationship here, so remove 所以 and 而, maybe add 也(also). &quot;然后医生就走了，我们也回家了&quot; (&quot;Then the doctor left, so did we&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;所以然后医生就走了，而我们回家了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9846" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T04:46:39.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="743" CreationDate="2019-12-01T05:27:14.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1和3意思一样，学和学习在不同的地方表达的含义不同，但是上面的1和3句子中，差不多是一样的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我个人觉得，学习，一般是指学习知识比较多。学，就包含更多了，例如学做饭，一般不太会说学习做饭。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23182" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T05:27:14.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35870" CreationDate="2019-12-01T05:33:42.843" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentences are short, implying the passage is colloquial. However, its style doesn't accord to daily language, which makes it translationese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爸就带我去了医院，但比起医院那座建筑看起来更像研究所。我爸似乎已经很熟悉这里了，他根本没有问路。哦，我想起他说过有朋友在这里工作。最后我们到了一个房间，进去就看到了医生，见了我们立刻带往了他办公室。医生从抽屉里取出一支注射器，告诉我说打了以后就不会有体重问题了。我感到十分奇怪，但爸爸小声解释说他早就跟医生说过了。听了这话我虽然仍然怀疑，但出于对父亲的信任我没有拒绝注射。打完之后没什么特别的感觉，但医生确定已经完成了，于是走掉了，所以我们也回家了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that you are not used to use link words, so sometimes it's weird in logic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;实验室 is a room complex, while 研究所 is a building complex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一&lt;strong&gt;支&lt;/strong&gt;注射器&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;这会解决你的问题&quot; We don't say like that, which I have only heard in translation works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这并不能解决你的问题。√&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这解决得了你的问题吗？√&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这样你的问题就解决了。√&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你还有什么问题没解决？√&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这不会解决你的问题的。√&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这会解决你的问题。x&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;—— hard to say why.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我已经告诉了他你来这儿的原因&quot; Oh, it's worse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你为什么要来我已经告诉过他了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我已经告诉过他你为什么要来了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我已经跟他说过你要来的原因了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;虽然我…但我…因此我&quot; is usually shortened as &quot;我虽然…但…因此&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;而已&quot; Why? I don't see how it is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;后果&quot; is usually something bad, and is always used to imply the consequence/effect of something. It cannot be used alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;你有没有考虑过徇私枉法的后果？√（下场/结果x）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;现在锒铛入狱才后悔当初没有多想想贪污腐败的后果。√（下场√结果x）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上述两句区别在于，“下场”必定是已成现实/假定已成现实。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;现在家道中落，祖荫尽失，可谓是不思进取的后果。√（结果/下场√）（贬损的语气下场＞后果＞结果）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;这样做不用担心有什么后果。√（结果/下场x）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;树倒猢狲散，飞扬跋扈的王家没落得个好后果。x（结果/下场√）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;利用政策套利，目前还没发现有什么后果。√（结果/下场x）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should 儿化音 be written down or not? I recommend not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-12-01T06:30:50.330" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T06:30:50.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35875" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35876" CreationDate="2019-12-01T08:19:39.253" Score="3" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Cantonese term &amp;quot;正斗&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;great&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;of high quality&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/41458/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;正斗&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;an exclamation that sth is &amp;quot;great!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kaifangcidian.com/han/yue/%E6%AD%A3%E6%96%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;正斗&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好，美，正牌，正規，地道，純正，漂亮，質量好&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can understand why 正(authentic) is used in  &amp;quot;正斗&amp;quot; which mean &amp;quot;high quality&amp;quot; (people believe in authentic goods is of high quality) But I don't get the role of &amp;quot;斗&amp;quot; in this phrase. I tried to search the web but most of the results are related to a restaurant called &amp;quot;正斗&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I hate it when a common term is used as a movies title, restaurant name etc. Make it difficult to search the original meaning on the web&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of &amp;quot;正斗&amp;quot; in a sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;呢啲係&lt;strong&gt;正斗貨&lt;/strong&gt;嚟架 (This is &lt;strong&gt;high quality goods&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有冇&lt;strong&gt;正斗野&lt;/strong&gt;介紹 (Any suggestion of &lt;strong&gt;great stuffs&lt;/strong&gt;?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;佢女朋友&lt;strong&gt;好正斗&lt;/strong&gt;架 (Her girlfriend is &lt;strong&gt;very pretty&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I noticed is 正斗 and 正 basically are interchangeable when it is referring &amp;quot;great&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;high quality&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正斗貨 = 正貨 (high quality goods)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;正斗野 = 正野 (great stuff)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, what &amp;quot;斗&amp;quot; refers to in &amp;quot;正斗&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T09:58:06.163" Title="What &quot;斗&quot; refers to in &quot;正斗&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35875" CreationDate="2019-12-01T09:20:52.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The following may be folk etymology. More research is needed - specifically, textual evidence of when&lt;/em&gt;「正斗」&lt;em&gt;started being in use among the general public.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「正斗」originated as a term in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;initiation rituals&lt;/a&gt; of Chinese secret societies or criminal underworld groups. The details of the ritual vary from &lt;a href=&quot;https://hk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061110000051KK00693&amp;amp;guccounter=1&amp;amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAF2wew7jyyu6Ihso6ki_hr5mgL9gKaSgCuM59wvjkndrpEaK5XPyyZYnztPmyGn3sWtDMISPUsvLYI-fX3Dxl1QbSA3rFDkuEh4A7DNvHH1SbYQUZz4dNb8M80WVbcxuK5qC3cnrhyZFwDsI5Rxn5cwthbqhdO8heMvECpwatR8y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt; to &lt;a href=&quot;http://mypaper.pchome.com.tw/stanleyyim/post/3789046&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;, but the ritual is said to involve a wooden ladle (斗).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term「正」in「正斗」refers to the meaning &lt;em&gt;orthodoxy&lt;/em&gt;, that is, orthodoxy of the rites or the members/leader involved in the rites of the secret society.「正斗」then refers to those who have successfully entered the society through the orthodox initiation ritual, also indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;proper, dignified&lt;/em&gt;. This stands in contrast to non-members or pretenders who did not know the rites (非正斗 or 假斗).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later on, the term「正斗」permeated general society, and「正斗」gained the meaning &lt;em&gt;of high quality, awesome&lt;/em&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://hk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061110000051KK00693&amp;amp;guccounter=1&amp;amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAF2wew7jyyu6Ihso6ki_hr5mgL9gKaSgCuM59wvjkndrpEaK5XPyyZYnztPmyGn3sWtDMISPUsvLYI-fX3Dxl1QbSA3rFDkuEh4A7DNvHH1SbYQUZz4dNb8M80WVbcxuK5qC3cnrhyZFwDsI5Rxn5cwthbqhdO8heMvECpwatR8y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廣東話中 -- 好正-- 一詞 - hk.answers.yahoo.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mypaper.pchome.com.tw/stanleyyim/post/3789046&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;香港黑社會用語舉隅 - mypaper.pchome.com.tw&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-01T09:58:06.163" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T09:58:06.163" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="743" CreationDate="2019-12-01T18:32:40.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm still a learner but I think 学 is study in general and 学习 is doing exercises, learning something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23097" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T18:32:40.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35879" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35880" CreationDate="2019-12-01T22:49:27.600" Score="3" ViewCount="444" Body="&lt;p&gt;A flashcard asked me to translate &quot;Beijing is a big place&quot;. I proposed &quot;北京是大地方“ and the answer was &quot;北京是个大地方&quot; (namely I omitted the 个).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Is my answer grammatically correct? I thought that, unlike English, Chinese does not require you to say articles i.e. &quot;a/an [noun]&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If my answer is right, what's the difference between adding and omitting a 个?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far my understanding of measure words like 个 is that the usage is to say [number][measure word][noun], or to say the type of object &quot;this&quot; is (i.e. 这个， 这里， etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T03:12:19.183" Title="是个[adj + noun] vs 是[adj + noun]" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35879" CreationDate="2019-12-02T01:44:56.927" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For apps like Duolingo, &lt;em&gt;the correct answer is the best translation&lt;/em&gt;, not necessary any correct equivalent translation.  In this case, the authors of the app have decided that &lt;em&gt;Beijing is a big place&lt;/em&gt; is most closely translated to 北京是个大地方.  It's not bad, Beijing [北京] is [是] a [个] big [大] place [地方], but such clean and direct translations are uncommon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The long structure is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[noun] 是一个 [adjective] 的 [noun]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;北京&lt;strong&gt;是一个&lt;/strong&gt;大&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;地方&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Běijīng shì yīgè dà de dìfāng&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this structure, we can replace the nouns and adjectives at will:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她&lt;strong&gt;是一个&lt;/strong&gt;美丽&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;女人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  那&lt;strong&gt;是一辆&lt;/strong&gt;旧&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;汽车&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note we need to change the measure word accordingly.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 北京是一个大的地方 (while grammatical) is rather long.  Thus we...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Drop the 一个&lt;/strong&gt; (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Connecting_nouns_with_%22shi%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Connecting nouns with &quot;shi&quot;&lt;/a&gt;).  We can also replace 一个 with just 个 (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Measure_word_%22ge%22#Omitting_the_Number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Measure word &quot;ge&quot;; Omitting the Number&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we can say either of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[noun] 是 [adjective] 的 [noun]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [noun] 是个 [adjective] 的 [noun]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;北京&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;大&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;地方&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  北京&lt;strong&gt;是个&lt;/strong&gt;大&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;地方&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the case of 大的地方 we can &lt;strong&gt;drop the 的&lt;/strong&gt; (which we cannot do in general).  In general, precisely when we can and cannot drop the 的 is tricky.  As I understand, it is okay to drop the 的 in &lt;code&gt;大的[noun]&lt;/code&gt; (for one and two-hanzi nouns) and in most cases of single-hanzi adjectives (as in this case: 大).  （There's likely exceptions to this.)  Thus all of these are okay too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;北京&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;大地方&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  北京&lt;strong&gt;是个&lt;/strong&gt;大地方&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  北京&lt;strong&gt;是一个&lt;/strong&gt;大地方&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35879/%E6%98%AF%E4%B8%AAadj-noun-vs-%E6%98%AFadj-noun/35880#comment53216_35880&quot;&gt;dan notes&lt;/a&gt; in the comments, in the case of &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A4%A7%E5%9C%B0%E6%96%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大地方&lt;/a&gt; it's natural to think of this as a noun in its own right.  In this case we're using the &lt;code&gt;[noun] 是一个 [noun]&lt;/code&gt; construct with 大地方 as the second noun.  This is not generally true; something like &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A4%A7%E6%9C%BA%E5%9C%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大机场&lt;/a&gt; (big airport) would probably be interpreted simply as a short form of 大的机场.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Side note: The most common case of dropping the 的 is to express closeness, e.g., 我妹妹, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_close_possession_without_%22de%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing close possession without &quot;de&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, but it's not the only possibility.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In total, that's &lt;strong&gt;six different grammatical ways of saying the same thing&lt;/strong&gt;.  So the app has chosen the one they consider most faithful to the English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In response to &lt;em&gt;What's the difference between adding and omitting a 个?&lt;/em&gt;  If you include a solitary 个, it implies there's only one (of whatever your talking about).  This is also mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Measure_word_%22ge%22#Omitting_the_Number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Measure word &quot;ge&quot;; Omitting the Number&lt;/a&gt;.  However, there's obviously only one Beijing (so the distinction doesn't arise here).  A case where it's relevant is 我们是好朋友 (&quot;we are good friends&quot;): you can't add a solitary 个 here because there's two people (not one), but you can say 我们是&lt;strong&gt;两个&lt;/strong&gt;好朋友.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I feel it's more precise to say &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9F%8E%E5%B8%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;城市&lt;/a&gt; (chéng shì) = &quot;city&quot; instead of &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9C%B0%E6%96%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;地方&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;place&quot;.  I also feel that 大 is an inadequate adjective to describe the &quot;bigness&quot; of Beijing.  Thus I would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;北京是个&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%9D%9E%E5%B8%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;非常&lt;/a&gt;大的城市&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Běijīng shìgè fēicháng dà de chéngshì&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-02T03:11:05.123" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T03:11:05.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35841" CreationDate="2019-12-02T02:39:16.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are all Internet slangs. Since a topic and all the replies look like a &lt;strong&gt;building&lt;/strong&gt; (楼), each &lt;strong&gt;reply&lt;/strong&gt; looks like a &lt;strong&gt;floor&lt;/strong&gt; (楼层), the Chinese netizens call &lt;strong&gt;to post a reply&lt;/strong&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;to build a building&lt;/strong&gt; (盖楼), the person who starts the &lt;strong&gt;thread&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;topic&lt;/strong&gt; is called &lt;strong&gt;the host of the building&lt;/strong&gt; (楼主), and the first &lt;strong&gt;reply&lt;/strong&gt; is called &lt;strong&gt;the first floor&lt;/strong&gt; (一楼). 顶楼 (the topmost post) may be a variant name of 楼主 (or 一楼? I'm not sure), it's rarely seen. If 顶楼 is a phrase rather than a noun, its meaning likes 顶帖. Also, since the threads are sorted by the time of the last reply descendingly, 顶帖 can be be interpreted as 把帖子顶上去, which means to &lt;strong&gt;raise up the thread&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;topic&lt;/strong&gt; (by posting a new reply intentionally).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-12-02T09:29:00.620" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T09:29:00.620" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35879" CreationDate="2019-12-02T03:12:19.183" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quote:- I feel it's more precise to say 城市 (chéng shì) = &quot;city&quot; instead of 地方 = &quot;place&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when do you use which and when?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the same reason in English when you say, &quot;London is a  big city&quot; and &quot;London is a big place&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former when you just want to talk about the general &quot;bigness&quot; of London without any specific implications arising from its size.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas the latter would be when its size poses some physical implications, like, when someone ask you to find a Mr. XYZ in London, you might more likely say, &quot;what, London is a big place&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T03:12:19.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35883" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35884" CreationDate="2019-12-02T03:59:44.730" Score="1" ViewCount="819" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine a scenario where a man is acting creepily towards a woman.  Writing from her perspective, she might say something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他让我感到害怕&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  He makes me feel afraid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%AE%B3%E6%80%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;害怕&lt;/a&gt; seems too strong here.  She's not fearing for her life: she's fearing that the man will do something unpredictable and weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I believe it's correct, it feels childish and imprecise to simply add 有点儿:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他让我感到有点儿害怕&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  He makes me feel a little afraid&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, I'm looking for a more suitable word here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a word that means 害怕 (afraid) but less strong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found some examples &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%8D%E5%AE%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不安&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BF%A7%E8%99%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;忧虑&lt;/a&gt;, but it's unclear to me if these are suitable in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T07:36:18.677" Title="To describe a man acting creepily towards a woman, is there a word that means 害怕 (afraid) but less strong?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35883" CreationDate="2019-12-02T04:46:52.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.englisher.net/dict/zh/%E5%BF%83%E9%87%8C%E5%8F%91%E6%AF%9B/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;心里发毛&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;feel nervous · be panic-stricken&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 他让我感到心里发毛 (he creeps me out)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically 心里发毛 describes &amp;quot;you have a dread that you can't put your finger on&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;dread : anticipate with great apprehension or fear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;can't put your finger on: not be able to say exactly what is wrong or different about a particular situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T04:46:52.697" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35883" CreationDate="2019-12-02T05:15:19.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there degrees of &quot;fearfulness&quot; which could be expressed in the Chinese language? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would use 害怕 when the threat is quite definite or obvious and physical harm is imminent, as when one is being stalked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And use 不安 or 忧虑 when it may be just an emotional perception and the threat, if any, has yet to manifest itself in some way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the English equivalence to me, (in the context of your question), would be:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;害怕 = fear of imminent physical harm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不安 or 忧虑  =  &quot;unsettling &amp;amp; apprehensive&quot; respectively while the threat has yet to be defined or manifest itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, all these three phrases are equally at home when no physical threats at all are involved; like fear of a job demotion. As always, context is the key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to answer your question, (since I fail to come up with any other &quot;less strong&quot; alternatives to 害怕), I would use 害怕, 不安 or 忧虑 in the context I mentioned above; that is whether physical threat is obvious and imminent or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T05:15:19.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35883" CreationDate="2019-12-02T06:10:45.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;悚惧，悚然是心里发毛的典雅说法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然未详考证，但悚字常与竦易用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;竦，即耸，立。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;——“举戈林悚（竦），挥锋电灭”曹丕《文选》。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又“毛骨悚然”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;说明悚作惧义，很可能来自于汗毛倒竖的状态。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不安、忧虑等词多指对可能发生的不确定事件的紧张而焦虑的状态，不能描述感官上给人的畏惧感。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;害怕是当前描述此类心理的最泛化词语，其源自于口语，所以等级比较低。但是害怕一词本来也没有现在这样宽泛，作形容词/名词描述面临险境而产生的恐慌的心理，作动词指畏惧某事的发生。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;按传统一些的观点&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他长得令人害怕。（x）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他让我感到害怕。（x）&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不过现在看来，这样的说法也不算错。私以为比较通俗的低级词汇逐渐承担了过多含义，是人们懒得找合适的词语表达意思的结果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-12-02T06:21:56.057" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T06:21:56.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35883" CreationDate="2019-12-02T07:06:05.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it could make you &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;uncomfortable&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; if one invades your personal space. 不安 or 没有安全感 is fit then.  Colloquially, we say: 这个人总往我身边凑， 让我觉得没有安全感. Or just 让我觉得有点害怕. 让我觉得不安 sounds formal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发毛 is used when something is creepily/oddly horrible. A normal person usually won't make you 发毛. E.g. 这虫子太恶心了，看着让人心理发毛。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-02T07:36:18.677" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T07:36:18.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33087" CreationDate="2019-12-02T15:50:50.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A straightforward approach is to copy/paste the translation output into &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt;.  E.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gyNlp.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gyNlp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;昨晚不是很热&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-03T02:27:40.077" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T02:27:40.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35889" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35890" CreationDate="2019-12-02T16:03:55.767" Score="2" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious about the relationship between 尉-shaped characters and the pronunciation yu. I'm not sure if this is just a Sichuanese thing or not, but here's what I know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In some Sichuanese topolects 蔚蓝(色) is read &lt;code&gt;yu lan&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It has been said that Deng Xiaoping often said: 芋问, which is really just: 慰问.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;告慰 can also be read &lt;code&gt;gao yu&lt;/code&gt;, in some Sichuanese topolects.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;蔚 can also be a surname that is read: &lt;code&gt;Yu&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;尉迟 is also a double barreled surname.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;yu&lt;/code&gt; pronunciation seems like a bit of an anomaly and I'm not really sure how it fits in here. Perhaps it was that the surname was so strong in some areas that it affected the pronunciations of these other words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-02T17:18:05.067" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T04:42:36.550" Title="What is the relationship between 尉-shaped characters and the pronuncation yu?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35889" CreationDate="2019-12-02T17:47:04.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two syllables are related.「尉」(Baxter-Sagart OC: &lt;strong&gt;/*ʔut-s/&lt;/strong&gt;) has two Mandarin descendants, which are approximately &lt;strong&gt;yu&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;wei&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Several OC syllables with initial &lt;strong&gt;/*ʔu-/&lt;/strong&gt; basically evolved into Mandarin &lt;strong&gt;w&lt;/strong&gt; and Mandarin &lt;strong&gt;yu&lt;/strong&gt;; you can see the same phenomenon with the phonetic component「」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;溫 &lt;strong&gt;wēn&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;慍 &lt;strong&gt;yùn&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T17:47:04.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35889" CreationDate="2019-12-02T21:19:55.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;尉迟 rooted from vichy, same as in victoria&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6762" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T21:19:55.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33087" CreationDate="2019-12-02T21:21:04.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wish I had seen this question sooner since this is exactly what I use &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%98%A8%E6%99%9A%E4%B8%8D%E6%98%AF%E5%BE%88%E7%83%AD%E3%80%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt; for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3INpR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3INpR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T21:21:04.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35893" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-03T03:29:34.660" Score="0" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my writing in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35870/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-gets-an-injection-from-the-doctor&quot;&gt;Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang gets an injection from the &amp;quot;doctor&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;, this part seems particularly problematic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Original version: 没有发现了立即而明显的后果，...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I intended for (but clearly fell short of) something along the lines of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[We] did not observe immediate and obvious side-effects, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By side effects, I'm thinking like feinting, pain, loss of movement, etc.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/35873/8099&quot;&gt;Toosky Hierot&lt;/a&gt; explained how 后果 is inappropriate, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/35871/8099&quot;&gt;user3528438&lt;/a&gt; mentioned being unsure about &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8F%91%E7%8E%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;发现&lt;/a&gt; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's try again:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Modified version: 我们等了一段时间，&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%85%B6%E9%97%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;其间&lt;/a&gt;我们没&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%A7%82%E5%AF%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;观察&lt;/a&gt;到任何&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%9B%B4%E6%8E%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;直接&lt;/a&gt;和明显的&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%89%AF%E4%BD%9C%E7%94%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;副作用&lt;/a&gt;, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've added a bit more to clarify that we're sitting around for a little bit and simply watching what happens.  For something to be observable, it needs to be both &quot;immediate&quot; (e.g., it doesn't happen 1 hour later) and &quot;obvious&quot; (e.g., it's not &quot;we've just destroyed your liver&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is this clear?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Also, I want to say thank you very much for all this help!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T08:19:56.897" Title="Is this clear? 我们等了一段时间，其间我们没观察到任何直接和明显的副作用, ... (waiting around for side-effects)" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35893" CreationDate="2019-12-03T03:57:28.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;直接&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;其间我们没观察到任何(直接和)明显的副作用&amp;quot; should be removed, because there's no such thing as 'indirect side effect'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you meant &amp;quot;immediate&amp;quot;, the correct word is &amp;quot;即時&amp;quot; --&amp;gt; &amp;quot;其间我们没观察到任何(即時和)明显的副作用&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我们等了一段时间，其间我们没观察到任何明显的副作用&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can use 並 (actually) to strengthen the connection between the two phrase&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我们等了一段时间，其间我们並没观察到任何明显的副作用&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Change 没观察到  to 沒有观察到&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没 mainly used for &amp;quot;without + object&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒有 is more suitable for &amp;quot;have no + object&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;我们等了一段时间，其间我们並沒有观察到任何明显的副作用&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我们等了一段时间，其间我们並沒有观察到任何即時和明显的副作用&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You only need to state the subject &amp;quot;我们&amp;quot; once here&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;我们等了一段时间，其间並沒有观察到任何明显的副作用&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我们等了一段时间，其间並沒有观察到任何即時和明显的副作用&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other user rewrote the sentence in a more native way in his answer. That reduced the length of the original text greatly. In that case, I would just write &amp;quot;等了一會，見沒有異狀，医生就走了&amp;quot; (After waited for a while, seeing that there are no abnormalities, the doctor left.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know which the OP prefers, but I think it would be more beneficial for her, if I don't stray too far away from the original sentence that she came up with with her current writing ability&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T08:19:56.897" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35893" CreationDate="2019-12-03T04:01:09.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A common phrasing in Chinese for this context is: 观察了一会，并没有(任何)明显的不良反应.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-03T06:45:59.453" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T06:45:59.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35889" CreationDate="2019-12-03T04:42:36.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've often wondered how people decided on the pronunciation of characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, huǒ + shī + cùn + rén or yí can equal yù&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite how this decision was reached is beyond me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尉: Main pronunciation 主要发音: wèi Other pronunciations 其它发音: wèi,yù,yùn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;示shì (actually a changed form of 火huǒ, I read)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;尸shī&lt;br&gt;&#xA;寸cùn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;rén, yí&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;: 古文仁。或从尸。按古文夷亦如此。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We know that, in Chinese F may be pronounced H, L may be R, R may be L, N may be L.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe, a double U can become a U?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T04:42:36.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35833" CreationDate="2019-12-03T07:53:39.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;恭喜你新年快樂&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think we normally say 祝你新年快樂, (wishing you a happy new year); 祝你生日快乐, (wishing you a happy birthday)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;恭喜, is normally confined to congratulating someone; like getting married, graduating, job promotion, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would therefore &quot;wish&quot;, (祝你), and not &quot;congratulate&quot;, (恭喜), someone to have a happy new year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:- 祝你 is used differently from 希望，though both, in different context, could mean &quot;wish&quot; But this, I believe, is for another question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T07:53:39.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35902" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35903" CreationDate="2019-12-03T14:13:14.100" Score="2" ViewCount="418" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the verb 有 negated by 没 instead of 不 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some historical reason or was it just a strange accident ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21462" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T23:53:50.937" Title="What is the origin of 没 as an alternative to 不?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;negation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-12-06T09:32:05.617" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35902" CreationDate="2019-12-03T14:27:40.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有(have) is opposite of 没有 (don't have/ have not). &lt;em&gt;没 short for 没有&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒有工作 = 沒工作 = don't have job/ work&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒有去工作 = 沒去工作 = have not gone to work/ do not go to wprk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是(positive/ is) is opposite of 否(negative) or 不是 (is not)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;是否合適？&lt;/strong&gt;= is it suitable? or is it not suitable = &lt;strong&gt;is it suitable?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;是不是人?&lt;/strong&gt; = is it a human? or is it not a human? = &lt;strong&gt;is it human?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;合適 = &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; suitable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;是人 = is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; human&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Difference between 不 and 沒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 = not; negative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;沒 = have not; don't have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;工作 (&lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; working)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;不 here implies &amp;quot;refusal&amp;quot; of a verb&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;沒&lt;/strong&gt;工作 (&lt;strong&gt;don't have&lt;/strong&gt; job)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;沒&lt;/strong&gt;工作 (&lt;strong&gt;have not&lt;/strong&gt; work)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;沒 here implies &amp;quot;absent&amp;quot; of a noun or &amp;quot;negative&amp;quot; of a verb in past participle form&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 有(have) implies &amp;quot;present&amp;quot; therefore we use 沒(don't have) for its opposite form &amp;quot;absent&amp;quot; (沒有)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We say 不是 instead of 沒是 because 不 here implies &amp;quot;negative&amp;quot;, thus negative of 是(being) became 不是 (not being).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we say 沒是, it would imply 1. &amp;quot;don't have being&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;being&amp;quot; in not a noun here) or  2. &amp;quot;have not being&amp;quot; (it would be in past participle form), neither is correct for expressing &amp;quot;not being&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T15:50:14.047" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35902" CreationDate="2019-12-03T17:06:08.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Our moderator @songyuanyao has already provided a good link, here I make some additions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没 is the opposite of 有, which implys the objective absence, while 不 is mere negation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 不有 valid?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes! But it appears in classical Chinese, and idioms originating from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有 means 占有（seize）, so it can be simply negated by 不:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生而不(有)，为而不恃，功成而弗居。——《老子》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“创生而不去占有，施为而不会恃恩，成功而不以居傲。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今，君胜郑而不(有)，无乃失民臣之力乎？——《春秋公羊传》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“现在您战胜了郑国却不去占据，恐怕会失去他们臣民的人力吧？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有 means 存在（exist） as the opposite of 无:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;靡不(有初)，鲜克(有终)。——《诗经》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“没有不能善始的，（却）鲜有能够善终的。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有 means 具有，拥有（have, possess）as the most frequent meaning today:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尔不克敬，尔不啻不(有尔土)，予亦致天之罚于尔躬。——《尚书》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你们若不能敬畏，你们不但不能保有你们的土地，我也会使你们遭受天罚。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不(有忠言奇谋)而取大位，何其往来屑屑，不惮烦也？——《后汉书》&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“（你）并不曾有过什么忠诚的进言，出奇的谋略却要处大位，怎么会那样奔忙劳瘁也不嫌烦呀？”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But! A very important thing is that 不有 is not closely combined to mean 没有 today. 不 is just a negative word negating the whole in the ().&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might ask: 我不（有工作）seems valid, too! But when lacking classical context, it appears very harsh to hear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you write something like “明，年已弱冠，学已通博，反闲娱于家宅而不有业。”（小明年纪也成年了，书也读出来了，却闲在家里玩没有工作。）I think it's Okay QwQ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-12-03T17:18:56.427" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T17:18:56.427" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35902" CreationDate="2019-12-03T17:35:57.660" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a knottier question than it first appears. The answer is hard to summarise, but it seems to be related to the special status of 有 and 無 from the beginning of Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Old Chinese of the oracle bones, there seems to be &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8D#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;fairly neat system of four&lt;/a&gt;. 不, 弗, 毋, 勿, where each of these is a combination of p-type vs m-type, reflecting non-modal (uncontrollable) vs modal (controllable / volitional) respectively; and vowel-final vs *&lt;em&gt;ɯd&lt;/em&gt; final, which reflects stative/eventive/passive vs not. There was also 非 as a straightforward merger of a p-type with the verb 惟／唯／維.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Discussions of oracle bone Chinese often keep 亡 and 無 to one side, as they are &lt;em&gt;verbs&lt;/em&gt; with negative polarity, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.academia.edu/34975916/A_Lexical_Category_in_Oracle-Bone_Inscriptions_V_CONTROLLABLE_or_V_UNCONTROLLABLE&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;they &lt;em&gt;replace&lt;/em&gt; 有 in negative sentences, rather than negating it&lt;/a&gt;. [Look in the 詩經: 亡 and 無 rarely paired with 有, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/book-of-poetry?searchu=%E7%84%A1%E6%9C%89&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the two times 無 is with 有&lt;/a&gt;, it has a &quot;futurity&quot; about it, similar to modern Mandarin 不要 or 不會] We thus see that even from the time of Old Chinese, 有 was already a bit &quot;special&quot;, different from other verbs. Compare Tibetan མེད &lt;em&gt;med&lt;/em&gt;, the negative form (and not particle / prefix) of ཡོད &lt;em&gt;yod&lt;/em&gt;, to be / exist (used in the construction for &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/clrc/yue/31_hilary_chappell.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chappell &amp;amp; Peyraube (2016)&lt;/a&gt;, 沒 was used before the Yuan, and only appeared with 沒有 from the Yuan onwards (specifically by 1350). It had been &quot;semantically extended&quot; from its root meaning of &quot;sink&quot; via &quot;disappear&quot;, replacing 無 and then &quot;extending to an aspectual negator or a marker expressing a perfective negation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see that in southern varieties of Chinese, negative &lt;em&gt;equivalents&lt;/em&gt; of 有 (rather than negative adverbs) still exist: e.g. Min 無 (Southern Min POJ: &lt;em&gt;bô&lt;/em&gt;, Fuzhounese BUC: &lt;em&gt;mò̤&lt;/em&gt;); Cantonese 冇 &lt;em&gt;mou5&lt;/em&gt; (with a different tone to the now literary 無 &lt;em&gt;mou4&lt;/em&gt;), Northern Wu 嘸沒 (Shanghainese &lt;em&gt;hhmm meq&lt;/em&gt;). Interestingly, Xiang varieties generally use 冒得 instead of a cognate of 無 on its own for the negative of 有: an example of suppletion; 無 is still used as a perfective with verbs though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there is just something about 有 and 無 that became amplified with its use in the &quot;perfective&quot; through Middle Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T17:35:57.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35902" CreationDate="2019-12-03T23:00:45.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;没 denotes the sense of &lt;strong&gt;non-existence&lt;/strong&gt;, while 不 is a &lt;strong&gt;general negation&lt;/strong&gt;. The other way to think of it is that 没 is the short version of 没有. In other words, you can replace 没 with 没有 when 没 precedes a verb. For example, 他没来=他没有来; 门没关=门没有关;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不 is used with other words(except for 有) such as 是 to form the negation. E.g. 这不是我做的; 我不管; 我不说;etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, compare 我没有说 and 我不说. 我没有说 means &lt;em&gt;the fact that I have said it is &lt;strong&gt;non-existent&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, that is to say, &lt;em&gt;I haven't said it&lt;/em&gt;. 我不说 means &lt;em&gt;I won't say it&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-03T23:53:50.937" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T23:53:50.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35907" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-04T00:01:14.800" Score="2" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to say I went to visit my husband’s parents and remembered 省亲, but after second thought and searched online and realized that it might only refer to visiting my parents instead of visiting my husband’s. Refer to 元春省亲 in 红楼梦. So, it seems that 省亲 might be the same as 回娘家?? If so, is there a similar word to say visiting my husband’s side? I know I can use 回婆家 or 探望公婆 But is there a two character word for this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T15:08:27.883" Title="Does 省亲 only refer to visiting wife’s parents by the wife?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35907" CreationDate="2019-12-04T01:25:38.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I went to visit my husband’s parents.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我去拜访了老公的父母。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Wife:I went to visit my parents-in-law.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我去拜访了我的公婆。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Husband: I went to visit my parents-in-law.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我去拜访了我的岳父岳母。（or 岳父母）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T01:35:52.537" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T01:35:52.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35907" CreationDate="2019-12-04T04:32:40.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;省亲 指探望父母，有时也指其他尊长，但断没有指戚家长辈的。因为中国古时在婚姻关系中男方地位远高于女方，而宗族一般又居住在一起，故女方嫁入男方家以后，自然天天跟公婆生活在一个屋檐下，并没有探望的需要，而男方是不会去探望女方的父母的。这样看来，媳妇探望公婆的事情没有传统的词语也很正常。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T04:32:40.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35907" CreationDate="2019-12-04T04:41:27.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Does 省亲 only refer to visiting wife’s parents by the wife?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, 省亲 refers to visiting parents or other older generation relatives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;省 in 省亲 has the meaning of 'observe; inspect' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;省亲 means &quot;visit relatives (and see how they are doing, make sure they're OK.)&quot; It can be the parents or other older generation relative. (&lt;em&gt;you have to visit them to observe them&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;探 in 探亲 has the meaning of 'inspect; visit' &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;探亲 also means &quot;visit relatives (and see how they are doing) and it can be any relative.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;省亲 is very similar to 探亲. The former is more literary and the latter is more colloquial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To specifically state: &quot;visiting wife’s parents by the wife&quot; you have to write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我太太回娘家省亲(探望父母)了&quot; (my wife returned to her maiden home to visit her parents)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;娘家 can be replaced by 外家&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you just say &quot;我太太回娘家了&quot; (my wife has gone back to her maiden home) people might not know is she just went back for a visit or short stay or she's ran away from home and went back to live with her parents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is perfectly fine to answer &quot;上周你去哪儿了?&quot; (where have you been last week) with a simple &quot;去了探亲&quot; (went to visit relatives) or &quot;去了省亲&quot; if the relatives were your parents, grand parents, uncle or aunt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T15:08:27.883" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T15:08:27.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35867" CreationDate="2019-12-04T20:58:12.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;search for 臧老师教你写好字, it's an account of a primary school teacher, he posted lots of videos teaching 6~7 years old students to write Chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to find more this type videos? Search for the keywords 教写字, and you'll find more related videos and accounts (eg. The account 熊猫教写字-1年级 in the figure below is really good. Do remember to click the button 查看全部用户 to find more accounts and follow them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.loli.net/2019/12/05/ZTcrKmX3ykDQs1v.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;screenshot&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21286" LastEditorUserId="21286" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T21:12:15.977" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T21:12:15.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35912" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35921" CreationDate="2019-12-04T22:09:47.403" Score="4" ViewCount="1181" Body="&lt;p&gt;I translated &quot;The student did not come&quot; as &quot;学生没来了&quot; but the answer was &quot;学生没来&quot; (i.e. 了 is omitted). This answer confuses me because it doesn't contain any indication of past action; i.e. I would translate &quot;The student is not coming&quot; to &quot;学生没来&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why is it that &quot;了&quot; is not required in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is my answer acceptable? What is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How would you distinguish &quot;The student did not come&quot; with &quot;The student is not coming&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T17:04:38.870" Title="&quot;did not come&quot;: 没来 vs 没来了" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35912" CreationDate="2019-12-04T22:31:05.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;没……了 shows a change of status, but didn't come is just a status, doesn't involve any change. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;The student did not come 学生没来&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;The student is not coming any more 学生没来了 or 学生不来了&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;The student came 学生来了&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;He didn't take that medicine 他没吃那个药&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;He's not taking that medicine anymore 他不吃那个药了 or 他没吃那个药了&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;He took that medicine 他吃那个药了&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="22717" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T17:04:38.870" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T17:04:38.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35914" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35931" CreationDate="2019-12-04T22:51:48.723" Score="2" ViewCount="413" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am very confused by the character 想。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this sentence I found in my studies:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我在想你今天会不会来.&#xA;wǒ zài xiǎng nǐ jīntiān huì bu huì lái.&#xA;I am wondering if you will come today.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)  If I had to translate the English, I would say &quot;want to know&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想知道你今天会不会来.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you clarify what &quot;想&quot; means by itself? I thought it means &quot;to want&quot;. It seems that both 想 and 想知道 express &quot;I am wondering...&quot; and am confused as to when to use which. (My understanding is that 想知道 translates literally to &quot;want to know&quot; and that seems the same as &quot;wondering&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) I saw that 我想要 means &quot;I want&quot; (literally &quot;I think need&quot;). However there seems to be this construction 想[verb] (ie 我想去北京） that seems to mean &quot;want to [verb]&quot;. In what situations would you say &quot;想要&quot; and not simply &quot;想&quot;? Is it wrong to think of 想 as &quot;to want&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T02:41:29.547" Title="meaning of 想 as &quot;to want&quot; vs &quot;to think/wonder&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35915" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-04T22:54:08.317" Score="0" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;At work I've gained the nickname &quot;Oreo Boy&quot; because everyone's twice my age or older (hence the &quot;boy&quot;) and I've got a noticeable habit of stuffing my face with junk from the vending machine (hence the &quot;Oreo&quot;). After some thought I decided my Chinese nickname and internet handle would be 小奥利奥 because it takes my IRL nickname into consideration but it's also a double entendre because of my mixed heritage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm currently deciding on what I'd like my actual 名字 to be and I'd like to pick somebody's mind about my current selection (my IRL name is Justin):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;竭心 - jié xīn - &quot;To do one's utmost.&quot; From what I understand, Chinese parents often pick positive and/or masculine words for their son's name and this one seems to fit that niche.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;居心 - jū xīn - Acording to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%B1%85%E5%BF%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt; this can mean both &quot;a tranquil heart or mind&quot; and &quot;to harbor (evil) intentions&quot;, the former sounds like a proper name while the latter sounds chuuni (and yet I like it).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;嘉鑫 - jiā xīn - Doesn't seem to translate to any specific phrase, just conveys the two ideas, &quot;excellence&quot; and &quot;prosperity&quot;. From a brief search I found that this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/307741536_99996374&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;is a legitimate name being used&lt;/a&gt; but I'm not really fond of it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;酒神 - jiǔ shén - The Wine God of Roman mythology, Bacchus. Can't say anyone would ever take me seriously if I picked a name like that.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to clarify so that my question isn't marked as &quot;opinion based&quot; or &quot;too broad&quot;, I am asking if any of the names I've listed could pass as an actual name in China, or if you heard these names would instantly be able to tell that it was a foreigner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastEditorUserId="22149" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T03:21:20.730" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T09:41:05.410" Title="Which (if any) of these name ideas sound native? Which sound foreign?" Tags="&lt;names&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35916" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36071" CreationDate="2019-12-04T22:54:47.827" Score="2" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要去北京。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means &quot;I will go to Beijing&quot;. But 要 also means &quot;need&quot;. So could this sentence also be translated as &quot;I need to go to Beijing&quot;? How would you make the distinction between the two intended meanings in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T10:34:17.823" Title="要 to indicate &quot;will [verb]&quot; vs &quot;need&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35914" CreationDate="2019-12-04T23:06:19.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it is not unusual for a word to have more than one meaning. Look here for example for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E6%83%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;想&lt;/a&gt; Scroll down, you will find example sentences and the source for each usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;亲爱的，我想你哦！Baby, I miss you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T23:06:19.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35916" CreationDate="2019-12-04T23:08:37.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This isn't really an answer to your question but is still relevant, I pulled this straight from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22be_going_to%22_with_%22yao%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2elj5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2elj5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T23:08:37.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35916" CreationDate="2019-12-04T23:12:50.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Again, look &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E8%A6%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, scroll down, find example sentences and many meanings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An important use of 要 is as 'if':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 表示假设，相当于“如果”、“倘若” [if;suppose;in case]。如:要得(若要);要不价(否则;要不然)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T23:12:50.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35920" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35923" CreationDate="2019-12-04T23:44:48.957" Score="-1" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will preface this with the fact that I have some symptoms of asperger's and so, it's easy for me to make faux pas social situations, and difficult for me to judge what would be rude or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think when one begins to learn a language there is a certain level of enthusiasm or excitement so it's natural to want to use it wherever one can, but also I think there may need to be some level of restraint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can it be considered rude or offensive to just start speaking mandarin if I don't know the person well enough? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assume I'm in England or another English speaking western country and I've started conversation in English in a natural and polite way with, for example a shopkeeper, hotel staff, at a restaurant etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm clearly a white british person and the other person has no idea I know any mandarin just by looking at me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without intending to sound racist in any way, shape or form, there are certain cues one can pick up on, like the appearance of someone and whether or not they speak with a Chinese accent. If I pick up on these cues, can I just start speaking mandarin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason I think it may be considered offensive is because if I do not know the person well enough then they may think I'm assuming too much about them. Also I think possibly if one starts speaking mandarin based on appearance alone it might be considered racist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also might be a bit too intimate for someone to speak with a stranger in their native language in a western country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, a chinese friend of mine said that if white british people started speaking to them in mandarin their reaction would be surprised and happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23200" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T03:47:31.673" Title="Can it be considered rude to start speaking to a stranger in mandarin in a western country?" Tags="&lt;culture&gt;&lt;conversation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-07-27T00:08:46.193" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35912" CreationDate="2019-12-05T00:11:21.350" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;We don't say 学生没来了. I think it's because 没 itself has already addressed the tense. 学生没(有)来 is &lt;em&gt;The fact of students coming is non-existent&lt;/em&gt;, namely &lt;em&gt;Students didn't come&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Students haven't come&lt;/em&gt;. So, we don't need 了 and 学生没来 just does the trick. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when you use 不 for negation, either 学生不来 or 学生不来了 is correct but with different meanings. 学生不来 implies that students refused to come, 学生不来了 &lt;em&gt;students won't come&lt;/em&gt;(the reason is unaddressed, it's factual rather than subjective/emotional).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: To translate &quot;The student did not come&quot;, we should consider the context you put the sentence into. It could be simply 学生没来. But it's worth noting that Chinese isn't necessary to embrace the tense in a sentence and sometimes the tense is implied. We usually deduce the tense according to contexts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T00:26:36.850" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T00:26:36.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35920" CreationDate="2019-12-05T00:43:05.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/zqDU16SBM9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/zqDU16SBM9E&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I encourage you to watch this dude's videos. He knows a plethora of languages and he's what inspired me to learn Mandarin. Pay attention to the way he interacts with people in his videos. He always starts the conversation with something insignificant like the weather or a food item on the shelf at the grocery store. Once he has their attention he asks them where they're from and then engages them in their native language. Not to make the post political but I do have to admit that with the current political climate in the west I wouldnt be surprised if some oddballs did get offended for a white person t ok speak Chinese (glad that's something I'll never have to deal with)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22149" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T00:43:05.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35920" CreationDate="2019-12-05T02:43:42.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese, Japanese and Korean are usually hard to recognize for a normal westerner, and each of these people are unhappy to be taken as another group of people... Even worse, if you take a Southeast Asian person as Chinese, Japanese, or Korean... So, it's risky to do  that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T02:43:42.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35920" CreationDate="2019-12-05T03:47:31.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's look at it from &quot;the other side&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When as a foreign student in London in the early 70's, I had a white Londoner trying to engage me in Mandarin, without actually finding out whether I was an ethnic Chinese, Thai, Filipino, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, Kazakh, Mongolian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did not consider him rude as, like him in the above scenario, I too couldn't tell the difference, even now, between an Englishman and a Frenchman or a German or a Czechoslovakian. Perhaps that's just me. I cannot claim to speak for everyone else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And probably the only &quot;Eastern&quot; language that Londoner could speak, though haltingly, was Mandarin, he had no choice but to run with it. He probably considered it the polite thing to do.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, having said that, it is perfectly understandable some Asians, (perhaps arising from political or historical animosity), might be offended to be automatically taken to be a Chinese.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T03:47:31.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35915" CreationDate="2019-12-05T04:12:37.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;None of them is good enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;竭心 is weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;竭 means to exhaust as in 尽心竭力.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BUT while you can say 尽力, you cannot say 竭心, because you cannot exhaust your heart, while 尽 means to do most/to do to the greatest extent, so uou can say 尽心.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;居心 is originally constructed the same as 属意, “to place your heart/mind at”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it cannot stand alone to mean anything:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;居心叵测（hard to know where one's heart is placed—— harbouring unfathomable motives）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汝居心正，吾知免矣（《三国志》）（You place your heart upright, (so) I know (I) do not (have to worry about you)—— You are a upright man, ...）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;居心 do not mean a tranquil heart or mind&lt;/strong&gt; Yabla is not always reliable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When emphasized, 居心 is always a derogatory word:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其人有居心（The man is certainly placing his heart at something—— He is ill intended）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘉鑫 a mediocre, common name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酒神 a &lt;strong&gt;overly specific&lt;/strong&gt; name of a &lt;strong&gt;foreign&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;deity&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three bold aspects should all be avoided in a Chinese name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the name 公明 is good, but no one of surname 赵 will use it as a name.（赵公明 is a deity）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T04:12:37.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35915" CreationDate="2019-12-05T04:15:57.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1, 2, 4 are all bad , 3 is ok. but sounds dated. If I heard any of those names, I would know they are not written by native Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;竭心 reminds people of 心脏衰竭 (heart failure)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;居心 reminds people of 居心不良 (have bad intention)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;嘉鑫 can be a real name, but 鑫 is an archaic character that almost no one know it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;酒神 means &quot;god of wine&quot; It is more a nickname or a title than a serious name. Also 酒神 pronounces like 走神 (distracted)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T04:27:55.277" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T04:27:55.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35912" CreationDate="2019-12-05T04:23:28.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;学生没来了 / 学生没来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all depends on whether this is in response to a question or just a bare statement of fact. If the latter, then the 了 is both unnecessary and superfluous, and may even cause some confusion to the listener. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is in response to a question, (on whether so-and-so is coming or not), the 了 conveys a great deal more than just about any grammatical anomaly. It implies a specific reason, (which has already materialized), why so-and-so is not coming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context, as always, will decide whether the 了 should be there or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this。 Question -- &quot;我听说姐夫有病”   Answer -- “他去世了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T04:23:28.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35833" CreationDate="2019-12-05T05:24:12.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;发财- basically translates to &quot;recieve/send riches&quot;, this could come from the money that is traditionally given on the new year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23204" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T05:24:12.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35916" CreationDate="2019-12-05T05:37:39.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are possible and legit. Maybe the context would tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我不要在家等着, 我要去北京探探情况. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't want to sit and wait; I need to go to Beijing to check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我这几天不在, 我明天要去北京&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will be out of town these days. I will go to Beijing tomorrow. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. These &quot;examples&quot; may not be well-crafted, but I think I basically made my point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T05:37:39.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35914" CreationDate="2019-12-05T05:44:20.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;h3&gt;The futility of thinking 想 can be fully understood in English.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am very confused by the character 想。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is unsurprising because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%83%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;想&lt;/a&gt; has multiple distinct meanings: think, feel, miss, imagine, want, wonder, ...; maybe even opine, deduce, conceive, etc., in certain contexts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each of these English words have multiple distinct meanings (in English).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;想 is ambiguous, and a given usage can often be reasonably translated to multiple distinct words in English.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Likewise, the English equivalents are ambiguous, and can often be reasonably translated to multiple distinct words in Chinese, some of which don't even involve 想, such as 考虑, 怀念, 觉得, 认为, 要求, 决定.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus together, if we translate 想 into English, you're looking at 20+ (word,meaning) pairs, only some of which are valid translations of 想 some of the time.  This is further greatly bloated when we include words in Chinese containing the hanzi 想, such as 想法, 想要, 理想, 想到, 想起, 想象, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I therefore recommend: &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;forget the idea of getting a clear understanding of 想 directly via English&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.  You're wasting your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;But how can I understand 想?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you clarify what &amp;quot;想&amp;quot; means by itself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.  And I contend that no-one can using English: the words in both Chinese and English are far too imprecise.  At most, you can say that &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;想 pertains to some thought process&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, i.e., something is going on in someone's brain.  If you go beyond this, any description of 想 in English is going to be wrong a non-trivial amount of the time (the translation is hugely context dependent).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Translation catalyst: first replace 想 with &amp;quot;something going on in some brain&amp;quot;.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the method I use for understanding what 想 means in a given context.  We use &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;something going on in some brain&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; as a catalyst:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;first, replace 想 with the deliberately vague &amp;quot;something going on in some brain&amp;quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;then, once you understand what the rest of the sentence means, &lt;em&gt;infer&lt;/em&gt; the most appropriate English word for &amp;quot;something going on in some brain&amp;quot; from the remainder of the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我在想你今天会不会来.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I am [something going on in my brain] if you will come today.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 1: I am &lt;em&gt;wondering&lt;/em&gt; if you will come today.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 2: I am &lt;em&gt;thinking about&lt;/em&gt; whether you will come today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想知道你今天会不会来.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I [something going on in my brain] to know if you will come today.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 1: I &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; to know if you will come today.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 2: I &lt;em&gt;would like&lt;/em&gt; to know if you will come today.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 3: I &lt;em&gt;yearn&lt;/em&gt; to know if you will come today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This captures the ambiguity: there are multiple correct translations, and one translation might be better than another depending on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;What's the difference between 想 vs. 想要 vs. 要?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might not be 100% accurate, but it works for me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%A6%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;要&lt;/a&gt; implies something is going to happen---there's no thinking (or just minimal thinking) involved.  [This is among other meanings for 要 which are not related to this topic.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%83%B3%E8%A6%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;想要&lt;/a&gt; implies a thought, desire, wish, intention, etc. (i.e., something going on in some brain) that something is going to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%83%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;想&lt;/a&gt; implies it's purely in the mind (i.e., something going on in some brain), and you haven't (yet) taken steps to achieve it (or have taken minimal steps).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要吃饺子。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 1: I &lt;em&gt;am going&lt;/em&gt; to eat dumplings.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 2: I &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; to eat dumplings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm asserting this (i.e., eating dumplings) is going to happen.  Omitting 想 indicates you're not really thinking about it any more (i.e., &amp;quot;something going on in some brain&amp;quot; is not true).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, you wouldn't ordinarily declare &amp;quot;I am going to eat dumplings&amp;quot; to a waiter: (a) it's a bit rude, and (b) it's confusing (the waiter might reply &amp;quot;good for you, but what can I get you today?&amp;quot;).  I think it's for these kinds of English-language customs that 要 is translated to &amp;quot;want&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想要吃饺子。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 1: I &lt;em&gt;intend&lt;/em&gt; to eat dumplings.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 2: I &lt;em&gt;would&lt;/em&gt; like to eat dumplings.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 3: I &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; to eat dumplings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically if I don't change my mind, I'm going to eat dumplings.  But it is possible I might change my mind.  Importantly, there's a mind involved (&amp;quot;something going on in some brain&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means something like: &lt;em&gt;I am thinking about and taking steps towards eating dumplings.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想吃饺子。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 1: I &lt;em&gt;desire&lt;/em&gt; to eat dumplings.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 2: I &lt;em&gt;wish&lt;/em&gt; to eat dumplings.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 3: I'm &lt;em&gt;thinking&lt;/em&gt; of eating dumplings.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;version 4: I &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; to eat dumplings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, it's all &amp;quot;something going on in some brain&amp;quot;.  Whether or not steps have been taken towards eating dumplings is unstated.  Ordinarily, you'd expect that no steps have been taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T02:41:29.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35914" CreationDate="2019-12-05T05:56:41.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我在想你今天会不会来. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking that whether you'll show up today. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我想知道你今天会不会来. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know that whether you'll show up today. = I wonder whether you'll show up today. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Corresponding made-up scenarios could be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You have been waiting for someone to come, and eventually s/he did, then you could say: &quot;我[还]在想你今天会不会来&quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You need to check whether s/he will show up, so you gave s/he a call. Then &quot;我想知道你今天会不会来&quot; seems a better choice. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to sum up, 想 could simply means &quot;think&quot; or could be translated into &quot;want&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although in practice I don't think these two sentence would make so much difference… seems interchangable to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T05:56:41.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35933" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-05T07:46:28.733" Score="1" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;Title from a popular Mandarin song, 原来你什么都不想要&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, why 不想要 rather than 不要? What is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the 想 doing there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to hear from people here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T08:35:11.843" Title="原来你什么都不想要. Why 不想要, and not just 不要?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35912" CreationDate="2019-12-05T07:55:46.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To correct sylvia answer&#xA;&quot;The student is not coming any more 学生没来了 or 学生不来了&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally we say as below:&#xA;The student is not coming any more 学生不再来了&#xA;The student is not coming 学生不来了&#xA;The student did not manage to come 学生没来了(liao3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23205" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T07:55:46.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35933" CreationDate="2019-12-05T08:06:02.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without other context, &quot;什么都&lt;strong&gt;不要&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; can mean &quot;&lt;strong&gt;don't need&lt;/strong&gt; anything&quot; (什么都不&lt;strong&gt;需&lt;/strong&gt;要) or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;don't want&lt;/strong&gt; anything&quot;(什么都不&lt;strong&gt;想&lt;/strong&gt;要)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么都&lt;strong&gt;不想要&lt;/strong&gt; can only mean &quot;&lt;strong&gt;don't want&lt;/strong&gt; anything&quot;. Therefore it is more specific. we don't have to guess it is &quot;don't want&quot; or &quot;don't need&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T08:12:48.633" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T08:12:48.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35933" CreationDate="2019-12-05T08:35:11.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;basically in this sentence both of them have the similar means is 'don't want' or 'don't need',but 不想要 may more emphasizes the subjective idea of 'want'.&#xA;As it is one sentence of the lyrics,maybe they just want to express strong emotions or just matching with melody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23207" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T08:35:11.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35937" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-05T08:54:27.850" Score="4" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have several resources and dictionaries that suggest the word 透 (tou) is pictophonetic where 辶 (chuo) suggests the meaning and 秀（xiu) provides the sound. This confuses me because 透 and 秀 do not seem to be related in sound. I assumed that this may be due to a classical chinese pronunciation but was unable to verify that or find more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the correct etymology here? thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23208" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T18:29:42.157" Title="Dictionaries suggest 透 (tou) is pictophonetic where 秀 (xiu) provides the sound. Is this through a classical chinese pronunciation?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35938" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-05T09:36:08.067" Score="2" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering what the difference between 需 and 須 is. They seem close enough while 需 slightly hints to me that it is an &quot;optional&quot; kind of want, while 須 is a &quot;demanding&quot; want. Is this correct and is there a better way to think of them? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23208" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T10:46:17.917" Title="What is the difference between 需 and 須?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-12-06T09:31:56.197" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35915" CreationDate="2019-12-05T09:41:05.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answers given so far should tell you the hidden dangers of amateurishly giving or making up names in Chinese, (hence my reluctance elsewhere to venture a recommendation), because of the multifarious meanings and connotations a single, (let alone two), Chinese word could potentially carry, and added to this is the real possibility that certain words may convey totally different / negative / hilarious meanings / connotations in a certain dialect, especially the notoriously multi-tonal Cantonese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I totally agree that 1,2,4 could never ever be used as names for real persons; may be in a, say, Chinese martial arts novel, (武 侠 小 说), where dastardly, unsavory characterizations reflected in the names of characters are the norm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even option #3 sounds uncomfortable to a Chinese ear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about a seemingly innocent transliteration of a &quot;western&quot; name? Here too lie many hidden dangers. Just like every other people, making fun of people's names, especially among Chinese school children, is actually a favorite pastime, even considered an art form. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, consider this name -- Michael Xi. Transliterated into Cantonese it sounds like, (mai gai sea), in mandarin 卖 鸡 屎, (seller of chicken excrement)     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T09:41:05.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35938" CreationDate="2019-12-05T10:39:12.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/22009/what-is-the-difference-between-%e5%bf%85%e9%a1%bb-%e5%be%97-and-%e9%9c%80%e8%a6%81&quot;&gt;What is the difference between 必须, 得, and 需要?&lt;/a&gt; already explained the difference between 需 and 須. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;需(need) apply to noun. For example: &quot;必需品&quot; (品 is a noun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;須(need to; must) apply to verb. For example: &quot;須知人言可畏&quot; (知 is a verb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;必需品: necessity; essential thing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/42340/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;人言可畏&lt;/a&gt; criticisms should be feared; gossip is a fearful thing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T10:46:17.917" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T10:46:17.917" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35941" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35957" CreationDate="2019-12-05T13:37:25.527" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is my translation of the song &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD-MUX1Nmgw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;那裏是吾家&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;那裏是吾家&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作詞：許冠傑/黎彼得&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作曲：許冠傑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;足跡遍天下，看透異國繁華， (My footprints are all over the world, I've seen every  flourishing foreign countries&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;桃源仙境似夢也，始終找不到吾家。 (utopia is but a dream, I've never found my home)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安居似虛話，遠處密罩雲霞， (live in peace is like a lie, faraway places are thickly covered by clouds and mist)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何時一朝見霧化，子孫歡笑艷陽下。 (When will be a day when we see the mist dissipate, and my children laughing under the bright sun)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊！萬千燈火透廣廈， 啊！那裏是吾家。 (Ah! million lights shine out of great buildings, Ah! There is my home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Base on the lyrics,  The singer has been looking for his home, and at the end he found it, but did he?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;萬千燈火透廣廈 is where his home at seem strange, because great city skylines are all over the world, not just in Hong Kong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible that Sam Hui like many Chinese use 那 and 哪 interchangeably? I was one of the guilt one, I always wrote &amp;quot;那裏?&amp;quot; instead of &amp;quot;哪裏?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible that &amp;quot;那裏是吾家&amp;quot;(there is my home) was intended to be &amp;quot;哪裏是吾家?&amp;quot; (where is my home?)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, Sam Hui himself would be the best person to answer this question. Since there's no possible way for me to ask him, I wonder did anyone heard him clarify it in some media?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or more realistically, an official English translation of this song exists, that can answer my question definitely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presume 那裏是吾家 did mean &amp;quot;There is my home&amp;quot; we have to interpret the lyrics as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安居似虛話， he was living somewhere he didn't true feel home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;遠處密罩雲霞， his true home is some faraway place he couldn't locate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何時一朝見霧化，he is hoping the location of his real home would be revealed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;子孫歡笑艷陽下。 he and his children will then happily live there&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊！萬千燈火透廣廈， is the description of that heart warming place (Hong Kong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊！那裏是吾家。where million lights shine out of great buildings (Hong Kong) is his true home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T20:34:47.943" Title="Is it possible that &quot;那裏是吾家&quot; was intended to be &quot;哪裏是吾家?&quot;?" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;lyrics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35942" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35943" CreationDate="2019-12-05T14:53:48.610" Score="0" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;在中国大陆, 有一些非学历教育机构的名称都用了&quot;尚&quot;字.&#xA;例如: &lt;strong&gt;尚&lt;/strong&gt;学堂, &lt;strong&gt;尚&lt;/strong&gt;硅谷 (前两者都是Java编程培训机构); &lt;strong&gt;尚&lt;/strong&gt;德 (成人学历提升)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;尚&quot;字在汉语里有类似教育, 学习之类的意思吗? 为什么这些教育机构会想到这种字起名呢? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当然, 在&lt;a href=&quot;https://hanyu.baidu.com/zici/s?wd=%E5%B0%9A&amp;amp;query=%E5%B0%9A&amp;amp;srcid=28532&amp;amp;from=kg1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百度汉语&lt;/a&gt;中有: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;加上, &lt;strong&gt;往…上补充东西&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  尚之以琼华乎而. --&lt;em&gt;诗·齐风·著&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;又如: 尚絅 (穿锦衣时加上罩袍, 以使华美不显耀于外)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这些培训机构起名是根据这条释义以&quot;提升&quot;为考量的吗? 还是说&quot;尚&quot;字也有学习的含义? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20407" LastEditorDisplayName="user20407" LastEditDate="2019-12-06T06:15:39.493" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T06:15:39.493" Title="Does &quot;尚&quot; mean studying or learning?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35942" CreationDate="2019-12-05T15:07:59.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;尚 means: esteem; value; uphold &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尚 can be short for 崇尚  (to advocate; uphold) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;尚学&quot; can be interpreted as &quot;崇尚学問&quot; (advocating knowledge)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;尚德&quot; can be interpreted as &quot;崇尚美德&quot; (advocating virtue)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;尚武&quot; can be interpreted as &quot;崇尚武學&quot; (advocating martial arts)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T15:07:59.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35944" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35949" CreationDate="2019-12-05T19:14:53.307" Score="1" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does 来 mean in the following sentence? 今天我们来讨论一个问题 I tried to translate the sentence as follows: &quot;Today we are going to talk about a topic/problem/question&quot;. Does 来 indicate future? Is there a difference to 要 (e.g. 今天我们要...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23211" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T23:42:13.490" Title="来 + verb to indicate future" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35945" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-05T19:22:51.103" Score="0" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to understand the seals and title for this painting. I have tried importing the image of the painting in Pleco and many other seal identification websites, but still no luck. I believe it could be a painted by a very famous Chinese artist and I need to verify its authenticity. Do you know what the signature says? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tGaey.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/N9CKO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23212" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T23:25:09.030" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T02:31:49.040" Title="Who signed this Chinese peice of art? (Characters identified: 吳氏 小平画印)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35944" CreationDate="2019-12-05T19:36:12.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you are correct that &quot;来&quot; means 'we are going to' in this scenario. To be honest, as a native Chineses speaker, I cannot tell the difference between &quot;来” and ”要&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23213" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T19:36:12.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35944" CreationDate="2019-12-05T23:16:30.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;来 means ‘come’.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今天我們討論一個問題 - we discuss a problem today&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今天我們&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;討論一個問題 -  we &lt;strong&gt;need to/ are going to&lt;/strong&gt; discuss a problem today &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;今天我們來討論一個問題 -  we  &lt;strong&gt;come/  are going to&lt;/strong&gt; discuss a problem today&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T23:42:13.490" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T23:42:13.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35944" CreationDate="2019-12-05T23:17:24.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;来 in this context focuses on &lt;strong&gt;the purpose for us to come/ gather together&lt;/strong&gt;, 要 just &lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt;. 要 connotes more of the  necessity or even mandatory. 来 is more suggesting and less mandatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Sometimes the nuance is weak in practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T23:23:05.603" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T23:23:05.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35942" CreationDate="2019-12-05T23:30:02.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the comment by Toosky. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;strong&gt;pun&lt;/strong&gt; is intended here. 尚学堂，尚硅谷 is pronounced the same as 上学堂，上硅谷, which sounds welcoming.  On the other hand , 尚 itself has other decent meanings as in 高尚，时尚，etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T23:35:33.953" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T23:35:33.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35945" CreationDate="2019-12-06T01:26:19.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;i think it's: &#xA;&lt;code&gt;巫峡神女峰&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;壬午年&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xx月&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can't tell which month it is.. maybe someone else can identify it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T01:26:19.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35945" CreationDate="2019-12-06T02:31:49.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Last line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D9OAK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D9OAK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;小平畫&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Drawn by&lt;/em&gt; 小平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seal 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MLoYX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MLoYX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;吳氏&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吳 &lt;em&gt;family/clan&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seal 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/l5eYQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/l5eYQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;小平画印&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Drawing seal of&lt;/em&gt; 小平&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no &amp;quot;title&amp;quot; of the painting as such - the theme of the painting can only be inferred from the text, which as @sylvia points out literally says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巫峽神女峰壬午年丙Ｘ月&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Painted at Shénnǚ peak of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Gorge&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wū Gorge&lt;/a&gt; on the Year of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A3%AC%E5%8D%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rénwǔ&lt;/a&gt; and month of&lt;/em&gt; 丙&lt;em&gt;X&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T02:31:49.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35941" CreationDate="2019-12-06T05:24:28.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.Is it possible that Sam Hui like many Chinese use 那 and 哪 interchangeably? I was one of the guilt one, I always wrote &quot;那里?&quot; instead of &quot;哪里?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nope, at least for nowaday mainland Chinese, we do not do that. It is definitely a typo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Is it possible that &quot;那里是吾家&quot;(there is my home) was intended to be &quot;哪里是吾家?&quot; (where is my home?)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possibly, based on the context I would say it is 哪. The confusion arises from the fact that 那 means 哪 in the ancient Chinese language. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%82%A3%E8%A3%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%82%A3%E8%A3%A1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23165" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T05:24:28.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21035" CreationDate="2019-12-06T07:23:21.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why would you want to use an external API for static data that does not change over time? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation map is a constant, and all the libraries and services just wrap those maps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as Chinese Traditional/Simplified to Pinyin goes there are a variety of free mappings available — here is one I've found to be the most complete and up-to-date which I 'ported' to javascript: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/glowinthedark/Simplified-and-Traditional-Chinese/blob/master/gb2312-big5/js/pinyin.js&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/glowinthedark/Simplified-and-Traditional-Chinese/blob/master/gb2312-big5/js/pinyin.js&lt;/a&gt; — this can be easily adapted to whatever programming language you need. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, as suggested in another answer, you can extract your own map from CEDICT.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Python-based identifier and conversion tool&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/tsroten/dragonmapper&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/tsroten/dragonmapper&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Ruby-based conversion tool:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/plexus/ting&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/plexus/ting&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Other resources&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wechat.com/en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wechat app for android&lt;/a&gt; comes with built-in conversion tables for chinese2pinyin and traditional2simplified which you can peek at by renaming the apk file to zip, unzipping it, and then looking under the &lt;code&gt;assets/fts&lt;/code&gt; folder where you will find &lt;code&gt;fts_py.txt&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;fts_t2s.txt&lt;/code&gt; corrrespondingly. (&lt;em&gt;Note that this might change in future versions.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4542" LastEditorUserId="4542" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T11:37:59.217" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T11:37:59.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35955" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-06T07:27:52.147" Score="3" ViewCount="447" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm having trouble finding out how to say 'part time study' in Chinese. Or anything like that e.g. part time degree etc. There doesn't seem to be any generic word for 'part time' and there isn't a specific word for it in this case either. You can say 'part time work' using 兼职 but that contains the meaning for job in it so can't be used with study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to study part time but I literally can't talk about it in Chinese since there is no word for it...save for explaining the whole concept every time I want to mention it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In China they don't seem to do this and don't really study at all beyond early 20s. There don't seem to be any mature students either..you won't see anyone 30,40 or older in their universities. They just study full time up until this age, then stop for life and get a job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess since there are no mature students, anyone who &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; working part time would not spend the rest of their week studying so no need for the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21998" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T01:09:57.740" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T01:09:57.740" Title="How do I say &quot;part time study&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35955" CreationDate="2019-12-06T07:50:20.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;(In Cantonese) you can say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兼读&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is defined in &lt;em&gt;ABC Canto&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;part-time, as course of study&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而好多大學都有兼讀制學位課程&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;ji4 gaa1 hou2 do1 daai6 hok6 dou1 jau5 gim1 duk6 zai3 hok6 wai2 fo3 cing4&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Nowadays many universities offer part-time degree programs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part-time course would, thusly, be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;兼读课程&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does seem like the word is catching on in Mandarin but ymmv.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T08:08:11.540" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35941" CreationDate="2019-12-06T07:52:05.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My take from the context of the overall lyrics is that 那 is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The starting line sets the basic premise for the song 足跡遍天下, (an itinerant traveler, not a sojourner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you have 始終找不到吾家, (still unable to find my or rather a home for himself; the operative word here is 始終; he didn't have a home, he was searching for one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, 啊！萬千燈火透廣廈, 啊！那裏是吾家, (Ah!, the bright lights of HK?; Ah!, that's my home) The clue here is the joyful 啊! It is indicative that he has at long last, after all the wanderings, searching and longing found or &quot;adopted&quot; HK as his home or rather, poignantly in such cases, his final resting place. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the idea that it may have been intended to be 哪 came about because the first part of the song does indicate asking for &quot;where&quot; But the ending of the song finally resolves the hitherto ambiguous issue by saying, 啊！萬千燈火透廣廈, 啊！那裏是吾家, (Ah!, where the bright lights are, that's my home) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, listen to him sing. There isn't any rising inquisitive tone when vocalizing 那 which would be the case if it is actually a question, a 哪. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T07:52:05.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35955" CreationDate="2019-12-06T09:41:15.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides 兼读 indicated in the other answer, 'part time study' could also be 兼修 or 兼学. E.g. 我主修数学, 兼修外语; 我现在在工作，同时&lt;strong&gt;兼修&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;在读&lt;/strong&gt;研究生. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: 在职读书 could be briefed as 在读 in some context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T09:41:15.127" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35960" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-06T23:01:47.390" Score="0" ViewCount="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just started work on a new translation project for a client –– translating a Chinese document that talks about conflict resolution strategies. The original author really likes to use this particular sentence pattern: &quot;在目标为。。。时使用.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot; 妥协: 在目标为越过矛盾这一障碍并一齐向前看时使用.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translated the above sentence as &quot;Compromising: used in situations where the goal is to overcome the obstacles created by the conflict and look to the future.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do people think? Is this an appropriate way to translate this sentence pattern, or is it a bit too loose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19459" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T05:20:35.520" Title="How to properly Translate the &quot;在目标为。。。时使用.&quot; sentence pattern" Tags="&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35960" CreationDate="2019-12-07T01:08:24.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would render it thusly (like that word!):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妥协:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A compromise:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在目标为越过矛盾这一障碍并一齐向前看时使用。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(a lowering of your demands) with the goal of overcoming conflicting views while at the same time looking forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T01:08:24.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35955" CreationDate="2019-12-07T01:15:39.313" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;全日制 = full-time (something)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非全日制 = part-time (something)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;非全日制的学生 = part-time student (implies part-time study)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T01:15:39.313" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35960" CreationDate="2019-12-07T05:05:26.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;妥协&amp;quot;: 在目标为越过矛盾这一障碍并一齐向前看时使用.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Compromise&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Use it when the goal is to overcome the obstacle of conflict and look forward together&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;妥协&amp;quot;: 在目标为越过矛盾，一起前瞻时使用.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Compromise&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use compromise when the goal is 'to overcome conflict and look forward together.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;这一障碍&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;越过矛盾这一障碍&amp;quot; is redundant because &amp;quot;越过矛盾&amp;quot; already indicated 矛盾 is an obstacle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I disagree with omitting 一齐 (together) in 一齐向前看&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translate &amp;quot;一齐向前看&amp;quot; as &amp;quot;look to the future&amp;quot; is not incorrect, but it can be reduced to &amp;quot;looking forward together&amp;quot; to avoid wordiness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, your translation is much more readable than the original, good job!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1. 在目标为] [2. XXX] [3. 时使用].” (Chinese grammar)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[3. use it when] [1. the goal is] [2. XXX] (English grammar)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T05:20:35.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10335" CreationDate="2019-12-07T05:31:15.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你好吗, as opposed to 你好, is seldom used because it implies asking whether the other person has or has not overcome some past problem or medical affliction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 你好 is straight forwardly wishing someone well, whereas 你好吗 is akin to an  unsolicited question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone says to me 你好吗, I may jokingly reply, 我 有 什 么 不 好？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English you do not for no specific reason say &quot;How are you today&quot; because it implies you were not that good yesterday or sometime in the recent past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, a Chinese rarely if ever use 吃了没 to a non-Chinese, though I am not sure of the reverse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T05:31:15.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35955" CreationDate="2019-12-07T05:58:41.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people say &lt;code&gt;半脱产&lt;/code&gt; to refer to part time study and &lt;code&gt;全脱产&lt;/code&gt; as full time study for people who have a job. And the word for workers to go back to study is &lt;code&gt;进修&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;半脱产学习&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;全脱产学习&lt;/code&gt;， or &lt;code&gt;半脱产进修&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;全脱产进修&lt;/code&gt; are words specifically for people who have worked. Intuitively speaking, if you have never worked, you have no work(&lt;code&gt;产&lt;/code&gt;) to get away with(&lt;code&gt;脱&lt;/code&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;全日制学习&lt;/code&gt; is a broader term for everybody, including students who have never worked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if these words are only used in some parts of China, but it is quite recognized in the northern China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searched some &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/687579203813484284.html?fr=iks&amp;amp;word=%B0%EB%CD%D1%B2%FA%CA%C7%CA%B2%C3%B4%D2%E2%CB%BC&amp;amp;ie=gbk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;description&lt;/a&gt; and I pasted below: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;　　学历中的脱产学习是在学习期间不参加工作的一种学习方式，办学的方式相当于全日制学习。 也就是参加工作后再去校内进行全日制学习的方式， 其管理模式与普通高校一样，学习期间不在原单位工作，不占用周六和周日的工休时间，对学生有正常的、相对固定的授课教室和管理要求，有稳定的寒暑假期安排。&#xA;&#xA;　　而半脱产学习就是一边学习，一边工作， 即白天工作时间还是工作，在周一至周五的晚上和周末的休息时间来学习，这种利用业余时间学习的方式称为半脱产。&#xA;　　另外还有一种为不脱产学习，即不脱离工作岗位，利用闲暇之余进行学习。一边工作,一边利用工作之余的时间来学习上课，参加考试的一种学习方式。函授是成人教育中不脱产学习的主要形式。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here also mentioned &lt;code&gt;函授&lt;/code&gt; which is also widely recognized. This is a program type designed for workers to get a degree while work full time. You can also go to &lt;code&gt;夜大&lt;/code&gt;(night university) to get a degree. Basically they're the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;半脱产学习&lt;/code&gt; means part time study, still work (normally this is supported by the company you work for, as you expect to get away from work when there is commitment required from the study, although the classes are normally conducted in the nights and weekends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;全脱产学习&lt;/code&gt; means full time study, no work&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;函授&lt;/code&gt; means part time study, full time work （this type of study is for people who doesn't have a degree but want to get one). Refer &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%87%BD%E6%8E%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking, &lt;code&gt;函授&lt;/code&gt; might have people who is not working and never worked either, but this type of program is designed for full time workers and classes will be conducted in a way to cater for students who need to work full time. &lt;code&gt;函授&lt;/code&gt; is probably less popular now, as it's easier for students to get a degree now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you can use a broader word, like &lt;code&gt;全日制&lt;/code&gt;，&lt;code&gt;非全日制学习&lt;/code&gt;, however, those words don't differentiate the student types at all.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like others suggested, &lt;code&gt;在职读书&lt;/code&gt; is also a commonly recognized word, especially for higher educations (I feel) after degree because I often hear people talk about &lt;code&gt;在职研究生&lt;/code&gt;. I also feel &lt;code&gt;在职&lt;/code&gt; is more modern than &lt;code&gt;脱产&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, maybe a lot of people don’t study after degree but there are a lot of people do study in China when they have jobs, and a lot of them are company or corporate sponsored, and normally they don’t mix with full time students. And as I mentioned in the comment section, a master's degree normally requires 3 year full time study in China, and it's a big commitment, some people will simply get one from abroad. Guess that’s why you don’t see them in school. However, everything is changing, and in order to meet the demands, more and more study programs will be available for working class. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="22717" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T22:06:13.630" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T22:06:13.630" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35968" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35969" CreationDate="2019-12-07T07:46:00.607" Score="2" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/tweetolectology/status/1166259827775016960&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tweet&lt;/a&gt; recently which lists many&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;different words used in traditional dialects to refer to left-handed people[.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like a majority of the English terms are all quite derogatory. There certainly exists some sort of prejudice against left-handed people in many different cultures. I know some dialectical terms for left-handed people like: 左刮刮、左括子、左拐拐、左拐子、左挎儿, but these all seem fairly innocent. But, this got me wondering:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does Chinese have any disparaging terms for left-handed people?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T00:26:27.473" Title="Does Chinese have any disparaging terms for left-handed people?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35968" CreationDate="2019-12-07T08:40:52.600" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all I'd like to point out that the most commonly used term is 左撇子. Technically, 左撇子, together with the ones you have mentioned (if they do exist, I think I've heard of 左拐子 but not the others, of course they are probably dialectal and someone who knows more about dialects may correct me), is actually derogatory. However, this term is so widely used that people often say it without any prejudice intended. For a specific conversation, you will have to tell from the context. If you want to avoid being accidentally offensive, you can say 惯用左手的人(someone who is more comfortable using the left hand). A more technical term is 左利手, which is not disparaging in any way but also a lot less common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="21960" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T00:26:27.473" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T00:26:27.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35968" CreationDate="2019-12-07T09:29:34.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among the Cantonese, it's 左 手 鬼, which is self-explanatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The older Chinese, (just like some other older peoples), have the idea that there is something bad, evil even, about left-handedness, hence the derogatory terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I myself was a &quot;victim&quot; I was born left-handed and when I used the left hand to hold the chopsticks, my grandfather would hit my chopstick holding hand hard, forcing me to switch to my right hand. Hence I grew up, much against my nature, using my right hand for chopstick and writing, (the two most important hand usages in Chinese culture), and the left hand for everything else, including kicking footballs with the left leg.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T09:29:34.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35971" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35974" CreationDate="2019-12-07T09:37:40.240" Score="3" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been rummaging through English dialect maps. Here's an example of one on &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/tweetolectology/status/1202497584826204161&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Twitter&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q7Ms4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q7Ms4.png&quot; alt=&quot;yoyo&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And an American one for good measure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RxhdN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RxhdN.png&quot; alt=&quot;lololo&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do any good topolect maps exist for Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T16:02:05.277" Title="Do any good topolect maps exist for Chinese?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35968" CreationDate="2019-12-07T10:31:06.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the northest region, people say 左皮赖子(not entirely sure how to write it correctly though). I'm not sure how widely it has been spread among Chinese speakers around the country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T10:31:06.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35971" CreationDate="2019-12-07T15:41:45.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if this is what you were looking for, but there is a book that does this kind of study &lt;a href=&quot;https://book.douban.com/series/32059&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中国语言地图集&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/45091588&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;知乎&lt;/a&gt; for some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19859" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T15:41:45.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35975" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-07T18:05:00.310" Score="1" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few weeks ago I learned &lt;code&gt;仿佛 fang3fu2 to seem, as if, similar&lt;/code&gt;. However today I encountered the similar looking &lt;code&gt;彷彿 fang3fu2&lt;/code&gt; in the subtitles for the Hello Mr Billionaire movie that is in Simplified Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cedict says that 仿佛 is a variant of 彷彿 but also seems to indicate that 仿佛 is the simplified form for 彷彿 (however I'm not totally clear on this). Baidu actually redirects 彷佛 to 仿佛. Microsoft's pinyin input also suggests 仿佛 and doesn't offer 彷佛 as an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The subtitles use 彷彿 three times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, the subtitles also use &lt;code&gt;彷徨&lt;/code&gt; which Cedicts defines as &lt;code&gt;pang2 huang2 to pace back and forth, to hesitate, to be indecisive&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In Simplified Chinese, which is more standard: 彷彿 or 仿佛 ?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22570" LastEditorUserId="22570" LastEditDate="2019-12-07T18:14:01.467" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T05:40:13.367" Title="Simplified Chinese: 彷彿 vs 仿佛" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35975" CreationDate="2019-12-07T18:22:31.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For simplified Chinese 仿佛 is correct. I don’t know the history of 彷 and 仿, but I can tell you 100% it is 仿佛. Whatever subtitles you’re watching can be wrong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T18:22:31.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35981" CreationDate="2019-12-07T23:05:31.803" Score="1" ViewCount="40" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;一人说一句。&#xA;Yī rén shuō yī jù.&#xA;Each person say one sentence.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no measure words after either of the 一's. Is it a rule that you don't have to use measure words for singular items?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T00:39:56.947" Title="Using measure words for &quot;one [thing]&quot;" Tags="&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35978" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35980" CreationDate="2019-12-07T23:19:07.447" Score="3" ViewCount="379" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我想对你说几句话。&#xA;Wǒ xiǎng duì nǐ shuō jǐ jù huà.&#xA;I'd like to say a few words to you.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that 句 means sentence, and 话 means &quot;words&quot; in general (ie 我听不懂她说的话 or &quot;I don't understand the words he is saying&quot;). But if you want to say &quot;a few words&quot; why not just say 几句 instead of 几句话? I don't see the function of the 话 at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T00:42:48.153" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T03:41:21.447" Title="Breaking down meaning of 几句话" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35978" CreationDate="2019-12-07T23:34:43.200" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;句：sentence / clause / phrase / &lt;strong&gt;classifier for phrases or lines of verse&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想对你说几&lt;strong&gt;句&lt;/strong&gt;话。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After enumeration, such as '几‘， any word you can't explain will be a classifier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tricky customers, those CLs, watch out for them!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A much more interesting questions is: Why does Chinese have CLs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T23:34:43.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35978" CreationDate="2019-12-07T23:55:03.947" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pedroski wrote in his answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After enumeration, such as '几‘， any word you can't explain will be a classifier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Agree with that.  &quot;句&quot; in &quot;我想对你说几句话&quot; is not a noun but a classifier&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say 我想对你说几句, you  just omitted the object &quot;话&quot; but it is still implied. Similar to saying &quot;may I have a few?&quot; in English, which an object is implied,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a man is eating candy, his friend pointing at the candy and ask: &quot;May I have a few?&quot; he doesn't need to state the object &quot;candy&quot; which is understood by both parties &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the same logic, the object in 我想对你说几句 is made understood with the present of the verb &quot;说&quot; (say). The object of the verb &quot;说&quot; (say) is always &quot;话&quot; (e.g. 真心话, 不中聽的话, 重要的话 etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of &quot;句&quot; as a noun: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;with &lt;strong&gt;classifier&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;一個&lt;/strong&gt;句 (a sentence), 個 is a legit classifier for 句(n)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;with &lt;strong&gt;applicable&lt;/strong&gt; verb: 造句 (make a sentence), 造 is a verb applicable to 句(n)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;with &lt;strong&gt;applicable&lt;/strong&gt; adjective: 疑問句 (interrogative)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;疑問句 (interrogative) is a single term, but 疑問 functions as an adjective and 句 functions as a noun within the term&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T00:17:35.303" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T00:17:35.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35977" CreationDate="2019-12-08T00:06:20.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The full version is 一个人说一句话. 句 is a measure word here. 一人说一句 follows a speaking cadence. It can also be briefed as 一人一句 colloquially when context is clear(we know the intended action is - 说). The purpose of this omission is to make it follow a kind of speaking pattern '一人' 说 '一句'. Another example is 一日一字(a character, a day) which is the title of a TV program in the long past. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't usually omit 个 in a full sentence especially in writing. E.g. 一个人的日子不好过. You would probably only see 一人的日子不好过 in a poet or lyrics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's interesting to know that 一 xxx 一 xxx is a pattern to express an idea briefly. E.g. 一人一个，一人一句，一人一本，一日一练，一天一根，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T00:39:56.947" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T00:39:56.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35982" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-08T01:00:09.393" Score="1" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I'd like to know precisely how the Chinese language syntax conveys in the fewest possible number of words the meanings that English syntax expresses with simple copulative sentences.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, (1) can be used to respond to someone saying Jenny is behaving outrageously; it means that such behavior is ordinary behavior for her (i.e. Jenny is exhibiting the traits she always has had). (2) means exactly the opposite: she's now behaving out of the ordinary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) Jenny is Jenny&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) She's not being herself today&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes in English we also identify participants of the conversation or its surroundings. For example, if we are talking with a friend about a couple of artists that he knows and, while we're talking, we happen to see people just like them in the street, we can point to them and utter (3). Moreover, if four kids are staging a play and deciding who plays who, one of them can utter (4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(3) Are they them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(4) He's me and she's you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do these structures have equivalents in Chinese? I'm not interested in the translations &lt;em&gt;per se&lt;/em&gt;; what I want to know is what syntactic structure is used to express sentences like (1)-(4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23073" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T17:39:53.843" Title="Some doubts about &quot;copulative sentences&quot; in Chinese" Tags="&lt;syntax&gt;&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35982" CreationDate="2019-12-08T02:00:24.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The same structure exists in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Jenny&lt;/strong&gt; (is) &lt;strong&gt;Jenny&lt;/strong&gt; --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;珍妮&lt;/strong&gt;(就是)&lt;strong&gt;珍妮&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Money&lt;/strong&gt; (is) &lt;strong&gt;money&lt;/strong&gt; --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;錢&lt;/strong&gt;(就是)&lt;strong&gt;錢&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;She&lt;/strong&gt;'s (not being/ not like) &lt;strong&gt;herself&lt;/strong&gt; today --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;她&lt;/strong&gt;今天(不是/ 不像是)&lt;strong&gt;她本人&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Silver and coin&lt;/strong&gt; (was not) the first &lt;strong&gt;currency&lt;/strong&gt;  --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;錢銀&lt;/strong&gt;(不是)最初的&lt;strong&gt;貨幣&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This amount of &lt;strong&gt;money&lt;/strong&gt; (is not/ is not counted as) &lt;strong&gt;money&lt;/strong&gt; to me --&gt; 這數目的&lt;strong&gt;錢&lt;/strong&gt;對我來說(不是/不算是)&lt;strong&gt;錢&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Are) &lt;strong&gt;they them&lt;/strong&gt;? --&gt; '&lt;strong&gt;他們&lt;/strong&gt;' (是那個) '&lt;strong&gt;他們&lt;/strong&gt;'嗎?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(is) &lt;strong&gt;he&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;him&lt;/strong&gt;? --&gt;'他'(是那個)'他'嗎?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;He&lt;/strong&gt; (is) &lt;strong&gt;me&lt;/strong&gt; (and) &lt;strong&gt;she&lt;/strong&gt; (is) &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; --&gt;'&lt;strong&gt;他&lt;/strong&gt;'(就是)&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;(而)'&lt;strong&gt;她&lt;/strong&gt;'(就是)&lt;strong&gt;妳&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Money&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;currency&lt;/strong&gt; ; &lt;strong&gt;currency&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;money&lt;/strong&gt; --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;錢&lt;/strong&gt;(就是)&lt;strong&gt;貨幣&lt;/strong&gt;；&lt;strong&gt;貨幣&lt;/strong&gt;(就是)&lt;strong&gt;錢&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T03:02:56.397" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T03:02:56.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35984" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-08T02:22:19.550" Score="0" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;This text is talking about pearls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另外，相比于淡水珍珠，海水珍珠多为有核珍珠，尺寸较大，表面更平滑，外观上更胜一筹。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;更胜一筹，  略胜一筹：slightly better, a cut above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe, this comes from an ancient drinking &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E7%AD%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;壶矢。古代投壶用的签子，形如箭笴[arrow]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You got more arrows in the pot than your opponent, he had to drink more 白酒 as punishment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese like drinking games! (Me too!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;baidu: 笴: 箭杆 gě, gǎn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe 筹 was the classifier for 笴?? What is 筹 in 更胜一筹？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T05:17:22.363" Title="What is the significance or meaning of 筹 in 略胜一筹？" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35984" CreationDate="2019-12-08T03:19:26.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;筹 (chip) was a counting tool in ancient time. It was used by mathematicians for calculating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;運筹 was then used as a metaphor for the calculations strategists and military experts did  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Idiom: &quot;運筹帷幄&quot; (moving chips inside the tent) means &quot;strategizing in headquarters&quot; ( before go the field or not even need to be in the field)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;胜一筹 literally means &quot;one step ahead&quot; and it evolved to mean &quot;one up&quot;; &quot;bested (v)&quot; and  &quot;a level above&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;略胜一筹 (slightly better by one calculating step) means &quot;slightly a step ahead&quot; or &quot;at a slightly higher level&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;筹 is not a classifier but a noun for &quot;level&quot; in modern Chinese, e.g. &quot;技高数&lt;strong&gt;筹&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (a few &lt;strong&gt;levels&lt;/strong&gt; higher in skill); &quot;力胜一&lt;strong&gt;筹&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (one &lt;strong&gt;level&lt;/strong&gt; higher in strength)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;更胜一筹， 略胜一筹：'slightly better', 'a cut above' are correct translations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T05:17:22.363" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T05:17:22.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35978" CreationDate="2019-12-08T03:41:21.447" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Great question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It brings out the verbal / social subtlety of what goes on between Chinese speakers which non-Chinese may not notice or aware of. It is more than just grammatical syntax. It carries societal formalism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When your boss tells you 我想对你说几句话, a cold chill should run up or down your spine. 几句话 here in this context does not necessarily mean  &quot;a few words&quot;, it most likely means a long lecture on your short comings as an employee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a good friend says it, it could mean he wants to give you some well-meaning advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These 2 or 3 little words, whether it be 几句 or 几句话, (which actually are seldom used in relaxed social conversations) carry a certain amount of serious relational import due to it's formal context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, 几句 could also be used as a form of admonition, like, 你少说几句好不好, which is akin to &quot;please cut the crap&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T03:41:21.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35984" CreationDate="2019-12-08T04:14:11.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Grand Ricci&lt;/em&gt; defines 胜一筹 as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(loc.) L’emporter de justesse, de peu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=auto&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=(loc.)%20L%E2%80%99emporter%20de%20justesse%2C%20de%20peu.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google translate&lt;/a&gt; renders this into English as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To prevail narrowly, little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一筹 is defined,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in &lt;em&gt;ABC&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bit; notch; cut&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and in &lt;em&gt;Pleco&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chip (used as a counter)-move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and in &lt;em&gt;Oxford&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;brilliant move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and in &lt;em&gt;KEY&lt;/em&gt; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chip (used as a counter)/a move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T04:20:27.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35990" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-08T14:03:32.553" Score="1" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'm really bad at 了ing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: Nankai students say I'm bad at this.  My teacher says I'm bad at this.  Even Tang Ho mentioned my &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/35764/8099&quot;&gt;abuse of 了&lt;/a&gt;.  Moreover, I'm sure I'm not the only one who is really bad at 了ing: e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16048/to-%e4%ba%86-or-not-to-%e4%ba%86&quot;&gt;To 了 or not to 了&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How does someone train using 了 correctly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make this clear...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Not relevant&lt;/em&gt;: Where does 了 goes in one particular sentence.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Relevant&lt;/em&gt;: Where does the 了 go in these 100 training sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I.e., training, drills, repetition, etc.  Keep doing it until I get it right without thinking.  Maybe there's an app or book that gives you &lt;em&gt;where does the 了 go?&lt;/em&gt; exercises.  Or maybe there's a way to generate my own exercises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Example&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate why this is so difficult...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Note&lt;/em&gt;: putting 了s in the following example sentence does &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; answer the question---that's not the point!  That's &quot;give a man a fish&quot; not &quot;teach a man to fish&quot;.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;In theory...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; I've read about &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_completion_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;completion 了&lt;/a&gt; (post-verb) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Change_of_state_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;change-of-state 了&lt;/a&gt; (end of sentence).  Aside from 太...了 which is easy, that covers most 了s (as I understand).  I'm aware there's a lot of other cases I have no idea about yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;In practice...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; I'll want to say something very simple like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I gave my friend a phone call&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我给朋友打个电话 [without any 了s]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the phone call is complete, so it needs a completion 了 (but do I put it after the verb 给 or after the verb 打?); and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;at some point, the state changed from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) me having &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; given my friend a phone call, to&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(2) me having given my friend a phone call,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so it also needs a change-of-state 了.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point I'll give up and copy/paste the sentence into Baidu &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-8&amp;amp;wd=%E6%88%91%E7%BB%99%E6%9C%8B%E5%8F%8B%E6%89%93%E4%B8%AA%E7%94%B5%E8%AF%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;我给朋友打个电话&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and just copy what someone else has done.  In this case, it seems like no 了 is needed, despite me thinking there's a reasonable argument for adding three different 了s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; But there's one &lt;s&gt;sound&lt;/s&gt; mode that no one knows...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   &lt;s&gt;What&lt;/s&gt; Where does the &lt;s&gt;fox say&lt;/s&gt; 了 go?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T07:58:19.590" Title="How does someone train using 了 correctly?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35991" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35994" CreationDate="2019-12-08T15:08:03.710" Score="1" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw a lot of people using &quot;来打我呀&quot; online, for example in video comments or WeChat stickers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering what is the hidden meaning of this sentence (if there is one)? I guess it does not only mean &quot;Come hit me&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22226" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T10:19:37.800" Title="What is the hidden meaning of 来打我呀?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35992" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35997" CreationDate="2019-12-08T16:27:31.407" Score="1" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;The grammar structure for expressing too much is 太.....了according to my grammar book.&#xA;And to express anymore...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eg. I don't like you anymore.&#xA;       I don't live there anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...You also use 了 at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how are you able to differentiate between whether 'too much' is being stated or 'not anymore' is being stated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentence:&#xA;所以，现在已经不太爱坐飞机了。&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;So, now I don't like taking planes anymore.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;If there was no 已经 how would I know that the person is saying 'not anymore' or 'I &lt;strong&gt;really&lt;/strong&gt; don't like taking planes.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen that sometimes there is no 了 when expressing too much so when do I add it when do I not? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the 已经 clarify which one is being said since it's used for being expressed with 了 when saying 'not anymore' (though my grammar book says only to use 已经 for emphasis)? If so, do I have to add it every time to avoid confusion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23224" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T03:15:03.093" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T03:15:03.093" Title="When to Add 了 in the 太....了 Structure" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35990" CreationDate="2019-12-08T16:43:39.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a tough question I would give it a try...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/460/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;了&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) [aspect marker] indicating completed action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) [final particle] indicating change of situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's use a shorter sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I go to see the flower (我去看花)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to state the verb 去 (go) is complete, the sentence would be (我去了看花)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to state the verb 看 (see) is complete, the sentence would be &amp;quot;我看了花&amp;quot; (I've seen the flower)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if you want to indicate the verb phrase 去看花 (go to see flower) are completed action the sentence would be &amp;quot;我去看花了&amp;quot; (I've gone to see the flower).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if you want to indicate the situation has changed, the sentence would also be &amp;quot;我去看花了&amp;quot;. You would say that if the context is Q: &amp;quot;去看花沒? A: &amp;quot;我去看花了&amp;quot; (situation changed from 'haven't gone to see the flower' to 'have gone to see flower')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if you want to emphasize the action &amp;quot;去看花&amp;quot; then sentence would again, be  &amp;quot;我去看花了&amp;quot;. You would say that if the context is : &amp;quot;老闆，工作做完(現在)我去看花了&amp;quot; (Hey, boss, the job is done, I am going to see the flower now)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去看花了 can has three different meanings in different context, deciding where to put 了 in a sentence without other context is not easy indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use 了 correctly, you have to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Identify&lt;/strong&gt; which action is completed and which situation has changed, just think about what your sentence would be like in English, and you will find some clues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Consider what you want to express by &lt;strong&gt;filling in context in your mind&lt;/strong&gt;, like in my &amp;quot;我去看花&amp;quot; example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T00:23:53.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35991" CreationDate="2019-12-08T17:09:09.543" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;来打我呀 (come hit me) is a taunt here.  Since the internet users in WeChat are not physically facing each others, it is impossible to reach over the monitor and hit somebody.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saying 来打我呀 (come hit me) remind the other person that &quot;Yes, I am pissing you off, and there's nothing you can do about it.&quot;  ╮(╯ ∀ ╰)╭&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can taunt people on the web with anything that's impossible to do physically like 來咬我吃呀 (why don't you come bite and eat me), 來砍我呀 (why don't you come hack me up)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T10:19:37.800" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T10:19:37.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35995" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36000" CreationDate="2019-12-08T21:04:13.587" Score="0" ViewCount="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the precise function of 了 in the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我在这里两个星期了 / &quot;I've been here for two weeks&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a marker of completed action? Is it saying &quot;already&quot;? What does the sentence mean if 了 were omitted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T23:34:18.147" Title="了 in 我在这里两个星期了 / &quot;I've been here for two weeks&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35995" CreationDate="2019-12-08T21:51:49.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this 了 is just for emphasis, or to show you are done speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19687" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T21:51:49.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35992" CreationDate="2019-12-08T22:43:01.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Continuing your example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;if we remove '已经'  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;所以，现在我不太爱坐飞机了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;still means 'not anymore' because of '现在'. The reason you say '现在' in this sentence must be to compare past and current, so '已经' is optional in this sentence.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if we also remove '现在'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;所以，我不太爱坐飞机了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, it still more or less means 'not anymore', because of the '了'.  '了' here also somewhat implies 'after some incident', similar to '已经'. Ex:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;去年空难之后，我就不太爱坐飞机了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you want to state 'I really don't like taking planes due to some reason.', then for example:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有幽闭恐惧症，所以我不太爱坐飞机&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would probably translate to 'I &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; have claustrophobia, so I don't like taking planes.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有幽闭恐惧症，所以我不太爱坐飞机了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;somewhat implies 'I &lt;strong&gt;recently&lt;/strong&gt; got claustrophobia, so &lt;strong&gt;now&lt;/strong&gt; I don't like taking planes.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23225" LastEditorUserId="23225" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T22:48:08.763" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T22:48:08.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35998" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35999" CreationDate="2019-12-08T23:10:09.413" Score="1" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;往前 means &quot;to move forward&quot; and 走 means &quot;to walk&quot;, &quot;to go&quot;. Also, the former and latter characters have their own meanings related to a movement of &quot;go&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23226" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T07:59:15.223" Title="Why does 往前走 have a repetitive meaning?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="35999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35998" CreationDate="2019-12-08T23:28:52.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't a repetitive meaning in 往前走. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;往: towards; in the direction of;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前: forward; ahead;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走: go; walk;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;往前走: walk in the direction of 'ahead'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might not be grammatical English, just to explain Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;往 can be a preposition to mean &lt;em&gt;towards&lt;/em&gt; and, as a verb, &lt;em&gt;to go&lt;/em&gt;. In 往前走, it's used as a preposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T00:03:39.717" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T00:03:39.717" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35995" CreationDate="2019-12-08T23:34:18.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在这里两个星期了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;了 here denotes a completion. It could be rendered with the perfect tense in English. &lt;em&gt;Staying here for two weeks is completed&lt;/em&gt;, namely &lt;em&gt;I have been here for two weeks(already)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T23:34:18.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36001" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36007" CreationDate="2019-12-08T23:45:16.883" Score="3" ViewCount="655" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;有什么事是我该做的吗？&#xA;Is there anything I should do?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize this is a strange sentence, per the discussion &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30926/the-meaning-of-%e6%98%af-%e7%9a%84-in-%e6%9c%89%e4%bb%80%e4%b9%88%e4%ba%8b%e6%98%af%e6%88%91%e8%af%a5%e5%81%9a%e7%9a%84%e5%90%97&quot;&gt;in this question about the same sentence&lt;/a&gt;. However I want some clarifications about the &lt;strong&gt;existing&lt;/strong&gt; sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Per &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Connecting_nouns_with_%22shi%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;AllSet Learning&lt;/a&gt;, 是 should connect two nouns. Here it connects &quot;什么事 / anything&quot; to &quot;我该做的 / 'I should do' descriptor&quot;. Is it correct that descriptor clauses with 的 are nouns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Is 什么事 a single term that corresponds to &quot;something/anything&quot;? What's the difference if I drop the 事?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T19:29:16.160" Title="是 does not connect two nouns in &quot;有什么事是我该做的吗?&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36001" CreationDate="2019-12-09T01:43:14.427" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The full meaning of the sentence is 有什么事是我该做的(事)吗？ with the second 事 omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“的” in ”有什么事是我该做的吗？” is an adjective marker that turns &amp;quot;我该做&amp;quot; into an adjectival phrase &amp;quot;我该做的&amp;quot; for the omitted “事”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very common to omit the subject or object in Chinese if it is clearly implied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什麼事 literally means “what thing” and “thing” is the object&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;是我應該做的&amp;quot; is an adjectival phrase that describes 事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;事&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;是我應該做的(事)&amp;quot; cannot be omitted because it is the object that makes the sentence complete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second &amp;quot;事&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;什麼事是我應該做的(事)&amp;quot; is omitted because we only need one object in the same sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'事' in '什麼事' and '是我應該做的事' are the same object, therefore one of them can be omitted when the two phrases join together to become one sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什麼事是我應該做的 = 什麼是我應該做的事&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什麼(事)是我應該做的(事) would be considered wordy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T01:43:14.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36003" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-09T02:07:39.213" Score="0" ViewCount="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;Continuing from parts &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35746/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-and-the-revolutionary-new-technology&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35763/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-was-fat-when-she-was-young&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35780/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwangs-father-takes-her-to-the-doctor&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35870/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-gets-an-injection-from-the-doctor&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一周过去了但没有任何效果，我还是很胖。在做日常活动的过程中，我渐渐忘了那个神秘的医生和他的注射器。再一周过去了，我的行为几乎感觉不到任何变化，我还真想吃巧克力和其他的垃圾食品。其实当时那支注射器有&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%84%8F%E5%A4%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;意外&lt;/a&gt;甚至&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%8D%E6%98%93%E5%AF%9F%E8%A7%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不易察觉&lt;/a&gt;的影响，不过到现在我还不知道如何清楚的解释这样的感觉。我想吃巧克时，身体似乎自动地&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8F%8D%E5%BA%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;反应&lt;/a&gt;，而连吃巧克力以前我都感觉到很满意。这是我现在的解释，可是肯定是不准确的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please critique my writing. New words for me are in links. I'm at an &quot;almost mastered HSK4&quot; level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The narrative is from a person in the present (Zhou Ziwang 周子望) describing her unusual past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know I got &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/35747/8099&quot;&gt;效果 wrong previously&lt;/a&gt;, but I think it's okay here.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35990/how-does-someone-train-using-%E4%BA%86-correctly&quot;&gt;I know I'm bad at 了ing&lt;/a&gt;, but I don't see any problems here (which probably means there's many).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T17:12:08.787" Title="Writing critique request: the almost imperceptible effects of Zhou Ziwang's injection" Tags="&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36001" CreationDate="2019-12-09T02:17:01.160" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, the second noun &quot;事&quot; is omitted.&#xA;The complete sentence should be like this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;有什么事是我该做的(事)吗？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more, in Chinese, the attributive clause goes before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The proper way to translate &quot;Is there anything &lt;strong&gt;I should do&lt;/strong&gt;?&quot; is &quot;有什么&lt;strong&gt;我该做的&lt;/strong&gt;事吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23227" LastEditorUserId="23227" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T19:29:16.160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T19:29:16.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36003" CreationDate="2019-12-09T03:02:15.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than little wordy, and sometimes choosing less effective words, there's no major mistake in this piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;其实当时那支注射器有意外甚至不易察觉的影响 (&lt;em&gt;ambiguous word: 意外 can also means &quot;accidental&quot;. If you meant 'surprising' or &quot;unexpected&quot;, it should be &quot;意料之外&quot; or &quot;意想不到&quot;&lt;/em&gt; ) --&gt; 其实当时那支注射器(对我)有意想不到，甚至不易察觉的影响 ( &lt;em&gt;add '对我' to identify the object that's being effected is 'me', or else we don't know if it is effecting the world or the future&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;在做日常活动的过程中 (&lt;em&gt;wordy&lt;/em&gt;) --&gt;在日常活动的時候 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我的行为几乎感觉不到任何变化 (&lt;em&gt;wordy&lt;/em&gt;)--&gt;我的行为几乎沒有任何变化 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不过到现在我还不知道如何清楚的解释这样的感觉。 (&lt;em&gt;used adjective when it should be an adverb&lt;/em&gt;) --&gt; 但到现在，我还不知道如何清楚(地)解释这样的感觉 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我想吃巧克时，身体似乎自动地反应 (&lt;em&gt;missing the modal verb 'would'(會)&lt;/em&gt;)--&gt; 我想吃巧克时，身体似乎(會)自动地反应&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;而连吃巧克力以前我都感觉到很满意 (&lt;em&gt;less effective word: '而连' (and even) should be replaced by a stand alone common word '甚至') ; (ambiguous word: '以前' can also mean 'previously' If you meant 'before' it should be 之前 or simply 前) and missing the modal verb 'would'(會)&lt;/em&gt;) --&gt; (甚至在)吃巧克力前我都(會)感觉到很满意&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;这是我现在的解释，可是肯定是不准确的。(&lt;em&gt;less effective word, '准确' mainly means accurate/ precise, for the meaning of 'correct' it is better to use '正确'&lt;/em&gt; ) --&gt; 这是我现在的解释，可是肯定是不正确的。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall you've done a good job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;PS. Try to avoid run on sentence. You can break a long sentence up with commas, like in my suggestion here 不过到现在我还不知道如何清楚的解释这样的感觉 --&gt; 但到现在，我还不知道如何清楚(地)解释这样的感觉 Just like taking a short pause in speech&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T17:12:08.787" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T17:12:08.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36006" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36008" CreationDate="2019-12-09T03:04:09.227" Score="1" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天我有过敏反应了， 所以，现在我不吃西瓜了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked whether this sounded unnatural or not and was voted as 'a little unnatural'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And was answered with this;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天我吃完西瓜有过敏反应、所以我现在不吃西瓜了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the first form acceptable &lt;strong&gt;grammatically&lt;/strong&gt; (even though it sounds better the other way)  or is the grammar wrong as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also do you not put 了 in the first portion because 吃完 already states the action's finished or is there some other reason I'm unaware of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23224" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T04:12:24.097" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T09:05:59.890" Title="Is 昨天我有过敏反应了， 所以，现在我不吃西瓜了 grammatical?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36001" CreationDate="2019-12-09T03:09:17.213" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it correct that descriptor clauses with 的 are nouns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the answer is yes. E.g. we say 这是“我应该做的”，这是“我想要的”，“我知道的”就这么多，&quot;你不要的&quot;就给我，etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is 什么事 a single term that corresponds to &quot;something/anything&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it's not the single term for &quot;something/anything&quot;. &quot;something/anything&quot; can be 某事/任何事. It could also be interpreted with other words. It relies on context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What's the difference if I drop the 事?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;什么事 is specific, while 什么 is general and it could stand for 什么事，什么东西，etc. However, 事 can be omitted when the context is clear what specific thing you are referring to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going a bit beyond your questions, 有什么事是我该做的吗？ is made to be verbose on purpose. The underlying lines behind it is: &lt;em&gt;I don't see anything I should do/be responsible for here. Can you (really) identify anything for me to do?&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;I doubt if you could identify anything for me to do&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T03:09:17.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36006" CreationDate="2019-12-09T03:31:23.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天我有过敏反应了， 所以，现在我不吃西瓜了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sentence is grammatical. However, you haven't explicitly said to what you have your allergy. It's not something with grammar though. To be clear and concise, you could say:&#xA;我昨天吃西瓜过敏了，现在不能再吃了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why 了 is not needed at the end of 昨天我吃完西瓜有过敏反应 is that 有 already denotes the existence of 过敏反应, so 了 is unnecessary. But if you add 了， 昨天我吃完西瓜有过敏反应了 sounds emotional, implying that the allergy surprised you, it's really a big deal, the ellergy is what you were expecting, and etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T04:28:56.830" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T04:28:56.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36009" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36010" CreationDate="2019-12-09T03:48:45.800" Score="3" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's normal in Chinese to say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他大概&lt;strong&gt;三四&lt;/strong&gt;岁左右 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.douban.com/note/636868546/?from=author&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  he is probably around 3 or 4 years old&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Approximating_with_sequential_numbers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Approximating with sequential numbers&lt;/a&gt; on the Chinese Grammar Wiki.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 九十 is problematic because &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B9%9D%E5%8D%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;九十&lt;/a&gt; ordinarily means &quot;ninety&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他大概&lt;strong&gt;九十&lt;/strong&gt;岁左右&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  he is probably around 9 or 10 years old&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  he is probably around 90 years old  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Can 九十 also mean &quot;nine or ten&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may simply be that we're not allowed to use 九十 to mean &quot;nine or ten&quot; (i.e., it's an exception), or perhaps &quot;nine or ten&quot; vs. &quot;ninety&quot; is usually inferrable from context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T09:02:13.560" Title="Can 九十 = &quot;ninety&quot; also mean &quot;nine or ten&quot; (like how 三四 means &quot;three or four&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;number&gt;&lt;ambiguity&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36009" CreationDate="2019-12-09T04:06:22.577" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, since 九十 already means &lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt; 'ninety', it cannot be use as an &lt;strong&gt;approximat&lt;/strong&gt;e figure for 'nine or ten' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'nine or ten years old' has to be written as &quot;九至十岁&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can say 十一二 (11 or t2) , 十三四 (13 or 14) or even 十五六七 (15 to 17) but not 九十 (9 or 10)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T04:06:22.577" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36009" CreationDate="2019-12-09T04:30:56.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most probably you already know 七七八八 does not mean seven or eight or seven to eight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about “不三不四”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 八十有三？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T04:30:56.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36006" CreationDate="2019-12-09T04:55:44.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You were minded to say -- you had an allergic reaction after eating watermelon and so decided to stop eating it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But your original sentence ended up saying -- you had an allergic reaction of some kind and so stopped eating watermelon; thus giving the impression that the allergic reaction was not necessarily due to eating watermelon, which we gather is not the case because of 现在 which retrospectively connects the decision not to eat watermelons to the allergic reaction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's not about grammar here but wrong or inappropriate placement of words which alters the idea meant to be conveyed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T04:55:44.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17997" CreationDate="2019-12-09T05:06:13.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大学生城市&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Dàxuéshēng chéngshì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  University student city&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is basically &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%A6%E7%94%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大学生&lt;/a&gt; (dàxuéshēng) = &quot;university student&quot; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9F%8E%E5%B8%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;城市&lt;/a&gt; (chéngshì) = &quot;city&quot; stuck together, and it means something like &quot;university student city&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, we'd add the 的 (de) attribute particle (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Structural_particle_%22de%22#.E7.9A.84_.28de.29_Before_Nouns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Structural particle &quot;de&quot;&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;大学生&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;的&lt;/a&gt;城市&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Dàxuéshēng de chéngshì&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  University student city&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, it seems okay to omit the 的, but it's not correct to do so in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Could [&quot;City of students&quot;] be translated to &quot;Da xue sheng cheng shi&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Basically, yes.&lt;/strong&gt;  Examples of it being used are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/239078005_597849&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中国最缺&lt;strong&gt;大学生城市&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ixueshu.com/document/b8bfdc734a73ef281295db6e14fdff21318947a18e7f9386.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;大学生城市&lt;/strong&gt;就业分析&lt;/a&gt; (more examples are found by searching Baidu for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%A6%E7%94%9F%E5%9F%8E%E5%B8%82%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;大学生城市&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that when writing pinyin, we group Chinese words together, e.g. &quot;chéngshì&quot; and not &quot;chéng shì&quot;.  It would be regarded as incorrect to do otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/17999/8099&quot;&gt;Wang Dingwei&lt;/a&gt; points out, there's a more succinct option:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%A6%E5%9F%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大学城&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Dàxué chéng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  University city&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next part asks about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;城市国旗的颜色是灰色和黄色&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Chéngshì guóqí de yánsè shì huīsè hé huángsè&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's two problems here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9B%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;国&lt;/a&gt; (guó) = &quot;country&quot; in &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9B%BD%E6%97%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;国旗&lt;/a&gt; (guóqí) = &quot;flag&quot;, which is a contradiction with it being a &quot;city flag&quot;.  I believe it's okay to just delete the 国, but 城市旗 is uncommon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9F%8E%E5%B8%82%E6%97%97%E5%B8%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;城市旗帜&lt;/a&gt; (chéngshì qízhì) = &quot;city flag&quot; where &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%97%97%E5%B8%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;旗帜&lt;/a&gt; (qízhì) = &quot;flag&quot; is the longer version of &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%97%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;旗&lt;/a&gt; (qí) = &quot;flag&quot;.  However, we could use the shorter version &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B8%82%E6%97%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;市旗&lt;/a&gt; (shìqí) = &quot;city flag&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Colors like &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%81%B0%E8%89%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;灰色&lt;/a&gt; (huīsè) = &quot;gray&quot; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%BB%84%E8%89%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;黄色&lt;/a&gt; (huángsè) &quot;yellow&quot; are examples of &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Distinguishing_word&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;distinguishing words&lt;/a&gt;, and we use the structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Subj. + 是 + [Distinguishing Words] + 的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(source &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_%22shi..._de%22_patterns:_an_overview#Used_with_Distinguishing_Words&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fixing these gives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;市旗&lt;/strong&gt;的颜色是灰色和黄色&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Shìqí&lt;/strong&gt; de yánsè shì huīsè hé huángsè &lt;strong&gt;de&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [The] city flag color is gray and yellow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand, this is grammatical, although we can make it shorter (like in English):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;市旗是灰色和黄色的&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Shìqí shì huīsè hé huángsè de&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [The] city flag is gray and yellow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T05:06:13.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36003" CreationDate="2019-12-09T05:07:29.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you have quite much knowledge of Chinese, I will write my answer in Chinese for accurately expressing my ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最小修改:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一周过去了，但没有任何效果，我还是很胖。日常&lt;strong&gt;生活&lt;/strong&gt;中，我渐渐忘了那个神秘的医生和他的注射器。又一周过去了，我的&lt;strong&gt;爱好&lt;/strong&gt;几乎没有&lt;strong&gt;可感&lt;/strong&gt;的变化：我还是&lt;strong&gt;特别&lt;/strong&gt;想吃巧克力和其他垃圾食品。其实，当时的&lt;strong&gt;注射&lt;/strong&gt;有不易察觉&lt;strong&gt;但&lt;/strong&gt;令人意外的影响，不过到现在我还&lt;strong&gt;是&lt;/strong&gt;不知道如何清楚&lt;strong&gt;地&lt;/strong&gt;解释它。我想吃巧克力时，身体似乎自动&lt;strong&gt;作出&lt;/strong&gt;反应，（使我在吃到巧克力以前就能感到&lt;strong&gt;满足&lt;/strong&gt;了）。这是我现在的解释，可是肯定是不准确的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;活动作为名词，一般指多人参与的有组织、有目的行动，如班团活动、党建活动、促销活动、敌后活动。日常活动似有不妥，宜易作日常生活。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;行为是人能动性的外在表现，所以我想吃巧克力等不是行为，应当换成其他跟想法有关的词语。另外，我的行为并不是有思想主体，不能感觉，所以应该用可感。（似乎与“这件衣服感觉不错”矛盾，但是此例中可以将感觉理解为“给人的感觉”这一名词性成分；但“感觉不到”这样的说法显然是作动词用的。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这样的真一般用在感叹语境下：这可真行呀！你真棒！它并不表示really之类的意思。所以应该换成特别一类的词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是注射这项操作而不是注射器这件器物对我有影响。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“意外甚至不易察觉”的递进关系不明，不宜用甚至一词。转折关系的但比较合适&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“还不”与“还是不”有什么区别？“还是不”强调了主观探求但未成功的含义。试比较：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们俩瞒得可好，我之前还不知道欠了那么多钱呢！（不可以用“还是不”，此前完全不知道欠钱这回事。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你们俩瞒得可好，我现在还是不知道欠了多少钱。（不可以用“还不”，此处我探求过到底欠了多少钱，但未成功。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;材料换过许多次了，还是不能用。（不可以用“还不”。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;材料刚送去试验，应该还不能用。（不可以用“还是不”。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此处周子望应该认真考虑过药物的影响到底是什么，所以用“还是不”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的换成地。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;此前的主题是影响，何故同一句中变成了解释这种“感觉”？用指示代词就可以了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作出反应是更好的搭配。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（）一句我不太确定想表达的意思，但是似乎这种“时态”或“逻辑”复杂一点的句子题主处理得很不好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生物学意义上，食物给人以满足，而不是满意的感受。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T05:37:41.873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T05:37:41.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35991" CreationDate="2019-12-09T05:28:44.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English it'll be, &quot;catch me if you can&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T05:28:44.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35975" CreationDate="2019-12-09T05:40:13.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe 仿 is simplified version of 彷, which actually is not much of a &quot;simplification&quot;, so why bother?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen some pretty old printed books, mostly from HK, containing 100% un-simplified characters and 彷 appears in them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T05:40:13.367" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35998" CreationDate="2019-12-09T06:03:22.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This example should warn us not to convert / translate too directly when dealing with languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As explained by other contributors, 走 in this phrase is not a repetition; it appears so only when a direct conversion is made into English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;往前 is used when merely indicating or moving or wishing to move towards a certain direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;往前走 is used when physically walking or driving towards that direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw, there is also 前往 which is more for a planned journey to be taken shortly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T07:59:15.223" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T07:59:15.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36009" CreationDate="2019-12-09T06:23:30.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case we usually say 十来岁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23229" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T06:23:30.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36019" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-09T07:57:50.570" Score="2" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;《庄子》内七篇，曰：逍遥游、齐物论、养生主、人间世、德充符、大宗师、应帝王。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吾见今主流皆解人间世篇名作人间社会，而亦有异见作人处社会解，甚以为然。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;庄子善寓言、重言、卮言。人间世多假人口而述己，略可剖为：颜回请行孔子，叶公子高使齐语孔子，颜阖傅太子而问蘧伯玉，匠石不顾栎社，南伯子綦异大木，孔子适楚遇接舆 等章。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;纵观南华，庄子喻人以处己，而非论世以砭弊，故也人间世作人处世，读去声，明矣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;提问（Question）：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就此话题而言，少有资料论述。但求有关文献或途说，体裁不限。谢谢大家╰(&lt;em&gt;´︶`&lt;/em&gt;)╯&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T13:59:07.167" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T02:32:11.153" Title="《庄子》人间世篇名读音及其解释讨论(Zhuangzi discussion)" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35990" CreationDate="2019-12-09T07:58:19.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can understand your difficulty. 了 has a lot of senses in a dictionary. Here I only address the sense of being a completion marker. I try to cover as much as I can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Try to not put 了 unless it's necessary&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;{noun + verb}, {noun + verb + 了}. E.g. 我走了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;{noun + verb + noun}, either {noun + verb + 了 + noun} or {noun + verb + noun + 了} E.g. 我打球了 or 我打了球；我吃饭了 or 我吃了饭；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;{noun + verb + measure word + noun}, {noun + verb + 了 + measure word + noun} E.g. 我吃了一顿饭；我打了一场球；我打一场球了 and 我吃一顿饭了 are off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When there are two verbs in a sentence, put 了 at the end. E.g. 我出去玩了；出去 and 玩 are verbs. 我出去了玩 is off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's what I can think of off the top of my head. There might be other occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On your example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I gave my friend a phone call&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我给朋友打个电话 [without any 了s]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, 了 is needed because your English sentence appears the phone call happened in the past. Now the question is where we should put 了 in this case? We can see the measure word 个 preceding 电话, so according to rule 3, it should be 打了个电话. 打个电话了 is incorrect. The whole translation should be 我给朋友打了个电话.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T07:58:19.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36021" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36023" CreationDate="2019-12-09T13:43:47.873" Score="2" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;Composite number is translated as 合数, which do make sense; &#xA;Prime number is called 素数, what does 素 means here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to trace the source of such translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18167" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T14:05:38.337" Title="What does 素 mean in 素数?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36021" CreationDate="2019-12-09T13:58:40.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;素 can mean 物的基本成分 (basic element of something) as an extension from its base meaning of plain, natural, pure, unmodified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In its synonym 质数, 质 also means the nature of something or being plain and simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4657" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T13:58:40.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36021" CreationDate="2019-12-09T13:59:15.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;「素」generically means &lt;em&gt;basal, essential, intrinsic, primal&lt;/em&gt;. Hence you have vocabulary like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;元素 (&lt;em&gt;atom&lt;/em&gt;), the fundamental constituent of matter (well, the name was given before they discovered subatomic particles)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;詞素 (&lt;em&gt;morpheme&lt;/em&gt;), the fundamental constituent of words&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;要素 (&lt;em&gt;essential factor&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T13:59:15.107" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36021" CreationDate="2019-12-09T14:05:38.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;素 can mean &lt;em&gt;prime in  some way&lt;/em&gt;. See this definition in dictionaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;带有根本性质的物质或构成事物的基本成分。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;元素；毒素；因素；要素&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T14:05:38.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36001" CreationDate="2019-12-09T17:12:26.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might be a bit pedantic but I disagree with the answers above regarding whether the second noun &amp;quot;事&amp;quot; is omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是我该做的。 = This is what I should do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这是我该做的事。 = This is something I should do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former uses a free relative clause, whereas the latter has a bound relative clause. I wouldn't consider them identical grammatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17249" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T17:12:26.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36026" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36029" CreationDate="2019-12-09T19:40:24.140" Score="2" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sentence, what is the meaning of 点? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你现在好点了吗？&#xA;Are you a bit better now?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've only seen 点 used to note the hour. If I had to translate from the English, I would probably have guessed &quot;你现在好了吗?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T21:53:35.360" Title="Meaning of 点 in 你现在好点了吗？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36027" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36030" CreationDate="2019-12-09T21:18:50.730" Score="3" ViewCount="331" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following two sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;早晨的太阳为什么是红色的&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;中午太阳又变白了&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the first sentence: the second 的 is because 红色 is 区别词 and the first 的 expresses alienable possession (i.e. no close possession).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the second sentence: there is no &quot;的&quot; after &quot;中午&quot; as I would expect. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found the following sentence: 你还得提高教育质量. In English, I would say &quot;quality of education&quot; and not &quot;quality education&quot;. Hence, I would also expect a &quot;的&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another difficult case is &quot;科学模型&quot; vs &quot;科学的模型&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can somebody clarify how to use &quot;的&quot; to express &quot;of&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23211" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T08:36:42.727" Title="When is 的 needed to express &quot;of&quot;?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36026" CreationDate="2019-12-09T21:21:41.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;你现在好了吗?&quot; means &quot;are you completely fine now?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;点&quot; indicates better but not completely fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6238" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T21:21:41.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36026" CreationDate="2019-12-09T21:53:35.360" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, &lt;code&gt;好点了吗&lt;/code&gt; is same with &lt;code&gt;好一点了吗&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;br&gt; &#xA;Yes, the word &lt;code&gt;一点&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;one o'clock&quot;, but also means &quot;a little bit&quot;. &lt;br&gt; Sometimes, we say &lt;code&gt;一点点&lt;/code&gt; for emphasis, means &quot;liiiiittle bit&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, to explain the objective of the question. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is NOT asking if your health (or 100 HP) recovered from 50 to 51, which is really &quot;little&quot; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is supposed to ask for any progress of recovery, which can be positive news.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some relative sample sentences here: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;好一些了吗&lt;/code&gt; &quot;一些&quot;: some, few, a little. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;好多了&lt;/code&gt; : much better, but normally for replying not asking others. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;好了吗&lt;/code&gt; : 100% recovery of your health (or HP). &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;过去一点&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;过去点&lt;/code&gt; : move a little bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23227" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T21:53:35.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36027" CreationDate="2019-12-09T22:07:39.990" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, the trick here is not &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;, but the omission behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The complete sentences below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 1. 早晨的太阳为什么是红色的(太阳/样子).&#xA; 2. 中午(的时候)太阳又变白了. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the rest expression, you can use the definition of &quot;attributive noun&quot; to explain. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;科学的模型&lt;/code&gt; correct, but wordy.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Try this, &lt;code&gt;name of student&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;student name&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23227" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T22:07:39.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36027" CreationDate="2019-12-09T22:09:28.930" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;中午太阳又变白了 == 中午“的”太阳又变白“的”了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here both “的” are omitted. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;per your example of 教育质量 (quality of education), is short for 教育&quot;的&quot;质量 as 教育 is noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;科学 can mean science (noun), or a short form of 科学的 scientific (adj). here  in &quot;科学模型&quot;,  科学 is the latter, hence 的 is omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another similar example is 数学模型 == 数学的模型 == mathematical model&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23237" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T22:09:28.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36009" CreationDate="2019-12-09T22:16:49.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;you need correct punctuation here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the correct writing of 他大概三四岁左右 is 他大概三、四岁左右。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for the meaning of &quot;he is probably around 9 or 10 years old&quot;, you have to add &quot;、&quot; as &quot;他大概九、十岁左右。&quot; and when you speak it out, you need a short pause between 九 and 十, otherwise it is interpreted as &quot;he is probably around 90 years old&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23237" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T22:16:49.257" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36027" CreationDate="2019-12-09T23:37:15.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, when 的 is used after a noun or pronoun it represents the genitive, possessive case: 我的 = my, 你的 = your, 他的 = his. The genitive case is always an adjective. 的 represents 's. That said, Chinese often omits 的：红色女装&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The primary sense [of 'of'] in Old English still was &quot;away,&quot; but it&#xA;  shifted in Middle English with use of the word to translate Latin de,&#xA;  ex, and especially Old French de, which had come to be the substitute&#xA;  for the genitive case. &quot;Of shares with another word of the same&#xA;  length, as, the evil glory of being accessory to more crimes against&#xA;  grammar than any other.&quot; [Fowler]&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;太阳是红色的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(The) sun is red&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早晨的太阳是红色的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(The) early morning's sun is red&lt;br&gt;&#xA;早晨的太阳为什么是红色的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(The) early morning's sun why is red  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Because the atmosphere is an aerosol, it filters out blue. Early morning the sunlight travels through a lot more atmosphere, because it is coming from the side, so to speak.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;论点是错误的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;argument is flawed.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的论点是错误的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your argument is flawed&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的论点的基础是错误的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your argument its base is flawed&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你的论点的基础根本就是错误的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your argument its base fundamentally is flawed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T23:37:15.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36027" CreationDate="2019-12-09T23:41:27.567" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早晨的太阳为什么是红色的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中午太阳又变白了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中午的太阳又变白了 is a correct sentence. But, if you put that 的, you'd change the parsing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[中午的太阳][又变白了] vs [中午][太阳又变白了]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original sentence uses 中午 adverbially, which is for &lt;strong&gt;the effect of contrast&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;Why the sun in the morning is red, while at noon(when it comes to noon) it becomes white.(I'm curious how come)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中午的太阳又变白了 would reduce that effect dramatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the question here is not about grammar but the way people express their ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I might think to add a comma after 中午 would probably be a little bit improvement? Maybe, not everyone would agree with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;早晨的太阳为什么是红色的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中午, 太阳又变白了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T23:41:27.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36035" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36036" CreationDate="2019-12-10T00:24:30.710" Score="1" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hello I have a bronze censer with the mark below on the bottom and am hoping someone here might be able to read old scripts, I was told the right character is 松, and that the left character has 人(亻) as the left radical. Any help or guidance in the right direction is appreciated. Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s8ksm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s8ksm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;seal&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23132" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T04:30:02.830" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T04:30:02.830" Title="Can anyone here read old scripts? (Characters Identified: 松月侣)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36035" CreationDate="2019-12-10T01:29:47.283" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;人吕月松&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since reading there right to left, which is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;松月侣&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Companion of Pine tree and the Moon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23227" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T01:29:47.283" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36019" CreationDate="2019-12-10T02:58:15.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;百度 &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BA%BA%E9%97%B4%E4%B8%96/2110596?fromtitle=%E5%BA%84%E5%AD%90%C2%B7%E5%86%85%E7%AF%87%C2%B7%E4%BA%BA%E9%97%B4%E4%B8%96&amp;amp;fromid=10162802&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;庄子·内篇·人间世&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;《人间世》是一篇《庄子》内篇中的文章。本书的中心是讨论&lt;strong&gt;处世之道&lt;/strong&gt;，既表述了庄子所主张的&lt;strong&gt;处人与自处&lt;/strong&gt;的人生态度，也揭示出庄子处世的哲学观点。&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;根据百度对该文章的介绍「间」解作动词「居于」似乎十分合理，另一方面， 将「人间世」解作名词即 ，「人类社会」也不算违背文章的内容。硏究人类社会，就是硏究人与人的互动与交流，而叙述人在世间也是叙述人与人的互动与交流&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可能庄子将该篇定名为「人间世」本来就知道这篇题含有双重意，平常说话也常见有语带相关言词，玩文字游戏时就更加普遍。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-07-29T02:32:11.153" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T02:32:11.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36027" CreationDate="2019-12-10T06:00:33.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for the 太阳 part, dan already has a good explanation. I am going answer the other questions you asked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;教育质量 and 教育的质量 are both correct and mean the same thing. Note that the counterpart of 教育质量 in English without &quot;of&quot; should be &quot;education quality&quot; but not &quot;quality education&quot;. I am not sure whether &quot;education quality&quot; is colloquial in English but this should help you understand why we can omit the 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The case with 科学模型 is slightly different. 科学模型 means a model used in science. However, 科学的 sometimes does not mean &quot;relating to science&quot;. Instead, it means &quot;correct in view of scientific principles&quot;. Therefore, if you say 科学的模型，you mean that you believe this model is correct based on your knowledge in science. On the other hand, if you say 这个模型不科学, you mean you think the model is wrong or flawed according to scientific principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is a rather rare example and does not apply to 数学模型，物理模型，化学模型, etc. For these adding 的 will be the same (although wordy).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="21960" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T06:24:25.503" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T06:24:25.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36027" CreationDate="2019-12-10T08:36:42.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;早晨(的)太阳&lt;/strong&gt; 是 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;红(色)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The &lt;strong&gt;sun of morning&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;(a) red&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;中午(的)太阳&lt;/strong&gt; 又变成了 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;白(色)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;中午(的)太阳&lt;/strong&gt; 又变成 &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;白(色)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;While the &lt;strong&gt;sun of noon&lt;/strong&gt; change to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;(a) white&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;中午(的)太阳&lt;/strong&gt; 又变 &lt;strong&gt;白&lt;/strong&gt; 了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;While the &lt;strong&gt;sun of noon&lt;/strong&gt; change &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;white&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T08:36:42.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36009" CreationDate="2019-12-10T09:02:13.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course you can, but it is up to the speaker/writer to clear the ambiguity. It's not good usage, but commonly seen nonetheless. With sufficient context, it shouldn't be a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, people tend to simply use numbers (123) rather than characters 一二三, especially when texting. I hope you can tell the difference between&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个小孩大概78岁 (Of course good practice would be to put a space in between)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个老人大概78岁&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I'm sure you understand 他大概910岁 :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T09:02:13.560" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36006" CreationDate="2019-12-10T09:05:59.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我昨天吃完西瓜后有过敏反应，所以现在不吃西瓜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet for me, in daily life I would just say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天吃完西瓜过敏，今天不吃了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23244" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T09:05:59.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36043" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36044" CreationDate="2019-12-10T10:31:01.050" Score="5" ViewCount="2697" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/htns2r1P/426973464.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/htns2r1P/426973464.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this funny image&lt;/a&gt; which I believe says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这块位置&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我们已经帮您踩过了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I took this photo in Tianjin, nearby an escalator.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=zh-CN&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=%E8%BF%99%E5%9D%97%E4%BD%8D%E7%BD%AE%0A%E6%88%91%E4%BB%AC%E5%B7%B2%E7%BB%8F%E5%B8%AE%E6%82%A8%E8%B8%A9%E8%BF%87%E4%BA%86&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; says it means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This location.  We've helped you step over!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the second sentence is unclear to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 我们已经帮您踩过了 mean in this peculiarly translated escalator sticker?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand what 已经 and 踩过 implies here.  I know &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B7%B2%E7%BB%8F&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;已经&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;already&quot; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%B8%A9&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;踩&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;stamp&quot; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%BF%87&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;过&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;pass&quot;, but this doesn't help much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T20:22:49.097" Title="What does 我们已经帮您踩过了 mean in this peculiarly translated escalator sticker?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36043" CreationDate="2019-12-10T10:44:18.993" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%BF%87&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;过&lt;/a&gt; doesn't mean &amp;quot;pass&amp;quot; here, from the dictionary link you posted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（用在动词后， 表示完毕）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(used after verbs to denote completed state&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 踩过 means &amp;quot;has been stamped&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The background information is that there were several accidents of escalator's step; as the translation in the image said, the whole sentence means &amp;quot;we've already stepped on this area for you&amp;quot;, indicating that &amp;quot;the safty has been confirmed, you can use the escalator with an easy mind&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T14:05:47.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36043" CreationDate="2019-12-10T10:50:48.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/930/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;過&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[7] particle marking experiential aspect&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding 過 after a verb marks that verb as a &amp;quot;perfect tense verb&amp;quot; (past, present or future)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;踩 = step on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;踩過 = had/ have stepped on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去 = go&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去過 = had/ have gone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们已经帮您踩过了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We've stepped on (this area) for you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Meaning we've tested it and it is sturdy and safe&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;area&amp;quot; refers to an area on the escalator&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T10:56:36.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36046" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-10T11:48:15.273" Score="1" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't eat breakfast today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我今天没吃早饭。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我今天没有吃早饭。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我今天没吃早饭了。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我今天没吃饭了。(I didn't eat today.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rule implies that 1 and 2 are correct but 3 and 4 are incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are 3 and 4 incorrect ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel 4 might be ok when a non-specific object is attached to the verb (i.e. 我没写字了，我没说话了，我没睡觉了)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel 3 is a bit awkward when a specific object is attached to the verb (i.e. 我没写了一本书，我没写一本书了，我没说那句话了，我没说了那句话，我没睡了一个晚上，我没睡一个晚上了)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21462" LastEditorUserId="21462" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T12:02:33.913" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T16:33:47.067" Title="A verb negated with 没 / 没有 cannot be suffixed with 了. Is this true?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36047" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-10T12:25:59.973" Score="2" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of the time nouns don't require measure words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三年，四周，五天，六秒，七日 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any more nouns (time nouns or otherwise) that don't require a MW ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a comprehensive list somewhere ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21462" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T10:36:41.710" Title="Nouns that don't require a measure word" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;number&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36046" CreationDate="2019-12-10T12:54:00.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a particle, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/460/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;了&lt;/a&gt; has two major functions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) [aspect marker] indicating completed action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) [final particle] indicating change of situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*It can also be a final particle for emphasis or adding emotional tone *&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[没 + V] or [没有 + V] denotes &amp;quot;absent of the action&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an action is absent, it cannot be a completed action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can only use 了 as a final particle that indicates change of situation or as a final particle that emphasizes the fact in the sentence or add emotional tone to the sentence, when a verb is negated with 没/ 没有&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;我没吃早饭了&amp;quot; indicates the situation changed from eat breakfast to  not eat breakfast (I used to eat breakfast, but not anymore)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with &amp;quot;我(今天)没吃早饭了&amp;quot; is &amp;quot;今天&amp;quot; implies tomorrow you might eat again, the situation is not changed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of [没 + V + 了]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(己經)没吃早饭了 (了 indicating change of situation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我(許久)没吃早饭了 (了 as a final particle that emphasizes the fact in the sentence or add emotional tone to the sentence)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Base on the examples above, I would say a verb negated with 没 / 没有 can be suffixed with 了, but not for the function of &amp;quot;aspect marker that indicating completed action&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T12:54:00.257" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36046" CreationDate="2019-12-10T13:03:24.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This rule implies that 1 and 2 are correct but 3 and 4 are incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it seems that this rule is applicable. I can't think an example against it off the top of my head. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(i.e. 我没写了一本书，我没写一本书了，我没说那句话了，我没说了那句话，我没睡了一个晚上，我没睡一个晚上了)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those examples are all awkward because of that additional 了. In 我没睡了一个晚上, it has to be 我一个晚上没睡. 我没睡一个晚上 isn't natural and idiomatic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T13:03:24.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36050" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-10T13:16:39.587" Score="2" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 还 and 更 in some comparasion sentences? For me, it seems that both characters means that one of the object/person which is  being compared satisfies a certain characteristic even more than the other one. For example, in the following sentence, it seems that both can be used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很怕黑，但是他比我还/更怕.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm not so sure of that. After reading a few more examples, it looks like that 更 has a more numerical/quantitative aspect than 还, which looks like more qualitative. So, for example, I would say: Yao Ming 比 Michael Jordan 更高, instead of using 还 and I would say 他比Megan Fox 还漂亮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are those intuition correct? Can someone explain these nuances? Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18456" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T21:21:28.393" Title="Difference between 还/更 in comparasion phrases" Tags="&lt;comparison&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13273" CreationDate="2019-12-10T13:26:15.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;得弄, are neither one word nor two words because they are not to be read together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence structure is:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;首先, (first and foremost),得弄清楚, (decide / work out clearly), 我们需要什么, (what is it we really need)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence works just as well without the 得 as, in my view, it is superfluous. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T14:54:32.520" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T14:54:32.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36050" CreationDate="2019-12-10T14:45:08.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 还 and 更 have more than one meanings and the meaning of &amp;quot;even more&amp;quot; is overlapped between the two characters,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it means  &amp;quot;even more&amp;quot; the two characters are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yao Ming &lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt; Michael Jordan &lt;strong&gt;高&lt;/strong&gt; = Yao Ming is &lt;strong&gt;taller than&lt;/strong&gt; Michael&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;It would be true even if Yao Ming was 5'3&amp;quot; and  Michael Jordan was only 5'2&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yao Ming &lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt; Michael Jordan &lt;strong&gt;更/还高&lt;/strong&gt; = Yao Ming is &lt;strong&gt;even taller than&lt;/strong&gt; Michael&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;It would be true only if Michael Jordan was considered very tall&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她&lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt; Megan Fox &lt;strong&gt;漂亮&lt;/strong&gt; = she is &lt;strong&gt;more beautiful than&lt;/strong&gt; Megan Fox&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;it would be true even if she was just less ugly than Megan Fox&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她 &lt;strong&gt;比&lt;/strong&gt; Megan Fox &lt;strong&gt;更/还漂亮&lt;/strong&gt; = she is &lt;strong&gt;even more beautiful than&lt;/strong&gt; Megan Fox&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(It would be true only if Megan Fox was considered very beautiful)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[比 (N) 还 (adj)] = [比 (N) 还要 (adj)]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[比 (N) 更 (adj)] = [比 (N) 更加 (adj)]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T21:21:28.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36050" CreationDate="2019-12-10T15:21:49.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Compared with 还, 更 expresses &lt;strong&gt;a stronger tone&lt;/strong&gt; in the structure 比 ... 还/更. E.g. 你比我还合适 vs 你比我更合适.  你比我更合适 is &lt;strong&gt;almost&lt;/strong&gt; close to say you are much more suitable. 你比我还合适 is like you are even more suitable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Outside the structure of 比... ，we could only use 更. E.g. 明天会更好，not 明天会还好. 我会变得更强，not 我会变得还强. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T15:21:49.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36046" CreationDate="2019-12-10T16:33:47.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: Yes and no.  The most relevant grammar structures are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没 + [verb] (with no 了), e.g. 我今天&lt;strong&gt;没&lt;/strong&gt;吃饭 (I haven't eaten today);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[duration] + 没 + [verb] + 了, e.g., 我&lt;strong&gt;一天没&lt;/strong&gt;吃饭&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt; (I didn't eat for one day);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;along with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;没 + [noun] + 了, e.g., 我&lt;strong&gt;没有米饭了&lt;/strong&gt; (I don't have rice [anymore]);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不 + [verb] + 了, e.g., 我今天&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;吃饭&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt; (I won't eat today [anymore]).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These last two use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Change_of_state_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;change-of-state 了&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm a learner, so there may be exceptions I'm unaware of.  In writing this answer, I tried to cross-check as much as reasonably possible.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;1. Negating past actions&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most relevant grammar structure is the following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subj. + 没有 / 没 + Verb&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Negation_of_past_actions_with_%22meiyou%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Negation of past actions with &amp;quot;meiyou&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This should be thought of as the default:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天没吃早饭&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I haven't eaten breakfast today&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no semantic distinction between 没 and 没有 here: pick whichever is most suitable in the given context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Change_of_state_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;change-of-state 了&lt;/a&gt; here, if it isn't plain ungrammatical (i.e. no state is being changed), is probably going to sound weird.  This was emphasized in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36049/8099&quot;&gt;dan's answer&lt;/a&gt;.  As another data point, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/335632443/answer/753714431&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Zhihu article&lt;/a&gt; (although not a reliable source for grammar) talks about how they feel 我还没吃饭了 (I still haven't eaten) is a regional dialect, with one author writing ...这个语法很奇怪 (this grammar is very strange).  However, this doesn't stop it being used: see Baidu &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E6%88%91%E8%BF%98%E6%B2%A1%E5%90%83%E9%A5%AD%E4%BA%86%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;我还没吃饭了&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.  As an aside, we can use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Modal_particle_%22ne%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;modal particle 呢&lt;/a&gt; here: 我还没吃饭呢.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;2. Duration of inaction&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 没...了 with a verb ordinarily (always?) implies we are using the construct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subj. + (已经 +) Duration + 没 + Verb + 了&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_duration_of_inaction&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing duration of inaction&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'll ignore 已经 for simplicity.)  In the running example, 今天 is not a duration.  So here's another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我超过二十个小时没吃东西了&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I, [for] more than twenty hours, have not eaten anything&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we wanted to use this grammar structure with 今天, we could say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我今天&lt;strong&gt;一天&lt;/strong&gt;没吃饭了&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Today, I haven't eaten all day&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;3. Change of state (noun)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're anything like me, there might be confusion with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;没(有) + [Noun Phrase] + 了&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22not_anymore%22_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing &amp;quot;not anymore&amp;quot; with &amp;quot;le&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Change_of_state_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;change-of-state 了&lt;/a&gt;, for when we no longer have something.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2050年就没有巧克力了 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://new.qq.com/omn/20190204/20190204A0BRFM.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;in 2050, [there] will be no chocolate [future change of state]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;4. Change of state (verb)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we want to highlight a change of state for a verb, the appropriate grammar structure is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subj. + 不 + Verb + 了&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Change_of_state_with_%22le%22#Change_of_Situation_in_the_Negative&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Change of Situation in the Negative&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, there's some variety, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我明天&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;吃饭&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I won't eat tomorrow [change of decision]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;从今以后,我不吃肉了 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1306104484816333099.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;From today on, I won't eat meat [current change of state]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我好几年&lt;strong&gt;不&lt;/strong&gt;吃猪肉&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://guba.eastmoney.com/news,000895,781875323.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I, for many years, have not eaten pork [past change of state]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above we have a change of state, but (for contrast) below we don't (so no 了):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回族不吃猪肉&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Hui Muslims don't eat pork [no change of state]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T16:33:47.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36043" CreationDate="2019-12-10T20:22:49.097" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please allow me to give you some background about this sticker.&#xA;On July 26th, 2015, one piece of plate, where the sticker is sitting, on an escalator turned over leaving a young women dead in Hubei China. This accident caused public in China worried about the safety of escalators, stepping onto a plate of an escalator may not safe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shortly after that, these stickers came out, stating that &quot;We had already stepped onto this area&quot;, which indicate to the public, the escalator is safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar pictures can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xdwy2001.com/a/kantianxia/2015/1229/5062.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.xdwy2001.com/a/kantianxia/2015/1229/5062.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23246" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T20:22:49.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36047" CreationDate="2019-12-10T20:47:20.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The trick is the omission behind (again).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is the &lt;strong&gt;objective&lt;/strong&gt; that is omitted, not the MW words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The complete words are:&lt;br&gt; &#xA;&lt;code&gt;三年(时间)&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;四周(时间)&lt;/code&gt;, etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see now, there are MW words. Just too obvious to add the objective again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, after business dinner in CN, people usually ask &lt;code&gt;刚喝了几杯&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;br&gt; which means &lt;code&gt;几杯(酒)&lt;/code&gt;. But we never say &lt;code&gt;几酒&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23227" LastEditorUserId="23227" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T20:58:00.060" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T20:58:00.060" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36058" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-10T22:48:32.867" Score="4" ViewCount="1613" Body="&lt;p&gt;普通话口语里常用。语境：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;女性跟闺蜜抱怨丈夫：「虽然我跟你这么抱怨，但真要和他离婚也不现实，唉，&lt;strong&gt;就这么着吧&lt;/strong&gt;！」（带着点无奈，日子凑合过的味道）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;论坛网友：「反正不管我再发布多少次，网站都会给我删除的，所以&lt;strong&gt;就这么着吧&lt;/strong&gt;，我也没辙」（虽然不接受，但是也无可奈何的意思：不然我能咋办呢？）&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;网上搜到一些翻译，感觉味道不太对：例如Alright，如果没有音调的辅助，只凭文字传达，Alright没有“就这么着吧”里面的无奈感吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;所以，怎么翻译好呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: In this context, 就这么着吧 means 1) we disagree or dont want sth in heart or at first, 2) but have to accept it in reality or now, because we have no choice and nothing more we can do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21286" LastEditorUserId="21286" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T01:03:35.910" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T22:06:38.953" Title="How to translate “就这么着吧”？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36058" CreationDate="2019-12-10T23:26:52.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;就这么着吧:let it go&#xA;就这么着: that's it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23247" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T23:26:52.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36058" CreationDate="2019-12-10T23:55:54.423" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Give it another thought: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems there isn't a direct phrase or sentence that could work well in all contexts. We should interpret it based on context. It could be &quot;&lt;em&gt;that's that&quot;, &quot;that's how it is&quot;, &quot;that's what it is&quot;, &quot;that's how it works&quot;, etc&lt;/em&gt;. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;论坛网友：「反正不管我再发布多少次，网站都会给我删除的，所以就这么着吧，我也没辙」（虽然不接受，但是也无可奈何的意思：不然我能咋办呢？）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, 所以就这么着吧，我也没辙 could be: &lt;em&gt;so that's how it is&lt;/em&gt;/ &lt;em&gt;that's how it works&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;em&gt;I can do nothing about it&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T02:00:44.537" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T02:00:44.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36058" CreationDate="2019-12-11T00:08:09.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这么着好。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It's better this way.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;这么着怎么样?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How about this?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你要这么着，我就将死了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You do that and I'm a dead duck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就这么着吧。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do it like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然我跟你这么抱怨，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Even though I complain that much,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;但真要和他离婚也不现实，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't really want a divorce,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;唉，就这么着吧！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;no, that's how it is!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is: should we say zhe or zhao for 着？I get conflicting answers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T00:08:09.477" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36058" CreationDate="2019-12-11T00:32:21.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about &lt;a href=&quot;https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/let+it+be&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;let it be&lt;/a&gt;? According to this link, it means to leave something as it is because there's not much you can do about it. But I am no native speaker and hopefully someone can confirm this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T00:32:21.030" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35916" CreationDate="2019-12-11T02:30:51.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;要&lt;/code&gt; goes for &lt;code&gt;将要&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;需要&lt;/code&gt;, which indicates &lt;code&gt;will&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;need&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, &lt;code&gt;将要 + verb&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;需要 + noun&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For distinction, the sentence &lt;code&gt;我要去北京&lt;/code&gt; goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我(将)要去北京(了)&lt;/code&gt;, which indicates &lt;code&gt;去北京&lt;/code&gt; an action&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;我(需)要去北京(一趟)&lt;/code&gt;, which indicates &lt;code&gt;去北京&lt;/code&gt; an adj and &lt;code&gt;去北京一趟&lt;/code&gt; a noun&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the tone or the circumstances indicate &quot;I need to go to Beijing (to)&quot;, that is only half of the sentence in Chinese, I will ask &quot;to do what&quot;. While if it is &quot;I will go to Beijing&quot;, the question I will ask is &quot;When&quot;. But it is ambiguous indeed without explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, to be honest, if someone literally says &lt;code&gt;我要去北京&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;The point is &lt;code&gt;北京&lt;/code&gt;, not &lt;code&gt;要&lt;/code&gt;, as all roads lead to Rome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23227" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T02:30:51.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36065" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-11T02:57:09.227" Score="1" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我三岁了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I [am] three years of age&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This breaks apart as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youdao.com/w/%E6%88%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;我&lt;/a&gt; (wǒ) = me&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;三&lt;/a&gt; (sān) = three&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youdao.com/w/%E5%B2%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;岁&lt;/a&gt; = years of age&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;了: I understand 了 here is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Change_of_state_with_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;change-of-state 了&lt;/a&gt;: prior to turning 3, I was not 3, so that state has changed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two points of confusion regarding when it's correct to say 我三岁了:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Two years old&lt;/strong&gt;: 我三岁了 is incorrect because... (why?).  It seems correct to say e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%98%8E%E5%B9%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;明年&lt;/a&gt;我三岁了.  It seems theoretically possible that 我三岁了 could refer to a future change of state (although surely none would use it because it's misleading).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Three years old&lt;/strong&gt;: 我三岁了 is correct: I turned 3 (change of state).  [more about this in point 2.]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Four years old&lt;/strong&gt;: 我三岁了 is grammatically incorrect: my best guess as to why is because while I turned 3 (change of state), I subsequently also turned 4 (&lt;strong&gt;unchange&lt;/strong&gt; of state). With this reasoning, 我去年三岁了 is self-contradictory (maybe?).  And Baidu indicates it's correct to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去年三岁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Last year, I was three years of age&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;without the change-of-state 了.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When I'm three years of age&lt;/strong&gt;, for that full year, I'm not sure if it's okay say 我三岁了.  For example, I wonder if it's okay to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我三岁了，明天我四岁了.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I [am] three years of age, tomorrow I [become] four years of age&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The change of state happened a long time ago, so I'm unsure if it still counts as a change of state (but maybe a change of state has no expiry).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: During which time in a person's life is it correct for them to say 我三岁了 (I am 3 years old)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T03:28:09.183" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T07:58:33.537" Title="Change- and unchange-of-state 了: During which time in a person's life is it correct for them to say 我三岁了 (I am 3 years old)?" Tags="&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36065" CreationDate="2019-12-11T03:27:42.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Two years old&lt;/strong&gt;: 我三岁了 is incorrect because... (why?).  It seems correct to say e.g. 明年我三岁了.  It seems theoretically possible that&#xA;  我三岁了 could refer to a future change of state (although surely none&#xA;  would use it because it's misleading).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's incorrect, because... you're still 2 years old. Note that 明年我三岁了 is correct, but 我三岁了 always refers to &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt; unless specifying adverbial of time explicitly like 明年 or 去年.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Four years old&lt;/strong&gt;: 我三岁了 is grammatically incorrect: my best guess as to why is because while I turned 3 (change of state), I&#xA;  subsequently also turned 4 (&lt;strong&gt;unchange&lt;/strong&gt; of state). With this&#xA;  reasoning, 我去年三岁了 is self-contradictory (maybe?).  And Baidu indicates&#xA;  it's correct to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;我去年三岁&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    Last year, I was three years of age&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;without the change-of-state 了.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 我三岁了 is incorrect, at least misleading. People won't consider you've been 4 years old when hearing that. 我去年三岁 is correct, and 我去年三岁了 is correct too, which puts the emphasis on the fact that the change of state happened in 去年. Especially when you want to emphasize that I've been 3 years old long ago you can say 我去年就三岁了 or even 我前年就三岁了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When I'm three years of age&lt;/strong&gt;, for that full year, I'm not sure if it's okay say 我三岁了.  For example, I wonder if it's okay to say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;我三岁了，明天我四岁了.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    I [am] three years of age, tomorrow I [become] four years of age&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The change of state happened a long time ago, so I'm unsure if it&#xA;  still counts as a change of state (but maybe a change of state has no&#xA;  expiry).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我三岁了，明天我四岁了 is fine. (Adding 就 sounds more natural to me like 明天我就四岁了.) I feel that you don't need to care about the period of validity of the change of state, the point is the current state. You're in the state of 3 years old, then it's always fine to say 我三岁了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T03:39:48.240" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T03:39:48.240" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36065" CreationDate="2019-12-11T03:48:14.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say &quot;我三岁了&quot; in a present tense from the day you turn three to the day before you turn four&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At any age younger than three, you cannot say &quot;我三岁了&quot; without referring to the change of state is in the future e.g. 明天我就三岁了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At any age older than three, you cannot say &quot;我三岁了&quot; without referring to the change of state was in the past e.g. 人類登陸月球時&lt;strong&gt;我已經三岁了&lt;/strong&gt;，當然有看過直播 (&lt;strong&gt;I was already three years old&lt;/strong&gt; when humans landed on the moon, of course I have watched the live broadcast, )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people ask you: &quot;how old are you&quot; you can answer either: &quot;我三岁了&quot; (directly stating you are currently three years old) or &quot;我明天四岁了&quot; (indirectly indicate you are currently still three years old)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;我三岁了，明天我四岁了&quot;&lt;/em&gt;  are two disjointed sentences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you insist on stating the two facts (I am 3 already + I will be 4 tomorrow) in one sentence, you can do that, but only one 了 and one 我 is needed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;我三岁，不過明天就四岁了&quot; (I am three, but I will be four tomorrow).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The single 我 is the subject of both facts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The single 了 at the end applies to both facts &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(fact 1) 我了退休了 (&lt;em&gt;the first 了 is an aspect marker indicate the verb retire is completed, the second 了 is a final particle indicate change of situation&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(fact 2) 我明天起不用工作了 (&lt;em&gt;了 is a final particle indicate change of situation from need to work to don't need to work&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我退了休，明天起不用工作了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T04:19:35.820" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T04:19:35.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36065" CreationDate="2019-12-11T03:49:23.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Correct for &quot;change&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Usually say &lt;code&gt;我三岁了&lt;/code&gt; on the birthday of three. That's the day of change.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When four years old, remove &lt;code&gt;了&lt;/code&gt; as past not change.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On the birthday of four, we usually say &lt;code&gt;我三岁，明天我四岁了&lt;/code&gt;, as there is no change for the first part.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any other cases for &quot;change&quot; during the year of 3? Yes. When someone asks the little cute toddler that &quot;r u 2 years old&quot;, the cute will reply &lt;code&gt;nooooo, 我三岁了&lt;/code&gt; proudly, to indicate the &quot;change&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23227" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T03:49:23.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36065" CreationDate="2019-12-11T04:37:46.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 我三岁了, 了 can be construed as either &lt;em&gt;the state of change&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;completion(already)&lt;/em&gt; according to contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 你几岁了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 我三岁了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, B simply means I'm three years old already. He doesn't indicate the change 2-&amp;gt;3. He just tries to tell the truth that he is being 3 years old now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, say today is your birthday, you can say 我三岁了 to indicate that now you have reached 3. In this case, the change 2-&amp;gt;3 is implied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I might think the-state-change 了 only works well for present&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. It doesn't work well for past and future. E.g. 下雨了，成功了，我们胜利了，etc. I would prefer not to use 了 in the sentences like 我明年三岁了 and 我去年三岁了. I might as well say 我明年三岁 and 我去年三岁.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the reason why the-state-change 了 works well for the present is that it can add some effect of &lt;em&gt;exciting, surprise, joyfulness, happiness, etc.&lt;/em&gt;. Using it in the past or future, people won't feel the effect. Thus, &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;it becomes redundant there!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to emphasize the change in the future or past, we can add 就 for effect. E.g. 我明年就三岁了，我去年就三岁了. Without 就, the effect would be lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My two cents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T04:48:50.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36058" CreationDate="2019-12-11T07:50:02.557" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;so be it&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;used for saying that you accept a situation in which something has&#xA;  been decided or is necessary, although you are not happy about it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/so-be-it&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/so-be-it&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23251" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T07:50:02.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35916" CreationDate="2019-12-11T10:34:17.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;For translating...&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these are possible in a given context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%A6%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;要&lt;/a&gt;去北京&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;version 1&lt;/em&gt;: I want to go to Beijing&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;version 2&lt;/em&gt;: I need to go to Beijing&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;version 3&lt;/em&gt;: I am going to Beijing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relevant grammar structure is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subj. + 要 + Verb + Obj.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Wanting_to_do_something_with_%22yao%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wanting to do something with &amp;quot;yao&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese Grammar Wiki page &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Auxiliary_verb_%22yao%22_and_its_multiple_meanings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Auxiliary verb &amp;quot;yao&amp;quot; and its multiple meanings&lt;/a&gt; gives three meanings of 要 as a verb: (a) &amp;quot;Want to&amp;quot;, (b) &amp;quot;Need to&amp;quot;, (c) &amp;quot;Going to&amp;quot;, and the 要 in 我要去北京 could mean any of these.  So...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... To figure out what is intended, &lt;strong&gt;you need to use context&lt;/strong&gt;. How urgent is the situation? Is it likely to be something the speaker really wants to do? Is it something that's totally going to happen, regardless of anyone's preference? ...&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Auxiliary_verb_%22yao%22_and_its_multiple_meanings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Auxiliary verb &amp;quot;yao&amp;quot; and its multiple meanings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relevant words in both Chinese and English are ambiguous, so &lt;strong&gt;it's sometimes impossible to consider any translation as definitively &amp;quot;correct&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; even given the context.  Chinese evolved over thousands of years, and was not designed with (the comparatively young language) English in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine a scenario where your boss requires you to go to Beijing (&amp;quot;need to&amp;quot;), but you've always wanted to go to Beijing (&amp;quot;want to&amp;quot;).  On the way to the airport (&amp;quot;going to&amp;quot;), you might chat with the taxi driver and say 我要去北京.  Which translation is correct?  &lt;em&gt;All of them!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;For speaking Chinese...&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your purpose is to speak Chinese, I feel it's simplest to just think of all three of these as &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;a strong form of &amp;quot;want&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; (so strong, you might be in the process of doing it), and &lt;em&gt;ignore the English words&lt;/em&gt;.  In this case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我要去北京&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I want to go to Beijing&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;[it will happen unless something unforeseen occurs; I may even be half-way to Beijing already]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;  It's a simplification.  There are multiple mismatches between the English and Chinese.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么人类&lt;strong&gt;需要&lt;/strong&gt;氧气才能生存? (&lt;a href=&quot;https://iask.sina.com.cn/b/Py9uDQarBDH.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Why does mankind &lt;strong&gt;need&lt;/strong&gt; Oxygen to be able to survive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We cannot use 要 in place of 需要 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;要 sometimes means &amp;quot;want to&amp;quot;, and &amp;quot;want to&amp;quot; sometimes means 要;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;要 sometimes means &amp;quot;need to&amp;quot;, and &amp;quot;need to&amp;quot; sometimes means 要; and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;要 sometimes means &amp;quot;going to&amp;quot;, and &amp;quot;going to&amp;quot; sometimes means 要.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't want to work out what all those six (possibly overlapping) &amp;quot;sometimes&amp;quot; mean, then I suggest going with: &lt;em&gt;a strong form of &amp;quot;want&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T10:34:17.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36058" CreationDate="2019-12-11T12:09:03.377" Score="-1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1132/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;着&lt;/a&gt; [verb particle] indicating the continuation of an action or a state&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走 = walk&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;走着 = walking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看 = watch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;看着 = watching&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Base on the context, a verb is seemingly omitted in &amp;quot;就这么(?)着吧&amp;quot;. The omitted verb could be the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;就这么(保持着)(現狀)吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;let's just (maintaining/ keeping) (the current situation) like this&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;let's just (keeping) (it) at that&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;Just let it be&amp;quot; would be a good translation too&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T12:21:44.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22204" CreationDate="2019-12-11T15:33:09.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;(a) 这是我车?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(b) 这是我的车?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(a) does sound &quot;un-Chinese&quot;  For example when answering a question, like, 这是谁的车? you answer 车是我的, and not 是我车.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coming back to the question, why can't we say 你的国家的医院好吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think if you really want the 1st 的 there, the sentence might end up as:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的国家有好的医院吗?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T15:33:09.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31171" CreationDate="2019-12-11T15:58:17.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;为什么我(会)觉得历史课很无聊?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is not a question but a mere statement of fact, then the (会) is unnecessary, giving us -- 我觉得历史课很无聊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But because it is a question, the 会 is to solicit a reason from anyone answering why you &quot;would (会) think or feel, (觉得), history lessons are boring&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T15:58:17.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36058" CreationDate="2019-12-11T19:00:29.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let it be 应该是由他去吧.&#xA;就这么着应该是 so be it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23253" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T19:00:29.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36076" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36078" CreationDate="2019-12-11T20:22:44.100" Score="1" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between 很多的 and 很多? Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他们在这个乌代布尔地区做了&lt;strong&gt;很多的&lt;/strong&gt;调查&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;比如说攒&lt;strong&gt;很多的&lt;/strong&gt;钱买一个LV的包&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;为什么有时候人会在人&lt;strong&gt;很多的&lt;/strong&gt;地方觉得自己很寂寞？ &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 的 needed in all three sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23211" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T21:38:02.520" Title="很多的 + noun vs 很多 + noun" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36077" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36086" CreationDate="2019-12-11T21:37:12.567" Score="0" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;最近我对《打算》和《计划》有问题。如果我同事问我《这周末你有什么计划吗？》的话这有《你有什么打算吗？》的意思吗？如果不一样这两个句子有什么不同？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a little bit confused on when to use 计划 and when to use 打算. My understanding is that both mean &quot;plan&quot; but they seem to be entirely interchangeable. In what situations would I want to use one over the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23255" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T08:42:51.897" Title="《你有什么打算》跟《你有什么计划》一样的吗？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-12-12T09:58:14.323" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36076" CreationDate="2019-12-11T21:38:02.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Basically, &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; can always be omitted for a simple adjective.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But for emphasis of the adjective, &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; is added (so omit it if not).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the omission of &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt;, check &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/24860134&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;, kind of CN quora (if it is fine to read).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The third sentence is an exception of your description. &lt;code&gt;很多&lt;/code&gt; comes after &lt;code&gt;人&lt;/code&gt;, so it is &lt;code&gt;(人很多)的地方&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;的&lt;/code&gt; cannot be omitted here to avoid ambiguity.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23227" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T21:38:02.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36058" CreationDate="2019-12-11T22:06:38.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;how about this one: &quot;that's how it be&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23257" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T22:06:38.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36080" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-11T22:20:38.983" Score="0" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few years ago when I first started learning Mandarin, a friend told me of a certain idiom that's used when you want someone to just leave you alone / go away. I can't recall the idiom in Mandarin but in English it loosely translates to, &quot;I fart you away.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please provide this idiom and if that's the proper context to use it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user23258" LastEditorDisplayName="user23258" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T03:11:26.360" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T04:08:38.140" Title="Looking for a [common] idiom that loosely translates to &quot;I fart you away&quot;" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17752" CreationDate="2019-12-11T22:29:56.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't understand why you said Cantonese is not used in writing literature. You do understand that all written Chinese can be read using Cantonese orally?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are talking about historical literature, if you use Cantonese to read it, the poems would rhyme, but when you use Mandarin to read it, the poem for the most part will not rhyme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cantonese has a longer history in China than the current Mandarin taught in Mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With such limited time and if one were to learn how to read, it is better to write in proper Chinese characters with the correct grammar rather than using the Cantonese Oral to write, since you will need to know how to read the newspapers, and other official documents.  This is similar to when you had to take English Literature in school, you would not read a book with no proper grammar and spelling in a English Literature class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jin Yong - the author who wrote the famous wuxia stories, he wrote it in Hong Kong for the Cantonese readers. However, as a novel, I would expect it to have correct grammar and poetic sentences and not a &quot;Ya'll&quot; or a &quot;wussup&quot; or a &quot;betcha&quot; in there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23259" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T22:29:56.983" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36080" CreationDate="2019-12-11T22:53:41.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Get lost&quot; is &quot;滚开&quot; or &quot;滚蛋&quot; but it is not an idiom, just a slang &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want an idiom that contains &quot;fart&quot; and meaning of &quot;go away&quot;,  “屁滾尿流”  is the only possible one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“屁滾尿流” means “farting and pissing uncontrollably  (mostly while running away)” It is a metaphor for  “in extreme fear”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example::&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;殺得敵人屁滾尿流地逃走 (beating the enemy so  bad that they wet  themselves while running away)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T04:08:38.140" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T04:08:38.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36080" CreationDate="2019-12-11T23:21:25.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a guess from your description, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;当我是个屁,把我放了&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23227" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T23:21:25.990" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36080" CreationDate="2019-12-12T02:52:04.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess it is &quot;滚开&quot;. That's a insulting idiom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23262" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T02:52:04.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36077" CreationDate="2019-12-12T04:00:37.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;they are same, 打算 often used in oral, 计划 is more formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19722" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T04:00:37.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36077" CreationDate="2019-12-12T04:29:05.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As a noun, both 打算 and 计划 mean &quot;plan&quot; but 打算 also contains the meaning of &quot;intention&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有去美國的计划 (have the plan of going to The United States)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有去美國的打算 (have the plan of going to The United States/ have the intention of going to The United States)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As a verb, both 打算 and 计划 have the meaning of &quot;plan to&quot;, but 打算 also contains the meaning of &quot;intend to&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;计划去美國留學 (Plan to to go to The United States to study)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;打算去美國留學 (Plan to/intend to go to The United States to study)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T08:42:51.897" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T08:42:51.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32972" CreationDate="2019-12-12T04:40:44.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: Here's my version, where I've tried to stay faithful to the original:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为了赚到白人男性一年赚的钱，拉美女人必须工作到第二年10月20号&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  In order to earn the money earned by a white man in a year, Latin-American women must work until October 20 the following year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The major structural change is putting 为了 = &quot;in order to&quot; at the start.  This approximately breaks up as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In order to [为了] earn [赚到] white man [白人男性] in one year [一年] earned money [赚的钱]，Latin-American [拉美] women [女人] must [必须] work [工作] until [到] the next year [第二年] October [10月] 20-th [20号]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I spoke with my Chinese teacher about this thread, she said it needs to be 赚到 instead of just 赚 at the start of my sentence [I corrected that].  Also she said 工作到第二年10月20号 could simplify to 工作一年10个月 (&quot;work for one year and 10 months&quot;) or 工作22个月 (&quot;work for 22 months&quot;), simply ignoring the 20 days.  We had a long discussion about what &quot;Latina woman&quot; means, but couldn't figure it out precisely.  She felt that 拉蒂纳 was never used.  She also mentioned that 明年 (&quot;next year&quot;) in 明年11月20日 suggests the statement is true for a fixed year, so it's likely more appropriate to use 第二年 (&quot;the following year&quot;) here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I explain all the changes below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Part 1&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;拉丁裔的女人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Latin-descended women&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%8B%89%E4%B8%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;拉丁&lt;/a&gt; = Latin  (correct)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;裔的女人 breaks apart into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%A3%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;裔&lt;/a&gt; = descendant&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;的&lt;/a&gt; is a particle (no meaning in English, but necessary for Chinese grammar)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A5%B3%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;女人&lt;/a&gt; = woman&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Curiously, &quot;Latina women&quot; (literally 拉丁女人) was translated into &quot;Latin-descended women&quot;.  But let's drop the &quot;descendant&quot; stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%8B%89%E4%B8%81%E5%A5%B3%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;拉丁女人&lt;/a&gt; = Latin woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is fine, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32979/8099&quot;&gt;Pedroski's answer&lt;/a&gt; suggests &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/latina/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;拉蒂纳&lt;/a&gt; = Latina instead, but I would not use this (e.g., search for &lt;a href=&quot;http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&amp;amp;word=%E6%8B%89%E8%92%82%E7%BA%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;拉蒂纳&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; on Baidu Image search).  Since the OP's location is in the USA, I suggest &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%8B%89%E7%BE%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;拉美&lt;/a&gt; = Latin-American is the best choice here.  This varies on your audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32973/8099&quot;&gt;Tang Ho's answer&lt;/a&gt; gives 拉丁女性, where &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A5%B3%E6%80%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;女性&lt;/a&gt; = the female sex.  There's a subtle trade-off between 女性 and 女人 here (perhaps this distinction is suitable for another Chinese.SE question).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Part 2&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;需要工作&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  must work&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%9C%80%E8%A6%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;需要&lt;/a&gt; = must&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32973/8099&quot;&gt;Tang Ho's answer&lt;/a&gt; gives &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BF%85%E9%A1%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;必须&lt;/a&gt; which also means &quot;must&quot;, but meaning something like &quot;necessarily must&quot; (i.e., you can't just choose not to).  While 需要 is okay, 必须 seems more precise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B7%A5%E4%BD%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;工作&lt;/a&gt; = work  (correct)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Part 3&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一年到十月的二十号&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  one year until October 20 [with a grammar error]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;一年到十月的二十号 breaks apart into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%80%E5%B9%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一年&lt;/a&gt; = one year&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%88%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;到&lt;/a&gt; = until (in this context), which is correct but misplaced&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;十月的二十号 is close to meaning October 20-th, and breaks apart into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8D%81%E6%9C%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;十月&lt;/a&gt; = October&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;的 is the particle above; as far as I know, using it in dates is plain wrong, so delete this&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BA%8C%E5%8D%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;二十&lt;/a&gt; = 20&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8F%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;号&lt;/a&gt; = number&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a good fit.  Chinese has the phrase &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%8C%E5%B9%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;第二年&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;the following year&quot; which works well here, so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;到第二年十月二十号&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  到第二年10月20号&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  until October 20 the following year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Part 4&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为了赚百男人赚的钱&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  for earn the money &lt;s&gt;hundred&lt;/s&gt; white men earn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%BA%E4%BA%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;为了&lt;/a&gt; = for; in order to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How 为了 is used feels wrong, but I can't pinpoint why.  Normally Chinese uses a preceding &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%98%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;是&lt;/a&gt; = is, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;结婚&lt;strong&gt;是为了&lt;/strong&gt;生孩子&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Marriage &lt;strong&gt;is for&lt;/strong&gt; having children&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this &quot;for&quot; is different, so we can't simply add a 是 to fix the problem.  The 为了 would probably sound better at the start though, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;为了&lt;/strong&gt;您的安全，请系好安全带&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;For&lt;/strong&gt; your safety, please fasten your seat belt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32973/8099&quot;&gt;Tang Ho's answer&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32979/8099&quot;&gt;Pedroski's answer&lt;/a&gt; use &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%89%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;才&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;only then&quot; (in this context).  I'll instead opt for restructuring the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%B5%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;赚&lt;/a&gt; = earn (correct)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's other options though, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%8E%B7%E5%BE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;获得&lt;/a&gt; as in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32973/8099&quot;&gt;Tang Ho's answer&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%8C%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;挣&lt;/a&gt; as in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32979/8099&quot;&gt;Pedroski's answer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%99%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;百&lt;/a&gt; = hundred, a common mistake for &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%99%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;白&lt;/a&gt; = white&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another point here, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%99%BD%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;白人&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;white person&quot;, while some people seem to use &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%99%BD%E7%94%B7%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;白男人&lt;/a&gt; (along with other alternatives), it seems &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%99%BD%E4%BA%BA%E7%94%B7%E6%80%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;白人男性&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;white person male sex&quot; is most appropriate, as used in both &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32973/8099&quot;&gt;Tang Ho's answer&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/32979/8099&quot;&gt;Pedroski's answer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;男人赚的钱 breaks apart into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B7%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;男人&lt;/a&gt; = man (correct)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%B5%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;赚&lt;/a&gt; = earn (correct, again)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;的&lt;/a&gt; is a particle (correct)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%92%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;钱&lt;/a&gt; = money (correct)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Together it means &quot;the money that a man earns&quot;.  All correct.  But there's no specified time period (we need to add &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%80%E5%B9%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一年&lt;/a&gt; = one year).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Part 5&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在前的一年&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  previous year [with a grammar error]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9C%A8%E5%89%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;在前&lt;/a&gt; = prior to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%9A%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;的&lt;/a&gt; is a grammar particle; it's not correct, but can be deleted&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%80%E5%B9%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一年&lt;/a&gt; = one year&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After deleting the 的, it's unconnected: like someone simply stuck the phrase &quot;previous year&quot; at the end of a sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T04:57:25.080" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T04:57:25.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29770" CreationDate="2019-12-12T07:10:59.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This song, 你怎麼說, is one of the late, 鄧麗君, Teresa Teng's famous song, sung at Chinese karaoke lounges practically all over the Chinese diaspora World, because the lyrics are simple, (well, at least to Chinese speakers), with a smooth catchy tune.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The complete song followed by my literal, amateurish translation attempt, hence the stilted English. I am sure others would translate it slightly differently, but what the heck......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没忘记你忘记我&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I've not forgotten you, you've forgotten me,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  连名字你都说错&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Even my name you said it wrong;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  证明你一切都是在骗我&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  That proves all along you lied me,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  看今天你怎么说&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Let's see what you say today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Chorus]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你说过两天来看我&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You said you would visit me after two days,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一等就是一年多&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I've since waited for more than a year;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  三百六十五个日子不好过&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Three Hundred Sixty-Five days are not good to pass,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  你心里根本没有我&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Your heart really don't have me,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  把我的爱情还给我&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Pay back my love to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to hear the song with pinyin lyrics -- &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/tBOk7nPrxBE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/tBOk7nPrxBE&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T08:09:45.007" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T08:09:45.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36077" CreationDate="2019-12-12T07:29:33.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to say or mean &quot;a definite plan&quot; has been formulated or decided upon then 计划 is more suitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to mean &quot;some kind of decision&quot; has been made, then 打算 is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你有什么计划吗？  -- Have you made any plans?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你有什么打算吗？  -- Have you made a decision?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T07:29:33.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36090" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36093" CreationDate="2019-12-12T12:11:40.133" Score="3" ViewCount="2772" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was practicing speaking Chinese with a native-speaking learning partner and used the phrase “你舒服吗” while referring to whether one is stressed out or relaxed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The partner told me that it's unusual to use this phrase because it's often used in a sexual or relationship context. I was trying to figure out what this phrase means in this context, but I could not find an equivalent expression in English. I'm also guessing there is a cultural difference which I don't understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the expression &quot;你舒服吗&quot; mean in a relationship context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18735" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T08:31:51.503" Title="What does &quot;你舒服吗&quot; mean in a relationship context?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36090" CreationDate="2019-12-12T12:48:59.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;你舒服吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ordinary, everyday parlance, it simply ask,&quot;are you comfortable?&quot; in a physical sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are, however, many nuances to this apparently innocuous question, depending as always on the context and the circumstances when it is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like in English you have &quot;that feels good&quot; which can have multifarious meanings and innuendoes depending on the context and the circumstances when it is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is also culture-centric as 舒服 could also euphemistically mean &quot;sexually satisfied&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T12:48:59.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31171" CreationDate="2019-12-12T13:36:31.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does not really have any special connotation in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With or without it, the meaning of the sentence is identical. Its use only makes the sentence less formal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is mostly used in informal situations (e.g. everyday dialogues) and is not used in formal presentations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23264" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T13:36:31.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36090" CreationDate="2019-12-12T14:47:43.390" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand, aside from it's normal usage, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%88%92%E6%9C%8D&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;舒服&lt;/a&gt; = &amp;quot;comfortable&amp;quot; is a euphemism for &amp;quot;sexually pleasurable&amp;quot; (or &amp;quot;sexually comfortable&amp;quot;)&lt;/strong&gt; or &amp;quot;comfortable with having sex&amp;quot;.  It might also be used as an indirect question asking for consent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you go to ZhiSex.com and search for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhisex.com/search/q-6IiS5pyN&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;舒服&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, you'll find a lot of examples.  Here's some below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Examples (&lt;em&gt;warning&lt;/em&gt;: explicit)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我怎么做他才最&lt;strong&gt;舒服&lt;/strong&gt;。各位男士，告诉我好吗？你最希望你老婆做什么？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;How do I make him &amp;quot;comfortable&amp;quot;.  All men, tell me, okay?  What do you most want your wife to do?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://iask.sina.com.cn/b/1SU71cck7UwD.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ask.Sina.com.cn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对女生来说，做爱会比自慰更&lt;strong&gt;舒服&lt;/strong&gt;吗？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;From a woman's perspective, [is] making love more &amp;quot;comfortable&amp;quot; than masturbating?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zhisex.com/question/50326&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhi Sex&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做爱时故意把阴道夹紧，老公会觉得&lt;strong&gt;舒服&lt;/strong&gt;吗？&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;During love making, [if I] deliberately clamp my vagina, will [my] husband feel &amp;quot;comfortable&amp;quot;?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baobao.baidu.com/question/f27f1ff9937ebe3b2805c92730740ced.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baobao Zhidao&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T00:35:37.307" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36090" CreationDate="2019-12-12T16:16:34.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the problem is the way you use it. &lt;strong&gt;你舒服吗 normally isn't used for greeting&lt;/strong&gt;, while 你不舒服吗 is. 你舒服吗 or 你不舒服吗 is usually used when you see someone is in a uncomfortable position. But you are not entirely sure, so you would ask 你舒服吗. It's like saying, &lt;strong&gt;By doing so, do you feel comfortable?&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;Keeping this position, do you feel comfortable?&lt;/strong&gt;, which would be easily related to the sexual context. However, this is unnecessary and it can also be valid in other contexts. E.g. When you see your child's in a unnatural position while he's writing, you might say: 你舒服吗？(Are you comfortable?). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sex is such an intriguing topic in our daily life that one could easily relate 你舒服吗 to it if he doesn't know the exact context. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your question, you also seem to be interested what we could say when &quot;referring to whether one is stressed out or relaxed&quot;. It could be (你)还好吧?(Are you ok?)，(你)(感觉)怎么样?(How do you feel?), (工作)压力大吗？(stressd out (with your work)?), etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this could help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T00:47:41.273" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T00:47:41.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36090" CreationDate="2019-12-12T17:32:00.187" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;歪了歪了…… I can see why 你舒服吗 will be easily interpreted as sexually comfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because without any context, we will not use 舒服 to describe relaxation of mind. And extremely structurally simple sentences are often uttered in sexual intercourse...(Think about it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avoiding using words that have ambiguous meanings like 舒服, however, is an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best choice is applying both: longer, specific sentence &amp;amp; proper words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我快要到了（I am about to arrive.）√&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要来了（I'm coming...）x&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你感到放松吗（Are you feeling relaxed?）√&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你舒服吗？（emmm...）x&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这椅子坐起来很安适呀（The armchair feels very comfortable to sit on）√&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;好舒服呀（Ah~Good~Yeah~）x&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T17:32:00.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36090" CreationDate="2019-12-12T21:49:04.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It just sounds weird. Indeed 舒服 is usually used for physical comfort. As a native speaker, the most common usage I know is for checking someone being sick or not (不舒服 mostly means sick, in all possible contexts). In other contexts it can ask about posture and so on, but if you ask it outright without any physical context, of course it can sound pretty sexual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23269" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T21:49:04.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36090" CreationDate="2019-12-13T06:44:27.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem that such an innocuous term could have sexual connotation stems from the ingrained cultural inhibition of the Chinese people, (using this term loosely), towards anything sexual thus leading to the conscious exclusion of unacceptable thoughts or desires. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To overcome this, euphemisms provided a &quot;comfortable&quot; way out to express sexual acts, thoughts, desires, thereby substituting institutionalized &quot;societal shame&quot; with apparent outward moral deportment, for both the male and female. Hence the &quot;inscrutable China man&quot; image? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, sexual satisfaction became 舒服, sexual intercourse became 春风一度, (Passing Spring Breeze), orgasm became 高潮, (high tide), penis became 阴茎, (shady stem), and last but not least vagina became 阴道, (shady way)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A non-Chinese speaker reading the above would be thrown into incredulous confusion when a dictionary gives the ordinary meaning of each individual word only, LOL, LOL.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, I believe every language of every nation has such euphemisms.      &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T08:31:51.503" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T08:31:51.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36100" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-13T07:54:40.030" Score="4" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CantoDict: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/4820/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;話之&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;regardless of; no matter what; &amp;quot;I don't care&amp;quot; | Std. Chin.: 不管; 無論 | Syn.: 唔理 | Usu. in the form of 話之你; 話之佢 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;粵典: &lt;a href=&quot;https://words.hk/zidin/v/86577/%E8%A9%B1%E4%B9%8B/%E8%A9%B1%E7%9F%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;話之 / 話知&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(yue) 唔理唔顧；無視&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(eng) to ignore; to disregard; not to care; not to give a damn; used to &amp;gt;express indifference on the part of the speaker&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 話之 in a sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;話之&lt;/strong&gt;佢死，最緊要我地走得甩 - &lt;strong&gt;Don't care&lt;/strong&gt; if he would die, the most important thing is we can escape&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;話之&lt;/strong&gt;你係皇帝，冇位就係冇位 - I &lt;strong&gt;don't care&lt;/strong&gt; if you were the emperor, If there's no seat, there's no seat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thinking is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;話&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;say&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;之&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;it&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;話之&amp;quot; = &amp;quot;say it&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;say it&amp;quot; --&amp;gt; suppose --&amp;gt; suppose (whoever) are (whatever), I don't care&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;replace &amp;quot;don't care&amp;quot; with &amp;quot;say it&amp;quot; in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;話之&lt;/strong&gt;佢死，最緊要我地走得甩 - &lt;strong&gt;Say&lt;/strong&gt; if he would die, the most important thing is we can escape&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;話之&lt;/strong&gt;你係皇帝，冇位就係冇位 - I &lt;strong&gt;say&lt;/strong&gt; if you were the emperor, If there's no seat, there's no seat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: Does is make sense that it is how we break down &amp;quot;話之&amp;quot; (say it = suppose = don't care)? Or there's some other explanation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T15:24:22.643" Title="Understanding &quot;話之&quot;" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36100" CreationDate="2019-12-13T08:28:33.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i would treat it as “話知”:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i acknowledge (知道) from your speech (說話) that . . . &lt;strong&gt;[but]&lt;/strong&gt;. . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T08:28:33.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36100" CreationDate="2019-12-13T09:09:21.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After exchanging comments with 水巷孑蠻 I did further research and found this entry in CantoDict&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/58523/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;話知&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;em&gt;used to express indifference on the part of the speaker&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It confirmed &quot;話之' and &quot;話知&quot; are indeed variant of each other. The question is: &quot;which is the original?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Base on my interpretation of &quot;話之&quot;: [&quot;say it&quot; --&gt; suppose --&gt; suppose (whoever) are (whatever), I don't care], &quot;話知&quot; being the original would make more sense [&quot;say knowing&quot; --&gt; say knowing (whoever) are (whatever), I don't care]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to my original question: &quot;...Or there's some other explanation? &quot; would be:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“&lt;strong&gt;話知&lt;/strong&gt;” was the original, standard term for the meaning of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;don't care&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in Cantonese. And &quot;話之&quot; was a wrong way to write it because 知 and 之 are pronounced the same in Cantonese (&lt;em&gt;Wayne Cheah suggested that people got lazy&lt;/em&gt;). Eventually, &quot;話之&quot;  was accepted as a valid variant of “話知” by dictionaries due to it's popularity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T15:24:22.643" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T15:24:22.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36100" CreationDate="2019-12-13T11:00:56.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think people got lazy as the 之 is easier and quicker to write than 知 and both sound exactly the same in Cantonese. In any case everybody knows what it means, so no problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like &quot;Christmas&quot; and &quot;Xmas&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T11:00:56.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36104" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36105" CreationDate="2019-12-13T22:26:45.207" Score="1" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just met in book such sort of expressions with ”宁愿...也不...“. I understand it like &quot;rather...than...&quot;, but my question is: is it only book style or spoken as well, &lt;strong&gt;can I use such form in simple conversation?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23256" LastEditorUserId="23256" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T07:09:28.050" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T07:09:28.050" Title="Does expression ”宁愿...也不...“ belong only to book style or I can use it in simple conversation？" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36104" CreationDate="2019-12-13T23:53:31.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;can I use such form in simple conversation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. It's a common structure used in both written and spoken, formal and casual,  context. E.g. 我宁愿把它扔掉也不给你。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T23:53:31.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36104" CreationDate="2019-12-13T23:55:10.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When the context calls for it, use it in conversation, according to a quick survey of 2 friends!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我宁愿坐火车去。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'd prefer to go by train.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我宁愿买二手货。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I prefer to buy second hand.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我宁愿跟铅管约会。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'd rather date a lead pipe.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T23:55:10.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36107" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36109" CreationDate="2019-12-14T01:29:08.230" Score="1" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any English translations of Romance of the Three Kingdoms that use Pinyin (including tone marks) for person and place names?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23276" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T06:52:13.347" Title="Romance of the Three Kingdoms English translation with Pinyin names?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;&lt;literature&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36104" CreationDate="2019-12-14T02:01:42.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;宁愿...也不...&amp;quot; is actually more colloquial than &amp;quot;宁...不...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;宁愿被殺也不投降&amp;quot; (colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;宁死不降&amp;quot; (literary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;宁愿投降给美国，也不投降给苏朕&amp;quot; (colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;宁降美不降苏&amp;quot; (literary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宁愿冤枉好人，也不放走罪人(colloquial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;宁枉毋縱 (literary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, literary phrases are much shorter, using them is speech have a lot of benefit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, both colloquial and literary phrases are commonly used in day to day speech and written text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T02:27:07.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36107" CreationDate="2019-12-14T06:42:38.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's official English version of The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/158770.Three_Kingdoms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Romance of Three Kingdoms&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To find out the names of characters and places in Chinese characters, you can just input them in Google search, for example  &quot;Cao Cao&quot;, and you'll find entries listed the Chinese characters of this name &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cao_Cao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cáo Cāo (曹操; 155 – March 15, 220)&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=zh-CN&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=%E6%9B%B9%E6%93%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google translate&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Input 曹操 in the request field (translate from Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the pinyin Cáocāo would appear under it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the English translation &quot;Cao Cao&quot; will appears on the result field (translate to English)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find out the pinyin of all the characters and places' names this way, as long as you know the Chinese characters for them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Books are not dictionaries, they don't list pinyin for characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T06:52:13.347" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T06:52:13.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36110" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36519" CreationDate="2019-12-14T09:19:08.737" Score="5" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;I might be reading too much into this and seeing things that aren't there. But, I think, I'm seeing a pattern between some dialects and Mandarin. The following characters seem to have some sort of Mandarin 阴平 vs. dialect 阳平 split:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;夹&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;扎&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;击&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;跌&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;息&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I originally just thought it was a Taiwanese Guoyu thing, but the above characters are also all listed 阳平 in《现代汉语方言音库 • 成都话音档》.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any explanation for this Putonghua 阴平 vs. dialect 阳平 split?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T12:20:21.527" Title="Taiwanese Guoyu vs. Putonghua 阴平/阳平 tone split?" Tags="&lt;phonology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36111" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36113" CreationDate="2019-12-14T15:14:17.507" Score="0" ViewCount="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;Continuing from parts &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35746/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-and-the-revolutionary-new-technology&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35763/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-was-fat-when-she-was-young&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35780/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwangs-father-takes-her-to-the-doctor&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35870/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-gets-an-injection-from-the-doctor&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36003/writing-critique-request-the-almost-imperceptible-effects-of-zhou-ziwangs-inje&quot;&gt;5&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那时候因为没有不断的渴望吃巧克力等，所以我开始减肥了。并不像我一天起床后就发现了我&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A6%82%E9%AD%94%E6%B3%95%E8%88%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;如魔法般&lt;/a&gt;地变瘦那样，反而&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B9%85%E8%80%8C%E4%B9%85%E4%B9%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;久而久之&lt;/a&gt;，我的身体越来越改变。从最初胖女孩的样子，我终于获得了健康的体重。对人人来说，&lt;a href=&quot;http://%E7%B1%BB%E4%BC%BC%E4%BA%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;类似于&lt;/a&gt;毛毛虫变成蝴蝶，我逐渐变成小美女了。我当时没有那么知道的，所以对于这种减肥药连朋友都没告诉过，而其实我好几次去看医生，所以我对那一次没有多想。现在我了解社会对胖子的态度，他人有时候不友好甚至也许&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%AE%8B%E5%BF%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;残忍&lt;/a&gt;地对待他们。但是现在谁都能像我一样减肥，所以除了最穷的人，我们差不多&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B6%88%E9%99%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;消除&lt;/a&gt;了胖子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please critique my writing. New words for me are in links. I'm at an &quot;almost mastered HSK4&quot; level.  The narrative is from a person in the present (Zhou Ziwang 周子望) describing her unusual past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to be a bit more adventurous with my writing this time, with more sophisticated grammar.  The last sentence was the most difficult for me, so here's an English translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But now everyone can lose weight the same way I did, so except for the poorest people, we've basically eliminated fat people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's fiction: if you're thinking &quot;hmm... that sounds a bit like genocide&quot;, then I'm doing it right.  For those who haven't realized it yet, I'm heading towards a moral conflict between technology vs. individuality.  However, it's not straightforward to check if I'm successfully conveying a &quot;kinda genocide-y feel&quot; in my writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Part of the reason for doing this is because standardized texts are &lt;em&gt;incredibly&lt;/em&gt; boring, e.g. &quot;How do you go about achieving success?&quot; or &quot;How did Wang Jing settle her dispute over buying a refrigerator?&quot; ...zzzZZZ.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T18:58:10.003" Title="Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang loses weight, just like everyone else nowadays" Tags="&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36112" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36115" CreationDate="2019-12-14T15:55:48.750" Score="2" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the this sentence,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下班以后我去你家或者你来我家，都可以。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I change it to;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下班以后我去你家或者你来&lt;strong&gt;我的&lt;/strong&gt;，都可以。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I do this every time? If the context is clear then can I just say (sth.) 的？ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also does the second sentence sound natural (if it's grammatically correct)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23224" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T11:31:43.337" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T11:31:43.337" Title="Are both 我家 and 我的 okay in 下班以后我去你家或者你来[我家/我的]，都可以?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36111" CreationDate="2019-12-14T18:24:45.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;那&lt;strong&gt;之后&lt;/strong&gt;因为&lt;strong&gt;不再不停地吃&lt;/strong&gt;巧克力，我开始&lt;strong&gt;变瘦&lt;/strong&gt;了。并&lt;strong&gt;不是&lt;/strong&gt;某天起床后我发现自己魔法般瘦了下来，&lt;strong&gt;而是月来日往&lt;/strong&gt;，我的身体逐渐改变，从一开始的胖女孩，变成了小美女。我当时&lt;strong&gt;并不是很懂&lt;/strong&gt;，所以&lt;strong&gt;这种减肥药即便是朋友也没有告诉过&lt;/strong&gt;，又&lt;strong&gt;因为&lt;/strong&gt;我去看过好几次医生，所以对那一次也没有多想。现在我了解社会对胖子的态度，&lt;strong&gt;人们&lt;/strong&gt;对他们有时候不友好，甚至有些残忍。但现在&lt;strong&gt;几乎&lt;/strong&gt;谁都能像我一样减肥，所以除了最穷的人外，我们差不多&lt;strong&gt;消灭&lt;/strong&gt;了胖子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comments：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;题主自言本习作语言运用更大胆，自然错漏不通之处也更频繁可见了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从此前的故事来看，这里讲的是注射药物后的事情，最好用&lt;strong&gt;之后&lt;/strong&gt;，由此应该用&lt;strong&gt;不再&lt;/strong&gt;而不是&lt;strong&gt;没有&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;客观上不吃巧克力才能让我变瘦，而主观上不&lt;strong&gt;渴望&lt;/strong&gt;与其因果关系更远。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;我开始减肥&lt;/strong&gt;表达的是“我开始采取行动去控制体重”这件事，而事实上体重减轻应该用&lt;strong&gt;变瘦&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;如魔法般的&lt;/strong&gt;已经表达了&lt;strong&gt;像&lt;/strong&gt;的含义，所以不应该以&lt;strong&gt;并不像&lt;/strong&gt;发语，而是&lt;strong&gt;并不是&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然都是转折关系，但是&lt;strong&gt;反而&lt;/strong&gt;指与上文意思相反，或是指出乎意料的转折，此处否一是二的意图应该用“不是……&lt;strong&gt;而是&lt;/strong&gt;……”的关联词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然都表示时间的流逝，但&lt;strong&gt;久而久之&lt;/strong&gt;侧重时间流逝后事物变化的结果，而&lt;strong&gt;日来月往&lt;/strong&gt;这样的词，侧重随着时间的流逝，事物变化的过程。此处显然想要表达“随着时间推移我的身体渐渐改变”这件事。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;并不是很懂&lt;/strong&gt;这个说法比较自然。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;对于&lt;/strong&gt;一词引入了语病，句子的宾语丢掉了，所以要去掉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因果关系。&lt;strong&gt;因为&lt;/strong&gt;我看过好几次医生了，所以对于特定的那次没有什么特别的注意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;他们&lt;/strong&gt;对&lt;strong&gt;他们&lt;/strong&gt;不友好？同一个句子同样的指示代词不宜二指。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;矛盾。既然&lt;strong&gt;谁都能&lt;/strong&gt;像我一样减肥，为何又说&lt;strong&gt;除了最穷的人&lt;/strong&gt;呢？要加&lt;strong&gt;几乎&lt;/strong&gt;二字。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;要表达你的那重意思，&lt;strong&gt;消灭&lt;/strong&gt;是更贴切的说法，其与时事相合，用这个词大家一听就知道什么意思。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T18:58:10.003" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T18:58:10.003" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36112" CreationDate="2019-12-14T21:29:31.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For this particular sentence, it is much more natural to use the first expression. The second one is grammatically correct but I have not seen this usage among native Chinese speaker/writer. Though it is to common say something like &lt;code&gt;你吃你的我吃我的&lt;/code&gt; [Eat your (food) and I eat mine] in other context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23278" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T21:29:31.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36112" CreationDate="2019-12-14T23:06:30.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You‘re translating 'mine' as 我的, but this jars on Chinese ears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems, Chinese doesn't have 'mine' as a possessive pronoun, as in 我的家 reduced to 我的， even though 我的 will get translated as 'mine' often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the shortcuts Chinese makes, but it doesn't like this anaphor!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;下班以后我去你家或者你来我的，都可以。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;After class I can come to your house or you can come to mine, whatever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们/ 我的一个朋友&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A friend of ours/mine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These sentences are acceptable to Chinese ears:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;那&lt;/strong&gt;不是&lt;strong&gt;我的&lt;/strong&gt;，绝对不是！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;他的教育背景&lt;/strong&gt;跟&lt;strong&gt;我&lt;/strong&gt;相似。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very interesting question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T23:06:30.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16010" CreationDate="2019-12-14T23:46:55.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Demon city definitely is not a good interpretation of Shanghai. I believe “Magic city” or “Enchanting city” is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23279" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T23:46:55.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36112" CreationDate="2019-12-15T00:34:00.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我去你家或者你来我的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence is unnatural because 我去你家 doesn't have 的. It's natural to say 下班以后你回你的家，我回我的. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence is a bit improvement from your second one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;下班以后我去你&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;家或者你来我的，都可以。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the 的 is omissible here. In speech, 我家, 你家, 他家 are common. People usually won't bother to say 你的家，我的家，他的家 because they sound wordy though they are grammatically correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T00:34:00.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16010" CreationDate="2019-12-15T01:26:34.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use &lt;code&gt;Shanghai (the Magic City)&lt;/code&gt; or whatever name I like to translate in the parenthesis. Simply use a nickname is too much for English speaking audience and very likely they won’t understand what you’re talking about. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I like Modern City or Magic City. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="22717" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T02:11:24.020" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T02:11:24.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36119" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36137" CreationDate="2019-12-15T02:00:06.070" Score="3" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;“Skinny” (瘦) is clearly written with a sickness radical (病字旁): 疒.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Outlier&lt;/em&gt;, also, writes the following in its definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FORM&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  瘦 shòu is composed of 叟 sǒu and 疒 “to be sick, not well,” pointing to the original meaning “to have little muscle or fat; to be skinny.” 叟 gives the sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What sickness was 瘦 actually referring to though? Or is it simply that all these people vying to loose weight just can't wait to be “ill”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T15:19:17.517" Title="What sickness was 瘦?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36121" CreationDate="2019-12-15T03:02:30.737" Score="0" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;Comparing &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36113/8099&quot;&gt;Toosky Hierot's answer&lt;/a&gt; to my original attempt in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36111/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-loses-weight-just-like-everyone-else-nowa&quot;&gt;Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang loses weight, just like everyone else nowadays&lt;/a&gt;, we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;me: ...&lt;strong&gt;连&lt;/strong&gt;朋友&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt;没告诉过...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Toosky Hierot: ...&lt;strong&gt;即便&lt;/strong&gt;是朋友&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;没有告诉过...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think both mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Even [my] friends, [I] did not tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if there's any difference here, aside from perhaps writing style.  We've opted for different grammar constructs: &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22even%22_with_%22lian%22_and_%22dou%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;连...都...&lt;/a&gt; vs. 即便...也... which I think is the same as &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22even_if%E2%80%A6%22_with_%22jishi%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;即使...也...&lt;/a&gt; (which seems to necessitate the 是).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a difference between 连朋友都没告诉过 and 即便是朋友也没有告诉过?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T05:05:52.020" Title="Is there a difference between 连朋友都没告诉过 and 即便是朋友也没有告诉过?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36120" CreationDate="2019-12-15T04:31:09.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;连朋友都没告诉过 = Had not told even his friends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即便(是)朋友也没有告诉过(他们) =  Even though they (are) his friends, he had not told (them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即便 means &amp;quot;even though&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;even if&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a verb &amp;quot;是&amp;quot; (being) in &amp;quot;是朋友&amp;quot; (being friends)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;连他父母也不知道他是同性恋 = Even his parents don't know he is gay&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即便(是他父母)也不知道他是同性恋 = Even though (they are his parent), they don't know he is gay&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of 即便:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即便(有)朋友也不能告诉(他们) = Even if/ even though he (has) friends, he can't tell (them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;即便全国警察都来了也救不了死去的人质了 (Even if) the police of the whole country were here, the dead hostages could not be saved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T05:05:52.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36110" CreationDate="2019-12-15T05:03:29.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the answer, but I think this is an interesting topic, and I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20171009043244/http://theory.people.com.cn/GB/49157/49165/4318685.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; which might answer some of your doubts. There's no way to paste a decent link in the comment section, so I add it here as an answer. You might take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B5%B7%E5%B3%BD%E5%85%A9%E5%B2%B8%E6%BC%A2%E8%AA%9E%E7%99%BC%E9%9F%B3%E5%B7%AE%E7%95%B0%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;海峡两岸汉语发音差异列表&lt;/a&gt;, you can find some interesting references there too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About Chengdu dialect, I do also find it having a lot of pronunciations similar to some northern dialects in China, which is probably why you see those characters listed as 阳平 in《现代汉语方言音库 • 成都话音档》.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T05:18:12.453" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T05:18:12.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36123" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36124" CreationDate="2019-12-15T05:08:14.113" Score="2" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference between 回转 and 掉头? I have heard them both used to describe a U-turn, so are there any subtle differences between the two words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21232" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T04:52:23.577" Title="Is there a difference between 回转 and 掉头?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36123" CreationDate="2019-12-15T05:39:08.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://%20cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/17893&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;回转&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; = &quot;rotate&quot; e.g. &quot;1000rpm&quot; means &quot;&lt;strong&gt;rotate&lt;/strong&gt; 1000 times per minute&quot; = &quot;每分鐘&lt;strong&gt;回转&lt;/strong&gt;1000 次&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://%20cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/17893&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;回转&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;至相反方向&lt;/em&gt;) = &quot;rotate to opposite direction&quot; = &quot;turn 180°/ &lt;strong&gt;turn around&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/17901/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;调头&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;&lt;strong&gt;turn around&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (to the opposite direction)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/11636/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;掉头&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;turn one's head; &lt;strong&gt;turn around&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;调头 and 掉头 are interchangeable when it means &quot;turn around&quot; But 掉头 can mean &quot;turn one's head&quot; in different context&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T09:07:38.367" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T09:07:38.367" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36125" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-15T06:59:23.003" Score="0" ViewCount="52" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English, you can say &quot;My cousin is sick.&quot; And that sort of conveys a lot. Your cousin could have cancer and be terminally sick, but could also be crazy (&quot;sick&quot; as in slang for cool), or sick as in disgusting, but also could just have the common cold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By saying something like &quot;Before my cousin got sick, blahblah,&quot; and I think that heavily implies your cousin has been sick long enough for there to be a &quot;before&quot; and an &quot;after.&quot; Does this make any sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Chinese, how would you indicate that someone is terminally ill? Like, you don't want to be specific and say they have cancer/other illness, you just want to say that they're sick and IMPLY it's terminal, without explicitly saying so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TL;DR: I know when someone is sick you can differentiate by saying  她感冒了， 她发烧了，她生病了, etc, but how do you &lt;em&gt;imply&lt;/em&gt; someone is terminally ill?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23280" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T13:53:32.717" Title="How to imply someone is terminally ill?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;word-requests&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36125" CreationDate="2019-12-15T07:11:48.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe &quot;他身體有狀況&quot;?, or &quot;他快走了&quot;? or&quot;他只剩下幾個月&quot;? or do you want something even more implicit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23225" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T07:11:48.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36123" CreationDate="2019-12-15T07:18:09.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't know about China, but in Taiwan 回轉 mostly explicitly means u-turn performed by a vehicle. As for 掉頭, in addition to the literal &quot;turn your head&quot;, you can use it whenever you are heading from A to B, then suddenly requires to return to A.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example, when you are going to work by taxi, and your just found out you forget to bring something important, then you can tell the driver, &quot;掉頭!&quot;. In this case the driver understands you want to return to your house, instead of literally make a u-turn right at the intersection where you are. But if you tell the driver to &quot;回轉&quot;, then he might be confused about why you want him to make a u-turn here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23225" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T07:18:09.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36119" CreationDate="2019-12-15T07:33:50.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the original meaning of 疒 &quot;chuáng&quot;(same as 床). From《說文解字．疒部》：「疒，倚也。人有疾痛也，象倚箸之形。」, 疒 is a pictogram and means a man is ill or hurt and leaning on a bed. and 叟 itself means old man, both in past and now. Therefore, 瘦 can also be interpreted as an old man lying on a bed, which now has the meaning of skinny.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know, maybe the word creator claims that an old sick man lying on a bed long enough makes him skinny?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23225" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T07:33:50.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10311" CreationDate="2019-12-15T07:51:34.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whatever you say, don't just say 让开 and nothing else because it is the same as the aggressive &quot;get out of my way&quot;!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T07:51:34.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16010" CreationDate="2019-12-15T08:21:55.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strictly on its own and without any contextual reference, 魔都, can only mean &quot;Devil / Evil City&quot; and calling it a &quot;Metropolis&quot; makes no semantic difference.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the author 村松梢風, Muramatsu Shōfu, is Japanese, then the Japanese translation for 魔都 should carry the intended meaning; and as I found out, 魔都 is &quot;Mazu&quot; which means &quot;Magic City&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But WiKi says, &quot;In his 1924 novel Mato (“Demon City”, 1924), he portrayed the dichotomy of Shanghai – a modern, beautiful, civilized façade, hiding a darker side populated by all manner of criminals and vice&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there you have it. Pick the one meaning that suits your idea of Shanghai, now and in 1924, assuming you were alive in Shanghai then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T08:21:55.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36125" CreationDate="2019-12-15T08:37:07.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;他身患&lt;strong&gt;绝症&lt;/strong&gt;. 绝症 implies terminal, such as cancel, which is incurable most of time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or 他身患&lt;strong&gt;恶疾&lt;/strong&gt; means he got a very serious desease.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T08:37:07.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36123" CreationDate="2019-12-15T08:59:03.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;回转 isn't used &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;that often&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; for making a U-turn, but you might still hear it sometimes. 回转，往回转,  or 往回旋转 literally means &lt;em&gt;rotate back/backwards&lt;/em&gt;. E.g. 把方向盘往回转. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;掉头 or 调头 is common for making a U-turn. E.g. 师傅，前面掉头。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T08:59:03.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36133" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-15T09:40:44.357" Score="3" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard, that there are more complex &quot;banking&quot; alternatives for digit characters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一二三四五六七八九十&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;provided in order to fraud protect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this true and how can I find a table for them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May be 零 is and example replacement for 〇 but I am not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15588" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T00:32:10.047" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T00:32:10.047" Title="&quot;Banking&quot; alternatives for digit characters?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;number&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36133" CreationDate="2019-12-15T11:04:07.190" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;0、1、2、3、4、5、6、7、8、9、10、100、1,000(1K)、10,000(10K)、100,000,000(100M)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional Chinese&lt;br&gt;&#xA;零、壹、 貳、參、肆、伍、陸、柒、捌、玖、拾、佰、仟、萬、億&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simplified Chinese&lt;br&gt;&#xA;零、壹、 贰、叁、肆、伍、陆、柒、捌、玖、拾、佰、仟、万、亿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16033" LastEditorUserId="16033" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T20:17:27.160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T20:17:27.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36125" CreationDate="2019-12-15T12:53:30.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;患上绝症 literally means &quot;have terminal illness&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;患上不治之症 literally means &quot;have incurable disease&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be subtle, you can say &quot;他這個病，怕是不行了&quot; (with this disease, I am afraid it doesn't look good for him) implies his chance of surviving this illness is slim to none, (just don't want to say it out loud that it is terminal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我不行了&quot; literally means &quot;I can't keep going&quot;, implies &quot;and will soon die&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T13:53:32.717" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T13:53:32.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36136" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-15T14:36:41.790" Score="0" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;what does this phrase mean 我偏不信邪?&#xA;the English literal translation is &quot;I don't believe in evil&quot; but that doesn't make sense to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23282" LastActivityDate="2020-08-01T02:11:51.827" Title="what does this phrase mean 我偏不信邪" Tags="&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36119" CreationDate="2019-12-15T14:37:27.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;「瘦」is comprised of semantic「疒」(&lt;em&gt;sickness&lt;/em&gt;) and phonetic「叟」, indicating the meaning &lt;em&gt;underdeveloped muscles and fat; emaciated&lt;/em&gt; (speaking about the body).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;skinny&lt;/em&gt; meaning is not how we view the meaning &lt;em&gt;skinny&lt;/em&gt; in modern terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Today, especially in countries which are not struck by famine or poverty, &lt;em&gt;skinny&lt;/em&gt; is viewed as a better state than &lt;em&gt;obese&lt;/em&gt;. To &lt;em&gt;become skinny/thin&lt;/em&gt; is to change from an unhealthy &lt;em&gt;obese weight&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the olden days, &lt;em&gt;skinny&lt;/em&gt; is a synonym for &lt;em&gt;malnutritioned/pallid/emaciated&lt;/em&gt;, hence the use of「疒」.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T14:37:27.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36136" CreationDate="2019-12-15T15:44:40.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1394/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;偏&lt;/a&gt;: (6) [adv] wilfully; deliberately; persistently&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不信 = don't believe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/3461/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;邪&lt;/a&gt;: (2) disaster; misfortune (caused by evil spirits)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我偏不信邪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I, despite everything, do not believe there are supernatural coincidences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I insist, I do not believe there are supernatural coincidences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: You lost seven coin tosses in a row by choosing head, and for the eighth time, you still insist on choosing head, because having tail win eight times in a row is not scientific, the only way it could happen is there's some evil spirits power at work. And you don't believe there are evil spirits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, if I lost seven coin tosses in a row, the most logical explanation I can think of is -- the other guy is cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-05-05T21:14:09.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36136" CreationDate="2019-12-15T22:21:38.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Context?? What is the context??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不信邪：refuse to be taken in by fallacies; not dread evil forces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the context, probably just means, &quot;I'm not inclined to believe you/that.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我偏不信邪?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or think of Ghostbusters: I ain't afraid of no ghost!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Depends on the context of course, but most likely the meaning is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't believe that I can't do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T23:04:15.813" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T23:04:15.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36136" CreationDate="2019-12-15T23:57:03.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我偏不信邪&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偏 is 就, &lt;em&gt;referring to one's biased determination&lt;/em&gt;. 我偏不信邪 = 我就不信邪. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;偏不信 can be &lt;em&gt;simply/blindly refused to believe&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;邪 is used in the sense as in 邪门, indicating &lt;em&gt;something goes unexpected, abnormal, odd, illogical, etc.&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我偏不信邪 means &lt;em&gt;I simply refuse to believe in the way how it goes (because it's been very odd, abnormal, illogical and unexpected).&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我偏不信邪 also implies that &lt;em&gt;I will go the other way around.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T00:10:08.857" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T00:10:08.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36136" CreationDate="2019-12-16T02:21:39.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It generally means that when something (usually a bad thing) happened or failed frequently, some people believe unshakeably that it's some abnormal or strange thing, it must be controlled by god, ghost, demon, or there is some supernatural power in the background. But if I think that it's just a coincidence, or that I am not hard nearly enough, I am sure that I am able to find out the truth or succeed finally, I can say 我偏不信邪, 我就不信这个邪, means that &lt;strong&gt;I don't believe that heretical idea&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="17213" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T13:39:00.967" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T13:39:00.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36143" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36149" CreationDate="2019-12-16T03:08:37.613" Score="1" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I use 都 and 也 together？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example if I want to say;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Both of us also think that you like her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How will I go about it?&#xA;I know you can say (colloquially) 俩 but you still need 都 afterwords. Not to mention 都 also goes infront of 大家， 每天 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I just go with;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们俩都也觉得你喜欢她。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a feeling it's incorrect but just throwing my thought process out there&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that there is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Using_%22ye%22_and_%22dou%22_together&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;grammar rule&lt;/a&gt; to use both of these words but this is for similarities between multiple statements. I want to know how (if it's possible) to use them in a single statement like the one abovementioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: I think you should leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: The both of us also think you should leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: I hate him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: Everyone hates him too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How will I say these sentences (and more like these) if I were person B?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23224" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T05:11:10.047" Title="How to use 都 and 也 together？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36144" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-16T04:10:40.530" Score="8" ViewCount="2080" Body="&lt;p&gt;We get a lot of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;translation requests&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; at Chinese.SE, and while we'd like to help, there's sometimes very little about &lt;em&gt;the Chinese language&lt;/em&gt; in the question, and a lot about the procedure for obtaining plaintext from a photo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once we have the plaintext, we can simply input the plaintext into e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt; to get an approximate answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aim of this post is to develop a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;self-help guide&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; for use as a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;duplicate target&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.  Instead of closing these questions as &quot;off-topic&quot; and linking to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/resources-for-learning-mandarin-chinese&quot;&gt;an impractically long list of (mostly inapplicable) resources&lt;/a&gt;, it'd be better to close as a duplicate of this self-help guide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I self-answer &quot;What does this say?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Input the text into &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36145/8099&quot;&gt;optical character recognition (OCR) software&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What about &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36146/8099&quot;&gt;handwriting&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's also possible to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36148/8099&quot;&gt;input characters by drawing them by hand&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We can also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36150/8099&quot;&gt;search for a character by radical&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Searching &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36182/18338&quot;&gt;modern characters by any of their constituent components&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Searching &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36184/18338&quot;&gt;archaic character forms by any of their constituent components&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are some &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/39175/8099&quot;&gt;commonly encountered Chinese characters?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still don't know?  Ask on Chinese.SE but &lt;em&gt;please show prior effort&lt;/em&gt;.  For example, I asked this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36043/what-does-%e6%88%91%e4%bb%ac%e5%b7%b2%e7%bb%8f%e5%b8%ae%e6%82%a8%e8%b8%a9%e8%bf%87%e4%ba%86-mean-in-this-peculiarly-translated-escalator-sticker&quot;&gt;What does 我们已经帮您踩过了 mean in this peculiarly translated escalator sticker?&lt;/a&gt; and you can see what happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For things like seals, stamps, calligraphy, etc., it's sometimes impossible to get a translation without asking someone who can read Chinese (and sometimes even native Chinese speakers struggle with this).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are Internet communities which welcome these questions: like Reddit's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/translator/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;/r/translator&lt;/a&gt; (and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;/r/ChineseLanguage&lt;/a&gt; has a pinned &lt;em&gt;翻译 Translation Thread!&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-05-14T01:07:32.727" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T01:07:32.727" Title="How do I self-answer &quot;What does this say?&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;transcription&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36144" CreationDate="2019-12-16T04:10:40.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;OCR&lt;/a&gt;: Optical Character Recognition&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: Input a photo of the text into OCR software (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.onlineocr.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Online OCR&lt;/a&gt;), then input the output into some translation software.  This method requires a sufficiently high quality image for OCR to work.  (It doesn't work well for handwriting, or top-to-bottom writing.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's begin with a real example: a funny photo I took in Tianjin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/htns2r1P/426973464.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So... &lt;em&gt;what does this say?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 1: Use Chinese OCR to get the plaintext Chinese.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best software for doing this changes over time.  I Googled &lt;code&gt;Chinese OCR&lt;/code&gt; and stumbled upon &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.onlineocr.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Online OCR&lt;/a&gt;.  Another possibility is the Copyfish OCR browser extension (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/copyfish-%F0%9F%90%9F-free-ocr-soft/eenjdnjldapjajjofmldgmkjaienebbj&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chrome&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/copyfish-ocr-software/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Firefox&lt;/a&gt;).  I understand both &lt;a href=&quot;https://hanpingchinese.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanping Chinese&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pleco.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pleco&lt;/a&gt; are mobile options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After uploading the image and selecting &lt;em&gt;Chinese Simplified&lt;/em&gt;, we get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这块位置we've alreadyetepped enthis area 我们已经帮您踩过了！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 2: Input the plaintext Chinese into translation software.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这块位置&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  This location&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们已经帮您踩过了！&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  We've helped you step over!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the words that seem imprecisely translated, we can look them up in a dictionary, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dict.cn&lt;/a&gt;, or even just copy/paste the whole thing into &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 3: Still don't know?  Ask on Chinese.SE showing what you've done.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is what I did for this image: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36043/what-does-%e6%88%91%e4%bb%ac%e5%b7%b2%e7%bb%8f%e5%b8%ae%e6%82%a8%e8%b8%a9%e8%bf%87%e4%ba%86-mean-in-this-peculiarly-translated-escalator-sticker&quot;&gt;What does 我们已经帮您踩过了 mean in this peculiarly translated escalator sticker?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T04:22:28.520" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T04:22:28.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36144" CreationDate="2019-12-16T04:12:04.263" Score="6" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Handwriting&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: Handwriting is much harder than printed text.  The first step is to improve the image quality.  Afterwards we can input the text into OCR software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is on a door where I'm staying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/BQqjc2cr/74741088.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we put it directly into &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.onlineocr.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Online OCR&lt;/a&gt;, it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No recognized text !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The image quality is too poor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 1: Improve the image quality.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can open up Paint (actually I use &lt;a href=&quot;https://pinta-project.com/pintaproject/pinta/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pinta&lt;/a&gt;) and go over the Chinese in black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/90BrHfVg/74741088-2.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Method 1&lt;/strong&gt;: change the brightness and contrast:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/1zMCXGBy/74741088-2.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Method 2&lt;/strong&gt;: select only the black text (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gimp.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GIMP&lt;/a&gt; has Tools/Selection Tools/By Color Select):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/DzjqXBXy/74741088-3.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 2: Input into OCR software.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OCR software struggles with handwriting, so we may need to try a few times.  If we input the second image above into &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.onlineocr.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Online OCR&lt;/a&gt;, we obtain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请各位出入&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  头好蓝色水门 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It made two mistakes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the original says &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%85%B3%E5%A5%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;关好&lt;/a&gt; (close) and not 头好 (meaningless);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the original says &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%A8%E9%97%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;木门&lt;/a&gt; (timber door) and not &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B0%B4%E9%97%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;水门&lt;/a&gt; (water gate).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's not perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, inputting the third image into &lt;a href=&quot;http://online.easyscreenocr.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;EasyScreenOCR&lt;/a&gt; gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请各位出入&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  关好益包木门&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also made two errors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the original says &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%93%9D%E8%89%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蓝色&lt;/a&gt; (blue) and not 益包 (meaningless).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 3: Compare the outputs; fix bugs.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can compare these two transcriptions.  The writing is stuck on the inside of a blue wooden door, so...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%85%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;关&lt;/a&gt; (to close) makes sense and not 头 (head);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%93%9D%E8%89%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蓝色&lt;/a&gt; (blue) makes sense;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%A8%E9%97%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;木门&lt;/a&gt; (timber door) makes sense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we can fix the bugs to obtain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;请各位出入&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  关好蓝色木门&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(It may be useful here to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36150/8099&quot;&gt;search by radical&lt;/a&gt; to identify troublesome characters.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 4: Translate.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we put this into &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=zh-CN&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=%E8%AF%B7%E5%90%84%E4%BD%8D%E5%87%BA%E5%85%A5%20%20%E5%85%B3%E5%A5%BD%E8%93%9D%E8%89%B2%E6%9C%A8%E9%97%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; to give:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please come in and close the blue wooden door&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, it's not a very good translation (&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%87%BA%E5%85%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;出入&lt;/a&gt; means &quot;come in and go out&quot;).  We can break this up a bit further using &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%AF%B7%E5%90%84%E4%BD%8D%E5%87%BA%E5%85%A5%EF%BC%8C%E5%85%B3%E5%A5%BD%E8%93%9D%E8%89%B2%E6%9C%A8%E9%97%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/fyJZbThR/Screenshot-2019-12-16-Definition-Mandarin-Chinese-P.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus it realistically means something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please, when coming in or going out, close the blue wooden door.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T07:56:47.917" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T07:56:47.917" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36123" CreationDate="2019-12-16T04:52:23.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;非常有趣的问题。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“回转”是一个比较少使用的词语，而且更偏书面。譬如，“回转你的方向盘”或者“回转寿司”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“掉头”一般只指车辆。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23288" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T04:52:23.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36144" CreationDate="2019-12-16T05:04:50.570" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Drawing characters by hand&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: We can obtain plaintext by manually drawing characters one-by-one using various software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Drawing on your phone&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your phone has Chinese input installed, you likely can already do this.  E.g., here I'm entering in my name into Pleco:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/L4V5wsHK/839953035.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG Online Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MDBG will accept hand drawn characters, but it does care about stroke order. Click on the &quot;brush&quot; icon next to the search box:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vDwCy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vDwCy.png&quot; alt=&quot;mdbg.net stroke input&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Random websites&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you Google &lt;code&gt;draw characters chinese&lt;/code&gt; there's lots of software in which you can draw characters by hand.  It'll change over time, and there's sometimes browser issues, etc.  So one random example is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qhanzi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;qhanzi.com&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/ZRcpKxh4/Screenshot-2019-12-16-Handwritten-Chinese-input.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Google Translate&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it's possible to do something similar with &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; by clicking this icon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/MKXPNvyv/Screenshot-2019-12-16-Google-Translate-1.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can't get it to work properly, likely because it uses some Google feature that's blocked in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="19983" LastEditDate="2020-02-12T07:44:19.073" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T07:44:19.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36143" CreationDate="2019-12-16T05:11:10.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a good practice to put 也 and 都 together. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们俩也都觉得你喜欢她 might be ok, but 我们俩也觉得你喜欢她 or 我们俩都觉得你喜欢她 sounds more natural. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们俩也觉得你喜欢她 and 我们俩都觉得你喜欢她 have slightly different meanings. 我们俩也觉得你喜欢她 implies that there are someone else already thinking you like her and we also think so. 我们俩都觉得你喜欢她 just means both of us think you like her. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T05:11:10.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36144" CreationDate="2019-12-16T07:55:15.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Search by radical&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: Chinese characters break down into &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_%28Chinese_characters%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;radicals&lt;/a&gt;, so we can identify Chinese characters by searching via radicals.  This requires basic familiarity with Chinese radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 1: Understanding radicals&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_%28Chinese_characters%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/radicals.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yellowbridge&lt;/a&gt; list the Chinese radicals.  Chinese characters are written using these radicals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters are normally written &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;top-left to bottom-right&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.  We can search for a particular character by identifying its first radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 2: Searching via radicals&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To actually do this, there‘s e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/sinograms.html?r=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Search by Radical&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=radicals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Radical/Strokes Lookup&lt;/a&gt;.  We take the character, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;课&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and identify its first radical.  In this case it is the left-most radical (&lt;em&gt;remember&lt;/em&gt;: top-left to bottom-right):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;讠&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(It's listed as a variant of 149. 言.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then we find this radical, and click the link:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/cJLbYnYm/Screenshot-2019-12-16-Search-by-Radical-Chinese-Character-Dict.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following page lists most characters starting with that radical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/T1bd6S3p/Screenshot-2019-12-16-Radical-Chinese-Character-Dictiona.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's easier to locate if you have a rough idea of the number of strokes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T07:55:15.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30842" CreationDate="2019-12-16T08:17:30.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A more colloquial translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这家店打折那么多，我不买都不好意思(I even feel bad not buying anything)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T08:17:30.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30842" CreationDate="2019-12-16T11:34:35.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't help but buy  =  我非买不可&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T11:34:35.103" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36144" CreationDate="2019-12-16T12:16:04.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To help old people who can't use Pinyin, most native cellphone keyboard software includes OCR. Even you can use voice input. eg: srf.xunfei.cn pinyin.sogou.com&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some Chinese meme such as you asked &quot;我们已经帮您踩过了&quot; mean，I recommend you use native search website Baidu.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Make some Chinese friends to help you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23290" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T13:40:22.817" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T13:40:22.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36154" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-16T14:20:10.043" Score="1" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2576/difference-between-%e5%90%88%e9%80%82-and-%e9%80%82%e5%90%88&quot;&gt;Difference between 合适 and 适合&lt;/a&gt;, which explains how &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E5%90%88%E9%80%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合适&lt;/a&gt; is an adjective:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不&lt;strong&gt;合适&lt;/strong&gt;的性行为有什么害处 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://tag.120ask.com/jingyan/2zwvu5sk3lwmu571x3wm9ysksk.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Un&lt;strong&gt;suit&lt;/strong&gt;able sexual behavior has what harm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;找个&lt;strong&gt;合适&lt;/strong&gt;的结婚对象，真的好难 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1653084243519957183&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;searching [for] a &lt;strong&gt;suit&lt;/strong&gt;able marriage partner [is] really difficult&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;whereas &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E9%80%82%E5%90%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;适合&lt;/a&gt; is an verb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那种牧草最&lt;strong&gt;适合&lt;/strong&gt;牛吃 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1370388066616391619.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;That kind of pasture most &lt;strong&gt;suit&lt;/strong&gt;s cows to eat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;适合&lt;/strong&gt;什么职业? (&lt;a href=&quot;http://tieba.baidu.com/p/6317856445&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I &lt;strong&gt;suit&lt;/strong&gt; what occupation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, YouDao lists &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E9%80%82%E5%90%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;适合&lt;/a&gt; as both a transitive and &lt;em&gt;intransitive&lt;/em&gt; verb (i.e., no object):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vi. fit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure this is correct as I don't recall ever seeing it as an intransitive verb, so want to check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Can 适合 be used as an intransitive verb?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, please give some illustrative examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T20:05:04.680" Title="Can 适合 (&quot;to suit&quot;) be used as an intransitive verb?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36164" CreationDate="2019-12-16T14:28:28.973" Score="3" ViewCount="52" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天晚上老板&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;和我们一起加班。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What purpose does 要 have here (in this specific location)?&#xA;I thought it would be;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天晚上老板和我们一起&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;加班。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know 要 also means 'to do smth' so I get why it's needed, but why in that specific position? Because I thought 要 came before the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23224" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T04:10:54.503" Title="Purpose of 要's location in 今天晚上老板要和我们一起加班。" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36154" CreationDate="2019-12-16T16:18:05.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't mind it. Youdao is an online dictionary aiming at helping Chinese learn English. When it lists 'v.i. fit' as a translation for 适合, it means that 'fit' is an intransitive verb (though not always the case).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T16:18:05.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36155" CreationDate="2019-12-16T16:26:36.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When 要 is used to mean &amp;quot;do something&amp;quot;, it usually means &amp;quot;will do sth&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;want to do sth&amp;quot;, and also sometimes &amp;quot;need to do sth&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your original sentence, 要 can mean both &amp;quot;will&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;want to&amp;quot; depending on the context. See the following examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天事情比较多，所以今天晚上老板要和我们一起加班 (There is too much to do today, hence the boss &lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt; join us in working overtime tonight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;老板想知道我们加班时到底有没有认真干活，所以今天晚上老板要和我们一起加班 (The boss wants to know whether we are taking the overtime seriously and &lt;strong&gt;wants to&lt;/strong&gt; join us tonight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the position, I am not sure whether there is an explanation involving grammar. The second one does not sound natural while the first one does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can come up with an example where 要 is placed right before the verb, only with slight modification to your sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天晚上老板和我们一样要加班 (The boss has to work overtime tonight just like us).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T16:33:50.170" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36136" CreationDate="2019-12-16T17:42:05.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Similar to Tang Ho's answer, think of it like someone playing poker and going on a losing run. They might justify continuing with something like &quot;I don't believe in bad luck&quot; or &quot;I refuse to believe in bad luck&quot;. 邪 doesn't have to involve literal ghosts or spirits or evil any more than 什么鬼 has to involve literal ghosts--it can be an allusion to superstition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9277" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T17:42:05.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36155" CreationDate="2019-12-16T19:45:33.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think about this sentence first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天晚上老板要和我们一起. // The boss will/want to be with us tonight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To do what? &lt;em&gt;加班，work overtime.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今天晚上老板要和我们一起  &lt;strong&gt;加班&lt;/strong&gt;。//The boss will be with us tonight &lt;strong&gt;to work overtime&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking 加班 as a complement might help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T20:25:56.137" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T20:25:56.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36154" CreationDate="2019-12-16T20:05:04.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Question: Can 适合 be used as an intransitive verb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intransitive verbs do not take object.  You cannot add an object to 他生病了 and make it 他生病了你, you cannot add an object to 他自殺了 and make it 他自殺了你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;适合&quot; in &quot;老師的工作他很适合&quot; doesn't followed by an object, but it doesn't mean there's no object. The object is &quot;老師的工作&quot; (placing the object before the verb to emphasize it is a common practice)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you remove &quot;老師的工作&quot;(teacher job) and write 他很适合 (he fit), then it would not be a complete sentence anymore &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use &quot;他很适合&quot; as an answer to  the question &quot;他适合老師的工作嗎?&quot; because the object is implied in the question. But I wouldn't call 适合 an intransitive verb in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't think of any case that 'fit' doesn't need an object. there have to be something to be fitted in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T20:05:04.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36161" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36163" CreationDate="2019-12-16T21:08:27.953" Score="0" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a tendency to stick in 啊 whenever I want the sentence to sound strong (in any emotion whether it be happiness, annoyance, etc) which I'm aware is it's purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But exactly how common is it? I've seen Chinese shows and I don't see the actors using 啊 THAT MUCH (pretty substantial but not to the extent I was expecting)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also seen them use 啊 in a perfectly chill environment. Like they'll be having a normal, steady conversation and one them will just throw in an 啊. So is it thrown around for the sake of sounding natural as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;BOTTOM LINE&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;How common is 啊 in daily speech?  A general outline for it's use would be nice too.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23224" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T15:12:27.377" Title="How Common is 啊" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36161" CreationDate="2019-12-17T01:45:13.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Judging from the number of times ordinary people in the street, whose dialect I can barely comprehend, when they are explaining something to this 老外 ask, &quot;啊懂啊？&quot; I'd say it's very common!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just watching the news. 习近平刚刚到澳门说：我很高兴啊！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T15:12:27.377" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T15:12:27.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36161" CreationDate="2019-12-17T03:25:35.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, 啊 is a versatile modal particle that can express many kinds of emotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Classical Chinese to modern Chinese, many frequent words change, but still mean the same thing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;之＞的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;夫＞吧&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;也＞啦、呀&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;亦＞也&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欲＞要&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;无、未＞没、吗&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是、斯、此＞这&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;若＞那&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乎、兮、矣＞啊&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can see many words turn into 啊, so 啊 can imply many emotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;温故而知新，可以为师矣。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;温习旧知识而（能够）学到新知识，（就）可以凭借（此）做老师了&lt;strong&gt;啊&lt;/strong&gt;。&#xA;（施诲）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;葛之覃兮，施于中谷。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;葛藤蔓生得多么旺盛&lt;strong&gt;啊&lt;/strong&gt;，绵延在山谷之中。（喜悦）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;贤人乎，贤人乎！非质有其内，恶能用之哉？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;真是贤人&lt;strong&gt;啊&lt;/strong&gt;，真是贤人&lt;strong&gt;啊&lt;/strong&gt;！（如果）不是有内在的（美好）品质，怎么能重用他呢？（赞叹）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T03:25:35.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36155" CreationDate="2019-12-17T04:10:54.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usual 一起 grammar structure is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subj. + 一起 + Verb + Obj.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22together%22_with_%22yiqi%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing &amp;quot;together&amp;quot; with &amp;quot;yiqi&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding 要 after 一起 interferes with this structure: it's possible to misinterpret 要 as the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Comparison&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's actually three places 要 (which &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Auxiliary_verb_%22yao%22_and_its_multiple_meanings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;has a few meanings&lt;/a&gt;) can be added:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天晚上老板&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;和我们一起加班。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Tonight, [the] boss &lt;strong&gt;[wants to/needs to/is going to]&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;work overtime together with us&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the subject is 老板 = &amp;quot;[the] boss&amp;quot;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the verb is 要, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and what they want to do is 和我们一起加班 = &amp;quot;to work overtime together with us&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems unproblematic, and probably the most natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天晚上老板和我们&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;一起加班。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Tonight, [the] boss and us &lt;strong&gt;[want to/need to/are going to]&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;work overtime together&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the subject is 老板和我们 = &amp;quot;[the] boss and us&amp;quot;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the verb is 要 = &amp;quot;want to&amp;quot;, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and what they want to do is 一起加班 = &amp;quot;to work overtime together&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also seems unproblematic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;今天晚上老板和我们一起&lt;strong&gt;要&lt;/strong&gt;加班。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Tonight, [the] boss and us together &lt;strong&gt;[want to/need to/are going to]&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;work overtime&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is more complicated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the subject is 老板和我们 = &amp;quot;[the] boss and us&amp;quot;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the verb is 一起要 = &amp;quot;together want to&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;together need to&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;together [are] going to&amp;quot; (??), and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and what they together [want to/need to/are going to] do is 加班 = &amp;quot;to work overtime&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel this one is ambiguous because what follows 一起 is 要, so it's possible to interpret 一起 as applying to 要 and not necessarily to 加班.  Something in English to indicate the difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't work at the same company, but we're together wanting to work overtime to save money for an upcoming concert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But realistically, it's a very contrived interpretation.  So I don't believe the Chinese here is wrong, it just sounds a bit weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Baidu&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare the Baidu search results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E8%A6%81%E4%B8%80%E8%B5%B7%E5%8A%A0%E7%8F%AD%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;要一起加班&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (19) vs. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E4%B8%80%E8%B5%B7%E8%A6%81%E5%8A%A0%E7%8F%AD%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;一起要加班&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (0),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E8%A6%81%E4%B8%80%E8%B5%B7%E5%81%9A%E9%A5%AD%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;要一起做饭&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (29) vs. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E4%B8%80%E8%B5%B7%E8%A6%81%E5%81%9A%E9%A5%AD%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;一起要做饭&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (2),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?&amp;amp;wd=%22%E8%A6%81%E4%B8%80%E8%B5%B7%E9%80%9B%E8%A1%97%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;要一起逛街&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (62) vs. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?&amp;amp;wd=%22%E4%B8%80%E8%B5%B7%E8%A6%81%E9%80%9B%E8%A1%97%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;一起要逛街&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (1),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?&amp;amp;wd=%22%E8%A6%81%E4%B8%80%E8%B5%B7%E5%AD%A6%E4%B9%A0%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;要一起学习&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (76,000) vs. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?&amp;amp;wd=%22%E4%B8%80%E8%B5%B7%E8%A6%81%E5%AD%A6%E4%B9%A0%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;一起要学习&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (17).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The number 76,000 is likely hugely inaccurate, but there's a lot.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We consistently see that &lt;code&gt;一起[2-character verb]&lt;/code&gt; does not want a 要 in between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T04:10:54.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30842" CreationDate="2019-12-17T04:16:23.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;I can't help but buy = 我非买不可&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought this phrase is self-explanatory. Perhaps not and seems not that commonly used though it is a legitimate expression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I even asked my daughter who had 12 years of full time formal Chinese language studies in a Chinese speaking environment whether she has heard it before, and replied &quot;no, but I know what it means&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, the questioner asked for a Chinese expression that has the same impression as &quot;can't help but...&quot; So I suggested the above phrase which I don't consider &quot;advanced&quot; or difficult, maybe a bit classical sounding, but that's about all, and therefore let it stood on its own in answering the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what is the phrase all about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as in English, often times a double negative phrase has greater communicative impact than a positive assertion, like &quot;I can't get no satisfaction&quot;, (from the song &quot;Satisfaction&quot;), &quot;I hardly have no money&quot;, and the all time favorite, &quot;You ain't seen nothing yet&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我非买不可 is a Chinese equivalent of a double negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 = I,&#xA;非 = not,&#xA;买 = buy,&#xA;不 = not,&#xA;可 = can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So literally, &quot;I not buy not can&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, sensibly, &quot;I cannot not buy&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, you can use this handy phrase in all sorts of situations, even in everyday social conversations to sound &quot;elegantly refine&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just substitute the 3rd verb with whatever activity you have in mind, like, 我非吃不可，etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T13:03:32.190" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T13:03:32.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19499" CreationDate="2019-12-17T05:44:45.980" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;这件事情到底是解决了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the 是, the sentence may be mistaken for a question.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the 是, it is unmistakably a statement of fact with some tonal emphasis when enunciating the 是 to underline the fact that the matter finally, (到底), is (是), resolved, (解决了)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it may sound better to say 是, 这件事情到底解决了 which of course is answering a question, and since the sentence in question is a statement of fact, then, I suppose putting the 是 inside makes sense.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T05:44:45.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36167" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36168" CreationDate="2019-12-17T06:49:27.663" Score="5" ViewCount="888" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%AE%B0%E5%BD%95&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;记录&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BA%AA%E5%BD%95&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;纪录&lt;/a&gt; are both pronounced the same, and mean &quot;record&quot;.  It looks like both can be used as nouns and verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the difference between 记录 and 纪录?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm using &lt;a href=&quot;https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/zhongwen-chinese-english/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhongwen Chinese Popup Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, and it says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;纪录: variant of 记录 (but in Taiwan, not for the verb sense &quot;to record&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that to mean 记录 and 纪录 mean the same thing, where 记录 is the default, and 纪录 is a variant (except in Taiwan).  However, I'm not sure this is accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finding some examples online, we have...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;纪录&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;吉尼斯世界&lt;strong&gt;纪录&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%90%89%E5%B0%BC%E6%96%AF%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E7%BA%AA%E5%BD%95&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Guinness world &lt;strong&gt;record&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;破马拉松&lt;strong&gt;纪录&lt;/strong&gt;奖励100万 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://sports.sina.com.cn/run/2019-12-17/doc-iihnzahi8061261.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Break China's marathon &lt;strong&gt;record&lt;/strong&gt; reward 1,000,000 [Chinese yuan]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;记录&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;幼儿教师观察&lt;strong&gt;记录&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yejs.com.cn/jswa/listmm/id/809.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Kindergarten teacher observation &lt;strong&gt;records&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;微信&lt;strong&gt;记录&lt;/strong&gt;怎么彻底删除 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinaz.com/news/mt/2019/1217/1073718.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  How [do I] thoroughly delete Weixin &lt;strong&gt;records&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They do seem a bit different, but it's very unclear to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T12:55:37.943" Title="What's the difference between 记录 and 纪录, both pronounced jìlù, and both meaning &quot;record&quot;?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36167" CreationDate="2019-12-17T07:22:21.937" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sohu.com/a/69966945_329045&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;写公文时如何区分“记录”与“纪录”&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一、“记录”有动词和名词两种用法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;记录 could be used as verb and noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;做动词的时候，表示把听到的、看到的或发生的事用文字、声音、影像等形式保留下来。例如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used as verb, means &lt;em&gt;to record what have been heard, what have been seen, or what happened in the form of text, voice, image etc&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（1）当时发生的情况我们已经记录在案了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（2）这份材料详细记录了这次会议的整个过程。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（3）这段视频记录了几位优秀运动员日常的训练情况。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;二、“记录”做名词的时候，有两个意思：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used as noun,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.表示记录下来的材料。例如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;refers to &lt;em&gt;materials being recorded&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（4）这份会议记录是保密的，已经放到保险箱里了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（5）这是侦查员勘查现场时作的现场记录。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（6）今天上午，我先阅读一下有关记录，然后再作些分析。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.表示作记录的人。例如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;refers to &lt;em&gt;who in charge of recording&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（7）局长让小刘担任会议记录。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（8）我们推举他当记录。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（9）马上开会了，你们谁是记录？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三、“纪录”是名词，表示在一定时期、一定范围内记载下来的最高成绩。例如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;纪录 is noun, means &lt;em&gt;the best record for a certain period of time and a certain scope&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（10）这个运动员在奥运会上创造了新的世界纪录。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（11）炼钢厂昨天创造了日产量的新纪录。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（12）这位试飞员在试飞中创造了该型飞机飞行速度的新纪录。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;您提到的某杂志中说的“用镜头纪录身边的模范人物”，意思是用手机、照相机或录像机把身边模范人物的有关活动情景等“保留下来”，因此其中宜用“记录”，写成“用镜头记录身边的模范人物”。同类的例子再如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（13）他用日记记录了那些年在制药厂的生活。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（14）这些照片记录了几十年前小村庄的旧貌。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;而平时常说的“创造”“打破”之后，宜用“纪录”，说成“创造……纪录”“打破……纪录”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 创造 (make) and 打破 (break) 纪录 should be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;过去，曾有“记录”跟“纪录”混用的情况，但是现在则明确区分了两者的用法。表示“最高”或“最好”成绩时，一般用“纪录”而不用“记录”。表示“保留下来”或“保留下来的材料”时，一般用“记录”而不用“纪录”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When used for &lt;em&gt;the highest or best achievement&lt;/em&gt;, 纪录 but not 记录 is used usually. When used for &lt;em&gt;keeping/recording or materials being recorded&lt;/em&gt;, 记录 but not 纪录 is used usually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;杜永道&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（摘自《秘书工作》杂志2015年第9期）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2020-02-29T12:55:37.943" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T12:55:37.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36167" CreationDate="2019-12-17T08:17:02.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 记录 and 纪录 can be a noun for &quot;record&quot; or a verb for &quot;to record&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;紀 has the meaning of &quot;historical record&quot;; &quot;epoch; period; age&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;纪录(n) is more often used for &quot;record&quot; (of historical fact).  e.g. 目前男子一百米短跑世界[&lt;strong&gt;紀錄&lt;/strong&gt;]为 9.58 秒; 多倫多最低氣溫[&lt;strong&gt;紀錄&lt;/strong&gt;]是 −33 °C &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;纪录(v) is more often used for &quot;to record&quot; (historical item). e.g. &quot;资治通鉴[&lt;strong&gt;纪录&lt;/strong&gt;]了由公元前 403年 至 公元 959年的 1362 年歴史&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;记录(n) is appropriate term for any information that's being recorded e.g. 查看通话[&lt;strong&gt;记录&lt;/strong&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;记录(v) applies to recorded information in general. e.g. 打卡机的功能是[&lt;strong&gt;记录&lt;/strong&gt;]員工的上下班時間&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T11:19:09.540" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T11:19:09.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36170" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-17T14:29:37.237" Score="3" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikitionary has a cool feature that shows a dialectal map with word differences across all Chinese dialects, as in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Template:zh-dial-map/%E5%A6%93%E5%A5%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that I was trying to see which places it was OK to use 小姐 with the meaning &quot;miss&quot; and not &quot;prostitute&quot; but the map didn't help &lt;strong&gt;at all&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have reliable map about the usage of 小姐 across China or can at least elucidate where it's OK to use 小姐 without offend anyone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The question here is where the word 小姐 by itself would imply the derogatory sense. Like when we call the attention of someone:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小姐，饭馆在哪儿？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6386" LastEditorUserId="6386" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T16:08:08.003" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T04:51:31.260" Title="Places where the use of 小姐 is inappropriate" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36170" CreationDate="2019-12-17T15:18:22.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;People say calling a woman 小姐 in Hong Kong and Taiwan is ok.  but not so good in Mainland China. I have to disagree with this presumption. It all depend on the context and the situation this term is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally 小姐 is a polite/ formal address for single woman in Chinese everywhere. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;張小姐 (Miss Zhang)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我家小姐 (my daughter/ the daughter in the family I serve)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term 小姐 can be interpreted as a nickname for prostitute because people in places where women provide various degrees of sexual service, would not use derogatory terms liked 舞女， 陪酒女郎 or even 妓女 to address the female sex workers directly, They just call them &quot;小姐&quot; (ladies) for politeness and subtlety. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &quot;我們店的小姐&quot; (the ladies in our establishment) ; &quot;去做小姐&quot; (go work as a Miss) would clearly imply 小姐 is not an honorific but a code for female sex workers in the context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in Hong Kong, people often refer 舞女 or 妓女 as 小姐 like in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not ok. even in Hong Kong to ask a woman &quot;妳係邊間店嘅小姐呀？&quot; (which place's lady you are?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing is sure. It is perfectly fine to address a female stranger as 小姐 in Hong Kong or Taiwan, No one would think 小姐 be anything but an honorific. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Some people argued with me that 小姐 is ambiguous in Mainland and should be avoided. I thought those people just treated a specific nickname in a specific area as a general term&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;小姐 is mainly an honorific/ title in Chinese , 张 in 张小姐 is that person's identify and 小姐 is an honorific/ title . But the term 小姐 itself can also be used as a code for female sex workers in certain context. And Mainland Chinese seem to be more sensitive to this additional usage than Chinese in Hong Kong and Taiwan&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T03:29:15.710" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T03:29:15.710" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30842" CreationDate="2019-12-17T15:22:12.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不买白不买&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which literally translates to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It'd be a waste to not buy it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T15:22:12.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36174" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-17T18:23:38.517" Score="1" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to say: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rome really does look like it was built in a day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a joke of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;罗马真看起来是一天建成的&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would this be correct ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21462" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T06:23:13.343" Title="Can I say 真看起来?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36175" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-17T21:27:15.623" Score="4" ViewCount="618" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen 想 mean 'thought' as well and wanted to know whether they're used interchangeably or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我没想过这个问题。&lt;em&gt;I've never thought about this question before.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 想 is also used like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你想不想我？&lt;em&gt;Did you or did you not miss me?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my book doesn't clarify WHY it's different. Why is 想 want, thought and miss? Some grammar to it? Are there more ways to use 想?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23224" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T03:51:55.937" Title="Seen multiple uses of 想" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36175" CreationDate="2019-12-17T23:47:19.540" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've never thought about this question before! :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my observation: &#xA;for miss, normally you would use it at miss somebody/something, and you can add 念 after 想. for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我想（念）他&#xA;我想（念）家乡的食物&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For think about, normally you think about a thing. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我没想过这个问题&#xA;我想一下&#xA;我想想明天做什么&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For want, normally you can add 要 after 想. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我想（要）去北京&#xA;我想（要）游泳&#xA;我想（要）吃家乡的食物 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="22717" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T00:01:38.410" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T00:01:38.410" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36175" CreationDate="2019-12-18T02:05:28.957" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just very common for a word to have multiple meanings. An online dictionary gives the five interpretations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;思考, 动脑筋 to think, to consider&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;让我想一想 = Let me think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;回忆 to remember&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想不起来他昨天说了什么 = I can't remember what he said yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;怀念, 惦记 to miss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想你 = I miss you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;希望, 打算 to hope/want to do something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想去旅游 = I want to travel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;预料, 推测 to anticipate, to predict&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我想这件事没表面上看起来那么简单 = I guess this is not as simple as it looks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="21960" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T09:17:21.383" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T09:17:21.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36174" CreationDate="2019-12-18T03:03:10.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try 看来罗马'&lt;strong&gt;真&lt;/strong&gt;'不是一天建成的. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To add more effect, you can put an emphasis on 真 while you speak. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T03:03:10.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36170" CreationDate="2019-12-18T03:16:21.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the issue is less regional, but more subjective. One might take it offensive in the situation where another doesn't care. So, I really doubt you would be able to find such a map.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The easy way to get around this is to avoid using it unless you are sure they don't care. Like when you try to call the attention of someone, you can say 你好，饭馆在哪儿？, instead of 小姐，饭馆在哪儿？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T03:16:21.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36170" CreationDate="2019-12-18T04:26:50.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As always, context and circumstances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you could use 小姐 anywhere in the World to politely address a young Chinese girl in an ordinary social setting, and she would not be offended. This is the contextual part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, if you similarly address a young Chinese girl, (or any girl of any nationality for that matter), and followed it up with a naughty wink of the eye, what do you think she would think? This is the circumstances part. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe 小姐 got a bad press because of the 19th century sudden proliferation of girlie drinking bars and hostess clubs in mainland China / Hong Kong / Taiwan / Singapore, etc, where the &quot;Mummies&quot; often refer to their charges euphemistically as 小姐s (perhaps to imbue some measure of respectability) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact another innocuous term is also used, namely, 姑 娘, for their more matured charges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, 小姐 has also for the better part of the modern era being used to address waitresses in Chinese restaurants. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another term, this time for males, which has gotten a bad press is 大 哥. It ordinarily means elder brother, but because of movie usages, it now also means the head of a criminal gang. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And shouting out 大 哥! across a crowded restaurant to address someone may cause an unintended misconception.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23155" LastEditorUserId="23155" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T07:01:12.913" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T07:01:12.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36144" CreationDate="2019-12-18T06:22:39.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Searching characters by their constituent components&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: We can find characters by inputting some or all of their constituent components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/ccdb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt; offers a component-searching interface, so that if you manage to recognise some components of a character but not the entire character, you can input those components to get a matching character which contains them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say that you come across the following character, and you don't recognise it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pq6QM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pq6QM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 1. Identify as many parts of the character as possible.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say that you've recognised 2「木」and a「彡」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wrv8E.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wrv8E.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 2. Input those components at &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/ccdb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/ccdb&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MFyA3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MFyA3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 3. Click 確定送出 to get a list of matching characters.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mzjot.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mzjot.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should see the following if you did this step correctly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hz9Wf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hz9Wf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 4. After you've found the correct character, click the character (not the number underneath it) to bring up a pop-up box.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zMr6o.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zMr6o.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should see the following box pop up if you did this step correctly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z4QUs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z4QUs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 5. The box under 瀏覽器 contains a text character. You can select and copy the character, then look up the character under your favourite dictionary.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/62t6p.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/62t6p.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T06:22:39.640" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36174" CreationDate="2019-12-18T06:23:13.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, they say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rome wasn't built in a day.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;一口吃不成胖子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The contradiction of that might be:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我只一口吃就成胖子！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rome really looks like it was built in a day!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;看起来罗马就是在一天内建成的！ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Buon Natale!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T06:23:13.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36144" CreationDate="2019-12-18T06:54:22.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Extended character searching by their constituent components: Small seal script, Chu silk and bamboo slip characters, bronze inscription characters, or oracle bone characters&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TL;DR: Using approximately same sequence of steps as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36182/18338&quot;&gt;answer titled &lt;strong&gt;Searching characters by their constituent components&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, we can search for other varieties of characters, including &lt;strong&gt;small seal forms&lt;/strong&gt; (小篆), &lt;strong&gt;Chu silk and bamboo slip characters&lt;/strong&gt; (楚系簡帛文字), &lt;strong&gt;bronze inscription forms&lt;/strong&gt; (金文), and &lt;strong&gt;oracle bone forms&lt;/strong&gt; (甲骨文).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We'll use the same example in &lt;strong&gt;small seal script&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 1. Identify as many parts of the character as possible.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say that you've recognised 2「木」and a「彡」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9mGvM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9mGvM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 2. Go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/ccdb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/ccdb&lt;/a&gt;, and click the desired script form. In this example, we're going to look at &lt;em&gt;small seal script&lt;/em&gt;, so we'll click 小篆.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Klgd9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Klgd9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should see an extended box pop up if you did this step correctly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kRNlQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kRNlQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: The Chu silk and bamboo slip characters (楚系簡帛文字) option is hidden under &lt;em&gt;Warring States characters&lt;/em&gt; (戰國文字).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oGYSf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oGYSf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 3. Input the identified components.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cTQI6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cTQI6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 4. Click 確定送出 to get a list of matching characters.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PhmuE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PhmuE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should see the following if you did this step correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tmyUN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tmyUN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 5. After you've found the correct character, click the character (not the number underneath it) to bring up a pop-up box.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/73Tyn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/73Tyn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should see the following box pop up if you did this step correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g6Lbu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g6Lbu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Step 6. The box under 瀏覽器 in the row 楷書 contains a text character. You can select and copy the character, then look up the character under your favourite dictionary.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ghPVT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ghPVT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T07:07:35.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21413" CreationDate="2019-12-18T07:51:05.793" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you use the right resource, you can get a better idea of the glyph evolution sequence. &amp;quot;Archaic character forms&amp;quot; can refer to anything from before ~600 CE, so just simply providing something &amp;quot;archaic&amp;quot; is insufficiently informative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chineseetymology.org, or vividict.com (another one that's often suggested) are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; right resources. Please use &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=278&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂字形演變&lt;/a&gt; for pre-Han scripts and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/search_source_inner.html?word=%E7%9F%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中華語文知識庫&lt;/a&gt; for Han dynasty onwards. A correct general idea of a glyph evolution sequence can be found by picking examples in the following order (not all of them need to be present):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商朝&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲骨文&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金文&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;　金文&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One of the following:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦朝&lt;/a&gt;　&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦系簡牘文字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢朝&lt;/a&gt;(?)　&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Note: Many native speakers tend to be relatively unacquainted with how character evolution works, and make the mistake of using 說文小篆 for demonstrating everything. I do not recommend looking at 說文小篆 too closely unless (1) 秦系簡牘文字 does not record this character or (2) you understand the history behind 說文小篆  and can explain roughly what's going on in those shapes. 說文小篆 does not work for many, many cases as a demonstration of glyph evolution.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;漢朝　&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸書&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;600 CE onwards　&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷書&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Warning: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simplified Chinese&lt;/a&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; part of character development, and you should discard any resource which attempts to say that it is. The sources of inspiration behind most Simplified Chinese characters was very niche or obscure, not standardised, and most importantly have absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot do anything with the action of &amp;quot;cutting character strokes&amp;quot; in speech - this action has nothing to do with the meaning and sound of words. Real character development is tightly integrated with the spoken Chinese languages across Chinese history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZrmGl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZrmGl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;3117&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=4787&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集4787&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FJT2W.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FJT2W.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;⿹戈冬簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4322&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4322&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cE4zb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cE4zb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;秦律108&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sSygX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sSygX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T07:51:05.793" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36186" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-18T08:16:01.917" Score="2" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;When writing a letter to family members, such as on a holiday card, how do you close the letter when it's being written from two people (such as from a husband and wife)? If one of our names is a one-character name, is it appropriate to write the single character in the closing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="166" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T02:19:17.430" Title="Closing a letter from two people" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36187" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36188" CreationDate="2019-12-18T09:43:15.107" Score="0" ViewCount="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/wTJwz9wd/th-id-OIP.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这些不是你要找的机器人&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  These aren't the droids you're looking for.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineseclass101.com/chinese-vocabulary-lists/star-wars-day&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Class 101&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why does &quot;these aren't the droids you're looking for&quot; translate to 这些不是你要找的机器人?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two particular points of confusion here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%BF%99%E4%BA%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;这些&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;these&quot; refers to 2 droids (R2-D2 and C3PO).  Is it okay for 这些 to refer to only 2 things?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%BA%E5%99%A8%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;机器人&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;robot&quot; combines &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9C%BA%E5%99%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;机器&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;machine&quot; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;人&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;person&quot;, yet R2-D2 is not at all humanoid in shape.  Is this okay too?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T10:47:44.077" Title="Why does &quot;these aren't the droids you're looking for&quot; translate to 这些不是你要找的机器人?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36187" CreationDate="2019-12-18T10:38:33.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;这些&quot; (these) is the correct pronoun for objects in plural number including two&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Droid is short for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/android&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;android&lt;/a&gt; (a mobile robot usually with a human form) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Robot&quot; is translated as &quot;机械人/机器人&quot; in Chinese, despite the fact that not all robots look like human (a car assembling machine with only one arm attached to a box is also qualified as robot in English, but to Chinese, that is just a machine - 机械/机器) .  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Android is designed to look and act like human, it should be more specifically classified as &quot;人型机械人&quot;(humanoid robot). But to most Chinese, &quot;人型机械人&quot; and &quot;机械人&quot; belong to the same group (they are all machines) therefore translate both &quot;droid&quot; and &quot;robot&quot; as  &quot;机械人/机器人&quot; is acceptable in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are right, by its look, R2-D2 should not be classified as an android. Using 'droid' in the English subtitles is technically wrong. But it is a fictional story in a fictional world. It is possible for characters in this world treat robot and droid as the same thing (Storm troopers might not be all well trained in linguistics). Or the term &quot;droid&quot; to them generally means &quot;a machine capable of human like behavior&quot; -- in human form or not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T10:47:44.077" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T10:47:44.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36189" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-18T11:52:03.050" Score="2" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hear the term &quot;liu shui&quot; often which means something like business procedure, or procedure (a row of actions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now I am wondering what the correct characters for this (slang?) term may be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;流水 means &quot;flowing water / business turnover.&quot; Is it that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17485" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T09:59:46.833" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T09:59:46.833" Title="Operational Procedure = liu shui; which characters?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36189" CreationDate="2019-12-18T12:16:47.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just got confirmation from one of my (Chineses) Colleagues that this actually &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; 流水 (flowing water). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17485" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T12:16:47.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36189" CreationDate="2019-12-18T13:58:12.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are referring to the operating model of &quot;流水(式)作業&quot; (flow operation). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a production line (生產缐) or assembly line (流水线) in factory is a typical type of flow operation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A company divided into departments and operating like an assembly line can be called 流水式運作. works flow from one department down to another like water in river &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;流水作業 and 流水式運作 are common terms for describing a assembly line like operating model&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T14:07:07.737" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T14:07:07.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36186" CreationDate="2019-12-18T17:38:27.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well it depends on who you’re writing to in the family and the actual relationship you have with that person, but simply using names feels rude and inappropriate in letters in most cases. Generally it is less inappropriate if you go more polite and make the recipient feel close with you in writing. And I think the reason is because Chinese like to establish relationships with other people. Even for people not in the same family, we want to call them by 哥、姐、弟、妹 to make us feel more connected/close, not to mention that we have already have connections by family. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the same generation, I feel it should be okay just use your name when you write to your cousins or siblings, depends on your closeness with that person. If you only use your name, it is better you start with that person’s relationship at the beginning of the letter, for example 表姐、表哥、堂弟、堂妹 etc, then in the end you can probably close with your name. And if you want to start with that person’s name only without indication of the relationship, normally it is writing to someone younger than you, such as 弟弟、表妹 etc.. With some indication of relationship at the beginning you can close the letter with your name. It feels very distant if you don’t use some word to indicate your relationship with that person in writing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you write to your spouse it depends on how you call each other. In the old days people use 妻 xx、夫 xx etc but i would imagine people use nicknames more nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you write to parents, normally you use 儿xx、子 xx、女xx 、儿媳 xx etc in conjunction of your name without/with surname(generally without). If you write to your parents’ siblings, it’s very inappropriate not to use relationship words like 姨、叔、伯 etc unless you have a very close relationship and you have a special nickname between two of you, which is hard to imagine for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other relatives, you use the relationship in front of your name without/with surname. For example, 侄 xx、侄女 xx、外甥 xx、外甥女 xx etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you write to grandparents, you call them by 爷爷、奶奶、外公、外婆 etc with no name mention and you close by 孙子xx、孙女xx etc. The name can be omitted if you're the only grandchild in the family. There’s less room to argue here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="22717" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T02:19:17.430" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T02:19:17.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36193" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-19T02:17:17.697" Score="0" ViewCount="4214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m expecting a package from China and tracking shows the last comment as 到达境外经转局&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help with this translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23300" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T02:44:40.150" Title="What does 到达境外经转局 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-12-19T03:14:08.720" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36193" CreationDate="2019-12-19T02:44:40.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;到达 = arrive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;境外 = abroad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;经转局 =  processing/ transit center&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到达境外经转局 = Arrived at processing center abroad (The package is currently in a  processing center in your country awaiting transit )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T02:44:40.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36175" CreationDate="2019-12-19T03:51:55.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you can see a &quot;心&quot; (mind, heart) in &quot;想&quot;, when 想 is used as a verb, it means the subject in somehow in your mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you miss something, it is in your mind.&#xA;If you consider something, it is in your mind.&#xA;If you want something, it is in your mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English segregated those meanings, but &quot;想&quot; does not. Anything in your mind can be a thing you 想. (similar to &quot;念&quot; which also has a &quot;心&quot; in it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23302" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T03:51:55.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1155" CreationDate="2019-12-19T04:05:06.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;偷工减料 on its own is actually quite self-explanatory. It is normally used in the construction industry to describe contractors who use substandard material with shoddy workmanship to save time and costs and thus make a bigger, but dishonest, profit. In some countries it had led to buildings collapsing with lose of life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In certain extreme cases, contractors used empty Milo, (the beverage), tins in place of re-bars. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, &quot;cut corners&quot; is more linguistically malleable in usage. It has both positive and negative connotations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the negative side it can also mean 偷工减料, and whether it is or is not comparable in terms of dishonest intent or consequential severity is only a matter of semantic argument.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the positive side, &quot;cut / cutting corners&quot; could carry the idea of being frugal to save for a rainy day, like cutting down on luxuries, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T04:05:06.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36170" CreationDate="2019-12-19T04:51:31.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Enrico,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quote:- &quot;... people around stopped eating and their jaws dropped&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really, that serious?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though I am not mainland Chinese, I am part of the Chinese diaspora, and in my trips to mainland China, to visit my Hakka ancestral home and big city sight-seeing, I've not experienced the &quot;jaw-dropping&quot; thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could well be that big city folks are more sensitive. However, using some anecdotal incidents as a comprehensive gauge for defining the cultural, societal behavior of a whole country or people as big and diverse as China is of course not useful. I suppose that's why you need a map?     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, since it is downright impossible to draw a &quot;小姐 Prohibition Map of China / World&quot; for your general use, I suppose you just have to &quot;play it by ear&quot;? Good Luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T04:51:31.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36198" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36200" CreationDate="2019-12-19T05:12:33.500" Score="2" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are often debates about the “correct” traditional forms of certain characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just came across the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我們不能以今律古，將今天纔有的種種概念，如共同語、地域分支、標準語等等，强加於古代的語言現象。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, being a book talking about language evaluation, I’m sure that the authors chose 纔 to represent 才 because it is somehow the more accurate form of this character. I don’t really know the rational behind this reasoning though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 纔 the “correct” traditional form of 才?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T08:22:33.890" Title="Why is 纔 the “correct” traditional form of 才?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36198" CreationDate="2019-12-19T06:04:30.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2887/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;纔&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Due to the complicated strokes, the traditional form 纔 is being wholly replaced by the simplified form 才 even in Hong Kong and Taiwan.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was from Hong Kong, no one would use 纔 instead of 才. Just look at how many more stocks in 纔 compare to 才. I would consider 纔 is the archaic form of 才&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 纔 the “correct” traditional form of 才&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It &lt;strong&gt;was&lt;/strong&gt; the “correct” traditional form of 才 but now is archaic (almost no one use it nowadays).  才 is officially the standard (in traditional or simplified Chinese) in modern Chinese. 纔 had became a rarely used variant (it is not incorrect but it is very old fashion)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;BTW, the argument in the text you posted is about &amp;quot;We shouldn't insert modern concepts in ancient language&amp;quot;. If it was written as 纔 in the first place, just leave it that way&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T06:30:16.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36198" CreationDate="2019-12-19T07:36:24.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming that you're not talking about the trivial kind of &quot;correctness&quot; where one country/region defines some standard of character usage, and anything outside of that standard is &quot;incorrect&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Why is 纔 the “correct” traditional form of 才?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no &quot;correct&quot; form of a character representing a meaning like &lt;em&gt;only; just; merely&lt;/em&gt;, because there is no character which was created for this purpose. This is unlike some other character pairs, where you can be sure that one variant is more &quot;correct&quot; than the other, or at least has a much better historical precedence (e.g.&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/31467/18338&quot;&gt;「气」is definitely &quot;more correct&quot; than「氣」&lt;/a&gt;; the former depicts the word it originally represented, while the latter is a phonetic loan).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bear in mind what the book you're reading is actually about; apart from the possibility that the choice of「纔」over「才」is just as a result of personal preference, there are real disambiguation reasons for which one might choose「纔」over「才」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「纔」originally described a blackish colour of an item of clothing, and now means some kind of blackish colour in general;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;「才」was originally a picture of a wooden object, and was extensively used for&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;material/resource&lt;/em&gt; (材)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;wealth&lt;/em&gt; (財)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;talent/genius&lt;/em&gt; (天才)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;phonetic loan for「在」(pre-Qin)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one is talking about language, especially archaic texts, the chance of reading ambiguities popping up is much higher with「才」than「纔」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T08:22:33.890" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T08:22:33.890" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1155" CreationDate="2019-12-19T14:29:36.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Both 偷工减料 and &amp;quot;cutting corners&amp;quot; can be serious and not so serious&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does 偷工减料 have a much more negative connotation than &amp;quot;cut corners&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%81%B7%E5%B7%A5%E5%87%8F%E6%96%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;偷工减料&lt;/a&gt; in Chinese and &amp;quot;cutting corners&amp;quot; in English (e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/mother-of-walking-dead-stuntman-files-wrongful-death-lawsuit-against-amc-197169&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2014/09/05/bp-and-pacific-gas-and-electric-show-corner-cutting-causes-disaster&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/cut-corners-at-work-youre-probably-young-male-and-psychopath/news-story/649b93d237b96da0646dd70521504aea&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://forkliftbriefing.com/work-safely/cutting-corners-places-lives-at-risk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dolmanlaw.com/osha-violations-often-lead-workplace-injuries/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;5&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/airline-safety-cutting-corners-costing-lives&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;6&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ijn.com/boeing-cut-corners-on-safety/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;7&lt;/a&gt;) can be serious depending on context, and carries the implication that it could result in death or other disasters.  (E.g. &amp;quot;that surgeon cuts corners on hygiene&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;we don't cut corners on safety&amp;quot;.)  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;偷工减料&lt;/strong&gt;造成人员死亡,使用哪一条安全生产法的规定？&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1867196902715772667.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Corner-cutting&lt;/strong&gt; causes worker death; which safety production-method regulation [should I] use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both can also refer to less serious things, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为绘画的过程比较多，而且时间比较长，所以也比较容易&lt;strong&gt;偷工减料&lt;/strong&gt;，今天看到的常见&lt;strong&gt;偷工减料&lt;/strong&gt;在绘画过程中的行为，应该引起以后的注意！&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1634768968876239031&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Since there are many painting processes and it takes a long time, it's easy to &lt;strong&gt;cut corners&lt;/strong&gt;; today [we] look at common &lt;strong&gt;corner-cutting&lt;/strong&gt; painting-process behavior [which] should give rise to future attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. How is 偷工减料 described?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's now look at Baidu Baike's description of this Chinese idiom:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;原指商人为了牟取暴利而暗中降低产品质量，削减工料。现也指做事图省事，马虎敷衍。出自清·文康&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Originally it indicated [a] merchant for profiteering secretly reduced [the] good's quality, and reduced materials.  Now it also indicates doing this to save trouble; sloppy and half-hearted.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%81%B7%E5%B7%A5%E5%87%8F%E6%96%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;偷工减料&lt;/a&gt;, Baidu Baike&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 偷工减料 indeed overlaps heavily with &amp;quot;cut corners&amp;quot;, with both emphasizing a reduction in quality.  Moreover, multiple examples on &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/example/blng/eng/cut_corners/#keyfrom=dict.main.moreblng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt; translate &amp;quot;cut corners&amp;quot; to &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%81%B7%E5%B7%A5%E5%87%8F%E6%96%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;偷工减料&lt;/a&gt; (as does &lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=zh-CN&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=%E5%81%B7%E5%B7%A5%E5%87%8F%E6%96%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt;).  In a lot of cases, therefore, it's going to be a reasonable translation in at least some contexts.  However, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%81%B7%E5%B7%A5%E5%87%8F%E6%96%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/a&gt; translation is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to skimp on the job and stint on materials&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is similar to that by &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.cn/%E5%81%B7%E5%B7%A5%E5%87%8F%E6%96%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dict.cn&lt;/a&gt;.  This is likely a more precise translation, but less succinct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Possible differences?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%81%B7%E5%B7%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;偷工&lt;/a&gt; in 偷工减料 refers to &amp;quot;skimping on the job&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%81%B7%E5%B7%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;), so it should be business related.  In English, we might say e.g. &lt;em&gt;after a long day, our mother cuts corners when cooking dinner&lt;/em&gt; to emphasize that she makes a quick-and-simple meal, where it would be inappropriate to use 偷工 or 偷工减料: she is not a worker.  (Perhaps better is &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%8A%84%E8%BF%91%E8%B7%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;抄近路&lt;/a&gt; = &amp;quot;to take a shortcut&amp;quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%81%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;偷&lt;/a&gt; in 偷工 indicates a somewhat clandestine nature (as in &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%81%B7%E5%81%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;偷偷&lt;/a&gt; = &amp;quot;secretly&amp;quot;).  Perhaps a kind of trickery.  However, cutting corners is not necessarily secretive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The phrase 减料 (literally &amp;quot;reduce materials&amp;quot;) within 偷工减料 itself conjures up using less materials in order to reduce costs.  This doesn't match well with &amp;quot;cutting corners&amp;quot; in English, but would be better described as &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thefreedictionary.com/skimping&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;skimping&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thefreedictionary.com/stinting&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stinting&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Intentionally purchasing an inferior product?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I use 偷工减料 to describe intentionally purchasing [an] inferior product that everyone knows about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn't seem to be a good match.  My impression is that 偷工减料 is about shortchanging someone in terms of work or materials.  To illustrate, other examples of 偷工减料 are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么奔驰宝马打折越来越狠?是不是厂家&lt;strong&gt;偷工减料&lt;/strong&gt;了? &lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1653074094004132632&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Why [are] [Mercedes] Benz and BMW discounts increasingly ruthless? Are factories &lt;strong&gt;cutting corners&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们来给大家分享几款明显开始&lt;strong&gt;偷工减料&lt;/strong&gt;的雪糕...&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1632471228179059032&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;We share [with] everyone a few kinds of obviously &lt;strong&gt;cut-cornered&lt;/strong&gt; ice-creams...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苏联为了追求产量，不惜&lt;strong&gt;偷工减料&lt;/strong&gt;，即便是不合格产品也用于充数。&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1618899151085357076&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Soviets in pursuing output, didn't hesitate to &lt;strong&gt;cut corners&lt;/strong&gt;, even if it is a sub-standard product [they were] used in numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note&lt;/em&gt;: Despite the other answers claiming otherwise, I cannot conceive of nor did I find in a dictionary (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theidioms.com/cut-corners/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/cut+corners&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/cut-corners&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/cut_corners&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;) a neutral or positive interpretation of &amp;quot;cut corners&amp;quot;.  Indeed, the purpose of saying &amp;quot;cut corners&amp;quot; is to emphasize how a non-cutting-corners method or product is superior.  (This is similar to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/users/285/bathrobe&quot;&gt;Bathrobe's comment&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T14:29:36.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1147" CreationDate="2019-12-20T05:02:32.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question. In fact, you can hardly precisely distinguish them by only looking at their definitions. Some are even used to define each other in the dictionary. The best way is to remember some very common collocations containing them. This is actually how native Chinese speakers use these words. Usually they are used only in particular collocations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;进行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is used to describe that something is currently happening, or is used as a transitive verb followed by formal activities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;会议正在进行中 = The meeting is going on right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;进行科学实验 = conduct scientific experiment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;实行，实施&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This usually means that you already have a plan or a theory for something and now you need to implement it or carry it out. I think they are interchangeable in most cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;实施办法、方案、计划、政策&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;实行道路管制 = traffic control (I can't find a verb in English)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;行使&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is pretty much only used for legal rights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;行使权力，行使职权&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;落实&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is similar to 实施. Literally it means you want your plan to REALLY happen. 落实 compared to 实施 is like &quot;fulfill&quot; compared to “implement, carry out&quot;. There is a phrase 落到实处，where 落到 literally means &quot;to fall into (somewhere)&quot; and 实处 means &quot;a real, tangible place&quot; (as opposed to &quot;in vain&quot;). Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;落实政策&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落实 can also mean &quot;determine&quot; or &quot;make sure&quot;, but that's another story.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;执行&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This refers to the actual action of 实施 something. Loosely speaking 执行 refers to a more concrete, specific action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们打算明年实施这个政策，在具体的执行过程中遇到的问题要及时向我汇报 = We plan to carry out this policy the next year. During the execution phase if any problem comes up you need to keep me posted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;执行任务、命令&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may want to know that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is not a comprehensive list.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By providing the list I am not saying that you have to stick to it or stick to existing collocations. But if there is already a collocation that fits what you have in mind, using it can minimize your chance of sounding unnatural.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To find more such collocations you can download a Chinese input method and turn on the collocation option.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="21960" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T09:58:50.357" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T09:58:50.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27403" CreationDate="2019-12-20T06:48:22.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My impression as a learner is that 弄 functions as a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;unspecified verb&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.  Basically, we take a sentence and replace a specific verb (or multiple verbs) by the unspecific 弄.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;弄 is typically used within a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Result_complements&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;result complement&lt;/a&gt; such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E5%88%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;弄到&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E5%9D%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;弄坏&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E4%B8%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;弄丢&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E6%B8%85%E6%A5%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;弄清楚&lt;/a&gt;, and so on.  I'll focus on this common usage.  In this way 弄 offers a short-cut to the result without specifying the verb which caused it.  (It's also used in &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E5%BE%97%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E6%A0%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;弄得怎么样&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E5%BC%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;怎么弄&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, an unspecified verb would normally be phrased &quot;to do&quot;, which is sometimes an appropriate translation.  We'd use it in English in the phrase &quot;get my hair done&quot; in place of &quot;get my hair cut&quot;, &quot;get my hair dyed&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why do this?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;  This is probably an incomplete list but here's some reasons...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1. Ignorance of which verb is correct&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start with this example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;客人&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%89%93%E5%9D%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;打坏&lt;/a&gt;电视机&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.110.com/ask/question-10184381.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The guest broke [&lt;em&gt;by bashing&lt;/em&gt;] the TV&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese, the verb is &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%89%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;打&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;hit&quot; and the result is &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9D%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;坏&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;break&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now suppose we didn't know how the guest broke the TV, only that they broke the TV.  Maybe they spilled a drink on the TV.  Maybe they installed some software on it that broke it.  Since we don't know what verb to use, we might use the unspecific 弄:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;version 1&lt;/em&gt;: 客人&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E5%9D%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;坏&lt;/a&gt;了电视机&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;version 2&lt;/em&gt;: 客人把电视机&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E5%9D%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;坏&lt;/a&gt;了&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.110.com/ask/question-14521856.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The guest broke [&lt;em&gt;in some unknown way&lt;/em&gt;] the TV&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note&lt;/em&gt;: It's common to use 把 in conjunction with 弄 as above (see: &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Using_%22ba%22_sentences&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Using &quot;ba&quot; sentences&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;男子&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E4%B8%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;丢&lt;/a&gt;共享单车被索赔2.55万&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1643613818793031234&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Boy lost [&lt;em&gt;in some unknown way&lt;/em&gt;] a public bike; asked for 25,500 yuan in compensation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小孩不慎弄瞎他人眼睛&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://3g.163.com/news/article/F0NHB6170514CFJG.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Kid inattentively blinded [&lt;em&gt;in some unknown way&lt;/em&gt;] another person's eyes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2. Multiple ways of doing something&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is similar to how &quot;done&quot; is used in &quot;get your hair done&quot; in English.  If you go to a hairdresser, they don't immediately know what verb is appropriate for your hair.  Maybe &quot;dye&quot; or &quot;cut&quot; or some other verb applies.  Maybe multiple verbs are needed (e.g. the customer wants their hair both cut and dyed).  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;怎么&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;头发好看又简单图片&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1732273118484042107.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  How to do hair, both good looking and simple: photos&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;破案了!韦世豪为何要弄这样的新发型?&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1637112449375642058&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Solved! Why Wei Shihao wants to do this kind of new hairstyle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;怎么才能&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E6%B8%85%E6%A5%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;清楚&lt;/a&gt;自己想要什么?&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1652155365830873873&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  How to be able to make clear [&lt;em&gt;in some way&lt;/em&gt;] what you want?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;离职时,一定要&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;明白这四点,不然只会越跳槽越糟糕&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://new.qq.com/omn/20191218/20191218A0DJC400.html#p=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  When leaving office, [you] must understand [&lt;em&gt;in some way&lt;/em&gt;] these four points, or else it will result in more job-hopping and more bad luck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We &quot;make something clear&quot; or &quot;understand&quot; = &quot;make something understood (to yourself)&quot;, but there's not a singly way of achieving this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;3. To encompass all possibly ways of doing something&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别把衣服洗坏了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Don't damage your clothes by washing them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别把衣服穿坏了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Don't damage your clothes by wearing them out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别把衣服剪坏了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Don't damage your clothes by cutting them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can say all of these (and more) at once using:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;别把衣服&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E5%9D%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;坏&lt;/a&gt;了&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Don't damage [&lt;em&gt;in any way&lt;/em&gt;] your clothes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;在这个球馆打我的最后一场比赛，你们别把我&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E5%93%AD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;哭&lt;/a&gt;，因为我现在很高兴。&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1630416347189178317&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  In this stadium, I played my last match, don't make me cry [&lt;em&gt;in any way&lt;/em&gt;], because I am now happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;4. To withhold this information&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;沙溢把郭敬明弄哭了！&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1645793165493793028&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Sha Yi made [&lt;em&gt;in some unspecified way&lt;/em&gt;] Guo Jingmeng cry&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to read the article to understand how Sha Yi made Guo Jingmeng cry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;你已经&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E4%B9%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;乱&lt;/a&gt;我的心，什么时候&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%84%E4%B9%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;乱&lt;/a&gt;我的床&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://new.qq.com/omn/20190327/20190327A0M3CL.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  You've already messed up [&lt;em&gt;in some unspecified way&lt;/em&gt;] my heart, when will you mess up [&lt;em&gt;in some unspecified way&lt;/em&gt;] my bed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheeky!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's try it on the given examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Don't make the child cry.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  别把孩子&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;哭了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fun.tv/vplay/v-29622119/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;used here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Loosen the belt.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  把腰带&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;宽松一些&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest I found online is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;新买的t恤袖子有点紧怎么&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;宽松一点&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1820000457042300788.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Newly-bought T-shirt sleeves are a little tight, how to loosen them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is one more problem that has yet to be clarified.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  还有一个问题没有&lt;strong&gt;弄&lt;/strong&gt;清楚&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this &lt;a href=&quot;https://iask.sina.com.cn/b/1SXMMSBA608V.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;used here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T06:48:22.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36204" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-20T13:47:40.677" Score="2" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 当做 and 看做 a synonym? I looked at a few sample sentences on bkrs dictionary. They seem to be used in similar situations. But just to be sure, what do you guys think? Do they have any difference in certain situations? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21196" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T05:28:48.053" Title="Is 当做 and 看做 a synonym or not a synonym?" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36204" CreationDate="2019-12-20T15:21:46.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In traditional Chinese used in Taiwan, 當作 can be used when you use something or treat something as if it's something else. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把你當作奴隸在使喚。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;He ordered you around as if you are slave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他把球棒當作武器用。&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;He used a bat as a weapon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas 看作 can be used when you recognize something as something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T01:41:49.367" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36204" CreationDate="2019-12-21T05:28:48.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question:- Is 当做 and 看做 a synonym?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short answer is no, the long answer is the differentiation is quite subtle that if one is used for the other, some people would not actually notice or object, hence your question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, it has also been written as 当作 &amp;amp; 看作 which may be considered arguably more acceptable / correct. Perhaps for another question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coming to the question, OOO has already given an answer / examples for 当做, i.e., to use some other thing &quot;in place of&quot; what is normally / commonly used for a certain purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter 看做 or 看作,  is &quot;to regard / recognize / treat&quot;, (whether deliberately or mistakenly), one thing / behavior / attitude for some other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 不要以我的宽容看做弱点。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not regard my tolerance as a weakness.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T05:28:48.053" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19499" CreationDate="2019-12-21T07:20:45.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000008779&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;According to Chinese dictionary owned by Ministry of Education in Taiwan.&lt;/a&gt; 是 can be used when you affirm something or determine something, so 是 show that some status after 是 is used to describe things before 是 in this example. 解决了(solved) used to describe 这件事情(this matter) before 是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="23311" LastEditDate="2019-12-22T12:25:15.120" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T12:25:15.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36208" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-21T10:05:51.283" Score="1" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this is not a Chinese thing (and if not, Chinese people are probably best off without it).  However, a vital part of a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seduction_community&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pick-up artist&lt;/a&gt;'s (&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%8A%8A%E5%A6%B9%E8%BE%BE%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;把妹达人&lt;/a&gt;) skill set is &lt;em&gt;negging&lt;/em&gt; (not &lt;em&gt;n&lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt;gging&lt;/em&gt;, but &lt;em&gt;n&lt;strong&gt;e&lt;/strong&gt;gging&lt;/em&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negging&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Negging&lt;/a&gt; is an act of emotional manipulation whereby &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;a person makes a deliberate backhanded compliment ... to undermine their confidence and increase their need of the manipulator's approval&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical instance of negging is where a man deliberately insults a woman in a preconceived subtle way.  Why do this?  To lower her self-esteem and make her susceptible to him.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You look like you're on a diet.  That's great!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://xkcd.com/1027/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;XKCD comic 1027: Pickup Artist&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I say &quot;negging&quot; in Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only thing I've found so far is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also a popular phenomenon known as negging or offering a &quot;back-handed&quot; compliment which was meant to make a man look confident and self assured, was more likely to cause her to &quot;run for the hills&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  此外，有一种流行的趋势，就是批评抨击或者讽刺挖苦，能使看起来更加自信，但这更有可能把身旁的女性吓跑。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/negging&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt;, attributed to &lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.51ielts.com/thread-719593-1-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bbs.51ielts.com&lt;/a&gt; but is no longer available&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it more accurately says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In addition, there is one kind of popular trend, it is criticizing or mocking, it can appear more self-confident, but more possibly scares away the woman next to you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's not much help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;PS&lt;/em&gt;. Don't read too much into this question.  I'm writing fiction.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-22T01:43:43.393" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T01:43:43.393" Title="How do I say &quot;negging&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36208" CreationDate="2019-12-21T13:50:08.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Negging' is a specifically coined term by the author of a specific book about methods of picking up girls. I presume the end game is either acquiring a life partner or building a casual romantic relationship with a woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Negging is in effect, a code name for a technique, and this technique is using subtle and mild insult to manipulate the target to 1. be curious 2.feels challenged 3. be willing to engage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The true goal is not to repel but attract her. It is opposite of another  technique pozzing: (whereby one pays a person a compliment in order to gain their affection)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it is not a general English term, I think I would treat the translation with more liberty&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's an idiom in Chinese called: 欲擒故縱 (When you try to capture a target, intentionally distance yourself instead of approach closely)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If pozzing (奉丞手法) shows a 欲擒態度, then negging (挑衅手法) would show a 故縱態度 (displaying dismissive sign to attract the girl's attention and get her to engage) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would translate &quot;to neg&quot; as &quot;挑衅&quot; and &quot;negging&quot; as &quot;挑衅手法&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T14:01:20.543" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T14:01:20.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23467" CreationDate="2019-12-21T17:10:19.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;己所不欲勿施于人。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phrase simply translates to: if you yourself do not want something/wish to do something, you should not push it onto others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple example would be: I have a bag that I do not desire. I think it is horrendous and ugly. Therefore, I decided to just give it to one of my friends. Here someone can use this phrase. 己所不欲勿施于人。 If I myself think that the bag is ugly and undesirable, how can I think of giving it to one of my friends. If I think it's ugly, why would I give it to my friend? He/She could feel the same. Hence, it is wrong and I should not do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just an example of a physical item, it can also be an action and the way you treat another person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example would be: Someone appointed me to be a leader of a project. I think it is a tiring and difficult job. I do not want to be burdened to do it. In turn, I decided to recommend (push) my friend to do it instead of me. This is when you can once again use the phrase. 己所不欲勿施于人。If I myself think it is an undesirable position, how selfish am I to push it onto my friend when he/she could have felt exactly the way I did. Thus, again it is wrong and I should not do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope this helps :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23320" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T17:10:19.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36212" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36216" CreationDate="2019-12-22T02:08:27.067" Score="0" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to say &quot;a webpage&quot;, and the two natural options are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一&lt;strong&gt;个&lt;/strong&gt;网页&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  一&lt;strong&gt;张&lt;/strong&gt;网页  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not hard to find examples of both:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;访问&lt;strong&gt;一个网页&lt;/strong&gt;的全过程&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnblogs.com/viviane/p/10515104.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我的第&lt;strong&gt;一张网页&lt;/strong&gt;范例&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/bf7e47ac690203d8ce2f0066f5335a8102d266ee.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems natural to use the measure word 张 in conjunction with 页 (page), but the situation might be different with a 网页 (webpage), so I guess I should go with 个.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also possible there's a distinction I'm unaware of.  It's also possible there's another, more suitable measure word I'm unaware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Which is the better choice of measure word, and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm trying to write is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;比如一「个/张」网页建议...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  For example, one webpage suggests...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T03:38:14.350" Title="一张网页 or 一个网页 (&quot;a webpage&quot;): which is the better choice of measure word, and why?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31191" CreationDate="2019-12-22T02:08:40.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Putting the grammatical correctness aside, I bet your &quot;...native Chinese speaker...&quot; wouldn't dare put it that way in front of the boss, LOL...., unless of course the boss is his dad or someone who would most likely not fire him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like uttering &quot;what, AGAIN?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;又&quot; (which is strictly unnecessary for the sentence in question to be grammatically correct and make sense), is to impress upon the listener that there is some unhappiness here for having, against his liking, to work overtime again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, use it judiciously. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2019-12-22T04:07:53.890" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T04:07:53.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36214" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-22T02:31:06.070" Score="3" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this cold weather my brain won't function! Help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can find several examples of 这种将&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This text is about 沙画。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the examples 1 and 2 below, I think I can understand what 将 is doing, it is the same as 把，but in my sentence, I can't see what 将 refers to. I think I could rewrite 1a. to 1b. and 2a. to 2b. Are the b-versions correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1a. 他就是这种将生命系于理论的人。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1b. 他就是这种系生命于理论的人。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2a. 这种将图纸发出进行投标的工作, 是由采购部门进行的。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;     &#xA;2b. 这种发出图纸进行投标的工作, 是由采购部门进行的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is 将 doing in the sentence below?? Is it a correct sentence? How can I rewrite it without 将？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种将静态的美术作品以动态方式呈现出来的艺术形式，增添了作品的生命力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Thanks a lot for the answers. It looks like I have this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种艺术方式增添了作品的生命力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then the adjectival phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[以动态方式来呈现静态美术作品的]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;together gives Dan's sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种[以动态方式来呈现静态美术作品的]艺术形式，增添了作品的生命力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the original used 将. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase in {} could be moved to further down if we don't use 将：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种将{静态的美术作品}[以动态方式呈现出来{}的]艺术形式，增添了作品的生命力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That was hard for me to follow!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T04:52:08.483" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T05:56:57.693" Title="A confusing use of 这种将" Tags="&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36214" CreationDate="2019-12-22T02:49:47.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这种将静态的美术作品以动态方式呈现出来的艺术形式，增添了作品的生命力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将 here means 把. One possible rewiting without 将:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这种以动态方式来呈现静态美术作品的艺术形式，增添了作品的生命力。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your two 'b's are okay. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T02:49:47.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36212" CreationDate="2019-12-22T03:38:14.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &quot;web page&quot; (网页) is not actually a sheet of paper but a section of a web site (网站). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On any 'web page' of a site, you can access all other pages within the site,  therefore 个 is the correct classifier for 网页&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you print a web page, you'd get &quot;a web page print out&quot; (一张网页的打印输出)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T03:38:14.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36218" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36219" CreationDate="2019-12-22T06:01:06.480" Score="0" ViewCount="46" Body="&lt;p&gt;Continuing from parts &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35746/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-and-the-revolutionary-new-technology&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35763/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-was-fat-when-she-was-young&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35780/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwangs-father-takes-her-to-the-doctor&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35870/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-gets-an-injection-from-the-doctor&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36003/writing-critique-request-the-almost-imperceptible-effects-of-zhou-ziwangs-inje&quot;&gt;5&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36111/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-loses-weight-just-like-everyone-else-nowa&quot;&gt;6&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;欢迎来到现代的“DNA&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BC%96%E8%BE%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;编辑&lt;/a&gt;的新世界”。原来我差不多是第一个DNA编辑的人，而且我爸是世界上领导的研究者&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B9%8B%E4%B8%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;之一&lt;/a&gt;，一起偷偷地进行研究。我小时候&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%80%A0%E6%88%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;造成&lt;/a&gt;我减肥的那个注射器是这种新技术的一个例子。那时候这项技术刚开始&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%A0%94%E5%8F%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;研发&lt;/a&gt;了，所以当时是非常基础的。起初，多数人无法使用甚至连DNA编辑的存在也不知道。世界政府立即&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BB%8B%E5%85%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;介入&lt;/a&gt;了，都希望成为&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%94%AF%E4%B8%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;唯一&lt;/a&gt;的国家能利用这项技术，在这个研究方向中建立&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8D%A0%E4%B8%BB%E5%AF%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;占主导&lt;/a&gt;的地位。不过现在DNA编辑为普通人能简单地使用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please critique my writing. New words for me are in links. I'm at an &quot;almost mastered HSK4&quot; level. The narrative is from a person in the present (Zhou Ziwang 周子望) with an unusual past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I've looked carefully and honestly don't believe there's any outright errors here.  So if they exist, they're something I'm blind to.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm terrible at 了ing, so something like 开始研发了 vs. 开始了研发 vs. 开始研发 is very hard for me.  So I just copy/paste them into Baidu, and copy something similar like 6G开始研发了&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tieba.baidu.com/p/6327709561?red_tag=3326653824&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My impression is that Chinese people say DNA using English letters and not the impractically long &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/DNA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;脱氧核糖核酸&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I like 占 in 占主导的地位 since the idea is that governments want to establish dominance, and are even blocking other countries, so there's a bit of tension.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T09:29:29.017" Title="Writing critique request: Welcome to the world of DNA editing" Tags="&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36218" CreationDate="2019-12-22T07:10:18.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;欢迎来到现代“DNA编辑”的新世界。原来我差不多是第一个&lt;strong&gt;接受&lt;/strong&gt;DNA编辑的人，而且我爸是&lt;strong&gt;这个领域&lt;/strong&gt;的领导研究者之一，&lt;strong&gt;他们&lt;/strong&gt;一起偷偷地进行研究。小时候&lt;strong&gt;使&lt;/strong&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;变瘦&lt;/strong&gt;的&lt;strong&gt;药物&lt;/strong&gt;是这种新技术的一项&lt;strong&gt;成果&lt;/strong&gt;。那时候这项技术刚开始研发，所以还比较&lt;strong&gt;初级&lt;/strong&gt;，多数人&lt;strong&gt;无缘&lt;/strong&gt;使用甚至根本不知道存在DNA编辑。&lt;strong&gt;不久&lt;/strong&gt;，&lt;strong&gt;各国&lt;/strong&gt;政府就介入了&lt;strong&gt;这个领域&lt;/strong&gt;，都希望成为&lt;strong&gt;能利用这项技术的唯一国家&lt;/strong&gt;，在研究中占主导地位。不过现在，DNA编辑技术&lt;strong&gt;也&lt;/strong&gt;能简单地为普通人所用了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comments：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;引号用在“DNA编辑”上以第一次介绍这个科学名词就可以了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上文“DNA编辑”是作名词用的，这里需要谓语“接受”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“这个领域”作定语限定范围。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“一起”这个词必须搭配复数行为主体，原句主语是我爸，他一个人是不能“一起”研究的，需要切换主语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“造成”一般接不利、不希望看到的影响/后果，这里应该用中性的“使”。（题主所提供的链接之例句似乎已经表明了这一点。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“减肥”是主观行动，“变瘦”才是减肥的实际结果。（这件事似乎之前提过唔？）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“注射器”只是注射药物的工具，“药物”才是他们研究的成果。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“例子”用词不当。应该用“成果”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很遗憾“刚开始研发了”反而不能加“了”。（但“开始研发了”却可以。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“基础”用词不当。应该用“初级”。从逻辑上看，后面马上接“普通人难以接触这项技术”的句子，这里用“罕见”似乎更加合理。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“无法”用词不当。只是因为能实施这种技术的机构一开始非常有限，大部分人没有机会使用，而不是这种技术对他们无效。所以应该用“无缘”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;本句“无法使用”宾语缺失，将“DNA编辑”挪到句尾，将“不知道存在”整体作为谓语，使“DNA编辑”成为两个谓语的共同宾语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“立即”时间词用得不好。“立即”的前文，需要存在明确的时间点，才能确认“立即”到底是什么时候。改成“不久”模糊一下比较好。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“世界政府”在汉语中专指辖制世界的政府，依文意，这里说的是“各国政府”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“介入”缺宾语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;现代汉语中，宾语可以前置，定语却不能随便后置。所以应该是“能利用这项技术的唯一国家”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;句式杂糅。“建立主导地位”或“占主导地位”只能择一。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最后一句句式不明。如果要用“为……所……”的被动式，两个字都不能缺。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;添加“也”顺畅逻辑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2019-12-22T07:29:21.660" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T07:29:21.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36218" CreationDate="2019-12-22T07:37:55.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;欢迎来到现代的“DNA编辑的新世界”&lt;/em&gt;。 --&gt; [欢迎来到「基因改造」的新世界]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;原来我差不多是第一个DNA编辑的人，&lt;/em&gt; --&gt; [我几乎可以说是第一个接受过基因改造的人]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;而且我爸是世界上领导的研究者之一， 一起偷偷地进行研究。&lt;/em&gt;--&gt; [我爸是这项科技的尖端研究者之一，与其他研究者一样，在偷偷研究这项枝术。]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我小时候造成我减肥的那个注射器是这种新技术的一个例子。&lt;/em&gt; --&gt; [小时候帮我减肥的那个注射器，就是应用这种新技术的一个例子。]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;那时候这项技术刚开始研发了，所以当时是非常基础的。&lt;/em&gt; --&gt; [那时候这还是一项刚起步，也很原始的技术。]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;起初，多数人无法使用甚至连DNA编辑的存在也不知道。&lt;/em&gt; --&gt; [初时大多数人甚至连「基因改造技术」的存在也不知道，更不用说使用这项技术了，]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;世界政府立即介入了，都希望成为唯一的国家能利用这项技术，&lt;/em&gt; --&gt; [在当时，各国政府都即时介入了，希望成为唯一能利用这项技术的国家，]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;在这个研究方向中建立占主导的地位。&lt;/em&gt;--&gt; [在这个研究方向中占主导地位。]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;不过现在DNA编辑为普通人能简单地使用。&lt;/em&gt; --&gt; [但到了现在，一般人也能轻易地使用基因改造技术了。]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you consider 基因改造 too Chinese, you can use &quot;DNA 改造/修改&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;普通人能简单地使用&quot; suggests everyone, even you and I can easily use it&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you meant &quot;common people can easily obtain this service&quot;, the sentence should be  &quot;普通人也能轻易地得到这项服务&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-22T09:29:29.017" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T09:29:29.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36221" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36228" CreationDate="2019-12-22T09:07:10.113" Score="0" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;can someone translate this for me 一陪二十的赌注啊！&#xA;google says “Accompany the bet of twenty!” but im dubious. Please clarify folks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23016" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T09:05:00.383" Title="Can someone translate 一陪二十的赌注啊! for me?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-12-24T06:44:25.027" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36214" CreationDate="2019-12-22T10:19:41.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is 将 doing in the sentence below?? Is it a correct sentence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, this sentence is grammatical. 将 as a disposal marker, disposes the object,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &amp;quot;他就是这种将生命系于理论的人 the verb &amp;quot;系&amp;quot; (tie) dispose the object &amp;quot;生命&amp;quot; -- &amp;quot;take life and tie it to ...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[他][就是][这种][将][生命][系于][理论][的人]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[he][is just][this type of][take][life][tie it to][theory][person who]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[他就是这种(&lt;strong&gt;将&lt;/strong&gt;生命)系于理论的人] = [He is just the type of person who (&lt;strong&gt;takes&lt;/strong&gt; life) and ties it to theory]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I rewrite it without 将？？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can remove the disposal marker 将 and write &amp;quot;他就是这种系生命于理论的人&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let the subject &amp;quot;他&amp;quot; (he) to use the verb &amp;quot;系' (ties) to act on the direct object &amp;quot;生命&amp;quot;, and the indirect object 理论 (theory) = &amp;quot;he ties life to theory&amp;quot; --&amp;gt; &amp;quot;He is the type of person who ties life to theory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这种将静态的美术作品以动态方式呈现出来的艺术形式&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[这种][以][动态方式][显现][静态美术][的][艺术形式]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[this type of][using][dynamic form][to display][static art][of][art style]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[这种以动态方式，显现静态美术的艺术形式] = [ This type of art style that uses dynamic form to display static art]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[这种以动态方式，显现静态美术的艺术形式，增添了作品的生命力] = [ This type of art style that uses dynamic form to display static art, adds vitality to the work]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T05:56:57.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36221" CreationDate="2019-12-22T11:53:58.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;一賠二十 means that when you use &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt; dollars to bet. If you win you get &lt;code&gt;20N&lt;/code&gt; dollars. If you lose, you lose &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt; dollars.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, 的 show that something before 的(一赔二十) is used to describe another thing after 的(赌注).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;賭注 means gamble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;啊 is audible sound that show your emotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/652909953836857845.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu知道 一赔二十是什么意思？&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=W00000010251&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;教育部重編國語辭典修訂本 啊&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%BC%A2%E8%AA%9E%E5%8A%A9%E8%A9%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;維基百科 漢語助詞&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="23311" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T08:58:02.773" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T08:58:02.773" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36224" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36225" CreationDate="2019-12-22T15:38:10.247" Score="0" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does &lt;code&gt;我为你们践行。&lt;/code&gt; translate to? I’ve looked around the internet, it seems to mean farewell or to fulfill a promise or send you to the door or practice for you? Not too sure here, please enlighten folks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23016" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T04:53:47.573" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T04:54:37.693" Title="What does 我为你们践行。translate to?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36224" CreationDate="2019-12-22T16:11:20.207" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Judging from the context you may have made a typo. It should be 饯行. 饯行 means to set up a feast to send away someone who is travelling to a place far away. 践行 on the other hand, means to practice, and should not be used here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T16:11:20.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19499" CreationDate="2019-12-22T17:34:07.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;是 does not mean &amp;quot;is&amp;quot; here. The reason is that the &amp;quot;is&amp;quot; required here is already contained in &amp;quot;解决了&amp;quot;. The skeleton of this sentence is &amp;quot;事情解决了&amp;quot;, that is, &amp;quot;解决了&amp;quot; is itself a verb and can be translated to &amp;quot;is resolved&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;has been resolved&amp;quot;. No one would ever say &amp;quot;事情是解决了&amp;quot; to mean &amp;quot;the problem has been resolved&amp;quot; (for this sentence to make sense it must mean something complete different, I'll.mentioned it later).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这件事情到底是解决了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到底是=到底还是=到底=eventually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://hanyu.baidu.com/zici/s?wd=%E5%88%B0%E5%BA%95&amp;amp;query=%E5%88%B0%E5%BA%95&amp;amp;srcid=28243&amp;amp;from=kg1&amp;amp;srcid=&amp;amp;query=%E5%88%B0%E5%BA%95#basicmean&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;BaiduBaike(百度百科)&lt;/a&gt; has an explanation and two examples of this usage (see 基本释义-2 in the linked page): 到底 means 经过种种变化或曲折最后出现某种结果. Examples are as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;新方法到底试验成功了 = The new method succeeded eventually through the tests.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想了很久，到底明白了 = I thought about it for a very long time and understood eventually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, you can replace 到底 here by 到底是 or 到底还是.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that, the reason I say 是 does not mean &amp;quot;is&amp;quot; here is that, if it did mean &amp;quot;is&amp;quot;, then after stripping the original sentence of unnecessary parts, you should still get a correct sentence without altering the basic meaning of the original sentence. But 事情是解决了 is neither natural nor correct, because 解决了 itself already means &amp;quot;is resolved&amp;quot; (yes this happens in Chinese), adding another &amp;quot;is&amp;quot; would be redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This reasoning also suggests if you see 到底是+noun or 到底是+adjective (instead of 到底是+verb, which is the case above), then 是 may actually mean &amp;quot;is&amp;quot; in these cases, because the sentence needs a verb. But you still need to be careful about adjectives or nouns acting as verbs. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这个包到底是你的还是他的？ = Is this your bag or his?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 是 means &amp;quot;is&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这幅画画的&lt;strong&gt;到底&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;是&lt;/em&gt; 什么？ = What &lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; this painting about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 是 also means is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may wonder, what does 到底 mean in these cases? When 到底 is used in a question, it means you really want to know the answer, similar to &lt;em&gt;on earth&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;the heck&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt; in English that people add to questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你今天&lt;strong&gt;到底是&lt;/strong&gt;有什么毛病？ = What &lt;strong&gt;the heck&lt;/strong&gt; is wrong with you today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 到底是 goes together and 是 does not mean &amp;quot;is&amp;quot; because 有 is already the verb. A word for word translation is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Exactly&lt;/strong&gt; what problems do you have today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally let me remark on the sentence 事情是解决了. I said before that it is not a correct sentence to express &amp;quot;the matter has been resolved&amp;quot; because 是would be a redundant verb. But it can be a correct sentence if you interpret 是 as &amp;quot;although&amp;quot;, for example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事情是解决了，但是可能会留下不良影响 = Although the matter has been resolved, there may be some bad repercussions left behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T17:34:07.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36224" CreationDate="2019-12-22T22:07:20.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我 means I. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, 为 show that the former subject(我) do something for the latter subject(你们).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你們 means you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T22:07:20.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36221" CreationDate="2019-12-23T02:15:10.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;一赔（not 陪）二十的赌注啊 means &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;odds of 20-1!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T02:15:10.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36233" CreationDate="2019-12-23T02:22:04.600" Score="4" ViewCount="1349" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chinese lunar calendar, starting from 冬至, which was yesterday, you can count 9 days as the first 9 days, and subsequently second, third,...,until ninth nine days, a total of 81 days. After you count 81 days, the weather starts getting warm. My question is, are there specific english translations associated with this? I tried to describe it to other people, but find it too difficult to explain. How would you describe it to other people? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T08:57:03.333" Title="How do we describe 九九 in english" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36229" CreationDate="2019-12-23T03:15:25.597" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://english.visitbeijing.com.cn/a1/a-XBP33K1942425368575D11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Beijing Tourism&lt;/a&gt; page has an English article about the &lt;em&gt;9 nine-day periods&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Nines of Winter in China&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People in China talk about winter coming in nine periods and each period is 9 days long, which begins from the Winter Solstice. After 9 nine-day periods the weather becomes warmer and spring will be on its way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 3rd nine-day period is called ‘Sanjiu’ in Chinese, which refers to the 19th-27th days after the day of the Winter Solstice. There is an old saying in China that goes, &amp;quot;The days of the Sanjiu period are the coldest days.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a famous folk song about the Nines of Winter (called ‘Shujiu’) recording changes in the weather:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1st nine days, 2nd nine days, don’t take hands out of your pockets;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3rd nine days, 4th nine days, you can walk on ice;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5th nine days, 6th nine days, willows at the river’s edge start to sprout;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7th nine days, ice dissolves and water flows in the river;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8th nine days, wild geese fly back to northern areas;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9th nine days and the following days, farm cattle start to work in the field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T03:15:25.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36229" CreationDate="2019-12-23T03:21:50.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...are there specific [English] translations associated with this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting with &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%95%B0%E4%B9%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;数九&lt;/a&gt; from Baidu Baike, and selecting the relevant parts to explain this to someone, I might say something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Counting Nines&lt;/em&gt;, also called &lt;em&gt;Winter's Nine Nines&lt;/em&gt;, is a Chinese folk method for counting the cold period before spring.  Starting from winter solstice, we count nine periods of nine days.  When we reach 81 days, warm days of spring have arrived and its time for farmers to plow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/holidays/winter-solstice-celebration.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Travel China Guide&lt;/a&gt; in English, but the wording is imprecise, so let's rewrite it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A popular Chinese winter-solstice tradition called &lt;em&gt;Counting Nine Nines&lt;/em&gt; involves counting nine periods of nine days starting from the winter solstice.  After &quot;nine nines&quot; (i.e., 81 days), spring will have arrived.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another online example is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;People in China talk about winter coming in nine periods and each period is 9 days long, which begins from the Winter Solstice. After 9 nine-day periods the weather becomes warmer and spring will be on its way.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cits.net/china-travel-guide/nines-of-winter-in-china.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nines of winter in China&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This is the same as in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36230/8099&quot;&gt;user3306356's answer&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And some dictionary references for 数九 are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;the nine periods following the winter solstice (source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%95%B0%E4%B9%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt;)  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;nine periods of nine days each after winter solstice, the coldest time of the year (source: CC-CEDICT via &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%95%B0%E4%B9%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T03:21:50.933" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36224" CreationDate="2019-12-23T04:54:37.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think trisct is right, it should be 饯行:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们将设宴为他饯行。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We'll give him a farewell dinner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T04:54:37.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36229" CreationDate="2019-12-23T06:07:53.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;More precisely, the traditional Chinese calendar is a &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunisolar_calendar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lunisolar calendar system&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E6%95%B0%E4%B9%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;數九&lt;/a&gt; are verses to describe observable agricultural phenomena (~物候) between winter and spring in the north temperate zone of certain regions of China. (They're not suitable for the southern regions, Manchu, west of Kokonor, or Tibet.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After ~1644, the four-and-twenty solar terms (二十四節氣) are relatively fixed in relation to Gregorian calendar, so the winter solstice (冬至) is most likely on 21-23 December of each year; after 81 days, it's 11-13 March of the next year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. the winter solstice is on 22 December 2019, so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;一九二九不出手&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During 22 Dec 2019 to 09 Jan 2020, it's so cold that people decline to expose their bare hands (keeping them in their sleeves instead).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三九四九冰上走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During 10 Jan 2020 to 27 Jan 2020, people might walk on frozen rivers (the ice is thick and solid, implying the coldest of times).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;五九和六九・河邊看楊柳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During 28 Jan 2020 to 14 Feb 2020, willows along riverbanks have leaves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;七九河凍開・八九燕歸來&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During 15 Feb 2020 to 23 Feb 2020, the river ice begins to break up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During 24 Feb 2020 to 3 Mar 2020, the swallows (i.e., migratory birds) return.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;九九加一九・耕牛遍地走&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During 04 Mar 2020 to 21 Mar 2020, the farm cattle work every field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(To make this answer simpler to read, I omitted the solar term [節氣] and astronomical aspects.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;how would you describe it to other people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, you may recommend the extract of &quot;The American Agriculturist's Almanac&quot; for the year 1844:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The following brief hints to the farmer, planter and gardener will be found to apply not only to the months under which they are arranged, but owing to diversity of seasons, climate and soils, they may frequently answer for other months. This precaution the considerate agriculturist will not fail to notice and apply in all cases where his judgment and experience may dictate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/americanagricult1844alle/page/21&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/americanagricult1844alle/page/21&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T08:57:03.333" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T08:57:03.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36221" CreationDate="2019-12-23T09:05:00.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Others' answers are completely correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be precise from a more gambling point of view, 一赔二十 can mean either bet 1 get 20 back in total, or bet 1 get 20 as profit plus your initial bet (ie 21 in total). You may need to ask for clarification if you are considering putting millions on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9732" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T09:05:00.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36235" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-23T12:20:01.077" Score="0" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently started studying Chinese, and I'm having trouble hearing the tones for words with multiple characters.  For instance, I have trouble hearing the difference between 汉语 (hànyǔ) and 韩语 (hányǔ), or 哪里 (nǎlǐ) and 那里 (nàli).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an SRS deck available for learning tones for multi-character words?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally the front of the card would just be the audio for a single multi-character word, and then the back of the card would be what the characters/tones are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;edit&lt;/em&gt;: I should add that I am mostly fine with hearing individual characters in isolation.  So when hearing 汉 (hàn) and 韩 (hán), or 哪 (nǎ) and 那 (nà), I can almost always tell the correct intonation.  My only problem is when hearing multiple characters together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23321" LastEditorUserId="23321" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T12:25:43.180" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T09:58:55.797" Title="srs deck testing intonations/pronunciations of words with multiple characters" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-07-29T10:16:08.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36235" CreationDate="2019-12-23T16:44:05.283" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I feel it’s hard to get why western people have difficulties in learning tones, because it’s natural for me. Maybe you need to change your mentality a little bit? Imagine if you’re signing with 4 tones (or 5 if you include neutral tone), you need to sing on the right tone to make it sound right. If you can sing, you should be able to master the tones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t know how you learnt Chinese. For me, other than being a mother-tongue, I remember when I learnt the Chinese alphabets in school, we need to read it out loudly in four tones everyday. Whenever I learn a character, we learn it in four tones, and learn characters in every tone, and make words and sentences out of it. I was grown up in a small town in the northern China, where kids speak dialects in school, but transferred to a school in one of the capital cities in grade 4, where kids speak mandarin in school. I didn’t take a single day to learn how to communicate in mandarin because it is just how you read books out loud. Some classmates came to help me, but found that I didn’t need help and they got surprised. The dialect I used to speak mainly differs in tones with mandarin. So, the story told me tone is really not that hard, and maybe the environment is more important. When you are in the right environment, your brain can force you to adapt, and over time, the environment can help you reinforce and  develop feeling for the language subconsciously without trying too hard. If you’re in China, go out and talk to people. If you’re not in China, watch Chinese dramas or YouTube channels in mandarin, leave it on even when you’re not watching, and indulge yourself in that language environment. Over time you will find yourself speak the right tone without trying. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T16:44:05.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36238" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36239" CreationDate="2019-12-23T20:57:29.990" Score="2" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recall reading a supposed Chinese proverb that went along the lines of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Craftsman, know your tools!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm trying to find the original Chinese saying, and if there was more to this, wanting to use it in mentoring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can any scholars here help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23324" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T17:23:28.343" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T17:26:40.093" Title="What is the Chinese original version of the proverb &quot;Craftsman, know your tools&quot;?" Tags="&lt;proverb&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36238" CreationDate="2019-12-23T23:56:40.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the original proverb is &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B7%A5%E6%AC%B2%E5%96%84%E5%85%B6%E4%BA%8B%EF%BC%8C%E5%BF%85%E5%85%88%E5%88%A9%E5%85%B6%E5%99%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;工欲善其事 必先利其器&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;工 = 工匠 (craftsman)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;欲善其事 (want to do his job well)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;必先 (must first)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;利其器 (make his tools sharp, meaning in good condition)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This saying is using &amp;quot;To do a good job, a craftsman must sharpen his tools&amp;quot; as an analogy for &amp;quot;To be successful, one must first prepare his tools (make preparation)&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Sharpen tools&amp;quot; is a metaphor for &amp;quot;make preparation&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T17:26:40.093" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T17:26:40.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36240" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-24T00:58:44.520" Score="1" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GGYXu.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GGYXu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help me translate these Seal Characters into classical/modern Chinese characters?  They are on my neighbor's furniture brought from the Philippines. I have 12 more pictures, but this site seems to just allow one picture.&#xA;Thanks!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23325" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T04:22:06.363" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T04:22:06.363" Title="Can someone translate these Seal Characters to Mandarin? (Characters identified: 五世)" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36240" CreationDate="2019-12-24T01:05:42.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The characters are 五世 (Five generations?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T01:05:42.107" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36242" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-24T02:22:08.330" Score="1" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e6KtD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e6KtD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Furniture Characters 2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are more of the Seal Characters.  These are much more complex than the first ones I posted.  Any help is greatly appreciated in translating to classical/modern Chinese.  Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23325" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T03:11:50.030" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T03:30:19.307" Title="Translate Seal Characters to Mandarin? Picture #2 (Characters identified: 青鸞舞鏡)" Tags="&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36242" CreationDate="2019-12-24T03:30:19.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;as droooze indicated, the characters are “青鸞舞鏡“ ( read from top right, bottom right, top left, bottom left).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the 國語辭典 has the entry: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000101996&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;青鸞&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the third explanation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;傳說青鸞喜歡對鏡起舞，故用以代稱鏡子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, i guess the seal is on frame of a mirror, is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T03:30:19.307" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35579" CreationDate="2019-12-24T06:00:47.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question :- &quot;What is the sword style here....?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As someone who loves reading Chinese martial arts novels, (武侠小说), and have practiced Chinese martial arts in my younger days, I can relate to the passage in question, and can opine that the passage on the face of it does not depict any particular &quot;style&quot; of swordplay, like 太極, 武當，八卦, 峨眉，少林， etc, but just some general pointers on wielding the Chinese long sword, 剑, effectively。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However having said that, and from the passage, 剑式要雄强圆厚....转折太过刚硬, which appears to be a contradiction in terms is actually an allusion to the Yin Yang, 阴阳 philosophy of an intrinsic interplay of seemingly opposing yet complementary forces, I would opine that the &quot;Style&quot; is more towards 太極, 武當, probably more of the latter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the repertoire of Chinese sword styles is so numerous and broad that even experts would argue over them due to its secretive nature and convoluted history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T06:00:47.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36245" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-24T06:41:34.153" Score="0" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;I face this problem a lot.  I want to use a verb, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://%E5%AF%BB%E6%89%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;寻找&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;to search&quot; (but it could be any other verb), and want to know if it's a transitive and/or intransitive verb in Chinese (i.e., whether or not it take an object); &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/8677/are-there-transitive-%E5%8F%8A%E7%89%A9%E5%8A%A8%E8%AF%8D-or-intransitive-%E4%B8%8D%E5%8F%8A%E7%89%A9%E5%8A%A8%E8%AF%8D-verbs-in-chinese&quot;&gt;it could be either&lt;/a&gt;.  For 寻找 we might say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我在寻找你 (transitive)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  我在寻找 (intransitive)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Baidu suggests they're both okay, and thus 寻找 is both transitive and intransitive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it seems like this should be possible to determine through a dictionary or in some other way, and not by constructing sentences ans searching for them in Baidu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I determine whether a Chinese verb is transitive and/or intransitive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English, it'll be in dictionaries, e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/seek&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;seek&lt;/a&gt;.  The same is not always true for Chinese, e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;https://cn.bing.com/dict/search?q=%E5%AF%BB%E6%89%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bing&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://dict.baidu.com/s?wd=%E5%AF%BB%E6%89%BE&amp;amp;ptype=zici&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T08:31:18.800" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T09:27:01.567" Title="How do I determine whether a Chinese verb is transitive and/or intransitive?" Tags="&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36245" CreationDate="2019-12-24T09:27:01.567" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a linguist so I cannot give you a definitive answer, but the concept of &quot;transitive/intransitive&quot; is not native to Chinese language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think most of the verbs you encounter can take an object. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even adjectives used as verbs can take an object. There are 使动，意动，为动, that make them so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-温暖人心的力量。（使动：&lt;strong&gt;使&lt;/strong&gt;人心温暖）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-我就奇怪他怎么知道的。（意动：&lt;strong&gt;对&lt;/strong&gt;他怎么知道的&lt;strong&gt;感到&lt;/strong&gt;奇怪）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-他还郁闷挂科的事呢！（为动：&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;挂科的事郁闷。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether there is a, nominal at least, object, is determined not only by the verb, but also by the whole sentence even the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the absence of an object, however, doesn't imply that the verb is intransitive, either. It can be omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-你刚才在找&lt;strong&gt;什么&lt;/strong&gt;？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-我在找&lt;strong&gt;我的笔记本&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-现在找到（笔记本）了吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-还没有找到（笔记本）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see, 找 does take an object, but we do not need to mention it every time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another case is 隐含被动(implied passive), where nominal subject is actually the object of the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-这台机器已经无法使用了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-原作早已在大火中焚毁了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-上次的作业还没有批改。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, there are verbs that indeed take no object. You can distinguish them easily by the meanings of them: if some action semantically needs no target, it doesn't take objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-她狂野地&lt;strong&gt;奔跑&lt;/strong&gt;在夐无人烟的草原上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-因为错剪了导线，炸弹当场&lt;strong&gt;爆炸&lt;/strong&gt;了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a verb can either take an object or not, it means differently in the two cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-雪花&lt;strong&gt;旋转&lt;/strong&gt;飞舞，不肯落地。（swirl）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-他&lt;strong&gt;旋转&lt;/strong&gt;瓶盖，开启了一瓶汽水。（unscrew）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T09:27:01.567" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35280" CreationDate="2019-12-24T15:08:21.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before reading this!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;—- I do not at all, believe that Oliver was using Little Meatball correctly! ——- sorry if my words confusing. I cleaned them up a bit to avoid misunderstandings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am saying below, is that he INTENTIONALLY used it Incorrectly... It’s a classic litterateur trick used to convey a much deeper message. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have studied this subject (Ancient Chinese Folk Religion) for 14 years. It is extremely fascinating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that  小肉球 is never used in the manner Oliver used it. That was obvious. He did it for a reason, and intentionally created the illusion, which many assume is correct. People in China have even assumed this is correct! I sent the video to a close friend of mine in Guangzhou, and she honestly did not know if it was correct. She initially assumed that maybe some in Northern China use it. Many lack the education or exposure to ancient texts to know how frequently 小肉球 is used in Ancient text! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked a colleague in Northern China, who confirmed that he has never heard or read of anyone using 小肉球 to describe a spoiled child. Even in Northern China he had never heard of anyone use 小肉球 to describe a spoiled child. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My point expressed in my initial post, is that there is a much, much deeper meaning! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The characters used are most frequently used in Chinese Literature to describe facial features. In more than a decade of research of Chinese literature, I have Never read those characters to describe a spoiled child. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are however used to describe eyes of an angry or intense man in Ancient Chinese Folk religion, quite frequently actually! The irony is that most Chinese people who’s haven’t studied ancient texts, would not even know this. Please do not misunderstand what I have written. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I provided an excerpt from a very common book frequently used in Chinese universities that teach about ancient Chinese performance. Sociological and Art majors I specific know how frequently  小肉球 is used. These students and professors are who Oliver targeted as the prime audience. He targeted this audience, because they WILL think about this. They will KNOW exactly why so many people in today’s China do not know how common it is used. I will not go into specifics because it is a VERY controversial and complicated subject. What I can tell you with confidence, is that the impact of making this particular audience realize the irony, is going to have a profound impact, far more than any gun or soap box ever will. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can provide 100+ references of the characters 小肉球 used to describe eyes, I am more than happy if anyone would like some literary references for their particular study. I find this to be a brilliant use of irony and respect Oliver for it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that I have made myself clear, my original post is below... Please do not misunderstand it. I find it laughable that someone gave it a downvote. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;..............&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a great question! From my literary eye, this is a very, very clever use of the expression. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At face value the most obvious accord our mind develops on the matter is exactly what the OP described. I saw the show and can confirm that it was a direct statement with a seemingly clear meaning. They simply claimed that meatball described a small, round boy, seemingly squeezed into his surroundings. That’s where it gets interesting, though. It only seems true, when one isn’t a native Chinese speaker. We simply accept it as fact because it seems likely. Accepting these things as fact is a very common mental shortcut, that authors use to introduce a surprising plot twist. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contrary to what one might assume from Oliver, there is a much deeper meaning from one audience to the next. The mass majority will incorrectly assume that  小肉球 is used in the matter Oliver described. Those however who have studied ancient chimes religious performance will see IRONY.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The start of the realization is in knowing simply that 小肉球, as a descriptor is not an overwhelmingly common expression, and outside of literature and descriptive language isn’t used very frequently at all. Occasionally used in the North to describe someone temperament, just as it was used in the old days.. ironically, Many simply assume that someone, somewhere uses it in the matter they described. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Little Emperor (小皇帝) is used to describe a small, round boy, seemingly squeezed into his surroundings. The reason being that their grandparents (generally) regard it as a sign of health. During their time as children, being well fed meant that one escaped the carnage of hunger. It’s a term used is a wide variety of contexts to describe the same general scenario. Usually jokingly and/or affectionately, in regard to one child policy. Loving grandparents use it to show their love for their grandchildren who they see as healthy, not spoiled. Some use it to make fun of this ironic situation where the child is actually obese or bratty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, onto why this strikes me as a cunning use of 小肉球. The reason is both literary and historical in nature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern Chinese literature, the term is used occasionally. It’s a powerful descriptor that readily presents a literal image in the readers mind. Tabloids and magazines sometimes use it in the press to express a persons temperament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The irony comes when we look through the lens of History, and compare it with modern history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original use of  小肉球 in Chinese Folk Religion, was based on a combination of more than a couple belief structures. The deities often represented familial ancestors and heavenly figures. Their personalities where described with facial features in particular. Stories and proverbs, where frequently told through performance and display art (masks). They sought to convey ancient wisdom as divinely inspired, which demanded a certain uniformity to detail. In this way, display art connected with other scholarly written/verbal proverbs. The features where described using certain words and characters, uniformly between the various structures. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both art, and ancient literature, many of the same proverbs were communicated. When it came to art, the devil was in the detail. The finer details of an individual, were taught as a way to judge others. For instance, a persons temperament, was based on his facial features. The ancients used 小肉球 to describe eyeballs of a specific nature.  In fact it is still today used to describe eyes belonging to a specific nature relating to many forms of performance/written art. Ancient Chinese artists took their expressions very seriously. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 云南贵州戏曲By 王丽, we get a brief glimpse of how 小肉球 (meatball) was crafted into a specific face. Here is an excerpt from the chapter about masks use in Religious Performances: “还有的面具刻有猿牙，分上猿牙、下猿牙和上下对生猿牙几&#xA;种，这是俊戏特有的产物。面类的刻法也很别致，武将面部肌肉被刻成两个肉疙将，像是满脸横肉的样子。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we see the term is used to describe intense beady eyes; As in “形成两个小肉球.” The chance of this term ever being used to describe a chubby boy is slim to none. (That’s the plot twist).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whoever authored that Joke at Oliver’s show, had to have known this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now why is it relevant? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1949, the Communist Party of China, did not allow politicians serving to practice religion. The Cultural Revolution was firmly against anything “old.” From mid 60s to mid 70s, many of the ancient religious traditions were literally destroyed. Surviving elements were forced underground or smuggled out of the country. Most were smuggled into Taiwan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some specific Chinese Folk Religion elements managed to conform too and pass on much of its wisdom despite the cultural revolution, by adapting to the times. They did this by dropping the insinuation and teachings that the beliefs were “religious.” Instead they related it too Emperors and famous scholars whom the communist party viewed as important aspects of history they should preserve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this light, more than half of China’s population some how managed to continue their belief structure of Ancient Chinese Folk Religion. They stories carry a very heroic appeal that kids are told usually through word of mouth. The new generation however has almost all but forgotten how much Folk Religion influenced these stories. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, the party officially recognizes a hand full of religions (5). Emperors were/are not generally described as religious, rather spiritual. Many of whom believed to be immortal. Not today’s China, a small group of those who study ancient performance art, are starting to revive the knowledge of how related ancient folk religion is to the spiritual/astrological beliefs held by today’s generation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author of Oliver’s joke, injected a plausible assumption, and used it too describe/compare the Ancient Folk Religion, with today’s more common beliefs about spirituality. He did that by using a word that is used to specifically describe ancient Chinese Religious masks. Many of the masks were lost during the cultural revolution, but many also survived. The knowledge is slowly reviving from the ashes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is clearly a use of a common literary trick, false assumption / plot twist, to connect a tragedy (destruction of ancient religion), with the Communist One-Child Policy. Those who study ancient performance will see how the policies completely changed the understanding of Ancient Religion, all of which leads them to through clever irony, to see how in today’s China they are using Little Emperor to describe how the one child policy led to the commonality of spoiled children. The very thing that Communism changed views of (Emperors being spiritual rather Religious) is now ironically used to describe the product of other Communist policies. Oliver brought a light to that irony, and specifically showed it to some who will become influential people in Chinese society. Literary tricks like this have absolutely profound effects of future generations. It shows how no government can completely quash history, and it makes us feel humor. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ps***Sorry for spelling/grammar errors. Typing with my thumbs. I’ll try to edit later on my laptop,***&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please message me if you have any more thoughts or questions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best Regards,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Christopher J. Hoffman&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Please do not copy or repost any of this content without my consent, thanks!-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23330" LastEditorUserId="23330" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T01:29:20.403" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T01:29:20.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35280" CreationDate="2019-12-24T17:00:16.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not used in this way at all. Even if it is used at all, I can only imagine it to be used to describe a newborn as cute, in a positive way. And I can't think of any word close to this meaning that could lead to a mistranslation. And from your comment, you said that the video is &quot;insinuating that it is in fact a common enough Chinese term&quot;. Well, I wouldn't trust too much of it for language learning, given the fact that western media knows surprisingly little about Chinese culture and society, let alone a talk show like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible, as Z.D.Chen suggested, that John Oliver or whoever wrote the speech intentionally translates some word like 小宝贝 or 小心肝 that neither means &quot;fat&quot; nor &quot;spoiled&quot; to &quot;little meatball&quot; to highlight his argument that &quot;one-child policy could lead to child obesity&quot;. Hardly would someone check a translation from a youtube video anyway. Well, except you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastEditorUserId="21960" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T17:12:49.420" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T17:12:49.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36251" CreationDate="2019-12-24T19:23:14.973" Score="2" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;What’s the difference? I saw this sentence and was confused why there’s two 问s：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等他回来的时候问问他。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T01:03:57.133" Title="Difference between 问问 and 问" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36249" CreationDate="2019-12-24T22:17:02.607" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my answer to this question: &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/31120/what-is-the-purpose-of-verb-reduplication&quot;&gt;What is the purpose of verb reduplication?&lt;/a&gt;&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;phrases like 笑笑，看看，走走 or 吃吃 are verb reduplication, it serves to indicate the verb is in a &lt;strong&gt;slight degree&lt;/strong&gt; or a &lt;strong&gt;casual manner&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fundamental meaning of the sentence is not change by the verb reduplication, but the tone of the sentence is changed by it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;等他回来的时候问他。- &quot;ask him when he comes back&quot; (level or blunt tone; in a assertive, commanding or requesting manner)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;等他回来的时候问问他。-  &quot;ask him when he comes back&quot; (softer tone, less assertive, commanding or requesting)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reduplicate the verb 问 here is like adding filler word like &quot;try&quot; or &quot;let's&quot; in  English sentences to make them sound less assertive. e.g. &quot;(&lt;em&gt;try&lt;/em&gt;) ask him when he comes back&quot; ; &quot; (&lt;em&gt;let's&lt;/em&gt;) ask him when he comes back &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T00:31:45.337" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T00:31:45.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36249" CreationDate="2019-12-24T23:57:18.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等他回来的时候问问他 // &lt;em&gt;We can check with him when he's back.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等他回来的时候问他 // &lt;em&gt;Ask him when he's back.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;问问他: &lt;em&gt;ask him to see if he knows&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;问他: &lt;em&gt;ask him&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T01:03:57.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36253" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36255" CreationDate="2019-12-25T01:27:40.333" Score="1" ViewCount="475" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have both an older sister and a younger sister, so I often find myself saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有一个姐姐和一个妹妹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility is something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是三个姐妹中中间的一个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But both very long winded.  And this second one is hard to parse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What is the most succinct way of explaining that I have an older sister and a younger sister?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking I could just say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有两个姐妹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and whoever is listening would logically infer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if I meant two older sisters, I would say 我有两个姐姐, therefore (since I didn't say that) it does not mean I have two older sisters,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if I meant two younger sisters, I would say 我有两个妹妹, therefore (since I didn't say that) it does not mean I have two younger sisters, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;therefore, the only remaining possibility is that I have an older sister and a younger sister.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But maybe it's only me that thinks like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T05:09:37.117" Title="What is the most succinct way of explaining that I have an older sister and a younger sister?" Tags="&lt;equivalent-phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36253" CreationDate="2019-12-25T02:05:31.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我有一姊一妹 (I have one older and one younger sister)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, using literary form reduce the length of a sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I have three older sisters, one older brother and one younger sister&quot; can be translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我有三个姐姐，一个哥哥和一个妹妹&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我有三姊一兄和一妹&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;She is the mother of three sons and two daughters&quot;  can be translated as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她是三个儿子和两个女儿的母亲&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;她是三子两女之母&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我有两个姐妹&lt;/em&gt; (I have two sisters) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is ambiguous. 姐妹 means '(older or young) sister' or 'sisters' in Chinese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我是三个姐妹中中间的一个&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simpler to say 我在三姐妹中排第二&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T03:34:41.060" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T03:34:41.060" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36253" CreationDate="2019-12-25T02:05:33.153" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有一个姐姐和一个妹妹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是三个姐妹中中间的一个&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is usually expressed in another way: &quot;我家一共姐仨，我是老二&quot;, or &quot;我妈(我爸)有三个闺女，我是老二&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有两个姐妹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might work, but I don't often hear it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And by the way, maybe related to his question or not: If one says &quot;我有两个兄弟&quot;， it often means he has two younger brothers (and gives no information about how many older brothers he has), but not two brothers (in all). As fas as I know &quot;姐妹&quot; does not have such usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T02:05:33.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36253" CreationDate="2019-12-25T04:43:29.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we're going for succinctness in speech you could opt for something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我有个姐、有个妹。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that this is the most natural &amp;amp; shortest way to express this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T05:09:37.117" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T05:09:37.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36257" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-25T10:08:16.500" Score="2" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;手尾 is a very common Cantonese term, I would like to know what Mandarin term can be the equivalent of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following are from CantoDict dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/46732/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;手尾&lt;/a&gt;: (to tie up) loose ends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/46574/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;冇手尾&lt;/a&gt;: fail to finish what one has started; not cleaning up after oneself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/40266/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;跟手尾&lt;/a&gt;: to fix sb else's screwed-up work; to pick up someone's unfinished job&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/48034/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;執手尾&lt;/a&gt;: to put things in order; to clean up [華]: 收拾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/49371/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;手尾長&lt;/a&gt;: a problem likely to drag on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唔好咁&lt;strong&gt;冇手尾&lt;/strong&gt;: Don't &lt;strong&gt;leave behind loose ends/ unfinished job&lt;/strong&gt; like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唔好要人&lt;strong&gt;跟(你)手尾&lt;/strong&gt;: Don't make people &lt;strong&gt;fix (your) screwed-up work&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你走先啦，我&lt;strong&gt;執埋手尾&lt;/strong&gt;就會走㗎啦 : You can leave now, I'll leave after I've &lt;strong&gt;put every things in order&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整傷脊椎骨就&lt;strong&gt;手尾長&lt;/strong&gt;啦: The problem would &lt;strong&gt;likely to drag on&lt;/strong&gt; if you injury your spine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no problem translating the examples above to Mandarin (first to English, then to Mandarin), But I have problem pinpointing a single equivalent term in Mandarin. Is there one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe 手尾 is so uniquely Cantonese, it cannot be translated to Mandarin as a single term, and have to be translated differently depend on the context?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;手= hand ; 尾 = the last of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;手尾&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; literally means &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;remaining work on hand&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;唔好咁&lt;strong&gt;冇手尾&lt;/strong&gt;: Don't be so &lt;strong&gt;disregarding to the remaining work on hand&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;你走先啦，我&lt;strong&gt;執埋手尾&lt;/strong&gt;就會走㗎啦: You can leave now, I'll leave after I've &lt;strong&gt;finished the remaining work on hand&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;唔好要人&lt;strong&gt;跟(你)手尾&lt;/strong&gt;: Don't make people &lt;strong&gt;follow up on (your) remaining work on hand&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;整傷脊椎骨就&lt;strong&gt;手尾長&lt;/strong&gt;啦: if you injury your spine, &lt;strong&gt;your remaining work on hand will last a long time&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T22:46:52.677" Title="Is there a Mandarin equivalent of the Cantonese term &quot;手尾&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36258" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36259" CreationDate="2019-12-25T10:14:30.673" Score="3" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chinese name for the Pythagorean Theorem is 勾股定理&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a right angle triangle ABC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let side AB be the shortest side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let AC be the second shortest side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BC is therefore the longest side and the hypotenuse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese the side AB is called 勾, the side AC is called 股 and the side BC is called 弦.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In English the two shorter sides are called “legs”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why were the two “legs” called 勾 and 股 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It makes sense that the hypotenuse is called 弦 as the triangle is usually drawn such that the hypotenuse is diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21462" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T18:21:51.813" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T18:21:51.813" Title="The origin of 勾 and 股 in The Pythagorean Theorem 勾股定理" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36258" CreationDate="2019-12-25T11:22:53.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;in ancient china, the right angle triangle is named &quot;勾股形&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the 國語辭典 has this entry: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000069333&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;勾股&lt;/a&gt;, explained as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我國古代稱直角三角形為「勾股形」。其直角旁的短邊稱為「勾」，長邊稱為「股」，對著直角的邊稱為「弦」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the short side near the right angle is called &quot;勾&quot;, the longer side near the right angle is called &quot;股&quot;; and the side opposite the right angle is called &quot;弦&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;people used something like &quot;勾股&quot;, &quot;勾股之法&quot; to describe the equation a²+b²=c²; nowadays, a hybrid naming is used &quot;勾股&quot; (the ancient chinese name) + &quot;定理&quot; (translation of theorem).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;btw, the character 句 (u+53e5) and 勾 (u+52fe) mutually borrowed in ancient time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T11:22:53.867" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36257" CreationDate="2019-12-25T22:46:52.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To express “finish remaining work on hand” can use 收尾 in mandarin. And I think this is the word sounds closest to 手尾。So for 我執埋手尾就會走㗎啦, you can say 我做完收尾工作就走啦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唔好咁冇手尾 can be expressed as （做事）不要有头无尾&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;唔好要人跟(你)手尾 can be expressed as （做事）不要让别人帮你善后（or “擦屁股” ）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;整傷脊椎骨就手尾長啦 probably has no similar expression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T22:46:52.677" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36262" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36264" CreationDate="2019-12-26T02:15:44.673" Score="0" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;标准教程HSK4下 (p.79) has a &quot;complete the sentence&quot; exercise:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然这是两棵不同的植物，...。（&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%88%B0%E5%BA%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;到底&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Although these are two different plants, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, the task is to complete the sentence using 到底 in a natural way.  (My attempt was a disaster, so there's probably no point in repeating it here; it'll distract more than help.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surprisingly, my teacher also seemed to struggle answering this question in a natural way.  The problem is that the sentence talks about plants, and 到底 is used for emphasis.  We thought that only botanists might be passionate enough about plants to use 到底.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Using 到底, how could we naturally complete the sentence 虽然这是两棵不同的植物，...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still have no idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T02:57:22.530" Title="Using 到底, how could we naturally complete the sentence 虽然这是两棵不同的植物，...?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;sentence&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36262" CreationDate="2019-12-26T03:05:16.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you start the first part of a sentence with a 虽然 (although), the second part would  always start with a &amp;quot;but&amp;quot; (但/卻)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;虽然这是两棵不同的植物，但[&lt;strong&gt;到底&lt;/strong&gt;]也都是兰科植物。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although these are two different plants, they are both in the same orchid family [&lt;strong&gt;after all&lt;/strong&gt;].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(两者都会患只有兰科植物会患的病)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Both would suffer from disease that only infect orchid plants)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T03:20:46.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36262" CreationDate="2019-12-26T03:38:07.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然这是两棵不同的植物，但我们&lt;strong&gt;到底&lt;/strong&gt;应该怎样来区分呢？// Though these are two different plants, how &lt;strong&gt;on earth&lt;/strong&gt; should we distinguish them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="23348" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T02:57:22.530" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T02:57:22.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36262" CreationDate="2019-12-26T08:06:40.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然这是两棵不同的植物，但是我看不出&lt;strong&gt;到底&lt;/strong&gt;有什么不同。= ...I can't see how on earth they are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21960" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T08:06:40.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36267" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36268" CreationDate="2019-12-26T11:10:31.727" Score="0" ViewCount="51" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BB%A4%E4%BA%BA%E6%83%8A%E8%AE%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;令人惊讶&lt;/a&gt; is a curious and fairly common phrase, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;关于人体&lt;strong&gt;令人惊讶&lt;/strong&gt;的事实 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iqiyi.com/v_19rux1n2b4.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  About [关于] human body [人体] surprising [令人惊讶] facts [事实]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if using 令人惊讶 requires that people have actually been surprised by whatever is being referred to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does 令人惊讶 require that someone actually be surprised?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As opposed to hypothetically making someone surprised were they to be made aware (based on the author's judgement).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T22:48:46.553" Title="Does 令人惊讶 require that someone actually be surprised?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36267" CreationDate="2019-12-26T11:17:46.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does 令人惊讶 require that someone actually be surprised?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. Just like &quot;surprising&quot;, it is used to describe unexpected or unusual things/facts, which may have a potential to make someone surprised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T11:17:46.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36267" CreationDate="2019-12-26T11:27:15.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people use this way, although I don't like it personally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I read it. I think it can be click bait if I don't feel that it is surprising. Some news title really have tendency to use some word that catch people attention. For example something like this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?ei=lpsEXsWQMJKVr7wP6aO50Ak&amp;amp;q=%E8%90%AC%E4%BA%BA%E7%9C%8B%E5%82%BB%E4%BA%86%E7%9C%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;萬人看傻了眼&lt;/a&gt;. You can find a lot of news title include &quot;萬人看傻了眼&quot; or something like that. Some editors will put some words on news title regardless of whether or not actually so many people experience shock or not. In this example, If I feel the news is boring ,I may feel that it is click bait.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="23311" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T12:59:54.543" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T12:59:54.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36267" CreationDate="2019-12-26T12:34:05.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be clear to you if you take 令人惊讶的事实 as &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;the fact that makes people surprised&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It just works like &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;attributive clause/phrase&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T22:48:46.553" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T22:48:46.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28913" CreationDate="2019-12-26T12:40:41.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果没有老师，我们——所有学生——就绝不可能在听众面前说中文。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that &quot;all the students&quot; must be translated and not omitted; here it is used for emphasis.  And &quot;would never be able to &quot; is 绝不可能。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23337" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T03:32:44.637" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T03:32:44.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36272" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36281" CreationDate="2019-12-26T19:38:05.147" Score="1" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my knowledge 是 means &quot;is&quot; and the usage of 的 that I am familiar with is that it is like a possession particle. I don't understand how either character functions in the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你是怎么学习汉语的？&#xA;Nǐ shì zěnme xuéxí hànyǔ de?&#xA;How do you study Chinese?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I took a blind stab at translating the English to Chinese, I would have went with something like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;你怎么学习汉语？&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this attempt incorrect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I understand the grammar of the original Chinese sentence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T23:10:30.817" Title="Parsing grammar of 你是怎么学习汉语的？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36272" CreationDate="2019-12-26T21:09:11.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one of those questions that a native speaker with a sound grammatical knowledge might be able to answer better, but from my point of view (as a native speaker with little grammatical knowledge), I think the best way to explain would be to show what the difference is to the listener.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you may or may not know, the particle 是 is not always necessary from a grammatical perspective, especially when there is no ambiguity around the various components of the sentence, so grammatically both &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是怎么学习汉语的？AND 你怎么学习汉语？are fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone asked you 你是怎么学习汉语的？(i.e. you are not reading this sentence from a page of a book), then it is more likely that they are putting an emphasis on the process in which you have managed to learn/acquire the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 你怎么学习汉语？can mean one of two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do you study Chinese? OR&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How come you study Chinese? (as opposed to studying Japanese)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, 你是怎么学习汉语的？can also have this second meaning, but this would fall into the category of a very awkward way of asking this question, which is more natural without the 是 if you want to imply this meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way to be certain is to ascertain the exact context of the sentence/conversation (as is often the case with some Asian languages). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example sentences&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有很多不同的语言, 你怎么学习汉语的？&#xA;There are many different languages, how come you study Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有很多不同的语言, 你是怎么学习汉语的？&#xA;Probably should be using 为什么 instead of 怎么 when accompanied by 是&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你说的很流利, 你是怎么学习汉语的？&#xA;You speak fluently, how do you study Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2725" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T21:09:11.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36272" CreationDate="2019-12-26T21:48:59.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;你是怎么学习汉语的？ implies &lt;strong&gt;past tense&lt;/strong&gt;, namely &lt;em&gt;In what way &lt;strong&gt;did&lt;/strong&gt; you learn Chinese?&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;In what way &lt;strong&gt;have&lt;/strong&gt; you learned Chinese?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你怎么学习汉语？is a way asking &lt;em&gt;How &lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt; you learn Chinese&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;How &lt;strong&gt;do&lt;/strong&gt; you learn Chinese&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T21:48:59.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36272" CreationDate="2019-12-26T21:59:09.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你 means you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, 是 is used to determine something. 你怎么学习汉语的？ can be complete sentence too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, 怎么 showed that you ask how to do something(学习汉语).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;学习 means learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;汉语 means Chinese language. In this example, 汉语 is something you want to learn since you asked it in the question and appear after 学习.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T21:59:09.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36276" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36277" CreationDate="2019-12-27T01:10:51.103" Score="6" ViewCount="1166" Body="&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BA%A7%E7%94%9F&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;产生&lt;/a&gt; (chǎnshēng)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;病毒是怎样&lt;strong&gt;产生&lt;/strong&gt;的?&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/128324492.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;How are viruses produced&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;导体中就会&lt;strong&gt;产生&lt;/strong&gt;电流&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%94%B5%E7%9A%84%E4%BA%A7%E7%94%9F%E6%96%B9%E6%B3%95/19479932&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;[The] conductor will produce electric current.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%9F%E4%BA%A7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;生产&lt;/a&gt; (shēngchǎn)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;操作人员对自己&lt;strong&gt;生产&lt;/strong&gt;的产品要做到自检&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%94%9F%E4%BA%A7%E7%8E%B0%E5%9C%BA%E7%AE%A1%E7%90%86/6789461&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;workers regarding their own produced goods need to perform self-checks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;巧克力可用于&lt;strong&gt;生产&lt;/strong&gt;时增加体力，红糖是产后补血之用&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.pcbaby.com.cn/qzbd/1217835.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;chocolate can be used &lt;s&gt;to produce increased&lt;/s&gt; during labor to increase physical strength, brown sugar is used postnatally to increase blood&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I originally mistranslated the above sentence; see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36278/8099&quot;&gt;fefe's answer&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are both verbs meaning &amp;quot;to produce&amp;quot; or something like this.  However, I can barely find a difference.  My impression is that 产生 is bit more general than 生产, where 生产 is better used for factories and companies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel fairly sure there's some distinction here I'm missing...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What examples highlight the distinction between 产生 and 生产?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking not just for random examples, but examples where switching from 产生 to 生产 makes a meaningful difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T12:49:48.187" Title="What examples highlight the distinction between 产生 and 生产, both meaning &quot;to produce&quot;?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36276" CreationDate="2019-12-27T02:07:25.127" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;生产 refers to human kind activities; i.e. to &lt;em&gt;produce&lt;/em&gt; / &lt;em&gt;manufacture&lt;/em&gt; / &lt;em&gt;make&lt;/em&gt; / &lt;em&gt;create&lt;/em&gt; (as the effect of human subject will).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;产生 refers to natural activities; i.e. &lt;em&gt;generate&lt;/em&gt; / &lt;em&gt;come into being&lt;/em&gt; (as the effect of some kind process).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a side note 生产 could mean &lt;em&gt;parturition&lt;/em&gt; too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the examples you've showed,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;病毒是怎样产生的?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  导体中就会产生电流&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 产生 are used for the context not containing subjective initiative, especially the intent of &lt;em&gt;to make&lt;/em&gt; / &lt;em&gt;create&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;操作人员对自己生产的产品要做到自检&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生产 is used for the intent of human kind activities, i.e. &lt;em&gt;manufactured&lt;/em&gt; by the operator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;巧克力可用于生产时增加体力，红糖是产后补血之用&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生产 means &lt;em&gt;parturition&lt;/em&gt; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2020-02-29T12:49:48.187" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T12:49:48.187" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36276" CreationDate="2019-12-27T02:08:11.587" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/produce&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;collins&lt;/a&gt;, to produce has the following two meanings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;To produce something means to cause it to happen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;If you produce something, you make or create it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is 产生 and the second is 生产.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for your last example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;巧克力可用于生产时增加体力，红糖是产后补血之用[src]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;chocolate can be used to produce increased physical strength, brown sugar is used postnatally to increase blood&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation is wrong. Here &quot;生产&quot; means to give birth to a child, so the translation should be: &quot;Chocolate can be used to increase physical strength during labor, ....&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T02:08:11.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36276" CreationDate="2019-12-27T02:46:29.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;An example where switching from 产生 to 生产 makes a meaningful difference:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们公司最近生产的产品将会产生影响到公司未来的收益:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们公司   ---  our Company's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最近生产的产品  ---  recently manufactured product(s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;将会   ---  would&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;产生影响到   ---  produce / make an impact&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;公司未来的收益   --- on the Company's future income.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps someone would like to improve on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T02:46:29.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36276" CreationDate="2019-12-27T04:02:25.510" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;songyuanyao's answer pretty much sum up the difference between the two terms, I would like to add some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;生产 = [&lt;strong&gt;manufacture&lt;/strong&gt;; produce] (by human with intention)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;产生 = [&lt;strong&gt;generate&lt;/strong&gt;; cause; create; produce] (naturally or unintentionally)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;人类[&lt;strong&gt;生产&lt;/strong&gt;]的机器无法对抗天灾[&lt;strong&gt;产生&lt;/strong&gt;]的力量&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Human [produced/ &lt;strong&gt;manufactured&lt;/strong&gt;] machines cannot fight natural disasters [produced/ &lt;strong&gt;generated&lt;/strong&gt;] forces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[&lt;strong&gt;生产&lt;/strong&gt;]水泥所[&lt;strong&gt;产生&lt;/strong&gt;]的污染&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pollution [caused/ &lt;strong&gt;created&lt;/strong&gt;/ produced] from [producing/ &lt;strong&gt;manufacturing&lt;/strong&gt;] cement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T04:24:54.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36272" CreationDate="2019-12-27T04:26:21.133" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The trick here is that 是...的 is &lt;em&gt;wrapping&lt;/em&gt; the phrase 怎么学习汉语 and adds emphasis to the &lt;em&gt;how&lt;/em&gt; part of the phrase. The 是...的 is fairly subtle and there are a few decent articles on it online &lt;a href=&quot;https://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/shi-de-construction/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;like this one&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As another responder mentioned there is a bit of a past tense sense to the construction because it's implied that you're asking for details about something that happened, so the translation is kind of like &quot;How did you learn mandarin?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23340" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T04:33:06.277" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T04:33:06.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36272" CreationDate="2019-12-27T04:39:13.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;你是怎么学习汉语的？AND 你怎么学习汉语？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My take:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你怎么学习汉语?   ---   How do you study Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是怎么学习汉语的?   ---   Show me how you study Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the latter example, the 是 and the 的 implies asking for more relevant details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T04:39:13.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36276" CreationDate="2019-12-27T05:17:47.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan 生產 means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Give birth. For example: 這個女生，在今年六月的時候生產。 in English: This female gave birth on June this year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Produce somethings for usage of human activity.&#xA;for example: 這家公司，生產了3000劑的疫苗。 in English: This company produced 3000 doses of vaccine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;產生 means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Give birth.(archaic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Become exist. For example: 產生糾紛 in English: Conflict occurred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000123019&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;產生&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000132465&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;生產&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="23311" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T06:05:23.723" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T06:05:23.723" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7000" CreationDate="2019-12-27T09:36:51.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is all about regional, dialect preference and practice. So there is no &quot;official&quot;, &quot;common&quot; way to greet someone &quot;good morning&quot; in Chinese, whether in mainland China or else where in the world. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in the English speaking world, stretching from the UK to the US to Australia and NZ, you will find numerous ways how this start-of-day greeting is made or unmade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, perhaps due to sheer idiosyncratic reticence, (which is a common human trait), as usually nothing much else is said after the brief morning greeting, people may reduce a &quot;good morning, how are you&quot; to just &quot;mornin&quot;, (perhaps followed by a slight dip of the head), and everyone goes their own private way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly the Chinese just reduce the more communicative full-length &quot;早上好 or 早安&quot; to just a curtly 早, &quot;mornin&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, as far as I am aware, 早晨 is used mostly by the Cantonese, pronounced in Cantonese of course.        &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T09:36:51.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36276" CreationDate="2019-12-27T10:39:12.840" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It has to have the &lt;strong&gt;cause/condition&lt;/strong&gt; to 产生 something, while we &lt;strong&gt;develop tools and procedures&lt;/strong&gt; to 生产 something. 生产 can also mean &lt;em&gt;to give birth&lt;/em&gt; along the same lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;氧气和氢气经过化学反应可以产生水。// 氧气，氢气，经过化学反应 are conditions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这家公司生产食品 // 公司 has production lines with all the tools and procedures to 生产 food.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T10:39:12.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36272" CreationDate="2019-12-27T23:10:30.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is oversimplified to think 是 just translates as 'is'. Also, analyzing a chunk of language separated from its context can often lead to misunderstanding. (Ask any politician!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是： 日 + 正&lt;br&gt;&#xA;是： 日 + 止 + 一&lt;br&gt;&#xA;的： 白 + 勺 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是：(in the light of) the sun 日 right, true 正&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是：（in the light of） the sun 日 a foot  止 stops at the line 一 ： right, true&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;的：(in the light of) the rising sun 白 (clearly see what is in) the spoon 勺&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是····的： a double dose of 'rising sun'. Maybe that's where this idea of emphasis comes from!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是非： right and wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you study Chinese?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你怎么学习汉语？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你如何学习汉语？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do you study Chinese?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你为什么学习汉语？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T23:10:30.817" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36287" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-28T04:03:02.230" Score="0" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope someone could help me understand if this is something. Its on a Budddha statue I purchased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xW2fx.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xW2fx.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23347" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T02:39:25.687" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T02:39:25.687" Title="Unknown meaning of a carving on the back of a Buddha statue (Character identified: 朱)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36288" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36290" CreationDate="2019-12-28T04:57:56.237" Score="0" ViewCount="46" Body="&lt;p&gt;Continuing from parts &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35746/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-and-the-revolutionary-new-technology&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35763/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-was-fat-when-she-was-young&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35780/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwangs-father-takes-her-to-the-doctor&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35870/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-gets-an-injection-from-the-doctor&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36003/writing-critique-request-the-almost-imperceptible-effects-of-zhou-ziwangs-inje&quot;&gt;5&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36111/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-loses-weight-just-like-everyone-else-nowa&quot;&gt;6&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36218/writing-critique-request-welcome-to-the-world-of-dna-editing&quot;&gt;7&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这样的技术变得&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%99%AE%E9%81%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;普遍&lt;/a&gt;之后，我爸解释它的&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%A7%98%E5%8F%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秘史&lt;/a&gt;。只是一些科学家研究的追求，那时候无法想象将来会&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%AF%BC%E8%87%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;导致&lt;/a&gt;现在的「DNA改造&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%A4%A7%E9%9D%A9%E5%91%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大革命&lt;/a&gt;」。因为最初基础研究&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%BF%9B%E5%B1%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;进展&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BC%93%E6%85%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;缓慢&lt;/a&gt;，所以他们的期望很低。突然有一天我们收到重大的消息：一个无名的科学家发明了使用电脑创造&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%9B%8B%E7%99%BD%E8%B4%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蛋白质&lt;/a&gt;一个方法，就像&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%88%86%E5%AD%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;分子&lt;/a&gt;的&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%89%E7%BB%B4%E6%89%93%E5%8D%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;三维打印&lt;/a&gt;一样，TA发明了如何把电脑上的&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B0%A8%E5%9F%BA%E9%85%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;氨基酸&lt;/a&gt;序列自动地实现真实的蛋白质。当时，和那些科学家立即的&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%A2%84%E6%B5%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;预测&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%80%E8%87%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;一致&lt;/a&gt;，不久之后，发现了这项发明显然的使用：可编程的DNA，或者现在&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%90%8D%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;名为&lt;/a&gt;「DNA改造」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please critique my writing. New words for me are in links. I'm at an &amp;quot;almost mastered HSK4&amp;quot; level. The narrative is from a person in the present (Zhou Ziwang 周子望) with an unusual past.  Her father was involved in &amp;quot;DNA editing&amp;quot; research, and now that it's everywhere he explains the backstory from his perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After a lot of &lt;a href=&quot;https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/umming+and+ahing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;umming and ahing&lt;/a&gt;, I opted for the name DNA改造 which is modified from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36220/8099&quot;&gt;one of Tang Ho's suggestions&lt;/a&gt;: 基因改造.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lots of new words this time.  It's often hard to choose the right one.  E.g. 名为, 称作, or 称为.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为最初基础研究进展缓慢 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure why, but this feels ugly, but it means &amp;quot;Because at first the basic research was proceeding slowly...&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当时，和那些科学家立即的预测一致，...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is intended to mean &amp;quot;at that time, in accordance with the scientists predictions, ...&amp;quot;.  (Not all scientists, just the few involved in the research.)  It's a bit clunky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(I beg you not to point out the impossibility of all this.  It's just a story.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At some point I'd like to collate these [after editing them] and post it on meta.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T15:32:05.990" Title="Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang's father's explanation of how we reached a &quot;DNA editing revolution&quot;" Tags="&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2048" CreationDate="2019-12-28T06:31:52.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My take:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(a)  我五分钟后就回来 --- I'll be back in 5 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;后&quot; here does not mean &quot;after&quot; 5 minutes, but after whatever time I left the place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(b)  我在五分钟之内就回来 ---   I'll be back within 5 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;在...之内&quot;, generally to denote &quot;within&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(c)  我五分钟过后就回来   ---   I'll be back after 5 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;过后&quot; denotes passing &quot;beyond&quot; the event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T06:31:52.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36288" CreationDate="2019-12-28T06:55:10.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is how I would write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这样的技术变得普遍之后， --&gt; 这技术普遍了之后，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我爸解释它的秘史。 --&gt; 我爸說出了一段秘史。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;只是一些科学家研究的追求，--&gt; 这技术的誕生，原因只是一些科学家对科学研究的(狂热)追求&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;那时候无法想象将来会导致现在的「DNA改造大革命」。 --&gt; 那时候，人们根本无法想象，这项研究将会导致现在的「DNA改造大革命」。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;因为最初基础研究进展缓慢，所以他们的期望很低。--&gt; 由于最初的基础研究进展缓慢，他们的期望都很低。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;突然有一天我们收到重大的消息：--&gt; 突然有一天，我们收到一个重大的消息：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个无名的科学家发明了使用电脑创造蛋白质一个方法，--&gt; 一位无名的科学家，发明了一个使用电脑创造蛋白质的方法，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就像分子的三维打印一样，TA发明了如何把电脑上的氨基酸序列自动地实现真实的蛋白质。--&gt; 就像將分子，以三维打印機去打印一样，他发現了如何把电脑上的「氨基酸序列」自动地合成出真实蛋白质的方法。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当时，和那些科学家立即的预测一致，--&gt; 和当时那些科学家的预测一致，&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不久之后，发现了这项发明显然的使用： --&gt; 不久之后，他們找到了这项发明的，最明显的使用法：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可编程的DNA，或者现在名为「DNA改造」。 --&gt; 「可编程的 DNA」，即是现在(我们口中)的「DNA 改造」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T15:32:05.990" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T15:32:05.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36288" CreationDate="2019-12-28T12:58:17.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For &quot;蛋白质一个方法&quot;, I think &quot;蛋白质的方法&quot; or &quot;蛋白质的一个方法&quot; can be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;发明了如何把电脑上的氨基酸序列自动地实现真实的蛋白质&quot;, I think &quot;发現了如何自动地把电脑上的氨基酸序列合成出真实的蛋白质&quot; can be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T12:58:17.667" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36119" CreationDate="2019-12-28T14:51:00.447" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depend on situation and context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When some overweight people trying to lose weight receive this comment such as 你好像瘦了一圈 (in English: You seem to be thinner especially your waist.) that can be a good things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be not so good if someone be described as 他瘦得只剩下皮包骨(in English: He is skinny that there are few flesh between his skin and bone. And as if his bone only wrapped by his skin.)  that can be considered unhealthily skinny.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to express that someone is slim, you can use 苗條 to describe it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="23311" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T15:19:17.517" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T15:19:17.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35194" CreationDate="2019-12-28T16:02:13.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there are any clauses. Both of them are verbs. The different tones express different emotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say &quot;xiǎng xiǎng&quot;, you are emphasizing you are pondering. So you pronounce with stress. For instance, you are quarrelling with someone, and you said &quot;Shut up! Let me think about it!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you say &quot;xiáng xiǎng&quot;, most of the time you are imagining (A devil whispering beside you ear &quot;Just think about it, the most beautiful women will be yours&quot;), but some of the time you are pondering (Because you are in the duration of deep thinking, and you don't care your questioner very much, and you are carelessly murmuring).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23307" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T16:02:13.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26170" CreationDate="2019-12-29T00:23:10.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The properly grammatical way to say this is: 我学中文学了四年了. First of all this uses the proper double 了 structure to convey &quot;continuation&quot;, secondly it uses a topic comment structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Topic: 我学中文 &quot;as for my Chinese studies...&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Comment: 学了四年了 &quot;I have been studying for four years&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &quot;double 了&quot; structure is discussed in &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_ongoing_duration_with_double_%22le%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this online article&lt;/a&gt; which contains almost exactly this example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23340" LastEditorUserId="23340" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:17:17.827" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:17:17.827" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36295" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-29T02:51:56.553" Score="4" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question could be split into two types of terms: new expressions &amp;amp; old expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For new expressions one could open Google &amp;amp;/or Baidu go to &quot;News&quot; (资讯) and then &quot;Order By Date&quot; (按时间排序).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than this I'm not sure if there are any better options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for old expressions: there was an answer on here before that mentioned using &lt;a href=&quot;http://hanji.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢籍全文資料庫&lt;/a&gt; to find the earliest usage in historical documents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I don't know if this is the optimal way of doing this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T02:32:33.117" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T03:30:19.033" Title="How to find earliest usage of a term?" Tags="&lt;resources&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34026" CreationDate="2019-12-29T02:59:41.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Original&lt;/em&gt;: 我太喜欢和他做朋友了&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I much like with him being friends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. 太...了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, it uses the 太...了 grammar construct: see &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22excessively%22_with_%22tai%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing &amp;quot;excessively&amp;quot; with &amp;quot;tai&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;.  Most learners encounter this almost immediately with 太贵了.  Here, it's used for emphasis, such as in 你太好了 or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我&lt;strong&gt;太&lt;/strong&gt;喜欢吃饺子&lt;strong&gt;了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I much like to eat dumplings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To simplify breaking it down further, I'll delete the 太 and 了, which only reduces the emphasis.  I.e.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢和他做朋友&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I like with him being friends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. What if we delete the 做?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We get a sentence which is incomplete:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我喜欢和他朋友  ✗&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I like with his friend [..?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 他朋友 is interpreted as &amp;quot;his friend&amp;quot;, i.e., 他的朋友; see &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_close_possession_without_%22de%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing close possession without &amp;quot;de&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Why 做 and not something else?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%81%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;做&lt;/a&gt; is one of these Chinese words that have a lot of meanings.  In the original sentence, it could mean any of these (or some combination, or something in between):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to do; to make; to act as; to be; to become; to function (in some capacity); to serve as; to form (a bond or relationship)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Precisely what it means depends on context, which is presumably known to the people speaking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In principle, in sentences like these, it's possible to replace 做 with 当:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我太喜欢和他&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youdao.com/w/%E5%BD%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;当&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;朋友了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in this example, it seems the formal and distanced 当 is mismatched with the informal and positive 太喜欢...了.  This is probably not true all the time, but it's my impression.  Compare it with examples such as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我说过和他&lt;strong&gt;当朋友&lt;/strong&gt;，他还是会说些逾越友情的话&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/436766394328214004.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I said I was friends with him, [but] he still says a few exceeding-friendship words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎样让一个男生知道，我只是想和他&lt;strong&gt;当朋友&lt;/strong&gt;...&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/36331887?sort=created&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;How can I let a man know, I only want to be friends...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(For why it's not 是, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/29375/when-do-i-have-to-use-%e5%81%9a-%e5%bd%93-instead-of-%e6%98%af&quot;&gt;When do I have to use 做/当 instead of 是?&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Other examples&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can we use 做 in this meaning in other sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some examples I found searching the web:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我立志&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;一名老师&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1618516714301451809&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I'm determined &lt;strong&gt;to be&lt;/strong&gt; a good teacher&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;妈妈后,为什么大家都失去了自我?&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/127576918_580337&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;After &lt;strong&gt;becoming&lt;/strong&gt; a mother, why [does] everyone lose their self&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我想&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;小偷&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zuowen.360zuowen.com/xiaoxuexieshi/00182424.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I want &lt;strong&gt;to be&lt;/strong&gt; a thief&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;谁想&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;百万富翁？&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%B0%81%E6%83%B3%E5%81%9A%E7%99%BE%E4%B8%87%E5%AF%8C%E7%BF%81/1140517?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Who wants &lt;strong&gt;to be&lt;/strong&gt; a millionaire?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T03:04:44.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34026" CreationDate="2019-12-29T03:39:09.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quote：- “In principle, in sentences like these, it's possible to replace 做 with 当&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interesting, because if you combine the two to 当做, it becomes &quot;to treat, to regard, to perceive, to look upon&quot; someone &lt;em&gt;as a friend&lt;/em&gt; and not &lt;em&gt;making someone a friend&lt;/em&gt; as 做 by itself would.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also replace 做 with 交, (jiao) which is, I think, less colloquial.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T03:39:09.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36298" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-29T06:09:39.740" Score="3" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to translate some seal script on a small piece a friend brought back from Japan. &#xA;I've been using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&lt;/a&gt; and hanziyuan.net to guess them and think I ended up with this:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;line 1: 佗伴像水来是XX&lt;br&gt;&#xA;line 2: 物叱水XX雲XX&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Line 3: 佺東氣何  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone assist with the characters, and with a translation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks so much,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dom&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w8mDY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w8mDY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23355" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T09:48:11.720" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T10:18:15.197" Title="Translation of seal script text (Poem identified: 元・譚處端《西江月・作伴修行未是》)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36298" CreationDate="2019-12-29T07:22:00.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an incomplete text of the poem 《西江月・作伴修行未是》 by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yuan Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; poet 譚處端, produced verbatim from the image, detailed below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The text is split into columns from right to left as on the image, with pauses inserted at「//」. Characters inside parentheses（）indicate the modern equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;⿰亻（作）伴修行未是 // （飄飄）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;物外行持 // 孤雲野鶴&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;任東㢴（西）// 何有些兒礙&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;滯 // 淡飯（尋）他兩頓 // 清&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest of the poem is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;清淨淨無爲 //&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寂寥瀟洒最相宜 //&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;別有一般滋味&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation (roughly paraphrased):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;元・譚處端《西江月・作伴修行未是》&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;作伴修行未是，飄飄物外行持。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The accompanying disciples' self-cultivating journey is incomplete, walking along the turbulent spiritual passages;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;孤雲野鶴任東西。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;following the path of mysterious, recluse &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xian_(Taoism)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sages&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;何有些兒礙滯。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What is there to stop their journey?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;淡飯尋他兩頓，清清淨淨無爲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Finding scarce meals, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cuisine#Other_restrictions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;plain, simple&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;natural&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寂寥瀟洒最相宜。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the balance of tranquillity and aloofness&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;別有一般滋味。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;has a sweetness of its own.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T10:18:15.197" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36300" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-29T08:21:28.547" Score="-1" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jiL2v.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, it's a seal on a teapot, I'm wondering if it's legit in any way. The characters should be something like 'name+surname crafter'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23356" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T23:19:42.270" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T23:19:42.270" Title="Need help deciphering this seal" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36301" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36305" CreationDate="2019-12-29T08:55:33.977" Score="0" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've taken to reading short essays written by grade-five children (五年纪作文).  In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ruiwen.com/zuowen/wunianjizuowen/1927149.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;沙发上的兔子&lt;/a&gt; (Rabbit on the Sofa), there's an image of a rabbit on the sofa, and when the child falls asleep, the child turns into a rabbit, and the rabbit becomes the child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand the first part of this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;它一把拉着我跳回了家，我成了兔子，而它成了我的模样&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 它一把拉着我跳回了家 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd guess something in the ballpark of &amp;quot;it pulled me back home&amp;quot;, but don't really know what this means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.cn/#view=home&amp;amp;op=translate&amp;amp;sl=zh-CN&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;text=%E5%AE%83%E4%B8%80%E6%8A%8A%E6%8B%89%E7%9D%80%E6%88%91%E8%B7%B3%E5%9B%9E%E4%BA%86%E5%AE%B6%EF%BC%8C%E6%88%91%E6%88%90%E4%BA%86%E5%85%94%E5%AD%90%EF%BC%8C%E8%80%8C%E5%AE%83%E6%88%90%E4%BA%86%E6%88%91%E7%9A%84%E6%A8%A1%E6%A0%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Translate&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%AE%83%E4%B8%80%E6%8A%8A%E6%8B%89%E7%9D%80%E6%88%91%E8%B7%B3%E5%9B%9E%E4%BA%86%E5%AE%B6%EF%BC%8C%E6%88%91%E6%88%90%E4%BA%86%E5%85%94%E5%AD%90%EF%BC%8C%E8%80%8C%E5%AE%83%E6%88%90%E4%BA%86%E6%88%91%E7%9A%84%E6%A8%A1%E6%A0%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouDao&lt;/a&gt; respectively give:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It pulled me back home, I became a rabbit, and it became my appearance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He grabbed me and jumped back home. I became a rabbit, and he became me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's some kind of magic going on here, so I'm not sure what's going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T00:29:49.737" Title="What does the first part of 它一把拉着我跳回了家，我成了兔子，而它成了我的模样 mean?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36301" CreationDate="2019-12-29T09:12:30.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They switched places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;我&quot; became the rabbit, (when the rabbit pulled the &quot;我&quot; home, presumably to the rabbit's house), and they miraculously switched places; the &quot;我&quot; becoming the rabbit, and the rabbit took on the &quot;我's&quot; appearance, (它成了我的模样)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do I assume it was the rabbit who pulled the &quot;我&quot; home? Because the sentence started with “它”, (&quot;it&quot;) which is used when referring to animals. So it was an animal, (a rabbit), who pulled the &quot;我&quot; home. This would make sense when they eventually switched places / appearances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T09:30:59.417" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T09:30:59.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36301" CreationDate="2019-12-29T09:42:52.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;He grabbed me and jumped back home.&quot; is its literal translation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the context, it's all in his dream. As we all know, dreams usually go like movies. It's a way to describe the scene has been switched suddenly(like a movie) - picturing &quot;&lt;strong&gt;jumping back home, he and the rabbit&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. After jumping into his home, their roles switched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T09:42:52.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36276" CreationDate="2019-12-29T09:50:34.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;与人工制作相关的生产这个词，其他的是产生。example:工厂生产汽车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23189" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T09:50:34.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36301" CreationDate="2019-12-29T10:47:28.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading the story, &quot;它&quot; in &quot;它一把拉着我跳回了家&quot; is referring to the rabbit. --&gt; &quot;It (the rabbit) pulling me along and hopped back home&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the function of &quot;一把&quot;, you can reference my answer to this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30190/does-%E4%B8%80%E5%B1%81%E8%82%A1%E5%9D%90%E4%B8%8B%E6%9D%A5-just-mean-sit-down-or-is-there-some-other-meaning-in-there&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is a description of a manner which implies &quot;abruptly with no hesitation&quot;&#xA;  There are similar adverbial phrases:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;一手 (with one move of one's hand)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;一手搶過我手中的香煙 (with one move of his hand, he grabs the cigarette off my hand = he takes the cigarette off my hand with one move of his hand)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;它拉着我跳回了家 = he pulling me hopped back home&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;它(一把)拉着我跳回了家 = he (with one swift grab) pulling me hopped back home&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我成了兔子，而它成了我的模样&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I turned into a rabbit, and it (the rabbit) turned into my appearance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Notice the phrase &quot;it hopped home&quot;, which mean before they got home, the rabbit was still a rabbit.  Once arrived home, the rabbit turned into the child; and the child turned into a rabbit (obviously a dream)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T15:50:30.650" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T15:50:30.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36276" CreationDate="2019-12-29T11:23:10.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you use &quot;生产&quot;, there should be a conceptual &quot;factory&quot; that makes things on a massive scale. The kernel meaning of this word lies on &quot;产&quot;, which means &quot;giving birth to&quot; or &quot;being the source of&quot; in Chinese. Typical usage of &quot;产&quot; includes: 母猪产仔了(A sow just gave birth to babies)；浙江产茶叶(Zhejiang Province produces tea)；被病毒感染的细胞生产了更多的病毒(The virus-infected cell produces more viruses)；核电站生产了大量的电能(The nucleic power plant produces much electric power)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you use &quot;产生&quot;, it leads to some results. In English, &quot;yield&quot; is the counterpart word. The kernel meaning of this word lies on &quot;生&quot;, which means &quot;genesis of something&quot; in Chinese. For instance, 肿胀产生了更强的痛感（The swelling yields increased pain）.When you use &quot;产生&quot;, a hidden &quot;XXX使得YYY产生ZZZ&quot; structure is actually implied in the sentence, you should try to find what are the XXX, YYY, and ZZZ. In the case, XXX is 肿胀, YYY is (the patient), ZZZ is 更强的痛感。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23358" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T11:23:10.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36300" CreationDate="2019-12-29T11:32:17.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The top is 中国宜兴 the rest are unrecognizable.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The bottom is 徐汉棠制陶&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23225" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T11:32:17.377" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36301" CreationDate="2019-12-29T12:43:56.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;它一把拉着我跳回了家，&#xA;Here “一把” is a key word that hinders your understanding however it makes the sentence more vivid. &#xA;Let me see the &quot;Modern Chinese Dictionary&quot;:&#xA;“一” 数词.表示动作是短暂的。Numeral.Refer to an action of transitory or short time.&#xA;“把” 量词.用于手的动作。 Measure word.An action use of the hand.&#xA;“他拉着我跳回了家”is same meaning， but to add “一把” Make the sentence come to more vivid。 &#xA;另：“五年纪作文”应该是“五年级”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23337" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T12:43:56.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36301" CreationDate="2019-12-29T13:30:08.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;它一把拉着我跳回了家 means it pulled me back to home by jumping back to home. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, 它 is pronoun means 兔子.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, 一把拉着 show a action that pull something(我).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, 我 means me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, 跳 means jump.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, 回了家 means back to home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="23311" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T00:29:49.737" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T00:29:49.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36310" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36311" CreationDate="2019-12-29T18:05:29.857" Score="2" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this sentence, I do not understand the purposes of each of the 2 instances of the character 学.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我学英语学了4年了。&#xA;I have been studying English for 4 years.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my naive understanding I would personally translate the English to Chinese as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;我学了英语4年。&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this might be related to my confusion about the phrase 学英语. Is this a noun that means &quot;The Study of English&quot; or is it a verb like &quot;to study English&quot;? I can see why you might add a second 学 if the former is true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T00:06:10.397" Title="Why are multiple 学s okay in the sentence 我学英语学了4年了" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36310" CreationDate="2019-12-29T18:59:03.087" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The interesting phenomenon in this example is the use of 了。。。了 to indicate an ongoing action. In cases where the ongoing verb takes an object (like 英语 in your sentence), the verb is repeated. If the object is understood, it doesn't need to be repeated. For example, if you've established with your interlocutor that you're studying English, you might say 我学了一年了 (I have studied for a year).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside, your &quot;naive translation&quot; would be closer to &quot;I studied (i.e., completed studying) English ...&quot;. If this is your intent, a more apt translation might be 我学了四年英语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12174" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T18:59:03.087" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36310" CreationDate="2019-12-29T19:32:16.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;我学英语&quot; = &quot;I learn English&quot; -- it is the main clause&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;学了4年了&quot; = &quot;have learned (it) for four years&quot; -- it is the relative clause that give us additional information of 'the duration of the action' . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;我学英语学了4年了&quot; = &quot;I learn English, and I have learned it for four years&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat the verb in the relative clause that state the duration of the action is a common structure in Chinese. It put emphasis on the duration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃了飯 (I've eaten dinner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃了一小時飯 (I have eaten dinner for one hour) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃飯吃了一小時 (I ate dinner, have eaten for one hour) -- Repeat the verb in the emphasis on the duration&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Both &quot;我吃了一小時飯&quot; and &quot;我吃飯吃了一小時&quot; mean &quot;I ate dinner for one hour&quot; the difference is the former is a plain SVO sentence that doesn't emphasize anything and the latter emphasize the duration (一小時) which becomes more important in the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃了飯 (I've eaten dinner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃了十碗飯 (I've eaten ten bowls of rice)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我吃飯吃了十碗 ( I ate rice and I ate ten bowls of it) --  emphasize the quantity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T19:41:35.773" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T19:41:35.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36313" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-29T20:02:36.253" Score="1" ViewCount="892" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, I had a flu shot but a week later I got the flu. I feel salty that I went through the trouble of getting the shot and still ended up sick. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, I stood in line for the new iPhone for hours but it just became sold out when I am almost next in line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 吃亏了，or 气死了。does not feel like it captured its meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5862" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T07:22:31.457" Title="How to translate &quot;this person is salty or this person is feeling salty&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36313" CreationDate="2019-12-29T22:58:53.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Taiwan, sometimes, some people use 嘔 to describe this kind of situation that it is such a shame to lose something which they expect someone or themselves to get, for example:&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dcard.tw/f/entertainer/p/228601215&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;但就是很嘔當初怎麼沒有把握機會&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://ec.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1306053&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;聯電心裡一定很嘔&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://fang9763.pixnet.net/blog/post/265456550-%E5%BE%88%E5%98%94%E7%9A%84%E5%A4%AB%E5%A6%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;唯獨這一對夫妻有緣報名，無緣參加，好嘔&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="23311" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T23:53:47.423" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T23:53:47.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36313" CreationDate="2019-12-29T23:24:42.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tend to consider it as you were feeling 沮丧.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23362" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T01:40:55.137" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T01:40:55.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36310" CreationDate="2019-12-30T00:06:10.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我学英语学了4年了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of repetition is used for &lt;strong&gt;the extent complement&lt;/strong&gt;. The intention is to make the complement remarkable so that the interlocutor can easily get the point that has been made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我学英语学了4年 VS 我学了4年英语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former is clear that the point you are trying to make is 学了4年. The latter can be understood differently depending on the emphasis you put. If you put emphasis on 4年, then it will have the same effect as the first sentence. If you put emphasis on 英语, then you are saying you've studied English for 4 years instead of other subjects such as Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This usage can be more flexible as in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我说话说得嘴都肿了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我跑步跑得腿都断了！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我打球打得精疲力尽！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T00:06:10.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36318" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-30T01:16:25.883" Score="2" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was searching online and I found out that there are several meanings for the word &quot;prisoner&quot; and I couldn't find the differences or a reason for it, therefore I'd like some help for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23363" LastEditorUserId="19859" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T04:14:09.820" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T12:27:50.227" Title="What's the difference between 囚犯, 囚徒, 犯人 and 囚 and how does it affect a sentence?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36319" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-30T02:08:40.637" Score="1" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;I watched &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8F%B6%E9%97%AE4%EF%BC%9A%E5%AE%8C%E7%BB%93%E7%AF%87/24206629?fromtitle=%E5%8F%B6%E9%97%AE4&amp;amp;fromid=16985170&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;叶问4&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2076298/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ip Man 4&lt;/a&gt;) last night, and became interested in the sounds they make during fighting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Kiai&lt;/strong&gt; (Japanese: 気合, /ˈkiːaɪ/) is a Japanese term used in martial arts for the short shout uttered when performing an attacking move. ...&#xA;  The concept has become a notable part of Asian martial arts in popular culture, especially in martial arts films, in writing often rendered in variants such as &lt;em&gt;Hi-yah!&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Aiyah!&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Eeee-yah!&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;Hyah!&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kiai&lt;/a&gt;, Wikipedia&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://martialarts.stackexchange.com/questions/359/why-do-martial-artists-shout-in-the-execution-of-a-technique&quot;&gt;Why do martial artists “shout” in the execution of a technique?&lt;/a&gt; on MartialArts.SE.  I didn't immediately find the Chinese equivalent of this term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a Chinese word for the Japanese 気合, the sounds (&quot;Hi-yah!&quot; etc.) made when performing martial arts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not even sure this is real, or just something people do in Asian movies marketed to Westerners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T14:52:19.253" Title="Is there a Chinese word for the Japanese 気合 (kiai), the sounds (&quot;Hi-yah!&quot; etc.) made when performing martial arts?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36319" CreationDate="2019-12-30T02:17:40.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zhihu.com/question/34515813&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhihu question&lt;/a&gt; about &lt;em&gt;kiai&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;em&gt;kendo&lt;/em&gt; (劍道). In the realm of &lt;em&gt;Japanese martial arts&lt;/em&gt;, it looks like Chinese would just character-transcribe the word as「气合」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that「気合」is &lt;em&gt;specifically&lt;/em&gt; a Japanese term, and is used for a host of other meanings in Japanese (&lt;em&gt;breathing, martial spirit, etc.&lt;/em&gt;) , so I would say that using「气合」in Chinese in a martial-arts related sense is not appropriate for anything outside of Japanese martial arts. The closest Chinese-language term for &lt;em&gt;martial spirit&lt;/em&gt; would be something like「气勢」, and this doesn't necessarily point to any shouting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「气合」is also a classical Chinese term meaning &lt;em&gt;agreeable sentiments/inclination&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T02:35:24.340" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T02:35:24.340" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36318" CreationDate="2019-12-30T02:20:35.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;犯 means &quot;commit&quot;, and it is the same as 犯人.&#xA;囚 can mean the prison, prisoner or imprisoning someone.&#xA;徒 is similar to 人, just means a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犯人 and 囚犯 both emphasize that he or she is guilty, but 囚徒 doesn't.&#xA;犯人 does not emphasize he or she is in prison now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23364" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T02:20:35.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36313" CreationDate="2019-12-30T02:24:46.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just think this for a while. I don't think we have such an expression which can be used in modern conversation and express the exact thing &amp;quot;salty&amp;quot; means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I really got one which is &amp;quot;恼恨&amp;quot;, it's quite formal. &amp;quot;恼&amp;quot; means angry, &amp;quot;恨&amp;quot; means hateful, these united suggest the anger because of a hateful thing, and this hateful thing may be a defeat or a disappointment or other something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's really farfetched to call the feeling in your examples as &amp;quot;Hate&amp;quot;. Although you can use &amp;quot;恼恨&amp;quot; to express your resentful, but the listener will think &amp;quot;Oh, this one is really fussy.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your particular usage, I think &amp;quot;可恶&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;可恨&amp;quot; is a precise one. Formally both of them mean hateful, but in oral or on the internet it means annoying and suggests a kind of anger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can only use &amp;quot;可恶/ 可恨&amp;quot; when stating things happened on yourself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;可恶, 排了半天队结果卖完了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D**m, I waited such a long time and got nothing, they've sold out. (I don't know how native speaker say things like this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to describe things happened on others, you must choose the biggest part of your emotion to show your attitude about his experience:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他去排了半天队结果卖完了, 可气死他了/ 他可伤心了/ 他都服了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He waited so long and bought nothing because they've sold out, that makes he angry/ sad/ can't believe it. (also don't know if you really say this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &amp;quot;恼恨&amp;quot; can be used in both way, just make others feel a little bit werid:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他去排了半天队结果卖完了, 这令他感到恼恨.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He feels salty because He'd waited such a long time and got nothing for they sold out. (still not sure)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我去排了半天队结果卖完了, 这令我感到恼恨.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel salty because I've waited such a long time and got nothing for they sold out. (still not sure)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23307" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T04:25:58.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36318" CreationDate="2019-12-30T02:31:12.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;囚: imprison&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犯: criminal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;徒: person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;囚犯 and 囚徒 are mostly interchangeable, 囚徒 is more literary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犯人 means criminal, not necessarily in prison.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18144" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T02:31:12.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36313" CreationDate="2019-12-30T04:10:45.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;酸&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese salty is tart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/zhaolewisliu/status/718072775773130752&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tweet&lt;/a&gt; here that also explains it this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;今日英语 salty：酸。字面意思是咸的，含盐的；但常用来指某人轻微嫉妒或心里难过的感觉，即很酸，酸溜溜的，酸不垃圾的，心里苦的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T04:10:45.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36313" CreationDate="2019-12-30T04:29:29.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;气恼&lt;/strong&gt;(angry and resentful) might be the word you are looking for. E.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;排了这么久队还没买到iPhone, 真让我气恼！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我女朋友很气恼，我没陪她一块逛街。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; I feel salty that I went through the trouble of getting the shot and still ended up sick. // 我费了这么大的劲去打了针，结果病还没好，我很气恼。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T04:29:29.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36326" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36329" CreationDate="2019-12-30T07:14:34.740" Score="1" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;她的话音刚落,一直在旁边默默无语的老公说道:“我们就是后一种。”这句话让她脸上的皱纹菊花般绽开来。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just after she spoke, her husband who'd been staying in silence beside her said, &quot;We're the latter kind.&quot; This remark made the wrinkles on her face...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mmm, I really couldn't understand this. Does it mean open/smoothen? If that's the case, why's is said to be &quot;like chrysanthemum?&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17496" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T13:47:43.357" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T13:47:43.357" Title="Meaning of &quot;绽开来&quot; in 这句话让她脸上的皱纹菊花般绽开来?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36326" CreationDate="2019-12-30T07:21:46.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;绽, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youdao.com/w/eng/%E7%BB%BD%E6%94%BE/#keyfrom=dict2.index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;绽放&lt;/a&gt;, means &lt;em&gt;bloom/blossom&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;皱纹菊花般绽开来 means &lt;em&gt;the wrinkles bloom like chrysanthemum&lt;/em&gt;, which is used to describe &lt;em&gt;smile&lt;/em&gt; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;To be honest, using 绽放 instead sounds more natural to me.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4072" LastEditorDisplayName="user4072" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T07:27:11.727" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T07:27:11.727" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36313" CreationDate="2019-12-30T07:22:31.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion of this sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“this person is salty or this person is feeling salty”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is just like when i feel something and in some next days i got &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i have a dot of rash in my skin &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MMFoo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MMFoo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and after some days my skin is full of rashes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cFY9e.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cFY9e.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in my way this is best way to explain this sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23365" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T07:22:31.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36326" CreationDate="2019-12-30T08:07:51.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;这句话 -- these words&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;让她脸上的皱纹 -- make the wrinkles on her face&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如菊花(&lt;strong&gt;绽放&lt;/strong&gt;)般 --  like chrysanthemum (&lt;strong&gt;bloom&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;绽放&lt;/strong&gt;开来-- bloomed open&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这句话让她脸上的皱纹如菊花(&lt;strong&gt;绽放&lt;/strong&gt;)般, (&lt;strong&gt;绽放&lt;/strong&gt;)开来&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These words made the  wrinkles on her face (bloomed) like chrysanthemum (bloom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;绽放&amp;quot; (bloom) here is a poetic description, -- put a mental image in readers' mind, metaphorically compare &amp;quot;put on a big smile&amp;quot; with &amp;quot;chrysanthemum blooming&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T08:13:06.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36319" CreationDate="2019-12-30T08:21:40.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quote：- “ Is there a Chinese word for the Japanese 気合。。。？“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a damn good question. I've never thought about this until now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having practiced Chinese, (洪拳), Japanese, (Judo), and Korean, (Taekwondo, holding a Black Belt), I am familiar with the practical aspects of &quot;Kiai&quot;. The Koreans have a direct equivalent called 기합, (Kihap), (气合), but for some reason there is no &lt;em&gt;direct&lt;/em&gt; Chinese &lt;em&gt;terminological&lt;/em&gt; equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But having said that, I do know that some, (not all), Chinese martial artists do use a more &lt;em&gt;descriptive&lt;/em&gt; term, namely, 发声, (Fa Sheng), meaning to issue, to emit, to send out sounds while performing their preset Forms, or presumably in combat, if ever the situation arises.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not wish to go into the martial aspects of it as this is not the proper forum, but I would just surmise that the reason why there isn't a direct comparable term in Chinese martial arts to &quot;Kiai&quot; is because of the historically diverse, disorganized and secretive nature of the numerous Chinese arts stretching across the whole continent of mainland China, (there are literally hundreds of individual arts practiced in practically every village), that there isn't a central governing body to standardized the technical terms or practice of the numerous art, (which is impossible as no two arts are exactly the same, though the Chinese government around the 1950s &amp;amp; 60s tried and the mishmash art officially called &quot;Wu Shu&quot;, （武术），was born and now in the Olympics) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, while practitioners of the Chinese arts may know exactly what it means in practice, nobody actually coined an &quot;official&quot; word for it, unlike the more insular and better organized Japanese and Koreans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence in my own training the Chinese master simply ordered &quot;Ahhhheeee....!&quot;, and we &quot;Ahhhheeeee..., without asking him what this shout is called. It was only when I later took up the Japanese and Korean arts did I know it's actually called &quot;Kiai&quot; or &quot;Kihap&quot;    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T08:21:40.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36331" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-30T08:57:09.460" Score="0" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I and my friends disagree on what 周末 means. And to summarize all opinions, is it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;周五, 周末 was used to describe 周六 when 周六 is workday (last workday in a week). And since 周六 is no longer a workday, we call 周五 as 周末&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;周六, 周末 means 周六. Typically the last column on (most) calendars.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;周日, 周末 literally means the ending (last day) of a week, which should be 周日&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;周六 and 周日, 周末 is opposite of workdays, which should be both 周六 and 周日&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is more acceptable / correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9800" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T02:49:26.367" Title="Which day is 周末" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36331" CreationDate="2019-12-30T09:12:27.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;周末 literally means &quot;weekend,&quot; and in modern China, it usually refers to &quot;Saturday and Sunday.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23041" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T02:49:26.367" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T02:49:26.367" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36334" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-30T12:00:20.197" Score="4" ViewCount="357" Body="&lt;p&gt;This word exists in Japanese as well as 綿蛮, but as far as I can tell the compound just carries the meaning of &quot;cotton barbarian&quot;. I am completely stumped as to how this in any way means &quot;a small bird&quot; or &quot;chirping&quot;. Does anyone know what's going on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23369" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T13:57:02.803" Title="How did 綿蠻 come to mean &quot;(the chirping of) a small bird&quot;?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;etymology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36335" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-30T12:11:38.253" Score="1" ViewCount="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;In next extract from a text while reserving a hotel room there are some final 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1: 请问你们旅馆有没有免费接送服务?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2: 有&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。请问你们星期三几天到?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  1: 早上六点40分到达海南国际机场。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2: 好&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;，到时候会有人接机&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;。先星期三见。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the last ..example 到时候会有人接机&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; II have seen in the next grammar point that is a modal particle used preferably with 会。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Using_%22de%22_(modal_particle)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Using_%22de%22_(modal_particle)&lt;/a&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about the simple 有&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; and 好&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt;. ¿what grammar refers to this two cases?. I cannot find any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T13:41:35.170" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T13:41:35.170" Title="Is each 的 in 有的 and 好的，到时候会有人接机的 a modal particle?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36335" CreationDate="2019-12-30T12:20:40.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in 有的 and 好的, 的 is just a modal particle also.&#xA;It is Ok if you omit 的.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another example: 可以的=可以&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23364" LastEditorUserId="23364" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T12:27:02.797" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T12:27:02.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36337" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36343" CreationDate="2019-12-30T12:44:42.850" Score="2" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know when it comes to names, it's pronounced &quot;he&quot; in &quot;何&quot;, but my question is what about the regular:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我和你&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it should be &quot;han&quot; in &quot;漢&quot;, but some people say &quot;he&quot;, so my question is what is the correct way to pronounce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23367" LastEditorUserId="23367" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T03:58:20.320" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T03:58:20.320" Title="Correct pronunciation of &quot;和&quot;" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-12-30T15:39:22.557" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36334" CreationDate="2019-12-30T12:46:27.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in the book of odes (詩經), there’s a poem named 綿蠻:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;綿蠻黃鳥・止于丘阿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;道之云遠・我勞如何&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;飲之食之・教之誨之・命彼後車・謂之載之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;綿蠻黃鳥・止于丘隅&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;豈敢憚行・畏不能趨&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;飲之食之・教之誨之・命彼後車・謂之載之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;綿蠻黃鳥・止于丘側&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;豈敢憚行・畏不能極&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;飲之食之・教之誨之・命彼後車・謂之載之&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“綿蠻黃鳥” is translated to “little oriole” in &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;id=16164&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ctext.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;however, the scholar 朱熹 suggested that “綿蠻” is the sound of birds (鳥聲)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you have difficulty, trust him at this moment :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NVEcA.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NVEcA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T12:46:27.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36334" CreationDate="2019-12-30T13:03:53.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It appears to have originated from a poem of the same name &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xigutang.com/shijing/_m_sj_zs_jj_bhfy_4841.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;緜蛮&lt;/a&gt; in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://cn.hujiang.com/new/p529429/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Book of Songs 诗经&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;緜蛮&lt;/strong&gt;黄鸟，止于丘阿。道之云远，我劳如何。饮之食之，教之诲之。命彼后车，谓之载之。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;绵蛮&lt;/strong&gt;黄鸟，止于丘隅。岂敢惮行，畏不能趋。饮之食之，教之诲之。命彼后车，谓之载之。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;绵蛮&lt;/strong&gt;黄鸟，止于丘侧。岂敢惮行，畏不能极。饮之食之，教之诲之。命彼后车，谓之载之。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese poetry is exceptionally hard to read (for me at least), but fortunately &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%8F%E9%9B%85%C2%B7%E7%B7%9C%E8%9B%AE/2039026&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baiku&lt;/a&gt; has a 白话译文 &quot;Spoken language translation&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那只美丽小黄雀，停在弯弯山坡上。路途实在太遥远，跋涉劳苦累得慌。给他水喝给饭吃，循循诱导明道理。让那副车稍停留，叫他坐上别心急。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  那只美丽小黄雀，停在山坡那一角。哪敢害怕走远路，只怕不能快快跑。给他水喝给饭吃，循循诱导明道理。让那副车稍停留，叫他坐上别心急。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  那只美丽小黄雀，停在山坡那一边。哪敢害怕走远路，只怕终点到达难。给他水喝给饭吃，循循诱导明道理。让那副车稍停留，叫他坐上别心急。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the bird is 小黄雀 (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&amp;amp;ps=1&amp;amp;ct=201326592&amp;amp;lm=-1&amp;amp;cl=2&amp;amp;nc=1&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;word=%E9%BB%84%E9%9B%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Image Search&lt;/a&gt;) which I think is a type of finch.  And each line begins:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;那只美丽小黄雀&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  That beautiful small finch, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Here I use &quot;finch&quot; to mean something like &quot;black-headed yellow Eurasian siskin&quot; which makes the poem too clunky.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to be also used in subsequent poetry, e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;https://hanyu.baidu.com/shici/detail?pid=c8e76c6ef57411e5a46cc8e0eb15ce01&amp;amp;from=kg0&amp;amp;highlight=%E7%BB%B5%E8%9B%AE%E5%8F%98%E6%97%B6%E9%B8%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;晦日宴高氏林亭&lt;/a&gt; (Tang Dynasty) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://hanyu.baidu.com/shici/detail?pid=75c7f0e629041c157dd14cab2a2596cf&amp;amp;from=kg0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;啼鸟&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://hanyu.baidu.com/shici/detail?pid=6ae97da09a7b14858e19f7572414ebfb&amp;amp;from=kg0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;次余仲庸松风阁韵十九首其一&lt;/a&gt; (Song Dynasty).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 緜 = &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BB%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;绵&lt;/a&gt; meaning &quot;cotton&quot;, while &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%9B%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;蛮&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;barbarian&quot;.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://m.pinshiwen.com/cidian/sjsx/2019051545019.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pinshiwen&lt;/a&gt; explains this imagery as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;①緜蛮：鸟羽文采细密的样子。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  緜蛮: bird feathers [鸟羽] rich and bright in color [文采] numerous and close together [繁密] appearance [样子]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there appears to be multiple interpretations of how to interpret 緜蛮 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E7%BB%B5%E8%9B%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zdic.net&lt;/a&gt;): small birds appearance (小鸟貌; 文貌), bird sounds (鸟声) and smallest birds (鸟之小者亦曰绵蛮).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judging from Baidu &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%22%E7%BB%B5%E8%9B%AE%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;绵蛮&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, this term is normally only mentioned in the context of poetry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T13:35:51.597" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T13:35:51.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36337" CreationDate="2019-12-30T13:18:25.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only heard some folks from Taipei have said 我han4你 to mean 我和(he2)你. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In standard mandarin, 和 is pronounced as he2.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T13:18:25.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36337" CreationDate="2019-12-30T13:19:48.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;han&quot; is the informal pronunciation of 和 in Taiwan.&#xA;In mainland China nobody pronunces it as &quot;han&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23364" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T13:19:48.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36334" CreationDate="2019-12-30T13:51:48.603" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Poetry&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shijing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;《詩・小雅・綿蠻》&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;綿蠻&lt;/strong&gt;黃鳥，止於丘阿。道之雲遠，我勞如何。飲之食之，教之誨之。命彼後車，謂之載之。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;綿蠻&lt;/strong&gt;黃鳥，止於丘隅。豈敢憚行，畏不能趨。飲之食之，教之誨之。命彼後車，謂之載之。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;綿蠻&lt;/strong&gt;黃鳥，止於丘側。豈敢憚行，畏不能極。飲之食之，教之誨之。命彼後車，謂之載之。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, some conceptual advice on interpreting &lt;em&gt;characters&lt;/em&gt;: Please keep in mind that &lt;em&gt;characters&lt;/em&gt; are not &lt;em&gt;words&lt;/em&gt;; they only &lt;strong&gt;represent&lt;/strong&gt; words. Character phonology is &lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt; important when interpreting pre-&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qin&lt;/a&gt; texts, of which the &lt;em&gt;Shijing&lt;/em&gt; is one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should always be mindful that a character has &lt;strong&gt;both&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;meaning&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt;, and sometimes, characters are &lt;em&gt;only used for sound&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you're a Japanese learner, you should be aware of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ateji&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;ateji&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which is based on the same principle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Character definitions&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《說文》：“緜（綿），聯微也。从糸，从帛。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「綿」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Zhengzhang_(1981%E2%80%931995)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zhengzhang OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*men/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;thin, fine threads&lt;/em&gt;) is comprised of semantic「糸」(&lt;em&gt;silk threads&lt;/em&gt;) and semantic「帛」(&lt;em&gt;silk/fabric&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《說文》：“蠻，南蠻，蛇穜。从虫，䜌聲。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「蠻」(&lt;strong&gt;/*mroːn/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Southern ethnic tribes&lt;/em&gt;) is comprised of semantic「虫」(&lt;em&gt;poisonous snake&lt;/em&gt;, now written「虺」, the cultural symbol of some &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiyue&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ancient Southeastern Tribes&lt;/a&gt;) and phonetic「䜌」(&lt;strong&gt;/*b·roːn/&lt;/strong&gt;).「閩」( &lt;strong&gt;/*mrɯn/, /*mɯn/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Min&lt;/a&gt; ethnicity&lt;/em&gt;), with the same semantic「虫」, is almost certainly &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cognate&lt;/a&gt; to「蠻」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stringing the above together,  you get a reading which is approximately &lt;strong&gt;/*men mroːn/&lt;/strong&gt;, where「蠻」is &lt;strong&gt;almost definitely only used to represent sound&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;How did &lt;s&gt;綿蠻&lt;/s&gt; &lt;strong&gt;/*men mroːn/&lt;/strong&gt; come to mean “(the chirping of) a small bird”?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two interpretations, which may be related to each other:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;綿蠻 (&lt;strong&gt;/*men mroːn/&lt;/strong&gt;) is short for 綿綿蠻蠻, where&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;綿綿 means &lt;em&gt;fine, delicate&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《淮南子・繆稱訓》：“福之萌也&lt;strong&gt;綿綿&lt;/strong&gt;，禍之生也分分，福禍之始萌微，故民嫚之。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;蠻蠻 (&lt;strong&gt;/*mroːn mroːn/&lt;/strong&gt;) is the topolectical name of a bird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;《山海經・西次三經》之首，曰崇吾之山，在河之南，北望冡遂，南望䍃之澤，西望帝之搏、獸之丘，東望䗡淵。有木焉，員葉而白柎，赤華而黑理，其實如枳，食之宜子孫。有獸焉，其狀如禺而文臂，豹虎而善投，名曰舉父。&lt;strong&gt;有鳥焉，其狀如鳧，而一翼一目，相得乃飛，名曰蠻蠻&lt;/strong&gt;，見則天下大水。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Together, this forms &lt;em&gt;delicate &gt; small&lt;/em&gt; + &lt;em&gt;bird&lt;/em&gt;, i.e. &lt;em&gt;small bird&lt;/em&gt;, extended to mean &lt;em&gt;chirps of a small bird&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;綿蠻 (&lt;strong&gt;/*men mroːn/&lt;/strong&gt;) is a phonologically-shifted reduplication of「微」(微微, &lt;strong&gt;/*mɯl mɯl/&lt;/strong&gt;).「微」means &lt;em&gt;tiny, slight&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;王國維《觀堂集林・爾雅草木蟲魚鳥獸名釋例下》：“蟲之小者曰蠛蠓 (&lt;strong&gt;/*meːd  moːŋ|moːŋʔ/&lt;/strong&gt;)，鳥之小者亦曰綿蠻，殆皆微字之音轉。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Small insects are called&lt;/em&gt; 蠛蠓 &lt;em&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;/*meːd  moːŋ|moːŋʔ/&lt;/strong&gt;), small birds are called&lt;/em&gt; 綿蠻 &lt;em&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;/*men mroːn/&lt;/strong&gt;), they are both phonological shifts from&lt;/em&gt;「微」&lt;em&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;/*mɯl/&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contextually, the reduplicated word meaning &lt;em&gt;small&lt;/em&gt; was only used to describe &lt;em&gt;birds&lt;/em&gt;, hence it became associated with &lt;em&gt;birds&lt;/em&gt; to get &lt;em&gt;small birds&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;chirping of small birds&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《王力古漢語字典》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;《漢語大詞典》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T13:57:02.803" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T13:57:02.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36345" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-30T16:25:08.747" Score="1" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;The online dictionaries I've tried so far do not seem to indicate if a morpheme is bound or is free. Is there any (free?) online dictionary that provides such information? If not, is there a list of the most common bound morphemes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22495" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T13:15:44.913" Title="Is a morpheme bound or is it free: any online source?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36347" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36360" CreationDate="2019-12-30T20:01:21.153" Score="3" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am particularly looking for the rationale behind the change from 入 in the traditional character to 人 in the simplified version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that the number of strokes are the same, I was surprised at the change. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it because 內 and 内 are long-accepted variants of each other and the reformers just picked one to be the standard? The choice could have been  because of aesthetics, frequency of use in the reformers' local region, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thought I had is that there is some larger pattern that I have not recognized yet that effectively imposed this change. An example of the kind of pattern I am thinking of is changing all (or at least most) 貝 components to 贝 when simplifying the characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23374" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T02:20:33.650" Title="Why was the traditional character 內 simplified to 内?" Tags="&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36331" CreationDate="2019-12-31T02:39:52.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is usually Saturday and Sunday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It used to be only Sunday, the last day of week in China, which happened to be the only day in the week which is not a workday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as workdays changed from 6 days to 5 days in a week, 周末 now usually refers to the Saturday and Sunday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ref: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%91%A8%E6%9C%AB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;汉典&lt;/a&gt; give this definition for 周末:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;原指星期六下班后到星期天晚,实行五天工作制后,指每周的最后两天&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T02:39:52.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36331" CreationDate="2019-12-31T02:48:28.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not really understanding any of your theorized possibilities but I have one thing that might help add to your logic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen conversations that go something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: 我们周末生意比较好。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B: 那就是星期五晚上跟星期六晚上哈？&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A: 诶，对，就是。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context the &quot;weekend&quot; (周末) became the nights before a typical weekend of Saturday and Sunday, this is assumedly because people need to get up Monday morning so going out on a Sunday night is not viable and is thus stricken from the weekend. It's almost Jewish in a way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T02:48:28.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36351" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-31T02:53:53.280" Score="3" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translate supports traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese but not classical Chinese. On the other hand, classical Chinese is one of the supported languages of Wikipedia. Are there online resourses that automatically translates English to classical Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T01:43:33.330" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T01:43:33.330" Title="Are there online resourses that automatically translates English to classical Chinese?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;&lt;resources&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-07-27T00:01:17.747" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36352" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-31T03:07:41.953" Score="0" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bible.com/bible/2283/DEU.1.%E7%A5%9E%E5%A4%A9%E8%81%96%E6%9B%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;神天聖書&lt;/a&gt; (a classical translation of the Bible to Chinese), the Fifth Book of Moses was translated as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;摩西之第五書名曰吐嘚咡挼咪啞譯言復講法律傳&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess that 吐嘚咡挼咪啞 is a transliteration of Deuteronomy. But I failed to see the reason that except for 挼, only characters with 口字旁 was used in this transliteration. Is there any reason?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="21202" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T03:12:52.830" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T03:23:26.797" Title="Why characters with &quot;口字旁&quot; were chosen in this transliteration?" Tags="&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;characters&gt;&lt;transliteration&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36352" CreationDate="2019-12-31T03:12:53.653" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Characters with &quot;mouth radicals&quot; are often chosen for transliterations. This is especially helpful to show that it is a proper noun rather than anything else, otherwise the reader might try and put meaning into characters that are simply there for their associated sounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar concept can be seen in Chinese onomatopoeia. For instance &quot;choo-choo&quot; the sound a steam train makes can be written: 呜呜 in Chinese, and again we see the mouth radical to indicate purely sound-based usage. 咩咩 is equivalent to the English &quot;baa baa,&quot; the sounds that sheep make. A closer fit to English would be: 喵喵 the sound cats make. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a note: this is quite an old transliteration practice. You wouldn't see places written this way today and if you look at most countries names they just simply are not translated like this. But, the mouth radical does hint at sound over meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T03:23:26.797" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T03:23:26.797" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36347" CreationDate="2019-12-31T03:18:06.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quote:- &quot;Is it because 內 and 内 are long-accepted variants of each other and the reformers just picked one to be the standard?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a definitive answer, we of course require a true expert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, just to get the ball rolling, here's my personal view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are right in that they are accepted variants. But why pick one and not the other because aesthetically, IMHO, the discarded one looks better, or more &quot;Chinese&quot; (Actually the Japanese retained it in their Kanji)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all let's look at the component parts of 內 and 内:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's made up of 冂,（Jiong)，(城外，郊外，野外), -- (outside the city, the wilds). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 入，(Ru)，(into, to enter); (pictographically, an arrow head), &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or 人, (Ren),  (people).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were to chose between:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(a)   an arrow head, (入), &quot;inside&quot; the wilds, (冂), to denote &quot;inside&quot;, or,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(b)   people, (人), &quot;inside&quot; the wilds to denote &quot;inside&quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which would you chose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously the people originally tasked to pick one made their choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just my wild guesses. I could be completely wrong of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T03:18:06.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36355" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-31T04:02:32.937" Score="1" ViewCount="540" Body="&lt;p&gt;The words &amp;quot;呱呱&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;ribbit&amp;quot; are onomatopoeias that represent the sound of frogs, respectively in Chinese and English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hardly see any similarity between these two sounds. Why does the cry of the same animal sound so differently in Chinese and English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T14:19:04.257" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T14:19:04.257" Title="Why do the onomatopoeias describing the cry of frogs sound so different in Chinese and English?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;word&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36355" CreationDate="2019-12-31T04:36:09.680" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unlike in English, where you can combine random letters of the alphabet to form nonsensical words to mimic a sound,  sound effect words in Chinese are all borrowed from existing characters, sometimes adding the 口 radical to indicate it is a sound, e.g. 口 + 瓜  = 呱, we can only choose the character similarly pronounced like the sound effect the most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Frogs make more than one kind of sound, 'ribbit' is just one of them.  &quot;呱呱&quot; pronouns as  &quot;gua gua&quot; is similar enough to a kind of sound frogs make&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To mimic the sound of 'ribbit' we have only one character in Mandarin that  is pronounced similar to &quot;ri&quot; (Rì), and no character is pronounced as &quot;bit&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is easier to match English sound effect with Cantonese because it has 9 tones instead of only four in Mandarin, 'Ribbit' would sound like 列別 /lit6 bit6/  in Cantonese&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't like 呱呱, you can use 咯咯, but you can't make up a new character for the frog sound&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="22903" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T14:52:46.967" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T14:52:46.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36355" CreationDate="2019-12-31T05:58:24.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you ask the frogs themselves, I think you might croak at their answers? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one all could agree on, cats, &quot;meow&quot; in English and &quot;喵喵&quot; in Chinese, but I doubt the cats themselves would agree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's not start on dogs, horses, etc......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T05:58:24.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28312" CreationDate="2019-12-31T06:11:23.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here “比一比”是指一个动作。即把衣服贴在身上（对着镜子）看看，而不是试穿，动作比较随意。&#xA;“比一比”refers to an action, that is to take up a new dress and then cling it on one’s body but not trying on.It is more casual.&#xA;To have a look it is if suitble to the color, size, style etc.&#xA;另外，“一件件新衣向身上比一比”常用“往身上比一比”很少用“向”字。虽然“向”和“往”都可以指动作的方向。&#xA;Other, we prefer using “往” but “向”, although both are refering the direction of a action .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23337" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T06:11:23.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36347" CreationDate="2019-12-31T06:38:26.683" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;They don't call this a &amp;quot;Simplification&amp;quot; in the PRC. Simplification is stroke-cutting achieved by various methods - if a character is standardised not by stroke cutting, it's not a Simplification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, the structure of「內」was already not clear by the time of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Han Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;clerical script&lt;/a&gt;, and famous calligraphers overwhelmingly wrote the inside with the same strokes as「人」. Most print forms and standardisation efforts (apart from the PRC) have reverted the inside back to「入」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;「內」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*nˤ[u]p-s/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;inside&lt;/em&gt;) is comprised of simultaneously semantic and phonetic「入」(&lt;strong&gt;/*n[u]p/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to enter&lt;/em&gt;) and semantic「宀」(&lt;em&gt;building&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference, some character evolution sequences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JOiaR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JOiaR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;鐵&lt;/a&gt;・185.1&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=17299&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集17299&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/riBBQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/riBBQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;大盂鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2837&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2837&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WbUUD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WbUUD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日甲&lt;/a&gt;146背&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty#Eastern_Han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ZUoX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ZUoX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analects&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;論語&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiping_Stone_Classics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;熹平石經&lt;/a&gt;殘&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/02W4g.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/02W4g.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bFZhG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bFZhG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;存&lt;/a&gt;・812&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=14993&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集14993&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PEP9M.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PEP9M.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;公貿鼎・安&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2719&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2719&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/urPG6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/urPG6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;編&lt;/a&gt;20・安&lt;br&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;東漢&lt;br&gt;隸&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Caav.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Caav.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;校官碑・寶&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U0YZm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U0YZm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DnIgY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DnIgY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;前&lt;/a&gt;・4.28.3&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=5560&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集5560&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B9Q34.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B9Q34.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;豆閉簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4276&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4276&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q4Rpu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q4Rpu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/QinwenziReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;・80&lt;br&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;東漢&lt;br&gt;隸&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BOrA0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BOrA0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;衡方碑&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zMt6W.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zMt6W.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please carefully note the shapes of the corresponding timeframes of the character samples.「人」was &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; part of the structure of「內」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SMZoQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SMZoQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;・2940&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=18901&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集18901&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9JM9B.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9JM9B.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;善鼎&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2820&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2820&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;秦&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fQDpM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fQDpM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;日乙&lt;/a&gt;17&lt;br&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;東漢&lt;br&gt;隸&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K47CM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K47CM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;孔龢碑&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gBcYT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gBcYT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you're really seeing in the PRC standard「内」is the culmination of a change within &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;regular script&lt;/a&gt; strokes using a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qin&lt;/a&gt;-Han shape as a basis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note in 東漢・衡方碑「內」, the top of the inner shape is still much more elongated than the top of 東漢・孔龢碑「人」. When regular script morphed characters into a roughly square shape (instead of the flattened rectangular shape as typical of clerical script characters), the top of「人」became elongated as well, so the inside of the regular script calligraphy style of「内」and「人」became indistinguishable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隋&lt;/a&gt;?・&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%99%BA%E6%B0%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;智永&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1khLi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1khLi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%99%BA%E6%B0%B8%E7%9C%9F%E8%8D%89%E5%8D%83%E5%AD%97%E6%96%87%E5%86%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;眞草千字文&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;何琳儀《戰國古文字典：戰國文字聲系》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/search_source.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中華語文知識庫・漢字源流&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;孫雋《中國書法大字典》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T02:20:33.650" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36318" CreationDate="2019-12-31T07:37:44.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;囚犯 and 囚徒 means prisoner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;犯人 means someone who commit a crime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;囚 means confine people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T07:37:44.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36065" CreationDate="2019-12-31T07:58:33.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can say 我三歲了 after you have been born for more than three years but not reach four years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you feel not safe to use this, you can use 我已經滿三歲了.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T07:58:33.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36047" CreationDate="2019-12-31T08:19:17.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;合球隊有四男四女。 In English: There are four males and four females in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korfball&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Korfball&lt;/a&gt; team.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他昨天那場打得很好，12殺1死8助攻。 In English: He played well in that round, he got 12 kills 1 death and 8 assists yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="23311" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T04:41:29.723" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T04:41:29.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36318" CreationDate="2019-12-31T08:22:49.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For those who are interested, here's a lovely song which use the word 囚 in the metaphorical sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/KV6Fkg86q1E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/KV6Fkg86q1E&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/pSqIJFr11xk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/pSqIJFr11xk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T12:08:12.380" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T12:08:12.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36355" CreationDate="2019-12-31T12:10:26.023" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of directly answering your question I'm going to post this picture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FFFBR.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FFFBR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T12:10:26.023" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36319" CreationDate="2019-12-31T14:46:16.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wayne Cheah's answer provided a reasonable speculation on why there's no direct equivalent of 「气合」in Chinese martial art term. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of describing the short shout emitted when preforming martial art as &quot;WHOOO!!! HA!!&quot; or &quot;HUT!!&quot;, the more technical description would be &quot;吐气发劲&quot; (exhale and strike vigorously)  or &quot;扬声吐劲&quot; (emit loud voice along with stronge force)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T14:52:19.253" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T14:52:19.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36367" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36368" CreationDate="2019-12-31T15:42:11.033" Score="1" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;Parents in China routinely introduce me to their children as 爷爷.  Okay.  Adults usually do not use family terms with me.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was one case that I wonder about.  In a fish restaurant where they had seen me before, I got my first squilla/虾蛄.  I was doing okay, but obviously not experienced with eating them.  The manager came over to my table and said 姐姐给你看  She did a very expert job, showing me at each step exactly how.  Of course I was pleased at her kindness.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would like to understand better: She was probably 10 or 15 years younger than me.  Did she use 姐姐 because that is normal when we are somehow close to the same generation?  Or out of politeness so she would not be calling me old?  I have to say Chinese people (not only children) are often quite frank at calling me old.  Could she have called herself 妹妹, or would that be very unlikely between strangers?  Or would it be because she was taking the lead to teach me a skill?  Could she have called me 叔叔 or would that be wrong somehow?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T12:47:37.897" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T12:47:37.897" Title="Why did she choose 姐姐?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;politeness&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36367" CreationDate="2019-12-31T17:20:31.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;She identify herself as 姐姐 to show she is “powerful” or “knowledgeable” in doing whatever you don’t know how to do. Sometimes you call a female 姐姐 for showing respect. Even for people younger than you, they may still identify themselves as 姐姐, because 妹妹 is too flirtatious. However, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to call a female 姐姐 when you know she’s clearly younger than you (not in your situation, as she has called herself 姐姐). And, females don’t like to be called 阿姨 by strangers even though they’re much older than you, so 姐姐 is a safer bet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another popular term to call young females (even though they might be younger than you) is 小姐姐, which has a lot meanings than it used to be. So the use of it depends on context, but generally I treat it as a nickname for young beautiful females. Pls be careful using it though. A lot of materials online you can search about. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T17:20:31.677" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36369" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36372" CreationDate="2019-12-31T18:04:29.910" Score="2" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 什么事 and 什么 seem to mean “what” (well, maybe literally 什么事 means “what thing”). So why is it that in this sentence we employ 什么事？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发生了什么事？&#xA;What happened?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it incorrect to write instead:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发生了什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T11:38:26.317" Title="什么事 vs 什么: what’s the difference" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36370" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36371" CreationDate="2019-12-31T20:53:09.647" Score="0" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;Compare the position of 了 in the following sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;发生了什么事？&#xA;What happened?&#xA;&#xA;我想知道他发生什么事了。&#xA;I wonder what has happened to her.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you explain what the difference is in the positions of the 了? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23174" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T00:56:58.273" LastActivityDate="2021-04-09T19:41:51.813" Title="Position of 了in 发生了什么事 vs 发生什么事了" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36370" CreationDate="2020-01-01T00:11:21.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;发生了什么事 VS 发生什么事了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There isn't essential difference between them. They mean the same and are interchangeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T00:11:21.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36369" CreationDate="2020-01-01T00:35:14.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;发生了什么事？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;事 refers to 事情(affair, matter, thing, etc). 什么事情 is &lt;strong&gt;specific&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;em&gt;what thing&lt;/em&gt;. 发生了什么 is &lt;strong&gt;generic&lt;/strong&gt;.  They can be interchangeable in most of context, in which we take  发生了什么 as the shorthand for 发生了什么事. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 发生了什么 could also be shorthand for 发生了什么现象，发生了什么反应，发生了什么变化，etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 这两种物质混在一起会发生什么？== 这两种物质混在一起会发生什么现象/变化？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case above, 这两种物质混在一起会发生什么事 is not something 这两种物质混在一起会发生什么 is trying to convey. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T07:05:48.963" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T07:05:48.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36373" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-01T03:45:17.630" Score="1" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;祝大家元旦快乐！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for examples of Chinese verbless sentences. I have a few, I'm not too sure if Chinese people would really say things like this. They are all quite short.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any longer example sentences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我中国人。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我中国人，你澳洲人。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我两部电脑。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;屋里许多蚊子。&#xA;今天刚星期三。  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somehow related is to this is the use of 是。* indicates unacceptable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他只是孩子。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;*他只孩子。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;他也许是张三。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;*他也许张三。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to use adverbs, you need 是 it seems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T20:18:10.423" Title="Examples of verbless sentences in Chinese" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36373" CreationDate="2020-01-01T04:31:42.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 今天星期三 is more usual to be used than 今天刚星期三.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And some people use this kind of structure to concatenate other structure. For example: 我两部电脑, If you want to describe that both of two computers of your own are break. You can say that 我两部电脑都壞了. This example show that 都壞了 concatenate after 我两部电脑.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And sometimes, people do not need to use a verb in sentence, if they just need to use adjective to describe somethings. for example: 這幅畫好漂亮 in English: This picture is so beautiful. There is no verb in 這幅畫好漂亮.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T04:31:42.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36375" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-01T05:03:12.137" Score="0" ViewCount="429" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%84%9F%E6%83%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;感情&lt;/a&gt; (gǎnqíng) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%83%85%E6%84%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;情感&lt;/a&gt; (qínggǎn) are nouns that mean &amp;quot;emotion&amp;quot;.  Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这复杂的&lt;strong&gt;情感&lt;/strong&gt;使埃拉想起了自己的丈夫。&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/show-%E6%83%85%E6%84%9F-7.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;These complex emotions cause Ella to think of her own husband.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;最后这种感情再也抑制不了。&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%84%9F%E6%83%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Finally, these kinds of emotions [are] no longer inhibiting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't see a difference.  I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/453809590.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a Baidu Zhidao article&lt;/a&gt; which I translate below, which asserts there is a difference, but it didn't help me understand what the difference is.  Ideally, it would be nice to have concrete examples which identify the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What examples highlight the difference between 感情 and 情感?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/453809590.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;感情和情感有区别吗？&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有区别。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情感是态度这一整体中的一部分，它与态度中的内向感受、意向具有协调一致性，是态度在生理上一种较复杂而又稳定的生理评价和体验。情感包括道德感和价值感两个方面，具体表现为爱情、幸福、仇恨、厌恶、美感等等。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情感 is the entirety of 态度 (&amp;quot;attitude&amp;quot;), inside it and 态度 we feel and incline to have coordinated consistency.  It's 态度 physiology's comparatively complicated and stable physiological evaluation and self-experience.  情感 includes feelings of virtue and value; concrete expressions of romance, happiness, hatred, loathing, sense of beauty, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;而感情，是人内心的各种的感觉、思想和行为的一种综合的心理和生理状态，是对外界刺激所产生的心理反应，以及附带的生理反应。如：喜、怒、哀、乐等，感情是个人的主观体验和感受，常跟心情、气质、性格和性情有关。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 感情, is a person's internal kind of 感情, thoughts and behaviors in a composite mental and physiological state.  It's the external world which provokes and give rise to mental reaction, as well as incidental physiological reactions.  For example, like, anger, sorry, happiness.  感情 is a personal subjective experience and sense, commonly related with mood, temperament, disposition, and nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my mind, that's a lot of words, and very little clarity.  (And it's also just &amp;quot;some random person on the Internet said so&amp;quot;, which is unreliable.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T18:51:30.807" Title="What examples highlight the difference between 感情 (gǎnqíng) and 情感 (qínggǎn), meaning &quot;emotion&quot; [noun]?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36375" CreationDate="2020-01-01T05:15:32.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 感情 usually means the emotion between you and someone or something. For example:&#xA;我和他是十多年的老朋友了，我们的感情很深。&#xA;你和她有感情吗？&#xA;我对祖国有着深厚的感情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 情感 is a broader concept.&#xA;悲伤、仇恨、惋惜多种情感交织在一起，让她的心情久久不能平静。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23364" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T05:15:32.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36375" CreationDate="2020-01-01T06:09:42.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;要辨析这两个词我们还要看第三个词：情绪。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情绪是人在境遇下最&lt;strong&gt;直接和浅层心理活动的概括&lt;/strong&gt;，如喜、怒、哀、惧等。情感则为&lt;strong&gt;更高级心理活动的概括&lt;/strong&gt;，如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;复杂的情感郁结于胸，久不能息。丈夫又彻夜不归，他究竟是忙于工作吗？会不会另有新欢？不，他向来是爱自己的，决不可能犯错。于是又不免担心起来，他是不是应酬醉酒，露宿街头了？&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;由此，情感更为具体于情境，通常简单一二字难以概括，所以我们经常使用如“复杂的情感”等，先引出其事，再另辟文字以详析。当然许多情感确有式范，如上述段落，若不需要解释清楚，也可以写作：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;猜疑、自宽又不免担忧，丈夫夜不归宿使她心头郁结着复杂的情感。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感情则是一种&lt;strong&gt;具有对象的情感&lt;/strong&gt;。所以爱、恨、仇、厌等既是感情，又是情感：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;最后这种感情再也压抑不住。他展幅挥毫，恣意将心中对祖国的热爱图画在案上的壮丽山河之中。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感情作为&lt;strong&gt;取对象的情感&lt;/strong&gt;，一般是逐渐形成，较为稳定的，这时我们可以用“深厚”来形容一种稳固的感情。也因此，人与人之间的感情&lt;strong&gt;也指人与人之间的关系、态度等&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;我与他是感情深厚的老友了。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;夫妻之间感情和睦。&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. 百度知道 is often inaccurate even misleading, because now few people use it, and thus it lacks voting and editing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.P.S.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;双语例句的缺点在于，其中一方并非一定是自然原文，而可能是机器翻译；即便是人工翻译，水平亦参差不齐。在翻译机器大行其道的当下，许多偷懒的人完全依赖于此而不去辨析语境，向互联网添加名为人翻实为机翻的语料，加之翻译机器的学习基础又是采集互联网的语料数据，形成自我强化的闭环，久之确实影响到了原本语言的精密和纯净，使得许多人，包括母语人士，都不辨词义，不工句式。母语人士尚受荼毒，更毋论学习者了。中文如是，世界通行之英语亦然。这大概是语言发展的规律叭～&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T18:51:30.807" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T18:51:30.807" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36375" CreationDate="2020-01-01T07:29:33.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;百度知道 answers it very well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still have a hard time understanding it, you can simply take it that 感情 is &lt;strong&gt;bearing an affection for something&lt;/strong&gt; and 情感 is &lt;strong&gt;your emotional(情) feelings(感)&lt;/strong&gt; such as &lt;em&gt;love, hatred, sadness, anger, etc&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 我对她是有感情的 // I bear an affection for her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;爱恨交织在一起的情感 // 爱 and 恨 are two kinds of 情感, which are twisted together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T07:29:33.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32806" CreationDate="2020-01-01T10:05:43.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;关于这个问题，其实很简单。它只是台湾话的一种说法。普通话里没有这个“有”字的用法。&#xA;About this question, it is really simple, it is just a Taiwanese exprssion. There is no this usage of 有in Mandarin Chinese.&#xA;普通话的“有”字句是这种形式：It is this form of 有-sentence in Mandarin&#xA;主语+（动词）有+宾语。 “有”是动词不是助动词，它后边可以带动态助词“过”“了”但不能带补语。&#xA;Subject +(verb)有+ object .  有 is not auxiliary verb. It can be followed by dynamic auxiliaries “过”“了”but no complement.&#xA;例如：&#xA;这个城市有了很大变化。/ 图书馆里有过这本书。&#xA;“有”字句的否定形式是：The negative form of 有- setence is always 没有&#xA;主语+ 没有+ 宾语   例如：今天我没有时间。&#xA;而它的正反问句的形式是：有没有 The affirmative-negativ of the 有-setence&#xA;例如：今天你有没有时间？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23337" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T10:05:43.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36047" CreationDate="2020-01-01T10:36:41.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to say that 年，月，日，周,时，分，秒 they are do units of time,that is certainly measure word. Although they are also nouns.We can call them nominal measure words. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23337" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T10:36:41.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36369" CreationDate="2020-01-01T11:38:26.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quote:- &quot;发生了什么事？ What happened?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it incorrect to write instead:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;发生了什么？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any difference?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(a)   both are correctly phrased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(b)   any difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is situational.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following scenarios:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)   You walk into your office and everyone is unusually quiet; you have no idea why. You would naturally ask -- 发生了什么？ So it's generic because you may wonder perhaps something unusual had happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)   You walk into your office and the place is crawling with policemen; you would ask -- 发生了什么事？ So it's specific in that it is obvious some kind of matter, 事, had occurred.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T11:38:26.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36373" CreationDate="2020-01-01T12:39:12.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;如你发现的，无动词汉语句子只是句子的一种。按句子结构划分，有四种类型，分别是动词谓语句；形容词谓语句；名词谓语句和主谓谓语句。&#xA;As you found out, Chinese verbless sentences is just only one kind of sentnces. There are four kinds of sentences in terms of structure.&#xA;They are respectively sentences with verbal predicates; sentences with adjectivel predicates; setences with nominal predicates and sentences with an S-P phrase as the predicate.&#xA;你写的几个短句（我中国人。我中国人，你澳洲人。我两部电脑。屋里许多蚊子。 今天刚星期三。）都是名词谓语句。它的特点就是结构比较简单，句子较短。多用于口语。&#xA;The sentnces you wrote are all setences with nominal predicates. The characteristics of it is simple in structure and short, Usually is used more often in spoken Chinese.&#xA;另外，你提到的“是”字，这是一类特殊的动词谓语句，我们叫做“是”字句。它的形式是 主语+是+宾语。&#xA;Another, you mentioned“是”,It is a special sentence form, we call it as “是”-sentence. Its form is subject +是+object. &#xA;例如： 他是孩子。“是”字前边可以加副词做状语，“他只是孩子。”&#xA;“是”字句的否定形式是：主语+不是+宾语。例如“他不是孩子”；&#xA;这里要注意的是，除了少数表示范围的副词可以放在“不”和“是”中间以外，其他副词一般都不能插入。&#xA;Here need to pay attention,Except for a few adverbs of range ,generally speaking,other adverbs cannot be inserted between 不and 是，for example : 他们不都是学生。他不只是孩子。&#xA;“是”字句的正反疑问句的形式是：主语+是不是+宾语？或 主语+ 是+ 宾语+ 不是？&#xA;例如; 你是不是老师？或 你是老师不是？&#xA;The affirmative-negative forms of the 是-sentence: subject +是不是+ objective?  or subject +是+ objective+不是?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23337" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T12:39:12.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36383" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36386" CreationDate="2020-01-01T12:57:20.773" Score="3" ViewCount="1319" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching a video from Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper, and they mentioned the phrase in question as such: “港鐵就射個三分波 叫我們問政府”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that 三分波 refers to an action in some sport, possibly football or basketball since “波” means “ball” in Cantonese. However, I do not understand which action it refers to, as well as its extended meaning which was its intended application. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a common phrase in Cantonese? How would Cantonese speakers use the phrase beyond its literal meaning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The link to the news report is as follows: &lt;a href=&quot;https://hk.news.appledaily.com/local/realtime/article/20191230/60431189&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hk.news.appledaily.com/local/realtime/article/20191230/60431189&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23334" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T23:30:09.730" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T23:30:09.730" Title="What does “射個三分波” mean?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;sport&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36383" CreationDate="2020-01-01T13:01:39.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;射個三分波 = shoot a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-point_field_goal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;three-pointer&lt;/a&gt; / three-point shot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase gets about 13,500 results on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E5%B0%84%E5%80%8B%E4%B8%89%E5%88%86%E6%B3%A2%22&amp;amp;client=firefox-b-d&amp;amp;sxsrf=ACYBGNQlqDHA5T8xk6eRqsjmMhASKO4X3g:1577884307409&amp;amp;source=lnt&amp;amp;tbs=li:1&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwiE4I6NveLmAhU_7XMBHRJuCGcQpwV6BAgMECA&amp;amp;biw=1280&amp;amp;bih=672&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google's verbatim&lt;/a&gt; search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T13:08:34.457" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T13:08:34.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36375" CreationDate="2020-01-01T13:19:56.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My explanation:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;感情 are the deep person-to-person emotions felt and conveyed between two or more persons. Like the love and affections between a man and a woman, a parent and child, two intimate friends. In other words emotional sentiments between people at a personal level. And could often be conveyed by &quot;I love / miss you&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;情感 while describing emotional states in general, nevertheless extends to encompass other wider, general emotional states like sympathy, empathy, charity, sadness, friendship, (perhaps even including the so-called Stockholm Syndrome); And could be conveyed by &quot;I am sorry for your loss&quot;; &quot;You are in my prayers&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们的好友情感渐渐变成了深爱感情:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their feelings of close friendship gradually changed to deep love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T14:59:59.677" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T14:59:59.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36383" CreationDate="2020-01-01T14:45:20.273" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“港鐵就射個三分波 叫我們問政府”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MTR just shot a three-pointer, told us to ask the government&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;射三分波&amp;quot; is obviously a basketball term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not a common term, but a great use of metaphor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine: The MTR spokesman was surrounded by reporters asking him tough questions, just like a basketball player surrounded by opposing team's guards who wouldn't let him break free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get away, that player can choose to drive right through them, (talk his way out) or get rid of the ball and shoot a three pointer instead (The metaphor is &amp;quot;throw a three-pointer&amp;quot; not &amp;quot;score a three-pointer&amp;quot;) Throw the question to the government's direction hoping the reporters would leave him alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People who like sports often use sport terms metaphorically. For example, compare a business gamble that yielded great result to a &amp;quot;home-run&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hong Kong people like sports too. If you say &amp;quot;He is yellow-carded by his girlfriend&amp;quot; people would understand that you mean &amp;quot;he got a (break-up) warning from his girlfriend&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T12:13:25.023" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36373" CreationDate="2020-01-01T20:12:28.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of explaining verbless structure, which other posts have done a great job, I shall present you with a longer example. But notice that, it's all depending on how you define 'verb' . If you say all predicate must center a verb, all sentences except for the shortest ones, contain at least a verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think descriptive sentences are quite easy to keep clear from nomal 'verbs'. So I recall one of my compositions about the scenery of my high school campus and its surroundings, and one paragraph of it doesn't include a single 'normal verb' as predicate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;譬若坡上杜英，湖畔杨柳，隰以鸢尾，间以樱桃，树树繁华：山茶、紫叶桃、红叶李；丛丛锦绣：木槿、石决明、金鸡菊。XX山上：树林茂密，老木参天，浓阴匝地；遗迹冷清，佛影悠然，檀香氤氲。漫步则取荫游胜，骑行则健体强身。此间之XX（School name），不亦宜乎？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（漫步、骑行 are subjects as nouns，取荫游胜、健体强身 are predicatives as adjectives. Hahhahhh）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following excerpt indeed uses verbs as predicates, but for the sake of consistency I put it here to form an undivided paragraph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;又XX明珠自握：香樟丰衍，檵木拥丛，玉兰芬绽，紫薇蕊吐。早夏穿廊，稠李弥漫；年节返校，迎春惠来。屋盖覆绿，池塘簇荷，石墙爬蔓，瀑布生芜。习诵其中，心赏目悦。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T20:18:10.423" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T20:18:10.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36383" CreationDate="2020-01-02T03:32:58.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a reference/meme to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWbuUmXRhDA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an old Announcement in the Public Interest&lt;/a&gt; (a.k.a. Public Service Announcement) regarding television programme regulations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(In a local diner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Sports commentator in the TV) 電視機：「即刻轉身射個三分波啊，又反超前一分喇﻿！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(For a brief moment, a basketball can be seen in the TV screen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Audience) 觀眾：「哎呀！」&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2718" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T03:32:58.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36389" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-02T05:05:59.310" Score="1" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone assist with translation of the characters as shown. They are incised into the underside of a Tang sancai figure of a resting camel&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3Ru7I.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3Ru7I.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23383" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T05:16:40.340" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T05:16:40.340" Title="Tang inscription translation (Characters identified: 大唐年製)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36389" CreationDate="2020-01-02T05:15:19.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;大唐年製 (Made in the era of the Tang Dynasty)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T05:15:19.233" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36391" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-02T09:03:47.920" Score="2" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;我不清楚 ”为“ 对 像 ”变成“ ”改造“ 这样的词的影响是什么。比方说，“变成为”，“改造为” 跟 “变成” “改造“ 有什么不同的地方。如果一个词是改变的意思，总是可以加 “为” 吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure what the impact of &quot;为&quot; is on verbs that indicate change. For instance, &quot;变成“ vs &quot;变成为“ or &quot;改造&quot; vs. &quot;改造为&quot;. In addition, I am not sure whether &quot;为&quot; can be added to all verbs that indicate change or just a few specific ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23386" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T23:20:23.053" Title="”变成“ vs “变成为” 有什么不同？" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;verbs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36391" CreationDate="2020-01-02T09:09:47.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;变成为&quot; is kind of redundant. It is the same as &quot;变成&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the &quot;stem&quot; of verb is &quot;变&quot;, while &quot;成&quot; and &quot;为&quot; are two &quot;suffixes&quot; that have similar meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;改造&quot; and &quot;改造为&quot; are totally different. &quot;改造&quot; means to change something. &quot;改造为&quot; means to change &lt;strong&gt;into&lt;/strong&gt; (become) something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T09:09:47.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36367" CreationDate="2020-01-02T09:25:32.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here we are again on the intricate, &quot;confusing&quot; network that foreign speakers need to navigate around the &quot;right&quot;, &quot;wrong&quot;, &quot;maybe right, maybe wrong&quot; way of addressing and being addressed when around Chinese people, whether in China or elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all there isn't a one-size-fits-all words or phrases that cover all or any delicate or indelicate situations, social or private, like &quot;Miss&quot;, &quot;Lady&quot;, &quot;Madam&quot; which are ultra safe in 99% of situations in English speaking places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your queries:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)  Parents in China routinely introduce me to their children as 爷爷.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Family relationships are of the utmost importance to the Chinese and introducing you as &quot;grandfather&quot; to their children, (who actually know you have no blood relationship to them), is a mark of great honor and respect not just for you as a person but also you are now officially part of the family, (whether you like it or not), and for your old age as well which is historically much treasured.         &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)  The manager came over to my table and said 姐姐给你看.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She said &quot;Let elder sister show you how its done&quot;, (though she could be 40 years younger than you) Now, depending on her tone of voice and whether it was with a smile, it could, one, be just a straight forward professional gesture to help a paying customer, or, two, as the &quot; 姐姐&quot; part might indicate, an act, (bordering on playful sarcasm), of an elder sister instructing her younger brother how to do some, to her, really simple tasks, something which an elder sister should teach a younger brother.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She might be factually wrong in terms of age-relations between you two, but she was right from the pedagogical point of view. But then again, she could just be down right sarcastic towards an old clumsy foreigner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3)  Could she have called me 叔叔 or would that be wrong somehow? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, not wrong, as the Chinese have now taken to using &quot;Uncle&quot; rather loosely to mean a male of your father's age, like all things &quot;Western&quot;. However, we have “USD” which does not mean US Dollars but 糖叔叔爸爸, i.e. Uncle Sugar Daddy, (USD)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4)   Could she have called herself 妹妹&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, to the Chinese, especially the older generations, knowledge, wisdom are in the domain of the old and aged. She has to be your 姐姐 to claim the &quot;right&quot; to teach you anything. In certain playful situations when a ten year old kid tries to be argumentative, the adults may condescendingly say, 是，你老人家说的对。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T09:25:32.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36391" CreationDate="2020-01-02T12:24:59.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;為 sometimes have the same meanings of 是. And 是 showed that somethings after 是 is used to describe somethings before 是. for example: 石頭變成為一顆漂亮的寶石 showed that somethings after 為(一顆漂亮的寶石) is used to describe somethings before 為(石頭變成). So in this example, you can know that somethings &lt;strong&gt;changed from stone&lt;/strong&gt;(the meaning of 石頭變成) is &lt;strong&gt;a beautiful gem&lt;/strong&gt;(the meaning of 一顆漂亮的寶石).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While sometimes you don't need to use 為. That's say 石頭變成一顆漂亮的寶石 is complete for people to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that sometimes people tend to use 為 or 成 when there is too less word. 成 have the meaning of become somethings. For example, if there is only 變 in 石頭變一顆漂亮的寶石 people tend to add 為 or 成 after 變 to form 石頭變為一顆漂亮的寶石 or 石頭變成一顆漂亮的寶石.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="23311" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T23:20:23.053" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T23:20:23.053" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26397" CreationDate="2020-01-02T13:17:24.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;·这是反问句的一种形式，用“不是······吗”表示事实应该这样。以否定式强调肯定的意思。&#xA;  Using 不是······吗to express the meaning of certainty. Using a negative form to emphasize an affirmative meaning.&#xA; 这句话的意思是要求每个小组（选一个代表）发言。The meaning is each group (choose a representative) is asked to speak.&#xA;·“单位”是指小组（group）/团队(team).汉语里经常用到它，不要按字面翻译成单位（unit）这个术语。&#xA; 单位 is refer to group or team, but not jargon unit.&#xA;·以···为···这里“以”是把的意思，“为”是当作/作为 也就是把“每个小组”作为“一个团队”&#xA;这句话隐含的意思是只要小组的代表发言就可以，不需要每个人都演讲。&#xA;The implication of this sentence is that only the representatives of the group speak, not everyone speaks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23337" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T13:17:24.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36396" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36397" CreationDate="2020-01-02T16:50:51.890" Score="1" ViewCount="400" Body="&lt;p&gt;新年快乐，大家！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a long-time user of Stack Overflow for coding problems, but a noob on Chinese SE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was trying to say recently &lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;I think Disney has a big influence on people's expectations of love&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;My answer&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I translated to &amp;quot;我觉得迪士尼对人的爱情要求的影响很大&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Doubts&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly I wasn't sure if simply saying 人 is appropriate to mean people in general. I was thinking about saying 老百姓 but I wasn't sure if this is a bit of a derogatory term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I think maybe I could have used a better term than 要求 to mean expectations...possibly 希望，期望，期待 ? These three seem interchangeable in my inexperience...are there any differences in usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23387" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T07:00:14.707" Title="Is my translation of &quot;I think Disney has a big influence on people's expectations of love&quot; accurate?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36396" CreationDate="2020-01-02T18:50:51.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 人 would be sufficient to indicate &quot;people in general&quot; in this sentence. 老百姓, though not necessarily derogatory, gives the reader an impression that you're implying there exists some other non-general population group that are not affected/affected differently by Disney.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, 期待 and and 期望 are both fine for 愛情, but I would say the former is better, because all results from google gives 對愛情的期待 even when I searched 對愛情的期望. 要求 sounds too aggressive in my opinion, and we generally do not use 希望 for non-humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally we say &quot;Noun 對 Noun 的期待/期望/要求&quot;, so the object should be 人對愛情的期待. However, this causes two 對's to appear, which sounds odd. So my advice would be to replace 人 with 人們, and replace the second 對 with 對於 to ease the effect of multiple 對's.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally the 的 before 影響 is optional, and since we already have a 的 in the object, we should omit the second.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final sentence would be 我觉得迪士尼对人们对于爱情的期望影响很大&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23225" LastEditorUserId="23225" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T18:57:54.297" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T18:57:54.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="571" CreationDate="2020-01-02T23:04:26.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was very surprised to learn today that the &lt;a href=&quot;https://cn.nytimes.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese edition of the New York Times&lt;/a&gt; has a side-by-side mode suitable for more advanced, fluent readers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(For those unfamiliar with the characters: In the upper right corner of a Chinese article, you can click on &quot;双语&quot; (shuāng yǔ), which translates to &quot;Bilingual&quot;. The other two options are 中 (zhōng) and 英 (yīng), for Chinese and English, respectively.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Upfhl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Upfhl.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clicking on 双语 brings you to the following mode:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8jUIw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8jUIw.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19049" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T23:04:26.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36396" CreationDate="2020-01-03T01:44:26.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Disney has a big influence on people's expectations of love.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我认为迪士尼对人们对于爱的期望产生了很大的影响。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Yeah, you gotta be a goofy princess or prince and live in a fairy castle!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T01:44:26.927" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36396" CreationDate="2020-01-03T03:03:15.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pure Chinese prefers 动宾句, and tends to use less prepositions. So instead of 对......影响很大, it's better to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我认为迪士尼极大影响了人们对于爱情的期待。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T03:03:15.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36402" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-03T04:37:39.263" Score="3" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find the internet has these translations which are &quot;wonderful&quot; and &quot;ingenious&quot;. I find the latter closer to the essence of the 妙。But I think something is amiss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;妙 has the meaning of subtlety in it and has the connotation that when you understand why it's &quot;妙&quot; then there is the feeling satisfaction. None of these subtle aspects is captured by &quot;ingenious&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is some good translation of the word 妙? I am thinking in the context of playing Go/Weiqi/Baduk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23391" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T03:21:56.297" Title="How to translate 妙？" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36402" CreationDate="2020-01-03T04:56:21.967" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://senseis.xmp.net/?ChineseGoTerms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Go Dictionary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; that contains two terms that begin with 妙.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;妙手&lt;/strong&gt; which is defined:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;excellent move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;strong&gt;妙着&lt;/strong&gt; [sic?] which is also defined:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;excellent move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 妙 is consistently translated “excellent.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Clever,” might also be a option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T03:21:56.297" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T03:21:56.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36402" CreationDate="2020-01-03T06:09:48.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Agree - it’s hard to find a word to capture the subtle meaning of 妙. This is the beauty of Chinese. In some context, I think maybe we can also use “smart”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T06:09:48.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36402" CreationDate="2020-01-03T06:11:55.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play chess, so when I see a move that's particularly clever, I like to say it's beautiful. Many chess players also use this, such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vYJyOGKCHE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kasparov&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22887" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T06:11:55.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36406" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-03T06:48:11.753" Score="0" ViewCount="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to translate new words in English into Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say we have some new words in English that have never been translated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Ga (gah) = To walk upside down&#xA;Ba (bah) = Half unicorn half flamingo&#xA;Ti (tee) = To fly underneath a bridge&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would we go about translating these into Chinese? I can, of course, find the corresponding terms in Chinese and string them together. Like &lt;code&gt;[WALK][DOWN]&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;[UNICORN][FLAMINGO]&lt;/code&gt;, etc. But can I instead do a direct translation so the &lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt; is the same in both languages? That is, &quot;Ga&quot; in Chinese (pinyin) directly? How, then, do I create a character or word corresponding to the Pinyin sound?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-01-03T07:14:28.213" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T08:52:40.317" Title="How are Chinese words created (both spelling and sound)?" Tags="&lt;word&gt;&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36408" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36431" CreationDate="2020-01-03T06:54:00.173" Score="2" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the process for introducing a new Chinese character with custom meaning? What are the rules, what is not allowed, what is allowed? Who is allowed to create one? How do you associate a sound with it too? Is it free to create your own?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T11:59:49.073" Title="How are new Chinese characters created?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;orthography&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36396" CreationDate="2020-01-03T07:00:14.707" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quote:- &quot;I think Disney has a big influence on people's expectations of love&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am of the humble opinion that the English sentence itself requires improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be &quot;I think Disney's &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;depiction / portrayal of love&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; has a big influence on people's expectations&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it is not Disney itself, but its &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;depiction / portrayal of love&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; that has a big influence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T07:00:14.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36410" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36412" CreationDate="2020-01-03T07:00:51.780" Score="1" ViewCount="477" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say I have a word in English &quot;fooboo&quot;. What if I want it to be pronounced in Chinese as &quot;fooboo&quot; as well? My first attempt is to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=fu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;search in pinyin&lt;/a&gt; for &quot;fu&quot; and &quot;bu&quot;. Fu gives results like 副 and 付. Bu gives results like 不 and 部. So could I just make it be 付不 or 副部? Or does &lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt; get assigned to characters independent of any character building blocks? That is, how do I associate sounds with some characters? Maybe instead of searching for the pinyin sound, I find two characters, and then say this is &quot;fooboo&quot;. Is that acceptable? For example, maybe 事变 is &quot;fooboo&quot;, even though the components are &lt;code&gt;shì&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;biàn&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20335" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T15:19:54.400" Title="How to create word/character sequence in Chinese that sounds the same as a word in English (or any other language)" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;word&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36410" CreationDate="2020-01-03T07:05:15.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, 付不 or 副部 would sound similar to &lt;em&gt;fooboo&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, 事变 would only be read &lt;em&gt;shibian&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 付不 or 副部 would carry their associated meanings from the characters themselves. &quot;付不&quot; would be something like &quot;are you gonna pay for it or not?&quot; While &quot;副部&quot; would be something like &quot;vice-department.&quot; So you need to pay attention to what the characters might mean as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T07:05:15.467" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36410" CreationDate="2020-01-03T07:58:27.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quote:- &quot;Maybe instead of searching for the pinyin sound, I find two characters, and then say this is &quot;fooboo&quot;. Is that acceptable? For example, maybe 事变 is &quot;fooboo&quot;, even though the components are shì and biàn&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, if you are a, say, Martian, landed (randomly), in China and wish to use the Chinese characters to depict the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;sounds&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; of the Martian language, and completely disregard the original Chinese meanings of the words chosen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am being serious here because this was what happened in Japan when the Japanese took the Chinese characters, pronounced them in Japanese sounds, and in some cases even the meanings changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, perhaps in Martian, &quot;fooboo&quot; means &quot;I come in Peace&quot;, and chose the Chinese characters 事变, and give it the pronunciation of fooboo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T07:58:27.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36406" CreationDate="2020-01-03T08:35:10.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But can I instead do a direct translation so the sound is the same in both languages? That is, &amp;quot;Ga&amp;quot; in Chinese (pinyin) directly? How, then, do I create a character or word corresponding to the Pinyin sound?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, you cannot. Words and characters can be invented, but it will take time for people to broadly use them and include them into their vocabulary. And only then are they absorbed into the language. If no one accept your invention, then it's meaningless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say we have some new words in Germany that have never been translated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ga = To walk upside down&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ba = Half unicorn half flamingo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ti = To fly underneath a bridge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would we go about translating these into English? I can, of course, find the corresponding terms in English and string them together. Like [WALK][DOWN] or [UNICORN][FLAMINGO], etc. But can I instead do a direct translation so the sound is the same in both languages? That is, &amp;quot;Gah&amp;quot; in English directly? How, then, do I create a word?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's quite obvious now. You didn't translate it, you just invented a new thing somehow following the rules in that language. But it means nothing, no one, except those who have read your works, will understand it. Of course, if you just intend to get it across merely to your target readers (Even in this case you should explain its meaning for once), you are fine to go. Or if your masterpiece is so popular and famous that everyone feels shame if he hasn't read it, for example, 鲁迅 just coined a character 猹 (it is non-exiatent before) referring to a kind of animals local to his hometown, and it's nothing other than pronounced as what the villagers call that animal. But today everyone knows it and accepts it as part of our language, so it's included in unicode encoding. That is a great example to your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T08:52:40.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36414" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36415" CreationDate="2020-01-03T09:53:26.620" Score="1" ViewCount="1338" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been going through the HSK lists with awk, so I now feel like I can answer...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What are the HSK chengyu (idioms)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer is below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my knowledge, there's no HSK5 idioms, except possibly &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%AE%A8%E4%BB%B7%E8%BF%98%E4%BB%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;讨价还价&lt;/a&gt; (to haggle over price), but I don't think that counts.  This is not to say there's no requirement to learn idioms for HSK5, but that it's not on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetest.cn/userfiles/file/HSK/HSK-2012.xls&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the official list&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T13:49:08.967" Title="What are the HSK chengyu (idioms)?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;&lt;hsk&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36414" CreationDate="2020-01-03T09:53:26.620" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;HSK6 idioms (from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinesetest.cn/userfiles/file/HSK/HSK-2012.xls&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;vocab list&lt;/a&gt;).  English definitions from &lt;a href=&quot;https://cc-cedict.org/editor/editor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-CEDICT&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一丝不苟&lt;/strong&gt; (yīsībùgǒu)&lt;br&gt;not one thread loose (idiom); strictly according to the rules&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%9D%E4%B8%8D%E8%8B%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%9D%E4%B8%8D%E8%8B%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%9D%E4%B8%8D%E8%8B%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一举两得&lt;/strong&gt; (yījǔliǎngdé)&lt;br&gt;one move, two gains (idiom); two birds with one stone&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%BE%E4%B8%A4%E5%BE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%BE%E4%B8%A4%E5%BE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%BE%E4%B8%A4%E5%BE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一如既往&lt;/strong&gt; (yīrújìwǎng)&lt;br&gt;just as in the past (idiom); as before&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%80%E5%A6%82%E6%97%A2%E5%BE%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%80%E5%A6%82%E6%97%A2%E5%BE%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%80%E5%A6%82%E6%97%A2%E5%BE%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一帆风顺&lt;/strong&gt; (yīfānfēngshùn)&lt;br&gt;propitious wind throughout the journey (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%80%E5%B8%86%E9%A3%8E%E9%A1%BA/72491&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%80%E5%B8%86%E9%A3%8E%E9%A1%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%80%E5%B8%86%E9%A3%8E%E9%A1%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一目了然&lt;/strong&gt; (yīmùliǎorán)&lt;br&gt;obvious at a glance (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%80%E7%9B%AE%E4%BA%86%E7%84%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%80%E7%9B%AE%E4%BA%86%E7%84%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%80%E7%9B%AE%E4%BA%86%E7%84%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不可思议&lt;/strong&gt; (bùkěsīyì)&lt;br&gt;inconceivable (idiom); unimaginable&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8D%E5%8F%AF%E6%80%9D%E8%AE%AE/2401?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%8D%E5%8F%AF%E6%80%9D%E8%AE%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%8D%E5%8F%AF%E6%80%9D%E8%AE%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不屑一顾&lt;/strong&gt; (bùxièyīgù)&lt;br&gt;to disdain as beneath contempt (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8D%E5%B1%91%E4%B8%80%E9%A1%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%8D%E5%B1%91%E4%B8%80%E9%A1%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%8D%E5%B1%91%E4%B8%80%E9%A1%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不择手段&lt;/strong&gt; (bùzéshǒuduàn)&lt;br&gt;by fair means or foul&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8D%E6%8B%A9%E6%89%8B%E6%AE%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%8D%E6%8B%A9%E6%89%8B%E6%AE%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%8D%E6%8B%A9%E6%89%8B%E6%AE%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不相上下&lt;/strong&gt; (bùxiāngshàngxià)&lt;br&gt;equally matched&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8D%E7%9B%B8%E4%B8%8A%E4%B8%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%8D%E7%9B%B8%E4%B8%8A%E4%B8%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%8D%E7%9B%B8%E4%B8%8A%E4%B8%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;不言而喻&lt;/strong&gt; (bùyánéryù)&lt;br&gt;it goes without saying&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8D%E8%A8%80%E8%80%8C%E5%96%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%8D%E8%A8%80%E8%80%8C%E5%96%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%8D%E8%A8%80%E8%80%8C%E5%96%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;与日俱增&lt;/strong&gt; (yǔrìjùzēng)&lt;br&gt;to increase steadily&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8E%E6%97%A5%E4%BF%B1%E5%A2%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%8E%E6%97%A5%E4%BF%B1%E5%A2%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%8E%E6%97%A5%E4%BF%B1%E5%A2%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;东张西望&lt;/strong&gt; (dōngzhāngxīwàng)&lt;br&gt;to look in all directions (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%9C%E5%BC%A0%E8%A5%BF%E6%9C%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%9C%E5%BC%A0%E8%A5%BF%E6%9C%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%9C%E5%BC%A0%E8%A5%BF%E6%9C%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;丢三落四&lt;/strong&gt; (diūsānlàsì)&lt;br&gt;forgetful&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%A2%E4%B8%89%E8%90%BD%E5%9B%9B/6758482&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%A2%E4%B8%89%E8%90%BD%E5%9B%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%A2%E4%B8%89%E8%90%BD%E5%9B%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;举世瞩目&lt;/strong&gt; (jǔshìzhǔmù)&lt;br&gt;to receive worldwide attention&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%BE%E4%B8%96%E7%9E%A9%E7%9B%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%BE%E4%B8%96%E7%9E%A9%E7%9B%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%BE%E4%B8%96%E7%9E%A9%E7%9B%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;举足轻重&lt;/strong&gt; (jǔzúqīngzhòng)&lt;br&gt;to play a critical role (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%BE%E8%B6%B3%E8%BD%BB%E9%87%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%B8%BE%E8%B6%B3%E8%BD%BB%E9%87%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%BE%E8%B6%B3%E8%BD%BB%E9%87%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;争先恐后&lt;/strong&gt; (zhēngxiānkǒnghòu)&lt;br&gt;striving to be first and fearing to be last (idiom); outdoing one another&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BA%89%E5%85%88%E6%81%90%E5%90%8E/1663456&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%BA%89%E5%85%88%E6%81%90%E5%90%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%BA%89%E5%85%88%E6%81%90%E5%90%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;任重道远&lt;/strong&gt; (rènzhòngdàoyuǎn)&lt;br&gt;a heavy load and a long road&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BB%BB%E9%87%8D%E9%81%93%E8%BF%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%BB%BB%E9%87%8D%E9%81%93%E8%BF%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%BB%BB%E9%87%8D%E9%81%93%E8%BF%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;众所周知&lt;/strong&gt; (zhòngsuǒzhōuzhī)&lt;br&gt;as everyone knows (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BC%97%E6%89%80%E5%91%A8%E7%9F%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%BC%97%E6%89%80%E5%91%A8%E7%9F%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%BC%97%E6%89%80%E5%91%A8%E7%9F%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;优胜劣汰&lt;/strong&gt; (yōushèngliètài)&lt;br&gt;survival of the fittest (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BC%98%E8%83%9C%E5%8A%A3%E6%B1%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%BC%98%E8%83%9C%E5%8A%A3%E6%B1%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%BC%98%E8%83%9C%E5%8A%A3%E6%B1%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;侃侃而谈&lt;/strong&gt; (kǎnkǎnértán)&lt;br&gt;to speak frankly with assurance&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BE%83%E4%BE%83%E8%80%8C%E8%B0%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%BE%83%E4%BE%83%E8%80%8C%E8%B0%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%BE%83%E4%BE%83%E8%80%8C%E8%B0%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;供不应求&lt;/strong&gt; (gōngbùyìngqiú)&lt;br&gt;supply does not meet demand&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BE%9B%E4%B8%8D%E5%BA%94%E6%B1%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E4%BE%9B%E4%B8%8D%E5%BA%94%E6%B1%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%BE%9B%E4%B8%8D%E5%BA%94%E6%B1%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;兢兢业业&lt;/strong&gt; (jīngjīngyèyè)&lt;br&gt;cautious and conscientious&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%85%A2%E5%85%A2%E4%B8%9A%E4%B8%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%85%A2%E5%85%A2%E4%B8%9A%E4%B8%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%85%A2%E5%85%A2%E4%B8%9A%E4%B8%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;全力以赴&lt;/strong&gt; (quánlìyǐfù)&lt;br&gt;to do at all costs&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%85%A8%E5%8A%9B%E4%BB%A5%E8%B5%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%85%A8%E5%8A%9B%E4%BB%A5%E8%B5%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%85%A8%E5%8A%9B%E4%BB%A5%E8%B5%B4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;兴致勃勃&lt;/strong&gt; (xìngzhìbóbó)&lt;br&gt;to become exhilarated (idiom); in high spirits&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%85%B4%E8%87%B4%E5%8B%83%E5%8B%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%85%B4%E8%87%B4%E5%8B%83%E5%8B%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%85%B4%E8%87%B4%E5%8B%83%E5%8B%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;兴高采烈&lt;/strong&gt; (xìnggāocǎiliè)&lt;br&gt;happy and excited (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%85%B4%E9%AB%98%E9%87%87%E7%83%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%85%B4%E9%AB%98%E9%87%87%E7%83%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%85%B4%E9%AB%98%E9%87%87%E7%83%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;再接再厉&lt;/strong&gt; (zàijiēzàilì)&lt;br&gt;to continue the struggle (idiom); to persist&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%86%8D%E6%8E%A5%E5%86%8D%E5%8E%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%86%8D%E6%8E%A5%E5%86%8D%E5%8E%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%86%8D%E6%8E%A5%E5%86%8D%E5%8E%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;刻不容缓&lt;/strong&gt; (kèbùrónghuǎn)&lt;br&gt;to brook no delay&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%88%BB%E4%B8%8D%E5%AE%B9%E7%BC%93/1987&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%88%BB%E4%B8%8D%E5%AE%B9%E7%BC%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%88%BB%E4%B8%8D%E5%AE%B9%E7%BC%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;力所能及&lt;/strong&gt; (lìsuǒnéngjí)&lt;br&gt;as far as one's capabilities extend (idiom); to the best of one's ability&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8A%9B%E6%89%80%E8%83%BD%E5%8F%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%8A%9B%E6%89%80%E8%83%BD%E5%8F%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%8A%9B%E6%89%80%E8%83%BD%E5%8F%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;千方百计&lt;/strong&gt; (qiānfāngbǎijì)&lt;br&gt;lit. thousand ways, a hundred plans (idiom); by every possible means&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8D%83%E6%96%B9%E7%99%BE%E8%AE%A1/10285585&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%8D%83%E6%96%B9%E7%99%BE%E8%AE%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%8D%83%E6%96%B9%E7%99%BE%E8%AE%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;半途而废&lt;/strong&gt; (bàntú'érfèi)&lt;br&gt;to give up halfway (idiom); leave sth unfinished&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8D%8A%E9%80%94%E8%80%8C%E5%BA%9F/81912&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%8D%8A%E9%80%94%E8%80%8C%E5%BA%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%8D%8A%E9%80%94%E8%80%8C%E5%BA%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;南辕北辙&lt;/strong&gt; (nányuánběizhé)&lt;br&gt;to act in a way that defeats one's purpose (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8D%97%E8%BE%95%E5%8C%97%E8%BE%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%8D%97%E8%BE%95%E5%8C%97%E8%BE%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%8D%97%E8%BE%95%E5%8C%97%E8%BE%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;博大精深&lt;/strong&gt; (bódàjīngshēn)&lt;br&gt;wide-ranging and profound&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8D%9A%E5%A4%A7%E7%B2%BE%E6%B7%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%8D%9A%E5%A4%A7%E7%B2%BE%E6%B7%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%8D%9A%E5%A4%A7%E7%B2%BE%E6%B7%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;各抒己见&lt;/strong&gt; (gèshūjǐjiàn)&lt;br&gt;everyone gives their own view&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%90%84%E6%8A%92%E5%B7%B1%E8%A7%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%90%84%E6%8A%92%E5%B7%B1%E8%A7%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%90%84%E6%8A%92%E5%B7%B1%E8%A7%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;名副其实&lt;/strong&gt; (míngfùqíshí)&lt;br&gt;not just in name only, but also in reality (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%90%8D%E5%89%AF%E5%85%B6%E5%AE%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%90%8D%E5%89%AF%E5%85%B6%E5%AE%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%90%8D%E5%89%AF%E5%85%B6%E5%AE%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;后顾之忧&lt;/strong&gt; (hòugùzhīyōu)&lt;br&gt;fears of trouble in the rear (idiom); family worries (obstructing freedom of action)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%90%8E%E9%A1%BE%E4%B9%8B%E5%BF%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%90%8E%E9%A1%BE%E4%B9%8B%E5%BF%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%90%8E%E9%A1%BE%E4%B9%8B%E5%BF%A7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;吞吞吐吐&lt;/strong&gt; (tūntūntǔtǔ)&lt;br&gt;to hum and haw (idiom); to mumble as if hiding sth&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%90%9E%E5%90%9E%E5%90%90%E5%90%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%90%9E%E5%90%9E%E5%90%90%E5%90%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%90%9E%E5%90%9E%E5%90%90%E5%90%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;喜闻乐见&lt;/strong&gt; (xǐwénlèjiàn)&lt;br&gt;to love to hear and see (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%96%9C%E9%97%BB%E4%B9%90%E8%A7%81/3717152&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%96%9C%E9%97%BB%E4%B9%90%E8%A7%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%96%9C%E9%97%BB%E4%B9%90%E8%A7%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;天伦之乐&lt;/strong&gt; (tiānlúnzhīlè)&lt;br&gt;family love and joy&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%A9%E4%BC%A6%E4%B9%8B%E4%B9%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%A4%A9%E4%BC%A6%E4%B9%8B%E4%B9%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%A4%A9%E4%BC%A6%E4%B9%8B%E4%B9%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;实事求是&lt;/strong&gt; (shíshìqiúshì)&lt;br&gt;to seek truth from facts (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%AE%9E%E4%BA%8B%E6%B1%82%E6%98%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%AE%9E%E4%BA%8B%E6%B1%82%E6%98%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%AE%9E%E4%BA%8B%E6%B1%82%E6%98%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;家喻户晓&lt;/strong&gt; (jiāyùhùxiǎo)&lt;br&gt;understood by everyone (idiom); well known&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%AE%B6%E5%96%BB%E6%88%B7%E6%99%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%AE%B6%E5%96%BB%E6%88%B7%E6%99%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%AE%B6%E5%96%BB%E6%88%B7%E6%99%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;小心翼翼&lt;/strong&gt; (xiǎoxīnyìyì)&lt;br&gt;cautious and solemn (idiom); very carefully&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%8F%E5%BF%83%E7%BF%BC%E7%BF%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%B0%8F%E5%BF%83%E7%BF%BC%E7%BF%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%B0%8F%E5%BF%83%E7%BF%BC%E7%BF%BC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;层出不穷&lt;/strong&gt; (céngchūbùqióng)&lt;br&gt;more and more emerge&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B1%82%E5%87%BA%E4%B8%8D%E7%A9%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%B1%82%E5%87%BA%E4%B8%8D%E7%A9%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%B1%82%E5%87%BA%E4%B8%8D%E7%A9%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;岂有此理&lt;/strong&gt; (qǐyǒucǐlǐ)&lt;br&gt;how can this be so? (idiom); preposterous&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B2%82%E6%9C%89%E6%AD%A4%E7%90%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%B2%82%E6%9C%89%E6%AD%A4%E7%90%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%B2%82%E6%9C%89%E6%AD%A4%E7%90%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;川流不息&lt;/strong&gt; (chuānliúbùxī)&lt;br&gt;the stream flows without stopping (idiom); unending flow&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B7%9D%E6%B5%81%E4%B8%8D%E6%81%AF/4829&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%B7%9D%E6%B5%81%E4%B8%8D%E6%81%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%B7%9D%E6%B5%81%E4%B8%8D%E6%81%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;废寝忘食&lt;/strong&gt; (fèiqǐnwàngshí)&lt;br&gt;to neglect sleep and forget about food (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BA%9F%E5%AF%9D%E5%BF%98%E9%A3%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%BA%9F%E5%AF%9D%E5%BF%98%E9%A3%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%BA%9F%E5%AF%9D%E5%BF%98%E9%A3%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;归根到底&lt;/strong&gt; (guīgēndàodǐ)&lt;br&gt;after all&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BD%92%E6%A0%B9%E5%88%B0%E5%BA%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%BD%92%E6%A0%B9%E5%88%B0%E5%BA%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%BD%92%E6%A0%B9%E5%88%B0%E5%BA%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;当务之急&lt;/strong&gt; (dāngwùzhījí)&lt;br&gt;top priority job&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BD%93%E5%8A%A1%E4%B9%8B%E6%80%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%BD%93%E5%8A%A1%E4%B9%8B%E6%80%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%BD%93%E5%8A%A1%E4%B9%8B%E6%80%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;得不偿失&lt;/strong&gt; (débùchángshī)&lt;br&gt;the gains do not make up for the losses (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BE%97%E4%B8%8D%E5%81%BF%E5%A4%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%BE%97%E4%B8%8D%E5%81%BF%E5%A4%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%BE%97%E4%B8%8D%E5%81%BF%E5%A4%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;得天独厚&lt;/strong&gt; (détiāndúhòu)&lt;br&gt;blessed by heaven (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BE%97%E5%A4%A9%E7%8B%AC%E5%8E%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%BE%97%E5%A4%A9%E7%8B%AC%E5%8E%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%BE%97%E5%A4%A9%E7%8B%AC%E5%8E%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;循序渐进&lt;/strong&gt; (xúnxùjiànjìn)&lt;br&gt;in sequence, step by step (idiom); to make steady progress incrementally&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BE%AA%E5%BA%8F%E6%B8%90%E8%BF%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%BE%AA%E5%BA%8F%E6%B8%90%E8%BF%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%BE%AA%E5%BA%8F%E6%B8%90%E8%BF%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;心甘情愿&lt;/strong&gt; (xīngānqíngyuàn)&lt;br&gt;delighted to (do sth, idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BF%83%E7%94%98%E6%83%85%E6%84%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E5%BF%83%E7%94%98%E6%83%85%E6%84%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%BF%83%E7%94%98%E6%83%85%E6%84%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;急于求成&lt;/strong&gt; (jíyúqiúchéng)&lt;br&gt;anxious for quick results (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%80%A5%E4%BA%8E%E6%B1%82%E6%88%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%80%A5%E4%BA%8E%E6%B1%82%E6%88%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%80%A5%E4%BA%8E%E6%B1%82%E6%88%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;急功近利&lt;/strong&gt; (jígōngjìnlì)&lt;br&gt;seeking instant benefit (idiom); shortsighted vision, looking only for fast return&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%80%A5%E5%8A%9F%E8%BF%91%E5%88%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%80%A5%E5%8A%9F%E8%BF%91%E5%88%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%80%A5%E5%8A%9F%E8%BF%91%E5%88%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;总而言之&lt;/strong&gt; (zǒng'éryánzhī)&lt;br&gt;in short&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%80%BB%E8%80%8C%E8%A8%80%E4%B9%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%80%BB%E8%80%8C%E8%A8%80%E4%B9%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%80%BB%E8%80%8C%E8%A8%80%E4%B9%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;恍然大悟&lt;/strong&gt; (huǎngrándàwù)&lt;br&gt;to suddenly realize&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%81%8D%E7%84%B6%E5%A4%A7%E6%82%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%81%8D%E7%84%B6%E5%A4%A7%E6%82%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%81%8D%E7%84%B6%E5%A4%A7%E6%82%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;恰到好处&lt;/strong&gt; (qiàdàohǎochù)&lt;br&gt;it's just perfect&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%81%B0%E5%88%B0%E5%A5%BD%E5%A4%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%81%B0%E5%88%B0%E5%A5%BD%E5%A4%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%81%B0%E5%88%B0%E5%A5%BD%E5%A4%84&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;悬崖峭壁&lt;/strong&gt; (xuányáqiàobì)&lt;br&gt;sheer cliffs and precipitous rock faces (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%82%AC%E5%B4%96%E5%B3%AD%E5%A3%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%82%AC%E5%B4%96%E5%B3%AD%E5%A3%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%82%AC%E5%B4%96%E5%B3%AD%E5%A3%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;想方设法&lt;/strong&gt; (xiǎngfāngshèfǎ)&lt;br&gt;to think up every possible method (idiom); to devise ways and means&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%83%B3%E6%96%B9%E8%AE%BE%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%83%B3%E6%96%B9%E8%AE%BE%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%83%B3%E6%96%B9%E8%AE%BE%E6%B3%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;拔苗助长&lt;/strong&gt; (bámiáozhùzhǎng)&lt;br&gt;to spoil things through excessive enthusiasm (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%8B%94%E8%8B%97%E5%8A%A9%E9%95%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%8B%94%E8%8B%97%E5%8A%A9%E9%95%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%8B%94%E8%8B%97%E5%8A%A9%E9%95%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;斩钉截铁&lt;/strong&gt; (zhǎndīngjiétiě)&lt;br&gt;lit. to chop the nail and slice the iron (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%96%A9%E9%92%89%E6%88%AA%E9%93%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%96%A9%E9%92%89%E6%88%AA%E9%93%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%96%A9%E9%92%89%E6%88%AA%E9%93%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;新陈代谢&lt;/strong&gt; (xīnchéndàixiè)&lt;br&gt;metabolism (biology); the new replaces the old (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%96%B0%E9%99%88%E4%BB%A3%E8%B0%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%96%B0%E9%99%88%E4%BB%A3%E8%B0%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%96%B0%E9%99%88%E4%BB%A3%E8%B0%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;无动于衷&lt;/strong&gt; (wúdòngyúzhōng)&lt;br&gt;aloof&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%A0%E5%8A%A8%E4%BA%8E%E8%A1%B7/4324233&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%97%A0%E5%8A%A8%E4%BA%8E%E8%A1%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%97%A0%E5%8A%A8%E4%BA%8E%E8%A1%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;无微不至&lt;/strong&gt; (wúwēibùzhì)&lt;br&gt;in every possible way (idiom); meticulous&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%A0%E5%BE%AE%E4%B8%8D%E8%87%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%97%A0%E5%BE%AE%E4%B8%8D%E8%87%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%97%A0%E5%BE%AE%E4%B8%8D%E8%87%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;无忧无虑&lt;/strong&gt; (wúyōuwúlǜ)&lt;br&gt;carefree and without worries (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%A0%E5%BF%A7%E6%97%A0%E8%99%91/84442&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%97%A0%E5%BF%A7%E6%97%A0%E8%99%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%97%A0%E5%BF%A7%E6%97%A0%E8%99%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;无理取闹&lt;/strong&gt; (wúlǐqǔnào)&lt;br&gt;to make trouble without reason (idiom); to be deliberately provocative&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%A0%E7%90%86%E5%8F%96%E9%97%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%97%A0%E7%90%86%E5%8F%96%E9%97%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%97%A0%E7%90%86%E5%8F%96%E9%97%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;无穷无尽&lt;/strong&gt; (wúqióngwújìn)&lt;br&gt;endless&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%A0%E7%A9%B7%E6%97%A0%E5%B0%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%97%A0%E7%A9%B7%E6%97%A0%E5%B0%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%97%A0%E7%A9%B7%E6%97%A0%E5%B0%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;无精打采&lt;/strong&gt; (wújīngdǎcǎi)&lt;br&gt;dispirited and downcast (idiom); listless&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%A0%E7%B2%BE%E6%89%93%E9%87%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%97%A0%E7%B2%BE%E6%89%93%E9%87%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%97%A0%E7%B2%BE%E6%89%93%E9%87%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;无能为力&lt;/strong&gt; (wúnéngwéilì)&lt;br&gt;impotent (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%A0%E8%83%BD%E4%B8%BA%E5%8A%9B/33688&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%97%A0%E8%83%BD%E4%B8%BA%E5%8A%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%97%A0%E8%83%BD%E4%B8%BA%E5%8A%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;日新月异&lt;/strong&gt; (rìxīnyuèyì)&lt;br&gt;daily renewal, monthly change (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%A5%E6%96%B0%E6%9C%88%E5%BC%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%97%A5%E6%96%B0%E6%9C%88%E5%BC%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%97%A5%E6%96%B0%E6%9C%88%E5%BC%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有条不紊&lt;/strong&gt; (yǒutiáobùwěn)&lt;br&gt;regular and thorough (idiom); methodically arranged&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%9C%89%E6%9D%A1%E4%B8%8D%E7%B4%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%9C%89%E6%9D%A1%E4%B8%8D%E7%B4%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%9C%89%E6%9D%A1%E4%B8%8D%E7%B4%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;朝气蓬勃&lt;/strong&gt; (zhāoqìpéngbó)&lt;br&gt;full of youthful energy (idiom); vigorous&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%9C%9D%E6%B0%94%E8%93%AC%E5%8B%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%9C%9D%E6%B0%94%E8%93%AC%E5%8B%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%9C%9D%E6%B0%94%E8%93%AC%E5%8B%83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;根深蒂固&lt;/strong&gt; (gēnshēndìgù)&lt;br&gt;deep-rooted (problem etc)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%A0%B9%E6%B7%B1%E8%92%82%E5%9B%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%A0%B9%E6%B7%B1%E8%92%82%E5%9B%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%A0%B9%E6%B7%B1%E8%92%82%E5%9B%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;欣欣向荣&lt;/strong&gt; (xīnxīnxiàngróng)&lt;br&gt;(idiom) flourishing&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%AC%A3%E6%AC%A3%E5%90%91%E8%8D%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%AC%A3%E6%AC%A3%E5%90%91%E8%8D%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%AC%A3%E6%AC%A3%E5%90%91%E8%8D%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;津津有味&lt;/strong&gt; (jīnjīnyǒuwèi)&lt;br&gt;with keen interest pleasure (idiom); with gusto&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%B4%A5%E6%B4%A5%E6%9C%89%E5%91%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%B4%A5%E6%B4%A5%E6%9C%89%E5%91%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%B4%A5%E6%B4%A5%E6%9C%89%E5%91%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;深情厚谊&lt;/strong&gt; (shēnqínghòuyì)&lt;br&gt;deep friendship&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%B7%B1%E6%83%85%E5%8E%9A%E8%B0%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%B7%B1%E6%83%85%E5%8E%9A%E8%B0%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%B7%B1%E6%83%85%E5%8E%9A%E8%B0%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;滔滔不绝&lt;/strong&gt; (tāotāobùjué)&lt;br&gt;unceasing torrent (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%BB%94%E6%BB%94%E4%B8%8D%E7%BB%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%BB%94%E6%BB%94%E4%B8%8D%E7%BB%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%BB%94%E6%BB%94%E4%B8%8D%E7%BB%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;潜移默化&lt;/strong&gt; (qiányímòhuà)&lt;br&gt;imperceptible influence&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%BD%9C%E7%A7%BB%E9%BB%98%E5%8C%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E6%BD%9C%E7%A7%BB%E9%BB%98%E5%8C%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E6%BD%9C%E7%A7%BB%E9%BB%98%E5%8C%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;热泪盈眶&lt;/strong&gt; (rèlèiyíngkuàng)&lt;br&gt;eyes brimming with tears of excitement (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%83%AD%E6%B3%AA%E7%9B%88%E7%9C%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%83%AD%E6%B3%AA%E7%9B%88%E7%9C%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%83%AD%E6%B3%AA%E7%9B%88%E7%9C%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;爱不释手&lt;/strong&gt; (àibùshìshǒu)&lt;br&gt;to love sth too much to part with it (idiom); to fondle admiringly&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%88%B1%E4%B8%8D%E9%87%8A%E6%89%8B/1922&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%88%B1%E4%B8%8D%E9%87%8A%E6%89%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%88%B1%E4%B8%8D%E9%87%8A%E6%89%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;物美价廉&lt;/strong&gt; (wùměijiàlián)&lt;br&gt;good quality and cheap&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%89%A9%E7%BE%8E%E4%BB%B7%E5%BB%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%89%A9%E7%BE%8E%E4%BB%B7%E5%BB%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%89%A9%E7%BE%8E%E4%BB%B7%E5%BB%89&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;狼吞虎咽&lt;/strong&gt; (lángtūnhǔyàn)&lt;br&gt;to wolf down one's food (idiom); to devour ravenously&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%8B%BC%E5%90%9E%E8%99%8E%E5%92%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%8B%BC%E5%90%9E%E8%99%8E%E5%92%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%8B%BC%E5%90%9E%E8%99%8E%E5%92%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;理所当然&lt;/strong&gt; (lǐsuǒdāngrán)&lt;br&gt;as it should be by rights (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%90%86%E6%89%80%E5%BD%93%E7%84%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%90%86%E6%89%80%E5%BD%93%E7%84%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%90%86%E6%89%80%E5%BD%93%E7%84%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;理直气壮&lt;/strong&gt; (lǐzhíqìzhuàng)&lt;br&gt;in the right and self-confident (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%90%86%E7%9B%B4%E6%B0%94%E5%A3%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%90%86%E7%9B%B4%E6%B0%94%E5%A3%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%90%86%E7%9B%B4%E6%B0%94%E5%A3%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;画蛇添足&lt;/strong&gt; (huàshétiānzú)&lt;br&gt;lit. draw legs on a snake (idiom); fig. to ruin the effect by adding sth superfluous&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%94%BB%E8%9B%87%E6%B7%BB%E8%B6%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%94%BB%E8%9B%87%E6%B7%BB%E8%B6%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%94%BB%E8%9B%87%E6%B7%BB%E8%B6%B3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;相辅相成&lt;/strong&gt; (xiāngfǔxiāngchéng)&lt;br&gt;to complement one another (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%9B%B8%E8%BE%85%E7%9B%B8%E6%88%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%9B%B8%E8%BE%85%E7%9B%B8%E6%88%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%9B%B8%E8%BE%85%E7%9B%B8%E6%88%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;知足常乐&lt;/strong&gt; (zhīzúchánglè)&lt;br&gt;satisfied with what one has (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%9F%A5%E8%B6%B3%E5%B8%B8%E4%B9%90/62528&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%9F%A5%E8%B6%B3%E5%B8%B8%E4%B9%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%9F%A5%E8%B6%B3%E5%B8%B8%E4%B9%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;礼尚往来&lt;/strong&gt; (lǐshàngwǎnglái)&lt;br&gt;lit. proper behavior is based on reciprocity (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%A4%BC%E5%B0%9A%E5%BE%80%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%A4%BC%E5%B0%9A%E5%BE%80%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%A4%BC%E5%B0%9A%E5%BE%80%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;称心如意&lt;/strong&gt; (chènxīnrúyì)&lt;br&gt;after one's heart (idiom); gratifying and satisfactory&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%A7%B0%E5%BF%83%E5%A6%82%E6%84%8F/5975&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%A7%B0%E5%BF%83%E5%A6%82%E6%84%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%A7%B0%E5%BF%83%E5%A6%82%E6%84%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;空前绝后&lt;/strong&gt; (kōngqiánjuéhòu)&lt;br&gt;unprecedented and never to be duplicated&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%A9%BA%E5%89%8D%E7%BB%9D%E5%90%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%A9%BA%E5%89%8D%E7%BB%9D%E5%90%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%A9%BA%E5%89%8D%E7%BB%9D%E5%90%8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;竭尽全力&lt;/strong&gt; (jiéjìnquánlì)&lt;br&gt;to spare no effort (idiom); to do one's utmost&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%AB%AD%E5%B0%BD%E5%85%A8%E5%8A%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%AB%AD%E5%B0%BD%E5%85%A8%E5%8A%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%AB%AD%E5%B0%BD%E5%85%A8%E5%8A%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;精打细算&lt;/strong&gt; (jīngdǎxìsuàn)&lt;br&gt;meticulous planning and careful accounting (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%B2%BE%E6%89%93%E7%BB%86%E7%AE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%B2%BE%E6%89%93%E7%BB%86%E7%AE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%B2%BE%E6%89%93%E7%BB%86%E7%AE%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;精益求精&lt;/strong&gt; (jīngyìqiújīng)&lt;br&gt;to perfect sth that is already outstanding (idiom); constantly improving&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%B2%BE%E7%9B%8A%E6%B1%82%E7%B2%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%B2%BE%E7%9B%8A%E6%B1%82%E7%B2%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%B2%BE%E7%9B%8A%E6%B1%82%E7%B2%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;络绎不绝&lt;/strong&gt; (luòyìbùjué)&lt;br&gt;continuously; in an endless stream (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BB%9C%E7%BB%8E%E4%B8%8D%E7%BB%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%BB%9C%E7%BB%8E%E4%B8%8D%E7%BB%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%BB%9C%E7%BB%8E%E4%B8%8D%E7%BB%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;统筹兼顾&lt;/strong&gt; (tǒngchóujiāngù)&lt;br&gt;an overall plan taking into account all factors&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BB%9F%E7%AD%B9%E5%85%BC%E9%A1%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E7%BB%9F%E7%AD%B9%E5%85%BC%E9%A1%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E7%BB%9F%E7%AD%B9%E5%85%BC%E9%A1%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;聚精会神&lt;/strong&gt; (jùjīnghuìshén)&lt;br&gt;to concentrate one's attention (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%81%9A%E7%B2%BE%E4%BC%9A%E7%A5%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%81%9A%E7%B2%BE%E4%BC%9A%E7%A5%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%81%9A%E7%B2%BE%E4%BC%9A%E7%A5%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;肆无忌惮&lt;/strong&gt; (sìwújìdàn)&lt;br&gt;absolutely unrestrained&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%82%86%E6%97%A0%E5%BF%8C%E6%83%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%82%86%E6%97%A0%E5%BF%8C%E6%83%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%82%86%E6%97%A0%E5%BF%8C%E6%83%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;自力更生&lt;/strong&gt; (zìlìgēngshēng)&lt;br&gt;regeneration through one's own effort (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%87%AA%E5%8A%9B%E6%9B%B4%E7%94%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%87%AA%E5%8A%9B%E6%9B%B4%E7%94%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%87%AA%E5%8A%9B%E6%9B%B4%E7%94%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;苦尽甘来&lt;/strong&gt; (kǔjìngānlái)&lt;br&gt;bitterness finishes, sweetness begins (idiom); the hard times are over, the good times just beginning&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%8B%A6%E5%B0%BD%E7%94%98%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%8B%A6%E5%B0%BD%E7%94%98%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%8B%A6%E5%B0%BD%E7%94%98%E6%9D%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;莫名其妙&lt;/strong&gt; (mòmíngqímiào)&lt;br&gt;(idiom) baffling&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%8E%AB%E5%90%8D%E5%85%B6%E5%A6%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%8E%AB%E5%90%8D%E5%85%B6%E5%A6%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%8E%AB%E5%90%8D%E5%85%B6%E5%A6%99&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;见义勇为&lt;/strong&gt; (jiànyìyǒngwéi)&lt;br&gt;to see what is right and act courageously (idiom, from Analects)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%A7%81%E4%B9%89%E5%8B%87%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%A7%81%E4%B9%89%E5%8B%87%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%A7%81%E4%B9%89%E5%8B%87%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;见多识广&lt;/strong&gt; (jiànduōshìguǎng)&lt;br&gt;experienced and knowledgeable (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%A7%81%E5%A4%9A%E8%AF%86%E5%B9%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%A7%81%E5%A4%9A%E8%AF%86%E5%B9%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%A7%81%E5%A4%9A%E8%AF%86%E5%B9%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;迄今为止&lt;/strong&gt; (qìjīnwéizhǐ)&lt;br&gt;so far&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%BF%84%E4%BB%8A%E4%B8%BA%E6%AD%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%BF%84%E4%BB%8A%E4%B8%BA%E6%AD%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%BF%84%E4%BB%8A%E4%B8%BA%E6%AD%A2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;迫不及待&lt;/strong&gt; (pòbùjídài)&lt;br&gt;impatient (idiom); in a hurry&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%BF%AB%E4%B8%8D%E5%8F%8A%E5%BE%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E8%BF%AB%E4%B8%8D%E5%8F%8A%E5%BE%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E8%BF%AB%E4%B8%8D%E5%8F%8A%E5%BE%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;锦上添花&lt;/strong&gt; (jǐnshàngtiānhuā)&lt;br&gt;lit. on brocade, add flowers (idiom); to decorate sth already perfect&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%94%A6%E4%B8%8A%E6%B7%BB%E8%8A%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E9%94%A6%E4%B8%8A%E6%B7%BB%E8%8A%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E9%94%A6%E4%B8%8A%E6%B7%BB%E8%8A%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;锲而不舍&lt;/strong&gt; (qiè'érbùshě)&lt;br&gt;to chip away at a task and not abandon it (idiom); to chisel away at sth&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%94%B2%E8%80%8C%E4%B8%8D%E8%88%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E9%94%B2%E8%80%8C%E4%B8%8D%E8%88%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E9%94%B2%E8%80%8C%E4%B8%8D%E8%88%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;难能可贵&lt;/strong&gt; (nánnéngkěguì)&lt;br&gt;rare and precious&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%9A%BE%E8%83%BD%E5%8F%AF%E8%B4%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E9%9A%BE%E8%83%BD%E5%8F%AF%E8%B4%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E9%9A%BE%E8%83%BD%E5%8F%AF%E8%B4%B5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;雪上加霜&lt;/strong&gt; (xuěshàngjiāshuāng)&lt;br&gt;to add hail to snow (idiom); one disaster on top of another&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%9B%AA%E4%B8%8A%E5%8A%A0%E9%9C%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E9%9B%AA%E4%B8%8A%E5%8A%A0%E9%9C%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E9%9B%AA%E4%B8%8A%E5%8A%A0%E9%9C%9C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;风土人情&lt;/strong&gt; (fēngtǔrénqíng)&lt;br&gt;local conditions and customs (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%A3%8E%E5%9C%9F%E4%BA%BA%E6%83%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E9%A3%8E%E5%9C%9F%E4%BA%BA%E6%83%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E9%A3%8E%E5%9C%9F%E4%BA%BA%E6%83%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;饱经沧桑&lt;/strong&gt; (bǎojīngcāngsāng)&lt;br&gt;having lived through many changes&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%A5%B1%E7%BB%8F%E6%B2%A7%E6%A1%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E9%A5%B1%E7%BB%8F%E6%B2%A7%E6%A1%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E9%A5%B1%E7%BB%8F%E6%B2%A7%E6%A1%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;鸦雀无声&lt;/strong&gt; (yāquèwúshēng)&lt;br&gt;lit. crow and peacock make no sound; absolute silence (idiom)&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%B8%A6%E9%9B%80%E6%97%A0%E5%A3%B0/1104840&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E9%B8%A6%E9%9B%80%E6%97%A0%E5%A3%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E9%B8%A6%E9%9B%80%E6%97%A0%E5%A3%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;齐心协力&lt;/strong&gt; (qíxīnxiélì)&lt;br&gt;to work with a common purpose (idiom); to make concerted efforts&lt;br&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%BD%90%E5%BF%83%E5%8D%8F%E5%8A%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baike&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jukuu.com/search.php?q=%E9%BD%90%E5%BF%83%E5%8D%8F%E5%8A%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jukuu&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E9%BD%90%E5%BF%83%E5%8D%8F%E5%8A%9B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yabla&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not counted: 二氧化碳 (carbon dioxide), 公共汽车 (bus), 名胜古迹 (historical sites), 微不足道 (negligible), 烟花爆竹 (firecrackers), 电子邮件 (email), 高速公路 (expressway), 通货膨胀 (inflation), 飞禽走兽 (birds and animals), 讨价还价 (haggle over price).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-03T13:49:08.967" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T13:49:08.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36416" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36418" CreationDate="2020-01-03T11:18:35.680" Score="3" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;I generally understand the Ideographic Description Characters (IDSes) and the Ideographic Description Sequences,for CJK strokes and components but the abbreviation  GHTJK in this entry and GHTK in others has me baffled: &#xA;&quot;Han character&#xA;不 (radical 1, 一+3, 4 strokes, cangjie input 一火 (MF), four-corner 10900, composition ⿸丆卜(GHTJK) or ⿻丆...&quot;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16656" LastEditorUserId="16656" LastEditDate="2020-01-03T11:31:05.590" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T01:36:39.633" Title="What does &quot;GHTJK&quot; stand for in this part of a Wiktionary: entry: &quot;...composition ⿸丆卜(GHTJK) or ⿻丆&quot;" Tags="&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17097" CreationDate="2020-01-03T11:19:53.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The list appears accessible &lt;a href=&quot;http://fanwen.geren-jianli.org/564160.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.  In total there are 1352 (level 1) + 801 (level 2) + 702 (level 3) = 2855 chengyu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Level 1: 1352 words&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;日以继夜 如痴如醉 如雷灌耳 三番五次 仁人志士 日久天长&#xA;风和日丽 三更半夜 其势汹汹 魂飞魄散 饶有兴味 惹事生非&#xA;三年五载 山崩地裂 舍死忘生 身价百倍 生搬硬套 冥思苦想&#xA;婆婆妈妈 破罐破摔 脉脉含情 目不邪视 装腔作势 明查暗访&#xA;老王卖瓜 精雕细琢 假模假式 恼羞成怒 混世魔王 称心如意&#xA;路不拾遗 安如磐石 疾风骤雨 孤苦伶仃 茫无头绪 生龙活虎&#xA;见景生情 借酒消愁 金璧辉煌 仅此而已 凌乱不堪 零七八碎&#xA;面黄肌瘦 名不符实 光明磊落 没精打采 泛泛而谈 见机而行&#xA;连绵不绝 良辰吉日 落叶归根 满腔热忱 轮流做庄 见风使舵&#xA;旧地重游 口干舌焦 枯燥无味 苦尽甜来 老眼昏花 假戏真做&#xA;宾客如云 风靡一时 交口称颂 焦灼不安 尽心竭力 寸草春晖&#xA;词穷理屈 蜂拥而上 飞针走线 花枝招展 欢声如雷 刮目相看&#xA;红颜薄命 闭门造车 吉凶未卜 话不投机 多多益善 不共戴天&#xA;告老还乡 祸从口出 画饼充饥 不堪入目 本性难移 不谋而合&#xA;独当一面 兵临城下 鸡犬升天 各执一词 点石成金 众望所归&#xA;地广人稀 画蛇添足 别来无恙 鸡犬不宁 虎落平阳 参差不齐&#xA;宾至如归 杯盘狼藉 不亦乐乎 虎视眈眈 喋喋不休 不知所措&#xA;逢凶化吉 呆若木鸡 得不偿失 不能自拔 大庭广众 不自量力&#xA;安营扎寨 单枪匹马 闭门思过 泰然自若 他山之石 驷马难追&#xA;昙花一现 随声附和 肆无忌惮 完璧归赵 天伦之乐 泰山压顶&#xA;似曾相识 肃然起敬 望洋兴叹 谈虎色变 耸人听闻 天网恢恢&#xA;体无完肤 窈窕淑女 万人空巷 徒劳无功 亡羊补牢 万象更新&#xA;卧薪尝胆 言外之意 威风凛凛 听天由命 引以为戒 无可厚非&#xA;语重心长 业精于勤 以卵击石 心惊肉跳 幸灾乐祸 有口皆碑&#xA;迎刃而解 无计可施 壮志未酬 循规蹈矩 学而不厌 一言九鼎&#xA;坐井观天 心急如焚 兴师问罪 似是而非 有口无心 应运而生&#xA;言不由衷 心如铁石 物尽其用 远见卓识 虚张声势 叶落归根&#xA;一纸空文 咬文嚼字 徇私舞弊 秀色可餐 因循守旧 胸有成竹&#xA;众口难调 习以为常 血气方刚 玩世不恭 游手好闲 异曲同工&#xA;直言不讳 先声夺人 自强不息 专横跋扈 用心良苦 天涯海角&#xA;童言无忌 唯唯诺诺 志同道合 张皇失措 逐鹿中原 危言耸听&#xA;优柔寡断 一石二鸟 振振有词 先发制人 因材施教 物以类聚&#xA;因地制宜 无地自容 悬崖勒马 相得益彰 原形毕露 雄才大略&#xA;振臂一呼 逃之夭夭 自圆其说 唯命是从 无奇不有 推心置腹&#xA;推波助澜 螳臂当车 朝不保夕 危在旦夕 脱胎换骨 天衣无缝&#xA;微不足道 养精蓄锐 脱颖而出 望而却步 针锋相对 喜从天降&#xA;易如反掌 徒有虚名 英姿飒爽 有勇无谋 相依为命 自投罗网&#xA;瞻前顾后 责无旁贷 趾高气扬 置之度外 一掷千金 引狼入室&#xA;悬而未决 循序渐进 羞愧难当 直截了当 袖手旁观 以身试法&#xA;无以复加 掷地有声 众目睽睽 众矢之的 自告奋勇 因人而异&#xA;朝三暮四 斩钉截铁 震耳欲聋 一落千丈 有条不紊 在所不辞&#xA;遥相呼应 忘乎所以 随机应变 无人问津 于事无补 纨绔子弟&#xA;损兵折将 一丘之貉 异军突起 自鸣得意 自欺欺人 天罗地网&#xA;欲罢不能 追悔莫及 无往不胜 有目共睹 无懈可击 一劳永逸&#xA;形影不离 罪魁祸首 自顾不暇 形迹可疑 转危为安 心安理得&#xA;应接不暇 自命不凡 走投无路 严阵以待 图谋不轨 贼喊捉贼&#xA;无坚不摧 一波三折 引火烧身 隐姓埋名 无所适从 望尘莫及&#xA;天壤之别 指日可待 心驰神往 挤眉弄眼 顺手牵羊 新来乍到&#xA;阴差阳错 相安无事 势均力敌 浪迹天涯 惊魂未定 首当其冲&#xA;嫁鸡随鸡 水落石出 深不可测 咎由自取 双管齐下 细枝末节&#xA;树大招风 苦尽甘来 时运不济 牢不可破 利欲熏心 两肋插刀&#xA;开卷有益 里应外合 首屈一指 生离死别 事倍功半 历历在目&#xA;来日方长 来者不拒 事半功倍 生死与共 扣人心弦 来者不善&#xA;空前绝后 焦头烂额 看破红尘 守株待兔 生死攸关 山呼海啸&#xA;津津乐道 乐此不疲 临阵磨枪 十恶不赦 时不再来 溃不成军&#xA;溜之大吉 守口如瓶 理所当然 明辨是非 居心不良 手足无措&#xA;劳而无功 失之交臂 苦不堪言 雷打不动 老谋深算 乐极生悲&#xA;金鸡独立 群龙无首 事不宜迟 良师益友 曲高和寡 黔驴技穷&#xA;熟视无睹 酒足饭饱 入情入理 瞒上欺下 事在人为 两小无猜&#xA;死不瞑目 轻车熟路 事在必行 千差万别 卖主求荣 锲而不舍&#xA;局促不安 如鱼得水 入不敷出 两全其美 两败俱伤 立足之地&#xA;事与愿违 前仆后继 灵丹妙药 举手之劳 居高临下 例行公事&#xA;入乡随俗 毛手毛脚 否极泰来 誓不两立 淋漓尽致 去伪存真&#xA;南辕北辙 水到渠成 举一反三 妙手回春 墨守成规 水涨船高&#xA;明目张胆 磨刀霍霍 顺理成章 马不停蹄 聚精会神 屡见不鲜&#xA;顺藤摸瓜 满城风雨 津津有味 老调重弹 梦寐以求 屡试不爽&#xA;灭顶之灾 瞬息万变 论功行赏 量力而行 口干舌燥 难能可贵&#xA;漫无边际 马失前蹄 哭天抹泪 了若指掌 家长里短 妙不可言&#xA;若隐若现 料事如神 呕心沥血 茅塞顿开 毛骨悚然 临危不惧&#xA;披荆斩棘 毛遂自荐 日复一日 狼狈不堪 美不胜收 面面俱到&#xA;狼吞虎咽 另起炉灶 落井下石 如胶似漆 妙趣横生 明媒正娶&#xA;络绎不绝 前呼后拥 门庭若市 名不副实 略胜一筹 老态龙钟&#xA;流连忘返 精益求精 炉火纯青 乐不可支 渺无人烟 貌合神离&#xA;名垂青史 泪如泉涌 略知一二 敬而远之 六神无主 时隐时现&#xA;名副其实 落落大方 冷眼旁观 麻木不仁 令人发指 赏心悦目&#xA;力不从心 就地取材 琳琅满目 据理力争 排山倒海 明知故犯&#xA;神乎其神 摩拳擦掌 良莠不齐 忍辱负重 眉来眼去 居心叵测&#xA;漫不经心 平起平坐 面红耳赤 破釜沉舟 宽宏大量 嫁祸于人&#xA;慢条斯理 据为己有 江郎才尽 如临大敌 庞然大物 命中注定&#xA;卷土重来 简明扼要 家贫如洗 拿手好戏 莫名其妙 眉目传情&#xA;眉清目秀 名列前茅 决一雌雄 刻舟求剑 就事论事 家喻户晓&#xA;耐人寻味 闷闷不乐 名落孙山 乐不思蜀 绝口不提 价值连城&#xA;平白无故 面不改色 匹夫之勇 慷慨解囊 梁上君子 开门见山&#xA;侃侃而谈 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黯然销魂 沧海横流&#xA;不绝如缕 百无禁忌 荒诞不经 回肠百转 祸国殃民 落草为寇&#xA;颠扑不破 甘之如饴 宝马香车 待字闺中 缠绵悱恻 不蔓不枝&#xA;积习难改 祸福相椅 不一而足 古道热肠 分崩离析 怪力乱神&#xA;恍如隔世 弊绝风清 不揣冒昧 尺短寸长 陈陈相因 屏气凝神&#xA;并行不悖 锄强扶弱 春兰秋菊 挥洒自如 花团锦簇 浑然一体&#xA;壁垒分明 不即不离 仓皇失措 登坛拜将 等而下之 愁肠百结&#xA;横生枝节 穷寇莫追 兴致索然 守望相助 小小不言 一唱三叹&#xA;机关用尽 龙肝凤髓 龙眉凤目 龙盘虎踞 脑满肠肥 穷奢极欲&#xA;荡气回肠 名士风流 明珠暗投 冥顽不灵 人寿年丰 肉眼凡夫&#xA;回天之力 千金一诺 敲骨吸髓 凄风苦雨 欺世盗名 棋逢敌手&#xA;如芒在背 三从四德 师出无名 喷薄欲出 痰迷心窍 朝秦暮楚&#xA;照本宣科 如日方升 三位一体 天女散花 吞云吐雾 铁树开花&#xA;茹毛饮血 三亲六眷 未始不可 象牙之塔 铤而走险 躬逢其盛&#xA;同仇敌忾 童心未泯 捉襟见肘 投鼠忌器 投桃报李 侠肝义胆&#xA;阳奉阴违 亭亭玉立 缘木求鱼 一叶障目 无稽之谈 闲情逸致&#xA;下笔成章 不关痛痒 旷古未闻 管窥之见 光复旧物 积重难返&#xA;叠床架屋 俯仰无愧 虎啸风生 兵无常胜 情随事迁 绳锯木断&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While they claim copyright, they obviously don't hold the copyright (and it's also &lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/52920276581b6bd97f19eafd.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wenkuxiazai.com/doc/a91304d5866fb84ae55c8d2c.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zxxk.com/soft/3826417.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://max.book118.com/html/2018/0316/157529455.shtm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.taodocs.com/p-145154622.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, etc. (behind various paywalls)), so I'm just going to disregard that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T11:19:53.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36416" CreationDate="2020-01-03T11:36:27.493" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're one-letter abbreviations for different standards, because some characters appear differently in different standards. From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Template:Han_char#Notes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Template:Han_char#Notes&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;G = the PRC and Singapore standard (referring to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_General_Standard_Chinese_Characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Table of General Standard Chinese Characters&lt;/a&gt; 通用規範漢字表);&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;H = Hong Kong, referring to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Graphemes_of_Commonly-Used_Chinese_Characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;List of Graphemes of Commonly-Used Chinese Characters&lt;/a&gt; 常用字字形表;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;T = Taiwan, referring to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Form_of_National_Characters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Standard Form of National Characters&lt;/a&gt; 國字標準字體;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;J = Japan, referring to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jōyō kanji&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; 常用漢字;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;K = South Korea, which &lt;em&gt;I think&lt;/em&gt; refers to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Hanja_for_educational_use&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Basic &lt;em&gt;Hanja&lt;/em&gt; for educational use&lt;/a&gt; 漢文敎育用基礎漢字&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;V = Vietnam (I'm not sure which standard this is referring to though)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The presence of a letter indicates that the given IDS is true for the corresponding standard; GHTJK means the given IDS is true for PRC &amp;amp; Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-04T01:36:39.633" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T01:36:39.633" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23413" CreationDate="2020-01-03T12:38:10.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't see this previously listed, and it seems to come close:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%9B%B7%E5%A3%B0%E5%A4%A7%E9%9B%A8%E7%82%B9%E5%B0%8F/518874&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;雷声大，雨点小&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Loud thunder, little rain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T12:38:10.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36410" CreationDate="2020-01-03T15:19:54.400" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of words which are transliterated from English to Chinese already, for example, 巧克力(Chocolate), 咖啡(coffee), 卡通(cartoon) etc. However, you, as a random person, is not powerful enough to create a word like that. Nowadays I think there're two main streams of transliterated words: 1) internet and 2) global companies' branding&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T15:19:54.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36421" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-04T05:22:02.060" Score="2" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that you can use 正好 or 碰巧 to express low probability in statements, equivalent to English &quot;happen to&quot; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我正好是有你要的那种啤酒。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我发现他碰巧就是我的一个远亲。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can you use this same idea in a question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Do you happen to have an eyeglass screwdriver?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I want to express that I'm aware the probability of them having the [unusual item] is low, but that I'm asking anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15759" LastEditorUserId="21960" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T03:28:12.327" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T14:05:20.953" Title="Happen to (in questions)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36421" CreationDate="2020-01-04T05:54:05.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally you wouldn't translate &lt;em&gt;happen&lt;/em&gt; in questions like the one you proposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, if you really wanted to - the best equivalent I can think of for doing this would be by adding:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;顺便问一下&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at the beginning of a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So your question would end up being something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;顺便问一下，你有没有眼镜护理螺丝刀呢？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T05:54:05.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36402" CreationDate="2020-01-04T17:02:59.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;妙 is an adjective used to express better than expected.&#xA;妙 is composed of 女 and 少, 少女means young girl, just one 妙 means wonderful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23398" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T17:02:59.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23413" CreationDate="2020-01-04T17:09:26.100" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;人不可貌相，海水不可斗量&#xA;means&#xA;do not judge a book by it's cover&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23398" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T17:09:26.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36421" CreationDate="2020-01-04T23:21:07.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you happen to have a spaceship?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;你不会正好有一艘飞船吧？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T23:21:07.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36427" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36440" CreationDate="2020-01-05T04:25:18.640" Score="0" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to say this in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am almost enjoying imagining the poor men who listen to these suggestions, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The context is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=peacocking&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;peacocking&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;em&gt;Peacocking means dressing for attention; just like peacocks use their feathers to get a mate&lt;/em&gt;.  My character is researching these &quot;pick up&quot; techniques online, and she's imagining someone using &quot;peacocking&quot;, believing it's a good idea, but look ridiculous in other peoples' eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this is what I've come up with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我几乎在享受中想象着听这样建议的可怜的男人，。。。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's very good, though.  I showed my teacher this a while back, but she struggled with it.  I don't think it's an easy sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I correct 我几乎在享受中想象着听这样建议的可怜的男人?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T04:17:06.383" Title="How do I correct 我几乎在享受中想象着听这样建议的可怜的男人?" Tags="&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36428" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36433" CreationDate="2020-01-05T05:24:43.820" Score="4" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that there are many &quot;&lt;em&gt;simplifications&lt;/em&gt;&quot; in cursive that have existed for far longer than &lt;strong&gt;Simplified Chinese characters&lt;/strong&gt; have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some mentions of this here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/35577/4136&quot;&gt;How do I find the rules used to create the simplified version of the characters?&lt;/a&gt; between @EnricoBrasil and @droooze.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, what are the earliest examples of &quot;simplification&quot;? Perhaps it can be seen in the standardization of cursive. Ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T01:05:27.730" Title="What are the earliest examples of &quot;simplification&quot;?" Tags="&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36427" CreationDate="2020-01-05T05:36:21.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我几乎是乐于这种想象：这些可怜的男人们听到这些建议，（会是······）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23337" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T05:36:21.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25566" CreationDate="2020-01-05T11:55:29.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here “赛” is “比得上”be comparable to；“胜” surpass, and not compare “比”.&#xA;“一个赛一个不讲理的”&#xA;The meaning is one person is rude and another is more rude than befor one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23337" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T11:55:29.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36408" CreationDate="2020-01-05T11:59:49.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ancient time Chinese people were creating new characters. Now they don't. Only new chemical elements create new character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are the rules, what is not allowed, what is allowed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;六書造字原則 is one of the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Who is allowed to create one? How do you associate a sound with it too? Is it free to create your own?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, empirer and his government was allowed to create. 武則天 created 曌 for her own name. There were government officers who controlled the writing system. They might work on characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20757" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T11:59:49.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36427" CreationDate="2020-01-05T14:03:56.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;我几乎在享受中 想象着听这样建议的 可怜的男人&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我几乎在享受着 可怜的男人在听这样的建议的 想象中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am almost enjoying the mental image of pitiful men listening to this kind of suggestions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The object being &amp;quot;enjoyed&amp;quot; by the speaker is the &amp;quot;imagination&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Pitiful men listening to this kind of suggestion&amp;quot; are the description of the &amp;quot;imagination&amp;quot;. It is a very long adjectival clause&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just switched the placement of the relative clauses. I don't even have to add any character&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To reduce the length of the sentence, some characters can be omitted&#xA;To reduce the length of the sentence, some characters can be omitted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我几乎在享受着 可怜的男人在听这样的建议的 想象中 --&amp;gt; 我几乎在享受着 可怜男人在听这建议的 想象中&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T12:11:28.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36428" CreationDate="2020-01-05T15:45:28.060" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a system level, there was never a movement of simplification until the early 20th century. Chinese characters developed from less refined writing techniques and simpler shapes to more standardised writing styles and characters with more complex structures. This is because simple shapes have two (possibly related) problems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They're too easy to confuse with other simple shapes;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can only make so many simple shapes, and there isn't enough of them to represent the basic units of the language.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese characters thus naturally piled on more components to existing characters to make enough distinguishable characters to represent the language sufficiently. Simplifications are therefore relatively &lt;em&gt;rare&lt;/em&gt;, and are only one kind of process of how characters have changed in general. &lt;strong&gt;Exclusive simplifications&lt;/strong&gt; (which make a former character obsolete) are close to nonexistent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This being said, one can sometimes find individual characters that were known to be unambiguously simplified at one stage from a previously more complex character. I'll show two examples, the first which people would be more familiar with but doesn't really fulfil the criterion &lt;code&gt;earliest&lt;/code&gt;, the second to actually fulfil this criterion (in an approximate sense).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;「与」&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「与」is ultimately a corruption of「牙」. As is already known,「与」is a simplified variant of「與」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d1yxU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d1yxU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;⿱止高君鉦鋮&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=423&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成423&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Eo3wl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Eo3wl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;106&lt;br&gt;曾侯乙墓竹簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;篆&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/54HGU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/54HGU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77389&amp;amp;page=96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;舁部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;說文解字&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bRKqD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bRKqD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xvWIw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xvWIw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;⿸尸⿱罒丌敖&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4213&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4213&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;戰國・楚&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rM5Tn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rM5Tn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;語叢3.9&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guodian_Chu_Slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;荊門郭店楚簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cg945.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cg945.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77389&amp;amp;page=75&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;牙部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty#Eastern_Han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pLV09.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pLV09.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;斥彰長田君斷&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MyRL7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MyRL7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「與」(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_(2014)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*m-q(r)aʔ/&lt;/strong&gt;) is comprised of semantic &lt;em&gt;four hands&lt;/em&gt;「又又」and phonetic「牙」(&lt;strong&gt;/*m-ɢˤ&amp;lt;r&amp;gt;a/&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「牙」was a common phonetic loan for「與」in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Warring States period&lt;/a&gt; to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Han Dynasty&lt;/a&gt;. Over time,「牙」suffered some shape changes into「与」&lt;em&gt;inside&lt;/em&gt; the character「與」(changes &lt;em&gt;outside&lt;/em&gt; as a stand-alone character resulted into the modern form of「牙」instead). This leads on to the &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; erroneously describing「与」as a component of「與」, and「与」as a separate character from「牙」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;戰國・楚&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rM5Tn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rM5Tn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;語叢3.9&lt;br&gt;荊門郭店楚簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;篆&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kh1Sh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kh1Sh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;file=77392&amp;amp;page=80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;勺部&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;說文解字&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iZ1dQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iZ1dQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《說文》：＂與，黨與也。从舁，从与。，古文與。＂&lt;/strong&gt; ✘✘ (「与」is not a separate character from「牙」. Should be &lt;strong&gt;从舁，牙聲&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;《說文》：＂与，賜予也。一勺為与。此与與同。＂&lt;/strong&gt; ✘✘ (&lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; shouldn't have this entry at all)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The current form of「与」is a result of an incorrect shape analysis from &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/21413/%e7%9f%a2-how-does-it-look-like-an-arrow/36185#36185&quot;&gt;hence why using &lt;em&gt;Shuowen&lt;/em&gt; to demonstrate glyph evolution without checking  modern publications on the subject can lead to serious errors&lt;/a&gt;), and is really just「與」, inclusive of its corrupted「牙」component, stripped of its four hands「又又」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As mentioned earlier, Chinese characters piled on more components to existing characters to make enough distinguishable characters to represent the language sufficiently. 《荊門郭店楚簡》語叢3.9 is an example where「牙」is used as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus#Rebus_principle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;phonetic loan&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;rebus&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; for「與」. What happens when you start using phonetic loan characters? &lt;em&gt;You need another character to represent the original meaning&lt;/em&gt;, here demonstrated by piling on more components on to「牙」to distinguish its uses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;戰國・楚&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TemOO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TemOO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;165&lt;br&gt;曾侯乙墓竹簡&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;br&gt;隸定&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dDM3v.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dDM3v.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;「」&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;「」is a precursor to「齖」, which has even more components; what looks like「臼」in this character is a shape-approximation of the same picture which forms the bottom part of「齒」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;「⿻人一」(Simplification of「伐」)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exclusively found in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shang Dynasty&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;oracle bones&lt;/a&gt;, the simplified form was dropped relatively quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1uGTH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1uGTH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;前&lt;/a&gt;7.15.4&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=6540&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集6540&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DT4pb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DT4pb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;佚&lt;/a&gt;328&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=6363&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集6363正&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「伐」(&lt;em&gt;to behead&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;kill&lt;/em&gt; &gt; &lt;em&gt;attack&lt;/em&gt;) is a picture of a &lt;em&gt;person&lt;/em&gt;「人」and a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagger-axe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;dagger-axe&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;「戈」, where earlier forms deliberately drew the blade of「戈」across the neck of「人」, emphasising the meaning &lt;em&gt;to behead&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;西周&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8JNEh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8JNEh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;大保簋&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=4140&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成4140&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;春秋・楚&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ltG61.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ltG61.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;南疆鉦&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=428&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成428&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;簡&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NuOHM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NuOHM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;日書乙種128&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_Qin_bamboo_texts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;睡虎地秦簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;楷&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KdCa3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KdCa3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the simplified form (佚328 and others), most of the shape of「戈」is removed, with only the blade across the neck remaining. The following is a text sample to demonstrate the usage of this shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=18&amp;amp;bh=502&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;《殷虛文字丙編》502&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The following text contains both「伐」and its reduced form「⿻人一」, both shown in red. Reading order given by circled numbers ①—⑭.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IfJGG.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IfJGG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;甲午卜，爭鼎（貞）：羽（翌）乙未用羌？用。（之）日⿱隹（陰）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%94%B2%E5%8D%88#Chinese&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jiǎwǔ&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; [甲午] &lt;em&gt;day&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;divination&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; [卜]) &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E8%B4%9E%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Oracle &lt;em&gt;Zhēng&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; [爭] asked [貞]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;On the day of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B9%99%E6%9C%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;yǐwèi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; [乙未] in the period of &lt;em&gt;yì&lt;/em&gt; [翌], &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice#China&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sacrifice&lt;/a&gt; [&lt;em&gt;use&lt;/em&gt;, 用] a  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiang_(historical_people)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Qiāng&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; person?&quot;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Divined a positive result&lt;/em&gt;) &quot;Confirm sacrifice [用].&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;That [之] day [日] is cloudy/overcast [陰]&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;甲午卜，爭鼎：羽乙未勿⿻⿰目目（瞿）用羌？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Jiǎwǔ day divination&lt;/em&gt;) Oracle &lt;em&gt;Zhēng&lt;/em&gt; asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;On the day of &lt;em&gt;yǐwèi&lt;/em&gt; in the period of &lt;em&gt;yì&lt;/em&gt;, don't [勿] sacrifice a &lt;em&gt;Qiāng&lt;/em&gt; person?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;鼎：羽乙未用羌？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;On the day of &lt;em&gt;yǐwèi&lt;/em&gt; in the period of &lt;em&gt;yì&lt;/em&gt;, sacrifice a &lt;em&gt;Qiāng&lt;/em&gt; person?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;乙未卜，（賓）鼎：以⿱戈止（武）芻？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Yǐwèi day divination&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E8%B4%9E%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Oracle &lt;em&gt;Bīn&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; [] asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;Will the farmers [&lt;em&gt;grass cutters for animal feeding&lt;/em&gt;, 芻] be brought over [以] from the land of &lt;em&gt;Wǔ&lt;/em&gt; [⿱戈止]?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;以⿱戈止芻？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Asked again:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;Will the farmers be brought over from the land of &lt;em&gt;Wǔ&lt;/em&gt;?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;鼎：弗（其）以⿱戈止芻？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;Will the farmers not [弗] be brought over from the land of &lt;em&gt;Wǔ&lt;/em&gt;?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;㞢（侑）于唐子，「伐」？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Asked:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;To return favours [侑] to [于] our ancestor &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_of_Shang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tang&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; [唐子], shall we conduct a &lt;strong&gt;beheading [伐]&lt;/strong&gt; ritual?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;鼎：乎（呼）取⿱子止，「⿻人一」？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;Beckon [呼] someone to grab [取] a sacrificial person [⿱子止] for a &lt;strong&gt;beheading [⿻人一]&lt;/strong&gt; ritual?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;鼎：（燎）于土（社）？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;Conduct a bonfire [燎] ritual for the regional gods [社]?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;㞢于父乙？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Asked:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;Return favours for our ancestor King &lt;em&gt;Fùyǐ&lt;/em&gt; [父乙]?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;鼎：（王）㝱（夢），隹（禍）？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;The king [王] had a dream [夢], will there be disaster [禍]?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;不隹？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Asked:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;Will there not [不] be disaster?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;鼎：（疒）罒（目）？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;Will the king suffer an eye [目] disease [疒]?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;鼎：弗罒？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;Will the king not suffer an eye disease?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;杜忠誥《說文篆文訛形釋例》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;劉翔・陳抗・陳初生・董琨　編　李學勤　審訂《商周古文字讀本》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;何琳儀《戰國古文字典：戰國文字聲系》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中華語文知識庫&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/search_source.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢字源流&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=18&amp;amp;bh=%EF%BC%90&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;張秉權《殷虛文字丙編》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國哲學書電子化計劃&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&amp;amp;res=77351&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;宋・徐鉉等奉敕校定　漢・許慎《說文解字》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢語多功能字庫&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T01:05:27.730" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T01:05:27.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25566" CreationDate="2020-01-05T17:21:26.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The translation would be (as a clause, not full sentence):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;...each one more unreasonable than the next.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 赛 here means 比得上。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23403" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T17:21:26.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36435" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-06T03:41:59.983" Score="0" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know if that's optional take or not this sign, because i'm known that a few idioms are used to have this sign, thus i want to know why do they use this and how does it affect the sentence ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23363" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T04:21:17.430" Title="Can I take this sign(一) out of these words 一丝不苟 and &quot;不屑一顾 or no?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;sentence&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36435" CreationDate="2020-01-06T04:21:17.430" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are both idioms (成语) with fixed structures, so deleting the 一 (yī) = &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%80/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;one&quot;&lt;/a&gt; would change the meaning, and make it nonsensical.  This also holds for Chinese words such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%80%E8%B5%B7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;一起&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%AC%AC%E4%B8%80&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;第一&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%9D%E4%B8%8D%E8%8B%9F&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt;丝不苟&lt;/a&gt; basically means &quot;[even] &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; thread not careless&quot;, referring to meticulousness.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%8D%E5%B1%91%E4%B8%80%E9%A1%BE&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;不屑&lt;strong&gt;一&lt;/strong&gt;顾&lt;/a&gt; basically means &quot;disdain [even] &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; consideration&quot;, or &quot;disdain even considering it once&quot;.  However, here it's possible to just say &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E4%B8%8D%E5%B1%91&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;不屑&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;disdain&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So ordinarily dropping the 一 is not reasonable, and certainly so among fixed idioms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in some non-idiom cases we can drop the 一, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%AF%8F%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%AA%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;每一个人&lt;/a&gt; can be shorted to &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/eng/%E6%AF%8F%E4%B8%AA%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;每个人&lt;/a&gt;, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;她是一个医生 can be shorted to 她是个医生, and even further to 她是医生.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases it's different: we have a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Measure_words_for_counting&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;measure word&lt;/a&gt; (个) and it's possible to sometimes drop the 一.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T04:21:17.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36437" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-06T06:54:43.600" Score="0" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;its been in the family since the 1950's, I asked a friend but he couldn't read it. also google translate was rubbish. friend said the calligraphy was to hard.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E6xaQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E6xaQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;some sort of scroll painting ?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p88qo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p88qo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;added the very bottom bit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23405" LastEditorUserId="23405" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T14:35:51.313" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T14:51:28.163" Title="translation of text and seals on painting (Poet identified: Pu Ru 溥儒)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;seal&gt;&lt;poetry&gt;&lt;calligraphy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36437" CreationDate="2020-01-06T07:11:00.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a painting by the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qing&lt;/a&gt; imperial descendant &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puru_(artist)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pu Ru&lt;/a&gt; (溥儒). I'll leave someone else to do the calligraphy, as it's beyond my ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8ylbb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8ylbb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;飛鴻&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Flying swan&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/S5z5w.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/S5z5w.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;舊王孫&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Descendant of the former monarchs&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dxfLt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dxfLt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;溥儒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pu Ru&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h1duV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h1duV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;明夷土&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T14:51:28.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36427" CreationDate="2020-01-06T08:03:18.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm trying to say this in &lt;strong&gt;English&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I am almost enjoying imagining the poor men who listen to these suggestions, ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a language expert, so this is a &lt;em&gt;wild guess&lt;/em&gt;:) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your &quot;this&quot; may in fact be English! Can anyone confirm? Over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you would like that &quot;this&quot; in Chinese however, I would change your English a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当 ... 时 = when&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;当我想到那些男士为了吸引女士的注意而按照这些建议去打扮自己时， 几乎有种享受的感觉。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I imagine the poor men who listen to these suggestions and dress up in order to attract women, I almost have a feeling of enjoyment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T08:03:18.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36427" CreationDate="2020-01-06T09:08:31.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please don't care that I use traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 我几乎在享受中想象着听这样建议的可怜的男人, I think that 我幾乎享受地想象著聽從這樣建議的可憐男人 can be better. In this example, I use 享受地 function as an adverb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T09:08:31.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36437" CreationDate="2020-01-06T09:37:16.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My best guess, 1st poem is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;井梧飛影・・・&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;閒坐階前美有情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;萬里碧空雲似錦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;月・・・・・・&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2nd is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;茗函冷澀石生斑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苦竹・・・・閒&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;扇影生・消月魄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;・・・・・雲山&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the 3rd one is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;・・・影玉西沉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;・・江上・秋音&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;誰知錦瑟・・・&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;・・・・・・・&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;remaining characters are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西山逸生詩・・・・・&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T09:37:16.490" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36437" CreationDate="2020-01-06T11:05:41.473" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;井・飛影露走・&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;閒坐階前為有情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;萬里碧空雲似錦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;月・團扇不分明&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;茗函冷澀石生斑&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;苦竹・・・檻間&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;扇影生寒消月魄&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;・聲邊・成雲山&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;・・・影玉西沉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;落・江上變秋音&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;誰知錦瑟・・然&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;玉露微霜正傷・&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;結合畫面來看，是思歸之詩。秋仲，霜降露結之日，月朧雲疏之時，少婦執團扇，捧香茗，倚坐石邊階前，是“為有情”也。至月沉日更，霜已成露，沸茶作冰，不知何處秋音自起，再添神傷。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（但是詩寫得確實不咋滴（坐了這麽久居然還沒凍死））&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不過特意自題“飛鴻”、“舊王孫”，還叫“溥儒”，不得不讓人揣測“美人自喻”，“黍離麥秀”，“故國招魂”那檔子事情。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T12:24:38.820" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T12:24:38.820" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33872" CreationDate="2020-01-06T11:51:11.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 始于足下 is better translated as &quot;Begins from / with one step&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;足下 should not be translated literally as &quot;feet under / below&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a figure of speech to mean taking steps, to walk, to move as the feet are commonly associated in most languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T11:51:11.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30958" CreationDate="2020-01-06T15:32:22.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest finding some videos, or even better, native speakers who can show you. More than just the sound, you need to understand the mouth position. This syllable is a combination of two of the most difficult sounds for Americans at least because the x and u are not in English. The x, j, and q sounds all have the same mouth position which is tip of the tongue behind the bottom teeth, and the breath and friction over the top middle, the place where you'd say 'd'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'u' is the ü from yu, lv, qu, nv etc. You have to make your mouth into a very tight and somewhat protruding 'o', and make the sound from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the 'e' is like the English 'eh', like 'meh' or 'head'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23411" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T15:32:22.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36447" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-07T03:40:02.317" Score="-1" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know if there are specific ways to use each measure word or all can be use freely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23363" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T23:15:13.613" Title="Does each measure word have a specific way to use?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;sentence&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36447" CreationDate="2020-01-07T13:55:34.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quote:- &quot;I'd like to know if there are specific ways to use each measure word or all can be use freely&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I understand the question correctly, my answer is:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)   there &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; specific ways to use each &quot;measure word&quot; Just like in English or I suspect any other language, you have measure words like a &quot;troop&quot; of monkeys, a &quot;flock&quot; of birds, and you could not say a flock of monkeys or a troop of birds, so too in Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)   therefore, no, not all measure words can be used freely. Like you could say &quot;十条鱼&quot;, or &quot;十本书&quot;, and never &quot;十本鱼&quot; or &quot;十条书&quot;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, one measure word could, &lt;em&gt;in a limited capacity&lt;/em&gt;, be used &quot;freely&quot;, and it is &quot;个&quot; (gè) It is a go-to measure word when you are at a sudden loss for the correct measure word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T13:55:34.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36449" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36451" CreationDate="2020-01-07T16:29:03.150" Score="2" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was told the symbols on this table was seal script. I'm having trouble confirming/translating them. Any help/advice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wqct1.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wqct1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23416" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-07T16:45:06.793" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T01:17:40.147" Title="Can someone help translate this seal script (I think)?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34477" CreationDate="2020-01-07T16:35:02.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's wrong, since it gave correct meaning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following sentence, &quot;我们八点上课，老师(一般)七点五十才到&quot;. It means the teacher come at 7:50 for most time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If omitting &quot;了&quot; the original sentence seems means that the teacher will always arrive at 8:30.  However it obviously means that in a particular day, the teacher was late for class. &quot;了&quot; emphasizes that teacher had arrived but was late. When for emphasizing, the verb &quot;到(arrive)&quot; can be a bit stressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;了&quot; has a second pronunciation of &quot;liao&quot;, which is a more emphasizing tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12674" LastEditorUserId="12674" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T09:29:03.497" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T09:29:03.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36449" CreationDate="2020-01-07T17:08:00.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;朙（明）⿰古久（故）朙威將&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;軍錦衣䘙（衛）⿰扌⿱刀甘（指）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;揮僉事（鄭）公&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;曁配（恭）人先&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;鐂（鎦）氏繼楊氏&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;合（葬）⿵土（墓）誌銘&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Epitaph of joint grave of Grand &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ming&lt;/a&gt; general of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embroidered_Uniform_Guard&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Embroidered Uniform Guard&lt;/a&gt;, Sir&lt;/em&gt; 鄭 &lt;em&gt;, together with honoured first lady Madame&lt;/em&gt; 鎦 [passed away first] &lt;em&gt;and second lady Madame&lt;/em&gt; 楊.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The word choice in this translation might be inappropriate, it's very difficult to translate ancient titles across from Chinese)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T01:17:40.147" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T01:17:40.147" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36447" CreationDate="2020-01-07T23:15:13.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not all measure words can be used freely. For example 一片披薩 in English: a slice of pizza, people don't say 一間披薩. This example shows that you cannot use it freely 一間 cannot be used on 披薩(pizza). While people can use 一間披薩店 in English: a pizza store. This example shows that 一間 can be used on 披薩店(pizza store).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T23:15:13.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13481" CreationDate="2020-01-08T00:03:56.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than 天真, 单纯 is another word to describe people are innocent, and depends on the context it may imply the person is too naive that it actually seems silly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(你）真令人捉急呀！ is also a way to say to someone silly(because of his clumsiness or slow) that make you frustrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T00:03:56.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35788" CreationDate="2020-01-08T01:58:44.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should refer to Table II of &lt;em&gt;Final Table of Simplified Characters&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/%E7%AE%80%E5%8C%96%E5%AD%97%E6%80%BB%E8%A1%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;简化字总表&lt;/a&gt;) for 14 simplified radicals. Although the table itself has been replaced since 2013, it is the only official reference for simplified Chinese radicals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T01:58:44.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35348" CreationDate="2020-01-08T02:11:07.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You must enter &lt;strong&gt;simplified&lt;/strong&gt; characters to reproduce Xiaozhuan characters using this font. If you want to display 飛，type in 飞 instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11744" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T02:11:07.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36459" CreationDate="2020-01-08T05:22:06.880" Score="4" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;我的问题就对于这个句子： &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们之间不再&lt;strong&gt;会&lt;/strong&gt;有什么友谊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的英语翻译是：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There can no longer be any friendship between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为了了解“会”的贡献，我就试试删除它，后来翻译一下：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他们之间不再有什么友谊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的英文翻译成为：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is no longer any friendship between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;“会” 的贡献&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;消除“会”导致消除将来友谊的可能性。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我的尝试是否合理？ 谢谢。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20877" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-09T01:30:28.340" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T17:16:20.440" Title="“他们之间不再会有什么友谊”：在这个句子里&quot;会“贡献什么意思？" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36457" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-08T06:31:02.400" Score="0" ViewCount="623" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know how to use the 为, because there are cases where we dont translate it and it gets it harder so i'd like like to know the uses and effects this one provoke in the sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23363" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T23:00:09.907" Title="How do i know how to use the 为?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;sentence&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36457" CreationDate="2020-01-08T07:28:11.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good start is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki page for 为&lt;/a&gt;, which I'll go through.  Each of the relevant webpages have multiple examples, but I'll add some in-the-field examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By itself, 为 basically means &quot;for&quot; along with some related definitions.  Perhaps the &quot;cases where we don't translate it&quot; arise when 为 is used within words such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9B%A0%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;因为&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%BA%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;为什么&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%88%90%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;成为&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%A1%8C%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;行为&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%B8%BA%E4%BD%95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;为何&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BB%A5%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;以为&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%AE%A4%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;认为&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BD%9C%E4%B8%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;作为&lt;/a&gt;, etc., where it doesn't mean &quot;for&quot; (it's just part of the word).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplest usage has the structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为 + Party + Verb / Adj.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22for%22_with_%22wei%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing &quot;for&quot; with &quot;wei&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;爸妈，今天我&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;你包饺子!&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/212255186_770053&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;  (Dad and mum, today I made dumplings &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; you!).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我这次来上海&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;大家演讲&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/bacbac7c80c758f5f61fb7360b4c2e3f572725e5.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; (This time, I come to Shanghai [to] make a speech &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; everyone).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;社会&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;世人尽力&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kyocera.com.cn/inamori/philosophy/philosophy20.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;  (&lt;strong&gt;For&lt;/strong&gt; society, &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; people, strive [your] hardest)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This structure is similar to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;为了 ⋯⋯ ，Subj. ⋯⋯&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_purpose_with_%22weile%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing purpose with &quot;weile&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;为了&lt;/strong&gt;您的身体健康，请少饮酒&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://m.cnkang.com/nkwk/201211/855370.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;For&lt;/strong&gt; your bodily health, please drink less alcohol.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;为了&lt;/strong&gt;爸爸妈妈,我要努力!&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jianshu.com/p/e65e7d3acca8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;For&lt;/strong&gt; father and mother, I will try hard!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also similar to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Subj. + 为 + Goal + 而 + Efforts Made&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Subj. + 不 + 为 + Goal + 而 + Efforts Made&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Explaining_purpose_with_%22wei..._er...%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explaining purpose with &quot;wei... er...&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;自己&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;学 (Learn &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; yourself [although more like &quot;learn &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; your own reasons&quot;])&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;中国&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;战&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%BA%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E8%80%8C%E6%88%98/10353780&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; (Fight &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; China)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also a song called &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%BA%E7%88%B1%E8%80%8C%E7%94%9F/12770?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;爱&lt;strong&gt;而&lt;/strong&gt;生&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;Live &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; love&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also similar to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;⋯⋯ 是 + 为了 / 因为 ⋯⋯&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_purpose_with_%22weile%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Expressing purpose with &quot;weile&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;人来到世上&lt;strong&gt;是为了&lt;/strong&gt;什么?&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/376371720.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; (Mankind is on earth &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; what?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;上班&lt;strong&gt;不是为了&lt;/strong&gt;赚钱&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1639263356454848155&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; (Going to work is &lt;strong&gt;not for&lt;/strong&gt; making money.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;成功&lt;strong&gt;是因为&lt;/strong&gt;态度&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/280510fb0242a8956bece42e.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; (Success is &lt;strong&gt;because of&lt;/strong&gt; attitude.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;有时候,喜欢听歌&lt;strong&gt;不是因为&lt;/strong&gt;歌唱的好听&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1633486278994146314&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; (Sometimes, liking to listen to a song &lt;strong&gt;is not because&lt;/strong&gt; the song sounds good)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final one is similar, but follows a specific pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;以 + A + 为 + B&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Using_%22yi..._wei...%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Using &quot;yi... wei...&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;朋友&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;话题的文章&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.duanmeiwen.com/qinggan/pengyou/97771.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; (An essay &lt;strong&gt;taking&lt;/strong&gt; [a] friend &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; [the] topic)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;以&lt;/strong&gt;我家&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;例, ...&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://jia.baidu.com/m/pages/walkthrough/index?frxcx=zxj&amp;amp;frsrc=rank&amp;amp;nid=591714_wt_jia_com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;Take&lt;/strong&gt; my family &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; example, ...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also used in a lot of idioms, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.baidu.com/link?url=rpgKYwCwAhpr8DpS5JMetg28kOlhqHjlBh3k4eirY_lq5p-F4BuzdnrRg-um70XG1_qikLz-CyX7YaESzi5evAbqqmex88Jat044gz3Ug5PHzyGFtceIgUFIXu4ocq5S&amp;amp;wd=&amp;amp;eqid=87251abf00119eb6000000025e15805f&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;以黑为白&lt;/a&gt; literally means something like &quot;take black for white&quot; implying something like &quot;wrong is right&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T07:42:50.710" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T07:42:50.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36456" CreationDate="2020-01-08T07:59:31.333" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;消除“会”导致消除将来友谊的可能性。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, your understanding is correct. 会 in the context refers to the future tense. Removed 会,  他们之间不再有什么友谊 doesn't specify the tense and we'd have to rely on context to determine whether it happens in the past, present or future. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T07:59:31.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36457" CreationDate="2020-01-08T08:38:42.223" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am no grammar expert, but let me attempt an answer based on my level of attainment. I am sure others could do better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one of the most commonly occurring and useful word in the Chinese language, just about behind 的 &amp;amp; 了。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is, (just like 的 &amp;amp; 了), it is a preposition, and when used in combination it becomes a verb, a conjunction, an interrogative, (a sentence of inquiry that asks for a reply)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is in an actual sentence that its usages become apparent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a preposition it is &quot;for&quot;; 他的牺牲是&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;了什么?, (his sacrifice is for what?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a conjunction it is &quot;because of&quot;; 他&lt;strong&gt;为&lt;/strong&gt;爱国以牺牲了生命, (Because of his love for country he sacrificed his life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a verb -- 成为 -- &quot;become&quot;; 他的牺牲将会&lt;strong&gt;成为&lt;/strong&gt;传说, (His sacrifice would become a legend)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an interrogative -- 为什么, &quot;why&quot;, 他&lt;strong&gt;为什么&lt;/strong&gt;牺牲自己的生命?, (why did he sacrifice his own life?)   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T08:38:42.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36461" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36462" CreationDate="2020-01-08T11:29:44.730" Score="1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;For Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;正版 Windows 太贵了, 只能拿盗版Windows或Ubuntu&lt;strong&gt;将就&lt;/strong&gt;一下了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which can be translated to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Genuine Microsoft Windows is too expensive, I'll have to &lt;strong&gt;make do&lt;/strong&gt; with pirated Windows or Ubuntu. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any &lt;strong&gt;Chengyus&lt;/strong&gt; similar to this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20407" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T11:50:23.090" Title="What's the Chinese equivalent of 将就? (成语)" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36461" CreationDate="2020-01-08T11:50:23.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8D%E5%BE%97%E5%B7%B2%E8%80%8C%E6%B1%82%E5%85%B6%E6%AC%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;不得已而求其次&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%86%E9%99%8B%E5%B0%B1%E7%AE%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;将陋就简&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both have the same meaning with 将就 or 勉强凑合.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T11:50:23.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30958" CreationDate="2020-01-08T18:33:46.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Late to the party here but I had a native speaker help me with this one time. Pronouncing xue2 is like telling the moon to be quiet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First say &quot;shhhh&quot; like you are telling someone to shush.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then pronounce 月.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has always stuck in my head for some reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23255" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T18:33:46.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36457" CreationDate="2020-01-08T22:47:11.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several usages of 為, I just list part of it. Sometimes, 為 show that things are or are done for object after 為. For example, 他為我留了一塊蛋糕。 in English: He left a piece of cake for me. This example shows that thing was done for object after 為 (我). Sometimes, 為 shows that something after 為 is used to describe something before 為. 這餐花費為1000元。 in English: This meal cost for 1000 dollars. This example shows that something after 為 (1000元) is used to describe something before 為 (這餐花費). 成為傳奇。in English: Become a legend. This example show that somethings after 為(傳奇 in English: a legend) was used to describe something before 為(成 In English: the action of becoming something).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="23311" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T23:00:09.907" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T23:00:09.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36456" CreationDate="2020-01-09T00:45:00.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Speculation about the future is just that: speculation, someone's opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That 会 I would read as 将会: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们之间不再将会有什么友谊。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;They ain't gonna be friends anymore. (speculation about the future)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To locate the 会less sentence clearly in the past, we could add:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;从那时候起，他们之间不再有什么友谊。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Since then there isn't any friendship between them. (ongoing lack of friendship)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T00:45:00.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36466" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-09T04:15:31.017" Score="1" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm supposed to write a thesis for my 成人教育 course. A teacher has been appointed. I can only contact him by email and I think he only looks at his email once a month, there is a long latency period. I sent in a proposal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His reply was: 结构合理同意开题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean I can start on the thesis, or he wants a more detailed report of the thesis??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开题到底是什么意思？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T16:19:17.443" Title="What does 开题 mean here?" Tags="&lt;meaning-in-context&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36466" CreationDate="2020-01-09T07:29:55.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;结构 : structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;合理 : makes sense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同意 : agree&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开题 : start topic (thesis in your case)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;结构合理同意开题&lt;/strong&gt;  means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your structure makes sense and I agree that you can start on the thesis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19342" LastEditorUserId="19342" LastEditDate="2020-01-10T02:36:55.573" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T02:36:55.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14873" CreationDate="2020-01-09T08:36:54.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to dictionary owned by &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&amp;amp;searchid=Z00000115354&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ministry of Education in Taiwan&lt;/a&gt;, 著急 means that feeling anxious and impatient because you want some result to happen  earlier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the meaning and context in given quotation. The different style of education is pushed to change. But the change is difficult, and it is a painful and a long process. To interpret 我們不能太著急。 Consider the process is difficult, painful and long. It is rational to tell us not to feel anxious and inpatient for the reason that you want the result(Change of education style) to happened earlier. That is to say, Please don't be anxious and impatient since you cannot expect that the result you want achieve fast, just be patient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="23311" LastEditDate="2020-01-09T21:56:43.983" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T21:56:43.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14873" CreationDate="2020-01-09T09:43:19.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on my time in China in both professional and casual settings, I would interpret the term 着急 here as meaning &quot;rushed.&quot; &quot;Hurried&quot; might also work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation of your sentence would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It can be said that we've already begun to push the transition from exam-oriented education to quality-oriented education, but this transition is very difficult. It is a painful and slow/very long/endless/arduous process. We should not/cannot be too rushed/hurried.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate, I give an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My wushu teacher might tell me &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这个动作挺难的，别着急，慢慢来，不然容易受伤哦&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which translates to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This move is pretty difficult, don't rush it, do it slowly, otherwise you'll easily get injured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you've pointed out, very often people and dictionaries will construe 着急 to mean &quot;worry&quot; or &quot;anxious,&quot; but I feel like using &quot;rushed&quot; or &quot;hurried&quot; is more in the spirit of the sentence, given the context of a &quot;painful and arduous&quot; process. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有道词典 contains some examples where &quot;hurry&quot; and its derivatives are used. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youdao.com/example/blng/eng/%E7%9D%80%E6%80%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In the entry for 着急 under more examples&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;似乎以色列并不着急阻止阿巴斯和埃及、约旦领导人那些他的本地盟友的所作所为。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Israel seems in no hurry to prevent that; nor does Mr Abbas, nor their&#xA;  local allies, the leaders of Egypt and Jordan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;虽然你很着急，但投资者们却喜欢观望(等待“再翻一张牌看看”)。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Investors like to wait (&quot;flip another card over&quot;) while you want to&#xA;  hurry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;不，&quot;那个着急的侍者一边说，一边拉下了铁百叶窗后站了起来。&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;No,&quot; the waiter who was in a hurry said, rising from pulling down the&#xA;  metal shutters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19368" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T09:43:19.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36466" CreationDate="2020-01-09T09:51:03.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;开题 means proposal according to 有道词典 and it makes sense to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;同意开题 means that the professor &quot;agrees with your proposal,&quot; which I assume is his go-ahead for you to turn the proposal into a fully-fledged thesis. You can think of it literally as &quot;I agree with your proposal.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19368" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T09:51:03.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36427" CreationDate="2020-01-09T15:08:12.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I reckon you're going to use that colloquially. This should fit perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想起来简直搞笑，多可怜的男人才会听这种建议。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T15:08:12.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14873" CreationDate="2020-01-09T15:13:03.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;We should not do it in haste.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hurried, usually carelessly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T15:13:03.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36466" CreationDate="2020-01-10T02:21:49.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll answer this based on my experience at Nankai University; I worked there for ~5 years, and experienced 开题 only from Chinese students.  I expect it's different for international students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%80%E9%A2%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;开题&lt;/a&gt; refers to a period wherein research students (PhD or Master's students) do two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They give a presentation about their intended research.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I understand the students also need to write a report.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I recall correctly, this occurs after their coursework: typically they spend a year doing coursework, then the rest of their candidature doing research (getting papers published, and writing a thesis).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a formal process, and the students need to pass this to continue.  It's taken very seriously, and it's a busy and stressful time for both teachers and students.  (From my experience, however, if a student has a half-decent proposal and a competent teacher, it'll probably be fine.  It doesn't have to be perfect; they're students describing future research, after all.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I expect the process differs from university to university (possibly even department to department, and even teacher to teacher), and it looks like it's different again for international students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the OP's case in particular, the situation appears different: &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%90%8C%E6%84%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;同意&lt;/a&gt;开题 implies they agree (同意) with your research proposal (开题).  Moreover, if you're communicating by email, I guess there's probably no presentation to give.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I expect the Chinese comes from a combination of &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;开&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%80%E5%A7%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;开始&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;start&quot; with &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E8%AF%BE%E9%A2%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;课题&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;problem&quot; (or maybe &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%A2%98%E7%9B%AE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;题目&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;topic&quot; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%97%AE%E9%A2%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;问题&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;problem&quot;).  I believe it's short for &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%80%E9%A2%98%E6%8A%A5%E5%91%8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;开题报告&lt;/a&gt; = &quot;thesis proposal&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;开题者对科研课题的一种文字说明&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A description of the scientific topic by the author&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BC%80%E9%A2%98%E6%8A%A5%E5%91%8A/1600402?fr=aladdin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu Baike&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T02:21:49.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36287" CreationDate="2020-01-10T02:58:19.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 朱&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 篆文: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hX608.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hX608.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a common surname in Chinese, originally refers to inner red wood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;說文解字注: 朱本木名。引伸假借爲純赤之字。糸部曰。絑、純赤也。是其本字也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For variations you can find here : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zixing/yanbian/4472tv/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zixing/yanbian/4472tv/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19342" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T02:58:19.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35692" CreationDate="2020-01-10T03:19:15.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's probably not what the OP has in mind, but I'm going to give this as an answer (since the question wasn't limited to a particular writing style).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;☰，☳，☵，☶，☷，☴，☲，☱&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the eight ancient Chinese &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%85%AB%E5%8D%A6/166475&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;八卦&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagua&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bagua&lt;/a&gt;), also known as trigrams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going further, we have the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Wen_sequence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;King Wen sequence&lt;/a&gt; (文王卦序):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;䷀䷁䷂䷃䷄䷅䷆䷇䷈䷉䷊䷋䷌䷍䷎䷏䷐䷑䷒䷓䷔䷕䷖䷗䷘䷙䷚䷛䷜䷝䷞䷟䷠䷡䷢䷣䷤䷥䷦䷧䷨䷩䷪䷫䷬䷭䷮䷯䷰䷱䷲䷳䷴䷵䷶䷷䷸䷹䷺䷻䷼䷽䷾䷿&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T03:19:15.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36466" CreationDate="2020-01-10T04:10:57.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;结构合理同意开题 = 结构合理,同意开题&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;开题：开始你的研究project&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17075" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T04:10:57.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29663" CreationDate="2020-01-10T04:21:48.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;下个星期三：下周的星期三  Wednesday on next week&#xA;这个星期三：这周的星期三  Wednesday on current week&#xA;上个星期三：上周的星期三  Wednesday on last week&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17075" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T04:21:48.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1867" CreationDate="2020-01-10T04:24:30.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;车费我们俩一人付一半，怎么样？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is AA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;车费10元，一人付一半，就是每人5元。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17075" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T04:24:30.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="301" CreationDate="2020-01-10T04:32:08.960" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;某天我去北京 =  某天我将去北京&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我将在未来某个目前还没有确定的时间，去北京。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17075" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T04:32:08.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36481" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36484" CreationDate="2020-01-10T05:17:57.227" Score="0" ViewCount="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;Continuing from parts &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35746/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-and-the-revolutionary-new-technology&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35763/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-was-fat-when-she-was-young&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35780/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwangs-father-takes-her-to-the-doctor&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/35870/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-gets-an-injection-from-the-doctor&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36003/writing-critique-request-the-almost-imperceptible-effects-of-zhou-ziwangs-inje&quot;&gt;5&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36111/writing-critique-request-zhou-ziwang-loses-weight-just-like-everyone-else-nowa&quot;&gt;6&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/36218/writing-critique-request-welcome-to-the-world-of-dna-editing&quot;&gt;7&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们不知道谁在互联网上&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%B3%84%E9%9C%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;泄露&lt;/a&gt;了这个发明，但是以后，几乎每个电子公司开始提供&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BB%89%E4%BB%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;廉价&lt;/a&gt;的&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%80%82%E9%85%8D%E5%99%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;适配器&lt;/a&gt;。有的人认为免费&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%BC%80%E6%BA%90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;开源&lt;/a&gt;（FOSS）&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%A4%BE%E5%8C%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;社区&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%8F%91%E6%8C%A5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;发挥&lt;/a&gt;了作用。如果拥有电脑，像把软件&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9B%B4%E6%96%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;更新&lt;/a&gt;一样，现在你可以在网上&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9B%B4%E6%96%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;更新&lt;/a&gt;自己的DNA。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;社会的态度完全改变了：起初，没人想要&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BC%96%E8%BE%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;编辑&lt;/a&gt;自己的DNA，但很快发现了“DNA&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BC%98%E5%8C%96&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;优化&lt;/a&gt;人”有许多巨大的竞争&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BC%98%E5%8A%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;优势&lt;/a&gt;。如果你不愿意&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BB%B4%E6%8A%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;维护&lt;/a&gt;最新自己的DNA，就找不到工作、做什么事都比别人慢、交&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%81%8B%E4%BA%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;恋人&lt;/a&gt;也很难等。总之，人们不得不接受大家需要一直&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%AE%89%E8%A3%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;安装&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9B%B4%E6%96%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;更新&lt;/a&gt;，否则不会成功。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please critique my writing. New words for me are in links. I'm at the early stages of HSK5-level Chinese. The narrative is from a person in the present (Zhou Ziwang 周子望) with an unusual past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E9%80%82%E9%85%8D%E5%99%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;适配器&lt;/a&gt; refers to a (fictional) device installable in a human body which allows you to edit your DNA via a computer [like in &lt;em&gt;The Matrix&lt;/em&gt;, but for editing DNA].  I'm not sure if 适配器 is the best term here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%9B%B4%E6%96%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;更新&lt;/a&gt; is new for me, and I'm not completely comfortable with it; it might not even be the right word.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;有的人认为免费开源（FOSS）社区&lt;strong&gt;发挥了作用&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Some people believe [the] free-and-open-source community &lt;strong&gt;played a role&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm worried about this: in this idiomatic expression, the Chinese seems &lt;em&gt;too similar&lt;/em&gt; to the English.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if 很难等 would be mistaken for &quot;difficult to wait&quot; rather than &quot;difficult, and so on&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope it's not too bad; I'm blind to any mistakes here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T14:27:21.527" Title="Writing critique request: Upgrading your DNA is like upgrading software on your computer" Tags="&lt;writing-critique&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36481" CreationDate="2020-01-10T07:01:32.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;我们不知道谁在互联网上泄露了这个发明，**但是以后， **几乎每个电子公司开始提供廉价的适配器。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;但是以后: But later on (xxxxx), you don't need a comma between.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我们不知道谁在互联网上泄露了这个发明，&lt;strong&gt;但是以后&lt;/strong&gt;几乎每个电子公司开始提供廉价的适配器。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有的人&lt;/strong&gt;认为免费开源（FOSS）社区发挥了作用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有的人: some of the people, usually you are referring to a group of people you have mentioned before but you didn't here, use 有人 instead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;有人: someone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;有人&lt;/strong&gt;认为免费开源（FOSS）社区发挥了作用。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;如果拥有电脑，像把软件更新一样&lt;/strong&gt;，现在你可以在网上更新自己的DNA。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;就像电脑软件更新&lt;/strong&gt;，现在你可以在网上更新自己的DNA。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;社会的态度&lt;/strong&gt;完全改变了：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;社会的态度 : the attitude of society&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;社会态度 : the society's attitude&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;社会态度&lt;/strong&gt;完全改变了：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;起初没人&lt;strong&gt;想要&lt;/strong&gt;编辑自己的DNA，但很快发现了“DNA优化人”有许多巨大的竞争优势。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想要: apply to objects, e.g. 我想要你 (I want to have you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;想: apply to actions, e.g.  我想你 (I want you/ I miss you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;起初没人&lt;strong&gt;想&lt;/strong&gt;编辑自己的DNA，但很快发现了“DNA优化人”有许多巨大的竞争优势。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如果你不愿意&lt;strong&gt;维护&lt;/strong&gt;最新自己的DNA，&lt;strong&gt;就&lt;/strong&gt;找不到工作、做什么事都比别人慢、交恋人也很难&lt;strong&gt;等&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;维护: means repair/fix use 维持 instead &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;维持: maintain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;很难等: if you need to list out examples, you need to provide the category of your examples, like 困扰 (worries).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就会有.....等困扰: you will have worries such as ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;如果你不愿意&lt;strong&gt;维持&lt;/strong&gt;最新自己的DNA，&lt;strong&gt;就会有&lt;/strong&gt;找不到工作、做什么事都比别人慢、交恋人也很难&lt;strong&gt;等困扰&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;总之，人们不得不接受大家需要一直&lt;strong&gt;安装更新&lt;/strong&gt;，否则&lt;strong&gt;不会成功&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;安装更新: install updates ,更新 can be use as a verb already, you can just say 更新DNA: update DNA&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不会成功: you are missing the subject of this bit, what kind of things won't work/succeed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;总之，人们不得不接受大家需要一直&lt;strong&gt;更新DNA&lt;/strong&gt;，否则&lt;strong&gt;生活不会成功&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19342" LastEditorUserId="19342" LastEditDate="2020-01-10T14:27:21.527" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T14:27:21.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14873" CreationDate="2020-01-10T08:01:17.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Focus on &#xA; &lt;strong&gt;是一个痛苦的漫长的过程 (It's a painful long process)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you search for the usage of 着急 when it means no rush. &lt;strong&gt;there is usually a time duration/period mentioned along,&lt;/strong&gt; for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;慢慢来，不着急 (No rush. Take your time)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.learnenglishwithwill.com/no-rush-meaning-usage-example-chinese-translation/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.learnenglishwithwill.com/no-rush-meaning-usage-example-chinese-translation/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;不着急，慢慢来(&quot;Take your time&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.putclub.com/html/ability/oral/20170124/120031.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.putclub.com/html/ability/oral/20170124/120031.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;想形容一件事“不着急，可以等” (Describe something no rush, you can wait for)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lizhi.fm/1647017/2612685025255778822&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.lizhi.fm/1647017/2612685025255778822&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一个痛苦的漫长的过程 describes the duration of a process, so in order to translate to a word match the scene, no rush/take your time should fits better for 着急&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19342" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T08:01:17.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36481" CreationDate="2020-01-10T10:12:47.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This time I see no significant mistakes, congratulations!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们不知道谁在互联网上泄露了这个发明，但是&lt;strong&gt;那之后&lt;/strong&gt;，几乎每个电子公司&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt;开始廉价提供&lt;strong&gt;为人们安装DNA编辑接口的服务&lt;/strong&gt;。有的人认为免费开源社区发挥了作用。现在，如果&lt;strong&gt;你&lt;/strong&gt;拥有电脑，&lt;strong&gt;就能&lt;/strong&gt;像更新软件一样，藉由接口用计算机更新自己的DNA。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;社会上对此的态度发生过巨大的转折&lt;/strong&gt;：起初，没人想要编辑自己的DNA，但很快发现了“DNA优化人”有许多巨大的竞争优势，&lt;strong&gt;导致现在&lt;/strong&gt;如果你不愿意维护自己的DNA到最新状态，就找不到工作、做什么事都比别人慢、&lt;strong&gt;处对象&lt;/strong&gt;也很难&lt;strong&gt;等等&lt;/strong&gt;。总之，人们不得不接受了大家需要一直安装更新，否则不能成功&lt;strong&gt;的现实&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“以后”指说话时间之后，而“之后”才跟着一个特定的时刻，表示“在那之后”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“几乎每个电子公司开始提供廉价的适配器”这句话表意非常不好。如解释所说，这是一种安装在人身上，能够实现通过计算机编辑人体DNA功能的器件。但“适配器”本来是连结两不兼容接口的器件，而人体本来根本没有连接计算机的渠道，所以这里最好名之为“接口”（interface），意指为人体提供一个面向外界操作的渠道。第一次提到时，最好用“DNA编辑接口”来明确其意义，下文就可以用“接口”简单指代了。另外，我猜想这种硬件不是用户能随意设置的，所以公司提供“安装服务”似乎更合理。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;主语虽然能够不在第一个分句出现，如：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但凡多吃几粒花生米，你也不至于醉成这样。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;但“现在”这个时间词插在中间割裂了分句之间的关系，造成前面的分句缺少主语。作为修饰整个句子的时间，应该提到最前面去。然后再用“如果...就...”关联词是最自然的做法。另外“在网上更新自己的DNA”听起来像更新你的网络个人DNA档案，而非真正操作了自己人体的DNA，这里需要消歧义。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“社会的态度完全改变了”将时间点拉到了“态度改变”的结果，但是冒号后又从“改变之前”的状况说起，有一些错乱。将“了”替换成“过”，这样从“起初”说到“现在”比较自然。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“DNA优化人”有巨大的优势，但后文并不在说这种优势是什么（比如更美丽、聪明、灵巧等等），而是由优势带来的未做优化的人的不利处境，应该用“导致”，同时最好加“现在”时间词。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“交恋人”这个说法比较生硬，替换成等价的短语。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;用“等等”就没有问题了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“接受”缺宾语，是“接受...的现实”。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2020-01-10T10:20:20.377" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T10:20:20.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36481" CreationDate="2020-01-10T11:59:58.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;更新 mean makes somethings new or later version, it is completely fine to use it here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;免费开源 is also acceptable for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;交恋人也很难等 can be ambiguity, but I think it is more logical to interpret it as difficult and so on, since you are not in a waiting list and line or wait for a specific time. and if you mean it is difficult and so on you can delete 等 to make it not ambiguous if you want. While I don't think you must delete. Both delete and not delete is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T11:59:58.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36486" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36487" CreationDate="2020-01-10T15:03:11.860" Score="1" ViewCount="725" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm having trouble understanding this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他手指挖着裤管上的泥巴，愤怒地告诉我是他那不孝的儿子，当我再问为何打他时，他支支吾吾说不清楚了，&lt;strong&gt;我就立刻知道他准是对儿媳干了偷鸡摸狗的勾当&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;活着, p.3&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[With] his finger picking trouser-leg mud, [he] angrily told me that it was his unfilial son, [but] when I next asked him why hit him, he hummed-and-hawed [and] spoke unclearly; I immediately knew he (准是对 ???) [his] daughter-in-law work (?) [in] stealthy, shady business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What does 我就立刻知道他准是对儿媳干了偷鸡摸狗的勾当 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%87%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;准&lt;/a&gt; means allow, but I don't know why 是 nor 对 is used here.  It's possible &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%B9%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;干&lt;/a&gt; may mean &quot;to have sex&quot; here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T08:18:30.880" Title="What does 我就立刻知道他准是对儿媳干了偷鸡摸狗的勾当 mean? (from 活着, p.3)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36486" CreationDate="2020-01-10T15:35:12.980" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我就立刻知道他准是对儿媳干了偷鸡摸狗的勾当. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;准 means &lt;strong&gt;surely;definitely&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是 is used as an adverb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;（重读， 表示坚决肯定， 含有“的确、实在”的意思）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 他是不知道 // He certainly doesn't know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;对 is a preposition, meaning &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt;. E.g. 你对我做了什么 // What have you done to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干 means 做(do). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Over all, the sentence roughly means: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; I immediately knew he surely had done some stealthy, shady business to his daughter-in-law. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. As you suspect, the sentence might invoke some sexual affairs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T15:35:12.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36486" CreationDate="2020-01-10T15:40:23.050" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;他「準」是對 means 他「肯定」是對. The meaning is not「准」(允許).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我就立刻知道他準是對兒媳幹了偸鷄摸狗的勾當&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I immediately knew that he did something shady to [pronoun] daughter-in-law.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T15:40:23.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36486" CreationDate="2020-01-10T16:19:12.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would translate it as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他准是对儿媳干了偷鸡摸狗的勾当 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He must have done [something] to his daughter in law&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation should reflect the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;he knew&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;but he was guessing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the link you provided, there is an example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;这人准是她丈夫。 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This man must be her husband.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also used &quot;must&quot; in the translation. I feel that if you use &quot;surely is&quot; or &quot;did&quot; the guessing part is missing. Since you're better in English, maybe you can help me understand this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T16:19:12.930" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36486" CreationDate="2020-01-11T00:43:28.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;他手指挖着裤管上的泥巴，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;His finger scraping the mud off his trouser leg,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;愤怒地告诉我是他那不孝的儿子，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;he angrily told me his son is not a good son,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;当我再问为何打他时，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;when I asked why he hit him,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;他支支吾吾说不清楚了，&lt;br&gt;&#xA;he mumbled an answer,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我就立刻知道他准是对儿媳干了偷鸡摸狗的勾当。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I immediately knew he must have had sex with his daughter-in-law, (possibly raped her).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just normal village life!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T00:43:28.470" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36427" CreationDate="2020-01-11T04:04:41.147" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am almost enjoying imagining the poor men who listen to these&#xA;  suggestions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我几乎开始享受想象听信了这些建议的可怜男人[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think in English, 'am almost enjoying' means almost starting to enjoy, so, we shouldn't miss 开始. 几乎开始 means I actually don't but there was almost an illusion that I like it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastEditorUserId="22717" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T04:17:06.383" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T04:17:06.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36492" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-11T04:46:04.433" Score="0" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't speak Mandarin at all, but I have a Chinese coworker who told me that Mandarin doesn't have nouns per se, it prefers to describe things with their most obvious properties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was curious how the Chinese call foreign nations. I found that it's mostly the Chinese people's general impression of them. For example they call the English &quot;brave people&quot;, the French &quot;people of law and teaching&quot;, and the Austrians &quot;people difficult to make business with&quot;. Czechs seem to be the ones &quot;who quickly lose the war&quot;. Apparently the Chinese weren't aware that Czechia exists before 1938. My own nation, Hungary is something like &quot;white people for profit&quot;, which corresponds to how we are frequented by Chinese merchants since the early 20th century. And the Jews are simply referred as &quot;contradiction&quot;. Oh you brutally honest people, you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I found that the Chinese name for the Polish means &quot;abandoned honour&quot;. Why is that? The Poles are one of the bravest people in the world. Is this because they were so badly defeated in World War II?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do the name of nations change over time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a country's name is a transliteration of their original name (like Canada or Bulgaria), does that somehow carry a meaning too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23423" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T05:49:13.607" Title="Why does the Chinese name for Poland mean &quot;abandoned honour&quot;?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36493" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-11T05:14:53.980" Score="1" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know how works the ergative structure and if it's often used or not and please could you give some examples like 院子 里 停着 车。&#xA;Literal: Courtyard-in park vehicle.&#xA;Translation: In the courtyard is parked a vehicle.&#xA;It's said a sentence where you can start it with the location and so go on, sorry cannot help more, but i didn't find more information but some articles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23363" LastEditorUserId="23363" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T06:30:42.390" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T10:21:29.960" Title="How does work ergative structure and how often is it used?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;&lt;sentence&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36492" CreationDate="2020-01-11T05:49:13.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's all joking lah!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The translation of a nation name is often chosen according to its sound, but Chinese characters have their own meanings as well, so you can indeed explain it somehow that way, which has nothing to do with the characteristics of that nation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英国 Britain：英勇之国 the nation of bravery&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;法国 France：律法之国 the nation of law&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;德国 Germany：美德之国 the nation of virtue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;捷克 Czech：捷速攻克 who quickly conquered&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;匈牙利 Hungary：匈＞胡＞白人+牙利&#xA;=white with sharp teeth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T05:49:13.607" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36495" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-11T06:05:40.033" Score="0" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know more about it and what is its difference from preposition and some examples of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23363" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T22:59:01.533" Title="Could you say what is postposition in chinese and why it's different from preposition" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36486" CreationDate="2020-01-11T08:18:30.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I [then] knew immediately that he must have done something filthy [shady, stealthy, unseemly, etc.] to the daughter-in-law. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我 [就] 知道  立刻 他 准是 干了 偷鸡摸狗的勾当 对 儿媳. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;准是 = 一定是. 干 = 做 =  do. No need to connect the latter to its extended meanings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18711" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T08:18:30.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36493" CreationDate="2020-01-11T09:42:55.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The nearest you'll get to ergative is the Chinese use of 把：you could argue 把 marks ergative case, but just as easily, you could say, 把 marks accusative case and ergative is accusative under another name!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（你快点儿） 把作业做完!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mostly, 把 gets used like this: 我把门开了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is '把门‘ accusative, or ergative, or both, or neither?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since there really are no case markings, and no case in Chinese, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我看你。&#xA;你看我。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there is also no ergative case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at 被 for passive. Sometimes, you could argue 被 marks ergative case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;我被晒伤了。&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;太阳晒伤了我。(but 2. is not very &quot;Chinese&quot;, everyone knows the sun burnt you!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese is more intelligent than our 'case-based' languages!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T09:42:55.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16246" CreationDate="2020-01-11T11:01:45.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The article below gives background and development of generative grammars of Chinese, including discussions of germinal research problems and an extensive bibliography containing references to contemporary (1995) generative grammars of Chinese. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C.-T. J. Huang  and  Y.-H. A. Li (eds.) New Horizons in Chinese Linguistics, 49-95.Copyright © 1995 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CHAPTER 2 RECENT GENERATIVE STUDIES IN CHINESE SYNTAX&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is available here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/ctjhuang/files/1996.huangli.chap2_.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/ctjhuang/files/1996.huangli.chap2_.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23426" LastEditorUserId="23426" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T11:09:04.433" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T11:09:04.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36495" CreationDate="2020-01-11T12:53:47.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest beginning with the Chinese Grammar Wiki's article &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Preposition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Preposition&lt;/a&gt;, where there's many examples and links.  In practice, I expect these terms are all called &amp;quot;prepositions&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BB%8B%E7%B3%BB%E8%AF%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;介系词&lt;/a&gt; (or &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E4%BB%8B%E8%AF%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;介词&lt;/a&gt;), as the distinction in terminology is unimportant (and confusing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[To be honest, this sounds like a linguistics question with &amp;quot;in Chinese&amp;quot; tacked on.  Consider asking at &lt;a href=&quot;https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/&quot;&gt;Linguistics.SE&lt;/a&gt;; they might be more familiar with the nuances, and able to give better answers.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Postpositions&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judging from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition_and_postposition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's examples&lt;/a&gt;, a &amp;quot;postposition&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%90%8E%E7%BD%AE%E8%AF%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;后置词&lt;/a&gt; (as opposed to &amp;quot;preposition&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%89%8D%E7%BD%AE%E8%AF%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;前置词&lt;/a&gt;) in Chinese is where direction (&amp;quot;position&amp;quot;) is indicated directly after a noun, and not before.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;图书馆&lt;strong&gt;里&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; the library)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;零&lt;strong&gt;下&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;below&lt;/strong&gt; zero)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;二战&lt;strong&gt;前&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; World War II)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;是我&lt;strong&gt;的&lt;/strong&gt; ([it] is mine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the last example, the possessive particle 的 turns 我 = &amp;quot;me&amp;quot; into 我的 = &amp;quot;mine&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Circumpositions&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese also has &amp;quot;circumpositions&amp;quot;, particularly in conjunction with 在 to &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_location_with_%22zai..._shang_/_xia_/_li%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;express location&lt;/a&gt;.  Here, direction (&amp;quot;position&amp;quot;) is indicated both before and after a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我站&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;桌子&lt;strong&gt;上&lt;/strong&gt; (I stand &lt;strong&gt;on&lt;/strong&gt; the table)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;宝宝&lt;strong&gt;在&lt;/strong&gt;我肚子&lt;strong&gt;里&lt;/strong&gt; ([the] baby [is] &lt;strong&gt;in&lt;/strong&gt; my tummy)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;我&lt;strong&gt;从&lt;/strong&gt;北京&lt;strong&gt;来&lt;/strong&gt; (I &lt;strong&gt;come&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;from&lt;/strong&gt; Beijing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Prepositions&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, direction (&amp;quot;position&amp;quot;) is indicated before a noun, and not after.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;跟&lt;/strong&gt;我去 (go &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; me)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;对&lt;/strong&gt;我说谎 (lie &lt;strong&gt;to&lt;/strong&gt; me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T12:53:47.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36495" CreationDate="2020-01-11T22:59:01.533" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are making a fundamental mistake. Your conscious or otherwise presumption is, Western Grammar is correct and it must therefore apply, without reservation, to Chinese. Words are placed in categories such as 'preposition', but words refuse to remain in their categories. This is true in Chinese and English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And dear old Aunty Wiki blathers on about it, as if she knows by divine right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about 前？Is 前 a preposition? Well, that just depends on how it is used and who is translating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;会议向前提了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;meeting to front/forward carried&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The meeting has been brought forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我只读了前几行。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I only read 了 first/front few lines&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I only read the first few lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他走前把门关上了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;he go before 把 door close up&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He closed the door behind him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;前不久&lt;br&gt;&#xA;before not long&lt;br&gt;&#xA;not long ago&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;就在圣诞节前&lt;br&gt;&#xA;just in Christmas before&lt;br&gt;&#xA;just before Christmas&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在后的, 将要在前。在前的, 将要在后。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So the last will be first, and the first will be last. (Matthew 20:16)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T22:59:01.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36493" CreationDate="2020-01-12T00:28:47.873" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ergative constructions (作格结构) is one name for a phenomenon where the one &lt;em&gt;subject&lt;/em&gt; argument in the intransitive version of the construction is the same as the &lt;em&gt;direct object&lt;/em&gt; of the transitive version. These &lt;em&gt;ergative&lt;/em&gt; verbs are variously called &lt;em&gt;labile&lt;/em&gt; verbs, &lt;em&gt;unaccusative&lt;/em&gt; verbs (非宾格动词), &lt;em&gt;anticausative&lt;/em&gt; verbs; they have even been posited as reflecting a sort of &lt;em&gt;middle voice&lt;/em&gt; (distinct from the more usual &lt;em&gt;active&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;passive&lt;/em&gt; voices for verbs).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TRANSITIVE: 他&lt;strong&gt;开了&lt;/strong&gt;门。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TRANSITIVE-DISPOSAL: 他&lt;strong&gt;把&lt;/strong&gt;门&lt;strong&gt;开了&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;INTRANSITIVE: 门&lt;strong&gt;开了&lt;/strong&gt;。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incorrectly inferred: &lt;s&gt;他开了。&lt;/s&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This parallels what happens in ergative-absolutive languages, where the morphosyntactic alignment is like this by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of pattern is only defined for those verbs that can both be transitive in some instances and intransitive in others, also known as &lt;em&gt;ambitransitive&lt;/em&gt; verbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some cases where &lt;a href=&quot;https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/62308/2017-08-phd-zhang.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some Chinese verbs can appear ambitransitive&lt;/a&gt; where English cannot be. This is often called the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/63fd/bc931021a31e75d8f50e31afd46ad8ffcb06.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;notional passive&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TRANSITIVE ACTIVE: &lt;em&gt;We defeated them.&lt;/em&gt; 我们打败了他们。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TRANSITIVE-DISPOSAL: 我们把他们打败了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;INTRANSITIVE (Chinese only) = NOTIONAL PASSIVE: 他们打败了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TRANSITIVE PASSIVE: &lt;em&gt;They were/got defeated.&lt;/em&gt; 他们被/给打败了。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the sentence used in the original question is not even from one of these ambitransitive verbs, as I can't think of a case where 停 alone acts as a transitive verb. Rather the two forms are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SUBJECT - LOCATION - VERB: 车在院子里停着。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;LOCATION - VERB - SUBJECT: [在]院子里停着车。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/34415/where-does-the-nominative-object-go/34423#34423&quot;&gt;locative inversion&lt;/a&gt; by linguists. In Chinese, it is very often used, although not as frequently as the standard order. Note that it is possible to drop the 在 in the form with location at the front. It can give off an atmospheric, almost poetic vibe, and is a beloved technique of narration and storytelling. This is not too dissimilar to English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T10:21:29.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1209" CreationDate="2020-01-12T02:29:11.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd just like to add some more examples.  If you're like me, it takes more than one example to get a non-superficial understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;To be [some role]&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;永远&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;人民的保护神!&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1655317617037927711&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Forever &lt;strong&gt;be&lt;/strong&gt; the people's guardian angel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;老师简直太难了!&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1644107166459016004&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;To be&lt;/strong&gt; a teacher [is] simply difficult!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别再花钱去理发店&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;造型了!&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1641851537491721240&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Don't again spend money going to the hairdressers &lt;strong&gt;to be&lt;/strong&gt; a model&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;射手座真的适合&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;爱人吗?&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://new.qq.com/omn/20181127/20181127A0FAF0.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Is [a] Sagittarius really suitable &lt;strong&gt;to be&lt;/strong&gt; a lover?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;To be a [something]&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;其实我不想&lt;strong&gt;做一个&lt;/strong&gt;虚伪的人&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1655432078010242289&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;In fact, I don't want &lt;strong&gt;to be a&lt;/strong&gt; hypocritical person&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如何&lt;strong&gt;做一个&lt;/strong&gt;人见人爱的好媳妇?&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1655167794780327190&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;How &lt;strong&gt;to be a&lt;/strong&gt; loved-by-all good daughter-in-law?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;别胡思乱想了，&lt;strong&gt;做一头&lt;/strong&gt;猪吧&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1648071594019681679&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Don't let your imagination run wild, [and] &lt;strong&gt;be a&lt;/strong&gt; pig&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在故宫&lt;strong&gt;做一只&lt;/strong&gt;猫，是什么样的一种感受?&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1655228519330488200&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;In the Forbidden City, &lt;strong&gt;to be a&lt;/strong&gt; cat, is what kind of feeling?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(Or: What does it feel like &lt;strong&gt;to be a&lt;/strong&gt; cat in the Forbidden City?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Cannot be [some role]&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;做不成&lt;/strong&gt;男女朋友 可以&lt;strong&gt;做&lt;/strong&gt;兄妹吗?&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2059192329719390827.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;[If we] &lt;strong&gt;cannot be&lt;/strong&gt; boyfriend and girlfriend, can we &lt;strong&gt;be&lt;/strong&gt; older brother and younger sister?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;为什么&lt;strong&gt;做不成&lt;/strong&gt;恋人，也&lt;strong&gt;做不成&lt;/strong&gt;朋友?&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1650087057648199172&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Why [we] &lt;strong&gt;cannot be&lt;/strong&gt; sweethearts, [and] also &lt;strong&gt;cannot be&lt;/strong&gt; friends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;做不了&lt;/strong&gt;自己的主人,就会成为别人的道具&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wenku.baidu.com/view/d8f4d181ce84b9d528ea81c758f5f61fb63628e7.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;[If you] &lt;strong&gt;cannot be&lt;/strong&gt; your own master, [you] become another person's prop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Cannot be a [something]&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;是什么阻止了你,&lt;strong&gt;做不成一个&lt;/strong&gt;勤俭持家的人?&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/243471373_100221664&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;What is preventing you; &lt;strong&gt;cannot be a&lt;/strong&gt; hardworking housekeeping person?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你注定&lt;strong&gt;做不成一只&lt;/strong&gt;树懒&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://qikan.cqvip.com/Qikan/Article/Detail?id=34608973&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I am destined &lt;strong&gt;to not be a&lt;/strong&gt; sloth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;572巴士车上,我&lt;strong&gt;做不了一只&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%89%B9%E8%A1%8C%E7%8B%AC%E7%AB%8B/10771165&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;独立特行&lt;/a&gt;的猪?&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-41-733043-1.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;On the 572 bus, I &lt;strong&gt;cannot be an&lt;/strong&gt; independent-behavior pig.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T02:29:11.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36503" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36506" CreationDate="2020-01-12T03:25:01.703" Score="1" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the following sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我既是一个语言的从教者，也是一个语言学习的爱好者。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that &quot;既 A , 也 B&quot; is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22both%E2%80%A6_and%E2%80%A6%22_with_%22ji...you%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sentence structure for expressing &quot;both .. and ..&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering about what effect 既 has on the meaning? Consider the same sentence above with 既 omitted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我是一个语言的从教者，也是一个语言学习的爱好者。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has the meaning or feeling of the sentence changed? Is either preferred in some contexts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23429" LastEditorUserId="13882" LastEditDate="2020-01-12T04:53:41.357" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T07:42:52.840" Title="Expressing &quot;Both A .. and B&quot;" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;&lt;difference&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36508" CreationDate="2020-01-12T03:26:21.963" Score="0" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title of &lt;a href=&quot;https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1655071922698776028&amp;amp;wfr=spider&amp;amp;for=pc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; about the Spanish Queen &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Letizia_of_Spain&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Letizia Ortiz&lt;/a&gt;'s dress style is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;西班牙王后做造型真省事：连续两年裙子配饰完全不变参加同一活动&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give a mental picture, here's a reduced-quality image from that article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.postimg.cc/FHfnLv6g/6609c93d70cf3bc7564d8c00a8bbb0a7cf112aca.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Breaking the title apart, we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Spain [西班牙] queen [王后] (???) [做] appearance (?) [造型] really [真] simplifies matters [省事]: [for] two years [两年] in a row [连续] dress [裙子] and accessories [配饰] completely [完全] unvarying [不变], participating in [参加] the same [同一] (???) activities [活动].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my rough approximation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Spain's queen appearance is really simplistic: for two years in a row, her dress and accessories are completely unvarying, and she participates in the same activities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a bit worried about a few grammar points here: (a) I don't see what 做 is doing, (b) I'm not sure if 不变 applies to her dress and accessories, or her activities.  Also the article is dated 2012, whereas Wikipedia says she was coronated 19 June 2014.  So it's possible I misunderstand 王后 too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do I translate this description of the Spanish Queen's dress style?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T00:01:22.527" Title="How do I translate this description of the Spanish Queen's dress style? 西班牙王后做造型真省事：连续两年裙子配饰完全不变参加同一活动" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16682" CreationDate="2020-01-12T04:39:58.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I explored &lt;em&gt;The Martian&lt;/em&gt; subtitles available online, and found multiple that use science (科学 or 科研).  (Below I leave the cuss words uncensored.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in the face of overwhelming odds, I'm left with only one option.  I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Chinese version 1&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;成功機會微乎其微，我別無選擇，&lt;strong&gt;我得用他媽的科學方法活下去&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://yts-subs.com/subtitles/the-martian-chinese-yify-77587&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt; (lines 455-456)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My translation&lt;/em&gt;: Success change is tiny, I have no other choice, &lt;strong&gt;I need to use [a] fucking science method to survive&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Chinese version 2&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这种悲催情况下，我只剩下一个选择，&lt;strong&gt;我得搞搞科研把这破事儿解决了&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtitles/6611843/the-martian-zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt; (lines 512-513)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在這種悲催情況下，我只剩下一個選擇，&lt;strong&gt;我得搞搞科研把這破事兒解決&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://yts-subs.com/subtitles/the-martian-chinese-yify-75012&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt; (lines 513-514)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My translation&lt;/em&gt;:  In this kind of miserable circumstances, I'm left with one choice, &lt;strong&gt;I need to do science to solve this annoying thing&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Chinese version 3&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在这种压倒性的劣势下，我只有一个办法，&lt;strong&gt;那就是“实践出真知”&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtitles/7570259/the-martian-zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt; (lines 455-457)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My translation&lt;/em&gt;:  In this overwhelming disadvantage, I only have one solution, &lt;strong&gt;that is &amp;quot;to put into practice real knowledge&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Chinese version 4&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在压倒性的劣势下，我只有一个选择，&lt;strong&gt;用科学狠狠地干它&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtitles/6474759/the-martian-zh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt; (lines 500-503)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My translation&lt;/em&gt;:  In this overwhelming disadvantage, I only have one solution, &lt;strong&gt;use science to ruthlessly fuck it&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T04:39:58.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36503" CreationDate="2020-01-12T05:09:27.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我是一个语言的从教者，也是一个语言学习的爱好者。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentence reminds us of the fact that I'm also a language hobbyist(assuming I'm well known as a 语言的从教者). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;我既是一个语言的从教者，也是一个语言学习的爱好者。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 既, it parallels the two roles (语言的从教者 and 语言学习的爱好者), which share the same level of importance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2020-01-12T07:42:52.840" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T07:42:52.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36503" CreationDate="2020-01-12T05:25:51.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quote:- &quot;Has the meaning or feeling of the sentence changed? Is either preferred in some contexts?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)   the &lt;em&gt;meaning&lt;/em&gt; has not changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)   the &quot;&lt;em&gt;feeling&lt;/em&gt;&quot; may have shifted, if by feeling you mean the thought-processes you wish to convey to or impress upon the listener. The 既是，也是 is to convey to the listener the &quot;contra-duality&quot; of a certain personal circumstance, predicament or function that's significant to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the 既是, the impact of the contra-duality point you are trying to make is less effective, because it serves to alert the listener that &lt;em&gt;something&lt;/em&gt; of significance is about to follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T05:25:51.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36504" CreationDate="2020-01-12T06:24:04.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Literally, 做：do; 造型：mould, model, style;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做造型 in the context means &lt;em&gt;the style she dressed herself&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不变 applies to her dress and accessories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rough translation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;西班牙王后做造型真省事: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;The style the Spanish queen dressed herself is really&#xA;  simplistic.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;连续两年裙子配饰完全不变参加同一活动: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;For two years in a row, she participated in the&#xA;  same activities with her dress and accessories completely&#xA;  unvarying.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2020-01-12T07:44:23.163" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T07:44:23.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14873" CreationDate="2020-01-12T07:23:29.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;应该说已经推动了应试教育向素质教育的转变，但是这个转变非常艰难，是一个痛苦的漫长的过程，我们不能太着急。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们不能太着急 connotes two aspects here: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it exhorts us that the process is long and hard and there is no way we can get the result quickly, so we shouldn't rush it. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As the process drags on, we should have the patience and not be anxious.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T07:23:29.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36504" CreationDate="2020-01-12T11:39:48.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(a) I don't see what 做 is doing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做造型 means to prepare her appearance. It is eligible to use in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if 不变 applies to her dress and accessories, or her&#xA;  activities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不变 applies to her dress and accessories not her activities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do I translate this description of the Spanish Queen's dress&#xA;  style?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen really saved her effort of preparing her appearance, she attended the annual event with the same dress and accessories two years in a row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T11:39:48.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36511" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36513" CreationDate="2020-01-12T21:47:59.377" Score="2" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;雪人大肚子一挺，他顽皮地说：“我就是冬天。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of 一挺 in this sentence? I know 挺 can describe something as straight or erect, but I am confused why 一 is said before it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23429" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-13T08:14:49.100" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T08:14:49.100" Title="Meaning of 一挺 in 雪人大肚子一挺，他顽皮地说：“我就是冬天。”" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2020-01-13T03:15:21.890" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36511" CreationDate="2020-01-12T23:11:26.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, what does a big belly do? It sticks out, protrudes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E6%8C%BA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, definition 2. especially: 凸出&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 伸直，凸出：～直。～起腰。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;雪人大肚子一挺，他顽皮地说：“我就是冬天。“&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The snowman, with his big belly sticking out, playfully said, &quot;I am winter.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(There is a German joke about big-bellied men, this just reminded me of it, but you'd have to know German to understand it: Er ist ein Spiegeleimensch.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T23:11:26.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36511" CreationDate="2020-01-12T23:54:40.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This dictionary definition explains the use of 一:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;表示猛然发出某种动作或突然出现某种情况&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. 往起一站 / 右手一挥 / 眼前一黑。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, this use of 一 expresses &lt;strong&gt;the suddenness of an action&lt;/strong&gt; either &lt;em&gt;intentionally or unintentionally&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T23:54:40.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1583" CreationDate="2020-01-13T03:16:41.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about listening to this song sung in Hokkien / Fujian dialect where the &quot;Gua ai li&quot; is all over the place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/6XnNatTmtvk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/6XnNatTmtvk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;Wa ai lo or lu&quot;, could it be the product of a historical &quot;mixture&quot; of the Hokkien dialect with the indigenous Malay language because if you Google Translate &quot;Lu&quot; from Malay to Chinese you get 你们&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you go to Malaysia or Indonesia, (where a sizable Hokkien population could be found), you will find many &quot;Hokkien&quot; words which have no equivalent in Fujian Province itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T03:16:41.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17701" CreationDate="2020-01-13T09:21:05.840" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did some research on this topic. It seems that China post system uses a series of terminology for international logistics shipment tracking, but the terms are not well explained by official, so even native speakers are confused about what they are saying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of those terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;出口直封：Packages receive by local post office, then merge into bigger packages by destination country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;进口开拆：Packages arrive at destination country, then open and divide into small packages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;进口互封：Merge small packages from last step into bigger packages by destination Province/City.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;互封封发：Transfer packages from last step to destination Province/City.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;互封开拆：Packages arrived at destination City/Province, then divide into small packages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can refer to the following Zhihu post for more details (In Chinese):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/36854553&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;跨国邮件的状态问题&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23041" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T09:21:05.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36516" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-13T15:13:17.307" Score="2" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been searching for an official version of the Pinyin chart and I came across multiple variations of it. One of the charts I saw had the combination &quot;yo&quot;. A quick search showed that one character it is used with is 唷 (yō).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=yo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;definition&lt;/a&gt; of 唷 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(interjection expressing surprise) Oh!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  My!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, why is &quot;yo&quot; omitted from some Pinyin charts? Is it a rare combination or is there any other reason? (Judging from the above definition, it seems like the hanzi is used frequently enough?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in &lt;a href=&quot;http://uiimage.superlgr.com/73022_0.jpg?x-oss-process=style/songshubangong&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this chart&lt;/a&gt;, yo is in the slot for &quot;y+o&quot; but in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Pronunciation_of_finals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;, it mentioned as a combination of i+o. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is but one inconsistency. There are many more differences from one chart to the other (For example, some charts don't have &quot;yun&quot; but there are clearly hanzi that use it). Is there an official set of combinations? (I found some &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/19243/is-there-a-chart-of-all-possible-chinese-syllables-using-hanzi&quot;&gt;compilations&lt;/a&gt; of the combinations but I don't know if some initial-final combinations are in use now.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I read an article about &quot;er&quot; being part of a group of four special vowels and about how erroneous it was to place it in the chart with other pinyin finals. Does anyone know more about this? I can't find the link for the article so I don't have enough information to create a new question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23435" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T02:56:36.653" Title="How common is the character 唷 (pinyin: yō) in Mandarin?" Tags="&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2664" CreationDate="2020-01-14T00:03:38.673" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;得 has many meanings, and one of them is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;可以、能够: can, able to&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;不得抽烟: cannot smoke (here)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;得饶人处且饶人: (if) can forgive another person&#xA;(for the circumstances), then forgive&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so 记得(我) has the meaning of &amp;quot;able to remember&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;can remember&amp;quot; (me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你还记得我吗？ has the meaning of &amp;quot;you still can remember me?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="940" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T00:09:06.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36504" CreationDate="2020-01-14T00:12:27.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;西班牙王后做造型真省事：连续两年裙子配饰完全不变参加同一活动&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做造型：function as a (role) model&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Spanish Queen, as a role model, has an unpretentious style: two years in succession now she has worn the same outfit to the same commemoration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Dan's comment and consulting with my favourite translator and all-round nice person, 朱晓云, I would revise this translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;西班牙王后做造型真省事：连续两年裙子配饰完全不变参加同一活动&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;做造型：make style&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Spanish Queen has an unpretentious style: two years in succession now she has worn the same outfit to the same commemoration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't suppose Chinese people care much about what the Spanish Queen wears. I think this was translated from Spanish. If I could see the original text, I would know exactly how to translate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastEditorUserId="6991" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T00:01:22.527" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T00:01:22.527" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36110" CreationDate="2020-01-14T12:20:21.527" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, all of the characters were not even 平声 at all in Middle Chinese, but were all 入声 instead [Wiktionary's IPA]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;夹 (夾) /kˠɛp̚/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;扎 /t͡ʃˠɛt̚/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;击 (擊) /kek̚/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;息 /sɨk̚/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of the above started with voiceless unaspirated (obstruent) consonants, so are all 阴入 in Middle Chinese. For Standard Mandarin, these reflexes are notoriously unpredictable anyway. You may see that many (though not most) of the 多音字 of Standard Mandarin fall into this Middle Chinese tone category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;跌 /det̚/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This, on the other started with a voiced plosive in Middle Chinese, hence 阳入. As this was an obstruent voiced plosive, in Standard Mandarin this is regularly to be merged into 阳平, so &lt;code&gt;dié&lt;/code&gt; would have been expected for 跌.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leads to the question, how did speech in Beijing get distributed as such? Various hypotheses have been proposed: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://2014tsil.ling.sinica.edu.tw/files/1987noteTone.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dialect mixing&lt;/a&gt; (much more important nowadays; there is an example of Jinan in Shandong being influenced by Standard Mandarin, increasing the number of 上声 because of its phonetic similarity to Beijing's 阴平);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.21437/tal.2018-38&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;initial consonant&lt;/a&gt; (labial towards 去声, others toward one of the 平声);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/23753018.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tone sandhi&lt;/a&gt;; some characters were more common in the middle of words, where they are more likely to be non-flat in contour (so more likely to become modern 阳平)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are not conclusive; all that we can say is that the entering tone &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/23753018.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;was particularly unstable&lt;/a&gt;, and variation in how it is pronounced is to be expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T12:20:21.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36456" CreationDate="2020-01-14T17:16:20.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;会 means will/would.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese we would usually speak more natively by switching 会 and 再. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们之间不会再有什么友谊。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他们(they)之间(between)不(no)会(would)再(longer/another)有(have)什么(some/what)友谊(friendship).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23438" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T17:16:20.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36421" CreationDate="2020-01-14T17:25:20.963" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We use 正好 more in daily conversation between friends or family talking cause this is not a word that formally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we would probably not use this word to someone we don't that familiar with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23438" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T17:25:20.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35982" CreationDate="2020-01-14T17:39:53.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't get the meaning of &lt;code&gt;syntactic structure&lt;/code&gt; but I guess yes there is equivalent in Chinese:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Jenny 就是 Jenny&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 你/她不太像你/她(it's not that like you/she)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) 是他们吗？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) 他是我，她是你（but we would probaly say 他演我，她演你）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23438" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T17:39:53.843" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34025" CreationDate="2020-01-14T18:00:45.900" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't easily recognize words in Chinese scripts, I guess my father too or my grandfather too, so it's ok about readable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't tell this is written by Chinese or foreign by just looking at it, but Chinese people who do scripts would write traditional Chinese character instead of simplified even in China mainland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 太 is not that being written like the ones I saw before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23438" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T18:00:45.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36524" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-14T19:55:00.600" Score="0" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;in the sentence 寄包裹去上海怎么寄 ？ what is 去 grammar point. Is it a directional complement¿. Has it got the meaning of &quot;in order to” Like in the sentence bellow after the definition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 [between two verbal expressions, and / or after the second expression]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她上街去买东西了。(= 她上街买东西去了。= 她上街去买东西去了。) &#xA;Tā shàngjiē qù mǎi dōngxi le. (or) tā shàngjiē mǎi dōngxi qù le. (or) tā shàngjiē qù mǎi dōngxi qù le.&#xA;She went to the market to do some shopping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this another thing I found in dictionary. but is 寄 a verb of motion¿. And isn’t a 到 before 上海 ¿ if not how is it a preposition and a directional complement at the same time¿. I am confused. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 [after verbs of motion, indicating motion away from the speaker] thither; there; away&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回家去 &#xA;huí jiā qù&#xA;go home&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;上楼去 &#xA;Shàng lóu qù&#xA;go upstairs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信寄去了没有？ &#xA;Xìn jì qù le méiyǒu？&#xA;Have you sent the letter off yet?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here what is the grammar point of 去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我会带他去几个有名的旅游景点比 如长城 、天 安门、. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22347" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T00:03:22.413" Title="寄 包裹去 上 海 怎 么寄 ？. 去。meaning" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36524" CreationDate="2020-01-14T21:46:54.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your examples, take &lt;code&gt;去&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;to&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She went 'to' the market (&quot;to&quot; do some shopping): &lt;code&gt;她上街(&quot;去&quot;买东西)'去'了&lt;/code&gt; is a complete translation for the sentence, but wordy with two &lt;code&gt;去&lt;/code&gt;, so just dismiss any.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;寄包裹去上海怎么寄: &lt;code&gt;How to deliver the package &quot;to&quot; Shanghai&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;回家去: &lt;code&gt;go home&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;go &quot;to&quot; the living place&lt;/code&gt; (no &quot;to&quot; as &quot;home&quot; is an adv here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;信寄去了没有: &lt;code&gt;Have you sent the letter &quot;to&quot; (somebody) yet?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;信寄出去了没有: &lt;code&gt;Have you sent the letter &quot;off&quot; yet?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;带他去几个旅游景点: &lt;code&gt;take him &quot;to&quot; some tourist spots&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, English uses different verbs for direction of actions, while in Chinese we use the same verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;带他去上海: &lt;code&gt;take him &quot;to&quot; Shanghai&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;带他来上海: &lt;code&gt;bring him &quot;to&quot; Shanghai&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她买东西去了: &lt;code&gt;she went shopping somewhere&lt;/code&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;她买东西来了: &lt;code&gt;she bought sth and brought here&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23227" LastEditorUserId="23227" LastEditDate="2020-01-14T22:00:56.590" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T22:00:56.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36524" CreationDate="2020-01-15T00:03:22.413" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 她上街去买东西去了 is strange. It is redundant and not usual to use 去 in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, 去 means to a place after 去(上海).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use 寄包裹到上海. In this example, 到 have the same meaning as 去, which means to a place after 去(上海).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;去 also have the meaning of moving location to do something. For example: 去睡覺, this example means that move to a particular place to sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to specify place, you can add a location after 去. For example: 去房間睡覺 in English: Go to room and sleep. This example show that to a place after 去(房間) and sleep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T00:03:22.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36527" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-15T05:56:12.767" Score="0" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google translate his been giving me straight pinyin as a translation, and pleco doesn't have what I'm looking for. I got the definitions of each individual character, but I'm not sure how to put them together to make them sounds good. If there's not a smooth translation for this title, would it be better to keep it in pinyin? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the name of a song. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23440" LastEditorUserId="19342" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T06:03:27.340" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T12:26:56.177" Title="How would I translate &quot;与君知&quot;" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;classical-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36527" CreationDate="2020-01-15T06:12:30.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shortly after posting this, I've figured out a translation for the song, the translation being &quot;For you to know&quot;. It fits perfectly given the what the song is describing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23440" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T06:12:30.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36527" CreationDate="2020-01-15T06:23:28.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My translation would be something like &lt;strong&gt;&quot;With your knowledge&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; with the understanding that &quot;your&quot; refers to somebody of a higher status, usually either due to them being royalty or them being immensely respected and of a good moral character (or both!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To explain, 与 means &quot;with&quot; or &quot;and,&quot; a meaning that has not changed much since ancient times. You see it a lot in formal writing, and even in some jargon (e.g. 与门 refers to the AND gate of a logical circuit). In this particular context, it is clear that it probably means &quot;with&quot; as it appears to be a preposition more than a conjunction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classical Chinese (文言文), one typically finds the usage of 君 to mean roughly the same as 您 i.e. a polite, honorific pronoun to address somebody of a higher status. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youdao.com/w/eng/%E5%90%9B/#keyfrom=dict2.index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;有道词典&lt;/a&gt;：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;封建时代指帝王、诸侯等，引申为人的尊称，相当于“您”。道德品行良好的人也可称君子。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which, roughly translated, means that during feudal times, 君 referred to kings, princes etc, and others would use it to respectfully address them, equivalent to today's 您. The word 君子 can also be used to refer to somebody with high moral standards and good character. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;知 refers to knowledge. You may be familiar with the term 知道 in modern Chinese which means &quot;to know.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19368" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T06:23:28.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36530" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-15T07:24:55.693" Score="3" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;In MSM 娘 and 孃 are usually considered one and the same, where 孃 is Traditional and 娘 is simplified. These two characters can practically be used interchangeably.  In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_Mandarin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Southwestern Mandarin&lt;/a&gt;, however, a split has been maintained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be a little something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;娘 = 阳平 = mom&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;嬢 = 阴平 = woman&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this a special feature of SWM or a remnant of something else. Do other topolects do this? Is there a reason for this split?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T01:40:26.367" Title="What topolects distingish between 娘 and 孃? Why?" Tags="&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36527" CreationDate="2020-01-15T10:35:06.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My spin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;与君知&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What I wanna tell you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What I want you to know&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What I need you to know  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;难得君心知我心&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hard to get your heart to know my heart (probably where the title comes from)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;我愿抱着你&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I wanna hold you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;献尽我热吻&lt;br&gt;&#xA;give you my hot kisses&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've got stop, I'm going all gooey!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T10:35:06.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36532" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-15T12:25:23.287" Score="3" ViewCount="369" Body="&lt;p&gt;For current task I need to create a solution how to detect if some video or audio of Chinese speech is  Mandarin or Cantonese (for now I do not need others dialects).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, there is almost 100% solution to search for radio/TV in USA/Honk Kong or others locations where Cantonese is main dialect. Canada doesn't work due it has 50/50 for Mandarin/Cantonese. For Mandarin is simpler, just search sources from Mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is also another part - YouTube videos. I didn't find a way to detect dialect of speech in video. Auto-subtitles shows only text version which is in Simplified Chinese (written).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there was an idea about searching for -p, -t or -k endings in speech (due Mandarin does not have them any more). I think it is quite good solution but not the best - others dialects have them too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is - Do you know or maybe have an idea how to detect Cantonese/Mandarin dialect in speech video automatically or using subtitles? &#xA;Maybe there is a list of Mandarin/Cantonese only characters? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23442" LastActivityDate="2020-04-17T18:06:35.607" Title="Is there any way to detect dialect automatically?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;topolect&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36527" CreationDate="2020-01-15T12:26:56.177" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just a classical way of saying -- &quot;FYI&quot; -- &quot;For Your Information&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T12:26:56.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36421" CreationDate="2020-01-15T13:51:23.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Translate:- &quot;Do you happen to have an eyeglass screwdriver?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular situation where the serendipitous element of &quot;accidental / surprise&quot; is absent, ((which &quot;happen to&quot;, 碰巧, (as 碰, &quot;to meet, bump into&quot;), would imply)), I would prefer to use 也许, (maybe, perhaps) as an interrogative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps in reply to the question, 正好 could be used sensibly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the question:- 你&lt;em&gt;也许&lt;/em&gt;有眼镜螺丝刀吗？ -- &quot;Maybe / perhaps you have eyeglass screwdriver?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer:- 我&lt;em&gt;正好&lt;/em&gt;有一个  -- （I happened to have one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T14:05:20.953" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T14:05:20.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36535" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-15T21:44:12.337" Score="2" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a metaphor or idiom that has a similar meaning to &quot;gut feeling&quot;, as a metaphor for &quot;intuition&quot; or &quot;instinctive feeling&quot;, in Mandarin Chinese?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15160" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T13:39:16.143" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T13:39:16.143" Title="Is there an expression similar to the English &quot;gut feeling&quot; in Chinese?" Tags="&lt;word-requests&gt;&lt;idioms&gt;&lt;expressions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36536" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-15T23:34:44.820" Score="0" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know how work the chinese adjectives, because i was searching on the internet about this, but i wasn't able to understand the use of 的 and if any noun can become a adjective, if yes is it be this case 为人民服务 because when translate split it means like people service or like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23363" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T07:47:06.633" Title="How does work the chinese adjectives?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36535" CreationDate="2020-01-16T01:17:22.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;成语 along those lines from &lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/588778223066711765.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baidu&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;料事如神, 先见之明, 不出所料, 未卜先知&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T01:17:22.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36538" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-16T01:26:10.250" Score="-1" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know some idioms that are used at work by workmates or bosses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23363" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T16:26:26.620" Title="Could you give me some examples of work slangs?" Tags="&lt;usage&gt;&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-01-20T10:31:13.290" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36530" CreationDate="2020-01-16T01:40:26.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;孃 usually is used by people who live in southwest China, to refer women who are in the middle age. People in southwest China use it to call their older female relatives, or female strangers who seemed like in the middle age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;娘 means mom, but it usually used by people who live in North China. In South China, people call their mom as 妈妈&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a Chinese, and these are my experiences in using Chinese. Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23441" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T01:40:26.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36535" CreationDate="2020-01-16T05:06:29.790" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word for intuition or gut feeling is usually just rendered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;直觉&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New Century English-Chinese also defines &lt;strong&gt;gut feeling&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;NOUN&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  直觉(相对于基于事实的观点)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T05:06:29.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36538" CreationDate="2020-01-16T05:47:33.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common slang words/phrases I know is &lt;strong&gt;sha2&lt;/strong&gt; instead of &lt;strong&gt;shen2me&lt;/strong&gt; for 什么.&#xA;Aside from that, there maybe also is &lt;strong&gt;wo3bu4er1dao&lt;/strong&gt; instead of &lt;strong&gt;wo3bu4zhi1dao&lt;/strong&gt; for 我不知道 (Please not this is only used for the negation!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are not work or boss specific, but they are pretty common. Nevertheless I do not recommend using them, as it is commonly seen as 'uneducated'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21363" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T05:47:33.433" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36536" CreationDate="2020-01-16T07:40:45.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, you can use 的 or not use 的 to describe things. For example: 她就是那個穿著墨綠色衣服的溫柔女生，總是為別人著想。 in English: She is that tender female dress in dark green who always care about others. In this example, 穿著墨綠色衣服 used to describe somethings after 的(女生). 墨綠色 used to describe something after 墨綠色(衣服). And 溫柔 used to describe something after 溫柔(女生).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23311" LastEditorUserId="23311" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T07:47:06.633" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T07:47:06.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33935" CreationDate="2020-01-16T13:37:34.740" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can obtain the entries in &lt;a href=&quot;https://cc-cedict.org/wiki/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-EDICT&lt;/a&gt; using the command &lt;code&gt;awk '$1 ~ /^[0-9a-zA-Z]/ { print }' cedict_ts.u8&lt;/code&gt;.  The following is the results (CC-EDICT timstamp 2020-01-03T04:26:45Z).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It follows the format [traditional Chinese] [simplified Chinese] [pinyin] [definition].  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;21三體綜合症 21三体综合症 [er4 shi2 yi1 san1 ti3 zong1 he2 zheng4] /trisomy/Down's syndrome/&#xA;3C 3C [san1 C] /abbr. for computers, communications, and consumer electronics/China Compulsory Certificate (CCC)/&#xA;3P 3P [san1 P] /(slang) threesome/&#xA;3Q 3Q [san1 Q] /(Internet slang) thank you (loanword)/&#xA;502膠 502胶 [wu3 ling2 er4 jiao1] /cyanoacrylate glue/&#xA;88 88 [ba1 ba1] /(Internet slang) bye-bye (alternative for 拜拜[bai2 bai2])/&#xA;996 996 [jiu3 jiu3 liu4] /9am-9pm, six days a week (work schedule)/&#xA;A A [A] /(slang) (Tw) to steal/&#xA;AA制 AA制 [A A zhi4] /to split the bill/to go Dutch/&#xA;AB制 AB制 [A B zhi4] /to split the bill (where the male counterpart foots the larger portion of the sum)/(theater) a system where two actors take turns in acting the main role, with one actor replacing the other if either is unavailable/&#xA;ACG ACG [A C G] /acronym for &quot;anime, comics and games&quot;/&#xA;A咖 A咖 [A ka1] /class &quot;A&quot;/top grade/&#xA;A圈兒 A圈儿 [A quan1 r5] /at symbol, @/&#xA;A片 A片 [A pian4] /adult movie/pornography/&#xA;A菜 A菜 [A cai4] /(Tw) lettuce (from Taiwanese 萵仔菜, POJ pr. [e-á-tshài])/&#xA;A貨 A货 [A huo4] /good-quality fake/&#xA;B B [bi1] /euphemistic variant of 屄[bi1]/&#xA;BP機 BP机 [B P ji1] /beeper (loanword)/pager/&#xA;B型超聲 B型超声 [B xing2 chao1 sheng1] /type-B ultrasound/&#xA;B超 B超 [B chao1] /B-mode ultrasonography/prenatal ultrasound scan/abbr. for B型超聲|B型超声[B xing2 chao1 sheng1]/&#xA;CP CP [C P] /an imagined romantic relationship between two characters in fiction (or in real life) that one wishes for or fantasizes about (abbr. of &quot;coupling&quot;)/&#xA;CP值 CP值 [C P zhi2] /cost-performance ratio (Tw)/&#xA;C位 C位 [C wei4] /(neologism, c. 2015) (coll.) most prominent position (e.g. in a group photo of entertainers) (loanword from &quot;carry&quot; or &quot;center&quot; or &quot;core&quot;)/&#xA;C盤 C盘 [C pan2] /C drive or default startup drive (computing)/&#xA;C羅 C罗 [C Luo2] /nickname of Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo/&#xA;DNA鑒定 DNA鉴定 [D N A jian4 ding4] /DNA test/DNA testing/&#xA;E仔 E仔 [E zai3] /MDMA (C11H15NO2)/&#xA;G友 G友 [G you3] /see 基友[ji1 you3]/&#xA;G弦褲 G弦裤 [G xian2 ku4] /G-string/&#xA;G點 G点 [G dian3] /G-spot/&#xA;H橋 H桥 [H qiao2] /H bridge (electronics)/&#xA;K人 K人 [K ren2] /(slang) to hit sb/to beat sb/&#xA;K仔 K仔 [K zai3] /ketamine (slang)/&#xA;K他命 K他命 [k ta1 ming4] /ketamine (C13H16ClNO) (slang)/&#xA;K房 K房 [K fang2] /(slang) KTV/KTV room/&#xA;K書 K书 [K shu1] /to cram (Taiwan, from Taiwanese khè su 齧書, lit. to gnaw a book)/to study/see also 啃書|啃书[ken3 shu1]/&#xA;K歌 K歌 [K ge1] /karaoke (slang)/&#xA;K粉 K粉 [K fen3] /ketamine (slang)/&#xA;K線 K线 [K xian4] /candlestick (in a candlestick chart)/&#xA;K線圖 K线图 [K xian4 tu2] /candlestick chart/&#xA;K金 K金 [K jin1] /see 開金|开金[kai1 jin1]/&#xA;L照 L照 [L zhao4] /nude picture (from 裸照[luo3 zhao4])/&#xA;MV MV [M V] /desirability as a partner (abbr. for &quot;mate value&quot;)/music video/&#xA;M巾 M巾 [M jin1] /(coll.) menstrual pad/&#xA;N久 N久 [N jiu3] /a very long time (etymology: in mathematics, n represents an arbitrarily large number)/&#xA;N擋 N挡 [N dang3] /neutral (gear)/&#xA;OK繃 OK绷 [O K beng1] /band-aid (Tw)/&#xA;OK鏡 OK镜 [O K Jing4] /OK Lens, orthokeratology contact lens that helps reshape the cornea in order to eliminate nearsightedness or myopia/&#xA;OS OS [O S] /(in a soap opera or movie) voice-over that makes a character's unspoken thoughts audible to the audience/&#xA;O型腿 O型腿 [O xing2 tui3] /bow legs/bow-leggedness/&#xA;P P [P] /(slang) femme (lesbian stereotype)/to photoshop/&#xA;PK PK [P K] /(slang) to take on/to challenge/to go head to head/showdown/comparison/&#xA;PO PO [pou1] /(Tw) (Internet slang) to post (online)/&#xA;PO文 PO文 [po1 wen2] /(Internet slang) to post a message/&#xA;PU PU [P U] /the degree of suspicion that a woman might be unfaithful to her husband (abbr. for &quot;paternity uncertainty&quot;)/&#xA;P圖 P图 [P tu2] /(Internet slang) to photoshop a picture/photoshopped picture/&#xA;P擋 P挡 [P dang3] /park (gear)/program mode (on a digital camera)/&#xA;P民 P民 [P min2] /(slang) shitizen/commoner/hoi polloi/&#xA;Q Q [Q] /cute (loanword)/(of food) having a pleasant chewiness (like mochi, tapioca pearls, taro balls etc – foods with a springy or gel-like mouthfeel)/(loanword) to cue sb/&#xA;QR扣 QR扣 [Q R kou4] /(Tw) (loanword) QR code/&#xA;Q勁 Q劲 [Q jin4] /springy mouthfeel/&#xA;Q彈 Q弹 [Q tan2] /(of a food's mouthfeel) springy/firm/al dente/&#xA;T T [T] /(slang) butch (lesbian stereotype)/&#xA;TA TA [ta1] /he or she/&#xA;TF卡 TF卡 [T F ka3] /microSD card/&#xA;Tony Tony [t o n y] /(slang) hairdresser/&#xA;Tony老師 Tony老师 [t o n y lao3 shi1] /(slang) hairdresser/&#xA;T台 T台 [T tai2] /runway (for a fashion show etc)/catwalk/&#xA;T型台 T型台 [T xing2 tai2] /runway (for a fashion show etc)/catwalk/&#xA;T字帳 T字帐 [T zi4 zhang4] /T-account (accounting)/&#xA;T字褲 T字裤 [T zi4 ku4] /thong (underwear)/&#xA;T恤 T恤 [T xu4] /T-shirt/&#xA;T裇 T裇 [T xu1] /T-shirt/&#xA;USB手指 USB手指 [U S B shou3 zhi3] /USB flash drive/see also 閃存盤|闪存盘[shan3 cun2 pan2]/&#xA;USB記憶棒 USB记忆棒 [U S B ji4 yi4 bang4] /USB flash drive/see also 閃存盤|闪存盘[shan3 cun2 pan2]/&#xA;U凸內褲 U凸内裤 [U tu1 nei4 ku4] /contour pouch brief (men's underwear)/&#xA;U型枕 U型枕 [U xing2 zhen3] /travel pillow/&#xA;U型池 U型池 [U xing2 chi2] /(sports) vert ramp/half-pipe/&#xA;U形轉彎 U形转弯 [U xing2 zhuan3 wan1] /U-turn/&#xA;U盤 U盘 [U pan2] /USB flash drive/see also 閃存盤|闪存盘[shan3 cun2 pan2]/&#xA;U盾 U盾 [U dun4] /USB key used as a security token in Chinese online banking/&#xA;VCR VCR [V C R] /video clip (loanword from &quot;videocassette recorder&quot;)/&#xA;V溝 V沟 [V gou1] /low neckline that reveals the cleavage/décolleté/gully/&#xA;XO醬 XO酱 [X O jiang4] /XO sauce, a spicy seafood sauce invented in Hong Kong in the 1980s/&#xA;X光 X光 [X guang1] /X-ray/&#xA;cos cos [c o s] /(Internet slang) cosplay/to cosplay/to dress up as/&#xA;mua mua [m u a] /(onom.) mwah (sound of a kiss)/&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others examples are harder to find.  I stumbled upon these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%CE%B1%E5%B0%84%E7%BA%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;α射线&lt;/a&gt; = alpha ray; &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%CE%B2%E5%B0%84%E7%BA%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;β射线&lt;/a&gt; = beta ray; &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%CE%B3%E5%B0%84%E7%BA%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;γ射线&lt;/a&gt; = gamma ray&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%9C%86%E5%91%A8%E7%8E%87%E6%97%A5?fromtitle=%CF%80%E6%97%A5&amp;amp;fromid=8070153&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;π日&lt;/a&gt; = pi day&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E3%80%87/457046&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;〇&lt;/a&gt; = zero&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T13:55:12.057" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T13:55:12.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36538" CreationDate="2020-01-16T16:26:26.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the 36 strategies of ancient China contains plenty of &quot;slangs&quot; that you can refer to at a work context, and fell under the requirement that you're seeking for. There is translated books about it that you can purchase online easily. Even though you don't want to read a whole book, you can easily search some general or detailed descriptions online. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among those 36 strategies, I would say 抛砖引玉 is the most commonly used at a work context, and the meaning has been evolved when you use at work, and it is understood as &quot;put forward a few pointers for discussion and comment&quot;. It also shows your attitude to the audience that you're being humble, and open and ready to listen to opinions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I'm sure there are a lot other slangs that are commonly used at work context, and I hope this answer can attract real &quot;jade&quot; from my &quot;brick&quot;.:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T16:26:26.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35937" CreationDate="2020-01-16T18:29:42.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pronoucing them in Cantonese will make sense to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ykyi.net/dict/index.php?char=%E9%80%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;透&lt;/a&gt;，tau3&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ykyi.net/dict/index.php?char=%E7%A7%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秀&lt;/a&gt;，sau3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23449" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T18:29:42.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36546" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36547" CreationDate="2020-01-17T02:22:28.677" Score="3" ViewCount="753" Body="&lt;p&gt;The full sentence is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小松鼠每天都到地里去，看看结花生了没有。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the function of 都 in this sentence? Is it to emphasize that the squirrel looked &lt;em&gt;every day&lt;/em&gt;, or that it looked &lt;em&gt;everywhere&lt;/em&gt;, or is it something else completely?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23429" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T10:59:40.893" Title="What does 都 mean in 小松鼠每天都到地里去" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36546" CreationDate="2020-01-17T02:47:22.263" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese grammar wiki has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22every%22_with_%22mei%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;page&lt;/a&gt; for the &quot;每 + measure word + noun + 都&quot; structure to express &quot;every&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes when the noun is also a measure word (like your example, 每天都), the &quot;measure word&quot; part does not show up in the structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it is to emphasize the &quot;every&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T02:47:22.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36546" CreationDate="2020-01-17T04:34:45.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;每 bla bla 都 is a very commonly seen structure in Chinese. You could leave 都 out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;小松鼠每天都到地里去，看看结花生了没有。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The little squirrel goes down to the ground every day, to see if the peanut plants have any fruit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the little squirrel 到地底去看看， he might have more luck! Maybe he could ask his friend 鼹鼠去看一看？&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;结: 结出果实 bear fruit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the peanut is generally known as a legume （豆科植物) and may or may not be fruit or a vegetable, depending on who you ask. Moreover, peanuts grow underground, not as fruit hanging on a plant :):)!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这只小松鼠点笨哦！！&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T04:34:45.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9817" CreationDate="2020-01-17T06:11:21.173" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given enough effort, I suppose you could read, silently, the text of any language without having to actually pronounce the words out loud.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the way we look at long medical terms spelled in the &quot;English&quot; alphabet, knowing what it is but would not bother to actually pronounce them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing this for any language may, I suppose, miss the enjoyment of learning the language, especially in social verbal communications with native or non-native speakers, which for many people is the first objective of learning the language in the first place. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T06:11:21.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36550" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36551" CreationDate="2020-01-17T09:26:45.477" Score="1" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bunch of examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) 脚&lt;strong&gt;不小心踢到椅子&lt;/strong&gt;上面&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.120ask.com/question/75939179.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (2) 在上课，后面的人&lt;strong&gt;不小心踢到我椅子&lt;/strong&gt;了&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/873081559215235132.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (3) 孩子&lt;strong&gt;不小心踢到椅子&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.110.com/ask/question-9319380.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (4) 贾玲跳舞,&lt;strong&gt;不小心踢到椅子&lt;/strong&gt;,椅子腿断了,陈赫非常关心!&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://v.qq.com/x/page/t0720z60o80.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (5) 脚肿了，是&lt;strong&gt;不小心踢到椅子脚上&lt;/strong&gt;，小脚趾肿了&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://iask.sina.com.cn/b/bHf8fS9L1rl.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[src]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand why there's no 地 here, i.e., 不小心&lt;strong&gt;地&lt;/strong&gt;踢, as per&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Adj. + 地 + Verb&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Structural_particle_%22de%22#.E5.9C.B0_.28de.29_Before_Verbs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;地 (de) Before Verbs&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Turning_adjectives_into_adverbs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Turning adjectives into adverbs&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Chinese Grammar Wiki&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe there's an exception here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is there no 地 in 不小心踢到椅子?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T10:45:36.050" Title="Why is there no 地 in 不小心踢到椅子 (&quot;carelessly kicked the chair&quot;)?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;particles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36550" CreationDate="2020-01-17T09:47:52.377" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking, your translation is incorrect and that is what is tripping you up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不小心 has many interpretations here, and the one employed in all these examples is along the lines of &quot;wasn't paying attention&quot; or &quot;was not being careful&quot; -- this implies it is NOT actually playing the role of an adverb in the sentence. As such, 地 is not required. In essence, it is two subsequent actions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他不小心摔倒了 -- He wasn't paying attention, and fell down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;compared to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;他不小心地摔倒了 -- He carelessly fell down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The spirit of the sentences is basically the same, but your question appears to be more about the nitty gritty details of what role 不小心 is playing in the sentence. If you wish to translate it as an adverb, then you are right, there should be a 地 there, but that's not the only way to translate 不小心. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youdao.com/w/eng/%E4%B8%8D%E5%B0%8F%E5%BF%83/#keyfrom=dict2.index&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;According to youdao&lt;/a&gt;, it can play a noun, adjective and adverb. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19368" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T09:47:52.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36550" CreationDate="2020-01-17T10:45:36.050" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It will make more sense to you if you understand it as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;孩子[&lt;em&gt;由于不小心&lt;/em&gt;]踢到椅子.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;不小心 here is &lt;em&gt;the cause&lt;/em&gt; of  踢到椅子.  In English, it can be &lt;em&gt;The kid kicked the chair due to his carelessness&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T10:45:36.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36546" CreationDate="2020-01-17T10:59:40.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;小松鼠每天都到地里去&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;都 here is an adverb denoting the sense of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.  It usually governs the word (每天 here) preceding it. E. g.  大家都去；我们都喜欢你；&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T10:59:40.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36554" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-17T23:03:12.253" Score="1" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;The literal meaning seems to be :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How could it not be a driver not a baby ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I presume it has another meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21462" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T07:50:54.913" Title="What does 怎么不是司机不是娃呢 mean?" Tags="&lt;vocabulary&gt;&lt;phrase-meaning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36555" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36557" CreationDate="2020-01-18T03:35:35.383" Score="0" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is stamped on the bottom of a yixing teapot. Can anyone translate what the name is please? Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/22JRB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/22JRB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;yixing seal&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23132" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T14:33:36.983" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T14:33:36.983" Title="Round seal stamp on a teapot (Characters identified: 沈紅英制)" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1255" CreationDate="2020-01-18T04:42:38.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;(1)  You use 怎么 when you are seeking a &lt;em&gt;definite answer&lt;/em&gt; to a specific question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你今天看来很开心，收到怎么好消息？-- You appear very happy today, what good news did you receive? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)  You use 如何 when you are soliciting an &lt;em&gt;opinion&lt;/em&gt; / or &lt;em&gt;agreement&lt;/em&gt; on a certain matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我们今晚吃寿司如何？-- How about we eat sushi tonight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T15:28:16.970" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T15:28:16.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36555" CreationDate="2020-01-18T10:42:56.710" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;沈 (right top)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;紅 (right bottom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;英 (left top)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;制 (left bottom)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16115" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T10:42:56.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26842" CreationDate="2020-01-18T17:13:42.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ojvuM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ojvuM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;6.12.5&lt;br&gt;殷虛書契前&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/26OFX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/26OFX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;2342&lt;br&gt;殷虛卜辭&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;「敢」 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_%282014%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baxter-Sagart OC&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;/*[k]ˤamʔ/&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;to hunt and pursue &gt; to eagerly advance and push forward &gt; brave&lt;/em&gt;) was originally a picture of &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=60&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;two hands&lt;/em&gt; 「廾」&lt;/a&gt; fighting a &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=699&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;wild pig&lt;/em&gt; 「豕」&lt;/a&gt; with a &lt;em&gt;hunting weapon&lt;/em&gt; that looked like &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=59&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「干」&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;/*[k]ˁar/&lt;/strong&gt;) or &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=2488&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「單」&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;/*Cə.tˤar/&lt;/strong&gt;), which may have simultaneously hinted at the sound. One of the hands was sometimes removed to leave behind a single &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=20&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;hand&lt;/em&gt; 「又」&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Zhou&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;西周&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9fHpO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9fHpO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Yu_ding&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;大盂鼎&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=2837&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成2837&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later on, the weapon was corrupted into a sound hint &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=264&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;「甘」&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;/*[k]ˤ[a]m/&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;戰國&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_(Chinese_state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;晉&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;金&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qp9cc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qp9cc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhongshan_(state)#Tombs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中山王&lt;/a&gt;圓壺&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/?bh=9734&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;集成9734&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;戰國・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楚&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;簡&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OapEp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OapEp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;56.43&lt;br&gt;江陵九店&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty#Eastern_Han&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;東漢&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CI8Ul.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CI8Ul.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E5%8F%B2%E6%99%A8%E7%A2%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;史晨奏銘&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fUO52.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fUO52.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another &lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=31257&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;weapon was added back to the hand to form 「攴・攵」&lt;/a&gt;, then the pig 「豕」 and the sound hint 「甘」 were corrupted and merged together, forming the left hand side of 「敢」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;季旭昇《說文新證》&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;小學堂&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;國學大師&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;郭沫若《甲骨文合集》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/yzjwjc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;中華語文知識庫&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chinese-linguipedia.org/search_source.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;漢字源流&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T17:25:38.263" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T17:25:38.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1255" CreationDate="2020-01-18T17:52:29.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Cases/Examples that you'd use 怎么 rather than 如何.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你怎么在这儿？ Why are you here? (Can be used as a joke to tease someone for showing up at the same place you did)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;这支笔怎么会在这里？Why is this pen over here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你怎么会回答这题？ How did you manage to answer this question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他怎么可能会下厨？How is it possible that he knows how to cook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你怎么来了？ Why did you come here? (An expression of surprise. Can be used when someone surprises you at the airport / at your birthday party / in front of your house, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你能告诉我接下来应该怎么做吗？Can you tell me what my next steps are supposed to be? (or like Can you tell me what I should do next? Can you tell me what should my next approach be?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Cases/Examples where 如何 and 怎么 mean the same thing.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你这样叫我如何是好？What should I do if you decide to act this way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你这样让我怎么办才好？What should I do if you decide to act this way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是如何解开这道数学题的？How did you solve this math problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你是怎么解开这道数学题？How did you solve this math problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你今天是怎么过来的？搭火车吗？How did you get here? By the train?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你今天是如何过来的？搭火车吗？How did you get here? By the train?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如何能够让他信任我呢？How can I make him trust me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么样才能让他相信我呢？How can I make him trust me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;如何领养一只小狗？How to adopt a dog?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;怎么样领养一只小狗？How to adopt a dog?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尝尝看，味道如何？Try it, how does it taste?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;尝尝看，味道怎么样？Try it, how does it taste?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Cases/Examples where 如何 and 怎么 are used differently in the same context.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你觉得,她会如何背叛我？What do you think about how she will betray me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她？她怎么可能背叛我？She? How is it possible that she will betray me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion: 如何 can mean 怎么, but 怎么 means more than 如何.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23461" LastEditorUserId="23461" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T18:05:48.230" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T18:05:48.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36560" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-18T18:09:59.200" Score="5" ViewCount="1685" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this example use of 把 in the sentence structure &quot;把 + Object + Verb + 得 complement&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天把我吃得站不起来了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've gotten some feedback that this sentence is not correct. It's used as an example sentence in a book I'm using to learn Chinese. What's wrong with it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the sentence above is indeed wrong, how can we correctly add a 把 structure to 我昨天吃得站不起来了? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23429" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T19:25:08.907" Title="Is the sentence 昨天把我吃得站不起来了 correct?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;sentence-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36561" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-18T19:10:12.913" Score="0" ViewCount="52" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the symbols on this very old teapot? It appears to be traditional chinese characters or a date? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0kCeD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23212" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T02:34:38.607" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T02:34:38.607" Title="Chinese characters signature? Yixing (Characters identified: 吴亮屏)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36560" CreationDate="2020-01-18T19:45:49.947" Score="5" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You need a subject before the disposal marker &amp;quot;把&amp;quot; and 昨天 is not a subject&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you add a subject in your sentence and write 昨天他把我吃得站不起来 (yesterday, he ate me to the point of I couldn't stand up) The verb (eat) would not match the result (I couldn't stand up)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would make sense, is something like: &amp;quot;昨天他把我打得站不起来&amp;quot; (yesterday, he beat me to the point of I couldn't stand up)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The correct usage of [(subject) + (把) + (object) + (verb)  + (result /degree complement) + (result/ degree)]:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;昨天他把我煮的飯吃得乾乾淨淨&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天 (time reference phrase)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他(subject)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;把(disposal marker)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我煮的飯 (object)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;吃得 (verb + result/ degree complement)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;乾乾淨淨 (result/ degree)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The correct sentences without using 把:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天我吃得站不起来了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天那頓飯讓我吃得站不起来了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T20:05:01.047" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36561" CreationDate="2020-01-18T22:38:25.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's 吴亮屏.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you do a search online, this is kinda famous kind of 紫砂壶 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=%E5%90%B4%E4%BA%AE%E5%B1%8F%20%E7%B4%AB%E7%A0%82&amp;amp;rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS850US850&amp;amp;tbm=isch&amp;amp;source=iu&amp;amp;ictx=1&amp;amp;fir=fdF4QN-pP8Lk-M%253A%252C_9659CHhLfxLNM%252C_&amp;amp;vet=1&amp;amp;usg=AI4_-kRX5XU1bNI_wS5yarBv3KY98Wkksw&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwiThObbmo7nAhXQtlkKHT5uDgwQ9QEwAXoECAoQBw#imgrc=xbDXqFbssYf0cM:&amp;amp;vet=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;click&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;however, the stamp looks different from what I see online, so not sure if it's real.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T22:38:25.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36560" CreationDate="2020-01-19T00:12:52.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is normal status during 春节：吃得站不起来！Your sentence is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天把我吃得站不起来了。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yesterday I ate so much I couldn't stand up!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天把我冻得感冒。&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Yesterday I got so cold I caught a cold!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T00:12:52.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36565" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-19T01:14:56.237" Score="0" ViewCount="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CK9o9.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CK9o9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a Chinese pendant but i cant figure out what it says at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23464" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T02:35:30.610" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T02:35:30.610" Title="Can someone translate whats on this pendant? (Character identified: 醒)" Tags="&lt;character-identification&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36565" CreationDate="2020-01-19T02:10:25.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&amp;amp;wdrst=0&amp;amp;wdqtm=0&amp;amp;wdqcham=2&amp;amp;wdqt=%E9%86%92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MDBG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;醒&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  xǐng&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  to wake up / to be awake / to become aware / to sober up / to come to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to find your answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could use a site like: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mdbg&lt;/a&gt; (click the handwriting button next to &quot;Go&quot;) or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qhanzi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;qhanzi&lt;/a&gt; to write in your character and then copy and paste into a dictionary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="4136" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T02:16:08.337" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T02:16:08.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36567" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36575" CreationDate="2020-01-19T02:55:31.537" Score="0" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone help translate what’s written on these two scroll paintings please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w2Ifa.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w2Ifa.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;one&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AxSXN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AxSXN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;two&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23132" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T10:34:19.627" Title="Handwritten script on two scroll paintings" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;character-identification&gt;&lt;seal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36560" CreationDate="2020-01-19T03:12:01.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天把我吃得站不起来了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence might be fine if you put it into a proper context. By itself, it sounds a little stilted. It will be more natural if we add 都 for emphasis.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;昨天把我吃得&lt;strong&gt;都&lt;/strong&gt;站不起来了&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's worth to note that this use of 把 is very common.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This definition in dictionaries explains the usage: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;表示致使，后面的动词通常带有表示结果的补语&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E. g.  把他急坏了. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T09:51:41.287" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T09:51:41.287" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36569" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-19T03:34:29.970" Score="3" ViewCount="331" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dictionaries will give &quot;Happy&quot; for both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Mandarin song has the title 你开心所以我快乐&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/Sb1ojccxvyw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/Sb1ojccxvyw&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question therefore is whether there is any signifying difference in usage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, which word / phrase fits better in a certain context or situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T11:28:07.677" Title="What is the difference, if any, between 开心 and 快乐" Tags="&lt;meaning&gt;&lt;word-choice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36570" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-19T03:38:01.670" Score="2" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the origin of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huoheian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;火黑暗&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to wikipedia it comes from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Burial&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zangshu, &quot;Book of Burial&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, but no where in that book (or anywhere else) can I find this supposed phrase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Qi vapors in the fire, and is lost in the darkness.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Whereas it's very easy to find the origin of the phrase Feng shui 風水 in the Zangshu)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20988" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T22:54:46.903" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T22:54:46.903" Title="What is the origin of 火黑暗?" Tags="&lt;etymology&gt;&lt;phrase&gt;&lt;culture&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36569" CreationDate="2020-01-19T04:59:42.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think they can be used interchangeably. When it used in songs or poems, rhythm is more important than which word to be used. Sometimes, to avoid using the same word in one sentence, people tend to use a different one too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22717" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T04:59:42.643" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36560" CreationDate="2020-01-19T05:24:14.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you removed the complement, the sentence becomes 昨天吃我. The verb is acting in the incorrect direction. 我 should be the subject here not the object. Correcting this mistake, we get 昨天我吃 which is still awkward because 吃 needs an object [1].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 把 construction does not really work in this setting. The complement in 把 describes the object, but you are trying to describe the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] While &quot;to eat&quot; is often used without an object in English, this is not the case in Chinese. &quot;I am eating&quot; is translated 我在吃东西 depending on meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23466" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T05:24:14.140" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30643" CreationDate="2020-01-19T05:51:39.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a difference in emphasis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the sentences 我明天五点回家 and 明天我五点回家.&#xA;Both sentence communicate than I will return home at 5 tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first sentence emphasises both the day and time. A scenario would be telling someone when you come home on a vacation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second sentence emphasises the time. A scenario would be that I go home at 4 everyday, but need to come home later tomorrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23466" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T05:51:39.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36560" CreationDate="2020-01-19T06:05:03.740" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quote from the page on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/ba3-common-mistakes/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chineseboost&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;Use a descriptive complement&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You may be interested to know that you can also use 把 to get a little bit more descriptive and interesting than the standard things being moved around, changed, affected etc. This is commonly done with a descriptive complement. This just means that some extra description comes right after the verb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Have a look at these examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;今天把我吃得都不想动了。&#xA;Jīntiān bǎ wǒ chī de dōu bùxiǎng dòngle.&#xA;I've eaten so much today that I don't want to move.&#xA;&#xA;他把我气得要命，就给了他一记耳光。&#xA;Tā bǎ wǒ qì dé yàomìng, jiù gěile tā yī jì ěrguāng.&#xA;He made me so angry I slapped him across the face.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Notice the [verb] + 得 + [description] in the sentences above. These sentences work well with 把 because the verb has a clear result or conclusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sentence in question is correct. And the sentence without 把 (&quot;昨天我吃得[都]站不起来了&quot;) is also correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T06:05:03.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36567" CreationDate="2020-01-19T06:05:19.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Seal decipherment&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n7xZ5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n7xZ5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this actually might be a character, which is 「夒」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Glyph evolution of 「夒」:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;商&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c0k2j.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c0k2j.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;2336&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=35269&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集35269&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;商&lt;br&gt;甲&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D8B55.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D8B55.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian/Reference/JiaguwenReference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;甲&lt;/a&gt;2043&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guoxuedashi.com/jgwhj/?bhfl=1&amp;amp;bh=24963&amp;amp;jgwfl=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;合集24963&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;春秋&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_(state)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;秦&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;金&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cH1tA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cH1tA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;秦子簋&lt;br&gt;故宮05.6&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;三國&lt;/a&gt;・&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_Wei&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;魏&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;隸&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/udciJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/udciJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;魏上尊號奏&lt;br&gt;秦漢魏晉篆&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;kbd&gt;今&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;楷&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ptzPd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ptzPd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;　&lt;/kbd&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qh9UR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qh9UR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;張ＸＸ印 (Other characters are too faded out)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wqsH9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wqsH9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;追摹古人出新意&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MK3oa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MK3oa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;干（城）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wmfke.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wmfke.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（志）⿱龸子（學）茟（筆）印&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T10:34:19.627" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36569" CreationDate="2020-01-19T07:19:43.273" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;开心 can be either &lt;strong&gt;joyful, delighted&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;the mood of happiness&lt;/strong&gt;.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;快乐 is &lt;strong&gt;the mood of happiness&lt;/strong&gt;.  The dictionary defines it as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;形容称心如意的心情&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we say 我今天玩得很开心，not 我今天玩得很快乐.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But they can be synonyms as in 和他在一起很开心/快乐. In this case, both denote the sense of &lt;em&gt;the mood of happiness&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T07:19:43.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36570" CreationDate="2020-01-19T07:30:26.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Huoheian#Is_this_for_real?&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;talk&lt;/a&gt; page there is the following question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this for real?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can't find any references to this supposed system anywhere outside of Wikipedia. A google search for 火黑暗 reveals nothing to do with architecture, aesthetics, or feng shui. Of the sources given on this page I can't find the Von Erdberg (1936) online, but I did find a preview of Cai (2004) on Google Books, and searching this book for &quot;火黑暗&quot;, &quot;huoeheian&quot;, &quot;fire and darkness&quot; gives nothing either. The Chinese language wikipedia does not have an article on this subject either. Does anyone have any more info on where this concept comes from? --83.216.95.30 (talk) 00:56, 31 January 2018 (UTC) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no response. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://fengshuigate.com/zangshu.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; seems to be Field's translation, supposedly it was revised July 26, 2009, I'm not sure if anything got changed or not, but there seems to be nothing akin to the Wikipeida quote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T07:30:26.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5029" CreationDate="2020-01-19T07:35:31.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most important reason is &lt;em&gt;to keep consistency with older dictionaries&lt;/em&gt;. 「難」 is listed under 「隹」, so there is no reason to change that for newer dictionaries with 「难」.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second most important reason is that 「又」 is not really a component of 「难」. 「又」 actually means something solid: It's a picture of a &lt;em&gt;hand&lt;/em&gt; and is pronounced as &lt;strong&gt;yòu&lt;/strong&gt;. Characters like 仅, 鸡, 欢, 汉, etc. don't contain 「又」, they contain an abbreviation made up of two strokes 「㇇」 and 「乀」 which is supposed to be a situational replacement for unrelated components like 堇, 奚, 雚, &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UjuT1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UjuT1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, etc. If all characters which contain the abbreviation were listed under radical 「又」, then the 「又」 section in the dictionary would become extremely bloated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Characters which actually contain 「又」 usually have connections in sound and/or meaning to 「又」: 友, 受, 取, 攴/攵 (牧, 教, 敲, ...), 殳 (投, 擊, 殺, ...), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a &quot;semantic radical&quot; or &quot;phonetic radical&quot; reason; there's no such thing as &quot;semantic/phonetic&quot; radicals, and there is no rule that dictionary radicals have to be &quot;semantic&quot;. For example, the radical for 「錦」 is 「金」, which is its phonetic component.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T07:40:58.883" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T07:40:58.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36579" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-19T08:18:33.680" Score="1" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;華 and 畢 are very similar, the bottom is the same, and only the top 4/5 of their strokes differ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their simplifications 华 and 毕 are also similar, the bottom and the top rights are the same and, and the top lefts have the same number of strokes. Both tops now serve as phonetic components, but still look very similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a coincidence or was there a strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20431" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T09:16:14.973" Title="Is the visual similarity of the simplifications 華→华 and 畢→毕 a coincidence?" Tags="&lt;characters&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;traditional-vs-simplified&gt;&lt;character-components&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36579" CreationDate="2020-01-19T09:07:38.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, if you speak them out, they're not the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way how the china simplified 華 to 华 is by pronouncement. 华 can be split into &quot;化&quot; and &quot;十&quot;. but you will use top part &quot;化(Hua')&quot; to pronounce it, &quot;十&quot; is just a dummy to make it different between the actual word &quot;化&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the 畢 and 毕.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23469" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T09:07:38.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36579" CreationDate="2020-01-19T09:37:44.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think they just, by coincidence, happen to look similar, (to some people I suppose) In any case they sound completely different from each other with no similarity in meaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like 友 &amp;amp; 发. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T09:37:44.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36569" CreationDate="2020-01-19T11:28:07.677" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your case, both 开心 and 快乐 are used as adjectives, which denote “happy”. Translated, the sentence means “I am happy when you are happy.” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, only 快乐 can also be used as a noun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;“他从做善事当中获得快乐。”&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would mean “he obtains happiness from doing good deeds”. It would sound weird if you substituted 快乐 with 开心, which would then make it “he obtains happy from doing good deeds.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23334" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T11:28:07.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36583" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36591" CreationDate="2020-01-19T16:39:59.300" Score="1" ViewCount="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for the word for &quot;misalignment spacers&quot;, which are mechanical parts for use with Heim joints (鱼眼轴承). Anyone know what they're called in China? Here's a photo. Misalignment spacers are the pair on the right. The left is just a Heim joint. Any mechanics around here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IZ8UJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IZ8UJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23472" LastEditorUserId="18338" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T01:08:33.473" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T01:08:33.473" Title="How do you translate &quot;misalignment spacers&quot;?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;simplified-chinese&gt;&lt;mainland-china&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36585" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-19T18:05:01.177" Score="2" ViewCount="319" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen both even in the same context. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZvoR0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZvoR0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May I know the difference and when should one use which?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T05:58:37.387" Title="In traditional Chinese, when should one write 台灣 and when should one write 臺灣?" Tags="&lt;difference&gt;&lt;traditional-chinese&gt;&lt;taiwan&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36585" CreationDate="2020-01-19T18:22:07.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Taiwanese.&#xA;'台' is a simplified version of '臺', and they mean exactly the same. NTU's official name is 國立臺灣大學, and we usually call it 台大. It's just a difference between speaking formally or casually.&#xA;Usually, you'll see &quot;臺&quot;灣 on formal headlines or official documents, because when publishing something serious or when taking an exam, it's preferred to write in strict traditional Chinese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in daily conversation and when handwriting, we use a couple simplified words (simply because it's faster and easier) like '台'灣、身'体'、'学&quot;習. The tricky thing is, we only write some particular words in their simplified version, so it's very easy to tell if you're a Traditional Chinese user or a Simplified Chinese user(like people in China) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When typing, we type 99% of words in Traditional Chinese, &quot;台&quot;灣 is a very rare exception. &#xA;Hope these help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23473" LastEditorUserId="23473" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T18:30:00.027" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T18:30:00.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35248" CreationDate="2020-01-19T18:46:42.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that &quot;大中華區&quot; is quite common for this issue. There are other expressions such as 兩岸三地(中、台、港) or 兩岸四地(中、台、港、澳)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;大中華區&quot; is a bit vague to me, because it might include Chinese speakers in Singapore and Malaysia. The concept of this word varies from organization to organization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the question is: Why do you want to describe Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan collectively? What's the topic? For instance, if you want to compare Chinese-speaking music or films in this region, you can use&quot;華語圈&quot;(Chinese-speaking area)&#xA;it's very common to say 華語流行音樂 or 華語電影. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23473" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T18:46:42.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30900" CreationDate="2020-01-19T19:20:00.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Taiwanese, I'd say most of the people here don't really think it through when being asked a question as such. For most of the Taiwanese (except those who study languages /history/culture in grad school I guess), the word &quot;Chinese&quot;(中文) is pretty much the same as &quot;Mandarin&quot; (國語) (Yeah, not &quot;国语&quot; or &quot;普通话&quot;, that's how PRC people call it)&#xA;At school, Our &quot;Chinese&quot; textbook is called &quot;國文課本&quot;, and we call that &quot;Chinese class&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We'd say we speak Chinese/Mandarin (講中文、說國語), and we use Traditional Chinese (繁體中文). Some people in Taiwan speak dialects like Taiwanese(台語、台灣話) and Hakka(客語、客家話), but we don't really relate these dialects with the word &quot;Chinese&quot;, even though they are indeed dialects originated from Mainland China. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'd agree with Dan that he probably simply don't know the English word mandarin and dialect. And &quot;Chinese(Mandarin)&quot;, &quot;Taiwanese&quot;, and &quot;Hakka&quot; are the three main &quot;languages&quot; used in Taiwan -- That's how most of us would say. People don't really bother to differentiate between languages and dialects here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there's anything political, during the martial law period (1949-1987) Taiwanese-language was banned by the nationalist government -- Taiwanese songs, media, films were banned, and children who spoke Taiwanese in school were physically punished. People were forced to learn &quot;Chinese&quot;(Mandarin). Maybe that's why people here tend to think that Chinese and Taiwanese are two completely different &quot;languages&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23473" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T19:20:00.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31905" CreationDate="2020-01-19T19:50:12.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you have podcast?&#xA;Not sure if these Taiwanese programs help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Casual talks about Tech and business&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://podcasts.apple.com/tw/podcast/%E7%A7%91%E6%8A%80%E5%B3%B6%E8%AE%80/id1264391007?l=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://podcasts.apple.com/tw/podcast/%E7%A7%91%E6%8A%80%E5%B3%B6%E8%AE%80/id1264391007?l=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;News - by CommonWealth magazine&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://podcasts.apple.com/tw/podcast/%E8%81%BD%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8B-%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8B%E9%9B%9C%E8%AA%8Cpodcast/id1486227803?l=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://podcasts.apple.com/tw/podcast/%E8%81%BD%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8B-%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8B%E9%9B%9C%E8%AA%8Cpodcast/id1486227803?l=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;News - CTS&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://podcasts.apple.com/tw/podcast/%E8%8F%AF%E8%A6%96%E8%81%BD%E6%96%B0%E8%81%9E/id1481175771?l=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://podcasts.apple.com/tw/podcast/%E8%8F%AF%E8%A6%96%E8%81%BD%E6%96%B0%E8%81%9E/id1481175771?l=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23473" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T19:50:12.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36583" CreationDate="2020-01-19T21:40:54.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;High misalignment aluminum spacer&quot; is named &lt;a href=&quot;https://chinese.alibaba.com/product-detail/high-misalignment-aluminum-spacer-60502337456.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;高偏差铝垫片&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &quot;misalignment spacer&quot; is 偏差垫片.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mJmDL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mJmDL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15652" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T21:40:54.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36535" CreationDate="2020-01-20T01:01:50.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe 预感? Google translates it as &quot;hunch&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23476" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T01:01:50.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36560" CreationDate="2020-01-20T02:31:45.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;做为书面语不规范，做为口头语行得通（事实上中国很多人这么用）。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23477" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T02:31:45.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36585" CreationDate="2020-01-20T03:07:52.970" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The spelling 「台灣」 is not official in Taiwan, and receives no entries in the Republic of China's Ministry of Education dictionaries (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.moedict.tw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;萌典&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cbdic/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;教育部重編國語辭典修訂本&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dict.concised.moe.edu.tw/jbdic/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;教育部國語辭典簡編本&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its prevalence in online media is most likely due to IMEs listing 「台灣」 before 「臺灣」 in Taiwanese phonetic input systems when typing &quot;taiwan&quot; or &quot;ㄊㄞㄨㄢ&quot; on a computer.* This has nothing to do with handwritten simplifications, as things like 「身體」, 「學習」, etc. do not appear as 「身体」 or 「学習」 in Traditional Chinese websites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though one &quot;shouldn't&quot; use the spelling 「台灣」, everyone recognises what 「台灣」 is supposed to be, and this spelling is overwhelmingly prevalent in Taiwan itself, so it doesn't really matter (except when referring to governmental agencies). I would just be cautious in its usage, as the overwhelming (and erroneous) prevalence of 「台」 for the name &lt;em&gt;Taiwan&lt;/em&gt; has led people to forget that 「台」 is properly pronounced in the first tone as &lt;strong&gt;tāi&lt;/strong&gt; when used in proper nouns and never as &lt;strong&gt;tái&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*This is true from personal experience. Ironically, using a PRC input system set to Traditional Chinese will only list 「臺灣」 and not 「台灣」 when one types &quot;taiwan&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18338" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T03:07:52.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36560" CreationDate="2020-01-20T03:14:25.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sentence it self is understandable (and also a lot of people do use this everyday) if you are talking to a Chinese speaker, but it is informal when you write this down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a native Chinese speaker, I can tell that something is wrong with &quot;昨天'把'我吃得站不起来了&quot;, but it's not a very big problem (if you want people to understand that).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天把我吃得站不起来了 sounds more like:&#xA;Yesterday &lt;strong&gt;makes&lt;/strong&gt; I ate so much I couldn't even stand up!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;昨天我吃得站不起来了 is like:&#xA;Yesterday I ate so much I couldn't even stand up!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17647" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T03:14:25.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30900" CreationDate="2020-01-20T05:18:30.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As history is seldom written to tell the absolute truth, (if such a creature exist at all), the history or historicity, (defining the latter as a &quot;quality of being historically authentic&quot;), of the languages spoken in the vast continent of what is now politically defined as &quot;China&quot; would include or rather needed to include elements from areas beyond the academic insularity of liquistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer the question &quot;Do many Taiwanese self identify as Mandarin speakers and if not, why?&quot; would require a mini thesis of sorts simply because it involves a clash of the divergent politics of national identity between the Mainland and Taiwan, (perhaps even saying &quot;...between the Mainland and Taiwan&quot; is itself controversial)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Added into the witches brew is the &quot;contribution&quot; from Western scholars and diplomats who did just as much to shape what the Chinese themselves call what they speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a start, the word &quot;mandarin&quot; to mean the &quot;mandarin&quot; as a language is itself a Western invention, and having gained so much scholastic mileage that it gained a life of its own in Western writings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is therefore not surprising that the Taiwanese, (i.e. those who were not exposed to any substantial amount of Western writings), were confused. After all why would the literarily meticulous Chinese call their language after a mere senior court official? The Westerners who had the initial contacts with the 17th / 18th Chinese did not know what to call the language spoken in the Chinese court, and so simply called it the language of the senior court official -- &quot;mandarin&quot; (Like the way we say, &quot;just google it&quot;) Heck, even the word &quot;China&quot; is a Western invention.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so why would the Taiwanese, past, present or future, &quot;self identify as Mandarin speakers&quot;, even if the &quot;Chinese&quot; that they spoke is more or less the same as mandarin as we know it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 普通话 &quot;PuTongHua&quot;, there is nothing 普通, (ordinary / common), about it. It is based on what we would loosely refer to as &quot;mandarin chinese&quot;, which just 50 years ago would be unintelligible to, my opinion, about 70% of the population who historically spoke their own dialects. It was a tool, (ala Shi Huang Ti), to engineer a politically united China, and the ordinary / common part is just so as not to step on any dialectical toes in the politically fragile environment of post-revolutionary China.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T11:44:47.683" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T11:44:47.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="35248" CreationDate="2020-01-20T05:27:08.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;NO, there is no one single term that would satisfy everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just take another country we all know, which is called:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;England, Great Britain, British Isles, United Kingdom......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastEditorUserId="23160" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T05:32:24.577" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T05:32:24.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36560" CreationDate="2020-01-20T09:01:20.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;嘿，朋友，不要那么在意这些语法细节。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;中华文化博大精深，中国人民也十分善解人意。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;相信我，无论什么时候你在中国讲出这句 &quot;昨天把我吃得站不起来了&quot;，对方都会很清楚你想表达的意思。另外你还可以加一句，”今天我打算吃不完兜着走“，对方就会对你投来赞许的目光，并夸奖你的中文really very good!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23482" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T09:01:20.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36585" CreationDate="2020-01-20T13:42:33.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;an old debate lah :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in 2010, the ministry of education (教育部), of taiwan “declared” that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all documentations of the ministry, schools, publishers must use “臺灣”. however, other ministries are “informed” (haven’t the authority to force them to follow).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you can read traditional chinese, read the news here (between the lines, please)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/focus/paper/451629&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/focus/paper/451629&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;historically, the chinese empire annexed formosa in 1683; most, if not all documentations, used “臺灣”, &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; “台灣”. eg: in the the official declarations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;臺灣孤懸海外﹒自古不入版圖 [欽定平定臺灣紀畧]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nMkdL.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nMkdL.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;臺灣自古不通中國 [皇清職貢圖]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n6sZJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/n6sZJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if the situation is sensitive, or, formal; stick to “臺灣” &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13199" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T13:42:33.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36585" CreationDate="2020-01-20T15:56:47.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term 臺灣 is more formal while the term 台灣 is more casual. Both are acceptable in Taiwan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23487" LastEditorUserId="19368" LastEditDate="2020-01-21T05:58:37.387" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T05:58:37.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30900" CreationDate="2020-01-20T16:28:44.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short answer, yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok. The word Mandarin itself is a long story. Umm, it starts with the Ming dymasty, with the official governor in orange. They are thus called mandarin (meaning orange colour) and also, Mandarin Chinese refers to the dialect they spoke (官話 guan1 hua4, the official's speak). And base on that, in 1913, the Republic of China formulated a new (constructed) dialect which was called 國語 (Extended Pinyin: guo5 yu3, in which the 5 tone represents 入聲, literally &quot;national language.&quot;) The Ming, Qing and said Mandarin was based on the Mandarin dialect in Nanjing. The said standard language was obsolete in either region of China, and hence refers to as 老國音 (in 老國音: lao3 guo5 in1, literally: &quot;Old National Pronunciation, ONP.&quot;)&#xA;In 1932, the Republic of China publicised the dictionary 國音常用字彙, (in ONS: guo5 in1 zhang2 yung4 z4 huei4, in contemporary standard: guo2 yin1 chang2 yong4 zi4 hui4, literally &quot;Commonly Used Words in National Pronunciation&quot;) in representative of a new dialect based on Beijing dialect, which is now called 新國音 (xin1 guo2 yin1, literally &quot;New National Pronunciation, NNP&quot;) and the standard (not the book itself though) is now still used in Taiwan, so Taiwanese people still call the Lingua Franca 國語. &#xA;After Liberation of People's Republic of China, in 1950's they changed the name of the Lingua Franca into 普通話 (pu3 tong1 hua4, literally &quot;general language&quot;) in ordee to make other race learn the language. The standard pronunciation have been altered little though, so we can communicate without any problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the matter is, we identify ourself as Mandarin (國語) speakers, but not as Mandarin (普通話) or Mandarin (官話) speakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23487" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T16:28:44.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="581" CreationDate="2020-01-21T05:54:52.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably you can find the negative meaning of 一条狗 from 周星驰 (Stephen Chow)'s movie 《大话西游之仙履奇缘》：&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“那个人样子好怪，他好像一条狗。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That person looks strange, he looks like a dog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“你看，那个人好像一条狗哎。”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see that person? He looks like a dog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;一条狗&amp;quot; here indicates they thought that person is a &amp;quot;poor guy&amp;quot; rather than &amp;quot;a dog&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &lt;strong&gt;don't use this if you're not familiar with the people you're talking to&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, we just make fun of our friend or our self that we use &amp;quot;一条狗&amp;quot; to refer to some difficult situation, and have no negative connotation at all, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;在上海工作，一个月收入两万元，活的还不如一条狗。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm working at Shanghai, and I get paid 20,000 yuan each month, and live here is not better than a dog's life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sohu.com/a/348843606_159993&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;月入两万，活得不如狗&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17647" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T05:54:52.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36605" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36606" CreationDate="2020-01-21T06:42:55.660" Score="4" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned in Cantonese class that adding 成 to a Number can imply a degree of something. For example, 七成 means 70%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I explored further and it seems that it can be used to describe the rarity of your steak. Such that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一成熟：rare (10% cooked)&#xA;三乘熟：medium rare (30% cooked)&#xA;五乘熟：medium (50% cooked)&#xA;七乘熟：medium well (70% cooked)&#xA;全熟：Well done (100% cooked)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had 2 questions here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When to use 成 VS 乘 ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why is this particular set of numbers (10%, 30%, 50%) chosen? &#xA;I have seen something similar when choosing amount of sugar in bubble tea (i.e. 10%, 30%, 50%, 70% and 100%). Why not choose 25%, 50%, 75% instead?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15816" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-07-19T03:45:34.250" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T03:45:34.250" Title="Use of 成 / 乘 number quantifiers in Cantonese" Tags="&lt;cantonese&gt;&lt;measure-word&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36605" CreationDate="2020-01-21T08:35:46.543" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/746/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;成&lt;/a&gt;: one tenth; 10 per cent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1320/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;乘&lt;/a&gt;: multiply; multiplication&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;一成熟：rare (10% cooked) 三成熟：medium rare (30% cooked) 五成熟：medium (50% cooked) 七成熟：medium well (70% cooked) 全熟：Well done (100% cooked&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is always &amp;quot;(X)成&amp;quot;  for &amp;quot;(X)/10&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;一成 = 1/10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;三成 = 3/10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;五成 = 5/10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;七成 = 7/10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十成 = 10/10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;十二成 = 12/10 (overdrive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T08:35:46.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36605" CreationDate="2020-01-21T09:19:21.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tang Ho makes a clear explanation on the difference between 成/乘, but I would like to elaborate a bit more on the 2nd question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese people feel that odd numbers are “lucky numbers”, and tend to use them more when they assign numbers to certain cultural constructs. For example, Chinese emperors made their subjects build palaces with constant references to numbers like 5 and 9, and they were also referred to as 九五至尊. So this preference probably carried on to modern times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23334" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T09:19:21.163" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36608" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="36609" CreationDate="2020-01-21T13:47:14.473" Score="3" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it not necessary to use 很 (or other adverbs of degree) to link nouns and adjectives when you reduplicate the adjective, and instead use a 的 after the adjective?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;你的女朋友高高的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;她们漂漂亮亮的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23497" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-09T16:55:43.613" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T16:58:03.963" Title="Adverbs of degree with reduplicated adjective phrases?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;usage&gt;&lt;adjectives&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36608" CreationDate="2020-01-21T17:09:33.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;很 as an adverb (very) only applies to adjective, never noun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A reduplicated adjective emphasizes itself similar to adding &amp;quot;quite&amp;quot; (颇/相当)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A reduplicated adjective cannot also use &amp;quot;very&amp;quot; because a reduplicated adjective &lt;em&gt;emphasizes itself&lt;/em&gt;, similar to adding the adverb &amp;quot;quite&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;他&lt;strong&gt;很强壮&lt;/strong&gt; = He is (very strong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;强强壮壮的&lt;/strong&gt;他 = He who is (quite strong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can describe a man &amp;quot;very strong&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;quite strong&amp;quot; but not at same time, because they are different degree of superlative. 很 (very) is stronger than 颇 (quite). Is he very strong or quite strong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;他(很)(强强壮壮的)&amp;quot; translated into English would be &amp;quot;He is very quite strong&amp;quot;, which is not grammatical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13882" LastEditorUserId="12003" LastEditDate="2020-07-09T16:58:03.963" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T16:58:03.963" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36608" CreationDate="2020-01-22T03:35:40.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That reduplication pattern of adjectives is a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;cutie&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; way to express &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;quite&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.  E. g.  她的眼睛大大的。他的个子高高的。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 她的眼睛很大 and 他的个子很高 don't have that effect.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't say 她的眼睛很大大的, which means 很 doesn't work with this reduplication pattern.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17498" LastEditorUserId="17498" LastEditDate="2020-01-22T11:38:59.380" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T11:38:59.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36611" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-22T06:11:05.427" Score="2" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lately I found out that 打酱油means “buy soy sauce”, but it becomes “beat soy sauce” when translated literally. I know 打 can mean “beat”, so I’d like to know if this word can mean “buy” in day-to-day speech. Are there any other colloquial words which have varied meanings too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23363" LastEditorUserId="23334" LastEditDate="2020-01-25T13:44:06.093" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T05:35:56.220" Title="What action does “打” in “打酱油” refer to?" Tags="&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;slang&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36611" CreationDate="2020-01-22T07:05:21.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“打” can mean a lot of things. You can check &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/chinese-english/%E6%89%93#%E6%89%93_2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;collins&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The meaning &quot;buy&quot; is one of them, and it is used daily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T07:05:21.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36613" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-22T09:04:28.353" Score="1" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm struggling with some sounds in Chinese. I can't distinguish J, Q, X initials and Z, C, S initials. I feel that they are pronounced similarly.&#xA;Am I right? Can you tell me how to pronounce these initials correctly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23499" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-08-06T01:50:34.030" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T01:50:34.030" Title="Difference between j, q, x sounds and z, c, s sounds?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;&lt;pinyin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36614" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-22T09:30:06.467" Score="-9" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every once in a while, I would use sarcasm earshot to some Chinese people . To my surprise, Chinese people, especially the older generation, giggle thinking what a ridiculous person I am for thinking so, which I don't. That's the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kinda stupid as you only have to have the foggiest notion of sarcasm. Or, have the sensibility to know that the statement is so absurd that the person can't actually think so &amp;amp; is therefore joking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a cultural thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this limitation inherent in the Chinese language? I turned my sight on written Chinese. I've encountered many people saying that written Chinese is very telling of the Chinese way of thinking. I know the characters represent words &amp;amp; concepts (Logograms, as they're called, just looked it up). This being the case, could you say written Chinese is limited in that you don't work at a literal level that humans think fundamentally? You wouldn't have the fine control that a spoken language provides, something that the Chinese would be more used to as well. Since they talk. I would say further that it would limit the use of many literary devices (such as sarcasm; let's just figure sarcasm IS a literary device) that allows someone to imaginatively say new ideas in a few words. As opposed to having to say it in spans of sentences, making it sound more like a narrative? Boring medium of communication, isn't it? I could just imagine your literature. This is would also explain why Chinese thinking is based on many assumption &amp;amp; just can't work from other points of view. To read the text, they would have to work on a bunch of set assumptions all the time. True, a different assumptions can be established for a new text, but it seems they just don't want to bother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one's a bit of further off, but is it also because written Chinese is just a bunch of concepts &amp;amp; ideas &amp;amp; less literal, that one just casually copy it? Encouraging the practice of just copying everything &amp;amp; instead relying heavily on memorization, rather than mastery of principles &amp;amp; concepts. Then again, they usually just fool themselves with understanding something or when creating a school of thought (kung fu, chinese medicine, etc) as they rely on their own sloppy &quot;logic&quot;, rather on harder logic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you think that instead of written Chinese being telling of the Chinese way of thinking, it's the other way around &amp;amp; the written Chinese limiting the Chinese way of thinking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say a tiny notion of sarcasm is all that's needed. You don't have to be sophisticated (as that is asking too much from the Chinese, though they insist on having a &quot;complex culture&quot;). They just don't want to think differently even if they are at a different setting (place) already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are your other thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to know as Chinese people, according to themselves, are the smartest in the world!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23498" LastEditorUserId="23498" LastEditDate="2020-01-22T09:36:11.647" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T14:51:11.703" Title="Why is does the Chinese language hardly, if ever, use sarcasm" Tags="&lt;literary-chinese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-01-22T15:49:33.423" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36613" CreationDate="2020-01-22T12:51:49.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;most of the time you don't need to distinguish them. JQX are always followed by i or ü, which never happens with ZCS. In fact, in many dialects, JQX are pronounced as ZCS. People will understand you with 0 confusion or information loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you do wish to improve your pronunciation, try this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FWibi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FWibi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ZCS are articulated between your teeth and gum. English J and Sh are pronounced more back. JQX are even more back, but before palatal consonants like y in &quot;yes&quot; or German ch in &quot;China&quot;, which is why they're called alveolo-palatal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just try to feel the continuous spectrum, it'll be hard to step on the exact point where JQX are pronounced, but it's definitely reachable. With sufficient training you'll surely remember that location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20170" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T12:51:49.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36614" CreationDate="2020-01-22T14:36:20.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;NOTE: I don't have any interest in writing in English, because I would like to use Chinese to satirize the OP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;阁下妙论，澳洲雪雹也乎？其立也高，其势也疾，接地砉然有声，力透琉璃之窗。怙林火，恃烟霾，笼盖旷野，赤白交灰。九州炎嗣，莫不啖烧肉以观。至于贵国上民，安然享之，略加指点以寰宇气象，其必是也。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;（想起猪肉和一缕烟那篇文章，再看看题主这个调调，我不知道不表达任何概念的符号谈何文字？鬼画符还有个意思呢。本来谈及各国语言文字的政治正确就是不分高低，这下好，我不说你欧洲诸语那些毛病，你倒自以为是地批评起中文来了，结果斗大的字还不认识一个，真是给人笑死。在新知识概念层出不穷的今天，欧洲语言利用各种词根造词，或者复合多个词，或者旧词翻新意表达新概念，与中文有什么区别？各种千奇百怪的语法屈折都趋向于简化，就是因为这些语法框架应对新的概念过于死板，英语早就已经简化成近乎于分析语，而汉语老早就是如此，明明是非常高级的形式，题主置若罔闻，只会在那里口嗨。你还是自己删掉为好，在中文板块发这种非常冒犯而毫无根据的个人观点，我也没什么好话给你，就像某大陆自己灾祸连天还管我们吃不吃猪肉一样恶意揣测。）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;另及：您这篇文章虽然看起来处处疑问句和委婉语气想表示表示客观，殊不知像CNN的假新闻一样令人厌恶，要骂人你直接说就好了，用不着扭扭捏捏心里想着反正你们听不出来sarcasm。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastEditorUserId="19620" LastEditDate="2020-01-22T14:51:11.703" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T14:51:11.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36611" CreationDate="2020-01-22T15:12:56.240" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;打 in 打酱油 doesn't intrinsically mean &quot;buy&quot;. In the last century, soy sauce was not sold in bottles as today. It was produced by the merchant himself, so you need to go to the shop and ladle it into your container from a big jar. 打 is for the action to lift liquid from a jar or well with long spoon / bucket etc. &lt;strong&gt;SO IT DOENSN'T MEAN “BUY” ELSEWHERE.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19620" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T15:12:56.240" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36618" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-22T18:02:49.810" Score="2" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a postscript to the American edition of &lt;em&gt;The Three-Body Problem&lt;/em&gt; / 三体, the author says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In science fiction, humanity is often described as a collective. In&#xA;  this book, a man named “humanity” confronts a disaster&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I cannot recognize any character's name as being &quot;humanity.&quot;  Maybe the man who most clearly sees the disaster is Wang Miao (汪淼).  I don't think that can be &quot;humanity.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a character whose name can be read as humanity?  Or perhaps is Liu speaking metaphorically in the postscript?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T18:02:49.810" Title="What did Liu Cixin mean here?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36619" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-22T22:50:46.520" Score="2" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question focuses on the differences between 了and 到.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's the difference between verb + 不了 and verb + 不到?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do the differences also apply to Cantonese?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;收不到 vs 收不了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;幫不到 vs 幫不了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;來不到 vs 來不了&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="23334" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T01:27:00.243" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T03:48:09.807" Title="Difference between 不了 and 不到" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;&lt;grammar&gt;&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;cantonese&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36619" CreationDate="2020-01-23T03:48:09.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The differences are contextual. I do agree it is very subtle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;到 is used when the verb, (action), produces a response from a purely physical perspective. Whereas, 了 is from a non-physical moral, legal, ethical standpoint.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in 收不到 vs 收不了, the former connotes the physical impossibility of receiving whatever is sent, perhaps it was physically destroyed in an air accident; hence 不到, (physically not arrive) The latter connotes the non-physical inability or refusal to accept for some moral, legal, ethical reason; perhaps it was seen as a corrupt bribe, hence 不了, (can't)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example to illustrate the point further:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(a) 起不了 vs (b) 了不起   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former is physically impossible to rise up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter means something amazing or superlative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23160" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T03:48:09.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36611" CreationDate="2020-01-24T00:31:51.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%89%93/1512367&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;20 meanings&lt;/a&gt; of the word &quot;打&quot;. &quot;打酱油&quot; should take the 6th meaning, which is 举，提起。Per to Toosky's answer, &quot;you need to go to the shop and ladle it into your container&quot; ladle is the action of put the soy into the container and then lift the bottle. Namely, 举，提起. That's why we call the process 打酱油&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23504" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T00:31:51.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36626" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-24T00:44:13.850" Score="2" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;只有我想了解你&#xA;zhíyǒu wǒ xiǎng liáojiě nǐ&#xA;OR &#xA;Zhíyǒu wó xiǎng liáojiě nǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很好&#xA;wǒ hén hǎo&#xA;OR&lt;br&gt;&#xA;wó hén hǎo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我也很好&#xA;wó yě hén hǎo&#xA;OR &#xA;wó yé hén hǎo&#xA;OR &#xA;wǒ yé hén hǎo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我也很想你&#xA;wǒ yé hěn xiáng nǐ&#xA;OR &#xA;wǒ yé hén xiǎng nǐ&#xA;OR&lt;br&gt;&#xA;wó yé hěn xiáng nǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很想买水果&#xA;wó yě hén xiǎng mǎi shuíguǒ&#xA;OR&lt;br&gt;&#xA;wó yé hén xiáng mǎi shuíguǒ&#xA;OR &#xA;Wǒ hén xiáng mǎi shuíguǒ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我也很想买水果&#xA;wó yě hén xiǎng mái shuí guǒ&#xA;OR&lt;br&gt;&#xA;wó yě hén xiǎng mǎi shuí guǒ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等你好久&#xA;déng ní háo jiǔ&#xA;OR&lt;br&gt;&#xA;děng ní háo jiǔ&#xA;OR &#xA;déng nǐ háo jiǔ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;九九九九&#xA;jiújiǔjiújiǔ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23500" LastEditorUserId="8099" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T04:35:23.727" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T04:35:23.727" Title="In Mandarin Chinese, what is the correct pronunciation for three or more third tones in a row?" Tags="&lt;mandarin&gt;&lt;tones&gt;&lt;sandhi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-01-28T07:33:22.917" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36626" CreationDate="2020-01-24T01:36:35.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;只有我想了解你  Zhíyóu wó xiǎng liáojié nǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很好 wǒ hén hǎo &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我也很好 wó yě hén hǎo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我也很想你 wó yě hén xiáng nǐ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我很想买水果 wǒ hén xiáng mǎi shuíguǒ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;我也很想买水果 wó yě hén xiáng mǎi shuí guǒ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;等你好久 déng nǐ háo jiǔ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;九九九九 jiújiújiújiǔ&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19342" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T01:36:35.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34130" CreationDate="2020-01-24T04:02:02.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;h3&gt;电子&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did some searching, and my impression is that most terms in English with the prefix &amp;quot;e-&amp;quot; can be translated into Chinese with the prefix 电子, with virtually no exceptions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E9%82%AE%E4%BB%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子邮件&lt;/a&gt; (email), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E9%82%AE%E7%AE%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子邮箱&lt;/a&gt; = &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E4%BF%A1%E7%AE%B1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子信箱&lt;/a&gt; (email box), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E6%96%87%E4%BB%B6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子文件&lt;/a&gt; (e-file), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E7%8E%B0%E9%87%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子现金&lt;/a&gt; (e-cash), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E8%B4%A7%E5%B8%81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子货币&lt;/a&gt; (e-money), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E5%AE%A2%E7%A5%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子客票&lt;/a&gt; (e-ticket), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E7%AD%BE%E5%90%8D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子签名&lt;/a&gt; (e-signature), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E5%AD%A6%E4%B9%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子学习&lt;/a&gt; (e-learning), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子教育&lt;/a&gt; (e-education), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E4%B9%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子书&lt;/a&gt; = 电子书籍 (e-book), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E6%97%A5%E8%AE%B0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子日记&lt;/a&gt; (e-diary), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E6%96%87%E6%9C%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子文本&lt;/a&gt; (e-text), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E9%98%85%E8%AF%BB%E5%99%A8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子阅读器&lt;/a&gt; (e-reader), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E6%96%B0%E9%97%BB%E4%BF%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子新闻信&lt;/a&gt; (e-newsletter), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E6%9D%82%E5%BF%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子杂志&lt;/a&gt; (e-zine [or: e-magazine]), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E7%89%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子版&lt;/a&gt; (e-edition), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E7%AC%94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子笔&lt;/a&gt; (e-pen), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子词典&lt;/a&gt; (e-dictionary), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E8%89%BA%E6%9C%AF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子艺术&lt;/a&gt; (e-art), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E6%95%99%E5%AE%A4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子教室&lt;/a&gt; (e-classroom), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E6%95%99%E5%B8%88&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子教师&lt;/a&gt; (e-tutor), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E9%80%9A%E4%BF%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子通信&lt;/a&gt; (e-communication), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E7%AB%9E%E6%8A%80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子竞技&lt;/a&gt; (e-sports), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E7%83%9F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子烟&lt;/a&gt; (e-cigarette), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E5%95%86%E5%8A%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子商务&lt;/a&gt; (e-commerce), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E5%95%86%E5%8A%A1%E9%9B%B6%E5%94%AE%E5%95%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子商务零售商&lt;/a&gt; (e-tailer [or: e-retailer]), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E8%B4%B8%E6%98%93&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子贸易&lt;/a&gt; (e-trade), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E8%90%A5%E4%B8%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子营业&lt;/a&gt; (e-business), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E9%92%B1%E5%8C%85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子钱包&lt;/a&gt; (e-wallet), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E9%93%B6%E8%A1%8C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子银行&lt;/a&gt; (e-bank), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E8%B4%BA%E5%8D%A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子贺卡&lt;/a&gt; (e-greeting-card), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E5%90%8D%E7%89%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子名片&lt;/a&gt; (e-card), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E6%B0%91%E4%B8%BB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子民主&lt;/a&gt; (e-democracy), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E4%BF%9D%E5%AF%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子保密&lt;/a&gt; (e-security), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E8%B4%AD%E7%89%A9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子购物&lt;/a&gt; (e-shopping), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E5%81%A5%E5%BA%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子健康&lt;/a&gt; (e-health), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E7%8A%AF%E7%BD%AA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子犯罪&lt;/a&gt; (e-crime), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E5%9E%83%E5%9C%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子垃圾&lt;/a&gt; (e-waste).  And maybe even &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E7%89%B9%E4%BD%BF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子特使&lt;/a&gt; (e-envoy), &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E8%AE%B0%E4%BA%8B%E6%9C%AC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子记事本&lt;/a&gt; (e-notebook), and &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E7%8B%97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子狗&lt;/a&gt; (e-dog [slang]).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possible exceptions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BD%91%E4%B8%8A%E4%BA%A4%E5%8F%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;网上交友&lt;/a&gt; = &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BD%91%E4%B8%8A%E7%BA%A6%E4%BC%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;网上约会&lt;/a&gt; = &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BD%91%E6%81%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;网恋&lt;/a&gt; (e-dating), although &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E4%BA%A4%E5%8F%8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子交友&lt;/a&gt; is also used.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%8A%A8%E8%87%AA%E8%A1%8C%E8%BD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电动自行车&lt;/a&gt; (e-bike), although &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E8%87%AA%E8%A1%8C%E8%BD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子自行车&lt;/a&gt; is also used.  zhantongz mentions &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%8A%A8%E8%BD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电动车&lt;/a&gt; in the comments, although &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E6%B1%BD%E8%BD%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子汽车&lt;/a&gt; is possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%8A%A8%E7%8E%A9%E5%85%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电动玩具&lt;/a&gt; (e-toys), although &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E7%8E%A9%E5%85%B7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子玩具&lt;/a&gt; is also used.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E6%98%93%E8%B6%A3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;易趣&lt;/a&gt; = Ebay, although &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E6%B8%AF%E6%B9%BE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子港湾&lt;/a&gt; (e-bay) is also used.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few variants:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%AD%90%E5%8C%96%E8%90%A5%E4%B8%9A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电子化营业&lt;/a&gt; = 电子营业&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%95%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电商&lt;/a&gt; = 电子商务&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E7%AB%9E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电竞&lt;/a&gt; = 电子竞技&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E5%9C%A8%E7%BA%BF%E5%AD%A6%E4%B9%A0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;在线学习&lt;/a&gt; = 电子学习&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E9%9B%B6%E5%94%AE%E5%95%86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;网络零售商&lt;/a&gt; = 电子商务零售商&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%94%B5%E5%8C%96%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;电化教育&lt;/a&gt; = &lt;a href=&quot;http://youdao.com/w/%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;网络教育&lt;/a&gt; = 电子教育&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T06:11:55.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33349" CreationDate="2020-01-24T06:06:06.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A free option is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tofulearn.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TOFU Learn&lt;/a&gt; which is what I've been using for years.  It has the HSK decks already available, and it's simple enough to write your own (and import the pinyin and definitions from &lt;a href=&quot;https://cc-cedict.org/wiki/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CC-EDICT&lt;/a&gt; etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unwilling to pay for &lt;a href=&quot;https://skritter.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Skritter&lt;/a&gt; (which is undoubtedly better) simply because it's too expensive when there is a perfectly good free alternative.  Pricing is hard to find on their website; their &lt;a href=&quot;https://legacy.skritter.com/pricing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;legacy page&lt;/a&gt; says it's $14.99 per month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8099" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T06:06:06.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36630" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-24T06:18:26.457" Score="3" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this talisman (符) the other day:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f3CrI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f3CrI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can recognize some characters in there, but mostly I'm just stumped by the entire thing. How are talisman supposed to be read? How can I read this one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T22:01:20.153" Title="How to read this talisman (符)?" Tags="&lt;writing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36631" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-24T08:27:02.713" Score="2" ViewCount="408" Body="&lt;p&gt;The poem &lt;a href=&quot;https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/%E5%AE%88%E6%AD%B2_(%E6%9D%8E%E4%B8%96%E6%B0%91)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;守岁&lt;/a&gt; by 李世民 ends with the following line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;共欢新故岁，迎送一宵中。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's apparently a well-known line and even Chairman Xi used it in one of his &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/toutiao/201902/t20190215_188620.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;speeches&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“共欢新故岁，迎送一宵中。”忙碌了一年，一家人一起吃年夜饭，一起守岁，享受的是天伦之乐、生活之美。在家尽孝、为国尽忠是中华民族的优良传统。没有国家繁荣发展，就没有家庭幸福美满。同样，没有千千万万家庭幸福美满，就没有国家繁荣发展。&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;　　——习近平在2019年春节团拜会上的讲话（2019年2月3日）&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There doesn't seem to be a lot of English translations though. Here are two I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://culture.ilove-map.com/en/poetry/detail/5db1084344e69c1567134827.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Two poems for guarding the year (one for Taizong, and the other for Dazhou)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We celebrate the new year and the old,&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;and welcome each other for a night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://m.yzs.com/e/action/ShowInfo.php?classid=396&amp;amp;id=6111&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;【中国诗文外译（特刊）】春节║总第8期&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All people celebrate the turn of old and new year,&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Greeting and Seeing-off one night with good cheer;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do other translations not exist? (Published translations would be preferable.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:50:11.587" LastActivityDate="2020-08-23T05:20:53.713" Title="Translations of &quot;共欢新故岁，迎送一宵中&quot; by Li Shimin?" Tags="&lt;translation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36632" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-24T14:14:20.830" Score="5" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;A phonetic pangram is a bit of text which uses all the &lt;strong&gt;sounds&lt;/strong&gt;, or phonemes, in a language (as opposed to the letters of characters). Very useful for practising pronunciation. This is one in English:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“The beige hue on the waters of the loch impressed all, including the&#xA;  French queen, before she heard that symphony again, just as young&#xA;  Arthur wanted.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does such a thing exist for Mandarin or other Chinese languages? In English, there are around 44 phonemes ( &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dyslexia-reading-well.com/44-phonemes-in-english.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.dyslexia-reading-well.com/44-phonemes-in-english.html&lt;/a&gt; ), but Chinese languages would presumably have much more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23507" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T16:52:07.570" Title="Are there any phonetic pangrams for Mandarin and other Chinese languages?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36633" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-24T14:51:57.297" Score="2" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;This isn't exactly a question about the linguistic properties of the Chinese language, but something I'm just curious about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 作心三日 a 成語 used in China? It's a very common Korean proverb, basically meaning that whatever someone puts their mind to, they can't last for a long period of time (literally translating to &quot;the mindset you created, three days.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm just curious because I thought chengyu were pretty much the same across Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20231" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T15:36:36.327" Title="Do Chinese language users use 作心三日?" Tags="&lt;chengyu&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36633" CreationDate="2020-01-24T15:36:36.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, but there is a colloquial proverb (俗语) &lt;a href=&quot;https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%89%E5%A4%A9%E6%89%93%E9%B1%BC%EF%BC%8C%E4%B8%A4%E5%A4%A9%E6%99%92%E7%BD%91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;in this vein&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;三天打鱼，两天晒网&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;sān tiān dǎ yú, liǎng tiān shài wǎng&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more modern turn of phrase is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E4%BA%94%E5%88%86%E9%92%9F%E7%83%AD%E5%BA%A6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;五分钟热度&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;wǔ fēnzhōng rèdù&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... literally &quot;five minutes of zeal / enthusiasm&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="484" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T15:36:36.327" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="36635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="36632" CreationDate="2020-01-24T16:52:07.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;but chinese languages would presumably have much more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;well, the cantonese has 1800+ syllables. the short answer to your question is: &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the long answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cantonese has 19 initial, 56 final and 9 tone. though 19 * 56 * 9 = 9576, fortunately, there’re limited combinations of initial, final and tone. nowadays, only 1800+ syllables exist, for 8000 - 50,000 chinese characters.&lt;/p&gt;